0525-25 NY Times Crossword 25 May 25, Sunday

Bill’s time: 18m 11s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

8 Most-awarded musician at the American Music Awards : SWIFT

The record for the most American Music Awards won by a male artist is held by Michael Jackson, with 26 awards. Taylor Swift holds the record for the most AMAs won by any artist overall, with a total of 40 awards.

13 Outkast, for one : RAP DUO

OutKast is a hip hop duo consisting of rappers André 3000 and Big Boi.

19 Angioplasty tube : CATHETER

Angioplasty (“angio”, for short) is a mechanical widening of a narrowed artery. In the surgical procedure, a balloon catheter is inflated at the point of the obstruction to open up the artery. A stent may then be inserted to make sure the vessel remains open.

20 Mammal with a prehensile snout : TAPIR

All four species of tapir are endangered. Even though the tapir looks much like a pig, it is more closely related to the horse and the rhinoceros.

22 Like floppy disks and typewriters : OBSOLETE

I don’t think my kids really know what a floppy disk is. A floppy is made of a thin and flexible magnetic material that can store data, enclosed in a protective case. I’ve used 8-inch floppies in my time, and many 5.25-inch floppy disks. Until fairly recently, I had a desktop that would take 3.5-inch disks, although I think the last 3.5-inch floppy disappeared from the house several years ago …

23 Gaming company whose logo is known as “the Fuji” : ATARI

The logo for now defunct gaming and computer company Atari has a very simple design. It has been interpreted as a letter A, or perhaps a representation of Mount Fuji. There is also evidence that the designer intended it to evoke the graphics in Atari’s first game, “Pong”.

34 “The Last Judgment” is found in one in the Sistine Chapel : APSE

“The Last Judgment” is a fresco by Michelangelo that he painted on the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel. Michelangelo took four years to complete the work, and began painting it twenty-five years after finishing the Sistine Chapel’s ceiling.

35 Search around, as a truffle-hunting pig : ROOTLE

To “rootle” around is to “root” around, to dig with the snout.

Truffles are rooted out by pigs, or by specially trained dogs. The reason why pigs, especially sows, are so attracted to truffles is that there is a chemical compound found within the truffle that is very similar to androstenol, a sex pheromone found in the saliva of boars.

43 Harry Houdini and David Blaine, for two : ESCAPE ARTISTS

“Harry Houdini” was the stage name of Hungarian-born escapologist and magician Erik Weisz (later Americanized to “Ehrich Weiss”). Many people are under the impression that Houdini died while performing an escape that went wrong, an impression created by the storyline in a couple of movies about his life. The truth is that he died of peritonitis from a burst appendix. It is also true that a few days prior to his death Houdini took a series of punches to his stomach as part of his act, but doctors believe that his appendix would have burst regardless.

David Blaine is an illusionist from New York who is perhaps best known for his well-publicized feats of endurance and breaking of world records.

46 Escalator part : STEP

Escalators have an advantage over elevators in that they can move larger numbers of people in the same time frame. They can also be placed in just about the same physical space that would be needed for a regular staircase. Patents for escalator-type devices were first filed in 1859, but the first working model wasn’t built until 1892 by one Jesse Reno. It was erected alongside a pier in Coney Island, New York, with the second escalator being placed at an entrance to the Brooklyn Bridge. Soon after, the Otis elevator company purchased the necessary patents and went into the business.

50 Beheader of Medusa : PERSEUS

In Greek mythology, Medusa was one of the monstrous female creatures known as Gorgons. According to one version of the Medusa myth, she was once a beautiful woman. She incurred the wrath of Athena who turned her lovely hair into serpents and made her face hideously ugly. Anyone who gazed directly at the transformed Medusa would turn into stone. She was eventually killed by the hero Perseus, who beheaded her. He carried Medusa’s head and used its powers as a weapon, before giving it to the goddess Athena to place on her shield. One myth holds that as Perseus was flying over Egypt with Medusa’s severed head, drops of her blood fell to the ground and formed asps.

53 Magazine with an annual Person of the Year issue : TIME

“Time” magazine started naming a “Man of the Year” in 1927, only changing the concept to “Person of the Year” in 1999. Prior to 1999, the magazine did recognize four females as “Woman of the Year”: Wallis Simpson (1936), Soong May-ling a.k.a. Madame Chiang Kai-shek (1937), Queen Elizabeth II (1952) and Corazon Aquino (1986). “Time” named Albert Einstein as Person of the Century in 1999, with Franklin D. Roosevelt and Mahatma Gandhi as runners-up.

55 Praise highly : EXTOL

To extol something is to praise it loudly. The term “to extol” comes from the Latin “extollere” meaning “to raise up, elevate”.

58 Gal of Hollywood : GADOT

Gal Gadot is an actress and former Miss Israel. She played Gisele Yashar in the “Fast & Furious” film franchise, and then began portraying Wonder Woman in superhero movies.

63 Synagogue greeting : SHALOM!

“Shalom” is a Hebrew word meaning “peace” that is also used to mean “hello” and “goodbye”.

69 Theoretical paths depicted by the circled squares : WORMHOLES

A wormhole is a theoretical shortcut that connects two points in the space-time continuum. Got that …?

77 Wellness product derived from an Australian bird : EMU OIL

Emu oil is extracted from the fat of emu carcases that are processed for meat.

78 Cappuccino topper : FROTH

The Order of Friars Minor Capuchin is an order of Roman Catholic friars, an offshoot of the Franciscans. The order split from the Franciscans back in 1520, and were forced to go into hiding from church authorities. The new order was helped by the Camaldolese monks, and in recognition of their assistance, the breakaway monks adopted the Camaldolese hood, known as a capuccio. It is this “capuccio” that gave the order its name, and indeed ultimately gave the name to the Capuchin monkey. The cappuccino coffee is named for the coffee-and-white colored habits worn by Capuchin friars.

86 City destroyed in Genesis : SODOM

The cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, as well as Admah and Zeboim, were destroyed by God for the sins of their inhabitants, according to the Bible. The name Sodom has become a metaphor for vice and homosexuality, and gives us our word “sodomy”.

88 Manhattan neighborhood that’s adjacent to the East Village : NOHO

“NoHo” is short for “North of Houston (street)”, and is the equivalent area to SoHo, South of Houston, both of which are neighborhoods in New York City.

97 Brand known as “The San Francisco Treat” : RICE-A-RONI

Rice-A-Roni was introduced in 1958 by the Golden Grain Macaroni Company of San Francisco. The company was run by an Italian immigrant and his four sons. The wife of one of the sons created a pilaf dish for the family diner they owned. It was a big hit, so her brother-in-law created a commercial version by blending dry chicken soup mix with rice and macaroni. Sounds like “a San Francisco treat” to me …

101 Roman who opposed Julius Caesar : CATO

Cato the Younger was a politician in the late Roman Republic. He was noted for his moral integrity, and his ability as an orator. He is also remembered for an extended conflict that he had with Julius Caesar.

104 Senator’s home : OTTAWA

The Senators are the NHL hockey team based in Ottawa, Canada. The current team, founded in the 1992-93 season, is the second NHL team in the city to use the name “Senators”. The original team was founded in 1917, and had a very successful run until the league expanded into the US in the late twenties. The cost of operating in what became the smallest NHL city eventually drove the Senators to St. Louis where they played for a year as the Eagles before finally folding.

106 Battle of Normandy city : CAEN

Caen, on the River Orne, lies in the Calvados department of France in the northwest of the country. It is famous for the WWII Battle of Caen that left the town practically destroyed. Caen is also the burial place of Norman King William I of England, also known as William the Conqueror after his victory at the Battle of Hastings in 1066.

108 “Defending Our Nation. Securing the Future” org. : NSA

The National Security Agency (NSA) was set up in 1952 by President Truman, a replacement for the Armed Forces Security Agency that had existed in the Department of Defense (DoD) since 1949. The NSA has always been clouded in secrecy and even the 1952 letter from President Truman that established the agency was kept under wraps from the public for over a generation. I really like the organization’s nickname … “No Such Agency”.

117 Color-coated candies : M AND M’S

Forrest Mars, Sr. was the founder of the Mars Company. Forrest invented the Mars Bar while living over in England and then developed M&M’s when he returned to the US. Mars came up with the idea for M&M’s when he saw soldiers in the Spanish Civil War eating chocolate pellets. Those pellets had a hard shell of tempered chocolate on the outside to prevent them from melting. Mars got some of the funding to develop the M&M from William Murrie, the son of the president of Hershey’s Chocolate. It is the “M” and “M” from “Mars” and “Murrie” that give the name to the candy.

120 Brand that merged with BP : AMOCO

“Amoco” is an abbreviation for “American Oil Company”, an oil company that merged with BP in 1998. Amoco was the first oil company to introduce gasoline tanker trucks and drive-through filling stations. I wonder if they know what they were starting …?

127 Oprah delivered them for Rosa Parks and Toni Morrison : EULOGIES

Rosa Parks was one of a cadre of brave women in days gone by who refused to give up their seats on a bus to white women. It was the stand taken by Rosa Parks on December 1, 1955 that sparked the Montgomery, Alabama Bus Boycott. President Clinton presented Ms. Parks with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1996. When she died in 2005, Rosa Parks became the first ever woman to have her body lie in honor in the US Capitol Rotunda.

Writer Toni Morrison won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993. Amongst other things, Morrison is noted for coining the phrase “our first black President”, a reference to President Bill Clinton.

129 Bender : SPREE

The terms “jag” and “bender” describe periods of unrestrained activity, particularly those involving alcohol. Both words have been in use since the 1800s.

Down

1 Fencing discipline : SABER

A saber (sometimes “sabre”) is a sword with a curved blade and a relatively large hand guard. It is thought that the term originated with the Hungarian verb “szabni” meaning “to cut”.

4 “Barb and Star Go to Vista ___ Mar” (2021 comedy) : DEL

“Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar” is a 2021 comedy movie written by and starring Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumulo. This is one of the many movies scheduled for theatrical release that was impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. It was eventually released as a premium video on demand (VOD) feature in 2021. I haven’t seen the film, but the critics quite liked this one.

6 Programs to, as a thermostat : SETS AT

The suffix “-stat” comes from the Greek “statos” meaning “standing, stationary”. It was first used in the mid-1700s in the term “heliostat”, which described an instrument that made the sun appear stationary. We still use “-stat” in the name of devices that stabilize or regulate. For example, a thermostat controls temperature and a rheostat uses resistance to control current flow in an electrical circuit.

7 Molasses, to a contestant on “The Great British Bake Off” : TREACLE

“The Great British Bake Off” (GBBO) is a television baking competition introduced by the BBC in the UK in 2010. The show was a phenomenal and perhaps surprising success almost immediately. “Bake Off” is rebroadcast in the US by PBS as “The Great British Baking Show”. There was great controversy in the UK in 2016 when the BBC couldn’t find the fund to pay the producers for the show, and so it had moved to a new channel, with a new set of hosts. The BBC hosts decided not to move with the show, saying they weren’t interested in the “dough” (their pun!).

10 Many Dogfish Head brews : IPAS

Dogfish Head is a brewery in Milton, Delaware that set up shop in 1995. The brewery is named for Dogfish Head in Maine, where the founder spent summers as a child.

11 Tree with “noble” and “grand” varieties : FIR

The noble fir is also known as red fir, and even “Christmas tree” as it is a popular choice for decoration during the December holiday.

12 ZZ Top and Green Day, for two : TRIOS

In the blues rock band ZZ Top, the hairy guitar players are Billy F. Gibbons and Dusty Hill (although Hill died in 2021). The relatively clean-shaven drummer is, wait for it … Frank Beard.

Green Day is a punk rock band from Berkeley, California. The band’s name was chosen by the band members to reflect their fondness for marijuana. “Green day” is a slang term used to describe a day spent smoking the drug.

13 Magritte who painted “The Son of Man” : RENE

Belgian artist René Magritte was a surrealist. His most recognized work may be “The Son of Man”, a painting he created as a self-portrait. It is the work that shows a man in a bowler hat with his face covered by an apple. The image features prominently in a great movie, the 1999 remake of “The Thomas Crown Affair”.

18 Baking soda target : ODOR

“Baking soda” is a common name for the compound sodium bicarbonate (NaHCO3).

19 Kind of salad with bacon and hard-boiled eggs : COBB

Ty Cobb’s first cousin, Robert H. Cobb, owned the Brown Derby chain of restaurants. One of his regular customers was the famous Sid Grauman, who ran Grauman’s Chinese Theater. Late one night, Grauman asked for a snack, and Cobb came up with a chopped salad simply made from ingredients he happened to have in the refrigerator. Grauman liked it so much that he continued to request it, and the Cobb salad was born.

32 “X-Men” character portrayed by Anna Paquin : ROGUE

Rogue is a superhuman mutant in the Marvel Comics universe. She was introduced as a supervillain in 1981, but eventually abandoned her evil ways and joined the X-Men team of superheroes.

Anna Paquin is an actress from New Zealand who won an Oscar as an 11-year-old for her role in “The Piano”. In the HBO series “True Blood” she plays Sookie Stackhouse, a role for which she won a Golden Globe. Paquin married her “True Blood” co-star Stephen Moyer in 2010.

37 Some tough H.S. classes : APS

Advanced Placement (AP)

40 Mammals with prehensile feet : APES

A part of the body that is described as prehensile is adapted for grasping. Examples would be an elephant’s trunk and a monkey’s tail.

41 Showcase at an expo : DEMO

The first World’s Fair was held in 1851, known back then as the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations. The fair was the idea of Prince Albert, consort of Queen Victoria. It was held in a magnificent glass and cast-iron structure called the Crystal Palace that was purpose-built for the occasion. The Great Exhibition spawned a tradition of what became known as World’s Fairs, expositions that feature national pavilions created by participating countries. The term “Expo” was coined for Expo 67, a 1967 World’s Fair held in Montreal. Since then, we’ve been using “expo” to describe any large exposition or trade show.

45 Rita ___, “Let You Love Me” singer : ORA

“Let You Love Me” is a 2018 song that was Ora’s thirteenth to reach the top-ten in the UK. As such, it allowed Ora to beat the record for the most top-ten songs by a female solo artist from the UK.

47 Habitats for hermit crabs and sea stars : TIDE POOLS

A tidal pool (also “rock pool”) is a pool of seawater that is left along a rocky coastline after an ebb tide.

48 Qatari ruler : EMIR

Qatar is a sovereign state in the Middle East occupying the Qatar Peninsula, itself located in the Arabian Peninsula. Qatar lies on the Persian Gulf and shares one land border, with Saudi Arabia to the south. The emirate has more oil and gas reserves per capita of population than any other country in the world. In 2010, Qatar had the fastest growing economy in the world, driven by the petrochemical industry.

51 Annual Austin music festival, in brief : SXSW

South by Southwest, also known as “SXSW”, is an annual festival that has been taking place in Austin, Texas since 1987. SXSW is a melded event, combining a music festival, a film festival and an interactive festival.

64 Unit represented by Ω : OHM

The unit of electrical resistance is the ohm (with the symbol omega) named after German physicist Georg Simon Ohm. Ohm was the guy who established experimentally that the amount of current flowing through a circuit is directly proportional to the voltage applied, (V=IR) a relationship that every school kid knows as Ohm’s Law.

65 Moves a cursor (over) : MOUSES

The computer mouse was invented at the Stanford Research Institute in 1963, by one Douglas Engelbart. Sadly for him, his patent ran out before mice became standard equipment on computers, so he never made any money from his amazing invention.

70 Best place to go in London? : LOO

It has been suggested that the British term “loo”, meaning “toilet”, comes from “Waterloo” (water closet … water-loo), but no one seems to know for sure. Another suggestion is that the term comes from the card game of “lanterloo”, in which the pot was called the loo!

71 Holiday that celebrates the end of Ramadan : EID

Eid al-Fitr is a religious holiday in the Muslim tradition that is known in English as the “Festival of Breaking the Fast”. It marks the end of Ramadan, a period of dawn-to-sunset fasting.

74 Metaphor for a late bloomer : SWAN

Hans Christian Andersen’s tale “The Ugly Duckling” has to be one of the most endearing ever written. Unlike so many fairy tales, “The Ugly Duckling” isn’t based on any folklore and is simply a product of Andersen’s imagination. It is speculated that Andersen was the illegitimate son of the Crown Prince of Denmark, and that he wrote the story of the ugly duckling that turned into a beautiful swan as a metaphor for the secret royal lineage that was within Andersen himself.

75 “Mi ___ es su __” : CASA

The Spanish phrases “Mi casa es tu casa” and “Mi casa es su casa” are expressions of welcome translating as “My house is your house”. The former is more informal than the latter.

84 Fast-food chain that’s headquartered in Louisville : KFC

The famous “Colonel” of Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) fame was Harland Sanders, an entrepreneur from Henryville, Indiana. Although not really a “Colonel”, Sanders did indeed serve in the military. He enlisted in the Army as a private in 1906 at the age of 16, lying about his age. He spent the whole of his time in the Army as a soldier in Cuba. It was much later, in the 1930s, that Sanders went into the restaurant business making his specialty deep-fried chicken. By 1935 his reputation as a “character” had grown, so much so that Governor Ruby Laffoon of Kentucky gave Sanders the honorary title of “Kentucky Colonel”. Later in the fifties, Sanders developed his trademark look with the white suit, string tie, mustache and goatee. When Sanders was 65 however, his business failed and in stepped Dave Thomas, the founder of Wendy’s. Thomas simplified the Sanders menu, cutting it back from over a hundred items to just fried chicken and salads. That was enough to launch KFC into the fast food business. Sanders sold the US franchise in 1964 for just $2 million and moved to Canada to grow KFC north of the border. He died in 1980 and is buried in Louisville, Kentucky. The Colonel’s secret recipe of 11 herbs and spices is indeed a trade secret. Apparently there is only one copy of the recipe, a handwritten piece of paper, written in pencil and signed by Colonel Sanders. Since 2009, the piece of paper has been locked in a computerized vault surrounded with motion detectors and security cameras.

87 Mullally who played the ex-wife of her real-life husband on “Parks and Recreation” : MEGAN

Megan Mullally is an actress probably best known for playing Karen Walker on the TV sitcom “Will & Grace”. Mullally also has a recurring role on the sitcom “Parks and Recreation”, playing Tammy Swanson, the ex-wife of Ron Swanson. In real life Tammy and Ron aren’t exes, as Megan Mullally is married to actor Nick Offerman who plays Ron Swanson.

95 Canine in “Hi and Lois” : DAWG

“Hi and Lois” is a comic strip that first appeared in 1954 and is still running today. The strip was created by Mort Walker (also known for “Beetle Bailey”) and was originally illustrated by Dik Browne (also known for “Hägar the Horrible”). The title characters Hi and Lois Flagstone first appeared in “Beetle Bailey”. Lois is Beetle’s sister, and the characters occasionally show up in each other’s strip.

98 Leathery-skinned hopper : TOAD

Toads are a type of frog. The main difference between them is that toads have dry, warty skin, while frogs have smooth, moist skin.

99 Unable to progress : STYMIED

The word “stymie” comes from golf, and is a situation in which one’s approach to the hole is blocked by an opponent’s ball. We use the term more broadly as a verb to describe standing in the way of something.

106 Frank who directed “It Happened One Night” : CAPRA

“It Happened One Night” is a favorite film of mine, a 1934 romantic comedy starring Claudette Colbert and Clark Gable, and directed by Frank Capra. It was the first movie to win all five of the top Oscars. Only two other films have achieved that feat since then: “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” (1975), and “The Silence of the Lambs” (1991). “It Happened One Night” has one of the sexiest scenes in movies (I think), where Claudette Colbert shows a little leg in order to hitch a ride for her and Gable.

109 A few bucks? : STAGS

A male deer is usually called a buck, and a female is a doe. However, the male red deer is usually referred to as a stag. The males of even larger species of deer are often called bulls, and the females called cows. In older English, male deer of over 5 years were called harts, and females of over 3 years were called hinds. The young of small species are known as fawns, and of larger species are called calves. All very confusing …

111 Govt. bond : T-NOTE

A Treasury note (T-note) is a government debt that matures in 1-10 years. A T-note has a coupon (interest) payment made every six months. The T-note is purchased at a discount to face value, and at the date of maturity can be redeemed at that face value. A Treasury bill (T-bill) is a similar financial vehicle, but it matures in one year or less, and a T-bond matures in 20-30 years.

112 Strand at a chalet, say : ICED IN

“Chalet” is a Swiss-French name for an alpine cottage.

121 “Miracle” product from inventor Joy Mangano : MOP

“Joy” is a 2015 film that is loosely based on the life of Joy Mangano, the self-made millionaire who invented the Miracle Mop and Huggable Hangers. Jennifer Lawrence plays the title role, and Robert De Niro plays her father Rudy.

123 “Well done, torero!” : OLÉ!

The term “torero” is used to describe all bullfighters. The term “matador” is reserved for the bullfighter whose job is to make the final kill. Aptly enough, “matador” is Spanish for “killer”.

124 Sound from a kid with a roll of bubble wrap : POP!

Bubble wrap was invented in 1957 in an abortive attempt to make a 3-dimensional wall covering. The result was a material that wasn’t suitable as a “wallpaper” but that did make a great packing material. And don’t forget the last Monday of every January … that’s Bubble Wrap Appreciation Day.