This issue is dedicated to my other editor, Tom Shortliffe, who wanted to know if I had any sports related questions for this week — presumably to vaguely justify my placement in the Sports section. So, Tom, this first one is for you.

Is the football team going to beat Denison tomorrow?

Of course. We rolled over the Big Red last year, their O-line still can’t stop our D-line’s penetration, and their porous defense remains vulnerable to the run. For those of you who don’t speak sport, or care, or ask “Do we have a football team?” (as a prospie did to me yesterday. I kid you not, I sat down for an interview with her and at some point between the introductions and a debate on Greenpeace, that question came up) come to the game anyway. I’ll answer any and all pointless football questions while loafing in the stands. You’ll know me because I’m ‘That Guy Who Wears the Red Plaid Coat Everywhere’ as a friend of mine overheard someone call me.
Okay, enough stalling. On to this week’s questions…

Did Hemingway go to Oberlin? –Greg “I’m only reading your column if you answer this question” Walters

Depends which Hemingway you mean. Clarence Hemingway was a pre-med student at Oberlin, and he was the team trainer on the football team (there ya go Tom, two tenuous connections) during Heisman’s first season here. Marcelline Hemingway Sanford enrolled around 1916.
But their son and brother, respectively — a certain Ernest Hemingway — did not come here, despite his father’s wishes that he continue the Hemingway legacy at Oberlin (a legacy that included Clarence’s brother, Tyler). According to the biographies I could find online, Ernest was less interested in college and more interested in some real world experience, starting as a cub reporter for the Kansas City Star. But even this job seemed to mask his real interest: going off to war, which he did as an ambulance driver in 1918.

Is the porn industry bigger than Hollywood?

This question came up at one of numerous random parties hosted by my apartment-mates last year. If anyone wishes to take credit for it, feel free.
The idea that purely pornographic material generates more money than all the blockbusters and busts produced as “entertainment” (pardon the sarcasm, but did anyone else sit through Catherine Zeta-Jones’s The Haunting?) under the auspices of the Motion Picture Association of America is one of those has-to-be-true statements that takes our beliefs (secretly, many, many people rent, buy or otherwise view porn much more than we care to admit) and gives them some quantifiable level of feasibility.
Sadly, on the question of who’s bigger it is not Ron Jeremy and company. In the May 25, 2001 issue of Forbes magazine, author Dan Ackman and a crack team of researchers and number crunchers worked long…and hard…and… sorry, got away from me there. Using data from the industry itself, related retailers’ and rental figures and independent audits, the magazine put the annual gross of the porn industry (i.e. total amount of money taken in) at around $4 billion.
By comparison, the total box-office gross for movies released in 1996 alone, the year of Independence Day…my how time flies, was around $5.7 billion. Since then the numbers have been rising (powered in part by rising ticket prices). Moreover, these figures only count ticket sales, not rentals or other revenue.
At the same time, porn industry observers (as in magazines about the industry, not your creepy neighbor) consistently estimate the industry’s total gross to be around $40 billion. Despite the fact that this has no apparent support, the number — or the idea of a significantly large number — keeps making the rounds and has probably contributed to the urban myth implied in this question.
Some people just don’t seem to learn. If the fans really love what you do, it doesn’t matter to them how big your gross is…

Next week: celery, Brown and Williamson and more backhanded slaps at my editors. Ah, journalism. E-mail your pointless questions to aaron.mucciolo@oberlin.edu or mail ’em to Pointless Questions c/o The Oberlin Review, Wilder Box 90, Oberlin, OH 44074. Your name will only be used with your permission.