Tag: Unisex designer fragrance crossword clue

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Constructed by: Matt McKinley
Edited by: Rich Norris

Today’s Reveal Answer: Woody Allen Films

Themed answers are each the title of a WOODY ALLEN FILM:

• 37A What the answers to starred clues are (their creator turned 85 this month) : WOODY ALLEN FILMS

• 17A *The City, to New Yorkers (1979) : MANHATTAN
• 21A *Surprise hit (1973) : SLEEPER
• 50A *Cream pie fruit (1971) : BANANAS
• 58A *Concerns of some decorators (1978) : INTERIORS

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

Bill’s time: 5m 44s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

5 Hop-jump connection : SKIP

The track and field sport sometimes called the “hop, skip and jump” is more correctly termed “triple jump”. The triple jump dates back as an event to the ancient Olympic Games. When the modern Olympics were introduced in 1896, the triple jump consisted of two hops on the same foot followed by a jump. Today’s triple jump consists of a hop, a bound and then a jump.

9 Crossing the keel : ABEAM

The beam is the widest part of a nautical vessel. Something pointed out as lying “abeam” is something that is 90 degrees from a line through the bow and the stern, in other words directly off to the right or the left.

16 Full of sediment : SILTY

Today, we mostly think of silt as a deposit of sediment in a river. Back in the mid-1400s, silt was sediment deposited by seawater. It is thought that the word “silt” is related to “salt”, as found in seawater.

17 *The City, to New Yorkers (1979) : MANHATTAN

The island we know as Manhattan was inhabited by the Lenape Indians when the first Europeans explorers arrived in the area. According to the logbook of one of the officers on explorer Henry Hudson’s yacht, the island was called “Manna-hata” in the local language, from which the modern name derives.

The Woody Allen movie “Manhattan” was released in 1979. The music of George Gershwin features prominently, which isn’t surprising as Woody Allen got the inspiration for the film from Gershwin’s compositions. The movie opens with a montage of images of Manhattan shown above Gershwin’s beautiful “Rhapsody in Blue”.

19 Unisex designer fragrance : CK ONE

CK One is a fragrance that was developed for Calvin Klein and launched in 1994. It was to become the first really successful unisex fragrance.

21 *Surprise hit (1973) : SLEEPER

Woody Allen’s 1973 movie “Sleeper” is a sci-fi piece in which Allen plays an average man cryogenically frozen and defrosted 200 years into the future. This is one of those vehicles for Woody Allen playing opposite Diane Keaton. I tried watching it a couple of times, but failed miserably to sit through it. The film’s storyline plays on several works of science-fiction, including “The Sleeper Awakes” by H. G. Wells and “Nineteen Eighty-Four” by George Orwell.

33 Bridal party’s platform : DAIS

A dais is a raised platform for a speaker. The term “dais” comes from the Latin “discus” meaning a “disk-shaped object”. I guess that the original daises had such a shape.

37 What the answers to starred clues are (their creator turned 85 this month) : WOODY ALLEN FILMS

Allan Stewart Konigsberg changed his legal name to “Heywood Allen” when he was 17 years old, and soon after started to call himself “Woody Allen”, the name with which he achieved celebrity. Allen won four Academy Awards, three for Best Original Screenplay and one for Best Director. He has more Oscar nominations as a screenwriter than any other writer, but he spurns the Awards ceremony and only attended it once in all his years in the movie business. He broke tradition by turning up at the 2002 ceremony, unannounced, to beg producers to continue filming in his beloved New York City despite the fears created by the 9/11 attacks.

41 Los Angeles NFLers : RAMS

The Los Angeles Rams are the only franchise to have won NFL championships in three different cities, i.e. Cleveland (1945), Los Angeles (1951) and St. Louis (1999). The Rams were based in Cleveland from 1936 to 1945, in Los Angeles from 1946 to 1994, in St. Louis from 1995 to 2015, and returned to Los Angeles in 2016.

44 T-bones, e.g. : STEAKS

The T-bone and porterhouse are related cuts of meat, with the latter being a larger version of the former, and both being cut from the short loin.

45 Mental sharpness : ACUMEN

“Acumen” is such a lovely word, I think, one meaning “keenness of judgment or insight”. “Acumen” is Latin for “point, sting”, the idea being that someone with acumen has mental sharpness.

50 *Cream pie fruit (1971) : BANANAS

The banana is actually a berry, botanically speaking. And, bananas don’t really grow on trees. The “trunk” of the banana plant is in fact a pseudostem. The pseudostem is a false stem comprising rolled bases of leaves, and it can grow to 2 or 3 meters tall.

Woody Allen’s 1971 comedy “Bananas” features Allen in the lead role. It’s about an American blue-collar guy who heads to a Cuba-style republic in the midst of a revolution, all to impress a girl (played by Louise Lasser). The “Bananas” is meant to denote the craziness of the Allen character, but it’s also a pun on the term “Banana Republic”.

58 *Concerns of some decorators (1978) : INTERIORS

Woody Allen’s film “Interiors” is a drama released in 1978. It tells the story of three sisters, played by Diane Keaton, Kristin Griffith and Mary Beth Hurt, who have to deal with the separation of their parents.

61 Costa __ : RICA

Costa Rica is a country in Central America that is bordered by Nicaragua to the north and Panama to the South. Costa Rica is remarkable in my opinion, a leader on the world stage in many areas. It has been referred to as the “greenest” country in the world, the “happiest” country in the world, and has a highly educated populace. In 1949, the country unilaterally abolished its own army … permanently!

63 “Family Ties” mother : ELYSE

Actress Meredith Baxter is best known for playing Elyse, the mother in the eighties sitcom “Family Ties”. Baxter’s big break on television came with a title role on a short-lived sitcom called “Bridget Loves Bernie”. She ended up marrying David Birney, her co-star on “Bridget Loves Bernie”, and so was known for many years as Meredith Baxter-Birney. She changed her name back to Meredith Baxter when the pair divorced in 1989.

“Family Ties” was one of the first TV shows that I enjoyed when I arrived in the US back in 1983. I found the situation very appealing, with two ex-hippie parents facing off against an ultra-conservative son. The main characters in the show were Michael J. Fox as Alex, Meredith Baxter-Birney as Alex’s mom Elyse, and Michael Gross as Alex’s dad Steven. Some future stars had recurring roles as well, including Courteney Cox as one of Alex’s girlfriends and Tom Hanks as Elyse’s young brother.

65 Editor’s “Leave it in” : STET

“Stet” is a Latin word meaning “let it stand”. In editorial work, the typesetter is instructed to disregard any change previously marked by writing the word “stet” and then underscoring that change with a line of dots or dashes.

Down

4 Workplace standards org. : OSHA

Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)

5 “Fiddler on the Roof” village : SHTETL

The Yiddish word for “town” is “shtot”, and so “shtetl” is the diminutive form meaning “small town”. The fictional shtetl featured in the musical in “Fiddler on the Roof” is called Anatevka, which is also the title of my favorite song from the show.

7 Nest egg letters : IRA

Individual retirement account (IRA)

12 Where many tennis winners are hit : AT NET

Our modern sport of tennis evolved from the much older racquet sport known as “real tennis”. Originally just called “tennis”, the older game was labeled “real tennis” when the modern version began to hold sway. Real tennis is played in a closed court, with the ball frequently bounced off the walls.

13 Austin Powers portrayer Mike : MYERS

The Austin Powers character was created by the actor who plays him, namely Mike Myers. Apparently Myers came up with the idea for Powers while listening to the Burt Bacharach song “The Look of Love”.

18 Collection of beehives : APIARY

An apiary is an area where bees are kept, apiculture is beekeeping, and an apiphobe has a fear of bees. The Latin word for “bee” is “apis”.

26 “The Time Machine” post-humans : ELOI

In the 1895 novella by H. G. Wells called “The Time Machine”, there are two races that the hero encounters in his travels into the future. The Eloi are the “beautiful people” who live on the planet’s surface. The Morlocks are a domineering race living underground who use the Eloi as food.

32 Airline with an all-kosher menu : EL AL

El Al Israel Airlines is the flag carrier of Israel. The term “el al” translates from Hebrew as “to the skies”. The company started operations in 1948, with a flight from Geneva to Tel Aviv. Famously, El Al only operates six days a week, not flying on the Sabbath.

34 __ mater : ALMA

The literal translation for the Latin term “alma mater” is “nourishing mother”. The phrase was used in ancient Rome to refer to mother goddesses, and in Medieval Christianity the term was used to refer to the Virgin Mary. Nowadays, one’s alma mater is the school one attended, either high school or college, usually one’s last place of education.

36 Old pol. divisions : SSRS

The former Soviet Union (officially “Union of Soviet Socialist Republics” or “USSR”) was created in 1922, not long after the Russian Revolution of 1917 that overthrew the tsar. Geographically, the new Soviet Union was roughly equivalent to the old Russian Empire, and comprised fifteen Soviet Socialist Republics (SSRs).

43 Go back (on) : RENEGE

To renege on something is to back out of it. It’s a verb commonly used in card games like bridge and whist. A renege is when a player doesn’t follow suit, even though there may be a card of the suit led in his/her hand.

46 Song sung house-to-house : CAROL

The word “carol” came into English via the Old French word “carole”, which was a “dance in a ring”. When “carol” made it into English, about 1300 AD, the term was used to describe a dance as well as a joyful song. Around 1500 AD, carols that were sung came to be associated with Christmas.

48 Crow’s nest holders : MASTS

A crow’s nest is a structure atop the mainmast of a ship that is used as a lookout point. The first crow’s nest was erected in 1807, and was simply a barrel that was lashed to the tallest mast. Supposedly, the structure is named for the crows or ravens that Vikings carried with them on their voyages. The birds were released and used as navigation aids as invariably, the crow or raven headed straight for the nearest land.

51 Rival of Alexa? : SIRI

Siri is a software application that works with Apple’s iOS operating system. “Siri” is an acronym standing for Speech Interpretation and Recognition Interface. Voice-over artist Susan Bennett revealed herself as the female American voice of Siri a few years ago. The British version of Siri is called Daniel, and the Australian version is called Karen. Also, “Siri” is a Norwegian name meaning “beautiful woman who leads you to victory”, and was the name the developer had chosen for his first child.

Alexa is a personal assistant application that is most associated with the Amazon Echo smart speaker. Apparently, one reason the name “Alexa” was chosen is because it might remind one of the Library of Alexandria, the “keeper of all knowledge”.

54 Castle trench : MOAT

A moat is a protective trench that surrounds a castle, say, or an exhibit in a zoo. A moat may or may not be filled with water.

55 Works in un museo : ARTE

In Spanish, one sees works of “arte” (art) in “un museo” (a museum).

56 10th-grader’s exam, for short : PSAT

Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test (PSAT)

59 Diarist Anaïs : NIN

Anaïs Nin was a French author who was famous for the journals that she wrote for over sixty years from the age of 11 right up to her death. Nin also wrote highly regarded erotica and cited D. H. Lawrence as someone from whom she drew inspiration. Nin was married to banker and artist Hugh Parker Guiler in 1923. Decades later in 1955, Nin married former actor Rupert Pole, even though she was still married to Guiler. Nin and Pole had their marriage annulled in 1966, but just for legal reasons, and they continued to live together as husband and wife until Nin passed away in 1977.