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Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

14A Tolkien ring bearer : SMEAGOL

Tolkien introduced the character named Gollum in his 1937 novel “The Hobbit”. Gollum played a more central role in the sequel “The Lord of the Rings”. He was originally named Sméagol, and was given the name Gollum because of the “horrible swallowing noise in his throat”.

19A Musical set in Alphabet City : RENT

The musical “Rent” by Jonathan Larson is based on the Puccini opera “La bohème”. “Rent” tells the story of struggling artists and musicians living in the Lower East Side of New York, and is set against the backdrop of the AIDS epidemic. We saw “Rent” on Broadway quite a few years ago, and were very disappointed …

Avenues A, B, C and D are the only avenues in Manhattan to have single letter names. The area bounded by Avenues A and D, 14th Street and Houston Street in the East Village is known as Alphabet City, a reference to those single-letter avenues. The “Alphabet City” moniker emerged in the 1980s.

22A Part of a Blues Brothers outfit : FEDORA

A fedora is a lovely hat, I think. It is made of felt, and is similar to a trilby, but has a broader brim. “Fédora” was a play written for Sarah Bernhardt and first performed in 1889. Bernhardt had the title role of Princess Fedora, and on stage she wore a hat similar to a modern-day fedora. The play led to the women’s fashion accessory, the fedora hat, commonly worn by women into the beginning of the twentieth century. Men then started wearing fedoras, but only when women gave up the fashion …

The Blues Brothers blues band was created in 1978 for a “Saturday Night Live” sketch. The original Blues Brothers were Dan Aykroyd (Elwood Blues) and John Belushi (“Joliet” Jake Blues). The band eventually made it to the big screen in a 1980 musical comedy called “The Blues Brothers”.

23A Animated friend of Sebastian the crab : ARIEL

In the 1989 Disney animated film “The Little Mermaid”, the title character is friends with Sebastian, a red Jamaican crab whose full name is Horatio Thelonious Ignacius Crustaceous Sebastian. It is Sebastian who performs the hit song “Under the Sea”.

25A Some arm muscles, informally : TRIS

The triceps brachii muscle is found at the back of the upper arm. The muscle’s name translates from Latin to “three-headed arm muscle”, fitting as it is actually made up of three bundles of muscles.

27A Cassiterite is a source of it : TIN

Cassiterite is an ore containing tin oxide, and is the most important source of metallic tin. The ore’s name comes from the Greek “kassiteros” meaning “tin”.

28A Robert Frost’s middle name : LEE

The wonderful poet Robert Frost was a native of San Francisco, but lived most of life in New England. He also spent a few years in England, just before WWI. Frost was well recognized for his work during his lifetime, and received four Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry. He was also Vermont’s first Poet Laureate, a position that he held from 1961 until his death in 1963.

29A ___ Allen Express, Amtrak train from New York City to Burlington, Vt. : ETHAN

Ethan Allen was one of the founders of the state of Vermont. Allen was also a hero in the American Revolutionary War, famous for leading (along with Benedict Arnold) the small band of men known as the Green Mountain Boys that captured Fort Ticonderoga. And yes, the Ethan Allen store and furniture line is named for Ethan Allen the patriot, even though he had nothing to do with the furniture business.

31A Innermost moon of Neptune : NAIAD

Given that Neptune was the Roman god of the freshwater and the sea, the moons of the planet Neptune are all named with reference to water. For example, the largest moon is Triton, named for the Greek sea god and son of Poseidon. The innermost moon is Naiad, named for the female water spirits of Greek mythology.

38A Breathlessness : APNEA

Sleep apnea (“apnoea” in British English) can be caused by an obstruction in the airways, possibly due to obesity or enlarged tonsils.

46A Angora fabric : MOHAIR

The Angora goat produces the wool known as mohair. On the other hand, Angora wool comes from the Angora rabbit. Both rabbit and goat are named for Turkey’s capital Ankara, which was known as “Angora” in many European languages.

51A ___ Tung, star of cable TV’s “The Summer I Turned Pretty” : LOLA

Jenny Han is a Korean-American author who has written several young adult novels, including the popular “The Summer I Turned Pretty” trilogy. Han created a TV show based on the trilogy under the same title, which started airing in 2022.

57A Animals in an early-2000s virtual fad : NEOPETS

Neopets.com is a website where one can own a virtual pet. I wouldn’t bother if I were you …

Down

1D Kind of projection : ASTRAL

An astral projection is an out-of-body experience. It is often associated with incidents of near-death and describes the phenomenon of the astral body leaving the physical body and traveling around the astral plane.

4D Drink often sipped : LATTE

The term “latte” is an abbreviation of the Italian “caffelatte” meaning “coffee (and) milk”. Note that in the correct spelling of “latte”, the Italian word for milk; there is no accent over the “e”. An accent is often added by mistake when we use the word in English, perhaps meaning to suggest that the word is French.

7D In brief, to whom Grover Cleveland once said “I am making a strange wish for you … that you may never be president of the United States” : FDR

49-year-old President Grover Cleveland married 21-year-old Frances Folsom during his first term. This marked the only time that a president has married in the White House. And, that marriage made Frances the youngest wife of any sitting US president.

9D Dialect that is responsible for a large majority of Gen Z slang : AAVE

African American Vernacular English (AAVE)

11D Decorative items worn at Western galas : BOLO TIES

I’ve never worn a bolo tie, and was surprised to discover that it is a relatively recent invention. The first bolo tie was apparently produced in Wickenburg, Arizona in the late 1940s by a silversmith. The bolo takes its name from the boleadora, an Argentine lariat.

30D ___ Story (punny nickname for the “Iliad”) : TROY

Ilion (or in Latin “Ileum”), was the ancient name for the city of Troy. It’s this name for Troy that gives rise to the title of Homer’s epic poem “Iliad”.

31D Like the lion killed by Hercules : NEMEAN

“The Twelve Labors of Hercules” is actually a Greek myth, although Hercules is the Roman name for the hero that the Greeks called “Heracles”. The first of these labors was to slay the Nemean lion, a monster that lived in a cave near Nemea. Hercules had a tough job as the lion’s golden fur was impenetrable to normal weapons. One version of the story is that Hercules killed the lion by shooting an arrow into its mouth. Another version says that Hercules stunned the monster with a club and then strangled him with his bare hands.

33D Tesla, for one : SERB

Nikola Tesla was born in the Austrian Empire in a village located in modern-day Croatia, and later moved to the US. Tesla’s work on mechanical and electrical engineering was crucial to the development of alternating current technology, the same technology that is used by equipment at the backbone of modern power generation and distribution systems.

34D Affliction treated with a nit comb : LICE

Lice (singular “louse”) are small wingless insects, of which there are thousands of species. There are three species of lice affecting humans, i.e. head lice, body lice and pubic lice. Most lice feed on dead skin found on the body of the host animal, although some feed on blood. Ick …

36D ___ counter : CALORIE

I wish we’d stop using the term “calorie”, because it is so confusing. In terms of physics, a calorie is the amount of energy needed to raise the temperature of one gram of water by one degree celsius (at one atmosphere of pressure). The so-called “food calorie” is one thousand times as large, as it is defined in terms of kilograms instead of grams. In attempts to differentiate between these two definitions, the former is sometimes referred to as the “small calorie” and is given the symbol “cal”. The latter is referred to as the “large calorie” and given the symbol “Cal”, with a capital C. If only we’d use the SI system of units, we’d be thinking in just joules, instead of large and small and food calories.

43D French relative : FRERE

In French, a “frère” (brother) is a member of the “famille” (family).

53D Popular role-playing game since 1974, informally : DND

Dungeons & Dragons (D&D, DnD) is a complex role-playing game (RPG) introduced in 1974 by Tactical Studies Rules Incorporated (TSR). Dungeons & Dragons was probably the first of the modern role-playing games to be developed, and the most successful. It is still played by lots of people today, including my youngest son …

55D One whose eyes are “all aglow” in “The Christmas Song” : TOT

The Christmas classic known as “The Christmas Song”, which starts out with the line “Chestnuts roasting on an open fire”, was written in 1944 by Bob Wells and singer Mel Tormé. According to Tormé, the song was actually written on a very hot summer day, with Wells providing the lyrics. Apparently without the intention of writing a song, Wells jotted down four “Christmassy” phrases in an effort to “stay cool by thinking cool”. Those phrases were:

• Chestnuts roasting
• Jack Frost nipping
• Yuletide carols
• Folks dressed up like Eskimos

“The Christmas Song” is now the most-performed Christmas song in the world.