Tag: City where you can view Edvard Munch’s “The Scream” crossword clue

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Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1. City where you can view Edvard Munch’s “The Scream” : OSLO

Edvard Munch was a Norwegian expressionist, and most famous for his painting “The Scream”, painted in 1893. What a wonderful work that is, a true representation of expressionism. The Munch Museum in Oslo is dedicated to his work and life. In 2004, two of Munch’s paintings, “The Scream” and “Madonna”, were stolen from the Munch Museum by armed robbers who subdued the museum guards. The paintings were missing for two years, but recovered in 2006.

5. Japanese roadster : MIATA

The Mazda MX-5 is sold as the Miata in North America, and as the Roadster in Japan. I’ve always liked the looks of the Mazda Miata, probably because it reminds me so much of old British sports cars. The Miata is built in Hiroshima, Japan. The name “Miata” comes from an Old High German word meaning “reward”.

10. Images on Australia’s 50-cent coins : EMUS

The official symbol of Australia is a coat of arms that features a kangaroo and an emu.

14. Dweller along the Don : SLAV

The Don is a major river in Russia that runs over 1200 miles through the country, and emptying into the Sea of Azov.

19. Compact arms : UZIS

The first Uzi submachine gun was designed in the late 1940s by Major Uziel “Uzi” Gal of the Israel Defense Forces, who gave his name to the gun.

20. Mosque of ___ (shrine in Jerusalem) : OMAR

The Siege of Jerusalem took place in the year 637. The Rashidun Army lay siege to Jerusalem, which was in the hands of the Byzantine Empire. In order for the city to surrender, the Caliph Omar had to travel himself to Jerusalem. As victor, Omar was invited to pray in the Christian Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Out of respect for the Christian edifice, Omar refused to go into the church and instead prayed outside in the courtyard. Just over 500 years later, the Mosque of Omar was built on the site where Omar prayed, right opposite the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

22. Keepsakes for March Madness victors : NETS

“March Madness” is the name given to the NCAA Men’s Division 1 Basketball Championship (among others), that is held in spring each year.

23. So-called “Goddess of Pop” : CHER

“Cher” is the stage name used by Cherilyn Sarkisian. Formerly one half of husband-wife duo Sonny & Cher, she is often referred to as the Goddess of Pop. In her acting career, Cher was nominated for the Best Supporting Actress Oscar of 1984 for her performance in “Silkwood”. She went further in 1988 and won the Best Actress Oscar for playing Loretta Castorini in “Moonstruck”.

25. Idle on the set : ERIC

Eric Idle is one of the founding members of the Monty Python team. Idle was very much the musician of the bunch, and is an accomplished guitarist. If you’ve seen the Monty Python film “The Life of Brian”, you might remember the closing number “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life”. It was sung by Idle, and was indeed written by him. That song made it to number 3 in the UK charts in 1991.

27. Ribs : JOSHES

When the verb “to josh”, meaning “to kid”, was coined in the 1840s as an American slang term, it was written with a capital J. It is likely that the term somehow comes from the proper name “Joshua”, but no one seems to remember why.

35. Phishing target, for short : SSN

Social Security number (SSN)

Phishing is the online practice of stealing usernames, passwords and credit card details by creating a site that deceptively looks reliable and trustworthy. Phishers often send out safe-looking emails or instant messages that direct someone to an equally safe-looking website where the person might inadvertently enter sensitive information. “Phishing” is a play on the word “fishing”, as in “fishing for passwords, PIN numbers etc.”

39. Peter or Paul : CZAR

The term “czar” (also “tsar”) is a Slavic word that was first used as a title by Simeon I of Bulgaria in 913 AD. “Czar” is derived from the word “Caesar”, which was synonymous with “emperor” at that time.

43. Major ___, “Dr. Strangelove” character who rides the bomb : KONG

“Dr. Strangelove” is a black comedy directed and produced by Stanley Kubrick, released in 1964. The big star in the film is the great Peter Sellers, who plays three key roles. The full name of the movie is “Dr. Strangelove or: How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb”.

44. Blather : PRATE

To prate is to talk idly and at length, and is a word that comes to us from the Middle Dutch “praten”, meaning “to talk or chatter”.

Our term “blather” meaning “nonsensical talk” probably came to us via Scottish, and ultimately perhaps from an Old Norse word for “mutter”.

46. Literally, “a hopeful person” : ESPERANTO

Esperanto is an international language specially constructed to create some level of harmony between people from different parts of the world. It was created in the late 1800s by an opthamologist from modern-day Poland. Tens of thousands, and maybe even millions of people speak Esperanto, with some being taught it as a native language from birth.

49. It may involve dips, in two different senses : SALSA

“Salsa” is simply Spanish for “sauce”.

The genre of music called salsa is a modern interpretation of various Cuban traditional music styles.

53. Ingredient in black jelly beans : ANISE

Jelly beans are thought to have originated in Boston, and it is documented that they were sent from there by families and friends of soldiers fighting in the Civil War.

58. Ones reading the Book of Shadows : WICCANS

Wicca is a relatively new phenomenon. It is a Neopagan religion that developed in the twentieth century. Typically, followers of Wicca worship one goddess and one god, namely the Moon Goddess and the Horned God. A follower of Wicca is called a Wiccan or a Witch.

A “Book of Shadows” is a book used in the neopagan religion known as Wicca. The book contains religious texts as well as instructions for carrying out magic rituals. The first Book of Shadows was written in the late 1940s by English Wiccan Gerald Gardner.

61. Kind of operation in number theory, for short : MOD

Modulus (mod)

62. Hidden trouble indicator … or what you’ll need to finish this crossword? : TIP OF THE ICEBERG

An iceberg is a large piece of freshwater ice that is floating freely after having broken off from a glacier or ice shelf. Out use of “iceberg” comes from the Dutch word for the same phenomenon “ijsberg”, which translates literally as “ice mountain”.

67. It’s between an A and a B : NINETY

Grade A is 94-100%, and Grade B is 83 – 86%.

68. Yoga poses : ASANAS

“Asana” is a Sanskrit word literally meaning “sitting down”. The asanas are the poses that a practitioner of yoga assumes. The most famous is the lotus position, the cross-legged pose called “padmasana”.

Down

1. ___ buco : OSSO

“Osso” is the Italian word for bone, as in the name of the dish “osso buco” (bone with a hole), which features braised veal shanks.

2. It’s symbolized by a star and crescent : ISLAM

Although the star and crescent emblem has been around for some centuries, it was only adopted as a symbol of Islam starting in the 1950s.

6. Blood of the gods, in Greek myth : ICHOR

Ichor is a golden fluid that is the blood of the gods in Greek mythology.

8. Alexander the Great, to Aristotle : TUTEE

Aristotle was actually a student of Plato in Ancient Greece (and in turn, Plato was a student of Socrates). Aristotle’s most famous student was Alexander the Great.

11. Puzzle in which people take turns solving : MAZE

Ah, turns … to the left or to the right … to get out of the maze …

26. F-, e.g. : ION

Here is a list of all the single-letter chemical symbols:

• B = boron
• C = carbon
• F = fluorine
• H = hydrogen
• I = Iodine
• K = potassium
• N = nitrogen
• O = oxygen
• P = phosphorus
• S = sulfur
• U = uranium
• V = vanadium
• W = tungsten
• Y = yttrium

28. Pasta common in minestrone : ORZO

Orzo is pasta that has been formed into granular shapes, much like barley. And indeed, “orzo” is the Italian word for “barley”.

32. Muppet who refers to himself in the third person : ELMO

The “Sesame Street” character named Elmo has a birthday every February 3rd, and on that birthday he always turns 3½ years old. The man behind/under Elmo on “Sesame Street” is Kevin Clash. If you want to learn more about Elmo and Clash, you can watch the 2011 documentary “Being Elmo: A Puppeteer’s Journey”.

33. The snakes in the movie line “Snakes. Why’d it have to be snakes?” : ASPS

According to the “Indiana Jones” series of films, Indy’s fear of snakes goes back when he was a young man. In “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade”, we see actor River Phoenix playing young Indie as a Boy Scout and falling into a huge pit of snakes during a chase scene.

49. Leader of the land down under? : SATAN

Satan is the bringer of evil and temptation in the Abrahamic religions. The name “Satan” is Hebrew for “adversary”.

50. Out : ALIBI

“Alibi” is the Latin word for “elsewhere” as in, “I claim that I was ‘elsewhere’ when the crime was committed … I have an ‘alibi’”.

60. Indianapolis-based sports org. : NCAA

The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) dates back to the Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt. When his son broke his nose playing football at Harvard, President Roosevelt turned his attention to the number of serious injuries and even deaths occurring in college sports. He instigated meetings between the major educational institutions leading to the formation of the Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the United States (IAAUS) in 1906, which was given the remit of regulating college sports. The IAAUS became the NCAA in 1910. The NCAA has been headquartered in Indianapolis since 1999.