Skeleton Trivia for Thursday, 2024-08-08
I would like to note that the Sphinx’s riddle failed to account for the development of wheelchairs
Hi Skeleton Crew,
It’s the Thursdayist Thursday that ever Thursdayed! OK, maybe that’s overstatin’ things. But still, it’s definitely Thursday!!
Anyways, let’s get a move on with these here trivias.
Answers to Last Time
A chimera’s an organism with cells from two different zygotes.
Hydra’s the group a’ evil nasties that shows up in all the Marvel things.
The chimera ’n’ the hydra are both critters from Greek mythology; more specifically, they’re both the offspring a’ Typhon ’n’ Echidna, who’re respectively known as the father ’n’ mother a’ monsters. Those two definitely earned their titles, seein’ as how they had a buncha other notable kiddos ya probably know ’bout, includin’ Cerberus ’n’ Scylla ’n’ the Sphinx.
Today’s Trivias
Trivia 1
Didja ever hear the riddle a’ the Sphinx?
Now, I don’t mean that whole “what’s got four legs in the mornin’, two legs durin’ the day, three legs at night?” nonsense. Nah, the riddle I’M curious about is: who the heck chopped off her nose??
I know some folks think Napoleon’s troops shot it off in the 1790s. But as easy as it’d be to blame that li’l guy, I can say for sure it wasn’t him: I’d noticed the nose was missin’ as early as my visit to Egypt back in the 15th century! I was there to visit my historian pal al-Maqrīzī, who blamed it on some random wanderin’ ascetic ... but if ya ask me, the guilty party was folks from what Egyptian sultanate that ruled from the 13th to 16th centuries? It was the successor state to the Ayyubids, an’ its name comes from its ruling caste a’ freed slave-soldiers.
Trivia 2
The most famous answerer a’ the Sphinx’s riddle was, a’ course, Oedipus Rex. (That means “Oedipus the King” in case ya were curious.)
That story (i.e., Oedipus + the Sphinx) kinda shows up everywhere ... but for some reason the specific instance that comes to mind for me right now is Jean Cocteau’s play La Machine Infernale. (That means The Infernal Machine, in case ya were curious.) I had the luck to see when it premiered back in 1934, which I guess is how the play lodged itself in my memory. Though my French wasn’t so good back in those days, so I can’t say I caught the half a’ what they were sayin’. But it SEEMED pretty good!!
“OK, fun story Mr. S,” I hear youse all sayin’. But where am I goin’ with all this, ya maybe wanna know?
Well, another Cocteau thing that I have trouble gettin’ outta my cranium is what novel that he wrote? It’s a real downer of a story that follows the siblings Paul ’n’ Elisabeth as they grow up from an unhappy childhood into an unhappy adolescence ’n’ then finally an unhappy adulthood.
The title usually gets translated as The Holy Terrors, in case ya were curious. Although arguably it doesn’t need translatin’ at all, since the phrase shows up in most reasonable English dictionaries, e.g. Merriam-Webster, which defines it (in the singular) as “a person whose unconventional or controversial behavior or ideas shock, embarrass, or annoy others”.
OK then
Byeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee