In the 1960s, the authors of one of the world’s first popular compendiums of fun and interesting facts entreated readers not to mistake the “flower of Trivia” for the “weed of minutiae.” Trivia stimulates the mind, Edwin Goodgold and Dan Carlinsky wrote in More Trivial Trivia; minutiae stymie it.
Happily, The Atlantic’s garden bursts with the former and is almost entirely lacking in the latter, and in this new project of daily quizzes, I get to share a bunch of that trivia with you, curious readers. So set down the Snapple cap and stop to smell the blooms—is that geranium?—with questions from recently published stories.
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Monday, September 29, 2025
From the edition of The Atlantic Daily written by Tom Nichols:
What international sporting event occurred last weekend in New York, after happening most recently two years ago in Italy … and before that in Wisconsin … and before that in France (after Minnesota, after Scotland, after Illinois, etc.)?
— From Sally Jenkins’s “Golf’s Very Loud Weekend”According to many commentators on the right, when progressives penalize wrongdoing, it’s “cancel culture”; when conservatives do it, it’s merely what other double-c phrase suggestive of an action’s inevitable repercussions?
— From Idrees Kahloon’s “Illiberal America, MAGA Edition”Dealing as much with loss and grief as with physical monstrosity, what Victorian epistolary novel was referred to by its young author as her “hideous progeny”?
— From Jon Michael Varese’s “ChatGPT Resurrected My Dead Father”
And, by the way, did you know that Transnistria, the Russia-aligned breakaway region of Moldova, is the only place in the world that circulates plastic currency? A friend visited recently (don’t ask) and returned with some of these “coins,” which are neither exchangeable back into other currencies nor accepted anywhere else on Earth, except—and only sometimes—by a few cross-border-bus operators back in Moldova proper. They do, however, make excellent bingo chips.
Until tomorrow!
Answers:
The Ryder Cup. Sally writes that the biennial contest between U.S. and European golfers is a noisy affair even at its civilest and was bound to be particularly raucous once you packed in hundreds of thousands of born hecklers from across New York’s boroughs and beyond. Read more.
“Consequence culture.” This is, for what it’s worth, also what a lot of progressives call it when they themselves are doing it. Idrees worries that the self-excusing and hypocrisy is kicking off a spiral from which America will struggle to extricate itself. Read more.
Frankenstein. The echoes of Mary Shelley’s novel bounce crystal-clear through all the instances Varese relates of grieving people trying to resurrect lost loved ones through AI—a group that includes the writer himself. Read more.
How did you do? Come back tomorrow for more questions. And if you think up a great one after reading an Atlantic story—or simply want to share a stimulating fact—send it my way at [email protected].
