Day: January 17, 2026

Bill’s time: 40m 07s!

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

16A What Anora and Vanya do in 2024’s “Anora” : ELOPE

The 2024 movie “Anora” is about a young stripper from Brooklyn who impulsively marries the son of a wealthy Russian oligarch. The marriage is short-lived, as the groom’s parents send henchmen to find the couple and force an annulment. The film follows the aftermath as the stripper ends the marriage, leaving her in an emotionally vulnerable and uncertain state. The entire film was shot in 37 days, with one 25-minute sequence taking up 10 of those days. The sequence was a particularly demanding and disturbing home invasion scene.

18A Advocate for the political mobilization of the proletariat : LENIN

“Lenin” wasn’t the birth name of the Russian leader. He was born Vladimir Ulyanov, and originally used “Lenin” as a pen name.

Author George Orwell introduced us to the proles, the working class folk in his famous novel “Nineteen Eighty-Four”. Collectively, the proles make up the section of society known as the proletariat.

23A Tchotchke : KNICKKNACK

“Tchotchke” is a slang term meaning “cheap, showy trinket”. It came into English from a Slavic source via Yiddish.

28A City in Illinois’s “Little Egypt” region : CAIRO

The Illinois city of Cairo is the most southerly city in the state. It sits at the confluence of two mighty rivers, where the Mississippi joins the Ohio. Cairo is surrounded by a region known as Little Egypt. It is thought that “Little Egypt” is a reference to the fertile soil in the area, which resembled the fertile soil of the Nile region after the flooding of the river. The city name “Cairo” is also said to reflect that same etymology.

31A Plant with psychoactive leaves : COCA

The coca plant is native to South America and is similar in appearance to a blackthorn bush. Coca leaves have been chewed by humans for centuries, perhaps even as far back as 3,000 years ago. Chewing the leaves apparently produces a pleasurable numb sensation in the mouth and a pleasant taste. The most famous alkaloid in the leaf is cocaine, but this wasn’t extracted in its pure form until the mid-1800s. The extracted cocaine was used in medicines and tonics and other beverages.

32A Offload (on) : FOIST

The word “foist”, meaning “to pass off fraudulently as genuine”, comes from the Dutch word meaning “take in hand”. The original concept came from playing dice, in which one die was held surreptitiously in one hand.

33A Famous monogram found backward in the alphabet : MLK

Martin Luther King, Jr’s father was born Michael King. On a trip to Germany in 1934, Michael came to admire Protestant leader Martin Luther and changed his name to Martin Luther King on his return to the United States. Famously, he passed on his new name to his son, the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr (MLK).

34A Tall and thin : LANKY

The term “lank” can describe something that is straight and flat, particularly hair. The usage was extended in the early 1800s (especially in the form “lanky”) to mean “awkwardly tall and thin”.

35A Revel (in) : BASK

Our verb “to bask”, meaning “to expose one to pleasant warmth”, is derived from the gruesome, 14th-century term “basken”, meaning “to wallow in blood”. The contemporary usage apparently originated with Shakespeare, who employed “bask” with reference to sunshine in “As You Like It”.

36A One of five in a typical big band : SAX

The saxophone was invented by Belgian musician Adolphe Sax, hence the name. Sax developed lip cancer at one point in his life, and one has to wonder if his affliction was related to his saxophone playing (I am sure not!). I had the privilege of visiting Sax’s grave in the Cemetery of Montmartre in Paris a few years ago.

39A Artificially unsophisticated : FAUX-NAIF

A naïf is someone who is naive, as “naïf” is the French word for “naive”.

41A Units for a high-resolution camera : MEGAPIXELS

A pixel is a dot, and the base element that goes to make up a digital image.

46A Setups for some elaborate group pictures : RISERS

A riser is a platform that elevates a group of people above a crowd, and so is ideal for the performance of a choir.

47A Subject to careful appraisal : VET

The verb “to vet” comes from the term “veterinarian”. The idea is that to vet something is to subject it to careful examination, like a veterinarian checking out an animal.

50A Ones running along a road : SIDEWALKS

Back in Ireland, the “pavement” is what we call the “sidewalk, footpath” (because the footpath is “paved”, often with “paving” stones!). It’s very confusing when you arrive in this country from Ireland, and a little dangerous when one has been taught from a young age to “walk on the pavement” …

52A Bracket contents : TEAMS

“Bracketology” is a term used to describe the process of predicting which college basketball teams will advance in a bracket in the annual NCAA Basketball Tournament. President Barack Obama famously participates in an ESPN segment called “Baracketology” in which he predicts the outcome of the tournament, game by game.

53A Where someone’s height may be stretched? : TINDER BIO

Tinder is a matchmaking app that uses Facebook profiles. Users “swipe” photos of potential matches, either to the right (“like”) or to the left (“not interested”). Users who “match” each other can then chat within the app.

55A What antiperspirants can prevent : PIT STAINS

“Axilla” is the anatomical name for armpit; not to be confused with “maxilla”, the upper jawbone.

Down

1D Crude thing to drop, familiarly : F-BOMB

“F-bomb” refers to the offensive four-letter word beginning with the letter F. The term “F-bomb” was first used in print in a “Newsday” article in 1988 in a story about baseball catcher Gary Carter.

2D Westernmost territory of the Netherlands : ARUBA

Aruba is one of the so-called ABC islands located off the northern coast of Venezuela. “ABC Islands” is a name given to the three westernmost islands of the Leeward Antilles in the Caribbean. The nickname comes from the first letters of the island names: Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao. All three of the ABC islands are part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

3D Board game with resources : CATAN

The Settlers of Catan (now just “Catan”) is a board game that was introduced in 1995, in Germany as “Die Siedler von Catan”. The game is very popular in the US and was called “the board game of our time” by the “Washington Post”. My son plays it a lot, and as a lover of board games, I am going to have to check it out …

4D Grandson of Eve : ENOS

Enos was the son of Seth, and therefore the grandson of Adam and Eve, and nephew of Cain and Abel. According to the ancient Jewish work called the Book of Jubilees, Enos married his own sister Noam.

5D Many an attachment : PDF

Portable Document Format (PDF) is a file format introduced by Adobe Systems in 1993. PDF documents can be shared between users and read using many different applications and platforms, making them more universally accessible than documents saved by one particular program.

6D ___ Carlos Jobim, father of the bossa nova : ANTONIO

Bossa nova is a style of music from Brazil that evolved from samba. The most famous piece of bossa nova is the song “The Girl from Ipanema”. The term “bossa nova” translates from Portuguese as “new trend”, or more colloquially as “new wave”.

11D Digital assistant : ALEXA

The Amazon Astro is a home robot designed to provide a variety of services, including home monitoring, security, and assistance. It features a screen on a wheeled base, allowing it to navigate autonomously throughout a home. It has been described as Amazon Alexa on wheels, and costs over $1,500.

12D In which opposites attract : IONIC BOND

An ionic bond is formed between two oppositely-charged ions. A common example is the bond between positively-charged sodium atoms and negatively-charged chlorine atoms to form table salt (NaCl). A covalent bond, on the other hand, is formed when two atoms share electrons. Atoms sharing electrons tend to be stable, so they prefer to stay together rather than apart.

13D Flashy taekwondo moves : SPIN KICKS

Taekwondo is the national sport of Korea. “Tae” means “to strike or break with foot”; “kwon” means “to strike or break with fist”; “do” means “way” or “art”. Along with judo, taekwondo is one of only two martial arts included in the Olympic Games.

14D Cravings : YENS

The word “yen”, meaning “urge”, has been around in English since the very early 1900s. It comes from the earlier word “yin” imported from Chinese, which was used in English to describe an intense craving for opium.

23D Super Mario ___ : KART

“Mario Kart” is a go-kart racing video game series from Nintendo.

24D Eccentric : KOOK

“Kooky” is a slang word meaning “out there, crazy”. The term has been around since the beatnik era, and it may be a shortened version of the word “cuckoo”.

28D Worker who’s the subject of the song “Sixteen Tons” : COAL MINER

Tennessee Ernie Ford was mainly a country singer, whose most famous recording was “Sixteen Tons”. “Sixteen Tons” is a song about life as a coal miner, with the title being a reference to sixteen tons of coal.

31D Baby rhino : CALF

There are five types of rhinoceros that survive today, with the smaller Javan Rhino being the most rare. The rhinoceros is probably the rarest large mammal on the planet, thanks to poaching. Hunters mainly prize the horn of the rhino as it is used in powdered form in traditional Chinese medicine.

32D Part of the D.O.J. : FBI

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was set up in 1908 as the Bureau of Investigation (BOI), with the name changing in 1935. The Bureau was set up at the behest of President Theodore Roosevelt. President Roosevelt was largely moved to do so after the 1901 assassination of President McKinley, as there was a perception that anarchists were threatening law and order. The FBI’s motto uses the organization’s initialism, and is “Fidelity, Bravery, Integrity”.

33D So-called “Valley Isle” : MAUI

Maui is the second-largest of the Hawaiian islands. It is sometimes called the “Valley Isle” as it is composed of two volcanoes to the northwest and southeast of the island, each with numerous beautiful valleys carved into them.

34D Writer Lowry : LOIS

Lois Lowry is a writer of children’s fiction. Lowry doesn’t stick to “safe” material in her books, and has dealt with difficult subjects such as racism, murder and the Holocaust. Two of her books won the Newbery Medal: “Number the Stars” (1990) and “The Giver” (1993).

36D Good marks? : SAPS

“Sap” is slang for “fool, someone easily scammed”. The term arose in the early 1800s in Britain when it was used in “saphead” and “sapskull”. All these words are derived from “sapwood”, which is the softwood found in tree trunks between the bark and the heartwood at the center.

37D Egg cream alternatives : MALTEDS

Egg cream is a beverage, and one that I only know from crosswords. It is remarkable, I think, in that it contains neither egg nor cream! The drink supposedly dates back to the late 1800s and was invented in Brooklyn. It is a fountain drink, made up from chocolate syrup, milk and seltzer (soda).

43D Korean barbecue rib dish : GALBI

Galbi is a dish from Korean cuisine that consists of marinated beef or pork ribs, grilled or broiled. The word “galbi” literally means “rib” in Korean.

46D Servant in “The Handmaid’s Tale” : RITA

“The Handmaid’s Tale” is a 1985 novel by Canadian author Margaret Atwood. It is a set in a dystopian New England of the near future, after the overthrow of the US government. The central character is named Offred, who is a “handmaid” forced to bear children for the male ruling class. The novel was adapted into a highly successful TV series of the same name, starring Elisabeth Moss as Offred.

50D Product with the additive zinc dithiophosphate : STP

STP is a brand name of automotive lubricants and additives. The name “STP” is an initialism standing for “Scientifically Treated Petroleum”.

51D Like the weather in much of Equatorial Guinea : WET

Equatorial Guinea is the only country on the African continent that has Spanish as her official language. The nation, located in the central west coast, was formerly the colony of Spanish Guinea and gained independence from Spain in 1968.