0529-10 New York Times Crossword Answers 29 May 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. If you are working on the New York Times crossword in any other publication, you are working on the syndicated puzzle. Here is a link to my answers to today’s SYNDICATED New York Times crossword. To find any solution other than today’s, enter the crossword number (e.g. 1225, 0107) in the “Search the Blog” box above.

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

COMPLETION TIME: N/A (watching HBO’s “The Wire” on DVD)
THEME: None
ANSWERS I MISSED: 2 … EEKA (EIKA), URES (URIS)

TODAY’S WIKI-EST, AMAZONIAN GOOGLIES
Across
The Simpsons Polystone Bust Moe Szyslak1. Surly TV bartender : MOE SZYSLAK
Moe Szyslak is the surly bartender in “The Simpson” animated TV show. I don’t really care for “The Simpsons”, but Hank Azaria who supplies the voice for the character … him I like.

16. Stricken : EXED
Stricken from the record say, exed out.

17. It might be evaluated along with the nose : AFTERTASTE
The aftertaste is the taste left on the palate after wine has been swallowed. Aftertaste is also known “finish”. A wine’s nose is it’s bouquet, the aroma of the wine.

Maximum Puff Daddy: The Unauthorised Biography of Puff Daddy (Maximum series)20. “Bad Boy for Life” performer at the 2004 Super Bowl : P. DIDDY
When Sean John Combs started his rapping career, he used the stage name Puff Daddy. Then he went with P. Diddy, and is now recording simply as Diddy. Having said that, he has to stick with P. Diddy in some countries as he had a legal battle with another artist called Richard “Diddy” Dearlove. There’s now talk of Mr. combs going with the name “Ciroc Obama”.

25. Web forums’ ancestor : USENET
Remember the good old days, when you’d read messages online in “newsgroups”? Well, that system of aggregating public messages is known as Usenet, and it’s still around today. Usenet started operating in 1980, some ten years before the World Wide Web was introduced (the system that has taken over from Usenet in terms of popularity). Usenet definitely played a significant part in the history of the Internet. For instance, the terms “FAQ” and “spam” were born on Usenet.

26. Dan. preceder : EZEK
The Book of Daniel in the Hebrew Bible tells mainly of the life of Daniel. The Book of Ezekiel is a collection of the preachings of the prophet Ezekiel.

Ayn Rand and the World She Made28. Author who wrote “Anyone who fights for the future, lives in it today” : AYN RAND
Ayn Rand was a Russian-American novelist born Alisa Rosenbaum. Her two best known works are her novels “The Fountainhead” published in 1943 and “Atlas Shrugged” in 1957. Back in 1951, Ayn Rand moved from Los Angeles to New York City. Soon after, she gathered a group of admirers around her with whom she discussed philosophy and shared drafts of her magnum opus, “Atlas Shrugged”. This group called itself “The Collective”, and one of the “founding members” was future Federal Reserve chairman, Alan Greenspan.

32. Reggae artist ___-Mouse : EEK-A
Eek-A-Mose is a Jamaican reggae artist, born Ripton Hylton. Hylton took the name “Eek-A-Mouse” from a racehorse, one on which he always bet.

Ramones36. Classic 1978 punk song : I WANNA BE SEDATED
I Wanna Be Sedated” is a song by the American punk rock group “The Ramones”. The Ramones formed in Forest Hills, New York in the mid-seventies. Arguably, they were the first punk rock group, defining the genre. Something else that’s not my cup of tea …

42. Alcove-hiding hanging : ARRAS
The most celebrated alcove hidden by an arras is seen in Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”. In one pivotal scene, Polonius is hiding behind a tapestry listening to an argument between Hamlet and Gertrude. Hamlet hears Polonius, mistakes his identity, and stabs wildly through the cloth, killing Polonius. The name “arras” for such a tapestry comes from the French town of Arras which was famous for the production of fine tapestries.

46. Camposanto Monumentale locale : PISA
Camposanto Monumentale is Italian for “monumental cemetery”, and lies at the edge of Cathedral Square in Pisa. Supposedly the soil in the ground was shipped into Pisa in the 12th century from Golgotha (also known as Calvary), the site where Jesus of Nazareth was crucified. Legend has it that bodies buried in the ground rotted away in just 24 hours.

Buzz Aldrin: The Pilot of the First Moon Landing (The Library of Astronaut Biographies)49. Alma mater for Buzz Aldrin and Kofi Annan: Abbr. : MIT
Kofi Annan attended the MIT Sloan School of Management from 1971-72, and graduated with a Master of Science degree. Buzz Aldrin earned a Doctor of Science degree in Astronautics at MIT.

51. Organ piece : KEY
52. 1950s-’60s left fielder selected for nine All-Star Games : MINOSO
Minnie Minosa is a Cuban-born former baseball player who had a very long professional career. He is one of just two player in Major League history to have played in five separate decades (40s-80s), the other being Nick Altrock.

55. Hebrew for “spring” : AVIV
The full name of Israel’s second largest city is Tel Aviv-Yafo. Tel Aviv translates into “Spring Mound”, a name chosen in 1910.

60. Asian of legendary status? : YETI
A yeti is a beast of legend, also called an abominable snowman. Yeti is a Tibetan term for the beast, which is fabled to live in the Himalayan regions of Nepal and Tibet. Our equivalent legend in North America is that of Bigfoot.

The Snows of Kilimanjaro61. “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” co-star : AVA GARDNER
Ava Gardner is perhaps notable not only for her association with some big movies, but also for her association with some big names when it came to the men in her life. In the world of film, she appeared in the likes of “Mogambo” (1953), “On the Beach” (1959), “The Night of the Iguana” (1964) and “Earthquake” (1974). The men in her life included husbands Mickey Rooney, Artie Shaw and Frank Sinatra. After her marriages had failed (and perhaps before!) she had long term relationship with Howard Hughes, as well bullfighter Luis Miguel Dominguin whom she met through her friend Ernest Hemingway. “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” movie is a 1952 adaptation of an Ernest Hemingway short story of the same name. In the film, Ava Gardener starred opposite Gregory Peck.

Down
5. “2001” characters : ZEROS
What a nice clue. There are two zeros in 2001.

6. Powder used in lasers : YTTRIA
Yttria is the oxide of yttrium, and is more correctly called yttrium oxide.

Twenty-Five Scottish Songs: The lovely lass of Inverness8. Burns’s “The Lovely ___ o’ Inverness” : LASS
Robert Burns wrote the words for “The Lovely Lass of Inverness” in 1816, to the tune of a traditional folk song. Beethoven included the song in his Opus 108, “Twenty-Five Scottish Songs”, published just two years later, in 1818.

9. Bermuda hrs. : AST
Atlantic Standard Time is four hours behind Greenwich Mean Time, and one hour ahead of Eastern Standard Time. It makes sense that Bermuda should fall in the Atlantic Standard Time Zone, as Bermuda lies just over 600 miles east of North Carolina. I’ve visited it, and it is a lovely spot. Bermuda is the oldest remaining overseas territory that Britain has left, and it is the most populous.

13. Outback relative : VELDT
Also known as Veld, Veldt is the name given to large rural spaces in southern Africa. We might use the term “boondocks” for the same thing. The word comes from the German for “field”. In Australia, the equivalent open spaces are called the Outback.

14. Dust devil, e.g. : EDDY
Dust devils are like miniature versions of tornadoes, vertically oriented columns of rotating air.

21. “Don’t mention it” : DE NADA
“De nada” translates literally from the Spanish as “of nothing”, and is used to mean “You’re welcome” or “Don’t mention it” The French have the same saying “De rien”, also translating to “of nothing” and used the same way.

Seiji Ozawa (Contemporary Asian Americans)23. 1976 Emmy winner for “Evening at Symphony” : OZAWA
Seiji Ozawa is most famous for his work as music director of the Boston symphony Orchestra, although he is also the principal conductor of the Vienna State Opera. However, sadly he has had to put his career on hold for the past few months as he is being treated for esophageal cancer. His work with the Boston Symphony for the PBS television series “Evening at Symphony” won him an Emmy in 1976.

25. Actress Mary and musician Midge : URES
Mary Ure was a Scottish actress. You might remember her as the female lead in the 1968 WWII movie “Where Eagles Dare”. Midge Ure is also a Scot, a musician who has worked with a number of famous bands and was the lead singer for Ultravox. He was the lesser known name (along with Bob Geldhof) behind the incredible Band Aid, Live Aid and Live 8, and he co-wrote the hit charity single “Do They Know It’s Christmas?”.

27. Branches of some trees : KIN
Branches of one’s ancestral tree are one’s kin.

38. Old Martin bomber : B-TEN
The Martin B-10 bomber entered service in 1934. It was the first bomber to have retractable landing gear, an internal bomb bay and a powered gun turret. It was built for speed, and was 50% faster then its predecessor biplane bombers, and was also faster than any fighter plane flying when it was first introduced.

39. Creator of the bronze “En Songe” : ARP
Hans Arp was a French artist, renowned for his work with torn and pasted paper, although that wasn’t the only medium he used. He was the son of a French mother and German father, and spoke both languages fluently. When he was speaking German, he gave his name as Hans Arp, but when speaking French, he called himself Jean Arp. Both Hans and Jean translate into English as John. His 1937 abstract work in bronze called “En Songe” can be seen at Le Musee d’Art Moderne de Saint Etienne in France.

43. People may act terribly in it : B MOVIE
In the good old days we would go to the movies and see double features. The term B movie was used to describe movies that were made with low budgets and were intended to be the bottom half of a double feature. Some genres became regular choices for making as a B movie, such as westerns, science-fiction and horror movies.

45. Situated away from the point of origin : DISTAL
Distal is a term used in anatomy to describe the part of some body that is furthest away from a point of reference, often a point of attachment. So, a tooth and a jaw have a distal section. The opposite in meaning is proximal, meaning closest to the point of reference.

53. Sound heard before some films start : ROAR
There has be a lion in the logo of the MGM studio and its predecessors, dating back to 1924. The original lion was an Irishman (!), a lion name Slats who was born in Dublin Zoo in 1919. However, it wasn’t until lion Jackie took over from Slats, in 1928, that the roar was heard, as the era of silent movies was coming to an end. The current lion is called Leo, and he has been around since 1957.

57. Egg opener? : OVO
All of the prefixes ovo-, ovi-, and ov- mean relating to an egg (ovum).

The Story of "the Star-Spangled Banner"58. “___ the towering steep” (anthem lyric) : O’ER
The words “o’er the towering steep” come from “The Star Spangled Banner” written by Francis Scott Key. The lyrics were written first as a poem by Key, inspired by his witnessing of the bombarding by the British of the American forces at Fort McHenry during the Battle of Baltimore in September 1814. The words were then set to the tune of a popular British drinking song written by John Stafford Smith called “The Anacreontic Song”, with Anacreontic Society being a men’s club in London.

59. Yards are part of them: Abbr. : RRS
Yards are part of railroads.