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Constructed by: Kelly Richardson

Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Reveal Answer: Low Country

Themed answers are all in the down-direction. The LOW part (end) of each is the name of a COUNTRY:

• 28D Region of South Carolina and Georgia, or what can be found in 3-, 9-, 16-, and 32-Down : LOWCOUNTRY

• 3D New Mexico pepper : HATCH CHILE
• 9D Sneaker with the Jumpman logo : AIR JORDAN
• 16D Ballot dangler in 2000 election news : HANGING CHAD
• 32D All set : READY TO GO

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

Bill’s time: 7m 33s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1A Second-largest city in Pakistan : LAHORE

Lahore is a large city in Pakistan that is second in size only to Karachi. It is known as the Garden of the Mughals (or in English, Moguls) because of its association with the Mughal Empire. The Mughals ruled much of India from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries.

13A 40-Across layer : ENAMEL
[40A Back tooth : MOLAR]

Tooth enamel covers the crowns of our teeth, and is the hardest substance in the human body. It is composed of 96% crystalline calcium phosphate.

14A Rodgers and Hammerstein show tune covered by Perry Como : BALI HA’I

The song “Bali Ha’i” is from the musical “South Pacific” by Rodgers and Hammerstein. Bali Ha’i is a volcanic island that neighbors the island on which the story takes place. A prominent character in the musical is a Tonkinese vendor named Bloody Mary, and it is Bloody Mary who sings the song in the musical.

Perry Como was my mother’s favorite singer. Como was born about 20 miles from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Famously, his first career was barbering. He learned the trade from a local hairdresser and soon had his own shop in a Greek coffee house, at the age of 14!

19A Triple espresso effect : JOLT

Espresso is made by forcing extremely hot water, under pressure, through finely ground coffee beans. The result is a thick and concentrated coffee drink that contains quite a lot of solids and a lot of foam. An espresso machine was first patented in 1884 in Italy, although it was a machine to make the beverage in bulk. The first patent for a machine that made individual measures was applied for in 1901, also in Italy.

26A Key lime pie feature : TANG

The species of citrus fruit called Key lime is so named due to its association with the Florida Keys.

27A Root ball wrapper : BURLAP

Burlap, also called “hessian”, is a coarse woven fabric made from fibers taken from jute, sisal or hemp plants.

31A Bert who played the Cowardly Lion : LAHR

Bert Lahr’s most famous role was the Cowardly Lion in “The Wizard of Oz”. Lahr had a long career in burlesque, vaudeville and on Broadway. Remember the catchphrase made famous by the cartoon character Snagglepuss, “Heavens to Murgatroyd!”? Snagglepuss stole that line from a 1944 movie called “Meet the People” in which it was first uttered by none other than Bert Lahr.

33A Guest speaker’s platform : DAIS

A dais is a raised platform for a speaker. The term “dais” comes from the Latin “discus” meaning a “disk-shaped object”. I guess that the original daises had such a shape.

35A Southwestern building block : ADOBE

The building material known as adobe has been around a long time, and has been used in dry climates all over the world. The original form of the word “adobe” dates back to Middle Egyptian times, about 2000 BC. The original spelling is “dj-b-t”, and translates as mud (sun-dried) brick.

36A Farewell that’s bid : ADIEU

“Adieu” is French for “goodbye, farewell”, from “à Dieu” meaning “to God”. The plural of “adieu” is “adieux”.

40A Back tooth : MOLAR

Molars are grinding teeth. The term “molar” comes from the Latin “mola” meaning “millstone”.

43A March Madness org. : NCAA

“March Madness” is the name given to the NCAA Men’s Division 1 Basketball Championship (among others), that is held in the spring each year. Another name is “the Big Dance”.

46A Chowder protein : CLAM

The type of soup known as “chowder” is possibly named for the pot in which it used to be cooked called a “chaudière”, a French term.

48A Fla. NBA team : ORL

The Orlando Magic were formed in 1989 as an NBA expansion team. A local paper was asked to run a competition to suggest names for the new team and the community came up with its four top picks of “Heat”, “Tropics”, “Juice” and “Magic”. A committee then opted for “Orlando Magic”. A good choice I think …

55A “Project Hail Mary” actor Gosling : RYAN

Ryan Gosling is a Canadian actor who is one of a string of entertainers to graduate from the Mickey Mouse Club on the Disney Channel. His career really took off when he played the male lead in the 2004 movie “The Notebook” (the best ever “weepie”, according to my wife). Gosling is quite the musician, and is one half of a rock duo called Dead Man’s Bones.

“Project Hail Mary” is an excellent 2021 sci-fi novel by Andy Weir, an author who really hit the big time with his 2011 debut novel “The Martian”. The 2021 book focuses on two main characters: biologist turned spaceman Ryland Grace, and an alien that he encounters and names “Rocky”. Just like “The Martian”, “Project Hail Mary” was adapted into a blockbuster Hollywood movie, this one starring Ryan Gosling.

57A Kirsten of “Melancholia” : DUNST

Kirsten Dunst is a Hollywood actress from Point Pleasant, New Jersey. She is perhaps best known for playing the love interest and female lead in the “Spider-Man” series of movies opposite Tobey Maguire. Personally, my favorite Dunst films are “Wimbledon” and “Marie Antoinette”. Dunst is a dual citizen of the US and Germany, as her father is from Hamburg.

“Melancholia” is a 2011 sci-fi drama film about a depressed bride, played by Kirsten Dunst, who gets married as a rogue planet heads on a collision course to the Earth. Written and directed by Danish filmmaker Lars von Trier, it is the second movie in his “Depression Trilogy”, following “Antichrist” (2009) and preceding “Nymphomaniac” (2013). All three sound way too depressing for me …

63A Treat at New Orleans’ Café du Monde : BEIGNET

A beignet is a pastry made from choux dough that is deep fried, and usually served with powdered sugar on top. “Beignet” is a French word that translates as “bump”.

Café du Monde (“Café of the World”) is a famous coffee shop located in the French Quarter of New Orleans. The café has been there a long time, having been established in 1862.

Down

3D New Mexico pepper : HATCH CHILE

Hatch chiles are not a specific variety of pepper, but rather a designation of origin for cultivars grown exclusively in the Hatch Valley of New Mexico. The region enjoys intense summer sunlight and cool nighttime temperatures along the Rio Grande, which imparts a distinctive earthy flavor that cannot be replicated elsewhere.

4D Nebraska home of the Durham Museum : OMAHA

The Durham Museum in Omaha, Nebraska, preserves the history of the US’s western expansion. It is affiliated to the Smithsonian, and is housed in the city’s beautiful old Union Station, which was built in the Art Deco style in 1931.

6D Bugling deer : ELK

Male elks are called bulls, and females are known as cows. Bull elks are known for their very loud screaming, which is called bugling. Cow elks are attracted to bulls that bugle more often and most loudly.

9D Sneaker with the Jumpman logo : AIR JORDAN

Air Jordan is a Nike brand of shoe (and other apparel) endorsed by NBA great Michael Jordan. The silhouette of a basketball player that features on Air Jordans is known as the “Jumpman” logo.

11D Like a giant redwood : TALL

The giant sequoia tree is also known as the giant redwood. There’s only one part of the world where you can see giant sequoias growing naturally, and that’s on the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada mountain range in California. However, there are plenty of examples of giant sequoias that have been planted as ornamentals all over the world.

12D Delta deposit : SILT

Today, we mostly think of silt as a deposit of sediment in a river. Back in the mid-1400s, silt was sediment deposited by seawater. It is thought that the word “silt” is related to “salt”, as found in seawater.

A river delta is a triangular landform at the mouth of a river created by the deposition of sediment. The use of the term “delta” in this context comes from the triangular shape of the Greek letter delta. The Nile Delta in Northern Egypt is one of the world’s largest river deltas, and covers 150 miles of coastline on the Mediterranean. The most famous “delta” in the United States isn’t actually a delta at all. The Mississippi Delta is an alluvial plain that lies 300 miles north of the river’s actual delta, yet it is known as the “Mississippi Delta”. Very confusing …

16D Ballot dangler in 2000 election news : HANGING CHAD

We are all familiar with “hanging chads” after the famous Florida election recounts of 2000. A chad is any piece of paper punched out from a larger sheet. So, those round bits of paper we’ve all dropped over the floor when emptying a hole punch, they’re chads.

18D Party animal? : PINATA

Piñatas originated in Mexico, probably among the Aztecs or Mayans. Today’s piñatas are usually made from cardboard that is brightly decorated with papier-mâché. Traditionally a piñata was made out of a clay pot, adorned with feathers and ribbons and filled with small treasures. During religious ceremonies the clay pots would be suspended and broken open so that the contents would spill out onto the ground at the feet of a god as an offering.

21D Jerry Stiller, to Ben Stiller : DAD

Jerry Stiller is an actor and comedian, most associated with the role of Frank Costanza on “Seinfeld”. For many years he was part of the comedy team Stiller and Meara along with his wife, Anne Meara. Stiller and Meara’s children are the actors Ben and Amy Stiller.

24D San Antonio school trip destination : 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.

25D Gas measured in a home inspection : RADON

The element radon (Rn) is a radioactive gas, and a byproduct produced when uranium decays naturally in the earth. Radon gas can collect and accumulate in buildings and rooms that are particularly well insulated with very little air exchange. The danger is very real, as radon is listed as the second most frequent cause of lung cancer after cigarette smoke.

28D Region of South Carolina and Georgia, or what can be found in 3-, 9-, 16-, and 32-Down : LOWCOUNTRY

The Lowcountry region stretches along the Atlantic coast from Charleston, South Carolina to Savannah, Georgia. It is known for its salt marshes and centuries-old live oaks draped in Spanish moss. It was once rich in agricultural crops like rice and indigo, grown using slave labor. Enslaved West Africans managed to preserve their traditions, giving rise to the distinct Gullah Geechee culture that is now celebrated in the Gullah-Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor that runs from North Carolina to Florida.

29D Build-__ Workshop: toy retailer : A-BEAR

Build-A-Bear Workshop is a retailer of stuffed animals, mainly teddy bears, that was founded in Saint Louis in 1997. The “gimmick” is that customers get to customize their stuffed animal during the purchasing process in the store.

42D Like some Pride Month celebrants : GAY

The police raided a gay bar called the Stonewall Inn on June 28th, 1969. That raid triggered a spate of violent demonstrations led by the LGBT community. Now known as the Stonewall riots, those demonstrations are viewed by many as a significant event leading to the modern-day fight for LGBT rights in the US. Since then, June has been chosen as LGBT Pride Month in recognition of the Stonewall riots.

52D “Broad City” star Jacobson : ABBI

Abbi Jacobson is a comedian and actress who is perhaps best known as the co-creator, along with Ilana Glazer, of the Comedy Central sitcom “Broad City”. She also appeared in, wrote for and co-created the 2022 TV series “A League of Their Own”, which is based on the 1992 film of the same name.

“Broad City” is a sitcom shown on Comedy Central that started out life as a web series on the Internet. It’s about two young Jewish American women having misadventures in New York City.

54D Qatar leader : EMIR

Qatar is a sovereign state in the Middle East occupying the Qatar Peninsula, itself located in the Arabian Peninsula. Qatar lies on the Persian Gulf and shares one land border, with Saudi Arabia to the south. In 2010, Qatar had the fastest growing economy in the world, driven by the petrochemical industry.

61D The NHL’s Ducks, on sports tickers : ANA

The Walt Disney Company founded the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim hockey team in 1993, with the franchise’s name being a nod to the 1992 Disney movie called “The Mighty Ducks”. Disney sold the team in 2005, and the new owners changed the franchise’s name to the Anaheim Ducks prior to the 2006-2007 season.

62D Block letters? : SPF

In theory, the sun protection factor (SPF) is a calibrated measure of the effectiveness of a sunscreen in protecting the skin from harmful UV rays. The idea is that if you wear a lotion with say SPF 20, then it takes 20 times as much UV radiation to cause the skin to burn than it would take without protection. I say just stay out of the sun …