0615-14 New York Times Crossword Answers 15 Jun 14, Sunday

Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across
7. Bumbling sergeant on “Hogan’s Heroes” : SCHULTZ
“Hogan’s Heroes” is a sitcom that ran in the late sixties and early seventies. The show starred Bob Crane as the ranking prisoner in a German POW camp during WWII. The four major German roles were played by actors who all were Jewish, and who all fled from the Nazis during the war. In fact, the Sergeant Schultz character was played by John Banner, who spent three years in a concentration camp.

14. Like a universal recipient : TYPE AB
In general, a person with type O-negative blood is a universal donor, meaning that his or her blood can be used for a transfusion into persons with any other blood type: A, B, AB or O, negative or positive (although there are other considerations). Also in general, a person with type AB-positive blood is a universal recipient, meaning that he or she can receive a transfusion of blood of any type: A, B, AB or O, negative or positive.

20. Night lights : AURORA
The spectacular aurora phenomenon is seen lighting up the night sky at both poles of the earth (the Aurora Borealis in the north, and the Aurora Australis in the south). The eerie effect is caused by charged particles colliding with atoms at high latitudes.

21. Wyoming people : ARAPAHO
The Arapaho tribe lived on the eastern plains of Colorado and Wyoming. The Arapaho traditionally wintered in small camps in the foothills of the Rockies, and then relocated to plains in the spring where they hunted the buffalo that were gathering to give birth to their young.

22. Chief Theban deity : AMEN-RA
Amun (also Amon, Amen and “Amun-Ra”) was a god in Egyptian mythology. Amun lends his name to our word “ammonia”. This is because the Romans called the ammonium chloride that they collected near the Temple of Jupiter Amun, “sal ammoniacus” (salt of Amun).

Thebes was a city in Ancient Egypt located on the river Nile, the ruins of which are now found with the bounds of the modern city of Luxor. The ruins of Ancient Thebes include the famous Luxor Temple and and Karnak Temple, as well as the Valley of the Kings and the Valley of the Queens.

23. Episode title for a cooking show featuring chicken recipes? : PREPARATION HEN (from “Preparation H”)
Preparation H is a brand of hemorrhoid treatment that works by reducing the inflammation in blood vessels. The original formulation was actually a sunburn oil that was transformed into cream for hemorrhoids.

25. Alex of “Blazing Saddles” : KARRAS
Before he became an actor, Alex Karras played football for the Detroit Lions and was also a professional wrestler. As an actor he played Mongo in 1974’s “Blazing Saddles”, and the adoptive father of the title character in the sitcom “Webster”.

26. Nixon’s veep : AGNEW
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.

31. Certain petty officer: Abbr. : YEO
In the US Navy, a yeoman is tasked with administrative and clerical work. In fact the position of yeoman is the oldest rating in the navy. You’ll see a lot of yeomen in the background on “Star Trek”.

The word “petty”, meaning “small-minded”, comes from the French word for small, “petit”. When “petty” first came into English it wasn’t used disparagingly, and was used more literally giving us terms like “petty officer” and “petty cash”.

32. Goal for a comic working the Strip? : LEAVENING LAS VEGAS (from “Leaving Las Vegas”)
“To leaven” is to lighten, as in lightening the mood. The term comes from the Latin “levare” meaning “to rise”.

“Leaving Las Vegas” is a 1995 film starring Nicolas Cage as a suicidal alcoholic who tries to drink himself to death in Las Vegas, befriending a prostitute played by Elisabeth Shue along the way. The film is based on a semi-autobiographical novel of the same name written by John O’Brien. Two weeks into production of the movie, O’Brien actually did commit suicide.

38. Ballet and others : ARTS
The term “ballet” came into English via French from the Latin “ballare” meaning “to dance”.

42. Gere’s wife in “Dr. T & the Women” : FAWCETT
Farrah Fawcett’s first big role was that of Jill Monroe, one of the famous “Charlie’s Angels”. Her life off-screen was just as celebrated as her performances on television. Fawcett was married to actor Lee Majors (“The Six Million Dollar Man”) for nine years, and then spent fifteen years with actor Ryan O’Neal.

Richard Gere has played such great roles on the screen, and I find him to be a very interesting character off the screen. Gere has been studying Buddhism since 1978 and is a very visible supporter of the Dalai Lama and the people of Tibet.

The 2000 movie “Dr. T & the Women” is a pretty good film, starring Richard Gere in the title role. There can’t be many romantic comedies about gynecologists …

43. Bit of needlework? : TAT
I think that one might be making lace here, or perhaps a tattoo …

The word “tattoo” (often shortened to “tat”) 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”.

One is “tatting” when one is making lace. The word “tatting” has been around since the 1830s, but no one seems to have unearthed its etymology.

45. What a 9-5 worker worked on? : SAAB
A SAAB 9-5 is high-end car that you can buy over here in the US. Back in Sweden the 9-5 is used as a cop car, I believe.

52. “O.K.” from Tom Sawyer : YES’M
Tom Sawyer is of course a favorite character created by Mark Twain. He turns up in four of Twain’s books:

– “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer”
– “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”
– “Tom Sawyer Abroad”
– “Tom Sawyer, Detective”

But that’s not all, as he appears in at least three works that Twain left unfinished:

– “Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer Among the Indians” (a sequel to “Huckleberry Finn”)
– “Schoolhouse Hill”
– “Tom Sawyer’s Conspiracy” (a sequel to “Tom Sawyer, Detective”)

59. German geographical name suffix : STADT
“Stadt” is the German word for “city” or “town”.

61. “___ Street Blues” : BEALE
“Beale Street Blues” is a song written by W. C. Handy and first published in 1917. The title is a reference to Beale Street in Memphis, Tennessee.

Beale Street in downtown Memphis, Tennessee is a major tourist attraction. In 1977, by act of Congress, the street was officially declared the “Home of the Blues” due to its long association with the musical genre. Apparently “Beale” is the name of some forgotten military hero.

62. Jane ___, Helen Mirren’s “Prime Suspect” role : TENNISON
Helen Mirren, one of my favorite English actresses, won her Best Actress Oscar for playing the title role in the marvelous 2006 film “The Queen”. Mirren has played three different queens on film and television including Queen Elizabeth II. She also played the title role in the TV drama “Elizabeth I”, and Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, wife of the title character in the 1994 film “The Madness of King George”.

“Prime Suspect” is an excellent British police drama starring Helen Mirren as one of the first female Detective Chief Inspector in London’s police force.

64. Roberto Benigni’s Oscar-winning role in “Life Is Beautiful” : GUIDO
Roberto Benigni is an Italian actor and director. Benigni had a major role in “Son of the Pink Panther” in which he played the illegitimate son of Inspector Clouseau played by Peter Sellers. The movie bombed in America, but made it big in Benigni’s native country of Italy. His most famous role in here in America is in the 1997 film “Life is Beautiful”, an Italian language film that won him the 1997 Oscar for Best Actor (and Benigni also directed the movie).

65. Writing tip : PEN NIB
“Nib” is a Scottish variant of the Old English word “neb”, with both meaning the beak of a bird. This usage of “nib” as a beak dates back to the 14th century, with “nib” meaning the tip of a pen or quill coming a little later, in the early 1600s.

66. Ill. neighbor : IND
The state of Illinois (Ill.) neighbors Indiana (Ind.).

67. Request to represent a Minnesota senator’s side of a debate? : CAN I BE FRANKEN? (from “can I be frank?”)
Al Franken is the junior US Senator from Minnesota. Franken won the seat in 2009 after an extremely close race, a race that he eventually won by just 312 votes. Prior to serving in the Senate, Franken was a noted satirist and writer for “Saturday Night Live”.

70. Word shouted immediately before “Feliz Año Nuevo” : UNO
In Spanish, coming up to midnight on New Year’s Eve, one might hear “five, four, three, two, one” (cinco, cuatro, tres, dos, uno) and then “Happy New Year!” (Feliz Año Nuevo!).

73. Journalist Pyle : ERNIE
Ernie Pyle was a journalist, truly a roving reporter, never happy unless he was filing stories from some remote part of the country or some far-flung corner of the globe. Pyle was noted for his intimate style of reporting, emphasizing the human element of the story. His reports written during WWII in Europe, stressing the experiences of soldiers in the front lines, won him a Pulitzer Prize in 1944. After Germany surrendered he decided to follow the war in the Pacific. One day towards the end of the war, Pyle was traveling in a jeep on the island of le Shima in the Okinawa Islands when he was hit by enemy machine gun fire and was killed. Pyle was one of very few civilians killed during WWII who was awarded the Purple Heart.

78. Lao-___ : TSE
Lao Tse (also Lao-Tzu) was a central figure in the development of the religion/philosophy of Taoism.

79. Health care company in the Fortune 100 : AETNA
When the health care management and insurance company known as Aetna was founded, the name was chosen to evoke images of Mt. Etna, the European volcano.

82. Tarzan’s response when asked if the noodles are cooked? : RAMEN TOUGH (from “Ram Tough”)
Ramen is a noodle dish composed of Chinese-style wheat noodles in a meat or fish broth flavored with soy or miso sauce. Ramen is usually topped with sliced pork and dried seaweed.

“Ram Tough” is a slogan used to market Dodge Ram trucks.

Chrysler put ram hood ornaments on all of its Dodge branded vehicles starting in 1933. When the first line of Dodge trucks and vans were introduced in 1981, they were named “Rams” in honor of that hood ornament.

88. Philip of “Kung Fu” : AHN
The actor Philip Ahn is perhaps best known for playing Master Kahn, one of Caine’s teachers on the television show “Kung Fu”. Ahn was the first Asian-American actor to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

92. Either Abby or Martha in “Arsenic and Old Lace” : AUNT
I suppose that most famously “Arsenic and Old Lace” is a Frank Capra film, released in 1944. The movie was based on a 1939 stage play by Joseph Kesselring. The film stars Cary Grant as a completely madcap and frantic Mortimer Brewster. Grant was only the fourth choice for the role, after Bob Hope, Jack Benny and Ronald Reagan. That’s quite an eclectic mix of actors …

93. Carrying one is part of a tour duty : AMP
Roadies working with a musical band on tour have to tote amps from venue to venue.

95. Performer of tricks? : YO-YO
Would you believe that the first yo-yos date back to 500 BC? There is even an ancient Greek vase painting that shows a young man playing with a yo-yo. Centuries later Filipinos were using yo-yos as hunting tools in the 1500s. “Yo-yo” is a Tagalog (Filipino) word meaning “come-come” or simply “return”.

99. Naval officer who’s an expert in astrology? : ENSIGN OF THE ZODIAC (from “Sign of the Zodiac”)
Ensign is (usually) the most junior rank of commissioned officer in the armed forces. The name comes from the tradition that the junior officer would be given the task of carrying the ensign flag.

104. Lupino and Tarbell : IDAS
Actress Ida Lupino was also a successful director, in the days when women weren’t very welcome behind the camera. Lupino had already directed four “women’s” short films when she stepped in to direct the 1953 drama “The Hitch-Hiker”, taking over when the original director became ill. “The Hitch-Hiker” was the first film noir movie to be directed by a woman, and represented somewhat of a breakthrough for women in the industry.

Ida Tarbell was a teacher and what we would call today an “investigative journalist”, although back in her day she was known as a “muckraker”. Her most famous work is her 1904 book “The History of the Standard Oil Company”. This exposé is credited with hastening the breakup of John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil in 1911.

105. Scottish hillside : BRAE
“Brae” is a lowland Scots word for the slope or brow of a hill.

106. Basketball goaltending locale : RIM
Basketball is truly an American sport. It was created in 1891 by a James Naismith at the YMCA in Springfield, Massachusetts. His goal was to create something active and interesting for his students in the gym. The first “hoops” were actually peach baskets, with the bottoms of the baskets intact. When a player got the ball into the “net”, someone had to clamber up and get the ball back out again in order to continue the game!

111. Religious ceremony for two Hollywood brothers? : COEN ORDINATION (from “coordination”)
I think it’s great to see two brothers working together and being so successful. Joel and Ethan Coen are two movie producers and directors who both live in New York City. The Coen brothers do love the movie-making business and they even married industry “insiders”. Ethan’s wife is film editor Tricia Cooke, and Joel is married to one of my favorite actresses, the lovely Frances McDormand.

117. Portmanteau landmass : EURASIA
Eurasia covers 36% of the land mass on the planet, and is home to 71% of its population.

119. Whitfield of “The Real Housewives of Atlanta” : SHEREE
“The Real Housewives of Atlanta” is the third in whole series of “Real Housewives” shows, following the original “The Real Housewives of Orange County” and “The Real Housewives of New York City”. My wife and my daughter-in-law-to-be admit to the guilty pleasure of watching the fourth in the series: “The Real Housewives of New Jersey”.

120. Flower parts : STAMENS
The stamen is the male reproductive organ of a flower. The part of the stamen known as the anther carries the pollen, which is picked up by the bee and transferred from flower to flower. The pistil is the female reproductive organ, and it accepts the pollen.

Down
7. Cannabis ___ (marijuana) : SATIVA
“Potiguaya” is the Mexican-Spanish word for “marijuana leaves”. The slang name “pot” comes from “potiguaya”.

9. Vietnamese coin : HAO
The currency of Vietnam is known as the dong. One dong is divided into ten hao, and one hao is divided into ten xu.

10. Former “Veronica Mars” airer : UPN
The actress Kristen Bell played the title role in the television series “Veronica Mars”, as well the title role in the 2008 comedy movie “Forgetting Sarah Marshall”.

13. Like London Tube pricing : ZONAL
The name “London Underground” is a little deceptive, as over half of the track system-wide is actually “over ground”, with the underground sections reserved for the central areas. It is the oldest subway system in the world, opening in 1863. It was also the first system to use electric rolling stock, in 1890. “The Tube”, as it is known by Londoners, isn’t the longest subway system in the world though. That honor belongs to the Shanghai Metro. My favorite part of the Tube is the Tube map! It is a marvel of design …

15. Diva Sumac : YMA
Yma Sumac was a Peruvian soprano. Sumac had a notable vocal range of five octaves.

18. Genesis mount : ARARAT
Mount Ararat is in Turkey. Ararat is a snow-capped dormant volcano with two peaks. The higher of the two, Greater Ararat, is the tallest peak in the country. Ararat takes its name from a legendary Armenian hero called Ara the Beautiful (or Ara the Handsome). According to the Book of Genesis, Noah’s ark landed on Mount Ararat as the Great Flood subsided.

24. Pequod captain : AHAB
Captain Ahab is the obsessed and far from friendly Captain of the Pequod in Herman Melville’s “Moby Dick”.

33. ___’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.

34. Indian bread : NAAN
Naan (also “nan”) bread is very popular in Indian restaurants, as well as in other West, Central and South Asian cuisines. Indian Naan is traditionally baked in a clay oven known as a tandoor.

35. Supermarket chain : IGA
IGA stands for Independent Grocers Alliance, a chain of supermarkets that extends right around the world. IGA’s headquarters is in Chicago.

36. Head : NOB
The slang term “nob” has been used for “head” for over 300 years, and is a variant of “knob”.

37. Bugs, of a sort : VWS
VW stands for Volkswagen, which translates from German into “people’s car”. The original Volkswagen design was the Beetle and was built under a directive from Adolf Hitler, who wanted a cheap car built that ordinary people could afford to purchase. He awarded the contract to engineer Ferdinand Porsche, whose name (paradoxically) would forever be associated with high performance, expensive cars. The Beetle was the official name of the VW model released in North America, but it was usually referred to as a “Bug” here in the US, and a “Beetle” elsewhere in the world.

44. A, but not B or C : ARTICLE
“A” is an indefinite article.

46. Pleasure seeking : HEDONISM
A hedonist is someone who seeks to maximise the amount of pleasure in his or her life. “Hedone” is the Greek word for “pleasure”.

47. Queen of “Chicago” : LATIFAH
Queen Latifah is the stage name of the multitalented Dana Owens. The name “Latifah” is Arabic in origin and translates as “delicate, very kind”. Owens found the name and was attracted to it when she was just eight years old.

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 …

48. Title girl in a 1968 hit by the Turtles : ELENORE
“Elenore” was a 1968 recording by the Turtles folk rock band.

The Turtles were a Californian rock band active in the late sixties. The biggest hit for the Turtles was 1967’s “Happy Together”.

49. Certain shoot : TENDRIL
A tendril is a specialized leaf or stem that is shaped like a spiral thread. Tendrils are used for support by climbing plants.

51. Forked over : PONIED UP
“To pony up” means “to pay”. Apparently the term originated as slang use of the Latin term “legem pone” that was once used for “money”. “Legem Pone” was the title of the Psalm that was read out on March 25 each year, and March 25 was the first payday of the year in days gone by.

52. When tripled, blah, blah, blah : YADA
“The Yada Yada Yada” is actually the name of the 153rd episode of “Seinfeld”. Before “Seinfeld” made “yada yada yada” famous, we were more likely to hear the phrase “yadda yadda”, often used by comedian Lenny Bruce for example.

54. South Pacific archipelago : VANUATU
The Republic of Vanuatu is an island nation in the South Pacific. The country became independent in 1980 after having suffered Spanish, French and British rule.

55. Truing: Var. : ALINING
“Alingin” is a variant of “aligning”, I guess …

56. Kerr of “An Affair to Remember” : DEBORAH
The lovely Deborah Kerr was a Scottish actress who made a real name for herself on the American stage and in Hollywood movies. Despite all her success, and six nominations for a Best Actress Oscar, Kerr never actually won an Academy Award. In 1967 she appeared in the James Bond film “Casino Royale” at the age of 46, making her oldest Bond Girl of all time.

“An Affair to Remember” is an outstanding Cary Grant/Deborah Kerr movie released in 1957. The film is an unusually close remake of an earlier movie, 1939’s “Love Affair” starring Irene Dunne and Charles Boyer. “An Affair to Remember” in turn loosely inspired 1993’s “Sleepless in Seattle” starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. Now I think of it, that is an amazing list of three great movies …

63. Bando of baseball : SAL
Sal Bando is a former Major League Baseball player and baseball executive. After retiring as a player, Bando worked for while as a color analyst for NBC, working alongside Bob Costas.

68. Jolly Roger in “Peter Pan,” e.g. : BRIG
A brig, short for brigantine, is a type of ship. It was the use of brigantines as prison ships that led to the use of “brig” as the word for a jail or prison cell on a seagoing vessel.

In J. M. Barrie’s play and novel about Peter Pan, Captain Hook and his crew sail on the pirate ship called the Jolly Roger.

75. Showy bloom : PEONY
The flowering plant called a peony is named for Paean, the mythical physician to the Greek gods.

77. Key of Dvorák’s Symphony No. 9 : E MINOR
Antonín Dvořák was a composer from Czechoslovakia who spent three years working and composing in the United States. He was the director of the National Conservatory of Music of America in New York from 1892 to 1895. Certainly here in the US, Dvořák’s best known work is his Symphony No. 9, “From the New World”, which is often referred to as “The New World Symphony”.

78. M&M color replaced by blue : TAN
Forrest Mars, Sr. was the founder of the Mars Company. Forrest invented the Mars Bar while living over in England and then developed M&M’s when he returned to the US. Mars came up with the idea for M&M’s when he saw soldiers in the Spanish Civil War eating chocolate pellets. Those pellets had a hard shell of tempered chocolate on the outside to prevent them from melting. Mars got some of the funding to develop the M&M from William Murrie, the son of the president of Hershey’s Chocolate. It is the “M” and “M” from “Mars” and “Murrie” that give the name to the candy.

81. Shank : SHIN BONE
The tibia is the shin bone, the larger of the two bones right below the knee. The tibia is the strongest weight-bearing bone in the human body. “Tibia” is the Roman name for a Greek flute and it is thought that the shin bone was given the same name because flutes were often fashioned out of the shin bones of animals.

82. Luxuriousness : RITZ
The adjective “ritzy” meaning “high quality and luxurious” derives from the opulent Ritz hotels in New York, London, Paris etc.

Cesar Ritz was a Swiss hotelier, who had a reputation for developing the most luxurious of accommodations and attracting the wealthiest clientèle. He opened the Hotel Ritz in Paris in 1898, and the second of his most famous hotels, the Ritz Hotel in London, in 1906. Ritz was lucky in his career, as before starting his own hotel chain, he had been dismissed from the Savoy Hotel in London, implicated in the disappearance of a substantial amount of wine and spirits.

83. River whose source is Mount Saint Helena : NAPA
The Napa River in California drains the famous wine-growing region. A lot of people around the world are familiar with the Napa River and don’t realise it. It was the river that Francis Ford Coppola chose to represent the Vietnamese Nung River in the movie “Apocalypse Now”.

Mount Saint Helena is a peak in the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern Califonia. Back in 1880, the author Robert Louis Stevenson spent his honeymoon in an abandoned mining camp on the slopes of Mount Saint Helena. He wrote about his stay in his 1883 travel memoir “The Silverado Squatters”.

85. N.Y.C. sports venue : MSG
Madison Square Garden (MSG) is an arena in New York City used for a variety of events. In the world of sports it is home to the New York Rangers of the NHL, as well as the New York Knicks of the NBA. “The Garden” is also the third busiest music venue in the world in terms of ticket sales. The current arena is the fourth structure to bear the name, a name taken from the Madison Square location in Manhattan. In turn, the square was named for James Madison, the fourth President of the US.

89. Classic German cameras : LEICAS
Leica is a German optics company, famous for production of lenses and cameras. The 1913 Leica was the first practical camera that could use 35mm film, a size chosen because it was already the standard for film used in motion pictures.

90. – : EN DASH
In typography, there are em dashes and en dashes. The em dash is about the width of an “m” character, and an en dash about half that, the width of an “n’ character. An en dash is used, for example, to separate numbers designating a range, as in 5-10 years. Th em dash seems to be going out of style, and indeed the application I am using to write this paragraph won’t let me show you one!

91. People of Ghana: Var. : ASANTE
The Ashanti (also “Asante”) people primarily live in Ghana and Ivory Coast on the African continent.

93. Title sneaker brand in a Run-D.M.C. hit : ADIDAS
The brand name Adidas dates back to when Adolf “Adi” Dassler started making his own sports shoes in his mother’s laundry room in Bavaria after returning from WWI. With his brother, Adi founded Dassler shoes. The companies big break came in 1936 at the Berlin Olympics, when Adi persuaded American sprinter Jesse Owens to use his shoes, and with the success of Jesse Owens came success for the fledgling shoe company. After WWII the brothers split, acrimoniously. Adi’s brother, Ru-dolf Da-ssler, formed “Ruda” shoes (later to become Puma), and Adi Das-sler formed “Adidas”.

Run-D.M.C. was a hip hop group from Queens, New York. The trio took its name from two of the group’s members: Joseph “Run” Simmons and Darryl “D.M.C.” McDaniels.

94. Food critic Sheraton : MIMI
Mimi Sheraton is a food critic from Brooklyn, New York who has lived in Greenwich Village for the past 50 years.

98. Short story award : O HENRY
O. Henry was the pen name of writer William Sydney Porter from Greensboro, North Carolina. O. Henry is famous for his witty short stories that have a clever twist in the tail.

100. Mugs : FACES
The verb “mug” means to make an exaggerated facial expression. The term comes from mugs used to drink beer (called Toby mugs) that are the made in the shape of heads with grotesque expressions.

101. Politico Hatch : ORRIN
Orrin Hatch is a Republican Senator from Utah. He’s also quite the musician, and plays the piano, violin and organ. He has composed various compositions, including a song called “Heal Our Land” that was played at the 2005 inauguration of President George W. Bush.

102. County near Limerick : CLARE
One of my favorite counties in Ireland is Clare, home of the Burren, a beautiful and desolate landscape, as well as the world-famous Cliffs of Moher that greet the Atlantic Ocean.

108. Ancient artery : ITER
“Iter” is the Latin for “road”.

112. Disco ___ : ERA
Discotheques first appeared during WWII in Occupied France. American-style music (like jazz and jitterbug dances) was banned by the Nazis, so French natives met in underground clubs that they called discotheques where records were often played on just a single turntable. After the war, these clubs came out into the open. One famous Paris discotheque was called “Whiskey a Gogo”. In that Paris disco, non-stop music was played using two turntables next to a dance-floor, and this concept spread around the world.

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For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. Sack lunch staple, for short : PB AND J
7. Bumbling sergeant on “Hogan’s Heroes” : SCHULTZ
14. Like a universal recipient : TYPE AB
20. Night lights : AURORA
21. Wyoming people : ARAPAHO
22. Chief Theban deity : AMEN-RA
23. Episode title for a cooking show featuring chicken recipes? : PREPARATION HEN (from “Preparation H”)
25. Alex of “Blazing Saddles” : KARRAS
26. Nixon’s veep : AGNEW
27. “Get ___!” : HIM
28. Lighten : EASE
30. Grub : FARE
31. Certain petty officer: Abbr. : YEO
32. Goal for a comic working the Strip? : LEAVENING LAS VEGAS (from “Leaving Las Vegas”)
38. Ballet and others : ARTS
40. Court grp. : NBA
41. Awed : AGOG
42. Gere’s wife in “Dr. T & the Women” : FAWCETT
43. Bit of needlework? : TAT
45. What a 9-5 worker worked on? : SAAB
46. Caper movie plot piece : HEIST
47. Informal advice to an overeager picker? : LET ‘ER RIPEN! (from “let ‘er rip”)
52. “O.K.” from Tom Sawyer : YES’M
53. Spot, maybe : TV AD
57. Warning : ALERT
58. Floor : WOW
59. German geographical name suffix : STADT
61. “___ Street Blues” : BEALE
62. Jane ___, Helen Mirren’s “Prime Suspect” role : TENNISON
64. Roberto Benigni’s Oscar-winning role in “Life Is Beautiful” : GUIDO
65. Writing tip : PEN NIB
66. Ill. neighbor : IND
67. Request to represent a Minnesota senator’s side of a debate? : CAN I BE FRANKEN? (from “can I be frank?”)
70. Word shouted immediately before “Feliz Año Nuevo” : UNO
71. Without exception : FOR ALL
73. Journalist Pyle : ERNIE
74. Well-maintained : IN REPAIR
76. Go for ___ : A RIDE
77. Additions and subtractions, of a sort : EDITS
78. Lao-___ : TSE
79. Health care company in the Fortune 100 : AETNA
80. Command : HELM
81. Like one saying “I told you so!” : SMUG
82. Tarzan’s response when asked if the noodles are cooked? : RAMEN TOUGH (from “Ram Tough”)
84. “You dig?” reply : I’M HIP
86. Murder : DO IN
88. Philip of “Kung Fu” : AHN
89. Tries to hear better, say : LEANS IN
92. Either Abby or Martha in “Arsenic and Old Lace” : AUNT
93. Carrying one is part of a tour duty : AMP
95. Performer of tricks? : YO-YO
99. Naval officer who’s an expert in astrology? : ENSIGN OF THE ZODIAC (from “Sign of the Zodiac”)
103. “I’ll pass” : NAH
104. Lupino and Tarbell : IDAS
105. Scottish hillside : BRAE
106. Basketball goaltending locale : RIM
107. Nimble : LITHE
109. “Oh no? I’ll show you!” : CAN TOO!
111. Religious ceremony for two Hollywood brothers? : COEN ORDINATION (from “coordination”)
116. Rearward : ASTERN
117. Portmanteau landmass : EURASIA
118. It comes as a shock : TREMOR
119. Whitfield of “The Real Housewives of Atlanta” : SHEREE
120. Flower parts : STAMENS
121. Cause for burning at the stake : HERESY

Down
1. Fruit popular in Thai salads : PAPAYA
2. Turkey ___ : BURGER
3. Playground retort : ARE NOT!
4. “I don’t think so” : NOPE
5. One might say “y’all” with one : DRAWL
6. Rattle : JAR
7. Cannabis ___ (marijuana) : SATIVA
8. Fiction genre : CRIME
9. Vietnamese coin : HAO
10. Former “Veronica Mars” airer : UPN
11. “Well, ___-di-dah” : LAH
12. Option for “Which came first …?” : THE EGG
13. Like London Tube pricing : ZONAL
14. Points : TAKES AIM
15. Diva Sumac : YMA
16. Beauty ideal : PERFECT TEN
17. Incense : ENRAGE
18. Genesis mount : ARARAT
19. Like the lowest of low blows : BASEST
24. Pequod captain : AHAB
29. Most conservative : SAFEST
33. ___’acte : ENTR
34. Indian bread : NAAN
35. Supermarket chain : IGA
36. Head : NOB
37. Bugs, of a sort : VWS
39. Severe : STERN
44. A, but not B or C : ARTICLE
45. Do some needlework : SEW
46. Pleasure seeking : HEDONISM
47. Queen of “Chicago” : LATIFAH
48. Title girl in a 1968 hit by the Turtles : ELENORE
49. Certain shoot : TENDRIL
50. When repeated, a happy cry : I WON!
51. Forked over : PONIED UP
52. When tripled, blah, blah, blah : YADA
54. South Pacific archipelago : VANUATU
55. Truing: Var. : ALINING
56. Kerr of “An Affair to Remember” : DEBORAH
59. Muslim mystics : SUFIS
60. Need spelling, say : TIRE
61. Not worthy of : BENEATH
63. Bando of baseball : SAL
64. Fellow : GENT
65. According to : PER
68. Jolly Roger in “Peter Pan,” e.g. : BRIG
69. One might be brought up in a brawl : KNEE
72. Supervise : ADMINISTER
75. Showy bloom : PEONY
77. Key of Dvorák’s Symphony No. 9 : E MINOR
78. M&M color replaced by blue : TAN
81. Shank : SHIN BONE
82. Luxuriousness : RITZ
83. River whose source is Mount Saint Helena : NAPA
85. N.Y.C. sports venue : MSG
86. [Forehead slap] : DUH!
87. 1300 hours, to a civilian : ONE
89. Classic German cameras : LEICAS
90. – : EN DASH
91. People of Ghana: Var. : ASANTE
92. Paid for dinner, say : ATE OUT
93. Title sneaker brand in a Run-D.M.C. hit : ADIDAS
94. Food critic Sheraton : MIMI
96. Punctually : ON TIME
97. Bozos : YAHOOS
98. Short story award : O HENRY
100. Mugs : FACES
101. Politico Hatch : ORRIN
102. County near Limerick : CLARE
108. Ancient artery : ITER
110. Iron ___ : ORE
112. Disco ___ : ERA
113. ’60s service site : NAM
114. Sugar suffix : -OSE
115. Ultimate : NTH

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