Category: David Tuffs

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Constructed by: David Tuffs
Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Reveal Answer(s): Captain Obvious

Themed answers include celebrated CAPTAINS as hidden words, words that are OBVIOUS as each letter is circled:

• 35A With 37-Across, title for the hidden individuals in 16-, 23-, 46-, and 58-Across, thanks to the circles in each answer? : CAPTAIN …
• 37A See 35-Across : … OBVIOUS

• 16A Give up vaping, say : KICK A HABIT (hiding “AHAB”)
• 23A Low-cal beer option : MICHELOB LIGHT (hiding “BLIGH”)
• 46A “Still Alice” Best Actress Oscar winner : JULIANNE MOORE (hiding “NEMO”)
• 58A Musical instrument also called a calliope : STEAM ORGAN (hiding “MORGAN”)

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

Bill’s time: 6m 22s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

6 “Leaving the chat for a sec” : BRB

Be right back (brb)

9 Puerto __ : RICO

Puerto Rico (PR) is located in the northeastern Caribbean (in the Atlantic Ocean), east of the Dominican Republic. The name “Puerto Rico” is Spanish for “rich port”. The locals often call their island Borinquen, the Spanish form of “Boriken”, the original name used by the natives.

14 Bubble tea pearls : BOBA

Bubble tea, sometimes called “boba tea”, is a tea-based drink from Taiwan. The “bubbles” are chewy tapioca balls that are usually added to the drink.

16 Give up vaping, say : KICK A HABIT (hiding “AHAB”)

Captain Ahab is the obsessed and far from friendly captain of the Pequod in Herman Melville’s “Moby-Dick”. The role of Captain Ahab was played by Gregory Peck in the 1956 John Huston film adaptation. Patrick Stewart played Ahab in a 1998 miniseries in which Peck made another appearance, as Father Mapple.

23 Low-cal beer option : MICHELOB LIGHT (hiding “BLIGH”)

The Michelob brand of lager beer was introduced in 1896 by Adolphus Busch (co-founder of Anheuser-Busch). “Michelob” is the German name for the market town of Měcholupy, now in the Czech Republic. In 1978, Anheuser-Busch launched Michelob Light, and then Michelob Ultra in 2002.

William Bligh was a senior officer in the Royal Navy who was famously captain of the HMS Bounty when her crew mutinied. As I found out in my last trip back to Ireland, late in his life Bligh charted and mapped Dublin Bay and designed the important North Bull Wall that sits at the mouth of the River Liffey and entrance to Dublin Port.

27 Justice Kagan : ELENA

Elena Kagan was the Solicitor General of the United States from 2009 until 2010, when she 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. Kagan also served as the first female dean of Harvard Law School from 2003 to 2009.

30 Kid-lit “Dr.” : SEUSS

“Dr. Seuss” was the pen name of Theodor Seuss Geisel. Geisel first used the pen name while studying at Dartmouth College and at the University of Oxford. Back then, he pronounced “Seuss” as it would be in German, i.e. rhyming with “voice”. After his books found success in the US, he went with the pronunciation being used widely by the public, quite happy to have a name that rhymes with “Mother Goose”.

31 As above, in footnotes : IDEM

“Idem” is usually abbreviated as “id.” and is the Latin word for “the same”. In research papers, “idem” is used in a list of references, in place of citations “already mentioned above”.

32 Roaring-lion studio : MGM

There has been a lion in the logo of the MGM studio since 1924. The original was an Irishman (!), a lion named Slats who was born in Dublin Zoo in 1919. However, it wasn’t until Jackie took over from Slats in 1928 that the roar was heard, as the era of silent movies was coming to an end. The current lion is called Leo, and he has been around since 1957.

41 Chicago MLB team : CUBS

The Chicago Cubs baseball team was supposedly subject to the “Curse of the Billy Goat” from 1945 until 2016. Billy Sianis, the owner of a Billy Goat Tavern in Chicago, took his pet goat with him to a World Series game against the Detroit Tigers at Wrigley Field. Fans sitting nearby didn’t like the smell of the goat, and so the owner was asked to leave. As he left, Sianis yelled out, “Them Cubs, they ain’t gonna win no more.” And that is how a curse is born …

44 Rib-eye request : RARE

If you’re in Australia or New Zealand and looking for a rib eye steak, you’ll need to order a “Scotch fillet”.

45 “Thor: Ragnarok” actress Thompson : TESSA

Tessa Thompson is an actress from Los Angeles who is known for playing the supporting role of Jackie Cook on the TV show “Veronica Mars”, and for playing student leader Diane Nash in the 2014 film “Selma”. She also portrays superheroine Valkyrie in movies based on Marvel Comics characters.

46 “Still Alice” Best Actress Oscar winner : JULIANNE MOORE (hiding “NEMO”)

Actress Julianne Moore won her Best Actress Oscar for playing the title role in the 2014 film “Still Alice”, which deals with the subject of Alzheimer’s disease. As well as being a talented actor, Moore is a successful children’s author. Her 2007 book “Freckleface Strawberry” became a New York Times Best Seller, and was inspired by the teasing she received as a child for having freckles.

“Still Alice” is a 2014 film based on a 2007 novel of the same name by Lisa Genova. The title character in both movie and book is a professor of linguistics who develops early-onset Alzheimer’s disease just after she turns 50 years of age. In the film, Alice was portrayed by Julianne Moore, in a performance that won her that season’s Best Actress Oscar.

In the 1954 movie “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea”, Captain Nemo goes down with his ship. In the novel by Jules Verne (1869-1870), the fate of Nemo and his crew isn’t quite so cut and dry, although the inference is perhaps that they did indeed head for Davy Jones’ Locker.

52 Shorebird with a curved bill : AVOCET

The avocet is found in warm climates, usually in saline wetlands where it uses its upcurved bill to sweep from side-to-side in water searching for aquatic insects on which it feeds. Avocets, and other similar species, may go by the common name of “stilts”, a moniker applied to them because of their long legs.

58 Musical instrument also called a calliope : STEAM ORGAN (hiding “MORGAN”)

A calliope is a musical instrument that was patented in 1855. It’s a pretty loud device, one that produces sound by sending steam or compressed air through large whistles. Calliopes are often seen at circuses, fairgrounds and on steamboats.

67 2023 installment in a Vin Diesel film franchise : FAST X

“Fast X” is a 2023 movie that is part of the “Fast & Furious” series. Although it is sometimes referred to as “Fast & Furious 10”, it is the eleventh film in the series. The spinoff movie “Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw”, released in 2019, threw the series’ numbering system out of sync.

Down

1 Tool for tidying a golf bunker : RAKE

Sand traps on a golf course are referred to as bunkers on the other side of the Atlantic.

6 Gravity-powered winter racer : BOBSLED

Bobsleds are so called because competitors in the sport originally would “bob” in and out of the sled in order to increase its speed.

8 Product for a scented soak : BATH BOMB

A bath bomb is a molded object that dissolves in bathwater to produce fragrant aromatics. Most bath bombs effervesce as they dissolve. They were invented relatively recently, in 1989 and introduced by Lush Cosmetics in the UK. The primary ingredients in a bath bomb are citric acid and sodium bicarbonate. The addition of water leads to an acid-base reaction creating monosodium citrate (a salt) and carbon dioxide (the bubbles).

9 Martini & __ vermouth : ROSSI

The company that is today known as Martini & Rossi was started in the mid-1800s in Italy, by Alessandro Martini and Luigi Rossi (and a third partner who sold out years later). From day one it was focused on bottling the fortified wine known as vermouth. Nowadays, the company is also famous for its sparkling wines, and its sponsorship of Grand Prix racing teams. And yes, the famous cocktail is probably named for Mr. Martini.

11 Lozenge target : COUGH

Back in the 14th century, the term “lozenge” described a “diamond shape”. The original lozenges were tablets held in the mouth to dissolve. They had this diamond shape, hence the name.

22 “Happy Days” diner : AL’S

Much of the sitcom “Happy Days” was set in Arnold’s Drive-In. Arnold Takahashi was played by Pat Morita, who also played Mr Miyagi in the movie “The Karate Kid”. Morita left the show after three seasons, and was replaced by Al Molinaro as Al Delvecchio, the character who ran the diner as “Al’s” for the rest of the series’ run.

24 App with Reels, familiarly : INSTA

Reels is a facility introduced by Instagram in 2020. Essentially, it is a feature that competes with TikTok.

33 Plenty of nothing : GOOSE EGGS

The use of the phrase “goose egg” to mean “zero” is baseball slang that dates back to the 1860s. The etymology is as expected: the numeral zero and a goose egg are both large and round.

34 Rumple, with “up” : MUSS …

“Muss” means “state of disorder”, and is a term that probably evolved from “mess”. The phrase “no muss, no fuss” means “no bother, no mess made, no excessive hustle and bustle”.

38 Don Corleone : VITO

Mario Puzo created the Corleone Mafia family in his 1969 novel “The Godfather”. The head of the family is Vito Corleone (whose birth name was Vito Andolini), a native of Corleone in Sicily. He was given the name Corleone by immigration officers at Ellis Island. Don Corleone was played so very memorably, with a distinctive rasping voice, by Marlon Brando in the 1972 movie adaptation directed by Francis Ford Coppola.

39 Word after Red or before robin : SEA

The Red Sea (sometimes “Arabian Gulf”) is a stretch of water lying between Africa and Asia. The Gulf of Suez (and the Suez Canal) lies to the north, and the Gulf of Aden to the south. According to the Book of Exodus in the Bible, God parted the Red Sea to allow Moses lead the Israelites from Egypt.

Sea robins aren’t birds, and rather are bottom-feeding fish. They can have an orange color on the ventral surface, reminiscent of a robin’s red breast, hence the common name “sea robin”.

44 Issa of “The Hate U Give” : RAE

“The Hate U Give” is a 2018 film that is based on a 2017 novel of the same name by Angie Thomas. Both the film and novel center on the aftermath of a police officer shooting an unarmed teenager.

46 Door frame parts : JAMBS

A door jamb or window jamb is the vertical portion of the frame. The term “jamb” comes from the French word “jambe” meaning “leg”.

47 Soft palate dangler : UVULA

The uvula is a conical fleshy projection hanging down at the back of the soft palate that plays an important role in human speech, particularly in the making of “guttural” sounds. The Latin word for “grape” is “uva”, so “uvula” is a “little grape”.

48 Floating flower : LOTUS

The roots of the lotus plant penetrate into the bed of a lake or river, while the leaves float on the water’s surface. This behavior led to the use of the lotus as a symbol in the Buddhist tradition, as a symbol of purity of the body, speech and mind. The idea is that the lotus flower represents the pure body, speech and mind floating above the muddy waters of attachment and desire.

51 Resistance unit : OHM

The unit of electrical resistance is the ohm (with the symbol omega) named after German physicist Georg Simon Ohm. Ohm was the guy who established experimentally that the amount of current flowing through a circuit is directly proportional to the voltage applied, (V=IR) a relationship that every school kid knows as Ohm’s Law.

56 Black gem in a cameo : ONYX

Onyx is a form of quartz that comes in many different shades, but most often it’s the black version that’s used for jewelry. The name “onyx” comes from the Greek word for “fingernail”, as onyx in the flesh color is said to resemble a fingernail.

Cameo is a method of carving, often the carving of a gemstone or a piece of jewelry. The resulting image is in relief (sits proud of the background), whereas an engraved image would be produced by the similar carving method known as intaglio. Nowadays, the term “cameo” is used for any piece of oval-shaped jewelry that contains the image of a head, usually in profile (maybe even a photograph).

59 With 42-Down, “Stayin’ Alive” disco trio : THE …
[42 See 59-Down : … BEE GEES]

The Brothers Gibb (hence, the name “Bee Gees”) were born in England but grew up and started their musical careers in Australia. They moved back to Manchester in the north of England as youths, and there hit the big time.

61 Genetic messenger : 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.