1101-16 New York Times Crossword Answers 1 Nov 16, Tuesday

Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across
5. African virus : EBOLA
The Ebola virus causes a very nasty form of hemorrhagic fever. The name of the virus comes from the site of the first known outbreak, in a mission hospital in the Ebola River Valley in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The disease is transmitted from human to human by exposure to bodily fluids. In nature, the main carrier of Ebola is the fruit bat.

10. Ancient Central American : MAYA
The Maya civilization held sway in Central America and Mexico from about 350 AD until the arrival of the Spanish in the 1500s.

15. Commercial symbols in Lomé? : TOGO’S LOGOS
Lome is the capital city of Togo in West Africa.

Togo is a country on the West African coast, one of the smallest nations on the continent. It is located between Ghana to the west, Benin to the east and Burkina Faso to the north.

17. Source of indigo : ANIL
Anil is another name for the indigo plant, as well as the name for the blue indigo dye that is obtained from it. The color of anil is relatively close to navy blue. The main coloring agent in indigo dye is a crystalline powder called indigotin.

18. Reptile at the top of the Jurassic food chain : ALLOSAURUS
The most popular dinosaurs depicted in the movies, especially the older ones, are the Tyrannosaurs and the Allosauruses. They look very similar, with the former being the really big guy.

19. Basis of a refreshing Mideast beverage? : YEMEN’S LEMONS
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.

21. Court recorder : STENO
Stenography is the process of writing in shorthand. The term comes from the Greek “steno” (narrow) and “graphe” (writing).

27. Downton Abbey headgear : TOP HAT
In the incredibly successful period drama “Downton Abbey”, the patriarch of the family living at Downton is Robert Crawley, the Earl of Grantham or Lord Grantham. The character is played by Hugh Bonneville. Lord Grantham married American Cora Levinson (played by Elizabeth McGovern. Lord and Lady Grantham had three daughters, and no son. The lack of a male heir implied that the Grantham estate would pass to a male cousin, and out of the immediate family. The Grantham daughters are Lady Mary (played by Michelle Dockery), Lady Edith (played by Laura Carmichael) and Lady Sybil (played by Jessica Brown Findlay). Lady Sybil had the audacity to marry the family chauffeur, an Irish nationalist. The shame of it all …

32. Metonym for Middle America : PEORIA
Peoria is the oldest European settlement in the state of Illinois, having been settled by the French in 1680. The city is famous for being cited as “the average American city”. The phrase, “Will it play in Peoria?” is used to mean, “Will it appeal to the mainstream?” It is believed the expression originated as a corruption of, “We shall play in Peoria”, a line used by some actors in the 1890 novel “Five Hundred Dollars” by Horatio Alger, Jr.

36. Gavotte, minuet and cancan? : FRANCE’S DANCES
The gavotte was originally a folk dance that came from southeastern France where it was was named for the Gavot people who performed the dance. The gavotte became more mainstream in the Baroque period in the French court and so composers such as Johann Sebastian Bach began including gavottes in their instrumental suites.

A minuet is a dance that originated in France. At some point, the middle section of the minuet was routinely scored for just a trio of instruments. The resulting composition was known as a minuet and trio, and in the Classical Era was commonly chosen as the third movement of a symphony.

The Moulin Rouge cabaret is located right in the middle of one of the red light districts of Paris, the district of Pigalle. You can’t miss the Moulin Rouge as it has a huge red windmill on its roof (“moulin rouge” is French for “red windmill”). The nightclub opened its doors in 1889 and soon after, the working girls of the cabaret adopted a “respectable” party dance and used it to entice their clients. That was the birth of the can-can. Nowadays, the Moulin Rouge is home to a lavish, Las Vegas-style show that costs millions of euros to stage. It features showgirls, dancers and acrobats, a whole host of entertainers in fact. And I am sure the can-can features as well …

39. Where Theseus slew the Minotaur : CRETE
In Greek mythology, Ariadne was the daughter of Minos, the King of Crete and master of the Minotaur. Minos charged his daughter with control of the labyrinth that housed the Minotaur. However, Ariadne fell in love with Theseus who had vowed to kill the Minotaur, and she helped him fulfill his mission. In other myths, Ariadne became the bride of the god Dionysius.

41. What a cyclops has in common with a cyclone : EYE
Cyclops was a one-eyed giant in Greek and Roman mythology. Cyclops lived in Mount Etna, the Sicilian volcano.

A cyclone is a weather system, something like a tropical storm. It is composed of air circulating rapidly around a low pressure center. In the northern hemisphere, cyclones circulate in a counterclockwise direction, whereas in the southern hemisphere they circulate clockwise.

42. River in Stephen Foster’s “Old Folks at Home” : SWANEE
“Old Folks at Home” is a minstrel song that dates back to 1851. Written by Stephen Foster, the song is also known as “Swanee River”, and is the state song of Florida. The song’s narrator is African slave, and the original lyrics use very offensive terminology. The lyrics were cleaned up in 2008, and a second song was adopted by Florida as a state anthem. However, “Old Folks at Home” remains the state song.

47. Country completely surrounded by South Africa : LESOTHO
Lesotho is an enclaved country that is completely surrounded by the Republic of South Africa.

50. Ethan Frome’s wife : ZEENA
Ethan Frome is a novel by New York and Massachusetts author Edith Wharton, first published in 1911. Wharton started “Ethan Frome” as a composition in French that she wrote while studying the language in Paris.

52. Far Eastern mimics? : CHINA’S MYNAHS
Some species of myna (also “mynah”) bird are known for their ability to imitate sounds.

56. Cry from Juliet : ROMEO, ROMEO!
In William Shakespeare’s play “Romeo and Juliet”, the lovers discuss the sad fact that they have been born into two feuding families in the famous balcony scene. Juliet says:

O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?
Deny thy father and refuse thy name;
Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,
And I’ll no longer be a Capulet.

Romeo’s reply includes the famous lines:

What’s in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;

59. Sondheim’s “It Takes Two,” e.g. : DUET
“It Takes Two” is a song from the Stephen Sondheim musical “Into the Woods”.

“Into the Woods” is Stephen Sondheim musical that premiered in 1986. The storyline uses characters from several fairy tales, including “Little Red Riding Hood”, “Jack and the Beanstalk”, “Rapunzel” and “Cinderella”. The borrowed characters are held together with an underlying original tale about a baker and his wife who long to have a child, but cannot due to a curse placed on them by a witch.

60. Providers of low notes for rumbas? : CUBA’S TUBAS
The rumba (sometimes “rhumba”) is a Cuban dance, with influences brought by African slaves and Spanish colonists. The name “rumba” comes from “rumbo”, the Spanish word for “party, spree”.

61. To be, in Toulouse : ETRE
Toulouse is the fourth largest city in France, and is located in the southwest of the country. These days, Toulouse is noted as home to the Airbus headquarters and is known as the center of the European aerospace industry.

Down
3. Events in Bonnie and Clyde’s biography : CRIME SPREES
Bonnie and Clyde were criminals who robbed and killed their way across the central US during the Great Depression. Clyde Barrow was born a desperately poor young boy just south of Dallas, Texas. He was always in trouble with the law, first getting arrested at the age of 16. He met Bonnie Parker in 1930 at a friend’s house, and the smitten Parker followed Clyde into a life of crime. The pair were killed by a posse of Texas police officers just four years later in Louisiana.

4. Her face launched a thousand ships : HELEN
According to Greek mythology, Helen was the daughter of Zeus and Leda. When Helen reached the age of marriage, she had many suitors as she was considered the most beautiful woman in the world. Menelaus was chosen as her husband, and he took her back to his home of Sparta. Paris, a Trojan prince, seduced Helen, as she eloped with him and travelled to Troy. This event sparked the Trojan War that waged between the city of Troy and Greece. Because of this war, Helen was said to have “the face that launched a thousand ships”. And because of this phrase, it has been suggested, probably by author Isaac Asimov, that the amount of beauty needed launch a single ship is one “millihelen”.

5. Greek H’s : ETAS
Eta is the seventh letter of the Greek alphabet, and is a forerunner of our Latin character “H”. Originally denoting a consonant, eta was used as a long vowel in Ancient Greek.

6. ___ weevil : BOLL
A weevil is a small beetle, known for the damage that it can do to crops. The boll weevil damages cotton plants by laying eggs inside cotton bolls. The young weevils then eat their way out. Some weevils have snouts that are as long as their body.

8. Lead-in to land for Willy Wonka’s workers : LOOMPA
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”.

11. Cabinet dept. : AGR
The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) actually dates back to 1862 when it was established by then-president Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln referred to the USDA as the “people’s department” as our economy had such a vast agrarian base back then.

12. The “Y” of TTYL : YOU
Talk to you later (TTYL)

16. Actress Turner : LANA
Lana Turner started work as a Hollywood actress at a very young age, signing up with MGM at only sixteen. Early in her career she earned the nickname “The Sweater Girl” after wearing a pretty tight sweater in the film “They Won’t Forget”, which was her film debut. She married eight times, to seven different husbands, the first of which was bandleader Artie Shaw. Shaw and Turner eloped and married on their very first date, when the young actress was just nineteen years old. After divorcing Shaw she married restaurateur Joseph Crane, but had the marriage annulled when she found out that Crane was still married to his first wife. The two had a daughter together, and so remarried when Crane’s divorce was finalized. Cheryl Crane was the daughter from the marriage to Joseph and she lived with Turner after her parents split up. When Cheryl was 14-years-old, her mother was romantically involved with a shady character named Johnny Stompanato. One evening Cheryl found her mother engaged in a violent argument with Stompanato, and Cheryl became so scared that she pulled out a gun and killed him in what was deemed to be justifiable homicide. Turner’s last marriage was to a nightclub hypnotist, Ronald Pellar, and that union lasted just six months as Pellar disappeared one day with a lot of Turner’s money and jewelry. Years later Turner said, “My goal was to have one husband and seven children, but it turned out to be the other way around.”

25. 4.0, e.g. : GPA
Grade point average (GPA)

28. Tolkien terror : ORC
Orcs are mythical humanoid creatures that appear in the writings of J. R. R. Tolkien. Since Tolkien’s use of orcs, they have also been featured in other fantasy fiction and in fantasy games.

30. “___ mañana” : HASTA
“Hasta mañana” translates from Spanish as “See you tomorrow”.

34. One of the Seven Dwarfs : SNEEZY
In the original Brothers Grimm fairy tale called “Snow White”, the seven dwarfs were not given any names. The names were added for the 1937 classic Disney film “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”. The seven dwarfs are:

• Doc (the leader of the group)
• Grumpy (that would be me, according to my wife …)
• Happy
• Sleepy
• Bashful
• Sneezy
• Dopey

35. Obama’s signature health measure, for short : ACA
The correct name for what has been dubbed “Obamacare” is the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” (ACA).

36. David ___, comic with a famous Richard Nixon impression : FRYE
David Frye was a comedian and impressionist who specialized in taking off famous American politicians. The list of celebrities that Frye impersonated included Presidents Johnson and Nixon, and Senators Hubert Humphrey and Robert Kennedy.

39. Cartoon frame : CEL
In the world of animation, a cel is a transparent sheet on which objects and characters are drawn. In the first half of the 20th century the sheet was actually made of celluloid, giving the “cel” its name.

48. Indian ___ : OCEAN
The Indian Ocean is the third largest of the world’s oceans, and was named for the country of India that forms much of its northern boundary.

49. Pres. Jefferson : THOS
Thomas Jefferson was born a British subject in 1743 in the Colony of Virginia, one of ten children born to Peter Jefferson and Jane Randolph Jefferson. The Jefferson’s had four sons in all, with two dying in infancy. The remaining two sons inherited Peter’s estate, divided between them. Thomas came into 5,000 acres of land, including Monticello, and 20-40 slaves.

53. Prefix with dexterity : AMBI-
Someone who is ambidextrous can write with both hands or use both hands with equal ease. A fairly literal translation of “ambidextrous” is “right-handed on both sides” as “dexter” is Latin for “right-handed”.

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For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. Tailor’s unit : INCH
5. African virus : EBOLA
10. Ancient Central American : MAYA
14. “Your majesty” : SIRE
15. Commercial symbols in Lomé? : TOGO’S LOGOS
17. Source of indigo : ANIL
18. Reptile at the top of the Jurassic food chain : ALLOSAURUS
19. Basis of a refreshing Mideast beverage? : YEMEN’S LEMONS
21. Court recorder : STENO
22. Speaking up? : PRAYING
26. Cries of dismay : OYS
27. Downton Abbey headgear : TOP HAT
31. Chill in the air : NIP
32. Metonym for Middle America : PEORIA
34. Leader of a group of elves : SANTA
36. Gavotte, minuet and cancan? : FRANCE’S DANCES
39. Where Theseus slew the Minotaur : CRETE
40. Tone deafness : TIN EAR
41. What a cyclops has in common with a cyclone : EYE
42. River in Stephen Foster’s “Old Folks at Home” : SWANEE
44. Chomped down on : BIT
47. Country completely surrounded by South Africa : LESOTHO
50. Ethan Frome’s wife : ZEENA
52. Far Eastern mimics? : CHINA’S MYNAHS
56. Cry from Juliet : ROMEO, ROMEO
59. Sondheim’s “It Takes Two,” e.g. : DUET
60. Providers of low notes for rumbas? : CUBA’S TUBAS
61. To be, in Toulouse : ETRE
62. “___ aside …” : AS AN
63. Begins to wake : STIRS
64. Blond now, say : DYED

Down
1. Arbitrary non-explanation, after “because” : … I SAY SO
2. No longer an octogenarian : NINETY
3. Events in Bonnie and Clyde’s biography : CRIME SPREES
4. Her face launched a thousand ships : HELEN
5. Greek H’s : ETAS
6. ___ weevil : BOLL
7. Leer : OGLE
8. Lead-in to land for Willy Wonka’s workers : LOOMPA
9. Categorize : ASSORT
10. Timid : MOUSY
11. Cabinet dept. : AGR
12. The “Y” of TTYL : YOU
13. Total jerk : ASS
16. Actress Turner : LANA
20. Emphatically zero : NOT ONE
23. What kindness and graceful aging reveal : INNER BEAUTY
24. Quibbles : NITS
25. 4.0, e.g. : GPA
28. Tolkien terror : ORC
29. Alternative to cake : PIE
30. “___ mañana” : HASTA
33. Have supper : EAT
34. One of the Seven Dwarfs : SNEEZY
35. Obama’s signature health measure, for short : ACA
36. David ___, comic with a famous Richard Nixon impression : FRYE
37. When repeated, child’s term for supper : DIN
38. “Wheel of Fortune” buy : AN E
39. Cartoon frame : CEL
42. Skins’ opponent in a pickup game : SHIRTS
43. Prevailed : WON OUT
45. Cry after “Psst!” : IN HERE!
46. Sampled : TASTED
48. Indian ___ : OCEAN
49. Pres. Jefferson : THOS
51. Broke off : ENDED
53. Prefix with dexterity : AMBI-
54. Burn superficially : SEAR
55. Rolling stones lack it : MOSS
56. First U.S. color TV maker : RCA
57. Suffix with hazard : -OUS
58. C.E.O.’s deg. : MBA

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