0829-22 NY Times Crossword 29 Aug 22, Monday

Constructed by: Chase Dittrich & Jeff Chen
Edited by: Will Shortz

Today’s Reveal Answer(s): Piece of My Heart

Themed answers each end with a PIECE OF MY HEART:

  • 38A With 41-Across, classic love song suggested by the ends to 18-, 24-, 50-, and 60-Across : PIECE OF …
  • 41A See 38-Across : … MY HEART
  • 18A Environment that reinforces one’s biases : ECHO CHAMBER
  • 24A Major thoroughfare : TRAFFIC ARTERY
  • 50A “Similarly …” : IN THE SAME VEIN
  • 60A Precautionary device in a pneumatic machine : SAFETY VALVE

Bill’s time: 6m 24s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1 Gadot of “Wonder Woman” : GAL

Gal Gadot is an actress and former Miss Israel. She played Gisele Yashar in the “Fast & Furious” film franchise, and then began portraying Wonder Woman in superhero movies.

“Wonder Woman” is a 2017 film starring Gal Gadot as the superhero title character. It is listed by many as one of the best superhero movies of all time. Gadot had played Wonder Woman before, in the 2016 film “Batman v Superman”.

15 Root vegetable that’s red on the outside and white on the inside : RADISH

Radishes are edible root vegetables that are commonly grown for use in salads. Gardeners also use radishes as companion plants as the odor given off can deter pests such as aphids, ants and cucumber beetles.

20 Seating that might be L-shaped : SOFA

“Sofa” is a Turkish word meaning “bench”.

29 Bungee jumper’s attachment : CORD

The elastic cord known as bungee cord is also known as shock cord. The term “bungee” probably comes from Britain where it was schoolboy slang for “rubber eraser”, and likely came from the words “bouncy” and “spongy”.

The first bungee jump using the modern latex cord was from the Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol, England. It was an illegal jump, with all five jumpers getting arrested soon after “hitting” the ground.

30 Bread for a pastrami sandwich : RYE

In the US, pastrami was originally called “pastrama”, and was a dish brought to America by Jewish immigrants from Romania in the second half of the nineteenth century. The original name may have evolved from the Turkish word “pastirma” meaning “pressed”. “Pastrama” likely morphed into “pastrami” influenced by the name of the Italian sausage called salami.

33 Skedaddle : SPLIT

“Skedaddle” is a slang term meaning “run away” that dates back to the Civil War.

37 Joint ailment : GOUT

Gout is caused by an elevation of the levels of uric acid in the blood. As a result of the high concentrations, the uric acid can crystallize out in tissue causing extreme discomfort. What we tend to call gout occurs when the crystals are deposited in the big toe. Gout is sometimes referred to as “the disease of kings” or “the rich man’s disease”, as it is associated with a traditionally opulent diet.

38 With 41-Across, classic love song suggested by the ends to 18-, 24-, 50-, and 60-Across : PIECE OF …
41 See 38-Across : … MY HEART

“Piece of My Heart” is a 1967 song that was first recorded by soul singer Erma Franklin, older sister of Aretha Franklin. The song has become a classic, and has been covered successfully many times by the likes of Janis Joplin (as vocalist with Big Brother and the Holding Company), Dusty Springfield and Faith Hill.

43 Utah ski town : ALTA

Alta ski resort actually lies within the Salt Lake City Metropolitan Area. The first ski lift in the resort was opened way back in 1939. Today, Alta is one of only three ski resorts in the country that prohibits snowboarding (along with Deer Valley, Utah and Mad River Glen, Vermont). The ski resort of Snowbird, located next to Alta, has been in operation since 1971.

44 Robotic villain in “2001: A Space Odyssey” : HAL

In Arthur C. Clarke’s “Space Odyssey” (famously adapted for the big screen as “2001: A Space Odyssey”) the computer system that went rogue was called HAL 9000, or simply “HAL”. HAL stands for “Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer”. Even though Clarke denied it, there’s a good argument that can be made that the acronym HAL is a veiled reference to IBM, the big player in the world of computing at the time of the novel’s publication (1968). The acronym HAL is just a one-letter shift from the initials “IBM”.

46 Home to more than 350 million vegetarians : INDIA

The vast Asian country of India takes its name from the Indus River. The name “Indus” in turn comes from the Sanskrit “Sindhu” that can be translated as “a body of trembling water”. India is the second-most populous country in the world (after China), and the most populous democracy.

56 Clarinetist Shaw : ARTIE

Artie Shaw was a composer, bandleader and jazz clarinetist. Shaw’s real name was Arthur Jacob Arshawsky, born in New York City in 1910. One of his many claims to fame is that he (a white bandleader) hired Billie Holiday (a black vocalist) and toured the segregated South in the late thirties. Holiday chose to leave the band though, due to hostility from Southern audiences back then. Artie Shaw was married eight times in all. The list of his wives includes the actresses Lana Turner and Ava Gardner, as well as Betty Kern, daughter of songwriter Jerome Kern.

58 Corp. money overseer : CFO

The chief financial officer (CFO) is particularly concerned about his or her company’s profit and loss (P&L).

59 Does some mental math : ADDS

Here’s another term that catches me out all the time, having done my schooling on the other side of the Atlantic. The term “mathematics” is shortened to “math” in the US, but to “maths” in Britain and Ireland.

65 Newspaper covering Congress, with “The” : … HILL

The designer of Washington D.C., Pierre L’Enfant, chose the crest of a hill as the site for the future Congress House. He called the location “Jenkins Hill” and “Jenkins Heights”. Earlier records show the name as “New Troy”. Today we call it “Capitol Hill”.

66 Filled French pastry : ECLAIR

The name for the pastry known as an “éclair” is clearly French in origin. The French word for lightning is “éclair”, but no one seems to be too sure how it came to be used for the rather delicious bakery item.

68 Big name in ice cream : EDY’S

Dreyer’s ice cream sells its products under the name Dreyer’s in the Western United States, and Edy’s in the Eastern states. The company’s founders were William Dreyer and Joseph Edy.

Down

1 Blinky, Pinky, Inky or Clyde, in Pac-Man : GHOST

The Pac-Man arcade game was first released in Japan in 1980, and is as popular today as it ever was. The game features characters that are maneuvered around the screen to eat up dots and earn points, while being pursued by ghosts named Blinky, Pinky, Inky and Clyde. The name of the game comes from the Japanese folk hero “Paku”, who is known for his voracious appetite. The spin-off game called Ms. Pac-Man was released in 1981.

3 Scrubber in the tub : LOOFA

The loofah (also “loofa”, “lufah” and “luffa”, all Arabic words) is a vine, with fruit that’s very popular in Asia and Africa. If the fruit is allowed to mature, it can be processed to remove everything but the more rigid xylem structure (remember your high school botany class?) leaving a soft, sponge-like mass that is used as a skin polisher.

4 Test for some coll. seniors : GRE

Passing the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) is usually a requirement for entry into graduate school here in the US.

5 Obtained from milk : LACTIC

The prefix “lacto-” is used in words from the fields of chemistry and biochemistry like “lactose”, “lactic” and “lactase”. The term comes from the Latin “lac” meaning “milk”.

6 For a single purpose, as a committee : AD HOC

The Latin phrase “ad hoc” means “for this purpose”. An ad hoc committee, for example, is formed for a specific purpose and disbanded after making its final report.

7 It’s “read” to an unruly crowd : RIOT ACT

The Riot Act was a British law that was in force from 1715 to 1967. According to the Riot Act, government entities could declare any gathering of twelve or more people “unlawful”. Our expression “read the Riot Act to” is derived from the requirement for the authorities to read out the Riot Act proclamation to an unlawful assembly before the Act could be enforced.

8 Top-left keyboard key : ESC

On many computer keyboards, the escape key (Esc) is located beside the first function key (F1).

10 Esports competitor : GAMER

Esports (electronic sports) are video game competitions. The International Olympic Committee has held meetings to consider the inclusion of esports in the Olympic Games. What about medals for crossword solving …?

11 Beatles album whose cover shows the band using a crosswalk : ABBEY ROAD

The Abbey Road Studios in London was a large Georgian townhouse built in the 1830s. It became a recording studio in 1931, and you can even see some YouTube videos showing Sir Edward Elgar back then making recordings with the London symphony Orchestra. The studios passed through various owners and by the time the Beatles started their famous recording it was known as EMI Studios. The Beatles recorded practically all of their albums there, between 1962 and 1970, and named their 1969 album “Abbey Road” for the studio. That’s the one with the cover showing the Fab Four crossing the “zebra crossing” outside the studio.

21 Kilimanjaro is its highest point : AFRICA

The Carthaginian Republic was centered on the city of Carthage, the ruins of which are located on the coast of modern-day Tunisia. The Latin name for the people of Carthage was “Afri”. When the Romans took over Carthage, they created a province they called “Africa”. That name extended over time to include the whole continent.

Kilimanjaro is a dormant volcano in Tanzania, and is the highest mountain in the whole of Africa.

27 Helen of ___ : TROY

According to Greek mythology, Helen (later “Helen of Troy”) was the daughter of Zeus and Leda. When Helen reached the age of marriage, she had many suitors as she was considered the most beautiful woman in the world. Menelaus was chosen as her husband, and he took her back to his home of Sparta. Paris, a Trojan prince, seduced Helen, as she eloped with him and traveled to Troy. This event sparked the Trojan War that waged between the city of Troy and Greece. Because of this war, Helen was said to have “the face that launched a thousand ships”. And because of this phrase, it has been suggested, probably by author Isaac Asimov, that the amount of beauty needed to launch a single ship is one “millihelen”.

31 ___ Gagarin, first person in space : YURI

Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space when his spacecraft Vostok I made a single orbit of the Earth in 1961. Sadly, Gagarin died only seven years later in a plane crash.

32 James who sang “Tell Mama” : ETTA

“Tell Mama” is a 1967 song recorded by Etta James that was written by singer Clarence Carter. Carter had released a 1966 version of the song himself, under the original title “Tell Daddy”.

33 Fix, as a pet : SPAY

Our verb “to spay”, meaning “to surgically remove the ovaries of” (an animal), comes from an old Anglo-French word “espeier” meaning “to cut with a sword”.

37 Swiss city that’s home to the International Red Cross : GENEVA

Genève (“Geneva” in English) is the largest city in the French-speaking part of Switzerland. I’ve been to Geneva only once, and sadly what I remember most is how expensive it is. It is in fact the fourth or fifth most expensive city in the world.

Back in 1859, a Swiss businessman called Henri Dunant went to meet French emperor Napoleon III, to discuss making it easier to conduct commerce in French-occupied Algeria. The Emperor was billeted at Solferino, where France and Austria were engaged in a major battle. In one day, Dunant witnessed 40,000 soldiers die or get wounded on the battlefield without any organized medical care. Dunant abandoned his business agenda and instead spent a week caring for the sick and wounded. Within a few years he had founded the precursor to the Red Cross, and in 1901 he was awarded the first ever Nobel Peace Prize.

45 Famed Milan opera house : LA SCALA

La Scala Opera House opened in 1778. It was built on the site of the church of Santa Maria della Scala, which gave the theater its Italian name “Teatro alla Scala”.

48 “Leave in,” to a copy editor : STET

“Stet” is a Latin word meaning “let it stand”. In editorial work, the typesetter is instructed to disregard any change previously marked by writing the word “stet” and then underscoring that change with a line of dots or dashes.

51 Nobelist Bohr : NIELS

Niels Bohr was a Danish physicist who won his 1922 Nobel Prize for his work on quantum mechanics and atomic structure. Later in his life, Bohr was part of the team working on the Manhattan Project that developed the first atomic bomb. Niels Bohr and Albert Einstein had a series of public debates and disputes in the twenties and thirties. Although the two respected each other very highly, they held very different views on quantum theory, different views on the laws of physics at the atomic level. The passage of time has shown that Bohr won out in those debates.

52 Company whose name gets quacked in ads : AFLAC

In 1999, Aflac (American Family Life Assurance Company) was huge in the world of insurance but it wasn’t a household name, so a New York advertising agency was given the task of making the Aflac brand more memorable. One of the agency’s art directors, while walking around Central Park one lunchtime, heard a duck quacking and in his mind linked it with “Aflac”, and that duck has been “Aflacking” ever since …

53 Oscar winner Redmayne : EDDIE

English actor Eddie Redmayne played mainly supporting roles, such as Marius Pontmercy in 2012’s “Les Misérables”, until he wowed the world portraying Stephen Hawking in “The Theory of Everything”. A few years later, Redmayne played Lili Elbe in “The Danish Girl”, and then Newt Scamander in the Harry Potter spinoff “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them”.

54 Moron : IDIOT

The unsavory term “idiot” was formerly used by the medical community to describe someone with moderate to severe mental retardation. The term comes from the Greek “idiotes” meaning “person lacking professional skill, layman”. Back in the early 1900s, IQ tests were used to classify those suffering from mental retardation into categories:

  • “idiot” … IQ of 0-20
  • “imbecile” … IQ of 21-50
  • “moron” …IQ of 51-70

55 “Bye Bye Bye” boy band : NSYNC

“Bye Bye Bye” is a 2000 hit song recorded by the boy band NSYNC. It was originally written for another boy band, the English group 5ive, but they passed on it.

56 ___ Stadium, U.S. Open tennis locale : ASHE

Arthur Ashe Stadium in Queens, New York opened in 1997, and is the largest outdoor, tennis-only venue in the world. The stadium was often criticized for not having a retractable dome to protect the playing surface from inclement weather. Well, that changed in 2016 when the stadium debuted its new retractable roof, a $150 million investment in the facility.

62 Once-popular device in a den, in brief : VCR

Video Cassette Recorder (VCR)

Complete List of Clues/Answers

Across

1 Gadot of “Wonder Woman” : GAL
4 Annoying reflections while driving : GLARES
10 Nasty cut : GASH
14 ___ Max (popular streaming service) : HBO
15 Root vegetable that’s red on the outside and white on the inside : RADISH
16 Well-qualified : ABLE
17 “Well, look at that!” : OHO!
18 Environment that reinforces one’s biases : ECHO CHAMBER
20 Seating that might be L-shaped : SOFA
22 Young ‘un : TOT
23 Does some gardening work : WEEDS
24 Major thoroughfare : TRAFFIC ARTERY
28 Video camera button : REC
29 Bungee jumper’s attachment : CORD
30 Bread for a pastrami sandwich : RYE
33 Skedaddle : SPLIT
36 Excessively : TOO
37 Joint ailment : GOUT
38 With 41-Across, classic love song suggested by the ends to 18-, 24-, 50-, and 60-Across : PIECE OF …
41 See 38-Across : … MY HEART
43 Utah ski town : ALTA
44 Robotic villain in “2001: A Space Odyssey” : HAL
46 Home to more than 350 million vegetarians : INDIA
47 “For sure” : YES
48 Two-liter bottle contents, often : SODA
49 Wrath : IRE
50 “Similarly …” : IN THE SAME VEIN …
56 Clarinetist Shaw : ARTIE
58 Corp. money overseer : CFO
59 Does some mental math : ADDS
60 Precautionary device in a pneumatic machine : SAFETY VALVE
64 Home project inits. : DIY
65 Newspaper covering Congress, with “The” : … HILL
66 Filled French pastry : ECLAIR
67 Positive or negative particle : ION
68 Big name in ice cream : EDY’S
69 Inquiry for a lost package : TRACER
70 And so on: Abbr. : ETC

Down

1 Blinky, Pinky, Inky or Clyde, in Pac-Man : GHOST
2 Hate, hate, hate : ABHOR
3 Scrubber in the tub : LOOFA
4 Test for some coll. seniors : GRE
5 Obtained from milk : LACTIC
6 For a single purpose, as a committee : AD HOC
7 It’s “read” to an unruly crowd : RIOT ACT
8 Top-left keyboard key : ESC
9 “Quiet!” : SHH!
10 Esports competitor : GAMER
11 Beatles album whose cover shows the band using a crosswalk : ABBEY ROAD
12 Snow day conveyance : SLED
13 That woman’s : HERS
19 Wonderstruck : AWED
21 Kilimanjaro is its highest point : AFRICA
25 Big party : FETE
26 Word after elbow, escape and emergency : … ROOM
27 Helen of ___ : TROY
31 ___ Gagarin, first person in space : YURI
32 James who sang “Tell Mama” : ETTA
33 Fix, as a pet : SPAY
34 Heap : PILE
35 Doesn’t hold back one’s emotions : LETS IT FLY
37 Swiss city that’s home to the International Red Cross : GENEVA
39 “Pick me! Pick me!” : OH! OH!
40 Haircut common in the Marine Corps : FADE
42 Put on the payroll : HIRE
45 Famed Milan opera house : LA SCALA
48 “Leave in,” to a copy editor : STET
49 Video editing program from Apple : IMOVIE
51 Nobelist Bohr : NIELS
52 Company whose name gets quacked in ads : AFLAC
53 Oscar winner Redmayne : EDDIE
54 Moron : IDIOT
55 “Bye Bye Bye” boy band : NSYNC
56 ___ Stadium, U.S. Open tennis locale : ASHE
57 Apt rhyme for “invade” : RAID
61 Until now : YET
62 Once-popular device in a den, in brief : VCR
63 Blunder : ERR

11 thoughts on “0829-22 NY Times Crossword 29 Aug 22, Monday”

  1. 7:55. Sure felt tough for a Monday.

    Late today. I’ll get a note from home later….

    Best –

  2. @Glenn (WRT the asymmetry issue) …

    (I just posted about this on Friday’s blog, but you may not see it there.)

    The original comment you made (on the LAX blog) that piqued my interest was this:

    “Honestly, assymetry was never that much of an issue to me as a solver and usually outside of more ‘mainstream’ sources any puzzle I see is almost always asymmetric.”

    Your recent comments are in line with my experience: that true asymmetry in crossword puzzles is quite rare.

    So … I’ve stopped searching for the sites of which you originally spoke … 😜

    1. The operative in that one was “I see”. The problem in pointing/sharing is that I pay for the asymmetric stuff (namely Ries) that came immediately to mind. So really not an issue of that. But like I said they do exist. You have to keep your eyes open.

        1. He’s even been pretty symmetric with his grids lately. So I wouldn’t poke around in his stuff too hard, especially if you have thought to pay for any of it. (He does very good stuff so I wouldn’t avoid him as a solver if you just want to do puzzles.) I think most constructors do be symmetric unless they get bad fill by doing it. That’s the main reason Agard is doing it with USA Today stuff. Most of the time it’s not necessary.

  3. 13:41 no errors…I was always above par on the golf course and now I’m below par on crosswords…Anyone know how I could switch them?
    Stay safe😀

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