Category: Gene Louise De Vera

Bill’s time: 19m 00s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

6 Song and dance : RIGAMAROLE

“Rigmarole” (sometimes “rigamarole”) is a lovely word, used for an elaborate and complicated procedure. According to the OED, the term evolved from a medieval game of chance called “Ragman’s Roll”. I guess it was a complicated game …

16 Lyrical piece : EPODE

An epode is a lyric poem made up of couplets in which the first line is long, and the second line much shorter. The form was invented by the Greek poet Archilochus, and was most famously used by the Roman poet Horace.

22 Sources of wind sounds : REEDS

Woodwind instruments are a subcategory of wind instruments that were traditionally made of wood, although some are now made from metal. There are two main classes of woodwind: flutes and reed instruments. Flutes produce sound by blowing air across the edge of a hole in a cylindrical tube. Reed instruments produce sounds by blowing into a mouthpiece, which then directs the air over a reed or reeds, causing them to vibrate.

23 Neck, in Newcastle : SNOG

“Snogging” is British slang of unknown origin that dates back to the end of WWII. The term is used for “kissing and cuddling”, what we call “making out” over here in the US.

The term “necking” applies to kissing and caressing. I like what Groucho Marx had to say on the subject:

Whoever named it necking was a poor judge of anatomy.

25 Scuttlebutt, these days : TEA

Just as modern day office workers gather around the water cooler to gossip, on board a ship back in the early 1800s the sailors would gather around the water barrel on the deck to shoot the breeze. That water barrel was called a “scuttlebutt”, from “scuttle” (opening in a ship’s deck) and “butt” (barrel). Quite interesting …

29 Magic center, familiarly : SHAQ

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.”

The Orlando Magic were formed in 1989 as an NBA expansion team. A local paper was asked to run a competition to suggest names for the new team and the community came up with its four top picks of “Heat”, “Tropics”, “Juice” and “Magic”. A committee then opted for “Orlando Magic”. A good choice I think …

30 Certain digital denizen : SIM

SimCity is a very clever computer game. Players build and grow cities and societies by creating the conditions necessary for people (the Sims) to move in and thrive. SimCity was launched in 1989, and to this day it is consistently ranked as one of the greatest computer games of all time.

Nowadays we use “denizen” to mean simply “resident”, but historically a denizen was an immigrant to whom certain rights had been granted, somewhat like today’s resident alien.

34 Creature that returns to the beach where it was born for laying eggs : SEA TURTLE

Sea turtles don’t reach sexual maturity until they are decades old. Turtles mate at sea and then the females head to the shore to lay their eggs. Oftentimes, the female turtle returns to the very same beach where she herself hatched.

42 Esq., often : ATT

The title “esquire” is of British origin and is used differently today depending on whether one is in the US or the UK. Here in America the term is usually reserved for those practicing the law (both male and female). In the UK, “esquire” is a term of gentle respect reserved for a male who has no other title that one can use. So, a mere commoner like me might receive a letter from the bank, say, addressed to W. E. Butler Esq.

43 Rock band founded by three sisters : HAIM

Haim is a Los Angeles band consisting of three Haim sisters: Este, Danielle and Alana.

47 Digital recording pioneer : TIVO

TiVo is a digital video recorder (DVR) that revolutionized the way we watch television. The first TiVo devices were installed in homes in 1999, when they were the first consumer DVRs to hit the market. TiVo was originally marketed as a way to “pause live TV.” It quickly became known for its ability to record TV shows and movies, allowing viewers to watch them at their convenience.

51 Producers of some waves : SINES

A sine wave is a mathematical function that describes a simple, smooth, repetitive oscillation. The sine wave is found right throughout the natural world. Ocean waves, light waves and sound waves all have a sine wave pattern.

53 Letters for the dearly departed : RIP

Rest in peace (RIP)

Down

1 River that once marked the boundary of the Wild West : PECOS

The Pecos River rises north of the village of Pecos in New Mexico, and flows almost a thousand miles before entering the Rio Grande near Del Rio, Texas. Arguably, the Pecos is the only river in the world that crosses itself. In the late 1800s, settlers near Carlsbad, New Mexico built a series of dams and canals to irrigate the semi-arid Pecos Valley. The irrigation project included a large wooden flume that in its heyday carried 9,000 gallons of water per second, 145 feet above the river. Apparently, that water originated in the Pecos, hence the claim that the Pecos “crossed itself”. I’m a bit skeptical of the physics behind that claim though …

5 Mary I, to Henry VIII : HEIR

Mary I was Queen of England and Ireland from 1553 to 1558. She was the only surviving child from the marriage of King Henry VIII and his first wife, Catherine of Aragon. Unlike her father, Mary adhered to her Roman Catholic faith and was noted for her brutal persecution of Protestants during her reign. She had almost three hundred religious dissenters burned at the stake, resulting in her gaining the nickname “Bloody Mary”. Roman Catholic rule was reversed after she died, when her half-sister Elizabeth I succeeded to the throne.

8 Old muscle cars : GTOS

The Pontiac GTO was produced by GM from 1964 to 1974, and again by a GM subsidiary in Australia from 2004 to 2006. The original GTO’s design is credited to Pontiac chief engineer at the time John DeLorean, who later founded the DeLorean Motor Company.

9 “Human Concretion” sculptor : 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.

11 Xenomorph who can produce humanoid offspring : ALIEN QUEEN

The antagonists in the “Alien” series of films are extraterrestrials, described at one point in the script as “xenomorphs”. The term “xenomorph” was coined for the screen using the Greek roots “xeno-” (other, strange) and “-morph” (shape).

13 Younger contemporary of Virgil : OVID

The Roman poet Publius Ovidius Naso is known today simply as Ovid. Ovid is usually listed alongside the two other great Roman poets: Horace and Virgil. Although he was immensely popular during his own lifetime, Ovid spent the last ten years of his life in exile. He fell foul of Emperor Augustus and so was banished to Tomis, an island in the Black Sea. What led to this disfavor seems to have been lost in the mists of time.

Publius Vergilius Maro (better known as “Virgil”) was a poet from ancient Rome. His best known works are:

• The “Eclogues” (or “Bucolics”)
• The “Georgics”
• The “Aeneid”

24 Xi’s language : GREEK

The Greek letter “xi”, despite the name, is not the precursor of our letter X. Our X comes from the Greek letter “chi”.

30 Classic poem with the lines “Leaving behind nights of terror and fear … Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear” : STILL I RISE

“And Still I Rise” is a 1978 volume of poetry by Maya Angelou. The collection’s title poem is “Still I Rise”, which ends with:

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

32 Eton ___ (traditional English dessert) : MESS

The dessert Eton mess is a mixture of strawberries or other berries, meringue, and whipped cream. It is believed to originate from Eton College in England, hence the name.

34 A flute might have a short one : STEM

The narrow bowl of a champagne flute is usually preferred over the wide bowl of a champagne coupe as the smaller surface area of the wine helps retain its carbonation.

40 Aviation legend : EARHART

Amelia Earhart is as famous today as she was during her lifetime. When she became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic she was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross by Congress, and the Cross of Knight of the Legion of Honor by the French government. She made two attempts to circumnavigate the globe by air (not solo). Her first attempt in March 1937 had to be abandoned when her aircraft was damaged during takeoff. The second attempt in June/July of the same year ended when Earhart and her navigator disappeared flying from Lae, New Guinea to Howland Island in the Central Pacific.

45 Manscape, perhaps : SHAVE

The practice of men removing and trimming their body hair is known as “manscaping”, a portmanteau of “man” and “landscaping”.

46 Proverbial thing to cross, in politics : AISLE

The concept of left-right politics started in France during the French Revolution. When members of France’s National Assembly convened in 1789, supporters of the King sat to the President’s right, and supporters of the revolution to the President’s left. The political terms “left” and “right” were then coined in the local media, and have been used ever since.

48 One-sided columns : OP-EDS

“Op-ed” is an abbreviation for “opposite the editorial page”. Op-eds started in “The New York Evening World” in 1921 when the page opposite the editorials was used for articles written by a named guest writer, someone independent of the editorial board.

49 Radius neighbor : ULNA

The radius and ulna are bones in the forearm. If you hold the palm of your hand up in front of you, the radius is the bone on the “thumb-side” of the arm, and the ulna is the bone on the “pinky-side”.

54 Magnum and Spade, for short : PIS

Private investigator (PI)

“Magnum, P.I.” is a TV series that aired in the eighties starring Tom Selleck in the title role. The show was incredibly successful, especially during its first five years. Many big names made guest appearances including Vic Morrow, Orson Welles and Frank Sinatra. The series was rebooted in 2018 as “Magnum P.I.” (no comma!) with Jay Hernandez playing the title character.

Private detective Sam Spade is the main character in Dashiell Hammett’s novel “The Maltese Falcon”. Spade was played by Humphrey Bogart in the 1941 film adaptation directed by John Huston.

55 Music group co-founded by Dr. Dre : NWA

N.W.A was a hip hop group from Compton, California. The original five group members included rappers who made a name for themselves as solo acts, including: Dr. Dre, Eazy-E and Ice Cube. The story of N.W.A is told in a 2015 film, also called “Straight Outta Compton”. I hear that the movie was well received, although hip hop is not my cup of tea. I’m just too old …