WAMC's Ian Pickus and resident quizzer Mike Nothnagel rate this week's show NC-17.
Last week's challenge
Start with the phrase PANTS ON FIRE. Change one letter to a C and you can rearrange the result to spell a two-word phrase (3, 8) that might be used to clarify a statement. What is the phrase?
Answer: If you change the P to a C, you can spell FOR INSTANCE.
THIS WEEK'S CATEGORY: SEVENTEEN
On-air questions: On December 11, 1972, just before 3 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, Apollo 17 landed on the surface of the moon. It was the final mission of the Apollo program that began in 1961 and included 1969's Apollo 11, the first manned space mission to land on the lunar surface. Apollo 17 was, up to that point, the longest manned space flight and spent the most time in lunar orbit. To commemorate the final Apollo mission, this week we've got questions about the number 17.
1. In its August 1953 issue, the magazine Seventeen published a poem titled "And Summer Will Not Come Again." After almost 50 submissions, it was the first piece the magazine published by what author, who would achieve greater fame with later poetry collections and her 1963 novel The Bell Jar?
2. "Edge of Seventeen" is a 1982 hit song that appears on the first solo album by what singer/songwriter, who recorded it between sessions for her band's 1979 album Tusk and their 1982 album Mirage?
3. Jersey number 17 was retired by the St. Louis Cardinals in 1974 in honor of Jerome "Dizzy" Dean. Dean was included in a poem titled Line-Up For Yesterday: An ABC of Baseball Immortals. Playing on Dean's penchant for mangling the English language, the stanza reads "D is for Dean / The grammatical Diz / When they asked, Who's the tops? / Said correctly, I is." Who wrote that poem, also known for his line "Candy is dandy but liquor is quicker"?
4. The 1953 film Stalag 17, about a group of prisoners of war who suspect one of their group is an informant, was nominated for three Academy Awards. It won only one, when William Holden took home the Best Actor statue. Holden's acceptance speech is one of the shortest on record, and consisted entirely of what two words?
5. Element number 17 on the periodic table is chlorine. First synthesized in 1630, the gas was confirmed to be an element, and not a compound of other elements, in 1810 by Sir Humphry Davy. Davy took the element's name from the Greek word "khloros", meaning a pale shade of what color?
Extra credit
1. Long theorized, and proven in 2012, 17 is the minimum possible number of given values (all between one and nine) that ensures a unique solution of what type of logic puzzle?
2. The 1990 biopic Henry & June was the first film to receive an NC-17 rating by the Motion Picture Association of America. It is based on the 1986 book by what famed diarist?
This week's challenge
Start with the name STEVIE NICKS. Change one letter to an L, and you can rearrange the letters to spell the six-letter name for things you often find in a kitchen drawer, and a five-letter word for what those things can do. What are they?
ANSWERS
On-air questions
1. Sylvia Plath
2. Stevie Nicks
3. Ogden Nash
4. "Thank you."
5. Green
Extra credit
1. Sudoku
2. Anaïs Nin