0323-13 New York Times Crossword Answers 23 Mar 13, Saturday

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CROSSWORD SETTER: David Steinberg
THEME: None
COMPLETION TIME: 39m 45s
ANSWERS I MISSED: 0

Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across

1. “Another Cinderella Story” co-star, 2008 : SELENA GOMEZ
Selena Gomez is a young actress from Grand Prairie, Texas. Gomez’s first television role was in the children’s show “Barney & Friends”. She then played the lead in the TV series “Wizards of Waverly Place”. Offscreen, Gomez made a splash as the girlfriend of Canadian singer Justin Bieber for a couple of years.

15. Creator of the heroine Catherine Earnshaw : EMILY BRONTE
Catherine Earnshaw is the Heathcliff’s love in Emily Brontë’s novel “Wuthering Heights”.

“Wuthering Heights” is the only novel written by Emily Brontë, one that she published using the pen name Ellis Bell. Her sister Charlotte Brontë had just published her famous book “Jane Eyre” under the name Currer Bell.

16. It’s bisected by the Reuss River : URI
Supposedly William Tell came from Uri, a canton in the German part of Switzerland. Altdorf is the capital of Uri and is the city where William Tell shot the apple off his son’s head, at least according to legend.

17. City in the 42-Down Desert : MESA, ARIZONA
The city of Mesa, Arizona is in effect a suburb of Phoenix. The original settlement of non-Native Americans was founded by Daniel Webster Jones who led a Mormon group from St. George, Utah. The settlement was first called Jonesville, then Fort Utah and eventually Lehi. A second group of Mormons arrived and formed a settlement on top of a nearby mesa. It was this use of a mesa that eventually gave the city its current name.

18. Caesar’s thing : RES
“Res” is the Latin for “thing”. “Res” is used in a lot of phrases in the law.

19. N.Y.C. line to the Bronx : IRT
The Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT) was the original private operator of the New York Subway when it opened in 1904. The city took over ownership of the system in 1940, but the lines originally operated by the IRT are still known by the IRT moniker.

21. Name on a London hall : ALBERT
The beautiful Royal Albert Hall in London is most famous as the home to the BBC Prom concerts that have been performed each summer since 1941. The concert hall was opened in 1871 by Queen Victoria. The Queen ordered that the intended name for the new hall be dropped in favor of the “Royal Albert Hall” in honor of her husband Prince Albert, who had passed away ten years earlier.

23. Poseidon’s trident? : PSI
The Greek letter psi is the one that looks a bit like a trident or a pitchfork.

Poseidon was the god of the sea in Greek mythology as well as the “Earth-Shaker”, the god responsible for earthquakes.

24. Channel with the tagline “Story matters here” : AMC
AMC, formerly known as American Movie Classics, is one of my favorite television channels. Although the channel’s focus has shifted from airing classic movies to including other programming, there’s still a lot of quality output. AMC’s flagship show is “Mad Men”.

25. 10th-century European king : OLAF I
It is believed that the Norwegian King Olaf I led the conversion of the Vikings to Christianity and built the first church in the country (in 995 CE). Olaf was actually married to an Irishwoman, albeit a woman from a Viking family. Queen Gyda was the sister of the King of Dublin, Olaf Cuaran.

26. First name in gossip : RONA
Rona Barrett is a gossip columnist originally from New York City but who plies her trade in Southern California. Barrett started out as with a gossip column that was syndicated in newspapers but then made a successful transition to television. She made regular appearances in news broadcasts and on her entertainment shows in the sixties and seventies.

36. English Channel feeder : EXE
The River Exe in the south of England lies mainly in the county of Devon. It rises on Exmoor in Somerset, and passes through the city of Exeter, along the way giving its name both to the moor and the Devon city.

40. Mismatched pair? : EMS
There is a pair of letter Ms in the word “mismatched”.

43. Bearers of bright red arils : YEWS
Yew trees were placed around churches and in graveyards all over Europe. The reason for the practice seems to be unclear, but one suggestion is that fronds from yew trees were used as substitutes for palms on Palm Sunday. Yew is also the wood of choice for the longbow, a valued weapon in the history of England. The longbow is constructed with a core of yew heartwood (as the heartwood resists compression) that has a sheath of yew sapwood (as the sapwood resists stretching). The yew was in such demand for longbows that for centuries yew trees were in short supply in Britain and the wood had to be imported from all over Europe.

The casing surrounding many seeds is called the aril, and it may be quite fleshy. This fruit-like characteristic makes it desirable as a food and aids in the dispersion of the seeds.

44. They’re shortsighted : MYOPES
A myope is someone suffering from myopia, short-sightedness.

51. Neighbor of Eure-et-Loir : ORNE
Orne is a department and river in the northwest of France. Perhaps one of the most famous locations in Orne is the village of Camembert, the home of the famous (and delicious!) cheese.

52. Broadway’s “Never ___ Dance” : GONNA
The musical “Never Gonna Dance” opened on Broadway relatively recently, in 2003, even though it features the music of Jerome Kern (long since passed away, in 1945). The musical was based on the 1936 movie “Swing Time” that stars Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.

53. Shogunate capital : EDO
Edo is the former name of the Japanese city of Tokyo. Edo was the seat of the Tokugawa shogunate, a feudal regime that ruled from 1603 until 1868. The shogun lived in the magnificent Edo castle. Some parts of the original castle remain and today’s Tokyo Imperial Palace, the residence of the Emperor of Japan, was built on its grounds.

The shoguns of Japan were military dictators who generally inherited their position and power. The term “shogun” can be translated as ‘general”. The position of shogun was effectively eliminated in 1867 with the demise of the Tokugawa shogunate. The modern equivalent of a shogun in Japan is a prime minister.

57. One of reality TV’s “Guidettes” : SNOOKI
Nicole Polizzi is quite the celebrity, known by her nickname of Snooki on the MTV reality television show “Jersey Shore”. Polizzi gets her nickname from the character Snookie in the film “Save the Last Dance”, a nickname she was given in middle school because she was the first in her group of friends to kiss a boy.

59. Means of enforcing compliance : WRIT
A writ is an order issued by some formal body (these days, usually a court) with the order being in written form. Warrants and subpoenas are examples of writs.

60. Asian winter celebration : 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.

61. Credit card co. concern : APR
Annual percentage rate (APR).

62. Two-time Triple Crown winner : EDDIE ARCARO
Eddie Arcaro was a very successful jockey, the only rider to win the US Triple Crown twice. Arcaro also won more American classic races than any other jockey.

65. Operation Cyclone org. : CIA
Operation Cyclone was the codename for the CIA’s program to arm the Afghan mujahideen during the Soviet war in Afghanistan. Operation Cyclone is at the center of the very entertaining 2007 movie “Charlie Wilson’s War”.

67. Either of two cousin Udalls: Abbr. : SEN
The Udall family has been in American politics for over one hundred years, active in Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Oregon. The patriarch of the clan was David King Udall, from St. Louis, Missouri. David Udall has three direct descendants in the US Senate: Senator Gordon Smith (Rep – Oregon), Senator Tom Udall (Dem – New Mexico) and Senator Mark Udall (Dem – Colorado).

Down
2. “The American Scholar” speech giver : EMERSON
Ralph Waldo Emerson was an essayist and poet who was active in the mid-1800s. Most of the essays that Emerson wrote were composed originally as lectures and then revised for print.

3. TV Guide datum : LISTING
The first national “TV Guide” was issued in 1953. The cover of that first issue featured a photo of newborn Desi Arnaz, Jr., son of Lucille Ball.

4. She, in Rio : ELA
“Rio de Janeiro” translates as “January River”. The name reflects the discovery of the bay on which Rio sits, on New Years Day in 1502.

5. Spiral-horned antelope : NYALA
A nyala is an antelope from South Africa with spiral horns. “Nyala” is the Swahili name for the beast.

6. Norm of “This Old House” : ABRAM
Norm Abram is the master carpenter who appeared on the PBS show “This Old House”, and who later starred in the spinoff series called “The New Yankee Workshop”.

7. Mean sort : GRINCH
The Grinch is the title character in Dr. Seuss’s 1957 children’s book “How the Grinch Stole Christmas! Based on Seuss’s hero, we now use the term “grinch” for someone opposed to Christmas festivities or coarse and greedy in general.

9. 6 string : MNO
The letters MNO are found on the 6 key of a telephone keypad.

10. View from Biancavilla : ETNA
Mt. Etna is the largest of three active volcanoes in Italy. Mt Etna is about 2 1/2 times the height of its equally famous sister, Mt. Vesuvius.

The Sicilian town of Biancavilla was originally known as Albavilla, as it was founded by Albanian refugees in 1488.

12. Golden : AUREATE
Something “aureate” has a golden color. “Aurum” is Latin for “gold”.

13. “Song of the South” villain : BR’ER FOX
Br’er Rabbit and Br’er Fox are characters in the Uncle Remus stories, written by Joel Chandler Harris. The Uncle Remus stories are adaptations of African American folktales that Harris collected across the Southern States. “Br’er” of course stands for “brother”.

“Song of the South” is a 1946 Disney film based on the Uncle Remus stories by Joel Chandler Harris. The move features a mix of live actors and animated characters. The song “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah” is the big hit from the “Song of the South”, and won the Best Song Oscar in 1947.

14. 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 northern Italy, hence the painting’s name.

22. It’s often a double-decker : BLT
The BLT (bacon, lettuce and tomato) is the second most popular sandwich in the US, after the plain old ham sandwich.

34. 1920-24 owner of Metro Pictures : LOEW
Marcus Loew was a New Yorker, born into a poor Jewish family. He started out in a penny arcade business and used its profits to buy into a nickelodeon. He built a whole chain of movie theaters, and then moved into the production of films so that he could guarantee supply of features that he could show in his theaters. Eventually he pulled together the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) film production company, and sadly passed away just three years after he inked the deal.

38. What the U.S. joined in Apr. 1917 : WWI
Prior to the outbreak of World War II, what we now know as World War I was referred to as “the World War” or “the Great War”.

39. Bath can : LOO
When I was growing up in Ireland, a “bathroom” was a room that had a bath and no toilet. The separate room with the commode was called “the toilet” or sometimes the W.C. (the water closet). Apparently the term closet was used because in the 1800s when homeowners started installing toilets indoors they often displaced clothes and linens in a “closet”, as a closet was the right size to take the commode. It has been suggested that the British term “loo” comes from Waterloo (water-closet … water-loo), but no one seems to know for sure. Another suggestion is that the term comes from the card game of “lanterloo” in which the pot was called the loo!

The beautiful city of Bath in Somerset, England has a long history as a spa town. The Romans built spectacular baths and a temple centered on the hot springs. I was lucky enough to spend a memorable Christmas in Bath with my family back in the nineties.

40. Where future web developers develop? : EGG SACS
Female spiders can lay up to 3,000 eggs in one or more slik egg sacs, which are attached to their webs so that she can provide them with a level of protection.

41. Dessert that’s out of this world? : MOON PIE
Marshmallow cream was developed in 1927. Soon after, workers in the coal mines around Chattanooga, Tennessee started dipping graham crackers in marshmallow cream as a snack. Then a local baker jumped on the idea, and came up with a sandwich made with a marshmallow filling between two round graham crackers. His young grandson remarked that the popped bubbles in the marshmallow (from baking) looked like moon craters, and the Moon Pie was born. I used to love them as a kid, although we called them “Wagon Wheels” in our part of the world.

42. ___ Desert (area with saguaros) : SONORAN
Sonora is the state in Mexico lying just south of the borders with Arizona and New Mexico. The Sonoran Desert straddles the US-Mexico border, covering 120,000 square miles in parts of the states of Sonora, Baja California, Baja California Sur, Arizona and California.

47. Divisions of geometry : SECTORS
One example of a sector in the world of geometry is a circular sector, that “piece of the pie” that is enclosed by two radii and an arc.

49. Game with 59-Down cards : UNO
In my youth I remember being taught a great card game, by a German acquaintance of mine, called Mau Mau. Years later I discovered that Uno is basically the same game, but played with a purpose-printed deck instead of the regular deck of playing cards that’s used for Mau Mau. I hear that Mau Mau is derived from the game called Crazy Eights.

54. Frank account : DIARY
Anne Frank has to be one of the most famous victims of the Holocaust. This is largely because the story of this young girl lives on in her widely published diary, and in adaptations of the diary for stage and screen. Anne Frank was a German until she lost her nationality in 1941 when the Nazis came to power. By this time she was living with her family in Amsterdam, as the Franks chose to flee Germany in 1933. When the Germans occupied the Netherlands, the family went into hiding in the attic of Otto Frank’s office building (Otto was Anne’s father). There the family hid for two whole years until they were betrayed. The family was split up, and Anne and her sister died from typhus in a concentration camp in 1945.

55. Not estos or esos : OTROS
Not these (estos) or these (esos), but the others (otros), in Spanish.

58. Pensée product : IDEE
In French, an idea (idée) is thought (pensée).

63. “Hawaii Five-0” co-star Daniel ___ Kim : DAE
Daniel Dae Kim is an American actor who is famous for playing Jin-Soo Kwon on “Lost”. He now plays one of the leads on the CBS remake of “Hawaii Five-O”, portraying the character Chin Ho Kelly.

64. Trig function : COT
The most familiar trigonometric functions are sine, cosine and tangent. Each of these is a ratio, a ratio of two sides of a right-angled triangle. The reciprocal functions of these ratios are simply the reciprocal ratios, and are called the cosecant, secant and cotangent, respectively.

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For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. “Another Cinderella Story” co-star, 2008 : SELENA GOMEZ
12. Focus of middle management? : ABS
15. Creator of the heroine Catherine Earnshaw : EMILY BRONTE
16. It’s bisected by the Reuss River : URI
17. City in the 42-Down Desert : MESA, ARIZONA
18. Caesar’s thing : RES
19. N.Y.C. line to the Bronx : IRT
20. Race space : LANE
21. Name on a London hall : ALBERT
23. Poseidon’s trident? : PSI
24. Channel with the tagline “Story matters here” : AMC
25. 10th-century European king : OLAF I
26. First name in gossip : RONA
28. Like some issues : HOT-BUTTON
32. Like saved hockey shots : ON GOAL
35. Gets along : DOES
36. English Channel feeder : EXE
37. Advice-disdaining sort : KNOW-IT-ALL
40. Mismatched pair? : EMS
43. Bearers of bright red arils : YEWS
44. They’re shortsighted : MYOPES
48. See : GO OUT WITH
51. Neighbor of Eure-et-Loir : ORNE
52. Broadway’s “Never ___ Dance” : GONNA
53. Shogunate capital : EDO
56. “Stuff like that” : ETC
57. One of reality TV’s “Guidettes” : SNOOKI
59. Means of enforcing compliance : WRIT
60. Asian winter celebration : TET
61. Credit card co. concern : APR
62. Two-time Triple Crown winner : EDDIE ARCARO
65. Operation Cyclone org. : CIA
66. Epitome of dedication, in modern usage : REAL TROOPER
67. Either of two cousin Udalls: Abbr. : SEN
68. They’re suitable to be transplanted to another bed : SEED OYSTERS

Down
1. Not quite minor-league : SEMIPRO
2. “The American Scholar” speech giver : EMERSON
3. TV Guide datum : LISTING
4. She, in Rio : ELA
5. Spiral-horned antelope : NYALA
6. Norm of “This Old House” : ABRAM
7. Mean sort : GRINCH
8. Slow flow : OOZE
9. 6 string : MNO
10. View from Biancavilla : ETNA
11. With fire : ZEALOUSLY
12. Golden : AUREATE
13. “Song of the South” villain : BR’ER FOX
14. Raphael’s “___ Madonna” : SISTINE
22. It’s often a double-decker : BLT
27. Swell : A-OK
29. Elevator of literature? : ODIST
30. Add (up) : TOT
31. Look elated : BEAM
33. Challenging question : ANY TAKERS?
34. 1920-24 owner of Metro Pictures : LOEW
38. What the U.S. joined in Apr. 1917 : WWI
39. Bath can : LOO
40. Where future web developers develop? : EGG SACS
41. Dessert that’s out of this world? : MOON PIE
42. ___ Desert (area with saguaros) : SONORAN
45. Test-record, maybe : PRE-TAPE
46. Typist, at times : ENTERER
47. Divisions of geometry : SECTORS
49. Game with 59-Down cards : UNO
50. Regarding this point : HERETO
54. Frank account : DIARY
55. Not estos or esos : OTROS
58. Pensée product : IDEE
59. See 49-Down : WILD
63. “Hawaii Five-0” co-star Daniel ___ Kim : DAE
64. Trig function : COT


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3 thoughts on “0323-13 New York Times Crossword Answers 23 Mar 13, Saturday”

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