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Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across
9. Typical Busby Berkeley film : MUSICAL
Busby Berkeley was a Hollywood film director and choreographer. It was Berkeley who was most associated with the elaborate musicals that featured lots of showgirls posing together in complex geometric patterns. Those were the days …

16. They’re often wasted : SOTS
Our word “sot” comes from the Old English “sott”, meaning a fool. The word “sot” started to be associated with alcohol and not just foolery in the late 1500s.

21. Athena turned her into a spider : ARACHNE
In Greek and Roman mythology, Arachne was a mortal woman who was a great weaver. Arachne boasted that her weaving was greater than that of the goddess Pallas Athena (or Minerva in Roman myth), and this was proven true in a contest. As a result, Arachne was turned into a spider. “Arachne” is the Greek word for spider.

26. “Blueberries for ___” (classic children’s book) : SAL
“Blueberries for Sal” is a children’s storybook by Robert McCloskey.

27. With 91-Across, 1976 album with a palindromic title : OLE
(91. See 27-Across : ELO)
ELO of course stands for the Electric Light Orchestra, a symphonic rock group from the north of England. ELO’s manager was Don Arden, father of Sharon Osbourne (wife of Ozzy). “Ole ELO” is a compilation album the band released in 1976.

29. Ship that sailed “the ocean blue” : NINA

In fourteen hundred ninety-two
Columbus sailed the ocean blue.

He had three ships and left from Spain;
He sailed through sunshine, wind and rain.

He sailed by night; he sailed by day;
He used the stars to find his way …

42. Loan-insuring org. : FHA
The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) was set up in 1934 to insure loans made lenders for the building and purchase of homes. The FHA was created in response to the bank failures of the Great Depression, with the intent of creating a more favorable environment for lending.

43. Architectural designer Maya : LIN
Maya Lin is a Chinese American born in Athens Ohio, and is an artist and architect. Her most famous work is the moving Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. Lin was only 21-years-old when she won a public design competition in 1981 to create the memorial. Although her design is very fitting, sadly Lin was not a popular choice for the work given her Asian heritage. As she said herself, she probably would not have been picked had the competition been judged with the knowledge of who was behind each submission.

44. QB with a statue at Sun Life Stadium : MARINO
Dan Marino played his whole football career with the Miami Dolphins. Marino is widely regarded as one of the game’s greatest quarterbacks, even though he never played on a team that won the Super Bowl.

54. “___ Andy’s Ballyhoo” (“Show Boat” song) : CAP’N
“Show Boat” is a musical by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein, first staged in New York in 1927. It is based on a 1926 novel of the same name by Edna Ferber. The story is about a show boat called the “Cotton Blossom”. Show boats were floating theaters which navigated the rivers of the US from the 1870s to the 1930s, moving from town to town with the performers living on board.

61. Group with a Grand Lodge : ELKS
The Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks (BPOE) was founded in 1868, and is a social club that has about a million members today. It started out as a group of men getting together in a “club” in order to get around the legal opening hours of taverns in New York City. The club took on a new role as it started to look out for poor families of members who passed away. The club now accepts African Americans as members (since the seventies) and women (since the nineties), but atheists still aren’t welcome.

62. Bach’s “___, meine Freude” : JESU
“Jesu, meine Freude” is a funeral motet composed by Johann Sebastian Bach.

63. Contraction in a patriotic song : O’ER
The words “o’er the ramparts we watched” come from “The Star Spangled Banner” written by Francis Scott Key.

The lyrics of “The Star-Spangled Banner” were written first as a poem by Francis Scott Key, inspired by the bombarding by the British of the American forces at Fort McHenry that he witnessed during the Battle of Baltimore in September 1814. The words were then set to the tune of a popular British drinking song penned by John Stafford Smith called “The Anacreontic Song”, with the Anacreontic Society being a men’s club in London.

64. Actress Wright of “Mrs. Miniver” : TERESA
Teresa Wright was an actress from Harlem in New York City. Wright won an Oscar in 1942 for Best Supporting Actress in “Mrs. Miniver”. That same year she was nominated for Best Actress for her starring role opposite Gary Cooper in “Pride of the Yankees”.

65. Growth ring? : LEI
“Lei” is the Hawaiian word for “garland, wreath”, although in more general terms a “lei” is any series of objects strung together as an adornment for the body.

66. Women’s pants with pictures of wood shop tools? : LATHE BLOOMERS (from “late bloomers”)
Bloomers are trousers that gathered at the ankles, which a woman used to wear under a skirt.

79. City near Turin : ASTI
Asti is in the Piedmont region of northwest Italy. The region is perhaps most famous for its Asti Spumante sparkling white wine.

80. Author/media observer Michael : WOLFF
Michael Wolff is an author and journalist. As a journalist he writes a regular column for “Vanity Fair” magazine. His most recent book is a 2008 biography of Rupert Murdoch called “The Man Who Owns the News”.

84. 1992 Olympic tennis gold medalist : CAPRIATI
Jennifer Capriati is a retired American tennis player, and former World Number One. She had all sorts of success playing tennis as a child, and turned professional when she was just 13 years old …

92. Pres. advisory grp. : NSC
The National Security Council (NSC) was created by President Harry S. Truman in 1947. The NSC is chaired by the sitting president and meets in the White House Situation Room.

101. What a fist might represent : ROCK
Rock-paper-scissors is a hand game played by two people, at least here in North America. Back in Ireland we called the game “scissors-paper-stone”. The game is often used as a way to choose between two options or two people.

102. Wall St. event : IPO
An Initial Public Offering (IPO) is the very first offer of stock for sale by a company on the open market. In other words, an IPO marks the first time that a company is traded on a public exchange. Companies have an IPO to raise capital to expand (usually).

104. It had a hub at J.F.K. : TWA
Trans World Airlines (TWA) was a big carrier in the US, but was perhaps even more recognized for its extensive presence in Europe and the Middle East. For many years, especially after the collapse of Pan-Am, TWA was considered the unofficial flag carrier for the US. The company started in 1930, the product of a forced merger of Transcontinental Air Transport and Western Air Express. The Transcontinental and Western Air that resulted (the original meaning of the acronym TWA) was what the Postmaster General wanted, a bigger airline to which the Postal Service could award airmail contracts.

The Idlewild Golf Course was taken over by the city of New York in 1943 and construction started on a new airport to serve the metropolis and relieve congestion at La Guardia. The Idlewild name still persists, even though the airport was named after Major General Alexander E. Anderson from the first days of the project. When the facility started operating in 1948 it was known as New York International Airport, Anderson Field. It was renamed to John F. Kennedy International Airport in 1963, one month after the President was assassinated.

107. Founding member of OPEC : IRAN
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) was founded in 1960 at a conference held in Baghdad, Iraq that was attended by Iraq, Kuwait, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. Nine more countries joined the alliance soon after, and OPEC set up headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland and then Vienna, Austria in 1965. The basic aim of OPEC was to wrench control of oil prices from the oil companies and to put it in the hands of the sovereign states that own the natural resource.

108. What the giggling supporter of the Salem witch trials was told? : NO LAUGHING MATHER (from “no laughing matter”)
Cotton Mather was a New England Puritan minister who played a central role in the Salem witch trials.

115. Defender of the West : NATO
NATO is the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. NATO was founded not long after WWII in 1949 and is headquartered in Brussels, Belgium. The first NATO Secretary General was Lord Ismay, Winston Churchill’s chief military assistant during WWII. Famously, Lord Ismay said the goal of NATO was “to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down.”

116. It keeps things moving : INERTIA
Newton’s first law of motion states that a body that is moving maintains the same velocity unless it is acted upon by an external force. That resistance to changing velocity is known as “inertia”.

120. Arsenic ___ (ratsbane) : TRIOXIDE
Ratsbane is rat poison, particularly arsenic trioxide.

Down
2. Pasternak heroine : LARA
The heroine of Boris Pasternak’s epic novel “Doctor Zhivago” is Lara. The Lara character was inspired by Pasternak’s mistress Olga Ivinskaya.

3. Pitcher Hershiser : OREL
Orel Hershiser is big into poker now that he has retired from Major League Baseball. Hershiser lives in Las Vegas and when he isn’t working for ESPN, apparently he is at the poker tables.

4. Disco ___ : ERA
Discotheques started up during WWII in Occupied France. American-style music (like jazz and jitterbug dances) was banned by the Nazis, so French natives met in underground clubs that they called discotheques where records were often played on just a single turntable. After the war, these clubs came out into the open. One famous Paris discotheque was called “Whiskey a Gogo”. In that Paris disco, non-stop music was played using two turntables next to a dance-floor, and this concept spread around the world.

6. Certain Ivy Leaguer : ELI
Eli is the nickname for a graduate of Yale University, a term used in honor of the Yale benefactor Elihu Yale.

8. One-named singing star with the surname Adkins : ADELE
The English singer Adele Adkins goes by the stage name “Adele”. Adele describes her musical style as “heartbroken soul”. Not too long ago, Adele wrote and performed the theme song for the latest James Bond film, “Skyfall”.

10. Central Swiss canton : URI
Supposedly William Tell came from Uri, a canton in the German part of Switzerland. Altdorf is the capital of Uri and is the city where William Tell shot the apple off his son’s head, at least according to legend.

11. “Gymnopédies” composer : SATIE
Erik Satie was a French composer most famous for his beautiful composition, the three “Gymnopédies”. I have tried so hard to appreciate other works by Satie but I find them so very different from the minimalist simplicity of “Gymnopédies”.

12. Blood of the Greek gods : ICHOR
Ichor is a golden fluid that is the blood of the gods in Greek mythology.

13. Trouser fabric : CHINO
Chino is a twill cloth most often used to make hard-wearing pants. The pants have come to be referred to as chinos. Chino cloth was originally developed for use by the military, but quickly became popular with civilians.

14. ___ Taylor : ANN
There was no such woman as “Ann Taylor” associated with the Ann Taylor line of clothes. The name was chosen by the marketing professionals because “Ann” was considered to be “very New England” back in 1954 when the stores first opened, and “Taylor” suggested that clothes were carefully “tailored”.

17. First name in aviation : ORVILLE
Wilbur was the older of the two Wright brothers, and he was born in 1867 in Millville, Indiana. By the time that Orville was born in 1871, the family was living in Dayton, Ohio. The Wrights spent a few years of their youth back in Richmond, Indiana, before settling in Dayton for the rest of their lives. The brothers both died in Dayton; Wilbur in 1912 and Orville in 1948.

24. Use a flying shuttle : WEAVE
The flying shuttle was a crucial development in weaving that help usher in the era of the powered spinning machines.

30. Common chords : TRIADS
A triad is a group of three, and specifically in music is a chord made up of three notes.

32. Grandson of Adam and Eve : ENOS
Enos was the son of Seth and the grandson of Adam and Eve.

33. Moon larger than Mercury : TITAN
Titan is the largest moon of Saturn. Titan is unusual in many ways, including the fact that it is the only known satellite in the solar system that is has its own atmosphere (our own moon does not, for example). Titan is the second largest moon in the solar system, after Ganymede that orbits Jupiter. Titan is so large that it has a greater volume than Mercury, the solar system’s smallest planet.

34. Physiology Nobelist Walter Rudolf ___ : HESS
Walter Rudolf Hess was a physiologist from Switzerland. Hess was a co-winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1949. He was so honored for his work in Maping the areas of the brain that are involved in controlling internal organs.

39. New releases? : PAROLEES
The term “parole” is a French word that we use in English, with the French “parole” meaning “word, speech”. Of particular interest is the French phrase “parole d’honneur” which translates as “word of honor”. In the early 1600s we started using “parole” to mean a promise by a prisoner of war not to escape, as in the prisoner giving his “word of honor” not to run off. Over time, parole has come to mean conditional release of a prisoner before he or she has served the full term of a sentence.

51. “Law & Order: SVU” actor : ICE-T
Rapper Ice-T must be sick of having his name come up as an answer in crossword puzzles. Maybe he should have stuck to his real name, Tracy Marrow? Then again, maybe not … Ice-T has been interested in acting for decades and made his film debut in the 1984 movie about break-dancing called “Breakin’”. He has also played Detective Fin Tutuola in the TV show “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” since the year 2000.

55. Historic multistory dwellings : PUEBLOS
A pueblo is a Native American village in the American Southwest.

60. They were big in the ’50s : TAILFINS
In the automotive world, tailfins were first introduced on the 1948 Cadillac, by GM designer Harley Earl.

68. Gymnast Gaylord : MITCH
Mitch Gaylord is a gymnast from Van Nuys, California. Gaylord won a gold medal in the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. He was the first US gymnast to score a perfect 10.0 in an Olympic competition. After retiring from the sport, Gaylord worked as a stunt double for Chris O’Donnell when he played Robin in “Batman Forever”.

69. “Essays of ___” : ELIA
Charles Lamb published a famous collection of essays simply entitled “Essays of Elia”. Elia was actually a clerk and co-worker of Charles Lamb, whereas Lamb was the author.

72. “Music in the Key of Love” composer : TESH
John Tesh is a pianist and composer, as well as a radio and television presenter.

75. Forces (upon) : FOISTS
To foist something is to pass it off as genuine or real. “Foist” comes from the Dutch word meaning “take in hand”. The original concept came from playing dice, in which one die was held surreptitiously in one hand.

79. Bygone Chevy van : ASTRO
The Chevrolet Astro is a minivan that GM made from 1985 to 2005. The same car was also sold as the GMC Safari.

88. Many a Bach composition : TOCCATA
A toccata is a virtuoso piece of music, usually written for a keyboard or plucked string instrument, one that has fast-moving passages that emphasize the dexterity of the performer’s fingers. It is a piece of music with an “improvisatory feel”, a piece that seems very spontaneous in form. The name “toccata” comes from the Italian word “toccare” meaning “to touch”.

89. Long little doggie : CORGI
The Welsh corgi is a herding dog, and one of the oldest breeds in Britain. Corgis aren’t speedy enough to do their job by running around livestock like collies, and instead nip at the heels.

94. Thomas who wrote “Little Big Man” : BERGER
Thomas Berger is a novelist best known for his 1964 novel “Little Big Man”, which was made into a 1970 movie starring Dustin Hoffman and Faye Dunaway.

97. Cabinet members? : FILES
One might find files in a filing cabinet.

98. Some MoMA works : OP ART
Op art is also known as optical art, and puts optical illusions to great effect.

The founding of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City was very much driven by Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, the wife of John D. Rockefeller, son of the oil magnate. Working with two friends, Abby managed to get the museum opened in 1929, just nine days after the Wall Street Crash. The MoMA’s sculpture garden bears the name of Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, and has done so since 1949.

100. Bond villain ___ Stavro Blofeld : ERNST
Ernst Stavro Blofeld is a villain in the James Bond universe. Blofeld has been played on the big screen several times by different actors. My favorite is Donald Pleasance in 1967’s “You Only Live Twice”.

106. Funny Johnson : ARTE
Arte Johnson, as well being a frequent judge on “The Gong Show”, played the German soldier on “Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In”. His character’s famous catchphrase was, “Very interesting, but …”

108. “Little Birds” author : NIN
Anaïs Nin was a French author, famous for her journals that she wrote for over sixty years from the age of 11 right up to her death. Nin also wrote highly regarded erotica and cited D. H. Lawrence as someone from whom she drew inspiration. Nin was married to banker and artist Hugh Parker Guiler in 1923. Decades later in 1955, Nin married former actor Rupert Pole, even though she was still married to Guiler. Nin and Pole had their marriage annulled in 1966, but just for legal reasons, and they continued to live together as husband and wife until Nin passed away in 1977.

110. Massive memory unit, informally : GIG
In the world of computers, a “bit” is the basic unit of information. It has a value of 0 or 1. A “byte” is a small collection of bits (usually 8), the number of bits needed to uniquely identify a character of text. The prefix giga- means 10 to the power of 9, so a gigabyte is 1,000,000,000 bytes.

111. Miss America she’s not : HAG
The Miss America beauty pageant started out as a marketing ploy in the early twenties to attract tourists to the Atlantic City boardwalk after Labor Day.

112. Noninvasive med. procedure : MRI
A CT (or “CAT”) scan produces (via computer manipulation) a three dimensional image of the inside of an object, usually the human body. It does so by taking a series of two dimensional x-ray images while rotating the camera around the patient. The issue with CT scans is that they use x-rays, and high doses of radiation can be harmful causing damage that is cumulative over time. An MRI on the other hand (Magnetic Resonance Imaging), uses powerful magnetic fields to generate its images so there is no exposure to ionizing radiation (such as X-rays). We used MRI equipment in our chemistry labs at school, way back in the days when the technology was still called Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Imaging (NMRI). Apparently the marketing folks didn’t like the term “nuclear” because of its association with atomic bombs, so now it’s just called MRI.

114. Cowpoke moniker : TEX
Cowpoke is a term used nowadays for any cowboy, but it was originally limited to the cowboys who prodded cattle onto railroad cars using long poles.

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For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. Coating on some facial tissues : ALOE VERA
9. Typical Busby Berkeley film : MUSICAL
16. They’re often wasted : SOTS
20. Drove fast : BARRELED
21. Athena turned her into a spider : ARACHNE
22. Riverbank basker, informally : CROC
23. What faking a stomachache might entail? : CREATIVE WRITHING (from “creative writing”)
25. At any point : EVER
26. “Blueberries for ___” (classic children’s book) : SAL
27. With 91-Across, 1976 album with a palindromic title : OLE
28. Fluoride, for one : ION
29. Ship that sailed “the ocean blue” : NINA
30. Gun belts, holsters and nightstick straps? : THE LEATHER OF THE LAW (from “the letter of the law”)
38. In advance : UP-FRONT
41. Contend : VIE
42. Loan-insuring org. : FHA
43. Architectural designer Maya : LIN
44. QB with a statue at Sun Life Stadium : MARINO
45. Dismounts like an expert gymnast? : GETS OFF LITHELY (from “gets off lightly”)
50. Uses a keyless entry system? : BREAKS IN
52. Promise : ASSURANCE
53. They go places : ROADS
54. “___ Andy’s Ballyhoo” (“Show Boat” song) : CAP’N
56. Move briskly : TROT
57. Engaged in battle : HAD AT
61. Group with a Grand Lodge : ELKS
62. Bach’s “___, meine Freude” : JESU
63. Contraction in a patriotic song : O’ER
64. Actress Wright of “Mrs. Miniver” : TERESA
65. Growth ring? : LEI
66. Women’s pants with pictures of wood shop tools? : LATHE BLOOMERS (from “late bloomers”)
70. Word before pole or jump : SKI
71. Sci-fi author ___ del Rey : LESTER
73. Take to sleep with, say : BED
74. Good at scheming : WILY
75. Four-legged newborn : FOAL
76. Drained of color : ASHEN
77. Time for TV debuts : FALL
79. City near Turin : ASTI
80. Author/media observer Michael : WOLFF
81. They don’t face the street : SIDE DOORS
84. 1992 Olympic tennis gold medalist : CAPRIATI
86. Become a new person by washing up? : BATHE AND SWITCH (from “bait and switch”)
90. “I’ve got something to say” : LISTEN
91. See 27-Across : ELO
92. Pres. advisory grp. : NSC
93. Buddy : BRO
94. Men in a lineup : BATTERS
95. Unpopular ophthalmologist’s implement? : A SCYTHE FOR SORE EYES (from “a sight for sore eyes”)
101. What a fist might represent : ROCK
102. Wall St. event : IPO
103. Sound of frustration : GRR!
104. It had a hub at J.F.K. : TWA
107. Founding member of OPEC : IRAN
108. What the giggling supporter of the Salem witch trials was told? : NO LAUGHING MATHER (from “no laughing matter”)
115. Defender of the West : NATO
116. It keeps things moving : INERTIA
117. Squad leader : SERGEANT
118. Make mouseholes, maybe : GNAW
119. Retiree’s accumulation : NEST EGG
120. Arsenic ___ (ratsbane) : TRIOXIDE

Down
1. Elementary school group? : ABCS
2. Pasternak heroine : LARA
3. Pitcher Hershiser : OREL
4. Disco ___ : ERA
5. Hound doc : VET
6. Certain Ivy Leaguer : ELI
7. Rise up : REVOLT
8. One-named singing star with the surname Adkins : ADELE
9. Render imperfect : MAR
10. Central Swiss canton : URI
11. “Gymnopédies” composer : SATIE
12. Blood of the Greek gods : ICHOR
13. Trouser fabric : CHINO
14. ___ Taylor : ANN
15. Journey segment : LEG
16. All-too-public spat : SCENE
17. First name in aviation : ORVILLE
18. Painted thing, sometimes : TOENAIL
19. Lacking meat : SCRAWNY
24. Use a flying shuttle : WEAVE
30. Common chords : TRIADS
31. Rush-hour din : HONKS
32. Grandson of Adam and Eve : ENOS
33. Moon larger than Mercury : TITAN
34. Physiology Nobelist Walter Rudolf ___ : HESS
35. E equivalent : F-FLAT
36. Watery : THIN
37. Cooks up : HATCHES
38. Sidewalk cafe sight : UMBRELLA
39. New releases? : PAROLEES
40. Bizarre : FREAKISH
45. Grind : GNASH
46. Bone: Prefix : OSTEO-
47. Plows leave them : FURROWS
48. Back again : FRO
49. Catch : HEAR
51. “Law & Order: SVU” actor : ICE-T
55. Historic multistory dwellings : PUEBLOS
58. Like ghost towns : DESOLATE
59. Show polite interest in, say : ASK AFTER
60. They were big in the ’50s : TAILFINS
62. Place for tips : JAR
63. Seasoned : OLD
64. Seriously annoy : TRY
66. Willing to let things slide : LENIENT
67. In the hold, say : BELOW
68. Gymnast Gaylord : MITCH
69. “Essays of ___” : ELIA
72. “Music in the Key of Love” composer : TESH
75. Forces (upon) : FOISTS
77. One standing around the house, maybe : FENCE
78. Mention parenthetically : ADD
79. Bygone Chevy van : ASTRO
80. Form letters : WRITE
82. Recipe amount : DASH
83. Saucy fare : RIBS
85. Be in the game : PLAY
86. Comportment : BEARING
87. Late finisher : ALSO-RAN
88. Many a Bach composition : TOCCATA
89. Long little doggie : CORGI
94. Thomas who wrote “Little Big Man” : BERGER
96. “… see what I mean?” : Y’KNOW?
97. Cabinet members? : FILES
98. Some MoMA works : OP ART
99. Maze answer : ROUTE
100. Bond villain ___ Stavro Blofeld : ERNST
104. Cuisine with curry : THAI
105. Proceed : WEND
106. Funny Johnson : ARTE
108. “Little Birds” author : NIN
109. Possible lunch hour : ONE
110. Massive memory unit, informally : GIG
111. Miss America she’s not : HAG
112. Noninvasive med. procedure : MRI
113. In former days : AGO
114. Cowpoke moniker : TEX

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