Day: January 22, 2025

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Constructed by: Parker Higgins
Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Reveal Answer: Foiled Again!

Themed clues can each be replaced by the phrase “FOILED AGAIN”. Clever …

• 59A “Another plan thwarted!,” or another way to phrase three clues in this puzzle? : FOILED AGAIN!

• 17A “Another layer of wrapping before I’m cooked!?” : BAKED POTATO
• 33A “Another touch point for my opponent!?” : OLYMPIC FENCER
• 39A “Another literary figure whose qualities contrast my own!?” : MAIN CHARACTER

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

Bill’s time: 6m 46s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1 Saweetie songs : RAPS

“Saweetie” is the stage name of rap singer Diamonté Harper. She is from Santa Clara, California. Her grandfather is Willie Harper, who played professional football for the San Francisco 49ers.

5 Japanese mat : TATAMI

A tatami is a traditional mat used on floors in Japan. The term “tatami” comes from the Japanese word “tatamu” meaning “to fold”, reflecting the fact that the mat is designed to be folded up for storage.

14 Burn application : ALOE

Aloe vera has a number of alternate names that are descriptive of its efficacy as a medicine. ancient Egyptians knew it as the plant of immortality, and Native Americans called it the wand of heaven.

20 “Fame” singer Cara : IRENE

Irene Cara co-wrote and sang the Oscar-winning song “Flashdance…What a Feeling” from the 1983 movie “Flashdance”. Cara also sang the title song for the 1980 movie “Fame”, and indeed played the lead role of student Coco Hernandez.

“Fame” is a 1980 musical film that follows students at New York’s High School of Performing Arts. Irene Cara sings the hugely successful theme song “Fame”, and stars as one of the students. Cara had in fact attended the High School of Performing Arts in real life. The movie “Fame” was so successful that it led to a spinoff TV series, stage shows and a 2009 remake.

21 Designer Jacobs : MARC

Marc Jacobs is an American fashion designer from New York City with his own line of clothing. He is also the creative director for the French design house, Louis Vuitton.

23 Private convos : DMS

Direct message (DM)

24 Trans- opposite : CIS-

In Latin, the prefix “cis-” means “this side of”. The prefix “trans-” means “the other side of”.

26 Queens stadium eponym : ASHE

Arthur Ashe Stadium in Queens, New York opened in 1997, and is the largest outdoor, tennis-only venue in the world. The stadium was often criticized for not having a retractable dome to protect the playing surface from inclement weather. Well, that changed in 2016 when the stadium debuted its new retractable roof, a $150 million investment in the facility.

33 “Another touch point for my opponent!?” : OLYMPIC FENCER

The French word for sword is “épée”. In competitive fencing the épée is connected to a system that records an electrical signal when legal contact is made on an opponent’s body.

35 “Mamma Mia” group : ABBA

“Mamma Mia” is a popular song by the Swedish pop group ABBA, released in 1975. It was not originally intended to be a single, but rather a track on ABBA’s self-titled album. However, after the group performed the song on a television special, it became so popular that it was released as a single and went on to become one of ABBA’s biggest hits. The song is used as the title of the incredibly successful Broadway musical and a feature film “Mama Mia!” (with an exclamation mark).

44 Kids playing in the backyard? : PET GOATS

Male goats are bucks or billies, although castrated males are known as wethers. Female goats are does or nannies, and young goats are referred to as kids.

48 “Stay With Me” singer Smith : SAM

Sam Smith is a singer from London. Their biggest hit was probably 2014’s “Stay with Me”, but they also co-wrote and recorded “Writing’s on the Wall”, the theme song for the 2015 James Bond film “Spectre”.

51 Hefty alternative : GLAD

Glad is a company making plastic products, especially food containers and trash bags. Glad was launched in 1963 to make Glad Wrap, a polyethylene wrap used to preserve food.

53 Bangers partner : MASH

Sausages are often referred to as bangers on the other side of the pond. The term “banger” is a reference to the tendency of the sausage to burst open with a bang while cooking. The rather tasty dish called bangers and mash is traditional British fare and comprises sausages with mashed potatoes, and smothered in brown gravy. Yum …

58 Untrustworthy paper : RAG

A low-quality newspaper is often referred to as a “rag”. There are lots of rags out there …

65 Aquarium fighters : BETTAS

The betta is a small freshwater fish. It is quite colorful, and so is a popular fish for an aquarium. Bettas are aggressive little creatures, and are commonly called Siamese fighting fish. Apparently, housing two males in a relatively small aquarium will result in the death of one.

66 Muppet material : FELT

Jim Henson’s ensemble of puppets known as the Muppets made their debut on the TV show “Sam and Friends” in the 1950s. Some Muppets started appearing in 1969 on “Sesame Street”, and then the troupe were given “The Muppet Show” in 1976. And today, there’s no sign of their popularity waning.

Down

1 Overzealous : RABID

“Rabies” is actually the Latin word for “madness”. The name is a good choice for the viral disease, as once the virus spreads to the brain the infected person or animal exhibits very tortured and bizarre behavior including hydrophobia, a fear of water. The virus is passed on to humans most often through a bite from an infected dog. It is curable if it is caught in time, basically before symptoms develop. Once the virus passes up the peripheral nervous system to the spine and the brain, there isn’t much that can be done. We can also use the derivative term “rabid” figuratively, to mean extremely violent, to have extreme views.

8 Food thickener : AGAR

Agar (also “agar-agar”) is a jelly extracted from seaweed that has many uses. Agar is found in Japanese desserts, and can also be used as a food thickener or even as a laxative. In the world of science, it is the most common medium used for growing bacteria in Petri dishes.

9 “Lady Bird” Oscar nominee Laurie : METCALF

Actress Laurie Metcalf hit the big time when she played the title character’s sister on the hit sitcom “Roseanne”. She had regular roles on several other sitcoms, notably “3rd Rock from the Sun”, “Frasier” and “The Big Bang Theory”. On the big screen, her most acclaimed role was the title character’s mother in the 2017 film “Lady Bird”.

“Lady Bird” is a 2017 coming-of-age movie starring Saoirse Ronan in the title role, a high school senior who has a strained relationship with her mother (played by Laurie Metcalf). Roman and Metcalf earned themselves Oscar nominations for their performances.

13 Peace sign : DOVE

The dove is a symbol of peace, and the hawk is a symbol of war.

25 ThinkPad maker before Lenovo : IBM

IBM introduced the ThinkPad notebook in 1992 and the brand is still sold today, although no longer manufactured by IBM. IBM sold off its personal computer division in 2005 to Lenovo. A ThinkPad was used aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavor in 1993 on a mission focused on repairing the Hubble Telescope. The ThinkPad was being tested to see how it performed in space, given the high levels of radiation found in that environment. Now, there are about 100 (!) ThinkPads on board the International Space Station.

30 Sch. based in Westwood : UCLA

Westwood Village, often simply called Westwood, is a neighborhood in Los Angeles known for its shops and theaters, as well as being home to the UCLA campus. The area was developed in the 1920s by the Janss Investment Company as a planned community, with construction taking place at the same time the UCLA was opening its new campus adjacent to the development.

32 Beats by __ : DRE

Beats by Dre is a brand of audio products made by Beats Electronics, a company that was co-founded by rapper Dr. Dre. Apple bought Beats for $3 billion in 2014, the largest acquisition by far in the company’s history.

33 Newspaper section with notable passages? : OBIT PAGES

Our word “obituary” comes from the Latin “obituaris”. The Latin term was used for “record of the death of a person”, although the literal meaning is “pertaining to death”.

34 Bog makeup : PEAT

When dead plant matter accumulates in marshy areas, it may not fully decay due to a lack of oxygen or acidic conditions. We are familiar with this in Ireland, because this decaying matter can form peat, and we have lots and lots of peat bogs around the country.

35 Source of feedback for a guitarist? : AMP

We’ve all heard the howl of audio feedback when someone places a microphone near a loudspeaker. What happens is that a sound picked up by the microphone is amplified on the way to the speaker, and then the microphone picks up the amplified sound, which gets further amplified and passed out of the speaker, and a loop occurs. Ouch …!

42 Forensic drama with regional spinoffs : CSI

I quite enjoy the “CSI” franchise of television shows, all except “CSI: Miami”. I find the character played by David Caruso to be extremely annoying. “CSI: Miami” was canceled in 2012. No loss …

43 Actress Shire : TALIA

Actress Talia Shire is best-known for playing Rocky’s wife Adrian in the “Rocky” series of movies. She also played Connie, the daughter of Don Corleone, in “The Godfather” films. Shire is the sister of movie director Francis Ford Coppola and the aunt of actor Nicolas Cage. Her son is the actor Jason Schwartzman.

47 Eta follower : THETA

The letter theta is the eighth in the Greek alphabet, and the one that looks like the number zero with a horizontal line across the middle.

49 Mermaid played by Halle Bailey : ARIEL

“The Little Mermaid” is a live-action adaptation of the 1989 animated Disney film of the same name. Both films are loosely based on the 1837 fairy tale with the same title that was penned by Hans Christian Anderson.

Singer and actress Halle Bailey started her singing career as a young girl on a YouTube channel with her sister, performing cover songs as “Chloe x Halle”. In 2019, Halle was given her first lead role as an actress, playing Ariel in the 2023 live-action remake of 1989’s “The Little Mermaid”.

50 “Water Lilies” painter : MONET

“Water Lilies” by French Impressionist Claude Monet is actually a whole series of paintings, numbering about 250 in total. The subjects of the works were the water lilies in Monet’s flower garden at Giverny in northern France.

52 Floor material, in a children’s game : LAVA

“Floor Is Lava” is a game show based on a children’s game of the same name. In the original game, children must navigate a room, avoiding the “floor” as it is made out of “lava”. In the game show, contestants also navigate a room, but the floor/lava is 80,000 gallons of slippery, bright-red goop.

57 “Yay, the weekend!” letters : TGIF!

“Thank God It’s Friday” (TGIF)

59 Car remote : FOB

A fob is attached to an object to make it easier to access. And so, a key fob is a chain attached to a key so that it can be retrieved easily. There are also watch fobs, and the pocket in a vest in which a watch can be placed is called a fob. In fact, the original use of the term “fob” was for a small pocket in which one could carry valuables.

60 __ Plaines, Illinois : DES

Des Plaines is a suburb of Chicago that is located next to O’Hare International Airport. The city is named for the Des Plaines river that runs through the area.