Day: November 6, 2024

Bill’s time: 8m 49s

Bill’s errors: 3

• RIBBIT (ribbid)
• BOSSA (bosso)
• TEVA (Devo)

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1 Gobi Desert grazer : ASS

The Gobi, the large desert in Asia, lies in northern China and southern Mongolia. It is growing at an alarming rate, particularly towards the south. This “desertification” is caused by increased human activity. The Chinese government is trying to halt the desert’s forward progress by planting great swaths of new forest, the so-called “Green Wall of China”. The name “Gobi” is Mongolian for “waterless place, semidesert”.

17 Band initials missing from their hit song “_vi_ W_man” : ELO

The Electric Light Orchestra (ELO) recorded the song “Evil Woman” in 1975. “Evil Woman” was written by the band’s lead vocalist Jeff Lynne, in just thirty minutes!

19 Northernmost city in North America with over one million people : EDMONTON

Edmonton is the capital city of the Canadian province of Alberta. The city was founded as Fort Edmonton in 1795, with the name taken from the area in London called Edmonton. Edmonton, London was the home of pioneer John Peter Pruden who suggested the name. London’s Edmonton was also home for deputy governor Sir James Winter Lake of the Hudson’s Bay Company.

21 Channel with Steve Kornacki’s election day “Big Board” : MSNBC

Steve Kornacki is a journalist and TV presenter who is perhaps best known for presenting election data on MSNBC. In 2020, Kornacki was listed as one of “People” magazine’s sexiest men alive. His signature on-air garb that included a white shirt with rolled-up sleeves, a striped tie and khaki pants led to some referring to the “Kornacki Khakis” look.

23 Gucci played by Al Pacino in 2021’s “House of Gucci” : ALDO

“House of Gucci” is an engrossing 2021 film based on a 2001 book “The House of Gucci: A Sensational Story of Murder, Madness, Glamour, and Greed” by Sara Gay Forden. The central characters are Maurizio Gucci, heir to a 50% interest in the Gucci fashion house, and Patrizia Reggiani, who eventually married and divorced Maurizio, before hiring a hitman to kill her ex-husband. The leads are played by Adam Driver and Lady Gaga.

Gucci was founded in Rome, in 1921, by Guccio Gucci. Guccio’s son Aldo took over the company after his father’s death in 1953. It was Aldo who established the international presence for the brand and opened the company’s first overseas store, in New York City.

24 Hop on board? : OLLIE

An ollie is a skateboarding trick invented in 1976 by Alan “Ollie” Gelfand. Apparently it’s a way of lifting the board off the ground, while standing on it, without touching the board with one’s hands. Yeah, I could do that …

26 Shot dropped into a glass of beer, in a popular cocktail : SAKE

We refer to the Japanese alcoholic beverage made from rice as “sake”. We’ve gotten things a bit mixed up in the West. “Sake” is actually the word that the Japanese use for all alcoholic drinks. What we know as sake, we sometimes refer to as rice wine. Also, the starch in the rice is first converted to sugars that are then fermented into alcohol. This is more akin to a beer-brewing process than wine production, so the end product is really a rice “beer” rather than a rice “wine”.

28 Site for crafts : ETSY

Etsy.com was founded in 2005 as a way for artists and craftspeople to sell their handmade goods online, and has since grown to include vintage items and crafting supplies as well. The company’s name is derived from the Italian word “etsi,” which means “oh, yes”? This was a nod to founder Rob Kalin’s love of Italy and his appreciation for the country’s history and artistry.

29 Band in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame : BLACK SABBATH (and ABBA)

Black Sabbath is an English heavy metal band set up in 1969 in Birmingham in the north of the country. Black Sabbath’s most famous band member was the lead singer, Ozzy Osbourne. Ozzy was kicked out of the group in 1979 as his drug usage was becoming overly disruptive.

I am an unapologetic fan of ABBA’s music. ABBA was the Swedish group who topped the charts in the seventies and eighties. The name ABBA is an acronym formed from the first letters of the given names of each of the band members: Agnetha, Benny, Bjorn and Anni-Frid. Early in their careers, the four fell in love and formed two married couples: Agnetha and Bjorn, and Benny and Anni-Frid. However, at the height of their success, the relationships became strained and both couples divorced.

34 Spacecraft that docked with the Soyuz in 1975 : APOLLO

The Apollo–Soyuz Test Project (ASTP) was a joint US-Soviet space flight that marked the end of the Space Race. The 1975 mission involved the docking in space of an Apollo command and service module with a Soyuz 19 capsule. The symbolic highlight of the project was the handshake exchanged by mission commanders Alexei Leonov and Tom Stafford through the open hatch of the Soyuz capsule. The ASTP also marked the final flight of an Apollo spacecraft, as NASA realigned resources to support the Space Shuttle program.

39 African country : SOMALIA (and MALI)

Somalia is a country located in the Horn of Africa. Sadly, the nation is noted today for a devastating civil war and for its use as a base for pirates who prey on ships passing through the Indian Ocean along the Somali coast.

The Republic of Mali is a landlocked country in western Africa located south of Algeria. Formerly known as French Sudan, the nation’s most famous city is Timbuktu. Mali is the third-largest producer of gold on the continent, after South Africa and Ghana.

41 Sweetened beverage : LIMEADE (and MEAD)

Mead is a lovely drink that’s made from fermented honey and water.

43 Snack brand from the Spanish word for “fried” : FRITOS

The Frito Corporation was started in 1932 by Elmer Doolin, basically in his mother’s kitchen. Doolin paid $100 for a corn chip recipe from a local restaurant and started producing Fritos at the rate of 10 pounds per day.

53 Bird with a distinctive call : MEADOWLARK (and OWL)

Meadowlarks are New World birds. They are distantly related to Old Word blackbirds.

Owls have 14 vertebrae in their necks (compared to our 7). The extra bones in the neck, along with other adaptations allow owls to rotate the head and neck about 270 degrees.

68 Conversely, in a text : OTOH

On the other hand (OTOH)

69 Second-smallest of seven : EUROPE

The seven continents, in order of size, are:

1. Asia
2. Africa
3. North America
4. South America
5. Antarctica
6. Europe
7. Australia

70 Like many granola bars : OATY

The names “Granola” and “Granula” were trademarked back in the late 1800s for whole-grain foods that were crumbled and baked until crisp. Granola was created in Dansville, New York in 1894.

71 Unit of power : WATT

The watt (W) and the volt-ampere (VA) are equivalent units of power, although not the same thing. Both are measures of electrical power but watts refer to “real power” and volt-amperes refer to “apparent power”. That’s all I know!

73 Dave Bautista’s role in “Guardians of the Galaxy” : DRAX

Drax the Destroyer is a superhero in the Marvel Comics universe. His body contains the spirit of human Arthur Douglas, whose family was killed by the supervillain Thanos. Drax made appearances on the big screen in the “Guardians of the Galaxy” series of films, in which he was portrayed by professional wrestler turned actor Dave Bautista.

Down

1 Focuses of quantum mechanics : ATOMS

Quantum mechanics is a branch of physics dealing with processes involving “the very small”: atoms, photons and the like.

2 Composer with a namesake horn : SOUSA

John Philip Sousa was a composer and conductor from Washington, D.C. Sousa was well known for his patriotic marches and earned himself the nickname “The American March King”. He served as a member of the US Marine Band from 1868 to 1875, and after leaving the Marines learned to conduct and compose. One of the Sousa compositions that is well-known around the world is called “The Liberty Bell”, a tune used as the musical theme for BBC Television’s “Monty Python’s Flying Circus”. Sousa also wrote “Semper Fidelis”, which is the official march of the US Marine Corps.

The sousaphone is a kind of tuba that was specifically designed to send the sound upward and over the rest of the orchestra, with a warm tone, achieved with a large bell that pointed upwards. The instrument was developed at the request of the composer John Philip Sousa, hence the name. The design proved to be more suitable than its predecessors for use in marching bands, and that is how it is used most frequently today.

4 Required word count for a freelance article, e.g. : SPEC

The term “free lance” was coined by Sir Walter Scott in his 1820 novel “Ivanhoe”, when he used it to describe a medieval mercenary warrior. Forty years later, a “freelancer” was a journalist who did work for more than one publication without a long-term commitment.

6 Patterned fabric named for a Mideast capital : DAMASK

Damask was originally a weaving technique associated with the Byzantine and Islamic weaving centers of the Middle Ages. “Damask” comes from the name of Damascus, which was a major trading city at that time.

11 Actress Tracee ___ Ross of “American Fiction” : ELLIS

Actress Tracee Ellis Ross is perhaps best known for playing lead roles in the TV shows “Girlfriends” and “black-ish”. She was born Tracee Joy Silberstein, and is the daughter of singer Diana Ross and music executive Robert Ellis Silberstein.

“American Fiction” is a 2023 comedy-drama movie based on a 2023 novel by Percival Everett titled “Erasure”. Jeffrey Wright plays a black writer whose publishers reject his latest story as not being “black enough”. The writer reacts to his lack of success by submitting a satirical novel that panders to black stereotypes. To his surprise, and dismay, the book is a great success.

15 Avoid ___ (Google Maps option) : TOLLS

Google Maps was developed as a web mapping service for desktops. The (wonderful!) Google Maps mobile app was released in 2008, and is now the most popular smartphone app in the world.

16 World’s most populous country as of 2023 : INDIA

The three most populous countries in the world are:

1. India (1.5 billion)
2. China (1.4 billion)
3. United States (0.3 billion)

Together, these three nations account for about 40% of the world’s population.

22 ___ Baxter, “Poor Things” protagonist : BELLA

“Poor Things” is a 2023 big-screen adaptation of a 1992 novel of the same name by Alasdair Gray. It is set in Victorian London, with Emma Stone playing the lead, Bella Baxter. Baxter has the body of an adult woman, but the mind of a fetus whose brain was transplanted into the adult woman. This one sounds very, very trippy …

31 Elaborate hairdo : COIF

A coif is a hairdo. The term “coif” comes from an old French term “coife” describing a skull-cap that was worn under a helmet back in the late 13th century.

38 Big name in athletic sandals : TEVA

Teva is a brand of sandal marketed as a sport sandal. The first design was the creation of a river guide working the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon. The design was patented in 1987.

40 Like Antarctica’s climate : ARID

On average, Antarctica is the coldest, driest and windiest of all seven continents. Although Antarctica is very cold, it is essentially a desert, receiving only 8 inches of precipitation annually at the coasts and even less inland.

49 “99 Luftballons” singer : NENA

Nena is a German singer (“Nena” became the name of her band as well) who had a big hit in 1984 with one of my favorite songs of the eighties “99 Luftballons”. The English translation of the German title (“99 Red Balloons”) isn’t literal, with the color “red” added just so that the title had the right number of syllables for the tune. “Luftballon” is the name given to a child’s toy balloon in German.

51 Liverpudlian or Mancunian : BRIT

Liverpool is a large port city in the northwest of England located on the estuary of the River Mersey. With a sense of humor that is typical of the area, people from Liverpool are often called “Liverpudlians”. The term comes from the jocular “Liver-puddle”, a diminutive of “Liver-pool”.

Manchester is the second-most populous city in the UK, and is located in the northwest of England. Manchester grew in size dramatically during the Industrial Revolution. Home to a thriving textile industry, Manchester is often referred to as the world’s first industrialized city. People from Manchester are known as “Mancunians”.

61 Multitalented Moreno : RITA

Puerto Rican singer, dancer and actress Rita Moreno is one of the few performers to have won an Oscar, Emmy, Grammy and Tony (EGOT). Moreno got her big break, and won her Oscar, for playing Anita in the 1961 screen adaptation of “West Side Story”. And, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President George W. Bush in 2004.

62 River in which Achilles was dipped : STYX

The River Styx of Greek mythology was the river that formed the boundary between the Earth and the Underworld (or “Hades”). The souls of the newly dead had to cross the River Styx in a ferry boat piloted by Charon. Traditionally, a coin would be placed in the mouths of the dead “to pay the ferryman”.

Achilles is the protagonist in Homer’s “Iliad”. When Achilles was born, his mother attempted to make him immortal by dipping him into the River Styx. As he was held by the heel while under the water, this became the only vulnerable point on his body (his Achilles’ heel”). Years later he was killed when a poisoned arrow struck him in the heel. That arrow was shot by Paris.

65 ___ Lanka : SRI

The island nation of Sri Lanka lies off the southeast coast of India. The name “Sri Lanka” translates from Sanskrit into English as “venerable island”. Before 1970, Sri Lanka was known as Ceylon, a name given to the country during British rule.