0215-17 New York Times Crossword Answers 15 Feb 17, Wednesday

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CROSSWORD SETTER: Jesse Eisenberg (!) & Patrick Blindauer
THEME: Foody Snowman
Today’s puzzle was co-constructed by Hollywood actor Jesse Eisenberg, and a very nice puzzle it is too. Today’s themed answers are food items that are used to make a snowman, with the name of each item indicating where it is used in the snowy assemblage:

17A. “We used some food to make a snowman. Under his arms we put ___” : CHERRY PITS
27A. “Then we gave him ___” : BUTTERFINGERS
44A. “On top we put a ___” : HEAD OF LETTUCE
58A. “Finally, we stuck in two ___. Yum!” : EARS OF CORN

BILL BUTLER’S COMPLETION TIME: 10m 30s
ANSWERS I MISSED: 0

Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across

6. Captain of literature : 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.

14. Honda division : ACURA
Acura is a division of the Honda Motor Company, its luxury brand. As an aside, Infiniti is the equivalent luxury brand for the Nissan Motor Company, and Lexus is the more luxurious version of Toyota’s models.

15. Singer Bareilles : SARA
Sara Bareilles achieved success with her 2007 “Love Song” with the help of the iTunes online store. In one week in June of that year, iTunes offered the song as “free single of the week” and it quickly became the most downloaded song in the store, and from there climbed to the number spot in the charts.

19. Writer Morrison : TONI
The writer Toni Morrison won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993. Amongst other things, Morrison is noted for coining the phrase, “our first black President”, a reference to President Bill Clinton.

20. The sun : SOL
“Sol” is the Latin name for the sun.

21. Prov. north of Northumberland Strait : PEI
Prince Edward Island (PEI) is a maritime Canadian province. The island at the center of the province was named for Prince Edward, the fourth son of King George III and the father of Queen Victoria.

22. Dakar’s land : SENEGAL
The Republic of Senegal is a country on the far western coast of Africa. For many years Senegal was a French colony, gaining independence in 1960. The capital of Senegal is Dakar, a city located on the Cap-Vert Peninsula that juts out into the Atlantic Ocean.

27. “Then we gave him ___” : BUTTERFINGERS
Butterfinger is a candy bar that first hit the market way back in 1923 by the Curtiss Candy Company on the outskirts of Chicago. The first candy bar introduced by Curtiss was called a Kandy Kake, which eventually became the much-loved Baby Ruth. The Butterfinger was the company’s second product.

34. Kind of clef : ALTO
“Clef” is the French word for “key”. In music, a clef is used to indicate the pitch of the notes written on the stave. The bass clef is also known as the F-clef, the alto clef is the C-clef, and the treble clef is the G-clef.

37. Org. for drivers : PGA
The Professional Golfers’ Association (PGA) was founded in 1916 and today has its headquarters (unsurprisingly) in Florida, where so many golfers live. Back in 1916, the PGA was based in New York City.

38. Christian with some intelligent designs? : DIOR
Christian Dior was a French fashion designer. As WWII approached, Dior was called up by the French military, drawing a temporary halt to his career in fashion. He left the army in 1942 and for the duration of the war designed clothes for wives of Nazi officers and French collaborators. After the war his designs became so popular that he helped reestablish Paris as the fashion center of the world.

42. Crewmate of Sulu and Bones : SCOTTY
In the “Star Trek” series on television and in the movies, the colorful character of “Scotty” was played by the Canadian actor James Doohan. Doohan joined the Royal Canadian Artillery at the start of WWII, and participated in the D-Day Invasion of Normandy. After surviving the landing, that same day Doohan was shot by one of his own men in a tragic mishap. Doohan was hit six times, with a bullet to his chest stopped by a silver cigarette case he was carrying. One of Doohan’s fingers was shot off in the incident, an injury that he successfully concealed during his acting career.

Mr Sulu was played by George Takei in the original “Star Trek” series. Takei has played lots of roles over the years, and is still very active in television. Did you know that he appeared in the 1963 film, “Pt-109”? He played the helmsman steering the Japanese destroyer that ran down John F. Kennedy’s motor torpedo boat. From destroyer helmsman to starship helmsman …

The actor DeForest Kelley is best known for playing Bones McCoy in the original “Star Trek” cast. The show’s creator, Gene Roddenberry, originally offered Kelley the role of Spock, but Kelly refused it and so was given the part of the ship’s medical officer.

47. Last word of the Pledge of Allegiance : ALL
The Pledge of Allegiance of the US was composed by Francis Bellamy in 1892 and was adopted by Congress in 1942. The actual words used in the pledge have changed over time. Here is the original 1892 version shown in comparison to the current version that was adopted in 1954:

1892: I pledge allegiance to my flag and the republic for which it stands: one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

1954: I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

48. South Beach plan and others : DIETS
The fad diet known as the South Beach Diet was developed in the mid-nineties by Dr. Arthur Agatston as the Modified Carbohydrate Diet. Agatston later named it for the South Beach neighborhood in Miami Beach, which was close to his practice. The diet really took off after Agatston published his “The South Beach Diet” book in 2003.

49. Obama adviser Valerie : JARRETT
Valerie Jarrett was a Senior Advisor to the President in the Obama administration. Jarrett also chaired the White House Council on Women and Girls and co-chaired the White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault. She has known President Obama and his wife Michelle a long time, since before they were married.

53. Playwright Will who wrote “The Realistic Joneses” : ENO
Will Eno is an American playwright working in Brooklyn, New York. That said, Eno’s plays are mainly produced across the pond in the UK.

54. Mom-and-pop org. : PTA
Parent-Teacher Association (PTA)

61. Rigatoni’s cousin : ZITI
Cylindrical pasta is known in general as “penne”, and there are many variants. For example, ziti is a particularly large and long tube with square-cut ends. “Penne” is the plural of “penna”, the Italian for “feather, quill”.

Rigatoni is a tubular pasta that is relatively short with ridges along its length.

62. Berry imported from Brazil : ACAI
Açaí is a palm tree native to Central and South America. The fruit has become very popular in recent years and its juice is a very fashionable addition to juice mixes and smoothies.

64. Newswoman Paula : ZAHN
Paula Zahn has worked as a journalist and news anchor with ABC, NBC, Fox News and CNN. She is currently the host of a true crime show on the Discovery Channel called “On the Case with Paula Zahn”. Outside of her work on television, Zahn is an accomplished cellist and has even played at Carnegie Hall with the New York Pops Orchestra.

66. “Ciao!” : SEE YA!
“Ciao” is the Italian for “‘bye”. “Arrivederci” is more formal, and translates as “goodbye”.

Down
3. Burr/Hamilton showdown : DUEL
Aaron Burr was the third vice-president of the US, serving under Thomas Jefferson. In the final year of his term in office, Burr fought an illegal duel and killed his political rival Alexander Hamilton. Burr wasn’t brought to justice, but he did pay the price politically. Thomas Jefferson dropped him from his ticket in the election held the following year.

4. Abbr. on some sale goods : IRR
Irregular (“irr.” or “irreg.”)

7. “Bali ___” : HAI
The song “Bali Ha’i” is from the musical “South Pacific” by Rodgers and Hammerstein. In the musical, Bali Ha’i is the name of a volcanic island that neighbors the island on which the story takes place.

9. Single, say : BASE HIT
That would be baseball.

10. Like “Pocahontas” or “Mulan” : RATED G
As of 2016, there are 11 “official” Disney princesses:

  1. Princess Snow White (from “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”)
  2. Princess Cinderella (from “Cinderella”)
  3. Princess Aurora (from “Sleeping Beauty)
  4. Princess Ariel (from “The Little Mermaid”)
  5. Princess Belle (from “Beauty and the Beast”)
  6. Princess Jasmine (from “Aladdin”)
  7. Princess Pocahontas (from “Pocahontas”)
  8. Princess Mulan (from “Mulan”)
  9. Princess Tiana (from “The Princess and the Frog”)
  10. Princess Rapunzel (from “Tangled”)
  11. Princess Merida (from “Brave”)

12. StarKist product : TUNA
StarKist is a brand of tuna that uses Charlie the Tuna as its cartoon mascot.

18. Poet who wrote “In dreams begins responsibility” : YEATS
Irish poet and dramatist William Butler Yeats won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1923 for “inspired poetry” that gave “expression to a whole nation”. Yeats was Ireland’s first Nobel laureate.

23. Small iPod : NANO
The iPod Nano is the successor to the iPod Mini and was introduced to the market at the end of 2005. There have been seven versions of the Nano to date and the current Nano as well as playing tunes is an FM player, records voice memos, has a pedometer and can connect with external devices (like a heart monitor, maybe) using Bluetooth technology.

27. Water filter brand : BRITA
Brita is a German company that specializes in water filtration products. Brita products do a great job of filtering tap water, but they don’t “purify” it, they don’t remove microbes. That job is usually done by a municipality before the water gets to the faucet.

33. Gallic girlfriend : AMIE
A male friend in France is “un ami”, and a female friend is “une amie”.

37. “___ Joey” (Rodgers and Hart musical) : PAL
“Pal Joey” is a 1940 novel by John O’Hara that was made into a stage musical and musical film with music and lyrics by Rodgers and Hart. There are two well-known songs from the musical: “I Could Write a Book” and “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered”. There’s also a film called “Pal Joey” starring Frank Sinatra, Rita Hayworth and Kim Novak. The film is loosely based on the stage musical.

38. Word files, briefly : DOCS
Microsoft Word documents have the “.doc” file extension, at least those prior to Microsoft Office 2007. The extension used now is “.docx”.

Microsoft Word was introduced in 1981 as Multi-Tool Word for Xenix (Xenix is a discontinued version of the Unix operating system). I used to be a power user of Word, but now use Google Drive for all of my word processing needs.

41. Cowboys, but not Indians : NFL TEAM
The Dallas Cowboys play in the National Football Conference of the NFL. The Cowboys are famous for a lengthy streak of 20 consecutive winning seasons, from 1966 to 1985. They are the highest-valued sports franchise in the country. The only team in the world that’s worth more money is the UK’s Manchester United soccer team.

42. Worker whose name is, appropriately, an anagram of NOTES : STENO
Stenography is the process of writing in shorthand. The term comes from the Greek “steno” (narrow) and “graphe” (writing).

45. Champion of evolution : DARWIN
Englishman Charles Darwin studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland but neglected his studies largely due to his interest in nature and natural history. In the early 1830s, a friend put forward Darwin’s name as a candidate for the post of “collector” on the voyage of HMS Beagle. The Beagle was intending to spend two years at sea primarily charting the coast of South America. The voyage ended up taking five years, during which time Darwin sent back copious letters describing his findings. Back in Britain these letters were published as pamphlets by a friend and so when Darwin eventually returned home in 1836, he had already gained some celebrity in scientific circles. It was while on the Beagle that Darwin developed his initial ideas on the concept of natural selection. It wasn’t until over twenty years later that he formulated his theories into a scientific paper and in 1859 published his famous book “On the Origin of the Species”. This original publication never even mentioned the word “evolution” which was controversial even back then. It was in 1871 that Darwin addressed head-on the concept that man was an animal species, in his book “The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex”.

50. New Balance competitor : AVIA
The Avia brand name for athletic shoes was chosen as “avia” is the Latin word for “to fly”, and suggests the concept of aviation. Avia was founded in Oregon in 1979.

New Balance is a footwear manufacturer based in Boston, Massachusetts.

51. Philip who said “goodbye” to Columbus : ROTH
Author Philip Roth’s two most famous works are probably his 1959 novella “Goodbye, Columbus” for which he won a National Book Award, and his extremely controversial 1969 novel “Portnoy’s Complaint”. The latter title was banned in some libraries in the US, and was listed as a “prohibited import” in Australia. The controversy surrounded Roth’s treatment of the sexuality of the main character, a young Jewish bachelor undergoing psychoanalysis for his “complaint”.

52. ___ Bell : TACO
Taco Bell was founded by a former US Marine, 25-year-old Glen Bell. His first restaurant was Bell’s Drive-In, located in Southern California. After opening that first establishment, Bell bought up some more restaurants including four named El Taco. He sold off the El Taco restaurants but used the name in part when he opened his first Taco Bell in 1962. Bell sold then sold franchises, with the 100th Taco Bell opening in 1967. The ex-Marine sold off the whole chain to PepsiCo in 1978, and I am guessing he made a pretty penny. Taco Bell has been using the “Live Más” slogan since 2012, with “más” being the Spanish word for “more”.

54. Szczecin resident : POLE
The city of Szczecin is a Polish seaport located where the Oder empties into the Baltic Sea.

55. Weight classification : TROY
The system of troy weights is now only used to measure the mass of precious metals and gemstones. The name “troy” likely came from the French town of Troyes, which was famous for trading with the English as far back as the 9th century.

56. “___ Karenina” : ANNA
I have to admit to not having read the Tolstoy’s “Anna Karenina”, but I did see the excellent 1977 British television adaptation starring Nicola Pagett. In the storyline, Anna Karenina’s lover is Count Alexei Vronsky.

60. Capital of Colombia? : CEE
The word “Colombia” starts with a capital letter C (cee).

The South American country of Colombia takes her name from the Italian explorer Christopher Columbus (“Cristoforo Colombo” in Italian).

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For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. Doc on a battlefield : MEDIC
6. Captain of literature : AHAB
10. Unwanted subway sights : RATS
14. Honda division : ACURA
15. Singer Bareilles : SARA
16. Water, south of the border : AGUA
17. “We used some food to make a snowman. Under his arms we put ___” : CHERRY PITS
19. Writer Morrison : TONI
20. The sun : SOL
21. Prov. north of Northumberland Strait : PEI
22. Dakar’s land : SENEGAL
24. Picked up via gossip : HEARD
26. Used to own : HAD
27. “Then we gave him ___” : BUTTERFINGERS
32. Touch of love : CARESS
34. Kind of clef : ALTO
35. Half a kisser : LIP
36. During : AMID
37. Org. for drivers : PGA
38. Christian with some intelligent designs? : DIOR
39. Plop down : SIT
40. Tiny problem : SNAG
42. Crewmate of Sulu and Bones : SCOTTY
44. “On top we put a ___” : HEAD OF LETTUCE
47. Last word of the Pledge of Allegiance : ALL
48. South Beach plan and others : DIETS
49. Obama adviser Valerie : JARRETT
53. Playwright Will who wrote “The Realistic Joneses” : ENO
54. Mom-and-pop org. : PTA
57. Admit frankly : AVOW
58. “Finally, we stuck in two ___. Yum!” : EARS OF CORN
61. Rigatoni’s cousin : ZITI
62. Berry imported from Brazil : ACAI
63. Counterfeiter, e.g. : FELON
64. Newswoman Paula : ZAHN
65. Neat, as a lawn : MOWN
66. “Ciao!” : SEE YA!

Down
1. Decidedly non-PC types? : MACS
2. Comeback in a cave : ECHO
3. Burr/Hamilton showdown : DUEL
4. Abbr. on some sale goods : IRR
5. Completely covers : CARPETS
6. Dream : ASPIRE
7. “Bali ___” : HAI
8. Newspaper section : ARTS
9. Single, say : BASE HIT
10. Like “Pocahontas” or “Mulan” : RATED G
11. Like a kid in a candy store : AGOG
12. StarKist product : TUNA
13. Something that’s frequently trimmed : SAIL
18. Poet who wrote “In dreams begins responsibility” : YEATS
23. Small iPod : NANO
24. Toned : HUED
25. Was boring, as a meeting : DRAGGED
27. Water filter brand : BRITA
28. State with 1,350 miles of coastline: Abbr. : FLA
29. Type of type : ELITE
30. What revolting people do? : RIOT
31. Not showing one’s age, say : SPRY
32. Check alternative : CASH
33. Gallic girlfriend : AMIE
37. “___ Joey” (Rodgers and Hart musical) : PAL
38. Word files, briefly : DOCS
40. Palm : hand :: ___ : foot : SOLE
41. Cowboys, but not Indians : NFL TEAM
42. Worker whose name is, appropriately, an anagram of NOTES : STENO
43. Jeans style : CUTOFFS
45. Champion of evolution : DARWIN
46. Makes a connection : TIES IN
49. Grammy category : JAZZ
50. New Balance competitor : AVIA
51. Philip who said “goodbye” to Columbus : ROTH
52. ___ Bell : TACO
54. Szczecin resident : POLE
55. Weight classification : TROY
56. “___ Karenina” : ANNA
59. Lacking refinement : RAW
60. Capital of Colombia? : CEE

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8 thoughts on “0215-17 New York Times Crossword Answers 15 Feb 17, Wednesday”

  1. A little longer solve for me than most Wednesdays. I said the same for the LAT today so maybe it's just me. Jesse Eisenberg was an answer a few days ago I had to get entirely by crosses and here he is again haunting me…..Nice puzzle actually.

    Hadn't thought of a butterfinger bar in ages. Was my favorite as a kid. Haven't had one in a couple of decades. Do they still exist?

    Great story about James Doohan. Wow. News to me.

    Best –

  2. Can't get too excited about this one. It is a bit simple and silly, but not really bad.

  3. 12:44, no errors. Couple of erasures slowed me down. 28D had ALAska vice FLA; 37A entered AAA before PTA. For us syndicatees, it's late March, and snowman season should be well over.

  4. No errors. If I were the editor of this puzzle I probably would not have added on the word "Yum!" to the end of the clues. There's certainly nothing yummy about cherry pits or a head of lettuce. Ears of corn can become yummy with the right additions. And Butterfingers are absolutely the epitome of yumminess. But as a collection all together, it would be a pretty weird meal not rating a "Yum!".

  5. 11:11 and no errors. Almost had a few bobbles…. glad I used several seconds to insure a "clean sheet", even though that meant I had no chance to outdo Bill's time.

  6. Zero errors, 24 minutes. Theme was a lot simpler than I expected (compared to most of these kinds of puzzles I've done where I have to DNF because I can't guess what's going on and can't get the crosses), but still pretty bleh in the grand scheme of things. Especially two days in a row.

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