0414-15 New York Times Crossword Answers 14 Apr 15, Tuesday

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CROSSWORD SETTER: Bruce Haight
THEME: Eight Letters Only … the answers in today’s grid comprise only eight different letters: A, E, G, H, I, R, S and T.
BILL BUTLER’S COMPLETION TIME: 08m 49s
ANSWERS I MISSED: 0

Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across

5. Buenos ___ : AIRES
Buenos Aires is the capital of Argentina, located on the estuary of the Ria de la Plata. As a port city, the people of Buenos Aires are known as porteños (“people of the port”).

15. Garbo who said “I want to be alone” : GRETA
Famously, Greta Garbo lived a life of seclusion in New York City after she retired from the entertainment business. Commentators often associated her need for privacy with a line she uttered in the great 1932 movie “Grand Hotel”. Her character, Grusinskaya the Russian ballerina, said, “I want to be alone (…) I just want to be alone”.

20. Place for a hammer and stirrup : EAR
The middle ear is the portion of the ear immediately behind the eardrum. The middle ear contains three small bones called the ossicles, the three smallest bones in the human body. The ossicles’ job is to transmit sound from the outer ear to the inner ear. The shape of the bones gives rise to their common names: the hammer, anvil and stirrup.

24. Victory, in German : SIEG
The Nazi salute was usually accompanied by the words, “Heil Hitler!” (“Hail Hitler!”), “Heil, mein Führer!” (“Hail, my leader!”) or often “Sieg Heil!” (“Hail victory!”).

31. Rogen and MacFarlane : SETHS
Seth Rogen is a Canadian comedian who got a lot of credit for his supporting role in “The 40-Year-Old Virgin”. That led to him being cast as the lead in the 1970 film “Knocked Up”. I am afraid that I haven’t seen either movie …

Seth MacFarlane is best known for creating the very successful (although they don’t get my vote!) animated TV shows “Family Guy” and “American Dad”. My kids love ’em …

32. Bit of mind reading, briefly? : EEG
An electroencephalogram (EEG) is a record of electrical activity caused by the firing of neurons within the brain. The EEG might be used to diagnose epilepsy, or perhaps to determine if a patient is “brain dead”.

39. ___ show (part of an old carnival) : RAREE
A raree show (from “rarity show”), was traditionally a display of photographs of in a closed box, with the viewer peeping through a hole. This form of entertainment became known as a peep show, and over the years the genre moved into the world of eroticism.

40. Certain NCOs : SSGTS
Staff sergeant (SSgt)

46. South American monkey : TITI
Titis are monkeys found in much of South America. Totis have tails that are a little bit longer than the length of their heads and bodies.

47. Mother ___ : TERESA
Mother Teresa was born in 1910 in the city that is now called Skopje, the capital of Macedonia. At birth she was given the names Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu (“Gonxha” means “little flower” in Albanian). She left home at the age of 18 and joined the Sisters of Loreto, and headed to Loreto Abbey in Rathfarnham in Dublin, Ireland in order to learn English. Her goal was to teach in India, and English was the language used there for instruction by the nuns. After Mother Teresa passed away in 1997 she was beatified by Pope John Paul II, a step on the road to canonization. In order for her to be beatified there had to be documented evidence of a miracle that was performed due to her intercession. The miracle in question was the healing of a tumor in the abdomen of a woman due to the application of a locket containing a picture of Mother Teresa. Documentation of a second miracle is required for her to be declared a saint.

48. “Blue Moon” lyricist : HART
“Blue Moon” is a song by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart that they write in 1934. The original version of the song was written as the title song for the 1934 movie “Manhattan Melodrama”. However, the song was cut from the film, was reworked and published in 1935 with a new title “Blue Moon”. The most successful recording was in 1961 by the Marcels, when it hit the number one spot in the American and British charts.

52. Dwarf planet discovered in 2005 : ERIS
Eris is the largest known dwarf planet in our solar system. It is also the ninth largest body orbiting the sun, a fact that helped relegate Pluto (the tenth largest body) from its status of planet in 2006. Eris was discovered in 2005.

57. Luck o’ the ___ : IRISH
Begorrah …

58. Razor brand : ATRA
Fortunately for crossword constructors, the Atra razor was introduced by Gillette in 1977. The Atra was sold as the Contour in some markets and its derivative products are still around today.

60. Protection : AEGIS
Someone is said to be under the aegis (also “egis”) of someone else (for example) if that other person provides protection, or perhaps sponsorship. The word “aegis” comes from the Greek word for a goat (“aigis”), the idea being that the goatskin shield or breastplate worn by Zeus or Athena, gave some measure of protection.

61. Olympian Louganis : GREG
Greg Louganis is an American Olympic diver. Louganis won gold medals at the 1984 and the 1988 Summer Games. He wrote an autobiography in 1996 called “Breaking the Surface” in which he disclosed that he has tested positive for HIV and is openly gay. You can see Louganis on television as the Dive Master in the show “Splash”.

Down
4. P.E.I. hours : AST
Atlantic Standard Time (AST) is four hours behind Greenwich Mean Time and one hour ahead of Eastern Standard Time. The list of locations that use AST includes Puerto Rico and the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.

Prince Edward Island (PEI) is a maritime Canadian province. The island at the center of the province was named for Prince Edward, the fourth son of King George III and the father of Queen Victoria.

5. Texas A&M team : AGGIES
Texas A&M is the seventh largest university in the country, and was the first public higher education institute in the state when it accepted its first students in 1876. The full name of the school was the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas and its primary mission used to be the education of males in the techniques of farming and military warfare. That’s quite a combination! Because of the agricultural connection, the college’s sports teams use the moniker “Aggies”.

7. “Cheers” actor Roger : REES
Roger Rees is a Welsh actor. Rees played the character Robin Colcord on “Cheers”, the posh love interest for Rebecca Howe played by Kirstie Alley. Rees also appeared periodically on “The West Wing” as the marvelously flamboyant and eccentric Lord John Marbury, the British Ambassador.

8. Greek H : ETA
Eta is the seventh letter of the Greek alphabet, and is a forerunner of our Latin character “H”. Originally denoting a consonant, eta was used as a long vowel in Ancient Greek.

10. Sad, to Sade : TRISTE
“Triste” is a French word meaning “sad”.

The Marquis de Sade was a French aristocrat with a reputation for a libertine lifestyle. De Sade was also a writer, well known for his works of erotica. He fell foul of the law for some of his more extreme practices and for blaspheming the Catholic church. On an off, de Sade spent 32 years of his life in prison and in insane asylums.

11. Hidden treasures : EASTER EGGS
In a film, book, computer program (or even a crossword!), an “Easter egg” is a hidden message or inside joke that is left intentionally during production. The term “Easter egg” is used for such a device as it evokes the idea of an Easter egg hunt. You can check out thousands of such Easter eggs at www.eeggs.com.

12. Lead-in to net : ETHER
Ethernet is the name given to a standardized configuration of local area networks (LANs). An ethernet cable is that one that has a connector on the end that looks like a regular telephone connector, but is about twice as wide. Ethernet dates back to the mid seventies, when it was developed by the Xerox Corporation.

18. ___ kebab : SHISH
The name “kebab” (also “kabob”) covers a wide variety of meat dishes that originated in Persia. In the West, we usually use “kebab” when talking about shish kebab, which is meat (often lamb) served on a skewer. “Shish” comes from the Turkish word for “skewer”.

24. Org. that listens for alien signals : SETI
SETI is the name given to a number of projects that are searching for extraterrestrial life. The acronym stands for “search for extraterrestrial intelligence”. One of the main SETI activities is the monitoring of electromagnetic radiation (such as radio waves) reaching the Earth in the hope of finding a transmission from a civilization in another world.

25. Portion for the plate : TITHE
A tithe is a traditional payment of one tenth of a person’s annual income and is usually given to a church. Tithing is a practice taught in many traditions, and according to a 2002 survey, about 3% of American adults donate 10% or more of their income to a church.

26. Exile of 1979 : SHAH
The last Shah of Iran was Mohammed-Reza Shah Pahlavi, as he was overthrown in the revolution led by the Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979. The post-revolution government sought the extradition of the Shah back to Iran while he was in the United States seeking medical care (he had cancer). His prolonged stay in the United States, recovering from surgery, caused some unrest back in Iran and resentment towards the United States. Some say that this resentment precipitated the storming of the US Embassy in Tehran and the resulting hostage crisis.

28. Popular farm dog : RAT TERRIER
The rat terrier is known as a farm dog, and was especially common on farms in the twenties and thirties. The breed is has a great reputation as a hunting companion and for controlling vermin.

29. Rocker Bob : SEGER
Bob Seger struggled as a performing artist right through the sixties and early seventies before becoming a commercial success in 1976 with the release of his album “Night Moves”. Since then, Seger has recorded songs that have become classics like, “We’ve Got Tonight” and “Old Time Rock & Roll”.

33. Art Deco notable : ERTE
Erté was the pseudonym of French artist (Russian born) Romain de Tirtoff. Erté is the French pronunciation of his initials “R.T.”

Art deco is the name given to a style of design and architecture of the 1920s that actually had its roots in Belgium and then spread throughout Europe before arriving in North America. Celebrated examples of art deco architecture are the magnificent Chrysler Building in New York City completed in 1930, and the GE Building that sits in the middle of Rockefeller Center also in New York City, with the address of “30 Rock”.

36. Where Korea is : EAST ASIA
Korea was occupied by the Japanese military from 1910 until Japan surrendered at the end of WWII in 1945. While the UN was working towards a trusteeship administration for Korea, the Soviet Union managed the Korean Peninsula north of the 38th parallel and the US managed the south. The UN’s plans came to nothing as the Cold War dictated the establishment of the two separate states of North Korea and South Korea. North Korea invaded the South in 1950, leading to the Korean War. After three years of fighting, the border between the two states became the demarcation line between the two military forces on the day the Armistice Agreement was signed. That line runs diagonally across the 38th parallel, and is better known as the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ).

37. Wine region of Italy : ASTI
Asti is in the Piedmont region of northwest Italy. The region is perhaps most famous for its Asti Spumante sparkling white wine.

39. Actress Charlotte and others : RAES
Charlotte Rae is an American actress, best known for playing the character Edna Garrett on two sitcoms from the seventies and eighties: “Diff’rent Strokes” and “The Facts of Life”. Towards the end of the series, the Edna Garrett character operated her own gourmet food shop called “Edna’s Edibles”.

40. Number of hills in Roma : SETTE
In Italian, Rome (Roma) was built on seven (sette) hills.

Supposedly, there were seven separate settlements on the top of seven hills east of the River Tiber, prior to the founding of the city of Rome. Tradition dictates that Romulus founded Rome on one of these hills, Palatine Hill, and the city came to encompass all seven existing settlements. The most famous hill in modern-day Rome is probably Vatican Hill, but it lies outside of walled ancient city.

42. ___ Pieces : REESE’S
Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups were invented by Harry Burnett “H.B.” Reese. Peanut Butter Cups were originally called penny cups, reflecting the price at which they were sold. Then inflation took over, and maybe that’s why they were broken into smaller “pieces” …

43. Saddle straps : GIRTHS
A girth or cinch is a piece of horse tack that is used to keep a saddle in place. The girth passes under the barrel of the horse, around the rib cage.

44. Leaves in, in a way : STETS
“Stet” is a Latin word meaning “let it stand”. In editorial work, the typesetter is instructed to disregard any change previously marked by writing the word “stet” and then underscoring that change with a line of dots or dashes.

45. Country singer Clark : TERRI
Terri Clark is a country music artist from Montreal in Canada who has had success right across North America, and who now resides in Nashville, Tennessee.

46. Ankle bones : TARSI
The tarsals (also “tarsi”) are the ankle bones, equivalent to the carpals in the wrist.

48. Alexander who served three presidents : HAIG
Alexander Haig was Secretary of State under President Reagan, and White House Chief of Staff under Presidents Nixon and Ford. Famously, Haig took over temporary control of the country immediately after President Reagan was shot in 1981. To do so was a pragmatic move, while waiting on Vice President Bush to arrive in Washington. There was much debate at the time about the legality of the steps taken, as the presidential line of succession called out in the US Constitution is President, Vice President, Speaker of the House, President pro tempore of the US Senate, and then Secretary of State.

49. Sagan’s specialty: Abbr. : ASTR
Carl Sagan was a brilliant astrophysicist and a great communicator. Sagan was famous for presenting obscure concepts about the cosmos in such a way that we mere mortals could appreciate. He also wrote the novel “Contact” which was adapted into a fascinating 1997 film of the same name starring Jodie Foster.

51. ___ beetle : STAG
Stag beetles are so called as the males of the species have large mandibles that resemble the antlers of stags.

54. 40-Down minus quattro : TRE
In Italian, seven (sette) minus four (quattro) makes three (tre).

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For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. Giddy-brained : GAGA
5. Buenos ___ : AIRES
10. Golfer’s bagful : TEES
14. ___ 10 and up (info on a game box) : AGES
15. Garbo who said “I want to be alone” : GRETA
16. $15/hour, e.g. : RATE
17. “Way to go!” : THAT’S GREAT!
19. “___ for real?” (“Can you believe that guy?”) : IS HE
20. Place for a hammer and stirrup : EAR
21. Hurries, quaintly : HIES
22. Employee of a paranoid king : TASTER
24. Victory, in German : SIEG
25. Nervous giggles : TITTERS
26. Underscore : STRESS
29. One saying “Alas,” say : SIGHER
30. Moor : HEATH
31. Rogen and MacFarlane : SETHS
32. Bit of mind reading, briefly? : EEG
35. Introductory drawing class : ART I
36. Total number of letters of the alphabet used in this puzzle : EIGHT
37. Prefix with cultural : AGRI-
38. Tip collector for many an amateur performer : HAT
39. ___ show (part of an old carnival) : RAREE
40. Certain NCOs : SSGTS
41. Tip for remedying mistakes? : ERASER
43. Prepare oneself : GET SET
44. Urban grid makeup : STREETS
46. South American monkey : TITI
47. Mother ___ : TERESA
48. “Blue Moon” lyricist : HART
49. Sounds of satisfaction : AHS
52. Dwarf planet discovered in 2005 : ERIS
53. Group of dishes for a new household, say : STARTER SET
56. Tire swing site : TREE
57. Luck o’ the ___ : IRISH
58. Razor brand : ATRA
59. Formal letter opener : SIRS
60. Protection : AEGIS
61. Olympian Louganis : GREG

Down
1. Paid attendance : GATE
2. Old Turkish V.I.P. : AGHA
3. Stuff stored in lockers : GEAR
4. P.E.I. hours : AST
5. Texas A&M team : AGGIES
6. Like some marked-down clothing: Abbr. : IRREG
7. “Cheers” actor Roger : REES
8. Greek H : ETA
9. Didn’t go anywhere : SAT TIGHT
10. Sad, to Sade : TRISTE
11. Hidden treasures : EASTER EGGS
12. Lead-in to net : ETHER
13. Dealers in futures? : SEERS
18. ___ kebab : SHISH
23. Users of locker rooms: Abbr. : ATHS
24. Org. that listens for alien signals : SETI
25. Portion for the plate : TITHE
26. Exile of 1979 : SHAH
27. Mega- times a million : TERA-
28. Popular farm dog : RAT TERRIER
29. Rocker Bob : SEGER
31. Fathers : SIRES
33. Art Deco notable : ERTE
34. Crux : GIST
36. Where Korea is : EAST ASIA
37. Wine region of Italy : ASTI
39. Actress Charlotte and others : RAES
40. Number of hills in Roma : SETTE
42. ___ Pieces : REESE’S
43. Saddle straps : GIRTHS
44. Leaves in, in a way : STETS
45. Country singer Clark : TERRI
46. Ankle bones : TARSI
48. Alexander who served three presidents : HAIG
49. Sagan’s specialty: Abbr. : ASTR
50. “Present” : HERE
51. ___ beetle : STAG
54. 40-Down minus quattro : TRE
55. Tease, with “on” : RAG

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