0106-24 NY Times Crossword 6 Jan 24, Saturday

Bill’s time: 13m 57s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

13 Olympic bars? : NATIONAL ANTHEM

The word “anthem” used to describe a sacred song, especially one with words taken from the Scriptures. The British national anthem (“God Save the Queen/King”) technically is a hymn, and so it came to be described as “the national hymn” and later “the national anthem”. The use of the word “anthem” extended from there to describe any patriotic song.

23 Possible side effect of using steroids : ACNE

Steroids are found commonly in nature, with familiar examples being cholesterol and testosterone. The controversial class of drugs called anabolic steroids (known informally as “‘roids” or simply “steroids”) are artificially produced chemicals designed to mimic the effect of the male sex hormone, testosterone. They are termed “anabolic” as they build up cellular tissue (particularly muscle) in a process called anabolism. Taking anabolic steroids can be termed “juicing”, and the aggressive behavior that can be a side-effect is known as “‘roid rage”.

28 Director Lee : ANG

Ang Lee is a Taiwanese-born filmmaker who has directed several critically acclaimed and commercially successful movies. He has worked in a variety of genres, including romantic comedies (“Sense and Sensibility”), dramas (“Brokeback Mountain”), and superhero movies (“Hulk”).

35 “Here hung those lips that I have kiss’d I know not how ___”: Hamlet : OFT

The full title of William Shakespeare’s play that we tend to call “Hamlet” is “The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark”. It is the most performed of all Shakespeare’s plays and it is also his longest, the only one of his works comprising over 4,000 lines. That’s about a 4-hour sitting in a theater …

36 Cells that handle low-light vision : RODS

The retina is the tissue that lines the inside of the eye, and is the tissue that is light-sensitive. There are (mainly) two types of cells in the retina that are sensitive to light, namely rods and cones. Rods are cells that best function in very dim light and only provide black-and-white vision. Cones on the other hand function in brighter light and can perceive color.

43 Emerald ___ : ISLE

Ireland is often referred to as “the Emerald Isle” (and described as “green”). There is a common misconception that the association with the color green is because of all that green grass that grows due to the seemingly non-stop rain. However, the use of green has more political overtones, as it is associated with many of the rebellions against British colonial rule over the centuries.

44 “A symptom of man’s failure as a thinking animal,” according to John Steinbeck : WAR

John Steinbeck was born not far from here, in Salinas, California in 1902. His most famous novels are probably “The Grapes of Wrath” from 1939, “East of Eden” from 1952 and the novella “Of Mice and Men” from 1937. For his work, Steinbeck won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962.

45 Mystic : OCCULT

The adjective “occult” means “secret, beyond the realm of human comprehension”. The term derives from the Latin “occultus” meaning “hidden, concealed”.

47 Org. that maintains a museum in Annapolis Junction, Md. : NSA

The National Cryptologic Museum (NSM) is located just outside Fort Meade in Maryland, home to the National Security Agency (NSA) headquarters. The NSM is open to the public, and was established in 1993. The museum’s building was once the Colony Seven Motel.

48 California’s San ___ County : MATEO

The San Francisco Bay Area comprises the nine counties that impinge on the San Francisco Bay itself: Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano and Sonoma. The region also includes the major cities of San Jose, San Francisco and Oakland.

50 Troubadours’ instruments : LUTES

A troubadour was a composer and musician of the Middle Ages whose works dealt mainly with chivalry and courtly love. Troubadours were usually men, and a female troubadour would have been called a trobairitz, a lovely word …

51 Show with an hourglass in its opening title sequence : DAYS OF OUR LIVES

NBC’s “Days of Our Lives” is the second-longest running soap opera on US television, second only to “General Hospital”. “Days …” has been aired since November 1965.

Down

3 “___: The Watercourse Way” (Alan Watts book) : TAO

Alan Watts was a British philosopher who lived much of his life in the San Francisco Bay Area. He was noted for popularizing Eastern philosophy in the West.

4 Fashion designer Sui : ANNA

Anna Sui is a fashion designer from Detroit, Michigan.

7 “Citizen ___” : KANE

1941’s “Citizen Kane” was the first film made by Orson Welles, and is considered by many to be the finest movie ever made. It’s a remarkable achievement by Wells, as he played the lead and also produced and directed. Despite all the accolades for “Citizen Kane” over the decades, the movie was far from a commercial success in its early run and actually lost money at the box office.

9 Drum kit components with pedals : HI-HATS

In a drum kit, a hi-hat is a pairing of cymbals that sits on a stand and is played by using a foot pedal. The top cymbal is raised and lowered by the foot, hence creating a crashing sound.

10 Unfiltered brew : HAZY IPA

New England IPAs are probably the IPAs that I drink most often. Out here on the West Coast, we tend to label them as Hazy IPAs. They tend to be more citrus and floral than other IPAs, and less bitter. They also have that hazy appearance.

12 Sticker on a model, e.g. : DECAL

A decal is a decorative sticker. “Decal” is a shortening of “decalcomania”. The latter term is derived from the French “décalquer”, the practice of tracing a pattern from paper onto glass or perhaps porcelain.

15 Baby covered in fluffy down : OWLET

A baby owl is an owlet. The term “owlet” can also be used for the adults of the smaller species of owls.

19 Fool’s deck : TAROT

In a 78-card tarot deck, the picture cards are referred to as the Major Arcana. The remaining cards are known as the Minor Arcana. The Major Arcana included The Fool, the Wheel of Fortune, the Hanged Man, and Death.

25 Carpenters, maybe? : ANTS

Carpenter ants can wreak havoc in a wooden structure. They burrow into damp wood creating galleries and pathways that form a complex network of nests. Unlike termites though, carpenter ants don’t feed on the wood.

27 Many downloads : PDFS

Portable Document Format (PDF) is a file format introduced by Adobe Systems in 1993. PDF documents can be shared between users and read using many different applications and platforms, making them more universally accessible than documents saved by one particular program.

33 Where pizza is said to have been invented : NAPLES

Pizza was invented in Naples, where it has a long tradition that goes back to ancient Rome. During an 1889 visit to Naples, Queen Margherita of Savoy was served a special pizza that was created with toppings designed to mimic the colors of the Italian flag. The ingredients of tomato (red), mozzarella (white) and basil (green) can still be found together on menus today, on a pie usually named Pizza Margherita after the queen. I do love basil on my pizza …

38 Twist of a screwdriver? : RIND

The cocktail called a screwdriver is a mix of fresh orange juice with vodka. Apparently the drink originated with a group of engineers in the late forties who used to spike small cans of orange juice with vodka, and then stir it in with their screwdrivers.

40 Impressed greatly, as at a drag show : SLAYED

The etymology of the term “drag”, as used in the transvestite world, seems to be unclear. It perhaps relates to the tendency of a transvestite’s skirts to drag along the ground in days of old (although why they just didn’t hitch up their skirts is beyond me!).

42 Big name in contact lenses : ACUVUE

Acuvue is a line of disposable contact lenses made by Vistakon, a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson.

44 Thin slice of silicon at the heart of an integrated circuit : WAFER

Silicon is a semiconducting material. This means that it is sort of halfway between an insulator and a conductor. Silicon acts as an insulator until a voltage is applied, and if that voltage is sufficiently high then the silicon becomes a conductor. The electronics industry uses this phenomenon to make devices that can “switch” (turn from insulator to conductor) by application of a voltage.

48 Glutton’s constant desire : MORE

A glutton is a person who eats and drinks to excess, with the term “glutton” deriving from the Latin “gluttire” meaning “to swallow”.

53 Pascal’s law? : LOI

Blaise Pascal was an important French mathematician, physicist and philosopher, who lived in the mid-1600s. In math, his name was given to Pascal’s triangle, a triangle of numbers in which each number is the sum of the two numbers above it. Pascal also wrote on the subject of theology. His most important theological writings were published after his death under the title “Pensées”, meaning “Thoughts”.