1027-23 NY Times Crossword 27 Oct 23, Friday

Bill’s time: 12m 34s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

15 Admonishment from Austin Powers : OH, BEHAVE!

The Austin Powers character was created by the actor who plays him, namely Mike Myers. Apparently Myers came up with the idea for Powers while listening to the Burt Bacharach song “The Look of Love”.

20 It was called Big Meadows on the California Trail : RENO

Reno, Nevada was named in honor of Major General Jesse Lee Reno, a Union officer killed in the Civil War. The city has a famous “Reno Arch”, a structure that stands over the main street. The arch was erected in 1926 to promote an exposition planned for the following year. After the expo, the city council decided to keep the arch and held a competition to decide what wording should be displayed, and the winner was “The Biggest Little City in the World”.

21 Bird whose largest species is called the Goliath : HERON

Herons are birds with long legs that inhabit freshwater and coastal locales. Some herons are routinely referred to as egrets, and others as bitterns. Herons look a lot like storks and cranes, but differ in their appearance in flight. Herons fly with their necks retracted in an S-shape, whereas storks and cranes have their necks extended.

22 66, e.g.: Abbr. : RTE

The famous old highway called Route 66 has largely been replaced by modern interstates. It ran from Chicago to Los Angeles, right through the heart of America, and so it was often called the “Main Street of America”. The road’s name really came into the public consciousness because of Nat King Cole’s song “(Get Your Kicks On) Route 66”, and also because of the sixties TV show called “Route 66”.

23 Casual Friday gaffe : SUIT

Our word “gaffe”, meaning “social blunder”, comes from the French “gaffe” meaning “clumsy remark”, although it originally was a word describing a boat hook. The exact connection between a boat hook and a blunder seems to be unclear.

27 Like either main face of El Capitan : STEEP

El Capitan is a stunning vertical rock formation in Yosemite National Park in California. The top of El Capitan has been used as the take-off point for many BASE jumps, parachute jumps made by diving off the top of the rock face. The National Park Service put a stop to the practice in 1999. Soon afterwards, a BASE jumper made an illegal jump to protest the ban. She died …

31 Stand near a poser : EASEL

The term “easel” comes from an old Dutch word meaning “donkey”, would you believe? The idea is that an easel carries its load (an oil painting, say) just as a donkey would be made to carry a load.

33 Element exhibiting a blue glow when placed in an electric field : XENON

Metal halide lamps that are called xenons don’t actually rely on the incorporated xenon gas to generate light. The xenon gas is added so that the lamp comes on “instantly”. Without the xenon, the lamp would start up rather like an older streetlamp, flickering and sputtering for a while before staying alight.

37 Like the bonds of table salt : IONIC

An ionic bond is formed between two oppositely-charged ions. A common example is the bond between positively-charged sodium atoms and negatively-charged chlorine atoms to form table salt (NaCl). A covalent bond, on the other hand, is formed when two atoms share electrons. Atoms sharing electrons tend to be stable, so they prefer to stay together rather than apart.

39 Actor Diggs : TAYE

Taye Diggs is an actor most associated with the Broadway show “Rent”, in which he played the nasty landlord Benny. He then co-starred on the television show “Private Practice”. Diggs’ given name is “Scott”, and the nickname “Taye” comes from saying the given name as “Scottay”.

41 Scaloppine option : VEAL

“Scaloppine” is an Italian word used for small, thin slices of meat.

43 Word before and after “‘s” : THAT

That’s that …

45 “House” band?: Abbr. : DRS

I think that “House” is one of the better shows made by Fox television. It is fun for me, coming from the other side of the Atlantic, to see English actor Hugh Laurie in the dramatic title role. I have been watching him in various comedic roles for decades. Famously, he played Bertie Wooster opposite Stephen Fry in P.G. Wodehouse’s “Jeeves & Wooster”, as well as one of the bumbling “bad guys” in the film “101 Dalmatians” (the version starring Glenn Close).

46 Its population doubles once a year : MECCA

Mecca is in the Makkah province of Saudi Arabia. It was the birthplace of Muhammad and is the holiest city in Islam. Every year, several million Muslims perform the Hajj, a holy pilgrimage to Mecca.

51 Shire who played a Corleone : TALIA

Actress Talia Shire is best-known for playing Rocky’s wife Adrian in the “Rocky” series of movies. She also played Connie, the daughter of Don Corleone, in “The Godfather” films. Shire is the sister of movie director Francis Ford Coppola and the aunt of actor Nicolas Cage. Her son is the actor Jason Schwartzman.

52 Popular Schubert composition : AVE MARIA

“Ave Maria” (“Hail Mary” in English) is the prayer at the core of the Roman Catholic Rosary, which itself is a set of prayers asking for the assistance of the Virgin Mary. Much of the text of the “Hail Mary” comes from the Gospel of Luke. The words in Latin are:

AVE MARIA, gratia plena, Dominus tecum. Benedicta tu in mulieribus, et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Iesus. Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc, et in hora mortis nostrae. Amen.

The prayer has been adapted as a hymn. The two most famous musical versions of “Ave Maria” are by Charles Gounod (based on a piece by Bach) and by Franz Schubert.

53 Single-minded philosophy : MONISM

Monism is the philosophy that many apparent disparate objects and views can in fact be unified. For example, although the universe appears to be made of many stars and planets, a monist would point out that it is just one universe. A monist may argue in the field of religion that there really is only one God, and that the deities worshiped in various religions are just manifestations of that one God.

57 Group of runners? : SLATE

In an election, a slate is a group of candidates running on a common platform.

Down

7 Children’s story with Truffula Trees : THE LORAX

“The Lorax” is a 1971 children’s book written by Dr. Seuss. It is an allegorical work questioning the problems created by industrialization, and in particular its impact on the environment. At one point in the story, the Lorax “speaks for the trees, for the trees have no tongues”. “The Lorax” was adapted into an animated film that was released in 2012, with Danny DeVito voicing the title character.

He was shortish, and oldish, and brownish and mossy. And he spoke with a voice that was sharpish and bossy.

8 Playwright awarded the Grand Cross of the Order of St. Olav in 1893 : IBSEN

Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen is the second-most frequently performed dramatist in the world, with only the works of William Shakespeare staged more often. As he was a pioneer in the genre, he is often referred to as “the father of realism”.

13 Plant growing in tufts : SEDGE

Sedges are a family of plants that resemble grasses and rushes. They are more properly called Cyperaceae.

25 Game whose name comes from French for “five winning numbers” : KENO

The name of the game keno has French or Latin roots, with the French “quine” being a term describing five winning numbers, and the Latin “quini” meaning “five each”. The game originated in China and was introduced into the West by Chinese immigrants who were working on the first Transcontinental Railroad in the 1800s.

34 One who might say “Nothing is real” : NIHILIST

“Nihil” is the Latin word for “nothing that we’ve absorbed into English. “Nihil” is also the root from which we get our term “nil”. Someone described as “nihilistic” is very skeptical and tends to believe in nothing.

39 Pub ___ : TRIVIA

Trivia are things of little consequence. “Trivia” is the plural of the Latin word “trivium” which means “a place where three roads meet”. Now that’s what I call a trivial fact …

44 Devils and Angels, e.g. : TEAMS

The New Jersey Devils are a professional ice hockey team based in Newark. The club was founded in 1974 in Kansas City, originally as the Mohawks, and then quickly renamed the Scouts. The franchise moved to Denver in 1976, becoming the Colorado Rockies. The move to Newark happened in 1982, when the team was renamed the New Jersey Devils.

The Anaheim Angels baseball team is today more correctly called the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (LAA). The “Angels” name dates back to 1961 when the team was founded in the “City of Angels”, Los Angeles. When the franchise moved to Anaheim in 1965 they were known as the California Angels, then the Anaheim Angels, and most recently the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. The Angels are also known as “the Halos”.

45 Apothecary measures : DRAMS

I think that the dram is a confusing unit of measurement. It has one value as an ancient unit of mass, and two different values as a modern unit of mass, another value as a unit of fluid volume, and yet another varying value as a measure of Scotch whisky!

Nowadays, we would call an apothecary a pharmacist. “Apotecaire” is an Old French word from the 13th century meaning simply “storekeeper”.

46 Cooperative hunter with the coral grouper : MORAY

Morays are a large group of about 200 species of eels found across the world’s oceans. They are carnivorous and look pretty scary but they’re quite shy when confronted and present no threat to humans. One interesting thing about morays is that they will sometimes work in cooperation with the grouper fish found in reefs, the two helping each other hunt for food.