Day: August 29, 2023

Bill’s time: 7m 43s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

10 Ingredient in some calming oils, for short : CBD

Cannabidiol (CBD) is a chemical extracted from cannabis plants that is used as a herbal drug. It does not contain the chemical tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), which is responsible for the marijuana “high”.

14 Like Venus, but not Aphrodite : ROMAN

Venus was the Roman goddess of love and, according to Roman myth, was the mother of the Roman people. Her Greek counterpart was Aphrodite.

15 Corduroy feature : WALE

Wales are parallel ribs in a fabric, such as the ribs in corduroy.

There’s a myth that the name of the textile known as “corduroy” comes from the French “corde du roi” (the cord of the king). It’s more likely that “corduroy” comes from a melding of “cord” and “duroy” (a coarse fabric that used to be made in England).

17 How many times Napoleon was exiled : TWICE

Napoléon Bonaparte was a military professional from Corsica who rose to prominence after the French Revolution during the French First Republic. He took over the country in 1799 in a coup d’état and installed himself as First Consul. Soon after, he led France in the Napoleonic Wars, conflicts between the growing French Empire and a series of opposing coalitions. He was eventually defeated at the Battle of Leipzig and was forced into exile on the Italian island of Elba off the Tuscan coast. Napoleon escaped in 1815 and regained power, only to be finally defeated a few months later at the Battle of Waterloo. The British dispatched him to the island of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic where he lived out the last six years of his life as a prisoner.

19 With 21-Across, “The Simpsons” character who is a children’s TV host : KRUSTY …
21 See 19-Across : … THE CLOWN

Krusty the Clown is a character on the TV show “The Simpsons”, one voiced by Dan Castellaneta. Krusty has a sidekick named Sideshow Mel, also voiced by Castellaneta.

23 Dish eaten with both chopsticks and a spoon : PHO

Pho (pronounced “fuh”) is a noodle soup from Vietnam that is a popular street food. It is often ordered with a side of hanh dam, pickled white onions.

25 Bowling locale : ALLEY

Bowling has been around for an awfully long time. The oldest known reference to the game is in Egypt, where pins and balls were found in an ancient tomb that is over 5,000 years old. The first form of the game to come to America was nine-pin bowling, which had been very popular in Europe for centuries. In 1841 in Connecticut, nine-pin bowling was banned due to its association with gambling. Supposedly, an additional pin was added to get around the ban, and ten-pin bowling was born.

26 With 29-Across, fast-food spokesperson with a goatee : COLONEL …
29 See 26-Across : … SANDERS

The famous “Colonel” of Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) fame was Harland Sanders, an entrepreneur from Henryville, Indiana. Although not really a “Colonel”, Sanders did indeed serve in the military. He enlisted in the Army as a private in 1906 at the age of 16, lying about his age. He spent the whole of his time in the Army as a soldier in Cuba. It was much later, in the 1930s, that Sanders went into the restaurant business making his specialty deep-fried chicken. By 1935 his reputation as a “character” had grown, so much so that Governor Ruby Laffoon of Kentucky gave Sanders the honorary title of “Kentucky Colonel”. Later in the fifties, Sanders developed his trademark look with the white suit, string tie, mustache and goatee. When Sanders was 65 however, his business failed and in stepped Dave Thomas, the founder of Wendy’s. Thomas simplified the Sanders menu, cutting it back from over a hundred items to just fried chicken and salads. That was enough to launch KFC into the fast food business. Sanders sold the US franchise in 1964 for just $2 million and moved to Canada to grow KFC north of the border. He died in 1980 and is buried in Louisville, Kentucky. The Colonel’s secret recipe of 11 herbs and spices is indeed a trade secret. Apparently there is only one copy of the recipe, a handwritten piece of paper, written in pencil and signed by Colonel Sanders. Since 2009, the piece of paper has been locked in a computerized vault surrounded with motion detectors and security cameras.

31 Vineyard products made with frozen grapes : ICE WINES

Ice wine is a sweet dessert wine that is produced using grapes that have frozen on the vine. The grapes must be harvested very quickly and pressed in a cold environment while still frozen. Because it is only the water in the grapes that freezes, the juice from the pressing is more highly concentrated, containing more sugar and other dissolved solids. Most of the world supply of ice wine comes from Canada and Germany.

33 “O Sole ___” : MIO

“O sole mio” is a famous Italian song from Naples, written in 1898. The song’s lyrics are usually sung in the original Neapolitan, as opposed to Italian. The title translates from Neapolitan into “My Sun” (and not into “O, My Sun” as one might expect). It’s a love song, sung by a young man declaring that there is a sun brighter than that in the sky, the sun that is his lover’s face. Awww …

35 Muscat resident : OMANI

Muscat is the capital of Oman. The city lies on the northeast coast of the state on the Gulf of Oman, a branch of the Persian Gulf.

37 Horror franchise since 2004 : SAW

The “Saw” franchise of movies is gruesome in the extreme. I’ve only seen a few minutes of “Saw” footage (accidentally). The storylines center on imprisoned victims who are faced with having to mutilate themselves in order to escape. Ugh …

40 Commercial ending with Water : -PIK

Waterpik is a brand of oral irrigator, a device that uses a stream of water to remove food debris and dental plaque from the teeth. There are claims made that water irrigators are more effective than dental floss.

42 British P.M. before Gladstone : DISRAELI

Benjamin Disraeli was Prime Minister of Britain for a few months in 1868 and again from 1874 to 1880. He enjoyed a particularly warm relationship with Queen Victoria, partly because they both shared an intense dislike for Disraeli’s political rival, William Gladstone. Disraeli was the only British prime minister of Jewish birth, although he was baptized into the Anglican faith when he was 12 years old.

William Ewart Gladstone was the leader of the Liberal party and Prime Minister of Britain on four different occasions. Gladstone resigned in 1894. At the time of his resignation he was 84 years old, making him the oldest person to serve in the office.

45 With 49-Across, silent film star who portrayed the Little Tramp : CHARLIE … 49 See 45-Across : … CHAPLIN

Charlie Chaplin earned the nickname “The Tramp” (also “Little Tramp”) from the much-loved character that he frequently played on the screen. Chaplin was much-respected as a performer. The great George Bernard Shaw referred to him as “the only genius to come out of the movie industry”.

50 Actress Day with a Presidential Medal of Freedom : DORIS

Actress and singer Doris Day was born Doris Kappelhoff in Cincinnati, Ohio. Day made more than 650 recordings as a singer with Columbia Records, and also appeared in 39 movies. Outside the world of entertainment, she was an ardent supporter of animal rights. She lived in retirement in Carmel-by-the-Sea in California, along with her many pets and stray animals that she adopted over the years.

51 West of Hollywood : MAE

Mae West was always pushing the envelope when it came to the “sexy” side of show business, even in her early days in Vaudeville. One of the first plays in which West starred on Broadway was called “Sex”, a work that she penned herself. The show was a sell-out, but city officials had it raided and West found herself spending ten days in jail after being convicted of “corrupting the morals of youth”. She started in movies in 1932, already 38 years old. West used her experience writing plays to rewrite much of the material she was given, and so really she was totally responsible for her own success and on-screen appeal.

53 Block number, for short? : SPF

In theory, the sun protection factor (SPF) is a calibrated measure of the effectiveness of a sunscreen in protecting the skin from harmful UV rays. The idea is that if you wear a lotion with say SPF 20, then it takes 20 times as much UV radiation to cause the skin to burn than it would take without protection. I say just stay out of the sun …

54 With 56-Across, title Dr. Seuss troublemaker : THE CAT IN … 56 See 54-Across : … THE HAT

“The Cat in the Hat” is a 1957 book penned by Dr. Seuss (aka Theodor Geisel). Written to teach young children how to read, Geisel stated in 1983, “It is the book I’m proudest of because it had something to do with the death of the “Dick and Jane” primers.”

60 Bernardo’s girlfriend in “West Side Story” : ANITA

In Leonard Bernstein’s “West Side Story”, the female lead character is Maria. Maria and her older friend Anita are in the group referred to as “the Shark Girls”.

63 “Hello, sailor!” : AHOY!

“Ahoy!” is a nautical term used to signal a vessel. When the telephone was invented by Alexander Graham Bell, he suggested that “ahoy” be used as a standard greeting when answering a call. However, Thomas Edison came up with “hello”, and we’ve been using that ever since.

Down

8 Apt rhyme for “stashes” : CACHES

A cache is a secret supply. We imported the term “cache” into English from French-Canadian trappers in the 17th century. Back then, “cache” was slang for “hiding place for stores”, derived from the French verb “cacher” meaning “to hide”.

10 Singer/songwriter King : CAROLE

Carole King and her longtime partner Gerry Goffin have been writing hit songs since the early sixties. Carole and Gerry had a babysitter, one Eva Narcissus Boyd, who was always bopping around the house in an unusual dance style. They wrote a song about her dance and they called it “The Loco-Motion”. Then they gave it to the babysitter to record. Ms. Boyd chose as a stage name a character in “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” named Little Eva.

12 Restaurant chain with a Grand Slam breakfast : DENNY’S

Denny’s was the first restaurant I ate at on my initial visit to the US many moons ago. I thought I was in heaven. I’ve changed my opinion a little since then! Denny’s is famous for being “always open” (almost), something that blew my mind as a visitor from Ireland back in 1980. Denny’s was founded in 1953 in Lakewood, California, and originally went by the name “Denny’s Donuts”. The enduring Grand Slam breakfast has been on the menu since 1977.

20 Morrison with a Presidential Medal of Freedom : TONI

Writer Toni Morrison won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993. Amongst other things, Morrison is noted for coining the phrase “our first black President”, a reference to President Bill Clinton.

27 Condition that may involve repetitive behavior, in brief : OCD

Apparently, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is the fourth most commonly diagnosed mental disorder, making it about as prevalent as asthma.

28 Thin-stemmed mushroom : ENOKI

Enokitake (also known as “enoki”) are long and thin white mushrooms often added to soups or salads.

30 Some Pennsylvania Dutch speakers : AMISH

The Amish are members of a group of Christian churches, and a subgroup of the Mennonite churches. The Amish church originated in Switzerland and Alsace in 1693 when it was founded by Jakob Ammann. It was Ammann who gave the name to the Amish people. Many Amish people came to Pennsylvania in the 18th century.

41 “Casablanca” role : ILSA

Rick Blaine and Ilsa Lund were played by Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman in the 1942 movie “Casablanca”. I love the words of one critic describing the chemistry between Bogart and Bergman in this film: “She paints his face with her eyes”. Wow …

45 Retractable feature of a PC or stereo, once : CD TRAY

The compact disc (CD) was developed jointly by Philips and Sony as a medium for storing and playing sound recordings. When the first commercial CD was introduced back in 1982, a CD’s storage capacity was far greater than the amount of data that could be stored on the hard drive of personal computers available at that time.

48 Key of Dvorák’s “New World” Symphony : E MINOR

Antonín Dvořák was a composer from Czechoslovakia who spent three years working and composing in the United States. He was the director of the National Conservatory of Music of America in New York from 1892 to 1895. Certainly here in the US, Dvořák’s best known work is his Symphony No. 9, “From the New World”, which is often referred to as “The New World Symphony”. His career was very much helped along by fellow composer Johannes Brahms, who very much appreciated Dvořák’s work.

52 Absinthe flavoring : ANISE

Absinthe is an alcoholic spirit that is distilled from various plants and herbs, including wormwood, anise and fennel. Absinthe was banned in the US in 1915 as it was deemed to be an addictive psychoactive drug. However, the accepted opinion today seems to be that absinthe is no more addictive or dangerous than any other spirit.

58 Take a hit : TOKE

“Toke” is a slang term describing a puff on a marijuana cigarette, or on a pipe containing the drug.