artcetera

THE WEEKLY QUIZ THAT TESTS YOUR KNOWLEDGE OF THE ARTS

1 What kind of names, according to Stephen Vincent Benet, never get fat?

2 Who was Elias Gotobed?

3 Who was Julian Kay?

4 Who was Alden Pyle?

5 What work, the composer's opus 96, was originally known as the "Negro" or "Nigger" Quartet?

6 What play, first produced in Chicago in 1975, concerns the plans of Don, Bob and Teach to steal what they hope is a valuable coin collection?

ANSWERS:

1 "American Names". In his poem of that title ("I have fallen in love with American names,/ The sharp names that never get fat ..."), Benet favourably compares American place-names with the wimpier European kind, ending with the request to "Bury my heart at Wounded Knee". 2 The American Senator, by Anthony Trollope. 3 The American Gigolo, as played by Richard Gere in the film by Paul Schrader (who said that he took the character's surname from Kafka's Josef K). 4 The Quiet American, in the novel by Graham Greene. 5 Dvorak's String Quartet in F, now known, less offensively, as the "American" Quartet. 6 American Buffalo, by David Mamet.