Tag: Jabbers on a plane crossword clue

Bill’s time: 5m 25s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1A Actress Longoria or Mendes : EVA

Eva Longoria is a fashion model and actress who had a regular role on TV’s “Desperate Housewives”, playing Gabrielle Solis. Her travel and food show “Eva Longoria: Searching for Mexico” premiered on CNN in 2023. In 2013, she earned a master’s degree in Chicano Studies from California State University, Northridge, attending night classes in person after wrapping daytime recording on the “Desperate Housewives” set. Her academic thesis focused on the value of Latinas in STEM careers.

I am most familiar with actress Eva Mendes as the female lead in the movie “Hitch”, in which she played opposite Will Smith. Mendes started a relationship with fellow actor Ryan Gosling in 2011, and the couple have two children together.

4A Word after op or pop : ART

Op art is also known as optical art, and puts optical illusions to great effect.

An artistic work in the pop art style includes images taken from popular culture, perhaps from the news or an advertisement. The pop art movement started in the mid-fifties in Britain and emerged in the late-fifties in the US. One of the more famous pop artists was American Andy Warhol.

13A Hip-hop’s ___ Wayne : LI’L

“Lil Wayne” is the stage name used by rap artist Dwayne Carter, Jr. from New Orleans.

16A First-year professional athlete : ROOKIE

The term “rookie”, used for a raw recruit, first appeared in Rudyard Kipling’s collection of songs and poems called the “Barrack-Room Ballads”, which was originally published in 1892.

19A Meal, formally : REPAST

Our word “repast”, meaning “meal”, came to us via French (in which language “repas” is “meal”). Ultimately the term comes from the Latin “repascere” meaning “to repeatedly graze”.

24A To be, in Barcelona : ESTAR

Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain, after the capital Madrid. It is also the largest European city that sits on the Mediterranean coast, and the capital city of the autonomous community of Catalonia.

28A Apple all-in-one computer : IMAC

When Apple chose the letter “I” prefix for the iMac in 1998, that letter “I” stood for “Internet”. Steve Jobs and his marketing team followed up with the message that “I” also stood for “individual, instruct, inform and inspire”.

31A Hoppy brews, for short : IPAS

Hops are what give beer its bitterness, and IPAs are relatively bitter because extra hops are used when brewing. Different types of hops have different levels of bitterness, and brewers can choose how much to add to make their IPA more or less bitter.

35A Dependable, upstanding guy : MENSCH

“Mensch” is a word that comes to us via Yiddish, and is ultimately derived from the German “mensch” meaning “human being”. We use the term to describe someone of integrity and honor.

37A Key often near Caps Lock : TAB

Like many features on our computer keyboards, the tab key is a hangover from the days of typewriters. When using a typewriter, making entries into a table was very tedious, involving lots of tapping on the spacebar and backspace key. So, a lever was added to typewriters that allowed the operator to “jump” across the page to positions that could be set by hand. Later this was simplified to a tab key which could be depressed, causing the carriage to jump to the next tab stop in much the same way that the modern tab key works on a computer.

40A Robes tied with obis : KIMONOS

The lovely Japanese kimono is a garment worn by men, women and children. The word “kimono” translates simply as “thing to wear”, with “ki” meaning “wear” and “mono” meaning “thing”.

43A Bit of acne, informally : ZIT

The slang term “zit”, meaning “pimple”, came into the language in 1966, but no one seems to know its exact derivation.

44A How Lindbergh flew across the Atlantic in 1927 : SOLO

Charles Lindbergh was the American pilot who made the first solo, non-stop flight across the Atlantic Ocean, a distance of nearly 3,600 miles. He won the accolades of a whole country for that feat, and was awarded the Medal of Honor (for which Lindbergh was eligible, as an Army Reserve officer). His new-found fame brought tragedy to his door, however, when a kidnapper took his infant son from his home in East Amwell, New Jersey. A ransom was paid in part, but the child was never returned, and was found dead a few weeks later. It was as a result of this case that Congress made kidnapping a federal offense should there be any aspect of the crime that crosses a state line.

46A ___ and Driver (magazine) : CAR

“Car and Driver” is an automotive magazine published in Ann Arbor, Michigan. It first appeared in 1955, when it was called “Sports Cars Illustrated”.

50A Kipling novel or its young hero : KIM

“Kim” is a novel by Rudyard Kipling that was first published in serial form, from 1900 to 1901. The title character, whose full name is Kimball O’Hara, is the orphaned son of an Irish soldier who lives like a vagabond in India during the days of the British Raj. The boy grows up to become a spy working for the British.

51A Singer Bareilles : SARA

Sara Bareilles achieved success with her 2007 “Love Song” with the help of the iTunes online store. In one week in June of that year, iTunes offered the song as “free single of the week” and it quickly became the most downloaded song in the store. It was her debut single, and earned a couple of Grammy nominations.

55A Indian princes : RAJAS

“Raja” (also “rajah”) is a word derived from Sanskrit that is used particularly in India for a monarch or princely ruler. The female form is “rani” (also “ranee”) and is used for a raja’s wife.

58A Rotor speed fig. : RPM

Revolutions per minute (rpm)

64A Wizard’s mixture : ELIXIR

An elixir is a solution of alcohol and water that is used to deliver a medicine. The term “elixir” can also be used to mean a medicine that has the power to cure all ills.

71A Ukrainian seaport, in an older spelling : ODESSA

The city of Odessa (also “Odesa”) in Ukraine was founded relatively recently, in 1794 by Catherine the Great. The city replaced the Ottoman fortress of Khadjibey. It was named after the ancient Greek city of Odessos, which was mistakenly believed to have been located nearby. Catherine the Great chose the name “Odessa” as a feminized version of the Greek name.

Down

2D Plants with tendrils : VINES

A tendril is a specialized leaf or stem that is shaped like a spiral thread. Tendrils are used for support by climbing plants.

8D Handbag fashion label from Madrid : LOEWE

Despite the German-sounding name, LOEWE is a Spanish fashion house that was founded in Madrid in 1846. It was established in 1846 by a group of local leather craftsmen, and was later named “LOEWE” after Enrique Loewe Roessberg, a merchant from the German State of Hesse who joined them in 1872.

9D Playful knock on the noggin : BOP

Slang terms for “head” include “bean”, “coconut”, “gourd”, “noodle” and “noggin”.

15D Uplifting tunes? … or a hint to the circled squares : ELEVATOR MUSIC

“Muzak” is a proprietary name for piped music, and is apparently a blend of the words “music” and “Kodak”. The Muzak system was developed way back in 1922 and was first used in workplaces.

18D President after Washington : ADAMS

John Adams was the second President of the United States. I must admit that I learned much of what I know about President Adams in the excellent, excellent HBO series “John Adams”, which is based on David McCullough’s 2001 biography of the same name. Having said that, I have also visited the Adams home in Quincy, Massachusetts several times. He was clearly a great man with a great intellect …

22D Alternative to a convertible or station wagon : SEDAN

The American sedan car is the equivalent of the British and Irish saloon car. By definition, a sedan car has two rows of seating and a separate trunk (boot in Britain and Ireland), and in some models the engine can be at the rear of the car.

29D Grammy-winning pianist with the Elektric Band : CHICK COREA (hiding “ROCK” down)

Chick Corea was an American jazz pianist. Corea is noted for his work in the area of jazz fusion, as well as for his promotion of Scientology.

33D Puccini’s “Nessun dorma,” e.g. : ARIA

“Nessun dorma” has to be the tenor aria that tugs at the heartstrings the most. It is taken from the last act of Puccini’s opera “Turandot”, and translates as “None shall sleep”. Back in my part of the world, “Nessun dorma” became a hit in the popular music charts, with a version by Pavarotti being used as the theme song to the 1990 FIFA World Cup in Italy. No other classical recording has ever done better in the charts.

34D Meyers of late night : SETH

Seth Meyers is an actor and comedian who is perhaps best-known today for hosting his own late night talk show on NBC. Meyers might be described as a poker shark. He won the third season of Celebrity Poker Showdown in 2004.

36D Rare four-award achievement in entertainment, for short : EGOT

Emmy, Grammy, Oscar & Tony Awards (EGOT)

48D “I was angry with my foe: / I told it not, my ___ did grow”: William Blake : WRATH

William Blake was an English poet and artist who is considered now to have been a powerful force in his field during the Romantic Age. One of Blake’s more famous poems is “The Tyger”, which has the celebrated lines:

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

53D Passing notices, informally : OBITS

Our word “obituary” comes from the Latin “obituarius”. The Latin term was used for “record of the death of a person”, although the literal meaning is “pertaining to death”.

54D Counting-out rhyme opener : EENIE

Eeny, meeny, miny, moe,
Catch the tiger/monkey/baby by the toe.
If it hollers/screams let him go,
Eeny, meeny, miny, moe, you are it!

56D Book made obsolescent by GPS : ATLAS

Something described as “obsolescent” is going out of use, becoming “obsolete”.

60D One of 26 in a marathon : MILE

The marathon commemorates the legendary messenger-run by Pheidippides from the site of the Battle of Marathon back to Athens, and is run over 26 miles and 385 yards. The first modern Olympic marathon races were run over a distance that approximated the length of the modern-day Marathon-Athens highway, although the actual length of the race varied from games to games. For the 1908 Olympics in London, a course starting at Windsor Castle and ending in front of the Royal Box at White City Stadium was defined. That course was 26 miles and 385 yards, the standard length now used at all Olympic Games. Organizers of subsequent games continued to vary the length of the race, until a decision was made in 1921 to adopt the distance used in London in 1908.

62D Contents of an Excel spreadsheet : DATA

Microsoft Excel is a spreadsheet program included in the Microsoft Office suite of applications. Microsoft’s first spreadsheet program was introduced back in 1982 and called Multiplan. Multiplan’s popularity waned due to the success of the competing product Lotus 1-2-3. Microsoft then introduced Excel, initially just for the Macintosh. When Excel was extended to Windows, Lotus was slow to respond and Microsoft took over the market.

65D Kisses, symbolically : XES

In the letter sequence “X-O-X”, the X represents a kiss, and the O a hug. “O-O-O” is a string of hugs, and “X-X-X” a string of kisses. Hugs and kisses …