Category: Micah Sommersmith

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Constructed by: Micah Sommersmith
Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Reveal Answer: Second Look

Themed answers each comprise two words, the FIRST being a PLACE, and the SECOND being a synonym of “LOOK”:

• 50A Top spot on the podium, and what the answers to the starred clues all have? : FIRST PLACE
• 59A Reappraisal, and what the answers to the starred clues all have? : SECOND LOOK

• 17A *Google Maps feature : STREET VIEW
• 21A *Ultrasound sweep that produces a wedge-shaped image : SECTOR SCAN
• 31A *Observation wheel on the Thames : LONDON EYE
• 41A *Local security patrol : CITY WATCH

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

Bill’s time: 7m 31s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

4 Basketball Hall of Famer Weatherspoon : TERESA

Teresa Weatherspoon is a WNBA coach and former player. Her playing career included 8 years with teams in Italy, France and Russia.

16 Chopped-up fare : HASH

Hash, beef and vegetables mashed together, is a very American dish and one that really surprised me when I first came across it. “Hash” just seems like such an unappetizing item, but I soon found out how delicious it was. The name “hash” in this context comes from the French “hacher” meaning “to chop”. Back in the early 1900s the dish called “hashed browned potatoes” was developed, which quickly morphed into “hash browns”. From there the likes of corned beef hash was introduced.

17 *Google Maps feature : STREET VIEW

Street View is a feature in Google Maps providing interactive photographic panoramas of locations all around the world. Most of us have probably come across a Google car with a hightech camera on its roof capturing images for Street View. As well as a fleet of cars for taking images, Google has also used a trike to capture images in pedestrian locales, a snowmobile during a Winter Olympics, trollies inside museums, and backpack-mounted cameras on canal boats in Venice.

21 *Ultrasound sweep that produces a wedge-shaped image : SECTOR SCAN

“Ultrasound” is the name given to sound energy that has frequencies above the audible range.

23 Arthur of “The Golden Girls” : BEA

Bea Arthur an American actress and comedian who rose to fame in the 1970s with her iconic roles in the hit TV shows “Maude” and “The Golden Girls.” Prior to launching her acting career, Arthur served in the US military. In 1943, at the age of 21, she joined the US Marine Corps Women’s Reserve, where she worked as a typist and truck driver.

“The Golden Girls” is a sitcom that originally aired in the eighties and nineties. The show features Bea Arthur, Betty White, Rue McClanahan and Estelle Getty as four older women who share a house in Miami.

26 Grammy winner Carlile : BRANDI

Singer Brandi Carlile received more nominations than any other female artist at the 61st Grammy Awards in 2019. Of the six nominations, she won three: Best American Album for “By the Way, I Forgive You”, Best American Roots Performance and Best American Roots Song for “The Joke”.

29 Slaw and fries : SIDES

The term “coleslaw” is an Anglicized version of the Dutch term “koolsla”, which in itself is a shortened form of “Koolsalade” meaning “cabbage salad”.

31 *Observation wheel on the Thames : LONDON EYE

The London Eye is a very large Ferris wheel that sits right beside the River Thames in London. It is the tallest Ferris wheel in Europe, and was the tallest in the world when it was constructed in 1999. The London Eye is the most-visited paid tourist attraction in the whole country.

36 Acorn droppers : OAKS

These days, we don’t usually consider acorns (the fruit of the oak tree) as a foodstuff. But in days past, many cultures around the world have used acorns as food. Usually, bitter tannins that occur in acorns need to be leached out in water. Acorn meal can be a substitute for grain flour, which can then be used to make bread. Acorns have also been used as a substitute for coffee, especially when coffee was rationed. Notably, acorn coffee was brewed up by Confederates during the American Civil War, and by Germans during World War II.

37 Gold unit : KARAT

A karat (also “carat”, the spelling outside of North America) is a measure of the purity of gold alloys, with 24-karat representing pure gold.

39 Pixar film set in Mexico : COCO

“Coco” is a 2017 Pixar movie about a 12-year-old boy named Miguel who ends up in the land of the dead by accident. There, he seeks out the help of the great-great-grandfather to get back to his family in the land of the living.

40 Pre-iTunes stack : CDS

The compact disc (CD) was developed jointly by Philips and Sony as a medium for storing and playing sound recordings. When the first commercial CD was introduced back in 1982, a CD’s storage capacity was far greater than the amount of data that could be stored on the hard drive of personal computers available at that time.

iTunes is a very successful software application from Apple. It’s basically a media player that works on platforms like the iPad, iPhone and iPod. It connects seamlessly to the iTunes store, where you can spend all kinds of money.

43 __-Bits: letter-shaped cereal : ALPHA

Alpha-Bits is a Post breakfast cereal that was introduced in 1958, and taken off the shelves in 2006. The cereal was relaunched in 2008 with “0% Sugar!” tagline, but I guess that didn’t sell too well. The original Alpha-Bits formulation was reintroduced in 2008. Sugar, sugar, sugar …

46 Studio stands : EASELS

The term “easel” comes from an old Dutch word meaning “donkey”, would you believe? The idea is that an easel carries its load (an oil painting, say) just as a donkey would be made to carry a load.

47 Off-limits : TABOO

The word “taboo” was introduced into English by Captain Cook in his book “A Voyage to the Pacific Ocean”. Cook described “tabu” (likely imitative of a Tongan word that he had heard) as something that was both consecrated and forbidden.

49 Actor Brynner : YUL

Yul Brynner was a Russian-born actor. Brynner was well known for his great performances, but also for his shaved head and his deep rich voice. He first adopted the “hairstyle” while playing the King of Siam in the stage version of “The King and I”, and he stuck with it.

50 Top spot on the podium, and what the answers to the starred clues all have? : FIRST PLACE

“Podium” (plural “podia”) is the Latin word for “raised platform”.

62 Ottawa’s country : CANADA

Ottawa is the second-largest city in the Province of Ontario (after Toronto) and is the capital city of Canada. The name “Ottawa” comes from an Algonquin word “adawe”, which means “to trade”.

64 Dermatologist’s concern : WART

A wart is a small eruption on the skin caused by a localized viral infection. Apparently, the most successful treatment is topical use of salicylic acid, with a cure rate of 75%. I think it’s best to try to avoid getting them …

65 Conditional statement type, in programming : IF-ELSE

In computer programming, an ELSE-IF conditional statement is used to create a chain of IF statements. The chain starts with an IF statement. When that IF statement is false, the ELSE-IF statement is evaluated. When that ELSE-IF statement is false, a second ELSE-IF statement can be used as a further option; and so on down the chain.

66 British co. : LTD

In Britain and Ireland, the most common type of business (my perception anyway) is one that has private shareholders whose liability is limited to the value of their investment. Such a company is known as a private limited company, and has the abbreviation “Ltd.” after the name. If the shares are publicly traded, then the company is a public limited company, and has the letters “plc” after the name.

Down

3 Supermodel who created “America’s Next Top Model” : TYRA BANKS

Tyra Banks is a tremendously successful model and businesswoman. Banks created and hosted the hit show “America’s Next Top Model “, and also had her own talk show. She was also the first African-American woman to make the cover of the “Sports Illustrated” swimsuit issue.

5 Sinus docs : ENTS

Ear, nose and throat specialist (ENT)

In anatomical terms, a sinus is a cavity in tissue. Sinuses are found all over the body, in the kidney and heart for example, but we most commonly think of the paranasal sinuses that surround the nose.

7 Actor Stoltz : ERIC

Eric Stoltz is an actor from Whittier, California who is best known for playing the disfigured Rocky Dennis in the 1985 movie “Mask”. In 1984, Stolz spent weeks playing Marty McFly for the film “Back to the Future” before producers concluded that he was miscast and gave the role to Michael J. Fox.

8 Bird feeder cake : SUET

Fat, when extracted from the carcass of an animal, is called suet. Untreated suet decomposes at room temperature quite easily so it has to be rendered, purified to make it stable. Rendered fat from pigs is what we call lard. Rendered beef or mutton fat is known as tallow.

9 “The Testaments” novelist Margaret : ATWOOD

Margaret Atwood’s 2019 novel “The Testaments” is a sequel to her best-selling 1985 book “The Handmaid’s Tale”.

Canadian author Margaret Atwood is best known for her novels. However, Atwood also conceived the idea of the LongPen, a remote robotic writing technology. The LongPen allows a user to write remotely in ink via the Internet. Atwood came up with the idea so that she could remotely attend book signings.

10 CBS sitcom set in a haunted mansion : GHOSTS

“Ghosts” is an American sitcom that is based on a British series of the same name. I enjoyed the British version (haven’t seen the US show), which starred Charlotte Ritchie and Kiell Smith-Bynoe. The leads play a married couple who inherit a country mansion that is haunted by some pretty wild ghosts. Only the wife can see the ghosts, and hilarity ensues …

11 Stick on a horse? : LANCE

Lancers (also “lancemen”) were a special type of cavalry soldier, ones who fought with lances!

12 Hollywood award : OSCAR

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) is the organization that gives the annual Academy Awards, also known as the “Oscars”. The root of the name “Oscar” is hotly debated, but what is agreed is that the award was officially named “Oscar” in 1939. The first Academy Awards were presented at a brunch in 1929 with an audience of just 29 people. The Awards ceremony is a slightly bigger event these days …

18 Fixes, as text : EMENDS

The verb “to amend” means “to change for the better, put right, alter by adding”. The related verb “to emend” is used more rarely, and mainly in reference to the editing of professional writing. Both terms are derived from the Latin “emendare” meaning “to remove fault”.

22 McClanahan of “The Golden Girls” : RUE

Actress Rue McClanahan was best known for her television sitcom roles, as Vivian Harmon on “Maude” and as Blanche Devereaux on “The Golden Girls”.

28 Calligraphy supply : INK

Calligraphy is the art of fine handwriting. The term “calligraphy” comes from the Greek “kallos” meaning “beauty” and “graphein” meaning “to write”.

29 Lebanon neighbor : SYRIA

The Levant is the geographic region that lies east of the Mediterranean, covering modern-day Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, and Egypt. The term is sometimes also used synonymously with the Near East. Syria and Lebanon, when under French rule, were called the Levant States, a name still used at times for the two nations. As one might expect, the word Levant comes from French and was the Middle French word for “the Orient”. The term was used for the Orient as it described lands to the east, where the sun rises (from “lever”, the French word meaning “to rise”). Really, quite interesting …

30 “__ my peas with honey … ” : I EAT

I eat my peas with honey;
I’ve done it all my life.
It makes the peas taste funny,
But it keeps them on the knife.

34 OT book after Proverbs : ECCL

Ecclesiastes is a book in the Hebrew Bible and in the Christian Old Testament. The term “ecclesiastes” is usually translated as “teacher” or “preacher”, although a more literal translation is “gatherer”.

35 Mineral hardness scale : MOHS

The Mohs scale of mineral hardness was developed in 1812 by Friedrich Mohs. Basically Mohs took minerals and scratched them with other minerals. In this way he was able to determine which minerals were hardest (most scratch resistant) and which softest. On the scale, diamond is the hardest (and rated 10), while talc is the softest (and rated 1).

38 “Ready Player One” actor Sheridan : TYE

Actor Tye Sheridan had one of the lead roles in the 2012 coming-of-age film “Mud”, which starred Matthew McConaughey.

39 Like some Friday work attire : CASUAL

The practice of dressing down at work on “Casual Fridays” arose at the end of the 20th century. The custom is rooted in the tradition known as “Aloha Friday” that started in Hawaii in 1966. The official designation of Aloha Friday was the result of a successful lobbying campaign by the manufacturing association known as the Hawaiian Fashion Guild.

45 Mag that produces the podcast “The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week” : POPSCI

“Popular Science” (sometimes just “PopSci”) is a digital magazine carrying popular science content. The original version of the publication was founded in 1872 as “The Popular Science Monthly”. The print magazine disappeared in 2021, in favor of a fully digital format.

50 “Just sayin’,” in texts : FWIW

For what it’s worth (FWIW)

51 Symbol on 62-Across’s flag : LEAF
[62 Ottawa’s country : CANADA]

The current design of the Canadian National Flag, known as “the Maple Leaf”, has been in place since 1965. The design made its first appearance on February 15th of that year, and so that date is celebrated annually as National Flag of Canada Day.

53 Mined fuel : COAL

Coal forms from peat that is subject to heat and pressure deep in the ground over millions of years. The peat is dead plant matter from former wetlands that we now refer to as “coal forests”.

60 Actor Daniel __ Kim : DAE

Daniel Dae Kim is an American actor who is famous for playing Jin-Soo Kwon on “Lost”. Kim moved on to play one of the leads on the CBS remake of “Hawaii Five-O”, portraying the character Chin Ho Kelly.