PB2016: Will's Questions (Painting, Religion, Music, etc.)

[naan/steak-holding toll]

I edited all of Painting, Religion, and Music for Penn Bowl. Let me know if you have any particular feedback on these categories - I pretty much did what I always like doing, trying to meld a variety of clue types and question styles into one set and make it feel coherent. I also did most of World History, aside from the tossups on Algerian independence and the Australia/New Zealand content (which Eric did, since there's no way I would ever let the Emu War in as a tossup). I executed the world history in a much-more last minute fashion, as described in the "Epistle to the Sons of the North" - I hope the it came out okay despite being done as a rush job.

I will apologize for the too-hard bonus on film music - somebody edited that without my permission and changed the easy part to something way too hard, since the easy part was originally a repeat.

I mostly edited the questions that the Penn writers created, taking their best ideas to try to craft fresh-sounding questions. I also wrote a number of things myself, not limited to the categories I edited:

Religion: TUs on Bahai, Magi,blue (Asian religion), lotuses, Khadijah, salat, Rig Veda, Rome, Sheba; bonuses on Tibet / Four Heavenly Kings / Dalai Lama, forests / Tripitaka / women, Mutazili / sunnah / hadith, marriage / Agni / gandharvas, Durga / Navratri / Diwali, Nakayama / Aum Shinrikyo / Shinto, Reza Azlan / zealots / jihad
Painting: TU on Leonardo; bonuses on return to order / Futurism / plastics, Pisanello / Gothic / Bellini, Cimabue / Florence / Maesta
Music: TUs on cathedrals, Beethoven, and Stravinsky; bonuses on deserts / In the Steppes / Prokofiev, Lorca / violin / Argentina
European/British/Classics: TUs on Jesuits, Cossack Revolts, Poland (medieval), Konrad Adenauer, stadtholder, crowns (Egypt); bonus on Hammurabi / Naram-Sin / Merneptah,
World History: TU on Malays
Social Science: TUs income, firms, Du Bois; bonuses on Galbraiths / Keynes / countervailing power, regression / Okun's Law / endogenous

Let me know what you thought, especially about the arts questions, since I've wanted to work on my skills in those categories after the somewhat lukewarm reception of ARTSEE.

[Lake Winnipesaukee Mystery Stone]

I was reading rather than playing, but I very much enjoyed the Cimabue bonus set, especially the clue on "Maesta", based on the room in the Uffizi. It was nice to hear a question based on how the paintings are displayed.

[wcheng]

I enjoyed playing the religion questions at this tournament, especially the common links on blue and lotuses. However, one thing that I noticed is that there weren't many questions on Christianity relative to the number of questions on other topics, although this might just be me. Could you please post the religion subdistribution?

[vinteuil]

I thought these categories were overall quite good, with well-selected clues. I'll make a few overarching complaints, but they don't affect the fact that these questions were pretty good.

First of all, a correction: Will, you must really hate E-flat major! Elgar 2 is in that key, not B major, and the second theme of Coriolan is presented in E-flat, not E. Otherwise, the "musical proofreading" was pretty good. My complaint about the music, and it's not a huge complaint, is that the descriptions were at several points not quite fleshed out enough to be buzzable.

The best example is actually the Bohemian Rhapsody question (which Will probably didn't edit, but hey)—I've actually performed an arrangement of that song, with the original keys etc. and wouldn't have had a chance in hell at that first line. Similarly (in a question Will did actually edit), if it weren't for the fact that practically every other Pathétique question begins the same way, I probably wouldn't have had a shot at that clue either (recommend replacing "martial-sounding" with "dotted-rhythm). Other descriptions verged on the "impressionistic" in the negative sense (neither buzzable nor helpful).

There were a few other problems with vagueness. In general, with questions on religious terminology (in particular, but this is true of a lot of categories), it's really really important to specify what kind of term you're asking for. Example: the question on Shacharit doesn't say "general term for the morning service," so I almost certainly would have answered that with Pesukei dezimra.

[vinteuil]

Some more specific music corrections. EDIT: A reminder that I thought these questions were pretty good overall, and these complaints are pretty nitpicky.

Bach tossup. The clues about the "et in spiritum sanctum" basically only tell you that this composer wrote a mass until the actual movement name is dropped. Why would power end after the word "mass" but before the word "Nicene"?? (And "nine sections" makes them sound like excerpts, rather than a scheme for dividing up the Creed.) Similarly: you seem to notice that other people could have written masses in b minor (even though "Mass in B minor" means one piece and one piece alone), while not thinking of the fact that other composers could have written St. Matthew passions—although, I doubt that would seriously affect gameplay. (What I'm getting at: for consistency, either cut the "famous" from the giveaway or add one to the penultimate sentence.)

(FWIW, contra Wikipedia, most people call BWV 208 the "Hunt" cantata, but I doubt that would affect gameplay.)

Scarlatti tossup. This is the only question I remember really disliking. The Czerny clue is damn near useless—among other things, nobody gives a shit about his piano sonatas. (Trust me: I'm writing a chapter of my thesis on Czerny piano sonatas.) Scarlatti was definitely hugely popular as teaching and performance material before that shitty, shitty Horowitz recording (keeping this clue is fine, just don't say it did something it didn't). Finally, don't make it sound like the Essercizi aren't sonatas. (Hint: the giveaway ordering is anti-pyramidal!)

Monk tossup. First clue is pretty whatever (I mean, I would have gotten it, but it has like nothing to do with what people actually care about with Monk—bad era for him, and it's the fucking album art). Second clue, as John Lawrence pointed out to me when looking over ACF Fall 2014, is actually the least famous of the Mulligan meets ___ albums, which is why the song name should be first. Third clue: maybe actually just spell out that the first phrase begins on a D over a B-flat chord, and the second begins on G over an E-flat chord? (Wouldn't have been able to buzz on it as worded.)

Bird tossup. Has the word "Byrd" in the first line.

"Neumes" are, at least among the medievalists I know, pronounced "nooms," not "noom-ays." (something like https://imgflip.com/i/1d8f8h) And "Gregorian chant" isn't a "form" of chant at all, it's just a catch-all term for non-Mozarabic, non-Roman, non-Ambrosian etc etc chant.

[naan/steak-holding toll]

The jazz was Ike, not me. I'll fix the other things you pointed out, because to be honest some of those mistakes are pretty embarassing.

[vinteuil]

The jazz was Ike, not me. I'll fix the other things you pointed out.

My bad!

[vinteuil]

Another thing: the Beethoven tossup seems to be under the impression that Wellington's Victory is either famous or "important," when it really isn't either.

[naan/steak-holding toll]

Another thing: the Beethoven tossup seems to be under the impression that Wellington's Victory is either famous or "important," when it really isn't either.

The impression that I get is that Beethoven himself wrote it as a novelty piece to please the crowds (which it did, because he made a lot of money off it) that it's not particularly important in terms of the history of music, and he didn't like it himself and thought the piece was terrible (as do I, and as did many other people). Nonetheless, it's a novelty and there's some interesting history not directly related to the music itself, in my opinion, so I thought it might be worth asking. Of course, if this means the question is too hard then I should replace the clue anyways.

[vinteuil]

Another thing: the Beethoven tossup seems to be under the impression that Wellington's Victory is either famous or "important," when it really isn't either.

The impression that I get is that Beethoven himself wrote it as a novelty piece to please the crowds (which it did, because he made a lot of money off it) that it's not particularly important in terms of the history of music, and he didn't like it himself and thought the piece was terrible (as do I, and as did many other people). Nonetheless, it's a novelty and there's some interesting history not directly related to the music itself, in my opinion, so I thought it might be worth asking. Of course, if this means the question is too hard then I should replace the clue anyways.

Sorry, I should have clarified: Wellington's Victory is namedropped (and clued) bizarrely late for how (not) well-known it is.

[jmarvin_]

Could I see the tossup on 'magi'?

[Aaron's Rod]

I will probably have more later, but:

There was a bonus part on an un-nicknamed (Mozart?) piano sonata that I thought was a little excessive. There was some tossup--and I think it was the "Cossack revolts" one--which gave specific instructions on how to prompt for a specific answer in a way that isn't usually allowed, and as a mod I really, really appreciated it! (It was something like prompting with "who was revolting?" for "peasants"...I might have the wrong TU, but it's that idea.)

However, one thing that I noticed is that there weren't many questions on Christianity relative to the number of questions on other topics, although this might just be me. Could you please post the religion subdistribution?

Seconded; especially since you've already posted in this thread since this was asked.

[naan/steak-holding toll]

I will probably have more later, but:

There was a bonus part on an un-nicknamed (Mozart?) piano sonata that I thought was a little excessive. There was some tossup--and I think it was the "Cossack revolts" one--which gave specific instructions on how to prompt for a specific answer in a way that isn't usually allowed, and as a mod I really, really appreciated it! (It was something like prompting with "who was revolting?" for "peasants"...I might have the wrong TU, but it's that idea.)

However, one thing that I noticed is that there weren't many questions on Christianity relative to the number of questions on other topics, although this might just be me. Could you please post the religion subdistribution?

Seconded; especially since you've already posted in this thread since this was asked.

Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 21 is the bonus part I assume you're talking about. There's nothing wrong with that - it's maybe a tad tough, but it's one of the more famous piano concertos by one of the most famous composers, like, ever.

I like using that kind of "specific prompt" instruction in questions, when needed of course. And you've definitely got the right question! Sometimes just saying "prompt" is not going to get you anywhere, because you don't exactly know what the question could be prompting for - if someone said "rebellions" on that tossup and got prompted, they could well say "in Russia" and go off on a useless tangent.

I don't have a way to conveniently copy/paste everything, so I've been dallying on this as I have a lot of other QB responsibilities. Nonetheless:

"Pure" Christianity: Rome, Immaculate Conception, monks / anchorites / Margery Kempe, Valentine / Holy Helpers / George, catechumens / adults / Paul VI, Pentecostals / snake-handling / speaking in tongues, Acts / Luke / Marcion, Portugal / Our Lady of Fatima / John the Baptist
Judaism/Bible: Sukkot, Leviticus, Shacharit / Kaddish / Israel
Islam: salat, Khadijah, Reza Aslan / zealots / Jihad, Mu'tazili school / sunnah / hadith
Buddhism: lotus, Forest / Tripitaka / women
Hinduism: Rig Veda, marriage / Agni / gandharvas, Durga / Navratri / Diwali
Other/Mixed: blue, Sheba, Santeria, Magi, exorcism, suicide, religious hats bonus, Nakayama / Aum Shinrikyo / Shinto

The amount of "pure" christian content in tossups wasn't high, which is partly a result of the fact that people didn't adhere to the subdistribution I outlined (which initially called for 4/4 Christianity) and the last-minute nature of a lot of the religion writing and editing meant there was little time to fix this (in any case, I don't think it ended up that bad) - it also meant there was a lot of Catholicism (again, something that's not really true of most tournaments, so I don't mind a whole lot). I've bolded every question outside the "Pure Christianity" distribution that had some amount of Christian and/or Bible content - when you look at things from that perspective, it doesn't seem as underrepresented.

Also, here's the requested "Magi" tossup:

6. Assistance by a member of this group is required to consecrate a purification ceremony which is carried out by eating pomegranate seeds and washing in cow’s urine; that nine-day ceremony is called baresnum. Members of this group was responsible for embalming corpses with wax before placing them in structures consisting of three concentric stone rings to maintain the purity of earth and water and tend to the sacred (*) atar in temples. The coming of a group of people referred to collectively with this name is celebrated on Epiphany. This name was used in ancient times to refer to the men who carried out the sacred Yasna liturgy, the priests of Zoroastrianism; it also refers to a set of figures who bring exotic gifts like frankincense and myrrh to Bethlehem. For 10 points, the three kings who visited to “adore” Jesus are collectively known by what name?
ANSWER: The Magi [accept Magus or Majus; accept Zoroastrian Priests or Mobeds until “Zoroastrian priests” is read; prompt on kings or wisemen; prompt on Zoroastrians or priests]

I turned a Zoroastrianism tossup into this question, since there were already two minor religion tossups and I had a lot of clues in mind for this question. I didn't make it all on Zoroastrian Priests because I thought that would have a non-ideal pyramid or lend itself to stale cluing, so I did this instead and used a generous answerline. Also, mea culpa on this question's suboptimal English.

[Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-TN)]

I thought the religion questions were cool, and wasn't so bothered by the proportion of Christianity at the cost of increased Islam (noted religion that has almost as many followers as Christianity and should come up more in quizbowl). I also thought that the Christian questions that were asked were really cool ideas - Margery Kempe and snake handling especially. People don't talk enough about Will Alston having a well-thought out, broad vision for writing religion questions differently than the standard "half the questions are boring Christian things, another quarter are Jewish holidays, then the remainder are a single question about every other religion in the world," and for also working religion into the history questions in appropriate ways, but at every tournament I've been to for which Will wrote the religion, I've left satisfied.

[naan/steak-holding toll]

Charlie's sort of got my philosophy on point (thanks for the praise, by the way!) When I approach a religion distribution, I usually try to equally balance the amount of content from Bible/Christianity, Islam, and what I'll refer to as "Indian traditions" i.e. religious traditions that are ultimately historically rooted in India, and I generally intend for these questions to make up at least 2/3 of the tournament. Of course, I generally try to give Christianity more than the other two areas, since there are more Christians in the world and the general quizbowl audience probably has a greater familiarity with Christianity on average. But there's a lot of quizbowlers who have cultural familiarity with Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, and other such traditions, and questions on these areas do not really need to be constrained to "obligatory holiday question."

In any case, minor religions are intriguing on their own, but they run out of material pretty quickly compared to major religious traditions and aren't as likely to have broad cultural engagement from the quizbowl audience. This doesn't mean they should be ignored, but rather that you should just think about how you balance them with the rest of your content so that every area of the world gets a fair treatment - asking about important aspects of minor religions through common-link questions is one way I like to approach this, since that also helps mix things up (i.e. help break name-answer association).

tl,dr; why ask more about Cao Dai when I can ask about the Elite Four (er, the Four Heavenly Kings - but they both have the same name in Japanese!) Also, ask more Islam, because there's sooooo much content available it's incredible.

[1.82]

I agree with Charlie here. Eric Mukherjee is, in my mind, clearly the best Islam writer in quizbowl, but I don't think that part of the distribution suffered terribly because it was written by Will this year. I particularly enjoyed the bonus about Our Lady of Fatima; Marian apparitions are a great thing to ask about because they represent real things that people actually believe in.

[Mike Bentley]

Overall I thought that the visual arts in this tournament was very well done. There were a couple of things I wanted to highlight, though:

First, this clue from the question on boxing:

Art historian Robert Haywood highlighted the similarity of the curve of the Belvedere torso to a painting of this activity executed within a triangular composition.

As far as I can tell, Haywood isn't a critic of any note. Without extra context, this clue is pretty much impossible. There are probably thousands of paintings that take inspiration from the Belvedere torso and have a triangular composition. Describing paintings in a memorable way to people playing the packet is tricky and this tournament mostly avoided this problem. But there were a few examples like this which used what I assume are the equivalent of me using a clue about some symphony describing its key and time signatures--they may be technically correct but are either non-specific or non-useful.

5. This term was coined in a 1926 essay by Jean Cocteau which calls for the revival of classicism in the arts. For 10 points each:
[10] Identify this three-word phrase, which names a European art movement that rejected most of the extreme avant-garde trends from before World War I. Its members included Gino Severini.
ANSWER: return to order [or Le rappel a ordre]

I thought this bonus part was problematic for a few reasons. First, it seems way too hard. I'd be surprised if anyone playing this tournament got this correct. Second, I'm not really convinced that "return to order" is an art movement beyond the fact that there's a short Wikipedia page on it. It's possibly a philosophy adopted by some artists at this time. It seems like you could plausibly answer "Novocento" or even "the second phase of Futurists" here if not for the "three-word-phrase". Finally, this gets at a trend in quizbowl of asserting that artists were members of movements when their styles changed significantly over the career and many of these categorizations and posthumous and not fully agreed on. I haven't exhaustively searched, but the best attribution that I can find that Severini specifically belonged to a "Return to Order" school is, again, his Wikipedia page.

To some extent, quizbowl is a game and you need to simplify things. Old master attributions are notoriously tricky and inserting phrases such as "One painting by this artist, or possibly his workshop, or possibly another artist if you believe scholar X" into every question is not necessarily workable.

[naan/steak-holding toll]

5. This term was coined in a 1926 essay by Jean Cocteau which calls for the revival of classicism in the arts. For 10 points each:
[10] Identify this three-word phrase, which names a European art movement that rejected most of the extreme avant-garde trends from before World War I. Its members included Gino Severini.
ANSWER: return to order [or Le rappel a ordre]

I thought this bonus part was problematic for a few reasons. First, it seems way too hard. I'd be surprised if anyone playing this tournament got this correct. Second, I'm not really convinced that "return to order" is an art movement beyond the fact that there's a short Wikipedia page on it. It's possibly a philosophy adopted by some artists at this time. It seems like you could plausibly answer "Novocento" or even "the second phase of Futurists" here if not for the "three-word-phrase". Finally, this gets at a trend in quizbowl of asserting that artists were members of movements when their styles changed significantly over the career and many of these categorizations and posthumous and not fully agreed on. I haven't exhaustively searched, but the best attribution that I can find that Severini specifically belonged to a "Return to Order" school is, again, his Wikipedia page.

To some extent, quizbowl is a game and you need to simplify things. Old master attributions are notoriously tricky and inserting phrases such as "One painting by this artist, or possibly his workshop, or possibly another artist if you believe scholar X" into every question is not necessarily workable.

So I understand the concern about "return to order" being too hard. Admittedly, I stuck this in there late at night on Friday before the tournament after realizing that something needed to be replaced, and thought "yeah this is really tough but I have other priorities right now and this is the idea I have." But this is not something unique to Wikipedia: it's mentioned in books on Italian modernism in art, an online list of art history resources, old New York Times articles and more. I usually perform a check to see if other resources are literal copies of a Wiki article (since there unfortunately a lot of sites that literally just copy Wikipedia) and this doesn't seem to such an instance. Maybe it's hard to refer to the "return to order" as a discrete movement, but this is definitely a Thing that's not just some Wiki invention, and the question isn't calling the movement a discrete school or anything.