NYXCrossword.com

Bill’s time: 10m 57s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1A Grammy-winning singer who’s had both a “Farewell Tour” and a “Here We Go Again Tour” : CHER

“Cher” is the stage name used by singer and actress Cherilyn Sarkisian. Formerly one half of husband-wife duo Sonny & Cher, she is often referred to as the Goddess of Pop. In her acting career, Cher was nominated for the Best Supporting Actress Oscar of 1984 for her performance in “Silkwood”. She went further in 1988 and won the season’s Best Actress Oscar for playing Loretta Castorini in “Moonstruck”.

“Dancing Queen” is an excellent 2018 studio album released by Cher. She had just appeared in the 2018 musical film “Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again”, which is based on ABBA music. The album features cover versions of ABBA songs, including “Fernando” and “Super Trouper”, which Cher sang in the movie. My wife and I had tickets to see Cher in her subsequent “Here We Go Again” tour, but the fixture was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic 🙁

17A Part of an evacuation plan : EXIT ROUTE (hiding “TROUT”)

Trout are freshwater fish that are closely related to char and salmon. Most trout live exclusively in freshwater lakes and rivers, but a few species live at sea and return to freshwater to spawn.

18A Former carrier over Mauna Kea : ISLAND AIR

Mauna Kea is a dormant volcano on the Big Island of Hawaii, the peak of which is the highest point in the whole state. Mauna Kea is in effect the tip of a gigantic volcano rising up from the seabed.

21A It ends “But the way of the ungodly shall perish” : PSALM ONE (hiding “SALMON”)

When young salmon (born in freshwater) are at the smolt stage, they become adapted to saltwater and head for the sea. They return to freshwater to reproduce, often traveling long distances upstream.

22A Sin/cos : TAN

In a right-angled triangle, the tangent (tan) is the ratio of the side opposite an angle to the side adjacent to it.

23A Billy goat’s cry : MAA!

Male goats are bucks or billies, although castrated males are known as wethers. Female goats are does or nannies, and young goats are referred to as kids.

30A First movie to win the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature : SHREK

Before “Shrek” was a successful movie franchise and Broadway musical, it was a children’s picture book called “Shrek!” that was authored and illustrated by William Steig. The title “Shrek!” came from the German/Yiddish word Schreck, meaning “fear” or “terror”.

33A Telegram enders : STOPS

At least colloquially, a telegram was a telegraph message sent inland, while a cablegram was sent overseas. The use of “cablegram” came about as the message was transmitted via a submarine cable.

35A Setting for “Biohackers” and “Bones” : LAB

The term “biohacking” was coined to describe amateurs engaged in biological experimentation. The term is quite broad, and can cover anything from genome editing in bugs to experimenting with one’s own diet to enhance the body’s performance.

“Bones” is a TV crime drama in which the title character is a forensic anthropologist. I quite like the show as the lead characters, Dr. Temperance “Bones” Brennan and FBI Special Agent Seeley Booth, have a give and take relationship that is reminiscent of characters often played by Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy.

38A Mocking name for failed businesses of the early 2000s : DOT-BOMB

The dot-com bubble was a phenomenon seen in 1997 to 2000 during which speculation led to the overvaluation of poorly-understood Internet stocks. The bubble burst on March 10, 2000. Within ten days, the value of the NASDAQ was down by over 10%.

41A What “R” might stand for on an envelope : RHODE

Rhode Island is the smallest state in the union, and is the second-most densely populated (after New Jersey). Rhode Island is known as the Ocean State (and more informally “Little Rhody”), largely because about 14% of the state’s area is made up of ocean bays and inlets. Exactly how Rhode Island got its name is a little unclear. What is known is that way back in 1524, long before the Pilgrims came to New England, the Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano likened an island in the area to the Island of Rhodes in the Mediterranean. There were subsequent references to “Rhode Island” in English publications, before the colonists arrived.

43A Company named after a volcano : AETNA

When the healthcare management and insurance company known as Aetna was founded, the name was chosen to evoke images of Mount Etna, the Italian volcano.

47A Objectivist Rand : AYN

Ayn Rand was a Russian-American novelist born “Alisa Rosenbaum”. Her two best known works are her novels “The Fountainhead” published in 1943 and “Atlas Shrugged” from 1957. Back in 1951, Rand moved from Los Angeles to New York City. Soon after, she gathered a group of admirers around her with whom she discussed philosophy and shared drafts of her magnum opus, “Atlas Shrugged”. This group called itself “The Collective”, and one of the founding members was none other than future Federal Reserve chairman, Alan Greenspan. Rand described herself as “right-wing” politically, and both she and her novel “Atlas Shrugged” have become inspirations for the American conservatives, and the Tea Party in particular.

The philosophy of objectivism comes in several forms, all holding that reality is objective and independent of the mind. The emphasis is on reality based on the observation of objects and events rather than feelings or thoughts that grow out of literature or art.

50A Hit list : POP CHART (hiding “CHAR”)

The Arctic char is a cold-water fish that is found in freshwater bodies in the very north of our planet, as the name suggests. In fact, no other freshwater fish is found as far north as the Arctic char.

55A “There it is!” : VOILA!

The French word “voilà” means “there it is”, and “voici” means “here it is”. The terms come from “vois là” meaning “see there” and “vois ici” meaning “see here”.

59A Film angling for awards … or what’s depicted three times in this puzzle? : OSCAR BAIT

A movie that is described as “Oscar bait” is one that is released late in the year, just before votes are being cast for the Academy Awards, the “Oscars”. Studios employ this tactic so that a movie is fresh in the mind of Oscar voters, so that it gets an edge over a film released months earlier.

63A Leaves the slip, perhaps : SAILS

A “slipway” or “slip” is a ramp on the shore in which boats can “slip” into the water. This “slipping” into the water is literally the case in a shipyard, where a vessel’s hull “slips” off the ramp after it is coated with grease.

64A Comic ___ : SANS

Comic Sans MS is a font that looks a bit like that used in old comic books. It was released by Microsoft in 1994. If you live in the Netherlands, you are lucky enough to enjoy Comic Sans Day on the first Friday of July each year.

66A Tonsillectomy specialists, for short : ENTS

The palatine tonsils are located at the back of the human throat. The exact role that tonsils play isn’t completely understood, but it is known that they are in the first line of defense in the body’s immune system. They provide some level of protection against pathogens that are ingested and inhaled.

Down

2D “___ español?” : HABLA

“Habla español?” is Spanish for “Do you speak Spanish?” “Aquí se habla español” translates as “Spanish is spoken here”.

7D Qatari title : EMIR

Qatar is a sovereign state in the Middle East occupying the Qatar Peninsula, itself located in the Arabian Peninsula. Qatar lies on the Persian Gulf and shares one land border, with Saudi Arabia to the south. In 2010, Qatar had the fastest growing economy in the world, driven by the petrochemical industry.

10D Graphic novels? : SMUT

“Smut” means “dirt, smudge” and more recently “pornographic material”. The term comes from the Yiddish “schmutz”, which is a slang word used in English for dirt, as in “dirt on one’s face”.

11D What am I, chopped liver? : PATE

Pâté is a rich, spreadable paste made from a mixture of ground meat and fat to which various vegetables, herbs and spices may be added. The most famous version of the paste is pâté de foie gras, which is made from the fattened livers of geese (“foie gras” means “fat liver” in French).

12D Super Mario World console, in brief : SNES

“Super Mario” is a series of video games created by Nintendo that features the character Mario, and his adventures in the Mushroom Kingdom.

13D Gen Z slang for awesome style : DRIP

New to me …

15D Largest of the dolphin family : ORCA

Despite the nickname “killer whale”, the orca is the largest member of the dolphin family. Orcas are apex predators, and are the only known natural threat to great white sharks.

25D 49er’s score : LODE

The California gold rush actually started in 1848. The first to exploit the find were those people already in California. By 1849 the word had spread and gold-seekers started to arrive from all over the world. The “out-of-towners” who arrived in 1849 became known as forty-niners.

28D Pulitzer-winning Kendrick Lamar album : DAMN

Kendrick Lamar is a hip-hop singer from Compton, California. Lamar’s full name is Kendrick Lamar Duckworth, with the singer’s given name honoring Motown artist Eddie Kendricks. Notably, his 2017 album “Damn” won a Pulitzer Prize for Music, becoming the first non-classical or non-jazz album to do so.

29D 1974 Eurovision winners : ABBA

We have a big event across Europe every year called the Eurovision Song Contest. Each nation enters one song in competition with each other, and then voters across the whole continent decide on the winner. That’s how ABBA got their big break when they won in 1974 with “Waterloo”.

30D “Auld Lang ___” : SYNE

The song “Auld Lang Syne” is a staple at New Year’s Eve (well, actually in the opening minutes of New Year’s Day). The words were written by Scottish poet Robbie Burns. The literal translation of “Auld Lang Syne” is “old long since”, but is better translated as “old times”. The sentiment of the song is “for old time’s sake”.

Should auld acquaintance be forgot
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot
And days of auld lang syne?

For auld lang syne, my dear
For auld lang syne
We’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet
For days of auld lang syne

32D Cartoonist and inventor Goldberg : RUBE

Rube Goldberg was a cartoonist, engineer and inventor who became famous for designing overly-complicated gadgets to perform the simplest of tasks. Goldberg produced a famous series of cartoons depicting such designs. Such was the success of his work, the Merriam-Webster dictionary accepted the phrase “Rube Goldberg” as an adjective in 1931, an adjective meaning “accomplishing something simple through complex means”.

37D Company that bought out Applebee’s in 2007 : IHOP

The Applebee’s chain of “Neighborhood Bar & Grill” restaurants was founded in 1980, with the first Applebee’s eatery opening in Decatur, Georgia. When it comes to “chain” restaurants, I quite like Applebee’s …

39D Golf Hall-of-Famer who was honored with a 1953 ticker-tape parade in New York : BEN HOGAN

Ben Hogan was one of only six golfers to win all four majors (alongside Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods, Gary Player, Gene Sarazen and Rory McIlroy). Hogan’s record is particularly remarkable as he survived a near-fatal car accident when he was 36, after which doctors suggested he might never walk again. Hogan and his wife had been in a head-on collision with a Greyhound bus.

45D Green icons on Rotten Tomatoes : SPLATS

Rotten Tomatoes is a website that mainly provides reviews and ratings of movies, although it now covers TV shows as well. The site was launched in 1998 and takes its name from the practice of audience members throwing rotten tomatoes at an unappreciated performer on stage.

47D Station announcement, in brief : APB

An All Points Bulletin (APB) is a broadcast from one US law enforcement agency to another.

51D Hall’s former partner : OATES

Daryl Hall & John Oates are a pop music duo who were most successful in the late seventies and early eighties. They had six number-one hits, including the 1982 release “Maneater”.

53D Bank notes featuring the temple of Angkor Wat : RIELS

The Cambodian riel was introduced in 1953, and was taken out of circulation by the Khmer Rouge in 1975 when they completely abolished money on taking control of the country. After the Vietnamese invasion of 1978, money was reintroduced and the Cambodian people are still using the “second” riel. The original riel was divided into 100 centimes, but this was changed to 100 “sen” in 1959.

Angkor Wat is a temple in Cambodia that was built in the 12th century. The beautiful building is iconic in Cambodia and is even featured in the center of the country’s national flag.

54D Hamiltons : TENS

The obverse of the US ten-dollar bill features the image of Alexander Hamilton, the first US Secretary of the Treasury. As such, ten-dollar bills are sometimes called “Hamiltons”. By the way, the $10 bill is the only US currency in circulation in which the portrait faces to the left. The reverse of the ten-dollar bill features the US Treasury Building.

56D Org. in some company lawsuits : OSHA

Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)