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Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

10A Supplier to Wile E. Coyote : ACME

Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner are two much-loved cartoon characters from Warner Bros. Road Runner was created first, and Wile E. Coyote was invented as the necessary pursuer. I love this cartoon; it’s definitely one of the best …

14A Employee after working hours, on “Severance” : OUTIE

“Severance” is a fascinating TV show about employees at a company who undergo a surgical procedure that completely separates their memories between their work lives and their personal lives. The show stars Adam Scott, and is executive-produced and mainly directed by Hollywood actor Ben Stiller.

16A Horse with a muted coat : ROAN

In horses, there are two types of roan: red roan, which has a mixture of red and white hairs, and blue roan, which has a mixture of black and white hairs.

22A “Goosebumps” author : STINE

“Goosebumps” is a series of children’s horror novels written by author R. L. Stine. The novels have been adapted into a television series shown on Canadian TV.

23A Adrenaline surge providers : EPIPENS

EpiPen is a brand of epinephrine auto-injector. An EpiPen delivers a measured dose of epinephrine, which is a common treatment for an extreme allergic reaction.

25A Bit of Yahtzee equipment : DICE CUP

The dice game Yahtzee was introduced in 1956 and is a variant of earlier dice games, especially the game “Yacht” (which even has a similar name). Yahtzee is required entertainment in our house during holidays. The game involves the rolling of five dice, with the intent of getting certain combinations. A lot of those combinations resemble poker hands, such as a straight, three of a kind, four of a kind and a full house.

27A Word rhymed with “flash” in “A Visit From St. Nicholas” : SASH

The poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas” was published anonymously in 1823, and is better known today by its first line “‘Twas the night before Christmas”. Most scholars believe that the poem was written by Clement Clarke Moore, a theologian from New York City. Others say that it was written by Henry Livingston, Jr., a poet from Upstate New York.

‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;
The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads;
And mamma in her ’kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled our brains for a long winter’s nap,
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash …

28A Obnoxiously blingy : GARISH

Bling-bling (often simply “bling”) is the name given to all the shiny stuff sported by rap stars in particular i.e. the jewelry, watches, metallic cell phones, even gold caps on the teeth. The term comes from the supposed “bling” sound caused by light striking a shiny metal surface.

30A “___ Been to the Mountaintop” (M.L.K. Jr. speech) : I’VE

The last speech delivered by Martin Luther King, Jr. is often referred to as “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop”. Delivered on April 3rd, 1968 in Memphis, Dr. King was assassinated in that same city the next day. Towards the end, the speech includes the following words:

Well, I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn’t matter with me now, because I’ve been to the mountaintop. And I don’t mind. Like anybody, I would like to live – a long life; longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land. So I’m happy, tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.

31A Feminine sides : ANIMAS

The concepts of anima and animus are found in the Carl Jung school of analytical psychology. The idea is that within each male there resides a feminine inner personality called the anima, and within each female there is a male inner personality known as the animus.

38A Alfred ___, co-creator of the original I.Q. test : BINET

The first usable intelligence test was invented by a French psychologist named Alfred Binet. Binet collaborated with Théodore Simon and together they produced the Binet-Simon Intelligence Scale that was later adapted by Lewis Terman at Stanford University into the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scales, which is the IQ test in use today.

43A Downfall of the boy in 2018’s “Beautiful Boy,” in brief : METH

“Meth” is a street name used for the drug methamphetamine, which is also called “crank” and “crystal meth”.

52A Mind-reading scan, in a way : FMRI

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is a technique that measures brain activity by detecting changes in blood flow in response to neural activity. The idea is that when an area of the brain becomes more active it consumes more oxygen, and so blood supply increases to supply that oxygen.

57A Relative of Hindi : URDU

Urdu is one of the two official languages of Pakistan (the other being English), and is one of the 22 scheduled languages in India. Urdu partly developed from Persian and is written from right to left.

61A Some yellow-green sodas, informally : DEWS

If you check the can, you’ll see that “Mountain Dew” is now marketed as “Mtn Dew”.

62A Bob with the Silver Bullet Band : SEGER

Bob Seger struggled as a performing artist right through the sixties and early seventies before becoming a commercial success in 1976 with the release of his album “Night Moves”. Since then, Seger has recorded songs that have become classics like “We’ve Got Tonight”, “Like a Rock” and “Old Time Rock & Roll”.

Down

1D Argon, krypton and xenon, informally : NOBLES

The noble gases (also “rare gases”) are those elements on the extreme right of the Periodic Table. Because of their “full” complement of electrons, noble gases are very unreactive. The six noble gases that occur naturally are helium, neon, argon, krypton, xenon and radon.

2D Moon of Jupiter that has a liquid ocean under its surface : EUROPA

As are many celestial bodies, the moon of Jupiter called Europa was named after a figure in Greek mythology. Europa was a Phoenician woman who was abducted by Zeus. Europa also gave her name to the continent of Europe.

3D Absolut alternatives : STOLIS

Stolichnaya vodka originated in Russia, but now it’s made in Latvia. Latvia is of course a completely different country, so you won’t see the word “Russian” on the label anymore. But, the “Stoli” label still bears a drawing of the famous Hotel Moskva, which is located near Red Square in Moscow.

4D Hermana de la madre : TIA

In Spanish, a “tía” (aunt) is the “hermana del padre o de la madre” (sister of the father or the mother).

5D “The ___ is wither’d from the lake”: Keats : SEDGE

Sedges are a family of plants that resemble grasses and rushes. They are more properly called Cyperaceae.

English poet John Keats died in Rome in 1821, and is buried there in the Protestant Cemetery. His last wish was that his grave be marked with a tombstone bearing just the words “Here lies One whose Name was writ in Water”, and no name nor a date. Keats’ friends honored his request to some extent, as the words were included on the stone and no name is given. The full epitaph reads:

This Grave
contains all that was Mortal
of a
Young English Poet
Who
on his Death Bed, in the Bitterness of his Heart
at the Malicious Power of his Enemies
Desired
these Words to be
engraven on his Tomb Stone:
Here lies One
Whose Name was writ in Water.
24 February 1821

6D Bona fide numbskull : CLASS-A MORON

“Bona fide(s)” translates from the Latin as “in good faith”, and is used to indicate honest intentions. It can also mean that something is authentic, like a piece of art that is represented in good faith as being genuine.

9D Colas in the “cola wars” : PEPSIS

“Cola Wars” is a phrase used to describe the competing marketing campaigns of Coca-Cola and PepsiCo. Coke is winning …

10D Former governor Schwarzenegger, informally : ARNIE

Body-builder, actor and politician Arnold Schwarzenegger was born in Graz in Austria, the son of the local police chief. Schwarzenegger’s family name translates into the more prosaic “black plowman”. In his bodybuilding days, he was often referred to as the Austrian Oak. When he was Governor of California he was called “the Governator”, a play on his role in “The Terminator” series of movies.

18D Improvise : WING IT

To wing it is to improvise, to do something without sufficient preparation. There is some debate about the term’s etymology, but I like the idea that it came from the theater. An actor would be described as winging it if he or she learned lines while standing in the wings just before going on stage.

32D ___ Lion, Penn State mascot : NITTANY

The athletic teams of Pennsylvania State University (PSU) are called the Nittany Lions, or in the case of the female teams, the Lady Lions. The Nittany Lion was introduced as a mascot way back in 1904 and is modeled after mountain lions that used to roam Mount Nittany located near the school’s campus.

37D Kid-lit character who says “It’s not much of a tail, but I’m sort of attached to it” : EEYORE

Eeyore is the donkey character in A. A. Milne’s “Winnie-the-Pooh”. He is very lovable, but has a gloomy and pessimistic outlook on life.

45D $2 coin, eh? : TOONIE

“Toonie” is the familiar name for a two-dollar coin in Canada. The toonie was introduced in 1996, and gets its familiar name from the one-dollar coin known as a “loonie”.

48D Masters : GURUS

“Guru” is a Hindi word meaning “teacher” or “priest”.

54D Traditional parka material : FUR

A parka is a hooded jacket that is often lined with fur, and that is worn in cold weather. The original parka was a pullover design, but nowadays it is usually zipped at the front. “Parka” is the Russian name for the garment, and it was absorbed into English in the late 1700s via the Aleut language.

55D Boston’s Mass ___ : AVE

Massachusetts Avenue in Boston (and beyond) is known to locals simply as Mass Ave. It was along part of Mass Ave (then called the Great Road) that Paul Revere made his famous ride in 1775.

56D 1.0 G.P.A. : DEE

Grade point average (GPA)