No. 353: "Bad-Ass Query"
General Motors
made an announcement Monday involving two important words, one hyphenated,
unlikely to show up in any of its forthcoming TV commercials. Which two
words?
Send
your answer by noon ET Wednesday to [email protected].
Monday's Question (No.
352)--"Pro and Context":
Some key words in a story in yesterday's New York Times were:
jumping jack; youngest; "Dream Catchers"; dreamy, romantic, and elegant; a
flip, a toe loop, and a salchow. What was the story about?
"Dick
Button's sex life."-- Larry Amoros
"I
think the campaign to rehabilitate Sen. Joseph McCarthy has gotten a little out
of hand."-- Andrew Staples
"I
don't care how 'zesty, light, and delectable' it is, Molly O'Neill's recipe for
almond butter tart is just too damn difficult."-- Tim Carvell
"A new
breakout of that flesh-eating virus. But they tried to kind of, you know,
lighten it up."-- Francis Heaney
"Whatever it was, at least we can delight in the fact that Abe Rosenthal didn't
write it."-- David Ballard
Click
for more answers.
Randy's Wrap-Up
The pose and the prose
of journalists have changed since Ben Hecht's The Front Page . Indeed,
Hecht's reporters would have balked at being called "journalists." Whether the
shift from Hildy Johnson to Abe Rosenthal was a good or bad thing, it must be
noted that not even Rosenthal's most passionate detractors have ever accused
him of being a fictional character or of writing a sentence like "Crushing all
Chechen resistance, Russian troops made their dreamy, romantic, and elegant way
to the outskirts of Grozny." Although there are certainly News Quiz
participants who'd pay to see him perform a flip, a toe loop, and a salchow,
whatever they are, on a rocket-powered hell-cycle leaping a wall of fire. Or
failing to leap a wall of fire. Like in the old days in Chicago when … oh, who
are we kidding? We miss him, damn it!
Low Coefficient of
Friction and Wit Answer
The story was about ice-skating.
By winning the Metabolife World Professional Figure
Skating Championship, 15-year-old Tara Lipinski became the youngest
professional figure skating champion ever, male or female.
Tara Lipinski is unambiguously female. But neither
a boy nor a girl ever won a professional championship at a younger age than
she. As you all no doubt understood all along. I'm going to stop
over-explaining now. No, now.
According to
Times reporter Frank Litsky, Lipinski is a jumping jack. The music she
skated to is called "Dream Catchers." Both the skating and the title song were
dreamy, romantic, and elegant. Flip, loop, and salchow are the names of the
triple jumps she performed, although--and I don't claim to know anything about
figure skating--they'd also make good names for cartoon squirrels, male or
female.
Xmas Xcess Xtra
You can infer as much about a publication's readers
from its ads as from its articles: That's the wacky premise behind this Noel
extra. Which of the following were promoted in the New York Times and
which in Fortune ?
Chanel 2000 gift card--available in increments of $2,000
Tourneau watch--$3,600
Cartier's Pavé diamond heart on gold chain--$10,700
Van Cleef and Arpel's three-stone ring--from $10,500
Bergdorf's Rovert Lee Morris ring--$34,000
Saks chinchilla jacket--$25,000
Saks necklace--$240,000
Answer
All were advertised on
Pages 2-4 of last Sunday's New York Times . But, benefit of the doubt,
presumably some of the ads are not intended to sell products so much as to
instill a frisson of imaginary consumption, the sort of shopping
pornography that makes all of us so moist each December.
Common
Denominator
Alan Keyes on Ice.
