Day: February 4, 2014

Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across
6. Chicago mayor Emanuel RAHM
The current Mayor of Chicago, Rahm Emanuel, was an Illinois representative in the US House before resigning to take up President Obama’s offer to become the White House Chief of Staff.

10. “The Wizard __”: comic strip OF ID
“The Wizard of Id” is one of my favorite comic strips. The strip was created by Brant Parker and Johnny Hart back in 1964, and it still runs today. The storyline centers on a wizard in the medieval kingdom of Id. The king of Id refers to his subjects as “Idiots”.

15. Blue Bonnet spread OLEO
Emperor Louis Napoleon III of France announced a competition to develop a substitute for butter, a substitute that would be more accessible to the lower classes and more practical for the armed forces. In 1869, a French chemist called Hippolyte Mege-Mouries came up with something that he called oleomargarine, which was eventually manufactured under the trade name “margarine”. The name “oleomargarine” also gives us our generic term “oleo”.

17. Hosiery support item GARTER BELT (giving “garter snake”)
Suspenders is another one of those words that has morphed in crossing the Atlantic. Back in Ireland we hold up our pants (trousers) with “braces”. Suspenders hold up ladies stockings (i.e. our word for a garter belt). It can be confusing …

The garter snake is found right across the continent, It is in fact the most widely distributed genus of reptile in North America, being found anywhere from the Southeast Alaska to Central America.

19. Astronaut Shepard ALAN
The goal of NASA’s Project Mercury was to put a human being in orbit around the Earth before the Soviet Union. NASA lost this first leg of the space race, as cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin achieved the feat in April 1961. Mercury astronaut Alan Shepard became the first American in space, in May 1961. The John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth, in February 1962.

20. Jai __ ALAI
Even though jai alai is often said to be the fastest sport in the world because of the speed of the ball, in fact golf balls usually get going at a greater clip. Although, as a lind blog reader once pointed out to me, you don’t have to catch a golf ball …

23. Barbecue veggie eaten with one’s hands CORN ON THE COB (giving “corn snake”)
The corn snake is a species of snake that feeds on rats and mice, subduing their prey by constriction. The snake’s name comes from the days when farmers stored harvested corn in a log building. Rats would come to feed on the corn, and corn snakes would come to feed on the rats.

26. Southwestern desert MOJAVE
The Mojave Desert in the southwest is named after the Native American Mohave tribe. Famous locations within the boundaries of the desert, are Death Valley, Las Vegas, Nevada and the ghost town of Calico, California.

29. Actor Stephen REA
Stephen Rea is an Irish actor, whose most famous role was that of the “retired” IRA man in the brilliant 1992 film “The Crying Game”. He also starred in the chilling movie “Stuck”, a 2007 film that is based on a true story about a woman who commits a hit and run on a homeless man. The woman leaves the scene of the crime with the victim still “stuck” in her windshield. The woman then leaves the man to die in her garage. Chilling, eh? But as I said, a true story …

30. Washer maker AMANA
The Amana Corporation takes its name from the location of its original headquarters, in Middle Amana, Iowa.

31. Snorkeling site CORAL REEF (giving “coral snake”)
Our word “snorkel” comes from German navy slang “Schnorchel” meaning “nose, snout”. The German slang was applied to an airshaft used for submarines, due to its resemblance to a nose, in that air passed through it and it made a “snoring” sound. “Schnorchel” comes from “Schnarchen”, the German for “snore”.

Coral snakes are a widely distributed group of snakes, with species found in much of the world. In North America, coral snakes are mainly found in the southern US. The bite of a coral snake is particularly nasty, although few coral snake bites are reported each year.

37. “Wheel of Fortune” purchase AN I
Contestants have been spinning the “Wheel of Fortune” since it first aired in 1975.

39. HDTV brand RCA
One might buy a high-definition television (HDTV) from RCA (formerly the Radio Corporation of America).

43. Play the coquette FLIRT
A “coquet” is a male flirt, with “coquette” being the name for a female flirt. The word comes from French, and is the diminutive of “coq”, the word for a cock. A cock might well be accused of “strutting his stuff” around the chicken run.

47. 1988 U2 album and movie RATTLE AND HUM (giving “rattle snake”)
“Rattle and Hum” is a studio album released by Irish band U2 in 1988. The album’s title was also used for a “rockumentary” film that built around two concerts the band performed in Denver in 1987.

53. Be a ham EMOTE
The word “ham”, describing a performer who overacts, is apparently a shortened form of “hamfatter” and dates back to the late 1800s. “Hamfatter” comes from a song in old minstrel shows called “The Ham-Fat Man”. It seems that a poorly performing actor was deemed to have the “acting” qualities of a minstrel made up in blackface.

54. Oboe insert REED
The oboe is perhaps my favorite of the reed instruments. The name “oboe” comes from the French “hautbois” which means “high wood”. When you hear an orchestra tuning before a performance you’ll note (pun intended!) that the oboe starts off the process by playing an “A”. The rest of the musicians in turn tune to that oboe’s “A”.

55. Fancy cracker spread PATE
Pâté is a rich spreadable paste made up of a mixture of ground meat and fat, to which various vegetables, herbs and spices may be added. The most famous version is pâté de foie gras, made from the fattened livers of geese (“foie gras” means “fat liver” in French).

59. 1990s vice president GORE
Al Gore was born in Washington DC, the son of Al Gore, Sr., then a US Representative for the state of Tennessee. After deferring his military service in order to attend Harvard, the younger Gore became eligible for the draft on graduation. Many of his classmates found ways of avoiding the draft, but Gore decided to serve and even took the “tougher” option of joining the army as an enlisted man. Actor Tommy Lee Jones shared a house with Gore in college and says that his buddy told him that even if he could find a way around the draft, someone with less options than him would have to go in his place and that was just wrong.

60. Wimbledon feature GRASS COURT (giving “grass snake”)
The Wimbledon Championships of tennis are held at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club located in Wimbledon, a district of London. The Wimbledon Championships started in 1877, and are still played on grass.

The grass snake is usually found near water as its diet is mainly made up of toads and frogs. Because of this behavior, the grass snake is sometimes called the water snake.

63. Mexican-American War president POLK
James Knox Polk was the 11th US President. He is known as a president who delivered on promises that he made during his election campaign. He left office after serving only one term, as he had promised the voters, and then contracted cholera on a goodwill tour of the South. He died at only 53 years of age, the youngest age for any president to die in retirement. He also enjoyed the shortest retirement of any president, at only 103 days. I guess that’s why no one keeps their campaign promises these days …

The Mexican-American War was fought from 1846 to 1848 between the US and the United States of Mexico. A major reason for the conflict was the annexation of Texas by the US in 1845. The treaty at the end of the war led to Mexico ceding the territories of Alta California and New Mexico to the US.

64. Damaging bug BORER
“Borer” is a name given to various species of insect that bore into the woody parts of plants.

65. Cong. meeting SESS
A legislative (legis.) meeting of Congress (Cong.) might be called a session (sess.).

Down
2. Avocado shape OVAL
The wonderful avocado comes from a tree that is native to Mexico and Central America. The avocado fruit is sometime called an avocado pear, because of its shape, even though it is not related to the pear at all. The fruit might also be referred to as an alligator pear, due to the roughness of the green skin of some avocado cultivars.

3. Coin once tossed into Italian fountains LIRA
The word “lira” is used in a number of countries for currency. “Lira” comes from the Latin for “pound” and is derived from a British pound sterling, the value of a Troy pound of silver. For example, the lira (plural “lire”) was the official currency of Italy before the country changed over to the euro in 2002.

4. Pope’s place, with “The” VATICAN
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.

7. Olds model ALERO
The Oldsmobile Alero was the last car made under the Oldsmobile brand. The Alero was produced from 1999 to 2004.

8. Trojan beauty whose face launched a thousand ships HELEN
According to Greek mythology, Helen was the daughter of Zeus and Leda. When Helen reached the age of marriage, she had many suitors as she was considered the most beautiful woman in the world. Menelaus was chosen as her husband, and he took her back to his home of Sparta. Paris, a Trojan prince, seduced Helen, as she eloped with him and travelled to Troy. This event sparked the Trojan War that waged between the city of Troy and Greece.

9. Witty remark MOT
“Bon mot” translates from French as “good word”. We use “bon mot” (and sometimes just “mot”) to mean a quip, a witticism.

10. Painting the town red ON A TEAR
It’s possible that the phrase “paint the town red”, meaning to go on a raucous spree, actually dates back to a particular event. It is well documented that in 1837, the Marquis of Waterford and a group of friends went wild one day in the town of Melton Mowbray in Leicestershire, England. They actually painted a whole load of the town’s buildings red. Which came first though, the incident or the idiom? Well, that is the question …

11. __ acid: prenatal vitamin ingredient FOLIC
Folic acid is also known as vitamin B9. Folic acid occurs as folate in the human body, a substance essential in the synthesis and repair of DNA.

12. “Boot” country prefix ITALO-
In the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe, the “boot” is the mainland of Italy, and the “ball” being kicked by the boot is the island of Sicily.

13. Star in the constellation Cygnus DENEB
Deneb is the brightest star in the constellation called Cygnus, the Swan. The name “Deneb” comes from the Arabic word “dhaneb” meaning “tail”, as it lies at the tail of the swan.

22. “The Giving Tree” author Silverstein SHEL
Author Shel Silverstein had a varied career and did a lot more than write books. Silverstein was a poet, composer, cartoonist and screenwriter among other things. One of his successful children’s books is “The Giving Tree”, which was first published in 1964. “The Giving Tree” tells of a young boy who has a special relationship with a tree in a forest. The message of the book seems to be that the tree provides the little boy with everything he needs.

27. Bygone science magazine OMNI
I used to enjoy reading the science magazine “OMNI”, a very entertaining yet interesting read. It was founded in 1978 by Kathy Keeton, wife of Bob Guccione the publisher of “Penthouse”. The print magazine folded in 1995, and a web version continued for a few years, until Keeton passed away in 1998.

31. Tax season VIP CPA
Certified public accountant (CPA)

32. Mork’s planet ORK
“Mork & Mindy” is a sitcom that originally aired from 1978 to 1982. The title characters were played by Robin Williams and Pam Dawber. Anyone who’d like to see Williams and Dawber acting together again might want to check out an upcoming episode of “The Crazy Ones”. a sitcom starring Robin Williams that airs on CBS. Dawber is to appear on one episode, and her character will go out on a date with Williams’ character.

33. Arctic explorer John RAE
John Rae was a Scottish explorer, who took on the task of searching for the ill-fated Franklin Expedition of 1845. The Franklin Expedition was itself searching for the elusive Northwest Passage through the Arctic Ocean connecting the Atlantic to the Pacific. John Rae stirred up much controversy back in England when he reported evidence of cannibalism among the ill-fated Franklin explorers.

34. “ER” actor La Salle ERIQ
Eriq La Salle played Dr. Peter Benton on “ER”, and is best known in film for his portrayal of Darryl in the 1998 comedy “Coming to America”.

35. Stationery hue ECRU
The shade called ecru is a grayish, yellowish brown. The word “ecru” comes from French and means “raw, unbleached”. “Ecru” has the same roots as our word “crude”.

36. Karma FATE
Karma is 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, future life, or afterlife and vice versa.

38. Cage’s “Leaving Las Vegas” co-star SHUE
Elisabeth Shue has always been a favorite actress of mine. She has been in several popular films including “The Karate Kid”, “Cocktail”, two of the “Back to the Future” movies, “Leaving Las Vegas”, and my personal favorite “Adventures in Babysitting”. Shue now has a recurring role on the TV crime drama “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation”.

The actor Nic Cage was born Nicolas Coppola. Cage is the nephew of director Francis Ford Coppola and actress Talia Shire, both of whom are his father’s siblings.

“Leaving Las Vegas” is a 1995 film starring Nicolas Cage as a suicidal alcoholic who tries to drink himself to death in Las Vegas, befriending a prostitute played by Elisabeth Shue along the way. The film is based on a semi-autobiographical novel of the same name written by John O’Brien. Two weeks into production of the movie, O’Brien actually did commit suicide.

41. Little tabbies KITTENS
Tabbies aren’t a breed of cat, but rather are cats with particular markings regardless of breed. Tabbies have coats with stripes, dots and swirling patterns, and usually an “M” mark on the forehead.

46. Degrees for many profs. PHDS
PhD is an abbreviation for “philosophiae doctor”, Latin for “teacher of philosophy”.

47. Longtime morning co-host, familiarly REGIS
Regis Philbin is an amazingly popular television personality. Philbin is in such high demand and has had such a long career, that he holds the Guinness World Record for the most time spent in front of a television camera (in excess of 16,000 hours).

48. What it is “when the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie” AMORE
“That’s Amore” is a pop standard written by Harry Warren and Jack Brooks in 1952. “That’s Amore” became the signature song for Dean Martin after he sang it (with some help from Jerry Lewis) in the 1953 comedy film “The Caddy”.

49. Barcelona bulls TOROS
Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain, after the capital Madrid. Barcelona is the largest European city that sits on the Mediterranean coast. It is also the capital city of the autonomous community of Catalonia.

51. Harlem Renaissance writer Zora __ Hurston NEALE
Zora Neale Hurston was an American author, most famous for her 1937 novel “Their Eyes Were Watching God”. Like the author, the main character in the novel is an African American woman, a part played by Halle Berry in a television movie adaptation that first aired in 2005.

“Harlem Renaissance” is the term used to describe a cultural movement in the 1920s that was known at the time as the “New Negro Movement”. The movement involved new cultural expression by African Americans that was centered mainly in urban areas in the northeast and midwest, and that was especially vibrant in New York City’s Harlem neighborhood.

58. French I word ETRE
The French for “to be” is “être”, a verb that would be studied in a French I class.

60. Student’s stat. GPA
Grade point average (GPA)

61. “CSI” network CBS
The “CSI” franchise of TV shows has been tremendously successful, but seems to be winding down. “CSI: Miami” (the “worst” of the franchise, I think) was cancelled in 2012 after ten seasons. “CSI: NY” (the “best” of the franchise) was cancelled in 2013 after nine seasons. The original “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation”, set in Las Vegas, is still going strong and has been doing so since 2000.

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For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. Find the answer to SOLVE
6. Chicago mayor Emanuel RAHM
10. “The Wizard __”: comic strip OF ID
14. Bird-related AVIAN
15. Blue Bonnet spread OLEO
16. Musical symbol NOTE
17. Hosiery support item GARTER BELT (giving “garter snake”)
19. Astronaut Shepard ALAN
20. Jai __ ALAI
21. Suffix with billion -AIRE
22. Subway entrance STILE
23. Barbecue veggie eaten with one’s hands CORN ON THE COB (giving “corn snake”)
26. Southwestern desert MOJAVE
29. Actor Stephen REA
30. Washer maker AMANA
31. Snorkeling site CORAL REEF (giving “coral snake”)
37. “Wheel of Fortune” purchase AN I
38. Hose nozzle option SPRAY
39. HDTV brand RCA
40. Ice cream drink MILKSHAKE (giving “milk snake”)
43. Play the coquette FLIRT
45. Debtor’s letters IOU
46. Award hung on a wall PLAQUE
47. 1988 U2 album and movie RATTLE AND HUM (giving “rattle snake”)
53. Be a ham EMOTE
54. Oboe insert REED
55. Fancy cracker spread PATE
59. 1990s vice president GORE
60. Wimbledon feature GRASS COURT (giving “grass snake”)
62. Curling appliance IRON
63. Mexican-American War president POLK
64. Damaging bug BORER
65. Cong. meeting SESS
66. Dazzles AWES
67. Kind of reptile found at the starts of 17-, 23-, 31-, 40-, 47- and 60-Across SNAKE

Down
1. It’s a long story SAGA
2. Avocado shape OVAL
3. Coin once tossed into Italian fountains LIRA
4. Pope’s place, with “The” VATICAN
5. WSW’s opposite ENE
6. Red-breasted bird ROBIN
7. Olds model ALERO
8. Trojan beauty whose face launched a thousand ships HELEN
9. Witty remark MOT
10. Painting the town red ON A TEAR
11. __ acid: prenatal vitamin ingredient FOLIC
12. “Boot” country prefix ITALO-
13. Star in the constellation Cygnus DENEB
18. Red inside RARE
22. “The Giving Tree” author Silverstein SHEL
24. Egg cells OVA
25. Highchair feature TRAY
26. Sir counterpart MA’AM
27. Bygone science magazine OMNI
28. The slammer JAIL
31. Tax season VIP CPA
32. Mork’s planet ORK
33. Arctic explorer John RAE
34. “ER” actor La Salle ERIQ
35. Stationery hue ECRU
36. Karma FATE
38. Cage’s “Leaving Las Vegas” co-star SHUE
41. Little tabbies KITTENS
42. One and only SOLE
43. Winter malady FLU
44. Satirize without mercy LAMPOON
46. Degrees for many profs. PHDS
47. Longtime morning co-host, familiarly REGIS
48. What it is “when the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie” AMORE
49. Barcelona bulls TOROS
50. Archery missile ARROW
51. Harlem Renaissance writer Zora __ Hurston NEALE
52. Classroom fixtures DESKS
56. Subtle glow AURA
57. Arduous journey TREK
58. French I word ETRE
60. Student’s stat. GPA
61. “CSI” network CBS

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