0920-22 NY Times Crossword 20 Sep 22, Tuesday

Constructed by: Rebecca Goldstein & Rachel Fabi
Edited by: Will Shortz

Today’s Theme (according to Bill): “Tri-ed” Solving

Themed answers each comprise three identical words:

  • 17A Verbal disapproval of a boy king? : TUT-TUT, TUT
  • 28A Food for a sturdy Chinese dog? : CHOW CHOW CHOW
  • 47A Conference call for Mazda’s marketing team? : ZOOM-ZOOM ZOOM
  • 64A Glutes developed while dancing at the Moulin Rouge? : CAN-CAN CAN

Bill’s time: 7m 10s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

5 Growth in an aquatic bloom : ALGA

An algal bloom that takes on a red or brown color is commonly referred to as “red tide”. The algae causing the bloom are phytoplankton containing photosynthetic pigments that give the red/brown color. Some red tides are extremely harmful to marine life as there can be a depletion of oxygen dissolved in the seawater. The algae can also contain natural toxins that can kill those creatures that eat it.

9 The “A” of the ABC Islands : ARUBA

Aruba is one of the so-called ABC islands located off the northern coast of Venezuela. “ABC Islands” is a name given to the three westernmost islands of the Leeward Antilles in the Caribbean. The nickname comes from the first letters of the island names: Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao. All three of the ABC islands are part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

17 Verbal disapproval of a boy king? : TUT-TUT TUT

“King Tut” is a name commonly used for the Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun. Tutankhamun may not have been the most significant of the pharaohs historically, but he is the most famous today largely because of the discovery of his nearly intact tomb in 1922 by Howard Carter. Prior to this find, any Egyptian tombs uncovered by archaeologists had been ravaged by grave robbers. Tutankhamun’s magnificent burial mask is one of the most recognizable of all Egyptian artifacts.

19 Beyond repair : KAPUT

“Kaput” is a familiar term meaning “incapacitated, destroyed”, and comes to us from French (via German). The original word “capot” means “not having won a single trick” in the French card game Piquet.

23 U.F.O. pilots : ETS

One might speculate that an unidentified flying object (UFO) is flown by an extraterrestrial (ET).

26 Fragrant conifer : CEDAR

Cedar is used for the manufacture of some wardrobes and chests as it has long been believed that the fragrant oil in the wood is a moth-repellent. However, whether or not cedar oil is actually effective at keeping moths away seems to be in doubt.

28 Food for a sturdy Chinese dog? : CHOW CHOW CHOW

The chow chow is a breed of dog that originated in China. The Chinese name for the breed is “Songshi Quan”, which translates as “puffy-lion dog”, a rather apt name given its appearance …

“Chow” is a slang term for “food” that originated in California in the mid-1800s. “Chow” comes from the Chinese pidgin English “chow-chow” meaning “food”.

33 Accolades presented in Nashville, for short : CMAS

Country Music Association (CMA)

42 Pen tip : NIB

“Nib” is a Scottish variant of the Old English word “neb”, with both meaning “beak of a bird”. This usage of “nib” as a beak dates back to the 14th century, with “nib” describing the tip of a pen or quill coming a little later, in the early 1600s.

43 Lack of joie de vivre : ENNUI

“Ennui” is the French word for “boredom”, and a term that we now use in English. It’s one of the few French words we’ve imported and haven’t anglicized, and actually pronounce “correctly”.

“Joie de vivre” means “joy of living” in French. We use the phrase to mean the happy, carefree enjoyment of life, like when we finish our crossword puzzles …

47 Conference call for Mazda’s marketing team? : ZOOM-ZOOM ZOOM

“Zoom-zoom” is a catchphrase used by the automaker Mazda. Mazda is based in the Hiroshima Prefecture in Japan. The ballpark where the Hiroshima baseball team plays was for many years known as the MAZDA Zoom-Zoom Stadium.

Zoom is a videoconferencing app that became remarkably popular in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. The market deemed Zoom to be the easiest to use of the free videoconferencing apps. I’ve been using it, but really prefer Google’s Meet offering …

58 Shake an Etch A Sketch, say : ERASE

Etch A Sketch was introduced in 1960. The toy was developed in France by inventor André Cassagnes, who initially named it “L’Écran Magique” (The Magic Screen).

61 Actress Kaley : CUOCO

Kaley Cuoco is an actress from Camarillo, California who is best known for playing Penny, the female lead on the sitcom “The Big Bang Theory”. Cuoco’s love interest in the show is played by Johnny Galecki, and the two were romantically involved in real life for a couple of years. Cuoco is also getting a lot of exposure playing William Shatner’s daughter on priceline.com ads, and playing a genie in Toyota RAV4 commercials.

64 Glutes developed while dancing at the Moulin Rouge? : CAN-CAN CAN

The Moulin Rouge cabaret is located right in the middle of one of the red light districts of Paris, the district of Pigalle. You can’t miss the Moulin Rouge as it has a huge red windmill on its roof (“moulin rouge” is French for “red windmill”). The nightclub opened its doors in 1889 and soon after, the working girls of the cabaret adopted a “respectable” party dance and used it to entice their clients. That was the birth of the can-can. Nowadays, the Moulin Rouge is home to a lavish, Las Vegas-style show that costs millions of euros to stage. It features showgirls, dancers and acrobats, a whole host of entertainers in fact. And I am sure the can-can features as well …

66 Martial art with bamboo swords : KENDO

Kendo is a Japanese martial art based on sword fighting.

68 Tropical root vegetable : TARO

Taro is a root vegetable that is grown for its edible underground plant stems (corms). The English name “taro” is borrowed from the Maori language of New Zealand. The same plant is known as “gabi” in the Philippines, “arbi” in much of India, and “jimbi” in parts of Africa where Swahili is spoken.

70 Animated princess voiced by Idina Menzel : ELSA

Actress and singer Idina Menzel came to public attention when she was a member of the original Broadway cast of “Rent”. She is known on the small screen for playing Shelby Corcoran on the musical TV show “Glee”. On the big screen, her most noted performance was as the voice actor behind Queen Elsa in the Disney hit “Frozen”. It is Menzel who sings the Oscar-winning song “Let It Go” in “Frozen”.

71 Staked, as a vampire : SLEW

Legends about vampires were particularly common in Eastern Europe and in the Balkans in particular. The superstition was that vampires could be killed using a wooden stake, with the preferred type of wood varying from place to place. Superstition also defines where the body should be pierced. Most often, the stake was driven through the heart, but Russians and northern Germans went for the mouth, and northeastern Serbs for the stomach.

Down

2 Neutral tone : TAUPE

Taupe is a dark, gray-brown color. The word “taupe” comes from the Latin name of the European Mole, which has skin with the same color.

5 Like the name Bell for the inventor of the telephone : APT

Alexander Graham Bell was an inventor and scientist from Edinburgh, Scotland who later lived in Canada and the US. Both his wife and his mother were deaf, a fact that led to Bell spending much of life researching hearing and speech. Bell’s work on hearing devices led to the invention of the telephone. Paradoxically, Bell hated the telephone and refused to have one in the study of his home where he worked. I am with him on this one, as I hate the phone …

10 Coastal inlet : RIA

A drowned valley might be called a ria or a fjord, and both are formed as sea levels rise. A ria is a drowned valley created by river erosion, and a fjord is a drowned valley created by glaciation.

13 Uninvited picnic guests : ANTS

Our term “picnic” comes from the French word that now has the same meaning, namely “pique-nique”. The original “pique-nique” was a fashionable potluck affair, and not necessarily held outdoors.

18 Four-letter member of the Four Corners : UTAH

The Four Corners region of the US surrounds the meeting point of the four states of Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and Utah. The Four Corners is the only point in the US that is shared by four states.

22 ___ Speedwagon : REO

REO Speedwagon is an American rock band that formed in 1967, and is still going strong. The band’s biggest hits are “Keep On Loving You” (1980) and “Can’t Fight This Feeling” (1985). The founding members chose the name for the REO Speed Wagon flatbed truck. Note that the band’s name is one word “Speedwagon”, whereas the vehicle’s name uses two words “Speed Wagon”.

31 “The Art of Love” poet : OVID

“Ars amatoria” (“The Art of Love” in English) is a series of poems in three books by the Roman poet Ovid. Book one provides men with instruction on how to find a woman. Book two gives a man guidance on keeping that woman. Ovid turns the tables in book three and gives advice to women on how to find and keep a man.

32 Productions of Spider-Man : WEBS

Spider-Man is a creation of Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, and first appeared in comics in 1962. He was a somewhat groundbreaking character in that his alter ego was a teenage high school student (Peter Parker), which marked the first time that a young person featured front and center as the superhero.

33 French word in many bistro names : CHEZ

“Chez” is a French term meaning “at the house of”, which comes from the Latin word “casa” meaning “cottage” or “hut”.

“Bistro” was originally a Parisian slang term describing a little wine shop or restaurant.

39 Tina Fey’s “30 Rock” role : LIZ LEMON

“30 Rock” is a sitcom on NBC that was created by the show’s star Tina Fey. Fey plays an ex-performer and writer from “Saturday Night Live” (SNL) and uses her experiences on that show as a basis for the “30 Rock” storyline. Fey plays Liz Lemon, the head writer for the fictional sketch comedy series “TGS with Tracy Jordan”.

40 Musical set in Oz, with “The” : … WIZ

“The Wiz”, the 1974 musical, was written by Charlie Smalls and is an African-American adaptation of Baum’s “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz”. The film version of the stage show was released in 1978, starring Diana Ross as Dorothy and Michael Jackson as the Scarecrow. I haven’t seen it, though. “The Wizard of Oz” scares me, as the flying monkeys creep me out. There, I’ve admitted it in public …

44 Thurman of “The Producers” : UMA

Robert Thurman was the first westerner to be ordained a Tibetan Buddhist monk. Robert raised his children in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition and called his daughter “Uma” as it is a phonetic spelling of the Buddhist name “Dbuma”. Uma’s big break in the movies came with her starring role in Quentin Tarantino’s 1994 hit “Pulp Fiction”. My favorite Uma Thurman film is the wonderful 1996 romantic comedy “The Truth About Cats and Dogs”.

“The Producers” is a 1968 satirical movie written and directed by Mel Brooks, and was indeed the first film he ever directed. Brooks adapted the movie into a hugely successful Broadway musical that won a record 12 Tony Awards. The original leads in the stage show, Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick, then appeared in a 2005 movie adaptation of the musical version of the original film.

48 Anthem contraction : O’ER

The words “o’er the ramparts we watched” come from “The Star Spangled Banner” written by Francis Scott Key.

49 All-seeing being : ORACLE

In ancient Greece and Rome, an oracle was someone believed to be inspired by the gods to give wise counsel. The word “oracle” derives from the Latin “orare” meaning “to speak”, which is the same root for our word “orator”. One of the most important oracles of ancient Greece was Pythia, the high priestess to Apollo at Delphi.

56 Go 10+ miles in a triathlon, say : BIKE

An Ironman Triathlon is a race involving a 2.4 mile swim, a 112 mile bike ride, and a marathon run of just over 26 miles. The idea for the race came out of a debate between some runners in the 1977 Oahu Perimeter Relay. They were questioning whether runners, swimmers or bikers were the most fit athletes. The debaters decided to combine three local events to determine the answer, inviting athletes from all three disciplines. The events that were mimicked in the first triathlon were the Waikiki Roughwater swim (2.4 miles), the Around-Oahu Bike Race (115 miles) and the Honolulu Marathon (26.2 miles). The idea was that whoever finishes first would be called “the Iron Man”. The first triathlon was run in 1978, with fifteen starters and only twelve finishers. The race format is used all over the world now, but the Hawaiian Ironman is the event that everyone wants to win.

60 Termini : ENDS

We absorbed our word “terminus” (plural “termini”) from Latin, and in both languages it means “end, final goal”. The Roman god Terminus presided over landmarks and boundaries, and was the focus of the festival of Terminalia at the end of the Roman year.

65 Local produce org. : CSA

Community Supported Agriculture (CSA)

Complete List of Clues/Answers

Across

1 A little bit of everything? : ATOM
5 Growth in an aquatic bloom : ALGA
9 The “A” of the ABC Islands : ARUBA
14 Shoestring : LACE
15 Hit, as with snowballs : PELT
16 Drink slowly : SIP ON
17 Verbal disapproval of a boy king? : TUT-TUT, TUT
19 Beyond repair : KAPUT
20 Not together : APART
21 Participate in a playground “contest” : STARE
23 U.F.O. pilots : ETS
24 Call again : REDIAL
26 Fragrant conifer : CEDAR
28 Food for a sturdy Chinese dog? : CHOW CHOW CHOW
33 Accolades presented in Nashville, for short : CMAS
36 Expression of contempt : BAH!
37 Hurl : HEAVE
38 Megan Thee Stallion’s “___ Girl Summer” : HOT
39 Ushered out : LED AWAY
42 Pen tip : NIB
43 Lack of joie de vivre : ENNUI
45 Common “wardrobe malfunction” : RIP
46 Puts two and two together, e.g. : ADDS
47 Conference call for Mazda’s marketing team? : ZOOM-ZOOM ZOOM
51 Less tanned, say : PALER
52 Revenue minus costs : PROFIT
56 Prefix with chemistry : BIO-
58 Shake an Etch A Sketch, say : ERASE
61 Actress Kaley : CUOCO
62 Put two and two together, e.g. : IDIOM
64 Glutes developed while dancing at the Moulin Rouge? : CAN-CAN CAN
66 Martial art with bamboo swords : KENDO
67 Jar toppers : LIDS
68 Tropical root vegetable : TARO
69 Consumed : EATEN
70 Animated princess voiced by Idina Menzel : ELSA
71 Staked, as a vampire : SLEW

Down

1 Spot for some sacraments : ALTAR
2 Neutral tone : TAUPE
3 Group of eight : OCTAD
4 Standards for measuring : METRICS
5 Like the name Bell for the inventor of the telephone : APT
6 “It’s a date!” : LET’S!
7 Overabundance : GLUT
8 Email action with a paper clip icon : ATTACH
9 Tried to find a reason : ASKED WHY
10 Coastal inlet : RIA
11 Advantage, so to speak : UPPER HAND
12 Boxing match : BOUT
13 Uninvited picnic guests : ANTS
18 Four-letter member of the Four Corners : UTAH
22 ___ Speedwagon : REO
25 Brain section : LOBE
27 Part of 10-J-Q-K-A : ACE
29 Stack of bills : WAD
30 Bracelet dangler : CHARM
31 “The Art of Love” poet : OVID
32 Productions of Spider-Man : WEBS
33 French word in many bistro names : CHEZ
34 Lead-in to syllabic or chromatic : MONO-
35 Not even once : AT NO POINT
39 Tina Fey’s “30 Rock” role : LIZ LEMON
40 Musical set in Oz, with “The” : … WIZ
41 Per person : A POP
44 Thurman of “The Producers” : UMA
46 Dollars and cents, e.g. : AMOUNTS
48 Anthem contraction : O’ER
49 All-seeing being : ORACLE
50 Mammal made from the first four letters of 49-Down : ORCA
53 Central : FOCAL
54 “You’ve got a friend in me” : I CARE
55 As of yet : TO NOW
56 Go 10+ miles in a triathlon, say : BIKE
57 “The faintest” thing : IDEA
59 Take to the seas : SAIL
60 Termini : ENDS
63 Praiseful poem : ODE
65 Local produce org. : CSA

7 thoughts on “0920-22 NY Times Crossword 20 Sep 22, Tuesday”

  1. 11:50. A little tricky in spots but nothing too horrible.

    What do you do if you’re an expert in KENDO and out for a walk and someone attacks you and you don’t have your sword with you? It’d be useless.

    Best –

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