0803-23 NY Times Crossword 3 Aug 23, Thursday

Bill’s time: 12m 10s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

7 Certain bowling alley buttons : RESETS

A pinsetter is a mechanical device that puts bowling pins into position, returns balls, and clears fallen pins. Prior to the invention of the pinsetting machine, young men known as pinboys used to reset the pins by hand.

15 *Complete fools : IGNORAMUSES

The insulting word “ignoramus”, describing an ignorant person, comes to us directly from Latin. The term translates from Latin as “we ignore”, the first person, plural tense of “ignorare”.

17 Rickety piano, in old music biz slang : TIN PAN

Tin Pan Alley was originally a specific location, i.e. West 28th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenue in Manhattan. The area was associated with the music publishing business from about 1885 to the start of the Great Depression The name itself is possibly a reference to the tinny sound of cheap pianos that were common at the time.

19 Pride : lions :: parliament : ___ : OWLS

Here are some colorful collective nouns:

• A pride of lions
• A shrewdness of apes
• A cloud of bats
• A bench of bishops
• A parliament of owls
• A clowder of cats
• A waddling of ducks
• An army of frogs
• A knot of toads

24 *Ones with clay pigeons in their sights : TRAPSHOOTERS

There are three types of competitive shotgun target shooting sports:

• Skeet shooting
• Trap shooting
• Sporting clays

29 Melancholy, with “the” : … BLAHS

Melancholy is a dejection, depression of spirits. Melancholia was one of the body’s four basic substances of medieval science, the so-called four humors. All diseases were caused by these four substances getting out of balance. The four humors were:

• Black bile (melancholia)
• Yellow bile (cholera)
• Phlegm (phlegma)
• Blood (sanguis)

31 “Da ___ Show” : ALI G

“Da Ali G Show” is a satirical TV series featuring English comedian Sacha Baron Cohen. I wouldn’t be a big fan …

35 Bit of solar wind : ION

The Sun’s upper atmosphere continually ejects a stream of the charged particles that have such high energy that they can escape the Sun’s gravity. This supersonic plasma consisting mainly of electrons, protons and alpha particles is referred to as the solar wind. The solar wind extends as far as the outer limits of our solar system, and is responsible for phenomena such as the Earth’s northern and southern lights, the geomagnetic storms that affect radio reception, and the plasma tails of comets.

37 Word before stamp or young : FOREVER …

The Forever stamp for first-class postage was introduced by the USPS in 2006 (and about time!). Now we have stamps that are good for first-class postage forever, no matter how often the rates change.

41 Take the ___ : RAP

A rap sheet is a criminal record. “Rap” is a slang term dating back to the 1700s that means “blame, responsibility” as in “to take the rap”, “bad rap” and “to beat the rap”. This usage morphed into “rap sheet” in the early 1900s.

42 Annual D.C. address since 1913 : SOTU

The US President’s State of the Union (SOTU) address is a requirement called out in Article II of the Constitution. George Washington gave the first address before a joint session of Congress in 1790. Thomas Jefferson discontinued the practice of making a personal address by sending Congress a written document that was then read out by a clerk. In 1913, Woodrow Wilson re-established the custom of delivering the message personally, there have been occasions since then when a written address has had to suffice, the last occasion being in 1981 when Jimmy Carter was in office.

44 It’s usually blue : DENIM

Denim fabric originated in Nîmes in France. The French phrase “de Nîmes” (meaning “from Nîmes”) gives us the word “denim”. Also, the French phrase “bleu de Genes” (meaning “blue of Genoa”) gives us our word “jeans”.

46 Hoedown, e.g. : SHINDIG

“Shindig” is such a lovely word, I think. It describes a party that usually includes some dancing. Although its origin isn’t really clear, the term perhaps comes from “shinty”, a Scottish game that’s similar to field hockey.

53 Event involving “floating,” in brief : IPO

An initial public offering (IPO) is the very first offer of stock for sale by a company on the open market. In other words, an IPO marks the first time that a company is traded on a public exchange. Companies have an IPO to raise capital to expand (usually).

54 Some drafts, for short : IPAS

India pale ale (IPA) is a style of beer that originated in England. The beer was originally intended for transportation from England to India, hence the name.

56 Fake : PHONY

Something or someone described as phony (sometimes “phoney”) is not genuine or real. There is a suggestion that the term “phony” comes from “fawney”, which was a gold-plated brass ring used by swindlers in place of a one made of pure gold.

57 Frozen treat : SORBET

“Sorbet” can mean different things around the world. Here in the US, sorbet is a non-fat frozen dessert that is made without any dairy content.

65 Onetime presidential nickname : ABE

Abraham Lincoln was the sixteenth President of the US. There are several stories told about how he earned the nickname “Honest Abe”. One story dates back to early in his career as a lawyer. Lincoln accidentally overcharged a client and then walked miles in order to right the wrong as soon as possible.

Down

1 Attire for a fighter pilot : G SUIT

A G suit is needed when astronauts and aviators are subject to high accelerations. Such acceleration can cause blood to pool in the lower part of the body, reducing the supply to the brain and possibly leading to a blackout. A G suit is basically a special pair of tight-fitting pants that are fitted with inflatable bladders. The bladders inflate during high accelerations, tightening around the legs and abdomen, reducing the amount of blood pooling. So, a “G suit” is more correctly referred to as an “anti-G suit”.

2 “Star” of a fall garden : ASTER

Apparently, most aster species and cultivars bloom relatively late in the year, usually in the fall. The name “aster” comes into English via Latin from the Greek word “astéri” meaning “star”, a reference to the arrangement of the petals of the flower.

3 Historic caravel : PINTA

A caravel was a ship of Portuguese origin that was small and very maneuverable. Caravels had triangular lateen-rigged sails which allowed them to sail quite close to the wind. Caravels were indeed quite small, only accommodating a crew of twenty or so sailors. Christopher Columbus’ Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria were all caravels.

Famously, Christopher Columbus used three ships in his first voyage across the Atlantic: the Santa Maria, the Niña and the Pinta. The Pinta was the fastest of the three, and it was from the Pinta that the New World was first spotted by a sailor named Rodrigo de Triana who was a lookout on the fateful day. Pinta was a nickname for the ship that translated as “the painted one”. The Pinta’s real name has been lost in the mists of time.

4 “Star Wars” boy, informally : ANI

Anakin “Ani” Skywalker is the principal character in the first six of the “Star Wars” movies. His progress chronologically through the series of films is:

• Episode I: Anakin is a 9-year-old slave boy who earns the promise of Jedi training by young Obi-Wan Kenobi.
• Episode II: Anakin is 18-years-old and goes on a murdering rampage to avenge the killing of his mother.
• Episode III: Anakin is 21-years-old and a Jedi knight, but he turns to the Dark Side and becomes Darth Vader. His wife Padme gives birth to twins, Luke and Leia Skywalker.
• Episode IV: Darth Vader, comes into conflict with his children, Luke Skywalker and the Princess Leia.
• Episode V: Darth Vader attempts to coax his son Luke over to the dark side, and reveals to Luke that he is his father.
• Episode VI: Luke learns that Leia is his sister, and takes on the task of bringing Darth Vader back from the Dark Side in order to save the Galaxy. Vader saves his son from the Emperor’s evil grip, dying in the process, but his spirit ends up alongside the spirits of Yoda and Obi-Wan. They all live happily ever after …

5 Tennis star Gauff : COCO

Coco Gauff is a professional tennis player from Atlanta whose career really got a boost when she beat Venus Williams in the opening round of Wimbledon in 2019. Ironically, Venus, and her sister Serena, were the players who inspired Gauff to take up tennis as a girl.

6 1872 utopian novel whose title is an anagram of NOWHERE : EREWHON

Samuel Butler was a British novelist and satirist. His best known novels are “Erewhon” (1872) and “The Way of All Flesh” (1903). Butler also made translations of Homer’s “Iliad” and “Odyssey” that are still widely used.

7 “Midnight Cowboy” role : RATSO

Enrico Salvatore “Ratso” Rizzo is one of the characters in the groundbreaking 1969 movie “Midnight Cowboy”. Rizzo is a down-and-out con man played by Dustin Hoffman.

The 1969 movie “Midnight Cowboy” is a Hollywood adaptation of a novel of the same name by James Leo Herlihy. It’s a pretty depressing story about a young Texan named Joe Buck (played by Jon Voight) who heads to New York City to make money as a hustler, hiring himself out to women for sex. Pretty soon the young man ends up selling his body for sex with males as well. Prior to release the MPAA gave the movie an R-rating, but the United Artists studio took advice and decided to release it with an X-rating. When “Midnight Cowboy” won the Best Picture Academy Award in 1969, it became the only X-rated film to be so honored.

8 Music publishing co. owned by Sony : EMI

The Big Four recording labels were (until EMI was broken up in 2012 and absorbed by what became “the Big Three”):

1. Universal Music Group
2. Sony Music Entertainment
3. Warner Music Group
4. EMI

10 Language in which “crossword puzzle” is “krucvortenigmo” : ESPERANTO

Esperanto is an international language specifically constructed to create some level of harmony between people from different parts of the world. It was created in the late 1800s by an ophthalmologist from modern-day Poland. Tens of thousands, and maybe even millions of people speak Esperanto, with some being taught it as a native language from birth.

12 IDs since the Great Depression, in brief : SSNS

Social Security number (SSN)

The Great Depression (also “Depression Era) was a worldwide phenomenon in the decade or so that preceded World War II. The depression was sparked by a dramatic drop in stock prices in the US in September 1929, which eventually made the news around the world following the stock market crash of October 29th of that year, now known as Black Tuesday. US unemployment rose to 25% during the Great Depression, and in some countries unemployment was as high as 33%. Many economists believe that World War II played a large role in ending the depression, at least here in the US. Government spending on the war increased employment dramatically, although many of those jobs were in the front lines. During the war, unemployment fell back below 10%.

13 Book of the New Testament : ACTS

The Acts of the Apostles is the fifth book of the Christian New Testament. It is believed that the author of the Gospel of Luke was the same person who wrote “Acts”.

14 Cloyingly sentimental : GOOPY

To cloy is to cause distaste by oversupplying something that would otherwise be pleasant, especially something with a sweet taste.

23 Did half of a biathlon : SKIED

A biathlon is an event requiring expertise in two sporting disciplines. The most common biathlon is a winter sport that combines cross-country skiing with rifle shooting. This traditional biathlon was born out of an exercise for Norwegian soldiers.

25 Lift up a mountain : T-BAR

A T-bar is a ski lift on which the skiers are pulled up the hill in pairs, with each pair standing (not sitting!) either side of a T-shaped metal bar. The bar is placed behind the thighs, pulling along the skiers as they remain standing on their skis (hopefully!). There’s also a J-bar, which is a similar device but with each J-shaped bar used by one skier at a time.

26 Walt Disney’s middle name : ELIAS

Walt Disney was awarded a record 26 Oscars in his lifetime, winning 22 and receiving 4 honorary awards. He also holds the record for the number of Oscars won in the same year, taking away a total of four in the 1954 awards ceremony.

30 Home to the N.C.A.A.’s Aztecs: Abbr. : SDSU

The Aztecs are the athletic teams of San Diego State university. The team mascot is the Aztec Warrior.

32 One who’s meditating might be in this : LOTUS POSE

“Asana” is a Sanskrit word that translates literally as “sitting down”. The asanas are the poses that a practitioner of yoga assumes. The most famous is the lotus position, the cross-legged pose called “padmasana”.

33 Locomotive, quaintly : IRON HORSE

The term “iron horse” started appearing in Victorian times, describing those new-fangled steam-driven trains and trams that left horse-drawn vehicles in their dust. The term was especially popular in North America, where it described steam locomotives.

34 Some spirits : GENII

“Genii” is an accepted plural of two related words: “genius” and “genie”.

36 Celebrity chef Jacques : PEPIN

Jacques Pépin is a celebrity chef. He had a remarkable career in his native France, including working as the personal chef to three heads of state, including Charles de Gaulle. Pépin moved to the US, where he befriended Julia Child. He appeared alongside his American counterpart in the PBS show “Julia and Jacques Cooking at Home”.

38 Kind of diagram : VENN

Englishman John Venn was an expert in the field of logic, and introduced the Venn diagram in his book “Symbolic Logic” in 1881. Venn diagrams are used in set theory, to illustrate the logical relationships between sets of variables.

41 Offshore competition : REGATTA

The word “regatta” is Venetian dialect and was originally used to describe boat races among the gondoliers of Venice on the Grand Canal back in the mid-1600s.

45 Tree whose first four letters are an anagram of another tree : MAPLE

The sugar maple is the state tree of New York, Vermont, West Virginia and Wisconsin. It is also the primary source of maple syrup.

Palms are perennial flowering plants that take many forms, some as shrubs and some as vines, for example. Some take on a tree-like shape, with a woody stem topped by a crown of leaves. Such palms are usually referred to as “palm trees”. The coco de mer palm tree has the largest seeds of any plant on the planet. We are more familiar with the coconut palm tree, which has the second-largest plant seeds known.

49 Taboo in one of the Ten Commandments : THEFT

In the Christian and Jewish traditions, the Ten Commandments are a set of principles relating to worship and ethics that the faithful should observe. Also known as the Decalogue, the Book of Exodus describes the revelation of the principles by God to Moses on Mount Sanai. Also according to Exodus, the Ten Commandments were inscribed by the finger of God onto a pair of stone tablets that were kept in a chest known as the Ark of the Covenant.

50 Namesake of Ithaca’s sea : IONIA

The Ionian Sea is that part of the Mediterranean lying between Greece and the southern part of Italy (under the sole of the “boot”). The Ionian Sea is one of the most seismically active regions on the planet.

Ithaca is a Greek island in the Ionian Sea. The island features in Homer’s “Odyssey” as it was the home of the mythological hero Odysseus, who was Ithaca’s king.

52 Where IBM is “IBM”: Abbr. : NYSE

The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) can give some quite descriptive ticker symbols to companies, for example:

• Anheuser-Busch (BUD, for “Budweiser”)
• Molson Coors Brewing Company (TAP, as in “beer tap”)
• Steinway Musical Instruments (LVB, for “Ludwig van Beethoven”)
• Sotheby’s (BID, for the auction house)

53 Goddess of healing and magic : ISIS

Isis was the ancient Egyptian goddess of fertility, as well as the protector of the dead and the goddess of children. She was the personification of the pharaoh’s power. The name “Isis” translates as “throne”, and she is usually depicted with a headdress shaped like a throne.

55 Seinfeld’s car on “Seinfeld” : SAAB

“SAAB” stands for Svenska Aeroplan AB, which translates into English as Swedish Aeroplane Limited. Although we usually think of SAAB as an auto manufacturer, it is mainly an aircraft manufacturer. If you take small hops in Europe you might find yourself on a SAAB passenger plane. The SAAB automotive division was acquired by General Motors in the year 2000, who then sold it to a Dutch concern in 2010. However, SAAB (automotive) finally went bankrupt in 2011. The assets were acquired in 2012 by NEVS (National Electric Vehicle Sweden), a new company that used the SAAB name on its vehicles for several years.

61 Onetime presidential nickname : IKE

When the future president was growing up, the Eisenhowers used the nickname “Ike” for all seven boys in the family, as “Ike” was seen as an abbreviation for the family name. “Big Ike” was Edgar, the second oldest boy. “Little/Young Ike” was Dwight, who was the third son born. Dwight had no sisters.