Category: Rachel Fabi

Bill’s time: 14m 31s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

15 Portrayer of Paolo Gucci in 2021’s “House of Gucci” : LETO

Jared Leto is an actor and musician. In the world of music, he is the lead singer and rhythm guitarist for the rock band 30 Seconds to Mars. In the film world, one of his most critically acclaimed roles was that of a heroin addict in “Requiem for a Dream”. Leto also appeared in “American Psycho”, “Panic Room” and “Lord of War”. He won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his performance in 2013’s “Dallas Buyers Club”, in which he portrayed a transgender woman.

“House of Gucci” is an engrossing 2021 film based on a 2001 book “The House of Gucci: A Sensational Story of Murder, Madness, Glamour, and Greed” by Sara Gay Forden. The central characters are Maurizio Gucci, heir to a 50% interest in the Gucci fashion house, and Patrizia Reggiani, who eventually married and divorced Maurizio, before hiring a hitman to kill her ex-husband. The leads are played by Adam Driver and Lady Gaga.

16 Pasta whose name derives from the Italian for “little cakes” : TORTELLINI

Tortellini are stuffed pasta that are ring-shaped, or navel-shaped. The name “tortellini” comes from the Italian word for “little cakes”. Tortellini can also be called “umbellico”, coming from the Italian for “belly button”.

18 Ones getting some dinner “specials” : EARLY BIRDS

Oh, I’d be one of them …

21 Olympians score points with their points : EPEES

The French word for sword is “épée”. In competitive fencing the épée is connected to a system that records an electrical signal when legal contact is made on an opponent’s body.

29 ___ Men, 2000 Grammy winners for Best Dance Recording : BAHA

The Baha Men are so called because they hail from the Bahamas. Their big hit was “Who Let the Dogs Out?” That song once ranked third in a list of the world’s most annoying songs!

31 “How inappropriate to call this planet Earth when clearly it is ___”: Arthur C. Clarke : OCEAN

The interconnected system of oceanic waters around our planet is known as the World Ocean. Comprising almost 71% of the Earth’s surface, the World Ocean is divided into, from largest to smallest:

1. The Pacific Ocean
2. The Atlantic Ocean
3. The Indian Ocean
4. The Southern (Antarctic) Ocean
5. The Arctic Ocean

46 Identity for someone who may prefer platonic relationships, informally : ARO

Someone described as aromantic (“aro”, for short) experiences little or no romantic attraction. The opposite of aromanticism is a alloromanticism.

48 Swinger at a burlesque show : TASSEL

The word “burlesque” came into English from French, although the word is rooted in the Italian “burla”, the word for a joke, or mockery. A burlesque is a work of literature, drama or music that is intended to amuse and cause laughter. Burlesques in the US took on a variety show format and were popular in the US from the 1860s. Over time, the variety acts started to include female striptease, and the term “burlesque” has come to be mainly associated with such entertainment. The derivative verb “to burlesque” means “to imitate mockingly”.

51 Longtime weekly companion of Ebony magazine : JET

“Jet” was a weekly magazine published in Chicago that targeted mainly an African-American readership. Launched in 1951, “Jet” gained popularity in the fifties and sixties largely due to its extensive coverage of the American Civil Rights movement. “Jet” stopped appearing on newsstands in 2014 and now exists only as a digital magazine.

52 Return specialist, for short : CPA

Certified public accountant (CPA)

57 “Little piggies” : TOES

This little piggy went to market,
This little piggy stayed home,
This little piggy had roast beef,
This little piggy had none,
And this little piggy went wee wee wee all the way home.

58 One-a-day, for Dunaway : SPOONERISM

Spoonerisms are errors in speech in which letters or sounds are switched from one word to another. Famous examples are “Three cheers for our queer old dean” (dear old Queen … Victoria) and “Is it kisstomary to cuss the bride?” (customary to kiss …). Spoonerisms are named after an Oxford don William Archibald Spooner, who was notorious for his tendency to pepper his speech with “spoonerisms”.

61 X, as in Ximenes? : BESO

In the sequence letter sequence “X-O-X”, the X represents a kiss, and the O a hug. “O-O-O” is a string of hugs, and “X-X-X” a string of kisses. Hugs and kisses …

Down

5 J.V. benchwarmers : C-TEAM

Junior varsity (JV)

“Varsity” is an adjective used to describe a university or school team or competition. “Varsity” is a variant of the earlier term “versity” used in the late 17th century, which was a shortened form of “university”.

8 Hartsfield-Jackson airport code : ATL

Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL) is the world’s busiest airport, as measured by passenger traffic. Atlanta has had that distinction since 1998, and was the world’s busiest in terms of take-offs and landings from 2005 until 2013. Over 50% of Atlanta’s traffic comes from Delta Air Lines.

9 Margret and H. A. ___, co-authors of the “Curious George” books : REY

Curious George is a character in a series of children’s books written by husband and wife Hans Augusto and Margret Rey. The couple wrote the original stories in Paris, taking the manuscripts with them as they fled from the city ahead of the Nazi invasion in 1940.

10 “Three Tall Women” playwright : ALBEE

The 1991 play “Three Tall Women” by Edward Albee won him the 1994 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The title characters have the inventive names A, B and C.

12 Hormonal IUD available since 2000 : MIRENA

It seems that it isn’t fully understood how the intrauterine device (IUD) works. The design that was most popular for decades was a T-shaped plastic frame on which was wound copper wire. It’s thought that the device is an irritant in the uterus causing the body to release chemicals that are hostile to sperm and eggs. This effect is enhanced by the presence of the copper.

13 Zombielike : UNDEAD

A zombie is a corpse that has been brought back to life by some mystical means. Our modern use of the term largely stems from the undead creatures featured in the 1968 horror movie called “Night of the Living Dead”. Now that film I haven’t seen, and probably never will …

26 Apostle with many epistles : PAUL

St. Paul the Apostle wrote thirteen epistles, all of which are found in the New Testament of the Bible (although authorship of some is disputed).

By definition, an epistle is a writing sent by one person to a group of people, with the name “epistle” coming from the Greek word for “a letter”. The 21 epistles of the New Testament are letters from various of the Apostles to groups of Christians, with most of them being written by Paul.

29 Singer with the #1 hits “Sorry” and “Love Yourself” : BIEBER

Justin Bieber is a pop singer from London, Ontario. Bieber was actually discovered on YouTube by talent manager Scooter Brown. Fans of Bieber call themselves “Beliebers”. Personally, I’m no believer in Bieber …

30 Moon that orbits Mars about three times each Martian day : PHOBOS

Mars has two moons, the larger of which is Phobos and the smaller Deimos. “Phobos” is the Greek word for “fear”, and “Deimos” is Greek for “dread”.

38 TV character who said “Heck, you could fill two internets with what I don’t know about football” : TED LASSO

“Ted Lasso” is a marvelous sports-comedy TV show about an American college football coach who moves to the UK to manage an English soccer team. The title character is played very admirably by Jason Sudeikas. Sudeikas first played Lasso in a series of TV commercials commissioned to promote NBC’s coverage of the British Premier League. The character became so popular that he inspired a whole TV series. Great stuff, and highly recommended …

42 ___ l’oeil : TROMPE

“Trompe l’oeil” is a technique in art that creates the optical illusion that a drawn object exists in three dimensions. “Trompe-l’oeil” is French for “deceive the eye”.

54 Rx pickup : MED

There seems to be some uncertainty about the origin of the symbol “Rx” that’s used for a medical prescription. One explanation is that it comes from the astrological sign for Jupiter, a symbol put on prescriptions in days of old to invoke Jupiter’s blessing to help a patient recover.

56 Aunt, in Andalusia : TIA

Andalusia (“Andalucía” in Spanish) is one of the seventeen autonomous communities in the Kingdom of Spain, and is the most southerly. The capital of Andalusia is the old city of Seville. The name Andalusia comes from its Arabic name, Al-Andalus, reflecting the region’s history as the center of Muslim power in Iberia during medieval times.