Spills the beans / TUES 9-26-23 / Home of the palace Hanaiakamalama / First-year law student, for short / Cub Scout units
Tuesday, September 26, 2023
Relative difficulty: Fairly easy (one of my faster Tuesday times)

THEME: FOOD WEB (38A: Dietary network in an ecosystem … or a punny hint to the answers to the starred clues) — All theme answers related to both food and computer terms
- SPAM FILTER (17A: Program that detects junk emails)
- SPAGHETTI CODE (23A: Slang term for convoluted and unstructured computer programming)
- HAMBURGER MENU (49A: Online icon comprised of three parallel horizontal lines, familiarly)
- JAVA UPDATE (60A: Download that may improve streaming lags)
ChloƩ Zhao (born Zhao Ting, 31 March 1982) is a Chinese-born filmmaker. She is known primarily for her work on independent films. Her debut feature film, Songs My Brothers Taught Me (2015), premiered at Sundance Film Festival to critical acclaim and earned a nomination for the Independent Spirit Award for Best First Feature. Zhao garnered international recognition with the western film Nomadland (2020), which won numerous accolades. Earning four Academy Award nominations for the film, Zhao won Best Picture and Best Director. Throughout her filmography, Zhao carries relatively the same styles and techniques. The main actress in her film Nomadland, Frances McDormand, told Rolling Stone about Zhao's process, saying "she's basically like a journalist... she gets to know your story, and she creates a character from that" and that she "draws a razor-sharp line between sentiment and sentimentality". A Filmmaker Magazine article quoted Zhao saying "I want to find new ways to place the camera to evoke more of a feeling. My goal is to put the camera inside of [the character]". (Wiki)
Misc.:
- With LOVER (34D: 2019 Taylor Swift album with a romantic theme), we have to talk about Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce and their (completely PR, methinks) relationship. She went to his game yesterday and was in a box with his mom and seemed invested in the game. The Chiefs blew out the Bears, and then he rented out a restaurant for the Chiefs and Taylor Swift, fueling talk that maybe Kelce is Swift’s new LOVER.
- When I see the topic of the mercator MAP (46A: Mercator projection, e.g.), I will always think of this clip from The West Wing where C. J. Cregg (the press secretary) meets with cartographers who argue for a different map. It’s absolutely incredible (and mind-blowing to realize just how distorted the sizes of some countries and continents are on the mercator MAP!)
- I loved seeing CHLOE Zao (6D) and AVA Duvernay (56A) in the puzzle. They’re both incredible directors. If you haven’t seen Zhao’s movie “Nomadland” or Duvernay’s show “When They See Us,” do yourself a favor and go watch them now.
- My family of professional writers has shaped me (warped me?) enough that a grammatical mistake in the clue at 49A (Online icon comprised of three parallel horizontal lines, familiarly) jumped up and bit me on the nose. It should be “composed,” not “comprised.” As my dad has drilled into me, the whole comprises its parts, but the whole is composed of, or made up of, those parts.
- For 13D, I was thinking about what a steeped drink was and had a kind of brain freeze. And then I took a sip from my mug… of TEA.
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