Category: Susan Gelfand

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Constructed by: Susan Gelfand
Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Reveal Answer: Fill One’s Shoes

Themed answers are each bounded by letters that spell out a type of SHOE:

• 36A Step in for another, and what the answers to the starred clues literally do : FILL ONE’S SHOES

• 18A *Online journals for DIYers : CRAFT BLOGS (giving “CLOGS”)
• 23A *Warm alcoholic beverages with sugar and spices : MULLED WINES (giving “MULES”)
• 52A *Horse-drawn excursions : SLEIGH RIDES (giving “SLIDES”)
• 58A *Low-effort posts of vacation pics, say : PHOTO DUMPS (giving “PUMPS”)

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

Bill’s time: 5m 17s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1 Graceful long-necked bird : SWAN

An adult male swan is a cob and an adult female is a pen. Young swans are swanlings or cygnets.

5 Hoover Dam lake : MEAD

The reservoir on the Colorado River known as Lake Mead, created by the Hoover Dam, used to be the largest reservoir in the US. Located outside Las Vegas, drought and increasing demand for water has shrunk Lake Mead so that now Lake Sakakawea on the Missouri in North Dakota has a larger surface area and volume of water.

When the magnificent Hoover Dam was completed in 1936 it was the largest hydroelectric plant in the world, as well as being the world’s largest concrete structure. The edifice was originally known as Boulder Dam, due to its location near Boulder City, Nevada. The dam was eventually named after Herbert Hoover for his role in having the dam built when he was Secretary of Commerce, and his later support as US President. There was a formal dedication ceremony held in September 1935 when President Franklin D. Roosevelt was in the area, when only work on the powerhouse was incomplete. President Roosevelt managed to make his dedication speech without once referring to the name of his former opponent President Hoover. When the dam was finally put into service in 1936, the project was two years ahead of schedule. Those were the days …

9 Colorful quartz : AGATE

Agate is a micro-crystalline form of quartz (and so is related to sand/silica). Some agate samples have deposited layers that give a striped appearance, and these are called “banded agate”.

15 Moreno who owns the MLB’s Angels : ARTE

Billionaire businessman Arte Moreno bought the Anaheim Angels baseball team in 2003. In doing so, he became the first Mexican-American to own a major US sports team.

16 Like some pools : TIDAL

A tidal pool (also “rock pool”) is a pool of seawater that is left along a rocky coastline after an ebb tide.

17 Cabbage side often served in tiny cups : SLAW

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

18 *Online journals for DIYers : CRAFT BLOGS (giving “CLOGS”)

Clogs are shoes made from wood, at least in part. The clog originated as a protective item of footwear for use by farm, factory and mine workers.

20 “The Little Mermaid” role for Halle Bailey : ARIEL

Singer and actress Halle Bailey started her singing career as a young girl on a YouTube channel with her sister, performing cover songs as “Chloe x Halle”. In 2019, Halle was given her first lead role as an actress, playing Ariel in the 2023 live-action remake of 1989’s “The Little Mermaid”.

23 *Warm alcoholic beverages with sugar and spices : MULLED WINES (giving “MULES”)

Mulled wine (also “spiced wine”) is red wine mixed with mulling spices and served hot or warm. The combination making up mulling spices usually includes cinnamon, cloves, allspice and nutmeg. Mulled wine might also include some dried fruit, especially raisins. Yum …

31 “j” topper : DOT

A tittle is a small diacritical mark used in writing. Examples are the cedilla and tilde used in some languages, and the dot over the lowercase letters i and j in English.

35 Nondairy spread : OLEO

Emperor Louis Napoleon III of France announced a competition to develop a substitute for butter, a substitute that would be more accessible to the lower classes and more practical for the armed forces. A French chemist called Hippolyte Mege-Mouries came up with something he called oleomargarine in 1869, which was eventually manufactured under the trade name “margarine”. The name “oleomargarine” also gives us our generic term “oleo”.

44 “C’__ la vie!” : EST

“C’est la vie” is French for “that’s life”.

47 Turkish title : AGA

“Aga” (also “agha”) is a title that was used by both civil and military officials in the Ottoman Empire.

48 Gibbon or gorilla : APE

Gibbons are referred to as lesser apes as they differ in size and behavior from the great apes e.g. chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans and humans.

The gorilla is the largest primate still in existence, and is one of the nearest living species to humans. Molecular biology studies have shown that our nearest relatives are in fact the species in the genus Pan (the chimpanzee and the bonobo), which split from the human branch of the family 4-6 million years ago. Gorillas and humans diverged at a point about 7 million years ago. The term “gorilla” derives from the Greek “gorillai” meaning “tribe of hairy women”. Wow …!

51 Former GM division with a globe in its logo : GEO

Geos were small vehicles manufactured by General Motors, mainly in the nineties. They were designed to compete head-to-head with the small imports that were gaining market share at the time in the US. Some Geo models that you might remember are the Metro, the Prizm and the Storm. The cars were actually built as joint-ventures with Japanese manufacturers. The Prizm was a GM/Toyota project, the Metro was GM/Suzuki, and the Storm was GM/Isuzu.

52 *Horse-drawn excursions : SLEIGH RIDES (giving “SLIDES”)

Slides (also “sliders”) are shoes that are similar to flip-flops in that they have open heels. Also akin to a flip-flop, a slide holds onto the foot at the front. The difference is that the front strap does not separate the big toe from the rest of the toes.

57 Divination deck : TAROT

Tarot cards have been around since the mid-1400s, and for centuries were simply used for entertainment as a game. It has only been since the late 1800s that the cards have been used by fortune tellers to predict the future. The list of tarot cards includes the Wheel of Fortune, the Hanged Man and the Lovers.

58 *Low-effort posts of vacation pics, say : PHOTO DUMPS (giving “PUMPS”)

A photo dump is a collection of unedited images that is uploaded to social media all at one go. The intent is to convey a situation or mood, rather than impress with perfect photographs.

A pump is a woman’s shoe that doesn’t have a strap. Such shoes are probably called “pumps” because of the sound they make while walking in them.

68 Much of a sunflower : STEM

The common sunflower is so called because it has a flower head that looks like the Sun. Famously, young sunflowers exhibit heliotropism, tilting during the day to face the sun. As the sunflowers mature and bloom, they generally face east and no longer track the movement of the Sun across the sky.

Down

1 __ seed bun : SESAME

The sesame is a flowering plant that is cultivated mainly for its edible seeds. The seeds are a source of oil, and indeed, the sesame is the oldest known oilseed crop.

2 Arctic mammal with tusks : WALRUS

Walruses are large marine mammals with very prominent tusks. Their natural habitat is in and around the northern hemisphere’s Arctic Ocean.

4 Banister post : NEWEL

A newel is a principal upright post that supports a handrail beside a staircase. Newels are found at the top and bottom of the banister, and sometimes in between. Newels are often adorned with decorative trim to set them apart from the other posts by the staircase.

7 Pong producer : ATARI

Do you remember the arcade video game that is like a game of tennis, with paddles moving up and down to hit what looks like a ball, over what looks like a net? Well, that is Pong. The arcade version of Pong was introduced in 1972, with Atari selling a home version through Sears for the Christmas market in 1975.

10 Arizona river : GILA

The Gila River is a tributary of the Colorado that flows through New Mexico and Arizona. From 1848 to 1853, the Gila marked part of the border between the US and Mexico.

19 James of “The White Lotus” : THEO

Theo James is an English actor who is perhaps best known for playing Tobias Eaton (aaka “Four”) in the “Divergent” series of movies.

“The White Lotus” is a comedy-drama TV series about the fictional White Lotus chain of resort hotels. The first season is set in Hawaii, and the second in Sicily. Each season covers a week’s stay at a White Lotus resort. The first season is set in Hawaii, and the second in Sicily. A white lotus flower is symbolic of purity and innocence. Most of the guests and staff at “The White Lotus” are far from pure and innocent. Very enjoyable television, I thought …

28 Kitchen gadget brand : OXO

The OXO line of kitchen utensils and housewares is designed to be ergonomically superior to the average household tools. The intended user of OXO products is someone who doesn’t have the normal range of motion or strength in the hands e.g. someone suffering from arthritis.

33 “Treasure Island” writer’s monogram : RLS

Robert Louis Stevenson (RLS) was a Scottish author. He was most famous for his novels “Treasure Island”, “Kidnapped” and “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”.

I’d say that the most celebrated work from the pen of Robert Louis Stevenson (RLS) is “Treasure Island”, which was originally written as a series for a children’s magazine in 1881. I remember “Treasure Island” as the first “real” novel I read as a youngster …

38 Hair or carpet style : SHAG

A shag cut is a layered hairstyle. Actress Meg Ryan famously sported a shag cut for many years, as did fellow actress Farrah Fawcett.

Shag carpet is one with a deep pile, one with a “shaggy” appearance.

40 Artichoke core : HEART

As one might imagine from their appearance, artichokes are actually a type of thistle. The edible part of the artichoke is the flower bud, which is harvested before it fully blooms. If left unharvested, the flower of the artichoke plant will eventually bloom into a large, bright purple flower.

44 Compact Ford succeeded by the Focus : ESCORT

The Ford Escort was the best-selling car in North America for most of the 1980s. It was a successor to the Ford Pinto, and a precursor to the Ford Focus.

48 Skillful : ADROIT

The French for “to the right” is “à droit”, from which we get our word “adroit”. The original meaning of “adroit” was “rightly, properly”, but it has come to mean dexterous and skillful. Someone described as “maladroit” is unskilled and awkward.

54 Poetic feet in Shakespeare : IAMBS

An iamb is a metrical foot containing an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. The lines in William Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 18” use five sequential iambs, e.g. “Shall I / compare / thee to / a sum- / -mer’s day?” With that sequence of five iambs, the poem’s structure is described as iambic pentameter.

56 Venerable British school : ETON

The world-famous Eton College is located just outside London. It lies between the River Thames, and the Jubilee River. The Jubilee is a 7-mile stretch of man-made waterway that was built in the late 1990s to take overflow from the Thames and reduce flooding around the nearby towns.

58 Kissing in the park, briefly : PDA

Public display of affection (PDA)

59 Harley bike : HOG

The Harley-Davidson motorcycle company was founded in the very early 1900s by two childhood friends, William Harley and Arthur Davidson, . Their first design was in effect an engine hooked up to a pedal bicycle, but the 116 cc cylinder capacity simply couldn’t generate enough power to get up the hills of their native city of Milwaukee. The pair came up with a redesigned model that had a cylinder capacity of 405 cc, which the partners built in a shed at the back of Davidson’s house. In 1906, the partners built their first factory, located where the company’s headquarters is to this day, on Juneau Avenue in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Famously, Harley motorcycles are nicknamed “hogs”.

61 French “his” : SES

“Ses” is the French word for “his”, “her” or “its” when referring to a group of items or individuals.