Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies
Across
4 What Santa’s making and double-checking, in song : LIST
The Christmas song “Santa Claus Is Coming To Town” was introduced to us in November of 1934 on Eddie Cantor’s radio show. The song was written by John Frederick Coots and Haven Gillespie.
8 Little nails : BRADS
A brad is a slender wire nail with a relatively small head that is typically used to tack pieces of wood together, i.e. to fasten either temporarily or with minimal damage to the wood. Nowadays, brads are commonly applied using a nail gun.
16 Minty Derby drink : JULEP
The mint julep is a bourbon-based cocktail that is associated with the American South, and with the Kentucky Derby in particular. If you’d like to make yourself a mint julep, one recipe is:
- 3 oz of Bourbon
- 4-6 sprigs of mint
- granulated sugar to taste
The first Kentucky Derby took place in 1875, and is a race modeled on the Epsom Derby in England and the Grand Prix de Paris (now called the “Prix de l‘Arc de Triomphe”). As such, the Kentucky Derby was run over 1½ miles, although in 1896 this was shortened to 1¼ miles. The winning horse is presented with a very elaborate blanket made of red roses, and so the Derby is nicknamed “Run for the Roses”. The race is held on the first Saturday in May each year, and is limited to 3-year-old horses.
17 *Longtime Nabisco cookie : FIG NEWTON (hiding “NEW” as in “new man”)
The Fig Newton cookie is based on what is actually a very old recipe that dates back to ancient Egypt. Whereas we grew up with “Fig Rolls” in Ireland, here in America the brand name “Fig Newton” was used, as the cookies were originally produced in Newton, Massachusetts.
The National Biscuit Company was formed in 1898 with the merger of three existing bakery businesses. The company name today is “Nabisco”, an abbreviated form of “National Biscuit Company”.
19 Wafer named for its flavor : NILLA
As one might expect, “Nilla” is a shortened form of “vanilla”. However, you won’t find any vanilla in Nilla brand cookies or wafers. They have always been flavored with vanillin, which is synthetic vanilla. Is nothing sacred …?
21 *Badgers’ school : WISCONSIN (hiding “CON” as in “con man”)
The Wisconsin Badgers are the sports teams of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The state of Wisconsin is nicknamed “the Badger State”, a name came about in the early days of lead mining in the 1800s. The miners would often set up home in the holes they were digging, earning them the nickname “badgers”.
23 MD you don’t need an appointment to see : ER DOC
Medical doctors (MDs) might be found in an operating room (OR) or emergency room (ER).
25 NYC’s Park, e.g. : AVE
Park Avenue in New York City used to be known as Fourth Avenue, and for much of its length carried the tracks of the New York and Harlem Railroad. When the line was built, some of it was constructed by cutting through the length of the street and then forming underground tunnels by covering over the line with grates and greenery. This greenery formed a parkland between 34th and 40th Streets, and in 1860 the grassy section of Fourth Avenue was renamed Park Avenue, a name that was eventually used for the whole thoroughfare.
26 Verdi opera based on a Shakespearean play : OTELLO
Giuseppe Verdi’s opera “Otello” was first performed in 1887 at La Scala Theater in Milan. The opera is based on Shakespeare’s play “Othello” and is considered by many to be Verdi’s greatest work.
29 Like pre-revolution Russia : TSARIST
The year 1917 saw two revolutions in Russia, with the pair collectively called “the Russian Revolution”. As a result of the February Revolution that centered on Petrograd, the last Emperor of Russia (Tsar Nicholas II) abdicated and members of the Imperial parliament took control of the country, forming the Russian Provisional Government. The Provisional Government was itself overthrown in the October Revolution, which was led by Vladimir Lenin and the Bolshevik party.
33 *Outback choice named for a bone : RIB-EYE STEAK (hiding “YES” as in “yes-man”)
If you’re in Australia or New Zealand and looking for a rib eye steak, you need to order a “Scotch fillet”.
Outback Steakhouse is a chain of restaurants that was established in 1987, with the first Outback opening in Tampa, Florida. Outback serves largely American food in an Australian-themed dining locale.
36 California’s Big __ : SUR
Big Sur is a lovely part of the California Coast located south of Monterey and Carmel. The name “Big Sur” comes from the original Spanish description of the area as “el sur grande” meaning “the big south”.
38 Anthem contraction : O’ER
The words “o’er the ramparts we watched” come from “The Star Spangled Banner” written by Francis Scott Key.
39 “Twittering Machine” artist Paul : KLEE
“Twittering Machine” is a watercolor-and-ink drawing by Swiss-German artist Paul Klee. It depicts some birds on a wire, which is in turn connected to a hand-crank making a “twittering machine”. You can see the work in New York’s Museum of Modern Art, where it is regarded as one of the museum’s best-known and treasured pieces.
40 “Ben-__” : HUR
Lew Wallace was a general for the Union Army during the Civil War, and was also an author. He wrote a very successful and celebrated book called “Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ”, first published in 1880, which was made into a 1959 movie starring Charlton Heston.
41 *One on a “Most Wanted” list : PUBLIC ENEMY (hiding “ICE” as in “iceman”)
The FBI was the first agency to create a “most wanted list”, introducing the “FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives” list in 1950. Director J. Edgar Hoover came up with the idea after fielding a question from a journalist asking for the names and description of the “toughest guys” being sought by the FBI. One misconception about the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list is that it is ranked, but there is no such thing as the “#1 Most Wanted Fugitive”.
An iceman is someone who delivers ice to homes. As one might imagine, the occupation was more popular back in the day. Way back when, the ice was harvested from frozen lakes and ponds.
51 *Pour on the criticism : DISH IT OUT (hiding “HIT” as in “hitman”)
To dish the dirt is to talk about someone or something without regard to veracity. The phrase comes from “dish” (in the sense of dishing out food) and “dirt” (in the sense of negative information).
55 Pisa place : ITALY
The city of Pisa sits right on the Italian coast, at the mouth of the River Arno. The city is perhaps most famous for its Leaning Tower. The tower is actually the campanile (bell tower) of the city’s cathedral, and it has been leaning since it was completed in 1173. Just shows you how important good foundations are …
62 Roman robes : TOGAS
In ancient Rome, the classical attire known as a toga (plural “togae” or “togas”) was usually worn over a tunic. The tunic was made from linen, and the toga itself was a piece of cloth about twenty feet long made from wool. The toga could only be worn by men, and only if those men were Roman citizens. The female equivalent of the toga was called a “stola”.
63 Britney Spears’ “Oops!…__ It Again” : I DID
Britney Spears was the best-selling female artist in the first decade of the 21st century. I didn’t buy one song of hers, and I couldn’t even name one. I live in the past …
64 Flood barrier : DIKE
A dike is an embankment that is used to prevent floods. It is usually made of earth and rock.
66 Many a phone message nowadays : TEXT
Short Message Service (SMS) is the name for the text messaging service that many of us still use on our cell phones to contact friends and family.
Down
1 __ Romeo: sports car : ALFA
The “Alfa” in “Alfa Romeo” is actually an acronym, one standing for Anonima Lombarda Fabbrica Automobili (“Lombard Automobile Factory, Public Company”). ALFA was an enterprise founded in 1909 and which was taken over by Nicola Romeo in 1915. In 1920 the company name was changed to Alfa Romeo.
3 Boxers and pugs : DOGS
The boxer breed of dog (one of my favorites!) originated in Germany. My first dog was a boxer/Labrador mix, a beautiful combination. Our current family dog is a boxer/pug mix, and is another gorgeous animal.
4 Practice in USA’s “Suits” : LAW
“Suits” is an entertaining, albeit formulaic, legal drama that is set in New York City. One of the main characters in the show Mike Ross, a brilliant law school dropout who poses as a law associate. Mike Ross’ love interest is paralegal Rachel Zane. Zane is played by actress Meghan Markle, who married the UK’s Prince Harry in 2018.
6 Unflappable : STOIC
Zeno of Citium was a Greek philosopher famous for teaching at the Stoa Poikile, the “Painted Porch”, located on the north side of the Ancient Agora of Athens. Because of the location of his classes, his philosophy became known as stoicism (from “stoa”, the word for “porch”). We get our adjective “stoic”, meaning “indifferent to pleasure or pain”, from the same root.
7 Bills with Hamilton : TENS
The obverse of the US ten-dollar bill features the image of Alexander Hamilton, the first US Secretary of the Treasury. As such, ten-dollar bills are sometimes called “Hamiltons”. By the way, the $10 bill is the only US currency in circulation in which the portrait faces to the left. The reverse of the ten-dollar bill features the US Treasury Building.
8 Ryan Howard portrayer on “The Office” : BJ NOVAK
B. J. Novak is an actor and writer who is perhaps best known for playing Ryan Howard on “The Office”, a sitcom for which he wrote and also served as one of the executive producers.
10 Start of a Shakespearean title : ALL’S …
“All’s Well That Ends Well” is a play by William Shakespeare, one with elements of both tragedy and comedy. As such, “All’s Well That Ends Well” is classified as one of Shakespeare’s “problem plays”, plays of his that cannot be neatly classified as either tragedy or comedy.
11 Knish seller : DELI
A knish is a snack food from Germany and Eastern Europe that was made popular in the US by Jewish immigrants. A knish has a filling, often made of mashed potato and ground meat, covered by a dough that is baked or fried.
22 Hombre’s house : CASA
In Spanish, a “niño” (boy) turns into a “hombre” (man).
26 Big name in garden products : ORTHO
Ortho is a brand of weed killer owned by Scotts Miracle-Gro.
28 Roger who wrote “Your Movie Sucks” : EBERT
“Your Movie Sucks” is a collection of movie reviews by film critic Roger Ebert, reviews that are all under two-out-of-five stars.
29 Actress Hatcher : TERI
Teri Hatcher’s most famous role is the Susan Mayer character on the TV comedy-drama “Desperate Housewives”. I’ve never seen more than a few minutes of “Housewives” but I do know Teri Hatcher as a Bond girl, as she appeared in “Tomorrow Never Dies”. More recently, she portrayed Lois Lane on the show “Lois & Clark”.
30 Archipelago part : ISLET
“Archipelago” is our spelling of the Italian “arcipelago”, a word that has Greek roots. The Aegean Sea was once known as the Archipelago. The usage of “Archipelago” migrated over time, eventually applying only to the Aegean Islands. As a result, we use the term “archipelago” today not for a sea, but for a group or chain of islands.
32 Long shots, in hoops lingo : TREYS
A trey is a three in a deck of cards. The term “trey” can also be used for a domino with three pips, and even a three-point play in basketball.
35 __ Aviv : TEL
The full name of Israel’s second largest city is Tel Aviv-Yafo. “Tel Aviv” translates into “Spring Mound”, and is a name that was chosen in 1910.
39 Secured with a bowline, say : KNOTTED
As an ex-sailor, I have a thing about knots, and the bowline … it’s one of my favorites. It’s a simple but effective loop knot, the one that’s made by “the frog coming out of the pond, going around the tree, and going back into the pond”. There is also a sliding version called a running bowline.
41 Least speedy : POKIEST
“Poky” means “slow, dawdling, puttering”.
43 Animation frame : CEL
In the world of animation, a cel is a transparent sheet on which objects and characters are drawn. In the first half of the 20th century the sheet was actually made of celluloid, giving the “cel” its name.
44 Phishing line? : EMAIL
Phishing is the online practice of stealing usernames, passwords and credit card details by creating a site that deceptively looks reliable and trustworthy. Phishers often send out safe-looking emails or instant messages that direct someone to an equally safe-looking website where the person might inadvertently enter sensitive information. “Phishing” is a play on the word “fishing”, as in “fishing for passwords, PIN numbers etc.”
46 Beatty/Hoffman flop : ISHTAR
“Ishtar” is a 1987 film that really bombed at the box office. It stars Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman, as lounge singers working in Morocco! There’s a Cold War plot and, thank goodness, it’s a comedy. Apparently, the film is so bad that it never even made it to DVD.
49 Museum escort : GUIDE
The term “museum” comes from the ancient Greek word “mouseion” that denoted a temple dedicated to the “Muses”. The Muses were the patrons of the arts in Greek mythology.
50 N.J. army base : FT DIX
“Fort Dix” is the name commonly used for what is now more correctly called Joint Base McGuire -Dix-Lakehurst, a US Army base located near Trenton, New Jersey. Fort Dix was established in 1917 by the Army, and was consolidated with nearby Air Force and Navy facilities in 2009.
51 Trio in Fiji? : DOTS
A tittle is a small diacritical mark used in writing. Examples are the cedilla and tilde used in some languages, and the dot over the lowercase letters i and j in English.
52 Monopoly token replaced by a cat : IRON
The tokens included with a game of Monopoly have changed over the years. Two of the more interesting tokens are the battleship and cannon. These were created by Hasbro for a board game called Conflict. When Conflict failed in the market, the excess tokens were recycled and included with Monopoly.
53 Palm starch : SAGO
When I was growing up in Ireland I was very familiar with pearl sago, which is very similar to pearl tapioca. Pearls of sago are simply little balls of sago starch used to make breads, pancakes, biscuits, or steamed puddings that we ate as kids. Sago comes from the pith of the sago palm tree. To get at the starch the tree has to be cut down and the trunk split to reveal the pith. The pith is crushed and manipulated to make the starch available, which is then washed out of a fibrous suspension. One sago palm tree yields about 150-300 kg of starch. Personally I love the stuff, but then, I am a bit weird …
57 Erie or Huron : LAKE
Lake Erie is the fourth largest of the five Great Lakes by area (Lake Ontario is the smallest). The lake takes its name from the Erie tribe of Native Americans that used to live along its southern shore. Erie is the smallest of the Great Lakes by volume and the shallowest, something for which nearby residents must be quite grateful. Being relatively shallow, much of Erie freezes over part way through most winters putting an end to most of the lake-effect snow that falls in the snow belt extending from the lake’s edge.
Lake Huron takes its name from the Huron Native-American people that lived by its shores. Early French explorers often called the lake “La Mer Douce”, which translates as “the freshwater sea”.
58 Santa __ Valley: Cal. wine region : YNEZ
The Santa Ynez Valley is a winegrowing region in Santa Barbara County in California. The Santa Ynez Valley was the setting and location for the wonderful 2004 film “Sideways”.
61 Banned pesticide : DDT
DDT is dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (don’t forget now!). DDT was used with great success to control disease-carrying insects during WWII, and when made available for use after the war it became by far the most popular pesticide. And then Rachel Carson published her famous book “Silent Spring”, suggesting there was a link between DDT and diminishing populations of certain wildlife. It was the public outcry sparked by the book, and reports of links between DDT and cancer, that led to the ban on the use of the chemical in 1972. That ban is touted as the main reason that the bald eagle was rescued from near extinction.
Complete List of Clues/Answers
Across
1 Do sum work : ADD
4 What Santa’s making and double-checking, in song : LIST
8 Little nails : BRADS
13 “__ out below!” : LOOK
15 Up the __: raise the stakes : ANTE
16 Minty Derby drink : JULEP
17 *Longtime Nabisco cookie : FIG NEWTON (hiding “NEW” as in “new man”)
19 Wafer named for its flavor : NILLA
20 Totally lost : AT SEA
21 *Badgers’ school : WISCONSIN (hiding “CON” as in “con man”)
23 MD you don’t need an appointment to see : ER DOC
25 NYC’s Park, e.g. : AVE
26 Verdi opera based on a Shakespearean play : OTELLO
29 Like pre-revolution Russia : TSARIST
33 *Outback choice named for a bone : RIB-EYE STEAK (hiding “YES” as in “yes-man”)
36 California’s Big __ : SUR
37 Angry, with “off” : TEED …
38 Anthem contraction : O’ER
39 “Twittering Machine” artist Paul : KLEE
40 “Ben-__” : HUR
41 *One on a “Most Wanted” list : PUBLIC ENEMY (hiding “ICE” as in “iceman”)
45 New car’s bells and whistles, say : OPTIONS
47 Overacts : EMOTES
48 Hit the slopes : SKI
49 Note above F : G-FLAT
51 *Pour on the criticism : DISH IT OUT (hiding “HIT” as in “hitman”)
55 Pisa place : ITALY
59 Speechify : ORATE
60 Go-between … and a hint to each set of circles : MIDDLEMAN
62 Roman robes : TOGAS
63 Britney Spears’ “Oops!…__ It Again” : I DID
64 Flood barrier : DIKE
65 Bullish sound? : SNORT
66 Many a phone message nowadays : TEXT
67 “__ who?” : SEZ
Down
1 __ Romeo: sports car : ALFA
2 “Stop stalling!” : DO IT!
3 Boxers and pugs : DOGS
4 Practice in USA’s “Suits” : LAW
5 Halved : IN TWO
6 Unflappable : STOIC
7 Bills with Hamilton : TENS
8 Ryan Howard portrayer on “The Office” : BJ NOVAK
9 Spoiler : RUINER
10 Start of a Shakespearean title : ALL’S …
11 Knish seller : DELI
12 Bridge : SPAN
14 Prepared to propose : KNEELED
18 Ahead of schedule : EARLY
22 Hombre’s house : CASA
24 Forest female : DOE
26 Big name in garden products : ORTHO
27 Bottleneck consequence : TIE-UP
28 Roger who wrote “Your Movie Sucks” : EBERT
29 Actress Hatcher : TERI
30 Archipelago part : ISLET
31 “So I was wrong!” : SUE ME!
32 Long shots, in hoops lingo : TREYS
34 Sheds many tears : SOBS
35 __ Aviv : TEL
39 Secured with a bowline, say : KNOTTED
41 Least speedy : POKIEST
42 Textbook section : UNIT
43 Animation frame : CEL
44 Phishing line? : EMAIL
46 Beatty/Hoffman flop : ISHTAR
49 Museum escort : GUIDE
50 N.J. army base : FT DIX
51 Trio in Fiji? : DOTS
52 Monopoly token replaced by a cat : IRON
53 Palm starch : SAGO
54 Cut out : OMIT
56 French friends : AMIS
57 Erie or Huron : LAKE
58 Santa __ Valley: Cal. wine region : YNEZ
61 Banned pesticide : DDT
LA Times Crossword
