|  |  |  |  |  |  | 
  
    | 
  
    | 
        
       |  
    | This inert gas alters your voice because sound travels more than twice as fast in it as in air | helium 
 
 |  | 
  
    | 
        
       |  
    | To decaudate is to do this, like the farmer's wife did to the 3 blind mice | cut off tails 
 
 |  | 
  
    | 
        
       |  
    | In this author's "Debt of Honor", Jack Ryan comes out of retirement to serve as the new National Security Advisor | Tom Clancy 
 
 |  | 
  
    | 
        
       |  
    | Moats were crossed via this device; it was lowered & raised depending on who wanted to cross | a drawbridge 
 
 |  | 
  
    | 
        
       |  
    | It's not shocking that in 1928, Philip Labre added a third prong, for grounding, to this | an electrical plug 
 
 |  | 
  
    | 
        
       |  
    | In 2011 Larry David & the gang went to New York City on this uncomfortably funny HBO show | Curb Your Enthusiasm 
 
 |  | 
  
    | 
  
    | 
        
       |  
    | Lignin, a substance in wood, changes when exposed to oxygen; that makes white paper turn this color as it ages | yellow 
 
 |  | 
  
    | 
        
       |  
    | A nummular thing is shaped like one of these; if you know Latin, it makes cents | (Alex: Yeah, we'll accept that.  Any [*], actually.) 
 a coin (a penny accepted)
 
 
 |  | 
  
    | 
        
       |  
    | If you haven't read this first novel in Cormac McCarthy's "Border Trilogy", say "neigh" | All the Pretty Horses 
 
 |  | 
  
    | 
        
       |  
    | Great Britain's second largest, after Windsor, the Castle of Caerphilly, moat & all, is found in this country | Wales 
 
 |  | 
  
    | 
        
       |  
    | Avon salesladies thank Joseph Henry, the first secretary of the Smithsonian, for inventing the electric this | a doorbell 
 
 |  | 
  
    | 
        
       |  
    | The focus shifted from 40-something Courteney Cox dating men in their 20s, but the show was stuck with this title | Cougar Town 
 
 |  | 
  
    |  | 
  
    | 
        
       |  
    | To the Pennsylvania Dutch, smearcase is this, both large & small curd varieties | cottage cheese 
 
 |  | 
  
    | 
        
       |  
    | The title character loses 72 pounds (but gains 74) during the year recorded in this Helen Fielding novel | Bridget Jones's Diary 
 
 |  | 
  
    | 
        
       |  
    | In the late 1100s what's now the site of this in Paris was Philip Augustus' castle, with a wide moat & not much art | the Louvre 
 
 |  | 
  
    | 
        
       |  
    | MIT gives a prize for design named after Carl Sontheimer, who invented this food processor in the 1970s | the Cuisinart 
 
 |  | 
  
    | 
        
       |  
    | Kyra Sedgwick stars as tough cookie interrogator Brenda Leigh Johnson on this drama | The Closer 
 
 |  | 
  
    | 
  
    | 
        
       |  
    | Slow-motion video shows this bug evading a swat in 250 milliseconds; for 240 of those, it's repositioning itself to jump | (Kendra: What is a mosquito?) 
 a fly
 
 
 |  | 
  
    | 
        
       |  
    | This verb can refer to making & serving sodas or to cutting meat into long strips to be dried in the sun | jerking 
 
 |  | 
  
    | 
        
       |  
    | Anne Rice cast a spell on readers with her saga of the Mayfair family begun in this "timely" 1990 novel | The Witching Hour 
 
 |  | 
  
    | 
        
       |  
    | A remnant of the former moat at this Copenhagen pleasure garden was turned into a lake for boating | Tivoli 
 
 |  | 
  
    | 
        
       |  
    | John Hammes invented the food waste disposer a few blocks from the current HQ of this company that makes them | InSinkErator 
 
 |  | 
  
    | 
        
       |  
    | Thomas Gibson & Shemar Moore star as members of the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit on this drama | Criminal Minds 
 
 |  | 
  
    | 
  
    | 
        
       |  
    | It's the form of glucose that rotates a plane of polarized light clockwise | (Mary: I don't know.) 
 dextrose
 
 
 |  | 
  
    | 
        
       |  
    | Oneiromancy is the practice of foretelling the future by the interpretation of these | dreams 
 
 |  | 
  
    | 
        
       |  
    | In 1991 John Updike won a Pulitzer for this fourth & final novel about Harry Angstrom | Rabbit at Rest 
 
 |  | 
  
    | 
        
       |  
    | To keep fans off the field, a deep moat surrounds the playing area of this South American city's Maracana Stadium | (Mary: What is Buenos Aires?) 
 Rio de Janeiro
 
 
 |  | 
  
    | 
        
       |  
    | Zalmon Simmons accepted a patent on a woven-wire one of these in lieu of cash, & the "rest" is history | (Alex: A woven-wire [*]--Simmons?  BeautyRest?) 
 mattress
 
 
 |  | 
  
    | 
        
       |  
    | "Family Guy" Peter Griffin's African-American neighbor moved to Stoolbend, Virginia for this cartoon spin-off | The Cleveland Show 
 
 |  |