January 6
Quick Hits
Today there will be an eleventh question, not because of anything special, but just because I wanted to slip in two questions related to this year’s Academy Awards before I forgot about them.
Questions
In January 1986, a man born with the name Charles Thompson posted the following ad in The Boston Phoenix. Who would successfully respond to it?
Demographer and anthropologist Alfred Sauvy is credited with coining what phrase? While there is some evidence that this phrase may have been used at a conference in New Delhi five years earlier, it is known that Sauvy used the term in an article for the French magazine L’Observateur in August 1952, where he discussed this phrase in reference to France’s pre-Revolution Estates-General.
Thanks to baseball writer Jessica Brand for inspiring the following question. The Baseball Writers’ Association of America recently announced that they had elected two men to the 2026 class of the Baseball Hall of Fame. One of those inductees, Carlos Beltrán, is from Puerto Rico, while the other, Andruw Jones, is from Curacao, making him a Dutch citizen by birth. Oddly, these two men represent the second instance where the writers have elected a duo to the Hall of Fame where one of the players was born on Puerto Rico, while the other was born a Dutch citizen. Do not worry about the year, but what two players meet that description?
This city was founded by the Umayyads in AD 670, with its Mosque of Uqba (shown first) built around that time, making that building one of the oldest standing Islamic places of worship in the world. Under the Aghlabid dynasty it became a major center of Islamic scholarship, and its location in the Maghreb afforded it the opportunity to become a pilgrimage site for those unable to reach Mecca; it is said still that seven pilgrimages to this location equal one trip to Mecca. Thus regarded as the “fourth holiest city in Islam,” what is the name of this city? If visiting Islamic places of worship does not interest you, perhaps you can visit the (shown second) monument to the local carpet industry instead.
In Arabic, this word means “pivot” or “axis.” In Sufism, it is a theological concept that can refer to a great leader with significant spiritual authority, or a cosmic force that gives that leader power. Unaccompanied, this word is the surname of the revolutionary thinker and member of the Muslim Brotherhood (shown) whose work Fi Zilal al-Qur’an (In the Shade of the Qur’an) provided the intellectual foundation for the violent jihad advocated today by some radical Islamist groups. With a phrase meaning “of the faith” appended to this word, it becomes a title that can refer to any number of political and military leaders from Central Asia, with the best-known example probably being one of the Turkic generals who succeeded Muhammad Ghori, as reflected in a monument that was inspired by the Minaret of Jam. What word?
As a term in mathematics, this word can apply to the real numbers and to the rational numbers, but not to the integers, as the multiplicative inverse of some integers are not integers themselves. In physics, it refers to a physical quantity that has a specific value at every point in space and time. Yet another use for this word can be measured using an Amsler grid. Examples of this word when used as a surname include the Supreme Court Justice whose attempted assassination led to the (unfortunately quite relevant) case In re Neagle, 135 U.S. 1 (1890), which held federal officers are immune from state prosecution when acting within their federal duties. Another person with this surname has directed three films (2001, 2006, 2022), with two Best Director nominations to show for that work. A final person with this surname is mentioned in the following redacted excerpt from War and Peace; though from Western Europe, for most of his career he worked in Russia. What word?
Earlier this week, Michael B. Jordan was nominated for Best Actor at the upcoming Academy Awards for playing the twins Elijah “Smoke” and Elias “Stack” Moore in Sinners. That is not the first time that a performer has been nominated for an Oscar while playing multiple roles in a film. In fact, it is the seventh instance that has occurred, with the first time being when what man was nominated for Best Actor? Technically, this would be this man’s only Oscar nomination for acting, as his work in a previous film, The Circus, was given an honorary award at the 1st Academy Awards ceremony to reflect his work making it, in lieu of him standing for an acting award.
Josh Safdie (name-checked last time) received four Oscar nominations for his work creating Marty Supreme. That in itself is not exceptionally unusual, as he becomes the twelfth person to accomplish that, with (as noted here previously) Sean Baker last year winning in all four categories where he was nominated. Perhaps the most unusual instance of a person being nominated for four Oscars in a single year came with Gary Rydstom. One particular year, he was nominated for four Oscars - but with those nominations split between two different films. Two of his nominations came for his work on Backdraft, but he wound up losing out on those two Oscars because he won Oscars instead for his work on what other film? One trick that he used was smashing a pistachio nut to simulate the sound of a skull being crushed, while another was spraying Dust-Off into a mixture of flour and water, which then he combined with the noise from a milk steamer to create a sound that was “goopy, metallic, and evolving.”
What do the following performers have in common? The South African-born country musician behind albums like Pony and singles like the “Country Road” version of “Born This Way.” The musician whose performance at the virtual “Party at Pleasant Park” in February 2019 was coupled with the announcement that you could play Fortnite using his “skin.” The performer born Dumile Daniel Thompson, whose mid-career transformation was inspired by a Marvel Comics villain. The band behind the album Iowa; early in the band’s career, some members would huff the decomposing remains of a dead crow to get them into a “dark place” before shows. Finally, the performer born Joel Zimmerman, who was given the nickname that he would use on stage by online friends, after he had just told them that he had found an animal in his computer. Up to now, none of these performers have appeared on the Korean television series Miseuteori eumaksyo bongmyeongawang or any of its offshoot programs.
A 2008 documentary subtitled The Last Emperor is about what recently deceased person? That subtitle is a reference to this man’s position in the field that made him famous, and not a direct reference to the Bernando Bertolucci-directed Best Picture winner. As with that work, his screen credits are mostly limited to documentaries, such as The Gospel According to André, though he does have one notable feature film appearance, a 2006 film where Miranda greets him by calling him “maestro.”
Today located at the National Archaeological Museum, Naples, the shown mosaic was found on the floor of a structure today called the Casa del Fauno and located in the ruins of Pompeii. It is thought to be a copy of work created around the year 300 BC by either Philoxenus of Eretria or Apelles. In the image below, who is the figure highlighted in red?
