0313-18 NY Times Crossword Answers 13 Mar 2018, Tuesday

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Constructed by: Carl Worth
Edited by: Will Shortz

Today’s Reveal Answer(s): Key West

Today’s themed answers are all written in the across-direction, and each comprise two words. The word to the WEST (left) in each themed answer is a KEY found on a computer keyboard:

  • 41A. Florida island … or a hint to 17-, 24-, 52- and 65-Across : KEY WEST
  • 17A. Change one’s approach : SHIFT GEARS
  • 24A. Metallica hit with the lyric “Sleep with one eye open” : ENTER SANDMAN
  • 52A. Micromanager : CONTROL FREAK
  • 65A. Series of puzzles for group solving : ESCAPE ROOM

Bill’s time: 6m 38s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

20. Boredom : ENNUI

“Ennui” is the French word for “boredom”, and a word that we now use in English. It’s one of the few French words we’ve imported that we haven’t anglicized, and actually pronounce “correctly”.

24. Metallica hit with the lyric “Sleep with one eye open” : ENTER SANDMAN

Metallica is a heavy metal band from Los Angeles that formed in 1981. Not my thing …

28. Relatives of rhododendrons : AZALEAS

Azaleas are very toxic to horses, sheep and goats, but strangely enough cause no problem for cats or dogs. And if you go to Korea you might come across “Tug Yonju”, which is azalea wine made from the plant’s blossoms. Azaleas are usually grown as shrubs, but are also seen as small trees, and often indoors.

36. Devotee of Haile Selassie, informally : RASTA

I must admit that I don’t really know much about Rastafarianism. I do know that a “Rasta”, such as Bob Marley, is a follower of the movement. Some say that Rastafarianism is a religion, some not. I also know that it involves the worship of Emperor Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia.

Emperor Haile Selassie I ruled Ethiopia until he was removed from power in a revolution in 1974. Selassie died in 1975 under suspicious circumstances and it is widely believed that he was assassinated.

43. Soda brand, or its opener : TAB

Tab was the first diet cola introduced by the Coca-Cola company, in 1963. It was produced as a competitor to the very successful Diet Rite cola that was made by RC Cola. The name “Tab” was used as the beverage was aimed at people who wanted “to keep tabs” on their weight.

The term “pop top” refers to a whole family of designs for opening the top of a soda can. The oldest method is the “pull tab” or “ring pull”, invented in Canada in 1956. The design was long-lived, but it had its problems, so the world heaved a sigh of relief with the invention of the stay-on-tab in 1975. The new design led to fewer injuries and eliminated all those used pull tabs that littered the streets.

46. Org. seeking life in space : SETI

“SETI” is the name given to a number of projects that are searching for extraterrestrial life. The acronym stands for “search for extraterrestrial intelligence”. One of the main SETI activities is the monitoring of electromagnetic radiation (such as radio waves) reaching the Earth in the hope of finding a transmission from a civilization in another world.

47. De ___ (legally) : JURE

Conceptually, “de jure” and “de facto” are related terms, one meaning “concerning, according to law”, and the other meaning “concerning, according to fact”. There is an example of the use of the two terms together from my homeland of Ireland. According to our constitution, Irish is the first language of the country, and yet almost everyone in the country uses English as his or her first language. One might say that Irish is the de jure first language, but English is the first language de facto.

50. Gasoline additive : ETHANOL

Ethyl alcohol is more usually known as ethanol. Ethanol is the alcohol found in intoxicating beverages, and nowadays is also used as a fuel for cars. It is also found in medical wipes and hand sanitizer, in which it acts as an antiseptic.

59. Frank who performed “Watermelon in Easter Hay” : ZAPPA

Frank Zappa was an American composer and guitarist. He was a solo artist as well as the founding member of the rock band Mothers of Invention. You might like to meet his four children: Moon Unit, Dweezil, Ahmet Emuukha Rodan, and Diva Thin Muffin Pigeen.

63. Product of Yale or Medeco : LOCK

The Yale brand name of lock comes from Linus Yale Jr., the founder of the original company. Linus Yale was the inventor of the pin tumbler lock.

68. Ancient Andean : INCA

The Inca people emerged as a tribe around the 12th century, in what today is southern Peru. The Incas developed a vast empire over the next 300 years, extending along most of the western side of South America. The Empire fell to the Spanish, finally dissolving in 1572 with the execution of Tupac Amaru, the last Incan Emperor.

69. First name of two of the three Apple co-founders : STEVE

Apple Computers was founded in 1976 by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne. The company incorporated the following year, but without Wayne. He sold his share of the company back to Jobs and Wozniak, for $800 …

71. Codger : COOT

Geezer, codger and coot are all not-so-nice terms for an old man, like me …

72. Big name in kitchen appliances : OSTER

The Oster brand of small appliances was introduced in 1924 by John Oster. He started out by making manually-powered hair clippers designed for cutting women’s hair, and followed up with a motorized version in 1928. The clippers kept the company in business until 1946 when Oster diversified, buying a manufacturer of liquefying blenders in 1946. The blender was renamed to “Osterizer” and was a big hit. Oster was bought up by Sunbeam, which has owned the brand since 1960.

Down

2. Loo : JOHN

The use of “john” as a slang term for a toilet is peculiar to North America. “John” probably comes from the older slang term of “jack” or “jakes” that had been around since the 16th century. In Ireland, in less polite moments, we still refer to a toilet as “the jacks”.

5. Part of G.P.A.: Abbr. : AVG

Grade point average (GPA)

6. Harper who wrote “Go Set a Watchman” : LEE

Nelle Harper Lee was an author from Monroeville, Alabama. For many years, Lee had only one published novel to her name. That is a “To Kill a Mockingbird”, a contribution to the world of literature was enough to earn her the Presidential Medal of Freedom and a Pulitzer Prize. Harper Lee was a close friend of fellow author Truman Capote who was the inspiration for the character named “Dill” in her novel. Lee was all over the news in 2015 as she had published a second novel, titled “Go Set a Watchman”. The experts seem to be agreeing that “Go Set a Watchman” is actually a first draft of “To Kill a Mockingbird”. Lee passed away less than a year after “Go Set a Watchman” hit the stores.

9. Model S, Model X and Model 3 : TESLAS

Tesla Motors is a manufacturer of electric vehicles based in Palo Alto, California. Tesla is noted for producing the first electric sports car, called the Tesla Roadster. The company followed the sports car with a luxury sedan, the Model S. The Model S was the world’s best selling plug-in electric vehicle of 2015.

10. Tolkien monster : ORC

Orcs are mythical humanoid creatures that appear in the writings of J. R. R. Tolkien. Since Tolkien’s use of orcs, they have also been featured in other fantasy fiction and in fantasy games.

12. Digital photo filter : SEPIA

Sepia is that rich, brown-grey color so common in old photographs. “Sepia” is the Latinized version of the Greek word for cuttlefish, as sepia pigment is derived from the ink sac of the cuttlefish. Sepia ink was commonly used for writing and drawing as far back as Ancient Rome and Ancient Greece. The “sepia tone” of old photographs is not the result of deterioration over time. Rather, it is the result of a deliberate preservation process which converts the metallic silver in the photographic image to a more stable silver sulfide. Prints that have been sepia-toned can last in excess of 150 years.

13. Jimmy of the Daily Planet : OLSEN

In the “Superman” stories, Jimmy Olsen is a cub photographer who works on the “Daily Planet” newspaper with Clark Kent and Lois Lane.

26. Awards show for top athletes : ESPYS

The ESPY Awards are a creation of the ESPN sports television network. One difference with similarly named awards in the entertainment industry is that ESPY winners are chosen solely based on viewer votes.

27. Double-helix molecule : DNA

Francis Crick and James Watson discovered that DNA had a double-helix, chain-like structure, and published their results in Cambridge in 1953. To this day the discovery is mired in controversy, as some crucial results collected by fellow researcher Rosalind Franklin were used without her permission or even knowledge.

28. First among men : ADAM

According to the Bible, God created Adam from “the dust of the ground”. Eve was created as Adam’s companion, from Adam’s rib.

29. Émile who wrote “J’accuse” : ZOLA

The most famous work by French writer Émile Zola is his 1898 open letter “J’Accuse!” written to French president Félix Faure. The letter was published on the front page of a leading Paris newspaper, and accused the government of anti-Semitism in its handling of the trial of Captain Alfred Dreyfus. Dreyfus was a Jewish military officer in the French army, falsely accused and convicted of spying for Germany. Even after the error was discovered, the government refused to back down and let Dreyfus rot away on Devil’s Island rather than admit to the mistake. It wasn’t until 1906, 12 years after the wrongful conviction, that Dreyfus was freed and reinstated, largely due to the advocacy of Emile Zola.

39. Victim of the first fratricide : ABEL

In the story of Cain and Abel in the Book of Genesis, Cain murders his brother Abel. Subsequently, God asks Cain, “Where is Abel thy brother?” Cain replies, “I do not know. Am I my brother’s keeper?”

41. Actress Knightley : KEIRA

The English actress Keira Knightley had her big break in movies when she co-starred in 2002’s “Bend It Like Beckham”. Knightley played one of my favorite movie roles, Elizabeth Bennett in 2005’s “Pride and Prejudice”. Knightley won a Golden Globe for that performance, although that 2005 film isn’t the best adaptation of Austen’s novel in my humble opinion …

45. Singer ___ King Cole : NAT

Nat King Cole’s real name was Nathaniel Adams Coles. Cole made television history in 1956 when his own show debuted on NBC, a first for an African-American. Cole couldn’t pick up a national sponsor, so in order to save money and possibly save the show, many guest artists worked for no fee at all – the likes of Ella Fitzgerald, Harry Belafonte and Peggy Lee. The show survived for a year, but eventually Nat King Cole had to pull the plug on it himself.

47. Capital of the world’s largest island country : JAKARTA

Jakarta is the capital of Indonesia and is located on the northwest coast of the island of Java. The city’s name comes from “Jayakarta” meaning “complete victory”.

52. Source of a baby’s (and parent’s) discomfort : COLIC

Baby colic is a condition in which a baby cries for no apparent reason for extended periods. At least one study has shown that breastfed babies are about half as likely to suffer from colic.

53. With 44-Across, home of a major Northeast university : ORONO
(44A. See 53-Down : MAINE)

The town of Orono is home to the University of Maine, founded in 1862. The college is actually located on an island (Marsh island) lying between the Penobscot and Stillwater rivers. The town of Orono is named after Joseph Orono, a chief of the Penobscot Nation. The school’s athletic teams are named the Maine Black Bears.

54. Wafer brand : NECCO

Necco Wafers are the best-known product line of the candy manufacturer called the New England Confectionery Company. The firm’s name is abbreviated to NECCO, an acronym that became synonymous with the wafers.

61. Keats or Yeats : POET

The English poet John Keats died in Rome in 1821, and is buried there in the Protestant Cemetery. His last wish was that his grave be marked with a tombstone bearing just the words “”Here lies One whose Name was writ in Water”, and no name nor a date. Keats’ friends honored his request to some extent, as the words were included on the stone and no name is given. The full epitaph reads:

This Grave
contains all that was Mortal
of a
Young English Poet
Who
on his Death Bed, in the Bitterness of his Heart
at the Malicious Power of his Enemies
Desired
these Words to be
engraven on his Tomb Stone:
Here lies One
Whose Name was writ in Water.
24 February 1821

Irish poet and dramatist William Butler Yeats won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1923 for “inspired poetry” that gave “expression to a whole nation”. Yeats was Ireland’s first Nobel laureate.

64. Kit ___ bar : KAT

I grew up eating Kit Kat bars as a kid, as the chocolate confection has been around since the thirties. Kit Kats didn’t hit the shelves in the US until the seventies. I’ve seen new varieties of Kit Kat over in the UK, such as an orange-flavored version, but haven’t seen anything like that over here.

66. “___ Maria” : AVE

“Ave Maria” (“Hail Mary” in English) is the prayer at the core of the Roman Catholic Rosary, which itself is a set of prayers asking for the assistance of the Virgin Mary. Much of the text of the “Hail Mary” comes from the Gospel of Luke. The words in Latin are:

AVE MARIA, gratia plena, Dominus tecum. Benedicta tu in mulieribus, et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Iesus. Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc, et in hora mortis nostrae. Amen.

The prayer has been adapted as a hymn. The two most famous musical versions of “Ave Maria” are by Charles Gounod (based on a piece by Bach) and by Franz Schubert.

Complete List of Clues/Answers

Across

1. Slightly open : AJAR
5. Overhead : ALOFT
10. Approximately : OR SO
14. What you might do to a turtle that’s withdrawn into its shell : POKE
15. Theater, for a Broadway show : VENUE
16. Rod’s mate : REEL
17. Change one’s approach : SHIFT GEARS
19. Things that bottles and snow-covered mountains have : CAPS
20. Boredom : ENNUI
21. Societal problems : ILLS
23. Some do it through their teeth : LIE
24. Metallica hit with the lyric “Sleep with one eye open” : ENTER SANDMAN
28. Relatives of rhododendrons : AZALEAS
31. Young friend, to a good ol’ boy : SON
32. Spanish gentlemen : DONS
33. Unwanted inbox filler : SPAM
36. Devotee of Haile Selassie, informally : RASTA
40. Lead-in to rock or right : ALT-
41. Florida island … or a hint to 17-, 24-, 52- and 65-Across : KEY WEST
43. Soda brand, or its opener : TAB
44. See 53-Down : MAINE
46. Org. seeking life in space : SETI
47. De ___ (legally) : JURE
48. Look through the cross hairs : AIM
50. Gasoline additive : ETHANOL
52. Micromanager : CONTROL FREAK
57. Mine cartload : ORE
58. Soprano’s solo : ARIA
59. Frank who performed “Watermelon in Easter Hay” : ZAPPA
63. Product of Yale or Medeco : LOCK
65. Series of puzzles for group solving : ESCAPE ROOM
68. Ancient Andean : INCA
69. First name of two of the three Apple co-founders : STEVE
70. Olive or peach : TREE
71. Codger : COOT
72. Big name in kitchen appliances : OSTER
73. Abbr. before a memo recipient’s name : ATTN

Down

1. Church recess : APSE
2. Loo : JOHN
3. Similar (to) : AKIN
4. Makes a pit stop, say : REFUELS
5. Part of G.P.A.: Abbr. : AVG
6. Harper who wrote “Go Set a Watchman” : LEE
7. TV studio sign : ON AIR
8. Rolls up, as a flag : FURLS
9. Model S, Model X and Model 3 : TESLAS
10. Tolkien monster : ORC
11. Ruler’s domain : REALM
12. Digital photo filter : SEPIA
13. Jimmy of the Daily Planet : OLSEN
18. One of four on a fork, often : TINE
22. Derisive sound : SNORT
25. Zap, in a way : TASE
26. Awards show for top athletes : ESPYS
27. Double-helix molecule : DNA
28. First among men : ADAM
29. Émile who wrote “J’accuse” : ZOLA
30. Opposed to : ANTI
34. Feeling upon meeting an idol : AWE
35. Poetic rhythm : METER
37. Zap, in a way : STUN
38. ___ chips (trendy snack food) : TARO
39. Victim of the first fratricide : ABEL
41. Actress Knightley : KEIRA
42. Something pinned on a map : SITE
45. Singer ___ King Cole : NAT
47. Capital of the world’s largest island country : JAKARTA
49. Beyond that : MORE SO
51. Mental blur : HAZE
52. Source of a baby’s (and parent’s) discomfort : COLIC
53. With 44-Across, home of a major Northeast university : ORONO
54. Wafer brand : NECCO
55. Grocery shopping aids : LISTS
56. Side of a gem : FACET
60. Cruise ship stop : PORT
61. Keats or Yeats : POET
62. “You said it!” : AMEN!
64. Kit ___ bar : KAT
66. “___ Maria” : AVE
67. Each : PER