The Baltimore Quiz

Baltimore is a city without a famous shopping district, graced by no internationally-acclaimed landmarks and overrun with syphilitic prostitutes. The city was founded some 250 years ago and is still thrown into a panic whenever it gets more than a half-inch of snow. You can barely turn around without being forced to trade in your wallet for a brick to the head, and it has roaches the size of rats and rats the size of schnauzers.

Half of the rowhouses exist in a boarded-up state of disrepair, yet remain home to a varied cast of homeless people who have nowhere else to go. Charles St., a main thoroughfare, is not actually a road, so much as it is a death-lane-parking-lane-bizarro asphalt strip?.

The QM could go on, but the she feels no need to hammer her point into the ground ? anyone who has lived in Baltimore for any period of time will tell you: It ain't a pretty city.

It ain't, however, as pit-like and pitiful as so many Hopkins undergrads make it out to be. Yeah, it's got its problems (see above), but really, if given half a chance, it's not such a bad place to spend four years of your life. Like a cockroach squeezing its way inside a half-empty box of Papa John's, Baltimore has squeezed its way into the QM's heart. Maybe it's because she has abnormally-low expectations, or maybe she figures that any city is a good city as long as her parents don't live there, but whatever the case, the QM is proud to call Baltimore her home.

Thus, the topic of this week's quiz ? The Baltimore Quiz! Grab a chair, a pen and a can of beer and take a shot at some of this Bawl'mer trivia.

As always, get your answers in by 5:00 p.m. on Tuesday. You can bring them in to the Gatehouse, e-mail them to news.letter@jhu.edu or fill out the quiz online (http://www.jhunewsletter.com). The winner gets $10 worth of goodies from our sponsors, Eddie's Market and Eddie's Liquors on the 3100 block of St. Paul St.

1. When the QM suggested the grabbing of a can of beer, she had a specific brand in mind ? one that is brewed in Baltimore, of course. This one is a staple at frat parties, tailgate parties and any other get-together of people with no taste in beer. A beer befitting Baltimore if there ever was one, it's cheap, it's gross, and it's been part of the social scene here in B-more since 1885. Its, as far as the QM knows, silent but ever-present spokes-character has, mysteriously, only one eye ? what kind of beer does the QM have in mind? Full name and nickname, please.

2. All but the most agoraphobic freshmen here at JHU have, by now, made it down to the Inner Harbor. Nice eats, nice shops, nice view ? the Inner Harbor is the most tourist-friendly spot in Baltimore. Hard to imagine that just a few years ago, few being a relative term, that the area we know today as the "Inner Harbor" was a seedy, smelly swamp and probably the last place a native Baltimoron would recommend to tourists unless they wanted to assure said tourist would never return. What is the name of the process which turned the Inner Harbor from old to gold: the fixing up of a run-down area in the hopes that a group of more affluent people will move in and replace the original, less wealthy inhabitants?

3. The director of cult classics like "Pink Flamingo," "Hairspray" and "Serial Mom" lives in Baltimore. While she has never actually seen one of his films, the QM knows he's famous because he guest starred in an episode of "The Simpsons." What is his name?

4. On what day did Baltimore celebrate John Water's Day?

5. The Greatest City in America? Who do those benches think they're fooling? At least the former bench-motto was halfway believable. What was it?

6. If there is one thing that unites the city of Baltimore, it is support of the boys in purple and black. The QM barely knows a first down from a touchdown, but she knows that the Baltimore Ravens are the best thing to happen to football since the cup. Or they were last season anyway. Who knew ravens were so ferocious? The QM always thought that football teams needed vicious, predatory mascots ? the Lions, the Falcons, the Giants. But the Ravens? Ravens aren't so much vicious as they are creepy, what with the sitting on busts of Pallas and their endless chirping of "Nevermore." The Baltimore Ravens, football team extraordinaire, were named, of course, after one of the creepiest poems penned by America's most morbid author, who died, penniless, in a Baltimore gutter. What is the name of the poet in question?

7. In what part of the city is the Royal Farms Corporate Headquarters located?

8. If you want to catch a flick in Charm City, you have a couple choices. If you're brave, you can go to the Charles Theater. If you have a car, or the patience to wait for the Colltown shuttle, you can go to Towson. If you have a taste for the funky and historical, you can go to the Senator. This art-deco theater is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and received a nod from USA Today as one of the four best movie theaters in the nation. For the QM, at least, it is definitely enough to warrant a trip up Greenmount. In what year was the Senator founded?

9. The cupboards at the QM's house might often be bare of edible essentials, but they never want of spices. After three years worth of college kitchenettes, the QM has learned: charred on the outside, frozen on the inside, spoiled to begin with ? all these chow-time calamities can be fixed with just a simple twist of the wrist. It's all a matter of having the right spices. Along with the old standbys of ground mustard, garlic salt and Tiger sauce, the QM has adopted as her own Baltimore's most famous spice. This orange-brown stuff makes everything taste better, from french fries to soft shelled crabs to, believe it or not, oatmeal. This spice is the signature of McCormick's, an Inner Harbor restaurant that rates 6.5 on the QM's scale. What spice is this, that is added to every dish cooked in the QM kitchen?

10. Watch out Chicago ? Baltimore's stolen your idea! Back in the summer of '99, a herd of over 300 ? life-sized but pretend ? cows descended upon the Windy City. After staking out a good portion of the city's street corners and meridian strips, the cows stayed, placid and authentically cow-like, for four-and-a-half months. These brightly painted bovines proved to be such a hit with both tourists and Chicagoans alike ? because really, who doesn't like looking at cows? ? that Baltimore decided to stage its own version of "Cows on Parade." Over the summer months, a school of large, pedestaled fish have swum their way into the farthest corners of the city. What is the name of this festival of fish, currently brightening up the streets of Baltimore?

Tie breaker: How many different words can you make out of the bench's proclamation: "Baltimore ? The Greatest City in America"? Double points for words that describe the city.

First Name:


Last Name:


E-mail Address: