Day: May 7, 2025

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Constructed by: Parikshit S. Bhat
Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Reveal Answer: Troubled Waters

Themed answers each include a body of WATER hidden within, but anagrammed, i.e. TROUBLED:

• 50A Difficult situation, or what can be found in each set of circled letters? : TROUBLED WATERS

• 19A Equanimity between nations : BALANCE OF POWER (hiding a troubled “OCEAN”)
• 24A Technical support team’s headache : COMPUTER VIRUS (hiding a troubled “RIVER”)
• 44A “Get Out” and “Nope” star : DANIEL KALUUYA (hiding a troubled “LAKE”)

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

Bill’s time: 6m 19s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1 Nonspeaking Marx brother : HARPO

Harpo Marx was the second-eldest of the Marx brothers. Harpo’s real name was Adolph, and he earned his nickname because he played the harp. Famously, Harpe didn’t speak on screen, a routine that he developed after reading a review that he performed really well when he just didn’t speak! He would usually whistle or toot a hand-held horn instead of speaking.

9 Meaty pasta sauce : RAGU

A ragout is a dish from French cuisine, and is a highly-seasoned stew of either meat or fish. The name “ragout” comes from the verb “ragouter”, “to revive the taste”. The Italian “ragù” is a term borrowed from the French that describes a meat-based sauce served with pasta.

14 Sn, to a chemist : TIN

The Latin word for tin is “stannum”, and so tin’s atomic symbol is “Sn”. One of the ores used as a source of tin is “stannite”.

16 Surgical tool : LASER

The term “laser” is an acronym standing for “light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation”. It has been pointed out that a more precise name for laser technology is “light oscillation by stimulated emission of radiation”, but the resulting acronym isn’t quite so appealing, namely “loser”.

23 Island host of the annual Spam Jam festival : OAHU

The Spam Jam festival is held annually on the island of Oahu, Hawaii to celebrate the canned meat product Spam. The event began as a local street fair and has grown into a major cultural event, drawing thousands of attendees. Numerous food vendors participate, creating unique Spam-based dishes. Spam Jam underscores the significant role Spam plays in Hawaiian cuisine and culture, born from its accessibility during World War II.

24 Technical support team’s headache : COMPUTER VIRUS (hiding a troubled “RIVER”)

A computer virus has characteristics very similar to a virus found in nature. It is a small computer program that can copy itself and can infect another host (computer).

29 MC battle genre : RAP

An MC battle is a lyrical showdown where two or more rappers engage in a verbal duel. The term “MC battle” uses “MC” as an abbreviation for “Master of Ceremonies”. In the context of hip-hop, an MC is a rapper who uses their lyrical skills to entertain and command attention. “Battle” refers to the competitive nature of the event.

30 Elitist : SNOB

Back in the 1780s, a snob was a shoemaker or a shoemaker’s apprentice. By the end of the 18th century the word “snob” was being used by students at Cambridge University in England to refer to all local merchants and people of the town. The term evolved to mean one who copies those who are his or her social superior (and not in a good way). From there it wasn’t a big leap for “snob” to include anyone who emphasized their superior social standing and not just those who aspired to rank. Nowadays a snob is anyone who looks down on those considered to be of inferior standing.

31 Moralist’s teaching : TENET

A tenet is an article of faith, something that is “held” to be true. “Tenet” is Latin for “he/she/it holds”.

35 Kisses, in Kensington : SNOGS

Kensington is an affluent neighborhood in London that is home to the popular shopping district centered on Kensington High Street. It is also home to many, many notable institutions, such as Kensington Palace, the Royal Albert Hall, the Royal college of Music, the Natural History Museum, the Science Museum, the Victoria and Albert museum, as well as the Royal College of Art.

39 “The Sound of Music” role : MARIA

“The Sound of Music” is a Rodgers and Hammerstein musical that was made into a celebrated movie in 1965 starring Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer. The musical is based on “The Story of the Trapp Family Singers”, a memoir by Maria von Trapp. The von Trapp family ended up in Stowe, Vermont after the war. One family descended from the Vermont von Trapps lives in the same town in which I used to live in California.

41 Lena of “The Reader” : OLIN

Lena Olin is a Swedish actress, and someone who has acting in her blood. Her mother was the actress Britta Holmberg and her father the actor and director Stig Olin. Olin had a very successful career in Sweden, often working with the great Ingmar Bergman. Olin’s breakthrough international and English-speaking role was playing opposite Daniel Day-Lewis in “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” released in 1988. Way back in 1974, Miss Olin was crowned Miss Scandinavia in a beauty pageant for Nordic women held in Helsinki, Finland. Olin’s most famous performance was in “Chocolat” released in 2000, and then she won an Emmy in 2003 for Best Supporting Actress in the TV show “Alias”.

“The Reader” is a 2008 film based on the 1995 German novel of the same name (“Der Vorleser” in German). The movie stars Kate Winslet as Hanna, a character who is illiterate. In the late fifties, Hanna seduces a 15-year-old boy named Michael and has him read to her from books that he is studying. Years later, the boy is a law student observing the trial of a group of women who are accused of Nazi war crimes. Hanna was a guard in a concentration camp, and it is revealed that she had prisoners read to her in the evenings. Hanna is sentenced to life in prison. Michael sends Hanna tapes of his voice as he reads books from the time of their affair. Hanna uses the tapes to learn how to read while she is behind bars..

44 “Get Out” and “Nope” star : DANIEL KALUUYA (hiding a troubled “LAKE”)

British actor Daniel Kaluuya’s breakthrough role was the lead in the 2017 horror film “Get Out”. His performance in that movie garnered a Best Actor Oscar nomination. Kaluuya is quite the soccer fan, and an ardent supporter of the London team Arsenal. Amazon gave him the job of narrating the 2022 docuseries “All or Nothing: Arsenal”.

“Get Out” is a 2017 horror film written and directed by Jordan Peele. I don’t do horror, but I do hear that this one is well made …

“Nope” is a 2022 sci-fi, horror film. Nope, I don’t do horror …

48 Indigenous people of Canada : CREE

The Cree are one of the largest groups of Native Americans on the continent. In the US, Montana is home to most of the Cree nation. They live on a reservation shared with the Ojibwe people. In Canada, most of the Cree live in Manitoba.

49 TiVo products : DVRS

TiVo is a digital video recorder (DVR) that revolutionized the way we watch television. The first TiVo devices were installed in homes in 1999, when they were the first consumer DVRs to hit the market. TiVo was originally marketed as a way to “pause live TV.” It quickly became known for its ability to record TV shows and movies, allowing viewers to watch them at their convenience.

56 Texter’s “All good?” : HOWRU

How are you? (HOWRU?)

58 Heep of “David Copperfield” : URIAH

Uriah Heep is a sniveling and insincere character in the novel “David Copperfield” by Charles Dickens. The character is such a “yes man” that today, if we know someone who behaves the same way, then we might call that person a “Uriah Heep”.

“David Copperfield” is the eighth novel penned by English author Charles Dickens, first published in serial form from 1848 to 1849. The novel is seen as a somewhat autobiographical work, with many characters and events mirrored in Dickens’ own life.

60 German autos : OPELS

Adam Opel founded his company in 1863, first making sewing machines in a cowshed. Commercial success brought new premises and a new product line in 1886, namely penny-farthing bicycles. Adam Opel died in 1895, leaving his two sons with a company that made more penny-farthings and sewing machines than any other company in the world. In 1899 the two sons partnered with a locksmith and started to make cars, but not very successfully. Two years later, the locksmith was dropped in favor of a licensing arrangement with a French car company. By 1914, Opel was the largest manufacturer of automobiles in Germany. My Dad had an Opel in the seventies, a station wagon (we’d say “estate car” in Ireland) called an Opel Kadett.

61 Brownie __ mode : A LA

Apparently, the first brownies were created for the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893. The recipe was developed by a pastry chef at the city’s Palmer House Hotel. The idea was to produce a cake-like dessert that was small enough and dainty enough to be eaten by ladies as part of a boxed lunch.

Down

1 Sci-fi AI villain : HAL

In Arthur C. Clarke’s “Space Odyssey” (famously adapted for the big screen as “2001: A Space Odyssey”) the computer system that went rogue was called HAL 9000, or simply “HAL”. HAL stands for “Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer”. Even though Clarke denied it, there’s a good argument that can be made that the acronym HAL is a veiled reference to IBM, the big player in the world of computing at the time of the novel’s publication (1968). The acronym HAL is just a one-letter shift from the initials “IBM”.

3 Civil rights icon Parks : ROSA

Rosa Parks was one of a cadre of brave women in days gone by who refused to give up their seats on a bus to white women. It was the stand taken by Rosa Parks on December 1, 1955 that sparked the Montgomery, Alabama Bus Boycott. President Clinton presented Ms. Parks with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1996. When she died in 2005, Rosa Parks became the first ever woman to have her body lie in honor in the US Capitol Rotunda.

6 California gold rush town : STOCKTON

Stockton’s history is deeply rooted in the California Gold Rush, with growth of the settlement really taking off in 1849, the peak year of immigration during the “rush”. It quickly became a vital supply hub for miners heading to the Sierra Nevada foothills. Its strategic location on the San Joaquin River facilitated steamboat traffic, transforming it into a major inland port. The name Stockton appeared in the mid-1840s, in honor of Commodore Robert F. Stockton, a U.S. Naval officer who played a significant role in the capture of California during the Mexican-American War in the 1840s. The city holds the distinction of being the first California city with a name neither Spanish nor Native American in origin.

8 Not alfresco : INDOOR

Our word “alfresco” means outdoors, in the fresh air. The term came into English from Italian, in which language “al fresco” translates literally as “in the cool air”.

11 Heredity unit : GENE

A gene is a section of a chromosome that is responsible for a particular characteristic in an organism. For example, one gene may determine eye color and another balding pattern. We have two copies of each gene, one from each of our parents, with each copy known as an allele.

12 Letters in a Beatles classic : USSR

By the time the Beatles recorded “Back in the U.S.S.R”, they were having a lot of problems working with each other. The song was recorded in 1968, with the band formally dissolving in 1970. Tensions were so great during the recording of “Back in the U.S.S.R” that Ringo Starr actually stormed out saying that he had quit, and the remaining three Beatles made the record without Ringo. Drums were played mainly by Paul McCartney, but there are also drum tracks on the final cut by both George Harrison and John Lennon. Interesting, huh?

15 First search result in a browser : TOP HIT

A web browser is a piece of software used to access the World Wide Web. The first web browser was called “WorldWideWeb” and was invented in 1990 by Tim Berners-Lee, the man who created the World Wide Web. The browser known as Mosaic came out in 1993, and it was this browser that drove so much interest in the World Wide Web, and indeed in the Internet in general. Marc Andreessen led the team that created Mosaic, and he then set up his own company called Netscape. Netscape created the Netscape Navigator browser that further popularized the use of the Web starting in 1994. Microsoft responded by introducing Internet Explorer in 1995, which sparked the so-called “browser war”, a war that Microsoft clearly won. As Netscape floundered, the company launched the open-source Mozilla project which eventually led to the Firefox browser. Apple then came out with its own Safari browser in 2003. Google’s Chrome browser, introduced in 2008, is by far the most popular way to view the Web today.

28 Vintage photo tone : SEPIA

Sepia is that rich, brown-gray color so common in old photographs. “Sepia” is the Latinized version of the Greek word for cuttlefish, as sepia pigment is derived from the ink sac of the cuttlefish. Sepia ink was commonly used for writing and drawing as far back as ancient Rome and ancient Greece. The “sepia tone” of old photographs is not the result of deterioration over time. Rather, it is the result of a deliberate preservation process which converts the metallic silver in the photographic image to a more stable silver sulfide. Prints that have been sepia-toned can last in excess of 150 years.

29 Speed fig. : RPM

Revolutions per minute (rpm)

32 Vanilla extract amt. : TSP

The flavor extract that we call “vanilla” comes from the pod-like fruit of climbing orchids belonging to the genus Vanilla. Genuine vanilla is a relatively expensive spice, second only to saffron, due to the amount of work required to grow and harvest the fruit (also called “beans” and “pods”). Spanish and Portuguese explorers came across the Vanilla orchid while exploring the Gulf Coast of Mexico. They gave it the name “vainilla” meaning “little pod”.

34 Technique for making waves? : PIN CURLS

Pin curls are the result of small sections of hair being carefully rolled and secured close to the scalp using hair pins or clips.

36 Brand of plastic film : GLAD WRAP

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.

37 Luiz Inácio Lula da __: Brazilian president : SILVA

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva served as the 35th president of Brazil from 2003 until 2010. A former union leader, he thrust himself onto the international stage, positioning himself as a negotiator. For example, he befriended both President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and President George W. Bush, two leaders with very, very different political positions.

40 Helicopter giant based in France : AIRBUS

Airbus is an aircraft manufacturer based in Blagnac, France just outside Toulouse. Airbus produces about half of the world’s jetliners. The company built the first fly-by-wire aircraft (the A320), and also built the world’s largest airliner (the A380). Airbus Helicopters (formerly Eurocopter) is the world’s largest supplier of turbine helicopters.

45 Electric creature : EEL

“Electrophorus electricus” is the biological name for the electric eel. Despite its name, the electric “eel” isn’t an eel at all, but rather what is called a knifefish, a fish with an elongated body that is related to the catfish. The electric eel has three pairs of organs along its abdomen, each capable of generating an electric discharge. The shock can go as high as 500 volts with 1 ampere of current (500 watts), and that could perhaps kill a human.

46 Room to maneuver : LEEWAY

Our word “leeway” meaning “spare margin” is nautical in origin. A vessel’s leeway is the amount of drift motion away from her intended course that is caused by the action of the wind.

50 Role for Chris Hemsworth : THOR

Australian actor Chris Hemsworth had a prominent role in the Australian TV series “Home and Away” that became a stepping stone to a successful career in Hollywood. HIs first major role was playing the title character in the superhero movie “Thor”. Chris is the younger brother of fellow actors Luke and Liam Helmsworth, and is married to Spanish actress Elsa Pataky.

52 Was in the red : OWED

To be in the red is to be in debt, to owe money. The expression “in the red” is a reference to the accounting practice of recording debts and losses in red ink in ledgers. The related phrase “in the black” means “solvent, making a profit”.

53 Valley : DALE

Dales are open valleys, especially in the Lowlands of Scotland and in the North of England. In the same locales, it is common to find dales flanked by fells, which are mountains or hills flanking the valley.

55 Business letter encl. : SASE

An SAE is a “stamped, addressed envelope”. An SASE is a “self-addressed, stamped envelope”.

59 “For __ a jolly good fellow” : HE’S

“For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow” is the second-most popular song in the English language according to the “Guinness Book of World Records”. Top of the list is “Happy Birthday to You”, and third comes “Auld Lang Syne”.