Tag: Pastoral exhortation to a graffiti artist? crossword clue

Bill’s time: 7m 05s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1 2019 Pan American Games city : LIMA

Lima is the capital city of Peru. Lima was founded in 1535 by the Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro, who named it “la Ciudad de los Reyes” (the City of Kings). He chose this name because the decision to found the city was made on January 6th, the feast of the Epiphany that commemorates the visit of the three kings to Jesus in Bethlehem. Lima is home to the oldest university in all of the Americas, as San Marco University was founded in 1551 during the days of Spanish colonial rule.

The Pan American Games are held every four years, the year just before the Summer Olympic Games. The participating athletes all come from the Americas.

10 Nat’s hat : CAP

The Washington Nationals (“Nats”) started out life as the Montreal Expos in 1969, and were the first Major League Baseball team in Canada. The Expos moved to Washington in 2005 becoming the Nats.

13 Norse deity : ODIN

In Norse mythology, Odin was the chief of the gods. He is usually depicted as having one eye, reflecting the story of how he gave one of his eyes in exchange for wisdom.

23 __ Cruces : LAS

Las Cruces (Spanish for “the crosses”) is the second largest city in the state of New Mexico, and is the home of New Mexico State University.

27 Pastoral exhortation to a graffiti artist? : SPRAY THE WORD (from “say the word”)

“Graffiti” is the plural of “graffito”, and is the Italian for “scribbling”. The word was first used to describe ancient inscriptions on the walls in the ruins of Pompeii.

33 Special ops acronym : SEAL

“SEAL” is an acronym used by the US Navy’s SEa, Air and Land teams. The SEALs were born out of the Navy’s special warfare groups from WWII, like the Underwater Demolition Teams and the Motor Torpedo Boat Squadrons. The Navy SEAL unit was established soon after President Kennedy’s famous speech in which he announced the plan to put a man on the moon, as in the same speech the president allocated $100m of funding to strengthen special operations forces. The Navy used some of this money to set up guerrilla and counter-guerrilla units, which soon became the SEALs.

42 Bender : TOOT

The terms “jag” and “bender” describe periods of unrestrained activity, particularly those involving alcohol. Both words have been in use since the 1800s.

“Toot” and “tear” are slang terms for a drinking binge.

45 Pack (down) : TAMP

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

47 Mauna __ : LOA

Mauna Loa on the Big Island of Hawaii is the largest volcano on the planet (in terms of volume). The name “Mauna Loa” is Hawaiian for “Long Mountain”.

51 Moby-Dick, e.g. : ALBINO

In Herman Melville’s 1851 novel “Moby-Dick”, the animal named in the title is an albino sperm whale.

54 Many Oscar night attendees : STARS

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) is the organization that gives the annual Academy Awards, also known as the “Oscars”. The root of the name “Oscar” is hotly debated, but what is agreed is that the award was officially named “Oscar” in 1939. The first Academy Awards were presented at a brunch in 1929 with an audience of just 29 people. The Awards ceremony is a slightly bigger event these days …

58 Social division : CASTE

Although caste systems exist in several societies around the world, we tend to associate the concept with the social stratification that is still found in many parts of India. The term “caste” comes from the Portuguese word “casta” meaning “race, breed”. The Portuguese used the term to describe the hereditary social groups that they found in India when they arrived in the subcontinent in 1498.

62 Trojan king struck dumb? : PRIAM SPEECHLESS (from “I am speechless”)

Priam was King of Troy during the Trojan War. Reputedly, Priam was father to fifty sons and many daughters with his many wives. His eldest son and heir to the throne was Hector. Paris was another of Priam’s sons, the man who caused the Trojan War by eloping with Helen, Queen of Sparta.

65 Sources of cones : FIRS

Firs are evergreen coniferous trees, with several species being popular as Christmas trees. The most commonly used species during the holidays are the Nordmann fir, noble fir, Fraser fir and balsam fir. We also see a lot of Douglas fir trees at Christmas, but they’re not actually true firs.

66 Dabbling ducks : TEALS

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.

67 Cable car : TRAM

The Cable Car Museum in San Francisco is a little special in that it is housed in the same complex as the city’s cable car power house. While touring the museum, visitors can look out over the power house and see the huge haulage cables heading out to the streets to pull the cars up all of those steep hills.

68 Fabled beast : ASS

Aesop used an ass in at least four of his fables:

• The Ass and his Masters
• The Ass and the Pig
• The Ass Carrying an Image
• The Ass in the Lion’s Skin

69 Ad guy responsible for four long puzzle answers? : PR MAN

Public relations (PR)

Down

1 Kinks title woman with “a dark brown voice” : LOLA

“Lola” is a fabulous song that was written by Ray Davies and released by the Kinks back in 1970. Inspired by a real life incident, the lyrics tell of a young man who met a young “lady” in a club, danced with her, and then discovered “she” was actually a transvestite. The storyline isn’t very traditional, but the music is superb.

4 Actress Kinsey of “The Office” : ANGELA

Actress Angela Kinsey is best known for playing accountant Angela Martin on “The Office”. Although Kinsey was born in Louisiana, she grew up in Indonesia, and occasionally speaks Indonesian.

5 Asian honorific : SRI

“Sri” is a title of respect for a male in India.

6 Census worker, for one : TEMP

The original census was taken during the days of the Roman Republic, and was a reckoning of all adult males who were fit for military service. The first US Census was taken in 1790, and was conducted by federal marshals.

9 Eclectic musician Brian : ENO

Brian Eno is a musician, composer and record producer from England who first achieved fame as the synthesizer player with Roxy Music. As a producer, Eno has worked with David Bowie, Devo, Talking Heads and U2.

11 Buenos __ : AIRES

Buenos Aires is the capital of Argentina, and is located on the estuary of the Ria de la Plata. As it is a port city, the people of Buenos Aires are known as porteños (“people of the port”). The name “Buenos Aires” can be translated from Spanish as “fair winds”.

16 “__ Blues”: Beatles “White Album” song : YER

“Yer Blues” is a John Lennon song, credited to Lennon and McCartney, that is a track on “The White Album”, recorded in 1968. Lennon recorded the song while the band was on retreat in Rishikesh, India, and while Lennon was “trying to reach God and feeling suicidal”.

19 Buffalo skater : SABRE

The Buffalo Sabres joined the National Hockey League in the 1970-71 season. The team took the name “Sabres” as the result of a fan contest.

26 Prague’s region : BOHEMIA

The region known as Bohemia covers most of the Czech Republic. Centuries ago, it was wrongly believed that gypsies came from Bohemia, giving rise to the term “Bohemian” meaning a “gypsy of society”.

The beautiful city of Prague is today the capital of the Czech Republic. Prague’s prominence in Europe has come and gone over the centuries. For many years, it was the capital city of the Holy Roman Empire.

27 Maxims : SAWS

Our word “maxim” meaning “precept, principle” has been around since the early 1600s. It ultimately comes from the Latin phrase “maxima propositio”, which translates as “greatest premise”.

29 First female attorney general : RENO

Janet Reno was Attorney General (AG) of the US from 1993 to 2001, and part of the Clinton administration. Reno was the second-longest holder of the office, and our first female Attorney General. In 2002, Reno ran for Governor of Florida but failed to win the Democratic nomination. Thereafter she retired from public life, and passed away at the end of 2016.

30 Burt’s musical collaborator : HAL

Composer and pianist Burt Bacharach had an incredible run of hits from the fifties through the eighties, usually working with lyricist Hal David. Bacharach’s hits ranged from “Magic Moments”, a fifties hit for Perry Como, “Close to You”, a sixties hit for the Carpenters, and “Arthur’s Theme”, a hit for Christopher Cross in the seventies. Bacharach was married to Angie Dickinson for fifteen years.

35 Arias, usually : SOLI

“Soli” (the plural of “solo”) are pieces of music performed by one artist, whereas “tutti” are pieces performed by all of the artists.

39 Joint Chiefs, for example : TOP BRASS

In the US Military, the Joint Chiefs of Staff is a body comprised of:

• Chief of Staff of the Army
• Commandant of the Marine Corps
• Chief of Naval Operations
• Chief of Staff of the Air Force
• Chief of the National Guard Bureau

41 Joltin’ joe? : CAF

It seems that no one really knows why we refer to coffee as “joe”, but we’ve been doing so since early in WWII.

44 Refracting polyhedron : PRISM

When light passes through a prism, it splits up (disperses) into differing wavelengths. It then becomes clear that white light is actually a mixture of different colors, which show up as a beautiful spectrum.

49 “The Last of the Mohicans” author : COOPER

James Fenimore Cooper’s most famous works are the romantic novel “The Last of the Mohicans” and the collection of historical novels known as the “Leatherstocking Tales” featuring the hero Natty Bumppo. James Fenimore was the son of William Cooper, a US Congressman. The Cooper family lived in Cooperstown, New York that was a community founded by James’s father William Cooper.

“The Last of the Mohicans” is an 1826 novel by James Fenimore Cooper. It is the second in a series of five novels that comprise the “Leatherstocking Tales”. All five titles are:

• “The Deerslayer” (1841)
• “The Last of the Mohicans” (1826)
• “The Pathfinder” (1840)
• “The Pioneers” (1823)
• “The Prairie” (1827)

51 Heart chambers : ATRIA

The heart has four chambers. The two upper chambers (the atria) accept deoxygenated blood from the body and oxygenated blood from the lungs. The atria squeeze those blood supplies into the two lower chambers of the heart (the ventricles), “priming” the pump, as it were. One ventricle pumps deoxygenated blood to the lungs, and the other pumps oxygenated blood to the rest of the body.

54 Banana Boat letters : SPF

In theory, the sun protection factor (SPF) is a calibrated measure of the effectiveness of a sunscreen in protecting the skin from harmful UV rays. The idea is that if you wear a lotion with say SPF 20, then it takes 20 times as much UV radiation to cause the skin to burn than it would take without protection. I say just stay out of the sun …

Banana Boat is a brand of sunscreen.

56 Copy room unit : REAM

A ream is 500 sheets of paper. As there were 24 sheets in a quire, and 20 quires made up a ream, there used to be 480 sheets in a ream. Ever since the standard was changed to 500, a 480-sheet packet of paper has been called a “short ream”. We also use the term “reams” to mean a great amount, evolving from the idea of a lot of printed material.

57 One sometimes seen with Boris : BELA

Bela Lugosi was a Hungarian stage and screen actor who was perhaps best known for playing the title role in the 1931 film “Dracula” and for playing the same role on Broadway. Lugosi found himself typecast for the rest of his career and almost always played the role of the villain, often in horror movies. When he passed away in 1956, his wife had him buried in the costume he wore playing Count Dracula on Broadway.

“Boris Karloff” was the stage name of English actor William Henry Pratt. Karloff famously played the monster in a series of “Frankenstein” movies in the 1930s. Karloff also played the Grinch, and the narrator, in the oft-seen 1966 animated adaptation of Dr. Seuss’s “How the Grinch Stole Christmas!” that was made for television.

60 Romanov title : TSAR

The House of Romanov was the second and last imperial dynasty to rule over Russia, after the Rurik dynasty. The reign of the Romanovs ended when Emperor Nicholas II abdicated following the February Revolution of 1917. Famously, Nicholas II and his immediate family were murdered soon after he stepped down, and other members of the Romanov Dynasty were sent into exile by the Bolsheviks.

61 Salinger character who says, “I prefer stories about squalor” : ESME

J. D. Salinger wrote a short story called “For Esmé – with Love and Squalor” that was originally published in “The New Yorker” in 1950. It is a story about a young English girl called Esme and an American soldier, and is set in WWII.

63 “The Racer’s Edge” : STP

STP is a brand name of automotive lubricants and additives. The name “STP” is an initialism standing for “Scientifically Treated Petroleum”.

64 Gp. that sometimes has an added “Y” : CSN

The supergroup Crosby, Stills & Nash (CSN) is made up of David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash. The band can grow to “CSNY” when the trio is joined by Neil Young. Fans have been known to call the act “C, S, N and sometimes Y”, a play on the expression that names all the vowels, “A, E, I, O, U and sometimes Y”.