Island Fever
From ancient to post-modern times, islands, atolls and archipelagos have had a way of exciting the imagination. See if you recognize these watery wonders culled from classical, Enlightenment and pop sources.

1. Forget Paris. According to a 1950s pop quartet, “40 kilometers in a leaky old boat” will get you to the rocky paradise that epitomizes “romance.”

2. Legend tells of a gargantuan bronze statue straddling the harbor of this Aegean island. Representing the Greek god Helios, the 100-foot titan stood for only 54 years before an earthquake snapped it at the knees. So impressive were the ruins that travelers came to marvel for 800 more years – earning it fame as one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

3. “Smoke on your pipe and put that in” is Anita’s advice to anyone who prefers the “enchanted” island of her birth to her cosmopolitan adopted home, also an island.

4. Sir Walter Raleigh was the architect of this ill-fated island colony, perhaps the earliest enigma in American history. Few facts are known beyond this: In 1587, it nursed the first English child born in the New World, and soon after, she and the rest of the colony mysteriously disappeared.

5. Off the coast of Chile, three islands have long teased the Western imagination. One is famous for its gigantic otherworldly statuary; another inspired what many consider the first English novel; and the third, given its inhospitable climate (favored by penguins), was most inaptly named by explorer Ferdinand Magellan, the first European to lay eyes on it.

6. “Itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny” pretty accurately describes this group of islands (actually atolls), the largest and most famous of which gave its name to a timeless article of beach attire.

7. Plato wrote of an island “larger than Libya and Asia Minor together,” the conqueror of territories from Egypt to central Italy. This island-empire might have subdued Athens itself had not the sea swallowed it whole in the wake of a catastrophic earthquake. Scant geological or historical evidence supports this narrative, but that hasn’t discouraged explorers seeking it.

8. Another island really did sink (two-thirds of it, to be exact) after a series of cataclysmic volcanic eruptions. The subject of a popular 1969 movie and a B52s song, its demise literally rocked the world, reverberating seven times. The largest explosions – measuring about 13,000 times the force of the nuclear bomb that destroyed Hiroshima – propelled ash 50 miles high and produced a bang that could be heard from 2,000 miles away.

9. “Get there fast and take it slow” is the recipe for harmonious bliss, according to an archetypical surfer rock quintet. The refrain to its 1988 steel-band chart topper identifies six Caribbean getaways.

10. Described by Homer, fleshed out by Herodotus, this mythical island of contented do-nothings later inspired an epic poem by Tennyson and an episode in the original Star Trek series. The real island on which it most likely was modeled is today a popular North African tourist destination.

11. Sometimes called the eighth continent, it’s the fourth largest island in the world – roughly the size of France. Contrary to popular mythology, however, lemurs – while abundant – don’t actually greet visitors with the rap ditty: “I like to move it.”

›› CONTEST RULES
We are looking for the specific places referenced in each clue. Up to five $30 gift certificates from Borders Books and Music will be awarded to the most geographically gifted Last Worders to respond. If more than five perfect entries are received, five winners will be drawn by lot.

Send your answers no later than December 15 to The Last Word c/o USC Trojan Family Magazine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089-7790.

Submissions by fax (213-821-1100) and e-mail <magazines@usc.edu> are welcome.