City Folk (Part 7): Artists & Writers Quiz

Answer: The People of the Abyss

Born John Griffith Chaney, on January 12, 1876, in the slums of San Francisco, Jack London was raised by his mother Flora Wellman and his stepfather John London. He became one of the highest paid writers of his day, his biggest hit being "The Call of the Wild." "The People of the Abyss" is about the poor people living in the East End of London, and is based on his own 3-month experience spent there as he writes in the book's preface: "The experiences related in this volume fell to me in the summer of 1902. I went down into the underworld of London with an attitude of mind which I may best liken to that of the explorer...." He would tell an interview later that of all his books, this one was closest to his heart.

Answer: Spellbound

In 1945 Dalí's agent informed him that Alfred Hitchcock was designing a nightmare dream sequence for his new film starring Ingrid Bergman as a psychiatrist who falls in love with her boss played by Gregory Peck. The scene in the finished film proceeded this way: Peck's character Dr. Anthony Edwardes is describing a dream he had to Bergman as he lies down on her therapy couch, "I can't make out just what sort of a place it was." The shot then dissolves into Dalí's image designs: free-floating eyes in space transforming into painted curtains, which then get viciously ripped apart by a man with a huge pair of scissors. This is followed by a Blackjack card game where the cards are all blank and the men are without faces. But then there are rocks that DO have faces. Many years later Hitchcock said, "I wanted Dalí because of the architectural sharpness of his work," and that he "wanted to convey the dream with great visual sharpness and clarity, sharper than the film itself."

One of Brazil's oldest cities, Salvador is also one of the country's largest cities, and lies along the Atlantic Ocean coast. It has a population over 2 and a half million.

Answer: Robert B. Parker

Raymond Chandler was writing his eighth Philip Marlowe novel, when he passed away in 1959. It was called "Poodle Springs." Over three decades later, Robert B. Parker, a detective novelist famous for the "Spenser" crime series of novels, completed the unfinished novel and it was published in 1989. Parker was a big admirer of Chandler. The book became a best-seller. In the novel, Marlowe is married to a rich wife and has moved from Los Angeles to a wealthy community called Poodle Springs. The local crime boss hires Marlowe to track down a missing local who has skipped out on a gambling debt.

Out of the roughly dozen or so cities named Chandler in the world (mostly the United States and Australia), it is Chandler, Arizona that is the most populous by a landslide. Arizona crime analytics state that in Chandler, your chances of becoming the victim of a violent crime are 1 in 440. On the Crime Index the city is rated a 24 meaning it is safer than 24% of U.S.cities. A score of 100 is the best.

Answer: two fishermen in a rowboat on a choppy sea

The Chairman of Microsoft Bill Gates paid over $30 million for the last major seascape by Winslow Homer, "Lost on the Grand Banks." At the time in 1998, that price shattered the previous record of $11.1 million paid for an American painting two years earlier, that one being "Cashmere" by John Singer Sargent. Winslow's 1885 painting depicts two fishermen peering over the side of their small boat in rough waters with an ominously gray sky. It measured about 32 by 50 inches.

Winslow, Arizona with a population of about 10,000 is located in Navajo County, about 185 miles northeast of Phoenix. It's famously mentioned in a very singable lyric from the Eagle's very popular song "Take It Easy" written by Jackson Browne:
Well, I'm standing on a corner
In Winslow, Arizona
And such a fine sight to see
It's a girl, my Lord, in a flatbed Ford
Slowin' down to take a look at me
Come on, baby, don't say maybe
I gotta know if your sweet love
Is gonna save me.

Answer: animals

Cleveland Amory (1917-1998) was an advocate for animals rights, especially cats as he wrote three best-selling books about his own white cat, called Polar Bear. "The Cat Who Came for Christmas" in 1987 was followed by "The Cat and the Curmudgeon", and "The Best Cat Ever." Mr. Amory founded the animal-rights group Fund for Animals in 1967, and he fought to save the burros of the Grand Canyon and the goats of San Clemente Island. In 2000, the Fund for Animals teamed up with several other animal rights organizations, such as the ASPCA, to sue the parent company of Ringling Brothers Circus, for what the activists alleged was animal abuse of their elephants.

The Cleveland Animal Protective League in Cleveland, Ohio allows people to report instances of animal neglect and cruelty by calling a hotline. They have investigation teams that work to end animal cruelty and neglect not only by investigation and prosecution but also by education. They are empowered to enforce animal protection laws within the jurisdiction of Cuyahoga County and Cleveland Municipal's animal protection laws. Improper care and neglect includes acts of malice, lack of sufficient food and water, improper shelter and lack of veterinary treatment; they are against the law and may be prosecuted forthwith.

Answer: "Jack the Dripper"

The historically important and acclaimed art critic Clement Greenberg was one of those critics that championed Pollock's work from the beginning, organizing his first solo show in 1952, held at Bennington College, Vermont. It was in a 1956 issue of Time magazine however that the monicker "Jack the Dripper" was coined, making fun of what was determined to be a simplistic style of Abstract Expressionism. Pollock had departed from a strictly hand and wrist technique, and instead perfected a dripping paint technique that he would be forever labeled with--he was playing with more instantaneous way of making art, with the paint literally dripping from his can or brush directly onto the canvas, as he moved his body in movements almost akin to a dancer's.

Jackson, Mississippi has adopted the nickname "The City with Soul," with a funky art scene in its Fondren District. Late Night art exhibits are often held at the Museum of Art. During the summer movies are screened on the Mississippi Museum of Art's lawn. Jackson's newest attraction, is the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum.

Answer: National Wrestling Hall of Fame

Irving was born March 2, 1942 in Exeter, New Hampshire. Irving became a member of the Exeter Academy wrestling team, and then years after he became a coach for the team. His interest in wrestling found its way into many of his novels, such as "The World According to Garp", and in 1992 he was inducted as 'An Outstanding American' in the National Wrestling Hall of Fame. He has said that wrestling had helped to make him disciplined and determined.

The Micro Wrestling Federation is a wrestling event held in Irving, Texas in which the wrestlers are all under five feet tall. There are two single matches, and then what's called a micro brawl in which wrestling punches and maneuvers can pop up anywhere in the venue. And then the finale, a Micro Royal Rumble in which all the athletes get into the ring and mix it up fighting each other until one remains.

Answer: Vladimir Lenin

Born December 8, 1886 in Guanajuato, Mexico, Diego María de la Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez was asked to create a mural showing a man at a crossroads, looking with with hope and deciding a course that would lead to a better future. The theme was "New Frontiers" and the Rockefellers risked hiring Diego knowing of his leftist politics, but they wanted to include all the popular artists of the era in the project. The original blueprint for the mural which Rivera agreed to was of three men standing with hands clasped, a soldier, a worker and peasant. Rivera's leftist compatriots taunted him for what they thought was his selling out. And so Rivera veered off course and painted the mural to include a portrait of Communist leader Vladimir Lenin. Many years later, David Rockefeller Sr. related how Diego had also painted in the mural a "picture of [my] father drinking martinis with a harlot and various other things that were unflattering to the family and clearly inappropriate to have as the center of Rockefeller Center." And so the mural was soon destroyed. Diego however, did return to Mexico where he painted a replica of the mural at the Palacio de Bellas Artes.

Rivera is located in the southwest of the Province of Buenos Aires, in Argentina. In the beginning of the 20th century it became a refuge for Jews fleeing persecution in Russia. There in Rivera and other settlements in Argentina, these new settlers were able to turn fields into a prosperous town and a century later, the population had grown to 3,000.

Answer: The Lottery

Best not to describe the plot of this story and ruin the surprise. But some interesting backstory is that Shirley Jackson herself had spread some rumors about the circumstances behind its getting published. She claimed in a lecture that "The New Yorker" magazine had requested just one change from her after she submitted it--that she change the date in the story that the lottery was held. She also claimed that the magazine published it only a few weeks after she submitted it which is very unusual. Both claims however were not true. But everyone involved does seem to agree that the story was written in a single day. The idea came to her while she was grocery shopping. When she got home she put her 2-year-old in the playpen and finished it by the time her kindergarten-age son came home for lunch.

Shirley Jackson is a 2 for 1 City Folk, both her first and last names are shared with many many cities. Jackson, Mississippi is of course the capital of the state of Mississippi. And there are roughly over fifteen towns and cities called Shirley across the USA. The Shirley in New York State is by far the most populated with over 27,000 people, about four times the second most populous Shirley.

Answer: a professional sports team nickname

Washington Irving's "Knickerbocker's History of New York" was published in 1809. It not only gave us the word "knickers", those knee-length short pants that you saw boys wear in old films from the '20s and '30s, but it also gave us the word "Knickerbocker" which was the name of the book's fictional author: Diedrich Knickerbocker. And as any sports fan knows, the world famous New York Knickerbockers are and illustrious professional basketball in the NBA whose list of former members is a Hall-of-Fame of heroes: Walt Frazier, Willis Reed, Earl Monroe, Dave DeBusschere, and even the former Senator Bill Bradley. Speaking of "City Folk" Washington Irving was also the first person to call New York City as "Gotham City." He came up with that one in 1807, publishing it in his periodical "Salmagundi."

Washington was in a sense named after out nation's capitol, Washington, D.C. But more accurately he was named as General George Washington, who although wasn't President yet, was very well known and respected. And since Washington D.C. is named after George Washington, young Washington Irving can perhaps call himself the namesake of the nation's capitol as well. Irving has over a dozen cities in the current U.S. named after it. Irving, Texas is the largest of them, and speaking of professional sports teams, Irving is home to the NFL's Dallas Cowboys.