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The full solution to today’s crossword that appears in the New York Times
The full solution to today’s SYNDICATED New York Times crossword that appears in all other publications
THEME: All the -acks … all of the theme answers are two words combined, with the second ending in the letters -ACK i.e. STAND BACK, THAT’S WACK, BRAT PACK, CARJACK, KNAPSACK, SPICE RACK, THUMBTACK
COMPLETION TIME: 4m 55s
ANSWERS I MISSED: 0
Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian GoogliesAcross
Marc Chagall was a Russian-French artist, one of the most successful of the 20th century. Unlike so many painters, Chagall was able to achieve wealth and notoriety for his work during his own lifetime. It did help that Chagall lived to a ripe old age though. He passed away in 1985, at the age of 97 years young.
The “Essays of Elia” began appearing in “London Magazine” in 1820, and were immediate hits with the public. Elia was actually a clerk, and a co-worker of Charles Lamb, and it was Lamb who was the author, not Elia. The most famous of the essays in the collection are probably “Dream-Children” and “Old China”.
15. Honolulu keepsakes : LEIS
“Lei” is the Hawaiian word for “garland, wreath”, although in more general terms a “lei” is any series of objects strung together as an adornment to be worn.
16. ___ Gay (W.W. II plane) : ENOLA
As we all know, the Enola Gay was the B-29 that dropped the first atomic bomb, on Hiroshima in August 1945. Enola Gay was the name of the mother of the pilot, Col. Paul W. Tibbets, Jr.
17. “Don’t get too close!” : STAND BACK
Victor Appleton wrote a novel for young adults called “Tom Swift and His Electric Rifle”. The company that developed the TASER electroshock weapon, named their product as a homage to the novel, as TASER stands for Thomas A. Swift’s Electric Rifle. Interesting, eh?
21. “Wow, totally crazy!” : THAT’S WACK
“That’s wack” apparently is a slang term meaning “that’s crazy, nuts, lame”.
Rita Hayworth was born in Brooklyn as Margarita Carmen Cansino. Her father was a flamenco dancer from Spain and so his daughter fell naturally into dancing. The family moved to Hollywood where Hayworth’s father set up a dance studio, and worked with the likes of James Cagney and Jean Harlow. The young Hayworth had a slow start in movies, finding herself typecast because of her Mediterranean features. When she underwent extensive electrolysis to change her forehead and dyed her hair red, she started to get more work (how sad is that?). In 1941 she posed for that famous pin-up picture which accompanied GIs all over the world.
The Brat Pack moninker is reminiscent of the Rat Pack of the fifties and sixties (Franks Sinatra & co.). To qualify as a “founding” member of the Brat pack the actor had to appear in either “The Breakfast Club” or “St. Elmo’s Fire”, or both. So we have Emilio Estevez, Anthony Michael Hall, Rob Lowe, Andrew McCarthy, Demi Moore, Judd Nelson, Molly Ringwald and Ally Sheedy.
31. Winter coats : PARKAS
A parka is a hooded, often fur jacket, worn in cold weather. The original parka was a pullover design, but nowadays it is usually zipped at the front. “Parka” is the Russian name for the garment , absorbed into English in the late 1700s via Aleut.
Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece that we know as the “Mona Lisa” is called “La Gioconda” in Italian, the language of the artist. It’s also known as “La Joconde” by the Government of France which owns the painting and displays it in the Louvre Museum in Paris. The title come from the name of the subject, almost certainly Lisa Gherardini, wife of Francesco del Giocondo. Giocondo was a wealthy silk merchant in Florence who commissioned the painting for the couple’s new home to celebrate the birth of their second son.
40. Take someone’s wheels from at gunpoint : CARJACK
42. Engineering sch. in Troy, N.Y. : RPI
The Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) is a private school in Troy, New York. The university is named after its founder Stephen Van Rensselaer who set up the school in 1824. The goal of the RPI has always been the “application of science to the common purposes of life”, an objective set by the founder. Given that, the name for the sports teams is quite apt, the Engineers.
46. Mideast ruler : EMIR
In English, emir can also be written as amir and ameer (watch out for those spellings in crosswords!).
49. Hiker’s bag : KNAPSACK
“Knapsack” is a Low German word for a bag with straps designed to be carried on the back. The word “knapsack” probably comes from the German verb “knappen” meaning “to eat”.
Mr. T’s real name is Laurence Tureaud. He is famous for many things, including wearing excessive amounts of jewelry. He started this habit when he was working as a bouncer, wearing jewelry items that had been left by customers at a night club so that the items might be recognized and claimed. It was also as a bouncer that he adopted the name Mr. T. His catchphrase comes from the movie “Rocky III”. Before he goes up against Rocky Balboa, Mr. T says, “No, I don’t hate Balboa, but I pity the fool”. He parlayed the line into quite a bit of success. He had a reality TV show called “I Pity the Fool”, and a motivational video called “Be Somebody … or Be Somebody’s Fool!”.
54. Place for parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme : SPICE RACK
Joyce Carol Oates is a remarkable writer, not just for the quality of her work (her 1969 novel “them” won a National Book Award, for example) but also for how prolific is her output. She published her first book in 1963 and since then has published over fifty novels as well as many other written works.
63. Galahad’s protection : ARMOR
Sir Galahad is one of the Knights of the Round Table of Arthurian legend. He is the illegitimate son of Sir Lancelot, so appears a little later in the tales. He is very gallant and noble, and some see him as the embodiment of Jesus in the Arthurian tradition. Indeed, legend has it that his soul was brought to heaven by Joseph of Arimathea, the man who donated his own tomb for the burial of Jesus according to the Gospels.
64. Bulletin board fastener : THUMBTACK
66. ___ Arabia : SAUDI
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is the largest Arab country in the Middle East, and is the world’s largest oil producer, home to world’s largest oil reserves. The Saudi dynasty started in central Arabia in 1744, with the joining forces of the secular leader Muhammad ibn Saud with the Islamic scholar and Imam, Muhammad ibn Abd-al-Wahhab. At the time, Saud was a ruler of a town near Riyadh, and he was determined to bring “true” Islam to the Arabian peninsula. Since 1744 the fortunes of the Saudi family have risen and fallen, but it that same family that rules what we know today as Saudi Arabia.
Blarney is a town in County Cork in the south of Ireland. Blarney is home to Blarney Castle, and inside the castle is the legendary Blarney Stone. “Kissing the Blarney Stone” is a ritual engaged in by oh so many tourists (indeed, I’ve done it myself!), but it’s not a simple process. The stone is embedded in the wall of the castle, and in order to kiss it you have to sit on the edge of the parapet and lean way backwards so that your head is some two feet below your body. There is a staff member there to help you and make sure you don’t fall. The Blarney Stone has been labelled as the world’s most unhygienic tourist attraction! But once you’ve kissed it, supposedly you are endowed with the “gift of the gab”, the ability to talk eloquently and perhaps deceptively, but without offending. Sure, I wouldn’t know …
Done
1. Boot camp meal : MESS
“Mess” first came into English about 1300 and described the list of food needed for a meal, from the Old French word “mes” which was a portion of food, or a course at a meal. This usage in English evolved into “mess” meaning a jumbled mass from the concept of “mixed food”. At the same time, the original usage in the sense of a food for a meal surfaced again in the military in the 1500s where a “mess” was a communal eating place.
The saxophone was invented by Belgian, Adolphe Sax. Strangely (given that he was a musician), he developed lip cancer at one point in his life, but recovered. I had the privilege of visiting his grave in the Cemetery of Montmartre in Paris a few years ago.
3. Mideast money : RIAL
The rial is the name of the currency in many countries including Oman, Yemen , Iran, Cambodia and Tunisia.
4. Variation of rummy that was a 1950s fad : CANASTA
The card game called canasta originated in Uruguay apparently, with canasta being the Spanish word for “basket”. In the rummy-like game, a meld of seven cards or more is called a canasta.
5. Edmonton’s prov. : ALB
Alberta is a big province, about the size of Texas. Alberta is named after Princess Louise Caroline Alberta, the fourth child of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. Princess Louise also donated her name to Lake Louise, the large glacial lake in the province, now withing the bounds of Banff National Park.
Irish actor Liam Neeson got his big break when he played Oskar Schindler in the Spielberg epic, “Schindler’s List”. He was in the news more recently when he lost his wife, actress Natasha Richardson, in a tragic skiing accident in 2009.
11. Santa ___, Calif. : ROSA
Santa Rosa is the largest city in California’s Wine Country, and the county seat of Sonoma County. The epicenter of the so called 1906 San Francisco Earthquake was located near Santa Rosa, so there was actually more damage in Santa Rosa, for the size of the city, that in San Francisco.
24. “Ali ___ and the 40 Thieves” : BABA
There is some controversy about the story “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves” in that it has been suggested that it was not part of the original collection of Arabic tales called “One Thousand and One Nights”. The suggestion is that it was added by one of its European translators.
26. Spots of light on a radar screen : BLIPS
Scientists have been using radio waves to detect the presence of objects since the late 1800s, but it was the demands of WWII that accelerated the practical application of the technology. The British called their system RDF standing for Range and Direction Finding. The system used by the US Navy was called Radio Detection And Ranging, shortened to the acronym RADAR.
The NRA is the National Rifle Association, an organization that has been around since 1871. The group has had some celebrity presidents, including US President Ulysses S. Grant. It’s often said that the NRA is the most powerful lobbying group in Washington.
29. Nasdaq listing: Abbr. : CORP
The computerized stock trading system known as the NASDAQ was created in 1971 by the National Association of Securities Dealers. NASDAQ stands for National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations.
I think we all remember Telly Savalas playing the title role in the detective drama “Kojak”, but do we recall his performance in the 1962 “Birdman of Alcatraz”? Savalas played a supporting role opposite Burt Lancaster in that movie, earning himself an Oscar nomination. Savalas was well known as a Greek American actor, having been born Aristotelis Savalais to Greek parents just outside New York City. Another of his more significant roles was Pontius Pilate in the 1965 epic “The Greatest Story Ever Told”. Savalas had to shave his head to play Pilate, and he liked the look so much he remained bald for the rest of his life.
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32. Fate : KARMA
Karma is religious concept with its basis in Indian faiths. Karma embraces the notion of cause and effect. Good deeds have good consequences at some later point in one’s life, or future life, or afterlife, and vice versa.
33. ___ jelly : ASPIC
“Aspic” is a French word for “jelly”.
40. Phone-screening service : CALLER ID
The basic technology behind caller ID was developed in Athens, Greece by “Ted” Paraskevakos in the late sixties and early seventies. The man should be made a saint …
ZIP codes were introduced in 1963. The acronym ZIP stands for Zone Improvement Plan, a name indicating that mail travels more efficiently when the codes are included in the postal address.
52. “Why, certainly!” : NATCH
“Natch” is a slang term meaning “naturally, of course”. “Natch” is simply a shortening of the word “‘naturally”, first recorded at the end of WWII.
57. Indian tea : CHAI
Chai is a drink made from spiced black tea, honey and milk. “Chai” is the Hindi word for “tea”. We often called tea “a cup of char” growing up, with “char” being the slang word for tea derived from “chai”.
Kurt Cobaine was famous as the lead singer of the band Nirvana. Cobaine was constantly in the spotlight for the last few years of his short life. The media was fascinated with his marriage to fellow rock star Courtney Love, and continually reported on Cobaine’s heroin addiction. He finally succumbed to the pressure and committed suicide by inflicting a gunshot wound to his head in 1994, at only 27 years of age.
60. Showy peacock feature : TAIL
The female peafowl, the peahen, has very dull plumage compared to the extravagant display on the tail of the peacock. The young of a peacock and peahen is known as a peachick (there’s a surprise!).
61. Light brown shade : ECRU
The shade of ecru is a grayish, yellowish brown. The word “ecru” comes from French, and means “raw, unbleached”, and has the same roots as our word “crude”.
Skee Ball is that arcade game where you roll balls up a ramp trying to “bounce” it into rings for different numbers of points. The game was first introduced in Philadelphia, in 1909.
65. Rx prescribers : MDS
There seems to some uncertainty about the origin of the symbol “Rx”, used for a medical prescription. One explanation is that it comes from the astrological sign for Jupiter, a symbol put on prescriptions to invoke Jupiter’s blessing to help the patient recover.
For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. Painter Chagall : MARC
5. Bushy hairdo : AFRO
9. Enticed : LURED
14. Pseudonym for Charles Lamb : ELIA
15. Honolulu keepsakes : LEIS
16. ___ Gay (W.W. II plane) : ENOLA
17. “Don’t get too close!” : STAND BACK
19. Police stun gun : TASER
20. Kind of energy or eclipse : SOLAR
21. “Wow, totally crazy!” : THAT’S WACK
23. Sis or bro : SIB
25. Actress Hayworth : RITA
26. Stars of “The Breakfast Club” and “St. Elmo’s Fire,” collectively : BRAT PACK
31. Winter coats : PARKAS
35. “Mona ___” : LISA
36. Sound made when passing the sound barrier : BOOM
38. What a dog walker holds on to : LEASH
39. “Don’t mind ___ do!” : IF I
40. Take someone’s wheels from at gunpoint : CARJACK
42. Engineering sch. in Troy, N.Y. : RPI
43. Town square : PLAZA
45. Duo : PAIR
46. Mideast ruler : EMIR
47. Definitely past one’s mental peak : SENILE
49. Hiker’s bag : KNAPSACK
51. Blueprint : PLAN
53. Mohawk-sporting TV star of the ’80s : MR T
54. Place for parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme : SPICE RACK
59. Writer Joyce Carol ___ : OATES
63. Galahad’s protection : ARMOR
64. Bulletin board fastener : THUMBTACK
66. ___ Arabia : SAUDI
67. Ace or deuce : CARD
68. Land of Blarney : EIRE
69. Talked up : HYPED
70. Chart-topping songs : HITS
71. Swing around on an axis : SLUE
Down
1. Boot camp meal : MESS
2. Kind of saxophone : ALTO
3. Mideast money : RIAL
4. Variation of rummy that was a 1950s fad : CANASTA
5. Edmonton’s prov. : ALB
6. Quite an accomplishment : FEAT
7. More than well-off : RICH
8. Schindler of “Schindler’s List” : OSKAR
9. “We can discuss this fully later” : LET’S TALK
10. Not in the know : UNAWARE
11. Santa ___, Calif. : ROSA
12. Util. bill : ELEC
13. Alternative to white, as turkey meat : DARK
18. Faucet trouble : DRIP
22. 15%-20%, for a waiter : TIP
24. “Ali ___ and the 40 Thieves” : BABA
26. Spots of light on a radar screen : BLIPS
27. The “R” in N.R.A. : RIFLE
28. Vietnamese or Thai : ASIAN
29. Nasdaq listing: Abbr. : CORP
30. Old cop show starring Telly Savalas : KOJAK
32. Fate : KARMA
33. ___ jelly : ASPIC
34. Dodge, as work : SHIRK
37. Common street name : MAIN
40. Phone-screening service : CALLER ID
41. Study hard at the last minute : CRAM
44. 90210, e.g. : ZIP CODE
46. Subjects of wills : ESTATES
48. Where to hold a telephone receiver : EAR
50. “No ___!” (“Easy!”) : PROB
52. “Why, certainly!” : NATCH
54. Miss America band : SASH
55. Appeal to God : PRAY
56. Early morning declaration : I’M UP
57. Indian tea : CHAI
58. Rock’s Cobain : KURT
60. Showy peacock feature : TAIL
61. Light brown shade : ECRU
62. ___-Ball (arcade game) : SKEE
65. Rx prescribers : MDS