So I'm starting at the blank Word screen and the "Q:" and I have the first source in hand. As noted, it's a new source, entitled "JFK Day by Day" and since it's a new source, the first thing I do is to enter into into Access. It will autonumber the source, as 2176 (there are a number of blank numbers for sources as I was learning how to use Access; it won't give you back a deleted autonumbered line of data), and fill in the remaining fields: Title, Author (important because a number of sources have the same author and a number of books have different titles for the same text, so you can double-check before buying a duplicate), Earliest Date (in this case, January 20, 1961), Last Date (surprisingly, December 22, 1963, the date of the end of "Official Mourning" for JFK) and Last Used (which will turn out to be 1/5/2011 for all the books in this game for some reason).
Now I open up the book. No, you're not going to see the question here.
I will say why the source is in the game, for each source in this game. Of course, you already know why this source is in this game.
The second source is "100 Best Selling Albums of the 60s", source no. 2006 and, because Access alphabetizes numbers before letters, in fact the second source listed of the now 1398 sources for the year (the first is #1 New York Times Bestseller Lists"). This source is obviously a B (if you remember the classification in the last entry), so I could have used it in this year or held it for 1966. I decided to use it for this year because of the interesting way albums transformed in the sixties. At the start of the decade, the biggest selling albums were original cast albums from hit Broadway musicals and comedy albums. By the end of the decade, that was a distant memory as rock was king.
3. Chronology of Post-War British Politics, sort of between a B and a C (it covers about 40 years). One of my redoubtable sources, it's no. 123. What I like about it is that nearly all the entries are clear and concise and there's a lot of follow-through. To take an example I'm not using, it mentions a Commonwealth meeting where South Africa threatens to leave the Commonwealth and the later actual conversion of South Africa to a Republic.
4. The Black New Yorkers, definitely a D since the subtitle is "400 Year of African-American History." Source no. 90, an old hand. There is a companion volume on Washington, D.C. Picked because there's gotta be something old Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. was up to you, doesn't there?
5. Joel Whitburn's Pop Singles Annual, 1955-1990. A hybrid C/D like no. 3. Source no. 2086 and a rare source likely to be in other trivia hosts' libraries. Gotta use some of the pop music stuff here and I like to know what the singles were like when I was four years old.
6. Annals of Dublin, Fair City. Goes back to the Vikings, definitely a D. I usually use it for earlier games, like 17th century games, but I wanted to know what was happening in Dublin when Quackser Fortune was a boy. Source no. 457.
7. Dangerous Weather, no. 103 (and Nanbert's birthday present to me ages ago). Sort of a D since it goes way back, but more of a C because its annual material really doesn't start until the 20th century.
8,. Billy Wilder: The Complete Films. No. 1498 and a solid B. He won the 1960 Oscar for The Apartment but that's not what I'm interested in. The film he made in 1961 is one of my favorites.
9. 100 Years of the U.S. Open (the golf one). Definitely a C. No. 1219. It's Jack and Arnie time.
10. Race Relations in the United States, 1896-2005, which makes it a C. It appears I have this listed in the database twice, which will necessitate giving its second number to another source and screwing up all those databases that cite it. Oh, well. No need to say why this is relevant to the year.
11. John F. Kennedy. An A, duh. Welcome to the first of the Oceana series. There are four sets in the series, one on Presidents, which is generally an excellent source during the various presidencies and hit and miss before and after terms (obviously the latter inapplicable to this particular President); one one cities which is just wonderful; one on countries which is hit or miss (I have Israel, for instance, and it covers King David and Menachem Begin and not much in between); and one on states which is the bane of my existence. As we'll soon see. This book is no. 482.
12. The Rough Guide to Muhammad Ali (which replaced "The Beetle" because there were no 1960 changes noted to the VW models in the book). A solid B, and a great book to use for this year. No. 1366.
13. Bob Dylan Complete Discography. My database doesn't list this for 1961 (Dylan's first official release was in 1962), but there is a question here. Note: because I had to delete the filter to find that this is No. 2088, when I put the filter back all the sources I've used so far have disappeared. This is because they are filtered for "Last Used < 1/1/2011", and now they've all been used after that date.
14. Aeronautical and Astrophysical Events of 1961. It doesn't get much more A than this. No. 465.
And here we pause. Traditionally, when I write the first full question on page 2 of the Word file, I finally save the file and the Flashback file. The game is provisional until this point; on rare occasions I decide "this game is boring" and dump it, but I can't after this point. For the first game of the year, I have to create a new subfolder in my "Gamedocs" folder called "2011 Games." Both files get saved to it. Thus, the Flashback file in 2010 Games will not go further than the 1911 game. Time goes on.
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