Day: May 27, 2026

Bill’s time: 8m 55s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1A He’s always hard to find : WALDO

The series of children’s illustrated books called “Where’s Waldo?” was originally titled “Where’s Wally?” in Britain, where the books originated. Each book contains page after page of illustrations with crowds of people surrounding famous landmarks from around the world. The challenge is to find Waldo/Wally, who is hidden in the crowd.

14A Superman is one, notably : ALIEN

Superman was sent to Earth in a rocket as a child by his parents, who remained on the doomed planet of Krypton. On Earth, the child was discovered by Jonathan and Martha Kent, farmers who lived near the fictional town of Smallville. The Kents raised the infant as their own, giving him the name Clark, which was Ma Kent’s maiden name.

15A “O Sole ___” : MIO

“‘O sole mio” is a famous Italian song from Naples, written in 1898. The song’s lyrics are usually sung in the original Neapolitan, as opposed to Italian. The title translates from Neapolitan into “The Sun of Mine” (and not into “’O, My Sun” as one might expect). It’s a love song, sung by a young man declaring that there is a sun brighter than that in the sky, the sun that is his lover’s face. Awww …

18A Red flag for a mortgage applicant : BAD CREDIT

Our word “mortgage” comes from the Old French “mort gaige” which translated as “dead pledge”. Such an arrangement was so called because the “pledge” to repay “dies” when the debt is cleared.

20A “November 19, 1863” : FOUR SCORE AND (part of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address)

I admit to having profound respect and admiration for great speeches delivered by great men and women. Forgive me as I reproduce here the full text of Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address:

Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that “all men are created equal.”

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of it, as a final resting place for those who died here, that the nation might live. This we may, in all propriety do. But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow, this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have hallowed it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here; while it can never forget what they did here.

It is rather for us the living, we here be dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.

23A Univ. in Troy, N.Y. : RPI

The Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) is a private school in Troy, New York. The university is named after its founder Stephen Van Rensselaer who set up the school in 1824. The goal of RPI has always been the “application of science to the common purposes of life”, an objective set by the founder. Given that, the name for the school’s sports teams is quite apt: the Engineers.

30A “January 20, 1961” : ASK NOT WHAT (part of JFK’s Inaugural Address)

“Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country” is a passage from the famous inaugural address delivered by President John F. Kennedy (JFK) in January 1961. Although it is generally regarded as one of the best inaugural addresses, it is the fourth shortest, taking just 13m 59s to deliver from start to finish.

33A Lennon’s mate … and onetime bandmate : ONO

John Lennon and Yoko Ono married at the height of the Vietnam War in 1969. The couple decided to use the inevitable publicity surrounding their wedding and honeymoon to promote peace in the world. They honeymooned in the Presidential Suite of the Amsterdam Hilton, inviting the world’s press to join them and to witness their “bed-in”. They spent the week talking about peace, and an end to war. The marriage and bed-in is chronicled by the Beatles in their song “The Ballad of John and Yoko”. A few weeks after the marriage, Lennon adopted the additional middle name “Ono” by deed poll.

35A Filming location for the archaeological dig in “Raiders of the Lost Ark” : SAHARA

The name “Sahara” means “desert” in Arabic. The Sahara is just that, a great desert covering almost 4 million square miles of Northern Africa. That’s almost the size of the United States.

“Raiders of the Lost Ark” is, in my humble opinion, the best of the Indiana Jones franchise of movies. This first Indiana Jones film was released in 1981, produced by George Lucas and directed by Steven Spielberg. Harrison Ford was Spielberg’s first choice to play the lead, but Lucas resisted as he was concerned that he would be too closely associated with the actor (as Ford played Han Solo in “Star Wars”, and also appeared in Lucas’s “American Graffiti”). Tom Selleck was offered the role but he couldn’t get out of his commitments to “Magnum, P.I.” Eventually Spielberg got his way and Ford was hired, a good thing I say …

36A Musical piece with repeated themes : RONDO

A rondo was often chosen by composers in the classical period for the last movement of a sonata (or symphony or concerto, for that matter). In rondo form there is a principal theme that alternates with a contrasting theme(s). So, the original theme anchors the whole piece in between secondary digressions.

38A Delhi lentil stew : DAL

I love dal dishes, which are prepared from various peas or beans (often lentils) that have been stripped of their outer skins and split. Dal is an important part of Indian cuisines. I suppose in Indian terms, split pea soup (another of my favorites) would be called a dal.

43A Osso buco meat : VEAL

Osso buco is a traditional Italian dish that is typically made with veal shanks that are braised with vegetables and herbs. The name “osso buco” means “bone with a hole” in Italian, which refers to the marrow-filled bone in the center of the veal shank. The marrow is considered a delicacy and is often scooped out and served with the dish.

46A “August 28, 1963” : HAVE A DREAM (part of MLK’s March on Washington Address)

1963’s March on Washington was one of the largest political rallies in the history of the US, with about a quarter of a million people participating in the march itself. The rally was a call for civil and economic rights for African Americans. Famously, Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech to the protesters while standing in front of the Lincoln Memorial.

48A Numbers that aren’t entered on bowling scorecards : TENS

In bowling, a spare is recorded on a score sheet with a forward slash mark. A strike is recorded with a large letter X.

51A Gossip : DISH

To dish the dirt is to talk about someone or something without regard to veracity. The phrase comes from “dish” (in the sense of dishing out food) and “dirt” (in the sense of negative information). To be dishy is to be given to gossip.

Our word “gossip” comes from the Old English “godsibb” meaning “godparent”. Back then, the term was used for female friends who attended a birth, and later for anyone engaging in idle talk.

61A Round house : IGLOO

The Inuit word for “house” is “iglu”, which we usually write as “igloo”. The Greenlandic (yes, that’s a language) word for “house” is very similar, namely “igdlo”. The walls of igloos are tremendous insulators, due to the air pockets in the blocks of snow.

64A “Rocky” actress Shire : TALIA

Actress Talia Shire is best-known for playing Rocky’s wife Adrian in the “Rocky” series of movies. She also played Connie, the daughter of Don Corleone, in “The Godfather” films. Shire is the sister of movie director Francis Ford Coppola and the aunt of actor Nicolas Cage. Her son is the actor Jason Schwartzman.

67A Big name in shapewear : SPANX

Spanx is an underwear brand. Most Spanx garments are designed to make the wearer appear thinner. Spanx is a privately held company that was founded by entrepreneur Sara Blakely in 2000. Despite the success of the product line, there is some controversy. Spanx have been referred to as the corset of the modern era.

Down

1D Dickens’s Oliver Twist, for one : WAIF

A waif is a street urchin, or perhaps a stray animal.

“Oliver Twist” is an 1838 novel by Charles Dickens. The title character is an orphan who escapes from an oppressive apprenticeship with an undertaker. He gets drawn into the criminal underworld of London, where he meets up with some colorful characters such as the Artful Dodger, Fagin and Bill Sikes. Television, stage and film adaptations of “Oliver Twist” tend to lift the overall mood of the story, which in the novel is pretty bleak.

2D Style magnate Gucci : ALDO

Gucci was founded in Florence, 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.

8D “The ___ Prometheus,” Mary Shelley’s subtitle to “Frankenstein” : MODERN

Mary Shelley’s Gothic novel has the full title of “Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus”. The subtitle underscores one of the themes of the book, i.e. a warning about the expansion into the Industrial Revolution.

9D “Fiddlesticks!” : DARN IT ALL!

We’ve been using “fiddlesticks” to mean “nonsense” since the early 17th century. Prior to that time, “fiddlestick” just referred to the bow of a fiddle.

12D “Please, no more!” : TMI!

Too much information (TMI)

19D Pitch-altering clamps on guitars : CAPOS

A capo is a clamp-like device that is placed around the neck of a guitar or other stringed instrument to shorten the strings, and hence raise the pitch. The full name, rarely used these days, is “capo tasto”, which is Italian for “head of the fingerboard”.

28D All-powerful avatar in “Ready Player One” : ANORAK

“Ready Player One” is a 2018 film based on a 2011 sci-fi novel of the same name by Ernest Cline. The movie was directed by Steven Spielberg, and is about a future world in which many humans choose to live life in a virtual reality simulation.

29D College chant accompanying “Beat Army!” : GO NAVY!

The first Army-Navy football game took place in November 1890. The annual event is most often played in Philadelphia, as the city is about the same distance from the USMA at West Point, New York and the USNA at Annapolis, Maryland. One of the more memorable Army-Navy games (to trivia lovers) was played in 1893. That’s because Navy Midshipman Joseph M. Reeves wore a helmet, marking the first time a helmet was used for protection in a football game.

31D Rapscallion : KNAVE

We’ve been using “knave” to mean “cad” since about 1200, and as an alternative name for the jack in a deck of cards since the mid-1500s. “Knave” comes from the Old English word “cnafa”, a “boy, male servant”.

We might call a little imp a “rapscallion”, an evolution from “rascallion” that in turn comes from “rascal”.

34D Question from one smoker to another : GOT A MATCH?

A strike-anywhere match will ignite if struck against almost any dry, hard, rough surface. The match head comprises two chemicals that are necessary for ignition. In order to minimize the chances of accidental ignition of matches, the safety match was developed. The safety match is safer because the match head only includes one of the chemicals necessary for ignition. The second chemical is included in a special striking surface provided with the matches, usually along the side of a matchbox.

44D Friends in Cannes : AMIS

Cannes is a city on the French Riviera that is noted as host of the Cannes Film Festival. The decision to host an annual film festival came just before WWII. However, the festival had to wait for the end of the war for its launch in 1946.

48D Sister outlet to Banana Republic : THE GAP

The Gap is a San Francisco-based clothing retailer that was founded in 1969. The name “the Gap” was a homage to the popular sixties term “the generation gap”.

52D Rotisserie rods : SPITS

We use the term “rotisserie” to describe a cooking device used to roast meat. The French word “rôtisserie” describes a shop selling cooked meats (“rôti” is French for “roasted”). We first absorbed the French term into English in the 1800s, when “rotisserie” described a similar establishment. It was only in the 1950s that we started to describe the home-cooking apparatus as a rotisserie.

53D Word with wine or city : PORT

We tend to see two main styles of port (although there are several available): ruby and tawny. Ruby port is stored in concrete or stainless steel tanks that prevent oxidative aging, leaving the wine a bright red color. Tawny port is aged in wooden barrels, which allow gradual oxidation, leaving the wine a golden-brown color.

55D 2004’s “___ Enchanted” : ELLA

“Ella Enchanted” is a fantasy novel written by Gail Carson Levine, and published in 1997. It is a retelling of the story of Cinderella, with lots of mythical creatures added. A film adaptation was released in 2004 that features Anne Hathaway in the title role.