0101-24 NY Times Crossword 1 Jan 24, Monday

Bill’s time: 4m 56s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

16 Taylor Swift’s 2023-24 ___ Tour : ERAS

Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour started on Saint Patrick’s Day in 2023 in Glendale, Arizona, with a schedule covering five continents over two years. Swift described the line up songs as “a journey through the musical eras of [her 17-year] career”.

17 Accord, Civic or CR-V : HONDA

The Japanese auto manufacturer Honda was founded in 1946 as the Honda Technical Research Institute by Soichiro Honda. The company’s first products were improvised motorized bicycles that used 50cc, two-stroke engines that were originally built to power radios during the war.

18 Part of the eye that shares its name with a rainbow goddess : IRIS

The iris is the colored part of the eye. It has an aperture in the center that can open or close depending on the level of light hitting the eye.

In Greek mythology, the goddess Iris was viewed as the link between the gods and humanity, a messenger. She was also the goddess of the rainbow. In Virgil’s “Aeneid”, Iris takes the form of a Trojan woman and incites other Trojan mothers to set fire to Aeneas’ ships, preventing them from leaving Sicily.

20 Kids’ chasing game with head taps : DUCK, DUCK, GOOSE

“Duck, Duck, Goose” is a kid’s game, and not one that I’ve heard of outside of crosswords, to be honest …

23 “Rugrats” dad ___ Pickles : STU

Tommy Pickles is the protagonist on the Nickelodeon cartoon show “Rugrats”. Dil Pickles is Tommy’s younger brother, and Tommy and Dil’s parents are Didi and Stu.

26 Midsections of the human bodies : TORSOS

“Torso” (plural “torsi”) is an Italian word meaning “trunk of a statue”, and is a term that we imported into English.

27 Off Broadway musical made into a 2021 film directed by Lin-Manuel Miranda : TICK, TICK… BOOM!

“Tick, Tick… Boom!” is a 2001 stage musical by Jonathan Larson (who also composed the musical “Rent”). It is a semi-autobiographical work, and revolves around a composer named Jon in New York City, who is struggling to establish a career in the performing arts. Larson performed “Tick, Tick… Boom!” as a solo project for a few years, until he passed away in 1996. A few years after his death, the musical was revised by David Auburn, and premiered on stage in 2001. Lin-Manuel Miranda directed a film adaptation that was released in 2021, with Andrew Garfield playing the lead.

36 Steel component : IRON

Steel is an alloy that is composed mainly of iron, with a small percentage of carbon.

39 Warsaw native : POLE

Warsaw is the capital of Poland. The city’s name translates into English as “belonging to Warsz”. Legend has it that Warsz was a fisherman who fell in love with a mermaid called Sawa. It’s a nice story, but Warsz was actually a nobleman from the 12th or 13th century who owned a local village.

41 Chess piece shaped like a battlement : 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.

50 Broadband hookup initials : DSL

In Internet terms, the word “broadband” is used to describe Internet access that is faster than dialup. In more broad (pun!) telecommunication terms, “broadband” is used to describe “bandwidth” data transmission that is “broad” enough to carry several signals and several different types of traffic at the same time.

56 Hawaiian dance style : HULA

The hula is a native dance of Hawaii that uses arm movements to relate a story. The hula can be performed while sitting (a noho dance) or while standing (a luna dance).

62 Ice house : 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.

65 Superior and Victoria, for two : LAKES

Lake Superior is the largest of the Great Lakes, and the largest freshwater lake in the world by area. The lake was referred to by the first French explorers as “le lac supérieur”, which translates literally as “the upper lake”. The British anglicized the name to “Lake Superior”.

Lake Victoria is the largest lake by surface area on the continent of Africa. It was named by English explorer John Hanning Speke in honor of Queen Victoria of the UK. Speke was the first European to set eyes on the lake.

Down

2 Sgt. or cpl. : NCO

A non-commissioned officer (NCO) might be a sergeant (sgt.) or a corporal (cpl.).

4 Language of Pakistan : URDU

Urdu is one of the two official languages of Pakistan (the other being English), and is one of the 22 scheduled languages in India. Urdu partly developed from Persian and is written from right to left.

6 Opposite of basic, in chemistry : ACIDIC

The “opposite” of an acid is a base. Acids turn litmus paper red, and bases turn it blue. Acids and bases react with each other to form salts. An important subset of the chemicals called bases are alkalis, hydroxides of the alkali metals and of ammonium. The term “alkali” is sometimes used interchangeably with “base”, especially if that base is readily soluble in water.

7 Revered expert : GURU

“Guru” is a Hindi word meaning “teacher” or “priest”.

8 Prince beloved by Ariel in “The Little Mermaid” : ERIC

“The Little Mermaid” is a 1989 animated feature from Disney that is based on the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale of the same name. It tells the story of a mermaid princess named Ariel who falls in love with the human Prince Eric. Ariel’s father is chief merman King Triton. Her best friend is Flounder, who despite his name is not a flounder at all and is actually a tropical fish. Ariel is also friends with Sebastian, a red Jamaican crab whose full name is Horatio Thelonious Ignacious Crustaceous Sebastian.

12 Rope weapon for Wonder Woman : LASSO

Superhero Wonder Woman first appeared in print in 1941, in a publication from DC Comics. As she was created during WWII, Wonder Woman’s first foes were the axis powers. In the less realistic world her biggest foe was and still is Ares, a “baddie” named after the Greek mythological figure. Wonder Woman had several signature expressions, including “Merciful Minerva!”, “Suffering Sappho!” and “Great Hera!”. She also has several devices that she uses in her quest for justice, e.g. the Lasso of Truth, a pair of indestructible bracelets and a tiara that can be used as a deadly projectile. Wonder Woman uses the name “Diana Prince” when “out of uniform”.

13 ___ Park, Colo. : ESTES

Estes Park is a town in a beautiful part of the US, in northern Colorado. Estes Park is home to the headquarters of Rocky Mountain National Park.

21 Fish in a Japanese water garden : KOI

Koi are fish that are also known as Japanese carp. Koi have been bred for decorative purposes and there are now some very brightly colored examples found in Japanese water gardens.

23 Bacon slice : STRIP

“Bacon” is an Old French word that we imported into English. The term ultimately comes from the Proto-Germanic “bakkon” meaning “back meat”.

24 Pageant crown : TIARA

The oldest beauty pageant still operating in the US is the Miss America contest. The Miss America beauty pageant started out as a marketing ploy in the early twenties to attract tourists to the Atlantic City boardwalk after Labor Day. Today, contestants must be between 17 and 24 years of age. Before those limits were introduced, Marian Bergeron won the 1933 title at only 15 years of age.

29 Military fabric shade : KHAKI

“Khaki” is an Urdu word that translates literally as “dusty”. The word was adopted for its current use as the name of a fabric by the British cavalry in India in the mid-1800s.

35 Streep with an A.F.I. Life Achievement Award : MERYL

Meryl Streep has had more Academy Award nominations and more Golden Globe nominations than any other actor, which is both a tribute to her talent and the respect she has earned in the industry. I am not a huge fan of her earlier works but some of her recent movies are now on my list of all-time favorites. I recommend “Mamma Mia!” (you’ll either love it or hate it!), “Julie & Julia”, “It’s Complicated” and ”Hope Springs”.

The American Film Institute (AFI) introduced its annual Life Achievement Award in 1973. Notable recipients have been:

• John Ford in 1973: the first recipient
• Bette Davis in 1977: the first female recipient
• Lillian Gish in 1984: the only recipient from the silent film era
• Tom Hanks in 2002: the youngest recipient, at 45 years of age
• John Williams in 2016: the first composer to receive the award

37 Relative of “Roger,” in radio transmissions : COPY THAT

The term “roger”, meaning “yes” or “acknowledged”, comes from the world of radiotelephony. The British military used a phonetic alphabet in the fifties that included “Roger” to represent the letter “R”. As such, it became customary to say “Roger” when acknowledging a message, with R (Roger) standing for “received”.

39 Brothy noodle dish in Vietnamese cuisine : PHO

Pho (pronounced “fuh”) is a noodle soup from Vietnam that is a popular street food. It is often ordered with a side of hanh dam, pickled white onions.

46 Barber’s razor sharpener : STROP

A strop is a strip of leather used to sharpen a razor.

47 Big name in moving vans : U-HAUL

The U-Haul company was started by married couple Leonard Shoen and Anna Mary Carty in Ridgefield, Washington in 1945. The Shoens used $5,000 of seed money to build trailers in their garage, and then cleverly recruited gas station owners as franchisees with whom they would split the rental revenue. There are now about 15,000 U-Haul dealers across the country.

52 Netflix competitor : HULU

Hulu is a video-on-demand service. Although competing directly with Netflix and Amazon Prime, Hulu’s primary focus is the streaming of television shows rather than movies.

53 Musk of Tesla : ELON

Elon Musk is a successful businessman who has founded or led some very high-profile companies, namely PayPal, Tesla Motors and SpaceX. Musk received a lot of publicity in early 2018 during a test launch by SpaceX of the Falcon Heavy launch vehicle. A Tesla Roadster belonging to Musk was carried into space as a dummy payload.

54 Tokarczuk who won the 2018 Nobel Prize in Literature : OLGA

Olga Tokarczuk is a Polish author who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2018. She also won the 2018 Man Booker International Prize for her novel “Flights”. Her epic historical novel “The Books of Jacob”, published in 2014, is generally regarded as Tokarczuk’s magnum opus.

59 “Rescue us!” : SOS!

The combination of three dots – three dashes – three dots, is a Morse signal first introduced by the German government as a standard distress call in 1905. The sequence is remembered as the letters SOS (three dots – pause – three dashes – pause – three dots). That said, in the emergency signal there is no pause between the dots and dashes, so “SOS” is really only a mnemonic. Similarly, the phrases “Save Our Souls” and “Save Our Ship” are back-formations that were introduced after the SOS signal was adopted.