1223-14 New York Times Crossword Answers 23 Dec 14, Tuesday

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CROSSWORD SETTER: Bruce Haight
THEME: Beanstalk Tale … the circled letters in today’s grid spell out FEE-FI-FO-FUM, which is what the GIANT said in the “JACK and the BEANSTALK” fairy tale:

21D. Storied locale for the circled letters in 8- and 65-Across : BEANSTALK

8A. 2014 World Series winners : GIANTS
65A. Commandeer : HIJACK

1A. Espresso and cappuccino : COFFEES
25A. Like Santa’s helpers : ELFIN
47A. Attempt, as a field goal : GO FOR
66A. Clichéd gift on Mother’s Day : PERFUME (giving “fee-fi-fo-fum”)

BILL BUTLER’S COMPLETION TIME: 9m 52s
ANSWERS I MISSED: 0

Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across

1. Espresso and cappuccino : COFFEES
Espresso is made by forcing extremely hot water, under pressure, through finely ground coffee beans. The result is a thick and concentrated coffee drink, which contains quite a lot of solids and a lot of foam. An espresso machine was first patented in 1884 in Italy, although it was a machine to make the beverage in bulk. The first patent for a machine that made individual measures was applied for in 1901, also in Italy.

The Order of Friars Minor Capuchin is an order of Roman Catholic friars, an offshoot of the Franciscans. The order split from the Franciscans back in 1520, and were forced to go into hiding from church authorities. The new order was helped by the Camaldolese monks, and in recognition of their assistance, the breakaway monks adopted the Camaldolese hood, known as a capuccio. It is this “capuccio” that gave the order its name, and indeed ultimately gave the name to the Capuchin monkey. The cappuccino coffee is named for the coffee and white colored habits worn by Capuchin friars.

8. 2014 World Series winners : GIANTS
When I went to my first Major League Baseball game (it happened to be the one where the San Francisco Giants won the pennant in 19891), I was such a neophyte. When people asked me afterwards where I had been, I actually told people that my seat was behind fourth base …

14. Become rusted : OXIDIZE
Rust is iron oxide, and oxidation is the reaction that combines an element with oxygen.

15. Largest country in Africa since the breakup of Sudan in 2011 : ALGERIA
Algeria is a huge country, the second largest in Africa (only Sudan is larger), and the largest country on the Mediterranean. The capital of Algeria is Algiers, and the country takes its name from the city.

Sudan was the largest country in Africa until 2011, when the Southern Sudan region opted by referendum to become independent. “North Sudan” retained the name of Sudan, and the new state is called South Sedan. Sudan is now the third largest country in the continent, after Algeria and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

19. Tonsil doc : ENT
An Ear, Nose and Throat specialist is an ENT.

The palatine tonsils are located at the back of the human throat. The exact role that tonsils play isn’t completely understood, but it is known that they are in the first line of defense in the body’s immune system. They provide some level of protection against pathogens that are ingested and inhaled.

22. Spell-off : BEE
Back in 18th-century America, when neighbors would gather to work for the benefit of one of their group, such a meeting was called a “bee”. The name “bee” was an allusion to the social nature of the insect. In modern parlance, a further element of entertainment and pleasure has been introduced, for example in a “quilting bee”, or even a “spelling bee”.

31. New York Stock Exchange symbol : BULL
The terms “bull” and “bear” markets come from the way in which each animal attacks. A bull thrusts his horns upwards (an “up” market), whereas a bear swipes with his paws downward (a “down” market).

“Charging Bull” is a dramatic, bronze statue that sits in Bowling Green Park near Wall Street in New York City. The statue is an example of “guerrilla art”, as the artist Artura di Modica was not commissioned to create the work, and did so on his own dime. He trucked it over to Broad Street in December 1989 and left it as a Christmas gift to the people of New York. The police seized it, but the public outcry led to the city reinstalling it, in its current location off the street and in the park.

33. Mad ___ : HATTER
In Lewis Carroll’s “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”, the Mad Hatter makes his first appearance in a chapter called “A Mad Tea-Party”. This event is usually described as “The Mad Hatter’s Tea Party”, even though the Mad Hatter was just a guest. The host was the March Hare. In fact, the phrase “mad Hatter” doesn’t appear anywhere in Lewis Carroll’s novel, although the character, the Hatter (and sometimes “Hatta”), is described as mad.

40. Day-___ : GLO
“Dayglo” is a registered trademark used for an ink or paint that glows when exposed to a black light in a darkened room. When Dayglo paint is viewed in daylight the colors can look particularly vivid because they respond to the UV light that is present in sunlight.

41. Kebab stick : SKEWER
The name “kebab” (also “kabob”) covers a wide variety of meat dishes that originated in Persia. In the West, we usually use “kebab” when talking about shish kebab, which is meat (often lamb) served on a skewer. “Shish” comes from the Turkish word for “skewer”.

43. General on Chinese menus : TSO
General Tso’s chicken is an American creation, often found on the menu of a Chinese restaurant. The name General Tso may be a reference to General Zuo Zongtang of the Qing Dynasty, but there is no clear link.

44. “Sands of Iwo ___” : JIMA
“Sands of Iwo Jima” is a WWII film that released in 1949. The movie follows US Marines from boot camp through to the Battle of Iwo Jima, and stars John Agar and John Wayne. Interestingly, the film dialog contains the first recorded use of the phrase “lock and load”, to mean “get ready to fight”, as well as “get ready to drink!”.

48. Org. in the “Dirty Harry” movies : SFPD
The San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) is the 11th largest police department in the country. The SFPD dates back to the days of the Gold Rush, being founded in 1849 as a force of 35 officers. SFPD has featured a lot in movies and on television. The most famous films are probably “Bullitt”, the “Dirty Harry” series and “48 Hrs.” On television there was “Ironside”, “The Streets of San Francisco” and now “Monk”.

“Dirty” Harry Callahan was the protagonist in a series of five movies starring Clint Eastwood:

– “Dirty Harry” (1971)
– “Magnum Force” (1973)
– “The Enforcer” (1976)
– “Sudden Impact” (1983)
– “The Dead Pool” (1988)

51. Fend off, as mosquitoes : SLAP AT
“Mosquito” is the Spanish for “little fly”. The female mosquito actually has to have a “blood meal” before she is able to lay her eggs.

53. “We Three Kings of Orient ___” : ARE
The Christmas carol “We Three Kings” is a favorite of mine. The carol was written in 1857 by the rector of an Episcopal church in Williamsport, Pennsylvania called John Henry Hopkins, Jr. Hopkins composed “We Three Kings” for a Christmas pageant in New York City.

61. Milan opera house : LA SCALA
La Scala Opera House opened in 1778. It was built on the site of the church of Santa Maria della Scala, which gave the theater its name: “Teatro alla Scala” in Italian.

63. Rapper with the 1991 hit “Rico Suave” : GERARDO
Gerardo is a Latino rapper who was born in Ecuador by was raised in Glendale, California. Gerardo sometimes refers to himself as the Latin Frank Sinatra. Maybe that’s why he wears skintight jeans and no shirt when performing …

64. Greek personification of the outer sea : OCEANUS
Oceanus was a mythical figure personifying the so-called “World Ocean”, the interconnected oceans and seas of the world. The ancient Greeks and Romans believed that the world was encircled by one enormous river.

66. Clichéd gift on Mother’s Day : PERFUME
Note the official punctuation in “Mother’s Day”, even though one might think it should be “Mothers’ Day”. President Wilson, and Anna Jarvis who created the tradition, specifically wanted Mother’s Day to honor the mothers within each family and not just “mothers” in general, so they went with the “Mother’s Day” punctuation.

Down
3. Italian carmaker : FIAT
Fiat is the largest car manufacturer in Italy, and is headquartered in Turin in the Piedmont region in the north of the country. Fiat was founded in 1899 by Giovanni Agnelli, when the company’s name was “Fabbrica Italiana di Automobili Torino” (FIAT). A few years ago, Fiat became the majority shareholder in Chrysler.

4. Fireside chat prez : FDR
President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave a total of thirty evening radio addresses that were termed “fireside chats”. President Roosevelt had used similar addresses to further his political agenda while he was Governor of New York. In New York he faced opposition from a Republican legislature so Roosevelt appealed directly to voters to apply pressure for him.

5. Brennan of “Private Benjamin” : EILEEN
The actress Eileen Brennan was best known for her portrayal of the commanding officer in “Private Benjamin”. I also remember her playing the brothel madam in the great 1973 movie “The Sting”.

I mainly remember the actress Eileen Brennan from the great 1973 film “The Sting”, in which she played the brothel madam. Perhaps Brennan’s most famous performance is as the commanding officer in “Private Benjamin”, a role that she reprised in the spinoff television show of the same name.

6. Online publication : E-ZINE
An “e-zine”, an online magazine.

8. Ibsen’s “Hedda ___” : GABLER
“Hedda Gabler” is a play by the great Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, first published in 1890. Considered one of the greatest theater roles, the title character of Hedda Gabler is sometimes referred to as “the female Hamlet”.

9. “Winnie ___ Pu” : ILLE
A. A. Milne’s “Winnie-the-Pooh” has been translated into many languages, and is one of the few modern titles for which there is a Latin version. Alexander Lenard had “Winnie ille Pu” published in 1958, and two years later the title made it onto the New York Times Bestseller List, the only book in the Latin language ever to get that honor.

10. Lab culture medium : 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.

11. Pince-___ (glasses that clip to the nose) : NEZ
Pince-nez are eyeglasses clipped to the bridge of the nose. “Pince-nez” is French, translating as “pinch the nose”.

16. The 13 of PG-13 and 17 of NC-17 : AGES
The Motion Picture Association of America’s (MPAA) film-rating system is purely voluntary and is not backed by any law. Movie theaters agree to abide by the rules that come with the MPAA ratings in exchange for access to new movies.

21. Storied locale for the circled letters in 8- and 65-Across : BEANSTALK
“Jack and the Beanstalk” is a fairy tale from England. In the story, young Jack sells the family cow for some magic beans. He plants the beans and a massive beanstalk grows up into the sky. At the top of the beanstalk there lives an ogre. Jack climbs the beanstalk and adventures ensue …

The line “fee-fi-fo-fum” (with various spellings) comes from the famous English fairy tale “Jack and the Beanstalk”. Within the story, the giant at the top of the beanstalk utters a little poem when he detects the presence of Jack:

Fee-fi-fo-fum,
I smell the blood of an Englishman,
Be he alive, or be he dead
I’ll grind his bones to make my bread.

24. WaPo competitor : NYT
“The New York Times” (NYT) is a competitor of “The Washington Post” (WaPo).

27. Ice mass : FLOE
An ice floe is a sheet of ice that has separated from an ice field and is floating freely on the ocean.

29. “The Cosby Show” son : THEO
Malcolm-Jamal Warner was the child actor who played Theo Huxtable on “The Cosby Show”. You can see the grown-up Warner today playing Dr. Alex Reed on the BET sitcom “Reed Between the Lines”.

34. Weekly “Whew!” : TGIF
“Thank God It’s Friday” (TGIF) is a relatively new expression that originated in Akron, Ohio. It was a catchphrase used first by disk jockey Jerry Healy of WAKR in the early seventies.

35. Ticklish red Muppet : ELMO
Tickle Me Elmo was a sensational fad in the late nineties, with stores raising prices dramatically above the recommended retail price to take advantage of demand. Reportedly, prices as high as $1500 were paid at the height of the craze. The toy’s manufacturer, Tyco, originally planned to market the “tickle” toy as Tickle Me Tasmanian Devil (after the “Looney Tunes” character), but then went with “Elmo” after they bought the rights to use “Sesame Street” names.

38. Actress Arthur : BEA
Actress Bea Arthur’s most famous roles were on television, as the lead in the “All in the Family” spin-off “Maude” and as Dorothy Zbornak in “The Golden Girls”. Arthur also won a Tony for playing Vera Charles on stage in the original cast of “Mame” in 1966, two years after she played Yente the matchmaker in the original cast of “Fiddler on the Roof”.

39. Bake in a sauce : ESCALLOP
“Escallop” is a variant spelling for “scallop”, the marine mollusk that is served as seafood. Scallops are often served baked in milk and this method of preparation has become known as “scalloping”. So, scalloped potatoes are potatoes baked in milk.

42. One justification for the Iraq war, for short : WMD
The first recorded use of the term “Weapon of Mass Destruction” (WMD) was in 1937. The words were used by Cosmo Gordon Lang, the Archbishop of Canterbury at the time, in reference to the bombardment of Guernica in Spain during the Spanish Civil War by the German Luftwaffe. He said, “Who can think without horror of what another widespread war would mean, waged as it would be with all the new weapons of mass destruction?”

48. Puppeteer Tony : SARG
Tony Sarg was a German-American puppeteer and illustrator. He was hired by Macy’s in 1928 to build helium-filled “puppets” for their Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City, a tradition that was to last a long time. In 1935 he designed and built the puppets and displays in Macy’s windows for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

49. Former F.B.I. chief Louis : FREEH
Louis Freeh was the Director of the FBI in the Clinton administration. Prior to heading up the FBI, Freeh had been a US Attorney and US district court judge. Years earlier, Freeh had started out his career with the FBI as an agent.

50. ___ dish : PETRI
Julius Richard Petri was a German bacteriologist and was the man after whom the Petri dish is named. The petri dish can have an agar gel on the bottom which acts a nutrient source for the specimen being grown and studied, in which case the dish plus agar is referred to as an “agar plate”.

54. ___ avis : RARA
A “rara avis” is anything that is very rare, and is Latin for “rare bird”.

55. Flexible, electrically : AC/DC
Anyone with a laptop with an external power supply has an AC/DC converter, that big “block” in the power cord. It converts the AC current from a wall socket into the DC current that is used by the laptop.

56. When repeated, Mork’s sign-off : NANU
“Mork & Mindy” was broadcast from 1978 to 1982. We were first introduced to Mork (played by Robin Williams, of course) in a special episode of “Happy Days”. The particular episode in question has a bizarre storyline culminating in Fonzie and Mork having a thumb-to-finger duel. Eventually Richie wakes up in bed, and alien Mork was just part of a dream! Oh, and “Nanu Nanu” means both “hello” and “goodbye” back on the planet Ork. “I am Mork from Ork, Nanu Nanu”. Great stuff …

57. One in the class of ’12 or ’13, now : ALUM
An “alumnus” (plural … alumni) is a graduate or former student of a school or college. The female form is “alumna” (plural … alumnae). The term comes into English from Latin, in which alumnus means foster-son or pupil. “Alum” is an informal term used for either an alumna or an alumnus.

58. Diamond bag : BASE
A base on a baseball diamond can be called a “bag”.

60. British rule in old India : RAJ
The period of colonial rule by the British in South Asia from 1858 to 1947 is referred to as the British Raj. Prior to 1858, the area was ruled by a private enterprise, the British East India Company. “Raj” is the Hindi word for “reign”.

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For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. Espresso and cappuccino : COFFEES
8. 2014 World Series winners : GIANTS
14. Become rusted : OXIDIZE
15. Largest country in Africa since the breakup of Sudan in 2011 : ALGERIA
17. Illuminated from behind : REAR-LIT
18. Bright, as a fire : BLAZING
19. Tonsil doc : ENT
20. One helping an addict : ENABLER
22. Spell-off : BEE
23. Snicker : TEE-HEE
24. ___ flash : NEWS
25. Like Santa’s helpers : ELFIN
28. Coarse, as humor : EARTHY
31. New York Stock Exchange symbol : BULL
32. Pale : WAN
33. Mad ___ : HATTER
37. Buddy : BRO
38. Wayward offspring, informally : BAD SEED
40. Day-___ : GLO
41. Kebab stick : SKEWER
43. General on Chinese menus : TSO
44. “Sands of Iwo ___” : JIMA
45. Fanatic : MANIAC
47. Attempt, as a field goal : GO FOR
48. Org. in the “Dirty Harry” movies : SFPD
51. Fend off, as mosquitoes : SLAP AT
53. “We Three Kings of Orient ___” : ARE
54. Vexes : RANKLES
56. Snatch : NAB
59. Take back, as a false charge : RETRACT
61. Milan opera house : LA SCALA
63. Rapper with the 1991 hit “Rico Suave” : GERARDO
64. Greek personification of the outer sea : OCEANUS
65. Commandeer : HIJACK
66. Clichéd gift on Mother’s Day : PERFUME

Down
1. Center : CORE
2. Plural animal name that does not end in “-s” : OXEN
3. Italian carmaker : FIAT
4. Fireside chat prez : FDR
5. Brennan of “Private Benjamin” : EILEEN
6. Online publication : E-ZINE
7. Advance, as a clock : SET AHEAD
8. Ibsen’s “Hedda ___” : GABLER
9. “Winnie ___ Pu” : ILLE
10. Lab culture medium : AGAR
11. Pince-___ (glasses that clip to the nose) : NEZ
12. Cree, Creek or Crow : TRIBE
13. Muscle : SINEW
16. The 13 of PG-13 and 17 of NC-17 : AGES
21. Storied locale for the circled letters in 8- and 65-Across : BEANSTALK
23. Dusk-dawn connector : ‘TIL
24. WaPo competitor : NYT
25. Declines : EBBS
26. Lie in wait : LURK
27. Ice mass : FLOE
29. “The Cosby Show” son : THEO
30. Duped : HAD
32. Give a heads-up : WARN
34. Weekly “Whew!” : TGIF
35. Ticklish red Muppet : ELMO
36. Engine sound at Indy : ROAR
38. Actress Arthur : BEA
39. Bake in a sauce : ESCALLOP
42. One justification for the Iraq war, for short : WMD
44. Make a quick note of : JOT
46. Violates the rules : ISN’T OK
47. Real hoot : GASSER
48. Puppeteer Tony : SARG
49. Former F.B.I. chief Louis : FREEH
50. ___ dish : PETRI
52. “Ciao” : PEACE
54. ___ avis : RARA
55. Flexible, electrically : AC/DC
56. When repeated, Mork’s sign-off : NANU
57. One in the class of ’12 or ’13, now : ALUM
58. Diamond bag : BASE
60. British rule in old India : RAJ
62. Half-___ (low-octane drink order) : CAF

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