0708-26 NY Times Crossword 8 Jul 26, Wednesday

Bill’s time: 8m 04s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1A Cartographers’ concerns : MAPS

Cartography is the art of producing maps.

11A Helpful skill for guessers : ESP

Extrasensory perception (ESP)

15A Mickey with an Oscar nomination for “The Wrestler” : ROURKE

Actor Mickey Rourke had trained as a boxer before his acting career took off. He turned to professional boxing when he lost his love for acting. Rourke took a lot of punishment in the ring in the nineties, resulting in a lot of damage to his face. He also admits that some problems with his appearance were aggravated by botched plastic surgery.

“The Wrestler” is a really hard, gritty movie from 2008, and a comeback film for actor Mickey Rourke. Rourke stars as an over-the-hill professional wrestler, with Marisa Tomei playing a faded stripper, and the love interest. The film received really strong reviews, but I found it to be a tough movie to sit through.

20A Food mentioned in the Lord’s Prayer : BREAD

“Give us this day our daily bread” is a phrase taken from the Lord’s Prayer.

The Lord’s Prayer is a central prayer in Christian religions, and is found in two places in the New Testament. In the version in the Gospel of Matthew, the last line of the prayer is “deliver us from evil”. In the Gospel of Luke, the last line is “lead us not into temptation”. The last words of the prayer most often used today are:

For thine is the kingdom,
The power, and the glory,
For ever and ever,
Amen

21A What “Eat” stands for in the mnemonic “Never Eat Soggy Waffles” : EAST

“Never Eat Soggy Waffles” is a mnemonic that gives the cardinal points of the compass in a clockwise direction: North, East, South, West.

32A Result of touching poison ivy : ITCH

Two of the plants that are most painful to humans are poison oak and poison ivy. Poison oak is mainly found west of the Rocky Mountains, and poison ivy to the east.

35A “The Deer Hunter” setting, in brief : NAM

“The Deer Hunter” is a disturbing 1978 movie about three Russian Americans from Pennsylvania, and their time in the military during the Vietnam War. The “game” of Russian roulette features prominently in the film’s storyline. According to director Michael Cimino, Robert de Niro requested that a live cartridge be loaded into the gun during the main Russian roulette scene, to heighten the intensity of the atmosphere. Cimino agreed, although he was quite obsessive about ensuring that for each take, the bullet wasn’t next in the chamber.

46A [M/H]inds : HEADS OR TAILS (Minds or hinds)

The two sides of a coin are known as the “obverse” and the “reverse”. The obverse is commonly referred to as “heads”, as it often depicts someone’s head. The reverse is commonly called “tails”, as it is the opposite of “heads”.

50A Fitness fad popularized by Billy Blanks : TAE BO

Tae Bo isn’t an ancient martial art, even though it perhaps sounds like one. The discipline was developed as a form of aerobic exercise in the 1990s by taekwondo expert Billy Blanks who gave it the name Tae Bo, a melding of “taekwondo” and “boxing”.

51A “Animal Farm” or “The Simpsons” : SATIRE

“Animal Farm” is a 1945 novella written by George Orwell, a satire of life in the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin. Orwell had trouble getting his novel published in his homeland of the UK during WWII, as anti-Soviet literature wasn’t a good thing to publish while the UK and USSR were on the same side of a World War. In fact, one publisher who was willing to distribute the book changed his mind after being warned off by the British Ministry of Information. Given his experiences, I find it interesting that Orwell should write “Nineteen Eighty-Four” a few years later, and introduce the world to Big Brother.

“The Simpsons” is one of the most successful programs produced by the Fox Broadcasting Company. Homer Simpson’s catchphrase is “D’oh!”, which became such a famous exclamation that it has been included in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) since 2001. “D’oh!” can be translated as “I should have thought of that!”

55A Soccer great Mia : HAMM

Mia Hamm is a retired American soccer player. She played as a forward on the US national team that won the FIFA Women’s World Cup in 1991. Hamm scored 158 international goals, which was more than any other player in the world, male or female, until the record was broken in 2013. Amazingly, Hamm was born with a clubfoot, and so had to wear corrective shoes when she was growing up.

64A Magic setting, in brief : NBA

The Orlando Magic were formed in 1989 as an NBA expansion team. A local paper was asked to run a competition to suggest names for the new team and the community came up with its four top picks of “Heat”, “Tropics”, “Juice” and “Magic”. A committee then opted for “Orlando Magic”. A good choice I think …

69A Hershey toffee bar : SKOR

The candy bar named “Skor” is produced by Hershey’s. “Skor” is Swedish for “shoes”, and the candy bar’s wrapping features a crown that is identical to that found in the Swedish national emblem. What shoes have to do with candy, I don’t know …

Down

1D Black ___, nickname for Kobe Bryant : MAMBA

Kobe Bryant played basketball for the LA Lakers. Bryant got his given name from a menu, would you believe? His parents were in a Japanese restaurant and liked the name of “Kobe” beef, the beef from around the city of Kobe on the island of Honshu in Japan. Very sadly, Bryant and his daughter Gianna, along with seven others, were killed in a helicopter crash in 2020.

2D Company that created Pong : ATARI

Do you remember the arcade video game that is like a game of tennis, with paddles moving up and down to hit what looks like a ball, over what looks like a net? Well, that is Pong. The arcade version of Pong was introduced in 1972, with Atari selling a home version through Sears for the Christmas market in 1975.

3D Fish, roads or weapons that are long and thin : PIKES

The pike family of fish are freshwater ambush predators with rows of backward-facing teeth from which prey cannot escape. They are often nicknamed “water wolves”, and they are notorious cannibals. When food is scarce, a significant portion of their diet consists of other pike. Yikes!

Back in the 15th century, a turnpike (tpk., tpke.) was a defensive barrier across a road. By the 17th century the term was used for a barrier that stopped travelers until a toll was paid. By the 18th century a turnpike was the name given to a road with a toll.

A pike is a spear-like weapon that was used as early as the Middle Ages, mainly by European soldiers. It was very long, usually over 10 feet in length, and sometimes over 20 feet.

6D Brain or ear part : LOBE

The four main lobes of the brain are:

• Frontal lobe: Located at the front of the brain, it is responsible for higher cognitive functions such as planning, decision-making, and personality.
• Parietal lobe: Situated behind the frontal lobe, it processes sensory information like touch, temperature, and pain.
• Temporal lobe: Located on the sides of the brain, it plays a role in auditory processing, memory, and emotion.
• Occipital lobe: Found at the back of the brain, it is primarily responsible for visual processing.

18D What cologne may mask : ODOR

Back in 1709, an Italian perfume-maker moved to Cologne in Germany. There he invented a new fragrance that he named Eau de Cologne after his newly adopted town. The fragrance is still produced in Cologne, using a secret formulation. However, the terms “Eau de Cologne” and “cologne”, are now used generically.

29D Big box store that merged with Sears in 2005 : KMART

Kmart was once the third-largest discount store chain in the world, behind Wal-Mart and Target. The company was founded by S. S. Kresge in 1899, with the first outlets known as S. S. Kresge stores. The first “Kmart” stores opened in 1962, with the “K” standing for “Kresge”. Kmart was famous for its promotions known as “blue light specials”, a program first introduced in 1965 and discontinued in 1991. I remember being in a Kmart store soon after coming to live in the US. That evening an employee installed a light stand an aisle away from me, switched on a flashing blue light and there was some unintelligible announcement over the loudspeaker system. I had no idea what was going on …

Richard Sears was a station agent on the railroad. In the late 1800s, he bought up a shipment of unwanted watches that was left at his depot and sold the watches to other agents up and down the line. He was so successful that he ordered more watches and then came up with the idea of using a catalog to promote more sales. Sears hired his first employee in 1887, a watch repairman named Alvah Curtis Roebuck who was brought on to repair watches that were returned. Sears and Roebuck co-founded Sears Roebuck & Co. in 1893. By the mid 1900s, Sears was the biggest retailer in the whole country.

38D Keister, in Leicester : ARSE

Leicester is the county town of Leicestershire in the English Midlands. Leicester has been associated with many famous Englishmen including actor Richard Attenborough and his brother David, the world famous naturalist, both of whom grew up there. Graham Chapman of “Monty Python” was born there, and singer Engelbert Humperdinck, although born in India, grew up in Leicester. Leicester was in the news relatively recently when remains found under a car park were identified as those of Richard III, the last king of the House of York.

40D Singer Redding : OTIS

Otis Redding is often referred to as the “King of Soul”, and what a voice he had. Like so many of the greats in the world of popular music it seems, Redding was killed in a plane crash, in 1967 when he was just 26 years old. Just three days earlier he had recorded what was to be his biggest hit, “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay”.

49D Cooking fat : LARD

The hard fat extracted from the loins and kidneys of beef and mutton is called suet.. Untreated suet decomposes at room temperature quite easily so it has to be rendered, purified to make it stable. Rendered fat from pigs is what we call lard. Rendered beef or mutton fat is known as tallow.

52D Chris with the 1991 hit “Wicked Game” : ISAAK

Chris Isaak’s 1991 hit “Wicked Game” is taken from his 1989 album “Heart Shaped World”. The song took a couple of years to become a hit after release on the album. “Wicked Game” received a boost in popularity after it was featured in the 1990 David Lynch film “Wild at Heart”.

54D Heavens : ETHER

The Greek philosopher Empedocles proposed that there are four elements that made up the universe, namely earth, water, air and fire. Aristotle later proposed a fifth element which he called aether (also “ether”). Aether was the divine substance that made up the stars and planets. We’re still using the term “ether” with a similar meaning, and the extended term “ethereal” to mean “lacking material substance” and “marked by unusual delicacy”.

56D Jessica of “Fantastic Four” : ALBA

“Fantastic Four” is a 2005 movie about the band of comic heroes made famous in Marvel Comics. The Fantastic Four are:

• Mr. Fantastic (played by Ioan Gruffudd)
• The Invisible Woman (played by Jessica Alba)
• The Human Torch (played by Chris Evans)
• Thing (played by Michael Chiklis)