Day: November 9, 2023

Bill’s time: 14m 57s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1 Norah O’Donnell’s employer beginning in 2011 : CBS

Norah O’Donnell is a native of Washington, D.C. She served as Chief White House correspondent for MSNBC from 2005 until 2011, for CBS News from 2011 until 2012 and became co-anchor for “CBS This Morning” in 2017. Along with her husband, restaurateur Geoff Tracy, O’Donnell published what sounds like an interesting cookbook in 2010, namely “Baby Love: Healthy, Easy, Delicious Meals for Your Baby and Toddler”.

4 One with many priors, maybe : ABBOT

Our word “abbot” ultimately derives from the Aramaic word “abba”, an honorific title extended to one’s father.

9 Leaflike plant part : SEPAL

In a flower, the sepals are the green, leaf-like structures that are “interleaved” with the petals, providing support. Prior to acting as support for the petals, the sepals protect the flower in bud.

15 Like 80% of the Arabian Peninsula : SAUDI

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is the largest Arab country in the Middle East and is the world’s largest oil producer, home to the world’s largest oil reserves. The Saudi dynasty started in central Arabia in 1744 when the secular leader Muhammad ibn Saud joined forces with the Islamic scholar and Imam, Muhammad ibn Abd-al-Wahhab. At the time, Saud was a ruler of a town near Riyadh and he was determined to bring “true” Islam to the Arabian peninsula. Since 1744 the fortunes of the Saudi family have risen and fallen, but it is that same family who rules what we know today as Saudi Arabia.

16 Spoiler alert! It’s bacteria! : E COLI

Escherichia coli (E. coli) are usually harmless bacteria found in the human gut, working away quite happily. However, there are some strains that can produce lethal toxins. These strains can make their way into the food chain from animal fecal matter that comes into contact with food designated for human consumption.

20 Activity that involves shape shifting : TETRIS

Tetris is a very addictive video game that was developed in the Soviet Union in 1984. The name Tetris comes from a melding of the prefix “tetra-” (as all the game pieces have four segments) and “tennis” (a favorite sport played by the developer). Since 2005 there have been more than 100 million copies of the game installed on cell phones alone.

21 Musical Horne : LENA

Lena Horne was an American jazz singer, actress, dancer and civil rights activist. Horne started her career as a nightclub singer and then began to get some meaty acting roles in Hollywood. However, she ended up on the blacklist during the McCarthy Era for expressing left wing political views. One of Horne’s starring roles was in the 1943 movie “Stormy Weather” for which she also performed the title song.

28 Michelle of “Everything Everywhere All at Once” : YEOH

Michelle Yeoh is an actress from Malaysia who appeared in several Hong Kong action films in which she did her own stunts and martial arts scenes. Her most famous action performance was in the 2000 movie “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”, although I best know her for playing opposite Pierce Brosnan in the Bond film “Tomorrow Never Dies”.

“Everything Everywhere All at Once” is a 2022 comedy-drama movie starring Michelle Yeoh as a woman undergoing an IRS audit. That mundane storyline gets lost completely in a film full of science-fiction, fantasy, animation and martial arts. The screenplay was originally written for Jackie Chan, but it was reworked intentionally so that a female lead carried the plot.

30 Cousins of cassowaries : RHEAS

The rhea is a flightless bird that is native to South America. It takes its name from the Greek Titan Rhea. That’s an apt name for a flightless bird as “rhea” comes from the Greek word meaning “ground”.

The cassowary is a large, flightless bird found mainly in New Guinea. One species of cassowary is the third tallest bird on the planet, second only to the ostrich and the emu.

36 Shrunken snack item : PRUNE

A prune is a dried plum. The name “prune” comes from the Latin “prunum”, the word for “plum”.

43 Dried version of the almost-ripe poblano : ANCHO

An ancho is a dried poblano pepper used in Mexican cuisine. The poblano is a mild chili.

44 Last bit : DREG

The dregs in wine, the sediment that settles during fermentation (and sometimes in the bottle), are also called “lees”.

60 Pigment akin to ocher or umber : SIENNA

The shade known as “sienna” or “burnt sienna” was originally a pigment made from earth found around Siena in Tuscany.

62 Love of Charles Foster Kane in “Citizen Kane” : OPERA

1941’s “Citizen Kane” was the first film made by Orson Welles, and is considered by many to be the finest movie ever made. It’s a remarkable achievement by Wells, as he played the lead and also produced and directed. Despite all the accolades for “Citizen Kane” over the decades, the movie was far from a commercial success in its early run and actually lost money at the box office.

66 Coveted cup : GRAIL

The Holy Grail is a theme found throughout Arthurian legend. The grail itself is some vessel, with the term “grail” coming from the Old French “graal” meaning “cup or bowl made of earth, wood or metal”. Over time, the legend of the Holy Grail became mingled with stories of the Holy Chalice of the Christian tradition, the cup used to serve wine at the Last Supper. Over time, the term “grail” came to be used for any desired or sought-after object.

67 “My ___” (medieval address) : LIEGE

A liege was a feudal lord, one to whom service or allegiance was owed under feudal law. “Liege” was also the term used for one who owed allegiance or service to a lord. Apparently the term is influenced by the Latin verb “ligare” meaning “to tie, bind”. So, I guess both lord and servant were “bound” to each other.

68 TV dad on “Black-ish” : DRE

“Black-ish” is a sitcom starring Anthony Anderson and Tracee Ellis Ross that premiered in 2014. The lead actors play Dre and Rainbow Johnson, a married couple leading an upper-middle class black family. The show is noted for tackling tough issues such as racism, police brutality, attitudes toward the LGBT community, and the 2016 US presidential election.

69 Finks : SINGS

A fink is an informer, someone who rats out his or her cohorts.

Down

1 Sights around Joshua Tree National Park : CACTI

“Joshua tree” is the common name for the plant species more correctly called Yucca brevifolia. One of the best places to see Joshua trees is in the beautiful Joshua Tree National Park in Southern California. The plant was named by Mormon settlers crossing the Mojave Desert in the mid-1800s. The name was chosen as the shape of the tree reminded the settlers of Joshua reaching his hands to the sky in prayer.

4 Prosecco alternative, familiarly : ASTI

Prosecco still and sparkling wines are named for the village of Prosecco in the province of Trieste in northeastern Italy.

5 Iconic feature of the Who’s “My Generation” : BASS SOLO

“My Generation” is a 1965 song by the Who that is sometimes hailed as an anthem of the mod counterculture that was at its height in the mid-sixties. Reportedly, Pete Townshend was inspired to write the song after the Queen Mother had his 1935 Packard hearse towed off the street as she was offended by its presence as she drove through the neighborhood.

7 Scott who wrote “The Black Pearl” : O’DELL

Author Scott O’Dell mainly wrote historical novels for young people. His best-known work is the 1960 novel “Island of the Blue Dolphins”, which is about a young girl stranded for years on an island off the California coast. The book is based on a true story of a Native American girl left alone on one of California’s Channel Islands for 18 years, before being rescued in 1853.

9 One running for Congress? : SENATE PAGE

US Senate Pages are 16- and 17-year-old high-school juniors who get to watch the political action up close in Washington, while doing the “gofer” jobs needed by the Senators and permanent staff. There are 30 Pages during the school year, 16 appointed by the majority party, and 14 by the minority. The list of former Senate Pages includes Amy Carter (daughter of the President), Chris Dodd (who became a Senator) and Spiro Agnew (who made it to the Vice President’s Office).

27 Surname at the O.K. Corral : EARP

The most famous gunfight in the history of the Old West has to be the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, which took place in Tombstone, Arizona. Strangely enough, the fight didn’t happen at the O.K. Corral, but played out six doors down the street in a vacant lot next to a photography studio.

31 Org. with grants for asbestos removal : EPA

Asbestos was very, very popular in so many applications for many years. The world’s largest asbestos mine was in Quebec, Canada in the town of … Asbestos.

33 Huge : CYCLOPEAN

Cyclops was a one-eyed giant in Greek and Roman mythology. Cyclops lived inside Mount Etna, the Sicilian volcano.

41 Cleveland abuts it : ERIE

Cleveland, Ohio was named after the man who led the team that surveyed the area prior to the founding of the city. General Moses Cleaveland did his work in 1796 and then left Ohio, never to return again.

47 Former Arkansas governor Hutchinson : ASA

Asa Hutchinson is a Republican politician who took over as Governor of Arkansas in January of 2015. Hutchinson comes from a politically active family. Asa’s older brother Tim served a term as US Senator for Arkansas from 1997 to 2003. Tim’s identical twin sons were the first twins to serve alongside each other in the Arkansas General Assembly.

51 Makes out, in Britain : SNOGS

“Snogging” is British slang of unknown origin that dates back to the end of WWII. The term is used for “kissing and cuddling”, what we call “making out” over here in the US.

52 ___ pants : CAPRI

Capri pants first became popular on the island of Capri, apparently. They were invented in Europe in 1948, but only became stylish in the US in the sixties. Mary Tyler Moore often wore Capri pants on “The Dick Van Dyke Show” and to some extent she sparked a fashion trend. After a lull in the seventies and eighties there was a resurgence in sales after Uma Thurman wore them (and danced in them) in “Pulp Fiction”.

53 Start of a counting rhyme : EENIE …

Eeny, meeny, miny, moe,
Catch the tiger/monkey/baby by the toe.
If it hollers/screams let him go,
Eeny, meeny, miny, moe, you are it!

55 Part of some cells : ANODE

A battery is a device that converts chemical energy into electric energy. A simple battery is made up of three parts: a cathode, an anode and a liquid electrolyte. Ions from the electrolyte react chemically with the material in the anode producing a compound and releasing electrons. At the same time, the electrolyte reacts with the material in the cathode, absorbing electrons and producing a different chemical compound. In this way, there is a buildup of electrons at the anode and a deficit of electrons at the cathode. When a connection (wire, say) is made between the cathode and anode, electrons flow through the resulting circuit from the anode to cathode in an attempt to rectify the electron imbalance.

61 Full moon period on the Roman lunar calendar : IDES

There were three important days in each month of the old Roman calendar. These days originally depended on the cycles of the moon but were eventually “fixed” by law. “Kalendae” were the first days of each month, originally the days of the new moon. “Nonae” were originally the days of the half moon. And “idus” (the ides) was originally the day of the full moon, eventually fixed at the 15th day of a month. Actually, the ides were the 15th day of March, May, July and October. For all other months, the ides fell on the 13th. Go figure …

65 With 45-Across, Northwest airport, in brief : SEA-
[45A See 65-Down : -TAC

Sea-Tac Airport (SEA) is more fully known as Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. Sea-Tac is the main hub for Alaska Airlines.