Tag: Move around the world crossword clue

Constructed by: Kareem Ayas
Edited by: Will Shortz

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1 “___ Talkin’ ’bout Love” (Van Halen song) : AIN’T

Van Halen is a heavy metal band formed in Pasadena, California back in 1972. Brothers Eddie and Alex Van Halen originally called the band Mammoth, changing the name to Van Halen in 1974 when they found out there was another Mammoth playing the circuit. Early on, the brothers were renting a sound system from David Lee Roth, and they decided to save some money by bringing him into the band and saving on the rental fee!

10 Noted works of the Roman poet Horace : ODES

One of ancient Rome’s leading lyric poets was Quintus Horatius Flaccus or “Horace”, as we tend to know him. Horace’s most famous work is probably his collection of Latin lyric poems titled “Carmina” (the Latin for “Odes”).

15 Statuette modeled after a knight holding a crusader’s sword : OSCAR

Legend has it that actor Emilio Fernández was the model for the Oscar statuette. Cedric Gibbons, art director at MGM, created the design and supposedly convinced a reluctant Fernández to pose nude for “Oscar”.

16 Feeling associated with skipping a party, perhaps : FOMO

Fear of missing out (FOMO)

19 Horned creature in “Pan’s Labyrinth” : FAUN

Fauns are regarded as the Roman mythological equivalent of the Greek satyrs, but fauns were half-man and half-goat and much more “carefree” in personality than their Hellenic cousins. In the modern age we are quite familiar with Mr. Tumnus, the faun-like character encountered by the children entering the world of Narnia in C. S. Lewis’s “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe”.

21 Early Germanic people : GOTHS

The East Germanic tribe called the Goths had two main branches, called the Ostrogoths and the Visigoths. The Visigothic capital was the city of Toulouse in France, whereas the Ostrogoth capital was the Italian city of Ravenna just inland of the Adriatic coast. It was the Visigoths who sacked Rome in 410 CE, heralding the fall of the Western Roman Empire.

29 Mardi Gras locale, informally : NOLA

The city of New Orleans, Louisiana has the nickname “The Big Easy”. This name might come from the early 1900s when musicians found it relatively “easy” to find work there. The city is also known by the acronym NOLA, standing for New Orleans (NO), Louisiana (LA).

“Mardi Gras” translates from French as “Fat Tuesday”, and the holiday gets its name from the practice of eating rich foods on the eve of the fasting season known as Lent. Lent starts on the next day, called Ash Wednesday.

34 High lights? : AURORA

The spectacular aurora phenomenon is seen lighting up the night sky at both poles of the earth (the Aurora Borealis in the north, and the Aurora Australis in the south). The eerie effect is caused by charged particles colliding with atoms at high latitudes.

35 Practice chiromancy : READ PALMS

The practice of telling fortunes by studying palms is known as palmistry, palm reading, chiromancy or chirology. The term “chiromancy” comes from the Greek “kheir” (hand) and “mateia” (divination).

40 “Central Park in the Dark” composer : IVES

Charles Ives was one of the great classical composers, and probably the first American to be so recognized. Sadly, his work largely went unsung (pun intended!) during his lifetime, and was really only accepted into the performed repertoire after his death in 1954.

44 Diviner : ORACLE

In ancient Greece and Rome, an oracle was someone believed to be inspired by the gods to give wise counsel. The word “oracle” derives from the Latin “orare” meaning “to speak”, which is the same root for our word “orator”. One of the most important oracles of ancient Greece was Pythia, the high priestess to Apollo at Delphi.

45 Jerry’s uncle on “Seinfeld” : LEO

On the sitcom “Seinfeld”, Jerry’s eccentric maternal uncle is Leo, played by actor Len Lesser. Lesser acted in movies and television for many years, alongside some of the greats of stage and screen. He was fond of telling a marvelous story about acting in the 1973 film “Papillon” starring Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman. In his role as a prison guard, Lesser was required to shove McQueen, but McQueen didn’t think that Lesser was pushing him roughly enough. He turned to Lesser and told him “Don’t think of me as a movie star. Think of me as a character in a show”, encouraging him to be more aggressive. When McQueen walked away, Hoffman was left standing there beside Lesser. He paused and quietly said to Lesser, “Think of me as a movie star …”

47 Tonkatsu coating : PANKO

Panko is a breadcrumb used in some Japanese cuisine, primarily as a crunchy coating for fried foods.

“Katsu” refers to a Japanese cooking technique where a cutlet of meat (most commonly pork or chicken) is breaded with panko (Japanese breadcrumbs) and deep-fried until golden brown and crispy. While often associated with chicken or pork, the “katsu” preparation can also be applied to other ingredients like beef, ham, or even vegetables.

49 Bug expert, for short : IT PRO

Back in 1947, famed computer programmer Grace Hopper noticed some colleagues fixing a piece of equipment by removing a dead moth from a relay. She remarked that they were “debugging” the system, and so Hopper has been given credit for popularizing the term “bug” in the context of computing.

53 El ___ : PASO

Although there have been human settlements in the El Paso area for thousands of years, the first European settlement was founded in 1659 by the Spanish. That first community was on the south bank of the Rio Grande, and was called El Paso del Norte (the North Pass). Most of the urban development under Spanish rule took place on the south side of the river, with El Paso del Norte acting as the center of governance for the Spanish for the territory of New Mexico. The Rio Grande was chosen as the border between Mexico and the US in 1848, so most of the city of El Paso del Norte became part of the Mexican state of Chihuahua (and is now called Ciudad Juárez ). The area north of the river developed as a US military post, eventually becoming the modern city of El Paso, Texas.

58 Words to a betrayer : ET TU?

Julius Caesar was assassinated on the 15th (the ides) of March, 44 BC. He was attacked by a group of sixty people in the Roman Senate, and was stabbed 23 times. The first to strike a blow was Servilius Casca, who attacked Caesar from behind and stabbed him in the neck. In Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar”, Casca utters the words “Speak, hands, for me!” just before making the fatal blow. The following line, uttered by Caesar, is more famous though: “Et tu, Brute?”

59 “The Philosophy of Right” author : HEGEL

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was a German philosopher, and one of the founders of the German idealism movement. “Idealism”, in the context of the movement, was the principle that objects did not have properties in themselves, but rather that an object’s properties depended on the person perceiving the object.

63 Onetime resident of the Winter Palace : TSAR

The Winter Palace is a magnificent building in St. Petersburg in Russia that was home to the Russian tsars (and tsarinas). Today, the Winter Palace houses the famous Hermitage Museum. I was lucky enough to visit the Palace and museum some years ago, and I have to say that I have rarely been more impressed by a historical building.

Down

2 Certain Windows hard drive malfunction : I/O ERROR

Input/output (I/O)

4 Stupid stuff it’s fun to know : TRIVIA

Trivia are things of little consequence. “Trivia” is the plural of the Latin word “trivium” which means “a place where three roads meet”. I guess the idea was that folks would meet at road junctions and chat, exchanging (trivial) snippets of news. Now that’s what I call a trivial fact …

5 Level-ending foe : BOSS

In the world of video gaming, a significantly strong computer-controlled opponent is referred to as a boss. A fight against a boss is a boss battle or boss fight.

7 Sgt., e.g. : NCO

A non-commissioned officer (NCO) might be a sergeant (sgt.) or a corporal (cpl.).

12 Runner Down Under : EMU

Even though emu meat is classified as a red meat because of its color, it has a fat content that is comparable to other poultry.

24 Locale for catfish or carp : POND

Catfish get their common name because they have prominent barbels, slender sensory organs located near the mouth. The barbels are said to resemble a cat’s whiskers.

Carp are freshwater fish that are used as food around the world, although they aren’t very popular in North American kitchens. The ornamental fish that we know as goldfish and koi are all types of carp.

25 What allows Neo to disconnect from the Matrix : RED PILL

Neo is the character played by Keanu Reeves in “The Matrix” series of films. One of Neo’s actions is to choose a red pill over a blue pill. The blue pill would have allowed him to remain in the Matrix, a fabricated reality. The red pill led to his escape into the real world, and a much more difficult life.

27 Spanish 101 verb : SER

The Spanish verbs “ser” and “estar” both translate as “to be”:

1. Ser: Used for permanent or essential qualities (personality, origin, time). Think “what” something is, e.g. Soy alto. (I am tall.)
2. Estar: Used for temporary states or conditions (location, emotion, condition). Think “how” something is, e.g. Estoy cansado. (I am tired.)

28 Whom you might greet with open arms, for short? : TSA

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is the agency that employs the good folks who check passengers and baggage at airports.

30 Novelist Charles who wrote “The Cloister and the Hearth” : READE

Charles Reade was an English author who came to public attention with a two-act comedy play called “Masks and Faces”. Reade turned the play into a prose story in 1852 that he called “Peg Woffington”. Reade also wrote a historical novel called “The Cloister and the Hearth” about a married man who becomes a Dominican friar on hearing that his wife has died. Years later he discovers that his wife is in fact still living and a struggle develops between the man’s obligation to family and his obligation to the Roman Catholic Church.

31 Prefix with botanist : PALEO-

The prefix “paleo-” means “prehistoric, primitive”. It comes from the Greek word “palaios” which means “old, ancient”. The prefix “neo-” would be the opposite, meaning “new, recent”.

37 Something Lincoln once led, for short : GOP

Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the US, elected in 1860 as the first president from the Republican Party. Lincoln’s electoral support came almost exclusively from the north and west of the country, winning only 2 out of 996 counties in the Southern slave states. Lincoln led the country through the Civil War, and then was assassinated in 1865 just a few days after Robert E. Lee surrendered his army of Northern Virginia. President Lincoln was succeeded in office by Vice President Andrew Johnson.

38 Italian time unit : ORA

In Italian, an “ora” (hour) comprises “sessanta minuti” (sixty minutes).

39 Card game with a winning score of 5,000 points : CANASTA

The card game canasta originated in Uruguay apparently, with “canasta” being the Spanish word for “basket”. In the rummy-like game, a meld of seven cards or more is called a canasta.

42 Chicken ___ : MARSALA

Chicken Marsala is a French-Italian dish made from chicken cooked with mushrooms in Marsala wine.

46 Narrow channel : STRAIT

A strait (str.) is a narrow waterway connecting two large bodies of water. It might be considered the opposite of an isthmus, which is a narrow strip of land connecting two large land masses. Straits often have significant economic and geopolitical significance, as they can form choke points for maritime traffic. Examples are the Strait of Hormuz (connecting the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman) and the Strait of Gibraltar (connecting the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea).

49 OB/GYN offering : IUD

It seems that it isn’t fully understood how the intrauterine device (IUD) works. The design that was most popular for decades was a T-shaped plastic frame on which was wound copper wire. It’s thought that the device is an irritant in the uterus causing the body to release chemicals that are hostile to sperm and eggs. This effect is enhanced by the presence of the copper.

56 Id’s counterpart : EGO

Sigmund Freud created a structural model of the human psyche, breaking it into three parts: the id, the ego, and the superego. The id is that part of the psyche containing the basic instinctual drives. The ego seeks to please the id by causing realistic behavior that benefits the individual. The superego almost has a parental role, contradicting the id by introducing critical thinking and morals to behavioral choices.

57 The First State: Abbr. : DEL

The state of Delaware takes its name from Virginia’s first colonial governor, Englishman Thomas West, 3rd Baron De La Warr. Delaware is known as “the First State” as it was the first to ratify the US Constitution, in 1787.