1201-16 New York Times Crossword Answers 1 Dec 16, Thursday

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Jump to a complete list of today’s clues and answers

CROSSWORD SETTER: Timothy Polin
THEME: Bean Dip
Today’s themed answers include a type of BEAN, and that BEAN is spelled out by DIPPING into the row below the rest of the answer:

62A. Nacho accompaniment … or a feature of 17-, 35- and 52-Across? : BEAN DIP

17A. Dish topped with bacon, cheese and sour cream : LOADED BAKED POTATO (baked bean)
35A. Classic novel about an orphan girl mistakenly sent to Prince Edward Island : ANNE OF GREEN GABLES (green bean)
52A. Edutainment cartoon featuring a teacher named Ms. Frizzle : THE MAGIC SCHOOL BUS (magic bean)

BILL BUTLER’S COMPLETION TIME: 14m 43s
ANSWERS I MISSED: 0

Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across

19. Swiss tourist destination : INTERLAKEN
Interlaken is town in the Swiss Alps that is a well-known tourist destination. It is situated between Lake Brienz to the east and Lake Thun to the west, and this position gives the town its name. The Latin “inter lacus” translates as “between the lakes”.

24. 2004 film about artificial intelligence : I, ROBOT
“I, Robot” is an interesting 2004 science fiction film starring Will Smith that is loosely based on the excellent collection of short stories of the same name by Isaac Asimov.

27. Football Hall-of-Famer Newsome : OZZIE
Ozzie Newsome is a former professional footballer who played his whole career with the Cleveland Browns. In fact, Newsome never missed one game in the whole of his 13-years with the NFL.

30. Cry feebly : MEWL
“To mewl” is to cry weakly like a baby, with the word being somewhat imitative.

31. Like the rotation of the earth : AXIAL
The Earth rotates about an axis that passes through itself, so this is known as axial rotation. The Earth also rotates about an axis passing through the sun, and this is known as orbital rotation.

32. Valedictorian’s pride, for short : GPA
Grade point average (GPA)

A valediction is an act of taking one’s leave, from the Latin “vale dicere”, to say farewell. An example of a valediction would be the words “yours truly” at the end of a letter. And, the valedictorian (here in the US anyway) is the student in a graduating class that is chosen to say the final words at the graduation ceremony, a farewell to the classmates.

35. Classic novel about an orphan girl mistakenly sent to Prince Edward Island : ANNE OF GREEN GABLES
“Anne of Green Gables” is a 1908 novel by Lucy Maud Montgomery that she set in the fictional Prince Edward Island community of Avonlea. Montgomery wrote several sequels to “Anne”, with them all being set on Prince Edward Island (PEI), from where the author hailed.

44. Seussian environmentalist : LORAX
“The Lorax” is a children’s book written by Dr. Seuss. It is an allegorical work questioning the problems created by industrialization, and in particular its impact on the environment. At one point in the story, the Lorax “speaks for the trees, for the trees have no tongues”. “The Lorax” was adapted into an animated film that was released in 2012, with Danny DeVito voicing the title character.

47. Gillette razors : ATRAS
Fortunately for crossword constructors, the Atra razor was introduced by Gillette in 1977. The Atra was sold as the Contour in some markets and its derivative products are still around today.

52. Edutainment cartoon featuring a teacher named Ms. Frizzle : THE MAGIC SCHOOL BUS
“The Magic School Bus” is a children’s cartoon show that originally aired on PBS in the nineties. The show was based on a series of books of the same name by Joanna Cole and Bruce Degen.

58. Of the open sea : PELAGIC
Something described as “pelagic” lives in or is related to the open sea. The Greek word “pelagos” translates as “open sea, high sea”.

60. Supermodel Lima : ADRIANA
Adriana Lima is fashion model from Brazil. Lima is perhaps best known as one of the Victoria’s Secret Angels. Her modelling career started when she won a “Supermodel of Brazil” competition in 1996, at 15 years of age.

61. Cardinals’ home : ARIZONA
The Arizona Cardinals were founded in 1898 as the Chicago Cardinals. That makes the Cardinals the oldest, continuously-run professional football team in the whole country.

62. Nacho accompaniment … or a feature of 17-, 35- and 52-Across? : BEAN DIP
The dish known as “nachos” were supposedly created by the maître d’ at a restaurant called the Victory Club in the city of Piedras Negras, Coahuila, Mexico. The maître d’’s name was Ignacio “Nacho” Anaya.

64. Trapshooting targets, informally : SKEETS
There are three types of competitive shotgun target shooting sports:

  • Skeet shooting
  • Trap shooting
  • Sporting clays

Down
1. Neighbor of Burkina Faso : MALI
The Republic of Mali is a landlocked country in western Africa, south of Algeria. Formerly known as French Sudan, the nation’s most famous city is Timbuktu. Mali is the third-largest producer of gold on the continent, after South Africa and Ghana.

Burkina Faso is an inland country in western Africa. The country used to be called the Republic of Upper Volta and was renamed in 1984 to Burkina Faso meaning “the land of upright people”.

3. Suffix with klepto- : -CRAT
Kleptocrats are corrupt rulers who use their power to their own benefit, stealing resources from their realm and exploiting their people. The word “kleptocracy” comes from the related term “kleptomania”.

Kleptomania is the compulsion to steal, whether or not one is need of what is stolen. The term derives from the Greek word for “to steal”, “kleptein”, with the suffix “-mania”.

4. Tamed, as a bronco : RIDEABLE
A “bronco” (also “bronc”) is a horse that is untamed. In Mexican Spanish “bronco” is a word for “horse”, and in the original Spanish “bronco” means “rough, rude”.

8. Subject of the 2011 book “These Guys Have All the Fun” : ESPN
“These Guys Have All the Fun: Inside the World of ESPN” is a book recounting the history of ESPN from its earliest days. I’m no ESPN watcher, but I hear good things about the book …

9. Fight stopper, for short : TKO
In boxing, a knockout (KO) is when one of the fighters can’t get up from the canvas within a specified time, usually 10 seconds. This can be due to fatigue, injury, or the participant may be truly “knocked out”. A referee, fighter or doctor may also decide to stop a fight without a physical knockout, especially if there is concern about a fighter’s safety. In this case the bout is said to end with a technical knockout (TKO).

11. About 45 miles of it touch Canada : IDAHO
The US state of Idaho has a panhandle that extends northwards between Washington and Montana, right up to the border with Canada. Across that border is the Canadian province of British Columbia. Most of Idaho is in the Mountain Time Zone, but Northern Idaho (the Panhandle) is in the Pacific Time Zone.

12. Stringed instrument usually played sitting down : SITAR
The sitar has been around since the Middle Ages. The sitar is a stringed instrument that is played by plucking, and is used most often in Hindustani classical music. In the West we have been exposed to the instrument largely through the performances of Ravi Shankar and some music by George Harrison of the Beatles, a onetime student of Shankar.

20. Kentucky’s Fort ___ : KNOX
Fort Knox is actually a US Army base, but it lends its name to the adjacent facility that is more correctly called the United States Bullion Depository. Most of the US gold reserves are in “Fort Knox”, although it isn’t the biggest gold repository in the US. That honor goes to the vault under the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in Manhattan. Most of the gold stored in the New York vault belongs to foreign nations and banks.

23. Sonoran Desert river : GILA
The Gila River is a tributary of the Colorado and flows through New Mexico and Arizona. From 1848 to 1853, the Gila marked part of the border between the US and Mexico.

Sonora is the state in Mexico lying just south of the borders with Arizona and New Mexico. The Sonoran Desert actually straddles the US-Mexico border, covering 120,000 square miles in parts of the states of Sonora, Baja California, Baja California Sur, Arizona and California.

24. Yosemite runner : IMAC
Apple introduced the OS X Operating System in 2000. Each version of this operating system has had a code name, and that code name until recently has been a type of big cat. The versions and code names are:

  • 10.0: Cheetah
  • 10.1: Puma
  • 10.2: Jaguar
  • 10.3: Panther
  • 10.4: Tiger
  • 10.5: Leopard
  • 10.6: Snow Leopard
  • 10.7: Lion
  • 10.8: Mountain Lion
  • 10.9: Mavericks
  • 10.10: Yosemite
  • 10.11: El Capitan
  • 10.12: macOS Sierra

31. Home to a famous mausoleum : AGRA
The most famous mausoleum in the world has to be the Taj Mahal in Agra, India. The Taj Mahal was built after the death of the third wife of Shah Jahan, Mumtaz Mahal (hence the name of the mausoleum). The poor woman died in childbirth delivering the couple’s 14th child.

33. South American territory in the game Risk : PERU
Risk is a fabulous board game, first sold in France in 1957. Risk was invented by a very successful French director of short films called Albert Lamorisse. Lamorisse called his new game “La Conquête du Monde”, which translates into English as “The Conquest of the World”. A game of Risk is a must during the holidays in our house …

44. Labor day class? : LAMAZE
The Lamaze technique for childbirth was developed by a French obstetrician called Fernand Lamaze. He introduced the technique in the west after observing similar practices in the Soviet Union during a visit there in 1951.

46. Skimobiler’s wear : ANORAK
Anoraks aren’t very popular over here in America. Everyone has one in Ireland! An anorak is a heavy jacket with a hood, often lined with fur (or fake fur), and is an invention of the Inuit people.

47. How some bonds are sold : AT PAR
Stocks, and other financial vehicles, may be sold “at par”, meaning at the original price, neither discounted nor at a premium.

51. Fictional character who says “I’d strike the sun if it insulted me” : AHAB
Captain Ahab is the obsessed and far from friendly captain of the Pequod in Herman Melville’s “Moby-Dick”. The role of Captain Ahab was played by Gregory Peck in the 1956 John Huston film adaptation. Patrick Stewart played Ahab in a 1998 miniseries in which Peck made another appearance, as Father Mapple.

53. Field of Jean-Luc Godard : CINE
Jean-Luc Godard is a so-called “Nouvelle Vague” (New Wave) cinematographer, making movies that challenge the conventions of both traditional Hollywood and French cinema.

59. Quetzalcoatl, e.g. : GOD
The Aztec god Quetzalcoatl’s name means “feathered serpent”. He was worshiped as the god of wind and of learning.

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For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. Supershort skirts : MICROS
7. Sloppy smooch : WET KISS
14. Airport monitor datum : ARRIVAL
16. Welcomed at the doorstep : ASKED IN
17. Dish topped with bacon, cheese and sour cream : LOADED BAKED POTATO
19. Swiss tourist destination : INTERLAKEN
21. Winter respite : THAW
22. Trick out : ADORN
23. Bask (in) : GLORY
24. 2004 film about artificial intelligence : I, ROBOT
27. Football Hall-of-Famer Newsome : OZZIE
30. Cry feebly : MEWL
31. Like the rotation of the earth : AXIAL
32. Valedictorian’s pride, for short : GPA
35. Classic novel about an orphan girl mistakenly sent to Prince Edward Island : ANNE OF GREEN GABLES
40. Audiophiles’ purchases : CDS
41. One filling out personnel forms, say : HIREE
43. Vibe : AURA
44. Seussian environmentalist : LORAX
45. Go slower : EASE UP
47. Gillette razors : ATRAS
50. Pulls down : EARNS
52. Edutainment cartoon featuring a teacher named Ms. Frizzle : THE MAGIC SCHOOL BUS
58. Of the open sea : PELAGIC
60. Supermodel Lima : ADRIANA
61. Cardinals’ home : ARIZONA
62. Nacho accompaniment … or a feature of 17-, 35- and 52-Across? : BEAN DIP
63. Withdrew : RECEDED
64. Trapshooting targets, informally : SKEETS

Down
1. Neighbor of Burkina Faso : MALI
2. Smooth over : IRON
3. Suffix with klepto- : -CRAT
4. Tamed, as a bronco : RIDEABLE
5. Lay on thick : OVERDO
6. Pitiful bunch : SAD LOT
7. Not dive in, say : WADE
8. Subject of the 2011 book “These Guys Have All the Fun” : ESPN
9. Fight stopper, for short : TKO
10. One blowing off steam? : KETTLE
11. About 45 miles of it touch Canada : IDAHO
12. Stringed instrument usually played sitting down : SITAR
13. White out : SNOWY
15. Beam bent at 90° : L-BAR
20. Kentucky’s Fort ___ : KNOX
23. Sonoran Desert river : GILA
24. Yosemite runner : IMAC
25. Tear violently : REND
26. Dominates, informally : OWNS
28. Ending with fan : -ZINE
29. Make a sudden turn : ZAG
31. Home to a famous mausoleum : AGRA
32. Word with stick or gun : GLUE
33. South American territory in the game Risk : PERU
34. “On the double!” : ASAP
36. Surprised exclamations : OHOS
37. Growth along a ski run : FIR
39. Low-pitched part of a song : BASS LINE
42. Suit : EXEC
44. Labor day class? : LAMAZE
45. Deteriorates : ERODES
46. Skimobiler’s wear : ANORAK
47. How some bonds are sold : AT PAR
48. “___ goes the neighborhood” : THERE
49. Museum piece : RELIC
51. Fictional character who says “I’d strike the sun if it insulted me” : AHAB
53. Field of Jean-Luc Godard : CINE
54. Slew : SCAD
55. Instructed : BADE
56. Soldier’s assignment : UNIT
57. Drains (from) : SAPS
59. Quetzalcoatl, e.g. : GOD

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11 thoughts on “1201-16 New York Times Crossword Answers 1 Dec 16, Thursday”

  1. 14:20, no errors, iPad. A lovely gimmick. By the time I filled in BEAN DIP, I had already gotten all of the theme answers without knowing where the AKE, REE, and AGI were going to come from, so I finished the puzzle and then spent another minute staring at it before having the necessary "aha" moment.

    KLEPTOCRAT may be a word whose time has come … gotta wonder if the setter was making a point … 🙂

  2. Very clever theme. I got that all the theme answers were missing 3 letters, but I never bothered to look beneath them to get the theme. Fortunately there are no style points awarded for solving crosswords….

    I got Gila river because I knew the Arizona Coyotes of the NHL play at Gila River Arena. Setter must have Arizona ties…

    KleptoCRAT? Goodness you can go back to the beginning of time and find those – Idi Amin, Vladimir Putin, [insert any current African leader here], Assad….the list is endless.

    Best –

  3. No errors. I had completed the puzzle and was confident that I had everything right. Before leaving I thought for a couple of minutes trying to crack the theme. My final thought was that it is as if one "dips" into the word and removes some of the letters. As usual, Bill opened my eyes to the "dipping" underneath and around the black square for a complete and proper spelling.

  4. 20:11, no errors. Solved the puzzle without seeing the dip trick, but did recognize the BAKED, GREEN and MAGIC association with beans. Thanks to Bill for clearing this up, and making me realize that the setter was more clever than I originally gave credit.

    I wonder if Gillette named the ATRA razor, knowing how much free publicity they would get in crosswords.

  5. Same as others: Completed the puzzle, but had to come here to see how the gimmick worked. Not a satisfying way to end up.

  6. 28:45, and 4 errors. Never did work out this INCREDIBLY STUPID theme. Actually, it's not a theme, it's just a stunt. Will Shortz and his asinine crew just STOP IT with this kind of crap?????

    Just one example: to make the stupidity work, a 51 ACROSS is indicated, which of course, also has no clue. So, we just "conveniently" forget that, right, seeing as we're meandering all over the grid anyway?

    These puzzles make me see red. I'm getting close to just skipping Thursdays altogether, just to save stomach lining!!!!

  7. @Anonymous

    "Stupid". You keep using that word.

    And, yes, you should definitely skip the Thursday puzzles.

  8. I, for one, think these Thursday puzzles are excellent – and your website is far better than all Rex's bitching on his site.

  9. We figured out the theme, at least the part where the answer dipped down. We were helped by the unusual numbering in the print edition. The final "get" of the theme came when we saw DIP in 60A, and figured that it applied to the answers dipping down. When we got BEAN, we looked at the dipped answers and the light finally came on. Good puzzle. Hard but fair. BTW, if Anonymous starts skipping Thursdays, we'll have a lot less to laugh about. 😉

  10. 0 errors, Pretty smooth effort on this one. Not a hard trick, but different enough to make it interesting.

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