0203-14 New York Times Crossword Answers 3 Feb 14, Monday

Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across
1. ___ of the Apostles : ACTS
The Acts of the Apostles is the fifth book of the New Testament. It is believed that the author of the Gospel of Luke was the same person who wrote “Acts”.

15. “Essays of ___” (1823 volume) : ELIA
Charles Lamb published a famous collection of essays simply entitled “Essays of Elia”. Elia was actually a clerk and co-worker of Charles Lamb, whereas Lamb was the author.

16. French farewell : ADIEU
“Adieu” is the French for “goodbye” or “farewell”, from “à Dieu” meaning “to God”.

17. Leader of Qatar : EMIR
Qatar is a sovereign state in the Middle East occupying the Qatar Peninsula, itself located in the Arabian Peninsula. Qatar lies on the Persian Gulf and shares one land border, with Saudi Arabia to the south. Qatar has more oil and gas reserves per capita of population than any other country in the world. In 2010, Qatar had the fastest growing economy in the world, driven by the petrochemical industry.

18. Run ___ (go wild) : AMOK
The phrase “to run amok” (sometimes “to run amuck”) has been around since the 1670s and is derived from the Malay word for “attacking furiously”, “amuk”. The word “amok” was also used as a noun to describe Malay natives who were “frenzied”. Given Malaya’s troubled history, the natives probably had good reason for that frenzy …

19. Mechanical man : ROBOT
Karel Čapek was a Czech writer noted for his works of science fiction. Čapek’s 1920 play “R.U.R.” is remembered in part for introducing the world to the word “robot”. The words “automaton” and “android” were already in use, but Capek gave us “robot” from the original Czech “robota” meaning “forced labor”. The acronym “R.U.R.”, in the context of the play, stands for “Rossum’s Universal Robots”.

23. Chicago trains : ELS
The Chicago “L” is the second largest rapid transit system in the US, with the New York City Subway being the largest. The “L” is also the second oldest, again with the New York City Subway system having the honor of being around the longest. Note that the official nickname for the system is the “L” (originally short for “elevated railroad”), although the term “El” is also in common use (especially in crosswords as “ELS”). The L is managed by the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA).

28. Texter’s “If you ask me …” : IMO
In my opinion (IMO)

31. First pilot to travel faster than the speed of sound : CHUCK YEAGER
Chuck Yeager enlisted as a private in the US Army Air Forces in 1941, starting out as an aircraft mechanic. With the onset of the war at the end of the year, Yeager was able to enroll in flight school. In 1943 he was posted overseas, and flew P-51 Mustangs out of the south of England. He was shot down over France in 1944 and escaped to Spain with the aid of the French Resistance. His 11.5 accredited victories includes five downed aircraft in one mission (making him an “ace in a day”), and one of the first air-to-air kills of a jet fighter. Yeager doesn’t live too far from here, and a friend of mine was honored to have breakfast with him not so long ago …

35. Florida city between Tampa and Fort Myers : SARASOTA
Sarasota is a city on Florida’s Gulf Coast. The area was noted on maps in the mid-1700s as “Zara Zote”, perhaps a local name. The name became “Sara Sota” when European settlers arrives in the late 1840s, and finally “Sarasota” in 1902.

37. Egyptian peninsula : SINAI
The Sinai Peninsula is in the eastern part of Egypt, the triangular peninsula bounded by the Mediterranean to the north and the Red Sea to the south. It is the only part of Egypt that lies in Asia as opposed to Africa. The eastern land border of the peninsula is shared with Israel, and Israel occupied the Sinai during the 1956 Suez Crisis and the Six Day War of 1967.

42. Snorkasaurus of toondom : DINO
In the Hanna-Barbera cartoon “The Flintstones”, Dino the pet dinosaur was voiced by the famous Mel Blanc, until Blanc passed away in 1989.

50. Hosp. areas : ERS
Emergency Rooms (ERs)

51. Barrett of Pink Floyd : SYD
Syd Barrett was the lead singer and a founding member of the English rock band Pink Floyd. Barrett was only active as a musician for just over ten years. He retired from the music scene in 1975 and spent the next 30 years living off Pink Floyd royalties until he passed away in 2006.

Pink Floyd were an English rock band founded in 1965. The band’s most famous albums were probably “The Dark Side of the Moon” and “The Wall”.

61. Everglades critter : GATOR
The Everglades are a tropical wetlands that cover much of southern Florida. The area was named “River Glades” by a British surveyor in 1773, and is suggested that poor transcription of the word “river” led to the use of “ever”. The southern 20% of the Everglades is a protected region that we know as Everglades National Park. The park is the third largest National Park in the lower 48 states, after Death Valley NP (the largest) and Yellowstone NP.

66. Chicago airport : O’HARE
O’Hare International is the fourth busiest airport in the world. The original airport was constructed on the site between 1942 and 1943, and was used by the Douglas Aircraft Company for the manufacture of planes during WWII. Before the factory and airport were built, there was a community in the area called Orchard Place, so the airport was called Orchard Place Airport/Douglas Field. This name is the derivation of the airport’s current location identifier: ORD (OR-chard D-ouglas). Orchard Place Airport was renamed to O’Hare International in 1949 in honor of Lieutenant Commander Edward O’Hare who grew up in Chicago. O’Hare was the US Navy’s first flying ace and a Medal of Honor recipient in WWII. As an aside, Edward O’Hare’s father was a lawyer for Al Capone who helped get the famous gangster convicted on tax evasion.

69. Cold-weather jacket : PARKA
A parka is a hooded, often fur jacket that is worn in cold weather. The original parka was a pullover design, but nowadays it is usually zipped at the front. “Parka” is the Russian name for the garment , absorbed into English in the late 1700s via the Aleut language.

Down
1. Baldwin of “30 Rock” : ALEC
Alec is the oldest of the acting Baldwin brothers. I think Alec’s big break was playing Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan in “The Hunt for Red October”, but thank goodness that role was taken over by Harrison Ford for the subsequent Jack Ryan movies. Baldwin made a name for himself in recent times playing Jack Donaghy on “30 Rock”, opposite Tina Fey. He has also hosted the sketch show “Saturday Night Live” on more occasions than anyone else (16 times).

3. “Double, double, ___ and trouble” : TOIL
As the three witches in Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” are boiling up their evil brew, they call out all the exotic ingredients. Stirring away they also repeat several times the famous lines:
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.

5. Air rifle pellets : LEAD SHOT
A BB gun is an air pistol or rifle that shoots birdshot known as BBs. Birdshot comes in a number of different sizes, from size 9 (0.080″ in diameter) to size FF (.23″). 0.180″ diameter birdshot is size BB, which gives the airgun its name.

6. ___ mater : ALMA
The literal translation for the Latin term “alma mater” is “nourishing mother”. “Alma mater” was used in Ancient Rome to refer to mother goddesses, and in Medieval Christianity the term was used to refer to the Virgin Mary. Nowadays, one’s alma mater is the school one attended, either high school or college, usually one’s last place of education.

7. Fashionable Christian : DIOR
Christian Dior was a French fashion designer. As WWII approached, Dior was called up by the French military, imposing a temporary halt to his career in fashion. He left the army in 1942 and for the duration of the war designed clothes for wives of Nazi officers and French collaborators. After the war his designs became so popular that he helped re-establish Paris as the fashion center of the world.

9. Fourth of July and Veterans Day events : PARADES
On 11 June 1776, the Continental Congress appointed a committee of five people to draft a declaration of independence. Included in the five were John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. Adams persuaded the other committee members to give Jefferson the task of writing the first draft. A resolution of independence was passed by the Congress on 2 Jul 1776. The final draft of the declaration was approved by the Congress two days later, on July 4th. John Adams wrote a letter to his wife that included an assertion that July 2nd (the date of the resolution of independence) would become a great American holiday. Of course Adams was wrong, and it was actually the date the Declaration of Independence was finalized that came to be celebrated annually.

Veterans Day used to be known as Armistice Day, and is observed on November 11th each year. This particular date was chosen as the Armistice that ended WWI was signed on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918.

12. Co. head : CEO
Chief executive officer (CEO)

21. Pennant race inits. : NLCS
The National League Championship Series (NLCS) is a round of postseason games played by teams from Major League Baseball’s National League to determine which team will go to the World Series.

22. Big name in ice cream : EDY
Dreyers’ ice cream sells its products under the name Dreyers in the Western United States, and Edy’s in the Eastern states. The company’s founders were William Dryer and Joseph Edy.

27. Rap sheet listings : PRIORS
A rap sheet is a criminal record. “Rap” is a slang term dating back to the 1700s that means “blame, responsibility” as in “to take the rap”. This usage morphed into “rap sheet” in the early 1900s.

28. “Inside Llewyn Davis” actor Oscar and others : ISAACS
Oscar Isaac is an actor from Guatemala who was raised in Miami. Before acting, Isaac played lead guitar in his own band, called the Blinking Underdogs.

“Inside Llewyn Davis” is a 2013 film from the Coen brothers that stars Oscar Isaac, Casey Mulligan and John Goodman. The movie is about a week in the life of a folk singer in New York City in the early sixties. “Inside Llewyn Davis” has been well received, but based on the trailers I’ve seen, it looks a little too depressing for my taste. I could be wrong …

30. Common corsage flower : ORCHID
“Corsage” is a word we imported from French in the late 15th century. Back then we used it to mean “the size of the body”. By the early 1800s a corsage was a bodice, or the body of a woman’s dress. At the beginning of the 20th century, the French term “bouquet de corsage” was being used for a “bouquet worn on the bodice”, and this has been shortened simply to “corsage”.

32. Member of a Western tribe : UTE
The Ute is a group of Native American tribes that now resides in Utah and Colorado. The Ute were not a unified people as such, but rather a loose association of nomadic groups.

40. Zadora of “Santa Claus Conquers the Martians” : PIA
Pia Zadora is an American actress and singer. Zadora’s most famous role was in the 1982 film “Butterfly” in which she worked with Orson Welles and Stacey Keach. The film was based on the novel “The Butterfly” by James M. Cain and deals with the difficult subject of father-daughter incest.

“Santa Claus Conquers the Martians” is a science fiction film from 1964, starring JOhn Call as Santa Claus and 8-year-old Pia Zadora as a Martian child. This film has the distinction of consistently appearing on lists of the worst films ever made.

41. Like Joan of Arc : MARTYRED
Joan of Arc (also Jeanne d’Arc, her birth name) led the French Army successfully into battle a number of times during the Hundred Years War with England. When she was eventually captured, Joan was tried in Rouen, the seat of the occupying English government in France at that time. There she was burned at the stake having been found guilty of heresy. Joan of Arc was canonized some 600 years later, in 1920, and is now one of the patron saints of France.

44. Vail in the winter, e.g. : SKI AREA
The Vail Ski Resort in Colorado is the largest single-mountain ski resort in the whole country. The resort was opened in 1962, basically in the middle of nowhere. It was given the name Vail after Vail Pass which runs by the mountain (now also called Vail Mountain). The town of Vail, Colorado was established four years later in 1966, and now has a population of about 5,000.

46. Goods: Abbr. : MDSE
Merchandise (mdse.)

54. Philosopher who said “Writing is the geometry of the soul” : PLATO
Plato was a Greek philosopher and mathematician. He was a student of the equally famous and respected Socrates, and Plato in turn was the teacher and mentor of the celebrated Aristotle.

56. Corner piece in chess : ROOK
The corner piece in the game of chess is a called a rook, a word coming from the Persian word “rokh” meaning a “chariot”. The rook has also been called, perhaps incorrectly, the castle, tower, marquess and rector.

58. Shakespearean king : LEAR
Shakespeare was inspired to write his famous drama “King Lear” by the legend of “Leir of Britain”, the story of a mythological Celtic king.

59. Killer whale : ORCA
The taxonomic name for the killer whale is Orcinus orca. The use of the name “orca”, rather than “killer whale”, is becoming more and more common. The Latin word “Orcinus” means “belonging to Orcus”, with Orcus being the name for the Kingdom of the Dead.

61. Republicans, for short : GOP
The Republican Party has had the nickname “Grand Old Party” since 1875. That said, the phrase was coined in the “Congressional Record” as “this gallant old party”. It was changed to “grand old party” in 1876 in an article in the “Cincinnati Commercial”.

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For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. ___ of the Apostles : ACTS
5. Gentleman’s partner : LADY
9. Veranda : PORCH
14. Circle : LOOP
15. “Essays of ___” (1823 volume) : ELIA
16. French farewell : ADIEU
17. Leader of Qatar : EMIR
18. Run ___ (go wild) : AMOK
19. Mechanical man : ROBOT
20. January 1 to December 31 : CALENDAR YEAR
23. Chicago trains : ELS
24. Tack on : ADD
25. Little devil : IMP
28. Texter’s “If you ask me …” : IMO
31. First pilot to travel faster than the speed of sound : CHUCK YEAGER
35. Florida city between Tampa and Fort Myers : SARASOTA
37. Egyptian peninsula : SINAI
38. Curves : ARCS
39. Evening news hour : TEN PM
42. Snorkasaurus of toondom : DINO
43. Contents of some urns : ASHES
45. Line across a circle : DIAMETER
47. Area around a henhouse : CHICKEN YARD
50. Hosp. areas : ERS
51. Barrett of Pink Floyd : SYD
52. Slip of paper in a poker pot : IOU
53. Recipe meas. : TSP
55. Bright color : CANARY YELLOW
61. Everglades critter : GATOR
64. Black: Fr. : NOIR
65. Prefix with dynamic : AERO-
66. Chicago airport : O’HARE
67. Deal (with) : COPE
68. Burrito alternative : TACO
69. Cold-weather jacket : PARKA
70. Squeezed (out) : EKED
71. Spoken : ORAL

Down
1. Baldwin of “30 Rock” : ALEC
2. Result of a concussion, maybe : COMA
3. “Double, double, ___ and trouble” : TOIL
4. Binge : SPREE
5. Air rifle pellets : LEAD SHOT
6. ___ mater : ALMA
7. Fashionable Christian : DIOR
8. Gab and gab some more : YAK YAK
9. Fourth of July and Veterans Day events : PARADES
10. Aroma : ODOR
11. Tidbit often served barbecue-style : RIB
12. Co. head : CEO
13. Thatch-roofed dwelling, maybe : HUT
21. Pennant race inits. : NLCS
22. Big name in ice cream : EDY
25. Set on fire : IGNITE
26. More cruel : MEANER
27. Rap sheet listings : PRIORS
28. “Inside Llewyn Davis” actor Oscar and others : ISAACS
29. Like wetland : MARSHY
30. Common corsage flower : ORCHID
32. Member of a Western tribe : UTE
33. Checkout counter staple … or, when read as three words, what 20-, 31-, 47- and 55-Across have in common : CANDY (or “C and Y”)
34. Helper : AIDE
36. “Hold on ___!” : A SEC
40. Zadora of “Santa Claus Conquers the Martians” : PIA
41. Like Joan of Arc : MARTYRED
44. Vail in the winter, e.g. : SKI AREA
46. Goods: Abbr. : MDSE
48. Seeming eternity : EON
49. Subtlety : NUANCE
54. Philosopher who said “Writing is the geometry of the soul” : PLATO
55. Popped topper : CORK
56. Corner piece in chess : ROOK
57. “Eek!” : YIPE!
58. Shakespearean king : LEAR
59. Killer whale : ORCA
60. Winter wear material : WOOL
61. Republicans, for short : GOP
62. “Oh, I see!” : AHA!
63. Paving material : TAR

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