1222-19 NY Times Crossword 22 Dec 19, Sunday

Constructed by: Laura Taylor Kinnel
Edited by: Will Shortz

Today’s Theme: Down for the Count

All of the letters T in the grid are in four across-answers. There are TWO in the topmost of these four answers, THREE in the next, then FOUR, and finally FIVE. The numbers 2, 3, 4 and 5 intersect with the four subject answers, at the centerline of the grid. To top it all off, there are nine letters T defined by black squares:

  • 20A 1/x, for x : MULTIPLICATIVE INVERSE
  • 22D Complement of turtledoves in a Christmas song : TWO
  • 39A Abstainers … or the central column’s answers vis-à-vis 20-, 39-, 74- and 101-Across, respectively : TEETOTALERS
  • 41D “We ___ Kings” : THREE
  • 74A It postulates a space-time fabric : THE THEORY OF RELATIVITY
  • 77D Purple pool ball : FOUR
  • 101A Little Richard hit with “the most inspired rock lyric ever recorded,” per Rolling Stone : TUTTI FRUTTI
  • 102D A short rest, so to speak : FIVE

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

Bill’s time: 30m 19s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1 TV screen inits. : LCD

Liquid Crystal Displays (LCDs) are the screens that are found in most laptops today, and in flat panel computer screens and some televisions. LCD monitors basically replaced Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) screens, the old television technology.

4 Steinful : ALE

A stein is a type of beer glass. The term is German in origin, and is short for “Steinkrug” meaning “stone jug”. “Stein” is German for “stone”.

17 Capital of Belarus : MINSK

Minsk is the capital of Belarus, formerly known as the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic. One of Minsk’s more infamous residents was Lee Harvey Oswald, who lived there from 1960 to 1962.

24 Top type : BLOUSE

A blouse is a loose-fitting shirt, particularly one worn by women or children. The term “blouse” is French, and originally described a peasant’s smock.

25 Hay fever irritant : RAGWEED

The pollen of ragweed is the most common allergen of all pollens. It seems that the pollen season has been lengthening in recent years, probably due to global warming.

27 Record holder for the most Indianapolis 500 laps led (644) : AL UNSER

The Unser family seems to have auto racing in their blood. Al Unser, Sr. won the Indy 500 on four occasions. Al’s brother Jerry was the first of the Unsers to compete at Indianapolis. Al’s other brother Bobby, won the Indy three times. Al’s son, Al Junior, won the Indy twice. Al Junior’s son is also a racing driver who competes at the Indy Speedway.

29 Lowly workers : PEONS

A peon is a lowly worker who has no real control over his/her working conditions. The word “peon” comes into English from Spanish, in which language it has the same meaning.

31 Followers of dos : RES

The sol-fa syllables are: do, re, mi, fa, sol, la & ti.

32 Home of the N.C.A.A.’s Rhody the Ram, for short : URI

The University of Rhode Island (URI) was chartered as an agricultural school back in 1888. Rhody the Ram was chosen as the school’s mascot in 1923, a nod to URI’s agricultural past. As a result, the school’s sports teams are known as the Rams. URI’s main campus is located in the village of Kingston.

34 Director DuVernay : AVA

Ava DuVernay is a filmmaker who became the first African-American woman to win the Best Director Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, a feat she achieved in 2012 for her feature film “Middle of Nowhere”. “Middle of Nowhere” tells the story of a woman who drops out of medical school to focus on husband when he is sentenced to 8 years in prison. DuVernay also directed the 2014 film “Selma” about the 1965 voting rights marches from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.

36 Govt. org. often impersonated on scam calls : SSA

Social Security Administration (SSA)

39 Abstainers … or the central column’s answers vis-à-vis 20-, 39-, 74- and 101-Across, respectively : TEETOTALERS

Teetotalism is the practice of abstaining from alcohol. The teetotalism movement started in England in the 1800s.

44 One in a pocketful : POSY

“Poesy” was the name given to a line of verse engraved on the inner surface of a ring. The related word “posy”, for a bouquet of flowers, arose with the notion that giving a posy might be a message of love, just as a poesy inside a ring could have the same meaning.

47 Speed that would enable a 23-minute D.C.-to-L.A. flight : MACH SIX

The Mach number of a moving object (like say an airplane) is its speed relative to the speed of sound. A plane travelling at Mach 2, for example, is moving at twice the speed of sound. The term “Mach” takes its name from the Austrian physicist Ernst Mach who published a groundbreaking paper in 1877 that even predicted the “sonic boom”.

50 Org. whose academy’s motto in English is “The sea yields to knowledge” : USCG

The Coast Guard Academy (USCGA) is located in New London, Connecticut. The USCGA was founded in 1876 as the School of Instruction of the Revenue Cutter Service. The main training vessel used by the academy is the USCGC Eagle, a tall ship formerly known as the Horst Wessel that was received from Germany in 1946 as a war reparation.

54 Food that Marge Simpson once served with “a whisper of MSG” : PORK CHOP

Marge Simpson is the matriarch of the family in “The Simpsons” animated sitcom. Marge is voiced by actress Julie Kavner, who is also well known for playing Brenda Morgenstern in the TV show “Rhoda” in the seventies.

Monosodium glutamate (MSG) is the sodium salt of a naturally-occurring,non-essential amino acid called glutamic acid. It is used widely as a flavor enhancer, particularly in many Asian cuisines. Whether or not it is harmful seems to be still under debate. I say that something produced in a test tube shouldn’t be in our food …

58 Big name in denim : LEE

Denim fabric originated in Nimes in France. The French phrase “de Nimes” (meaning “from Nimes”) gives us the word “denim”. Also, the French phrase “bleu de Genes” (meaning “blue of Genoa”) gives us our word “jeans”.

59 Collected $200, say : PASSED GO

The commercial game of Monopoly is supposedly a remake of “The Landlord’s Game” created in 1903 by a Quaker woman named Lizzie Phillips. Phillips used her game as a tool to explain the single tax theory of American economist Henry George. The Landlord’s Game was first produced commercially in 1924. The incredibly successful derivative game called Monopoly was introduced in 1933 by Charles Darrow, who became a very rich man when Parker Brothers bought the rights to the game just two years later in 1935.

63 “Te ___” : AMO

“I love you” translates into “te amo” in Spanish, and into “je t’aime” in French.

70 Spirit : BRIO

“Brio” is borrowed from Italian, in which language the term means “vigor and vivacity”. “Con brio” is a musical direction often found on a score, instructing the musicians to play “with energy, vigor”.

73 Film character who says “Kiss me as if it were the last time” : ILSA

Rick Blaine and Ilsa Lund were played by Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman in the 1942 movie “Casablanca”. I love the words of one critic describing the chemistry between Bogart and Bergman in this film: “She paints his face with her eyes”. Wow …

80 Congressional budget directives : EARMARKS

Political earmarks are provisions on bills that are inserted by an interested party to funnel funds towards a particular project or district. The earmark takes away from the Executive Branch the ability to manage certain funds associated with the bill that were meant to support the bill’s original intent.

81 San Francisco’s ___ Valley : NOE

Noe Valley is a neighborhood in San Francisco. The area is named after José de Jesús Noé who was the last Mexican mayor of Yerba Buena, which is what San Francisco was called when it was part of Mexico.

87 “The Gift of the Magi” author : O HENRY

O. Henry’s short story called “The Gift of the Magi” was first published in 1905. It tells of relatively poor, newly-married couple who want to buy each other a gift for Christmas. The wife’s pride and joy is her long blonde hair, while the husband’s most treasured possession is his grandfather’s gold pocket watch. The wife sells her hair to buy her gift, and the husband sells his watch to buy his gift for his spouse. The wife is given a set of combs, hair accessories that are useless now that her hair is short. The husband gets a platinum fob chain for the watch that he no longer owns.

91 Gobbles (down) : SNARFS

To snarf down is to gobble up, to eat voraciously. “Snarf” is a slang term that is probably related to “scarf”, which has the same meaning.

96 College town of George Washington Carver : AMES

Scientist and inventor George Washington Carver was born into slavery in Missouri in about 1864. George was freed along with his brother when slavery was abolished and his former “owners”, Moses and Susan Carver, raised the children as their own. Susan Carver gave the boys their initial education, and George defied racial barriers to continue his studies through college. George Washington Carver was destined to become world famous through his research and the promotion of crop rotation and planting of alternative crops to cotton.

101 Little Richard hit with “the most inspired rock lyric ever recorded,” per Rolling Stone : TUTTI FRUTTI

“Little Richard” is the stage name of Richard Penniman, the self-proclaimed “architect of rock and roll”.

105 Many-time N.H.L. All-Star Jagr : JAROMIR

Jaromír Jágr is an NHL hockey player from the Czech Republic. When Jágr made his debut in the NHL in 1990 at age 18, he was the youngest player in the league.

112 Magazine with annual Women of the Year Awards : GLAMOUR

The women’s monthly magazine “Glamour” was founded in 1939 as “Glamour of Hollywood”.

113 President Ford and others : GERALDS

Gerald Ford was the only person to have served as both Vice President and President of the US, without having been elected to those positions. Ford was nominated by President Richard Nixon to replace Vice President Spiro Agnew after he resigned in 1973. Vice President Ford assumed the presidency the following year after President Nixon resigned.

115 Opening words? : SESAMES

In the folk tale “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves”, the title character is a poor woodcutter who discovers the magic phrase “open sesame” that opens the thieves’ den.

Down

1 Super Bowl trophy eponym : LOMBARDI

Football player and coach Vince Lombardi had quite a few motivating lines, including:

  • Winning is not a sometime thing, it is an all the time thing. You don’t do things right once in awhile … you do them right all the time.
  • The dictionary is the only place that success comes before work.

2 Deep-fried doughy treats : CRULLERS

Crullers (also “twisters”) are fried pastries that have a twisted shape. The pastry’s name comes from the Dutch “kruller” meaning “to curl”. Crullers are a traditional dish served on Shrove Tuesday (the day before Lent) in some European countries, including Germany.

3 Picked nits : DELOUSED

Lice (singular “louse”) are small wingless insects, of which there are thousands of species. There are three species of lice affecting humans, i.e. head lice, body lice and pubic lice. Most lice feed on dead skin found on the body of the host animal, although some feed on blood. Ick …

4 ___ tear (athlete’s injury) : ACL

The anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) is one of four major ligaments that support the knee.

6 Yosemite attraction : EL CAPITAN

El Capitan is a stunning vertical rock formation in Yosemite National Park in California. The top of El Capitan has been used as the take-off point for many BASE jumps, parachute jumps made by diving off the top of the rock face. The National Park Service put a stop to the practise in 1999. Soon afterwards, a BASE jumper made an illegal jump to protest the ban. She died …

8 Group with the 2012 chart-topping album “Up All Night,” to fans : ONE-D

One Direction is a UK-based boy band. Each member of the band competed in the reality show “The X Factor”, and didn’t do very well. The five were then combined in a boy band at a later stage of the competition. They only finished in third place, but I don’t think they care. They’re doing very, very well for “losers” …

11 The 1 in (1,2), in math : ABSCISSA

When something is plotted on a graph with x- and y-coordinates, the x-coordinate is called the “abscissa”, and the y-coordinate is the “ordinate”. Those same terms are rarely used in 3-dimensional plots. If so, then the z-coordinate is referred to as the “applicate”.

14 Phaser setting : STUN

A MASER is a device that was around long before LASERs came into the public consciousness. A MASER (Microwave Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation) is similar to a LASER, but microwaves are emitted rather than light waves. When the storyline for “Star Trek” was being developed, the writers introduced a weapon called a “phaser”, with the name “phaser” derived from PHoton mASER.

15 Admiral Graf ___ (German W.W. II ship) : SPEE

Maximilian Graf von Spee was actually born in Denmark, but of a noble German family. By the time WWI started, Spee had risen to the rank of Rear Admiral in the German Navy. He was killed in the Battle of the Falkland Islands (the original 1914 version!). He gave his name to the powerful pocket battleship, the Admiral Graf Spee, which was damaged in the Battle of the River Plate during WWII. The Graf Spee took refuge in the neutral port of Montevideo and when the boat was expelled by the government of Uruguay, the captain scuttled her rather than face the Allied flotilla waiting for her just outside the port.

19 Longtime NPR host Diane : REHM

Diane Rehm is host of the NPR-syndicated radio show called “The Diane Rehm Show”. The show used to be called “Kaleidoscope”, when Rehm took over as host in 1979. It was rebranded in 1984.

21 Satellite inhabited continuously since 2000: Abbr. : ISS

The International Space Station (ISS) is a modular facility that comprises components launched into space by Russian Proton and Soyuz rockets, and by American Space Shuttles. The station has been occupied by astronauts and scientists continually since November, 2000.

22 Complement of turtledoves in a Christmas song : TWO

The fabulous Christmas carol called “The Twelve Days of Christmas” dates back at least to 1780 when it was first published in England, though it may be French in origin. The concept of twelve days of Christmas comes from the tradition that the three kings came to visit the Christ Child twelve days after he was born. This same tradition is the origin of the title to Shakespeare’s play “Twelfth Night”.

28 Paris’s ___ La Fayette : RUE

Rue La Fayette is a street on the Right Bank of the River Seine in Paris. The street is named for the Marquis de La Fayette who played an important role in the American War of Independence.

33 ___ sleep : REM

“REM” is an acronym standing for rapid eye movement sleep. REM sleep takes up 20-25% of the sleeping hours and is the period associated with one’s most vivid dreams.

38 “The Caine Mutiny” author : WOUK

Herman Wouk won a Pulitzer in 1951 for his novel “The Caine Mutiny”. The story involves mutiny and court-martial aboard a US Navy vessel and reflected, at least partly, the personal experiences of Wouk as he served in the Pacific in WWII aboard a destroyer-minesweeper. The novel was adapted into a marvelous film released in 1954 starring Humphrey Bogart as Philip Queeg, the harsh captain of the USS Caine.

41 “We ___ Kings” : THREE

The Christmas carol “We Three Kings” is a favorite of mine. The carol was written in 1857 by the rector of an Episcopal church in Williamsport, Pennsylvania called John Henry Hopkins, Jr. Hopkins composed “We Three Kings” for a Christmas pageant in New York City.

43 “Je ne ___ quoi” : SAIS

“Je ne sais quoi” is French for “I don’t know what”.

44 Joint winner of FIFA’s Player of the Century award in 2000 : PELE

“Pelé” is the nickname of Edson de Nascimento, a soccer player who has used the name “Pelé” for most of his life. Pelé is now retired, and for my money was the world’s greatest ever player of the game. He is the only person to have been a member of three World Cup winning squads (1958, 1962 and 1970), and is a national treasure in his native Brazil. One of Pele’s nicknames is “O Rei do Futebol” (the King of Football).

46 Top-level foreign policy grp. : NSC

The National Security Council (NSC) was created by President Harry S. Truman in 1947. The NSC is chaired by the sitting president and meets in the White House Situation Room.

49 Monopoly quartet: Abbr. : RRS

The four railroad (RR) properties in the Monopoly board game are:

  • Reading Railroad
  • Pennsylvania Railroad
  • B&O Railroad
  • Short Line

56 Top-ranked professional tennis player for a record 237 consecutive weeks : ROGER FEDERER

Roger Federer is a Swiss tennis player considered by many to be the greatest tennis player of all time. Federer is married to former tennis pro Mirka Vavrinec. The couple are parents to two sets of twins.

57 Ark contents : PAIRS

Genesis 6:19-20 states that Noah was instructed to take two animals of every kind into the ark. Later, in Genesis 7:2-3 Noah was instructed to take on board “every clean animal by sevens … male and female, to keep offspring alive on the face of all the earth”. Apparently, “extras” (7 rather than 2) were needed for ritual sacrifice.

61 “Beau ___” : GESTE

“Beau geste” (plural “beaux gestes”) is a French term meaning “noble deed”, or literally “beautiful gesture”.

66 Charlotte of “The Facts of Life” : RAE

Charlotte Rae was an American actress best known for playing the character Edna Garrett on two sitcoms from the seventies and eighties: “Diff’rent Strokes” and “The Facts of Life”. Towards the end of the series, the Edna Garrett character operated her own gourmet food shop called “Edna’s Edibles”.

69 Universal self, in Hinduism : ATMAN

The word “atman” is often translated into English as “self”, but the concept of atman goes beyond the idea of self in the worldly sense. It describes the soul, perhaps of an individual, or maybe even something as grand as the soul of the world.

72 Houston A.L.’ers : ‘STROS

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.

73 Trump who wrote 2017’s “Raising Trump” : IVANA

Ivana Zelníčková was born in Czechoslovakia. She married an Austrian named Alfred Winklmayr, in an arrangement that allowed her to leave Communist Czechoslovakia. The marriage was dissolved within two years, and Zelníčková settled in Canada. She was an excellent skier, and was named as an alternate for the 1982 Czech Olympic Team. She was promoting the Montreal Olympics in New York in 1976 when she met Donald Trump. Ivana and Donald’s marriage was very public and well-covered by the media, but not nearly as well-covered as their very litigious divorce in the early nineties.

87 Completely unrestrained : ON A JAG

The word “jag” is used to describe periods of unrestrained activity, particularly involving alcohol, and has been in use since the 1800s.

92 Swiss dish : FONDUE

Fondue is a traditional Swiss dish comprising melted cheese served in a pot over a tabletop stove, into which diners dip bread. The term “fondue”, which is French for “melted”, is now applied more widely to similar dishes served in a communal pot into which a food is dipped. Traditional fondue is delicious, so very delicious …

97 They can’t do without does : STAGS

A male deer is usually called a buck, and a female is a doe. However, the male red deer is usually referred to as a stag. The males of even larger species of deer are often called bulls, and females cows. In older English, male deer of over 5 years were called harts, and females of over 3 years were called hinds. The young of small species are known as fawns, and of larger species are called calves. All very confusing …

100 Prefix for a polygon with 140° interior angles : NONA-

The prefix “nona-” is used to denote the number nine or ninth. An example is “nonagon”, a nine-sided polygon.

104 Top female baby name of 2014-18 : EMMA

The Social Security Administration (SSA) publishes a list of the 1,000 most common baby names for the prior year annually, just before Mother’s Day. The list is compiled using applications for Social Security cards.

109 Things the Energizer bunny may need : AAS

We are all fairly familiar with the Energizer Bunny, I am guessing. In fact, the Energizer Bunny was introduced in 1989 to promote Energizer batteries by parodying the Duracell Bunny who had been introduced in 1973.

Complete List of Clues/Answers

Across

1 TV screen inits. : LCD
4 Steinful : ALE
7 Cut (off) : LOP
10 “Nope” : NAW
13 Lucky strikes? : ORES
15 Massage target : SCALP
17 Capital of Belarus : MINSK
19 Spa amenity : ROBE
20 1/x, for x : MULTIPLICATIVE INVERSE
24 Top type : BLOUSE
25 Hay fever irritant : RAGWEED
26 Online payment option : E-CHECK
27 Record holder for the most Indianapolis 500 laps led (644) : AL UNSER
29 Lowly workers : PEONS
30 Mythical being depicted in bronze in Copenhagen Harbor : MERMAID
31 Followers of dos : RES
32 Home of the N.C.A.A.’s Rhody the Ram, for short : URI
34 Director DuVernay : AVA
36 Govt. org. often impersonated on scam calls : SSA
37 Picked a card : DREW
39 Abstainers … or the central column’s answers vis-à-vis 20-, 39-, 74- and 101-Across, respectively : TEETOTALERS
44 One in a pocketful : POSY
45 Has finished : IS DONE
47 Speed that would enable a 23-minute D.C.-to-L.A. flight : MACH SIX
48 Where fans are often placed on high? : ARENAS
50 Org. whose academy’s motto in English is “The sea yields to knowledge” : USCG
52 One who might give you a shot : NURSE
53 Miss : GIRL
54 Food that Marge Simpson once served with “a whisper of MSG” : PORK CHOP
58 Big name in denim : LEE
59 Collected $200, say : PASSED GO
63 “Te ___” : AMO
64 Former superstore chain selling diapers and strollers : BABIES R US
67 “Egads!” : EEK!
68 Quite a tale : SAGA
70 Spirit : BRIO
71 Charitable offering : ALMS
73 Film character who says “Kiss me as if it were the last time” : ILSA
74 It postulates a space-time fabric : THE THEORY OF RELATIVITY
80 Congressional budget directives : EARMARKS
81 San Francisco’s ___ Valley : NOE
82 Radio medium : AIRWAVES
83 Renaissance-themed festival : FAIRE
84 Tears to pieces : MAULS
86 Who once had all 10 of the top 10 Billboard hits simultaneously : NO ONE
87 “The Gift of the Magi” author : O HENRY
89 “Seriously?” : FOR REAL
91 Gobbles (down) : SNARFS
94 Doze (off) : NOD
95 Mr. Incredible’s actual surname : PARR
96 College town of George Washington Carver : AMES
98 Hither’s partner : YON
99 “Absolutely!” : AMEN!
101 Little Richard hit with “the most inspired rock lyric ever recorded,” per Rolling Stone : TUTTI FRUTTI
104 Sea eagle : ERNE
105 Many-time N.H.L. All-Star Jagr : JAROMIR
107 Sheepish : OVINE
108 Fashionable : A LA MODE
110 Nonbinary identity : AGENDER
111 Focus of an egoist’s gaze : NAVEL
112 Magazine with annual Women of the Year Awards : GLAMOUR
113 President Ford and others : GERALDS
114 Traditional, if bulky, presents in Santa’s bag : SLEDS
115 Opening words? : SESAMES

Down

1 Super Bowl trophy eponym : LOMBARDI
2 Deep-fried doughy treats : CRULLERS
3 Picked nits : DELOUSED
4 ___ tear (athlete’s injury) : ACL
5 Thieves’ place : LAIR
6 Yosemite attraction : EL CAPITAN
7 Hides one’s true nature : LIVES A LIE
8 Group with the 2012 chart-topping album “Up All Night,” to fans : ONE-D
9 Ψ : PSI
10 “Why do you ask?” response : NO REASON
11 The 1 in (1,2), in math : ABSCISSA
12 Work times, typically : WEEKDAYS
14 Phaser setting : STUN
15 Admiral Graf ___ (German W.W. II ship) : SPEE
16 Leaf (through) : PAGE
17 Bearing : MIEN
18 One might be taken in protest : KNEE
19 Longtime NPR host Diane : REHM
21 Satellite inhabited continuously since 2000: Abbr. : ISS
22 Complement of turtledoves in a Christmas song : TWO
23 Obsolescent TV companion : VCR
28 Paris’s ___ La Fayette : RUE
30 Disfigure : MAR
33 ___ sleep : REM
35 Perturb : VEX
38 “The Caine Mutiny” author : WOUK
39 End of some school names, for short : TECH
40 Orbicularis ___ (eyelid-closing muscle) : OCULI
41 “We ___ Kings” : THREE
42 What fools might make of themselves : ASSES
43 “Je ne ___ quoi” : SAIS
44 Joint winner of FIFA’s Player of the Century award in 2000 : PELE
46 Top-level foreign policy grp. : NSC
49 Monopoly quartet: Abbr. : RRS
51 Fold : GO BROKE
53 Fuel line : GAS MAIN
54 Wallop : PASTE
55 1935 Triple Crown winner : OMAHA
56 Top-ranked professional tennis player for a record 237 consecutive weeks : ROGER FEDERER
57 Ark contents : PAIRS
59 ___ fast one : PULL A
60 Labor day setting? : DELIVERY ROOM
61 “Beau ___” : GESTE
62 Signs off on : OKAYS
65 “I tell ya!” : BOY!
66 Charlotte of “The Facts of Life” : RAE
69 Universal self, in Hinduism : ATMAN
70 Preserves something? : BERRY
72 Houston A.L.’ers : ‘STROS
73 Trump who wrote 2017’s “Raising Trump” : IVANA
75 Tiny margin of victory : HAIR
76 When one usually goes through customs : ON ARRIVAL
77 Purple pool ball : FOUR
78 Brushed up on : RELEARNED
79 Lucky ticket holder’s cry : I WON!
84 Famed Chicago steakhouse : MORTON’S
85 A couple of Bible books : SAMUELS
87 Completely unrestrained : ON A JAG
88 Tribute : HOMAGE
89 Swollen, as a lip : FAT
90 Drain, as blood : LET
92 Swiss dish : FONDUE
93 Derisive expressions : SNEERS
95 Runs smoothly : PURRS
97 They can’t do without does : STAGS
100 Prefix for a polygon with 140° interior angles : NONA-
101 Headed for overtime : TIED
102 A short rest, so to speak : FIVE
103 He: Lat. : ILLE
104 Top female baby name of 2014-18 : EMMA
106 Year that Michelangelo’s “The Crucifixion of St. Peter” was completed : MDL
109 Things the Energizer bunny may need : AAS

12 thoughts on “1222-19 NY Times Crossword 22 Dec 19, Sunday”

  1. 34:15. Caught onto the theme early which is always a plus. Looking at all the clues, it’s not surprising this setter is a math teacher.

    I’d travel a lot more often if we could travel from D.C. to LA in 23 minutes at MACH SIX. Even Blackbirds can only sustain a speed of about Mach 3. I believe the record is still around Mach 9, but even at that speed, you’d still be slowed by long security lines, passengers trying to bring room-sized suitcases as a carry-on, or ridiculous maintenance restrictions. I once had a flight delayed because an armrest wouldn’t go all the way down. Sheeesh. Sounds like I’ve flown too much this year…..

    TUTTI FRUTTI is “the most inspired rock lyric ever recorded”?? That’s an awfully low bar.

    Best –

    1. Tutti Frutti is the name of the song. The lyric is “a womp bom a loo bomp a womp bam boom”, or something like that. 😉

      1. Brian – Thanks for the clarification….but my statement still stands in terms of a low bar.

  2. 1:22:35 with one error in the most rediculous puzzle I have ever seen….why not make a puzzle with all advanced calculus and trigonometry answers?…the next time you need to demonstrate your superior intellect do it in a classroom….YUCK

    1. So I gather that you felt, upon seeing this puzzle, the way I do when I’m faced with a puzzle full of sports references. We all have different knowledge bases and we all have to work with what we’ve got … 😜.

  3. 42:09, no errors. A challenging a puzzle for me; but nowhere as challenging as I imagine it was for the setter.

  4. I’ll get to the puzzle eventually, but had to point out something in my newspaper prints I got today. The days are off on the “solved puzzle” caption. If I go by the captions on the answer grids, I have the Tues, Wed, and Thurs puzzles (e.g. it says “Monday”, “Tuesday” “Wednesday” for solutions). In fact I have 1128, 1129, and 1130 which are Thu-Sat).

    As I’ve pointed out before, this is because they get the elements and then arrange it into what you see and not the whole product at once. I don’t know if these kind of errors got duplicated in other papers, but it’d be interesting to know.

  5. 35:51, no errors. About 15 minutes of that trying to figure out some local esoterica (outside of MY locality) in the bottom center.

  6. Finished this Monday am. No errors, but the theme is/was several levels above my pay grade. Whew!

Comments are closed.