Day: October 7, 2023

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Constructed by: Jenna LaFleur
Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Theme: None

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

Bill’s time: Did not finish (DNF)!

Lots missing in the top-left corner ☹️

Bill’s errors: “0”

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

15 Drink mentioned in the Walker Hayes song “Fancy Like” : OREO SHAKE

Walker Hayes is a country pop singer. His first hit was the 2021 song “Fancy Like”, which grew out of a TikTok video he created during the pandemic.

17 Detroit __: stratified automotive paint polished and cut for jewelry : AGATE

Fordite (also “Detroit agate”) is a great example of waste material being upcycled. A piece of Fordite starts out as enamel paint slag recovered from skids on which cars were painted. The slag has many colorful layers, and has been baked many times in the normal manufacturing cycle. The slag can be cut, ground and polished into surprisingly beautiful items of jewelry.

18 Reptile at Kélonia aquarium in Saint-Leu, Réunion : SEA TURTLE

Kélonia is an aquarium in the commune of Saint-Leu on the French island of Réunion in the Indian Ocean. The aquarium opened in 2006, and was formerly a turtle farm that raised turtles as a gourmet food source.

19 Spotify playlist that calls itself “the most influential playlist in hip-hop” : RAPCAVIAR

Spotify is a popular music-streaming service that was launched in Sweden in 2008.

22 Jazz dance : STOMP

A “stomp” is a jazz composition with a driving rhythm and a fast tempo.

23 Key st.? : FLA

A key (also “cay”) is a low offshore island, as in the Florida “Keys”. Our term in English comes from the Spanish “cayo” meaning “shoal, reef”.

The Florida Keys are a chain of low islands that stretch from the tip of the Florida peninsula, about 15 miles south of Miami. The westernmost inhabited island is Key West, and the westernmost uninhabited island is Dry Tortugas. Most of the inhabited islands are connected by US Highway 1, which traverses several impressive bridges.

24 “Jeopardy!” champion with the show’s second-longest win streak : AMY SCHNEIDER

Amy Schneider was a contestant on the game show “Jeopardy” who had the second-longest winning streak in the history of the show (40 games). Host of the show during her streak was Ken Jennings. Jennings holds the record for the longest winning streak (74 games).

35 Lennox of R&B : ARI

“Ari Lennox” is the stage name of R&B singer Courtney Salter. In choosing her stage name, Salter was influenced by a character named Mary Lennox in the 1993 movie version of “The Secret Garden”.

36 Element in the tale of Sleeping Beauty : SPINDLE

“Sleeping Beauty” is a classic fairy tale appearing in the Brothers Grimm collection. The story itself was an original work written by French author Charles Perrault and first published in 1697. However, Perrault’s story does contain elements that preexisted in folklore.

40 Home of the Kaaba : MECCA

The Kaaba (sometimes referred to as the “Bayt Allah”) is a large, cube-shaped structure that resides in a mosque in Mecca, in Saudi Arabia. According to the Qur’an, the Kaaba was constructed by Abraham and his son, Ishmael. When Muslims turn to face Mecca during prayers, they are actually turning to the Kaaba.

42 Interior support structure : ENDOSKELETON

An animal with an endoskeleton has a supporting skeleton inside its body. So, we humans have an endoskeleton. A turtle, on the other hand, has both an endoskeleton and an exoskeleton, its outer shell.

46 __-weekly : ALT

An alt-weekly is an alternative newspaper that circulates on a weekly schedule. Famous examples would be the “Village Voice” and “New York Press” in New York City, both of which stopped publishing a few years ago.

52 Instrument for Seiichi Tanaka or Eitetsu Hayashi : TAIKO DRUM

In Japan, the word “taiko” refers to a wide range of drums. Outside of Japan, we tend to use the term to describe the narrower range of drums known in Japanese as “wadaiko”. Ironically perhaps, the Japanese name translates into English as “Japanese drums”.

58 Yankees manager Aaron : BOONE

Aaron Boone is a former MLB infielder who retired as a player in 2009, a few months after undergoing open-heart surgery to have a heart valve replaced. He then pursued a successful career in sports broadcasting, primarily with ESPN. In late 2017, Boone was hired as manager of the New York Yankees.

61 Private dinner? : MESS

“Mess” first came into English about 1300, when it described the list of food needed for a meal. The term comes from the Old French word “mes” meaning a portion of food or a course at a meal. This usage in English evolved into “mess” meaning a jumbled mass of anything, from the concept of “mixed food”. The original usage, in the sense of a food for a meal, surfaced again in the military in the 1500s when a “mess” was a communal eating place.

The lowest military rank of soldier is often a private (pvt.). The term “private” comes from the Middle Ages when “private soldiers” were hired or conscripted by noblemen to form a “private army”. The more generic usage of “private” started in the 1700s.

62 __ gin : SLOE

The sloe is the fruit of the blackthorn bush, and the main flavoring ingredient in sloe gin. A sloe looks like a small plum, but is usually much more tart in taste.

Down

1 Red-bellied trout : CHAR

The Arctic char is a cold-water fish that is found in freshwater bodies in the very north of our planet, as the name suggests. In fact, no other freshwater fish is found as far north as the Arctic char.

2 Some improvisation in Hindi cinema : RAGAS

Raga isn’t really a genre of music, but has been described as the “tonal framework” in which Indian classical music is composed. Ravi Shankar was perhaps the most famous raga virtuoso (to us Westerners). Western rock music with a heavy Indian influence might be called raga rock.

3 2002 meta dramedy starring Nicolas Cage as the film’s screenwriter : ADAPTATION

The 2002 movie “Adaptation” is described as a “metafilm”, meaning that the film is a story about its own production. “Adaptation” stars Nicolas Cage as screenwriter Charlie Kaufman who is struggling to adapt Susan Orlean’s book “The Orchid Thief” into a movie. This one was received very well by the critics, so I am putting it on my list of films to see one day …

6 Mozart’s “__ fan tutte” : COSI

Mozart’s comic opera “Così fan tutte” is also known in English as “The School for Lovers”. The literal translation of the opera’s Italian title is “Thus do all (women)”, or “Women are like that”.

7 Vicinity : AREA

A vicinity is an area surrounding a place. The term “vicinity” ultimately comes from the Latin “vicus” meaning “group of houses, village”.

8 In the vicinity : NEAR

A vicinity is an area surrounding a place. The term “vicinity” ultimately comes from the Latin “vicus” meaning “group of houses, village”.

11 One joule per second : WATT

“Wattage” is a colloquial term meaning “electric power in watts”. Electric power is the rate at which electrical energy is transferred by a circuit. In the SI system, electric power is measured in joules per second, i.e. watts.

12 Great Plains st. : OKLA

The state of Oklahoma takes its name from the Choctaw words “okla humma” meaning “red people”.

20 Biden and Harris, initially : VPS

Future President Joe Biden was a US Senator representing the state of Delaware from 1973 until he joined the Obama administration. While he was a senator, Vice President Biden commuted to Washington from Wilmington, Delaware almost every working day. He was such an active customer and supporter of Amtrak that the Wilmington Station was renamed as the Joseph R. Biden Railroad Station in 2011. Biden has made over 7,000 trips from that station, and the Amtrak crews were known to even hold the last train for a few minutes so that he could catch it. Biden earned himself the nickname “Amtrak Joe”.

Kamala Harris was a US Senator for California starting in 2017, after serving for six years as the Attorney General of California. In early 2019, Harris announced her run for the Democratic nomination for US president in the 2020 election. Although she dropped out of the race, she was chosen by eventual nominee Joe Biden as his vice-presidential running mate. When the Biden-Harris ticket won the election, Harris became the first female US vice president, and the highest-ranking female politician in the history of the nation.

27 First man to complete tennis’s Surface Slam : NADAL

The four majors of tennis have been played on three surfaces since 1978, when the US Open moved from clay to hard courts. Since then, any player who wins a major on each surface, within a calendar year, is said to have completed a Surface Slam. The first woman to achieve such a feat was Martina Navratilova (1984), and the first man was Rafael Nadal (2010).

31 Historical allies of the Huron : ERIE

The Erie people lived on lands south of Lake Erie, in parts of the modern-day US states of New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio. The Erie were sometimes referred to as the Cat Nation, a reference to the mountain lions that were ever-present in the area that they lived. The name “Erie” is a shortened form of “Erielhonan” meaning “long tail”, possibly a further reference to the mountain lion or cat, which was possibly used as a totem. The Erie people gave their name to the Great Lake.

The Native Americans known as the Wyandot people are also called the Huron. The Wyandot people mainly inhabit a reservation in Quebec.

41 Slopes conveyance : GONDOLA

The word “gondola” was originally limited to the famous boats that travel along the canals of Venice. When man started to fly through the air in hot air balloons, “gondola” was used for the basket in which the passenger(s) traveled. By extension, the structure carrying passengers and crew under an airship is also called a gondola, as are the cars suspended from a cable at a ski resort.

43 Spots for roasters and toasters : DAISES

A dais is a raised platform for a speaker. The term “dais” comes from the Latin “discus” meaning a “disk-shaped object”. I guess that the original daises had such a shape.

50 Retinal cell : CONE
51 Retinal cells : RODS

The retina is the tissue that lines the inside of the eye, and is the tissue that is light-sensitive. There are (mainly) two types of cells in the retina that are sensitive to light, namely rods and cones. Rods are cells that best function in very dim light and only provide black-and-white vision. Cones on the other hand function in brighter light and can perceive color.

52 Marsh duck : TEAL

The beautiful color teal takes its name from the duck called a teal, which has dark greenish-blue (teal) markings on its head and wings.

53 Apropos of : AS TO

“Apropos”, meaning “relevant, opportune”, comes into English directly from French, in which language “à propos” means “to the purpose”. Note that we use the term as one word (apropos), whereas the original French is two words (à propos).

55 Scrip orders : MEDS

“Scrip” (also “script”) is an informal term meaning “prescription”.

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