Tag: Stabilizer for movie shooters crossword clue

Bill’s time: 5m 06s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1 Fur-protesting org. : PETA

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is a very large animal rights organization, with 300 employees and two million members and supporters worldwide. Although the group campaigns for animal rights across a broad spectrum of issues, it has a stated focus in opposition of four practices:

• Factory farming
• Fur farming
• Animal testing
• Use of animals in entertainment

5 Criminals, to cops : PERPS

Perpetrator (perp)

16 Biblical twin : ESAU

Esau, was the grandson of Abraham and the twin brother of Jacob, the founder of the Israelites. When Esau was born to Isaac and Rebekah, the event was described “Now the first came forth, red all over like a hairy garment”. Esau is portrayed later in life as being very different from his brother Jacob, as a hunter and someone who loves the outdoor life.

17 California county known for vineyards : NAPA

The first commercial winery in Napa Valley, California was established way back in 1858. However, premium wine production only dates back to the 1960s, with the region really hitting the big time after its success at the Paris Wine Tasting of 1976. The story of that famous blind wine tasting is told in the entertaining 2008 film “Bottle Shock”.

18 JFK Library architect : IM PEI

The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library is a splendid structure located right beside the Boston campus of the University of Massachusetts. President Kennedy chose the location for his library just one week before he was assassinated. The library itself was designed by architect I. M. Pei.

20 Shoe brand with a three-stripe logo : ADIDAS

The brand name Adidas dates back to when Adolf “Adi” Dassler started making his own sports shoes in his mother’s laundry room in Bavaria after returning from WWI. With his brother, Adi founded Dassler shoes. The company’s big break came in 1936 at the Berlin Olympics, when Adi persuaded American sprinter Jesse Owens to use his shoes, and with the success of Jesse Owens came success for the fledgling shoe company. After WWII the brothers split, acrimoniously. Adi’s brother, Ru-dolf Da-ssler, formed “Ruda” shoes (later to become Puma), and Adi Das-sler formed “Adidas”.

26 Something for serving the English breakfast? : TEA TRAY

I think that the reference here is to “English breakfast tea”.

English breakfast tea is a blend of black teas dominated by teas from Assam, Ceylon and Kenya. The blends are created to go well with milk and perhaps sugar, as indeed one might drink tea with an English breakfast. Irish breakfast tea is mainly a blend of teas from Assam. It is also created to go well with milk, especially after a few pints of Guinness. Okay, I made up that last bit …

29 Fronton game word : ALAI

A fronton is an open-walled playing area used for the sport of jai alai. Although most frontons in the US can be found in Florida, where the sport is most popular, the first jai alai fronton the country was located in St. Louis. It opened there around the time of 1904 World’s Fair.

32 Like about-to-be-toppled dominoes : ON END

White masks with black spots were commonly seen in the old Venetian Carnival. The masks were known as “domini”. The domini lent their name to the game of dominoes, due to the similarity in appearance between the mask and a domino tile.

38 Branded wares, informally : MERCH

Merchandise (“mdse.” or “merch.)

40 American gymnast Raisman with three Olympic gold medals : ALY

Aly Raisman is a retired gymnast. She captained the US gold-winning teams in the Olympics in 2012 (“The Fierce Five”) and in 2016 (“The Final Five”).

43 Tip of a quill : NIB

“Nib” is a Scottish variant of the Old English word “neb”, with both meaning the beak of a bird. This usage of “nib” as a beak dates back to the 14th century, with “nib” meaning the tip of a pen or quill coming a little later, in the early 1600s.

45 “The Tempest” king : ALONSO

In William Shakespeare’s play “The Tempest”, Alonso is the King of Naples. Alonso helps Antonio to depose his brother Prospero as Duke of Milan and set him adrift in a boat with Prospero’s young daughter Miranda.

47 Send to iCloud : UPLOAD

iCloud is an Apple service that features cloud storage and cloud computing.

49 “Doctor Who” airer, familiarly : THE BEEB

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is also known as “the Beeb”, a name given to the network by the great Peter Sellers on the classic British radio comedy called “The Goon Show”. The BBC was founded in 1922, and was the world’s first national broadcasting organization.

The iconic science-fiction television show “Doctor Who” first aired in 1963 on the BBC, and relaunched in 2005. The relaunched series is produced in-house by the BBC in Cardiff in Wales, the location that is the setting of the successful “Doctor Who” spin-off called “Torchwood”. The new show is about the Cardiff branch of the Torchwood Institute which investigates incidents involving extraterrestrials. And, “Torchwood” is an anagram of “Doctor Who”.

53 “Survivor” faction : TRIBE

The reality show “Survivor” is based on a Swedish television series created in 1997 called “Expedition Robinson”.

55 Stud farm stud : SIRE

The word “stud”, meaning “a male horse kept for breeding”, is derived from the Old English word “stod”, which described a whole herd of horses. The term “stud” can be used figuratively for a “ladies’ man”.

59 Chicago ballplayer : CUB

The Chicago Cubs won the 2016 World Series four games to three over the Cleveland Indians. That marked the first World Series win for the Cubs since 1908. The Indians would have liked a win too, as their last World Series title was in 1948.

60 Show on which Tina Fey co-starred for six seasons : SNL

Comedian and actress Tina Fey was born Elizabeth Stamatina Fey in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania. Fey is perhaps best known to television viewers as a cast member on “Saturday Night Live” (1997-2006), and as the creator and star of the sitcom “30 Rock” (2006-2013).

62 India pale __ : ALE

India pale ale (IPA) is a style of beer that originated in England. The beer was originally intended for transportation from England to India, hence the name.

64 Bar tender in Tokyo? : YEN

The Korean Won, the Chinese Yuan, and the Japanese Yen (all of which are Asian currencies) take their names from the Chinese written character that represents “round shape”.

66 Blanc who voiced Bugs : MEL

Mel Blanc was known as “The Man of a Thousand Voices”. We’ve all heard Mel Blanc at one time or another, I am sure. His was the voice behind such cartoon characters as Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Tweety Bird, Woody Woodpecker, Elmer Fudd and Barney Rubble. And the words on Blanc’s tombstone are … “That’s all folks”.

Down

1 Former Delta rival : PAN AM

Pan American World Airways (usually just “Pan Am”) started out as a mail and passenger service between Key West, Florida and Havana, Cuba in 1927. From very early in the company’s life it was the de facto representative air carrier of the United States. For many years Pan Am’s fleet was built around the Boeing 314 Clipper, a long-range flying boat that was one of the largest aircraft around at the time. Pan Am adopted the Clipper as part of its image, even using “clipper” as the call sign for its flights.

3 Lukewarm : TEPID

The obsolete adjective “luke” meant “tepid, moderately warm”. Said adjective used to exist in words like “luke-hot” and “luke-hearted”, but now only survives in word “luke-warm” (usually “lukewarm”). So, I guess “lukewarm” means “tepidly tepid” …

4 It’s often worn with a hood and mortarboard : ACADEMIC ROBE

Tasseled mortarboards, or square academic caps, are associated with school graduations all over the world, although traditions do differ. For example in Ireland (where I come from), mortarboards are only worn by female graduates.

5 Italian chum : PAISANO

“Paisano” translates literally from Spanish as “fellow countryman”, but is also used to mean “pal, chum”.

6 Massachusetts state tree : ELM

The official state tree of Massachusetts is the American elm. The elm was chosen in 1941, in a gesture commemorating George Washington taking command of the Continental Army in 1775. He did so beneath an American elm on Cambridge Common.

7 U.S. House member : REP

The number of seats in the US House of Representatives has been 435 since the year 1913, although there was a temporary increase to 437 seats at the time of the admission of Alaska and Hawaii to the Union. The number of representatives assigned to each state is proportional to that state’s population, except that each state is guaranteed a minimum of one delegate by the US Constitution.

11 Delta rival, as it was once known : USAIR

From 1953, what we recently referred to as US Airways was called Allegheny Airlines. In the seventies, customers became very dissatisfied with the company’s service levels as it struggled to manage a rapid expansion in its number of flights. These problems earned the airline the nickname “Agony Air”. Allegheny tried to leave the “agony” behind in 1979 and changed its name to USAir, but commuters then just used the nickname “Unfortunately Still Allegheny”. The name was changed again, in 1997, to US Airways. US Airways merged with American Airlines in 2013, and the “US Airways” brand name was gradually replaced with “American Airlines”.

12 Exodus food : MANNA

According to the Book of Exodus, manna was a food eaten by the Israelites as they traveled out of Egypt. The manna “fell” to Earth during the night, six days a week, and was gathered in the morning before it had time to melt.

13 Glitch-ridden, as software : BUGGY

Back in 1947, famed computer programmer Grace Hopper noticed some colleagues fixing a piece of equipment by removing a dead moth from a relay. She remarked that they were “debugging” the system, and so Hopper has been given credit for popularizing the term “bug” in the context of computing.

“Glitch” comes into English from German via Yiddish. The original German word is “glitschen” meaning “to slip”. It is a relatively new term, generally applied to computer software bugs.

21 “Selma” director DuVernay : AVA

Ava DuVernay is a filmmaker who became the first African-American woman to win the Best Director Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, a feat she achieved in 2012 for her feature film “Middle of Nowhere”. “Middle of Nowhere” tells the story of a woman who drops out of medical school to focus on husband when he is sentenced to 8 years in prison. DuVernay also directed the 2014 film “Selma” about the 1965 voting rights marches from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.

“Selma” is a 2014 film about the Selma to Montgomery marches of 1965. Directed by Ava DuVernay, the movie stars David Oyelowo as Martin Luther King, Jr. and Tom Wilkinson as President Lyndon B. Johnson.

25 Longtime late-night host : CONAN O’BRIEN

Before Conan O’Brien came to fame as a late night talk show host, he was a writer. He wrote for both “Saturday Night Live” and “The Simpsons”. While attending Harvard, O’Brien was president of “The Harvard Lampoon”.

26 Don Ho’s signature song … and a hint to this puzzle’s circled letters : TINY BUBBLES

“Tiny Bubbles” was the signature song of singer and entertainer Don Ho. Written by Leon Pober, the song was intended for Lawrence Welk, but the famous bandleader turned it down.

30 “Stormy Weather” singer : LENA HORNE

Lena Horne was an American jazz singer, actress, dancer and civil rights activist. Horne started out her career as a nightclub singer and then began to get some meaty acting roles in Hollywood. However, she ended up on the blacklist during the McCarthy Era for expressing left wing political views. One of Horne’s starring roles was in the 1943 movie “Stormy Weather” for which she also performed the title song.

33 Giants QB Manning : ELI

Eli Manning plays as quarterback for the New York Giants. Eli’s brother Peyton Manning retired from football as the quarterback for the Denver Broncos in 2015. Eli and Peyton’s father is Archie Manning, who was also a successful NFL quarterback. Eli, Peyton and Archie co-authored a book for children titles “Family Huddle” in 2009. It describes the Mannings playing football together as young boys.

35 Stabilizer for movie shooters : STEADICAM

“Steadicam” is a brand name for a stabilizing camera mount that was introduced in 1975 by cameraman Garrett Brown, who name his invention the “Brown Stabilizer”. Brown received an Academy Award for Merit in 1978, in recognition of the importance of his creation.

36 Outmoded calculator : SLIDE RULE

The slide rule was invented in the early 17th century, with the design building on the work by John Napier on logarithms. As such, slide rules were introduced primarily to carry out multiplication and division. Here in the US, the device is sometimes referred to as a “slipstick”.

37 Hanoi New Year : TET

Hanoi (“Hà Nội” in Vietnamese) was the capital of North Vietnam, and Saigon the capital of South Vietnam. After the Vietnam War, Hanoi was made capital of the reunified state. Saigon, the larger metropolis, was renamed to Ho Chi Minh City. Hanoi is located in the delta of the Red River, and is just over 50 miles from the Gulf of Tonkin in the South China Sea.

46 Divan kin : SETTEE

“Settee” is another word for “couch”. The term come from the Old English “setl”, which was a long bench with a high back and arms.

Divans are essentially couches without backs or arms. The design originated in the Middle East, where the couches were commonly found lining the walls of an office that was known as a “divan” or “diwan”, meaning “government office”.

48 Thorax membrane : PLEURA

The pleurae (singular “pleura”) are the membranes that surround the lungs. The condition in which the pleurae become inflamed is known as pleurisy.

57 MI6 agent : SPY

The UK government gets its foreign intelligence through the Secret Intelligence Service, better known as MI6. The moniker “MI6” arose during WWII, and stands for “Military Intelligence, Section 6”. “MI5” is the common name for the UK’s Security Service, the UK’s counter-intelligence and security agency.

58 “Gangnam Style” musician : PSY

“PSY” is the stage name of South Korean rapper Park Jae-sang. PSY became an international star when his 2012 music video “Gangnam Style” went viral on YouTube. That video had over 1 billion views on YouTube in about six months, making it the most viewed YouTube video clip of all time. I am not one of that billion …