Musings of a Dead Parrot

THIS WEEK'S QUESTIONS
1.  What colorless Italian brandy is distilled from "pomace"--the pulp, stems, and seeds left over when wine is made?  yum!  I can only think of slivovitz or schnapps or ouzo, none of which is Italian.  Pomacetto?  Amaretto?  But amaretto has an almond flavor.
2.  For the new 2013 season, Amber Tamblyn was the surprising choice to play one of the title characters of what TV series?  No idea, so I will guess the show that my friend Kevin Garnett is working on - Back In The Game
3.  What former head of state returned to his home country in 2011 to enter El Renacer prison, after two decades of prosecution in Florida and France?  Manuel Noriega?
4.  The obelisk placed in Paris's Place de la Concorde in 1836 is often incorrectly named for what person, who lived over 1,000 years after its carving?  Cleopatra?
5.  What kind of fish, order Siluriformes, is named for the barbels it uses as sensory organs?  catfish?
6.  What country's traditional folk dances include the Mazurka and the Krakowiak?  Poland?
7.  What What unusual distinction is shared by all these famous people?  Tom Bradley, Calvin Coolidge, Thomas Edison, Michael Faraday, Doug Flutie, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Florence Nightingale, Louis Pasteur.  each has an "effect" named for him or her.  Thanks to wikipedia, I now know about the Coolidge Effect.

LAST WEEK'S ANSWERS
1.  Before the mid-1970s, 85% of what industry was controlled by a consortium of American and European companies known as the Seven Sisters?  The Seven Sisters were Gulf, Texaco, Shell, Standard, and the other large petroleum companies of the pre-OPEC era.  computers, steel, oil - lots of oligopolies in that era
2.  The Holy or the Broken is a 2012 book about the history of what song, originally written in 1984 but better known in a series of more recent cover versions?  "The holy or the broken" is a lyric from Leonard Cohen's song "Hallelujah," later popularized by John Cale, Jeff Buckley, and many, many hacky TV drama montages.  an entire book about one song?
3.  What largest tributary of the upper Missouri River, flowing through Montana and Wyoming, is named for the pale color of the sandstone bluffs that line its canyons?  Those cliffs are the "yellow stone" that gave the Yellowstone River its name.  correct
4.  This fall, Ralph Fiennes will play what author in the movie The Invisible Woman, as well as playing the author's character Abel Magwitch in a second film?  Abel Magwitch is the menacing escaped convict in Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens.  correct
5.  What is a person performing his or her "ablutions" doing to him- or herself?  Ablution means "washing."  correct
6.  Since 2005, the world record for fastest men's 100-meters has been owned by runners from what nation?  The two record-holding sprinters are Asafa Powell and Usain Bolt, so the nation, of course, is Jamaica.  correct
7.  Based on what they all have in common, what once-and-future TV show is most obviously missing from this list?  Dark Angel, Ed, The Family Guy, Friday Night Lights, Glee, Joan of Arcadia, Justified, Lost, Oz, Private Practice.  Each of these shows has or had a character in a wheelchair.  Perhaps TV's most famous wheelchair-bound protagonist was Raymond Burr on Ironside, which is being revived by NBC with Blair Underwood.  correct!  But really, is Ironside more famous than Artie from Glee?