1022-19 NY Times Crossword 22 Oct 19, Tuesday

Constructed by: Saul Pink
Edited by: Will Shortz

Today’s Theme (according to Bill): Who’d Make a Good …?

Themed answers are the names of celebrities clued with reference to their family names, which double as verbs:

  • 17A Comedian who’d make a good pyrotechnician? : GEORGE BURNS
  • 24A Supermodel who’d make a good broker? : TYRA BANKS
  • 35A Activist who’d make a good valet? : ROSA PARKS
  • 53A Rapper who’d make a good barber? : SEAN COMBS
  • 61A Actor who’d make a good dry cleaner? : JEREMY IRONS

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

Bill’s time: 6m 09s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1 Shape of a U.F.O. : DISK

Unidentified flying object (UFO)

5 Unit in Ohm’s law : AMPERE

The unit of electric current is the ampere, which is abbreviated correctly to “A” rather than “amp”. It is named after French physicist André-Marie Ampère, one of the main scientists responsible for the discovery of electromagnetism.

The unit of electrical resistance is the ohm (with the symbol omega) named after German physicist Georg Simon Ohm. Ohm was the guy who established experimentally that the amount of current flowing through a circuit is directly proportional to the voltage applied, (V=IR) a relationship that every school kid knows as Ohm’s Law.

11 Consumer protection org. : FTC

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) was established in 1914 with the mission of protecting consumers.

14 Seis + dos : OCHO

In Spanish, “seis + dos” (six + two) = “ocho” (eight).

16 Nighttime flier : OWL

Much of an owl’s diet consists of small mammals. As a result, humans have used owls for centuries to control rodent populations, usually by placing a nest box for owls on a property. Despite the fact that owls and humans live together in relative harmony, owls have been known to attack humans from time to time. Celebrated English bird photographer Eric Hosking lost an eye when attacked by a tawny owl that he was trying to photograph. Hosking wrote a 1970 autobiography with the wry title “An Eye for a Bird”.

17 Comedian who’d make a good pyrotechnician? : GEORGE BURNS

George Burns was the stage name of comedian and actor Nathan Birnbaum. Famously, Burns was married to Gracie Allen, who initially acted as “straight man” in their double act. The duo found that they got more laughs with Gracie acting as “Dumb Dora”, an arrangement that Burns and Allen stuck to for decades.

“Pyro” is the combining form of the Greek word for “fire”. “Pyrotechnics” is the art of making and using fireworks. “Pyromania” is a strong desire to light fires.

19 The Dolphins or the Heat, on scoreboards : MIA

The Miami Dolphins football team was founded in 1966 by politician Joe Robbie and comedian Danny Thomas.

The Miami Heat basketball team debuted in the NBA in the 1988-89 season. The franchise name was chosen in a competitive survey, with “Miami Heat” beating out “Miami Vice”.

24 Supermodel who’d make a good broker? : TYRA BANKS

Tyra Banks is a tremendously successful model and businesswoman. Banks created and hosted the hit show “America’s Next Top Model “, and also had her own talk show. She was also the first African-American woman to make the cover of the “Sports Illustrated” swimsuit issue.

26 ___ Baba : ALI

There is some controversy about the story “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves” in that it has been suggested it was not part of the original collection of Arabic tales called “One Thousand and One Nights”. The suggestion is that the Ali Baba tale was added by one of the European translators of the collection.

27 It abuts the Fla. panhandle : ALA

The Florida Panhandle is in the Central Time Zone, whereas the rest of the state is in the Eastern Time Zone.

30 Carded, informally : ID’ED

Identity document (ID)

32 University URL ender : EDU

The .edu domain was one of the six original generic top-level domains specified. The complete original list is:

  • .com (commercial enterprise)
  • .net (entity involved in network infrastructure e.g. an ISP)
  • .mil (US military)
  • .org (not-for-profit organization)
  • .gov (US federal government entity)
  • .edu (college-level educational institution)

35 Activist who’d make a good valet? : ROSA PARKS

Rosa Parks was one of a few brave women in days gone by who refused to give up their seats on a bus to white women. It was the stand taken by Rosa Parks on December 1, 1955 that sparked the Montgomery, Alabama Bus Boycott. President Clinton presented Ms. Parks with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1996. When she died in 2005, Rosa Parks became the first ever woman to have her body lie in honor in the US Capitol Rotunda.

39 Famous Greek moralizer : AESOP

Aesop is remembered today as a fabulist, a writer of fables. Aesop lived in ancient Greece, probably around the sixth century BC. Supposedly he was born a slave, somehow became a free man, but then met with a sorry end. Aesop was sent to the city of Delphi on a diplomatic mission but instead insulted the Delphians. He was tried on a trumped-up charge of stealing from a temple, sentenced to death and was thrown off a cliff.

47 Milwaukee team : BREWERS

The Milwaukee Brewers Major League Baseball (MLB) team was founded in 1969 as the Seattle Pilots. The Pilots only played one season in Seattle before going bankrupt, relocating to Milwaukee and adopting the “Brewers” name. At that time, the Brewers were playing in the American League, and joined the National League in 1998. Only two MLB teams have switched leagues, the other being the Houston Astros.

53 Rapper who’d make a good barber? : SEAN COMBS

When Sean John Combs started his rapping career, he used the stage name “Puff Daddy”. Then he went with “P. Diddy”, and I think that he is now recording simply as “Diddy”. Having said that, he has to stick with “P. Diddy” in some countries as he lost a legal battle over use of the simpler “Diddy” name as there is another artist called Richard “Diddy” Dearlove.

57 Things counted on a diet: Abbr. : CALS

I wish we’d stop using the term “calorie”, because it is so confusing. In terms of physics, a calorie is the amount of energy needed to raise the temperature of one gram of water by one degree celsius (at one atmosphere of pressure). The so called “food calorie” is one thousand times as large, as it is defined in terms of kilograms instead of grams. In attempts to differentiate between these two definitions, the former is sometimes referred to as the “small calorie” and is given the symbol “cal”. The latter is referred to as the “large calorie” and given the symbol “Cal”, with a capital C. If only we’d use the SI system of units, we’d be think in just joules, instead of large and small and food calories.

58 Condiment at a cantina : SAL

In Spanish, one might find “sal” (salt) on the table in a “cantina” (canteen, café).

59 Cheese-covered bite : NACHO

The dish known as “nachos” was supposedly created by the maître d’ at a restaurant called the Victory Club in the city of Piedras Negras, Coahuila, Mexico. The name of the maître d’ was Ignacio “Nacho” Anaya.

60 Thomas Gray wrote one on Eton College : ODE

Perhaps the most famous elegy in the English language is that written by Thomas Gray, which he completed in 1750. His “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” is the source of many oft-quoted phrases, including:

  • Celestial fire
  • Far from the Madding Crowd
  • Kindred spirit

61 Actor who’d make a good dry cleaner? : JEREMY IRONS

Jeremy Irons is much-respected English actor who is noted for his stage, television and film performances. My favorite of these performances is the one that brought him into the limelight, playing Charles Ryder in the 1981 TV adaptation of Evelyn Waugh’s “Brideshead Revisited”. Irons won a Best Actor Oscar for playing Claus von Bülow in 1990’s “Reversal of Fortune”. He is married to Irish actress Sinéad Cusack, and the couple own a castle in County Cork in the south of Ireland.

66 Muppet with a smartphone friend named Smartie : ELMO

The “Sesame Street” character named Elmo has a birthday every February 3rd, and on that birthday he always turns 3½ years old. The man behind/under Elmo on “Sesame Street” for many years was Kevin Clash. If you want to learn more about Elmo and Clash, you can watch the 2011 documentary “Being Elmo: A Puppeteer’s Journey”.

67 E.R. staffers : DRS

A doctor (dr.) might be found in an emergency room (ER).

Down

1 Frankfurter, informally : DOG

The frankfurter sausage that is typically used in a North American hot dog gets its name from Frankfurter Würstchen. The latter is a German sausage that is prepared by boiling in water, just like a hot dog frank.

4 Asian peninsula : KOREA

Korea was occupied by the Japanese military from 1910 until Japan surrendered at the end of WWII in 1945. While the UN was working towards a trusteeship administration for Korea, the Soviet Union managed the Korean Peninsula north of the 38th parallel and the US managed the south. The UN’s plans came to naught as the Cold War dictated the establishment of the two separate states of North Korea and South Korea. North Korea invaded the South in 1950, leading to the Korean War. After three years of fighting, the border between the two states became the demarcation line between the two military forces on the day the Armistice Agreement was signed. That line runs diagonally across the 38th parallel, and is better known as the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ).

12 Word repeated before “little star,” in a nursery rhyme : TWINKLE

“Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” is an English nursery rhyme. The words for the rhyme are taken from a poem called “The Star” written by Jane Taylor, by far her most famous work (although she rarely gets the credit). The rhyme is sung to a French folk tune called “Ah! vous dirai-je, Maman”, the same tune used by Mozart for a charming and famous set of variations.

23 ___ chi ch’uan : TAI

More correctly called “t‘ai chi ch‘uan”, tai chi is a martial art that is mostly practiced to improve overall health and increase longevity.

33 Co. with brown trucks : UPS

United Parcel Service (UPS) is based in Sandy Springs, Georgia and has its own airline that operates out of Louisville, Kentucky. UPS often goes by the nickname “Brown”, because of its brown delivery trucks and brown uniforms.

36 Grp. headquartered in Austria, which isn’t a member : OPEC

The OPEC cartel was formally established in 1960 and has been headquartered in Vienna since 1965. The US is actually the third largest oil producer in the world (after Russia and Saudi Arabia). One reason America isn’t in OPEC, even though we are a big producer, is that we import a lot more than we export. But we all probably knew that already …

38 Essential molecule : RNA

The two most common nucleic acids are deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and ribonucleic acid (RNA), both of which play crucial roles in genetics. The DNA contains the genetic instructions used to keep living organisms functioning, and RNA is used to transcribe that information from the DNA to protein “generators” called ribosomes.

46 Homer’s cry : D’OH!

“The Simpsons” is one of the most successful programs produced by the Fox Broadcasting Company. Homer Simpson’s catchphrase is “D’oh!”, which became such a famous exclamation that it has been included in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) since 2001. “D’oh!” can be translated as “I should have thought of that!”

49 Savvy : SMARTS

The term “savvy”, meaning “understanding”, comes from the French “savez-vous?”. The French phrase translates as “do you know?”

51 Bangkok native : THAI

Bangkok is the capital city of Thailand. The exact etymology of the name “Bangkok” seems unclear, although “bang” is a Thai word for “a village situated on a stream”.

56 Units of chains x furlongs : ACRES

There are eight furlongs in a mile. The name “furlong” comes from the Old English “furh” (meaning “furrow”) and “lang” (meaning “long”). In Anglo-Saxon times, a furlong was the length of a furrow in a ploughed field that was one acre in area. The width of said one-acre field was defined as one chain.

59 Letters in a Big Apple address : NY, NY

Apparently, the first published use of the term “Big Apple” to describe New York City dates back to 1909. Edward Martin wrote the following in his book “The Wayfarer in New York”:

Kansas is apt to see in New York a greedy city. . . . It inclines to think that the big apple gets a disproportionate share of the national sap.

Over ten years later, the term “big apple” was used as a nickname for racetracks in and around New York City. However, the concerted effort to “brand” the city as the Big Apple had to wait until the seventies and was the work of the New York Convention and Visitors Bureau.

62 1,000 G’s : MIL

One “G” is a thousand dollars, and 1,000 Gs make up a cool million (mil).

Complete List of Clues/Answers

Across

1 Shape of a U.F.O. : DISK
5 Unit in Ohm’s law : AMPERE
11 Consumer protection org. : FTC
14 Seis + dos : OCHO
15 Howl of happiness : HOORAH!
16 Nighttime flier : OWL
17 Comedian who’d make a good pyrotechnician? : GEORGE BURNS
19 The Dolphins or the Heat, on scoreboards : MIA
20 “___ or sugar?” : CREAM
21 Youngster : TOT
22 Lady birds : HENS
23 Completely smash : TOTAL
24 Supermodel who’d make a good broker? : TYRA BANKS
26 ___ Baba : ALI
27 It abuts the Fla. panhandle : ALA
29 Shock : STARTLE
30 Carded, informally : ID’ED
32 University URL ender : EDU
34 Boxes of 12 : CASES
35 Activist who’d make a good valet? : ROSA PARKS
39 Famous Greek moralizer : AESOP
42 Bit of immorality : SIN
43 Word after “he” and “she” : … SAID
47 Milwaukee team : BREWERS
50 Yoga surface : MAT
52 “Who am ___ judge?” : I TO
53 Rapper who’d make a good barber? : SEAN COMBS
55 Not kind : HARSH
57 Things counted on a diet: Abbr. : CALS
58 Condiment at a cantina : SAL
59 Cheese-covered bite : NACHO
60 Thomas Gray wrote one on Eton College : ODE
61 Actor who’d make a good dry cleaner? : JEREMY IRONS
64 -: Abbr. : NEG
65 Reach : ATTAIN
66 Muppet with a smartphone friend named Smartie : ELMO
67 E.R. staffers : DRS
68 Pretty much : MOSTLY
69 Farmer’s purchase : SEED

Down

1 Frankfurter, informally : DOG
2 Frigid : ICE COLD
3 Nickname for someone under five feet : SHORTIE
4 Asian peninsula : KOREA
5 “If I may say a few words …” : AHEM …
6 Swarm : MOB
7 Sullen : POUTY
8 Headaches for coders : ERRORS
9 Go off on : RANT AT
10 Responses to mumbles : EHS
11 Instigates : FOMENTS
12 Word repeated before “little star,” in a nursery rhyme : TWINKLE
13 Parts of teaching schedules : CLASSES
18 Fancy bash : GALA
22 Pester : HARASS
23 ___ chi ch’uan : TAI
24 “I’m do-o-one!” : TA-DA!
25 In town again : BACK
28 ___ Baux-de-Provence (French commune) : LES
31 Audibly overwhelms, with “out” : DROWNS
33 Co. with brown trucks : UPS
36 Grp. headquartered in Austria, which isn’t a member : OPEC
37 Goals : AIMS
38 Essential molecule : RNA
39 Run away (with) : ABSCOND
40 Device on which to get texts : E-READER
41 Steadiness on a ship : SEA LEGS
44 Opening in a pet carrier : AIR HOLE
45 “Put away your wallet!” : IT’S ON ME!
46 Homer’s cry : D’OH!
48 Met, as a challenge : ROSE TO
49 Savvy : SMARTS
51 Bangkok native : THAI
54 Pasture noise : BLEAT
56 Units of chains x furlongs : ACRES
59 Letters in a Big Apple address : NY, NY
61 Awkward predicament : JAM
62 1,000 G’s : MIL
63 Covering for a bald spot : SOD