0516-23 NY Times Crossword 16 May 23, Tuesday

Bill’s time: 9m 19s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

11 High-chair wear : BIB

The word “bib” comes from the Latin “bibere” meaning “to drink”, as does our word “imbibe”. So, maybe a bib is less about spilling the food, and more about soaking up the booze …

14 Poet who quoth “Nevermore” : POE

“The Raven” is a narrative poem by Edgar Allan Poe that tells of a student who has lost the love of his life, Lenore. A raven enters the student’s bedchamber and perches on a bust of Pallas. The raven can talk, to the student’s surprise, but says nothing but the word “nevermore” (“quoth the raven, ‘Nevermore’”). As the student questions all aspects of his life, the raven taunts him with the same comment, “nevermore”. Finally, the student decides that his soul is trapped beneath the raven’s shadow and shall be lifted “nevermore”.

19 Farm bales : HAY

Hay is dried grass that is stored for use as animal fodder. Straw consists of the dried stalks of cereal plants, the residue left after the grain and chaff have been removed. Straw can also be used as animal fodder, as well as fuel, bedding and thatch.

21 Wyoming range : TETONS

The Teton Range is located just to the south of Yellowstone National Park, and is part of the Rocky Mountains. The origins of the name “Teton” is not very clear, although one story is that it was named by French trappers, as the word “tetons” in French is a slang term meaning “breasts”.

23 Texas city where Dr Pepper was invented : WACO

Dr Pepper was introduced in 1885 in Waco, Texas, one year before the competing Coca-Cola was released to the market. I spent an entertaining few hours at the Dr Pepper Museum in Waco a few years ago. And, note the lack of a period after “Dr”.

24 Lazy … even though 26-Across doesn’t mean active : INDOLENT (dolent?)

We usually use the word “indolence” these days to mean “habitual laziness”. We also use “indolent” to mean “causing very little pain”. The term derives from the Latin “indolentia” meaning “freedom from pain”. The jump to “laziness” took place in the 1700s. I think the idea is that when one is lazy, one avoids taking “pains”.

30 Bruins legend Bobby : ORR

Bobby Orr is regarded as one of the greatest hockey players of all time. By the time he retired in 1978 he had undergone over a dozen knee surgeries. At 31 years of age, he concluded that he just couldn’t skate anymore. Reportedly, he was even having trouble walking. While still 31 years old, in 1979, Orr became the youngest person inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame. Prior to that, in 1967, Orr became the youngest person named the NHL’s Rookie of the Year.

31 Egotist’s concern : SELF

An egoist (also “egotist”) is a selfish and conceited person. The opposite would be an altruist.

33 First Black Disney princess : TIANA

“The Princess and the Frog” is an animated feature released in 2009 by Walt Disney Studios. The film is set in New Orleans in the twenties. A waitress called Tiana kisses a prince who had been turned into a frog, and then she herself turns into a frog.

As of 2022, there were 12 “official” Disney princesses:

1. Princess Snow White (from “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”)
2. Princess Cinderella (from “Cinderella”)
3. Princess Aurora (from “Sleeping Beauty)
4. Princess Ariel (from “The Little Mermaid”)
5. Princess Belle (from “Beauty and the Beast”)
6. Princess Jasmine (from “Aladdin”)
7. Princess Pocahontas (from “Pocahontas”)
8. Princess Mulan (from “Mulan”)
9. Princess Tiana (from “The Princess and the Frog”)
10. Princess Rapunzel (from “Tangled”)
11. Princess Merida (from “Brave”)
12. Princess Moana (from “Moana”)

35 Actress Fisher of “Eighth Grade” : ELSIE

Elsie Fisher is an actress whose best-known roles are possibly her voice acting. For example, she voiced Agnes in “Despicable Me” (2010) and “Despicable Me 2” (2013), and Parker Needle in “The Addams Family” (2019).

“Eighth Grade” is a 2018 comedy drama movie starring Elsie Fisher as a middle-schooler struggling with anxiety. Comedian Bo Burnham wrote and directed the film, and the storyline reflects his own anxiety as a performer, and his frequent panic attacks. I haven’t seen this one, but I hear really good things …

36 Flustered … even though 39-Across doesn’t mean poised : DISCOMBOBULATED (combobulated?)

To discombobulate is to faze, disconcert, to confuse.

41 Edible that’s been squirreled away? : ACORN

These days, we don’t usually consider acorns (the fruit of the oak tree) as a foodstuff. But in days past, many cultures around the world have used acorns as food. Usually, bitter tannins that occur in acorns need to be leached out in water. Acorn meal can be a substitute for grain flour, which can then be used to make bread. Acorns have also been used as a substitute for coffee, especially when coffee was rationed. Notably, acorn coffee was brewed up by Confederates during the American Civil War, and by Germans during World War II.

45 Gossipy types : YENTAS

“Yenta” (also “Yente”) is actually a female Yiddish name. In Yiddish theater “yenta” came to mean a busybody, a gossip.

53 Actress Elisabeth of “Leaving Las Vegas” : SHUE

Elisabeth Shue has always been a favorite actress of mine. She has been in several popular films including “The Karate Kid”, “Cocktail”, two of the “Back to the Future” movies, “Leaving Las Vegas”, and my personal favorite “Adventures in Babysitting”. More recently, Shue had a recurring role on the TV crime drama “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation”.

“Leaving Las Vegas” is a 1995 film starring Nicolas Cage as a suicidal alcoholic who tries to drink himself to death in Las Vegas, befriending a prostitute played by Elisabeth Shue along the way. The film is based on a semi-autobiographical novel of the same name written by John O’Brien. Two weeks into production of the movie, O’Brien actually did commit suicide.

54 Tex-Mex snacks named after their inventor, Ignacio Anaya : NACHOS

The dish known as “nachos” was supposedly created by the maître d’ at a restaurant called the Victory Club in the city of Piedras Negras, Coahuila, Mexico. The name of the maître d’ was Ignacio “Nacho” Anaya.

58 Letters before a criminal’s alias, maybe : AKA

Also known as (aka)

62 The “p” of m.p.g. : PER

Miles per gallon (mpg)

63 Sushi wrapper : SEAWEED

Nori is an edible seaweed that we used to know as “laver” when we were living in Wales. Nori is usually dried into thin sheets. Here in the US, we are most familiar with nori as the seaweed used as a wrap for sushi.

64 Medium for van Gogh : OIL

Vincent van Gogh was a Dutch post-impressionist painter who seems to have had a very tortured existence. Van Gogh only painted for the last ten years of his life, and enjoyed very little celebrity while alive. Today many of his works are easily recognized, and fetch staggering sums in auction houses. Van Gogh suffered from severe depression for many of his final years. When he was only 37, he walked into a field with a revolver and shot himself in the chest. He managed to drag himself back to the inn where he was staying but died there two days later.

66 Che Guevara’s given name : ERNESTO

Ernesto “Che” Guevara was born in Argentina, and in 1948 he started to study medicine at the University of Buenos Aires. While at school he satisfied his need to “see the world” by taking two long journeys around South America, the story of which are told in Guevara’s memoir later published as “The Motorcycle Diaries”. While traveling, Guevara was moved by the plight of the people he saw and their working conditions and what he viewed as capitalistic exploitation. In Mexico City he met brothers Raul and Fidel Castro and was persuaded to join their cause, the overthrow of the US-backed government in Cuba. He rose to second-in-command among the Cuban insurgents, and when Castro came to power Guevara was influential in repelling the Bay of Pigs Invasion and bringing Soviet nuclear missiles to the island. Guevara left Cuba in 1965 to continue his work as a revolutionary. He was captured by Bolivian forces in 1967, and was executed. Fidel Castro led the public mourning of Guevara’s death, and soon the revolutionary was an icon for many left-wing movements around the world.

Down

1 Big name in nonprofit journalism : AP NEWS

The Associated Press (AP) is a news agency based in New York City. AP is a non-profit cooperative that was set up by five New York newspapers in 1846 to share the cost of transmitting news. Nowadays, AP recoups most of its cost by selling news stories and related materials to newspapers all around the world, mostly outside of the US.

3 ___ Falls Convention (milestone in the women’s suffrage movement) : SENECA

The National Women’s Hall of Fame is located in Seneca Falls, New York, which was home to the nation’s first women’s rights convention, in 1848. The Hall was established in 1969, when it was hosted by Eisenhower College, which is also in Seneca Falls. The current facility opened for visitors in 1979. I was lucky enough to spend a very uplifting afternoon there several years ago ….

4 Neighborhood in N.Y.C. and London : SOHO

The Manhattan neighborhood known today as SoHo was very fashionable in the early 1900s, but as the well-heeled started to move uptown the area became very run down and poorly maintained. Noted for the number of fires that erupted in derelict buildings, SoHo earned the nickname “Hell’s Hundred Acres”. The area was then zoned for manufacturing and became home to many sweatshops. In the mid-1900s artists started to move into open loft spaces and renovating old buildings as the lofts were ideal locations in which an artist could both live and work. In 1968, artists and others organized themselves so that they could legalize their residential use of an area zoned for manufacturing. The group they formed took its name from the name given to the area by the city’s Planning Commission i.e “South of Houston”. This was shortened from So-uth of Ho-uston to SoHo as in “SoHo Artists Association”, and the name stuck.

The area of London called Soho had a very poor reputation for most of the 20th century as it was home to the city’s red-light district. Soho went through a transformation in recent decades, and has been a very fashionable neighborhood since the 1980s.

5 Fiery gem : OPAL

Fire opals are almost transparent, unlike other opals that are richly iridescent. Although almost transparent, fire opals usually have a warm yellow, orange or red color. The most famous fire opals are also called Mexican fire opals, and come from the state of Querétaro in north-central Mexico.

6 Large stringed instruments : CELLI

The word “cello” (plural “celli” or “cellos”) is an abbreviation for “violoncello”, an Italian word for “little violone”, referring to a group of stringed instruments that were popular up to the end of the 17th century. The name violoncello persisted for the instrument that we know today, although the abbreviation “‘cello” was often used. Nowadays, we just drop the apostrophe.

7 Once ___ blue moon : IN A

As there is a full moon once every four weeks, approximately monthly, there are usually twelve full moons in any given year. However, every 2-3 years, depending on the phase of the moon at the beginning of the calendar year, there may be a thirteenth full moon. The “extra” full moon is called a “blue moon”, although no one seems to really know why the term “blue” is used, as far as I can tell. Which of the thirteen full moons that is designated as the blue moon varies depending on tradition. My favorite definition is from the Farmer’s Almanac. It states that as each of the seasons normally has three full moons (one for each calendar month), then the season with four full moons is designated as “special”, then the third (and not the fourth) full moon in that “special” season is the blue moon. Complicated, huh?

8 Advice columnist Landers : ANN

“Ask Ann Landers” was an advice column written by Eppie Lederer from 1955 to 2002. Eppie was the twin sister to Pauline Phillips, the person behind “Dear Abby”. Eppie took over the “Ask Ann Landers” column from Ruth Crowley who started it in 1943.

9 Podium speaker : LECTOR

“Podium” (plural “podia”) is the Latin word for “raised platform”.

10 “Stainless” metal : STEEL

In order to resist the tendency to rust, stainless steel (as opposed to carbon steel) has about 11% chromium. Stainless steel does in fact tend to rust, but just not as easily as regular carbon steel. This is because the chromium in the steel reacts with oxygen in the air to form a thin, invisible layer of chromium oxide on the surface of the steel. This layer, also known as the passive layer, acts as a barrier to prevent further oxidation and corrosion of the underlying steel.

13 Lost ___ (“Peter Pan” group) : BOYS

In J. M. Barrie’s play “Peter Pan”, the Lost Boys are characters in Neverland. The boys are “lost” in that they fell out of their prams or buggies in parks all over London, and were lost by their Nannies. There are no Lost Girls, as girls are too clever to fall out of their prams. So says Peter Pan himself.

22 Maker of Models S, X and Y : TESLA

Tesla Motors was founded in 2003 as a manufacturer of electric vehicles based in Palo Alto, California. Tesla is noted for producing the first electric sports car, called the Tesla Roadster. The company followed the sports car with a luxury sedan, the Model S. The Model S was the world’s best selling plug-in electric vehicle of 2015. Tesla Motors shortened its name to Tesla in early 2017.

26 Dribs and ___ : DRABS

A drib is a negligible amount, as in “dribs and drabs”. The term “drib” arose in Scotland in the 18th century, and might possibly come from the verb “to dribble”.

28 School near Windsor Castle : ETON

The world-famous Eton College is just a brisk walk from Windsor Castle, which itself is just outside London. Eton is noted for producing many British leaders, including prime ministers David Cameron and Boris Johnson. The list of Old Etonians also includes Princes William and Harry, the Duke of Wellington and George Orwell. Author Ian Fleming was also an Eton alumnus, as was Fleming’s iconic character James Bond, although 007 was expelled by the school.

Windsor Castle is located on the River Thames in Berkshire, just 20 miles outside London. It was built in the early 11th century by William the Conqueror after the Norman invasion of England. Queen Elizabeth II used to spend many of her weekends at Windsor. She had lots of room to move around there, as it’s the largest inhabited castle in the world.

34 Biblical patriarch who had “ha” added to his name when he was 99 years old : ABRAM

According to the Book of Genesis, God said to Abram:

Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham; for a father of many nations have I made thee.

38 Big name in electric toothbrushes : SONICARE

Sonicare is a brand of electric toothbrush made by Dutch electronics giant Philips. I’ve been using my Sonicare for years now, which earns me a pat on the back from my dentist every time I visit her …

46 [Warning: Explicit content!] : [NSFW!]

The abbreviation “NSFW” stands for “not safe/suitable for work”. It’s Internet slang used to describe online content that is best not viewed at work.

47 Marvel supervillain : THANOS

Thanos is a supervillain in the Marvel Comics universe. He was portrayed by Damion Poitier in the 2012 movie “The Avengers”, and by Josh Brolin in several subsequent movies including 2014’s “Guardians of the Galaxy”.

52 Zen garden tools : RAKES

Japanese Zen gardens are inspired by the meditation gardens of Zen Buddhist temples. Zen gardens have no water in them, but often there is gravel and sand that is raked in patterns designed to create the impression of water in waves and ripples.

54 California wine valley : NAPA

Napa Valley in California is home to over 400 wineries, the first being established in 1858. Napa is also home to over 100 different grape varieties, the most popular being Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, and Pinot Noir.

56 Tech site since 1994 : C|NET

c|net is an excellent technology website. It started out in 1994 as a television network specializing in technology news. The host of “American Idol”, Ryan Seacrest, started off his career as host of a c|net show.