Day: February 19, 2014

Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across
14. Relatives of Yodels : HO HOS
Ho Hos snack cakes were first produced in San Francisco in 1967; not the best thing to come out of the sixties I’d say …

Yodels were snack cakes made by the Drake’s baking company. Yodels haven’t been produced since 2012 when the parent company Old HB went bankrupt.

16. Object of ancient Egyptian veneration : IBIS
The ibis is a wading bird that was revered in ancient Egypt. “Ibis” is an interesting word grammatically speaking. You can have one “ibis” or two “ibises”, and then again one has a flock of “ibis”. And if you want to go with the classical plural, instead of two “ibises” you would have two “ibides”!

17. Work written between “Typee” and “Mardi” : OMOO
Herman Melville mined his own experiences when writing his novels. Melville sailed from New Bedford, Massachusetts in 1841 on a whaler heading into the Pacific Ocean (a source for “Moby Dick”). Melville ended up deserting his ship 18 months later and lived with natives on a South Pacific Island for three weeks (a source for “Typee”). He picked up another whaler and headed for Hawaii, where he joined the crew of a US navy frigate that was bound for Boston (a source for “Omoo”).

18. “Maria ___,” 1941 #1 hit : ELENA
“Maria Elena” is a Spanish song, written in 1932, with the English version becoming a 1941 hit for the Jimmy Dorsey orchestra. The song was dedicated to María Elena Portes Gil, the wife of the Mexican President in the late twenties.

20. Overly bold member of the “Little Women” family? : FORWARD MARCH
“Little Women” is a novel written by American author Louisa May Alcott. The quartet of little women is Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy March. Jo is a tomboy and the main character in the story, and is based on Alcott herself.

23. Salinger’s “For ___ – With Love and Squalor” : ESME
J. D. Salinger wrote a short story called “For Esme – with Love and Squalor”, originally published in “The New Yorker” in 1950. It is a story about a young English girl called Esme and an American soldier, and is set in WWII.

24. Granola bar ingredients : OATS
The name “Granola” (and “Granula”) were trademarked back in the late 1800s for whole grain foods that were crumbled and baked until crisp. Granola was created in Dansville, New York in 1894.

26. “No seats left,” in short : SRO
Standing room only (SRO)

34. “Hungry hungry” game creatures : HIPPOS
Hungry Hungry Hippos is a children’s game in which players use plastic hippos to gobble up marbles.

36. Schlep : LUG
Our word “schlep” means “to carry, drag”. As one might expect, “schlep” comes from Yiddish, with “shlepen” having the same meaning.

40. Jewish deli offering : KNISH
A knish is a snack food from Germany and Eastern Europe made popular in the US by Jewish immigrants. A knish has a filling often made of mashed potato and ground meat, covered by a dough that is baked or fried.

41. Thinker Descartes : RENE
The great French philosopher Rene Descartes made the famous statement in Latin, “Cogito ergo sum”. This translates into French as “Je pense, donc je suis” and into English as “I think, therefore I am”.

42. Intellectual range : KEN
“Ken” is a Scottish verb meaning “to know”, as in being able to recognize a person or thing. The word is also used as a noun, as in “beyond my ken”, outside of what I can know or understand.

47. “___ fancy you consult, consult your purse”: Franklin : ERE
The noted polymath Benjamin Franklin was one of the US’s Founding Fathers. Franklin was born into a working class family in Boston in 1706. He went on to invent the lightning rod and bifocals. He became the first US Ambassador to France, the US’s Postmaster General and the Governor of Pennsylvania. He played the violin, the harp and the guitar and composed a string quartet. He was also an accomplished chess player, the first to be known by name in the American colonies. The list of the Benjamin Franklin’s accomplishments seems to be endless …

48. Some summer wine : ROSE
Rosé wines get their color from the skins of the grapes, although the intensity of the color is not sufficient to make them red wines. Of the varying type of rosé wines available, we are most familiar with sweet White Zinfandels. Personally I am fond of the really dry Provençal rosé wines.

49. Dueling implement : EPEE
The épée that is used in today’s sport fencing is derived from the old French dueling sword. In fact, the the sport of épée fencing is very similar to the dualing of the 19th century. The word “épée” translates from French as “sword”.

60. Part of LED : DIODE
A Light Emitting Diode (LED) is a specialized form of semiconductor that when switched on releases photons (light). LEDs are getting more and more popular and have moved from use in electronic equipment to use as a replacement for the much less efficient tungsten light bulb. I replaced all of my tungsten Xmas lights last year and saved a lot on my electricity bill.

61. One might run Lion or Leopard : IMAC
Apple introduced the Mac OS X Operating System in 2000. Each version of this operating system has had a code name, and that code name until recently has been a type of big cat. The versions and code names are:

– 10.0: Cheetah
– 10.1: Puma
– 10.2: Jaguar
– 10.3: Panther
– 10.4: Tiger
– 10.5: Leopard
– 10.6: Snow Leopard
– 10.7: Lion
– 10.8: Mountain Lion
– 10.9: Mavericks

The last release marked a change in naming pattern, with “Mavericks” being a surfing location in Northern California.

63. Bob of “Full House” : SAGET
Bob Saget is a real enigma to me. He made a name for himself playing very sugary roles in TV shows like “Full House” and “America’s Funniest Home Videos”, and yet in the world of stand-up comedy he is known for very blue and raunchy routines.

66. Actor Coleman or Oldman : GARY
The actor Gary Coleman is best remembered for playing young Arnold Jackson on the sitcom “Diff’rent Strokes” in the seventies and eighties. Coleman led a troubled life, with an autoimmune kidney disease affecting his physical health, and the resulting medical bills affecting his financial health.

Gary Oldman is an English stage and screen actor. Like many English actors it seems, Oldman has played a lot of villains in Hollywood movies e.g. in “Air Force One” and “The Fifth Element”. My favorite Oldman performance is as Ludwig van Beethoven in “Immortal Beloved”.

Down
3. Parisian house of design : DIOR
Christian Dior was a French fashion designer. As WWII approached, Dior was called up by the French military, imposing a temporary halt to his career in fashion. He left the army in 1942 and for the duration of the war designed clothes for wives of Nazi officers and French collaborators. After the war his designs became so popular that he helped re-establish Paris as the fashion center of the world.

4. Vermont winter destination : STOWE
The Stowe ski resort in Vermont is home to the oldest organized ski patrol in the whole of the US.

6. Variety of poker : HOLD ‘EM
The official birthplace of the incredibly popular poker game of Texas Hold ‘Em is Robstown, Texas where the game dates back to the early 1900s. The game was introduced into Las Vegas in 1967 by a group of Texan enthusiasts including Doyle Brunson, a champion often seen playing on TV today. Doyle Brunson published a poker strategy guide in 1978, and this really helped increase the popularity of the game. But it was the inclusion of Texas Hold ‘Em in the television line-up that really gave the game its explosive surge in popularity, with the size of the prize money just skyrocketing.

8. Singer Hendryx : NONA
Nona Hendryx is a singer-songwriter known for her solo work and for her performances with the girl group trio Labelle. Nona is a cousin of iconic musician Jimi Hendrix.

9. “Oy” or “ow” : DIPHTHONG
In the world of linguistics, a diphthong is a syllable made from two adjacent vowel sounds. Syllables with only one vowels sound are known as monophthongs.

10. Japanese P.M. Shinzo ___ : ABE
Shinzo Abe first became Prime Minister of Japan in 2006, at which time he was the youngest person to hold the post since WWII and was the first PM born after the war. Abe was in office for less than a year, but was voted in again in 2012. Abe is usually characterized as a right-wing nationalist.

12. F.D.R.’s third veep : HST
The initial “S” in the middle of the name Harry S. Truman (HST) doesn’t stand for anything. The future-president was named “Harry” in honor of his mother’s brother Harrison “Harry” Young. The initial “S” was chosen in honor of young Harry’s two grandfathers: Anderson S-hipp Truman and S-olomon Young.

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was in office for 12 years, by far the longest period of any US president. Roosevelt has three vice presidents:

– John Nance Garner IV (1933-1941)
– Henry Agard Wallace (1941-1945)
– Harry S. Truman (1945)

15. Tahitian garb : SARONG
Sarong is the Malay word for “sheath”, and a sarong was originally the garment worn by Malay men and women around their waists. The Malay sarong is actually a tube of fabric, about a yard wide and two-and-a-half yards “long”. Many variations of the sarong are worn all over South Asia and the Pacific Islands. I had occasion to wear one in Hawaii many years ago, and found it very … freeing!

21. Fancy necktie : ASCOT
An Ascot tie is that horrible-looking (I think!) wide tie that narrows at the neck, which these days is only really worn at weddings. The tie takes its name from the Royal Ascot horse race at which punters still turn up in formal wear at Ascot Racecourse in England.

22. Archipelago constituent, maybe : CAY
A “key” (also “cay”) is a low island offshore, as in the Florida Keys. Our term in English comes from the Spanish “cayo” meaning “shoal, reef”.

“Archipelago” is a name often used for a group or chain of islands. “Archipelago” is our spelling of the Italian “arcipelago”, a word that has Greek roots. “Arcipelago” was the proper name for the Aegean Sea in Greek, a word that was eventually used for the Aegean Islands.

25. Much of “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report” : SATIRE
Comedy Central’s satirical show called “The Daily Show” was originally hosted by Craig Kilborn, from 1996 to 1998. Jon Stewart has been in charge since 1999, and now it is the longest running show on Comedy Central.

Stephen Colbert is a political satirist who hosts his own show on Comedy Central called “The Colbert Report”. Colbert’s first love was theater, and so he studied to become an actor. He then moved into comedy, and ended up on the “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart”. He left “The Daily Show” in 2005 to set up his own spin-off called “The Colbert Report”. In his own inimitable way, Colbert likes to use a “French” pronunciation for the name of his show, so “The Colbert Report” comes out as “The Col-bear Rep-oar”.

27. “Cry me a ___” : RIVER
The 1953 song “Cry Me a River” was written for Ella Fitzgerald with the intention of her singing it in the 1955 movie “Peter Kelly’s Blues”, but the song never made it into the final cut. The song was recorded later in 1955 by Julie London, and featured in the 1956 movie “The Girl Can’t Help It”.

30. Joint assemblies : PLENA
“Plenum” (plural “plena”) is the name given to a complete legislative assembly under the parliamentary system, with the associated term of “quorum” being the minimum number of members required to be present to conduct business.

31. Vienna’s land: Abbr. : AUS
Vienna is the capital of Austria. Vienna has a long musical tradition and was home to Franz Schubert, Johann Strauss (I and II), Josef Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, Franz Liszt, Johannes Brahms and Gustav Mahler. As such, Vienna is sometimes called the “City of Music”. It is also called the “City of Dreams” as it was home to the psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud.

32. Schlemiel : LOSER
A “schlemiel“ (also “schlemiel”) is an awkward and clumsy person. “Shlemiel” is the Yiddish for “a bungler”, with the term coming from the German story “The Wonderful History of Peter Schlemihl”, published in 1813.

39. “And ___ it moves” (what Galileo allegedly said in reference to the earth) : YET
Galileo was a prominent supporter of heliocentrism, the principle that the Earth and the other planets revolve around the Sun. The commonly accepted model at the time was geocentrism, that the Earth was at the center of the universe. Galileo fell foul of the Roman Inquisition as a result of his views, and was found guilty of heresy in 1615. As a result, Galileo spent the rest of his life under house arrest.

40. Casey of “American Top 40” : KASEM
Not only is Casey Kasem closely associated with the radio show “American Top 40”, but he is also well known for playing the voice of Shaggy Rogers on the “Scooby-Doo” animated series.

46. Kindle or Nook : READER
I bought myself a Kindle Fire HD a few months ago. I’ve started reading e-books for the first time in my life, as well as enjoying other computing options available with the tablet device. I love it …

50. I.R.S. submission : E-FILE
E-file: that’s what I’ll be doing with my tax return in a week or so, I hope …

52. TV meas. : DIAG
The size of a TV screen is usually classified by the length of a diagonal.

53. What might get you through a quiet stretch? : YOGA
In the West we tend to think of yoga as a physical discipline, a means of exercise that uses specific poses to stretch and strengthen muscles. While it is true that the ancient Indian practice of yoga does involve such physical discipline, the corporeal aspect of the practice plays a relatively small part in the whole philosophy. Other major components are meditation, ethical behavior, breathing and contemplation.

54. Kind of screen : IMAX
The IMAX Corporation, which is behind the IMAX film format, is a Canadian company. The impetus for developing the system came after Expo ’67 in Montreal. Back then large format screenings were accomplished using multiple projectors with multiple screens, with images basically stitched together. The team behind the IMAX technology set out to simplify things, and developed a single-camera, single-projector system.

57. Rapscallion : IMP
We might call a little imp a rapscallion, an evolution from “rascallion”, which in turn comes from “rascal”.

59. Sgt., e.g. : NCO
An NCO is a non-commissioned officer in the armed forces. Usually such an officer is one who has earned his or her rank by promotion through the enlisted ranks. A good example would be a sergeant.

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For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. Crumples (up) : WADS
5. Word of comparison : THAN
9. Destroy, as hopes : DASH
13. Drop : OMIT
14. Relatives of Yodels : HO HOS
16. Object of ancient Egyptian veneration : IBIS
17. Work written between “Typee” and “Mardi” : OMOO
18. “Maria ___,” 1941 #1 hit : ELENA
19. Vivacious : PERT
20. Overly bold member of the “Little Women” family? : FORWARD MARCH
23. Salinger’s “For ___ – With Love and Squalor” : ESME
24. Granola bar ingredients : OATS
26. “No seats left,” in short : SRO
29. Result of bankruptcy? : COMPANY HALT
34. “Hungry hungry” game creatures : HIPPOS
36. Schlep : LUG
37. Siouan tribe : OTOE
38. Turn away : AVERT
39. See 11-Down : YES
40. Jewish deli offering : KNISH
41. Thinker Descartes : RENE
42. Intellectual range : KEN
43. Nod’s meaning, maybe : I AGREE
44. What blood donors do? : PRESENT ARMS
47. “___ fancy you consult, consult your purse”: Franklin : ERE
48. Some summer wine : ROSE
49. Dueling implement : EPEE
51. Motivational words for a boss at layoff time? : READY AIM FIRE!
57. “___ that sweet?” : ISN’T
60. Part of LED : DIODE
61. One might run Lion or Leopard : IMAC
62. Squeakers : MICE
63. Bob of “Full House” : SAGET
64. Metaphor for punishment : LASH
65. Spur : PROD
66. Actor Coleman or Oldman : GARY
67. World’s fair : EXPO

Down
1. Pound sound : WOOF
2. What might go on a belt : AMMO
3. Parisian house of design : DIOR
4. Vermont winter destination : STOWE
5. Lunchbox accessory : THERMOS
6. Variety of poker : HOLD ‘EM
7. “Pardon the interruption …” : AHEM
8. Singer Hendryx : NONA
9. “Oy” or “ow” : DIPHTHONG
10. Japanese P.M. Shinzo ___ : ABE
11. With 39-Across and 58-Down, response to a military command : SIR
12. F.D.R.’s third veep : HST
15. Tahitian garb : SARONG
21. Fancy necktie : ASCOT
22. Archipelago constituent, maybe : CAY
25. Much of “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report” : SATIRE
26. Quick : SHARP
27. “Cry me a ___” : RIVER
28. First game of the season : OPENER
30. Joint assemblies : PLENA
31. Vienna’s land: Abbr. : AUS
32. Schlemiel : LOSER
33. Titter : TEHEE
35. Like much media mail : PRESORTED
39. “And ___ it moves” (what Galileo allegedly said in reference to the earth) : YET
40. Casey of “American Top 40” : KASEM
42. Works, as dough : KNEADS
43. Ungodly display : IMPIETY
45. Suffix with many country names : -ESE
46. Kindle or Nook : READER
50. I.R.S. submission : E-FILE
52. TV meas. : DIAG
53. What might get you through a quiet stretch? : YOGA
54. Kind of screen : IMAX
55. Potential flu symptom : RASP
56. Effect of a yodel, perhaps : ECHO
57. Rapscallion : IMP
58. See 11-Down : SIR
59. Sgt., e.g. : NCO

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