Archive for the 'Trivia' Category
It's fair to say people are more enlightened about species conservation today than back when we intentionally hunted "nuisance" animals into extinction. And there have been some restoration success stories. But in some places, things are actually getting worse. Climate change, habitat destruction, and poaching continue to threaten species around the world , from whales to pola...
The gods and demigods of the ancient world were more than just deities: they were entertainers. As colorful as superheroes, as petty as soap opera divas, as rowdy as cowboys, their adventures whiled away many a night in the pre-TV age. And while they may not command the worship they used to, as entertainers, they've had the kind of staying power Bob Hope could only dream of. Ca...
When you're riding the subway in a strange town, you just need to know which line will take you to which station. Further detail is just a distraction. So metro route maps around the world have evolved into clear, simple diagrams, where the messy crags and bulges of geography are reduced to rational angles and clean lines. But their heritage shows in their station names, their ...
Until the 1980s, the main way for a musical act to present any kind of visual element to their audience was through album covers, an art that finally came into its own in the '70s . But then came MTV, and suddenly every band had to give as much thought to their visual aesthetic as to their sound. Looking at them now, '80s videos are always naive, often scattershot, sometimes t...
If you're a baseball fan, you have no trouble identifying the cap emblems and jersey logos of Major League Baseball teams. But what about the team colors? Can you spot the subtle differences in the various shades of red and blue? Are you aware of the sometimes-esoteric third and fourth official colors of every team? I've used the "team color" info on Wikipedia, including the pr...
An artist's favorite subject is him- or herself, often gazing out of frame to the right, for some reason. Here are slices of eight attempts by great artists to capture their own radiance. Can you name the artsts/subjects? Answers are here . Please post your guesses, speculations, or arguments below! But know this: the Trivial Eye is presented for public amusement and no ...
Imagine you had to wear the same outfit for decades - and then suddenly got a chance to change your clothes. Chances are, your atrophied fashion sense would probably pick something heinous. So it goes with these eight storied superheroes and their brief flirtations with a new look. The comics industry just wouldn't be the comics industry without misguided attempts to ditch icon...
The first time I did a Naked Cities quiz, the most common complaint was that the unmarked satellite images of world cities weren't focused tightly enough on the cities themselves. So this time, I've zoomed way in on eight capital cities around the globe. Each one contains a famed monument, plaza, cathedral, or palace, or the capital building itself - and most of these image...
If you spent as much time watching TV as I did during the 1980s, we should start a support group together or something. On my deathbed, I'll be bitterly regretting the many, many hours I spent in the company of Arnold Jackson and Judge Harry T. Stone. Here are eight images from the opening theme sequence of '80s TV shows. Name them all, if the post-traumatic stress disorder doe...
This month sees the long-awaited return of the award-winning period drama Mad Men to the nation’s cable TV schedules, once again bringing us back to a simpler time when men were men, ties were skinny, and Scotch was breakfast. The Mad Men era was a golden age for misinformation, of course. Back then, it was generally believed that smoking was invigorating, seatbelts...