Day: May 2, 2011

Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across
1. Actress Fox of “Transformers” : MEGAN
The 2007 blockbuster hit “Transformers” is inspired by a line of toys. Toy transformers can be morphed from their mundane looking appearance as a vehicle or perhaps an animal, into a robotic action figure. Not a movie I will be renting though …

10. F.D.R.’s successor : HST
Harry Truman wanted to go to West Point having served with the Missouri Army National Guard on active duty in WWI, but he couldn’t get in because of his poor eyesight. He didn’t have the money to attend college anywhere else. He had, however, studied for two years towards a law degree at the Kansas City Law School in the twenties, but never finished. So, Harry S. Truman was the only US President who did not have a college degree.

15. Folkie Guthrie : ARLO
Arlo Guthrie is the son of Woody Guthrie. Both father and son are renowned for their singing of protest songs about social injustice. Arlo is most famous for his epic “Alice’s Restaurant Massacree”, a song that lasts a full 18m and 34s. In the song, Guthrie tells how, after being drafted, he was rejected for service in the Vietnam War based on his criminal record. He had only one incident on his public record, a Thanksgiving Day arrest for littering and being a public nuisance when he was 18-years-old.

17. Country-pop star with the 2008 six-time platinum album “Fearless” : TAYLOR SWIFT
Singer Taylor Swift had one of her first gigs at the US Open tennis tournament when she was in her early teens. There she sang the national anthem and received a lot favorable attention for the performance.

29. “Love Song” band, 1989 : THE CURE
The Cure is an English rock band founded in 1976 and still going strong today, although not with the original line up. The only top ten hit the Cure had in the US is “Love Song”, released in 1989.

34. Baseball’s DiMaggio : JOE
Joe DiMaggio was born not too far from here, in Martinez, California, the son of Italian immigrants. The family moved to San Francisco when Joltin’ Joe was just a baby. Joe’s Dad was a fisherman, and it was his hope that all his sons would follow him into his trade. But Joe always felt sick at the smell of fish, so fishing’s loss was baseball’s gain.

36. “From Here to Eternity” Best Actor nominee : MONTGOMERY CLIFT
The actor Montgomery Clift was known for playing moody young men on the screen at the height of his career. Off-screen Clift was destined to play a moody middle-aged man as he developed many emotional and health problems after a car crash in his mid-thirties. The crash was disfiguring and soon after he became addicted to alcohol and prescription drugs. His heart gave out ten years after the accident, but some have described the last decade of Clift’s life as “the longest suicide in Hollywood”.

49. Icy precipitation : SLEET
Sleet is a term used to describe two weather conditions. One is a shower of ice pellets, smaller than hail, and the second is a mixture of rain and snow, with the snow melting as it falls. It’s the second definition that I have always used …

50. What a Don Juan thinks he is to women : GOD’S GIFT
Don Juan is a flighty character who has been featured by a number of authors, poets and composers, including Moliere, Byron, and Mozart. In the underlying legend, Don Juan ends up talking to the statue of the dead father of one of his conquests. Don Juan dines with the ghost of the dead man and when shaking the hand of the ghost he is dragged away to hell.

54. Charlie of “Two and a Half Men” : SHEEN
Charlie Sheen’s real name is Carlos Irwin Estévez, and he is of course the youngest son of actor Martin Sheen. Charlie was the highest paid actor on television in 2010, earning $1.8 million per episode on the sitcom “Two and a Half Men”. Then of course he blew it and got fired from the show amid stories of alcohol and drug abuse and domestic violence. I bet his co-stars were pretty tweaked about the show being cancelled …

55. Shop with egg salad and cold cuts : DELI
The word “delicatessen” came into English from the German “Delikatessen” meaning “delicious (delikat-) to eat (essen)”.

57. Writer Anaïs : NIN
Anaïs Nin was a French writer, famous for her journals that she wrote for over sixty years from the age of 11 right up to her death. She also wrote highly regarded erotica, and cited D. H. Lawrence as one author from whom she drew inspiration.

62. Mysterious saucer : UFO
Disc-shaped flying objects have been reported in the sky since the Middle Ages. In the modern era the event that launched the term “flying saucer” was a UFO sighting in 1947 that was covered widely in the media. Kenneth Arnold reported seeing nine unidentified flying objects in formation near Mount Rainier in Washington. In describing the objects he repeatedly used the words “saucer”, “disc” and “pie-plate”. Newspapers latched onto the terminology, and we’ve been seeing “flying saucers” ever since.

63. Fashion magazine originally from France : ELLE
“Elle” magazine was founded in 1945 in France and today has the biggest circulation of any fashion magazine in the world. “Elle” is the French word for “she”.

65. “Oh, also …,” in text messages : BTW
By The Way.

66. Dashes’ partners in Morse code : DOTS
Samuel Morse was a very accomplished and reputable painter  (he was engaged to paint a portrait of President John Adams, for example). In 1825 he was in Washington working on a commissioned painting when he received a one-line letter by horse messenger telling him that his wife was ill. He left immediately for his home in New Haven, Connecticut but by the time he arrived she had already died and had been buried. This single event spurred him to move from painting to the development of a rapid means of long distance communication, leading to the single-wire telegraph and Morse code.

Down
1. Theme : MOTIF
A motif is a recurring element in an artistic work or design.

2. Poetic Muse : ERATO
In Greek mythology, the muses are the goddesses who inspire the creation of literature and the arts. The number of muses is a subject of debate at times, but the most popular view is that there are nine:

– Calliope (epic poetry)
– Clio (history)
– Erato (lyric poetry)
– Euterpe (music)
– Melpomene (tragedy)
– Polyhymnia (choral poetry)
– Terpsichore (dance)
– Thalia (comedy)
– Urania (astronomy)

4. The Braves, on scoreboards : ATL
The Atlanta Braves are the only team to have won baseball’s World Series in three different home cities. They won as the Boston Braves in 1914, the Milwaukee Braves in 1957 and the Atlanta Braves in 1995.

7. Greek goddess of strife : ERIS
In Greek mythology, Eris is the goddess of strife and discord. The name “Eris” is derived from the Greek word for strife, and translates into Latin as “Discordia”. In Greek her counterpart is Harmonia, and in the world of the Roman gods, Concordia. The largest dwarf planet in our solar system is called Eris, named after the goddess.

10. Pretentious : HIFALUTIN
The expression “high falutin'” dates back to the mid-1800s. Some suggest that it may be a mutation from “high flying”, as high falutin’ of course means “haughty” or “pretentious”.

23. ___ room (place for Ping-Pong) : REC
Ping-pong is called table tennis in the UK, where the sport originated in the 1880s. It started off as an after-dinner activity among the elite, called “wiff-waff”. To play, books were stacked in the center of a table as a “net”, two more books served as “”rackets”, and the ball used was actually a golf ball. The game evolved over time with the rackets being upgraded to the lids of cigar boxes and the ball becoming a champagne cork (how snooty is that?). Eventually the game was produced commercially, and the sound of the ball hitting the racket was deemed to be a “ping” and a “pong”, giving the sport its name.

27. Curds and ___ : WHEY
When milk curdles it separates into two parts, the solid curds and the liquid whey.

31. Mine, in Marseille : A MOI
“A moi” (literally “to me”) is the French for “mine”.

38. Sea, to Cousteau : MER
Jacques-Yves Cousteau started off his career in the French Navy, heading towards a working life in aviation. Because of a car accident, he had to abandon his first career choice and instead went to sea. Famously, he invented the aqualung (Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus – SCUBA), and is known as the father of SCUBA diving.

50. Things passed on from Mom and Dad : GENES
A gene is a section of a chromosome that is responsible for a particular characteristic in an organism. For example, one gene may determine eye color and another balding pattern. We have two copies of each gene, one from each of our parents, with each copy known as an allele.

53. 10% : TITHE
A tithe is traditional payment of one tenth of a person’s annual income, usually given to a church. Tithing is a practice taught in many traditions and according to a 2002 survey, about 3% of American adults donate 10% or more of their income to a church.

55. Shoulder muscle, for short : DELT
The deltoid muscle is actually a group of muscles, the ones that cover the shoulder and create the roundness under the skin. The deltoid is triangular in shape resembling the Greek letter delta, hence the name.

59. Mideast grp. : PLO
The Palestine Liberation Organization was founded in 1964. Its early stated goal was the liberation of Palestine, with Palestine defined as the geographic entity that existed under the terms of the British Mandate granted by the League of Nations back in 1923.

61. Politico ___ Paul : RON
Ron Paul is a celebrated Republican Congressman from Texas. He is a libertarian, and actually ran for president in 1988 as a Libertarian Party candidate. He ran for the Republican nomination for President in 2008 as a member of the Liberty Caucus of the party, meaning that he values a federal government that is limited in size and scope.

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For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. Actress Fox of “Transformers” : MEGAN
6. Baby bird’s sound : PEEP
10. F.D.R.’s successor : HST
13. Gave a speech : ORATED
15. Folkie Guthrie : ARLO
16. Suffix with serpent : -INE
17. Country-pop star with the 2008 six-time platinum album “Fearless” : TAYLOR SWIFT
19. In favor of : FOR
20. Suffix with Brooklyn or Manhattan : -ITE
21. Some small batteries : AAAS
22. Large shrimp : PRAWN
24. Vehicle moving items in a warehouse : FORKLIFT
27. Handle, as a tool : WIELD
28. Super-duper : A-ONE
29. “Love Song” band, 1989 : THE CURE
31. Decorate : ADORN
34. Baseball’s DiMaggio : JOE
35. Box office purchases, informally : TIX
36. “From Here to Eternity” Best Actor nominee : MONTGOMERY CLIFT
41. Pained cries : OWS
42. Kitten’s cry : MEW
43. Uncles’ partners : AUNTS
44. Flustered : IN A STIR
47. Plant with fronds : FERN
49. Icy precipitation : SLEET
50. What a Don Juan thinks he is to women : GOD’S GIFT
54. Charlie of “Two and a Half Men” : SHEEN
55. Shop with egg salad and cold cuts : DELI
56. 502, in old Rome : DII
57. Writer Anaïs : NIN
58. Opposite of a tightwad : SPENDTHRIFT
62. Mysterious saucer : UFO
63. Fashion magazine originally from France : ELLE
64. Silky : SMOOTH
65. “Oh, also …,” in text messages : BTW
66. Dashes’ partners in Morse code : DOTS
67. Words before double or take : ON THE

Down
1. Theme : MOTIF
2. Poetic Muse : ERATO
3. Merrier : GAYER
4. The Braves, on scoreboards : ATL
5. Prefix with classical : NEO-
6. Handle roughly : PAW AT
7. Greek goddess of strife : ERIS
8. Worker in Santa’s workshop : ELF
9. Entree from Swanson or Banquet : POTPIE
10. Pretentious : HIFALUTIN
11. Road blocker after a winter storm : SNOWDRIFT
12. Seabird : TERN
14. Sink’s outlet : DRAIN
18. Bank fixture : SAFE
23. ___ room (place for Ping-Pong) : REC
25. Go-___ : KART
26. Extended : LONG
27. Curds and ___ : WHEY
29. Rocky hill : TOR
30. Parts of office tel. nos. : EXTS
31. Mine, in Marseille : A MOI
32. Move to a lower gear : DOWNSHIFT
33. Store sign during bargain week : ON SALE NOW
34. Passover observer : JEW
37. Leave out : OMIT
38. Sea, to Cousteau : MER
39. Autos : CARS
40. Where inhaled air goes : LUNG
45. “Get it?” : SEE
46. Tightened : TENSED
47. Crease : FOLD
48. Touches up, as a manuscript : EDITS
50. Things passed on from Mom and Dad : GENES
51. Dum-dum : IDIOT
52. 20% : FIFTH
53. 10% : TITHE
54. Social slight : SNUB
55. Shoulder muscle, for short : DELT
59. Mideast grp. : PLO
60. Plan for hosp. patients : HMO
61. Politico ___ Paul : RON
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