0531-25 NY Times Crossword 31 May 25, Saturday

Bill’s time: 31m 28s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1A Where one might have a mic and a Michelob : KARAOKE BAR

The first karaoke machine was reportedly invented in 1971 by Japanese musician Daisuke Inoue, though he never patented his invention. The concept caught on, and Inoue earned himself the Ig Nobel Peace Prize in 2004. I guess the awards committee weren’t big karaoke fans …

11A Edgar Degas’s “Miss ___ at the Cirque Fernando” : LA LA

“Miss La La at the Cirque Fernando” is a famous oil painting by Edgar Degas, completed in 1879. The subject, Miss La La, was a renowned aerialist who performed remarkable feats of strength and balance. Degas chose to paint her not during a graceful acrobatic move, but as she hung by a rope clenched between her teeth, suspended high in the air.

16A Member of BTS or Blackpink, e.g. : IDOL

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.

Blackpink is a girl group from South Korea that was formed in 2016. By all accounts, Blackpink has gained more international success than any other female Korean act.

19A Spotted cat : OCELOT

The ocelot is a wild cat found mainly in South and Central America, although there have been sightings as far north as Arkansas. An ocelot doesn’t look too different from a domestic cat, and some have been kept as pets. Perhaps most famously, Salvador Dali had one that he carried around everywhere with him.

24A Symbol of rebirth in ancient Egypt : DUNG BEETLE

Scarabs were amulets in ancient Egypt. They were modeled on the dung beetle, as it was viewed as a symbol of the cycle of life.

29A Subatomic particle named after an Indian physicist : BOSON

Particle physics is beyond me, but I do know that bosons are subatomic particles. They can be elementary like photons or composite like mesons, which are composed of one quark and one antiquark. “Bosons” are named for the Indian physicist Satyendra Nath Bose who developed Bose-Einstein statistics along with Albert Einstein.

32A Count Vronsky’s titular lover in a classic Tolstoy novel : ANNA

I have to admit to not having read Leo Tolstoy’s “Anna Karenina”, but I did see the excellent 1977 British television adaptation starring Nicola Pagett. I also saw the 2012 film adaptation with a screenplay by Tom Stoppard and found that to be far from excellent, awful in fact. I am no Stoppard fan …

36A Eponym of Pittsburgh’s tallest building : US STEEL

US Steel Tower is the tallest building in Pittsburgh, and it opened for business in 1971. US Steel used the building to showcase weathering steel, which the company trademarked as COR-TEN steel. US Steel Tower features massive COR-TEN columns deliberately exposed on the outside of the building. The surface of the columns oxidized over time to provide a corrosion-resistant layer that protects the underlying metal from rain and snow. However, the initial weathering process led to discoloration of the sidewalks surrounding the building, which had to be cleaned up by US Steel.

39A Country whose predominant language is Bambara : MALI

The Republic of Mali is a landlocked country in western Africa located south of Algeria. Formerly known as French Sudan, the nation’s most famous city is Timbuktu. Mali is the third-largest producer of gold on the continent, after South Africa and Ghana.

40A ___ Grape, Leonardo DiCaprio’s role in “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape” : ARNIE

“What’s Eating Gilbert Grape” is a 1993 film adapted from a 1991 novel of the same name by Peter Hedges. The film stars Johnny Depp in the title role, and Leonardo DiCaprio as Gilbert’s mentally disabled brother.

43A Churro covering : SUGAR

A churro is pastry made from fried dough, and is sometimes called a Spanish doughnut. Churros are often served for breakfast, when they are dipped in hot chocolate or milky coffee.

47A Participant in a hybrid sport that requires both brains and brawn : CHESSBOXER

Chessboxing is indeed a hybrid sport that alternates rounds of chess and boxing. Competitors face off in 11 rounds, starting with a four-minute chess round, followed by a two-minute boxing round, and so on. Victory can be achieved by knockout or checkmate, or by decision if time expires on the chess clock. Yowza!

52A Most populous California city with a one-word name : FRESNO

Fresno is the fifth-most populous city in California, and holds the distinction of being the most populous California city with a one-word name. Located in the heart of the San Joaquin Valley, It is a major hub for California’s vast agricultural industry. The city’s name comes from the Spanish word for “ash tree,” referring to the abundant ash trees in the area.

54A Male influencer archetype : EBOY

The term “eBoy” (short for “electronic boy”) emerged in the late 2010s to describe a male subculture primarily found on social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram. Typically characterized by a distinct fashion sense (e.g., dyed hair, chains, striped shirts, baggy pants), eBoys cultivate an online persona that is artistic, introverted, and stylishly disheveled. They’re basically the male counterpart to the “eGirl” phenomenon.

60A What the “T” in CAPTCHA stands for : TURING TEST

A CAPTCHA is a challenge-and-response test that is used to determine if a user is a human or some automated program. The acronym “CAPTCHA” stands for “Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart”. The Turing Test is a test of a machine’s ability to exhibit intelligent behavior equivalent to, or indistinguishable from, that of a human. CAPTCHAs are essentially simple Turing Tests designed to protect websites from bots.

62A Culturally relevant : ZEITGEISTY

“Zeit” is the German word for “time”, as in “zeitgeist”, a word imported into English meaning “the spirit of the times”.

Down

1D Nix : KIBOSH

A kibosh is something that constrains or checks. “Kibosh” looks like a Yiddish word but it isn’t, and is more likely English slang from the early 1800s.

2D Traditional wood for a ukulele : ACACIA

Acacia is a genus of trees and shrubs that is also known as thorntree, whistling thorn and wattle. The acacia is the primary food source for the giraffe in the wild, with the animal eating the leaves high in the tree, leaves that are inaccessible to competing species. The natural gum from two species of acacia tree is known as gum arabic, which is used in the food industry as a stabilizer.

3D 500 people? : RACERS

The Indianapolis 500, often referred to simply as “the Indy 500”, is an iconic automobile race held annually at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Speedway, Indiana. It’s one of the oldest and most prestigious auto races in the world, famous for its 500-mile distance.

8D Call repeated in a nursery rhyme : BAA

The old English nursery rhyme “Baa, Baa, Black Sheep” is usually sung as:

Baa, baa, black sheep,
Have you any wool?
Yes, sir, yes, sir,
Three bags full;
One for the master,
And one for the dame,
And one for the little boy
Who lives down the lane.

The tune that accompanies the rhyme is a variant of the French melody “Ah! Vous dirai-je, Maman”, which we know best in English as the tune for “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”.

9D Something found next to a handle : AT SIGN

The “at symbol” (@) originated in the commercial world, as shorthand for “each at, per” and similar phrases. I suppose we see the symbol most commonly these days as part of email addresses.

13D Subject of the 2023 TV series “My Adventures With Superman” : LOIS LANE

Lois Lane has been the love interest of Superman/Clark Kent since the comic series was first published in 1938. Lois and Clark both work for the big newspaper in the city of Metropolis called “The Daily Planet”. The couple finally got hitched in the comics (and on television’s “Lois and Clark”) in 1996. One has to wonder how challenging the crossword is in “The Daily Planet” …

14D Genre for Soundgarden and Linkin Park : ALT-METAL

Soundgarden was a rock band formed in 1984 by drummer Chris Cornell and guitarist Kim Thayil. They were active from 1984 through 1997, and again from 2010 through 2018. The band’s name came from an outdoor public art work called “A Sound Garden” that can be seen on the campus of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in Seattle. After Soundgarden’s co-founder Cornell committed suicide in 2017, the NOAA’s Sound Garden became a makeshift memorial to the singer.

Linkin Park is a rock band that formed in 1996 in Agoura Hills, a suburb of Los Angeles. The band’s eventual name was chosen as a homage to Santa Monica’s Lincoln Park.

26D Eur. land with more than 60,000 miles of coast : NOR

Norway has been ranked as one of the countries in the world with the highest standard of living every year since 2001. It is rich in natural resources and has a relatively low population. The people benefit from a comprehensive social security system, subsidized higher education for all citizens and universal health care. And Norway is famous for her success at the Winter Olympic Games, having won more gold medals than any other nation in the world.

29D Competition with some defining moments? : BEE

The Scripps National Spelling Bee is sponsored and managed by the E. W. Scripps Company. ESPN has been televising the latter rounds of the National Spelling Bee since 2006.

35D Two-person shot : ALLEY-OOP

An alley-oop is a play in basketball in which one player lobs the ball close to the basket for a teammate who usually scores with a slam dunk.

37D Downing, with “down” : SNARFING

To snarf down is to gobble up, to eat voraciously. “To snarf” is a slang term that is probably related to “to scarf”, which has the same meaning.

38D Sean Connery or Mick Jagger, e.g. : SIR

Sean Connery was most famous for playing the original James Bond in the successful series of movies. Back in his native Scotland, Connery was very active in politics and was a member of the Scottish Nationalist Party. He actively campaigned for Scottish independence from Britain and stated that he believed Scotland would achieve that goal within his own lifetime. That had not happened by the time Connery passed away in 2020.

Sir Mick Jagger met up with Keith Richards at school when Jagger was only 7-years-old. They were to become one of the most successful songwriting duos of all time, rivaling Lennon and McCartney (some say, but not me!).

40D Kind of cable in a car, for short : AUX

On a computer, for example, headphones might be plugged into an auxiliary input connector (often marked “AUX”).

42D Rod’s employer in “Get Out,” in brief : TSA

“Get Out” is a 2017 horror film written and directed by Jordan Peele. I don’t do horror, but I do hear that this one is well made …

48D Toy doll brand since 2001 : BRATZ

Bratz is a line of fashion dolls that hit the market in 2001. The dolls also feature in a whole media franchise that includes movies, TV shows and video games.

49D Twenty, in Italian : VENTI

“Venti” is the Italian word for “twenty.” It’s most commonly known in English-speaking countries today as a size option for beverages at Starbucks. A venti-sized drink at Starbucks typically holds 20 fluid ounces.

57D R&B singer Lennox : ARI

“Ari Lennox” is the stage name of R&B singer Courtney Salter. In choosing her stage name, Salter was influenced by a character named Mary Lennox in the 1993 movie version of “The Secret Garden”.

58D 0 or 1 : BIT

In the world of computing, a bit is the basic unit of information. It has a value of 0 or 1. A “byte” is a small collection of “bits” (usually 8), the number of bits needed to uniquely identify a character of text. The term “byte” is an abbreviation for “binary digit”.