Category: Aidan Deshong

Bill’s time: 15m 20s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

13A Purple-hatted Nintendo character : WALUIGI

In the “Mario” franchise of video games, Wario is the archrival to Mario, and Waluigi is Luigi’s archrival. Makes sense …

15A Mildew, e.g. : BLIGHT

A “blight” is a disease caused by some infective organism that results in the rapid browning of the plant due to the death of tissues such as leaves, branches and flowers. One of the most famous of such diseases is the potato blight caused by the fungus-like microorganism Phytophthora infestans. It was potato blight that caused the Great Famine in Ireland, which led to the death of about a million people and the mass emigration of about a million more between 1845 and 1852.

16A Little Italian toasts : CROSTINI

Crostini are Italian appetizers (literally “little toasts”) made up of pieces of toasted bread with a topping.

20A English town known for its mineral water : EPSOM

The Surrey town of Epsom in England is most famous for its racecourse (Epsom Downs), at which the Epsom Derby is run every year, one of the three races that make up the English Triple Crown. We also come across “Epsom salts” from time to time. Epsom salt is magnesium sulfate, originally prepared by boiling down mineral waters. Epsom was indeed a spa town at one time. The town is also home to Epsom College, an English “public school” (which actually means “private, and expensive”). One of Epsom’s “old boys” was the Hollywood actor Stewart Granger.

22A Historical event that acquired its name almost two decades after it ended, in brief : WWI

Prior to the outbreak of World War II, what we now know as World War I was referred to as “the World War” or “The Great War”.

23A Car once promoted with the slogan “It’s Your Money … Demand Better,” informally : OLDS

Oldsmobile was an automobile brand founded by Ransom E. Olds (REO) in 1897. The brand was finally phased out by General Motors in 2004.

24A Joy of television : BEHAR

Joy Behar is a comedian, and former co-host of the hit talk show “The View”. Behar was one of the original co-hosts of “The View”, and stayed with the show from 1997 until 2013, and then rejoined the show in 2015. She briefly hosted her own talk show called “Late Night Joy” in November 2015.

25A Windjammer, e.g. : SHIP

A windjammer is a very large sailing ship with a metal hull that carried cargo in the 1800s and 1900s. Windjammers had 3-5 masts and large square sails. The term “windjammer” comes from the verb “to jam”, as the large sails were said “to jam” the wind.

33A Pats (down) : TAMPS

To tamp is to pack down tightly by tapping. “Tamp” was originally used specifically to describe the action of packing down sand or dirt around an explosive prior to detonation.

35A Something chewed over : CUD

Animals that chew the cud are called ruminants. Ruminants eat vegetable matter but cannot extract any nutritional value from cellulose without the help of microbes in the gut. Ruminants collect roughage in the first part of the alimentary canal, allowing microbes to work on it. The partially digested material (the cud) is regurgitated into the mouth so that the ruminant can chew the food more completely, exposing more surface area for microbes to do their work.

40A Something to climb in a WWE match : ROPE

World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) is a company promoting professional wrestling as a form of entertainment.

42A Rube : YOKEL

A rube is a person lacking sophistication, someone often described as a country bumpkin. The term derives from the masculine name “Reuben”, which was considered back in the early 1800s to be a typical name used in rural areas.

43A Literature Nobelist who wrote “Siddhartha” : HESSE

The 1922 novel “Siddhartha” by Hermann Hesse focuses on the spiritual journey of a man called Siddhartha. Even though the Buddha’s name was Siddhartha Gautama before he renounced his former life, Hesse’s Siddhartha is a different character, but one who lived around the time of the Buddha.

44A People whose flag depicts the Lion of Judah : RASTAS

Rastafari, often shortened to “Rasta”, is an Abrahamic religion that developed in Jamaica during the 1930s. Its adherents believe Haile Selassie I, the former Emperor of Ethiopia, is God incarnate and the returned Messiah.

46A Animal that sleeps while floating on its back : SEA OTTER

Sea otters actually hold hands while sleeping on their backs so that they don’t drift apart. When sea otter pups are too small to lock hands, they clamber up onto their mother’s belly and nap there.

48A University of California campus locale : IRVINE

UC Irvine is one of ten campuses in the University of California, and is located in Irvine, California just outside of Los Angeles. Irvine’s athletic teams have been called the anteaters since 1965, a name suggested by students in honor of the anteater in the Johnny Hart comic strip “B.C.”

49A “The Ultimate Trivia Destination,” per its website : SPORCLE

Sporcle.com is a trivia quiz website. The name is derived from the word “oracle” apparently. I like the web site’s mission statement: “We actively and methodically search out new and innovative ways to prevent our users from getting any work done whatsoever.”

50A Moves in the shadows : SKULKS

To skulk is to move furtively or in a stealthy manner. The verb “to skulk” is of Scandinavian origin. It is a relative of the Norwegian “skulke”, Danish “skulke” and Swedish “skolka” that all have a similar meaning.

51A Parts of cassette players : SPOOLS

The French for “box” is “casse”. So, a “cassette” is a “little box”.

Down

2D Actress Lombard of classic Hollywood : CAROLE

Carole Lombard was an actress active in Hollywood’s Golden Age who was known for her quick wit and screwball comedy roles. She was married twice, to two high-profile Hollywood actors. She married William Powell in 1931, but they divorced two years later. In 1939, she married Clark Gable. Lombard tragically died in a plane crash in 1942 while returning from a war bond tour, making her the first Hollywood celebrity to die in the war.

5D Villainous group of science fiction : SITH

The Sith are characters in the “Star Wars” universe who use the “dark side” of “the Force”, and as such are the antithesis of the Jedi Knights. Members of the Sith use the title “Darth” before their name, as in Darth Vader. The last made of the six “Star Wars” movies is called “Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith”.

6D ___ Fridays : TGI

T.G.I. Fridays is an American restaurant chain that was founded in 1965 in New York City. Today there are over a thousand T.G.I. Fridays restaurants in over 50 countries. I think that Fridays has always been particularly successful overseas. I used to visit one a lot with my family when we lived in the Philippines, and I believe the most successful Fridays restaurant anywhere in the world is the one in Haymarket Leicester Square in London in the UK.

9D “The only ___ is mediocrity”: Martha Graham : SIN

Martha Graham was a much-respected modern dancer and choreographer from Pittsburgh. She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1976 by President Gerald Ford. In fact, First Lady Betty Ford had studied dance with Martha Graham in New York City in the 1930s.

10D Ingredient in meringue cookies : EGG WHITE

Air is incorporated into egg whites when they are whipped to create meringue. The protein in the egg whites traps the air bubbles, forming a foam that expands when heated, resulting in an airy texture.

11D #1 on BBC’s list of greatest 21st-century TV series : THE WIRE

I didn’t watch the HBO series called “The Wire” when it first aired. We ended up buying all five series on DVD and we watched the whole thing several years ago. It is a great drama series, and I thoroughly recommend it.

24D “La Cousine ___” (Balzac novel) : BETTE

Honoré de Balzac was a French novelist and playwright from the 19th century. Balzac wrote a huge collection of related novels called “La Comédie humaine” (The Human Comedy). The work includes 91 stories, novels and essays, written from 1815 to 1848. Balzac also left 46 unfinished works as part of the collection.

31D Phenomenon of experiencing something as strangely new even though one has experienced it before : JAMAIS VU

“Jamais vu” is French for “never seen”.

33D Series of mental blocks? : TETRIS

Tetris is a very addictive video game that was developed in the Soviet Union in 1984. The name Tetris comes from a melding of the prefix “tetra-” (as all the game pieces have four segments) and “tennis” (a favorite sport played by the developer). Since 2005 there have been more than 100 million copies of the game installed on cell phones alone.

35D Retail giant that opened its first store in Seattle in 1983 : COSTCO

Costco is the largest warehouse club in the US, and the second largest retailer in the world (after Wal-Mart). Apparently Costco is also the largest retailer of wine in the whole world. The company was founded in 1983 in Kirkland, Washington. Kirkland Signature is Costco’s store brand, and you can even buy Kirkland Signature wine.

37D Popular farm vehicles : DEERES

John Deere invented the first commercially successful steel plow in 1837. Prior to Deere’s invention, farmers used an iron or wooden plow that constantly had to be cleaned as rich soil stuck to its surfaces. The cast-steel plow was revolutionary as its smooth sides solved the problem of “stickiness”. The Deere company that John founded uses the slogan “Nothing Runs Like a Deere”, and has a leaping deer as its logo.

42D American in Paris? : YANK

The term “Yankee” originated back in the 1600s when Dutch settlers used to call English colonists “Jankes”, a disparaging term meaning “Little Johns”.

47D Some courses for honor students, for short : APS

Advanced Placement (AP)