Tag: Kind of band crossword clue

Bill’s time: 5m 31s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

17A Onetime “Jeopardy!” host Trebek : ALEX

Alex Trebek was the host of “Jeopardy!” from the launch of the syndicated version of the game show in 1984 until his passing in 2020. Trebek missed just one episode during that time, when he and host of “Wheel of Fortune” Pat Sajak swapped roles in 1997 as an April Fool’s joke. In 2014, Trebek picked up the Guinness World Record for hosting the most episodes of a game show.

18A Area for autos : LOT

The “city lot” sense of “lot” is intertwined with the older practice of “casting lots”. Historically, land division was often determined by chance, particularly in early settlements or when distributing land among a group. “Lots” were physical objects, like stones or slips of paper, marked to represent different land parcels. These were drawn randomly, and the “lot” a person received corresponded to the specific piece of land assigned to that marker. This practice of “casting lots” directly led to the use of “lot” as a term for a defined piece of land, eventually giving us the modern usage in “city lot” and “parking lot.”

22A “You ___ Beautiful” (1970s hit) : ARE SO

“You Are So Beautiful” is a song written by Bruce Fisher and Billy Preston, first recorded by Preston in 1974. Later the same year, Joe Cocker recorded a slower version of the song that was to become more successful than the original.

24A Tiny part of an archipelago : ISLET

“Archipelago” is our spelling of the Italian “arcipelago”, a word that has Greek roots. The Aegean Sea was once known as the Archipelago. The usage of “Archipelago” migrated over time, eventually applying only to the Aegean Islands. As a result, we use the term “archipelago” today not for a sea, but for a group or chain of islands.

33A “Bad, Bad” Brown of song : LEROY

“Bad, Bad Leroy Brown” is a song written and first performed by Jim Croce. It was a number-one hit for him in 1973. The song was inspired by a real-life Leroy Brown, who was someone that Croce met while serving in the US Army.

48A “The Taming of the ___” : SHREW

William Shakespeare’s “The Taming of the Shrew” is about a courting couple. The male in the couple is Petruchio, a gentleman of Verona, and the female is Katharina/Kate, the so-called “shrew”. As the play progresses, the “shrew” is “tamed” and becomes an “obedient” bride … a controversial storyline in the contemporary world, to say the least. Regardless, modern adaptations have been made, including 1948’s Broadway musical “Kiss Me, Kate” and the 1999 romantic comedy “10 Things I Hate About You”.

51A The Mamas & the ___ : PAPAS

The folk group called the Magic Circle renamed itself to the Mamas and the Papas in the early sixties. Sadly, the Mamas and the Papas weren’t a happy bunch, always fighting over who was getting credit for songs and whose voice was getting mixed out of recordings, so they split up, twice. While they were together though, they wrote and recorded some great songs, songs which really do epitomize the sound of the sixties. “Monday, Monday” was written by John Phillips, one of “the Papas”, and it was to become the only number one hit for the group.

59A Noah’s Ark landing site : ARARAT

Mount Ararat is in Turkey. It is a snow-capped, dormant volcano with two peaks. The higher of the two, Greater Ararat, is the tallest peak in the country. Ararat takes its name from a legendary Armenian hero called Ara the Beautiful (or “Ara the Handsome”). According to the Book of Genesis, Noah’s ark landed on Mount Ararat as the Great Flood subsided.

63A October, numerically : TEN

October is the tenth month in our calendar but was the eighth month in the old Roman calendar, hence the prefix “octo-”. Back then there were only ten months in the year. “Ianuarius” (January) and “Februarius” were then added as the eleventh and twelfth months of the year. Soon after, the year was reset and January and February became the first and second months.

Down

2D Genetic variant : ALLELE

A gene is a section of a chromosome that is responsible for a particular characteristic in an organism. For example, one gene may determine eye color and another balding pattern. We have two copies of each gene, one from each of our parents, with each copy known as an allele.

4D Anglo-___ : SAXON

Germanic tribes invaded Great Britain from the early 5th century and created the nation that we now call England. The Anglo-Saxons (sometimes simply “Saxons”), as these tribes came to be called, held sway in the country until the Norman Conquest in 1066. The Anglo-Saxons were descendants of three Germanic tribes:

• The Angles, from Angeln in Northern Germany (and the tribe that gave the name “England”).
• The Saxons, from Lower Saxony and Holland.
• The Jutes, from the Jutland peninsula in Denmark.

5D Locale for cold cuts or hot pastrami : DELI

In the US, pastrami was originally called “pastrama”, and was a dish brought to America by Jewish immigrants from Romania in the second half of the nineteenth century. The original name may have evolved from the Turkish word “pastirma” meaning “pressed”. “Pastrama” likely morphed into “pastrami” influenced by the name of the Italian sausage called salami.

7D Pecan or pistachio : NUT

The pecan is the state tree (and state nut) of Texas, and also the state nut of Alabama, Arkansas, California and Louisiana. That’s not all: Oklahoma’s official state meal includes pecan pie!

The pistachio is a small tree that produces some very tasty seeds. We see the seeds in grocery stores labeled as “nuts”, but botanically they are termed “drupes”. Drupe or nut, they’re delicious …

10D Loch ___ : NESS

Loch Ness is one of the two most famous lakes in Scotland. Loch Ness is famous for its “monster”, and Loch Lomond is famous for the lovely song “The Bonnie Banks o’ Loch Lomond”. Oh, ye’ll tak’ the high road, and I’ll tak’ the low road …

21D Passover meals : SEDERS

The Passover Seder is a ritual feast that marks the beginning of the Jewish Passover holiday celebrating the liberation of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt.

22D Guinness or Bass product : ALE

The red triangle on the label of a bottle of Bass Ale was registered in 1875 and is UK Registered Trade Mark (TM) No: 00001, the first trademark issued in the UK.

27D Tortoise racer : HARE

“The Tortoise and the Hare” is perhaps the most famous fable attributed to Aesop. The cocky hare takes a nap during a race against the tortoise, and the tortoise sneaks past the finish line for the win while his speedier friend is sleeping.

31D Roaring Twenties or Swinging Sixties : ERA

The 1920s are often called the Roaring Twenties, and were a period of dynamic change across all aspects of life. Things were finally returning to normal after WWI, jazz became popular, some women “broke the mold” by becoming “flappers”, and Art Deco flourished. The whole decade came to a tragic end with the Wall Street Crash of 1929, followed by the Great Depression.

34D Tim who directed “Beetlejuice” and “Edward Scissorhands” : BURTON

Movie director and producer Tim Burton makes my least favorite type of movie: dark, gothic, horror fantasies. The list of his titles includes “Edward Scissorhands”, “Sleepy Hollow”, “Sweeney Todd”, “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” and “Alice in Wonderland”. Also included in each of these movies is Johnny Depp in a starring role, as Depp and Burton are good friends and frequent collaborators. Another frequent star in Burton movies is English actress Helena Bonham Carter, who was his domestic partner for many years.

“Beetlejuice” is a 1988 comedy-horror film directed by Tim Burton and starring Michael Keaton in the title role. Beetlejuice is an underworld character who tries to scare away the new inhabitants of a house that is haunted by the ghosts of a deceased couple (played by Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis).

“Edward Scissorhands” is a 1990 film starring Johnny Depp and directed by Tim Burton. Johnny Depp and Tim Burton; always a turn-off for me …

35D Top of a freshly served latte : FOAM

The term “latte” is an abbreviation of the Italian “caffelatte” meaning “coffee (and) milk”. Note that in the correct spelling of “latte”, the Italian word for milk, there is no accent over the “e”. An accent is often added by mistake when we use the word in English, perhaps meaning to suggest that the word is French.

37D Colorful carnival treat : SNOW CONE

A sno-cone (also “snow cone”) is just a paper cone filled with crushed ice and topped with flavored water. Italian ice is similar, but different. Whereas the flavoring is added on top of the ice to make a sno-cone, Italian ice is made with water that is flavored before it is frozen.

43D “___ Poetica” (work of Horace) : ARS

The full name of Horace’s work is “Ars Poetica, Epistula ad Pisones” (The Art of Poetry, Letters to the Pisos). The work describes the technical aspects of poetry in ancient Rome, and the term “ars poetica” has come to mean the poetry of that period.

46D Feared African fly : TSETSE

Tsetse flies live on the blood of vertebrate mammals. The name “tsetse” comes from Tswana, a language of southern Africa, and translates simply as “fly”. Tsetse flies are famous for being carriers of the disease known as “sleeping sickness”. Sleeping sickness is caused by a parasite which is passed on to humans when the tsetse fly bites into human skin tissue. If one considers all the diseases transmitted by the insect, then the tsetse fly is responsible for a staggering quarter of a million deaths each year.

48D Asparagus unit : SPEAR

Asparagus is a perennial flowering plant that is grown mainly for its edible shoots (or “spears”). The shoots must be harvested when they are very young, as they become woody very quickly.

55D Fannie ___ : MAE

The Federal National Mortgage Association is commonly called “Fannie Mae”, a play on the initialism “FNMA”. Fannie Mae was founded during the Great Depression as part of President Roosevelt’s New Deal.

57D Kibble nibbler : PET

“To kibble” is to crush or grind coarsely. This verb evolved into the noun “kibble” meaning meat and/or grain that is ground into small pellets, especially when it is used for pet food.