0914-12: New York Times Crossword Answers 14 Sep 12, Friday

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Solution to today’s crossword in the New York Times
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CROSSWORD SETTER: Peter A. Collins,
THEME: The Fab Four … the name of my favorite group is in the middle of the grid, and each band member’s name starts each of the corner answers:

1A. Colorado state song composer : (JOHN) DENVER (John Lennon)
34A. Players who made a historic touchdown in 1964 : BEATLES
58A. Figure on a $5,000 EE savings bond : (PAUL) REVERE (Paul McCartney)
13D. Guyanese capital : (GEORGE)TOWN (George Harrison)
25D. What “burns, burns, burns” in a hit country song : (RING O)F FIRE (Ringo Starr)

COMPLETION TIME: 16m 26s
ANSWERS I MISSED: 0


Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across

1. Colorado state song composer : JOHN DENVER (John Lennon)
“Rocky Mountain High” is a song by John Denver. Since 2007, “Rocky Mountain High” has been one of the two official state songs of Colorado. The song may not have received that honor had there not been a clarification of the meaning of some of the words. Some radio stations actually banned it for a while, assuming that the “high” in the title was a drug reference.

Singer John Denver’s real name was Henry John Deutchendorf, Jr. Denver was a great singer, and he had many other passions. He was an excellent photographer, and an avid skier and golfer. He also loved flying and collected vintage biplanes. He flew himself to concerts in his own Learjet, and had a handful of other planes that he would take out for spin when he could. One of his planes was an Experimental Rutan Long-EZ, a home-built aircraft noted for its fuel efficiency and tremendous range. Denver took the Rutan Long-EZ up in the middle of October 1997. He hadn’t had much experience with the plane, even though he had logged over 2,700 hours of flying time in other aircraft. The plane crashed into the ocean near Pacific Grove, California in an accident that Denver did not survive.

John Lennon and Paul McCartney made an agreement before they became famous that they would always give joint credit for their songs. In the early days, the duo wrote their songs together, working alongside each other. Soon they would write songs individually, with one giving the other limited input. Regardless, the Lennon-McCartney attribution was used for all the songs they wrote either individually or together right up to 1974. The partnership was officially dissolved in December 1974, in the Polynesian Resort in Walt Disney World, Florida. There John Lennon put his signature to official documents couriered to him by Apple’s lawyers (Apple being the Beatles record label).

20. Liberty League school : VASSAR
Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York is now a coeducational school after over a century as a woman’s college since its founding in 1861. The school was officially declared co-ed in 1969, although it had accepted a handful of male students on the GI Bill after WWII.

The Liberty League is an athletic conference. All the member schools of the Liberty League are located in New York State.

23. Coke user’s activity : SMELTING
Metals are found in ore in the form of oxides. In order to get pure metal from the ore, the ore is heated and the metal oxides within are reduced (i.e. the oxygen is removed) in the chemical process known as smelting. The oxygen is extracted by adding a source of carbon or carbon monoxide which uses up the excess oxygen atoms to make carbon dioxide, a waste product of smelting (and of course, a greenhouse gas).

Coke is coal that has been baked at very high temperatures to drive off volatile constituents such as water, coal-gas and coal tar. The resulting coke looks like coal, but is grey, porous and much lighter.

28. Christ the Redeemer overlooks it : RIO
The iconic statue of Jesus overlooking the city of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil is known as Cristo Redento (Christ the Redeemer). The statue was constructed between 1922 and 1931. It is the largest Art Deco statue in the world, standing at over 30 feet tall.

29. Pierre’s world : MONDE
“Monde” is the French for “world”.

33. Some Windows systems : NTS
Windows XP, Windows Vista and now Windows 7; they’re all based on the Windows NT operating system. There is a common perception that Windows NT (WNT) takes its name from VMS, an earlier operating system developed by Digital Equipment Corporation. “WNT” is what’s called a “Caesar cypher” of “VMS”, as you just augment the the letters of VMS alphabetically by one to arrive at WNT. Bill Gates disputes this derivation of the name, and in a 1998 interview stated that the NT originally stood for N-Ten and that the marketing folks at Microsoft revised history by changing it to “New Technology”.

34. Players who made a historic touchdown in 1964 : BEATLES
The Beatles arrived in the US for their first tour in February 1964, arriving at John F. Kennedy Airport to a very, very warm reception. The group’s arrival was the first “action” in what came to be known as “the British Invasion”.

35. Dionysus’ aunt : INO
Ino was a mortal queen of Orchomenus through her marriage to King Athamas. In Greek mythology, Ino became the goddess Leukothea after her death. Leukothea provided divine aid to Odysseus, according to Homer’s “Odyssey”. She provided Odysseus with a magical veil that he used to escape from Poseidon.

Dionysus was the party animal of Greek mythology. Dionysus was the god of the wine, ritual madness and ecstasy! His Roman equivalent was Bacchus.

39. Alternative name for abalone : ORMER
The large edible sea snails that we call abalone are called ormer in the British Isles.

47. Overseas relig. title : STE
“Ste.” is short for “Sainte”, the feminine form of “Saint” in French.

56. Delicious leftovers : APPLE CORES
The first Golden Delicious tree was found in a pasture field on a farm in West Virginia in the late 1800s. There were no other apple trees growing nearby, so the farmer left it to grow. The fruit proved to be popular and the farmer sold the tree to a local nursery. The nursery named the apple Golden Delicious to go along with the existing line of Red Delicious apples, even though the two varieties trees aren’t very closely related. The Golden Delicious is now the official fruit of West Virginia.

58. Figure on a $5,000 EE savings bond : PAUL REVERE (Paul McCartney)
Paul Revere is of course famous for having alerted the Colonial militia when the British military arrived in the build up to the battles of Lexington and Concord. Revere earned his living as a silversmith. After the war, Revere returned to his trade and diversified into other metalwork. Revere was the first American to develop a process to roll copper into sheets so that the metal could be used to sheathe the hulls of naval vessels.

Paul McCartney’s real name, including his knightly title, is Sir James Paul McCartney.

Down
1. Sci-fi knight : JEDI
The Jedi are the “good guys” in the “Star Wars” series of movies. The most famous Jedi knights from the films are Obi-Won Kenobi (played by Alec Guinness, and later Ewan McGregor) and Yoda (voiced by Frank Oz). Well, they’re my favorites anyway …

4. Grp. concerned with hacking : NSA
The National Security Agency (NSA) was set up in 1952 by President Truman, a replacement for the Armed Forces Security Agency that had existed in the Department of Defense since 1949. The NSA has always been clouded in secrecy and even the 1952 letter from President Truman that established the agency was kept under wraps from the public for over a generation. I really like the organization’s nickname … “No Such Agency”.

6. Improve morally : EDIFY
“To edify” is to provide instruction in order to improve spiritually, morally or intellectually. The intent is to “build up” someone’s faith or morality and so “edify” comes from the Latin “aedificare” meaning “to build, construct”. This Latin root also gives us our word “edifice”.

8. Big multilanguage broadcaster, briefly : VOA
The US began shortwave propaganda broadcasts in early 1942, just after America entered WWII. The first broadcast to Germany was introduced by the “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” and opened with the words:

“Today, and every day from now on, we will be with you from America to talk about the war. The news may be good or bad for us — We will always tell you the truth.”

That first broadcast was called “Stimmen aus Amerika” (“Voices from America”), and gave the fledgling broadcasting operation its name. VOA is still going strong today, and was a station I used to listen to as a teenager back in Ireland in the early seventies …

9. Penlight-wielding doc : ENT
An Ear, Nose and Throat specialist is an ENT.

10. Seymour’s “Somewhere in Time” co-star : REEVE
“Somewhere in Time” is a fascinating 1980 film directed by Jeannot Szwarc, starring Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour. The movie is a screen adaptation of a 1975 novel “Bid Time Return” by Richard Matheson. The movie has a real cult following, with a fan club called INSITE (International Network of Somewhere in Time Enthusiasts). Many members of INSITE meet every year, in period costume, at the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island, Michigan that was the setting of the movie (and where it was largely filmed).

13. Guyanese capital : GEORGETOWN (George Harrison)
The city of Georgetown is the capital of the South American country of Guyana, and sits on the southern end of the Caribbean Sea.

George Harrison is often referred to as the “quiet Beatle”, although he did have a profound influence on the direction taken by the Fab Four. It was Harrison who first became an admirer of Indian culture and led the rest of the group into the Indian way of life. Harrison went as far as embracing the Hindu religion.

21. Father-and-son prophets in the Book of Mormon : ALMAS
“The Book of Alma: The Son of Alma” is the full name of the longest book in the Book of Mormon. Alma was a prophet and is known outside of the Book of Mormon as Alma the Younger to distinguish him from his father, Alma the Elder. Alma the Elder was the prophet who established the Church of Jesus Christ in the Americas.

23. Raphael’s “___ Madonna” : SISTINE
The “Sistine Madonna” is a painting created by the Italian artist Raphael in 1513-1514. The work was commissioned by the Benedictine monks of the Monastery of San Sisto in northen Italy, hence the painting’s name.

25. What “burns, burns, burns” in a hit country song : RING OF FIRE (Ringo Starr)
The country classic “Ring of Fire” was written by Merle Kilgore and June Carter. The first recording of the song was made by June Carter’s sister Anita, in 1963. The second recording was a little more successful, by June Carter’s husband … Johnny Cash.

Ringo Starr’s real name is Richard Starkey. Before he joined the Beatles (replacing drummer Pete Best), Starkey played with the Raving Texans. It was with the Raving Texans that he adopted the name “Ringo Starr” because he wore a lot of rings, and he thought it sounded “cowboyish”. Back then his drum solos were billed as “Starr Time”.

31. The Once-___ (Seuss character) : LER
The Once-ler is the antagonist in the Dr. Seuss book “The Lorax”.

“The Lorax” is a children’s book written by Dr. Seuss. It is an allegorical work questioning the problems created by industrialization, and in particular its impact on the environment.

34. Support for a dancer : BARRE
A barre is a handrail used by ballet dancers for warm-up exercises and to provide support when practicing certain moves.

38. Busch Stadium scoreboard abbr. : STL
The St. Louis Cardinals Major League Baseball team plays at Busch Stadium. Busch Stadium is the third stadium in the history of St. Louis to have the Busch name. The first two were named for Gussie Busch, the brewing magnate and former Cardinals team owner. The current stadium is named for the brewery though, and not Gussie.

43. Licensing fee collector, briefly : ASCAP
ASCAP (the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers) collects licence fees for musicians and distributes royalties to composers whose works have been performed. BMI (Broadcast Music Incorporated) provides the same service.

46. Order to make a scene? : ROLL
“Roll! Get the film rolling, and start acting!”

52. ___-Locka, Fla. : OPA
The Florida city of Opa-Locka has a relatively short history. It was founded in 1926 and was developed by aviation pioneer Glenn Curtis using a Moorish architectural theme. The first name chosen for the city was Opa-tisha-wocka-loca, a Seminole place name, but that didn’t survive very long.

53. Intel product, for short : CPU
The Central Processing Unit (CPU) is the main component on the “motherboard” of a computer. The CPU is the part of the computer that carries out most of the functions required by a program. Nowadays you can get CPUs in everything from cars to telephones.

Intel is the world’s largest manufacturer of semiconductor chips. The company was founded in 1968, and the name “Intel” is a derived from the term “int(egrated) el(ectronics)”.

54. Hebrew for “good” : TOV
“Tov” is the Hebrew word for “good”, as in “mozel tov”, meaning “good luck”.

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For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. Colorado state song composer : JOHN DENVER (John Lennon)
11. Minor but necessary part : COG
14. The main characters are usually introduced in it : EPISODE ONE
15. 100% : PURE
16. Head off? : DECAPITATE
17. “Let ___ already!” : IT GO
18. It might be disappearing : INK
19. What-___ : IFS
20. Liberty League school : VASSAR
22. Head-turning cry : HEY
23. Coke user’s activity : SMELTING
25. Relatively ready : RIPER
28. Christ the Redeemer overlooks it : RIO
29. Pierre’s world : MONDE
30. Having complicity with : IN ON
31. Its discovery may result in a recount : LOST BALLOT
33. Some Windows systems : NTS
34. Players who made a historic touchdown in 1964 : BEATLES
35. Dionysus’ aunt : INO
36. Hitch up? : GET MARRIED
38. It hits the ground silently : SNOW
39. Alternative name for abalone : ORMER
40. At-cost connection : ANY
41. Bow’s counterpart : STERN
42. It’s the same for all customers : FLAT RATE
44. Come together : GEL
45. Uses a 46-Across : FISHES
46. One holding the line : ROD
47. Overseas relig. title : STE
50. Hooked on, say : INTO
51. Natural hair conditioner : COCONUT OIL
55. Stick by the water? : REED
56. Delicious leftovers : APPLE CORES
57. Trip up : ERR
58. Figure on a $5,000 EE savings bond : PAUL REVERE (Paul McCartney)

Down
1. Sci-fi knight : JEDI
2. With 7-Down, easy things to score goals on : OPEN
3. Hayshaker : HICK
4. Grp. concerned with hacking : NSA
5. Not so smart : DOPIER
6. Improve morally : EDIFY
7. See 2-Down : NETS
8. Big multilanguage broadcaster, briefly : VOA
9. Penlight-wielding doc : ENT
10. Seymour’s “Somewhere in Time” co-star : REEVE
11. Acts rudely at a supermarket, say : CUTS IN LINE
12. Notice on a driver’s license : ORGAN DONOR
13. Guyanese capital : GEORGETOWN (George Harrison)
15. Packed piece : PISTOL
21. Father-and-son prophets in the Book of Mormon : ALMAS
22. Chick magnet? : HEN
23. Raphael’s “___ Madonna” : SISTINE
24. Disparate : MOTLEY
25. What “burns, burns, burns” in a hit country song : RING OF FIRE (Ringo Starr)
26. One making a coat warmer, say : INTERLINER
27. Official in charge of sorts? : POSTMASTER
28. Criticize loudly : ROAR AT
31. The Once-___ (Seuss character) : LER
32. It’s often made before breakfast : BED
34. Support for a dancer : BARRE
37. Process : METHOD
38. Busch Stadium scoreboard abbr. : STL
41. Beguile : SEDUCE
43. Licensing fee collector, briefly : ASCAP
44. Doomed soul : GONER
46. Order to make a scene? : ROLL
47. Upset : SORE
48. Seating specification : TIER
49. “What ___?” : ELSE
52. ___-Locka, Fla. : OPA
53. Intel product, for short : CPU
54. Hebrew for “good” : TOV

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