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Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

15A There’s a Black, White and Red one : SEA

There are four seas named in English for colors:

• the Yellow Sea
• the Black Sea
• the Red Sea
• the White Sea.

20A Part of E.S.T.: Abbr. : STD

Eastern Standard Time (EST)

28A Arboreal symbol in Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit” : POPLAR TREE

“The United States vs. Billie Holiday” is a 2021 biopic based on a 2015 book by Johann Hari called “Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs”. The film mainly deals with her performances of the song “Strange Fruit”, with its references to racial prejudice and lynching, and Holiday’s arrest and incarceration for drug possession. Soul singer and actress Andra Day plays Holiday, for which performance she won a Golden Globe.

37A House and Howser: Abbr. : DRS

I think that “House” is one of the better shows made by Fox television. It is fun for me, coming from the other side of the Atlantic, to see English actor Hugh Laurie in the dramatic title role. I have been watching him in various comedic roles for decades. Famously, he played Bertie Wooster opposite Stephen Fry in P.G. Wodehouse’s “Jeeves & Wooster”, as well as one of the bumbling “bad guys” in the film “101 Dalmatians” (the version starring Glenn Close).

“Doogie Howser, M.D.” is the TV show that gave Neil Patrick Harris his big break. Harris played a teenager who worked as a physician.

38A ___-eared : LOP

A creature that is lop-eared has bent or drooping ears, like a rabbit or many breeds of dog.

39A Figures in a speed trap? : NARCS

“Meth” is a street name used for the drug methamphetamine, which is also called “crank” and “crystal meth”.

40A Something most people have memorized : PIN

One enters a Personal Identification Number (PIN) when using an Automated Teller Machine (ATM). Given that the N in PIN stands for “number”, then “PIN number” is a redundant phrase. And, given that the M in ATM stands for “machine”, then “ATM machine” is a redundant phrase as well. Grr …!

41A Iowa college : COE

Coe College is a private school in Cedar Rapids, Iowa that was founded in 1851. Coe is affiliated with the Presbyterian Church. It was founded in 1851 as the School for Prophets. A farmer named Daniel Coe made a donation of $1,500 towards a campus in Cedar Rapids, but added the requirement that it be a co-educational institution. The school opened as the Cedar Rapids Collegiate Institute, and was renamed as Coe Collegiate Institute in 1875 in recognition of the original donation.

44A Writer of “Esmé” and “The Open Window” : SAKI

Hector Hugh Munro was a British writer, actually born in Burma. Munro was famous for his short stories, which he published using the pen name “Saki”. His most well-known story is “The Open Window”, which ends with the great line “Romance at short notice was her specialty”.

48A Old Syrian political party whose name means “resurrection” : BA’ATH

The Ba’ath Party was founded in Syria in 1947. The party promotes the unification of the Arab world into one nation, and has the motto “Unity, Liberty, Socialism”.

51A Flip remark? : CALL IT IN THE AIR!

The two sides of a coin are known as the “obverse” and the “reverse”. The obverse is commonly referred to as “heads”, as it often depicts someone’s head. The reverse is commonly called “tails”, as it is the opposite of “heads”.

54A “Saturday Night Live” features that aren’t live : DIGITAL SHORTS

Since 2005, the “Saturday Night Live” comedy show has been airing a feature called “SNL Digital Shorts”. These spots break away from the “live” format of the show, and are prerecorded for airing during the Saturday broadcast. The Digital Shorts are filmed on consumer-grade digital cameras, and are edited on personal computers. They can feature members of the regular cast, musical guests, and celebrity cameos.

Down

3D Alexandre Dumas’s Count de la Fère : ATHOS

Alexandre Dumas’ “Three Musketeers” are Athos, Porthos and Aramis, although the hero of the novel is the trio’s young protégé D’Artagnan. A musketeer was an infantry soldier who was equipped with a musket. Funnily enough, the three “musketeers” really don’t use their muskets, and are better known for prowess with their swords.

5D Spanish blessing : SALUD

“Salud” is Spanish for “health”, and is used as a toast. Salud!

6D Big publisher of romance novels : AVON

Avon was a noted publisher of comic books and paperbacks. The company was founded in 1941 and focused on lowbrow literature designed for popular appeal, especially romance novels.

7D Hunger : YEN

The word “yen”, meaning “urge”, has been around in English since the very early 1900s. It comes from the earlier word “yin” imported from Chinese, which was used in English to describe an intense craving for opium.

10D Moldable soil : LOAM

Loam is soil made up of sand, silt and clay in the ratio of about 40-40-20. Relative to other soil types, loam is usually rich in nutrients and moisture, drains well and is easy to till. Loam can also be used in constructing houses as it is quite strong when mixed with straw and dried.

13D Groups studied by cetologists : WHALE PODS

Cetaceans are mammals that have adapted to life in water. Examples of cetaceans are whales, dolphins and porpoises. The cetaceans’ nearest relative still living on land is the hippopotamus, with divergence having taken place about sixty million years ago.

15D “True West” playwright Sam : SHEPARD

As well as being an accomplished actor, Sam Shepard was the author of over forty plays and several books. Shepard’s 1978 play “Buried Child” won a Pulitzer in 1979. As an actor, Shepard was nominated for an Oscar for his portrayal of test pilot Chuck Yeager in the 1983 film “The Right Stuff”.

21D Line running roughly parallel to Interstate 95 : ACELA

The Acela is the fastest train in the Americas, and can reach a top speed of 160 miles per hour. However, it only does so for about 40 miles of its 457-mile route between D.C. and Boston. Due to the curvy nature of the Northeast Corridor tracks, the train’s average speed over the entire journey, including stops, is closer to 70 mph.

I-95 runs from down the East Coast of the US from northern New England to southern Florida. Although it is one of the oldest interstates in the country, the last section of the route wasn’t completed until 2018.

24D “The King of Football” : PELE

“Pelé” was the nickname of Edson Arantes do Nascimento, a soccer player who used the name “Pelé” for most of his life. For my money, Pelé was the world’s greatest ever player of the game. He was the only person to have been a member of three World Cup winning squads (1958, 1962 and 1970), and was a national treasure in his native Brazil. One of Pelé’s nicknames was “O Rei do Futebol” (the King of Football).

25D Cars with a trident logo : MASERATIS

Maserati is a manufacturer of luxury cars in Italy. The company was founded in Bologna in 1914 by five brothers: Alfieri, Bindo, Carlo, Ettore and Ernesto Maserati. The company uses a trident logo that is based on the trident depicted in the Fountain of Neptune in the Piazza Maggiore in Bologna.

30D Car roof with removable panels : T-TOP

A T-top is a car roof that has removable panels on either side of a rigid bar that runs down the center of the vehicle above the driver.

38D Adam’s first wife, in Jewish myth : LILITH

Lilith is a demon in Jewish mythology. According to Jewish folklore, God created Lilith from the same dirt as Adam, and was Adam’s first wife. Other legends state that Lilith refused to become subservient to Adam, and would not live with him in the Garden of Eden.

40D Hungarian sheepdogs : PULIS

The puli is a small herding dog that is noted for its coat with tight curls that resemble dreadlocks. Pulik (the plural of “puli”) originated in Hungary.

45D Down Under band with 10 multiplatinum albums : AC/DC

The Heavy Metal band known as AC/DC was formed by two brothers Malcolm and Angus Young in Australia. Malcolm and Angus chose the name “AC/DC” after their sister Margaret noticed them on a sewing machine (the abbreviation for alternating current/direct current). The group is usually called “Acca Dacca” down under.

47D ___ Tokarczuk, 2018 Literature Nobelist : OLGA

Olga Tokarczuk is a Polish author who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2018. She also won the 2018 Man Booker International Prize for her novel “Flights”. Her epic historical novel “The Books of Jacob”, published in 2014, is generally regarded as Tokarczuk’s magnum opus.

49D “Show me a ___ and I’ll write you a tragedy”: F. Scott Fitzgerald : HERO

F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote five novels (one unfinished), the most famous of which is “The Great Gatsby”. A little bit of trivia about Fitzgerald is that he was the first cousin once removed of Mary Surratt, the boarding house owner who was convicted of participating in the plot to assassinate President Abraham Lincoln and who was hanged for her crime.