0921-23 NY Times Crossword 21 Sep 23, Thursday

Constructed by: Dan Caprera
Edited by: Will Shortz

Today’s Reveal Answer: Winter Migration

Themed answers each end with a bird on a WINTER MIGRATION, a bird that has headed south, turned downwards in the grid:

  • 40A Seasonal phenomenon depicted six times in this puzzle : WINTER MIGRATION
  • 1A Director who said “Horror films don’t create fear. They release it” : WES CRAVEN
  • 5D Jet black, as hair : RAVEN
  • 6A Center cut? : MOHAWK
  • 8D Peddle : HAWK
  • 9A Length just over one centimeter : HALF-INCH
  • 12D Lawyer in “To Kill a Mockingbird” : FINCH
  • 37A Infamous presidential denial : I AM NOT A CROOK
  • 39D Corner piece : ROOK
  • 49A “The $10,000 Pyramid” host : DICK CLARK
  • 51D On a ___ : LARK
  • 58A How some money is held : IN ESCROW
  • 61D Toot one’s own horn : CROW

Bill’s time: 11m 07s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1 Director who said “Horror films don’t create fear. They release it” : WES CRAVEN

Wes Craven was a very successful film director and writer specializing in movies of the horror genre, which means that I don’t watch them! He was responsible for “A Nightmare on Elm Street” and the “Scream” films. Craven passed away in August 2015.

6 Center cut? : MOHAWK

Here is another example of a difference in terminology on either side of the Atlantic. What we call the Mohawk hairstyle in the US is known as a Mohican in Britain and Ireland. The Mohawk hairstyle is named after the Mohawk nation, who wore their hair in the same fashion. The Mohawk style has been around for a long time elsewhere in the world. There was a well-preserved male body found in a bog near Dublin in Ireland in 2003. The body is about 2,000 years old, and has a Mohawk haircut.

14 Half of a rhyming game name : ALAI

Even though jai alai is often said to be the fastest sport in the world because of the speed of the ball, golf balls usually get going at a greater clip. Although, as a blog reader once pointed out to me, you don’t have to catch a golf ball …

16 Mine, in Marseille : A MOI

Marseille (often written “Marseilles” in English) is the second largest city in France, after Paris. Marseille is also the largest commercial port in the country. I used to live nearby, and can attest that Marseille and environs is a great place to visit …

17 Desert near Sinai : NEGEV

The Negev is a desert region in southern Israel. The largest city in the Negev is Beersheba. The Negev covers about 4,700 square miles, which is about 55% of Israel’s landmass.

20 Natural find with a cavity : GEODE

A geode is a rock in which there is a cavity that is lined or filled with crystal formations. The crystals inside a geode form when mineral-rich water seeps into a cavity in a rock, leaving behind dissolved minerals that gradually build up over time. Some of the largest geodes ever discovered have been as big as a room and can take millions of years to form.

23 Major Japanese company HQ’d in a 43-story tower shaped like a rocket : NEC

“NEC” is the name that the Nippon Electric Company chose for itself outside of Japan after a rebranding exercise in 1983.

24 Capital of Washington? : ONES

The nation’s first president, George Washington, is on the US one-dollar bills produced today. When the original one-dollar bill was issued in 1863, it featured a portrait of Salmon P. Chase, President Abraham Lincoln’s Secretary of the Treasury.

32 ___ Verde, national park in Colorado : MESA

Mesa Verde National Park is in Colorado. Mesa Verde is home to ancient cliff dwellings built by the Puebloan people, also known as the Anasazi. The most spectacular of these dwellings is Cliff Palace, which is the largest cliff dwelling in North America.

35 Org. concerned with cyberwarfare : NSA

The National Security Agency (NSA) was set up in 1952 by President Truman, a replacement for the Armed Forces Security Agency that had existed in the Department of Defense (DoD) since 1949. The NSA has always been clouded in secrecy and even the 1952 letter from President Truman that established the agency was kept under wraps from the public for over a generation. I really like the organization’s nickname … “No Such Agency”.

36 Melber of MSNBC : ARI

Ari Melber is a television journalist and the chief legal correspondent for MSNBC. He started hosting his own daily show called “The Beat with Ari Melber” in 2017.

37 Infamous presidential denial : I AM NOT A CROOK

At the height of the Watergate Scandal in November 1973, President Nixon conducted a televised hour-long question-and-answer session with 400 Associated Press managing editors. The president was under intense pressure, but maintained his innocence in the Watergate case. The lines most remembered from that session are:

And in all of my years of public life I have never obstructed justice. People have got to know whether or not their President is a crook. Well, I’m not a crook.

45 Desire for a lonely hart? : DOE

A male deer is usually called a buck, and a female is a doe. However, the male red deer is usually referred to as a stag. The males of even larger species of deer are often called bulls, and the females called cows. In older English, male deer of over 5 years were called harts, and females of over 3 years were called hinds. The young of small species are known as fawns, and of larger species are called calves. All very confusing …

46 Childish Gambino’s record label : RCA

Actor and singer Donald Glover also uses the stage name “Childish Gambino”. He perhaps came to the public’s attention when created and took on the starring role in the comedy-drama TV series “Atlanta” in 2016.

47 He actually died about 1,500 years before the fiddle was invented : NERO

The Great Fire of Rome raged for five and a half days in 64 AD. Of the fourteen districts of Rome, three were completely destroyed and seven more suffered serious damage. The emperor at the time was Nero, although reports that he fiddled, played his lyre or sang while the city burned; those accounts are probably not true. In fact, Nero was staying outside of Rome when the fire started and rushed home upon hearing the news. He organized a massive relief effort, throwing open his own home to give shelter to many of the citizens who were left living on the street.

49 “The $10,000 Pyramid” host : DICK CLARK

Television personality Dick Clark was best known for hosting “American Bandstand”, the longest-running TV variety show in the country’s history. Clark was also known as the host of the game show “Pyramid”, and of course as host of “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve” which was broadcast annually from Times Square in New York City. Despite suffering a massive stroke in 2004, and having a speech impairment as a result, Clark appeared on the “New Year’s Rockin’ Eve” show right up till the 2011/2012 episode. Clark passed away a few months later, in April 2012 at the age of 82.

“Pyramid” is a whole series of game shows that date back to the original “The $10,000 Pyramid” first aired in 1973. I guess inflation drove us to the “$100,000 Pyramid”, starting in 1985. Dick Clark was probably the most famous host of the show, appearing from 1973 to 1980 (and presiding over the increase to “The $20,000 Pyramid”).

55 Tea brand : TAZO

Tazo is an American brand of tea products introduced in 1983. The company’s name is a Romany word meaning “river of life”.

58 How some money is held : IN ESCROW

One type of escrow account is held by a trusted third party for two parties who have some contractual arrangement, an arrangement that is often in dispute. The third party only releases the funds when both parties have fulfilled their contractual obligations.

62 Be overly sweet : CLOY

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

64 Classic N.Y.C. cinema name : ROXY

The original Roxy Theater opened in 1927 in New York City, and was designed to be the biggest and best “motion picture palace” of the day. The first theater operator was Samuel “Roxy” Rothafel, someone who had a lot of experience in the industry. As part of the deal to entice Rothafel to take the job, the owners offered to name the theater after him.

66 Food that can be eaten to help with anemia : LIVER

The human liver has many functions, one of which is to store vital substances. The list of substances stored in the liver includes glucose (as glycogen), vitamin A, vitamin D, vitamin B12, vitamin K, iron and copper. Another function of the liver is to produce bile, a substance stored in the gallbladder that aids in the digestion of fats.

The term “anemia” (or “anaemia”, as we write it back in Ireland) comes from a Greek word meaning “lack of blood”. Anemia is a lack of iron in the blood, or a low red blood cell count. Tiredness is a symptom of the condition, and so we use the term “anemic” figuratively to mean “lacking in vitality or substance”.

69 Día de los Reyes month : ENERO

The holiday in the Christian tradition known as the Epiphany falls on January 6th. In some Spanish-speaking countries, the Epiphany is known as “Día de los Reyes”, and in others as “Día de Reyes” (Day of Kings).

71 Tonsil treater, in brief : ENT

An ear, nose and throat (ENT) surgeon is an otorhinolaryngologist.

Down

2 Competitive poker? : EPEE

The French word for sword is “épée”. In competitive fencing the épée is connected to a system that records an electrical signal when legal contact is made on an opponent’s body.

3 State flower of Utah : SEGO

The sego lily is the state flower of Utah. It is a perennial plant found throughout the Western United States.

4 Guiding statements : CREDOS

A creed or credo is a profession of faith, or a system of belief or principles. “Credo” is Latin for “I believe”.

6 ___ de mer : MAL

Here are some French terms for some unpleasant conditions:

  • Mal de tête (headache)
  • Mal de mer (seasickness)
  • Mal de pays (homesickness)

8 Peddle : HAWK

The verb “to hawk” has a Germanic origin, and comes from the Low German word “hoken” meaning “to peddle”. A hawker is actually slightly different from a peddler by definition, as a hawker is a peddler that uses a horse and cart, or a van nowadays perhaps, to sell his or her wares.

10 Our bodies need 20+ different kinds to function : AMINO ACIDS

There are 20 different types of amino acids that make up proteins. However, only 11 of them can be synthesized by the human body, while the remaining nine essential amino acids must be obtained from food sources.

11 Some seating sections : LOGES

In most theaters and stadiums today, “loge” is the name given to the front rows of a mezzanine level. Loge can also be used for box seating.

12 Lawyer in “To Kill a Mockingbird” : FINCH

Atticus Finch is the protagonist in Harper Lee’s great novel “To Kill a Mockingbird”. Atticus is the father of Jean Louise “Scout” Finch, the narrator of the piece, and of Scout’s older brother Jeremy Atticus “Jem” Finch.

22 Wide ray : MANTA

The manta ray is the largest species of ray, with the biggest one recorded at over 25 feet across and weighing 5,100 pounds. It is sometimes referred to as the sea devil.

25 Male members of the House of Saud : EMIRS

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is the largest Arab country in the Middle East and is the world’s largest oil producer, home to the world’s largest oil reserves. The Saudi dynasty started in central Arabia in 1744 when the secular leader Muhammad ibn Saud joined forces with the Islamic scholar and Imam, Muhammad ibn Abd-al-Wahhab. At the time, Saud was a ruler of a town near Riyadh and he was determined to bring “true” Islam to the Arabian peninsula. Since 1744 the fortunes of the Saudi family have risen and fallen, but it is that same family who rules what we know today as Saudi Arabia.

28 Its lowest score is 120, in brief : LSAT

Law School Admission Test (LSAT)

30 Name of seven Danish kings : ERIC

The constitutional monarchy of Denmark consists of not only the country of Denmark, but also the autonomous constituent countries of the Faroe Islands and Greenland.

39 Corner piece : ROOK

The corner piece in the game of chess is called a “rook”, a word coming from the Persian “rokh” meaning a “chariot”. The rook has also been called, perhaps incorrectly, the castle, tower, marquess and rector.

43 The Legend of Zelda console, in brief : NES

“The Legend of Zelda” is a whole series of video games. First released in 1986, I hear that it is very successful …

50 Structure built in a catenary arch shape : IGLOO

The Inuit word for “house” is “iglu”, which we usually write as “igloo”. The Greenlandic (yes, that’s a language) word for “house” is very similar, namely “igdlo”. The walls of igloos are tremendous insulators, due to the air pockets in the blocks of snow.

53 Edmonton N.H.L. player : OILER

The National Hockey League’s Edmonton Oilers are so called because they are located in Alberta, Canada … oil country.

56 Ending with euro : -ZONE

The eurozone (also “euro area”) is a monetary and economic union within the European Union that uses the euro as a shared legal tender and sole currency.

61 Toot one’s own horn : CROW

The verb “to crow” meaning “to exult in triumph” is imitative of the sound made by a crow, perhaps as it settles over some dead animal that it has found …

Complete List of Clues/Answers

Across

1 Director who said “Horror films don’t create fear. They release it” : WES CRAVEN
6 Center cut? : MOHAWK
9 Length just over one centimeter : HALF-INCH
13 Entertainment one might view from a box : OPERA
14 Half of a rhyming game name : ALAI
16 Mine, in Marseille : A MOI
17 Desert near Sinai : NEGEV
18 Indecent : LEWD
19 “It’s a ___” : SIGN
20 Natural find with a cavity : GEODE
21 Whole alternative : SKIM
23 Major Japanese company HQ’d in a 43-story tower shaped like a rocket : NEC
24 Capital of Washington? : ONES
27 Rubber overshoe : GALOSH
29 Shows indecision, in a way : HEMS
32 ___ Verde, national park in Colorado : MESA
35 Org. concerned with cyberwarfare : NSA
36 Melber of MSNBC : ARI
37 Infamous presidential denial : I AM NOT A CROOK
40 Seasonal phenomenon depicted six times in this puzzle : WINTER MIGRATION
44 Gave advice : COUNSELED
45 Desire for a lonely hart? : DOE
46 Childish Gambino’s record label : RCA
47 He actually died about 1,500 years before the fiddle was invented : NERO
48 Quizzes : ASKS
49 “The $10,000 Pyramid” host : DICK CLARK
52 Person who might call a child a bairn : SCOT
54 “This again?!” : UGH!
55 Tea brand : TAZO
58 How some money is held : IN ESCROW
62 Be overly sweet : CLOY
64 Classic N.Y.C. cinema name : ROXY
66 Food that can be eaten to help with anemia : LIVER
67 Sprinted : TORE
68 Place for a brace : KNEE
69 Día de los Reyes month : ENERO
70 Drink that should not be served shaken : SODA
71 Tonsil treater, in brief : ENT
72 Freshen : RENEW

Down

1 Third-most common Chinese surname in America : WONG
2 Competitive poker? : EPEE
3 State flower of Utah : SEGO
4 Guiding statements : CREDOS
5 Jet black, as hair : RAVEN
6 ___ de mer : MAL
7 They may precede cries of “GOOOOOAAAAL!” : OLES
8 Peddle : HAWK
9 Isn’t out of : HAS
10 Our bodies need 20+ different kinds to function : AMINO ACIDS
11 Some seating sections : LOGES
12 Lawyer in “To Kill a Mockingbird” : FINCH
15 Cool cat’s “Copy that” : I DIG
22 Wide ray : MANTA
25 Male members of the House of Saud : EMIRS
26 Some people on deck : SEAMEN
28 Its lowest score is 120, in brief : LSAT
29 Show indecision, in a way : HAW
30 Name of seven Danish kings : ERIC
31 D-F-A is one, in music : MINOR CHORD
33 What you do just for grins? : SMILE
34 Ticks off : ANGERS
38 Many a surgeon, informally : OR DOC
39 Corner piece : ROOK
41 Conceal, with “away” : TUCK …
42 Pass : ENACT
43 The Legend of Zelda console, in brief : NES
48 When many businesses open : AT NINE
49 Passageways : DUCTS
50 Structure built in a catenary arch shape : IGLOO
51 On a ___ : LARK
53 Edmonton N.H.L. player : OILER
56 Ending with euro : -ZONE
57 Animals on Nebraska’s state quarter : OXEN
59 Like some numbers and scores : EVEN
60 Withered, climate-wise : SERE
61 Toot one’s own horn : CROW
63 “___, verily” : YEA
65 Up to this point : YET

10 thoughts on “0921-23 NY Times Crossword 21 Sep 23, Thursday”

  1. 24:34, no errors. Went down a few rabbit holes. ADAM before ALAI (could swear that the song “The Name Game” had that name in it); PALO Verde before MESA Verde. Seems that only in crossword land can you have just one GALOSH. 66A: would rather have anemia.

    1. Perhaps you misread the clue just as I did… many times. It was the game name, not the name game.

  2. 20:22, no errors. A good example of a theme that would have been easier for me to grok on paper: I’d have marked each theme entry in some fashion as I encountered it and it would therefore have been easier to know when I’d found all six and to do a final check for uncorrected fat-fingerings. Nevertheless, an enjoyable outing … 🙂.

  3. I too went down some rabbit holes.

    Got the theme early. Miscounted and messed up on the HAWK. I had a bit of a mess there. Left it, then never went back to check. And never counted the 6….

  4. 11:50, 1 error. Basically blanked on what that could have been with my initial guess of WANG on the cross.

    As far as other things go, I did the NYT freebies on Monday. More proof to me the older ones are harder as the Thursday was the toughest for me (around 45 mins). The other two weren’t relatively bad, but more of a struggle than the modern stuff.

    Been doing the Saturday Stumpers on the Hard crossword track this week. Kind of underscores how funny this stuff can be as I didn’t have that much trouble on the Monday one, but the Wednesday one was about twice as hard as the NYT (around 45 minutes again). I know these vary depending on what Newman wanted to do (like a couple of years ago, he did Sat NYT equivalents for about 3 months) as I remember one I did in 11 minutes. But I almost never know what I’m getting into on most puzzles.

    That said, I’ve been thinking about getting into an old 2023 NYT puzzle calendar I picked up used (as I do most of my puzzle books for cheap – got about 1500 old NYT puzzles now). I still have a lot of mystery how people manage to do puzzle books on the go, or even in a nice chair without a lot of problems – when I do them it’s printed stuff on my clipboard. Or even check them. But if you imagine a page-a-day calendar with a complete NYT puzzle printed on it (answer on the back), I wonder how most people make it work with the mini-boxes in the grid. But gonna try it and hope I don’t make a mess of it.

    1. Hey Glenn

      You gotta be a hard core puzzle master if you do those desk calendar NYT ones. There used to be one kicking around many moons ago at my folks place, maybe as long ago as when I still lived there, can’t recall, but the pages were blank on the back and it was kept near the phone and got used as a small notepad and only minimally to do the crossword.

      I recorded a few stumpers last week and agree they can vary a lot. One I posted took 15 min., another solve 1.5 hrs and yet another a 2+ hour DNF.

      I agree re this week’s Thur./Fri. Freebies being harder. At around 30 + min, 0 errors, incredibly enough I actually came in under your time for the Thur. Freebie (June 28, 2012), which has gotta be a fluke. Typically  it”‘s a good day if I’m within max 2-3 times longer than your time lol. I wish I had a recording but I did it on my work computer not something I do every week, during some free time. It was cumulatively 30+ min. on the game clock, over the course of the afternoon. I had to pause the game a few times (or rather the NYT app babies you and pauses it for you). That may add a cognitive advantage, to pause and go back to it. I have noted a few times where I “slept on” a puzzle and the answers sometimes presented themselves after stepping away from it. I believe the brain goes on auto-pilot and keeps at it but that thought time does not appear on the game clock. I did the Friday freebie at work too in 40+ min., again no errors, again excluding work pauses. Ironically although “easier,” I stepped in it for the Thur./Fri. syndicated ones this week with 1 and 4-5 errors, though the Thur. error was just a typo. I do those ones at home in one sitting , no game pauses and conscious of the clock, so maybe that psyches me out a bit. Besides I’ve been burning out on puzzles lately, doing more than one a day.

      To add to that. I’ve been spending time experimenting with adding sound to the recordings by using a screen reader to read the clues out. This has become as or more interesting a problem than doing the crosswords. Yesterday I found a trick to get it to read out my answers too but all of this does require additional keystrokes or mouse clicks and adds to the solve time quite a bit. I have experimented with 3 or 4 screen readers and not found one capable of reading the crossword clues as you go without having to control the text-to-speech audio by selecting what it reads using the keyboard or mouse. Windows 11 Navigator seemed to do it for the NYT puzzle app but you can’t type with Navigator on. It just reads. Besides that was on my work PC: at home. I have an older version of Windows and an old version of Navgator. Also it can only work with the older microsoft voices. Only MS Anna , an old one and not very good, works. The newer ones are much better. I’ve also experimented with using a subtitle file (.srt in SubRip file format) but that is painstaking to do even with a program that helps you output it. There are services (touted as “AI”) that will create subtitles from the audio (actually youtube does) but I haven’t tried that. The subtitle file can then be edited to add whatever else, then added back to the video and read out using a subtitle reader. I started out just wanting audio for the clues for the heck of it, without having to read them out myself,  but I realize it is also an interesting accessibility issue for crosswords. The apps we use on the daily paper sites don’t meet accessibility standards. Nor of course, much less importantly, do the videos but nonetheless I find it an interesting problem how to include audio for both the clues and, more of a challenge, the answers as you type them. I’m not interested in recording that myself using my vocal chords or voice (though there are voice changers for video narration), or adding commentary, but how to automate that and do it with minimal effort. I recorded one with audio for both clues and answers last night but haven’t posted one yet; may do so tmrw. It’s a challenge to solve that problem + actually solve the puzzle but it’s interesting.

      1. Footnote: I did try the .puz format and Across Lite, which I learned of from your youtube posts, expecting it might work better with a screen reader but it didn’t. I took a peek at the documentation too and saw nothing related to accessibility.
        Incidentally on a different topic I glanced at the .puz format in the documentation and it looks fairly straightforward to create that, at least for a non-rebus puzzle. Unless I misread it, anyone can create a puzzle in a text file pretty much for use with Across Lite.
        I also read where the NYT stopped providing the .puz format which ticked off some of its audience. I guess that’s why on your youtube you don’t do the NYT on Across Lite. However by the looks of it, it would be straightforward enough to re-create the NYT puzzle in .puz format, though not sure if any copyright issues, and I did see one site that offerred it.

  5. This was a fun Thursday head scratcher. No errors! Hopefully, I will have difficulty with tomorrow’s puzzle and will win the poker tournament in Palm Desert on Sunday.

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