Month: November 2012

Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across
1. John and Paul POPES
The last Pope named John was Pope John XXIII, who headed the Roman Catholic Church from 1958 to 1963. Pope John XXIII was succeeded by the last Pope to use the name Paul, Pope Paul VI who passed away while still in office in 1978.

6. Capital on its own gulf RIGA
Riga is the capital city of Latvia. The historical center of Riga is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, declared as such because of the city’s magnificent examples of Art Nouveau architecture.

10. Bar or bel intro DECI-
The unit of pressure known as a bar is about equal to the pressure of the atmosphere at sea level.

In the world of acoustics, one bel is equal to ten decibels.

16. Country on its own gulf OMAN
Oman lies on the southeast coast of the Arabian Peninsula and is neighbored by the OAE, Saudi Arabia and Yemen. The capital city of Muscat has a strategic location on the Gulf of Oman and has a history of invasion and unrest. Centuries of occupation by the Persians ended in 1507 when the Portuguese took the city in a bloody attack. The Portuguese held Muscat for much of the next one hundred years until finally being ousted by local Omani forces in 1648. A Yemeni tribe invaded the area in 1741 and set up a monarchy that has been in place in Oman ever since.

17. Mimic mackerel? PARROTFISH
A parrotfish is a colorful fish found in tropical waters. The parrotfish takes its name from how its teeth are arranged, forming a parrot-like “beak”.

20. Seed cover ARIL
The casing called the aril, which surrounds many seeds, may be quite fleshy. This fruit-like characteristic makes it desirable as a food and aids in the dispersion of the seeds.

21. Tony winner Roger REES
Roger Rees is a Welsh actor. Rees played the character Robin Colcord on “Cheers”, the posh love interest for Rebecca Howe played by Kirstie Alley.

22. Many an Everly Brothers hit B-SIDE
The Everly Brothers are noted for their steel guitar sound, and their great use of harmony. Their harmony onstage wasn’t reflected off the stage though. In 1973 the brothers decided to pursue separate careers and scheduled a farewell performance attended by many fans, family and stalwarts from the music industry. Don Everly came on stage too drunk to perform, and eventually brother Phil just stormed off into the wings, smashing his guitar as he left. The boys didn’t talk to each other for ten years after that incident.

26. Early Pilgrim family ALDENS
John Alden is said to have been the first person to disembark from the Mayflower and to have set foot on Plymouth Rock in 1620. Alden himself was not a Pilgrim as such, and was a carpenter working on the Mayflower before it sailed. He apparently decided to travel with the ship at the last minute, perhaps in pursuit of the woman who would become his wife, Priscilla Mullens. Alden ended up in a love triangle with Priscilla and Captain Miles Standish, a relationship which is recounted in the Longfellow poem “The Courtship of Miles Standish”. John and Priscilla were the parents of a son, John Alden, who was later to be accused during the Salem witch trials.

29. County bordering Mayo SLIGO
Sligo is a coastal county in the West of Ireland. The county takes its name from the principal town of Sligo. The town’s name in Irish is “Sligeach”, which means “shelly place”, perhaps indicating that lots of shellfish were found in the town’s river.

County Mayo is in the west of Ireland, and is one of my favorite parts of the country. “Mayo” is an anglicized spelling of the county’s name in Irish, “Maigh Eo”, which is pronounced as “Mayo” and means “plain of the yew trees”. One of the most famous spots in Mayo is Croagh Patrick, a 2,500 feet peak that many devout Catholic pilgrims ascend in their bare feet.

38. The gamut A TO Z
In medieval times, the musical scale was denoted by the notes “ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la”. The term “gamma ut”, shortened to “gamut”, was used to describe the whole scale. By the 1620s, “gamut” was being used to mean the entire range of anything, the whole gamut.

42. Key of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 24 F-SHARP
Ludwig van Beethoven wrote his Piano Sonata No. 24 in 1809, and dedicated it to Countess Teréz Brunszvik de Korompa. The Countess was a student of Beethoven, and because of the dedication the sonata has the nickname “A Thérèse”.

47. European tourists’ rentals VESPAS
Vespa is a brand of motor scooter originally made in Italy (and now all over the world) by Piaggio. “Vespa” is Italian for “wasp”.

54. Pearl Buck heroine O-LAN
Pearl S. Buck’s novel “The Good Earth” won a Pulitzer in 1932, and helped Buck win the Nobel Prize for literature a few years later. The story tells of life in a Chinese village and follows the fortunes of Wang Lung and his wife O-Lan. Although “The Good Earth” has been around for decades, it hit the bestseller list again in 2004 when it was a pick for Oprah’s Book Club.

59. Bread brushed with ghee NAAN
In an Indian restaurant, naan bread is very popular. Naan is traditionally baked in a clay oven known as a tandoor.

Ghee is clarified butter used in South Asian cuisines.

61. Rival of Helena ESTEE
Estée Lauder was quite the successful businesswoman with a reputation as a great salesperson. Lauder introduced her own line of fragrances in 1953, a bath oil called “Youth Dew”. “Youth Dew” was marketed as a perfume, but it was added to bathwater. All of a sudden women were pouring whole bottles of Ms. Lauder’s “perfume” into their baths, while using only a drop or two of French perfumes behind their ears. That’s quite a difference in sales volume …

Helena Rubinstein was an American businesswoman born in Poland. She arrived in New York City just after the outbreak of WWI, and there opened up her first cosmetics salon. Within a decade she had built a huge chain of salons, and sold off the business to Lehman Brothers in 1928 for over $7 million. A couple of years later during the Great Depression, Rubinstein bought back her business, for less than one million dollars.

63. “The War of the Worlds” foe MARS
“The War of the Worlds” is a science fiction classic penned by H. G. Wells in 1895-97. This compelling story of Martians invading Earth has been adapted many times into radio dramas, a television series and several movies.

Down
4. Rank below marquis EARL
In the ranking of nobles, an earl comes above a viscount and below a marquess. The rank of earl is used in the British peerage system and is equivalent to the rank of count in other countries. Other British ranks have female forms (e.g. marquess and marchioness, viscount and viscountess), but there isn’t a female word for the rank of earl. A female given the same rank as an earl is known simply as a countess.

5. Capacity-exceeding letters SRO
Standing Room Only (SRO).

6. Gold-medalist decathlete Johnson RAFER
Rafer Johnson is a retired American decathlete, the winner of the gold medal in 1960 at the Rome Olympics. While in training for the Games, his friend Kirk Douglas offered Johnson a part in “Spartacus”, but he had to turn it down as in those days the job would have made him a professional and unable to compete in Rome. Johnson did become a minor actor though, and played a DEA agent in the 1989 Bond movie “Licence to Kill”.

8. Painter’s undercoat GESSO
Gesso is the Italian word for “chalk” and gives its name to the powdered calcium carbonate that is used as a primer coat under artistic panel paintings. The gesso is mixed with a glue and applied to wood so that it acts as an absorbent surface for paint.

9. __ Wednesday ASH
In the Christian tradition, the first day in the season of Lent is called Ash Wednesday. On Ash Wednesday, Palm Crosses from the prior year’s Palm Sunday are burned. The resulting ashes are mixed with sacred oil and then used to anoint worshipers on the forehead with the shape of a cross.

18. Speaker of Cooperstown TRIS
Tris Speaker was a Major League Baseball player, the holder of the record for the most doubles hit in a career. He led the Boston Red Sox to two World Series championships, in 1912 and 1915.

22. Crude meas. BBL
The volume of one oil barrel is equivalent to 42 US gallons. A barrel is correctly abbreviated to “bbl”. Barrels aren’t really used for transporting crude oil anymore. Instead, oil moves in bulk through pipelines and in tankers. “Barrel” is just a quantity these days.

25. Finn floater RAFT
“The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” by Mark Twain was first published in 1884, not here in the US but rather in England. The original launch planned for the US had to be delayed until the following year because some rascal had defaced the plate for one of the illustrations, making an obscene joke. Once the problem was spotted a new plate had to be made, and 30,000 copies already printed had to be reworked to cover up the obscenity.

31. Meter opening ODO-
An odometer measures distance traveled. The word derives from the Greek “hodos” meaning “path” and “metron” meaning “measure”.

32. Dick Cheney’s eldest LIZ
Liz Cheney is the eldest daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney. Liz appears on Fox news from time to time as a political analyst.

35. Has a mortgage, say OWES
Our word “mortgage” comes from the Old French “mort gaige” which translated as “dead pledge”. The idea was that a pledge to repay a loan dies when the debt is cleared.

40. End of the slogan that starts “Everybody doesn’t like something” SARA LEE
In 1935, businessman Charles Lubin bought a chain of three bakeries in Chicago called Community Bake Shops, and soon expanded the operation into seven stores. Lubin introduced a cream cheesecake that he named after his daughter who was only 8-years-old at the time, Sara Lee Lubin. The cheesecake was a hit, and he renamed the bakeries to Kitchen of Sara Lee. The business was bought out by Consolidated foods in 1956, but the brand name Sara Lee persists to this day, as does Ms. Sara Lee herself who now goes by the name Sara Lee Schupf.

41. African dangers TSETSES
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 onto 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.

44. Salon dyes HENNAS
Henna has been used for centuries as a dye, not just for leather and wool, but also for the hair and skin. In modern days, henna is also used for temporary tattoos.

45. It starts with thunder and lightning in “Macbeth” ACT ONE
There is a superstition in the theatrical world that uttering the name “Macbeth” in a theater will bring disaster of some sort. To avoid this, the euphemism “the Scottish Play” is used instead.

46. Mr. Rogers ROY
Cowboy actor and singer Roy Rogers’ real name was Leonard Franklin Slye, and his nickname was “King of the Cowboys”. Roy Rogers married Dale Evans in 1947. Evans’ nickname was “Queen of the West”.

49. Irish lullaby start TOO-RA-
The song from Ireland called “Too-Ra-Loo-Ra-Loo-Ral” was written in 1914 by one James Royce Shannon. The song became quite a hit after it was sung by Bing Crosby in the 1944 movie “Going My Way”.

50. Eating may relieve its symptoms ULCER
A peptic ulcer, until fairly recently, was believed to be caused by undue amounts of stress in one’s life. It is now known that 70-90% of all peptic ulcers are in fact associated with a particular bacterium.

55. Frisbee, for one DISC
The Frisbee concept started back in 1938 with a couple who had an upturned cake pan that they were tossing between each other on Santa Monica Beach in California. They were offered 25 cents for the pan on the spot, and as pans could be bought for 5 cents, the pair figured there was a living to be earned.

57. “Lou Grant” production co. MTM
MTM Enterprises was a television production company founded in 1969 by Mary Tyler Moore, originally to produce the “The Mary Tyler Moore Show”. The company subsequently produced the likes of “The Bob Newhart Show”, “Rhoda”, “WKRP in Cincinnati”, “Hill Street Blues” and “St. Elsewhere”. That’s a lot of great television …

58. Portugal’s Manuel II, e.g. REI
Manuel II was the last King of Portugal. Manuel lost the throne in 1910 when the Portuguese monarchy was dissolved in a coup d’état and the Portuguese First Republic was established.

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For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. John and Paul POPES
6. Capital on its own gulf RIGA
10. Bar or bel intro DECI-
14. Imminent, old-style ANEAR
15. Shots served neatly? ACES
16. Country on its own gulf OMAN
17. Mimic mackerel? PARROTFISH
19. Tolled RANG
20. Seed cover ARIL
21. Tony winner Roger REES
22. Many an Everly Brothers hit B-SIDE
23. “__-hoo!” YOO-
24. Mimic masquerades? MIRROR BALLS
26. Early Pilgrim family ALDENS
28. Ready ALL SET
29. County bordering Mayo SLIGO
30. Fairy tale threat WOLF
33. Mimic magazine managers? COPY EDITORS
38. The gamut A TO Z
39. Obtain despite resistance WREST
42. Key of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 24 F-SHARP
47. European tourists’ rentals VESPAS
48. Mimic masquerades? APE COSTUMES
52. “__ we having fun yet?” ARE
53. Like much mouthwash MINTY
54. Pearl Buck heroine O-LAN
55. “Dang!” DRAT
56. __ uncertain terms IN NO
57. Mimic miseries? MOCK TRIALS
59. Bread brushed with ghee NAAN
60. Stationary surgical patient TREE
61. Rival of Helena ESTEE
62. In addition ELSE
63. “The War of the Worlds” foe MARS
64. Slurpee cousins ICEES

Down
1. Tropical fruits PAPAYAS
2. Hot ON A ROLL
3. Regular PERIODIC
4. Rank below marquis EARL
5. Capacity-exceeding letters SRO
6. Gold-medalist decathlete Johnson RAFER
7. Less receptive ICIER
8. Painter’s undercoat GESSO
9. __ Wednesday ASH
10. Back fin DORSAL
11. Sends, in a way EMAILS
12. Taper, e.g. CANDLE
13. Gulp down INGEST
18. Speaker of Cooperstown TRIS
22. Crude meas. BBL
24. Letter run MNOP
25. Finn floater RAFT
27. I problem? EGO
30. Wrong, with “all” WET
31. Meter opening ODO-
32. Dick Cheney’s eldest LIZ
34. Blabs YAPS
35. Has a mortgage, say OWES
36. Tourist’s options: Abbr. RRS
37. Break up SEPARATE
40. End of the slogan that starts “Everybody doesn’t like something” SARA LEE
41. African dangers TSETSES
42. Big food problem FAMINE
43. __ column SPINAL
44. Salon dyes HENNAS
45. It starts with thunder and lightning in “Macbeth” ACT ONE
46. Mr. Rogers ROY
47. Blow off steam VENT
49. Irish lullaby start TOO-RA-
50. Eating may relieve its symptoms ULCER
51. Compels MAKES
55. Frisbee, for one DISC
57. “Lou Grant” production co. MTM
58. Portugal’s Manuel II, e.g. REI

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