Day: October 23, 2014

There’s a note with today’s puzzle:

A SIGN OF THE TIMES
A Crossword Contest
All the puzzles this week, from Monday to Saturday, have been created by one person, Patrick Blindauer. Keep your solutions handy, because the Saturday puzzle conceals a meta-challenge involving the solution grids of all six. When you have the answer to the meta-challenge, send it to crossword@nytimes.com. Twenty correct solvers, chosen at random, whose entries are received by 6:00 p.m. E.T. Sunday, Oct. 26, 2014, will win one-year online subscriptions to the New York Times crossword. Only one entry per person, please. The answer and winners’ names will appear on Friday, Oct. 31, at www.nytimes.com/wordplay.

We’ve been asked by Will Shortz, the New York Times puzzle editor, not to speculate about the meta-challenge until the competition ends on Sunday evening. Let’s honor that request …

Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across
7. They’re often dipped in wasabis SASHIMIS
“Sashimi” is thinly sliced raw fish, although it can also be raw meat. The word “sashimi” translates literally as “pierced body”, which may be a reference to the practice of sticking the tail and fin to sliced fish to identify it.

Sometimes called Japanese horseradish, wasabi is a root used as a condiment in Japanese cooking. The taste of wasabi is more like mustard than a hot pepper in that the vapors that create the “hotness” stimulate the nasal passages rather than the tongue. Personally, I love the stuff …

15. Best at a buffet, say OUTEAT
Our word “buffet” comes from the French “bufet” meaning “bench, sideboard”. So, a buffet is a meal served from a “bufet”.

16. Tabasco turnover EMPANADA
An empanada is a dish made by folding pastry around cooked meat and vegetables. To me an empanada looks very similar to a dish I grew up with called a Cornish pasty.

Tabasco is one of Mexico’s 31 states, and is located in the very southeast of the country.

17. Camry competitor ALTIMA
Nissan has been making the Altima since 1993. In 2007 the company started to produce a hybrid version, Nissan’s first foray into the hybrid market and a successful one by all accounts. Altima hybrids are even used as police cruisers by the New York Police Department.

The Toyota Camry takes its name from the Japanese word for “crown”. Toyota management likes the idea of naming their cars after the word “crown”, as they did with the Toyota Crown, followed by the Toyota Corona (Latin for crown) and the Toyota Corolla (Latin for small crown).

18. ___ Brewster, “Arsenic and Old Lace” role MORTIMER
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 …

19. Classic Jag XKE
Jaguar started out as a manufacturer of sidecars for motorcycles back in 1922, when the company was known as the Swallow Sidecar Company (SS for short). The company changed its name to Jaguar after WWII, because of the unfortunate connotations of the letters “SS” at that time.

20. Common street name ELM
The most common street name in the US is “Second Street”. “First Street” comes in only at number three, and this is because many cities and towns forego the use of “First” and instead go with “Main” or something more historical in nature. “Elm Street” appears on the list at number fifteen.

22. The French way? RUE
“Rue” is the French word for “street”.

23. Spanish pronoun ESA
In Spanish, the other (otra) is neither this (esta) not that (esa).

24. Competitor of Clark and Emerson in coll. athletics MIT
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) was founded in 1861 and first offered classes in 1865, in the Mercantile building in Boston. Today’s magnificent campus on the banks of the Charles River in Cambridge opened in 1916.

Clark University is a private school in Worcester, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1887 by businessman Jonas Gilman Clark. It appears that Clark was inspired to establish a university by his friend Leland Stanford, who founded Stanford University a couple of years earlier, in 1885.

Emerson College is a private school located in downtown Boston. It was founded by Charles Wesley Emerson in 1880 as the Boston Conservatory of Elocution, Oratory and Dramatic Art.

34. Griffin who created “Jeopardy!” MERV
Merv Griffin was quite the entertainer, truly a mogul in the business. He started his career as a singer on the radio during the big band era. In the sixties he hosted his own talk show, and then famously developed such great game shows as “Jeopardy!” and “Wheel of Fortune”.

40. Michael of “Weekend Update” on “S.N.L.” CHE
Michael Che is a standup comedian from New York City. Che had worked as a writer for “Saturday Night Live” (SNL), and started to appear in front of SNL cameras in September 1914 as co-anchor for the “Weekend Update” segment of the show.

43. One of 17 on a Monopoly board: Abbr. AVE
The street names in the US version of Monopoly are locations in or around Atlantic City, New Jersey.

46. ___-serif SANS
Serifs are details on the ends of characters in some typefaces. Typefaces without serifs are known as sans-serif (using the French word “sans” meaning “without”). Some people say that serif fonts are easier to read on paper, whereas sans-serif fonts work better on a computer screen. I’m not so sure though …

48. Cricket club BAT
Cricket is the national game of England. The term “cricket” apparently comes from the Old French word “criquet” meaning “goalpost, stick”.

50. Holds CITADELS
A citadel is a fortress built to protect a town or a city. Both the words “city” and “citadel” come from the Latin word “civis” meaning “citizen”.

56. Where the ball drops on New Year’s Eve … as depicted literally in four places in this puzzle TIM(ES SQUARE)
The famous New Year’s Eve ball-dropping tradition in Times Square, New York started on January 1st 1908. The original time ball was lit with one hundred 25-watt light bulbs and was dropped at one second after midnight. A fifth version of the ball was introduced in 2008 for the centennial anniversary of the ceremony. The 2008 ball was built by Waterford Crystal and was lit by 9,567 LED bulbs that consumed the same amount of power as ten electric toasters. The current ball was used for the first time in 2009, and is double the size of the 2008 ball at 12 feet in diameter. The ball now sits atop Times Square year round, so you can go see it next time you are in town …

58. Want-ad abbr. EOE
Equal Opportunity Employer (EOE)

59. Speed HIE
“To hie” is to move quickly, to bolt.

61. California’s ___ River EEL
The Eel River in California was named in 1850 by an explorer Josiah Gregg after he made a trade with some Native Americans, swapping a frying pan for a large catch of eels.

67. One of the Brothers Karamazov DMITRI
“The Brothers Karamazov” is the last novel completed by Russian author Fyodor Dostoyevsky, as the author died just four months after it was published.

69. Brewed beverage ESPRESSO
Espresso is made by forcing extremely hot water, under pressure, through finely ground coffee beans. The result is a thick and concentrated coffee drink, which contains quite a lot of solids and a lot of foam. An espresso machine was first patented in 1884 in Italy, although it was a machine to make the beverage in bulk. The first patent for a machine that made individual measures was applied for in 1901, also in Italy.

70. Laudanum, e.g. OPIATE
Opiates are the narcotic alkaloids found in the opium poppy plant, although some synthetic versions and derivatives of the same alkaloids are also called opiates. To produce opiates, the latex sap of the opium poppy is collected and processed. The naturally-occurring drugs of morphine and codeine can both be extracted from the sap. Some synthesis is required to make derivative drugs like heroin and oxycodone.

Laudanum is an extremely addictive mixture of opium and alcohol.

Down
2. Any Mr. Olympia HULK
The Mr. Olympia bodybuilding competition was featured in the 1977 movie “Pumping Iron”. It was this film that gave Arnold Schwarzenegger and Lou Ferrigno a start to their acting careers.

4. Big name in camping gear REI
REI is an initialism used by the sporting goods store called Recreational Equipment Inc. REI was founded in Seattle by Lloyd and Mary Anderson in 1938 as a cooperative that supplies quality climbing gear to outdoor enthusiasts. The first full-time employee hired by the Andersons was Jim Whittaker, who was the American to climb Mount Everest.

5. Life starter GAMETE
A gamete is a reproductive cell that has half the full complement of genes needed to make a normal cell. In sexual reproduction, it takes two gametes, one from each parent, to fuse into one cell which then develops into a new organism. The female gamete is the ovum, and the male the sperm.

6. Library indexing abbr. ET AL
Et alii (et al.) is the equivalent of et cetera (etc.), with et cetera being used in place of a list of objects, and et alii used for a list of names. In fact “et al.” can stand for et alii (for a group of males, or males and females), aliae (for a group of women) and et alia (for a group of neuter nouns, or for a group of people where the intent is to retain gender-neutrality).

7. Part of a sch. year SEM
“Semester” is a German word from the Latin “semestris”, an adjective meaning “of six months”. We use the term in a system that divides an academic year into two roughly equal parts. A trimester system has three parts, and a quarter system has four.

8. 2006 million-selling Andrea Bocelli album AMORE
Andrea Bocelli is a classically-trained tenor who sings popular music, a so-called cross-over artist. Bocelli was born with poor eyesight and then became totally blind at the age of 12 when he had an accident playing soccer.

12. “American Buffalo” playwright MAMET
“American Buffalo” is a 1975 play by David Mamet, one that is noted for the use of very profane language. The title refers to a buffalo nickel that a junk shop owner sells for a very low price. The owner then comes to believe that the coin is worth a great deal more, and so hatches a plan to steal it back. “American Buffalo” was made into a 1996 film of the same name, starring Dustin Hoffman, Dennis Franz and Sean Nelson … just a three-man cast.

13. Cousin of “exempli gratia” ID EST
“Id est” is Latin for “that is”, and is often abbreviated to “i.e.” when used in English.

The Latin “exempli gratia” means “for the sake of example”, and isa phrase we often use in English. “Exempli gratia” is almost always shortened to “e.g.”

14. Singers Bareilles and Evans SARAS
Sara Bareilles achieved success with her 2007 “Love Song” with the help of the iTunes online store. In one week in June of that year, iTunes offered the song as “free single of the week” and it quickly became the most downloaded song in the store, and from there climbed to the number spot in the charts.

Sara Evans is a country singer/songwriter from Boonville, MIssouri. Evans was a contestant on “Dancing with the Stars” in 2006, but left the show after about a month. It turned out that Evans had filed for divorce from her husband on the same day. It turned out to be a very messy divorce. Sad …

21. Strolls MOSEYS
“Mosey” is American slang for “amble”, of unknown origin.

25. Paris’s ___ Saint-Louis ILE
There are two famous islands in the middle of the River Seine in Paris, one being the Île de la Cité, and the other Île Saint-Louis. Île de la Cité is the most renowned of the two, as it is home to the cathedral of Notre Dame.

27. Milan-based fashion house VERSACE
Gianni Versace was an Italian fashion designer. His death was perhaps as famous as his llife. He was murdered in 1997 outside his mansion in Miami Beach by Andrew Cunanan. It is not certain that Cunanan knew who his victim was, as this was the last in a spree of five murders committed by him over a four month period. A few days after killing Versace, Cunanan used the same gun to commit suicide.

28. Arabic “son of” IBN
In Arabic names, “ibn” is a word meaning “son of”. The words “bin” and “ben” are also used for “son of”. The word “bint” means “daughter of”. Similarly, in Hebrew “ben” is used to mean “son of”, and “bat” is used to mean “daughter of”.

29. Tolkien’s Gorbag and Bolg ORCS
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.

30. Old Ritz rival HI-HO
Sunshine Biscuits was an independent producer of cookies and crackers which produced Hi-Ho crackers in competition to the successful Ritz brand. In 1996, Sunshine was absorbed by the Keebler Company and Hi-Ho Crackers was on the list of brands that was discontinued because of the merger.

31. Org. backing Obamacare AMA
American Medical Association (AMA)

The correct name for what has been dubbed “Obamacare” is the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act”.

37. Lead, e.g. BASE METAL
A base metal is one that corrodes very easily, reacting with oxygen. Examples are iron, nickel, lead and zinc.

38. First name in daredevilry EVEL
Daredevil Evel Knievel contracted hepatitis C from the many blood transfusions that he needed after injuries incurred during stunts. He had to have a liver transplant as a result, but his health declined after that. He eventually passed away in 2007.

39. Odd couple? DEES
There are a couple of letters D (dee) in the word “odd”.

45. Strip of paper around a Japanese book OBI
Many books published in Japan are sold with a strip of paper that is looped around the book, partially covering the dust jacket. This strip of paper is called an “obi”, taking the same name as the traditional sash that is worn around a kimono. The strip of paper is sometimes referred to as a “belly-band” in English.

47. Uganda’s ___ Amin IDI
Idi Amin received most of his military training in the British armed forces, eventually achieving the highest rank possible for a Black African in the British Colonial Army in 1959, that of Warrant Officer. On his return to Uganda Amin joined his country’s military and quickly rose to the rank of Deputy Commander of the Army. During that time he was quite the athlete. He was a noted rugby player and swimmer, and for nine years held the Ugandan national light-heavyweight boxing title. By the early seventies, Amin was commander of all the armed forces of Uganda and in 1971 seized power in a military coup, displacing the country’s president Milton Obote. There followed seven years of brutal rule by Amin during which it is estimated that between 100,000 and 500,000 people were murdered. Amin was ousted from power in 1979 after a war with Tanzania, and fled to Libya where he stayed for a year. He then moved to Saudi Arabia, where he was financially supported by the Saudi Royal Family for the remainder of his life. Amin died in 2003.

49. White Cloud Temple worshiper TAOIST
The White Cloud Temple is an abbey in Beijing that was founded in the 14th century. The temple is used today as the seat of the Chinese Taoist Association, and is referred to as the First Temple under Heaven.

51. “Resume speed,” musically A TEMPO
“A tempo” is a Italian for “in time”. The phrase is used on a musical score to instruct a performer to return to the main tempo of the piece, perhaps after slowing down or speeding up.

52. Lollygagged IDLED
To lollygag (also “lallygag”) is to dawdle, to dally.

54. Some subs TEMPS
A substitute (sub) employee is often a temporary (temp) worker.

62. Designer who wrote “Things I Remember” ERTE
“Things I Remember” is a 1975 autobiography written by the artist and designer Erté.

Erté was the pseudonym of French artist (Russian born) Romain de Tirtoff. Erté is the French pronunciation of his initials “R.T.”

68. Trailer for “Rocky” or “Rambo”? III
If ever there was a movie that defines a career breakthrough for an actor, it would have to be “Rocky” for Sylvester Stallone. Stallone was a struggling actor in 1975 when a Muhammad Ali fight inspired Stallone to write a screenplay for a boxing movie, which he did in just three days. His efforts to sell the script went well but for the fact that the interested studios wanted a big name for the lead role, and Stallone was determined to be the star himself. Stallone persevered and “Rocky” was eventually made with him playing title role of Rocky Balboa. The movie won three Oscars, and “Sly” Stallone had arrived …

“First Blood” was the original of the four “Rambo” films starring Sylvester Stallone as John Rambo, a troubled Vietnam War veteran. I thought “First Blood” was a pretty good film actually, but the sequels were terrible, and way too violent for me. But action all the way …

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For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. “Attack!” CHARGE!
7. They’re often dipped in wasabis SASHIMIS
15. Best at a buffet, say OUTEAT
16. Tabasco turnover EMPANADA
17. Camry competitor ALTIMA
18. ___ Brewster, “Arsenic and Old Lace” role MORTIMER
19. Classic Jag XKE
20. Common street name ELM
22. The French way? RUE
23. Spanish pronoun ESA
24. Competitor of Clark and Emerson in coll. athletics MIT
26. Range wear? OVEN MITTS
29. “Give me a break already!” OH PLEASE!
32. Chat GAB
33. Sacrifice, e.g. RITE
34. Griffin who created “Jeopardy!” MERV
36. Under cover? IN BED
40. Michael of “Weekend Update” on “S.N.L.” CHE
41. Go for a quick cruise, say DAYSAIL
43. One of 17 on a Monopoly board: Abbr. AVE
44. Copycat’s comment SO DO I
46. ___-serif SANS
47. Comment often after “Hmm …” I SEE
48. Cricket club BAT
50. Holds CITADELS
52. Bosom buddies INTIMATES
56. Where the ball drops on New Year’s Eve … as depicted literally in four places in this puzzle TIM(ES SQUARE)
57. ___-eyed DOE
58. Want-ad abbr. EOE
59. Speed HIE
61. California’s ___ River EEL
64. Bounding LIMITING
67. One of the Brothers Karamazov DMITRI
69. Brewed beverage ESPRESSO
70. Laudanum, e.g. OPIATE
71. Ran out on DESERTED
72. Dirty SOILED

Down
1. Sweet-talk COAX
2. Any Mr. Olympia HULK
3. Went for ATTEMPTED
4. Big name in camping gear REI
5. Life starter GAMETE
6. Library indexing abbr. ET AL
7. Part of a sch. year SEM
8. 2006 million-selling Andrea Bocelli album AMORE
9. Out, in a way SPRUNG
10. Letters that are hard to read? HATE MAIL
11. Pasta name ending -INI
12. “American Buffalo” playwright MAMET
13. Cousin of “exempli gratia” ID EST
14. Singers Bareilles and Evans SARAS
21. Strolls MOSEYS
25. Paris’s ___ Saint-Louis ILE
27. Milan-based fashion house VERSACE
28. Arabic “son of” IBN
29. Tolkien’s Gorbag and Bolg ORCS
30. Old Ritz rival HI-HO
31. Org. backing Obamacare AMA
35. Go poof VANISH
37. Lead, e.g. BASE METAL
38. First name in daredevilry EVEL
39. Odd couple? DEES
41. Pipe measure DIAMETER
42. “Was ___ passiert?” (German “What happened?”) IST
45. Strip of paper around a Japanese book OBI
47. Uganda’s ___ Amin IDI
49. White Cloud Temple worshiper TAOIST
51. “Resume speed,” musically A TEMPO
52. Lollygagged IDLED
53. Clue for a car mechanic NOISE
54. Some subs TEMPS
55. Jittery TENSE
60. Merger agreements? I DOS
62. Designer who wrote “Things I Remember” ERTE
63. Wasn’t veracious LIED
65. Tick off IRE
66. Prayer object GOD
68. Trailer for “Rocky” or “Rambo”? III

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