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Solution to today’s crossword in the New York Times
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CROSSWORD SETTER: Robyn Weintraub
THEME: Doctors, Sort of … today’s grid contains four actors who have famously played doctors on television. And, we have a famous line from someone playing a doctor in commercials:
26A. With 40- and 48-Across, much-mocked ad phrase that could have been said by the answers to the four starred clues : I’M NOT A DOCTOR
40A. See 26-Across : BUT
48A. See 26-Across : I PLAY ONE ON TV13A. *”Grey’s Anatomy” actor Patrick : DEMPSEY
15A. *Actress Jane who was a “Medicine Woman” : SEYMOUR
68A. *Actor Jack who was “Quincy” : KLUGMAN
69A. *”ER” actor George : CLOONEY
BILL BUTLER’S COMPLETION TIME: 7m 57s
ANSWERS I MISSED: 0
Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across
1. Cry after an epiphany : AHA!
An “epiphany” is an appearance or manifestation, especially of a supreme being. By extension, “epiphany” can also apply to a sudden insight or intuitive perception. The term derives from the Greek “epiphainein” meaning “to manifest, display”.
13. *”Grey’s Anatomy” actor Patrick : DEMPSEY
Patrick Dempsey is the actor who plays Dr. Derek Shepherd on TV’s “Grey’s Anatomy”. Dempsey is also an avid race car driver in his spare time.
“Gray’s Anatomy” is a very successful human anatomy textbook that was first published back in 1858 and is still in print today. The original text was written by English anatomist Henry Gray, who gave his name to the work. The TV medical drama “Grey’s Anatomy” is centered on the character Dr. Meredith Grey, but the show’s title is a nod to the title of the famous textbook.
15. *Actress Jane who was a “Medicine Woman” : SEYMOUR
The lovely English actress Jane Seymour was born Joyce Frankenberg. She chose her stage name after the third wife of King Henry VIII. Although Seymour has had many respected performances on the big screen, she is also famous for playing the title role on the US television show “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman”.
16. Short opera piece : ARIETTA
An arietta quite simply is a short aria.
18. Three-card hustle : MONTE
Three-card Monte is a confidence trick in which someone is goaded into betting money on the assumption that he or she can find the “money card” (usually a queen) among three cards placed face down. The “mark” who is being duped has all sorts of ways to lose and there are usually several people in on the scam, including others playing who seem to be winning.
21. Wall St. initials : NYSE
The roots of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) go back to 1792 when a group of 24 stock brokers set up the New York Stock & Exchange Board. They did so in an agreement signed under a buttonwood tree outside 68 Wall Street. That document became known as the Buttonwood Agreement.
New York’s famous “Wall Street” was originally named by the Dutch as “de Waal Straat”.
24. Hawaii’s state bird : NENE
The bird called a nene is a native of Hawaii, and is also known as the Hawaiian goose. The name “nene” is imitative of its call. When Captain Cook landed on the islands in 1778, there were 25,000 nene living there. By 1950, the number was reduced by hunting to just 30 birds. Conservation efforts in recent years have been somewhat successful.
32. Wood shaper : ADZ
An adze (also adz) is similar to an axe, but is different in that the blade of an adze is set at right angles to the tool’s shaft. An axe’s blade is set in line with the shaft.
35. Sheet music abbr. : ARR
“Arr.” is short for “arranged by”, when written on a musical score.
36. Brown beagle? : SNOOPY
The Beagle breed of dog is a scent hound, developed for tracking small game. Because of this characteristic, Beagles are often used as detection dogs in customs halls around the world. The world’s most famous Beagle is probably Charlie Brown’s Snoopy, from the comic strip “Peanuts”.
47. Fleur-de-___ : LYS
“Lys” (also “lis”) is the French word for “lily”, as in “fleur-de-lys”, the heraldic symbol often associated with the French monarchy.
64. Offshore race : REGATTA
The word “regatta” is Venetian dialect and was originally used to describe boat races among the gondoliers of Venice on the Grand Canal back in the mid-1600s.
66. Chocolaty spread since 1964 : NUTELLA
Nutella is a delicious hazelnut chocolate spread made by Ferrero, a company based in Italy. Sadly, 70% of the Nutella recipe is saturated fat and processed sugar.
68. *Actor Jack who was “Quincy” : KLUGMAN
Jack Klugman was an actor, most famous perhaps for his television roles. He played Oscar Madison in the “The Odd Couple” alongside Tony Randall, and he also played the title role in “Quincy, M.E.” On the big screen, Klugman did a marvelous job as one of the jurors in the 1957 classic “12 Angry Men”.
69. *”ER” actor George : CLOONEY
The actor George Clooney’s breakthrough role was playing Dr. Doug Ross on TV’s “ER”, although before that he had a fairly regular role on the sitcom “Roseanne”. George’s aunt was the singer and actress Rosemary Clooney.
72. Publishers’ hirees, for short : EDS
Editor (ed.)
Down
1. Douglas who wrote “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” : ADAMS
The English writer and dramatist Douglas Adams is best known for “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”. “The Hitchhiker’s Guide …” started out life as a comedy series on BBC radio in 1978, but it certainly had legs. It was adapted into stage shows, five books, a television series, computer game and a 2005 film.
3. Acid in proteins, informally : AMINO
Amino acids are essential to life in many ways, not least of which is their use as the building blocks of proteins.
9. Counterfeiter fighter : T-MAN
A T-man is a law-enforcement agent of the US Treasury (the “T” stands for Treasury).
10. U.S. equivalent to the U.K.’s Laurence Olivier Award : TONY
The full name for the Tony Award is the Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre. Antoinette Perry was an American actress and co-founder of the American Theatre Wing, one of the organizations that selects the award recipients.
Laurence Olivier has to be one of the most respected actors to come out of England in the 20th century. He had tremendous impact on stage and screen, and was never short of work on either side of the Atlantic. While working in the British film industry just before WWII, Olivier met actress Vivien Leigh. The two were already married but started an affair. Olivier travelled to Hollywood as he was cast as Heathcliff in “Wuthering Heights”, his big break in Hollywood. Leigh followed him, and found herself cast as Scarlett O’Hara in “Gone with the Wind”. The couple took Hollywood by storm, and eventually unraveled their prior marriages so that they could wed, in 1940.
11. San ___ Obispo, Calif. : LUIS
The city of San Luis Obispo is one of the oldest communities in California. The name “San Luis Obispo” translates as “Saint Louis, the Bishop of Toulouse”. In 1990, San Luis Obispo was the first municipality in the world to ban smoking in all indoor public areas.
12. Art Deco icon : ERTE
Erté was the pseudonym of French artist (Russian born) Romain de Tirtoff. Erté is the French pronunciation of his initials “R.T.”
14. ___ dish : PETRI
Julius Richard Petri was a German bacteriologist and was the man after whom the Petri dish is named. The petri dish can have an agar gel on the bottom which acts a nutrient source for the specimen being grown and studied, in which case the dish plus agar is referred to as an “agar plate”.
15. “I Want to Hold Your Hand” through “All My Loving,” on “Meet the Beatles!” : SIDE A
The cover of the 1964 album “Meet the Beatles!” describes itself as the “first” album the group released in the US. In fact, the first Beatles album was “Introducing… The Beatles”, which was released a few months earlier.
23. ___ lab : DNA
I’ve always been fascinated by the fact that the DNA of living things is so very similar across different species. Human DNA is almost exactly the same for every individual (to the degree of 99.9%). However, those small differences are sufficient to distinguish one individual from another, and to determine whether or not individuals are close family relations.
30. Nashville site, familiarly : OPRY
“The Grand Ole Opry” started out as a radio show in 1925 originally called the WSM “Barn Dance”. In 1927, the “Barn Dance” radio show was broadcast in a slot after an NBC production called “Musical Appreciation Hour”, a collection of classical works including Grand Opera. In a December show, the host of “Barn Dance” announced, “For the past hour, we have been listening to music taken largely from Grand Opera. From now on we will present the ‘Grand Ole Opry'”. That name was used for the radio show from then on.
31. Bartender’s stock : RYES
For whiskey to be labelled as “rye” in the US, it has to be distilled from at least 51% rye grain. In Canada however, a drink called rye whiskey sometimes contains no rye at all.
33. Reason to call a plumber : DRIP
“Plumbum” is the Latin for lead, explaining why the symbol of the element in the Periodic Table is “Pb”. It also explains why the original lead weight on the end of a line used to check vertical was called a “plumb line”. And, as pipes were originally made of lead, it also explains why we would call in a “plumber” if one of them was leaking.
34. Gusto : ZEAL
“Gusto” is an Italian word meaning “taste”. We use it in the sense of “with gusto”, with great enjoyment.
38. Coach Parseghian : ARA
Ara Parseghian coached the Notre Dame football team from 1964 to 1974, a period known as “The Era of Ara”.
39. Potato salad ingredient, informally : MAYO
Mayonnaise originated in the town of Mahon in Menorca, a Mediterranean island belonging to Spain. The Spanish called the sauce “salsa mahonesa” after the town, and this morphed into the French word “mayonnaise” that we use in English today.
44. 32 Beethoven pieces : SONATAS
The name “sonata” comes from the Latin and Italian words “sonare” meaning “to sound”. In music, a sonata is a piece of music that is played, as opposed to a cantata (from Latin and Italian “cantare” meaning “to sing”), a piece of music that is sung.
Ludwig van Beethoven is one of my favorite composers from the Classical period. There are two excellent films that showcase his music and give fictionalized yet entertaining accounts of different aspects of his life: “Immortal Beloved” (1994) that speculates on the identity of one of Beethoven’s lovers, and “Copying Beethoven” (2006) that explores the events leading up to the triumphant premiere of his 9th Symphony.
46. Econ. indicator : GNP
A country’s Gross National Product (GNP) is the value of all services and products produced by its residents in a particular year. GNP includes all production wherever it is in the world, as long as the business is owned by residents of the country concerned. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is different, and is the value of all services and goods produced within the borders of the country for that year.
49. Hall-of-Fame pitcher Ryan : NOLAN
Nolan Ryan is famous for having more career strikeouts that any other baseball pitcher. However, he also holds the record for the most career walks and wild pitches. Another record that Ryan holds is the most no-hitters, a total of seven over his career.
50. King in “The Little Mermaid” : TRITON
“The Little Mermaid” is a 1989 animated feature from Disney that is based on the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale of the same name. It tells the story of a mermaid princess called Ariel who falls in love with the human Prince Eric. Ariel’s father is chief merman King Triton.
54. Kanga and Roo creator : MILNE
Kanga is a friend of A. A. Milne’s “Winnie-the-Pooh”, and is a kangaroo. She is the mother of Roo, who appears more frequently in the storyline.
57. Temple receptacles : ARKS
The Torah ark is found in a synagogue, and is the ornamental container in which are stored the Torah scrolls. The word “Torah” best translates as “teaching”, I am told.
65. “Eww, I don’t want to hear about it,” in a text : TMI
Too much information! (TMI)
67. Diminutive ending : -ULE
Capsule, module, molecule etc.
For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. Cry after an epiphany : AHA!
4. Butt : END
7. Toy in a crib : RATTLE
13. *”Grey’s Anatomy” actor Patrick : DEMPSEY
15. *Actress Jane who was a “Medicine Woman” : SEYMOUR
16. Short opera piece : ARIETTA
17. “No kidding!” : I MEAN IT!
18. Three-card hustle : MONTE
19. “Where ___ go wrong?” : DID I
21. Wall St. initials : NYSE
22. Annoyed one’s bedmate, perhaps : SNORED
24. Hawaii’s state bird : NENE
26. With 40- and 48-Across, much-mocked ad phrase that could have been said by the answers to the four starred clues : I’M NOT A DOCTOR
32. Wood shaper : ADZ
35. Sheet music abbr. : ARR
36. Brown beagle? : SNOOPY
37. Whip … or something that can be whipped : CREAM
40. See 26-Across : BUT
42. Said with one’s hand on a stack of Bibles : SWORE
43. Sparkly headwear : TIARAS
45. Follow closely : DOG
47. Fleur-de-___ : LYS
48. See 26-Across : I PLAY ONE ON TV
52. ___ close to schedule : ON OR
53. Attends to hair and makeup, say : PRIMPS
57. A long way off : AFAR
61. And : ALSO
63. Bonehead : IDIOT
64. Offshore race : REGATTA
66. Chocolaty spread since 1964 : NUTELLA
68. *Actor Jack who was “Quincy” : KLUGMAN
69. *”ER” actor George : CLOONEY
70. Equilibrium : STASIS
71. Lair : DEN
72. Publishers’ hirees, for short : EDS
Down
1. Douglas who wrote “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” : ADAMS
2. Long-legged bird : HERON
3. Acid in proteins, informally : AMINO
4. Look up to : ESTEEM
5. Fishbowl accessory : NET
6. Set of two : DYAD
7. Jogs, in a way : REMINDS
8. Yes : AYE
9. Counterfeiter fighter : T-MAN
10. U.S. equivalent to the U.K.’s Laurence Olivier Award : TONY
11. San ___ Obispo, Calif. : LUIS
12. Art Deco icon : ERTE
14. ___ dish : PETRI
15. “I Want to Hold Your Hand” through “All My Loving,” on “Meet the Beatles!” : SIDE A
20. Crashers, e.g. : INTRUDERS
23. ___ lab : DNA
25. A seeming eternity : EONS
27. Celestial sphere : ORB
28. Milk dispenser : COW
29. Handyman’s belt item : TOOL
30. Nashville site, familiarly : OPRY
31. Bartender’s stock : RYES
32. Prologue follower : ACT I
33. Reason to call a plumber : DRIP
34. Gusto : ZEAL
38. Coach Parseghian : ARA
39. Potato salad ingredient, informally : MAYO
41. And : TOO
44. 32 Beethoven pieces : SONATAS
46. Econ. indicator : GNP
49. Hall-of-Fame pitcher Ryan : NOLAN
50. King in “The Little Mermaid” : TRITON
51. Single accompanier : VIDEO
54. Kanga and Roo creator : MILNE
55. Propelled, as a raft : POLED
56. Remains behind : STAYS
57. Temple receptacles : ARKS
58. Arts and crafts material : FELT
59. Rain, in Spain : AGUA
60. Cleaning cloths : RAGS
62. How much 1990s music was issued : ON CD
65. “Eww, I don’t want to hear about it,” in a text : TMI
67. Diminutive ending : -ULE
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