Tag: More hipsterish crossword clue

Bill’s time: 5m 17s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1 Square dance venue : BARN

A square dance is a dance for eight participants, i.e. four couples. For much of the time, the couples are arranged so that they form the sides of a square, hence the name of the dance.

5 San ___, capital of Puerto Rico : JUAN

San Juan is the capital of Puerto Rico. The city was founded in 1521 by the Spanish, who called it “Ciudad de Puerto Rico” (Rich Port City).

9 The “I” of T.G.I.F. : IT’S

“Thank God It’s Friday” (TGIF)

14 Popular dance fitness program : ZUMBA

The Zumba exercise program was developed in the mid-nineties in Cali, Colombia by dancer and choreographer Beto Perez. Along with two partners, Perez introduced a series of fitness videos that they sold using infomercials. The name “Zumba” is just an arbitrary brand name.

16 Abba hit of 1979 : GIMME! GIMME! GIMME!

“Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)” is a 1979 hit for the Swedish group ABBA. The album and single version released generally around the world is 4:48 in length. The single version released in North America was edited down drastically to 3:36.

21 ‘N Sync hit of 2000 : BYE BYE BYE

“Bye Bye Bye” is a 2000 hit song recorded by the boy band NSYNC. It was originally written for another boy band, the English group 5ive, but they passed on it.

27 Olympic gold medalist Raisman : ALY

Aly Raisman is a retired gymnast. She captained the US gold-winning teams in the Olympics in 2012 (“The Fierce Five”) and in 2016 (“The Final Five”).

33 Arouse, as interest : PIQUE

The words “whet” and “pique” can both be used in the sense of sharpening, or awakening one’s interest or desire.

34 Mötley Crüe hit of 1987 : GIRLS, GIRLS, GIRLS

Mötley Crüe is an American rock band from Los Angeles. They’ve been around since 1981, co-founded by the famous drummer Tommy Lee. Tommy Lee is also known for his two celebrated marriages, the first with Heather Locklear and the second with Pamela Anderson. The name “Mötley Crüe” was chosen as someone once described the band members as a “motley looking crew”. The spelling was made to look a little more exotic, with the umlauts added over the “o” and “u” one day, as the band were drinking bottles of “Löwenbräu” beer!

41 Start of Caesar’s boast : I CAME …

The oft-quoted statement “Veni, vidi, vici” (“I came, I saw, I conquered”) is believed by many to have been written by Julius Caesar. The words date back to 47 BCE and refer to the short war between Rome and Pharnaces II of Pontus.

49 Lisbon greeting : OLA!

Lisbon is the capital of Portugal. It is the westernmost capital city in Europe, and indeed is the westernmost large city on the continent. Lisbon is also the oldest city in Western Europe, and was founded hundreds of years before London, Paris and Rome.

51 Beach Boys hit of 1964 : FUN, FUN, FUN

“Fun, Fun, Fun” is a 1964 song written by Brian Wilson and Mike Love for the Beach Boys. The English rock band Status Quo released a great cover version of “Fun, Fun, Fun” in 1996, which featured the Beach Boys on backup vocals.

57 Italy’s Isle of ___ : CAPRI

The island of Capri off the coast of Southern Italy has been a tourist resort since the days of ancient Rome. Capri is home to the famous Blue Grotto, a sea cave that is illuminated with sunlight that’s colored blue as it passes through the seawater into the cave.

58 Coveted Scrabble space … or the sheet music for 16-, 21-, 34- or 51-Across? : TRIPLE-WORD SCORE

The game of Scrabble has been around since 1938, and is the invention of an architect named Alfred Mosher Butts. Butts was born on April 13th, and we now celebrate National Scrabble Day on April 13th each year in his honor.

63 Beethoven’s “___ to Joy” : ODE

Beethoven’s “Symphony No. 9” has to be one of the most recognizable pieces of music in the classical repertoire. “Ode to Joy”, based on the final movement of the work, is now the anthem of the European Union. If you’d like to see a fictional tale that explores Beethoven’s life at the time he was writing the “Ninth Symphony”, I highly recommend you take a look at the 2006 movie “Copying Beethoven”. Ed Harris plays Beethoven, and the soundtrack is superb.

64 State that’s home to one end of the Appalachian Trail : MAINE

Appalachia is the name of a region that encompasses the central and southern portions of the Appalachian Mountains. Major cities included in the region include Pittsburgh, Knoxville, Chattanooga, Birmingham and Asheville.

65 Where “all my ex’s live,” in song : TEXAS

“All My Ex’s Live in Texas” is a song released in 1987 by country singer George Strait.

68 City surrounding Vatican City : ROME

Vatican City is a sovereign city-state that is walled off within the city of Rome. Vatican City is about 110 acres in area, and so is the smallest independent state in the world. With about 800 residents, it is also the smallest state in terms of population. Although the Holy See dates back to early Christianity, Vatican City only came into being in 1929. At that time, Prime Minister Benito Mussolini signed a treaty with the Holy See on behalf of the Kingdom of Italy that established the city-state.

Down

2 Oscar winner Mahershala : ALI

Mahershala Ali is an actor and sometime rapper. Among the more memorable roles Ali has had are lobbyist Remy Danton in TV’s “House of Cards”, and Colonel Boggs in “The Hunger Games” series of movies. He also won Best Supporting Actor Oscars for playing Juan in the 2016 drama “Moonlight”, and Dr. Don Shirley in 2018’s “Green Book”.

3 Sleep stage, for short : REM

“REM” is an acronym standing for “rapid eye movement”. REM sleep takes up 20-25% of the sleeping hours and is the period associated with one’s most vivid dreams.

4 Coastal African desert : NAMIB

The Namib Desert is in Namibia, as one might expect, and also stretches into part of Angola. It is thought to be the oldest desert in the world, having been arid for over 55 million years.

11 Uses a broom : SWEEPS

The sweeping implement known as a “broom” used to be called a “besom”. A besom was made from a bundle of twigs tied to a stouter pole. The favored source for the twigs came from thorny shrubs from the genus Genista. The common term for many species of Genista is “broom”. Over time, “broom besoms” came to be known simply as “brooms”.

13 Its capital is Nairobi : KENYA

Nairobi is the capital and largest city in the African nation of Kenya. The city is named for the Nairobi River, which in turn takes its name from the Maasai “Enkare Nairobi” meaning “Cool Water”. Nairobi was founded in 1899 as a stop on the Kenya-Uganda railroad, at a time when the country was a British colony.

17 Scottish Highlander : GAEL

A Gael is anyone of a race that speaks or spoke one of the Erse tongues. There are actually three Erse languages. Irish, Manx (spoken on the Isle of Man) and Scots Gaelic. In their own tongues, these would be “Gaeilge” (in Ireland), “Gaelg” (on the Isle of Man) and “Gaidhlig” (in Scotland).

21 Outlet for an internet commentator : BLOG

Many folks who visit this website regard it as just that, a website. That is true, but more specifically it is referred to as a blog, as I make regular posts (actually daily posts) that then occupy the “front page” of the site. The blog entries are in reverse chronological order, and one can just look back day-by-day, reading older and older posts. “Blog” is a contraction of the term “web log”.

22 ___ Gagarin, first man in space : YURI

Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space when his spacecraft Vostok I made a single orbit of the Earth in 1961. Sadly, Gagarin died only seven years later in a plane crash.

29 Brainpower measures, for short : IQS

Although it is correct these days to say that the abbreviation IQ stands for “intelligence quotient”, the term was actually coined by German psychologist William Stern, and so is actually an abbreviation for the German “Intelligenz-Quotient”.

36 Needlefish : GAR

“Gar” was originally the name given to a species of needlefish found in the North Atlantic. The term “gar” is now used to describe several species of fish with elongated bodies that inhabit North and Central America and the Caribbean. The gar is unusual in that it is often found in very brackish water. What I find interesting is that the gar’s swim bladders are vascularized so that they can actually function as lungs. Many species of gar can actually be seen coming to the surface and taking a gulp of air. This adaptation makes it possible for them to live in conditions highly unsuitable for other fish that rely on their gills to get oxygen out of the water. Indeed, quite interesting …

39 Athleisure lead-in to “lemon” : LULU-

Lululemon Athletica is a brand of athletic clothing that was founded by Chip Wilson in 1998 and is headquartered in Vancouver. The company’s name is very much associated with the activity of yoga in particular. Every Lululemon store offers a weekly complimentary yoga class.

40 Lee of Marvel Comics : STAN

Stan Lee did just about everything at Marvel Comics over the years, from writing to being president and chairman of the board. If you like superhero movies based on the characters from Marvel Comics, then you could spend a few hours trying to spot Stan Lee in those films as he had a penchant for making cameo appearances. Lee can be spotted in “X-Men” (2000), “Spider-Man” (2002), “Hulk” (2003), “Fantastic Four” (2005), “Iron Man” (2008) and many other films.

44 Beehive or bob : HAIRDO

That distinctive beehive hairstyle is also called a B-52, because the round, beehive-shape also resembles the bulbous nose of a B-52 bomber! The style originated in 1958, and is credited to Margaret Vinci Heldt, the owner of a hair salon in downtown Chicago. I’m not a fan of the beehive, but I do have to say that Audrey Hepburn carried it off in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”, as did Dusty Springfield in her heyday.

A bob cut is a short hairstyle in which the hair is cut straight around the head, at about the line of the jaw. Back in the 1570s, “bob” was the name given to a horse’s tail that was cut short, and about a century later it was being used to describe short hair on humans. The style became very popular with women in the early 1900s (as worn by actress Clara Bow, for example), with the fashion dying out in the thirties. The style reemerged in the sixties around the time the Beatles introduced their “mop tops”, with Vidal Sassoon leading the way in styling women’s hair in a bob cut again. Personally, I like it …

45 More hipsterish : ARTIER

The term “hip” is a slang term that was used in the 1930s and 1940s to mean “cool, informed about the latest ideas and styles”. By the end of the 1940s, “hipsters” were “hip” people, jazz aficionados, and people who adopted the perceived lifestyle of jazz musicians of the day. In the 1960s, the term “hippie” developed from “hipster”, to describe a member of the youth counterculture that emerged in the US.

47 Bay Area enforcement org. : SFPD

The San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) is the 11th largest police department in the country. The SFPD dates back to the days of the Gold Rush, being founded in 1849 as a force of 35 officers. SFPD has featured a lot in movies and on television. The most famous films are probably “Bullitt”, the “Dirty Harry” series and “48 HRS.” On television there was “Ironside”, “The Streets of San Francisco” and “Monk”.

48 German sausage : WURST

“Wurst” is simply a German word meaning “sausage”.

52 The Huskies of the N.C.A.A. : UCONN

The UConn Huskies are the sports teams of the University of Connecticut. I wasn’t able to uncover the derivation of the “Huskies” moniker. Although it is true that “UConn” sounds like “Yukon”, that isn’t the derivation of the “Huskies” nickname. The school didn’t become the University of Connecticut (UConn) until 1939, and the Huskies name has been used since 1933.

60 Kitchen brand with a palindromic name : OXO

The OXO line of kitchen utensils and housewares is designed to be ergonomically superior to the average household tools. The intended user of OXO products is someone who doesn’t have the normal range of motion or strength in the hands e.g. someone suffering from arthritis.

62 Suffix with Sudan or Japan : -ESE

Sudan was the largest country in Africa until 2011, when the Southern Sudan region opted by referendum to become independent. “North Sudan” retained the name of Sudan, and the new state is called South Sudan. Sudan is now the third largest country in the continent, after Algeria and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The Japanese names for “Japan” are “Nippon” and “Nihon”. These translate literally as “the sun’s origin”, but the more ornate translation of “Land of the Rising Sun” is often cited.