0120-14 New York Times Crossword Answers 20 Jan 14, Monday

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CROSSWORD SETTER: Elizabeth C. Gorski
THEME: MLK Jr … today’s themed answers commemorate the “I have a Dream” speech made by Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1963 in Washington, D.C.

17A. Site of a 1963 speech by 38-Across : LINCOLN MEMORIAL
30A. Cause associated with 38-Across : CIVIL RIGHTS
38A. Annual Jan. honoree : MLK JR
49A. Repeated phrase in 38-Across’s speech at the 17-Across : I HAVE A DREAM
65A. Famous closing words of the 49-Across speech : WE ARE FREE AT LAST!

BILL BUTLER’S COMPLETION TIME: 06m 54s
ANSWERS I MISSED: 0

Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across

1. Modern set in the family room : HDTV
High-definition television (HDTV)

5. Family name of Henry VIII : TUDOR
The Wars of the Roses was a series of civil wars fought for the throne of England between the rival Houses of Lancaster and York. Ultimately the Lancastrians emerged victorious after Henry Tudor defeated King Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth Field. Henry was crowned King Henry VII, and so began the Tudor dynasty. Henry Tudor united the rival houses by marrying his cousin Elizabeth of York. Henry VII had a relatively long reign of 23 years that lasted until his death, after which his son succeeded to the throne as Henry VIII, continuing the relatively short-lived Tudor dynasty. Henry VIII ruled from 1509 until his death in 1547. Henry VIII was the last male to lead the the House of Tudor, as his daughter Queen Elizabeth I died without issue. When Elizabeth died, the Scottish King James VI succeeded to the throne as James I of England and Ireland. James I was the first English monarch of the House of Stuart.

14. Suffix with buck : -AROO
The American English word “buckaroo” comes from “vaquero”, the Spanish for cowboy.

15. Tehran native : IRANI
Tehran is the capital of Iran and is the largest city in the Middle East, with a population of about 8.5 million. Iran has been around an awful long time and Tehran is actually the country’s 31st national capital.

16. Samoa’s capital : APIA
Apia is the capital city, and in fact the only city, of the Pacific island-nation of Samoa. The harbor of Apia is famous for a very foolish incident in 1889 involving seven naval vessels from Germany, the US and Britain. A typhoon was approaching so the safest thing to do was to head for open water away from land, but no nation would move its ships for fear of losing face in front of the others. Six of the ships were lost in the typhoon as a result and 200 American and German sailors perished. The British cruiser HMS Calliope barely managed to escape from the harbor and rode out the storm safely.

17. Site of a 1963 speech by 38-Across : LINCOLN MEMORIAL
The Lincoln Memorial is my favorite place to visit in the whole of Washington D.C. The memorial was designed by Henry Bacon, and the sculptor of the magnificent statue of President Lincoln was Daniel Chester French. I spent a wonderful afternoon not too long ago touring the workshop and home of French, in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. The workshop is stunning, with miniature studies for his magnus opus, the Lincoln Statue, as well as many other beautiful works.

22. George Eliot’s “Adam ___” : BEDE
“Adam Bede” was the first novel written by the English writer George Eliot (aka Mary Ann Evans). It was published in 1859 and has been in print since then, over 150 years.

George Eliot was the pen name of English novelist Mary Anne Evans. As one might think, Evans chose a male pen name in order that her work might be best appreciated in the Victorian era. Eliot wrote seven novels including “Adam Bede” (1859), “The Mill on the Floss” (1860), “Silas Marner” (1861) and “Middlemarch” (1871-72).

26. Boston ___ Party : TEA
The famous destruction of tea in Boston Harbor to protest against the Tax Act took place on December 16, 1773. The action was referred to as the “destruction of the tea” for decades, and it wasn’t until 1834 that the term “Boston Tea Party” first appeared in print.

27. Boeing 747, e.g. : JET
The first jet to be called a “Jumbo” was Boeing’s 747, as it was the first wide-body airliner. This means that it was the first to have seating laid out with two aisles running the length of the plane. The plane also has three decks for part of its length, with the lower deck being used for cargo and galley space, and the upper deck for extra passenger seating. The Airbus A380 is called a “Superjumbo” as it has two full decks of passengers.

33. Docs’ org. : AMA
American Medical Association (AMA)

35. Actress Saldana of “Avatar” : ZOE
American actress Zoe Saldana played the Na’vi princess in “Avatar”, and Uhura in the 2009 movie “Star Trek”. Saldana seems to pick the right movies, as she is the only actress to have three different films in the top twenty at the box office for three consecutive weeks (“Avatar”, “The Losers” and “Death at a Funeral”).

36. “Morning Joe” co-host Brzezinski : MIKA
Mika Brzezinski is a journalist and television host from New York City. Mika is the daughter of Zbigniew Brzezinski, the former National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter. Ms. Brzezinski made a marvelous on-air protest against trivial journalism in 2007 on the MSNBC show “Morning Joe”. Producers placed a gossip piece about Paris Hilton as the top story for her to read during her news segment, over a story about Republican Senator Richard Lugar speaking out against President Bush on the Iraq War. Believing the Hilton piece to be trivial journalism, Brzezinski tore up story on air, tried to set it afire and eventually placed it in a shredder. Well done, I say …

38. Annual Jan. honoree : MLK JR
Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is a US Federal holiday taking place on the third Monday of each year. It celebrates the birthday of Dr. King, and was signed into law by President Reagan in 1983, and first observed in 1986. However, some states “resisted” naming the holiday MLK Day, and gave it alternative names (like “Civil Rights Day”), but it was officially celebrated as MLK Day in all 50 states from the year 2000 onwards.

44. When a plane is due to take off: Abbr. : ETD
Expected time of departure (ETD)

46. Long narrative poem : EPOS
“Epos” is the Greek word for a story or a poem. We have absorbed it into English as “epic”, a long narrative poetic work describing heroic deeds and ventures.

48. Three on a grandfather clock : III
There are several sizes of “longcase clocks”, tall, freestanding clocks driven by a pendulum swinging inside a tower below the clock face. A longcase clock over 6 feet tall is called a grandfather, and one below five feet is a granddaughter, One that falls between five and six feet is known as a grandmother. The name of the clock derives from an 1876 song called “My Grandfather’s Clock”.

49. Repeated phrase in 38-Across’s speech at the 17-Across : I HAVE A DREAM
I remember listening to the full text of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr’s “I have a dream …” speech not long after I moved to this country. I think I am man enough to admit that my eyes misted up as I listened to the words. I also recall thinking how lucky I was to have been invited to live in this great country, which was facing up to some of the sins of its past.

I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

53. Genetic stuff : RNA
Ribonucleic Acid (RNA) is an essential catalyst in the manufacture of proteins in the body. The genetic code in DNA determines the sequence of amino acids that make up each protein. That sequence is read in DNA by messenger RNA, and amino acids are delivered for protein manufacture in the correct sequence by what is called transfer RNA. The amino acids are then formed into proteins by ribosomal RNA.

54. Super ___ (game console) : NES
The acronym Super NES (or SNES) stands for Super Nintendo Entertainment System. Our kids probably have one somewhere …

65. Famous closing words of the 49-Across speech : WE ARE FREE AT LAST!
“Free at last” are words used by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. at the end of his “I have a dream …” speech:

And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”

68. “Rule, Britannia” composer Thomas : ARNE
Thomas Arne was an English composer from London. Arne wrote some iconic compositions including “Rule, Britannia!” He also wrote a version of “God Save the King” that became the British national anthem.

“Rule Britannia!” was a poem by James Thomson, for which Thomas Arne composed the famous music.

69. Muscat citizen : OMANI
Oman lies on the southeast coast of the Arabian Peninsula and is neighbored by the OAE, Saudi Arabia and Yemen. The capital city of Muscat has a strategic location on the Gulf of Oman and has a history of invasion and unrest. Centuries of occupation by the Persians ended in 1507 when the Portuguese took the city in a bloody attack. The Portuguese held Muscat for much of the next one hundred years until finally being ousted by local Omani forces in 1648. A Yemeni tribe invaded the area in 1741 and set up a monarchy that has been in place in Oman ever since.

70. Poet ___ Khayyám : OMAR
Omar Khayyam was a Persian with many talents. He was a poet as well as an important mathematician, astronomer and physician. A selection of his poems were translated by one Edward Fitzgerald in a collection called “Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam”. Here are some lines from “Rubaiyat” …

And that inverted Bowl we call The Sky,
Whereunder crawling coop’t we live and die,
Lift not thy hands to It for help–for it
Rolls impotently on as Thou or I.

71. “Star Wars” sage : YODA
Yoda is one of the most beloved characters in the “Star Wars” series of films. Yoda’s voice was provided by the great modern-day puppeteer Frank Oz of “Muppets” fame.

Down
1. Dutch old master Frans : HALS
Frans Hals was a painter from the Dutch Golden Age born in Antwerp but who lived and worked in Haarlem. Hals is best known for his portraits, the most famous of which is probably “The Laughing Cavalier”.

5. “___ Death” (2000s Fox sitcom) : ‘TIL
Fox’s sitcom “‘Til Death” stars Brad Garrett alongside Joely Fisher, and is a pretty good show in my humble opinion. It ran for four seasons, and was cancelled early in 2010.

9. Covered with more frost : RIMIER
Rime is that beautiful coating of ice that forms on surfaces like roofs, trees and grass, when cold water freezes instantly under the right conditions.

10. ___-mutuel betting : PARI
Parimutuel betting is a system in which the bookmaker is guaranteed a pre-determined profit. In the system, all bets are pooled, taxes and house profit are removed, and the payoff is made with the resulting pool. In some parts of the world the parimutuel system is referred to as the Tote (as indeed it is in Ireland).

12. Luxury watch brand : PIAGET
Piaget is a Swiss manufacturer of high-end watches and jewelry items. The company was founded in 1874 by Georges Piaget to make pocket watches and high-precision clock movements.

13. Does a Latin dance : SALSAS
The genre of music called salsa is a modern interpretation of various Cuban traditional music styles.

18. Vacuum cleaner brand : ORECK
The Oreck Corporation is named after founder David Oreck and is a manufacturer of vacuum cleaners and air purifiers. The company started out selling vacuum cleaners by mail, a new concept in 1963. David Oreck himself appears regularly as a spokesman in the company’s ads and infomercials.

19. David ___, baseball’s Big Papi : ORTIZ
The Dominican American baseball player David Ortiz has the nickname “Big Papi”. After each home run that Ortiz scores, he looks upwards and points to the sky, a tribute to his mother who died in a car crash in 2002 when she was only 46 years old.

23. Per ___ (by the day: Lat.) : DIEM
“Per diem” is the Latin for “by the day”. We tend to use the term for a daily allowance for expenses when traveling for work.

24. Stuntman Knievel : EVEL
Daredevil Evel Knievel contracted hepatitis C from the many blood transfusions that he needed after injuries incurred during stunts. He had to have a liver transplant as a result, but his health declined after that. He eventually passed away in 2007.

27. Smucker’s product : JAM
Smucker’s is a manufacturer of various food items, particularly fruit spreads. The company was started in 1897 by Jerome Monroe Smucker. His first product was apple butter that he sold from the back of a horse-drawn wagon.

28. Former owner of Capitol Records : EMI
EMI is a British music company, with the acronym originally standing for Electric and Musical Industries.

32. “In ___ We Trust” : GOD
“In GOd we trust” was adopted as the official motto of the US in 1956. The phrase apparently originated in the national anthem “The Star-Spangled Banner”, the words of which were written during the War of 1812. The actual wording in the anthem is “And this be our motto: ‘In God is our trust’”. Over time, these words evolved to “In God we trust”.

37. Dunes transport, briefly : ATV
All-terrain vehicle (ATV)

39. Emailed pic, often : JPEG
The JPEG file format was created by the Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG), hence the name.

An image file on a computer can be compressed so that it takes up less space. Some time the compression is “lossless” meaning even though the file is compressed, and data it is discarded, the image still looks the same. One example of data that can be discarded without loss of quality, is to not bother recording the color information of pixels that are the same color as others. Just saying “this pixel is the same is that one” takes up less space. One can compress files even more if one allows loss of quality. One well known compression algorithm that is “lossy” is the jpeg (also “.jpg”) format. The person compressing the file can decide how much quality will suffer in jpeg format, with larger files being of higher quality than the smaller ones.

40. Niagara Falls sound : ROAR
The mighty Niagara River flows from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario, and forms part of the border between the US and Canada. The river is only about 35 miles long (so some describe it as a “strait”) and has a drop in elevation of 325 feet along its length, with 165 feet of that drop taking place at Niagara Falls.

42. Take home the gold : WIN
In the Ancient Olympic Games, the winner of an event was awarded an olive wreath. When the games were revived in 1896, the winners were originally given a silver medal and an olive branch, with runners-up receiving a bronze medal and a laurel branch. The tradition of giving gold, silver and bronze medals began at the 1904 Summer Olympic Games held in St. Louis, Missouri.

43. Actress Long of “Boyz N the Hood” : NIA
Nia Long is an American actress, probably best known for playing Will Smith’s sometime girlfriend and fiancee Lisa Wilkes on the TV show “The Fresh Prince of Bel Air”.

“Boyz N the Hood” is a 1991 movie about gang culture in South Central LA. Cuba Gooding, Jr. and Ice Cube have starring roles, and the director was John Singleton. Singleton was only 23 years old at the time of filming, and his resulting nomination for a Best Director Oscar made him the youngest ever nominee for that category of Academy Award.

45. Score before ad in or ad out : DEUCE
In tennis, if the score reaches “deuce” (i.e. when both players have scored three points), then the first player to win two points in a row wins the game. The player who wins the point immediately after deuce is said to have the “advantage”. If the player with the advantage wins the next point then that’s two in a row and that player wins the game. If the person with the advantage loses the next point, then advantage is lost and the players return to deuce and try again. If the one of the players is calling out the score then if he/she has the advantage then that player announces “ad in” or more formally “advantage in”. If the score announcer’s opponent has the advantage, then the announcement is “ad out” or “advantage out”. Follow all of that …?

50. Prefix with sexual : HETERO-
“Heterosuxuality” is sexual attraction between person of the opposite gender. The profix “hetero-” comes from the Greek “heteros” meaning “different, other”.

60. College adviser : DEAN
Our use of “dean” to describe an administrative officer in an educational institution dates back to the 1570s. The term comes via the Old French “deien” from the Latin “decanus”, which was the name for the head of a group of ten monks in a monastery, and earlier still, the name for the commander of ten soldiers. So ultimately, “dean” comes from the Greek “deka” meaning “ten”.

63. What “vidi” means in “Veni, vidi, vici” : I SAW
The oft-quoted statement “Veni, vidi, vici” (“I came, I saw, I conquered”) is believed by many to have been written by Julius Caesar. The words date back to 47 BC and refer to the short war between Rome and Pharnaces II of Pontus.

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For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. Modern set in the family room : HDTV
5. Family name of Henry VIII : TUDOR
10. Canine newborns : PUPS
14. Suffix with buck : -AROO
15. Tehran native : IRANI
16. Samoa’s capital : APIA
17. Site of a 1963 speech by 38-Across : LINCOLN MEMORIAL
20. Asparagus unit : SPEAR
21. Matchmaker’s match-ups : PAIRINGS
22. George Eliot’s “Adam ___” : BEDE
25. Allow : LET
26. Boston ___ Party : TEA
27. Boeing 747, e.g. : JET
30. Cause associated with 38-Across : CIVIL RIGHTS
33. Docs’ org. : AMA
34. Enthusiastic : KEEN
35. Actress Saldana of “Avatar” : ZOE
36. “Morning Joe” co-host Brzezinski : MIKA
38. Annual Jan. honoree : MLK JR
41. Vampire’s bedtime : DAWN
44. When a plane is due to take off: Abbr. : ETD
46. Long narrative poem : EPOS
48. Three on a grandfather clock : III
49. Repeated phrase in 38-Across’s speech at the 17-Across : I HAVE A DREAM
53. Genetic stuff : RNA
54. Super ___ (game console) : NES
55. Employ : USE
56. Seize : GRAB
58. Aggressive campaign TV spot : ATTACK AD
61. New arrangement of tracks on a recording : REMIX
65. Famous closing words of the 49-Across speech : WE ARE FREE AT LAST!
68. “Rule, Britannia” composer Thomas : ARNE
69. Muscat citizen : OMANI
70. Poet ___ Khayyám : OMAR
71. “Star Wars” sage : YODA
72. Pulls apart : RENDS
73. Muted trumpet sound : WA WA

Down
1. Dutch old master Frans : HALS
2. Burning candle feature : DRIP
3. Voice inflection : TONE
4. Words, informally : VOCAB
5. “___ Death” (2000s Fox sitcom) : ‘TIL
6. Large container of coffee : URN
7. Moist : DAMP
8. Tie score early in a game, maybe : ONE ALL
9. Covered with more frost : RIMIER
10. ___-mutuel betting : PARI
11. Still undecided : UP IN THE AIR
12. Luxury watch brand : PIAGET
13. Does a Latin dance : SALSAS
18. Vacuum cleaner brand : ORECK
19. David ___, baseball’s Big Papi : ORTIZ
23. Per ___ (by the day: Lat.) : DIEM
24. Stuntman Knievel : EVEL
27. Smucker’s product : JAM
28. Former owner of Capitol Records : EMI
29. Get off the fence? : TAKE A STAND
31. Print shop device : INKER
32. “In ___ We Trust” : GOD
37. Dunes transport, briefly : ATV
39. Emailed pic, often : JPEG
40. Niagara Falls sound : ROAR
42. Take home the gold : WIN
43. Actress Long of “Boyz N the Hood” : NIA
45. Score before ad in or ad out : DEUCE
47. Brainy : SMART
49. More or less : IN A WAY
50. Prefix with sexual : HETERO-
51. Request : ASK FOR
52. “My goodness!” : DEAR ME!
57. Under : BELOW
59. Zone : AREA
60. College adviser : DEAN
62. Papa’s mate : MAMA
63. What “vidi” means in “Veni, vidi, vici” : I SAW
64. Bonus, in commercial lingo : XTRA
66. Conclusion : END
67. “___ for apple” : A IS

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