0926-16 New York Times Crossword Answers 26 Sep 16, Monday

Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across
7. Resident of Oman or Yemen : ARAB
Oman lies on the southeast coast of the Arabian Peninsula and is neighbored by the OAE, Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Oman is a monarchy, and the official name of the state is the Sultanate of Oman. All of the country’s legislative, executive and judiciary power resides with the hereditary sultan.

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.

15. Protein-rich vegan staple : TOFU
Tofu is another name for bean curd, and is a Japanese word meaning just that … bean that has “curdled”. Tofu is produced by coagulating soy milk, using either salt or something acidic. Once the protein has coagulated, the curds are pressed into the familiar blocks. Personally I love tofu, but my wife, she absolutely hates it …

17. *Iron Man’s love interest : PEPPER POTTS
Iron Man is another one of those comic book superheroes, created by Stan Lee for Marvel Comics. The character has become very famous in recent years since the appearance of the 2008 action movie “Iron Man” starring Robert Downey, Jr. in the title role. Iron Man’s love interest, Pepper Potts, is routinely played by Gwyneth Paltrow in the same series of films.

19. ___ Jima : IWO
Iwo Jima is a volcanic island located south of Tokyo that today is uninhabited. The name is Japanese for “Sulfur Island”, referring to the sulfur mining on which Iwo Jima’s economy once depended. There were about a thousand Japanese civilians living on the island prior to WWII. In 1944, there was a massive influx of Japanese military personnel in anticipation of the inevitable US invasion. As the Japanese military moved in, the civilians were forced out and no one has lived there since.

29. Old-fashioned address organizer : ROLODEX
The name Rolodex is short for “rolling index”, and applies to a device that was invented back in 1956. Even in today’s world that is run by computers, Rolodexes are still quite popular.

32. Unsettled feeling : AGITA
Agita is another name for acid indigestion, and more generally can mean “agitation, anxiety”.

33. Actor McKellen : IAN
Sir Ian McKellen is a marvelous English actor, someone who is comfortable playing anything from Macbeth on stage to Magneto in an “X-Men” movie. On the big screen, McKellen is very famous for playing Gandalf in “The Lord of Rings”. In the UK Sir Ian is noted for being at the forefront of the campaign for equal rights for gay people, a role he has enthusiastically embraced since the eighties.

37. Ford Escape or Jeep Cherokee, for short : SUV
The Ford Escape is an SUV that was developed jointly with Mazda and introduced in the 2001 model year. The Mazda version of the same vehicle is known as the Tribute.

The Jeep Cherokee is an SUV with some legs. The original SJ model was produced from 1974 until 1983, with derivative models very much alive today.

42. Cheer at a fútbol match : OLE!
“Fútbol” is the Spanish word for football, soccer.

48. Disney fawn : BAMBI
The 1942 Disney classic “Bambi” is based on a book written by Felix Salten called “Bambi, A Life in the Woods”. There is a documented phenomenon known as the Bambi Effect, whereby people become more interested in animal rights after having watched the scene where Bambi’s mother is shot by hunters.

52. *Annual Thanksgiving Day run : TURKEY TROT
“Turkey trots” are long-distance fun runs held around Thanksgiving here in the US, and around Christmas over the UK. The “turkey” reference is to the traditional dish served at both holidays.

56. Copper + zinc : BRASS
Brass is an alloy of copper and zinc. Compare this with bronze, an alloy of copper and tin. Copper and bronze are often mistaken for each other.

59. “Deadly” offense : SIN
The cardinal sins of Christian ethics are also known as the seven deadly sins. The seven deadly sins are:

• Wrath
• Greed
• Sloth
• Pride
• Lust
• Envy
• Gluttony

66. Stephen Colbert’s Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow, e.g. : PAC
Satirist Stephen Colbert establish a Super PAC called Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow in 2011, and allowed it to collect funds for over a year. The so-called “Colbert Super PAC” raised on a million dollars in that period, with the majority of funds eventually going to charity.

A Political Action Committee (PAC) is a private group that works to influence the outcome of a particular election or group of elections. Any group becomes a PAC by law when it receives or spends more than $1,000 for the purpose of influencing the outcome of an election. In 2010 the Supreme Court ruled that PACS that did not make direct contributions to candidates or parties could accept unlimited contributions. These “independent-expenditure only committees” are commonly referred to as “super PACs”.

68. ___ Beach, Calif. : LAGUNA
Laguna Beach is seaside resort city in Orange County in southern California. The city takes its name from nearby Laguna Canyon, and was originally known as Lagonas.

Down
1. Concert haul? : AMP
An electric guitar, for example, needs an amplifier (amp) to take the weak signal created by the vibration of the strings and turn it into a signal powerful enough for a loudspeaker.

2. “Ciao” : BYE
Ciao is the Italian for “‘bye”. “Arrivederci” is more formal, and translates as “goodbye”.

6. Mexican shawl : SERAPE
“Serape” is the English pronunciation and spelling of the Spanish word “zarape”. A zarape is like a Mexican poncho, a soft woolen blanket with a hole in the middle for the head. Most serapes have colorful designs that use traditional Mayan motifs.

7. Ring-shaped reef : ATOLL
An atoll is a coral island that is shaped in a ring and enclosing a lagoon. There is still some debate as to how an atoll forms, but a theory proposed by Charles Darwin while on his famous voyage aboard HMS Beagle still holds sway. Basically an atoll was once a volcanic island that had subsided and fallen into the sea. The coastline of the island is home to coral growth which persists even as the island continues to subside internal to the circling coral reef.

10. Complete rubbish : BUSHWA
“Bushwa” is “rubbish, nonsense, rot”. The term originated in the early 1900s and may be a derivative of “bourgeois”.

11. *Classic comedy set at the fictional Faber College : ANIMAL HOUSE
The very funny 1978 movie “Animal House” has the prefix “National Lampoon’s …” because the storyline came out of tales that had already appeared in “National Lampoon” magazine. “Animal House” was to become the first in a long line of successful “National Lampoon” films. The main pledges in the movie are Tom Hulce (Pinto), who later played a magnificent “Amadeus”, and Stephen Furst (Flounder), later played a regular role on television’s “Babylon 5”.

13. Bird on a birth announcement : STORK
In German and Dutch society, storks resting on the roof of a house were considered a sign of good luck. This tradition led to nursery stories that babies were brought to families by storks.

18. ___ fixe (menu notation) : PRIX
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.

22. Soul singer Redding : OTIS
Otis Redding is often referred to as the “King of Soul”, and what a voice he had. Like so many of the greats in the world of popular music it seems, Redding was killed in a plane crash, in 1967 when he was just 26 years old. Just three days earlier he had recorded what was to be his biggest hit, “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay”.

30. Prosecutors, briefly : DAS
District Attorney (DA)

35. Jimmy ___, reporter for the Daily Planet : OLSEN
In the “Superman” stories, Jimmy Olsen is a cub photographer who works on the “Daily Planet” newspaper with Clark Kent and Lois Lane.

39. ___ Keith, singer with 20 #1 country hits : TOBY
Toby Keith is a country music singer from Clinton, Oklahoma. One of Keith’s number one hits is a 2003 duet with Willie Nelson called “Beer for My Horses”.

40. Gram or dram : UNIT
The dram is a confusing unit of measurement, I think. It has one value as an ancient unit of mass, and two different values as a modern unit of mass, another value as a unit of fluid volume, and yet another varying value as a measure of Scotch whisky!

41. Indenting computer key : TAB
Like most features on our computer keyboards, the tab key is a hangover from the days of typewriters. When using a typewriter, making entries into a table was very tedious, involving lots of tapping on the spacebar and backspace key. So, a lever was added to typewriters that allowed the operator to “jump” across the page to positions that could be set by hand. Later this was simplified to a tab key which could be depressed, causing the carriage to jump to the next tab stop in much the same way that the modern tab key works on a computer.

44. Fifth Avenue retailer : SAKS
Saks Fifth Avenue is a high-end specialty store that competes with the likes of Bloomingdale’s and Neiman Marcus. The original Saks & Company business was founded by Andrew Saks in 1867. The first Saks Fifth Avenue store was opened on Fifth Avenue in New York City in 1924. There are now Saks Fifth Avenue stores in many major cities in the US, as well in several locations worldwide.

50. Nerd : DORK
I consider “dork” to be pretty offensive slang. It emanated in the sixties among American students, and has its roots in another slang term, a term for male genitalia.

51. Prima ballerina : ETOILE
In the world of ballet, the étoile is the leading dancer in a company (male or female). “Étoile” is the French word for “star”.

The title of “prima ballerina” is the second-highest awarded to a female dancer in a company. The more prestigious “prima ballerina assoluta” is only awarded to the most notable dancers.

52. Cookbook amts. : TBSPS
Tablespoon (tbsp.)

53. Dickens’s ___ Heep : URIAH
Uriah Heep is a sniveling insincere character in the novel “David Copperfield” by Charles Dickens. The character is such a “yes man” that today, if we know someone who behaves the same way, then we might call that person a “Uriah Heep”.

61. “Singin’ in the Rain” dance style : TAP
In the movie “Singin’ in the Rain”, the wonderful, wonderful dance sequence to the title song was filmed over 2-3 days. Gene Kelly was splashing through puddles and getting rained on while all the time he was sick, with a fever of 103F.

64. Santa ___, Calif. : ANA
Santa Ana is the county seat of Orange County, California and takes its name from the Santa Ana River that runs through the city.

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For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. Diminishes in intensity : ABATES
7. Resident of Oman or Yemen : ARAB
11. Breaks you wish would end? : ADS
14. “Sweetheart” : MY LOVE
15. Protein-rich vegan staple : TOFU
16. “Do ___ disturb” (motel sign) : NOT
17. *Iron Man’s love interest : PEPPER POTTS
19. ___ Jima : IWO
20. Mean dog sound : SNARL
21. Hit one out of the park : HOMER
23. Trim, as a photograph : CROP
26. *Intimate chitchat : PILLOW TALK
29. Old-fashioned address organizer : ROLODEX
31. Most correspondence nowadays : EMAIL
32. Unsettled feeling : AGITA
33. Actor McKellen : IAN
34. Display : SHOW
37. Ford Escape or Jeep Cherokee, for short : SUV
38. “Shut up already!” … or what you can do to the start of the answer to each starred clue : STUFF IT!
42. Cheer at a fútbol match : OLE!
43. Goes out with : SEES
45. Slip-___ : ONS
46. Mistreat : ABUSE
48. Disney fawn : BAMBI
50. Diminished in value, as a currency : DEBASED
52. *Annual Thanksgiving Day run : TURKEY TROT
55. Refuse to admit : DENY
56. Copper + zinc : BRASS
57. Came to light : AROSE
59. “Deadly” offense : SIN
60. *Knit headwear that may have a tufted ball at its end : STOCKING CAP
66. Stephen Colbert’s Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow, e.g. : PAC
67. Part of the roof where icicles form : EAVE
68. ___ Beach, Calif. : LAGUNA
69. Admonition in a movie theater : SHH!
70. Shadowbox : SPAR
71. Former celebrity : EX-STAR

Down
1. Concert haul? : AMP
2. “Ciao” : BYE
3. Swiss mountain : ALP
4. Number one position : TOP SPOT
5. Fair and balanced : EVEN
6. Mexican shawl : SERAPE
7. Ring-shaped reef : ATOLL
8. Spoil : ROT
9. Sternward : AFT
10. Complete rubbish : BUSHWA
11. *Classic comedy set at the fictional Faber College : ANIMAL HOUSE
12. Carpentry pin : DOWEL
13. Bird on a birth announcement : STORK
18. ___ fixe (menu notation) : PRIX
22. Soul singer Redding : OTIS
23. Lacking refinement : CRASS
24. Charming scoundrel : ROGUE
25. *Offer of reconciliation : OLIVE BRANCH
27. Page (through) : LEAF
28. All: Prefix : OMNI-
30. Prosecutors, briefly : DAS
33. “No ___, ands or buts” : IFS
35. Jimmy ___, reporter for the Daily Planet : OLSEN
36. Like overgrown gardens : WEEDY
39. ___ Keith, singer with 20 #1 country hits : TOBY
40. Gram or dram : UNIT
41. Indenting computer key : TAB
44. Fifth Avenue retailer : SAKS
47. Perpetual troublemakers : BAD EGGS
49. Pigsties : MESSES
50. Nerd : DORK
51. Prima ballerina : ETOILE
52. Cookbook amts. : TBSPS
53. Dickens’s ___ Heep : URIAH
54. Indy 500 car : RACER
58. Chips and popcorn, in commercialese : SNAX
61. “Singin’ in the Rain” dance style : TAP
62. Fertilizable cells : OVA
63. Sever : CUT
64. Santa ___, Calif. : ANA
65. 72, for many golf courses : PAR

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