Tag: Courtly dance crossword clue

Bill’s time: 4m 47s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

6 “A revolution is not a dinner party” statesman : MAO

According to Mao Zedung:

A revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing embroidery; it cannot be so refined, so leisurely and gentle, so temperate, kind, courteous, restrained and magnanimous. A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another.

14 Petting zoo critter : LLAMA

Many female mammals lick off their newborn. That’s not an option for llamas as their tongues only reach out of their mouths about half an inch. Instead, llama dams nuzzle their young and hum to them.

16 Lexus rival : ACURA

Acura is the luxury brand of the Honda Motor Company. As an aside, Infiniti is the equivalent luxury brand for the Nissan Motor Company, and Lexus is the more luxurious version of Toyota’s models.

17 Meets unexpectedly : BUMPS INTO (“sin” tax)

A sin tax is a levy placed goods that are considered to be harmful. Examples might be taxes placed specifically on alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, sweetened beverages, fast food and gambling. Sin taxes are imposed to discourage use. The related Pigovian tax is imposed to offset the cost to society of using the “sinful” goods or services.

20 Rock band need : AMP

An electric guitar, for example, needs an amplifier (amp) to take the weak signal created by the vibration of the strings and turn it into a signal powerful enough for a loudspeaker.

21 Board game with rooms : CLUE

Clue is board game that we knew under a different name growing up in Ireland. Outside of North America, Clue is marketed as “Cluedo”. Cluedo was the original name of the game, introduced in 1949 by the famous British board game manufacturer Waddingtons. There are cute differences between the US and UK versions. For example, the man who is murdered is called Dr. Black (Mr. Boddy in the US), one of the suspects is the Reverend Green (Mr. Green in the US), and the suspect weapons include a dagger (a knife in the US), and a spanner (a wrench in the US). I think it’s a fabulous game, a must during the holidays …

25 Emily Dickinson’s hometown : AMHERST

On a road trip around the country a few years ago, my wife and I had a very disappointing stop in Amherst, Massachusetts intending to visit the old home of Emily Dickinson. We hadn’t done our homework and failed to note that the home was only open for tours on certain days of the week, and not the day we were there (so be warned!). Emily Dickinson wrote nearly 1800 poems in her lifetime, with less than a dozen published before she died in 1886. Emily’s younger sister discovered the enormous collection, and it was published in batches over the coming decades.

28 Longtime nighttime host : LENO

Jay Leno was born James Leno in New Rochelle, New York. Jay’s father was the son of Italian immigrants, and his mother was from Scotland. Leno grew up in Andover, Massachusetts and actually dropped out of school on the advice of a high school guidance counsellor. However, years later he went to Emerson college and earned a Bachelor’s degree in speech therapy. Leno also started a comedy club at Emerson in 1973. Today Jay Leno is a car nut and owns about 200 vehicles of various types. You can check them out on his website: www.jaylenosgarage.com.

29 Bread brushed with ghee : NAAN

Ghee is clarified butter used in South Asian cuisines. “Ghee” comes from Sanskrit, and translates as “sprinkled”.

34 Emergency run-through opening : THIS IS JUST A TEST (“state” tax)

There are seven states in the US that don’t collect state income tax: Alaska, Florida, Nevada, South Dakota, Texas, Washington and Wyoming.

39 Tennis’ Andy Murray’s title : SIR

Andy Murray is a tennis player from Scotland who became British number in 2006, rising to world number one in 2016. Much to the delight of the locals, Murray won the Wimbledon Championship in 2013, making him the first British male player to win in 77 years. Murray also won Olympic gold in the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, and again in the Rio Games in 2016. Sir Andy Murray was knighted in 2017.

41 Sign of holiness : HALO

The Greek word “halos” is the name given to the ring of light around the sun or moon, which gives us our word “halo” that is used for a radiant light depicted above the head of a saintly person.

46 Utah’s state tree : QUAKING ASPEN (“gas” tax)

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

We pay about 50 cents a gallon in federal and state taxes of gasoline. I’ve always considered ourselves very lucky as to me this a low tax rate. We pay about $3.50 a US gallon in taxes in Ireland. Yep, $3.50 a gallon in tax alone …

55 Church offering : TITHE

Traditionally, a tithe is a payment of one tenth of a person’s annual income and is usually given to a church. Tithing is a practice taught in many traditions, and according to a 2002 survey, about 3% of American adults donate 10% or more of their income to a church.

59 Many a Monopoly sq. : AVE

The street names in the original US version of the board game Monopoly are locations in or around Atlantic City, New Jersey.

60 “Live at the Acropolis” keyboardist : YANNI

Yanni is a remarkable Greek musician who is very successful in the world of New Age music. What I find so remarkable is that he is a self-taught musician. Yanni was born Yiannis Chryssomallis in Kalamata, Greece and moved to the US in 1972 to attend the University of Minnesota.

“Yanni Live at the Acropolis” is an album and music video featuring Greek New Age musician Yanni. The album and video was recorded live in 1993 at a concert in the Herodes Atticus Theatre that was built in 161 AD on the southwest slope of the Acropolis in Athens. The event was billed as a fundraising project for PBS television and the video is still used to bring in cash for the TV network. “Yanni Live at the Acropolis” is the second best-selling music video of all time, behind “Thriller” by Michael Jackson.

Down

1 Idris of “Luther” : ELBA

English actor Idris Elba plays the drug lord Stringer Bell in the marvelous HBO drama series “The Wire”, and played the title character in the 2013 film “Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom”. Off the screen, Elba occasionally appears as a disk jockey using the name “DJ Big Driis”.

“Luther” is a British television series starring Idris Elba in the title role as Detective Chief Inspector John Luther. There has been talk about developing a US version of “Luther”, and a Russian version first broadcast in 2016 using the title “Klim”.

3 Pack (down) : TAMP

To tamp is to pack down tightly by tapping. “Tamp” was originally used to specifically describe the action of packing down sand or dirt around an explosive prior to detonation.

4 Little dickens : IMP

A little dickens is a little devil, an imp.

5 Brickyard 400 acronym : NASCAR

National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR)

The Brickyard 400 is a NASCAR race held at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the same place that the Indy 500 has been run since 1911. The inaugural Brickyard 400 was run in 1994, and is now NASCAR’s most attended event. “Brickyard” is a nickname for the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, as for many years the track was paved with actual bricks. The bricks were covered over with asphalt some time ago, but there is a one-yard wide strip of bricks still exposed at the start/finish line.

6 Courtly dance : MINUET

A minuet is a dance that originated in France. At some point, the middle section of the minuet was routinely scored for just a trio of instruments. The resulting composition was known as a minuet and trio. In the Classical Era, a minuet and trio was often chosen as the third movement of a symphony.

8 Middle name adopted by John Lennon : ONO

John Lennon and Yoko Ono married at the height of the Vietnam War in 1969. The couple decided to use the inevitable publicity surrounding their wedding and honeymoon to promote peace in the world. They honeymooned in the Presidential Suite of the Amsterdam Hilton, inviting the world’s press to join them and to witness their “bed-in”. They spent the week talking about peace, and an end to war. The marriage and bed-in is chronicled by the Beatles in their song “The Ballad of John and Yoko”. A few weeks after the marriage, Lennon adopted the middle name “Ono” by deed poll.

9 Mexicali mansion : HACIENDA

Mexicali is a Mexican city in the state of Baja that lies on the US border, adjacent to Calexico, California. Mexicali is the most northerly city in Latin America.

12 Poetry Muse : ERATO

In Greek mythology, Erato was the Muse of lyric poetry. She is often depicted with a wreath of myrtle and roses, and playing a lyre.

22 Icy forecast : SLEET

Apparently, “sleet” is a term used to describe two different weather conditions. One is a shower of ice pellets that are smaller than hail, and the second is a mixture of rain and snow, with the snow melting as it falls.

24 “Heidi” setting : ALPS

“Heidi” is a children’s book written by Swiss author Johanna Spyri and published in two parts. The first is “Heidi’s years of learning and travel”, and the second “Heidi makes use of what she has learned”. The books tell the story of a young girl in the care of her grandfather in the Swiss Alps. The most famous film adaptation of the story is the 1937 movie of the same name starring Shirley Temple in the title role.

25 Armadillo meal : ANTS

The nine-banded armadillo is the most common species of armadillo found in the Americas. The “bands” are bits of armor that circle the body of the armadillo. The term “nine-banded” is a bit of misnomer as there aren’t always nine bands, but there are usually seven to eleven.

26 When repeated, fish on a menu : MAHI

“Mahi-mahi” is the Hawaiian name for the dolphinfish, which is also called the dorado. The mahi-mahi is an ugly looking creature if ever I saw one …

30 Dim __: traditional Chinese food : SUM

Dim sum is a Chinese cuisine made up of small portions of various dishes. The tradition of serving dim sum is associated with the serving of tea, when small delicacies were offered to travelers and guests along with tea as a refreshment. The name “dim sum” translates as “touch the heart” implying that dim sum is not a main meal, just a snack “that touches the heart”.

32 Peace Prize city : OSLO

The Peace Prize is the most famous of the five prizes bequeathed by Alfred Nobel. The others are for Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, and Literature. There is also a Nobel Prize in Economics that is awarded along with the original five, but it is funded separately and is awarded “in memory of Alfred Nobel”. Four of the prizes are awarded by Swedish organizations (Alfred Nobel was a Swede) and so the award ceremonies take place in Stockholm. The Peace Prize is awarded by the Norwegian Nobel Committee, and that award is presented in Oslo.

37 Freud contemporary : JUNG

Carl Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist, and the founder of analytical psychology. Jung was very much associated with the analysis of dreams, and also introduced us to the psychological concepts of introversion and extroversion.

42 Schusser’s topper : SKI HAT

A schuss is a very fast run downhill in skiing, one with no turns taken to slow the pace of the descent. “Schuss” is a German word for “shot”.

44 Columnist’s page : OP-ED

“Op-ed” is an abbreviation for “opposite the editorial page”. Op-eds started in “The New York Evening World” in 1921 when the page opposite the editorials was used for articles written by a named guest writer, someone independent of the editorial board.

45 Overnight flight : RED-EYE

A red-eye flight is one departing late at night and arriving early the next morning. The term is a reference to tired passengers disembarking with red eyes.

46 Saudi Arabia’s neighbor : QATAR

Qatar is a sovereign state in the Middle East occupying the Qatar Peninsula, itself located in the Arabian Peninsula. Qatar lies on the Persian Gulf and shares one land border, with Saudi Arabia to the south. Qatar has more oil and gas reserves per capita of population than any other country in the world. In 2010, Qatar had the fastest growing economy in the world, driven by the petrochemical industry. Qatar is scheduled to host the 2022 FIFA World Cup, although the nation’s eligibility to do so is under question after a far-reaching bribery scandal was uncovered at the sport’s governing body.

52 Italian peak : ETNA

Mount Etna on the island of Sicily is the largest of three active volcanoes in Italy, and indeed the largest of all active volcano in Europe. Etna is about 2 1/2 times the height of its equally famous sister, Mt. Vesuvius. Mt. Etna is home to a 110-km long narrow-gauge railway, and two ski resorts. It is sometimes referred to as “Mongibello” in Italian, and as “Mungibeddu” in Sicilian. The English name “Etna” comes from the Greek “aitho” meaning “I eat”.

53 McNally’s mapmaking partner : RAND

Rand McNally is a company long associated with the city of Chicago. Its roots go back to 1856 when William Rand opened a printing shop in the city. Two years later he hired an Irish immigrant named Andrew McNally and the pair turned to printing tickets and timetables for the railroad industry. They diversified into “railroad guides” in 1870, including the first Rand McNally map in the December 1872 edition. When automobile travel started to become significant, Rand and McNally turned their attention to roads and they published their first road map in 1904, a map of New York City. Rand and McNally popularized the use of highway numbers, and indeed erected many roadside highway signs themselves, long before the state and federal authorities adopted the idea.