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Constructed by: Simon Marotte & Trenton Lee Stewart
Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Theme (according to Bill): That’s not a Noun!

Themed answers look like common phrases, but the ending noun is changed to a verb. Themed clues each name a pair of celebrities who fit the corresponding answers:

• 17A Earnhardt and Andretti work as ushers? : DRIVERS SEAT
• 27A Gerwig and DuVernay work at the barbershop? : DIRECTORS CUT
• 44A Austen and Morrison choreograph a play? : WRITERS BLOCK
• 59A Hook and Kirk haul timber? : CAPTAINS LOG

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

Bill’s time: 5m 47s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

15 “Funeral Blues” poet : AUDEN

W. H. Auden’s poem “Funeral Blues” is also known by its first line “Stop all the clocks”. It garnered a lot of attention in recent years as it features prominently in the movie “Four Weddings and a Funeral”, in which it is recited at “the funeral”.

17 Earnhardt and Andretti work as ushers? : DRIVERS SEAT

Dale Earnhardt Jr. is a professional stock car driver. Dale comes from good “stock car racing stock”. His father Dale Earnhardt Sr. was a member of the inaugural class of the NASCAR Hall of Fame. Dale Jr.’s grandfather was Ralph Earnhardt, who in 1998 was named one of NASCAR’s 50 Greatest Drivers.

Mario Andretti is a retired Italian American racing driver who was named US Driver of the Year in 1967, 1978 and 1984. Both of Mario’s sons, Michael and Jeff are successful auto racers, as well as Mario’s nephews, John and Adam Andretti. John and Adam are sons of Mario’s brother Aldo Andretti. Aldo also raced cars, but quit after a crash in 1969 that severely damaged his face. Aldo is Mario’s identical twin brother, but there is no resemblance after the reconstructive surgery necessitated by the accident.

19 Snub-nosed dog : PUG

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

20 Lyricist Gershwin : IRA

Ira Gershwin was the lyricist who worked with his brother George to create such American classics as the songs “I Got Rhythm” and “Someone to Watch Over Me”, as well as the opera “Porgy and Bess”. After George Gershwin died, Ira continued to create great music, and worked with the likes of Jerome Kern and Kurt Weill.

24 “Gracias” response : DE NADA

In Spanish, one can respond to “Gracias” (Thank you) with “De nada” (It’s nothing).

27 Gerwig and DuVernay work at the barbershop? : DIRECTORS CUT

Greta Gerwig is an actress, screenwriter and director from Sacramento whose best-known acting role is probably opposite Russell Brand in the remake of the film “Arthur”. Gerwig has turned to directing, and was at the helm for the 2019 movie “Little Women”. And then, she co-wrote and directed the hit 2023 film “Barbie”.

Ava DuVernay is a filmmaker who became the first African-American woman to win the Best Director Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, a feat she achieved in 2012 for her feature film “Middle of Nowhere”. “Middle of Nowhere” tells the story of a woman who drops out of medical school to focus on her husband when he is sentenced to 8 years in prison. DuVernay also directed the 2014 film “Selma” about the 1965 voting rights marches from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.

36 Potential queens : PAWNS

In the game of chess, the pawns are the weakest pieces on the board. A pawn that can make it to the opposite side of the board can be promoted to a piece of choice, usually a queen. Using promotion of pawns, it is possible for a player to have two or more queens on the board at one time. However, standard chess sets come with only one queen per side, so a captured rook is often used as the second queen by placing it on the board upside down.

39 Eyelashes, anatomically : CILIA

“Cilia” (singular “cilium”) is Latin for “eyelashes”.

41 Açaí bowl grain : OAT

Açaí na tigela is a dish made from the frozen, mashed fruit of the açaí palm and served as a smoothie. Often topped with granola, banana, other berries and syrup, the dish is a specialty in much of Brazil. There’s even a savory version of açaí na tigela (“açaí in the bowl”) that includes shrimp or dried fish and tapioca. Açaí bowls are becoming very popular in North America, especially as a health food.

42 Daytona entry : RACER

The coastal city of Daytona Beach in Florida is known for hard-packed sand on the beach. This makes a good surface for driving motorized vehicles, and resulted in Daytona Beach becoming a center for motorsports. The Daytona 500 is the event with the largest purse on the NASCAR calendar.

44 Austen and Morrison choreograph a play? : WRITERS BLOCK

English novelist Jane Austen is best known today for her six major novels, only four of which were published before she died in 1817, at the age of 41:

1. “Sense and Sensibility” (1811)
2. “Pride and Prejudice” (1813)
3. “Mansfield Park” (1814)
4. “Emma” (1816)
5. “Northanger Abbey” (1818)
6. “Persuasion” (1818)

Writer Toni Morrison won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993. Amongst other things, Morrison is noted for coining the phrase “our first black President”, a reference to President Bill Clinton.

52 Chihuahua, for one : STATE

Chihuahua is a state in northern Mexico that shares a border with Texas and New Mexico. It is the largest state in the country, earning it the nickname “El Estado Grande”. Chihuahua takes its name from the Chihuahuan Desert which lies largely within its borders. The Chihuahua breed of dog takes its name from the state.

57 Pop star Rita : ORA

Rita Ora is a British singer who was born Rita Sahatçiu in Pristina, Yugoslavia to Albanian parents. The family name “Sahatçiu” comes from a Turkish word meaning “watchmaker”. Rita’s parents changed their name to make it easier to pronounce. So, the family name morphed from “watchmaker” to “time”, which is “ora” in Albanian.

59 Hook and Kirk haul timber? : CAPTAINS LOG

Captain Hook is the bad guy in “Peter Pan”, the famous play by J. M. Barrie. Hook is Peter Pan’s sworn enemy, as Pan had cut off Hook’s hand causing it to be replaced by a “hook”. It is implied in the play that Hook attended Eton College, just outside London. Hook’s last words are “Floreat Etona”, which is Eton College’s motto. Barrie openly acknowledged that the Hook character is based on Herman Melville’s Captain Ahab from the novel “Moby Dick”.

According to the storyline in “Star Trek”, Captain James Tiberius Kirk was born in Riverside, Iowa on March 22, 2233. The town of Riverside displays a plaque, noting Riverside as the “future birthplace of James T. Kirk”, but the date given is March 22, 2228. I sense a disturbance in the space-time continuum …

63 Word from the Greek for “chasm” : CHAOS

In Greek mythology, Chaos was the first of the primeval gods born at the creation of the universe. Following Chaos came:

• Gaia, the primordial goddess of the Earth
• Tartaros, the primordial god of the Underworld
• Eros, the primordial god of Love
• Nyx, the primordial goddess of the Night
• Erebus, the primordial god of Darkness
• Aither, the primordial god of Light
• Hemera, the primordial goddess of the Day

64 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.

67 Aphrodite’s consort : ARES

The Greek god Ares is often referred to as the Olympian god of warfare, but originally he was regarded as the god of bloodlust and slaughter. He united with Aphrodite to create several gods, including Phobos (Fear), Deimos (Terror) and Eros (Desire). Ares was the son of Zeus and Hera, and the Roman equivalent to Ares was Mars.

Down

2 Dance studio rail : BARRE

A barre is a handrail used by ballet dancers for warm-up exercises and to provide support when practicing certain moves.

3 Dasani alternative : EVIAN

Évian-les-Bains (or simply “Évian”) is in the very east of France, on the shores of Lake Geneva directly across the lake from Lausanne, Switzerland. As one might imagine, Évian is the home of Évian mineral water, the most successful business in town. Personally, I can’t stand the distinctive taste of Évian water …

Dasani is a Coca-Cola brand of bottled water. It is simply filtered tap water with some trace minerals added.

5 Barbershop quartet part : BASS

Barbershop music is played in the a cappella style, meaning that it is unaccompanied vocal music. It originated in African-American communities in the South, as gospel quartets often gathered in neighborhood barber shops to sing together.

9 Moose feature : ANTLERS

The moose is the largest species in the deer family, and can stand almost at 7 feet at the shoulder. Moose are a little unusual in that they are solitary animals, unlike other deers who tend to move in herds. We use the term “moose” here in North America, but confusingly, the same animal is referred to as “elk” in British English.

12 Spurs (on) : EGGS

The verb “to edge” has been used to mean to incite, to urge on, from the 16th century. Somewhere along the way “edge” was mistakenly replaced with “egg”, giving us our term “to egg on” meaning “to goad”.

14 Allow to peter out : LET DIE

The verb phrase “to peter out”, meaning “to fizzle out”, originated in the 1840s in the American mining industry. While the exact etymology isn’t clear, it probably derives from the term “saltpeter”, a constituent of gunpowder.

18 Caboose : REAR

The word “caboose” originally came from Middle Dutch and was the word for a ship’s galley. When the last car in a train in North America was given a stove for the comfort of the crew, it took on the name “caboose”. The term has also become slang for a person’s backside.

26 Title at the Louvre : MONA

Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece that we know in English as the “Mona Lisa” is called “La Gioconda” in Italian, the language of the artist. It’s also known as “La Joconde” by the Government of France which owns the painting and displays it in the Louvre Museum in Paris. The title comes from the name of the subject, almost certainly Lisa Gherardini, wife of Francesco del Giocondo. Giocondo was a wealthy silk merchant in Florence who commissioned the painting for the couple’s new home to celebrate the birth of their second son.

The Musée du Louvre has the distinction of being the most visited art museum in the whole world. The collection is housed in the magnificent Louvre Palace that was the seat of power in France until 1682, when Louis XIV moved to Versailles.

29 McLaughlin of “Stranger Things” : CALEB

Actor Caleb McLaughlin got his break portraying Lucas Sinclair in the TV series “Stranger Things”. One of his first roles was Young Simba in a Broadway production of “The Lion King” musical, from 2012 to 2014.

33 Ground-breaking invention : PLOW

John Deere invented the first commercially successful steel plow in 1837. Prior to Deere’s invention, farmers used an iron or wooden plow that constantly had to be cleaned as rich soil stuck to its surfaces. The cast-steel plow was revolutionary as its smooth sides solved the problem of “stickiness”. The Deere company that John founded uses the slogan “Nothing Runs Like a Deere”, and has a leaping deer as its logo.

39 Pixar film set in Radiator Springs : CARS

“Cars” is a 2006 animated feature from Pixar. The great cast of voice actors includes Paul Newman in his last movie role before he passed away in 2008.

40 Hairy beasts : YAKS

The English word “yak” is an Anglicized version of the Tibetan name for the male of the species. Yak milk is much prized in Tibetan culture. It is made into cheese and butter, and the butter is used to make a tea that is consumed in great volume by Tibetans. The butter is also used as a fuel in lamps, and during festivals the butter is even sculpted into religious icons.

42 Only Hitchcock film to win Best Picture : REBECCA

“Rebecca” is a fabulous film from 1940, the first Hollywood movie for director Alfred Hitchcock , and winner of a Best Picture Oscar. The story is adapted from Daphne du Maurier’s novel of the same name, and stars Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine. I don’t normally like movies or books with Gothic themes, but I highly recommend this one.

46 Prefix with -vore : OMNI-

The term “omnivore” comes from Latin, meaning “one who devours all”.

49 Geothermal alternative : SOLAR

Solar panels are arrays of solar cells that make use of what’s known as the photovoltaic effect. We are more likely to have learned about the photoelectric effect in school, in which electrons were ejected from the surface of some materials when it was exposed to light or other forms of radiation. The photovoltaic effect is related but different. Instead of being electrons ejected from the surface, in the photovoltaic effect electrons move around in the material creating a difference in voltage.

53 Pants, informally : TROU

Trousers are pants, the garment covering the lower body and each leg separately. Ultimately, the word “trousers” evolved from the Erse word “triubhas” that described close-fitting shorts. Back in the 1600s there was a colorful saying:

A jellous wife was like an Irish trouze, alwayes close to a mans tayle

55 Great Plains people : OTOE

The Great Plains lie between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains in North America. This vast grassland is known as “the Prairies” in Canada.

56 Condé __ : NAST

Condé Nast is a mass media corporation that has a very large portfolio of publications, including “Vogue”, “GQ”, “House and Garden”, “Golf Digest”, “Wired”, “Vanity Fair” and “The New Yorker”.