0928-26 NY Times Crossword 28 Sep 26, Monday

Bill’s time: 6m 39s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1A Widespread disorder : HAVOC

Havoc is great damage or destruction. The term “havoc” comes from the Anglo-French phrase “crier havok”, which was an order given to soldiers in the Middle Ages, instructing them to seize plunder.

6A Like the exteriors of armadillos : SCALY

The nine-banded armadillo is the most common species of armadillo found in the Americas. The “bands” are bits of armor that circle the body of the armadillo. The term “nine-banded” is a bit of a misnomer as there aren’t always nine bands, but there are usually seven to eleven.

17A Solid baseball hit : LINER

In baseball, a line drive (“liner”) is a ball that is hit low, hard and straight.

20A Bicycle built for two : TANDEM

Back in the mid- to late-1700s, a tandem was a horse-drawn carriage, one with the two horses harnessed one behind the other. A century later, we applied the term “tandem” to a bicycle with two seats, and the two riders one behind the other.

22A Round Table title : SIR

King Arthur (and his Round Table) probably never really existed, but his legend is very persistent. Arthur was supposedly a leader of the Romano-British as they tried to resist the invasion of the Anglo-Saxons in the late 5th and early 6th centuries.

27A Alternative to French fries : TATER TOTS

Ore-Ida’s founders came up with the idea for Tater Tots when they were deciding what to do with residual cuts of potato. They chopped up the leftovers, added flour and seasoning, and extruded the mix through a large hole making a sausage that they cut into small cylinders. We eat 70 million pounds of this extruded potato every year!

31A Skill needed to solve sudoku : LOGIC

Number puzzles similar to our modern-day Sudoku first appeared in French newspapers in the late 1800s. The format that we use today was created by Howard Garns, a 74-year-old freelance puzzle constructor from Connersville, Indiana, and first published in 1979. The format was introduced in Japan in 1984 and given the title of “Sūji wa dokushin ni kagiru”, which translates to “the digits are limited to one occurrence”. The rather elaborate Japanese title was eventually shortened to Sudoku. No doubt many of you are fans of Sudoku puzzles. I know I am …

42A Coconut Girl Scout cookies : SAMOAS

Depending on which bakery makes the particular variety of Girl Scout cookies, the name can vary. For example, Little Brownie Bakers makes Samoas, while ABC Bakers uses a similar recipe and calls the cookies Caramel deLites. The assumption is that these cookies have the exotic name “Samoas” because they contain the tropical ingredients of coconut and cocoa. The most popular variety of Girl Scout cookies sold is Thin Mints.

43A “La Cage ___ Folles” : AUX

The musical “La Cage aux Folles” opened on Broadway in 1983. It is an adaptation of the French play of the same name by Jean Poiret that was first staged in 1973. I’ve never had the pleasure of seeing the stage play nor the musical, but I love the wonderful movie adaptation called “The Birdcage”, which was released in 1996. The film has a very strong cast that includes Robin Williams, Nathan Lane, Gene Hackman and Hank Azaria.

56A Performs a stylish ballroom dance : TANGOS

The dramatic tango dance originated in the late 1800s in the area along the border between Argentina and Uruguay. Dancers and orchestras from Buenos Aires in particular traveled to Europe and beyond in the early twentieth century and brought the tango with them. The tango craze first struck Europe in Paris in the 1910s, and from there spread to London and Berlin, crossing the Atlantic to New York in 1913.

63A San Francisco ballplayer : GIANT

Today’s San Francisco Giants baseball team was founded in 1883 as the New York Gothams. The team’s name was changed to the Giants in 1885, and the franchise moved to San Francisco in 1958.

64A Actress de Armas : ANA

Ana de Armas is an actress from Cuba. Having attended the National Theater School of Cuba, she moved to Spain at the age of 18. There, she made a name for herself in a Spanish TV series called “El Internado”. De Armas moved to Los Angeles in 2014, after which her performance opposite Ryan Gosling in 2017’s “Blade Runner 2049” earned her critical acclaim.

67A Kylo ___ of “Star Wars” : REN

Kylo Ren is the son of Han Solo and Princess Leia Organa in the “Star Wars” universe. The character’s birth name was Ben Solo. He was trained as a Jedi knight by his uncle, Luke Skywalker. However, Ben came to embrace the Dark Side, and changed his name to Kylo Ren. Ren is played by actor Adam Driver.

68A Stockholm native : SWEDE

Stockholm is the capital of Sweden and the most populous city in the country. Over one fifth of all Swedish residents live in the Stockholm metropolitan area.

Down

2D Puccini’s “O mio babbino caro,” e.g. : ARIA

“O mio babbino caro” is a really beautiful aria from Giacomo Puccini’s opera “Gianni Schicchi”.

3D Kind of diagram with overlapping circles : VENN

Englishman John Venn was an expert in the field of logic, and introduced the Venn diagram in an 1880 philosophical paper before popularizing it in his book “Symbolic Logic” in 1881. Venn diagrams are used in set theory, to illustrate the logical relationships between sets of variables.

4D Antsy : ON EDGE

The word “antsy” embodies the concept of “having ants in one’s pants”, meaning being nervous and fidgety. However, “antsy” has been used in English since the 1830s, whereas “ants in the pants” originated a century later.

7D Places to hang clothes : CLOSETS

In Old French a “clos” was an enclosure, with the diminutive form “closet” describing a small enclosure or private room. Over time this evolved into our modern usage of “closet”, describing a cabinet or cupboard.

9D The Scales, zodiacally : LIBRA

Libra is the seventh sign of the zodiac, and is named for the scales held by the goddess of justice. It is the only sign of the zodiac that isn’t named for a living creature.

12D Funny Ferrell or Rogers : WILL

Will Ferrell is a comedian and comic actor from Irvine, California who got his big break as a cast member on “Saturday Night Live” (SNL) in the mid-nineties. While appearing on SNL, Ferrell was noted for several impersonations, including President George W. Bush, Neil Diamond, James Lipton, Ted Kennedy and Janet Reno.

Will Rogers was such a successful actor that he was the highest paid Hollywood star in the 1930s. Sadly, his career was cut short as he died in a plane crash in 1935. Piloting the doomed aircraft was famed aviator Wiley Post, the first person to fly solo around the world.

26D Happy as a ___ : CLAM

Our phrase “happy as a clam” dates back to the 1830s in the northeastern United States. Back then it was also used as a more lengthy expression: “happy as a clam at high water” (or “in the mud at high tide”). The idea was that a clam would be happy in its muddy home at high tide, because no one from land could get to it and eat it.

27D City NE of Oklahoma City : TULSA

Tulsa is the second-largest city in the state of Oklahoma (after Oklahoma City). Tulsa started out as a settlement established by the Loachapoka and Creek Native American tribes in 1836. These early settlers called their new home “Tallasi” meaning “old town”, and this name morphed into “Tulsa” that we use today.

32D Actress Greta of “Queen Christina” : GARBO

Actress Greta Garbo was born Greta Lovisa Gustafsson in Stockholm, and earned the moniker the “Swedish Sphinx” due to her intensely guarded private life and absolute refusal to grant interviews, sign autographs, or attend award ceremonies. She retired from the silver screen in 1941, when only 35 years old. She spent the next fifty years living in relative seclusion in New York City.

Greta Garbo famously portrayed Queen Christina in the 1933 film “Queen Christina”. The real Christina of Sweden (1626-1689) was quite the unconventional monarch. She ascended to the throne at age six, eventually converted to Catholicism and refused to marry. So, she abdicated at 28 and moved to Rome. Her decision to abdicate caused a considerable stir across Europe, as it was highly unusual for a reigning monarch to voluntarily give up their crown.

34D Dugout, e.g. : CANOE

The boat known as a canoe takes its name from the Carib word “kenu” meaning “dugout”. It was Christopher Columbus who brought “kenu” into Spanish as “canoa”, which evolved into our English “canoe”.

41D ___ Guofeng, successor of Mao Zedong : HUA

In China, the term “paramount leader” has been used since the days of Mao Zedong to describe the person who holds several leadership offices concurrently. The paramount leaders have been:

1. Mao Zedong (1949 – 1976)
2. Hua Guofeng (1976 – 1978)
3. Deng Xiaoping (1978 – 1992)
4. Jiang Zemin (1989 – 2004)
5. Hu Jintao (2002 – 2012)
6. Xi Jinping (2012 – )

46D Top to accompany a skirt : BLOUSE

A blouse is a loose-fitting shirt, particularly one worn by women or children. The term “blouse” is French, and originally described a peasant’s smock.

47D Like the fate of Ophelia : TRAGIC

In William Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”, Ophelia is courted by Hamlet, the man himself. She is the daughter of nobleman Polonius. Ophelia dies …

48D Peak : ZENITH

The nadir is the direction pointing immediately below a particular location (through to the other side of the Earth for example). The opposite direction, that pointing immediately above, is called the zenith. We use the terms “nadir” and “zenith” figuratively to mean the low and high points in a person’s fortunes.

57D “Shallow” singer Lady ___ : GAGA

“Lady Gaga” is the stage name of Stefani Germanotta. Germanotta is a big fan of the band Queen, and she took her stage name from the marvelous Queen song titled “Radio Ga Ga”.

61D N.F.L. three-pointers: Abbr. : FGS

In American football, three points (pts.) are awarded for a field goal (FG).