Ottawa Hybrid 2015
Round 3 - McMaster University A (Jay Misuk, Shuying Zheng, Brian Luong, and Leslie Newcombe)
1. A film by this director shows a man breaking a backboard after refusing to play on Jack Black’s basketball team. That same film features a dinner party scene in which the characters play the game Password. In this director’s debut film, a character sings“My Sharona” at a gas station and Steve Zahn stays celibate so he won’t have to (*) come out to his family. In his latest movie, the hero travels to Greenland to find a photojournalist played by Sean Penn and daydreams about Kristen Wiig singing “Space Oddity” before he jumps into a helicopter. David Bowie judges a walk-off in one of this man’s films, where the main character asks if the “Centre for Kids Who Can’t Read Good” is for ants. For 10 points, name this director of Reality Bites, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, and Zoolander.
ANSWER: Ben Stiller
2. This author wrote about an artist who must watch as his daughter burns alive in a carriage in order to finish the title work of art, and in another story, the mocking of villagers causes a priest to be relieved when the title feature returns to its original size.(*) This author wrote a story with contradictions about whether or not a comb was left on the ground, a dead man’s hairstyle, and how many arrows were kept in a quiver. That work opens with the interrogation of a woodcutter, and was later adapted into a film that shares its title with a story by this author about two people discussing the morality of stealing at the title location. A literary award is now named for, for 10 points, what Japanese author of “Hell Screen”, “The Nose”, “In a Grove”, and “Rashomon”?
ANSWER: RyunosukeAkutagawa (accept names in either order)
3. The prophetess Catherine Théot called this man her beloved son; this, along with his signature of a certificate of civism for Dom Gerle, was presented by Marc-Guillaume Vadier as evidence of conspiracy. An artist told this man, “If you drink hemlock, I shall drink it with you,” after this man delivered a speech accusing unnamed persons of conspiring against him. The next day, he was (*) arrested at the National Convention, freed by troops of the Paris Commune, and arrested again at the Hôtel de Ville; his jaw was shattered by a gunshot in the course of those events on the 9th of Thermidor. For 10 points, name this politician who was guillotined alongside Louis de Saint-Just, who led the Jacobin Club and the Committee of Public Safety during the Reign of Terror.
ANSWER: Maximilien (François Marie Isidore de) Robespierre
4. Title or description acceptable. This episode begins with a nightmare about gunfire in Afghanistan, after which the dreamer sets down a green apple and a mug and reveals the handgun in his desk drawer.The adulterous journalist Jennifer Wilson is killed by Phil Davis's character in this episode, where the hero (*) mass-texts the word "wrong" to policemen at a press conference. At a morgue in this episode, a character speculates about Harry's divorce and alcoholism after borrowing her old cellphone. A word scribbled on a floor in this episode is thought to mean "revenge" but actually signifies the phone password "Rachel." Apparent suicide victims were actually murdered by choosing between two pills in, for 10 points, what episode of Sherlock where the killer turns out to be a cab driver?
ANSWER: “A Study in Pink” [accept "first episode" or "episode one" or "premiere" of Sherlock; accept pink episode of Sherlock, prompt on "Study in Scarlet" episode; prompt on "cab driver" episode before that gets mentioned; prompt on vague descriptions by asking who the murderer was or what colour it was about]
5. Wikipedia reports a music fest in New England that sells t-shirts forbidding this song. Supposedly written about running away from Phillips-Exeter Academy, this song has one video with an outdoor burlesque show and another video where the singer hitches rides from the Duck Dynasty cast. This song rhymes(*) "seventeen hours" with "dogwood flowers" and makes an error about the location of Johnson City. Written by Ketch Secor, this song describes "Starin’ up the road, and pray to God I see headlights," and declares, "If I die in Raleigh, at least I will die free." Based on a Bob Dylan outtake, for 10 points, name this song recorded by Darius Rucker and by Old Crow Medicine Show, which says, "Rock me mama, any way you feel."
ANSWER: "Wagon Wheel"
6. The enzyme DSBA carries two of this functional group. The Mozingo reduction reacts a ketone with this group and then uses Raney nickel and hydrogen gas to produce hydrocarbons. Two of these compounds are made by breaking a certain bond with "DTT," (*) also called Cleland's reagent. The smell of natural gas and skunk spray comes from these compounds, and since they bond well with mercury, these things are sometimes called "mercapto groups." Oxidative folding involves reacting this type of side-chain in a cysteine, which then forms a disulfide bridge. For 10 points, identify this functional group composed of a sulfur atom bonded to a hydrogen, which is analogous to alcohols.
ANSWER: thiols [prompt on sulfhyrdyls or mercaptans]
7. A glitch in this game’s Virtual Console release corrupts the colour palette so that the screen goes completely black in water levels, and this game’s GBA port includes an extra world called Pacifica. The Merry Cheat causes this game’s main collectables to turn into presents. A boss battle in this game involves sucking water from a waterfall and spitting it in the eyes (*) of the slug Squirt, and an annoying trading cycle in this game involves bringing a bowling ball and a No. 6 wrench to different Bear Brothers. Ellie the Elephant and Parry the Parallel Bird are introduced in this game, which includes a snowball fight against a snowman and a series of Banana Bird Caves. Since Donkey and Diddy go missing at the start of this game, the player controls a new tag-team who can throw each other and can swing a ponytail in a helicopter spin. Belcha the giant barrel and Baron K. Roolenstein are bosses in, for 10 points, what SNES platform game about Dixie and Kiddie Kong?
Answer: Donkey Kong Country 3 (Dixie Kong’s Double Trouble) [or DKC 3] [do not accept or prompt on partial]
8. One person described this event as taking "7, 8, 10 minutes," but it turned out only to be 2 minutes and 22 seconds. A monologue about a Rubik's cube ends with the speaker getting hung up on this event, and Julie Snyder looked into this event by pulling a user agreement from an archived class-action suit. Occurring after a weed purchase at 3:22 PM at a golf course on Forest Park, this event involved a woman who "looked like a chipmunk" and lived in Silver Spring, who later claimed that this took place in the evening at a (*) porn video store. The recipient not having voicemail and the billing rules at AT&T introduce the possibility that this was just a butt-dial. For 10 points, name this supposed "smoking gun" that suggests Jay wasn't alone with Adnan's cell phone all afternoon.
ANSWER: the Nisha call
9. This artist gave two paintings to the National Gallery on the condition that hang beside Claude Lorraine paintings. This artist attempted the epic poem "Fallacies of Hope" and joined the Royal Academy on the merits of a moonlit painting with The Needles at its left side. Disaster landscapes by this artist showed roaring gold flames that reflect as red. A tiny (*) elephant sits under a storm-cloud that looks like a black tidal wave in a painting by this artist, which compares France to Carthage. Fishermen at Sea and The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons were made by this artist, who added a red blotch to one of his paintings on varnishing day. For 10 points, name this Ruskin-approved landscape painter of Snowstorm: Hannibal Crossing the Alps, who walks around grunting in a top hat in a Mike Leigh movie.
ANSWER: Joseph Mallord William Turner
10. This place extends from Cape Farewell to Coffee Club Island, and it contains the world's largest national park, which is full of musk oxen. The world’s oldest plant DNA has been found in this place, whose capital sits by Sermit-siaqmountain and was founded by the Lutheran Hans Egede on the Kangerlua River. The U.S. keeps missile detection stuff at the (*) Thule Air Base in this place, which has been an "autonomous dependent territory" since 1979. This place is majority Inuit but mostly uninhabited, and it has a capital at Nuuk and is wildly magnified by Mercator projections. For 10 points, name this largest island in the world, which is covered by a thick sheet of ice and partially ruled by Denmark.
Answer: Greenland [or KalaallitNunaat]
11. It's unknown which of these people wrote a threatening letter to Taketa Tani, but earlier, one of these had people tried to provoke a war by offending some Korean officials. These people's students raided Sotuma Arsenal, and their customs were restricted by(*) the Haitorei Edict. A rebellion where these people laid siege to Kumamoto Castle occurred after their rice stipends were cut off and they had to adopt Western haircuts. These people operated private schools called shigakko in Kagoshima, and after their last stand at Shiroyama, their leader SaigoTakimori committed seppuku. The Satsuma Rebellion was fought by, for 10 points, what kind of people who were targeted by anti-sword laws and followed a bushido warrior code?
ANSWER: samurai [or bushi before the end]
12. This character tracks a secret VHS tape of himself assassinating a terrorist, and in 2015, Jeff Lemire took over this character’s comic from Matt Fraction. In a “versus Deadpool” series, this character is partially deaf, and his name has been assumed by Wyatt McDonald and Kate Bishop. This husband of Mockingbird collaborates (*) with Selvig to activate a Tesseract while under a mind control that is later broken by Natasha Romanoff. Along with Black Widow, he is a superhero of the Avengers that has not yet had a title film. For 10 points, name this comics character played by Jeremy Renner who uses a bow and arrow.
Answer: Hawkeye (accept “Clint Barton” before mentioned)
13. This writer made dirty jokes on the word "thrust" in describing a boy pushing a girl on a swing. A "swine-girl" created by this writer burns the potatoes and gets hassled by her brothers at dinner. This writer put the chapter "Lad-and-Girl Love" in a novel where a father cuts a boy’s hair as the boy's mother sleeps, and he wrote of a housewife who complains about always getting the same apology-flowers(*) and about her husband skipping dinner to go drink at the "Prince of Wales." This author wrote a story where a large body is laid out across Mrs. Bates's parlour after a coal-mining accident. The author of a novel where Paul comes of age and chooses between Clara and Miriam, for 10 points, name this modernist writer of "The Odour of Chrysanthemums" and Sons and Lovers.
ANSWER: David Herbert Lawrence
14. This team’s last two first-round picks were Matt Chapman and Richie Martin, and in 2014, they led the Majors in run differential. The relief pitchers Dan Otero and Sean Doolittle play for this team, which once used Herb Washington to fill in for Joe Rudi as a “designated runner.” (*) Managed today by Bob Melvin, this team won its last championship a lineup including Carney Lansford and Dave Stewart. In mid-season 2014, this team traded for Jon Lester and Jeff Samardzija. Josh Reddick and Coco Crisp play for this team, which won the ‘89 Earthquake World Series. For 10 points, name this baseball team whose general manager Billy Beane is the subject of Moneyball.
ANSWER: Oakland Athletics [or Oakland Athletics, or Oakland A’s]
15. This thing was laid to rest in a boneyard on Hera. Kaywinnet demonstrates a strong bond with this thing from the start, easily determining that its problem is with the reg couple, not the grav boot, and later taking offense to it being described as “luh-suh”. (*) In the final episode of the series in which this thing appears, River says that this thing is “very unhappy”, claiming to be talking to and incorporeally possessing it. Sonny Rhodes recorded “The Ballad of” this thing, singing that “There’s no place that I can be / since I found” it. A Companion leases a shuttle aboard this thing, which is staffed by Zoe and Jayne and is flown by Wash. For 10 points, name this spaceship owned by Captain Malcolm Reynolds, which lends its name to the Firefly movie.
ANSWER: Serenity
16. One song by this artist claims that “Every day I’m grindin’/ don’t even get a weekend”, but that today they will “make it pop like” the title substance. That song was pulled from this artist’s first album, which did include a song where the singer wants to make the claim that (*) “we’re going steady/ Like it’s 1954/ No, it doesn’t need to be forever/ Just as long as I’m the name on” the title thing. “Pink Champagne” and “Tattooed Heart” are on the album Yours Truly by this singer, who sang, “head in the clouds/got no weight on my shoulders” and has “one less" of something "without you”. For 10 points, name this singer of "Problem," who also appeared with Jessie J and Nicki Minaj on “Bang Bang.”
ANSWER: Ariana Grande
17. Description acceptable. Carbon-12 in the Isua rocks suggests that this event began in the Achaean eon, and extinctions resulting from this event are a common counter-argument to how James Lovelock used it as a basis for the (*) Gaia hypothesis. This event probably triggered the Huronic ice age, and "red beds" and banded iron formations were formed when this event caused the iron in the oceans to precipitate. Dated 2.4 billion years ago in the Proterozoic Era, this event occurred well after the emergence of cyanobacteria and killed off all anaerobic life. For 10 points, identify this "Great Event" that enabled multicellular organisms and was begun when Earth reached a critical amount of photosynthesis.
ANSWER: Great Oxygenation Event [accept Oxygen Revolution, Great Oxidation, or descriptions like "origin / abundance of oxygen in the atmosphere"]
18. He’s not Steve Coogan, but this actor’s first voiceover role was as Blitzen in two BBC Comic Relief Christmas specials. In a more recent voiceover role, his character attempts to reclaim his pet dodo from Queen Victoria with the help of a David Tennant-voiced Charles Darwin. That film, The Pirates! Band of Misfits, marked a return from a three-year absence during which he testified in the (*)News of the World scandal. He won a Golden Globe for Four Weddings and a Funeral, leading to roles as a romantic lead in in Two Weeks Notice and Music and Lyrics. Wearing war paint as a Hawaiian chief in Cloud Atlas, for 10 points, name this charming British actor known for About a Boy, Bridget Jones’s Diary, and Notting Hill.
ANSWER: Hugh Grant
19. This poet wrote about a person who waits until November to sing a song, causing other people to judge her. Another poem is addressed to people who “did not know [they] were” an unusually-spelled continent, and have since spread across the world. Besides writing “The Crazy (*) Woman” and “To the Diaspora”, this author wrote that “Blackness/ is a title/ is a preoccupation,” and that “The huge, the pungent object of our prime out-ride/ is to Comprehend/ to salute and to Love the fact that we are Black,” in her work “Primer for Blacks”. She also described a couple for whom “Dinner is a casual affair,” and another group who “sing sin” and “Jazz June.” For 10 points, name this author of “The Bean Eaters” and “We Real Cool”.
ANSWER: Gwendolyn Brooks
20. This group "naturally conceives the world in which it is supreme to be the best," and one work compares this group to a sorcerer who has lost control of all the powers he summoned. Divisions within this group are supposed to have allowed the Ten Hours Bill to be passed in England, and "what [this group] produces, above all, is its own (*) grave-diggers." This group is accused of depleting rural populations as it creates enormous cities, and it has displaced local self-sufficiency for a cosmopolitan interdependence. Perpetuating itself by continuously revolutionizing the means of production, this group is believed to have displaced the aristocracy and to have concentrated all property in its own hands by its control of the means of production. For 10 points, name this oppressive class which will someday be overthrown by the proletariat.
ANSWER: the bourgeoisie [prompt on ruling class]