0330-24 NY Times Crossword 30 Mar 24, Saturday

Bill’s time: 23m 34s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1 Tackle item hung from floaters : GILL NET

A fisherman’s gill net hangs vertically in the water, with small floats holding the upper edge of the net on the surface. The net has a mesh sized so that only the heads of the targeted fish can pass. The mesh gets entangled in the flaps covering the gills, so the fish cannot escape. Gil nets are so effective that they are banned in some states in order to protect fishery stocks.

8 Can : CRAPPER

Famously, English plumber Thomas Crapper founded a company that specialized in lavatorial equipment. It’s often claimed that the Crapper name gave rise to a slang term for human bodily waste, but that claim is false. Said slang term was around for centuries before Mister Crapper (1836-1910).

15 Instruction to trick-or-treaters : ONE EACH

Yeah, good luck with that 🙂

16 Stanley Cup edge : HOME ICE

The Stanley Cup is named for Lord Stanley of Preston, the Governor General of Canada from 1888 to 1893. Lord Stanley’s sons became avid fans of ice hockey while in Canada, and so he donated the trophy in 1909, originally as a challenge cup for the country’s best amateur club.

17 Los Alamos or Oak Ridge : LAB SITE

The town of Los Alamos, New Mexico takes its name from the Spanish for “the poplars” or “the cottonwoods”. Famously, it is home to Los Alamos National Laboratory which was founded during WWII to work on the Manhattan Project, the development of the first atomic bomb. The town of Los Alamos didn’t exist as such, until it was planned and constructed to support the employees working on development of the bomb.

19 Loan insurance org. : FHA

The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) was set up in 1934 to insure loans made by lenders for the building and purchasing of homes. The FHA was created in response to the bank failures of the Great Depression, with the intent of creating a more favorable environment for lending.

25 Kennedy center? : ENS

The center of the word “Kennedy” includes letters N (ens).

29 Literally, “milk” : LATTE

The term “latte” is an abbreviation of the Italian “caffelatte” meaning “coffee (and) milk”. Note that in the correct spelling of “latte”, the Italian word for milk; there is no accent over the “e”. An accent is often added by mistake when we use the word in English, perhaps meaning to suggest that the word is French.

31 They begin in janeiro : ANOS

In Portuguese, the “ano” (year) begins in “janeiro” (January).

45 Young partner : ERNST

Ernst & Young is one of the Big Four accountancy firms, alongside Deloitte, KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers. Ernst & Young is headquartered in London. The company was founded in 1989 with the merger of Ernst & Whinney with Young & Co.

47 Golfer who qualified for a U.S.G.A. amateur championship at age 10 : WIE

Michelle Wie is an American golfer on the LPGA Tour. She began playing golf at the age of four and was the youngest player ever to qualify for an LPGA tour event. Wie turned pro just before her 16th birthday. In 2019, she married Jonnie West, Director of Basketball Operations for the Golden State Warriors, and now uses the name Michelle Wie West.

50 When we forged ahead? : IRON AGE

Ancient societies can be classified by the “three-age system”, which depends on the prevalence of materials used to make tools. The three ages are:

• The Stone Age
• The Bronze Age
• The Iron Age

The actual dates defined by each age depend on the society, as the timing of the transition from the use of one material to another varied around the globe.

53 ___ Records, onetime label for the Kinks and Petula Clark : PYE

The Kinks were an English band who participated in the British Invasion of America in the sixties, although only briefly. After touring the US in the middle of 1965, the American Federation of Musicians refused permits for the Kinks to book concerts for four years, apparently in response to some rowdy on-stage behavior by the band.

Petula Clark is an English singer of popular songs who had most of her success in the sixties, with hits such as “Downtown” and “I Know a Place”. Clark is a little unusual in the world of entertainment as she started to make recordings in French as well as English, and eventually in German, Italian and Spanish as well. For decades now, Clark has been splitting her time between her properties in England, France and Switzerland.

58 Actor who played DJ Venus Flytrap on “WKRP in Cincinnati” : TIM REID

Actor Tim Reid appeared on the sitcom “WKRP in Cincinnati”. He played the character Venus Flytrap, one of the disc jockeys at the station.

59 Two-character Mamet play : OLEANNA

I’ve never seen it, but “Oleanna” sounds like a powerful play to me. Written by David Mamet, it was first performed in 1992. It’s a two-person piece, the tale of a university professor and a female student who accuses him of sexual exploitation. Mamet got many of the themes of the play from the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings in which Anita Hill accused the future Supreme Court justice of sexual harassment.

60 Name in 2008 Wall Street news : STEARNS

New York investment bank Bear Stearns was one of the institutions that collapsed in the financial meltdown of 2008, and was then sold off to JPMorgan Chase. Bear Stearns had been founded in 1923 by three partners: Joseph Ainslee Bear, Robert B. Stearns and Harold C. Mayer Sr.

61 Reserves : NEST EGG

A nest egg is an amount of money laid down as a reserve. This is the figurative use of “nest egg” that originally described an artificial egg left in a nest to encourage a hen to lay real eggs in that spot. So our financial nest egg is set aside in anticipation of continued growth, more eggs being laid.

Down

3 Where the Cedar Revolution took place : LEBANON

The Lebanese flag has two red stripes, one at the top and one at the bottom, designed to symbolize the blood that was shed in the cause of the country’s liberation. Between each red stripe is a white background that represents peace as well as the snow on the Lebanese mountains. In the center of the flag is a green cedar tree, a reference to the cedars of Lebanon that are mentioned several times in the Bible.

4 ___ Bleus, nickname for France’s World Cup team : LES

The French national soccer team usually wear red, white and blue colors, a nod to the nation’s tricolor flag. The team’s nickname is “les Bleus” (the Blues). Fans are often heard chanting “Allez les Bleus!” meaning “Go Blues!”.

5 Simple souls : NAIFS

A naïf is someone who is naive, as “naïf” is the French word for “naive”.

6 Prefix with parasite : ECTO-

An endoparasite is one that lives inside the host, an example being a parasitic worm. Parasites living outside the host, such as fleas and lice, are known as ectoparasites.

9 Director Nicolas : ROEG

Nicolas Roeg is a film director from England with quite the pedigree when it comes to association with great movies. He contributed to 1962’s “Lawrence of Arabia”, and he himself directed noted films like “Walkabout” (1972), “Don’t Look Now” (1973) and “The Man Who Fell to Earth” (1976).

10 Whirlpool subsidiary : AMANA

The Amana Corporation takes its name from the location of its original headquarters, in Middle Amana, Iowa. Today, the Amana name is very much associated with household appliances. The company was founded in 1934 to manufacture commercial walk-in coolers.

Whirlpool is a manufacturer of home appliances that was founded as the Upton Machine Company in 1911.

13 Home to Mount Chimborazo, whose summit is the farthest point from Earth’s center : ECUADOR

The Andes range is the longest continuous chain of mountains in the world. It runs down the length of the west coast of South America for about 4,300 miles, from Venezuela in the north to Chile in the south. The highest peak in the Andes is Mt. Aconcagua in Argentina, at an elevation of 22,841 feet. Interestingly, the peak of Mt. Chimborazo in Ecuador is the furthest point on the Earth’s surface from the center of the planet. That’s because of the equatorial “bulge” around the Earth’s “waist”.

27 Pickle : BAD SPOT

To be in a pickle means to be in a fix, in trouble. One of the first uses of “pickle” in such a context was William Shakespeare (who else?), in his play “The Tempest”. Here is part of the conversation between Alonso, King of Naples, and his jester Trinculo:

ALONSO:
And Trinculo is reeling ripe: where should they
Find this grand liquor that hath gilded ’em?
How camest thou in this pickle?

TRINCULO:
I have been in such a pickle since I
saw you last that, I fear me, will never out of
my bones: I shall not fear fly-blowing.

30 Black ball : EIGHT

In a game of eight-ball pool, the solid-colored balls are numbered 1 through 7, and the striped balls are numbered 9 through 15. The “eight-ball” is solid black in color.

33 Stripling : LAD

We’ve been calling youths “striplings” since the 14th century. The name probably originates from the description of a youth as a thin strip of a thing. I was a stripling, a long, long time ago …

34 Grp. concerned with digital learning : NEA

The National Education Association (NEA) is the largest labor union in the country, and mainly represents public school teachers.

36 Culprits behind some forced retirements : AGEISTS

Discrimination against senior members of society is referred to as ageism. The term “ageism” was coined in 1969 by Dr. Robert Neil Butler. In 1975, Butler was appointed founding Director of the National Institute on Aging (NIA) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

38 Flimflam : CON GAME

A flimflam is a confidence trick. The term “flimflam” has been in use since the 1500s, would you believe?

39 Camper’s fuel : PROPANE

Propane is a gas with the formula C3H8. It is an abundant byproduct of the refining of petroleum and is used as a fuel. The gas liquefies readily under pressure, and is usually transported in pressurized containers. However, the containers of “propane” that we purchase in stores are actually a mixture of propane and butane, usually in the ratio of about 50:50.

41 Hanky, slangily : NOSE RAG

A kerchief is a triangular or square piece of cloth used as a covering for the head. So, a handkerchief (“hand-kerchief”) is a square piece of cloth held in the hand and used for personal hygiene.

46 Concentration in chemistry : TITER

Remember those titrations we did in the chemistry lab at school? They were to measure the concentration of solutions, also known as the solution’s titer.

48 Tennis star with a famed 1995 comeback : SELES

Monica Seles has a Hungarian name as she was born to Hungarian parents in former Yugoslavia. Seles was the World No. 1 professional tennis player in 1991 and 1992 before being forced from the sport when she was stabbed by a spectator at a match in 1993. She did return to the game two years later, but never achieved the same level of success.

52 Big blow : GALE

A gale is a very strong wind, one defined by the Beaufort scale as having wind speeds from 50 to just over 100 kilometers per hour.

57 Sylvester, to Tweety : TAT

“I tawt I taw a puddy tat!” is a famous line uttered by Tweety Bird, the yellow canary in the “Looney Tunes” and “Merrie Melodies” cartoons who is constantly stalked by various cats.

Sylvester J. Pussycat is also known as Puddy Tat, and is a character who appeared in “Looney Tunes” and “Merrie Melodies” cartoons. Sylvester is the cat who is often trying to get the better of Tweety Bird, Speedy Gonzales and Hippety Hopper. Sylvester’s trademark line is the exclamation “Sufferin’ succotash!”, which emphasizes the character’s pronounced lisp.