0612-25 NY Times Crossword 12 Jun 25, Thursday

Bill’s time: 12m 14s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1A Actress Green of “Casino Royale” : EVA

Despite the English-sounding name, Eva Green is a French actress. Green played Bond Girl Vesper Lynd in the 2006 movie “Casino Royale” opposite Daniel Craig.

9A Edible part of okra : POD

The plant known as okra is mainly grown for its edible green pods. The pods are said to resemble “ladies’ fingers”, which is an alternative name for the plant. Okra is known as “ngombo” in Bantu, a name that might give us the word “gumbo”, the name of the southern Louisiana stew that includes okra as a key ingredient.

14A “Weeping” giant : WILLOW

The lovely-looking tree known as a weeping willow is native to northern China, although is now found all over the world.

16A Condition that Simone Biles has described as giving her a “superpower,” in brief : ADHD

Simone Biles publicly disclosed her ADHD diagnosis in 2016 after her medical records were leaked by hackers. She has since become an advocate for destigmatizing mental health conditions, stating that ADHD medication is “nothing to be ashamed of” and that her condition has given her a “superpower” in terms of focus and energy.

18A ___ Wister, the so-called “father of western fiction” : OWEN

Novelist Owen Wister earned himself the nickname of “father” of western fiction. Wister was a friend of President Theodore Roosevelt and spent a lot of time with the president out west. Wister’s most famous book is “The Virginian”, which was published in 1902. “The Virginian” is regarded as the world’s first cowboy novel, and is dedicated to Theodore Roosevelt.

20A They draw people : MECCAS

We’ve been using “mecca” to mean “a place one holds sacred” since the 1850s, and have since extended the usage to include any center of activity. The term derives from the sacred city of Islam, the birthplace of the Prophet Muhammad.

22A “Principle of parsimony” philosopher : OCCAM

Occam’s Razor, properly attributed to William of Ockham, has roots in earlier philosophical thought. The principle, which states that among competing hypotheses, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected, can be traced back to Aristotle’s “Physics”, in which he writes “Nature operates in the shortest way possible”.

26A Sixth word in the Gettysburg Address : AGO

I visited Gettysburg for the first time in 2010, and goodness me what a moving place that is. As I discovered on my visit, there are five known copies of Lincoln’s Gettysburg address and all of them differ in some way or another, so I suppose the exact words spoken will never be known. Martin Luther King Jr. evoked Abraham Lincoln’s words in another of America’s iconic addresses, his “I Have a Dream” speech. Lincoln’s speech began with “Four score and seven years ago …”, and King’s speech began with “Five score years ago …” as a nod to the Gettysburg Address.

32A She was named the U.S. Soccer Female Player of the Year five years in a row : HAMM

Soccer star Mia Hamm is one of only two women to have their jersey retired by the US Women’s National Team. The other is Abby Wambach.

33A Adds power to, as an engine : SOUPS UP

To soup up an engine is to increase its horsepower. The verb possibly derives from the older slang term “soup”, which was a narcotic illegally injected into racehorses to make them run faster.

34A Writer Capote, to friends : TRU

The larger-than-life Truman “Tru” Capote was an author and media personality. Capote is perhaps most associated with his novella “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” and his true crime novel “In Cold Blood”. Truman Capote grew up in Monroeville, Alabama. There he met, and became lifelong friends with, fellow novelist Harper Lee. Capote was the inspiration for the character “Dill” in Lee’s celebrated work “To Kill a Mockingbird”. In turn, Harper Lee was the inspiration for the character “Idabel” in Capote’s “Other Voices, Other Rooms”.

38A Orchestra tuner : OBOE

When you hear an orchestra tuning before a performance, you’ll note (pun!) that the oboe starts off the process by playing an “A”. The rest of the musicians in turn tune to that oboe’s “A”.

41A “___ are like sausages. It is better not to see them being made” (quote attributed to Otto von Bismarck) : LAWS

Germany first became a country of her own in 1871 when the Princes of the various independent German states met at Versailles outside Paris to proclaim Wilhelm of Prussia as the Emperor of the German Empire. The man behind this historic development was Wilhelm’s Ministerpräsident, Otto von Bismarck. Von Bismarck was a powerful figure in Prussia and indeed on the world stage, earning him the nickname “Iron Chancellor”.

50A Major basketball feat … or a feature shared by 3-, 6- and 9-Down : QUADRUPLE DOUBLE

In the world of basketball, a “double” is the accumulation of double digits in either points, rebounds, assists, steals or blocked shots. A “double-double” is getting double digits in two of these five categories. A player can also earn a triple-double, quadruple-double or quintuple-double.

63A P, in the NATO alphabet : PAPA

The NATO phonetic alphabet is also called the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) phonetic alphabet. Alfa, Bravo, Charlie … X-ray, Yankee, Zulu.

64A The Titanic disaster partly inspired its invention : SONAR

The British developed the first underwater detection system that used sound waves. Research was driven by defense demands during WWI, leading to production of working units in 1922. This new sound detection system was described as using “supersonics”, but for the purpose of secrecy the term was dropped in favor of an acronym. The work was done under the auspices of the Royal Navy’s Anti-Submarine Division, so ASD was combined with the “IC” from “superson-ic-s” to create the name ASDIC. The navy even went as far as renaming the quartz material at the heart of the technology “ASDivite”. By the time WWII came along, the Americans were producing their own systems and coined the term SONAR (Sound Navigation and Ranging), playing off the related application, RADAR. And so, the name ASDIC was deep-sixed …

65A Org. that developed the “pumpkin suit” : NASA

“Pumpkin suit” is the colloquial name for the Advanced Crew Escape Suit (ACES), worn by Space Shuttle astronauts. It’s orange to make astronauts easily visible in the ocean in case of an emergency landing, a practice that dates back to early aviation life vests.

Down

1D McGregor who played Obi-Wan Kenobi : EWAN

Ewan McGregor is a very talented Scottish actor, one who got his break in the 1996 film “Trainspotting”. McGregor’s first big Hollywood role was playing the young Obi-Wan-Kenobi in the “Star Wars” prequels. Less known is his televised marathon motorcycle journey from London to New York via central Europe, Ukraine, Siberia, Mongolia and Canada. The 2004 trip was shown as “Long Way Round” on TV. McGregor did a similar trip in 2007 called “Long Way Down”, which took him and the same traveling companion from the north of Scotland to Cape Town in South Africa.

3D Temporarily established panel : AD HOC COMMITTEE

The Latin phrase “ad hoc” means “for this purpose”. An ad hoc committee, for example, is formed for a specific purpose and disbanded after making its final report.

13D Pulitzer winner Ferber : EDNA

Edna Ferber was a novelist and playwright from Kalamazoo, Michigan. Ferber won a Pulitzer for her novel “So Big”, which was made into a film a few times, most famously in 1953 starring Jane Wyman. Ferber also wrote “Show Boat”, “Cimarron” and “Giant”, which were adapted successfully for the stage and/or big screen.

15D What you have to pony up to play? : POLO

The sport of polo originated in Iran, possibly before the 5th century BC. Polo was used back then primarily as a training exercise for cavalry units.

26D Epiphanic moments : AHAS

An epiphany is an appearance or manifestation, especially of a supreme being. By extension, “epiphany” can also apply to a sudden insight or intuitive perception. The term derives from the Greek “epiphainein” meaning “to manifest, display”.

36D Excel function : SORT DATA

Microsoft Excel is a spreadsheet program included in the Microsoft Office suite of applications. Microsoft’s first spreadsheet program was introduced back in 1982 and called Multiplan. Multiplan’s popularity waned due to the success of the competing product Lotus 1-2-3. Microsoft then introduced Excel, initially just for the Macintosh. When Excel was extended to Windows, Lotus was slow to respond and Microsoft took over the market.

38D N.B.A. great Hakeem who is one of only four players ever to achieve a 50-Across (1990) : OLAJUWON

A quadruple-double is one of the rarest feats in basketball, occurring when a player accumulates double-digit numbers in four of five statistical categories: points, rebounds, assists, steals, and blocks. Hakeem Olajuwon achieved this twice in his career. The other three players to officially record a quadruple-double in the NBA are Nate Thurmond (1974), Alvin Robertson (1986), and David Robinson (1994).

43D Big thing in California? : SUR

Big Sur is a lovely part of the California Coast located south of Monterey and Carmel. The name “Big Sur” comes from the original Spanish description of the area as “el sur grande” meaning “the big south”.

44D ___ Max : HBO

The HBO Go offering was a “TV Everywhere” service, meaning that paid subscribers could stream content on a choice of platforms just by entering a username and password. HBO Go was superseded by the HBO Max service. Then, HBO Max was rebranded as simply “Max”.

46D Fans : BUFFS

A buff or nut is someone who is extremely enthusiastic and knowledgeable about a subject. For example, one might be a movie buff, or perhaps a baseball nut.

47D ___ Agnew, vice president who resigned in 1973 : SPIRO

Spiro Agnew served as US vice-president under Richard Nixon, before becoming the only VP in American history to resign because of criminal charges (there was a bribery scandal). Agnew was also the first Greek-American to serve as US vice president as he was the son of a Greek immigrant who had shortened the family name from “Anagnostopoulos”.

48D City that’s an anagram of SALEM : SELMA

The Alabama city of Selma was settled in 1815. It was named in 1820 by Alabama politician William R. King, who would later serve briefly as US Vice President under President Franklin Pierce. Meaning “high seat, throne”, King chose the city’s name from the Ossianic poem “The Songs of Selma”. Today, the city is perhaps best known for the Selma to Montgomery civil rights marches, which ultimately led to the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

54D Tuscaloosa’s Tide, to fans : BAMA

Tuscaloosa, Alabama was named in honor of Chief Tuskaloosa, head of a Muskogean-speaking tribe. The city was the capital of Alabama from 1826 to 1846.