1121-23 NY Times Crossword 21 Nov 23, Tuesday

Constructed by: Kevin Christian & Andrea Carla Michaels
Edited by: Will Shortz

Today’s Reveal Answer: Bean Counter

Themed answers each end with a kind of BEAN:

  • 56A Corporate number cruncher who might be interested in the ends of 17-, 26-, 37- and 47-Across? : BEAN COUNTER
  • 17A “Slumdog Millionaire” actress : FREIDA PINTO (giving “pinto bean”)
  • 26A High-end ridesharing option : UBER BLACK (giving “black bean”)
  • 37A Bach piece whose title sounds a bit risque : AIR ON THE G STRING (giving “string bean”)
  • 47A U.K. military force : ROYAL NAVY (giving “navy bean”)

Bill’s time: 6m 15s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1 Highly rated March telecast, with “the” : … OSCARS

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) is the organization that gives the annual Academy Awards, also known as the “Oscars”. The root of the name “Oscar” is hotly debated, but what is agreed is that the award was officially named “Oscar” in 1939. The first Academy Awards were presented at a brunch in 1929 with an audience of just 29 people. The Awards ceremony is a slightly bigger event these days …

7 Actor Michael of “Juno” : CERA

Michael Cera is a Canadian actor who played great characters on the TV show “Arrested Development”, and in the 2007 comedy-drama “Juno”. Cera is also quite the musician. He released an indie folk album titled “True That” in 2014.

“Juno” is a great comedy-drama released in 2007 that tells the story of a spunky teenager who is faced with an unplanned pregnancy. The title character is played by Ellen Page, with Michael Cera playing the father of her child. The film won an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. The relatively low-budget movie earned back its initial budget on the first day of its full release to the public. Low-budget blockbuster; my kind of movie …

11 “Hot” stage item : MIC

One of my favorite hot-mic moments took place in 2005, when Paris and London were vying to host the 2012 Olympics. French President Jacques Chirac compared Paris and London in that context while chatting with Russian President Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. Chirac said, over a hot mic:

The only thing that they have ever done for European agriculture is mad cow disease … You cannot trust people who have such bad cuisine.

14 Bit of broccoli : FLORET

The Italian term “broccolo” is used to describe the flowering crest of a cabbage. We use the plural form of the same word “broccoli” as the name of the edible green plant in the cabbage family.

17 “Slumdog Millionaire” actress : FREIDA PINTO (giving “pinto bean”)

The brilliant film “Slumdog Millionaire” is a screen adaptation of a 2005 novel by Indian author Vikas Swarup. A low-budget movie, it ended up winning eight Oscars in 2008. I reckon it turned a profit …

Pinto beans are so-called because their skins have a mottled (“pinto”) appearance.

19 Air Force ___ : ONE

We usually use the term “Air Force One” for the purpose-built military aircraft that transports the president, although any plane can use the call sign provided the president is aboard. There was an incident in 1953 in which a flight carrying President Eisenhower (flight no. Air Force 8610) flew close to a commercial airliner (flight no. Eastern 8610). The special call sign “Air Force One” was created soon after in order to avoid confusion of flight numbers in the future.

20 “Dracula” author Stoker : BRAM

Bram Stoker was an Irish writer best known for the 1897 novel “Dracula”. Stoker’s fame as an author came after his death. During his lifetime he was better known as the personal assistant of renowned English actor Henry Irving. It is believed that Stoker used Irving as his inspiration for the title character in “Dracula”.

23 ” ___ Lama Ding Dong” : RAMA

“Rama Lama Ding Dong” was a hit in 1961, although it had been released in 1957 under the erroneous title “Lama Rama Ding Dong” and didn’t quite make it. The song was recorded by the doo-wop group called the Edsels, named after the latest (and “doomed”) Ford automobile. Before becoming the Edsels, the group was called the Essos, after the oil company.

26 High-end ridesharing option : UBER BLACK (giving “black bean”)

Transportation network company Uber was founded in 2009 as “UberCab”. The company name was changed to “Uber” in 2011. The name change was largely driven by complaints from taxi operators in San Francisco.

29 Become a YouTube sensation, say : GO VIRAL

YouTube is a video-sharing website that was launched in 2005 by three ex-PayPal employees. Google bought YouTube in 2006 for $1.65 billion. Yep, $1.65 billion, less than two years after it was founded …

32 Fairy king in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” : OBERON

Oberon and Titania are the King and Queen of the Fairies in Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”.

“A Midsummer Night’s Dream” is one of William Shakespeare’s comedies. An interesting characteristic of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” is that it features a play-within-a-play. The cast of characters includes a troupe of six actors called the Mechanicals who perform a play called “Pyramus and Thisbe”.

34 Fannie ___ (finance company) : MAE

The Federal National Mortgage Association is commonly called “Fannie Mae”, a play on the initialism “FNMA”. Fannie Mae was founded during the Great Depression as part of President Roosevelt’s New Deal.

37 Bach piece whose title sounds a bit risque : AIR ON THE G STRING (giving “string bean”)

The second movement of Johann Sebastian Bach’s “Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D major” is a very recognizable piece of music. Its renown is largely due to August Wilhelmj’s arrangement of the movement for violin and piano, which has come to be known as “Air on the G String“.

“Risqué” is a French word, the past participle of the verb meaning “to risk”. So in English we use “risqué” to mean “racy”, but in French it means “risky”.

Snap beans are also known as green beans or string beans.

41 Stuff attached to an Acme detonator, in cartoons : TNT

The Acme Corporation is a fictional company used mainly by Looney Tunes, and within the Looney Tunes empire it appears mostly in “Road Runner” cartoons. Wile E. Coyote is always receiving a new piece of gear from Acme designed to finally capture the Road Runner, but the equipment always leads to his downfall.

43 Primitive shelter : LEAN-TO

By definition, a lean-to is a building in which the rafters lean against the wall of another building. A lean-to shelter has a similar appearance, although it is free-standing. The shelter has a single-pitched roof and only three walls.

44 Gelatin made from seaweed : AGAR

Agar (also “agar-agar”) is a jelly extracted from seaweed that has many uses. Agar is found in Japanese desserts, and can also be used as a food thickener or even as a laxative. In the world of science, it is the most common medium used for growing bacteria in Petri dishes.

46 American military construction force : SEABEES

The Seabees are members of the Construction Battalions (CB) of the US Navy, from which the name “Seabee” originates. There’s a great 1944 movie called “The Fighting Seabees” starring John Wayne that tells the story of the birth of the Seabees during WWII. The Seabees’ official motto is “Construimus. Batuimus”, Latin for “We build. We fight.” The group’s unofficial motto is “Can Do!”

47 U.K. military force : ROYAL NAVY (giving “navy bean”)

The motto of the Royal Navy is “Si vis pacem, para bellum”, which translates as “If you want peace, prepare for war”.

A navy bean is a white bean, and is the bean commonly found in the dish known as “baked beans”. It can also be called a haricot bean. The term “navy bean” is used because haricot beans were a staple for sailors in the 19th-century US Navy.

51 Group of buffalo : HERD

There are two species of bison left (four species are extinct). We are most familiar with the American bison (commonly called the American buffalo), but there is also a European bison, which is sometimes called a “wisent”.

52 Stately potato? : IDAHO

Idaho has the nickname “Gem State”, mainly because almost every known type of gemstone has been found there. Idaho is also sometimes called the Potato State, as potatoes are such a popular crop in the state. I’d go for the potatoes over the gems, but that’s probably just me. Oh, and Idaho license plates have borne the slogan “Famous Potatoes” for decades …

53 Scuttlebutt, say : INFO

Just as modern day office workers gather around the water cooler to gossip, on board a ship back in the early 1800s the sailors would gather around the water barrel on the deck to shoot the breeze. That water barrel was called a “scuttlebutt”, from “scuttle” (opening in a ship’s deck) and “butt” (barrel). Quite interesting …

63 “Men ___ from Mars …” : ARE

“Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus” is a very popular 1993 book about male-female relationships by John Gray. Gray’s thesis is that relationships benefit from understanding that men and women are different, have different needs, communicate differently, are metaphorically from two different planets.

64 The “E” of EGOT : EMMY

The acronym “EGOT” stands for “Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony”, and is a reference to performers who have won all four awards.

65 “Be all you can be” sloganeer : US ARMY

Army Strong replaced “Army of One” as the current recruiting slogan used for the US Army in 2006. Prior to that, “Be All You Can Be” was the army’s slogan for more than twenty years.

66 Drug studied by Timothy Leary : LSD

Timothy Leary was a psychologist and writer, an icon of the sixties counterculture and a promoter of the use of LSD. Leary popularized the phrase “Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out” in the sixties. After he died, some of Leary’s ashes were “buried” in space, launched aboard a rocket that contained the ashes of 24 other people including “Star Trek” creator Gene Roddenberry.

Down

3 Iowa college : COE

Coe College is a private school in Cedar Rapids, Iowa that was founded in 1851. Coe is affiliated with the Presbyterian Church. It was founded in 1851 as the School for Prophets. A farmer named Daniel Coe made a donation of $1,500 towards a campus in Cedar Rapid, but added the requirement that it be a co-educational institution. The school opened as the Cedar Rapids Collegiate Institute, and was renamed as Coe College Institute in 1875 in recognition of the original donation.

5 Snoopy’s nemesis : RED BARON

Snoopy, the famous beagle in the “Peanuts” comic strip, has a number of alter-egos and is sometimes depicted as a World War I flying ace. Snoopy’s arch-enemy in the air is Manfred von Richthofen, the Red Baron, and Snoopy can often be seen shaking his fist and crying out, “Curse you, Red Baron!”

11 Dough or bread : MOOLA

Lettuce, cabbage, kale, dough, bread, scratch, cheddar, simoleons, clams and moola(h) are all slang terms for money.

12 Greek column style : IONIC

The Ionic was one of the three classical orders of architecture, the others being the Doric and Corinthian. An Ionic column is relatively ornate. It usually has grooves running up and down its length and at the top there is a “scroll” design called a “volute”. The scroll motif makes Ionic columns popular for the design of academic buildings. The term “Ionic” means “pertaining to Ionia”, with Ionia being an ancient territory that is located in modern-day Turkey.

13 Chess announcement : CHECK

In the game of chess, when the king is under immediate threat of capture it is said to be “in check”. If the king cannot escape from check, then the game ends in “checkmate” and the player in check loses. In the original Sanskrit game of chess, the king could actually be captured. Then a rule was introduced requiring that a warning be given if capture was imminent (today we announce “check!”) so that an accidental and early ending to the game doesn’t occur.

18 One of the Beatles : PAUL

The ex-Beatles bass player’s full name is Sir James Paul McCartney. “Paul” was knighted for his services to music in 1997.

22 Mammal with a white rump : ELK

Male elks are called bulls, and females are known as cows. Bull elks are known for their very loud screaming, which is called bugling. Cow elks are attracted to bulls that bugle more often and most loudly.

23 Batman’s sidekick : ROBIN

Batman and Robin are somewhat unique among their superhero compatriots in that they have no special powers, just a whole load of cool gadgets. Batman is sometimes referred to as the Caped Crusader, Robin as the Boy Wonder, and the pair as the Dynamic Duo.

25 Surrealist Joan : MIRO

Joan Miró was a Spanish artist. He immersed himself in Surrealism, so much so that Andre Breton, the founder of the movement, said that Miró was “the most Surrealist of us all”. There are two museums dedicated to Miró’s work. The Fundació Joan Miró is in his native Barcelona, and the Fundació Miró Mallorca is in Palma de Mallorca, where the artist spent much of his life.

27 Vaping stick, for short : E-CIG

An electronic cigarette (also called an “e-cigarette”) is a battery-powered device that resembles a real cigarette. The e-cigarette vaporizes a solution that contains nicotine, forming a vapor that resembles smoke. The vapor is inhaled in a process called “vaping”, delivering nicotine into the body. The assumption is that an e-cigarette is healthier than a regular cigarette as the inhaled vapor is less harmful than inhaled smoke. But, that may not be so …

28 Do some grapplin’ : RASSLE

“Rassle” is a slang word meaning “wrestle”.

29 Capricorn’s animal : GOAT

Capricorn is the tenth sign of the Zodiac. The astrological sign is associated with the constellation Capricornus. “Capricornus” is Latin for “horned goat”. That said, Capricorn is often represented by a sea-goat symbol, a mythical half-fish, half-goat creature.

30 Tiny superhero in the Marvel Universe : ANT-MAN

In the Marvel universe, Ant-Man has been the superhero persona of three different fictional characters: Hank Pym, Scott Lang and Eric O’Grady. In the 2015 film “Ant-Man”, Michael Douglas plays Hank Pym, and Paul Rudd plays Scott Lang.

36 Prima donna problems : EGOS

The Italian operatic term “prima donna” is used for the lead female singer in an opera company. “Prima donna” translates from Italian as “first lady”. The lead male singer is known as the “primo uomo”. The term “prima donna assoluta” is reserved for a prima donna who is generally accepted as being an outstanding performer. We tend to use “prima donna” for a female performer who has an inflated ego.

38 Jewish wedding dance : HORA

The hora is a circle dance that originated in the Balkans. It was brought to Israel by Romanian settlers, and is often performed to traditional, Israeli folk songs. The hora (also “horah”) is a regular sight at Jewish weddings. Sometimes the honoree at an event is raised on a chair during the dance.

40 Broccoli ___ : RABE

Broccoli rabe is perhaps better known as “rapini”, and is a vegetable often used in Mediterranean cuisines. It is quite delicious sauteed with garlic …

47 Coke, to Pepsi : RIVAL

“Cola Wars” is a phrase used to describe the competing marketing campaigns of Coca-Cola and PepsiCo. Coke is winning …

50 LPs and 45s : VINYL

The first vinyl records designed to play at 33⅓ rpm were introduced by RCA Victor in 1931, but were discontinued due to quality problems. The first long play (LP) 33⅓ rpm disc was introduced by Columbia Records many years later in 1948, with RCA Victor following up with a 45 rpm “single” the following year, in 1949.

57 Comedian Philips : EMO

Emo Philips is a stand-up comedian from Chicago. He has had a long and successful career, and listed on his resume is a small acting part in the 1992 hit movie “Meet the Parents” starring Robert De Niro and Ben Stiller. Philips was also the executive producer for that very same film, so, I’d say he made a few pennies …

59 Siesta : NAP

We use the word “siesta” to describe a short nap in the early afternoon, and imported the word into English from Spanish. In turn, the Spanish word is derived from the Latin “hora sexta” meaning “the sixth hour”. The idea is that the nap is taken at the sixth hour after dawn.

60 Capote’s nickname : TRU

The larger-than-life Truman “Tru” Capote was an author and comedian. Capote is perhaps most associated with his novella “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” and his true crime novel “In Cold Blood”. Truman Capote grew up in Monroeville, Alabama. There he met, and became lifelong friends with, fellow novelist Harper Lee. Capote was the inspiration for the character “Dill” in Lee’s celebrated work “To Kill a Mockingbird”. In turn, Harper Lee was the inspiration for the character “Idabel” in Capote’s “Other Voices, Other Rooms”.

62 Grain in a Salinger title : RYE

“The Catcher in the Rye” is the most famous novel from the pen of J. D. Salinger. The main character and narrator of the story is Holden Caulfield, a teenager who gets expelled from a university prep school. Caulfield also makes appearances in several short stories written by Salinger, as do other members of the Caulfield family. The title “The Catcher in the Rye” is a reference to the 1782 poem “Comin’ Thro” the Rye” by Scottish poet Robert Burns.

Complete List of Clues/Answers

Across

1 Highly rated March telecast, with “the” : OSCARS
7 Actor Michael of “Juno” : CERA
11 “Hot” stage item : MIC
14 Bit of broccoli : FLORET
15 Neon-colored, say : LOUD
16 Sound at a fireworks display : OOH!
17 “Slumdog Millionaire” actress : FREIDA PINTO (giving “pinto bean”)
19 Air Force ___ : ONE
20 “Dracula” author Stoker : BRAM
21 Archaeologist’s find : RELIC
23 ” ___ Lama Ding Dong” : RAMA
26 High-end ridesharing option : UBER BLACK (giving “black bean”)
29 Become a YouTube sensation, say : GO VIRAL
31 Wine holder : CASK
32 Fairy king in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” : OBERON
33 Trash-talk : DIS
34 Fannie ___ (finance company) : MAE
37 Bach piece whose title sounds a bit risque : AIR ON THE G STRING (giving “string bean”)
41 Stuff attached to an Acme detonator, in cartoons : TNT
42 Do some yard work : MOW
43 Primitive shelter : LEAN-TO
44 Gelatin made from seaweed : AGAR
46 American military construction force : SEABEES
47 U.K. military force : ROYAL NAVY (giving “navy bean”)
51 Group of buffalo : HERD
52 Stately potato? : IDAHO
53 Scuttlebutt, say : INFO
55 Solemnly swear : VOW
56 Corporate number cruncher who might be interested in the ends of 17-, 26-, 37- and 47-Across? : BEAN COUNTER
63 “Men ___ from Mars …” : ARE
64 The “E” of EGOT : EMMY
65 “Be all you can be” sloganeer : US ARMY
66 Drug studied by Timothy Leary : LSD
67 Potting material : SOIL
68 Public esteem : REPUTE

Down

1 Not working today : OFF
2 Camera type, for short : SLR
3 Iowa college : COE
4 Man’s name that’s another man’s name backward : ARI
5 Snoopy’s nemesis : RED BARON
6 Restaurant review symbol : STAR
7 Rise, as temperatures : CLIMB
8 Very long time : EON
9 Dull routine : RUT
10 Cute, cutesily : ADORBS
11 Dough or bread : MOOLA
12 Greek column style : IONIC
13 Chess announcement : CHECK
18 One of the Beatles : PAUL
22 Mammal with a white rump : ELK
23 Batman’s sidekick : ROBIN
24 Prevent, as a crisis : AVERT
25 Surrealist Joan : MIRO
27 Vaping stick, for short : E-CIG
28 Do some grapplin’ : RASSLE
29 Capricorn’s animal : GOAT
30 Tiny superhero in the Marvel Universe : ANT-MAN
33 Dawn drops : DEW
34 Gold digger? : MINER
35 Paid to play : ANTED
36 Prima donna problems : EGOS
38 Jewish wedding dance : HORA
39 Japanese meeting place that serves refreshments : TEAHOUSE
40 Broccoli ___ : RABE
44 “That feels so-o-o good!” : AAH!
45 They’ll show you the world : GLOBES
46 Option when setting up a new tech device : SYNC
47 Coke, to Pepsi : RIVAL
48 Foul smells : ODORS
49 Deviated temporarily from a straight course : YAWED
50 LPs and 45s : VINYL
54 What a 56-Across would total for this puzzle? : FOUR
57 Comedian Philips : EMO
58 French friend : AMI
59 Siesta : NAP
60 Capote’s nickname : TRU
61 First responder, for short : EMT
62 Grain in a Salinger title : RYE