Category: Jeff Chen

Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across
5. Bubs : MACS
“Bub” is American slang, a term used to address males, and is possibly a variation of bud.

19. “Superfood” used in smoothies : ACAI BERRY
Açaí is a palm tree native to Central and South America. The fruit has become very popular in recent years and its juice is a very fashionable addition to juice mixes and smoothies.

21. Devilfish : MANTA
“Sea devil” is another name for the manta ray.

The manta ray is the biggest species of ray, with the largest one recorded at over 25 feet across and weighing 5,100 pounds.

27. Excoriates : SCATHES
“To excoriate” is to abrade or chafe. It also means to strongly denounce something or someone.

33. Fish on many a sashimi platter : AHI
Yellowfin tuna is usually marketed as “ahi”, its Hawaiian name. Yellowfin tuna is one big fish, often weighing over 300 pounds.

“Sashimi” is thinly sliced raw fish, although it can also be raw meat. The word “sashimi” translates literally as “pierced body”, which may be a reference to the practice of sticking the tail and fin to sliced fish to identify it.

35. Bryn ___ : MAWR
I used to live not far from Bryn-mawr (also “Brynmwar”) in Wales, the town with the highest elevation in the country. Appropriately enough, “bryn mawr” is Welsh for “big hill”. There is also a Bryn Mawr in Pennsylvania (note the different capitalization) that is named after its Welsh counterpart. At the Pennsylvania location there’s a Bryn Mawr college, a private women’s school that was the first American university to offer graduate degrees to women.

39. Yankees teammate of Captain Clutch : A-ROD
Professional baseball player Alex Rodriguez earned more nicknames than just A-Rod. He has been called “the Cooler” by some players as there is a perception that teams go cold when he joins them and hot when he leaves. He has also been called “A-Fraud” by teammates because of another perception, that he is over-demanding. Rodriguez now seems to be in a world of hurt for using illegal performance-enhancing drugs.

40. Compos mentis : SANE
“Compos mentis” is Latin, and translates literally as “in command of one’s mind”, and is a term used in law.

44. ID provider : DMV
In most states, the government agency responsible for vehicle registration and the issuing of drivers licenses is called the DMV. This acronym usually stands for the Department of Motor Vehicles, but there are “variations on the theme”. For example, in Arizona the responsible agency is called the Motor Vehicle Division (MVD), and in Colorado the familiar acronym DMV stands for “Division” of Motor Vehicles.

59. Google statistic : HITS
The search engine “Google” was originally called “BackRub” would you believe? The name was eventually changed to Google, an intentional misspelling of the word “googol”. A googol is a pretty big number, 10 to the power of 100. That would be the digit 1 followed by 100 zeros.

60. Part of OTOH : OTHER
On the other hand (OTOH)

62. Java holder : URN
Back in 1850, the name “java” was given to a type of coffee grown on the island of Java, and the usage of the term spread from there.

71. Bartiromo of Fox Business : MARIA
Maria Bartiromo is a television journalist who specializes in business and economics reporting. Bartiromo was the first reporter to broadcast live from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, and a great job she did.

72. Charmin competitor : SCOTT
Charmin and Scott are brands of toilet paper.

73. City in which “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” is set : SALEM
Ken Kesey’s 1962 novel “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” is a set in a psychiatric hospital in Salem, Oregon. The novel was adapted into a stage play in 1963, starring Kirk Douglas who had purchased the rights to produce it on stage and screen. The film version was finally made in 1975, with Kirk Douglas’s son Michael Douglas as co-producer.

78. Content that’s hard for a search engine to access : DEEP WEB
“Deep Web” is a name given to the part of the World Wide Web that is not indexed by standard search engines. The section of the Web that is indexed is known as the Surface Web. It is suggested that the Deep Web is four or five thousand times larger than the Surface Web that we all surf so readily these days.

80. All-___ : BRAN
“All-Bran” is a breakfast cereal that has been produced by Kellogg’s since 1916. Kellogg’s Bran Flakes had been introduced a year earlier.

83. F.D.R. purchased the first one of these bonds : SERIES E
Series E Savings Bonds were introduced in 1941, just before the start of WWII, as “defense bonds”. After the attack on Pearl Harbor they became known as “war bonds”.

91. Paid at the end, say : RAN A TAB
When we “run a tab” at a bar say, we are “running a tabulation”, a listing of what we owe. Such a use of “tab” is American slang that originated in the 1880s.

93. U.S. city that becomes another U.S. city if you move the last letter to the front : MESA
The city of Mesa, Arizona is in effect a suburb of Phoenix. The original settlement of non-Native Americans was founded by Daniel Webster Jones who led a Mormon group from St. George, Utah. The settlement was first called Jonesville, then Fort Utah and eventually Lehi. A second group of Mormons arrived and formed a settlement on top of a nearby mesa. It was this use of a mesa that eventually gave the city its current name.

The city of Ames, Iowa is famous for holding the Ames Straw Poll in advance of most presidential elections. The poll in question is used to gauge the level of support for two or more Republican candidates, although non-Republicans are allowed to cast a vote. To vote one has to be an Iowa resident and one must buy a ticket to the fundraising dinner at which the vote is taken. The event gets a lot of coverage, so it boosts the local economy as journalists hit the town. It is a very successful fundraiser for the Republican Party in Iowa as well, but the usefulness of the straw poll in predicting the eventual winner of the nomination is less clear. There have been five straw polls since 1979, and just 2 out of 5 times the poll winner went on to capture the party’s nomination.

98. Mother of Eos and Helios : THEA
In Greek mythology, Theia (also “Thea”) is a goddess of the moon. Theia’s brother and consort is Hyperion, the god of the sun. Theia and Hyperion are the parents of Helios (the Sun), Selene (the Moon) and Eos (the Dawn).

99. Animal’s mouth : MAW
“Maw” is a term used to describe the mouth or stomach of a carnivorous animal. “Maw” is also used as slang for the mouth or stomach of a greedy person.

108. Big Three conference site : YALTA
The Yalta Conference was a wartime meeting between WWII leaders Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin. Held in February of 1945, the conference is most remembered for decisions made on the post-war organization of Europe. To a large extent, the three leaders made decisions carving up influence around the world that has had implications to this day.

117. Warren who wrote “The War of the Roses” : ADLER
Warren Adler is a prolific author who has sold the movie rights to at least twelve books. His best known work is his novel “The War of the Roses”, which was made into an excellent 1989 film of the same name. The movie stars Michael Douglas, Kathleen Turner and Danny DeVito, who had already worked together on “Romancing the Stone” and “The Jewel of the Nile”.

118. One with dreads : RASTA
Dreadlocks are matted coils of hair nowadays usually formed intentionally, although if one lets hair grow out without grooming then it naturally forms twisted and matted dreadlocks. The hairstyle is associated with the Rastafarian movement in which “dread” is a very positive term meaning “fear of the Lord”.

119. Engineers’ competition set in a ring : ROBOT-SUMO
Robot-sumo is a sport in which purpose-built robots, called sumobots, vie with each other using rules similar to sumo wrestling. The robots try to find their opponent, and then push it out of a defined circular arena.

120. Director Almodóvar : PEDRO
Pedro Almodóvar is a very successful Spanish film director, born in a small town in the region of La Mancha (made famous by Don Quixote). I’m afraid I don’t recognize any of Almodovar’s films.

121. Arches in Gothic architecture : OGEES
An ogee is a type of S-curve. Specifically it is a figure consisting of two arcs that curve in opposite directions (like an S) but both ends of the curve end up parallel to each other (which is not necessarily true for an S). An ogee arch is composed of two ogees, with one being the mirror of the other and meeting at the arch’s apex.

123. Written paeans : ODES
A paean is a poem or song that expresses triumph or thanksgiving. “Paean” comes from the ancient Greek “paian” meaning “song of triumph”.

Down
1. Force/acceleration : MASS
Newton’s second law of motion tells us that a body accelerates when a force is applied to it, and the greater the mass of the object, the greater the force required to cause that acceleration. Mathematically, the law can be written as Force = mass x acceleration (F=ma).

3. Smurf in red : PAPA
The Smurfs are little blue men created by a Belgian cartoonist in 1958. The Smurfs became famous in the US when Hanna-Barbera used them in a children’s cartoon series. The characters are largely a group of males. The original lineup included just one “Smurfette”, who is wooed by almost all of the boy Smurfs. Later, another female was introduced into the mix called Sassette, and still later along came Granny Smurf.

5. French sea : MER
“Eau” is the French word for “water”; “Mer” is the French word for “sea”.

7. It’s been shortening since 1911 : CRISCO
The Crisco brand of shortening was the first shortening to be made entirely from vegetable oil. Although that sounds like a good thing, it’s actually made by hydrogenating vegetable oil so that it has physical properties similar to the animal shortening it was designed to replace. This hydrogenation turns good fats into bad fats, so medical professionals suggest limited intake.

9. Operatic baritone Pasquale : AMATO
Pasquale Amato was an operatic baritone from Naples. Amato was at the height of his popularity while singing with the Metropolitan Opera in New York City, which he did from 1908 until 1921.

10. ___ Picchu (Peruvian high spot) : MACHU
Machu Picchu is known as “The Lost City of the Incas”, and it can be visited on a mountain ridge in Peru, 50 miles northwest of the city of Cuzco in the southeast of the country. The name Machu Picchu means “old peak”. The Inca Trail to Machu Picchu originates about 50 miles from Cuzco on the Urubamba River in Peru. It can take travelers about 5 days to trek the full length of the trail, passing through many Incan ruins before reaching the Sun Gate on Machu Picchu mountain. The trail was becoming greatly overused, forcing the Peruvian government to limit the number of people on the trail each day to 500. Book early …

12. Greek high spot : MT OSSA
Mount Ossa in Greece is located between Mt. Pelion in the south, and the famed Mt. Olympus in the north. Mount Ossa is also known as Kissavos.

13. Sculling implement : OAR
A scull is a boat used for competitive rowing. The main hull of the boat is often referred to as a shell. Crew members who row the boat can be referred to as “oars”.

32. Armageddon : END
According to the Bible’s Book of Revelation, there will be a gathering of armies and a great battle during the “end of days”, and that battle between good and evil will take place at Armageddon.

34. Day to beware : IDES
There were three important days in each month of the old Roman calendar. These days originally depended on the cycles of the moon but were eventually “fixed” by law. “Kalendae” were the first days of each month, originally the days of the new moon. “Nonae” were originally the days of the half moon. And “idus” (the ides) was originally the day of the full moon, eventually fixed at the 15th day of a month. Well, actually the ides were the 15th day of March, May, July and October. For all other months, the ides fell on the 13th. Go figure …

35. Juilliard deg. : MFA
Master of Fine Arts (MFA)

The Juilliard School is located in the Lincoln Center in New York City. The immense popularity of the school is perhaps illustrated by its acceptance rate. In 2007 the school had 2,138 applications, and only 162 students were admitted. That’s an acceptance rate of well under 10%.

36. MGM motto opener : ARS
It seems that the phrase “art for art’s sake” has its origins in France in the nineteenth century, where the slogan is expressed as “l’art pour l’art”. The Latin version “Ars gratia artis” came much later, in 1924 when MGM’s publicist chose it for the studio’s logo, sitting under Leo the lion. Who’d a thunk it?

38. Having special significance : RED-LETTER
A red-letter day is a special day for some reason. The term comes from the illuminated manuscripts of Medieval times. In such documents, initial letters were often written in red ink, so-called “red letters”.

43. Something handled in a bar : BEER STEIN
A stein is a type of beer glass. The term is German in origin, and is short for “Steinkrug” meaning “stone jug”. “Stein” is the German for “stone”.

45. *Arnold Schwarzenegger, once : MR OLYMPIA
The Mr. Olympia bodybuilding competition was featured in the 1977 movie “Pumping Iron”. It was this film that gave Arnold Schwarzenegger and Lou Ferrigno a start to their acting careers.

48. She played Joanie on “Joanie Loves Chachi” : ERIN MORAN
Erin Moran is the lovely actress most famous for playing Joanie Cunningham on “Happy Days” and the resulting (short-lived) spin-off sitcom called “Joanie Loves Chachi”. Long before she got her big break in “Happy Days”, Moran played Jenny Jones on the children’s drama “Daktari” from the late sixties.

52. Puff the Magic Dragon’s land : HONALEE
In the song “Puff the Magic Dragon”, made famous by Peter, Paul and Mary, Puff lives in the fictional land of Honalee.

54. Option in “Hamlet” : NOT TO BE

To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The Slings and Arrows of outrageous fortune;
Or to take Armes against a Sea of troubles …

There has been centuries of debate about how one interprets Hamlet’s soliloquy that begins “To be or not to be …”. My favorite opinion is that Hamlet is weighing up the pros and cons of suicide (“to not be”).

60. Mantra sounds : OMS
“Om” is a sacred mystic word from the Hindu tradition. “Om” is sometimes used as a mantra, a focus for the mind in meditation.

61. Idiosyncrasy : TIC
The prefix “idio-” indicates something peculiar, as in “idiosyncrasy”, a peculiarity exhibited by an individual or a group.

62. Sounds edited out of some audio : UHS
An audio engineer might edit out an utterance of “uh”.

64. Barrett of Pink Floyd : SYD
Syd Barrett was the lead singer and a founding member of the English rock band Pink Floyd. Barrett was only active as a musician for just over ten years. He retired from the music scene in 1975 and spent the next 30 years living off Pink Floyd royalties until he passed away in 2006.

66. Native ___ : WIT
“Native wit” is the wits with which one is born, one’s common sense.

67. Chinese “way” : TAO
The Chinese character “tao” translates as “path”, but the concept of Tao signifies the true nature of the world.

77. April foolers, e.g. : SCAMPS
April Fool’s Day is celebrated on April 1st in the western world. In the US (and Ireland) one can make practical jokes all day long if one wants. But in the UK there is a noon deadline. Anyone pranking after midday is called an “April Fool”.

80. “The Godfather” enforcer who “sleeps with the fishes” : BRASI
Luca Brasi is one of Don Corleone’s most loyal “enforcers” in Mario Puzo’s novel “The Godfather”. In the big screen adaptation, Luca Brasi is played by ex-wrestler and professional bodyguard Lenny Montana. The role launched a very successful television character-acting career for Montana.

82. Deed of derring-do : ESCAPADE
As one might expect, “derring-do” comes from the phrase “daring to do”, which back in the 14th century was written as “dorrying don”.

85. Mideast inits. : UAE
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is a federation of seven emirates (states) in the Middle East. Included in the seven are Abu Dhabi and Dubai, with the city of Abu Dhabi being the UAE capital and cultural center.

86. Org. with the Larry O’Brien Trophy : NBA
The NBA’s Larry O’Brien Championship Trophy is named for a former commissioner of the NBA. Prior to working with the NBA, O’Brien had been Postmaster General in President Lyndon Johnson’s cabinet.

89. Vim : PEP
“Vim” and “pep” are words that both mean “energy, power”.

91. It contains uracil : RNA
Nucleobases are molecules that form the backbone of DNA and RNA chains. It is the sequence of these bases in the DNA chain that makes up the so-called “genetic code”. In DNA the four bases are adenine (A), guanine (G), thymine (T) and cytosine (C). The same bases are found in RNA, except that thymine is replaced by uracil (U).

94. “The Little Mermaid” villainess, for one : SEA HAG
“The Little Mermaid” is a 1989 animated feature from Disney that is based on the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale of the same name. It tells the story of a mermaid princess called Ariel who falls in love with the human Prince Eric. Ariel’s father is chief merman King Triton.

95. Melodious : ARIOSE
A tune that is “ariose” is song-like, characterized by melody as opposed to harmony.

96. “La Dolce Vita” actress : EKBERG
Anita Ekberg is a Swedish model and actress, famous for her role on the big screen in the 1960 Fellini film “La Dolce Vita”. You might remember her cavorting in the Trevi Fountain in Rome in one famous scene, with the male lead, Marcello Mastroianni.

The title of the celebrated 1960 Federico Fellini film “La Dolce Vita” translates from Italian as “The Good Life”. There is a character in the film called Paparazzo who is a news photographer. It is this character who gives us our word “Paparazzi”, a term used for photographers who make careers out of taking candid shots of celebrities.

97. Coordinated gene cluster : OPERON
An “operon” is a cluster of genes that all expressed together, or not at all.

100. Gestating, after “in” : UTERO
“In utero” is a Latin term meaning “in the uterus”. The Latin “uterus” translates as both “womb” and “belly”. The Latin word was derived from the Greek “hystera” also meaning womb, which gives us the words “hysterectomy”, and “hysterical”.

102. Mythological figure hinted at by the answers to the eight starred clues as well as this puzzle’s design : ATLAS
In Greek mythology, Atlas was a Titan who was tasked with holding up the celestial sphere on his shoulders. The Greeks observed the planets moving and the stars in fixed positions. They believed that the stars were on the surface of a single starry sphere, the celestial sphere that was supported by Atlas.

103. Something to chew on : CUD
Ruminants are animals that “chew the cud”. 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.

104. Da’s opposite : NYET
“Nyet” is Russian for “no”, and “da” is Russian for “yes”.

112. Kerfuffles : ADOS
“Kerfuffle” comes from the Scottish “curfuffle”, with both words meaning “disruption”.

114. Sign of success? : SRO
Standing room only (SRO)

115. Scheduling placeholder : TBA
To be advised (TBA)

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For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. Mariner’s array : MAPS
5. Bubs : MACS
9. “Take ___” (exec’s request) : A MEMO
14. Get cracking on : HOP TO
19. “Superfood” used in smoothies : ACAI BERRY
21. Devilfish : MANTA
22. Like some college halls : IVIED
23. *One who’s not leading : SUPPORTING ACTOR
25. Broad valleys : DALES
26. Group of jerks : SPASM
27. Excoriates : SCATHES
28. Goes like hotcakes : SELLS
29. *”I have some bad news …” : BRACE YOURSELF …
33. Fish on many a sashimi platter : AHI
35. Bryn ___ : MAWR
39. Yankees teammate of Captain Clutch : A-ROD
40. Compos mentis : SANE
41. Relieved (of) : RID
42. Bread at a restaurant, typically : FREEBIE
44. ID provider : DMV
47. Conk out : DIE
49. Unrefined material : ORE
50. Muttered commentary : ASIDES
51. Get a cut of : SHARE IN
55. Transplants : GRAFTS
57. Jubilance : GLEE
58. Middle line of many an address: Abbr. : PO BOX NO
59. Google statistic : HITS
60. Part of OTOH : OTHER
62. Java holder : URN
63. Two will get you turned around : LEFTS
65. Cereal box abbr. : NET WT
68. Paws : MITTS
69. *Very durable : HEAVY-DUTY
71. Bartiromo of Fox Business : MARIA
72. Charmin competitor : SCOTT
73. City in which “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” is set : SALEM
74. Bald spot coverer : SOD
75. Have a loan from : OWE TO
76. Charges : FEES
78. Content that’s hard for a search engine to access : DEEP WEB
80. All-___ : BRAN
81. Standard of measurement : METRIC
83. F.D.R. purchased the first one of these bonds : SERIES E
84. Sci-fi shooter : RAY GUN
87. Result of a firing : ASH
88. Not pay attention at all : NAP
90. Was idle : SAT
91. Paid at the end, say : RAN A TAB
92. Big pitcher : ACE
93. U.S. city that becomes another U.S. city if you move the last letter to the front : MESA
96. An eternity : EONS
98. Mother of Eos and Helios : THEA
99. Animal’s mouth : MAW
100. *What a massage may relieve : UPPER BACK PAIN
105. Ones with muses : POETS
107. Breather? : AIR TUBE
108. Big Three conference site : YALTA
113. Create, as a canyon : CARVE
114. *Not shirk a difficult task : SHOULDER THE LOAD
117. Warren who wrote “The War of the Roses” : ADLER
118. One with dreads : RASTA
119. Engineers’ competition set in a ring : ROBOT-SUMO
120. Director Almodóvar : PEDRO
121. Arches in Gothic architecture : OGEES
122. Be a busy beaver? : GNAW
123. Written paeans : ODES

Down
1. Force/acceleration : MASS
2. Small bra specification : A-CUP
3. Smurf in red : PAPA
4. Nurses : SIPS
5. French sea : MER
6. It’s often left hanging : ART
7. It’s been shortening since 1911 : CRISCO
8. Matched up : SYNCED
9. Operatic baritone Pasquale : AMATO
10. ___ Picchu (Peruvian high spot) : MACHU
11. Crosses a threshold : ENTERS
12. Greek high spot : MT OSSA
13. Sculling implement : OAR
14. Like some TVs, informally : HI-DEF
15. Track, often : OVAL
16. *Comfort provider during difficult times : PILLAR OF STRENGTH
17. Concert souvenir : TEE-SHIRT
18. Has way too much, briefly : ODS
20. Flame out : BOMB
24. Jocund : GAY
28. Christmas gift holder : SLEIGH
30. Rear : RAISE
31. Is for two? : ARE
32. Armageddon : END
34. Day to beware : IDES
35. Juilliard deg. : MFA
36. MGM motto opener : ARS
37. *Crushing burden : WEIGHT OF THE WORLD
38. Having special significance : RED-LETTER
43. Something handled in a bar : BEER STEIN
44. Dollop : DAB
45. *Arnold Schwarzenegger, once : MR OLYMPIA
46. Perturbed : VEXED
48. She played Joanie on “Joanie Loves Chachi” : ERIN MORAN
51. Goes viral, say : SPREADS
52. Puff the Magic Dragon’s land : HONALEE
53. Imbues, as with flavor : INFUSES
54. Option in “Hamlet” : NOT TO BE
56. Corroded : ATE AWAY AT
60. Mantra sounds : OMS
61. Idiosyncrasy : TIC
62. Sounds edited out of some audio : UHS
64. Barrett of Pink Floyd : SYD
66. Native ___ : WIT
67. Chinese “way” : TAO
70. Zigs or zags : VEERS
77. April foolers, e.g. : SCAMPS
79. Like some bars and blankets : WET
80. “The Godfather” enforcer who “sleeps with the fishes” : BRASI
81. The “m” of “yes’m” : MA’AM
82. Deed of derring-do : ESCAPADE
85. Mideast inits. : UAE
86. Org. with the Larry O’Brien Trophy : NBA
89. Vim : PEP
91. It contains uracil : RNA
94. “The Little Mermaid” villainess, for one : SEA HAG
95. Melodious : ARIOSE
96. “La Dolce Vita” actress : EKBERG
97. Coordinated gene cluster : OPERON
100. Gestating, after “in” : UTERO
101. Nasty sort : BRUTE
102. Mythological figure hinted at by the answers to the eight starred clues as well as this puzzle’s design : ATLAS
103. Something to chew on : CUD
104. Da’s opposite : NYET
106. Eternally : EVER
109. “Not to mention …” : ALSO
110. Forte : LOUD
111. Break : TAME
112. Kerfuffles : ADOS
113. Ceiling : CAP
114. Sign of success? : SRO
115. Scheduling placeholder : TBA
116. “And ___!” : HOW

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