Day: July 1, 2014

Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across
4. “__ Smile”: Hall & Oates hit SARA
Daryl Hall & John Oates are a pop music duo, most successful in the late seventies and early eighties. They had six number one hits, including the 1982 release “Maneater”.

“Sara Smile” was the first US Top 10 hit for the duo Hall & Oates, released in 1976

8. Dancer de Mille AGNES
Agnes de Mille was a dancer and choreographer from New York City. She was the niece of famous director Cecil B. DeMille, and the daughter of William C. deMille who was also a Hollywood director. Agnes turned to dance after she was told that she was “not pretty enough” to pursue her first love, which was acting …

14. Hale-Bopp, e.g. COMET
Comet Hale-Bopp was an unusually bright comet that was observable in the night sky for 18 months in the late 1990s. The comet was discovered in 1995 by two American amateur observes called Alan Hale and Thomas Bopp, hence the name. Famously, claims were made that there was an alien spaceship travelling behind Hale-Bopp. 39 members of a San Diego religious cult called Heaven’s Gate committed mass suicide in 1996 in order to reach the space craft.

17. *”We’re All Family Here!” Italian restaurant OLIVE GARDEN
Olive Garden is a chain of Italian-American restaurants that has over 800 locations worldwide. The chain was originally established as part of General Mills. The current owners of the chain also operate Red Lobster restaurants. Apparently there are plans to co-located Olive Garden and Red Lobster eateries so that they have separate entries but share kitchens.

21. Submission encl. SAE
A stamped addressed envelope (SAE) might be included with a manuscript (MS) submitted to an editor (ed.).

23. Grabs, in slang GLOMS
“Glom” is a slang term meaning “steal”, although it can also be used to mean “latch onto” when used as “glom onto”. The term probably comes from the Scots word “glam” meaning “to snatch at”.

25. “The Magic Flute” composer MOZART
Mozart’s opera “The Magic Flute” today is performed more often than any other opera in the repertoire worldwide.

30. Actor Silver RON
Ron Silver has a long career playing relatively small roles on the big screen and television, with roles in well known films like “Mr. Saturday Night”, “Ali”, and “Garbo Talks”. Notably, Silver was the president of Actors’ Equity from 1991 to 2000.

31. Speakeasy owners’ concerns RAIDS
A speakeasy is an establishment that sells alcoholic drinks illegally. Speakeasies were very big in the US in the days of Prohibition. The obvious etymology, of a speakeasy owner asking his or her customers to “speak easy” so as not to draw attention to the authorities, is thought to have originated in 1888 in McKeesport just outside Pittsburgh.

32. NCO nickname SARGE
An NCO is a non-commissioned officer in the armed forces. Usually such an officer is one who has earned his or her rank by promotion through the enlisted ranks. A good example would be a sergeant.

37. Capri, e.g. ISLE
The island of Capri off the coast of Southern Italy has been a tourist resort since the days of ancient Rome. Capri is home to the famous Blue Grotto, a sea cave that is illuminated with sunlight that’s colored blue as it passes through the seawater into the cave.

39. Physiologist Pavlov IVAN
Ivan Pavlov was studying gastric function in dogs in the 1890s when he observed that his subject dogs started to salivate before he even presented food to them. This “psychic secretion”, as he called it, interested him so much that he changed the direction of his research and studied the reactions of dogs to various stimuli that were associated with the presentation of food. Famously, he discovered that a dog could be conditioned to respond as though he was about to be fed, just by sensing some stimulus that he had come to associate with food. This might be a bell ringing, an electric shock (poor dog!) or perhaps the waving of a hand. Nowadays we might describe someone as “Pavlov’s Dog” if that person responds just the way he/she has been conditioned to respond, rather than applying critical thinking.

40. Gibson of “Lethal Weapon” MEL
Mel Gibson is an American actor, and not Australian as many believe. Gibson was born in Peekskill, New York and moved with his family to Sydney, Australia when he was 12 years old.

The “Lethal Weapon” series of film features Mel Gibson and Danny Glover in the lead roles. All four of the films in the series were directed by Richard Donner.

43. __ tai: cocktail MAI
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.

51. Federation in OPEC UAE
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is a federation of seven emirates (states) in the Middle East. Included in the seven are Abu Dhabi and Dubai, with the city of Abu Dhabi being the UAE capital and cultural center.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) was founded in 1960 at a conference held in Baghdad, Iraq that was attended by Iraq, Kuwait, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. Nine more countries joined the alliance soon after, and OPEC set up headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland and then Vienna, Austria in 1965. The basic aim of OPEC was to wrench control of oil prices from the oil companies and to put it in the hands of the sovereign states that own the natural resource.

56. *Goal for many an elite athlete OLYMPIC GOLD
In the Ancient Olympic Games, the winner of an event was awarded an olive wreath. When the games were revived in 1896, the winners were originally given a silver medal and an olive branch, with runners-up receiving a bronze medal and a laurel branch. The tradition of giving gold, silver and bronze medals began at the 1904 Summer Olympic Games held in St. Louis, Missouri.

60. Home on the range TEPEE
A tepee (also written as “tipi” and “teepee”) is a cone-shaped tent traditionally made from animal hides that is used by the Great Plains Native Americans. A wigwam is a completely different structure and is often a misnomer for a tepee. A wigwam is a domed structure built by Native Americans in the West and Southwest, intended to be a more permanent dwelling. The wigwam can also be covered with hides but more often was covered with grass, reeds, brush or cloth.

61. Jockey rival HANES
The Hanes brand of apparel was founded in 1901. A related brand was introduced in 1986 called Hanes Her Way.

Jockey was the company that invented the Y-front brief, in 1934.

62. Kilmer of “Willow” VAL
Val Kilmer’s first big leading role in a movie was playing Jim Morrison in Oliver Stone’s 1991 biopic “The Doors”. A few years later, Kilmer was chosen for the lead in another big production, “Batman Forever”. Things haven’t really gone as well for Kilmer since then, I’d say. Off the screen, he flirted with the idea of running for Governor of New Mexico in 2010. A Hollywood actor as a Governor? Would never happen …

“Willow” is a 1988 fantasy film that received a relatively lukewarm reception, despite being directed by Ron Howard, and produced by George Lucas (who also came up with the story). I’ve never seen it …
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63. Lauder of cosmetics 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 …

65. Caribou kin ELK
The elk (also known as the wapiti) is the one of the largest species of deer in the world, with only the moose being bigger. Early European settlers were familiar with the smaller red deer back in their homelands, so when they saw the “huge” wapiti they assumed it was a moose, and incorrectly gave it the European name for a moose, namely “elk”. The more correct name for the beast is “wapiti”, which means “white rump” in Shawnee. It’s all very confusing …

Caribou is the North American name for reindeer.

Down
2. Capital of Latvia 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.

Latvia is one of the former Soviet Socialist Republics. People from Latvia are called Letts.

7. Mr. T’s group A-TEAM
“The A-Team” is an action television series that originally ran in the eighties. The A-Team was a group of ex-US special forces personnel who became mercenaries. Star of the show was Hollywood actor George Peppard, ably assisted by Mr. T and Robert Vaughan.

9. Austria’s official language GERMAN
The name “Austria” is a Latin variant of the German name for the country: “Österreich”. “Österreich” itself means “Eastern borderlands”, a reference to the country’s history as a prefecture of neighboring Bavaria to the west.

10. Bottommost point NADIR
The nadir is the direction pointing immediately below a particular location (through to the other side of the Earth for example). The opposite direction, that pointing immediately above, is called the zenith.

14. Eyes, in many emoticons COLONS
An emoticon is a glyph created using text characters, usually to represent facial features, and usually oriented sideways. The emoticon is designed to indicate emotion or attitude. The classic example is the smiley face 🙂

18. First name of three presidents GEORGE
That would be:

– George Washington
– George H. W. Bush
– George W. Bush

24. Bite-sized Japanese fare SUSHI
Sushi is a Japanese dish that has as its primary ingredient cooked, vinegared rice. The rice is usually topped with something, most often fish, and can be served in seaweed rolls. If you want raw fish by itself, then you have to order “sashimi”.

26. “Avatar” actress Saldana ZOE
American actress Zoe Saldana played the Na’vi princess in “Avatar”, and Uhura in the 2009 movie “Star Trek”. Saldana seems to pick the right movies, as she is the only actress to have three different films in the top twenty at the box office for three consecutive weeks (“Avatar”, “The Losers” and “Death at a Funeral”).

In the James Cameron epic “Avatar”, the “blue people” are the Na’vi, the indigenous species that lives on the lush moon called Pandora. The main Na’vi character featuring in the film is the female Neytiri. According to Cameron, Neytiri was inspired by the Raquel Welch character in the movie “Fantastic Voyage” and the comic book character Vampirella.

29. Sister of Eva and Zsa Zsa MAGDA
Magda Gabor was the elder sister of Zsa Zsa and Eva Gabor. Like her sisters, Magda was an actress and socialite. Magda married six times in all. Her most famous husband was probably the fifth, the English actor George Sanders, although that only lasted for 32 days. Sanders had been married to Magda’s younger sister Zsa Zsa.

Eva Gabor was the youngest of the Gabor sisters, all three of whom were celebrated Hollywood actresses and socialites (her siblings were Zsa-Zsa and Magda). The Gabor sisters were born in Budapest and immigrated to the United States separately, with Eva being the first to arrive. Eva broke into movies, but her most famous role was on the TV sitcom “Green Acres” in which she played the lovely character Lisa Douglas opposite Eddie Albert. One of Eva’s claims to fame is the unwitting promotion of the game called “Twister”, the sales of which were languishing in 1996. In an appearance on “The Tonight Show” she got on all fours and played the game with Johnny Carson. Sales took off immediately, and Twister became a huge hit.

Zsa Zsa Gabor is a Hungarian American actress, born in Budapest as Sári Gábor (the older sister of the actress Eva). Zsa Zsa Gabor has been married a whopping nine times, including a 5-year stint with Conrad Hilton and another 5 years with the actor George Sanders. One of Gabor’s famous quips was that she was always a good housekeeper, as after every divorce she kept the house!

33. Coral phenomena REEFS
Polyps are tiny sea creatures that are found attached to underwater structures or to other polyps. Polyps have a mouth at one end of a cylindrical “body” that is surrounded by tentacles. Some polyps cluster into groups called stony corals, with stony corals being the building blocks of coral reefs. The structure of the reef is provided by calcium carbonate exoskeletons secreted by the coral polyps.

35. Have a yen for WANT
The word “yen”, meaning “urge”, has been around in English since the very early 1900s. It comes from the earlier word “yin” imported from Chinese, which was used in English to describe an intense craving for opium!

38. “Certainly, monsieur!” OUI OUI!
“Oui” is “yes” in French, and “non” is “no”.

42. Three-toned chords TRIADS
A triad is a group of three, and specifically in music as a chord is usually made up of three notes.

43. Capt. Hook’s henchman MR SMEE
In J. M. Barrie’s play and novel about Peter Pan, Smee is one of Captain Hook’s pirates and is Hook’s right-hand man. Smee is described by Barrie as being “Irish” and “a man who stabbed without offence”. Nice guy! Captain Hook and Smee sail on the pirate ship called the Jolly Roger.

45. __ Brush Company FULLER
The Fuller Brush Company was founded in 1906 in Hartford,Connecticut by Alfred C. Fuller. All of Fuller’s sales were generated door-to-door, right up until 1985.

47. Luxor’s country EGYPT
The modern city of Luxor grew up around the ruins of the ancient Egyptian city of Thebes. Thebes was the city of the god Amon-Ra and was the religious capital of the country until the Greeks took control. Luxor is often called “the world’s greatest open-air museum”. Tourists flock there to see the Luxor and Karnak Temple ruins, as well as the Valley of the Kings and the Valley of the Queens immediately opposite Luxor on the other side of the River Nile.

48. Salsa holder NACHO
The dish known as “nachos” were supposedly created by the maître d’ at a restaurant called the Victory Club in the city of Piedras Negras, Coahuila, Mexico. The name of the maître d’ was Ignacio “Nacho” Anaya.

“Salsa” is simply the Spanish for “sauce”.

52. “My goodness!” EGAD!
“Egad!” developed as a polite way of saying “oh God!” in the late 1600s and is an expression of fear or surprise somewhat like “good grief!”.

55. Base on balls WALK
A “base on balls” is the technical term for a walk in baseball. It occurs when a batter has received four pitches that the umpire deems to be “balls”, pitches that have not passed through the strike zone.

57. Capital of Portugal? PEE
The capital of the word “Portugal” is a letter P (pee).

58. Musician Yoko ONO
Yoko Ono is an avant-garde artist. Ono actually met her future husband John Lennon for the first time while she was preparing her conceptual art exhibit called “Hammer a Nail”. Visitors were encouraged to hammer in a nail into a wooden board, creating the artwork. Lennon wanted to hammer in the first nail, but Ono stopped him as the exhibition had not yet opened. Apparently Ono relented when Lennon paid her an imaginary five shillings to hammer an imaginary nail into the wood.

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For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. Guy sib BRO
4. “__ Smile”: Hall & Oates hit SARA
8. Dancer de Mille AGNES
13. Mender’s target RIP
14. Hale-Bopp, e.g. COMET
15. Go LEAVE
16. Grow old AGE
17. *”We’re All Family Here!” Italian restaurant OLIVE GARDEN
19. Hairbrush target TANGLE
21. Submission encl. SAE
22. After-dinner candy MINT
23. Grabs, in slang GLOMS
25. “The Magic Flute” composer MOZART
27. Yearly PER ANNUM
30. Actor Silver RON
31. Speakeasy owners’ concerns RAIDS
32. NCO nickname SARGE
34. Have debts OWE
37. Capri, e.g. ISLE
38. “Gosh” … and a hint to the answers to starred clues OH GEE
39. Physiologist Pavlov IVAN
40. Gibson of “Lethal Weapon” MEL
41. Museum employee GUIDE
42. Graph revelation TREND
43. __ tai: cocktail MAI
44. Insults AFFRONTS
46. Individual PERSON
49. Acting litigiously toward SUING
50. Old horses NAGS
51. Federation in OPEC UAE
53. Hid from the police LAY LOW
56. *Goal for many an elite athlete OLYMPIC GOLD
59. Eggs, to a biologist OVA
60. Home on the range TEPEE
61. Jockey rival HANES
62. Kilmer of “Willow” VAL
63. Lauder of cosmetics ESTEE
64. Sign of stagnation ODOR
65. Caribou kin ELK

Down
1. Naughty kid BRAT
2. Capital of Latvia RIGA
3. *Barbecuing option OPEN GRILL
4. Like a moment of silence SOLEMN
5. “__ imagining things?” AM I
6. Guns, as a motor REVS
7. Mr. T’s group A-TEAM
8. Styled after A LA
9. Austria’s official language GERMAN
10. Bottommost point NADIR
11. Milestone, e.g. EVENT
12. Text message status SENT
14. Eyes, in many emoticons COLONS
18. First name of three presidents GEORGE
20. Clearing in the woods GLADE
24. Bite-sized Japanese fare SUSHI
26. “Avatar” actress Saldana ZOE
27. Strait-laced PRIM
28. Relaxation EASE
29. Sister of Eva and Zsa Zsa MAGDA
33. Coral phenomena REEFS
34. *Kitchen safety item OVEN GLOVE
35. Have a yen for WANT
36. Wraps up ENDS
38. “Certainly, monsieur!” OUI OUI!
39. Literary technique involving incongruity IRONY
41. Freeway sign word GAS
42. Three-toned chords TRIADS
43. Capt. Hook’s henchman MR SMEE
45. __ Brush Company FULLER
46. Looks inferior, comparatively PALES
47. Luxor’s country EGYPT
48. Salsa holder NACHO
50. Musical symbol NOTE
52. “My goodness!” EGAD!
54. Basic track shape OVAL
55. Base on balls WALK
57. Capital of Portugal? PEE
58. Musician Yoko ONO

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