0113-22 NY Times Crossword 13 Jan 22, Thursday

Constructed by: Karen Lurie
Edited by: Will Shortz

Today’s Reveal Answer: Spoiler Alert

Themed answers are each spoilers for famous movies:

  • 20A Important warning before you answer 32-, 40- and 52-Across? : SPOILER ALERT
  • 32A 2003 Pixar animated adventure : THEY FOUND NEMO (from “Finding Nemo”)
  • 40A 2004 Quentin Tarantino martial arts film : SHE KILLED BILL (from “Kill Bill”)
  • 52A 1993 Warner Bros. family drama : HE FREED WILLY (from “Free Willy”)

Bill’s time: Did not record … was “chatting” with friends … and red wine!

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1 Urgent order : ASAP

As soon as possible (ASAP)

5 Alternatives to dogs : BRATS

A bratwurst (sometimes simply “brat” in the US) is a German sausage. The name comes from “brät-” meaning “finely chopped meat”, and “Wurst” meaning “sausage”.

10 Winter hrs. in Seattle : PST

The Washington city of Seattle was founded on a site that had been occupied by Native Americans for over 4,000 years before the first Europeans arrived in the area. The name “Seattle” was chosen in honor of the Suquamish and Duwamish Chief Seattle, who had a reputation for welcoming white settlers.

14 Certain bite risk : RABIES

“Rabies” is actually the Latin word for “madness”. The name is a good choice for the viral disease, as once the virus spreads to the brain the infected person or animal exhibits very tortured and bizarre behavior including hydrophobia, a fear of water. The virus is passed on to humans most often through a bite from an infected dog. It is curable if it is caught in time, basically before symptoms develop. Once the virus passes up the peripheral nervous system to the spine and the brain, there isn’t much that can be done. We can also use the derivative term “rabid” figuratively, to mean extremely violent, to have extreme views.

17 Striped polecat’s defense : ODOR

“Polecat” is a term used for several different animals, most of which are in the weasel family.

19 “The sweetest joy, the wildest ___ is love”: Pearl Bailey : WOE

Pearl Bailey was an actress and singer who won a Tony Award playing the title role in a 1968 production of the stage musical “Hello, Dolly!”

28 Top suit : CEO

Chief executive officer (CEO)

32 2003 Pixar animated adventure : THEY FOUND NEMO (from “Finding Nemo”)

“Finding Nemo” is a 2003 animated blockbuster from Pixar. The film was the winner of the Oscar that year for Best Animated Feature. Believe it or not, “Finding Nemo” is the best-selling DVD of all time and, until 2010’s “Toy Story 3”, it was the highest-grossing, G-rated movie at the box office.

40 2004 Quentin Tarantino martial arts film : SHE KILLED BILL (from “Kill Bill”)

“Kill Bill” is a 3-part Quentin Tarantino movie (I haven’t seen it, as I really don’t “do” Tarantino). “Kill Bill” started off as one film, but as the running time was over four hours, it was split into two “volumes”, released several months apart in 2003 and 2004. There has been a lot of talk about making “Kill Bill: Volume 3”.

47 Low island : CAY

A key (also “cay”) is a low offshore island, as in the Florida “Keys”. Our term in English comes from the Spanish “cayo” meaning “shoal, reef”.

48 Birthplace of Pythagoras : IONIA

The geographic region called Ionia is located in present-day Turkey. Ionia was prominent in the days of ancient Greece, although it wasn’t a unified state and rather a collection of tribes. The tribal confederacy was more based on religious and cultural similarities than a political or military alliance. Nowadays we often refer to this arrangement as the Ionian League.

Pythagoras of Samos is remembered by most these days for his work in mathematics, and for his famous Pythagorean theorem that states that in any right triangle, the square of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides. Although there is very little of Pythagoras’s own work that survives, much has been written by his successors that shows how great his influence was above and beyond mathematics, in the fields of philosophy and religion in particular. In fact, it is believed that Pythagoras coined the word “philosophy”, coming from the Greek for “loving wisdom or knowledge”. On a “timeline” of famous Greek philosophers, Pythagoras was doing his work over a hundred years before Socrates, who was followed by Plato and then Aristotle.

52 1993 Warner Bros. family drama : HE FREED WILLY (from “Free Willy”)

The orca that starred in the 1993 movie “Free Willy” was actually called Keiko, with Willy being his “stage name”. Keiko had a sad life. He was captured near Iceland in 1979 and sold to a local aquarium. Subsequently he was sold on to Marineland in Ontario, and then Six Flags Mexico in 1985. After starring in the movie, his fans raised money with the intent of returning Keiko to the wild. Keiko had become very ill, partly from being confined in a small tank in Mexico, so a lot of money had to be spent returning him to good health. He was purchased by the Oregon Coast Aquarium who undertook the task of treating him and preparing him for the wild. You might recall the dramatic journey he took from Mexico to Oregon in a US Air Force transport plane in 1996. Having regained his health, he was flown to Iceland and there was gradually reintroduced into the wild. Sadly, Keiko did not fare too well back in the ocean. He was never adopted by a pod, so lived a solitary life. He lost weight, would sometimes follow fishing boats and play with any humans who would give him attention. In 2003, Keiko beached himself in Taken Bay in Norway, where he died.

56 Investment inits. : IRA

Individual retirement account (IRA)

62 Hullabaloo : DIN

Our word “hullabaloo”, meaning “commotion”, is a derivative of an older term “hollo-ballo”. “Hollo-ballo” was a word used for an uproar in the north of England and Scotland.

65 Acoustics, for one: Abbr. : SCI

Science (sci.)

66 Striped yellow balls, in pool : NINES

That would be pool.

Down

1 Year in Brazil : ANO

In Portuguese, the Earth travels around “o sol” (the Sun) in one “ano” (year).

4 Chimichurri ingredient : PARSLEY

The original recipe for the green sauce called chimichurri comes from the Rio de la Plata area in Argentina. The ingredients are chopped parsley, minced garlic, olive oil, oregano and white vinegar. It’s not really clear how the sauce got its name.

6 Actor Malek : RAMI

Actor Rami Malek’s big break came with the leading role in the television series “Mr. Robot”. In 2018, Malik gave an Oscar-winning performance playing Freddie Mercury in the hit biopic “Bohemian Rhapsody”. That marked the first time that an actor of Egyptian descent won an Academy Award for Best Actor.

10 Standing like Wonder Woman, say : POWER POSING

Superhero Wonder Woman first appeared in print in 1941, in a publication from DC Comics. As she was created during WWII, Wonder Woman’s first foes were the axis powers. In the less realistic world her biggest foe was and still is Ares, a “baddie” named after the Greek mythological figure. Wonder Woman had several signature expressions, including “Merciful Minerva!”, “Suffering Sappho!” and “Great Hera!”. She also has several devices that she uses in her quest for justice, e.g. the Lasso of Truth, a pair of indestructible bracelets and a tiara that can be used as a deadly projectile. Wonder Woman uses the name “Diana Prince” when “out of uniform”.

12 Kind of fly : TSETSE

Tsetse flies live on the blood of vertebrate mammals. The name “tsetse” comes from Tswana, a language of southern Africa, and translates simply as “fly”. Tsetse flies are famous for being carriers of the disease known as “sleeping sickness”. Sleeping sickness is caused by a parasite which is passed onto humans when the tsetse fly bites into human skin tissue. If one considers all the diseases transmitted by the insect, then the tsetse fly is responsible for a staggering quarter of a million deaths each year.

22 Gallagher of rock’s Oasis : LIAM

Oasis were an English rock band from Manchester in the north of the country. The group was phenomenally successful in the UK, holding the record for the longest run in the UK Top Ten with 22 successive Top Ten hits.

23 Subject line abbr. : ATTN

Attention (attn.)

24 Home of N.Y.C.’s Public Theater : NOHO

“NoHo” is short for “North of Houston (street)”, and is the equivalent area to SoHo, South of Houston, both of which are in New York City.

Joseph Papp founded the Public Theater in 1967 when he got access to the decaying Astor Library Building on Lafayette Street in New York, for a rent of just one dollar a year from the City of New York. The theater’s most successful original production was “A Chorus Line” that opened in 1975. When Papp died in 1991, the Public Theater was renamed the Joseph Papp Public Theater.

25 Singer with the 2016 #1 album “This Is What the Truth Feels Like” : GWEN STEFANI

Gwen Stefani is lead singer with the rock band No Doubt. She joined the band in 1986, focused on a solo career from 2004-2008, but is now back singing and working with No Doubt. She joined the reality show “The Voice” as a coach in 2014, replacing Christina Aguilera. A year later, Stefani announced a relationship with Blake Shelton, a fellow coach on “The Voice”.

28 Apt rhyme for “Rubik” : CUBIC

What was originally called the “Magic Cube” became better known as “Rubik’s Cube”, and was named for its inventor Ernő Rubik. Rubik’s Cube is the world’s biggest selling puzzle game, with over 350 million sold in just over 30 years.

29 “The ___ Holmes Mysteries,” young adult series about a 14-year-old detective : ENOLA

“The Enola Holmes Mysteries” is a series of detective novels for young adults by American author Nancy Springer. The title character is the 14-year-old sister of 34-year-old Sherlock Holmes, the detective created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Springer’s novels were adapted into a 2020 film “Enola Holmes” that Netflix picked up at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. I saw this one, and enjoyed it …

33 Kind of branch depicted on German euro coins : OAK

Euro coins are issued by all the participating European states. The reverse side is a common design used by all countries, whereas the obverse is a design specific to each nation. For example, the one euro coin issued by Malta features the Maltese Cross. That Maltese euro is legal tender right across the eurozone. The Irish euro features a harp.

34 Formerly known as : NEE

“Née” is the French word for “born” when referring to a female. The male equivalent is “né”. The term “née” is mainly used in English when referring to a married woman’s birth name, assuming that she has adopted her husband’s name, e.g. Michelle Obama née Robinson, Melania Trump née Knavs, and Jill Biden née Jacobs.

41 Rime : HOAR

The Old English word “har” meant “gray, venerable, old”, and came into English as “hoar” (and later “hoary”) with the same meaning. The term “hoar-frost” dates back to the 13th century, and reflects the similarity of the white feathers of frost to the gray/white of an old man’s beard.

43 Anachronistic verb in the age of smartphones : DIAL

The first patent for a rotary dial mechanism for a phone was granted in 1898, and the familiar rotary dial phones (with holes for the finger) were introduced by the Bell System in 1919. This form of dialing was called “pulse dialing”. When you dialed the number 5, say, the dial would rotate back to the start position, opening and closing electrical contacts five times and sending five pulses over the telephone line. I used to love rotary dial phones when I was a kid. My grandfather was a telephone engineer and he showed me how to “tap out” the pulses on the “hook” at the top of a pay phone. I was able to make free calls that way. He definitely contributed to the delinquency of a minor …

45 Green bugs : APHIDS

Aphids are called “greenfly” back in Britain and Ireland where I come from. The most effective way to control aphids, in my experience, is to make sure there are plenty of ladybugs in the garden (called “ladybirds” in Ireland!).

46 One of a character class in Dungeons & Dragons : CLERIC

Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) is a complex role-playing game (RPG) introduced in 1974 by Tactical Studies Rules Incorporated (TSR). Dungeons & Dragons was probably the first of the modern role-playing games to be developed, and the most successful. It is still played by lots of people today, including my youngest son …

53 Goddess in the Hindu pantheon : DEVI

“Devi” is the Sanskrit word for “goddess”, and Devi is in essence present in all Hindu goddesses.

A pantheon is the set of all gods in a particular religion or mythology. The term comes from the Greek “pan” (all) “theon” (of gods). “Pantheon” is also the name given to a temple dedicated to all deities.

54 Small bird with a loud song : WREN

The wren is a small songbird belonging to the family troglodytidae and the genus troglodytes. Wrens are known for making dome-shaped nests.

55 Man, for one : ISLE

The Isle of Man is a large island located in the middle of the Irish Sea between Great Britain and Ireland. I used to spend a lot of time there in my youth, and find it a very interesting place indeed. The Isle of Man is classed as a British Crown Dependency and isn’t part of the United Kingdom at all. It is self-governing and has its own parliament called the Tynwald. The Tynwald was created in AD 979 and is arguably the oldest continuously-running parliament in the world. The inhabitants of the island speak English, although they do have their own language called Manx, which is very similar to Irish Gaeilge and Scottish Gaelic. And then there are those Manx cats, the ones without any tails. I’ve seen lots of them, and can attest that they are indeed found all over the island.

59 Ending with Gator or hater : -ADE

Gatorade was developed at the University of Florida by a team of researchers at the request of the school’s football team. And so, Gatorade is named after the Gators football team.

An extremely negative person might be described as having drunk the “haterade”, a play on the beverage “Gatorade”.

60 Rooibos, e.g. : TEA

Red tea is made from the leaves of the South African rooibos plant. The name “rooibos” translates as “red bush”.

Complete List of Clues/Answers

Across

1 Urgent order : ASAP
5 Alternatives to dogs : BRATS
10 Winter hrs. in Seattle : PST
13 “Mas Que ___” (classic Brazilian song from the 1960s) : NADA
14 Certain bite risk : RABIES
16 Quizzical cries : OHS
17 Striped polecat’s defense : ODOR
18 ___ pan (kitchen utensil) : OMELET
19 “The sweetest joy, the wildest ___ is love”: Pearl Bailey : WOE
20 Important warning before you answer 32-, 40- and 52-Across? : SPOILER ALERT
23 Maneuvered (for) : ANGLED
26 Skyline features : SPIRES
27 Skyline feature : TOWER
28 Top suit : CEO
31 Interruption : LAPSE
32 2003 Pixar animated adventure : THEY FOUND NEMO (from “Finding Nemo”)
35 Start to profit? : NON-
36 Pad, so to speak : ABODE
37 Pirates’ domain : SEA
40 2004 Quentin Tarantino martial arts film : SHE KILLED BILL (from “Kill Bill”)
45 Suburb about 20 miles WNW of Boston : ACTON
47 Low island : CAY
48 Birthplace of Pythagoras : IONIA
49 Petitions : PLEADS
51 “___? We don’t need no stinking ___!” : BADGES
52 1993 Warner Bros. family drama : HE FREED WILLY (from “Free Willy”)
56 Investment inits. : IRA
57 Disinclined : AVERSE
58 Texas is the largest U.S. producer of these : OATS
62 Hullabaloo : DIN
63 Makes merry : REVELS
64 Thought : IDEA
65 Acoustics, for one: Abbr. : SCI
66 Striped yellow balls, in pool : NINES
67 Stretch in logic : LEAP

Down

1 Year in Brazil : ANO
2 Word before case or sack : SAD …
3 Flurry : ADO
4 Chimichurri ingredient : PARSLEY
5 Chicks, say : BROOD
6 Actor Malek : RAMI
7 ___ Tesfaye, a.k.a. The Weeknd : ABEL
8 Flooring option : TILE
9 Some card readers : SEERS
10 Standing like Wonder Woman, say : POWER POSING
11 They’re constantly lapped : SHORES
12 Kind of fly : TSETSE
15 Jump scares, in horror movies : STAPLE
21 Ideal, informally : PERF
22 Gallagher of rock’s Oasis : LIAM
23 Subject line abbr. : ATTN
24 Home of N.Y.C.’s Public Theater : NOHO
25 Singer with the 2016 #1 album “This Is What the Truth Feels Like” : GWEN STEFANI
28 Apt rhyme for “Rubik” : CUBIC
29 “The ___ Holmes Mysteries,” young adult series about a 14-year-old detective : ENOLA
30 Not as expected : ODDLY
33 Kind of branch depicted on German euro coins : OAK
34 Formerly known as : NEE
38 Political correspondent Mystal : ELIE
39 [Sigh] : [ALAS]
41 Rime : HOAR
42 Cause to be admired : ENDEAR
43 Anachronistic verb in the age of smartphones : DIAL
44 Lotion alternative : BODY OIL
45 Green bugs : APHIDS
46 One of a character class in Dungeons & Dragons : CLERIC
50 Upside-down L, on a calculator : SEVEN
51 Approve : BLESS
53 Goddess in the Hindu pantheon : DEVI
54 Small bird with a loud song : WREN
55 Man, for one : ISLE
59 Ending with Gator or hater : -ADE
60 Rooibos, e.g. : TEA
61 Exhaust : SAP