0612-11: New York Times Crossword Answers 12 Jun 11, Sunday

Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across
9. Rimsky-Korsakov’s “The Tale of ___ Saltan” : TSAR
Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera “The Tale of Tsar Saltan” is based on a poem by Alexander Pushkin. The opera is perhaps best remembered as the source of the delightful orchestral interlude known as the “Flight of the Bumblebee”.

21. ___ avis : RARA
A rara avis is anything that is very rare, from the Latin for “rare bird”.

23. *Boardwalk offering : SALT WATER TAFFY
Taffy was invented in Atlantic City and is now found all over the US, but primarily in coastal towns (for some reason) and not really outside America. Taffy is made by stretching the solid mess made by boiling up sugar, butter, flavoring, and coloring until it achieves a fluffy texture.

26. It might make you snort : APNEA
Sleep apnea can be caused by an obstruction in the airways, possible due to obesity or enlarged tonsils.

27. Home of the World Health Organization : GENEVA
The World Health Organization (WHO) is a United Nations agency. The WHO was set up in 1948, and has its headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland.

30. ___ Day, May 1 celebration in Hawaii : LEI
May 1 is Lei Day in Hawaii, a celebration of Hawaiian culture that started in 1927 in Honolulu. There is a traditional song from the islands called “May Day is Lei Day in Hawai’i”.

33. Soft ball brand : NERF
Nerf is the name given to the soft material used in a whole series of toys designed for “safe” play indoors. The Nerf product is used to make darts, balls and ammunition for toy guns. The acronym NERF stands for Non-Expanding Recreational Foam.

44. 1987 disaster movie? : ISHTAR
I guess “Ishtar” did bomb and was a indeed a disaster, ’cause I’ve never heard of it. It stars Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman as lounge singers working in Morocco! There’s a Cold War plot and, thank goodness, it’s a comedy. It’s so bad apparently, that it never even made it to DVD.

51. Any hit by Little Richard : OLDIE
Little Richard is the stage name of Richard Penniman, the self proclaimed “architect of rock and roll”.

53. Many a Bob Marley fan : RASTA
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.

56. Seaport on the Adriatic : RIMINI
Rimini is a resort city on the Adriatic Riviera. Rimini’s most famous son might be the film director, Frederico Fellini.

68. ### : SHARPS
Technically speaking, the pound sign (#) is not the same thing as the sharp sign in music. A correctly written sharp sign has two perpendicular lines (unlike the pound sign) and two lines crossing the verticals that are parallel and slanted (again, unlike the pound sign). The slanted lines are drawn this way so that they are not obscured by the horizontal lines of the staff.

78. Took a corner on two wheels : CAREENED
The word “careen” dates back to 1590 when it meant “to turn a ship on its side, exposing the keel”. The word evolved from the Middle French word “carene” meaning “keel”. Our modern usage, meaning to lean or tilt, only dates back as far as the 1880s. Careen should not be confused with “career”, a verb meaning to move rapidly. One has to “career” from side-to -side in order to “careen”.

82. Vituperation, e.g. : ABUSE
Vituperation is sustained, abusive language.

83. Wake Island, e.g. : ATOLL
Wake Island is a tiny coral atoll in the North Pacific, about two-thirds of the way from Hawaii to Guam. It has only 12 miles of coastline. The island was occupied by the Japanese after a bloody battle in WWII right after the attack on Pearl Harbor. It was retained by the Japanese until it was surrendered in September 1945.

87. “Up in the Air” actress Kendrick : ANNA
“Up in the Air” is a really enjoyable comedy-drama from 2009, an adaptation of a novel of the same name by Walter Kirn. It’s all about life on the road and business travel, and stars George Clooney. It reminded me of my decades of business travel, something I enjoyed, to be honest. Clooney’s young sidekick in the movie is played very ably by Anna Kendrick.

90. Former flier, for short : SST
The most famous SuperSonic Transport (SST) was the Concorde, a plane that’s no longer flying. Concorde had that famous “droop nose”. The nose was moved to the horizontal position during flight to create the optimum aerodynamic shape thereby reducing drag, and was lowered during taxi, takeoff and landing, so that the pilot had better visibility. The need for the droop nose was driven largely by the delta-shaped wings. The delta wing necessitates a higher angle of attack at takeoff and landing than conventional wing designs, so the pilot needed the nose lowered so that he or she could see the ground.

93. *Staple of “Candid Camera” : PRACTICAL JOKE
The hidden-camera prank show called “Candid Camera” was created and produced by Allen Funt, and first aired on television in 1948. The show actually started as “Candid Microphone”, a radio series that was broadcast from 1947 until it was eclipsed by the television version.

97. Xerox product : TONER
The key features of a laser printer (or copier) are that it uses plain paper and produces quality text at high speed. Laser printers work by projecting a laser image of the printed page onto a rotating drum that is coated with photoconductors (material that becomes conductive when exposed to light). The areas of the drum exposed to the laser carry a different charge than the unexposed areas. Dry ink (called toner) sticks to the unexposed areas due to electrostatic charge. The toner is then transferred to paper by contact and is fused into it by the application of heat. So, that explains why paper coming out of a laser printer is warm, and sometimes powdery …

98. Baseball’s Master Melvin : OTT
At 5′ 9″, Mel Ott weighed just 170 lb (I don’t think he took steroids!) and yet he was the first National League player to hit over 500 home runs. Sadly, Ott died in a car accident in New Orleans in 1958, when he was only 49 years old.

99. Loughlin of “Full House” : LORI
Lori Loughlin played Rebecca Donaldson-Katsopolis on the sitcom “Full House”. Apparently you can see her now in a spinoff of “Beverly Hills, 90210” called, inventively enough, “90210”.

100. Nincompoop : FOOL
The word “nincompoop” meaning an “ass” seems to have been around for quite a while, since the 1670s, but no one appears to know its origins.

114. *Radio Flyer, e.g. : LITTLE RED WAGON
Radio Flyer is the name of the toy company that produces the famous red wagon. The company’s founder was Antonio Pasin, and he named the steel wagon “Radio Flyer” simply because he was fascinated with radio and flight.

118. 1997 Peter Fonda title role : ULEE
“Ulee’s Gold” is a highly respected film from 1997 in which Peter Fonda plays the title role of Ulee. Ulee’s “gold” is the honey that Ulee produced. It is a favorite role for Peter Fonda, and he has shared that the role brought into mind his father, Henry Fonda, who himself kept a couple of hives. So if you see Peter Fonda in “Ulee’s Gold”, you’re witnessing some characteristics that Peter saw in his father.

119. Hoax : MARE’S NEST
The term “mare’s nest” has two meanings these days. More commonly it refers to a confused mess, although this usage is really an error, confusion with the idiom “rat’s nest”. The correct usage of “mare’s nest”, dating back to the 16th century, is to describe a hoax, a promising discovery that turns out to be next to nothing.

121. TV’s Foxx : REDD
Redd Foxx was the stage name of John Elroy Sanford, best known for starring in “Sanford and Son”. “Sanford and Son” was an American version of a celebrated hit BBC sitcom that I grew up with in Ireland, called “Steptoe and Son”.

123. “Superman II” villainess : URSA
“Superman II” is one of those movies that is surrounded in controversy due to problems encountered during production. “Superman II” was shot at the same time is the original “Superman” movie, with Richard Donner in the director’s chair. Donner didn’t like the instructions he was getting from the producers regarding the tone of the movie, and the resulting dispute led to him being fired, with about 25% of “Superman II” left to be shot. After Donner was replaced with Richard Lester, Gene Hackman refused to return for reshoots, so a lot of Hackman’s scenes ended up on the cutting room floor.

Down
2. Military camp : ETAPE
“Étape” is the French word for stage, as in a “stage” in the Tour de France. It is used in English military circles to describe where troops halt overnight, but can also describe the section of the march itself. So, a march can be divided into stages, into étapes.

4. Head of Haiti : TETE
“Tête” is the French word for “head”.

The Caribbean island of Hispaniola was a target for European settlers, and ended up being a disputed territory between France and Spain. The two countries divided the island, with the French taking control of the western third, which they named Saint-Domingue. Saint-Domingue was later to become the independent, and French-speaking, Republic of Haiti.

6. Actor Hauer : RUTGER
Rutger Hauer is a Dutch actor, famous in the US for his Hollywood roles. He was born in Breukelen in the Netherlands, the town that gave its name to the borough of Brooklyn in New York City.

10. A giraffe might be seen on one : SAFARI
“Safari” is a Swahili word, meaning “journey” or “expedition”.

15. Role in 2011’s “Thor” : ODIN
The 2011 movie “Thor” is yet another film based on a comic book hero. Even though I won’t be seeing it (I don’t do comics), I must admit it does have an impressive cast. Chris Hemsworth plays Thor, supported by Natalie Portman, Rene Russo and Anthony Hopkins. And to crown it all, Kenneth Branagh is the director.

16. Chinese dynasty of 1,200 years ago : TANG
The Tang Dynasty of China lasted from 618 to 907 AD.

17. Curved molding : OGEE
An ogee is like an s-curve. Specifically it is a curve consisting of two arcs that curve in opposite directions (like an S) but both ends of the curve end up parallel to each other (which is not necessarily true for an S).

52. Piece over a door or window : LINTEL
A lintel is a structural beam that spans an opening in a wall, usually a door or a window.

53. It had a major part in the Bible : RED SEA
The Red Sea (sometimes called the Arabian Gulf) is a stretch of water lying between Africa and Asia. The Gulf of Suez (and the Suez Canal) lies to north, and the Gulf of Aden to the south.

55. Descent of a sort : RAPPEL
What we call “rappelling” in this country is known as “abseiling” in the rest of the world (from the German “abseilen” meaning “to rope down”).

65. Blue Angels’ org. : USN
“Blue Angels” is the popular name for the US Navy’s Flight Demonstration Squadron. The group was formed in 1946, and is the oldest of the US military’s flying aerobatic teams. The squadron took its nickname back in ‘46 from the Blue Angel nightclub that was around at that time in New York City.

67. Classic brand of hair remover : NEET
The hair removal product “Neet” was launched in Canada in 1901, and was also sold as “Immac”. Today it is sold under the name “Veet”.

68. Line of cliffs : SCARP
A scarp is a steep slope or a line of cliffs, especially one created by erosion. An alternative name is an escarpment.

76. Feudal serf : ESNE
Esne is an uncommon word, a synonym with serf as best I can tell, a member of the lowest feudal class.

77. Fanny : REAR
You have to be careful using the slang term “fanny” if traveling in the British Isles, because over there it has a much ruder meaning …

92. They’re often acquired at a wedding : IN-LAWS
An “in-law” is a person who has a legal affinity with someone by virtue of a marriage. Technically, this doesn’t just include the parents and siblings of a spouse, but actually the spouse himself or herself. Yep, just think about it …

94. Drunk’s activity : TOPING
“To tope” is to drink alcohol excessively and habitually.

97. One waving a red flag : TORERO
“Toreador” is indeed an old Spanish word for a bullfighter, but it’s not used any more in Spain or Latin America. In English we use the term “toreador”, but in Spanish a bullfighter is a “torero”.

103. Actress Berger : SENTA
Senta Berger is an actress from Austria, regarded by many as the leading German-speaking actress over the past few decades.

107. S. C. Johnson brand : RAID
Raid insecticide has been killing bugs since 1956.

110. Old NASA landers : LEMS
In the Apollo program, the Lunar Excursion Module (LEM) was the vehicle that actually landed on the moon and returned the astronauts to the command module that was orbiting overhead. The third LEM built was named “Spider”, and it participated in the Apollo 9 mission which tested the functionality of the LEM design in space. The fourth LEM was called “Snoopy”, and it flew around the moon in the Apollo 10 mission, the dress rehearsal for the upcoming moon landing. Apollo 11’s LEM was of course called “Eagle”, and it brought Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to and from the moon’s surface.

112. Half of a sitcom farewell : NANU
“Mork & Mindy” was broadcast from 1978 to 1982. We were first introduced to Mork (played by Robin Williams, of course) in a special episode of “Happy Days”. The particular episode in question has a bizarre storyline culminating in Fonzie and Mork having a thumb-to-finger duel. Eventually Richie wakes up in bed, and alien Mork was just part of a dream! Oh, and “Nanu Nanu” means both “hello” and “goodbye” back on the planet Ork. “I am Mork from Ork, Nanu Nanu”. Great stuff …

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For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. Bushed : BEAT
5. Entrance to many a plaza : ARCH
9. Rimsky-Korsakov’s “The Tale of ___ Saltan” : TSAR
13. Exactly right : SPOT ON
19. Free : AT LEISURE
21. ___ avis : RARA
22. Attempted something : HAD A GO
23. *Boardwalk offering : SALT WATER TAFFY
25. Thought out loud : OPINED
26. It might make you snort : APNEA
27. Home of the World Health Organization : GENEVA
28. Stickers? : SYRINGES
30. ___ Day, May 1 celebration in Hawaii : LEI
31. Must-have : NEED
33. Soft ball brand : NERF
35. “___ mine!” : IT’S
36. One on the way out : GONER
38. *Diamond substitute : RELIEF PITCHER
44. 1987 disaster movie? : ISHTAR
46. Rest spot : COT
47. Place for a pickup? : NAPE
48. Word with exit or express : LANE
49. Something that’s drawn : BATH
50. Whiz : PRO
51. Any hit by Little Richard : OLDIE
53. Many a Bob Marley fan : RASTA
54. Mideast title : EMEER
56. Seaport on the Adriatic : RIMINI
58. Turned away from sin : REPENTED
60. Earth : TERRA
61. Outstanding : EMINENT
63. Lawn tools : EDGERS
64. *Handy things for a toy? : PUPPET STRINGS
68. ### : SHARPS
72. Free : RELEASE
73. Itching : EAGER
78. Took a corner on two wheels : CAREENED
81. Fix, as brakes : RELINE
82. Vituperation, e.g. : ABUSE
83. Wake Island, e.g. : ATOLL
84. “Nothing ___!” : DOING
86. Transplant, in a way : POT
87. “Up in the Air” actress Kendrick : ANNA
88. Do followers : RE MI
89. Navel buildup : LINT
90. Former flier, for short : SST
91. Slugger : HITTER
93. *Staple of “Candid Camera” : PRACTICAL JOKE
97. Xerox product : TONER
98. Baseball’s Master Melvin : OTT
99. Loughlin of “Full House” : LORI
100. Nincompoop : FOOL
101. Conditions : IFS
104. Killjoy : SOURPUSS
109. Comparatively statuesque : TALLER
111. Point of view : ANGLE
113. Enfeeble : IMPAIR
114. *Radio Flyer, e.g. : LITTLE RED WAGON
117. Like a winter wind : BITING
118. 1997 Peter Fonda title role : ULEE
119. Hoax : MARE’S NEST
120. Old-fashioned : STODGY
121. TV’s Foxx : REDD
122. Brake : SLOW
123. “Superman II” villainess : URSA

Down
1. Kind of metabolism : BASAL
2. Military camp : ETAPE
3. *Certain study session : ALL NIGHTER
4. Head of Haiti : TETE
5. ___ formality : AS A
6. Actor Hauer : RUTGER
7. Believe in it : CREED
8. Not his’n : HER’N
9. Ad-packed Sunday newspaper section : TRAVEL
10. A giraffe might be seen on one : SAFARI
11. Pound sound : ARF
12. You may catch them on a boat, in two different ways : RAYS
13. Shrimp : SHORTIE
14. Old Church of England foe : PAPIST
15. Role in 2011’s “Thor” : ODIN
16. Chinese dynasty of 1,200 years ago : TANG
17. Curved molding : OGEE
18. Drops (off) : NODS
20. Start of a childish plaint : I WANNA
24. Believe in it : TENET
29. “Goody goody gumdrops!” : YIPPEE
32. At any time, to a bard : E’ER
34. Ward (off) : FEND
37. Survey choice, sometimes : OTHER
38. Less cramped : ROOMIER
39. Like some maidens : FAIR
40. Trolley sound : CLANG
41. Expedition : HASTE
42. Keyboard key : ENTER
43. Shows, as a thermometer does a temperature : READS
44. “Uh-huh, sure it is” : I BET
45. The very ___ : SAME
46. Hinder : CRIMP
50. Test ___ : PREP
51. *Something to stand on : ONE’S LEG
52. Piece over a door or window : LINTEL
53. It had a major part in the Bible : RED SEA
55. Descent of a sort : RAPPEL
57. Many a summer worker : INTERN
59. Solitaire puzzle piece : PEG
62. Wander : TRAIPSE
65. Blue Angels’ org. : USN
66. Ain’t fixed? : IS NOT
67. Classic brand of hair remover : NEET
68. Line of cliffs : SCARP
69. Intolerant sort : HATER
70. Bouquet : AROMA
71. ___ of the past : RELIC
74. Taper off : ABATE
75. *It may be found near a barrel : GUN TRIGGER
76. Feudal serf : ESNE
77. Fanny : REAR
79. Decrees : EDICTS
80. Lady of Spain : DONA
85. “___ do” : IT’LL
89. Service arrangement : LITURGY
90. Know-how : SKILL
91. Boo follower : HOO
92. They’re often acquired at a wedding : IN-LAWS
94. Drunk’s activity : TOPING
95. Scribbled : JOTTED
96. Got up on one’s soapbox : ORATED
97. One waving a red flag : TORERO
100. Wild : FERAL
102. Dentist’s advice : FLOSS
103. Actress Berger : SENTA
104. Bros, e.g. : SIBS
105. Pass over : OMIT
106. ___ no good : UP TO
107. S. C. Johnson brand : RAID
108. “Dirty rotten scoundrel,” e.g. : SLUR
110. Old NASA landers : LEMS
112. Half of a sitcom farewell : NANU
115. Project closing? : -ILE
116. It might get your feet wet : DEW
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