Day: May 5, 2021

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Constructed by: August Miller
Edited by: Rich Norris

Today’s Reveal Answer: Ahead of Schedule

Themed answers each end with a word that is often seen AHEAD OF “SCHEDULE””:

• 38A Early … or where the answers to the starred clues’ ending words can be found : AHEAD OF SCHEDULE

• 17A *Broadcast medium for major U.S. sporting events : NATIONAL TV (giving “TV schedule”)
• 25A *Request at a mom-and-pop store, maybe : CASH PAYMENT (giving “payment schedule”)
• 47A *NASA event : SPACE FLIGHT (giving “flight schedule”)
• 60A *Field trip transport : CHARTER BUS (giving “bus schedule”)

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

Bill’s time: 6m 43s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1 Wife of Jupiter : JUNO

Juno was the patron goddess of Rome and the Roman Empire, and also looked after the interests of the women of Rome. Juno was the sister and wife of Jupiter, the king of the Roman gods.

5 Element #5 : BORON

Boron is the chemical element with the atomic number of 5 and symbol B. It lies over to the right in Group 13 of the Periodic Table of the Elements. Uncombined, elemental boron is not found naturally on Earth. The boron that is mined is found in oxide form, not as uncombined boron.

10 Opening on Broadway : ACT I

Broadway really is, and always has been, the Main Street of New York City. It started out as the Wickquasgeck Trail that was trampled into the Manhattan brush land by the Native Americans of the area. In the days of the Dutch, the trail became the main road though the island of Manhattan, down to the New Amsterdam settlement in the south. The Dutch described it as a “Breede weg”, a broad street or broad way. The name Broadway was adopted as the official name for the whole thoroughfare in 1899 … on Valentine’s Day.

15 First in a line of Russian princes : IVAN I

Ivan I was Prince of Moscow from 1325, succeeding his older brother Yuri III, who in turn succeeded their father Daniil Aleksandrovich. Daniil was the first Prince of Moscow, the first in a long line that culminated in Ivan the Terrible, who became the first Tsar of Russia.

16 Pastoral plaints : BAAS

A plaint is a grouse, a complaint.

19 PC shortcut key : CTRL

The Control (CTRL) key on a PC keyboard is used to modify the function of other keys. For example, pressing CTRL+C copies a selection to the clipboard, and CTRL+V pastes the contents of the clipboard to a location defined by the cursor. Control keys were introduced on teletypewriters to generate “control characters”, which are non-printing characters that instruct a computer to do something like print a page, ring a bell etc.

21 Adrienne Rich work, e.g. : POEM

Adrienne Rich was a poet and feminist. Famously, Rich declined to the National Medal of Arts in 1997 as a protest. She decried the Clinton Administration’s policies towards the arts, and the efforts by Newt Gingrich to shut down the National Endowment for the Arts.

23 Issa of “The Lovebirds” : RAE

Issa Rae is a Stanford University graduate who created a YouTube web series called “The Mis-Adventures of Awkward Black Girl”. Rae also plays the title role in the series, a young lady named “J”. “Awkward Black Girl” was adapted into an HBO comedy-drama called “Insecure”, in which Issa Rae stars.

“The Lovebirds” is a 2020 romantic comedy movie starring Issa Rae and Kumail Nanjiani as a couple on the run after witnessing a murder. The film’s release schedule was disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Netflix stepped in and bought it for online release. As a result, “The Lovebirds” was the top-streamed title on Netflix on the weekend it became available.

24 Gymnast Raisman : ALY

Aly Raisman is a retired gymnast. She captained the US gold-winning teams in the Olympics in 2012 (“The Fierce Five”) and in 2016 (“The Final Five”).

29 “The Sweetest Taboo” singer : SADE

Singer Sade’s real name is Helen Folasade Adu. Although born in Nigeria, Sade grew up and lives in the UK. She was the lead vocalist for the English group Sade, and adopted the name of the band. The band’s biggest hits were “Smooth Operator” (1984) and “The Sweetest Taboo” (1985).

41 Brazilian port city : SANTOS

The port city of Santos in Brazil is home to the busiest port in Latin America (the Port of Santos). The city owes much of its historical wealth to the export of coffee.

51 Seller of Souls : KIA

The Kia Soul is a compact car produced in South Korea, although it was designed by Kia here in the US, in Irvine, California. Yep, the Kia Soul is made in Seoul …

54 Cartoon frame : CEL

In the world of animation, a cel is a transparent sheet on which objects and characters are drawn. In the first half of the 20th century the sheet was actually made of celluloid, giving the “cel” its name.

55 Chanel rival : DIOR

Christian Dior was a French fashion designer. As WWII approached, Dior was called up by the French military, drawing a temporary halt to his career in fashion. He left the army in 1942 and for the duration of the war designed clothes for wives of Nazi officers and French collaborators. After the war his designs became so popular that he helped to re-establish Paris as the fashion center of the world.

Coco Chanel was a French fashion designer. I’m no fashionista, but if I had to pick a designer whose clothes I really liked, it would be Chanel. She had a way of creating simpler designs that look so elegant on a woman.

58 Utah ski resort : ALTA

Alta ski resort actually lies within the Salt Lake City Metropolitan Area. The first ski lift in the resort was opened way back in 1939. Today, Alta is one of only three ski resorts in the country that prohibits snowboarding (along with Deer Valley, Utah and Mad River Glen, Vermont. The ski resort of Snowbird, located next to Alta, has been in operation since 1971.

63 Bigfoot in photos, e.g. : BLUR

The sasquatch or bigfoot is our North American equivalent of the yeti, the ape-like creature said to inhabit the Himalayas. Bigfoot is supposedly hiding out mainly in the Pacific Northwest of North America.

64 Shade thrower : HATER

To throw shade is to show disrespect to someone publicly using insults or criticisms.

65 Novelist Émile : ZOLA

The most famous work by French writer Émile Zola is his 1898 open letter “J’Accuse!” written to French president Félix Faure. The letter was published on the front page of a leading Paris newspaper, and accused the government of anti-Semitism in its handling of the trial of Captain Alfred Dreyfus. Dreyfus was a Jewish military officer in the French army, falsely accused and convicted of spying for Germany. Even after the error was discovered, the government refused to back down and let Dreyfus rot away on Devil’s Island rather than admit to the mistake. It wasn’t until 1906, 12 years after the wrongful conviction, that Dreyfus was freed and reinstated, largely due to the advocacy of Emile Zola.

66 Racy message : SEXT

Sexting (a portmanteau of “sex” and “texting”) is the sending of explicit dialog and images between cell phones. The term “sexting” was coined by the UK’s “Sunday Telegraph Magazine” in a 2005 article.

Down

1 Leadership after some coups : JUNTA

A junta is a group of military officers that rule a country, usually after having seized power forcibly. “Junta” is a Spanish word meaning “council”.

2 DIY moving option : U-HAUL

The U-Haul company was started by married couple Leonard Shoen and Anna Mary Carty in Ridgefield, Washington in 1945. The Shoens used $5,000 of seed money to build trailers in their garage, and then cleverly recruited gas station owners as franchisees with whom they would split the rental revenue. There are now about 15,000 U-Haul dealers across the country.

5 TSA checkpoint container : BIN

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is the agency that employs the good folks who check passengers and baggage at airports.

6 Fertility lab cells : OVA

“Ovum” (plural “ova”) is Latin for “egg”.

7 Lauren of fashion : RALPH

Ralph Lauren is an American fashion designer, born Ralph Liftshitz in the Bronx, New York. Lauren started off working as a salesman for Brooks Brothers after spending two years in the US Army. He then opened a necktie store, featuring his own tie designs. The ties were sold under the name “Polo”, which became Lauren’s most famous brand. Other Lauren brands are Purple Label and Black Label.

9 Skin care brand : NIVEA

Nivea is a brand name of skin-care products from Germany. The Latin word “nivea” means “snow-white”.

10 “The Rookie” network : ABC

“The Rookie” is a comedy-drama show about a 40-year-old man who becomes the oldest rookie in the LAPD. Nathan Fillion plays the title character. That character is based on a real-life police officer named William Norcross, who joined LAPD in his mid-forties.

12 Arachnophobe’s nightmare : TARANTULA

Tarantulas are spider-like arachnids that are usually quite hairy. The original tarantula was a type of wolf spider found in Europe, found near the southern Italian town called Taranto, hence the name.

Arachnophobia is the fear of spiders, scorpions and other arachnids. The term “arachnophobia“ comes from the Greek “arachne” meaning “spider” and “phobos” meaning “fear”.

18 Penguin-hunting swimmer : ORCA

The taxonomic name for the killer whale is “Orcinus orca”. The use of the name “orca”, rather than “killer whale”, is becoming more and more common. The Latin word “Orcinus” means “belonging to Orcus”, with Orcus being the name for the Kingdom of the Dead.

26 “Until next time” : ADIOS

The term “adiós” is Spanish for “goodbye”. “Adiós” comes from the phrase “a Dios vos acomiendo” meaning “I commend you to God”.

27 Feudal laborer : SERF

A serf was a member of the lowest feudal class, someone attached to land owned by a lord. “Serf” comes from the Latin “servus”, meaning “slave”.

28 Button-shaped candies : M AND MS

Forrest Mars, Sr. was the founder of the Mars Company. Forrest invented the Mars Bar while living over in England and then developed M&M’s when he returned to the US. Mars came up with the idea for M&M’s when he saw soldiers in the Spanish Civil War eating chocolate pellets. Those pellets had a hard shell of tempered chocolate on the outside to prevent them from melting. Mars got some of the funding to develop the M&M from William Murrie, the son of the president of Hershey’s Chocolate. It is the “M” and “M” from “Mars” and “Murrie” that gives the name to the candy.

29 Airport near Puget Sound, for short : SEA-TAC

Sea-Tac Airport (SEA) is more fully known as Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. Sea-Tac is the main hub for Alaska Airlines.

31 Two-yr. degrees : AAS

Associate degree (AA)

32 Dave honored with a Mark Twain Prize in 2019 : CHAPPELLE

Dave Chappelle is a stand-up comedian who has also had some roles in big movies, like “Robin Hood: Men in Tights” and “Con Air”. Chappelle lives on a 65-acre farm outside Yellow Springs, Ohio, the town where his father lived when Dave was growing up in Washington, D.C.

The Mark Twain Prize for American Humor has been awarded annually since 1998 by the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. The first recipient of the award was Richard Pryor. George Carlin won in 2008, and was the only person to be awarded posthumously.

33 Common prom expenditure : RENTAL TUX

Apparently, the style of men’s evening dress called a “tuxedo” was first worn to a country club event in 1886 in New York. The use of a dark dinner jacket without tails became fashionable at the club with the members, and the tradition spread from there. The country club was located in Tuxedo Park, New York, giving the style of dress its name.

35 African snake : ASP

The venomous snake called an asp was a symbol of royalty in ancient Egypt.

36 With 51-Down, skewered Middle Eastern dish : SHISH …
(51D See 36-Down : … KABOB)

The term “kebab” (also “kabob”) covers a wide variety of meat dishes that originated in Persia. In the West, we usually use “kebab” when talking about shish kebab, which is meat (often lamb) served on a skewer. “Shish” comes from the Turkish word for “skewer”.

46 Raison d’__ : ETRE

“Raison d’être” is a French phrase meaning “reason for existence”.

48 Microfilm unit : FICHE

A microfiche is a micro-reproduction of some document(s) on a flat sheet of film. Usually a fiche can fit 98 document-size pages, reducing the storage space required by up to 95%.

49 “Mean Girls” star Lindsay : LOHAN

I think that actress Lindsay Lohan’s big break came with the Disney remake of “The Parent Trap” in 1998. I’ve really only enjoyed one of Lohan’s films though, “Freaky Friday” from 2003 in which she stars alongside the fabulous Jamie Lee Curtis.

57 Pastina relative : ORZO

Orzo is pasta that has been formed into granular shapes, much like barley. And indeed, “orzo” is the Italian word for “barley”. Orzo is also called “risoni”, meaning “large rice”.

Pastina is the smallest type of pasta that is produced, with “pastina” translating as “little pasta”. Pastina comes in a variety of shapes, and is mainly used as an ingredient in soups.

61 Sleep letters : REM

“REM” is an acronym standing for “rapid eye movement”. REM sleep takes up 20-25% of the sleeping hours and is the period associated with one’s most vivid dreams.