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Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1 Día de ___ Muertos (Mexican holiday) : LOS

The “Día de Muertos” (also “Dia de los Muertos”, both meaning “Day of the Dead”) is a holiday that originated in Mexico, and is now celebrated around the world. It is traditionally celebrated on November 1st and 2nd, and involves family and friends gathering to remember those who have died. Despite the somber nature, the Day of the Dead usually has a joyful tone, as family remembers the happier events and anecdotes associated with the departed.

15 ___ asada (burrito filling) : CARNE

The name of the dish called “carne asada” translates from Spanish as “roasted meat”.

18 What causes Bruce Banner to “hulk out” : ANGER

The comic book hero Hulk first made an appearance in 1962. Hulk is the alter ego of reserved and withdrawn physicist Bruce Banner. Banner transforms into the Hulk when he gets angry.

19 ___-Leste, country in Southeast Asia : TIMOR

Timor is an island in Maritime Southeast Asia. The island is politically divided into West Timor, belonging to Indonesia, and the independent state of East Timor (aka “Timor-Leste”). The name “Timor” comes from a Malay word for “east”, and is used as Timor lies at the eastern end of the Lesser Sunda Islands.

25 Actress de Armas : ANA

Ana de Armas is an actress from Cuba. Having attended the National Theater School of Cuba, she moved to Spain at the age of 18. Thre, she made a name for herself in a Spanish TV series called “El Internado”. De Armas moved to Los Angeles in 2014, after which her performance opposite Ryan Gosling in 2017’s “Blade Runner 2049” earned her critical acclaim.

29 Sheet with student names : CLASS ROSTER

Our word “roster”, meaning “list, register”, actually comes from the same root as our word “roast”, would you believe. “Roster” came into English from the Dutch “rooster”, meaning “table, list”. An alternative use of the Dutch “rooster” was “gridiron”, from the “roosten” meaning “to roast”. The connection is that a roster of names is often listed on a sheet of paper that has grid lines resembling the marks left by a gridiron on roasted meat. Quite interesting …

37 Fuzzy fruit : KIWI

What we call kiwifruit today (and sometimes just “kiwi”) used to be called a Chinese gooseberry. Marketing folks in the fifties decided to call it a “melonette”, and then New Zealand producers adopted the name “kiwifruit”.

41 Half of an umlaut : DOT

An umlaut (also “diaeresis”) is a diacritical mark consisting of two horizontal dots placed over a letter, usually a vowel. Here in the West, we are perhaps most familiar with umlauts in German, as in “Schön”.

44 Have a little snack : NOSH

Our word “nosh” has been around since the late fifties, when it was imported from the Yiddish word “nashn” meaning “to nibble”. We use “nosh” as a noun that means “snack”, or as a verb meaning “to eat between meals”.

47 Sticky breakfast treat : CINNAMON BUN

“True” cinnamon sticks are taken from the inner bark of the Cinnamomum verum tree. However, a lot of cinnamon sticks are also sold that come from a related species of tree, and these are more correctly referred to as “cassia”.

50 Pub. that acquired Wordle in 2022 : NYT

“The New York Times” (NYT) has been published since 1851, and is sometimes referred to as “the Gray Lady”. These days a viable alternative to buying the paper is to read the news online. NYTimes.com is the most popular online newspaper website in the country.

Wordle is a web-based word game that a Welsh software engineer developed to play with his partner during the COVID pandemic. The name “Wordle” is a play on the engineer’s own name: Josh Wardle. Wardle published the game on its own website in 2021, primarily for the use of Wardle’s family. One month later, the game had 90 players, and a month later 300,000 players. A week later, the number of daily players had grown to two million! The New York Times purchased Wordle in 2022 “for an undisclosed price in the low-seven figures”.

69 Sonnet writer : POET

A sonnet is a short poem with varying rhyming schemes but always with 14 lines. The sonnet form has been around at least since the 13th century. The Shakespearean sonnet is composed of three quatrains (4 lines) and a final couplet (2 lines). The Petrarchan sonnet comprises two quatrains (4 lines) followed by a sestet (6 lines), or two tercets (3 lines).

72 Number that shares a key with “@” : TWO

The “at symbol” (@) originated in the commercial world, as shorthand for “each at, per” and similar phrases. I suppose we see the symbol most commonly these days as part of email addresses.

Down

11 Beach bird : TERN

Terns are a family of seabirds. They are similar to gulls, but are more slender and more lightly built. Many species of tern are known for their long-distance migrations, with the Arctic tern migrating so far that it is believed to see more daylight in a year than any other animal.

13 Hershey candy bar made with toffee : SKOR

The candy bar named “Skor” is produced by Hershey’s. “Skor” is Swedish for “shoes”, and the candy bar’s wrapping features a crown that is identical to that found in the Swedish national emblem. What shoes have to do with candy, I don’t know …

21 It’s good for “absolutely nothing,” per a 1970 #1 hit : WAR

“War (What Is It Good For?) is an anti-Vietnam soul song performed by Edwin Starr that hit the top of the charts in 1970. The song had originally been recorded by the Temptations a few months earlier, but it was the Edwin Starr version that resonated with the public.

23 “Letter From Birmingham Jail” writer, for short : MLK

The “Letter from Birmingham Jail” is a 1963 open letter penned by Martin Luther King, Jr. defending nonviolent resistance to racism. King wrote the letter in several pieces, using the margins of newspapers as this was the only paper available to him while in jail.

26 Spooky part of a house, perhaps : ATTIC

An attic or loft is a room or space located below the roof of a building. The term “attic” is a shortened form of “attic story”, the uppermost story or level of a house. This term “attic story” originally applied to a low, decorative level built on top of the uppermost story behind a building’s decorative facade. This use of decoration at the top of buildings was common in ancient Greece, and was particularly important in the Attica style. That Attica style was so called because it originated in the historical region of Attica that encompassed the city of Athens. And that’s how our attics are linked to ancient Greece.

27 Florida city with a South Beach neighborhood : MIAMI

South Beach is a neighborhood in Miami Beach, Florida that is often referred to by the nickname “SoBe”. SoBe is known for its active and vibrant LGBT community. The title of the marvelous 1996 film “The Birdcage” refers to a fictional Birdcage drag nightclub located in South Beach.

32 Wyoming’s Grand ___ National Park : TETON

Grand Teton National Park (NP) is located just south of Yellowstone NP, and a must-see if you are visiting the latter. The park is named after the tallest peak in the magnificent Teton Range known as Grand Teton. The origins of the name “Teton” is not very clear, although one story is that it was named by French trappers, as the word “tetons” in French is a slang term meaning “breasts”.

36 John Hancock : SIGNATURE

We use the term “John Hancock” to mean a signature. The reference is to the large and flamboyant signature placed by John Hancock on the Declaration of Independence. Hancock was President of the Continental Congress from 1775 to 1777.

45 Maroon or indigo : HUE

“Marron” is the French word for “chestnut”, which gives us our word “maroon” meaning chestnut-colored, dark brownish-red.

The name of the color “indigo” ultimately comes from the Greek “indikon” meaning “blue dye from India”.

48 “___! I Feel Like a Woman!” (Shania Twain song) : MAN

Shania Twain is a country and pop singer from Windsor, Ontario. Shania’s birth name is “Eileen Edwards”, and this changed to “Eilleen Twain” when her mother remarried. Twain changed her name to Shania in the early 1990s, around the same time that her musical career started to take off.

49 Org. with the Hubble telescope : NASA

The famous Hubble Space Telescope was installed in orbit by the Space Shuttle Discovery in 1990. The telescope was named for the astronomer Edwin Hubble, the man who changed our view of the universe by postulating that the universe is expanding.

57 “Bob’s Burgers” daughter : TINA

“Bob’s Burgers” is a cartoon sitcom that airs on Fox. Not for me …

60 Pirate’s booty : LOOT

“Booty”, meaning “plunder, profit”, is derived from the Old French word “butin” that has the same meaning.

62 Palo ___, Calif. : ALTO

The city of Palo Alto, California takes its name from a specific redwood tree called El Palo Alto (Spanish for “the tall stick”) that is located within the bounds of the city. The tree is 110 feet tall and over a thousand years old.

66 Homer Simpson’s neighbor : NED

Ned Flanders lives next door to Homer Simpson on TV’s “The Simpsons”. Ned was married to Maude, with whom he had two children Rod and Todd. Maude died in an accident involving a T-shirt cannon. Ned is voiced by actor Harry Shearer, and has been around since the very first episode aired in 1989.