Constructed by: Jeffrey Lease
Edited by: Joel Fagliano
Not your puzzle? Try today’s …
… syndicated NY Times crossword
Today’s Theme (according to Bill): … And the Last Shall Be First
Themed answers are common phrases that feature the same first and last words:
- 16A Cry from someone who has finally had it : ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!
- 26A Sarcastic non-apology : SORRY, NOT SORRY
- 48A Perennial optimist’s motto : NEVER SAY NEVER
- 63A Way to make incremental progress : LITTLE BY LITTLE
Read on, or jump to …
… a complete list of answers
Want to discuss the puzzle? Then …
… leave a comment
Bill’s time: 5m 08s
Bill’s errors: 0
Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies
Across
1 U.S. public health org. : CDC
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is based in Atlanta, Georgia. The CDC started out life during WWII as the Office of National Defense Malaria Control Activities. The CDC worries about much more than malaria these days …
13 2016 Summer Olympics host, informally : RIO
Even though the 2016 Olympic Games was a summer competition, it was held in Rio de Janeiro in winter. As Rio is in the southern hemisphere, the opening ceremony on 5th August 2016 fell in the local winter season. The 2016 games was also the first to be held in South America, and the first to be hosted by a Portuguese-speaking country.
15 Language that’s mutually intelligible with Thai : LAO
Lao is the official language of Laos. It is also spoken in the northeast of Thailand, but there the language is known as Isan.
21 Mount Olympus ruler : ZEUS
In Greek mythology, Zeus served as the king of the Olympic gods, and the god of the sky and thunder. He was the child of Titans Cronus and Rhea, and was married to Hera. Zeus was the equivalent of the Roman god Jupiter, who had similar realms of influence.
Mount Olympus is the highest peak in Greece. In Greek mythology, it was home to the gods, and in particular home to the principal gods known as the Twelve Olympians.
32 The “veni” in “Veni, vidi, vici” : I CAME
The oft-quoted statement “Veni, vidi, vici” (“I came, I saw, I conquered”) is believed by many to have been written by Julius Caesar. The words date back to 47 BCE and refer to the short war between Rome and Pharnaces II of Pontus.
38 Comic Silverman : SARAH
Sarah Silverman is a comedian, and also a singer and actress. Her material is very “edgy”, as she takes on social taboos such as racism, sexism and religion. She had a celebrity boyfriend for five years as she started dating Jimmy Kimmel in 2002, soon after Kimmel’s divorce from his first wife.
42 Solar energy collector : PANEL
Solar panels are arrays of solar cells that make use of what’s known as the photovoltaic effect. We are more likely to have learned about the photoelectric effect in school, in which electrons were ejected from the surface of some materials when it was exposed to light or other forms of radiation. The photovoltaic effect is related but different. Instead of being electrons ejected from the surface, in the photovoltaic effect electrons move around in the material creating a difference in voltage.
43 Pod vegetable in gumbo : OKRA
Gumbo is a type of stew or soup that originated in Louisiana. The primary ingredient can be meat or fish, but to be true gumbo it must include the “holy trinity” of vegetables, namely celery, bell peppers and onion. Okra used to be a requirement but this is no longer the case. Okra gave the dish its name as the vernacular word for the African vegetable is “okingumbo”, from the Bantu language spoken by many of the slaves brought to America.
44 Fracas : MELEE
Our term “melee” comes from the French “mêlée”, and in both languages the word means “confused fight”.
“Fracas”, meaning “noisy quarrel”, is a French word that we absorbed into English. In turn, the French usage evolved from the Italian “fracasso” meaning “uproar, crash”.
46 Religion of the Quran : ISLAM
The Koran is also known as the “Qur’an” and “Quran” in English. “Qur’an” a transliteration of the Arabic name for the holy text of the Muslim faith. The literal translation of “Koran” is “the recitation”.
54 Pain relief brand : ALEVE
“Aleve” is a brand name used for the nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug Naproxen sodium.
58 Agent ___ Scully of “The X-Files” : DANA
“The X-Files” is a very successful science fiction show that originally aired on the Fox network from 1993 to 2002. The stars of the show are David Duchovny (playing Fox Mulder) and the very talented Gillian Anderson (playing Dana Scully). By the time the series ended, “The X-Files” was the longest running sci-fi show in US broadcast history. An “X-Files” reboot started airing in 2016 with Duchovny and Anderson reprising their starring roles.
62 Cain’s nephew in Genesis : ENOS
Enos was the son of Seth, and therefore the grandson of Adam and Eve, and nephew of Cain and Abel. According to the ancient Jewish work called the Book of Jubilees, Enos married his own sister Noam.
68 Actress Mendes : EVA
I am most familiar with actress Eva Mendes as the female lead in the movie “Hitch”, in which she played opposite Will Smith. Mendes started a relationship with fellow actor Ryan Gosling in 2011, and the couple have two children together.
71 State that’s home to Rehoboth Beach: Abbr. : DEL
The state of Delaware takes its name from Virginia’s first colonial governor, Englishman Thomas West, 3rd Baron De La Warr. Delaware is known as “the First State” as it was the first to ratify the US Constitution, in 1787.
Down
1 Gives the heebie-jeebies, with “out” : CREEPS …
The plural noun “heebie-jeebies” describes a condition of extreme nervousness, one caused by worry or fear. The suggestion is that the term was coined in 1923 by cartoonist Billy De Beck in the “New York American”, although this might just have been the first time that the “heebie-jeebies” appeared in print.
2 Spanish for “money” : DINERO
“Dinero” is a Spanish word meaning “money”, as well as a slang term for money here in the US.
5 Tennis champ Arthur : ASHE
The great American tennis player Arthur Ashe spent the last years of his life writing his memoir called “Days of Grace”. He finished the manuscript just a few days before he passed away, dying from AIDS caused by a tainted blood transfusion.
6 Police procedural that premiered in 2003 : NCIS
NCIS is the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, which investigates crimes in the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps. The service gives its name to the CBS TV show “NCIS”, a spin-off drama from “JAG” in which the main “NCIS” characters were first introduced. The original big star in “NCIS” was actor Mark Harmon, playing Supervisory Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs.
10 Chimney duct : FLUE
The flue in a chimney is a duct that conveys exhaust gases from a fire to the outdoors. An important feature of a flue is that its opening is adjustable. When starting a fire, the flue should be wide open, maximizing airflow to get help ignition.
11 Big name in pasta sauce : RAGU
The Ragú brand of pasta sauce was introduced in 1937. The name ”Ragù” is the Italian word for a sauce used to dress pasta, however the spelling is a little off in the name of the sauce. In Italian, the word is “Ragù” with a grave accent over the “u”, but if you look at a jar of the sauce on the supermarket shelf it is spelled “Ragú” on the label, with an acute accent. Sometimes I think we just don’t try …
18 Missouri’s ___ Mountains : OZARK
The Ozark Mountains aren’t really mountains geographically speaking, and so the Ozarks are better described by the alternate name, the Ozark Plateau. It’s not really certain how the Ozarks got their name, but my favorite theory is that “Ozarks” is the phonetic spelling of “aux Arks”, short for “of Arkansas” in French.
23 Home of MoMA, for short : NYC
The founding of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City was very much driven by Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, wife of John D. Rockefeller. Working with two friends, Abby managed to get the museum opened in 1929, just nine days after the Wall Street Crash. The MoMA’s sculpture garden bears the name of Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, and has done so since 1949.
27 Apollo mission org. : NASA
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.
28 Muscat residents : OMANIS
Muscat is the capital city of Oman. It lies on the northeast coast of the state on the Gulf of Oman, a branch of the Persian Gulf.
29 Mother with a Nobel Peace Prize : TERESA
Mother Teresa was born in 1910 in the city that is now called Skopje, the capital of North Macedonia. At birth she was given the name Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu (“Gonxha” means “little flower” in Albanian). She left home at the age of 18 and joined the Sisters of Loreto, and headed to Loreto Abbey in Rathfarnham in Dublin, Ireland in order to learn English. Her goal was to teach in India, and English was the language used there for instruction by the nuns. After Mother Teresa passed away in 1997 she was beatified by Pope John Paul II. She was canonized by Pope Francis in 2016, and is now known as Saint Teresa of Calcutta.
30 Contest of continental conquest? : RISK
Risk is a fabulous board game that was introduced in France in 1957. It was invented by a very successful French director of short films called Albert Lamorisse. Lamorisse called his new game “La Conquête du Monde”, which translates into English as “The Conquest of the World”. A game of Risk is a must during the holidays in our house …
35 “Alas, poor Yorick! I knew ___ …”: Hamlet : HIM
In Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”, there is a scene when Prince Hamlet holds in his hand the skull of the deceased court jester Yorick. Hamlet starts into a famous monologue at this point:
Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio; a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy; he hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is …
The opening line is often misquoted as “Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him well.”
36 Biblical land west of Nod : EDEN
According to the Bible’s Book of Genesis, after Cain murdered his brother Abel, he fled to the “Land of Nod”. Nod was located “east of Eden” (from which John Steinbeck got the title for his celebrated novel “East of Eden”).
39 Any member of NATO, to another : ALLY
“NATO” is the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (or “OTAN” in French, “l’Organisation du Traité de l’Atlantique Nord”).
43 Popular brunch order : OMELET
Our word “brunch” is a portmanteau of “breakfast” and “lunch”. The term was coined as student slang in Oxford, England in the late 1890s. However, “brunch” described a combined meal closer to the breakfast hour, and the term “blunch” was used for a meal closer to lunchtime.
47 Actress de Armas : ANA
Ana de Armas is an actress from Cuba. Having attended the National Theater School of Cuba, she moved to Spain at the age of 18. Thre, she made a name for herself in a Spanish TV series called “El Internado”. De Armas moved to Los Angeles in 2014, after which her performance opposite Ryan Gosling in 2017’s “Blade Runner 2049” earned her critical acclaim.
49 Overnight flight : RED-EYE
A red-eye flight is one departing late at night and arriving early the next morning. The term “red-eye” is a reference to tired passengers disembarking with red eyes.
55 Chunk of concrete : SLAB
The terms “cement”, “mortar” and ”concrete” are related, and tend to get confused at times. Cement is a binder that hardens over time and binds other materials together. Cement mixed with a fine aggregate forms mortar, a workable paste used to bind building blocks together. Cement mixed with sand and gravel forms concrete, a pourable slurry that hardens into an extremely robust building material.
56 Gyro bread : PITA
A gyro is a traditional Greek dish of meat roasted on a tall vertical spit that is sliced from the spit as required. Gyros are usually served inside a lightly grilled piece of pita bread, along with tomato, onion and tzatziki (a yogurt and cucumber sauce).
57 Tabloid couple : ITEM
“Tabloid” is the trademarked name (owned by Burroughs Wellcome) for a “small tablet of medicine”, a name that goes back to 1884. The word “tabloid” had entered into general use to mean a compressed form of anything, and by the early 1900s was used in “tabloid journalism”, which described newspapers that had short, condensed articles and stories printed on smaller sheets of paper.
60 Nasdaq alternative : NYSE
The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) is the world’s largest stock exchange by market capitalization, and it has been in operation for over 230 years. The first company to be listed on the NYSE was the Bank of New York. It was traded alongside four other securities when the exchange opened.
The NASDAQ trading system created in 1971 is the successor to the over-the-counter (OTC) trading system that was common at the time. OTC trading is done directly between two parties without being facilitated by an exchange.
Read on, or …
… return to top of page
Complete List of Clues/Answers
Across
1 U.S. public health org. : CDC
4 Impressively done, as a job : BANG-UP
10 To and ___ : FRO
13 2016 Summer Olympics host, informally : RIO
14 Break free : ESCAPE
15 Language that’s mutually intelligible with Thai : LAO
16 Cry from someone who has finally had it : ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!
19 Wriggly sea creatures : EELS
20 “Monday Night Football” channel : ESPN
21 Mount Olympus ruler : ZEUS
22 Fuss over one’s appearance : PREEN
24 “It’s in my ___” (“I was made for this”) : DNA
26 Sarcastic non-apology : SORRY, NOT SORRY
32 The “veni” in “Veni, vidi, vici” : I CAME
33 Heavens : SKIES
35 Sheep : flock :: cow : ___ : HERD
38 Comic Silverman : SARAH
40 Drain : SAP
41 Wedding ceremony words : I DO
42 Solar energy collector : PANEL
43 Pod vegetable in gumbo : OKRA
44 Fracas : MELEE
46 Religion of the Quran : ISLAM
48 Perennial optimist’s motto : NEVER SAY NEVER
53 Bard’s “before” : ERE
54 Pain relief brand : ALEVE
55 Quick drive around town : SPIN
58 Agent ___ Scully of “The X-Files” : DANA
62 Cain’s nephew in Genesis : ENOS
63 Way to make incremental progress : LITTLE BY LITTLE
66 Polished off : ATE
67 “Yes, cap’n!” : AYE, SIR!
68 Actress Mendes : EVA
69 “Pow!” : BAM!
70 Strike out : DELETE
71 State that’s home to Rehoboth Beach: Abbr. : DEL
Down
1 Gives the heebie-jeebies, with “out” : CREEPS …
2 Spanish for “money” : DINERO
3 Where beers can be found at a tailgate party : COOLER
4 Implore : BEG
5 Tennis champ Arthur : ASHE
6 Police procedural that premiered in 2003 : NCIS
7 [Oh, no!] : [GASP!]
8 Flips on its head : UPENDS
9 Something brought out with a restaurant check : PEN
10 Chimney duct : FLUE
11 Big name in pasta sauce : RAGU
12 Audibly reacts to fireworks : OOHS
17 Log-in requirement : USER ID
18 Missouri’s ___ Mountains : OZARK
23 Home of MoMA, for short : NYC
25 Nibble between meals : NOSH
27 Apollo mission org. : NASA
28 Muscat residents : OMANIS
29 Mother with a Nobel Peace Prize : TERESA
30 Contest of continental conquest? : RISK
31 2024, e.g. : YEAR
34 Relaxing getaway : SPA
35 “Alas, poor Yorick! I knew ___ …”: Hamlet : HIM
36 Biblical land west of Nod : EDEN
37 Actor’s assignment : ROLE
39 Any member of NATO, to another : ALLY
42 Colleague : PEER
43 Popular brunch order : OMELET
45 ___ planner (occupation) : EVENT
47 Actress de Armas : ANA
49 Overnight flight : RED-EYE
50 Recapped a frustrating day at work, maybe : VENTED
51 Develop over time : EVOLVE
52 Close again, as an envelope : RESEAL
55 Chunk of concrete : SLAB
56 Gyro bread : PITA
57 Tabloid couple : ITEM
59 Cain’s brother in Genesis : ABEL
60 Nasdaq alternative : NYSE
61 Landed (on) : ALIT
64 Wee chap : LAD
65 Fury : IRE
Leave a comment (below), or …
… return to top of page
8 thoughts on “0729-24 NY Times Crossword 29 Jul 24, Monday”
Comments are closed.
6:03, no errors.
7:53, no errors. Started on the wrong foot, entering FREAKS and FDA in 1D/1A.
6:35, no errors.
7:04. A lot of missteps for a Monday. That can’t be good for the rest of the week. Started with FDA for 1A and “Freak” out for 1D and went from there.
I’ve taken enough RED EYEs recently to last a lifetime. I’ve sworn off of them completely…which means I’ll probably be on one my next trip out of town.
Best –
7 min, no errors
Pretty quick for a monday.
Couple of new york references. You would think it’s from the NY times or something… oh wait.
No errors.
Have a safe and happy Labor Day 😀
Go Orioles⚾️
Louis Armstrong recorded “Heebie Jeebies” in Feb. of 1926. It was supposedly the day he invented “scat” singing.
6:06 – clean.
Had to be the easiest Monday ever for me to score that! All the longs were gimmes.
Actually was looking forward to a Labor Day Puzzle …
Be Well.