0916-12: New York Times Crossword Answers 16 Sep 12, Sunday

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QuickLinks:
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: David Steinberg & Barry Haldiman
THEME: A Giant Crossword … today’s theme is the fairy tale about Jack and the Giant at the top of the beanstalk. The circled letters snaking up the center of the grid spell out “JACK AND THE BEANSTALK”, and the “down” themed answers start with “fee-fi-fo-fum”, that go with the answer “I smell the blood of an Englishman”:

54D. Not much of a try : FEEBLE ATTEMPT
33D. Oil, for one : FINITE RESOURCE
30D. Exhibit apoplexy : FOAM AT THE MOUTH
14D. Make a mistake : FUMBLE THE BALL
3D. With 50-Down, cry made in [the circled letters] after the starts of 54-, 33-, 30- and 14-Down : I SMELL THE BLOOD
50D. See 3-Down : OF AN ENGLISHMAN

COMPLETION TIME: 33m 29s
ANSWERS I MISSED: 0


Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across

5. Safecracker : YEGG
“Yegg” is a slang word for a burglar and often for a safe-cracker. The origin of the term appears to be unknown.

18. Terrific, in slang : BOSS
“Boss” can be a slang term meaning “excellent, terrific”. This usage has been around a long time, first recorded in the 1880s. This use of “boss” fell out of fashion for decades until it was revived in the 1950s in teen and jazz circles.

19. Jai ___ : ALAI
Even though jai alai is often said to be the fastest sport in the world because of the speed of the ball, in fact golf balls usually get going at a greater clip.

20. Web app platform : JAVA
Java is a programming language developed by Sun Microsystems. Java was originally designed for interactive television, but didn’t fit the needs at the time. Back then it was called Oak, named after an oak tree that stood outside the designer’s office. Later it was called Green, and finally named Java, which was simply picked out of a list of random words.

21. Title heroine of a Gustave Charpentier opera : LOUISE
“Louise” is an opera by the French composer Gustave Charpentier, his best-known work. The opera tells the story of the love between a seamstress (Louise) and a young artist (Julien). Charpentier wrote a sequel to “Louise”, which he called “Julien”.

23. Domino’s most important part? : PIZZA OVEN
Domino’s Pizza started out as DomiNick’s, a pizza store on Ypsilanti, Michigan. The store was purchased by Dominic’s founder Tom Monaghan in 1960, along with his brother. Tom bought out his brother a few months later, for the price of a used VW! The store was renamed Domino’s Pizza in 1965, and two years later the first franchise store was opened. There are now over 8,000 stores worldwide, including one in Tallaght in Ireland, the town where I lived for many years in my youth. That Tallaght store became the first Domino’s outlet in the world to hit a a turnover of $3 million a year. We Irish obviously have terrible taste when it comes to pizza …

25. Highest taxonomic rank : DOMAIN
Biological classification is a method used to group organisms by biological type. The method uses a hierarchy of nested classes, with an organism being classified with reference to evolutionary traits. The major taxonomic ranks used are:

– Life
– Domain
– Kingdom
– Phylum
– Class
– Order
– Family
– Genus
– Species

29. P.M. part : AFT
The afternoon (aft.) and evening hours are labelled “p.m.”

The 12-hour clock has been around a long time, and was even used in sundial format in Ancient Egypt. Our use of AM and PM dates back to Roman times, with AM standing for Ante Meridiem (before noon) and PM standing for Post Meridiem (after noon). However, the Romans originally used the AM concept a little differently, by counting backwards from noon. So, 2AM to the Romans would be two hours before noon, or 10AM as we would call it today.

31. Speak raucously : BLAT
“To blat” is a make a raucous sound or to speak in a raucous way.

32. Game played with a rope : CLUE
Clue is another board game that we knew under a different name growing up in Ireland. Outside of North America, Clue is marketed as “Cluedo”. Cluedo was the original name of the game, introduced in 1949 by the famous British board game manufacturer Waddingtons. There are cute differences between the US and UK versions. For example, the man who is murdered is called Dr. Black (Mr. Boddy in the US), one of the suspects is the Reverend Green (Mr. Green in the US), and the suspect weapons include a dagger (a knife in the US), a lead pipe (lead piping in the US) and a spanner (a wrench in the US). I think it’s a fabulous game, a must during the holidays …

35. Director Wertmüller : LINA
Lina Wertmüller was an Italian movie director, of Swiss descent. Wertmüller was the first woman ever to receive an Academy Award nomination for directing, in 1976 for her film “Seven Beauties”.

36. Grandpa Munster portrayer : AL LEWIS
Al Lewis was the actor famous for playing Grandpa Munster on television’s “The Munsters”. Lewis was very active politically and even ran for Governor of New York in 1998 for the Green Party.

38. Coastal indentations : RIAS
A drowned valley might be called a ria or a fjord, both formed as sea level rises. A ria is a drowned valley created by river erosion, and a fjord is a drowned valley created by glaciation.

40. City on the Somme : AMIENS
Amiens is a city in the north of France in the region known as Picardy. Amiens lies on the River Somme.

46. Certain elective surgery, for short : LIPO
Liposuction dates back to the 1920s, and was developed by a surgeon in France. However, the procedure quickly lost favor when a French model developed gangrene after surgery. As a result it wasn’t until the mid-seventies that modern liposuction took off, after being popularized by two Italian-American surgeons in Rome.

48. ___ es Salaam : DAR
Dar es Salaam is the largest city in Tanzania, and sits right on the east coast of Africa. The city’s name is usually translated from Arabic as “Haven of Peace”.

58. The White House’s ___ Room : EAST
The magnificent East Room is the largest room in the White House. It was also one of the last rooms to be finished, so Abigail Adams hung laundry there when it was in its unfinished state. Nowadays of course the East Room is used for entertaining and formal ceremonies. I’ve never had the privilege of touring the White House, but I have been in a replica of the East Room that can be visited at the Nixon Presidential Library in Southern California.

65. Cousin ___ : ITT
In the television sitcom “The Addams Family”, the family had a frequent visitor called Cousin Itt. Itt is a short man with long hair that runs from his head to the floor. Cousin Itt was played by Italian actor Felix Silla.

67. Actor Eric of “Troy” : BANA
Eric Bana is an Australian actor who enjoyed a successful career in his home country before breaking into Hollywood playing an American Delta Force sergeant in “Black Hawk Down”. A couple of years later he played the lead in Ang Lee’s 2003 movie “The Hulk”, the role of Dr Bruce Banner. More recently he played the Romulan villain Nero, in the 2009 “Star Trek” movie.

70. “Help wanted” inits. : EEO
Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) is a term that has been around since 1964 when the Equal Employment Commission was set up by the Civil Rights Act.

71. 2000 Ricky Martin hit : SHE BANGS

“She Bangs” was a hit from the year 2000 from Ricky Martin’s album “Sound Loaded”.


Ricky Martin’s real name is Enrique Martin Morales, a native of Puerto Rico. Martin first achieved fame with the boy band Menudo before going solo in 1991.

74. It’s separated from N.B. by the Northumberland Strait : PEI
Prince Edward Island (PEI) is a maritime Canadian province. The island at the center of the province was named for Prince Edward, the fourth son of King George III and the father of Queen Victoria.

75. Barrister’s deg. : LLB
Bachelor of Laws (LLB) is a an undergraduate degree in law. The abbreviation “LLB” stands for Legum (LL, for the plural “laws”) Baccalaureus (B, for Bachelor).

77. Half a Yale cheer : BOOLA
“Boola Boola” is a fight song of Yale University that was composed in 1900, although it was based on a song called “La Hoola Boola” that had been around for a few years. The tune of “Boola Boola” is used by the University of Oklahoma for its fight song, “Boomer Sooner”.

83. Two long parts of the body : ULNAS
The radius and ulna are bones in the forearm. If you hold the palm of your hand up in front of you, the radius is the bone on the “thumb-side” of the arm, and the ulna is the bone on the “pinkie-side”.

88. Mauna ___ : LOA
Mauna Loa on the “big island” of Hawaii is the largest volcano on the planet (in terms of volume). The name “Mauna Loa” is Hawaiian for “Long Mountain”.

92. Day-___ : GLO
“Dayglo” is a registered trademark used for an ink or paint that glows when exposed to a black light in a darkened room. When Dayglo paint is viewed in daylight the colors can look particularly vivid because they respond to the UV light that is present in sunlight.

93. ___ v. Ashcroft (2004 privacy case) : ACLU
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has its roots in the First World War when it was founded to provide legal advice and support to conscientious objectors.

John Ashcroft served as US Attorney General in the administration of President George W. Bush. Ashcroft is quite the musician. When he was a member of the US Senate (representing the state of Missouri) Ashcroft formed a barbershop quartet along with three of his colleagues that was called the Singing Senators.

102. First bishop of Paris : ST DENIS
Not only is Saint Denis (also Denys) the patron saint of France, but he is also the patron saint of Paris. Denis was the first Bishop of Paris, in the 3rd century AD, and was martyred by having his head chopped off. The legend surrounding this event is that the executed Denis picked up his head and walked for six miles, delivering a sermon the whole way.

103. Olympic gold-medal gymnast Conner : BART
Bart Conner is a US gymnast who won gold in the 1984 Olympic Games. Conner is married to the great Romanian gymnast Nadia Comăneci.

104. Coins that disappeared during the French Revolution : ECUS
The ecu was an Old French coin. When introduced in 1640, the ecu was worth three livres (an older coin, called a “pound” in English). The word “ecu” comes from the Latin “scutum” meaning “shield”. The original ecu had a coat of arms on it, a shield.

106. Onetime billionaire investor Laurence : TISCH
Laurence Tisch was the CEO of CBS from 1986 to 1995. Along with his brother Bob Tisch, Laurence owned a big chunk of the Loews Corporation.

The Loews Corporation is a holding company with interests in varied industries. Loews has majority interest in the likes of CNA Financial Corporation, Loews Hotel and Diamond Offshore Drilling.

108. Certain ones, in Brooklyn : DESE
The New York dialect of English is sometimes called Brooklynese, I believe.

109. “Rule Britannia” composer : ARNE
“Rule Britannia!” was a poem by James Thomson, for which Thomas Arne composed the famous music.

111. ___ Lumpur, Malaysia : KUALA
The capital city of Malaysia is Kuala Lumpur, very often abbreviated to K.L. The name “Kuala Lumpur” translates into English as “muddy estuary”. Famously, K.L. is home to the spectacular Petronas Twin Towers, currently the tallest twin towers in the world, and the tallest of any building from 1998 to 2004.

116. Eastern Conference N.B.A. city : CHARLOTTE
The city of Charlotte, North Carolina was named for the queen consort of King George III of Britain, Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz.

120. Androgynous “S.N.L.” skit turned into a 1994 movie : IT’S PAT
The androgynous character known as “Pat” on “Saturday Night Live” was played by the comedienne Julia Sweeney.

122. Ersatz : SHAM
Something described as “ersatz” is a copy, and usually not a good one. “Ersatz” comes from the German verb “ersetzen” meaning “to replace”.

123. New Mexico county or its seat : TAOS
The city of Taos, New Mexico is named for the Native American village nearby called Taos Pueblo.

124. Gambling games : LOTTOS
Originally “Lotto” was a type of card game, with “lotto” being the Italian for “a lot”. We’ve used “lotto” to mean a gambling game since the late 1700s.

126. Dickens’s Uriah : HEEP
Uriah Heep is a sniveling insincere character in the novel “David Copperfield” by Charles Dickens. The character is such a “yes man” that today, if we know someone who behaves the same way, then we might call that person a “Uriah Heep”.

Down
1. Long-billed bird : IBIS
The ibis is a wading bird that was revered in ancient Egypt. “Ibis” is an interesting word grammatically speaking. You can have one “ibis” or two “ibises”, and then again one has a flock of “ibis”. And if you want to go with the classical plural, instead of two “ibises” you would have two “ibides”!

3. With 50-Down, cry made in [the circled letters] after the starts of 54-, 33-, 30- and 14-Down : I SMELL THE BLOOD
50. See 3-Down : OF AN ENGLISHMAN
The line “fee-fi-fo-fum” (with various spellings) comes from the famous English fairy tale “Jack and the Beanstalk”. Within the story, the giant at the top of the beanstalk utters a little poem when he detects the presence of Jack:

Fee-fi-fo-fum,
I smell the blood of an Englishman,
Be he alive, or be he dead
I’ll grind his bones to make my bread.

4. Blitzkrieg, e.g. : ASSAULT
The blitzkrieg was a tactic used by Germany running up to and during WWII. In the original German blitzkrieg, the army and air-force threw everything into a rapid penetration of enemy lines without stopping to reinforce its flanks. The word “blitz” means “lightning” (and “krieg” means “war”).

6. Biblical name meaning “high” : ELI
In the Bible, Eli is a High Priest of Shiloh and the teacher of Samuel. As such, his story is told in the Book of Samuel.

10. Saint Agnes’ ___ (January 20) : EVE
Saint Agnes is the patron saint of young girls. John Keats wrote a poem called “The Eve of Saint Agnes” which refers to the superstition that young women should practice certain rituals on Saint Agnes’s Eve in order to identify their future husbands.

11. Worldport airline : PAN AM
Worldport was the name given to the Pan Am terminal at JFK Airport in New York. Worldport is now known as Terminal 3, and is used by Delta Airlines.

Pan Am was the more familiar name for Pan American World Airways, founded in 1927 and flying until it went bankrupt in 1991. Pan Am was the unofficial flag carrier of the United States during most of its lifetime, largely because the airline focused on international routes. ABC introduced a television series called “Pan Am” in 2011 which brought back memories of the glamorous aspects of air travel in the sixties. Sadly, the show was cancelled in 2012.

13. Rock’s ___ Fighters : FOO
Foo Fighters is described as an alternative rock band, one formed in 1994 by the drummer from Nirvana, Dave Grohl. The original “Foo fighters” were the unidentified flying objects reported by allied airmen during WWII. Spooky …

16. More than 50% of humanity : ASIANS
Most of the world’s population lives in Asia (60%), and Asia is the largest continent in terms of landmass (30% of the world). Asia also has the highest population density (246 people per square mile), and the most populous city on the continent is Shanghai, China.

17. Busybody : YENTA
Yenta (also “Yente”) is actually a female Yiddish name. In Yiddish theater “yenta” came to mean a busybody.

20. 1972 Eastwood western : JOE KIDD
“Joe Kidd” is a 1972 western movie starring Clint Eastwood as a former bounty hunter hired to find a Mexican revolutionary.

24. African port of 2.2 million : ACCRA
Accra sits on Ghana’s coast and is a major seaport as well as the country’s capital city. The name “Accra” comes from a local word “Nkran” meaning “ants”, a name chosen because of the large number of anthills found in the area when the city was founded.

27. Couple of buddies? : DEES
There are a couple of “dees” in the middle of the word “buddies”.

30. Exhibit apoplexy : FOAM AT THE MOUTH
In medical terms, an apoplexy is a sudden impairment of neurological function, as in a stroke. The term is also used to mean a fit of extreme anger or rage.

34. Per aspera ad ___ : ASTRA
“Per aspera ad astra” is a Latin phrase usually translated as “a rough road leads to the stars”.

37. Actor Wheaton of “Stand by Me” : WIL
Wil Wheaton is the actor who grew up playing Ensign Crusher on the best of the “Star Trek” TV series, “Star Trek: The Next Generation”. In recent years Wheaton has become a de facto spokesman for the so-called “geek” or “nerd” community via a weblog that he writes called “Wil Wheaton Dot Net”. He has been playing Dungeons & Dragons for years, and is also someone you’ll see at celebrity poker games on TV.

39. Septic tank worker? : ANAEROBE
Anaerobic organisms are those that do not require oxygen to live. A good example would be the bacteria working away in a septic tank. It’s fortunate that these bacteria are anaerobes, otherwise the tank would have to be opened up to the external atmosphere.

41. One foot in a line : IAMB
I remember hearing my English teacher drone on about iambic pentameter, but I understood none of it. I would have paid attention if I had known I needed it for my crosswords forty years later! In English poetry, an iamb is a metrical foot in a verse, consisting of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable (sort of da-DUM). String five of them together and you have iambic pentameter (da-DUM, da-DUM, da-DUM, da-DUM, da-DUM). Iambic pentameter is very common in Shakespeare’s work in particular:

43. Ad ___ : HOC
The Latin phrase “ad hoc” means “for this purpose”.

57. Football pride of Detroit : THE LIONS
The Detroit Lions are the NFL team that plays home games at Ford Field in Detroit, Michigan. The team was founded way back in 1929 as the Portsmouth Spartans from Portsmouth, Ohio. The Spartans joined the NFL during the Great Depression as other franchises collapsed. However, the Spartans couldn’t command large enough gates in Portsmouth so the team was sold and relocated to Detroit in 1934.

59. Half of an old film duo : SISKEL
Gene Siskel was a film critic for the “Chicago Tribune”. He was also hosted the long-running television show “Siskel & Ebert at the Movies”, from 1975 until 1999 when he passed away.

64. California’s ___ River : EEL
The Eel River in California was named in 1850 by an explorer Josiah Gregg after he made a trade with some Native Americans, swapping a frying pan for a large catch of eels.

66. New Year abroad : 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.

68. Forbidden perfume? : TABU
Tabu was a whole line of cosmetics and perfumes produced by the House of Dana. The company’s brand names were purchased by a Florida company called Dana Classic Fragrances in 1999.

The word “taboo” was introduced into English by Captain Cook in his book “A Voyage to the Pacific Ocean”. Cook described “tabu” (likely imitative of a Tongan word that he had heard) as something that was both consecrated and forbidden.

69. ___ Dorney, locale of 2012 Olympic rowing : ETON
Dorney Lake is a man-made lake used for rowing competition. It is located near the village of Dorney in Buckinghamshire, England and is owned by the famous Eton College. Eton Dorney featured prominently in the 2012 Summer Olympics.

72. A/C meas. : BTU
In the world of heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC), the power of a heating or cooling unit can be measured in British Thermal Units (BTUs). This dated unit is the amount of energy required to heat a pound of water so that the water’s temperature increases by one degree Fahrenheit.

78. With the bow, musically : ARCO
“Arco” is a musical direction instructing a string player to return to normal bowing technique after a passage played using some other technique (perhaps pizzicato).

85. Response to a sinking feeling? : SOS
The combination of three dots – three dashes – three dots, is a Morse signal first introduced by the German government as a standard distress call in 1905. The sequence is remembered as the letters SOS (three dots – pause – three dashes – pause – three dots), although in the emergency signal there is no pause between the dots and dashes, so SOS is in effect only a mnemonic. Similarly, the phrases “Save Our Souls” and “Save Our Ship” are also mnemonics, introduced after the “SOS” signal was adopted.

89. Istanbul’s ___ Airport : ATATURK
The main airport serving Istanbul, Turkey is called Atatürk International. The airport is named for Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the first president of the Republic of Turkey.

95. Sans-serif typeface : ARIAL
Serifs are details on the ends of characters in some typefaces. Typefaces without serifs are known as sans-serif (using the French word “sans” meaning “without”). Some people say that serif fonts are easier to read on paper, whereas sans-serif fonts work better on a computer screen. I’m not so sure though …

97. The scarlet letter : RED A
Hester Prynne is the main character in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel “The Scarlet Letter”. When Hester is convicted by her puritanical neighbors of the crime of adultery, she is forced to wear a scarlet “A” on her clothing for the rest of her life, hence the novel’s title, “The Scarlet Letter”.

100. William ___ Henley, “Invictus” poet : ERNEST
“Invictus” is a poem written by English poet William Ernest Henley. The title translates from Latin as “unconquered” and is a reference to the poet’s overcoming of the amputation of his leg when he was just 17-years-old.

103. Pesto part : BASIL
The term “pesto” applies to anything made by pounding. What we tend to know as “pesto” sauce is more properly called “pesto alla genovese”, pesto from Genoa in northern Italy.

105. 1960s TV spy org. : UNCLE
In the television show “The Man from U.N.C.L.E”, the acronym in the title stands for United Network Command for Law and Enforcement. I know this because when I was about 9-years-old I wrote away for an identity card that showed I was a member of the spy organization!

111. Designer Lagerfeld : KARL
Karl Lagerfeld is a fashion designer from Germany, although he is based in Paris. Lagerfeld is the head designer at the Chanel fashion house.

112. Rope material : HEMP
Hemp is a hardy, fast-growing plant that has many uses mainly due to the strength of the fibers in the plant’s stalks. Hemp is used to make rope, paper and textiles. There is of course a variety of hemp that is grown to make drugs, most famously cannabis.

113. Symbol of Aphrodite : ROSE
As always seems to be the case with Greek gods, Eros and Aphrodite have overlapping spheres of influence. Aphrodite was the goddess of love between a man and a woman, but Eros was the god who stirred the passions of the male.

115. ___ Paulo : SAO
São Paulo is the largest city in Brazil. It is also the city with the highest number of helicopters in the world. This is partly driven by the horrendous traffic jams in São Paulo, but also by the wealthy having a very real fear of being kidnapped on the city’s streets.

117. Nonhuman villain of a classic 1968 film : HAL
In Arthur C. Clarke’s “Space Odyssey” (famously adapted for the big screen as “2001: A Space Odyssey”) the computer system that went rogue was called HAL 9000, or simply “HAL”. HAL stands for Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer. In the French version of the film, HAL’s name was changed to CARL.

118. ___ kwon do : TAE
Taekwondo is the national sport of Korea. “Tae” means “to strike or break with foot”; “kwon” means “to strike or break with fist”; “do” means “way” or “art”. Along with judo, taekwondo is one of only two martial arts included in the Olympic Games.

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For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. Hip bones : ILIA
5. Safecracker : YEGG
9. Zip : PEP
12. When things aren’t going right : OFF DAY
18. Terrific, in slang : BOSS
19. Jai ___ : ALAI
20. Web app platform : JAVA
21. Title heroine of a Gustave Charpentier opera : LOUISE
22. Doctrines : ISMS
23. Domino’s most important part? : PIZZA OVEN
25. Highest taxonomic rank : DOMAIN
26. Successors’ spots : STEADS
28. Host : EMCEE
29. P.M. part : AFT
31. Speak raucously : BLAT
32. Game played with a rope : CLUE
33. Monk’s wear : FROCK
34. French possessive : A MOI
35. Director Wertmüller : LINA
36. Grandpa Munster portrayer : AL LEWIS
38. Coastal indentations : RIAS
40. City on the Somme : AMIENS
42. Rudely interrupts : BUTTS IN
43. Wish one ___ (rue) : HADN’T
44. It may be cured : MEAT
45. Suffix with peck or puck : -ISH
46. Certain elective surgery, for short : LIPO
48. ___ es Salaam : DAR
49. Vest opening : ARMHOLE
53. Like strongmen : BEEFY
56. Careful wording, maybe : TACT
58. The White House’s ___ Room : EAST
60. Suit : BEFIT
61. Obsolescent belt attachment : BEEPER
63. Nautical pronoun : HER
65. Cousin ___ : ITT
67. Actor Eric of “Troy” : BANA
68. Beam over : TELEPORT
70. “Help wanted” inits. : EEO
71. 2000 Ricky Martin hit : SHE BANGS
73. One small step : A TO B
74. It’s separated from N.B. by the Northumberland Strait : PEI
75. Barrister’s deg. : LLB
76. One letting off steam : KETTLE
77. Half a Yale cheer : BOOLA
79. “Of course, Señor!” : SI SI
81. Kind of sch. : ELEM
83. Two long parts of the body : ULNAS
86. Experience : UNDERGO
88. Mauna ___ : LOA
90. Skin soother : ALOE
92. Day-___ : GLO
93. ___ v. Ashcroft (2004 privacy case) : ACLU
94. Coming up : ON TAP
96. Opens, in a way : UNROLLS
99. Sign with an arrow : DETOUR
101. Bygone ruler : TSAR
102. First bishop of Paris : ST DENIS
103. Olympic gold-medal gymnast Conner : BART
104. Coins that disappeared during the French Revolution : ECUS
106. Onetime billionaire investor Laurence : TISCH
108. Certain ones, in Brooklyn : DESE
109. “Rule Britannia” composer : ARNE
110. Write : PEN
111. ___ Lumpur, Malaysia : KUALA
112. “That is so funny – not!” : HAR HAR
114. Appear as such : SEEM SO
116. Eastern Conference N.B.A. city : CHARLOTTE
119. “I ___ confused” : AM SO
120. Androgynous “S.N.L.” skit turned into a 1994 movie : IT’S PAT
121. Escapade : LARK
122. Ersatz : SHAM
123. New Mexico county or its seat : TAOS
124. Gambling games : LOTTOS
125. Addition, of a sort : ELL
126. Dickens’s Uriah : HEEP
127. Feminine suffix : -ENNE

Down
1. Long-billed bird : IBIS
2. Hopeless situation : LOST CAUSE
3. With 50-Down, cry made in [the circled letters] after the starts of 54-, 33-, 30- and 14-Down : I SMELL THE BLOOD
4. Blitzkrieg, e.g. : ASSAULT
5. Goes on and on : YAPS
6. Biblical name meaning “high” : ELI
7. Ones with telescopes : GAZERS
8. Thingamajig : GIZMO
9. Smooth, in a way : PAVE
10. Saint Agnes’ ___ (January 20) : EVE
11. Worldport airline : PAN AM
12. Vet : OLDTIMER
13. Rock’s ___ Fighters : FOO
14. Make a mistake : FUMBLE THE BALL
15. Try to reach headquarters, say : DIAL IN
16. More than 50% of humanity : ASIANS
17. Busybody : YENTA
20. 1972 Eastwood western : JOE KIDD
24. African port of 2.2 million : ACCRA
27. Couple of buddies? : DEES
30. Exhibit apoplexy : FOAM AT THE MOUTH
33. Oil, for one : FINITE RESOURCE
34. Per aspera ad ___ : ASTRA
37. Actor Wheaton of “Stand by Me” : WIL
39. Septic tank worker? : ANAEROBE
41. One foot in a line : IAMB
42. Kind of overalls : BIB
43. Ad ___ : HOC
47. Sequel : PART II
50. See 3-Down : OF AN ENGLISHMAN
51. Suffix with duck : -LING
52. Airport data : ETAS
54. Not much of a try : FEEBLE ATTEMPT
55. “You betcha!” : YEP
57. Football pride of Detroit : THE LIONS
59. Half of an old film duo : SISKEL
62. Daddy-o : POP
64. California’s ___ River : EEL
66. New Year abroad : TET
68. Forbidden perfume? : TABU
69. ___ Dorney, locale of 2012 Olympic rowing : ETON
72. A/C meas. : BTU
78. With the bow, musically : ARCO
80. Casino draws : SLOTS
82. Common place for something to drop : LAP
84. Versatile kind of tire : ALL-SEASON
85. Response to a sinking feeling? : SOS
87. Arts and crafts supplies : GLUEPOTS
89. Istanbul’s ___ Airport : ATATURK
91. Wrap up : END
95. Sans-serif typeface : ARIAL
97. The scarlet letter : RED A
98. Phone billing plan : ONE-RATE
99. Think that maybe one can : DARE TO
100. William ___ Henley, “Invictus” poet : ERNEST
102. Denounce harshly : SCATHE
103. Pesto part : BASIL
105. 1960s TV spy org. : UNCLE
107. Start of a spill : SLOSH
111. Designer Lagerfeld : KARL
112. Rope material : HEMP
113. Symbol of Aphrodite : ROSE
115. ___ Paulo : SAO
117. Nonhuman villain of a classic 1968 film : HAL
118. ___ kwon do : TAE

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