2/9/25 - What's It All About? 🤷

🏁 Solve –> What's It All About? by Rich Katz and Jeff Chen

8A | Harriet Tubman was one for the Union

SPY

Harriet Tubman – perhaps the most famous "conductor" on the Underground Railroad network that smuggled slaves from the American South to freedom in the North – was able to gain valuable information about the Confederacy during the Civil War from enslaved individuals who trusted her more than her white Union Army counterparts.

In addition to her intelligence gathering efforts, Tubman was the first American woman to plan and lead a military operation (the successful Combahee River Raid, which disrupted Confederate supply lines and freed over 700 slaves).

In 2024, the state of Maryland honored Tubman with the rank of brigadier general in recognition of her accomplishments during the war.

46A | Tributary of the Colorado River

GILA

Branching off from the 1,450 mile Grand Canyon-splicing Colorado River, the Gila River (pronounced HEE-lah) spans nearly 650 miles across Arizona and New Mexico and into Mexico.

Its name was conferred on the Gila monster, which has the distinction of being the only venomous lizard native to the United States. Though they can grow to be nearly two feet in length (thereby also making them the largest lizards native to the U.S.), the reptile is quite slow-moving and not a significant danger to humans.

[Unfortunately, the reverse is not true, as the creatures are currently labeled a "near threatened" species due to destruction of its habitat by people.]

48A | Bit of Rasta headwear

TAM

The rasta tam – associated with practitioners of Rastafari, an Afrocentric religious and social movement originating in 1930s Jamaica – is a round knit cap that is tall enough to accommodate dreadlocks. (It is distinct from a tam o' shanter, a Scottish bonnet that is also round, but much flatter.)

92A | Org. holding an annual basketball championship since 1939

NCAA

The National Collegiate Athletic Association held its first season-ending men's basketball tournament in 1939, with the University of Oregon coming out on top of the eight-team field. (Ohio State was the runner-up.)

Today, 68 teams receive an invitation to participate in "March Madness" – a seven-round, single-elimination competition to crown the best squad in Division I.

UCLA holds the record for most titles with 11 (10 of which were won between 1964 and 1975). Next is the University of Kentucky (8), followed by the University of North Carolina (6).

Alas, 86 years later Oregon is still seeking its second national championship.

⚠️ FYI: The women's NCAA basketball tournament kicked off in 1982, with Louisiana Tech capturing the inaugural crown. In 2024, the women's title game drew more viewers then the men's match for the first time.

111A | Longtime restaurant critic ___ Greene

GAEL

Michigan native Gael Greene (1933-2022) was a writer who had already established an impressive resume (New York Post, Cosmopolitan, Ladies’ Home Journal) before being recruited to join the staff of the newly-launched New York magazine in 1968 as its food critic (a position she held until 2000).

Greene, a practitioner of New Journalism who styled herself as the "Insatiable Critic," soon became as famous for her eclectic hat repertoire (supposedly worn, at least initially, to hide her face from restaurant owners) as for her unconventional reviews, which frequently employed sexual metaphors and puckish prose.

To wit:

And then a great voluptuousness of the chocolate, the Chauveron mousse—the Sophia Loren of mousses—gutsy, not the least bit subtle, wrapped in a thin sponge-cake package, served with a whipped-cream-fluffed sabayon sauce and—holy gluttony!—moist almond-scented macaroons. [from "Cafe Chauveron as Love Object," Sept. 22, 1969]

43D | "Like ___," rap hit fueling the Drake/Kendrick Lamar beef of 2024

THAT

Strangely enough, the rap feud that captivated the music world last year began not with an insult, but a compliment.

In a guest verse on "First Person Shooter," a single from Drake's 2023 album For All the Dogs, Southern hip hop artist J. Cole boasted that he, Drake, and Kendrick Lamar were the three best rappers alive. In response, Lamar supplied a verse on the March 2024 Future and Metro Boomin track "Like That" in which the Compton rapper clarified "It's just big me." From there, Drake and Lamar released a barrage of songs taking aim at the other over a roughly two-week period in April and May.

Musically, Lamar's track "Not Like Us" achieved the biggest success, reaching #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and winning Grammys for "Song of the Year," "Record of the Year," "Best Rap Performance," Best Rap Song," and "Best Music Video" (joining The 5th Dimension's "Up, Up and Away" as the only songs in history to win five of the coveted trophies in a single ceremony).

45D | ___ week (TV ratings period)

SWEEPS

In an effort to track television viewing habits, Nielsen Media Research began the practice of mailing printed dairies to random households in the early 1950s – requesting that each member write down everything they watched over the course of a week before sending the completed booklets back to the company to tabulate (a process that "swept" across the United States from the Northeast to the West).

Because the ratings from these periods (which, despite their name, actually last for one month at four separate times throughout the year) are used as the basis to set local and national adverting rates, the major networks – ABC, CBS, NBC, and FOX – have historically attempted to maximize viewership by booking big-name guest stars on popular shows (think: Brad Pitt on Friends) and engaging in myriad other gimmicks and stunts (cliffhangers! shocking deaths!) to boost their numbers.

Tune in! We're currently in the midst of a sweeps week, which began on January 30 and runs until February 26.

66D | Herbal supplement used as a cold remedy

ECHINACEA

Echinacea (more commonly known as coneflowers) refers to a genus of flowers in the daisy family that are native to North America. Their use has been documented in the medicinal practices of Indigenous peoples for ailments both external (bites, burns) and internal (sore throat, headache).

Despite various purported health benefits and its prevalence in numerous over-the-counter herbal supplements and remedies, modern scientific studies have found little to no evidence of echinacea's efficacy. They sure are pretty, though!

78D | Spanish muralist whose "American Progress" is in the lobby of 30 Rockefeller Center

SERT

Sitting at the heart of the 22-acre Rockefeller Center complex in Midtown Manhattan, 30 Rockefeller Plaza ("30 Rock") is a 66-story skyscraper fashioned in the Art Deco style.

For the building's lobby, John D. Rockefeller, Jr. originally commissioned a mural from Diego Rivera; however, as the work neared completion, the Mexican artist deviated from his initial sketches and inserted a portrait of Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin as its centerpiece – a transgressive political statement that led to Rivera's firing and the piece's destruction.

In his stead, Paris-via-Barcelona muralist Josep Maria Sert (who had already created pieces on display elsewhere in the lobby) was called upon to produce a more acceptable final product.

His American Progress – an allegorical depiction of the rise of the United States via the union of "Brains" and "Brawn" – was completed in 1937. [This time around, American luminaries Abraham Lincoln and Ralph Waldo Emerson took center stage.]

👉 BONUS BIT: When the United States Postal Service introduced ZIP codes in 1963, 30 Rockefeller Plaza was assigned its own unique identifier (a distinction now shared with the Empire State Building, the White House, Dodger Stadium, and Walmart's headquarters, among others).

97D | Yoga type

HATHA

In the Western world, yoga practiced in the hatha tradition is unique in that it places special emphasis on the holding of poses (asana) for longer periods of time, which – combined with breathing exercises (pranayama) and meditation – serves as a means by which to channel energy and gain control over one's body.