0419-26 NY Times Crossword 19 Apr 26, Sunday

Bill’s time: 26m 49s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

6A What might be found at the end of a rainbow : PRISM

When light passes through a prism, it splits up (disperses) into differing wavelengths. It then becomes clear that white light is actually a mixture of different colors, which show up as a beautiful spectrum.

15A Contents of Lago de Maracaibo : AGUA

Lake Maracaibo isn’t actually a “lake” as such, but rather a brackish bay or lagoon with a very narrow entrance into the Gulf of Venezuela in the Caribbean Sea. Paradoxically, Maracaibo was a true lake in the past, and at 20-36 million years old can be considered one of the oldest “lakes” on the planet.

20A ___ pasta (rhyming fusion dish) : RASTA

Rasta pasta is a dish that melds traditional Italian cuisine with Jamaican overtones. The most common ingredients are penne pasta, heavy cream, jerk seasoning and bell peppers.

21A Chinese gooseberry, by another name : KIWI

What we call kiwifruit today (and sometimes just “kiwi”) used to be called a Chinese gooseberry. Marketing folks in the fifties decided to call it a “melonette”, and then New Zealand producers adopted the name “kiwifruit”.

23A Traveled from Syros to Naxos to Mykonos, say : ISLAND HOPPED

The Cyclades are a group of islands in the Aegean Sea lying southeast of the Greek mainland. There are about 200 islands in the group, almost all of which are the peaks of a submerged mountain range. Included in the Cyclades are the islands of Ios, Milos, Mykonos, Naxos, Santorini and Syros.

27A Pop artist Lichtenstein : ROY

Roy Lichtenstein was a pop artist from New York City, and a contemporary of Andy Warhol. He was famous for his “cartoon-strip” paintings, especially works called “Whaam!” and “Drowning Girl”. If you saw the Ben Stiller film “Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian”, you might remember Lichtenstein’s painting “Crying Girl” coming to life as part of the plot.

29A Sold for some quick cash, say : PAWNED

I remember the bad old days growing up in Dublin, Ireland, when my mother had to go to the pawnshop (bad times!). I’d wait outside with my brother, looking up at the pawnbroker’s sign, three gold balls hanging down from a metal bar. This traditional sign used by pawnbrokers is said to date back to the Medici family as the sign had symbolic meaning in the province of Lombardy where the Medici family reigned supreme. Because of this connection, pawnshop banking was originally called Lombard banking.

35A Title in old St. Petersburg : TSAR

St. Petersburg was founded by Peter the Great in 1703 and served as the capital of the Russian Empire for over 200 years. The city is often referred to as the “Venice of the North” due to its numerous canals and bridges, and is home to many beautiful historic buildings, including the Winter Palace and the Hermitage Museum, which houses one of the world’s largest art collections.

39A Cabal’s schemes : SECRET PLOTS

A cabal is a small group of plotters acting in secret, perhaps scheming against a government or an individual. The use of “cabal” in this way dates back to the mid-1600s. It is suggested that the term gained some popularity, particularly in a sinister sense, during the reign of Charles II in the 1670s. At that time, it was applied as an acronym standing for “Clifford, Arlington, Buckingham, Ashley, and Lauderdale”, a group of ministers known for their plots and schemes.

45A Dooley Wilson’s role in “Casablanca” : SAM

The movie “Casablanca” was released in January of 1943, timed to coincide with the Casablanca Conference, the high-level meeting between Roosevelt and Churchill. The film wasn’t a box-office hit, but gained critical acclaim, winning three Oscars including Best Picture. The signature song “As Time Goes By” was written many years earlier for a 1931 Broadway musical called “Everybody’s Welcome”, and was a hit in 1931 for Rudy Vallee. But today we all remember the Casablanca version, sung by Dooley Wilson (who played “Sam” in the film). Poor Dooley didn’t get to record it as a single, due to a musician’s strike in 1943. The 1931 Rudy Vallee version was re-released that year and became an even bigger hit second time round.

52A Solstice time : JUNE

A solstice occurs twice in every year. The summer solstice is the longest day of the year (has the most daylight), and the winter solstice is the shortest.

53A Constellation feline : LEO

The constellation named Leo can be said to resemble a lion. Others say that it resembles a bent coat hanger. “Leo” is the Latin for “lion”, but I’m not sure how to translate “coat hanger” into Latin …

56A Multivolume ref. work : OED

Work started on what was to become the first “Oxford English Dictionary” (OED) in 1857. Several interim versions of the dictionary were published in the coming years with the first full version appearing, in ten bound volumes, in 1928. The second edition of the OED appeared in 1989 and is made up of twenty volumes. The OED was first published in electronic form in 1988 and went online in 2000. Given the modern use of computers, the publishing house responsible feels that there will never be a third print version of the famous dictionary.

57A Style that’s short on the sides and long in the back : MULLET

A mullet haircut is one that is short at the front and sides, and is long in the back.

59A Fatty tuna, at a sushi bar : TORO

In a sushi restaurant, the dish called “toro” is the fatty tissue from the belly of the bluefin tuna.

60A Where something irksome might stick : CRAW

“Craw” is another name for “crop”, a portion of the alimentary tract of some animals, including birds. The crop is used for the storage of food prior to digestion. It allows the animal to eat large amounts and then digest that food with efficiency over an extended period. The expression “to stick in one’s craw” is used when one cannot accept something, cannot “swallow” it.

62A Canned sales pitch : SPIEL

A spiel is a lengthy speech or argument designed to persuade, like a sales pitch. “Spiel” comes to us from German, either directly (“spiel” is the German for “play”) or via the Yiddish “shpil”.

63A Masonry unit : CINDER BLOCK

Concrete masonry units are usually called cinder blocks here in the US, and breeze blocks in the UK and Ireland. The concrete used for the units includes cinders (ash) as the aggregate material, hence the name “cinder” block. Cinders/ash are also known as “breeze”, hence the name “breeze” block.

73A It’s verboten : NO-NO

“Verboten” is German for “forbidden”, and is a word that we have imported into English.

75A Long-running CBS forensic drama : CSI

The “CSI” franchise of TV shows has been tremendously successful, and seems to really have legs. “CSI: Miami” (the “worst” of the franchise, I think) was canceled in 2012 after ten seasons. “CSI: NY” (the “best” of the franchise) was canceled in 2013 after nine seasons. The original “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation” was set in Las Vegas, and hung in there until 2015 when it ended with a two-hour TV movie. Then there was “CSI: Cyber”. It lasted for two seasons, before being canceled in 2016. “CSI: Vegas”, a sequel to the original “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation”, launched in 2021, and lasted for three seasons.

77A Old name for Tokyo : EDO

“Edo” is the former name of the Japanese city of Tokyo. Edo was the seat of the Tokugawa shogunate, a feudal regime that ruled from 1603 until 1868. The shogun lived in the magnificent Edo Castle. Some parts of the original castle remain and today’s Tokyo Imperial Palace, the residence of the Emperor of Japan, was built on its grounds.

79A Beef bourguignon or chicken paprikash : MEAT STEW

Beef bourguignon (also “beef Burgundy”) is a stew made with beef braised in red wine. The dish probably doesn’t have roots in the Burgundy region of France, but instead is named for the traditional use of Burgundy wine as a key ingredient in the recipe.

81A Singer Carly ___ Jepsen : RAE

Carly Rae Jepsen is a singer/songwriter from Mission, British Columbia. She got her start on TV’s “Canadian Idol” when she placed third in the show’s fifth season. In addition to her music career, Jepsen has also dabbled in acting. She made her Broadway debut in 2014 playing the title in the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical “Cinderella.”

86A Half of a candy duo : IKE

“Mike and Ike” is a brand of fruit-flavored candy made by Just Born starting in 1940. Just Born launched quite a unique marketing campaign in 2012 asserting that Mike and Ike had “split up due to creative differences”. The campaign involved production of two different boxes for the candy showing one or the other name scratched out. Clever …

89A Caribbean nation whose name means “land of high mountains” : HAITI

The Republic of Haiti occupies the smaller, western portion of the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean. The rest of the island is taken up by the Dominican Republic. Haiti is one of only two nations in the Americas to have French as an official language, the other being Canada.

90A Popular poker variant : TEXAS HOLD’EM

The official birthplace of the incredibly popular poker game of Texas hold ’em is Robstown, Texas where the game dates back to the early 1900s. The game was introduced into Las Vegas in 1967 by a group of Texan enthusiasts including Doyle Brunson, a champion often seen playing on TV. Doyle Brunson published a poker strategy guide in 1978, and this really helped increase the popularity of the game. But it was the inclusion of Texas hold ‘em in the television lineup that really gave the game its explosive surge in popularity, with the size of the prize money just skyrocketing.

93A Baby book datum : BIRTH WEIGHT

Our word “data” (singular “datum”) comes from the Latin “datum” meaning “given”. The idea is that data are “things given”.

95A Many a “good buddy” : CBER

A CB’er is someone who operates a Citizens Band (CB) radio. In 1945, the FCC set aside certain radio frequencies for the personal use of citizens. The use of the Citizens Band increased throughout the seventies as advances in electronics brought down the size of transceivers and their cost. There aren’t many CB radios sold these days though, as they have largely been replaced by cell phones.

96A Public transit system : METRO

The Paris Métro is the busiest underground transportation system in western Europe. The network carries about 4.5 million passengers a day, which is about the same ridership as the New York City Subway. The system took its name from the company that originally operated it, namely “La Compagnie du chemin de fer métropolitain de Paris” (The Metropolitan Paris Railroad Company), which was shortened to “Métro”. The term “Metro” was then adopted for similar systems in cities all over the world.

99A Big name in power tools : STIHL

Stihl is a manufacturer of power tools mainly used in landscaping and forestry. The company headquarters is located not far from Stuttgart in Germany. Stihl was founded in 1926 by Andreas Stihl, and first manufactured chainsaws.

101A S, in the NATO alphabet : SIERRA

The NATO phonetic alphabet is also called the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) phonetic alphabet. Alfa, Bravo, Charlie … X-ray, Yankee, Zulu.

103A Some cameras, for short : SLRS

Single-lens reflex (SLR) camera

104A ___ Schwarz : FAO

FAO Schwarz was perhaps the most famous, and certainly the oldest, toy store in the United States. The FAO Schwarz outlet on Fifth Avenue in New York City closed in 2015. This store was famously used in several Hollywood movies. For example, it was home to the Walking Piano that Tom Hanks played in the movie “Big”.

109A Inbox zero targets : UNREAD EMAILS

“Inbox zero” is a rigorous approach to handling emails that was developed by productivity expert Merlin Mann. Mann touts his approach to inbox management as “how to reclaim your email, your attention, and your life”. I’m a fan, and a practitioner …

112A Mega- : UBER-

“Über” is the German word for “over, across, above”. We have absorbed “uber-” into English as a prefix meaning “very”.

115A Heavy metal instrument in Verdi’s “Il Trovatore” : ANVIL

Giuseppe Verdi’s opera “Il trovatore” is known in English as “The Troubadour”. It is one of the few operas with more than one version written by the same composer. Verdi wrote a French translation, with some revisions to the score, which goes by the name “Le trouvère”.

117A ! : BANG!

An exclamation mark is sometimes referred to as a bang. The term “bang”, in this context, comes from printers’ jargon.

118A Small-plate servings : TAPAS

“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.

119A Grandchild of un abuelo : NIETO

In Spanish, the “padre de tu padre” (father of your father) is your “abuelo” (grandfather).

Down

4D Women’s World Cup powerhouse : USA

The FIFA Women’s World Cup is a soccer tournament that has been held every four years since 1991. The US national team has won the tournament more times than any other nation.

5D Counselor’s charges : MENTEES

A mentor is a trusted teacher or counselor, and the person receiving the advice is the mentee. The term “mentor” comes from Homer’s “Odyssey” in which there is a character named Mentor. He is a friend of Odysseus, although he is a relatively ineffective old man. The goddess Athena takes on Mentor’s appearance in order to guide Odysseus’s young son Telemachus through difficult times.

6D Elaborate invitation from a senior, maybe : PROMPOSAL

Over the years, the act of asking someone to be a prom date has become very elaborate. Such acts are sometimes referred to as “promposals”, a portmanteau of “prom” and “proposal”.

7D Actress Reneé of “The Sex Lives of College Girls” : RAPP

Singer and actress Renée Rapp’s big break came with a starring role in the musical “Mean Girls” on Broadway. She played “mean girl” Regina George on stage from 2019 to 2020, and also in the big-screen adaptation released with the same title in 2024.

8D MSN, for one : ISP

The Microsoft Network (MSN) used to be an Internet service provider (ISP). These days, MSN is mainly a Web portal.

10D Palindromic title : MADAM

The three most famous palindromes in English have to be:

• Able was I ere I saw Elba
• A man, a plan, a canal, Panama!
• Madam, I’m Adam

One of my favorite terms is “Aibohphobia”, although it doesn’t appear in the dictionary and is a joke term. “Aibohphobia” is a great way to describe a fear of palindromes, by creating a palindrome out of the suffix “-phobia”.

15D Relating to part of the heart : ATRIAL

The heart has four chambers. The two upper chambers are the atria. The right atrium accepts deoxygenated blood, while the left atrium accepts oxygenated blood from the lungs. The atria squeeze those blood supplies into the two lower chambers of the heart (the ventricles), “priming” the pump, as it were. One ventricle pumps deoxygenated blood to the lungs, and the other pumps oxygenated blood to the rest of the body.

17D River through Orsk : URAL

The city of Orsk is located about 60 miles southeast of the southern tip of the Ural Mountains in Russia. The city lies on the Ural River, which forms the boundary between Europe and Asia. As a result, Orsk can be considered situated in two continents. Orsk also lies where the Or River joins the Ural, and so the Or gives the city its name.

24D Race that’s too close to call : DEAD HEAT

A race ending in a dead heat ends in a tie. A heat is one of a series of races, and it might be described as “dead” if there is no decisive outcome, if there is a tie.

33D Evil counterpart in an 1886 novella : HYDE

Robert Louis Stevenson’s novella “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” was published in 1886. There are many tales surrounding the writing of the story, including that the author wrote the basic tale in just three to six days, and spent a few weeks simply refining it. Allegedly, Stevenson’s use of cocaine stimulated his creative juices during those few days of writing.

34D Flanders neighbor : SIMPSON

Ned Flanders lives next door to Homer Simpson on TV’s “The Simpsons”. Ned was married to Maude, with whom he had two children Rod and Todd. Maude died in an accident involving a T-shirt cannon. Ned is voiced by actor Harry Shearer, and has been around since the very first episode aired in 1989.

36D Book before Proverbs : PSALMS

The Greek word “psalmoi” originally meant “songs sung to a harp”, and gave us the word “psalms”. In the Jewish and Western Christian traditions, the Book of Psalms contains 150 individual psalms, divided into five sections.

The Book of Proverbs is in the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament. The original Hebrew title for the book translates as “Proverbs of Solomon”. It was likely compiled by multiple authors over a long period of time, with some proverbs back to the time of King Solomon in the 10th century BCE.

38D Elk : WAPITI

Wapiti, also known as elk, are one of the largest species of deer found in North America and East Asia. They are social animals and live in herds of up to 400 individuals. The herds are usually led by a dominant male, known as a bull, who defends his harem of females during the mating season.

41D Request in billiards or beer pong : RE-RACK

The name of the game billiards comes from the French word “billiard” that originally described the wooden cue stick. The Old French “bille” translates as “stick of wood”.

The game of beer pong is also known as “Beirut”. It apparently originated as a drinking game in the fraternities of Dartmouth College in the fifties, when it was played with paddles and a ping-pong net on a table. The origin of the “Beirut” name is less clear, but it probably was coined while the Lebanese Civil War was raging in the late seventies and eighties.

43D Office building abbr. : STE

Suite (ste.)

49D Milliner’s handiwork : HAT

A milliner is someone who makes, designs or sells hats. Back in the 1500s, the term described someone who sold hats made in Milan, Italy, hence the name “milliner”.

50D Mowing, mulching, raking, etc. : YARD CARE

Mulch is a layer of material applied by gardeners over the top of soil. The intent can be to retain moisture, to add nutrients, to reduce weed growth, or just to improve the look of the garden.

52D Basset hounds have big ones : JOWLS

The basset hound wouldn’t be my favorite breed of dog, to be honest. Basset hounds have a great sense of smell with an ability to track a scent that is second only to that of the bloodhound. The name “basset” comes from the French word for “rather low”, a reference to the dog’s short legs.

54D One-named sports legend : 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 Pelé’s nicknames was “O Rei do Futebol” (the King of Football).

58D Some jeans : LEVI’S

Levi Strauss was granted a patent in the 1870s for the use of copper rivets to reinforce points of strain on clothes made from denim. Patent protection expired in 1890, and at that point the company designated its rivet-reinforced overalls as “lot no. 501”. That number is still being used over a century later.

63D Extract said to promote relaxation : CBD OIL

Cannabidiol (CBD) is a chemical extracted from cannabis plants that is used as a herbal drug. It does not contain the chemical tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), which is responsible for the marijuana “high”.

64D Ton of cargo : BOATLOAD

Cargo is freight carried by some vehicle. The term “cargo” comes into English via Spanish, ultimately deriving from the Latin “carricare” meaning “to load on a cart”.

65D It contains all of (and all the letters of) Toronto : ONTARIO

The Canadian province of Ontario takes its name from the Great Lake. In turn, Lake Ontario’s name is thought to be derived from “Ontari:io”, a Huron word meaning “great lake”. Ontario is home to the nation’s capital of Ottawa as well as Toronto, Canada’s most populous city (and the capital of the province).

68D Congrats from across the room : AIR HIGH FIVE

The celebratory gesture that we call a “high five” is said to have been invented by former baseball players Dusty Baker and Glenn Burke when they were both playing for the Los Angeles Dodgers in the late 1970s.

69D Ghostly being : WRAITH

“Wraith” was originally a Scottish word, one meaning “ghost, specter”.

72D Parish leader : RECTOR

In an ecclesiastical sense, a “rector” is a cleric in charge of a parish or religious institution. In Latin, the word rector means “ruler, director,” coming from “regere”, “to rule.”

74D Bouvier ___ Flandres (Belgian dog breed) : DES

The bouvier des Flandres is a herding dog that originated in Flanders in Belgium. The breed’s name translates from French as “cow herder of Flanders”. The breed very nearly died out during WWI due to the devastation of Flanders and the fact that the dogs were used by the military in the fighting.

78D Linear, for short : ONE-D

The dimension of an object is defined as the minimum number of coordinates needed to specify each point in the object. Therefore, a line is one-dimensional, as you only need an x-coordinate to specify a particular point on the line. A surface is two-dimensional, as you need both an x-coordinate and a y-coordinate to locate a point on the surface. The inside of a solid object is then three-dimensional, needing an x-, y- and z-coordinate to specify a point, say within a cube.

79D Eponymous hypnotist : MESMER

Franz Mesmer was a German physician, and the person who coined the phrase “animal magnetism”. Back then the term described a purported magnetic field that resided in the bodies of animate beings. Mesmer also lent his name to our term “mesmerize”.

82D Alma mater for Marvel’s Tony Stark and DC Comics’s Lex Luthor, in brief : MIT

Iron Man is another comic book superhero, this one created by Stan Lee for Marvel Comics. The character is the alter ego of Tony Stark, and has become very famous in recent years since the appearance of the 2008 action movie “Iron Man” starring Robert Downey, Jr. in the title role. Iron Man’s love interest, Pepper Potts, is routinely played by Gwyneth Paltrow in the same series of films.

Lex Luthor is the nemesis of Superman in comics. He has been portrayed in a number of guises in the comic world as well in movies and on the small screen. For example, he appeared as Atom Man in the 1950 film series “Atom Man vs. Superman”, and was played by actor Lyle Talbot, opposite Kirk Alyn’s Superman.

84D Cadbury confection : CREME EGG

The Cadbury Creme Egg is the biggest-selling confectionery in the UK from New Year’s Day up to Easter every year, which is no surprise to me. Creme Eggs are wickedly delicious …

Cadbury is a large confectionary brand that is second only in sales to Mars. The original Cadbury Brothers company was founded in Birmingham in the English Midlands in 1847 by John Cadbury and his brother Benjamin. They opened a large production plant just south of Birmingham, in 1879. The land surrounding the plant was developed as a model village for employees, and given the name “Bournville”. “Bournville” persists today as a brand of dark chocolate produced by Cadbury.

89D Prestigious trophy name : HEISMAN

The Heisman Trophy is awarded to the most outstanding college football player each season. The trophy was first awarded in 1935, and the following year was given the name Heisman after the death of John Heisman, a noted college football player and football director.

92D Where “The Four Agreements” and “The Five Love Languages” may be shelved : SELF-HELP

Gary Chapman wrote a 1992 book called “The Five Love Languages” in which he suggested that there are five ways that someone might express and experience love. Those five “love languages” are:

1. Words of affirmation (compliments)
2. Quality time
3. Gifts
4. Acts of service
5. Physical touch

93D Fernet-___ (Italian digestif brand) : BRANCA

An apéritif is an alcoholic drink served before a meal, to stimulate the palate. A digestif is an alcoholic drink served after a meal, to aid digestion.

94D Most merchandise at Ace and True Value : HARDWARE

The Ace Hardware chain of stores was founded in 1924 in Chicago, Illinois. The name “Ace” comes from “ace” fighter pilots from World War I.

True Value is a cooperative, a network of hardware stores that are independently owned. The cooperative was founded in 1948 and is headquartered in Chicago.

100D Fallopian conduit : TUBE

The Fallopian tubes stretch from the ovaries of female mammals to the uterus. They are named for the 16th-century Italian anatomist Gabriello Fallopio, who was the first to describe them.

103D Actress Ward : SELA

Sela Ward is an Emmy-winning actress in shows like “Sisters” and “House”. In 1995, she was considered for the role of a Bond girl in “GoldenEye” but was reportedly told by the casting director, “What we really want is Sela, but Sela ten years ago”. Ironically, Pierce Brosnan, the new Bond, was older than Ward at the time. It’s a very sad business, in a very sad world …

106D World capital that’s home to the Kon-Tiki Museum : OSLO

The Kon-Tiki is a raft used by Thor Heyerdahl in 1947 to cross the Pacific Ocean from South America to the Polynesian islands. The original raft used in the voyage is on display in the Kon-Tiki Museum in Oslo, Norway (Heyerdahl was a native of Norway).

110D Genre for Cypress Hill or the Sugarhill Gang : RAP

The Sugarhill Gang are a rap music group from Englewood, New Jersey. The group’s biggest hit by far was “Rapper’s Delight”, released in 1979.

111D Alex and ___ (jewelry company) : ANI

The jewelry retailer Alex and Ani was founded in 2004 and is headquartered in Cranston, Rhode Island. The founder Carolyn Rafaelian named her business for her two daughters: Alex and Ani.