Constructed by: Sophia Maymudes & Margaret Seikel
Edited by: Will Shortz
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Bill’s time: 23m 53s!
Bill’s errors: 0
Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies
Across
1 Source of the quote “It is more blessed to give than to receive” : ACTS
The Acts of the Apostles is the fifth book of the Christian New Testament. It is believed that the author of the Gospel of Luke was the same person who wrote “Acts”.
5 Creator of terraced agricultural fields known as andenes : INCA
An andén (plural “andenes”) is a set of step-like terraces dug into a hillside for growing crops. Andenes help when farming on a steep hillside by giving easier access, increasing exposure to sunlight and controlling erosion. The original andenes were built by pre-Colubian peoples in Central and South America, hence the Spanish term “andén” meaning “platform”.
13 Wig (out) : FREAK
The idea behind the expression “to wig out”, meaning “to go crazy”, is that there is so much going on in your brain that it might “lift your hair/wig”.
15 Place to slurp ramen : NOODLE BAR
Ramen is a noodle dish composed of Chinese-style wheat noodles in a meat or fish broth flavored with soy or miso sauce. Ramen is usually topped with sliced pork and dried seaweed. The term “ramen” is also used for precooked, instant noodles that come in single-serving, solid blocks.
17 Meghan Markle’s “something borrowed” : TIARA
When Meghan Markle married Prince Harry, she followed tradition by wearing something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue:
- Several “old” flowers picked by Prince Harry the day before the wedding
- A brand new wedding gown designed by Givenchy
- A diamond tiara borrowed from Queen Elizabeth II
- A blue aquamarine ring that had belonged to Princess Diana
18 Cheesesteak topper : PROVOLONE
Provolone cheese originated in Southern Italy, although today is mostly produced in the northern part of the country. Provola is also a cheese, and the name “Provolone” means “large Provola”.
19 Good auto for an L.A.-to-N.Y.C. road trip? : TRANS AM
The Trans Am, produced from 1969 to 2002, was a specialty version of the Pontiac Firebird. My favorite Trans Am is KITT, the artificially intelligent car in the eighties TV show “Knight Rider” …
21 R.N.’s insertion : IV LINE
A registered nurse (RN) might administer an intravenous drip (IV).
22 Queen’s protection : STINGER
A queen bee has a stinger, just like worker bees. When a worker bee stings, it leaves its stinger in its victim. The worker bee dies after losing its stinger as the loss rips out part of its insides. However, a queen bee can sting with impunity as her stinger’s anatomy is different.
23 Fermented beverage : ALE
The many, many different styles of beer can generally be sorted into two groups: ales and lagers. Ales are fermented at relatively warm temperatures for relatively short periods of time, and use top-fermenting yeasts, i.e. yeasts that float on top of the beer as it ferments. Lagers ferment at relatively low temperatures and for relatively long periods of time. Lagers use bottom-fermenting yeasts, i.e. yeasts that fall to the bottom of the beer as it ferments.
24 Frequent maid of honor, in brief : SIS
The members of the bride’s party in a wedding are the bridesmaids. The principal bridesmaid is the maid of honor. The principal bridesmaid might be referred to as the matron of honor if she is married.
26 Alternative to blinds : ANTES
In some variants of poker, a forced bet is made by one or two players sitting to the left of the dealer. These bets are known as “blinds”, and are used instead of antes to ensure that there is some money in the pot. The player to the immediate left of the dealer posts the “small blind” (usually half the minimum bet), and the next player to the left posts the “big blind” (usually the minimum bet).
28 Mortgage offering : RATE
Our word “mortgage” comes from the Old French “mort gaige” which translated as “dead pledge”. Such an arrangement was so called because the “pledge” to repay “dies” when the debt is cleared.
30 Historian Schomberg of the Harlem Renaissance : ARTURO
“Harlem Renaissance” is the term used to describe a cultural movement in the 1920s that was known at the time as the “New Negro Movement”. The movement involved new cultural expression by African Americans that was centered mainly in urban areas in the northeast and midwest, and that was especially vibrant in New York City’s Harlem neighborhood.
32 Literally, “skewer” : SHISH
The term “kebab” (also “kabob”) covers a wide variety of meat dishes that originated in Persia. In the West, we usually use “kebab” when talking about shish kebab, which is meat (often lamb) served on a skewer. “Shish” comes from the Turkish word for “skewer”.
34 Group photo pose during a rush : SORORITY SQUAT
A rush is a drive by a fraternity or sorority to recruit new members on campus.
38 Flip : GO APE
The US slang “go ape” is actually a cleaner version of a similar expression, and is American slang that only dates back to about 1955.
39 Jeep successor : HUMVEE
“Humvee” and “Hummer” are nicknames for the military vehicle developed by AM General. The full name is High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle i.e. HMMWV, or simply “Humvee”.
The Jeep is the original off-road vehicle. It was developed by the American Bantam Car Company in 1940 at the request of the US government who recognized the upcoming need for the armed forces as American involvement in WWII loomed. The Bantam Company was too small to cope with demand, so the government gave the designs to competing car companies. The design and brand eventually ended up with AMC in the seventies and eighties.
43 BART : San Francisco :: ___ : Philadelphia : SEPTA
Public transportation in and around Philadelphia is managed by the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA).
Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) is a commuter rail system serving the San Francisco Bay Area.
45 Chemical suffix : -IDE
In chemistry, when a metal combines with a nonmetal, the nonmetal is often given the suffix “-ide”. One example would be iron sulfide, made from iron (a metal) and sulfur (a nonmetal).
46 “The Simpsons” character with an 18-letter last name : APU
The fictional Kwik-E-Mart store is operated by Apu Nahasapeemapetilon on “The Simpsons” TV show. Apu is married to Manjula, and the couple have eight children. The convenience store owner doesn’t seem to be making much use of his Ph.D in computer science that he earned in the US. Apu’s undergraduate degree is from Caltech (the Calcutta Technical Institute), where he graduated top of his class of seven million students …
47 Record label co-founded by Drake : OVO
Drake is the stage name of rapper Aubrey Graham from Toronto.
49 Longtime NPR call-in show : CAR TALK
Car Talk is a very entertaining radio show aired on NPR on weekends. The show is hosted by brothers Tom and Ray Magliozzi (aka “Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothers”). The hosts spend most of their airtime giving advice on automotive repair, and do a lot of kidding around as well. Click and Clack retired in 2012, so today’s broadcasts are repeats. Tom Magliozzi passed away in 2014.
51 Home to California’s Limekiln State Park : BIG SUR
Big Sur is a lovely part of the California Coast located south of Monterey and Carmel. The name “Big Sur” comes from the original Spanish description of the area as “el sur grande” meaning “the big south”.
54 Numbers that come after 1 : AREA CODES
Area codes were introduced in the 1940s. Back then, the “clicks” one heard when dialling a number led to mechanical wear on various pieces of equipment. In order to minimize overall mechanical wear, areas with high call volumes were given the most efficient area codes (lowest number of clicks). That led to New York getting the area code 212, Los Angeles 213 and Chicago 313.
56 Renée ___ Goldsberry of “Hamilton” : ELISE
Renée Elise Goldsberry is an actress and singer who is best known to me for playing the attorney Geneva Pine on the TV show “The Good Wife”. Goldsberry also originated the role of Angelica Schuyler Church in the hit Broadway musical “Hamilton”.
59 Author Mario Vargas ___ : LLOSA
Mario Vargas Llosa is a Peruvian writer of renown, and one of the most significant authors from Latin America by all accounts. Llosa is also very active politically, and in 1990 ran unsuccessfully for the Peruvian presidency.
60 Part of a French 101 conjugation : ETES
In French, “nous sommes” (we are), “vous êtes” (you are), and “ils/elles sont” (they are).
61 “Wuthering Heights” setting : MOOR
“Wuthering Heights” is the only novel written by Emily Brontë, and one that she published using the pen name Ellis Bell. It 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.
Down
2 Polecats, raccoons, squirrels, etc. : CRITTERS
“Polecat” is a term used for several different animals, most of which are in the weasel family.
The raccoon is native to North America. In captivity, raccoons can live to over 20 years of age, but in the wild they only live two or three years. The main causes for the shorter lifespan are hunting and road traffic.
There are several species of gray squirrel that are native to North America. Even though I live here in the west of the continent, I am most familiar with the eastern gray squirrel. That’s because that particular species was introduced into Italy in 1948, and now the whole continent is overrun with the animal. The result in Britain and Ireland is that the native red squirrel population is now endangered and there are active programs to eradicate the invading species. There was even a plan to have celebrity chefs promote gray squirrel recipes in an effort to cull the population!
4 Brand once produced by Dow Chemical : SARAN
What’s known as plastic wrap in America, we call cling-film in Ireland. The brand name “Saran” is often used generically in the US, while “Glad” wrap is common down under. Plastic wrap was one of those unintended inventions, a byproduct of a development program to create a hard plastic cover for cars.
Dow Chemical Company was founded back in 1897 by a chemist called Herbert Henry Dow, and initially manufactured and sold bleach and potassium bromide. Dow merged with DuPont in 2017 to create DowDuPont, the world’s largest chemical company.
6 Summer temperatures of 120º F, in Death Valley : NORM
Death Valley is a spectacular desert valley in California that is part of the Mojave Desert. Badwater Basin in Death Valley is the lowest point in North America, sitting at 282 feet below sea level. Remarkably, Badwater Basin is located just 84 miles from Mount Whitney, the highest point in the contiguous United States.
8 “Stronger than pain” sloganeer : ADVIL
Advil is Wyeth’s brand of ibuprofen, an anti-inflammatory drug.
10 Uncommon member of a high school band : OBOIST
The oboe is perhaps my favorite of the reed instruments. The name “oboe” comes from the French “hautbois” which means “high wood”.
14 Marsupium, by another name : KANGAROO POUCH
Marsupials are mammals that carry their young in a pouch. Better-known marsupials are kangaroos, koalas, wombats and Tasmanian devils. As you can probably tell from this list, most marsupials are native to the Southern Hemisphere.
20 Title for Frida Kahlo : SENORA
Frida Kahlo was a Mexican painter famous for her self-portraits. She was married to the equally famous artist Diego Rivera. Kahlo was portrayed by actress Salma Hayek in a film about her colorful life called “Frida” released in 2002.
27 Signature scent introduced in 1968 : ESTEE
“Estée” is the signature fragrance from the Estée Lauder Company. “Estée” was the second fragrance developed by Estée Lauder herself, and was introduced in 1968. Lauder’s first fragrance was “Youth Dew”, introduced in 1953.
33 Mesopotamian goddess of love and war : ISHTAR
Mesopotamia was the land that lay between two rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates, that flow through modern-day Iraq. The name “Mesopotamia” means “between the rivers”.
35 ___ facto : IPSO
“Ipso facto” is Latin, meaning “by the fact itself”. Ipso facto describes something that is a direct consequence of a particular act, as opposed to something that is the result of some subsequent event. For example, my father was born in Dublin and was an Irish citizen, ipso facto. My son was born in California and is an Irish citizen by virtue of being the son of an Irish citizen (i.e. “not” ipso facto).
36 Ohio claims to be its birthplace : AVIATION
Dayton is a city in the southwest of Ohio that is famously home to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. The city is also referred to as the “Birthplace of Aviation”, as it was in Dayton that Orville and Wilbur Wright built and improved the Wright Flyer. The Wright Flyer made the first controlled and sustained flight of a powered, heavier-than-air aircraft in 1903 in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.
37 TV character who said “I do love a locker room. It smells like potential” : TED LASSO
“Ted Lasso” is a marvelous sports-comedy TV show about an American college football coach who moves to the UK to manage an English soccer team. The title character is played very admirably by Jason Sudeikas. Sudeikas first played Lasso in a series of TV commercials commissioned to promote NBC’s coverage of the British Premier League. Great stuff, and highly recommended …
42 ___ Gant, protagonist of Thomas Wolfe’s “Look Homeward, Angel” : EUGENE
“Look Homeward, Angel” is a novel by Thomas Wolfe that was first published in 1929. The protagonist of the work is Eugene Gant, whose story is told from birth to age 19. “Look Homeward, Angel” is considered a largely autobiographical account.
44 Windows might be opened by one : PC USER
MS-DOS (short for “Microsoft Disk Operating System”) was the main operating system used by IBM-compatible PCs in the eighties and for much of the nineties. Microsoft introduced the Windows operating environment in 1985 to sit above MS-DOS as a graphical user interface (GUI). That move was made in response to the success of Apple’s GUI released with the Lisa and Macintosh platforms. A court case ensued, one that was eventually settled in court in favor of Microsoft.
53 X, maybe, in Spanish : BESO
In the sequence letter sequence “X-O-X”, the X represents a kiss, and the O a hug. “O-O-O” is a string of hugs, and “X-X-X” a string of kisses. Hugs and kisses …
In Spanish, a “beso” (kiss) is an “indicación de afecto” (display of affection).
55 What Salt-N-Pepa were not, despite their name : DUO
Salt-N-Pepa are an all-female hip-hop trio from New York made up of “Salt” (Cheryl James), “Pepa” (Sandra Denton) and “DJ Spinderella” (Deidra Roper). The group’s 1991 song “Let’s Talk Sex” created quite a fuss as the lyrics explored the subject of sex, and safe sex in particular. A later version addressed the dangers of AIDS.
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Complete List of Clues/Answers
Across
1 Source of the quote “It is more blessed to give than to receive” : ACTS
5 Creator of terraced agricultural fields known as andenes : INCA
9 Not alcoholic : SOFT
13 Wig (out) : FREAK
15 Place to slurp ramen : NOODLE BAR
17 Meghan Markle’s “something borrowed” : TIARA
18 Cheesesteak topper : PROVOLONE
19 Good auto for an L.A.-to-N.Y.C. road trip? : TRANS AM
21 R.N.’s insertion : IV LINE
22 Queen’s protection : STINGER
23 Fermented beverage : ALE
24 Frequent maid of honor, in brief : SIS
25 Writers’ org. with apt initials : PEN
26 Alternative to blinds : ANTES
28 Mortgage offering : RATE
30 Historian Schomberg of the Harlem Renaissance : ARTURO
32 Literally, “skewer” : SHISH
34 Group photo pose during a rush : SORORITY SQUAT
38 Flip : GO APE
39 Jeep successor : HUMVEE
41 Leak (through) : SEEP
43 BART : San Francisco :: ___ : Philadelphia : SEPTA
45 Chemical suffix : -IDE
46 “The Simpsons” character with an 18-letter last name : APU
47 Record label co-founded by Drake : OVO
49 Longtime NPR call-in show : CAR TALK
51 Home to California’s Limekiln State Park : BIG SUR
53 Cheese from the south of Italy : BURRATA
54 Numbers that come after 1 : AREA CODES
56 Renée ___ Goldsberry of “Hamilton” : ELISE
58 Kind of architectural movement with the philosophy of living with less : TINY HOUSE
59 Author Mario Vargas ___ : LLOSA
60 Part of a French 101 conjugation : ETES
61 “Wuthering Heights” setting : MOOR
62 Impertinent sort : SNOT
Down
1 Toward the tail : AFT
2 Polecats, raccoons, squirrels, etc. : CRITTERS
3 Dress down : TEAR INTO
4 Brand once produced by Dow Chemical : SARAN
5 Somewhat : IN PART
6 Summer temperatures of 120º F, in Death Valley : NORM
7 Say “You’re so-o-o cute!,” e.g. : COO
8 “Stronger than pain” sloganeer : ADVIL
9 Persuade : SELL
10 Uncommon member of a high school band : OBOIST
11 Civil rights activist ___ Lou Hamer : FANNIE
12 Things that parks and families have : TREES
14 Marsupium, by another name : KANGAROO POUCH
16 Cause of a breakup : LOVERS’ QUARREL
20 Title for Frida Kahlo : SENORA
22 Brazilian’s place : SPA
23 Pallid : ASHY
27 Signature scent introduced in 1968 : ESTEE
29 Alive with excitement : AHUM
31 Itch : URGE
33 Mesopotamian goddess of love and war : ISHTAR
35 ___ facto : IPSO
36 Ohio claims to be its birthplace : AVIATION
37 TV character who said “I do love a locker room. It smells like potential” : TED LASSO
40 High-pitched cry : EEK!
41 Christmas ___ : SPIRIT
42 ___ Gant, protagonist of Thomas Wolfe’s “Look Homeward, Angel” : EUGENE
44 Windows might be opened by one : PC USER
46 Ease : ABATE
48 When doubled, racing sound : VROOM!
50 They’re denoted by T’s, for tees : TALLS
52 States : SAYS
53 X, maybe, in Spanish : BESO
55 What Salt-N-Pepa were not, despite their name : DUO
57 Gobble up : EAT
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