0822-23 NY Times Crossword 22 Aug 23, Tuesday

Bill’s time: 6m 13s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1 1860s 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.

14 Côte d’___ (French Riviera) : AZUR

The Côte d’Azur is on the Mediterranean coast of France and stretches from Saint-Tropez in the west and to the Italian border in the east. In English, we often refer to the area as “the French Riviera”. It’s a little crowded for me (okay, “expensive”), especially in the summer.

15 Sign in a gift shop around Mother’s Day, maybe : FOR HER

Note the official punctuation in “Mother’s Day”, even though one might think it should be “Mothers’ Day”. President Wilson and Anna Jarvis, who created the tradition, specifically wanted Mother’s Day to honor the mothers within each family and not just “mothers” in general, so they went with the “Mother’s Day” punctuation.

17 Royalties from Stevie’s “Superstition”? : WONDER BREAD

The great musician Stevie Wonder signed on with Motown Records when he was just 11-years-old. He has been remarkably loyal to the label and is still recording with Motown some 50 years later. The level of Stevie Wonder’s success is illustrated by his 22 Grammy Awards, the most Grammys awarded to a male solo artist. Wonder was born 6 weeks prematurely, and incomplete development of blood vessels in his eyes caused the retinas to detach leaving him blind soon after birth. His mother, Lula Mae Hardaway, co-wrote many of Stevie’s songs when he was a teenager, including “I Was Made to Love Her”, “Signed, Sealed, Delivered I’m Yours” and “I Don’t Know Why I Love You”.

Wonder Bread was introduced in 1921 by the Taggart Baking Company of Indianapolis. Wonder Bread was introduced as “the greatest forward step in the baking industry since bread was wrapped”. The loaves were unsliced back then, with the sliced version being introduced nationally in the 1930s. It was the “wonder” of this sliced bread that eventually led to the idiom “the best thing since sliced bread”.

19 Vega’s constellation : LYRA

Lyra (Latin for “lyre, harp, lute”) is a constellation that includes the star Vega, one of the brightest stars in the night sky. The constellation Lyra is surrounded by the neighboring constellations of Draco, Hercules, Vulpecula and Cygnus.

Vega is the brightest star in the constellation Lyra. Vega (along with Altair and Deneb from other constellations) is also part of the group of three stars that is called the Summer Triangle. Vega is the star at the right-angle of said triangle.

21 Super-skinny ties : BOLOS

I’ve never worn a bolo tie, and was surprised to discover that it is a relatively recent invention. The first bolo tie was apparently produced in Wickenburg, Arizona in the late 1940s by a silversmith. The bolo takes its name from the boleadora, an Argentine lariat.

22 Geological period : ERA

Geologic time is divided into a number of units of varying lengths. These are, starting from the largest:

• supereon
• eon (also “aeon”)
• era
• period
• epoch
• age

23 Royalties from Neil’s “Heart of Gold”? : YOUNG BUCKS

Neil Young is a singer and songwriter from Toronto, Ontario. Young is known for his solo work, as well as his earlier recordings with Buffalo Springfield and as the fourth member of Crosby, Stills & Nash. Young is also a successful movie director, although he uses the pseudonym “Bernard Shakey” for his movie work. Included in his filmography are “Human Highway” and “Greendale”.

“Buck” is a slang word meaning “dollar”. The term has been around at least since 1856, and is thought to derive from the tradition of using buckskin as a unit of trade with Native Americans during the frontier days.

“Heart of Gold” is a song written and recorded by Neil Young in 1971. It reached the number-one spot in the American charts the following year, and was to be Young’s only chart topper in the US. “Heart of Gold” features backup vocals by James Taylor and Linda Ronstadt.

26 Indonesian resort destination : BALI

Bali is an Indonesian island located in the westernmost end of the Lesser Sunda Islands, lying between Java to the west and Lombok to the east. It is known as the “Island of the Gods” due to its rich and unique culture, which is steeped in religious and spiritual beliefs.

30 Chicago trains : ELS

The Chicago “L” is the second largest rapid transit system in the US, with the New York City Subway being the largest. The “L” is also the second oldest, again with the New York City Subway system having the honor of being around the longest. Note that the official nickname for the system is the “L” (originally short for “elevated railroad”), although the term “El” is also in common use (especially in crosswords as “ELS”). The L is managed by the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA).

31 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.

33 Light bulb units : WATTS

James Watt was a Scottish inventor. He figured prominently in the Industrial Revolution in Britain, largely due to the improvements he made to the fledgling steam engine. The SI unit of power is called the watt, and was named in his honor.

Thomas Edison didn’t invent the light bulb as such. What he came up with was a long-lasting bulb, one that enabled the development of electric lighting as a viable alternative to gas- and oil-based illumination. Key to Edison’s success was the use of a carbon filament.

34 Royalties from Tom’s “Free Fallin'”? : PETTY CASH

Singer-songwriter Tom Petty first became interested in rock and roll music when he met Elvis Presley at ten-years-old. Later Petty was inspired to get into a band when he saw the Beatles on “The Ed Sullivan Show”. He became the lead singer of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, and later co-founded the supergroup called the Traveling Wilburys.

The word “petty”, meaning “small-minded”, comes from the French word for small, “petit”. When “petty” first came into English it wasn’t used disparagingly, and was used more literally giving us terms like “petty officer” and “petty cash”. The word “petty” evolved into a prefix “petti-” with the meaning of “small”, as in the word “petticoat”.

“Free Fallin’” is a 1989 song recorded by Tom Petty. It was the first track that Petty completed for his debut album “Full Moon Fever”, and was to become his most successful and best-known song.

37 Colorado city known for skiing : ASPEN

Aspen, Colorado used to be known as Ute City, with the name change taking place in 1880. Like many communities in the area, Aspen was a mining town, and in 1891 and 1892 it was at the center of the highest production of silver in the US. Nowadays, it’s all about skiing and movie stars.

40 “___: Legacy” (2010 sci-fi movie) : 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”.

47 Utter foolishness : INANITY

Our word “inane” meaning “silly, lacking substance” comes from the Latin “inanitis” meaning “empty space”.

50 Royalties from Barry’s “Can’t Get Enough of Your Love, Babe”? : WHITE PAPER

Barry White was a singer-songwriter from Texas who grew up in South Central Los Angeles. White has a rough start to life and ended up in jail at 17 for stealing Cadillac tires. It was while in prison that White was inspired to begin a musical career, after listening to Elvis Presley on record singing “It’s Now or Never”. White’s greatest chart success was in the mid-seventies, with recordings such as “Never, Never Gonna Give Ya Up” and “You’re the First, the Last, My Everything”.

A white paper is a report designed to explain an issue, make a decision or solve a problem.

52 QB’s mistake: Abbr. : INT

In football, if a quarterback’s (QB’s) pass ends up in the hands of a cornerback (CB), then that’s an interception (INT).

53 Garlic mayo spread : AIOLI

Aioli is a French sauce made from garlic, egg yolks, and olive oil. The word “aioli” comes from “alh”, the Provençal word for garlic, and “oli”, a Catalan word meaning “oil”.

54 Lively dance at a Jewish wedding : HORA

The hora is a circle dance that originated in the Balkans. It was brought to Israel by Romanian settlers, and is often performed to traditional, Israeli folk songs. The hora (also “horah”) is a regular sight at Jewish weddings. Sometimes the honoree at an event is raised on a chair during the dance.

55 Royalties for any musician? : SOUND CHECKS

Checks and checking accounts caused me some language trouble when I first came to the US. Back in Ireland (and the UK) we write “cheques” using funds from our “current” accounts.

59 Back muscle, informally : LAT

The muscles known as the “lats” are the latissimi dorsi, and are the broadest muscles in the back. “Latissimus” is Latin for “broadest”, and “dorsum” is Latin for “back”.

60 Fidelity alternative, for investors : E-TRADE

E-Trade is mainly an online discount brokerage. It was founded in 1982 in Palo Alto, California, and I used to drive by its headquarters almost every day. The company is now run out of New York City. E-Trade used to produce those famous Super Bowl ads with the talking babies staring into a webcam.

61 Innocent sort : NAIF

A naïf is someone who is naive, as “naïf” is the French word for “naive”.

64 “Being ___: A Puppeteer’s Journey” (2011 documentary) : ELMO
65 Color of 64-Across : RED

The “Sesame Street” character named Elmo has a birthday every February 3rd, and on that birthday he always turns 3½ years old. The man behind/under Elmo on “Sesame Street” for many years was Kevin Clash. If you want to learn more about Elmo and Clash, you can watch the 2011 documentary “Being Elmo: A Puppeteer’s Journey”.

Down

1 One who might light altar candles in a religious ceremony : ACOLYTE

The word “acolyte” comes from the Greek “akolouthos” meaning “companion, attendant, helper”. In the Christian tradition, an acolyte is an individual who assists some way in a ceremony, by lighting candles for example. In more general terms, an acolyte is a devoted follower or attendant.

5 Emmy-winning actress Aduba : UZO

Uzo Aduba is an actress best known for playing prison inmate Suzanne “Crazy Eyes” Warren on the Netflix TV show “Orange Is the New Black”.

18 Fraternal order named for an animal : ELKS

The Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks (BPOE) was founded in 1868, and is a social club that has about a million members today. It started out as a group of men getting together in a “club” in order to get around the legal opening hours of taverns in New York City. The club took on a new role as it started to look out for poor families of members who passed away. The club now accepts African Americans as members (since the seventies) and women (since the nineties), but atheists still aren’t welcome. The list of US presidents that have been members of the BPOE includes Presidents Eisenhower, Harding, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy and Ford.

20 Journalist Curry : ANN

Television journalist Ann Curry is perhaps best known for the time she spent as co-host on NBC’s “Today” show. NBC executives asked Curry to resign from the “Today” show because ratings were low. I just read online that Curry was also pushed out because of the way she insisted on dressing and because she refused to dye her gray hair. I hope that isn’t true …

25 Borscht ingredient : BEET

Borscht is a beetroot soup that originated in Ukraine. Borscht can be served both hot and cold.

32 W.S.J. competitor : NYT

“The New York Times” (NYT) has been published since 1851, and is sometimes referred to as “the Gray Lady”. These days a viable alternative to buying the paper is to read the news online. NYTimes.com is the most popular online newspaper website in the country.

“The Wall Street Journal” (WSJ) is a daily newspaper with a business bent that is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company. The WSJ has a larger US circulation than any other newspaper, with “USA Today” coming in a close second place.

37 Provides mentorship : ADVISES

A mentor is a trusted teacher or counselor. The term “mentor” comes from Homer’s “Odyssey” in which there is a character named Mentor. He is a friend of Odysseus, although he is a relatively ineffective old man. The goddess Athena takes on Mentor’s appearance in order to guide Odysseus’s young son Telemachus through difficult times.

38 What an asterisk might mean : SEE NOTE

The name of the typographical symbol “asterisk” comes from the Greek word “asteriskos” meaning “little star”. The original use of the asterisk was by printers of family trees in feudal times. Back then it was a symbol indicating the date of birth.

42 Go over again : ITERATE

The verb “to iterate” means to repeat over again. The verb “reiterate” means the same thing. One might suspect that “reiterate” is one of those words that has crept into the language due to repeated (reiterated?!) misuse. Well, that’s not quite the case, but close. Back in the 1400s, “iterate” meant “repeat”, and “reiterate” meant “repeat again and again”. We’ve lost the distinction between those two definitions over time.

43 Danced like Elvis : GYRATED

Elvis Presley is often referred to as “the King of Rock and Roll”, or simply “the King”. However, Presley is quoted as saying that Fats Domino was “the real king of rock and roll”.

51 “The L Word” co-creator ___ Chaiken : ILENE

Ilene Chaiken is the co-creator of the Showtime drama series “The L Word”. The show deals with lesbian, bisexual and transgender people living in West Hollywood. The title refers to “the L word”: lesbian.

57 Korea’s ___ Jong Un : KIM

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has a lengthy list of official titles, including:

• Bright Sun of the 21st Century
• Amazing Politician
• Ever-Victorious, Iron-Willed Commander
• Glorious General, Who Descended from Heaven

58 Bay Area airport code : SFO

San Francisco International Airport (SFO) served as the main base of operations for Virgin America (sold to Alaska Airlines), and is also the maintenance hub for United Airlines. Even though SFO is owned and operated by the City and County of San Francisco, the airport is located to the south in San Mateo County.