0218-13 New York Times Crossword Answers 18 Feb 13, Monday

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Solution to today’s crossword in the New York Times
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CROSSWORD SETTER: Jeffrey Harris
THEME: The End of Control … today’s themed answers end with something that is used to control:

20A. Home of the groundhog Punxsutawney Phil : GOBBLER’S KNOB (control knob)
28A. Simply adorable : CUTE AS A BUTTON (control button)
41A. Underhanded commercial ploy : BAIT AND SWITCH (control switch)

46A. Set of people receiving a placebo, perhaps … or what the ends of 20-, 28- and 41-Across belong to? : CONTROL GROUP

COMPLETION TIME: 7m 41s
ANSWERS I MISSED: 0

Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across

5. Economist Smith who coined the term “invisible hand” : ADAM
Adam Smith’s great work in economics is called “The Wealth of Nations”, published in 1776. The book was a big hit within his own lifetime, and went a long way to earning him the reputation as the father of modern economics and capitalism. Smith coined the phrase “the invisible hand of the market”, describing his assertion that a marketplace tends to self-regulate.

14. Biblical ark builder : NOAH
Genesis 6:19-20 states that Noah was instructed to take two animals of every kind into the ark. Later, in Genesis 7:2-3 Noah was instructed to take on board “every clean animal by sevens … male and female, to keep offspring alive on the face of all the earth”. Apparently “extras” (7 rather than 2) were needed for ritual sacrifice.

15. “The ___ Ranger” : LONE
“The Lone Ranger” was both a radio and television show, dating back to its first radio performance in 1933 on a Detroit station. The line “Hi-yo, Silver! Away!” was a device used in the storyline to signal that a riding sequence was starting, so cue the music!

16. “Alfie” star Michael : CAINE
There have been only two actors who have been nominated for an Academy Award in every decade from the 1960s to the 2000s. One is Jack Nicholson, and the other is Michael Caine. Caine is now known as Sir Michael Caine, as he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in the year 2000.

There have been two versions of the movie “Alfie”. The original, and for my money the best, was made in 1966 with Michael Caine. The remake came out in 2004 and stars Jude Law in the title role. The theme song was performed by Cher in the 1966 movie, but it was Dionne Warwick’s cover version from 1967 that was the most successful in the charts.

17. Zenith : ACME
The “acme” is the highest point, coming from the Greek word “akme” which has the same meaning.

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.

18. Stringed instrument for a madrigal : LUTE
A madrigal is a piece of vocal music, but notably a piece that is secular in content rather than religious. The madrigal originated in Italy in the early 16th century and it dominated secular music for the next one hundred years until it was gradually displaced by the aria, a product of operatic works.

19. Kind of steak : T-BONE
The T-bone and porterhouse are related cuts of meat, with the latter being a larger version of the former.

20. Home of the groundhog Punxsutawney Phil : GOBBLER’S KNOB (control knob)
Punxsutawney Phil doesn’t actually make any predictions in downtown Punxsutawney, regardless of what we’ve seen in the movies. Instead, the groundhog makes his annual forecast in a little clearing at the top of a wooded hill two miles outside town, a location known as Gobbler’s Knob.

Punxsutawney is a borough in Pennsylvania, located about 80 miles northeast of Pittsburgh. Punxsutawney Phil is the famous groundhog that lives in the area. Phil comes out of his hole on February 2 each year and if he sees his shadow he goes back into his hole predicting six more weeks of winter weather. February 2 is known as Groundhog Day.

24. Drowsiness-inducing drug : OPIATE
Opiates are the narcotic alkaloids found in the opium poppy plant, although some synthetic versions and derivatives of the same alkaloids are also called opiates. To produce opiates, the latex sap of the opium poppy is collected and processed. The naturally-occurring drugs of morphine and codeine can both be extracted from the sap. Some synthesis is required to make derivative drugs like heroin and oxycodone.

34. Maximum number of terms for a U.S. president : TWO
Since the days of President George Washington, there was an informal tradition that a US President could hold office for two terms, but would not run for a third. Franklin D. Roosevelt was the only president to break with this tradition. President Roosevelt was elected to office four times, and died a few months after starting his fourth term. It was President Roosevelt’s decision to ignore the term limit tradition that led to the adoption of the Twenty-Second Amendment of the Constitution, which provides that “no person shall be elected to the office of President more than twice”.

37. Speaker’s stand : DAIS
Ultimately our word “dais” comes from the Latin “discus” meaning a “disk-shaped object”. I guess that many a dias was disc-shaped …

39. Green with the 2010 hit “Forget You” : CEE LO
Cee Lo Green is the stage name of rapper Thomas DeCarlo Callaway. That’s all I need to know …

40. Shiites or Sunnis : SECT
The Islamic sects of Sunni and Shia Muslims differ in the belief of who should have taken over leadership of the Muslim faithful after the death of the Prophet Muhammad. Followers of the Sunni tradition agree with the decision that the Prophet Muhammad’s confidante Abu Bakr was the right choice to become the first Caliph of the Islamic nation. Followers of the Shia tradition believe that leadership should have stayed within the Prophet Muhammad’s own family.

44. Los Angeles district near Sherman Oaks : ENCINO
Encino is a district in the City of Los Angeles on the north slope of the Santa Monica Mountains. The area takes its name from a historic parcel of land called Rancho Los Encinos (Ranch of the Evergreens).

45. China’s Chairman ___ : MAO
Mao Zedong was born on December 16, 1893 in the Hunan Province of China. As Mao was the son of a peasant farmer, his prospects for education were limited. Indeed he left school at age 13 to work on the family farm but did eventually get to secondary school in Changsha, the provincial capital. In the years following, Mao continued his education in Beijing and actually turned down an opportunity to study in France.

56. Dubuque’s state : IOWA
The City of Dubuque, Iowa is named for a pioneer from Quebec who arrived in the area in 1785, a pioneer named Julien Dubuque.

Down
3. Poetic foot : IAMB
An iamb is a metrical foot containing an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. Robert Frost’s “Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening” consists of lines made up of four sequential iambs e.g. “Whose woods / these are / I think / I know”. With a sequence of four iambs, the poem’s structure is described as iambic tetrameter.

4. Low spirits, as experienced by St. Louis’s hockey team? : THE BLUES
The St. Louis Blues hockey team takes its name from the song “St. Louis Blues”, a jazz and popular music classic.

10. See 43-Down : RABBIT
(43. The White 10-Down’s cry in “Alice in Wonderland” : I’M LATE!)
The White Rabbit is a character who appears at the very start of Lewis Carroll’s novel “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”. Alice sees the White Rabbit checking his watch and mumbling “Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be too late!” Alice then follows him down the rabbit hole and into Wonderland.

21. Skating jump : LUTZ
In figure skating, a Lutz is a toe-pick-assisted jump that one starts skating backwards and ends skating backwards (there’s more to it that I don’t really understand!). The maneuver is named after Alois Lutz, an Austrian skater who first performed it in competition way back in 1913. Lutz wowed the crowd with a single jump, and today both men and women are landing triple Lutz jumps. No one has landed a clean quadruple Lutz in competition.

22. ___ Peace Prize : NOBEL
The Peace Prize is the most famous of the five prizes bequeathed by Alfred Nobel. The others are for Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, and Literature. There is also a Nobel Prize in Economics that is awarded along with the original five, but it is funded separately and is awarded “in memory of Alfred Nobel”. Four of the prizes are awarded by Swedish organizations (Alfred Nobel was a Swede) and so the award ceremonies take place in Stockholm. The Peace Prize is awarded by the Norwegian Nobel Committee, and that award is presented in Oslo.

27. Deputy sheriff in “The Dukes of Hazzard” : ENOS
Enos Strate (played by Sonny Shroyer) was the small-town deputy in the television sitcom “The Dukes of Hazzard”, and the success of his character merited a follow-on show. The spinoff “Enos” only ran for 18 episodes though.

28. Boston N.B.A.’er : CELTIC
The Boston Celtics NBA basketball team were founded just after WWII in 1946. The Celtics won eight league championships in a row from 1958 to 1966. That’s the longest consecutive championship winning streak of any professional sports team in North America.

32. Tokyo’s home : JAPAN
Tokyo is of course the capital of Japan. The Greater Tokyo Area is the largest metropolitan area in the world. Interestingly, Tokyo isn’t actually a city, and rather is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan.

35. Kaplan of “Welcome Back, Kotter” : GABE
“Welcome Back, Kotter” was a sitcom from the late seventies. The title character was a teacher at Buchanan High, one Gabe Kotter who himself had attended the school as a student. Kotter was played by Gabe Kaplan. One of the prominent students in his class was a young John Travolta, playing a role that launched his film career. In recent years you might have seen Gabe Kaplan as co-host of the popular show “High Stakes Poker” on GSN.

36. Mortise’s partner, in carpentry : TENON
One simple type of joint used in carpentry is a mortise and tenon, basically a projection carved at the end of one piece of wood that fits into a hole cut into the end of another. The mortise is the “hole” and the tenon is the “projection”.

42. Breath mint brand : TIC TAC
Tic Tacs aren’t American candy (as I always mistakenly believed). Tic Tacs are made by the Italian company Ferrero, and were introduced in 1969.

47. Scrabble piece : TILE
The game of Scrabble has been produced in many international versions, and each of these editions has its own tile distribution to suit the local language. For example, in English we have two tiles worth ten points: one “Q” and one “Z”. If you play the game in French then there are five tiles worth ten points: one “K”, one “W”, one “X”, one “Y” and one “Z”.

50. Actress Lena : OLIN
The lovely Lena Olin is a Swedish actress, clearly someone who has acting in her blood. Olin’s mother was the actress Britta Holmberg and her father the actor and director Stig Olin. Lena Olin had a very successful career in Sweden, often working with the great Ingmar Bergman. Olin’s breakthrough international and English-speaking role was playing opposite Daniel Day-Lewis in “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” released in 1988. Way back in 1974, the lovely Miss Olin was crowned Miss Scandinavia in a beauty pageant for Nordic women held in Helsinki, Finland.

54. Emulate Muhammad Ali : BOX
Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr. was born in 1942 in Louisville, Kentucky. Clay changed his name to Muhammad Ali when he converted to Islam in 1964. Who can forget Muhammad Ali lighting the Olympic flame for the 1996 games in Atlanta? Ali was presented with a gold medal during those ’96 Games, a replacement for the medal he won at the 1960 Olympics. He had thrown the original into the Ohio River as a gesture of disgust after being refused service at a “whites only” restaurant.

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For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. Thin opening : SLIT
5. Economist Smith who coined the term “invisible hand” : ADAM
9. Planet’s path : ORBIT
14. Biblical ark builder : NOAH
15. “The ___ Ranger” : LONE
16. “Alfie” star Michael : CAINE
17. Zenith : ACME
18. Stringed instrument for a madrigal : LUTE
19. Kind of steak : T-BONE
20. Home of the groundhog Punxsutawney Phil : GOBBLER’S KNOB (control knob)
23. Carry with effort : LUG
24. Drowsiness-inducing drug : OPIATE
28. Simply adorable : CUTE AS A BUTTON (control button)
32. “Oh, man!” : JEEZ
33. Zoo enclosures : CAGES
34. Maximum number of terms for a U.S. president : TWO
35. Hoedown females : GALS
36. High-pitched warble : TRILL
37. Speaker’s stand : DAIS
38. Fitting : APT
39. Green with the 2010 hit “Forget You” : CEE LO
40. Shiites or Sunnis : SECT
41. Underhanded commercial ploy : BAIT AND SWITCH (control switch)
44. Los Angeles district near Sherman Oaks : ENCINO
45. China’s Chairman ___ : MAO
46. Set of people receiving a placebo, perhaps … or what the ends of 20-, 28- and 41-Across belong to? : CONTROL GROUP
53. Lessen : ABATE
56. Dubuque’s state : IOWA
57. In addition : ALSO
58. Arctic or Antarctic : POLAR
59. Singsongy cadence : LILT
60. Like games that head into overtime : TIED
61. Ones at the top of the corporate ladder : EXECS
62. “What ___ is new?” : ELSE
63. Concludes : ENDS

Down
1. Get caught on something : SNAG
2. Plumb crazy : LOCO
3. Poetic foot : IAMB
4. Low spirits, as experienced by St. Louis’s hockey team? : THE BLUES
5. State without proof : ALLEGE
6. Gloomy : DOUR
7. Kitchen pests : ANTS
8. Timid : MEEK
9. Sea creature with suckers : OCTOPUS
10. See 43-Down : RABBIT
11. Who’s Who entry, briefly : BIO
12. Quaint lodging : INN
13. Golf peg : TEE
21. Skating jump : LUTZ
22. ___ Peace Prize : NOBEL
25. Add to an e-mail, as a file : ATTACH
26. “Specifically …” : TO WIT
27. Deputy sheriff in “The Dukes of Hazzard” : ENOS
28. Boston N.B.A.’er : CELTIC
29. Like wealthy landowners : ACRED
30. Goes to sea : SAILS
31. Shining : AGLOW
32. Tokyo’s home : JAPAN
35. Kaplan of “Welcome Back, Kotter” : GABE
36. Mortise’s partner, in carpentry : TENON
37. Put ornaments on : DECORATE
39. Ones paddling down a river, say : CANOERS
40. Male deer : STAG
42. Breath mint brand : TIC TAC
43. The White 10-Down’s cry in “Alice in Wonderland” : I’M LATE!
47. Scrabble piece : TILE
48. Agitate : ROIL
49. Big-eyed birds : OWLS
50. Actress Lena : OLIN
51. Like thrift store merchandise : USED
52. Pea holders : PODS
53. Gorilla : APE
54. Emulate Muhammad Ali : BOX
55. Brewery product : ALE

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