Day: August 3, 2024

Bill’s time: 20m 58s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1 Election presence since the ’40s : PACS

A political action committee (PAC) is a private group that works to influence the outcome of a particular election or group of elections. Any group becomes a PAC by law when it receives or spends more than $1,000 for the purpose of influencing the outcome of an election. In 2010 the Supreme Court ruled that PACS that did not make direct contributions to candidates or parties could accept unlimited contributions. These “independent, expenditure-only committees” are commonly referred to as “super PACs”.

15 Latin I word : AMAT

“Amo, amas, amat” translates from Latin as “I love, you love, he/she/it loves”.

19 What often can’t be beat? : THE RAP

A rap sheet is a criminal record. “Rap” is a slang term dating back to the 1700s that means “blame, responsibility” as in “to take the rap”, “bad rap” and “to beat the rap”. This usage morphed into “rap sheet” in the early 1900s.

21 Minnesota W.N.B.A. team : LYNX

Both Minnesota professional basketball teams are owned by billionaire businessman Glen Taylor. The Timberwolves play in the NBA, and the Lynx in the WNBA.

22 Cousin voiced by Snoop Dogg in two films : ITT

Charles Addams was a cartoonist who signed his work “Chas Addams”. He didn’t draw a cartoon strip but rather individual cartoons, although many of his cartoons did feature regular characters. The most famous of these were the members of the Addams Family, who were published in single-panel cartoons between 1938 and 1988 in “The New Yorker”. The Addams Family moved onto the small and big screens starting in 1964.

They’re creepy and they’re kooky,
Mysterious and spooky,
They’re altogether ooky,
The Addams Family.

28 Meryl Streep and Amy Adams played them in 2008’s “Doubt” : NUNS

“Doubt: A Parable” is a play by John Patrick Shanley that premiered off-Broadway in 2004. It won both the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Tony Award for Best Play in 2005. It was adapted into a very powerful 2008 film titled “Doubt” starring Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman.

31 French resort town : ST-TROPEZ

Saint-Tropez is a town in southeastern France on the French Riviera. These days, Saint-Tropez is very much associated with the European and American jet set. The town is named for a legendary martyr named Saint Torpes of Pisa. Torpes was supposedly executed on the orders of the Roman Emperor Nero. Having been beheaded, his head was tossed into the river Arno, and his body placed in a boat along with a cock and a dog who were to eat the body. The boat came ashore at the present-day location of Saint-Tropez, with the body untouched by the cock and the dog. The local people named their village in honor of Saint Torpes.

38 Ref’s decision : TKO

In boxing, a knockout (KO) is when one of the fighters can’t get up from the canvas within a specified time, usually 10 seconds. This can be due to fatigue, injury, or the participant may be truly “knocked out”. A referee, fighter or doctor may also decide to stop a fight without a physical knockout, especially if there is concern about a fighter’s safety. In this case the bout is said to end with a technical knockout (TKO).

39 Supply at an I.V.F. clinic : OVA

In vitro fertilization (IVF) is the process in which egg cells are fertilized by sperm cells outside of the body in vitro. The phrase “in vitro” translates from Latin as “in glass”. The process is usually carried out in a glass culture dish.

44 Vet : EX-GI

The initialism “GI” stands for “Government Issue”, and not “General Infantry” as is widely believed. “GI” was first used in the military to denote equipment made from Galvanized Iron and during WWI, incoming German shells were nicknamed “GI cans”. Soon after, the term GI came to be associated with “Government Issue” and eventually became an adjective to describe anything associated with the Army.

45 Word from the French for “rung” : ECHELON

We use the word “echelon” (ech.) to describe a rank or level, particularly in the military. The term comes from French, in which language it has the same meaning, although the original meaning in Old French is “rung of a ladder”.

53 Last syllable of a word : ULTIMA

In the world of linguistics, the last syllable in a word is called the ultima. The second-last syllable is known as the penult.

55 Losers of the 1994 and 1999 N.B.A. Finals : KNICKS

The New York Knickerbockers (“Knicks”) team is one of only two founding members of the original National Basketball Association that still plays in its original home city. The other is the Boston Celtics.

57 Virtually silently, in a classic poem : ON LITTLE CAT FEET

Writer and editor Carl Sandburg was heading to an interview with a judge one morning when he was taken by a view of the fog lingering over the Chicago harbor. He had to sit waiting forty minutes for the judge to turn up, so he wrote a poem called “Fog”.

THE fog comes
on little cat feet.

It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.

61 Helen of Troy’s mother : LEDA

In Greek mythology, Leda was the beautiful Queen of Sparta who was seduced by Zeus when he took the form of a swan. Leda produced two eggs from the union. One egg hatched into Clytemnestra and the beautiful Helen of Troy, over whom was fought the Trojan War. The other egg hatched into the twins Castor and Pollux. Castor and Pollux had different fathers according to the myth. Pollux was the son of Zeus and was immortal, while Castor was the son of Leda’s earthly husband, and so he was a mortal. In the world of the arts, William Butler Yeats wrote a famous sonnet called “Leda and the Swan” in 1924, and Peter Paul Rubens made a copy of a now-lost painting called “Leda and the Swan” by Michelangelo.

According to Greek mythology, Helen (later “Helen of Troy”) was the daughter of Zeus and Leda. When Helen reached the age of marriage, she had many suitors as she was considered the most beautiful woman in the world. Menelaus was chosen as her husband, and he took her back to his home of Sparta. Paris, a Trojan prince, seduced Helen, as she eloped with him and traveled to Troy. This event sparked the Trojan War that waged between the city of Troy and Greece. Because of this war, Helen was said to have “the face that launched a thousand ships”. And because of this phrase, it has been suggested, probably by author Isaac Asimov, that the amount of beauty needed to launch a single ship is one “millihelen”.

62 1962 war epic loaded with A-listers, with “The” : … LONGEST DAY

“The Longest Day” is a book by Cornelius Ryan that tells the story of D-Day in World War II, the invasion of Normandy. The 1959 book, and the wonderful 1962 film adaptation, take their name from words attributed to Erwin Rommel:

…the first 24 hours of the invasion will be decisive…the fate of Germany depends on the outcome…for the Allies, as well as Germany, it will be the longest day.

63 Old map letters : USSR

The former Soviet Union (officially “Union of Soviet Socialist Republics” or “USSR”) was created in 1922, not long after the Russian Revolution of 1917 that overthrew the tsar. Geographically, the new Soviet Union was roughly equivalent to the old Russian Empire, and comprised fifteen Soviet Socialist Republics (SSRs).

Down

2 Title hero of a Menotti opera : AMAHL

Composer Gian Carlo Menotti’s “Amahl and the Night Visitors” has a special place in the repertoire, in that it is the first opera specifically composed for American television. It was commissioned by NBC and had its debut at the NBC studios in Rockefeller Center on Christmas Eve, 1951. In today’s world of commercially-driven television, I can’t imagine a network commissioning a classical work …

3 Drew using many lines? : CAREY

Drew Carey always strikes me as a stand-up guy who does stand-up comedy. Before turning to comedy, Carey served six years with the US Marine Corps.

4 “Ambition should be made of ___ stuff”: “Julius Caesar” : STERNER

A person made of sterner stuff has a stronger character, is more capable of overcoming adversity. The term “sterner stuff” was coined by Shakespeare in his play “Julius Caesar”. Marc Anthony says:

When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept;
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious,
And Brutus is an honorable man.

6 Abbr. in French business names : CIE

“Cie.” is an abbreviation used in French. “Cie.” is short for “compagnie”, the French word for “company”, and is used as we would use “Co.”

7 School with the mascot Oski the Bear, familiarly : CAL

The California Golden Bears are the athletic teams of the University of California, Berkeley. The University of California, Berkeley (Cal) is the most difficult public university to get into in the world. It opened in 1869 and is named for Anglo-Irish philosopher George Berkeley.

9 Buckwheat noodle : SOBA

Despite the name, “buckwheat” is not related to wheat, and nor is it a grass. Buckwheat is related to rhubarb. As the seeds are eaten, it is known as a “pseudocereal”. The name comes from “beech wheat”, a reference to the resemblance of buckwheat seeds to beech nuts from the “beech” tree, and the fact that buckwheat seeds are used like “wheat”.

11 Deep dishes : TUREENS

A terrine (also “tureen”) is a cooking dish with a tightly-fitting lid made from glazed earthenware. A terrine is used for cooking in an oven, and for serving soups and stews.

18 It contains nearly 10,000 sections : TAX CODE

Tax evasion is illegal, and tax avoidance is legal. Evading taxes involves dishonest tax reporting, whereas avoiding taxes uses the tax laws as written to reduce the amount of tax owed. Both evasion and avoidance might be regarded as noncompliance, because tax avoidance often involves legal manipulation of the system (using “loopholes”) in a manner that subverts the intent of the tax code.

22 Market unit : ITEM

I say avoid any express checkout lane in a market that is labeled “10 items or less”. It should be “10 items or fewer”. I know, I know … I should calm down … and get a life …

23 Looney Tunes menace, familiarly : TAZ

The “Looney Tunes” character known as the Tasmanian Devil, or “Taz”, first appeared in a cartoon short with Bugs Bunny called “Devil May Care” in 1954.

26 Alley pickup : SPARE

In bowling, the downing of all ten pins in two balls in the same frame is called a spare, and scores ten points. The player gets a bonus, equal to the number of pins downed with the next ball, which could be up to ten. Hence, a spare can be worth up to 20 points

29 First name on the “Scream” poster : NEVE

The first installment of the “Scream” franchise of horror films was released in 1996. Each movie features a murderer who adopts the persona of “Ghostface”, a man wearing a mask that resembles the subject in the Edvard Munch painting “The Scream”. Even though the murderer behind the mask changes in each film, the victim is always Sidney Prescott, played by Neve Campbell.

31 Only African-born headliner at London’s Live Aid 1985 : SADE

Singer Sade’s real name is Helen Folasade Adu. Although born in Nigeria, Sade grew up and lives in the UK. She was the lead vocalist for the English group Sade, and adopted the name of the band. The band’s biggest hits were “Smooth Operator” (1984) and “The Sweetest Taboo” (1985).

Live Aid was a concert held in 1985 to raise funds for famine victims in Ethiopia. It was held simultaneously in London and Philadelphia, and was organized by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure. Almost 2 billion people watched the live broadcast.

32 Bar from Mars : TWIX

I remember Twix bars from way back in 1967 when they were introduced in Britain and Ireland. Twix bars made it to the US over a decade later, in 1979. The name “Twix” is a portmanteau of “twin bix”, short for “twin biscuit”.

33 Clothing misnomer more aptly replaced by “three-quart” : TEN-GALLON

The term “ten-gallon hat” describing a cowboy hat only appeared in 1925, and nobody seems to be exactly sure of the term’s origin. Some suggest that the relatively waterproof nature of the hat due to the tight weave might explain it, with images of cowboys giving drinks of water from their upturned hats. However, there’s no way any cowboy hat will hold ten gallons, more like three quarts.

42 ___-Nomenal, punny restaurant name : 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.

48 “S’il vous plaît,” across the Rhine : BITTE

S’il vous plaît” is French for “please”, literally “if it pleases you”.

“Bitte” is the German word for “please”.

55 Singer Perry : KATY

Katy Perry is an American singer who grew up listening to and singing gospel music, as she was the daughter of two Christian pastors. In fact, her first musical release was a gospel album in 2001. She has branched out since then. Her first successful single was “Ur so Gay”, followed by “I Kissed A Girl”. She was married (only for a year) to the British comedian Russell Brand, until 2012.

58 Going concern, for short? : ETD

Estimated time of departure (ETD)

59 Jack Ryan’s org. in “The Hunt for Red October” : CIA

“The Hunt for Red October” was the first novel published by Tom Clancy, and one of his best in my humble opinion. The story is centered on the defection of the captain of a top-secret Soviet submarine, who attempts to surrender his vessel to the Americans without the knowledge of his crew. The gripping storyline is actually inspired by real events, the failed mutiny on board the Soviet submarine Storozhevoy in 1975. Unusually, the novel was published by the United States Naval Institute, marking the first time it had ever published a fictional work. To this day, “The Hunt for Red October” is the institute’s most successful title.