Tag: Screen writing crossword clue

Advertisement

Constructed by: Rebecca Goldstein

Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Reveal Answer: Calendar Tetris

Today’s grid includes several groups of circled squares that resemble TETRIS blocks. Each block is an appointment that one might record in a CALENDAR.

• 54A Constant reshuffling of one’s schedule, or what’s depicted in this puzzle’s circles : CALENDAR TETRIS
• 36A Rare opening in 54-Across : SLOT
• 16A Intentionally delaying, or a punny title for this puzzle? : PLAYING FOR TIME

Those appointments are:

• GAME
• GALA
• YOGA
• WORK
• CALL
• DATE
• TRIP

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

Bill’s time: 7m 58s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

5A Crockery flaw : CHIP

We tend to use the word “crockery” to describe dishes in general. Strictly speaking, crockery is opaque, porous earthenware fired at lower temperatures, distinguishing it from the translucent and vitrified china or porcelain. The term “crockery” derives from the Old English “croc”, describing an earthen pot or vessel.

13A Microbiology lab gel : AGAR

Agar (also “agar-agar”) is a jelly extracted from seaweed that has many uses. Agar is found in Japanese desserts, and can also be used as a food thickener or even as a laxative. In the world of science, it is the most common medium used for growing bacteria in Petri dishes.

19A Error message? : [SIC]

[Sic] indicates that a quotation is written as originally found, perhaps including a typo. “Sic” is Latin for “thus, like this”. The term is more completely written as “sic erat scriptum”, which translates as “thus was it written”.

20A NYC nabe near the Bowery : NOHO

“NoHo” is short for “North of Houston (street)”, and is the equivalent area to SoHo, South of Houston, both of which are neighborhoods in New York City.

The Bowery is a neighborhood at the south end of Manhattan Island in New York City. The name “Bowery” comes from the old Dutch word for a farm, namely “bouwerij”.

22A Kicking sport : SOCCER

Soccer (also known as “association football”) is the most popular sport in the world. The term “association football” was introduced in 1863 in England, with the name chosen to distinguish the sport from rugby football. The term “soccer” started to appear about 20 years later in Oxford, as an abbreviation for “association”.

24A Actress Palmer : KEKE

Keke Palmer is a busy woman; an actress, singer and television host. She won a Primetime Emmy in 2023 for her work as host of the game show “Password”, a revival of the show hosted by Allen Ludden in sixties and seventies. She was also nominated for several Best Actress awards for her performance in the 2022 sci-fi horror film “Nope”.

25A The Queen of Pop : MADONNA

Madonna’s full name is Madonna Louise Ciccone. Born in Bay City, Michigan, Madonna was destined to become the top-selling female recording artist of all time, earning her the nickname “Queen of Pop”.

27A Network featured in “Good Night, and Good Luck” : CBS

“Good night, and good luck” was a tagline used by journalist Edward R. Murrow. The tagline was used as the title of an excellent 2005 film that tells of Murrow’s conflict with US Senator Joseph McCarthy.

37A Screen writing? : BLOG

Many folks who visit this website regard it as just that, a website. That is true, but more specifically it is referred to as a blog, as I make regular posts (actually daily posts) that then occupy the “front page” of the site. The blog entries are in reverse chronological order, and one can just look back day-by-day, reading older and older posts. “Blog” is a contraction of the term “web log”.

40A Name after peach or before toast : MELBA

Peach Melba is a dessert comprising peaches and raspberry sauce with vanilla ice cream. The dish was the creation of chef Auguste Escoffier, who introduced it at the Savoy Hotel in London in the 1890s in honor of Australian soprano Dame Nellie Melba. Escoffier later developed Melba toast, also in honor of the singer.

Melba toast is a dry, thinly sliced toast that is usually served with soup or salad. Melba toast was created by chef Auguste Escoffier for opera singer Dame Nellie Melba, for whom he also created the dessert called peach Melba.

44A Image file format : JPEG

The JPEG image file format (also “.jpg”) was created by the Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG), hence the name.

46A Like the pick of the litter? : CUTEST

The word “litter” has existed in English since the 1300s, when it meant “bed” (the modern French word for bed is related, i.e. “lit”). In the late 1500s, “litter” also came to mean “offspring of a single birth” i.e. collection of offspring born in the one bed at the same time.

49A Beefy, casually : SWOLE

“Swole” is an informal term meaning “very muscular”. Yeah, I hear that word all the time …

51A Move like a hummingbird : DART

Hummingbirds are the smallest of all the birds. The bee hummingbird is native to Cuba and weighs less than a tenth of an ounce and is about two inches in length!

52A D-backs, in box scores : ARI

The Arizona Diamondbacks (also “D-backs”) joined Major League Baseball’s National League in 1998. By winning the World Series in 2001, they became the fastest expansion team to do so in Major League history.

54A Constant reshuffling of one’s schedule, or what’s depicted in this puzzle’s circles : CALENDAR TETRIS

Tetris is a very addictive video game that was developed in the Soviet Union in 1984. The name Tetris comes from a melding of the prefix “tetra-” (as all the game pieces have four segments) and “tennis” (a favorite sport played by the developer). Since 2005 there have been more than 100 million copies of the game installed on cell phones alone.

57A Shawkat of “Search Party” : ALIA

Alia Shawkat is an actor who might be best known for playing Maeby Fünke on the sitcom “Arrested Development”. She is best friends with fellow actor Elliot Page (formerly Ellen Page), whom Shawkat met while filming the 2009 movie “Whip It”.

“Search Party” is a sitcom that started airing in 2016. It is a dark comedy that is noted for its changing themes from season to season. For example, the first season focuses on a mystery, and is reminiscent of Nancy Drew stories. The second season includes elements used by Hitchcock in his psychological thrillers. The third season features a courtroom drama narrative, reminiscent of the novels of John Grisham. Interesting idea …

58A Team with a red-tailed hawk mascot named Swoop : UTES

The University of Utah uses the team name “Utes” with the permission of the Ute Tribal Council. Regardless, the school decided to stop using culturally insensitive Native American imagery for the team mascot in 1996. The mascot chosen is red-tailed hawk, a bird that is indigenous to the state of Utah.

59A California county with a wine train : NAPA

The Napa Valley Wine Train is an excursion train that runs between Napa and St. Helena, California along the original Napa Valley Railroad built in 1864. The line was built back then by pioneer Samuel Brannan to bring tourists from the San Francisco Bay Area to the resort town of Calistoga, which Brannan founded. Today’s Wine Train offers a 3-hour round trip, with a full dining car experience.

Down

2D Uniq fruits : UGLIS

The ugli fruit is a hybrid of an orange and a tangerine that was first discovered growing wild in Jamaica where most ugli fruit comes from today. “UGLI” is a trademark name that is a variant of “ugly”, a nod to the fruit’s unsightly wrinkled rind. Another distributor uses the brand name “Uniq”, which does suggest a more appetizing treat.

3D Body shop franchise : MAACO

MAACO Collision Repair & Auto Painting was founded by Anthony A. Martino ten years after he launched AAMCO Transmissions. The names of both companies were derived from the first letters of his name, i.e. “AAM”.

5D Paddled about : CANOED

The boat known as a canoe takes its name from the Carib word “kenu” meaning “dugout”. It was Christopher Columbus who brought “kenu” into Spanish as “canoa”, which evolved into our English “canoe”.

6D One regularly experiencing bettor days : HIGH ROLLER

In the world of gambling, a high roller is a person who brings a relatively large amount of money to the table and who routinely risks big sums.

7D IT part : INFO

Information technology (IT)

8D Vacay from work : PTO

Paid time off (PTO)

9D Patterned fabric that originated in Indonesia : BATIK

Genuine batik cloth is produced by applying wax to the parts of the cloth that are not to be dyed. After the cloth has been dyed, it is dried and then dipped in a solvent that dissolves the wax. Although wax-resist dyeing of fabric has existed in various parts of the world for centuries, it is most closely associated historically with the island of Java in Indonesia.

17D Quechua speakers who didn’t have a written alphabet : INCAS

Quechua was the Native-American language adopted by the Incan Empire and favored over other dialects. Today, Quechua is one of the official languages in Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador, alongside Spanish.

18D Seehorn of “Pluribus” : RHEA

Rhea Seehorn is an actress best known for playing lawyer Kim Wexler in the TV crime drama “Better Call Saul”. Seehorn’s birth name is Deborah Rhea, but she opted to use her middle name at a young age (which she pronounces as “Ray”).

“PLUR1BUS” is a post-apocolytic sci-fi TV show that debuted in 2025. It is set in Albuquerque, and centers on an author who is one of the few people in the world immune to an extraterrestrial virus that joins the world’s population into a peaceful and content hive mind. The series was created by Vince Gilligan and stars Rhea Seehorn, who worked together on the hit TV series “Better Call Saul”. The show’s title comes from the Latin motto “E pluribus unum” (out of many, one).

24D Twist into a pretzel : KNOT

Pretzels originated in Europe and are especially popular in Southern Germany where a pretzel is known as “Brezel”. Pretzels were introduced into the US in the 1800s by immigrants from Germany and Switzerland who came to be known over here as the Pennsylvania Dutch.

28D Notation on an invite : BYOB

Bring Your Own Beer/Bottle/Booze (BYOB, and sometimes just “BYO”)

29D Sonic the Hedgehog developer : SEGA

Sonic the Hedgehog is a title character in a videogame and the mascot of Sega, the computer game developer. Sonic was set up as a rival to Nintendo’s mascot Mario.

31D Norse god of mischief : LOKI

Loki is a trickster god in Norse mythology known for continually creating chaos. He is the father of sons with his wife Sigyn. Because Loki is also a shape-shifter, he gave birth to children “himself” by assuming the shape of the opposite sex.

32D “Ooh la la!” : TRES JOLIE!

“Très jolie” is French for “very pretty”.

43D Bow alternative : CURTSY

The word “curtsy” (or “curtsey”) is a variant of “courtesy”. The term has been used to describe the bending of the knee and lowering of the body since the 1570s. However, back then it was men who were curtsying as well as women.

47D One of the Torah’s four matriarchs : SARAH

In the Jewish tradition, the “Arba Imahot” (Four Matriarchs) are ancestors of the Twelve Tribes of Israel: Sarah (wife of Abraham), Rebecca (wife of Isaac), Rachel and Leah (wives of Jacob).

48D Type of offal : TRIPE

Tripe is the rubbery stomach lining of an animal such as a cow. It is also a traditional dish in British cuisine, prepared by poaching it with onions in milk. Further, “tripe” can be an informal term meaning “rubbish, of little value”.

The internal organs and entrails of a butchered animal are referred to collectively as “offal”. Examples of dishes that make use of offal would be sausages, foie gras, sweetbreads and haggis. The term is a melding of the words “off” and “fall”, and dates back to the 14th century. The idea is that offal is what “falls off” a butcher’s block.

50D Muralist’s canvas : WALL

A mural is a painting that is applied directly to a wall or a ceiling. The term “mural” comes from the Latin “murus” meaning “wall”.

56D Explosive used in some mining : TNT

“TNT” is an abbreviation for “trinitrotoluene”. It was first produced in 1863 by the German chemist Joseph Wilbrand, who developed it for use as a yellow dye. TNT is relatively difficult to detonate so it was on the market as a dye for some years before its more explosive properties were discovered.