STATE THE 19TH CENTURY SENATOR
SOMEBODY WROTE THAT
THE AMERICAN LAKE
KISS & TELL
WRITER-DIRECTORS
THE IDIOMS GO THATAWAY
400

Sam Houston, until 1859

Texas
400

"Elinor saw, with concern, the excess of her sister's sensibility" (we're practically giftwrapping this one!)

Austen

400

A 2023 report said that without emergency measures, this "Great" lake in Utah "would likely disappear in the next five years"

Great Salt Lake

400

Washington Irving gave one of the earliest written accounts of the yuletide tradition of kissing under this plant 

Mistletoe

400

Born while her dad was making "The Godfather", she's won an Oscar for screenwriting & been named best director at Cannes

Sofia Coppola

400

This phrase describes a plane flying low to evade enemy detection, or anything that's not getting attention nowadays

under the radar

800

Stephen A. Douglas, happy in 1858, sad in 1860, dead in 1861

Illinois

800

"'He shows himself; he's a hunchback. He walks; he's bandy-legged. He looks at you; he's one-eyed. You speak to him; he's deaf"'

Hugo

800

Lying entirely in the U.S., this Great Lake that made Milwaukee famous reaches a great depth of 923 feet

Michigan

800

The musical "Kiss Me, Kate" was based on this Shakespeare play

The Taming of the Shrew

800

7 months after he died in 2009, Molly Ringwald & Anthony Michael Hall were part of a tribute to him at the Oscars

John Hughes

800

Meaning somewhat liberal, this 3-word phrase describes how you've moved from the median

left of center (triple stumper)

1200

Henry Clay--don't compromise on your response!

Kentucky

1200

"The Radleys, welcome anywhere in town, kept to themselves, a predilection unforgivable in Maycomb"

Harper Lee

1200

The name of this freshwater lake shared by 2 western states is from a Washoe word for "lake"; hope you win big at Harrah's too

Tahoe
1200

As the story goes, after performing for Maria Theresa at age 6 in 1762, this wunderkind jumped into the empress' lap & kissed her

Mozart

1200

He & Joe Robert Cole wrote the scripts for "Black Panther" & its sequel, & he directed both films, too

 

Ryan Coogler (triple stumper)

1200

While tubing down a river, you do this, which can also be a rhyming idiom for accepting a situation

go with the flow

1600

John C. Calhoun & John E. Colhoun, but what's in a name, Y'all?

South Carolina

1600

"I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me"

Ralph Ellison

1600

Most of the length of this French-named lake separates New York & Vermont

Champlain

1600

In Genesis 29, on first meeting his beloved Rachel, he kissed her "and lifted up his voice, and wept"

Jacob (triple stumper)

1600

Born in Austria, he learned English while rooming with Peter Lorre, so it's lucky the people in "Some Like It Hot" don't talk like I am

Billy Wilder (triple stumper)

1600

There's a member of genus Corvus in this phrase that means "in a straight line"

as the crow flies

2000

Charles Sumner, a free stater nearly beaten to death on the Senate floor by a southerner

Massachusetts

2000

"The summer range lay above the tree line on Forest Service land on Brokeback Mountain"

Annie Proulx

2000

Let's fire up our RV & head for this lake, Wisconsin's largest inland one, & catch some northern pike & largemouth bass

Winnebago

2000

Beginning around 1908, this Romanian carved several versions of "The Kiss" from blocks of stone, including the one seen here

 

Brâncuși

2000

Lorelei Linklater aged from 9 to 21 over the 12-year shoot of this film from her father, Richard

Boyhood

2000

Tennyson gave a poem about a ferry trip this title, now an idiom for dying

"Crossing the Bar"