1001-24 NY Times Crossword 1 Oct 24, Tuesday

Bill’s time: 6m 15s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

4 Exchanged for cash, in a way : PAWNED

I remember the bad old days growing up in Dublin, Ireland, when my mother had to go to the pawnshop (bad times!). I’d wait outside with my brother, looking up at the pawnbroker’s sign, three gold balls hanging down from a metal bar. This traditional sign used by pawnbrokers is said to date back to the Medici family as the sign had symbolic meaning in the province of Lombardy where the Medici family reigned supreme. Because of this connection, pawnshop banking was originally called Lombard banking.

14 Buffett or Cook, for short : CEO

Warren Buffett is often referred to with the nicknames “Wizard of Omaha” and “Oracle of Omaha”. Despite being one of the wealthiest men in the world, Buffet lives a relatively frugal and modest life. Buffett also has a very Jeffersonian attitude towards the role his wealth plays within his family. He has set up his estate so that his children will inherit enough money to be independent, but the vast majority of his assets are going to charity, both before and after he dies. My hero …

Tim Cook was appointed as Apple’s CEO in 2011, when he succeeded Steve Jobs. Cook had joined the company back in 1998 as senior vice president in charge of worldwide operations. He came out as gay in October of 2014, making Cook the first openly gay CEO of a company on the Fortune 500 list.

16 “Metamorphoses” poet : OVID

The Roman poet Publius Ovidius Naso is known today simply as Ovid. Ovid is usually listed alongside the two other great Roman poets: Horace and Virgil. Although he was immensely popular during his own lifetime, Ovid spent the last ten years of his life in exile. He fell foul of Emperor Augustus and so was banished to Tomis, an island in the Black Sea. What led to this disfavor seems to have been lost in the mists of time.

“Metamorphoses” is a narrative poem by Roman poet Ovid that deals with a lofty subject. It describes the history of the world from creation until the “present day”, that is Ovid’s “present day”, the era of Julius Caesar. A lot of the storyline makes use of Greek mythology (rather than Roman).

17 A.F.C. South team (“Look in the lake! It’s … ah, never mind”) : TENNESSEE TITANS (“NESSEE” sounds like “Nessie”)

The Tennessee Titans football team is based in Nashville, having relocated to Nashville from Houston in 1997. The team was called the Tennessee Oilers for two seasons, before adopting the “Titans” moniker.

The Loch Ness monster has been talked about for centuries, but modern interest started in 1933 when a spate of sightings was reported. Those sightings don’t seem to have stopped, with photographs really sparking the imagination.

23 Investigative journalism (“What was that in the sea?! I must be imagining things”) : MUCKRAKING (“KRAKIN” sounds like “Kraken”)

The Progressive movement had the goal of eliminating corruption in government in the US. The movement gave its name to the Progressive Era that lasted from the 1890s to the 1920s. Journalists who investigated and exposed corruption were given the name “muckrakers”. The term “muckraker” was popularized by President Theodore Roosevelt when he referred to “the Man with the Muck-rake”, a character in John Bunyan’s allegory “The Pilgrim’s Progress”.

Kraken are huge sea monsters of legend that were reputed to live off the coasts of Iceland and Norway. It’s possible that the kraken legend was inspired by real-life giant squid.

30 Fe, to chemists : IRON

The Latin word for “iron” is “ferrum”, which gives us “Fe” as the metal’s chemical symbol.

32 Napoleon Dynamite’s best friend : PEDRO

“Napoleon Dynamite” is a comedy film released in 2004 that stars Jon Heder in the title role. The movie was a commercial success above and beyond expectations. “Napoleon Dynamite” was made on the relatively low budget of about $400,000, and yet grossed almost $45 million within a year. The title character is a nerdy high school student who spends much of life living in his fantasy world.

33 Asia’s disappearing ___ Sea : ARAL

The Aral Sea is a great example of how humankind can have a devastating effect on the environment. In the early sixties the Aral Sea covered 68,000 square miles of Central Asia. Soviet irrigation projects drained the lake to such an extent that today the total area is less than 7,000 square miles, with 90% of the lake now completely dry. Sad …

35 Imperial unit of volume (“There’s another one! I swear he just slipped into those trees …”) : CUBIC FOOT (“BIC FOOT” sounds like “Bigfoot”)

The sasquatch or bigfoot is our North American equivalent of the yeti, the ape-like creature said to inhabit the Himalayas. Bigfoot is supposedly hiding out mainly in the Pacific Northwest of North America.

49 Professional proofreader (“Over there, in the snow! That had to be something, right?!”) : COPY EDITOR (“YEDI” sounds like “Yeti”)

The yeti, also known as the abominable snowman, is a beast of legend. “Yeti” is a Tibetan term, and the beast is fabled to live in the Himalayan regions of Nepal and Tibet. Our equivalent legend in North America is that of Bigfoot, also known as Sasquatch. The study of animals whose existence have not yet been substantiated is called cryptozoology, and a cryptid is a creature or plant that isn’t recognized by the scientific community, but the existence of which has been suggested.

53 Frankenstein’s assistant : IGOR

The lab assistant named “Igor” has appeared in many movies in recent decades, and usually appears as the aide to Dr. Frankenstein. Paradoxically, in Mary Shelley’s original novel, Frankenstein had no assistant at all. Further, the lab assistant introduced in 1931 in the first of the “Frankenstein” series of movies was named “Fritz”. Bela Lugosi played a character named “Ygor” in “Frankenstein” sequels in 1939 and 1946, but he was a blacksmith and didn’t work in the lab.

57 Pseudoscientist investigating the “sightings” in this puzzle : CRYPTOZOOLOGIST

The study of animals whose existence have not yet been substantiated is called cryptozoology, and a cryptid is a creature or plant that isn’t recognized by the scientific community, but the existence of which has been suggested.

62 Word repeated four times in the chorus of Taylor Swift’s “Shake It Off” : HATE

“Shake It Off” is a 2014 song recorded and composed by Taylor Swift. The song’s title refers to Swift “shaking off” negative comments made by her detractors.

65 Wally ___, “famous” cookie maker : AMOS

Wally Amos was a talent agent, one who was in the habit of taking home-baked cookies with him as an enticement to get celebrities to see him. He was urged by friends to open a cookie store (the cookies were that delicious, I guess) and this he did in Los Angeles in 1975 using the name “Famous Amos”. The store was a smash hit and he was able to build on the success by introducing his cookies into supermarkets. The brand was eventually purchased, making Wally a rich man, and Famous Amos cookies are still flying off the shelf. Wally Amos also became an energetic literacy advocate. He hosted 30 TV programs in 1987 entitled “Learn to Read” that provided reading instruction targeted at adults.

67 “I didn’t need to hear all that!” : TMI

Too much information! (TMI!)

Down

4 Santa Monica tourist attraction : PIER

Santa Monica, California lies on Santa Monica Bay and is in Los Angeles County. The city is home to the world-famous Santa Monica Pier, which opened in 1909.

5 Silk-producing region of India : ASSAM

Assam, located in northeastern India, is the largest tea-producing state in the country. It is also famous for its silk production, particularly the golden muga silk.

6 Sch. located in St. Louis, not Seattle : WASHU

Washington University (WashU) in St. Louis is a private school that was founded in 1853, and named for President George Washington in 1854. The “in St. Louis” was added to the university’s name in 1976, in an attempt to avoid confusion over the school’s location.

7 Bill ___, the Science Guy : NYE

That would be “Bill Nye the Science Guy”. In addition to his career as a science educator, Nye is also a comedian. He performed stand-up comedy during his early years as an engineer.

9 Pointillism mark : DOT

Pointillism is a style of painting that grew out of Impressionism. The pointillist technique calls for the artist to use small, distinct dots of bold color to build up the image. Pointillism was developed in the late 1800s by the great French painter, Georges Seurat. You can go see his magnificent work “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte” at The Art Institute of Chicago the next time you’re in town.

11 Greed : AVARICE

Our word “avarice”, meaning “desire for wealth”, ultimately derives from the Latin word “avere” meaning “to crave”.

12 Pesto ingredient : PINE NUT

Pesto sauce is more completely called “pesto alla genovese”, i.e. pesto from Genoa. A traditional recipe calls for crushed garlic, pine nuts, salt, basil leaves, parmesan cheese and olive oil. Yum …

22 Alternative to a swipe, for a credit card : TAP

Smart payment cards are credit and debit cards that include an integrated circuit chip for security. Smart cards can be categorized into two main types. Here in the US, we use chip and signature cards, meaning that we use a signature to identify the bearer of the card. Most Europeans use chip and PIN cards, which require the bearer to provide a PIN instead of a signature.

25 Company that merged with Heinz in 2015 : KRAFT

The Kraft brand name originated with Canadian James L. Kraft. It was James L. Kraft who first patented processed cheese

The HJ Heinz Company is an American concern that is based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The company was founded in 1869 by Henry John Heinz. It was Heinz himself who came up with the marketing slogan of “57 Varieties”. The “57” really doesn’t have any relevance to the range of products available as Heinz chose the “5” because it was his lucky number, and the “7” because it was his wife’s lucky number.

26 Caramel-filled candy : ROLO

Rolo was a hugely popular chocolate candy in Ireland when I was growing up. It was introduced in the thirties in the UK, and is produced under license in the US by Hershey. I was a little disappointed when I had my first taste of the American version as the center is very hard and chewy. The recipe used on the other side of the Atlantic calls for a soft gooey center.

27 Navigation aid that works through satellites, in brief : GPS

The modern Global Positioning System (GPS) system that we use today was built by the US military who received the massive funding needed because of fears during the Cold War of the use of Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles. We civilians, all round the world, owe a lot to President Ronald Reagan because he directed the military to make GPS technology available to the public for the common good. President Reagan was moved to do so after the Soviet Union shot down KAL flight 007 carrying 269 people, just because the plane strayed accidentally into Soviet airspace.

29 Gehrig in Cooperstown : LOU

Baseball legend Lou Gehrig was known as a powerhouse. He was a big hitter and just kept on playing. Gehrig broke the record for the most consecutive number of games played, and he still holds the record for the most career grand slams. His durability earned him the nickname “The Iron Horse”. Sadly, he died in 1941 at 37-years-old suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), an illness we now call “Lou Gehrig’s Disease”. The New York Yankees retired the number four on 4th of July 1939 in his honor, making Lou Gehrig the first baseball player to have his number retired.

Cooperstown is a village in New York that is famous as the home to the Baseball Hall of Fame. The village was named for Judge William Cooper, the founder of Cooperstown and the father of the noted writer James Fenimore Cooper.

33 Garlicky sauce : AIOLI

To the purist, especially in Provence in the South of France, aioli is prepared just by grinding garlic with olive oil. However, other ingredients are often added to the mix, particularly egg yolks.

37 Like Father Time : OLD

“Chronos” is the Greek word for time, with the name applying in ancient Greece to a personification of time. He was not a Greek god, although Chronos has often been confused with the Titan Cronus of Greek mythology. The Titan Cronus was often depicted with a scythe, as this was the tool he used to castrate his father Uranus. The confusion of Chronos and Cronus led to the traditional depiction of “Old Father Time” with a scythe.

38 [not my mistake] : [SIC]

[Sic] indicates that a quotation is written as originally found, perhaps including a typo. “Sic” is Latin for “thus, like this”. The term is more completely written as “sic erat scriptum”, which translates as “thus was it written”.

43 Purchase for a white elephant exchange : GAG GIFT

We use the idiomatic term “white elephant” to describe an object or venture that costs more to maintain than can be gained by disposing of it. The term comes from the tradition of presenting a white, albino elephant to a Southeast Asian monarch. Such a beast was a blessing, in that it was viewed as sacred and a sign of great power. It was also a curse, in that the animal was of no practical use and was expensive to maintain. The derivative phrase “white elephant gift exchange” refers to a party game in which impractical gag gifts are exchanged, usually at Christmas.

44 North America’s only marsupial : OPOSSUM

Although they are both marsupials, the opossum and the possum are two distinct animals. True possums are found in Australia and other places in the South Pacific. Opossums are found in North America.

Marsupials are mammals that carry their young in a pouch called a marsupium. Better-known marsupials are kangaroos, koalas, wombats and Tasmanian devils. As you can probably tell from this list, most marsupials are native to the Southern Hemisphere.

51 Orchestra woodwinds : OBOES

When the members of a full orchestra tune their instruments, they almost always tune to an “A” played by an oboe. A wind ensemble usually tunes to a B-flat, as this is an “open” note on many instruments, one in which all valves are open on trumpet for example, or the slider on a trombone is in home position.

58 Pretentious friend of Winnie-the-Pooh : OWL

Owl is one of the characters in A. A. Milne’s classic children’s tales featuring “Winnie-the-Pooh”. Owl is often depicted today as the archetypal “wise old owl”, but in the original books he tends not to exhibit very good judgment.