WAMC's Ian Pickus and resident quizzer Mike Nothnagel try to eclipse themselves.
Last week's challenge
Start with the word DIAL TONES, which you may remember from our quiz way back on No. 176. Rearrange the letters and you can spell a two-word phrase (4, 5) that describes a job journalist Joan Walsh did online from 2005 to 2010. What is it?
Answer: EDIT SALON.
THIS WEEK'S CATEGORY: SUNS
On-air questions: February 19, 1473 is the birthday of Nicolas Copernicus, the Polish mathematician and astronomer perhaps most famous for his model of the solar system that placed the sun at the center, rather than the Earth. His theory was published in 1543 – the year he died – and later appeared on the Catholic Church's Index of Prohibited Books, where it remained until 1835. In honor of Copernicus, this week our quiz is about suns.
1. "Hinomaru", which translates to "circle of the sun," is the common name of what country's flag, adopted in 1870 as the flag flown by merchant ships and in 1999 as the national flag, under a law that specifies the shade of white for the background and the shade of red for the circle in the center?
2. A fictional version of real-life newspaper The Baltimore Sun – one that was portrayed as being both deeply dysfunctional but filled with dedicated staffers – was featured in the fifth season of what Baltimore-based TV series, created by former Sun reporter David Simon?
3. A photograph taken at the studios of Sun Records in December, 1956 captured an impromptu jam session between Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Elvis Presley accompanied an article whose headline was used as the title of what 2010 Broadway jukebox musical that dramatizes the session?
4. At the start of the 1968-69 season, the NBA added two expansion teams. One of those teams was the Phoenix Suns, who finished in last place that season. That last-place finish led to a coin flip for the first pick in the following year's draft. The Suns lost the coin flip, and so Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was drafted by which team, the other franchise that joined as an expansion team with the Suns?
5. Empire of the Sun, a 1987 film about a young boy from a wealthy family living in Shanghai who ends up in an internment camp during World War II, was directed by whom, two years after The Color Purple and two years before Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade?
Extra credit
1. The Beatles recorded four songs with the word "sun" in the title: "I'll Follow the Sun," "Good Day Sunshine," and which two that appear on Abbey Road?
2. The 1926 Ernest Hemingway novel The Sun Also Rises follows a group of expatriates as they travel to Pamplona to see the running of the bulls. In what 1932 non-fiction book did Hemingway further explore Spanish bullfighting?
This week's challenge
Start with the name COPERNICUS. Change one letter to an O (not that one that's already there, as usual), and you can rearrange the result to spell an adjective that might have described Copernicus as a young boy. What is the word?
ANSWERS
On-air questions
1. Japan
2. The Wire
3. Million Dollar Quartet
4. Milwaukee Bucks
5. Steven Spielberg
Extra credit
1. "Here Comes The Sun," "Sun King"
2. Death in the Afternoon
