Tag: Something found near a trap crossword clue

Bill’s time: 9m 46s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

15 Prominent feature of Hello Kitty : HAIR BOW

Hello Kitty is a female bobtail cat, and a character/brand name launched in 1974 by the Japanese company Sanrio. Folks can overpay for stationary, school supplies and fashion accessories with the Hello Kitty character emblazoned thereon.

16 Julian who founded WikiLeaks : ASSANGE

Julian Assange founded WikiLeaks, the website that is notorious for publishing information that governments and individuals would rather remain secret. Assange is currently in England and lost an appeal to avoid extradition to Sweden to face charges of sexual assault. Assange entered the Ecuadorian Embassy in London seeking political asylum in 2012. He was granted asylum and lived at the embassy for almost seven years before being arrested and incarcerated in a UK prison.

17 Intractable situation : IMPASSE

“Impasse” is a French word describing a blind alley or an impassable road, and we use the term to mean “stalemate”.

22 Civil rights leader ___ B. Wells : IDA

Ida B. Wells was an African-American journalist and leader of the civil rights movement. She published a pamphlet in 1892 called “Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases”, which publicized the horrors of lynching of African Americans by white mobs in the South.

25 Something found near a trap : LAT

The muscles known as the “lats” are the “latissimi dorsi”, and are the broadest muscles in the back. “Latissimus” is Latin for “broadest”, and “dorsum” is Latin for “back”.

The trapezius (commonly“traps”) is a muscle in the neck and upper back that moves the shoulder blade and supports the arm.

26 Currency of 20 countries : EURO

The euro is the official currency of most of the states in the European Union, but not all. The list of EU states not using the euro includes Denmark and Sweden.

30 Bygone Apple products : IPODS

The iPod is Apple’s discontinued signature line of portable media players. The iPod first hit the market in 2001 with a hard drive-based device, now known as the iPod Classic. Later models all used flash memory, allowing a smaller form factor. The smallest of the flash-based models is the iPod Shuffle, which was introduced in 2005.

35 Three-time nominee for Best Director (1994, 2009, 2019) : TARANTINO (TARNATION)

Although Quentin Tarantino’s big break as a screenwriter and director came with the release of the 1992 film “Reservoir Dogs”, Tarantino funded that project by selling the screenplay of “Natural Born Killers” to Oliver Stone. I must admit to not being a big fan of Tarantino movies as I find his aggrandizement of violence a bit much to take …

37 Nation to which the island of Tortuga belongs : HAITI

Tortuga is a Haitian island located off the northwest coast of Hispaniola. The island was used as a major base of operations for Caribbean pirates in the mid- to late-17th century. “Tortuga” is Spanish for “turtle”.

44 Band dates : GIGS

Musicians use “gig” to describe a job, a performance. The term originated in the early 1900s in the world of jazz. The derivative phrase “gig economy” applies to a relatively recent phenomenon where workers find themselves jumping from temporary job to temporary job, from gig to gig.

45 Impose, as a tax : LEVY

A levy is a tax. The term “levy” comes from Old French in which “levée” means “raising”. So a levy is a tax that has been “raised” (in the sense of “collected”, and not “increased”).

47 Bareilles of Broadway : SARA

Sara Bareilles achieved success with her 2007 “Love Song” with the help of the iTunes online store. In one week in June of that year, iTunes offered the song as “free single of the week” and it quickly became the most downloaded song in the store, and from there climbed to the number spot in the charts.

“Waitress” is a 2015 musical by Sara Bareilles that is based on a 2007 movie of the same name starring Keri Russell in the title role. Both stage show and film are about a waitress and pie chef who is in an unhappy marriage, and who becomes pregnant. Feeling trapped, she sees a pie contest and its grand prize as her way out of her failed marriage.

60 One whose mentality begins with M-E? : EGOTIST

An egoist (also “egotist”) is a selfish and conceited person. The opposite would be an altruist.

Down

1 Kooks : CRAZIES

“Kooky” is a slang word meaning “out there, crazy”. The term has been around since the beatnik era, and it may be a shortened version of the word “cuckoo”.

4 Civil War and Reconstruction, e.g. : ERAS

A civil war is an armed conflict between factions within the same country. Here are some examples, ones with which I am most familiar:

• The American Civil War (1861-1865) was fought between northern states loyal to the Union and southern states that formed the Confederate States of America.
• The English Civil (1642-1651) was fought between the Parliamentarians (the “Roundheads”) and the Royalists (the “Cavaliers”).
• The Irish Civil War (1922-1923) was fought between the pro-treaty Provisional Government and the anti-treaty Irish Republican Army. The treaty in question was the Anglo-Irish Treaty that effectively divided the country between the Irish Free State and Northern Ireland, which remained part of the United Kingdom.

The Reconstruction Era followed the American Civil War, which ended in 1865. Reconstruction ended in 1877 when President Rutherford B. Hayes removed the last federal troops from the capitals of the Reconstruction states soon after taking office.

5 Longtime college basketball coach Kruger : LON

Lon Kruger is a professional basketball coach from Silver Lake, Kansas, and former player with the Kansas State Wildcats. Kruger spent most of his career coaching college basketball, but did spend three years with the NBA’s Atlanta Hawks.

6 Makes a note of : LOGS

The word “logbook” dates back to the days when the captain of a ship kept a daily record of the vessel’s speed, progress etc. using a “log”. A log was a wooden float on a knotted line that was dropped overboard to measure speed through the water.

8 This letter: γ : GAMMA

Gamma is the third letter of the Greek alphabet. The term “gamma” might come from the Phoenician “gimel”, meaning “camel”. One theory is that the uppercase “gamma” resembles the neck of a camel, hence the name.

9 Body part just below the philtrum : LIP

The vertical groove on our upper lip, just under our nose, is known as the philtrum or medial cleft. “Philtrum” is a Latin term coming from the Greek “philtron” meaning “love charm”. I’m not sure why that is …

11 Biblical figure whose name is repeated in a Faulkner title : ABSALOM

According to the Hebrew Bible, Absalom was the third son of David, after Amnon and Chileab.

12 Dish with a crispy tortilla shell : TOSTADA

In Mexican cuisine, a tostada is a flat or bowl-shaped tortilla

15 Like some goons : HIRED

The term “goon” was coined by American humorist Frederick J. Allen in a 1921 “Harper’s” piece titled “The Goon and His Style”. The article defines a good as “a person with a heavy touch” someone lacking “a playful mind”. The term was popularized in the “Thimble Theater” comic strips featuring Popeye. The first use of “goon” to describe a hired thug was in 1938, with reference to strikebreakers.

20 Advanced H.S. course taught by a professoressa, say : AP ITALIAN

Advanced Placement (AP)

24 Russian ballet company : KIROV

The Mariinsky Ballet is a company based in Saint Petersburg, Russia. It was founded in the mid-1700s as the Imperial Russian Ballet, but was renamed to the Kirov Ballet during the Soviet era, in honor of the Bolshevik revolutionary Sergey Kirov. The Kirov was renamed again at the end of communist rule, taking the name of the Mariinsky Theatre where the company was headquartered. The theatre was named for Empress Maria Alexandrovna, who was the wife of Tsar Alexander II.

28 “Wake word” for an Apple device : SIRI

Siri was originally developed as a standalone app by a startup company of the same name. Apple acquired the company in 2010 and integrated the technology into their operating system.

29 Raggedy ___ : ANN

Raggedy Ann is a rag doll that was created by Johnny Gruelle in 1915 for his daughter, Marcella. He decided to name the doll by combining the titles of two poems by James Whitcomb Riley, “The Raggedy Man” and “Little Orphan Annie”. Gruelle introduced Raggedy Ann in a series of books three years later. Sadly, Marcella died at 13 years of age with her father blaming a smallpox vaccination she was given at school. Gruelle became very active in the movement against mass vaccination, for which Raggedy Ann became a symbol.

33 Author Joyce Carol ___ : OATES

Joyce Carol Oates is a remarkable writer, not just for the quality of her work (her 1969 novel “them” won a National Book Award, for example) but also for how prolific her output is. She published her first book in 1963 and since then has published over fifty novels as well as many other written works.

38 She recited her poem “On the Pulse of Morning” at Clinton’s first inauguration : ANGELOU

Maya Angelou was an African-American author and poet. Angelou recited her poem “On the Pulse of Morning” at the inauguration of President Clinton in 1983. Here are some words of wisdom from the great lady:

I work very hard, and I play very hard. I’m grateful for life. And I live it – I believe life loves the liver of it. I live it.

41 Game faces? : AVATARS

The Sanskrit word “avatar” describes the concept of a deity descending into earthly life and taking on a persona. It’s easy to see how in the world of online presences one might use the word avatar to describe one’s online identity.

42 Point of contact between neurons : SYNAPSE

A synapse is a junction between a nerve cell and another cell over which an electrical or chemical signal can pass.

A nerve cell is more correctly called a neuron. The long nerve fiber that conducts signals away from the neuron is known as the axon. The axon is surrounded by a myelin sheath, which acts as an electrical insulator and which increases the rate the impulses pass along the axon.

51 Hoda of morning TV : KOTB

Hoda Kotb is an Egyptian-American television journalist who is perhaps best known as a co-host of the NBC morning show “Today”. She is also the author of the bestselling autobiography “Hoda: How I Survived War Zones, Bad Hair, Cancer, and Kathie Lee”.

59 Loo : LAV

Our word “lavatory” (sometimes “lav”) originally referred to a washbasin, and comes from the Latin “lavatorium”, a place for washing. In the 1600s, “lavatory” came to mean a washroom, and in the 1920s a toilet.