0211-25 NY Times Crossword 11 Feb 25, Tuesday

Bill’s time: 6m 17s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1 Best-selling pop group that includes the members V, RM and Suga : BTS

BTS is a boy band from South Korea with seven members. The initialism “BTS” stands for the phrase “Bangtan Sonyeondan”, which translates literally as “Bulletproof Boy Scouts”. It is the best-selling musical act in the history of South Korea.

9 “Saturday Night Fever” music : DISCO

“Saturday Night Fever” was a phenomenal movie in its day, but to be honest, I don’t think it has aged well. I still love the soundtrack, which is the third-best selling movie soundtrack of all time (number one is “The Bodyguard” and number two is “Purple Rain”, would you believe?). “Saturday Night Fever” was the first film for which the soundtrack was launched before the movie itself, in a cross-marketing exercise designed to hype the movie before its release.

16 Oscar winner Tatum : O’NEAL

Tatum O’Neal is the youngest actress to win a competitive Oscar. She won the Best Supporting Actress Award in 1974 when she was just 10 years old, for her role as Addie in “Paper Moon”. The youngest person to win an honorary Academy Award was Shirley Temple, who was only 5 years old when she was presented with an Oscar in 1934.

20 Chronicles : ANNALS

“Annal” is a rarely used word, and is the singular of the more common “annals”. An annal would be the recorded events of one year, with annals being the chronological record of events in successive years. The term “annal” comes from the Latin “annus” meaning “year”.

21 Language of Sri Lanka : TAMIL

Tamils are a large ethnic group of almost 80 million people who speak Tamil as their mother tongue. Despite the large Tamil population, there is no Tamil state. The highest concentration of Tamils is in Sri Lanka, where they make up about 25% of the population.

26 Garr of “Mr. Mom” : TERI

Actress Teri Garr had a whole host of minor roles in her youth, including appearances in nine Elvis movies. Garr’s big break came with the role of Inga in “Young Frankenstein”, and her supporting role in “Tootsie” earned Garr an Academy Award nomination. Sadly, Teri Garr suffered from multiple sclerosis, and was a National Ambassador for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.

“Mr. Mom” is a 1983 comedy written by John Hughes that stars Michael Keaton and the great Teri Garr. The movie is all about an engineer in the auto industry in Detroit who loses his job and then takes over the running of the household while his wife heads back to work. It’s funny stuff …

30 Harmonica : MOUTH ORGAN

The harmonica is a reed instrument. It contains a number of reeds, which are usually made from metal and are all arranged on a reed plate.

32 Mayday plea : SEND HELP

The term “Mayday” is an emergency codeword that is used internationally as a distress signal, especially when making a radio transmission. “Mayday” comes from the French phrase “venez m’aider” meaning “come to help me”. When used properly, the term is repeated three times in a row: “Mayday Mayday Mayday”.

35 Like some harmony … or a hint to 17-, 30-, 47- and 59-Across : TWO-PART

Two-part harmony is music written for two voices, or perhaps two instruments. A two-part harmony can also be written for a single keyboard instrument, in which case two different musical parts can be assigned to two different notes in a collection of chords.

38 2007 quadruple-platinum Alicia Keys album : AS I AM

“Alicia Keys” is the stage name of Alicia Cook, an R&B and soul singer from Hell’s Kitchen in New York City.

50 Betting setting : RENO

The city of Reno’s economy took off when open gambling was legalized in Nevada in 1931. Within a short time, a syndicate had built the Bank Club in Reno, which was the largest casino in the world at the time.

51 Tower town : PISA

The Leaning Tower of Pisa is one of the most popular tourist attractions in the world. It is known for its nearly four-degree lean, which is caused by an unstable foundation. The tower was built in the 12th century and began to lean during construction. The lean worsened over time, and by the 1990s, the tower was at risk of collapse with a lean of 5½ degrees. A major stabilization project was undertaken in the 1990s, which reduced the lean to 3.97 degrees.

52 Asunción assent : SI SI

Asunción is the capital city of Paraguay. It is one of the oldest cities in South America, and hence known as “Mother of Cities”. The city was first visited by Spanish conqueror Juan de Ayolas, and he founded a fort there in 1537 that he called Nuestra Señora Santa María de la Asunción, which is why we use the current name.

53 Film producer Ponti : CARLO

The renowned Italian film producer Carlo Ponti was not quite as famous as his celebrity wife Sophia Loren. Ponti met Loren as a contestant in a beauty contest he was judging in 1950. Back then she was a budding young actress still using her real name, Sofia Lazzaro. The two married in 1957 even though divorce was illegal at the time in Italy, so Ponti was still married to his first wife.

56 Fragrant fir : BALSAM

The Balsam fir is an evergreen tree that is native to eastern and central North America. The Balsam is commonly used as a Christmas tree, especially in the northeastern US.

66 Units of paper : REAMS

A ream is 500 sheets of paper. As there were 24 sheets in a quire, and 20 quires made up a ream, there used to be 480 sheets in a ream. Ever since the standard was changed to 500, a 480-sheet packet of paper has been called a “short ream”. We also use the term “reams” to mean a great amount, evolving from the idea of a lot of printed material.

67 Joseph of ice cream fame : EDY

Edy’s is a brand of premium ice cream that was founded in 1928 in Oakland, California. The company’s two signature brands, Dreyer’s Grand Ice Cream and Edy’s Grand Ice Cream, are named after its founders, William Dreyer and Joseph Edy.

Down

1 Nassau’s nation : BAHAMAS

Nassau is the capital of the Bahamas, and used to be called Charles Town. Located on the island of New Providence, the original settlement was burnt to the ground by the Spanish in 1684. It was rebuilt and named Nassau in honor of King William III of England (“William of Orange”), a Dutchman from the House of Orange-Nassau. Nassau is a favored location for the James Bond series of movies. The city and surroundings feature in “Thunderball”, “Never Say Never Again”, “Casino Royale” and “For Your Eyes Only”. Bond portrayer Sean Connery lived for many years at Lyford Cay, which is just a 30-min drive from the center of Nassau.

2 Title setting for a Christie mystery : THE NILE

Agatha Christie wrote a very successful crime novel called “Death on the Nile” that was first published in 1937. That novel had started off life as a play that was never performed, one that Christie called “Moon on the Nile”. Christie then adapted the novel back into a play again, calling it “Murder on the Nile”, which opened in London in 1946.

3 Ireland’s longest river : SHANNON

The Shannon is the longest river in Ireland, draining one fifth of the island’s area. It is named for a Celtic goddess named Sionna.

5 Some souvenirs : TEES

A souvenir is a memento, a token of remembrance. We imported “souvenir” from French, in which language it has the same meaning. The term comes from the Latin “subvenire” meaning “to come to mind”, or literally “to come up”.

10 Kind of fertilization : IN VITRO

In vitro fertilization (IVF) is the process in which egg cells are fertilized by sperm cells outside of the body in vitro. The phrase “in vitro” translates from Latin as “in glass”. The process is usually carried out in a glass culture dish.

11 Good standing for a sailor? : SEA LEGS

On a ship, one is said to have found one’s sea legs when the body has adjusted to the motion of the vessel. One can walk steadily, and is free from seasickness. An alternative use of “sea legs” is to describe the feeling one might have when stepping on land spending a few hours on a small boat sailing through relatively rough seas. In this case, the body can feel as though it is still rising and falling, as if one is still on the boat.

22 “___ du lieber!” : ACH

The German exclamation “Ach du lieber” translates as “Oh dear”.

33 Web page code : HTML

The initialism “HTML” stands for HyperText Markup Language. HTML is the language used to write most Internet web pages (including this one).

36 Berry in bowls : ACAI

Açaí na tigela is a dish made from the frozen, mashed fruit of the açaí palm and served as a smoothie. Often topped with granola, banana, other berries and syrup, the dish is a specialty in much of Brazil. There’s even a savory version of açaí na tigela (“açaí in the bowl”) that includes shrimp or dried fish and tapioca. Açaí bowls are becoming very popular in North America, especially as a health food.

37 Like cabernet, but not chardonnay : RED

The cabernet sauvignon (often just “cab”) grape has been around since the 17th century, and is the result of a chance crossing in southwestern France of the cabernet franc and sauvignon blanc grapes.

The chardonnay grape is believed to have originated in the Burgundy wine region of France. Now it’s grown “everywhere”. Drinkers of California “chards” seem to be particularly fond of oak flavor, so most chardonnay wines are aged in oak barrels or with oak chips.

39 ___ generis : SUI

“Sui generis” is a Latin expression meaning “of its own kind”. The term can be used in a number of fields, and in philosophy it refers to an idea which cannot be included in a wider concept, and idea of its own kind.

40 Player of one of the Barbies in “Barbie” : ISSA RAE

In the 2023 hit movie “Barbie”, actress Issa Rae plays President Barbie, the ruler of Barbieland.

43 Toothbrush brand : ORAL-B

The Oral-B toothbrush was introduced to the world in 1950, designed by a California periodontist. The first “model” was the Oral-B 60, a name given to reflect the 60 tufts in the brush. In 1969, the Oral-B was the first toothbrush to get to the moon as it was the toothbrush of choice for the crew of the Apollo 11 spacecraft.

44 Big name in fashion : VERSACE

Gianni Versace was an Italian fashion designer. Versace’s death was perhaps as famous as his life. He was murdered in 1997 outside his mansion in Miami Beach by one Andrew Cunanan. It is not certain that Cunanan knew who his victim was, as this was the last in a spree of five murders committed by him over a four month period. A few days after killing Versace, Cunanan used the same gun to commit suicide.

56 Real estate ad abbr. : BDRM

Bedroom (bdrm)

61 Largest union in the U.S., for short : NEA

Founded in 1857, the National Education Association (NEA) is the largest labor union in the country, and mainly represents public school teachers.