0216-24 NY Times Crossword 16 Feb 24, Friday

Bill’s time: 14m 29s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

7 Musical whose preshow warning about cellphone use says that knights “may drag you onstage and impale you” : SPAMALOT

The hit musical “Spamalot” is a show derived from the 1974 movie “Monty Python and the Holy Grail”. In typical Monty Python style, the action starts just before the curtain goes up with an announcement recorded by the great John Cleese:

(You can) let your cell phones and pagers ring willy-nilly … (but) be aware there are heavily armed knights on stage that may drag you on stage and impale you.

15 God on a mission? : APOLLO

The Apollo program is very much associated with President Kennedy, as he gave NASA the challenge to land men on the moon by the end of the sixties. However, the Apollo program was conceived during the Eisenhower administration as a follow-up to Project Mercury that put the first Americans in space.

16 Cry after a windfall : WE’RE RICH

A windfall is a piece of good fortune, like a piece of fruit that has fallen from the tree when the wind blows.

17 Louisiana ___, religion with West African roots : VOODOO

Voodoo is a religion that originated in the French slave colony of Saint-Domingue on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola.

22 Critics’ picks, informally : RECS

Recommendation (rec.)

23 Eldest daughter of Oceanus and mother of Nike : STYX

In Greek mythology, Styx was the daughter of Oceanus and Tethys, and the mother of Zelus, Nike, Kratos and Bia (aka Eos).

Oceanus was a mythical figure and the personification of the enormous river that the ancient Greeks and Romans believed encircled the world. It is from the name “Oceanus” that we get out modern term “Ocean”.

Nike was the Greek goddess of victory, and was often referred to as “the Winged Goddess of Victory”. The athletic shoe company Nike uses the “Nike swoosh” as its logo, a logo that is inspired by the goddess’ wing.

25 Source of milk for Manchego cheese : EWE

Manchego is a cheese made from sheep’s milk that comes from La Mancha in Spain. The term “Manchego” is used to describe things related to La Mancha.

28 Comme ci, comme ça : SO-SO

The French phrase “comme ci, comme ça” translates literally as “like this, like that”. We use the phrase in English to mean “so-so, neither good nor bad”.

30 European airline that was nationalized from 1944 to 2001 : IBERIA

The airline called Iberia is the flag carrier for Spain and is based in the country’s capital city at Madrid-Barajas Airport.

34 Boston Harbor detritus, once : TEAS

The famous destruction of tea in Boston Harbor to protest against the Tea Act took place on December 16, 1773. The action was referred to as the “destruction of the tea” for decades, and it wasn’t until 1834 that the term “Boston Tea Party” first appeared in print.

Detritus is loose material that results from the process of erosion. The usage of the term has evolved to describe any accumulated material or debris. “Detritus” is Latin for “a wearing away”.

36 Cartoonist Groening : MATT

Matt Groening is a cartoonist. He created two successful animated shows for television, namely “The Simpsons” and “Futurama” (neither of which I really appreciate!).

38 Hands and feet : UNITS

A hand is a 4-inch unit of measure used primarily for giving the height of a horse. The original “hand” was the width of the hand, held without splaying the thumb or fingers. The height of a horse is measured from the ground to the withers, the ridge between the shoulder blades.

42 Northern hemisphere? : 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.

43 Antivenoms, e.g. : SERA

Antivenom (also “antivenin”) is made by extracting venom from say a snake (so called “milking”) and then diluting it and injecting it into a host animal (like a cat, horse or sheep). The animal undergoes an immune response and produces antibodies to neutralize the poison. The antibodies are harvested from the animal’s blood and are stored for use with victims who are bitten by the same snake, or by some other creature that injects the same or a similar venom. I guess antivenom might also be called antiserum …

44 World’s rarest goose : NENE

The nene is a bird that is native to Hawaii, and is also known as the Hawaiian goose. The name “nene” is an imitation of its call. When Captain Cook landed on the islands in 1778, there were 25,000 nene living there. By 1950, the number was reduced by hunting to just 30 birds. Conservation efforts in recent years have been somewhat successful. The nene was named State Bird of Hawaii in 1957.

45 Symbol found in Pac-Man and on slot machines : CHERRY

The Pac-Man arcade game was released first in Japan in 1980, and is as popular today as it ever was. The game features characters that are maneuvered around the screen to eat up dots and earn points, while being pursued by ghosts named Blinky, Pinky, Inky and Clyde. The name of the game comes from the Japanese folk hero “Paku”, who is known for his voracious appetite. The spin-off game called Ms. Pac-Man was released in 1981.

50 First, and so far only, chimpanzee to orbit Earth : ENOS

Enos was a chimpanzee that was launched into Earth orbit in 1961 by NASA on a Mercury Atlas 4 rocket. Enos’s flight was a rehearsal for the first orbital flight made by an American, astronaut John Glenn. Enos returned from his mission safely, but died the following year from dysentery.

52 Its tributaries have colorful names : NILE

Africa’s River Nile has two main tributaries, the Blue Nile and White Nile, with the White Nile deemed to be the headwaters of the Nile itself. The most distant source of the White Nile is unknown, so I suppose one might argue that the “source of the Nile” is a mystery.

54 Cry from Homer : D’OH!

“The Simpsons” is one of the most successful programs produced by the Fox Broadcasting Company. Homer Simpson’s catchphrase is “D’oh!”, which became such a famous exclamation that it has been included in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) since 2001. “D’oh!” can be translated as “I should have thought of that!”

66 Moving company? : TROUPE

“Troupe” is a French word meaning “company, band”.

Down

1 Sitarist Shankar : RAVI

Ravi Shankar was perhaps the most famous virtuoso (to us Westerners) from the world of Indian classical music, and was noted for his sitar playing. Shankar was the father of the pop singer Norah Jones.

4 “Getting ___ is no problem. You just have to live long enough”: Groucho Marx : OLDER

Groucho Marx’s real name was Julius Henry Marx. By the time Groucho started his successful, post-Hollywood career hosting the quiz show “You Bet Your Life”, he was sporting a real mustache. For all his movies, his mustache had been painted on with greasepaint.

5 Jardín contents : FLORES

In Spanish, a “jardín” (garden) often contains “flores” (flowers).

7 Compete in a freestyle, e.g. : SWIM

The front crawl swimming stroke is also known as the Australian crawl or American crawl. It is the fastest of the front strokes, and is invariably used for freestyle competition, in which competitors can choose any stroke. As such, the front crawl is often referred to as “freestyle”.

8 Cowboy Bill : PECOS

Pecos Bill has become a character in tall tales of the Old West after having been introduced in 1917 by author Edward O’Reilly. Legend has it that Bill was traveling in a covered wagon from Texas with his family when he fell out unnoticed by the party. He was lost near the Pecos River, hence his name. He was found and raised by a pack of coyotes, but years later was recovered by his real brother. Pecos Bill grew up to be a cowboy and married a woman called Slue-Foot Sue who he met riding a giant catfish down the Rio Grande.

11 Original tablet holder : ARK

According to the Book of Exodus, the stone tablets on which the Ten Commandments are inscribed were placed in a chest called the Ark of the Covenant. The Ark was built according to instructions given by God to Moses on Mount Sinai.

20 Bacon bits : ESSAYS

The English philosopher and statesman Francis Bacon wrote a celebrated and respected collection of essays called “The Essayes”, first published in 1597. My favorite of these essays is “Of Simulation and Dissimulation”, which observes

Dissimulation, in the negative; when a man lets fall signs and arguments, that he is not, that he is… Simulation, in the affirmative; when a man industriously and expressly feigns and pretends to be, that he is not.

24 Noble gas used in propelling ion thrusters : XENON

The element xenon was the first of the noble gases to be made into a compound, which was somewhat remarkable in that the noble gases were thought by many to be completely inert, unreactive.

27 Boston College athlete : EAGLE

Boston College is a private Jesuit school located in Chestnut Hill, just a few miles from Boston, Massachusetts. The list of notable Boston College alumni includes Secretary of State John Kerry and former Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill.

32 1986 rock autobiography : I, TINA

“I, Tina” is a 1986 autobiography by Tina Turner. The book was so successful it was adapted into a movie called “What’s Love Got to Do with It?” The film version was released in 1993 and stars Angela Bassett as Tina Turner. The first chapter of the biography is called “Nut Bush”, a reference to the small farming community of Nutbush, Tennessee where Turner was born (as Anna Mae Bullock).

46 Drink brand that sounds like a shout : YOO-HOO

The chocolate beverage Yoo-Hoo famously used Yogi Berra in its advertising in the fifties and sixties. One of Berra’s lines was “It’s Me-He for Yoo-Hoo!”

48 Novelist Leonard : ELMORE

Elmore Leonard used to write a lot of westerns in the fifties and moved onto crime and suspense novels later in his career. A lot of his books have made it to the big screen, including “Get Shorty” and “Mr Majestyk”.

53 Printer brand : EPSON

Seiko Epson is a Japanese company, and one of the largest manufacturers of printers in the world. The company has its roots in the watch business, roots that go back to 1942. Seiko was chosen as the official timekeeper for the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo and was asked to supply a timer that produced a printed record. This request brought Seiko into the business of printer production. The company developed the world’s first mini-printer for the 1964 Games and called it EP-101 (with “EP” standing for Electronic Printer). In 1975 Seiko introduced the next generation of EP printers which was called EPSON, from “SON of EP”. Cute, huh?

55 Where Life Savers and pop-top cans were both invented : OHIO

Life Savers were introduced in 1912. The candy was created by Clarence Crane who contracted a pill manufacturer to press his formulation for mints into shape. The pill manufacturer found that the pieces of candy were produced more easily if a hole was stamped in the middle. The Life Saver name was chosen as the candy had the same shape as lifebuoys.

The oldest method of opening a can with a device included in the can’s design is the pull-tab or ring pull, invented in Canada in 1956. The design was long-lived but it had its problems, so the world heaved a sigh of relief with the invention of the stay-on-tab in 1975. The new design led to fewer injuries and eliminated all those used pull-tabs that littered the streets.

56 Howard or Spelman: Abbr. : HBCU

Historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) are a group of higher education institutions that were established, mainly after the Civil War, to primarily serve the African-American community.

58 Hit, in a way : TOKE

“Toke” is a slang term describing a puff on a marijuana cigarette, or on a pipe containing the drug.

61 It’s got a big mouth : EWER

A pitcher is a container for liquid that has a handle, mouth and spout. The term “jug” is used for the same container in other English-speaking countries. “Ewer” is an older term describing a pitcher/jug. Today, a ewer is a highly decorative pitcher, often with a base and flared spout.

63 “Jingle Bells” contraction : O’ER

The traditional Christmas song “Jingle Bells” was first published in 1857, penned by James Lord Pierpont. We associate the song with Christmas, although in fact Pierpont wrote it as a celebration of Thanksgiving.

Dashing through the snow
In a one horse open sleigh
O’er the fields we go
Laughing all the way