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Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

5 “Dancing Queen” band : ABBA

“Dancing Queen” is a great, great song from 1976 that was released by the Swedish group ABBA. ABBA’s music has never been as popular in the US as it is in other countries, but “Dancing Queen” did make it to the number-one spot in the charts here. It was in fact, ABBA’s only #1 hit in the US.

14 Online alternative to a garage sale : EBAY

There have been some notable things sold on eBay over the years. For example:

• Ad space on a guy’s forehead, in the form of a temporary tattoo – $37,375
• William Shatner’s kidney stone – $25,000
• A cornflake shaped like Illinois – $1,350
• A single corn flake – $1.63
• A box of 10 Twinkies – $59.99
• The original Hollywood sign – $450,400
• The meaning of life – $3.26

16 German sub in W.W. II fighting : U-BOAT

“U-boat” stands for the German “Unterseeboot” (undersea boat). Notably, a U-boat sank the RMS Lusitania in 1915, an event that helped propel the US into WWI.

17 Marine creature that can weigh over 400,000 pounds : BLUE WHALE (blue & wail)

The blue whale is an enormous mammal, one that can weigh about 190 tons at maturity. Not only is the blue whale the largest mammal on the planet, it is the largest animal that ever existed.

19 City that’s home to Arizona State University : TEMPE

Tempe is a city in the metropolitan area of Phoenix. It is named for the Vale of Tempe in Greece.

20 Picture taken with an outstretched arm, perhaps : SELFIE

A selfie is a self-portrait, one usually taken with a digital camera or cell phone. A “group selfie” is sometimes referred to as a “groufie” or “wefie”. A “couple selfie” is known as an “usie” or “ussie”, although those terms are sometimes also used for a group picture.

26 Soft mineral powder : TALC

Talc is a mineral, hydrated magnesium silicate. Talcum powder is composed of loose talc, although these days “baby powder” is also made from cornstarch.

28 Bar from joining a private club, e.g. : BLACKBALL (black & bawl)

There is a traditional type of secret ballot in which a voter selects a white wall to indicate support and a black ball indicates opposition. This voting method led to the use of the term “blackball” to mean to shun or to vote against.

35 Shrek, e.g. : OGRE

Before “Shrek” was a successful movie franchise and Broadway musical, it was a children’s picture book called “Shrek!” that was authored and illustrated by William Steig. The title “Shrek!” came from the German/Yiddish word Schreck, meaning “fear” or “terror”.

38 Caboose’s location : REAR

The word “caboose” originally came from Middle Dutch and was the word for a ship’s galley. When the last car in a train in North America was given a stove for the comfort of the crew, it took on the name “caboose”. The term has also become slang for a person’s backside.

40 Pi is one, for the circumference of a circle to its diameter : RATIO

The ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter is a mathematical constant, which we denote with the Greek letter pi (π). Approximate values for the pi that are often used in calculations are 22/7 and 3.1415926. If you count the letters in each word of the mnemonic “How I wish I could calculate pi easily”, the sequence gives you the first eight digits of the value of pi, i.e. 3.1415926.

43 Big online brokerage : E-TRADE

E-Trade is mainly an online discount brokerage. It was founded in 1982 in Palo Alto, California, and I used to drive by its headquarters almost every day. The company is now run out of New York City. E-Trade used to produce those famous Super Bowl ads with the talking babies staring into a webcam.

48 Chardonnay or pinot grigio, e.g. : WHITE WINE (white & whine)

The chardonnay grape is believed to have originated in the Burgundy wine region of France. Now it’s grown “everywhere”. Drinkers of California “chards” seem to be particularly fond of oak flavor, so most chardonnay wines are aged in oak barrels or with oak chips.

The Pinot gris grape is used to make white wine called Pinot gris, which is also known as Pinot grigio. DNA analysis has shown that the Pinot gris grape mutated from the Pinot noir variety.

53 Closest island to the Big Island : MAUI

Maui is the second-largest Hawaiian island. It is home to the world’s largest dormant volcano, Haleakala, which last erupted over 500 years ago.

The largest island in the state of Hawaii is named Hawaii, and nicknamed “the Big Island”. Of the Hawaiian islands that I’ve had the pleasure to visit, the Big Island is definitely my favorite.

55 What Nielsen ratings measure : AUDIENCE

Arthur Nielsen founded his Nielsen Media Research company to track brand advertising. He quickly moved into market analysis of radio audiences in the thirties, and today the company is famous for tracking television audiences. I remember watching the last episode of the TV series “Becker”, in which Ted Danson played a doctor. Given that the show had been ordered off the air due to declining viewership, there’s a great line in the last episode when Becker asks for the chart of a patient called “Nielsen”. He looks at the lab results and announces “I don’t know what everyone is talking about … these numbers aren’t so bad!” Great stuff …

65 Public uproar … or a phonetic hint to the two words in 17-, 28- and 48-Across? : HUE AND CRY

We use the phrase “hue and cry” figuratively, to describe a public clamor. The term was used in English law to describe the process of summoning bystanders to assist with the apprehension of someone seen committing a crime. It’s possible that the phrase came into English via French from the Latin “hutesium et clamor” meaning “a horn and shouting”.

Down

1 Some Halloween decorations : WEBS

All Saints’ Day is November 1st each year. The day before All Saints’ Day is All Hallows’ Eve, better known by the Scottish term “Halloween”.

3 One of Cuba’s Castros : RAUL

Raul Castro is the younger brother of Fidel Castro. Raul took over as President of Cuba in 2008, when Fidel stepped aside. Raul resigned his position in 2018, and retired from politics.

6 Snake that constricts : BOA

Boa constrictors are members of the Boidae family of snakes, all of which are non-venomous. Interestingly, the female boa is always larger than the male.

8 Ring surrounding a nipple : AREOLA

An areola (sometimes “areole”) in anatomy is a small ring of color, as in the areola surrounding the nipple, and the areola surrounding the pupil of the eye. “Areola” (plural “areolae”) comes from Latin, meaning “small open space”, and is a diminutive of the Latin word “area”, meaning “open space”.

18 Radio reply after “Roger” : WILCO

In the world of radiotelephony, “wilco” is short for “I understand and will comply”.

The term “roger”, meaning “yes” or “acknowledged”, comes from the world of radiotelephony. The British military used a phonetic alphabet in the fifties that included “Roger” to represent the letter “R”. As such, it became customary to say “Roger” when acknowledging a message, with R (Roger) standing for “received”.

22 Lizards with sticky toe pads : GECKOS

The word “gecko” comes from an Indonesian/Javanese word “tokek”, which is imitative of the reptile’s chirping sound. In making such a sound, geckos are unique in the world of lizards. More interesting to me than a gecko’s chirping is its ability to cling to walls and other vertical surfaces. Their feet are specially adapted with “toes” that make extremely intimate, close contact to a surface. The toes have millions of hairs called setae that enable the clinging. It isn’t suction that supports them, but rather van der Waals forces (weak “gravitational” attractions). Fascinating stuff …

24 Start of a magic spell : ABRA-

“Abracadabra” is a 1982 song written by Steve Miller, and recorded by the Steve Miller Band. Apparently, Miller’s inspiration for the song was singer Diana Ross. Miller met Ross when they both appeared on the TV show “Hullabaloo” in the sixties.

26 Canines, e.g. : TEETH

The canine teeth of a mammal are also called the eyeteeth or cuspids. The name “canine” is used because these particular teeth are very prominent in dogs. The prefix “eye-” is used because in humans the eyeteeth are located in the upper jaw, directly below the eyes.

27 Pioneering video game company : ATARI

Atari was founded in 1972, and was one of the pioneers in the video game industry. One of the company’s early employees was Steve Jobs, who was hired to work on the game design for the arcade game “Breakout”. Jobs was tasked with reducing the number of chips needed for the game and he recruited his friend, Steve Wozniak, to help with the project. Wozniak designed a circuit board that used only 46 chips, a significant improvement over the original design that had over 100 chips.

31 One end of a battery : ANODE

A battery is a device that converts chemical energy into electric energy. A simple battery is made up of three parts: a cathode, an anode and a liquid electrolyte. Ions from the electrolyte react chemically with the material in the anode producing a compound and releasing electrons. At the same time, the electrolyte reacts with the material in the cathode, absorbing electrons and producing a different chemical compound. In this way, there is a buildup of electrons at the anode and a deficit of electrons at the cathode. When a connection (wire, say) is made between the cathode and anode, electrons flow through the resulting circuit from the anode to cathode in an attempt to rectify the electron imbalance.

32 Architect Frank ___ Wright : LLOYD

The architect Frank Lloyd Wright embraced the philosophy of designing structures that were in harmony with the environment. One of his most famous works is an elaborate home in rural Pennsylvania known as Fallingwater, which is partially built over a waterfall.

33 Bard’s instrument : LYRE

The lyre is a stringed instrument that is most closely associated with ancient Greece, and with the gods Hermes and Apollo in particular. According to myth, Hermes slaughtered a cow from a sacred herd belonging to Apollo and offered it to the gods but kept the entrails. Hermes used the entrails to make strings that he stretched across the shell of a tortoise, creating the first lyre. Apollo liked the sound from the lyre and agreed to accept it as a trade for his herd of cattle.

41 Tabloid twosome : ITEM

“Tabloid” is the trademarked name (owned by Burroughs Wellcome) for a “small tablet of medicine”, a name that goes back to 1884. The word “tabloid” had entered into general use to mean a compressed form of anything, and by the early 1900s was used in “tabloid journalism”, which described newspapers that had short, condensed articles and stories printed on smaller sheets of paper.

58 “Picnic” playwright William : INGE

Playwright William Inge had a run of success on Broadway in the early fifties. His most celebrated work of that time is the play “Picnic”, for which he was awarded a Pulitzer Prize. The original 1953 cast of “Picnic” included a young male actor making his debut on Broadway. His name was Paul Newman. Many of Inge’s works are set in the American heartland and so he became known as the “Playwright of the Midwest”.

62 Colored part of the eye : IRIS

An iris scan is a method of biometric identification. It relies on the fact that the complex patterns in the irises are unique to an individual. Note that an iris scan differs from a retinal scan. The latter uses technology that scans the unique pattern of blood vessels in an individual’s retina.

63 “We only use 10% of our brain,” e.g. : MYTH

There is a myth that we humans only use 10% of our brains. This story seems to have originated at the beginning of the 20th century. Since then, scientists have determined that we do in fact use our whole brain, even when relaxed or sleeping. It is a very active organ. Even though the brain only makes up 2% of our body weight, it consumes 20% of our calorie intake.