Category: Adam Wagner

Bill’s time: 28m 46s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

9 ___ Stadium, venue with a cushioned acrylic surface that is the largest of its type in the world : ASHE

Arthur Ashe Stadium in Queens, New York opened in 1997, and is the largest outdoor, tennis-only venue in the world. The stadium was often criticized for not having a retractable dome to protect the playing surface from inclement weather. Well, that changed in 2016 when the stadium debuted its new retractable roof, a $150 million investment in the facility.

17 Inits. associated with accessibility : ADA

Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA)

20 Some ring finishes, for short : TKOS

Technical knockout (TKO)

21 ___ research, source of “dirt” on a political rival : OPPO

In the world of politics, “oppo” is “opposition research”. The idea is to collect information on one’s opponent that can be used against him or her.

22 Dickens clerk DETOUR: Theatrical success : BOB CRATCHIT [BROADWAY HIT]

Bob Cratchit is the underpaid clerk who works for Ebeneezer Scrooge in the Charles Dickens story “A Christmas Carol”.

28 It comes out on top : LAVA

Lava is a phenomenon that results from the eruption of magma from a volcano. Depending on the type of lava and the volcano it comes from, lava can reach temperatures of up to 2,200 degrees Fahrenheit (1,200 degrees Celsius). That’s hot enough to melt steel …

30 Family name in folk music : GUTHRIE

Woody Guthrie was a singer-songwriter. He was best known for his recording of the folk song “This Land is Your Land”, the lyrics of which were written by Guthrie himself.

Singer Arlo Guthrie is known for his protest songs, just like his father Woody Guthrie. The younger Guthrie only ever had one song in the top 40: a cover version of “City of New Orleans”. He has lived for years in the town of Washington, just outside Pittsfield, Massachusetts. His 1976 song “Massachusetts” has been the official folk song of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts since 1981.

31 Parts of some choral arrangements? : RISERS

A riser is a platform that elevates a group of people above a crowd, and so is ideal for the performance of a choir.

32 Boosler who was the first woman to have an hour-long comedy special on cable TV : ELAYNE

Elayne Boosler is a stand-up comedian and was one of the first female comedians to have her act aired as a special on cable television. She does have some funny lines, and here’s one that I particularly like:

When women are depressed they either eat or go shopping. Men invade another country.

34 Big name in health care : AETNA

When the healthcare management and insurance company known as Aetna was founded, the name was chosen to evoke images of Mount Etna, the Italian volcano.

40 Composer Strauss, the brother of Johann : JOSEF

Josef Strauss is one of the lesser known members of the Strauss family, a son of Johann Strauss I and brother of Johann Strauss II. As a young man, his father felt that Josef was better suited for a career outside of music and so he trained as an engineer. Josef has a notable mechanical design to his credit: a street cleaner that used rotating brushes, a horse-drawn version of what we see in the streets today. Josef’s most famous musical work is probably the “Pizzicato Polka” that he co-wrote with his brother Johann II.

43 Glass Onion director Johnson : RIAN

“Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery” is a 2022 sequel to “Knives Out”, with both films written and directed by Rian Johnson and starring Daniel Craig as private investigator Benoit Blanc. Johnson wrote “Glass Onion” during the COVID-19 lockdown, and set the film against the backdrop of the pandemic. The score for both films was written by Nathan Johnson, Rian’s cousin.

45 Homeland Security concerns DETOUR: Computer port inserts : US BORDERS [USB DRIVES]

The Office of Homeland Security was founded less than one month after the 9/11 attacks. Just over a year later, the Homeland Security Act was passed, which created the Department of Homeland Security.

Universal Serial Bus (USB) is an industry standard dealing with how computers and electronic devices connect and communicate, and dealing with electrical power through those connections.

51 Bygone auto inits. : REO

Ransom Eli Olds was a pioneer in the automotive industry, and the founder of the Oldsmobile and REO brands. Olds introduced the first modern “stationary” assembly line (Henry Ford’s famous innovation was the “moving” assembly line). As a result, it can be argued that the Oldsmobile Curved Dash was the first mass-produced, low-priced automobile, rather than Ford’s Model T.

53 Present-day auto inits. : BMW

The initialism “BMW” stands for “Bayerische Motoren Werke”, which translates into Bavarian Motor Works. BMW was making aircraft engines during WWI, but had to cease that activity according to the terms of the Treaty of Versailles. The company then started making motorcycles, and moved into automobile production starting in 1928. BMW moved back into aircraft engine manufacturing during the build-up of the Luftwaffe prior to WWII.

54 Pharaoh who founded Egypt’s 19th dynasty : RAMSES I

Ramesses (also “Ramses”) was the name taken by eleven of the Egyptian pharaohs. “Ramesses” translates as “Born of the sun-god Ra”.

67 ___ cloth (sandpaper alternative) : EMERY

Emery is a very hard type of rock that is crushed for use as an abrasive. Emery paper is made by gluing small particles of emery to paper. Emery boards are just emery paper with a cardboard backing. And emery boards are primarily used for filing nails.

68 They’re laid in Australia DETOUR: They feel your pain : EMU EGGS [EMPATHS]

Emu eggs are very large, with a thick shell that is dark-green in color. One emu egg weighs about the same as a dozen chicken eggs. It is the male emu that incubates the eggs. The incubation period lasts about 8 weeks, during which time the male neither eats nor drinks, just lapping up any morning dew that is nearby. While incubating a clutch of eggs, male emus lose about a third of their weight.

70 Gas whose name comes from the Greek word for “foreigner” : XENON

The element xenon was the first of the noble gases to be made into a compound, which was somewhat remarkable in that the noble gases were thought by many to be completely inert, unreactive.

72 Taxpayer’s ID : SSN

Social Security number (SSN)

77 Hebrew greeting : SHALOM

“Shalom” is a Hebrew word meaning “peace” that is also used to mean “hello” and “goodbye”.

82 O patria ___ (Verdi aria) : MIA

“O patria mia” is an aria from Verdi’s “Aida”. The aria is sung by the title character, with “O patria mia” translating as “O, my homeland”.

83 Metropolis with a Little Havana neighborhood : MIAMI

The Miami neighborhood known as Little Havana is home to many migrants from Cuba, hence the name. It is located immediately west of Downtown Miami. The main drag in Little Havana is “Calle Ocho” (Eighth Street).

84 Major ref. : OED

Oxford English Dictionary (OED)

86 Mineral used in glass production : SILEX

Silex is a ground stone, nowadays usually limited to finely ground and pure silica. It has proved to be very useful over the ages, for example being used as a road surface in Ancient Rome.

87 Texted shrug : IDK

I don’t know (IDK)

88 Photographer’s setting DETOUR: Come in handy : FILM SPEED [FILL A NEED]

A photographic film’s speed is its sensitivity to light. That sensitivity is given an ISO number such as ISO 100 or ISO 2000. The higher the number, the more sensitive the film is to light.

91 Fermented drink from Russia : KVASS

Kvass is an alcoholic beverage made from rye bread that typically has a low-alcohol content (relative to beer, say). Kvass is popular in Eastern and Central European countries.

93 Embargo : BAN

“Embargo” and “blockade” are two similar yet different terms. An embargo is a legal prohibition of trade with a particular country, whilst a blockade is an act of war, a militarily enforced prevention of the movement of goods and services. The term “embargo” came into English from Spanish, in the late 16th century.

95 Bird embodied by the Egyptian god Thoth : IBIS

The ibis is a wading bird that was revered in ancient Egypt. “Ibis” is an interesting word grammatically speaking. You can have one “ibis” or two “ibises”, and then again one has a flock of “ibis”. And if you want to go with the classical plural, instead of two “ibises” you would have two “ibides”!

Thoth was an ancient Egyptian god who was depicted as a man with the head of either a baboon or an ibis. He was the god of many things, including wisdom, writing, magic and the dead.

98 Studio Ghibli genre : ANIME

Studio Ghibli is an animation film studio based in Tokyo. The name “Ghibli” was chosen as it is the name of a hot desert wind that occurs in Libya. The idea is that Studio Ghibli, when founded in 1985, would “blow a new wind through the anime industry”.

107 Jane who says “I need not sell my soul to buy bliss” : 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 …

108 Golden : AUREATE

Something described as aureate has a golden color. “Aurum” is Latin for “gold”.

112 Feature of some sweatpants DETOUR: Well-known musical group with a place name : ELASTIC BAND [E STREET BAND]

The E Street Band is the backing group for Bruce Springsteen. The band came together in 1972 but didn’t take a formal name until two years later. The keyboard player in the original line up was David Sancious, and his mother allowed the group to rehearse at her home. That home was on E Street in Belmar, New Jersey, and that’s where the band got their name.

118 Brown, for one : IVY

Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island is one of the eight Ivy League schools. Brown has been around a long time, founded in 1764, years before America declared independence from England. The university took the name of Brown in 1804 after one Nicholas Brown, Jr. gave a substantial gift to the school. The school’s athletic teams are known as the Brown Bears, and their mascot is Bruno.

119 N.A.A.C.P. and A.C.L.U., for two : NGOS

Non-governmental organization (NGO)

The full name of the NAACP, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, is remarkable in that it still uses the offensive term “colored people”. The NAACP was founded in 1909, by a group that included suffragette and journalist Mary White Ovington, wealthy socialist William English Walling, and civil rights activist Henry Moskowitz. Another member of the founding group was W. E. B. Du Bois, the first African-American to earn a doctorate at Harvard University. The date chosen for the founding of the NAACP was February 12th, 1909, the 100th anniversary of the birth of President Abraham Lincoln, the man most visibly associated with the emancipation of African-American slaves.

American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)

121 Stuffs with bacon fat, say : LARDS

Fat, when extracted from the carcass of an animal, is called suet. Untreated suet decomposes at room temperature quite easily so it has to be rendered, purified to make it stable. Rendered fat from pigs is what we call lard. Rendered beef or mutton fat is known as tallow.

122 Caustic cleaner : LYE

What we call “lye” is usually sodium hydroxide (NaOH), although historically the term “lye” was used for potassium hydroxide. Lye has many uses, including to cure several foodstuffs. Lye can make olives less bitter, for example. The chemical is also found in canned mandarin oranges, pretzels and Japanese ramen noodles. More concentrated grades of lye are used to clear drains and clean ovens. Scary …

Down

1 Titration station : LAB

Titration is a laboratory technique used to determine the concentration of a particular solution. We probably all did titrations in school, using a burette.

7 Company that owns Bloomingdale’s : MACY’S

The original Macy’s store was opened by Rowland Hussey Macy in Haverhill, Massachusetts in 1851. This store, and several others that Macy opened, all failed. Macy picked himself up though, and started over again in New York City. Those early New York stores all focused on the sale of dry goods, but added departments quickly as the clientele grew. The Macy’s red star logo has been around since the company was first established. Macy chose the star because it mimicked the star tattoo that he got as a teenager when he was working on a whaling ship out of Nantucket.

The Bloomingdale’s chain of department stores was founded by two Bloomingdale brothers in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. The company’s original product line was hoop skirts.

8 Neighbor of Djibouti: Abbr. : ETH

Ethiopia is a country in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation on the continent (after Nigeria) and, with 90 million inhabitants, the most populous landlocked country in the world. Most anthropologists believe that our Homo sapiens species evolved in the region now called Ethiopia, and from there set out to populate the planet.

Djibouti is a country in the Horn of Africa that is located to the northwest of Somalia, with coasts on the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. Once known as French Somaliland, the country gained independence from France in 1977. The newly independent nation adopted the same name as Djibouti, the capital city.

11 Jumble : HODGEPODGE

“Hochepot” is an Old French word for stew or soup, and this gave rise to an Anglo-French legal term for a collection of property that was gathered prior to being divided up. This became our “hodgepodge” in the early 1400s.

12 Early victim of identity theft? : ESAU

Esau was the twin brother of Jacob, the founder of the Israelites. When their mother Rebekah gave birth to the twins “the first emerged red and hairy all over (Esau), with his heel grasped by the hand of the second to come out (Jacob)”. As Esau was the first born, he was entitled to inherit his father’s wealth (it was his “birthright”). Instead, Esau sold his birthright to Jacob for the price of a “mess of pottage” (a meal of lentils).

13 Israel’s Dayan : MOSHE

Moshe Dayan had a long and distinguished military career (including command of Israeli forces during the 1956 Suez Crisis). He also played a pivotal, and militarily active, role as Minister for Defense during the Six-Day War of 1967. He was a very recognizable figure with a black patch over his left eye. Dayan received that injury when he was fighting for the Allies in Vichy French Lebanon during WWII. He was using a pair of binoculars that was hit by an enemy bullet, smashing metal and glass fragments into his eye.

14 Photographer’s setting : APERTURE

Varying the f-stop in a lens varies how big the lens opening (the aperture) is when a photograph is taken. Smaller apertures (higher f-stop values) admit less light, but result in a greater depth of field (more of the photograph is in focus).

19 Come On ___ (1982 hit) : EILEEN

“Come on Eileen” is a great song by the English group Dexys Midnight Runners that was released in 1982. The astronauts on one of the Space Shuttle Discovery missions were woken up by NASA on the final day to the strains of “Come on Eileen”. The mission’s commander was astronaut Eileen Collins.

23 Michael who was knighted in 2000 : CAINE

There have been only two actors who have been nominated for an Academy Award in every decade from the 1960s to the 2000s. One is Jack Nicholson, and the other is Michael Caine. Caine is now known as Sir Michael Caine, as he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in the year 2000.

33 Noggin : NOB

Slang terms for “head” include “bean”, “coconut”, “gourd”, “noodle” and “noggin”.

38 Diamond imperfection? : ERROR

That would be baseball.

40 Vaccinated, to Brits : JABBED

An injection using a hypodermic needle might be termed a “shot” in North America, and a “jab” in Britain and Ireland.

51 CVS competitor : RITE AID

What we know today as Rite Aid started out as one store in Scranton, Pennsylvania in 1962. Rite Aid is now the biggest chain of drugstores on the East Coast of the United States and has operations all over the country.

55 Make more powerful, with “up” : SOUP …

To soup up an engine is to increase its horsepower. The verb probably derives from the older slang term “soup”, which was a narcotic illegally injected into racehorses to make them run faster.

57 Series segments, informally : EPS

Episode (ep.)

59 Five-time winner of the Copa do Mundo : BRASIL

In Portuguese, the national soccer team of “Brasil” (Brazil) has won the “Copa do Mundo” (World Cup) several times.

61 Love It or List It airer : HGTV

“Love It or List It” is a Canadian reality show that airs in the US on HGTV. Each episode features a couple that has differing views about living in their current home, with one “loving it” and pushing for a remodel, and the other wanting to “list it” and buy a new house.

64 Inability to recall the names of everyday things : ANOMIA

Anomia (also “anomic aphasia”) is a form of aphasia in which an individual can usually describe an object in detail, but cannot find the word to name the object.

66 Running kicks? : SNEAKS

“Sneaker” is a common name for an athletic shoe, one that is now used as everyday casual wear. The term “sneaker” is used widely across the US. Back in my homeland of Ireland, the terms “trainer” and “tennis shoe” are more common.

69 Henrik Ibsen play : GHOSTS

Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen wrote “Ghosts” in 1881, although he disputed the popular English translation of his original title. His title of “Gengangere” really means, “The Ones Who Return”, or “Again Walkers”.

72 Literary character who transforms into an insect : SAMSA

“The Metamorphosis” is a famous novella by Franz Kafka that is regarded by many as one of the greatest pieces of short fiction written in the 20th century. The story tells of the metamorphosis of Gregor Samsa into a gigantic insect. His sister Grete Samsa becomes his caregiver.

73 Backyard toy that attaches to a hose : SLIP ‘N SLIDE

Wham-O was founded in 1948, with the company’s first product being the Wham-O slingshot. Since then, Wham-O has marketed a string of hit toys including the Hula Hoop, Frisbee, Slip ‘N Slide, Silly String, Hacky Sack and Boogie Board.

78 Small towns : HAMLETS

A hamlet is a small village, especially one without a church (it says here …).

79 Calvin and Hobbes character based on “every jerk I’ve ever known,” per Bill Watterson : MOE

The comic strip “Calvin and Hobbes” is still widely syndicated, but hasn’t been written since 1995. The cartoonist Bill Watterson named the character Calvin after John Calvin, the 16th century theologian. Hobbes was named for Thomas Hobbes, a 17th century English political philosopher.

81 ___ Maria : TIA

Tia Maria is a coffee liqueur that was invented just after WWII in Jamaica using Jamaican coffee beans, Jamaican rum, vanilla and sugar. The drink’s name translates to “Aunt Maria”.

85 Enlighten : EDIFY

To edify is to provide instruction in order to improve spiritually, morally or intellectually. The intent is to “build up” someone’s faith or morality, and so “edify” comes from the Latin “aedificare” meaning “to build, construct”. This Latin root also gives us our word “edifice”, meaning “massive building”.

88 Elle or Dakota of Hollywood : FANNING

Actress Elle Fanning first appeared on film in the 2001 movie “I Am Sam”, in which she played a younger version of her sister and fellow actor Dakota Fanning (a 2-year-old version of the character). One of her first major roles was Aurora/Sleeping Beauty alongside Angelina Jolie in the 2014 movie “Maleficent”. Fannin reprised the role in the 2019 sequel “Maleficent: Mistress of Evil”.

90 Resolution units : PIXELS

A pixel is a dot, and the base element that goes to make up a digital image.

93 Leave high and dry : BAIL ON

The phrase “to bail out” (sometimes just “to bail”) means to leave suddenly. We’ve been using the term since the early thirties, when it originated with airline pilots. To bail out is to make a parachute jump.

102 Iraqi city near the Tigris and Euphrates : BASRA

Basra is Iraq’s main port, and is located in the southeast of the country, just 34 miles from the Persian Gulf. Access to the gulf is via the Shatt al-Arab waterway, a river that discharges into the gulf in the port city of Umm Qasr.

The Tigris and Euphrates Rivers run parallel to each other through Iraq and parts of Syria, Turkey and Iran. The fertile land between the rivers was known as Mesopotamia (Greek for “land between two rivers”).

106 Lambert or Levine of pop : ADAM

Singer Adam Lambert is one of the “successes” to come out of the “American Idol” machine. After hitting the big times, Lambert started a collaboration with Brian May and Roger Taylor, performing as Queen + Adam Lambert.

Adam Levine is the lead vocalist of the pop rock band Maroon 5. Levine also served as one of the coaches on the reality show “The Voice” from 2011 through 2019.

111 Many ’90s music purchases : CDS

The compact disc (CD) was developed jointly by Philips and Sony as a medium for storing and playing sound recordings. When the first commercial CD was introduced back in 1982, a CD’s storage capacity was far greater than the amount of data that could be stored on the hard drive of personal computers available at that time.

113 Code of the world’s busiest airport : ATL

Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL) is the world’s busiest airport, as measured by passenger traffic. Atlanta has had that distinction since 1998, and was the world’s busiest in terms of take-offs and landings from 2005 until 2013. Over 50% of Atlanta’s traffic comes from Delta Air Lines.