0830-20 NY Times Crossword 30 Aug 20, Sunday

Constructed by: Olivia Mitra Framke
Edited by: Will Shortz

Today’s Theme: All Aflutter

The print version of this puzzle has a shaded square in the center of the tenth line. We must assume that square is hiding a letter N, giving us a TORNADO. The black squares at the center of the grid outline a BUTTERFLY:

  • 81A Subject of this puzzle, as suggested visually by its central black squares : BUTTERFLY EFFECT
  • 24A Mathematical field that includes the 81-Across : CHAOS THEORY
  • 62A A.L. East team … or, using the shaded square, what a little movement by this puzzle’s subject might cause : TOR or TORNADO
  • 3D Start of a definition of the 81-Across : ONE SMALL THING …
  • 16D Middle of the definition : … CAN MAKE ALL THE …
  • 109A With 113-Across, end of the definition : … DIFFERENCE …
  • 113A See 109-Across : … IN THE WORLD

Bill’s time: 17m 09s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

5 “___ Catch ‘Em All” (Pokémon theme song) : GOTTA

“Pokémon” is the second-biggest video game franchise in the world, second only to the “Mario” franchise. “Pokémon” is a contraction of “Pocket Monsters”.

10 Gastric malady : ULCER

Until fairly recently, a peptic ulcer was believed to be caused by undue amounts of stress in one’s life. It is now known that 70-90% of all peptic ulcers are in fact associated with a particular bacterium.

15 Word aptly found in “price control” : ECON

Economics (econ.)

19 Nobel laureate Morrison : TONI

Writer Toni Morrison won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993. Amongst other things, Morrison is noted for coining the phrase “our first black President”, a reference to President Bill Clinton.

20 Longtime daily TV show about the rich and famous : E! NEWS

E! Entertainment Television started out in 1987 as Movietime, and hired on-air hosts such as Greg Kinnear and Paula Abdul. It was renamed in 1990 to E! Entertainment Television, underscoring the focus on Hollywood gossip and the like.

21 Mandarin greeting : NI HAO

One might say “ni hao” in Chinese to mean “hello”, although a more literal translation is “you good”.

22 One-named singer with Grammys in 1985 and 2010 : SADE

Singer Sade’s real name is Helen Folasade Adu. Although born in Nigeria, Sade grew up and lives in the UK. She was the lead vocalist for the English group Sade, and adopted the name of the band. The band’s biggest hits were “Smooth Operator” (1984) and “The Sweetest Taboo” (1985).

23 Protected, in a way : ALEE

Alee is the direction away from the wind. If a sailor points into the wind, he or she is pointing aweather.

27 Custom-made, as a suit : BESPOKE

The adjective “bespoke”, meaning “custom-made”, has for centuries been mainly used with reference to tailoring, as in a “bespoke” suit.

29 Psychic energy fields : AURAS

An aura (plural “aurae”) is an intangible quality that surrounds a person or thing, a “je ne sais quoi”. “Je ne sais quoi” is French for “I don’t know what”.

30 The Sims and others : PC GAMES

SimCity is a very clever computer game. Players build and grow cities and societies by creating the conditions necessary for people (the Sims) to move in and thrive. SimCity was launched in 1989, and to this day it is consistently ranked as one of the greatest computer games of all time.

33 Remains here? : CRYPT

A crypt is a chamber that is located partially or totally underground. The term “crypt” comes from the Greek “kryptos” meaning “hidden”.

34 “Ciao!” : SEE YA!

“Ciao” is Italian for “‘bye”. “Arrivederci” is more formal, and translates as “goodbye”.

35 Magical resource in Magic: The Gathering : MANA

Magic: The Gathering is a card game, one played with a deck of themed cards. It is a relatively recent invention by a math professor named Richard Garfield. It was introduced to the public in 1993, and has a large following today.

39 7/ : JUL

Our month of July used to be called “Quintilis” in ancient Rome. “Quintilis” is Latin for “fifth”, and it was the fifth month of the year back then. After the assassination of Julius Caesar, the Roman Senate renamed Quintilis to Julius, in his honor, which evolved into our “July”. The month of August, originally called “Sextilis” in Latin, was renamed in honor of Augustus.

40 Duds : GARB

“Duds” is an informal word meaning “clothing”. The term comes from the word “dudde” that was used around 1300 as the name for a cloak.

44 Actress Susan of “The Partridge Family” : DEY

Actress Susan Dey first appeared on “The Partridge Family” when she was 17-years-old when she had no acting experience. Years later, Dey won a Golden Globe for playing the leading role of Grace Van Owen in “L.A. Law”.

50 Course for a non-Anglophone, for short : ESL

English as a Second Language (ESL) is sometimes referred to as English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) and English as a Foreign Language (EFL).

51 Keebler crew : ELVES

The famous Keebler Elves have been appearing in ads for Keebler since 1968. The original head of the elves was J. J. Keebler, but he was toppled from power by Ernest J. Keebler in 1970. The Keebler Elves bake their cookies in the Hollow Tree Factory.

56 Scrap, slangily : RASSLE

“Rassle” is a slang word meaning “wrestle”.

58 Goddess of witchcraft : HECATE

Hecate (sometimes “Hekate”) was a three-faced goddess in the Greek and Roman traditions. She was associated with many phenomena, including magic and witchcraft.

59 Hall-of-Fame QB Dawson : LEN

Len Dawson is a retired AFL-NFL quarterback who played for the Kansas City Chiefs (originally the Dallas Texans). Dawson played for the Chiefs in the first ever Super Bowl, losing badly to the Green Bay Packers. However, he was on the winning team in Super Bowl IV, when the Chiefs defeated the Minnesota Vikings. Quarterback Dawson was named the MVP that day.

60 Split : SCHISM

A schism is a split or division, especially in a religion.

62 A.L. East team … or, using the shaded square, what a little movement by this puzzle’s subject might cause : TOR or TORNADO

The Toronto Blue Jays baseball franchise was founded in 1977. The Blue Jays are the only team based outside the US to have won a World Series, doing so in 1992 and 1993. And since the Montreal Expos relocated to Washington, the Blue Jays are the only Major League Baseball team now headquartered outside of the US.

63 Kerfuffle : ADO

“Kerfuffle” comes from the Scottish “curfuffle”, with both words meaning “disruption”.

64 “Pitch Perfect” a cappella group, with “the” : BELLAS

“Pitch Perfect” is an entertaining musical comedy film released in 2012. It’s all about an all-female college a cappella group competing to win a national competition.

A cappella music is sung without instruments accompanying. “A cappella” translates from Italian as “in the manner of the chapel”.

69 Log : DIARY

The word “logbook” dates back to the days when the captain of a ship kept a daily record of the vessel’s speed, progress etc. using a “log”. A log was a wooden float on a knotted line that was dropped overboard to measure speed through the water.

74 Goblinlike creatures : ORCS

According to Tolkien, Orcs are small humanoids that live in his fantasy world of Middle-earth (also called “Mordor”). They are very ugly and dirty, and are fond of eating human flesh.

75 Practical joke : JAPE

“To jape” means “to joke or quip”. The exact origins of “jape” are unclear, but it does seem to come from Old French. In the mid-1600s, “to jape” was a slang term meaning “to have sex with”. No joke …!

76 Anesthetic of old : ETHER

Ethers are a whole class of organic compounds, but in the vernacular “ether” is specifically diethyl ether. Diethyl ether was once very popular as a general anesthetic.

78 Pop singer known for wearing face-covering wigs : SIA

“Sia” is the stage name of Australian singer Sia Furler from Adelaide. Sia is a cousin of Australian Christian Rock musician Peter Furler.

79 When “Laverne & Shirley” ran for most of its run: Abbr. : TUE

On the late-seventies and early-eighties sitcom “Laverne & Shirley”, Penny Marshall played Laverne (De Fazio) , and Cindy Williams played Shirley (Feeney). The show was a spin-off of “Happy Days”, in which Laverne and Shirley were friends of the Fonz.

81 Subject of this puzzle, as suggested visually by its central black squares : BUTTERFLY EFFECT

The butterfly effect in chaos theory embraces the idea that a relatively large event is dependent on an earlier, much smaller event. The classic theoretical example is a hurricane that started with the flapping of a distant butterfly’s wings several weeks earlier.

90 First name in the freezer aisle : BEN

Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield did a correspondence course on making ice-cream in 1977 that was given by Pennsylvania State University’s creamery. The following year they opened an ice cream parlor in an old gas station in Burlington, Vermont. Today Ben & Jerry’s has locations in over 20 countries around the world, and theirs was the first brand ice-cream to go into space.

91 Southeast Asian language : LAO

Lao is the official language of Laos. Lao is also spoken in the northeast of Thailand, but there the language is known as Isan.

93 Table scraps : ORTS

Orts are small scraps of food left after a meal. “Ort” comes from Middle English, and originally described scraps left by animals.

98 Famous literary nickname, with “The” : … BARD

The original bards were storytellers, poets and composers of music in medieval Britain and Ireland, with the term coming from the Old Celtic word “bardos” that described a poet or singer. I guess the most famous bard was William Shakespeare, the Bard of Avon.

99 “Catch-22” pilot : ORR

The bomber pilot in Joseph Heller’s “Catch-22” is named Orr. He has no other name, just “Orr”.

“Catch-22” is a novel by Joseph Heller set during WWII. The title refers to absurd bureaucratic constraints that soldiers had to suffer. Heller’s “Catch 22” was invoked by an army psychiatrist to explain that any pilot requesting to be evaluated for insanity, to avoid flying dangerous missions, had to be sane as only a sane man would try to get out of such missions. The term “catch-22” has entered the language and describes a paradoxical situation from which one can’t escape due to contradictory rules; one loses, no matter what choice one makes.

100 Spanish title: Abbr. : SRTA

“Señorita” (Srta.) is Spanish, and “Mademoiselle” (Mlle.) is French, for “Miss”.

117 Assessment: Abbr. : EVAL

Evaluation (eval.)

118 “Doe, ___ …” : A DEER

Doe, a deer, a female deer
Ray, a drop of golden sun
Me, a name I call myself
Far, a long, long way to run
Sew, a needle pulling thread
La, a note to follow Sew
Tea, a drink with jam and bread
That will bring us back to Do

121 Repeated word in a Doris Day song : SERA

As Doris Day told us, “que será, será” is Spanish for “whatever will be, will be”. Actually, the phrase is “pseudo-Spanish”, and isn’t grammatically correct.

The 1956 song “Que Será, Será (Whatever Will Be, Will Be)” was first performed by Doris Day in the Hitchcock film “The Man Who Knew Too Much”. Day later used the same tune as the theme song for the sitcom “The Doris Day Show” that aired in the late sixties and early seventies.

Alfred Hitchcock made two versions of the film “The Man Who Knew Too Much”. The first was made in 1934 while Hitchcock still lived in England. It starred Leslie Banks, Edna Best and Peter Lorre in his first English-speaking role. Hitchcock remade the original in 1956, with James Stewart and Doris Day playing the leads. And by the way, in that movie Doris Day sang the Oscar-winning song “Que Sera, Sera”.

Actress and singer Doris Day was born Doris Kappelhoff in Cincinnati, Ohio. Day made more than 650 recordings as a singer with Columbia Records, and also appeared in 39 movies. Outside the world of entertainment, she was an ardent supporter of animal rights. She lived in retirement in Carmel-by-the-Sea in California, along with her many pets and stray animals that she adopted over the years.

126 Tolkien race : ENTS

Ents are tree-like creatures that live in J. R. R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth in his series of books “The Lord of the Rings”. “Ent” is an Old English word for “giant”.

128 Eight-bit gaming console, for short : NES

The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) was sold in North America from 1985 to 1995. The NES was the biggest selling gaming console of the era. Nintendo replaced the NES with Wii, which is also the biggest-selling game console in the world.

Down

2 One of 42 on a Connect Four board : HOLE

“Connect Four” is an interesting two-player game in which opponents drop colored discs into a vertical grid. The objective is to make straight lines of discs of one color, either horizontally, vertically or diagonally. Disappointingly, the player who goes first can always win the game by playing the right moves.

5 Creature that can lick its own eyes : GECKO

The word “gecko” comes from an Indonesian/Javanese word “tokek”, which is imitative of the reptile’s chirping sound. In making such a sound, geckos are unique in the world of lizards. More interesting to me than a gecko’s chirping is its ability to cling to walls and other vertical surfaces. Their feet are specially adapted with “toes” that make extremely intimate, close contact to a surface. The toes have millions of hairs called setae that enable the clinging. It isn’t suction that supports them, but rather van der Waals forces (weak “gravitational” attractions). Fascinating stuff …

6 Half of O.H.M.S. : ON HER

On Her Majesty’s Service or On His Majesty’s Service (OHMS)

8 Like “Waiting for Godot” : TWO-ACT

“Waiting for Godot” is a play by novelist and playwright Samuel Beckett that premiered in 1953. Irishman Beckett actually wrote the piece in French, under the title “En attendant Godot”. He then translated the play into English himself.

12 Stand-up comic Margaret : CHO

Margaret Cho is a very successful stand-up comedian, and she is also a fashion designer with her own line of clothing. Cho acts as well, and you might have seen her in the John Travolta/Nicolas Cage movie “Face/Off” in which she played John Travolta’s FBI colleague.

13 Wyatt, Morgan and Virgil of the Wild West : EARPS

The famous Earp brothers of the Wild West were Wyatt, Virgil and Morgan. All three brothers participated in what has to be the most famous gunfight in the history of the Old West, the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Arizona. Strangely enough, the fight didn’t happen at the O.K. Corral, but took place six doors down the street in a vacant lot next to a photography studio.

14 Rolls-___ : ROYCE

Henry Royce founded the Rolls-Royce company in 1904 with his partner, Charles Rolls. Royce died at 70 years of age in 1933. His last words were, reportedly, “I wish I had spent more time in the office …”

17 Comics dog who walks on two feet : ODIE

Odie is Garfield’s best friend, and is a slobbery beagle. Both are characters in Jim Davis’ comic strip named “Garfield”.

18 N.B.A. team with black-and-white uniforms : NETS

The NBA’s Brooklyn Nets were the New Jersey Nets until 2012, and were based in Newark. Prior to 1977, the team was known as the New York Nets and played in various locations on Long Island. Ten years earlier, the Nets were called the New Jersey Americans and were headquartered in Teaneck, New Jersey.

28 Wild Asian equines : ONAGERS

The onager is also known as the Asiatic wild ass. The onager is a little larger than a donkey, and looks like a cross between a donkey and a horse. One characteristic of the onager is that it is remarkably “untamable”.

35 1957 Broadway hit starring Robert Preston, with “The” : … MUSIC MAN

“The Music Man” is a musical by Meredith Willson. The show was a big hit on Broadway in 1957. “The Music Man” won the first ever Grammy Award for the “Best Original Cast Album”. The show is set in the fictional River City, Iowa.

39 Rabbit in a red dress : JESSICA

“Who Framed Roger Rabbit” is a clever 1988 film featuring cartoon characters that interact directly with human beings. The most memorable cartoon characters have to be goofy Roger Rabbit, and vampish Jessica Rabbit. The film is based on a novel written by Gary K. Wolf called “Who Censored Roger Rabbit?” There is a prequel floating around that has never been produced, which is titled “Who Discovered Roger Rabbit”.

41 Noted 1836 battle site : ALAMO

The famous Alamo in San Antonio, Texas was originally known as Mission San Antonio de Valero. The mission was founded in 1718 and was the first mission established in the city. The Battle of the Alamo took place in 1836, a thirteen-day siege by the Mexican Army led by President General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna. Only two people defending the Alamo Mission survived the onslaught. One month later, the Texian army got its revenge by attacking and defeating the Mexican Army in the Battle of San Jacinto. During the surprise attack on Santa Anna’s camp, many of the Texian soldiers were heard to cry “Remember the Alamo!”.

42 They’re parked at national parks : RVS

Recreational vehicle (RV)

45 Cereal that changes the color of the milk : COCOA PUFFS

Cocoa Puffs is a General Mills breakfast cereal that is essentially the same as Kix cereal, but with chocolate flavoring added. Since 1962, the Cocoa Puffs mascot has been Sonny the Cuckoo Bird, who is “cuckoo for cocoa puffs!”.

46 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 her 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.

49 Bleeps : CENSORS

The original “censor” was an officer in ancient Rome who had responsibility for taking the “census”, as well as supervising public morality.

52 Toy on a grooved track : SLOT CAR

Slot cars are those motorized toy cars that run around on tracks picking up power from a slot in the racing surface. The first slot cars were made in 1912 by the Lionel company, the manufacturer of toy train sets.

57 Another name for Cupid : EROS

The name of Eros, the Greek god of love, gives rise to our word “erotic” meaning “arousing sexual desire”. Eros was referred to in Latin as both “Amor” (meaning “love”) and “Cupid” (meaning “desire”).

58 The last of the Pillars of Islam : HADJ

Followers of the Muslim tradition believe in the Five Pillars of Islam, five obligatory acts that underpin Muslim life. The Five Pillars are:

  1. The Islamic creed
  2. Daily prayer
  3. Almsgiving
  4. Fasting during the month of Ramadan
  5. The pilgrimage to Mecca (haj, hajj, hadj) once during a lifetime

61 Seeing red? : IN DEBT

To be in the red is to be in debt, to owe money. The expression “in the red” is a reference to the accounting practice of recording debts and losses in red ink in ledgers. The related phrase “in the black” means “solvent, making a profit”.

70 Pot : REEFER

Marijuana cigarettes have been known as reefers since the twenties. It is thought that the term “reefers” comes from either the Mexican Spanish for a drug addict (“grifo”), or from its resemblance to a rolled sail, i.e. a sail that has been “reefed”.

73 Tulsa sch. : ORU

Oral Roberts University (ORU) is a private school in Tulsa, Oklahoma. ORU was founded relatively recently, in 1963 by the late televangelist Oral Roberts. The campus includes a Prayer Tower at its center, a spectacular glass and steel structure designed by architect Frank Wallace. The tower includes an observation deck, and is a popular tourist attraction. The school’s sports teams are known as the Oral Roberts Golden Eagles.

76 Canceling key : ESC

The escape key (Esc) was originally used just to control computer peripherals. It was a key that allowed the computer operator to stop what the peripheral was doing (cancel a print job, for example). Nowadays the escape key is used for all sorts of things, especially in gaming programs.

82 Timetable abbr. : TBA

Something not yet on the schedule (“sked” or “sched.”) is to be advised/announced (TBA).

83 Traditional Valentine’s Day gift : FLOWERS

Saint Valentine’s Day was introduced by Pope Gelasius I in 496 AD to honor various martyrs with the name Valentine. However, the saint’s day was dropped by the Roman Catholic church in 1969, by Pope Paul VI. Try telling that to Hallmark though …

84 Croft of Tomb Raider : LARA

Lara Croft was introduced to the world in 1996 as the main character in a pretty cool video game (or so I thought, back then) called “Tomb Raider”. Lara Croft moved to the big screen in 2001 and 2003, in two pretty awful movie adaptations of the game’s storyline. Angelina Jolie played Croft, and she did a very energetic job.

85 Tiny terriers : YORKIES

The Yorkshire terrier is a breed of dog from the county of Yorkshire in the north of England. That part of the country became very industrialized in the 19th-century, and was home to hundreds of clothing mills. The “Yorkie” was developed to catch rats in those mills.

86 N.Y.C. summer hrs. : EDT

Eastern Daylight Time (EDT)

87 Black suit : SPADES

Spades is one of the four suits in a standard deck of cards. The spade symbol represents the pike, a medieval weapon.

105 Some laptops : ACERS

Acer is a Taiwanese company that I visited a couple of times when I was in the electronics business. I was very impressed back then with the company’s dedication to quality, although I have heard that things haven’t gone so well in recent years …

106 Sci-fi moon : ENDOR

The fictional forested moon of Endor features prominently in the “Star Wars” movie “Return of the Jedi”. The moon is home to the race of furry aliens known as Ewoks. Filming for the forest scenes actually took place in Humboldt Redwoods State Park in Northern California.

108 John Wayne, by birth : IOWAN

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.

115 Assumed part of some addresses : HTTP

“http” are the first letters in many Internet links. “http” stands for HyperText Transfer Protocol. More secure and “safer” websites (like this one!) use links starting with “https”, which stands for “http secure”).

Complete List of Clues/Answers

Across

1 Selling point? : SHOP
5 “___ Catch ‘Em All” (Pokémon theme song) : GOTTA
10 Gastric malady : ULCER
15 Word aptly found in “price control” : ECON
19 Nobel laureate Morrison : TONI
20 Longtime daily TV show about the rich and famous : E! NEWS
21 Mandarin greeting : NI HAO
22 One-named singer with Grammys in 1985 and 2010 : SADE
23 Protected, in a way : ALEE
24 Mathematical field that includes the 81-Across : CHAOS THEORY
26 Irritated mood : SNIT
27 Custom-made, as a suit : BESPOKE
29 Psychic energy fields : AURAS
30 The Sims and others : PC GAMES
32 Regal home : MANOR
33 Remains here? : CRYPT
34 “Ciao!” : SEE YA!
35 Magical resource in Magic: The Gathering : MANA
36 Pianist’s pace : TEMPO
37 Sounds of disapproval : TSKS
39 7/ : JUL
40 Duds : GARB
44 Actress Susan of “The Partridge Family” : DEY
45 Soleus muscle locale : CALF
48 “… you get the idea” : ETC
50 Course for a non-Anglophone, for short : ESL
51 Keebler crew : ELVES
53 Worker who might check all the boxes? : MOVER
54 What may come after you : … ARE
55 Invitation from a host : SIT
56 Scrap, slangily : RASSLE
58 Goddess of witchcraft : HECATE
59 Hall-of-Fame QB Dawson : LEN
60 Split : SCHISM
62 A.L. East team … or, using the shaded square, what a little movement by this puzzle’s subject might cause : TOR or TORNADO
63 Kerfuffle : ADO
64 “Pitch Perfect” a cappella group, with “the” : BELLAS
66 “Let’s do this!” : I’M IN!
67 Bound for : OFF TO
69 Log : DIARY
71 Prefix with -sphere : ATMO-
72 “You got it!” : CAN DO!
74 Goblinlike creatures : ORCS
75 Practical joke : JAPE
76 Anesthetic of old : ETHER
77 Tick off : ANGER
78 Pop singer known for wearing face-covering wigs : SIA
79 When “Laverne & Shirley” ran for most of its run: Abbr. : TUE
80 Visionaries : SEERS
81 Subject of this puzzle, as suggested visually by its central black squares : BUTTERFLY EFFECT
87 Sports figure : STAT
90 First name in the freezer aisle : BEN
91 Southeast Asian language : LAO
92 Flowed into : FED
93 Table scraps : ORTS
97 21st Greek letter : PHI
98 Famous literary nickname, with “The” : … BARD
99 “Catch-22” pilot : ORR
100 Spanish title: Abbr. : SRTA
102 Period : ERA
103 Computer data structure : ARRAY
105 Up : AWAKE
107 Ready to crash : WIPED
109 With 113-Across, end of the definition : … DIFFERENCE …
113 See 109-Across : … IN THE WORLD
117 Assessment: Abbr. : EVAL
118 “Doe, ___ …” : A DEER
119 Exchanges words, say : EDITS
120 Bit of cunning : WILE
121 Repeated word in a Doris Day song : SERA
122 They have pointy teeth : GEARS
123 Ish : SORTA
124 Words of clarification when spelling : AS IN
125 Math grouping seen in curly brackets : SET
126 Tolkien race : ENTS
127 Handles, as an account, in brief : REPS
128 Eight-bit gaming console, for short : NES

Down

1 Wild guess : STAB
2 One of 42 on a Connect Four board : HOLE
3 Start of a definition of the 81-Across : ONE SMALL THING …
4 Baker’s container : PIE PAN
5 Creature that can lick its own eyes : GECKO
6 Half of O.H.M.S. : ON HER
7 After-dinner offering : TEA
8 Like “Waiting for Godot” : TWO-ACT
9 Convinced : ASSURED
10 Blue : UNHAPPY
11 Dupes, in a way : LIES TO
12 Stand-up comic Margaret : CHO
13 Wyatt, Morgan and Virgil of the Wild West : EARPS
14 Rolls-___ : ROYCE
15 Some college assignments : ESSAYS
16 Middle of the definition : … CAN MAKE ALL THE …
17 Comics dog who walks on two feet : ODIE
18 N.B.A. team with black-and-white uniforms : NETS
25 “I’m listening …” : TRY ME …
28 Wild Asian equines : ONAGERS
31 Break out : GET FREE
35 1957 Broadway hit starring Robert Preston, with “The” : … MUSIC MAN
38 Twitch.tv user : STREAMER
39 Rabbit in a red dress : JESSICA
41 Noted 1836 battle site : ALAMO
42 They’re parked at national parks : RVS
43 Mate for life? : BEST FRIEND
45 Cereal that changes the color of the milk : COCOA PUFFS
46 Director DuVernay : AVA
47 Clear a path for : LET BY
49 Bleeps : CENSORS
52 Toy on a grooved track : SLOT CAR
53 Help to settle : MEDIATE
57 Another name for Cupid : EROS
58 The last of the Pillars of Islam : HADJ
61 Seeing red? : IN DEBT
65 Not on time for : LATE TO
68 Temporarily adopt, as a pet : FOSTER
70 Pot : REEFER
73 Tulsa sch. : ORU
76 Canceling key : ESC
82 Timetable abbr. : TBA
83 Traditional Valentine’s Day gift : FLOWERS
84 Croft of Tomb Raider : LARA
85 Tiny terriers : YORKIES
86 N.Y.C. summer hrs. : EDT
87 Black suit : SPADES
88 Does really well : THRIVES
89 Going rate? : AIRFARE
94 Return to a theme, as in a symphony : REPRISE
95 Vine support : TRELLIS
96 Bring down : SADDEN
98 “Ciao!” : BYE!
101 Response to a puppy video, maybe : AWW!
104 Middle black key in a group of three, on a piano : A-FLAT
105 Some laptops : ACERS
106 Sci-fi moon : ENDOR
108 John Wayne, by birth : IOWAN
110 Current fashion : RAGE
111 Paradise : EDEN
112 Tidy : NEAT
114 On an airplane, it’s filled with nitrogen rather than air : TIRE
115 Assumed part of some addresses : HTTP
116 Those: Sp. : ESAS