0614-24 NY Times Crossword 14 Jun 24, Friday

Bill’s time: 9m 19s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1 Work on an intaglio : ETCH

Cameo is a method of carving, often the carving of a gemstone or a piece of jewelry. The resulting image is in relief (sits proud of the background), whereas an engraved image would be produced by the similar carving method known as intaglio. Nowadays, the term “cameo” is used for any piece of oval-shaped jewelry that contains the image of a head, usually in profile (maybe even a photograph).

9 Like Piglet : TIMID

Here are a couple of engaging lines spoken by Piglet in the “Winnie-the-Pooh” stories:

“The things that make me different are the things that make me.”
“If you weren’t you, then we’d all be a bit less, um…we.”

15 Where a diva is likely to make a scene : OPERA HOUSE

The term “diva” comes to us from Latin via Italian. It is the feminine form of “divus” meaning “divine one”. The word is used in Italy to mean “goddess” or “fine lady”, and especially is applied to the prima donna in an opera. We often use the term to describe a singer with a big ego.

18 Fish-and-chips coating : BEER BATTER

In cookery, a batter is a mixture of flour, eggs and milk that has been beaten together. The term “batter” comes from the Old French noun “batteure” meaning “beating”.

19 Gym machine for rowing exercises, informally : ERG

An indoor rowing machine is often referred to as an ergometer (or simply “erg”). However, the term “ergometer” really applies to a device that measures the amount of work performed.

21 ___ Island : STATEN

Staten Island is part of New York City and is the least populous of the city’s five boroughs. The island was originally called Staaten Eylandt by Henry Hudson and was named after the Dutch parliament, the Staaten Generaal.

22 “Fantasia” conductor Stokowski : LEOPOLD

“Fantasia” was Disney’s third feature length movie, and was released in 1940. The film had a disappointing critical reception and pushed the Disney company into financial difficulties. RKO took over the film’s distribution in 1946. The folks at RKO cut a full hour off the running time and relaunched the movie into a successful run. If you haven’t seen “Fantasia”, I urge you to do so. It’s a real delight …

27 ___ Balls (treat) : SNO

The Hostess cakes called Sno Balls are usually pink in color, although in its original form each packet of two cakes contained one white and one pink. Around Halloween you can buy Sno Balls in the form of Scary Cakes and Glo Balls that are colored orange and green. and on St. Paddy’s Day there’s a green one available. Yoo hoo!

31 Subject of Obi-Wan’s line “That’s no moon. It’s a space station” : DEATH STAR

In the “Star Wars” universe, a Death Star is a huge space station that is the size of a moon. It is armed with a superlaser that can destroy entire planets.

33 Product in the skin care aisle : TONER

A skin toner is a cosmetic used to cleanse the skin and to shrink pores.

38 Bose competitor : SONOS

Sonos is a manufacturer of audio products, mainly of speakers and amplifiers. Founded in 2002, Sonos differentiates itself from other suppliers of similar items by focusing on multi-room applications and compatibility with voice assistants, i.e. Amazon’s Alexa, Google Assistant and Apple’s Siri.

41 Touches, e.g. : IPODS

The iPod Touch is a portable media player, personal digital assistant and gaming console with a Wi-Fi capability. Essentially, I think it’s a stripped-down version of an iPhone.

45 Emulates Niobe : MOURNS

In Greek mythology, Niobe fled to Mount Sipylus when her children were killed. There, she was turned into stone and wept for eternity. There is indeed a Niobe’s Rock on Mount Sipylus (in modern-day Turkey) that resembles a female face, and so is known as “The Weeping Rock”.

48 Dressage speed : GAIT

The equestrian sport of dressage involves demonstration of how well a horse responds to training. “Dressage” is a French word meaning “training”.

49 “Ew, ew, EW!” : TMI!

Too much information! (TMI!)

50 Some traitorous transgressions : INSIDE JOBS

Treason is a serious crime committed against the nation (or the sovereign). One who commits “treason” is called a “traitor”. In the past, the term treason also applied to lesser crimes so there was a differentiation between high treason against the king, and “petit treason” against a more common citizen.

52 World capital through which the Rimac River runs : LIMA

Lima is the capital city of Peru. It was founded in 1535 by the Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro, who named it “la Ciudad de los Reyes” (the City of Kings). He chose this name because the decision to found the city was made on January 6th, the feast of the Epiphany that commemorates the visit of the three kings to Jesus in Bethlehem. Lima is home to the oldest university in all of the Americas, as San Marco University was founded in 1551 during the days of Spanish colonial rule.

53 Hot fixture at a buffet : STEAM TABLE

Our word “buffet” comes from the French “bufet” meaning “bench, sideboard”. So, a buffet is a meal served from a “bufet”.

54 Lena of “Chocolat” : OLIN

Lena Olin is a Swedish actress, and someone who has acting in her blood. Her mother was the actress Britta Holmberg and her father the actor and director Stig Olin. Olin had a very successful career in Sweden, often working with the great Ingmar Bergman. Olin’s breakthrough international and English-speaking role was playing opposite Daniel Day-Lewis in “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” released in 1988. Way back in 1974, Miss Olin was crowned Miss Scandinavia in a beauty pageant for Nordic women held in Helsinki, Finland. Olin’s most famous performance was in “Chocolat” released in 2000, and then she won an Emmy in 2003 for Best Supporting Actress in the TV show “Alias”.

The movie “Chocolat”, released in 2000, is a big-screen adaption of the novel of the same name by Joanne Harris. “Chocolat” tells the story of a young mother with a six-year-old daughter who opens up a chocolate shop in a French village. The mother is played by the talented Juliette Binoche.

55 Joe who co-authored 2009’s “The Yankee Years” : TORRE

As a manager, Joe Torre was part of four World Series wins, all of them with the New York Yankees baseball team. Torre is an Italian American who was born in Brooklyn, New York. During the run up (pun intended!) to the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Torre carried the Olympic flame part of the way through Florence in Italy, handing it over to the next runner at the famous Ponte Vecchio. I’d guess that was quite a thrill for him …

56 Playbill blurbs : BIOS

The use of the word “blurb”, to describe a publicity notice on a book jacket, dates back to 1907 when it was used by American humorist Gelett Burgess. Burgess used a picture of a fictitious young woman named Miss Belinda Blurb on the dust jacket of a limited run of his 1906 book “Are You a Bromide?” That jacket proclaimed “YES, this is a ‘BLURB’!” The term persists to this day, without the young damsel.

57 Middle part : ALTO

The voice types soprano, alto, tenor and bass can be abbreviated to the initialism “SATB”.

Down

1 Actress Barrymore with an eponymous Broadway theater : ETHEL

Ethel Barrymore was one of the famous Barrymore family of actors. Ethel was the sister of John and Lionel Barrymore. Ethel was a close friend of Winston Churchill, and some even say that Winston proposed marriage to her.

3 They have deep pockets : CARGO PANTS

Cargo pants are trousers made out of hard-wearing material and have several large pockets designed to carry tools. They are sometimes referred to as “combat pants”, reflecting the original use by members of the armed forces in the 1930s and 1940s.

4 Redacted, say : HID

Our word “redact”, meaning to revise or edit, comes from the past participle of the Latin “redigere” meaning “to reduce”.

5 Prestigious prizes : NOBELS

The Peace Prize is the most famous of the five prizes bequeathed by Alfred Nobel. The others are for Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, and Literature. There is also a Nobel Prize in Economics that is awarded along with the original five, but it is funded separately and is awarded “in memory of Alfred Nobel”. Four of the prizes are awarded by Swedish organizations (Alfred Nobel was a Swede) and so the award ceremonies take place in Stockholm. The Peace Prize is awarded by the Norwegian Nobel Committee, and is presented in Oslo.

7 Diethyltoluamide, more familiarly : DEET

“DEET” is short for “N,N-Diethyl-meta-toluamide”, an active ingredient in insect repellents. DEET is most often used to repel mosquitoes by applying it to the skin and/or clothing. It is also used to protect against tick bites.

8 Prove one’s humanity, in a way : ERR

According to the Roman philosopher Seneca the Younger, “Errare humanum est, perseverare autem diabolicum”. This translates literally as “To err is human, to persist (in committing such errors) is of the devil”.

10 Pair making an appearance in the “Iliad”? : IOTAS

Iota is the ninth letter in the Greek alphabet, and one that gave rise to our letters I and J. We use the word “iota” to portray something very small, as it is the smallest of all Greek letters.

There are two letters “iota” in the word “Iliad”.

13 Best Actress nominee in 1992 who won Best Supporting Actress in 2020 : DERN

Actress Laura Dern is the daughter of actors Bruce Dern and Diane Ladd. Among her many notable roles, Laura Dern played the Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris in the 2008 movie “Recount”, and Dr. Ellie Sattler in the 1993 blockbuster “Jurassic Park”.

16 Not in English, say : ABSENT

Absent from English class …

28 Periodic gathering for heads of state : NATO SUMMIT

“NATO” is the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (or “OTAN” in French, “l’Organisation du Traité de l’Atlantique Nord”).

30 “I have more care to ___ than will to go”: “Romeo and Juliet” : STAY

William Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” is all about the love between the two title characters, which is forbidden as the pair come from two families who are sworn enemies. Early in the play, Romeo (a Montague) sneaks into a masquerade ball being held by the Capulets in the hope of meeting a Capulet girl named Rosaline. Instead, he meets and falls for Juliet, also a Capulet. Tragedy ensues …

32 Sailing vessel : SLOOP

Sloops and cutters are sailboats, and each has just one mast. One major difference between the two types of vessel is that the mast on a cutter is set much further aft than the mast on a sloop.

41 Van Gogh subjects : IRISES

Van Gogh painted his “Irises” while he was in an asylum in the south of France the year before he committed suicide. The original owner was a French art critic and supporter of van Gogh who paid 300 francs to purchase the painting. “Irises” was bought for $53.9 million in 1987, making it the most expensive painting sold up to that point. But, the buyer didn’t actually have the necessary funds, so it had to be resold in 1990. It was picked up by the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, where you can see it today.

42 Junípero Serra, for one : FRIAR

Junípero Serra was a Spanish missionary, a founder of several missions out here in California. Among those associated with Serra is the Mission in Carmel, where Serra’s remains are buried, and Mission San Juan Capistrano, the chapel of which is believed to be the oldest standing building in the state.

43 “___ Honey,” debut album for Radiohead : PABLO

Radiohead is an alternative rock band from England that formed in 1985. When the band self-released their 2007 studio album “In Rainbows”, it was a big deal for the music industry. Radiohead offered a digital version of the album using a pay-what-you-want pricing model. Reportedly, most fans paid what would be a normal retail price for the download version of the album. That’s not bad, considering the relatively low cost to produce a download compared to the cost of producing a CD.

44 Where to find a set of small hammers : PIANO

What was remarkable about the piano when it was invented, compared to other keyboard instruments, was that notes could be played with varying degrees of loudness. This is accomplished by pressing the keys lightly or firmly. Because of this quality, the new instrument was called a “pianoforte”, with “piano” and “forte” meaning “soft” and “loud” in Italian. We tend to shorten the name these days to just “piano”.

45 Feature of a rainforest canopy : MIST

Strictly speaking, the terms “rainforest” and “jungle” are related, but different. A healthy rainforest has a thick canopy of leaves so that the ground below is relatively clear of vegetation due to a lack of sunlight. When the canopy thins, the increase in sunlight promotes growth of tangled vegetation at ground level producing the habitat that we refer to as “jungle”.

48 Much of Mongolia : GOBI

The Gobi, the large desert in Asia, lies in northern China and southern Mongolia. It is growing at an alarming rate, particularly towards the south. This “desertification” is caused by increased human activity. The Chinese government is trying to halt the desert’s forward progress by planting great swaths of new forest, the so-called “Green Wall of China”. The name “Gobi” is Mongolian for “waterless place, semidesert”.

The East Asian nation of Mongolia lies between Russia to the north and China to the south. With an area of over 600,000 square miles and a population of about 3 million people, Mongolia is the most sparsely populated sovereign nation on the planet. Almost half of the Mongolian populace lives in the capital city of Ulan Bator.

52 “Mahalo nui ___” (Hawaiian for “Thank you very much”) : LOA

In Hawaiian, “mahalo” means “thank you” and “mahalo nui loa” translates as “thank you very much”.