Free Association by ShapiroA

What animal is variously the namesake for the heel on a violin bow, a device used to hold flower arrangements in place, a braided fabric closure that encircles a button, and a hollow indentation in a brick?

I'm nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there's a pair of us -- don't tell!
They'd banish us, you know.

This is the first stanza of an Emily Dickinson poem as presented by its first publisher, who significantly dialed down the author's quirkiness (punctuationally and otherwise). The phrase "banish us" replaced what verb in the original text, which, to one as publicity-averse as Dickinson, might be a worse fate than banishment?

The venomous spiders of greatest concern in North America are those of the genera Loxosceles and Latrodectus. Their identifying markings are respectively considered to be fiddleneck- and hourglass-shaped. What are their respective common names, in order?

Margaret Chase Smith, Jean Carnahan, and Doris Matsui are U. S. politicians who began their elected careers as the successors of what three officeholders? Last names are sufficient.

From 1906 to 1988, a certain U. S. Senate seat was held by only four people, all of them highly influential. The first and second in this series were Robert La Follette, Sr. and Jr.; the last was William Proxmire. Who was the third and shortest-serving of the four, who is widely considered to have drunk himself to death?

Name the screenwriter whose credits for Exodus and Spartacus, both released in 1960, signaled the end of social circumstances that had compelled him to work for a decade under assumed names.

What English word derives from a classical Greek word meaning "pottery shard", since it originally referred to an Athenian practice in which citizens voted to exile their peers by writing their names on pieces of clay?

This china and porcelain producer, founded in Stoke-on-Trent in 1759 and still extant today, is perhaps best-known for the product jasperware, and for the associated pale-blue color that bears the company's name.

Players of the board game Puerto Rico compete to produce five plantation crops: corn, sugar, tobacco, coffee, and what other item which was needed by the Genoese textile industry, among other consumers?

This menu has a very particular theme: kahve, pain grillé, arroz, köttbullar, kiełbasa, Schokoladenkuchen, muffin, γιαούρτι. "Translate" the last menu item -- as a two-word phrase, please. (Note: This is more of a puzzle than a trivia question. If you aren't thinking "A-ha!" then you probably haven't got it.)

From where I sit typing these questions, I can see objects known as Kallax and Förhöja, both of which were originally purchased from what retailer?

Answering a pub trivia question last week, my team petitioned for full credit for the answer "caudectomy", which my teammate knew from bitter veterinary experience. The quizmaster gave us credit (and told us we were nerds). What vernacular synonym for caudectomy had he been looking for? In case you're wondering how I free-associated my way to this question, a word in the previous question seemed punningly apt, in an opposite sort of way.