A writing desk in Central America, earlier today.
We are fortunate here at Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know to have secured the services of arts and culture correspondent Vincent Kellner. For those of you who knew SatsumaMag and The Nuremberg Gazette, Vincent will need no introduction. He is currently putting the finishing touches on his new book, Little Guy Bigfoot, an illustrated history of Thai kick-boxing, and lives at an undisclosed location in Moldova.
As an introduction to MBD, Vincent has set a culture quiz. As he himself says - no Googling!
Ten statements follow. They relate to culture. You're going to have to pay attention because, culturally speaking, the vast majority of you don't know shit from Shinola. Try to grasp this - only one of the following is true. Best of luck.
1. The Mean Reds was the third studio album by English punk band Inside Job. Recorded in 1981 on a barge in Northumberland (which partially sank during recording), it failed to make the charts, although a live version of its most famous song, Never as Sad as Today, did reach number 22 in the UK charts in 1982.
2. Paul Callum's 1999 novel, A Ghost Story With No Ghosts, won the Henry James Award for best debut in the 'supernatural thriller' category that year by the largest voting margin in the 44-year history of the award. The book was filmed in 2004 and starred Jodine Palmerstone as Lucretia, the mentally unstable heroine.
3. Los Brujos was the second film by Central American director Hector Camenez after his triumphant debut, The Kindest Man. Released in 1977, Los Brujos centres around a group of 16th-century Nicaraguan witches who fall in love with the same man. It was nominated for a second-class Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 1978.
4. De occulta lumen ('On the Darkness of Light') was reportedly the first book printed on a Gutenberg printing-press without the permission of the Pope, circa 1501/2. It is said to have given rise to the phrase 'dissident literature'. The author is unknown, and although there is an opinion within classical academia that it was Boethius, this has been largely and convincingly discredited, not least by Casaubon.
5. Robert Walser, the Czech writer who was a friend of Franz Kafka, Max Brod, Herman Hesse and Robert Musil, was found dead in a snowy field in 1956. His diagnosis of schizophrenia has been highly debated by literary historians, and his death remains a mystery.
6. Toshiro Yamauchi's painting Quixote Against the Windmills made the Japanese boy (from Okinawa) the youngest-ever winner of the country's most prestigious art prize in 1992. He was 12 years old. The Prime Minister Kontajo Kantachi called the painting 'a beautiful example of cultural translation. It is as though the Knight of the Sad Countenance visited Japan'.
7. It's Time to Light the Lights - An Illustrated History of the Muppet Show, was officially entered into The Guinness Book of Records in 1997 as the best-selling biography of fictional characters ever published. Daniel and Dennis McCreavie's book sold over 14 million copies, translated as it was into 19 languages.
8. Hungarian philosopher Yungan Otman wrote the first chapter of his 1966 book En Ikalke Rural Philosophia (On the Philosophy of Rural Life) on goatskin using a quill from a crow's feather and ink made from quail's blood. He told a Hungarian newspaper that this was not a publicity stunt, but 'a genuine attempt to give a voice to those Hungarians who still till the soil to live'.
9. When the red, white, and blue flag of Costa Rica was designed after Independence, the first President's wife wanted the tones of the colours to be exactly the same as those of the French tricolor. The French recently changed the exact tone of blue in their flag. Costa Rica followed suit.
10. British member of Parliament Rita Birch, who represents Bradley West in South Yorkshire, is now officially the 4th-best female backgammon player in the United Kingdom. Although she lost the 3rd/4th place play-off in the recent national championships to former British champion Rita Panswara, she is the highest ranked British politician ever at the famous board game.
No Googling now!
Yours,
Vincent Kellner.
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