Word: trivia
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...they had assembled from as far away as Alaska and Hawaii to compete in the Olympic Games of Latin Students, the 24th national J.C.L. competition. An elite group, 95% college bound, the delegates were variously attracted by sheer love of the classics, as well as affection for historic trivia and the fascination of what is difficult. Says Mike LaComb, 19, a St. Lawrence University freshman: "There's a thrill to the exacting form and pattern of the language...
...especially as seen in cushioned escape bubble. But dewy as a debutante ("Oh! James!"). Hard to believe her as dangerous spy. Where are the Honor Blackmans and Diana Riggs of yesteryear? Roger Moore, as Bond, a road-company Sean Connery. At least he's improvement on that instant-trivia question, George Lazenby...
...Ulysses, Joyce's catalogue of facts cohered into a unifying myth., Coover's myth requires the diminution of historical figures into pasteboard grotesques; since that much is clear on the novel's opening pages, Coover's torrent of trivia seems like so much padding along the way to a foregone conclusion. He cannot resist parading his data: a nickname is provided for every U.S. President through Truman, and Betty Crocker, like a public address announcer, introduces the 96 U.S. Senators by name at the execution. He also likes to show off his literary ingenuity...
...birth. But the baby would not wait, so Margaret Allen, a nurse, and Dr. Rodney Cline, a physician, both of whom happened to be aboard the train, delivered the woman's second son. The nurse became the child's godmother, the doctor forevermore the stuff of baseball trivia. Rod was a sickly child who contracted rheumatic fever when he was twelve. His resulting weakness drew his father's alternating scorn and uninterest. His uncle, Joseph French, a recreation official and Little League coach in Panama, became a kind of foster father, taking the boy to ball games...
...that Angell recognizes and celebrates. My favorite essay in the book concerns Max Lapides, Don Shapiro, and Bert Gordon, three middle-aged Jewish diehard fans whose friendship and happiness hinges on the fortunes of the Detroit Tigers. They know literally everything about their team since the '30s--not baseball trivia, as Don explains, because "you can't say 'baseball trivia'...it's a contradiction in terms. It's antithetical." Bert, a realtor in Oak Park, Michigan, keeps two sets of figures on his desk in September, 1973: the number of days remaining in Nixon's term, and AI Kaline...