0807-23 NY Times Crossword 7 Aug 23, Monday

Bill’s time: 4m 50s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

6 N.Y.C. home to van Gogh’s “The Starry Night” : MOMA

The founding of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City was very much driven by Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, wife of John D. Rockefeller. Working with two friends, Abby managed to get the museum opened in 1929, just nine days after the Wall Street Crash. The MoMA’s sculpture garden bears the name of Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, and has done so since 1949.

“The Starry Night” (“La Nuit Étoilée” in French) is a Van Gogh masterpiece depicting what the artist could see from the window of his room in a sanitarium near the village of Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. It is a lovely piece, and was acquired by New York’s Museum of Modern Art in 1941 …

10 Home of Mongolia and Myanmar : ASIA

The East Asian nation of Mongolia lies between Russia to the north and China to the south. With an area of over 600,000 square miles and a population of about 3 million people, Mongolia is the most sparsely populated sovereign nation on the planet. Almost half of the Mongolian populace lives in the capital city of Ulan Bator.

The Republic of the Union of Myanmar is the official name of the Asian country that some nations still recognize as the Union of Burma.

15 Idle who sang “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” while tied to a cross : ERIC

Eric Idle is one of the founding members of the Monty Python team. He was very much the musician of the bunch, and is an accomplished guitarist. If you’ve seen the Monty Python film “The Life of Brian”, you might remember the closing number “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life”. It was sung by Idle, and was also written by him. That song made it to number-3 in the UK charts in 1991.

20 “Monster” on the web : INTERNET TROLL

In Internet terms, a troll is someone who attempts to disrupt online group activities. The fishing term “troll” is used to describe such a person as he or she throws out off-topic remarks in an attempt to “lure” others into some emotional response. I must admit to feeling sorry for people who have such sad lives …

23 Flower with thorns : ROSE

Believe it or not, roses don’t have any thorns as such. Thorns are derived from shoots, spines are derived from leaves, and prickles are derived from the epidermis. The rose’s defensive barbs are in fact prickles.

24 Transfer from a device to the cloud, say : UPLOAD

In the world of computing, when one operates “in the cloud”, one’s files and key applications are not stored on one’s own computer, but rather are residing “in the cloud”, on a computer somewhere out on the Internet. I do 90% of my computing in the cloud. That way I don’t have to worry about backing up files, and I can operate from any computer if I have to …

31 “Busy” buzzer : BEE

There are over 16,000 species of bees, with the best-known probably being the western honey bee, the most common of the honey bees worldwide. Bees feed on nectar and pollen, and in so doing play a crucial role in the pollination of many plants. That’s one of the main reasons there is great concern about diminishing populations of wild bees.

32 Messenger molecule : RNA

Ribonucleic acid (RNA) is an essential catalyst in the manufacture of proteins in the body. The genetic code in DNA determines the sequence of amino acids that make up each protein. That sequence is read in DNA by messenger RNA, and amino acids are delivered for protein manufacture in the correct sequence by transfer RNA. The amino acids are then formed into proteins by ribosomal RNA. An added complication is that small changes in the sequence of amino acids specified by DNA sometimes takes place in a process known as RNA editing. This RNA editing occurs after the nucleotide sequence has been transcribed from DNA, but before it is translated into protein.

41 Not showing emotion : STOIC

Zeno of Citium was a Greek philosopher famous for teaching at the Stoa Poikile, the “Painted Porch”, located on the north side of the Ancient Agora of Athens. Because of the location of his classes, his philosophy became known as stoicism (from “stoa”, the word for “porch”). We get our adjective “stoic”, meaning “indifferent to pleasure or pain”, from the same root.

46 Commercial prefix with Pen : EPI-

EpiPen is a brand of epinephrine auto-injector. An EpiPen delivers a measured dose of epinephrine, which is a common treatment for an extreme allergic reaction.’

48 00s, in James Bond novels : AGENTS

The character James Bond was the creation of writer Ian Fleming. Fleming “stole” the James Bond name from an American ornithologist. The number “007” was “stolen” from the real-life, 16th-century English spy named John Dee. Dee would sign his reports to Queen Elizabeth I with a stylized “007” to indicate that the reports were for “her eyes only”. There’s an entertaining miniseries that aired on BBC America called “Fleming: The Man Who Would Be Bond” that details Ian Fleming’s military career, and draws some nice parallels between Fleming’s experiences and aspirations and those of his hero James Bond. Recommended …

60 Pic file format : JPEG

The JPEG image file format (also “.jpg”) was created by the Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG), hence the name.

62 Literary heroine Jane : EYRE

“Jane Eyre” is a celebrated novel written by Charlotte Brontë, under the pen name Currer Bell. The love story is perhaps represented by the oft-quoted opening lines of the last chapter, “Reader, I married him”. There is a wonderful 4-hour television adaptation made by the BBC that I highly recommend to fans of the novel …

63 Equipment in a control tower : RADAR

Scientists have been using radio waves to detect the presence of objects since the late 1800s, but it was the demands of WWII that accelerated the practical application of the technology. The British called their system RDF standing for Range and Direction Finding. The system used by the US Navy was called “Radio Detection And Ranging”, which was shortened to the acronym “RADAR”.

65 1982 film whose use of C.G.I. made it ineligible for a best visual effects Oscar : TRON

Released in 1982, Disney’s “Tron” was one of the first mainstream films to make extensive use of computer graphics. The main role in the movie is played by Jeff Bridges. The original spawned a 2010 sequel called “Tron: Legacy”, as well as a 2012 TV show called “Tron: Uprising”.

Down

2 Like many blinking signs that say “Open” : NEON

The basic design of neon lighting was first demonstrated at the Paris Motor Show in 1910. Such lighting is made up of glass tubes containing a vacuum into which has been introduced a small amount of neon gas. When a voltage is applied between two electrodes inside the tube, the neon gas “glows” and gives off the familiar light.

5 South Dakota’s capital : PIERRE

Here’s an old chestnut of a trivia question for you … what’s the only state capital in the Union for which the name of the capital and the name of its state share no common letters? You guessed it: Pierre, South Dakota …

6 Viral jokes like Grumpy Cat and Sad Frog : MEMES

“Grumpy Cat” was the nickname of a well-known cat on the Internet named Tardar Sauce. She had an underbite that caused her face to always appear “grumpy”. The brother of her owner posted a picture of the cat on Reddit one day in 2012, and folks started using the photo in parodies. By 2020, Grumpy Cat was an Internet meme, with over 8 million likes on Facebook. She even starred in her own movie, “Grumpy Cat’s Worst Christmas Ever”, which was released in 2014.

10 Ring-shaped reef : ATOLL

An atoll is a coral island that is shaped in a ring that encloses a lagoon. There is still some debate as to how an atoll forms, but a theory proposed by Charles Darwin while on his famous voyage aboard HMS Beagle still holds sway. Basically, an atoll was once a volcanic island that had subsided and fallen into the sea. The coastline of the island is home to coral growth which persists even as the island continues to subside inside the circling coral reef.

11 Japanese manga heroine with a feline sidekick named Luna : SAILOR MOON

“Sailor Moon” is a manga series from Japan. The title character is a soldier who is destined to save the Earth from evil. She is also the alter ego of a schoolgirl named Usagi Tsukino. Sailor Moon’s companion is a talking black cat named Luna who has magical powers.

22 Opinion columns, in brief : OP-EDS

“Op-ed” is an abbreviation for “opposite the editorial page”. Op-eds started in “The New York Evening World” in 1921 when the page opposite the editorials was used for articles written by a named guest writer, someone independent of the editorial board.

26 Tango and foxtrot, for two : DANCES

The dramatic tango dance originated in the late 1800s in the area along the border between Argentina and Uruguay. Dancers and orchestras from Buenos Aires in particular traveled to Europe and beyond in the early twentieth century and brought the tango with them. The tango craze first struck Europe in Paris in the 1910s, and from there spread to London and Berlin, crossing the Atlantic to New York in 1913.

The foxtrot is smooth and flowing like a waltz, but in 4/4 time as opposed to 3/4. The dance is named for the vaudeville dancer Harry Fox, who popularized it in the early 1900s.

28 ___ Wall Street (protest movement) : OCCUPY

The Occupy movement is a protest directed against economic and social inequality worldwide. The first such protest to garner major attention took place in Wall Street in 2011, and from there similar protests spread around the world.

29 Designers of Disney attractions : IMAGINEERS

The Walt Disney Company coined the term “imagineering” to describe the creation and construction of Disney theme parks.

30 Actress Ward : SELA

Actress Sela Ward turns up in crosswords a lot. She played Teddy Reed in the TV show “Sisters” in the nineties, and was in “Once and Again” from 1999-2002. I don’t know either show, but I do know Ward from the medical drama “House” in which she played the hospital’s lawyer and Greg House’s ex-partner. That was a fun role, I thought. More recently, Ward played a lead role on “CSI: NY” and was a very welcome and much-needed addition to the cast. And, Ward played Dr. Richard Kimble’s murdered wife in the 1993 film version of “The Fugitive”.

36 Single feature of a Cyclops : EYE

Cyclops was a one-eyed giant in Greek and Roman mythology. Cyclops lived inside Mount Etna, the Sicilian volcano.

39 Top-quality, as beef : PRIME

The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) classifies meat into eight different grades:

• Prime
• Choice
• Select
• Standard
• Commercial
• Utility
• Cutter
• Canner

43 Broccoli tips : FLORETS

The Italian term “broccolo” is used to describe the flowering crest of a cabbage. We use the plural form of the same word “broccoli” as the name of the edible green plant in the cabbage family.

52 Lord ___, “Don Juan” poet : BYRON

Here are some famous lines from Lord Byron’s epic 1823 poem “Don Juan”:

‘Tis strange—but true; for truth is always strange,
Stranger than fiction: if it could be told,
How much would novels gain by the exchange!
How differently the world would men behold!

55 Greek sandwich with tzatziki : GYRO

A gyro is a traditional Greek dish of meat roasted on a tall vertical spit that is sliced from the spit as required. Gyros are usually served inside a lightly grilled piece of pita bread, along with tomato, onion and tzatziki (a yogurt and cucumber sauce).

57 The ___ of March : IDES

There were three important days in each month of the old Roman calendar. These days originally depended on the cycles of the moon but were eventually “fixed” by law. “Kalendae” were the first days of each month, originally the days of the new moon. “Nonae” were originally the days of the half moon. And “idus” (the ides) was originally the day of the full moon, eventually fixed at the 15th day of a month. Actually, the ides were the 15th day of March, May, July and October. For all other months, the ides fell on the 13th. Go figure …

In Act I of William Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar”, a soothsayer warns the doomed leader to “beware the ides of March”. Caesar ignores the prophecy and is subsequently killed on the steps of the Capitol by a group of conspirators on that fateful day.

58 Tirade : RANT

The term “tirade” describes a long and vehement speech, and is a word that came into English from French. “Tirade” can have the same meaning in French, but is also the word for “volley”. So, a tirade is a “volley” of words.

60 Big part of a T. rex : JAW

The most popular dinosaurs depicted in the movies, especially the older ones, are the Tyrannosaurs and the Allosauruses. They look very similar, with the former being the really big guy. One difference between the two, is that they weren’t around at the same time. The allosaurus was around during the Jurassic period, but the T. rex didn’t appear on Earth for another 100 million years or so, during the Cretaceous period.