Category: Caryn L. Robbins

Bill’s time: 7m 24s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

5 Landlocked African country : CHAD

The landlocked African country called Chad takes its name from the second largest wetland on the continent, which is known as Lake Chad.

17 What’s found under Casper’s Christmas tree? : GHOSTLY PRESENTS (sounds like “ghostly presence”)

Casper the Friendly Ghost features in a whole series of cartoon shorts made by Famous Studios. Casper made the big time in 1995 when he appeared in his own “Casper” movie, alongside Christina Ricci, Bill Pullman and Eric Idle.

20 “Outlander” network : STARZ

The Starz premium cable channel is owned by Lionsgate, the same company that owns the Encore cable channel. Starz was launched in 1994 and mainly shows movies.

The “Outlander” period drama TV show is based on a series of novels of the same name by Diana Gabaldon. Stars of the show are Irish actress Caitríona Balfe and Scottish actor Sam Heugan. Balfe plays a military nurse who is transported back in time to mid-17th century Scotland, where she falls in love with a Highland warrior played by Heugan. Because of the success of the TV show, there’s a prequel in the works titled “Outlander: Blood of My Blood.

21 “Evil Woman” rock group, for short : ELO

The Electric Light Orchestra (ELO) recorded the song “Evil Woman” in 1975. “Evil Woman” was written by the band’s lead vocalist Jeff Lynne, in just thirty minutes!

22 Brillo competitor : SOS

S.O.S is a brand of scouring pads made from steel wool impregnated with soap. The product was invented as a giveaway by an aluminum pot salesman in San Francisco called Ed Cox. His wife gave it the name “S.O.S” as an initialism standing for “Save Our Saucepans”. Note the punctuation! There is no period after the last S, and that is deliberate. When Cox went to register the trademark, he found that “S.O.S.” could not be a trademark because it was used as an international distress signal. So he dropped the period after the last S, and I hope made a lot of money for himself and his wife.

Brillo is a soapy, steel wool pad patented in 1913. The company claims that the name “Brillo” is derived from the Latin word for “bright”.

23 Boardroom V.I.P.s : CEOS

Chief executive officer (CEO)

34 Baseball’s “Big Papi” : ORTIZ

The Dominican-American baseball player David Ortiz has the nickname “Big Papi”. After each home run that Ortiz scores, he looks upwards and points to the sky in a tribute to his mother who died in a car crash in 2002 when she was only 46 years old.

38 Feature of a satchel : STRAP

A satchel is a soft-sided bag, one usually with a strap that is often worn diagonally across the body. When we were kids in Ireland, we’d carry our books to and from school in a backpack satchel. Virtually every Irish school child had a satchel back then.

41 N.Y.C. cultural institution that opened nine days after the 1929 stock market crash : MOMA

The founding of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City was very much driven by Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, wife of John D. Rockefeller. Working with two friends, Abby managed to get the museum opened in 1929, just nine days after the Wall Street Crash. The MoMA’s sculpture garden bears the name of Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, and has done so since 1949.

42 Wedding dress fabric : SATIN

The material known as “satin” takes its name from “Zayton”, the medieval Arabic name for the Chinese port city of Quanzhou. Quanzhou was used for the export of large amounts of silk to Europe.

51 The “O” in EGOT : OSCAR

The acronym “EGOT” stands for “Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony”, and is a reference to performers who have won all four awards.

56 Billiards ricochet : CAROM

A carom is a ricochet, the bouncing of some projectile off a surface. “Carom” has come to describe the banking of a billiard ball, the bouncing of the ball off the side of the table.

59 Evidence at the robbery crime scene? : PRINTS OF THIEVES (sounds like “Prince of Thieves”)

“Prince of Thieves” is a nickname associated with the legendary character Robin Hood.

Robin Hood is a figure from English folklore, celebrated in story and song. Some stories suggest that Robin Hood the outlaw was actually a real nobleman, the Earl of Huntingdon. Robin Hood’s famous companion was Maid Marian. Interestingly, the legend of Maid Marian (full name Lady Marian of Leaford) had been around for centuries before she became associated with Robin Hood starting in the 1700s.

65 Island near 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.

68 Dance Dance Revolution move : STEP

Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) is a series of music video games that launched in 1998. DDR is usually found in arcades, as players have to stand on a special dance stage and hit arrows with their feet on cue.

Down

1 Clinton’s first appointee to the Supreme Court, informally : RBG

Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (RBG) served on the US Supreme Court. Justice Ginsburg was the second woman to join the Court, and was nominated by President Bill Clinton. She was diagnosed with colon cancer in 1999 and underwent surgery, chemotherapy and radiation therapy. During that time she did not miss one day on the bench. In 2009 Justice Ginsburg had surgery for pancreatic cancer, and was back to work 12 days later. She had left-lung lobectomy to remove cancerous nodules in 2018, which forced Justice Ginsburg to miss oral argument in January 2019, for the first time since joining the court 25 years earlier. She finally succumbed to pancreatic cancer in 2020. Much of Ginsburg’s life is recounted in the excellent 2018 movie “On the Basis of Sex”.

4 Passover, in Hebrew : PESACH

The Jewish holiday of Passover (also “Pesach”) commemorates the Israelites being freed from slavery in Egypt, as recounted in the Book of Exodus in the Hebrew Bible. In that narrative, God inflicted ten plagues upon the Egyptians, the tenth being the death of their firstborn sons. God instructed the Israelites to mark their doorposts so that the plague would pass over the firstborn Israelites. This “passing over” gives the holiday its name.

5 Pizzeria offerings served with marinara for dipping : CALZONES

A calzone is like a pizza but with the dough base folded in half, forming a semicircle.

7 Dada artist Jean : ARP

Jean Arp was a prominent artist and sculptor who played a crucial role in the development of the Dada and Surrealist movements at the beginning of the 20th century. In the early years of his career, Arp experimented with a range of styles, including Expressionism, Cubism, and Futurism. In 1916, he co-founded the Zurich Dada movement with artists such as Tristan Tzara and Hugo Ball. After the Dada movement began to decline in the 1920s, Arp became associated with the Surrealist movement and continued to explore the possibilities of abstraction in his art.

8 Classic show tune with the lyric “When you know the notes to sing, you can sing most anything” : DO-RE-MI

The famous song that starts off with “Doe, a deer …” is a show tune from the 1959 musical “The Sound of Music”, by Rodgers and Hammerstein. The correct name of the song is “Do-Re-Mi”.

9 Landlocked African country : LESOTHO

Lesotho is an enclaved country that is completely surrounded by the Republic of South Africa(RSA). The nation was ruled as a British colony from 1868 until 1966 under the name “Basutoland”. Basutoland regained its independence in 1966, and became the Kingdom of Lesotho.

10 June 18th vis-à-vis Juneteenth : EVE

“Juneteenth” is a holiday celebrated on June 19th every year, a commemoration of the emancipation of slaves throughout the Confederate South. President Abraham Lincoln’s executive order known as the Emancipation Proclamation came into effect on January 1st, 1863 but it only applied to Confederate states that were not in Union hands. The order freeing the last slaves in the US was issued at the end of the Civil War, on June 19th 1865. That order applied specifically to the State of Texas. Over a decade later, in 1980, Texas became the first state to declare June 19th (“Juneteenth”) a state holiday.

11 Part of La La Land : TINSELTOWN

Back in the mid-1400s, the word “tinsel” applied to cloth into which was woven gold or silver thread. The term came from the Middle French word “estincelle” meaning “spark, spangle”, which ultimately derived from the Latin “scintilla” meaning “spark”. By the end of the 1500s, “tinsel” described thin strips of shiny metal. The word “Tinseltown” wasn’t applied to Hollywood until 1972.

12 N.B.A. forward ___ Porter Jr. : OTTO

Otto Porter Jr. is a professional basketball player who was drafted by the Washington Wizards in 2013, after playing college basketball with the Georgetown Hoyas.

13 Largest Scottish loch by volume : NESS

Scotland’s Loch Ness is famous for its fabled “monster”, referred to affectionately as “Nessie”. The loch is the second-largest lake in the country (Loch Lomond is the largest). Loch Ness takes its name from the River Ness that flows from the loch’s northern end.

18 Option on Halloween : TREAT

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”.

28 Famed backboard-breaking dunker of the 1990s : O’NEAL

Retired basketball player Shaquille O’Neal now appears regularly as an analyst on the NBA TV show “Inside the NBA”. Shaq has quite a career in the entertainment world. His first rap album, called “Shaq Diesel”, went platinum. He also starred in two of his own reality shows: “Shaq’s Big Challenge” and “Shaq Vs.”

29 Activity for Bill Watterson or Bil Keane : CARTOONING

Cartoonist Bill Watterson is best known for the widely syndicated comic strip “Calvin and Hobbes”. He drew that strip from 1985 until 1995, at which point Watterston effectively withdrew into private life. He now values his privacy, and spends a lot of time painting.

Bil Keane was a cartoonist most associated with his strip “The Family Circus”. Once Bil sketched out the text and idea for the cartoon, he used to send it off to his son Jeff Keane who inked and colored the pictures for him in preparation for publication. In the storyline itself, the main characters are based on Bil’s own family. In fact, the son “Jeffy” in the story is based on Jeff, Bil’s son and longtime production assistant. After Bil passed away in 2011, Jeff took over as the author of the strip.

37 Bit of conical-shaped candy : KISS

The Hershey Company produces over 80 million chocolate Kisses each day, and has been making them since 1907.

45 High point of Exodus? : SINAI

According to the Bible, Mount Sinai is the mountain on which Moses was given the Ten Commandments. The Biblical Mount Sinai is probably not the mountain in Egypt that today has the same name, although this is the subject of much debate. The Egyptian Mount Sinai has two developed routes that one can take to reach the summit. The longer gentler climb takes about 2 1/2 hours, but there is also the steeper climb up the 3,750 “steps of penitence”.

50 Large, white waders : EGRETS

Egrets are a group of several species of white herons. Many egret species were faced with extinction in the 1800s and early 1900s due to plume hunting, a practice driven by the demand for egret plumes that could be incorporated into hats.

53 Turntable speeds, for short : RPMS

Revolutions per minute (rpm)

58 Internet ___ : MEME

A meme (from “mineme”) is a cultural practice or idea that is passed on verbally or by repetition from one person to another. The term lends itself very well to the online world where links, emails, files etc. are so easily propagated.

60 Quaff for a caroler, maybe : NOG

“Quaff” is both a verb and a noun. One “quaffs” (takes a hearty drink) of a “quaff” (a hearty drink).

61 What “Gras” means in “Mardi Gras” : FAT
62 What “Mardi” means in “Mardi Gras”: Abbr. : TUE

“Mardi Gras” translates from French as “Fat Tuesday”, and gets its name from the practice of eating rich foods on the eve of the fasting season known as Lent. Lent starts on the next day, called Ash Wednesday.