Category: Micah Sommersmith

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Constructed by: Micah Sommersmith
Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Reveal Answer: Novel Ideas

Themed answers each end with an IDEA that’s part of a NOVEL:

• 63A Brainstorming breakthroughs, and the ends of 17-, 26-, and 47-Across? : NOVEL IDEAS

• 17A Backyard vegetable patch, e.g. : GARDEN PLOT
• 26A Configuration before customization : DEFAULT SETTING
• 47A Element of early internet art : ASCII CHARACTER

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

Bill’s time: 5m 41s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1 Activist Brockovich played by Julia Roberts : ERIN

Erin Brockovich is an environmental activist who is famous for the role she played in building a case against Pacific Gas & Electric for contaminating drinking water. Her story was told in a 2000 film titled “Erin Brockovich” starring Julia Roberts in the title role. Brockovich herself actually appeared in the film, as she was given a cameo as a waitress in a restaurant scene.

14 High-fat, low-carb diet, casually : KETO

A ketogenic (also “keto”) diet is a high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet. When a body consumes insufficient carbohydrates to meet the need for energy, then the liver converts fat into fatty acids and ketone bodies in order to make up the energy deficit. An elevated level of ketone bodies in the bloodstream is known as “ketosis”, a term that gives rise to the name “ketogenic diet”. Medical professionals sometimes prescribe a ketogenic diet in order to control epilepsy in children. A condition of ketosis can reduce the frequency of epileptic seizures.

16 Falco of “Nurse Jackie” : EDIE

“Nurse Jackie” is a comedy-drama series centered on an emergency room nurse at a hospital in New York City. The lead character is played by Edie Falco, who also played Tony Soprano’s wife on “The Sopranos”. I binge-watched “Nurse Jackie” a while back and found it to be a very well-written show …

19 “__ Enchanted”: Anne Hathaway film : ELLA

“Ella Enchanted” is a fantasy novel written by Gail Carson Levine, and published in 1997. It is a retelling of the story of Cinderella, with lots of mythical creatures added. A film adaptation was released in 2004 that features Anne Hathaway in the title role.

37 Tennis great Arthur posthumously awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom : ASHE

Arthur Ashe was a professional tennis player from Richmond, Virginia. In his youth, Ashe found himself having to travel great distances to play against Caucasian opponents due to the segregation that still existed in his home state. He was rewarded for his dedication by being selected for the 1963 US Davis Cup team, the first African-American player to be so honored. Ashe continued to run into trouble because of his ethnicity though, and in 1968 was denied entry into South Africa to play in the South African Open. In 1979, Ashe suffered a heart attack and had bypass surgery, with follow-up surgery four years later during which he contracted HIV from blood transfusions. Ashe passed away in 1993 due to complications from AIDS. Shortly afterwards, Ashe was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Bill Clinton.

The highest civilian awards in the US are the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal. The former is bestowed by the US president, and the latter by Acts of Congress. That said, Congress has the option of authorizing the President to present the Congressional Gold Medal to the chosen recipient.

46 Pen tip : NIB

“Nib” is a Scottish variant of the Old English word “neb”, with both meaning “beak of a bird”. This usage of “nib” as a beak dates back to the 14th century, with “nib” describing the tip of a pen or quill coming a little later, in the early 1600s.

47 Element of early internet art : ASCII CHARACTER

ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) lists codes for 32 “control” characters, as well as the 95 printable characters. These binary codes are the way that our computers can understand what we mean when we type, say a letter or a number. Unicode is a more contemporary standard, and is like “Ascii on steroids”, encompassing more characters.

51 Gaming console with a gesture-based controller : WII

“Wiimote” is an alternative name for the Wii Remote, the controller for the Nintendo Wii gaming console.

52 Leafy bowlful with hard-boiled eggs : CHEF SALAD

It won’t do much good ordering a “chef’s salad” outside of North America. It’s a very American dish.

62 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.

Down

1 Cardiac readouts, briefly : EKGS

An EKG measures the electrical activity in the heart. Back in my homeland of Ireland, an EKG is known as an ECG (for electrocardiogram). We use the German name in the US, Elektrokardiogramm, giving us EKG. Apparently the abbreviation EKG is preferred, as ECG might be confused (if poorly handwritten, I guess) with EEG, the abbreviation for an electroencephalogram.

5 Actor/director Stiller : BEN

Ben Stiller is the son of comic actors Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara. Ben is perhaps as well-known as a director as he is an actor. He made his debut as a director in the film “Reality Bites” in 1994.

6 Many Megan Thee Stallion songs : RAPS

“Megan Thee Stallion” is the stage name of rapper Megan Pete. Pete’s mother Holly Thomas was also a rap performer, one using the stage name “Holly-Wood”. Thomas would bring Megan to recording sessions rather than put her in daycare, and so exposed her young daughter to the recording business at an early age.

7 “Derry Girls” girl played by Louisa Harland : ORLA

“Derry Girls” is a very entertaining teen sitcom set in a Northern Irish girls’ Catholic secondary school in the mid-nineties. Supposedly, the first season of “Derry Girls” was the most-watched TV show in Northern Ireland ever. It’s very, very entertaining, although some North American viewers might benefit from the use of subtitles …

Irish actress Louisa Harland landed the supporting role of Orla McCool in the entertaining sitcom “Derry Girls” that ran from 2018 to 2022. She then landed the title role in the British historical fantasy show “Renegade Nell”.

8 Celtic artwork feature : KNOT

Celtic knots are stylized representations of knots that often feature in Celtic art. It’s difficult to walk down any road in Ireland without “tripping over” a Celtic knot.

9 North Carolina’s Biltmore __ : ESTATE

Biltmore House is a magnificent mansion located near Asheville, North Carolina. It was built by George Washington Vanderbilt II in the late 1800s. Biltmore is still privately owned, and is the largest privately owned residence in the whole country. The house is now open to the public. My wife and I wanted to visit the estate not too long ago but, to be honest, we decided against it as we found the entrance fee a little steep ($69 per person for a self-guided tour).

12 Pickle herb : DILL

Often, a dill pickle is actually a pickled gherkin, as the gherkin and cucumber are different cultivars within the same species. Here in the US, dill is commonly added to the pickling vinegar or brine, but this wasn’t the case when I used to eat them back in Ireland (I can’t stand dill!). You might see jars labeled as “cornichons”, but they’re gherkins. “Cornichon” is the French word for “gherkin”.

18 Giant computer of the 1940s : ENIAC

The acronym ENIAC stands for Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator (although many folks insist that the C was for “Computer”). ENIAC was introduced at the University of Pennsylvania in 1946, at which time it was the first general-purpose electronic computer, and dubbed “Giant Brain” by the press. Its original purpose was the calculation of artillery firing tables, but it ended up being used early on to make calculations necessary for the development of the hydrogen bomb. Given its uses, it’s not surprising to hear that development of ENIAC was funded by the US Army during WWII.

29 __ Bay Buccaneers : TAMPA

Buccaneers were pirates who worked the Caribbean in the 1800s, mainly attacking Spanish vessels. The original buccaneer was a French hunter living on Hispaniola (now Haiti and the Dominican Republic). These hunters used a local design of frame called a “buccan” as a smokehouse for meat, and so picked up the name “buccaneer”. In the first half of the 17th century, many of the buccaneers were driven off the island of Hispaniola by the Spanish and so they turned to the sea, making their living by pirating Spanish shipping.

31 “Fame” star 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.

32 Lowest point : NADIR

The nadir is the direction pointing immediately below a particular location (through to the other side of the Earth for example). The opposite direction, that pointing immediately above, is called the zenith. We use the terms “nadir” and “zenith” figuratively to mean the low and high points in a person’s fortunes.

34 Astronauts’ gp. : NASA

The Soviet Union launched the Sputnik satellite towards the end of 1957 in a development that shocked the establishment in the US. Within months, President Eisenhower created the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA, now DARPA) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The Space Race had begun …

38 Dumpster fire-level blunder : EPIC FAIL

“Dumpster fire” is an informal term that was coined in the early 2000s to describe a catastrophically bad situation. The phrase uses the image of the fire that can start in large trash bins.

“Dumpster” is one of those words that we use generically, even though it is actually a brand name. The original “Dumpster” was patented by the Dempster Brothers of Knoxville, Tennessee. “Dumpster” is derived from “dump” and “Dempster”.

52 Make up for procrastination, perhaps : CRAM

“Carpe diem” is a quotation from Horace, one of ancient Rome’s leading lyric poets. “Carpe diem” translates from Latin as “seize the day” or “enjoy the day”. The satirical motto of a procrastinator is “carpe mañana”, “translating” as “seize tomorrow”.

54 “¿Cómo __ usted?” : ESTA

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

57 Hockey feint : DEKE

A deke, also known as a dangle, is a technique used to get past an opponent in ice hockey. “Deke” is a colloquial shortening of the word “decoy”.

60 Terra firma : LAND

“Terra firma” is Latin for “solid ground”.