by Noah Tarnow

By definition, being a quizmaster is about asking questions. As host of a live trivia game show, the Big Quiz Thing, I’ve spent the past eight years asking thousands of them — many good, some lousy. And in that time, countless others have approached me with questions and comments of their own — many good, some really, really stupid. Now that you’ve met the different types of people who play trivia, learn about some of the more amusing things people say to your esteemed host:

1. “I don’t know any trivia.” Assuming you’re not a moron, this is nigh impossible. Everyone knows trivia, or at least a good quizmaster’s definition of trivia, which is “interesting information.” And personally, I tend not to write mega-obscure, you-either-know-it-or-you-don’t questions, i.e., “What’s the third-largest city in Albania?”, which aren’t particularly engaging (the correct answer is “Who cares?”). That’s not to say anyone can win a quiz game, because not everyone does, and some people are indeed better at trivia games than others. But a little lateral thinking goes a long way — e.g., “What celebrity’s name is the inverse of a popular casino game?” (answer here) — so give yourself a chance.

2. “I’m so going to come to your show and kick everyone’s ass and win, and everyone in the room is going to carry me out of the venue on a litter while servants dressed as sexy librarians feed me grapes.” A statement like this is a clear sign that someone is going to lose, and lose badly. The overconfidence gets in the way of the lateral thinking I jut described. Serious trivia nerds aren’t the most virtuous people on earth, sure, but being a braggart isn’t one of their common faults.

3. “You should buy this great trivia book I found at Urban Outfitters and use the questions in that.” Really. I mean, not that we’re the world’s most refined auteurs, but the best of us take some care in the craft, so we prefer to cook up the queries on our own. As for where we get the information, this damn world is burying us in an avalanche of information; asking a quizmaster where he finds question fodder is sort of like asking an octopus where he gets his water. The more interesting question might be how we get our questions — how we create and develop them. Expect the inevitable documentary in the next couple years.

4. “Is it the same questions every time?” Possibly the hardest part of this job is that you constantly need to come up with fresh content (though many of us have perfected recycling strategies — out-of-town gigs, private events, etc.). The entertainment, and the competition, largely hinges on surprise. A quiz game with the same questions over and over again seems among the most pointless things I can imagine; after a couple years, I’d be reduced to entertaining just one really, really brazen cheater in a Doctor Who T-shirt, me and him staring at each other from across an empty room, most likely in my apartment. Speaking of which…

5. “You should give me the answers ahead of time.” Usually, this is not a particularly dumb statement so much as a tired joke. It’s always some pleasantly avuncular older man at a private quiz party; he smiles as he reaches into his wallet to faux-hand me a $20 bill. Hardy-har; I tend to smile and let it pass. But at least two times, it’s been said to me with complete and utter seriousness (and, alas, not with any serious promise of bribery). I utterly fail to see the point of winning a quiz game by cheating, even if you crave the prizes — if you have the balls to be a flagrant, out-and-out cheat, there have to be more efficient ways to make some dough. (Similarly, I’m grateful that most live-trivia fans resist the urge to use their phones to look up answers. It saves the quizmaster from having to constantly play Whack-A-Mole, and besides, how pathetic is your life if you do this?)

6. “You totally should accept my incredibly stupid wrong answer, because I know that I read somewhere that it’s correct.” Nobody is perfect, quizmasters among them — the quizmaster who has never asked a flat-out wonky, unusable question is as rare the quizmaster who regularly got laid in high school. Errors are unavoidable. But for the love of Charles Van Doren, if we tell you your answer is wrong, it’s wrong: Shut up, sit down, and live with it. Especially if your documentation for said brilliant answer is your vague, alcohol-sodden memory. Not long ago, I was the entertainment at a bar mitzvah, and I asked a simple question about the most popular names for baby boys and girls. An adult — not a kid, mind you — insisted on grinding the entire event to a halt so that he could obnoxiously lobby me that my (correct) answer was wrong, because he had “read somewhere” that the most popular baby names for boys are “Aiden, Jayden and Kayden.” Please, just take a moment to listen to yourself.

7. “You should go on [trivia TV show of the moment].” I suspect most quizmasters have at least attempted to be on a TV game show, or — as in my case — went on a show and lost, thus inspiring them to start their own game show. I was on “Jeopardy!” I lost on “Jeopardy!” (And I hate the fact that every time I write the name “Jeopardy!,” I have to include that damned exclamation point, which makes it look like I’m constantly shouting about “Jeopardy!” Also, Alex Trebek made my skin crawl.) I was someone’s Life Line on “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire”; “Cash Cab” has solicited contestants at my show; and I actually won a VH1 game show you’ve never heard of. So yes, we have probably considered going on [trivia TV show of the moment], thanks.

8. “Do you wear that jacket to bed?” At every event, I wear one of several blinged-out quizmaster jackets (I like to put on a show). The most common, and logical, question is where did I get the jackets. (It’s the magical combination of thrift stores and a genius fashion-designer friend.) But I swear, at least a dozen times I’ve been asked if I wear one of the jackets while I have sex. Excessive glitter and fabric paint really chafe, and besides, these things are hard enough to clean to begin with.

9. “Do you idolize Alex Trebek?” See No. 7. I actually don’t think Alex Trebek is a very good role model for quizmasters, or really anyone. You need a serious sense of humor to deal with the slings and arrows of live trivia — drunken patrons, ornery venue owners, technical mishaps — and Trebek strikes me as way too dry a person to handle that. The better idol, to my mind, is Bob Barker. Amid all the giant checks and yodeling mountain climbers, people are constantly making jackasses of themselves on “The Price Is Right,” but in his tenure, Bob never made them feel bad, even helping them to laugh at themselves. And throughout, he kept the game moving along like a true pro. He could handle a bar full of quiz nerds on a Monday night, no problem.

10. “You’re a quizmaster? How’s that a job? Can’t anyone ask a trivia question?” Sure. And anyone can tell a joke. And anyone can sing a song. And anyone can toss a football. Well, not many trivia geeks can, but you get the idea.

Noah Tarnow is the star of the Big Quiz Thing. You can learn more at bigquizthing.com, on Facebook or on Twitter.

“Kelly is a dominant figure in the popular perception of Australian colonial history with quite disparate opinions being voiced. On one hand he is viewed as a common criminal given to cattle rustling and armed conflict with the police, while on the other he is viewed as an Irish freedom fighter standing up to the oppressive British authorities. On either side of the debate his image is generally taken as representing an anti-establishment position.”
 — Roger Byard, professor of pathology at the University of Adelaide, discusses a study in which he found that Australians who have tattoos of legendary Prison Island bandit Ned Kelly “are more likely to die as a result of suicide or homicide.”

Have you seen that video of the baby at the zoo, and he’s playing by the lions, and the lioness keeps tracking him and it looks like she wants to play with him… or EAT HIM? You have? Well watch it again. This is what summer’s gonna be like.

Dissension in the ranks of Germany’s right-wing NPD party, as a crossword puzzle placed in party literature has proven controversial:

Three months ahead of elections for the Berlin city-state parliament, party members included the puzzle in the internal paper, one million copies of which are set for release in August, according to a report in the daily Süddeutsche Zeitung. One clue for a five-letter word reads: “It’s a German first name that has fallen somewhat out of fashion.” The answer? “Adolf.” Another clue refers to a “German politician (‘freedom flyer’) of the 20th century,” to which the four-letter answer is “Hess,” in reference to Rudolf Hess, who was Adolf Hitler’s deputy before he flew to Scotland in 1941 in hopes of coming to a peace agreement with the UK. Those who successfully complete the puzzle can submit their answers for prizes such a bicycle, party literature or clothing. Everybody likes a prize, but party members have been outraged by the puzzle’s blatant references to Nazism.

I think my favorite line right there is “Everybody likes a prize.”

“At some point during the last five years, it occurred to Michael Bastian that $540 was a lot to charge for a pair of khaki cut-off shorts, even if some men were willing to pay.”
 — As we have noted in this Michael Bastian display of homeless hipster Park Slope dork DILF chic that costs $1765, perhaps it is possible to overprice clothes! Now the designer is trying to cut his costs… by 10 to 20%. I will not see you there!

“In 1994, James Rosemond hired me to rob Tupac Shakur at the Quad Studio. He gave me $2,500, plus all the jewelry I took. Except for one ring, which he wanted for himself. It was the biggest of the two diamond rings that we took. He said he wanted to put the stone in a new setting for his girlfriend at the time… I still have as proof the chain that we took that night in the robbery.”
 — Whoa! A man named Dexter Isaac tells the AllHipHop website that he committed the heretofore unsolved shooting and robbery that touched off the terrible Tupac vs. Biggie beef which later became central to the whole East Coast vs. West Coast war which preceded the murders of rap’s two biggest stars. (Tupac claimed Biggie and Puffy were in on the set-up.) Dexter verifies Tupac’s accusation, immortalized on the 1996 song, “Against All Odds,” that music executive Jimmy “Henchman” Rosemond was behind the incident. Rosemond is currently wanted by the government for drug trafficking.

by Myles Tanzer

Every New Yorker has a series of cherished myths and hard-earned wisdom that he or she considers the Gospel truth about how to get by in this city. But are the stories we tell ourselves in order to live really on the level? We turn to the experts to help us figure it out.

Living so close to bodies of water best known for the number of corpses retrieved from within, you can understand why New Yorkers are a bit cautious about the bounty of the sea. A longstanding rule of thumb holds that ordering fish from a restaurant on Mondays is never a good thing. But is this supposed “rule” really true? Can’t we enjoy a nice tuna tartare after a long and stressful first day back to the office? Or are we better just ordering a good old Ron Swanson Turf and Turf on Monday nights?

We consulted New York Times dining critic Sam Sifton on the issue. He told us to “go straight to [Anthony] Bourdain, who is the man most responsible for that ‘rule.’ He lays it out pretty good in Kitchen Confidential.” Bourdain did indeed address the subject in his 2000 memoir:

Here’s how it works: The chef of this fine restaurant orders his fish on Thursday for delivery Friday morning. He’s ordering a pretty good amount of it, too, as he’s not getting another delivery until Monday Morning. All right, some seafood purveyors make Saturday deliveries, but the market is closed Friday night. It’s the same fish from Thursday!

Bourdain goes on to say that this same fish that was kept around on Sunday from Thursday is then kept around for Monday too because of lazy vendors and poor selection at Monday fish markets. That would mean Monday’s fish is at least four days old, making it the grossest thing in the whole wide world.

But Bourdain’s position has evolved over the last decade. His 2010 book, Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook, reassesses the rule:

I wrote those immortal words about not going for the Monday fish, the ones that’ll haunt me long after I’m crumbs in a can, knowing nothing other than New York City. And times, to be fair, have changed. Okay, I would still advise against the fish special at T.G.I. McSweenigan’s, ‘A Place for Beer’, on a Monday. Fresh fish, I’d guess, is probably not the main thrust of their business. But things are different now for chefs and cooks. The odds are better than ever that the guy slinging fish and chips back there in the kitchen actually gives a shit about what he’s doing. And if he doesn’t, these days he has to figure that you might actually know the difference.

One of those guys back there in the kitchen that definitely gives a shit about what he’s doing is Eddie Huang, chef of Lower East Side eatery Baohaus and hilarious blogger. He echoed Bourdain’s sentiments and said that “Monday is only really bad for slow restaurants.” He went on to explain, “You can get fish delivery on Monday morning. If your fish is starting to get funky on Sunday night, you get fresh delivery on Monday morning and you’re fine.”

But he issued a different warning for New York diners: “I think that Sunday is the worst day to order fish.”

Oh no, not Sundays! Huang warns, “You know for sure that there’s no fresh fish on Sunday except if it’s bought fresh from Chinatown, but even they don’t get it really fresh on Sundays.”

So class, here’s the new rule: Enjoy all the seafood your little fishy heart desires for six days of the week as long as it’s served from a busy and reputable place. But on God’s day of rest, stick with the steak.

You think you know it all about how to get by in New York, but admit it, there’s something that you have a nagging uncertainty about. Ask us! Maybe we can help!

Photo by Ed Schipul, from Flickr.

First, the bad news:

Life as a couch potato could be deadly. For every two hours of daily television time, the risk of diabetes increases by 20 percent over 8½ years, the risk of heart disease rises by 15 percent over a decade, and the chances of dying from any cause jump 13 percent over 7 years. That’s according to a new analysis of eight major studies (including more than 200,000 people) from the Harvard School of Public Health, published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

But there is a bright spot!

For all the talk about competitive threats from the likes of Netflix Inc or Apple Inc, it is rising poverty among households that TV executives say is their biggest source of concern. Executives from News Corp, Comcast Corp and Time Warner Inc, speaking at the annual Cable Show industry event, made clear the industry needed a stronger housing market and better jobs picture to win new customers and keep existing ones…. “There clearly is a growing underclass of people who clearly can’t afford it,” [Time Warner Cable Chief Executive Glenn Britt] said. “It would serve us well to worry about that group.”

It is a scientific fact that no one can watch more than thirty-seven minutes of network television without tossing the remote at the wall in a fit of disgust that leads to such self-loathing that even reading a book seems preferable to further viewing. So long as the number America’s impoverished continues to expand, we may get them off their couches yet!

Photo by Mr. T in DC, from Flickr.

Ryan Trecartin’s exhibition “Any Ever” opens this Sunday at PS1 (that’s June 19). And if you go over on Sunday, from noon to 6 p.m., it is going to be kind of a party! I may see you there! If you don’t know Trecartin, he was born — don’t panic — in 1981 and he’s having a banner year, with solo museum exhibitions from Istanbul to Miami to Paris. This video is one of four related movies to be shown at PS1; two of the others are “The Re’Search,” here at Dis Magazine (which is particularly wonderful) and “Ready,” here at Rhizome. Without loading you up on artspeak or other people’s ideas too much, the series deals with market research, becoming a commodity, becoming a consumer, personal ambition and modern ways of demeaning others — using what the Times has accurately called his “signature unhinged vernacular.”

by Nate Hopper

This list has been updated with new data in August 2014! Click here for the latest!

51. West Virginia: $4.74
50. Louisiana: $4.82
49. North Dakota: $4.91
48. Kentucky: $4.97
47. Idaho: $4.99
46. California: $5.19
45. Alabama: $5.27
44. Georgia: $5.29
43. South Carolina: $5.42
41–42. Indiana, Wyoming: $5.50
40. North Carolina: $5.51
38–39. Nebraska, Virginia: $5.55
37. Tennessee: $5.56
36. Missouri: $5.58
35. Oregon: $5.59
34. Mississippi: $5.75
33. New Hampshire: $5.87
32. Nevada: $5.95
30–31. Arkansas, Colorado: $5.96
29. Montana: $5.99
26–28. Delaware, Iowa, Kansas: $6.00
25. South Dakota: $6.03
24. Texas: $6.07
23. Florida: $6.08
22. Oklahoma: $6.19
21. Ohio: $6.22
20. Minnesota: $6.53
19. Maryland: $6.70
18. Pennsylvania: $6.80
17. Arizona: $6.87
16. New Mexico: $6.88
15. Michigan: $6.90
14. Utah: $7.22
13. Maine: $7.97
12. Washington, D.C.: $7.99
11. Wisconsin: $8.11
10. Vermont: $8.23
9. Connecticut: $8.25
8. Massachusetts: $8.30
7. New Jersey: $8.35
6. Rhode Island: $8.60
5. Alaska: $9.14
4. Illinois: $9.67
3. Hawaii: $9.73
2. Washington: $9.89
1. New York: $11.90

Methodology: Prices were obtained by calling a gas station in each state’s most populous city and asking the clerk for the price of a pack of Marlboro Reds with tax. Memphis, Tenn., was toughest (nine phone calls). The gas station in Milwaukee, Wis., had the only employee who ended the conversation with “have a good one.”

Update: To compare these prices to a more recent 2012 survey, go here.

Nate Hopper is a summer Awl reporter.

Photo by romana klee.