Category: Jacob McDermott

Bill’s time: 13m 45s

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Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

18 Hat material for the paranoid : FOIL

A paranoid person (“tin hat”) might wear a hat made of aluminum foil in the belief that it provides protection against mind-control and mind-reading.

20 OK, in Oaxaca : BUENO

Oaxaca is a state in the southern part of Mexico on the Pacific coast. The state takes the name of Oaxaca, its largest city.

22 Active ingredient in Off! : DEET

“DEET” is short for “N,N-Diethyl-meta-toluamide”, an active ingredient in insect repellents. DEET is most often used to repel mosquitoes by applying it to the skin and/or clothing. It is also used to protect against tick bites.

25 Occasions to read the Haggadah : SEDERS

The Haggadah is an ancient Jewish text that is traditionally read aloud at the Passover seder. The Haggadah (“telling” in Hebrew) acts as a guide to the seder ritual, which commemorates the Israelites’ Exodus from Egypt.

31 Setting for a battle in “Lawrence of Arabia” : AQABA

The coastal city of Aqaba is the only seaport in the country of Jordan. It lies at the very northern tip of the Gulf of Aqaba, which is off the Red Sea.

“Lawrence of Arabia” is a 1962 movie that recounts the real life story of T. E. Lawrence, a British army officer who was famous for his role in the Sinai and Palestine Campaign of World War I. The title role in the film is played by Irish actor Peter O’Toole. The role of Sherif Ali ibn el Kharish is played by Omar Sharif.

33 Banksy work : MURAL

Banksy is an English graffiti artist who is noted for his contempt of the British government for condemning his work as vandalism. Banksy’s work can fetch a pretty penny at auction. No one seems to know for sure who Banksy actually is …

35 A.C. converter : DIODE

A diode is a component in a circuit, the most notable characteristic of which is that it will conduct electric current in only one direction. Some of those vacuum tubes we used to see in old radios and television were diodes, but nowadays almost all diodes are semiconductor devices.

36 Irreverent Christmas tune : SANTA BABY

Eartha Kitt really did have a unique voice and singing style. Her rendition of “Santa Baby” has to be one of the most distinctive and memorable recordings in the popular repertoire. Some of you will no doubt remember Eartha playing Catwoman on the final series of the 1960s TV show “Batman”.

38 Big name in pest control : ORKIN

Orkin is a pest-control company. If you want to learn more about insects, you might want to visit the O. Orkin Zoo, a permanent exhibit at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. The exhibit has over 300 live insects, all displayed in their natural habitats.

41 Cousin of a wolverine : OTTER

The wolverine is a mammal related to weasels and stoats that looks more like a small bear. Adult wolverines are about the size of a medium dog, but tend to be quite ferocious and can take down a prey that is several times its size.

42 What red might indicate : DEBT

To be in the red is to be in debt, to owe money. The expression “in the red” is a reference to the accounting practice of recording debts and losses in red ink in ledgers. The related phrase “in the black” means “solvent, making a profit”.

55 ___ Zimmer, Oscar-winning composer for “Dune” : HANS

Hans Zimmer is a film composer from Frankfurt in Germany. The long list of films that Zimmer has scored includes “Rain Man” (1998), “The Lion King” (1994), “Gladiator” (2000), “The Dark Knight” (2008), “Inception” (2010) and “12 Years a Slave” (2013).

2021’s epic film “Dune” is the first of a two-part adaptation of Frank Herbert’s 1965 novel of the same name. The version of “Dune” did a lot better than the 1984 big-screen adaptation of the same novel, which really flopped at the box office.

56 Sharon who starred in “The Trials of Rosie O’Neill” : GLESS

Sharon Gless is best known for playing Christine Cagney on the police drama “Cagney & Lacey” in the eighties. A few years after “Cagney & Lacey” ended its run, Gless married the show’s executive producer, Barney Rosenzweig. More recently, Gless had a recurring role playing Madeline Westen on the TV show “Burn Notice”.

Down

1 Distinction not used in the military : AM/PM

The 24-hour clock is the most common type of notation for time in the world, but the 12-hour clock persists in a few major countries including Australia, Canada, India, and the US. Personally, I have used the 24-hour clock for decades. For one thing, it helps me manage the time differences when I am calling family back in Ireland.

2 Eschewing help : SOLO

“To eschew”, meaning “to avoid, shun”, comes from the Old French word “eschiver” that means the same thing.

3 Tabloid pair : ITEM

“Tabloid” is the trademarked name (owned by Burroughs Wellcome) for a “small tablet of medicine”, a name that goes back to 1884. The word “tabloid” had entered into general use to mean a compressed form of anything, and by the early 1900s was used in “tabloid journalism”, which described newspapers that had short, condensed articles and stories printed on smaller sheets of paper.

4 Undertone of Cole Porter’s “Let’s Do It” : SEX

Cole Porter was a little unusual amongst his peers in that he was one of the few successful songwriters who wrote both lyrics and music for his compositions. Porter was seriously injured in a riding accident in his forties and was left disabled and in pain. Despite this, he continued to work and produced his most successful work after the accident.

15 Oh, the humanities! : LIBERAL ARTS

The term “liberal arts” dates back to classical antiquity. The liberal arts were those subjects deemed essential to master for a citizen to take an active part in civil life. “Citizens” were “free people”, hence the use of the term “liberal arts”. The list of subjects studied in olden times were generally sevenfold: grammar, logic, rhetoric, arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy/astrology.

The academic studies of human culture are collectively called the humanities. Subjects included in the humanities are languages, literature, philosophy, religion and music.

24 Pithy remark : MOT

“Bon mot” translates from French as “good word”. We use “bon mot” (and sometimes just “mot”) to mean “quip, witticism”.

28 Actress Greta of “Camille” : GARBO

Famously, Greta Garbo lived a life of seclusion in New York City after she retired from the entertainment business. Commentators often associated her need for privacy with a line she uttered in the great 1932 movie “Grand Hotel”. Her character Grusinskaya the Russian ballerina said, “I want to be alone (…) I just want to be alone”.

29 ___ Cornish, former co-host of “All Things Considered” : AUDIE

Broadcast journalist Audie Cornish hosted NPR’s “Weekend Edition Sunday” from 2011 to 2012, replacing Liane Hansen who hosted the show for over twenty years. Cornish then co-hosted “All Things Considered” until she resigned from NPR in 2022.

32 Rocky road ingredient? : PEA GRAVEL

Gravel is a loose mixture of rock fragments. Gravel is classified by the size of those fragments. For example, pea gravel comprises pea-size, rounded stones.

37 Stingy sort? : BEE

A queen bee has a stinger, just like worker bees. When a worker bee stings, it leaves its stinger in its victim. The worker bee dies after losing its stinger as the loss rips out part of its insides. However, a queen bee can sting with impunity as her stinger’s anatomy is different.

42 “Venus de Milo With Drawers” and “Lobster Telephone” : DALIS

“Lobster Telephone” is a work by surrealist artist Salvador Dalí that dates back to 1936. It consists of a telephone with a plaster lobster lying across the handpiece.

44 Dance in a ring : HORA

The hora is a circle dance that originated in the Balkans. It was brought to Israel by Romanian settlers, and is often performed to traditional, Israeli folk songs. The hora (also “horah”) is a regular sight at Jewish weddings. Sometimes the honoree at an event is raised on a chair during the dance.

51 Drive, with “on” : EGG …

The verb “to edge” has been used to mean to incite, to urge on, from the 16th century. Somewhere along the way “edge” was mistakenly replaced with “egg”, giving us our term “to egg on” meaning “to goad”.