Tag: Queen maybe crossword clue

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Constructed by: Rafael Musa

Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Theme: None

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

Bill’s time: 9m 18s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1A Sudoku diagrams : GRIDS

Number puzzles similar to our modern-day Sudoku first appeared in French newspapers in the late 1800s. The format that we use today was created by Howard Garns, a 74-year-old freelance puzzle constructor from Connersville, Indiana and first published in 1979. The format was introduced in Japan in 1984 and given the title of “Sūji wa dokushin ni kagiru”, which translates to “the digits are limited to one occurrence”. The rather elaborate Japanese title was eventually shortened to Sudoku. No doubt many of you are fans of Sudoku puzzles. I know I am …

14A Iconic part of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Free Bird” : OUTRO

In the world of music, for example, an outro is the opposite to an intro. An outro might perhaps be the concluding track of an album, for example.

Lynyrd Skynyrd is a southern rock band that formed in 1964 in Jacksonville, Florida as My Backyard. The name was changed to “Leonard Skinnerd” in 1969, and then to “Lynyrd Skynyrd” a few months later. The chosen name was a wry tribute to the member’s phys-ed teacher at high school, one Leonard Skinner. Lynyrd Skynyrd were most successful in the 1970s, when they recorded their two biggest hits: “Sweet Home Alabama” and “Free Bird”. Sadly, three of the band members were killed in a plane crash in 1977.

17A Piano part : PEDAL

Most modern pianos have three pedals. The soft pedal (also “una corda”), sostenuto pedal, and sustaining pedal (also “damper pedal”).

18A Store for a little while? : POP-UP SHOP

A pop-up store (or restaurant) is one that is temporary. The idea is that a pop-up store opens in empty retail space for a limited period of time, often to meet the needs of a particular season or holiday. Examples of the genre might be Halloween stores or Christmas stores.

19A “La Classe de Danse” painter : DEGAS

Edgar Degas’ 1874 painting “The Dance Class” can be seen at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. It depicts ballet master Jules Perrot holding a class in a rehearsal room in the old Paris Opéra. The scene is imagined by the artist, as the building had been destroyed by fire the year before. The Musée d’Orsay in Paris owns a variant of the painting that goes by the title “The Ballet Class”, which was painted before the fire took place.

22A Parade locale since 1890 : PASADENA

The first Rose Parade was staged in 1890 on New Year’s Day in Pasadena, California. The first parades were organized by the Pasadena Valley Hunt Club, whose members wanted to highlight the mild winter weather in the area. Those early parades did not feature flowers, but these were added to underscore the favorable climate. It was the inclusion of the flowers that gave rise to the name “Tournament of Roses”. The first Rose Bowl football game was played in 1902.

25A Seuss character who lives in a pond on Sala-ma-sond island : YERTLE

“Yertle the Turtle” is a story by Dr. Seuss. The book is noted for the inclusion of the word “burp”. Back in 1958 when it was published, “burp” was considered to be vulgar. But, no one seemed to mind!

26A Greek goddess of discord : ERIS

In Greek mythology, Eris was the goddess of discord. The name “Eris” is derived from the Greek word for strife, and translates into Latin as “Discordia”. In Greek her counterpart was Harmonia, and in the world of the Roman gods, Concordia. The second-largest dwarf planet in our solar system is called Eris, named after the goddess.

31A Challenging direction to sail : UPWIND

Sailing (“beating”) upwind is a feat of physics, where a sail stops acting like a parachute and starts behaving like an airplane wing. By creating a low-pressure zone on the leeward (back) side of the sail, the boat is essentially “lifted” forward into the breeze rather than being pushed by it.

35A __ Bauer : EDDIE

The Eddie Bauer clothing chain was established in Seattle in 1920 by an outdoorsman named Eddie Bauer (unsurprisingly!). Bauer was the man who patented the first quilted down jacket, in 1940.

38A Cartoon hero with a blond bob : HE-MAN

“Masters of the Universe” is a sword-and-sorcery multimedia franchise that was introduced by Mattel in the 1980s. The main characters in the storyline are superhero He-Man, who battles against Skeletor on the planet Eternia, and He-Man’s sister She-Ra, who rebels against the Horde on the planet Etheria.

39A Hudson Valley college chartered by a brewer in 1861 : VASSAR

Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York is now a coeducational school, after over a century of operating as a women’s college since its founding in 1861. The school was officially declared co-ed in 1969, although it had accepted a handful of male students on the GI Bill after WWII.

The Hudson River flows through eastern New York State from Henderson Lake in the Adirondacks to the Port of New York and New Jersey. The river is named for the English explorer Henry Hudson, who navigated the waterway in 1609.

41A “Hola” follower, perhaps : COMO ESTA?

“Cómo está?” is Spanish for “how are you, how’s it going?”

43A “__ bon!” : TRES

In French, one might describe this crossword as “très bon!” (very good!).

45A Packaged meals that might contain tamagoyaki : BENTOS

A bento is a single-person meal that is eaten quite commonly in Japan. It can be purchased as a take-out meal, or it may be packed at home. A bento is usually sold as a “bento box”.

Tamagoyaki is a Japanese omelet that is prepared by layering thin sheets of seasoned egg in a rectangular pan, and then rolling the sheets into a layered cylinder. “Tamagoyaki” translates as “grilled egg”.

49A Requirements for some brick buildings : LEGO SETS

Lego produces some wonderful specialized sets with which you can build models of celebrated structures, including:

• The Statue of Liberty (2,882 pieces)
• The Sydney Opera House (2,989 pieces)
• The Eiffel Tower (3,428 pieces)
• Tower Bridge (4,295 pieces)
• The Taj Mahal (5,922 pieces)
• The World Map (11,695 pieces)

54A “The Social Network” Oscar winner Sorkin : AARON

The wonderful screenwriter Aaron Sorkin got his big break when his stage play “A Few Good Men” was picked up by a Hollywood producer. Since then Sorkin has written great films including “The American President”, “The Social Network”, “Charlie Wilson’s War”, “Moneyball” and the excellent “The West Wing” and “The Newsroom” television series.

The 2010 film “The Social Network” tells the story of the founding of Facebook. Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin based his storyline on Ben Mezrich’s 2009 book “The Accidental Billionaires”. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg (played by Jesse Eisenberg) disputes the facts portrayed on the screen, famously noting that the film’s most accurate detail was his wardrobe of identical gray t-shirts.

61A Outerwear option : PARKA

A parka is a hooded jacket that is often lined with fur, and that is worn in cold weather. The original parka was a pullover design, but nowadays it is usually zipped at the front. “Parka” is the Russian name for the garment, and it was absorbed into English in the late 1700s via the Aleut language.

62A Shot not allowed in some pool halls : MASSE

In billiards, a massé shot is one in which the cue ball makes an extreme curve due to the player imparting heavy spin on the ball with his or her cue held relatively vertically. Some pool halls don’t allow massé shots as there’s a risk of ripping the cloth covering the table.

63A Chemistry suffix : -ENE

An alkene is an organic compound made up of carbon and hydrogen atoms. It differs from an alkane in that it has at least one C=C double bond. The simplest alkene is the gas ethylene, a major raw material used in the manufacture of plastics (like polyethylene).

64A Warm compress targets : STYES

A stye is a bacterial infection of the sebaceous glands at the base of the eyelashes, and is also known as a hordeolum.

Down

1D RNC group : GOP

The Republican Party has had the nickname Grand Old Party (GOP) since 1875. That said, the phrase was coined in the “Congressional Record” as “this gallant old party”. The moniker was changed to “grand old party” in 1876 in an article in the “Cincinnati Commercial”. The Republican Party’s elephant mascot dates back to an 1874 cartoon drawn by Thomas Nast for “Harper’s Weekly”. The Democrat’s donkey was already an established symbol. Nast drew a donkey clothed in a lion’s skin scaring away the other animals. One of the scared animals was an elephant, which Nast labeled “The Republican Vote”.

National leadership of the Republican Party is provided by the Republican National Committee (RNC). Only one former chairperson of the RNC has been elected to the office of US president, and that was George H. W. Bush.

4D Queen, maybe : DRAG ARTIST

The etymology of the term “drag”, as used in the cross-dressing world, seems to be unclear. It perhaps relates to the tendency of a cross-dresser’s skirts to drag along the ground in days of old (although why they just didn’t hitch up their skirts is beyond me!).

6D Main doc : PCP

Primary care physician (PCP)

8D Graham’s “Boardwalk Empire” role : CAPONE

Chicago gangster Al Capone was eventually jailed for tax evasion. He was given a record 11-year sentence in federal prison, of which he served 8 years. He left prison suffering from dementia caused by late-stage syphilis. Capone suffered through 7-8 sickly years before passing away in 1947.

English actor Stephen Graham is perhaps most famous on this side of the pond for portraying a young Al Capone in the TV show “Boardwalk Empire”. He has to manage dyslexia, which is a real challenge for someone whose profession depends on reading scripts. Graham’s wife and frequent collaborator, actress and producer Hannah Walters, reads his scripts to him so he can internalize his lines by ear.

“Boardwalk Empire” is an HBO drama series set in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The storyline is set in the 1920s and 1930s during the Prohibition Era. The star of the show is Steve Buscemi.

12D Wading bird that communicates with bill clattering : STORK

Storks are large wading birds with long legs, long necks and long bills. Storks use those long bills to search for frogs, fish and other small animals under the water. When the stork finds its prey, the bill snaps shut in about 25 millisecs, which is one of the fastest known reaction times of any vertebrate.

13D Awards for top plays : ESPYS

The ESPY Awards, also known as the Excellence in Sports Performance Yearly Awards, were first presented in a ceremony in 1993. They were created by ESPN as a response to the lack of sports coverage during the summer months. ESPN decided to create an awards show to help fill that gap.

16D Car company that hosts Share the Love community events : SUBARU

Subaru is the automobile division of Fuji Heavy Industries, a Japanese conglomerate. “Subaru” is the Japanese name for the Pleiades star cluster. As a result, the Subaru logo is also a cluster of stars.

25D Jedi of Dagobah : YODA

Dagobah is a fictional planet in the “Star Wars” universe. Jedi Master Yoda chose Dagobah as a place to hide from the Galactic Empire, and was where he trained Luke Skywalker to become a Jedi Knight.

27D Safari and others : IPHONE APPS

Safari is Apple’s flagship Internet browser, one that is used on its Mac line of computers. A mobile version of Safari is included with all iPhones.

29D Coder, colloquially : DEV

Developer (dev.)

30D Bus. type : LLC

A limited liability company (LLC) has a structure that limits the liability of the owner or owners. It is a hybrid structure in the sense that it can be taxed as would an individual or partnership, while also maintaining the liability protection afforded to a corporation.

33D D.C. team : NATS

If you attend a Washington Nationals baseball game, held in Nationals Park, you’ll see the Presidents Race in the middle of the fourth innings. Individuals dressed like six former US presidents, each sporting a large and cartoonish head, have participated in the races over the years. Those runners are:

• George (Washington)
• Abe (Lincoln)
• Tom (Jefferson)
• Teddy (Roosevelt)
• Bill (Taft)
• Herbie (Hoover)

37D University of New Mexico mascot : LOBO

The University of New Mexico (UNM) is a school in Albuquerque that was founded in 1889. The UNM sports teams are called the Lobos, and there are two mascots who work the crowds named Lobo Louie and Lobo Lucy.

40D Adjust, as a corset : RELACE

A corset is a close-fitting undergarment that is stiffened with a material such as whalebone. Corsets are more usually worn by women, to shape the body. The word “corset” is a diminutive of the Old French “cors” meaning “body”.

46D Song of worship : PSALM

The Greek word “psalmoi” originally meant “songs sung to a harp”, and gave us the word “psalms”. In the Jewish and Western Christian traditions, the Book of Psalms contains 150 individual psalms, divided into five sections.

47D “La Vida Es un Carnaval” singer Cruz : CELIA

“La Vida Es un Carnaval” is a 1998 song recorded by Cuban singer Celia Cruz. The song became an inspiration for a 2006 Italian comedy film, using the same title, about actors living in Cuba.

48D Cures, in a way : SALTS

Food can be preserved in salt. Salting works because potentially harmful organisms cannot survive in extremely salty environments.

53D Singing crocodile voiced by Shawn Mendes in a 2022 film : LYLE

Lyle is a crocodile who lives in the bathtub of Manhattan brownstone in the “Lyle the Crocodile” series of children’s books by Bernard Waber. Lyle makes his first appearance in the 1962 book “The House on East 88th Street”. The books were adapted into a 2022 live-action animated film “Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile”.

55D Largest company headquartered in Oregon : NIKE

Nike was founded in 1964 in Eugene, Oregon by entrepreneur Phil Knight and track-and-field coach Bill Bowerman as Blue Ribbon Sports (BRS). BRS started out by distributing athletic shoes made in Japan. The company started making its own shoes in 1971 and changed its name to Nike, after the Greek goddess of victory.

57D “Capisce?” : SEE?

“Capeesh?” is a slang term meaning “do you understand?” It comes from the Italian “capisce” meaning “understand”.

59D “__ Mañanitas” : LAS

“Las Mañanitas” is a traditional birthday song that is very popular in Mexico, as well as some parts of the US. The song’s title translates from Spanish as “The Little Mornings”.