Day: May 5, 2024

Bill’s time: 26m 25s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

10 Sources of vitamin C, for short : OJS

The essential nutrient referred to as vitamin C is also known as L-ascorbic acid or ascorbate. A lack of vitamin C causes the disease scurvy.

19 Sixth word in the Gettysburg Address : AGO

I visited Gettysburg for the first time in 2010, and goodness me what a moving place that is. As I discovered on my visit, there are five known copies of Lincoln’s Gettysburg address and all of them differ in some way or another, so I suppose the exact words spoken will never be known. Martin Luther King Jr. evoked Abraham Lincoln’s words in another of America’s iconic addresses, his “I Have a Dream” speech. Lincoln’s speech began with “Four score and seven years ago …”, and King’s speech began with “Five score years ago …” as a nod to the Gettysburg Address.

22 1962 Beatles hit : LOVE ME DO

“Love Me Do” is a song written by Paul McCartney on a day that he was playing hooky from school when he was just 16 years of age.

23 London’s ___ Gardens : KEW

Kew Gardens is a beautiful location in southwest London that was formerly known as the Royal Botanic Gardens. Kew Gardens has the world’s largest collection of different living plants.

24 Wavering vocal effects : VIBRATOS

The vibrato musical effect is a regular, pulsating change of pitch. A tremor in the diaphragm or larynx can give rise to vibrato in a singing voice. On a stringed instrument, the vibrato effect is usually achieved by wobbling the finger while stopping a string on a keyboard.

25 Friends, to Hercule Poirot : AMIS

Hercule Poirot is one of Agatha Christie’s most beloved characters. He is a wonderful Belgian private detective who plies his trade from his base in London. Poirot’s most famous case is the “Murder on the Orient Express”. First appearing in 1920’s “The Mysterious Affair at Styles”, Poirot finally succumbs to a heart condition in the 1975 book “Curtain: Poirot’s Last Case”. Famously, Poirot is fond of using his “little gray cells”.

26 Quaker in the woods : ASPEN TREE

The “quaking” aspen tree is so called because the structure of the leaves causes them to move easily in the wind, to “tremble, quake”.

30 Murse, by another name : MAN BAG

A “murse” is a “man purse”.

36 Francisco with frescoes : GOYA

Francisco Goya was a Spanish painter who was often called the last of the Old Masters and the first of the moderns. Two of Goya’s most famous works are “The Nude Maja” and “The Clothed Maja”.

A fresco is a painting created on a moist plaster, usually on a wall or ceiling. The plaster is “freshly” laid when the image is created, and “fresco” is the Italian for “fresh”.

38 Former senator Trent : LOTT

Trent Lott is a political figure who first went to Washington to work as an administrative assistant to Representative William M. Colmer, from Mississippi. After four years working for Colmer, Lott ran for the House seat that Colmer was to leave vacant on his retirement. Colmer endorsed Lott in that election, even though Colmer was a Democrat and Lott ran as a Republican. Lott won the race very handily, launching a 35-year career representing his home state of Mississippi in both the House and the Senate. Lott eventually ran into trouble for remarks he made that were interpreted as being racially motivated, and ended up resigning in 2007.

42 C.S.U. or U.S.C.: Abbr. : SCH

California State University (CSU) is the largest university system in the country, with 23 campuses. About half of the bachelor’s degrees in the state of California awarded annually are from CSU.

The University of Southern California (USC) is a private school in Los Angeles. Apart from its excellent academic record, USC is known for the success of its athletic program. USC Trojans have won more Olympic medals than the students of any other university in the world. The USC marching band is very famous as well, and is known as the “Spirit of Troy”. The band has performed with many celebrities, and is the only college band to have two platinum records.

43 Like some wonders : ONE HIT

Here’s a 2002 list of one-hit wonders that VH1 dubbed the top-10 greatest of all time:

1. “Macarena” – Los del Río (1996)
2. “Tainted Love” – Soft Cell (1982)
3. “Come on Eileen” – Dexys Midnight Runners (1982)
4. “I’m Too Sexy” – Right Said Fred (1991)
5. “Mickey” – Toni Basil (1982)
6. “Who Let the Dogs Out?” – Baha Men (2000)
7. “Ice Ice Baby” – Vanilla Ice (1990)
8. “Take On Me” – A-ha (1985)
9. “Rico Suave” – Gerardo (1990)
10. “99 Luftballons” – Nena (1984)

49 Juno : Roman :: ___ : Greek : HERA

In Greek mythology, Hera was the wife of Zeus and the goddess of women, marriage, family and childbirth. She was noted for her jealous and vengeful nature, particularly against those who vied for the affections of her husband. The equivalent character to Hera in Roman mythology was Juno. Hera was the daughter of Cronus and Rhea.

Juno was the patron goddess of Rome and the Roman Empire, and also looked after the interests of the women of Rome. She was the sister and wife of Jupiter, the king of the Roman gods.

51 Company aptly hidden in “Japanese games” : SEGA

Sega is a Japanese video game company headquartered in Tokyo. Sega actually started out in 1940 as Standard Games and was located in Honolulu, which at that time was a city in the US Territory of Hawaii. The owners moved the operation to Tokyo in 1951 and renamed the company to Service Games. The name “Sega” is a combination of the first two letters of the words “Se-rvice” and “Ga-mes”.

52 Coconut extraction : OIL

The coconut is the fruit of the coconut palm. The term “coconut” comes from “coco” and “nut”, with “coco” being 16th-century Spanish and Portuguese for “head”, and more specifically “grinning face”. The three holes found in the base of a coconut shell might be said to resemble a human face.

53 Cop’s catch : PERP

Perpetrator (perp)

57 Playtex product : BRA

Playtex Apparel makes bras and other lingerie. The most popular Playtex bras are iconic names such as “the Living Bra”, “the Cross Your Heart Bra” and “the Eighteen Hour Bra”. The famous slogan “it lifts and separates” is associated with the Cross Your Heart Bra and dates back to 1954.

58 Vegas casino with a musical name : ARIA

The Aria hotel on the Las Vegas Strip opened at the end of 2009. Architecturally, it is noted for a design that minimizes energy consumption. In fact, it is the largest hotel in the world to have earned a LEED Gold certification.

64 Freudian constructs : IDS

Sigmund Freud created a structural model of the human psyche, breaking it into three parts: the id, the ego, and the superego. The id is that part of the psyche containing the basic instinctual drives. The ego seeks to please the id by causing realistic behavior that benefits the individual. The superego almost has a parental role, contradicting the id by introducing critical thinking and morals to behavioral choices.

65 ___ golf : DISC

Disc golf is also known as Frisbee golf, and sometimes even Frolf. Believe it or not, disc golf predates the introduction of the Frisbee. The first game was played at a school in Bladworth, Saskatchewan in 1926. The participating schoolkids threw tin lids into circles drawn on a course they created in the school grounds. They named the game “Tin Lid Golf”. By the way, I try to play disc golf at least three times a week. Lots of fun …

66 Mo. when the Titanic sank : APR

The RMS Titanic set off on her tragic maiden voyage in 1912, sailing from Southampton, England bound for New York City. Regulations only required that the ship have lifeboat capacity for 1,178 people, even though a full complement of passengers and crew was 3,547. When the order was given to abandon ship, the captain adhered to the traditional protocol of “women and children first”. As a result, only 20% of male passengers survived the disaster, compared to 75% of the female passengers. Perhaps more telling is that 61% of those in first class survived, and only 25% of those in third class. The crew fared even worse though, with only 24% making it.

68 “One card left!” : UNO!

UNO is a card game that was developed in the early seventies and that has been sold by Mattel since 1992. It falls into the shedding family of card games, meaning that the goal is to get rid of all your cards while preventing opponents from doing the same.

69 Kids … or, informally, a snack for kids : TOTS

Ore-Ida’s founders came up with the idea for Tater Tots when they were deciding what to do with residual cuts of potato. They chopped up the leftovers, added flour and seasoning, and extruded the mix through a large hole making a sausage that they cut into small cylinders. We eat 70 million pounds of this extruded potato every year!

72 Gymnast Suni : LEE

Suni Lee is an American gymnast who won the women’s artistic individual all-around event at the 2020 Olympics. A few weeks after her victory in Tokyo, Lee competed in the 30th season of “Dancing with the Stars”, finishing in 5th place.

74 Temple official : DEAN

Temple University in Philadelphia was founded in 1888, and started out as a night school offering classes to people of limited means who had to hold down jobs during the day. These students earned themselves the nickname of “night owls”, leading to the use of “Owls” for Temple’s athletic teams.

79 “Seize the day” of today : YOLO

You only live once (YOLO)

“Carpe diem” is a quotation from Horace, one of ancient Rome’s leading lyric poets. “Carpe diem” translates from Latin as “seize the day” or “enjoy the day”. The satirical motto of a procrastinator is “carpe mañana”, “translating” as “seize tomorrow”.

84 Terrarium animals : NEWTS

A terrarium (plural “terraria”) is a contained environment used to house land animals. The term “terrarium“ comes from the equivalent “aquarium”, a tank for holding mainly fish. In general, a contained environment for keeping live animals or plants is known as a “vivarium”

87 Setting : MILIEU

We use the French term “milieu” (plural “milieux”) to mean “environment, surroundings”. In French, “milieu” is the word for “middle”.

89 Make malleable using heat : ANNEAL

One anneals glass or metal by exposing to a very specific temperature profile, resulting in a tougher or less brittle product.

Something malleable is capable of being shaped by beating with a hammer. “Malleable” comes from the Latin “malleus” meaning “hammer”. We mainly use the term figuratively these days, to describe something or someone capable of being altered by outside influences.

96 Rummikub piece : TILE

Rummikub is a tile-based game that was created in the 1940s by Ephraim Hertzano in Israel. Hertzano’s game combines elements of mahjong with the card game rummy. Rummikub was the best-selling game in the US back in 1977.

107 Green trattoria topping : PESTO

Pesto sauce is more completely called “pesto alla genovese”, i.e. pesto from Genoa. A traditional recipe calls for crushed garlic, pine nuts, salt, basil leaves, parmesan cheese and olive oil. Yum …

111 One getting fired after a strike? : MATCH

A strike-anywhere match will ignite if struck against almost any dry, hard, rough surface. The match head comprises two chemicals that are necessary for ignition. In order to minimize the chances of accidental ignition of matches, the safety match was developed. The safety match is safer because the match head only includes one of the chemicals necessary for ignition. The second chemical is included in a special striking surface provided with the matches, usually along the side of a matchbox.

120 “M-m-m-my ___” (1970s song lyric) : SHARONA

“My Sharona” is a hit single from 1979 released by a band called the Knack. The group’s guitarist wrote the song after meeting a 17-year-old girl named Sharona, who later became his girlfriend. Young Sharona appears on the cover sleeve for the record. Three decades later, Sharona was a real estate agent in LA.

121 He placed a call to Armstrong and Aldrin minutes after their landing : NIXON

Apollo 11 was the most memorable of all space missions, landing the first humans on the moon on July 20, 1969. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin touched down on the moon’s surface in their landing craft “Eagle”, while Michael Collins orbited in the command module “Columbia”. It was to be the first of five moon landings that would take place from 1969-1972.

122 Basis for some civil cases : TORT LAW

“Tort” is a French word meaning “mischief, injury or wrong”. In common law, a tort is a civil wrong that results in the injured party suffering loss or harm, and the injuring party having a legal liability. Tort law differs from criminal law in that torts may result from negligence and not just intentional actions. Also, tort lawsuits may be decided on a preponderance of evidence, without the need of proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

124 Novelist Deighton : LEN

I used to walk my dog right past author Len Deighton’s house years ago, as we lived in the same seaside village in Ireland (probably my only claim to “fame”). Deighton wrote the excellent espionage thriller “The IPCRESS File”, which was made into a 1965 movie starring Michael Caine.

125 Olympic tracks? : ANTHEMS

The word “anthem” used to describe a sacred song, especially one with words taken from the Scriptures. The British national anthem (“God Save the Queen/King”) technically is a hymn, and so it came to be described as “the national hymn” and later “the national anthem”. The use of the word “anthem” extended from there to describe any patriotic song.

Down

2 Leaf pore : STOMA

Stomata (the usual plural of “stoma”, and not “stomas”) are pores found under almost every leaf, clearly visible under a simple microscope. The stomata take in air rich in carbon dioxide. Through the process of photosynthesis, the plants generate oxygen, which is released back into the air though the same stomata.

7 Where a batter goes for a bundt? : CAKE PAN

Here in the US, what we know as bundt cake takes its name from the ring-shaped pan in which it is usually baked. This pan was introduced in 1950 by the company Nordic Ware, at which time the “Bundt” name was trademarked.

8 Tommy Lee Jones’s role in “Men in Black” : AGENT K

“Men in black” (MIB) are said to have appeared in the past whenever there have been reports of UFO sightings. Supposedly, these men are government agents whose job it is to suppress reports of alien landings. The conspiracy theorists got their day in the movies with the release of a pretty good sci-fi comedy in 1997 called “Men in Black”, starring Will Smith (as Agent J) and Tommy Lee Jones (as Agent K).

9 Farfalle shapes : BOW TIES

Farfalle is commonly referred to as bow-tie pasta because of its shape. The name comes from the Italian “farfalla” meaning “butterfly”.

10 Dust Bowl-era migrant : OKIE

“Okies” is a derogatory term used during the Dust Bowl of the 1930s for farming families who migrated from Oklahoma (hence the name), Arkansas, Kansas and Texas in search of agricultural jobs in California. The road used by many of these migrant families was Route 66, which is also called “Mother Road”.

The Dust Bowl was a period in which severe dust storms ravaged the American and Canadian Prairies in the thirties. A major factor in the storms was the loss of the deep-rooted grasses native to the land that had been displaced by intensive farming. Without the grasses, the topsoil was blown away in a period of drought.

12 The Euphrates bisects it: Abbr. : SYR

The Euphrates is one of the two rivers that formed the main boundaries of the historical region known as Mesopotamia, the other being the Tigris.

18 Oops, zoned out for a sec. Houston, can you retransmit our coordinates? : LOST IN SPACE

“Lost in Space” is a television sci-fi show that originally ran for three seasons from 1965 to 1968. There was also a “Lost in Space” movie released in 1998. The show was based on a comic book series called “Space Family Robinson”, which in turn was based on the Johann David Wyss novel “The Swiss Family Robinson”. Some oft-repeated lines from the show were uttered by the Robot character, including:

• “Warning! Warning!”
• “That does not compute”
• “Danger, Will Robinson!”

27 D.C. V.I.P. : POTUS

President of the United States (POTUS)

28 Former labor secretary Robert : REICH

Robert Reich is a political economist who served in three administrations, with Presidents Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and with Bill Clinton, for whom he was Secretary of Labor.

31 Writer Rand : AYN

Ayn Rand was a Russian-American novelist born “Alisa Rosenbaum”. Her two best known works are her novels “The Fountainhead” published in 1943 and “Atlas Shrugged” from 1957. Back in 1951, Rand moved from Los Angeles to New York City. Soon after, she gathered a group of admirers around her with whom she discussed philosophy and shared drafts of her magnum opus, “Atlas Shrugged”. This group called itself “The Collective”, and one of the founding members was none other than future Federal Reserve chairman, Alan Greenspan. Rand described herself as “right-wing” politically, and both she and her novel “Atlas Shrugged” have become inspirations for the American conservatives, and the Tea Party in particular.

35 Chaney of horror : LON

Lon Chaney, Sr. played a lot of crazed-looking characters in the days of silent movies. He did much of his own make-up work, developing the grotesque appearances that became his trademark, and earning himself the nickname “the man of a thousand faces”. Most famous were his portrayals of the title characters in the films “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” (1923) and “The Phantom of the Opera” (1925).

39 Cheap and trivial : TWO-BIT

The American quarter is a little unusual in the world of decimal currency, if you think about it. Most currencies have a “20-cent” coin, which is easier to work with mathematically. The US went for the quarter in deference to the practice of dividing Spanish Milled Dollars into eight wedge-shaped “bits”. That’s also why the quarter is sometimes referred to as “two bits”. We’ve been using the adjective “two-bit” to mean “cheap, tawdry” at least since 1929. State quarters were introduced in 1999.

44 Exotic pet : IGUANA

Iguanas have what is known as a “third eye” on their heads. Known as the parietal eye, it can sense levels of light, although it cannot make out details.

55 The Monstars in “Space Jam,” e.g., for short : ETS

“Space Jam” is a 1996 movie that is a fictional account of the retirement of Michael Jordan from the NBA. Jordan himself stars in the film, along with a whole host of “Looney Tunes” cartoon characters.

61 Green trattoria topping : OREGANO

Oregano is a perennial herb that is in the mint family. Also known as wild marjoram, oregano is very much associated with the cuisine of southern Italy. Oregano’s popularity surged in the US when soldiers returning from WWII in Europe brought with them an affinity for what they called “the pizza herb”.

77 Who’s on a mission in today’s puzzle? : ROCKET MAN
78 Musician who sang about a 77-Down : ELTON JOHN

Elton John’s 1972 hit “Rocket Man” was inspired by a short story of the same name written by Ray Bradbury. It’s a great song that tells the story of an astronaut heading out for a routine space mission.

87 Stat that doesn’t apply to E.V.s : MPG

Electric vehicle (EV)

90 Microdosing drug : LSD

Psychedelic microdosing is the practice of taking extremely low doses of psychedelic drugs in order to promote creativity and well-being. Drugs commonly used are lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) and psilocybin (found in “magic mushrooms”). Hmm …

97 Large white sheet : ICE CAP

The polar ice cap at the north of our planet is floating pack ice in the Arctic Ocean. The southern polar ice cap is an ice sheet that covers the landmass known as Antarctica. About 70% of all the freshwater on Earth is held in the southern polar ice cap.

99 Record label for Whitney Houston : ARISTA

Arista Records was set up as part of Columbia Pictures by one Clive Davis. He chose “Arista” as it was the name of the New York City Honor Society to which Davis belonged.

Whitney Houston was the only singer to have a run of seven consecutive Billboard number-one hits. Houston’s recording of the wonderful Dolly Parton song “I Will Always Love You”, from the soundtrack of 1992’s “The Bodyguard”, is the best-selling single for a female artist in the history of recorded music. Houston died at the age of 48 in 2012, drowning in her bathtub.

104 Strong-willed daughter on “Downton Abbey” : SYBIL

In the incredibly successful period drama “Downton Abbey”, the patriarch of the family living at Downton is Robert Crawley, the Earl of Grantham or Lord Grantham. The character is played by Hugh Bonneville. Lord Grantham married American Cora Levinson (played by Elizabeth McGovern). Lord and Lady Grantham had three daughters, and no sons. The lack of a male heir implied that the Grantham estate would pass to a male cousin, and out of the immediate family. The Grantham daughters are Lady Mary (played by Michelle Dockery), Lady Edith (played by Laura Carmichael) and Lady Sybil (played by Jessica Brown Findlay). Lady Sybil had the audacity to marry the family chauffeur, who was an Irish nationalist. The shame of it all …

107 Swanky : POSH

No one really knows the etymology of the word “posh”. The popular myth that “posh” is actually an acronym standing for “port out, starboard home” is completely untrue, and is a story that can actually be traced back to the 1968 movie “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang”. The myth is that wealthy British passengers traveling to and from India would book cabins on the port side for the outward journey and the starboard side for the home journey. This trick was supposedly designed to keep their cabins out of the direct sunlight.