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Solution to today’s crossword in the New York Times
Solution to today’s SYNDICATED New York Times crossword in all other publications
CROSSWORD SETTER: Will Nediger
THEME: JULIUS CAESAR … two famous quotes from Caesar are hidden in the two sets of theme answers (i.e. THE DIE IS CAST & VENI VIDI VICI):
14A. **”His/her” alternative : (THE)IR
16A. **Parting word : A(DIE)U
64A. **Sojourn : V(IS)IT
66A. **Social grouping : (CAST)E
20A. *Soiree attire : E(VENI)NG DRESS
27A. *Indelible picture in the mind : VI(VID I)MAGE
48A. *Bandmate of Johnny Rotten : SID (VICI)OUS
COMPLETION TIME: 12m 45s
ANSWERS I MISSED: 0
Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across
1. Child’s play : A SNAP
“Snap!”, as in the card game.
“The Guinness Book of World Records” holds some records of its own. It is the best-selling, copyrighted series of books of all time, and is one of the books most often stolen from public libraries! The book was first published in 1954, by two twins, Norris and Ross McWhirter. The McWhirter twins found themselves with a smash hit, and eventually became very famous in Britain on a TV show based on world records.
9. Fountain items : MALTS
Walgreens claims to have introduced the malted milkshake, in 1922.
15. Cue preceder : PEE
The letter P precedes the letter Q.
16. **Parting word : ADIEU
“Adieu” is the French for “goodbye”, or “farewell”, from “à Dieu” meaning “to God”.
The full name of the Minneapolis sports stadium is the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome. It was home to 1992’s Super Bowl XXVI, in which the Washington Redskins defeated the Buffalo Bills.
20. *Soiree attire : EVENING DRESS
“Soir” is the French word for “evening” and a “soirée” is an “evening party”. The French “soirée” has an acute accent over the first “e”, but we tend to drop this when using the word in English.
22. Modern rock genre : EMO
The musical genre of “emo” originated in Washington D.C. in the 80s, and takes its name from “emotional hardcore”. Not my cup of tea …
25. Brown wall covering : IVY
Brown University, in Providence, Rhode Island, is one of the eight Ivy League schools. Brown has been around a long time, founded in 1764, years before America declared independence from England. The university took the name of Brown in 1804 after one Nicholas Brown, Jr. gave a substantial gift to the school.
Alan Turing was an English mathematician. He was deservedly well-respected for his code-breaking work during WWII at Bletchley Park in England. However, despite his contributions to cracking the German Enigma code and other crucial work, Turing was prosecuted for homosexuality in 1952. He agreed to chemical castration, treatment with female hormones, and two years later he committed suicide by taking cyanide.
When I was growing up in Ireland I was very familiar with pearl sago, which is very similar to pearl tapioca. Pearls of sago are simply little balls of sago starch used to make breads, pancakes, biscuits, or the steamed puddings that we ate as kids. Sago comes from pith of the sago palm tree. To get at the starch the tree has to be cut down and the trunk split to reveal the pith. The pith is crushed and manipulated to make the starch available, which is then washed out of a fibrous suspension. One sago palm tree yields about 150-300 kg of starch. Personally I love the stuff, but then, I am a bit weird …
34. Onetime exam in British schools : O-LEVEL
The UK’s education system was reformed in the fifties with the introduction of the General Certificate of Education (GCE). There were two levels of certification that could be awarded in most subjects. The Ordinary Level (O-Level) was a much less rigorous standard of examination than the Advanced Level (A-Level).
37. Hip, in the mid-’60s : MOD
Mod is short for modernist, and described a subculture that originated in London in the late fifties. Young men who called themselves mods tended to wear tailored suits, listen to pop music and drive around on Italian motor scooters. Mods came in to conflict with another subculture that emerged at the same time in the UK, the rockers. Rockers were into rock and roll music, and drove motor cycles. I remember as a young kid in school having to declare myself as either a mod or a rocker. I don’t think our “gangs” back then were quite the same as they are today …
The actress Karen Allen got her big break in the movie “National Lampoon’s Animal House” in 1978, and then landed her most celebrated role in the “Indiana Jones” films a few years later. Allen loves knitting, and has her own textile company called Karen Allen Fiber Arts. You can check out her website.
“Raiders of the Lost Ark” is, in my humble opinion, the best of the Indiana Jones franchise of movies. This first in the series was released in 1981, produced by George Lucas and directed by Steven Spielberg. Harrison Ford was Spielberg’s first choice to play the lead, but Lucas resisted as he was concerned that he would be too closely associated with the actor (as Ford played Han Solo in “Star Wars”, and also appeared in Lucas’s “American Graffiti”). Tom Selleck was offered the role, but couldn’t get out of his commitments to “Magnum, P.I.” Eventually Spielberg got his way and Ford was brought in, a good thing I say …
Sid Vicious was a famous English musician, the best-known member of the seventies punk rock group, the Sex Pistols. In 1978, Vicious woke up out of a drugged stupor in his hotel room in New York, to find his girlfriend stabbed to death in the bathroom. Vicious was charged with the murder, and ten days later sliced his wrist in a suicide attempt. Vicious made bail a few months later and at a celebratory party, his mother supplied him with heroin, on which Vicious overdosed and died, at the age of 21.
50. Ancient land in modern Jordan : EDOM
Edom is an ancient Iron Age kingdom located in the south of modern-day Jordan. The area is known for its red-colored sandstone, which gave the kingdom its name. The Hebrew word “Edom” translates as “red”.
52. Book after Galatians: Abbr. : EPH
It seems that the Epistle of Paul to the Ephesians is now regarded by scholars as written “in the style of Paul”, by someone who was influenced by Paul’s thought.
Joan of Arc led the French Army successfully into battle a number of times during the Hundred Years War with England. When she was eventually captured, she was tried in Rouen, the seat of the occupying English government in France at that time. There she was burned at the stake having been found guilty of heresy. Joan of Arc was canonized some 600 years later, in 1920, and is now one of the patron saints of France.
Supposedly, when Caesar marched back to Rome from Gaul, as he defiantly “crossed the Rubicon” with his army he uttered the words “Alea iacta est” (“The die is cast”).
By 59 BC, Julius Caesar was a very powerful man in Rome. He had just been elected to the position of consul, the highest magistracy in the Republic. Famously, he aligned himself with two other powerful men in Rome, Pompey and Crassus, forming the First Triumvirate. At the end of his year as consul, Caesar was elected proconsul (for 5 years), and was appointed governor of three provinces north of Rome (including Gaul), with control of four legions of the army. Caesar extended the reach of Rome in the Gallic Wars, and became very popular with the people back in Rome. However the Senate, led by his erstwhile ally Pompey, feared the power that could be exercised by Caesar, so at the end of his term as proconsul they ordered him to disband his army and return to Rome. Caesar agreed to return to Rome, but not to disband his army. On 10 January 49 BC, despite all warnings he marched back into Italy by crossing the Rubicon River, along with his army, plunging Rome into Civil War. Since then, “crossing the Rubicon” has come to mean “passing the point of no return”.
The oft-quoted “Veni, vidi, vici” (“I came, I saw, I conquered”) is believed by many to have been written by Julius Caesar. The words date back to 47 BC and refer to the short war between Rome and Pharnaces II of Pontus.
60. City of Invention : AKRON, OHIO
Back in the 1800s, Akron, Ohio was the fasting growing city in the country, feeding off the industrial boom at that time. The city was founded in 1825 and its location, along the Ohio and Erie canal connecting Lake Erie with the Ohio River, helped to fuel Akron’s growth. Akron sits at the highest point of the canal and the name “Akron” comes from the Greek word meaning “summit”. Indeed, Akron is the county seat of Summit County.
66. **Social grouping : CASTE
Many creatures organize themselves into a social structure, a phenomenon known as “eusociality”. Examples of such creatures would be ants, bees and wasps, where there are queens, workers and soldiers. The groups within such a hierarchical structure are known as castes. The word “caste” was borrowed from the class divisions in Indian society (although the word and concept was actually introduced by the Portuguese).
67. Prefix with centric : ETHNO-
To be ethnocentric is to believe in the superiority of one’s own race, or to have an obsessive concern with race.
Down
“She Walks in Beauty” is one of the most famous poems written by Lord Byron. The poem is very descriptive of an elegant and beautiful woman. He wrote it the day after seeing his cousin, who was in mourning, walking by in a black dress set with spangles. The opening lines are:
“She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies”
George Gordon Byron, known simply as “Lord Byron”, was an English poet active in the early 1800s. He was equally as famous for his poetry as he was for the wild excesses in his personal life. He lived much of his life outside of England, and fought for revolutionaries in both Italy and Greece, and died from a fever contracted while fighting for the Greeks against the Ottomans.
5. Forward-thinking, in a way : PROVIDENT
Something “provident” provides for the future.
Meats placed between slices of bread was first called a sandwich in the 18th century, named after the Fourth Earl of Sandwich. The Earl was fond of eating “sandwiches” while playing cards at his club.
“Sexting” (a portmanteau of “sex” and “texting”) is the sending of explicit dialog and perhaps images, between cell phones. The term “sexting” was first coined by the UK’s “Sunday Telegraph Magazine” in a 2005 article. Apparently the practice is “rampant” among teens and young adults. Whatever happened to dinner and a movie?
18. Participant in a Faustian bargain : DEVIL
Faust is the main character in an old German legend. He sold his soul to the devil, in exchange for knowledge. The legend of Faust is the root of numerous works of literature and music, including “The Damnation of Faust” by Berlioz and Charlie Daniels’ “The Devil Went Down to Georgia”.
“L’Ultima Cena” is Italian for “The Last Supper”.
Leonardo da Vinci’s famous mural “The Last Supper” can be seen on an end wall of the dining hall in the monastery of Santa Maris delle Grazie in Milan, Italy. If you want to see it in person, you have to make a reservation ahead of time, and once you get there, you’re only allowed 15 minutes viewing time. It’s very, very popular …
Odense is a city in Denmark, named after the Norse god Odin. One of Odense’s most famous sons was Hans Christian Anderson, the author of children’s stories.
The wonderful storyteller Hans Christian Andersen became very successful in his own lifetime. In 1847 he visited England for the summer and made a triumphal tour of English society’s most fashionable drawing rooms. There he met with the equally successful Charles Dickens, and the two seemed to hit it off. Ten years later Andersen returned to England and stayed for five weeks in Dickens’ home as his guest. Dickens published “David Copperfield” soon after, and supposedly he based the less than lovable character Uriah Heep on Andersen. That wasn’t very nice!
Zhou Enlai (also Chou En-Lai) was the first government leader of the People’s Republic of China and held the office of Premier from 1949 until he died in 1976. He ran the government for Communist Party Leader Mao Zedong, often striking a more conciliatory tone with the West than that of his boss. He was instrumental, for example, in setting up President Nixon’s famous visit to China in 1972. Zhou Enlai died just a few months before Mao Zedong, leading to unrest and a dramatic change in political direction for the country.
45. Souse : DIPSO
“Dipsomania” is a craving for alcohol to the point of damaging one’s health. “Dipsa” is the Greek for “thirst”, hence dipsomania is a “manic thirst”.
55. Cadre, e.g. : UNIT
A “cadre” is most commonly a group of trained personnel at the core of a larger organization that the small group trains or heavily influences. Cadre is a French word meaning a “frame”. We use it in the sense that a cadre is a group that provides a “framework” for the larger organization.
57. Sony co-founder Morita : AKIO
Sony was founded by Akio Morita and Masaru Ibuka. The two partners met in the Japanese Navy during WWII.
58. Equine color : ROAN
A roan horse has an even mixture of white and colored hairs on the body, with the head, lower legs, mane and tail having a more solid color.
NATO is the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (or OTAN in French, l’Oganisation du Traite de l’Atlantique Nord). NATO was founded not long after WWII in 1949, and is headquartered in Brussels, Belgium. The first NATO Secretary General was Lord Ismay, Winston Churchill’s chief military assistant during WWII. Famously he said the goal of NATO was “to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down.”
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For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. Child’s play : A SNAP
6. Guinness Book suffix : -EST
9. Fountain items : MALTS
14. **”His/her” alternative : THEIR
15. Cue preceder : PEE
16. **Parting word : ADIEU
17. Site of Super Bowl XXVI : METRODOME
19. Like most urban land : ZONED
20. *Soiree attire : EVENING DRESS
22. Modern rock genre : EMO
25. Brown wall covering : IVY
26. Mathematician Turing : ALAN
27. *Indelible picture in the mind : VIVID IMAGE
30. Starchy foodstuff : SAGO
34. Onetime exam in British schools : O-LEVEL
35. Not spoil : KEEP
37. Hip, in the mid-’60s : MOD
38. Actress Allen of “Raiders of the Lost Ark” : KAREN
39. “My dear ___” : SIR
40. Like the service academies : ELITE
42. Doom : END
43. It may have a square in the middle : TOWN
45. Seem to last forever : DRAG ON
46. Opportunity, metaphorically : DOOR
48. *Bandmate of Johnny Rotten : SID VICIOUS
50. Ancient land in modern Jordan : EDOM
52. Book after Galatians: Abbr. : EPH
53. Jeanne d’Arc, e.g.: Abbr. : STE
54. Speaker of the Latin quote hidden in the answers to the starred clues … and the English-language quote hidden in the answers to the double-starred clues : JULIUS CAESAR
59. Half-witted : INANE
60. City of Invention : AKRON, OHIO
64. **Sojourn : VISIT
65. Chart type : PIE
66. **Social grouping : CASTE
67. Prefix with centric : ETHNO-
68. It may turn up at a golf course : SOD
69. See 1-Down : ENTER
Down
1. Device with a 69-Across key : ATM
2. “___ walks in beauty, like the night …”: Byron : SHE
3. Rear of a hockey goal : NET
4. Suffix with zillion : -AIRE
5. Forward-thinking, in a way : PROVIDENT
6. The Earl of Sandwich, for one : EPONYM
7. Hard-to-park vehicle : SEMI
8. One sexting, maybe : TEENAGER
9. RX-8 carmaker : MAZDA
10. Embellishes : ADORNS
11. y = 3x + 5 representation, e.g. : LINE
12. Concert souvenirs : TEES
13. Head : SUDS
18. Participant in a Faustian bargain : DEVIL
21. Merriment : GLEE
22. Called to mind : EVOKED
23. Home to da Vinci’s “L’Ultima Cena” : MILANO
24. Exaggerate : OVERDO
28. “___ got it!” : I’VE
29. One of ___ : A KIND
31. Buds : AMIGOS
32. Was released : GOT OUT
33. Danish city where Hans Christian Andersen was born : ODENSE
36. Possibly : PERCHANCE
39. Some pool attire : SWIM CAPS
41. China’s Chou En-___ : LAI
44. Spanish bears : OSOS
45. Souse : DIPSO
47. Check : REIN IN
49. Went off at an angle : VEERED
51. On account of : DUE TO
54. Nonsense : JIVE
55. Cadre, e.g. : UNIT
56. Pirate’s punishment : LASH
57. Sony co-founder Morita : AKIO
58. Equine color : ROAN
61. Pres. when NATO was founded : HST
62. Ore name suffix : -ITE
63. Poetic contraction : O’ER