1012-24 NY Times Crossword 12 Oct 24, Saturday

Bill’s time: 18m 25s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

16 Blissful stretch : HONEYMOON PERIOD

The concept of a honeymoon vacation only started in the early 1800s. In Britain, wealthy couples would take a “bridal tour” together after the wedding, visiting those friends and relatives who could not attend the ceremony. The etymology of “honeymoon” isn’t very clear, and may even have a negative derivation as it might suggest that the sweetness (honey) of love is doomed to wane like a passing phase of the moon. The equivalent terms in other languages are “moon of honey” (French), “honey month” (Welsh) and “tinsel week” (German).

20 First name in classic horror films : LON

Lon Chaney, Sr. played a lot of crazed-looking characters in the days of silent movies. He did much of his own make-up work, developing the grotesque appearances that became his trademark, and earning himself the nickname “the man of a thousand faces”. Most famous were his portrayals of the title characters in the films “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” (1923) and “The Phantom of the Opera” (1925).

Lon Chaney, Jr. followed in his father’s footsteps as an actor, and most famously played the werewolf in the “The Wolf Man” series of films, starting in 1941. The young actor started his career using his real name, Creighton Chaney, but later adopted the name “Lon Chaney, Jr.” getting a boost from his father’s reputation. Chaney, Jr. also played Lennie Small in the 1939 film adaptation of the Steinbeck novel “Of Mice and Men”.

25 Letters on old kopecks : CCCP

The abbreviation CCCP stands for “Сою́з Сове́тских Социалисти́ческих Респу́блик”, which translates from Russian as “Union of Soviet Socialist Republics”, the USSR.

The ruble (also “rouble”) is the unit of currency in Russia, as well as in several other countries in the former Soviet Union. One ruble is divided into one hundred kopecks (also “kopeks”).

29 Word before “tip” or after “top” : HAT

A stovepipe hat is also known as a top hat.

30 Chickpea, e.g. : SEED

The garbanzo, or chickpea, is absolutely my favorite legume to eat.

31 Liszt’s “Transcendental ___” : ETUDES

The “Transcendental Études” are twelve piano pieces by Franz Liszt that were first published in 1852. Actually, the 1852 pieces were revised versions of a series of pieces published in 1837, which in turn were a refinement of exercises written in 1826 when the composer was only 15 years old.

37 Direct flight? : BEELINE

To make a beeline for somewhere or something, one takes a direct route. The term derives from the excellent homing instinct of bees.

38 Boil down : DECOCT

To decoct is to extract the flavor of a liquid by boiling down and increasing the concentration. A related term is “to concoct”, meaning “to boil together”. We use the verb “to concoct” in a figurative sense to mean to contrive, devise.

40 Zest for life: Abbr. : SYN

Synonym (syn.)

43 Future D.O.’s exam : MCAT

Medical College Admission Test (MCAT)

Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine (DO)

46 Legal V.I.P.s : AGS

Attorneys General (AGs) head up the Department of Justice (DOJ). When the office of the Attorney General was created in 1789 it was a part-time job, with no departmental support. The Department of Justice came into being in 1870.

47 Invite qualifier, for short : BYO

Bring Your Own Beer/Bottle/Booze (BYOB, and sometimes just “BYO”)

Down

2 Ice planet in “The Empire Strikes Back” : HOTH

The fictional planet known as Hoth is featured in the “Star Wars” movie “The Empire Strikes Back”. Hoth is an ice planet, and home to a secret base belonging to the Rebel Alliance.

3 Like Mount Terror and Mount Terra Nova : ANTARCTIC

Mount Erebus is a volcano that is located on Ross Island in Antarctica. It is the second-highest volcano on the continent, after Mount Sidley. It was discovered in 1841 by Sir James Clark Ross, along with the companion volcano Mount Terror. Ross named the peaks for the ships used on his voyage: HMS Erebus and HMS Terror.

5 Co-creator and co-star of Netflix’s “The Upshaws” : SYKES

Wanda Sykes is a very successful American comedian and comic actress. Interestingly, Sykes spent her first five years out of school working for the NSA. I saw her perform in Reno some years ago, and she is very, very funny.

“The Upshaws” is a sitcom co-created and starring stand-up comedian Wanda Sykes. The storyline revolves around a working-class family living in Indiana. Mom and Dad Upshaw are played by Kim Fields and Mike Epps.

7 Approaches, briefly : MOS

“Modus operandi” (plural “modi operandi”) is the Latin for “mode of operating”, a term we’ve been using since the mid-1600s. It’s often used by the police when referring to the methods typically employed by a particular perpetrator of a crime, and is usually abbreviated to “M.O.”

10 Narrow peninsula : SPIT

A spit is a point of land jutting out into a body of water. The term “spit” is especially reserved for those points of land comprising sand or gravel.

11 Insectoid moon dwellers in H.G. Wells’s “The First Men in the Moon” : SELENITES

The full name of the English author known as H. G. Wells was Herbert George Wells. Wells is particularly well known for his works of science fiction, including “The War of the Worlds”, “The Time Machine”, “The Invisible Man” and “The Island of Doctor Moreau”. He was a prolific author, and a prolific lover as well. While married to one of his former students with whom he had two sons, he also had a child with writer Amber Reeves, and another child with author Rebecca West.

12 Texter’s “off-line” : IRL

In real life (IRL)

13 Polish roll : BIALY

“Bialy” is a Yiddish word describing a small onion roll that takes its name from Bialystok, a city in Poland.

22 Pair of accessories? : CEES

There is a pair of letters C (cees) in the word “accessories”.

24 Un color on El Salvador’s flag : AZUL

In Spanish, “azul” (blue) is “un color primario” (a primary color).

El Salvador is a country in Central America, the smallest country in the region. The capital of El Salvador is the city of San Salvador. “El Salvador” is derived from the name given to the land by the Spanish conquistadors in the sixteenth century: “Provincia De Nuestro Señor Jesucristo, El Salvador Del Mundo”, which translates as “Province of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Savior of the World”.

25 Lake ___, body of water spanning four African countries : CHAD

Lake Chad is a very large and shallow lake in Africa, one that changes size dramatically in a very short space of time. Lake Chad shrunk by a massive 95% from 1963 to 1998, but has been recovering ever since. Parts of the lake lie within the four countries Chad, Cameroon, Niger and Nigeria.

27 L.A. museum, with “the” : … GETTY

The J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles is one of the most-visited museums in the country. Like many museums in developed countries these days, the Getty has been embroiled in disputes about ownership of artifacts. The curators of the Getty have gone so far as to repatriate some items in recent years, especially to Greece and Italy. The J. Paul Getty Museum has two locations. The Getty Center is the primary location, and houses art from the Middle Ages to the present. The associated (and beautiful) Getty Villa displays art from ancient Greece, Rome and Etruria.

33 Grammy-winning singer who has recorded in several fictional languages : ENYA

Enya co-wrote and performed a song titled “Aníron” for “The Lord of the Rings” series of films. The song’s lyrics are written in the Elvish language of Sindarin, a fictional language that was created by author J.R.R. Tolkien.

36 Satisfy a midday craving : NOSH

Our word “to nosh” has been around since the late fifties, when it was imported from the Yiddish word “nashn” meaning “to nibble”. We use “nosh” as a noun that means “snack”, or as a verb meaning “to eat between meals”.

39 Anna ___, first Italian to win an acting Oscar : MAGNANI

Anna Magnani was an Italian actress who won an Academy Award for Best Actress portraying a Sicilian widow in the 1955 film adaptation of the Tennessee Williams play “The Rose Tattoo”. Williams actually wrote the play for Magnani, but she declined to perform in it as she believed her English to be too imperfect. When the play was adapted for the big screen, Magnani felt that she had mastered the language sufficiently and so took the lead role.

42 Mars, e.g. : WAR GOD

Mars was the god of war in ancient Rome. He was also viewed as the father of the Roman people and the father of Romulus and Remus, the twin brothers who founded Rome according to Roman mythology.

43 Melodramatic cry of appreciation : MY IDOL!

A melodrama is a play or film that usually pits good against evil, with an obvious hero or heroine vying against an obvious villain. Melodrama has evolved over time, originating in the 18th century as a drama for which there was a musical accompaniment. The term is derived from the Greek “melos” meaning “music” and the French “drame” meaning “drama”.

44 Character played by Kieron Moore in “David and Bathsheba” (1951) : URIAH

Uriah the Hittite was a soldier mentioned in the Bible, a soldier in the army of King David. Uriah was married to Bathsheba with whom King David had an affair. David had Uriah killed and then took Bathsheba as his wife. Bathsheba and David became the parents of Solomon who succeeded David as king.

47 Donnybrook : BRAWL

A donnybrook is a free-for-all, a melee. It is named for a famous historic fair in Donnybrook, a district in Dublin, Ireland. Donnybrook Fair had the reputation as a place where there was lots of drinking and fighting. I used to hang out a lot in Donnybrook in my student days and didn’t see any fighting. Lots of drinking, but no fighting …

50 Online home services marketplace : ANGI

Angie’s List is a website used by consumers to rate and research local businesses. The “list” was founded in 1995, originally as a call-in service and publication with reviews, by William S. Oesterle and the eponymous Angie Hicks. Angie’s List moved to the Internet in 1996, and by 2013 had 70,000 subscribers. A rebranding exercise in 2021 resulted in Angie’s List becoming “ANGI”.

51 Plural form of 1-Down, in dialect : DESE
[1D See 51-Down : THIS]

The New York City dialect of English is sometimes referred to as “Brooklynese”. In Brooklynese, we might take “dis”, “dat”, “dese” or “dose” (this, that, these or those).

53 Calif. school less than an hour’s ride from Tijuana : SDSU

San Diego State University (SDSU) was founded in 1897 as San Diego Normal School. Back then, the main purpose of the school was to educate women who wanted to be elementary school teachers. It changed its name to San Diego State Teachers College in 1923. The curriculum expanded beyond teacher education in 1935, and became San Diego State College. In 1960, the college joined what is now known as the California State University.

Tijuana is the largest city in the Mexican state of Baja California, and lies just across the US-Mexico border from San Diego. Tijuana is also the most westerly of all Mexican cities. A lot of Tijuana’s growth took place in the twenties as tourists flocked south of the border during the days of prohibition in the US. One of the many casinos and hotels that flourished at that time was Hotel Caesar’s in the Avenida Revolución area. Hotel Caesar’s claims to be the birthplace of the now ubiquitous Caesar Salad.

55 Little warbler : TIT

The birds known as chickadees or titmice in North America, are usually called simply “tits” in the rest of the English-speaking world.

56 Lead follower: Abbr. : DET

Detective (det.)