Category: Steven Jopek

Bill’s time: 4m 53s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

5A Curry ingredient : CUMIN

Cumin is a flowering plant native to the region stretching from the eastern Mediterranean to East India. Cumin spice is made from the dried seeds and is the second most common spice used in the world (only black pepper is more popular). Cumin is particularly associated with Indian cuisine and is a key ingredient in curry powder. Lovely stuff …

14A Robert Frost creation : POEM

The wonderful poet Robert Frost was a native of San Francisco, but lived most of his life in New England. He also spent a few years in England, just before WWI. Frost was well recognized for his work during his lifetime, and received four Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry. He was also Vermont’s first Poet Laureate, a position that he held from 1961 until his death in 1963.

20A Floral Van Gogh subject : IRIS

Van Gogh painted his “Irises” while he was in an asylum in the south of France the year before he committed suicide. The original owner was a French art critic and supporter of van Gogh who paid 300 francs to purchase the painting. “Irises” was bought for $53.9 million in 1987, making it the most expensive painting sold up to that point. But, the buyer didn’t actually have the necessary funds, so it had to be resold in 1990. It was picked up by the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, where you can see it today.

25A Tsunami : TIDAL WAVE

“Tsunami” is a Japanese word meaning “harbor wave”.

31A Nashville honor, briefly : CMA

The Country Music Association Awards, or CMAs, are presented annually in Nashville. The inaugural ceremony was held in 1967, hosted by Sonny James and Bobbie Gentry.

32A Oft-torn knee part, in brief : ACL

The anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) is one of four major ligaments that support the knee. It is located in the center of the knee and connects the femur (thigh bone) to the tibia (shin bone).

34A Confederate soldier, informally : REB

During the Civil War, the personification of the Southern states was “Johnny Reb”. The northern equivalent was “Billy Yank”.

42A Clerical vestment : ALB

An alb is a white, neck-to-toe vestment worn by priests, usually with a rope cord around the waist. The term alb comes from “albus”, the Latin word for “white”.

43A Writer Edgar Allan ___ : POE

Edgar Allan Poe (EAP) lived a life of many firsts. Poe is considered to be the inventor of the detective-fiction genre. He was also the first notable American author to make his living through his writing, something that didn’t really go too well for him as he was always financially strapped. In 1849 he was found on the streets of Baltimore, delirious and in dire need of medical help. Poe died a few days later in hospital at 40 years of age.

45A Zing ___ (brand of Bloody Mary mix) : ZANG

The Bloody Mary is one of my favorite cocktails, perhaps because it seems to taste so differently depending on who makes it. It has numerous ingredients above and beyond the requisite vodka and tomato juice, and has been described as “the world’s most complex cocktail”.

57A Jazz great Fitzgerald : ELLA

Ella Fitzgerald, the “First Lady of Song”, made her real stage debut at the Apollo Theater in Harlem on Amateur Night when she was just 17 years old. She had intended to perform a dance routine, but decided to sing instead after seeing a superior dance act. She won the Amateur Night competition.

60A Natural wonder in Venezuela : ANGEL FALLS

Angel Falls in Venezuela is the highest uninterrupted waterfall in the world, at a height of 3,213 feet. It is named for an American aviator called James Angel, who was the first to fly a plane over the falls.

65A Arctic creatures with flippers : SEALS

There are three families of seals. The first is the walrus family, the second the eared seals (like sea lions), and thirdly the earless seals (like elephant seals).

66A International retailer with a three-syllable name : IKEA

The IKEA furniture stores use the colors blue and yellow for brand recognition. Blue and yellow are the national colors of Sweden, where IKEA was founded.

67A Dance whose name is also a hairstyle : SHAG

The collegiate shag (sometimes just “shag”) is a dance that was particularly popular with young people (hence “collegiate”) in the thirties and forties. The dance is thought to have originated in the twenties, probably in the Carolinas.

A shag cut is a layered hairstyle. Actress Meg Ryan famously sported a shag cut for many years, as did fellow actress Farrah Fawcett.

68A Golfer Els : ERNIE

Ernie Els is a South African golfer. He is a big guy but he has an easy fluid golf swing that has earned him the nickname “The Big Easy”. Els is a former World No. 1 and has won four majors: the US Open (1994 & 1997) and the British Open (2002 & 2012).

69A Letters on an invitation : RSVP

RSVP is an initialism derived from the French phrase “Répondez s’il vous plaît”, meaning “Please respond”. It’s a polite way to ask your invited guests to let you know if they will be attending your event.

Down

1D Storekeeper on “The Simpsons” : APU

The fictional Kwik-E-Mart store is operated by Apu Nahasapeemapetilon on “The Simpsons” TV show. Apu is married to Manjula, and the couple have eight children. The convenience store owner doesn’t seem to be making much use of his Ph.D in computer science that he earned in the US. Apu’s undergraduate degree is from Caltech (the Calcutta Technical Institute), where he graduated top of his class of seven million students …

3D Like the period known as the Middle Ages : MEDIEVAL

European history is often divided in three major periods: classical antiquity and the modern period, with the Middle Ages in between. Specifically, the Middle Ages are said to have begun in 476 CE, when the last Roman Emperor was deposed by a Germanic chieftain. The end date for the Middle Ages is less specific, but is about 1500 CE. The list of events signaling the end of the Middle Ages includes Christopher Columbus’s first voyage to the New World (1492) and the Protestant Reformation (1517). The term “medieval” is used to describe something belonging to the Middle Ages.

4D Leave the cocoon : EMERGE

Strictly speaking, the term “cocoon” only applies to the tough outer casing created by moth caterpillars. Butterfly caterpillars protect themselves in a hard outer skin to form a pupa known as a chrysalis (plural “chrysalides”). But, butterfly caterpillars don’t go the extra step and spin a silky cocoon. Famously, silk thread comes from silk cocoons created by silkworms, which mature into silk moths.

6D Grp. that entertains troops : USO

The United Service Organizations (USO) was founded in 1941 at the request of President Franklin D. Roosevelt “to handle the on-leave recreation of the men in the armed forces”. A USO tour is undertaken by a troupe of entertainers, many of whom are big-name celebrities. A USO tour usually includes troop locations in combat zones.

7D Tuesday, in Lyon : MARDI

The city of Lyon in France is sometimes known as “Lyons” in English. It is the second-largest metropolitan area in the country, after Paris, and is located just to the north of the confluence of the Rhône and Saône Rivers.

8D Sat at a red light : IDLED

The first traffic lights date back to 1868 when they were installed outside the Houses of Parliament in London. They resembled the signals already in use for trains, with semaphore arms and red and green gas lamps for nighttime use. That first system was operated manually, by a policeman at the base. Sadly, one police officer was killed just one year after the light’s installation, when the gas system exploded.

9D Gymnast Comaneci : NADIA

Romanian Nadia Comăneci won three golds in the 1976 Summer Olympics and was the first gymnast to be awarded a perfect score of ten in the gymnastics competition. Her life took a dramatic turn in 1989 when, just weeks before the Romanian Revolution, she defected from Communist Romania. She fled under the cover of darkness, crossing the Romanian border into Hungary on foot and eventually seeking asylum in the US.

11D Yasir of the P.L.O. : ARAFAT

Yasser (also “Yasir”) Arafat was born in Cairo in 1929, the son of two Palestinians and the second-youngest of seven children. Arafat was beaten by his father as a child and so did not have a good relationship with him. Arafat did not attend his father’s funeral, nor did he visit his grave. The beatings were apparently administered because the young Arafat was repeatedly attending religious services in the Jewish quarter of Cairo. Arafat’s explanation was that he wanted to “study the mentality” of the Jewish people.

12D Chinese computer giant : LENOVO

Lenovo is a Chinese manufacturer of computers that was founded as “Legend” in 1984. The name was changed to “Lenovo” in 2003. “Lenovo” is a portmanteau of “Le” (from “Legend”) and “novo” (Latin for “new”). IBM sold off its personal computer division to Lenovo in 2005.

18D “Knives Out” director Johnson : RIAN

Filmmaker Rian Johnson wrote and directed quite a few major films, including “Looper” (2012), “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” (2017), as well as the highly successful “Knives Out” franchise that he wrote and directed.

23D Philharmonic grp. : ORCH

The term “philharmonic” comes from the Greek words “philos,” meaning “loving,” and “harmonia,” meaning “harmony.” It was originally used in the 19th century to describe musical societies or orchestras that were devoted to the performance of classical music. The first organization to use the name was the Royal Philharmonic Society, founded in London in 1813.

24D Many a viral post : MEME

A meme (from “mimeme”) 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.

25D Word after Georgia, Virginia or low : TECH

The Georgia Institute of Technology (commonly “Georgia Tech”) is located in Atlanta. The school was founded in 1885 as part of the reconstruction effort to rebuild the infrastructure in the South after the Civil War. President Theodore Roosevelt delivered an address to the school in 1905, and then shook hands with every single student. Back then the school didn’t have over 20,000 students as it does today …

Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech) has its main campus in Blacksburg, Virginia. It was founded in 1872 as an agricultural and mechanical land-grant college. The school will forever be associated with the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre in which 32 people were shot dead on the campus, which at the time was the deadliest shooting incident by a lone gunman in US history. Sadly, that “record” has been outstripped in recent years.

26D Big name in movie theaters : LOEW

Loews Theatres was a chain of movie theaters founded in 1904 by Marcus Loew. The chain merged with AMC Theaters in 2006.

27D Caitlin Clark’s league : WNBA

Basketball great Caitlin Clark was the first selection in the 2024 WNBA draft, and signed up with the Indiana Fever. Her quality of play and success on the court has helped popularize women’s basketball. That boost in popularity has been dubbed “the Caitlin Clark effect”.

34D Actress Perlman of “Cheers” : RHEA

Rhea Perlman’s most famous role has to be Carla Tortelli, the irascible waitress in the long-running sitcom “Cheers”. Perlman is also a successful children’s author, and has published a series of six books called “Otto Undercover”. She married Hollywood actor Danny DeVito in 1982.

36D “Auld ___ Syne” : LANG

The song “Auld Lang Syne” is a staple at New Year’s Eve (well, actually in the opening minutes of New Year’s Day). The words were written by Scottish poet Robbie Burns. The literal translation of “Auld Lang Syne” is “old long since”, but is better translated as “old times”. The sentiment of the song is “for old time’s sake”.

37D “Three Sisters” sister : OLGA

Olga, Masha and Irina are the “Three Sisters” in the play by Anton Chekhov. The three title characters were inspired by the three Brontë sisters, the English authors.

39D Presentations with an 18-minute limit : TED TALKS

The acronym “TED” stands for “Technology, Entertainment and Design”. TED is a set of conferences held around the world by a non-profit group called the TED Foundation (formerly the “Sapling Foundation”). The conference subjects are varied, and the meetings are often led by big names such as Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Bill Gates and Jane Goodall. The TED Foundation then makes recordings of the conferences available for free online with the intent of disseminating the ideas globally. These conferences are known as “TED Talks”. There are also TEDx events, which are locally-run talks presented under license from TED.

40D Actor Idris : ELBA

Idris Elba is a British actor whose most celebrated TV roles are perhaps Stringer Bell in “The Wire”, DCI John Luther in “Luther”, and the lead in the 2023 series “Hijack”. On the big screen, he has played the Norse god Heimdall in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, as well as Nelson Mandela in the 2013 biopic “Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom”. While best known for acting, Elba is also a successful musician and DJ, performing at major clubs and festivals under the moniker DJ Big Driis.

41D Tampa Bay players : RAYS

The Tampa Bay Rays MLB team is a relatively young franchise, having been formed in 1998. The initial name of the franchise was the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. While known as the Devil Rays, the team finished last in the league almost every year. The name was changed to the Tampa Bay Rays in 2008, and I am told the Rays started into a streak of winning seasons soon after.

45D Financial center of Switzerland : ZURICH

Zurich is located in the German-speaking part of Switzerland. It is the largest city in the country.

46D Franklin who sang “Chain of Fools” : ARETHA

“Chain of Fools” is a song written by Don Covay, and is most associated with Aretha Franklin after she released a version in 1967. It is actually a rewriting of a gospel song called “Pains of Life”, which has the exact same melody.

48D Baby bovine : CALF

Something described as bovine is related to a cow, ox or buffalo, or indeed any ruminant in the genus Bos. “Bos” is the Latin for “cow”, and “bovinus” a Late Latin derivative term.

49D Filled pastry : ECLAIR

The name for the pastry known as an “éclair” is clearly French in origin. The French word for lightning is “éclair”, but no one seems to be too sure how it came to be used for the rather delicious bakery item.

53D Daughter of King Lear : REGAN

In William Shakespeare’s “King Lear”, Regan is the king’s second daughter. She vies with her older sister for influence over her father, and for the attention of Edmund, illegitimate son of the Earl of Gloucester.

62D “The Magicians” novelist Grossman : LEV

Lev Grossman is a journalist and novelist. As a journalist, he is perhaps best known as a former book critic and technology writer for “Time” magazine. He quit that job after 14 years in order to pursue a full-time career as an author. His most famous work is probably “The Magicians Trilogy”.

63D Maple syrup base : SAP

About 75% of the world’s maple syrup comes from the province of Quebec. The US’s biggest producer is the state of Vermont, which produces 5-6% of the world’s supply.