0417-19 NY Times Crossword 17 Apr 19, Wednesday

Constructed by: Alison Ohringer and Erik Agard
Edited by: Will Shortz

Today’s Reveal Answer: Fix Breakfast

Themed answers are BREAKFAST items that need to be FIXED:

• 38A Plea concerning the menu in 18-, 26-, 53- and 64-Across? : FIX BREAKFAST

• 18A Menu item #1: A bowlful of Cap’n Crunch that’s been on top of the fridge for four years : STALE CEREAL
• 26A Menu item #2: The charred remains of a slice of whole wheat : BURNT TOAST
• 53A Menu item #3: A Red Delicious, assuming you find sawdust delicious : MEALY APPLE
• 64A Menu item #4: Something to pour in coffee for a sour surprise : SPOILED MILK

Read on, or jump to …
… a complete list of answers

Bill’s time: 7m 11s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1 Veronica ___, author of the best-selling “Divergent” series : ROTH

The “Divergent” series of movies is based on the “Divergent” novels written by Veronica Roth. The movies and novels are set in a post-apocalyptic version of Chicago called the Divergent Universe. The story is about a citizenry that is divided into five different factions based on personality traits. The critics weren’t crazy about the first movie in the series, but I really enjoyed it …

10 Movie with famous “dun dun” theme music : JAWS

“Jaws” is a thrilling 1975 movie directed by Steven Spielberg that is based on a novel of the same name by Peter Benchley. The film has a powerful cast, led by Roy Scheider, Richard Dreyfuss and Robert Shaw. “Jaws” was perhaps the first “summer blockbuster” with the highest box office take in history, a record that stood until “Star Wars” was released two years later.

The great composer John Williams has won five Academy Awards for his work on film scores, for:

• “Fiddler on the Roof”
• “Jaws”
• “Star Wars”
• “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial”
• “Schindler’s List”

14 Measurement that might be a lot? : ACRE

At one time, an acre was defined as the amount of land a yoke of oxen could plow in a day. Then, an acre was more precisely defined as a strip of land “one furrow long” (i.e. one furlong) and one chain wide. The length of one furlong was equal to 10 chains, or 40 rods. A area of one furlong times 10 rods was one rood.

15 Some Japanese cartoons : ANIMES

Anime is cartoon animation in the style of Japanese Manga comic books.

18 Menu item #1: A bowlful of Cap’n Crunch that’s been on top of the fridge for four years : STALE CEREAL

The first Cap’n Crunch commercials aired in 1963, at the time the product line was launched. The Cap’n’s full name is Captain Horatio Magellan Crunch, would you believe? Crunch’s voice was provided for many years by Daws Butler, the same voice actor who gave us Yogi Bear and Huckleberry Hound. Cap’n Crunch is commander of the S.S. Guppy.

20 Rhyming opposite of break : MAKE

Make or break.

25 Austin Powers or Jack Bauer : AGENT

The character Austin Powers was created by the actor who plays him, namely Mike Myers. Apparently Myers came up with the idea for Powers while listening to the Burt Bacharach song “The Look of Love”.

Jack Bauer is the main character in the television show “24”. Bauer is played by the actor Kiefer Sutherland.

29 W.C. : LOO

It has been suggested that the British term “loo” comes from “Waterloo” (water closet … water-loo), but no one seems to know for sure. Another suggestion is that the term comes from the card game of “lanterloo”, in which the pot was called the loo!

When I was growing up in Ireland, a bathroom was a room that had a bath and no toilet. The separate room with the commode was called the toilet or sometimes the W.C. (the water closet). Apparently the term “closet” was used because in the 1800s when homeowners started installing toilets indoors they often displaced clothes and linens in a closet, as a closet was the right size to take the commode.

30 “___ Flux” (1990s sci-fi series) : AEON

“Aeon Flux” is a sci-fi film from 2005 starring Charlize Theron in the title role. The movie was inspired by an animated TV series of the same name that aired on MTV in the nineties.

33 Org. whose participants wear helmets : NFL

The National Football League (NFL) was founded in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association, with the current name being adopted into 1923. The NFL merged with the American Football League (AFL) in 1970.

35 Follower of Mary : LAMB

“Mary Had a Little Lamb” is a nursery rhyme that originated in the US, first published in Boston in 1830. The rhyme was written by Sarah Josepha Hale, and was based on a real-life Mary who had a pet lamb that followed her around. “Mary Had a Little Lamb” has the distinction of being the first words recorded by Thomas Edison on his phonograph invention in 1877.

42 Chest coverer : BRA

The word “brassière” is French in origin, but it isn’t the word that the French use for a “bra”. In France, what we call a bra is known as a “soutien-gorge”, translating to “held under the neck”. The word “brassière” is indeed used in France but there it describes a baby’s undershirt, a lifebelt or a harness. “Brassière” comes from the Old French word for an “arm protector” in a military uniform (“bras” is the French for “arm”). Later “brassière” came to mean “breastplate” and from there the word was used for a type of woman’s corset. The word jumped into English around 1900.

43 “Eight more hours and I’m outta here!” : TGIF!

“Thank God It’s Friday” (TGIF) is a relatively new expression that apparently originated in Akron, Ohio. It was a catchphrase used first by disk jockey Jerry Healy of WAKR in the early seventies. That said, one blog reader wrote me to say that he had been using the phrase in the fifties.

46 Subject of a sleep lab study : APNEA

Sleep apnea (“apnoea” in British English) can be caused by an obstruction in the airways, possibly due to obesity or enlarged tonsils.

49 Words to a backstabber : ET TU

It was Shakespeare who popularized the words “Et tu, Brute?” (meaning “And you, Brutus?”). They appear in his play “Julius Caesar”, although the phrase had been around long before he penned his drama. It’s not known what Julius Caesar actually said in real life (if anything at all) as he was assassinated on on the steps of the Senate in Rome.

53 Menu item #3: A Red Delicious, assuming you find sawdust delicious : MEALY APPLE

Something described as “mealy” resembles meal in texture, and so is granular in consistency.

61 Cow sans calf : HEIFER

A calf is a young cow of either sex that is not more than a year old. A heifer is a young cow that has not calved, and the term “cow” can be used for a female of the species that has given birth.

62 Ben ___, pirate in “Treasure Island” : GUNN

In Robert Louis Stevenson’s “Treasure Island”, Ben Gunn is a character who had been marooned on the island by his shipmates. Gunn had lived there alone for three long years when Jim Hawkins comes across him. Author R. F. Delderfield wrote a “prequel” to “Treasure Island” called “The Adventures of Ben Gunn” telling the story of Gunn, a parson’s son who became a pirate.

71 City in West Yorkshire : LEEDS

I went to school for a while not far from Leeds in West Yorkshire in the north of England. Prior to the Industrial Revolution, Leeds was a major center for the production and trading of wool, and then with the onset of mechanization it became a natural hub for manufacture of textiles. These days Leeds is noted as a shopping destination and so has been dubbed “the Knightsbridge of the North”.

Down

2 Stop sign shape : OCTAGON

In the US, a stop sign is red and octagonal.

4 ___ Keller, first deaf and blind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts : HELEN

Helen Keller became a noted author despite been deaf and blind, largely through the work of her teacher Anne Sullivan. Keller was left deaf and blind after an illness (possibly meningitis or scarlet fever) when she was about 18 months old. She was to become the first deaf and blind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree. The relationship between Sullivan and Keller is immortalized in the play and film called “The Miracle Worker”.

5 PC alternatives : MACS

Macintosh (also “Mac”) is a line of computers from Apple Inc. The first Mac was introduced in 1984, and I remember someone showing me one at work in those early days of personal computing. There was a piece of white plastic connected to the main computer by a cord, and I was amazed when the guy showed me that it controlled where the cursor was on the screen. My colleague told me that this lump of plastic was called “a mouse” …

6 “He still the ___” (lyric in Beyoncé’s “Countdown”) : ONE

Beyoncé Knowles established herself in the entertainment industry as the lead singer with the R&B group Destiny’s Child. She launched her solo singing career in 2003, two years after making her first appearance as an actor. In 2006 she played the lead in the very successful movie adaptation of the Broadway musical “Dreamgirls”. Beyoncé is married to rap star Jay-Z. She is also referred to affectionately as “Queen Bey”, a play on the phrase “the queen bee”.

7 Word before and after yes, in the military : SIR

Sir, yes, sir!

11 Image next to a user name : AVATAR

The Sanskrit word “avatar” describes the concept of a deity descending into earthly life and taking on a persona. It’s easy to see how in the world of “online presences” one might use the word avatar to describe one’s online identity.

19 Grammy-winning James : ETTA

“Etta James” was the stage name of celebrated blues and soul singer Jamesetta Hawkins. James’ most famous recording was her 1960 hit “At Last”, which made it into the pop charts. James performed “At Last” at the age of 71 in 2009 on the reality show “Dancing with the Stars”, which was to be her final television appearance. She passed away in 2012.

31 Actor Idris : ELBA

English actor Idris Elba is probably best known in North America for playing the drug lord Stringer Bell in the marvelous HBO drama series “The Wire”, and the title character in the 2013 film “Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom”. Off the screen, Elba occasionally appears as a disk jockey using the name “DJ Big Driis”.

34 Media lawyer’s specialty : LIBEL

The word “libel” describes a published or written statement likely to harm a person’s reputation. It comes into English from the Latin “libellus”, the word for a small book. Back in the 1500s, libel was just a formal written statement, with the more damaging association arising in the 1600s. The related concept of slander is defamation in a transient form, such as speech, sign language or gestures.

36 Roll with a hole : BAGEL

The bagel was invented in the Polish city of Kraków in the 16th century. Bagels were brought to this country by Jewish immigrants from Poland who mainly established homes in and around New York City.

39 Broken bone revealers : X-RAYS

X-rays were first studied comprehensively by the German physicist Wilhelm Röntgen (also “Roentgen”), and it was he who gave the name “X-rays” to this particular type of radiation. Paradoxically, in Röntgen’s native language of German, X-rays are routinely referred to as “Röntgen rays”. In 1901, Röntgen’s work on X-rays won him the first Nobel Prize in Physics that was ever awarded.

45 Kneecap : PATELLA

The patella is the kneecap. The bone’s Latin name is “patella”, which is a diminutive form of “patina”, the word for “pan”. The idea is that the kneecap is pan-shaped.

46 Close chicas : AMIGAS

In Spanish, a “niña” is a young girl, a child. The term “chica” applies to an older girl or perhaps a young woman.. The term “muchacha” applies to girls in general, I think …

48 Dance done to the 2015 hit “Watch Me” : NAE NAE

The Nae Nae is a hip hop dance that is named for the 2013 song “Drop that NaeNae” recorded by We Are Toon. The main move in the dance involves swaying with one hand in the air and one hand down, with both feet firmly planted on the dancefloor. Go on, do it. You know you want to …

55 It gets bigger in the dark : PUPIL

The pupil of the eye is the hole located in the center of the iris through which light enters the retina. The term “pupil” came into English via French from the latin “pupilla”, which is the diminutive form of “pupa” meaning “girl, doll”. The term came about due to the tiny doll-like image that one can see of oneself when looking into the center of another’s eyes.

63 Broadcaster of “Wait Wait … Don’t Tell Me!” : NPR

Chicago Public Radio produces one of my favorite radio shows, “Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me!” It is indeed a fun game show, hosted by Peter Sagal. The “Morning Edition” newsreader Carl Kasell used to act as judge and scorekeeper, until he retired in 2014. There should be more game shows of that ilk on the radio, in my humble opinion …

65 1950s prez : IKE

When the future president was growing up, the Eisenhowers used the nickname “Ike” for all seven boys in the family, as “Ike” was seen as an abbreviation for the family name. “Big Ike” was Edgar, the second oldest boy. “Little/Young Ike” was Dwight, who was the third son born. Dwight had no sisters.