0205-26 NY Times Crossword 5 Feb 26, Thursday

Bill’s time: 10m 22s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

10A Pillow covering : SHAM

A sham is something that is imitation, fake. In the world of bed linens, a sham is also an imitation or fake, in the sense that it is a decorative cover designed to cover up a regular pillow used for sleeping.

14A Florida’s ___ National Forest : OCALA

Ocala National Forest is a large protected area covering over 600 square miles of Central Florida. Included in the bounds of the forest is the US Navy’s Pinecastle Bombing Range. Navy planes drop about 20,000 bombs annually at Pinecastle, although only a few hundred are live munitions.

15A Give quite a shock : TASE

Victor Appleton wrote a novel for young adults called “Tom Swift and His Electric Rifle”. The company that developed the TASER electroshock weapon partly named its product as a homage to the novel. The acronym “TASER” stands for “Thomas A. Swift’s Electric Rifle”.

16A Antifur org. : PETA

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is a large animal rights organization, with about 300 employees and two million members and supporters worldwide. Although the group campaigns for animal rights across a broad spectrum of issues, it has a stated focus in opposition of four practices:

• Factory farming
• Fur farming
• Animal testing
• Use of animals in entertainment

19A Sheltered from the wind : ALEE

Alee is the direction away from the wind. If a sailor points into the wind, he or she is pointing aweather. The sheltered side of an island, for example, might be referred to as the “lee” side.

22A Excel spreadsheets, essentially : GRIDS

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.

29A Tree whose “slippery” variety has medicinal bark : ELM

The slippery elm is a species of elm native to North America that is also known as the Red Elm. The inner bark of the slippery elm can be used in a medicinal tea. Elm bark tea is said to ease a sore throat or irritated stomach.

31A Chick checker of a sort : SEXER

The worst job, in so many ways …

35A Classic Jack Kerouac novel … or where you’ll find 17-, 24-, 49- and 58-Across : ON THE ROAD

Jack Kerouac’s 1957 novel “On the Road” is largely autobiographical, telling the story of Sal Paradise (Jack K.) and the road trips that he and his friends took across the country in the fifties.

42A Spinal stack : DISCS

Our intervertebral discs are composed mainly of cartilage. They perform the crucial functions of separating the vertebrae while allowing slight movement, and also absorbing shock. A “slipped disc” isn’t really a disc that has “slipped”, but rather a disc that “bulges”. If that bulge causes pressure on the sciatic nerve then the painful condition known as sciatica can result.

53A Gershwin brother : IRA

Ira Gershwin was the lyricist who worked with his brother George to create such American classics as the songs “I Got Rhythm” and “Someone to Watch Over Me”, as well as the opera “Porgy and Bess”. After George Gershwin died, Ira continued to create great music, and worked with the likes of Jerome Kern and Kurt Weill.

55A Schedule pro : CPA

Certified public accountant (CPA)

56A Choice of bands, for short : AM/FM

Amplitude modulation/frequency modulation (AM/FM)

63A Fictional region that includes Bag End : SHIRE

The Shire is a region in Middle-earth appearing in J. R. R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings” series of novels.

Down

1D Show-offs : HOTDOGS

Although “hotdogging” is a term now used across all sports, it was primarily associated with skiing and described the performance of showy and risky stunts on the slopes.

3D Levy that helped fund the Erie Canal : SALT TAX

The Erie Canal runs from Albany to Buffalo in the state of New York. What the canal does is allow shipping to proceed from New York Harbor right up the Hudson River, through the canal and into the Great Lakes. When it was opened in 1825, the Erie Canal had an immediate impact on the economy of New York City and locations along its route. It was the first means of “cheap” transportation from a port on the Atlantic seaboard into the interior of the United States. Arguably it was the most important factor contributing to the growth of New York City over competing ports such as Baltimore and Philadelphia. It was largely because of the Erie Canal that New York became such an economic powerhouse, earning it the nickname of “the Empire State”. Paradoxically, one of the project’s main proponents was severely criticized. New York Governor DeWitt Clinton received so much ridicule that the canal was nicknamed “Clinton’s Folly” and “Clinton’s Ditch”.

5D Paragraph starter, perhaps : TAB

Like many features on our computer keyboards, the tab key is a hangover from the days of typewriters. When using a typewriter, making entries into a table was very tedious, involving lots of tapping on the spacebar and backspace key. So, a lever was added to typewriters that allowed the operator to “jump” across the page to positions that could be set by hand. Later this was simplified to a tab key which could be depressed, causing the carriage to jump to the next tab stop in much the same way that the modern tab key works on a computer.

7D Potato pancake for Hanukkah : LATKE

A latke is a delicious potato pancake (I’m Irish, so anything made with potatoes is delicious, to be honest).

10D Prince Harry, per his memoir’s title : SPARE

Harry, Duke of Sussex is the younger of the two sons of Charles and Diana, Prince and Princess of Wales. Famously, Prince Harry married American actress Meghan Markle in 2018. The groom’s name was Prince Henry of Wales until the marriage, at which time his name officially changed to “Prince Harry”. In January 2020, Harry and Meghan stepped back from their official duties.

11D Genomic shapes : HELIXES

Francis Crick and James Watson discovered that DNA had a double-helix, chain-like structure, and published their results in Cambridge in 1953. To this day the discovery is mired in controversy, as some crucial results collected by fellow researcher Rosalind Franklin were used without her permission or even knowledge. In 1962, along with molecular biologist Maurice Wilkins, Watson and Crick were awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine.

13D Baton wielder : MAESTRO

“Maestro” is often used to address a musical conductor. “Maestro” (plural “maestri”) is the Italian word for “master, teacher”. The plural in English is usually “maestros”.

18D Galley implements : OARS

Galleys were large medieval ships found mainly in the Mediterranean. They were propelled by a combination of sails and oars.

22D Class that may require a change of clothes : GYM

Our word “gymnasium” comes from the Greek “gymnasion” meaning “public place where exercise is taken”. The Greek term comes from “gymnos” meaning “naked”, as that physical training was usually done unclothed in ancient Greece.

24D Leaves in a waiting room? : FERN

Ferns are unlike mosses in that they have xylem and phloem, making them vascular plants. They also have stems, leaves and roots, but they do not have seeds and flowers, and reproduce using spores. Spores differ from seeds in that they have very little stored food.

26D Brand in the pet aisle : ALPO

Alpo is a brand of dog food introduced by Allen Products in 1936, with “Alpo” being an abbreviation for “Allen Products”. Lorne Greene used to push Alpo dog food in television spots, as did Ed McMahon and Garfield the Cat, would you believe?

28D Some vintage autos : REOS

The REO Motor Company was founded by Ransom Eli Olds (hence the name REO). The company made cars, trucks and buses, and was in business from 1905 to 1975 in Lansing, Michigan. Among the company’s most famous models were the REO Royale 8 and the REO Flying Cloud.

32D Khaki alternative : CHINO

Chino is a twill cloth that is most often used to make hard-wearing pants. The pants themselves have come to be referred to as chinos. Chino cloth was originally developed for use by the military, but quickly became popular with civilians.

34D Possible score seven points after love-love : AD-IN

In tennis, if the score reaches deuce (i.e. when both players have scored three points), then the first player to win two points in a row wins the game. The player who wins the point immediately after deuce is said to have the advantage. If the player with the advantage wins the next point then that’s two in a row and that player wins the game. If the person with the advantage loses the next point, then advantage is lost and the players return to deuce and try again. The player calling out the score announces “ad in”, or more formally “advantage in”, if he/she has the advantage. If the score announcer’s opponent has the advantage, then the announcement is “ad out” or “advantage out”. Follow all of that …?

40D Card game played with two decks : CANASTA

The card game canasta originated in Uruguay apparently, with “canasta” being the Spanish word for “basket”. In the rummy-like game, a meld of seven cards or more is called a canasta.

43D Meat stick brand : SLIM JIM

Slim Jim is a brand of beef jerky that was introduced in 1969 for sale, although the product itself was invented in 1929 by Philadelphian Adolph Levis.

44D Commuter’s charge : CARFARE

Our verb “to commute”, meaning “to go back and forth to work”, ultimately derives from the Latin “commutare”, meaning “to often change”. Back in the late 1800s, a “commutation ticket” was a season pass, so named because it allowed one to “change” one kind of payment into another. Quite interesting …

47D HPs, e.g. : PCS

The giant multinational HP (originally “Hewlett-Packard”) was founded in 1939 with an investment of $538 in a one-car garage in Palo Alto, California by Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard. The company name would have been Packard-Hewlett, if Dave Packard had won a coin toss!

48D First tennis player to achieve a Golden Slam : GRAF

Steffi Graf is a former World No. 1 professional tennis player from Germany. Graf won 22 Grand Slam singles titles, which was more than any other man or woman until Serena Williams came along. Graf is married to another former World No. 1, namely Andre Agassi.

58D Confucian “way” : TAO

The name of the Chinese character “tao” translates as “path”, but the concept of Taoism signifies the true nature of the world.