Day: January 17, 2015

Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across
1. One is featured in the 1962 Ventures instrumental “The 2,000 Pound Bee” FUZZ GUITAR
“The 2,000 Pound Bee – Part 2” is a 1962 song recorded by the Ventures. For this recording, the Ventures had a device created that distorted the electric guitar signal, so that it made a buzzing sound. “The 2,000 Pound Bee – Part 2” was the first song recorded to use the so-called “fuzz bass” or “fuzz guitar”, which was to become a staple in sixties rock music.

11. Bass output ALES
The red triangle on the label of a bottle of Bass Ale was registered in 1875 and is UK Registered Trade Mark (TM) No: 00001, the first trade mark issued in the world.

15. He played the bandit Calvera in “The Magnificent Seven” ELI WALLACH
Eli Wallach appeared consistently and made great performances on the big and small screens since the 1950s. Wallach’s most famous role was probably as “the Ugly” in “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly”. More recently he gave a very strong performance in 2006’s “The Holiday”. Sadly, Wallach passed away in june 2014, at the age of 98.

“The Magnificent Seven” really is a very entertaining western movie (and I am no fan of westerns, quite frankly). Famously, it is a 1960 remake of the Akira Kurosawa 1954 Japanese film, “Seven Samurai”. “The Magnificent Seven” is the second most shown film on television in the US. Only “The Wizard of Oz” gets more air time.

16. __ Maar, mistress of Picasso DORA
Dora Maar was a famous French photographer. She became Pablo Picasso’s lover and muse when she was 29, and Picasso 54. The pair had a complicated relationship that lasted nine years. Picasso painted a portrait of her called “Dora Maar with Cat” that was sold at auction in 2006 for almost $100 million, the second highest price ever paid for a painting.

18. “The Enemy Below” setting, briefly WWII
“The Enemy Below” is a 1956 World War II novel by English author Denys Rayner. Rayner had been an officer in the Royal Navy who fought throughout the Battle of the Atlantic. As such, his novel about a prolonged engagement between a British destroyer and a U-boat is particularly realistic and powerful. “The Enemy Below” was adapted into an American film of the same name in 1957 starring Curt Jürgens as a U-boat captain and Robert Mitchum as captain of a US destroyer. Good movie …

19. Zap LASE
The term “laser” comes from an acronym, “Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation” (LASER). It has been pointed out that a more precise name for laser technology is “Light Oscillation by Stimulated Emission of Radiation”, but the resulting acronym isn’t quite so appealing, namely LOSER …

20. Kid’s cry MAA!
“Maa” is the call of a goat.

Males goats are called “bucks” or “billies”, although castrated males are known as “wethers”. Female goats are called “does” or “nannies”, and young goats are referred to as “kids”.

23. Airline created by an Act of Parliament BOAC
British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) was one of the two airlines that were merged in 1974 to form British Airways (the other was British European Airways, known as BEA).

26. “The Love Machine” author SUSANN
“The Love Machine” is a 1969 novel by Jacqueline Susann. It was Susann’s second book, following on from her hugely successful “Valley of the Dolls”.

31. “Michael” co-screenwriter Ephron DELIA
Delia Ephron is the sister of the more famous Nora Ephron, and is a screenwriter and producer in her own right. Among Delia’s writing credits is the 2005 movie “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants”.

34. “Hot House” Grammy-winning pianist COREA
Chick Corea is an American jazz pianist. Corea is noted for his work in the area of jazz fusion, as well as for his promotion of Scientology.

35. Philadelphia tourist attraction MINT
The first mint in the US was established in 1792 in Philadelphia, which was the nation’s capital at that time. The modern Philadelphia Mint was opened in 1969, and is the fourth building used as a mint in the city. The facility can produce a million coins in the just half an hour.

36. DJIA part: Abbr. AVG
Dow Jones & Company was founded as a publishing house in 1882 by three newspaper reporters, Charles Dow, Edward Jones and Charles Bergstresser. Today, the company’s most famous publication has to be “The Wall Street Journal”. In 1884, Charles Dow started reporting the average dollar value of the stock of eleven companies, an index which spawned a whole host of metrics that carry the Dow Jones name to this day, including the renowned Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA), also known as the “Dow 30”.

37. Massenet opera THAIS
“Thais” is a 3-act opera composed by Jules Massenet. The work is most famous for its “Meditation”, the entr’acte performed between scenes in Act II.

38. Heraklion’s island CRETE
Heraklion is the largest city on the Greek island of Crete. Heraklion is situated near to the ruins of Knossos, which is deemed to be Europe’s oldest city.

43. “Alice in Wonderland” bird DODO
The Dodo is a character who appears early in Lewis Carroll’s novel “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”. It is thought that the Dodo is a caricature of the author himself as both author and character have a stutter.

46. School with the mascot Big Al BAMA
The athletic teams of the University of Alabama (“Bama”) are nicknamed the Crimson Tide, a reference to the team colors of crimson and white. Bama’s mascot is Big Al, an anthropomorphic elephant.

50. Quill parts NIBS
“Nib” is a Scottish variant of the Old English word “neb”, with both meaning the beak of a bird. This usage of “nib” as a beak dates back to the 14th century, with “nib” meaning the tip of a pen or quill coming a little later, in the early 1600s.

Quills have been used as writing implements since the 6th century. Historically, goose, swan and turkey feathers have been the quills of choice. A bird’s feather is well suited for writing, as the hollow shaft acts as a reservoir for ink which then flows to the tip due to capillary action. Choice of feather is important. Right-handed writers are best served by feathers from the left wing, as the feather curves away from the palm of the hand when writing. The tip of the quill is sharpened using a “quill knife”. This quill knife is the ancestor of what we know today as a “penknife”.

54. Greek letters ETAS
Eta is the seventh letter of the Greek alphabet, and is a forerunner of our Latin character “H”. Originally denoting a consonant, eta was used as a long vowel in Ancient Greek.

55. Gourmands OVEREATERS
A gourmand is someone who takes great pleasure in consuming food and drink, often eating and drinking to excess. The related term “gourmet” refers to someone who has a refined palate.

56. Erato’s instrument LYRE
The lyre is a stringed instrument most closely associated with Ancient Greece, and with the gods Hermes and Apollo in particular. According to myth, Hermes slaughtered a cow from a sacred herd belonging to Apollo and offered it to the gods but kept the entrails. Hermes used the entrails to create the first lyre. Apollo liked the sound from the lyre and agreed to accept it as a trade for his herd of cattle.

In Greek mythology, Erato was the Muse of Lyric Poetry.

57. South side TEXAS TOAST
Texas toast is a packaged bread that is sliced at double the usual thickness.

Down
2. Radius neighbor ULNA
The radius and ulna are bones in the forearm. If you hold the palm of your hand up in front of you, the radius is the bone on the “thumb-side” of the arm, and the ulna is the bone on the “pinkie-side”.

3. Unpopular spots ZITS
The slang term “zit”, meaning “a pimple”, came into the language in 1966, but no one seems to know its exact derivation.

4. Literally, “twice-baked” ZWIEBACK
Zwieback is a bread made using eggs that is twice-baked. It is sliced after the first bake, so that the final product is composed of crisp, brittle slices. The name comes from the German for “twice” and “bake”.

5. Rod GAT
“Gat” is a slang term for a gun that is derived from the Gatling gun, the precursor to the modern machine gun. The Gatling gun was invented by Dr. Richard J. Gatling in 1861. Apparently he was inspired to invent it so that one man could do as much damage as a hundred, thereby reducing the size of armies and diminishing the suffering caused by war. Go figure …

6. “Tracey Takes On” author ULLMAN
Tracey Ullman is an outrageous comic actress from the UK. She moved to the US and brought out her own series in the late eighties called “The Tracey Ullman Show”. Famously, it was from “The Tracey Ullman Show” that “The Simpsons” was spun off in 1989.

“Tracey Takes On” is a book by Tracey Ullman that is based on the HBO comedy show “Tracey Takes On…” in which she stars.

7. Intestinal ILEAC
The human ileum is the lowest part of the small intestine, found below the jejunum and above the cecum of the large intestine.

10. Botswana neighbor, formerly RHODESIA
The country now known as Zimbabwe started out as a British colony called Southern Rhodesia, and later just “Rhodesia”. The original colony was named for Cecil Rhodes, the British empire builder.

Botswana is a country in southern Africa, located just north of South Africa. Someone from Botswana is called a “Motswana” (yes, with an M), with the plural being “Batswana” (yes, with a B).

11. Some October campaigns AD WARS
Election Day was chosen by Congress back in 1845. The month of November was selected as it suited an agricultural society, following the fall harvest and yet not too far into winter, which could make travel difficult. Tuesday was chosen so that people had time to travel to polling stations. Monday elections might have meant that some would have to start out on Sunday, and that could interfere with Christian services.

13. Sandusky locale ERIE COUNTY
Sandusky, Ohio is a city on the shores of Lake Erie. My son is always talking about Sandusky as a place he’d like to visit, as it is home to one the largest collections of roller coasters in the world.

14. Keys holder in a Rubens portrait SAINT PETER
The artist Peter Paul Rubens made a series of portraits of the apostles for Don Francisco Gómez de Sandoval, 1st Duke of Lerma. The portrait of Saint Peter depicted him holding two keys, the symbolic keys to the Kingdom of Heaven.

In the Christian tradition, Saint Peter is often depicted as the keeper of the gates of heaven. This depiction arises from a passage in the Gospel of Matthew:

I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hell will not overcome it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.

Peter Paul Rubens was a Flemish painter who worked in the city of Antwerp in Belgium. When Rubens was 53-years-old, four years after the death of his first wife, he married a 16-year-old girl. It was his young wife who inspired many of the voluptuous figures with whom Rubens became associated later in his career. This style of painting gave rise to our term “rubenesque”, describing a voluptuous, attractive woman.

22. Singer James ETTA
Etta James was best known for her beautiful rendition of the song “At Last”. Sadly, as she disclosed in her autobiography, James lived a life that was ravaged by drug addiction leading to numerous legal and health problems. Ms. James passed away in January 2012 having suffered from leukemia.

25. Strikes out DELES
“Dele” is the editorial instruction to delete something from a document, and is often written in red.

26. Power source SOLAR PANEL
Solar panels make use of what’s known as the photovoltaic effect. We all learned about the photoelectric effect in school, in which electrons were ejected from the surface of some materials when it was exposed to light or other forms of radiation. The photovoltaic effect is related but different. Instead of being electrons ejected from the surface, in the photovoltaic effect electrons move around in the material creating a difference in voltage.

27. Brown, e.g. UNIVERSITY
Brown University, in Providence, Rhode Island, is one of the eight Ivy League schools. Brown has been around a long time, founded in 1764, years before America declared independence from England. The university took the name of Brown in 1804 after one Nicholas Brown, Jr. gave a substantial gift to the school.

31. Pain relief pill brand DOAN’S
Doan’s is a pain reliever and anti-inflammatory drug. The active ingredient is magnesium salicylate, and it can be purchased without a prescription.

35. 1983 Styx hit that begins in Japanese MR ROBOTO
“Mr Roboto” is a song on the 1983 album “Kilroy Was Here” by the Chicago band Styx. The first lines of the song are:

Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto,
Mata ah-oo hima de
Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto,
Himitsu wo shiri tai

which translate as:

Thank you very much, Mr. Robot
Until the day (we) meet again
Thank you very much, Mr. Robot
I want to know your secret

41. Francs and beans? MONIES
The French franc was made up of 100 centimes, before being replaced by the Euro.

“Bean-counter” is a disparaging term sometimes used for an accountant. I think the idea is that “normal” people would be happy to count bags of beans whereas a pedantic account would want to count every single bean. I guess that implies that “beans” might be a slang term for “money”.

43. Winger of “Black Widow” DEBRA
When Debra Winger was a young woman she was involved in a terrible car accident that resulted in a cerebral hemorrhage. She was left partially paralyzed and blind, and was told that she would never see again. Given so much time to think after the accident, she decided that if she did indeed recover she would leave her home in Ohio and move to California to take up acting. After ten months of blindness Winger recovered, and off she headed.

“Black Widow” is a 1987 thriller about a woman who marries wealthy men and murders them for their money, and the efforts made by a female agent in the Department of Justice who tries to prove the crimes. The “black widow” is played by Theresa Russell and the agent by Debra Winger.

45. Cretaceous giant T REX
The Tyrannosaurus rex (usually written T. rex) was a spectacular looking dinosaur. “Tyrannosaurus” comes from the Greek words “tyrannos” (tyrant) and “sauros” (lizard), and the “rex” is of course Latin for “king”. They were big boys, measuring 42 feet long and 13 feet tall at the hips, and weighing 7.5 tons.

The Cretaceous is the geologic period that followed the Jurassic and preceded the Paleogene. The dinosaurs that emerged during the Jurassic period continued to dominate during the Cretaceous. The period was brought to close with a mass extinction event called the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event. This event killed off the dinosaurs, except those that could fly. The avian dinosaurs evolved into the birds that we know today.

48. Seas overseas MERS
“Eau” is the French word for “water”. “Mer” is the French word for “sea”.

49. Part of PDA: Abbr. ASST
Personal digital assistant (PDA)

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For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. One is featured in the 1962 Ventures instrumental “The 2,000 Pound Bee” FUZZ GUITAR
11. Bass output ALES
15. He played the bandit Calvera in “The Magnificent Seven” ELI WALLACH
16. __ Maar, mistress of Picasso DORA
17. Qualified for ENTITLED TO
18. “The Enemy Below” setting, briefly WWII
19. Zap LASE
20. Kid’s cry MAA!
21. Overpower with noise DEAFEN
23. Airline created by an Act of Parliament BOAC
25. Take away DETRACT
26. “The Love Machine” author SUSANN
29. Place to stretch REST STOP
30. In abeyance ON ICE
31. “Michael” co-screenwriter Ephron DELIA
32. Expected DUE
33. Tie LINK
34. “Hot House” Grammy-winning pianist COREA
35. Philadelphia tourist attraction MINT
36. DJIA part: Abbr. AVG
37. Massenet opera THAIS
38. Heraklion’s island CRETE
39. Chimney repair job RELINING
41. 14-Down, for one MARTYR
42. Some property safeguards PRENUPS
43. “Alice in Wonderland” bird DODO
44. They may be frozen or liquid ASSETS
45. Ideal figure TEN
46. School with the mascot Big Al BAMA
50. Quill parts NIBS
51. Food chain group HERBIVORES
54. Greek letters ETAS
55. Gourmands OVEREATERS
56. Erato’s instrument LYRE
57. South side TEXAS TOAST

Down
1. Sense FEEL
2. Radius neighbor ULNA
3. Unpopular spots ZITS
4. Literally, “twice-baked” ZWIEBACK
5. Rod GAT
6. “Tracey Takes On” author ULLMAN
7. Intestinal ILEAC
8. Cry of achievement TA-DA!
9. Routine ACT
10. Botswana neighbor, formerly RHODESIA
11. Some October campaigns AD WARS
12. Fare reduction option LOW-FAT DIET
13. Sandusky locale ERIE COUNTY
14. Keys holder in a Rubens portrait SAINT PETER
22. Singer James ETTA
24. Person ONE
25. Strikes out DELES
26. Power source SOLAR PANEL
27. Brown, e.g. UNIVERSITY
28. Business where lines are short? SINGLES BAR
29. Equip anew RERIG
31. Pain relief pill brand DOAN’S
34. Greenside stroke CHIP SHOT
35. 1983 Styx hit that begins in Japanese MR ROBOTO
37. Flanged fastener T-NUT
38. Rogue CAD
40. Existing: Lat. IN ESSE
41. Francs and beans? MONIES
43. Winger of “Black Widow” DEBRA
45. Cretaceous giant T REX
47. Stretch AREA
48. Seas overseas MERS
49. Part of PDA: Abbr. ASST
52. Certain threshold EVE
53. Brewery sight VAT

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