JAQR - May 18, 2025
Ancient Persian kings, Naomi Klein & Naomi Wolf, hyperthyroidism, James Cromwell, Styx, Il trovatore, William Butler Yeats, and more...
Thank you for reading another issue of the Jeopardy Answer & Question Recap, or JAQR [“jacker”] for short. This recap includes at least one clue from each Jeopardy! episode between Monday 5/12 and Friday 5/16. The recap includes some Triple Stumpers and several Daily Doubles. There’s also questions about material from last week and Bonus Clues about long ago covered topics. The first half of the recap includes just the clues so you can quiz yourself if you want. The second half gives you some (hopefully) interesting information about the clues and/or some related info.
TRIPLE STUMPER #1
ANCIENT PERSIA
Handel's 1738 opera "Serse" tells the story of this great Persian king who burned much of Athens after winning at Thermopylae
TRIPLE STUMPER #2
BESTSELLING NONFICTION
The idea of a double self informs this memoir by Naomi Klein, a "Trip into the Mirror World" of being confused with Naomi Wolf
TRIPLE STUMPER #3
THE NAME ON THE DISEASE
Named for Robert from Dublin, this disease causes hyperthyroidism & patients can experience vision loss
DAILY DOUBLE #1
IT AIN'T SHAKESPEARE
Denmark is the setting for many of the stories in her 1942 book "Winter's Tales"
DAILY DOUBLE #2
MOVIE & SONG, SAME TITLE
James Cromwell & Styx
DAILY DOUBLE #3
OPERA
This iconic chorus from Act II of "Il trovatore" can actually use a hammer striking the blacksmith tool for which it's named
DAILY DOUBLE #4
KNIVES OUT
Referees in this sport carry a knife called a tanto, to symbolize their willingness to commit seppuku if they make a bad call
DAILY DOUBLE #5
BOOK TITLE TATTLE
The opening line of William Butler Yeats' "Sailing to Byzantium" provided the title for this Cormac McCarthy novel
LAST WEEK RECAP #1
What 1983 novel by John le Carré centers on an Israeli spymaster who uses an English actress to get to a Palestinian terrorist?
LAST WEEK RECAP #2
In what 1948 comedy western does Bob Hope play the blundering dentist Peter "Painless" Potter and sings “Buttons and Bows,” while Jane Russell plays Calamity Jane, who is tasked with trying to capture a gunrunner?
BONUS CLUE #1
IT'S YOUR DIAMOND ANNIVERSARY
Club Med began in 1950 in Alcúdia on this 1,400-square-mile Spanish island
BONUS CLUE #2
A BARREL OF MONKEYS
Aka the Chilean pine, an evergreen of South America is known as this for its sharp, scaly foliage that makes it hard to climb
BONUS CLUE #3
20th CENTURY SONG, 21st CENTURY AD
What makes you think of Kerrygold butter? Naturally, this band's "I Want You To Want Me"
BONUS CLUE #4
NATIONAL MONUMENTS
Also called "great gray horn" & "bear's tipi", this site in the western U.S. was made a national monument in 1906
TRIPLE STUMPER #1
ANCIENT PERSIA
Handel's 1738 opera "Serse" tells the story of this great Persian king who burned much of Athens after winning at Thermopylae
***XERXES***
Persian king Xerxes I (also known as Xerxes the Great) was born around 519 BCE. His father was King Darius I (also known as Darius the Great), and his mother was Queen Atossa (daughter of Cyrus the Great). Xerxes I served as king from 486–465 BCE. His entourage encouraged him to seek revenge for his father's lost to the Greeks in 490 BCE at the Battle of Marathon. He made military preparations for three years before launching an invasion of Greece in 480 BCE. The prep included building a bridge across the Hellespont (now known as the Dardanelles Strait). After a storm destroyed the cables of the bridge, Xerxes order his men to whip the Hellespont three hundred times. A second attempt to build a pontoon bridge was successful.
The invasion of Greece included battles at Thermopylae (victory over Leonidas), Salamis (loss to Themistocles despite the efforts of his female naval commander Artemisia), and Plataea (another loss). His failed invasion led to the decline of the Persian Empire (also known as the Achaemenid Empire). He was assassinated in 465 BCE by Artabanus, one of his ministers. He was succeeded by Artaxerxes I, who was his son with Amestris. Xerxes I is the title character of Handel's 1738 opera Serse, whose title character sings the aria "Ombra mai fu" (meaning “Never was a shade” and also known as “Handel's Largo”) to a plane tree. He was played by the Brazilian actor Rodrigo Santoro in the 2007 movie 300, which was directed by Zack Snyder and based on a Frank Miller comic book series.
TRIPLE STUMPER #2
BESTSELLING NONFICTION
The idea of a double self informs this memoir by Naomi Klein, a "Trip into the Mirror World" of being confused with Naomi Wolf
***DOPPLEGANGER***
The activist Naomi Klein was born in Montreal in 1970. She wrote the 1999 book No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies, which criticized the marketing practices of global corporations, especially Nike. She included several anti-globalization essays in her 2002 work Fences and Windows. Her 2007 book The Shock Doctrine critiqued neoliberal economics, Milton Friedman, and the Chicago School of Economics. The book discusses “disaster capitalism” and how several national governments have used crises to push through controversial policies. In her 2014 book This Changes Everything, she argued that capitalism must be abolished in order to solve the climate crisis. The book popularized the term Blockadia, which is "a roving transnational conflict zone . . . wherever extractive projects are attempting to dig and drill." She wrote about the Trump administration in the 2017 book No Is Not Enough, which rejects the idea that billionaires can solve problems on a global scale. She discussed her support of the Green New Deal in the 2019 essay collection On Fire.
Naomi Wolf, who was born in San Francisco in 1962, is a feminist author turned conspiracy theorist. Her first book was The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women (1991), which discusses how many modern women are obsessed with unrealistic physical perfection. The book was a key work of third-wave feminism, but did contain some questionable stats (e.g. it claimed 150,000 women died each year from anorexia). Wolf’s other books include The End of America (2007) and Vagina: A New Biography (2012). More recently, she claimed that the U.S. military was importing Ebola with the intent of spreading it (to justify a military takeover), and spread COVID vaccine misinformation (e.g. they cause female infertility).
TRIPLE STUMPER #3
THE NAME ON THE DISEASE
Named for Robert from Dublin, this disease causes hyperthyroidism & patients can experience vision loss