Art Spirit

1.  A razor and shorn tresses lie next to the sandaled feet of a marble statue in the de Young Museum.
Name this sculpture by William Whitmore Story:                 

       a. Samson  b. California  c. Delilah

2. “When you are old, Mammie, you shall have a velvet dress and gold glasses and sit in comfort by the fire.” Earlier this year the SF International Film Festival paid homage to the writer whose heart had gone out to his hard-pressed, dutiful mother. The 1925 silent movie starring Wallace Beery was based on:

       a. Around the World in Eighty Days

       by Jules Verne

       b. The Lost World by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

       c. A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway

3.  In her new book, this SF writer turns her attention to the plight of the homeless—“I know all the reasons why I shouldn’t give him money,” she says, delving into her purse, “but he’s suffering. That’s all that should matter.”

       a. Secrets in Time: San Francisco

       by Merla Zellerbach

       b. The Vagrants by Yiyun Li

       c. The Help by Kathryn Stockett

4.  At the beginning of the year, A.C.T.’s Carey Perloff  staged Phlistines, a drama by this Russian writer who once wrote: “Everything beautiful calls forth respect, even in coarse people.”

       a. Boris Pasternak

       b. Zoia Krakhmalnikova

       c. Maxim Gorky

5.  True or false. Published in 1956 by City Lights Bookstore, Allen Ginsberg’s Howl invoked government censorship because of these words:  “I saw the best minds of my generation…who threw potato salad at CCNY lecturers on Dadaism and subsequently presented themselves on the granite steps of the madhouse with shaven heads.”

6.  Father John B. McGloin wrote in San Francisco The Story of a City of “commodious old dwellings and roomy flats formerly occupied by one family, with occupants coming and going in quick succession.” He was referring to this ’50s/’60s neighborhood:

       a. Sea Cliff  b. Nob Hill c. The Haight-Ashbury

7.  In this law enforcement movie, Clint Eastwood plays SFPD Inspector Harry Callahan who has it out with a bad guy on the fifty-yard-line of the erstwhile SF 49ers football field at Kezar Stadium:

      a. Dirty Harry

       b. Gran Torino

       c. Flags of Our Fathers

8. San Francisco native and Hollywood actor Vonetta McGee graduated from long-gone Polytechnic High School on Frederick Street. She also starred alongside Clint Eastwood in the cinematic cliffhanger:

       a. The Outlaw Josey Wales

       b. The Eiger Sanction

       c. The Bridges of Madison County

9.  Mayor Gavin Newsom honored this All-Pro wide receiver for the San Francisco 49ers, proclaiming Monday 16, 2008:

       a. Bob St. Clair Day

       b. Joe “The Jet” Perry Day

       c. Gordy Soltau Day

10. U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein came to the rescue of this beloved San Francisco “institution” during her terms as Mayor of the City:

       a. Fisherman’s Wharf

       b. The Cable Cars

       c. The San Francisco Giants

Answers

1.   c

2.   b (Doyle’s mother had had to contend with a deranged, alcoholic husband. Their famous son was the creator of Sherlock Holmes.)

3. a (Firefall Editions 2009)

4. c (1868–1936)

5. False. ( The poem’s hardcore erotic imagery was at the heart of the controversy.)

6. c (during the post WWII and Hippie periods)

7.  a 1971;  8.  c 1975;  9. c; 10. b

Victor Turks grew up in San Francisco and lives in the Richmond with his wife, Michiko, their three boys, a pug, a cat, and a tankful of goldfish. He teaches English at City College.