The Wombat File Is Yours to Keep

Welcome, friends. Welcome to the most satisfyingly pointless end-of-year event you could possibly be a part of. The Quizmaculately Ultimate International Zuperfest. Let the Q.U.I.Z. begin!

(We've been talking it up for some time, but just to bring those of you who've been actually involved with the real world up to speed, we do a Quiz thing every Friday, and for the third year in a row, this is our multi-week tourney of skull-softening "trivia." Join us, won't you? It's weirdly addictive, like wasabi peas dipped in caffeine, DMT, and ginkgo-bilboa.)

Now, as this year's competition attempts to advance world harmony by fostering co-operation, those of you kind enough to indicate your desire to participate have been divided (for the first time in this history of the Quiz) into teams. Our four squads are, at the time of this writing:

The Whiskey Rebellion
Boxjam, Bootsy, Hackly, & Jonathan

Bob Hope's Your Uncle
Herbivorous, James, & Shannon

The Dependent Clauses
Scraps, Josh, & Bruce

The Ipso Factoids
Gavin, Rachel, & Art

Note: teams are free to reject these lame names in favor of better ones.

Late-starting prospective players -- let me know as soon as you can and you can still be hooked up with one of these fine outfits. I realize that the Whiskey Rebellion has an extra player right now, but that's because Bootsy and Hackly report that their relationship is hanging by a thread, and if they're forced now to compete against one another, it'll mean Fracture v. Fracture and poor little JoJo will blame me for her broken home. Hopefully, we'll even up the personnel issues as latecomers join the fun.

On to the RULES AND REGULATIONS. (If they look familiar, it's 'cause I lifted them from last year, mostly.)

The unimaginative goal: answer (as a team) correctly, earn points, acquire greatest number of points, celebrate victory and enjoy fleeting moment of satisfaction.

Teams will communicate via email and pick their answers, then send along. I will share with each team the email addresses of their teammates, only. Please, no network marketing to your teammates. It spoils concentration.

Please send all answers (and quiz-related correspondence) to

bt AT wombatfile DOT com

with the word "quiz" in the subject line. That last bit is important, as I will only be looking for answers in a filtered folder. Please choose ONE person on your team to submit the answers. If I get competing answers sent to me I will consider them all null until a final, authoritative answer is submitted.

Deadlines: the full-credit deadline for ROUND ONE (see the ten questions just below) is 12:01 AM EST Wednesday December 13. All correct answers received by that time will receive full credit. Early Wednesday will post a set of Helpful Clues for each thought-destroyer. There will be a second, post-clue deadline for answers of 12:01 AM Friday, December 15. In other words, you've got a chance to use the clues to get closer to any question that stumped you. All answers (or changes to previous answers) sent after the clues are posted will get half-credit.

You may submit some answers before the first deadline, and hold others until after the clues, and there is no penalty for changing your answer, although any changes made post-clue take your possible points for that question down to 1/2. Your final answer is the one you are stuck with. Please be sure you're clear about which is your final.

General prohibitions and good sportsmanship: You're on your honor, here, just as in the Friday quizzes. No Googling in pursuit of the answers, and no trips to the reference shelf, the reading room, or that pile of old Popular Mechanics in the den. Points acquired by playing fast and loose with this rule will be with you on the day of judgment, in the form of life-size lead wombats piled onto the bad side of the karmic scale.

Also, use the comments for general trash-talking, boasting, and witty rejoinders, but under no circumstances should you be offering hints to other players, should you have figured out any of the answers. Pain of disqualification, etc. (If you want a question clarified, feel free to email. If a serious emendation of the question is mandated, I'll make sure it goes in the comments).

There are, of course, 2007 points to be scored (although lightning rounds along the way may yet add some additional bonus opportunities -- stay tuned). And the rounds will go something like this:

Round One: Hell's Belles Lettres -- 400 points
Round Two: The Past, our Duchy -- 500 points
Round Three: This World Over and Over -- 500 points
Round Four: The Rag and Bone Shop of the Quiz -- 607 points

All set? All right. Here are:

ROUND ONE -- HELL'S BELLES LETTRES

1. Collected for his book of tales in 1634 by the Italian writer Giambattista Basile, and appearing there as "Gagliuso," this narrative involves a disinherited child, an imposter aristocrat, and in the end, a loyalty test in the form of a faked death. A version of the story was committed to animation by Walt Disney in 1922, and a live-action version starring Christopher Walken was released in 1988. By what English title is this story known? 80 points

2. From one of the first exchanges in Eleanor H. Porter's bestselling novel of 1913:

"Well, really, Nancy, just because I happened to have a sister
who was silly enough to marry and bring unnecessary children into
a world that was already quite full enough, I can't see how I
should particularly WANT to have the care of them myself.

"However, as I said before, I hope I know my duty. See that you
clean the corners, Nancy," she finished sharply, as she left the
room.

There have been multiple big screen and television adaptations of the book, and Parker Brothers sold a game based on the book from 1915 to 1967. The title of the book has passed into popular culture as an expression used by people otherwise unfamiliar with the book itself. What was the title? 80 points

3. The publishing house of Simon & Schuster was founded with the publication of this collection in 1924, which became one of the bestselling non-fiction books of the year. It was also the very first collection of its kind published. What was it a collection of? 80 points

4. Known by a surname that he altered slightly from his birth name, he was variously a merchant of hosiery, wool and wine. He once imported a shipment of civet cats to make perfume, but they were seized with his other assets when he went for the first time into debt. He was exiled for his political activities, and after three years returned to his native country, taking up a post as a collector of tarriffs on glass bottles. A few years afterward, however, he commenced what became a productive writing career, and in his mid-forties published his first book, The Storm, a nonfiction account of a deadly hurricane which claimed thousands of lives in his native land. He is, however, best known for the works of fiction he published in the following years. What is his (altered) name? 80 points

5. The most popular novel of 1926 was John Erskine's The Private Life of Helen of Troy. The No. 2 bestseller was the tale of the rapid rise of a girl from Arkansas. It was penned by a female screenwriter and playwright who had at one point written the subtitles for D.W. Griffith's silent epic Intolerance. It became an overnight sensation, translated into 14 languages including Chinese. A musical version hit broadway in 1926, and a silent movie version came out in 1928. A version was made with sound more than two decades later, and that version is the one most people now remember. What was the title? 80 points