0130-16 New York Times Crossword Answers 30 Jan 16, Saturday

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CROSSWORD SETTER: Samuel A. Donaldson & Brad Wilber
THEME: None
BILL BUTLER’S COMPLETION TIME: 15m 32s
ANSWERS I MISSED: 0

Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across

1. One of a trio in a children’s story : MAMA BEAR
The story of “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” was first recorded in 1837, in England, although the narrative was around before it was actually written down. The original fairy tale was rather gruesome, but successive versions became more family-oriented. The character that eventually became Goldilocks was originally an elderly woman, and the three “nameless” bears became Papa Bear, Mama Bear and Baby Bear.

15. Lacking any sides : A LA CARTE
On a restaurant menu, items that are “à la carte” are priced and ordered separately. A menu marked “table d’hôte” (also called “prix fixe”) is a fixed-price menu with limited choice.

16. Puffin relative : AUKLET
Auklet is the name given to several small auks found on around the coasts of the North Pacific.

Auks are penguin-like sea birds that live in colder northern waters including the Arctic. Like penguins, auks are great swimmers, but unlike penguins, auks can fly.

18. Prize at the top of a maypole : WREATH
A maypole is a tall pole used in various folk festivals in Europe, usually taking place in early to mid-summer. The pole is often used for a maypole dance in which men and women circle while holding ribbons attached to the top of the pole.

21. Start of many a dance routine : CHA-
The cha-cha-cha (often simplified to “cha-cha”) is a Latin dance with origins in Cuba, where it was introduced by composer Enrique Jorrin in 1953.

23. Large fern : BRACKEN
The fern known as bracken is one of the oldest ferns in the world. Fossil records have been found of bracken that lived over 55 million years ago.

25. Renegade and Renaissance, to the Secret Service : OBAMAS
By tradition, the Secret Service code names used for the US President and family all start with the same letter. For the current First Family, that letter is R:

– Barack Obama: Renegade
– Michelle Obama: Renaissance
– Malia Obama: Radiance
– Sasha Obama: Rosebud

For the previous First Family, the code names starts with the letter T:

– George W. Bush: Tumbler (later “Trailblazer”)
– Laura Bush: Tempo
– Barbara Bush: Turquoise
– Jenna Bush: Twinkle

29. Things bench players need? : PIANOS
What was remarkable about the piano when it was invented, compared to other keyboard instruments, was that notes could be played with varying degrees of loudness. This is accomplished by pressing the keys lightly or firmly. Because of this quality, the new instrument was called a “pianoforte”, with “piano” and “forte” meaning “soft” and “loud” in Italian. We tend to shorten the name these days to just “piano”.

30. Pandemonium : BABEL
We use the word “babel” now to describe a scene of confusion, lifting the term from the biblical story of the Tower of Babel. The Tower was built in the city of Babylon, and the construction was cursed with a confusion of languages due to the varied origins of all the builders.

31. Sackers in the sack of Rome, A.D. 410 : VISIGOTHS
The East Germanic tribe called the Goths has two main branches, called the Ostrogoths and the Visigoths. The Visigothic capital was the city of Toulouse in France, whereas the Ostrogoth capital was the Italian city of Ravenna just inland of the Adriatic coast. It was the Visigoths who sacked Rome in 410 CE, heralding the fall of the Western Roman Empire.

37. Treats as in “South Park” or “Doonesbury” : SATIRIZES
“South Park” is an adult-oriented cartoon series on Comedy Central. I don’t do “South Park” …

When cartoonist Garry Trudeau was deciding on a name for his comic strip in 1970, he opted for “Doonesbury”. He combined “doone”, which is slang for a “genial fool”, and the last syllables in “Pillsbury”, the family name of Trudeau’s roommate while he was at Yale.

42. Clothing company whose mail-order catalog debuted in 1905 : SPIEGEL
Spiegel is a company that sells women’s clothing and accessories, and which has a famous catalog sales business. The company was founded way back in 1865 by Joseph Spiegel as a home furnishings retail outlet in Chicago.

46. Trattoria entree : VEAL MARSALA
A trattoria is an Italian restaurant. In Italian, a “trattore” is the keeper of an eating house.

52. Saggy and crinkled : CREPEY
Something described as “crepey” has a wrinkled surface, looks like crepe paper.

55. Fidelity competitor : E*TRADE
E*Trade is mainly an online discount brokerage. It was founded in 1982 in Palo Alto, California, and I used to drive by its headquarters almost every day. The company is now run out of New York City. E*Trade produces those famous Super Bowl ads with the talking babies staring into a webcam.

Fidelity Investments is financial services corporation that is based in Boston. Fidelity was founded back in 1946.

57. Spy group : MOSSAD
The national intelligence agency of Israel is known as Mossad, which is short for HaMossad leModiʿin uleTafkidim Meyuḥadim (Hebrew for “Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations”).

Down
1. Traps and yaps : MAWS
“Maw” is a term used to describe the mouth or stomach of a carnivorous animal. “Maw” is also used as slang for the mouth or stomach of a greedy person.

2. Like some rabbit ears : ALOP
I had to go to one of my two huge volumes of the OED to find the definition of “alop”. It means “lop-sided”. A lovely word …

3. Certain dam : MARE
There are lots of terms to describe horses of different ages and sexes, it seems:

– Foal: horse of either sex that is less that one year old
– Yearling: horse of either sex that is one to two years old
– Filly: female horse under the age of four
– Colt: male horse under the age of four
– Gelding: castrated male horse of any age
– Stallion: non-castrated male horse four years or older
– Mare: female horse four years or older

A dam is a female parent, especially of four-footed domestic animals such as horses.

9. Huge stock purchase at the start of a day’s trading : DAWN RAID
A “dawn raid” is a surprise purchase of a large number of shares right at the start of a day’s trading, a preliminary move in a bid to takeover control of a company.

10. Shorts popular in the 1920s and ’30s : OUR GANG
Hal Roach made a whole series of comedy shorts with “The Little Rascals”, also known as “Our Gang”. This very likable bunch of kids included Spanky and his kid brother, Porky. Porky had a speech impediment so he couldn’t pronounce “Okay, Spanky” very clearly and it came out as “Otay, Panky”.

11. It might be picked for a song : UKE
The ukulele (“uke”) originated in the 1800s and mimicked a small guitar brought to the Hawaiian Islands by Portuguese immigrants.

12. “The Great” magician whose signature trick was the “floating light bulb” : BLACKSTONE
The Great Blackstone was the stage name of magician and illusionist Harry Blackstone. Blackstone was a big name during WWII and appeared in many USO shows.

13. River of myth where one drinks to forget : LETHE
The Lethe is one of the five rivers of Hades in Greek mythology. All the souls who drank from the river Lethe experienced complete forgetfulness. The Greek word “lethe” means “oblivion, forgetfulness”.

14. ___ Edwards, John Wayne’s role in “The Searchers,” 1956 : ETHAN
“The Searchers” is a 1956 western movie directed by John Ford and starring John Wayne. In 2008, the American Film Institute named “The Searchers” the greatest American western ever made.

20. Birds in hieroglyphics : IBISES
The ibis is a wading bird that was revered in ancient Egypt. “Ibis” is an interesting word grammatically speaking. You can have one “ibis” or two “ibises”, and then again one has a flock of “ibis”. And if you want to go with the classical plural, instead of two “ibises” you would have two “ibides”!

24. Cask maker : COOPER
A cooper is a craftsman who makes wooden vessels, such as barrels.

25. Eastern ties : OBIS
The sash worn as part of traditional Japanese dress is known as an obi. The obi can be tied in what is called a butterfly knot.

26. Eric of “Hulk” : BANA
Eric Bana is an Australian actor who enjoyed a successful career in his home country before breaking into Hollywood playing an American Delta Force sergeant in “Black Hawk Down”. A couple of years later he played the lead in Ang Lee’s 2003 movie “The Hulk”, the role of Dr Bruce Banner. More recently he played the Romulan villain Nero, in the 2009 “Star Trek” movie.

29. Lab vessel : PIPET
A pipette (also “pipet”) is tool used in a lab to transport an accurately measured volume of liquid. Back in my day, we would suck up the liquid into the pipette by applying our mouths to the top of the instrument. This could be quite dangerous, as one ended up with a mouthful of something unsavory if one lifted the top of pipette out of the liquid too soon. Nowadays, things are much safer.

31. Hungarian hunting dog : VIZSLA
The Vizsla is a breed of sporting dog that originated in Hungary. The first Vizsla dogs, a mother and two of her pups, arrived in the US from Rome in 1950.

32. Tough : HOOD
“Hood” is a slang term for “gangster”, a shortening of “hoodlum”.

33. Some photog purchases : SLRS
SLR stands for “single lens reflex”. Usually cameras with changeable lenses are the SLR type. The main feature of an SLR is that a mirror reflects the image seen through the lens out through the viewfinder, so that the photographer sees exactly what the lens sees. The mirror moves out of the way as the picture is taken, and the image that comes through the lens falls onto unexposed film, or nowadays onto a digital sensor.

38. Ancient collection of Sanskrit hymns : RIG VEDA
The Rig Veda is a collection sacred hymns that is one of the four canonical texts of Hinduism known as the Vedas.

42. Dog command : SIC ’EM
“Sic ’em” is an attack order given to a dog, instructing the animal to growl, bark or even bite. The term dates back to the 1830s, with “sic” being a variation of “seek”.

43. ___-Novo (capital on the Gulf of Guinea) : PORTO
Porto-Novo is the capital city of Benin in West Africa. Porto-Novo may be the capital of the country but it isn’t the biggest city, and it isn’t even the most economically important. That honor goes to the city of Cotonou.

49. Parenthetical figures? : ARCS
Parentheses (brackets) look like “arcs”.

51. Brand with a Gravy Cravers line : ALPO
Alpo is a brand of dog food first produced by Allen Products in 1936, with “Alpo” being an abbreviation for “Allen Products”. Lorne Greene used to push Alpo in television spots, as did Ed McMahon and Garfield the Cat, would you believe?

53. Announcement carriers, for short : PAS
Public address (PA) system

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For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. One of a trio in a children’s story : MAMA BEAR
9. Bar order after a very hard day, maybe : DOUBLE
15. Lacking any sides : A LA CARTE
16. Puffin relative : AUKLET
17. Haggard : WORN DOWN
18. Prize at the top of a maypole : WREATH
19. Mixing and matching? : SPEED DATING
21. Start of many a dance routine : CHA-
22. Suffix with market : -EER
23. Large fern : BRACKEN
25. Renegade and Renaissance, to the Secret Service : OBAMAS
29. Things bench players need? : PIANOS
30. Pandemonium : BABEL
31. Sackers in the sack of Rome, A.D. 410 : VISIGOTHS
34. Think tank, e.g.: Abbr. : INST
35. Spent : WIPED
36. Hotel amenity : POOL
37. Treats as in “South Park” or “Doonesbury” : SATIRIZES
39. Drift : TENOR
40. During : AMIDST
41. Viciously criticizes, informally : SHREDS
42. Clothing company whose mail-order catalog debuted in 1905 : SPIEGEL
44. It lacks letters on a telephone keypad : ONE
45. ___ cannon (sci-fi weapon) : ION
46. Trattoria entree : VEAL MARSALA
52. Saggy and crinkled : CREPEY
54. Following the beat? : ON PATROL
55. Fidelity competitor : E*TRADE
56. Toddler’s handful : SIPPY CUP
57. Spy group : MOSSAD
58. Green-light : SAY YES TO

Down
1. Traps and yaps : MAWS
2. Like some rabbit ears : ALOP
3. Certain dam : MARE
4. Worrisome marks in high school? : ACNE
5. Source of buyer’s remorse : BAD DEAL
6. Whittles away : ERODES
7. Battling : AT WAR
8. Torn : RENT
9. Huge stock purchase at the start of a day’s trading : DAWN RAID
10. Shorts popular in the 1920s and ’30s : OUR GANG
11. It might be picked for a song : UKE
12. “The Great” magician whose signature trick was the “floating light bulb” : BLACKSTONE
13. River of myth where one drinks to forget : LETHE
14. ___ Edwards, John Wayne’s role in “The Searchers,” 1956 : ETHAN
20. Birds in hieroglyphics : IBISES
24. Cask maker : COOPER
25. Eastern ties : OBIS
26. Eric of “Hulk” : BANA
27. Dry sorts : ABSTAINERS
28. What isn’t working? : ME TIME
29. Lab vessel : PIPET
31. Hungarian hunting dog : VIZSLA
32. Tough : HOOD
33. Some photog purchases : SLRS
35. Innocent : WIDE-EYED
38. Ancient collection of Sanskrit hymns : RIG VEDA
39. Rehabilitative effort : THERAPY
41. Quick : SNAPPY
42. Dog command : SIC ’EM
43. ___-Novo (capital on the Gulf of Guinea) : PORTO
44. “___ cum pretio” (“Everything has its price”) : OMNIA
47. Parenthetical figure, often : LOSS
48. Hot compress target, perhaps : STYE
49. Parenthetical figures? : ARCS
50. Vulgarian : LOUT
51. Brand with a Gravy Cravers line : ALPO
53. Announcement carriers, for short : PAS

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4 thoughts on “0130-16 New York Times Crossword Answers 30 Jan 16, Saturday”

  1. 26:31, 2 errors. 43D PORTA, 57A MASSAD. Crept through both halves. Answers didn't become obvious until filled in.

  2. 23 mins before I gave up. Just too much I had absolutely no knowledge of. Only made progress in the top left and mid left. The rest? Fuhgeddaboutit, almost *nothing*. This broke up my first chance to go an entire week of solves without a single error. But enjoyed a streak of 13 consecutive completed grids.

  3. Very tough puzzle. It almost totally stumped us. We got VISIGOTHS, VIZSLA, VEALMARSALA, and some others, but we missed a lot of them, including OBAMAS. It was so hard that it wasn't fun, but some days are like that.

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