Day: November 11, 2026

Bill’s time: 8m 25s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

10A It’s over $30 trillion for the U.S., in brief : GDP

A country’s Gross National Product (GNP) is the value of all services and products produced by its residents in a particular year. GNP includes all production wherever it is in the world, as long as the business is owned by residents of the country concerned. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is different, although related, and is the value of all services and goods produced within the borders of the country for that year.

16A Singer Rita whose last name is an anagram of 19-Across : ORA

Rita Ora is a British singer who was born Rita Sahatçiu in Pristina, Yugoslavia to Albanian parents. The family name “Sahatçiu” comes from a Turkish word meaning “watchmaker”. Rita’s parents changed their name to make it easier to pronounce. So, the family name morphed from “watchmaker” to “time”, which is “ora” in Albanian.

26A First name of the “First Lady of Song” : ELLA

Ella Fitzgerald, the “First Lady of Song”, made her real stage debut at the Apollo Theater in Harlem on Amateur Night when she was just 17 years old. She had intended to perform a dance routine, but decided to sing instead after seeing a superior dance act. She won the Amateur Night competition.

33A Jane of literature : EYRE

“Jane Eyre” is a celebrated novel written by Charlotte Brontë, under the pen name Currer Bell. The love story is perhaps represented by the oft-quoted opening lines of the last chapter, “Reader, I married him”. There is a wonderful 4-hour television adaptation made by the BBC that I highly recommend to fans of the novel …

35A Actress/singer Monáe : JANELLE

Janelle Monáe is a singer and actress. I’m not familiar with her as a singer, but did see Monáe play NASA engineer Mary Jackson in the excellent 2016 film “Hidden Figures”.

37A Shortly, e.g., for short : ADV

Short is an adjective, and shortly is the corresponding adverb.

45A D, on an automatic gearshift : DRIVE

PRNDL … that would be Park, Reverse, Neutral, Drive and Low. The gear shift for an automatic transmission is sometimes known familiarly as the “prindle” stick, from the abbreviation PRNDL.

47A Margarita garnish : SALT

No one seems to know for sure who first created the margarita cocktail. The most plausible and oft-quoted is that it was invented in 1941 in Ensenada, Mexico. The barman mixed the drink for an important visitor, the daughter of the German ambassador. The daughter’s name was Margarita Henkel, and she lent her name to the new drink. The basic recipe for a margarita is a mixture of tequila, orange-flavored liqueur (like Cointreau) and lime juice.

49A Henna, for one : DYE

Henna has been used for centuries as a dye, for leather and wool as well as hair and skin. In modern days, henna is often used for temporary tattoos.

50A “I, Robot” author : ASIMOV

Isaac Asimov was a wonderful science fiction writer, and a professor of biochemistry. He was a favorite author as I was growing up and I must admit that some hero worship on my part led me to study and work as a biochemist for a short while early in my career. My favorite of his works is the collection of short stories called “I, Robot”, although Asimov’s most famous work is probably his “Foundation” trilogy of novels. Asimov wrote three autobiographies, the last of which was called “I, Asimov”, which was published in 1994, two years after his death.

51A ___ Stadium, 49ers’ home : LEVI’S

The San Francisco 49ers of the NFL have been playing their home games in Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara since 2014. The team moved from the famous Candlestick Park, which they had been using since 1971. Levi’s Stadium, the team’s new home, got a big boost in February 2016 when it was used as the venue for the Super Bowl. Given the sponsorship by Levi Strauss, the jeans manufacturer, the venue has the nickname “Field of Jeans”, a play on the movie title “Field of Dreams”.

58A Some Four Corners natives : UTES

The Four Corners region of the US surrounds the meeting point of the four states of Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and Utah. It is the only point in the US that is shared by four states.

66A Seltos or Sedona : KIA

Kia Motors is the second-largest manufacturer of cars in South Korea, behind Hyundai (and Hyundai is a part owner in Kia now). Kia was founded in 1944 as a manufacturer of bicycle parts, and did indeed produce Korea’s first domestic bicycle. The company’s original name was Kyungsung Precision Industry, with the Kia name introduced in 1952.

67A Dance referenced in “The Girl From Ipanema” : SAMBA

The samba is a Brazilian dance that is very much symbolic of the festival of Carnival. Like so much culture around the world, the samba has its roots in Africa, as the dance is derived from dances performed by former slaves who migrated into urban Rio de Janeiro in the late 1800s. The exact roots of the name “samba” seem to have been lost in the mists of time. However, my favorite explanation is that it comes from an African Kikongo word “semba” which means “a blow struck with the belly button”. We don’t seem to have a need for such a word in English …

70A Astrophysicist ___ deGrasse Tyson : NEIL

Neil deGrasse Tyson is an astrophysicist who is noted for his ability to communicate science to the masses. Tyson is well known for his appearances on the great PBS show “Nova”.

71A Fitbit units : STEPS

Fitbits are wearable activity trackers that are mainly used to track the number of steps walked, although more and more features have been added over time. A Fitbit was even used as evidence in at least one murder case. A Connecticut man claimed that a home intruder had shot and killed his wife. Police used data from the wife’s Fitbit to disprove the husband’s story, and ended up charging him with the murder.

Down

3D N.Y.C. subway letters : MTA

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) has public transportation responsibility in the state of New York (as well as part of Connecticut).

5D N.B.A. coach Spoelstra : ERIK

When Erik Spoelstra was appointed head coach for the Miami Heat in 2008, he became the first Asian-American to serve as head coach in any of the four major North American sports leagues.

8D Early human : CRO-MAGNON

Remains of early man, dating back to 35,000 years ago, were found in Abri de Cro-Magnon in southwest France, giving the name to those early humans. Cro-Magnon remains are among the oldest human relics that have been discovered in Europe.

10D 1988 Conway Twitty country hit with the lyric “And if it’s too late for love to change your mind …” : GOODBYE TIME

“Goodbye Time” is a 1988 song recorded by country singer Conway Twitty. The lyrics take the form of a man addressing a former lover, and trying to convince her not to leave him. According to co-songwriter James Dean Hicks, he was inspired to write the song while watching his brother go through a divorce, and “holding on to something that was already gone”.

11D Colleague of Sterling, Cooper and Pryce, on “Mad Men” : DRAPER

“Mad Men” was the flagship show on the AMC television channel for several seasons. Set in the sixties, it’s all about an advertising agency located on Madison Avenue in New York (hence the title). “Mad Men” became the first show created by a basic cable channel to win an Emmy for Outstanding Drama Series.

23D Rum-soaked cake : BABA

Rum baba (also “baba au rhum” in French) is a small yeast cake saturated in rum, and sometimes filled with whipped cream. Rum baba is derived from the recipe for the tall “babka” yeast cake that was introduced to the world by the Polish communities. The Polish words “baba” and “babka” mean “old woman” or “grandmother” in English. I guess someone must have thought that all grandmothers were saturated in rum!

25D Requirements for many vacationers abroad : TRAVEL VISAS

A visa is usually a stamp in one’s passport, an indication that one is authorized to enter (and less often, to exit) a particular country. The word “visa” comes into English, via French, from the Latin expression “charta visa” meaning “paper that has been seen”, or “verified paper”.

27D Like an oak tree vis-à-vis a fir : LEAFIER

We can use the French phrase “vis-à-vis” as a preposition meaning “compared with”. When used as an adverb or adjective, it means “face-to-face”, which is a more literal translation from French.

32D Prefix with politics : GEO-

Geopolitics is a discipline that analyzes how a nation’s geographic realities, such as defensible mountain borders, navigable rivers, or access to warm-water ports, directly dictate its foreign policy and international power. The term “geopolitics” was coined in 1899 by Swedish political scientist Rudolf Kjellén. He argued that sovereign states behave much like biological organisms constrained by their physical environments. Very interesting …

35D Author of “Superfudge” and “Double Fudge” : JUDY BLUME

Judy Blume writes novels for children and young adults. Blume’s novels for teens were groundbreaking when first published, tackling such difficult subjects as racism, divorce and bullying.

36D Degs. for some barristers : LLDS

The honorary degree of Legum Doctor (LL.D.) translates from the Latin as Doctor of Laws, a plural. This practice of using the plural originated in Cambridge University in England, as one was awarded an LL.D. after having been taught both Canon Law and Civil Law.

39D Multivolume ref. work : OED

The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) serves as a definitive 20-volume historical record of the English language, tracing word evolution from the mid-12th century. There is an abridged counterpart to the OED: the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (SOED) is a two-volume publication (I own one; it is huge, and expensive!) that focuses on vocabulary used primarily since 1700. The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary (Compact OED) offers the entire unabridged text through a micrographic printing process that fits the 20-volume set into a single volume. The print in the Compact OED is so small that it was bundled with its own magnifying glass!

46D [Ba-dum-tss] : RIMSHOT

A rim shot is a sound made when a drummer hits the head of a drum and the rim at the same time. It’s a sound often used by comics to help punctuate a gag.

47D Toy that can “walk” down stairs : SLINKY

The marvelous Slinky toy was invented in the early forties by a naval engineer named Richard James. James was developing springs for the navy that could stabilize sensitive instruments in rough seas. One day he accidentally knocked one of his experimental coils off a shelf and watched it “step” onto a stack of books, then onto a table and from there onto the floor where it recoiled itself very neatly. The Slinky was born …

48D Virgil epic : AENEID

Aeneas was a Trojan hero of myth who traveled to Italy and became the ancestor of all Romans. Aeneas’s story is told in Virgil’s epic poem “The Aeneid”.

57D Turing who proposed the Turing test : ALAN

Alan Turing was an English mathematician. He was well-respected for his code-breaking work during WWII at Bletchley Park in England. However, despite his contributions to cracking the German Enigma code and other crucial work, Turing was prosecuted for homosexuality in 1952. He agreed to chemical castration, treatment with female hormones, and then two years later he committed suicide by taking cyanide. Turing’s life story is told in the 2014 film “The Imitation Game” with Benedict Cumberbatch playing the lead. I thoroughly enjoyed that film …

Alan Turing created the Turing test in 1950 as a way of checking a machine’s ability to exhibit intelligent behavior indistinguishable from a human. The essence of the test is an evaluation of a text conversation between machine and human. The evaluation is carried out by someone who only knows that one of the conversants is a machine, but not which one is which.

59D Omar who co-starred in “Higher Learning,” 1995 : EPPS

Actor Omar Epps was originally a rapper and was a member of a group called “Wolfpack” before he pursued acting full-time. His really big break came in the form of a recurring role on the popular medical drama series “ER”, followed by a recurring role in the TV series “House” as Dr. Eric Foreman.

63D Fútbol cheer : OLE!

In Spanish, a “fútbol” (football, soccer) supporter might shout “olé!” (bravo!).