0920-26 NY Times Crossword 20 Sep 26, Sunday

Bill’s time: 22m 31s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

11A NASCAR stat that varies widely by venue : LAP TIME

The acronym “NASCAR” stands for the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing. The association is actually a privately held company that was founded in 1948 and is headquartered in Daytona Beach, Florida. NASCAR is very, very popular and commands the second-largest television audience of any professional sport in America, second only to football.

18A Banderas of 2024’s “Babygirl” : ANTONIO

Antonio Banderas is an actor from Málaga in Andalusia on the southern coast of Spain. Banderas’s breakthrough role in Hollywood was as the gay lover of the Tom Hanks character in 1993’s “Philadelphia”. He was married for 20 years to actress Melanie Griffith, whom he met in 1995 while filming “Two Much”.

24A Maligns : ASPERSES

To asperse is to spread false charges or make insinuations. The more common expression is “to cast aspersions”. “To asperse” comes from the Latin “aspergere” meaning “to sprinkle”. So, “to asperse” is also the term used when sprinkling holy water.

25A With 23-Across, March Madness tournament round : SWEET SIXTEEN (TWO to the power of FOUR)

In the NCAA Division I Basketball Championship, the teams remaining at various stages of the tournament are known as:

• The “Sweet Sixteen” (the regional semi-finalists)
• The “Elite Eight” (the regional finalists)
• The “Final Four” (the national semi-finalists)

29A Pact that preceded the U.S.M.C.A. : NAFTA

The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was a treaty between Canada, Mexico and the United States. When NAFTA came into force in 1994, it set up the largest free trade zone in the world. It was replaced by the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) in 2020, an agreement that is often referred to as NAFTA 2.0 because it largely maintains the provisions in the original NAFTA treaty.

30A Burnable bog stuff : PEAT

When dead plant matter accumulates in marshy areas, it may not fully decay due to a lack of oxygen or acidic conditions. We are familiar with this in Ireland, because this decaying matter can form peat, and we have lots and lots of peat bogs around the country.

33A High-speed Olympic sport : 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!

37A With 34-Across, full extent of something : WHOLE NINE YARDS (THREE to the power of TWO)

We use the phrase “the whole nine yards” to mean “everything” or “all the way”. It first appeared in an 1855 short story “The Judge’s Big Shirt”. In the story, a judge is pranked by having a massive shirt made for him by a tailor. The prankster feigns innocence saying, “What a silly, stupid woman! I told her to get just enough to make three shirts; instead of making three, she has put the whole nine yards into one shirt!”

43A “Holy moly!” : GOD!

The mild expletive “Holy moly!” is a euphemism for “Holy Moses!”

46A Red-coated cheese : EDAM

Edam cheese takes its name from the Dutch town of Edam in North Holland. The cheese is famous for its coating of red paraffin wax, a layer of protection that helps Edam travel well and prevents spoiling. You might occasionally come across an Edam cheese that is coated in black wax. The black color indicates that the underlying cheese has been aged for a minimum of 17 weeks.

48A Bigwig : HOTSHOT

A bigwig is someone important. The use of the term “bigwig” harks back to the days when men of authority and rank wore … big wigs.

57A “Red” or “1989,” to Swifties : 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

58A Buck ___, first African American coach in Major League Baseball : O’NEIL

Buck O’Neil was a first baseman and manager with the Kansas City Monarchs, a team in the Negro American League. He was appointed as a coach with the Chicago Cubs in 1962, making him the first African-American coach in the major leagues.

60A Extremely soft, in music: Abbr. : PPP

The musical term “pianissimo” is abbreviated to “pp”, and is an instruction to the performer to sing or play very softly. The concept can be extended to “ppp”, short for “pianississimo”, an instruction of play even more softly. The opposite instructions are fortissimo (ff) and fortississimo (fff), instructions to perform very loudly, and even more loudly.

63A Chew the fat : YAK

The expression “chew the fat” is possibly a reference to 19th-century sailors gnawing on salt pork with a thick rind while grumbling about their lot in life.

64A With 62-Across, Beatles classic with the lyric “Will you still need me / Will you still feed me” : WHEN I’M SIXTY-FOUR (FOUR to the power of THREE)

“When I’m Sixty-Four” is a 1967 Beatles song composed by Paul McCartney. McCartney may have been looking forward to “when he’s sixty-four”, but he wrote the song when he was only 16 years old.

67A Noted exile isle : ELBA

Napoleon was sent into exile twice. A coalition of European powers sent him to the island of Elba in Tuscany in 1814, only for him to escape after a year and return to power. After Wellington defeated him at Waterloo, Napoleon was dispatched to the British-owned island of St. Helena in the South Atlantic, where he spent the last six years of his life.

69A Energy-efficient bulb, for short : LED

A light-emitting diode (LED) is a specialized form of semiconductor that when switched on releases photons (light). LEDs have many applications, from status indicators in consumer electronics to high-efficiency display backlighting. They are also used as replacements for the much less-efficient tungsten light bulbs. I replaced all of my tungsten Xmas lights many years ago and saved a lot on my electricity bill.

71A ___ orange, tree whose fruit has a brainlike appearance : OSAGE

The Osage orange is also known as the horse apple, and is a deciduous tree native to North America. The wood of the tree was prized by Native Americans, particularly the Osage nation, who used it to make bows. The Osage Orange was also called “bois d’arc” (meaning “bow-wood”) by early French settlers, a reference to the local usage. This French name was corrupted into “bodark” and “bodarc”, another name for the same tree.

72A Native Nebraskans : OTOES

Nebraska gets its name from the Platte River which flows through the state. “Nebraska” is an anglicized version of Otoe and Omaha words meaning “flat water”.

76A Author who purportedly drew inspiration from a filing cabinet labeled “O-Z” : BAUM

L. Frank Baum (the “L” is for Lyman) is famous for writing “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz”. Writing early in the 20th century, Baum actually described in his books things that had yet to be invented, like television, laptop computers and wireless telephones.

83A Narnia or Neverland : REALM

Apparently, it’s not certain how CS Lewis came to choose Narnia as the name of the fantasy world featured in his series of children’s books, including “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe”. There was an ancient city in Umbria that the Romans called Narnia, but there is no evidence of a link.

Neverland is the fictional location where Peter Pan lives in the works of J. M. Barrie. The name actually evolved in Barrie’s works, starting out as “Peter’s Never Never Never Land”. Also, Barrie used the names “the Never Never Land”, “the Neverland” and “the Neverlands”. Famously, entertainer Michael Jackson renamed Sycamore Valley Ranch as Neverland Valley Ranch when he took ownership in 1988, in a nod to “Peter Pan”.

87A Violinmaker of Cremona : AMATI

Cremona is a city in Lombardy in northern Italy that lies on the Po river. It has a rich musical history and was the home to famous craftsmen who made stringed instruments, including Stradivari and several members of the Amati family.

92A Follower of John in the New Testament : ACTS

The Acts of the Apostles is the fifth book of the Christian New Testament. It is believed that the author of the Gospel of Luke was the same person who wrote “Acts”.

“Gospel” is a term that came to us via Old English. The Old English term is “godspel” meaning “good story”, and referred to the glad tidings announced by Jesus. There are four Gospels in the Christian New Testament: the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

94A Chef with “New New Orleans”-style cooking : LAGASSE

Emeril Lagasse is an American chef who was born in Massachusetts. Lagasse first achieved celebrity as executive chef in Commander’s Palace in New Orleans. Now famous for his television shows, his cuisine still showcases New Orleans ingredients and influences. Lagasse started using his famous “Bam!” catchphrase in order to keep his crew awake during repeated tapings of his show.

96A Greatest guy? : ALI

Muhammad Ali fought Sonny Liston for the World Heavyweight Championship twice. The first bout was in 1964 in Miami, and the second in 1965 in Lewiston, Maine. In the first fight, Liston failed to come out of his corner for the seventh round. On seeing this, Ali (or “Cassius Clay” as he was then) ran to the ropes yelling “I’m the greatest!” and “I shook up the world”.

100A Part of SCOTUS : THE

Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS)

101A With 97-Across, Vegas casino machine : ONE-ARMED BANDIT (NINE to the power of ZERO)

Slot machines earned the nickname “one-armed bandits” simply because they had “one arm”, the handle pulled to operate the machine. Well, they also rob your money!

112A Culprit, in police lingo : PERP

Perpetrator (perp)

A culprit is a person guilty of a crime, or is perhaps the source of a problem. The term “culprit” comes from Anglo-French with an interesting etymology. Back in the day, a prosecutor opening a trial would use the words “Culpable: prest (d’averrer nostre bille)” meaning “guilty, ready (to prove our case)”, which was abbreviated to “cul. prit”. The abbreviated French was mistakenly applied in English as a term to describe the defendant, i.e. “culprit”.

113A Modern pentathlon equipment : EPEE

The original pentathlon of the ancient Olympic games consisted of a foot race, wrestling, long jump, javelin and discus. When a new pentathlon was created as a sport for the modern Olympic Games, it was given the name the “modern pentathlon”. First introduced in 1912, the modern pentathlon consists of:

1. pistol shooting
2. épée fencing
3. 200m freestyle swimming
4. show jumping
5. 3km cross-country running

116A Actress Christine whose last name sounds like a pair of musical notes : LAHTI

Christine Lahti is an actress probably best known for playing Dr. Kate Austen on the TV medical drama “Chicago Hope”. If you read “The Huffington Post” you might run across her as well, as Lahti is a contributing blogger.

120A Number written above and to the right of another number … as seen five times in this puzzle? : EXPONENT

The exponent of a number is the power to which it is raised, perhaps “2” for a square or “3” for a cube.

126A Armand of “American Gangster” : ASSANTE

Armand Assante is an actor from New York City, the son of an Italian father and an Irish mother. Despite being an American, Assante is noted for playing non-Americans in movies. He played a Frenchman in 1980’s “Private Benjamin” and a Cuban bandleader in 1992’s “The Mambo Kings”.

131A Move fast, as a cloud : SCUD

To scud is to move swiftly as if propelled forward. The term is often used with reference to clouds, scudding across the sky.

Down

1D Pampering place for a Persian : CAT SPA

The Persian is that long-haired cat with a squashed muzzle. The breed takes its name from its place of origin, namely Persia (Iran).

3D Watch via Hulu, say : STREAM

Hulu.com is a website providing streaming video of full television shows. It is now owned by Disney, and so features a lot of Disney content.

7D Sitcom character from Melmac : ALF

“ALF” is a sitcom that first aired in the late eighties. The title character is a hand-puppet, and supposedly an alien named Gordon Shumway from the planet Melmac. The alien crash-landed into the house of amateur radio enthusiast Willie Tanner. Tanner renamed the intruder “ALF”, standing for “alien life form”.

8D Aussie animals : ROOS

The word “kangaroo” comes from the Australian Aborigine term for the animal. There’s an oft-quoted story that the explorer James Cook (later Captain Cook) asked a local native what was the name of this remarkable-looking animal, and the native responded with “Kangaroo”. The story is that the native was actually saying “I don’t understand you”, but as cute as that tale is, it’s just an urban myth.

10D Alfalfa shoot : SPROUT

The forage crop known as alfalfa may take its name from the Arabic “al-fisfisa” meaning “fresh fodder”.

12D Weisshorn or Finsteraarhorn : ALP

The Weisshorn is quite a famous peak in the Swiss Alps, one noted for its pure white slopes and pyramidal shape. The name “Weisshorn” translates from German as “White Peak”).

The Finsteraarhorn is the highest of the Alps that lies outside of the main chain, actually in the Bernese Alps in Switzerland. The Finsteraarhorn is the ninth highest peak in the whole of the Alps.

14D Island containing Kiribati’s capital : TARAWA

Tarawa is a Pacific atoll that used to be the capital of the British ruled Gilbert Islands. It is now the capital of the Republic of Kiribati, and is known as South Tarawa. The island was occupied by the Japanese in WWII, before they were ousted by the US Marines in November 1943. The 76-hour battle was bloody, and cost 6,000 lives.

17D Feminine pronoun in Florence : ESSA

Florence is the capital city of the Tuscany region in Italy. The city is considered the birthplace of the Renaissance, as it was a hub of artistic and intellectual activity. It attracted some of the greatest artists and thinkers of the era, such as Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Galileo Galilei.

36D With nary a chance : NOHOW

The adjective “nary” means “not one”, as in “nary a soul” or even “nary a one”.

41D Female rabbit : DOE

An adult male rabbit is a buck, and an adult female is a doe. A young rabbit is a kitten or kit.

42D Elbow-bender : SOT

Our word “sot” comes from the Old English “sott”, meaning “fool”. The word “sot” started to be associated with alcohol and not just foolery in the late 1500s. The derivative term “besotted” means “muddled with drunkenness”, or more figuratively “infatuated”.

44D Popular singer of the Hawaiian folk song “Pearly Shells” : DON HO

Honolulu-born singer Don Ho was a veteran of the US Airforce. He joined up in 1954 and graduated from flight school as a fighter pilot. However, he spent much of his active service flying C-97 Stratofreighters.

49D Sonicare competitor : ORAL-B

The Oral-B toothbrush was introduced to the world in 1950, designed by a California periodontist. The first “model” was the Oral-B 60, a name given to reflect the 60 tufts in the brush. In 1969, the Oral-B was the first toothbrush to get to the moon as it was the toothbrush of choice for the crew of the Apollo 11 spacecraft.

Sonicare is a brand of electric toothbrush made by Dutch electronics giant Philips. I’ve been using my Sonicare for years now, which earns me a pat on the back from my dentist every time I visit her …

50D Reschedule, so to speak : TAKE A RAIN CHECK

The original rain check is a complimentary ticket for a future game given to paying spectators at a baseball game that has been canceled due to rain. The first such rain checks were issued in the 1870s. The first professional team to use a rain check system were the St. Louis Brown Stockings, in 1877.

53D Letters on a lip balm tube : SPF

Sun protection factor (SPF)

56D Some old Disney collectibles : CELS

Animation cels are transparent sheets made of celluloid acetate that were used in traditional hand-drawn animation to create animated films. They were first introduced in the 1930s and were widely used in animation production until the late 1990s, when digital animation techniques began to dominate the industry.

61D Tables : PUTS ASIDE

These “tabling” and “shelving” idioms drive me crazy, because they are often misused. If a topic is shelved, it is set aside. If a topic is tabled, it is brought “off the shelf” and put “on the table” for discussion. I know that language evolves, but I think that it should at least make sense …

65D Stiller’s comedic partner : MEARA

Anne Meara married fellow comedic actor Jerry Stiller in 1954. The couple’s children are actors Ben and Amy Stiller. Meara co-starred with Carroll O’Connor and Martin Balsam in the eighties sitcom “Archie Bunker’s Place”, a spin-off from “All in the Family”.

66D Incur a cellphone surcharge, perhaps : ROAM

A cell phone user may encounter a roaming charge when roaming, when using their phone outside of the geographic coverage offered by the user’s cell phone provider. Basically, a partner network is providing coverage when roaming, and may impose a charge for the privilege of using the partner’s service.

68D Electrical impulse transmitters : AXONS

A nerve cell is more correctly called a neuron. The long nerve fiber that conducts signals away from the neuron is known as the axon. The axon is surrounded by a myelin sheath, which acts as an electrical insulator and which increases the rate the impulses pass along the axon.

74D Priced to be, as bail : SET AT

In most states in the US, it is legal for a bail bond agent to post bail for someone facing trial. Bail bond agencies are commercially driven enterprises, and are peculiar to the United States. In the rest of the developed world, posting a defendant’s bond for profit is considered illegal.

79D Home of NoHo and SoHo : NYC

“NoHo” is short for “North of Houston (street)”, and is the equivalent area to SoHo, South of Houston, both of which are neighborhoods in New York City.

The Manhattan neighborhood known today as SoHo was very fashionable in the early 1900s, but as the well-heeled started to move uptown the area became very run down and poorly maintained. Noted for the number of fires that erupted in derelict buildings, SoHo earned the nickname “Hell’s Hundred Acres”. The area was then zoned for manufacturing and became home to many sweatshops. In the mid-1900s artists started to move into open loft spaces and renovating old buildings as the lofts were ideal locations in which an artist could both live and work. In 1968, artists and others organized themselves so that they could legalize their residential use of an area zoned for manufacturing. The group they formed took its name from the name given to the area by the city’s Planning Commission i.e “South of Houston”. This was shortened from So-uth of Ho-uston to SoHo as in “SoHo Artists Association”, and the name stuck.

84D Lascivious look : LEER

“Lascivious” is such an appropriate-sounding word, I always think. It means “lecherous, salacious”.

85D Old-timey teacher : MARM

“Marm” is short for “schoolmarm”, a quaint term for a female teacher.

90D ___ Lilly (Mounjaro maker) : ELI

Eli Lilly is the largest corporation in the state of Indiana. Founder Eli Lilly was a veteran of the Union Army in the Civil War, and a failed Mississippi plantation owner. Later in life he returned to his first profession and opened a pharmaceutical operation to manufacture drugs and sell them wholesale. Under Lilly’s early guidance, the company was the first to mass-produce gelatin capsules to hold medicines and the first to use fruit flavoring in liquid medicines.

91D Pointe shoe accessories : TOE PADS

“En pointe” is ballet dancing on the tips of the toes, and is a French term. A ballerina wears pointe shoes (sometimes “toe shoes”) to perform this delightful-looking, albeit unhealthy, feat (pun!).

93D Amy who wrote “Saving Fish From Drowning” : TAN

“Saving Fish From Drowning” is a 2005 novel by Amy Tan about twelve American tourists traveling through China and Burma.

95D Balloon pilot, say : AERONAUT

An aeronaut is a pilot of a craft that is lighter than air, like a hot air balloon for example.

103D State with only three counties: Abbr. : DEL

The largest US states by land area are, in order:

1. Alaska
2. Texas
3. California
4. Montana
5. New Mexico

The smallest US states are:

1. Rhode Island
2. Delaware
3. Connecticut
4. New Jersey
5. New Hampshire

105D High-level H.S. class with derivatives : AP CALC

Remember doing calculus at school, and all those derivatives and integrals? Well, you probably also remember that an integral calculates the area under a curve (for example), and a derivative calculates the slope of a tangent at a particular point on a curve.

106D Star football player? : TEXAN

The Houston Texans football team has been in the NFL since 2002. Houston had been home to the Oilers football team, but that franchise moved to Nashville in 1997 to become the Tennessee Titans.

114D Surrey’s Derby town : EPSOM

The Surrey town of Epsom in England is most famous for its racecourse (Epsom Downs), at which the Epsom Derby is run every year, one of the three races that make up the English Triple Crown. We also come across “Epsom salts” from time to time. Epsom salt is magnesium sulfate, originally prepared by boiling down mineral waters. Epsom was indeed a spa town at one time. The town is also home to Epsom College, an English “public school” (which actually means “private, and expensive”). One of Epsom’s “old boys” was the Hollywood actor Stewart Granger.

116D Singer/dancer/actress Falana : LOLA

Lola Falana is a singer, dancer and actress who grew up in Philadelphia. In the sixties Falana had an affair with, and later became good friends with, Sammy Davis Jr. Davis helped get her act into Las Vegas where she was very successful, eventually earning Falana the nickname “Queen of Las Vegas”. With her success came money, and so she became the highest-paid female performer in Vegas at that time. Sadly, Falana fell ill with multiple sclerosis, a disease that forced her to cut short her career as an entertainer.

118D Org. supporting sobriety checkpoints : MADD

Candace Lightner lost her 13-year-old child to a drunk-driver in 1980. Soon after, Lightner formed the group Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD).

119D Father of five sons in the Bible : ESAU

Esau is a son of Isaac, and someone whose story is told in the Bible’s Book of Genesis. Esau had three wives, Adah, Aholibamah and Bashemath.

121D ___ buco : OSSO

Osso buco is a traditional Italian dish that is typically made with veal shanks that are braised with vegetables and herbs. The name “osso buco” means “bone with a hole” in Italian, which refers to the marrow-filled bone in the center of the veal shank. The marrow is considered a delicacy and is often scooped out and served with the dish.