1006-25 NY Times Crossword 6 Oct 25, Monday

Bill’s time: 5m 40s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

14A One perched on a lily pad : FROG

Water lilies have leaves and flowers that float on the surface of a body of water. However, the roots of the plant are embedded in soil, soil at the bottom of the pond or lake.

15A Yankees slugger Judge : AARON

Aaron Judge is a baseball outfielder who was selected as 2017’s American League Rookie of the Year. Judge is a big guy. He weighs 282 pounds, and is 6 foot 7 inches tall. Judge set the American League single-season home run record in 2022 with 62 home runs, surpassing Roger Maris’s 61 from 1961.

23A ___ splicing : GENE

Recombinant DNA is DNA made under laboratory conditions. The recombination technique (sometimes referred to as “gene splicing”) brings together genetic material from multiple sources. The sources of that genetic material might be from a different part of the same gene, or even from the gene of a different organism. The end result is a new, man-made, genetic combination.

27A Language spoken in Kathmandu : NEPALI

Although Kathmandu (sometimes “Katmandu”) is the capital city of the lofty nation of Nepal, it sits in a bowl-shaped valley at an elevation of only 4,600 ft. Air pollution is a huge problem in the city. Industry and residents launch a lot of smog into the air, and given the surrounding geography and climate, any pollution blown away during the day tends to fall back into the valley at night.

30A Org. looking for alien life : SETI

“SETI” is the name given to a number of projects searching for extraterrestrial life. The acronym stands for “search for extraterrestrial intelligence”. One of the main SETI activities is the monitoring of electromagnetic radiation (such as radio waves) reaching the Earth in the hope of finding a transmission from a civilization in another world.

31A Whoopi’s role in 1985’s “The Color Purple” : CELIE

Whoopi Goldberg played Celie Harris Johnson in Steven Spielberg’s “The Color Purple”, the 1985 screen adaptation of the novel of the same name by Alice Walker.

33A Bowler or sombrero : HAT

The bowler hat is so called because it was originally designed, in 1849, by the London hat-makers Thomas and William Bowler. The Bowlers created it as an alternative for the top hats then worn by gamekeepers. The gamekeepers needed a tight-fitting hat with a low and rounded crown so that it would stay on their heads as they rode by horseback through woodland with low-hanging branches.

In English we think of a sombrero as a wide-brimmed hat, but in Spanish “sombrero” is the word for any hat. “Sombrero” is derived from “sombra” meaning “shade”.

41A Ralph who ran for president four times : NADER

Ralph Nader has run as a third-party candidate for the office of President of the United States four times now, in every election from 1996 to 2008. Nader’s name was first linked with the presidential race in 1971, when the famous Dr. Benjamin Spock offered to stand aside as a candidate in the 1972 race if Nader would agree to run, but he declined.

42A Falco of “The Sopranos” : EDIE

Edie Falco is the first actress to have won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series (which she won three times for playing Carmela Soprano in “The Sopranos”) as well as the Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series (which she won in 2010 for her title role in “Nurse Jackie”). As of 2025, she is the only actress to have achieved this feat.

Tony Soprano is the protagonist in the fabulous TV drama “The Sopranos”. Played very ably by James Gandolfini, Soprano works his way up the ranks of the fictional DiMeo crime family. The character was loosely based on real-life New Jersey mobster Vincent Palermo of the DeCavalcante crime family. Palermo owned a strip club called “Wiggles”, and Soprano owned one called “Bada Bing!”.

43A Popular brand of hiking sandals : TEVA

Teva is a brand of sandal marketed as a sport sandal. The first design was the creation of a river guide working the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon. The design was patented in 1987.

47A Cat’s little pink paws, cutesily : TOE BEANS

The squishy, pink pads on the bottom of a cat’s paws are known as digital pads. More casually, they are referred to as toe beans.

52A Multinational currency since 2002 : EUROS

The reverse side of euro coins feature a common design, a design that includes the 12 stars featured on the Flag of Europe. The number of stars is not related to the number of states in the European Union, nor has it ever been. The number of stars in the design was the subject of much debate prior to its adoption in 1955 by the Council of Europe. Twelve was a deliberate choice, as at that time there was no political connotation, and twelve was considered to be a symbol of unity.

55A Airer of “Euphoria” and “The Last of Us” : HBO

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

“The Last of Us” is a post-apocalyptic drama TV show that is based on a video game of the same name. The apocalypse in the storyline is caused by mass fungal infection that developed into a pandemic. Those infected turn into zombie-like creatures. Ugh …

61A Tilt-a-Whirl or Teacups : RIDE

The Tilt-A-Whirl is a fairground ride that has seven cars on a spinning platform, with the cars rotating freely and randomly. Each of the cars hold 3-4 riders; pretty nauseated riders at times.

Teacups is a carnival ride in which patrons spin around cup-shaped vehicles on a rotating floor. The most famous example of a teacups ride is the Mad Tea Party at Disneyland.

Down

1D Closest pals always : BFFS

Best friend forever (BFF)

5D Place for privacy in a library : CARREL

A carrel is a nook located near the stacks in a library. Such a space is usually partially partitioned off to allow private study.

6D ___ Croft, “Tomb Raider” character : LARA

Lara Croft was introduced to the world in 1996 as the main character in a pretty cool video game (or so I thought, back then) called “Tomb Raider”. Lara Croft moved to the big screen in 2001 and 2003, in two pretty awful movie adaptations of the game’s storyline. Angelina Jolie played Croft, and she did a very energetic job.

8D Sun phenomenon that can cause radio blackouts : SOLAR FLARE

A solar flare is a sudden energy release from the surface of the Sun that can be perceived as a flash of brightness and an eruption of magnetic energy. That magnetic energy reaches the Earth about two days after the event, and can disrupt long-range radio communications on our planet. The location of solar flares has been strongly linked to sunspot groups, groups of dark spots on the Sun’s surface.

9D TV show with the most Emmy nominations of all time, familiarly (350+) : SNL

NBC first aired a form of “Saturday Night Live” (SNL) in 1975 under the title “NBC’s Saturday Night”. The show was actually created to give Johnny Carson some time off from “The Tonight Show”. Back then “The Tonight Show” had a weekend episode, and Carson convinced NBC to pull the Saturday or Sunday recordings off the air and hold them for subsequent weeknights in which Carson needed a break. NBC turned to Lorne Michaels and asked him to put together a variety show to fill the vacant slot, and he came up with what we now call “Saturday Night Live”.

10D Music genre for Bob Marley : REGGAE

Bob Marley was the most widely-known reggae performer, with big hits such as “I Shot the Sheriff”, “No Woman, No Cry” and “One Love”. A little sadly perhaps, Marley’s best-selling album was released three years after he died. That album would be the “legendary” album called “Legend”.

18D Fashion designer Mode in “The Incredibles” : EDNA

Edna Mode is a character from “The Incredibles” series of films. She’s an incredibly talented fashion designer, known for creating the super-suits worn by the superhero family. She also has a firm belief that “No capes!” are essential for superhero safety. Edna is voiced by the films’ director, Brad Bird.

24D “Beowulf” or the “Iliad” : EPIC

“Beowulf” is an old epic poem from England, although the story is set in Scandinavia. Beowulf fights a battle, defending the Danish King Hrothgar from the ferocious outcast Grendel. Hrothgar had built a great hall for his people in which they could celebrate; singing, dancing and drinking lots of mead. Grendel was angered by the carousing and attacked the hall, devouring many of the incumbent warriors as they slept. A bit of an extreme reaction to noisy neighbors I’d say …

“Iliad” is an epic poem by the Greek poet Homer that tells the story of the ten-year siege of “Ilium” (i.e. “Troy”) during the Trojan war. “The Odyssey”, also attributed to Homer, is sometimes described as a sequel to “Iliad”.

26D Street name in the center of town : MAIN

The most common street name in the US is “Second Street”. “First Street” comes in only at number three, and this is because many cities and towns forgo the use of “First” and instead go with “Main” or something more historical in nature. The spooky “Elm Street” appears on the list at number fifteen.

27D Hawaiian goose : NENE

The nene is a bird that is native to Hawaii, and is also known as the Hawaiian goose. The name “nene” is an imitation of its call. When Captain Cook landed on the islands in 1778, there were 25,000 nene living there. By 1950, the number was reduced by hunting to just 30 birds. Conservation efforts in recent years have been somewhat successful. The nene was named State Bird of Hawaii in 1957.

28D Skaters who do lifts and twizzles : ICE DANCERS

Ice dancing was introduced as an event at the World Figure Skating Championships in 1952, and in the Winter Olympics in 1976.

38D Source of much igneous rock : LAVA

The three main classes of rocks are sedimentary, igneous and metamorphic. Igneous rocks are formed from solidified lava or magma. They are commonly used in construction materials, such as paving stones and countertops, due to their durability and resistance to weathering.

50D Sandbar : SHOAL

A shoal is an underwater ridge or bank that is covered with a material such as sand or silt.

54D Church area next to the chancel : APSE

The chancel of a Christian church is the space surrounding the altar. The chancel sometimes includes the choir and the pulpit.

56D Big name in noise-canceling headphones : BOSE

Bose Corporation specializes in audio equipment, including headphones, speakers, and sound systems. The company was founded in 1964 by Dr. Amar G. Bose, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Bose Corp. started as a research project in psychoacoustics, the study of how humans perceive sound.

59D Architect I.M. ___ : PEI

Chinese-American architect I. M. Pei was raised in Shanghai. He moved to the US to study architecture at the University of Pennsylvania. Although he transferred soon after to MIT. The list of his designs includes the John F. Kennedy Library in Massachusetts, the Bank of China Tower in Hong Kong, and the celebrated glass-and-steel pyramid in the Louvre Museum in Paris. Pei passed away in 2019, at 102 years of age.