Day: November 5, 2026

Bill’s time: 10m 39s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1A ___ Batlló, Antoni Gaudí masterpiece whose roof arch mimics a dragon’s back : CASA

Antoni Gaudí was a Catalan architect who is best known for his works in Barcelona. His most famous building is the city’s Sagrada Família, which is a large Roman Catholic church. Gaudí took over the project in 1883. Only a quarter of the building was finished in 1926, when Gaudí died in a streetcar accident. Construction continues to this day, with plans for completion by 2026, the centenary of Gaudí’s death.

5A Cheese that comes from northern Italy (and not another continent!) : ASIAGO

Asiago is a cheese that is named for the region in northeastern Italy from where it originates. It comes in varying textures depending on its age. Fresh Asiago is very smooth, while aged Asiago can be very crumbly.

15A You can see right through it : CORNEA

The cornea is the transparent part of the eye in the front, and the part that covers the iris and the pupil. Even though the cornea is not part of the eye’s lens, it acts as a lens. In fact, the cornea does most of the work focusing light coming in through the eye. It is, in effect, a fixed-focus lens passing on light to the variable-focus lens that is inside the eye.

17A Hand-held communication devices : WALKIE-TALKIES

The more formal name for a walkie-talkie is “handheld transceiver”. It is a handheld, two-way radio, and a device first developed for military use during WWII by Motorola (although others developed similar designs soon after). The first walkie-talkie was portable, but large. It was back-mounted and was carried around the battlefield by a radio officer.

19A Pioneers, in hip-hop slang : OGS

The term “OG” originally designated a founding or senior member of the Crips street gang in LA during the early 1970s. It transitioned into the world of music through West Coast hip-hop, and that usage was popularized by Ice-T’s 1991 album “O.G. Original Gangster”. Since then, the slang term has been used to honor any pioneer, veteran, or originator in a given field.

20A D.O.J. branch : ATF

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) today is part of the Department of Justice (DOJ). The ATF has its roots in the Department of Treasury dating back to 1886, and at one time was known as the Bureau of Prohibition. “Explosives” was added to the ATF’s name when the bureau was moved under the Department of Justice (DOJ) as part of the reorganization called for in the Homeland Security Act of 2002.

32A Book of the Bible that includes doings of Cyrus the Great : EZRA

In the Hebrew Bible, the Book of Ezra was originally combined with the Book of Nehemiah, with the two being separated in the early days of the Christian Era.

Cyrus the Great was the founder of the Persian Empire and ruled from 559 BCE to 530 BCE. Some say that Cyrus’s legacy is that he established the concept of an empire that was ruled centrally, but which operated for the welfare and benefit of its subjects.

39A Admission of confusion … or a hint for interpreting four answers in this puzzle : IT’S ALL GREEK TO ME

The phrase “it’s all Greek to me” is used to describe something that is difficult to understand. It’s possible that the idiom’s use in English comes from an old Latin phrase “Graecum est; non legitur” (It is Greek; it cannot be read). The first use recorded in English dates back to 1599 when it appears in William Shakespeare’s play “Julius Caesar” in lines spoken by Casca:

Nay, an I tell you that, I’ll ne’er look you i’ the face again: but those that understood him smiled at one another and shook their heads; but, for mine own part, it was Greek to me.

45A Author Morrison : TONI

Writer Toni Morrison won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993. Amongst other things, Morrison is noted for coining the phrase “our first Black President”, a reference to President Bill Clinton.

47A Gray matter? : ODES

Thomas Gray was an 18th-century poet from England. Gray’s most famous work is his “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard”, which is the source of many oft-quoted phrases, including:

• Celestial fire
• Far from the Madding Crowd
• Kindred spirit

49A Sea urchin, on a sushi menu : UNI

Sea urchins are globular, spiny creatures found just about everywhere in the ocean. The “roe” of a sea urchin is eaten as a delicacy in several cuisines around the world. In a sushi restaurant, the sea urchin roe is called “uni”. The term “roe” normally means “fish eggs”, but in the case of the sea urchin it refers to the gonads of both the male and female.

51A Women’s dress shoes : PUMPS

A pump is a woman’s shoe that doesn’t have a strap. Such shoes are probably called “pumps” because of the sound they make while walking in them.

55A Juggernauts : POWERHOUSES

For centuries, there has been a ceremonial procession of enormous chariots in Puri, on the east coast of India. The chariots carry large statues of the deities Jagannātha, Subhadrā, and Balabhadra. It is from the name “Jagannātha” that we get our word “juggernaut”, which first described this huge wagon bearing the image of the Hindu god.

64A Popular fund-raising event : SILENT AUCTION

In a silent auction, bids are written in list form on a piece of paper. At the end of the auction, the highest bidder wins the item. The auction is described as silent because there is no auctioneer leading the bidding.

70A Ampere or volt : UNIT

The unit of electric current is the ampere, which is abbreviated correctly to “A” rather than “amp”. It is named after French physicist André-Marie Ampère, one of the main scientists responsible for the discovery of electromagnetism.

Alessandro Volta was the physicist who invented the first battery, way back in 1800. Decades before his new invention, Volta used a Leyden jar (and a very long run of wire between the Italian cities of Como and Milan) to shoot off an electric pistol from 30 miles away! The electric potential unit “volt” is named for Volta.

71A Symbols on a post : ATS

The “at symbol” (@) originated in the commercial world, as shorthand for “each at, per” and similar phrases. I suppose we see the symbol most commonly these days as part of email addresses.

72A Governor Gavin : NEWSOM

Gavin Newsom is a former Mayor of San Francisco (2004-2011) who took over as the Governor of California in 2019. Newsom is a member of the Democratic Party, and a very outspoken critic of former President Donald Trump. From 2001 to 2006, Newsom was married to Kimberley Guilfoyle, a former attorney and fiancée of Donald Trump Jr. Guilfoyle is a very outspoken supporter of former President Donald Trump.

73A Head honcho : BOSS

“Honcho” is a slang term meaning “leader”. The word comes to us from the Japanese military, in which language a “hancho” is a “squad” (han) “leader” (cho).

Down

2D A gamer may use one : AVATAR

The Sanskrit word “avatar” describes the concept of a deity descending into earthly life and taking on a persona. It’s easy to see how in the world of online presences one might use the word avatar to describe one’s online identity.

3D One might be taken with a stick : SELFIE

Selfie sticks; oh, how I hate selfie sticks. A walk down the Strip in Vegas is an enlightening study in what’s wrong with contemporary photography …

8D Nickname of the protagonist in 2024’s “Anora” : ANI

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.

9D Enthusiasts, so to speak : GEEKS

Originally, a geek was a sideshow performer, perhaps one at a circus. Sometimes the term “geek” is used today for someone regarded as foolish or clumsy, and also for someone who is technically driven and expert, but often socially inept.

11D Big Apple menagerie : BRONX ZOO

The Bronx Zoo in New York City is the largest metropolitan zoo in the country, and is located right on the Bronx River.

12D 0.1 nanometer : ANGSTROM

The angstrom is a very small unit of length equal to one ten-billionth of a meter. As such a small unit, the angstrom is used to measure the size of atoms and molecules. The unit is named for the Swedish physicist Anders Jonas Ångström.

18D Salt for wintry roads : ICE MELT

Halite is the mineral form of sodium chloride, and is also known as “rock salt”. It is used to melt ice, as salt water has a lower freezing point than pure water. Adding salt to icy sidewalks can therefore cause any ice to melt (as long as the ambient temperature isn’t too low). A mixture of halite and ice can also be used to cool things below the freezing point of water, perhaps to make ice cream.

25D Singer Bareilles : SARA

Sara Bareilles achieved success with her 2007 “Love Song” with the help of the iTunes online store. In one week in June of that year, iTunes offered the song as “free single of the week” and it quickly became the most downloaded song in the store. It was her debut single, and earned a couple of Grammy nominations.

27D Place to go, in the army : LATRINE

A “latrine” is a communal toilet, often one in an army camp.

37D Unlikely buyer? : SKEPTIC

The word “skeptic” derives from the Greek word “skeptikos”, meaning “inquirer” or “investigator.” The earliest skeptics, like Pyrrho of Elis, were philosophers who questioned the possibility of certain knowledge and emphasized the importance of doubt and inquiry. Today, “skeptic” can refer to anyone who critically examines evidence and challenges assumptions.

42D Wildebeests : GNUS

The gnu is also known as the wildebeest, and is an antelope native to Africa. “Wildebeest” is a Dutch word meaning “wild beast”.

52D ___ wool : MERINO

The Merino is a breed of sheep, prized for its exceptionally soft wool, that originated in Spain around the 12th century. Flocks were so highly valued by the Spanish crown that exporting a single animal was strictly prohibited and punishable by death until the 1700s!

53D Vernacular : PATOIS

“Patois” is a word that we imported from French, in which language it also means “native or local speech”.

56D Galileo, for one : PISAN

Galileo Galilei may be the most famous son of the city of Pisa in Italy and was considered by many to have been the father of modern science. In the world of physics, Galileo postulated that objects of different masses would fall at the same rate provided they did so in a vacuum (so there was no air resistance). There is a story that he dropped two balls of different masses from the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa to demonstrate this, but this probably never happened. Centuries later, Astronaut David Scott performed Galileo’s proposed experiment when he dropped a hammer and feather on the moon during the Apollo 15 mission and we all saw the objects hit the moon surface, at exactly the same time.

66D Letter indicating ownership? : ESS

That would be an apostrophe and a letter S tagged onto the end of a noun, indicating ownership.