1018-18 NY Times Crossword 18 Oct 18, Thursday

Bill’s time: 16m 23s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

7. Fictional Charlie : CHAN

Charlie Chan is the main character in a series of novels by Earl Derr Biggers. Chan is a Chinese-American detective working with the Honolulu police department. There have been almost 50 movies made featuring the Charlie Chan character.

14. Disney princess in “Brave” : MERIDA

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”)

15. Palmist’s reading : FATE LINE

In the practice called palmistry, someone might tell your fortune by interpreting the lines and other features seen on the palm of your hand. The lines in the palm have names such as life line, head line, heart line and fate line. The life line is the curve that sweeps around in an arc centered at the base of the thumb.

17. Small burger : SLIDER

Sliders are small hamburgers. One suggestion is that the “slider” originated in the US Navy, with the name being a reference to greasy hamburgers sliding back and forth across the grill as a ship pitches and rolls. More recently, the slider became associated with the White Castle fast food chain of restaurants. White Castle introduced the “Slyder” in 1985.

18. Lady Gaga or Judy Garland : LGBT ICON

Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT)

“Lady Gaga” is the stage name of Stefani Germanotta. Germanotta is a big fan of the band Queen, and she took her stage name from the marvelous Queen song titled “Radio Ga Ga”.

The actress Judy Garland’s real name was Frances Gumm. Garland was respected and loved both within and without the entertainment industry. She was the youngest recipient, at 39 years old, of the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement in the motion picture industry.

19. ___ Park, Calif. : MENLO

Menlo Park is a town in the San Francisco Bay Area. The town was built around land previously owned by two Irish immigrants. The pair called their property “Menlo Park”, naming it for Menlo in County Galway, which is where the Irishmen came from.

28. Looney Tunes surname : LE PEW

Pepé Le Pew is a very likeable cartoon character from the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series. Pepé is a French skunk, first introduced way back in 1945. He is always thinking of “l’amour” and chases the lady skunks, or a black cat with a white stripe accidentally painted down her back.

32. Nickname of the singer of 2007’s “Umbrella” : RIRI

The singer Rihanna was born and grew up on the island of Barbados and moved to the US when she was 16-years-old to pursue a singing career. “Rihanna” is her stage name, as she was born Robyn Rihanna Fenty. The name “Rihanna” is derived from the Welsh name “Rhiannon”.

33. Squirt : TOT

“Squirt” is a slang term describing a small child.

34. Donna ___, soprano in “Don Giovanni” : ELVIRA

“Don Giovanni” is a comic opera by Mozart, with a libretto in Italian by Lorenzo Da Ponte. The opera follows the adventures of Don Giovanni, a young rakish nobleman who finally comes to a bad end.

36. Middle of time? : COLON

That would be the colon in the middle of a time such as 12:30.

38. Interstate billboard info : EXIT

The US Interstate System is more correctly known as the Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways, a nod to President Eisenhower who championed the construction. The President had come to recognise the value of the German autobahn system in his experiences during WWII, and resolved to give the US a similar infrastructure. In real terms, the US Interstate construction project is said to have been the largest public works project since the Pyramids of Egypt.

41. 8: Abbr. : AUG

As the first Emperor of Rome, Octavian was given the name Caesar Augustus. The month of August, originally called “Sextilis” in Latin, was renamed in honor of Augustus.

42. The Owls of Conference USA : RICE

Rice University is a private school in Houston, Texas. William Marsh Rice had made a will endowing the funds for the establishment of the school at the time of his death. When he was found dead one morning in his bed, his lawyer announced that his will had been changed, with the bulk of Rice’s estate actually going to the lawyer making the announcement. Upon investigation, it was discovered that the lawyer had paid Rice’s valet to murder his employer using chloroform and a fake will was written. Eventually, the original will was deemed valid and the funds were disbursed so that the school could be built.

43. President who lived in 47-Down : SADAT
(47D. See 43-Across : CAIRO)

Anwar Sadat was the third President of Egypt right up to the time of his assassination in 1981. Sadat won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1978 along with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin for the role played in crafting the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty of 1978 at Camp David. It was this agreement that largely led to Sadat’s assassination three years later.

44. Woman’s name that sounds like two letters : EVIE

“Evie” sounds like “E-V”.

45. Datum for a car aficionado : YEAR

An aficionado is an enthusiast. Imported from Spanish, “aficionado” was originally used in English to describe a devotee of bullfighting.

46. Kufrin of the 2018 season of “The Bachelorette” : BECCA

“The Bachelorette” is a reality television show about dating with the intent of marriage, and is a spin-off of “The Bachelor”. The marriage that resulted from the first season (2003) is still going strong, with the couple now the parents of two children.

48. Book after Exod. : LEV

In the Hebrew Bible, the Book of Leviticus comes after the Book of Exodus and before the Book of Numbers.

56. Like Pacific Islanders : OCEANIAN

The part of the Pacific Ocean known as “Oceania” is roughly equivalent to the tropical islands of the South Pacific. Oceania can be divided into the regions of Polynesia, Melanesia and Micronesia.

63. “Gilmore Girls” girl : RORY

“Gilmore Girls” is a comedy show that originally aired from 2000 to 2007 on the WB. The title characters are mother and daughter Lorelai and Rory Gilmore, played by Lauren Graham and Alexis Bledel.

Down

1. Symbols in superscript, for short : TMS

Trademark (TM)

5. Singing superstar born in Tottenham : ADELE

“Adele” is the stage name of English singer Adele Adkins. Adele’s debut album is “19”, named after the age she was during the album’s production. Her second album was even more successful than the first. Called “21”, the second album was released three years after the first, when Adele was three years older. Her third studio album “25”, released in 2015, broke the first-week sales records in both the UK and the US.

Tottenham is an area in north London in England. It is home to a famous football (soccer) club called Tottenham Hotspur, the team that I used to follow as a kid many moons ago …

6. Noble domain : BARONETCY (hiding “TENOR” lifted)

The British title of baronet has been awarded since the 14th century. The present-day hereditary baronets data back to 1611 when James I basically sold the title, awarding it to gentlemen of good birth who were willing to pay for the upkeep of thirty soldiers for three years.

7. Gridiron org. with the Grey Cup : CFL

The Grey Cup is a trophy awarded annually to the championship team in the Canadian Football League (CFL). The trophy is named for Earl Grey, the ex-governor general of Canada who commissioned the award. Grey had intended that the award be given annually to the country’s senior amateur hockey team, but Sir Montagu Allan beat him to the punch and the Allan Cup has been used for that purpose ever since. And so instead, the Grey Cup went to the sport of football.

8. Savory Scottish pudding : HAGGIS

Haggis is the national dish of Scotland. It is savory pudding made from the heart, liver and lungs of a sheep, mixed with onion, oatmeal, suet and spices. The pudding was originally cooked in the sheep’s stomach but these days is usually prepared in a sausage casing.

10. Let, maybe : NET BALL

That would be tennis.

16. So-called “black national anthem,” informally … or what 4-, 6-, 22- and 34-Down do, in part? : LIFT EVERY VOICE

“Lift Every Voice and Sing” is a hymn originally written as a poem By James Weldon Johnson and set to his music by his brother John Rosamond Johnson. It was first performed in 1900 for the holiday honoring Lincoln’s Birthday. The song is often called the “The African-American National Anthem”.

22. Volcano’s spew : HOT LAVA (hiding “ALTO” lifted)

Our word “volcano” comes from “Vulcano”, the name of a volcanic island off the coast of Italy. The island’s name comes from Vulcan, the Roman god of fire. The Romans believed that the island of Vulcano was the chimney of the forge belonging to the god Vulcan. The Romans also believed that the eruptions on Mount Etna in Sicily were caused by Vulcan getting angry and working his forge so hard that sparks and smoke flew out of the top of the volcano.

24. Sign of balance? : LIBRA

The constellation of Libra is named for the scales held by the goddess of justice. Libra is the only sign of the zodiac that isn’t named for a living creature.

27. Halloween “blood,” e.g. : GOO

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”.

30. Writer Jong : ERICA

The author Erica Jong’s most famous work is her first: “Fear of Flying”, a novel published in 1973. Over twenty years later, Jong wrote “Fear of Fifty: a midlife memoir”, published in 1994.

34. German composer Humperdinck : ENGELBERT (hiding “TREBLE” lifted)

Engelbert Humperdinck was a composer from Germany whose best known work is his opera “Hansel und Gretel”. “Hansel und Gretel” was the first opera that New York’s Metropolitan Opera transmitted live on radio, back in 1931.

37. Non’s opposite : OUI

In French, a response on “un questionnaire” (a questionnaire) might be “oui” (yes) or “non” (no).

44. Patisserie offering : ECLAIR

The name for the pastry known as an “éclair” is clearly French in origin. The French word for lightning is “éclair”, but no one seems to be too sure how it came to be used for the rather delicious bakery item.

A patisserie is a French bakery that sells pastries, or “tartes”.

47. See 43-Across : CAIRO
(43A. President who lived in 47-Down : SADAT)

Cairo is the capital city of Egypt. It is nicknamed “The City of a Thousand Minarets” because of its impressive skyline replete with Islamic architecture. The name “Cairo” is a European corruption of the city’s original name in Arabic, “Al-Qahira”.

51. Purplish berry : ACAI

Açaí (pronounced “ass-aye-ee”) 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.

55. Newsman Chuck : TODD

Chuck Todd is a television journalist. Todd was the Chief White House Correspondent for NBC, before taking over as moderator of “Meet the Press” in 2014.

59. Tutee of Luke in “The Last Jedi” : REY

Rey is the central character in the the movie “Star Wars: The Force Awakens”. Rey is played by British actress Daisy Ridley.

“Star Wars: The Last Jedi” is a 2017 movie from the “Star Wars” film franchise, and the second installment of the “Star Wars” sequel trilogy. The title character is Luke Skywalker, played by Mark Hamill. Ah, but is Luke in fact the “last Jedi”?