0222-25 NY Times Crossword 22 Feb 25, Saturday

Bill’s time: 13m 35s

Bill’s errors: 3

• GREEN ANACONDA (great anaconda)
• BELTS (Balts!)
• NAIRAS (tairas)

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

4 Who said “I play the notes as they are written, but it is God who makes the music” : BACH

Johann Sebastian Bach died when he was 65-years-old, in 1750. He was buried in Old St. John’s Cemetery in Leipzig, and his grave went unmarked until 1894. At that time his coffin was located, removed and buried in a vault within the church. The church was destroyed in an Allied bombing raid during WWII, and so after the war the remains had to be recovered and taken to the Church of St. Thomas in Leipzig.

16 Classic stop on the vaudeville circuit : PEORIA

Peoria is the oldest European settlement in the state of Illinois, having been settled by the French in 1680. The city is famous for being cited as “the average American city”. The phrase, “Will it play in Peoria?” is used to mean, “Will it appeal to the mainstream?” It is believed the expression originated as a corruption of, “We shall play in Peoria”, a line used by some actors in the 1890 novel “Five Hundred Dollars” by Horatio Alger, Jr.

The Vire is a river that flows through Normandy in France. The poets of the Vire valley were known as the “Vau de Vire”, a term that some say gave rise to our word “vaudeville”.

20 A pie to the face, slipping on a banana peel, etc. : SLAPSTICK

Slapstick is a physical form of comedy or horseplay. Back in the late 19th century, the term “slapstick” described a device made from two sticks loosely fastened together, which could be “slapped” together to create a sound effect offstage. The sound effect augmented the audience reaction when a clown or actor was given a slap on stage.

23 Show for which Eddie Murphy won an Emmy, in brief : SNL

Eddie Murphy is a multi-faceted performer and entertainer from the Bushwick neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York. Murphy was a comedian on “Saturday Night Live” from 1980 to 1984. He has also appeared in several hit movies, the success of which make Murphy the fourth-highest grossing actor in the country, as of 2014.

26 Peter out : EBB

The verb phrase “to peter out”, meaning “to fizzle out”, originated in the 1840s in the American mining industry. While the exact etymology isn’t clear, it probably derives from the term “saltpeter”, a constituent of gunpowder.

29 Stanley ___ : CUP

The Stanley Cup is named for Lord Stanley of Preston, the Governor General of Canada from 1888 to 1893. Lord Stanley’s sons became avid fans of ice hockey while in Canada, and so he donated the trophy in 1909, originally as a challenge cup for the country’s best amateur club.

31 Zendaya’s role on “Euphoria” : RUE

“Euphoria” is an HBO teen drama show that is loosely based on a miniseries of the same name from Israel. Lead actress in the show is Zendaya, who plays a recovering teenage drug addict.

Zendaya Coleman, known simply as “Zendaya” on stage, is an actress and singer. Her big break as an actress came with the role of Rocky Blue on the Disney sitcom “Shake It Up”. Zendaya gained further attention from TV audiences when in 2013, at 16 years of age, she became the youngest contestant up to that time on “Dancing with the Stars”. She did well, coming in second in the competition.

32 World’s heaviest snake (up to 500 pounds) : GREEN ANACONDA

Anacondas are native to the tropical regions of South America. The green anaconda is one of the world’s largest snakes, growing to 17 feet long and weighing up to 550 pounds! Anacondas are not venomous, and prefer to kill their prey by coiling around it and then squeeeeeezing …

36 Acts of service and words of affirmation, for two : LOVE LANGUAGES

Gary Chapman wrote a 1992 book called “The Five Love Languages” in which he suggested that there are five ways that someone might express and experience love. Those five “love languages” are:

1. Words of affirmation (compliments)
2. Quality time
3. Gifts
4. Acts of service
5. Physical touch

37 Time to celebrate female friendship, in a neologism : GALENTINE’S DAY

“Galentine’s Day” is an unofficial holiday celebrated annually on February 13th, the day before Valentine’s Day. The holiday, a day for “ladies celebrating ladies”, originated as an episode of the hit sitcom “Parks and Recreation”.

39 Sign of a hit : SRO

Standing room only (SRO)

40 Fluency-building subj. : ESL

English as a Second Language (ESL)

44 Lee with Oscars : ANG

Ang Lee made history at the 74th Academy Awards in 2002 when he won the Best Director award for “Brokeback Mountain.” He became the first Asian person to win the award and the first non-white person to win in the category.

46 Protective hairstyle, familiarly : LOCS

A loctician is a person specializing in the creation, styling and maintenance of dreadlocks (“locs”).

50 Apple corps? : GENIUS BAR

The technical support desk found in Apple Retail Stores is rather inventively called the Genius Bar. The certified support technicians are known as “Geniuses”. The trainees are called GYOs: Grow-Your-Own-Geniuses.

Down

3 Chicken , panko-breaded dish : KATSU

“Katsuretsu” (also just “katsu”) is a dish from Japanese cuisine that resembles a Wiener schnitzel from Viennese cuisine. It is a breaded meat cutlet.

4 Network that broadcasts the N.A.A.C.N.P. Image Awards : BET

Uh-uh. I think that we’re talking about the NAACP …

Black Entertainment Television (BET) is a TV network with programming primarily aimed at the African-American community. BET was launched in 1980.

The NAACP Image Awards are presented annually to recognise people of color in the worlds of film, television, music and literature. The first awards were presented in 1967, and the ceremony usually takes place in Los Angeles.

6 Base for fire-walking : COALS

Firewalking is walking barefoot over a bed of hot embers. Although the practice is labeled by some as requiring supernatural intercedence, basic physics can be used to explain why many people firewalk without injury. Importantly, walkers move very quickly, so that the bare foot is in contact with the embers for a very short time. Also, embers are hot, but are very poor conductors of heat.

7 Big shot performer? : HUMAN CANNONBALL

In a human cannonball act, a person is fired out of a cannon so that he or she flies through that air and lands in a net or in water. The performer is launched using compressed air these days. Before compressed air cannons were invented in the 1920s, acts used rubber springs to power the launch. The first human cannonball was a 14-year-old English girl named Rossa Matilda Richter who premiered her act at the Royal Aquarium in London in 1877.

10 Like the exterior columns at the Parthenon : DORIC

The Doric was one of the three classical orders of architecture, the others being the Corinthian and the Ionic. The Doric was the earliest of the three orders, and the simplest.

The Parthenon is the ruined temple that sits on the Athenian Acropolis. Although the Parthenon was dedicated to the goddess Athena as a sacred building in the days of the Athenian Empire, it was actually used primarily as a treasury. In later centuries, the Parthenon was repurposed as a Christian Church dedicated to the Virgin Mary, and was also used as a mosque after Ottoman conquest.

11 Best Actor Oscar winner for 1974’s “Harry and Tonto” : ART CARNEY

Art Carney was best known as the actor who played Ed Norton on the fifties television show “The Honeymooners”. Carney walked with a limp for much of his life, as one leg was almost an inch shorter than the other due to a wound he received during the Battle of Normandy in WWII.

“Harry and Tonto” is a 1974 film starring Art Carney as an elderly widower who travels across the country with his pet cat.

13 “Au contraire” : NAY

“Au contraire” is French for “on the contrary”.

32 Title family in a 2013-23 ABC sitcom : GOLDBERGS

“The Goldbergs” is a very entertaining sitcom that started airing in 2013. The show was created by Adam F. Goldberg and is based on Goldberg’s own childhood and family. My favorite part of the show comes at the end of each episode, when a clip from Goldberg’s real home movies is shown, which clip relates back to that episode’s storyline.

33 Dollars : U.S. :: ___ : Nigeria : NAIRAS

Nigeria is in West Africa, and it takes its name from the Niger River that flows through the country. Nigeria is the most populous country on the continent, with over 180 million inhabitants. It is also the most populous member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).

36 A star of 2018’s “A Star Is Born” : LADY GAGA

“Lady Gaga” is the stage name of Stefani Germanotta. Germanotta is a big fan of the band Queen, and she took her stage name from the marvelous Queen song titled “Radio Ga Ga”.

“A Star Is Born” is a 1937 film starring Janet Gaynor as an upcoming Hollywood actress. “A Star Is Born” was remade three times, in 1954 with Judy Garland playing the lead, in 1976 with Barbra Streisand, and in 2018 with Lady Gaga.

43 Keaton of Hollywood : DIANE

Diane Keaton’s first major film role was Kay Admas-Corleone, wife of Michael Corleone, in “The Godfather”. Famously, she then appeared as a comic actress in a series of Woody Allen movies in the seventies. Keaton never married, although she was romantically involved with some famous Hollywood names over the years, including Woody Allen, Warren Beatty and Al Pacino.

45 Loire Valley grape variety : GAMAY

The Loire is the longest river in France. It is so long that it drains one-fifth of the nation’s land mass. The Loire rises in the southeast, in the Cevennes mountain range, then heads north then due west, emptying into the Bay of Biscay at the city of Nantes. The Loire Valley is home to some of France’s most famous wine production, and includes the wine regions of Sancerre, Pouilly-Fumé and Muscadet. It is also home to some of the nation’s most spectacular châteaux. There are over 300 castles along the river, built by French kings and their courtiers.

51 Down Under wear : UGGS

Uggs are sheepskin boots that were first produced in Australia and New Zealand. The original Uggs have sheepskin fleece on the inside for comfort and insulation, with a tanned leather surface on the outside for durability. “Ugg” is a generic term Down Under, although it’s a brand name here in the US.