Category: Lynn Lempel

Advertisement

Constructed by: Lynn Lempel
Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Reveal Answer: Off the Wall

Themed answers each end with an illustration one might take OFF THE WALL when redecorating:

• 60A Bizarre, and what the ends of 16-, 22-, 37-, and 49-Across are when redecorating : OFF THE WALL

• 16A Bed that may have a canopy : FOUR-POSTER
• 22A Prize announcement that often involves pingpong balls : LOTTO DRAWING
• 37A Many a writing exercise in a fiction class : CHARACTER SKETCH
• 49A Spotted pattern appropriate for a catsuit : LEOPARD PRINT

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

Bill’s time: 5m 25s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

14 Pollution-fighting org. : EPA

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

15 “Aladdin” parrot named for a Shakespeare villain : IAGO

In the 1992 Disney feature “Aladdin”, there is a parrot called Iago. Iago is voiced by the comic Gilbert Gottfried.

Despite being portrayed as a villain in William Shakespeare’s “Othello”, Iago is one of the most complex characters in the play. He is known for his Machiavellian tactics, manipulating the other characters to achieve his selfish goals.

16 Bed that may have a canopy : FOUR-POSTER

Four-poster beds developed out of necessity. Back in the day, closing curtains around the bed helped keep out drafts, and cold air in the bedroom. Curtains also provided privacy, as more wealthy people might have had servants sleeping in the same room.

18 Grouchy one : CRAB

We’ve been describing grouchy people as crabby since the 1700s, mainly in North America. The term “crabby” possibly arose from the perceived combative nature of “crabs”.

19 “¿Cómo __ usted?” : ESTA

“¿Cómo está usted?” is the more formal way of asking “How are you?” in Spanish.

20 Tattle (on) : RAT

Something described as tattletale is revealing, it gives away a secret. The term is a combination of “tattle” and “tale”, and is probably patterned on the similar word “telltale”. “To tattle” means “to tell secrets”, and the noun “tattletale” applies to someone who tells secrets and informs.

22 Prize announcement that often involves pingpong balls : LOTTO DRAWING

Originally, lotto was a type of card game, with “lotto” being the Italian for “a lot”. We’ve used “lotto” to mean a gambling game since the late 1700s.

30 Sioux City citizen : IOWAN

Sioux City, Iowa has a history that is inextricably linked with the Missouri River. The city grew from a camp established by the Lewis and Clark expedition that traveled up the river in 1804. Today, Sioux City is the navigational head of the Missouri, the furthest point upstream that is accessible by general cargo ships.

34 Celestial Seasonings products : TEAS

Celestial Seasonings is a company that supplies teas. especially herbal teas and infusions. The company was founded in 1969 in Boulder, Colorado, where it is still based today.

41 Japanese wrestling : SUMO

Sumo is a sport that is practiced professionally only in Japan, the country of its origin. There is an international federation of sumo wrestling now, and one of the organization’s aims is to have the sport accepted as an Olympic event.

48 Govt. intel group : NSA

National Security Agency (NSA)

49 Spotted pattern appropriate for a catsuit : LEOPARD PRINT

A catsuit is a form-fitting garment that covers most, if not all, of the body.

54 West Coast sch. with the most Rose Bowl wins : USC

The University of Southern California (USC) is a private school in Los Angeles. Apart from its excellent academic record, USC is known for the success of its athletic program. USC Trojans have won more Olympic medals than the students of any other university in the world. The USC marching band is very famous as well, and is known as the “Spirit of Troy”. The band has performed with many celebrities, and is the only college band to have two platinum records.

The oldest of all the bowl games is the Rose Bowl and so has the nickname “The Granddaddy of Them All”. The first Rose Bowl game was played in 1902.

55 Oil cartel acronym : OPEC

Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC)

64 File that might be e-signed : PDF

Portable Document Format (PDF) is a file format introduced by Adobe Systems in 1993. PDF documents can be shared between users and read using many different applications and platforms, making them more universally accessible than documents saved by one particular program.

66 Dollar bill : ONE

The nation’s first president, George Washington, is on the US one-dollar bills produced today. When the original one-dollar bill was issued in 1863, it featured a portrait of Salmon P. Chase, President Abraham Lincoln’s Secretary of the Treasury.

68 Like most pretzels and chips : SALTED

Pretzels originated in Europe and are especially popular in Southern Germany where a pretzel is known as “Brezel”. Pretzels were introduced into the US in the 1800s by immigrants from Germany and Switzerland who came to be known over here as the Pennsylvania Dutch.

Down

2 Managed care gps. : HMOS

Health Maintenance Organization (HMO)

3 Lie alongside : ABUT

“Abut”, meaning “border on”, comes from the Old French word “abouter” meaning “join end to end”.

5 Clairvoyant’s claim : ESP

We’ve been using the term “clairvoyant” to describe a psychic since the nineteenth century. Prior to that, a clairvoyant was a clear-sighted person. The term comes from French, with “clair” meaning “clear” and “voyant” meaning “seeing”.

8 Nonhuman primate : APE

Primates are mammals, many of whom are omnivorous and make good use of their hands. They also have larger brains relative to their body size, compared to other animals. The order Primates includes apes, lemurs, baboons and humans.

9 Soap unit : BAR

Soap is basically made by adding a strong alkali (like lye) to a fat (like olive oil or palm oil). The fats break down in the basic solution in a process called saponification. The crude soap is extracted from the mixture, washed, purified and finished in molds.

10 Packed can of fish : SARDINE TIN

Sardines are oily fish related to herrings. They are also known as pilchards, although in the UK “sardine” is a noun reserved for a young pilchard. Very confusing …

12 Portable evacuation kit : GO BAG

A bug-out bag (also “go bag”) is a portable collection of items that one would grab when evacuating from a disaster. One well-accepted guideline is that a bug-out bag contains all that would be needed to survive for 72 hours. A related kit is a get-home bag that might be kept in one’s car or place of work. A get-home bag contains the items needed to get back home in the absence of public transportation. My wife and I put together bug-out bags recently, having moved into an area that is at high risk for wildfires …

15 Cold zero-calorie drink : ICE WATER

I wish we’d stop using the term “calorie”, because it is so confusing. In terms of physics, a calorie is the amount of energy needed to raise the temperature of one gram of water by one degree celsius (at one atmosphere of pressure). The so-called “food calorie” is one thousand times as large, as it is defined in terms of kilograms instead of grams. In attempts to differentiate between these two definitions, the former is sometimes referred to as the “small calorie” and is given the symbol “cal”. The latter is referred to as the “large calorie” and given the symbol “Cal”, with a capital C. If only we’d use the SI system of units, we’d be thinking in just joules, instead of large and small and food calories.

17 Fill to the max : SATE

“Sate” is a variant of the older word “satiate”. Both terms can mean either to satisfy an appetite fully, or to eat to excess.

21 Cavernous opening : MAW

“Maw” is a term used to describe the mouth or stomach of a carnivorous animal. “Maw” is also used as slang for the mouth or stomach of a greedy person.

23 Org. that collects workplace injury data : OSHA

Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)

24 Designer Christian : DIOR

Christian Dior was a highly influential fashion designer who is widely credited with revolutionizing women’s fashion in the post-World War II era. Before he became a fashion designer, Dior worked as an art dealer, and he even ran his own art gallery for a time. There, he and a friend sold works by Pablo Picasso and others.

26 Muscles above abs : PECS

“Pecs” is the familiar name for the chest muscle, which is more correctly known as the pectoralis major muscle. “Pectus” is the Latin word for “breast, chest”.

27 Waikiki’s island : OAHU

Waikiki is a neighborhood of Honolulu that is home to the famous Waikiki Beach. The name “Waikiki” means “spouting fresh water” in Hawaiian.

28 Acrobat’s springboard : TRAMPOLINE

The first modern trampoline was developed in 1936. The apparatus was given its name from the Spanish “trampolín” meaning “diving board”. Trampolines were used during WWII in the training of pilots, to give them exposure to some spatial orientations that would be encountered during flight. Trampolines were also used by astronauts training in the space flight program. The sport of trampolining became an Olympic event starting in the 2000 Games.

An acrobat is someone who performs gymnastic feats. The term “acrobat“ comes into English via French from the Greek “akrobatos” meaning “going on tip-toe, climbing up high”.

36 __ butter: moisturizer in L’Occitane products : SHEA

Shea butter is a common moisturizer and lotion used as a cosmetic. It is a fat that is extracted from the nut of the African shea tree. There is evidence that shea butter was used back in Cleopatra’s Egypt.

38 One-named “Believe” singer : CHER

When Cher recorded the 1998 song “Believe”, the audio engineers routinely corrected the sound of Cher’s voice to ensure that all notes were sung with perfect pitch (all singers “cheat”, it seems!). The software that does this pitch correction is called “Auto-Tune”. Then, for a bit of fun, the same engineers played with the Auto-Tune software and created a special effect in her voice that she liked so much, it was left in the final release. You can easily detect the strange effect if you listen to the song. The process is now called the “Cher Effect” and is used by other artists in their recordings.

39 Chuck of “Meet the Press” : TODD

Chuck Todd is a television journalist. Todd was the Chief White House Correspondent for NBC, before taking over as moderator of “Meet the Press” in 2014.

NBC’s news and interview show “Meet the Press” first aired in 1947. That’s a long time ago, and so “Meet the Press” is the longest-running television series in US broadcasting history.

40 “Crazy Rich Asians” novelist Kevin : KWAN

“Crazy Rich Asians” is a 2018 rom-com based on a 2013 novel of the same name by Kevin Kwan. The film garnered a lot of attention and accolades, not only for the quality of the script and performances. It was the first major Hollywood movie to feature a principal cast of Asian descent since 1993’s “The Joy Luck Club”.

46 Formerly, quaintly : ERST

“Erst” is an archaic way of saying “formerly, before the present time”. The term is mostly seen as part of the word “erstwhile”, an adjective meaning “of times past”.

49 Coach Ted played by Jason Sudeikis : LASSO

“Ted Lasso” is a marvelous sports-comedy TV show about an American college football coach who moves to the UK to manage an English soccer team. The title character is played very admirably by Jason Sudeikas. Sudeikas first played Lasso in a series of TV commercials commissioned to promote NBC’s coverage of the British Premier League. The character became so popular that he inspired a whole TV series. Great stuff, and highly recommended …

50 “Tiny Dancer” singer John : ELTON

The 1971 Elton John song “Tiny Dancer” was written by John himself, with lyrics by Bernie Taupin. Apparently the “tiny dancer” in the song is a character reminiscent of the young ladies that Taupin met in California in 1970.

61 WPA creator : FDR

The Work Progress Administration (WPA) was the largest of the New Deal agencies. The WPA employed millions of people during the Depression, putting them to work on various public works projects. The total spending through the WPA from 1936 to 1939 was nearly $7 billion. We have to give the federal government credit for taking an enlightened view of what types of projects qualified for financial support, so artists who could not get commissions privately were hired by the government itself. The result is a collection of “New Deal Art”, including a series of murals that can be found in post offices around the country to this day.

62 “Searching for Mexico” host Longoria : EVA

Eva Longoria is a fashion model and actress who had a regular role on TV’s “Desperate Housewives”, playing Gabrielle Solis. Her travel and food show “Eva Longoria: Searching for Mexico” premiered on CNN in 2023.