Day: October 13, 2020

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Constructed by: Jerry Edelstein
Edited by: Rich Norris

Today’s Reveal Answer: Setting Sun

Themed answers each include “SUN” as a hidden word. The grid shows that SUN high in the east, and gradually SETTING in the west:

• 30D Daily phenomenon … and a hint to the puzzle circles : SETTING SUN

• 7D Still hasn’t lost : REMAINS UNBEATEN
• 10D Throws in the towel : SAYS “UNCLE”
• 11D Titanic, e.g. : SUNKEN SHIP
• 34D Fails, as a business : GOES UNDER

Read on, or jump to …
… a complete list of answers

Bill’s time: 5m 32s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

11 “¿Qué pasa?” : SUP

In Spanish, ¿Qué pasa? translates literally as “what’s happening?” It is used to mean “how are things going for you?”.

15 Columbus’ birth city : GENOA

Genoa is a seaport in the very north of Italy, in the region known as Liguria. One of Genoa’s most famous sons was Christopher Columbus. Another was the violinist Niccolò Paganini.

Christopher Columbus set off on four voyages of exploration from Spain. The initial intent of the expeditions was to establish an ocean link with the Indian subcontinent, by sailing westward. Columbus reached the Americas instead of India, yet insisted on calling the natives “indios”, the Spanish word for “Indians”.

18 Great __ Mountains : SMOKY

The Great Smoky Mountains are a subrange of the Appalachians and are located in North Carolina and Tennessee. The “Smokies” lie almost entirely within the bounds of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, which is the most-visited national park in the whole country. The name “Smoky” is a reference to the natural fog often seen hanging over the range. The fog is actually a vapor made up of volatile organic compounds released by the vegetation covering the peaks.

19 “Fresh Air” airer : NPR

“Fresh Air” is a marvelous radio talk show broadcast on NPR, and hosted by Terry Gross. The first broadcast of the program was made in 1975, with Judy Blank hosting. Terry Gross took over a few months later, and Gross has been presenting and producing the show ever since. I had the privilege of hearing Terry Gross give a talk here in my hometown some years ago. What a fascinating woman she is, full of great stories about her experiences interviewing so many interesting personalities.

20 The quaking aspen is one : POPLAR

The “quaking” aspen tree is so called because the structure of the leaves causes them to move easily in the wind, to “tremble, quake”.

22 Yucatán years : ANOS

Yucatán is one of Mexico’s 31 states and is located in the east of the country, on the northern tip of the Yucatán peninsula.

24 Vintage violin : AMATI

The first of the Amati family to make violins was Andrea Amati, who lived in the 14th century. He was succeeded by his sons Antonio and Girolamo. In turn, the two brothers were succeeded by Girolamo’s son Nicolo. Nicolo had a few students who achieved fame making musical instruments as well. One was his own son, Girolamo, and another was the famed Antonio Stradivari.

28 Cartwright son, in a TV Western : HOSS

Dan Blocker was the actor who played Eric “Hoss” Cartwright in the Western TV series “Bonanza”. Hoss was the “slow” character on the show. Paradoxically, Dan Blocker was the most-educated member of the cast, having earned a master’s degree in the dramatic arts. Blocker passed away while “Bonanza” was still running. He was undergoing relatively routine gallbladder surgery and developed a pulmonary embolism which killed him. “Bonanza” ran for just one more season after Blocker passed away.

33 “__ Maria” : AVE

“Ave Maria” (“Hail Mary” in English) is the prayer at the core of the Roman Catholic Rosary, which itself is a set of prayers asking for the assistance of the Virgin Mary. Much of the text of the “Hail Mary” comes from the Gospel of Luke. The words in Latin are:

AVE MARIA, gratia plena, Dominus tecum. Benedicta tu in mulieribus, et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Iesus. Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc, et in hora mortis nostrae. Amen.

The prayer has been adapted as a hymn. The two most famous musical versions of “Ave Maria” are by Charles Gounod (based on a piece by Bach) and by Franz Schubert.

34 Restrictive type of ceiling : GLASS

We use the term “glass ceiling” as a metaphor for an unseen barrier preventing advancement of a particular group within society. The phrase was coined in the late 1970s to describe the practice of denying promotion to qualified women in the workplace.

36 Music holders, briefly : CDS

The compact disc (CD) was developed jointly by Philips and Sony as a medium for storing and playing sound recordings. When the first commercial CD was introduced back in 1982, a CD’s storage capacity was far greater than the amount of data that could be stored on the hard drive of personal computers available at that time.

37 Unleavened bread : MATZO

Matzo is an unleavened bread that is very brittle. The bread is crushed, creating a Matzo meal that is then formed into balls using eggs and oil as a binder. The balls are usually served in a chicken stock.

39 Hockey’s Stanley __ : CUP

The Stanley Cup is named for Lord Stanley of Preston, the Governor General of Canada from 1888 to 1893. Lord Stanley’s sons became avid fans of ice hockey while in Canada, and so he donated the trophy in 1909, originally as a challenge cup for the country’s best amateur club.

40 Lindsay of “Mean Girls” : LOHAN

I think that actress Lindsay Lohan’s big break came with the Disney remake of “The Parent Trap” in 1998. I’ve really only enjoyed one of Lohan’s films though, “Freaky Friday” from 2003 in which she stars alongside the fabulous Jamie Lee Curtis.

“Mean Girls” is a teen comedy movie released in 2004 starring Lindsay Lohan. Tina Fey also puts in an appearance, which really isn’t surprising as Fey wrote the screenplay.

44 Bowie’s weapon : KNIFE

A Bowie knife is a fixed-blade knife that was made famous by Colonel Jim Bowie in the early 1800s. A Bowie knife is one that comes with a sheath and has a crossguard at the end of the hilt. It also has a clip point, meaning that the forward third of the blade appears to be “clipped off”, leaving a sharp point.

51 Commercial ambassador : CONSUL

In the world of diplomacy, an ambassador is the representative of one head of state to another. There can only be one ambassador in an embassy. A consul, of which there may be several in an embassy, is an official representative of the government of one state in the territory of another.

52 Like a feeling of déjà vu : EERIE

“Déjà vu” is French for “already seen”.

55 Auto parts giant : NAPA

The National Automotive Parts Association (NAPA) is a retailers’ cooperative that supplies replacement parts for cars and trucks.

61 Picks out of a lineup : IDS

Identity document (ID)

64 “__ Mio” : O SOLE

“O sole mio” is a famous Italian song from Naples, written in 1898. The song’s lyrics are usually sung in the original Neapolitan, as opposed to Italian. The title translates from Neapolitan into “My Sun” (and not into “O, My Sun” as one might expect). It’s a love song, sung by a young man declaring that there is a sun brighter than that in the sky, the sun that is his lover’s face. Awww …

65 Brookville, N.Y., campus : LIU

Long Island University (LIU) in Brooklyn, New York is a private school that was chartered in 1926. LIU’s focus has always been on providing moderately-priced, effective education to people from all walks in life. To that end, LIU opened a second campus in 1951 in Brookville in the suburbs of New York City, recognizing the need to serve families that were living outside of the metropolis. The athletic teams of LIU’s Brooklyn campus are known as the Brooklyn Blackbirds, and the teams of the Brookville campus are called the Post Pioneers.

67 First “perfect 10” Olympic gymnast Comaneci : NADIA

Nadia Comaneci won three golds in the 1976 Summer Olympics and was the first gymnast to be awarded a perfect score of ten in the gymnastics competition. Comaneci published a book called “Letters to a Young Gymnast” in 2003, and now lives in the United States.

Down

1 Nasty stinger : WASP

While the wasp is considered to be a nuisance by many, the insect is very important to the agricultural industry. Wasps prey on many pest insects, while having very little impact on crops.

2 Sax type : ALTO

The saxophone was invented by Belgian musician Adolphe Sax, hence the name. Sax developed lip cancer at one point in his life, and one has to wonder if his affliction was related to his saxophone playing (I am sure not!). I had the privilege of visiting Sax’s grave in the Cemetery of Montmartre in Paris a few years ago.

4 Stein partner Alice B. __ : TOKLAS

Gertrude Stein was a great American writer who spent most of her life in France. Gertrude Stein met Alice B. Toklas in Paris in 1907, and the two were life partners until Stein died in 1946. Cleverly, Stein published her own memoir in 1933 but called the book “The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas”. It was to become Stein’s best selling title.

6 NFL threes : FGS

Field goal (FG)

8 Shortly, quaintly : ANON

“Anon” originally meant “at once”, but the term’s meaning evolved into “soon” apparently just because the word was misused over time.

9 Michener’s “The Bridges at __” : TOKO-RI

“The Bridges at Toko-Ri” is James A. Michener novella about American pilots on a mission to destroy bridges during the Korean War. The book was made into a 1954 film of the same name starring William Holden and Grace Kelly. I put “The Bridges of Toko-Ri” high on my list of recommended war movies, if anyone’s interested …

10 Throws in the towel : SAYS “UNCLE”

To say uncle is to submit or yield. This peculiarly American use of “uncle” dates back to the early 1900s, but nobody seems to know how “uncle!” came to mean “stop!”

11 Titanic, e.g. : SUNKEN SHIP

The RMS Titanic set off on her tragic maiden voyage in 1912, sailing from Southampton, England bound for New York City. Regulations only required that the ship have lifeboat capacity for 1,178 people, even though a full complement of passengers and crew was 3,547. When the order was given to abandon ship, the captain adhered to the traditional protocol of “women and children first”. As a result, only 20% of male passengers survived the disaster, compared to 75% of the female passengers. Perhaps more telling is that 61% of those in first class survived, and only 25% of those in third class. The crew fared even worse though, with only 24% making it.

21 Castro of Cuba : RAUL

Raul Castro is the younger brother of Fidel Castro. Raul has been President of Cuba since 2008, when Fidel stepped aside.

27 Extinct flightless bird : DODO

The dodo was a direct relative of the pigeon and dove, although the fully-grown dodo was usually three feet tall. One of the reasons the dodo comes to mind when we think of extinction of a species, is that it disappeared not too long ago (last recorded alive in 1681) and humans were the reason for its demise. The dodo lived exclusively on the island of Mauritius and when man arrived, we cut back the forests that were its home. We also introduced domestic animals, such as dogs and pigs, that ransacked the dodo’s nests. The dodo was deemed to be an awkward flightless bird and so the term “dodo” has come to mean a dull-witted person.

28 Bad actor : HAM

The word “ham”, describing a performer who overacts, is a shortened form of “hamfatter” and dates back to the late 1800s. “Hamfatter” comes from a song in old minstrel shows called “The Ham-Fat Man”. It seems that a poorly performing actor was deemed to have the “acting” qualities of a minstrel made up in blackface.

38 Some reds, briefly : ZINS

Zinfandel is one of my favorite red wine varietals. It amazes me that the rich and heavy red Zinfandel comes from the same grape as does the sweet White Zinfandel.

42 Improved companion? : NEW

“New and improved”

45 Sumter or McHenry : FORT

Fort McHenry sits on a peninsula in the opening to Baltimore Harbor in Maryland. The fort saw action in the War of 1812 as US forces were successful there in defending an attack by the British Navy. Francis Scott Key was watching the bombardment of Fort McHenry when he was inspired to write the words to “The Star Spangled Banner”.

47 Band van traveler : ROADIE

A “roadie” is someone who loads, unloads and sets up equipment for musicians on tour, on the “road”.

48 Friend of Jerry and George : ELAINE

The character Elaine Benes, unlike the other lead characters (Jerry, Kramer and George), did not appear in the pilot episode of “Seinfeld”. NBC executives specified the addition of a female lead when they picked up the show citing that the situation was too “male-centric”.

56 Mani mate : PEDI

Manicure & pedicure (mani-pedi)

63 Militant ’60s campus org. : SDS

Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) was an activist group in the sixties. The SDS organized the largest student strike in the history of the United States on 26 April 1968, with about a million students staying away from class that day. The “Students for a Democratic Society” name was revived in 2006 with the foundation of a new US-based student organization with left wing beliefs. Today’s SDS was founded by a pair of high school students from Greenwich Village, New York.