Hiya Skeleton Crew,

Sorry for goin silent there for a bit: I kinda lost track of time while I was out there in the Goetic Swale of Malphas. (That’s what those weird haunted woods’re officially called, turns out! Took me a li’l while^[1] to find the visitors’ center.)

Anyways, one thing I forgot to mention to youse all last week is that that was the last week of Season 32 here at the Trivia Zone. Sorry for not givin ya more of a heads up! But the upshot’s that I’m gonna be on break for a bit.

How long? Well, uh … I ain’t exactly 100% sure on that one there. We prob’ly won’t have regular trivias again till … mmm, hold on, lemme check my calendar …

Till after the winter holidays???

Ah jeez, that seems real dang far away, don’t it?

Well, it is what it is. So I guess I’ll be on vacay till January 2027. But heck, I might send out the occasional li’l whatsit every now & again, just to letcha all know I’m still alive & kickin.

While I’ve gotcha on the line, lemme fill ya in on last time’s answers:

Answers to Last Time

• Reptiles of the subfamily Crotalinae are called pit vipers on account of the infrared-sensin pits they’ve got on their heads there.
• The U.N. Building, the Griffith Observatory, & the Musée des Arts et Métiers have all got themselves Foucault pendulums – or is that pendula, I guess? Eh, whatever. They’re swingin back & forth, that’s the important thing.

The pit & the pendulum, get it? Not a terrible way to wrap up the spooky season!

I ain’t gonna officially go through the Season 32 mateys right now – though no one’s stoppin ya from peepin the Leaderboard at mister dot skeletontrivia dot com if ya really wanna see ’em.

Instead, the only other order of business I got for ya is this trivia thing I found in the ol’ Airstream after I exited the Swale.^[2] It was just lyin there on the floor, written on a piece of parchment in impossibly perfect handwritin. Go figure!

Anyway, it’s askin ’bout a buncha stuff I ain’t ever heard of. But maybe youse guys can figure it out? Might be a fun way to pass the time, at any rate.

Trivia 1

In an effort to boost morale, the Army has begun issuing spiritually uplifting memoirs in troops’ ration kits. A particular favorite is what offering of cheese tortellini (or shredded BBQ beef, or lemon pepper tuna) paired with Elizabeth Gilbert’s 2006 post-divorce memoir?

Trivia 2

Beck’s music is known for being experimental and idiosyncratic, but is it dangerous? That’s how some superfans describe, in hushed tones, what unreleased track from Odelay that incorporates samples from an obscure sex education album that Beck supposedly retrieved from the cyclopean ruins of an impossibly ancient city hidden in the furthest reaches of Antarctica.

Trivia 3

What short film was a co-production between George Lucas, Walt Disney Imagineering, and the estate of Walt Whitman? Directed by Francis Ford Coppola and shot in immersive “4-D”, this historical fiction film follows Michael Jackson as a lightly fictionalized version of Abraham Lincoln.

Trivia 4

Boyz II Men and INXS teamed up to produce what mashup between their chart-topping singles (released in 1994 and 1987, respectively)? The music video features an apparently repentant kickboxer delivering a surprise strike on their erstwhile lover.

Trivia 5

Speaking of music videos: the video for what posthumously released single shows the Notorious B.I.G. crossing the Øresund strait while Mase and Puff Daddy perform in a tunnel filled with swirling kronor?

Trivia 6

Although video game heroes Rash, Zitz, and Pimple are no strangers to the use of bar seating as improvised weaponry, that’s not actually the premise behind what entry of a long-running beat-’em-up franchise, which instead follows the heroes as they explore the strange and exciting world of mycotoxicology?

Trivia 7

What novel, a postmodernist sequel to a postmodernist prequel, follows the exploits of a Yankees Hall-of-Fame pitcher and member of the “Black Aces” who must cross an Atlantic Ocean gyre in a mission to rescue Bertha Antoinetta Rochester from her confinement in Thornfield Hall?

Trivia 8

After years of traveling around the U.S. and being appalled at the inaccessibility of affordable fresh produce in low-income neighborhoods, Travel Channel host Adam Richman (and later, Casey Webb) works with local entrepreneurs on what show to set up local grocery stores and farmers’ markets?

Trivia 9

After enduring extraordinary hardship on the ill-fated Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, its leader set out to ensure that no explorer would ever find themselves in a situation without the ability to call for help. To this end, he founded what eponymous retail chain? It later enjoyed many decades of success as a subsidiary of the Tandy Corporation, but eventually foundered in the 21st century and filed for bankruptcy in the 2010s.