1017-25 NY Times Crossword 17 Oct 25, Friday

Bill’s time: 10m 50s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

5 Plant often confused with algae : MOSS

There is a traditionally-held belief that in the northern hemisphere there is a heavier growth of moss on the north-facing side of trees. The assumption is that the sun creates a drier environment on the south side of the tree, an environment that is less conducive to the growth of moss.

9 “The Craft” : WICCA

Wicca is a relatively new phenomenon. It is a Neopagan religion that developed in the twentieth century. Typically, followers of Wicca worship one goddess and one god, namely the Moon Goddess and the Horned God. A follower of Wicca is called a Wiccan or a Witch.

16 Amazon smart speakers : ECHOS

Amazon Echo is a voice-controlled hardware device that can be used to provide several services including playing radio programs and music, recording of shopping lists, and managing a calendar. The device just sits in the home listening, until it hears a “wake up” command.

17 British singer with the top 10 albums “Crash” and “Brat” : CHARLI XCX

“Charli XCX” is the stage name of English singer/songwriter Charlotte Aitchison.

19 Some suitors : BEAUS

A beau (plural “beaux”) is the boyfriend of a belle, a young lady. “Beau” and “belle” are the masculine and feminine forms of the French word for “handsome, beautiful”.

21 Sake, for one : RICE WINE

We refer to the Japanese alcoholic beverage made from rice as “sake”. We’ve gotten things a bit mixed up in the West. “Sake” is actually the word that the Japanese use for all alcoholic drinks. What we know as sake, we sometimes refer to as rice wine. Also, the starch in the rice is first converted to sugars that are then fermented into alcohol. This is more akin to a beer-brewing process than wine production, so the end product is really a rice “beer” rather than a rice “wine”.

27 Mental image, for short? : EEG

An electroencephalogram (EEG) is a record of electrical activity caused by the firing of neurons within the brain. The EEG might be used to diagnose epilepsy, or perhaps to determine if a patient is “brain dead”.

35 Lab liquids : SERA

Blood serum (plural “sera”) is the clear, yellowish part of blood i.e. that part which is neither a blood cell nor a clotting factor. Included in blood serum are antibodies, the proteins that are central to our immune system. Blood serum from animals that have immunity to a particular disease can be transferred to another individual, hence providing that second individual with some level of immunity. Blood serum used to pass on immunity can be called “antiserum”.

36 Max ___, boxer nicknamed “Madcap Maxie” : BAER

Max Baer was an American Heavyweight Champion of the World in the thirties. Baer held the title for 364 days, and then went into the ring after hardly any training at all against the well-prepared James J. Braddock. Braddock was a huge underdog, and yet emerged victorious after 15 rounds (Braddock is the subject of the 2005 movie “Cinderella Man”). By the way, Baer’s son is Max Baer, Jr., the actor who played Jethro on “The Beverly Hillbillies”.

39 Longtime Nestlé candy brand : SNO-CAPS

Sno-Caps are a brand of candy usually only available in movie theaters. They have been around since the 1920s, would you believe?

41 Arizona tribe with matrilineal clans : HOPI

The Hopi people are a Native American tribe primarily residing on three mesas in northeastern Arizona. They are renowned for their cultural traditions, which predate European contact by centuries, including intricate kachina dolls, ceremonial dances, and a history of peaceful agriculture in an arid environment.

“Matrilineal” means relating to ancestral descent through the maternal line.

42 1992 Whoopi Goldberg comedy : SISTER ACT

The 1992 comedy “Sister Act” stars Whoopi Goldberg as a lounge singer from Reno who hides out in a San Francisco convent disguised as a nun. It’s a funny, funny film.

47 Popular name of the 1958 Italian hit “Nel Blu, Dipinto di Blu” : VOLARE

The song we know as “Volare” doesn’t actually have that name. Its real name is “Nel blu dipinto di blu” (translating as “In the Blue Painted Blue”). The Italian lyrics tell of how the singer feels like he is flying when he is with his lover (“volare” is the Italian for “to fly”). The original version has a prelude, which helps put the “blue” and the “flying” in perspective … “I think that a dream like that will never return; I painted my hands and my face blue, then was suddenly swept up by the wind and started to fly in the infinite sky.”

48 ___ month : LUNAR

A solar calendar is based on the 365 1/4 days it takes for the earth to orbit the sun. A lunar calendar is based on the moon’s phases, and has 12 lunar months of 29-30 days, with the “lunar year” ending eleven days earlier than the “solar year”. So, solar and lunar calendars are always out of sync. There is a device called an epact that adjusts the lunar calendar to bring it into sync with the solar calendar.

52 Biblical locale in a Steinbeck title : EDEN

According to the Bible’s Book of Genesis, after Cain murdered his brother Abel, he fled to the “Land of Nod”. Nod was located “east of Eden” (from which John Steinbeck got the title for his celebrated novel “East of Eden”).

53 Golfer Aoki : ISAO

Isao Aoki is one of Japan’s greatest golfers. Aoki’s best finish in a major tournament was runner-up to Jack Nicklaus in the 1980 US Open.

Down

1 Historic Émile Zola letter of 1898 : J’ACCUSE!

The most famous work by French writer Émile Zola is his 1898 open letter “J’Accuse!” written to French president Félix Faure. The letter was published on the front page of a leading Paris newspaper, and accused the government of anti-Semitism in its handling of the trial of Captain Alfred Dreyfus. Dreyfus was a Jewish military officer in the French army, falsely accused and convicted of spying for Germany. Even after the error was discovered, the government refused to back down and let Dreyfus rot away on Devil’s Island rather than admit to the mistake. It wasn’t until 1906, 12 years after the wrongful conviction, that Dreyfus was freed and reinstated, largely due to the advocacy of Emile Zola.

4 Less prolix : TERSER

Something described as “prolix” is excessively wordy and prolonged.

5 Customizable Nintendo avatars : MIIS

Nintendo introduced customizable avatars for the company’s video game consoles starting in 1997. The first customizable avatars for the Wii system were introduced in 2006, and were given the inventive name “Miis”.

6 Mac platform renamed in 2016 : OS X

Apple introduced the OS X Operating System in 2000. Each version of this operating system has had a code name, and that code name until recently has been a type of big cat. The versions and code names are:

• 10.0: Cheetah
• 10.1: Puma
• 10.2: Jaguar
• 10.3: Panther
• 10.4: Tiger
• 10.5: Leopard
• 10.6: Snow Leopard
• 10.7: Lion
• 10.8: Mountain Lion
• 10.9: Mavericks
• 10.10: Yosemite
• 10.11: El Capitan
• 10.12: macOS Sierra
• 10.13: macOS High Sierra

24 Bills worth 100 buckaroos : BENS

Benjamin Franklin’s portrait is featured on one side of the hundred-dollar bill (also called a “C-spot, C-note, benjamin”), and Philadelphia’s Independence Hall on the other side. There is a famous error in the image of Independence Hall. If you look closely at the clock face at the top of the building you can see that the “four” is written in Roman numerals as “IV”. However, on the actual clock on Independence Hall, the “four” is denoted by “IIII”, which has been the convention for clock faces for centuries.

26 British singer with the hits “R.I.P.” and “Radioactive” : RITA ORA

Rita Ora is a British singer who was born Rita Sahatçiu in Pristina, Yugoslavia to Albanian parents. The family name “Sahatçiu” comes from a Turkish word meaning “watchmaker”. Rita’s parents changed their name to make it easier to pronounce. So, the family name morphed from “watchmaker” to “time”, which is “ora” in Albanian.

33 America, for one: Abbr. : CAPT

Captain America is a fictional superhero in comics published by Marvel Comics. He is the alter ego of a weak man called Steve Rogers who was given an experimental serum by the US Government during WWII.

34 DC figure since 1938 : SUPERMAN

Superman’s origins can be traced back to an illustrated short story titled “The Reign of the Superman” created by high school classmates Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster in 1933. That first “Superman” wasn’t a very glamorous character. He was a vagrant who gained psychic powers and used them for nefarious purposes. By the time that Siegel and Shuster put together a comic strip called “The Superman”, the title character had evolved into a superhero. The pair sold all rights to “The Superman” character to Detective Comics in 1938 for the princely sum of $130.

36 Brand of rum mentioned in Hemingway novels : BACARDI

The Bacardi company is still family-owned and operated, and is based in Hamilton, Bermuda. The company was founded in Santiago de Cuba and became successful by selling a refined form of rum, something new to a market that was used to a crude, dark rum. The Bacardi family opposed the Castro regime as it came to power, so the company had to relocate to Bermuda.

38 Certain unit of detergent : TIDE POD

The dark side of social media struck again in late 2017 when “The Tide Pod Challenge” became an Internet sensation. Participants were eating Tide detergent pods on camera, and getting very sick and dangerously injured.

42 Capital that’s home to the oldest university in the Western U.S. (1842) : SALEM

Willamette University is a private school in Salem, Oregon that is the oldest university in the whole of the Western US. It was founded in 1842 as the Oregon Institute.

44 Upper house of the French parliament : SENAT

In French, the “Parlement français” (French parliament) is divided into the “Sénat” (Senate) and the “Assemblée nationale” (National Assembly).

47 Plant on a pergola : VINE

A pergola looks somewhat like a gazebo in structure, but it is an open walkway with vines trained up the sides and over the top. “Pergola” ultimately derives from the Latin “pergula”, the word for a covered eave.

50 ___ Lingus : AER

Aer Lingus is my favorite airline! Well, the service isn’t that great, but when I get on board an Aer Lingus plane I feel like I am back in Ireland. Aer Lingus is the national airline of Ireland, with “Aer Lingus” being a phonetic spelling of the Irish “aer-loingeas” meaning “air fleet”. These days Aer Lingus can only lay claim to the title of Ireland’s oldest airline as it is no longer the biggest. That honor goes to the controversial budget airline Ryanair.