1114-18 NY Times Crossword 14 Nov 18, Wednesday

Constructed by: Sam Trabucco
Edited by: Will Shortz

Today’s Reveal Answer: Grow a Beard

Themed answers include a word in circled letters that form a sequence that grows from B to BEARD:

  • 16A. Key for five Mozart piano concertos : B-FLAT MAJOR
  • 22A. “Just act natural!” : BE YOURSELF
  • 34A. “The Golden Girls” actress : BEA ARTHUR
  • 47A. Worrisome sign around a campsite : BEAR TRACKS
  • 57A. Do the opposite of shave … as suggested by the circled letters : GROW A BEARD

Bill’s time: 7m 47s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1. Mag for docs : JAMA

The American Medical Association (AMA) has been publishing the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) since 1883.

9. Attire that may include covering for the feet, in brief : PJS

Our word “pajamas” (sometimes “PJs” or “jammies”) comes to us from the Indian subcontinent, where “pai jamahs” were loose fitting pants tied at the waist and worn at night by locals and ultimately by the Europeans living there. And “pajamas” is another of those words that I had to learn to spell differently when I came to America. On the other side of the Atlantic, the spelling is “pyjamas”.

14. Cool, in dated slang : PHAT

In hip-hop circles, the term “phat” means “excellent, first-rate”.

28. Many-time Grammy-winning cellist : YO-YO MA

Yo-Yo Ma is a marvelous American cellist who was born in Paris to Chinese parents. Ma started studying the violin when he was very young, working his way up (in size) to the viola and finally to the cello. He has said that he wanted to play the double bass, but it was just too big for his relatively small frame.

34. “The Golden Girls” actress : BEA ARTHUR

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”.

40. Fairy queen in “Romeo and Juliet” : MAB

In Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet”, Mercutio refers to the fairy known as Queen Mab. It seems that Queen Mab was Shakespeare’s creation, although she became popular in subsequent works of literature. For example, she is referred to in Herman Melville’s “Moby Dick”, in Jane Austen’s “Sense and Sensibility”, and Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote a large poetic work called “Queen Mab: A Philosophical Poem”.

52. Fitzgerald known as the Queen of Jazz : ELLA

Ella Fitzgerald, the “First Lady of Song”, had a hard and tough upbringing. She was raised by her mother alone in Yonkers, New York. Her mother died while Ella was still a schoolgirl, and around that time the young girl became less interested in her education. She fell in with a bad crowd, even working as a lookout for a bordello and as a Mafia numbers runner. She ended up in reform school, from which she escaped, and found herself homeless and living on the streets for a while. Somehow Fitzgerald managed to get herself a spot singing in the Apollo Theater in Harlem. From there her career took off and as they say, the rest is history.

56. Swenson of “Benson” : INGA

Inga Swenson is an American actress. Her best known role was “Gretchen Kraus”, the German cook and later housekeeper on the TV show “Benson”. Swenson also appeared in a couple of episodes of “Bonanza” playing the second wife of Ben Cartwright (Lorne Greene), and mother of Hoss Cartwright (Dan Blocker). This was despite the fact that in real life, she was actually 4 years younger than Blocker!

59. User-edited web page : WIKI

A wiki is a website on which users are allowed to create and edit content themselves. The term “wiki” comes from the name of the first such site, introduced in 1994 and called WikiWikiWeb. “Wiki” is a Hawaiian word for “quick”, and is used because comprehensive content is created very quickly a there are so many collaborators contributing to the site.

60. Mom on “The Simpsons” : MARGE

Marge Simpson is the matriarch of the family in “The Simpsons” animated sitcom. Marge is voiced by actress Julie Kavner, who is also well known for playing Brenda Morgenstern in the TV show “Rhoda” in the seventies.

61. ___ milk : SOY

What are known as soybeans here in the US are called “soya beans” in most other English-speaking countries. So, I drink soy milk here in America, but when I am over in Ireland I drink “soya milk”.

62. Sweeties, in modern slang : BAES

“Bae” is a contemporary term of endearment. It is a pet name that is an abbreviation of “babe, baby”, although I’ve also read that it is an acronym standing for “before anyone else”.

Down

2. ___ de coeur (French romance) : AFFAIRE

“Affaire de coeur” is French for “love affair”, literally “love of the heart”.

4. Longtime Sampras rival : AGASSI

Retired tennis professional Andre Agassi has been married to fellow player Steffi Graf since 2001. Agassi wrote an autobiography called “Open”, published in 2009. An amazing revelation in the book is that Agassi’s famous head of hair was actually a wig for much of his playing career. Can you imagine how hard it must have been to play tennis at his level with a rug stuck on?

Pete Sampras is a retired Greek-American tennis professional. Sampras was rated number one in the world rankings for six years in a row in the nineties.

9. Hypothetical body in the solar system beyond Neptune : PLANET X

The astronomer Percival Lowell spent decades searching for what was known as Planet X. Planet X was a hypothetical body in solar system that would explain deviations in the orbits of Uranus and Neptune (a hypothesis later shown to be false). His work is known to have led to the discovery of Pluto in 1930, 14 years after Lowell died.

10. “Hidden Figures” co-star Monáe : JANELLE

“Hidden Figures” is an excellent 2016 film based on a book of the same name by Margot Lee Shetterly. Both book and film tell the story of female African American mathematicians who worked for NASA during the Mercury and Apollo programs in the 1960s.

11. Inhaled, as food : SNARFED

To snarf down is to gobble up, to eat voraciously. “Snarf” is a slang term that is probably related to “scarf”, which has the same meaning.

13. Summer in Paris : ETE

In French, the season of “été” (summer) starts in “juin” (June). Note that the names of months are not capitalized in French.

17. Will Smith/Tommy Lee Jones film franchise, for short : MIB

“Men in black” (MIB) are said to have appeared in the past whenever there have been reports of UFO sightings. Supposedly, these men are government agents whose job it is to suppress reports of alien landings. The conspiracy theorists got their day in the movies with the release of a pretty good sci-fi comedy in 1997 called “Men in Black”, starring Will Smith (as Agent J) and Tommy Lee Jones (as Agent K).

23. German rapid transit system : U-BAHN

“U-Bahn” is the name given to the underground train system in several cities around Germany including Berlin, Hamburg, Munich and Nuremberg.

29. Western flick, in old parlance : OATER

The term “oater” that is used for a Western movie comes from the number of horses seen, as horses love oats!

The slang term “flick” meaning “movie” came into use in the mid-1920s. It comes from the “flickering” appearance of films back then.

31. Bruins great Bobby : ORR

Bobby Orr is regarded as one of the greatest hockey players of all time. By the time he retired in 1978 he had undergone over a dozen knee surgeries. At 31 years of age, he concluded that he just couldn’t skate anymore. Reportedly, he was even having trouble walking. While still 31 years old, in 1979, Orr became the youngest person inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame.

32. Underground org. in N.Y.C. : MTA

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) has public transportation responsibility in the state of New York (as well as part of Connecticut). “MTA” might also refer to the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which is known as “the Metro” and sometimes “the MTA”.

35. Sport-___ (vehicle) : UTE

A utility vehicle is often called a “ute” for short. Nowadays one mainly hears about sport-utes and crossover-utes.

40. It might require antiviral treatment to beat : MALWARE

Malware is software and program code that is created to intentionally disrupt and exploit computer systems. Viruses, worms, trojan horses and spyware are all covered by the term. “Malware” is short for “malicious software”.

44. Highway: Abbr. : RTE

Route (rte.)

48. Fancy hotel lobbies : ATRIA

In modern architecture an atrium (plural “atria” or “atriums”) is a large open space usually in the center of a building and extending upwards to the roof. The original atrium was an open court in the center of an Ancient Roman house. One could access most of the enclosed rooms of the house from the atrium.

50. New Zealanders : KIWIS

Unlike many nicknames for people of a particular country, the name “Kiwi” for a New Zealander isn’t offensive at all. The term comes from the flightless bird called the kiwi, which is endemic to New Zealand and is the country’s national symbol. “Kiwi” is a Maori word, and the plural (when referring to the bird) is simply “kiwi”. However, when you have two or more New Zealanders with you, they are Kiwis (note the “s”, and indeed the capital “K”!).

51. Govt. org. dating from the 1930s : SSA

The Social Security Administration (SSA) was set up as part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. The first person to receive a monthly retirement benefit was Ida May Fuller of Vermont who received her first check for the sum of $22.54 after having contributed for three years through payroll taxes. The New Deal turned out to be a good deal for Ms. Fuller, as she lived to 100 years of age and received a total benefit of almost $23,000, whereas her three years of contributions added up to just $24.75.

55. Big name in cloud computing : IBM

Tech giant IBM was founded as the Tabulating Machine Company in 1896. The company changed its name to the Computing Tabulating Recording Corporation (CTR) in 1911 and was listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 1916. The name “International Business Machines” (IBM) was given first to the company’s Canadian subsidiary, and then to its South American subsidiary. In 1924, it was decided to adopt the International Business Machines name for the whole company. Good choice …

In the world of computing, when one operates “in the cloud”, one’s files and key applications are not stored on one’s own computer, but rather are residing “in the cloud”, on a computer somewhere out on the Internet. I do 90% of my computing in the cloud. That way I don’t have to worry about backing up files, and I can operate from any computer if I have to …

57. Potus #43 : GWB

President George W. Bush (GWB) is named for his father, George H. W. Bush. The “W” in the name of both father and son stands for “Walker”. Walker was the family name of President George H. W. Bush’s mother, Dorothy Walker.

Complete List of Clues/Answers

Across

1. Mag for docs : JAMA
5. Absorbs, with “up” : SOPS
9. Attire that may include covering for the feet, in brief : PJS
12. Old enough : OF AGE
14. Cool, in dated slang : PHAT
15. Boy’s name that’s an anagram of 18-Across : ALAN
16. Key for five Mozart piano concertos : B-FLAT MAJOR
18. Girl’s name that’s an anagram of 15-Across : LANA
19. Its worship is condemned in the Bible : FALSE IDOL
20. The ___ things in life : FINER
21. Intentions : AIMS
22. “Just act natural!” : BE YOURSELF
24. Letter-shaped beam : I-RAIL
26. Waves may convey a message in this : BOTTLE
27. Be an agent for, informally : REP
28. Many-time Grammy-winning cellist : YO-YO MA
33. Struck (out) : EXED
34. “The Golden Girls” actress : BEA ARTHUR
36. Initiation, e.g. : RITE
39. Bad, bad boss : TYRANT
40. Fairy queen in “Romeo and Juliet” : MAB
43. “The party can finally start!” : I’M HERE!
45. Muse featured in “Xanadu” : ERATO
47. Worrisome sign around a campsite : BEAR TRACKS
52. Fitzgerald known as the Queen of Jazz : ELLA
53. Get clean : BATHE
54. Fighting words : THIS IS WAR
56. Swenson of “Benson” : INGA
57. Do the opposite of shave … as suggested by the circled letters : GROW A BEARD
58. Letter-shaped fastener : T-NUT
59. User-edited web page : WIKI
60. Mom on “The Simpsons” : MARGE
61. ___ milk : SOY
62. Sweeties, in modern slang : BAES
63. Angry, with “off” : TEED

Down

1. Event for college seniors : JOB FAIR
2. ___ de coeur (French romance) : AFFAIRE
3. Plan for shoppers : MALL MAP
4. Longtime Sampras rival : AGASSI
5. Heart beater, in bridge : SPADE
6. “How wonderful!,” sarcastically : OH JOY!
7. Paul : U.S. :: ___ : Italy : PAOLO
8. Orch. section : STR
9. Hypothetical body in the solar system beyond Neptune : PLANET X
10. “Hidden Figures” co-star Monáe : JANELLE
11. Inhaled, as food : SNARFED
13. Summer in Paris : ETE
15. Much-sought-after celeb : A-LISTER
17. Will Smith/Tommy Lee Jones film franchise, for short : MIB
20. Big do : ‘FRO
23. German rapid transit system : U-BAHN
25. Ingredient in a drain declogger : LYE
29. Western flick, in old parlance : OATER
30. “That’s terrific!” : YAY!
31. Bruins great Bobby : ORR
32. Underground org. in N.Y.C. : MTA
34. Drinker’s party headgear : BEER HAT
35. Sport-___ (vehicle) : UTE
36. Sounds heard at night near a pond : RIBBITS
37. Resolute refusal : I MEAN NO!
38. Fellow you don’t want to be, in a phrase : THAT GUY
40. It might require antiviral treatment to beat : MALWARE
41. Still wanted by the police : AT LARGE
42. Got on : BOARDED
44. Highway: Abbr. : RTE
46. Move into or from an exit row, perhaps : RESEAT
48. Fancy hotel lobbies : ATRIA
49. Strangle : CHOKE
50. New Zealanders : KIWIS
51. Govt. org. dating from the 1930s : SSA
55. Big name in cloud computing : IBM
57. Potus #43 : GWB