0107-14 New York Times Crossword Answers 7 Jan 14, Tuesday

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CROSSWORD SETTER: Mark Bickham
THEME: Is This Good? … today’s themed answers all start with a word that means GOOD:

18A. Aggressive swarms : KILLER BEES
24A. Facilities with padded walls : INSANE ASYLUMS
33A. Square root symbol : RADICAL SIGN
43A. One of two figures in “The Wizard of Oz” : WICKED WITCH
50A. 1969 platinum record for Creedence Clearwater Revival : BAD MOON RISING

62A. Question posed while pulling leftovers from the fridge … or a query about the initial words of 18-, 24-, 33-, 43- or 50-Across? : IS THIS GOOD?

BILL BUTLER’S COMPLETION TIME: 11m 38s
ANSWERS I MISSED: 0

Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across

5. Rocker Hendrix : JIMI
Many of his contemporaries regarded Jimi Hendrix as the greatest electric guitarist in the history of rock music. Hendrix was from Seattle and didn’t really have a really stellar start to his working life. He failed to finish high school and fell foul of the law by getting caught in stolen cars, twice. The courts gave him the option of the army or two years in prison. Hendrix chose the former and soon found himself in the famous 101st Airborne. In the army, his less-than-disciplined ways helped him (as he would have seen it) because his superiors successfully petitioned to get him discharged after serving only one year of his two-year requirement, just to get him out of their hair.

9. Ingredient in a screwdriver : VODKA
The cocktail called a screwdriver is a mix of fresh orange juice with vodka. Apparently the drink originated with a group of engineers in the late forties who used to spike small cans of orange juice with vodka, and then stir it in with their screwdrivers.

14. Online source for TV shows : HULU
Hulu.com is a website providing streaming video of full television shows. It is a joint venture of NBC and Disney, and so features a lot of their content. The service is free and is supported by advertising, but you can sign up for a premium subscription and get access to more shows. A lot of younger folks seem to use it a lot …

15. ‘Dos you don’t want to sit behind at movies : ‘FROS
The Afro hairstyle might be referred to as a ‘fro.

17. Norse war god : ODIN
In Norse mythology, Odin was the chief of the gods. Odin’s wife Frigg was the queen of Asgard whose name gave us our English term “Friday” (via Anglo-Saxon). Odin’s son was Thor, and his name gave us the term “Thursday”.

20. Glittery stone : GEODE
A geode is a rock in which there is a cavity lined or filled with crystal formations.

22. Headline event in India in 1974 and ’98 : N-TEST
India’s first test of nuclear device was in 1974, in a program called “Smiling Buddha”. This test was the first nuclear explosion by a nation outside of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council. India then conducted as series of five tests of nuclear bombs in 1998, which was code-named Operation Shakti. The second set of tests included detonation of both fission and fusion weapons.

28. Neighbor of Hung. : AUST
The name “Austria” is a Latin variant of the German name for the country: “Österreich”. “Österreich” itself means “Eastern borderlands”, a reference to the country’s history as a prefecture of neighboring Bavaria to the west.

30. Hitter’s stat : RBI
Runs batted in (RBI)

39. Florence’s river : ARNO
The Arno is the principal river in the Tuscany region of Italy, passing through the cities of Florence and Pisa. Famously the Arno flooded in 1966, the worst flood in the region for centuries. There were numerous deaths and extensive destruction of priceless art treasures, particularly in Florence.

“Firenze” is the Italian name for the city that we know in English as Florence.

42. Pinza of “South Pacific” : EZIO
Ezio Pinza was an opera singer from Italy. Pinza performed for many years with the Metropolitan Opera in New York before retiring from the Met in 1948. He then launched a career on Broadway and in Hollywood.

43. One of two figures in “The Wizard of Oz” : WICKED WITCH
In the 1939 movie “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz”, Dorothy arrives in the Land of Oz after her farmhouse is swept up in a cyclone. The farmhouse comes to ground and kills the Wicked Witch of the East. The Wicked Witch of the West arrives to claim the magical ruby slippers worn by the Wicked Witch Witch of the East. The Good Witch of the North steps in and gives the ruby slippers to Dorothy instead.

50. 1969 platinum record for Creedence Clearwater Revival : BAD MOON RISING
“Bad Moon Rising” is a song recorded by Creedence Clearwater Revival. Written by band member John Fogerty, the song was inspired by the composer watching the hurricane scene in the movie “The Devil and Daniel Webster”.

Creedence Clearwater Revival (CCR) was a rock band from San Francisco that actually played in a Southern rock style, with hits such as “Proud Mary”, “Bad Moon Rising”, “Down on the Corner” and “Who’ll Stop the Rain”.

66. Boxer’s bane : FLEAS
The boxer breed of dog (one of my favorites!) originated in Germany. My first dog was a boxer/Labrador mix, a beautiful animal. Our current family dog is a boxer/pug mix, another gorgeous creature.

67. Mixed bag : OLIO
Olio is a term meaning a hodgepodge or a mixture, coming from the mixed stew of the same name. The stew in turn takes its name from the Spanish “olla”, the clay pot used for cooking.

68. Stellar phenomenon : NOVA
A nova is basically a star that suddenly gets much brighter, gradually returning to its original state weeks or even years later. The increased brightness of a nova is due to increased nuclear activity causing the star to pick up extra hydrogen from a neighboring celestial body. A supernova is very different from a nova. A supernova is a very bright burst of light and energy created when most of the material in a star explodes. The bright burst of a supernova is very short-lived compared to the sustained brightness of a nova.

69. “Chicago” director/choreographer : FOSSE
Bob Fosse won more Tony Awards for choreography than anyone else, a grand total of eight. He also won an Oscar for Best Director for his 1972 movie “Cabaret”, even beating out the formidable Francis Ford Coppola who was nominated that same year for “The Godfather”.

The wonderful 1975 musical “Chicago” is based on a 1926 play of the same name written by a news reporter called Maurine Dallas Watkins. Watkins had been assigned to cover the murder trials of Beulah Annan and Belva Gaertner for the “Chicago Tribune”, and used the story that unfolded as the basis for her play. Annan became the character Roxie Hart, and Gaertner became Velma Kelly. I’ve only ever seen the movie version of “Chicago” and never a live performance …

70. Surrealist played by Adrien Brody in “Midnight in Paris” : DALI
The famous surrealist painter Salvador Dalí was born in Figueres, Spain. I had the privilege of visiting the Dalí Museum in Figueres some years ago, just north of Barcelona. If you ever get the chance, it’s a “must see” as it really is a quite magnificent building with a fascinating collection.

The 2011 Woody Allen movie called “Midnight in Paris” is a real gem in my opinion. I’ve never liked Woody Allen films, to be honest, mainly because I’m not a fan of Woody Allen as an actor. “Midnight in Paris” is very much a Woody Allen script, with Owen Wilson playing the role that Allen would usually reserve for himself. Wilson plays a much better Woody Allen! Highly recommended …

71. Editor’s retraction : STET
“Stet” is a Latin word meaning “let it stand”. In editorial work, the typesetter is instructed to disregard any change previously marked by writing the word “stet” and then underscoring that change with a line of dots or dashes.

Down
1. Japanese chess : SHOGI
“Shogi” is a game that is also known as Japanese Chess. The name “shogi” translates as “general’s board game”.

2. “In Memory of W. B. Yeats” poet : AUDEN
The noted poet W. H. Auden was born and raised in England, but eventually became a US citizen. As well as hundreds of poems, Auden also wrote librettos for operas, including Igor Stravinsky’s “The Rake’s Progress”.

Irish poet and dramatist William Butler Yeats won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1923 for “inspired poetry” that gave “expression to a whole nation”. Yeats was Ireland’s first Nobel laureate.

3. Ad awards : CLIOS
The Clio Awards are the Oscars of the advertising world and are named after Clio, the Greek Muse of History. Clio was also the recorder of great deeds, the proclaimer and celebrator of great accomplishments and a source of inspiration and genius. The Clio Awards were first presented in 1959.

4. It may have a cherry on top : SUNDAE
There’s a lot of speculation about how the dessert called a sundae got its name, but there seems to be agreement that it is an alteration of the word “Sunday”.

5. Alternative to Newark or La Guardia : JFK
The Idlewild Golf Course was taken over by the city of New York in 1943 and construction started on a new airport to serve the metropolis and relieve congestion at La Guardia. The Idlewild name still persists, even though the airport was named after Major General Alexander E. Anderson from the first days of the project. When the facility started operating in 1948 it was known as New York International Airport, Anderson Field. It was renamed to John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) in 1963, one month after the President was assassinated.

6. One of Chekhov’s “Three Sisters” : IRINA
The title characters in Anton Chekhov’s play “Three Sisters” were inspired by the three Brontë sisters, the English authors.

8. R&B’s ___ Brothers : ISLEY
The Isley Brothers are an R&B group from Cincinnati, Ohio. The original lineup was a vocal trio consisting of three brothers: O’Kelly, Jr., Rudolph and Ronald Isley. The three brothers wrote the fabulous 1959 hit “Shout”, the song which brought the group its first success.

10. Place to put down stakes?: Abbr. : OTB
Off-Track Betting (OTB) is the legal gambling that takes place on horse races outside of a race track. A betting parlor can be referred to as an OTB.

12. German city on a canal of the same name : KIEL
Kiel is a port city way north in Germany, lying even further north than Hamburg. The city is well known for hosting the annual Kiel Week sailing regatta, and it was twice host to the Olympic sailing events, in 1936 (the Berlin games) and 1972 (the Munich games).

The city of Kiel gives its name to the Kiel Canal, an artificial seaway stretching from Kiel on the Baltic Sea in the East to Brunsbuttel in the West on the North Sea. The canal was opened in 1895, allowing vessels to navigate directly between the North Sea and the Baltic without having to go around the Jutland Peninsula (all of Denmark, essentially). Apparently, the Kiel Canal is the most used artificial seaway in the world.

13. Lhasa ___ (dog) : APSO
The Lhasa apso breed of dog originated in Tibet and is named after Lhasa (the capital city) and apso (a Tibetan word meaning “bearded”). The Lhasa apso has been around since 800 BC and is one of the oldest breeds in the world, one very closely related to the ancestral wolf.

19. Adult ed course, often : ESL
English as a Second Language (ESL) is sometimes referred to as English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) and English as a Foreign Language (EFL).

21. ___’acte : ENTR
The term entr’acte comes to us from French, and is the interval between two acts (“entre” deux “actes”) of a theatrical performance. It often describes some entertainment provided during that interval.

26. Calliope or Euterpe : MUSE
In Greek mythology, the muses are the goddesses who inspire the creation of literature and the arts. The number of muses is a subject of debate at times, but the most popular view is that there are nine:

– Calliope (epic poetry)
– Clio (history)
– Erato (lyric poetry)
– Euterpe (music)
– Melpomene (tragedy)
– Polyhymnia (choral poetry)
– Terpsichore (dance)
– Thalia (comedy)
– Urania (astronomy)

29. End-of-week cry : TGIF
“Thank God It’s Friday” (TGIF) is a relatively new expression that originated in Akron, Ohio. It was a catchphrase used by disk jockey Jerry Healy of WAKR in the early seventies.

31. One loyal to the Union Jack, informally : BRIT
The Union Jack is a “jack” (a flag) representing the “Union” (the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland). The flag is made up of three crosses:

– The St. George’s Cross of England, a red cross (+) on a white background.
– The St. Andrew’s Cross of Scotland, a white cross (x), on a blue background.
– The St. Patrick’s Cross representing Northern Ireland, a red cross (x) on a white background.

34. Mountain ___ : DEW
If you check the can, you’ll see that “Mountain Dew” is now known as “Mtn Dew”.

35. Despot Amin : IDI
Idi Amin received most of his military training in the British armed forces, eventually achieving the highest rank possible for a Black African in the British Colonial Army in 1959, that of Warrant Officer. On his return to Uganda Amin joined his country’s military and quickly rose to the rank of Deputy Commander of the Army. During that time he was quite the athlete. He was a noted rugby player and swimmer, and for nine years held the Ugandan national light-heavyweight boxing title. By the early seventies, Amin was commander of all the armed forces of Uganda and in 1971 seized power in a military coup, displacing the country’s president Milton Obote. There followed seven years of brutal rule by Amin during which it is estimated that between 100,000 and 500,000 people were murdered. Amin was ousted from power in 1979 after a war with Tanzania, and fled to Libya where he stayed for a year. He then moved to Saudi Arabia, where he was financially supported by the Saudi Royal Family for the remainder of his life. Amin died in 2003.

49. About 60% of the world’s inhabitants : ASIANS
The world’s population breaks down by continent as follows:

– Asia 60%
– Africa 14%
– Europe 11%
– North America 8%
– South America 6%
– Australia 0.3%%
– Antarctica 0.00001%

51. More, in Madrid : MAS
Madrid is the largest city in Spain and the capital. Madrid is located very close to the geographical center of the country.

53. “Alley Oop” woman : OOOLA
“Alley Oop” is a comic strip that ran for four decades starting in 1932. “Alley Oop” was drawn by V. T. Hamlin. The title character lived in the prehistoric kingdom of Moo and had a pet dinosaur called Dinny. Alley Oop also had a girlfriend called Ooola. I had assume that Ooola’s name was a play on “hula hoop”, but that wasn’t invented until the 1950s (a kind blog reader informs me) …

58. Son of Willy Loman : BIFF
Willy, Biff and Happy Loman are all characters in Arthur Miller’s play “Death of a Salesman”. Biff and Happy are Willy’s two sons.

“Death of a Salesman” is a celebrated play by Arthur Miller, first produced in 1949. “Death of a Salesman” won a Pulitzer and several Tony Awards over the years. The “salesman” in the play is the famous character Willy Loman. The play originally opened up on Broadway and ran for 724 performances. The lead role was played by the veteran actor Lee J. Cobb.

59. Capital near the 60th parallel : OSLO
Oslo is an ancient city, founded around 1048. The medieval city was destroyed by fire in 1624 and was rebuilt by the Danish-Norwegian King Christian IV and renamed Christiania. In 1877 there was an official change of the name’s spelling to “Kristiania”, and then more recently in 1925 the name was restored to the original Oslo. Things have gone full circle as the center of Oslo, the area that would have been contained by the original medieval walls, has recently been named Christiania again.

64. “___ Hear a Waltz?” : DO I
“Do I Hear a Waltz?” is a musical by Richard Rodgers and Stephen Sondheim. The musical is based on the 1952 play “The Time of the Cuckoo”, as was the 1955 film “Summertime” starring Katharine Hepburn.

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For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. Anatomical pouches : SACS
5. Rocker Hendrix : JIMI
9. Ingredient in a screwdriver : VODKA
14. Online source for TV shows : HULU
15. ‘Dos you don’t want to sit behind at movies : ‘FROS
16. “Let ___!” (“Full speed ahead!”) : IT RIP
17. Norse war god : ODIN
18. Aggressive swarms : KILLER BEES
20. Glittery stone : GEODE
22. Headline event in India in 1974 and ’98 : N-TEST
23. ___-pitch softball : SLO
24. Facilities with padded walls : INSANE ASYLUMS
27. And more, in brief : ETC
28. Neighbor of Hung. : AUST
30. Hitter’s stat : RBI
33. Square root symbol : RADICAL SIGN
39. Florence’s river : ARNO
41. Complete makeovers : REDOS
42. Pinza of “South Pacific” : EZIO
43. One of two figures in “The Wizard of Oz” : WICKED WITCH
46. Eastern newt : EFT
47. Spoil : TURN
48. Like some baseball teams and batteries : AAA
50. 1969 platinum record for Creedence Clearwater Revival : BAD MOON RISING
58. Feathered stole : BOA
60. Joyful cry : WAHOO!
61. Equestrian, e.g. : RIDER
62. Question posed while pulling leftovers from the fridge … or a query about the initial words of 18-, 24-, 33-, 43- or 50-Across? : IS THIS GOOD?
65. Suffix with concession : -AIRE
66. Boxer’s bane : FLEAS
67. Mixed bag : OLIO
68. Stellar phenomenon : NOVA
69. “Chicago” director/choreographer : FOSSE
70. Surrealist played by Adrien Brody in “Midnight in Paris” : DALI
71. Editor’s retraction : STET

Down
1. Japanese chess : SHOGI
2. “In Memory of W. B. Yeats” poet : AUDEN
3. Ad awards : CLIOS
4. It may have a cherry on top : SUNDAE
5. Alternative to Newark or La Guardia : JFK
6. One of Chekhov’s “Three Sisters” : IRINA
7. Sloughs off : MOLTS
8. R&B’s ___ Brothers : ISLEY
9. Almost real : VIRTUAL
10. Place to put down stakes?: Abbr. : OTB
11. Number at a bridal boutique : DRESS SIZE
12. German city on a canal of the same name : KIEL
13. Lhasa ___ (dog) : APSO
19. Adult ed course, often : ESL
21. ___’acte : ENTR
25. Greeting that saves postage : E-CARD
26. Calliope or Euterpe : MUSE
29. End-of-week cry : TGIF
30. Damp and chilly : RAW
31. One loyal to the Union Jack, informally : BRIT
32. Sits on to keep warm, say : INCUBATES
34. Mountain ___ : DEW
35. Despot Amin : IDI
36. Infirmary sight : COT
37. Leave ___ (do permanent damage) : A SCAR
38. Excluding : NOT
40. Some pods : OKRA
44. How sausage links are connected : ENDWISE
45. Locks : HAIR
49. About 60% of the world’s inhabitants : ASIANS
51. More, in Madrid : MAS
52. “My heavens, no!” : OH, GOD!
53. “Alley Oop” woman : OOOLA
54. Dieter’s salad request : NO OIL
55. Bonehead : IDIOT
56. “You have some ___!” : NERVE
57. Distinguished : GREAT
58. Son of Willy Loman : BIFF
59. Capital near the 60th parallel : OSLO
63. Suffers from : HAS
64. “___ Hear a Waltz?” : DO I

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