Day: March 25, 2017

Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across
1. 2016 #1 Kanye West album, with “The” : LIFE OF PABLO
Kanye West is a rap singer who was born in Atlanta and raised in Chicago. He also spent some time in Nanjing, China as a child, where his mother was teaching as part of an exchange program. West is married to reality star Kim Kardashian.

12. Rave’s opposite : PAN
To pan something is to criticize it harshly.

19. Abbr. for a two-striper : NCO
Non-commissioned officer (NCO)

31. Seder celebration : PESACH
Pesach is an alternative name for Passover.

33. Classic case of making life choices? : ROE V WADE
Roe v. Wade was decided in a US District Court in Texas in 1970, and reached the Supreme Court on appeal. The basic decision by the Supreme Court was that a woman’s constitutional right to privacy applied to an abortion, but that this right had to be balanced with a state’s interest in protecting an unborn child and a mother’s health. The Court further defined that the state’s interest became stronger with each trimester of a pregnancy. So, in the first trimester the woman’s right to privacy outweighed any state interest. In the second trimester the state’s interest in maternal health was deemed to be strong enough to allow state regulation of abortion for the sake of the mother. In the third trimester the viability of the fetus dictated that the state’s interest in the unborn child came into play, so states could regulate or prohibit abortions, except in cases where the mother’s life was in danger. I’m no lawyer, but that’s my understanding of the initial Supreme Court decision …

46. Company investing in self-driving cars : UBER
Uber is a ridesharing service that was founded in 2009 and is based in San Francisco. The service is somewhat controversial and has been described as an illegal taxicab operation. Central to Uber’s service is the company’s mobile app, which can use the client’s GPS location to help find the nearest available ride. Uber’s main competitor is Lyft. Personally, I love the service and have only had good experiences …

47. Literary waiter : ENID
Frankly, I am not sure which “literary Enid” was doing the waiting …

50. Locale in two James Bond films : MONACO
And those movies are “Never Say Never Again” and “Goldeneye”.

52. British ends : ZEDS
The letter named “zed” has been around since about 1400, and derives from the Greek letter zeta. The spelling and pronunciation of “zee” used in America today first popped up in the 1670s.

56. Director DuVernay : AVA
Ava DuVernay is a filmmaker who became the first African American woman to win the Best Director Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, a feat she achieved in 2012 for her feature film “Middle of Nowhere”. “Middle of Nowhere” tells the story of a woman who drops out of medical school to focus on husband when he is sentenced to 8 years in prison. DuVernay also directed the 2014 film “Selma”, which was centered on the 1965 voting rights marches from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.

58. Printer setting: Abbr. : LTR
Our paper sizes here in North America don’t conform with the standards in the rest of the world. ISO standard sizes used elsewhere were chosen so that the ratio of width to length is usually one to the square root of two. This mathematical relationship means that when you cut a piece of paper in two each half preserves the aspect ratio of the original, which can be useful in making reduced or enlarged copies of documents. Our standard size of “letter” (ltr., 8.5 x 11 inches) was determined in 1980 by the Reagan administration to be the official paper size for the US government. Prior to this, the “legal” size (8.5 x 14 inches) had been the standard, since 1921.

63. Exotic jerky meat : EMU
Jerky is meat that has been trimmed of fat and dried. The term “jerky” comes into English via Spanish from the Incan Quechua “ch’arki” meaning “dried flesh”.

64. Species of the Liberty Tree : AMERICAN ELM
The original Liberty Tree was an elm tree that stood near Boston Common and marked the place where folks would rally in the build-up to the American Revolution. The symbolism of the Liberty Tree migrated across the Atlantic during the French Revolution. Revolutionaries planted “Les arbres de la liberté” as symbols of revolutionary hope.

Down
6. Unbroken : FERAL
“Feral”, meaning existing in a wild or untamed state, comes from the Latin word “fera” meaning “a wild animal”.

9. Media inits. since 1922 : BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is also known as “the Beeb”, a name given to the network by the great Peter Sellers on the classic British radio comedy called “The Goon Show”. The BBC was founded in 1922, and was the world’s first national broadcasting organization.

10. Failed ignominiously : LAID AN EGG
Apparently the expression “to lay an egg”, meaning “to perform or play really badly” comes from the resemblance of the number 0 to an egg. One laying an egg scores zero.

11. Group of families : ORDER
Taxonomy is the classification of organisms or maybe even just items into groups or categories. We are most familiar with the classification of organisms in the major taxonomic ranks of:

• Life
• Domain
• Kingdom
• Phylum
• Class
• Order
• Family
• Genus
• Species

12. Tobacco flower relative : PETUNIA
The flowering plants known as petunias are in a genus that related to the tobacco plant. The name “petunia” comes from the obsolete French word “petun” meaning “tobacco plant”.

13. Movie agent on “Entourage” : ARI GOLD
Ari Gold is a fictional character in the HBO series “Entourage”. “Entourage” tells the story of a rising film star, Vincent Chase (played by Adrian Grenier), a native of New York but now learning to handle himself in Hollywood. Vincent’s Hollywood agent is Ari Gold, played by Jeremy Piven.

14. Broadway title character who runs off to Atlantic City : NANETTE
The 1925 musical “No, No, Nanette” spawned two famous songs: “Tea for Two” and “I Want to Be Happy”.

22. Hose and such : LEGWEAR
The word “hose” meaning a “covering for the leg” has the same roots as the contemporary German word “Hose” meaning “trousers, pants”.

29. Joey of children’s literature : ROO
Like most of the characters in A. A. Milne’s “Winnie the Pooh”, the kangaroo named Roo was inspired by on a stuffed toy belonging to Milne’s son Christopher Robin.

In Australia, male kangaroos are known by several names including bucks, boomers, jacks or old men. Females are called does, flyers, or jills. There seems to be just the one name for young kangaroos: joeys. A group of kangaroos might be called a mob, troop or court.

32. Pitcher who was the 1995 N.L. Rookie of the Year : HIDEO NOMO
Hideo Nomo is a former professional baseball pitcher from Osaka, Japan. After achieving success in Japan, Nomo became the first Japanese-born player to appear in Major League Baseball in the US. Nomo threw two no-hitters while playing here in the Majors. He is the only Japanese-born player to have thrown even one no-hitter.

34. Some YouTube uploads : VLOGS
A video blog is perhaps what one might expect, a blog that is essentially a series of video posts. The term “video logging” is often shortened to “vlogging”.

40. Supplement brand : CENTRUM
The vitamin brand called Centrum uses the slogan “Complete from A to Zinc”.

41. Conqueror of Cuzco : PIZARRO
Francisco Pizarro was a Spanish conquistador, the man who led the conquest of the Incan Empire in 1533. Pizarro founded the city of Lima in Peru in 1535. Pizarro’s body was laid to rest in Lima after the son of a rival conquistador assassinated him.

Cusco (also “Cuzco”) is a city in the southeast of Peru. Historically, Cusco was the historic capital of the Inca Empire, and was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1983.

45. Supposed end of a flight, for short : ETA
Expected time of arrival (ETA)

51. Subject of the 1942 film musical “Yankee Doodle Dandy” : COHAN
“Yankee Doodle Dandy” is the musical biopic about the life of George M. Cohan, released in 1942. Jimmy Cagney of course plays the part of Cohan, a fitting choice as Cagney started his career as a song-and-dance man, just like Cohan. There is a palpable, patriotic feel to the film, something that is very deliberate. Production of the film was just a few days underway at the end of 1941 when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. The cast and crew met soon after the attack, and resolved that their movie would be uplifting and patriotic.

53. Proud “Pride and Prejudice” character : DARCY
Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy has to be one of the great romantic leads in English literature. He of course appears opposite Miss Elizabeth Bennet in Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice”. There have been many (terrible) “sequels” written for “Pride and Prejudice”, but I have read one “spin off” that I heartily recommend if you’d like to explore the story of Elizabeth and Darcy some more. There is a three-part novel called “Fitzwilliam Darcy: Gentleman” written by Pamela Aidan and published in 2003-2005. Ms. Aiden does a great job retelling the story of “Pride and Prejudice”, but from Darcy’s perspective. It really is a great read, even for die-hard Austen fans …

57. ___ fide : BONA
“Bona fide(s)” translates from the Latin as “in good faith”, and is used to indicate honest intentions. It can also mean that something is authentic, like a piece of art that is represented in good faith as being genuine.

60. Fort Sumter victor, informally : REB
Fort Sumter is a fortification lying on an artificially constructed island in Charleston Harbor in South Carolina. In December 1860, when South Carolina seceded from the Union, US Army forces relocated to Fort Sumter deeming it to be a relatively defensible location. On 11 April 1861, confederate forces demanded that the fort be surrendered. When the defenders refused to budge, confederate artillery opened fire at 4:30 in the morning on 12 April 1861, starting the American Civil War.

62. What moms have that dads don’t? : EMS
There are two letters M (em) in the word “mom”.

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For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. 2016 #1 Kanye West album, with “The” : LIFE OF PABLO
12. Rave’s opposite : PAN
15. Treat on a stick : ICE CREAM BAR
16. Time of one’s life, maybe : ERA
17. Coffee, in military slang : BATTERY ACID
18. Container whose letters appear in “container” : TIN
19. Abbr. for a two-striper : NCO
20. False modesty, e.g. : ACT
21. Torrent : DELUGE
23. Gray matter : ASH
24. “Get a ___!” : CLUE
25. Cry of denial : ARE NOT!
26. Running slowly : SEEPY
28. Move : TURN
30. Finished elegantly : GILT
31. Seder celebration : PESACH
33. Classic case of making life choices? : ROE V WADE
35. Rate of speed : CLIP
37. Have a bad view? : OGLE
38. Raised sharply : JACKED UP
42. Diving athlete : GOALIE
46. Company investing in self-driving cars : UBER
47. Literary waiter : ENID
49. Aid package component : GRANT
50. Locale in two James Bond films : MONACO
52. British ends : ZEDS
54. ___ big : YEA
55. Freebie at a rally : BUTTON
56. Director DuVernay : AVA
57. Text ___ : BOX
58. Printer setting: Abbr. : LTR
59. “Frankenstein,” e.g. : HORROR MOVIE
63. Exotic jerky meat : EMU
64. Species of the Liberty Tree : AMERICAN ELM
65. Wiz Khalifa’s “We ___ Boyz” : DEM
66. “Just stop talking already” : NOBODY CARES

Down
1. Justin Trudeau’s party: Abbr. : LIB
2. “Got it” : I CAN SEE
3. Gets : FETCHES
4. Prefix with -derm : ECTO-
5. Extractions are made from it : ORE
6. Unbroken : FERAL
7. Bad job news : PAY CUT
8. ___ hour : AMATEUR
9. Media inits. since 1922 : BBC
10. Failed ignominiously : LAID AN EGG
11. Group of families : ORDER
12. Tobacco flower relative : PETUNIA
13. Movie agent on “Entourage” : ARI GOLD
14. Broadway title character who runs off to Atlantic City : NANETTE
22. Hose and such : LEGWEAR
23. It may raise its hood : ASP
24. Washer/dryer unit? : CYCLE
27. Hoarder : PACK RAT
29. Joey of children’s literature : ROO
32. Pitcher who was the 1995 N.L. Rookie of the Year : HIDEO NOMO
34. Some YouTube uploads : VLOGS
36. “Horse voice,” e.g. : PUN
38. Mixed up : JUMBLED
39. Introduction to bio? : ABOUT ME
40. Supplement brand : CENTRUM
41. Conqueror of Cuzco : PIZARRO
43. Part of many international flights : LAYOVER
44. Banished : IN EXILE
45. Supposed end of a flight, for short : ETA
48. Missing, with “of” : DEVOID
51. Subject of the 1942 film musical “Yankee Doodle Dandy” : COHAN
53. Proud “Pride and Prejudice” character : DARCY
57. ___ fide : BONA
60. Fort Sumter victor, informally : REB
61. Bub : MAC
62. What moms have that dads don’t? : EMS

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