JON CARROLL
Monday, December 28, 1998
©2000 San Francisco Chronicle
I TRUST YOUR weekend was merry as all get-out and now, la answeroonies:
1. On the shelf in the kitchen. No, the other one.
2. It's the exit line of Emma Peel (Diana Rigg) in the series ``The Avengers.'' She says it to Tara King.
3. Each of the words can be spelled using only letters on one key of the telephone pad or dial. Five-letter examples include Ababa, a type of poppy, or abaca, hemp fiber. The six-letter example is even sort of common: deeded.
4. The person would turn on light switch No. 1 for 10 minutes. Then she would turn off light switch No. 1 and turn on light switch No. 2. She would then go up to the fifth floor. If the bulb is on, light switch No. 2 is clearly the right one. If it's off but warm to the touch, it's light switch No. 1. If it's off and cold . . . well, you get it.
5. Addison's disease is a malfunction of the adrenal glands. It changes the pigmentation of the skin, with the result that JFK always looked as though he had a tan.
6. The Gertrude Stein poem is ``Sacred Emily''; the person referred to is Francis Rose, an obscure English painter. The Rose of Sharon appears in the Song of Solomon. Martin Cruz Smith wrote about the mining-town girl in ``Rose.'' The nursery rhyme refers to the Great Plague of 1665 and the distinctive marks on the skin that plague produces.
7. As every schoolchild knows, Bilbo and Frodo (from ``The Hobbit'' by J.R.R. Tolkien) are first cousins on the patriarchal side and second cousins on the matriarchal side.
8. THE COUNTRY
with the highest low point is Lesotho, whose Orange River Gorge is 4,530 feet above sea level. The country with the lowest high point is the Republic of the Maldives, where no point is more than eight feet above sea level.9. No one said the couple was playing each other. Or they could have been playing friendly doubles, where partners changed after every set. Or the couple is imaginary and this is just a newspaper quiz.
10. The topmark, daymark, mooring chain and sinker are all parts of a buoy. The hammer shank, catcher, jack spring and damper are all parts of a piano. The dew shield, azimuth clamp, star diagonal and fork are all parts of a refracting telescope.
11. Claude Monet lived the longest (1840-1926), gave impressionism its name and painted those water lilies. Henri Matisse (1869-1954) died the latest and designed the stained-glass windows. Edouard Manet (1832-1883) went to Rio to clear his head and painted the naked ladies at the picnic.
12. Samarkand is the second largest city in Uzbekistan. Timbuktu lies near the Niger River in the center of Mali. Kandy is the capital of Sri Lanka's Central Province and is the location of the Temple of the (Buddha's) Tooth. Hunza is a famous kingdom in Pakistan's Northern Areas.
13. Albert. When he came to the throne in 1936, he respected the wish of Queen Victoria that no future king be named Albert.
14. THAT WAS the home of the old Oakland Oaks Ballpark, an ornament of the old Pacific
Coast League.
15. The loudest insect on earth is the Australian cicada, which makes a jet-plane-level 110-decibel chirp measured at one meter from the insect.
16. John Quincy Adams did all that.
17. Atrus, Catherine, Sirrus and Achenar are the principal characters in the computer game Myst. Thomasina Coverly, Septimus Hodge, Bernard Nightingale and Jellaby are all characters in Tom Stoppard's ``Arcadia.'' John Openshaw, Helen Stoner, Violet Hunter and Count Von Kramm are all clients of Sherlock Holmes.
18. The answer is Ottawa. (Helsinki and Reykjavik are both near large bodies of water, which always has a moderating effect on temperature).
Can you tell me who the wrote the book of jrc@sfgate.com?
So many answers, and yet the essential meaning still eludes us.
Can you tell me who the wrote the book of jrc@ sfgate.com?
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