How Did You Know Chan Stevens?
BY David K. Israel
First, a hearty congrats to all of you who got all the answers correct this month.
Now on with the big news: We have a new champion! Chan Stevens edged out several others, including former champion Katie Wnuk taking this week's How Did You Know?
Congrats and best of luck defending your title next month during the next How Did You Know? Remember: if you can hold onto it for two more months, you'll win our grand prize!
I'll post Chan's answers and logic after the jump, but first a little about our winner:
I graduated from Duke during the Johnny Dawkins era and went through a number of jobs before winding up in my current role as a consultant for a manufacturing software firm. I'm an amateur rocket scientist and was the 2007 national champion of model rocketry. I've been an avid Flosser for many years, and have even hooked my dad and son on MF, thus spanning three generations. I'm a boring nerdy guy with a wife, teenage son, two cars, two dogs, two cats and a rabbit--the perfect profile for HDYK whiz. Having initially tapped my rocket scientist buddies for help, I found them hopelessly inept at identifying music clips and American literature protagonists, so I tapped into my emergency backup special-interest group--independent music fans. Being a devoted WOXY listener for over 20 years, I found the message board community there had been working this month's challenge and this helped me fill in the pieces of the puzzle I couldn't nail on my own. The picture, FWIW, is from about 3 weeks ago when I flew a scale model of a Russian Soyuz TM-11 rocket in a national competition, with a record-setting 17 motor cluster. The model took first place.
--Chan Stevens
The only LETTER that doesn't APPEAR (ape rap) in the NAMEs of the U.S. STATEs is:Â Q
All clips feature music by Moby except clip #4, which references Led Zeppelin's Moby Dick, but no actual music by the artist Moby.
Clip 1 included Moby's Honey
Clip 2 used Moby's James Bond Theme (remix)
Clip 3 used Moby's Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad?
Clip 5 used Moby's Extreme Ways (remix).
Nothing magical about how I solved this one--where the artist/title wasn't referenced on the clip or buried (funky monkey ape rap included flashed "see:connor then hear:Moby Honey"), I was able to hit Amazon's MP3 download site, pull up Moby's track lists (extensive!) and listen to clip previews for matching.
Day 2--Name That Tune
1--Chuck Berry/Johnny B. Goode
2--Jimi Hendrix/Hey Joe
3--Nirvana/Floyd The Barber
4--Steely Dan/Ricky Don't Lose That Number
5--Billy Joel/Movin' Out (Anthony's Song)
6--Paper Lace/Billy Don't Be A Hero
7--ABBA/Fernando
All of these were pretty easy/obvious to me, as I had heard them as a kid and/or on radio. I picked up on the guy's-name-in-title theme after the first couple, which made the solving easier. I had no idea Movin' Out was subtitled Anthony's Song until I Wiki'd it. While I recognized the melody for #6, I had definitely never heard that version, so hopped over to YouTube, which tends to be a favorite MF source, and searched there. That's where I stumbled across the original artist/version. The hardest for me turned out to be #4. The guitar sounded vaguely familiar, but I was locked into thinking it was an 80's hair band or something along those lines. I polled an online forum of model rocketeers (I'm one) hoping it might register with them, but the only feedback I got was "maybe Nirvana". I also forwarded it to a DJ on an awesome indie rock webcaster (WOXY), who also struck out but commented that the grunting at the end was subdued enough to suggest grunge, not hair band. Having nothing else to do, I hit Amazon again, filtered for Nirvana, then scanned the list for anything that included a man's name in the title. That narrowed it down to Floyd the Barber pretty quickly.
Day 3--Movies all have a state name in their title
1--Indiana Jones & The Temple of Doom
2--My Own Private Idaho
3--Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
4--Kentucky Fried Movie
5--Texas Chain Saw Massacre
This one struck me as a bit hard. I knew the first was an Indy Jones flick, but not which one. Googled the phrase "This is serious" and Indiana Jones, got the match. I also knew #5 for sure, having seen it a few times. That put the theme in my head of state name in title, which helped me nail #2, since it was on a list I found via googling "movies with state's names in their title", making someone's top-10 list. I had enough Spanish to know #3 had "what a dump" in it, but got sidetracked thinking that was Bette Davis, and the actress in the clip was definitely not Bette Davis. I think after a few bumbled searches on YouTube I noticed the snapshot preview on a clip that matched the actress, saw that it was from Virginia Woolf, and knew that had to be it. I suppose Kentucky Fried Movie would have been obvious to anyone who had seen it, and I'm sad to say I am not among that devoted cult, though the clip looked hilarious and I've rented it. More YouTube searching for state names that were NOT likely to return a bazillion clips, like New Mexico (I was trying my darnedest to link Superstition, NM to the pair on the motorcycle from #2!).
Day 4--Books/buried characters
#1--Holden Caulfield/Catcher in the Rye. Holden attended Pencey Prep. Pency Prep recorded Heartbreak In Stereo.
#2--Hester Prynne/Scarlet Letter. The narrator worked as a surveyor for Custom House.
#3--Leopold Bloom/Ulysses--Ulysses is Latin name for Odysseus, who is the central character in Homer's Odyssey.
#4--Mickey Sabbath/Sabbath's Theater. Sabbath was a retired puppeteer.
#5--Jay Gatsby/The Great Gatsby. Sigourney Weaver changed her name to Sigourney) after the Great Gatsby character.
#6--Youssarian/Catch 22. Catch-22 is the popular phrase for being in a double bind/no-win situation.
In looking for help with the Name That Tune Nirvana clip, I found a message board thread started on WOXY centered around the HDYK challenge for this month. I joined in, sharing my answers. Glad I did, as I found this one to be a huge challenge. I had read about half the list, but for whatever reason picking the names out of those letters is just not my thing. The WOCY team was picking these up faster than I could figure them out, though on a few struggled to make the connection back to the clues. Lots of banging on Wiki for some of that trivia, such as to learn Sigourney Weaver's inspiration for her name change, and that the first narrator in Scarlet Letter was a surveyor for Custom House, which I'd totally forgotten. Googled "Heartbreak in Stereo" in desperation, found it was recorded by Pencey Prep, then noticed on Wiki that was the school Holden had just graduated from. Heck, finding the characters would probably have been easier WTHOUT the clues, though tying the answers back to them was certainly fun.
Day 5--The only LETTER that doesn't APPEAR (ape rap) in the NAME of the U.S. STATE's is "Q"
Chan Stevens