Day: June 20, 2016

Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across
14. With 37-Down, Al Capp cartoon : LI’L
(37D. See 14-Across : ABNER)
“Li’l Abner” was created and drawn by Al Capp for over 43 years starting in 1934. Al Capp stopped producing the strip in 1977, largely due to illness (he died from emphysema two years later). As the strip finished up, he went so far as to apologize to his long-standing fans, saying that he should have stopped 3-4 years earlier as he felt that the quality of his work had gone down in those latter years.

15. He “cometh” in an O’Neill play : ICEMAN
“The Iceman Cometh” is a play written by American playwright Eugene O’Neill and first performed in 1946 on Broadway. The play centers on some down-and-out men in a shabby saloon in Manhattan. The title is a reference to the “iceman”, the man who would have delivered ice to homes back in the time of the play. The reference is to a bawdy joke in which the “iceman” was having an affair with someone’s wife.

16. Home to the Colosseum : ROME
The Colosseum of Rome was the largest amphitheater in the whole of the Roman Empire in its day, and could seat about 50,000 people. And today, it remains largest amphitheater in the world. The structure was originally called the “Amphitheatrum Flavium” but the name changed to “Colosseum” when a colossal statue of Emperor Nero was located nearby.

17. Frodo’s portrayer in “The Lord of the Rings” : ELIJAH WOOD
Elijah Wood is an actor from Cedar Rapids, Iowa who is most associated with his role as Frodo Baggins in the “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy.

Frodo Baggins is a principal character in J. R. R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings”. Frodo is a Hobbit, and is charged with the quest of destroying Sauron’s Ring in the fires of Mount Doom.

19. Wister or Wilson : OWEN
The novelist Owen Wister earned himself the nickname of “father” of western fiction. Wister was a friend of President Theodore Roosevelt and spent a lot time with the president out west. Wister’s most famous book is “The Virginian” which was published in 1902. “The Virginian” is regarded as the world’s first cowboy novel, and is dedicated to Theodore Roosevelt.

The actor Owen Wilson was nominated for an Oscar, but not for his acting. He was nominated for co-writing the screenplay for “The Royal Tenenbaums” along with Wes Anderson.

20. Queen of the Nile, informally : CLEO
Cleopatra was the last pharaoh to rule Egypt. After she died, Egypt became a province in the Roman Empire.

21. Three, in Tuscany : TRE
In Italian, “uno” (one) plus “due” (two) makes “tre” (three).

Tuscany is a beautiful region of central Italy, the capital of which is the city of Florence. Tuscany is considered to be the birthplace of the Italian Renaissance, centered around Florence. It was home to great artistic icons such as Dante, Botticelli, Michelangelo, da Vinci, Galileo and Puccini.

30. Tiny bit : SMIDGE
Our word “smidgen” (sometimes shortened to “smidge”) is used to describe a small amount. The term might come from the Scots word “smitch” that means the same thing or “a small insignificant person”.

35. Radner of the original “S.N.L.” cast : GILDA
Gilda Radner was a comedian and actress, one of the original cast members of the hit television show “Saturday Night Live”. Radner left her first husband to marry comedic actor Gene Wilder, whom she met while they were both filming the Sidney Poitier movie “Hanky Panky”.

38. Conductor Solti : GEORG
Sir Georg Solti was a great Hungarian-British conductor, who spent 22 years as music director of the Chicago Symphony, one of many prestigious positions he held in the world of classical music and opera. Solti was awarded 31 Grammy Awards, the most won by any individual in any genre of music. I think it’s kind of cool that Solti’s name comprises two notes in the solfa scale: sol-ti …

43. ___ bag (party handout) : SWAG
“Swag” is “loot, stolen property”, a term that started out as criminal slang in England in the 1830s. Swag is also the name given to the promotional freebies available at some events.

46. Submarine detector : SONAR
The British developed the first underwater detection system that used sound waves. Research was driven by defence demands during WWI, leading to production of working units in 1922. This new sound detection system was described as using “supersonics”, but for the purpose of secrecy the term was dropped in favor of an acronym. The work was done under the auspices of the Royal Navy’s Anti-Submarine Division, so ASD was combined with the IC from “superson-ic-s” to create the name ASDIC. The navy even went as far as renaming the quartz material at the heart of the technology “ASDivite”. By the time WWII came along, the Americans were producing their own systems and coined the term SONAR, playing off the related application, RADAR. And so the name ASDIC was deep-sixed …

48. Sgt. or cpl. : 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 major (sgt. maj.).

49. Offshore structure for Shell or ExxonMobil : OIL RIG
Royal Dutch Shell is the fourth largest company in the world in terms of revenue (Walmart is the largest) and is headquartered in the Hague, in the Netherlands. The company was formed in 1907 with the merger of the Royal Dutch Petroleum Company and Shell Transport and Trading company of the UK. The two companies merged in order to compete globally with the biggest US oil company of the day, John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil. Shell Oil Company is a US-based subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell that is headquartered in Houston, Texas.

The Exxon Corporation was a descendant of John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Company. Exxon merged with Mobil (yet another descendant of Standard Oil) in 1999 to form ExxonMobil.

53. Kylo Ren’s portrayer in “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” : ADAM DRIVER
Adam Driver is an actor best known for playing Adam Sackler on the TV show “Girls” that airs on HBO. Driver’s career got a huge boost in 2015 when he played villain Kylo Ren in “Star Wars: The Force Awakens”.

63. Bangkok native : THAI
Bangkok is the capital city of Thailand. The exact etymology of the name “Bangkok” seems unclear, although “bang” is a Thai word meaning “a village situated on a stream”.

71. Part of a hangman drawing : ROPE
The word-guessing game called Hangman seems to have been played first in Victorian England. At one time it was known as “Birds, Beasts and Fishes” as the words to be guessed had to be types of animal.

73. A.M.A. members : DRS
American Medical Association (AMA)

Down
1. One of the Baldwin brothers : ALEC
Alec Baldwin is the oldest of the acting Baldwin brothers. I think Alec’s big break was playing Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan in “The Hunt for Red October”, but thank goodness that role was taken over by Harrison Ford for the subsequent Jack Ryan movies. Baldwin also made a name for himself playing Jack Donaghy on “30 Rock”, opposite Tina Fey.

The four acting Baldwin brothers are:

Alec Baldwin (b. 1958)
Daniel Baldwin (b. 1960)
William “Billy” Baldwin (b. 1963)
Stephen Baldwin (b. 1966)

3. Nobel Peace Prize winner who survived the Holocaust : ELIE WIESEL
Elie Wiesel was a holocaust survivor, best known for his book “Night” that tells of his experiences in Auschwitz and Buchenwald. Wiesel was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986.

4. Org. based in Langley, Va. : CIA
The CIA headquarters is located in Langley, Virginia in a complex called the George Bush Center for Intelligence, named for former Director of the CIA and US President George H. W. Bush.

6. Like emails with still-bolded headings : NEW
In many an inbox, emails that are unread are shown with titles in bold letters. Once read, the bold face is removed.

8. New Zealand natives : MAORI
The Māori are the indigenous people of New Zealand. The Māori are eastern Polynesian in origin and began arriving in New Zealand relatively recently, starting sometime in the late 13th century. The word “māori” simply means “normal”, distinguishing the mortal human being from spiritual entities.

9. Scientist Celsius of the Celsius scale : ANDERS
Anders Celsius was a Swedish astronomer. The temperature scale that Celsius created was the reverse of that used today, with “zero” representing the boiling point of water and “100” representing water’s freezing point. This scale was “upended” (in 1744) just after Celsius died, by the Swedish botanist Carolus Linnaeus. The resulting temperature scale then became known as the centigrade scale for over 200 years, until in 1948 it was decided to adopt the “degree Celsius”. So, anyone still using “degrees centigrade” is actually way behind the times …

10. Treats named for their color : BROWNIES
Apparently the first brownies were created for the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893. The recipe was developed by a pastry chef at the city’s Palmer House Hotel. The idea was to produce a cake-like dessert that was small enough and dainty enough to be eaten by ladies as part of a boxed lunch.

12. Cry to a preacher : AMEN
The word “amen” is translated as “so be it”. “Amen” is said to be of Hebrew origin, but it is likely to be also influenced by Aramaic and Arabic.

18. Family name in “The Grapes of Wrath” : JOAD
John Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath” is set during the Great Depression. The novel tells the story of the Joad family from Oklahoma, farmers who had to leave their home and head for California due to economic hardship.

24. ___ Newton : FIG
The Fig Newton is based on what is actually a very old recipe that dates back to Ancient Egypt. Whereas we grew up with “Fig Rolls” in Ireland, here in America the brand name “Fig Newton” was used, named after the town of Newton, Massachusetts where they were first produced.

25. Bank account protector, for short : FDIC
During the Great Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed into law the Banking Act of 1933. The legislation established the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), intended to be a temporary government corporation that provided insurance on deposits made by customers of qualified financial institutions. The first accounts to be covered, in 1934, had an insurance limit of $2,500. Since the financial crisis of 2008, that limit is $250,000.

27. Texter’s “Wow!” : OMG
OMG is text-speak for Oh My Gosh! Oh My Goodness! or any other G words you might think of …

29. ___ 2600 (early game console) : ATARI
The kids today probably don’t realize that we had a video game console back in the seventies, and it wasn’t a Nintendo nor was it a PlayStation. The Atari 2600 game system introduced the idea of separating out computing hardware (the console) from the game code (a cartridge). The same concept persists to this day, although cartridges have been displaced by discs and downloads.

32. “Lord, we bless this food …,” e.g. : GRACE
A “grace” is a short prayer recited before or after a meal.

33. Breakfast items that come frozen : EGGOS
Eggo is the brand name of a line of frozen waffles made by Kellogg’s. When they were introduced in the 1930s, the name “Eggo” was chosen to promote the “egginess” of the batter. “Eggo” replaced the original name chosen, which was “Froffles”, created by melding “frozen” and “waffles”. The brand has a well-known advertising slogan “L’eggo my Eggo”.

36. Batman and Robin are a “dynamic” one : DUO
Batman and Robin are unique among their superhero compatriots in that they have no special powers, just a whole load of cool gadgets. Batman is sometimes referred to as the Caped Crusader, Robin as the Boy Wonder, and the pair as the Dynamic Duo.

40. Seventh heaven : PARADISE
In cosmology associated with some religious traditions, the universe is said to be made up of Seven Heavens. The highest of these is the “seventh heaven”.

42. People of Lapland : SAMI
Lapland is a geographic region in northern Scandinavia, largely found within the Arctic Circle. Parts of Lapland are in Norway, Sweden and Finland. The people who are native to the region are called the Sami people. The Sami don’t like to be referred to as “Lapps” and they regard the term as insulting.

50. Seven things on a Nathaniel Hawthorne house : GABLES
I had the pleasure of visiting the charming House of Seven Gables a few years ago in Salem, Massachusetts. The core of the house was built in 1668, for one Captain John Turner, and overlooks Salem Harbor. After a couple of generations, the house had to be sold by the Turners and it was purchased by the Ingersoll family. The author Nathaniel Hawthorne was a relative of the Ingersolls and often visited the house growing up. It was this house that gave Hawthorn the title for his famous Gothic novel “The House of the Seven Gables”.

52. Philosopher 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”.

54. Irish novelist ___ Binchy : MAEVE
Maeve Binchy was a fabulous Irish novelist, and in my day a famous newspaper columnist whose column I would read every day. A few of her novels have made it to the big screen, including two I would recommend, “Circle of Friends” starring Chris O’Donnell and Minnie Driver, and “Tara Road” starring Andie MacDowell.

55. Matt who was nominated for an Oscar for “The Martian” : DAMON
Matt Damon is an actor and screenwriter from Cambridge, Massachusetts. Damon’s big break came with the 1997 movie “Good Will Hunting” in which he starred. He co-wrote the screenplay with his childhood friend Ben Affleck.

“The Martian” is a very intriguing 2015 science fiction film starring Matt Damon as an astronaut who is accidentally stranded on Mars. The movie is based on a 2011 novel of the same name by Andrew Weir. One thing that I liked about the film is that the science cited is fairly realistic. In fact, NASA collaborated with the filmmakers extensively from script development to principal casting.

56. One of seven in the Big Dipper : STAR
The constellation called Ursa Major (Latin for “Larger Bear”) is often just called the Big Dipper because of its resemblance to a ladle or dipper. Ursa Major also resembles a plow, and that’s what we usually call the same constellation back in Ireland, the “plough”.

57. Cleveland’s state : OHIO
Cleveland, Ohio was named after the man who led the team that surveyed the area prior to founding of the city. General Moses Cleaveland did his work in 1796 and then left Ohio, never to return again.

58. Genie holder : LAMP
The “genie” in the bottle takes his or her name from “djinn”. “Djinns” were various spirits considered lesser than angels, with people exhibiting unsavory characteristics said to be possessed by djinn. When the book “The Thousand and One Nights” was translated into French, the word “djinn” was transformed into the existing word “génie”, because of the similarity in sound and the related spiritual meaning. This “génie” from the Arabian tale became confused with the Latin-derived “genius”, a guardian spirit thought to be assigned to each person at birth. Purely as a result of that mistranslation the word genie has come to mean the “djinn” that pops out of the bottle. A little hard to follow, I know, but still quite interesting …

61. Frankenstein’s assistant : IGOR
In the world of movies, Igor has been the assistant to Dracula, Frankenstein and Young Frankenstein among others. Igor is almost invariably portrayed as a hunchback.

66. Maiden name indicator : NEE
“Née” is the French word for “born” when referring to a female. The male equivalent is “né”.

Return to top of page

For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. Wonderment : AWE
4. Movie house : CINEMA
10. Prejudice : BIAS
14. With 37-Down, Al Capp cartoon : LI’L
15. He “cometh” in an O’Neill play : ICEMAN
16. Home to the Colosseum : ROME
17. Frodo’s portrayer in “The Lord of the Rings” : ELIJAH WOOD
19. Wister or Wilson : OWEN
20. Queen of the Nile, informally : CLEO
21. Three, in Tuscany : TRE
22. Prop for a magician : WAND
23. Battered appliance? : WAFFLE IRON
28. Exchanged vows at the altar : SAID I DO
30. Tiny bit : SMIDGE
34. Dined : ATE
35. Radner of the original “S.N.L.” cast : GILDA
38. Conductor Solti : GEORG
39. Big stinger : WASP
41. Items found at the ends of 17-, 23-, 53- and 64-Across : CLUBS
43. ___ bag (party handout) : SWAG
44. Tire mark : TREAD
46. Submarine detector : SONAR
48. Sgt. or cpl. : NCO
49. Offshore structure for Shell or ExxonMobil : OIL RIG
51. Comes out of hiding : EMERGES
53. Kylo Ren’s portrayer in “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” : ADAM DRIVER
56. Auctioneer’s cry when dropping the hammer : SOLD
59. Sheep sound : BAA!
60. Hammer’s target : NAIL
63. Bangkok native : THAI
64. Iced tea garnish : LEMON WEDGE
68. Uses a riflescope : AIMS
69. Brought to mind : EVOKED
70. Very long time : EON
71. Part of a hangman drawing : ROPE
72. Taste and touch : SENSES
73. A.M.A. members : DRS

Down
1. One of the Baldwin brothers : ALEC
2. Document that says “I hereby bequeath …” : WILL
3. Nobel Peace Prize winner who survived the Holocaust : ELIE WIESEL
4. Org. based in Langley, Va. : CIA
5. I, in Germany : ICH
6. Like emails with still-bolded headings : NEW
7. Overact : EMOTE
8. New Zealand natives : MAORI
9. Scientist Celsius of the Celsius scale : ANDERS
10. Treats named for their color : BROWNIES
11. Where the presidential primary season kicks off : IOWA
12. Cry to a preacher : AMEN
13. Transmit : SEND
18. Family name in “The Grapes of Wrath” : JOAD
24. ___ Newton : FIG
25. Bank account protector, for short : FDIC
26. Lounges : LOLLS
27. Texter’s “Wow!” : OMG
28. Took care of : SAW TO
29. ___ 2600 (early game console) : ATARI
31. Changed from A to B, as a credit rating : DOWNGRADED
32. “Lord, we bless this food …,” e.g. : GRACE
33. Breakfast items that come frozen : EGGOS
36. Batman and Robin are a “dynamic” one : DUO
37. See 14-Across : ABNER
40. Seventh heaven : PARADISE
42. People of Lapland : SAMI
45. “Look what you ___!” : DID
47. Gun, as an engine : REV
50. Seven things on a Nathaniel Hawthorne house : GABLES
52. Philosopher Descartes : RENE
54. Irish novelist ___ Binchy : MAEVE
55. Matt who was nominated for an Oscar for “The Martian” : DAMON
56. One of seven in the Big Dipper : STAR
57. Cleveland’s state : OHIO
58. Genie holder : LAMP
61. Frankenstein’s assistant : IGOR
62. Eye or camera part : LENS
65. Approves : OKS
66. Maiden name indicator : NEE
67. Dict. entries : WDS

Return to top of page