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Constructed by: Geoffrey Schorkopf & Matthew Luter

Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Reveal Answer: It’s a Numbers Game

Themed answers are all GAMES with a NUMBER in their names:

• 51A “You must consider the odds,” and what can be said about 20-, 34-, or 41-Across? : IT’S A NUMBERS GAME

• 20A Road trip activity with yes or no answers : TWENTY QUESTIONS
• 34A Uno’s predecessor : CRAZY EIGHTS
• 41A Hasbro product with yellow and red checkers : CONNECT FOUR

Read on, or jump to …
… a complete list of answers

Bill’s time: 5m 38s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

6A Film trivia site : IMDB

The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) website was launched in 1990, and is now owned by Amazon.com. It’s a great site for answering questions one has about movies and actors.

10A __ golf : DISC

Disc golf is also known as Frisbee golf, and sometimes even Frolf. Believe it or not, disc golf predates the introduction of the Frisbee. The first game was played at a school in Bladworth, Saskatchewan in 1926. The participating schoolkids threw tin lids into circles drawn on a course they created in the school grounds. They named the game “Tin Lid Golf”. By the way, I try to play disc golf at least three times a week. Lots of fun …

14A Best Picture Oscar winner starring Mikey Madison : ANORA

The 2024 movie “Anora” is about a young stripper from Brooklyn who impulsively marries the son of a wealthy Russian oligarch. The marriage is short-lived, as the groom’s parents send henchmen to find the couple and force an annulment. The film follows the aftermath as the stripper ends the marriage, leaving her in an emotionally vulnerable and uncertain state. The entire film was shot in 37 days, with one 25-minute sequence taking up 10 of those days. The sequence was a particularly demanding and disturbing home invasion scene.

One of Mikey Madison’s first roles was as the eldest daughter in the comedy-drama show “Better Things”, which ran for five seasons from 2016 to 2022. She really hit the big time with her performance as the title character in the 2024 film “Anora”, for which she won that season’s Best Actress Oscar. Personally, I admire her for her attitude towards social media. Apparently, she neither contributes nor reads posts on any social media platform.

16A Machu Picchu builder : INCA

Machu Picchu is known as “The Lost City of the Incas”, and it can be visited on a mountain ridge in Peru, 50 miles northwest of the city of Cusco in the southeast of the country. The name Machu Picchu means “old peak”. The Inca Trail to Machu Picchu originates about 50 miles from Cusco on the Urubamba River in Peru. It can take travelers about 5 days to trek the full length of the trail, passing through many Incan ruins before reaching the Sun Gate on Machu Picchu mountain. The trail was becoming greatly overused, forcing the Peruvian government to limit the number of people on the trail each day to 500. Book early …

20A Road trip activity with yes or no answers : TWENTY QUESTIONS

The parlor game called Twenty Questions originated in the US and really took off in the late forties as it became a weekly quiz show on the radio. Am I the only one who thinks that there aren’t enough quiz shows on the radio these days? Apart from a couple of great shows on NPR, I have to resort to listening to the BBC game shows over the Internet …

23A Fashion designer Anna : SUI

Anna Sui is an American fashion designer. Born in Detroit to Chinese immigrant parents, Sui moved to New York to attend Parsons School of Design, where she befriended photographers like Steven Meisel and began designing for sportswear companies.

24A Low-carb diet : KETO

A ketogenic (also “keto”) diet is a high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet. When a body consumes insufficient carbohydrates to meet the need for energy, then the liver converts fat into fatty acids and ketone bodies in order to make up the energy deficit. An elevated level of ketone bodies in the bloodstream is known as “ketosis”, a term that gives rise to the name “ketogenic diet”. Medical professionals sometimes prescribe a ketogenic diet in order to control epilepsy in children. A condition of ketosis can reduce the frequency of epileptic seizures.

25A Bona fide : ACTUAL

“Bona fide(s)” translates from the Latin as “in good faith”, and is used to indicate honest intentions. It can also mean that something is authentic, like a piece of art that is represented in good faith as being genuine.

31A Glamping options, for short : RVS

“Glamping” is “glamorous camping”, camping with comforts and amenities.

34A Uno’s predecessor : CRAZY EIGHTS

The card game called Crazy Eights is named for the former military designation “Section 8”. Section 8 referred to a category of discharge from the US military, reserved for personnel deemed mentally unfit for duty.

38A “Hamilton” actress Phillipa : SOO

Phillipa Soo is an actress and singer who is perhaps best known for portraying Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton, the title character’s wife in the original Broadway production of “Hamilton”.

39A The Big Easy, for short : NOLA

The city of New Orleans, Louisiana has the nickname “The Big Easy”. This name might come from the early 1900s when musicians found it relatively “easy” to find work there. The city is also known by the acronym NOLA, standing for New Orleans (NO), Louisiana (LA).

41A Hasbro product with yellow and red checkers : CONNECT FOUR

Connect Four is an interesting two-player game in which opponents drop colored discs into a vertical grid. The objective is to make straight lines of discs of one color, either horizontally, vertically or diagonally. Disappointingly, the player who goes first can always win the game by playing the right moves.

59A __ scale: measure of mineral hardness : MOHS

The Mohs scale of mineral hardness was developed in 1812 by Friedrich Mohs. Basically Mohs took minerals and scratched them with other minerals. In this way he was able to determine which minerals were hardest (most scratch resistant) and which softest. On the scale, diamond is the hardest (and rated 10), while talc is the softest (and rated 1).

61A Language of Sri Lanka : TAMIL

Tamil is one of the oldest living languages in the world, with a continuous literary tradition that stretches back over two millennia. It is one of the official languages of Singapore and Sri Lanka, and is the official language of the south Indian state Tamil Nadu, home to the largest concentration of Tamil people.

62A Item on a stage manager’s checklist : PROP

We use the word “props” for objects that are used by actors on stage during a play. The term is a shortening of the older term “properties”, which was used with the same meaning up through the 19th century.

65A Participates in a bee : SEWS

Back in 18th-century America, when neighbors would gather to work for the benefit of one of their group, such a meeting was called a bee. The name “bee” was an allusion to the social nature of the insect. In modern parlance, a further element of entertainment and pleasure has been introduced, for example in a quilting bee, or even a spelling bee.

67A Gossipy person : YENTA

“Yenta” (also “Yente”) is actually a female Yiddish name. In Yiddish theater “yenta” came to mean a busybody, a gossip.

Down

1D Bodega : MART

“Bodega” is a Spanish term describing a winery or, these days, a grocery store.

3D 1990s vice president : GORE

Al Gore was born in Washington DC, and is the son of Al Gore, Sr., then a US Representative for the state of Tennessee. After deferring his military service in order to attend Harvard, the younger Gore became eligible for the draft on graduation. Many of his classmates found ways of avoiding the draft, but Gore decided to serve and even took the “tougher” option of joining the army as an enlisted man. Actor Tommy Lee Jones shared a house with Gore in college and says that his buddy told him that even if he could find a way around the draft, someone with less options than him would have to go in his place and that was just wrong.

4D Tehran’s country : IRAN

Tehran is the capital of Iran and is the largest city in the Middle East, with a population of about 8.5 million. Iran has been around a really long time and Tehran is actually the country’s 31st national capital.

6D Baghdad citizen : IRAQI

According to the University of Baghdad, the name “Baghdad” dates way back, to the 18th-century BCE (yes, BCE!). The origin of the city’s name is disputed, but it can be translated into English from the language of ancient Babylon as “old garden” (bagh-) and “beloved” (-dad).

8D Great __: big dog : DANE

The Great Dane breed of dog isn’t actually from Denmark, and rather is from Germany. They were originally bred to hunt wild boar, and were also used for protection and as guard dogs.

9D Staple of Texas barbecue : BRISKET

Brisket is a cut of beef from the lower chest of the animal. The brisket muscles contain a large amount of connective tissue, so brisket can be a tough cut and needs to be carefully cooked. It is often braised and cooked as a pot roast, especially as a holiday dish in Jewish cuisine.

12D Read a barcode : SCAN

There are two types of barcode widely used today:

1. Linear, or one-dimensional, barcodes usually comprise vertical black and white lines (“bars”) of varying thickness.
2. Matrix, or two-dimensional, evolved from linear barcodes. They are often square in shape, and are usually made up of an array of rectangles, dots, hexagons and other shapes. A common example is a QR code.

13D Tropical islets : CAYS

A key (also “cay”) is a low offshore island, as in the Florida “Keys”. Our term in English comes from the Spanish “cayo” meaning “shoal, reef”.

21D Christmas season : YULE

Yule celebrations coincide with Christmas, and the words “Christmas” and “Yule” (often “Yuletide”) have become synonymous in much of the world. However, Yule was originally a pagan festival celebrated by Germanic peoples. The name “Yule” comes from the Old Norse word “jol” that was used to describe the festival.

28D “The Residence” star Aduba : UZO

Uzo Aduba is an actress best known for playing prison inmate Suzanne “Crazy Eyes” Warren on the Netflix TV show “Orange Is the New Black”. More recently, she played the lead in an excellent mystery comedy drama TV series called “The Residence”. Great stuff …

30D “If the __ fits … ” : SHOE

The phrase “if the shoe fits, wear it” is used on this side of the Atlantic to mean “if the statement applies to you, then admit it”. The adage is a variant of the earlier English phrase “if the cap fits, wear it”. There is a similar phrase from even earlier in the 16th century that refers to the fit of a cloak.

33D Ringo of the Beatles : STARR

Richard Starkey, better known as Ringo Starr, is an English musician, singer, songwriter, and actor who gained worldwide fame as the drummer for the Beatles. Known for his unique drumming style and genial personality, he also had a successful solo career after the band’s breakup, with hits like “It Don’t Come Easy” and “Photograph”. I was lucky enough to see Ringo live, with his All-Starr Band, and what a great concert that was …

39D Gp. that sets a zebra among the Lions? : NFL

The Detroit Lions are the NFL team that play home games at Ford Field in Detroit, Michigan. The team was founded way back in 1929 as the Portsmouth Spartans from Portsmouth, Ohio. The Spartans joined the NFL during the Great Depression as other franchises collapsed. However, the Spartans couldn’t command a large enough gate in Portsmouth so the team was sold and relocated to Detroit in 1934.

A football referee is sometimes called a “zebra”, a reference to the striped shirt that is part of the official uniform.

41D Genesis brother : CAIN

As Cain was the first murderer according to the Bible, he is associated with evil or trouble. The idiom “raise Cain” is the equivalent of “raise Hell” and “raise the Devil”. In all cases, the meaning is to bring back evil or to cause trouble.

44D “Anna Karenina” novelist : TOLSTOY

I have to admit to not having read Leo Tolstoy’s “Anna Karenina”, but I did see the excellent 1977 British television adaptation starring Nicola Pagett. I also saw the 2012 film adaptation with a screenplay by Tom Stoppard and found that to be far from excellent, awful in fact. I am no Stoppard fan …

49D Builders of papery nests : WASPS

Paper wasps usually build their nests from “paper”, hence the name. The female wasps collect wood fibers and dead plant tissue in their mouths. These materials make a paper pulp when mixed with saliva. The nest itself is a collection of hexagonal cells with paper walls.

50D Like one who holds grudges : PETTY

The word “petty”, meaning “small-minded”, comes from the French word for small, “petit”. When “petty” first came into English it wasn’t used disparagingly, and was used more literally giving us terms like “petty officer” and “petty cash”. The word “petty” evolved into a prefix “petti-” with the meaning of “small”, as in the word “petticoat”.

53D Word before ring or swing : MOOD

Mood rings were invented relatively recently, in 1975, and became a bit of a fad for a few years. A mood ring is one containing a “stone” that changes color with temperature, although the color change is touted as being dependent on the wearer’s mood. The part of the ring that changes color is actually a liquid crystal that responds to temperature changes.

54D Town : BURG

“Burg” is an informal term used in the US for a smaller town that comes from the German word “burg” meaning “fortified city”.

57D Julep herb : MINT

A mint julep is a bourbon-based cocktail that is associated with the American South, and with the Kentucky Derby in particular. If you’d like to make yourself a mint julep, one recipe is:

• 3 oz of Bourbon
• 4-6 sprigs of mint
• granulated sugar to taste

58D Disney princess with icy powers : ELSA

“Frozen” is a 2013 animated feature from Walt Disney Studios that is based on the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale “The Snow Queen”. The film is all about the exploits of Princess Anna, the younger sister of Elsa, Snow Queen of Arendelle. Elsa was originally intended to be a villain, a malicious and power-hungry character. By the final version of the film, Elsa had transformed from a one-dimensional villain into a fully fleshed-out protagonist.