Category: Pam Amick Klawitter

Advertisement

Constructed by: Pam Amick Klawitter
Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Theme: Make Mine a Double

Themed answers are common phrases, but with the letter before the last word DOUBLED up:

• 22A Curmudgeonly professor? : ACADEMIC CRANK (from “academic rank”)
• 38A Sign of sadness from Dumbo? : ELEPHANT TEAR (from “elephant ear”)
• 70A Pilot’s scheduling concern? : SPEED OF FLIGHT (from “speed of light”)
• 100A Sign of wedding-day jitters? : SMOKING GROOM (from “smoking room”)
• 117A Consequence of a Midwest cold snap? : FREEZING GRAIN (from “freezing rain”)
• 13D Golf rental with a sponsorship deal? : GRAPHIC CART (from “graphic art”)
• 14D Method of tracking down Ben-Hur? : CHARIOT TRACE (from “chariot race”)
• 62D Collectible earthenware? : CLASSIC CROCK (from “classic rock”)
• 70D Under a log or in a pile of wet leaves? : SNAIL’S SPACE (from “snail’s pace”)

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

Bill’s time: 12m 31s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

7 Recipe smidgen : DASH

In cooking, the terms “dash”, “pinch” and “smidgen” can all be used for a very small measure, one that is often undefined. However, you can in fact buy some measuring spoons that define these amounts as follows:

• a dash is 1/8 teaspoon
• a pinch is 1/16 teaspoon
• a smidgen is 1/32 teaspoon

11 Wrinkly faced dog : PUG

The pug is a dog breed of Chinese origin. Our current family pet is a boxer/pug cross, and is a good-looking mutt!

14 “60 Minutes” airer : CBS

The marvelous news magazine program “60 Minutes” has been on the air since 1968. The show is unique among all other regularly-scheduled shows in that it has never used theme music. There is just the ticking of that Aristo stopwatch.

17 Pumpkin seed : PEPITA

Pumpkin seeds are also known as “pepitas”, from the Mexican Spanish term “pepita de calabaza” meaning “little seed of squash”.

22 Curmudgeonly professor? : ACADEMIC CRANK (from “academic rank”)

“Curmudgeon” is a favorite word used by my wife to describe me. A curmudgeon is a bad-tempered person full of resentment and stubborn notions. I am sure she uses the term very affectionately …

24 Snake River st. : IDA

The Snake River in the US northwest is the largest tributary of the Columbia River. It carved out the magnificent Hells Canyon, which is North America’s deepest river gorge.

26 Fashion designer Kate : SPADE

Kate Spade fashion design house was founded as a supplier of handbags in 1993. The brand is named for founder Kate Brosnahan Spade. The equivalent male brand is called Jack Spade.

27 Asks for a meal to be delivered to the penthouse, say : ORDERS UP

Originally, the term “penthouse” described a modest building attached to a main structure. In fact, in centuries past, the manger in which Jesus was born was often referred to as a penthouse. The modern, more luxurious connotation dates back to the early twenties.

33 Rose fruit : HIPS

The fruit of the rose plant is known as the rose hip or rose haw. I remember drinking rose hip syrup when I was a kid …

35 Sorceress jilted by Jason : MEDEA

In Greek mythology, Medea was the wife of Jason, the heroic leader of the Argonauts. She was a sorceress who pledged to help Jason in his search for the Golden Fleece, on condition that he take her as his wife. According to some accounts, Jason left Medea and took up with Glauce, the daughter of the king of Corinth. Medea got her own back by sending Glauce a golden coronet and a dress that were covered with poison. The poison killed Glauce, and her father the king. To further her revenge on Jason, Medea killed two of her own children that were fathered by him.

38 Sign of sadness from Dumbo? : ELEPHANT TEAR (from “elephant ear”)

The 1941 Disney animated film “Dumbo” was made a year after the feature called “Fantasia” was released. “Dumbo” was largely a commercial venture. The film was made quickly and released in theaters as soon as possible, the idea being to recoup the financial losses incurred by “Fantasia”.

The corm of some taro plants is used to make poi, a traditional Hawaiian dish (which I think tastes horrible). When a taro plant is grown as an ornamental, it is often called Elephant Ears due to the shape of its large leaves.

42 San Fernando Valley community : ENCINO

Encino is a district in the City of Los Angeles on the north slope of the Santa Monica Mountains. The area takes its name from a historic parcel of land called Rancho Los Encinos (Ranch of the Oak Trees).

44 Tomato __ : PUREE

A purée is a food that has been made smooth by straining or blending. “Purée” is a French term, which I believe is now used to mean “pea soup” (more completely written as “purée de pois”). The French verb “purer” means “to strain, clean”, from the Latin “purare” meaning “to purify, clean”.

45 Otto in “A Man Called Otto,” for one : GRUMP

“A Man Called Otto” is a marvelous 2022 comedy-drama movie starring Tom Hanks as a grumpy old man who gets dragged, reluctantly, into the lives of his neighbors. It is a remake of the 2015 Swedish film “A Man Called Ove”, which in turn is an adaptation of the 2012 novel of the same name by Fredrik Backman. In flashbacks, young Otto is played by Truman Hanks, one of Tom Hanks’ sons.

46 A-mews-ing memes? : LOLCATS

A lolcat is an image of a cat with a humorous message superimposed in text. Such images have been around since the late 1800s, but the term “lolcat” only surfaced in 2006 as the phenomenon was sweeping across the Internet. “Lolcat” is a melding of the acronym for “laugh out loud” (LOL) and “cat”.

48 Blue man group? : SMURFS

The Smurfs are little blue people created in 1958 by the Belgian cartoonist who went by the pen name Peyo. The Smurfs became famous in the US when Hanna-Barbera used them in a children’s cartoon series. The characters are largely a group of males. The original lineup included just one “Smurfette”, who is wooed by almost all of the boy Smurfs. Later, another female was introduced into the mix called Sassette, and still later along came Granny Smurf.

53 Some accent marks : ACUTES

In French, accents over the letter E can be acute (é, “accent aigu”) or grave (è, “accent grave”).

63 Verdi opera : AIDA

“Aida” is a celebrated opera by Giuseppe Verdi that is based on a scenario written by French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette. Mariette also designed the costumes and stages for the opening performance. The opera was first staged in 1871 in an opera house in Cairo. In the storyline, Aida is an Ethiopian princess brought into Egypt as a slave. Radamès is an Egyptian commander who falls in love with her, and then complications arise!

66 Panache : FLAIR

Someone exhibiting panache is showing dash and verve, and perhaps has a swagger. “Panache” is a French word used for a plume of feathers, especially one in a hat.

69 Org. with Lightning and Flames : NHL

The Tampa Bay Lightning are a National Hockey League team based in Tampa, Florida. Commonly referred to as “the Bolts”, the team name comes from Tampa Bay’s reputation as the Lightning Capital of North America.

The Flames are a professional hockey team based in the Alberta city of Calgary. The team has been in Calgary since 1980, but was founded in 1972 in the US as the Atlanta Flames.

70 Pilot’s scheduling concern? : SPEED OF FLIGHT (from “speed of light”)

Celerity is swiftness or speed, coming from the Latin “celeritas” that has the same meaning. And as an aside, in Einstein’s famous equation E=mc², the “c” stands for the speed of light, from the Latin “celeritas”.

90 “Cheers,” for one : SITCOM

The wonderful sitcom “Cheers” ran for eleven seasons on NBC, from 1982 to 1993. “Cheers” spawned an equally successful spin-off show called “Frasier”, which also ran for eleven seasons and often featured guest appearances of characters from the original “Cheers”. The Cheers bar was styled on the Bull & Finch Pub in Boston (in which I’ve had a pint of Guinness or two!). The owner of the Bull & Finch cleverly agreed to the initial interior and exterior shots, charging only one dollar. Since then he has made millions from selling “Cheers” memorabilia, and also from increased trade.

96 “Invisible Cities” author Calvino : ITALO

“Invisible Cities” is a 1972 novel by Italian author Italo Calvino. The book is structured as a series of dialogues between the aging Mongol Emperor Kublai Khan and the Venetian Explorer Marco Polo.

98 Nick of “Blackout” : NOLTE

Actor Nick Nolte got his big break playing opposite Jacqueline Bisset and Robert Shaw in “The Deep”, a film released in 1976.

“Blackout “ is a 2022 crime-thriller movie starring Josh Duhamel, Abbie Cornish and Nick Nolte. It’s about an undercover DEA agent who ends up in a mental institution in Mexico, suffering from amnesia. This one didn’t get great reviews.

99 Wyoming city : CASPER

The Wyoming city of Casper was established just a few miles east of the former site of Fort Caspar, which gave the settlement its name. In turn, Fort Caspar was named for US Army officer Caspar Collins, who was killed in 1865 at the Battle of the Plate Bridge Station. “Platte Bridge Station” was the name of the trading post that had existed at the site of Fort Caspar.

104 Divided lunchbox : 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”.

106 Kuwaiti leader : EMIR

The State of Kuwait sits at the northern tip of the Persian Gulf, sharing a border to the north with Iraq. After WWI, Kuwait was a Protectorate within the British Empire and then gained independence from the UK in 1961. Iraq annexed Kuwait in 1990, which led to the Gulf War of 1990-1991.

107 Soup with rice noodles : PHO

Pho (pronounced “fuh”) is a noodle soup from Vietnam that is a popular street food. It is often ordered with a side of hanh dam, pickled white onions.

123 Bookkeeping pro : CPA

Certified public accountant (CPA)

125 Vinyl record feature : GROOVE

The first standard for the rotational speed of gramophone records was 78 rpm. Like so many things it seems, the US version of “78” was slightly different from that for the rest of the world. The US record was designed to play at 78.26 rpm, whereas the standard in the rest of the world was 77.92 rpm. So, imported records playing on American equipment didn’t sound quite as they were intended.

126 Biblical construction : ARK

According to the Bible’s Book of Genesis, Noah was instructed to build his ark 300 cubits long, 50 cubits wide and 30 cubits high. That’s about 450 feet long, 75 feet wide and 45 feet high.

128 Heron’s home : NEST

Herons are birds with long legs that inhabit freshwater and coastal locales. Some herons are routinely referred to as egrets, and others as bitterns. Herons look a lot like storks and cranes, but differ in their appearance in flight. Herons fly with their necks retracted in an S-shape, whereas storks and cranes have their necks extended.

129 Pinstripes wearer : YANKEE

There is an urban legend that the New York Yankees introduced uniforms with pinstripes to make Babe Ruth look slimmer. Not so …

Down

2 “Parks and __” : REC

“Parks and Recreation” (sometimes just “Parks and Rec”) is a sitcom that started airing on NBC in 2009, and is a show that has grown on me. It stars the “Saturday Night Live” alum Amy Poehler. The creators of “Parks and Recreation” are part of the team responsible for the American version of “The Office”, so you’ll notice some similarities in the style of the two shows, and some actors that have appeared in both.

5 Escalator unit : STEP

Escalators have an advantage over elevators in that they can move larger numbers of people in the same time frame. They can also be placed in just about the same physical space that would be needed for a regular staircase. Patents for escalator-type devices were first filed in 1859, but the first working model wasn’t built until 1892 by one Jesse Reno. It was erected alongside a pier in Coney Island, New York, with the second escalator being placed at an entrance to the Brooklyn Bridge. Soon after, the Otis elevator company purchased the necessary patents and went into the business.

6 Kawasaki rival : YAMAHA

The Japanese company Yamaha started out way back in 1888 as a manufacturer of pianos and reed organs. Even though the company has diversified since then, Yamaha’s logo still reflects its musical roots. Said logo is made up of three intersecting tuning forks, and can even be seen on Yamaha motorcycles and ATVs.

7 “__ McStuffins” : DOC

“Doc McStuffins” is an animated children’s TV show about a 6-year-old girl who fixes toys.

9 Planetarium display : STAR MAP

The largest planetarium in the world is Planetarium 1 in St. Petersburg in Russia, having a dome of 37 meters in diameter. The largest in the Western Hemisphere is the Jennifer Chaisty Planetarium in the Liberty Science Center in Jersey City, New Jersey, with a dome of diameter 27 meters. The Birla Planetarium in Kolkata, India has the largest seating capacity, for 630 patrons.

11 Italian chum : PAISANO

“Paisano” translates literally from Spanish as “fellow countryman”, but is also used to mean “pal, chum”.

12 Pakistani language : URDU

Urdu is one of the two official languages of Pakistan (the other being English), and is one of the 22 scheduled languages in India. Urdu partly developed from Persian and is written from right to left.

14 Method of tracking down Ben-Hur? : CHARIOT TRACE (from “chariot race”)

Lew Wallace was a general for the Union Army during the Civil War, and was also an author. He wrote a very successful and celebrated book called “Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ”, first published in 1880, that was made into a 1959 movie starring Charlton Heston.

15 Fake : BOGUS

Our word “bogus”, meaning “not genuine” was coined (pun!) in the 1830s, when it applied to counterfeit money.

32 El Misti’s land : PERU

El Misti is a volcano that is also known as “Guagua-Putina”. It is located in Southern Peru near the city of Arequipa.

39 Western Australian port : PERTH

Perth is the capital city of Western Australia. Perth earned itself the nickname of “City of Light” in 1962 as virtually all the town’s lights were turned on at full power when astronaut John Glenn passed overhead in earth orbit in Friendship 7, so that he could see the city below. The city gave a repeat performance for Glenn in 1998 when he passed overhead in the Space Shuttle in 1998.

51 “Law & Order” creator : WOLF

Dick Wolf is a very successful TV and film producer. He is probably best known as the creator of the extensive “Law & Order” franchise of television shows, but also created the “Chicago” and “FBI” franchises. Wolf is also an author. You might want to check out “Law & Order: Crime Scenes”, which is a companion to the TV show. He also penned a series of thriller novels featuring a NYPD detective named Jeremy Fisk.

56 Jigsaw unit : PIECE

Jigsaws are saws designed for the cutting of irregular curves by hand. The original jigsaw puzzles were created by painting a picture on a sheet of wood and then cutting the picture into small pieces using a jigsaw, hence the name. Today, almost all jigsaw puzzles are pictures glued onto cardboard. The puzzle pieces are now die-cut, and so there’s no jigsaw involved at all.

64 “The French Dispatch” actor Benicio __ Toro : DEL

Benicio Del Toro is an actor from Puerto Rico. He is an Academy Award winner, for the role he played in “Traffic”, released in 2000. He also played the title role in the 2008 movie “Che”.

“The French Dispatch of the Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun” is a 2021 comedy-drama film written and directed by Wes Anderson. It features an ensemble cast including Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton, and Frances McDormand. The film is set in the fictional French city of Ennui-sur-Blasé and follows the story of a group of journalists who publish a weekly magazine called “The French Dispatch”.

78 Chopper part : ROTOR

Our term “helicopter” was absorbed from the French word “hélicoptère” that was coined by Gustave Ponton d’Amécourt in 1861. d’Amécourt envisioned aircraft that could fly vertically using rotating wings that “screwed” into the air. He combined the Greek terms “helix” meaning “spiral, whirl” and “pteron” meaning “wing” to give us “helicopter”.

82 Low-carb diet : 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.

84 Basketball Hall of Famer Yao : MING

Yao Ming is a retired professional basketball player from Shanghai who played for the Houston Rockets. At 7’6″, Yao was the tallest man playing in the NBA. He has a cute nickname: “the Ming Dynasty”.

92 Brief “However” : OTOH

On the other hand (OTOH)

95 Awards for Charlie Jane Anders and N.K. Jemisin : NEBULAS

The best works of science fiction and fantasy published each year are recognized annually by the Nebula Awards. The first Nebulas were awarded in 1966.

Charlie Jane Anders’ 2016 novel “All the Birds in the Sky” is a science fantasy work that falls into the category of speculative fiction. It is about the relationship between a techno-geek named Laurence and a witch named Patricia, and their efforts to stop the “Unraveling” of the world.

96 Coca of “Your Show of Shows” : IMOGENE

Imogene Coca was a comic actress from Philadelphia who is perhaps best-known for her appearances on television starting in the forties. Famously, Coca performed opposite Sid Caesar on NBC’s “Your Show of Shows” in the fifties.

101 Not quite awake : GROGGY

Edward Vernon was a naval officer with the nickname “Old Grog”. In 1740, Vernon ordered that the daily ration of rum for his sailors should be watered down, in order to reduce discipline problems caused by drunkenness. The diluted rum was sweetened with sugar, and lemon or lime added to help preserve it on long voyages. This recipe, found to reduce scurvy among sailors (because of the citrus) spread throughout the Royal Navy, and “grog” was born. As an aside, George Washington’s older half-brother named the famous Washington Mount Vernon Plantation in honor of Edward Vernon. We use the derivative term “groggy” to mean “unsteady on the feet”, as if under the influence of “grog”.

102 President born in Hawaii : OBAMA

Despite rumors to the contrary, Barack Hussein Obama II was indeed born in Hawaii. Future US President Obama was born on August 4, 1961 at Kapi’olani Maternity & Gynecological Hospital in Honolulu.

103 Apex antonym : 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.

An antonym is an “anti-synonym”. A synonym is a word having the same sense as another, and an antonym the opposite. For example, “love” is an antonym of “hate”, and “stop” is an antonym of “go”.

105 “Careful where you open this link” shorthand : NSFW

The abbreviation “NSFW” stands for “not safe/suitable for work”. It’s Internet slang used to describe online content that is best not viewed at work.

113 Taj Mahal city : AGRA

The Taj Mahal in Agra, India is a magnificent marble mausoleum. It was built in the mid-17th century by the fifth Mughal emperor Shah Jahan to house the tomb of his favorite wife Mumtaz Mahal, who died while giving birth to her 14th child in 1631. When Shah Jahan himself died in 1666, he was buried in the Taj Mahal, alongside his wife.

114 1982 Disney sci-fi film : TRON

Released in 1982, Disney’s “Tron” was one of the first mainstream films to make extensive use of computer graphics. The main role in the movie is played by Jeff Bridges. The original spawned a 2010 sequel called “Tron: Legacy”, as well as a 2012 TV show called “Tron: Uprising”.

118 Clearasil target : ZIT

Clearasil acne medication was developed in 1940 by Ivan Combe and Kedzie Teller. Combe promoted the product by sponsoring the television show “American Bandstand” for many years.

/p>