Constructed by: Daniel Okulitch
Edited by: Will Shortz
Not your puzzle? Try today’s …
… syndicated NY Times crossword
Today’s Theme: None
Read on, or jump to …
… a complete list of answers
Want to discuss the puzzle? Then …
… leave a comment
Bill’s time: 16m 13s
Bill’s errors: 0
Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies
Across
12 Thanksgiving and Pride both have one : PARADE
The first gay pride parades were held all on the same weekend in 1970, in New York City, Los Angeles and San Francisco.
The annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City has been held every year since 1924, with a brief suspension from 1942-1944. The parade was halted during WWII as there was a need for rubber and helium to support the war effort.
13 Person who lives on discarded food : FREEGAN
Freeganism is an ideology promoting alternative living strategies that incur little or no cost by using resources that are generally discarded in the conventional economy. Notable tactics are “dumpster diving” (searching for discarded food) and “guerrilla gardening” (growing food in city parks).
15 Dark-magic device with which to achieve immortality, in Harry Potter : HORCRUX
A Horcrux is a magical object found throughout the Harry Potter series of novels, one that comes to the fore in the final two books. It is a very resilient receptacle, difficult to destroy. The evil Lord Vlodemort’s soul was divided and resides in a number of Horcruxes, all of which are destroyed by different characters using various weapons.
16 “Desperate Housewives” co-star : LONGORIA
Eva Longoria is a fashion model and actress who had a regular role on TV’s “Desperate Housewives”, playing Gabrielle Solis.
25 Actress Phillipa of Broadway’s “Hamilton” : SOO
Phillipa Soo is an actress and singer who is perhaps best known for portraying Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton, the title character’s wife in the Broadway production of “Hamilton”.
26 Lacto-___ vegetarian : OVO
A lacto-ovo vegetarian is someone who does not consume meat or fish, but who does eat eggs (ovo) and dairy (lacto) products.
27 Bordeaux et Bourgogne, par exemple : VINS
Bordeaux is perhaps the wine-production capital of the world. Wine has been produced in the area since the eighth century. Bordeaux has an administrative history too. During WWII, the French government relocated from Paris to the port city of Bordeaux when it became clear that Paris was soon to fall to the Germans. After the Germans took France, the capital was famously moved to Vichy.
The Burgundy region of France is famous for its wine production. If you’re looking at a label that isn’t translated into English though, you’ll see Burgundy written in French, namely “Bourgogne”.
28 Icy drink : SLUSHIE
A slushie is a flavored frozen drink. The brand names Slurpee and ICEE are examples of the genre.
35 Words read with feeling : BRAILLE
The Braille system of reading and writing was devised in 1825 by Louis Braille, who was himself afflicted with blindness. Braille characters are composed of six positions or dots, each arranged in two columns of three dots each. Every dot can be raised or not raised, given a total of 64 possible characters.
37 Abraham Lincoln, for one: Abbr. : REP
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the US, elected in 1860 as the first president from the Republican Party. Lincoln’s electoral support came almost exclusively from the north and west of the country, winning only 2 out of 996 counties in the Southern slave states. Lincoln led the country through the Civil War, and then was assassinated in 1865 just a few days after Robert E. Lee surrendered his army of Northern Virginia. President Lincoln was succeeded in office by Vice President Andrew Johnson.
38 Enero o febrero, por ejemplo : MES
In Spanish, the month of “febrero” (February) is preceded by “enero” (January).
39 Speed of sound : MACH
The Mach number of a moving object (like say an airplane) is its speed relative to the speed of sound. A plane traveling at Mach 2, for example, is moving at twice the speed of sound. The term “Mach” takes its name from the Austrian physicist Ernst Mach who published a groundbreaking paper in 1877 that even predicted the “sonic boom”.
46 Familiar soap opera device : PLOT TWIST
The original soap operas were radio dramas back in the fifties. Given the structure of society back then, the daytime broadcasts were aimed at women working in the home as housewives. For some reason the sponsors of those radio shows, and the television shows that followed, were soap manufacturers like Procter & Gamble, Colgate-Palmolive and Lever Brothers. And that’s how the “soap” opera got its name …
50 An unrivaled champion, in slang : THE GOAT
Greatest of all time (GOAT)
52 Comical character in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” : BOTTOM
The Fool is a character who turns up in many, many Shakespearean plays. For example:
- The Fool, in “King Lear”
- Touchstone in “As You Like It”
- Nick Bottom in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”
- Clown in “Othello”
- The Gravediggers in “Hamlet”
- Falstaff in “Henry IV, Part 1” and “Henry IV, Part 2”
Down
1 Home to the largest football stadium in Europe : BARCELONA
Camp Nou is a football stadium that is home to Futbol Club Barcelona. It is the largest stadium in Europe, with a capacity of 99,354.
3 Mumbai wraps : SARIS
Mumbai is the most populous city in India, and the second-most populous city in the world (after Shanghai). The name of the city was changed from Bombay to Mumbai in 1995.
4 Together, musically : A DUE
“A due” is a musical term meaning “together” that translates literally from Italian as “by two”.
5 Justinian law : LEX
Justinian the Great was Byzantine Emperor from 527 to 565. Part of Justinian’s legacy is the “Corpus Juris Civilis”, the “Body of Civil Law” that forms the basis of modern civil law in many Western states.
7 Like some “Monty Python” humor : DROLL
The zany comedy show called “Monty Python’s Flying Circus” first aired in 1969 on the BBC. The show ran for four seasons and finished up soon after John Cleese decided to leave the team and move onto other projects.
9 Danish tourist attraction with multiple play areas : LEGO HOUSE
Lego is manufactured by the Lego Group, a privately held company headquartered in Billund, Denmark. The company was founded by a carpenter called Ole Kirk Christiansen in 1934 and the now-famous plastic interlocking blocks were introduced in 1949. The blocks were originally sold under the name “Automatic Binding Bricks” but I think “Lego” is easier to remember! The name “Lego” comes from the Danish term “leg godt” meaning “play well”.
14 Young hombre : NINO
In Spanish, a “niño” (boy) turns into a “hombre” (man).
21 Animal skin ailment : MANGE
Mange is a skin disorder in animals caused by parasitic mites that embed themselves in the skin, perhaps living in hair follicles. The same disorder in humans is called scabies. We use the adjective “mangy” to describe an animal suffering from mange, but also anything that is seedy or shabby.
27 One with a big heart? : VALENTINE
Saint Valentine’s Day was introduced by Pope Gelasius I in 496 AD to honor various martyrs with the name Valentine. However, the saint’s day was dropped by the Roman Catholic church in 1969, by Pope Paul VI. Try telling that to Hallmark though …
29 Gorilla with a job to do : HIRED GOON
The term “goon” was coined by American humorist Frederick J. Allen in a 1921 “Harper’s” piece titled “The Goon and His Style”. The article defines a good as “a person with a heavy touch” someone lacking “a playful mind”. The term was popularized in the “Thimble Theater” comic strips featuring Popeye. The first use of “goon” to describe a hired thug was in 1938, with reference to strikebreakers.
31 Exercise with Zener cards : ESP TEST
Zener cards were developed in the early thirties by psychologist Karl Zener for use in experiments related to extrasensory perception (ESP) that he conducted with his colleague J. B. Rhine. These five simple and distinctive cards replaced the standard deck of cards that had been used in trials up to that point. The five symbols used on the cards are a circle, a cross, three wavy lines, a square and a star.
39 Shot an airball, say : MISSED
An air ball in basketball is a shot that misses without even touching the rim, net or backboard.
40 Serenaded : SANG TO
A serenade is a musical performance in the open air, specifically at night. We tend to think of the term applying to a young man serenading his lover from below her window. We imported the word via French from the Italian “serenata” meaning “evening song”, influenced by the Italian “sera” meaning “evening”.
41 Screen rating, in brief? : SPF
In theory, the sun protection factor (SPF) is a calibrated measure of the effectiveness of a sunscreen in protecting the skin from harmful UV rays. The idea is that if you wear a lotion with say SPF 20, then it takes 20 times as much UV radiation to cause the skin to burn than it would take without protection. I say just stay out of the sun …
44 Kunta ___ (“Roots” role) : KINTE
Not only did Alex Haley author the magnificent novel “Roots”, he was also the collaborator with Malcolm X on “The Autobiography of Malcolm X”. His 1976 novel “Roots” is based on Haley’s own family history, and he claimed to be a direct descendant of the real life Kunta Kinte, the slave who was kidnapped in the Gambia in 1767. If you remember the original television adaptation of “Roots”, you might recall that Kunta Kinte was played by LeVar Burton, who later went on to play another famous role, Geordi La Forge on “Star Trek: the Next Generation”.
50 Venue for many TV reruns : TBS
The tbs cable television station started out in 1967 as a local broadcast TV station in Atlanta. The station’s first call letters were WJRJ-TV, and this was changed to WTCG in 1970 when it was acquired by Ted Turner (the TCG stood for Turner Communications Group). In 1976, Turner started distributing WTCG via satellite making its programming available in other parts of the country. WTCG was only the second channel to transmit via satellite, following HBO. The difference was that WTCG was broadcast without requiring a premium subscription. The station’s call sign was changed again in 1979 to WTBS, with “TBS” standing for Turner Broadcasting System. In 1981, the channel adopted the moniker “Superstation WTBS”.
Read on, or …
… return to top of page
Complete List of Clues/Answers
Across
1 Underlying : BASAL
6 Foggy : ADDLED
12 Thanksgiving and Pride both have one : PARADE
13 Person who lives on discarded food : FREEGAN
15 Dark-magic device with which to achieve immortality, in Harry Potter : HORCRUX
16 “Desperate Housewives” co-star : LONGORIA
18 Boo-boo : OUCHIE
19 Well done, in Italy : MOLTO BENE
20 Makeup of some canopies : TREES
21 Coarse flour : MEAL
22 Gentle giant on “Game of Thrones” : HODOR
23 Heartless : COLD
24 Over and done with : PAST
25 Actress Phillipa of Broadway’s “Hamilton” : SOO
26 Lacto-___ vegetarian : OVO
27 Bordeaux et Bourgogne, par exemple : VINS
28 Icy drink : SLUSHIE
32 Cognitive contortions : MENTAL GYMNASTICS
35 Words read with feeling : BRAILLE
36 Relieve : EASE
37 Abraham Lincoln, for one: Abbr. : REP
38 Enero o febrero, por ejemplo : MES
39 Speed of sound : MACH
40 Smallish branch : SECT
41 Scissors Palace, Anita Haircut or Do or Dye (all real places!) : SALON
44 Hose problem : KINK
45 Man of the cloth : PADRE
46 Familiar soap opera device : PLOT TWIST
48 Scorches : SINGES
49 Creates : FASHIONS
50 An unrivaled champion, in slang : THE GOAT
51 [More details below] : [SEE NOTE]
52 Comical character in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” : BOTTOM
53 Brought (in) : REELED
54 Secretly watch : SPY ON
Down
1 Home to the largest football stadium in Europe : BARCELONA
2 Like eyebrows : ARCHED
3 Mumbai wraps : SARIS
4 Together, musically : A DUE
5 Justinian law : LEX
6 Solvent : AFLOAT
7 Like some “Monty Python” humor : DROLL
8 Depression : DENT
9 Danish tourist attraction with multiple play areas : LEGO HOUSE
10 Result of a compliment, typically : EGO BOOST
11 Ventured : DARED
12 Kind of coffee made with a flask and a filter : POUR-OVER
14 Young hombre : NINO
15 Hair-straightening tool : HOT COMB
17 Atmospheric prefix : AER-
19 Like a breakup gone bad : MESSY
21 Animal skin ailment : MANGE
24 Tablets : PILLS
25 / or \ : SLASH
27 One with a big heart? : VALENTINE
28 Chips, e.g. : SNACK
29 Gorilla with a job to do : HIRED GOON
30 Kind of sandwich : ICE-CREAM
31 Exercise with Zener cards : ESP TEST
33 Chalamet of “Dune” : TIMOTHEE
34 Fated : MEANT
39 Shot an airball, say : MISSED
40 Serenaded : SANG TO
41 Screen rating, in brief? : SPF
42 Regrettably : ALAS
43 Schlump : LOSER
44 Kunta ___ (“Roots” role) : KINTE
45 One of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, in Catholicism : PIETY
47 Warm covering : WOOL
48 Factory : SHOP
50 Venue for many TV reruns : TBS
Leave a comment (below), or …
… return to top of page