0930-13 New York Times Crossword Answers 30 Sep 13, Monday

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CROSSWORD SETTER: Ian Livengood
THEME: Covert Ops … today’s themed answers contain the hidden word OPS, which links the two words in each answer:

58A. Spy activities … or a hint to the answers to the six starred clues : COVERT OPS
17A. *Suddenly slam on the brakes : STOP SHORT
26A. *Top 40 music world : POP SCENE
36A. *”NYPD Blue” or “Miami Vice” : COP SHOW
49A. *Tricky tennis stroke : DROP SHOT
3D. *Stolen car destination, maybe : CHOP SHOP
38D. *Opening segment in a newscast : TOP STORY

BILL BUTLER’S COMPLETION TIME: 5m 38s
ANSWERS I MISSED: 0

Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across

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

9. Office notes : MEMOS
“Memorandum” means “thing to be remembered” in Latin, from the verb “memorare” meaning “to call to mind”.

15. One-named Nigerian singer of “The Sweetest Taboo” : SADE
Sade’s real name is Helen Folasade Adu. Although she was born in Nigeria, Sade grew up and lives in the UK. She was the lead vocalist for the English group Sade, and adopted the name of the band. The band’s biggest hits were “Smooth Operator” (1984) and “The Sweetest Taboo” (1985).

20. ___ moss (gardening purchase) : PEAT
When dead plant matter accumulates in marshy areas, it may not fully decay due to a lack of oxygen or acidic conditions. We are familiar with this in Ireland, because this decaying matter can form peat, and we have lots and lots of peat bogs.

23. Dallas hoopster, informally : MAV
The Mavericks is the name of the NBA franchise in Dallas, Texas. The team was founded in 1980, and the Mavericks name was chosen by fan votes. The choice of “Mavericks” was prompted by the fact that the actor James Garner was a part-owner of the team, and Garner of course played the title role in the “Maverick” television series.

24. Corporate jet manufacturer : CESSNA
The Cessna Aircraft manufacturing company was founded in 1911 by Clyde Cessna, a farmer from Kansas. Cessna is headquartered in Wichita and today has over 8,000 employees.

30. Means of music storage : ITUNES
iTunes is a very, very successful software application from Apple. It’s basically a media player that works on platforms like the iPad, iPhone and iPod. Of course it connects seamlessly to the iTunes Store, where you can spend all kinds of money.

36. *”NYPD Blue” or “Miami Vice” : COP SHOW
“NYPD Blue” is a police drama that was originally aired in 1993, and ran until 2005. Stars of the show are Dennis Franz, David Caruso, Jimmy Smits and Rick Schroder. The show created a bit of a fuss back in the nineties as it featured a relatively large amount of nudity for broadcast television.

“Miami Vice” is a detective television show that first aired in 1984-1989. Stars of the show are Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas. There is a 2006 film adaptation of “Miami Vice” that stars Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx.

38. Fraternity “T” : TAU
Tau is the 19th letter of the Greek alphabet, the letter which gave rise to our Roman “T”. Both the letters tau (T) and chi (X) have long been symbolically associated with the cross.

41. Strongman of the Bible : SAMSON
The Biblical figure called Samson was married to Delilah. Delilah was engaged by the Philistines to betray her husband by determining the secret of his great strength. Samson lied to his wife three times, but on the fourth asking he told his wife the truth, that he did not cut his hair. Delilah then convinced Samson to shear his locks and so allowed him to be captured by his enemies. Over the centuries, it has been usual to depict Delilah actually cutting off her husband’s hair, but the Bible actually says that she persuaded Samson to do the job himself.

43. Deluxe Cuban cigar brand : COHIBA
The brand name “Cohiba” is actually used by two cigar manufacturers. The first is produced by Habanos S.A. which is a state-owned tobacco company in Cuba. The second is produced by a US company in the Dominican Republic. The name “cohíba “ means “tobacco”.

46. Eight-armed sea creature : OCTOPUS
The name “octopus” comes from the Greek for “eight-footed”. The most common plural used is “octopuses”, although the Greek plural form “octopodes” is also quite correct. The plural “octopi” isn’t really correct as the inference is that “octopus” is like a second-declension Latin noun, which it isn’t. That said, dictionaries are now citing “octopi” as an acceptable plural.

52. Paul of “Mad About You” : REISER
“Mad About You” is a sitcom from the nineties that stars Paul Reiser and Helen Hunt as a couple living in New York City. Reiser and Hunt did well out of the success of the show, each earning one million dollars per episode for the last series.

54. Gauge showing r.p.m.’s : TACH
The tachometer takes its name from the Greek word “tachos” meaning “speed”. A tachometer measures engine revolutions per minute (rpm).

56. Ancient Greek public square : AGORA
In early Greece the “agora” was a place of assembly. Often the assemblies held there were quite formal, perhaps for the reading of a proclamation. Later in Greek history, things became less formal as the agora evolved into a market place. Our contemporary word “agoraphobia” comes from these agorae, in the sense that an agoraphobe has a fear of open spaces, a fear of “public meeting places”.

62. O’Brien of late-night TV : CONAN
Before Conan O’Brien came to fame as a late night talk show host, he was a writer. O’Brien wrote for both “Saturday Night Live” and “The Simpsons”.

64. ___ Mountains (Eurasian range) : URAL
The eastern side of the Ural Mountains in Russia is generally regarded as the natural divide between the continents of Europe and Asia.

67. Fire lover, briefly : PYRO
“Pyro-” is the combining form of the Greek word for “fire”. A pyromaniac (a “pyro”) is someone with an abnormal desire to start fires, or with a general obsession with fire.

Down
1. Faux ___ (blunder) : PAS
The term “faux pas” is French in origin, and translates literally as “false step” (or “false steps”, as the plural has the same spelling in French).

3. *Stolen car destination, maybe : CHOP SHOP
After a car is stolen it might be delivered to a “chop shop”, a workshop that can break up the vehicle so that it can be sold for parts.

5. Beatty/Hoffman bomb of 1987 : ISHTAR
I guess “Ishtar” did bomb and was a indeed a disaster, ’cause I’ve never heard of it. It stars Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman as lounge singers working in Morocco! There’s a Cold War plot and, thank goodness, it’s a comedy. It’s so bad apparently, that it never even made it to DVD.

6. Chairman whose figure overlooks Tiananmen Square : MAO
Tiananmen Square is located in the center of Beijing, China. It is the third largest city square in the world, after Merdeka Square in Jakarta, Indonesia and Praça dos Girassóis in Palmas, Brazil. Tiananmen Square can hold up to 600,000 people.

8. D.C.’s subway system : METRO
The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) provides transit service within and around Washington, D.C. The service generally goes by the name “Metro”. The authority’s two main services are Metrorail and Metrobus.

9. Goulash, e.g. : MEAT STEW
Goulash is a soup or stew that is seasoned with spices, especially paprika. It is a national dish of Hungary, and the term “goulash” comes from the Hungarian word “gulyás”, which actually translates as “herdsman”. The original goulash was a meat dish prepared by herdsman.

11. Emmy-winning AMC series set in the 1960s : MAD MEN
If you haven’t seen the AMC show “Mad Men” then I urge you to go buy the first season on DVD and allow yourself to get addicted. It is a great series set in the sixties, telling all that goes on in and around the advertising business on Madison Avenue in New York City. It brings you right back to the days of three-martini lunches, office affairs, and chain-smoking of cigarettes. Great stuff …

12. Gas rating : OCTANE
The difference between a premium and regular gasoline is its octane rating. The octane rating is measure of the resistance of the gasoline to auto-ignition i.e. it’s resistance to ignition just by virtue of being compressed in the cylinder. This auto-ignition is undesirable as multiple-cylinder engines are designed so that ignition within each cylinder takes place precisely when the plug sparks, and not before. If ignition occurs before the spark is created, the resulting phenomenon is called “knocking”.

13. Kitchen centerpieces : STOVES
Back in the 1500s, a “stove” was a heated room or a bathroom, a place where one could have a steam bath. The term started to be used to describe a device for heating or cooking in the early 1600s.

18. Yemen’s capital : SANA
Sana (also Sana’a) is the capital city of Yemen. Within the bounds of today’s metropolis is the old fortified city of Sana where people have lived for over 2,500 years. The Old City is now a World Heritage Site.

22. Vice president Agnew : SPIRO
Spiro Agnew served as Vice-President under Richard Nixon, before becoming the only VP in American history to resign because of criminal charges (there was a bribery scandal). Agnew was also the first Greek-American to serve as US Vice-President as he was the son of a Greek immigrant who had shortened the family name from Anagnostopoulos.

25. Source of many Sicilian explosions : 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.

27. Cow’s chew : CUD
Ruminants are animals that “chew the cud”. Ruminants eat vegetable matter but cannot extract any nutritional value from cellulose without the help of microbes in the gut. Ruminants collect roughage in the first part of the alimentary canal, allowing microbes to work on it. The partially digested material (the cud) is regurgitated into the mouth so that the ruminant can chew the food more completely exposing more surface area for microbes to do their work.

29. Reveille’s counterpart : TAPS
“Taps” is played nightly by the US military, indicating “lights out”. It’s also known as “Butterfield’s Lullaby” as it is a variation of an older bugle call named the “Scott Tattoo”, arranged during the Civil War by the Union Army’s Brigadier General Daniel Butterfield. The tune is called “taps”, from the notion of drum taps, as it was originally played on a drum, and only later on a bugle.

“Reveille” is a trumpet call that is used to wake everyone up at sunrise. The term comes from “réveillé”, the French for “wake up”.

33. Brit. military award : DSO
The Distinguished Service Order (DSO) is a British military award that is usually presented to officers with the rank of Major or higher.

36. Where to get a taxi : CABSTAND
We call cabs “taxis”, a word derived from “taximeter cabs” that were introduced in London in 1907. A taximeter was an automated meter designed to record distance travelled and fare to be charged. The term “taximeter” evolved from “taxameter”, with “taxa” being Latin for “tax, charge”.

37. Mutual of ___ : OMAHA
The insurance and financial services company called Mutual of Omaha was founded in 1909 as Mutual Benefit Health and Accident Association. Famously, Mutual of Omaha sponsored the television show “Wild Kingdom” from 1963 to 1988. “Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom” was resurrected in 2002 and can now be seen on the Animal Planet cable channel.

39. Fit of fever : AGUE
An ague is a fever, one usually associated with malaria.

40. Stalin’s land, in brief : USSR
Joseph Stalin was Soviet Premier from 1941 to 1953. Stalin’s real name was Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili. Not long after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1903 he adopted the name “Stalin”, which is the Russian word for “steel”.

44. Setting for TV’s “Portlandia” : OREGON
“Portlandia” is a satirical sketch show that is aired on the Independent Film Channel (IFC). The show is set in Portland, Oregon and takes its name from a statue called “Portlandia” which sits above the entrance to a building in downtown Portland. The statue is a copper repoussé work, and is second in size in the US only to the Statue of Liberty.

47. Church beliefs : CREEDS
A creed is a confession of faith, or a system of belief or principles. The word “creed” comes from the Latin “credo”, meaning “I believe”.

57. Arctic explorer John : RAE
John Rae was a Scottish explorer, who took on the task of searching for the ill-fated Franklin Expedition of 1845. The Franklin Expedition was itself searching for the elusive Northwest Passage through the Arctic Ocean connecting the Atlantic to the Pacific. John Rae stirred up much controversy back in England when he reported evidence of cannibalism among the ill-fated Franklin explorers.

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For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. Treaty : PACT
5. Muslim leader : IMAM
9. Office notes : MEMOS
14. Sore, as from overexercise : ACHY
15. One-named Nigerian singer of “The Sweetest Taboo” : SADE
16. Pass into law : ENACT
17. *Suddenly slam on the brakes : STOP SHORT
19. Expand, as a building : ADD TO
20. ___ moss (gardening purchase) : PEAT
21. Previously, in old usage : ERST
23. Dallas hoopster, informally : MAV
24. Corporate jet manufacturer : CESSNA
26. *Top 40 music world : POP SCENE
28. Fundamentally : AT HEART
30. Means of music storage : ITUNES
31. Tie the ___ (wed) : KNOT
32. Was gaga about : ADORED
35. Kennel bark : YAP
36. *”NYPD Blue” or “Miami Vice” : COP SHOW
38. Fraternity “T” : TAU
41. Strongman of the Bible : SAMSON
42. Porkers : HOGS
43. Deluxe Cuban cigar brand : COHIBA
46. Eight-armed sea creature : OCTOPUS
49. *Tricky tennis stroke : DROP SHOT
52. Paul of “Mad About You” : REISER
53. Like many workers, after age 65: Abbr. : RET
54. Gauge showing r.p.m.’s : TACH
55. Sunrise direction : EAST
56. Ancient Greek public square : AGORA
58. Spy activities … or a hint to the answers to the six starred clues : COVERT OPS
62. O’Brien of late-night TV : CONAN
63. Preowned : USED
64. ___ Mountains (Eurasian range) : URAL
65. Struck with a bent leg : KNEED
66. Rules and ___ : REGS
67. Fire lover, briefly : PYRO

Down
1. Faux ___ (blunder) : PAS
2. Circus performance : ACT
3. *Stolen car destination, maybe : CHOP SHOP
4. Prepare for printing : TYPESET
5. Beatty/Hoffman bomb of 1987 : ISHTAR
6. Chairman whose figure overlooks Tiananmen Square : MAO
7. 11-Down extra : AD REP
8. D.C.’s subway system : METRO
9. Goulash, e.g. : MEAT STEW
10. “___ of discussion!” : END
11. Emmy-winning AMC series set in the 1960s : MAD MEN
12. Gas rating : OCTANE
13. Kitchen centerpieces : STOVES
18. Yemen’s capital : SANA
22. Vice president Agnew : SPIRO
24. Like some poorly applied makeup : CAKY
25. Source of many Sicilian explosions : ETNA
27. Cow’s chew : CUD
29. Reveille’s counterpart : TAPS
33. Brit. military award : DSO
34. “Yikes!” : OH NO!
36. Where to get a taxi : CABSTAND
37. Mutual of ___ : OMAHA
38. *Opening segment in a newscast : TOP STORY
39. Fit of fever : AGUE
40. Stalin’s land, in brief : USSR
41. Nurse a beverage : SIP
42. Raise, as with a crane : HOIST UP
43. Means of music storage : CD RACK
44. Setting for TV’s “Portlandia” : OREGON
45. Definitely a day to run the A.C. : HOT ONE
47. Church beliefs : CREEDS
48. Glum drop : TEAR
50. Come to pass : OCCUR
51. “___ were the days …” : THOSE
57. Arctic explorer John : RAE
59. Relax, with “out” : VEG
60. 3, 4 or 5 on a golf course : PAR
61. ___-mo replay : SLO

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