Day: July 5, 2014

Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across
10. Domed dessert : BOMBE
The dessert that we called “ bombe” in English, is a shortened version of the French “bombe glacée”. It is a layers of ice cream or sherbet frozen into a hemispherical shape, like half a delicious cannonball on the plate, hence the name.

15. “The highest result of education is ___”: Helen Keller : TOLERANCE
Helen Keller became a noted author despite been deaf and blind, largely through the work of her teacher, Anne Sullivan. Keller was left deaf and blind after an illness (possible meningitis or scarlet fever). when she was about 18 months old. She was to become the first deaf and blind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree. The relationship between Sullivan and Keller is immortalized in the play and film called “The Miracle Worker”.

18. Hardly smash hits : DINKS
In racquet sports, like badminton, a “dink” is a drop shot, a soft touch.

19. Part of the Roman Empire in modern-day NE France : ALSATIA
Alsatia is the Latin name for the region in France known as Alsace. Alsace is home to Strasbourg, a beautiful city that I had the privilege to visit some years ago. Strasbourg is home to many international organizations, including the European Court of Human Rights.

22. Bit of illumination : PHOTON
In the field of electromagnetic radiation, a photon is the basic unit of light, an elementary particle. The photon is believed to have no mass, but this fact does seem to create some theoretical inconsistencies … which I just don’t understand!

24. 1994 Peace Prize sharer : PERES
Shimon Peres is an Israeli statesman who was born in Poland. A former prime minister, Peres is the current President of the State of Israel. Born Szymon Perski in Poland, Peres is now the oldest head of state in the world.

25. Eschews money, say : BARTERS
“To eschew”, meaning “to avoid, shun” comes from the Old French word “eschiver” that means the same thing.

27. Big brand from Clermont, Ky. : JIM BEAM
Jim Beam is the world’s highest-selling brand of bourbon. Jim Beam whiskey has roots going back to around 1795 when Jacob Beam sold his first corn whiskey. The whiskey took on the name “bourbon”, possibly after Bourbon County in Kentucky.

28. Drill specialist, for short? : DDS
Doctor of Dental Surgery (DDS)

33. Producer of cheap shots? : DIVE BAR
“Dive’ is slang for a disreputable or run-down bar or nightclub. The term dates back to the 1870s and probably arose from the sense that won had to “dive down” into such an establishment, as they were usually located in basements.

34. “The Farm” painter, 1921 : MIRO
Joan Miró was a Spanish artist. Miro immersed himself in Surrealism, so much so that Andre Breton, the founder of the movement, said that Miro was “the most Surrealist of us all”.

“The Farm” is a 1921/1922 oil painting by Joan Miró that you can see in the National Gallery of Art in Washington. The painting was once owned by Ernest Hemingway, and was donated to the National Gallery by Hemingway’s widow in 1987.

35. Dances with sharp turns : BOLEROS
The name “bolero” is used to describe slow-tempo Latin music, and can be both a dance and a song.

38. Apollo, e.g. : SUN GOD
In Greek and Roman mythology, Apollo was the son of Zeus and Leto, and the twin brother of the goddess Artemis. Among other things, Apollo was worshiped as a god of light and the sun, truth and prophecy, as well as healing and plague.

39. Greek city where St. Paul preached : CORINTH
Ancient Corinth was a city-state in Greece located on the Isthmus of Corinth, which is the narrow strip of land joining the Peloponnesus to the Greek mainland. Corinth is mentioned several times in the Christian New Testament as it was visited several times by Saint Paul. Paul wrote two epistles to the Christian community of Corinth that are included in the Christian New Testament as the First and Second Epistles to the Corinthians.

40. Los Angeles suburb once dubbed “Berryland” : GARDENA
Gardena is a suburb of Los Angeles. Gardena has the distinction of being the city with the highest percentage of Japanese-Americans in the whole of the US. Japanese migrants figured heavily in the development of Gardena’s agrarian economy in the early 1900s. Back then, the main crop in the area was berries, and so Garden used to be nicknamed “Berryland”.

41. ___ rock : ARENA
“Arena rock” is a rock music played in large arenas. It is a phenomenon that dates back to the British Invasion when successful bands like the Beatles played to large audiences in places such as Shea Stadium in New York.

44. First name in the 1948 presidential race : STROM
Strom Thurmond was a US Senator for the state of South Carolina for 48 years, until he stepped down in 2003. Thurmond was the oldest-serving senator in US history. He retired from his office at the age of 100-years-old, and passed away just a few months after leaving Washington.

45. About 90% of cotton fiber : CELLULOSE
Cellulose is a polysaccharide made from thousands of glucose units linked together. It is a naturally occurring compound in the cell walls of green plants, and is also found in most algae. It is actually the most abundant organic polymer on the whole planet. The cellulose content of wood can be as high as 50%, and the cellulose in cotton fiber runs at about 90%. Humans can consume cellulose but can’t really digest it. Ruminants (and termites!) can extract nutritional value from cellulose due to the presence of specific microorganisms in the gut.

46. “Magister Ludi” writer : HESSE
Hermann Hesse was not only a novelist, but also a poet and a painter. Hesse’s best known work is probably his 1927 novel “Steppenwolf”.

“The Glass Bead Game” (also known as “Magister Ludi”) is the last full-length novel written by German author Hermann Hesse, and was a work specifically cited when Hesse was awarded the Nobel Prize in LIterature in 1946.

47. Old-fashioned duds : KNEE PANTS
“Duds” is an informal word for clothing, coming from the word “dudde” that was used around 1300 as the name for a cloak.

Down
5. Crunchy snack : FRITOS
The Frito Corporation was started in 1932 by Elmer Doolin, basically in his mother’s kitchen. Doolin paid $100 for a corn chip recipe from a local restaurant and started producing Fritos at the rate of 10 pounds per day.

6. Took for booking : RAN IN
Someone arrested was run in, taken for booking.

7. “Young Frankenstein” girl : INGA
I am not really a big fan of movies by Mel Brooks, but “Young Frankenstein” is the exception. I think the cast has a lot to do with me liking the film, as it includes Gene Wilder (Dr. Frankenstein), Teri Garr (Inga), Marty Feldman (Igor) and Gene Hackman (Harold, the blind man).

8. Drill specialist, for short? : 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.

12. Winged prayer : MANTIS
The term “praying mantis” is often used for species of insects more correctly called simply “mantises”. The familiar term refers to the prayer-like posture adopted by the insect with their fore-limbs folded.

13. Theodore of “The African Queen” : BIKEL
Theodore Bikel is an Austrian-born American actor. He appears in some very famous movies including “The African Queen” (1951), “The Enemy Below” (1957) and “The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming” (1966).

The excellent 1951 movie “The African Queen” is a screen adaptation of a novel with the same name by C. S. Forester. The stars of course were Katharine Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart, and the film won Bogie his only Oscar. Some scenes were shot on location in Uganda and the Congo, where conditions were far from ideal for making a film. Most of the cast fell ill at various times, although Bogart remained hale and hearty. He claimed that was because he stuck to his own supply of whiskey rather than drinking the local water!

23. Old Pokémon platform : GAME BOY
The Game Boy was a hugely successful handheld video game player that was released in 1989 by Nintendo.

27. Broadway inspector : JAVERT
Inspector Javert is the main antagonist in “Les Misérables”, the great novel by Victor Hugo. There’s a famous scene in the musical version of “Les Miserables”, when Javert commits suicide by jumping into the River Seine. In term of “special effects” in musical theater, it’s quite clever …

33. Company with a game piece in its logo : DOMINO’S
Domino’s Pizza started out as DomiNick’s, a pizza store in Ypsilanti, Michigan. The store was purchased by Dominic’s founder Tom Monaghan in 1960, along with his brother. Tom bought out his brother a few months later, for the price of a used VW! The store was renamed Domino’s Pizza in 1965, and two years later the first franchise store was opened. There are now over 8,000 stores worldwide, including one in Tallaght in Ireland, the town where I lived for many years in my youth. That Tallaght store became the first Domino’s outlet in the world to hit a turnover of $3 million a year. We Irish obviously have terrible taste when it comes to pizza …

34. 1993 Peace Prize sharer : MANDELA
As a young man, Nelson Mandela led the armed wing of the African National Congress (ANC). Mandela was eventually arrested and admitted to charges of sabotage and was sentenced to life in prison in 1964. He remained behind bars for 27 years, mainly in the infamous prison on Robben Island. As the years progressed, Mandela became a symbol of the fight against apartheid. He was released in 1990, and immediately declared his commitment to peace and reconciliation with South Africa’s white minority population. Mandela was elected president of the Republic of South Africa (RSA) in 1994, an office that he held until 1999. Nelson Mandela passed away on December 5, 2013.

F. W. de Klerk was the President of South Africa who led his National Party when the country ended apartheid, the policy of racial segregation. For his work in ending apartheid, De Klerk was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993 along with Nelson Mandela.

35. Orchard menaces : BORERS
“Borer” is a name given to various species of insect that bore into the woody parts of plants.

37. Acapulco-to-Monterrey dirección : NORTE
In Spanish, one compass direction (dirección) is north (norte).

The Mexican city of Acapulco is on the southwest coast of the country, in the state of Guerrero. The name “Acapulco” translates from the local language into “at the big reeds”.

Monterrey is a Mexican city, the capital of the state of Nuevo Leon in the northeast of the country. Monterrey is the second largest city in Mexico in terms of area, but third largest in terms of population (the largest area city in the country is Mexico City, and the most populous are Mexico City and Guadalajara).

38. Château chamber : SALLE
In French, one might have a room (salle) in a castle (château).

43. 800s, e.g.: Abbr. : CEN
An example of a century (cen.) would be the 800s or perhaps the 1900s.

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For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. Neckwear slider : SCARF RING
10. Domed dessert : BOMBE
15. “The highest result of education is ___”: Helen Keller : TOLERANCE
16. Purpose : AVAIL
17. Continuing in its course : ROLLING ON
18. Hardly smash hits : DINKS
19. Part of the Roman Empire in modern-day NE France : ALSATIA
20. One forced into service : DRAFTEE
22. Bit of illumination : PHOTON
23. Tooth coating? : GEAR OIL
24. 1994 Peace Prize sharer : PERES
25. Eschews money, say : BARTERS
26. Reduces the fare? : EATS
27. Big brand from Clermont, Ky. : JIM BEAM
28. Drill specialist, for short? : DDS
29. Minor documents? : FAKE IDS
30. “Poppycock!” : BAH!
33. Producer of cheap shots? : DIVE BAR
34. “The Farm” painter, 1921 : MIRO
35. Dances with sharp turns : BOLEROS
36. Biblical verb : CANST
37. What ruthless people show : NO MERCY
38. Apollo, e.g. : SUN GOD
39. Greek city where St. Paul preached : CORINTH
40. Los Angeles suburb once dubbed “Berryland” : GARDENA
41. ___ rock : ARENA
42. “See!” : I CALLED IT!
44. First name in the 1948 presidential race : STROM
45. About 90% of cotton fiber : CELLULOSE
46. “Magister Ludi” writer : HESSE
47. Old-fashioned duds : KNEE PANTS

Down
1. Greatly wanting : STRAPPED
2. Good thing to keep in an emergency : COOL HEAD
3. A little of everything : ALL SORTS
4. Connects : RELATES
5. Crunchy snack : FRITOS
6. Took for booking : RAN IN
7. “Young Frankenstein” girl : INGA
8. Drill specialist, for short? : NCO
9. Male issue? : GENDER BIAS
10. Slums, e.g. : BAD AREAS
11. Not quite spherical : OVIFORM
12. Winged prayer : MANTIS
13. Theodore of “The African Queen” : BIKEL
14. Computer programming command : ELSE
21. Rather violent, perhaps : RATED R
23. Old Pokémon platform : GAME BOY
25. Woman in a leather jacket, maybe : BIKER CHICK
27. Broadway inspector : JAVERT
29. Dot preceder : FILE NAME
30. Consumed in copious amounts : BINGED ON
31. Ignition technician? : ARSONIST
32. Much-anticipated outings : HOT DATES
33. Company with a game piece in its logo : DOMINO’S
34. 1993 Peace Prize sharer : MANDELA
35. Orchard menaces : BORERS
36. Get comfortable, in a way : CURL UP
37. Acapulco-to-Monterrey dirección : NORTE
38. Château chamber : SALLE
39. ___ crop : CASH
40. It’s a blast : GALE
43. 800s, e.g.: Abbr. : CEN

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