Day: August 3, 2010

Announcement
I am test driving a new feature at the bottom of each post. There you will find a selection of clips/trailers from movies and TV shows mentioned in today’s crossword. If folks find the feature useful/entertaining, I will continue to include it … Bill.

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: 10m 55s
THEME: THINGS THAT SWING … all the theme answers are THINGS THAT SWING i.e. BASEBALL BATTERS, STOCK PRICES, UNDECIDED VOTERS and SALOON DOORS
ANSWERS I MISSED:

TODAY’S WIKI-EST, AMAZONIAN GOOGLIES
Across
1. Pressure meas. : PSI
Pounds Per Square Inch (PSI) is a measure of pressure.

14. Orange Monopoly avenue : TENNESSEE
The commercial game of Monopoly is supposedly a remake of a game called “The Landlord’s Game” created in 1903 by a Quaker woman called Lizzie Phillips who created it as a tool to explain the single tax theory of American economist Henry George. The Landlord’s Game was actually produced commercially in 1924. The incredibly successful derivative game called Monopoly was introduced in 1933 by Charles Darrow, making him a very rich man when Parker Brothers bought the rights to the game just two years later in 1935.

16. Yves Saint Laurent fragrance : OPIUM
Yves Saint Laurent was a French fashion designer, born in Algeria in 1936. He was a very talented designer from a young age, and was hired by Christian Dior when only 17 years old. He gained such a reputation, that when Christian Dior died, Saint Laurent was made head designer for Dior, while still only 21. However, a short time later he was conscripted into the French military (this was 1960), where he lasted only 20 days before being admitted to a military hospital having suffered under the stress of hazing by his fellow conscripts. He was released from the army into a mental hospital where he was given large doses of sedative and psychoactive drugs, and even underwent electroshock therapy. Saint Laurent was eventually released, and resumed his career, but suffered from mental problems for the rest of his life.

17. They’re up : BASEBALL BATTERS

19. Ready to serve : ONE-A
The US government maintains information on all males who are potentially subject to military conscription, using what is called the Selective Service System. In the event that a draft was held, men registered would be classified into groups to determine eligibility for service. Class 1-A registrants are those available for unrestricted military service. Other classes are 1-A-O (conscientious objector available for noncombatant service), 4-A (registrant who has completed military service) and 4-D (Minister of religion).

20. ___ Park (Coney Island destination) : LUNA
Luna Park was the second major amusement park to be opened at Coney Island, accepting its first guests in 1903. “Luna Park” gained such a reputation that it lent its name to dozens of amusements parks around the globe, many that still operate today. Although there was a ride called “A Trip to the Moon” in the park, with a spacecraft called “Luna”, the park’s name actually came from the sister of one of the designers, Luna Dundy of Des Moines, Iowa.

21. Kind of basis in accounting : ACCRUAL
There are two main accounting methods used to determined how much federal income tax is owed, one using a cash basis, and the other an accrual basis. If one uses the cash basis, then income and expenses are recorded when cash is received and when cash is paid out. With the accrual basis, one records income when it is earned (often before the cash is received) and expenses when the liability is incurred (often before cash is actually paid out).

30. Asian holiday : TET
The full name for the new year holiday in Vietnam is Tet Nguyen Dan, meaning “Feast of the First Morning”. Tet usually falls on the same day as Chinese New Year.

31. Some Wall Street Journal charts : STOCK PRICES

33. Topic for Madame de Pompadour and Louis XV : AMOUR
Madame de Pompadour was the very official and well catered-to mistress of Louis XV of France. She lives on in popular culture in a number of ways, including the Pompadour hairstyle. At one time she wore her hair swept back from her forehead, but with a wave that made the front of her hair bulge forward. Her name became associated with the style, and so it remains today. The style became fashionable with so-called rockabilly artists in the later fifties, including one Elvis Presley.

34. “Begone!” : SCAT
Our word “scat” comes from a 19th century expression “quicker than s’cat”, which meant “in a great hurry”. The original phrase was probably came from the words “hiss” and “cat”.

35. They’re waiting to be persuaded : UNDECIDED VOTERS

41. Beta dog’s view : REAR
The alpha dog will be out front, and the beta dog behind, with a view of the alpha’s rear (I guess that’s it!).

43. Western entrances : SALOON DOORS

47. Shooter’s choice, briefly : SLR
SLR: Single Lens Reflex. Usually cameras with changeable lenses are the SLR type. The main feature of an SLR is that a mirror reflects the image seen through the lens out through the viewfinder, so that the photographer sees exactly what the lens sees. The mirror moves out of the way as the picture is taken, and the image that comes through the lens falls onto unexposed film, or nowadays onto a digital sensor.

50. “Sweet” bloomer : ALYSSUM
Alyssum is a genus of over a hundred species of flowering plant. The species we know as Sweet Alyssum is just one of many: Lobularia maritima.

51. Chocolate-coated marshmallow sandwich : MOON PIE
Marshmallow cream was developed in 1927. Soon after, workers in the coal mines around Chattanooga, Tennessee started dipping graham crackers in marshmallow cream as a snack. Then a local baker jumped on the idea, and came up with a sandwich made with a marshmallow filling between two round graham crackers. His young grandson remarked that the popped bubbles in the marshmallow (from baking) looked like moon craters, and the Moon Pie was born. I used to love them as a kid, although we called them “Wagon Wheels” in our part of the world.

55. “Star Trek: T.N.G.” counselor Deanna : TROI
Deanna Troi, the character on “Star Trek: The Next Generation”, is played by the lovely Marina Sirtis. Although Sirtis is a naturalized American citizen, and has what I would call a soft, American accent on the show, she was born in the East End of London and has a natural accent off-stage that is more like that of a true Cockney.

56. Category for 17-, 31-, 35- and 43-Across : THINGS THAT SWING

63. Proverbial prevention portion : OUNCE
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, as the saying goes …

66. Herbert Hoover, by birth : IOWAN
President Herbert Hoover was born in West Branch, Iowa, the only president to have been born in that state. His birthplace is now a National Landmark, and President Hoover and his wife are buried in the grounds of the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum in West Branch. President Hoover died at the age of 90 years old in 1964, outliving his nemesis, Franklyn Delano Roosevelt, by almost 20 years.

67. Ernie on a green : ELS
Ernie Els is a South African golfer. He’s a big guy, but has an easy, fluid golf swing that has earned him the nickname “The Big Easy”. Els has a child who suffers from autism, and has been very effective raising money for charities that focus on the condition.

Down
1. Small craft with launching tubes : PT BOAT
PT Boats were motor torpedo boats, small, speedy vessels that used torpedoes as their primary weapon against large surface ships. The “PT” stands for “Patrol Torpedo”. The most famous PT Boats that served during WWII were probably PT-41, that carried General Douglas MacArthur and his family from Corregidor to Mindanao in his escape from the Philippines, and PT-109 commanded by Lieutenant John F. Kennedy, future President of the United States.

2. Occasion when everyone holds hands, maybe : SEANCE
“Seance” is a French word meaning “a sitting”.

3. Raid target : INSECT
Raid insecticide has been killing bugs since 1956.

6. Subj. for some foreigners : ESL
English as Second Language (ESL) can also be called English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) and English as a Foreign Language (EFL).

7. 1994 Jodie Foster title role : NELL
“Nell” is a thoughtful drama film from 1994 starring Jodie Foster in the title role, playing a young woman who had been raised by her mother in isolation, away from all human contact. She is discovered as an untamed child and gradually introduced into society. The movie is a screen adaptation of a play by Mark Handley called “Idioglossia”.

8. Attack, as false science : DEBUNK
The word “bunk” is short for “bunkum”, the phonetic spelling of “Buncombe”, a country in North Carolina. Reputedly, a state representative made a dull and irrelevant speech that was directed to his home county of Buncombe, bringing the term “bunkum” into the language, meaning “nonsense”. The derivative word “debunk” first appeared in a novel by William Woodward in 1923, when he used it to describe “taking the bunk out of things”.

13. ___ Beagle : HMS
HMS Beagle was launched in 1820, achieving early notoriety as the first boat to pass under the “new” London Bridge that opened in 1831 (that same bridge was carefully dismantled and rebuilt in Lake Havasu City, Arizona). But most famously, the Beagle was used on three survey expeditions, including the celebrated 1831-1836 voyage carrying the naturalist Charles Darwin to South America and beyond.

22. “Semper Fi” grp. : USMC
“Semper Fidelis” is the motto of the United States Marine Corps. The phrase is Latin, and means “Always Faithful”. The US Marine Corps isn’t the only group using the motto though. It’s also used by the Portuguese Marine Corps, the Republic of China Marine Corps and the Swiss Grenadiers among others.

23. Yours, to Yves : A TOI
“A toi” is the French term for “yours”, when talking to someone with whom one is familiar. “A toi” literally means “to you”.

26. Windows XP successor : VISTA
Windows Vista; don’t get me started …

27. “___ homo” : ECCE
According to the Gospel of John, when Pilate presented a scourged and beaten Jesus to the crowd, he uses the words, “Ecce homo”, Latin for “Behold the man”.

28. Symbol of wistfulness : TEAR
Wistful is a lovely word, I think, that can mean pensively sad, melancholy.

29. Forecasting figs. : ESTS
Estimates are figures used in forecasts.

32. Words to live by : CREDO
Credo is the Latin word for “I believe”.

33. Houston skaters : AEROS
The Aeros are the professional ice hockey team based in Houston, Texas. The Houston Aeros were added to the International Hockey League in 1994. The name was taken from the World Hockey Association’s Houston Aeros of the seventies, the team for whom Gordie Howe played.

35. ___ Minor : URSA
Ursa Minor sits right beside the constellation Draco (Latin for “dragon”), and so once Ursa Minor was considered to be the wing of Draco, and used to be called “Dragon’s Wing”.

36. NPR host Conan : NEAL
Neal Conan is the host of the excellent NPR radio show “Talk of the Nation”. Conan is an American journalist, but was actually born in Beirut, Lebanon. During the 1991 Gulf War, Conan was on assignment and managed to get detained by the Iraqi Republican Guard. NPR fans might know that Neil is married to the host of “Weekend Edition Sunday”, the very entertaining Liane Hansen.

37. Tony-winning Tyne : DALY
Tyne Daly really came into the public eye playing Detective Lacey in “Cagney and Lacey”. More recently she played the mother of the title character in “Judging Amy”.

39. ___ Beach, Fla. : VERO
Vero Beach, Florida was the home of spring training for the Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers from 1948 to 2008 (after which the team moved to Arizona).

40. Italian bone : OSSO
Osso is the Italian word for bone, as in the name of the dish “Osso Bucco”, braised veal shanks.

44. Some Oklahomans : OSAGES
The Osage Nation originated in the Ohio River valley in what we now call Kentucky. They were forced to migrate west of the Mississippi by the invading Iroquois tribe. Most of the tribe members now live in Osage County, Oklahoma.

46. Composer Shostakovich : DMITRI
Dmitri Shostakovich was Russian composer, producing works in the Soviet period. He had a difficult relationship with the Communist Party, twice being officially denounced.

47. Preternatural creature : SPRITE
“Preternatural” is another word for “supernatural” or “extraordinary”. The word is derived from the Latin phrase “praeter naturam” meaning “beyond nature”.

48. Cousin of Lancelot : LIONEL
Sir Lionel was a Knight of King Arthur’s round Table according to Arthurian legend, and cousin of fellow-knight, Lancelot.

49. 1910-36 for George V, and 1936-52 for George VI : REIGNS
King George V was ruler of the United Kingdom during WWI. It was George V who changed the Royal Family’s name from Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, creating the House of Windsor in 1917 in response to anti-German feeling during the war.

King George VI was rule of the United Kingdom during WWII. George VI took over the crown unexpectedly in 1936 on the abdication of his older brother Edward VIII, who surrendered the throne to marry the American divorcee, Wallis Simpson. George VI was the father of Queen Elizabeth II.

52. Abbr. on a food package : NT WT
The abbreviation net weight is often found on a food package.

54. Dutch film director van Gogh : THEO
Dutch film director Theo van Gogh a descendant of Theo can Gogh, the brother of artist Vincent van Gogh. He produced a short film called “Submission” in 2004, a film that was critical of the treatment of women within the Islam faith. Later that year, van Gogh was assassinated by a Dutch-Moroccan terrorist.

57. Photoshop adjustment : HUE
Photoshop is a wonderful piece of software used for editing graphics. When I first bought it, it was really expensive, but now there are cost-effective stripped down version available.

59. Sgt., e.g. : NCO
A sergeant is a Non-Commissioned Officer.

Movies and TV shows from today’s crossword
Just select a clip, and press the “play” button …
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