0805-16 New York Times Crossword Answers 5 Aug 16, Friday

Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across
8. TED talk, e.g. : LECTURE
The acronym TED stands for Technology Entertainment and Design. TED is a set of conferences held around the world by a non-profit group called the Sapling Foundation. The conference subjects are varied, and the meetings are often led by big names such as Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Bill Gates and Jane Goodall. The Sapling Foundation then makes recordings of the conferences available for free online with the intent of disseminating the ideas globally. These conferences are known as “TED Talks”.

17. Eponym of an annual Golden Globe award for lifetime achievement : DEMILLE
Cecil B. Demille was a movie director and producer who started his professional career in the silent era. DeMille’s movies were often epic works, such “Cleopatra” (1936), “Samson and Delilah” (1949), “The Greatest Show on Earth” (1952) and “The Ten Commandments” (1956). The Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award is named in his honor, and indeed he was its first recipient.

18. Parts of abdomens : SPLEENS
The spleen has a couple of functions in the human body. It removes old red blood cells, and recycles the iron contained therein. The waste product of this recycling is bile. It also holds a reserve of blood that can be released when necessary (if the body goes into “circulatory shock”). Greek and Roman physicians ascribed to the theory that the body had four basic substances, the so-called four humors. All diseases were caused by these four substances getting out of balance. The four humors were:

Black bile (melancolia)
Yellow bile (cholera)
Phlegm (phlegma)
Blood (sanguis)

25. Student monitors, for short : RAS
RAs are resident assistants or resident advisers, the peer leaders found in residence halls, particularly on a college campus.

26. Like the tops of many porticoes : ARCED
“Portico” is an Italian word that describes a porch or roofed walkway leading to the entrance of a building.

30. Home of Charlie Chan : OAHU
Charlie Chan is the main character in a series of novels by Earl Derr Biggers. Chan is a Chinese-American detective working with the Honolulu police department. There have been almost 50 movies made featuring the Charlie Chan character.

38. Second City subway org. : CTA
Chicago Transit Authority (CTA)

Chicago was the second-most populous city in the US for decades, until Los Angeles took up the spot behind New York in 1984. This second place gave rise to Chicago’s nickname “Second City”.

39. You might be thrown on it : JUDO MAT
Judo is a martial art from Japan that was developed relatively recently, in 1882. The name “judo” translates as “gentle way”.

41. Narrow inlet : RIA
A drowned valley might be called a ria or a fjord, both formed as sea level rises. A ria is a drowned valley created by river erosion, and a fjord is a drowned valley created by glaciation.

42. Average producer : DOW JONES
Dow Jones & Company was founded as a publishing house in 1882 by three newspaper reporters, Charles Dow, Edward Jones and Charles Bergstresser. Today, the company’s most famous publication has to be “The Wall Street Journal”. In 1884, Charles Dow started reporting the average dollar value of the stock of eleven companies, an index which spawned a whole host of metrics that carry the Dow Jones name to this day, including the renowned Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA), also known as the “Dow 30”.

44. Paradise : XANADU
“Kubla Khan” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge is my wife’s favorite poem. Coleridge wrote his masterpiece one night in 1797 after a vivid dream heavily influenced by opium.

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree :
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.

46. Recital numbers : SOLI
“Soli” (the plural of “solo”) are pieces of music performed by one artist, whereas “tutti” are pieces performed by all of the artists.

47. Sammy who wrote the lyrics to “Ain’t That a Kick in the Head” : CAHN
Sammy Cahn wrote for them all, including Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Doris Day. Cahn’s most famous song was probably “Three Coins in the Fountain”. He also wrote “All the Way”, made famous by Frank Sinatra.

49. Italian dictators : DUCES
“Duce” is Italian for “duke”. The most infamous dictator known as “Il Duce” was Benito Mussolini.

54. Dunham of “Girls” : LENA
Lena Dunham is a co-star in the HBO series “Girls”, and is also the show’s creator. Dunham garnered a lot of attention for herself during the 2012 US Presidential election cycle as she starred in ad focused on getting out the youth vote. In the spot she compared voting for the first time with having sex for the first time.

61. Christie’s event : ART SALE
Christie’s is an auction house based in London, the largest auction house in the world. The business was founded in 1766 by James Christie.

65. Temple of Artemis city : EPHESUS
Ephesus was an Ancient Greek city on the Ionian coast in present-day Turkey. Ephesus was home to the Temple of Artemis, which was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

68. Chameleon, e.g. : REPTILE
Chameleons are a family of Old World lizards, many of which have the ability to change their skin coloration and pattern. The term “chameleon” is simplified Latin, and is ultimately derived from the Greek for “lion of the ground”.

Down
2. “Army of ___” (recruiting slogan) : ONE
The current recruiting slogan used by the US Army is “Army Strong”, replacing “Army of One” in 2006. Prior to that, “Be All You Can Be” was the army’s slogan for more than twenty years.

3. “Spotlight” director McCarthy : TOM
“Spotlight” is a marvelous biographical drama released in 2015 that deals with “The Boston Globe” investigation into child sex abuse in the city by Roman Catholic priests. The film’s title refers to the paper’s “Spotlight” team of investigative journalists. “Spotlight” very much reminded me of another of my favorite movies, “All the President’s Men”. I really, really rue the demise of investigative journalism in the world …

7. Some women on “Mad Men” : STENOS
Stenography is the process of writing in shorthand. The term comes from the Greek “steno” (narrow) and “graphe” (writing).

“Mad Men” is the flagship show on the AMC television channel. Set in the sixties, it’s all about an advertising agency located on Madison Avenue in New York (hence the title). “Mad Men” became the first show created by a basic cable channel to win an Emmy for Outstanding Drama Series.

8. Injured: Fr. : LESE
“Lèse majesté” is the crime of offending the dignity of the “majesty” or sovereign, or the state. The term is from French Law, and comes from the law of Ancient Rome. In Latin “laesa maiestas” means “injured majesty”. Clearly, the term has no relevance in the United States but in other countries, including many in Europe, the law is occasionally cited.

10. Confessional word : CULPA
Many Roman Catholics are very familiar with the Latin phrase “mea culpa” meaning “my fault”, as it is used in the Latin Mass. The additional term “mea maxima culpa” translates as “my most grievous fault”.

11. Charge that may be high : TREASON
Treason is a serious crime committed against the nation (or the sovereign). One who commits “treason” is called a “traitor”. In the past, the term treason also applied to lesser crimes (like a woman killing her husband) so there was a differentiation between high treason against the king, and “petit treason”, against a more common citizen.

12. “Evolving the way the world moves” sloganeer : UBER
Uber is a ridesharing service that was founded in 2009 and is based in San Francisco. The service is somewhat controversial and has been described as an illegal taxicab operation. Central to Uber’s service is the company’s mobile app, which can use the client’s GPS location to help find the nearest available ride. Uber’s main competitor is Lyft. Personally, I love the service and have only had good experiences …

20. Colorful swallow? : JELL-O SHOT
If you like Jell-O, then you want to stop by LeRoy, New York where you can visit the only Jell-O museum in the world. While at the museum, you can walk along the Jell-O Brick Road …

27. Locale for a 39-Across : DOJO
(39A. You might be thrown on it : JUDO MAT)
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.

31. Shooting star? : AIR ACE
A flying ace is an aviator who has shot down a number of enemy planes during combat. The qualifying number of kills seems to vary, but five is common. The first use of “ace” was during WWI when the French newspapers dubbed pilot Adolphe Pegoud “l’as” (French for “the ace”) when he shot down his fifth German plane.

32. U.S. athlete who won more gold medals at the 1980 Winter Olympics than all but two non-U.S. countries : HEIDEN
Eric Heiden is a former American speed skater, the most successful athlete to compete in any single Winter Olympics. He won five gold medals at the 1980 games in Lake Placid. After retiring from the ice, Heiden became a doctor and is now an orthopedic surgeon in Salt Lake City.

35. Martial arts weapons that are two sticks connected by a chain : NUNCHAKUS
The martial arts weapon known as “nunchaku” are often called “nunchucks” in English. Nunchaku originated in Okinawa, Japan. They were popularized in the West when used by Bruce Lee in some of his martial arts films.

40. Div. of the Justice Department : DEA
Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)

45. There’s nothing to it : NULL SET
An empty set of numbers in math is called a null set.

55. Armisen of “Portlandia” : FRED
“Portlandia” is a satirical sketch show that is aired on the Independent Film Channel (IFC). The show is set in Portland, Oregon and takes its name from a statue called “Portlandia” which sits above the entrance to a building in downtown Portland. The statue is a copper repoussé work, and is second in size in the US only to the Statue of Liberty.

56. Hip-hop’s ___ Fiasco : LUPE
Lupe Fiasco is the stage name of rap artist Wasalu Muhammad Jaco. Jaco uses his real name when performing with rock band Japanese Cartoon.

57. Ottoman honorific : AGHA
“Aga” (also “agha”) is a title that was used by both civil and military officials in the Ottoman Empire.

59. The Miners of the N.C.A.A. : UTEP
The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) was founded in 1914, originally as the Texas State School of Mines and Metallurgy. To this day there is a mine shaft on the campus, and the mascot of the school’s sports teams is Paydirt Pete, a prospector from the mining industry. The teams are also known as the UTEP Miners and Lady Miners.

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For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. Conflicts with combat : HOT WARS
8. TED talk, e.g. : LECTURE
15. Going around the world? : IN ORBIT
16. Where people live well beyond the city limits : EXURBIA
17. Eponym of an annual Golden Globe award for lifetime achievement : DEMILLE
18. Parts of abdomens : SPLEENS
19. Event where kids ask lots of questions, informally : TEEN JEOPARDY!
21. Hardly deliberate : RASH
24. Female antelope : DOE
25. Student monitors, for short : RAS
26. Like the tops of many porticoes : ARCED
28. Crib piece : SLAT
30. Home of Charlie Chan : OAHU
34. Mortal : PERSON
36. Recited prayers : LITANIES
38. Second City subway org. : CTA
39. You might be thrown on it : JUDO MAT
41. Narrow inlet : RIA
42. Average producer : DOW JONES
44. Paradise : XANADU
46. Recital numbers : SOLI
47. Sammy who wrote the lyrics to “Ain’t That a Kick in the Head” : CAHN
49. Italian dictators : DUCES
50. Frustrated cry : GAH!
52. Impressed cry : OOH!
54. Dunham of “Girls” : LENA
55. Real hack? : FLAGRANT FOUL
60. Resembling a heavy curtain, say : RUGLIKE
61. Christie’s event : ART SALE
65. Temple of Artemis city : EPHESUS
66. “Ah, got it” : I SEE NOW
67. Least hopping : DEADEST
68. Chameleon, e.g. : REPTILE

Down
1. Put away : HID
2. “Army of ___” (recruiting slogan) : ONE
3. “Spotlight” director McCarthy : TOM
4. Twists : WRITHES
5. ___-bodied : ABLE
6. Sore : RILED
7. Some women on “Mad Men” : STENOS
8. Injured: Fr. : LESE
9. Added cost of selling overseas : EXPORT TAX
10. Confessional word : CULPA
11. Charge that may be high : TREASON
12. “Evolving the way the world moves” sloganeer : UBER
13. Compost heap bit : RIND
14. Undemanding : EASY
20. Colorful swallow? : JELL-O SHOT
21. Some mixtapes : RAP CDS
22. Playground comeback : ARE TOO!
23. Opposite of fine print? : SCRAWL
27. Locale for a 39-Across : DOJO
29. Direct : AIM
31. Shooting star? : AIR ACE
32. U.S. athlete who won more gold medals at the 1980 Winter Olympics than all but two non-U.S. countries : HEIDEN
33. Patriotic chant : USA! USA!
35. Martial arts weapons that are two sticks connected by a chain : NUNCHAKUS
37. Somewhat : A TAD
40. Div. of the Justice Department : DEA
43. Moved like a 20-Down : JIGGLED
45. There’s nothing to it : NULL SET
48. “I was robbed!” : NO FAIR!
51. Come about : ARISE
53. Mount : HORSE
55. Armisen of “Portlandia” : FRED
56. Hip-hop’s ___ Fiasco : LUPE
57. Ottoman honorific : AGHA
58. Start and end of many a flight : NEST
59. The Miners of the N.C.A.A. : UTEP
62. What makes nose noise? : AN I
63. 😀 alternative : LOL
64. Source of fleece : EWE

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