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Constructed by: Benjamin Panico

Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Reveal Answer: Work Backwards

Themed answers are common, two-word phrases that have to be read BACKWARDS (word order swapped) to match the clues, and describe a kind of WORK:

• 54A Advice to a problem solver, or an apt description of the answers to the starred clues : WORK BACKWARDS

• 20A *Aircraft marshaling? : RUNWAY PROJECT (“PROJECT RUNWAY” backwards)
• 34A *Lifeguarding? : POOL LABOR (“LABOR POOL” backwards)
• 40A *Bounty hunting? : SEARCH JOB (“JOB SEARCH” backwards)

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

Bill’s time: 7m 57s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1A “Catastrophe” writer/star Delaney : ROB

American actor Rob Delaney is best known for co-creating and co-starring in the sitcom “Catastrophe”, along with Irish actress and writer Sharon Horgan. Delaney appears regularly on British TV, partly because he moved to England in 2014.

The TV sitcom “Catastrophe” is co-written by and co-stars Rob Delaney and Sharon Horgan. The pair play two single people who end up as a couple after the woman becomes pregnant following a fling while the man is on a business trip. Horgan plays an Irish school teacher living and working in London, and Delaney plays an American advertising executive who visits London. The show takes its title from the 1964 movie “Zorba the Greek”, in which the title character utters the line “I’m a man, so I married. Wife, children, house, everything. The full catastrophe.”

4A Power unit : WATT

The watt (W) and the volt-ampere (VA) are related units of power, and not the same thing. Both are measures of electrical power but watts refer to “real power” and volt-amperes refer to “apparent power”. That’s all I know!

15A 2025 Pixar film about a boy who meets aliens : ELIO

“Elio” is a 2025 animated film about an 11-year-old boy named Elio who is mistakenly beamed up to an intergalactic “Communiverse” and forced to fake his way through being Earth’s official ambassador.

18A Big pig : BOAR

The wild boar might be described as a matriarchal beast. Fully-grown males live a solitary life, except during mating season. Fully-grown females live together in groups called sounders, along with their offspring.

20A *Aircraft marshaling? : RUNWAY PROJECT (“PROJECT RUNWAY” backwards)

“Project Runway” is a reality show in which contestants compete by presenting clothes designs having been given limited time and materials. “Project Runway” is now a worldwide franchise. North of the border, the show is called “Project Runway Canada” and is hosted by supermodel Iman. The show in the UK is known as “Project Catwalk” and has had several hosts, including Elizabeth Hurley and Kelly Osbourne.

23A Grammy winner Baker : ANITA

Anita Baker is an R&B and soul singer who was raised in Detroit, Michigan. Baker’s most successful song is the Grammy-winning “Sweet Love” that was released in 1986.

25A Lara Croft target : TOMB

Lara Croft was introduced to the world in 1996 as the main character in a pretty cool video game (or so I thought, back then) called “Tomb Raider”. Lara Croft moved to the big screen in 2001 and 2003, in two pretty awful movie adaptations of the game’s storyline. Angelina Jolie played Croft, and she did a very energetic job.

27A Taoism founder : LAO TZU

Lao Tse (also “Lao-Tzu”, “Laozi”) was a central figure in the development of the religion/philosophy of Taoism. Tradition holds that Lao-Tzu wrote the “Tao Te Ching”, a classical Chinese text that is fundamental to the philosophy of Taoism.

31A Couch surfer’s spot : FUTON

Anyone lucky enough to have visited Japan might be familiar with the traditional Japanese futon. Unlike what we tend to call futon in this country, the Japanese original is a padded mattress and quilt. Japanese futons are usually rolled up in the morning so that the space used for sleeping can be repurposed during the day.

37A Ore. neighbor : IDA

Much of the Idaho-Oregon stateline is defined by the winding Snake River through the depths of Hells Canyon, with the balance defined by lines of latitude and longitude. The position of the stateline is the subject of some debate in recent years due to the activities of the Greater Idaho movement. The initiative seeks to relocate the border hundreds of miles westward, aiming to absorb nearly a dozen rural Oregon counties into Idaho’s jurisdiction. It is driven by a desire for rural voters to align with Idaho’s more conservative administration.

38A Pressed sandwich that’s part of a friendly rivalry between Miami and Tampa : CUBAN

A Cuban sandwich (Spanish: Sándwich cubano) almost always includes Cuban bread filled with roast pork, glazed ham, Swiss cheese and sliced dill pickles. The Cuban was designated the city of Tampa’s signature sandwich in 2012.

40A *Bounty hunting? : SEARCH JOB (“JOB SEARCH” backwards)

Bounty hunting, the tracking down and capturing of outlaws for reward, is an illegal practice around the world, except in the Philippines and the US.

43A Accordion-heavy music : POLKA

The polka is a dance from central Europe, one that originated in Bohemia in the mid-1800s. It’s thought that “polka” comes from a Czech word meaning “little half”, reflecting the little half-steps included in the basic dance.

The accordion (“squeeze-box”, colloquially) is a musical instrument related to the concertina. It is box-shaped and driven by a bellows that is compressed and expanded manually. The bellows force air across metal strips (called “reed”) that vibrate to produce sounds. Notes are selected by using a piano-style keyboard (in a piano accordion) or by pressing down buttons (in a button accordion).

46A One on the Mohs scale : TALC

The Mohs scale of mineral hardness was developed in 1812 by Friedrich Mohs. Basically Mohs took minerals and scratched them with other minerals. In this way he was able to determine which minerals were hardest (most scratch resistant) and which softest. On the scale, diamond is the hardest (and rated 10), while talc is the softest (and rated 1).

48A Spills the beans : TELLS

To spill the beans is to divulge a secret. The expression first appeared in American English, in the early 1900s. The phrase arose as an alternative to “spoil the beans” or “upset the applecart”. The similarly meaning phrase “spill the tea” is more prevalent on the other side of the Atlantic.

57A Country singer Rimes : LEANN

LeAnn Rimes has been a country music star since she was 13 years old. In 2008 she disclosed publicly that she suffered from the autoimmune disease psoriasis. She has been active since then in raising money to fight the disease and helping fund cancer research as well. So, not only did Rimes win three Grammy Awards in 1997, she also won a 2009 Humanitarian Award from the Academy of Country Music.

61A Bright and airy courtyards : ATRIA

In modern architecture, an atrium (plural “atria” or “atriums”) is a large open space usually in the center of a building and extending upwards to the roof. The original atrium was an open court in the center of an Ancient Roman house. One could access most of the enclosed rooms of the house from the atrium.

64A Streisand film with the song “The Way He Makes Me Feel” : YENTL

“Yentl” is a play that opened in New York City in 1975. The move to adapt the play for the big screen was led by Barbra Streisand, and indeed she wrote the first outline of a musical version herself as far back as 1968. The film was eventually made and released in 1983, with Streisand performing the lead role.

Down

1D Choose yes or no : RSVP

“RSVP” stands for “répondez s’il vous plaît”, which is French for “answer, please”.

2D Place for binoculars : OPERA

Opera glasses are relatively small, and low-power binoculars designed for use at theater performances. The compact size makes the instruments convenient to carry into a theater, and the low magnifying power means that the user gets a large enough field of view without image shake.

6D Quinceañera crown : TIARA

“Quinceañera” is a celebration of a girl’s fifteenth birthday, and is an event common in many parts of Latin America.

11D Actor Mahershala : ALI

Mahershala Ali is an actor and sometime rapper. Among the more memorable roles Ali has had are lobbyist Remy Danton in TV’s “House of Cards”, and Colonel Boggs in “The Hunger Games” series of movies. He also won Best Supporting Actor Oscars for playing Juan in the 2016 drama “Moonlight”, and Dr. Don Shirley in 2018’s “Green Book”.

12D Fashion monogram : YSL

Yves Saint Laurent (YSL)

14D Cocktail garnished with mint : MOJITO

A mojito is a Cuban cocktail, although the exact origins appear to be unclear, as does the derivation of the name. Want one? Put 4 mint leaves in a glass, and add the juice of half a lime and a teaspoon of powdered sugar. Muddle the ingredients, smashing them together with a muddler or a spoon. Add some crushed ice, two ounces of white rum and stir. Top with a couple of ounces of club soda, and garnish with a sprig of mint and/or a slice of lime. Cheers!

21D __ collar : ETON

An Eton collar is a wide, stiff, buttoned collar that is still part of the formal school uniform at Eton College near Windsor in England.

22D Synthetic fabric : NYLON

The polymer known as “nylon” was developed by Dupont in the 1930s. The first application for the new product was as bristles in toothbrushes, in 1938. The second application became more famous. The first stockings made from nylon were produced in 1940, and since then stockings have been known as “nylons”. The polymer was developed as a replacement for silk, which was in short supply during WWII.

30D Fibula counterpart : ULNA

The radius and ulna are bones in the forearm. If you hold the palm of your hand up in front of you, the radius is the bone on the “thumb-side” of the arm, and the ulna is the bone on the “pinky-side”.

The fibula is the calf bone. It lies beside the tibia, with both bones sitting under the femur.

31D Pacific nation that exports water : FIJI

Fiji Water, as one might guess, is a brand of water from the Fiji Islands. I just think that bottling water and sending it around the world is absolutely insane …

32D Nagoya noodles : UDON

Nagoya is the third-largest city in Japan. It is a port city on the island of Honshu. Nagoya is home to many large manufacturing operations, including Mitsubishi Aircraft Company and the Lexus division of Toyota.

33D Pop-top tops : TABS

The term “pop-top” refers to a whole family of designs for opening the top of a soda can. The oldest method is the “pull tab” or “ring pull”, invented in Canada in 1956. The design was long-lived, but it had its problems, so the world heaved a sigh of relief with the invention of the stay-on-tab in 1975. The new design led to less injuries and eliminated all those used pull tabs that littered the streets.

35D Pre-K sequence : ABC

Pre-kindergarten (pre-K)

36D Thai coin : BAHT

The baht is the currency of Thailand. One baht is subdivided into 100 satang.

38D Sealing substance : CAULK

The term “caulk” comes from old Norman French “cauquer”, and described the action of filling gaps with lime. “Caulk” has the same root as our word “chalk”.

41D “Happy Days” retort : SIT ON IT!

The fabulous sitcom “Happy Days” originally ran for 11 seasons, from 1974 to 1984. That makes it the second longest-running sitcom in the history of ABC (behind “The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet”). “Happy Days’ spawned several spin-off shows, two of which became very successful. Penny Marshall and Cindy Williams played two characters who later featured in “Laverne and Shirley”, and Robin Williams first played Mork from Ork on a “Happy Days” episode, which led to “Mork & Mindy”.

43D Bulldoze : PLOW

The term “bulldoze” comes from the noun “bulldose”, which meant “a severe beating” back in the late 1800s. A bulldose was “a dose fit for a bull”, a beating designed to intimidate mainly Black Republican voters in the 1876 US presidential election.

44D Interval of eight notes : OCTAVE

I find that terminology in music can be confusing. My way of looking at an octave (my way … don’t shout at me!) is thinking of a piano keyboard. In the key of C, the seven notes of the octave are C, D, E, F, G, A, B (or “do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, ti”). These are all white keys. Most of these “white notes” are separated by whole tones, so there is room to add a “semitone” in between most of them, and these are the black keys (C-sharp for example). There is room for five black keys in an octave, and 7 + 5 adds up to 12. I assume we use the term “octave” because we often add an eighth note on the end “to bring us back to do” as the song says (do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, ti, do … or … C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C). That eighth note is really the first note in the next octave up.

49D Relationship-deepening word, informally : L-BOMB

In modern parlance, the “L-bomb” would be the word “love”.

52D Slovenian neighbor : CROAT

The Republic of Croatia is a Balkan country. The Croats declared independence from Yugoslavia in 1991. Croatia became a member of NATO in 2009, and a member of the European Union in 2013.

The Republic of Slovenia is a country in Central Europe that is bordered by Italy, Austria, Croatia and Hungary. Given its geographic location, the country has been part of various realms over the centuries, most recently being part of Yugoslavia. Slovenia declared independence from former Yugoslavia in 1991, and is now a member of the European Union.

55D Vena __: major blood line : CAVA

The superior vena cava is a large vein carrying deoxygenated blood from the upper part of the body to the right atrium of the heart. The inferior vena cava does the same thing for the lower part of the body.

58D Beach season in Marseille : ÉTÉ

Marseille (often written “Marseilles” in English) is the second largest city in France, after Paris. Marseille is also the largest commercial port in the country. I used to live nearby, and can attest that Marseille and environs is a great place to visit …