1208-25 NY Times Crossword 8 Dec 25, Monday

Bill’s time: 5m 50s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

14A Sean of “The Lord of the Rings” : ASTIN

Sean Astin is best known for playing the title role in the 1993 film “Rudy” and the character Samwise Gamgee in “The Lord of the Rings” movies. You might also have seen him playing Lynn McGill in the 5th season of “24”. Astin is the son of actress Patty Duke, and the adopted son of actor John Astin (of “The Addams Family” fame).

16A Chicken ___ king : A LA

A dish prepared “à la king” (usually chicken or turkey), is prepared in a cream sauce with mushrooms, pimentos, green peppers and sherry.

17A Wyoming skiing mecca : JACKSON HOLE

Jackson Hole is the name of a beautiful valley in Wyoming formed between the Teton and Gros Ventre Ranges. The name “Jackson Hole” is also used locally for the town of Jackson that is located in the valley.

22A Motor City hoopster : PISTON

The NBA’s Detroit Pistons team was founded in 1941 as the Fort Wayne Zollner Pistons of the National Basketball League. The team was owned by Fred Zollner, who supplied pistons to the automotive industry. The Pistons moved from Indiana to Detroit in 1957.

The city of Detroit was founded in 1701 by Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac, a French explorer. The original settlement was named for the Detroit River, which in turn takes its name from the French word “détroit” meaning “strait”. Detroit became inextricably linked with the automotive business from the very early 20th century when Henry Ford and others set up manufacturing in the area. This link to transportation led to Detroit’s nicknames “Motor City” and “Motown”. The city’s economic strength declined at the beginning of the 21st century, resulting in a 25% drop in population between 2000 and 2010. Detroit filed for the country’s largest municipal bankruptcy in history in 2013, facing a debt of $18.8 billion. The city exited bankruptcy at the end of 2014.

24A Run out of clothes? : STREAK

People have been running around naked for an awfully long time, but the application of the word “streaking” to the phenomenon only dates back to 1973. A journalist was reporting on a mass nude run of 533 people at the University of Maryland in 1973, and used the words “they are streaking (i.e. moving quickly) past me right now. It’s an incredible sight!”. The Associated Press picked up the story the next day, and interpreted “streaking” as the term to describe “running naked”, and we’ve been using it that way ever since.

28A ___ Major (constellation) : URSA

The constellation Ursa Major (Latin for “Larger Bear”) is often just called the Big Dipper because of its resemblance to a ladle or dipper. Ursa Major also resembles a plow, and that’s what we usually call it back in Ireland, the “plough”. The words “Ursae Majoris” mean “of Ursa Major”, and are found in the names of several stars in the constellation.

30A “Enola Holmes” actress ___ Bobby Brown : MILLIE

“The Enola Holmes Mysteries” is a series of detective novels for young adults by American author Nancy Springer. The title character is the 14-year-old sister of 34-year-old Sherlock Holmes, the detective created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Springer’s novels were adapted into a 2020 film “Enola Holmes” that Netflix picked up at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. I saw this one, and the sequel, and enjoyed both …

32A Bicycle shorts material : LYCRA

What we call spandex in the US is known as lycra in Britain and Ireland. “Spandex” was chosen as the name for the elastic fiber as it is an anagram of “expands”.

39A Gallery-filled Big Apple neighborhood : SOHO

The Manhattan neighborhood known today as SoHo was very fashionable in the early 1900s, but as the well-heeled started to move uptown the area became very run down and poorly maintained. Noted for the number of fires that erupted in derelict buildings, SoHo earned the nickname “Hell’s Hundred Acres”. The area was then zoned for manufacturing and became home to many sweatshops. In the mid-1900s artists started to move into open loft spaces and renovating old buildings as the lofts were ideal locations in which an artist could both live and work. In 1968, artists and others organized themselves so that they could legalize their residential use of an area zoned for manufacturing. The group they formed took its name from the name given to the area by the city’s Planning Commission i.e “South of Houston”. This was shortened from So-uth of Ho-uston to SoHo as in “SoHo Artists Association”, and the name stuck.

48A Grand ___ (achievement in baseball or tennis) : SLAM

In baseball, a grand slam is a home run hit with runners on all three bases, leading to a score of four runs.

To win the Grand Slam of tennis, a player must win the four major tournaments in the same season:

• The Australian Open (in mid-January, played on hard courts)
• The French Open (in May/June, played on clay)
• Wimbledon (in June/July, played on grass)
• The US Open (in August/September, played on hard courts)

60A Monarch at Versailles : ROI

Versailles is a city located just 10 miles from the center of Paris. It is famous as home to the magnificent Palace of Versailles. The palace started out as a hunting lodge built in the village of Versailles in 1624, built for Louis XIII. Louis XIII extended the lodge into a full-blown château, but it was Louis XIV who expanded it into one of the largest palaces on the planet. Louis XIV moved the royal court from Paris to Versailles starting in 1678.

65A Comedian Wong : ALI

Ali Wong is a stand-up comedian from San Francisco who is a protégé of Chris Rock. She made two very successful Netflix stand-up specials “Baby Cobra” and “Hard Knock Wife”, and also worked as a writer for the hit sitcom “Fresh Off the Boat”.

66A Medieval stringed instruments : LUTES

Medieval lutes were routinely played using quills as plectrums. After the Middle Ages, it became more common for players to pluck the strings using their fingers.

67A “___, meenie, miney, mo” : EENIE

Eeny, meeny, miny, moe,
Catch the tiger/monkey/baby by the toe.
If it hollers/screams let him go,
Eeny, meeny, miny, moe, you are it!

Down

1D Magic charms : MOJOS

The word “mojo”, meaning “magical charm, magnetism”, is probably of Creole origin.

4D Genesis boat : ARK

According to the Bible’s Book of Genesis, Noah was instructed to build his ark 300 cubits long, 50 cubits wide and 30 cubits high. That’s about 450 feet long, 75 feet wide and 45 feet high.

5D The eyes may have it : MASCARA

Variants of mascara have been around a long time, and certainly there was a similar substance in use in ancient Egypt. “Mascara” is a Spanish word meaning “stain, mask”.

6D Scuba gear : TANK

The self-contained underwater breathing apparatus (SCUBA) was co-invented by celebrated French marine explorer Jacques Cousteau.

8D Corp. exec overseeing engineers, say : CTO

Chief technology officer (CTO)

9D Stuff on an artist’s palette : OIL PAINT

A palette is a board on which an artist holds and mixes paints. A classical palette is oval in shape, and has a thumbhole and an insert for brushes. Not every artist uses a classical palette. For example, Picasso used a sheet of newspaper.

15D Actor Sam of “Jurassic Park” : NEILL

Sam Neill is a very talented actor from New Zealand, although he spent the first few years of his life in Northern Ireland. I really enjoyed Neill in a 1983 television miniseries called “Reilly, Ace of Spies”, about a British spy operation during WWI. He is perhaps better-known for his roles in the movies “Omen III”, “Dead Calm”, “Jurassic Park” and “The Hunt for Red October”.

“Jurassic Park” is a 1993 Steven Spielberg movie that is based on Michael Crichton’s novel of the same name. According to Spielberg, the terrifying Tyrannosaurus Rex is “the star of the movie”. That may be true, but what’s not true is that the creature existed during the Jurassic period. The T. rex roamed the Earth much later, in the late Cretaceous period.

31D Biblical brother of Jacob : ESAU

Esau was the twin brother of Jacob, the founder of the Israelites. When their mother Rebekah gave birth to the twins “the first emerged red and hairy all over (Esau), with his heel grasped by the hand of the second to come out (Jacob)”. As Esau was the first born, he was entitled to inherit his father’s wealth (it was his “birthright”). Instead, Esau sold his birthright to Jacob for the price of a “mess of pottage” (a meal of lentils).

32D Psychedelic tab : LSD

Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD)

33D Toy on a string that’s not a kite : YO-YO

Yo-yo enthusiasts can visit the National Yo-Yo Museum in Chico, California. The museum’s centerpiece exhibit is a 256-pound yo-yo that made it into the Guinness Book of World Records in 1982 as the World’s Biggest Working Wooden Yo-Yo. “Working” the yo-yo requires a large crane and a skilled operator.

36D Film special effects, for short : CGI

Computer-generated imagery (CGI)

44D Pet that stores food in cheek pouches : HAMSTER

The rodents known as hamsters are commonly kept as house pets. Male hamsters are called bucks, females are called does, and baby hamsters are known as pups.

46D Author Fleming : IAN

The character James Bond was the creation of writer Ian Fleming. Fleming “stole” the James Bond name from an American ornithologist. The number “007” was “stolen” from the real-life, 16th-century English spy named John Dee. Dee would sign his reports to Queen Elizabeth I with a stylized “007” to indicate that the reports were for “her eyes only”. There’s an entertaining miniseries that aired on BBC America called “Fleming: The Man Who Would Be Bond” that details Ian Fleming’s military career, and draws some nice parallels between Fleming’s experiences and aspirations and those of his hero James Bond. Recommended …

55D Mosaic pieces : TILES

In the Middle Ages, mosaics were often dedicated to the Muses. The term “mosaic” translates as “of the Muses”.

64D Early Chinese dynasty : WEI

There were two Wei dynasties in Chinese history. The Cao Wei (220-265) existed during the Three Kingdoms period, and the Northern Wei (386-534) existed during the Southern and Northern dynasties period.