1024-17 NY Times Crossword Answers 24 Oct 2017, Tuesday

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Constructed by: Damon Gulczynski
Edited by: Will Shortz

Today’s Theme: Another Dimension

We add ANOTHER DIMENSION as we progress through the entities that finish off each of today’s themed answers:

  • 59A. What a sci-fi portal might lead to … or what’s added successively to the ends of the answers to the starred clues : ANOTHER DIMENSION
  • 18A. *”You fail to understand what I’m saying” : THAT’S NOT THE POINT
  • 24A. *Cheesy fare served at a bar? : PICKUP LINE
  • 38A. *2006 cult-classic action film : SNAKES ON A PLANE
  • 53A. *”This relationship is smothering me” : I NEED SPACE

Bill’s time: 6m 59s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1. One of the Five Pillars of Islam : HADJ

Followers of the Muslim tradition believe in the Five Pillars of Islam, five obligatory acts that underpin Muslim life. The Five Pillars are:

  1. The Islamic creed
  2. Daily prayer
  3. Almsgiving
  4. Fasting during the month of Ramadan
  5. The pilgrimage to Mecca (haj,hadj) once during a lifetime

5. Shakespeare, informally : WILL

William Shakespeare is referred to as the Bard of Avon as he was born and raised in the lovely town of Stratford-upon-Avon in the English midlands.

17. Taiwan’s capital : TAIPEI

“Taipei” translates from Chinese as “Northern Taiwan City” and indeed is situated at the northern tip of Taiwan. The city is nicknamed “City of Azaleas” as flowers are said to bloom better in Taipei than in any other city on the island.

22. Smidgen : IOTA

Iota is the ninth letter in the Greek alphabet, one that gave rise to our letters I and J. We use the word “iota” to portray something very small as it is the smallest of all Greek letters.

Our word “smidgen” (sometimes shortened to “smidge”) is used to describe a small amount. The term might come from the Scots word “smitch” that means the same thing or “a small insignificant person”.

23. Info for a driver at an airport : ETA

Estimated time of arrival (ETA)

29. Old Renault : LE CAR

French automaker Renault made the “mini-like” Renault 5 and sold it as the Renault “Le Car” in North America. My Dad had a Renault 5 in Ireland, back in the day …

31. Berry marketed as healthful : 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.

32. Chaplin of “Game of Thrones” : OONA

Oona Chaplin is an actress from Madrid in Spain. Chaplin is getting a lot of airtime these days as she plays Talisa Maegyr on HBO’s hit fantasy series “Game of Thrones”. Oona is the granddaughter of Charlie Chaplin, and is named for her maternal grandmother Oona O’Neill, the daughter of playwright Eugene O’Neill.

34. Island garland : LEI

“Lei” is the Hawaiian word for “garland, wreath”, although in more general terms a lei is any series of objects strung together as an adornment for the body.

36. 12-time Vatican name : PIUS

There have been twelve popes named Pius, the latest being Pope Pius XII who led the Roman Catholic Church until his death in 1958.

38. *2006 cult-classic action film : SNAKES ON A PLANE

“Snakes on a Plane” is one of those movies that delivers just what is advertised on the wrapper, namely “snakes on a plane”. Samuel L. Jackson stars in a film about hundreds of snakes released on a plane in a plot to kill a witness who is planning to testify at a trial.

44. Hurdle for a Ph.D. candidate, typically : ORAL

“Ph.D.” is an abbreviation for “philosophiae doctor”, Latin for “teacher of philosophy”. Often, candidates for an earned PhD already hold a bachelor’s and a master’s degree, so a PhD might be considered a “third degree”.

47. One-named Spanish-born actress : CHARO

Charo is an actress, comedian and flamenco guitarist from Spain. She is quite famous for her comedic catchphrase “cuchi cuchi”. Charo’s real name is … wait for it … María del Rosario Pilar Martínez Molina Gutiérrez de los Perales Santa Ana Romaguera y de la Hinojosa Rasten.

55. Conjunction in the middle of a famous palindrome : ERE

The three most famous palindromes in English have to be:

  • Able was I ere I saw Elba
  • A man, a plan, a canal, Panama!
  • Madam, I’m Adam

One of my favorite words is “Aibohphobia”, although it doesn’t appear in the dictionary and is a joke term. “Aibohphobia” is a great way to describe a fear of palindromes, by creating a palindrome out of the suffix “-phobia”.

56. Vegetable with pods : OKRA

The plant known as okra is mainly grown for it edible green pods. The pods are said to resemble “ladies’ fingers”, which is an alternative name for the plant. Okra is known as “ngombo” in Bantu, a name that might give us the word “gumbo”, the name for the name of the southern Louisiana stew that includes okra as a key ingredient.

58. Narrow inlet : RIA

A drowned valley might be called a ria or a fjord, with both formed as sea level rises. A ria is a drowned valley created by river erosion, and a fjord is a drowned valley created by glaciation.

59. What a sci-fi portal might lead to … or what’s added successively to the ends of the answers to the starred clues : ANOTHER DIMENSION

The dimension of an object is defined as the minimum number of coordinates needed to specify each point in the object. Therefore a line is one-dimensional, as you only need an x-coordinate to specify a particular point on the line. A surface is two-dimensional, as you need both an x-coordinate and a y-coordinate to locate a point on the surface. The inside of a solid object is then three-dimensional, needing an x-, y- and z-coordinate to specify a point, say within a cube.

66. “The Bathers” painter : RENOIR

“The Bathers” is a 1918/1919 oil painting by Pierre-Auguste Renoir that is housed in the Musée d’Orsay in Paris. One of the models Renoir used for the work was actress Catherine Hessling. A few years after posing, Hessling married Pierre-Auguste’s son Jean Renoir, who was to become one of France’s most famous film directors.

67. Symphony, e.g. : OPUS

The Latin for “work” is “opus”, with the plural being “opera”. We sometimes use the plural “opuses” in English.

68. Spicy chocolate sauce : MOLE

Mole sauce comes in various guises, with “mole negro” including everyone’s favorite ingredient, namely chocolate.

Down

1. Box-office success : HIT

The term “box office” may date back to Shakespearean times. In those days long past, patrons would deposit fees for seeing theater performances in boxes. The full boxes would be collected and placed in an office called, imaginatively enough, the “box office”.

3. Org. in “Breaking Bad” : DEA

The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) was set up in 1973, while President Nixon was in office.

4. Lakeside rental : JET SKI

“Jet Ski” is actually a brand name owned by Kawasaki Heavy Industries of Japan. The generic term, not often used, is “personal watercraft”. Most people use the term “Jet Ski” generically, although “WaveRunner” is also popular. But that’s another brand name, one owned by Yamaha.

8. Eva Mendes or Eva Longoria : LATINA

I best know the actress Eva Mendes as the female lead in the movie “Hitch”, playing opposite Will Smith. Mendes was known off the screen for dating actor Ryan Gosling from 2011 to 2013.

Eva Longoria is a fashion model and actress who had a regular role on TV’s “Desperate Housewives”, playing Gabrielle Solis.

9. Editor’s override : STET

“Stet” is a Latin word meaning “let it stand”. In editorial work, the typesetter is instructed to disregard any change previously marked by writing the word “stet” and then underscoring that change with a line of dots or dashes.

10. Official decree from the Vatican : PAPAL BULL

A “bulla” (also “bull”) is a type of seal impression. A Papal Bull is a formal document from the Vatican that has such a seal attached, hence the name of the document.

11. 2016 Olympics city, informally : RIO

Even though the 2016 Olympic Games was a “summer” competition, it was held in Rio de Janeiro in winter. As Rio is in the southern hemisphere, the opening ceremony on 5th August 2016 fell in the local winter season. The 2016 games was also the first to be held in South America, and the first to be hosted by a Portuguese-speaking country.

13. Busybodies : YENTAS

Yenta (also “Yente”) is actually a female Yiddish name. In Yiddish theater “yenta” came to mean a busybody, a gossip.

14. Musical instruments with frets : SITARS

The sitar has been around since the Middle Ages. It 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.

19. Trifling amount : SOU

A sou is an old French coin. We use the term “sou” to mean “an almost worthless amount”.

26. Genesis son : CAIN

As Cain was the first murderer according the Bible, he is associated with evil or trouble. The idiom “raise Cain” is the equivalent of “raise Hell” and “raise the Devil”. In all cases, the meaning is to bring back evil or to cause trouble.

27. Loamy soil : LOESS

Loess is a wind-blown accumulation of silt. The word is German in origin and was first used to describe silt along the Rhine Valley.

28. Intro to Chinese? : INDO-

In the strict sense of the term, Indochina is a region in Southeast Asia that corresponds to the former French territory known as French Indochina. Today this region is made up of the countries of Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. However, the term “Indochina” is more generally used to describe Mainland Southeast Asia, and in this usage it also encompasses Myanmar, Singapore and Thailand.

30. “Frozen” princess : ELSA

“Frozen” is a 2013 animated feature from Walt Disney Studios that is based on the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale “The Snow Queen”. The film is all about the exploits of Princess Anna, the younger sister of Elsa, Snow Queen of Arendelle.

35. LeBron James’s hometown : AKRON, OHIO

For much of the 1800s, the Ohio city of Akron was the fasting growing city in the country, feeding off the industrial boom of that era. The city was founded in 1825 and its location, along the Ohio and Erie canal connecting Lake Erie with the Ohio River, helped to fuel Akron’s growth. Akron sits at the highest point of the canal and the name “Akron” comes from the Greek word meaning “summit”. Indeed, Akron is the county seat of Summit County. The city earned the moniker “Rubber Capital of the World” for most of the 20th century, as it was home to four major tire companies: Goodrich, Goodyear, Firestone and General Tire.

Basketball player LeBron James (nicknamed “King James”) seems to be in demand for the covers of magazines. James became the first African American man to adorn the front cover of “Vogue” in March 2008. That made him only the third male to make the “Vogue” cover, following Richard Gere and George Clooney.

36. “Gay” capital : PAREE

“Who Said Gay Paree?” is a song from the Cole Porter musical “Can-Can”.

37. Certain network ID : IP ADDRESS

An Internet Protocol (IP) address is a numerical label assigned to every device on a computer network. The device that you’re reading this blog post on has been assigned a unique IP address. You’re being watched …

40. Missing part of the Sphinx : NOSE

In Greek mythology, the creature known as the Sphinx has the body of a lion, the wings of a bird and the face of a woman. The Sphinx threatened to strangle and devour any person who could not answer a famous riddle: “Which creature walks on four legs in the morning, two legs in the afternoon, and three legs in the evening?” Oedipus was able to save himself by answering correctly “Man”. The idea is that a man crawls on all fours as a baby, and then walks on two feet as an adult, and walks with a cane in old age. “Sphinx” is actually a Greek word, meaning “the strangler” …

41. Mecca for oenophiles : NAPA

The first commercial winery in Napa Valley, California was established way back in 1858. However, premium wine production only dates back to the 1960s, with the region really hitting the big time after its success at the Paris Wine Tasting of 1976. The story of that famous blind wine tasting is told in the entertaining 2008 film “Bottle Shock”.

In Greek mythology, Oeno was the goddess of wine, giving us “oen-” as a prefix meaning “wine”. For example, oenology is the study of wine and an oenophile is a wine-lover.

46. Source of feta cheese : EWE

Feta is a Greek cheese made from sheep’s milk, or a mixture of sheep’s and goat’s milk. The cheese is salted and cured in a brine solution for several months before it is eaten.

48. Big buzzer : HORNET

A hornet is a large type of wasp, with some species reaching over two inches in length.

50. Japanese eel-and-rice dish : UNADON

“Unadon” is the Japanese word for “eel bowl”. “Unadon” is actually a contraction, of “unagi no kabayaki” (grilled eel) and “donburi” (rice bowl dish).

53. Like the verbs “lie” and “lay”: Abbr. : IRR

There is often confusion between the verbs “to lie” and “to lay”. The latter is a transitive verb, and so needs an object. So we can’t “lay down”, we must “lie down”. But, we can “lay out” a plan.

57. Jerome who composed “Ol’ Man River” : KERN

Jerome Kern was truly a great in the world of theater music. He wrote so many classics, including “Ol’ Man River”, “Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man”, “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” and “The Way You Look Tonight”.

“Ol’ Man River” is a wonderful song by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein, from the musical “Show Boat”. The most famous performances of the song were by Paul Robeson, starting in 1938 when he appeared in a movie version of the stage show. Over the years Robeson changed the lyrics as he sang it at various recitals. The original words used a lot of racial epithets and stereotypical African American slang that he decided to change or omit.

60. Blouse or sweater : TOP

A blouse is a loose-fitting shirt, particularly one worn by women or children. The term “blouse” is French, and originally described a peasant’s smock.

61. Hoppy quaff, for short : IPA

India pale ale (IPA) is a style of beer that originated in England. The beer was originally intended for transportation from England to India, hence the name.

“Quaff” is both a verb and a noun. One “quaffs” (takes a hearty drink) of a “quaff” (a hearty drink).

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Complete List of Clues/Answers

Across

1. One of the Five Pillars of Islam : HADJ
5. Shakespeare, informally : WILL
9. Mists : SPRAYS
15. “Interesting …” : I SEE …
16. Spark, so to speak : IDEA
17. Taiwan’s capital : TAIPEI
18. *”You fail to understand what I’m saying” : THAT’S NOT THE POINT
21. Nursery purchase : SOD
22. Smidgen : IOTA
23. Info for a driver at an airport : ETA
24. *Cheesy fare served at a bar? : PICKUP LINE
29. Old Renault : LE CAR
31. Berry marketed as healthful : ACAI
32. Chaplin of “Game of Thrones” : OONA
33. Sanctify : BLESS
34. Island garland : LEI
35. Bowled over : AWED
36. 12-time Vatican name : PIUS
38. *2006 cult-classic action film : SNAKES ON A PLANE
43. Flubs : ERRS
44. Hurdle for a Ph.D. candidate, typically : ORAL
45. Firefighter’s tool : AXE
47. One-named Spanish-born actress : CHARO
50. No longer mint : USED
51. Gush : SPEW
52. Get connected after typing one’s password : LOG ON
53. *”This relationship is smothering me” : I NEED SPACE
55. Conjunction in the middle of a famous palindrome : ERE
56. Vegetable with pods : OKRA
58. Narrow inlet : RIA
59. What a sci-fi portal might lead to … or what’s added successively to the ends of the answers to the starred clues : ANOTHER DIMENSION
66. “The Bathers” painter : RENOIR
67. Symphony, e.g. : OPUS
68. Spicy chocolate sauce : MOLE
69. Trample : STEP ON
70. Horses that could be hounds or badgers? : NAGS
71. Took to court : SUED

Down

1. Box-office success : HIT
2. Pale wood : ASH
3. Org. in “Breaking Bad” : DEA
4. Lakeside rental : JET SKI
5. Energy source from a “farm” : WIND POWER
6. Swear words? : I DO
7. Permit to : LET
8. Eva Mendes or Eva Longoria : LATINA
9. Editor’s override : STET
10. Official decree from the Vatican : PAPAL BULL
11. 2016 Olympics city, informally : RIO
12. Each : APIECE
13. Busybodies : YENTAS
14. Musical instruments with frets : SITARS
19. Trifling amount : SOU
20. Tough row to ___ : HOE
24. Bud : PAL
25. Finishes, as a cake : ICES
26. Genesis son : CAIN
27. Loamy soil : LOESS
28. Intro to Chinese? : INDO-
30. “Frozen” princess : ELSA
35. LeBron James’s hometown : AKRON, OHIO
36. “Gay” capital : PAREE
37. Certain network ID : IP ADDRESS
39. Streamlined, for short : AERO
40. Missing part of the Sphinx : NOSE
41. Mecca for oenophiles : NAPA
42. “Suit” : EXEC
46. Source of feta cheese : EWE
47. Unclogs : CLEARS
48. Big buzzer : HORNET
49. Early toddlerhood : AGE ONE
50. Japanese eel-and-rice dish : UNADON
51. Involuntary jerks : SPASMS
53. Like the verbs “lie” and “lay”: Abbr. : IRR
54. Do wrong : SIN
57. Jerome who composed “Ol’ Man River” : KERN
60. Blouse or sweater : TOP
61. Hoppy quaff, for short : IPA
62. Container for a 61-Down : MUG
63. Marker letters : IOU

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