Category: Amy Johnson

Advertisement

Constructed by: Amy Johnson
Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Reveal Answer: Strings Attached

Themed answers each include an item that has STRINGS ATTACHED:

• 36A What some favors and one part of the answers to 17-, 23-, 46-, and 57-Across come with? : STRINGS ATTACHED

• 17A “Get lost!” : GO FLY A KITE
• 23A Hands-on creation? : SHADOW PUPPET
• 46A Home of SpongeBob SquarePants : BIKINI BOTTOM
• 57A Actress who completed her EGOT with a Grammy for the audiobook “Finding Me” : VIOLA DAVIS

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

Bill’s time: 6m 06s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

14 Background tunes for a tree-trimming party : NOELS

“Noël” is the French word for the Christmas season, and ultimately comes from the Latin word for “birth” (natalis). “Noel” has come to be used as an alternative for “Christmas carol”.

17 “Get lost!” : GO FLY A KITE

Check kiting is illegal. The idea behind kiting is to write a check, even though there are insufficient funds to cover the amount. The con artist then writes another check, also with insufficient funds, from another bank’s account to cover the original check. I am not sure it would work nowadays, but then I am as honest as the day is long! Oh, and I think the term “kiting” comes from the older phrase “go fly a kite”, the idea being that the bad check is floated on air (on non-existent funds).

19 “You Bet Your Life” host Jay : LENO

“You Bet Your Life” is a quiz show first aired on radio, in 1947. Host of the original show was the celebrated Groucho Marx. Groucho then took the show to television in 1950, while still hosting the radio version until 1960. The TV format was renamed to “The Groucho Show”, and it ceased airing in 1961. “You Bet Your Life” was revived several times. A 1980-81 version was hosted by Buddy Hackett, a 1992-93 version by Bill Cosby, and a 2021-23 version by Jay Leno.

21 “If I Could Turn Back Time” singer : CHER

“If I Could Turn Back Time” is a 1989 song released by Cher as the lead track on the album “Heart of Stone”. The US Navy gave permission for Cher to shoot the song’s music video on the USS Missouri battleship while it was stationed in Long Beach. Cher wore a revealing outfit while performing for the video, resulting in some claims that the event desecrated a national monument.

22 Knight game : JOUST

“Jousting” and “tilting” are synonyms describing the medieval competition in which two horsemen yielding blunted lances attempt to unseat each other. Such an event has been referred to as “jousting” since the 1300s. At some point, the path of the two charging horsemen was separated by a cloth barrier known as a tilt (“tilt” meant “cloth covering”). The term “tilting” was applied to the sport in the 1500s, although by then the cloth barrier had been upgraded to a wooden fence.

26 Small parts for big names : CAMEOS

Even in my day, a cameo role was more than just a short appearance in a movie (or other artistic piece). For the appearance to be a cameo, the actor had to play himself or herself, and was instantly recognizable. With this meaning it’s easy to see the etymology of the term, as a cameo brooch is one with the recognizable carving of the silhouette of a person. Nowadays, a cameo is any minor role played by a celebrity or famous actor, regardless of the character played.

29 Lamarr of the silver screen : HEDY

Hedy Lamarr was an American actress who was actually born in Vienna in modern-day Austria. Not only was Lamarr a successful Hollywood performer, during WWII she was the co-inventor of a frequency-hopping, spread-spectrum method of transmitting radio signals that is still used to this day in wireless communication. Impressive …

30 Particle with an orbital system : ATOM

The informal term “electron cloud” describes where electrons are located as they orbit an atomic nucleus. According to the electron cloud model, developed by Erwin Schrödinger and Werner Heisenberg in 1925, we cannot pinpoint the exact location of electrons at any time. The varying “density” of the electron cloud reflects the probability of finding electrons in a specific area.

33 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.

43 Brittney Griner’s org. : WNBA

WNBA player Brittney Griner played in the Russian Premier League during the off-season. She arrived in Moscow in 2022 where she was detained for having less than a gram of medicinal cannabis in her luggage, which is illegal in Russia. She underwent a trial, pleaded guilty, and was sentenced to nine years in prison. She was released at the end of 2022 in a one-for-one prisoner swap, after almost ten months in detention.

46 Home of SpongeBob SquarePants : BIKINI BOTTOM

The animated TV series “SpongeBob SquarePants” is set in the Bikini Atoll, in a fictional underwater city called Bikini Bottom.

57 Actress who completed her EGOT with a Grammy for the audiobook “Finding Me” : VIOLA DAVIS

Actress Viola Davis is probably best known on the small screen for playing the lead in the drama “How to Get Away with Murder”. On the big screen, I’d say that her most famous role is the starring role in the 2011 film “The Help”. Davis is one of the few EGOT winners (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony) and is the only African-American to have won the Triple Crown of Acting (a competitive Oscar, Emmy and Tony).

61 __-Alt-Del : CTRL

Ctrl-Alt-Delete is a keyboard command on IBM PC compatible systems used for a soft reboot, or more recently to bring up the task manager in the Windows operating system. Bill Gates tells us that the command was originally just a device to be used during development and was never meant to “go live”. He once said that “Ctrl+Alt+Delete” was a mistake, and that he would have preferred a dedicated key on the keyboard that carried out the same function.

63 Actor Sharif : OMAR

Omar Sharif was a great Hollywood actor from Egypt, someone who played major roles in memorable movies such as “Doctor Zhivago” and “Lawrence of Arabia”. But to me, he was my bridge hero (referring to the card game). In his heyday, Sharif was one of the best bridge players in the world.

64 “Black-ish” star Tracee Ellis __ : ROSS

Actress Tracee Ellis Ross is perhaps best known for playing lead roles in the TV shows “Girlfriends” and “black-ish”. She was born Tracee Joy Silberstein, and is the daughter of singer Diana Ross and music executive Robert Ellis Silberstein.

65 Windbreaker fabric : NYLON

The polymer known as “nylon” was developed by Dupont in the 1930s. The first application for the new product was as bristles in toothbrushes, in 1938. The second application became more famous. The first stockings made from nylon were produced in 1940, and since then stockings have been known as “nylons”. The polymer was developed as a replacement for silk, which was in short supply during WWII.

Down

1 Pulitzer-winning architecture critic Saffron : INGA

American Journalist Inga Saffron spent five years in Eastern Europe in the 1990s, working as the Moscow correspondent for “The Philadelphia Inquirer”. In 1999, she became the Inquirer’s resident architecture critic, and started writing her “Changing Skyline” column.

2 Once in a blue __ : MOON

As there is a full moon once every four weeks, approximately monthly, there are usually twelve full moons in any given year. However, every 2-3 years, depending on the phase of the moon at the beginning of the calendar year, there may be a thirteenth full moon. The “extra” full moon is called a “blue moon”, although no one seems to really know why the term “blue” is used, as far as I can tell. Which of the thirteen full moons that is designated as the blue moon varies depending on tradition. My favorite definition is from the Farmer’s Almanac. It states that as each of the seasons normally has three full moons (one for each calendar month), then the season with four full moons is designated as “special”, then the third (and not the fourth) full moon in that “special” season is the blue moon. Complicated, huh?

5 Film set at the Bates Motel : PSYCHO

Bates Motel and house were constructed on the backlot of Universal Studios for the 1960 HItchcock movie “Psycho”. They are still standing, and for me are highlights of the backlot tour that is available to visitors.

7 Tahrir Square city : CAIRO

Tahrir Square is a major location in Cairo, Egypt. The name “Tahrir” translates to “Liberation” in English. The square was a focal point in the 2011 Egyptian Revolution staged against former president Hosni Mubarak.

9 Actor Barinholtz : IKE

Ike Barinholtz is an actor and comedian who appeared on MADtv from 2002 until 2007. More recently, Barinholtz became a writer on the TV show “The Mindy Project”, and was then cast as Nurse Morgan Tookers.

10 Bucket of bolts : JALOPY

The origins of our word “jalopy”, meaning “dilapidated, old motor car”, seem to have been lost in time, but the word has been around since the 1920s. One credible suggestion is that it comes from Xalapa, Mexico as the Xalapa scrap yards were the destination for many discarded American automobiles.

13 “House of Gucci” director Ridley __ : SCOTT

Ridley Scott is a British director who caught the public eye with the success of the 1979 film “Alien”. Since then, Scott has directed some great movies, including “Thelma & Louise” (1991), the Oscar-winning “Gladiator” (2000) and “The Martian” (2015). Scott also directed the groundbreaking “1984” advertisement that launched the Apple Macintosh personal computer.

“House of Gucci” is an engrossing 2021 film based on a 2001 book “The House of Gucci: A Sensational Story of Murder, Madness, Glamour, and Greed” by Sara Gay Forden. The central characters are Maurizio Gucci, heir to a 50% interest in the Gucci fashion house, and Patrizia Reggiani, who eventually married and divorced Maurizio, before hiring a hitman to kill her ex-husband. The leads are played by Adam Driver and Lady Gaga.

22 King Herod’s realm : JUDEA

Judea was the southern part of the historic Land of Israel.

Herod Antipas was a ruler of Galilee and Perea in the 1st century CE. Even though he never held the title of “king”, he is referred to in the New Testament of the Christian Bible as “King Herod”. So, it was Herod Anitipas who was so instrumental in the executions of John the Baptist and Jesus of Nazareth.

25 Linus Van __: “Peanuts” kid : PELT

In Charles Schulz’s fabulous comic strip “Peanuts”, Charlie Brown is friends with at least three members of the van Pelt family. Most famously there is Lucy van Pelt, who bosses everyone around, and who operates a psychiatric booth that looks like a lemonade stand. Then there is Linus, Lucy’s younger brother, the character who always has his security blanket at hand. Lastly there is an even younger brother, Rerun van Pelt. Rerun is constantly hiding under his bed, trying to avoid going to school.

34 __ year : LEAP

I wasn’t sure of the origin of the term “leap year”, and when I checked I found it to be fairly obvious. As a reference, let’s use March 25, 2007, a Sunday. The year before, in 2006, March 25th fell one weekday earlier on a Saturday. That follows the rule that any particular date moves forward in the week by one day, from one year to the next. However, the next year (2008) has an extra day, February 29th. So March 25, 2008 falls on a Tuesday, “leaping” two weekdays forward, not one, as 2008 is a “leap” year. I think I am more confused now than when I started this paragraph …

37 Nincompoop : NINNY

The word “nincompoop”, meaning “fool”, seems to have been around for quite a while. It has been used since the 1670s, but no one appears to know its origins.

38 Asian desert : GOBI

The Gobi, the large desert in Asia, lies in northern China and southern Mongolia. It is growing at an alarming rate, particularly towards the south. This “desertification” is caused by increased human activity. The Chinese government is trying to halt the desert’s forward progress by planting great swaths of new forest, the so-called “Green Wall of China”. The name “Gobi” is Mongolian for “waterless place, semidesert”.

39 Chowder morsel : CLAM

The type of soup known as “chowder” is possibly named for the pot in which it used to be cooked called a “chaudière”, a French term.

44 Greek portico : STOA

A stoa was a covered walkway in ancient Greece. A stoa usually consisted of columns lining the side of a building or buildings, with another row of columns defining the other side of the walkway. The columns supported a roof. Often, stoae would surround marketplaces in large cities.

45 Le __ Bleu: Julia Child’s alma mater : CORDON

A “cordon bleu” dish is a meat dish, one prepared by wrapping the meat around cheese, covering it with breading and then pan-frying. Specifically, veal cordon bleu is made using veal that is pounded thin and wrapped around slices of ham and cheese. The term “cordon bleu” translated from French as “blue ribbon”.

Julia Child was an American chef who is recognized for bringing French cuisine to the American public. During WWII, Julia Child joined the OSS (Office of Strategic Services), the predecessor to the CIA. She worked for the OSS in Washington, Ceylon and China. While in the OSS, she met her husband Paul Child who was also an OSS employee. Paul joined the Foreign Service after the war, and it was his posting to France that created the opportunity for Julie to learn about French cuisine. If you haven’t seen it, I highly, highly recommend the movie “Julie & Julia”, one of the best films of 2009. Meryl Streep does a fabulous job playing the larger-than-life Julia Child.

46 Lunchbox type : BENTO

A bento is a single-person meal that is eaten quite commonly in Japan. A bento can be purchased as a take-out meal, or it may be packed at home. A bento is usually sold as a “bento box”.

48 Souvenir toy from Australia, say : KOALA

The koala bear really does look like a little bear, but it’s not even closely related. The koala is an arboreal marsupial and a herbivore, native to the east and south coasts of Australia. Koalas aren’t primates, and are one of the few mammals other than primates who have fingerprints. In fact, it can be very difficult to tell human fingerprints from koala fingerprints, even under an electron microscope. Male koalas are called “bucks”, females are “does”, and young koalas are “joeys”. I’m a little jealous of the koala, as it sleeps up to 20 hours a day …

54 “Mambo King” Puente : TITO

After serving in the Navy in WWII for three years, musician Tito Puente studied at Juilliard, where he got a great grounding in conducting, orchestration and theory. Puente parlayed this education into a career in Latin Jazz and Mambo. He was known as “El Rey” as well as “The King of Latin Music”.

58 Skater Midori : ITO

Midori Ito is a Japanese figure skater. She was the first woman to land a triple/triple jump and a triple axel in competition. In fact, Ito landed her first triple jump in training when she was only 8 years old. Ito won Olympic silver in 1992, and was chosen as the person to light the Olympic cauldron at the commencement of the 1998 Winter Games in Nagano, Japan.

59 “Doctor Who” role for Karen Gillan : AMY

Scottish actress Karen Gillan is most famous for playing Amy Pond in the “Doctor Who” sci-fi show made by the BBC. Pond was the companion to the eleventh doctor, played by Matt Smith. More recently, Gillan played Nebula in the “Guardians of the Galaxy” series of films.