1220-24 NY Times Crossword 20 Dec 24, Friday

Bill’s time: 9m 14s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

14 Common motifs in high art? : MARIJUANA LEAVES

“Potiguaya” is the Mexican-Spanish word for “marijuana leaves”. The slang name “pot” comes from “potiguaya”.

17 Major success stories in the entrepreneurial world : UNICORN STARTUPS

In the world of finance, a unicorn is a privately-held startup company that has a value of over $1 billion. The derivative terms “decacorn” and “hectacorn” refer to companies with valuation of over $10 billion and $100 billion respectively. The use of the term “unicorn” reflects how unlikely such valuations are.

18 Goddess often depicted clothed in green : GAIA

The Greek goddess personifying the earth was Gaea (also “Gaia”, and meaning “land” or “earth” in Greek). The Roman equivalent goddess was Terra Mater, “Mother Earth”.

26 One of three in “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead” : ACT

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are a pair of courtiers in Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”. They also appear in the most famous play by British playwright Tom Stoppard, “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead” (which I attended decades ago, but slept through!).

29 2023 film in which Michael Jordan is only shown from behind : AIR

Air Jordan is a Nike brand of shoe (and other apparel) endorsed by NBA great Michael Jordan. The silhouette of a basketball player that features on Air Jordans is known as the “Jumpman” logo.

32 Symbol of America’s first transcontinental railroad : THE GOLDEN SPIKE

The First Transcontinental Railroad was a cooperative project between the Western Pacific, the Central Pacific and the Union Pacific Railroad Companies. The Western Pacific Railroad constructed line between Oakland and Sacramento in California. The Central Pacific Railroad laid line from Sacramento to Promontory Summit, Utah. The Union Pacific Railroad put down tracks in a westerly direction, from the existing network terminus near Omaha, Nebraska, all the way to Promontory Summit. It was the connecting of the Central Pacific and Union Pacific railroads at Promontory Summit that completed the First Transcontinental Line in 1869. The driving of the Golden Spike (also “Last Spike”) symbolically completed the project. That spike was pounded into the ground by Leland Stanford, president of both the Southern Pacific and the Central Pacific railroads. The spike can now be viewed at Stanford University, the school founded by Leland and named after his son Leland Jr., who died of typhoid fever as a teenager.

41 Mens ___ : REA

“Mens rea” is Latin for “guilty mind” and is a central concept in criminal law. The concept is expanded to “actus non facit reum nisi mens sit rea” meaning “the act does not make a person guilty unless the mind be also guilty”. In other words, someone should not be deemed guilty of an act, unless he or she had a “guilty mind”, intended to do wrong.

42 Pablo Neruda wrote one to a large tuna in the market : ODE

“Pablo Neruda” was the pen name, and eventually the legal name, used by Chilean writer Neftali Ricardo Reyes Basoalto. Basoalto chose the name as an homage to Czech poet Jan Neruda.

49 Egg ___ yung : FOO

Egg foo yung is a dish served in Chinese restaurants. It is basically an omelet, and probably takes its name from a flower called the Fu Yung.

52 Subject of 199 silkscreen paintings by Warhol : MAO

Andy Warhol made a famous series of portraits of Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong in 1973. An exhibition of Warhol’s works toured China in 2012 but the images of Mao were excluded, apparently at the request of the Chinese government.

63 Like the ruins in Tulum : MAYAN

Tulum was a walled city that served as a port for the major Mayan city of Coba in the Mexican state of Quintana Roo on the Yucatán Peninsula. Tulum now lies in ruins, as the city was abandoned towards the end of the 16th century. The ruins are a popular destination for tourists.

Down

1 Rhea’s relative : EMU

The rhea is a flightless bird that is native to South America. It takes its name from the Greek Titan Rhea. That’s an apt name for a flightless bird as “rhea” comes from the Greek word meaning “ground”.

3 Performance that might elicit a “Brava!” : ARIA

To express appreciation for a male performer at an operatic performance, traditionally one calls out “bravo!”. Appreciation for a female performer is shown by using “brava!”, and for more than one performer of either sex by using “bravi!”

7 Had carte blanche : ANSWERED TO NO ONE

The phrase “carte blanche” was imported from French in the early 1700s, when it was used to mean “blank paper” (in French it means “white paper”). Later in the century, the term came to mean “full discretionary power”, which is how we use the phrase today.

8 French composer who influenced Ravel and Debussy : SATIE

Erik Satie was a French composer best known for his beautiful composition, the three “Gymnopédies”. I have tried so hard to appreciate other works by Satie but I find them so very different from the minimalist simplicity of the lyrical “Gymnopédies”.

Maurice Ravel was a great French composer of the Romantic Era. His most famous piece of music by far is his “Bolero”, the success of which he found somewhat irksome as he considered it a trivial work. Personally though, I love the piece’s minimalism and simplicity …

Claude Debussy is one of my favorite composers, and someone who epitomises the Romantic Era and Impressionist Movement in music. One of my favorite CDs is a collection of some “lighter” Debussy pieces called “Debussy for Daydreaming”, and what an evocative collection it is. Included are “Syrinx”, “Maid with the Flaxen Hair”, “Rêverie” and everyone’s favorite, “Clair de Lune”.

9 Spanish 101 verb : SER

The Spanish verbs “ser” and “estar” both translate as “to be”:

1. Ser: Used for permanent or essential qualities (personality, origin, time). Think “what” something is, e.g. Soy alto. (I am tall.)
2. Estar: Used for temporary states or conditions (location, emotion, condition). Think “how” something is, e.g. Estoy cansado. (I am tired.)

10 Garfield, for one : CAT

“Garfield” is a comic strip drawn by Jim Davis from 1978. The title character is an orange tabby cat. Davis named his cartoon hero Garfield after his own grandfather.

13 Aptly named descendant of Standard Oil : ESSO

The Esso brand has its roots in the old Standard Oil company as it uses the initial letters of “Standard” and “Oil” (ESS-O). The Esso brand was replaced by Exxon in the US, but ESSO is still used in many other countries.

16 Sighting from the crow’s nest : LAND

A crow’s nest is a structure atop the mainmast of a ship that is used as a lookout point. The first crow’s nest was erected in 1807, and was simply a barrel that was lashed to the tallest mast. Supposedly, the structure is named for the crows or ravens that Vikings carried with them on their voyages. The birds were released and used as navigation aids as invariably, the crow or raven headed straight for the nearest land.

22 Micronesian nation : PALAU

Palau is a tiny island nation lying 500 miles east of the Philippines, and 2,000 miles south of Japan. Palau was once a Spanish possession and was sold by Spain to Germany in the late 19th century. During WWI, Japan invaded the islands (Japan had declared war on Germany) and was awarded the islands as a territory by the League of Nations at the end of hostilities. In WWII the US took Palau from the Japanese in a bloody battle in 1944. Palau emerged from American administration in 1994 and is now a sovereign state.

Micronesia is one of the three island regions of Oceania, along with Polynesia and Melanesia. The sovereign nations included in the region are the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, Nauru and Palau. Also in Micronesia are the US territories of Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands and Wake Island.

24 M.L.B. team that once drafted Tom Brady : EXPOS

The Washington Nationals (“Nats”) started out life as the Montreal Expos in 1969, and were the first Major League Baseball team in Canada. The Expos moved to Washington in 2005 becoming the Nats.

Quarterback Tom Brady signed up with the New England Patriots in 2000, and led the team to more Super Bowl appearances than any other player in history. He signed up with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2020, and led them to win the Super Bowl in his first season. Brady is from San Mateo, California, which isn’t very far from here. He dated actress Bridget Moynahan for a couple of years, and the pair have a child together. Brady was also married to Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bündchen, for thirteen years.

25 Many a founding father, religiously : DEIST

Deism (from the Latin “deus” meaning god) is the belief that a supreme being created the universe, a belief based on observation and reason, and without the need for faith. Further, a deist does not accept divine intervention and rather believes that the supreme being, having created the universe, leaves the world to its own devices.

By one definition, the Founding Fathers were the leaders of the American Revolution against the British Crown. By another, they were the individuals who signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776. The term “Framers” is sometimes confused with “Founding Fathers”. According to the National Archives, the Framers were the 55 delegates to the 1787 Constitutional Convention, those who played a key role in drafting the Constitution of the United States. The phrase “Founding Fathers” is a relatively recent term, and one coined by future US president Warren D. Harding in 1916.

27 I.O.U. : CHIT

A chit is a note or a short letter. The term “chit” tends to be used these days in the sense of an amount owed (as in a poker game). The word used to be “chitty”, which is now obsolete but was closer to the original Hindi term. I feel a tad obsolete myself, because when we are at school we would be excused from class if we had a “chitty”.

28 Lin-Manuel Miranda, vocally : TENOR

Lin-Manuel Miranda is a composer and playwright from New York City, and the creator and star of the hit Broadway musicals “Hamilton” and “In the Heights”. Miranda also co-wrote the songs for the 2016 Disney animated feature “Moana”. He started composing early, and wrote jingles as a child. One of those jingles was later used by Eliot Spitzer in his 2006 gubernatorial campaign.

33 Pool contents : GENES

The set of all genes in a particular population is known as the “gene pool”, a term coined in Russian by geneticist Aleksandr Sergeevich Serebrovskii in the 1920s. In general, the larger the gene pool, the more diverse and robust the population.

34 Lymph node, e.g. : ORGAN

Lymph is a fluid that exists alongside blood in the body that is transported through lymph vessels. One of the functions of the system is to pick up bacteria in the body, transporting them to lymph nodes where they are destroyed by lymphocytes (a type of white blood cell). Lymph can also carry metastatic cancer cells that can lodge in lymph nodes, making lymph nodes a common site where tumors may be found growing.

46 Member of the Golden Horde : TATAR

Tatars (sometimes “Tartars”) are an ethnic group of people who mainly reside in Russia (a population of about 5 1/2 million). One of the more famous people with a Tatar heritage was Hollywood actor Charles Bronson. Bronson’s real name was Charles Buchinsky.

The Golden Horde were a group of Mongols who ruled over what is now Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Moldova and the Caucasus, from the 1240s until 1502. It has been suggested that the name of the group derives from the yellow tents used by the rulers of the Golden Horde. And, the Golden Horde’s influence and rule led to the term “horde”, meaning large crowd, entering the English language via many languages spoken in Slavic Eastern Europe.

48 Dish whose name is Turkish for “stuffed” : DOLMA

Dolmas are stuffed vegetable dishes from the Middle East. Strictly speaking, dolmas are made by hollowing out some vegetables before adding a stuffing. The derivative dish called “sarma” is made by wrapping vine or cabbage leaves around a filling. In many cuisines, the name “sarma” has been dropped in favor of “dolma”.

50 Ancient music halls : ODEA

In ancient Greece, an odeon (also “odeum”) was like a small theater, with “odeon” literally meaning “building for musical competition”. Odea were used in both Greece and Rome for entertainments such as musical shows and poetry readings.

54 Letters on an invite : BYOB

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

55 “‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers / That perches in the ___”: Emily Dickinson : SOUL

Emily Dickinson wrote nearly 1800 poems in her lifetime, with less than a dozen published before she died in 1886. Emily’s younger sister discovered the enormous collection, and it was published in batches over the coming decades. Try this one for size:

“Hope” is the thing with feathers –
That perches in the soul –
And sings the tune without the words –
And never stops – at all –

58 Chablis, e.g. : VIN

Chablis wine comes from the Chablis region that is the most northerly wine district in the Burgundy region of France. It is a dry white wine made mainly from Chardonnay grapes.

59 Splash of orange in a Japanese pond : KOI

Koi are fish that are also known as Japanese carp. Koi have been bred for decorative purposes and there are now some very brightly colored examples found in Japanese water gardens.