Mercury's Musings

1. The film Casablanca takes place in which nation? ANSWER: Morocco 2. The word yoga originates in which ancient language? ANSWER: Sanskrit 3. Gros Michel and Cavendish are varieties of which fruit? ANSWER: Banana 4. Bruce Banner is the alter ego of which Marvel character? ANSWER: The Hulk 5. Quetzalcoatl, Tlaloc, and Tezcatlipoca are deities in which Mesoamerican culture? ANSWER: Aztec 6. Which Hungarian-American newspaper publisher lends his name to an annual set of awards given by Columbia University in honor of journalism, photography, and several other categories? ANSWER: Joseph Pulitzer 7. Great White and Hammerhead are species of which type of carnivorous fish? ANSWER: Shark 8. In 2021, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that his company would henceforth be known as Meta. What was the name of his company before? ANSWER: Facebook 9. Archie Bunker is the patriarch on which American TV series (1971-1979), adapted from BBC1 series Till Death Us Do Part? ANSWER: All in the...

 As I mentioned previously on this blog, I have taken to writing various quizzes for Wikiquiz.org (https://wikiquiz.org/quizzes.php). For posterity's sake, I plan to begin posting questions and answers from my various quizzes on this blog after the quiz has completed. Here is the first general knowledge quiz I wrote for the site. 1.  The name of which geologic period, which directly precedes the Cretaceous, comes from a sub-alpine range which straddles the French-Swiss border? ANSWER: JURASSIC 2. The horns of a rhinoceros are made primarily of which protein, which also composes human hair and fingernails? ANSWER: KERATIN 3. Which NL East team won the 2021 MLB World Series, marking their first world series win since 1995? ANSWER: Atlanta Braves 4. In Greek myth, Oedipus kills which mythological creature after answering a riddle about the ages of man? ANSWER: The Sphinx 5. Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, popularly known as AMLO, is the current President of what nation? ANSWER: MEXI...

 "Music from Big Pink" is the debut studio album of The Band, who had earlier served as the backing band to Bob Dylan during his famous "going electric" tour. The songs were mostly written while the band was living together in a remote house in upstate New York affectionately known as 'Big Pink.' Knowing little about the album other than its 1968 release date, I came in fully expecting a psychedelic, LSD-infused odyssey; I was somewhat pleasantly surprised to be completely wrong in my expectation.  The album is instrumentally pretty bare-bones, and has a really folksy, small-scale vibe. It took me a few listens to get the hang of the album- I was initially very thrown by album opener "Tears of Rage," which plays like a funeral dirge, every measure feeling more weighed down and melancholic than the last. However, upon repeat listens, I came to enjoy the ambience and totally downbeat nature of the song. My favorite song on the album is probably eithe...