QUIZ SHOW

posted by James Reel

    From time to time the contributors to Quizilla.com will come up with a personality test that allows me to pretend to be doing something intellectual while I’m completely wasting my time. One favorite is “What Key Signature Are You?” My current result, which is happier and sappier than the last time I took this, is “E-flat major—you are warm and kind, always there for your friends, who are in turn there for you. You are content with your comfortable life and what you are currently achieving; if you keep in this state you will go far.” This seems contradictory; how can one who is content with present achievements make any further progress?
    Another is “Which New York Times Columnist Are You?” Somewhat to my distress, and that of a good friend of mine who gets the same response when she takes the quiz, “You are Maureen Dowd! You like to give people silly nicknames and write in really short, non sequitur paragraphs. You’re the most playful of the columnists and a rock-ribbed liberal, but are often accused of being too flamboyant and frivolous. You tend to focus on style over substance, personality over politics. But your heart is in the right place. Plus, you are a total fox.”
    The New Yorker’s Alex Ross points the way to a quiz I hadn’t encountered before: “What Major Work of Alban Berg Are You?” My result: “You are Berg’s ridiculously complicated Chamber Concerto. No one will ever figure you out and when they do, it probably won’t be right.”
    Does that mean I’m not really Maureen Dowd in E-flat major? Or, worse, does this call into question the words “total fox”?