0422-26 NY Times Crossword 22 Apr 26, Wednesday

Bill’s time: 10m 22s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1A “All the world,” per Shakespeare’s Jaques : STAGE

“As You Like It” is one of Shakespeare’s comedies. It tells the tale of Rosalind fleeing from her Uncle’s court along with her cousin Celia and the court jester Touchstone. Rosalind lives in exile in the Forest of Arden, disguised as a male shepherd called Ganymede. The play is perhaps most memorable for an oft-quoted monologue that starts with:

All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players …

14A Villain in the Bible’s Christmas story : HEROD

Herod the Great was a vassal king in the first century BCE who ruled Judea under Roman supremacy. According to the Christian Bible, It was Herod the Great who ordered the Massacre of the Innocents, the execution of all young, male children in Bethlehem at the time of the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. When Herod the Great died circa 4 BCE, Rome divided his kingdom between his three sons and one daughter. The son named Herod Antipas became ruler of Galilee and Perea. It is Herod Antipas who is cited as “King Herod” in the Bible, and who played a key role in the executions of John the Baptist and Jesus of Nazareth.

19A God served by the ravens Huginn and Muninn : ODIN

According to Norse mythology, the god Odin had a pair of ravens that flew all over the world each day to get him information. The ravens were named Huginn and Muninn.

20A Condition that may involve stimming, for short : ADHD

“Stimming”, short for self-stimulatory behavior, refers to repetitive physical movements or sounds. Individuals with autism spectrum disorder may stim to cope with overwhelming sensory input, manage strong emotions, aid concentration, or simply to express themselves.

23A Trojan’s sch. : USC

The athletic teams of the University of Southern California are called the USC Trojans. The women’s teams are also called the Trojans, but are sometimes referred to as Women of Troy.

24A Some buggies, for short : ATVS

All-terrain vehicle (ATV)

26A Rakish : LOUCHE

Something described as louche is shady and disreputable. “Louche” is a French term meaning “squinting”. I guess the idea is that someone disreputable might squint, might avoid direct eye contact.

A “rake” (short for “rakehell”) is a man who is habituated to immoral conduct (isn’t it always the man??!!). The rake is a character who turns up frequently in novels and films, only interested in wine, women and song and not accepting the responsibilities of life. Good examples would be Wickham in Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice” and Daniel Cleaver (the Hugh Grant part) in the movie “Bridget Jones’s Diary”. “Rake” comes from the Old Norse “reikall”, meaning “vagrant or a wanderer”.

34A Like some Scots : CELTIC

The Celts are a very broad group of people across Europe who are linked by common languages. The original Celts were largely absorbed by other cultures, although a relatively modern revival of the “Celtic identity” is alive and well in Britain and Ireland. Such Celtic peoples today are mainly found in Ireland, Scotland, Wales and Brittany in France.

47A Like some Scots : GAELIC

A Gael is anyone of a race that speaks or spoke one of the Erse tongues. There are actually three Erse languages. Irish, Manx (spoken on the Isle of Man) and Scots Gaelic. In their own tongues, these would be “Gaeilge” (in Ireland), “Gaelg” (on the Isle of Man) and “Gaidhlig” (in Scotland).

49A En ___ (with all the judges present) : BANC

“En banc” is a French term, translating as “on a bench”. It refers to the cases in which all the judges of a court hear a case, as opposed to a case heard just by a panel, a subset of the full complement. The phrase is sometimes written as “in banc” in the US.

62A “Strega ___” (1975 children’s book) : NONA

“Strega Nona” is an illustrated children’s book by Tomie dePaola that was first published in 1975. The title character is a kind of witch doctor who lives in southern Italy. “Strega Nona” translates from broken Italian as “Grandma Witch”.

63A Genesis grandchild : ENOS

Enos was the son of Seth, and therefore the grandson of Adam and Eve, and nephew of Cain and Abel. According to the ancient Jewish work called the Book of Jubilees, Enos married his own sister Noam.

64A Material for a ceramicist : GLAZE

A ceramic is a hard, heat- and corrosion-resistant material that is strong in compression but has a low tensile strength. Most ceramics are inorganic, non-metallic chemicals. As an aside, I have a degree in ceramics, believe it or not, after writing a thesis on the material used to make refrigerator magnets. Sad, really …

67A “The Face That Launched a Thousand Ships” : HELEN

According to Greek mythology, Helen (later “Helen of Troy”) was the daughter of Zeus and Leda. When Helen reached the age of marriage, she had many suitors as she was considered the most beautiful woman in the world. Menelaus was chosen as her husband, and he took her back to his home of Sparta. Paris, a Trojan prince, seduced Helen, as she eloped with him and traveled to Troy. This event sparked the Trojan War that waged between the city of Troy and Greece. Because of this war, Helen was said to have “the face that launched a thousand ships”. And because of this phrase, it has been suggested, probably by author Isaac Asimov, that the amount of beauty needed to launch a single ship is one “millihelen”.

Down

1D ___ butter : SHEA

Shea butter is a common moisturizer and lotion used as a cosmetic. It is a fat that is extracted from the nut of the African shea tree. There is evidence that shea butter was used back in Cleopatra’s Egypt.

4D Jane ___ Institute (wildlife conservation group) : GOODALL

Jane Goodall was a British anthropologist famous for studying wild chimpanzees in Africa for 45 years. Working at Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania, Goodall made many discoveries. She was the first to see chimps constructing and using tools, an activity thought to be limited to the human species. She also found out that chimpanzees are omnivores.

7D It’s going downhill fast! : LUGE

“Luge” is a French word meaning “sled”. It describes a small sled used by one or two people, on which one lies face up and feet first. The luge can be compared to the skeleton, a sled for only one person and on which the rider lies face down and goes down the hill head-first. Yikes!

8D James who wrote “Let Us Now Praise Famous Men” : AGEE

“Let Us Now Praise Famous Men” is a book by James Agee, with dramatic photographs by Walker Evans. The book chronicles the plight of sharecropper families in the American South during the Great Depression.

10D Dish traditionally flavored with Saigon cinnamon : PHO

Pho (pronounced “fuh”) is a noodle soup from Vietnam that is a popular street food, and the nation’s unofficial national dish. It is often ordered with a side of hanh dam, pickled white onions.

11D With 31- and 43-Down, an environmentalist motto … as suggested elsewhere in different ways in this puzzle : REDUCE …
31D See 11-Down : … REUSE …
43D See 11-Down : … RECYCLE

The so-called “waste hierarchy” can be restated as the three Rs: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. The preferences are in order:

1. Reduce consumption
2. Reuse manufactured products
3. Recycle raw materials

12D Actress Cuthbert of “The Girl Next Door” : ELISHA

Elisha Cuthbert is a Canadian actress who came to world attention playing Kim Bauer, Jack Bauer’s daughter on TV’s “24”. After “24”, Cuthbert played one of the lead characters on the sitcom “Happy Endings” that ran from 2011 to 2013.

13D One of two on a scorpion : PINCER

There are about 1750 different species of scorpion in the world, but only 25 or so have venom sufficiently toxic to kill a human.

18D “Let me know if you’re coming” : RSVP

“RSVP” stands for “répondez s’il vous plaît”, which is French for “answer, please”.

22D Kachina doll carvers : HOPI

Kachina dolls are wooden figures representing various Hopi spirits and deities. Traditionally, Kachina dolls were made by men and then passed on to the daughters of the village in a ceremony feting a particular spirit.

27D Bars on an energy bar, say, for short : UPC

The initialism “UPC” stands for Universal Price Code or Universal Product Code. The first ever UPC-marked item to get scanned in a store was on June 26, 1974 at 08:01 a.m. at Marsh’s supermarket in Troy, Ohio. It was a 10-pack of Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit chewing gum.

28D K Street grp. : PAC

A political action committee (PAC) is a private group that works to influence the outcome of a particular election or group of elections. Any group becomes a PAC by law when it receives or spends more than $1,000 for the purpose of influencing the outcome of an election. In 2010 the Supreme Court ruled that PACS that did not make direct contributions to candidates or parties could accept unlimited contributions. These “independent, expenditure-only committees” are commonly referred to as “super PACs”.

K Street in Washington, D.C. gained its reputation as the center of lobbying and political influence during the post-World War II era. Its concentration of law firms, lobbying groups, and advocacy organizations is largely due to its proximity to the White House and Capitol Hill.

29D Tony winner Hagen : UTA

Uta Hagen was a German-born American actress. Hagen married Jose Ferrer in 1938, but they were divorced ten years later after it was revealed that she was having a long-running affair with Paul Robeson. Her association with Robeson, a prominent civil rights activist, earned her a spot on the Hollywood Blacklist during the McCarthy Era. This forced her away from film, but towards a successful stage career in New York City.

30D Former N.B.A. champion Jeremy : LIN

Jeremy Lin is a professional basketball player who was raised in the city of Palo Alto in the San Francisco Bay Area. Lin is the first American of Chinese descent to play in the NBA.

32D German river to the North Sea : ELBE

The River Elbe rises in the Czech Republic and travels over a thousand kilometers before emptying into the North Sea near the port of Hamburg in Germany.

36D Like a black mamba vis-à-vis a python : DEADLIER

Mambas, most famously black mambas, are highly venomous snakes that used to be responsible for a great number of fatalities before anti-venoms became available. Mamba venom is a deadly mix of neurotoxins that attack the nervous system and cardiotoxins that attack the heart. A bite, if left untreated, causes the lungs and the heart to shut down.

Pythons form a genus of non-venomous, constricting snakes that have flecked skin and a long split tongue. Pythons are native to Africa and Asia, although thousands of pythons live in the Everglades National Park as an invasive species, presumably as the result of pet pythons escaping into the wild.

We can use the French phrase “vis-à-vis” as a preposition meaning “compared with”. When used as an adverb or adjective, it means “face-to-face”, which is a more literal translation from French.

37D Golden Bears’ school, familiarly : CAL

The California Golden Bears are the athletic teams of the University of California, Berkeley. The University of California, Berkeley (Cal) is the most difficult public university to get into in the world. It opened in 1869 and is named for Anglo-Irish philosopher George Berkeley.

39D Grp. in the Situation Room : NSC

The National Security Council (NSC) was created by President Harry S. Truman in 1947. It is chaired by the sitting president and meets in the White House Situation Room.

The official name of the Situation Room in the White House is the John F. Kennedy Conference Room. The facility was built in the basement of the West Wing on the orders of President Kennedy in 1961 after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion. Analysis showed that the invasion failed largely due to a lack of real-time information, and so the Situation Room was built to prevent that from happening in the future.

41D Annual show with astronaut-shaped trophies, for short : VMAS

The MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs) have been presented annually since 1984, and honor the best in the world of music videos. The award itself is a statue featuring an astronaut on the moon, which was an image associated with MTV when it launched in the early 1980s. The statues are known colloquially as “moon men”.

46D Luxury Italian brand : ARMANI

Giorgio “Gio” Armani was an Italian fashion designer and founder of the company that has borne his name since 1975. Although Armani was famous for his menswear, the company makes everything from jewelry to perfume.

47D Teri of “Tootsie” : GARR

Actress Teri Garr had a whole host of minor roles in her youth, including appearances in nine Elvis movies. Garr’s big break came with the role of Inga in “Young Frankenstein”, and her supporting role in “Tootsie” earned Garr an Academy Award nomination. Sadly, Teri Garr suffered from multiple sclerosis, and was a National Ambassador for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.

“Tootsie” is a hilarious 1982 comedy starring Dustin Hoffman in the title role, a male actor who adopts a female identity in order to land an acting job. Jessica Lange won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her performance in the film. “Tootsie” also provided Geena Davis with her first movie role.

53D Letters on a Cognac bottle : VSOP

Brandy is a spirit distilled from wine. The term “brandy” ultimately comes from the Dutch “gebrande wijn” meaning “burnt wine”. The length of this aging of the spirit defines the various grades of brandy:

• VS: Very Special … at least 2 years storage
• VSOP: Very Special (or Superior) Old Pale … at least 4 years storage
• XO: Extra Old … at least 10 years

Cognac is a famous variety of brandy named after the commune of Cognac in the very west of France. To be called “Cognac”, the brandy must be distilled twice in copper pot stills and aged at least two years in very specific French oak barrels.

57D Carolina ___ : WREN

The Carolina wren is the state bird of South Carolina.

59D John : CAN

The use of “john” as a slang term for a toilet is peculiar to North America. “John” probably comes from the older slang term of “jack” or “jakes” that had been around since the 16th century. In Ireland, in less polite moments, we still refer to a toilet as “the jacks”.