1005-26 NY Times Crossword 5 Oct 26, Monday

Bill’s time: 5m 15s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

5A Request at the bottom of an invitation : RSVP

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

9A Follower of Jah, informally : RASTA

“Jah” is a shortened form of “Jehovah”, and is a name often associated with the Rastafari movement.

17A Famous ___ cookies : AMOS

Wally Amos was a talent agent, one who was in the habit of taking home-baked cookies with him as an enticement to get celebrities to see him. He was urged by friends to open a cookie store (the cookies were that delicious, I guess) and this he did in Los Angeles in 1975 using the name “Famous Amos”. The store was a smash hit and he was able to build on the success by introducing his cookies into supermarkets. The brand was eventually purchased, making Wally a rich man, and Famous Amos cookies are still flying off the shelf. Wally Amos also became an energetic literacy advocate. He hosted 30 TV programs in 1987 entitled “Learn to Read” that provided reading instruction targeted at adults.

18A Downfall in pinball : TILT

In a game of pinball, some players get an irresistible urge to “nudge” the machine. Such a nudge, a movement of the machine designed to influence the path taken by the ball, is called a “tilt”. Most pinball machines have sensors designed to detect a tilt, and when activated a “tilt” warning light comes on and the player’s controls are temporarily disabled. Over time, the term moved beyond pinball and was adopted by poker players. A player described as being “on tilt” is in a state of frustration or confusion, often after experiencing bad luck or a significant loss. The agitated state leads them to abandon sound strategy and make reckless or irrational decisions, much like someone angrily shaking a pinball machine and losing control of the game.

29A Internet meme feline : LOLCAT

A lolcat is an image of a cat with a humorous message superimposed in text. Such images have been around since the late 1800s, but the term “lolcat” only surfaced in 2006 as the phenomenon was sweeping across the Internet. “Lolcat” is a melding of the acronym for “laugh out loud” (LOL) and “cat”.

34A Holiday at the end of Ramadan, informally : EID

Eid al-Fitr is a religious holiday in the Muslim tradition that is known in English as the “Festival of Breaking the Fast”. It marks the end of Ramadan, a period of dawn-to-sunset fasting.

38A Tusked animals : BOARS

Tusks are the front teeth of certain animals that grow continuously. The tusks of wild pigs, hippos and walruses are elongated canine teeth. The tusks of elephants are elongated incisors.

40A Key to Aladdin’s success : MAGIC LAMP

“Aladdin” is a famous tale in “Arabian Nights”, also called “The Book of One Thousand and One Nights”. However, there is no evidence at all that the story was in the original collection. It is generally believed that one Antoine Galland introduced the tale when he translated “Arabian Nights” into French in the early 1700s.

42A ___ Paulo, Brazil : SAO

São Paulo is the largest city in Brazil. It is also the city with the highest number of helicopters in the world. This is partly driven by the horrendous traffic jams in São Paulo, but also by the wealthy having a very real fear of being kidnapped on the city’s streets.

45A Dress seen at Oktoberfest : DIRNDL

The traditional dress worn by females in Austria and southern Germany is called a “dirndl”. The dirndl originated as a hard-wearing dress worn by domestic workers in Austria in the 1800s. It was adopted as a fashionable item worn by upper classes in the 1870s.

48A Black ___ (some spiders) : WIDOWS

“Widow spider” is a common name given to several species of spider in the genus Latrodectus. The name comes from the reported behavior of the female eating the male after the pair have mated. The female wins the battle with the male largely because the female’s venom is three-times as potent as that of the male. The most notorious widow spider is the “black widow”. The female black widow’s venom glands are unusually large and the bite can be quite harmful to humans.

51A Drag performer’s accessory : BOA

The etymology of the term “drag”, as used in the cross-dressing world, seems to be unclear. It perhaps relates to the tendency of a cross-dresser’s skirts to drag along the ground in days of old (although why they just didn’t hitch up their skirts is beyond me!).

52A “Ah, that’s where things get difficult” … or what can be said about 20-, 35- and 40-Across? : THERE’S THE RUB

The phrase “To sleep — perchance to dream” comes from Hamlet’s famous “To be or not to be” soliloquy:

To die — to sleep.
To sleep — perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub!

A rub is a difficulty or obstruction. The usage of the term “rub” predates Shakespeare, and comes from the game of lawn bowls in which a rub is a fault in the bowling surface.

56A Singer Baker : ANITA

Anita Baker is an R&B and soul singer who was raised in Detroit, Michigan. Baker’s most successful song is the Grammy-winning “Sweet Love” that was released in 1986.

59A When Fantine sings “I Dreamed a Dream” in “Les Misérables” : ACT I

“I Dreamed a Dream” is an emotional ballad from the musical “Les Misérables”, composed by Claude-Michel Schönberg. Sung by the character Fantine, it expresses her despair and regret as she reflects on her lost youth and shattered dreams. Originally written in French, the lyrics were revised extensively for the English production of the show. “Les Misérables” was revived in French in 1991, premiering in Montreal. The revived version of “I Dreamed a Dream” was a loose translation of the English lyrics. So, there are two very different French versions of the song floating around.

60A Block toy with its own chain of theme parks : LEGO

There are several Legoland theme parks in the world, with three here in North America: Legoland California, Legoland Florida and Legoland New York. I visited the California facility, in Carlsbad, many years ago and had a great day out …

One of the US parks is in Winter Haven, Florida, another is in Carlsbad, California (which is the one that I’ve visited … a fun place).

62A Occasion for a teen to rent a tux : PROM

Apparently, the style of men’s evening dress called a “tuxedo” was first worn to a country club event in 1886 in New York. The use of a dark dinner jacket without tails became fashionable at the club with the members, and the tradition spread from there. The country club was located in Tuxedo Park, New York, giving the style of dress its name.

Down

1D Tooth covering : ENAMEL

Tooth enamel covers the crowns of our teeth, and is the hardest substance in the human body. It is composed of 96% crystalline calcium phosphate.

5D Cheap hooch : ROTGUT

In the Klondike gold rush, a favorite tipple of the miners was “Hoochinoo”, a liquor made by the native Alaskans. Soon after “hooch” (also “hootch”) was adopted as a word for cheap whiskey.

6D ___ Larsson, author of “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” : STIEG

“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” is a sensational hit novel by the Swedish author Stieg Larsson, originally titled in Swedish as “Men Who Hate Women”. It is the first in a trilogy of successful books, all of which were only published after Larsson’s death.

7D Bygone electric Chevy : VOLT

The Chevrolet Volt first went on sale at the end of 2010, and is a plug-in hybrid car that runs on batteries. The Volt has a gasoline engine that can be used to run an electric generator when needed. The Volt also uses a regenerative braking system. The last Volt came off the assembly line in 2019.

8D Org. that advocates for “cruelty-free” products : PETA

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is a large animal rights organization, with about 400 employees and nine million members and supporters worldwide. Although the group campaigns for animal rights across a broad spectrum of issues, it has a stated focus in opposition of four practices:

• Factory farming
• Fur farming
• Animal testing
• Use of animals in entertainment

30D Commercial lead-in to card : CITI

During the global financial crisis of 2008-2009, the US government rescued Citibank by providing loan guarantees and two payments of $25 billion each. It turns out that the government made a tidy profit on that deal, as Citibank has since repaid the loans in full, along with interest.

32D Musical instrument in the Guinness logo : HARP

Guinness trademarked its famous harp logo way back in 1862. The harp is also a symbol of Ireland. When Ireland became a Free State from the United Kingdom in 1922, the new Irish government had to come up with a different symbol so as not to infringe trademark laws. That’s why Ireland’s harp points in the opposite direction of Guinness’ harp. ‘Tis true, ‘tis true …

36D “___ Window” : REAR

“Rear Window” is a fabulous 1954 Hitchcock movie that is based on a short story called “It Had to Be Murder” by Cornell Woolrich. Stars in the film are James Stewart, Grace Kelly, with Raymond Burr playing the “bad guy”. Great, great movie …

46D Dance craze of the 2010s : DOUGIE

The Dougie is a hip-hop dance that originated in Dallas. The dance took its name from the rapper Doug E. Fresh, who made similar moves during his performances. And no, I can’t Dougie …

47D Hercules had 12 of these : LABORS

“The Twelve Labors of Hercules” is actually a Greek myth, although “Hercules” is the Roman name for the hero that the Greeks called “Heracles”.

49D Playful aquatic animal : OTTER

Sea otters use skin flaps, akin to “pockets”, to store and transport food they find while foraging on the seafloor, allowing them to bring multiple items to the surface to eat. They also use these pockets to carry a favorite rock, which they use as a tool to crack open hard-shelled prey such as clams, mussels, and crabs while floating on their backs. An otter may keep the same rock for its entire life. Wow!

50D Camera lens setting : F-STOP

Varying the f-stop in a lens varies how big the lens opening (the aperture) is when a photograph is taken. Smaller apertures (higher f-stop values) admit less light, but result in a greater depth of field (more of the photograph is in focus).

53D Emulates Big Boi and Lil’ Kim : RAPS

“Big Boi” is the stage name of rapper Antwan André Patton who is best known as one half of the duo Outkast, performing alongside André 3000.

“Lil’ Kim” is the stage name of rap artist Kimberly Denise Jones from Brooklyn, New York. Lil’ Kim spent a year in jail in 2005 for lying to a jury in a case about a shooting.

55D Woods of “Legally Blonde” : ELLE

“Legally Blonde” is a 2001 comedy film starring Reese Witherspoon as a girlish sorority president who heads to Harvard to earn a law degree. “Legally Blonde” was successful enough to warrant two sequels, a prequel TV show, and a spin-off musical that played most successfully in London’s West End (for 974 performances).

58D “If you ask me …,” to a texter : IMO

In my opinion (IMO)