Day: April 12, 2015

Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across
5. Canyon creator : GMC
The Chevrolet Colorado is a midsize pickup truck that is also sold as the GMC Canyon.

8. Record number, for short : RPM
Revolutions per minute (rpm)

11. Butler who was a professional gambler : RHETT
In Margaret Mitchell’s novel “Gone with the Wind”, when Rhett Butler finally walks out on Scarlett O’Hara he utters the words “My dear, I don’t give a damn”. Most of us are more familiar with the slightly different words spoken by Clark Gable in the film adaption of the story: “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.”

16. Muchacha : CHICA
In Spanish, a “niña” is a young girl, a child. The term “chica” applies to an older girl or perhaps a young woman.. The term “muchacha” applies to girls in general. I think …

17. Baseball family name : ALOU
Felipe Alou is a former professional baseball player and manager. Alou managed the Montreal Expos from 1992 to 2001, and the San Francisco Giants from 2003 to 2006. Alou was born and raised in the Dominican Republic and came to the US to play for the Giants in 1955. Felipe’s brothers Matty and Jesús followed him to the US, and into Major League baseball.

18. Paris accord? : OUI
“Oui” is “yes” in French, and “non” is “no”.

19. The works? : OEUVRE
The sum of an artist’s work in his or her lifetime is known as his or her “oeuvre”.

23. Fruit in some Asian salads : PAPAYA
The papaya is the fruit of the Carica papaya, a large tree-like plant that is native to southern Mexico and Central America. One traditional use of papaya is as a meat tenderizer. The fruit and sap contain the enzyme papain that breaks down meat fibers. Papain is used today as a component of powdered meat tenderizers.

25. Eponym of a European capital : ATHENA
Athens is the capital city of Greece and is one of the world’s oldest cities, with a history that goes back around 3,400 years. In its heyday, Classical Athens was a remarkable center for the arts and philosophical debate, and was home to Plato and Aristotle. Athens is often called “the cradle of Western civilization” and “the birthplace of democracy”. The city was named for the Greek goddess Athena.

28. One of 21 on a die : PIP
The numbers on dice are arranged so that the opposite faces add up to seven. Given this arrangement, the numbers 1, 2 and 3 all meet at a common vertex. There are two ways of arranging the 1, 2 and 3 around the common vertex, a so called right-handed die (clockwise 1-2-3) or a left-handed die (counterclockwise 1-2-3). Traditionally, dice used in Western cultures are right-handed, whereas Chinese dice are left-handed. Quite interesting …

30. Great Lakes mnemonic : HOMES
A famous mnemonic for remembering the names of the Great Lakes is HOMES: standing for Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie and Superior.

32. Ohio college named after an ancient capital : ANTIOCH
Antioch College is a private school in Yellow Springs, Ohio that was founded in 1850.

34. Letter that rhymes with three other letters : ETA
The four Greek letters beta, zeta, eta and theta all rhyme with each other.

35. Musician who co-founded Nutopia : ONO
Back in the 1970s, John Lennon was having immigration problems here in the US where he lived with his wife Yoko Ono. With a satirical smile, Lennon and Ono held a press conference on April Fool’s Day in 1973 and announced that the couple were creating a fictional country called Nutopia (“new” + “utopia”). Lennon and Ono appointed themselves ambassadors of Nutopia and sought diplomatic immunity in order to get around John’s immigration issues.

37. Something to hold money in : ESCROW
One type of escrow account is held by a trusted third party for two parties who have some contractual arrangement, an arrangement that is often in dispute. The third party only releases the funds when both parties have fulfilled their contractual obligations.

40. Alternative media magazine founder : UTNE
The “Utne Reader” is known for aggregation and republishing of articles on politics, culture and the environment from other sources in the media. The “Utne Reader” was founded in 1984, with “Utne” being the family name of the couple that started the publication.

42. Corral : FENCE IN
“Corral” is the Spanish word for an enclosure for livestock, and is a word we’ve imported into English. Ultimately, the term comes from the Vulgar Latin “currale” meaning “enclosure for carts”, itself coming from “currus”, the Latin for “cart”.

45. Finn’s friend : SAWYER
Tom Sawyer is a favorite character created by Mark Twain. He turns up in four of Twain’s books:

– “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer”
– “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”
– “Tom Sawyer Abroad”
– “Tom Sawyer, Detective”

But that’s not all, as he appears in at least three works that Twain left unfinished:

– “Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer Among the Indians” (a sequel to “Huckleberry Finn”)
– “Schoolhouse Hill”
– “Tom Sawyer’s Conspiracy” (a sequel to “Tom Sawyer, Detective”)

47. Musical anagram of AGRA, fittingly : RAGA
Raga isn’t really a type of music, but has been described as the “tonal framework” in which Indian classical music is composed. Ravi Shankar was perhaps the most famous raga virtuoso (to us Westerners).

The Indian city of Agra is home to three UNESCO World Heritage Sites:

– The Taj Mahal: the famous mausoleum built in memory of Mumtaz Mahal.
– Agra Fort: the site where the famous Koh-i-Noor diamond was seized.
– Fatehpur Sikri: a historic city that’s home to well-preserved Mughal

48. Nile biter : ASP
The venomous snake called an asp was a symbol of royalty in Ancient Egypt.

50. Like an unbrushed suit, maybe : LINTY
“Lint” is one of those terms that I had to learn when I moved to the US. We call the same thing “fuzz” on the other side of the Atlantic.

52. Golden ___ : AGER
A “golden ager” is a senior citizen.

54. Skype annoyance : LAG
The main feature of the Skype application is that it allows voice communication to take place over the Internet (aka VoIP). Skype has other features such as video conferencing and instant messaging, but the application made its name from voice communication. Skype was founded by two Scandinavian entrepreneurs and the software necessary was developed by a team of engineers in Estonia. The development project was originally called “Sky peer-to-peer” so the first commercial name for the application was “Skyper”. This had to be shortened to “Skype” because the skyper.com domain name was already in use.

58. Big name in lean dieting : SPRAT
Jack Sprat was a nickname given in the 16th century to people of small stature. Jack featured in a proverb of the day:

Jack will eat not fat, and Jull doth love no leane. Yet betwixt them both they lick the dishes cleane.

Over time, this mutated into a nursery rhyme that is still recited in England:

Jack Sprat could eat no fat. His wife could eat no lean. And so between them both, you see, they licked the platter clean.

62. Places to meditate : PAGODAS
Pagodas are tiered (“storied”) towers found in various parts of Asia, usually built for religious purposes.

67. ___ Spring : ARAB
The term “Arab Spring” has been applied to the wave of protests, riots and civil wars that impacted the Arab world for 2010 to 2012. The uprisings were sparked by the Tunisian Revolution at the end of 2010 that led to the ouster of the longtime president and the institution of democratic elections. The period of instability that followed in some Arab League countries has been dubbed the “Arab Winter”.

69. Landing place on a bay, for short : SFO
San Francisco International Airport (SFO) serves as the main base of operations for Virgin America, and is also the maintenance hub for United Airlines.

70. “99 Luftballons” pop group : NENA
Nena is a German singer (“Nena” became the name of her band as well) who had a big hit with one of my favorite songs of the eighties “99 Luftballons”. The English translation of the German title (“99 Red Balloons”) isn’t literal, with the color “red” added just so that the title had the right number of syllables for the tune. “Luftballon” is the name given to a child’s toy balloon in German.

71. Seville cheer : OLE!
The city of Seville is the capital of Andalusia in southern Spain. Seville is a favored setting for many operas including “The Barber of Seville” by Rossini, “Fidelio” by Beethoven and Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” and “The Marriage of Figaro”.

74. Young Clark Kent, e.g. : FARMBOY
Superman’s comic book creators gave their title character’s alter-ego the name “Clark Kent” by melding the names of Clark Gable and Kent Taylor, two leading men of the cinema at the time Superman was created. However, they modeled Clark’s character more on the silent film actor Harold Lloyd.

76. Title in “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” : LIEGE
A liege was a feudal lord, one to whom service or allegiance was owed under feudal law. “Liege” was also the term used for one who owed allegiance or service to a lord. Very confusing …

“Monty Python and the Holy Grail” was released as a movie in 1975, and was a great success. Some thirty years later the film’s storyline was used as inspiration for the hit musical “Spamalot”. I saw “Spamalot” recently and wasn’t that impressed. But, mine was very much a minority opinion …

78. Bill : William :: ___ : José : PEPE
“José” is the Spanish for “Joseph”. Friends might also refer to José as “Pepe”. There is a common assertion that both “José” and “Pepe” derive from Saint Joseph, the father of Jesus. Saint Joseph is sometimes referred to as “padre putativo” meaning “presumed father”. The abbreviation “PP”, standing for “padre putativo”, led to the name “Pepe”. Well, apparently this neat etymology is apocryphal. It is far more likely that “Pepe” comes from the Italian “Beppe”, itself a nickname for the Giuseppe, which is Italian for “Joseph”.

79. Skater Midori : ITO
Midori Ito is a Japanese figure skater. Ito was the first woman to land a triple/triple jump and a triple axel in competition. In fact she landed her first triple jump in training when she was only 8 years old …

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

90. Roald Dahl won three of these : EDGARS
The Edgar Allan Poe Awards (the Edgars) are presented annually by the Mystery Writers of America.

Roald Dahl’s name is Norwegian. Dahl’s parents were from Norway, although Dahl himself was Welsh. Dahl became one of the most successful authors of the twentieth century. Two of his most famous titles are “James and the Giant Peach” and “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”.

93. Team leader : RUDOLPH
We get the names for Santa’s reindeer from the famous 1823 poem called “A Visit from St. Nicholas”, although we’ve modified a couple of the names over the years. The full list is:

– Dasher
– Dancer
– Prancer
– Vixen
– Comet
– Cupid
– Donder (originally published as “Dunder” in error, and now often “Donner”)
– Blitzen (originally “Blixem”)

Rudolph was added to the list by retailer Montgomery Ward, would you believe? The store commissioned Robert L. May to create a booklet that could be handed out to children around Christmas in 1939, and May introduced us to a new friend for Santa, namely Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. May’s brother-in-law, Johnny Marks, adapted the story of Rudolph into the Christmas song “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”, which became a number-one hit for Gene Autry in December 1949.

All of the other reindeer
used to laugh and call him names
They never let poor Rudolph
play in any reindeer games.

95. Nile biter, for short : CROC
Crocodiles and alligators bear a resemblance to each other, although they belong to distinct biological families. One of the main ways used to distinguish them is by their teeth and jaws. Both the upper and lower sets of teeth of a crocodile are visible when its mouth is closed, whereas only the upper teeth of an alligator are visible with the mouth shut.

97. Eyes for emoticons : COLONS
An emoticon is a glyph created using text characters to represent facial features, and usually oriented sideways. The emoticon is designed to indicate emotion or attitude. The classic example is the smiley face 🙂

98. Owner of StubHub : EBAY
StubHub! is an online ticket exchange business that is owned by eBay. StubHub! acts as the middleman between buyers and seller of event tickets, whether those buyers and sellers are individuals or large organizations.

100. Spa specialty, for short : TLC
Tender loving care (TLC)

103. A.C.A. part : ACT
The correct name for what has been dubbed “Obamacare” is the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” or “ACA”.

104. Environmental terrorism : ECOTAGE
“Ecotage” is an act of “sabotage” in the name of environmentalism.

107. Language along the Mekong : LAO
The Mekong is the twelfth longest river in the world, at over 2,700 miles in length. It rises in the Tibetan Plateau and empties into the South China Sea at the famed Mekong delta system in Vietnam.

108. Flight : LAM
To be “on the lam” is to be in flight, to have escaped from prison. “On the lam” is American slang that originated at the end of the 19th century. The word “lam” also means to “beat” or “thrash”, as in “lambaste”. So “on the lam” might derive from the phrase “to beat it, to scram”.

109. Soap brand with cocoa butter : TONE
I’d never heard of the Tone brand of soap, I must admit. It’s made by the same folks that make Dial.

123. Monopoly holdings : DEEDS
The commercial game of Monopoly is supposedly a remake of “The Landlord’s Game” created in 1903 by a Quaker woman called Lizzie Phillips. Phillips used her game as a tool to explain the single tax theory of American economist Henry George. The Landlord’s Game was first produced commercially in 1924. The incredibly successful derivative game called Monopoly was introduced in 1933 by Charles Darrow, who became a very rich man when Parker Brothers bought the rights to the game just two years later in 1935.

124. Photog’s choice : SLR
SLR stands for “single lens reflex”. Usually cameras with changeable lenses are the SLR type. The main feature of an SLR is that a mirror reflects the image seen through the lens out through the viewfinder, so that the photographer sees exactly what the lens sees. The mirror moves out of the way as the picture is taken, and the image that comes through the lens falls onto unexposed film, or nowadays onto a digital sensor.

125. Broadcast inits. since April 1971 : NPR
National Public Radio (now just called NPR) was launched in 1970, after President Johnson signed into law the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967. The intent of the act was to provide funding for radio and television broadcasting that wasn’t simply driven by profit. As longtime fan of the state-funded BBC in the UK, I’d have to agree with that intent …

126. Gifts often received while bowing the head : LEIS
“Lei” is the Hawaiian word for “garland, wreath”, although in more general terms a “lei” is any series of objects strung together as an adornment for the body.

Down
1. One with spirit? : SHAMAN
A shaman is a supposed intermediary between the human world and the spirit world.

3. ___ palm : ACAI
Açaí is a palm tree native to Central and South America. The fruit has become very popular in recent years and its juice is a very fashionable addition to juice mixes and smoothies.

4. Line in Gotham : BAT PHONE
The Batphone was introduced in the Batman comic books before gaining notoriety in the Batman television series of the sixties. The Batphone was Commissioner Gordon’s secure line to Batman. The term “batphone” is used quite a bit now in business, describing a private telephone number that is handled as a priority above the regular lines.

5. Beverage brewed without barley or wheat : GLUTEN-FREE B(EER)
Gluten is a protein mixture found in foods processed mainly from wheat. The sticky properties of gluten are used in making bread, giving dough its elasticity and making the final product very chewy. “Gluten” is the Latin word for “glue”.

6. Ones found in the closet? : MOTHS
The larvae of several types of moth are noted for eating fabrics made from natural fibers such as wool or cotton. Many people store woolens in cedar chests believing that the scent of the wood prevents a moth infestation. In fact, the only known effective repellent is the naphthalene found in mothballs, which might be a health concern for humans. One way to kill moth larvae in fabric is to freeze the garment for several days at a temperature below 8 degrees centigrade.

10. Mercury had 26 of them : MISSIONS
President Kennedy famously launched the Apollo space program in 1961. The Mercury program had been the project that put Americans into space, and NASA decided that more development work was need to bridge the gap in capabilities needed between what was known from Mercury and what was needed to land a man on the moon, the objective of the Apollo program. So, the Gemini program was born, in which astronauts learned to spend extended periods in orbit, rendezvous and dock spacecraft, walk in space, and improve the re-entry and landing stage of a space flight.

13. First lady of the 1940s-’50s : EVA PERON
Eva Perón was the second wife of President Juan Perón who was in office from 1946 to 1955. The Argentine First Lady was known affectionately by the people as “Evita”, the Spanish language diminutive of “Eva”. “Evita” was also the follow-up musical to “Jesus Christ Superstar” for Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, and was based on the life of Eva Perón.

15. Sons of Liberty gathering : TEA PARTY
The Sons of Liberty was a secret organization in Colonial America that opposed the imposition of local taxes by the British. The group embraced the watchword at the time. “No Taxation with Representation”. The most famous act of rebellion by the Sons of Liberty was 1773’s Boston Tea Party. The list of notable members of the organization includes John Adams, Benedict Arnold, Samuel Adams, John Hancock and Paul Revere.

16. Uniform material : CHINO
Chino is a twill cloth most often used to make hard-wearing pants. The pants have come to be referred to as chinos. Chino cloth was originally developed for use by the military, but quickly became popular with civilians.

19. Grp. that knows the drill? : OPEC
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) was founded in 1960 at a conference held in Baghdad, Iraq that was attended by Iraq, Kuwait, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. Nine more countries joined the alliance soon after, and OPEC set up headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland and then Vienna, Austria in 1965. The basic aim of OPEC was to wrench control of oil prices from the oil companies and to put it in the hands of the sovereign states that own the natural resource.

31. Setting for a Marx Brothers farce : OPERA
“A Night at the Opera” is a 1935 Marx Brothers film that was the first movie in which Chico, Harpo and Groucho appeared without their brother Zeppo. “A Night at the Opera” is really great entertainment!

33. Priority system : TRIAGE
“Triage” is the process of prioritizing patients for treatment, especially on a battlefield. The term “triage” is French and means “a sorting”.

39. Where to see the horn of Africa? : RHINO
There are five types of rhinoceros that survive today, and the smaller Javan Rhino is the most rare. The rhinoceros is probably the rarest large mammal on the planet, thanks to poaching. Hunters mainly prize the horn of the rhino as it is used in powdered form in traditional Chinese medicine.

41. Model Banks : TYRA
Tyra Banks is a tremendously successful model and businesswoman. Banks created and hosts the hit show “America’s Next Top Model “, and also has her own talk show. She was also the first African American woman to make the cover of the “Sports Illustrated” swimsuit issue.

43. Tombstone lawman : EARP
Wyatt Earp is famous as one of the participants in the gunfight at the O.K. Corral. Earp was a city policeman in Wichita, Kansas and also in Dodge City, Kansas. Earp was also deputy sheriff in Tombstone, Arizona where the O.K. Corral gunfight took place. Years later, Earp joined the Alaska Gold Rush and with a partner built and operated the Dexter Saloon in Nome.

46. Certain gelatin : ASPIC
Aspic is a dish in which the main ingredients are served in a gelatin made from meat stock. “Aspic” is a French word for “jelly”.

49. Tattooed toon : POPEYE
Popeye first appeared in 1929 in a comic strip called “Thimble Theatre”. The strip, created by E. C. Segar, ran for ten years before Popeye made an appearance. Popeye received such a great welcome from readers that he soon “took over” the strip, and eventually even hogged the strip’s title. Before Popeye turned up Olive Oyl was the main character.

55. Supercollider bit : ATOM
“Supercollider” is a familiar name for a high energy particle accelerator. The Large Hadron Collider is the world’s largest particle accelerator. It is located on the French-Swiss border near Geneva, in a tunnel that is a whopping 17 miles in circumference.

61. Future atty.’s challenge : LSAT
The Law School Admission Test (LSAT) has been around since 1948.

64. Horatio who wrote the Tattered Tom series : ALGER
Horatio Alger was an American writer of the late nineteenth century. Alger was a prolific writer of novels for young people and creates tales of poor children making it good in the world, achieving the American dream as it were.

73. ___ nerve : OPTIC
The optic nerve enters the eyeball at a location on the retina called the optic disc. Because there are no light-sensitive cells at the optic disc, there is a “hole” in our visual field that is called the blind spot. People with normal vision don’t usually notice this blind spot as the brain “fills in” the blind spot with information from the other eye.

74. Bone whose name means “clasp” in Latin : FIBULA
The fibula is the calf bone. The fibula lies beside the tibia, with both bones sitting under the femur. The name “fibula” is a Latin word meaning “clasp, brooch”. The lower leg bone was given the name in the early 1700s as it resembles the clasp of a modern safety pin, as it lies alongside the larger tibia.

75. Big-eyed Betty : BOOP
Betty Boop made her first appearance on the screen in 1930, in a cartoon called “Dizzy Dishes”. Her character was modeled on the the It-girl, the sexy Clara Bow of movie fame. Back then Betty Boop was a sexy poodle and it wasn’t until 1932 that she morphed into completely human form. Betty was quite the risqué figure, but her vampish ways only lasted a few years. When the Production Code of 1934 came into force, Betty started to dress more modestly and toned down her behavior.

77. “I hate the Moor” speaker : IAGO
Iago is the schemer in Shakespeare’s “Othello”. Iago is a soldier who fought alongside Othello and feels hard done by, missing out on promotion. He hatches a plot designed to discredit his rival Cassio by insinuating that Cassio is having an affair with Desdemona, Othello’s wife. By the end of the play it’s Iago himself who is discredited and Othello (before committing suicide) apologizes to Cassio for having believed Iago’s lies. Heavy stuff …

The most famous Moor in literature has to be Othello, the title character in William Shakespeare’s tragedy “Othello, the Moor of Venice”. The word “Moor” describes various peoples of North Africa, usually of the Muslim faith. At the height of their geographic influence the Moors occupied much of the Iberian peninsula, calling it Al Andalus (from which modern Andalusia gets its name).

84. Winter race vehicle :
Ice canoeing is a sport in which teams of five push a canoe across ice before rowing down a river to the finish line. The sport is most popular on the Saint Lawrence River in Quebec.

87. Some young colleagues : PROTEGES
A “protégé” is a person who is under the patronage of another. The term is French, with the literal meaning of “one who is protected”.

94. Bright spot? : DOG STAR
When you look up at the night sky, the brightest star you can see is Sirius. Sirius appears so bright to us because it is relatively close to the Earth. Sirius is commonly known as the “Dog Star” because it can be seen in the constellation Canis Major, the “Big Dog”.

101. Eye-openers, of a sort : LATTES
The term “latte” is an abbreviation of the Italian “caffelatte” meaning “coffee (and) milk”. Note that in the correct spelling of “latte”, the Italian word for milk, there is no accent over the “e”. An accent is often added by mistake when we use the word in English, perhaps meaning to suggest that the word is French.

113. Palliative plant : ALOE
To “palliate” is to relieve the symptoms of a disease or disorder, without effecting any form of a cure. “Palliate” comes from the Latin “palliatus” meaning “cloaked”.

117. Magic, on scoreboards : ORL
The Orlando Magic were formed in 1989 as an NBA expansion team. A local paper was asked to run a competition to suggest names for the new team and the community came up with its four top picks of “Heat”, “Tropics”, “Juice” and “Magic”. A committee then opted for “Orlando Magic”. A good choice I think …

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For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. Crime lab tool : SWAB
5. Canyon creator : GMC
8. Record number, for short : RPM
11. Butler who was a professional gambler : RHETT
16. Muchacha : CHICA
17. Baseball family name : ALOU
18. Paris accord? : OUI
19. The works? : OEUVRE
20. Rolls up the sleeves and begins : HAS AT
21. Hard-to-digest food items, in slang : GUT BOMBS
23. Fruit in some Asian salads : PAPAYA
24. “Gotcha, dude” : I’M HIP
25. Eponym of a European capital : ATHENA
26. Prototype detail, briefly : SPEC
28. One of 21 on a die : PIP
29. Opposition call : NAY
30. Great Lakes mnemonic : HOMES
32. Ohio college named after an ancient capital : ANTIOCH
34. Letter that rhymes with three other letters : ETA
35. Musician who co-founded Nutopia : ONO
36. Tournament type : OPEN
37. Something to hold money in : ESCROW
38. Warning to a coder : ERROR
40. Alternative media magazine founder : UTNE
42. Corral : FENCE IN
44. Whoop : SHOUT
45. Finn’s friend : SAWYER
47. Musical anagram of AGRA, fittingly : RAGA
48. Nile biter : ASP
50. Like an unbrushed suit, maybe : LINTY
51. One logging in : USER
52. Golden ___ : AGER
54. Skype annoyance : LAG
56. Something to get your mitts on? : OVEN
58. Big name in lean dieting : SPRAT
60. Stuffed : REPLETE
62. Places to meditate : PAGODAS
66. Hightail it : HIE
67. ___ Spring : ARAB
69. Landing place on a bay, for short : SFO
70. “99 Luftballons” pop group : NENA
71. Seville cheer : OLE
72. “Couldn’t handle the pressure, man” : I CHOKED
74. Young Clark Kent, e.g. : FARMBOY
76. Title in “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” : LIEGE
78. Bill : William :: ___ : José : PEPE
79. Skater Midori : ITO
80. Wasn’t square : OWED
82. Cut, in a way : AXED
83. Leans : LISTS
86. P.D. broadcast : APB
88. Cry for attention, maybe : MEOW
90. Roald Dahl won three of these : EDGARS
92. Nail a test : ACE IT
93. Team leader : RUDOLPH
95. Nile biter, for short : CROC
96. Extract by percolation : LEACH
97. Eyes for emoticons : COLONS
98. Owner of StubHub : EBAY
100. Spa specialty, for short : TLC
103. A.C.A. part : ACT
104. Environmental terrorism : ECOTAGE
106. Is an ass? : BRAYS
107. Language along the Mekong : LAO
108. Flight : LAM
109. Soap brand with cocoa butter : TONE
110. Mustier : STALER
112. Cable, e.g. : PAY TV
114. Not digital : ANALOG
116. Do something extravagantly : GO TO TOWN
118. Delight : ELATE
119. Policy on some cruises : NO TIPS
120. Slice of history : ERA
121. Base 10? : TOES
122. X-O-X line in tic-tac-toe, e.g. : LOSER
123. Monopoly holdings : DEEDS
124. Photog’s choice : SLR
125. Broadcast inits. since April 1971 : NPR
126. Gifts often received while bowing the head : LEIS

Down
1. One with spirit? : SHAMAN
2. Postcard message : WISH YOU WERE H(ERE)
3. ___ palm : ACAI
4. Line in Gotham : BAT PHONE
5. Beverage brewed without barley or wheat : GLUTEN-FREE B(EER)
6. Ones found in the closet? : MOTHS
7. Die, say : CUBE
8. Have a heart-to-heart with? : ROMANCE
9. Local, e.g. : PUB
10. Mercury had 26 of them : MISSIONS
11. Becomes an adult : REACHES LEGAL (AGE)
12. Drill sergeant’s bark : HUP!
13. First lady of the 1940s-’50s : EVA PERON
14. Experiment with something : TRY IT OUT
15. Sons of Liberty gathering : TEA PARTY
16. Uniform material : CHINO
17. Peak performance, informally : A-GAME
19. Grp. that knows the drill? : OPEC
22. How things may be rated : ON A SCALE FROM ONE TO (TEN)
27. [Wham!] : POW!
31. Setting for a Marx Brothers farce : OPERA
33. Priority system : TRIAGE
37. Class with a Classics unit: Abbr. : ENG
39. Where to see the horn of Africa? : RHINO
41. Model Banks : TYRA
43. Tombstone lawman : EARP
45. ___ bar : SUSHI
46. Certain gelatin : ASPIC
49. Tattooed toon : POPEYE
53. Top-notch : GRADE-A
55. Supercollider bit : ATOM
57. Moving vehicle : VAN
59. Wins : TAKES THE TOP S(POT)
61. Future atty.’s challenge : LSAT
63. “Follow my command!” : DO EXACTLY AS I (SAY)
64. Horatio who wrote the Tattered Tom series : ALGER
65. Progenitors : SEEDS
68. Street cred : REP
70. “What was I talking about before?” : NOW, WHERE WER(E WE)?
73. ___ nerve : OPTIC
74. Bone whose name means “clasp” in Latin : FIBULA
75. Big-eyed Betty : BOOP
77. “I hate the Moor” speaker : IAGO
81. Go downhill : DECAY
83. Dreamworld : LA-LA LAND
84. Winter race vehicle : ICE CANOE
85. Next one in a row : SEATMATE
87. Some young colleagues : PROTEGES
89. Raised railroads : ELS
91. Drought : DRY SPELL
94. Bright spot? : DOG STAR
97. Drawback : CON
99. They’re raised by farmers : BARNS
101. Eye-openers, of a sort : LATTES
102. Charge at the door, informally : COVER
105. Gear parts : COGS
106. Softly hit fly : BLOOP
111. Memo abbr. : ATTN
113. Palliative plant : ALOE
115. Hat, informally : LID
117. Magic, on scoreboards : ORL

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