Day: January 9, 2015

Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across
5. Andrew of “Melrose Place” SHUE
The actor Andrew Shue played Billy Campbell on “Melrose Place”. Andrew’s sister is the actress Elisabeth Shue.

20. “Lifts the spirits” gp. USO
The United Service Organization (USO) was founded in 1941 at the request of FDR “to handle the on-leave recreation of the men in the armed forces”. A USO tour is undertaken by a troupe of entertainers, many of whom are big-name celebrities. A USO tour usually includes troop locations in combat zones. The organization’s mission statement is:
The USO lifts the spirits of America’s troops and their families.

21. Eau Claire-to-Green Bay direction EAST
Eau Claire, Wisconsin is named for the Eau Claire River, which in turn was named by French explorers. The explorers had been travelling down the muddy Chippewa River and diverted into the clear water of what is now called the Eau Claire River. They exclaimed “Voici l’eau claire!” meaning “Here is clear water!” The French phrase “Voici l’eau claire” is now the city’s motto that appears on the city seal.

The city of Green Bay is the third-largest in the state of Wisconsin, after Milwaukee and Madison. The city is located on an arm of Lake Michigan called Green Bay. People in the area refer to the city as “Green Bay” and the body of water as “the Bay of Green Bay” in order to avoid confusing one with the other.

22. All-purpose rides UTES
A utility vehicle is often called a “ute” for short. Nowadays one mainly hears about sports utes and crossover utes.

24. Ocean predator ORCA
The taxonomic name for the killer whale is Orcinus orca. The use of the name “orca”, rather than “killer whale”, is becoming more and more common. The Latin word “Orcinus” means “belonging to Orcus”, with Orcus being the name for the Kingdom of the Dead.

33. Singer Carly __ Jepsen RAE
Carly Rae Jepsen is a singer/songwriter from Mission, British Columbia. Jepsen got her start on TV’s “Canadian Idol” when she placed third in the show’s fifth season.

35. Mrs. Robinson’s daughter ELAINE
The actress Katharine Ross is best known for two major roles: playing Elaine Robinson in “The Graduate”, and Etta Place in “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”. Ross is married to the actor Sam Elliott. Although the couple appeared together in “Butch Cassidy …” it was in different scenes. They never actually met during the 1969 filming and first ran into each almost ten years later in 1978, and then started dating.

36. Milo of “The Verdict” O’SHEA
Milo O’Shea was a great Irish character actor from Dublin who has appeared in everything from “Romeo and Juliet” to “The West Wing”. Sadly, O’Shea passed away in 2013 in New York City.

1982’s “The Verdict” is an entertaining courtroom drama movie that stars Paul Newman as a struggling alcoholic lawyer. The storyline involves a medical malpractice case involving a woman in persistent vegetative state. As a bonus, if you keep a careful eye out, you’ll see Bruce Willis as an extra in one of his first on-screen appearances.

39. Play about Capote TRU
“Tru” was written by Jay Presson Allen and is a play about Truman Capote that premiered in 1989. There is a classic anachronism in the piece. It is set in Capote’s New York City apartment at Christmas 1975. At one point the Capote character talks about suicide, saying that he has enough pills to stage his own Jonestown Massacre. The Jonestown Massacre didn’t happen until three years later, in 1978.

44. Okla. campus with a Prayer Tower ORU
Oral Roberts University (ORU) is a private school in Tulsa, Oklahoma. ORU was founded relatively recently, in 1963 by the late televangelist Oral Roberts. The campus includes a Prayer Tower at its center, a spectacular glass and steel structure designed by architect Frank Wallace. The tower includes an observation deck, and is a popular tourist attraction.

46. Author Yutang LIN
Lin Yutang was a Chinese writer who lived much of his life in the US. Among other accomplishments, Yutang is noted for his very popular translations of classic Chinese texts into English.

47. Tool for putting a Ping-Pong ball in orbit? LAUNCHING PADDLE (from “launching pad”)
Ping-pong is called table tennis in the UK, where the sport originated in the 1880s. Table tennis started as an after-dinner activity among the elite, and was called “wiff-waff”. To play the game, books were stacked in the center of a table as a “net”, two more books served as “”rackets” and the ball used was actually a golf ball. The game evolved over time with the rackets being upgraded to the lids of cigar boxes and the ball becoming a champagne cork (how snooty is that?). Eventually the game was produced commercially, and the sound of the ball hitting the racket was deemed to be a “ping” and a “pong”, giving the sport its alternative name.

51. Boer village STAD
“Stad” is the Dutch, and Boer, word for “city”.

“Boer” is the Dutch and Afrikaans word for “farmer”, a word that was used to describe the Dutch-speaking people who settled parts of South Africa during the 1700s.

53. Boom holder MAST
On a sailboat, the boom is the spar that runs along the bottom of a sail.

58. “Magic Hour” author Susan ISAACS
Susan Isaacs is a novelist from Brooklyn, New York. Isaacs has written a string of bestsellers including “Compromising Positions”, a book that she adapted into the screenplay for a 1985 movie of the same name starring Susan Sarandon and Raul Julia.

65. McGwire broke his record MARIS
Roger Maris (whose real name was Roger Maras) was the son of Croatian immigrants. It was Maris’s single-season record of 61 home runs that Mark McGwire broke in 1998 (hitting 70 that season). Maris’s own record of 61 runs (from 1961) beat the previous record of 60 set in 1927 by Babe Ruth.

66. “Love every sip” sloganeer DIET PEPSI
Diet Pepsi’s “Love Every Sip” campaign features Colombian actress Sofia Vergara, famous for playing Gloria on the sitcom “Modern Family”.

Down
1. Stylebook entries: Abbr. STDS
A “style manual” is a favorite reference book of mine, one that sets the standards for writing and design of documents. That said, it’s sad how often I have to refer to “The Chicago Manual of Style”.

2. Picard’s counselor TROI
Deanna Troi is a character on “Star Trek: The Next Generation” who is played by the lovely Marina Sirtis. Sirtis is a naturalized American citizen and has what I would call a soft American accent on the show. However, she was born in the East End of London and has a natural accent off-stage that is more like that of a true Cockney.

When Gene Roddenberry was creating the “Star Trek” spin-off series “Star Trek: The Next Generation”, I think he chose a quite magnificent name for the new starship captain. The name “Jean-Luc Picard” is imitative of one or both of the twin-brother Swiss scientists Auguste and Jean Felix Piccard. The role of Picard was of course played by the wonderful Shakespearean actor Patrick Stewart.

3. “__ No Sunshine”: Bill Withers hit AIN’T
Bill Withers was working as an assembly operator while he was trying to make a name for himself in the music industry, actually making toilet seats for Boeing 747 airplanes. Even as Withers found success with his glorious 1971 single “Ain’t No Sunshine”, he held onto his day job, worried that the music industry was unpredictable.

5. Fight souvenirs SHINERS
A “shiner” is something that shines. The term has been us for a “black eye” since 1904.

6. Solo in space HAN
Han Solo is the space smuggler in “Star Wars” played by Harrison Ford. Ford was originally hired by George Lucas just to read lines for actors during auditions for “Star Wars”, but over time Lucas became convinced that Ford was right for the pivotal role of Han Solo.

7. Source of khaki? URDU
“Khaki” is an Urdu word, translating literally as “dusty”. The word was adopted for its current use as the name of a fabric by the British cavalry in India in the mid-1800s.

8. New Jersey township with the motto “Let There Be Light” EDISON
The township of Edison, New Jersey was established as Raritan Township in 1870, but changed its name to Edison in 1954. That change was in honor of inventor Thomas Edison who worked in the Menlo Park section of the township. The motto appearing on the town seal is “Let There be Light”.

11. S.A. country at 0 degrees latitude ECUA
“Ecuador” is the Spanish word for “equator”, which gives the country its name.

Lines of latitude are the imaginary horizontal lines surrounding the planet. The most “important” lines of latitude are, from north to south:

– Arctic Circle
– Tropic of Cancer
– Equator
– Tropic of Capricorn
– Antarctic Circle

12. Father of Phobos ARES
The Greek god Ares is often referred to as the Olympian god of warfare, but originally he was regarded as the god of blood-lust and slaughter. Ares united with Aphrodite to create several gods, including Phobos, Deimos and Eros. The Roman equivalent to Ares was Mars.

15. Whacked, biblically SMOTE
“To smite” is to strike with a firm blow.

25. NASCAR’s Yarborough CALE
Cale Yarborough is a former NASCAR driver and owner. Yarborough was the first NASCAR driver to appear on the cover of “Sports Illustrated”.

26. Chat room persona non grata TROLL
In Internet terms, a “troll” is someone who attempts to disrupt online group activities. The fishing term “troll” is used to describe such a person, as he or she throws out off-topic remarks in an attempt to “lure” others into some emotional response.

27. GPA booster EASY A
Grade point average (GPA)

28. Big name in Indian politics NEHRU
Jawaharlal Nehru was the very first prime minister of India, serving from 1947-64. Nehru was basically the heir to his mentor, Mahatma Gandhi. Nehru’s only daughter, Indira, also became prime minister (known as Indira Gandhi, though she was no relation to Mahatma).

29. With 30-Down, a former name of Minute Maid Park ENRON
30. See 29-Down FIELD
Enron Field, as it was known, is a retractable-roof ballpark that was built next to Houston’s old Union Station. Enron paid $100 million to get its name on the field, and then when the world found out what a scam Enron actually was, the Astros bought back the contract for the name, for a mere $2.1 million. The stadium became Astros Field for a few months, until the Coke people paid $170 million for a 28-year contract to christen the stadium Minute Maid Park. A good deal for the Astros, I’d say.

32. Freetown currency LEONE
Leones are the currency of Sierra Leone. The Leone was introduced in 1964 to replace the British West African pound. The move was a practical one, as the Leone is a decimal currency and replaces the old British system of pounds, shillings and pence.

The Republic of Sierra Leone is a country in West Africa, lying on the Atlantic Coast. The capital city of Freetown was originally set up as a colony to house the “Black Poor” of London, England. These people were mainly freed British slaves of Caribbean descent who were living a miserable life in the run-down parts of London. Perhaps to help the impoverished souls, perhaps to rid the streets of “a problem”, three ships were chartered in 1787 to transport a group of blacks, with some whites, to a piece of land purchased in Sierra Leone. Those who made the voyage were guaranteed British citizenship and protection. The descendants of these immigrants, and others who made the journey over the next 60 years, make up the ethnic group that’s today called the Sierra Leone Creole.

37. Matthau’s “I.Q.” role EINSTEIN
“I.Q.” is a 1994 movie set in Princeton starring Meg Ryan as the niece Albert Einstein (played by the great Walter Matthau). A cute romantic comedy with a great cast …

The actor Walter Matthau was born in the Lower East Side of New York City. Matthau is remembered for many collaborations on the big screen with Jack Lemmon. Matthau and Lemmon passed away within a year of each other, both having suffered from colon cancer, and are buried in the same cemetery in Los Angeles.

48. “My Cup Runneth Over” musical I DO! I DO!
“My Cup Runneth Over” is a song from the 1966 Broadway musical “I Do! I Do!”. A very popular recording of the song was made by Ed Ames in 1967. The title of the song is a quotation from the Bible, from the Book of Psalms.

49. “The Fox and the Grapes” writer AESOP
Our expression “sour grapes” is an allusion to one of Aesop’s fables, the story of “The Fox and the Grapes”. In the fable, a squirrel could climb up to grapes high in a tree that a fox was unsuccessful in getting to. On seeing this the fox said, “It’s okay, the grapes were sour anyway”.

50. Beltway environs DC AREA
The phrase “inside the Beltway” is used to refer to the infrastructure and politics of Washington, D.C. The Beltway in this case is Interstate 495, also known as the Capital Beltway.

54. Apple application no longer in use ALAR
The chemical name for Alar, a plant growth regulator and color enhancer, is daminozide. Alar was primarily used on apples but was withdrawn from the market when it was linked to cancer.

57. “The Wizard __” 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”.

61. Faux pas SLIP
The term “faux pas” is French in origin, and translates literally as “false step” (or “false steps”, as the plural has the same spelling in French).

63. Org. whose seal includes an eagle perched on a key NSA
The National Security Agency (NSA) was set up in 1952 by President Truman, a replacement for the Armed Forces Security Agency that had existed in the Department of Defense since 1949. The NSA has always been clouded in secrecy and even the 1952 letter from President Truman that established the agency was kept under wraps from the public for over a generation. I really like the organization’s nickname: “No Such Agency” …

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For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. Like some restrictive dinners STAG
5. Andrew of “Melrose Place” SHUE
9. First, for now AHEAD
14. Strives TRIES HARD
16. Brewery prefix MICRO-
17. “Pardon my sword fight”? DON’T MIND IF I DUEL? (from “Don’t mind if I do”)
19. Refuses to release SITS ON
20. “Lifts the spirits” gp. USO
21. Eau Claire-to-Green Bay direction EAST
22. All-purpose rides UTES
24. Ocean predator ORCA
26. “The good news: mostly A-OK. The bad news: __”? TEN PERCENT AWFUL (from “ten percent off”)
33. Singer Carly __ Jepsen RAE
34. Start of some Texas city names SAN
35. Mrs. Robinson’s daughter ELAINE
36. Milo of “The Verdict” O’SHEA
39. Play about Capote TRU
41. With an __: mindful of EYE TO
42. Words LYRICS
44. Okla. campus with a Prayer Tower ORU
46. Author Yutang LIN
47. Tool for putting a Ping-Pong ball in orbit? LAUNCHING PADDLE (from “launching pad”)
51. Boer village STAD
52. Monthly pmt. ELEC
53. Boom holder MAST
56. Court WOO
58. “Magic Hour” author Susan ISAACS
62. Big affair for E.T.? ALIEN-LIFE FORMAL (from “alien lifeform”)
65. McGwire broke his record MARIS
66. “Love every sip” sloganeer DIET PEPSI
67. Concert venue ARENA
68. Poems of praise ODES
69. Memo demand ASAP

Down
1. Stylebook entries: Abbr. STDS
2. Picard’s counselor TROI
3. “__ No Sunshine”: Bill Withers hit AIN’T
4. Averts a knockout GETS UP
5. Fight souvenirs SHINERS
6. Solo in space HAN
7. Source of khaki? URDU
8. New Jersey township with the motto “Let There Be Light” EDISON
9. “Moi?” AM I?
10. Retreat HIDEAWAY
11. S.A. country at 0 degrees latitude ECUA
12. Father of Phobos ARES
13. Fool DOLT
15. Whacked, biblically SMOTE
18. Strong suit FORTE
23. “Beat it!” SCAT!
25. NASCAR’s Yarborough CALE
26. Chat room persona non grata TROLL
27. GPA booster EASY A
28. Big name in Indian politics NEHRU
29. With 30-Down, a former name of Minute Maid Park ENRON
30. See 29-Down FIELD
31. No later than UNTIL
32. Freetown currency LEONE
37. Matthau’s “I.Q.” role EINSTEIN
38. Passbook abbr. ACCT
40. Drive URGE
43. Loosely worn garment SHAWL
45. Buoys UPLIFTS
48. “My Cup Runneth Over” musical I DO! I DO!
49. “The Fox and the Grapes” writer AESOP
50. Beltway environs DC AREA
53. Household nickname MAMA
54. Apple application no longer in use ALAR
55. Filly’s father SIRE
57. “The Wizard __” OF ID
59. Cranks (up) AMPS
60. Julio’s home CASA
61. Faux pas SLIP
63. Org. whose seal includes an eagle perched on a key NSA
64. Really big shoe EEE

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