Day: March 20, 2024

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Constructed by: Michèle Govier
Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Reveal Answer: Surround Sound

Themed answers are SOUNDS SURROUNDING the edge of the grid:

• 14D Audiophile’s setup, and an apt description of the perimeter of this puzzle : SURROUND SOUND

• 1A Half a situp : CRUNCH
• 7A Commercial tune : JINGLE
• 68A Unnerve : RATTLE
• 69A 1984 mermaid movie : SPLASH
• 15D Button alternative : SNAP
• 31D Stout spout : TAP
• 38D Dad : POP
• 49D Poetry event : SLAM
• 56D Huge success : SMASH

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

Bill’s time: 5m 50s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

13 “A Wrinkle in Time” novelist Madeleine : L’ENGLE

Madeleine “L’Engle” was an author who specialized in writing fiction for young adults. Her most famous work is “A Wrinkle in Time”, which spawned a series of sequels. Published in 1962, “A Wrinkle in Time”is described as a science fantasy. Included in the book’s cast of characters are Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who and Mrs. Which, all of whom turn out to be supernatural beings who transport the protagonists through the universe.

16 How baked potatoes may be cooked : IN FOIL

Before thin sheets of aluminum metal were available as aluminum foil, thin sheets of tin were used in various applications. Tin foil isn’t a great choice for wrapping food though, as it imparts a tinny taste. On the other side of the pond, aluminum foil has a different name. No, it’s not just the different spelling of aluminum (“aluminium”). We still call it “tin foil”. You see, we live in the past …

18 Gina Boswell of Bath & Body Works, e.g.: Abbr. : CEO

Bath & Body Works was founded in New Albany, Ohio in 1990. Seven years later, it was the largest chain of bath shops in the country.

19 Sequel to Puzo’s “The Last Don” : OMERTA

Novelist and screenwriter Mario Puzo was best known for his book “The Godfather”, which he also co-adapted for the big screen. Puzo also wrote two sequels, “The Last Don” and “Omertà”, the latter being published after his death. His name is less associated with some very famous screenplays that he wrote, including “Earthquake”, “Superman” and “Superman II”. Puzo won two Oscars for Best Adapted Screenplay: for “The Godfather” (1972) and for “The Godfather Part II” (1974).

“Omertà” is a code of honor in southern Italian society. The term has been adopted by the Mafia to mean a code of silence designed to prevent a Mafioso from becoming an informer. For example, the famous Joe Valachi was someone who broke the code of silence in 1963, informing on the New York Mafia. Valachi’s story was told in the movie “The Valachi Papers”, with Charles Bronson playing the lead.

21 “Mean Girls” writer Fey : TINA

“Mean Girls” is a teen comedy movie released in 2004 starring Lindsay Lohan. Tina Fey also puts in an appearance, which really isn’t surprising as Fey wrote the screenplay.

22 Underwater plant with gas-filled bladders : KELP

Kelps are large seaweeds that grow in kelp forests underwater. Kelps can grow to over 250 feet in length, and do so very quickly. Some kelps can grow at the rate of 1-2 feet per day.

24 Wayward : ERRANT

Someone described as errant is roving around, especially in search of adventure, as in “knight-errant”.The term “errant” has come to mean “behaving wrongly” and “straying outside the bounds”.

31 Cliche : TRITE

“Cliché” is a word that comes from the world of printing. In the days when type was added as individual letters into a printing plate, for efficiency some oft-used phrases and words were created as one single slug of metal. The word “cliché” was used for such a grouping of letters. It’s easy to see how the same word would become a term to describe any overused phrase. Supposedly, “cliché” comes from French, from the verb “clicher” meaning “to click”. The idea is that when a matrix of letters was dropped in molten metal to make a cliché, it made a clicking sound.

39 Eurythmics lead singer Lennox : ANNIE

Annie Lennox is a Scottish singer who rose to fame as half of the duo Eurythmics, with David A. Stewart, in the 1980s. Lennox went solo in 1992, and has been riding high ever since.

40 Go from 4×6 to 8×10, say: Abbr. : ENL

Enlargement (enl.)

43 JFK predecessor : DDE

President Dwight D. Eisenhower (DDE) was replaced in office by President John F. Kennedy (JFK).

45 “The __ is calm tonight”: “Dover Beach” opening : SEA

“Dover Beach” is an 1867 poem by English poet Matthew Arnold.

The sea is calm tonight.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; —on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!

49 Amtrak stop: Abbr. : STA

“Amtrak” is the name used commercially by the National Railroad Passenger Corporation. It comes from a melding of the words “America” and “track”.

59 Creative works : OPUSES

The Latin for “work” is “opus”, with the plural being “opera”. We sometimes use the plural “opuses” in English, but that’s just to annoy me …

64 Yukon neighbor : ALASKA

Alaska was never a profitable colony for Russia, so the empire was probably glad to receive the $7.2 million forked out by the US in 1867. The Alaska Purchase took place during the administration of President Andrew Johnson, while William H. Seward served as Secretary of State. Famously, opponents of the administration labeled the purchase “Seward’s Folly”. The US military ran Alaska for a while, until it was made into a territory in 1884. Alaska was admitted to the Union as the 49th state in 1959.

Canada’s federal territory known as Yukon takes its name from the Yukon River. “Yukon” means “Big Stream” in the local Gwich’in language.

67 Watering hole in TV’s “M*A*S*H” : ROSIE’S

“M*A*S*H” has only three stars (three asterisks, that is). These asterisks first appeared on the poster for the 1970 movie, but they were omitted in the opening titles. The TV series went on to use the asterisks from the poster.

69 1984 mermaid movie : SPLASH

“Splash” is a 1984 comedy movie directed by Ron Howard, and starring Tom Hanks and Daryl Hannah. Hanks plays a guy who falls for a mysterious woman (Hannah), who turns out to be a mermaid. One thing notable about “Splash” is that it was the first film to be released under Walt Disney’s “Touchstone Pictures” label.

Down

2 Zellweger of “Judy” : RENEE

Renée Zellweger’s big break came with the 1996 movie “Jerry Maguire”. A few years later, Zellweger followed that up with a string of successes in “Bridget Jones’ Diary” (2001), “Chicago” (2002) and “Cold Mountain” (2003). My wife and I love watching her play Bridget Jones, and as someone coming from Britain and Ireland, I have to say that Zellweger does a remarkable job with the accent. She worked hard to perfect that accent, and of course she had a voice coach. She also went “undercover” and worked as a temp in an office for three weeks fine-tuning her skills.

The 2019 movie “Judy” is a biopic about singer and actress Judy Garland. The film is an adaptation of the 2005 Peter Quilter play “End of the Rainbow”. “Judy” focuses on the last year of Garland’s life, with Renée Zellweger in the title role.

4 CARE, e.g. : NGO

The humanitarian agency CARE was founded in 1945 as the Cooperative for American Remittances to Europe. It was this agency who introduced the original “CARE package”, a carton of food aid delivered to individuals. Since 1993, the acronym CARE has been standing for “Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere”.

5 Sister of Erato : CLIO

In Greek mythology, the muses are the goddesses who inspire the creation of literature and the arts. The number of muses is a subject of debate at times, but the most popular view is that there are nine:

• Calliope (epic poetry)
• Clio (history)
• Erato (lyric poetry)
• Euterpe (music)
• Melpomene (tragedy)
• Polyhymnia (choral poetry)
• Terpsichore (dance)
• Thalia (comedy)
• Urania (astronomy)

7 Ruling faction after a coup : 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”.

9 Contract that may prevent bad PR : NDA

Non-disclosure agreement (NDA)

10 Crux : GIST

“Crux” is the Latin word for “cross”. The term came into English meaning “a central difficulty” in the early 1700s.

11 Ancestor of the romance languages : LATIN

The Latins were a race who migrated into the Italian peninsula during the Bronze Age, settling in a triangular region on the west coast that became known as Latium. It was the Latins who founded the city of Rome in Latium. The language that developed among the people of Latium is what we now know as “Latin”.

Vulgar Latin (meaning “common, vernacular” Latin) was the spoken form of the language, rather than the standard written form. It is from Vulgar Latin that the Romance languages like French, Spanish and Italian developed.

12 Justice Kagan : ELENA

Elena Kagan was the Solicitor General of the United States who replaced Justice John Paul Stevens on the US Supreme Court. That made Justice Kagan the first female US Solicitor General and the fourth female US Supreme Court justice. I hear she is a fan of Jane Austen, and used to reread “Pride and Prejudice” once a year. Not a bad thing to do, I’d say …

14 Audiophile’s setup, and an apt description of the perimeter of this puzzle : SURROUND SOUND

Monophonic sound (“mono”) is sound reproduced using just one audio channel, which is usually played out of just one speaker. Stereophonic sound is reproduced using two audio channels, with the sound from each channel played out of two different speakers. The pair of stereo speakers are usually positioned apart from each other so that sound appears to come from between the two. Quadraphonic sound (4.0 surround sound) uses four audio channels with the sound played back through four speakers that are often positioned at the corners of the room in which one is listening.

25 Fertile Crescent river : TIGRIS

The Fertile Crescent is a large swath of land in the Near East that includes the Nile Valley in the west and the land around the Tigris and Euphrates in the east.

28 Some combines : DEERES

John Deere invented the first commercially successful steel plow in 1837. Prior to Deere’s invention, farmers used an iron or wooden plow that constantly had to be cleaned as rich soil stuck to its surfaces. The cast-steel plow was revolutionary as its smooth sides solved the problem of “stickiness”. The Deere company that John founded uses the slogan “Nothing Runs Like a Deere”, and has a leaping deer as its logo.

30 Origami birds : CRANES

The magnificent birds known as cranes have long legs and long necks. The species called the Sarus Crane is the world’s tallest flying bird.

Origami is the traditional Japanese art form of paper folding. The best-known example of the craft is the paper crane (“orizuru“). The word “origami” is derived from “ori“ (folding) and “kami” (paper).

31 Stout spout : TAP

The term “stout” was first used for a type of beer in the 1600s when it was used to describe a “strong, stout” brew, and not necessarily a dark beer as it is today.

32 Messenger molecule : RNA

Ribonucleic acid (RNA) is an essential catalyst in the manufacture of proteins in the body. The genetic code in DNA determines the sequence of amino acids that make up each protein. That sequence is read in DNA by messenger RNA, and amino acids are delivered for protein manufacture in the correct sequence by transfer RNA. The amino acids are then formed into proteins by ribosomal RNA. An added complication is that small changes in the sequence of amino acids specified by DNA sometimes takes place in a process known as RNA editing. This RNA editing occurs after the nucleotide sequence has been transcribed from DNA, but before it is translated into protein.

34 Soccer equipment : CLEATS

Soccer (also known as “association football”) is the most popular sport in the world. The term “association football” was introduced in 1863 in England, with the name chosen to distinguish the sport from rugby football. The term “soccer” started to appear about 20 years later in Oxford, as an abbreviation for “association”.

36 Youngest daughter of Nicholas II : ANASTASIA

The last ruler of Imperial Russia was Tsar Nicholas II (of the House of Romanov). Famously, the Tsar and his family were murdered in 1918 in the basement of a house in Yekaterinburg, Russia by members of the Bolshevik secret police. The Tsar’s youngest daughter was 16-year-old Anastasia and rumors of her escape have persisted for years. The rumors grew with the help of numerous women who claimed to be Anastasia. In 2009, DNA testing finally proved that the remains of all of the Tsar’s immediate family, including Anastasia, have been found and identified.

37 Valvoline rival : STP

STP was founded in 1953 by racing enthusiast and businessman Andy Granatelli. The name “STP” stands for “Scientifically Treated Petroleum.”

Valvoline is the oldest brand of motor oil marketed here in the US. The formulation was trademarked in 1873.

46 Unscrupulous : AMORAL

A scruple is a moral consideration that inhibits certain actions. The term “scruple” comes from the Latin “scrupulus”, which has the same meaning, but is also the word for a small stone. The Latin word was first used in the figurative sense by Cicero to describe a source of uneasiness, most likely drawing on the notion of a pebble in one’s shoe.

49 Poetry event : 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.

50 Piglike rhino kin : TAPIR

All four species of tapir are endangered. Even though the tapir looks much like a pig, it is more closely related to the horse and the rhinoceros.

51 Pet re-homing org. : ASPCA

American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA)

55 Sea walls : DIKES

A dike is an embankment that is used to prevent floods. It is usually made of earth and rock.

63 NFL passing stat : ATT

In football, one statistic (stat) used to track the performance of a quarterback (QB) is attempts (ATT).

65 Communication syst. with hand motions : ASL

It’s really quite unfortunate that American Sign Language (ASL) and British Sign Language (BSL) are very different, and someone who has learned to sign in one cannot understand someone signing in the other.