0312-26 NY Times Crossword 12 Mar 26, Thursday

Bill’s time: 7m 54s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1A Game point? : ARCADE

Our word “arcade” comes from the Latin “arcus” meaning “arc”. The first arcades were passages made from a series of arches. This could be an avenue of trees, and eventually any covered avenue. I remember arcades lined with shops and stores when I was growing up on the other side of the Atlantic. Arcades came to be lined with lots of amusements, resulting in amusement arcades and video game arcades.

7A Settings for “Nurse Jackie” and “The Pitt,” in brief : ERS

“Nurse Jackie” is a comedy-drama series centered on an emergency room nurse at a hospital in New York City. The lead character is played by Edie Falco, who also played Tony Soprano’s wife on “The Sopranos”. I binge-watched “Nurse Jackie” a while back and found it to be a very well-written show …

“The Pitt” is a medical drama TV show that premiered in 2025. The title refers to the fictional Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center. In each episode, we follow the staff through an hour in the emergency department, navigating challenges like staff shortages and underfunding. The show has been praised by the medical community for its realistic portrayal of healthcare workers and the psychological challenges faced in a post-pandemic world.

10A Mideast’s Gulf of ___ : SUEZ

The Gulf of Suez lies at the northern end of the Red Sea to the west of the Sinai Peninsula. The northern end of the gulf is the entrance to the Suez Canal, and the gulf’s midline is the boundary between the continents of Africa and Asia.

14A “Das Lied von der Erde” composer : MAHLER

I’m still trying to keep an open mind when it comes to the music of Gustav Mahler, but I find it hard to appreciate. Mahler was an Austrian composer who was active in the late-Romantic period. During his own lifetime, he was most notable as a conductor, and his compositions gained in popularity only after his death in 1911. Mahler’s music was banned as “degenerate” during the Nazi Era, as Mahler was Jewish.

17A Celebrity supercouple of the 2000s : BR(ANGEL)INA

“Brangelina” is a portmanteau used for the super-couple pairing of actors Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. Other supercouples are/were:

• Tomkat – Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes
• Grant ‘n’ Hurley – Hugh Grant and Elizabeth Hurley
• Posh and Becks – Victoria and David Beckham
• Bennifer – Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez

20A Slowly, in scores : LENTO

A lento passage is a piece of music that has a slow tempo. “Lento” is “slow” in Italian.

21A Second-most-populous city in the U.S. : LOS (ANGEL)ES

Mission San Gabriel Arcángel was founded by Spanish Franciscans led by Friar Junipero Serra in 1771. The mission, which continues running to this day, is located about 10 miles from today’s downtown LA. Forty-four settlers left Mission San Gabriel Arcángel in 1781 to found the pueblo named “El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles del Río de Porciúncula” (The Town of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels of the Porciúncula River”). It was this pueblo that grew into the city of Los Angeles.

22A 100 nanojoules : ERG

An erg is a unit of mechanical work or energy. It is a small unit, with one joule comprising 10 million ergs. It has been suggested that an erg is about the amount of energy required for a mosquito to take off. The term comes from “ergon”, the Greek word for work.

23A Citrus portmanteau : T(ANGEL)O

The fruit called a tangelo is a hybrid between a tangerine and either a grapefruit or a pomelo (which gives it the name). A pomelo is a very large, pear-shaped citrus fruit native to Southeast Asia. The Jamaican form of tangelo is known as the ugli fruit.

34A Star of a three-time World Cup champion team : PELE

“Pelé” was the nickname of Edson Arantes do Nascimento, a soccer player who used the name “Pelé” for most of his life. For my money, Pelé was the world’s greatest ever player of the game. He was the only person to have been a member of three World Cup winning squads (1958, 1962 and 1970), and was a national treasure in his native Brazil. One of Pele’s nicknames was “O Rei do Futebol” (the King of Football).

36A Classic ’60s muscle car : GTO

The initialism “GTO” was used on several touring cars (including a famous Pontiac) and stands for “Gran Turismo Omologato”. Italian car manufacturers started the tradition of calling their luxury performance cars “Gran Turismo”, and calling those cars they approved for racing “Gran Turismo Omologato”. The phrase “gran turismo omologato” translates as “grand touring homologated”, “homologated” being a technical term signifying official approval.

38A Sultanate that once controlled Zanzibar : OMAN

Zanzibar is an archipelago in the Indian Ocean located just 20 miles or so off the east coast of Africa. The largest island in the group is Unguja, which is often referred to informally as “Zanzibar”. When Zanzibar merged with Tanganyika in 1964, the resulting state was named the United Republic of Tanzania, with “Tanzania” being a portmanteau of “Zanzibar” and “Tanganyika”. The islands of Zanzibar, along with Tanzania’s Mafia Island, are collectively referred to as the Spice Islands (not to be confused with the Spice Islands in Indonesia).

46A Rest period : SIESTA

We use the word “siesta” to describe a short nap in the early afternoon, and imported the word into English from Spanish. In turn, the Spanish word is derived from the Latin “hora sexta” meaning “the sixth hour”. The idea is that the nap is taken at the sixth hour after dawn.

49A Sports great Ernie known as “The Big Easy” : ELS

Ernie Els is a South African golfer. He is a big guy but he has an easy fluid golf swing that has earned him the nickname “The Big Easy”. Els is a former World No. 1 and has won four majors: the US Open (1994 & 1997) and the British Open (2002 & 2012).

52A Half a score : TEN

Our verb “to score” meaning “to tally”, comes from the Old Norse “skor”, which is a “mark, notch”. It is likely that items such as livestock were counted by placing a notch in a stick for each set of twenty, hence our use of the noun “score” to mean “twenty”.

56A Some double-headed drums : SNARES

Snare drums are so called because they have a set of wire strands (snares) stretching across the bottom surface of the drum. When the drum is struck, the snares vibrate against the bottom drumhead producing a unique sound.

63A Setting for “Quincy, M.E.,” on 1970s-’80s TV : MORGUE

“Quincy, M.E.” is a medical mystery series that originally aired in the seventies and eighties starring Jack Klugman in the title role. The show was loosely based on a book by former FBI agent Marshall Houts called “Where Death Delights”.

64A Operating system developed at Bell Labs : UNIX

Unix is a computer operating system that was developed at Bell Labs in 1969. The initial name for the project was Uniplexed Information and Computing Service (Unics), and this evolved over time into “Unix”.

Bell Labs dates back to the days of Alexander Graham Bell. The first Bell Labs building was in the carriage house of Bell’s father’s house in Washington, D.C.

Down

2D Like black opals vis-à-vis diamonds : RARER

97% of the world’s opals come from Australia, so it’s no surprise perhaps that the opal is the national gemstone of the country. The state of South Australia provides the bulk of the world’s production, i.e. about 80%. White, gray and green opals are the most common varieties found, and black opals the rarest.

6D “Folklore” or “Evermore,” for Taylor Swift : ERA

Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour is a journey through her musical career, with each stage of the show representing a different “era” or album. Here’s the breakdown:

1. Lover
2. Fearless
3. Evermore
4. Reputation
5. Speak Now
6. Red
7. Folklore
8. 1989
9. Midnights

9D Mad scientist in a 1964 Kubrick title : STRANGELOVE

“Dr. Strangelove” is a black comedy directed and produced by Stanley Kubrick, released in 1964. The big star in the film is the great Peter Sellers, who plays three key roles. The full name of the movie is “Dr. Strangelove or: How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb”.

12D Carry the ball in volleyball, e.g. : ERR

Indoor volleyball was invented in 1895 and was originally called “mintonette”, a reference to the related game of “badminton”. The variant called beach volleyball originated in 1915 on Waikiki Beach in Honolulu, but was popularized on the beaches of Santa Monica starting in 1920.

13D Actress Kravitz : ZOE

Zoë Kravitz is an actress and singer. Zoë has a couple of famous parents, namely musician Lenny Kravitz and actress Lisa Bonet.

21D “Whole ___ Red” (2020 Playboi Carti album) : LOTTA

Rapper Playboi Carti, whose real name is Jordan Carter, is known for a distinctive “mumble rap” style. He delivers unclear lyrics, which contrasts with the traditional emphasis on meaningful lyrics in rap songs. He co-parents a son named Onyx Kelly with Australian rapper Iggy Azalea, although the couple are no longer together.

24D Activist/scholar known for her work in the prison abolition movement : ANGELA DAVIS

Angela Davis is a political activist and former leader of the Communist Party USA. Davis also ran twice in the eighties as candidate for Vice President on the Communist Party USA ticket, alongside Presidential candidate Gus Hall.

30D Hawks : VENDS

The verb “to hawk” has a Germanic origin, and comes from the Low German word “hoken” meaning “to peddle”. A hawker is actually slightly different from a peddler by definition, as a hawker is a peddler that uses a horse and cart, or a van nowadays perhaps, to sell their wares.

33D Stanley of “Conclave” : TUCCI

Stanley Tucci is a UK-based American actor. Of his many fine performances, my favorite is in 2009’s “Julie & Julia”, a film in which he plays the husband of celebrity chef Julia Child. Tucci is quite the cook himself in real life and released “The Tucci Cookbook” in 2012. He was also a co-owner of the Finch Tavern restaurant in Croton Falls, New York.

34D Group surrounding a star : POSSE

Our word “posse” comes from an Anglo-Latin term from the early 15th century “posse comitatus” meaning “the force of the county”

48D Cry for more : ENCORE!

“Encore” is French for “again, one more time”, and is a shout that an audience member will make here in North America to request perhaps another song. But, the term is not used this way in France. Rather, the audience will shout “Bis!”, which is the Latin for “twice!”

51D Hurricane or mudslide : DRINK

The hurricane is a daiquiri-like cocktail that is very much associated with the French Quarter in New Orleans. It comprises rum, lemon juice and passion fruit syrup and is traditionally served in what’s now known as a hurricane glass. Supposedly, the drink was created in the 1940s by a bar owner who wanted to sell off some overstocked rum. He mixed up the drink and sold it to sailors in glass shaped like hurricane lamps, hence the name of the cocktail.

A mudslide is basically a White Russian cocktail with Baileys Irish Cream added.

A White Russian is a cocktail made from vodka, Kahlua or Tia Maria, and cream, served in an old-fashioned glass with ice. The White Russian is similar to a Black Russian, which is the same drink without the cream. Both cocktails are called “Russian” as they are based on vodka, and both have been around since the late forties, with no one seeming to know which drink came first.

59D Tchaikovsky’s “Letter Scene,” e.g. : ARIA

“Eugene Onegin” is a novel by the Russian author Alexander Pushkin. The novel is unusual in that it is written in verse form. “Eugene Onegin” was adapted into an opera of the same name by Pyotr Tchaikovsky.