0127-15 New York Times Crossword Answers 27 Jan 15, Tuesday

Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across
11. Home of the Bulls, informally : CHI
The Chicago Bulls have won six NBA championships in the life of the franchise, all of them in the nineties. They won in the 1991, 1992 and 1993 seasons (a so-called “three-peat”), and then again in 1996, 1997 and 1998 (a second “three-peat”).

14. Lead zeppelins? : AVIATE
The zeppelin airship was developed by the German Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin, the design of which was granted a US patent in 1899. When zeppelins went into service, they were operated by the company Deutsche Luftschiffahrts-AG (DELAG), making that company the world’s first commercial airline. DELAG was operating commercial flights even before WWI. Famously, that big spire at the top of the Empire State Building was designed to be a docking point for zeppelin airships. However, after several attempts to use it as such, the idea was abandoned as the updrafts coming up from the streets below made docking too hazardous a maneuver.

17. Africa’s highest peak : KILIMANJARO
Kilimanjaro is a dormant volcano in Tanzania, and is the highest mountain in the whole of Africa. I was having lunch recently with the parents of my son’s girlfriend. The young lady’s mother casually mentioned in the conversation that she summited Kilimanjaro last year. I paid for lunch …

21. Son of Kanga : ROO
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.

24. Noted French encyclopedist : DENIS DIDEROT
Denis Diderot was a French philosopher and writer who best known as chief editor and co-founder of “Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers” (Encyclopaedia, or a Systematic Dictionary of the Sciences, Arts, and Crafts). The “Encyclopédie” was published between 1751 and 1772, and is famous for representing the thought of the Age of Enlightenment.

31. Like a 911 call: Abbr. : EMER
The first use of an emergency phone number nationally was in the UK in 1937, where the number 999 was introduced to call emergency services. If you need emergency services in the UK or Ireland to this day, you have to dial 999. It’s not really clear why 911 became the emergency number in the US. The most credible suggestion (to me) is that when it was introduced by the FCC in 1967, it was a number that “fit” with the numbers already used by AT&T for free services (211-long distance; 411-information; 611-repair service).

32. Girl in a “Paint Your Wagon” song : ELISA
“I Still See Elisa” is a song from the Lerner & Loewe musical comedy “Paint Your Wagon”.

“Paint Your Wagon” is a Lerner & Loewe musical comedy that opened on Broadway in 1951. The two most famous songs from the show are “Wand’rin’ Star” and “They Call the Wind Maria”. “Paint Your Wagon” was adapted into a very successful musical film released in 1969 starring Lee Marvin, Clint Eastwood and Jean Seberg. Who can forget the very special rendition of “Wand’rin’ Star” by Lee Marvin?

35. Letters after old dates : BCE
The designations Anno Domini (AD, “year of Our Lord”) and Before Christ (BC) are found in the Julian and Gregorian calendars. The dividing point between AD and BC is the year of the conception of Jesus, with AD 1 following 1 BC without a year “0” in between. The AD/BC scheme dates back to AD 525, and gained wide acceptance soon after AD 800. Nowadays a modified version has become popular, with CE (Common/Christian Era) used to replace AD, and BCE (Before the Common/Christian Era) used to replace BC.

38. Parting, to Juliet : SUCH SWEET SORROW
At one point during Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet”, Juliet bids adieu to her beau Romeo using the words:

Good night, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow
That I shall say good night till it be morrow.

42. Hoppy brew : ALE
The foodstuff that we call “hops” are actually the female flower of the hop plant. The main use of hops is to add flavor to beer. The town in which I live here in California used to be home to the largest hop farm in the whole world. Most of the harvested hops were exported all the way to the breweries of London where they could fetch the best price.

43. Maker of the face cream Regenerist : OLAY
Oil of Olay was developed in South Africa in 1949. When Oil of Olay was introduced internationally, it was given slightly different brand names designed to appeal in the different geographies. In Ireland we know it as Oil of Ulay, for example, and in France it is Oil of Olaz.

45. German W.W. I admiral : SPEE
Maximilian Graf von Spee was actually born in Denmark, but of a noble German family. By the time WWI started, Spee had risen to the rank of Rear Admiral in the German Navy. He was killed in the Battle of the Falkland Islands (the original 1914 version!). He gave his name to the powerful pocket battleship, the Admiral Graf Spee, which was damaged in the Battle of the River Plate during WWII. The Graf Spee took refuge in the neutral port of Montevideo and when the boat was expelled by the government of Uruguay, the captain scuttled her rather than face the Allied flotilla waiting for her just outside the port.

47. Hunting dog : SETTER
The setter breeds are hunting dogs. When the the dog encounters a prey, it freezes rather than gives chase. The distinctive crouch adopted is a called its “set”, giving the breed its name.

48. Group you can rely on when it counts : CENSUS BUREAU
The original census was taken during the days of the Roman Republic, and was a reckoning of all adult males who were fit for military service. The first US Census was taken in 1790, and was conducted by Federal marshals.

54. California’s Big ___ : SUR
Big Sur is a lovely part of the California Coast, south of Monterey and Carmel. The name “Big Sur” comes from the original Spanish description of the area as “el sur grande” meaning “the big south”.

60. President who lived at Oak Hill : JAMES MONROE
James Monroe was the fifth US President, and the last of the Founding Fathers to hold the highest office. Famously, he presided over the Era of Good Feelings, when there was very little partisan strife in Washington. President Monroe racked up a lot of debt while in politics and so when he retired he had to sell off a lot of his property and struggled financially for the remainder of his life. Monroe was one of three US presidents to pass away on American Independence Day (along with Thomas Jefferson and John Adams). Monroe died on July 4th 1831.

64. Polish airline : LOT
LOT Polish Airlines is the country’s flag carrier. Founded way back in 1929, it is one of the oldest airline in the world that is still operating. “Lot” is a Polish word meaning “flight”.

65. Food thickener : AGAR
Agar (also “agar-agar”) is a jelly extracted from seaweed that has many uses. Agar is found in Japanese desserts, and can also be used as a food thickener or even as a laxative. In the world of science it is the most common medium used for growing bacteria in Petri dishes.

66. Playwright Eugene : O’NEILL
The playwright Eugene O’Neill was born in a New York City hotel room in what is now called Times Square, in 1888. That building no longer exists and there is a Starbucks on the site today, but you can go take a look at the commemorative plaque at the Northeast corner of 43rd and Broadway. O’Neill died in 1953, in room 401 of the Sheraton Hotel on Bay State Road in Boston. His last words were, “I knew it. I knew it. Born in a hotel room, and God damn it, died in a hotel room.” Eugene O’Neill won a Pulitzer for his play “Anna Christie”.

67. Ordinal suffix : -ETH
Ordinal numbers express a position in a series, i.e. first, second, third etc.

Down
2. Golden Age poet : OVID
The Roman poet Publius Ovidius Naso is today known simply as Ovid. Ovid is usually listed alongside the two other great Roman poets: Horace and Virgil. Ovid was very popular in his day, but somehow he fell foul of Emperor Augustus. For a reason unknown today, Augustus banished Ovid to Tomis, an island in the Black Sea. He lived there for about ten years, until he died.

4. Entree : MAIN DISH
“Entrée” means “entry” in French. An entrée can be something that helps one get “a way in”, an interview for example perhaps helped along by a recommendation letter. In Europe, even in English-speaking countries, the entrée is the name for the “entry” to the meal, the first course. I found it very confusing to order meals when I first came to America!

7. Karate schools : DOJOS
The Japanese word dojo literally means “place of the way”. Originally the term applied to training halls that were found in or beside temples. The teaching in a dojo was not limited to the martial arts, but in the Western world we use the dojo as the name for a training facility for judo, karate and the like.

8. Cavaliers of the N.C.A.A. : UVA
The University of Virginia (UVA) Cavaliers wear colors of orange and navy blue that were adopted in 1888, and were deliberately chosen as the same colors of Oxford University in England.

9. Vandalize, e.g. : MAR
A “vandal” is someone who destroys some beautiful or valuable. The term comes from the Germanic tribe called the Vandals who sacked Rome in the year 455. Our contemporary term “vandalism” was coined by Henri Grégoire in 1794, when he was describing the destruction of artwork during the French Revolution.

10. Mae West or Cheryl Tiegs : BLONDE
Mae West was always pushing the envelope when it came to the “sexy” side of show business, even in her early days in Vaudeville. One of the first plays in which West starred on Broadway was called “Sex”, a work she penned herself. The show was a sell-out, but city officials had it raided and West found herself spending ten days in jail after being convicted of “corrupting the morals of youth”. She started in movies in 1932, already 38 years old. West used her experience writing plays to rewrite much of the material she was given, and so really she was totally responsible for her own success and on-screen appeal.

Cheryl Tiegs was only 17-years-old when she appeared as a model on the cover of “Glamour” magazine. After that Tiegs became famous for sequential appearances in the “Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue” throughout the seventies.

13. Puget Sound, e.g. : INLET
George Vancouver was a British explorer, and an officer in the Royal Navy. As well as exploring the coast of Australia, he is best known for his travels along the northwest coast of North America. The city of Vancouver was named in his honor. Travelling with him on his American voyage was a lieutenant Peter Puget, and in his honor, Vancouver named the waters south of the Tacoma Narrows “Puget’s Sound”. Nowadays, the name Puget Sound describes an area much greater than Vancouver had envisioned.

23. Anthem contraction : O’ER
The words “o’er the ramparts we watched” come from “The Star Spangled Banner” written by Francis Scott Key.

The lyrics of “The Star-Spangled Banner” were written first as a poem by Francis Scott Key, inspired by the bombarding by the British of the American forces at Fort McHenry that he witnessed during the Battle of Baltimore in September 1814. The words were then set to the tune of a popular British drinking song penned by John Stafford Smith called “The Anacreontic Song”, with the Anacreontic Society being a men’s club in London.

25. O’Hare info, for short : ETAS
Estimated time of arrival (eta)

O’Hare International is the fourth busiest airport in the world. The original airport was constructed on the site between 1942 and 1943, and was used by the Douglas Aircraft Company for the manufacture of planes during WWII. Before the factory and airport were built, there was a community in the area called Orchard Place, so the airport was called Orchard Place Airport/Douglas Field. This name is the derivation of the airport’s current location identifier: ORD (OR-chard D-ouglas). Orchard Place Airport was renamed to O’Hare International in 1949 in honor of Lieutenant Commander Butch O’Hare who grew up in Chicago. O’Hare was the US Navy’s first flying ace and a Medal of Honor recipient in WWII. As an aside, Butch O’Hare’s father Edward was a lawyer friend of Al Capone who eventually worked undercover for the IRS and helped get the famous gangster convicted on tax evasion. Some years later, Edward was shot to death while driving his car.

26. Saturn or Mercury : DEITY
Saturn was a Roman deity, the god of agriculture and harvest. Both the planet Saturn and “Saturday” are named after Saturn the god.

Mercury was a Roman god called “the messenger”, and the god of trade. Mercury’s name comes from the Latin word “merx” meaning merchandise (and therefore has the same roots as “merchant” and “commerce”).

28. Arizona’s third-largest city : MESA
The city of Mesa, Arizona is in effect a suburb of Phoenix. The original settlement of non-Native Americans was founded by Daniel Webster Jones who led a Mormon group from St. George, Utah. The settlement was first called Jonesville, then Fort Utah and eventually Lehi. A second group of Mormons arrived and formed a settlement on top of a nearby mesa. It was this use of a mesa that eventually gave the city its current name.

29. Hebrew month : ELUL
Elul is the month in the Hebrew calendar that occurs in August-September.

30. It might be wild or dirty : RICE
“Dirty rice” is a white rice made to look “dirty” by cooking it with chicken liver, green peppers, celery and onion, with cayenne and black pepper. Dirty rice is a traditional Cajun dish.

46. Indian state whose name means “five rivers” : PUNJAB
Punjab is the most populous province in Pakistan and is home to over half of the country’s citizens. “Punjab” (also “Panjab”) translates as “Five Waters”, a reference to five rivers that form tributaries to the Indus River: Chenab, Jhelum, Ravi, Beas and Sutlej.

49. Poet who wrote “This is the way the world ends / Not with a bang but a whimper” : ELIOT
“This is the way the world ends / Not with a bang but a whimper” are lines from T.S. Eliot’s 1925 poem “The Hollow Men”. The last two lines of “The Hollow Men” are oft-quoted:

This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

52. St. Petersburg’s home: Abbr. : RUS
St. Petersburg in Russia is an absolutely beautiful city to visit. The city was renamed to Petrograd in 1914, Leningrad in 1924 and back to St. Petersburg in 1991.

56. Like Death Valley : ARID
Death Valley is a spectacular desert valley in California that is part of the Mojave Desert. Badwater Basin in Death Valley is lowest point in North America, sitting at 282 feet below sea level. Remarkably, Badwater Basin is located just 84 miles from Mount Whitney, the highest point in the contiguous United States.

62. Magazine written by “the usual gang of idiots” : MAD
“Mad” magazine has been around since 1952, although back then it was more of a comic book than a magazine. The original founder and editor was Harvey Kurtzman, and in order to convince him to stay, the publisher changed the format to a magazine in 1955, when the publication really took off in terms of popularity.

63. John Lennon’s middle name : ONO
After John Lennon married Yoko Ono in 1969, he changed his name by deed poll, adding “Ono” as a middle name. His official name became John Winston Ono Lennon, as he wasn’t allowed to drop the name “Winston” that was given to him at birth.

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For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. White-tie event : FORMAL
7. Half-baked : DUMB
11. Home of the Bulls, informally : CHI
14. Lead zeppelins? : AVIATE
15. Track shape : OVAL
16. Darling : HON
17. Africa’s highest peak : KILIMANJARO
19. One who gives a hoot? : OWL
20. Starting point? : EDEN
21. Son of Kanga : ROO
22. Reason to wear earplugs : NOISE
24. Noted French encyclopedist : DENIS DIDEROT
28. Scouts earn them : MERITS
31. Like a 911 call: Abbr. : EMER
32. Girl in a “Paint Your Wagon” song : ELISA
33. Part of a televised movie review : CLIP
35. Letters after old dates : BCE
38. Parting, to Juliet : SUCH SWEET SORROW
42. Hoppy brew : ALE
43. Maker of the face cream Regenerist : OLAY
44. “Begone!” : LEAVE!
45. German W.W. I admiral : SPEE
47. Hunting dog : SETTER
48. Group you can rely on when it counts : CENSUS BUREAU
53. Unearthly : ALIEN
54. California’s Big ___ : SUR
55. Not thought through : RASH
59. Recyclables container : BIN
60. President who lived at Oak Hill : JAMES MONROE
64. Polish airline : LOT
65. Food thickener : AGAR
66. Playwright Eugene : O’NEILL
67. Ordinal suffix : -ETH
68. Hospital capacity : BEDS
69. Silently assented : NODDED

Down
1. Like knockoff goods : FAKE
2. Golden Age poet : OVID
3. Tick off : RILE
4. Entree : MAIN DISH
5. Cash cache : ATM
6. Gets the hang of : LEARNS
7. Karate schools : DOJOS
8. Cavaliers of the N.C.A.A. : UVA
9. Vandalize, e.g. : MAR
10. Mae West or Cheryl Tiegs : BLONDE
11. Preaching to the ___ : CHOIR
12. “In what way?” : HOW SO?
13. Puget Sound, e.g. : INLET
18. “___ didn’t!” : NO I
23. Anthem contraction : O’ER
25. O’Hare info, for short : ETAS
26. Saturn or Mercury : DEITY
27. Babysitters’ challenges : IMPS
28. Arizona’s third-largest city : MESA
29. Hebrew month : ELUL
30. It might be wild or dirty : RICE
33. A-lister : CELEB
34. Open field : LEA
35. Babysitter’s challenge : BRAT
36. Place to moor a boat : COVE
37. Fancy pitcher : EWER
39. Trials and tribulations : WOES
40. Olive genus : OLEA
41. Like a bad check : RETURNED
45. Opposite of NNW : SSE
46. Indian state whose name means “five rivers” : PUNJAB
47. Church address : SERMON
48. Not broadcast : CABLE
49. Poet who wrote “This is the way the world ends / Not with a bang but a whimper” : ELIOT
50. Inning for closers : NINTH
51. Consumers : USERS
52. St. Petersburg’s home: Abbr. : RUS
56. Like Death Valley : ARID
57. One and only : SOLE
58. Detained : HELD
61. Digital ___ : AGE
62. Magazine written by “the usual gang of idiots” : MAD
63. John Lennon’s middle name : ONO

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