0806-14 New York Times Crossword Answers 6 Aug 14, Wednesday

Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across
1. Tribal symbol of luck : JUJU
“Juju” is a term used by Europeans in days gone by to describe West African religions. Today we use the term for things such as amulets and spells associated with those religions and also witchcraft.

9. Some brothers : FRAS
The title “Fra” (brother) is used by Italian monks.

13. Actress ___ Rachel Wood : EVAN
Actress Evan Rachel Wood’s most famous role to date is playing one of the leads in the 2003 movie “Thirteen”. She is working on two new films which sound intriguing, namely “Bronte” in which she plays one of the author sisters, Anne, and “Phantasmagoria: The Visions of Lewis Carroll”. Wood’s private life draws a lot of attention, especially as she was romantically linked for some time with the “outrageous” musician Marilyn Manson.

14. Singer David Lee ___ : ROTH
David Lee Roth is rock singer, who was famously the lead singer of the band Van Halen from Southern California.

16. Where business is picking up? : TAXI
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”.

17. Memorable 2005 Gulf hurricane : RITA
Hurricane Rita was a hurricane in the Atlantic in 2005 that became the most intense tropical cyclone ever seen in the Gulf of Mexico. Rita made landfall in Louisiana less than one month after the devastating Hurricane Katrina, creating a storm surge that added to the damage that had already been weather-inflicted.

18. Prudential rival : 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.

The Prudential Insurance company was started in 1875 as The Widows and Orphans Friendly Society. The company’s first product was simply burial insurance. Prudential has been using the very memorable Rock of Gibraltar logo since the 1890s.

19. French chicken dish garnished with kernels? : CORN ON THE COQ (from “corn on the cob”)
The French word “coq” actually means rooster, but a more tender bird is usually chosen for the classic French dish “coq au vin”. The most common wine used for the “vin” is burgundy, but sometimes another red wine is chosen, and you can also find on a menu “coq au Champagne” and “coq au Riesling”.

25. Philosopher who asked “What is enlightenment?” : KANT
Immanuel Kant was an 18th-century, German philosopher. Kant published “Perpetual Peace” in 1795, laying out what he believed were conditions for ending all wars and creating a lasting peace. The good news for us is that one of these conditions was to have a world full of constitutional republics, so it seems that we are on the right track here in the US!

26. Quartet on an online help page? : THE FAQ FOUR (from “the Fab Four”)
Most websites have a page listing answers to Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ). There is a link to this blog’s FAQ page at the top-right of every page.

The Beatles were described on the sleeve notes of their 1963 album “With the Beatles” as the “fabulous foursome”. The press picked up on the phrase and morphed it into “the Fab Four”.

34. Rapper with the 2008 hit “Paper Planes” : MIA
M.I.A. is the stage name of British rap artist Maya Arulpragasam.

35. It can give you a lift : T-BAR
A T-bar is a type of ski lift in which the skiers are pulled up the hill in pairs, with each pair standing (not sitting!) either side of T-shaped metal bar. The bar is placed behind the thighs, pulling along the skiers as they remain standing on their skis (hopefully!). There’s also a J-bar, a similar device but with each J-shaped bar used by one skier at a time.

38. Dancer Duncan : ISADORA
Isadora Duncan was an American dancer, inventor of American modern dance. Duncan emphasised the torso in her moves, a break from the balletic tradition of moving from the feet. She left the US when she was 22 years old and moved to Europe around 1900, and from there emigrated to the Soviet Union. Duncan had a tragic passing. She loved to travel in open automobiles wearing a long, flowing scarf. One day her scarf got wrapped around the spokes and axle of the car in which she was travelling, and broke her neck.

41. Company’s end? : INC
A company that has incorporated uses the abbreviation “Inc.” after its name. By incorporating, a company forms a corporation, which is a legal entity that has legal rights similar to those of an individual. For example, a corporation can sue another corporation or individual. However, a corporation does not have all the rights of citizens. A corporation does not have the Fifth Amendment right of protections against self-incrimination, for example. It is perhaps understandable that the concept of “corporations as persons” is a frequent subject for debate.

45. M.M.A. decision : TKO
In boxing and related sports, a knockout (KO) is when one of the fighters can’t get up from the canvas within a specified time, usually 10 seconds. This can be due to fatigue, injury, or the participant may be truly “knocked out”. A referee, fighter or doctor may also decide to stop a fight without a physical knockout, especially if there is concern about a fighter’s safety. In this case the bout is said to end with a technical knockout (TKO).

Mixed martial arts (MMA) is a full-contact combat sport in which competitors use a variety of techniques from a variety of traditional combat sports and martial arts.

47. What Ben stitched for his business partner? : JERRY QUILT (from “jerry-built”)
Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield did a correspondence course on ice-cream making in 1977 given by Pennsylvania State University’s Creamery. The following year they opened an ice cream parlor in an old gas station in Burlington, Vermont. Today Ben & Jerry’s has locations in over 20 countries around the world, and theirs was the first brand ice-cream to go into space.

50. Quad part : DORM
In a university, a dormitory (dorm) might be located around a quadrangle (quad).

52. Jets’ victory over the Colts in Super Bowl III, famously : UPSET
Super Bowl I was played in January 1967 between the Green Bay Packers and the Kansas City Chiefs. The Packers emerged victorious in a game with a score of 35-10. That game was officially known as the AFL-NFL Championship Game, as the name “Super Bowl” wasn’t applied until two seasons later. That “first” Super Bowl is now known as Super Bowl III and was played between the New York Jets and the Baltimore Colts. The Jets came out on top, a result that’s regarded as one of the greatest upsets in the history of American sports.

53. Royal ending to a mathematical proof? : QUEEN-SIZE QED (from “queen-size bed”)
The initialism QED is used at the end of a mathematical proof or a philosophical argument. The QED acronym stands for the Latin “quod erat demonstrandum” meaning “that which was to be demonstrated”.

60. Lower-class, in Leeds : NON-U
“Non-U” is a term used in the UK that originated in the fifties, referring to those who are “not upper class”. i.e. middle class. In effect, “the U” are the “upper” class, and “the non-U” are the middle class.

I went to school for a while not far from Leeds in West Yorkshire in the north of England. Prior to the Industrial Revolution, Leeds was a major center for the production and trading of wool, and then with the onset of mechanization it became a natural hub for manufacture of textiles. These days Leeds is noted as a shopping destination and so has been dubbed “the Knightsbridge of the North”.

61. Warhead carrier, for short : ICBM
An Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) is a ballistic missile with the range necessary to cross between continents. Being ballistic (as opposed to a cruise missile) an ICBM is guided during the initial launch phase, but later in flight just relies on thrust and gravity to arrive at its target. It is defined as intercontinental as it has a range greater than 3,500 miles. ICBMs are really only used for delivering nuclear warheads. Scary stuff …

66. The Time Traveler’s hosts : ELOI
In the 1895 novel by H. G. Wells called “The Time Machine”, there are two races that the hero encounter in his travels into the future. The Eloi are the “beautiful people” who live on the planet’s surface. The Morlocks are a race of cannibals living underground who use the Eloi as food.

67. Longtime teammate of 12-Down : KOBE
Kobe Bryant plays basketball for the LA Lakers. Kobe Bryant got his name from a menu would you believe? His parents were in a Japanese restaurant and liked the name of “Kobe” beef, the beef from around the city of Kobe on the island of Honshu in Japan.

70. Ones working on a case-by-case basis?: Abbr. : ESQS
The title “esquire” is of British origin and is used differently today depending on whether one is in the US or the UK. Here in America the term is usually reserved for those practicing the law (both male and female). In the UK, “esquire” is a term of gentle respect reserved for a male who has no other title that one can use. So a mere commoner like me might receive a letter from the bank say, addressed to W. E. Butler Esq.

Down
1. Black : JET
The color “jet black” takes its name from the minor gemstone known as jet. The gemstone and the material it is made of takes its English name from the French name: “jaiet”.

2. Cavalier’s sch. : UVA
The University of Virginia (UVA) was founded by Thomas Jefferson, who sat on the original Board of Visitors alongside former US Presidents James Madison and James Monroe. In fact, the original UVA campus was built on land that was once a farm belonging to President Monroe.

3. Florida port, briefly : JAX
The port city of Jacksonville, Florida (JAX) is the largest city by area in the contiguous United States (four cities in Alaska cover more land). Jacksonville was named in honor of President Andrew Jackson.

4. Trick-or-treater’s cause : UNICEF
Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF is an annual fundraiser in which trick-or-treaters can solicit small donations for UNICEF as they walk from house-to-house on Halloween.

The United Nations Children’s Fund is known by the acronym UNICEF because the organization’s original name when it was founded in 1946 was the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund.

6. Choice cut : LOIN
The cut known as “loin” is the tissue along the top of the ribs.

7. “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” lyricist Harbach : OTTO
Otto Harbach was a very successful librettist and lyricist. He was responsible for the words of many celebrated songs including “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” and “Indian Love Call”.

“Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” is a show tune classic written by Jerome Kern and Otto Harbach for their operetta “Roberta”, first performed in 1933. There was a famous cover version of “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” released by the Platters in 1958 that reached number one in the charts.

8. 1998 Alanis Morissette hit with a slangy misspelling : THANK U
Alanis Morissette is a Canadian singer-songwriter. After releasing two pop albums in Canada, in 1995 she recorded her first album to be distributed internationally. Called “Jagged Little Pill”, it is a collection of songs with more of a rock influence. The album was a huge success, the highest-selling album of the 1990s, and the highest-selling debut album by any artist at any time (selling over 30 million units).

10. Big source of coll. scholarships : ROTC
The Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) is a training program for officers based in colleges all around the US. The ROTC program was established in 1862 when as a condition of receiving a land-grant to create colleges, the federal government required that military tactics be part of a new school’s curriculum.

11. 53 for I, e.g. : AT NO
The atomic number of an element is also called the proton number, and is the number of protons found in the nucleus of each atom of the element.

The atomic number (at. no.) of iodine (O) is 53.

12. Longtime teammate of 67-Across : SHAQ
Shaquille O’Neal is one of the heaviest players ever to have played in the NBA (weighing in at around 325 pounds). Yep, he’s a big guy … 7 foot 1 inch tall.

15. “High Hopes” lyricist Sammy : CAHN
Sammy Cahn wrote for them all, including Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Doris Day. His most famous song was probably “Three Coins in the Fountain”. He also wrote “All the Way”, made famous by Frank Sinatra.

Sammy Cahn wrote the lyrics for “High Hopes” for the 1959 film “A Hole in the Head”, and the song won an Oscar that year. Frank Sinatra was the star of the movie, and he recorded the most famous version of the song.

21. Driveway topper : TAR
“Tarmac” and “macadam” is short for “tarmacadam”. In the 1800s, Scotsman John Loudon McAdam developed a style of road known as “macadam”. Macadam had a top-layer of crushed stone and gravel laid over larger stones. The macadam also had a convex cross-section so that water tended to drain to the sides. In 1901, a significant improvement was made by English engineer Edgar Purnell Hooley who introduced tar into the macadam, improving the resistance to water damage and practically eliminating dust. The “tar-penetration macadam” is the basis of what we now call Tarmac.

27. Play callers, for short : QBS
Quarterback (QB)

28. Drone regulator, in brief : FAA
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) was set up in 1958 (as the Federal Aviation Agency). The agency was established at that particular time largely in response to an increasing number of midair collisions. The worst of these disasters had taken place two years earlier over the Grand Canyon, a crash between two commercial passenger airplanes that resulted in 128 fatalities.

32. Cat collar sound : TINKLE
I think that the idea is that a cat’s collar might have a bell on it, which makes a tinkle.

33. Literary giant from Concord, Mass. : ALCOTT
The author Louisa May Alcott was raised in Concord, Massachusetts. She had quite an education and received lessons from Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Margaret Fuller, all of whom were friends of her family. Alcott’s first book was Flower Fables (1849), which he wrote for Ralph Waldo Emerson’s daughter. The Alcott family were part of the Underground Railroad that helped and housed fugitive slaves. During the Civil War, Alcott worked for a while as a nurse in the Union Hospital in Georgetown, D.C. Her most famous novels are unofficially known as the “Little Women” trilogy, namely “Little Women”, “Little Men” and “Jo’s Boys”.

36. Like the sport of jai alai : BASQUE
Basque Country is an area that covers north-central Spain and southwestern France.

Even though jai alai is often said to be the fastest sport in the world because of the speed of the ball, in fact golf balls usually get going at a greater clip. Although, as a blog reader once pointed out to me, you don’t have to catch a golf ball …

39. “Catch-22” character who “hasn’t got brains enough to be unhappy” : ORR
The bomber pilot in Joseph Heller’s novel “Catch 22” is called Orr, and he has no other name, just “Orr”.

“Catch-22” is a novel by Joseph Heller set during WWII. The title refers to absurd bureaucratic constraints that soldiers had to suffer. Heller’s “Catch 22” was invoked by an army psychiatrist to explain that any pilot requesting to be evaluated for insanity, to avoid flying dangerous missions, had to be sane as only a sane man would try to get out of such missions. The term “catch-22 has entered the language and describes a paradoxical situation from which one can’t escape due to contradictory rules; one loses, no matter what choice one makes.

48. Rapper with the autobiography “The Way I Am” : EMINEM
Rap star Eminem’s real name is Marshall Mathers, a native of Saint Joseph, Missouri. Mathers grew up poor, raised by a single-mom as the family was abandoned by his father when he was 18 months old. Marshall and his mother moved around the country before settling in a suburb of Detroit. He didn’t do well at school, and dropped out at the age of 17. But in the end he made it pretty big …

49. John who won two Pulitzers for fiction : UPDIKE
The novelist John Updike’s most famous work is the Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom series of books. Updike is one of only three authors who has won more than one Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and he did so for two of his “Rabbit” books.

The 1960 novel by John Updike called “Rabbit Run” tells the story of Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom as he tries to escape from his constraining, middle-class life. “Rabbit Run” is the first in a series of novels from Updike that feature the “Rabbit” character, the others being:

– “Rabbit Redux”
– “Rabbit is Rich”
– “Rabbit at Rest”
– “Rabbit Remembered”

53. British pound, informally : QUID
“Quid” is a slang term for a pound sterling (i.e. a UK pound). It’s not certain where the term comes from, but it is possibly derived somehow from the Latin phrase “quid pro quo” meaning “this for that”.

54. ___ Reader : UTNE
The “Utne Reader” is known for aggregation and republishing of articles on politics, culture and the environment from other sources in the media. The “Utne Reader” was founded in 1984, with “Utne” being the family name of the couple that started the publication.

55. Article in Arnsberg : EINE
“Eine” is the German indefinite article, used with feminine nouns.

Arnsberg is a German city located on the river Ruhr. Arnsberg was one of the population centers that was devastated by the RAF’s “Dambusters” attack, when the dam was breached holding back water in the Möhnesee reservoir.

56. Dreyfus Affair chronicler : ZOLA
The most famous work of French writer Émile Zola is his 1898 open letter “J’Accuse!” written to then French president Félix Faure. The letter was published on the front page of a leading Paris newspaper, and accused the government of anti-Semitism in its handling of the trial of Captain Alfred Dreyfus. Dreyfus was a Jewish military officer in the French army, falsely accused and convicted of spying for Germany. Even after the error was discovered, the government refused to back down and let Dreyfus rot away on Devil’s Island rather than admit to the mistake. It wasn’t until 1906, 12 years after the wrongful conviction, that Dreyfus was freed and reinstated, largely due to the advocacy of Emile Zola.

58. Classic Nestlé drink : QUIK
Nestlé Quik was introduced in 1948, and is a flavored powdered milk drink. It was sold in Europe as “Nesquik”, and that brand name replaced “Quik” here in the US in 1999. The Nesquik mascot is the Quik Bunny. The Quik Bunny had a large “Q” on a collar around his neck, and with the brand name change this “Q” became an “N”, and he is now known as the Nesquik Bunny.

62. Trig. function : COS
The most familiar trigonometric functions are sine, cosine and tangent. Each of these is a ratio, a ratio of two sides of a right-angled triangle. The reciprocal of these three functions are secant, cosecant and cotangent. The reciprocal functions are simply the inverted ratios, the inverted sine, cosine and tangent.

63. Summer event, briefly … or a phonetic hint to 19-, 26-, 47- and 53-Across : BBQ (sounds like “B, be Q”)
It is believed that our word “barbecue” comes from the Taíno people of the Caribbean in whose language “barbacoa” means “sacred fire pit”.

64. Año part : MES
In Spanish, a month (mes) is part of a year (año).

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For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. Tribal symbol of luck : JUJU
5. Printout problem : BLOT
9. Some brothers : FRAS
13. Actress ___ Rachel Wood : EVAN
14. Singer David Lee ___ : ROTH
15. Dust collector : CLOTH
16. Where business is picking up? : TAXI
17. Memorable 2005 Gulf hurricane : RITA
18. Prudential rival : AETNA
19. French chicken dish garnished with kernels? : CORN ON THE COQ (from “corn on the cob”)
22. Whitish : ASHEN
25. Philosopher who asked “What is enlightenment?” : KANT
26. Quartet on an online help page? : THE FAQ FOUR (from “the Fab Four”)
30. This: Sp. : ESTA
34. Rapper with the 2008 hit “Paper Planes” : MIA
35. It can give you a lift : T-BAR
36. Lie in the hot sun : BROIL
37. Frequent, in odes : OFT
38. Dancer Duncan : ISADORA
41. Company’s end? : INC
42. Totally puzzle : STUMP
44. Key periods : ERAS
45. M.M.A. decision : TKO
46. Bad character? : TYPO
47. What Ben stitched for his business partner? : JERRY QUILT (from “jerry-built”)
50. Quad part : DORM
52. Jets’ victory over the Colts in Super Bowl III, famously : UPSET
53. Royal ending to a mathematical proof? : QUEEN-SIZE QED (from “queen-size bed”)
59. Functional : UTILE
60. Lower-class, in Leeds : NON-U
61. Warhead carrier, for short : ICBM
65. Central : INNER
66. The Time Traveler’s hosts : ELOI
67. Longtime teammate of 12-Down : KOBE
68. Something good for a scout, say : DEED
69. Trick-or-treater’s wear : MASK
70. Ones working on a case-by-case basis?: Abbr. : ESQS

Down
1. Black : JET
2. Cavalier’s sch. : UVA
3. Florida port, briefly : JAX
4. Trick-or-treater’s cause : UNICEF
5. “It’s f-f-freezing!” : BRRR!
6. Choice cut : LOIN
7. “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” lyricist Harbach : OTTO
8. 1998 Alanis Morissette hit with a slangy misspelling : THANK U
9. Swifter : FLEETER
10. Big source of coll. scholarships : ROTC
11. 53 for I, e.g. : AT NO
12. Longtime teammate of 67-Across : SHAQ
15. “High Hopes” lyricist Sammy : CAHN
20. How the police might investigate someone : ON A TIP
21. Driveway topper : TAR
22. Not more than : AT MOST
23. Deceitful : SHIFTY
24. Intensify : HEAT UP
27. Play callers, for short : QBS
28. Drone regulator, in brief : FAA
29. “Atten-TION!,” e.g. : ORDER
31. “You’re right about that” : SO IT IS
32. Cat collar sound : TINKLE
33. Literary giant from Concord, Mass. : ALCOTT
36. Like the sport of jai alai : BASQUE
39. “Catch-22” character who “hasn’t got brains enough to be unhappy” : ORR
40. Flat fish : RAY
43. Patterned (after) : MODELED
47. Yearbook sect. : JRS
48. Rapper with the autobiography “The Way I Am” : EMINEM
49. John who won two Pulitzers for fiction : UPDIKE
51. British pound, informally : ONER
53. British pound, informally : QUID
54. ___ Reader : UTNE
55. Article in Arnsberg : EINE
56. Dreyfus Affair chronicler : ZOLA
57. Book of Mormon prophet : ENOS
58. Classic Nestlé drink : QUIK
62. Trig. function : COS
63. Summer event, briefly … or a phonetic hint to 19-, 26-, 47- and 53-Across : BBQ
64. Año part : MES

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