0515-23 NY Times Crossword 15 May 23, Monday

Constructed by: Tomas Spiers
Edited by: Will Shortz

Today’s Theme (according to Bill): Just a Minute Clue

Themed answers are common phrases starting with a synonym of “miniature”. Themed clues feature words printed in miniature typeface:

  • 17A Earth or Tatooine : SMALL WORLD
  • 27A N.B.A. or W.N.B.A. : LITTLE LEAGUE
  • 44A Heineken or Pabst : MICROBREWERY
  • 57A Ballerina or Rockette : TINY DANCER

Bill’s time: 5m 19s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1 Bovine animals that are raced in Tibet : YAKS

The English word “yak” is an Anglicized version of the Tibetan name for the male of the species. Yak milk is much prized in Tibetan culture. It is made into cheese and butter, and the butter is used to make a tea that is consumed in great volume by Tibetans. The butter is also used as a fuel in lamps, and during festivals the butter is even sculpted into religious icons.

10 Sandwich often stuck with a toothpick : CLUB

The club sandwich is a double-decker affair with three layers of bread and two layers of filling. This style of sandwich has been around since the end of the 19th century, and some say it was invented at an exclusive gambling “club” in Saratoga Springs, New York.

15 Most abundant noble gas in the earth’s atmosphere : ARGON

The chemical element argon has the symbol Ar. It is a noble gas, and so by definition is relatively nonreactive. The name “argon” comes from the Greek word for “lazy, inactive”. There’s a lot of argon around, as it is the third-most abundant gas in our atmosphere.

The noble gases (also “rare gases”) are those elements on the extreme right of the Periodic Table. Because of their “full” complement of electrons, noble gases are very unreactive. The six noble gases that occur naturally are helium, neon, argon, krypton, xenon and radon.

17 Earth or Tatooine : SMALL WORLD

In 1972, the astronauts of Apollo 17, the last manned mission to the Moon, took a beautiful photograph of the Earth from space. The photograph is unusual in that the whole planet is illuminated (the sun was behind the spacecraft). The astronauts remarked that Earth looked like a marble, giving the photo its name “Blue Marble“.

Tatooine is the desert planet that features in almost every “Star Wars” movie. It is the home planet of Anakin and Luke Skywalker, and is also where Obi-Wan Kenobi first met Han Solo.

20 German skin care brand : NIVEA

Nivea is a brand name of skin-care products from Germany. The Latin word “nivea” means “snow-white”.

22 Sch. founded by Benjamin Franklin : PENN

The University of Pennsylvania (also “Penn” and “UPenn”) was founded in 1740 by Benjamin Franklin in Philadelphia. Penn was the first school in the country to offer both graduate and undergraduate courses. Penn’s sports teams are known as the Quakers, and sometimes the Red & Blue.

27 N.B.A. or W.N.B.A. : LITTLE LEAGUE

The National Basketball Association (NBA) was founded in 1946 as the Basketball Association of America (BAA). The NBA name was adopted in 1949 following a merger with the rival National Basketball League (NBL). Of the four major sports leagues in North America, the NBA has the highest average annual salary per player.

The Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) was founded in 1996. The WNBA had to compete with the American Basketball League (ABL), a professional women’s basketball league that started playing games the same year the WNBA was founded. The ABL folded in its third season.

35 Communication syst. in the deaf community : ASL

American Sign Language (ASL)

36 ___ Kong : HONG

Hong Kong became part of the British Empire after the First Opium War in 1842. In 1898, Britain signed a 99-year lease to retain control of Hong Kong. That control ended 99 years later in 1997 with a formal transfer of sovereignty back to China.

37 Bonsai tree holder : POT

The term “bonsai” is used more correctly to describe the Japanese art of growing carefully shaped trees in containers, although it has come to be used as the name for all miniature trees in pots. “Bonsai” translates literally as “tray planting”.

39 Second letter after epsilon : ETA

Eta is the seventh letter of the Greek alphabet, and is a forerunner of our Latin character “H”. Originally denoting a consonant, eta was used as a long vowel in Ancient Greek.

40 CAT ___ (M.R.I. alternative) : SCAN

A CT (or “CAT”) scan produces (via computer manipulation) a three-dimensional image of the inside of an object, usually the human body. It does so by taking a series of two dimensional x-ray images while rotating the camera around the patient. The issue with CT scans is that they use x-rays. High doses of radiation can be harmful, causing damage that is cumulative over time. The initialism “CT” stands for “computed tomography”. The older initialism “CAT” stands for “computed axial tomography”.

42 California basketball team originally located in Minnesota : LAKERS

The Los Angeles Lakers (LAL) basketball team started out in 1947 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The team chose the Lakers name in honor of the nickname of Minnesota, “Land of 10,000 Lakes”. The Lakers moved to Los Angeles in 1960.

44 Heineken or Pabst : MICROBREWERY

Originally, the term “microbrewery” applied to smaller breweries. In contemporary usage, a microbrewery really describes a brewery that competes in the market on the basis of quality and diversity, rather than on the basis of price and advertising. The really small brewing operations are now referred to as “nanobreweries”.

Heineken Lager Beer is named for Gerard Adriaan Heineken, the brewer who founded the brewery in the Netherlands in 1873. The label on a bottle of Heineken beer includes a red star logo. The red star was a symbol used by European brewers in the Middle Ages. During the Cold War, the red star came to have a negative connotation, an association with communism. So for several years, Heineken used a white star with a red outline as a logo.

Frederick Pabst was a brewer from the Milwaukee, Wisconsin area who had immigrated to the US from Prussia with his parents. Pabst bought himself into his father-in-law’s small brewery and over the years grew the enterprise into a public company. The most famous beer from Pabst is Pabst Blue Ribbon.

55 Big muscle for Popeye after he eats spinach : BICEP

The biceps muscle is made up of two bundles of muscle, both of which terminate at the same point near the elbow. The heads of the bundles terminate at different points on the scapula or shoulder blade. “Biceps” is Latin for “two-headed”.

The cartoon character Popeye is very fond of spinach, eating cans of the vegetable through his pipe and garnering great strength from it.

57 Ballerina or Rockette : TINY DANCER

The 1971 Elton John song “Tiny Dancer” was written by John himself, with lyrics by Bernie Taupin. Apparently the “tiny dancer” in the song is a character reminiscent of the young ladies that Taupin met in California in 1970.

Ballet is a type of dance that originated in Italy during the Renaissance. The term “ballet” ultimately derives from the Greek “ballizo” meaning “to dance”.

The famous Rockettes can be seen in Radio City Music Hall. They have an amazing schedule during the Christmas season when they perform five high-kicking shows every day, seven days a week. The troupe has been doing this every Christmas since 1932, until a COVID-19 pandemic hit …

59 Great Plains tribe : OTOE

The Otoe (also “Oto”) Native American tribe originated in the Great Lakes region as part of the Winnebago or Siouan tribes. The group that would become the Otoe broke away from the Winnebago and migrated southwestward, ending up in the Great Plains. In the plains the Otoe adopted a semi-nomadic lifestyle dependent on the horse, with the American bison becoming central to their diet.

60 Playful semiaquatic animal : OTTER

Sea otters actually hold hands while sleeping on their backs so that they don’t drift apart. When sea otter pups are too small to lock hands, they clamber up onto their mother’s belly and nap there.

61 The “E” of HOMES : ERIE

A well-known mnemonic for remembering the names of the Great Lakes is HOMES, an acronym standing for Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie and Superior. Another mnemonic serving the same purpose is “super heroes must eat oats”.

62 Road safety grp. : MADD

Candace Lightner lost her 13-year-old child to a drunk-driver in 1980. Soon after, Lightner formed the group Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD).

Down

1 Like questions in 20 Questions : YES/NO

The parlor game called Twenty Questions originated in the US and really took off in the late forties as it became a weekly quiz show on the radio. Am I the only one who thinks that there aren’t enough quiz shows on the radio these days? Apart from a couple of great shows on NPR, I have to resort to listening to the BBC game shows over the Internet …

3 Scoundrel : KNAVE

We’ve been using “knave” to mean a cad since about 1200, and as an alternative name for the jack in a deck of cards since the mid-1500s. “Knave” comes from the Old English word “cnafa”, a “boy, male servant”.

7 Taj Mahal locale : AGRA

Agra is a medieval city on the banks of the river Yamuna in India that was the capital of the Mughal Empire from 1556 to 1658. The city is home to three UNESCO World Heritage Sites:

  • The Taj Mahal: the famous mausoleum built in memory of Mumtaz Mahal.
  • Agra Fort: the site where the famous Koh-i-Noor diamond was seized.
  • Fatehpur Sikri: a historic city that’s home to well-preserved Mughal architecture.

12 Thick Japanese noodle : UDON

Udon noodles are made from wheat-flour and are very popular in Japanese cuisines such as tempura.

18 “Per se” and “quid pro quo” language : LATIN

“Per se” is a Latin phrase that translates as “by itself”. We use “per se” pretty literally, meaning “in itself, intrinsically”.

“Quid pro quo” is Latin for “something for something”, i.e. a swap.

22 Desserts that may be served à la mode : PIES

In French, “à la mode” simply means “fashionable”. In America, the term has also come to describe a way of serving pie. Pie served à la mode includes a dollop of cream or ice cream, or as I recall from my time living in Upstate New York, with a wedge of cheddar cheese.

24 U.F.O. pilots : ETS

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

28 Sierra ___ (African country) : LEONE

The Republic of Sierra Leone is a country in West Africa that lies on the Atlantic Coast. The capital city of Freetown was originally set up as a colony to house the “Black Poor” of London, England. These people were mainly freed British slaves of Caribbean descent who were living a miserable life in the run-down parts of London. Perhaps to help the impoverished souls, perhaps to rid the streets of “a problem”, three ships were chartered in 1787 to transport a group of blacks, with some whites, to a piece of land purchased in Sierra Leone. Those who made the voyage were granted British citizenship and protection. The descendants of these immigrants, and others who made the journey over the next 60 years, make up the ethnic group that’s today called the Sierra Leone Creole.

32 Flatbread made with atta flour : ROTI

Atta is a whole-wheat flour used to make flatbreads in South Asian cuisine, such as chapati and naan. “Atta” is the Hindi or Urdu word for “dough”.

37 Organism that lives off another : PARASITE

Our word “parasite” comes from the Greek “parasitos”, which describes a person who eats at the table of another, i.e. one who lives at another’s expense. “Parasitos” comes from “para-” (beside) and “sitos” (bread, food). I guess the idea is that a parasite is feeding right beside one.

40 Japanese tech giant : SONY

Sony was founded by Akio Morita and Masaru Ibuka as Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo (Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Corporation). The two partners met in the Japanese Navy during WWII.

41 Kind of oil derived from marijuana, for short : CBD

Cannabidiol (CBD) is a chemical extracted from cannabis plants that is used as a herbal drug. It does not contain the chemical tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), which is responsible for the marijuana “high”.

43 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.

45 Improvised, musically : RIFFED

A riff is a short rhythmic phrase in music, especially one improvised on a guitar.

49 Ghana’s capital : ACCRA

Accra sits on Ghana’s coast and is a major seaport as well as the country’s capital city. The name “Accra” comes from a local word “Nkran” meaning “ants”, a name chosen because of the large number of anthills found in the area when the city was founded.

52 Minuscule amount : IOTA

Iota is the ninth letter in the Greek alphabet, and one that gave rise to our letters I and J. We use the word “iota” to portray something very small, as it is the smallest of all Greek letters.

54 Picnic nuisances : 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.

56 ___-com (“When Harry Met Sally …,” e.g.) : ROM

“When Harry Met Sally… “ is a 1989 romantic comedy starring Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan in the title roles. This marvelous film was written by the late Nora Ephron and directed by Rob Reiner. There’s a famous scene in the movie, filmed in Katz’s Deli in Manhattan, in which the character Sally (fully clothed, while eating) fakes an orgasm at the table in front of Harry. A woman at a nearby table places her order saying, “I’ll have what she’s having”. That woman was Estelle Reiner, director Carl Reiner’s mother. To this day, there is a sign in Katz’s, pointing to Harry and Sally’s table, that reads “Where Harry met Sally… hope you have what she had! Enjoy!”

57 Male cat : TOM

A group of cats can be referred to as a clowder or a glaring. A male cat is a tom or tomcat, and a neutered male is a gib. An unaltered female cat is a queen, and a spayed female might be referred to informally as a molly. A young cat is a kitten.

Complete List of Clues/Answers

Across

1 Bovine animals that are raced in Tibet : YAKS
5 Astronaut’s realm : SPACE
10 Sandwich often stuck with a toothpick : CLUB
14 Name hiding in “named names” : EDNA
15 Most abundant noble gas in the earth’s atmosphere : ARGON
16 Assistant : AIDE
17 Earth or Tatooine : SMALL WORLD
19 Frame of mind : MOOD
20 German skin care brand : NIVEA
21 Angry : MAD
22 Sch. founded by Benjamin Franklin : PENN
23 Simple ballroom dance : ONE-STEP
25 Exhibitions : FAIRS
27 N.B.A. or W.N.B.A. : LITTLE LEAGUE
31 Fiery felonies : ARSONS
34 Some snakelike fish : EELS
35 Communication syst. in the deaf community : ASL
36 ___ Kong : HONG
37 Bonsai tree holder : POT
38 Inedible part of most fruit : STEM
39 Second letter after epsilon : ETA
40 CAT ___ (M.R.I. alternative) : SCAN
42 California basketball team originally located in Minnesota : LAKERS
44 Heineken or Pabst : MICROBREWERY
47 Sort of, informally : KINDA
48 Get a move on, slangily : HAUL ASS
52 Questionable : IFFY
53 “___ no more!” : SAY
55 Big muscle for Popeye after he eats spinach : BICEP
56 Place for an urban garden, maybe : ROOF
57 Ballerina or Rockette : TINY DANCER
59 Great Plains tribe : OTOE
60 Playful semiaquatic animal : OTTER
61 The “E” of HOMES : ERIE
62 Road safety grp. : MADD
63 Like some breakups and dorm rooms : MESSY
64 Rational : SANE

Down

1 Like questions in 20 Questions : YES/NO
2 Online community moderator, for short : ADMIN
3 Scoundrel : KNAVE
4 Book for recording purchases : SALES LOG
5 Tool with teeth : SAW
6 Right on time : PROMPT
7 Taj Mahal locale : AGRA
8 Second thoughts, metaphorically : COLD FEET
9 Conclusion : END
10 Picture snapper : CAMERA
11 Movie studio behind “The Hunger Games” : LIONSGATE
12 Thick Japanese noodle : UDON
13 Mattress’s place : BED
18 “Per se” and “quid pro quo” language : LATIN
22 Desserts that may be served à la mode : PIES
24 U.F.O. pilots : ETS
26 “___ aboard!” : ALL
28 Sierra ___ (African country) : LEONE
29 App customer : USER
30 Majestic trees : ELMS
31 [Um … I’m standing right here] : [AHEM]
32 Flatbread made with atta flour : ROTI
33 Crackers, chips and other between-meal bites : SNACK FOOD
37 Organism that lives off another : PARASITE
38 Urban photography subjects : SKYLINES
40 Japanese tech giant : SONY
41 Kind of oil derived from marijuana, for short : CBD
42 Meadow : LEA
43 The “A” of the ABC Islands : ARUBA
45 Improvised, musically : RIFFED
46 “But of course!” : WHY YES!
49 Ghana’s capital : ACCRA
50 Welcome at the door : SEE IN
51 All-out shopping trip : SPREE
52 Minuscule amount : IOTA
54 Picnic nuisances : ANTS
56 ___-com (“When Harry Met Sally …,” e.g.) : ROM
57 Male cat : TOM
58 Hang on a clothesline, perhaps : DRY