Day: March 21, 2015

Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across
1. City on the South Saskatchewan River MEDICINE HAT
Medicine Hat is a city in Alberta. Canada. Medicine Hat is known for its extensive natural gas fields. In fact, English writer Rudyard Kipling described the city as having “all hell for a basement”.

Canada’s South Saskatchewan River joins the North Saskatchewan River just east of the city of Prince Albert at Saskatchewan River. The confluence of the two rivers forms the Saskatchewan River, the river that gives the province its name.

12. It’s about 5 mL TSP
Teaspoon (tsp.)

17. Factor in cold waves POLAR VORTEX
The polar vortices are two persistent cyclones that are found over the Earth’s poles, one over the Arctic and one over the Antarctic. It is within the southern polar vortex that we now have a hole in the ozone layer, but there is also depletion of ozone taking place in the northern polar vortex.

18. Boomer’s offspring XER
The term Generation X originated in the UK where it was the name of a book by Jane Deverson. Her book detailed the results of a study of British youths in 1964, contrasting their lifestyle to those of previous generations. It was Canadian author Douglas Coupland who was responsible for popularizing the term, with his more successful publication “Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture”. By the latest accepted definition, Gen-Xers were born between 1961 and 1981.

A baby boomer is someone who was born in the post-WWII baby boom. The rate of births had been falling fairly steadily in the US at least since 1900, but this trend was sharply reversed in 1946 after WWII. The higher birth rate continued until 1964, when it returned to pre-war levels. Since then the birth rate has continued to decline, although at a slower pace. The period between 1946 and 1964 is defined as the “baby boom”.

21. Jazz duo? ZEES
There is a duo of letters Z (zees) in the word “jazz”.

24. Drivetrain component, perhaps REAR AXLE
The drivetrain of a car is made up of the components that deliver power to the driving wheels. The drivetrain excludes the engine, which produces that power. The combination of the engine and the drivetrain is known as the powertrain.

26. Southwestern language ZUNI
The Zuni are one of the Pueblo peoples. They live on the Zuni River in western New Mexico, a tributary of the Little Colorado River.

28. Brawn SINEW
Sinew is another name for a tendon. Tendons are bands of collagen that connect muscle to bone. Tendons are similar to ligaments and fasciae, which are also connective tissue made out of collagen, but ligaments join bone to bone, and fasciae connect muscle to muscle. We also use the term “sinew” to mean muscular power.

33. Diamond shape PEAR
A diamond might be cut into a pear-shape, also known as a teardrop shape, for use in an item of jewelry.

35. Star movers LIMOS
The word “limousine” actually derives from the French city of Limoges. The area around Limoges is called the Limousin, and it gave its name to a cloak hood worn by local shepherds. In early motor cars, a driver would sit outside in the weather while the passengers would sit in the covered compartment. The driver would often wear a limousin-style protective hood, giving rise to that type of transportation being called a “limousine”. Well, that’s how the story goes anyway …

42. Save for later, in a way TIVO
TiVo was introduced in 1999 and was the world’s first commercially successful DVR (Digital Video Recorder).

44. City southwest of Bayeux ST LO
Saint-Lô is a town in Normandy that was occupied by Germany in 1940. Saint-Lo stood at a strategic crossroads and so there was intense fighting there during the Normandy invasion of 1944. After a prolonged bombardment, very little of the town was left standing.

The French town of Bayeux in Normandy is famous as the home of the Bayeux Tapestry.

The famous Bayeux Tapestry isn’t actually a tapestry at all, but rather an embroidered cloth. The “tapestry” is 230 feet long and depicts events leading up to the Norman conquest of England, including the Battle of Hastings in 1066.

45. Woodstock performer before Sly JANIS
The singer Janis Joplin was from Port Arthur, Texas. A loose version of Joplin’s wild life is told in the 1979 film “The Rose”, with Bette Midler playing the lead. Famously, Joplin died in 1970 at 27 years of age from an overdose of heroin.

Sly and the Family Stone are a rock, funk and soul band from San Francisco that’s still performing today, although their heyday was from 1966 to 1983. They were one of the first rock bands to have a racially integrated lineup, as well as representatives of both sexes.

1969’s Woodstock Music & Art Fair was held on a dairy farm located 43 miles southwest of the town of Woodstock, New York. 400,000 young people attended, and saw 32 bands and singers perform over three days.

47. Ecua. rejoined it in 2007 OPEC
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.

Ecuador joined OPEC in 1973, but withdrew at the end of 1992. The government of Ecuador balked at the $2 million membership fee, and also wanted to produce more oil than was was allowed by the OPEC quota system. Ecuador rejoined OPEC in 2007.

49. Hail Mary LONG BOMB
A “Hail Mary pass” (also called “the long bomb”) is a desperation move in American football in which a long pass is thrown with very little chance of a success, right at the the end of a game or at the end of a half. The term dates back to thirties, and was probably first used at Notre Dame. The “Hail Mary” is a prayer in the Christian tradition that is of particular significance Roman Catholicism.

57. Goya’s “La __ vestida” MAJA
María Cayetana de Silva was the 13th duchess of Alba. She was a favorite subject of the Spanish painter Francisco Goya. The duchess is the subject in the famous portraits known as “La maja desnuda” (The Nude Maja) and “La maja vestida” (The Clothed Maja). “Maja” translates from Spanish as “beautiful lady”.

59. Washington portraitist PEALE
Rembrandt Peale was a prolific American portrait artist. As one might guess from his given name, Rembrandt was the son of another artist, Charles Willson Peale, who named him for the Dutch painter Rembrandt van Rijn. Indeed, Rembrandt had two brothers, named Raphaelle and Rubens Peale. Rembrandt Peale’s most famous works are portraits of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.

60. Star Wars letters SDI
The Strategic Defense Initiative proposed by President Reagan was dubbed “Star Wars” by the media.

One of the positive outcomes of President Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) was a change in US defense strategy. The new approach was to use missiles to destroy incoming hostile weapons, rather than using missiles to destroy the nation attacking the country. The former doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction went by the apt acronym of MAD …

61. December-to-May fruit NAVEL ORANGE
Navel oranges are the ones with the small second fruit that grows at the base, at the “navel”. The navel orange has been traced back to a single mutation that took place in an orange tree in Brazil many years ago. The mutation also rendered the fruit seedless and hence sterile, so it is propagated using grafts.

63. RBI producer, perhaps SAC
Sacrifice (sac.)

66. 1623 Shakespeare work, with “The” WINTER’S TALE
“The Winter’s Tale” is a 1623 play by William Shakespeare. It is often categorized as one of Shakespeare’s “problem plays” in that it does not readily fall into the category of drama or romance. The first three acts are quite dramatic, while the last two acts are very humorous and provide us with a happy ending.

Down
1. Blues MOPES
The “mopes” are a depressed state, the blues.

2. “Waterworld” orphan girl ENOLA
“Waterworld”, a Kevin Costner vehicle released in 1995, really wasn’t that great a movie despite it’s promising storyline about land submerged by melting polar ice caps. The movie was filmed in Hawaii, a massive production with a huge budget overrun. I went SCUBA diving in one of the locations a few years after the film crews had headed home. All along the reef there were small metal plates embedded in the rock, used as anchor points for various floating sets. I would have thought that kind of thing would have been cleaned up, but no …

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

4. Apple purchases IMACS
The iMac is a desktop computer platform from Apple introduced in 1998. One of the main features of the iMac is an “all-in-one” design, with the computer console and monitor integrated. The iMac also came in a range of colors, that Apple marketed as “flavors”, such strawberry, blueberry and lime.

5. Mexico’s Sea of __ CORTEZ
The Gulf of California is also known as the Sea of Cortez, and is the body of water that separates the peninsula of Baja, California from the Mexican mainland.

6. Journalist Kupcinet IRV
Irv Kupcinet was a newspaper columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times. He wrote “Kup’s Column” for six decades starting in 1943. Kupcinet was also a broadcaster, and in 1957 replaced Jack Paar on what would eventually become “The Tonight Show”.

7. Krypton relative NEON
The noble gases (also “rare gases”) are those elements over on the extreme right of the Periodic Table. Because of their “full” complement of electrons, noble gases are very unreactive. The six noble gases that occur naturally are helium, neon, argon, krypton, xenon and radon.

8. Ancient Italian region ETRURIA
Etruria was a region in Central Italy, home to the Etruscans. Etruscan society was at its height about 650 BC.

9. Opposite of “stand” HIT ME
“Stand” and “”hit me” are instructions to the dealer in the card game Blackjack.

The game of “twenty-one” was first referred to in a book by Cervantes, the author famous for writing “Don Quixote”. He called the game “ventiuna” (Spanish for “twenty-one”). Cervantes wrote his story just after the year 1600, so the game has been around at least since then. Twenty-one came to the US but it wasn’t all that popular so bonus payments were introduced to create more interest. One of the more attractive bonuses was a ten-to-one payout to a player who was dealt an ace of spades and a black jack. This bonus led to the game adopting the moniker “Blackjack”.

10. They multiply by dividing AMEBAS
An ameba (or “amoeba” as we spell it back in Ireland) is a single-celled microorganism. The name comes from the Greek “amoibe”, meaning change. The name is quite apt, as the cell changes shape readily as the ameba moves, eats and reproduces.

11. Drive handle TEX
“Tex” is a common nickname (handle) for a cowboy.

14. Intrinsically PER SE
“Per se” is a Latin phrase that translates as “by itself”. We use “per se” pretty literally, meaning “in itself, intrinsically”.

21. The Marx Brothers, e.g. ZANIES
Something described as “zany” is clownish and bizarre. “Zany” can also be a noun, a term used for a clown or a buffoon. The original noun was “Zanni”, a Venetian dialect variant of Gianni, short for Giovanni (John). Zanni was a character who appeared in comedic plays of the day, and was someone who aped the principal actors.

29. Meas. of course performance GPA
Grade point average (GPA)

30. Brand with a Jumpman logo AIR JORDAN
Air Jordan is Nike brand of shoe (and other apparel), endorsed by NBA great Michael Jordan. The silhouette of a basketball player that features on Air Jordans is known as the “jumpman” logo.

34. Letters sometimes seen before a phone no. RSVP
RSVP stands for “répondez, s’il vous plaît”, which is French for “please, answer”.

36. Nestlé’s __-Caps SNO
Sno-Caps are a brand of candy usually only available in movie theaters. Sno-caps have been around since the 1920s, would you believe?

38. Cheat CRIB
A crib is a plagiarism, most commonly the copying of an answer in an examination.

40. 1924 co-defendant LOEB
Nathaniel Leopold and Richard Loeb were two well-heeled students at the University of Chicago who famously murdered a 14-year-old boy, apparently just on a whim, to show that they could commit the perfect crime. The crime turned out to be not quite so perfect and the pair were caught and put on trial for the murder. The trial was big news, especially after the defendants engaged high-profile attorney Clarence Darrow to represent them. In fact, the court proceedings were dubbed “The Trial of the Century”. The crime itself was the inspiration for the 1929 play called “Rope” by Patrick Hamilton, which in turn was the inspiration for the 1948 Hitchcock film of the same name.

46. Horn of Africa native SOMALI
Somalia is a country located in the Horn of Africa that, sadly, is noted today for a devastating civil war and as a base for pirates who prey on ships passing through the Indian Ocean along the Somali coast.

The Horn of Africa is that horn-shaped peninsula at the easternmost tip of the continent, containing the countries Eritrea, Djibouti, Ethiopia as well as Somalia. The Horn of Africa is also known as the Somali Peninsula.

48. Cousins of clam diggers CAPRIS
Capri pants first became popular on the island of Capri, apparently. They were invented in Europe in 1948, but only became stylish in the US in the sixties. Mary Tyler Moore often wore Capri pants on “The Dick Van Dyke Show” and to some extent she sparked a fashion trend. After a lull in the seventies and eighties there was a resurgence in sales after Uma Thurman wore them (and danced in them) in “Pulp Fiction”. Can’t stand the look of them myself …

Clam diggers are casual pants with a cuff at the end of each leg, which falls mid-calf or a little higher. I guess that such a cut would be suitable for someone who was digging for clams at the beach …

49. Western ring LASSO
Our English word “lasso” comes from the Spanish “lazo”, and ultimately from the Latin “laqueum” meaning “noose, snare”.

50. Expert MAVEN
I’ve always loved the word “maven”, another word for an expert. Maven comes into English from the Yiddish “meyvn” meaning someone who appreciates and is a connoisseur.

53. Patty Hearst alias TANIA
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”.

54. __ bloom: pond vegetation ALGAL
Most algal blooms are described as harmful because the excessive number of algae have a negative impact on other organisms due to excessive levels of toxins or perhaps through mechanical damage. It has been shown that almost all algal blooms, in both seawater and freshwater, are caused by humans. The main culprits are fertilizers used in intensive farming and household cleaning products.

55. __ Bag: eponymous ’70s designer label BEENE
Geoffrey Beene was an American fashion designer. He had an impressive list of clients that included First Ladies Lady Bird Johnson, Pat Nixon and Nancy Reagan.

58. Old, in Oldenburg ALTE
Oldenburg is a city in the northwest of Germany.

62. Legend on ice ORR
Bobby Orr is regarded as one of the greatest hockey players of all time. By the time he retired in 1978 he had undergone over a dozen knee surgeries. At 31 years of age, he concluded that he just couldn’t skate anymore. Reportedly, he was even having trouble walking …

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For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. City on the South Saskatchewan River MEDICINE HAT
12. It’s about 5 mL TSP
15. Over ONE MORE TIME
16. Cut (into) ATE
17. Factor in cold waves POLAR VORTEX
18. Boomer’s offspring XER
19. Put in ELECT
20. Senseless NUMB
21. Jazz duo? ZEES
22. Answered back SASSED
24. Drivetrain component, perhaps REAR AXLE
26. Southwestern language ZUNI
28. Brawn SINEW
29. Sign of shock GASP
33. Diamond shape PEAR
35. Star movers LIMOS
37. Runs through PIERCES
39. Take time to answer SLEEP ON
41. Mail ARMOR
42. Save for later, in a way TIVO
44. City southwest of Bayeux ST LO
45. Woodstock performer before Sly JANIS
47. Ecua. rejoined it in 2007 OPEC
49. Hail Mary LONG BOMB
51. Charges for rounds BAR TAB
56. Newspaper section ARTS
57. Goya’s “La __ vestida” MAJA
59. Washington portraitist PEALE
60. Star Wars letters SDI
61. December-to-May fruit NAVEL ORANGE
63. RBI producer, perhaps SAC
64. Outlet worker ELECTRICIAN
65. Stick-__ ONS
66. 1623 Shakespeare work, with “The” WINTER’S TALE

Down
1. Blues MOPES
2. “Waterworld” orphan girl ENOLA
3. Strikes out DELES
4. Apple purchases IMACS
5. Mexico’s Sea of __ CORTEZ
6. Journalist Kupcinet IRV
7. Krypton relative NEON
8. Ancient Italian region ETRURIA
9. Opposite of “stand” HIT ME
10. They multiply by dividing AMEBAS
11. Drive handle TEX
12. Like churches, as a rule TAX-EXEMPT
13. Common abrasive STEEL WOOL
14. Intrinsically PER SE
21. The Marx Brothers, e.g. ZANIES
23. Deceive DUPE
25. Bug but good RILE
27. Home in the woods NEST
29. Meas. of course performance GPA
30. Brand with a Jumpman logo AIR JORDAN
31. Meaning SEMANTICS
32. Fine points PRONGS
34. Letters sometimes seen before a phone no. RSVP
36. Nestlé’s __-Caps SNO
38. Cheat CRIB
40. 1924 co-defendant LOEB
43. Court complaint I OBJECT
46. Horn of Africa native SOMALI
48. Cousins of clam diggers CAPRIS
49. Western ring LASSO
50. Expert MAVEN
52. Jerk, say REACT
53. Patty Hearst alias TANIA
54. __ bloom: pond vegetation ALGAL
55. __ Bag: eponymous ’70s designer label BEENE
58. Old, in Oldenburg ALTE
61. Additional NEW
62. Legend on ice ORR

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