NYXCrossword.com

Bill’s time: 10m 30s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1 Disney princess who sings “A Whole New World” : JASMINE

The theme song of the 1992 Disney movie “Aladdin” is “A Whole New World”, with music by Alan Menken and lyrics by Tim Rice. It is performed in the film by Brad Kane and Lea Salonga, who provided the singing voices for Aladdin and Jasmine. In the movie’s storyline, Aladdin and Jasmine sing the song as they ride a magic carpet together.

8 Basic yoga position : LOTUS

“Asana” is a Sanskrit word that translates literally as “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”.

17 Wimbledon-winning Williams : SERENA

Serena Williams is the younger of the two Williams sisters playing professional tennis. Serena has won more prize money in her career than any other female athlete.

21 Org. for which Anthony Fauci worked for 54 years : NIH

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) organization is made up of 27 different institutes that coordinate their research and services. Examples of member institutes are the National Cancer Institute, the National Institute of Mental Health and the National Institute on Aging.

Anthony Fauci took over as Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) in 1984. He has been an advisor to every US president since Ronald Reagan. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest US civilian award, By President George W. Bush in 2008.

26 Hollow center? : ELS

The center of the word “hollow” comprises letters L (els).

32 Soprano ___ Te Kanawa : KIRI

Dame Kiri Te Kanawa is an outstanding soprano from New Zealand who was in great demand for operatic performances in the seventies and eighties.

36 Shy sorts, with a hint to the answers on this puzzle’s perimeter : WALLFLOWERS

The wallflower is a genus of flowering plants that usually have the ability to cling to loose mortar in walls, hence the name. We use the term “wallflower” to describe a shy person, evoking the image of that person sitting shyly by the wall at a party.

43 Hoppers between lily pads : FROGS

Water lilies have leaves and flowers that float on the surface of a body of water. However, the roots of the plant are embedded in soil, soil at the bottom of the pond or lake.

53 Actress de Armas : ANA

Ana de Armas is an actress from Cuba. Having attended the National Theater School of Cuba, she moved to Spain at the age of 18. Thre, she made a name for herself in a Spanish TV series called “El Internado”. De Armas moved to Los Angeles in 2014, after which her performance opposite Ryan Gosling in 2017’s “Blade Runner 2049” earned her critical acclaim.

54 Falcon and Stone in the G.I. Joe franchise: Abbr. : LTS

G.I. Joe was the original “action figure”, the first toy to carry that description. G.I. Joe first hit the shelves in 1964. There have been a few movies based on the G.I. Joe figure, but, more famous than all of them I would say is the 1997 movie “G.I. Jane” starring Demi Moore in the title role. I thought that “G.I. Jane” had some potential, to be honest, but it really did not deliver in the end.

57 Classic children’s novel set in the Swiss Alps : HEIDI

“Heidi” is a children’s book written by Swiss author Johanna Spyri and published in two parts. The first is “Heidi’s years of learning and travel”, and the second “Heidi makes use of what she has learned”. The books tell the story of a young girl in the care of her grandfather in the Swiss Alps. The most famous film adaptation of the story is the 1937 movie of the same name starring Shirley Temple in the title role.

61 Citizens of Dubai, e.g. : EMIRATIS

Dubai is one of the seven emirates that make up the federation known as the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The two largest members of the UAE (geographically) are Dubai and Abu Dhabi, the only two of the seven members that have veto power over UAE policy.

66 One of Indiana’s state symbols : PEONY

The flowering plant called a peony is named for Paean, the mythical physician to the Greek gods. Indiana adopted the peony as its state flower in 1957.

Down

4 Inventor who might be described as dotty or dashing? : MORSE

Samuel Morse came up with the forerunner to modern Morse code for use on the electric telegraph, of which he was the co-inventor. Morse code uses a series of dots and dashes to represent letters and numbers. The most common letters are assigned the simplest code elements e.g. E is represented by one dot, and T is represented by one dash. When words are spelled aloud in Morse code, a dot is pronounced as “dit”, and a dash is pronounced as “dah”.

7 “It is,” in Ibiza : ESTA

Ibiza is a Mediterranean island located almost 100 miles off the Spanish coast. It is a very popular tourist destination, largely for its legendary nightlife.

13 Subject of an annual festival in the Netherlands : TULIP

We usually associate the cultivation of tulips with the Netherlands, but they were first grown commercially in the Ottoman Empire. The name “tulip” ultimately derives from the Ottoman Turkish word “tulbend” that means “muslin, gauze”.

Some Dutch people can get a little annoyed if one refers to their country as “Holland”, as the correct name is “the Netherlands”. North and South Holland are two of the country’s twelve provinces. The use of “Holland” instead of “the Netherlands” is analogous to the former Soviet Union being referred to as “Russia” and the United Kingdom being called “England”. That said, sometimes even the Dutch people themselves refer to the country as Holland, especially at a soccer match!

15 “The Black ___” (1987 crime fiction best seller) : DAHLIA

“The Black Dahlia” is a 2006 film based on a novel of the same name by James Elroy. The novel in turn is based on the true story of the gruesome 1947 murder of Elizabeth Short, a murder that remains unsolved to this day.

20 Kylo ___, “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” villain : REN

Kylo Ren is the son of Han Solo and Princess Leia Organa in the “Star Wars” universe. The character’s birth name was Ben Solo. He was trained as a Jedi knight by his uncle, Luke Skywalker. However, Ben came to embrace the Dark Side, and changed his name to Kylo Ren. Ren is played by actor Adam Driver.

25 Green party? : NAIF

A naïf is someone who is naive, as “naïf” is the French word for “naive”.

32 “Actions have consequences” principle : KARMA

Karma is a religious concept with its basis in Indian faiths. Karma embraces the notion of cause and effect. Good deeds have good consequences at some later point in one’s life, one’s future life, or one’s afterlife. And, bad deeds have bad consequences.

34 Sports org. for the Colorado Rapids : MLS

The Colorado Rapids are a professional soccer team that is competing in Major League Soccer (MLS), North America’s highest professional soccer league.

35 Mediterranean or Baltic : SEA

The Mediterranean Sea is almost completely enclosed by land, and is connected to the Atlantic Ocean by the narrow Strait of Gibraltar. The sea takes its name from the Latin “mediterraneus”, which means “in the middle of land”.

The Baltic is a sea in northern Europe that is much less saline than the oceans. The lower amount of salt in the Baltic partially explains why almost half of the sea freezes over during the winter. In fact, the Baltic has been known to completely freeze over several times over the past few centuries.

39 Rainbow’s end : VIOLET

“Roy G. Biv” can be used as a mnemonic for the colors in a rainbow:

• Red
• Orange
• Yellow
• Green
• Blue
• Indigo
• Violet

43 Word with “casual” or “Freaky” : FRIDAY

The practice of dressing down at work on “Casual Fridays” arose at the end of the 20th century. The custom is rooted in the tradition known as “Aloha Friday” that started in Hawaii in 1966. The official designation of Aloha Friday was the result of a successful lobbying campaign by the manufacturing association known as the Hawaiian Fashion Guild.

“Freaky Friday” is a well-known children’s novel, written by Mary Rodgers and published in 1972. The basic story is that one Friday, a mother and her teenage daughter have their bodies switched due to the effects of an enchanted fortune cookie. Hilarity ensues! Disney adapted the novel into a movie three times in all:

1. In 1976, starring Barbara Harris and Jodie Foster
2. In 1995, starring Shelley Long and Gaby Hoffman
3. In 2003, starring Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan

46 Tiki bar drink : MAI TAI

The mai tai cocktail is strongly associated with the Polynesian islands, but the drink was supposedly invented in 1944 in Trader Vic’s restaurant in Oakland, California. One recipe is 6 parts white rum, 3 parts orange curaçao, 3 parts orgeat syrup, 1 part rock candy syrup, 2 parts fresh lime juice, all mixed with ice and then a float added of 6 parts dark rum. “Maita’i” is the Tahitian word for “good”.

The world’s first tiki bar was called “Don the Beachcomber”, and was opened in L.A. in 1933 by Ernest Gantt (also known as “Donn Beach”). The bar became famous for its exotic rum cocktails. Gantt was called to serve in WWII, and the business expanded dramatically under his ex-wife’s management so that there was a 160-restaurant chain waiting for Gantt when he returned stateside.

47 Former Indian prime minister Gandhi : INDIRA

Indira Gandhi’s father was Jawaharlal Nehru, Prime Minister of India. Indira herself became prime minister in 1966. She was assassinated in 1984 by two of her own bodyguards as she was walking to meet Peter Ustinov, who was about to interview her for Irish television.

48 East Egg resident in “The Great Gatsby” : DAISY

“The Great Gatsby” is a 1925 novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald that tells of the prosperous life of Jay Gatsby during the Roaring 20s. Gatsby develops an obsessive love for Daisy Fay Buchanan, a girl he met while serving during WWI, and meets again some years later after he has improved his social standing.

East Egg is a fictional location in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel “The Great Gatsby”. It is an exclusive residential area located on Long Island’s north shore, across from another fictional area called West Egg. East Egg is said to be based on the real-life location of Sands Point, Long Island.

52 Rule of ___ (comedic principle) : THREE

In the world of writing, “the rule of three” states that things coming in threes are typically more funny than things grouped in other numbers. Apparently that’s why there are Three Stooges, Three Little Pigs and Three Blind Mice. Another example is the Englishman, the Irishman and the Scotsman who go into a bar.

62 Onetime Russian space station : MIR

Russia’s Mir space station was a remarkably successful project. It held the record for the longest continuous human presence in space at just under 10 years, until the International Space Station eclipsed that record in 2010. Towards the end of the space station’s life however, the years began to take their toll. There was a dangerous fire, multiple system failures, and a collision with a resupply ship. The Russian commitment to the International Space Station drained funds for repairs, so Mir was allowed to reenter the Earth’s atmosphere and burn up in 2001. “Mir” is a Russian word meaning “peace” or “world”.

63 Meteor tail? : -ITE

A meteoroid is a small rocky or metallic body traveling through space. Once in the atmosphere, the meteoroid is referred to as a “meteor” or “shooting star”. Almost all meteoroids burn up, but if one is large enough to survive and reach the ground then we call it a meteorite. The word “meteor” comes from the Greek “meteōros” meaning “high in the air”.