1010-25 NY Times Crossword 10 Oct 25, Friday

Bill’s time: 12m 52s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1A Viking of cartoon fame : HAGAR

“Hägar the Horrible” is a comic strip that was created by the late Dik Browne and is now drawn by his son, Chris Browne. “Hägar the Terrible” (not “Horrible”) was the nickname given to Dik by his sons. The strip’s title character is a red-bearded Viking living on the Norwegian coast during the Middle Ages. Hägar lives with his overbearing wife Helga, his sensitive son Hamlet, his pretty daughter Honi, and his clever dog Snert.

6A Claustrophobe’s desire : OPEN SPACE

Claustrophobia is a fear of not being able to escape from a small enclosed space. The term derives from the Latin “claustrum” meaning “a shut-in place” and the Greek “phobos” meaning “fear”.

15A Best-selling singer whose album titles are all Arabic numerals : ADELE

“Adele” is the stage name of English singer Adele Adkins. Adele’s debut album is “19”, named after the age she was during the album’s production. Her second album was even more successful than the first. Called “21”, the second album was released three years after the first, when Adele was three years older. Her third studio album “25”, released in 2015, broke the first-week sales records in both the UK and the US. “30” followed in 2021.

The numbers that we use in English and most other languages (0, 1, 2, 3 etc.) are Arabic numerals, also called Hindu-Arabic or Indo-Arabic numerals. The concept of positional numbers was developed by the Babylonians, and the first use of “zero” is attributed to mathematicians in the Indian subcontinent.

18A Key ingredients in cong you bing, a savory Chinese pancake : SCALLIONS

Scallions are edible plants with a mild onion flavor. They are also called green onions or spring onions.

21A Christopher Nolan movie with a palindromic name : TENET

British director Christopher Nolan was best known for some time for “rescuing” the floundering Batman movie franchise. In that series, Nolan directed “Batman Begins” and “The Dark Knight”. He was also at the helm of a couple of sci-fi movies that I really enjoyed, namely “Inception” (2010) and “Interstellar” (2014). And then, along came “Oppenheimer” …

32A Sch. that’s home to Mike the Tiger (and his 15,000-square-foot habitat) : LSU

The Tigers are the sports teams of Louisiana State University (LSU). They are officially known as the Fightin’ Tigers, and the school mascot is “Mike the Tiger”. The name comes from the days of the Civil War, when two Louisiana brigades earned the nickname the “Louisiana Tigers”. Given the French/Cajun history of Louisiana, the LSU fans use the cheer “Geaux Tigers” instead of “Go Tigers”.

36A 12 pgs., maybe : MOS

Understanding months and years might have been a lot easier if we had settled on 13 “months” in a year, with a “month” comprising the four weeks that it takes to go through a complete lunar cycle (full moon to full moon). Every month would have been 4 weeks long, and it would be easy to understand why there are 52 weeks in a year (13 months x 4 weeks). Instead, we “mess” around with 12 “messy” months …

37A Tempo between lento and adagio : LARGO

Largo is an instruction to play a piece of music with a very slow tempo. “Largo” is an Italian word meaning “broadly”. The instruction “larghetto” means “play broadly”, and “Larghissimo” means “play very, very slowly”.

38A Ecological community : BIOME

I tend to think of “biome” as another word for “ecosystem”.

39A Colonial homes? : ANT FARMS

“Formicary” is another name for “ant nest”, and comes from the Latin “formica” meaning “ant”. The phrase “ant colony” describes the ants living in an ant nest. A formicarium is similar to an aquarium, and used to house an ant colony perhaps for study. The phrase “ant farm” is usually reserved for ant nests built by an ant colony in a formicarium.

41A Packs of zombies : HORDES

A horde is a large crowd. “Horde” ultimately derives from the Turkish “ordu” meaning “camp, army”.

55A Longtime alternative to Altoids : CERTS

Certs were the first breath mints to be marketed nationally in the US, hitting the shelves in 1956. A Cert is called a mint, but it isn’t really as it contains no mint oil and instead has its famous ingredient named “Retsyn”. Retsyn is a mixture of copper gluconate (giving the green flecks), partially hydrogenated cottonseed oil (not healthy!) and flavoring (maybe mint?).

Altoids breath mints have been around since 1780, when they were introduced in Britain. The famous tin in which Altoids are sold is often reused for other purposes. The most famous use is as a container for a mini-survival kit.

Down

1D Instrument in the emblem of Ireland : 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 …

6D Kaitlin of “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” : OLSON

Deandra “Sweet Dee” Reynolds is a character played by Kaitlin Olson on the sitcom “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia”. Ronald “Mac” McDonald is also a character on the show, played by Rob McElhenney. Olson and McElhenney met on set, and married in 2008.

8D A.Q.I. measurer : EPA

The air quality index (AQI) is monitored by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

11D Base for a bust : PLINTH

A plinth is a block on which something is placed, especially a column. The Greek word “plinthos” means “squared stone”.

14D Locales for some residents, in brief : ERS

A resident is a physician who has graduated from medical school, and who is receiving specialized graduate training in a hospital. The concept of residency developed in the late 1800s. Back then, the doctors would often “reside” in hospital-provided housing while receiving the training, hence the term “resident”.

23D Sentiment during el día de San Valentín : TE AMO

“I love you” translates into “te amo” in Spanish, “Ich liebe dich” in German, and “je t’aime” in French.

In Spanish, Saint Valentine’s Day is usually translated as “el Día de San Valentín”. Another possibility is “el Día de los Enamorados”, which translates literally as “the day of those who have fallen in love”.

25D Company whose stock price cratered in the early 2000s : ENRON

After all the trials following the exposure of fraud at Enron, several of the key players ended up in jail. Andrew Fastow was the Chief Financial Officer. He plea-bargained and received ten years without parole, and became the key witness in the trials of others. Even Fastow’s wife was involved and she was sentenced to one year for helping her husband hide money. Jeffrey Skilling (ex-CEO) was sentenced to 24 years and 4 months. Kenneth Lay (CEO) died in 2006 after he had been found guilty but before he could be sentenced. The accounting firm Arthur Andersen was found guilty of obstruction of justice for shredding thousands of pertinent documents and deleting emails and files (a decision that the Supreme Court later overturned on a technicality). But still, Arthur Andersen collapsed under the weight of the scandal and 85,000 people lost their jobs (despite only a handful being directly involved with Enron).

26D Not-so-private diaries : BLOGS

Many folks who visit this website regard it as just that, a website. That is true, but more specifically it is referred to as a blog, as I make regular posts (actually daily posts) that then occupy the “front page” of the site. The blog entries are in reverse chronological order, and one can just look back day-by-day, reading older and older posts. “Blog” is a contraction of the term “web log”.

27D A+ giver? : BLOOD DONOR

Here is an approximate distribution of blood types across the US population:

• O-positive: 38 percent
• O-negative: 7 percent
• A-positive: 34 percent
• A-negative: 6 percent
• B-positive: 9 percent
• B-negative: 2 percent
• AB-positive: 3 percent
• AB-negative: 1 percent

29D Nonet of Greek mythology : MUSES

In Greek mythology, the muses are the goddesses who inspire the creation of literature and the arts. The number of muses is a subject of debate at times, but the most popular view is that there are nine:

• Calliope (epic poetry)
• Clio (history)
• Erato (lyric poetry)
• Euterpe (music)
• Melpomene (tragedy)
• Polyhymnia (choral poetry)
• Terpsichore (dance)
• Thalia (comedy)
• Urania (astronomy)

Before the adoption of the nine muses of Greek mythology, there were originally three muses, the three Boeotian Muses. These were:

• Mneme (memory)
• Melete (meditation)
• Aoede (song)

35D Something you might have while trying to move quickly : FIRE SALE

A fire sale is a sale of goods at deeply discounted prices. The original fire sales were sales of goods that had been damaged in a fire, hence the name.

37D Actress/activist Cox : LAVERNE

Actress Laverne Cox’s big break came with the role Sophia Burset on the hit show “Orange is the New Black”. The Burset character is a trans woman and, in flashbacks on the show, the pre-transition Burset is portrayed by Laverne’s identical twin brother Reginald, known by the stage name M Lamar. In 2018, Laverne became the first openly transgender woman to make the cover of a “Cosmopolitan” magazine, and is also the first openly transgender woman to have a wax figure representation of herself in Madame Tussauds.

41D The Rockets, on a scoreboard : HOU

The Houston Rockets NBA team was founded as a league expansion team in 1967 in San Diego. The Rockets relocated to Houston in 1971. Surprisingly (to me), the Rockets were not named for Houston’s connection to NASA. The “Rockets” moniker was partly due to San Diego’s more tenuous NASA connection. General Dynamics’ San Diego operation developed and built the first Atlas rockets, including those used in Project Mercury.

45D Rams legend Dickerson : ERIC

Eric Dickerson is a retired NFL player. He set the league’s single-season rushing record (2,105 yards) in 1984. Because he was short-sighted, he wore prescription goggles for his whole professional career.

49D ___ choy : BOK

Bok choy is a variety of Chinese cabbage. “Bok choy” translates as “white vegetable”.