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Constructed by: Jeffrey Wechsler

Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Reveal Answer: Lend Me Your Ears

Themed answers are common phrases that have been LENT and EAR, had “CORN” inserted within:

• 56A Shakespearean “Listen up!,” or an apt title for this puzzle? : LEND ME YOUR EARS

• 21A Apparel worn between December 22 and January 19? : CAPRICORN PANTS (“corn” in “Capri pants”)
• 30A Unappreciative of St. Louis’s hockey team? : SCORNING THE BLUES (“corn” in “sing the blues”)
• 46A Starts a top-to-bottom demolition of an old facade? : BREAKS THE CORNICE (“corn” in “breaks the ice”)

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

Bill’s time: 9m 01s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1A Urban haze : SMOG

The word “smog” is a portmanteau coined in 1905 by Dr. Henry Antoine Des Voeux to describe a mixture of smoke and fog, initially referring to the thick, polluted air in London. The infamous “Great Smog of London” in December 1952 caused thousands of deaths and led to significant environmental legislation.

17A Yamaha woodwinds : OBOES

The Japanese company Yamaha started out way back in 1887 as a manufacturer of reed organs. Even though the company has diversified since then, Yamaha’s logo still reflects its musical roots. Said logo is made up of three intersecting tuning forks, and can even be seen on Yamaha motorcycles and ATVs.

18A SNAP benefits org. : USDA

US Department of Agriculture (USDA)

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is still known colloquially as “food stamps”. Food stamps is an initiative that traces its roots back to a 1939 pilot program where participants used actual orange and blue paper coupons. The program adopted its modern SNAP acronym as part of the 2008 Farm Bill, emphasizing a broader mission of nutritional health over simple caloric intake.

19A San Antonio site : ALAMO

The San Antonio mission known as the Alamo may have been named for a grove of nearby cottonwood trees. “Álamo” is the Spanish name for the cottonwood.

21A Apparel worn between December 22 and January 19? : CAPRICORN PANTS (“corn” in “Capri pants”)

Capricorn is the tenth sign of the Zodiac. The astrological sign is associated with the constellation Capricornus. “Capricornus” is Latin for “horned goat”. That said, Capricorn is often represented by a sea-goat symbol, a mythical half-fish, half-goat creature.

Capri pants first became popular on the island of Capri, apparently. They were invented in Europe in 1948, but only became stylish in the US in the sixties. Mary Tyler Moore often wore Capri pants on “The Dick Van Dyke Show” and to some extent she sparked a fashion trend. After a lull in the seventies and eighties there was a resurgence in sales after Uma Thurman wore them (and danced in them) in “Pulp Fiction”.

24A Wine cocktail also called blanc-cassis : KIR

Kir is a French cocktail made by adding a teaspoon or so of crème de cassis (blackcurrant liqueur) to a glass, and then topping it off with white wine. The drink is named after Felix Kir, the Mayor of Dijon in Burgundy, who used to offer the drink to his guests. My wife is particularly fond of a variant called a kir royale, in which the white wine is replaced with champagne.

25A Mortgage agcy. : FHA

The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) was set up in 1934 to insure loans made by lenders for the building and purchasing of homes. The FHA was created in response to the bank failures of the Great Depression, with the intent of creating a more favorable environment for lending.

30A Unappreciative of St. Louis’s hockey team? : SCORNING THE BLUES (“corn” in “sing the blues”)

The St. Louis Blues hockey team takes its name from the song “St. Louis Blues”, a jazz and popular music classic.

38A “Four Quartets” poet : ELIOT

T. S. Eliot was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948, largely because of his “Four Quartets”, a set of four poems that Eliot himself considered to be his life’s masterpiece. He also won a Tony Award in 1950 for Best Play, for “The Cocktail Party”, as well as two posthumous Tony Awards in 1983 for his poems that are used in the musical “Cats”.

41A Writer Harte or wrestler Hart : BRET

Bret Harte was a storyteller noted for his tales of the American West, even though he himself was from back East, born in Albany, New York. One work attributed to him is “Ah Sin”, a disastrously unsuccessful play written by Harte with Mark Twain. The two writers didn’t get on at all well during the writing process, and when the play was produced for the stage it was very poorly received. Nevertheless, Twain suggested a further collaboration with Harte, and Harte downright refused!

Retired professional wrestler Bret Hart is the son of wrestler Stu Hart, who founded and handled the Calgary-based promotion company Stampede Wrestling. Bret was known in the ring as “Hitman Hart”, which led to the name of the Calgary Hitmen junior hockey team.

43A SoCal emer. force : LAFD

The Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD) started out as a volunteer force in 1871, and was equipped with a steam-powered fire engine and a cart to transport the hose. The equipment had to be pulled to fires by the firefighters themselves. A professional force was established in 1886, with a team that included 31 firefighters and 24 horses.

46A Starts a top-to-bottom demolition of an old facade? : BREAKS THE CORNICE (“corn” in “breaks the ice”)

A cornice is a decorative molding crowning a building or item of furniture. A simple cornice may be formed just with a crown, as in crown molding atop an interior wall, kitchen cabinets or bookcases.

54A Private aid gp. : NGO

Non-governmental organization (NGO)

55A Largest U.S. union : NEA

Founded in 1857, the National Education Association (NEA) is the largest labor union in the country, and mainly represents public school teachers.

56A Shakespearean “Listen up!,” or an apt title for this puzzle? : LEND ME YOUR EARS

There is a famous speech made by Mark Antony in William Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar” that starts with:

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Caesar.

61A Longtime college football coach Nick : SABAN

Nick Saban is a former NFL coach with the Miami Dolphins, and head football coach at the University of Alabama starting in 2007.

63A Vintage violin : AMATI

The first of the Amati family to make violins was Andrea Amati, who lived in the 16th century. He was succeeded by his sons Antonio and Girolamo. In turn, the two brothers were succeeded by Girolamo’s son Nicolo. Nicolo had a few students who achieved fame making musical instruments as well. One was his own son, Girolamo, and another was the famed Antonio Stradivari.

65A Scoundrel : KNAVE

We’ve been using “knave” to mean “cad” since about 1200, and as an alternative name for the jack in a deck of cards since the mid-1500s. “Knave” comes from the Old English word “cnafa”, a “boy, male servant”.

66A Almanac info : TIDES

An almanac is an annual publication containing all sorts of tabular data, such as planting dates, tide tables and weather forecasts. Benjamin Franklin’s “Poor Richard’s Almanack” debuted in 1732 and became so popular that it was reportedly the second most-read book in the American colonies after the Bible.

70A Big Apple resident, for short : NYER

Apparently, the first published use of the term “Big Apple” to describe New York City dates back to 1909. Edward Martin wrote the following in his book “The Wayfarer in New York”:

Kansas is apt to see in New York a greedy city. . . . It inclines to think that the big apple gets a disproportionate share of the national sap.

Over ten years later, the term “big apple” was used as a nickname for racetracks in and around New York City. However, the concerted effort to “brand” the city as the Big Apple had to wait until the seventies and was the work of the New York Convention and Visitors Bureau.

Down

2D Pompeii art form : MOSAIC

In the Middle Ages, mosaics were often dedicated to the Muses. The term “mosaic” translates as “of the Muses”.

The ancient city of Pompeii is situated close to Naples in Italy. Pompeii was destroyed in AD 79 by the eruption of the volcano Vesuvius. The city was completely lost from that time, and was only rediscovered in 1748. Excavations have uncovered the remarkably well-preserved buildings and roads, and Pompeii now attracts over 2 million visitors annually.

5D Try to access, as the back of a closet : REACH IN

In Old French a “clos” was an enclosure, with the diminutive form “closet” describing a small enclosure or private room. Over time this evolved into our modern usage of “closet”, describing a cabinet or cupboard.

7D Hebrew month after Shevat : ADAR

Adar is the twelfth month of the Hebrew ecclesiastical calendar. Adar is equivalent to February-March in the Gregorian calendar.

10D Rub shoulders (with) : HOBNOB

“To hobnob with” means “to rub elbows with, associate with”. The phrase dates back to the mid 1700s and is derived from “hob and nob”, an expression meaning to toast each other in turn, or to buy alternate rounds of drinks.

12D Kikkoman condiment : SOY SAUCE

Kikkoman is a company headquartered in Japan that is noted in North America as a producer of soy sauce. Apparently, the brand name is meant to signify long-lasting quality, luck and success, coming from “kikko” meaning “tortoise shell” and “man” meaning “10,000”.

13D Louvre Pyramid architect : PEI

When I. M. Pei became the first foreign architect to work on the Louvre in Paris, he not only designed the famous glass and steel pyramid, but also worked on renovations throughout the museum. His design was very controversial, causing a lot of ill feelings among the public. Eventually, when the work was complete, public opinion became more favorable. Personally, I think it is magnificent, both inside and out.

14D Protected fig. : SSN

So often, we are asked for “the last four digits” of our Social Security Numbers (SSNs), but no more …

29D General __ chicken : TSO’S

General Tso’s chicken is an American creation, and a dish often found on the menu of a Chinese restaurant. The name General Tso may be a reference to General Zuo Zongtang of the Qing Dynasty, but there is no clear link.

31D Friend of TV’s Mary Richards : RHODA

The seventies sitcom “Rhoda” was a spinoff of “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” that starred Valerie Harper. The eighth episode of the show was an hour-long special in which Rhoda married her fiance Joe (played by David Groh). At the time of airing it was the second-most watched television episode in history, second only to the 1953 birth of Little Ricky on “I Love Lucy”.

“The Mary Tyler Moore Show” originally aired from 1970 to 1977. It was a groundbreaking sitcom in that it featured a central female character (Mary Richards) who was not dependent on a man. Such was the success of “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” that it launched no less than three spin-off shows: “Rhoda”, “Phyllis” and “Lou Grant”.

32D Brooks of country music : GARTH

Country singer Garth Brooks retired from recording and performing in 2001. He came back out of retirement in 2009, signing a five-year concert deal with the Encore Hotel on the Las Vegas Strip.

33D “Lord, what fools __ mortals be!” : THESE

“Lord, what fools these mortals be” is a famous observation made by Puck, the mischievous sprite, in Act III of William Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”. “What fools these mortals be!” eventually moved beyond the stage to become the long-standing motto for “Puck” magazine, the first successful satirical publication in the US.

34D Cinema icon born in Rome : LOREN

Sophia Loren certainly has earned her exalted position in the world of movies. In 1962 Loren won an Oscar for Best Actress for her role in the Italian film “Two Women”, marking the first actress to win an Academy Award for a non-English speaking performance. She received a second nomination for Best Actress for her role in “Marriage Italian-Style”, another Italian-language movie, released in 1964.

38D Site of Napoleon’s exile : ELBA

Napoleon was sent into exile twice. A coalition of European powers sent him to the island of Elba in Tuscany in 1814, only for him to escape after a year and return to power. After Wellington defeated him at Waterloo, Napoleon was dispatched to the British-owned island of St. Helena in the South Atlantic, where he spent the last six years of his life.

39D Tallow kin : LARD

Fat, when extracted from the carcass of an animal, is called suet. Untreated suet decomposes at room temperature quite easily so it has to be rendered, purified to make it stable. Rendered fat from pigs is what we call lard. Rendered beef or mutton fat is known as tallow.

42D Hullabaloo : FUROR

Our word “hullabaloo”, meaning “commotion”, is a derivative of an older term “hollo-ballo”. “Hollo-ballo” was a word used for an uproar in the north of England and Scotland.

44D Cornerstone abbr. : ESTD

In practical terms, a cornerstone is the first stone set during the construction of a building with a masonry foundation. Also known as the foundation stone or setting stone, the cornerstone determines the final position of the final structure, as all other stones are laid with reference to that first stone. For some time, we’ve also used the term “cornerstone” in a ceremonial sense. A ceremonial cornerstone is set in a prominent position at the corner of a wall, and usually bears significant information such as date of construction and names of the architect and builder.

47D Place to keep toys? : KENNEL

Our word “kennel” meaning “doghouse” comes from the Vulgar Latin word “canile” meaning the same thing. A sheep (“ovis”) was kept in an “ovile”, a horse (“equus”) in an “equile”, and a dog (“canis”) in a “canile”.

48D Benjamins : C-NOTES

Benjamin Franklin’s portrait is featured on one side of the hundred-dollar bill (also called a “C-spot, C-note, benjamin”), and Philadelphia’s Independence Hall on the other side. There used to be a famous error in the image of Independence Hall. If you look closely at the clock face at the top of the building on older bills, you can see that the “four” is written in Roman numerals as “IV”. However, on the actual clock on Independence Hall, the “four” is denoted by “IIII”, which has been the convention for clock faces for centuries. This “error” was fixed in bills printed from 1996 onwards.

50D “Developed With Dermatologists” lotion brand : CERAVE

CeraVe is a skin care brand owned by L’Oréal. The name “CeraVe” is a direct nod to the brand’s formula and science. “Cera” stands for “ceramides”, lipids that help the skin retain moisture. “Ve” refers to their “MVE” (Multivesicular Emulsion) delivery technology. Apparently, this system acts like a time-release capsule, slowly dispensing the ceramides throughout the day to keep the skin barrier protected long after application. Means nothing to me …

60D Jessica Mendoza’s network : ESPN

Jessica Mendoza is a sportscaster and former Olympic medal-winning softball player. She made a bit of history in 2015 when she became the first female commentator to call a Major League Baseball postseason game.