0819-20 NY Times Crossword 19 Aug 20, Wednesday

Constructed by: Brandon Koppy
Edited by: Will Shortz

Today’s Reveal Answer(s): Life Cycle

Themed answers come in overlapping pairs as we CYCLE around the edge of the grid. We start with LIFE, and end with LIFE:

  • 1D With 41-Across, generational sequence : LIFE …
  • 41A See 1-Down : … CYCLE
  • 1A With 5-Across, means of survival : LIFE …
  • 5A With 9-Across, place to yacht-shop : … BOAT
  • 9A With 16-Down, decisive confrontation : SHOW …
  • 16D With 39-Down, minimize : … DOWN
  • 69A With 50-Down, athlete’s intense expression : GAME …
  • 50D With 27-Down, Apple app : … FACE
  • 70A With 69-Across, advantage in sports : HOME …
  • 69A With 50-Down, athlete’s intense expression : … GAME
  • 71A With 70-Across, call it a night, say : HEAD …
  • 70A With 69-Across, advantage in sports : … HOME
  • 16D With 39-Down, minimize : DOWN …
  • 39D With 62-Down, lie motionless : … PLAY
  • 27D With 1-Down, company named for two magazines : TIME …
  • 1D With 41-Across, generational sequence : … LIFE
  • 39D With 62-Down, lie motionless : PLAY …
  • 62D With 71-Across, traveling music fan of old : … DEAD
  • 50D With 27-Down, Apple app : FACE …
  • 27D With 1-Down, company named for two magazines : … TIME
  • 62D With 71-Across, traveling music fan of old : DEAD …
  • 71A With 70-Across, call it a night, say : … HEAD

Bill’s time: 8m 34s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

13 Mosque V.I.P. : IMAM

An imam is a Muslim leader, and often the person in charge of a mosque and/or perhaps a Muslim community.

15 Santa Claus “flight tracker” : NORAD

The North American Defense Command (NORAD) isn’t just a US operation but is a cooperative arrangement between Canada and the United States. The two countries entered into an agreement to establish NORAD in 1958, mainly due to the concern that there would be little or no warning of a missile attack from the Soviet Union that came over the North Pole. NORAD also tracks Santa Claus coming from the North Pole every Christmas, and these days publishes Santa’s location on Christmas Eve on its website. The tracking of Santa started into 1955 when a local Sears store placed an advertisement in a Colorado Springs newspaper with a phone number that could be used to call Santa Claus. The newspaper accidentally printed the number for the Continental Air Defense Command (a precursor to NORAD). The officer on duty instructed his staff to give all children who called a “current location” for Santa. Today, NORAD gets about 120,000 phone queries about Santa’s location every year, and the website gets about 20 million visitors.

17 Puma competitor : FILA

Fila was originally an Italian company, founded in 1911 and now based in South Korea. Fila was started in Piedmont by the Fila brothers, primarily to make underwear that they sold to people living in the Italian Alps. The company started to focus on sportswear in the seventies, using tennis-great Bjorn Borg as their major endorser.

Puma is a German company that sells athletic shoes worldwide. The company is most famous for its line of soccer boots.

18 Blue material : SMUT

“Smut” means “dirt, smudge” and more recently “pornographic material”. The term comes from the Yiddish “schmutz”, which is a slang word used in English for dirt, as in “dirt on one’s face”.

19 Sun Valley locale : IDAHO

The resort city of Sun Valley, Idaho was developed in the 1930s by W. Averell Harriman who was convinced that there was a call for a winter resort destination after the success of the 1932 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York. A 220-room hotel called the Sun Valley Lodge was opened in 1936, quickly followed by the Swiss-style Sun Valley Inn in 1937. Sun Valley became home to the world’s first chair lifts, which were installed in 1936 as a replacement for rope tows.

22 Judd who directed “Knocked Up” : APATOW

Judd Apatow is known for producing the TV series “Freaks and Geeks” and “Undeclared”. Those shows aren’t my cup of tea, but he also collaborated with Lena Dunham to create the show “Girls”. I could drink that tea all day long. “Girls” is a very entertaining series …

“Knocked Up” is a 2007 romantic comedy written and directed by Judd Apatow, starring Seth Rogen, Katherine Heigl and Paul Rudd.

23 Passionate sort, it’s said : LEO

Leo is the fifth astrological sign of the Zodiac. People born from July 23 to August 22 are Leos.

24 Fictional maker of earthquake pills and tornado seeds : ACME

The Acme Corporation is a fictional company used mainly by Looney Tunes, and within the Looney Tunes empire it appears mostly in “Road Runner” cartoons. Wile E. Coyote is always receiving a new piece of gear from Acme designed to finally capture the Road Runner, but the equipment always leads to his downfall.

27 Headwear for Sikhs : TURBANS

Sikhism is a religion that was founded in the Punjab region, which straddles the India-Pakistan border. Even though Sikhism was established relatively recently, it is now the fifth-largest organized religion in the world. Sikhism was founded in the 15th century by Guru Nanak.

31 Introduction to magic? : ABRA-

The incantation “abracadabra” has a long history. It was used as far back as the 2nd century AD in ancient Rome when the word was prescribed by a physician to be worn on an amulet to help his emperor recover from disease. “Abracadabra” is Aramaic, and roughly translates as “I will create as I speak”.

33 Golden god : IDOL

According to the Book of Exodus in the Bible, Moses’ brother Aaron made a golden calf as an idol for the Israelites to worship while Moses was on Mount Sinai receiving the Ten Commandments. When Moses returned, he became angry on seeing the calf and destroyed it.

34 Centipede producer : ATARI

Centipede is an arcade game from Atari (it is my favorite!). The game was designed by Ed Logg and Dona Bailey, with Bailey being one of the few female game designers back then (it was released in 1980). Perhaps due to her influence, Centipede was the first arcade game to garner a significant female following.

40 Place to see Warhol’s “Campbell’s Soup Cans” : MOMA

The founding of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City was very much driven by Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, wife of John D. Rockefeller. Working with two friends, Abby managed to get the museum opened in 1929, just nine days after the Wall Street Crash. The MoMA’s sculpture garden bears the name of Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, and has done so since 1949.

Andy Warhol went through a period of painting iconic American products, including Coca-Cola bottles and Campbell’s tomato soup cans. In 1964 he participated in a gallery show called “The American Supermarket”. Along with other pop artists he contributed works including a painting of a can of Campbell’s tomato soup. He priced the painting at $1,500, and sold autographed cans of soup for $6 a piece.

43 Book of Mormon book : ENOS

According to the Book of Mormon, Enos was a son of Jacob, and the author of the Book of Enos.

45 Destroyer of the town of Nicolosi in 1669 : ETNA

Mount Etna on the island of Sicily is the largest of three active volcanoes in Italy, and indeed the largest of all active volcanoes in Europe. Etna is about 2 1/2 times the height of its equally famous sister, Mt. Vesuvius. Mt. Etna is home to a 110-km long narrow-gauge railway, and two ski resorts. It is sometimes referred to as “Mongibello” in Italian, and as “Mungibeddu” in Sicilian. The English name “Etna” comes from the Greek “aitho” meaning “I eat”.

48 Title detective of 1970s TV : STARSKY

“Starsky & Hutch” is a fun cop show that ran for four seasons on television in the seventies. The lead roles were played by David Soul (Ken “Hutch” Hutchinson) and Paul Michael Glaser (David Starsky). It was Glaser who really brought the show to a close. He tried to get out of his contract during filming of the third season (even suing to do so). He tried again during the fourth season, and then plans to film a fifth season were just dropped.

50 Actress Claire of Netflix’s “The Crown” : FOY

English actress Claire Foy is perhaps best known in North America for playing Queen Anne Boleyn in the miniseries “Wolf Hall”, and a young Queen Elizabeth II in the award-winning series “The Crown”.

“The Crown” is a historical drama produced for Netflix that covers the life of British Queen Elizabeth II from her marriage to Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. For the first two seasons, Elizabeth is played by Claire Foy and Philip by Matt Smith. For the next two seasons, Olivia Colman and Tobias Menzies take over as Elizabeth and Philip.

56 Hannah who wrote “The Human Condition” : ARENDT

Hannah Arendt was studying and working in the field of philosophy when she had to flee her native Germany in the run up to WWII because of her Jewish heritage. Arendt ended up in the US in 1941, and took posts in various schools here. In 1969 she was appointed full professor at Princeton, becoming the first woman to win such a position, and a decade before women students were admitted to the college.

63 Conveyance that may be carved : CANOE

The boat known as a canoe takes its name from the Carib word “kenu” meaning “dugout”. It was Christopher Columbus who brought “kenu” into Spanish as “canoa”, which evolved into our English “canoe”.

64 Crush alternative : NEHI

The Nehi cola brand has a name that sounds like “knee-high”, a measure of a small stature. Back in the mid-1900’s the Chero-Cola company, which owned the brand, went for a slightly different twist on “knee-high” in advertising. The logo for Nehi was an image of a seated woman’s stockinged legs, with her skirt pulled up to her knees to hint at “knee-high”.

The Crush brand of soft drinks was formulated in 1916. The first product was an orange-flavored beverage sold as Ward’s Orange Crush.

66 Blog post : ENTRY

Many folks who visit this website regard it as just that, a website. That is true, but more specifically it is referred to as a blog, as I make regular posts (actually daily posts) that then occupy the “front page” of the site. The blog entries are in reverse chronological order, and one can just look back day-by-day, reading older and older posts. “Blog” is a contraction of the term “web log”.

67 Calendar spans with tildes : ANOS

In Spanish, there are “doce meses” (twelve months) in an “año” (year).

The tilde diacritical mark (~) is very much associated with the Spanish language. We use the name “tilde” in English, taking that name from Spanish. Confusingly, the word “tilde” in Spanish is used more generally to mean “accent mark, diacritic”, of which a “~” is just one. What we call a “tilde” in English is usually referred to as a “virgulilla” or “tilde de la eñe” in Spanish.

68 Rating for “South Park” : TV-MA

“South Park” is an adult-oriented cartoon series on Comedy Central. I don’t do “South Park” …

Down

4 Message with many bcc’s : EMAIL BLAST

A blind carbon copy (bcc) is a copy of a document or message that is sent to someone without other recipients of the message knowing about that extra copy.

5 What may be tested by parking a car in Harvard Yard? : BOSTON ACCENT

The Boston accent is noted for its broad letter A, and dropping of the letter R.

Harvard Yard is a large grassy area at the very center of Harvard University.

7 MDX maker : ACURA

The Honda Pilot is a mid-size crossover SUV that was introduced in 2002. The luxury version of the vehicle is sold as the Acura MDX.

8 Lunar New Year : TET

The full name for the New Year holiday in Vietnam is “Tet Nguyen Dan” meaning “Feast of the First Morning”, with the reference being to the arrival of the season of spring. Tet usually falls on the same day as Chinese New Year.

9 Long shot? : SNIPER

To snipe is to attack with snide criticism, especially from a safe distance. This usage of the term is an extension of the older meaning, to take a shot from a hidden position (as in “sniper”). Such a shot was originally taken when hunting the game birds called “snipes”.

10 Kotb of “Today” : HODA

Hoda Kotb is an Egyptian-American television journalist who is perhaps best known as a co-host of the NBC morning show “Today”. She is also the author of the bestselling autobiography “Hoda: How I Survived War Zones, Bad Hair, Cancer, and Kathie Lee”.

21 Triton’s domain : SEA

Triton was a Greek god, the messenger of the sea. He was usually depicted as “merman”, with the body of a man and the tail of a fish. Triton carried a trident, like his father Poseidon, and a twisted conch shell that he used as trumpet. By blowing in the conch shell he could calm or raise the waves.

25 “Cheers” waitress and “Scrubs” nurse : CARLAS

Rhea Perlman’s most famous role has to be Carla Tortelli, the irascible waitress in the long-running sitcom “Cheers”. Perlman is also a successful children’s author, and has published a series of six books called “Otto Undercover”. She married Hollywood actor Danny DeVito in 1982.

Judy Reyes is an actress best known for her TV roles, playing Carla Espinosa on “Scrubs” and Zoila Diaz on “Devious Maids”.

28 Thick noodle : UDON

Udon noodles are made from wheat-flour and are very popular in Japanese cuisines such as tempura.

29 Football analyst Tony : ROMO

Tony Romo is a former quarterback who spent his entire NFL career with the Dallas Cowboys. Romo is also an avid amateur golfer and has even tried (albeit unsuccessfully) to qualify for the US Open golf championship.

47 Overnight flight : RED-EYE

A red-eye flight is one departing late at night and arriving early the next morning. The term is a reference to tired passengers disembarking with red eyes.

51 Rainforest dweller, in brief : ORANG

Orangutans (also “orangs”) are arboreal creatures, the largest arboreal animals known to man. They are native to Indonesia and Malaysia, and live in rainforests. Like most species in rainforests these days, orangutans are endangered, with only two species surviving. The word “orangutan” is Malay, meaning “man of the forest”.

52 Gossipy sort : YENTA

“Yenta” (also “Yente”) is actually a female Yiddish name. In Yiddish theater “yenta” came to mean a busybody, a gossip.

54 Old memo writer : STENO

Stenography is the process of writing in shorthand. The term comes from the Greek “steno” (narrow) and “graphe” (writing).

59 Often-misused pronoun : WHOM

The pronoun “who” is used when referring to either male or female humans. The objective form of “who” is “whom”, and the possessive is “whose”.

60 Peace sign : DOVE

The dove is a symbol of peace, and the hawk is a symbol of war.

61 1815 novel of romantic mis-understandings : EMMA

Jane Austen’s novel “Emma” is the tale of Emma Woodhouse and the wonderful George Knightley. At the end of the story, Emma marries Knightley and her young friend Harriet marries Robert Martin, who had been trying to get Harriet’s attention practically from page one of the novel. Emma interfered in that troubled courtship.

Complete List of Clues/Answers

Across

1 With 5-Across, means of survival : LIFE …
5 With 9-Across, place to yacht-shop : … BOAT …
9 With 16-Down, decisive confrontation : … SHOW …
13 Mosque V.I.P. : IMAM
14 In olden days : ONCE
15 Santa Claus “flight tracker” : NORAD
17 Puma competitor : FILA
18 Blue material : SMUT
19 Sun Valley locale : IDAHO
20 One signing up : ENLISTER
22 Judd who directed “Knocked Up” : APATOW
23 Passionate sort, it’s said : LEO
24 Fictional maker of earthquake pills and tornado seeds : ACME
26 It’s a stretch : EON
27 Headwear for Sikhs : TURBANS
31 Introduction to magic? : ABRA-
33 Golden god : IDOL
34 Centipede producer : ATARI
36 Hit’s opposite : FLOP
40 Place to see Warhol’s “Campbell’s Soup Cans” : MOMA
41 See 1-Down : … CYCLE
42 Grind : TOIL
43 Book of Mormon book : ENOS
44 Passing a drug test, say : CLEAN
45 Destroyer of the town of Nicolosi in 1669 : ETNA
46 One putting down roots? : TREE
48 Title detective of 1970s TV : STARSKY
50 Actress Claire of Netflix’s “The Crown” : FOY
53 Quashes : ENDS
55 Apprehend : NAB
56 Hannah who wrote “The Human Condition” : ARENDT
58 Like most debates : TWO-SIDED
63 Conveyance that may be carved : CANOE
64 Crush alternative : NEHI
65 The Catholic Church, informally : ROME
66 Blog post : ENTRY
67 Calendar spans with tildes : ANOS
68 Rating for “South Park” : TV-MA
69 With 50-Down, athlete’s intense expression : … GAME …
70 With 69-Across, advantage in sports : … HOME …
71 With 70-Across, call it a night, say : … HEAD …

Down

1 With 41-Across, generational sequence : LIFE …
2 “Sign me up” : I’M IN
3 Cooling off period? : FALL
4 Message with many bcc’s : EMAIL BLAST
5 What may be tested by parking a car in Harvard Yard? : BOSTON ACCENT
6 “Lay it ___!” : ON ME
7 MDX maker : ACURA
8 Lunar New Year : TET
9 Long shot? : SNIPER
10 Kotb of “Today” : HODA
11 Make a big speech : ORATE
12 “Yay!” : WAHOO!
16 With 39-Down, minimize : … DOWN ….
21 Triton’s domain : SEA
22 It’s created by wind, rain and traffic : AMBIENT NOISE
25 “Cheers” waitress and “Scrubs” nurse : CARLAS
27 With 1-Down, company named for two magazines : … TIME …
28 Thick noodle : UDON
29 Football analyst Tony : ROMO
30 Did up : STYLED
32 So-called “third stage of labor” : AFTERBIRTH
35 Nail (it) : ACE
37 Plenty : LOTS
38 Sound from a pen : OINK!
39 With 62-Down, lie motionless : … PLAY …
47 Overnight flight : RED-EYE
49 Small power sources : AAS
50 With 27-Down, Apple app : … FACE …
51 Rainforest dweller, in brief : ORANG
52 Gossipy sort : YENTA
54 Old memo writer : STENO
57 Standard : NORM
59 Often-misused pronoun : WHOM
60 Peace sign : DOVE
61 1815 novel of romantic mis-understandings : EMMA
62 With 71-Across, traveling music fan of old : … DEAD …
64 “I’ll pass” : NAH