trivia

Good morning, Columbia! It's Charlie Chaplin's 126th birthday today—how about honoring him by walking with splayed feet and not talking all day? If that isn't your cup of tea, why not just read the Wake Up Call instead?

In a new Spectrum video entitled "Orli on the Steps," our very own Associate Spectrum Editor Orli Matlow takes to College Walk, putting students to the test on the most cutting-edge Columbia trivia to date. Inspired as a "loving rip-off" of Fuse's quiz show "Billy on the Street," Orli offers single dollar bills as an incentive for students to correctly answer community-relevant questions such as "Name three old white men," and "Consulting or finance?" In their own right, it's safe to say each interviewee (even the reluctant, probably out-of-earshot folks on the second level of Ferris) aced the test. For fresh, candid on-campus humor delivered just in time before the weather goes south, check out Orli's adventures below!

The Romantic hero of Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights shares what name with a sweater-adorned sitcom patriarch? Page six of what New York newspaper anagrams ironically to "honest typework?" The answer to the universe, now retired, was worn by what major league baseball star? If your pulse is quickening because you know the answers, if you're into craft beer and colorful socks, and you find yourself bugging people with "fun facts" then perhaps "Ask Me Another" is up your alley (or down by your canal—this is Gowanus, people). National Public Radio (NPR)'s first new show in five years, set to air next month, is an evening of puzzles, pop trivia, and word play. The show has now sold-out, but email your answers to the opening quiz questions to arts@columbiaspectator.com for your chance to win two tickets to one of the remaining tapings (April 16 or April 25). Find out more after the jump.more Taped weekly at The Bell House in Brooklyn (149 7th Street, RFG trains to 4th/9th stop), it regularly features puzzle writers Art Chung and John Chaneski, Internet sensation Jonathan Coulton—the one-man band with his own cruise. It's hosted by Ophira Eisenberg—recently featured in a New York Times article about the new tale-telling talent rocking the comedy scene. Every seat is taken with a few people standing, but the space doesn't feel cramped. The audience is filled mostly with 20 to 30-year-olds, a large part of who file over from neighboring Park Slope. There's a full bar to the left of the stage ("You're drinking on a Monday, I know what kind of people you are," Eisenberg welcomes the audience) and most nights there is a pulled pork sandwich stand outside the theater doors, with a veggie option available. A massive landscape painting hangs behind the bar—"clearly a rustic modernism choice of décor" my seat neighbor informs me. Despite weekly "mystery guests" like John Hodgman and Simon Doonan it is largely contestant-based, and it is these guests that make the show. Luckily for "Ask Me Another," its New York base is filled with fascinating, funny characters with quirky day jobs. There are roughly eight contestants per episode, and just last Monday, April 2, the pool included a Museum of the City of New York curator, an Australian mother on vacation in New York, and two cousins (unbeknownst to the organizers who paired them to compete with each other). Don't forget to email your answers to the opening quiz questions to arts@columbiaspectator.com for your chance to win two tickets to one of the remaining tapings!

Members of the class of 2017 try their hand at some Columbia trivia questions on Tuesday. Find out how they did, and maybe even learn a thing or two.

I have some trouble with end-of-September staleness. Something about the process of my once wide-open calendar being populated by recurrent events and punctuated by deadlines immediately evokes the feeling of mid-semester monotony. Too soon, it seems like we'll get to the place in the year when pathways to and from class have become beaten and seat choices Pavlovian. There's nothing inherently wrong with this routine—in fact, it allows us to order our lives with an almost intuitive logic—however, often, it feels like possibilities for change are all the more easily excluded. That mid-semester stride, once hit, seems to be an affirmation that our lives are set to remain largely set, at least tonally, in stone for the remainder of the semester. Sometime during this week of possibilities a group of friends and I decided, mostly on a whim and under the guise of experiencing an oft-referenced Columbia tradition, to try 1020's Tuesday-night trivia. As proof of a total lack of serious commitment to the game (should I say sport?), we ambled in as Round 1 was ending, perching on the pool table. However, by the end of the next hour, I had somehow become some sort of trivia monster who spoke under her breath in urgent whispers and was impossibly proud of any '90s rock songs I had managed to inexplicably remember. My interest in researching community at trivia night was rooted in trying to find out why people who had joined the cult of trivia were so enthusiastic about it. I came away with an answer far sooner than I thought I would. Despite my trepidation regarding routine, ritual has a pretty impressive way of bonding. Seeing the same group of people on an appointed day or time allows us to rely on their presence, even passively. Nonetheless, it's worthwhile to deconstruct for a moment what elements of my new weekly exercise make it so appealing. Most obviously, competition is a great bonder. I've never played a team sport, nor have I competed in anything purely for recreation, so to some degree I've typically understood competition more along the lines of deeply specific and personal interactions. Team-based competition is a whole different game. Everyone brings a strength to the table, whether it be an intimate knowledge of the original Mortal Kombat game or having a backlog of old Oscar winners. What may have been relegated to some subconscious backlog can render one an expert of a given niche. The moment when you are the only one at your table—perhaps even the whole bar—with the answer, seems to justify the pursuit of knowledge solely for the joy of curiosity. The especially sweet victories accomplish this with topics particularly close to your heart. In addition, participating in the tradition of Tuesday-night trivia has given me a feeling of being part of a circuit all of a sudden, a club that no one lists their participation in. The same team names appear week after week—the more we hear them, the bigger our sudden rivalry. Every Tuesday, more or less this same group of people from anywhere around the area gathers—with a fair share of interlopers—and all occupy a collective space. Trivia Paul, the master of ceremonies, even has a mailing list for the die-hard among us, keeping a collective memory of scores over six-week periods. But, it seems that trivia's true beauty is that it has created a community around something completely unimportant. Rather than the usual parties of the weekend, we've all gathered together under the umbrella of mutual interest. Trivia seems so pure because it is just that: trivial. For those two hours, we're forced to commit a whole chunk of our time to a non-academic, non-résumé billable, and not-for-social-good moment. Moreover, it's rare that answers ever come because you learned them for a test—it's just something you picked up along the way. Our group changes and grows every week. The assortment of individuals isn't determined by where you lived freshman year or what your interests or major are—they're friends who can make it, people we wish we saw more, people we'd like to get to know better. For two hours, we have the pleasure of drinking beer and celebrating our bizarre collective knowledge. Salonee Bhaman is a Columbia College junior majoring in history. Points of Connection runs alternate Tuesdays.