0829-14 New York Times Crossword Answers 29 Aug 14, Friday

Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across
1. Poll Internet users on, perhaps : CROWDSOURCE
“Crowdsourcing” is mainly an online phenomenon, and is the solicitation of perhaps services, ideas or content from a large group of people. “Crowdsourcing” is a portmanteau of “crowd” and “outsourcing”. One example of crowdsourcing is “crowdfunding”, where an individual solicits many small contributions from a large number of people to fund a project.

16. W. Coast airport one might think has poor security? : LAX
Los Angeles International Airport is the sixth busiest airport in the world in terms of passenger traffic, and the busiest here on the West Coast of the US. The airport was opened in 1930 as Mines Field and was renamed to Los Angeles Airport in 1941. On the airport property is the iconic white structure that resembles a flying saucer. This is called the Theme Building and I believe it is mainly used as a restaurant and observation deck for the public. The airport used to be identified by the letters “LA”, but when the aviation industry went to a three-letter standard for airport identification, this was changed to “LAX”. Apparently the “X” has no significant meaning.

18. Middle-earth baddie : ORC
Orcs are mythical humanoid creatures that appear in the writings of J. R. R. Tolkien. Since Tolkien’s use of orcs, they have also been featured in other fantasy fiction and in fantasy games.

19. Short order? : REG
Regulation (reg.)

20. Kiwi’s companion : MATE
Unlike many nicknames for people of a particular country, the name “Kiwi” for a New Zealander isn’t offensive at all. The term comes from the flightless bird called the kiwi, which is endemic to New Zealand and is the country’s national symbol. “Kiwi” is a Maori word, and the plural (when referring to the bird) is simply “kiwi”. However, when you have two or more New Zealanders with you, they are Kiwis (note the “s”, and indeed the capital “K”!).

21. Longtime N.F.L. coach whose name is French for “the handsome” : LEBEAU
Dick LeBeau is considered by many to be one of the football’s greatest defensive coordinators. He is currently on the staff of the Pittsburgh Steelers.

23. Ordinary person : PLEB
“Plebe” is a slang term for a freshman in the US military and naval academies. Plebe is probably short for “plebeian”, an adjective describing someone of the common class in Ancient Rome, one of the “plebs” (a singular collective noun). “Pleb” is a shortened version of plebeian, and is a term used outside of the military schools to mean “commoner”.

25. Soprano Grist : RERI
Reri Grist is an operatic soprano from New York City who now lives in Hamburg, Germany.

27. Neighbor of St. Kitts : NEVIS
Saint Kitts is the more familiar name for Saint Christopher Island, part of the West Indies. Saint Kitts, along with the neighboring island of Nevis, is part of the country known as the Federation of Saint Kitts and Nevis. Saint Kitts has had a troubled history, with the Spanish, British and French all vying for control of the island. Most of the population today is descended from slaves brought onto Saint Kitts to farm tobacco and then sugar cane. Most of the slaves were from Africa, although Irish and Scottish slaves were also used.

30. Anti-Mafia measure, briefly : RICO
The RICO act is more correctly called the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. The law was used largely to prosecute members of the Mafia in the seventies, and has been applied more broadly since.

32. Eliot title surname : 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).

35. “Miss Julie” composer, 1965 : NED ROREM
American composer Ned Rorem is famous for his musical compositions, but also for his book, “Paris Diary of Ned Rorem” that was published in 1966. Rorem talks openly about his sexuality in the book, and also about the sexuality of others including Noel Coward, Leonard Bernstein and Samuel Barber, much to some people’s chagrin.

37. Ray often seen over a range : RACHAEL
Rachael Ray is a celebrity chef and host of several shows on the Food Network television channel. Ray comes from a family that owned and managed a number of restaurants in the northeast of the country. One of Ray’s TV shows is “$40 a Day”, in which she demonstrates how to visit various cities in North America and Europe and eat three meals and a snack on a daily budget of just $40.

42. He played John Glenn in 1983 and John McCain in 2012 : ED HARRIS
Ed Harris played future US Senator John Glenn in 1983’s “The Right Stuff”, and US Senator John McCain in 2012’s “Game Change”.

Ed Harris is a very talented actor, noted for two great performances in movies about the Space Program. He played John Glenn in “The Right Stuff” in 1983, his “breakthrough” role. Twelve years later he has a stellar performance as the flight director Gene Kranz in “Apollo 13”.

John Glenn is a retired Marine Corps pilot, astronaut and US Senator. As an astronaut, Glenn was the first American to orbit the earth, in 1962, and later became the oldest person to fly in space, in 1998.

John McCain went into the US Naval Academy in 1958, following a family tradition as his father and grandfather were both four-star admirals. The younger McCain did not achieve the same rank, retiring from the Navy as a captain in 1981, but his career development was interrupted by almost six years spent as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam. John McCain has been a US Senator from Arizona since 1987.

44. Bo Jackson was one in ’89 : MVP
Bo Jackson is a former professional baseball and football player. Jackson was named All-Star in both sports, the first athlete to be so honored.

45. Mideast’s Gulf of ___ : ADEN
The Gulf of Aden is the body of water that lies south of the Red Sea, and just north of the Horn of Africa.

46. Department store chain founder : MACY
The original Macy’s store was opened by Rowland Hussey Macy in Haverhill, Massachusetts in 1851. This store, and several others that Macy opened, all failed. Macy picked himself up though, and started over again in New York City. Those early New York stores all focused on the sale of dry goods, but added departments quickly as the clientele grew. The Macy’s “star” logo has been around since the company was first established. Macy chose the star because it mimicked the star tattoo that he got as a teenager when he was working on a whaling ship out of Nantucket.

48. Like un bébé : PETIT
In French, a baby (un bébé) is small (petit).

52. Costa ___ : RICAN
Costa Rica is a country in Central America, bordered by Nicaragua in the north, and Panama to the South. Costa Rica is remarkable in my opinion, a leader on the world stage in many areas. It has been referred to as the “greenest” country in the world, the “happiest” country in the world, and has a highly educated populace. In 1949, the country unilaterally abolished its own army … permanently!

54. Whaler’s direction? : THAR
Thar (there) she blows!

56. Angela Lansbury, e.g. : DAME
Angela Lansbury is a veteran actress and singer from London. Lansbury has been entertaining professionally for over 70 years now. She has won five Tony Awards, a number that has only be equalled by Julie Harris and Audra McDonald. My wife and I watched Lansbury in the 1944 film “Gaslight” the other night, her first film role. Lansbury played Jessica Fletcher on the small screen in “Murder, She Wrote”.

57. Group sharing a culture : ETHNOS
Ethnos: an ethnic group.

59. Year Bush was re-elected : MMIV
President George W. Bush defeated opponent John Kerry in the 2004 US presidential election.

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

The Kroger supermarket chain is the largest grocery store company in the US. It is also the second largest retailer in the country, after Walmart, and the fifth largest retailer in the world. The company was founded in 1883 in Cincinnati, Ohio by Barney Kroger.

63. Singer known as “La Divina” : MARIA CALLAS
Although the operatic soprano Maria Callas was born in New York City, she was educated in music in Greece, and launched her career in Italy. Her marvelous performances earned her the nickname “La Divina”, and she was described by Leonard Bernstein as “the Bible of opera …”

Down
2. Doc Savage portrayer : RON ELY
Ron Ely is most famous for playing the title role in the “Tarzan” TV series in the sixties. Years later, Ely hosted the 1980 and 1981 “Miss America” pageants right after longtime host Bert Parks retired, before the job was taken over by Gary Collins. And Ely is a successful mystery novelist. He wrote “Night Shadows” and “East Beach” in the mid-nineties, both of which featured his private eye Jake Sands.

“Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze” is a 1975 film starring Ron Ely in the title role. The movie is based on a series of pulp magazine stories featuring the adventurer Doc Savage. This one bombed at the box office, and was overwhelmed by the 1975 blockbuster “Jaws”.

3. Cousin of a donkey : ONAGER
The onager is also known as the Asiatic wild ass. The onager is a little larger than a donkey, and looks like a cross between a donkey and a horse. One characteristic of the onager is that is remarkably “untamable”.

6. Cool red giant : S STAR
Stars are usually classified based on the color of the light that they emit. These classifications are, from hottest to coolest, O, B, A, F, G, K and M. One way to remember the order of these letters is to use the mnemonic “Oh, be a fine girl, kiss me”. The colors of these stars range from blue (class O) to red (class M). Our sun is class G, a yellow star, but I think we all know that …

Red giants are very large stars with a relatively low mass. The atmosphere of a red giant is also very inflated and extends a long way into space so the surface of that atmosphere that we see is relatively cool, which gives it a red color. Stars are classified by their spectral characteristics, basically the color of the light they emit. As such, red giants are classified as M stars. Cool red giants are of a color beyond the usual range, and are classified as S stars.

7. The world, to a go-getter? : OYSTER
The oft-used idiom “the world is your oyster” means that you are in a position to take advantage of all that life has to offer. This is yet another phrase that was coined by playwright William Shakespeare, in “The Merry Wives of Windsor”.

Falstaff: I will not lend thee a penny.
Pistol: Why then the world’s mine oyster/Which I with sword will open.

9. Travel option: Abbr. : RTE
Route (rte.)

11. Football Hall-of-Famer Tunnell : EMLEN
Emlen Tunnell was the first African American to play for the New York Giants football team. Tunnell was also the first African American inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, being so honored in 1967.

13. Bo Jackson was one in ’89 : LA RAIDER
The Oakland Raiders football team was founded in 1960, and was originally intended to play in Minnesota. Instead, the team played in Oakland from 1960 to 1981 and then spent 12 years in Los Angeles before returning to Oakland in 1995.

22. Played like Bird or Trane : BEBOPPED
Charlie Parker was a Jazz saxophonist, who was often just called “Bird” or “Yardbird”. He was a leader in the development of the style of jazz called “bebop”, which gained popularity in the forties. Charlie Parker had a rough life outside of music. He was a heroin addict, and a heavy drinker. When he died, the coroner who performed his autopsy estimated his age as between 50 and 60 years old based on the appearance of his body and condition of his organs. He was actually 34-years-old when he died in a New York City hotel room in 1955.

John Coltrane was a jazz saxophonist who also went by the nickname “Trane”. John’s son Ravi Coltrane is also a noted jazz saxophonist.

24. Notable lifelong bachelor in U.S. history : BUCHANAN
James Buchanan was US President just prior to the Civil War. He was the only president from the state of Pennsylvania, and also the only president who remained a bachelor for the whole of his life. As he was unmarried, Buchanan’s niece Harriet Lane acted as First Lady. Buchanan earned the nickname “Ten-Cent Jimmie” during the 1856 presidential election campaign. He was famous for his claim that ten cents a day was enough for a working man to live on.

26. Player of Fin Tutuola on TV : ICE-T
Rapper Ice-T must be sick of having his name come up as an answer in crossword puzzles. Maybe he should have stuck to his real name, Tracy Marrow? Then again, maybe not … Ice-T has been interested in acting for decades and made his film debut in the 1984 movie about break-dancing called “Breakin’”. He has also played Detective Fin Tutuola in the TV show “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” since the year 2000.

29. Host of 1950s TV’s “Bank on the Stars” : PAAR
Jack Paar was most famous as the host of “The Tonight Show”, from 1957 to 1962. When he died in 2004, “Time” magazine wrote that Paar was “the fellow who split talk show history into two eras: Before Paar and Below Paar”. Very complimentary …

“Bank on the Stars” is a TV game show that originally aired in the fifties. The game involved two teams being quizzed about scenes from famous movies.

31. Longtime Laker Lamar : ODOM
Lamar Odom is a basketball forward playing for the LA Clippers. Apparently Odom loves candy, and that’s how he earned his nickname, “The Candy Man”. Odom is married to Khloé Kardashian, and the couple’s wedding featured on an episode of the reality show “Keeping Up with the Kardashians”. Not a show that I have ever seen …

34. Salon job : PERM
“Perm” is the name given to a permanent wave, a chemical or thermal treatment of hair to produce waves or curls. I don’t worry about such things, as it’s a number-one all over for me …

36. Answer, quickly : RSVP
RSVP stands for “répondez s’il vous plaît”, which is French for “please, answer”.

39. Neighbor of Georgia : CHECHNYA
Chechnya is a federal subject of Russia located in the North Caucasus in the very southwest of the country. The capital of Chechnya is Grozny. In the days of the USSR, Chechnya was part of the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (ASSR). The former ASSR was subsequently divided into the Chechen Republic and the Republic of Ingushetia. The Chechen Republic declared independence from the Russian Federation, which resulted in the First Chechen War, fought from 1994 to 1996. Boris Yeltsin’s government in Moscow signed a peace treaty ending the war and ceding autonomy to Chechnya. However, Chechnya-based Islamic fighters invaded Dagestan in 1999, at which point Russian troops entered Chechnya again, starting the Second Chechen War. The second conflict raged until 2009, when the Russians withdrew many of their troops having severely disabled the capabilities of the Chechen separatists.

40. “South Pacific” girl : LIAT
Liat is a character in the musical “South Pacific”, a young native woman who falls in love with an American marine.

The 1949 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical “South Pacific” is based on stories from the 1947 book “Tales of the South Pacific” by James A. Michener. “South Pacific” really is a classic show, featuring some classic songs like “Bali Ha’i”, “I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair”, “Some Enchanted Evening” and “Happy Talk”.

43. Political theorist Carl : SCHMITT
Carl Schmitt was a major philosopher and political theorist from Germany. His work and views is regarded by some as controversial due to his association with the Nazi Party. For a while Schmitt was known as “the crown jurist of the Third Reich”.

47. Steinway competitor : YAMAHA
The Japanese company Yamaha started out way back in 1888 as a manufacturer of pianos and reed organs. Even though the company has diversified since then, Yamaha’s logo still reflects it musical roots. Even on Yamaha motorcycles you can see a logo made up of three intersecting tuning forks.

Steinway & Sons is supplier of handmade pianos based in New York City and in Hamburg, Germany. The company was founded in Manhattan in 1853 by German immigrant Henry E. Steinway. One element of Steinway’s business model is to offer a “piano bank” service. Performing artists can “borrow” a particular piano from the bank for a particular concert or tour. About 400 pianos are in the bank, and are located over the world. The value of the bank’s collection of pianos is estimated at over $25 million.

53. ESPN analyst Garciaparra : NOMAR
Nomar Garciaparra is one of only thirteen players to have hit two grand slams during a single game in the Majors. He accomplished the feat in 1999 for the Boston Red Sox against the Seattle Mariners.

65. Fighting Tigers’ sch. : LSU
The LSU Tigers are the sports teams of Louisiana State University, officially known as the Fightin’ Tigers, with the school mascot of “Mike the Tiger”. The name comes from the days of the Civil War, when two Louisiana brigades earned the nickname the “Louisiana Tigers”.

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For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. Poll Internet users on, perhaps : CROWDSOURCE
12. Inn stock : ALE
15. Code often used for take-home tests : HONOR SYSTEM
16. W. Coast airport one might think has poor security? : LAX
17. Summed up : IN A NUTSHELL
18. Middle-earth baddie : ORC
19. Short order? : REG
20. Kiwi’s companion : MATE
21. Longtime N.F.L. coach whose name is French for “the handsome” : LEBEAU
23. Ordinary person : PLEB
25. Soprano Grist : RERI
27. Neighbor of St. Kitts : NEVIS
28. Symbol of sentimentality : SYRUP
30. Anti-Mafia measure, briefly : RICO
32. Eliot title surname : BEDE
33. Budgetary concern : CAP
35. “Miss Julie” composer, 1965 : NED ROREM
37. Ray often seen over a range : RACHAEL
41. As surplus : TO SPARE
42. He played John Glenn in 1983 and John McCain in 2012 : ED HARRIS
44. Bo Jackson was one in ’89 : MVP
45. Mideast’s Gulf of ___ : ADEN
46. Department store chain founder : MACY
48. Like un bébé : PETIT
52. Costa ___ : RICAN
54. Whaler’s direction? : THAR
56. Angela Lansbury, e.g. : DAME
57. Group sharing a culture : ETHNOS
59. Year Bush was re-elected : MMIV
61. Kroger alternative : IGA
62. Mark, as a survey square : X IN
63. Singer known as “La Divina” : MARIA CALLAS
66. Natural rock climber : IVY
67. Words following an understatement : AND THEN SOME
68. Leaves on a trolley, say : TEA
69. “Don’t worry …” : REST ASSURED

Down
1. In-flight calls? : CHIRPS
2. Doc Savage portrayer : RON ELY
3. Cousin of a donkey : ONAGER
4. Secured : WON
5. One expected to get beaten : DRUM
6. Cool red giant : S STAR
7. The world, to a go-getter? : OYSTER
8. Mark the start of : USHER IN
9. Travel option: Abbr. : RTE
10. Word with wall or tower : CELL
11. Football Hall-of-Famer Tunnell : EMLEN
12. Juice source for a trendy drink : ALOE VERA
13. Bo Jackson was one in ’89 : LA RAIDER
14. Response to an insult : EXCUSE ME!
22. Played like Bird or Trane : BEBOPPED
24. Notable lifelong bachelor in U.S. history : BUCHANAN
26. Player of Fin Tutuola on TV : ICE-T
29. Host of 1950s TV’s “Bank on the Stars” : PAAR
31. Longtime Laker Lamar : ODOM
34. Salon job : PERM
36. Answer, quickly : RSVP
37. Means of furtive escape : REAR EXIT
38. 12-Down, often : ADDITIVE
39. Neighbor of Georgia : CHECHNYA
40. “South Pacific” girl : LIAT
43. Political theorist Carl : SCHMITT
47. Steinway competitor : YAMAHA
49. Suitable job? : TAILOR
50. “Count me in” : I’M GAME
51. Like big hair, often : TEASED
53. ESPN analyst Garciaparra : NOMAR
55. Sieves, in a way : RICES
58. Not unhinged : SANE
60. Relocation transportation : VANS
64. Travel options: Abbr. : RDS
65. Fighting Tigers’ sch. : LSU

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