1102-15 New York Times Crossword Answers 2 Nov 15, Monday

Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across
5. From County Clare, e.g. : IRISH
One of my favorite counties in Ireland is Clare, home of the Burren, a beautiful, desolate landscape, as well as the world-famous Cliffs of Moher that greet the Atlantic Ocean.

14. Auto pioneer Ransom E. ___ : OLDS
The REO Motor Company was founded by Ransom Eli Olds (hence the name REO). The company made cars, trucks and buses, and was in business from 1905 to 1975 in Lansing, Michigan. Among the company’s most famous models were the REO Royale and the REO Flying Cloud.

15. Finnish tech giant : NOKIA
I do enjoy classical guitar music, but there isn’t a huge choice on CD. There is one very special piece called “Gran Vals” by Francisco Tárrega, written in 1902. This piece has a unique reputation as it contains a phrase that it is the most listened to piece of music in the whole world. Just a few bars into the work one can hear the omnipresent Nokia ring tone!

16. Unwanted mail : SPAM
Apparently the term “spam”, used for unwanted email, is taken from a “Monty Python” sketch. In the sketch (which I’ve seen) the dialog is taken over by the word Spam, a play on the glut of canned meat in the markets of Britain after WWII. So “spam” is used for the glut of emails that takes over online communication. I can just imagine nerdy Internet types (like me) adopting something from a “Monty Python” sketch to describe an online phenomenon …

17. Place to put someone who might hurt himself : PADDED CELL (giving “padded bra”)
The word “brassière” is French in origin, but it isn’t the word the French use for a “bra”. In France what we call a bra is known as a “soutien-gorge”, translating to “held under the neck”. The word “brassière” is indeed used in France but there it describes a baby’s undershirt, a lifebelt or a harness. “Brassière” comes from the Old French word for an “arm protector” in a military uniform (“bras” is the French for “arm”). Later “brassière” came to mean “breastplate” and from there the word was used for a type of woman’s corset. The word jumped into English around 1900.

19. Schlep : TOTE
Our word “schlep” means “to carry, drag”. “Schlep” comes from Yiddish, with “shlepen” having the same meaning.

20. The “S” in CBS: Abbr. : SYS
CBS used to be called the Columbia Broadcasting System. CBS is the second-largest broadcaster in the world, second only to the BBC in the UK. CBS introduced its “eye” logo in 1951.

21. 2016 Olympics city, informally : RIO
Rio de Janeiro is the second largest city in Brazil (after São Paulo). “Rio de Janeiro” translates as “January River”. The name reflects the discovery of the bay on which Rio sits, on New Year’s Day in 1502.

22. Sharapova of tennis : MARIA
Maria Sharapova is professional tennis player from the town of Nyagan in the Russian Federation. She is a former World No. 1.

23. 1962 film about Helen Keller, with “The” : MIRACLE WORKER (giving “Miracle Bra”)
Helen Keller became a noted author despite been deaf and blind, largely through the work of her teacher, Anne Sullivan. Keller was left deaf and blind after an illness (possible meningitis or scarlet fever). when she was about 18 months old. She was to become the first deaf and blind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree. The relationship between Sullivan and Keller is immortalized in the play and film called “The Miracle Worker”.

The Miracle Bra is a line of bras introduced in 1993 by Victoria’s Secret.

30. “Plan 9 From ___ Space” : OUTER
“Plan 9 From Outer Space” is a 1959 sci-fi/horror movie about extraterrestrials, a doomsday machine, and resurrected dead people. It has been dubbed the “worst movie ever made”.

31. Like oxen pulling a plow : YOKED
A yoke is that wooden beam used between a pair of oxen so that they are forced to work together.

36. Big name in faucets : MOEN
The Moen line of faucets was started in 1956 by inventor Alfred M, Moen. It was Moen who invented the first single-handed mixing faucet.

37. Eastwood of Hollywood : CLINT
The actor and director Clint Eastwood is a native of San Francisco, California. As many of us perhaps remember, Eastwood’s big break was playing the supporting role of Rowdy Yates in the TV show “Rawhide” in the late fifties and early sixties. He then became the face of the spaghetti western genre of movie in the sixties, most notably in the classic “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly”. In later years Eastwood has branched out into directing and producing with remarkable success. And of course in the late eighties he also served as mayor of his hometown, Carmel-by-the-Sea.

39. “Little” heroine of Dickens’ “The Old Curiosity Shop” : NELL
“The Old Curiosity Shop” by Charles Dickens tells the story of little 14-year-old Nell Trent and her grandfather who live in the Old Curiosity Shop in London. If you visit London, there actually is an “Old Curiosity Shop”, in Westminster. It is an establishment selling odds and ends, old curiosities, and is believed to have been the inspiration for the shop in the Dickens story. The building has been around since the 1500s, but the name “The Old Curiosity Shop” was added after the book was published.

44. Maker of the Accord and CR-V : HONDA
Honda started manufacturing its Accord model in Marysville, Ohio in 1982, making the Accord the first Japanese car to be produced in the US. The Accord was the best-selling Japanese car in America from 1982 to 1997, and 1989 was the first import to become the best-selling car in the US.

The CR-V is a compact crossover vehicle made by Honda. The initialism CR-V stands for Civic Recreational Vehicle, and the indeed the CR-V’s design is loosely based on the Honda Civic.

47. Be dead and buried, in slang : PUSH UP DAISIES (giving “push-up bra”)
The world’s first push-up bra was the Wonderbra. The Wonderbra became very popular in the 1990s, although the brand name has been around since 1935.

53. “Treasure Island” author’s inits. : RLS
Robert Louis Stevenson’s (RLS) most celebrated work I’d say is “Treasure Island”, originally written as a series for a children’s magazine in 1881. I remember “Treasure Island” as the first “real” novel I read as a youngster …

54. Maple syrup source : SAP
About 75% of the world’s maple syrup comes from the province of Quebec. The US’s biggest producer is the state of Vermont, which produces 5-6% of the world’s supply.

57. 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.

65. Paris airport : ORLY
Paris-Orly Airport is Paris’s second international airport (after Charles de Gaulle), and Paris Beauvais-Tillé is used by the budget airlines, as it is a 75 minute coach ride to the city center.

66. On pins and needles : ANTSY
The word “antsy” embodies the concept of “having ants in one’s pants”, meaning being nervous and fidgety. However, “antsy” has been used in English since the 1830s, whereas “ants in the pants” originated a century later.

67. Classic computer game set on an island : MYST
In the days when I played the occasional video game, the best of the bunch was undoubtedly “Myst”. It is a game full of puzzles with the player wandering through a beautifully-designed (for its day) interactive world.

Down
2. Skin care brand : 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.

4. ’60s trip inducer : LSD
LSD (colloquially known as “acid”) is short for lysergic acid diethylamide. A Swiss chemist called Albert Hofmann first synthesized LSD in 1938 in a research project looking for medically efficacious ergot alkaloids. It wasn’t until some five years later when Hofmann ingested some of the drug accidentally that its psychedelic properties were discovered. Trippy, man …

5. Where rajahs once ruled : INDIA
“Raja” (also “rajah”) is word derived from Sanskrit that is used particularly in India for a monarch or princely ruler. The female form is “rani” (also “ranee”) and is used for a raja’s wife.

6. Overly ornate : ROCOCO
The Rococo style is also known as “Late Baroque”. Rococo is a very floral and playful style, very ornate.

7. “I Like ___” (1950s campaign button) : IKE
“I Like Ike” was a political slogan that originated with the grassroots movement to get Dwight D. Eisenhower to run for president in the 1952 presidential election.

8. The “S” in R.S.V.P. : S’IL
RSVP stands for “répondez, s’il vous plaît”, which is French for “please, answer”.

9. Computer in “2001” : HAL
In Arthur C. Clarke’s “Space Odyssey” (famously adapted for the big screen as “2001: A Space Odyssey”) the computer system that went rogue was called HAL 9000, or simply “HAL”. HAL stands for Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer. Even though, Clarke denied it, there’s a good argument that can be made that the acronym HAL is a veiled reference to IBM, the big player in the world of computing at the time of the novel’s publication (1968). The acronym HAL is just a one-letter shift from the initials “IBM”.

10. “When you wish upon ___ …” : A STAR
“When You Wish Upon A Star” is a hit song by Leigh Harline and Ned Washington that was written for the 1940 Disney movie “Pinocchio”. In the animated film, the song is sung by the Jiminy Cricket character, with the voice provided by singer Cliff Edwards. In some parts of the world, “When You Wish Upon A Star” has become a Christmas classic due the assumption that the “star” in the title is the Star of Bethlehem.

11. Two-in-one eating implement : SPORK
“Spork” is the more common name for the utensil that is a hybrid between a spoon and a fork. It is less commonly referred to as a “foon”.

12. Actress Holmes : KATIE
Katie Holmes is an actress who first came to prominence in the television drama “Dawson’s Creek”. Off screen, Holmes is famous as the ex-wife of Tom Cruise.

22. Robin Williams role that was out of this world? : MORK
“Mork & Mindy” was broadcast from 1978 to 1982. We were first introduced to Mork (played by Robin Williams) in a special episode of “Happy Days”. The particular episode in question has a bizarre storyline culminating in Fonzie and Mork having a thumb-to-finger duel. Eventually Richie wakes up in bed, and alien Mork was just part of a dream! Oh, and “Nanu Nanu” means both “hello” and “goodbye” back on the planet Ork. “I am Mork from Ork, Nanu Nanu”. Great stuff …

24. “Goodnight” girl of song : IRENE
“Goodnight, Irene”, also known as “Irene, Goodnight”, is a lovely American folk song that was first recorded commercially back in 1932 by blues singer Lead Belly. The song made it to number one in the charts for the Weavers in 1950 and for Frank Sinatra in the same year.

25. Country singer Williams : LUCINDA
Lucinda Williams is singer-songwriter who was dubbers “America’s best songwriter” in 2002 by “Time” magazine.

26. Prep school for some English princes : ETON
The world-famous Eton College is just a brisk walk from Windsor Castle, which itself is just outside London. Eton is noted for producing many British leaders including David Cameron who took power in the last UK general election. The list of Old Etonians also includes Princes William and Harry, the Duke of Wellington, George Orwell, and the creator of James Bond, Ian Fleming (as well as 007 himself as described in the Fleming novels).

37. Karate move : CHOP
“Karate”, means “open hand”, and the related word “karaoke” means “open orchestra”.

40. ___ États-Unis : LES
“Les États-Unis d’Amérique” is what French speakers call “the United States of America”.

42. Jewish temple : SHUL
Shul is another word for a synagogue. “Shul” is the term mostly used in Orthodox Judaism, “synagogue” in Conservative Judaism, and “temple” in Reform Judaism.

43. Shelley or Keats, poetically speaking : ODIST
Percy Bysshe Shelley was an English Romantic poet. Shelley had strong views on vegetarianism. He was dedicated to the cause of all sentient beings, believing that the slaughter of animals by humans for the use of food was a barbaric practice. He wrote a famous essay on the subject called “A Vindication of Natural Diet” in 1813.

The English poet John Keats died in Rome in 1821, and is buried there in the Protestant Cemetery. His last wish was that his grave be marked with a tombstone bearing just the words “”Here lies One whose Name was writ in Water”, and no name nor date. Keats’ friends honored his request to some extent, as the words were included on the stone and no name is given. The full epitaph reads:

This Grave

contains all that was Mortal

of a

Young English Poet

Who

on his Death Bed, in the Bitterness of his Heart

at the Malicious Power of his Enemies

Desired

these Words to be

engraven on his Tomb Stone:

Here lies One

Whose Name was writ in Water.

24 February 1821

45. Alternative to a 747 : AIRBUS
Airbus is an aircraft manufacturer based in Blagnac, France just outside Toulouse. Airbus produces about half of the world’s jetliners. The company built the first fly-by-wire aircraft (the A320) and also builds the world’s largest airliner (the A380).

The term “jumbo jet” describes a widebody aircraft. The first jumbo was the four-engined Boeing 747 introduced in 1970. Then followed the three-engined McDonnell Douglas DC-10 that same year and the Lockheed L-1011 TriStar a few months later. The Airbus A300 was the first two-engined jumbo, which entered service in 1974.

50. One of two Tudor kings : HENRY
The Wars of the Roses was a series of civil wars fought for the throne of England between the rival Houses of Lancaster and York. Ultimately the Lancastrians emerged victorious after Henry Tudor defeated King Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth Field. Henry was crowned King Henry VII, and so began the Tudor dynasty. Henry Tudor united the rival houses by marrying his cousin Elizabeth of York. Henry VII had a relatively long reign of 23 years that lasted until his death, after which his son succeeded to the throne as Henry VIII, continuing the relatively short-lived Tudor dynasty. Henry VIII ruled from 1509 until his death in 1547. When Henry’s daughter Elizabeth I died, the Scottish King James VI succeeded to the throne as James I of England and Ireland. James I was the first English monarch of the House of Stuart.

55. Gorillas : APES
The gorilla is the largest primate still in existence, and is one of the nearest living species to humans. Molecular biology studies have shown that our nearest relatives are in fact the species in the genus Pan (the chimpanzee and the bonobo), which split from the human branch of the family 4-6 million years ago. Gorillas and humans diverged at a point about 7 million years ago. The term “gorilla” derives from the Greek “gorillai” meaning “tribe of hairy women”.

56. 11th grader’s exam, for short : PSAT
Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test (PSAT)

59. The “O” in M.Y.O.B. : OWN
Mind your own business (MYOB)

61. Symbol for Aries : RAM
The constellation of Aries has come to represent the ram that yielded the Golden Fleece of Greek mythology.

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For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. Place to swim : POOL
5. From County Clare, e.g. : IRISH
10. Poses questions : ASKS
14. Auto pioneer Ransom E. ___ : OLDS
15. Finnish tech giant : NOKIA
16. Unwanted mail : SPAM
17. Place to put someone who might hurt himself : PADDED CELL (giving “padded bra”)
19. Schlep : TOTE
20. The “S” in CBS: Abbr. : SYS
21. 2016 Olympics city, informally : RIO
22. Sharapova of tennis : MARIA
23. 1962 film about Helen Keller, with “The” : MIRACLE WORKER (giving “Miracle Bra”)
28. Stock unit : SHARE
30. “Plan 9 From ___ Space” : OUTER
31. Like oxen pulling a plow : YOKED
32. Bopping on the head : CONKING
36. Big name in faucets : MOEN
37. Eastwood of Hollywood : CLINT
39. “Little” heroine of Dickens’s “The Old Curiosity Shop” : NELL
41. Add more to, as someone’s drink : FRESHEN
43. Perfectly timed : ON CUE
44. Maker of the Accord and CR-V : HONDA
46. Cuts down on calories : DIETS
47. Be dead and buried, in slang : PUSH UP DAISIES (giving “push-up bra”)
52. Facts collected by spies, informally : INTEL
53. “Treasure Island” author’s inits. : RLS
54. Maple syrup source : SAP
57. Mideast’s Gulf of ___ : ADEN
58. Dangers for the unwary … or a hint to the starts of 17-, 23- and 47-Across? : BOOBY TRAPS
62. In the neighborhood : NEAR
63. Abominable : AWFUL
64. Neighborhood : AREA
65. Paris airport : ORLY
66. On pins and needles : ANTSY
67. Classic computer game set on an island : MYST

Down
1. Daddy-o : POPS
2. Skin care brand : OLAY
3. Betting parlor V.I.P. : ODDSMAKER
4. ’60s trip inducer : LSD
5. Where rajahs once ruled : INDIA
6. Overly ornate : ROCOCO
7. “I Like ___” (1950s campaign button) : IKE
8. The “S” in R.S.V.P. : S’IL
9. Computer in “2001” : HAL
10. “When you wish upon ___ …” : A STAR
11. Two-in-one eating implement : SPORK
12. Actress Holmes : KATIE
13. Bad-mouth : SMEAR
18. Screwed up : ERRED
22. Robin Williams role that was out of this world? : MORK
24. “Goodnight” girl of song : IRENE
25. Country singer Williams : LUCINDA
26. Prep school for some English princes : ETON
27. Departed : WENT
28. Prefix with pathetic : SYM-
29. Clip-clop sound producer : HOOF
33. Belly button type : INNIE
34. Essential : NECESSARY
35. Stuff to the gills : GLUT
37. Karate move : CHOP
38. Furnish temporarily : LEND
40. ___ États-Unis : LES
42. Jewish temple : SHUL
43. Shelley or Keats, poetically speaking : ODIST
45. Alternative to a 747 : AIRBUS
47. Baby grand, e.g. : PIANO
48. Word before “the gun” or “the circumstances” : UNDER
49. Run to second while the pitcher isn’t looking, say : STEAL
50. One of two Tudor kings : HENRY
51. In a foxy way : SLYLY
55. Gorillas : APES
56. 11th grader’s exam, for short : PSAT
58. Sheep’s cry : BAA!
59. The “O” in M.Y.O.B. : OWN
60. Frequently, to poets : OFT
61. Symbol for Aries : RAM

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