Day: October 18, 2016

Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across
1. Plumbing problem : CLOG
Plumbum is the Latin for lead, explaining why the symbol of the element in the Periodic Table is “Pb”. It also explains why the original lead weight on the end of a line used to check vertical was called a “plumb line”. And, as pipes were originally made of lead, it also explains why we would call in a “plumber” if one of them was leaking.

5. Gulf of ___ (arm of the Red Sea) : AQABA
The coastal city of Aqaba is the only seaport in the country of Jordan. The city lies at the very northern tip of the Gulf of Aqaba, which is off the Red Sea.

10. Progeny: Abbr. : DESC
Descendant (desc.)

16. Country’s McEntire : REBA
Reba McEntire is a country music singer and television actress. McEntire starred in her own sitcom called “Reba” that aired on the WB and the CW cable channels from 2001 to 2007.

19. Asia’s disappearing ___ Sea : ARAL
The Aral Sea is a great example of how man can have a devastating effect on his environment. In the early sixties the Aral Sea covered 68,000 square miles of Central Asia. Soviet Union irrigation projects drained the lake to such an extent that today the total area is less than 7,000 square miles, with 90% of the lake now completely dry. Sad …

20. ___ Master’s Voice : HIS
Nipper is the name of the dog that appeared in the RCA logo. Nipper was a real dog, actually from England. His owner, Francis Barraud, made a painting of Nipper listening to a gramophone. Barraud then approached several gramophone manufacturers in the hope they would be interested in using the image for advertising. Nipper’s likeness was indeed picked up, and around that time it was Barraud himself who came up with the slogan “His Master’s Voice”.

26. Cigarette stat : TAR
The partially combusted particulate matter that is produced as a cigarette burns forms a resinous material called “tar”. Cigarette tar is different than the tar used on roads, but is very toxic. Marijuana smoke produces a very similar tar to cigarette smoke, and is just as dangerous.

29. Public transportation system in the capital of Catalonia : BARCELONA METRO
Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain, after the capital Madrid. Barcelona is the largest European city that sits on the Mediterranean coast. It is also the capital city of the autonomous community of Catalonia.

32. Carnival city, casually : RIO
Rio de Janeiro is the second largest city in Brazil (after São Paulo). “Rio de Janeiro” translates as “January River”. The name reflects the discovery of the bay on which Rio sits, on New Year’s Day in 1502.

35. National Historic Landmark in Pearl Harbor : ARIZONA MEMORIAL
The USS Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor sits across the sunken hull of the battleship, the resting place of 1,102 out of 1,117 sailors of the Arizona who were killed during the 1941 attack. After the attack, the superstructure of the Arizona protruded above the surface of the water. This was removed during and after WWII, leaving just a submerged hull. The memorial itself was approved by President Eisenhower in 1958, and the building was opened in 1962. In 1999, the battleship USS Missouri was permanently moored in Pearl Harbor, docked nearby and perpendicular to the Arizona. It was on the Missouri that the Japanese surrendered, marking the end of WWII.

44. Rap’s Dr. ___ : DRE
Dr. Dre is the stage name of rapper Andre Romelle Young. Dr. Dre is known for his own singing career as well as for producing records and starting the careers of others such Snoop Dogg, Eminem and 50 Cent.

45. Marvel Comics superhero wielding a nearly indestructible shield : CAPTAIN AMERICA
Captain America is a fictional superhero in comics published by Marvel Comics. He is the alter ego of a weak man called Steve Rogers who was given an experimental serum by the US Government during WWII.

50. Ralph ___ Emerson : WALDO
Ralph Waldo Emerson was an essayist and poet who was active in the mid-1800s. Most of the essays that Emerson wrote were composed originally as lectures and then revised for print.

51. Wine: Prefix : OEN-
In Greek mythology, Oeno was the goddess of wine, giving us “oen-” as a prefix meaning “wine”. For example, oenology is the study of wine and an oenophile is a wine-lover.

53. Clarinet need : ONE REED
The clarinet is a lovely-sounding instrument, isn’t it? The name comes from the Italian word “clarino” meaning “trumpet” with the “-et” suffix indicating “small”.

55. “___ Little Teapot” : I’M A
The children’s song “I’m a Little Teapot” was written and published in 1939, composed by a married couple who ran a dance school for children. They needed a simple tune that young ones could use to learn a simple tap routine, and came up with this:

I’m a little teapot,
Short and stout,
Here is my handle,
Here is my spout,
When I get all steamed up,
Hear me shout,
Tip me over and pour me out!

63. Belarussian, e.g. : SLAV
The Republic of Belarus is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, located east of Poland and north of Ukraine. Belarus didn’t exist as an entity until the Russian Revolution when it was created as one of the Soviet Socialist Republics (SSR) that made up the USSR. The Republic of Belarus was formed soon after the USSR dissolved in 1990, but unlike many of the former Soviet Republics, Belarus has retained many of the old Soviet policies. Alexander Lukashenko is the country’s president and he believes in state ownership of the economy. Belarus and Russia have formal agreements in place that pledge cooperation.

64. Change from “I do” to “I don’t”? : ANNUL
I think there’s a little whimsy here, and the reference is to the annulment (I don’t anymore) of a marriage (I do).

65. Illusionist Henning : DOUG
Doug Henning was a Canadian magician, from Winnipeg, Manitoba. In the seventies he made a whole series of annually broadcast specials for NBC called “Doug Henning’s World of Magic”.

66. 3M product : TAPE
The company that is now called 3M was founded as a mining venture in 1902, and used to be known as the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company (hence the name “3M”).

67. Guess things : JEANS
GUESS? is a company producing a whole line of clothing, although it was originally very much associated with the production of denim jeans.

Down
1. Cleveland player, for short : CAV
The Cleveland Cavaliers are the professional basketball team based in Cleveland, Ohio. The Cavs joined the NBA as an expansion team in 1970.

2. Hawaiian shirt go-with : LEI
“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.

4. “Wuthering Heights” genre : GOTHIC
“Wuthering Heights” is the only novel written by Emily Brontë, one that she published using the pen name Ellis Bell. “Wuthering Heights” was published in December of 1847, a date chosen to take advantage of the wave of success enjoyed by Charlotte Brontë’s “Jane Eyre” that had been published just two months earlier.

5. Actress Gardner and others : AVAS
Ava Gardner is noted for her association with some big movies, but also for her association with some big names when it came to the men in her life. In the world of film, she appeared in the likes of “Mogambo” (1953), “On the Beach” (1959), “The Night of the Iguana” (1964) and “Earthquake” (1974). The men in her life included husbands Mickey Rooney, Artie Shaw and Frank Sinatra. After her marriages had failed (and perhaps before!) she had long-term relationships with Howard Hughes and bullfighter Luis Miguel Dominguin whom she met through her friend Ernest Hemingway.

6. Iranian holy city : QOM
Qom (also Qum) is a city in Iran located about 100 miles southwest of Tehran. Qom is a holy city in the Shi’a Islam tradition, and a pilgrimage destination.

7. Top fighter pilot : ACE
A flying ace is an aviator who has shot down a number of enemy planes during combat. The qualifying number of kills seems to vary, but five is common. The first use of “ace” was during WWI when the French newspapers dubbed pilot Adolphe Pegoud “l’as” (French for “the ace”) when he shot down his fifth German plane.

8. Singer Streisand : BARBRA
Barbra Streisand has recorded 31 top-ten albums since 1963, more than any other female recording artist. In fact, she has had an album in the top ten for the last five decades, a rare achievement in itself.

9. Rhyme scheme in the last verse of a villanelle : ABAA
A “villanelle” or “villainesque” is a 19-line poem structured in five sets of three lines followed by a quatrain.

10. “The Fast and the Furious” racer : DRAGSTER
Back in the 18th century “drag” was slang for a wagon or buggy, as it was “dragged” along by a horse or horses. In the 1930s, the underworld adopted drag as slang for an automobile. This sense of the word was imported into automobile racing in the forties, giving the name to “drag racing”. A drag race is basically a competition between two cars to determine which can accelerate faster from a standstill.

“The Fast and the Furious” is a series of actions movies about street racing and car heists. The original 2001 film spawned several sequels, making it Universal Pictures most successful franchise all time.

12. Italian restaurant chain : SBARRO
The Sbarro chain of pizza restaurants was founded by Italian immigrants, Gennaro and Carmela Sbarro.

13. “Safe!” and “You’re out!” : CALLS
That would be baseball.

18. French city named after the Greek goddess of victory : NICE
The French city of Nice is on the Mediterranean coast in the southeast of the country. Although Nice is only the fifth most populous city in France, it is home to the busiest airport outside of Paris. That’s because of all the tourists flocking to the French Riviera.

23. Start of a magician’s cry : ABRA-
The incantation “abracadabra” has a long history. It was used as far back as the 2nd century AD in Ancient Rome when the word was prescribed by a physician to be worn on an amulet to help his emperor recover from disease. “Abracadabra” is Aramaic, and roughly translates as “I will create as I speak”.

24. Commercial alternative to waxing : NAIR
Nair is a hair removal product that has some pretty harsh ingredients. The most important active constituents are calcium hydroxide (“slake lime”) and sodium hydroxide (“caustic soda”). Other Nair components seem to be there to soothe the skin after the harsher chemicals have done their job. The name “Nair” probably comes from combining “no” and “hair”.

25. Enterprise counselor : TROI
Deanna Troi is a character on “Star Trek: The Next Generation” who is played by the lovely Marina Sirtis. Sirtis is a naturalized American citizen and has what I would call a soft American accent on the show. However, she was born in the East End of London and has a natural accent off-stage that is more like that of a true Cockney.

26. Attire for Atticus : TOGA
In Ancient Rome the classical attire known as a toga (plural “togae”) was usually worn over a tunic. The tunic was made from linen, and the toga itself was a piece of cloth about twenty feet long made from wool. The toga could only be worn by men, and only if those men were Roman citizens. The female equivalent of the toga was called a “stola”.

27. Tentacled marine creature : ANEMONE
The name “anemone” means “daughter of the wind” in Greek, and at one time it was believed that the wind was what actually caused the flower to bloom. The sea anemone is named for the terrestrial plant even though it isn’t a plant at all. The sea anemone is a predatory animal found on the ocean floor.

30. Sri ___ : LANKA
The island nation of Sri Lanka lies off the southeast coast of India. The name “Sri Lanka” translates from Sanskrit into English as “venerable island”. Before 1970, Sri Lanka was known as Ceylon, a name given to the country during British rule.

31. 1983 Michael Keaton comedy : MR MOM
Michael Keaton is an actor from Coraopolis, Pennsylvania. Keaton is perhaps best remembered for roles he played in Tim Burton films. Keaton had the title role in “Beetlejuice” in 1988, and the title role in “Batman” in 1989 and “Batman Returns” in 1992.

“Mr. Mom” is a 1983 comedy written by John Hughes, starring Michael Keaton and the great Teri Garr. The movie is all about an engineer in the auto industry in Detroit who loses his job and then takes over the running of the household while his wife heads back to work. It’s funny stuff …

36. Obsolescent data storage device : ZIP DRIVE
Zip drives were hugely popular in the late nineties. Made by Iomega, Zip drives and their portable Zip disks were used the same way as standard 3.5-inch floppy drives and disks. But, Zip disks had a much, much higher storage capacity.

37. En pointe, in ballet : ON TOE
“En pointe” is a French term used to describe the ballet technique of dancing on the toes.

38. ___ Spiegel, co-founder of Snapchat : EVAN
Snapchat is a messaging system that allows users to send photos and video clips to a limited list of recipients. The photos and clips, called “snaps”, can be viewed for only a few seconds before they are deleted from the recipient’s device, and from the Snapchat servers.

40. Gas brand rendered in all capital letters : ARCO
The company name ARCO stands for the Atlantic Richfield Company. One of ARCO’s claims to fame is that it is responsible for the nation’s largest Superfund site. Mining and smelting in the area around Butte, Montana polluted the region’s water and soil, and ARCO have agreed to pay $187 million to help clean up the area.

45. Olive oil alternative : CANOLA
Canola is a type of rapeseed, and Canola oil is made from the seeds. The particular cultivar used in oil production was developed in Canada, and the name Canola in fact comes from “CANadian Oil, Low Acid”.

48. Salinger title girl : ESME
J. D. Salinger wrote a short story called “For Esmé – 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.

49. Neighbor of Tanzania : RWANDA
Rwanda is a sovereign nation in central Africa that is populated by three groups: the Hutu, Tutsi (aka “Watutsi”) and Twa. The Tutsi are the second largest population of people in Rwanda, with the Hutu being the largest group. The bloody conflict that has existed between the Tutsi and Hutu peoples dates back to about 1880 when Catholic missionaries arrived in the region. The missionaries found that they had more success converting the Hutus than the Tutsi, and when the Germans occupied the area during WWI they confiscated Tutsi land and gave it to Hutu tribes in order to reward religious conversion. This injustice fuels fighting to this very day.

Zanzibar is an archipelago in the Indian Ocean located just 20 miles or so off the east coast of Africa. The largest island in the group is Unguja, which is often referred to informally as “Zanzibar”. When Zanzibar merged with Tanganyika in 1964, the resulting state was named the United Republic of Tanzania, with “Tanzania” being a portmanteau of “Zanzibar” and “Tanganyika”. The islands of Zanzibar, along with the Tanzania’s Mafia Island, are collectively referred to as the Spice Islands (not to be confused with the Spice Islands in Indonesia).

50. Razzie Award word : WORST
Razzie is the familiar name for the Golden Raspberry Award, an award presented annually for the worst in the world of film. The Razzies have been presented on the day before the Oscars since 1981.

58. Subject for Watson and Crick : DNA
Francis Crick and James Watson discovered that DNA had a double-helix, chain-like structure, and published their results in Cambridge in 1953. To this day the discovery is mired in controversy, as some crucial results collected by fellow researcher Rosalind Franklin were used without her permission or even knowledge.

60. The “A” of AIM : AOL
Even though instant messaging (sending IMs) has been around since the 1960s, it was AOL who popularized the term “instant message” in the eighties and nineties. The “AOL Instant Message” service was known as AIM.

62. Id’s counterpart : EGO
Sigmund Freud created a structural model of the human psyche, breaking it into three parts: the id, the ego, and the super-ego. The id is that part of the psyche containing the basic instinctual drives. The ego seeks to please the id by causing realistic behavior that benefits the individual. The super-ego almost has a parental role, contradicting the id by introducing critical thinking and morals to behavioral choices.

Return to top of page

For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. Plumbing problem : CLOG
5. Gulf of ___ (arm of the Red Sea) : AQABA
10. Progeny: Abbr. : DESC
14. Flying start? : AERO-
15. Stock of words, informally : VOCAB
16. Country’s McEntire : REBA
17. 1961-75 : VIETNAM ERA
19. Asia’s disappearing ___ Sea : ARAL
20. ___ Master’s Voice : HIS
21. Reprimand to a dog, maybe : BAD GIRL!
23. Prank : ANTIC
26. Cigarette stat : TAR
28. Manipulators : USERS
29. Public transportation system in the capital of Catalonia : BARCELONA METRO
32. Carnival city, casually : RIO
33. Time of one’s life? : AGE
34. I-85 and I-77 to get from Atlanta to Cleveland, e.g.: Abbr. : RTE
35. National Historic Landmark in Pearl Harbor : ARIZONA MEMORIAL
42. Tattoo parlor supply : INK
43. Egg: Prefix : OVO-
44. Rap’s Dr. ___ : DRE
45. Marvel Comics superhero wielding a nearly indestructible shield : CAPTAIN AMERICA
50. Ralph ___ Emerson : WALDO
51. Wine: Prefix : OEN-
52. What birds of prey do : SWOOP
53. Clarinet need : ONE REED
55. “___ Little Teapot” : I’M A
56. Roasted: Fr. : ROTI
57. What 50-Across is … or a clue to 17-, 29-, 35- and 45-Across : MIDDLE NAME
63. Belarussian, e.g. : SLAV
64. Change from “I do” to “I don’t”? : ANNUL
65. Illusionist Henning : DOUG
66. 3M product : TAPE
67. Guess things : JEANS
68. Additionally : ALSO

Down
1. Cleveland player, for short : CAV
2. Hawaiian shirt go-with : LEI
3. Bank deposit? : ORE
4. “Wuthering Heights” genre : GOTHIC
5. Actress Gardner and others : AVAS
6. Iranian holy city : QOM
7. Top fighter pilot : ACE
8. Singer Streisand : BARBRA
9. Rhyme scheme in the last verse of a villanelle : ABAA
10. “The Fast and the Furious” racer : DRAGSTER
11. More spooky : EERIER
12. Italian restaurant chain : SBARRO
13. “Safe!” and “You’re out!” : CALLS
18. French city named after the Greek goddess of victory : NICE
22. As a result of : DUE TO
23. Start of a magician’s cry : ABRA-
24. Commercial alternative to waxing : NAIR
25. Enterprise counselor : TROI
26. Attire for Atticus : TOGA
27. Tentacled marine creature : ANEMONE
30. Sri ___ : LANKA
31. 1983 Michael Keaton comedy : MR MOM
36. Obsolescent data storage device : ZIP DRIVE
37. En pointe, in ballet : ON TOE
38. ___ Spiegel, co-founder of Snapchat : EVAN
39. Prefix with -syncratic : IDIO-
40. Gas brand rendered in all capital letters : ARCO
41. ___ of faith : LEAP
45. Olive oil alternative : CANOLA
46. Pub fixture : ALE TAP
47. What I may stand for? : IODINE
48. Salinger title girl : ESME
49. Neighbor of Tanzania : RWANDA
50. Razzie Award word : WORST
54. Key with four sharps: Abbr. : E MAJ
55. Woes : ILLS
58. Subject for Watson and Crick : DNA
59. Grayish-brown : DUN
60. The “A” of AIM : AOL
61. Followers of lambdas : MUS
62. Id’s counterpart : EGO

Return to top of page