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Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

4A Missing unexpectedly : AWOL

AWOL (absent without leave)

16A Poogle or Cybunny : NEOPET

Neopets.com is a website where one can own a virtual pet. I wouldn’t bother if I were you …

17A Movie trailer narrator’s first words, often : IN A WORLD

The term “trailer” is used in the film industry to describe advertisements for upcoming features. These trailers were originally shown at the end of a movie being screened, hence the name. This practice quickly fell out of favor as theater patrons usually left at the end of the movie without paying much attention to the trailers. So, the trailers were moved to the beginning of the show, but the term “trailer” persisted.

18A Fresh Rolls, for example? : NEW CAR

Henry Royce founded the Rolls-Royce company in 1904 with his partner, Charles Rolls. Royce died at 70 years of age in 1933. His last words were, reportedly, “I wish I had spent more time in the office …”

21A 2014 historical drama in which Stephan James plays the civil rights activist John Lewis : SELMA

“Selma” is a 2014 film about the Selma-to-Montgomery marches of 1965. Directed by Ava DuVernay, the movie stars David Oyelowo as Martin Luther King, Jr. and Tom Wilkinson as President Lyndon B. Johnson.

John Lewis was a civil rights leader, and a prominent leader in the 1963 March on Washington in which Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech. Lewis also suffered a fractured skull as he walked at the head of the march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma on Bloody Sunday. Lewis was elected to the US House of Representatives in 1987, and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011 by President Obama. Lewis passed away in 2020.

23A Roti alternative : NAAN

In an Indian restaurant, naan bread is very popular. Roti is an unleavened cousin of naan.

25A Last name in magazine publishing : NAST

Condé Nast is a mass media corporation that has a very large portfolio of publications, including “Vogue”, “GQ”, “House and Garden”, “Golf Digest”, “Wired”, “Vanity Fair” and “The New Yorker”.

29A “French” or “sliced” haircut : BOB

A bob cut is a short hairstyle in which the hair is cut straight around the head, at about the line of the jaw. Back in the 1570s, “bob” was the name given to a horse’s tail that was cut short, and about a century later it was being used to describe short hair on humans. The style became very popular with women in the early 1900s (as worn by actress Clara Bow, for example), with the fashion dying out in the thirties. The style reemerged in the sixties around the time the Beatles introduced their “mop tops”, with Vidal Sassoon leading the way in styling women’s hair in a bob cut again. Personally, I like it …

38A Quintana ___, easternmost of Mexico’s 31 states : ROO

Quintana Roo is one of Mexico’s 31 states. It is in the southeast of the country, on the Yucatán Peninsula. The state’s capital is the coastal city of Chetumal. Quintana Roo is also home to the cities of Cancún and Playa del Carmen, as well as the islands of Isla Mujeres and Cozumel.

39A Peaceful, so to speak : ZEN

Zen is a Buddhist school that developed from Chan Buddhism, a tradition that was established in China back in the 7th century AD. “Zen” is a Japanese spelling of the Chinese word “chan”, which in turn derives from the Sanskrit word “dhyana” meaning “meditation”.

41A Org. that includes the Forest Service : USDA

The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) dates back to 1862, when it was established by then-president Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln referred to the USDA as the “people’s department” as our economy had such a vast agrarian base back then.

50A Express misgivings : DEMUR

To demur is to voice opposition, to object. It can also mean to delay and has its roots in the Latin word “demorare”, meaning “to delay”.

55A Like Marilyn Monroe’s beauty mark : ICONIC

Marilyn Monroe was born in 1926 in LA County Hospital, the child of Gladys Pearl Baker. The young girl was given the name of Norma Jeane Mortenson on her birth certificate, but her mother changed this to Norma Jeane Baker almost immediately. She and her estranged husband, Martin Edward Mortensen, had separated before Baker became pregnant so it is suggested that the Mortensen name was used just to give Norma Jeane “legitimacy”. Norma Jeane married Jim Dougherty when she was 16 years old, and took his name to become Norma Jeane Dougherty in 1942. During WWII she was discovered by a photographer and became quite a successful model. The modeling earned her a screen test, at which time it was suggested that Norma Jeane change her name yet again. The first name chosen for her by studio executives was Carole Lind (after Carole Lombard and Jenny Lind), but then Norma Jeane chose “Jeane Monroe” for herself, using her mother’s maiden name. It didn’t take long before the studio intervened again, suggesting that they had too many “Jeans” already. The name Marilyn Monroe was floated as it had a nice ring to it. Along with the new name, Marilyn changed from a brunette to a blonde, and a star was born …

58A Popular export from Islay or Speyside : SCOTCH

Islay is the most southerly of the islands in the Inner Hebrides on the west coast of Scotland. There are about 30,000 people living on Islay, with about a quarter of that population speaking Scottish Gaelic.

59A Part of a cabinet that’s made overseas : MINISTER

In the Westminster system, the Cabinet is a group of sitting politicians chosen by the Prime Minister to head up government departments and also to participate collectively in major governmental decisions in all areas. In the US system, the Cabinet is made up not of sitting politicians, but rather of non-legislative individuals who are considered to have expertise in a particular area. The Cabinet members in the US system tend to have more of an advisory role outside of their own departments.

60A Osaka’s island : HONSHU

Honshu is the largest island in Japan, and the seventh largest island in the world. The name “Honshu” translates as “Main Island”.

62A Settings for some residents, for short : ERS

A resident is a physician who has graduated from medical school, and who is receiving specialized graduate training in a hospital. The concept of residency developed in the late 1800s. Back then, the doctors would often “reside” in hospital-provided housing while receiving the training, hence the term “resident”.

Down

2D Flying ___ (train between Mumbai and Surat) : RANEE

A ranee (also “rani”) is an Indian queen or princess, and the female equivalent of a raja.

6D Fabric debuted by DuPont in the 1940s : ORLON

Orlon is the brand name used by the DuPont Corporation for the acrylic fibers the company developed in 1941. It was created as a wool substitute.

7D Olympic golf gold medalist ___ Ko : LYDIA

Lydia Ko is a professional golfer from New Zealand. In 2015, she reached number-one in the Women’s World Golf Rankings, when she was only 17 years old. That made her the youngest player, male or female, to make the number-one ranking in professional golf.

8D Princess played by Audrey Hepburn in “Roman Holiday” : ANN

“Roman Holiday’ is a 1953 film, and surely one of the greatest romcoms ever made. Audrey Hepburn plays a princess who escapes her minders to explore Rome on her own. On her ventures, she meets up with a newspaper reporter played by Gregory Peck. Peck was a major Hollywood A-lister, while Hepburn was a complete unknown at the time. His contract gave him solo, above-the-title billing. Partway through filming, Peck was so impressed by Hepburn’s talent that he contacted his agent and insisted that she be given equal, co-star billing. He correctly predicted that she would win an Academy Award for the role.

Actress Audrey Hepburn trained as a ballet dancer for much of her early life. She had to give up her ambitions to become a prima ballerina due to a weak constitution attributed to malnutrition she experienced during WWII. Hepburn turned to acting, and earned her first starring film role after a screen test for 1953’s “Roman Holiday”, in which she played opposite Hollywood legend Gregory Peck. That performance changed her life, as she was a surprising winner of the Best Actress Oscar that season. After a long and successful acting career, Hepburn devoted many years to humanitarian causes. She was appointed Goodwill Ambassador of UNICEF in 1989, and traveled the world promoting programs that benefited humanity. In recognition for her work with UNICEF, President George H. W. Bush awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

10D Former “S.N.L.” comic ___ Yang : BOWEN

Bowen Yang is an actor and comedian who joined the cast of “Saturday Night Live” in 2019, after working for a year with the show’s writing staff. When Yank became a cast member, he was the first Chinese American to appear regularly on SNL.

12D Semi professional? : TEAMSTER

Originally, a teamster was a person who drove a team of animals that pulled a wagon. Over time, “teamster” became a synonym for “truck driver”. The term became more prevalent as the trade union called the International Brotherhood of Teamsters grew in importance during the Depression.

13D Low-level cloud : STRATUS

Stratus (plural “strati”) clouds are very common, and as they are wider than they are tall and flat along the bottom, we might just see them as haze in a featureless sky above us. Stratus clouds are basically the same as fog, but some distance above the ground. Indeed, many stratus clouds are formed when morning fog lifts into the air as the ground heats up.

20D Mideast yogurt dip eaten with pita : LABNEH

Labneh is food served in some cuisines from North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. It is a dairy product made by straining the liquid from yogurt so that it acquires a consistency similar to soft cheese.

28D Like Cheerios vis-à-vis Lucky Charms, say : OATIER

Cheerios breakfast cereal has the distinction of being the first oat-based cereal introduced into the market, hitting the grocery store shelves in 1941. Back then, Cheerios were known as CheeriOats.

Lucky Charms is a General Mills breakfast cereal that first hit the shelves in 1964. The initial idea was to produce a cereal that brought to mind charms on a charm bracelet. The cereal’s mascot is a leprechaun whose original name was L. C. Leprechaun, then Sir Charms, and finally Lucky the Leprechaun.

32D Color effect of a lunar eclipse : BLOOD MOON

A lunar eclipse occurs when the moon passes into the shadow cast by the Earth from the light of the Sun, in other words when the Earth is positioned directly between the Sun and the Moon. The more spectacular solar eclipse takes place when the Moon passes in front of the Sun, so that the Earth falls into the shadow cast by the Moon.

36D Italian sparkling wine : PROSECCO

Prosecco still and sparkling wines are named for the village of Prosecco in the province of Trieste in northeastern Italy.

42D High-ranking women in “The Handmaid’s Tale” : AUNTS

“The Handmaid’s Tale” is a 1985 novel by Canadian author Margaret Atwood. It is set in a dystopian New England of the near future, in a patriarchal state known as the Republic of Gilead, after the overthrow of the US government. The central character is named Offred, a “handmaid” forced to bear children for the male ruling class. The novel was adapted into a highly successful TV series of the same name, starring Elisabeth Moss as Offred.

45D Perpetual homebody? : SNAIL

Snails and slugs are referred to collectively as gastropods. There are many, many species of gastropods, found both on land and in the sea. Gastropods with shells are generally described as snails, and those species without shells are referred to as slugs.

48D Mammal with webbed feet : OTTER

Male and female otters are known as dogs and bitches, with the offspring called pups. Males and females are sometimes referred to as boars and sows. A collection of otters is a bevy, family, lodge or perhaps a romp. When in water, a collection of otters can be called a raft.

49D Personality test co-inventor Isabel Briggs ___ : MYERS

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) was created in 1962, by Katharine Cook Briggs and her daughter Isabel Briggs Myers. The MBTI has been a popular tool used by businesses and business consultants for decades. The MBTI is built on the theories of Carl Jung and is designed to assess an individual’s personality type and give insight into how that individual interacts with other personality types.

56D “Wicked” director Jon M. ___ : CHU

Jon M. Chu is a movie and television director who is perhaps known for directing 2018’s highly-acclaimed film “Crazy Rich Asians”. Chu’s firstborn child is named “Willow”, after the 1988 film “Willow”. His second-born child is named “Jonathan Heights”, after the 2021 movie “In the Heights”.

“Wicked” (2024) is the first installment of a two-part film adaptation of the hit Broadway musical of the same name. It stars Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba and Ariana Grande as Glinda, and shows the events that lead them to become the Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda the Good. I skipped this one, because I am scared of flying monkeys …