0704-26 NY Times Crossword 4 Jul 26, Saturday

Bill’s time: 12m 12s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1A Bar fight? : RAP BATTLE

Battle rapping (also “rap battling”) is a contest in which two or more rappers “fight it out” using opposing, improvised lyrics. I’d be annihilated …

10A Brand of tights with an apostrophe in its name : L’EGGS

L’eggs is such a clever brand name, I think. It is a brand of pantyhose (L’eggs = legs) with its product sold, well it used to be, in egg-shaped containers (L’eggs = “the” eggs). The brand was introduced in 1969 and was an instant hit. The inventive marketing of L’eggs pantyhose led to a competitive response by Kayser-Roth who introduced the No Nonsense brand in 1973. The idea behind No Nonsense was that the packaging of L’eggs was just a gimmick, and here was a No Nonsense alternative. L’eggs won the battle, though.

17A 1991 blockbuster with the tagline “One breath of oxygen and it explodes in a deadly rage” : BACKDRAFT

1991’s “Backdraft” is an action movie directed by Ron Howard starring Kurt Russell and William Baldwin as Chicago firefighters, and Robert De Niro as a fire investigation officer. There was a Backdraft special effects fire show based on the film at Universal Studios Hollywood from 1992 until 2010. We unintentionally scared our kids by bringing them to see the show a couple of decades ago, and they exited the show in tears …

18A Fax predecessor : TELEX

Telex grew out of the world of the telegraph. What telex brought to telegraphy was the ability to route messages. Instead of having to talk to an operator to route a particular message to the intended party, the user of a telex could route the message directly to another telex machine by way of a rotary dial, one very similar to that on a telephone.

24A Conceptual framework : SCHEMA

A schema is an outline or a model. The plural of “schema” is “schemata” and the adjectival form is “schematic”.

28A Follower of X or G : … MEN

In the Marvel Comics universe, mutants are beings with an X-gene. Such mutants are humans who naturally develop superhuman powers. The most celebrated of these mutants are known as the X-Men.

The nickname “G-men” is short for “government men” and refers to agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

29A Peacock’s home : NBC

The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) has had a number of different logos in its history, including the famous peacock with which we are familiar today. The first peacock logo was introduced in the early days of color television and was designed to illustrate how wonderful color television would be, so go buy one! (NBC was owned by RCA, and so had a vested interest in sales of color television sets).

31A “Gotcha,” to a beatnik : I DIG

The term “beatnik” was coined by journalist Herb Caen in 1958 when he used it to describe the stereotypical young person of the “beat generation”, which is oft associated with the writer Jack Kerouac. That stereotypical beatnik would be playing the bongos, rolling his or her own cigarettes. Male beatniks tended to sport goatees and wear berets.

33A Piece of cartoon memorabilia : CEL

In the world of animation, a cel is a transparent sheet on which objects and characters are drawn. In the first half of the 20th century the sheet was actually made of celluloid, giving the “cel” its name.

35A Golden goal periods, for short : OTS

In some sports, a tied game or match is decided in overtime (OT), with the winner being the first team or player to score a point or a goal. That game-winning score might be referred to as the “golden goal”.

36A “Miracle on 34th Street” actress Maureen : O’HARA

The talented Maureen O’Hara was an Irish actress, someone famous for films made with fellow actor John Wayne and director John Ford. Soon after color films hit the theaters, O’Hara earned the nickname “Queen of Technicolor”. This was because the combination of her vivid red hair and bright green eyes showed off the new technology to full advantage. O’Hara was born in a suburb of Dublin called Ranelagh, where many of my own ancestors were born …

“Miracle on 34th Street” is a classic Christmas film from 1947 starring Maureen O’Hara, John Payne and a very young Natalie Wood. If I might ruin the end of the story for you, Santa Claus does exist … ‘cause the US Post Office says so.

38A Certain Ivy Leaguer : ELI

“Eli” is the nickname for a graduate of Yale University, and a term used in honor of the Yale benefactor Elihu Yale.

39A Painter ___ Thomas, first Black woman to have a solo exhibition at the Whitney Museum : ALMA

Alma Thomas was an African American artist from Georgia who became a member of the Washington Color School art movement. She graduated with a BS from Howard University in 1924, the first graduate from the university’s fine arts program. It is very likely that Thomas was the first woman to gain a bachelor’s degree in art from any school in the US.

42A Bracketed disclaimer : SIC

[Sic] indicates that a quotation is written as originally found, perhaps including a typo. “Sic” is Latin for “thus, like this”. The term is more completely written as “sic erat scriptum”, which translates as “thus was it written”.

47A Second-smallest U.S. state capital by population (about 14,000 people) : PIERRE

Pierre, South Dakota is the second-least populous state capital in the US, with a population of about 14,000. The least populous state capital is Montpelier, Vermont with a population of about 8,000.

49A Animals with prehensile proboscises : TAPIRS

All four species of tapir are endangered or vulnerable. Even though the tapir looks much like a pig, it is more closely related to the horse and the rhinoceros.

A part of the body that is described as prehensile is adapted for grasping. Examples would be an elephant’s trunk and a monkey’s tail.

A proboscis is a long appendage attached to the head of an animal, and is sometimes referred to as an elongated “nose”. Many insects have a proboscis, as does an elephant.

56A First name in cosmetics : ESTEE

Estée Lauder was a very successful businesswoman, and someone with a great reputation as a salesperson. Lauder introduced her own line of fragrances in 1953, a bath oil called “Youth Dew”. “Youth Dew” was marketed as a perfume, but it was added to bathwater. All of a sudden women were pouring whole bottles of Ms. Lauder’s “perfume” into their baths while using only a drop or two of French perfumes behind their ears. That’s quite a difference in sales “volume” …

57A Pioneering P.D.A. : PALMPILOT

Palm Inc. was a company that focused on the design and manufacture of personal digital assistants (PDAs). The company’s most successful models were the groundbreaking PalmPilot PDA, and the Treo 600, which was one of the world’s first smartphones.

59A Soft drink originally made with egg whites : CREAM SODA

Cream soda is a carbonated soft drink that is flavored with vanilla. There is a suggestion that the name “cream soda” was chosen as the taste is reminiscent of an ice cream soda. I’m not so sure …

Down

1D One of the Starks on “Game of Thrones” : ROBB

Robb Stark is a prominent character in George R. R. Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire” novels, and in the TV adaption of the books “Game of Thrones”. He is portrayed by Scottish actor Richard Madden in the show.

2D Berry spelled with a cedilla : ACAI

A cedilla is the diacritical mark found under the letter C in many French words, as in the words “garçon” and “façade”.

5D Milky Way’s nearest major galaxy : ANDROMEDA

Our galaxy is the Milky Way, and the nearest “spiral galaxy” to ours is the Andromeda Galaxy. Andromeda is not the nearest galaxy, as that honor belongs to the Canis Major Dwarf Galaxy.

6D #MeToo movement activist Burke : TARANA

The use of the #MeToo hashtag was encouraged initially by actress Alyssa Milano in 2017 to draw attention to sexual assault and sexual harassment. Milano was acting in response to the growing number of allegations against film producer Harvey Weinstein. The use of the phrase “Me Too” in the context of sexual misconduct dates back to 2006. Social activist Tarana Burke started to use the phrase on the Myspace social network after a 13-year-old girl told her that she had been sexually assaulted. Apparently, Burke had no response at the time the girl confided in her, but later wished she had responded, “Me too”.

8D Observation by Oscar Wilde about the relationship between reality and creativity : LIFE IMITATES ART

The philosophical concept of anti-mimesis is often referred to as “life imitating art”. Oscar Wilde used the latter expression in his 1889 essay “The Decay of Lying”, asserting that “Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life”. Wilde promoted anti-mimesis with the example of the all too common fog seen in London. Fog hung over the city periodically for centuries, but it only came to be considered a thing of beauty after artists and poets convinced us of its loveliness. The beauty of fog did not exist until “Art” invented it.

9D “Mangia!” : EAT!

“Mangia!” is Italian for “Eat!” and is a word often used in the names of Italian restaurants or in brand names of Italian foods.

11D Elysia : EDENS

In Greek mythology, Elysium was part of the Underworld where heroic and virtuous souls were laid to rest. Nowadays we use the word “Elysium” to mean a place or condition of ideal happiness, a Garden of Eden.

12D False idol in the Old Testament : GOLDEN CALF

According to the Book of Exodus in the Bible, Moses’ brother Aaron made a golden calf as an idol for the Israelites to worship while Moses was on Mount Sinai receiving the Ten Commandments. When Moses returned, he became angry on seeing the calf, a “false idol”, and destroyed it.

13D Army specialist with a headwear-inspired nickname : GREEN BERET

The US Army Special Forces are known as the Green Berets because they wear … green berets. The Green Beret is also worn by the Royal Marines of the UK’s Royal Navy. When US Army Rangers and OSS operatives were trained by the Royal Marines in Scotland during WWII, graduates of the gruelling training program were awarded green berets by their British instructors. The US soldiers, although proud of their new headgear, were not allowed to wear it as part of their uniform. They had to wait until 1961, when President Kennedy authorized the green beret for exclusive use by US Special Forces.

24D Cardiac exam on a treadmill : STRESS TEST

A sonogram of the heart is referred to as an echocardiogram. Echocardiography is often employed in the test commonly known as a stress echo. Images of the heart are taken at rest and “under stress”, when the heart rate is at maximum after the patient has walked on a treadmill.

25D Gochujang, e.g. : CHILI PASTE

Gochujang is a red, fermented chili paste used in Korean cuisine. The traditional way of preparing the condiment is by allowing it to ferment for years in an earthenware pot on a stone platform in the back garden.

26D Blade runner? : HELICOPTER

Our term “helicopter” was absorbed from the French word “hélicoptère” that was coined by Gustave Ponton d’Amécourt in 1861. D’Amécourt envisioned aircraft that could fly vertically using rotating wings that “screwed” into the air. He combined the Greek terms “helix” meaning “spiral, whirl” and “pteron” meaning “wing” to give us “helicopter”.

40D The Indianapolis 500 has 200 of them : LAPS

The Indianapolis 500, often referred to simply as “the Indy 500”, is an iconic automobile race held annually at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Speedway, Indiana. It’s one of the oldest and most prestigious auto races in the world, famous for its 500-mile distance.

44D President who married one of his kindergarten classmates : TRUMAN

Harry Truman and Bess Wallace first met when they were very young children at Sunday school. They were friends right through high school and became engaged in 1918, just before Harry went off to France during WWI, and married the next year. Bess Truman never really took to the Washington scene when she became First Lady and stayed out of the limelight as much as she could. Perhaps that contributed to her longevity. Mrs. Truman lived to the age of 97, making her the longest living First Lady in US history.

48D Loggers’ competition : ROLEO

The log-rolling competition traditionally engaged in by lumberjacks is referred to as “roleo”.

50D Former French president ___ Coty : RENE

René Coty was the President of France from 1954 to 1959 (succeeding Vincent Auriol), and notably presided over the Algerian War. Coty resigned after five years, making way for the 7-year term of Charles de Gaulle.