0624-13 New York Times Crossword Answers 24 Jun13, Monday

Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across
1. In ___ (existing) : ESSE
The Latin term “in esse” is used to mean “actually existing”, and translates as “in being”.

9. One of the Three B’s of classical music : BACH
The “Three Bs” of classical music are Johannes Brahms, Johann Sebastian Bach and Ludwig van Beethoven.

Johann Sebastian Bach raised a very large family. He had seven children with his first wife, who died suddenly. He had a further thirteen children with his second wife. Of his twenty youngsters, there were four sons who became famous musicians in their own right:

– Wilhelm Friedemann Bach (aka “the Halle Bach”)
– Carl Philipp Bach (aka “the Hamburg Bach”)
– Johann Christoph Bach (aka “the Buckeberg Bach”)
– Johann Christian Bach (aka “the London Bach”)

13. Fox series set in William McKinley High School : GLEE
The TV show called “Glee” has proven to be very popular. The storyline focuses on a high school glee club in Lima, Ohio.

President William McKinley was re-elected in 1900, and of course failed to serve out the full term. In September of 1951 he went to the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York where he went to meet the public at the Exposition’s Temple of Music. There Leon Czolgosz was waiting, armed with a pistol. Czolgosz shot the President twice before being subdued (and beaten) by the crowd. Doctors operated, and were able to stabilize President McKinley. The medical profession decided to leave one bullet inside the victim, on the face of it a good decision as the President spent almost a week apparently recovering from his ordeal. However, he relapsed, and eight days after being shot he died from gangrene surrounding the wound.

14. Tibia or fibula : BONE
The tibia is the shin bone, the larger of the two bones right below the knee. The tibia is the strongest weight-bearing bone in the human body. “Tibia” is the Roman name for a Greek flute and it is thought that the shin bone was given the same name because flutes were often fashioned out of the shin bones of animals.

The fibula is the calf bone. The fibula lies beside the tibia, with both bones sitting under the femur.

15. Singer Abdul : PAULA
Paula Abdul is primarily a singer and dancer, and someone who endeared herself even more to the American public in recent years as a judge on “American Idol” from 2002 to 2009. Abdul had a famous husband for a couple of years, as she was married to actor Emilio Estevez from 1992-94.

16. Original maker of a 38-Across : GIRL SCOUT
The scouting movement is generally traced back to a camp for boys held in 1907 by Robert Baden-Powell. Within a short space of time, many girls became interested in the scouting movement, but Baden-Powell deemed that girls should not be allowed in the same organization. So, he founded the Girl Guides in 1910 and put his younger sister Agnes Baden-Powell in charge of the new movement.

20. Light horse-drawn carriage with one seat : STANHOPE
A stanhope was a small, horse-drawn carriage with a high seat and a closed back. The carriage was named for a Captain Henry Stanhope.

22. Boxer who floated like a butterfly, stung like a bee : ALI
Muhammad Ali first used his famous catchphrase “float like a butterfly and sting like a bee” before his world title fight against Sonny Liston in 1964. Back then Ali still went by his birth name of Cassius Clay.

25. Japanese sash : OBI
The sash worn as part of traditional Japanese dress is known as an obi. The obi can be tied in what is called a butterfly knot.

26. Ingredients in a 38-Across : GRAHAM CRACKERS
Graham crackers were conceived in 1829 as a part of the Graham Diet, a regimen touted by Presbyterian minister Sylvester Graham. Graham’s diet was intended to suppress unhealthy carnal urges in young people. Like Dr. John Harvey Kellogg of corn flakes fame, Graham believed that a diet of bland foods helped curb sexual appetites.

36. Ranee’s wrap : SAREE
The item of clothing called a “sari” (also “saree”) is a strip of cloth, as one might imagine, unusual perhaps in that is unstitched along the whole of its length. The strip of cloth can range from four to nine meters long (that’s a lot of material!). The sari is usually wrapped around the waist, then draped over the shoulder leaving the midriff bare. I must say, it can be a beautiful item of clothing.

A ranee (also spelled “rani”) is the female equivalent of a raja in India, and is the equivalent of a western queen or princess.

37. ___ of Capri : ISLE
The island of Capri off the coast of Southern Italy has been a tourist resort since the days of ancient Rome. Capri is home to the famous Blue Grotto, a sea cave that is illuminated with sunlight that’s colored blue as it passes through the seawater into the cave.

38. Sweet treat : S’MORE
S’mores are a treat peculiar to North America, usually eaten around a campfire. A s’more consists of a roasted marshmallow and a layer of chocolate sandwiched between two graham crackers. The earliest written reference to the recipe is in a 1927 publication called “Tramping and Trailing with the Girl Scouts”. Girl Scouts always did corner the market on cookies and the like!

41. Deadly poison : BANE
Today we tend to use the word “bane” to mean an anathema, a source of persistent annoyance. A few centuries ago, a bane was a cause of harm or death, perhaps a deadly poison.

42. Mascara problem : SMEAR
Variations of mascara have been around a long time, and certainly there was a similar substance in use in Ancient Egypt.

44. Dress (up) : TOG
The verb “tog”, meaning to dress up, comes from the Latin “toga”. “Tog” can be use as an informal word for a coat or a cloak. Back in Ireland, togs are what we call swimming shorts.

45. Lone Star State sch. near the Rio Grande : UTEP
The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) was founded in 1914, originally as the Texas State School of Mines and Metallurgy. To this day there is a mine shaft on the campus, and the mascot of the school’s sports teams is Paydirt Pete, a prospector from the mining industry.

46. Ingredient in a 38-Across : HOT MARSHMALLOW
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.

50. Steve Martin’s “King ___” : TUT
Comedian Steve Martin wrote the comic song “King Tut” himself, and it appeared on his 1978 album “Wild and Crazy Guy”. The song was later released as a single, and made it as high as number 17 in the charts. Some of the song’s success might have been due to the fervor surrounding the exhibition of the real King Tut’s tomb artifacts that was touring the country at the time.

King Tut is a name commonly used for the Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamen. Tutankhamen may not have been the most significant of the pharaohs historically, but he is the most famous today largely because of the discovery of his nearly intact tomb in 1922. Prior to this find, any Egyptian tombs uncovered by archaeologists had been ravaged by grave robbers. Tutankhamen’s magnificent burial mask is one of the most recognizable of all Egyptian artifacts.

51. Hullabaloo : ADO
Our word “hullabaloo” meaning a “commotion” is a derivative of an older term “hollo-ballo”. “Hollo-ballo” was a word used for an uproar in the north of England and Scotland.

52. Joke you’ve heard many times before : CHESTNUT
An “old chestnut” is a joke that is “well worn”. The origin of the expression is very specific. It dates back to a play by William Diamond, first produced in 1816. In the story, one of the characters keeps telling the same joke over and over, with minor variations. The joke is about a cork tree, and an exasperated listener after hearing the joke one time too many refutes the use of the cork tree saying, “A Chestnut. I have heard you tell the joke 27 times and I’m sure it was a Chestnut!”

57. Fragrant wood : CEDAR
Cedar is used for the manufacture of some wardrobes and chests as it has long been believed that the fragrant oil in the wood is a moth-repellent. However, whether or not cedar oil is actually effective at keeping moths away seems to be in doubt.

63. Ingredient in a 38-Across : CHOCOLATE
Chocolate is made from the seeds of the Theobroma cacao tree. The seeds are very bitter and the traditional drink made with the seed was called “xocolatl” by the Aztecs, meaning “bitter water”. That’s how our “chocolate” got its name.

66. Haggard with 38 #1 country hits : MERLE
Merle Haggard is a country singer and songwriter whose most famous recording has to be “Okie from Muskogee” released in 1969. Haggard will tell you that the song was actually meant as a spoof, but it has become a country “anthem”.

68. Boutique : SHOP
Boutique is the French word for a small shop.

Down
1. They’re bought by the dozen : EGGS
Our word “dozen” is used for a group of twelve. We imported it into English from Old French. The modern French word for twelve is “douze”, and a dozen is “douzaine”.

3. Song word repeated after “Que” : SERA
As Doris Day told us, “que sera sera” is Spanish for “whatever will be, will be”. The song was first sung in the 1956 Alfred Hitchcock film “The Man Who Knew Too Much” in which Day starred opposite James Stewart.

5. Original “Monty Python” airer : BBC
The zany comedy show called “Monty Python’s Flying Circus” was first aired in 1969 on the BBC. The show ran for four seasons and finished up soon after John Cleese decided to leave the team and move onto other projects.

6. Brit’s toilet : 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!

10. Volvo or VW : AUTO
Volvo is a Swedish manufacturers of cars, trucks and construction equipment. The Volvo name was chosen as “volvo” is Latin for “I roll”.

“Volkswagen” translates from German into “people’s car”. The original Volkswagen was built under a directive from Adolf Hitler, who wanted a cheap car built that ordinary people could afford to purchase. He awarded the contract to engineer Ferdinand Porsche, whose name (paradoxically) would forever be associated with high-performance, expensive cars.

12. Tortoise racer : HARE
“The Tortoise and the Hare” is perhaps the most famous fable attributed to Aesop. The hare takes a nap during a race against the tortoise, and the tortoise sneaks past the finish line for the win while his speedier friend is sleeping.

17. Bygone head of Iran : SHAH
The last Shah of Iran was Mohammed-Reza Shah Pahlavi, as he was overthrown in the revolution led by the Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979. The post-revolution government sought the extradition of the Shah back to Iran while he was in the United States seeking medical care (he had cancer). His prolonged stay in the United States, recovering from surgery, caused some unrest back in Iran and resentment towards the United States. Some say that this resentment precipitated the storming of the US Embassy in Tehran and the resulting hostage crisis.

21. Attorney’s org. : ABA
The American Bar Association (ABA) was founded back in 1878 and is a voluntary association for lawyers and law students. The ABA focuses on setting academic standards for law schools and setting ethical codes for the profession.

23. 200 in the Indianapolis 500 : LAPS
The first Indy 500 race was held on Memorial Day in 1911. The winner that day was one Ray Harroun. Harroun had seen someone using a rear view mirror on a horse-drawn vehicle, and decided to fit one on his Marmon “Wasp” motor car. Supposedly that was the first ever use of a rear view mirror on a motor vehicle.

24. Muslim leader : IMAM
An imam is a Muslim leader, often the person in charge of a mosque or perhaps a Muslim community.

26. Gadget : GISMO
The word “gizmo” (also “gismo”) was originally slang used by both the US Navy and the Marine Corps, but the exact origin seems unknown. Nowadays, “gizmo” is a general term used for a device or a part when the correct name escapes one (so I use it a lot …). Oh, and Gizmo is the name of the dog belonging to my son and his fiancee.

28. Mr. T’s TV group : A-TEAM
“The A-Team” is an action television series that originally ran in the eighties. The A-Team was a group of ex-US special forces personnel who became mercenaries. Star of the show was Hollywood actor George Peppard, ably assisted by Mr. T and Robert Vaughan.

Mr. T’s real name is Laurence Tureaud. Mr. T is famous for many things, including the wearing of excessive amounts of jewelry. He started this habit when he was working as a bouncer, wearing jewelry items that had been left behind by customers at a nightclub so that the items might be recognized and claimed. It was also as a bouncer that he adopted the name Mr. T. His catch phrase comes from the movie “Rocky III”. In the film, before he goes up against Rocky Balboa, Mr. T says, “No, I don’t hate Balboa, but I pity the fool”. He parlayed that line into quite a bit of success. He had a reality TV show called “I Pity the Fool”, and produced a motivational video called “Be Somebody … or Be Somebody’s Fool!”.

29. Draper’s material : CLOTH
Even though I’ve lived in the US since 1983, every so often I come across a word that I didn’t realize was different on either side of the Atlantic. Apparently the word “draper” isn’t used (much) in the US. It’s an old term across the pond anyway, the word for a cloth merchant.

30. Afghani capital : KABUL
Kabul is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan. The city has been the site of major conflict for much of the 3,500 years that it has been in existence. In the past this conflict was mainly driven by the city’s strategic location on the major trade routes of south and central Asia.

31. Muse of poetry : ERATO
In Greek mythology, Erato was the Muse of Lyric Poetry.

34. Gossip, slangily : DISH
Apparently the verb “to dish” means to chat idly, to gossip.

39. Capital of Italia : ROMA
In Italian, the city of Rome (Roma) is in Italy (Italia).

48. Building material applied with a trowel : STUCCO
Stucco is a decorative coating that is applied to walls and ceilings. “Stucco” is the Italian name for the material, and a word that we imported into English.

55. NaCl : SALT
Sodium chloride (NaCl, common salt) is an ionic compound, a crystal lattice made up of large chloride (Cl) ions in a cubic structure, with smaller sodium (Na) ions in between the chlorides.

59. Author Roald : DAHL
Roald Dahl’s name is Norwegian. Dahl’s parents were from Norway, although Dahl himself was Welsh. Dahl became one of the most successful authors of the twentieth century. Two of his most famous titles are “James and the Giant Peach” and “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”.

60. Isotope, e.g. : ATOM
An isotope is a variant of an element. All isotopes of an element have the same number of protons and electrons, but not the same number of neutrons. This means that isotopes of an element have differing atomic weights.

65. David Letterman’s network : CBS
Talk show host and comedian David Letterman has been appearing on late night television since 1982. Letterman has the longest late-night hosting career on US television, even longer than the iconic Johnny Carson.

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For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. In ___ (existing) : ESSE
5. Amorphous mass : BLOB
9. One of the Three B’s of classical music : BACH
13. Fox series set in William McKinley High School : GLEE
14. Tibia or fibula : BONE
15. Singer Abdul : PAULA
16. Original maker of a 38-Across : GIRL SCOUT
18. Moving about : ASTIR
19. Huge hit : SMASH
20. Light horse-drawn carriage with one seat : STANHOPE
22. Boxer who floated like a butterfly, stung like a bee : ALI
25. Japanese sash : OBI
26. Ingredients in a 38-Across : GRAHAM CRACKERS
34. Weight-loss program : DIET
35. Amigo : PAL
36. Ranee’s wrap : SAREE
37. ___ of Capri : ISLE
38. Sweet treat : S’MORE
41. Deadly poison : BANE
42. Mascara problem : SMEAR
44. Dress (up) : TOG
45. Lone Star State sch. near the Rio Grande : UTEP
46. Ingredient in a 38-Across : HOT MARSHMALLOW
50. Steve Martin’s “King ___” : TUT
51. Hullabaloo : ADO
52. Joke you’ve heard many times before : CHESTNUT
57. Fragrant wood : CEDAR
62. Acoustic : AURAL
63. Ingredient in a 38-Across : CHOCOLATE
66. Haggard with 38 #1 country hits : MERLE
67. Sea creature with pincers : CRAB
68. Boutique : SHOP
69. “Hey … over here!” : PSST!
70. Sharer’s word : OURS
71. Classic trees on shady streets : ELMS

Down
1. They’re bought by the dozen : EGGS
2. Thin : SLIM
3. Song word repeated after “Que” : SERA
4. Fish caught in pots : EELS
5. Original “Monty Python” airer : BBC
6. Brit’s toilet : LOO
7. Burden : ONUS
8. Gambler : BETTOR
9. Big party : BASH
10. Volvo or VW : AUTO
11. Video segment : CLIP
12. Tortoise racer : HARE
15. Freaks out in fear : PANICS
17. Bygone head of Iran : SHAH
21. Attorney’s org. : ABA
23. 200 in the Indianapolis 500 : LAPS
24. Muslim leader : IMAM
26. Gadget : GISMO
27. Found a new tenant for : RELET
28. Mr. T’s TV group : A-TEAM
29. Draper’s material : CLOTH
30. Afghani capital : KABUL
31. Muse of poetry : ERATO
32. Extend, as a lease : RENEW
33. Ooze : SEEP
34. Gossip, slangily : DISH
39. Capital of Italia : ROMA
40. “Heavens to Betsy!” : EGAD!
43. Worrisome engine noise : RATTLE
47. Try for a political office : RUN
48. Building material applied with a trowel : STUCCO
49. Bananas : LOCO
52. Place to eat a 38-Across : CAMP
53. Tints : HUES
54. Blunders : ERRS
55. NaCl : SALT
56. Drive-___ : THRU
58. “… or ___!” : ELSE
59. Author Roald : DAHL
60. Isotope, e.g. : ATOM
61. Sales force, informally : REPS
64. Blade in a boat : OAR
65. David Letterman’s network : CBS

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