Day: May 23, 2025

Bill’s time: 15m 13s

Bill’s errors: 2

• AUDRE LORDE (Audre Lorre)
• ADU (ARU)

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1 Dining at Chipotle or Panera, e.g. : FAST CASUAL

Chipotle Mexican Grill is a chain of casual dining restaurants that was founded and is now headquartered in Denver, Colorado. For several years, the major investor in Chipotle was McDonald’s. The chain is named for the smoke-dried jalapeño called a “chipotle”.

Panera Bread is a chain of bakery/coffeehouses. A Panera restaurant is a good place to get online while having a cup of coffee. Back in 2006 and 2007, Panera was the largest provider of free Wi-Fi access in the whole of the US.

11 Hand-held 2000s Sony console, for short : PSP

PlayStation Portable (PSP)

14 “The Black Unicorn” poet, 1978 : AUDRE LORDE

Audre Lorde was an American feminist author and civil rights activist who spent many years in Germany. She held a visiting professorship at the Free University of Berlin, and while holding that position became a leading light in the Afro-German movement.

19 Punt e ___ (vermouth brand) : MES

Vermouth is a fortified wine that is infused with various aromatic flavors. The vermouth that we use today originated in Turin, Italy in the mid-1700s. The various vermouths produced all use a neutral grape wine as a base, with alcohol added to fortify it. Dry ingredients like herbs or roots are added to give a distinctive flavor, and then sugar can be added to make the drink sweeter. Today, most vermouth comes from Italy and France.

27 Inst. in Athens : UGA

The University of Georgia (UGA) is primarily located in Athens, Georgia. UGA was founded in 1785 and was the nation’s first state-chartered university. UGA’s sports teams are called the Georgia Bulldogs (sometimes just “Dawgs”).

The Georgia city of Athens lies about 70 miles northeast of Atlanta. Athens might be described as a college town, and is home to the main campus of the University of Georgia. The settlement of Cedar Shoals was chosen as a site for the new university in 1801. That same year, Cedar Shoals was renamed to Athens, after the Greek city that was home to the Platonic Academy of Plato and Aristotle.

36 Yellowstone traffic stoppers : ELK

Yellowstone was the first National Park to be established in the world when it was designated as such by President Grant in 1872. What a great tradition it started! The American National Parks are truly a treasure …

37 Cocktails garnished with mint leaves : MOJITOS

A mojito is a Cuban cocktail, although the exact origins appear to be unclear, as does the derivation of the name. Want one? Put 4 mint leaves in a glass, and add the juice of half a lime and a teaspoon of powdered sugar. Muddle the ingredients, smashing them together with a muddler or a spoon. Add some crushed ice, two ounces of white rum and stir. Top with a couple of ounces of club soda, and garnish with a sprig of mint and/or a slice of lime. Cheers!

40 “Every ___ and fairy sprite / Hop as light as bird from brier”: Shak. : ELF

“A Midsummer Night’s Dream” is one of William Shakespeare’s comedies. An interesting characteristic of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” is that it features a play-within-a-play. The cast of characters includes a troupe of six actors called the Mechanicals who perform a play called “Pyramus and Thisbe”.

46 First in command? : CEE

The first letter in “command” is a letter C (cee).

47 “The Artist’s Garden at Giverny” artist : MONET

French artist Claude Monet was one of the founders of the Impressionist movement, and indeed the term “Impressionism” comes from the title of his 1872 painting “Impression, Sunrise”. That work depicts the port of Le Havre, which was Monet’s hometown. Later in his life, Monet purchased a house in Giverny, and famously installed lily ponds and a Japanese bridge in the property’s extensive gardens. He spent two decades painting the water lily ponds, producing his most famous works. I was fortunate enough to visit Monet’s house and gardens in Giverny a few years ago. A beautiful place …

48 Uber-progressives : FAR LEFT

“Über” is the German word for “over, across, above”. We have absorbed “uber-” into English as a prefix meaning “very”.

51 Doppelgänger : TWIN

A doppelgänger is a ghostly double of a living person. The literal translation of the German word “Doppelgänger” is double (Doppel) walker (Gänger).

Down

2 Malibu, e.g. : AUTO

The Chevrolet Malibu was named for the city of Malibu, California. It was produced by General Motors from 1964 to 1983, and was then reintroduced in 1997.

3 Calif. school that runs the Mount Laguna Observatory : SDSU

San Diego State University (SDSU)

9 Secondary residence on a property, for short : ADU

Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) are secondary housing units built on a single-family residential lot. They can be attached to the main house, detached in the backyard, or created by converting existing spaces like garages. ADUs can provide space for family members, be used as rental units, or just increase the value of a property going up for sale.

10 Café add-in : LECHE

In Spanish, one might have “café con leche” (coffee with milk).

11 Children’s character who wears a duffle coat : PADDINGTON

Paddington Bear is a character from a series of books written by Michael Bond. Paddington is an immigrant from Peru who is found sitting on his suitcase in Paddington Railway Station in London. He is a beloved character in the UK. When the two sides of the Channel Tunnel were linked in 1994 during construction, the first item passed by the British to the French was a Paddington Bear soft toy.

12 Cement ingredient : SHALE

The terms “cement”, “mortar” and ”concrete” are related, and tend to get confused at times. Cement is a binder that hardens over time and binds other materials together. Cement mixed with a fine aggregate forms mortar, a workable paste used to bind building blocks together. Cement mixed with sand and gravel forms concrete, a pourable slurry that hardens into an extremely robust building material.

15 Monster slain in one of Hercules’ 12 labors : HYDRA

The Hydra of Lerna was a mythical sea snake that had multiple heads. Heracles had to slay the Lernaean Hydra as the second of his Twelve Labors. We now use the term “hydra” figuratively to describe a complex problem that presents new obstacles once one facet is resolved.

To foot the bill is to pay it, to pay the total at the “foot” of the bill.

17 Author Vonnegut : KURT

Kurt Vonnegut was a writer from Indianapolis whose most famous work is probably the novel “Slaughterhouse-Five” from 1969. Beyond his writing, Vonnegut was noted for his support of the American Civil Liberties Union and American Humanist Association. Kurt had a brother who made a big contribution to society. Bernard Vonnegut was the atmospheric scientist who discovered that silver iodide could be used to seed clouds and artificially create rain.

23 Little rats : TATTLETALES

Something described as tattletale is revealing, it gives away a secret. The term is a combination of “tattle” and “tale”, and is probably patterned on the similar word “telltale”. “To tattle” means “to tell secrets”, and the noun “tattletale” applies to someone who tells secrets and informs.

34 Days long past : YORE

We use the word “yore” to mean “time long past” as in “the days of yore”. “Yore” comes from the Old English words for “of years”.

38 Place for a cabin : SEMI

A “semi” is a “semi-trailer truck”. The vehicle is so called because it consists of a tractor and a half-trailer. The half-trailer is so called because it only has wheels on the back end, with the front supported by the tractor.

42 ___ Lamar Hill a.k.a. Lil Nas X : MONTERO

“Lil Nas X” is the stage name of rapper Montero Lamar Hill. He was born and raised just outside of Atlanta. His first hit was “Old Town Road”, which is classified as country rap.

45 Units that might be metrical or imperial : FEET

In poetry, a foot is a metrical unit comprising usually two, three or four syllables. Lines of verse are often classified by the number of feet that they contain, e.g. pentameter: containing five feet.

50 Check for pieces, say : FRISK

Back in the 1500s, the verb “to frisk” meant “to dance, frolic”, a sense that carries through to our contemporary adjective “frisky”. “Frisk” somehow took on the meaning “pat down in a search” in the late 1700s.

52 Watch this space! : WRIST

Use that space on your wrist for a wristwatch …

54 Actress/inventor Lamarr, the so-called “mother of Wi-Fi” : HEDY

Hedy Lamarr was an American actress who was actually born in Vienna in modern-day Austria. Not only was Lamarr a successful Hollywood performer, during WWII she was the co-inventor of a frequency-hopping, spread-spectrum method of transmitting radio signals that is still used in wireless communication. Impressive …