0810-18 NY Times Crossword 10 Aug 18, Friday

Constructed by: Damon Gulczynski
Edited by: Will Shortz

Today’s Theme: None

Bill’s time: 9m 21s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1. Insolent talk : GUFF

The word “guff” has been around since the late 1800s and means “empty talk”. The term comes from the sense of a “puff of air”.

5. Wagner’s oeuvre : OPERAS

Richard Wagner was born in the Jewish quarter of Leipzig in 1813. Decades later, Wagner became known not only for writing magnificent music, but also for his anti-semitic views and writings.

The sum of an artist’s work in his or her lifetime is known as his or her “oeuvre”.

14. Pacific capital : APIA

Apia is the capital city, and in fact the only city, of the Pacific island-nation of Samoa. The harbor of Apia is famous for a very foolish incident in 1889 involving seven naval vessels from Germany, the US and Britain. A typhoon was approaching so the safest thing to do was to head for open water away from land, but no nation would move its ships for fear of losing face in front of the others. Six of the ships were lost in the typhoon as a result and 200 American and German sailors perished. The British cruiser HMS Calliope barely managed to escape from the harbor and rode out the storm safely. Apia is also known as the home of writer Robert Louis Stevenson, for the last four years of his life.

16. $100 bill, in slang : BEN

Benjamin Franklin is featured on one side of the hundred-dollar bill (also called a “C-spot, C-note”), and Philadelphia’s Independence Hall on the other side. There is a famous error in the image of Independence Hall. If you look closely at the clock face at the top of the building you can see that the “four” is written in Roman numerals as “IV”. However, on the actual clock on Independence Hall, the “four” is denoted by “IIII”, which has been the convention for clock faces for centuries.

19. “Automatic for the People” band, 1992 : REM

R.E.M. was a rock band from Athens, Georgia formed in 1980. Apparently, the name “R.E.M.” was chosen randomly from a dictionary.

20. It’s no six-pack, ironically : BEER BELLY

The abdominal muscles (abs) are more correctly referred to as the rectus abdominis muscles. They might be referred to as a “six-pack” in a person who has developed the muscles and who has low body fat. In my case, more like a keg …

24. ___-Caps (candy) : SNO

Sno-Caps are a brand of candy usually only available in movie theaters. Sno-caps have been around since the 1920s, would you believe?

25. Like the Oscars and the Emmys : EMCEED

The term “emcee” comes from “MC”, an initialism used for a Master or Mistress of Ceremonies.

28. Wayfarers : VAGABONDS

A vagabond is a person without a home who moves from place to place. The term derives from the Latin “vagabundus” meaning “wandering, strolling about”.

31. Kind of pressure : SINUS

In anatomical terms, a sinus is a cavity in tissue. Sinuses are found all over the body, in the kidney and heart for example, but we most commonly think of the paranasal sinuses that surround the nose.

40. Something New York and Los Angeles each have : TIMES

“The New York Times” (NYT) has been published since 1851, and is sometimes referred to as “the Gray Lady”. These days a viable alternative to buying the paper is to read the news online. NYTimes.com is the most popular online newspaper website in the country.

The “Los Angeles Times” newspaper started out life in 1881 as the “Los Angeles Daily Times”. The paper has a turbulent history, especially in the early 1900s when management and unions were at loggerheads. In 1910, two union members bombed the “Los Angeles Times” building causing a fire that killed 21 newspaper employees.

42. Black-and-white : POLICE CAR

A police car is often referred to by the slang term “black-and-white”, a reference to the vehicle’s common paint scheme.

47. Big name in movie rentals : ITUNES

iTunes is a very, very successful software application from Apple. It’s basically a media player that works on platforms like the iPad, iPhone and iPod. It connects seamlessly to the iTunes store, where you can spend all kinds of money.

48. “Alea iacta ___”: Julius Caesar : EST

Supposedly, when Julius Caesar marched back to Rome from Gaul, he defiantly “crossed the Rubicon” with his army while uttering the words “Alea iacta est” (“The die is cast”).

51. Time in Italy : ORA

In Italian, an “ora” (hour) is 1/24 of “un giorno” (a day).

52. Inept sort : GOMER

A yokel might be called a “gomer”, a slang term coming from the character Gomer Pyle in “The Andy Griffith Show”,

53. All-time record setter on 4/8/1974 : HANK AARON

The great Hank Aaron (“Hammerin’ Hank” or “the Hammer”) has many claims to fame. One notable fact is that he is the last major league baseball player to have also played in the Negro League.

56. Herbert of the “Pink Panther” films : LOM

Herbert Lom was a Czech film actor best known for playing Chief Inspector Charles Dreyfus in the series of “Pink Panther” movies. He was born in Prague in 1917, and had his first film role in a Czech film. Lom moved to England in 1939, and made many appearances in British movies. He also worked for many years in Hollywood, and played the King of Siam in the original London production of “The King and I”.

The Pink Panther is a character who appears in the main title of most of “The Pink Panther” series of films. The character became so popular that he was featured in a whole series of short films, and even merited his own “The Pink Panther Show”, which was a cartoon series that was shown on NBC on Saturday mornings.

57. Angry shout to an umpire : ARE YOU BLIND?!

Back in the 15th century, “an umpire” was referred to as “a noumpere”, which was misheard and hence causing the dropping of the initial letter N. The term “noumpere” came from Old French “nonper” meaning “not even, odd number”. The idea was that the original umpire was a third person called on to arbitrate between two, providing that “odd number” needed to decide the dispute.

59. “Do Ya” grp. : ELO

The Electric Light Orchestra (ELO) is a symphonic rock group from the north of England.

60. “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television” comedian : CARLIN

George Carlin was a groundbreaking, stand-up comic from Manhattan, New York. Carlin’s best-known routine was his “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television” that featured a list of words that would be considered offensive in some circles. Carlin was arrested and charged with obscenity after performing the routine in 1972 in Milwaukee. The judge hearing the case upheld Carlin’s right to perform the routine, but the controversy didn’t stop there. Someone complained about hearing the routine in a radio broadcast, which led to the US Supreme Court upholding the right of the FCC to prohibit broadcasts that might be deemed obscene when children were likely to be in the audience.

62. Ranch sobriquet : TEX

A sobriquet is an affectionate nickname. The term “sobriquet” is French, in which language it has the same meaning.

63. Board : EMBARK

In getting on and off a seagoing vessel, one embarks and debarks. The terms come from the name of the small ship known as a barque.

Down

6. Big name in conditioning : PAVLOV

Ivan Pavlov was studying gastric function in dogs in the 1890s when he observed that his subject dogs started to salivate before he even presented food to them. This “psychic secretion”, as he called it, interested him so much that he changed the direction of his research and studied the reactions of dogs to various stimuli that were associated with the presentation of food. Famously, he discovered that a dog could be conditioned to respond as though he was about to be fed, just by sensing some stimulus that he had come to associate with food. This might be a bell ringing, an electric shock (poor dog!) or perhaps the waving of a hand. Nowadays we might describe someone as “Pavlov’s Dog” if that person responds just the way he/she has been conditioned to respond, rather than applying critical thinking.

7. Oscar winner Jannings : EMIL

Emil Jannings was an actor from Switzerland who also held German and Austrian citizenship. Jannings was the first person to receive an Oscar, as the star of the 1928 silent movie called “The Last Command”. He also starred opposite Marlene Dietrich in the 1930 classic “The Blue Angel”.

9. System of unspoken words, for short : ASL

American Sign Language (ASL)

10. Setting for the first Mickey Mouse cartoon : STEAMBOAT

Walt Disney’s iconic cartoon character Mickey Mouse, was introduced to the public in 1928 in the cartoon “Steamboat Willie”. Mickey was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1978, making him the first cartoon character to be so honored. Walt Disney had some nice words to say in Disneyland in 1954:

I only hope that we never lose sight of one thing – that it was all started by a mouse.

11. Main antagonist in George Orwell’s “1984” : O’BRIEN

The protagonist in George Orwell’s novel “Nineteen Eighty-Four” is Winston Smith, just an ordinary individual. Winston is tormented by O’Brien, a member of the Inner Party who poses as someone open to counter-revolutionary resistance.

18. TV channel with the slogan “Very funny” : TBS

Turner Broadcasting System (TBS) adopted the slogan “Very Funny” in 2004. The slogan is meant to contrast TBS with its sister channel TNT, which focuses on drama shows. In 2012, TNT adopted the slogan “Drama, Period.”

22. One who arrives around Halloween : SCORPIO

Scorpio is a the eighth astrological sign of the Zodiac. Scorpios are pure perfection. Guess what my sign is …

All Saints’ Day is November 1st each year. The day before All Saints’ Day is All Hallows’ Eve, better known by the Scottish term “Halloween”.

25. Frontier figure : EARP

Wyatt Earp is famous as one of the participants in the gunfight at the O.K. Corral. Earp was a city policeman in Wichita, Kansas and also in Dodge City, Kansas. Earp was also deputy sheriff in Tombstone, Arizona where the O.K. Corral gunfight took place. Years later, Earp joined the Alaska Gold Rush and with a partner built and operated the Dexter Saloon in Nome.

29. Big name in coverage : AETNA

When the healthcare management and insurance company known as Aetna was founded, the name was chosen to evoke images of Mount Etna, the Italian volcano.

30. Miracle-___ : GRO

Scotts Miracle-Gro Company was founded in 1868 by one Orlando Scott, and initially dols seed to the agricultural industry. In the early 1900s, Scotts started to sell to homeowners, and mainly supplied lawn seed. The company merged with the gardening company Miracle-Gro in 1955.

32. It was launched with Sputnik : SPACE RACE

The Soviet Union launched the Sputnik satellite towards the end of 1957, a development that shocked the establishment in the US. Within months, President Eisenhower created the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA, now DARPA) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The Space Race had begun …

36. Actor Cage, informally : NIC

The actor Nicolas “Nic” Cage was born Nicolas Coppola. Cage is the nephew of director Francis Ford Coppola and actress Talia Shire, both of whom are his father’s siblings.

38. “Rotary phone,” for one : RETRONYM

“Retronym” is a term used to distinguish between the current form of an object and the original form. For example, we tend to call the original guitar an “acoustic guitar” to differentiate it from today’s “electric guitar”. Similarly, we now say “cloth diapers” and “film cameras” when referring to the originals.

43. Peter of “My Favorite Year” : O’TOOLE

Irish actor Peter O’Toole got his big break in movies when he played the title role in the 1962 epic film “Lawrence of Arabia”. My favorite of O’Toole’s movies is much lighter fare, namely “How to Steal a Million” in which he stars opposite Audrey Hepburn. O’Toole never won an Oscar, but holds the record for the greatest number of Best Actor nominations without a win.

44. Stumblebum : LUMMOX

The word “lummox” comes from East Anglian slang , and describes an ungainly and often clueless person. The term is probably a contraction of “lumbering ox”.

45. “La Loge” artist : RENOIR

Pierre-Auguste Renoir was a French painter, very much at the forefront of the Impressionist Movement. Renoir was a prolific artist, with several thousand works attributed to him. The largest collection of Renoirs is actually in the United States. You can see 181 of his paintings at the Barnes Foundation just outside Philadelphia.

50. Move to the right incrementally : TAB

Like most features on our computer keyboards, the tab key is a hangover from the days of typewriters. When using a typewriter, making entries into a table was very tedious, involving lots of tapping on the spacebar and backspace key. So, a lever was added to typewriters that allowed the operator to “jump” across the page to positions that could be set by hand. Later this was simplified to a tab key which could be depressed, causing the carriage to jump to the next tab stop in much the same way that the modern tab key works on a computer.

54. Jean Auel heroine : AYLA

Ayla is a little Cro-Magnon girl who is orphaned and then adopted by a Neanderthal tribe, as told in “The Clan of the Cave Bear”, the first of a series of novels written by Jean Auel that set in prehistoric times. I haven’t read any of Auel’s books myself, but they are on my reading to-do list as my wife recommends them. They sound interesting …

55. Jessica of “Sin City” : ALBA

Actress Jessica Alba got her big break when she was cast in the Fox science fiction show “Dark Angel”. Alba had a tough life growing up as she spent a lot of time in hospital and so found it difficult to develop friendships. As a youngster she twice had a collapsed lung, frequently caught pneumonia, suffered from asthma, had a ruptured appendix and a tonsillar cyst. On top of all that, Alba acknowledges that she suffered from obsessive-compulsive disorder as a child.

“Sin City” is a 2005 thriller movie that is based on a series of graphic novels by Frank Miller. Miller also co-directs the film. “Sin City” has a large ensemble cast that includes Bruce Willis, Jessica Alba, Benicio del Toro, Clive Owen and Mickey Rourke. The author Frank Miller even plays a role himself.

Complete List of Clues/Answers

Across

1. Insolent talk : GUFF
5. Wagner’s oeuvre : OPERAS
11. “Well, looky here!” : OHO!
14. Pacific capital : APIA
15. Least believable : LAMEST
16. $100 bill, in slang : BEN
17. Where a rocky relationship may end : SPLITSVILLE
19. “Automatic for the People” band, 1992 : REM
20. It’s no six-pack, ironically : BEER BELLY
21. One way to stand : ASIDE
23. Where the brachialis muscle is found : ARM
24. ___-Caps (candy) : SNO
25. Like the Oscars and the Emmys : EMCEED
26. ___ Rock, N.J. : GLEN
28. Wayfarers : VAGABONDS
31. Kind of pressure : SINUS
33. Slip : ERROR
34. Begin writing : PUT PEN TO PAPER
39. Contribute : PAY IN
40. Something New York and Los Angeles each have : TIMES
42. Black-and-white : POLICE CAR
46. Prefix with -metry : OPTO-
47. Big name in movie rentals : ITUNES
48. “Alea iacta ___”: Julius Caesar : EST
51. Time in Italy : ORA
52. Inept sort : GOMER
53. All-time record setter on 4/8/1974 : HANK AARON
56. Herbert of the “Pink Panther” films : LOM
57. Angry shout to an umpire : ARE YOU BLIND?!
59. “Do Ya” grp. : ELO
60. “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television” comedian : CARLIN
61. Believes : BUYS
62. Ranch sobriquet : TEX
63. Board : EMBARK
64. Info to use against somebody, metaphorically : AMMO

Down

1. Wind sources : GASBAGS
2. Something that may be stiff : UPPER LIP
3. It might include “New Folder” and “Close Window” : FILE MENU
4. “You make a point” : FAIR
5. Multi-time Pro Bowl tight end Greg : OLSEN
6. Big name in conditioning : PAVLOV
7. Oscar winner Jannings : EMIL
8. Bank : RELY
9. System of unspoken words, for short : ASL
10. Setting for the first Mickey Mouse cartoon : STEAMBOAT
11. Main antagonist in George Orwell’s “1984” : O’BRIEN
12. Followed : HEEDED
13. Sedated, say : ON MEDS
18. TV channel with the slogan “Very funny” : TBS
22. One who arrives around Halloween : SCORPIO
25. Frontier figure : EARP
27. Southwestern tree with needles : NUT PINE
29. Big name in coverage : AETNA
30. Miracle-___ : GRO
32. It was launched with Sputnik : SPACE RACE
35. Regards : EYES
36. Actor Cage, informally : NIC
37. Superstore : EMPORIUM
38. “Rotary phone,” for one : RETRONYM
41. S.O.B. : SO-AND-SO
42. Farm young ‘un : PIGLET
43. Peter of “My Favorite Year” : O’TOOLE
44. Stumblebum : LUMMOX
45. “La Loge” artist : RENOIR
49. Shut out : SKUNK
50. Move to the right incrementally : TAB
53. Chervil or chives : HERB
54. Jean Auel heroine : AYLA
55. Jessica of “Sin City” : ALBA
58. Weapon in medieval warfare : RAM