1214-25 NY Times Crossword 14 Dec 25, Sunday

Bill’s time: 18m 40s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1A Marvel superhero who can manipulate weather patterns : STORM

Storm is a superhero in the Marvel Comics universe whose superpower is the ability to control the weather. Storm was played by Halle Berry in the “X-Men” series of movies.

9A Shaquille O’Neal’s alma mater, for short : LSU

LSU’s full name is Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, and is located in Baton Rouge. LSU was founded in 1860 as a military academy, with then-Colonel William Tecumseh Sherman as superintendent.

Shaquille O’Neal picked up the nickname “The Big Cactus” (among many others) during his stint playing for the Phoenix Suns in the NBA. Phoenix is in the Sonoran Desert, known for its cacti.

20A Paul whose house is one of the 16 historic sites of Boston’s Freedom Trail : REVERE

Paul Revere is famous for having alerted the Colonial militia when the British military arrived in the build up to the battles of Lexington and Concord. Revere earned his living as a silversmith. After the war, Revere returned to his trade and diversified into other metalwork. Revere was the first American to develop a process to roll copper into sheets so that the metal could be used to sheathe the hulls of naval vessels.

23A Jedi-in-training : PADAWAN

In the “Star Wars” universe, the members of the Jedi Order progress through six ranks:

1. Jedi Youngling
2. Jedi Padawan
3. Jedi Knight
4. Jedi Master
5. Jedi Master of the High Council
6. Jedi Grand Master of the Order

29A “Game of Thrones” actor Gillen : AIDAN

Irish actor Aidan Gillen is perhaps best known on this side of the Atlantic for playing Petyr “Littlefinger” Baelish on the TV show “Game of Thrones”. He also played Aberama Gold on the show “Peaky Blinders”. On the big screen, he appeared in the excellent movie “Bohemian Rhapsody”, portraying Queen’s manager John Reid.

31A River that borders the Black Forest : RHINE

The river running through Europe that we know in English as the Rhine, is called “Rhein” in German, “Rhin” in French and “Rijn” in Dutch.

The Black Forest (“Schwarzwald” in German) is a mountainous region in southwestern Germany that is so called because of its rich covering of trees. It is the source of the Danube, the second-longest river in Europe.

34A Major coin producer : DENVER MINT

The Denver Mint opened up for business in 1906, and today produces more coins than any other mint in the whole world.

39A Astronaut Ochoa, the first Hispanic woman in space : ELLEN

Ellen Ochoa was the first Hispanic woman in space, serving on a nine-day mission on the space shuttle Discovery in 1993. She spent over 1,000 hours in space over the course of four missions. In 2013, Ochoa became only the second woman to serve as Director of the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.

40A Nickname for Mark’s unsevered best friend in “Severance” : PETEY

“Severance” is a fascinating TV show about employees at a company who undergo a surgical procedure that completely separates their memories between their work lives and their personal lives. The show stars Adama Scott, and is executive-produced and mainly directed by Hollywood actor Ben Stiller.

41A They turn red litmus paper blue : BASES

Litmus is a mixture of naturally-occurring dyes that responds to acidity by changing color. It was probably first used around 1300 by the Spanish alchemist Arnaldus de Villa Nova, who extracted the blue dye from lichens. One suggestion is that the term “litmus” comes from the Old Norse “litmose” meaning “lichen for dyeing”. Litmus is often absorbed onto filter paper, creating “litmus paper” or “pH paper”. We also use the phrase “litmus test” figuratively to describe any test in which a single factor decides the outcome.

42A First chimpanzee to orbit Earth : ENOS

Enos was a chimpanzee that was launched into Earth orbit in 1961 by NASA on a Mercury Atlas 4 rocket. Enos’s flight was a rehearsal for the first orbital flight made by an American, astronaut John Glenn. Enos returned from his mission safely, but died the following year from dysentery.

54A Who said “It’s hard to be humble when you’re as great as I am” : ALI

Boxing icon Muhammed Ali came up with some great boasts. Try this one for size:

I’ve wrestled with alligators. I’ve tussled with a whale. I done handcuffed lightning, and throw thunder in jail. You know I’m bad. Just last week, I murdered a rock, injured a stone, hospitalized a brick. I’m so mean, I make medicine sick.

56A Ruler before 1917 : TSAR

The year 1917 saw two revolutions in Russia, with the pair collectively called “the Russian Revolution”. As a result of the February Revolution that centered on Petrograd, the last Emperor of Russia (Tsar Nicholas II) abdicated and members of the Imperial parliament took control of the country, forming the Russian Provisional Government. The Provisional Government was itself overthrown in the October Revolution, which was led by Vladimir Lenin and the Bolshevik party.

58A “Black-ish” airer : ABC

“Black-ish” is a sitcom starring Anthony Anderson and Tracee Ellis Ross that premiered in 2014. The lead actors play Dre and Rainbow Johnson, a married couple leading an upper-middle class black family. The show is noted for tackling tough issues such as racism, police brutality, attitudes toward the LGBT community, and the 2016 US presidential election.

59A It’s a numbers game : KENO

The name of the game keno has French or Latin roots, with the French “quine” being a term describing five winning numbers, and the Latin “quini” meaning “five each”. The game originated in China and was introduced into the West by Chinese immigrants who were working on the first Transcontinental Railroad in the 1800s.

60A Clothing for SWAT teams : VESTS

“SWAT” is an acronym standing for Special Weapons and Tactics. The first SWAT team was pulled together in the Los Angeles Police Department in 1968.

62A “The Simpsons” character who becomes obsessed with crossword puzzles : LISA

Lisa Simpson is Bart’s brainy younger sister on TV’s “The Simpsons”. She is voiced by actress Yeardley Smith. In a 2008 episode of the show, Lisa enters a crossword tournament. Crossword celebrities Merl Reagle and Will Shortz make appearances in that episode, basically playing cartoon versions of themselves.

67A Plant watcher, for short : OSHA

Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)

68A Camera type, in brief : SLR

The initialism “SLR” stands for “single lens reflex”. Usually, cameras with changeable lenses are the SLR type. The main feature of an SLR is that a mirror reflects the image seen through the lens out through the viewfinder, so that the photographer sees exactly what the lens sees. The mirror moves out of the way as the picture is taken, and the image that comes through the lens falls onto unexposed film, or nowadays onto a digital sensor.

71A Longtime record label of Elvis Presley : RCA

RCA Records is the second-oldest recording label in the US, after Columbia Records.

73A 911 responder : EMT

The first use of a national emergency phone number was in 1937 in the UK, where the number 999 was introduced to call emergency services. If you need emergency services in the UK or Ireland to this day, you have to dial 999. It’s not really clear why 911 became the emergency number in the US. The most credible suggestion (to me) is that when it was introduced by the FCC in 1967, it was a number that “fit” with the numbers already used by AT&T for free services (211-long distance; 411-information; 611-repair service).

83A Beat poet ___ Cassady : NEAL

Neal Cassady was a member of the Beat Generation, the group of post-WWII writers who became prominent in the 1950s. Cassady was the inspiration for the character Dean Moriarty in Jack Kerouac’s novel “On the Road”.

84A Like some milk, idiomatically : SPILT

The milk I spilled when I was growing up in Ireland was “spilt”, whereas the milk I spilled here in the US was “spilled” …

92A Crossed the International Date Line from east to west, or west to east (depending on how you look at it) : GAINED A DAY

The International Date Line (IDL) is an imaginary line that runs north-south along the 180-degree line of longitude (with a few deviations). The IDL is located on the opposite side of the Earth to the Prime Meridian, which runs through Greenwich, England. A person flying non-stop around the world from east to west loses one hour each time they cross a time zone. When that person arrives back at their starting point, they would have lost 24 hours in total, a full day. So, the traveler has to compensate by moving the calendar forward 24 hours, by adding a day. By convention, this change of date is made when crossing the IDL.

100A ___ Miss : OLE

“Ole Miss” is the nickname for the University of Mississippi located in Oxford, Mississippi. The name “Ole Miss” dates back to 1897, the first year a student yearbook was published. The graduating class held a competition to name the yearbook and “Ole Miss” emerged as the winner. The name stuck to the yearbook, and also as a nickname for the school itself. The University of Mississippi sports teams have been known as the Rebels since 1936. Prior to 1936, they were known as the Mississippi Flood.

101A Doll that comes in multiple body types, skin tones, eye colors and hair colors : KEN

Barbie’s male counterpart doll is Ken, and Ken’s family name is Carson. Barbie’s full name is Barbie Millicent Roberts. When Ken was introduced in 1959, it was as Barbie’s boyfriend. In 2004 it was announced that Ken and Barbie were splitting up, and needed to spend quality time apart. Soon after the split, Barbie “met” Blaine, a boogie boarder from Australia. Happily, Barbie and Ken reconciled and reunited on Valentine’s Day 2011.

102A Drink known also as “honey wine” : MEAD

Mead is a lovely drink that’s made from fermented honey and water.

105A Subject of Newton’s first law : INERTIA

Newton’s first law of motion states that a body that is moving maintains the same velocity unless it is acted upon by an external force. That resistance to changing velocity is known as inertia. Johann Kepler introduced the Latin word “inertia” to describe the physical phenomenon in the 17th century. The Latin term translates as “apathy, inactiveness”. We started using the Latin “inertia” in English to mean the same thing only in the 19th century, after the term had bopped around in science texts for a couple of centuries.

110A 1980 horror film starring William Hurt … or what the shaded squares contain? : ALTERED STATES

“Altered States” is a 1980 sci-fi movie that was adapted from a 1978 novel of the same name by Paddy Chayefsky. Both film and novel are about the use of psychoactive drugs and sensory deprivation in isolation tanks.

Hollywood actor William Hurt was born in Washington, D.C., where his father worked for the State Department. As a result of his father’s job assignments, William lived in Pakistan, Somalia and Sudan growing up. Later he studied at Juilliard, and was a classmate of Christopher Reeve and Robin Williams.

115A “Fiddler on the Roof” matchmaker : YENTE

The enduring musical “Fiddler on the Roof” is based on a collection of stories by Sholem Aleichem about Tevye, a milkman living in Tsarist Russia. The musical version of the tales first opened on Broadway in 1964. “Fiddler on the Roof” had such a long run that it became the first musical to reach 3,000 performances.

Down

2D Early track star Jim : THORPE

Sports star Jim Thorpe was quite the all-rounder. He played professional football, baseball, and basketball, and also won Olympic golds in two other all-rounder events, the pentathlon and decathlon (in 1912). However, he lost his medals when it was revealed that he had been paid for playing baseball before the Games, and back then, amateur status was important to the Olympic governing body.

3D Resident of Honolulu, e.g. : OAHUAN

Honolulu is the largest city in Hawaii, and the state capital. Located on the island of Oahu, the name “Honolulu” translates from Hawaiian as “place of shelter, calm port, sheltered bay”.

4D Touchless payment tech : RFID

Radio-frequency identification (RFID) is a technology that uses radio waves to identify and track objects. It involves the use of an RFID tag, which is a small electronic device that consists of a microchip and an antenna, attached to the object. RFID technology is used in a wide range of applications, including payment systems and animal tracking.

8D Video game character with an endless appetite : PAC-MAN

The Pac-Man arcade game was released first in Japan in 1980, and is as popular today as it ever was. The game features characters that are maneuvered around the screen to eat up dots and earn points, while being pursued by ghosts named Blinky, Pinky, Inky and Clyde. The name of the game comes from the Japanese folk hero “Paku”, who is known for his voracious appetite. The spin-off game called Ms. Pac-Man was released in 1981.

13D Director DuVernay : AVA

Ava DuVernay is a filmmaker who became the first African-American woman to win the Best Director Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, a feat she achieved in 2012 for her feature film “Middle of Nowhere”. “Middle of Nowhere” tells the story of a woman who drops out of medical school to focus on her husband when he is sentenced to 8 years in prison. DuVernay also directed the 2014 film “Selma” about the 1965 voting rights marches from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.

20D “Gaspard de la Nuit” composer : RAVEL

“Gaspard de la nuit” is a suite of three solo piano pieces written in 1908 by French composer Maurice Ravel. The final “Scarbo” movement of the work is considered to be one of the hardest pieces to play in the whole piano repertoire.

Maurice Ravel was a great French composer of the Romantic Era. His most famous piece of music by far is his “Bolero”, the success of which he found somewhat irksome as he considered it a trivial work. Personally though, I love the piece’s minimalism and simplicity …

23D Variety of violet : PANSY

The pansy is a garden flower that takes its name from the French word “pensée” meaning “thought”. This name was chosen as the flower was often used as a symbol of remembrance. The petals of pansies have dark blotches that often appear to form the outline of a face.

30D Australia’s largest carnivorous mammal : DINGO

The dingo is a wild dog of Australia. It is thought to have originated from domesticated dogs that were brought to Australia with humans that settled the land centuries ago.

32D Word used 10 times in Roger Ebert’s review of “North” (1994) : HATED

“I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie” is a collection consisting of a couple of hundred of Roger Ebert’s most acerbic and negative film reviews. Included are reviews of “Armageddon” (1998), “The Beverly Hillbillies” (1993) and “Police Academy” (1984).

35D Part of a legendary boast : VENI

The oft-quoted statement “Veni, vidi, vici” (“I came, I saw, I conquered”) is believed by many to have been written by Julius Caesar. The words date back to 47 BCE and refer to the short war between Rome and Pharnaces II of Pontus.

38D The brother in “Am I my brother’s keeper?” : ABEL

In the story of Cain and Abel in the Book of Genesis, Cain murders his brother Abel. Subsequently, God asks Cain, “Where is Abel thy brother?” Cain replies, “I do not know. Am I my brother’s keeper?”

42D Engineer Gray who, arguably, invented the telephone — and battled Alexander Graham Bell over it in court for years : ELISHA

Elisha Gray was an electrical engineer who is best remembered for developing a prototype telephone. Some have argued that Gray’s telephone design predated those of Alexander Graham Bell, and indeed that Bell stole elements of Gray’s work. However, Bell’s patents withstood several legal challenges. Gray went on to co-found Western Electric, the company that served as the primary supplier of equipment to AT&T for over a century.

46D Sierra automaker : GMC

The GMC Sierra truck is also sold as the Chevrolet Silverado.

47D Shylock’s security : FLESH

Shylock is a character in William Shakespeare’s “The Merchant of Venice”. He is a moneylender and gives a loan which is to be secured by “a pound of flesh”. When the money cannot be repaid, Shylock demands his pound of flesh, the collection of which would kill the poor victim of his scheme.

48D Adele song with the lyric “I must have called a thousand times” : HELLO

“Hello” is a 2015 song by English singer Adele that won her three Grammy Awards: Record of the Year, Song of the Year, and Best Pop Solo Performance. It was the first song to sell over one million digital copies in a single week in the US.

50D Non-premium option in a rideshare app : UBERX

The basic service offered by ride-hailing company Uber is known as UberX. This provides a private ride for up to four passengers in a standard car. UberXL provides a minivan or SUV with room for up to 6 passengers.

52D Ernst Stavro Blofeld, to James Bond : ENEMY

Ernst Stavro Blofeld is a villain in the James Bond universe. Blofeld has been played on the big screen several times by different actors. My favorite is Donald Pleasance in 1967’s “You Only Live Twice”. In the original Ian Fleming novels, Blofeld was born on 28 May 1908, which happens to be Fleming’s own birthday.

57D Parking space for an Airstream, say, in brief : RV LOT

Airstream is a brand of very recognizable travel trailers. All Airstream trailers have highly polished aluminum coachwork and very rounded corners. The design is based on a trailer built by Hawley Bowlus introduced in 1936. Bowlus supervised the construction of the Spirit of St. Louis aircraft used by Charles Lindbergh to complete the first solo nonstop transatlantic flight.

61D Did some school reporting? : TATTLED

Something described as tattletale is revealing, it gives away a secret. The term is a combination of “tattle” and “tale”, and is probably patterned on the similar word “telltale”. “To tattle” means “to tell secrets”, and the noun “tattletale” applies to someone who tells secrets and informs.

65D Amy Winehouse, e.g. : ALTO

Amy Winehouse was a much ridiculed singer from the UK, and whose life was fraught with very public bouts of drug and alcohol abuse. Winehouse’s lifestyle caught up with her in 2011 when she was found dead from alcohol poisoning. The unfortunate singer was only 27 years old when she died, which means she is now viewed as a member of the “27 Club”. This “club” is made up of famous musicians who all died at the age of 27, including Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison of the Doors, and Kurt Cobain of Nirvana.

76D Many characters in the 2007 comedy “Superbad” : TEENS

“Superbad” is a comedy movie released in 2007. The script for the film was written by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg. Rogen and Goldberg started work on the script when they were just thirteen years old, with the first draft being completed by the time they were fifteen.

78D He had a Billboard Hot 100 hit with “Rubber Duckie” : ERNIE

“Rubber Duckie” is a song performed by the muppet Ernie on “Sesame Street”. Rubber Duckie is also Ernie’s favorite toy, his rubber duck. The song was released as a single in 1970 and actually made it into the charts.

79D Tortilla de patatas, por ejemplo : TAPA

“Tapa” is the Spanish word for “lid”. There is no clear rationale for why this word came to be used for an appetizer. There are lots of explanations cited, all of which seem to involve the temporary covering of one’s glass of wine with a plate or item of food to either preserve the wine or give one extra space at the table.

82D Where high schoolers work on their numbers? : GLEE CLUB

A glee club is a choir group, usually of males, that sings short songs known as “glees”. A glee is a song scored for three or more voices that is performed unaccompanied.

85D Ren faire prop akin to a halberd : POLEAXE

A poleaxe (also “poleax”) is a medieval weapon. As one might expect, it is an axe on a pole. The pole could be anything from 4 to 8 feet in length.

A halberd is a weapon that is similar to a poleax. It comprises an axe blade on a pole, with a long spike above the blade. There is also a hook on the side of the pole opposite the axe blade. Halberds are still used today as ceremonial weapons by the Swiss Guard in the Vatican.

87D Hair-care item associated with Black culture : DURAG

Hip-hoppers might wear do-rags (also “durags”) today, but they have been around for centuries. The etymology of “do-rag” is pretty evident, i.e. a piece of cloth (rag) to hold a hairstyle (do) in place.

92D Rough drafts? : GALES

A gale is a very strong wind, one defined by the Beaufort scale as having wind speeds from 50 to just over 100 kilometers per hour.

93D Interview guest whom Ali G calls “my man Buzz Lightyear here” : ALDRIN

Buzz Aldrin was a true American hero, I’d say. He flew 66 combat missions in Korea, shot down two MiGs, earned his Sc. D. degree from MIT, and was one of the two men who landed on the moon for the first time. Now that man, he lived a life worth living.

“Da Ali G Show” is a satirical TV series featuring English comedian Sacha Baron Cohen. I wouldn’t be a big fan …

94D Like lowercase i’s and j’s : DOTTED

A tittle is a small diacritical mark used in writing. Examples are the cedilla and tilde used in some languages, and the dot over the lowercase letters i and j in English.

95D Sci-fi sequel of 1986 : ALIENS

“Aliens” is a 1986 sequel to the very successful science-fiction movie “Alien” released in 1979. “Aliens” was filmed at Pinewood Studios in England, and at the decommissioned Acton Lane Power Station in London. The film was directed by James Cameron, and starred Sigourney Weaver reprising her role as Ellen Ripley from “Alien”.

107D ___ alla bolognese (slow-cooked sauce) : RAGU

Bolognese is a meat-based sauce originating from Bologna in Italy, hence the name. The recipe is usually referred to as “ragù alla bolognese” in Italian, or simply “ragù”. Note that the Ragú brand of sauces introduced in North America in 1937 takes its name from the same source (pun … sauce!). However, the brand name uses the wrong accent (“Ragú” instead of “Ragù”), which drives a pedant like me crazy ..

111D Part of N.Y.E. : EVE

The beginning of a new year is celebrated worldwide with the raising or lowering of an object. Most famous is the dropping of a large crystal ball in Times Square in New York City. Here are some other objects raised or lowered at other locations:

• A peach in Atlanta, Georgia
• A stuffed opossum in Tallapoosa, Georgia
• An Indy car in Indianapolis, Indiana
• A sardine in Eastport, Maine
• A potato in Boise, Idaho
• A cheese wedge in Plymouth, Wisconsin