0416-22 NY Times Crossword 16 Apr 22, Saturday

Constructed by: Hemant Mehta
Edited by: Will Shortz

Today’s Theme: None

Bill’s time: 60m 48s!

Bill’s errors: 3

  • ORLEAN (Oslean)
  • GOTTA CATCH ‘EM ALL! (Gotta catch a mall!!)
  • ERES (esas)

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1 Like much White House press : DC BASED

The District of Columbia (DC) was established by the Residence Act in 1790. Article One, Section 8 of the US constitution provides for the establishment of a district outside of the states, over which the federal government has authority. The constitution also specifies that the district cannot exceed an area of ten miles square.

16 Susan who wrote “The Orchid Thief” : ORLEAN

“The Orchid Thief” is a 1998 book by journalist Susan Orlean about the poaching of the rare Ghost Orchid from a Florida State Park. The book was adapted into the 2002 film “Adaptation” starring Meryl Streep as the author Orlean.

17 Line of Pokémon : GOTTA CATCH ‘EM ALL!

“Pokémon GO” is a reality-based video game in which players must locate, capture, battle and train virtual creatures known as Pokémon. The Pokémon are hidden in the real world, in the sense that they have to be located on an electronic device (like a smartphone) in “the real world”, for which a GPS location is needed. Players see the Pokémon overlaid on a view of the real world on their smart device.

19 Actor James of “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” : AVERY

On the nineties sitcom “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air”, patriarch Philip Banks was played by James Avery.

21 Forerunner of rocksteady : SKA

Ska originated in Jamaica in the late fifties and was the precursor to reggae music. No one has a really definitive etymology of the term “ska”, but it is likely to be imitative of a sound.

23 Native Costa Ricans, informally : TICOS

Costa Rica is a country in Central America that is bordered by Nicaragua to the north and Panama to the South. Costa Rica is remarkable in my opinion, a leader on the world stage in many areas. It has been referred to as the “greenest” country in the world, the “happiest” country in the world, and has a highly educated populace. In 1949, the country unilaterally abolished its own army … permanently!

24 Something that might be raised in a fight : CAIN

As Cain was the first murderer according to the Bible, he is associated with evil or trouble. The idiom “raise Cain” is the equivalent of “raise Hell” and “raise the Devil”. In all cases, the meaning is to bring back evil or to cause trouble.

26 Locales for the Jets and the Sharks : RINKS

Winnipeg’s professional hockey team is the Winnipeg Jets. The team was founded as the Atlanta Thrashers in 1999 and relocated to Winnipeg in 2011. The new team name was chosen in honor of the Manitoba city’s former professional hockey team called the Jets, a franchise that was founded in 1972 but relocated to become the Phoenix Coyotes in 1996.

The San Jose Sharks hockey team play their home games at the HP Pavilion in San Jose, a venue that we locals call “the Shark Tank”.

27 Like wicker chairs : CANED

The Wych elm is also known as the Scots elm. It is the most common species of elm found in Europe. The term “wych” comes from the Old English “wice” meaning “pliant, supple”. The word “wice” also gives rise to our word “wicker”.

33 Daylight saving time adjustment: Abbr. : ONE HR

On the other side of the Atlantic, daylight saving time (DST) is known as “summer time”. The idea behind summer/daylight-savings is to move clocks forward an hour in spring (“spring forward”), and backwards in the fall (“fall back”) so that afternoons have more daylight. Here in the US, DST starts on the second Sunday of March, and ends on the first Sunday of November.

38 Sound of the West Coast : PUGET

George Vancouver was a British explorer, and an officer in the Royal Navy. As well as exploring the coast of Australia, he is best known for his travels along the northwest coast of North America. The city of Vancouver was named in his honor. Traveling with him on his American voyage was a lieutenant Peter Puget, and in his honor, Vancouver named the waters south of the Tacoma Narrows “Puget’s Sound”. Nowadays, the name “Puget Sound” describes an area much greater than Vancouver had envisioned.

39 What stamens are, in botany : MALE

The stamen is the male reproductive organ of a flower. The part of the stamen known as the anther sits on a stalk called the filament that carries the pollen. The pollen is picked up by insects, especially bees, who then transfer pollen from flower to flower. The pistil is the female reproductive organ, and it accepts the pollen.

43 Travel around the world : GEOCENTRIC ORBIT

Heliocentrism is the astronomical model that has the Earth and other planets revolving around the Sun at the center of the Solar System. The geocentric model holds that the Earth is the center of the Universe.

46 Stuck in the Middle Ages? : LANCED

European history is often divided in three major periods: classical antiquity and the modern period, with the Middle Ages in between. Specifically, the Middle Ages are said to have begun in 476 AD, when the last Roman Emperor was deposed by a Germanic chieftain. The end date for the Middle Ages is less specific, but is about 1500 AD. The list of events signaling the end of the Middle Ages includes Christopher Columbus’s first voyage to the New World (1492) and the Protestant Reformation (1517). The term “medieval” is used to describe something belonging to the Middle Ages.

47 Summer cooler : SNOW CONE

A sno-cone (also “snow cone”) is just a paper cone filled with crushed ice and topped with flavored water. Italian ice is similar, but different. Whereas the flavoring is added on top of the ice to make a sno-cone, Italian ice is made with water that is flavored before it is frozen.

48 Early Macedonian capital : EDESSA

The Greek city of Edessa is in the Central Macedonian region of the country. Edessa was the ancient capital of Macedon, and home to fabled King Midas.

Down

1 Famed Portuguese explorer : DA GAMA

Vasco da Gama left on his first voyage of discovery in 1497. da Gama journeyed around the Cape of Good Hope, the southernmost tip of Africa, and across the Indian Ocean making landfall in India. Landing in India, his fleet became the first expedition to sail directly from Europe to the sub-continent. Vasco da Gama was well known for acts of cruelty, especially on local inhabitants. One of his milder atrocities was inflicted on a priest whom he labeled as a spy. He had the priest’s lips and ears cut off, and sent him on his way after having a pair of dog’s ears sewn onto his head.

2 Good luck with that! : CLOVER

Clovers are species of flowering plants in the pea family. Famously, clover leaves are trifoliate, have three leaflets. There are about 5,000 three-leaf clovers for every 1 four-leaf clover, leading to the association of a four-leaf clover with good luck.

6 Onetime trade org. : EEC

The European Economic Community (EEC) was also known as the Common Market. The EEC was a NAFTA-like structure that was eventually absorbed into today’s European Union (EU).

8 Target alternative : KOHL’S

Kohl’s is a department store chain with its headquarters in a suburb of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The store takes its name from the founder, Maxwell Kohl.

11 Russian Revolution figures : PEASANTS

The year 1917 saw two revolutions in Russia, with the pair collectively called “the Russian Revolution”. As a result of the February Revolution that centered on Petrograd, the last Emperor of Russia (Tsar Nicholas II) abdicated and members of the Imperial parliament took control of the country, forming the Russian Provisional Government. The Provisional Government was itself overthrown in the October Revolution, which was led by Vladimir Lenin and the Bolshevik party.

23 New York county near Pennsylvania : TIOGA

Tioga County, New York is part of the Binghamton Metropolitan Statistical Area. “Tioga” is a Native-American word meaning “at the forks”.

26 1998 Robert De Niro crime thriller : RONIN

I haven’t seen “Ronin”, a 1998 action thriller about a group of ex-special forces and intelligence agents who collaborate to steal a mysterious suitcase. It stars Robert De Niro and Jean Reno, and sounds like my kind of film.

Robert De Niro is noted for his longtime and highly successful collaboration with the director Martin Scorsese, in such films as “Taxi Driver” (1976), “Raging Bull” (1980), “Goodfellas” (1990) and “Casino” (1995). De Niro is also noted for his commitment as a method actor. Famously, he gained a full 60 pounds in order to play Jake Lamotta in “Raging Bull”.

29 Author/screenwriter Ben : HECHT

Ben Hecht had many jobs in Hollywood, but mainly is remembered as a screenwriter. Hecht earned the nickname “the Shakespeare of Hollywood” largely due to the large number of screen credits he received, getting writing credit for about seventy films. Included in the list of screenplays he worked on are “The Front Page”, “Some Like It Hot”, “Gone with the Wind” and “A Farewell to Arms”.

30 “Drink marvelously” sloganeer : KETEL ONE

Ketel One is a brand of vodka from the Netherlands. The vodka is distilled from wheat in copper pot stills, and “ketel” is Dutch for “pot still, kettle”.

31 Trailer : MOVIE AD

The term “trailer” was originally used in the film industry to describe advertisements for upcoming features. These trailers were originally shown at the end of a movie being screened, hence the name. This practice quickly fell out of favor as theater patrons usually left at the end of the movie without paying much attention to the trailers. So, the trailers were moved to the beginning of the show, but the term “trailer” persisted.

32 Look up, in a way : GOOGLE

The Google search engine was originally called “BackRub” would you believe? The name was eventually changed to “Google”, an intentional misspelling of the word “googol”. A googol is a pretty big number, 10 to the power of 100. That would be the digit 1 followed by 100 zeros.

34 Something a 38-Down likes to eat : BAMBOO
(38D An adult one can spend up to 16 hours a day eating : PANDA)

The grass known as bamboo is one of the fastest-growing plants in the world. Sadly, there are stories of growing bamboo being used as a device of torture. Supposedly, a victim can be staked out over bamboo shoots so that the shoots grow into the human flesh. Theoretically, bamboo can grow several inches in just three days.

35 Current weather concern? : EL NINO

When the surface temperature of much of the Pacific Ocean rises more than half a degree celsius, then there is said to be an El Niño episode. That small temperature change in the Pacific has been associated with climatic changes that can stretch right across the globe. El Niño is Spanish for “the boy” and is a reference to the Christ child. The phenomenon was given this particular Spanish name because the warming is usually noticed near South America and around Christmas-time.

38 An adult one can spend up to 16 hours a day eating : PANDA

The giant panda is a bear, and so has the digestive system of a carnivore. However, the panda lives exclusively on bamboo, even though its gut is relatively poorly adapted to extract nutrients from plants per se. The panda relies on microbes in its gut to digest cellulose, and consumes 20-30 pounds of bamboo each day to gain enough nourishment.

41 Contests in which the competitors are eliminated one by one : BEES

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.

42 Pulitzer winner Maureen : DOWD

Maureen Dowd is a celebrated columnist for “The New York Times” as well as a best-selling author. Dowd won a Pulitzer for her columns about the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

44 Syringe amts. : CCS

Cubic centimeter (cc)

Complete List of Clues/Answers

Across

1 Like much White House press : DC BASED
8 Stick with : KEEP TO
14 Social elites : A-LISTERS
16 Susan who wrote “The Orchid Thief” : ORLEAN
17 Line of Pokémon : GOTTA CATCH ‘EM ALL!
19 Actor James of “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” : AVERY
20 ___ Who Code (nonprofit) : GIRLS
21 Forerunner of rocksteady : SKA
22 Bad thing to miss : MEMO
23 Native Costa Ricans, informally : TICOS
24 Something that might be raised in a fight : CAIN
25 Amount to : ARE
26 Locales for the Jets and the Sharks : RINKS
27 Like wicker chairs : CANED
28 Daisy Dukes, e.g. : BOOTY SHORTS
30 Draft status? : KING OF BEERS
31 Excessive coverage, perhaps : MEDIA CIRCUS
32 Mounted : GOT ON
33 Daylight saving time adjustment: Abbr. : ONE HR
34 You might have one on the side : BET
37 Roaster : OVEN
38 Sound of the West Coast : PUGET
39 What stamens are, in botany : MALE
40 Word with change or color : OIL …
41 Unmasked, say : BARED
42 Swears at : DAMNS
43 Travel around the world : GEOCENTRIC ORBIT
46 Stuck in the Middle Ages? : LANCED
47 Summer cooler : SNOW CONE
48 Early Macedonian capital : EDESSA
49 Divinity : GODHOOD

Down

1 Famed Portuguese explorer : DA GAMA
2 Good luck with that! : CLOVER
3 “Oh, get outta here!” : BITE ME!
4 Lead-in to physical : ASTRO-
5 Suspension of a sort : STAY
6 Onetime trade org. : EEC
7 Sue : DRAG INTO COURT
8 Target alternative : KOHL’S
9 “De dónde ___?” (Spanish 101 query) : ERES
10 ___ borer (beetle) : ELM
11 Russian Revolution figures : PEASANTS
12 Silent counterparts, once : TALKIES
13 Where cruise passengers end up : ON LAND
15 Propensity for pilfering : STICKY FINGERS
18 Practice that yields mixed results? : CROSSBREEDING
23 New York county near Pennsylvania : TIOGA
24 Big name in crackers : CARR’S
26 1998 Robert De Niro crime thriller : RONIN
27 The heart of Paris : COEUR
28 Try to win, in a way : BID ON
29 Author/screenwriter Ben : HECHT
30 “Drink marvelously” sloganeer : KETEL ONE
31 Trailer : MOVIE AD
32 Look up, in a way : GOOGLE
34 Something a 38-Down likes to eat : BAMBOO
35 Current weather concern? : EL NINO
36 Tried-and-true : TESTED
38 An adult one can spend up to 16 hours a day eating : PANDA
39 Footslog : MARCH
41 Contests in which the competitors are eliminated one by one : BEES
42 Pulitzer winner Maureen : DOWD
44 Syringe amts. : CCS
45 Soft-spoken words : COO