Day: June 23, 2014

Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across
1. Home of Iowa State AMES
Iowa State University of Science and Technology (ISU) is located in Ames, Iowa. Among many other notable events, ISU created the country’s first school of veterinary medicine, in 1879. The sports teams of ISU are known as the Cyclones.

5. Glasgow native SCOT
Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and sits on the River Clyde. Back in the Victorian Era, Glasgow earned a reputation for excellence in shipbuilding and was known as “Second City of the British Empire”. Glasgow shipyards were the birthplaces of such famous vessels as the Lusitania, the Queen Mary and the Queen Elizabeth.

9. Back-to-school mo. SEPT
The month of September is the ninth month in our year, although the name “September” comes from the Latin word “septum” meaning “seventh”. September was the seventh month in the Roman calendar until the year 46 BC when Julius Caesar introduced the Julian calendar. The Julian system moved the start of the year from March 1st to January 1st, and shifting September to the ninth month. The Gregorian calendar that we use today was introduced in 1582.

13. First name in denim LEVI
Levi Strauss was the founder of the first company in the world to manufacture blue jeans. Levi Strauss & Co. opened in 1853 in San Francisco. Strauss and his business partner were awarded a patent in 1873 for the use of copper rivets to strengthen points of strain on working pants.

14. Part of a.k.a. ALSO
Also known as (a.k.a.)

19. “Help” signal fired from a gun FLARE
The most commonly used flare gun was invented by an American naval officer, called Edward Wilson Very. He put his name to his invention (from the late 1800s), so we often hear the terms Very pistol, Very flare (and maybe even Very “light”!). A Very pistol is indeed a gun, with a trigger and a hammer that’s cocked and can be reloaded with Very flares.

20. Vivacity ELAN
Our word “élan” was imported from French, in which language the word has a similar meaning to ours i.e “style” or “flair”.

23. Maury of tabloid talk POVICH
Maury Povich has his own daytime talk show called “Maury”. He has famous family connections. Maury’s father was Shirley Povich, a columnist and sports reporter for the Washington Post, and his wife is Connie Chung the news anchor.

28. “Damn Yankees” vamp LOLA
“Whatever Lola Wants” is a song from the musical “Damn Yankees”. “Damn Yankees” is actually yet another version of the classic German legend of “Faust”, set in Washington, D.C. in the fifties. The show was written by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross, a production that turned out to be a very successful follow-up to their prior hit, “The Pajama Game”. The future was looking really rosy for Adler and Ross but, sadly, Jerry Ross died of an obstructive lung disease only a few weeks after “Damn Yankees” opened on Broadway in 1955. He was just 29 years old.

33. Cato’s “to be” ESSE
“Esse” is the Latin for “to be”. “Sum” means “I am” and “erat” means “he, she was”.

Cato the Elder was a Roman statesman, known historically as “the elder” in order to distinguish him from his great-grandson, Cato the Younger. Cato the Elder’s ultimate position within Roman society was that of Censor, making him responsible for maintaining the census, and for supervising public morality.

35. The Big Easy acronym NOLA
The city of New Orleans, Louisiana has the nickname “The Big Easy”. This name might come from the early 1900s when musicians found it relatively “easy” to find work there. The city is also known by the acronym NOLA, standing for New Orleans, LA.

41. Youngest Obama SASHA
Sasha is the younger of the two Obama children, born in 2001. She is the youngest child to reside in the White House since John F. Kennedy, Jr. moved in with his parents as a small infant. Sasha’s Secret Service codename is “Rosebud”, and her older sister Malia has the codename “Radiance”.

45. 1998 Sarah McLachlan song ADIA
Apparently the song “Adia”, co-written by Sarah McLachlan, was intended as an apology to her best friend … for stealing her ex-boyfriend and then marrying him!

54. ’70s radical org. SLA
The Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA) was founded in 1973 by an escapee of the prison system, Donald DeFreeze. The group’s manifesto promoted the rights of African Americans although, in the 2-3 year life of the group, DeFreeze was the only black member. Famously, the SLA kidnapped heiress Patty Hearst in 1974. Hearst apparently fell victim to what is called the Stockholm syndrome and became sympathetic to her captors’ cause. She joined the SLA and assumed the name “Tania”.

64. China’s Zhou __ ENLAI
Zhou Enlai (also Chou En-Lai) was the first government leader of the People’s Republic of China and held the office of Premier from 1949 until he died in 1976. Zhou Enlai ran the government for Communist Party Leader Mao Zedong, often striking a more conciliatory tone with the West than that of his boss. He was instrumental, for example, in setting up President Nixon’s famous visit to China in 1972. Zhou Enlai died just a few months before Mao Zedong, with both deaths leading to unrest and a dramatic change in political direction for the country.

70. Part of NIH: Abbr. INST
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) 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.

73. Canonized mlles. STES
“Sainte” (ste.) is French for “saint”, when referring to a female.

Señorita (Srta.) is Spanish, and mademoiselle (Mlle.) is French, for “Miss”.

Down
1. Capp and Gore ALS
Al Capp was a cartoonist from New Haven, Connecticut who is best remembered for cartoon strip “Li’l Abner”. Capp created “Li’l Abner” in 1934 and drew it himself until 1977. Capp passed away two years after “Li’l Abner” was retired.

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.

2. Shooting stars METEORS
A shooting star is what we call the visible path of a meteoroid as is it enters the earth’s atmosphere. Almost all meteoroids burn up, but if one is large enough to survive and reach the ground, we call it a meteorite. The word “meteor” comes from the Greek “meteōros” meaning “high in the air”.

4. Egypt’s __ Peninsula, which borders Israel SINAI
The Sinai Peninsula is in the eastern part of Egypt, the triangular peninsula bounded by the Mediterranean to the north and the Red Sea to the south. It is the only part of Egypt that lies in Asia as opposed to Africa. The eastern land border of the peninsula is shared with Israel, and Israel occupied the Sinai during the 1956 Suez Crisis and the Six Day War of 1967.

7. Capital NNW of Copenhagen OSLO
Oslo is the capital of Norway. The city of Oslo burns trash to fuel half of its buildings, including all of its schools. The problem faced by the city is that it doesn’t generate enough trash. So, Oslo imports trash from Sweden, England and Ireland, and is now looking to import some American trash too.

Copenhagen is the largest city and the capital of Denmark. I have never visited Copenhagen, but I hear it is a wonderful metropolis with a marvelous quality of life. The city is also very environmentally friendly, with over a third of its population commuting to work by bicycle.

10. “Enchanted” title girl in a 2004 film ELLA
“Ella Enchanted” is the title of a fantasy novel written by Gail Carson Levine, and published in 1997. It is a retelling of the story of Cinderella, with lots of mythical creatures added. A film adaptation was released in 2004, starring Anne Hathaway in the title role.

18. Something besides the letter: Abbr. ENCL
A letter might contain an enclosure (encl.).

22. Bad-mouth DIS
“Dis” is a slang term meaning “insult” that originated in the eighties, and is a shortened form of “disrespect” or “dismiss”.

23. American master of the macabre POE
Edgar Allan Poe lived a life of many firsts. Poe is considered to be the inventor of the detective-fiction genre. He was also the first notable American author to make his living through his writing, something that didn’t really go too well for him as he was always financially strapped. In 1849 he was found on the streets of Baltimore, delirious from either drugs or alcohol. Poe died a few days later in hospital at 40 years of age.

24. Hägar and Helga’s daughter HONI
“Hagar the Horrible” is a comic strip that was created by the late Dik Browne and is now drawn by his son, Chris Browne. “Hagar the Terrible” (not “Horrible”) was the nickname given to Dik by his sons.

30. Islamic deity ALLAH
The term “Allah” comes from the Arabic “al-” and “ilah”, meaning “the” and “deity”. So “Allah” translates as “God”.

32. Coca-__ COLA
The first cola drink to become a commercial success was Coca-Cola, soon after it was invented by a druggist in 1886. That first Coca-Cola was flavored mainly with kola nuts and vanilla. The formulation was based on an alcoholic drink called Coca Wine that had been on sale for over twenty years. The original alcoholic version actually contained a small concentration of cocaine.

36. Vaulted church area APSE
The apse of a church or cathedral is a semicircular recess in an outer wall, usually with a half-dome as a roof and often where there resides an altar. Originally apses were used as burial places for the clergy and also for storage of important relics.

40. “Out of Africa” novelist Dinesen ISAK
Isak Dinesen was the pen name of the Danish author Baroness Karen Blixen. Blixen’s most famous title by far is “Out of Africa”, her account of the time she spent living in Kenya.

42. Home of Georgia Tech ATLANTA
The Georgia Institute of Technology (commonly “Georgia Tech”) is located in Atlanta. The school was founded in 1885 as part of the reconstruction effort to rebuild the infrastructure in the South after the Civil War. President Theodore Roosevelt delivered an address to the school in 1905, and then shook hands with every single student. Back then the school didn’t have over 20,000 students as it does today …

43. One of the birds that “come back to Capistrano,” in song SWALLOW
“When the Swallows Come Back to Capistrano” is a song that was released by the Ink Spots in 1940. The song was written by Leon René as a tribute to the return of the American Cliff Swallows to Mission San Juan Capistrano in Southern California, an event that takes place around March each year. Visitors to the mission can see an exhibit featuring the piano that René used to compose the song, as well as other items donated by the composer’s family.

50. White wine apéritif KIR
Kir is a French cocktail, made by adding a teaspoon or so of creme de cassis (blackcurrant liqueur) to a glass, and then topping it off with white wine. The drink is named after Felix Kir, the Mayor of Dijon in Burgundy, who used to offer the drink to his guests. My wife (expensive tastes!) is particularly fond of a variant called a Kir Royale, in which the white wine is replaced with champagne.

58. Bollywood wraps SARIS
Bollywood is the informal name given to the huge film industry based in Mumbai in India. The term “Bollywood” is a melding of “Bombay”, the old name for Mumbai, and of course “Hollywood”.

61. Fey of “30 Rock” TINA
“30 Rock” is a sitcom on NBC that was created by the show’s star Tina Fey. Fey is an ex-performer and writer from “Saturday Night Live” and uses her experiences on that show as a basis for the “30 Rock” storyline. “30 Rock” aired its last episode in early 2013.

62. Internet address letters HTTP
“http” are the first letters in most Internet link addresses. “http” stands for HyperText Transfer Protocol.

67. Rehab woe DTS
The episodes of delirium that can accompany withdrawal from alcohol are called Delirium Tremens (the DTs). The literal translation of this Latin phrase is “trembling madness”.

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For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. Home of Iowa State AMES
5. Glasgow native SCOT
9. Back-to-school mo. SEPT
13. First name in denim LEVI
14. Part of a.k.a. ALSO
15. Butterlike spreads OLEOS
17. *Totally, as sober STONE-COLD (giving “bitter cold”)
19. “Help” signal fired from a gun FLARE
20. Vivacity ELAN
21. *Interior decorator’s asset GOOD TASTE (giving “bitter taste”)
23. Maury of tabloid talk POVICH
25. Gal sib SIS
26. Sharing word OUR
27. Mined find ORE
28. “Damn Yankees” vamp LOLA
31. Safe and sound SECURE
33. Cato’s “to be” ESSE
35. The Big Easy acronym NOLA
37. Ran easily LOPED
38. *Facetious treatment suggestion to a bundle of nerves CHILL PILL (giving “bitter pill”)
41. Youngest Obama SASHA
44. Glasgow gal LASS
45. 1998 Sarah McLachlan song ADIA
49. Busy in a cubicle AT WORK
51. Something to keep under your hat? HEAD
53. Mischievous kid IMP
54. ’70s radical org. SLA
55. SSE or NNW DIR
57. “Pucker up!” KISS ME!
59. *Somewhat deceptive statement HALF TRUTH (giving “bitter truth”)
63. Florist’s container VASE
64. China’s Zhou __ ENLAI
65. Finale to fight to, and what 17-, 21-, 38- and 59-Across each literally has BITTER END
68. Thunder-and-lightning event STORM
69. Gaga over INTO
70. Part of NIH: Abbr. INST
71. __ bit: slightly A WEE
72. Scruff of the neck NAPE
73. Canonized mlles. STES

Down
1. Capp and Gore ALS
2. Shooting stars METEORS
3. Develops over time EVOLVES
4. Egypt’s __ Peninsula, which borders Israel SINAI
5. Anatomical pouch SAC
6. Bathtub trouble CLOG
7. Capital NNW of Copenhagen OSLO
8. Hubbubs TO-DOS
9. Subtle marketing technique SOFT SELL
10. “Enchanted” title girl in a 2004 film ELLA
11. Dense fog metaphor PEA SOUP
12. Agony TORTURE
16. Get hot under the collar SEE RED
18. Something besides the letter: Abbr. ENCL
22. Bad-mouth DIS
23. American master of the macabre POE
24. Hägar and Helga’s daughter HONI
29. Kick back LOLL
30. Islamic deity ALLAH
32. Coca-__ COLA
34. Cave feedback ECHO
36. Vaulted church area APSE
39. Period in the pen, to a con HARD TIME
40. “Out of Africa” novelist Dinesen ISAK
41. Girl Scout accessories SASHES
42. Home of Georgia Tech ATLANTA
43. One of the birds that “come back to Capistrano,” in song SWALLOW
46. Voice an objection DISSENT
47. Bigger than big IMMENSE
48. Chest-beating beast APE
50. White wine apéritif KIR
52. Plunge DIVE
56. Apply during a massage RUB IN
58. Bollywood wraps SARIS
60. Bus rider’s payment FARE
61. Fey of “30 Rock” TINA
62. Internet address letters HTTP
66. From head to __ TOE
67. Rehab woe DTS

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