0110-18 NY Times Crossword Answers 10 Jan 2018, Wednesday

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Constructed by: Sen. Joe Donnelly & Michael S. Maurer
Edited by: Will Shortz

Today’s Theme:Meet in the Middle

There is a note with today’s puzzle:

CELEBRITY CROSSWORD
This puzzle is a collaboration by the basketball-loving senator Joe Donnelly of Indiana, working together with longtime crossword contributor Michael S. (Mickey) Maurer, the owner of the Indianapolis Business Journal. This is Mickey’s 25th crossword for The Times.
More information about the making of today’s puzzle appears in the Times’s daily crossword column (nytimes.com/column/wordplay).

Themed answers are terms used in basketball, but are clued with a different meaning:

  • 15A. Warning during a heist? : BANK SHOT
  • 18A. Gutterball? : ALLEY-OOPS
  • 37A. Dinner at the end of Ramadan? : FAST BREAK
  • 57A. Rug store promotion? : FREE THROW
  • 64A. Something bleeped out for television? : FOUL LINE

Bill’s time: 11m 02s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

14. Chevrolet model : IMPALA

The Chevrolet Impala was introduced in 1957. “Impala” is the Zulu word for “gazelle”.

17. In baroque fashion : ORNATELY

Something described as baroque is extremely ornate and convoluted. The term comes from the Baroque Period, in which many of the arts focused on great detail and elaborate design.

22. Filler ads, in brief : PSAS

Public service announcement (PSA)

24. Korean border area, for short : DMZ

Korea was occupied by the Japanese military from 1910 until Japan surrendered at the end of WWII in 1945. While the UN was working towards a trusteeship administration for Korea, the Soviet Union managed the Korean Peninsula north of the 38th parallel and the US managed the south. The UN’s plans came to naught as the Cold War dictated the establishment of the two separate states of North Korea and South Korea. North Korea invaded the South in 1950, leading to the Korean War. After three years of fighting, the border between the two states became the demarcation line between the two military forces on the day the Armistice Agreement was signed. That line runs diagonally across the 38th parallel, and is better known as the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ).

27. Sinus doc : ENT

Ear, nose and throat specialist (ENT)

28. Yukon or Sierra : GMC

The GMC Yukon is basically the same vehicle as the Chevrolet Tahoe.
The GMC Sierra truck is also sold as the Chevrolet Silverado.

33. Eric of old CBS News : SEVAREID

Eric Sevareid was one of the team of journalists known as the “Murrow Boys” who were hired and worked closely with Edward R. Murrow. Sevareid was the first American journalist to report the fall of Paris to the Germans during WWII. Later during the same war, he had to be rescued by a search and rescue team after his aircraft was shot down behind enemy lines in Burma.

37. Dinner at the end of Ramadan? : FAST BREAK

Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, and is traditionally a period of fasting. The faithful that observe Ramadan refrain from eating, drinking and sexual relations from dawn to dusk everyday, a lesson in patience, humility and spirituality.

39. Where Socrates lived : ATHENS

In Ancient Greece, Socrates was a respected thinker of his day. One of Socrates’ most clever students was Plato, who spent much of life espousing the work and thinking of his mentor and teacher. In later life, Plato himself had a student who built on the work of both Socrates and Plato. That second-generation student was Aristotle. Socrates fell out of favor with the political leaders in Athens who put him on trial on trumped-up charges. He was found guilty of corrupting the youth of the city-state and of not believing in the gods of the state. The sentence levied was death by drinking hemlock.

42. Artists’ oil sources : LINSEEDS

Linseed oil is also known as flaxseed oil, as the oil is extracted from the dried seeds of the flax plant.

46. Like Times Square on New Year’s Eve : CROWDED

The famous New Year’s Eve ball-dropping tradition in Times Square, New York started on January 1st 1908. The original ball was lit with one hundred 25-watt light bulbs and was dropped at one second after midnight. A fifth version of the ball was introduced in 2008 for the centennial anniversary of the ceremony. The 2008 ball was built by Waterford Crystal and was lit by 9,567 LED bulbs that consumed the same amount of power as ten electric toasters. The current ball was used for the first time in 2009, and is double the size of the 2008 ball at 12 feet in diameter. The ball now sits atop Times Square year round, so you can go see it next time you are in town.

48. Diet of Jack Sprat’s wife : FAT

Jack Sprat was a nickname given in the 16th century to people of small stature. Jack featured in a proverb of the day:

Jack will eat not fat, and Jull doth love no leane. Yet betwixt them both they lick the dishes cleane.

Over time, this mutated into a nursery rhyme that is still recited in England:

Jack Sprat could eat no fat. His wife could eat no lean. And so between them both, you see, they licked the platter clean.

51. Elite team member : SEAL

“SEAL” is an acronym used by the US Navy’s SEa, Air and Land teams. The SEALs were born out of the Navy’s special warfare groups from WWII, like the Underwater Demolition Teams and the Motor Torpedo Boat Squadrons. The Navy SEAL unit was established soon after President Kennedy’s famous speech in which he announced the plan to put a man on the moon, as in the same speech the president allocated $100m of funding to strengthen special operations forces. The Navy used some of this money to set up guerrilla and counter-guerrilla units, which soon became the SEALs.

54. “The Spy Who Loved Me” org. : KGB

The “Komitet gosudarstvennoy bezopasnosti” (KGB) was the national security agency of the Soviet Union until 1991. The KGB was dissolved after the agency’s chairman led a failed attempt at a coup d’état designed to depose President Mikhail Gorbachev.
“The Spy Who Loved Me” is one of Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels, one that was first published in 1962. It is somewhat unique in the series of Bond books in several ways. Firstly, the story is told by a narrator, a young Canadian woman named Vivienne Michel. Secondly, James Bond doesn’t appear in the storyline at all until two-thirds of the way through the book. Also, “The Spy Who Loved Me” is the shortest of all the Bond novels, and the most sexually explicit.

Down

1. Works with pupils? : DILATES

The pupil of the eye is the hole located in the center of the iris through which light enters the retina. The term “pupil” came into English via French from the latin “pupilla”, which is the diminutive form of “pupa” meaning “girl, doll”. The term came about due to the tiny doll-like image that one can see of oneself when looking into the center of another’s eyes.

3. Digital media player that’s “big” in New York City? : APPLE TV

Apparently the first published use of the term “Big Apple” to describe New York City dates back to 1909. Edward Martin wrote the following in his book “The Wayfarer in New York”:

Kansas is apt to see in New York a greedy city. . . . It inclines to think that the big apple gets a disproportionate share of the national sap.

Over ten years later, the term “big apple” was used as a nickname for racetracks in and around New York City. However, the concerted effort to “brand” the city as the Big Apple had to wait until the seventies and was the work of the New York Convention and Visitors Bureau.

4. Operated on, as the eyes : LASED

LASIK surgery uses a laser to reshape the cornea of the eye to improve vision. The LASIK acronym stands for “laser-assisted in situ keratomileusis”.

5. Beauty product line with the slogan “Ageless” : OLAY

Oil of Olay was developed in South Africa in 1949. When Oil of Olay was introduced internationally, it was given slightly different brand names designed to appeal in the different geographies. In Ireland we know it as Oil of Ulay, for example, and in France it is Oil of Olaz.

7. Site of a 1955 “Pact” : WARSAW

The full title of the Warsaw pact was the Warsaw Treaty Organization of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance. The Soviet Union was behind the signing of the 1955 treaty, and the signatories were:

  • Bulgaria
  • Czechoslovakia
  • East Germany
  • Hungary
  • Poland
  • Romania
  • Soviet Union
  • Albania

8. Comfort ___ : INN

The Comfort Inn chain is part of Choice Hotels International. I stay in Comfort Suites every so often. They’re usually not at all bad for the price …

9. 32-card card game : SKAT

When I was a teenager in Ireland, I had a friend with a German father. The father taught us the game of Skat, and what a great game it is. Skat originated in Germany in the 1800s and is to this day the most popular card game in the country. I haven’t played it in decades, but would love to play it again …

10. Punta del ___ (Uruguayan resort) : ESTE

Punta del Este is a resort city in southeastern Uruguay that is located about 85 miles east of Montevideo.

12. Fa follower : SOL

The solfa syllables are: do, re, mi, fa, sol, la & ti.

15. Noggin knocks : BOPS

A slang term for a “head” might be “bean” or “noggin”.

19. Footnote abbr. : OP CIT

“Op. cit.” is short for “opus citatum”, Latin for “the work cited”. Op. cit. is used in footnotes to refer the reader to an earlier citation. It is similar to ibid, except that ibid refers the reader to the last citation, the one immediately above.

23. Jennifer Lopez title role : SELENA

Singer Selena Quintanilla-Perez, known professionally simply as “Selena”, was murdered in 1995 by the president of her own fan club at the height of her career. In a 1997 biopic about Selena’s life, Jennifer Lopez played the title role. Selena had often been referred to as the “Queen of Tejano” during her career.

25. ___ Tussaud: Abbr. : MME

Marie Tussaud was a wax sculptor from France. Some of her early work was very gruesome as she lived through the French Revolution. She would take the decapitated heads of executed citizens and use them to make death masks which were then paraded through the streets. She eventually moved to London, taking with her a vast collection of wax models made by her and her father. She opened a museum to display the works, and the Madame Tussauds wax museum is a major attraction in the city to this day.

26. The end of the British monarchy? : ZED

The letter named “zed” has been around since about 1400, and derives from the Greek letter zeta. The spelling and pronunciation of “zee”, used in America today, first popped up in the 1670s.

32. One might say “Happy Birthday” : CAKE

According to the “Guinness Book of World Records”, “Happy Birthday to You” is the most popular song in the English language. “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow” and “Auld Lang Syne” come in second and third.

35. Two-bagger: Abbr. : DBL

That would be baseball.

38. Part of N.R.A. : RIFLE

National Rifle Association (NRA)

39. SAT alternative : ACT

ACT is an abbreviation for American College Testing. The ACT is an entrance exam used by many universities. It has four sections, English, Reading, Math and Science, and an optional 30-minute essay.

43. Abu Dhabi, for one : EMIRATE

Abu Dhabi is one of the seven Emirates that make up the federation known as the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The two largest members of the UAE (geographically) are Dubai and Abu Dhabi, the only two of the seven members that have veto power over UAE policy. Before 1971, the UAE was a British Protectorate, a collection of sheikdoms. The sheikdoms entered into a maritime truce with Britain in 1835, after which they became known as the Trucial States, derived from the word “truce”.

52. The end of the British monarchy? : ARSE

Well, the word “arse” would never make it into a crossword in the British Isles as it would be considered too rude. I have a similar reaction to the word “shag” as in “The Spy Who Shagged Me”. The film would never have been released with that title in the UK.

59. Chicago daily, informally : TRIB

“The Chicago Tribune” was first published in 1847. The most famous edition of “The Trib” was probably in 1948 when the headline was “DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN”, on the occasion of that year’s presidential election. When it turned out Truman had actually won, the victor picked up the paper with the erroneous headline and posed for photographs with it … a famous, famous photo, that must have stuck in the craw of the editor at the time.

61. Great Lakes’ ___ Canals : SOO

In the summer of 2010 I spent a very interesting afternoon watching ships make their way through the Soo Locks and Soo Canals between Lake Superior and the lower Great lakes. The name “Soo” comes from the US and Canadian cities on either side of the locks, both called Sault Ste. Marie.

62. Bestow, to Burns : GIE

“Gie” is a variant of “give” used sometimes by Scots, and maybe even by poet Robert Burns.

Complete List of Clues/Answers

Across

1. Exchange of words : DIALOG
7. Smart farm animal? : WISEASS
14. Chevrolet model : IMPALA
15. Warning during a heist? : BANK SHOT
16. Washes against, as the shore : LAPS AT
17. In baroque fashion : ORNATELY
18. Gutterball? : ALLEY-OOPS
20. Afternoon social : TEA
21. Pigeon-___ : TOED
22. Filler ads, in brief : PSAS
24. Korean border area, for short : DMZ
27. Sinus doc : ENT
28. Yukon or Sierra : GMC
30. Opening word at many a conference : WELCOME
33. Eric of old CBS News : SEVAREID
36. Flipped (through) : LEAFED
37. Dinner at the end of Ramadan? : FAST BREAK
39. Where Socrates lived : ATHENS
42. Artists’ oil sources : LINSEEDS
46. Like Times Square on New Year’s Eve : CROWDED
48. Diet of Jack Sprat’s wife : FAT
49. “Doesn’t excite me” : MEH
50. Spanish uncle : TIO
51. Elite team member : SEAL
53. Bowery boozer : WINO
54. “The Spy Who Loved Me” org. : KGB
57. Rug store promotion? : FREE THROW
60. Pacifies : ASSUAGES
63. Establish : CREATE
64. Something bleeped out for television? : FOUL LINE
65. Successful batter : HITTER
66. Knocked over : TOPPLED
67. Think about only one thing : OBSESS

Down

1. Works with pupils? : DILATES
2. “No one’s with me” : I’M ALONE
3. Digital media player that’s “big” in New York City? : APPLE TV
4. Operated on, as the eyes : LASED
5. Beauty product line with the slogan “Ageless” : OLAY
6. Cat, to Catarina : GATO
7. Site of a 1955 “Pact” : WARSAW
8. Comfort ___ : INN
9. 32-card card game : SKAT
10. Punta del ___ (Uruguayan resort) : ESTE
11. Leading : AHEAD OF
12. Fa follower : SOL
13. Home on a farm : STY
15. Noggin knocks : BOPS
19. Footnote abbr. : OP CIT
23. Jennifer Lopez title role : SELENA
25. ___ Tussaud: Abbr. : MME
26. The end of the British monarchy? : ZED
28. Thou : GRAND
29. Things babies make : MESSES
31. ___ of one’s worries : LEAST
32. One might say “Happy Birthday” : CAKE
34. Not many : A FEW
35. Two-bagger: Abbr. : DBL
38. Part of N.R.A. : RIFLE
39. SAT alternative : ACT
40. Numerical prefix : TRI-
41. Has a one-night stand, say : HOOKS UP
43. Abu Dhabi, for one : EMIRATE
44. Signifies : DENOTES
45. An ejected player might be sent to them : SHOWERS
47. Protect against the other team scoring : DEFEND
52. The end of the British monarchy? : ARSE
53. Sharpens : WHETS
55. More than a sip : GULP
56. Spalding or Voit product : BALL
58. Bounce off the wall : ECHO
59. Chicago daily, informally : TRIB
60. Back, on a ship : AFT
61. Great Lakes’ ___ Canals : SOO
62. Bestow, to Burns : GIE