0703-18 NY Times Crossword Answers 3 Jul 2018, Tuesday

Bill’s time: 5m 57s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1. Course in which to determine a curve’s slope, informally : CALC

Remember doing calculus at school, and all those derivatives and integrals? Well, you probably also remember that an integral calculates the area under a curve (for example), and a derivative calculates the slope of a tangent at a particular point on a curve.

15. Jazz legend Fitzgerald : ELLA

Ella Fitzgerald, the “First Lady of Song”, had a hard and tough upbringing. She was raised by her mother alone in Yonkers, New York. Her mother died while Ella was still a schoolgirl, and around that time the young girl became less interested in her education. She fell in with a bad crowd, even working as a lookout for a bordello and as a Mafia numbers runner. She ended up in reform school, from which she escaped, and found herself homeless and living on the streets for a while. Somehow Fitzgerald managed to get herself a spot singing in the Apollo Theater in Harlem. From there her career took off and as they say, the rest is history.

16. Big name in pasta sauce : RAGU

The Ragú brand of pasta sauce is owned by Unilever. The name ” Ragù” is the Italian word for a sauce used to dress pasta, however the spelling is off a little. In Italian the word is “Ragù” with a grave accent over the “u”, but if you look at a jar of the sauce on the supermarket shelf it is spelled “Ragú” on the label, with an acute accent. Sometimes I think we just don’t try …

17. Tatum who won an Oscar for “Paper Moon” : O’NEAL

Tatum O’Neal is the youngest actress to win a competitive Oscar. She won the Best Supporting Actress Award in 1974 when she was just 10 years old, for her role as Addie in “Paper Moon”. The youngest person to win an honorary Academy Award was Shirley Temple, who was only 5 years old when she was presented with an Oscar in 1934.

“Paper Moon” is a 1973 comedy film that tells the story of a father and daughter during the Great Depression. The onscreen father and daughter are played by real-life father and daughter Ryan and Tatum O’Neal. The original choices for the lead roles were Paul Newman and his daughter Nell Potts, but they left the project after director John Huston also dropped out.

19. With 21-Across, A.L. team with a patriotic color : BOSTON …

21. See 19-Across : RED SOX

The Boston Red Sox is one of the most successful Major League Baseball teams and so commands a large attendance, but only when on the road. The relatively small capacity of Boston’s Fenway Park, the team’s home since 1912, has dictated that every game the Red Sox has played there has been a sell-out since May of 2003. I recently had the pleasure of touring Fenway Park. It’s quite a place …

25. Expensive wrap : ERMINE

The stoat has dark brown fur in the summer, and white fur in the winter. Sometimes the term “ermine” is used for the animal during the winter when the fur is white. Ermine skins have long been prized by royalty and are often used for white trim on ceremonial robes.

32. A.L. team with a patriotic color : CHICAGO WHITE SOX

The Chicago White Sox Major League Baseball team was established in Chicago in 1900 and originally was called the White Stockings. The name was changed because the abbreviation “Sox” for “Stockings” was regularly used in newspaper headlines.

36. Vietnam Memorial architect Maya : LIN

Maya Lin is a Chinese American born in Athens Ohio, and is an artist and architect. Her most famous work is the moving Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. Lin was only 21-years-old when she won a public design competition in 1981 to create the memorial. Although her design is very fitting, sadly Lin was not a popular choice for the work given her Asian heritage. As she said herself, she probably would not have been picked had the competition been judged with the knowledge of who was behind each submission.

38. “Mustache Hat” artist Jean : ARP

Jean Arp was a French artist renowned for his work with torn and pasted paper, although that wasn’t the only medium he used. Arp was the son of a French mother and German father and spoke both languages fluently. When he was speaking German he gave his name as Hans Arp, but when speaking French he called himself Jean Arp. Both “Hans” and “Jean” translate into English as “John”. In WWI Arp moved to Switzerland to avoid being called up to fight, taking advantage of Swiss neutrality. Eventually he was told to report to the German Consulate and fill out paperwork for the draft. In order to get out of fighting, Arp messed up the paperwork by writing the date in every blank space on the forms. Then he took off all of his clothes and walked with his papers over to the officials in charge. Arp was sent home …

39. Battery terminal : ANODE

A battery is a device that converts chemical energy into electric energy. A simple battery is made up of three parts: a cathode, an anode and a liquid electrolyte. Ions from the electrolyte react chemically with the material in the anode producing a compound and releasing electrons. At the same time, the electrolyte reacts with the material in the cathode, absorbing electrons and producing a different chemical compound. In this way, there is a buildup of electrons at the anode and a deficit of electrons at the cathode. When a connection (wire, say) is made between the cathode and anode, electrons flow through the resulting circuit from the anode to cathode in an attempt to rectify the electron imbalance.

43. ___ Martinez, three-time Cy Young winner : PEDRO

Pedro Martinez is a retired baseball pitcher from the Dominican Republic. Martinez won the Cy Young Award three times, and was on the Boston Red Sox team that won the 2004 World Series.

45. A.L. team with a patriotic color : TORONTO BLUE JAYS

The Toronto Blue Jays baseball franchise was founded in 1977. The Blue Jays are the only team based outside the US to have won a World Series, doing so in 1992 and 1993. And since the Montreal Expos relocated to Washington, the Blue Jays are the only Major League Baseball team now headquartered outside of the US.

50. Co-starring actress on HBO’s “Insecure” : ISSA RAE

Issa Rae is Stanford University graduate who created a YouTube web series called “Awkward Black Girl”. Rae also plays the title role in the series, a young lady named “J”. “Awkward Black Girl” was adapted into an HBO comedy-drama called “Insecure”, in which Issa Rae stars.

54. Had a helping of humble pie : ATE CROW

The phrase “eat crow”, an alternative to “eat humble pie”, perhaps refers to the fact that cooked crow may be edible, but is not a great food choice.

61. Like rho … or a fraternity row : GREEK

Rho is the Greek letter that looks just like our Roman letter “p”, although it is equivalent to the Roman letter R.

64. Avoid a tag, in a way : SLIDE

That would be baseball.

Down

1. Sedan or convertible : CAR

The American sedan car is the equivalent of the British saloon car. By definition, a sedan car has two rows of seating and a separate trunk (boot in the UK), although in some models the engine can be at the rear of the car.

2. Fast horse : ARAB

The Arab (also “Arabian”) breed of horse takes its name from its original home, the Arabian Peninsula. Like any animal that humans have over-bred, the horse falls prey to genetic diseases, some of which are fatal and some of which require the horse to be euthanized.

3. Big name in building blocks : LEGO

Lego produces some wonderful specialized sets with which you can build models of celebrated structures, including:

• The Statue of Liberty (2,882 pieces)
• The Sydney Opera House (2,989 pieces)
• The Eiffel Tower (3,428 pieces)
• Tower Bridge (4,295 pieces)
• The Taj Mahal (5,922 pieces)

5. Kind of slope for a novice skier : BUNNY

In North America, ski runs are given a standardized rating in terms of skiing difficulty. The ratings are:

• Green circles: easy to ski, often termed “bunny slopes”.
• Blue squares: medium difficulty
• Black diamond: steep and challenging terrain
• Double black diamond: experts only (I’ve never braved one!)

6. Encouragement to a matador : OLE!

The term “torero” is used to describe all bullfighters. The term “matador” is reserved for the bullfighter whose job is to make the final kill. Aptly enough, “matador” is Spanish for “killer”.

20. Daughter on Fox’s “Bob’s Burgers” : TINA

“Bob’s Burgers” is a cartoon sitcom that airs on Fox. Not for me …

22. Shoulder muscle, briefly : DELT

The deltoid “muscle” is actually a group of muscles, the ones that cover the shoulder and create the roundness under the skin. The deltoids (delts) are triangular in shape resembling the Greek letter delta, hence the name.

25. Brilliant effect : ECLAT

“Éclat” can mean a brilliant show of success, or the applause or accolade that one receives. The word derives from the French “éclater” meaning “to splinter, burst out”.

26. Large zoo animal, for short : RHINO

There are five types of rhinoceros that survive today, with the smaller Javan Rhino being the most rare. The rhinoceros is probably the rarest large mammal on the planet, thanks to poaching. Hunters mainly prize the horn of the rhino, as it is used in powdered form in traditional Chinese medicine.

29. Carne ___ (Mexican restaurant dish) : ASADA

The name of the dish called “carne asada” translates from Spanish as “roasted meat”.

31. Montreal nine, once : EXPOS

The Washington Nationals (“Nats”) baseball team started out life as the Montreal Expos in 1969, and were the first Major League Baseball team in Canada. The Expos moved to Washington in 2005 becoming the Nats. There are only two Major Leagues teams that have never played in a World Series, one being the Mariners and the other the Nats.

33. Cookie with a creme filling : OREO

Nabisco launched an ad campaign for the Oreo brand of in 2012, telling us that the cookie is “wonderfilled”, that the modest little Oreo cookie can bring about a positive change of perspective and create a sense of wonder. I think that’s the idea …

34. Fetal position? : WOMB

The word “fetus”, used for an unborn young animal, comes from Latin as one might expect. “Fetus” is the Latin word for the act of hatching or bringing forth a young animal or child. The mistaken spelling “foetus” is seen quite a lot, but there’s no historical basis for adding that “o”.

35. Burglar’s booty : HAUL

The crime of burglary is the breaking into and entering of a building with the intent to steal. The actual theft itself is a separate crime.

41. Start of el año : ENERO

In Spanish, we start the “año” (year) in “enero” (January) as noted on a “calendario” (calendar).

43. Former Israeli P.M. Shimon : PERES

Shimon Peres was an Israeli statesman who was born in Poland, in a township that is now part of Belarus. Peres served as President of the State of Israel from 2007 to 2014. Born Szymon Perski, Peres was the oldest head of state in the world while he served as president of Israel. While serving as foreign minister, he represented Israel in the secret negotiations that led to the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993. For that work, Peres was jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize with Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat.

52. Insignia on a Houston Astros cap : STAR

The Houston baseball team changed its name to the Astros (sometimes “’Stros”) from the Colt .45s in 1965 when they started playing in the Astrodome. The Astrodome was so called in recognition of the city’s long association with the US space program. The Astros moved from the National League to the American League starting in the 2013 season.

53. Title below marquess : EARL

In Britain, there are five ranks of peer, namely duke, marquess, earl, viscount and baron, in descending order.

59. Luau loop : 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.