Complete this expression of amazement from Dr. Francis Collins of the National Institutes of Health, “I don’t often pick up a scientific paper and find myself getting chills, as I did when I saw _______________.”
Send your answer by 5 p.m. ET Sunday to news_quiz@hotmail.com.
Wednesday’s Question (No. 346)–“Solid Goldberg”:
While introducing President Clinton at a Beverly Hills dinner Tuesday, Whoopi Goldberg recalled a disturbing question one of her granddaughters recently asked. “This was kind of chilling, because it wasn’t even like I could say, ‘No, no, it’s not going to happen.’ ” What was the question?
“Hey, Grandma, how the fuck did you fool Mike Nichols so badly?”–Larry Amoros
“Are you going to let Andy Dick baby-sit for us again?”–Adam Bonin
“Are rampaging anarchists ever going to ransack our neighborhood Starbucks?”–Peter Carlin
“Could Bruce Vilanch write even more musical numbers into next year’s Oscars?”–Matt Sullivan (Tim Carvell and Larry Amoros had similar answers.)
“Gramma, the kids at school say that one day, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is going to come to your home and demand the return of the Oscar (TM) you won for Ghost, citing the poor quality of your performances in Eddie, The Associate, Boys on the Side and, to be perfectly honest here, Ghost. Is that true?”–Tim Carvell
Click for more answers.
Randy’s Retribution in Lieu of an Actual Wrap-Up
Because Slate’s worthless e-mail provider is displaying its characteristic incompetence (surely not treachery–that would suggest paranoia on my part and determination and skill on theirs–not likely), I received no reader responses to today’s quiz, except a few that slipped through enemy lines, and those using a back channel I’d rather not discuss. (I can say that my neighbors are pretty annoyed at the pebbles inadvertently flung at their windows.) However, I have been given the usual meaningless reassurances that this problem will be corrected shortly. Complaints can be sent directly to Critical Path. But not by e-mail.
Gold Rush to Judgment Answer
The granddaughter asked if she might get killed at school.
Presumably this was an inquiry into the possibilities of gun violence and not a request for the sweet release that death can bring from irksome relatives.
Whoopi told this moving personal anecdote at an event marking the sixth anniversary of the Brady Bill. In his after-dinner remarks, President Clinton said: “Screw it. Go on and shoot each other if you want to. What the hell do I care? I’m a lame duck. With a big butt.” No, no, of course he didn’t. That’s just the rum cake talking. If there was rum cake. How should I know? I wasn’t there. Unlike Dweezil Zappa and Gregory Peck. What the president said was, “No one believes America is as safe as it should be or can be. Or as tidy, I am not adding.”
“We should not … be speechless when our children say, ‘Am I going to make it to Christmas?’ ” said Goldberg. “We should give them an honest answer: not if you keep asking these phony-baloney movie-of-the-week questions,” she untidily failed to add.
Ought To Biography Extra
Participants were asked for the title of a much needed but unwritten autobiography of any national political figure.
“Seven Years in Tibetia, by George W. Bush.”–Tim Carvell
“I’ve Finally Made Up My Mind To Run, by Mario Cuomo.”–David Salzman
“George W.’s Yes, I Can: My Dad Said!“–Larry Amoros
“Boris Yeltsin’s The Good Old Days, a memoir of the 3.7 ailment-free afternoons.”–Mary Fee
“Teddy Kennedy’s Shoulda, Woulda, Coulda.”–Jennifer Rubin
“Tuesdays With Malcolm (The Rest of the Week With Mom, Because Dad Was off Hanging Out With His ‘Motorcycle Club’), by Steve Forbes.”–Tim Carvell
Adam Bonin’s David Foster Wallace collection
Infinite Jest, by Pat Buchanan
Brief Interviews With Hideous Men, by Ken Starr
Girl With Curious Hair, by Hillary Clinton
The Broom of the System, by Alan Greenspan
A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again, by William J. Clinton
Click for more books.
Common Denominator
Exasperation with Critical Path, Slate’s worthless e-mail provider.
