Musings of a Dead Parrot

THIS WEEK'S QUESTIONS
1. What busy airport is home to the Tom Bradley International Terminal? LAX
2. The title of what 1970 move refers to two Mozart piano compositions, two Chopin compositions, and a Bach fugue? move? or movie?
3. Google made headlines this month by leaving what venerable keyboard key off its new notebook computers? I recall hearing that they were eliminating function keys
4. What TV star attended Northwestern University in real life, though his TV character of the same name is a Dartmouth grad? Trying to think of actors whose character has the same name. Jim Belushi, but I don't think his show is still on. Stephen Colbert?
5. What insect performs its most notable function using a substance called "luciferin"? luciferin sounds diabolical. Spiders?
6. Of what building did Shah Jahan write, "Should a sinner make his way to this mansion, / All his past sins are to be washed away"? Shah Jahan --> Taj Mahal
7. What unusual distinction is shared by these songs? "The Weight" by The Band, "It's a Man's Man's Man's World" by James Brown, "Hallelujah" by Leonard Cohen, "Viva La Vida" by Coldplay, "Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive" by Bing Crosby, "Desolation Row" by Bob Dylan, "Your Love" by Nicki Minaj, "Who Am I Living For?" by Kate Perry, "Man on the Moon" by R.E.M., "Bullet the Blue Sky" by U2. Biblical references in the lyrics - Moses and Luke, Noah, David, St Peter, Jonah and Noah, etc.

LAST WEEK'S ANSWERS
1. How many tiny reindeer pull Santa's sleigh, in the poem that begins "'Twas the Night Before Christmas"? Eight tiny reindeer--Rudolph was a later addition. correct
2. What sitcom featured a character with the very festive full name of "Christmas Noelle Snow"? Chrissy Snow, Suzanne Somers's character on Three's Company, was saddled with that wintry nightmare of a name, for which at least three different explanations were given on the show.
3. Which of the three traditional gifts brought by the three wise men has the highest market value today? Frankincense and myrrh, being nothing but tree sap with vaguely aromatic/ medicinal properties, retail for just a few dollars an ounce. Gold is about a hundred times more valuable. correct
4. Rod Carew was a Minnesota Twin, but who are the only *real* twins name-checked in Adam Sandler's "Hanukkah Song"? Ann Landers and her sister Dear Abby. (Harrison Ford's a quarter Jewish--not too shabby!) correct
5. Most commercial Advent calendars begin on what date? The actual dates of Advent move around, since the period officially begins on the fourth Sunday before Christmas, but the eponymous calendars typically just start on December 1. gonna remember to use this for the holiday quiz next year
6. "Christmas disease" is another name for the 'B' type of what disease, most famously suffered by Alexei Romanov? Hemophilia B was named for Stephen Christmas, the first patient in which it was identified. correct
7. What unusual distinction is held by these countries in this order, and no others? Spain, Saudi Arabia, China, Russia. These are the (modern-day) sources of the four "ethnic" dances in the second act of Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker: a Spanish dance, an Arabian dance, a Chinese dance, and a Russian dance. When I first came up with this question, I thought there were a few more countries on this list, but it turns out the list just SEEMED longer when I took my four-ear-old daughter to The Nutcracker a couple weeks ago. I can probably work this into the quiz next December too