Category: Adam Wagner

Bill’s time: 14m 46s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1A Duds in bed? : PJS

“Duds” is an informal word meaning “clothing”. The term comes from the word “dudde” that was used around 1300 as the name for a cloak.

9A Retailer across the street from Rockefeller Center : SAKS

Saks Fifth Avenue is a high-end specialty store that competes with the likes of Bloomingdale’s and Neiman Marcus. The original Saks & Company business was founded by Andrew Saks in 1867. The first Saks Fifth Avenue store was opened on Fifth Avenue in New York City in 1924. There are now Saks Fifth Avenue stores in many major cities in the US, as well in several locations worldwide.

Rockefeller Center is actually made of nineteen buildings in Midtown Manhattan. The site was developed by John D. Rockefeller, who first leased the 22-acre lot back in 1928. The original plan was to build a new opera house for the Metropolitan Opera, but the stock market crash of 1929 led to those plans being canceled. Because of the Great Depression, Rockefeller was forced to fund the whole development project himself, a huge undertaking, but a very successful one.

15A Very, very particular : ANAL

The use of the word “anal” to mean “stiffly conventional” is an abbreviated form of “anal-retentive”, a term derived from Freudian psychology. Regardless, I’m not a big fan of the term …

16A Cubing needs : KNIVES (SKINDIVES – SID)

Skin diving is underwater diving without SCUBA tanks.

25A ___ ejemplo : POR

In Spanish, “por ejemplo” means “for example”.

32A Niihau neighbor : KAUAI

Because the Hawaiian island of Kauai is one of the wettest places on earth, all the rainfall has helped to carve out magnificent canyons and left superb waterfalls. The island is often used as a backdrop for movies. The facilities at the island’s Lihue Airport reflect the pleasant climate enjoyed by the Hawaiian Islands. Check-in takes place completely outdoors!

The Hawaiian island of Niihau lies about 17 miles southwest of Kauai, and has a population of about 100 people. The island is privately owned and so only a few tourists are welcome, and only in the past few decades. The lack of access led to it earning the nickname the “Forbidden Isle”.

43A Spanx founder Blakely : SARA

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.

48A Fops : DANDIES (DAMNED LIES – MEL)

A dandy is a man who is overly fastidious with regard to his personal appearance. There’s a suggestion that the term originated in Scotland, where “Dandy” is a diminutive of the name “Andrew”. Back in the early 1800s, when the use of “dandy” was at its height, the female equivalent was a dandizette.

52A Surfboard stabilizer : FIN

A skeg is an extension to the keel of a boat, and is located towards the stern. “Skeg” is also the name for the fin on the underside of a surfboard that is positioned towards the rear.

53A Vesper Lynd portrayer in “Casino Royale” : EVA GREEN

Despite the English-sounding name, Eva Green is a French actress. Green played Bond Girl Vesper Lynd in the 2006 movie “Casino Royale” opposite Daniel Craig.

54A “Star Wars” character originally portrayed by a puppet that weighed over a ton : JABBA

Jabba the Hutt is the big blob of an alien that appears in the “Star Wars” movie “The Return of the Jedi”. Jabba’s claim to fame is that he enslaved Princess Leia.

56A They may be threaded : BROWS

Threading is a method of removing unwanted hair. It involves a doubled thread that catches hairs, which are then plucked from the skin. The process really originated in Central Asia and India and was imported to the US, where it gained in popularity in the 1980s. Ouch!

60A Singer with the #1 hits “Umbrella” and “Disturbia,” familiarly : RIRI

“Umbrella” is a 2007 song released by Rihanna as the lead single from the album “Good Girl Gone Bad”. It features rap artist Jay-Z, who also co-wrote the song. The song was a huge hit, and topped charts all over the world. While “Umbrella” was at number-one in the UK, the nation was plagued with unseasonal rain storms and flooding. One British newspaper dubbed the event the “Rihanna Curse”. The “Curse” moved around the planet, with the number-one spot coinciding with storms in New Zealand and Romania.

“Disturbia” is a 2008 song released by Rihanna. It was the third song released from her album “Good Girl Gone Bad: Reloaded”, and the third of those songs to reach number-one in the “Billboard” charts.

61A Levi’s Stadium player, informally : NINER

The 49ers football team in San Francisco takes its name from the gold prospectors who flooded into Northern California around 1849 during the California gold rush. These “1849 prospectors” became known as the “49ers”.

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 January 2016 when it was used as the venue for the Super Bowl. Given the sponsorship by Levi Stauss, the jeans manufacturer, the venue has the nickname “Field of Jeans”, a play on the movie title “Field of Dreams”.

62A Actor who participated in the first WrestleMania event, in 1985 : MR T

Mr. T’s real name is Laurence Tero Tureaud. Mr. T is famous for many things, including the wearing of excessive amounts of jewelry. He started this habit when he was working as a bouncer, wearing jewelry items that had been left behind by customers at a nightclub so that the items might be recognized and claimed. It was also as a bouncer that he adopted the name Mr. T. His catch phrase comes from the movie “Rocky III”. In the film, before he goes up against Rocky Balboa, Mr. T says, “No, I don’t hate Balboa, but I pity the fool”. He parlayed that line into quite a bit of success. He had a reality TV show called “I Pity the Fool”, and produced a motivational video called “Be Somebody … or Be Somebody’s Fool!”.

“WrestleMania” is a pay-per-view professional wrestling event that was first produced in 1985. I really don’t do wrestling …

65A Supporting article? : BRA

The first modern bra was invented by a New York socialite named Mary Phelps Jacob in 1913. Jacob was looking for a more comfortable and fashionable alternative to the corsets that were then commonly worn, and she fashioned a bra using two handkerchiefs and some ribbon. She later patented her invention, which she called the “Backless Brassiere.”

Down

6D Off-road rover, for short : ATV

All-terrain vehicle (ATV)

10D Baker of R&B : ANITA

Anita Baker is an R&B and soul singer who was raised in Detroit, Michigan. Baker’s most successful song is the Grammy-winning “Sweet Love” that was released in 1986.

11D Actress Sagal : KATEY

Katey Sagal played Peggy Bundy on “Married … with Children”. Later she took over as star of the show “8 Simple Rules” in the middle of its run, when John Ritter passed away unexpectedly in 2003. Sagal then appeared on the FX drama “Sons of Anarchy”. In 2004, she married Kurt Sutter who created the “Sons of Anarchy” series.

17D Blues’ grp. : NHL

The St. Louis Blues hockey team takes its name from the song “St. Louis Blues”, a jazz and popular music classic.

18D “I’ve got the answer!” : EUREKA!

“Eureka” translates from Greek as “I have found it”. The word is usually associated with Archimedes, uttered as he stepped into his bath one day. His discovery was that the volume of water that was displaced was equal to that of the object (presumably his foot) that had been submerged. He used this fact to determine volume (and density) of a crown, something he needed in order to determine if it was made of pure gold or was a forgery.

21D Atomic number of neon : TEN

Neon (Ne) was discovered in 1898 by two British chemists, Sir William Ramsay and Morris Travers. They chilled a sample of air, turning it into a liquid. They then warmed that liquid and separated out the gases that boiled off. Along with nitrogen, oxygen and argon (already known), the pair of scientists discovered two new gases. The first they called “krypton” and the second “neon”. “Krypton” is Greek for “the hidden one” and “neon” is Greek for “new”.

24D Musical with the showstopper “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina” : EVITA

“Don’t Cry For Me Argentina” is a hit song that came out of the 1976 concept album “Evita” by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice. Recorded by English singer Julie Covington, it is sung by the character Eva Perón on the album and in the subsequent stage musical. Covington opted out from appearing in the musical, and so the role of Eva went to Elaine Paige.

31D First name in cosmetics : ESTEE

Estée Lauder was a very successful businesswoman, and someone with a great reputation as a salesperson. Lauder introduced her own line of fragrances in 1953, a bath oil called “Youth Dew”. “Youth Dew” was marketed as a perfume, but it was added to bathwater. All of a sudden women were pouring whole bottles of Ms. Lauder’s “perfume” into their baths while using only a drop or two of French perfumes behind their ears. That’s quite a difference in sales “volume” …

33D Dish that creates an explosion of rich flavors, in modern parlance : UMAMI BOMB

“Umami” is a loanword from Japanese, literally meaning “pleasant savory taste”. It was first scientifically identified as a distinct taste in 1908 by Japanese chemist Kikunae Ikeda, who discovered that the amino acid glutamate was responsible for the unique taste (umami) of kombu seaweed.

34D Narrator/antagonist in “Hamilton” : AARON BURR

Aaron Burr was the third vice-president of the US, and served under Thomas Jefferson from 1801 to 1805. In the final year of his term in office, Burr fought an illegal duel and killed his political rival Alexander Hamilton. Burr was charged with several crimes as a result, but those charges were eventually dropped. The Democratic-Republican Party had already decided not to nominate Burr as candidate for vice president to run alongside Jefferson in the 1804 election, largely because the relationship between Vice President Burr and President Jefferson was so poor. The subsequent fallout resulting from the killing of Alexander Hamilton effectively ended Burr’s political career.

37D Perfume compounds : ESTERS

Esters are very common chemicals. The smaller, low-molecular weight esters are usually pleasant smelling and are often found in perfumes. At the other end of the scale, the higher-molecular weight nitroglycerin is a nitrate ester and is very explosive, and polyester is a huge molecule and is a type of plastic. Fats and oils found in nature are fatty acid esters of glycerol known as glycerides.

39D Most characters in Pixar’s first film : TOYS

1995’s “Toy Story” was the world’s first feature-length computer-animated movie. It was also Pixar’s first production. The main roles in the film are Buzz Lightyear and Woody, who are voiced by Tim Allen and Tom Hanks respectively. Hanks was the first choice to voice Woody, but Allen was asked to voice Buzz after Billy Crystal turned down the role.

42D Bash : SHINDIG

“Shindig” is such a lovely word, I think. It describes a party that usually includes some dancing. Although its origin isn’t really clear, the term perhaps comes from “shinty”, a Scottish game that’s similar to field hockey.

45D “___ to Joy” : ODE

“Ode to Joy” is a poem written in 1785 by German poet Friedrich Schiller. Famously, Ludwig van Beethoven used “Ode to Joy” in the fourth movement of his Ninth “Choral” Symphony that was first performed in 1824.

48D Messing around on TV? : DEBRA

Debra Messing is most famous for playing Grace Adler on the television series “Will & Grace”.

49D Mars follower, in Marseille : AVRIL

Marseille (often written “Marseilles” in English) is the second largest city in France, after Paris. Marseille is also the largest commercial port in the country. I used to live nearby, and can attest that Marseille and environs is a great place to visit …

50D Source of the word “tiki” : MAORI

A tiki is a large carving of wood or stone resembling a human form that is found in Polynesian cultures. The carvings often mark out boundaries surrounding sites that are sacred to the locals.

51D Sierra ___ : LEONE

The Republic of Sierra Leone is a country in West Africa that lies on the Atlantic Coast. The capital city of Freetown was originally set up as a colony to house the “Black Poor” of London, England. These people were mainly freed British slaves of Caribbean descent who were living a miserable life in the run-down parts of London. Perhaps to help the impoverished souls, perhaps to rid the streets of “a problem”, three ships were chartered in 1787 to transport a group of Blacks, with some Whites, to a piece of land purchased in Sierra Leone. Those who made the voyage were granted British citizenship and protection. The descendants of these immigrants, and others who made the journey over the next 60 years, make up the ethnic group that’s today called the Sierra Leone Creole.

55D Palindromic flour : ATTA

Atta is a whole-wheat flour used to make flatbreads in South Asian cuisine, such as chapati and naan. “Atta” is the Hindi or Urdu word for “dough”.