0727-16 New York Times Crossword Answers 27 Jul 16, Wednesday

Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across
13. Scent in incense and insect repellents : PATCHOULI
Patchouli is a bushy herb in the mint family that has a heavy, strong scent. The essential oil from patchouli is used in incense, insect repellants and some alternative medicines. The plant’s name comes from a Tamil word meaning “green leaf”.

16. Place to find one O : THE HOBBIT
In J. R. R. Tolkien’s fantasy novel “The Hobbit”, the title character is Bilbo Baggins, a hobbit who stumbles across a magical ring and then embarks on a series of adventures.

17. ___ vincit amor : OMNIA
“Omnia vincit amor” is a line from Eclogue X, one of the major works of the Latin poet Virgil. We know the phrase in English as “love conquers all”.

19. In a Yoda-like manner : SAGELY
Yoda is one of the most beloved characters of the “Star Wars” series of films. Yoda’s voice was provided by the great modern-day puppeteer Frank Oz of “Muppets” fame.

22. Place to find two Os : VENN DIAGRAM
Englishman John Venn was an expert in the field of logic, and introduced the Venn diagram in his book “Symbolic Logic” in 1881. Venn diagrams are used in set theory, to illustrate the logical relationships between sets of variables.

24. Mexican shekels : PESOS
The coin called a “peso” is used in many Spanish-speaking countries around the world. The coin originated in Spain where the word “peso” means “weight”. The original peso was what we know in English as a “piece of eight”, a silver coin of a specific weight that had a nominal value of eight “reales”.

The shekel is the currency used today in Israel. The first use of the word “shekel” was in Mesopotamia around 3000 BCE when it probably referred to a specific weight of barley.

27. “That’s what ___ said!” : SHE
Here in North America, we tend to use the phrase “That’s what she said!” as a punch line after an unintended double entendre. On the other side of the Atlantic, the equivalent phrase is “… said the actress to the bishop”.

28. Place to find three Os : CIRCUS TENT
That would be a three ring circus.

36. Messes with 007’s martini : STIRS
Why have a vodka martini shaken and not stirred (as does James Bond, 007)? Well, for one thing the shaken drink tends to be colder. And with more melted ice in the drink, it isn’t as strong. These are my personal observations … no need to write in …

37. Year, in the Yucatán : ANO
The Yucatán Peninsula is located in southeastern Mexico, where it separates the Gulf of Mexico to the northwest from the Caribbean Sea to the southeast.

38. 2003 Bennifer bomb : GIGLI
Everyone wanted to see the 2003 movie “Gigli” because it starred the couple of the day, Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck (aka “Bennifer”). Everyone wanted to see it, but nobody went it seems. Lots of folks have called it the worst film ever made. Apparently “Gigli” made only $6m after costing $54m to produce.

40. Place to find four Os : AUDI DEALER
The predecessor to today’s Audi company was called Auto Union. Auto Union was formed with the merger of four individual entities: Audi, Horch, DKW and Wanderer. The Audi logo comprises four intersecting rings, each representing one of the four companies that merged.

44. “Maleficent” star, 2014 : JOLIE
“Maleficent” is a 2014 movie starring Angelina Jolie in the title role, the evil queen from “Sleeping Beauty”. “Maleficent” is loosely based on the fairy tale, and is told from the perspective of the antagonist in “Sleeping Beauty”.

45. Place to find five Os : OLYMPIC FLAG
The symbol of the Olympic Games consists of five interlocking rings, with each ring representing one of the five continents involved in the Olympics. The five continents are Europe, Asia, Africa, Oceania and America (North and South combined). The symbol was designed in 1912, adopted in 1914, and introduced at the 1920 Games.

59. Wagner work … or a possible title for this puzzle : RING CYCLE
Richard Wagner’s “Ring Cycle” is more properly called “Der Ring des Nibelungen”, and comprises four very, very long operas. The individual operas are:

“Das Rheingold”
“Die Walkure”
“Siegfried”
“Gotterdammerung”

61. Start of el 37-Across : ENERO
(37A. Year, in the Yucatán : ANO)
In Spanish, “el año” (the year) starts in “enero” (January) and ends in “diciembre” (December).

63. Muscle/bone connection : SINEW
Sinew is another name for a tendon. Tendons are bands of collagen that connect muscle to bone. Tendons are similar to ligaments and fasciae, which are also connective tissue made out of collagen, but ligaments join bone to bone, and fasciae connect muscle to muscle. We also use the term “sinew” to mean muscular power.

Down
1. Creator of the Oompa-Loompas and the BFG : DAHL
Roald Dahl’s name is Norwegian. Dahl’s parents were from Norway, although Dahl himself was Welsh. Dahl became one of the most successful authors of the twentieth century. Two of his most famous titles are “James and the Giant Peach” and “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”.

The Oompa-Loompas are characters in the Roald Dahl book “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”, and indeed in the sequel story “Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator”. Willy Wonka came across the Oompa-Loompas on an isolated island in the Atlantic and invited them to work in his factory in order to escape those hunting them on the island. Right before Dahl’s book was first published, he was intending to call the Oompa-Loompas the “Whipple-Scrumpets”.

“The BFG” is a 1982 children’s book by Welsh author Roald Dahl. The initialism in the title stands for “Big Friendly Giant”. Dahl dedicated “The BFG” to his daughter Olivia, who had passed away at the age of 7 in 1962.

2. They’re marked on maps: Abbr. : RTES
Routes (rtes.)

4. First baseman in a classic comedy routine : WHO
Bud Abbott and Lou Costello made up the comedy duo Abbott and Costello who were immensely popular in the forties and fifties. Even when I was growing up in Ireland and knew nothing about baseball, I was rolling around the floor listening to Abbott and Costello’s famous “Who’s on First?” comedy routine. Can you name all the players?

First Base: Who
Second Base: What
Third Base: I Don’t Know
Left field: Why
Center field: Because
Pitcher: Tomorrow
Catcher: Today
Shortstop: I Don’t Care/I Don’t Give a Darn

5. Maxwell House alternative : YUBAN
Yuban is a brand of light-tasting coffee owned by Kraft Foods.

Maxwell House is a brand of coffee owned by Kraft Foods. The brand took its name from an old and prominent hotel in Nashville, Tennessee called the Maxwell House Hotel. President Theodore Roosevelt stayed in the Maxwell House Hotel and commented once that coffee he drank there was “good to the last drop”. “Good to the last drop” was used as an advertising slogan for Maxwell House coffee for many years.

7. Floated, as a bad check : KITED
Check kiting is illegal. The idea behind kiting is to write a check, even though there are insufficient funds to cover the amount. The con artist then writes another check, also with insufficient funds, from another bank’s account to cover the original check. I am not sure it would work nowadays, but then I am as honest as the day is long! Oh, and I think the term “kiting” comes from the older phrase “go fly a kite”, the idea being that the bad check is floated on air (non-existent funds).

9. Resistance measure : OHM
The unit of electrical resistance is the ohm (with the symbol omega) named after German physicist Georg Simon Ohm. Ohm was the guy who established experimentally that the amount of current flowing through a circuit is directly proportional to the voltage applied, (V=IR) a relationship that every schoolkid knows as Ohm’s Law.

10. Ted Turner vis-à-vis the Atlanta Braves, once : OWNER
Ted Turner’s big initiative in the world of business was the founding of CNN, the first 24-hour cable news channel. Turner never graduated from college as he was expelled from Brown University for having a female student in his dormitory room. Years later, in 1989, Brown awarded him an honorary B.A.

11. Shearer of “The Red Shoes” : MOIRA
Moira Shearer was a ballet dancer and actress born Scotland. Shearer’s most famous film role was in 1948’s “The Red Shoes”, in which she played the lead character, a ballet dancer called Vicky Page. She was married to the respected English journalist and broadcaster Ludovic Kennedy.

13. Local fund-raising grp. : PTA
Parent-Teacher Association (PTA)

22. You, in Nice : VOUS
In French, the pronouns “toi” and “vous” both mean “you”, with the former being used with family and friends, and children. “Vous” is more formal, and is also the plural form of “toi”.

The French city of Nice is on the Mediterranean coast in the southeast of the country. Although Nice is only the fifth most populous city in France, it is home to the busiest airport outside of Paris. That’s because of all the tourists flocking to the French Riviera.

25. Lake that stretches from Toledo to Buffalo : ERIE
Toledo, Ohio lies in the northwest of the state, at the western end of Lake Erie. Toledo was founded as a result of the prosperity that hit the area when the Miami and Erie Canal was constructed in the 19th century connecting Cincinnati to the Great Lakes. Toledo is known as the Glass City as several glass companies originated there, including Owens Corning and Pilkington North America. There is a large exhibition of glass art at the Toledo Museum of Art.

Buffalo is the second most-populous city in the state of New York. The city takes its name from Buffalo Creek that runs through the metropolis (although the waterway is called Buffalo River within the city). The source of the name Buffalo Creek is the subject of much speculation, but one thing is clear, there were never any bison in the area.

26. Scary movie that spawned the spoof “Scary Movie” : SCREAM
I don’t do horror films, so I haven’t seen any of the “Scream” movies …

“Scary Movie” is one of those parody movies, a film released in 2000 that pokes fun at famous horror films. It was advertised with the tagline “No mercy. No shame. No sequel”. The “no sequel” reference was a parody in itself, making fun of the fact that slasher movies in particular were made into strings of sequels. But there was in fact to be a sequel to “Scary Movie”. “Scary Movie 2” came out in 2001, with the tagline “We lied”.

28. Forensic TV franchise : CSI
The “CSI” franchise of TV shows has been tremendously successful, but seems to be winding down. “CSI: Miami” (the “worst” of the franchise, I think) was cancelled in 2012 after ten seasons. “CSI: NY” (the “best” of the franchise) was cancelled in 2013 after nine seasons. The original “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation”, set in Las Vegas, hung in there until 2015 when it ended with a two-hour TV movie. The youngest show in the series is “CSI: Cyber”, and it’s still on the air.

29. Letter on a sorority house : TAU
Tau is the 19th letter of the Greek alphabet, the letter which gave rise to our Roman “T”. Both the letters tau (T) and chi (X) have long been symbolically associated with the cross.

33. Citrus hybrid whose name suggests its appearance : UGLI
The ugli fruit is a hybrid of an orange and a tangerine, first discovered growing wild in Jamaica where most ugli fruit comes from today. “UGLI” is a trademark name that is a variant of “ugly”, a nod to the fruits unsightly wrinkled rind.

35. Common Yuletide purchase : FIR
The custom of decorating trees at Christmas seems to have originated in Renaissance Germany. Those first trees were placed in guildhalls and were decorated with sweets and candy for the apprentices and children. After the Protestant Reformation, the Christmas tree became an alternative in Protestant homes for the Roman Catholic Christmas cribs. The Christmas tree tradition was imported into Britain by the royal family because of its German heritage. That tradition spread from Britain into North America.

“Yule” celebrations coincide with Christmas, and the words “Christmas” and “Yule” have become synonymous in much of the world. However, Yule was originally a pagan festival celebrated by Germanic peoples. The name “Yule” comes from the Old Norse word “jol” that was used to describe the festival.

38. Sci. with maps : GEOG
Geography (geog.) is a science (sci.).

41. Title role in a 2012 Tarantino film : DJANGO
“Django Unchained” is a Quentin Tarantino film that was released in 2012, starring Jamie Foxx in the title role of branded black slave just before the outbreak of the Civil War. It is the highest grossing film that Tarantino has made to date. I tend to avoid Tarantino movies as I find them to be unnecessarily violent. Apparently “Django Unchained” is one of his more violent offerings.

43. British scientist/novelist with a wintry name : CP SNOW
C. P. Snow was an English novelist, physicist and even a minister in the UK government.

45. Fiona and Shrek, for two : OGRES
Before “Shrek” was a successful movie franchise and Broadway musical, it was a children’s picture book called “Shrek!” authored and illustrated by William Steig. The title “Shrek!” came from the German/Yiddish word Schreck, meaning “fear” or “terror”.

46. Star of “Madam Secretary” : LEONI
Téa Leoni is an American actress. One of Leoni’s early parts was in the great film “A League of Their Own” (a minor role, Racine at first base). She also played Sam Malone’s fiancée on “Cheers” and opposite Adam Sandler in “Spanglish”. My favorite of her more prominent movie roles was as Jane in “Fun with Dick and Jane”. Leoni is now playing the title role in the drama series “Madam Secretary”, a show that I really enjoy …

47. Present-day locale of ancient Sheba : YEMEN
Yemen is located on the Arabian Peninsula, lying just south of Saudi Arabia and west of Oman. Yemen is the only state on the peninsula that is a republic (its official name is the Republic of Yemen). Everyone over the age of 18 gets to vote, but only Muslims can hold elected office. Yemen has seen many rebellions over the centuries, and has been suffering through a Shia uprising since February 2015.

Sheba is referenced in the Bible several times. The “Queen of Sheba” is mentioned as someone who traveled to Jerusalem to behold the fame of King Solomon. No one knows for sure where the kingdom of Sheba was located, although there is evidence that it was actually the ancient Semitic civilization of Saba. The Sabeans lived in what today is Yemen, on the Arabian Peninsula.

48. Pet at Queen Elizabeth II’s side : CORGI
The Welsh corgi is a herding dog that originated in Britain, with two recognized breeds: the Pembroke and Cardigan. Corgis aren’t speedy enough to do their job by running around livestock like collies, and instead nip at the heels.

49. ___ out (didn’t make it on base, in a way) : FLIED
That would be in baseball.

50. Slow, in music : LENTO
A lento passage is a piece of music that has a slow tempo.

53. Refusal from Putin : NYET
“Nyet” is Russian for “no”, and “da” is Russian for “yes”.

Vladimir Putin became acting President of Russia at the very end of 1999 when Boris Yeltsin resigned. Putin was elected in his own right in 2000, re-elected in 2004, and then ran up against a term limit in 2008. In 2008 Putin was appointed by his successor, President Dmitry Medvedev, to the position of Prime Minister. Putin is a controversial figure, inside and outside Russia. On the one hand he led the country out of an economic crisis into a period of stability and relative prosperity. On the other hand he has been associated with government corruption and accused of allowing private concerns to have undue influence on government actions.

54. One of 100 in Winnie-the-Pooh’s wood : ACRE
Hundred Acre Wood is where Winnie the Pooh lives with his friends. According to a map illustrating the books by A. A. Milne, Hundred Acre Wood is part of a larger forest, with Owl’s house sitting right at the center.

58. “___ You the One?” (MTV reality show) : ARE
“Are You the One?” is an MTV reality show that stars the season with ten men and ten women hoping to find their perfect love match. Nope …

60. Walgreens rival : CVS
The name of the drugstore chain CVS once stood for Consumer Value Stores, although these days the company uses the acronym to denote Convenience, Value and Service.

“Walgreens is the largest chain of drugstores in the United States, with over 7,500 retail outlets. The company is named for the owner of the first store and founder of the chain, Charles R. Walgreen. Also, Walgreens claims to have introduced the malted milkshake, in 1922.

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For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. Attracted : DREW
5. Talk and talk and talk : YAK
8. Opposites of busts : BOOMS
13. Scent in incense and insect repellents : PATCHOULI
15. “That’s unbelievable!” : OH WOW!
16. Place to find one O : THE HOBBIT
17. ___ vincit amor : OMNIA
18. “On top of that …” : ALSO …
19. In a Yoda-like manner : SAGELY
21. Do the wrong thing : ERR
22. Place to find two Os : VENN DIAGRAM
24. Mexican shekels : PESOS
27. “That’s what ___ said!” : SHE
28. Place to find three Os : CIRCUS TENT
32. “___ said!” : ‘NUFF
36. Messes with 007’s martini : STIRS
37. Year, in the Yucatán : ANO
38. 2003 Bennifer bomb : GIGLI
39. “That’s clear to me now” : I SEE
40. Place to find four Os : AUDI DEALER
42. Vegas performance : ACT
44. “Maleficent” star, 2014 : JOLIE
45. Place to find five Os : OLYMPIC FLAG
51. “That’s unbelievable!” : GEE!
52. Snatched : STOLEN
53. Snatches : NABS
57. Type of type : ROMAN
59. Wagner work … or a possible title for this puzzle : RING CYCLE
61. Start of el 37-Across : ENERO
62. “Oh, stop moping!” : GET OVER IT!
63. Muscle/bone connection : SINEW
64. It’s said at the exchange of Os : I DO
65. Rung : STEP

Down
1. Creator of the Oompa-Loompas and the BFG : DAHL
2. They’re marked on maps: Abbr. : RTES
3. “Hello … hello … hello …” : ECHO
4. First baseman in a classic comedy routine : WHO
5. Maxwell House alternative : YUBAN
6. Sync up : ALIGN
7. Floated, as a bad check : KITED
8. “How do you like dem apples?!” : BOOYAH!
9. Resistance measure : OHM
10. Ted Turner vis-à-vis the Atlanta Braves, once : OWNER
11. Shearer of “The Red Shoes” : MOIRA
12. Bunch of bees : SWARM
13. Local fund-raising grp. : PTA
14. Lose sleep (over) : OBSESS
20. Itemize : LIST
22. You, in Nice : VOUS
23. Nice : GENIAL
24. Tire-changing spots : PITS
25. Lake that stretches from Toledo to Buffalo : ERIE
26. Scary movie that spawned the spoof “Scary Movie” : SCREAM
28. Forensic TV franchise : CSI
29. Letter on a sorority house : TAU
30. A O doesn’t have one : END
31. “There’s ___ in team” : NO I
33. Citrus hybrid whose name suggests its appearance : UGLI
34. Head for the hills : FLEE
35. Common Yuletide purchase : FIR
38. Sci. with maps : GEOG
40. Going ___ (battling) : AT IT
41. Title role in a 2012 Tarantino film : DJANGO
43. British scientist/novelist with a wintry name : CP SNOW
45. Fiona and Shrek, for two : OGRES
46. Star of “Madam Secretary” : LEONI
47. Present-day locale of ancient Sheba : YEMEN
48. Pet at Queen Elizabeth II’s side : CORGI
49. ___ out (didn’t make it on base, in a way) : FLIED
50. Slow, in music : LENTO
53. Refusal from Putin : NYET
54. One of 100 in Winnie-the-Pooh’s wood : ACRE
55. Tiny anomaly : BLIP
56. Collector’s goal : SET
58. “___ You the One?” (MTV reality show) : ARE
60. Walgreens rival : CVS

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