0314-10 New York Times Crossword Answers 14 Mar 10

The name’s William Ernest Butler, but please call me Bill. I grew up in Ireland, but now live out here in the San Francisco Bay Area. I’m retired now, from technology businesses that took our family all over the world. I answer all emails, so please feel free to email me at bill@paxient.com, or leave a comment below.

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This is my solution to the crossword published in the New York Times today …

COMPLETION TIME: N/A (still watching the “Big Love” on DVD)
THEME: Book Binding … the theme answers are each a meld of two book titles.
ANSWERS I MISSED: 2 … JOSS WHEDON (JOSH) and T. S. ELIOT (T. H.!!!) … it was late, what can I tell you?

TODAY’S WIKI-EST, AMAZONIAN GOOGLIES
Across
1: Window boxes
One finds air conditioner units in many windows.

8: F.B.I. scandal of the 1970s-’80s
The FBI set up a sting operation, eventually targeting corruption within Congress. Central to the “scam” was a front company called “Abdul Enterprises, Ltd”, so the whole operation earned the nickname “Abscam“. At the end of the say, one senator and five House members were convicted of bribery and conspiracy.

14: Actress Fox of “CSI”
Jorja Fox plays Sara Sidle on “CSI“. Amongst the many honors she has earned, she is nominated every year by PETA for the “World’s Sexiest Vegetarian” Award. She is a very active in the world of animal rights.

19 “Let’s Talk About Sex” hip-hop group
Salt-n-Pepa are a hip hop trio from New York. Their 1991 song “Let’s Talk Sex” created quite a fuss, as the lyrics explored the subject of sex, and safe sex in particular. A later version addressed the dangers of AIDS.

22: Tony who directed “Michael Clayton”
As well as directing “Michael Clayton” (a good film, starring George Clooney), Tony Gilroy wrote the screenplays for the Bourne series of films.

23: Not just a little bow
The word “salaam” is an Anglicized spelling of the Arabic word for “peace”. It can mean an act of deference, in particular a very low bow.

24: Plot of a Willa Cather novel?
“Story of O” is an erotic novel from 1954 written by a French author using the pen name Pauline Reage. “O Pioneers!” was written in 1913 by American novelist Willa Cather. It has a more wholesome storyline, telling the story of a family of Swedish immigrants in Nebraska.

35: Ship to the New World
The ship we know as the Nina was actually called the Santa Clara. The nickname “Nina” probably came from the name of her owner, Juan Nina of Moguer.

39: Tennis star nicknamed “Ice Man”
Bjorn Borg reacted very calmly under pressure on the court, earning him the nicknames “Ice Man” and the my personal favorite “Ice Borg”.

41: Unabridged version of a Philip Roth novel
“The Long Goodbye” is one in the series of Phip Marlowe novels written by Raymond Chandler. “Goodbye, Columbus” is a novella, published by Philip Roth in 1959 as part of a book of stories bearing the title of the novella itself. The book won the 1960 National Book Award.

60: “Authority is never without ____”: Euripedes
Euripides was a great playwright of Ancient Greece, renowned for his tragedies.

61: Pocket edition of a D. H. Lawrence novel?
“Little Women” is of course a novel written by American author Louisa May Alcott. “Women in Love” by D. H. Lawrence is a sequel to his wonderful book “The Rainbow“. Ken Russell directed a marvelous screen adaptation in 1969, for which Glenda Jackson won a well-deserved Oscar.

65: Singer Lambert
Adam Lambert is one of the “successes” to come out of the “American Idol” machine.

69: Ed who provided the lead voice in “Up”
“Up” is the tenth movie released by Pixar studios, featuring wonderful animation as one has come to expect from Pixar. It earned itself two Academy Awards earlier this year. It’s good to see Ed Asner still being successful in his career.

75: “The Closer” star Sedgwick
“The Closer” is a crime drama aired on TNT, with Kyra Sedgwick in the lead role. Kyra is married to Kevin Bacon.

77: “Frost/Nixon” director’s copy of a Graham Greene novel?
“Frost/Nixon” was directed by Ron Howard. It’s a little slow, but a must see for political history buffs like me. “Howards End” was written by E. M. Forster. Emma Thompson won an Oscar for her part in the excellent 1992 film adaptation. The Graham Geene Novel is actually titles “THE End of the Affair“. The novel is somewhat autobiographical for Greene, based on his own affair with one Lady Catherine Walston, to whom he dedicated the book.

99: Final copy of a Cervantes novel?
“The Last Don” is another mafia novel by Mario Puzo, the author of “The Godfather“. The full name of Cervantes’s novel is “The Ingenious Hidalgo Don Quixote of La Mancha“.

106: Literary collections
An ana (or plural anas) is a collection, including literature, that represent the character of a particular place or a person.

109: Red ___
Red Hots are cinnamon-flavored candy pieces, and I just found out, they are sometimes used in apple sauce.

112 Form of many Tin Pan Alley tunes
AABA is a musical form also known as thirty-two-bar form, and is typical in Tin Pan Alley songs, and later by Lennon and McCartney in many of their compositions.

114: Creased copy of a Jack Finney novel?
“A Wrinkle in Time” is by Madeleine L’Engle, published in 1962. It is a science fantasy, and a winner of multiple awards. Jack Finney’s “Time and Again” was published in 1970, an illustrated novel.

122: Tennis star Tommy
Tommy Haas is German-American tennis player. He grew up in Hamburg, and like many promising tennis players, moved to Florida to develop his tennis skills, at the age of 13.

123: One-named supermodel
Emme is the highest paid plus-size model in the world. Her real name is Melissa Aronson.

125: C. S. Lewis land
Apparently it’s not certain how Lewis came to choose Narnia as the name of the fantasy world featuring in his series of children’s books, including “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe“. There was an ancient city in Umbria that the Roman’s called Narnia, but there is no evidence of a link.

128: Mass producer, for short
Perhaps the most famous mass in classical music is J. S. Bach’s “Mass in B minor“, fittingly completed just before he died.

137: Illustrations in a Leo Tolstoy novel?
“The Art of War” is the famous military treatise written by Sun Tzu, a Chinese  general from the 6th century BC. I’ve even seen the principles from this book applied to modern business! I have to confess that I have tried to read Leo Tolstoy’s “War and Peace” twice in my life, and failed both times (it is l-o-n-g). However, even though the 1956 movie adaptation runs for 3 1/2 hours, it’s still the easy way out. It stars Audrey Hepburn and Henry Fonda.

144 1957 film dog
We all know the 1957 film “Old Yeller“, but the movie is actually made from a book of the same name written by Fred Gipson.

147: “A Serious Man” co-director, 2009
The co-director here could be either of the two Coen brothers. I haven’t seen “A Serious Man” but it sounds like an interesting storyline. It’s about an ordinary man trying to make sense of the world and find balance in his life, and it is loosely based on the story of Job from the Bible.

Down
2: String once used for cellos
Catgut is indeed made from the fibers found in the intestine of animals. Usually sheep or goat intestines are used, and sometimes other animals, but never cats. It may be that catgut is an abbreviation of “cattlegut”. Ugh!

7:  Touch, for one
The iPod Touch is a model introduced by Apple in 2007.

18: Carter and Adams
Amy Carter is the daughter of President Jimmy Carter and his wife, Rosalynn. After her young years in the White House, Amy became a renowned political activist, often protesting against American foreign policy. Amy Adams is an American actress. The last movie I saw her in was the outstanding “Julie & Julia” in which she acted alongside Meryl Streep. I highly recommend you take a look at this film. it is delightful.

30: Kay Thompson title character
Kay Thompson wrote the “Eloise” series of children’s books. Kay Thompson herself actually lived at the Plaza Hotel in New York, the setting she would choose for her “Eloise” stories. Eloise started out as a hit song for Thompson, a success she parlayed into the book franchise.

33: Savoy peak
Savoy is a region in the western Alps, straddling the border between France and Italy.

37: Stevenson of Illinois
Adlai Stevenson ran unsuccessfully against Eisenhower in 1952. Some years later he served under President Kennedy as Ambassador to the United Nations. He was always noted for his eloquence, and had an infamous exchange in a Security Council meeting during the Cuban missile crisis. “I am prepared to wait for my answer until Hell freezes over!”

51: Indian P.M. Manmohan ___
Manmohan Singh is the current Prime Minister of India, coming to power after steering the Indian economy to a position of strength in the world while he was Finance Minister from 1991-96.

52: Author Calvino
As well as being an author, Italo Calvino was a famous Italian journalist. He was a supporter of communism, and wasn’t very popular in the US or Britain.

57: Goal-oriented group?
Major League Soccer is a group that is very much interested in scoring goals …

62: “Gil Blas” author
“Gil Blas” is considered to be a masterpiece, written by French author, Alain-Rene Lesage.

64: Former Wall St. inits.
The National Association of Securities Dealers, Inc (NASD) no longer exists per se. Since 2007, it’s functions are carried out by the Financial Industry Regulation Authority (FINRA) since 2007. These functions include regulation of trading in equities, bonds, futures and options. In 1971, the NASD set up a new computerized trading system, the NASD Automated Quotations stock market, or NASDAQ.

70: Firefox alternative
Mozilla Firefox is an open source Internet browser that has its roots, at least historically, in Netscape. Safari is Apples’s flagship Internet browser, use for its Mac line of computers. Personally, I recommend and use Google Chrome.

72: Byrd’s rank: Abbr.
Rear Admiral Richard Byrd went into the United States Naval Academy in 1912. He is best remembered for his polar explorations.

82: Vega of “Spy Kids”
Alexa Vega was just a kid in the first “Spy Kids” movie in 2001, but now she is “all growed up”. I remember taking the kids to that film. I think I slept through most of it.

84: Bob Marley e.g.
I must admit that I don’t really understand Rastafarianism. I do know that a Rasta, like Bob Marley, is a follower of the movement. Some say it is a religion, some not. It does involve the worship of Emperor Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia.

89: “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” creator
Joss Whedon was pretty pleased when he managed to get his script for “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” made into a movie in 1992, but the film pretty much bombed. However, five years late he was able to get it onto television, and it developed a cult following that kept it alive from 1997-2003.

97: South African city of 2.5+ million
Durban is the third largest city in South Africa, after Johannesburg and Cape Town. The city was founded by the British in 1824, and named for Sir Benjamin d’Urban, the governor of the Cape Colony at that time.

101: Bread with chicken tikka masala
My favorite ethnic food is Indian, and I love naan bread. I was lucky enough to visit India about twenty years ago, and had a wonderful time, and put on a lot of weight there!

104: Seoul soldier
A South Korean soldier is known as a ROK, named after the acronym for the Republic of (South) Korea.

110: “I don’t need to hear that!” informally
Too Much Information! (TMI)

113: Ottoman honorific
An aga, or agha, is a title that was used by both civil and military officials in the Ottoman Empire.

116: Ottoman hospice
Someone must have been reading a book about the Ottoman Empire! There was an organized network of imarets throughout the Empire, which operated mainly as soup kitchens, providing food to the needy.

118: Old Olds
The Oldsmobile Alero was the last compact car made by Oldsmobile, produced from 1999 to 2004.

119: Soviet co-op
The cooperative associations known as artels were often pretty informal affairs. Basically any group could get together and form an artel for any specific commercial purpose … anything from gold-mining and fishing, to stealing and begging.

126: Australia’s ___ Rock
Ayers Rock was discovered by Europeans in 1873, who gave it its name in honor of Sir Henry Ayers who was the Chief Secretary of South Australia at the time. The Aborigines call the landmark Uluru, the more accepted name these days.

128: One of the Jonas brothers
Joe Jonas is one of the lead singers for the Jonas Brothers. A young neighbor of mine went to see the Jonas Brothers in concert a few weeks ago. She came home swooning …

129: Dance typically done to “Hava Nagila”
The hora is circle dance that originated in the Balkans. It was brought to Israel by Romanian settlers, and is often performed to traditional Israeli folk songs. The hora (also horah) is a regular sight at Jewish weddings.

136: Bolivian bear
Oso is the Spanish for “bear”.

138: Noted Palin impressionist
Tina Fey’s impression of Sarah Palin on “Saturday Night Live” won her an Emmy in 2009. The sketch she did with Amy Poehler as Hillary Clinton remains NBC’s most popular Internet video clip. Within a few days of the broadcast it had been viewed 5.7 million times. Now that’s what I call viral video …