ONLY REALLY EXTRAORDINARY TRIVIA BUFFS NEED APPLY/BUY!

Okay, my CATALYTIC QUOTES (Some Heard Through a Time Warp): One Music-History-Literary-and-Trivia-buff's Pure Conjecture on the Seemingly Sometimes Idiosyncratic Transmigration of the Creative Muse, just may be aimed at an audience so exclusive, not to mention, so small, that the book is never destined to soar to the top of any best seller list. I have to just thank my publisher, Wildside/Borgo for having had the gumption to publish this for the small audience that does have insight; the rest of the world, even those who "think" they're into trivia, not having a clue as to what any of it is really all about.

This blog, then, is merely my official thank-you for those few of you who have been clever enough to find this little tome amusing. Also, it's an invitation to any of you, out there, who really think yourselves truly "into" trivia, or into the unlocking of puzzles, who might find it worth your time and, yes, amusement to give figuring out some of this book a college try.

The first clue, of course, as to what this book is really all about, obvious, possibly, to only the very clever -- the world so bereft of clever people these days -- is in its title --:

CATALYTIC: Causing significant reaction.
QUOTES: Written for another with credit acknowledgments.
(SOME: A certain amount.
HEARD: Perceived.
THROUGH: Movement into at one side of and out of another.
A TIME WARP): An anomaly or discontinuity held to occur in time progression.

Get it? Probably not?

How about the first puzzle-joke within the very first quote of the book, then:

HANK AARON to WILLIAM GOLDING:
"Yep. Me. The Lord of the Flies."

Get it, now? Probably not.

And if not, do I really want to go through the bother of providing you with the clue, if you're not smart enough to figure it out yourself? Well, maybe I do, in that sometimes even the cleverest of detectives needs some catalyst to get him or her started along the right pathway.

So, the question always to ask of every quote in this book is: "If two people, although separated in real life by time and space, were ever to have met up, and one, in this case Hank Aaron, had said something, indicative of himself, to the other, William Golding, in this case -- "Yep. Me. The Lord of Flies." --what might the other person have taken from that conversation to have ended up creating something with which he's since become well-known (at least to trivia buffs, like me)?

Hank Aaron, having hit 755 home runs in his career, has definitely been known as the Sports World's "Lord of Flies". Having announced that fact to William Golding, author, though, what might William have been inspired to do in result? Answer: Write his infamous novel, LORD OF FLIES, of course; so, what that it has nothing whatsoever to do with baseball?!

Okay, so you're a trivia buff extraordinaire, just not in the field of sports. How about music?

CHUBBY CHECKER to CHARLES DICKENS:
"I always figured Oliver Wendell Holmes a bit straitlaced. Until the night of the party when everyone started chanting, 'Twist, Oliver, twist!' And, he got up and really showed us how it was done."

Chubby Checker is famous for starting the "Twist" dance craze. Charles Dickens is famous for, among other things -- tah-dah! -- his novel OLIVER TWIST, of course.

Literature and/or food, anyone?:

DOCTOR JEKYLL to WOLFGANG PUCK:
"I'll be eating alone. So a table for two, please."

The insider joke, here, is that Wolfgang Puck, cook, often gets requests in his restaurants for tables of one, two, three, or parties of however many. Doctor Jekyll, ordering a table for two just why? Because, in the book by Robert Louis Stevenson, THE STRANGE CASE OF DR. JEKYLL AND MR HYDE, Dr. Jekyll, prime protagonist, possesses dual personalities that include Mr. Hyde. So, Dr. Jekyll, even when dining alone, might figure he needs an extra seat for his second persona.

Literature and history, maybe?:

HANNIBAL LECTER to NAPOLEON BONAPARTE:
"You look good enough to eat."

Almost everyone knows that Hannibal Lecter is the infamous cannibal made famous in films by Anthony Hopkins, and created in books, including SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, by Thomas Harris. As for Napoleon ... well an emperor and great miliary general, to be sure, BUT, also, yes, a puff pastry. See the macabre humor, now, in Hannibal Lecter interested in "eating" Napoleon on not just one but two counts?

If you get it, if you're amused, congratulations, in that you can consider yourself among the trivia-expert elite who have the wherewithal to figure ot what these are all about... something achievable by only a very few.

If you don't get it, or do "think" you get it, but aren't in the least entertained or amused ... if this is all just too mind-boggling for you ... how about, instead, I recommend you pick up a copy of my DOG ON A SURFBOARD AND THE REST OF THE ADVENTURE and give that a try?