Day: November 14, 2016

Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across
5. San Antonio hoopsters : SPURS
The Spurs are the professional basketball team based in San Antonio, Texas. The team was founded as the Dallas Chaparrals of the American Basketball Association (ABA) in 1967.

14. Onetime Chevy subcompact : AVEO
The Chevrolet Aveo is a subcompact automobile that has been around since 2002. The Aveo is manufactured by GM Daewoo, the GM subsidiary in South Korea. Although the Aveo name is still used in some markets, here in North America the Aveo has been sold as the Chevrolet Sonic since 2012. By the way, GM Daewoo is the third largest manufacturer of automobiles in South Korea, after Hyundai and Kia.

15. Bat mitzvah reading : TORAH
The word “Torah” best translates as “teaching”, I am told.

A Jewish girl becomes a Bat Mitzvah at 12 years of age, the age at which she becomes responsible for her actions. Boys become Bar Mitzvahs at 13. The terms translate into English as daughter and son of the commandments.

16. Rodenticide brand with glue traps : D-CON
“d-Con” is a line of rodent control products that has been around for over 50 years.

20. S&P 500, e.g. : INDEX
Standard & Poor’s (S&P) is a financial services company, famous for its stock market indices, especially the S&P 500. The company also publishes credit ratings for sovereign governments, and in 2011 famously lowered the rating of the US federal government from AAA to to AA+.

21. Rig on the road : SEMI
A “semi” is a “semi-trailer truck”. The vehicle is so called because it consists of a tractor and a half-trailer. The half-trailer is so called because it only has wheels on the back end, with the front supported by the tractor.

22. “Super” game console : NES
The acronym Super NES (or SNES) stands for Super Nintendo Entertainment System. Our kids probably have one somewhere …

37. Foreign president with a black belt in judo : PUTIN
Vladimir Putin became acting President of Russia at the very end of 1999 when Boris Yeltsin resigned. Putin was elected in his own right in 2000, re-elected in 2004, and then ran up against a term limit in 2008. In 2008 Putin was appointed by his successor, President Dmitry Medvedev, to the position of Prime Minister. Putin is a controversial figure, inside and outside Russia. On the one hand he led the country out of an economic crisis into a period of stability and relative prosperity. On the other hand he has been associated with government corruption and accused of allowing private concerns to have undue influence on government actions.

38. Heredity transmitter : GENE
A gene is a section of a chromosome that is responsible for a particular characteristic in an organism. For example, one gene may determine eye color and another balding pattern. We have two copies of each gene, one from each of our parents, with each copy known as an allele.

41. He said “I pity the fool” : MR T
Mr. T’s real name is Laurence Tero Tureaud. Mr. T is famous for many things, including the wearing of excessive amounts of jewelry. He started this habit when he was working as a bouncer, wearing jewelry items that had been left behind by customers at a nightclub so that the items might be recognized and claimed. It was also as a bouncer that he adopted the name Mr. T. His catch phrase comes from the movie “Rocky III”. In the film, before he goes up against Rocky Balboa, Mr. T says, “No, I don’t hate Balboa, but I pity the fool”. He parlayed that line into quite a bit of success. He had a reality TV show called “I Pity the Fool”, and produced a motivational video called “Be Somebody … or Be Somebody’s Fool!”.

43. Gillette razor brand : ATRA
Fortunately for crossword constructors, the Atra razor was introduced by Gillette in 1977. The Atra was sold as the Contour in some markets and its derivative products are still around today.

50. Spots for getting stitches, in brief : ERS
Emergency room (ER)

51. ___ lily (Utah’s state flower) : SEGO
The Sego Lily is the state flower of Utah, and is a perennial plant found throughout the Western United States.

59. Arab Spring country : YEMEN
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”.

67. Trickster in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” : PUCK
Puck (aka Robin Goodfellow) is a character in William Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, one of the Fairies in the tale. One of Puck’s tasks in the storyline is to use love juice that is made from a flower that has been hit by cupid’s arrow. The magical juice is applied to the eyelids of someone sleeping, so that the person wakes and falls in love with the first living things he or she sees. Of course, Puck drops the love juice on the wrong character …

70. Literally, “liquor,” in Japanese : SAKE
We refer to the Japanese alcoholic beverage made from rice as “sake”. We’ve gotten things a bit mixed up in the West. “Sake” is actually the word that the Japanese use for all alcoholic drinks. What we know as sake, we sometimes refer to as rice wine. Also, the starch in the rice is first converted to sugars that are then fermented into alcohol. This is more akin to a beer-brewing process than wine production, so the end product is really a rice “beer” rather than a rice “wine”.

71. Archie Bunker, notably : BIGOT
“Bigot” is a French word that back in the late 1500s meant “sanctimonious person, religious hypocrite”. We use the term today to describe someone who is biased towards his or her own group, and who is intolerant of those outside of that group.

“All in the Family” is an American sitcom, a remake of the incredibly successful BBC show called “Till Death Us Do Part”. Both the UK and US versions of the sitcom were groundbreaking in that the storyline brought into focus topics previously considered unsuitable for a television comedy, including racism, homosexuality, women’s liberation, menopause and impotence. “All in the Family” is one of only three TV shows that has topped the Nielsen ratings for five consecutive seasons (the other two are “The Cosby Show” and “American Idol”). Stars of the show are:

• Carroll O’Connor as Archie Bunker
• Jean Stapleton as Edith Bunker
• Sally Struthers as Gloria Stivic née Bunker
• Rob Reiner as Michael Stivic

Down
1. Ladies’ undergarment, casually : CAMI
A camisole (also “cami”) is a sleeveless undergarment worn by women that extends down to the waist. “Camisole” is a French word that we imported into English, which ultimately derives from the Latin “camisia” meaning “shirt, nightgown”.

2. Stratford-upon-___ : AVON
Stratford-upon-Avon is a town in the county of Warwickshire in the English midlands. Most famously perhaps, it was the birthplace of William Shakespeare.

4. Game with an annual World Series held in Las Vegas : POKER
The World Series of Poker is an annual event held in Las Vegas. The winner of each event is given a much-coveted World Series of Poker bracelet.

6. Luau dish : POI
Nowadays the word “luau” denotes almost any kind of party on the Hawaiian Islands, but to the purist a luau is a feast that always includes a serving of “poi”, the bulbous underground stems of taro baked with coconut milk.

9. Tribal healer : SHAMAN
A shaman is a supposed intermediary between the human world and the spirit world.

11. Where Batman and Superman live : DC UNIVERSE
DC Comics takes its name from what used to be a highly popular series called “Detective Comics”. The main competitor to DC Comics is Marvel Comics, and between the two companies, they command 80% of comic sales in the US market. Nowadays of course, a lot of company income comes from movies that use the most popular characters from the original comics.

12. ___ Star State (Texas) : LONE
The single star on the state flag of Texas is a reminder of the “lone star” on the 1836 National Standard of Texas. The single gold star on a blue background symbolized Texas as an independent republic and its struggle for independence from Mexico.

25. Eggnog spice : NUTMEG
The fruit of the nutmeg tree yields two very different spices. What we call “nutmeg” comes from the seed of the tree. “Mace” is the dried covering of the seed.

It’s not really clear where the term “nog” (as in “eggnog”) comes from although it might derive from the word “noggin”, which was originally a small wooden cup that was long associated with alcoholic drinks.

27. Attire in old Rome : 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”.

28. 1980s-’90s legal drama that won 15 Emmys : LA LAW
“L.A. Law” ran on NBC from 1986 to 1994, and was one of the network’s most successful drama series. It took over from the equally successful “Hill Street Blues” in the Thursday night 10 p.m. slot until, after a six-year run, it was itself replaced by yet another respected drama, “E.R.” The opening credits showed that famous California licence plate. The plate was on a Jaguar XJ for most of the series, but moved onto a Bentley towards the end of the run. For each series the registration sticker was updated, so no laws were being broken.

30. “The Good Earth” author : PEARL S BUCK
Pearl S. Buck’s novel “The Good Earth” won a Pulitzer in 1932, and helped Buck win the Nobel Prize for literature a few years later. The novel tells of life in a Chinese village and follows the fortunes of Wang Lung and his wife O-Lan. Although “The Good Earth” has been around for decades, it hit the bestseller list again in 2004 when it was a pick for Oprah’s Book Club.

42. Saxophonist with the #1 album “Miracles” : KENNY G
Saxophonist Kenny G’s full name is Kenneth Bruce Gorelick. Kenny’s “G” might also stand for “golfer”, as in 2006 he was ranked by “Golf Digest” magazine as the number one golfer working in the field of music.

45. ___ Jima : IWO
Iwo Jima is a volcanic island located south of Tokyo that today is uninhabited. The name is Japanese for “Sulfur Island”, referring to the sulfur mining on which Iwo Jima’s economy once depended. There were about a thousand Japanese civilians living on the island prior to WWII. In 1944, there was a massive influx of Japanese military personnel in anticipation of the inevitable US invasion. As the Japanese military moved in, the civilians were forced out and no one has lived there since.

48. Dr. 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.

Mary Shelley’s Gothic novel has the full title of “Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus”. The subtitle underscores one of the themes of the book, a warning about man’s expansion into the Industrial Revolution.

53. Target competitor : SEARS
Richard Sears was a station agent on the railroad. In the late 1800s, he bought up a shipment of unwanted watches that was left at his depot and sold the watches to other agents up and down the line. He was so successful that he ordered more watches and then came up with the idea of using a catalog to promote more sales. The catalog idea caught on, and his success allowed Sears to open retail locations in 1925. By the mid 1900s, Sears was the biggest retailer in the whole country.

57. Hatcher of “Tomorrow Never Dies” : TERI
Teri Hatcher’s most famous role these days is the Susan Mayer character in “Desperate Housewives”. I’ve never seen more than a few minutes of “Housewives” but I do know Teri Hatcher as a Bond girl, as she appeared in “Tomorrow Never Dies”. More recently, she has been portraying Lois Lane on the show “Lois & Clark”.

“Tomorrow Never Dies” is the second of the James Bond films to star Pierce Brosnan as 007. Unlike most of the Bond movies, the storyline and title didn’t come from an original Ian Fleming book, as all the books had already been adapted for the big screen. The original title given to the film was “Tomorrow Never Lies”, but this was read as “Tomorrow Never Dies” on a garbled fax by MGM, the film’s distributors. MGM liked the “Dies” and they insisted it be used.

58. Smelting waste : SLAG
The better lead ores are processed in a blast furnace, to extract the metal. The “waste” from this process is called “slag”. Slag does contain some lead and it can be processed further in a “slag furnace” to extract the residual metal. Slag furnaces also accept poorer lead ores as a raw material.

62. Manhattan law enforcement grp. : NYPD
The New York Police Department (NYPD) is the largest municipal police force in the country. The department’s roots go back as far at 1625 when there was an eight-man night watch in the days when New York was still known as New Amsterdam. Several disparate forces with policing responsibility were amalgamated in 1844 to form the New York City Police Department, signalling the end of the night watch force that had existed for over 200 years.

64. “I Like ___” (1950s campaign slogan) : IKE
“I Like Ike” was a political slogan that originated with the grassroots movement to get Dwight D. Eisenhower (“Ike) to run for president in the 1952 presidential election.

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For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. Group of tents in the woods : CAMP
5. San Antonio hoopsters : SPURS
10. Goofing off : IDLE
14. Onetime Chevy subcompact : AVEO
15. Bat mitzvah reading : TORAH
16. Rodenticide brand with glue traps : D-CON
17. Goofing off : MONKEYING AROUND
20. S&P 500, e.g. : INDEX
21. Rig on the road : SEMI
22. “Super” game console : NES
23. Jockey’s strap : REIN
26. Voting against : ANTI
28. Hack (off) : LOP
31. Getting ready to click on, as a link : MOUSING OVER
36. Impress greatly : AWE
37. Foreign president with a black belt in judo : PUTIN
38. Heredity transmitter : GENE
39. Most’s opposite : LEAST
41. He said “I pity the fool” : MR T
42. Mini racing vehicles : KARTS
43. Gillette razor brand : ATRA
44. Spooky : EERIE
46. “Ready, ___, go!” : SET
47. Eating quickly : WOLFING DOWN
50. Spots for getting stitches, in brief : ERS
51. ___ lily (Utah’s state flower) : SEGO
52. Mamas’ boys : SONS
54. Browser sub-window : TAB
56. Chooses (to) : OPTS
59. Arab Spring country : YEMEN
63. Storing for future use : SQUIRRELING AWAY
67. Trickster in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” : PUCK
68. Make a grand speech : ORATE
69. Speak hoarsely : RASP
70. Literally, “liquor,” in Japanese : SAKE
71. Archie Bunker, notably : BIGOT
72. Place to store mowers and rakes : SHED

Down
1. Ladies’ undergarment, casually : CAMI
2. Stratford-upon-___ : AVON
3. Patch up : MEND
4. Game with an annual World Series held in Las Vegas : POKER
5. Digs for pigs : STY
6. Luau dish : POI
7. Containers for serving coffee : URNS
8. Explosive anger : RAGE
9. Tribal healer : SHAMAN
10. “Don’t mind if ___” : I DO
11. Where Batman and Superman live : DC UNIVERSE
12. ___ Star State (Texas) : LONE
13. Pulls the plug on : ENDS
18. Like many nonprofits, vis-à-vis taxes : EXEMPT
19. What the best man holds for the groom : RING
24. Debtor’s note : IOU
25. Eggnog spice : NUTMEG
27. Attire in old Rome : TOGA
28. 1980s-’90s legal drama that won 15 Emmys : LA LAW
29. Have because of : OWE TO
30. “The Good Earth” author : PEARL S BUCK
32. Fathered, as a racehorse : SIRED
33. Opening remarks : INTROS
34. Another name for the return key on a Mac : ENTER
35. Takes a breather : RESTS
40. ___ and sound : SAFE
42. Saxophonist with the #1 album “Miracles” : KENNY G
45. ___ Jima : IWO
48. Dr. Frankenstein’s assistant : IGOR
49. “Sure thing” : NO PROB
53. Target competitor : SEARS
54. Sugar and spice amts. : TSPS
55. Light blue hue : AQUA
57. Hatcher of “Tomorrow Never Dies” : TERI
58. Smelting waste : SLAG
60. “Love ya!” : MWAH!
61. Freedom from anxiety : EASE
62. Manhattan law enforcement grp. : NYPD
64. “I Like ___” (1950s campaign slogan) : IKE
65. “Who am ___ judge?” : I TO
66. Tennis court divider : NET

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