Category: Trent H. Evans

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Constructed by: Trent H. Evans
Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Reveal Answer: Garden Variety

Themed answers each include a VARIETY of (anagrammed) “GARDEN”:

• 59A Run-of-the-mill, or what can be found in the answers to the starred clues? : GARDEN VARIETY or “GARDEN” VARIETY

• 20A *Splashy arrival : GRAND ENTRANCE
• 37A *Like a conversation covering many topics : WIDE-RANGING
• 44A *Friendly signoff : KIND REGARDS

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

5 Saucy dance? : SALSA

“Salsa” is simply Spanish for “sauce”.

The genre of music called salsa is a modern interpretation of various Cuban traditional music styles.

14 Gone but not forgotten : AWOL

AWOL (absent without leave)

15 Far from skilled : INEPT

If one is capable, one might jokingly be described as “ept”, the ostensible opposite of “inept”.

16 Organ part : PIPE

The organ that we often see in churches, synagogues and concert halls is a pipe organ. Sound is produced by pressurized air driven through particular pipes selected by keys on a keyboard.

17 Webb designer? : NASA

The James Webb Space Telescope entered into service in 2022. It uses infrared radiation to observe objects, and also produces images with higher resolution than the Hubble Space Telescope that started operating in 1990. The Webb is named for James E. Webb, the NASA administrator who served from 1961 to 1968.

19 Big name in big screens : IMAX

The IMAX Corporation, which is behind the IMAX film format, is a Canadian company. The impetus for developing the system came after Expo ’67 in Montreal. Back then large format screenings were accomplished using multiple projectors with multiple screens, with images basically stitched together. The team behind the IMAX technology set out to simplify things, and developed a single-camera, single-projector system.

23 Meal that features a retelling of the story of Exodus : SEDER

The Passover Seder is a ritual feast that marks the beginning of the Jewish Passover holiday celebrating the liberation of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt.

The Jewish holiday of Passover (also “Pesach”) commemorates the Israelites being freed from slavery in Egypt, as recounted in the Book of Exodus in the Hebrew Bible. In that narrative, God inflicted ten plagues upon the Egyptians, the tenth being the death of their firstborn sons. God instructed the Israelites to mark their doorposts so that the plague would pass over the firstborn Israelites. This “passing over” gives the holiday its name.

24 ID-issuing org. : SSA

Social Security Administration (SSA)

25 Org. that says no to some drugs : FDA

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approves drugs for specific conditions. It is quite legal for a healthcare professional to prescribe an approved medication for a use that is different to the FDA-approved indication. This usage of the drug is described as “off-label”.

32 Lion of Narnia : ASLAN

In the C. S. Lewis series of books known as “The Chronicles of Narnia”, Aslan is the lion character (as in the title “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe”). “Aslan” is the Turkish word for “lion”. Anyone who has read the books will recognize the remarkable similarity between the story of Aslan and the story of Christ, including a sacrifice and resurrection.

34 Synthetic drug similar to psilocybin : LSD

Psilocybin is a compound found in many fungi species that converts to a psychedelic (psilocin) when metabolized. Absorbing psilocybin results in mind-altering effects similar to those produced by mescaline and LSD.

40 Côte d’Ivoire pal : AMIE
43 Côte d’Ivoire head : TETE

The Republic of Côte d’Ivoire is located in West Africa on the Gulf of Guinea. The country is often referred to in English as “the Ivory Coast”, the direct translation from the French. The official language of the country is French, as for many years it was a French colony.

42 Triglyceride, for one : LIPID

Lipids are a group of naturally occurring molecules including fats, waxes and fat-soluble vitamins (like A, D and E). Sometimes we use the words “fat” and “lipid” interchangeably but fats are a subgroup of lipids, specifically a group best called triglycerides.

49 Naughty and nice : LISTS

Santa checks his list for those who are naughty and those who are nice.

51 One of a D.C. 100 : SEN

The US Senate comprises 100 senators, with each of the fifty states being represented by two popularly elected senators. US senators were appointed by their state legislators from 1798 through 1913, until the Seventeenth Amendment called for popular elections.

59 Run-of-the-mill, or what can be found in the answers to the starred clues? : GARDEN VARIETY or “GARDEN” VARIETY

On the other side of the pond, something quite ordinary can be described as “common or garden”, a phrase that has been in use since the 17th century. It is likely that the original “common or garden” was a variety of plant so ubiquitous that it was found both on the “commons” (community land) and in “gardens”. On this side of the Atlantic, we use the sister term “garden-variety”, which might be derivative of its English relative.

Something described as run-of-the-mill is unspectacular, quite normal. The idea is that the regular production from say a sawmill isn’t perfect, but does the job. Imperfections in the wood can be expected, but the milled wood should get the job done. Going back a few years, similar expressions were quite common, such as “run-of-the-kiln” and “run-of-the-mine”.

67 Air Force Two exec : VEEP

“Air Force Two” is the call sign used by any aircraft carrying the US vice president (and not the president; that would be “Air Force One”). The aircraft used most commonly by the vice president is a modified Boeing 757, a C-32.

68 Hoax : SHAM

A sham is something that is imitation, fake. In the world of bed linens, a sham is also an imitation or fake, in the sense that it is a decorative cover designed to cover up a regular pillow used for sleeping.

69 Singer-songwriter Mann : AIMEE

Aimee Mann is a rock singer and guitarist from Virginia. Mann is married to Michael Penn, the brother of actor Sean Penn.

70 Salinger heroine : ESME

J. D. Salinger wrote a short story called “For Esmé – with Love and Squalor” that was originally published in “The New Yorker” in 1950. It is a story about a young English girl called Esme and an American soldier, and is set in WWII.

71 Norms on the links : PARS

The oldest type of golf course is a links course. The name “links” comes from the Old English word “hlinc” meaning “rising ground”. “Hlinc” was used to describe areas with coastal sand dunes or open parkland. As a result, we use the term “links course” to mean a golf course that is located at or on the coast, often amid sand dunes. The British Open is always played on a links course.

72 Ruminates bitterly : STEWS

Ruminants are animals that “chew the cud”. Ruminants eat vegetable matter but cannot extract any nutritional value from cellulose without the help of microbes in the gut. Ruminants collect roughage in the first part of the alimentary canal, allowing microbes to work on it. The partially digested material (the cud) is regurgitated into the mouth so that the ruminant can chew the food more completely, exposing more surface area for microbes to do their work. We also use the verb “to ruminate” in a figurative sense, to mean “to muse, ponder, chew over”.

Down

1 Factions in “West Side Story” : GANGS

Leonard Bernstein’s musical “West Side Story” is based on William Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet”. The musical is set in New York City and features two rival gangs: the Sharks from Puerto Rico and the Jets with working-class, Caucasian roots. Tony from the Jets (played by Richard Beymer) falls in love with Maria (played by Natalie Wood) from the Sharks. All this parallels Romeo from the House of Montague falling for Juliet from the House of Capulet in the Italian city of Verona. The stage musical was adapted into a very successful 1961 movie with the same title.

4 Piper Cubs, e.g. : PLANES

The name “Piper Cub” is used for a family of light aircraft that were built in the 1930s and 1940s, most of which were the Piper J-3 Cub design. The Cub was produced in high volume, and was very affordable. It is a two-seater plane, with the pilot usually sitting in the rear seat when flying solo (for better balance).

6 In a sec, quaintly : ANON

“Anon” originally meant “at once”, but the term’s meaning evolved into “soon” apparently just because the word was misused over time.

7 Pre-Easter time : LENT

In Latin, the Christian season that is now called “Lent” was termed “quadragesima” (meaning “fortieth”), a reference to the forty days that Jesus spent in the desert before beginning his public ministry. When the church began its move in the Middle Ages towards using the vernacular, the term “Lent” was introduced. “Lent” comes from “lenz”, the German word for “spring”.

8 Dukes it out in practice : SPARS

“Dukes” is a slang term meaning “fists, hands”. The route taken by “dukes” to become fists seems very tortuous, but might just be true. The term “fork” was slang for “hand” for centuries (and gives rise to “fork out” meaning “hand over”). The slang term “fork” is expressed in Cockney rhyming slang as “Duke of York”, which is shortened to “duke”. As I said, tortuous …

9 Sky supporter of myth : ATLAS

In Greek mythology Atlas was one of the Titans. Famously, he supported the heavens on his shoulders, while crouched on what are now called the Atlas Mountains in Greece.

13 Bad spelling? : HEX

“Hexen” is a German word meaning “to practice witchcraft”. The use of the word “hex” in English started with the Pennsylvania Dutch in the early 1800s.

22 Bread brushed with ghee : NAAN

Ghee is clarified butter used in South Asian cuisines. “Ghee” comes from Sanskrit, and translates as “sprinkled”.

26 Poet who was guided through paradise by Beatrice : DANTE

In Dante’s epic poem “The Divine Comedy”, the poet journeys through the three realms of the dead. The Roman poet Virgil guides Dante through Hell and Purgatory. Dante is guided through Heaven by Beatrice, the poet’s ideal of womanhood Beatrice

31 Nation between China and India : NEPAL

Nepal lies to the northeast of India. Today, the state is known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal. In 2008, the Communist Party of Nepal won the country’s general election. Soon after, the Assembly voted to change the form of government, moving away from a monarchy and creating a secular republic.

34 Finger __ : LAKES

When I first moved to the US, I settled in Upstate New York and was lucky enough to live near the beautiful Finger Lakes. The largest of the eleven lakes is Seneca Lake, which is one of the deepest bodies of water in the United States.

38 “Disturbia” singer, familiarly : RIRI

Singer Rihanna was born and grew up on the island of Barbados and moved to the US when she was 16-years-old to pursue a singing career. “Rihanna” is her stage name, as she was born Robyn Rihanna Fenty. The name “Rihanna” is derived from the Welsh name “Rhiannon”. And, Rihanna sometimes goes by the nickname “RiRi”, which is also the name of her line of beauty products.

“Disturbia” is a 2008 song released by Rihanna. It was the third song released from her album “Good Girl Gone Bad: Reloaded”, and the third of those songs to reach number-one in the “Billboard” charts.

39 Does some kindergarten math : ADDS

“Kindergarten” is a German term, one translated as “children’s garden”. The term was coined by the German education authority Friedrich Fröbel in 1837, when he used it as the name for his play and activity institute that he created for young children to use before they headed off to school. His thought was that children should be nourished educationally, like plants in a garden.

41 N.H. summer hrs. : EDT

The US state of New Hampshire takes its name from the former British colony known as the Province of New Hampshire. In turn, the colony was named for the English county of Hampshire by Captain John Mason, who was the first proprietor of the Province of New Hampshire.

45 __ admiral : REAR

The rank of rear admiral is usually the lowest of the admiral ranks. The term originated with the Royal Navy. In days gone by, an admiral would head up the activities of a naval squadron from the central vessel. He (and they were always male back then) would be assisted by a vice admiral who acted from the lead vessel. There would also be a lower-ranking admiral to command the ships at the rear of the squadron, and this was the “rear” admiral.

46 Guide for the Magi : STAR

“Magi” is the plural of the Latin word “magus”, a term applied to someone who was able to read the stars. Hence, “magi” is commonly used with reference to the “wise men from the East” who followed the star and visited Jesus soon after he was born. In Western Christianity, the three Biblical Magi are:

• Melchior: a scholar from Persia
• Caspar (also “Gaspar”): a scholar from India
• Balthazar: a scholar from Arabia

56 “The Twelve Days of Christmas” half-dozen : GEESE

The fabulous Christmas carol called “The Twelve Days of Christmas” dates back at least to 1780 when it was first published in England, though it may be French in origin. The concept of twelve days of Christmas comes from the tradition that the three kings came to visit the Christ Child twelve days after he was born. This same tradition is the origin of the title to Shakespeare’s play “Twelfth Night”.

57 Watch and wineglass features : STEMS

The stem of a watch is the shaft that projects from the body that is used to wind the mechanism. Prior to the introduction of stem watches, the timepieces were wound up using a key.

63 Pub orders : ALES

The many, many different styles of beer can generally be sorted into two groups: ales and lagers. Ales are fermented at relatively warm temperatures for relatively short periods of time, and use top-fermenting yeasts, i.e. yeasts that float on top of the beer as it ferments. Lagers ferment at relatively low temperatures and for relatively long periods of time. Lagers use bottom-fermenting yeasts, i.e. yeasts that fall to the bottom of the beer as it ferments.