0206-20 NY Times Crossword 6 Feb 20, Thursday

Constructed by: Jake Halperin
Edited by: Will Shortz

Today’s Theme (according to Bill): Echoes and the Rest

Themed answers each end with a synonym of “and the rest”, and start with a word that echoes that synonym:

  • 15A Reactions to social media posts? : LIKES AND THE LIKE
  • 21A Breeds of hunting dogs? : SETTERS ET CETERA
  • 33A Boxing champs of the 1960s-’70s? : ALI ET ALII
  • 47A Things that scouts earn badges for? : KNOTS AND WHATNOT
  • 54A Cows’ various glands? : UDDERS AND OTHERS

… a complete list of answers

Bill’s time: 10m 30s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1 Employer of Detective Lindsay Boxer in a series of James Patterson novels : SFPD

The San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) is the 11th largest police department in the country. The SFPD dates back to the days of the Gold Rush, being founded in 1849 as a force of 35 officers. SFPD has featured a lot in movies and on television. The most famous films are probably “Bullitt”, the “Dirty Harry” series and “48 Hrs.” On television there was “Ironside”, “The Streets of San Francisco” and “Monk”.

Author James Patterson is known for his thriller novels, especially those featuring his forensic psychologist Alex Cross. Patterson holds the record for the most hardcover fiction titles to appear in “The New York Times” bestseller list …

5 Fragrance since 1932 : TABU

Tabu is a whole line of cosmetics and perfumes produced by the House of Dana. The company’s brand names were purchased by a Florida company called Dana Classic Fragrances in 1999.

9 Aviary sound : COO

An aviary is a large cage that houses birds, and something described as avian is bird-like or bird-related. “Avis” is Latin for “bird”.

12 Santa ___, Calif. : CLARA

The Santa Clara Valley, located just a few miles from me at the south of San Francisco Bay, is better known as “Silicon Valley”. The term “Silicon Valley” dates back to 1971 when it was apparently first used in a weekly trade newspaper called “Electronic News” in articles written by journalist Don Hoefler.

19 Animation stack : CELS

In the world of animation, a cel is a transparent sheet on which objects and characters are drawn. In the first half of the 20th century the sheet was actually made of celluloid, giving the “cel” its name.

21 Breeds of hunting dogs? : SETTERS ET CETERA

The breeds of dog known as setters are all gundogs and are used in hunting game.

28 Do a home ec assignment : SEW

Home economics (home ec)

29 E.N.T. case : APNEA

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

Ear, nose and throat specialist (ENT)

32 Techie or Trekkie : GEEK

Originally, a geek was a sideshow performer, perhaps one at a circus. Sometimes the term “geek” is used today for someone regarded as foolish or clumsy, and also for someone who is technically driven and expert, but often socially inept.

33 Boxing champs of the 1960s-’70s? : ALI ET ALII

One of Muhammad Ali’s famous most famous lines is “I am the greatest!” So famous is the line that in 1963, Ali released an album of spoken word that had the title “I Am the Greatest!”

36 Tony Blair, for the U.K. : EX-PM

Tony Blair was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom for ten years, from 1997 to 2007. Blair moved his Labour Party from the left towards the center, utilizing the moniker “New Labour”. Under his leadership, Labour won a landslide victory in 1997 and was comfortably elected into power again in 2001 and 2005. Blair stepped down in 2007 and Gordon Brown took over as prime minister. Labour was soundly defeated at the polls in the next general election, in 2010.

39 Apothecary’s unit : DRAM

I think that the dram is a confusing unit of measurement. It has one value as an ancient unit of mass, and two different values as a modern unit of mass, another value as a unit of fluid volume, and yet another varying value as a measure of Scotch whisky!

Nowadays, we would call an apothecary a pharmacist. “Apotecaire” is an Old French word from the 13th century meaning simply “storekeeper”.

40 “In Old Mexico” or “In Old Santa Fe” : OATER

The term “oater” that is used for a Western movie comes from the number of horses seen, as horses love oats!

45 An indispensable ingredient in the elixir of life, per Lao-tzu : TEA

Lao Tse (also “Lao-Tzu”) was a central figure in the development of the religion/philosophy of Taoism. Tradition holds that Lao-Tzu wrote the “Tao Te Ching”, a classical Chinese text that is fundamental to the philosophy of Taoism.

51 Target for holistic healing : AURA

A holistic approach to medicine emphasises not only physical symptoms but also social considerations and the environment.

52 Stand taken by a speaker? : DAIS

A dais is a raised platform for a speaker. The term “dais” comes from the Latin “discus” meaning a “disk-shaped object”. I guess that the original daises had such a shape.

53 First cellular co. to offer service nationwide : GTE

GTE was a rival to AT&T, the largest of the independent competitors to the Bell System. GTE merged with Bell Atlantic in 2000 to form the company that we know today as Verizon. Verizon made some high-profile acquisitions over the years, including MCI in 2005 and AOL in 2015.

58 Paris network : RUES

In France, one might drive along a “rue” (road) through “une ville” (a town).

59 Davidson of “S.N.L.” : PETE

NBC first aired a form of “Saturday Night Live” (SNL) in 1975 under the title “NBC’s Saturday Night”. The show was actually created to give Johnny Carson some time off from “The Tonight Show”. Back then “The Tonight Show” had a weekend episode, and Carson convinced NBC to pull the Saturday or Sunday recordings off the air and hold them for subsequent weeknights in which Carson needed a break. NBC turned to Lorne Michaels and asked him to put together a variety show to fill the vacant slot, and he came up with what we now call “Saturday Night Live”.

62 Port SSE of the Suez Canal : ADEN

Aden is a seaport in Yemen that is located on the Gulf of Aden by the eastern approach to the Red Sea. Aden has a long history of British rule, from 1838 until a very messy withdrawal in 1967. A native of Aden is known as an Adeni. Some believe that Cain and Abel are buried in the city.

The Suez Canal connects the Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea. The canal took ten years to construct, and opened in 1869. The northern terminus of the waterway is Port Said, and the southern is Port Tewfik in the city of Suez, which gives the canal its name. There are no locks on the Suez Canal, and there is only “one-lane” navigation available. There are two spots in the canal where ships travelling in opposing directions can pass each other. A second canal is now under construction that will cover half the route of the existing canal. When completed, the Suez Canal will be able to handle 97 ships a day, up from the current capacity of 49 ships per day.

63 Where a batter eventually goes to the plate? : IHOP

The International House of Pancakes (IHOP) was founded back in 1958. IHOP was originally intended to be called IHOE, the International House of Eggs, but that name didn’t do too well in marketing tests.

Down

4 Govt. lawyers : DAS

District attorney (DA)

10 Where a yellow ribbon is tied in a 1973 #1 hit : OAK TREE

A yellow ribbon is symbolically worn by people awaiting the return of a loved one, usually from military service overseas, but also from a penal institution. The song “Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree” tells the tale of a convict returning home. His loyal loved one is waiting for him and she ties a whole boatload of yellow ribbons around the old oak tree to greet him.

23 Airline of 61-Across : EL AL
(61A Country where the cellphone was developed: Abbr. : ISR)

El Al Israel Airlines is the flag carrier of Israel. El Al is known for its high levels of security, both on the ground and in the air. Reportedly, the airline’s passenger aircraft have been operating with anti-missile technology for several years.

25 Parrot’s cry : AWK!

Scientists tell us that parrots are some of the most intelligent species of birds. Many of those species are able to imitate the human voice. Such characteristics have led to parrots becoming popular house pets, and a resulting drop in populations of parrots living in the wild.

30 Like many antebellum mansions : VERANDAED

The Latin word “antebellum” means “before the war”, which is the sense that we use the term in English. Here in the US, we mostly use the term with reference to the American Civil War.

31 Down-to-earth fig. : ETA

Estimated time of arrival (ETA)

35 John Wayne Birthplace Museum locale : IOWA

John Wayne was named Marion Mitchell Morrison at birth, after his grandfather who was a Civil War veteran. When young Marion was a little boy, a local fireman used to call him “Little Duke” because he was always seen walking with his large dog called “Duke”. Marion liked the name “Duke” and so he called himself Duke Morrison for the rest of his life. That said, Duke Morrison also used John Wayne as a stage name.

37 Heavens on earth : XANADUS

Shangdu (also “Xanadu”) was located in Inner Mongolia in China, just over 200 miles north of China. Shangdu was the capital of the Yuan dynasty that was established in 1271 by Kublai Khan. The Venetian traveller Marco Polo visited Shangdu in about 1272, and the city was destroyed by the Ming army in 1369. Centuries later in 1797, the English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge immortalized the city (as “Xanadu”) in his celebrated poem “Kubla Khan”.

41 Portmanteau fruit : TANGELO

The fruit called a tangelo is a hybrid between a tangerine and either a grapefruit or a pomelo (which gives its the name). A pomelo is a very large, pear-shaped citrus fruit native to Southeast Asia. The Jamaican form of tangelo is known as the ugli fruit.

48 Very, abroad : TRES

In French, one might be “très” (very) glad to finish the crossword.

49 Whom Italians call “il Sommo Poeta” : DANTE

Dante Alighieri, the Italian poet famous for writing his “Divine Comedy”, is known in his native Italy as “the Supreme Poet” (il Sommo Poeta), or simply “il Poeta”.

54 Ocean State sch. : 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.

Rhode Island is the smallest state in the union, and is the second most densely populated. (after New Jersey). Rhode Island is known as the Ocean State, largely because about 14% of the state’s area is made up of ocean bays and inlets. Exactly how Rhode Island got its name is a little unclear. What is known is that way back in 1524, long before the Pilgrims came to New England, the Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano likened an island in the area to the Island of Rhodes in the Mediterranean. There were subsequent references to “Rhode Island” in English publications, before the colonists arrived.

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Complete List of Clues/Answers

Across

1 Employer of Detective Lindsay Boxer in a series of James Patterson novels : SFPD
5 Fragrance since 1932 : TABU
9 Aviary sound : COO
12 Santa ___, Calif. : CLARA
13 “Point taken,” ’60s-style : I DIG
14 Title partner of Hobbs in a hit 2019 film : SHAW
15 Reactions to social media posts? : LIKES AND THE LIKE
18 Wizard : ACE
19 Animation stack : CELS
20 “I strongly advise against that” : DON’T
21 Breeds of hunting dogs? : SETTERS ET CETERA
26 Not legally immune : SUABLE
27 “Head for the hills!” : RUN!
28 Do a home ec assignment : SEW
29 E.N.T. case : APNEA
30 Depart from a straight line : VEER
32 Techie or Trekkie : GEEK
33 Boxing champs of the 1960s-’70s? : ALI ET ALII
36 Tony Blair, for the U.K. : EX-PM
39 Apothecary’s unit : DRAM
40 “In Old Mexico” or “In Old Santa Fe” : OATER
44 It’s trained in music school : EAR
45 An indispensable ingredient in the elixir of life, per Lao-tzu : TEA
46 Domination, in slang : OWNAGE
47 Things that scouts earn badges for? : KNOTS AND WHATNOT
51 Target for holistic healing : AURA
52 Stand taken by a speaker? : DAIS
53 First cellular co. to offer service nationwide : GTE
54 Cows’ various glands? : UDDERS AND OTHERS
58 Paris network : RUES
59 Davidson of “S.N.L.” : PETE
60 Like pipes, again and again : RELIT
61 Country where the cellphone was developed: Abbr. : ISR
62 Port SSE of the Suez Canal : ADEN
63 Where a batter eventually goes to the plate? : IHOP

Down

1 Partition : SLICE UP
2 Fool’s gold? : FAKE TAN
3 Prefix with caution or condition : PRE-
4 Govt. lawyers : DAS
5 Fork foursome : TINES
6 Throw into confusion : ADDLE
7 Sequence of 0’s and 1’s : BITSTREAM
8 “What a stomach-churning thought!” : UGH!
9 Takeout option : CHINESE
10 Where a yellow ribbon is tied in a 1973 #1 hit : OAK TREE
11 Be attributable (to) : OWE
12 Preferred variety of stock : CLASS A
14 Part of a schedule : SLOT
16 Unit of an estate : ACRE
17 Heaven on earth : EDEN
22 Letter-shaped construction piece : T-BEAM
23 Airline of 61-Across : EL AL
24 Part of a weightlifter’s routine : CURL
25 Parrot’s cry : AWK!
30 Like many antebellum mansions : VERANDAED
31 Down-to-earth fig. : ETA
32 Jumbo : GIANT
34 “Here’s an ___ …” : IDEA
35 John Wayne Birthplace Museum locale : IOWA
36 Cry upon opening a hospital bill, maybe : EEK!
37 Heavens on earth : XANADUS
38 More self-satisfied : PROUDER
41 Portmanteau fruit : TANGELO
42 “Travel” for a bigheaded person : EGO TRIP
43 Second-grade offering? : RETEST
45 Bygone monarch : TSAR
46 Very : OH SO
48 Very, abroad : TRES
49 Whom Italians call “il Sommo Poeta” : DANTE
50 Expand : WIDEN
54 Ocean State sch. : URI
55 Cruise ship amenity : SPA
56 Prefix with lateral or lingual : TRI-
57 “I suppose that’s kinda funny” : HEH