Constructed by: Natan Last
Edited by: Will Shortz
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… syndicated NY Times crossword
Today’s Theme: None
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Bill’s time: 17m 50s
Bill’s errors: 2
- VMI (YMI!)
- OCEAN VUONG (Ocean Young)
Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies
Across
14 Boombox sound : BLARE
A boombox is a portable music player with speakers that includes an AM/FM radio as well as a recording device (originally cassette tapes, and later compact discs). The first boombox was introduced by Philips in 1966 as a “Radiorecorder”, a portable device that could record radio broadcasts without the need to use external cables and microphones. Boomboxes became very popular with young people in urban areas. The practice of playing loud music using boomboxes in neighborhoods led to the devices being labeled as “ghetto blasters”.
18 River through Bath : AVON
There are actually four rivers called the Avon in England, but “Shakespeare’s Avon” lies mainly in Warwickshire, and so is sometimes known as the Warwickshire Avon. The name “Avon” comes from the Old English word “abona” meaning “river”. Stratford-upon-Avon was the birthplace of William Shakespeare.
Bath is a beautiful city in South West England of which I have very fond memories. It is an old Roman spa town, and the city’s name comes from the Roman baths that have been excavated and restored.
19 Final four? : HORSEMEN
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are introduced in the Book of Revelation in the Christian Bible. Each of the four represents woe for man, in the form of pestilence, war, famine and death. The four horsemen ride on a white, red, black and pale horse respectively.
20 ___ Belova a.k.a. Black Widow : YELENA
Florence Pugh is an English actress whom I best know from playing Amy March in the 2019 big-screen adaption of the novel “Little Women”. Younger members of the viewing audience might recognize her for playing Yelena Belova in the film “Black Widow” and the related TV series “Hawkeye”. In 2019, Pugh started a relationship with fellow actor Zach Braff (who played the lead in “Scrubs”).
23 Aix-___-Bains, France : LES
Aix-les-Bains is an old Roman spa town in Eastern France.
29 “Funky Cold Medina” rapper : TONE LOC
Tone Lōc is the stage name of rapper Anthony Smith.
31 Who wrote “In the morning there is meaning, in the evening there is feeling” : GERTRUDE STEIN
Gertrude Stein was a great American writer who spent most of her life in France. Gertrude Stein met Alice B. Toklas in Paris in 1907, and the two were life partners until Stein died in 1946. Cleverly, Stein published her own memoir in 1933 but called the book “The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas”. It was to become Stein’s best selling title.
34 Sun, say : BASK
Our verb “to bask”, meaning “to expose one to pleasant warmth”, is derived from the gruesome, 14th-century term “basken”, meaning “to wallow in blood”. The contemporary usage apparently originated with Shakespeare, who employed “bask” with reference to sunshine in “As You Like It”.
35 One-third of France’s motto : EGALITE
“Égal” (feminine “égale”) is a French word meaning “equal, alike” that we sometimes use in English. The national motto of France is “Liberté, égalité, fraternité”, meaning “Liberty, equality, fraternity”.
37 What Rose decides to do for Jack in “Titanic” : POSE NUDE
When James Cameron made his epic movie “Titanic”, released in 1997, it was the most expensive film ever made and cost about $200 million. It was a good investment for the studio as it became the highest-grossing film of all time, bringing in over $1.8 billion. “Titanic” remained the highest-grossing film until 2010, when Cameron eclipsed the prior record with “Avatar”.
41 Sch. that’s home to the Keydets : VMI
The Virginia Military Institute (VMI) is one of the six senior military colleges in the country, and is located in Lexington, Virginia. The sports teams of VMI are known as the Keydets, southern slang for “cadets”.
42 Cousin of a crow : JAY
The bird known as a “jay” is sometimes called a “magpie”, although the terms are not completely interchangeable.
45 Mocha native : YEMENI
Mocha is a port city in Yemen on the Red Sea and was once the principal port for the capital city of Sana’a. Mocha was the major marketplace in the world for coffee until the 1600s, and gave its name to the Mocha coffee bean, which in turn gave its name to the mocha brown color, and the flavor of coffee infused with chocolate.
46 Part of the mind that is “like all propagandists, relentlessly repetitive,” per Adam Phillips : SUPEREGO
Sigmund Freud created a structural model of the human psyche, breaking it into three parts: the id, the ego, and the superego. The id is that part of the psyche containing the basic instinctual drives. The ego seeks to please the id by causing realistic behavior that benefits the individual. The superego almost has a parental role, contradicting the id by introducing critical thinking and morals to behavioral choices.
51 Word before “Nobody” or “No Sunshine” in R&B titles : AIN’T …
52 Long-term security, for short : T-BOND
A Treasury note (T-note) is a government debt that matures in 1-10 years. A T-note has a coupon (interest) payment made every six months. The T-note is purchased at a discount to face value, and at the date of maturity can be redeemed at that face value. A Treasury bill (T-bill) is a similar financial vehicle, but it matures in one year or less, and a T-bond matures in 20-30 years.
56 Porter alternatives : ALES
Porter is a dark beer that originated in London in the 1700s. It is named for the street and river porters with whom it was very popular. Porter is a well-hopped beer made using brown malt, which gives it the dark color.
Down
1 Anime and manga genre involving robots : MECHA
The term “mecha” was coined in Japan to describe both fictional and real-life giant robots that are controlled by humans. Even though the term originated in Japan, it is a shortening of an English loanword, “mechanical”.
2 M.L.B. career leader in total bases : AARON
Hank Aaron hit his 715th career home run on 8th April 1974, breaking the record of 714 career home runs held by Babe Ruth. Aaron went on to hit 755 home runs prior to his retirement from the game in 1976.
3 ___ tower : IVORY
In modern usage, an ivory tower is an environment focused on education and intellectual pursuits while isolated from the practicalities of everyday life. The term is often used to describe academia. “Ivory tower” originated in the Song of Solomon in the Bible with the line “Your neck is like an ivory tower”.
5 Old Nickelodeon kids’ show featuring a puppy leaving paw print hints to be solved : BLUE’S CLUES
“Blue’s Clues” is a Nickelodeon children’s show that ran for ten years from 1996. The title character is a blue-spotted dog who leaves clues in a treasure hunt for the host and the viewers.
17 Use a roller on, in a way : DELINT
“Lint”, meaning “fluff”, is one of those terms that I had to learn when I moved to the US. We call the same thing “fuzz” on the other side of the Atlantic.
21 Battle of Isengard fighter : ENT
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”.
26 ___-podge : HODGE
“Hochepot” is an Old French word for stew or soup, and this gave rise to an Anglo-French legal term for a collection of property that was gathered prior to being divided up. This became our “hodgepodge” in the early 1400s.
27 “On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous” novelist, 2019 : OCEAN VUONG
Ocean Vuong is a Vietnamese-American poet and novelist. He was born in Ho Chi Minh City in 1988, under the name Vương Quốc Vinh. His mother gave him the English given name “Beach”, but changed it to “Ocean” after someone pointed out that “Beach” sounded like “Bitch” when pronounced with a Vietnamese accent. Vuong’s 2016 collection of poetry “Night Sky with Exit Wounds” won the T. S. Eliot Prize in 2017. His debut novel “On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous” was published in 2019.
30 ___ Postlethwaite, whom Spielberg once called “the best actor in the world” : PETE
Pete Postlethwaite was an English actor who started out in the business at the famous Liverpool Everyman Theatre. He was a contemporary of the likes of Bill Nighy (“Love Actually”, “Valkyrie”) and Julie Walters (“Educating Rita”, “Calendar Girls”). You might have seen Postlethwaite in 1993’s “In the Name of the Father” for which he earned an Oscar nomination. He is one of the few English actors that can put on a great Irish accent (my personal opinion), as he showed in that movie.
31 Indoor arcade : GALLERIA
Our word “arcade” comes from the Latin “arcus” meaning “arc”. The first arcades were passages made from a series of arches. This could be an avenue of trees, and eventually any covered avenue. I remember arcades lined with shops and stores when I was growing up on the other side of the Atlantic. Arcades came to be lined with lots of amusements, resulting in amusement arcades and video game arcades.
34 Something most people lose with age : BABY FAT
Adipocytes are fat storage cells. The prefix “adipo-” refers to “fat”, and the suffix “-cyte” indicates a “cell”. There are two types of fat cells. White fat cells contain just one large droplet of fat per cell. White fat cells are created when a body is carrying excess weight. Brown fat cells have many fat droplets within the cell’s cytoplasm. Brown fat is also called “baby fat”, and is not normally associated with excess weight as it is readily metabolized to generate heat.
37 “The tongue of the soul,” per Cervantes : PEN
The full name of the author of “Don Quixote” was Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. As a young man in 1570, Cervantes was a soldier fighting for the Spanish Navy, stationed in Naples, at that time a possession of Spain. He was injured in battle, receiving three gunshot wounds including two to the chest. His injuries left him without the use of his left arm. After recuperating, he returned to active service, and in 1575 he was captured by Algerian corsairs, and spent the next five years in slavery in North Africa. His parents found him and bought his freedom, and brought him home to his native Madrid.
38 Sappho and Horace : ODISTS
Sappho was an Ancient Greek poet born on the Greek island of Lesbos. Sappho was much admired for her work, although very little of it survives today. She was renowned for writing erotic and romantic verse that dealt with the love of women as well as men. It was because of this poetry that the word “lesbian” (someone from Lesbos) is used to describe a gay woman.
One of ancient Rome’s leading lyric poets was Quintus Horatius Flaccus or “Horace”, as we tend to know him. Horace’s most famous work is probably his collection of Latin lyric poems titled “Carmina” (the Latin for “Odes”).
44 Oscillates wildly : YO-YOS
Would you believe that the first yo-yos date back to 500 BC? There is even an ancient Greek vase painting that shows a young man playing with a yo-yo. Centuries later Filipinos were using yo-yos as hunting tools in the 1500s. “Yo-yo” is a Tagalog (Filipino) word meaning “come-come” or simply “return”.
47 Hindu embodiment of virtue : RAMA
In the Hindu tradition, the god Vishnu has several different avatars i.e. incarnations or manifestations. Rama is the seventh of these avatars.
50 “The White Lotus” airer : HBO
Home Box Office (HBO) is the oldest continuously-operating pay TV service in the US, having launched in 1972. HBO is a favorite of mine as I really like many of the HBO made-for-television movies and original series. Among the list of original series from HBO are “Mildred Pierce”, “The Pacific”, “John Adams”, “Big Love”, “Extras”, “The Wire”, “Sex and the City”, “From the Earth to the Moon”, “The Sopranos” and “Band of Brothers”.
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Complete List of Clues/Answers
Across
1 Lead : MAIN
5 Jan. 1, for all racing thoroughbreds in the Northern Hemisphere : B-DAY
9 Rotten, as chances : SLIM
13 Bit of shelter : EAVE
14 Boombox sound : BLARE
15 Place for a flat : TIRE
16 Is propelled by fans : CROWD SURFS
18 River through Bath : AVON
19 Final four? : HORSEMEN
20 ___ Belova a.k.a. Black Widow : YELENA
22 Flexible request : ANY
23 Aix-___-Bains, France : LES
24 “Be right there …” : ONE SEC …
25 Strategy to prevent a runner from stealing a base : PITCH OUT
28 Fruity cooler : ADE
29 “Funky Cold Medina” rapper : TONE LOC
30 Drudge or trudge : PLOD
31 Who wrote “In the morning there is meaning, in the evening there is feeling” : GERTRUDE STEIN
34 Sun, say : BASK
35 One-third of France’s motto : EGALITE
36 Genre prefix : ALT-
37 What Rose decides to do for Jack in “Titanic” : POSE NUDE
39 Pointed the finger at : BLAMED
41 Sch. that’s home to the Keydets : VMI
42 Cousin of a crow : JAY
45 Mocha native : YEMENI
46 Part of the mind that is “like all propagandists, relentlessly repetitive,” per Adam Phillips : SUPEREGO
48 Unfettered : FREE
49 Waved at, maybe : SHOOED AWAY
51 Word before “Nobody” or “No Sunshine” in R&B titles : AIN’T …
52 Long-term security, for short : T-BOND
53 Format of some N.S.A. leaks : MEMO
54 Body of art? : TATS
55 Track, often : SONG
56 Porter alternatives : ALES
Down
1 Anime and manga genre involving robots : MECHA
2 M.L.B. career leader in total bases : AARON
3 ___ tower : IVORY
4 It’s broken by hounds : NEWS
5 Old Nickelodeon kids’ show featuring a puppy leaving paw print hints to be solved : BLUE’S CLUES
6 Cry that might be said while snapping the fingers : DARN!
7 Pound sound : ARF!
8 “Who else would I be talking to?!” : YES, YOU!
9 Banal : STALE
10 Hides one’s true self : LIVES A LIE
11 Attached, as a patch : IRONED ON
12 Terrorized, say : MENACED
14 Ability to detect misinformation, slangily : BS METER
17 Use a roller on, in a way : DELINT
21 Battle of Isengard fighter : ENT
25 Meat in tonkatsu : PORK
26 ___-podge : HODGE
27 “On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous” novelist, 2019 : OCEAN VUONG
29 Tribute : TESTAMENT
30 ___ Postlethwaite, whom Spielberg once called “the best actor in the world” : PETE
31 Indoor arcade : GALLERIA
32 Had bad posture : SLUMPED
33 Picked up : TIDIED
34 Something most people lose with age : BABY FAT
37 “The tongue of the soul,” per Cervantes : PEN
38 Sappho and Horace : ODISTS
40 They may include dashes : MEETS
42 Ring highlight? : JEWEL
43 Best effort : A-GAME
44 Oscillates wildly : YO-YOS
46 In a moment : SOON
47 Hindu embodiment of virtue : RAMA
50 “The White Lotus” airer : HBO
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