Mega-Whats 2013

Semifinal 1

Arun Hiregange & Kiran Vijayakumar

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Written Round- 5 questions- 10 points each; no negatives

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Identify the person in this spoof that was titled something like “Worst Mastermind Participant”.

W1

These artifacts are all carved out of the same object. Name it.W2

W2

Brazil nut fruit

W3

These are some of the 40 fibre glass sculptures installed in Kingston upon Hull in 2010 to mark the 25th death anniversary of their librarian from 1955 to 1985. Name him.

W3

Philip Larkin

From Toads:

Why should I let the toad work        Squat on my life?Can't I use my wit as a pitchfork        And drive the brute off?

What connects:

- wearing special gloves containing stinging bullet ants, in the Satere Mawe tribe in the Amazon- creating scars like crocodile skin on the body, in parts of Papua New Guinea- going walkabout, in Western Australia- vision quests, among native North Americans- jumping over a herd of cattle, in the Hamar tribe of Ethiopia

and many more.

W4

Rites of passage for adulthood

Who, speaking about whom:

“When my first marriage was ending, I was kind of down, and _______ said, “Come on up to Aspen” and taught me how to ski. We would ski from 9 to 2, play tennis for two hours, then be in the gym for two hours—and she showed me what she was doing with weights. We did this for a week. Not many people who are No. 1 and No. 2 competitors would do that.”

W5

Chris Evert about Martina Navratilova

Clockwise- 18 questions- +10 / -5 on the pounce- +10 on the pass

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This is the motto of positivism: L’amour pour principe et l’ordre pour base; le progrès pour but ("Love as a principle and order as the basis; progress as the goal"). The members of a military coup of 1889 were great admirers of the founder of this philosophy and used two bits of it in something that was adopted soon after the coup. What are we talking about and whose philosophy did they admire?

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The words “order and progress” from Auguste Comte’s words, in the Brazilian flag

Whose wrote this poem and what was he justifying:

Say not of me that weakly I declinedThe labours of my sires, and fled the sea,The towers we founded and the lamps we lit,But rather say: In the afternoon of timeA strenuous family dusted from its handsThe sand of granite, and beholding farAlong the sounding coast its pyramidsAnd tall memorials catch the dying sun,Smiled well content, and to this childish taskAround the fire addressed its evening hours.

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R L Stevenson, whose family (father, grandfather, uncle etc.) had designed a large number of Britain’s lighthouses

One carries a long oar, representing the river's navigability. One touches the Papal coat of arms, since it is the largest river closest to Rome. One sits on a pile of coins, a symbol of the riches America might offer to Europe. The fourth’s head is draped with a loose piece of cloth. What was the fourth and what did its depiction signify?

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The river Nile in Bernini’s fountain of the four rivers, shown like this because its origin was unknown at that time

Identify the common line that has been blanked out at the end of each stanza.Not a believer inside the mosque, am INor a pagan disciple of false ritesNot the pure amongst the impureNeither Moses, nor the Pharaoh____________________________Not in the holy Vedas, am INor in opium, neither in wineNot in the drunkard`s intoxicated crazeNeither awake, nor in a sleeping daze____________________________In happiness nor in sorrow, am INeither clean, nor a filthy mireNot from water, nor from earthNeither fire, nor from air, is my birth____________________________

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Not an Arab, nor LahoriNeither Hindi, nor NagauriHindu, Turk, nor PeshawariNor do I live in Nadaun____________________________Secrets of religion, I have not knownFrom Adam and Eve, I am not bornI am not the name I assumeNot in stillness, nor on the move____________________________I am the first, I am the lastNone other, have I ever knownI am the wisest of them all____________________________

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Bulla ki jaana maen koun

Who is Nitish Kumar paying his respects to during a trip to East Champaran district in Bihar, where Gandhiji had started his satyagraha?

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George Orwell

Identify the plant and what the head-dress (which the foliage resembles) is made of.

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The casuarina plant’s leaves look like the cassowary’s feathers, in fact its name comes from the Malay name for the bird: kasuari

Shown here are the second and third instances in an exhaustive list of three. What was the first and in what way did it differ from these two?

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Jack Nicklaus was the first

He put on the green jacket himself, whereas the club chairman assisted Nick Faldo and Tiger Woods (these are the only 3 people to have won the Masters in consecutive years)

This is a detail from a doorway, showing two people making offerings to the Virgin Mary and Jesus. Identify both people and their offerings. Zoomed views follow.

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Zoomed view 1:8

Zoomed view 2:8

Emperor Justinian offering a model of the Haga Sophia and Constantine the Great offering a model of Constantinople

(on a gateway to the Haga Sophia)

Specifically what caused this death? Who rushed him to the hospital in vain?

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He was hit and killed by George Stephenson’s Rocket

Portuguese neurologist Egaz Moniz gets a bad rap for the Nobel prize that he won in 1949 for developing lobotomy as a solution for certain mental disorders.

Sadly, what is not known so well is that he had been nominated for the Nobel prize twice earlier for an X-ray based procedure which is commonly in use to this day. Moniz performed the first of these in 1927 in Lisbon.

What procedure?

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(Cerebral) Angiography

Connect the two paintings.11

Dali’s The Ghost of Vermeer of Delft Which Can Be Used As a Table which refers to Vermeer’s The Art of Painting

This explains how to do something that relates to gang wars of the 1970s. An impromptu execution in 2012 prompted this description: “akin to cracking a tasteless, X-rated joke inside a church”. What incident?

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Serena’s crip walk

The first lines of which famous poem were first printed with the title “Stanza of Anglo-Saxon Poetry” in a periodical for private amusement in the mid 1800s?

Use the second line of that stanza and name the part of this contraption pointed to here.

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Jabberwocky

Gimbal

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The previous slide shows a photograph and a couple of sketches of men who held very important positions in the Ottoman Empire over centuries. These depictions show something common to all these men, which wasn’t an affectation or a fad but a physical necessity for such people. Who am I talking of and why was it a necessity?

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The eunuchs who used to run the harem

Because they had been castrated at a young age, they had low testosterone levels leading to weak bones, hence the need for canes and walking sticks

This city's "green liver", was in a state of deterioration in the mid-1970s. Though it had been designated a National Historic Landmark in 1962, at the start of the 1980s, the city lacked the financial resources to restore or even to maintain it. But in the early 1980s, an idea was hatched to stage a free event there and feed back profits from merchandising, television, and video rights. What resulted?

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Hidden in this famous painting is said to be a self-portrait. Whose and in what form?

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Michelangelo depicted himself as the skin of St. Bartholomew in The Last Judgment

Explain the connection.17

Baldric / Baldrick

All possible theories of what?

- A corruption of a phrase meaning third street from Chepesyde to the great thoroughfare from London Bridge to Bushop Gate- From the three implements that a local company bore in their arms- From the two things most used by the Worshipful Company of Merchant Taylors- A game in which children stand in two rows, each person holds hands with the player opposite her. The last pair forms an arch with their hands. Then the other players pass under the arch and re-form the two rows

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Threadneedle St. in London

Anti-clockwise- 18 questions- +10 / -5 on the pounce- +10 on the pass

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Two terms, representative of the subjects, from the world of art entered the vocabulary of European printers soon after large-scale printing came into existence. With the advent of computers, these terms were soon used in a technical sense at Xerox PARC and continue to be used today, even more so, with the proliferation of mobile devices. What terms?

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Portrait and Landscape, used as “orientations”.1

This term came into prominence in 1978 and stems from the Latin for “glass” because glass containers were an integral part of the process. There are controversies surrounding the development of the concept associated with the term — moral aspects of it, credit for its development etc. Another closely associated term is used in the colloquial sense and derives from a type of glass container, that was supposed to be used for the process. In reality, such containers are not used normally for the process. Identify both terms.

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In vitro fertilization. Test-tube babies.2

A silk-screen portrait of the Huangshan Mountains started it. The response was a T-shirt with a red, white and blue, peace emblem flag and the words “Let It Be”. What 3-word term would you associate with this exchange?

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Ping Pong Diplomacy.3

While being selected for this job, he was asked what he would like to charge for the job. He replied, “Not a single penny I need. By the grace of God, I have all things and quite happy with my life. But I have one reservation, that on every page I will write my name and on the last page I will write my name along with my grandfather’s name.” This was his way of paying tribute to the person who taught him the art. His wish was granted and he completed the job in 6 months using 254 pen-holder nibs in the process. Who and what job? A specimen of his work can be seen here.

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Prem Behari Narain Raizada (Saxena) who was the calligrapher for the Constitution of India.

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It was developed in 1966 under a team led by Charles Baldwin. The following attributes were considered for the design that is still used: (i) striking in form in order to draw immediate attention (ii) unique and unambiguous, in order not to be confused with others in use (iii) quickly recognizable and easily recalled (iv) easily stenciled (v) symmetrical, in order to appear identical from all angles of approach and (vi) acceptable to groups of varying ethnic backgrounds. What are we talking about?

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Biological hazard / Biohazard symbol.5

This 2-word term, familiar to many quizzers, was coined by Lord Byron in a letter describing John Keats: “Such writing is a sort of ____ ____ — he is always frigging his imagination. I don't mean that he is indecent but viciously soliciting his own ideas into a state which is neither poetry nor any thing else but a Bedlam of vision produced by raw pork and opium.” What term meaning “to engage in intellectually stimulating conversation/activity with little or no practical purpose”?

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Mental masturbation.6

X itself is a X, not in English, but in French. Originally, it was used to refer to the artifact shown here. Another meaning was given to X in English in 1871. One might expect the French to have used the same word since it’s already a perfectly good word, but one would be wrong — instead, it’s “mot-valise”. Solve for X and identify the person who gave it the new meaning.

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Portmanteau. Lewis Carroll.7

What “contributions” or “extensions” to an artwork (nearly three-quarters of a century after the original) are these? 1993 – South African born artist Kendell Geers at a show in Venice.1993 – Musician Brian Eno at MOMA. He admitted that it was only a “technical triumph” because prepared in advance.1999 – Swedish artist Björn Kjelltoft at Moderna Museet in Stockholm.2000 – Yuan Chai and Jian Jun Xi, two performance artists, at Tate Modern (failed).

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Urinating in Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain.8

During the 1948-49 Ranji Trophy, playing for Maharashtra against Kathiawar at Pune, B.B. Nimbalkar made 443 not out, at the time second only to Don Bradman’s 452 not out as the record first-class innings and currently fourth-highest of all-time. Bradman sent a personal note to Nimbalkar saying that he considered Nimbalkar’s innings better than his own. It remains the highest score and the only quadruple century in Indian first-class cricket and also the highest by a cricketer not to have played in Test Cricket. Why was Nimbalkar not able to beat Bradman’s record?

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With the total standing at 826 for 4 at the lunch interval, Kathiawar’s captain, Pradyumansinhji Lakhajirajsinhji, conceded the match to prevent embarrassment on the part of his team.

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This English term of Indian coinage may have been inspired by a Biblical character. In the generally accepted sense, it refers to a type of criminal intent. Though the Indian Penal Code does not use the term, there are multiple sections which deal with similar behavior. The term will not find a mention in most of the English dictionaries, but has been used heavily in the media in recent times. TIME magazine first mentioned it in 1960 describing it as one of the “social problems undreamed of in Mahatma Gandhi’s philosophy”. What term?

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Eve-teasing.10

From a Ramachandra Guha column: ‘… in 2000 the Government decided to issue a new “revised” set, guided by the following principle: that there would be a hundred volumes, each of 500 pages. The edifice painstakingly created by Swaminathan and his team was dismantled; and the entries now “remixed” according to the new specifications. In the process, the illuminating prefaces written to the original volumes have been dropped. Also missing are the maps and illustrations. The cross-references, so carefully prepared and so indispensable to scholars, have been rendered meaningless.’ The original had 99 volumes: 90 volumes, each with a long preface written by the editor, setting the material in context; 7 supplementary volumes later added to incorporate material that had come in too late for inclusion in the original series; and authoritative Subject and Person indexes. What ‘edifice’ is Guha talking about here?

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The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (CWMG).11

This farm is located within Prince Edward Island National Park, Canada. It was designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 1985 and remains a popular tourist attraction. What is its name? Or identify its claim to fame—stemming from a visit here before the turn of the twentieth century.

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Green Gables. It inspired the popular Anne of Green Gables novels by Lucy Maud Montgomery.

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Connect.13

The English word “mandarin” originates from Sanskrit “mantrin”, meaning “minister or counsellor” and originally meant an official of the Chinese empire.

The characters here are Tantri the Mantri and Mandarin from Ironman.

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A Synchrotron is a type of cyclic particle accelerator originating from the cyclotron in which the guiding magnetic field (bending the particles into a closed path) is time-dependent, being synchronized to a particle beam of increasing kinetic energy. Edwin McMillan constructed the first electron synchrotron in 1945, although Vladimir Veksler had already (unknown to McMillan) published the principle in a Soviet journal in 1944. Show here is a schematic for one of the most famous specimens. What did it inspire?

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The logo of CERN.14

In a September 26, 1956 Daily Mirror article, William Connor (under the byline Cassandra) attacked this person: “He is the summit of sex — the pinnacle of masculine, feminine, and neuter. Everything that he, she and it can ever want. … this deadly, winking, sniggering, snuggling, chromium-plated, scent-impregnated, luminous, quivering, giggling, fruit-flavored, mincing, ice-covered heap of mother love has had the biggest reception and impact on London since Charlie Chaplin arrived at the same station, Waterloo, on September 12, 1921.” The response was a telegram: “What you said hurt me very much. ____”, followed by a libel suit. After a court victory, he repeated the phrase again. Who? What phrase?

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Liberace. “I cried all the way to the bank.”15

Steve Wilhite recently won a Lifetime Achievement Webby Award in recognition of a 1987 invention. According to him, the original pronunciation deliberately echoes an American peanut butter brand and the employees of the company where he worked would often say “Choosy developers choose ____”, spoofing this brand’s television commercials. It had a fair share of limelight in 2012 for being “a tool with serious applications including research and journalism”. What?

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GIF. It was Oxford Dictionaries USA Word of the Year 2012.16

What is the occasion?

<Video removed>

17

Jackie Robinson Day. It is held annually in Major League Baseball to commemorate the day Jackie Robinson made his major league debut – April 15.

If you noticed, all players had the jersey number 42.

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Designed by Colin Archer and used between 1893 and 1912. Means “forward” in the local language. Now housed in this museum shown here. What are we talking about? Also identify the two most famous names associated with it.

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Fram, the ship used by the Norwegian explorers Fridtjof Nansen and Roald Amundsen (and Otto Sverdrup and Oscar Wisting).

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