Tag: They communicate through bill-clattering crossword clue

Bill’s time: 8m 14s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

6A Fashion name that’s become slang for “excellent” : GUCCI

Gucci was founded in Florence, in 1921, by Guccio Gucci. Guccio’s son Aldo took over the company after his father’s death in 1953. It was Aldo who established the international presence for the brand and opened the company’s first overseas store, in New York City.

11A Binary 10, in decimal value : TWO

In a numeral system, the radix is the number of different digits that are used to represent numbers. For example, the decimal number system that we use has a radix of 10, because we use the ten digits 0, 1, 2 …. 9. The binary system has a radix of 2, as it uses only the digits 1 and 0.

14A Garlicky sauce : AIOLI

Aioli is a French sauce made from garlic, egg yolks, and olive oil. The word “aioli” comes from “alh”, the Provençal word for garlic, and “oli”, a Catalan word meaning “oil”.

15A Beef up the arsenal, say : REARM

Our word “arsenal” comes from the Italian “arzenale”, a word adapted from the Arabic for “workshop”. There was a large wharf in Venice called the Arzenale that became associated with the storage of weapons and ammunition, and this led to our contemporary usage of “arsenal”.

17A “Sunday in the Park With George,” for one : BROADWAY MUSICAL

“Sunday in the Park with George” is a 1984 Stephen Sondheim musical that was inspired by the magnificent painting “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte” by Georges Seurat. The musical’s “George” is the artist, a renowned pointillist, and Sondheim echoes the “dotty” painting style with a “staccato” score.

21A Ref. work with over 600,000 words : OED

Oxford English Dictionary (OED)

35A River at Memphis : NILE

Memphis is the largest city on the Mississippi River, and the largest city in the state of Tennessee. Memphis is also relatively young, having been founded in 1819 as a planned city. The founders were John Overton, James Winchester and future US president Andrew Jackson. The American Memphis is named for the Egyptian Memphis, the ancient capital of Egypt located on the River Nile.

36A “We want more!” : ENCORE!

“Encore” is French for “again, one more time”, and is a shout that an audience member will make here in North America to request perhaps another song. But, the term is not used this way in France. Rather, the audience will shout “Bis!”, which is the Latin for “twice!”

39A Jerry’s uncle on “Seinfeld” : LEO

On the sitcom “Seinfeld”, Jerry’s eccentric maternal uncle is Leo, played by actor Len Lesser. Lesser acted in movies and television for many years, alongside some of the greats of stage and screen. He was fond of telling a marvelous story about acting in the 1973 film “Papillon” starring Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman. In his role as a prison guard, Lesser was required to shove McQueen, but McQueen didn’t think that Lesser was pushing him roughly enough. He turned to Lesser and told him “Don’t think of me as a movie star. Think of me as a character in a show”, encouraging him to be more aggressive. When McQueen walked away, Hoffman was left standing there beside Lesser. He paused and quietly said to Lesser, “Think of me as a movie star …”

43A Madison Square Garden team : KNICKS

The New York Knickerbockers (“Knicks”) team is one of only two founding members of the original National Basketball Association that still plays in its original home city. The other is the Boston Celtics.

Madison Square Garden (MSG) is an arena in New York City used for a variety of events. In the world of sports it is home to the New York Rangers of the NHL, as well as the New York Knicks of the NBA. “The Garden” is also the third busiest music venue in the world in terms of ticket sales. The current arena is the fourth structure to bear the name, a name taken from the Madison Square location in Manhattan. In turn, the square was named for James Madison, the fourth President of the US.

44A Sporty Pontiacs of the 1960s : GTOS

The Pontiac GTO was produced by GM from 1964 to 1974, and again by a GM subsidiary in Australia from 2004 to 2006. The original GTO’s design is credited to Pontiac chief engineer at the time John DeLorean, who later founded the DeLorean Motor Company.

45A Actress Thompson of “Westworld” : TESSA

Tessa Thompson is an actress from Los Angeles who is known for playing the supporting role of Jackie Cook on the TV show “Veronica Mars”, and for playing student leader Diane Nash in the 2014 film “Selma”. She also portrays superheroine Valkyrie in movies based on Marvel Comics characters.

“Westworld” is an HBO series that is based on a 1973 movie of the same name, which was written and directed by novelist Michael Crichton. Westworld is a high-tech theme park populated by androids that interact with the guests.

53A Like a dress that falls short? : PETITE

“Petite” is the French word for “small”, when applied to a feminine noun.

56A Burlesque accessory : BOA

The word “burlesque” came into English from French, although the word is rooted in the Italian “burla”, the word for a joke, or mockery. A burlesque is a work of literature, drama or music that is intended to amuse and cause laughter. Burlesques in the US took on a variety show format and were popular in the US from the 1860s. Over time, the variety acts started to include female striptease, and the term “burlesque” has come to be mainly associated with such entertainment. The derivative verb “to burlesque” means “to imitate mockingly”.

57A Vietnamese noodle dish : PHO

Pho (pronounced “fuh”) is a noodle soup from Vietnam that is a popular street food, and the nation’s unofficial national dish. It is often ordered with a side of hanh dam, pickled white onions.

60A Pulitzer-winning composer and lyricist of “Sunday in the Park With George” : STEPHEN SONDHEIM

Stephen Sondheim won more Tony Awards than any other composer, a total of eight. He had a long list of stage (and big screen) successes including “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum”, “A Little Night Music”, “Sweeney Todd” and “Into the Woods”. Sondheim was a big fan of crosswords and had a whole series of cryptic crosswords published in “New York” magazine in the sixties.

64A Greenwich Village’s Stonewall ___ : INN

The police raided a gay bar called the Stonewall Inn on June 28th, 1969. That raid triggered a spate of violent demonstrations led by the LGBT community. Now known as the Stonewall riots, those demonstrations are viewed by many as a significant event leading to the modern-day fight for LGBT rights in the US. Since then, June has been chosen as LGBT Pride Month in recognition of the Stonewall riots.

65A Poet who wrote “Only through time time is conquered” : ELIOT

The author T. S. Eliot was the son of Henry Ware Eliot and Charlotte Champe Stearns, so his full name was Thomas Stearns Eliot (TSE).

66A Grub, e.g. : LARVA

The larvae of stag beetles are commonly known as grubs. “Grub” is also slang for “food”. The word “grub” has been used in this sense since way back in the 1600s, and is possibly derived from birds eating grubs.

68A Linking point : NEXUS

A nexus is a means of connection, or a center where many connections come together. “Nexus” is a Latin word meaning “that which ties or binds together”. The Latin “nexus” is the past participle of the verb “nectere” meaning “to bind”.

69A German industrial city : ESSEN

Essen is a large industrial city located on the River Ruhr in western Germany. The city experienced major population growth in the mid-1800s that was driven by the iron works established by the Krupp family.

Down

1D Old sunscreen initialism : PABA

Para-aminobenzoic acid (PABA), or now its derivatives, was the “active” ingredient in sunscreens in that it absorbs UV radiation. PABA derivatives are used today as PABA itself fell out of favor due to its tendency to stain clothes and to cause an allergic reaction in some users. PABA was also known historically as vitamin B10, although it is no longer considered a vitamin as it is readily produced by bacteria found in the body.

4D She, in São Paulo : ELA

São Paulo is the largest city in Brazil. It is also the city with the highest number of helicopters in the world. This is partly driven by the horrendous traffic jams in São Paulo, but also by the wealthy having a very real fear of being kidnapped on the city’s streets.

18D “The Magnificent Seven” or “The Hateful Eight” : WESTERN

“The Magnificent Seven” really is a very entertaining western movie (and I am no fan of westerns, quite frankly). Famously, it is a 1960 remake of the Akira Kurosawa 1954 Japanese film, “Seven Samurai”. “The Magnificent Seven” is the second most shown film on television in the US. Only “The Wizard of Oz” gets more air time.

19D Where Caitlin Clark played Division I basketball : IOWA

Basketball great Caitlin Clark was the first selection in the 2024 WNBA draft, and signed up with the Indiana Fever. Her quality of play and success on the court has helped popularize women’s basketball. That boost in popularity has been dubbed “the Caitlin Clark effect”.

25D Warm-up lap leader : PACE CAR

In automobile racing, a pace car is used for safety when there is an obstruction on the track. The pace car enters the track in front of the leader and slows the racing cars to what is deemed to be a safe speed. While the pace car is on the track, the competitors cannot pass the pace car and nor can they pass each other. When the pace car exits the track, the race resumes.

26D They communicate through bill-clattering : STORKS

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.

28D Battle of Vicksburg in the Civil War, e.g. : SIEGE

The city of Vicksburg in Mississippi was a fortress city that became the focus of the Vicksburg Campaign during the Civil War. Union forces were led by Ulysses S. Grant, and Confederate forces by John C. Pemberton. After over 6 months of fighting, Pemberton surrendered on July 4th 1863, just one day after the Confederates were defeated at Gettysburg.

30D Salad green : ENDIVE

Endive is a leaf vegetable belonging to the chicory genus, and so is in the daisy family. Endive is also known as “escarole”.

44D Miracle-___ : GRO

The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company was founded in 1868 by one Orlando Scott, and initially sold seed to the agricultural industry. In the early 1900s, Scotts started to sell to homeowners, and mainly supplied lawn seed. The company merged with the gardening company Miracle-Gro in 1995, and then with TruGreen in 2016.

50D Key’s longtime partner in sketch comedy : PEELE

Jordan Peele is a former cast member of the sketch comedy show “Mad TV”. Peele created his own sketch comedy show “Key & Peele” with fellow-Mad TV alum Keegan-Michael Key. Peele started hosting and producing the revival of “The Twilight Zone” in 2019.

56D Most online customer service agents nowadays : BOTS

A bot is a computer program designed to imitate human behavior. It might crawl around the Web doing searches for example, or it might participate in discussions in chat rooms by giving pre-programmed responses. It might also act as a competitor in a computer game.

58D Queen’s domain : HIVE

A queen bee has a stinger, just like worker bees. When a worker bee stings, it leaves its stinger in its victim. The worker bee dies after losing its stinger as the loss rips out part of its insides. However, a queen bee can sting with impunity as her stinger’s anatomy is different.

59D Sultanate near Yemen : OMAN

Oman lies on the southeast coast of the Arabian Peninsula and is neighbored by the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Oman is a monarchy, and the official name of the state is the Sultanate of Oman. All of the country’s legislative, executive and judiciary power resides with the hereditary sultan.

62D Trifling amount : SOU

A sou is an old French coin. We use the term “sou” to mean “practically worthless amount”.