Day: August 7, 2025

Bill’s time: 9m 31s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1A Speeding check : BUMP

The traffic calming device we call a “speed bump” over here in the US, is known by the colorful name “sleeping policeman” in the UK.

10A Source for some bubbly : ASTI

Asti is a sparkling white wine from the Piedmont region of Italy that is named for the town of Asti around which the wine is produced. The wine used to be called Asti Spumante, and it had a very bad reputation as a “poor man’s champagne”. The “Spumante” was dropped in a marketing attempt at rebranding associated with a reduction in the amount of residual sugar in the wine.

14A Where the the Magi journeyed from : AFAR

“Magi” is the plural of the Latin word “magus”, a term applied to someone who was able to read the stars. Hence, “magi” is commonly used with reference to the “wise men from the East” who followed the star and visited Jesus soon after he was born. In Western Christianity, the three Biblical Magi are:

• Melchior: a scholar from Persia
• Caspar (also “Gaspar”): a scholar from India
• Balthazar: a scholar from Arabia

17A Mixtures in copier cartridges : TONERS (TOP EARNERS less PEAR)

The key features of a laser printer (or copier) are that it uses plain paper and produces quality text at high speed. Laser printers work by projecting a laser image of the printed page onto a rotating drum that is coated with photoconductors (material that becomes conductive when exposed to light). The areas of the drum exposed to the laser carry a different charge than the unexposed areas. Dry ink (toner) sticks to the exposed areas due to electrostatic charge. The toner is then transferred to paper by contact and is fused into the paper by the application of heat. So, that explains why paper coming out of a laser printer is warm, and the ink is sometimes powdery.

19A Target of an exfoliator : PORE

In the world of botany, to exfoliate means to lose leaves. The term “exfoliate” comes from the Latin “ex” (off) and “folium” (leaf). In the world of cosmetology, to exfoliate is to remove dead cells from the surface of the skin.

20A Birthplace of Madeleine Albright and Vaclav Havel : PRAGUE

The beautiful city of Prague is today the capital of the Czech Republic. Prague’s prominence in Europe has come and gone over the centuries. For many years, it was the capital city of the Holy Roman Empire. Back in the 1800s, Bohemian mathematician Bernard Bolzano conducted a count of all the spires in Prague, resulting in the enduring nickname “City of a Hundred Spires”. Today, that count is closer to “Five Hundred”.

Madeleine Albright was appointed Secretary of State by President Clinton, making her the first woman to hold the post. Among her many qualifications for holding that job, is her fluency in English, French, Russian and Czech. Albright can also hold her own in Polish and Serbo-Croat.

Václav Havel is a Czech playwright. Starting in the sixties, Havel became very active in the politics of his country. He eventually rose to the position of President, and was the last person to hold the office of President of Czechoslovakia, and the first to hold the office of President of the Czech Republic.

21A Drink made with an artisanal flourish, maybe : LATTE

“Latte art” is the name given to the designs that can be drawn on the surface of coffee drinks. Some of those designs can be quite intricate.

29A Sporting great who said “Tennis uses the language of life” : AGASSI

Retired tennis professional Andre Agassi has been married to fellow player Steffi Graf since 2001. Agassi wrote an autobiography called “Open”, published in 2009. An amazing revelation in the book is that Agassi’s famous head of hair was actually a wig for much of his playing career. Can you imagine how hard it must have been to play tennis at his level with a rug stuck on?

31A P.R. piece? : PUERTO

Puerto Rico (PR) is located in the northeastern Caribbean (in the Atlantic Ocean), east of the Dominican Republic. The name “Puerto Rico” is Spanish for “rich port”. The locals often call their island Borinquen, the Spanish form of “Boriken”, the original name used by the natives.

35A Stat used to calculate a QB’s passer rating : ATT

In football, a quarterback’s (QB’s) performance can be measured by attempts (ATT), a statistic (stat).

39A Org. that monitors on-air obscenity : FCC

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has been around since 1934, when it replaced the Federal Radio Commission.

41A Matter in a neon sign : PLASMA

When I was a schoolkid, I was taught that there were three fundamental states of matter: solid, liquid and gas. I think it is now generally accepted that there is a fourth fundamental state matter, namely plasma. Plasma is a state without a definite shape or volume, and in that sense is similar to a gas. In a plasma, electrons have been ripped away from their nuclei, forming a conductive electron “sea”. Plasmas are created from gases by applying a massive voltage difference or an extremely high temperature.

The basic design of neon lighting was first demonstrated at the Paris Motor Show in 1910. Such lighting is made up of glass tubes containing a vacuum into which has been introduced a small amount of neon gas. When a voltage is applied between two electrodes inside the tube, the neon gas “glows” and gives off the familiar light.

45A Start of a lovelorn soliloquy : O, ROMEO

In the balcony scene in Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet”, Juliet utters the famous line:

O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo?

Every school kid must have commented with a giggle “he’s down in the garden!” Of course, “wherefore” isn’t an archaic word for “where”, but rather an old way of saying “why”. So Juliet is asking, “Why art thou Romeo, a Montague, and hence a sworn enemy of the Capulets?”

47A Bridges in Baghdad cross it : TIGRIS

The Tigris is one of the two rivers that form the main boundaries of Mesopotamia, the other being the Euphrates.

According to the University of Baghdad, the name “Baghdad” dates way back, to the 18th-century BCE (yes, BCE!). The name can be translated into English from the language of ancient Babylon as “old garden” (bagh-) and “beloved” (-dad).

53A Level in a social hierarchy : CASTE

Although caste systems exist in several societies around the world, we tend to associate the concept with the social stratification that is still found in many parts of India. The term “caste” comes from the Portuguese word “casta” meaning “race, breed”. The Portuguese used the term to describe the hereditary social groups that they found in India when they arrived in the subcontinent in 1498.

54A Street urchin : GAMIN

“Gamin” is a French word that we’ve imported into English. In both languages it means “street urchin”.

62A Pitchfork point : TINE

A “pitchfork” is so called because it is primarily a “fork” for lifting and “pitching” hay.

63A Rivian competitor : TESLA

Rivian EDV is a company in Normal, Illinois that developed a line of electric delivery vans (EDVs) for Amazon, after Amazon invested $700 million in the project. Amazon deployed the first Rivian vans in 2022, and the following year Rivian started offering EDVs to companies beyond Amazon. I’ve seen a few Amazon EDVs, and I think they are pretty cool …

64A Gemstone found in hot springs : OPAL

The largest opal ever found, and the most valuable, is the Olympic Australis. It was discovered in South Australia in 1956. That same year, the Summer Olympics were being held in Melbourne so the newly discovered stone was given the name “Olympic Australis”.

65A Org. promoting sober motoring : SADD

Students Against Destructive Decisions (SADD) was founded in Massachusetts in 1981. SADD’s aim is to prevent road traffic accidents by urging students to avoid potentially destructive decisions (such as driving under the influence of alcohol).

Down

2D What arrives in the film “Arrival” : UFO

2016’s “Arrival” is a very entertaining sci-fi film that is based on a short story by Ted Chiang called “Story of Your Life”. Amy Adams plays a linguist who is called upon to communicate with aliens that have arrived on Earth.

5D Tourist destination outside of Delhi : AGRA

Agra is a medieval city on the banks of the river Yamuna in India that was the capital of the Mughal Empire from 1556 to 1658. The city is home to three UNESCO World Heritage Sites:

• The Taj Mahal: the famous mausoleum built in memory of Mumtaz Mahal.
• Agra Fort: the site where the famous Koh-i-Noor diamond was seized.
• Fatehpur Sikri: a historic city that’s home to well-preserved Mughal architecture.

7D Classical performance space : ODEUM

In ancient Greece, an odeon (also “odeum”) was like a small theater, with “odeon” literally meaning “building for musical competition”. Odea were used in both Greece and Rome for entertainments such as musical shows and poetry readings.

8D One with diplomatic plates in N.Y.C. : UN REP

The United Nations (UN) headquarters in Manhattan, New York City was completed in 1952. The organization also has three main offices around the world, in Geneva (opened in 1946), in Nairobi (opened in 1996) and in Vienna (opened in 1980).

10D Wool source : ALPACA

Alpacas are like small llamas, but unlike llamas were never beasts of burden. They were bred specifically for the fleece. As such, there are no known wild alpacas these days, even in their native Peru.

11D Futures experts? : SOOTHSAYERS

A soothsayer is someone who claims to have the ability to predict the future. The term “soothsayer” comes from “sooth”, an archaic word for “truth”. So a soothsayer was supposedly one who told the “truth” (about the future).

21D Financial center of West Africa : LAGOS

Lagos is a port and the biggest city in Nigeria. It used to be the country’s capital, until it was replaced in that role in 1991 by Abuja, a city built just for this purpose. Lagos is also the most populous city in the whole of Africa (followed by Cairo in Egypt).

22D Kind of “fever” that’s not actually a fever, and is typically caused by pollen : HAY

The common term “hay fever” describes a type of seasonal allergic rhinitis, inflammation of the nose due to an immune reaction to airborne allergens. The term “hay fever” is quite the misnomer. It is not usually caused by “hay”, and there is no “fever”.

23D Director DuVernay : AVA

Ava DuVernay is a filmmaker who became the first African-American woman to win the Best Director Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, a feat she achieved in 2012 for her feature film “Middle of Nowhere”. “Middle of Nowhere” tells the story of a woman who drops out of medical school to focus on her husband when he is sentenced to 8 years in prison. DuVernay also directed the 2014 film “Selma” about the 1965 voting rights marches from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.

28D Prose postscript : EPILOG

Our word “epilog” (also “epilogue”) applies to an addition at the end of a play or other literary work. The term ultimately comes from the Greek “epi-” signifying “in addition”, and “logos” meaning “speech”.

One adds a PS (post scriptum, or simply “postscript”) at the end of a letter (ltr.). A second postscript is a post post scriptum, a PPS.

32D ___ Hagen, Tony-winning actress and theater practitioner : UTA

Uta Hagen was a German-born American actress. Hagen married Jose Ferrer in 1938, but they were divorced ten years later after it was revealed that she was having a long-running affair with Paul Robeson. Her association with Robeson, a prominent civil rights activist, earned her a spot on the Hollywood Blacklist during the McCarthy Era. This forced her away from film, but towards a successful stage career in New York City.

33D Trains for the Chicago White Sox? : ELS

Elevated railroad (El)

34D Dreamily named rock group? : REM

R.E.M. was a rock band from Athens, Georgia that formed in 1980. Apparently, the name “R.E.M.” was chosen randomly from a dictionary.

“REM” is an acronym standing for “rapid eye movement”. REM sleep takes up 20-25% of the sleeping hours and is the period associated with one’s most vivid dreams.

38D Part of a jouster’s protection : LEG ARMOR

“Jousting” and “tilting” are synonyms describing the medieval competition in which two horsemen yielding blunted lances attempt to unseat each other. Such an event has been referred to as “jousting” since the 1300s. At some point, the path of the two charging horsemen was separated by a cloth barrier known as a tilt (“tilt” meant “cloth covering”). The term “tilting” was applied to the sport in the 1500s, although by then the cloth barrier had been upgraded to a wooden fence.

40D European land where much of “Game of Thrones” was filmed : CROATIA

The Republic of Croatia is a Balkan country. The Croats declared independence from Yugoslavia in 1991. Croatia became a member of NATO in 2009, and a member of the European Union in 2013.

44D Seattle-to-Mount Rainier dir. : SSE

Mount Rainier is an active volcano in the state of Washington in the Cascade Mountain Range. Native Americans first called the peak “Tacoma” and “Tahoma” meaning “mother of waters”. When Captain George Vancouver discovered Puget Sound in 1792, he named the peak in honor of his friend Rear Admiral Peter Rainier. There have been movements to change the name back to Tacoma, but these seem to have “petered” out (pun!).

51D Useless leftovers : DROSS

When metals are smelted, there is a scum made up of impurities that floats on the surface of the molten metal. This scum is called “dross” and is drawn off and discarded. The term “dross” has come to mean any waste or impure matter.

52D Fur once favored by Russian royalty : SABLE

Sables are small mammals, about two feet long, that are found right across northern Europe and northern Asia. The sable’s black pelt is highly prized in the fur trade. Sable is unique among furs in that it feels smooth no matter which direction it is stroked.

56D Baseball Hall-of-Famer Guerrero, to fans : VLAD

Vladimir Guerrero is a former Major League Baseball player from the Dominican Republic. He is known as an aggressive batter, and regularly hit balls thrown well outside the strike zone. In 2009, he even hit a pitch after it had bounced on the ground in front of home plate. He has a son Vladimir Guerrero Jr., who played his first MLB in 2019 for the Toronto Blue Jays.

59D Mani-pedi brand : OPI

Opi (originally “Odontorium Products Inc.”) is a manufacturer of nail polish based in North Hollywood, California. One of Opi’s marketing coups was the introduction of a line of Legally Blonde 2 polishes, which featured in the film. Opi also launched a collection of nail lacquers inspired by the hit Broadway musical “Wicked” in celebration of its 10th anniversary on Broadway.

61D Creature on the state flags of Michigan and Idaho : ELK

The Michigan state flag features the state’s coat-of-arms on a blue background. The coat-of-arms comprises a shield supported by an elk on one side and a moose on the other.

Idaho’s state flag features the state seal with the words “State of Idaho” below, on a blue background. Idaho’s Great Seal was designed in 1891 by Emma Edwards Green, who is the only woman to have designed an American state seal.