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Constructed by: Winston Emmons
Edited by: Rich Norris

Today’s Reveal Answer: Last Dance

The LAST word in each of today’s themed answers is a type of DANCE:

• 34D Wedding reception finale, and a feature of the answers to starred clues : LAST DANCE

• 21A *Site of an annual ball drop : TIMES SQUARE (giving “square dance”)
• 38A *Comedic climax : GAG LINE (giving “line dance”)
• 53A *Ray Kinsella in “Field of Dreams,” e.g. : BASEBALL FAN (giving “fan dance”)
• 3D *Keg buy in a pub : BEER ON TAP (giving “tap dance”)

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

Bill’s time: 5m 17s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1 Eva of “Green Acres” : GABOR

Eva Gabor was the youngest of the Gabor sisters, all three of whom were celebrated Hollywood actresses and socialites (her siblings were Zsa-Zsa and Magda). One of Eva’s claims to fame is the unwitting promotion of the game called “Twister”, the sales of which were languishing in 1966. In an appearance on “The Tonight Show” she got on all fours and played the game with Johnny Carson. Sales took off immediately, and Twister became a huge hit.

The popular sitcom “Green Acres” originally aired from 1965 to 1971. The magnificent stars of the show were Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor, playing a couple who moved from New York City to a farm in the country. “Green Acres” was cancelled as part of CBS’s so-called “rural purge”. In a move to attract younger audiences, shows were added to the schedule with more urban and contemporary themes. Classics like “The Beverly Hillbillies”, “Hee Haw” and “Mayberry R.F.D.” were dropped at the same time as “Green Acres”.

6 Smart guy? : ALEC

Apparently, the original “smart Alec” (sometimes “Aleck”) was one Alec Hoag, a pimp, thief and confidence trickster who plied his trade in New York City in the 1840s.

10 Mosque leader : IMAM

An imam is a Muslim leader, and often the person in charge of a mosque and/or perhaps a Muslim community.

14 L.A.’s Staples Center, e.g. : ARENA

The Staples Center is a sports arena in Los Angeles that opened in 1999. It is home to several sporting franchises, including the LA Lakers and LA Clippers basketball teams and the LA Kings hockey team.

15 “The lady __ protest too much, methinks”: “Hamlet” : DOTH

“The lady doth protest too much, methinks” is a line spoken by Queen Gertrude, Hamlet’s mother in the play by William Shakespeare. We might quote the line when referring to someone who we suspect is being insincere, especially when that person seems to overly object to something.

16 Zilch : NADA

We use the term “zilch” to mean “nothing”. Our current usage evolved in the sixties, before which the term was used to describe “meaningless speech”. There was a comic character called Mr. Zilch in the 1930s in “Ballyhoo” magazine. Mr. Zilch’s name probably came from the American college slang “Joe Zilch” that was used in the early 1900s for “an insignificant person”.

17 Frozen rain : SLEET

Apparently, “sleet” is a term used to describe two different weather conditions. One is a shower of ice pellets that are smaller than hail, and the second is a mixture of rain and snow, with the snow melting as it falls.

18 “The African Queen” co-screenwriter James : AGEE

James Agee was a noted American film critic and screenwriter. Agee wrote an autobiographical novel “A Death in the Family” that won him his Pulitzer in 1958, albeit posthumously. He was also one of the screenwriters for the 1951 classic movie “The African Queen”.

“The African Queen” is a 1935 novel by C. S. Forester that was adapted into a very successful 1951 film of the same name starring Katherine Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart. The title refers to a steam-powered launch that travels the Ulanga River. The story is set during World War I. At the climax of the tale, the African Queen is used as a makeshift torpedo to sink a German gunboat (spoiler!).

20 ESP neighbor, to the IOC : POR

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) uses its own set of three-letter abbreviations for country names, e.g. HUN (Hungary), ECU (Ecuador), ESP (Spain), POR (Portugal) and CRO (Croatia).

21 *Site of an annual ball drop : TIMES SQUARE (giving “square dance”)

The famous New Year’s Eve (NYE) ball-dropping tradition in Times Square started on January 1st 1908. The original ball was lit with one hundred 25-watt light bulbs and was dropped at one second after midnight. A fifth version of the ball was introduced in 2008 for the centennial anniversary of the ceremony. The 2008 ball was built by Waterford Crystal and was lit by 9,567 LED bulbs that consumed the same amount of power as ten electric toasters. The current ball was used for the first time in 2009, and is double the size of the 2008 ball at 12 feet in diameter. The ball now sits atop Times Square year round, so you can go see it next time you are in town.

A square dance is a dance for eight participants, i.e. four couples. For much of the time, the couples are arranged so that they form the sides of a square, hence the name of the dance.

24 Acrylic fiber : ORLON

Orlon is the brand name used by the DuPont Corporation for the acrylic fibers the company developed in 1941.

26 Bach composition : SUITE

Johann Sebastian Bach died when he was 65-years-old, in 1750. He was buried in Old St. John’s Cemetery in Leipzig, and his grave went unmarked until 1894. At that time his coffin was located, removed and buried in a vault within the church. The church was destroyed in an Allied bombing raid during WWII, and so after the war the remains had to be recovered and taken to the Church of St. Thomas in Leipzig.

29 Halley observation : COMET

Comets and asteroids are similar, both being relatively small celestial bodies orbiting the sun. Comets differ from asteroids in that they have a coma or tail, especially when they are close enough to the sun. The coma and tail are temporary fuzzy atmospheres that develop due to the presence of solar radiation. Comets are sometimes referred to as “dirty snowballs”, a reference to their composition: rock, dust, water ice and frozen gases.

Edmond Halley was an English astronomer who lived at the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries. In 1705 he declared that comet sightings recorded in 1456, 1531, 1607 and 1682 were in fact observations of the same comet returning to fly by Earth at regular intervals. He predicted that this comet would return in 1758. Hally was right, and so the comet was named after him. Sadly, Halley didn’t live long enough to see that his prediction came true.

31 Bernie’s songwriting partner : ELTON

Bernie Taupin is the celebrated lyricist who wrote the words to so many of the songs composed and published by Elton John. The pair were brought together by the music paper “New Musical Express” in England. Elton John submitted some of his work to the paper in 1967, and Taupin answered an ad for songwriters. The paper brought the two together, and they’ve worked together ever since.

32 Hawaii state bird : NENE

The nene is a bird that is native to Hawaii, and is also known as the Hawaiian goose. The name “nene” is imitative of its call. When Captain Cook landed on the islands in 1778, there were 25,000 nene living there. By 1950, the number was reduced by hunting to just 30 birds. Conservation efforts in recent years have been somewhat successful. The nene was named State Bird of Hawaii in 1957.

33 Poetry competition : SLAM

A poetry slam is a competition in which poets read their own work (usually), with winners being chosen by members of the audience. Apparently the first poetry slam took place in Chicago in 1984. Now there is a National Poetry Slam that takes place each year, with representatives from the US, Canada and France.

42 Unkempt dos : MOPS

The word “unkempt” means “disheveled, not well-combed”. It derives from the Old English word “cemban” meaning “to comb”. The opposite to the more common “unkempt” is … “kempt”.

44 Electrical unit : VOLT

Alessandro Volta was the physicist who invented the first battery, way back in 1800. One of Volta’s first applications of his new invention was to use a battery (and a very long run of wire between the Italian cities of Como and Milan) to shoot off a pistol from 30 miles away! The electric potential unit “volt” is named for Volta.

The volt is a unit of electric potential, or voltage. I always think of electrical voltage as something like water pressure. The higher the pressure of water (voltage), the faster the water flows (the higher the electric current that flows).

52 Oscar, for one : AWARD

Legend has it that actor Emilio Fernández was the model for the Oscar statuette. Cedric Gibbons, art director at MGM, created the design and supposedly convinced a reluctant Fernández to pose nude for “Oscar”.

53 *Ray Kinsella in “Field of Dreams,” e.g. : BASEBALL FAN (giving “fan dance”)

The fan dance performed using ostrich feathers was popularized by burlesque star Sally Rand. “Sally Rand” was a stage name used by Helen Beck. The Rand name was given to her by film director Cecil B. DeMille, inspired by the Rand McNally road atlas. Rand’s most famous performance was at the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair. While performing at the Fair she was arrested four times for public nudity, even though the nudity was only an illusion as Rand was in fact wearing a bodysuit at the time.

“Field of Dreams” is a fantasy drama about baseball, released in 1989 and starring Kevin Costner. The movie is an adaptation of a 1982 novel titled “Shoeless Joe” by Canadian author W. P. Kinsella. Shoeless Joe Jackson was a real baseball player, and someone associated with the Black Sox Scandal that allegedly affected the outcome of the 1919 World Series. Jackson was portrayed by Ray Liotta in the movie. “Field of Dreams” was also the last film in which Burt Lancaster made an appearance. The baseball stadium that was built for the movie can be visited in Dubuque County, Iowa.

59 Como una mujer con mucho dinero : RICA

In Spanish, someone might be “rica” (rich), “como una mujer con mucho dinero” (like a woman with a lot of money).

60 Best ever, initially : GOAT

Greatest of all time (GOAT)

61 Paddled boat : CANOE

The boat known as a canoe takes its name from the Carib word “kenu” meaning “dugout”. It was Christopher Columbus who brought “kenu” into Spanish as “canoa”, which evolved into our English “canoe”.

63 Haphazard way to run : AMOK

The phrase “to run amok” (sometimes “to run amuck”) has been around since the 1670s and is derived from the Malay word for “attacking furiously”, “amuk”. The word “amok” was also used as a noun to describe Malay natives who were “frenzied”. Given Malaya’s troubled history, the natives probably had a good reason for that frenzy …

Our word “hap” means chance or fortune. It turns up combined in words like “haphazard” and even “happen”. “To happen” originally meant “to occur by hap, by chance”.

64 Salinger title girl who says, “I’m extremely interested in squalor” : ESME

J. D. Salinger wrote a short story called “For Esmé – with Love and Squalor” that was originally published in “The New Yorker” in 1950. It is a story about a young English girl called Esme and an American soldier, and is set in WWII.

65 Florida theme park : EPCOT

EPCOT Center (now just called “Epcot”) is the theme park beside Walt Disney World in Florida. EPCOT is an acronym standing for Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow, and is a representation of the future as envisioned by Walt Disney. Walt Disney actually wanted to build a living community for 20,000 residents at EPCOT, but he passed away without that vision being realized.

67 Kevin Costner in “Field of Dreams,” e.g. : STAR

Actor Kevin Costner has famously appeared in several movies that include a baseball theme. The list includes some favorites of mine, including:

• Bull Durham (1988)
• Field of Dreams (1989)
• For Love of the Game (1999)

Down

2 Folksy Guthrie : ARLO

Singer Arlo Guthrie is known for his protest songs, just like his father Woody Guthrie. The younger Guthrie only ever had one song in the top 40: a cover version of “City of New Orleans”. He has lived for years in the town of Washington, just outside Pittsfield, Massachusetts. His 1976 song “Massachusetts” has been the official folk song of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts since 1981.

6 Rhett’s last words : … A DAMN

In Margaret Mitchell’s novel “Gone with the Wind”, when Rhett Butler finally walks out on Scarlett O’Hara he utters the words “My dear, I don’t give a damn”. Most of us are more familiar with the slightly different words spoken by Clark Gable in the film adaptation of the story: “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.”

7 Theater tier : LOGE

In most theaters and stadiums today, “loge” is the name given to the front rows of a mezzanine level. Loge can also be used for box seating.

8 Sorbonne summers : ETES

“Sorbonne” is the name usually used for the old University of Paris, and some of the institutions that have succeeded it. The institution was named for French theologian Robert de Sorbonne who founded the original Collège de Sorbonne in 1257. That’s quite a while ago …

9 Knights or rooks : CHESSMEN

It is believed that the game of chess originated in northwest India. It evolved from a 6th-century game called “chaturanga”, a Sanskrit word meaning “four divisions”. These four (military) divisions were represented in the game:

• Infantry (now “pawns”)
• Cavalry (now “knights”)
• Elephants (now “bishops”)
• Chariots (now “rooks”)

10 Somehow knows : INTUITS

“To intuit” is a verb formed from the noun “intuition”, and means “to know intuitively”.

11 French Revolution radical : MARAT

Jean-Paul Marat was a prominent figure in the French Revolution. Marat was famously murdered in his bath by a young woman named Charlotte Corday, who was a Royalist. The gruesome event was immortalized in a celebrated painting by Jacques-Louis David called “The Death of Marat”.

13 Deckhand : MATE

On a merchant ship, the first mate (sometimes “first officer, chief mate”) is the highest-ranking deck officer, and reports directly to the captain.

23 Montreal’s prov. : QUE

Québec is the largest province in Canada, and the only one with French as its sole official language. The name “Québec” comes from an Algonquin word “kebec” meaning “where the river narrows”. This refers to the area around Quebec City where the St. Lawrence River narrows as it flows through a gap lined by steep cliffs. The province has voted twice in referenda asking whether or not Quebec should become an independent country, once in 1980, and again in 1995. The 1995 result was 49% in favor of sovereignty, up from 40% in 1980.

The original name of Montreal was “Ville-Marie”, meaning “City of Mary”. “Ville-Marie” is now the name of a borough in the city, the borough which includes the downtown area and “Old Montreal”. The present-day city covers most of the Island of Montreal (in French, “Île de Montréal”) that is located where the Saint Lawrence and Ottawa Rivers meet. The name “Montreal” comes from the three-headed hill that dominates the island and is called “Mount Royal”.

25 Old MGM rival : RKO

The RKO Pictures studio was formed when RCA (RADIO Corporation of America) bought the KEITH-Albee-ORPHEUM theaters (and Joe Kennedy’s Film Booking Offices of America). The RKO initialism then comes from the words “Radio”, “Keith” and “Orpheum”.

The Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) film studio was founded in 1924 by Marcus Loew. Loew was already a successful movie theater owner when he purchased Metro Pictures Corporation in 1919, and then Goldwyn Pictures in 1924. Later in 1924, Loew also purchased Louis B. Mayer Pictures, mainly so that Louis B. Mayer could merge all three studios and run them himself as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

28 Kind of sax : ALTO

The saxophone was invented by Belgian musician Adolphe Sax, hence the name. Sax developed lip cancer at one point in his life, and one has to wonder if his affliction was related to his saxophone playing (I am sure not!). I had the privilege of visiting Sax’s grave in the Cemetery of Montmartre in Paris a few years ago.

29 Phones in pockets or purses : CELLS

What we mostly know as a “cell phone” here in North America is more usually referred to as a “mobile phone” in Britain and Ireland. My favorite term for the device is used in Germany, where it is called a “Handy”.

32 Oxfam and CARE, for two : NGOS

Non-governmental organization (NGO)

Oxfam was founded in 1942 in Oxford, England, and was originally called the Oxford Committee for Famine Relief. The original mission of Oxfam was to persuade the British government to allow food into Greece during WWII in the days the country was occupied by the Axis Powers. The name OXFAM was adopted in 1965. Prior to that date, OXFAM was quite simply the organization’s telegraph address (remember telegraphs?).

The Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere (CARE) is a humanitarian agency that was founded in 1945 in the US as a conglomerate of twenty-two charities with the aim of delivering aid to Europe after WWII. The acronym originally stood for “Cooperative for American Remittances to Europe”.

39 Batting stats : AVERAGES

In baseball, a player’s batting average (BA) is calculated by dividing base hits (H) by at bats (AB).

43 Barely runs? : STREAKS

People have been running around naked for an awfully long time, but the application of the word “streaking” to the phenomenon only dates back to 1973. A journalist was reporting on a mass nude run of 533 people at the University of Maryland in 1973, and used the words “they are streaking (i.e. moving quickly) past me right now. It’s an incredible sight!”. The Associated Press picked up the story the next day, and interpreted “streaking” as the term to describe “running naked”, and we’ve been using it that way ever since.

46 Item for a dinghy : OAR

Our term “dinghy” comes from the Hindi “dingi”, a word meaning “small boat”.

48 Civil War soldier : REB

During the Civil War, the personification of the Southern states was “Johnny Reb”. The northern equivalent was “Billy Yank”.

49 Pan Am rival : TWA

Trans World Airlines (TWA) was a big carrier in the US, but was perhaps even more recognized for its extensive presence in Europe and the Middle East. For many years, especially after the collapse of Pan Am and TWA’s purchase by Howard Hughes, TWA was considered the unofficial flag carrier for the US. The company started in 1930, the product of a forced merger of Transcontinental Air Transport and Western Air Express. The Transcontinental and Western Air that resulted (the original meaning of the initialism “TWA”) was what the Postmaster General wanted, a bigger airline to which the Postal Service could award airmail contracts.

Pan American World Airways (usually just “Pan Am”) started out as a mail and passenger service between Key West, Florida and Havana, Cuba in 1927. From very early in the company’s life it was the de facto representative air carrier of the United States. For many years, Pan Am’s fleet was built around the Boeing 314 Clipper, a long-range flying boat that was one of the largest aircraft around at the time. Pan Am adopted the Clipper as part of its image, even using “clipper” as the call sign for its flights.

50 “Spider-Man” trilogy director Sam : RAIMI

Sam Raimi is a very successful director and producer. He was behind the “Spider-Man” series of films among others, and TV shows such as “Xena: Warrior Princess”. In 1993, Raimi married Gillian Green, the youngest daughter of actor Lorne Greene of “Bonanza” fame. Raimi and Greene named their eldest son Lorne, after his grandfather.

51 Fancy neckwear : ASCOT

An ascot is a wide tie that narrows at the neck, which these days is only really worn at weddings or part of a dress uniform. The tie takes its name from the Royal Ascot horse race at which punters still turn up in formal wear at Ascot Racecourse in England.

54 121-episode TV drama set on a mysterious island : LOST

In the TV show “Lost”, the plane that crashed was operated by Oceanic Airlines. The fictional airline Oceanic Airlines or Oceanic Airways turns up a lot on the big and small screen. You might spot Oceanic in the movies “Executive Decision” and “For Love of the Game”, and in episodes of the TV shows “Castle”, “Chuck”, “Flipper”, “The Goldbergs” and “The X-Files”.

55 Tibetan honorific : LAMA

“Lama” is a Tibetan word meaning “chief, high priest”.

58 Citi Field team : METS

Citi Field is a relatively new baseball stadium used by the New York Mets that sits right next door to the site of Shea stadium, where the Mets had played for decades. And the new facility’s name comes from corporate sponsor Citigroup.

62 Bonobo, for one : APE

The bonobo used to be called the pygmy chimpanzee, and is a cousin of the common chimpanzee. The bonobo is an endangered species that is now found in the wild only in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in Africa. Along with the common chimpanzee, the bonobo is the genetically closest species to humans.