Day: March 13, 2014

Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across
5. Art style emphasizing gritty reality VERISM
Verism is a type of realism, an art form focused on everyday subject matter rather than the giants of life, literature or mythology. Verism is also noted for depicting subject without enhancements, “warts and all”.

14. Maker of BESTÅ storage products IKEA
The furniture chain IKEA was founded by Ingvar Kamprad in 1943, when he was just 17-years-old. IKEA is an acronym that stands for Ingvar Kamprad Elmtaryd Agunnaryd (don’t forget now!). Elmtaryd was the name of the farm where Ingvar Kamprad grew up, and Agunnaryd is his home parish in Sweden.

15. G8 member country FRANCE
The G6 was a group of six industrialized nations that formed in 1975 and whose governments met on a periodic basis. The founding members were France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and the US. The membership expanded in 1976 with the addition of Canada, forming the G7. Since 1997, Russia is also represented and the group is now called the G8.

16. “__ Got No Strings”: Pinocchio I’VE
“I’ve Got No Strings” is a song that is sung by the title character in the 1940 animated Disney film “Pinocchio”.

1940’s “Pinocchio” was the second animated feature produced by Walt Disney, following the success of 1937’s “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”. “Pinocchio” was the first animated feature to win a competitive Oscar, winning for Best Original Score and for Best Original Song “When You Wish upon a Star”.

17. Cookies named for their flavor NILLA WAFERS
As one might expect, Nilla is a shortened from of “vanilla”. However, you won’t find any vanilla in Nilla cookies or wafers. They have always been flavored with vanillin, synthetic vanilla. Is nothing sacred …?

19. Chemin de __ FER
“Chemin de fer” is the French for “railroad” (literally “path of iron”).

20. First name in American poetry EMILY
On a roadtrip around the country a few years ago, my wife and I had a very disappointing stop in Amherst, Massachusetts intending to visit the old home of Emily Dickinson. We hadn’t done our homework and failed to note that the home was only open for tours on certain days of the week, and not the day we were there (so be warned!). Emily Dickinson wrote nearly 1800 poems in her lifetime, with less than a dozen published before she died in 1886. Emily’s younger sister discovered the enormous collection, and it was published in batches over the coming decades.

21. Carrier with a hub in Oslo SAS
SAS was formerly known as Scandinavian Airlines System and is the flag carrier of three countries: Denmark, Norway and Sweden.

22. Physics unit ERG
An erg is a unit of energy or mechanical work. “Erg” comes from the Greek word “ergon” meaning “work”. A dyne is a unit of force. The name “dyne” comes from the Greek “dynamis” meaning “power, force”. Ergs and dynes are related to each other in that one erg is the amount of energy needed to move a force of one dyne over a distance of one centimeter.

23. Toed the line OBEYED
The idiomatic expression “to toe the line” means “to obey”. The etymology of the phrase is disputed, although it is likely to come from the Royal Navy. Barefooted sailors were required to stand to attention for inspection lined up along the seams for the wooden deck, hence “”toeing the line”.

31. Trig ratios SINES
The most familiar trigonometric functions are sine, cosine and tangent. Each of these is a ratio, a ratio of two sides of a right-angled triangle. The “reciprocal” of these three functions are secant, cosecant and cotangent. The reciprocal functions are simply the inverted ratios, the inverted sine, cosine and tangent. These inverted ratios should not be confused with the “inverse” trigonometric functions e.g. arcsine, arccosine and arctangent. These inverse functions are the reverse of the sine, cosine and tangent. For example, the arctangent can be read as “What angle is equivalent to the following ration of opposite over adjacent?”

33. “It’s a Wonderful Life” director CAPRA
I can’t tell you how many of Frank Capra’s movies are on my list of all-time favorites. He directed such classics as “It Happened One Night”, “Mr. Deeds Goes to Town”, “Lost Horizon”, “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington”, “Meet John Doe”, “Arsenic and Old Lace” and the holiday favorite “It’s a Wonderful Life”. Capra also did his bit during WWII, enlisting just a few days after Pearl Harbor was attacked. Given his great talent, and the fact that he enlisted at the relatively advanced age of 44, the US Army put him to work directing 11 documentary war films in the “Why We Fight” series, for which he was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal.

The Christmas Classic “It’s a Wonderful Life” was released in 1946, and is a Frank Capra movie starring James Stewart and Donna Reed. The film’s screenplay was adapted from a short story called “The Greatest Gift” by Philip Van Doren Stern. Remember the famous swimming pool scene? That was shot in Beverly High School gym, and the pool is still in use today.

34. Fib TELL A WHITE LIE
To “fib” is to “to tell a lie”. The term likely comes from “fibble-fable” meaning “nonsense”, itself derived from “fable”.

38. Some stereos SONYS
Sony was founded by Akio Morita and Masaru Ibuka. The two business partners met in the Japanese Navy during WWII.

40. Washington county or its seat WALLA WALLA
The Walla Walla Valley is a wine-growing region in Washington that extends into the northeast of Oregon. The valley is named after the Walla Walla people who lived in the area. I have a few bottles of excellent wine from the region that I picked up there on a recent road trip with my wife.

43. Spooner, for one: Abbr. REV
Spoonerisms are errors in speech in which letters or sounds are switched from one word to another. Famous examples are “Three cheers for our queer old dean” (dear old Queen … Victoria) and “Is it kisstomary to cuss the bride?” (customary to kiss …). Spoonerisms are named after an Oxford don, William Archibald Spooner, who was notorious for his tendency to pepper his speech with “spoonerisms”.

52. Initials on old globes SSR
The former Soviet Union (USSR) was created in 1922, not long after the Russian Revolution of 1917 that overthrew the Tsar. Geographically, the new Soviet Union was roughly equivalent to the old Russian Empire, and was comprised of fifteen Soviet Socialist Republics (SSRs).

53. Stingy one PIKER
A piker is a cautious gambler, and in more general terms can be a miser, someone very stingy.

63. Desert shimmer MIRAGE
A mirage occurs when light rays are bent by passing say from cold air to warmer air. The most often cited mirage is a “lake” seen in a desert, which is actually the blue of the sky and not water at all. The word “mirage” comes to us via French from the Latin “mirare” meaning “to look at in wonder”. “Mirage” has the same root as our words “admire” and “mirror”.

Down
2. Like Superman’s arms, often AKIMBO
Akimbo is such a lovely word, I think (as in “arms akimbo”). I failed to dig up anything too exciting about the term’s etymology. It seems to stem from Middle English, “in kekbowe” or “on kenbow” meaning “bend in a curve”.

5. Group for ex-GIs VFW
The Veterans of Foreign Wars organization (VFW) is the largest association in the country of US combat veterans.

6. Stat that’s better if it’s lower ERA
Earned run average (ERA)

7. Luftwaffe foe: Abbr. RAF
The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the oldest independent air force in the world (i.e. the first air force to become independent of army or navy forces). The RAF was formed during WWI on 1 April 1918, a composite of two earlier forces, the Royal Flying Corps (part of the Army) and the Royal Naval Air Service. The RAF’s “finest hour” has to be the Battle of Britain when the vastly outnumbered British fighters fought off the might of the Luftwaffe causing Hitler to delay his plan to cross the English Channel. This outcome prompted Winston Churchill to utter the memorable words:

Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.

The Luftwaffe was the aerial warfare arm of the German military forces during WWII. Formed in 1935, the Luftwaffe was disbanded in 1946. The term “luftwaffe” comes from “luft” meaning “air”, and “waffe” meaning “weapon, arm”.

8. Actually existing: Lat. IN ESSE
The Latin term “in esse” is used to mean “actually existing”, and translates as “in being”.

11. 2012 film for which Ang Lee won Best Director LIFE OF PI
The 2012 movie “Life of Pi” is based on a 2001 novel of the same name by Yann Martel. The “Pi” in the title is an Indian boy called Pi Patel who finds himself adrift for 227 days in small boat with a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker.

Taiwanese director Ang Lee has directed a mixed bag of films, mixed in terms of genre but not in terms of quality. He was at the helm for such classics as “Sense & Sensibility” (my personal favorite), “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”, “Hulk”, “Brokeback Mountain” and “Life of Pi”.

13. Vine-covered walkway PERGOLA
A pergola looks somewhat like a gazebo in structure, but it is an open walkway, with vines trained up the sides and over the top. “Pergola” ultimately derives from the Latin “pergula”, the word for a covered eave.

24. Actress Merrill DINA
Dina Merrill was in 22 movies, including two of my favorites: “Desk Set” with Tracy & Hepburn, and “Operation Petticoat” with Cary Grant. Nowadays, Merrill carries some sway in the business world. Until 2007 she was on the compensation committee of Lehman Brothers, the merry band that approved all those big bonuses. Ms. Merrill probably doesn’t talk too much about that aspect of her life these days!

26. Soggy lowland SWALE
A swale is a narrow tract of low-lying land that is usually wet or marshy. A swale can be naturally occurring or man-made. One might create a swale to help manage drainage of adjacent land.

32. “As Time Goes By” requester ILSA
The movie “Casablanca” was released in January of 1943, timed to coincide with the Casablanca Conference, the high-level meeting between Roosevelt and Churchill. The film wasn’t a box-office hit, but gained critical acclaim, winning three Oscars including Best Picture. The signature song “As Time Goes By” was written many years earlier for a 1931 Broadway musical called “Everybody’s Welcome”, and was a hit in 1931 for Rudy Vallee. But today we all remember the Casablanca version, sung by Dooley Wilson (who played “Sam” in the film). Poor Dooley didn’t get to record it as a single, due to a musician’s strike in 1943, so the 1931 Rudy Vallee version was re-released that year and became an even bigger hit second time round.

34. Burns’ “tim’rous beastie” ode TO A MOUSE
The famous Robert Burns poem “To a Mouse” describes the little creature as a “wee, sleekit, cow’rin, tim’rous beastie” (Small, crafty, cowering, timorous little beast). There’s another oft-quoted line later in the poem, “The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men, gang aft agley” (The best-laid schemes of mice and men, go often awry). John Steinbeck used this line as inspiration for the title of his 1937 novel “Of Mice and Men”.

36. Catalina, for one: Abbr. ISL
Catalina Island is located of the mainland of the Dominican Republic, although I think the clue might actually be referring to Santa Catalina Island off the coast of California.

37. Familia members TIAS
In Spanish, aunts (tias) are members of the family (familia).

41. Horseradish relative WASABI
Sometimes called Japanese horseradish, wasabi is a root used as a condiment in Japanese cooking. The taste of wasabi is more like mustard than a hot pepper in that the vapors that create the “hotness” stimulate the nasal passages rather than the tongue. Personally, I love the stuff …

49. Pollution-fighting org. EPA
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

50. Followers of Guru Nanak SIKHS
Sikhism is a religion that was founded in the 15th century in the Punjab region, which straddles the India-Pakistan border. Even though Sikhism was established relatively recently, it is now the fifth-largest organized religion in the world. Sikhism was founded in the 15th century by Guru Nanak.

56. Merit badge gp. BSA
As every little boy (of my era) knows, the Scouting movement was founded by Lord Baden Powell, in 1907. The Boy Scouts of America (BSA) soon followed, in 1910.

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For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. Move suddenly DART
5. Art style emphasizing gritty reality VERISM
11. Cut, as a branch LOP
14. Maker of BESTÅ storage products IKEA
15. G8 member country FRANCE
16. “__ Got No Strings”: Pinocchio I’VE
17. Cookies named for their flavor NILLA WAFERS
19. Chemin de __ FER
20. First name in American poetry EMILY
21. Carrier with a hub in Oslo SAS
22. Physics unit ERG
23. Toed the line OBEYED
25. Modesto-to-San Jose dir. WSW
26. __ speak SO TO
27. Agree, in a way NOD
28. Flu sufferer’s complaint I FEEL AWFUL
31. Trig ratios SINES
33. “It’s a Wonderful Life” director CAPRA
34. Fib TELL A WHITE LIE
38. Some stereos SONYS
39. Stage device ASIDE
40. Washington county or its seat WALLA WALLA
43. Spooner, for one: Abbr. REV
46. “Perhaps” I MAY
47. Have the flu AIL
48. Plant with edible seeds SESAME
51. On behalf of FOR
52. Initials on old globes SSR
53. Stingy one PIKER
54. Yank TUG
55. Ones often in custody … and what 17-, 28-, 34- and 40-Across are? LAWBREAKERS
59. Computer add-on? -ESE
60. Brought down ABASED
61. Really important HUGE
62. Blushing RED
63. Desert shimmer MIRAGE
64. Shot SPED

Down
1. Eat at the main meal DINE ON
2. Like Superman’s arms, often AKIMBO
3. Leaned (on) RELIED
4. Running amount TALLY
5. Group for ex-GIs VFW
6. Stat that’s better if it’s lower ERA
7. Luftwaffe foe: Abbr. RAF
8. Actually existing: Lat. IN ESSE
9. Poor penmanship SCRAWL
10. Fool (with) MESS
11. 2012 film for which Ang Lee won Best Director LIFE OF PI
12. Operatic opening OVERTURE
13. Vine-covered walkway PERGOLA
18. Assent to a captain AYE
24. Actress Merrill DINA
25. Formal group assent WE SHALL
26. Soggy lowland SWALE
29. Handful FEW
30. Completed with one stroke ACED
31. In a foxy way SLYLY
32. “As Time Goes By” requester ILSA
34. Burns’ “tim’rous beastie” ode TO A MOUSE
35. Blew up ENLARGED
36. Catalina, for one: Abbr. ISL
37. Familia members TIAS
38. More rapid SWIFTER
41. Horseradish relative WASABI
42. Elevated conflict AIR WAR
43. Gather, as fallen leaves RAKE UP
44. Come out EMERGE
45. Skilled VERSED
49. Pollution-fighting org. EPA
50. Followers of Guru Nanak SIKHS
52. Bang on the way out SLAM
56. Merit badge gp. BSA
57. Short rule? REG
58. Stamp ending -EDE

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