Chicago Open 2007
Packet by Kent Buxton and Charles Dees
1. This author’s “The Little Kingdom” centers on a teacher who must win over the leader of his students in order to survive in the classroom, while The Reed Cutter explores a non-sexual ménage a trois. In another novel, a meeting at an art class turns into obsession when an older woman falls in love with a young female student. That work Quicksand was followed by this writer’s rumination on the clash of tradition and technology in architectural design, In Praise of Shadows. The namesake of his first novel is described as having, “Mary Pickford’s smile; Gloria Swanson’s eyes; [and] Bebe Daniels’ suave affectation,” traits that only add to narrator Joji Kawai’s desire to haver her in Naomi. His best-known work is set in Osaka where four siblings must try to negotiate being modern women. For ten points, identify this author of Some Prefer Nettles and The Makioka Sisters.
ANSWER: Junichiro Tanizaki
2. In this work, a lifeguard named James tries to rescue a man played by Mickey Catrell from drowning in a jacuzzi. Catrell appeared in My Own Private Idaho, a movie that James tells a dominatrix named Jennifer Aniston inspired him to be a street hustler. Another character is a “Chinese-Canadian” couples counselor named Sofia, who works with James and his boyfriend. These characters, and many others, all converge on the titular salon, “for the gifted and challenged.” FTP, name this John Cameron Mitchell film starring Paul Dawson, Lindsey Beamish, PJ DeBoy, and Sook-Yin Kim, who was almost fired from her newscasting job with CBC for the film’s explicit sexuality.
ANSWER: Shortbus
3. His name was Chagatai for “iron,” and he died in Shmykent while leading a military expedition against China. Of his sons, Jahangir and Umar Shaykh pre-deceased him, while Miran Shah was mentally deficient, leaving his youngest, Shah Rukh to succeed him. He destroyed the Assyrian Christian majority in northern Iraq, and he defeated Tokhtamysh in a series of campaigns culminating in his sack of Sarai. He defeated Sultan Nasir-u Din Mehmud of Delhi in 1398, and at the Battle of Ankara in 1402 defeated and captured the Ottoman sultan Bayezid I. Ruling from his capital at Samarkand, FTP, name this 14th century warlord, often thought to be the last Mongol conqueror.
ANSWER: Timur Lenk or Tamerlane (or anything with “Timur” in it)
4. Lancelot felt that this man fought more like a giant than a knight, a trait that stood him in good stead during his battle against a man with the strength of seven men. He saved his faithful dwarf from Sir Gringamore after defeating the Black, Green, Puce and Blue Knights, as well as the Red Knight of the Red Lands. He is accompanied on his quest by his future sister-in-law, who scorns him for working under Sir Kay in the kitchen under the nickname Beaumains. FTP name this rescuer of Dame Lionesse, the brother of Agravaine, Gawaine and Gaheris.
ANSWER: Sir Gareth
5. The first section composed was the Liberame, but this now is the closing section of the completed work. Bolognan officials rejected its composer’s original plan of inviting the foremost Italian composers of the day to each contribute a movement to a work commemorating the death of a prominent Italian composer, and work on it was set aside, during which time its composer wrote an E minor string quartet and an opera for the new Cairo theater that celebrated the opening of the Suez Canal. FTP, identify this work initially inspired by the death of Rossini, but ultimately written to commemorate the death of the author of The Bethrothed, a piece by Giuseppe Verdi.
ANSWER: Verdi’s Requiem Mass or Manzoni Requiem (prompt on “Requiem” before Verdi is mentioned)
6. Agrawal’s fitness model supports it by assuming nonrandom interactions, and Summers and Crespi analyzed placental cadherins that exhibit a molecular version of it via green-beard mutations. It tends to not favor recombination in systems that exhibit quasi-linkage equilibrium, but this can be overcome by strong selection pressure. It was originally formulated as an extension to the Law of Extinction by Leigh Van Valen in the paper “A New Evolutionary Law”. Used to explain the evolution of sex, FTP, name this hypothesis that states an organism must continue to evolve simply in order to maintain its current level of relative fitness, named for a character in “Through the Looking Glass”.
ANSWER: Red Queen Hypothesis or Effect
7. He handpicked his two successors, Ali Hassan Mwinyi and Benjamin Mkapa, and remained chairman of his political party, the Chama Cha Mapinduzi, for five years after his formal retirement. Originally a teacher, he turned to politics exclusively after being told by the colonial authorities that he could do one or the other. A pan-Africanist, he provided homes to Mozambique’s FRELIMO and South Africa’s ANC. His stay at Edinburgh University and exposure to Fabian ideas may have influenced the program announced in the Arusha declaration setting forth his program of ujamaa socialism. FTP, name this leader who unified Zanzibar with Tanganyika to form Tanzania.
ANSWER: Julius Kambarage Nyerere
8. He suggests that his concept of “soulness” can be measured in “hunekers” in a 2007 book exploring the nature of self-awareness whose title includes a phenomenon seen in tangled hierarchies. His 2007 book attempts to clarify the thesis of his 1979 book in such chapters as “The Causal Potency of Patterns,” and is titled I Am a Strange Loop. This Professor of Cognitive Science and Computer Science at the University of Indiana won a Pulitzer for his 1979 work that gives as examples of strange loops the print Drawing Hands and the Incompleteness theorem. FTP name this author of Gödel, Escher, Bach.
ANSWER: Douglas Richard Hofstadter
9. It features such historical figures as John Desborough and William Prynne and its penultimate Canto is a dialogue between two politicians about the state of the nation that breaks up the narrative completely. The main story includes meetings with such fictional figures as the fiddler Crowdero and the belligerent Trulla, whom the hero encounters when trying to break up a bear baiting mob. Later the protagonist seeks out the astrologer Sidrophel for advice, but ends up killing him. Eventually he is punished by a gang of citizens that he has wronged. Written in a namesake, deliberately cumbersome, octosyllabic meter, its title character is accompanied throughout by his beleaguered squire Ralpho. For ten points, identify this satire about a vulgar Presbyterian knight, the masterpiece of Samuel Butler.
ANSWER: Hudibras
10. The third-largest city and only major seaport of the state of this name is Salina Cruz, while other major cities include Huajuapan de Leon and Juchitan de Zaragoza. The state is known as the land of the Seven Moles (pron.: Moh-leh), while the city of this name sits at the site of the old Aztec fort of Huaxyaca in the junction of a Y-shaped valley of the same name. San Juan Bautista Tuxtepec is the second-largest city in the state, which borders Puebla and Gurrero to west, Veracruz to the north and Chiapas to the east. The center of the Zapotec civilization and the hometown of Benito Juarez, FTP identify this large southern Mexican state located in the Sierra Madre and its capital of the same name.
ANSWER: Oaxaca
11. This result is closely related to the Gram-Charlier and Edgeworth expansions in terms of cumulants. Lindeberg showed that a weaker condition is sufficient in a variant of this statement that replaces the requirement of identical distributions with the Lyapunov condition on third moments about the mean. The Cauchy distribution does not satisfy the conditions of this theorem, and in fact has a sample variance that is independent of the sample size. FTP, name this theorem stating that any sum of “I I D” random variables converges in distribution to the normal distribution.
ANSWER: Central Limit Theorem or CLT
12. The famous dog, Black, appears in his painting Bacchanal as a representative of pure animality in a scene of explosive sexual violence. Citing an ancient pastoral theme, his The Amorous Shepherd shows a much more peaceful confrontation in which the male woos a lady with a gift of apples. Towards the end of his career he painted a portrait of Ambroise Vollard and a one of his wife at a Conservatory. A notoriously slow worker, it took him seven years to finish his depiction of 14 nude women lounging, The Great Bathers. For Ten Point, name this artist from Aix-en-Provence, a master of still-life, perhaps best known for his various depictions of Mont Sainte-Victoire.
ANSWER: Paul Cézanne
13. The loser’s standard-bearer, Sir Percival Thirwall, did not let the banner fall, even though both of his legs had been cut off. Some historians believe that the battle was fought closer to the villages of Dadlington and Stoke Golding. One of the more important casualties was Thomas Howard, 1st Duke of Norfolk, while real command on the winner’s side rested with John de Vere, 13th Earl of Oxford. Though the battle began well for the loser, the tide turned when Sir William Stanley led his troops into the fray on the side of the winner. FTP identify this battle that saw the end of the house of York when Henry Tudor’s forces defeated Richard III.
ANSWER: Battle of Bosworth Field or Redemore
14. Errors in this process can be treated by using Benzoate and/or phenylbutyrate, and the most common such error sees the buildup of orotic acid in the bloodstream. Its second step is the formation of pyrophosphate and the creation of a citrullyl-AMP intermediate. Its rate-limiting step is allosterically regulated by NAG, and sees the formation of carbamoyl phosphate. The final step is the cleavage of the guanidino side chain of arginine, forming ornithine and the namesake molecule. Taking place in the hepatocytes of the liver, FTP, name this cycle that sees the conversion of ammonium ion into the namesake excretory product.
ANSWER: Urea cycle (Aceept Krebs-Henseleit cycle, but not Krebs cycle)
15. The Two Comforters tells of a woman who has lost her son, while The Ingenu centers on a Prior who adopts a Native American in Brittany. His title characters include Princess Formosante, The Princess of Babylon, and the Scythian Babouc, who decides to spare Persepolis in his namesake story. A prodigious playwright, his settings include Peru in Alzire and Crete in The Laws of Minos, but one of his most popular plays takes place in Messina where Egisthe avenges his father and the titular queen, Merope. Other literary works include his story of the Babylonian hero Zadig and a science fiction tale about two giants visiting earth from outer space, Micromegas. For ten points, identify this French author of such works as Zaire, Letters on the English, and Candide.
ANSWER: Voltaireor Francois Marie Arouet
16. Texts associated with this movement include the Epistle to the Son of the Wolf and the Tablet of the Divine Mariner. One of its central figures had 18 disciples known as the “Letters of the Living,” and its adherents follow a calendar of 19 months of 19 days with the New Year coinciding with Nawruz. It saw the formation of several sects following the death of Shoghi Effendi, but most followers acknowledge the authority of the Universal House of Justice in Haifa. Preaching the unity of mankind, FTP name this religion based on the teachings of the Bab and Baha’u’llah.
ANSWER: Baha’i
17. After his defeat, he was held prisoner at Tullianum for five years. His uncle Gobantio opposed his course of action and expelled him from his native city, Gergovia. At his last battle, the besiegers built two sets of fortifications: one to keep him in and the other to keep the relief armies he summoned out. Earlier, he had won a victory in his most significant campaign at Gergovia, shortly after a 27-day siege in the rain of the tribal capital of Avaricum. FTP, name this leader who unified the Gauls but was defeated and captured by Julius Caesar at Alesia.
ANSWER: Vercingetorix
18. Minor characters in this work include Kongoni and a society columnist whose work is mentioned, but who is never named. During a particularly candid conversation early in the story one of the main characters asserts that he doesn’t talk about his clients at the Mathaiga Club because it is bad form. As it begins, three people decide to have a gimlet and have a discussion about how red their faces get under the sun. However, courteous exchanges soon end after the title figure wakes up at 3 AM to find that his wife is not in the cot beside him. The next morning the protagonist and the guide he now hates, Robert Wilson, head out to shoot water buffalo. For ten points, identify this work that ends with the triumphant title figure being shot in the back by his unfaithful wife Margot, a work by Ernest Hemingway.
ANSWER: “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber”
19. The second time derivative of this quantity is related to the kinetic and Chandrasekhar potential energy tensors by the virial theorem, and the third time derivatives of its trace-free part appear in the equation for the luminosity of gravitational radiation. This tensor quantity’s intermediate eigenvalue corresponds to unstable rotation. In cases where it reduces to a scalar, it is given by the square of the radius of gyration times the mass, and in some cases this quantity can be calculated using Steiner’s parallel axis theorem. FTP name this rotational analog of mass whose product with angular acceleration equals torque.
ANSWER: moment of inertia
20. His short story “The Infra-redioscope” satirized Martian invasion movies, and was included in his book Satan in the Suburbs. He took issue with economic determinism in his 1938 book Power: A New Social Analysis, and he critiqued Victorian sexual customs in Marriage and Morals. He coined the term “logical atomism” in a 1911 paper, and his essay “On Denoting” includes a famous discussion of the phrase “the present King of France.” His development of a theory of types emerged from his discovery of a namesake paradox of set theory, and his belief that mathematics is reducible to logic was explored in his most famous work. For 10 points, identify this philosopher, who, in addition to writing Why I Am Not a Christian, collaborated with Alfred Whitehead on Principia Mathematica.
ANSWER: Bertrand Russell
1. It consists of an iron atom between two cyclopentadienyl molecules. FTPE:
[10] Name this simple sandwich compound.
ANSWER: Ferrocene
[10] Ferrocene undergoes this type of electrophilic aromatic substitution reaction with acetyl chloride in the presence of a phosphoric acid catalyst.
ANSWER: Friedel-Crafts reaction
[10] Complexes like ferrocene obey this rule of thumb for organometallic complexes, which can be considered an extension of the octet rule.
ANSWER: 18-electron rule
2. Answer the following about a literary theme, for ten points each:
[10] Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar’s study about women writers, The Madwoman in the Attic, is named for the insane Bertha Mason, the first wife of Edward Rochester in this Victorian novel.
ANSWER: Jane Eyre
[10] This French author’s play, The Madwoman of Chaillot, focuses on Countess Aurelia whose seemingly erratic behavior allows her to manipulate those in power. He also wrote Eglantine and Amphitryon 38.
ANSWER: Jean Giraudoux
[10] This recurring character is paired “with Jack the Journeyman,” “is on the mountain,” and “talks with the Bishop,” in poetic works by William Butler Yeats.
ANSWER: Crazy Jane
3. Answer the following questions relating to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
[10] As a result of a large sale to the Museum of Modern Art, it took until 1952 for this artist’s 1906, Portrait of Gertrude Stein to make its way back to the Met.
ANSWER: Pablo Picasso
[10] Dated between 1181 and 1190, this artifact was purchased by the Met in 1963 under the advice of future director Thomas Hoving and is the subject of his 1981 book, King of the Confessors. Controversial for its anti-Semitic inscriptions by artist Master Hugo, name this piece located in the Cloisters.
ANSWER: the Bury St. Edmunds Cross
[10] Perhaps the most impressive painting in the Met’s American Hall is this Emanuel Leutze depiction of the first President of the United States fording a certain river.
ANSWER: Washington Crossing the Delaware
4. FTPE, answer the following about American attempts at colonial expansion in the 19th Century:
[10] This 1854 document, repudiated by President Pierce, was a plan for the U.S. to take Cuba by force if Spain refused to sell it.