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CROSSWORD SETTER: Andrew Zhou
THEME: The Road to Hell …
The bottom-right square in today’s grid is a rebus square filled with the word HELL (“HL” in my grid). The circled letters represent a PAVED ROAD, and spell out GOOD INTENTIONS. This extremely clever arrangement informs us that THE ROAD TO HELL IS PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONS:
6A. What the shaded squares in this puzzle symbolize : PAVED ROAD
66A. Beach souvenir : SEASHELL
49D. Cause a commotion : RAISE HELL
BILL BUTLER’S COMPLETION TIME: 8m 47s
ANSWERS I MISSED: 0
Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across
6. What the shaded squares in this puzzle symbolize : PAVED ROAD
(65A. French abbot thought to have originated the saying depicted symbolically in this puzzle : ST BERNARD)
The exact origin of the proverb “the road to hell is paved with good intentions” seems to have lost in the mists of time, although a popular attribution is to Saint Bernard of Clairvaux in the twelfth century. Regardless, the meaning of the phrase is that good intentions are all very well, but pretty much useless unless acted on.
15. Brand with a trademark on the phrase “Set it and forget it” : RONCO
Ronco is a company the builds and sells products mainly for the kitchen. Over the years the company has been closely associated with the “-O-Matic” suffix, especially the “Veg-O-Matic” vegetable slicer. It is also associated with the phrase “set it and forget it”, which was used for Ronco’s Showtime Rotisserie Grill.
18. Goya or Del Monte product : GREEN PEAS
Goya Foods is a supplier of food products headquartered in Secaucus, New Jersey. The company was founded in 1936 by two immigrants from Spain.
Del Monte Foods is headquartered just down the road here, in San Francisco. The company’s roots go back to 1886 when a foods distributor in Oakland used the name Del Monte on a premium blend of coffee, specially prepared for the Hotel Del Monte on the Monterey peninsula.
22. Actress Williams of “Game of Thrones” : MAISIE
Maisie Williams is the English actress who plays the tomboyish young girl Arya Stark on the hit HBO series “Game of Thrones”.
23. “Better Call Saul” airer : AMC
“Better Call Saul” is a spinoff drama series from the hit show “Breaking Bad”. The main character is small-time lawyer Saul Goodman, played by Bob Odenkirk, who featured in the original series. “Better Call Saul” is set six years before Goodman makes an appearance in the “Breaking Bad” storyline. The lawyer’s real name is James Morgan McGill, and his pseudonym is a play on the words “S’all good, man!”
25. Ones working at home? : UMPS
Baseball umpires work at home plate.
34. Japanese city known as “the nation’s kitchen” : OSAKA
The Japanese city of Osaka used to be called Naniwa, with the name changing to Osaka sometime before 1500. “Osaka” can be translated either as “large hill” or “large slope”. Osaka is sometimes referred to as “the Chicago of Japan” as it is a major center of commerce and industry. The city has also been named the “nation’s kitchen”, and was a center for Japan’s rice trade for centuries.
35. Combat setting for an air cav, once : NAM
Air cavalry is an infantry unit, especially in the US Army, that is transported into combat by helicopter.
41. One of the ABC islands : ARUBA
Aruba is one of the so-called ABC Islands. The ABC Islands is the nickname given to the three westernmost islands of the Leeward Antilles in the Caribbean. The nickname comes from the first letters of the island names: Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao. All three of the ABC Islands are part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
50. Collude with : ABET
The word “abet” comes into English from the Old French “abeter” meaning “to bait” or “to harass with dogs” (it literally means “to make bite”). This sense of encouraging something bad to happen morphed into our modern usage of “abet” meaning to aid or encourage someone in a crime.
52. Brunch beverage : MIMOSA
Where I come from, the cocktail known in North America as a mimosa is called a Buck’s Fizz, named after the club where it was introduced in 1921. The mimosa came along a few years later, apparently first being served in the Paris Ritz. If you want to make a mimosa, it’s a 50-50 mix of champagne and orange juice, and it is very tasty …
56. Larger-than-life statues : COLOSSI
A colossus (plural “colossi”) is an exceptionally large statue, the most famous of which was the Colossus of Rhodes. This was a statue of the god Helios that stood over 100 feet tall, on the Greek island of Rhodes. New York’s Statue of Liberty was designed to have similar dimensions. The Emma Lazarus poem that is inscribed on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty is in fact titled “The New Colossus”.
63. “Misery” director : ROB REINER
The great director and actor Rob Reiner first came to prominence playing “Meathead”, Archie and Edith Bunker’s son-in-law in “All in the Family”. Since then, Reiner has directed a long string of hit movies including, “The Princess Bride”, “Stand by Me”, “This Is Spinal Tap”, “When Harry Met Sally”, “Misery” and “A Few Good Men”.
The 1990 film “Misery” is an adaptation of the Stephen King novel of the same name. I think it’s the only movie of a King book that I’ve watched and enjoyed. I can’t stomach his books, not because of the writing, but because of the gruesome scenes that are part of the plots. The screen version of “Misery” is toned down a little from the original storyline. In the novel, the Kathy Bates character amputates the James Caan character’s foot to incapacitate him. In the movie she just smashes his ankles. Big difference …
Down
3. Like one end of a battery : ANODIC
A battery is a device that converts chemical energy into electric energy. A simple battery is made up of three parts: a cathode, an anode and a liquid electrolyte. Ions from the electrolyte react chemically with the material in the anode producing a compound and releasing electrons. At the same time, the electrolyte reacts with the material in the cathode, absorbing electrons and producing a different chemical compound. In this way, there is a buildup of electrons at the anode and a deficit of electrons at the cathode. When a connection (wire, say) is made between the cathode and anode, electrons flow through the resulting circuit from the anode to cathode in an attempt to rectify the electron imbalance.
4. Cold War missiles on mobile launchers : SCUDS
Scud missiles were developed by the Soviet Union during the Cold War. The Soviets called them R-11 missiles at first, with later versions known as R-17 and R-300 Elbrus. The name “Scud” was actually the name NATO used for the missile, a name created by Western intelligence officers. Ballistic missiles haven’t been used a lot in actual warfare, the exception being the German V-2 rocket attacks on England during WWII. After the V-2, the second most-used ballistic missile in warfare is the Scud, which featured in a number of conflicts:
used by Egypt against Israel in the Yom Kippur War of 1973
used by the USSR in Afghanistan
used by Libya against a US Coast Guard station in the Mediterranean in 1986
used by Iranians and Iraqis in the Iran-Iraq War of 1980-88
used by Iraq in the Gulf War of 1990-91
5. Queens neighborhood next to Jamaica : HOLLIS
Hollis is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Queens.
6. 1990s fad : POGS
The game of pogs was originally played with bottle caps from POG fruit juice. The juice was named for its constituents, passion fruit, orange and guava.
7. Fig. in car ads : APR
Annual percentage rate (APR)
8. Village leader? : VEE
The leading letter in the word “village” is a letter V (vee).
9. Romanian composer George : ENESCU
George Enescu (aka Georges Enesco) was a Romanian composer and performer. Enescu’s most popular works are two “Romanian Rhapsodies” (1901-2) and the opera “Oedipe” (1936).
10. Villainous resident of Crab Key island : DR NO
“Dr. No” may have been the first film in the wildly successful James Bond franchise, but it was the sixth novel in the series of books penned by Ian Fleming. Fleming was inspired to write the story after reading the Fu Manchu tales by Sax Rohmer. If you’ve read the Rohmer books or seen the films, you’ll recognize the similarities between the characters Dr. No and Fu Manchu.
11. OutKast and Mobb Deep : RAP DUOS
OutKast is a hip hop duo consisting of rappers André 3000 and Big Boi.
Mobb Deep is a hip hop duo from Queen, New York consisting of Havoc and Prodigy. No clue …
12. ___ World Trade Center : ONE
One World Trade Center (One WTC) is the legal name for the tallest building in the US that is known colloquially as “Freedom Tower”. The building stands at the symbolic height of 1776 feet.
13. Ottoman official : AGA
“Aga” (also “agha”) is a title that was used by both civil and military officials in the Ottoman Empire.
14. Some, in Somme : DES
The Somme is a department in the very north of France, in the Picardy region. The Somme is famous as the site of devastating battles during WWI.
20. Choice word? : EENIE
Eeny, meeny, miny, moe,
Catch the tiger/monkey/baby by the toe.
If it hollers/screams let him go,
Eeny, meeny, miny, moe, you are it!
23. Galore : APLENTY
Our word “galore”, meaning “in great numbers”, comes from the Irish phrase “go leór” that translates as “sufficiently, enough”.
24. Illinois city where John Deere is headquartered : MOLINE
Moline is a city in Illinois located on the border with Iowa. The biggest employer in town by far is John Deere, which has its headquarters there.
26. Juilliard degs. : MFAS
Master of Fine Arts (MFA)
The Juilliard School, now located in the Lincoln Center in New York City, was founded in 1905 as the Institute of Musical Art. The school was named in honor of Augustus D. Juillard, a successful textile merchant who left a substantial amount of money for the purpose of advancing music in the US. The immense popularity of the school is perhaps illustrated by its acceptance rate. In 2007 the school had 2,138 applications, and only 162 students were admitted. That’s an acceptance rate of well under 10%.
28. FiveThirtyEight datum : STAT
FiveThirtyEight is a website that publishes compiled polling date during election cycles. The site takes its name from from the total number of electors in the US electoral college. FiveThirtyEight has been owned by ESPN since 2013. One has to wonder how that fits with the rest of the ESPN portfolio …
31. Way to Sugar Hill, in song : A TRAIN
The A Train in the New York City Subway system runs from 207th Street, through Manhattan and over to Far Rockaway in Queens. The service lends its name to a jazz standard “Take the ‘A’ Train”, the signature tune of Duke Ellington and a song much sung by Ella Fitzgerald. One version of the lyrics are:
You must take the A Train
To go to Sugar Hill way up in Harlem
If you miss the A Train
You’ll find you’ve missed the quickest way to Harlem
Hurry, get on, now, it’s coming
Listen to those rails a-thrumming (All Aboard!)
Get on the A Train
Soon you will be on Sugar Hill in Harlem.
35. “For the benefit of all” org. : NASA
The Soviet Union launched the Sputnik satellite towards the end of 1957, a development that shocked the establishment in the US. Within months, President Eisenhower created the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA, now DARPA) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The Space Race had begun …
36. ___ Spring : ARAB
The term “Arab Spring” has been applied to the wave of protests, riots and civil wars that impacted the Arab world for 2010 to 2012. The uprisings were sparked by the Tunisian Revolution at the end of 2010 that led to the ouster of the longtime president and the institution of democratic elections. The period of instability that followed in some Arab League countries has been dubbed the “Arab Winter”.
38. ___ Steinbrenner, principal owner of the Yankees : HAL
Hal Steinbrenner is the principal owner of the New York Yankees baseball team. Hal and his brother Hank inherited the team after their father George Hal Steinbrenner passed away in 2010.
39. U.S. base in Cuba, for short : GITMO
The Guantánamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba is often referred to by using abbreviation “GTMO” or simply “Gitmo”. Gitmo is the oldest overseas base operated by the navy and dates back to the Cuban-American Treaty of 1903, at which time the US leased the facility as a fueling station. A perpetual lease was offered by Tomas Estrada Palma, the first President of Cuba, after the US took over control of Cuba from Spain following the Spanish-American War of 1898.
46. Patrician estates : VILLAS
In ancient Rome, the patricians were the members of the families in the ruling classes.
47. 1990s war locale : BOSNIA
Bosnia and Herzegovina was one of six federal units in former Yugoslavia that gained independence after the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s. There are three main ethnic groups in Bosnia. The largest group are the Bosniaks, the second the Bosnian Serbs, and the third the Bosnian Croats.
53. Rippled and lustrous : MOIRE
A moiré pattern is a phenomenon in physics, a so-called interference pattern. If you lay two sheets of mesh over each other for example, slightly offset, then what you see is a moiré pattern. “Moiré” is the French name for a textile that we know simply as “moire”. The rippled pattern of the textile resembles that of the interference pattern.
57. Medicare beneficiaries: Abbr. : SRS
Medicare is a the national medical insurance program administered by the US government. The term “Medicare” originally applied to a government program introduced in 1956 that provided coverage for families of those serving in the military. The current Medicare program was introduced by the Johnson administration in 1966, to provide health insurance to anyone aged 65 years or older.
60. Keats’s “___ Dream” : ON A
As Hermes once took to his feathers light,
When lulled Argus, baffled, swoon’d and slept,
So on a Delphic reed, my idle spright
So play’d, so charm’d, so conquer’d, so bereft
The dragon-world of all its hundred eyes;
And seeing it asleep, so fled away,
Not to pure Ida with its snow-cold skies,
Nor unto Tempe where Jove griev’d that day;
But to that second circle of sad Hell,
Where in the gust, the whirlwind, and the flaw
Of rain and hail-stones, lovers need not tell
Their sorrows—pale were the sweet lips I saw,
Pale were the lips I kiss’d, and fair the form
I floated with, about that melancholy storm.
For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. Grind : GNASH
6. What the shaded squares in this puzzle symbolize : PAVED ROAD
15. Brand with a trademark on the phrase “Set it and forget it” : RONCO
16. Area to roam : OPEN RANGE
17. In a state of entanglement : AFOUL
18. Goya or Del Monte product : GREEN PEAS
19. Sticks one’s nose in : MEDDLES
21. Soccer coverage? : SOD
22. Actress Williams of “Game of Thrones” : MAISIE
23. “Better Call Saul” airer : AMC
25. Ones working at home? : UMPS
29. Move like the sun in the sky : ARC
30. “Focus!” : SNAP OUT OF IT!
33. “___ never work!” : IT’LL
34. Japanese city known as “the nation’s kitchen” : OSAKA
35. Combat setting for an air cav, once : NAM
38. Announcement after a deep breath : HERE I GO
40. In a comfortable position : SET
41. One of the ABC islands : ARUBA
43. Years in old Rome : ANNI
44. Dish offering : SATELLITE TV
47. Where many drafts are produced : BAR
50. Collude with : ABET
51. Choice word : ANY
52. Brunch beverage : MIMOSA
54. Rural allergen : HAY
56. Larger-than-life statues : COLOSSI
57. Something pulled out before turning in : SLEEP SOFA
62. Dialogue, e.g. : LINES
63. “Misery” director : ROB REINER
64. Turn up : ARISE
65. French abbot thought to have originated the saying depicted symbolically in this puzzle : ST BERNARD
66. Beach souvenir : SEASHELL
Down
1. Nana : GRAMMA
2. What the gutsy display : NO FEAR
3. Like one end of a battery : ANODIC
4. Cold War missiles on mobile launchers : SCUDS
5. Queens neighborhood next to Jamaica : HOLLIS
6. 1990s fad : POGS
7. Fig. in car ads : APR
8. Village leader? : VEE
9. Romanian composer George : ENESCU
10. Villainous resident of Crab Key island : DR NO
11. OutKast and Mobb Deep : RAP DUOS
12. ___ World Trade Center : ONE
13. Ottoman official : AGA
14. Some, in Somme : DES
20. Choice word? : EENIE
23. Galore : APLENTY
24. Illinois city where John Deere is headquartered : MOLINE
26. Juilliard degs. : MFAS
27. Gymnastics position : PIKE
28. FiveThirtyEight datum : STAT
31. Way to Sugar Hill, in song : A TRAIN
32. ___ far gone : TOO
35. “For the benefit of all” org. : NASA
36. ___ Spring : ARAB
37. Remote control button : MUTE
38. ___ Steinbrenner, principal owner of the Yankees : HAL
39. U.S. base in Cuba, for short : GITMO
42. “Show up … or else!” : BE THERE!
45. Stores for future use : LAYS IN
46. Patrician estates : VILLAS
47. 1990s war locale : BOSNIA
48. Charge : ASSESS
49. Cause a commotion : RAISE HELL
53. Rippled and lustrous : MOIRE
55. Copier : APER
56. Check the birth date of, say : CARD
57. Medicare beneficiaries: Abbr. : SRS
58. Park place? : LOT
59. Retreat : EBB
60. Keats’s “___ Dream” : ON A
61. Slangy suffix with two or three : -FER