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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: Sarah Keller
THEME: All Things Holey … each of today’s themed answers can be said to have holes:
20A. Norwegian import in the dairy case : JARLSBERG CHEESE
28A. Links : GOLF COURSE
36A. You can hardly believe it : FLIMSY ALIBI
45A. Bit of equipment for an outdoor kids’ game : WIFFLE BALL56A. What 20-, 28-, 36- and 45-Across are : THINGS WITH HOLES
BILL BUTLER’S COMPLETION TIME: 11m 01s
ANSWERS I MISSED: 0
Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across
1. ___ Mesa, Calif. : COSTA
Costa Mesa is a city in Orange County, California. The city used to be called Harper, and changed its name in 1920 to Costa Mesa, the Spanish for “coastal plateau”.
6. Legs on an insect or strings on a guitar : HEXAD
A “hexad” is a group of six. “Hex” is the Greek word for “six”.
11. Decryption org. : 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”.
14. Square dance group, e.g. : OCTET
An”octet” is a group of eight. “Octo” is Latin for “eight”.
15. ___ curiae (friends of the court) : AMICI
An amicus curiae is a “friend of the court”, and is a concept that originated in Roman law. An amicus curiae is someone who assists a court in a decision, without being a party to the case in question.
16. Done, to Donne : O’ER
John Donne is one of England’s most celebrated poets, working at the start of the 17th century. He spent much of his life in poverty and even spent a short time in prison for having married his wife without procuring the appropriate permissions. After his release, his wife bore him 12 children in 16 years, passing away a few days after the twelfth child was born.
17. Author Zora ___ Hurston : NEALE
Zora Neale Hurston was an American author, most famous for her 1937 novel “Their Eyes Were Watching God”. Like the author, the main character in the novel is an African American woman, a part played by Halle Berry in a television movie adaptation that first aired in 2005.
19. Insult, slangily : DIS
“Dis” is a slang term meaning “insult” that originated in the eighties, and is a shortened form of “disrespect: or “dismiss”.
20. Norwegian import in the dairy case : JARLSBERG CHEESE
Jarlsberg cheese is a mild cow’s-milk cheese that comes with a yellow-wax rind, and which has large holes throughout. The cheese takes its name from Jarlsberg, Norway, the region in which it originated.
23. Windsor’s locale: Abbr. : ONT
Windsor is the city across the US-Canadian border from Detroit, Michigan. Located in southwestern Ontario, Windsor is the most southerly city in Canada.
24. Bit of ink, for short : TAT
The word “tattoo” was first used in English in the writings of the famous English explorer Captain Cook. In his descriptions of the indelible marks adorning the skin of Polynesian natives, Cook anglicized the Tahitian word “tatau” into our “tattoo”.
28. Links : GOLF COURSE
The oldest type of golf course is a links course. The name “links” comes from the Old English word “hlinc” meaning “rising ground”. “Hlinc” was used to describe areas with coastal sand dunes or open parkland. As a result, we use the term “links course” to mean a golf course that is located at or on the coast, often amid sand dunes. The British Open is always played on a links course.
35. Youngest 600-homer man, informally : A-ROD
Poor old Alex Rodriguez earned more nicknames than just A-Rod. He has been called “the Cooler” by some players as there is a perception that teams go cold when he joins them and hot when he leaves. He has also been called “A-Fraud” by teammates because of another perception, that he is over-demanding. Rodriguez is now seems to be in a world of hurt for using illegal performance-enhancing drugs.
36. You can hardly believe it : FLIMSY ALIBI
“Alibi” is the Latin word for “elsewhere” as in, “I claim that I was ‘elsewhere’ when the crime was committed … I have an ‘alibi'”.
41. Oscar winner Jannings : EMIL
Emil Jannings, an actor from Switzerland, was the first person to receive an Oscar. He was the star of the 1928 silent movie called “The Last Command”.
42. Inappropriate for the easily offended, say : NON-PC
Non-politically correct (non-PC)
45. Bit of equipment for an outdoor kids’ game : WIFFLE BALL
Wiffle ball is a “short range” version of baseball that is played with a light, perforated, plastic ball and a light plastic bat. The wiffle ball was invented in 1953 by David N. Mullany for his 12-year-old son. His son referred to strikeouts as “whiffs”, which gave the invention its name.
52. Electronically scored duel : EPEE
The French word for sword is “épée”. In competitive fencing the épée is connected to a system that records an electrical signal when legal contact is made on an opponent’s body.
53. Western treaty grp. : OAS
The Organization of American States (OAS) has its headquarters in Washington, D.C. All the independent states in the Americas are members of the group except Honduras, which had its membership suspended after the country’s 2009 coup.
55. ___-Blo fuse : SLO
“Slo-Blo” is a brand name of slow blow fuses. Slow blow fuses are designed to protect against damaging overcurrent in a circuit while allowing harmless, short-term high current events.
62. Cranberry locale : BOG
When early European settlers came across red berries growing in the bogs of the northern part of America, they felt that the plant’s flower and stem resembled the head and bill of a crane. As such, they called the plant “craneberry”, which later evolved into “cranberry”.
63. Carlos Danger, e.g. : ALIAS
“Carlos Danger” was an alias allegedly used by former US Congressman Anthony Weiner when “sexting” several women even though he is a married man. The initial claims of sexting led to Weiner’s resignation from the US Congress, and subsequent claims of sexting with other women are hampering Weiner’s attempts to become mayor of New York City.
64. Lavatory sign : IN USE
Our word “lavatory” originally referred to a washbasin, and comes from the Latin “lavatorium”, a place for washing. In the 1600s a “lavatory” came to mean a washroom, and in the 1920s a toilet.
65. ___ Taylor (clothier) : ANN
There was no such woman as “Ann Taylor” associated with the Ann Taylor line of clothes. The name was chosen by the marketing professionals because “Ann” was considered to be “very New England” back in 1954 when the stores first opened, and “Taylor” suggested that clothes were carefully “tailored”.
66. Beatnik’s percussion : BONGO
Bongo drums are Cuban percussion instruments consisting of a pair of drums, one larger than the other, The smaller drum is called the “hembra” (female) and the larger the “macho” (male).
Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg were part of the Beat Generation, American writers who embraced the beat culture of the fifties. The term “Beat Generation” was coined by Kerouac back in 1948, describing the youth of the day who had been “beaten down” and who were refusing to conform to the social norms of the time. The “beatniks” of the fifties, were to morph into the hippies of the sixties.
67. Ring-tailed primate : LEMUR
Lemurs are the most unusual-looking creatures, native to the island of Madagascar off the east coast of Africa. With their white fur and dark eyes that are very reflective at night, they have a “ghostly” appearance. Indeed, the animals takes their name from Roman mythology in which “lemures” were spirits of the restless dead.
68. ___ judicata : RES
“Res judicata” is a term used in the law for a decided case, which translates from Latin as “a matter already judged”.
69. “S.N.L.” bit : SPOOF
NBC first aired a form of “Saturday Night Live” (SNL) in 1975 under the title “NBC’s Saturday Night”. The show was actually created to give Johnny Carson some time off from “The Tonight Show”. Back then “The Tonight Show” had a weekend episode, and Carson convinced NBC to pull the Saturday or Sunday recordings off the air and hold them for subsequent weeknights in which Carson needed a break. NBC turned to Lorne Michaels and asked him to put together a variety show to fill the vacant slot, and he came up with what we now call “Saturday Night Live”.
70. Northern Scandinavians : LAPPS
Lapland is a geographic region in northern Scandinavia, largely found within the Arctic Circle. Parts of Lapland are in Norway, Sweden and Finland. The people who are native to the region are called the Sami people. The Sami don’t like to be referred to as Lapps as they regard the term as insulting.
Down
2. Where Polynesia is : OCEANIA
The part of the Pacific Ocean known as Oceania is roughly equivalent to the tropical islands of the South Pacific. Oceania can be divided into the regions of Polynesia, Melanesia and Micronesia.
The term “Polynesia” was first coined in 1756 by the author Charles de Brosses, when he used it to describe all the islands in the Pacific. This was later restricted to what we now refer to as a subregion of Oceania.
7. E.M.T. part: Abbr. : EMER
Emergency medical technician (EMT)
8. Ped ___ : XING
Pedestrian Crossing (Ped Xing)
9. Aussie rockers with a knickers-clad lead guitarist : AC/DC
The Heavy Metal band known as AC/DC was formed by two brothers in Australia. The group is usually called “Acca Dacca” down under.
13. Literary sleuth ___ Lupin : ARSENE
Arsène Lupin is a character created by the French writer Maurice Leblanc. Leblanc was writing in the days of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and his gentleman detective Lupin is as popular in the French-speaking world as Sherlock Holmes is in English.
27. French seasoning : SEL
“Sel” is the French word for “salt”.
29. Grammy-winning Eric Clapton tune : LAYLA
“Layla” is one of the great rock anthems of the seventies, released by Derek and the Dominos in December of 1970. It is a masterpiece of composition, with the first half of the song a great vehicle for the guitar-playing talents of Eric Clapton. The second half is a beautifully melodic piano coda (a coda … taking up half the length of the track!). To top things off we have the “unplugged” version recorded by Clapton in 1992, a fabulous and inventive variation on the original.
Can you believe that Eric Clapton only had one chart-topper in the US? In 1974 he released a cover version of the Bob Marley classic “I Shot the Sheriff”, and ended up selling more copies of that song than Bob Marley did himself.
30. ___ diavolo : FRA
Fra diavolo is a spicy sauce used for pasta and seafood, usually made with chili peppers in a tomato base. The name “Fra diavolo” translates to “Brother devil”. The sauce may be named for the Italian revolutionary Michele Pezza who was also known as Fra Diavolo.
31. Potter or Klink: Abbr. : COL
Colonel Sherman Potter is a character on the memorable TV series “M*A*S*H”. Potter was played by actor Harry Morgan. Potter replaced Colonel Henry Blake who was killed of in the story when actor McLean Stevenson left the show at the end of the third season. Morgan was asked to play Potter largely due to a great guest performance he had delivered in an early episode.
On the sitcom “Hogan’s Heroes”, Colonel Klink was the Camp Commandant, played by Werner Klemperer. Klemperer was born in Cologne in Germany, and fled the country with his family in 1935 due to Nazi persecution of Jews. Later, Klemperer joined the US Army and ended up using his show business talent to entertain the troops in the Pacific. Werner was the son of renowned conductor Otto Klemperer.
32. Valhalla ruler : ODIN
In Norse mythology, Valhalla (“hall of the slain”) is a gigantic hall in the “world” of Asgard. Asgard and Valhalla are ruled by the god Odin, the chief Norse god.
34. Cambodian currency : RIEL
The Cambodian riel was first introduced in 1953, and was taken out of circulation by the Khmer Rouge in 1975 when they completely abolished money on taking control of the country. After the Vietnamese invasion of 1978, money was reintroduced and the Cambodian people are still using the “second” riel.
37. Marseilles Mrs. : MME
Marseille (often written “Marseilles” in English) is the second largest city in France, after Paris. Marseille is also the largest commercial port in the country. I used to live nearby, and it’s a lovely, lovely place.
39. Flapper’s do : BOB
A “bob cut” is a short hairstyle in which the hair is cut straight around the head, at about the line of the jaw. Back in the 1570s a “bob” was the name given to a horse’s tail that was cut short, and about a century later it was being used to describe short hair on humans. The style became very popular with women in the early 1900s (as worn by actress Clara Bow, for example), with the fashion dying out in the thirties. The style reemerged in the sixties around the time the Beatles introduced their “mop tops”, with Vidal Sassoon leading the way in styling women’s hair in a bob cut again. Personally, I like it …
Flappers were the so-called new breed of young women of the twenties. The flappers wore their hair short (with ringlets), dressed in short skirts and generally rebelled against the accepted norms of the time. The term “flapper” comes from the 1920 movie “The Flapper” starring Olive Thomas as a young woman who lived the more liberal lifestyle that was emerging at that time.
46. “The Internet in your pocket” sloganeer, once : IPHONE
Apple started selling the iPhone at 6 pm local time on 29 June 2007, with hundreds of customers lined up outside stores all over the world. Not me. I use a pay-as-you-go phone from T-Mobile that cost me less than $45 for the whole of last year for calls and text (including many texts to Ireland) …
48. Sedge locale : FEN
Sedges are a family of plants that resemble grasses and rushes. Sedges are more properly called Cyperaceae.
54. Participant in 1-Down : SHILL
(1D. Scams : CON JOBS)
A shill is someone planted, perhaps in an audience, with the job of feigning enthusiasm.
60. To whom Brabantio says “Thou art a villain” : IAGO
Iago is the schemer in Shakespeare’s “Othello”. Iago is a soldier who fought alongside Othello and feels hard done by, missing out on promotion. He hatches a plot designed to discredit his rival Cassio by insinuating that Cassio is having an affair with Desdemona, Othello’s wife. By the end of the play it’s Iago himself who is discredited and Othello (before committing suicide) apologizes to Cassio for having believed Iago’s lies. Heavy stuff …
61. Fit for drafting : ONE-A
The US government maintains information on all males who are potentially subject to military conscription, using what is called the Selective Service System(SS). In the event that a draft was held, men registered would be classified into groups to determine eligibility for service. Class 1-A registrants are those available for unrestricted military service. Other classes are 1-A-O (conscientious objector available for noncombatant service), 4-A (registrant who has completed military service) and 4-D (Minister of religion).
For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. ___ Mesa, Calif. : COSTA
6. Legs on an insect or strings on a guitar : HEXAD
11. Decryption org. : NSA
14. Square dance group, e.g. : OCTET
15. ___ curiae (friends of the court) : AMICI
16. Done, to Donne : O’ER
17. Author Zora ___ Hurston : NEALE
18. Sells in the stands : VENDS
19. Insult, slangily : DIS
20. Norwegian import in the dairy case : JARLSBERG CHEESE
23. Windsor’s locale: Abbr. : ONT
24. Bit of ink, for short : TAT
25. “Aw, hell!” : DAMN!
26. Some book jacket blurbs : BIOS
28. Links : GOLF COURSE
33. Not so risky : SAFER
35. Youngest 600-homer man, informally : A-ROD
36. You can hardly believe it : FLIMSY ALIBI
41. Oscar winner Jannings : EMIL
42. Inappropriate for the easily offended, say : NON-PC
45. Bit of equipment for an outdoor kids’ game : WIFFLE BALL
51. Help (out) : BAIL
52. Electronically scored duel : EPEE
53. Western treaty grp. : OAS
55. ___-Blo fuse : SLO
56. What 20-, 28-, 36- and 45-Across are : THINGS WITH HOLES
62. Cranberry locale : BOG
63. Carlos Danger, e.g. : ALIAS
64. Lavatory sign : IN USE
65. ___ Taylor (clothier) : ANN
66. Beatnik’s percussion : BONGO
67. Ring-tailed primate : LEMUR
68. ___ judicata : RES
69. “S.N.L.” bit : SPOOF
70. Northern Scandinavians : LAPPS
Down
1. Scams : CON JOBS
2. Where Polynesia is : OCEANIA
3. Go from square one : START OFF
4. Blow the whistle, so to speak : TELL
5. “This is only ___” : A TEST
6. Can’t help but : HAVE TO
7. E.M.T. part: Abbr. : EMER
8. Ped ___ : XING
9. Aussie rockers with a knickers-clad lead guitarist : AC/DC
10. Potluck choice : DISH
11. Spouse’s refusal : NO, DEAR
12. Earth movers? : SEISMS
13. Literary sleuth ___ Lupin : ARSENE
21. Do a supermarket task : BAG
22. Ending of many an e-mail address : EDU
27. French seasoning : SEL
29. Grammy-winning Eric Clapton tune : LAYLA
30. ___ diavolo : FRA
31. Potter or Klink: Abbr. : COL
32. Valhalla ruler : ODIN
34. Cambodian currency : RIEL
37. Marseilles Mrs. : MME
38. Bro, for one : SIB
39. Flapper’s do : BOB
40. Struggling at the plate, say : IN A SLUMP
43. Amasses, as debt : PILES UP
44. Sales pros : CLOSERS
45. Party room fixture : WET BAR
46. “The Internet in your pocket” sloganeer, once : IPHONE
47. Fakes : FEIGNS
48. Sedge locale : FEN
49. Many : LOTS OF
50. “Well, ___-di-dah” : LAH
54. Participant in 1-Down : SHILL
57. Chews the rag : GABS
58. Zero-star fare : SLOP
59. Rotgut buyer, perhaps : WINO
60. To whom Brabantio says “Thou art a villain” : IAGO
61. Fit for drafting : ONE-A
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