1107-26 NY Times Crossword 7 Nov 26, Saturday

Bill’s time: 11m 12s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1A Beetle alternative beginning in 1961 : MINI COOPER

The original Mini was a fabulous car, one that I drove all over Ireland in my youth. It had a unique front-wheel-drive layout that took up very little space, allowing for a lot of room (relatively speaking) for passengers and baggage. One space-saving trick was to mount the engine transversely, so it sits rotated 90 degrees from the norm. That engine had a capacity of only 848cc. In 1961, a Mini Cooper model was introduced, which was a sporty version. The Mini Cooper was a phenomenal hit, especially after repeated wins in the Monte Carlo Rally. The Mini marque has been owned by BMW since 1994.

11A Texting tech, for short : SMS

Short Message Service (SMS) is the name for the text messaging service that many of us still use on our cell phones to contact friends and family.

15A Word with square or value : … MEAL

A square meal is one that is substantial and nourishing. According to some sources, the phrase “square meal” originated with the Royal Navy, and the square wooden plates on which meals were served. However, this centuries-old practice has an unlikely origin as the phrase was first seen in print in the US, in 1856. An advertisement for a restaurant posted in a California newspaper offers a “square meal” to patrons, in the sense of an “honest, straightforward meal”. The “honest” meaning of “square” was well-established at the time, as in “fair and square”, “square play” and “square deal”.

16A Krypton, to Superman : HOME PLANET

Superman was sent to Earth in a rocket as a child by his parents, who remained on the doomed planet of Krypton. On Earth, the child was discovered by Jonathan and Martha Kent, farmers who lived near the fictional town of Smallville. The Kents raised the infant as their own, giving him the name Clark, which was Ma Kent’s maiden name.

19A Head of Togo or Congo : TETE

Togo is a country on the West African coast, and one of the smallest nations on the continent. It is located between Ghana to the west, Benin to the east and Burkina Faso to the north.

The Republic of the Congo is an African nation located on the western coast of the continent, straddling the equator. The Congo made up most of the French Congo starting in 1882, and became fully independent from France in 1960.

20A Beatles song subject who is “filling in a ticket in her little white book” : RITA

“Lovely Rita” is a Beatles song on the “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” album. When the album was released in 1967, the term “meter maid” wasn’t used in the UK, although it was a slang term used in the US. The song helped spread the usage of “meter maid” all around the English-speaking world. Apparently the inspiration for the song was McCartney getting a parking ticket one day outside the Abbey Road Studios. He accepted the ticket with good grace, from a warden named Meta Davis. McCartney felt that Meta “looked like a ‘Rita’”, so that was the name she was given in the song.

21A Football blocking group, informally : O-LINE

Offensive line (O-line)

23A “The breath of art,” per Frank Lloyd Wright : SPACE

The architect Frank Lloyd Wright embraced the philosophy of designing structures that were in harmony with the environment. One of his most famous works is an elaborate home in rural Pennsylvania known as Fallingwater, which is partially built over a waterfall.

25A Kid-friendly business? : GOAT FARM

Male goats are bucks or billies, although castrated males are known as wethers. Female goats are does or nannies, and young goats are referred to as kids.

28A Sporty car type : COUPE

The type of car known as a “coupe” or “coupé” is a closed automobile with two doors. The name comes from the French word “couper” meaning “to cut”. In most parts of the English-speaking world the pronunciation adheres to the original French, but here in most of North America we go with “coop”. The original coupé was a horse-drawn carriage that was cut (coupé) to eliminate the rear-facing passenger seats. That left just a driver and two front-facing passengers. If the driver was left without a roof and out in the open, then the carriage was known as a “coupé de-ville”.

29A Post-run activity : APRES-SKI

“Après-ski” is a French term meaning “after skiing”. It refers to the good times to be had after coming off the slopes.

31A “12 Angry Men” director, 1957 : LUMET

As a movie director, Sidney Lumet had a great string of celebrated films to his name including “12 Angry Men”, “Dog Day Afternoon”, “Network” and “The Verdict”. Although nominated for an Academy Award for Best Director for each of these films, he never won an individual Oscar. However, the Academy gave Lumet the recognition he deserved in 2005 by presenting him with an Honorary Award.

The powerful 1957 movie “12 Angry Men” was directed by Sidney Lumet, and has a stellar cast of “jury members” including Henry Fonda, Lee J. Cobb, Jack Klugman and Ed Begley. If ever there is a movie that clearly was based on a play, it’s this one. Practically the whole film takes place on one set, the jury room.

34A It features one leg perpendicular to the other : TREE POSE

The tree pose in yoga is more correctly known as “vrikshasana”. It involves standing on one leg, with the other leg bent and the foot placed on the inner thigh of the straight leg. The hands are placed together and raised directly over the head.

37A Practices salat, in Islam : PRAYS

Salah (also “salat”) are daily prayers performed by the faithful in the Islamic tradition. Collectively, the prayers form the second of the Five Pillars of Islam.

50A Beowulfian, say : EPIC

An epic is a long narrative work, originally poetic in form, featuring heroic deeds and ventures. Classic examples are Homer’s “Iliad” and “Odyssey”, and the Old English “Beowulf”. The epic hero often embodies the values of a civilization, like Odysseus and his Greek cunning, and like Beowulf and his Anglo-Saxon courage.

52A Father of King Minos : ZEUS

Minos was the King of Crete in Greek mythology, and the son of Zeus and Europa. Minos had an elaborate labyrinth built under the island that was designed by the architect Daedalus and his son Icarus (who famously died trying to escape from the island by “flying” away). In the labyrinth, King Minos kept the Minotaur, a dreadful creature with the head of a bull on the body of a man.

54A First to seven? : ESS

The first letter of the word “seven” is an S (ess).

Down

1D ___ scale : MOHS

The Mohs scale of mineral hardness was developed in 1812 by Friedrich Mohs. Basically Mohs took minerals and scratched them with other minerals. In this way he was able to determine which minerals were hardest (most scratch resistant) and which softest. On the scale, diamond is the hardest (and rated 10), while talc is the softest (and rated 1).

3D Titular Pixar character who’s mistakenly called names like Bingo, Chico and Fabio : NEMO

“Finding Nemo” is a 2003 animated blockbuster from Pixar. The film was the winner of the Oscar that year for Best Animated Feature. Believe it or not, “Finding Nemo” is the best-selling DVD of all time. It was also the highest-grossing G-rated movie until 2010’s “Toy Story 3”.

7D Hawaiian word for “family” : OHANA

The Hawaiian word “ʻohana”, meaning “family”, stems from (pun!) “ʻohā”, which describes the root or corm of the taro plant. Because taro is considered the spiritual and dietary staple of traditional Hawaiian culture, “ohana” implies that all extended relatives grow and flourish from the exact same root system. The term became extremely popular after the release of the 2002 Disney film “Lilo & Stitch”, which used the mantra “ʻohana means family, and family means nobody gets left behind, or forgotten”.

8D Atari release of 1972 : PONG

Do you remember the arcade video game that is like a game of tennis, with paddles moving up and down to hit what looks like a ball, over what looks like a net? Well, that is Pong. The arcade version of Pong was introduced in 1972, with Atari selling a home version through Sears for the Christmas market in 1975.

11D Tennis feat completed by Novak Djokovic in 2016 (but named for a different player) : SERENA SLAM

The term “Serena Slam” is a reference to tennis star Serena Williams. It describes the winning of four major tournaments in a row. This compares with a “Grand Slam”, the winning of the four major tournaments within the same season.

Novak Djokovic is a Serbian tennis player and former world No. 1 ranked player. Djokovic is quite the character on and off the court, earning him the nickname “Djoker”. He is also very popular on the talk-show circuit, all around the world. It helps that Djokovic is fluent in several languages.

22D Smartphone tech abbr. : LTE

In the world of telecommunications, the initialism LTE stands for Long-Term Evolution, and is a wireless broadband communication standard. In general terms, LTE improves broadband speeds. As I understand it, LTE technology allows a 3G network to perform almost as well as a true 4G network, and so LTE is sometimes marketed as 4G LTE, even though it’s really “3G plus”.

23D What the Fox evidences in an Aesop fable : SOUR GRAPES

Our expression “sour grapes” is used to describe a negative attitude adopted by somebody towards something just because that person can’t have the thing himself or herself. The phrase alludes to one of Aesop’s fables, the story of “The Fox and the Grapes”. In the fable, a fox repeatedly attempts to jump up and reach a high cluster of grapes on a vine, but is unsuccessful. On giving up, the fox declares that the grapes were probably sour anyway.

28D Digs for a dove : COTE

The Old English word “cote” was used to describe a small house. Our modern word “cottage” comes from “cote”. We now use “cote” to describe a small shelter on a farm for sheep or birds. In an urban context, a cote is more likely to house racing pigeons.

31D Football coach who famously said “Winning isn’t everything; it’s the only thing” : LOMBARDI

Football player and coach Vince Lombardi had quite a few motivating lines, including:

• Winning is not a sometime thing, it is an all the time thing. You don’t do things right once in a while … you do them right all the time.
• The dictionary is the only place that success comes before work.

37D Woolen outerwear : PEACOAT

A peacoat (also “pea jacket”) is a heavy woolen outer jacket originally associated with sailors. Nowadays anyone wears them (they’re very comfortable and warm).

40D Band whose “Live at Leeds” album went double platinum : THE WHO

The Who were an English rock band formed in 1964, bringing together famed musicians Roger Daltrey, Pete Townshend, John Entwistle and Keith Moon. According to “Rolling Stone” magazine, the Who were the third arm of the holy trinity of British rock, alongside the Beatles and the Rolling Stones.

42D Makeup titan Elizabeth : ARDEN

“Elizabeth Arden” was the business name used by Canadian-American Florence Nightingale Graham. Arden built a cosmetics empire that made her one of the wealthiest women in the world. Arden had a famous rivalry with fellow cosmetics entrepreneur Helena Rubinstein, and that rivalry even spawned a 2016 stage musical called “War Paint”.

43D Group of Mediterranean appetizers : MEZE

Meze is a platter of small dishes served as appetizers in several Mediterranean locales.

47D Retail chain whose first two letters are the first and last initials of its founder : IKEA

The IKEA furniture chain was founded by Ingvar Kamprad in 1943, when he was just 17 years old. IKEA is an acronym standing for Ingvar Kamprad Elmtaryd Agunnaryd (don’t forget now!). Elmtaryd was the name of the farm where Ingvar Kamprad grew up, and Agunnaryd is his home parish in Sweden.

49D City east of Ithaca : TROY

Troy is a city in New York State situated on the eastern bank of the Hudson River. Before its incorporation as Troy in 1789, the settlement was known as Ashley’s Ferry, a name that reflects its early role as a river crossing point. The city later became a significant manufacturing center during the Industrial Revolution, particularly renowned for its iron and textile industries.