0602-22 NY Times Crossword 2 Jun 22, Thursday

Constructed by: Michael Lieberman
Edited by: Will Shortz

Today’s Theme (according to Bill): Without 1 Across and 1 Down

Themed answers need the addition of either ONE “ACROSS” or ONE “DOWN” to make sense:

  • 16A With 1 Across, warning at sea : SHOT ACROSS THE BOW
  • 26A With 1 Down, like a free-for-all fight : KNOCK-DOWN-DRAG-OUT
  • 42A With 1 Across, charity event involving a coast-to-coast human chain : HANDS ACROSS AMERICA
  • 56A With 1 Down, dessert sometimes made with pineapple : UPSIDE-DOWN CAKE

Bill’s time: 15m 02s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

5 Setting for much of “A Farewell to Arms” : MILAN

Milan (“Milano” in Italian) is Italy’s second-largest city, second only to Rome. Milan is a European fashion capital, the headquarters for the big Italian fashion houses of Valentino, Gucci, Versace, Armani, Prada and others. Mario Prada was even born in Milan, and helped establish the city’s reputation in the world of fashion.

“A Farewell to Arms” is a somewhat autobiographical novel written by Ernest Hemingway, telling the story of an American ambulance driver serving with the Italian army during WWI. The most famous screen adaptation is probably the 1957 version starring Rock Hudson and Jennifer Jones.

10 Convalescent’s need, for short : TLC

Tender loving care (TLC)

13 Where Ulysses encountered the Cyclops : ETNA

Cyclops was a one-eyed giant in Greek and Roman mythology. Cyclops lived inside Mount Etna, the Sicilian volcano.

21 Feature of the Devil : GOATEE

A goatee is a beard formed by hair on a man’s chin. The name probably comes from the tuft of hair seen on an adult goat.

23 Capital city with three consecutive vowels : SEOUL

Seoul is the capital city of South Korea. The Seoul National Capital Area is home to over 25 million people and is the second largest metropolitan area in the world, second only to Tokyo, Japan.

25 “Bad Guy” singer Billie : EILISH

Billie Eilish is a singer-songwriter from Los Angeles. She has won several awards, and is the youngest person to have won all four major Grammy categories in the same year, i.e. Best New Artist, Record of the Year, Song of the Year and Album of the Year.

30 Dostoyevsky novel, with “The” : … IDIOT

Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s most famous novels are “Crime and Punishment” and “The Brothers Karamazov”. Dostoyevsky was arrested in 1849 and sentenced to death by Tsar Nicholas I for being part of a liberal intellectual group. He endured a mock execution before being told that his sentence was commuted to four years hard labor and exile in a camp at Omsk in Siberia.

34 1930s Depression-fighting org. : NRA

The National Recovery Administration (NRA) was one of the first agencies set up under President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal program. On the one hand, the NRA helped set minimum wages and maximum working hours for workers in industry, and on the other hand it helped set minimum prices for goods produced by companies. The NRA was very popular with the public, and businesses that didn’t opt to participate in the program found themselves boycotted. The NRA didn’t survive for long though, as after two years of operation it was deemed to be unconstitutional by the US Supreme Court and so it ceased operations in 1935.

36 Otoscope-using M.D. : ENT

An ear, nose and throat specialist (ENT) uses an otoscope to look into the interior of one’s ears.

37 Scales on a pangolin, e.g. : ARMOR

The pangolin is also known as the scaly anteater. It is the only mammal that has a layer of protective scales made from keratin that covers the skin. Pangolins are highly prized by hunters, for their meat and their armor. They are in danger of extinction, and yet there is no more highly-trafficked species on the planet.

39 Farm delivery letters : CSA

Community Supported Agriculture (CSA)

40 Hero feature, often : MAYO

Mayonnaise originated in the town of Mahon in Menorca, a Mediterranean island belonging to Spain. The Spanish called the sauce “salsa mahonesa” after the town, and this morphed into the French word “mayonnaise” that we use in English today.

A hero is a submarine sandwich. The hero originated in New York City in the 1800s among Italian immigrants who wanted an Italian sandwich that reminded them of home. The name “hero” was coined in the 1930s, supposedly by a food critic in the “New York Herald Tribune” when he wrote that “one had to be a hero” to finish the gigantic sandwich. Hero is a prevalent term to this day in New York City, reserved for a submarine sandwich with an Italian flavor.

41 They’re attached to many houses : LIENS

A lien is a right that one has to retain or secure someone’s property until a debt is paid. When an individual takes out a car loan, for example, the lending bank is usually a lien holder. The bank releases the lien on the car when the loan is paid in full.

46 Besmirches : STAINS

“Besmirch” is a derivative of “smirch”, with both words meaning to “make dirty”. In particular, to besmirch is to sully someone’s reputation.

47 Cheese often mixed with Monterey Jack : COLBY

Colby is a cheese that is similar to cheddar. It was developed in 1874 in a cheese factory near the Wisconsin village of Colby, hence the name.

What we now call Monterey Jack cheese was originally made by Franciscan friars in Monterey, California in the 19th century. In the 1800s, a powerful landowner called David Jack started to make the same cheese as the friars in his own dairy, and marketed it as “Jack’s Cheese” and later “Monterey Jack”.

51 Death Valley’s is -282.2 ft. : ELEV

Death Valley is a spectacular desert valley in California that is part of the Mojave Desert. Badwater Basin in Death Valley is the lowest point in North America, sitting at 282 feet below sea level. Remarkably, Badwater Basin is located just 84 miles from Mount Whitney, the highest point in the contiguous United States.

55 “Houston, ___ had a problem” (message misquoted in “Apollo 13”) : WE’VE

“Apollo 13” is a great film, and supposedly one that is historically and technically accurate. The film is an adaptation of mission commander Jim Lovell’s book “Lost Moon: The Perilous Voyage of Apollo 13”. I am going to have to put that book on my Christmas list …

59 Father of Phobos and Deimos : ARES

The Greek god Ares is often referred to as the Olympian god of warfare, but originally he was regarded as the god of bloodlust and slaughter. Ares united with Aphrodite to create several gods, including Phobos (Fear), Deimos (Terror) and Eros (Desire). Ares was the son of Zeus and Hera, and the Roman equivalent to Ares was Mars.

60 Tennis star Osaka : NAOMI

Naomi Osaka is a Japanese-born tennis professional who became the first Asian player to be ranked number-one in singles. She was also the first ever tennis player to light the Olympic cauldron during an opening ceremony, doing so for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

61 Hula accompaniers, informally : UKES

The ukulele (uke) originated in the 1800s and mimicked a small guitar brought to the Hawaiian Islands by Portuguese immigrants.

The hula is a native dance of Hawaii that uses arm movements to relate a story. The hula can be performed while sitting (a noho dance) or while standing (a luna dance).

62 Web portal with a butterfly logo : MSN

The Microsoft Network (MSN) used to be an Internet service provider (ISP). These days, MSN is mainly a Web portal.

63 Three-time Emmy winner Cicely : TYSON

Cicely Tyson was an actress whose career really took off after her performance in the 1972 film “Sounder”, for which she received an Oscar nomination. In the outstanding mini-series “Roots”, she played the role of Binta, Kunta Kinte’s mother back in his homeland of Gambia. More recently, she played Analease Keating’s mother on the show “How to Get Away with Murder”. Tyson was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Obama in 2016. Sadly, she passed away in 2021 at the age of 96 years.

64 ___ Myerson, only Jewish woman crowned Miss America : BESS

Bess Myerson won the Miss America title in 1945. Her win was particularly significant in that it came just after the end of World War II when the Holocaust was very much in the public psyche. Myerson was the first Jewish person to be crowned Miss America, and so her win was viewed as an important statement about the status of the Jewish community in America at the time. Later in her life, Myerson became active in politics and made an unsuccessful bid for the US Senate in 1980.

Down

2 Malkovich’s role in “The Man in the Iron Mask” : ATHOS

Alexandre Dumas’ “Three Musketeers” are Athos, Porthos and Aramis, although the hero of the novel is the trio’s young protégé D’Artagnan. A musketeer was an infantry soldier who was equipped with a musket. Funnily enough, the three “musketeers” really don’t use their muskets, and are better known for prowess with their swords.

“The Man in the Iron Mask” is a 1998 movie that uses characters appearing in the Alexander Dumas novel “The Three Musketeers”. In the plot, the musketeers are getting on in years and become involved in the mystery of “the man in the iron mask”, an actual prisoner locked up in French jails with his identity hidden behind a mask.

3 Benjamin : C-NOTE

“C-note” and “C-spot” are slang terms for “$100 bill”.

Benjamin Franklin’s portrait is featured on one side of the hundred-dollar bill (also called a “C-spot, C-note, benjamin”), and Philadelphia’s Independence Hall on the other side. There is a famous error in the image of Independence Hall. If you look closely at the clock face at the top of the building you can see that the “four” is written in Roman numerals as “IV”. However, on the actual clock on Independence Hall, the “four” is denoted by “IIII”, which has been the convention for clock faces for centuries.

7 Places to find dishes of different cultures : LABS

Julius Richard Petri was a German bacteriologist and was the man after whom the Petri dish is named. The petri dish can have an agar gel on the bottom which acts as a nutrient source for the specimen being grown and studied, in which case the dish plus agar is referred to as an “agar plate”.

8 Fifth word of “American Pie” : AGO

Don McLean released his greatest hit, “American Pie”, back in 1971. Despite the song’s iconic position in the pop repertoire, McLean has been remarkably reticent about its origins and the meaning of the lyrics. We do know that it was inspired by the death of Buddy Holly in a plane crash (“the day the music died”). McLean has also told us that he first read about the death of his idol when delivering newspapers the day after the crash (“February made me shiver/with every paper I’d deliver”). Although the lyrics have been analyzed and interpreted in depth by many, McLean’s stance remains that it is just a poem set to music.

Bye, bye Miss American Pie
Drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry
And them good ole boys were drinking whiskey and rye
Singin’ this’ll be the day that I die
This’ll be the day that I die

9 Zooey Deschanel sitcom : NEW GIRL

Zooey Deschanel is an actress and singer-songwriter from Los Angeles. Zooey is the younger sister of Emily Deschanel who plays the title role on the TV show “Bones”. Now Zooey is playing Jess Day, the lead character on the sitcom “New Girl”. In the world of music, Zooey teams up with “M” Ward in the duo that goes by the name “She & Him”.

11 Great place to visit near Michigan? : LAKE HURON

Lake Huron takes its name from the Huron Native-American people that lived by its shores. Early French explorers often called the lake “La Mer Douce”, which translates as “the freshwater sea”.

12 Largest First Nations group : CREE

The Cree are one of the largest groups of Native Americans on the continent. In the US, Montana is home to most of the Cree nation. They live on a reservation shared with the Ojibwe people. In Canada, most of the Cree live in Manitoba.

15 “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” actor Robinson : CRAIG

“Brooklyn Nine-Nine” is a sitcom set in the 99th precinct of the NYPD in Brooklyn. Star of the show is “Saturday Night Live” alum Andy Samberg, who plays Detective Jake Peralta.

25 One behind The Times : EDITOR

“The Times” of London started out life in 1785 as “The Daily Universal Register”. By 1830, it had established itself as the original “Times” newspaper, a name copied across the world from Dublin, Ireland to New York City. On February 7th of 1830, one Lord Graves was found dead in his rooms, his throat cut from ear-to-ear, and even though there was no suicide note, a jury returned a verdict of death caused by a self-inflicted wound. The Times did not agree, and published an article attacking the inquest, an attack that provoked a lot of reaction. A follow up article in The Times commented on the reaction, and cited the original piece with the words “… we thundered out that article …” Other papers picked up on the phrase, calling The Times “The Thunderer”. That name stuck, and to this day “The Times” of London is often referred to as “The Thunderer”.

27 Some Sephora purchases : CREAMS

Sephora is a French chain of cosmetic stores, founded in 1969. The name “Sephora” is derived from the Greek for “beauty” (“sephos”). We’ve been able to visit Sephora outlets in JCPenney stores since 2006.

28 West of Malibu : KANYE

Kanye West is a rap singer who was born in Atlanta and raised in Chicago. He also spent some time in Nanjing, China as a child, where his mother was teaching as part of an exchange program. West is married to reality star Kim Kardashian.

29 Ones on the briny : TARS

A jack tar, or just “tar”, was a seaman in the service of the British Empire. The term probably arose due to a sailor’s various uses of tar back then, including waterproofing his clothes and using tar in his hair to slick down his ponytail.

The briny is the sea, with “brine” meaning “salty water”. The term “briny” was originally used for “tears”.

30 The “i” in p.s.i. : INCH

Pounds per square inch (PSI) is a measure of pressure.

38 Yemeni money : RIAL

The rial is the currency of Yemen (as well as Oman, Iran and Tunisia). Generally, there are 1,000 baisa in one rial.

40 Much of “The Fugitive” : MANHUNT

If you recall the beginning of each episode of “The Fugitive” television series, there was a narration that summarized the background to the show. It started off “The Fugitive, a QM Production — starring David Janssen as Dr. Richard Kimble: an innocent victim of blind justice, falsely convicted for the murder of his wife …” Those words were read by actor William Conrad, who made a name for himself in his detective series playing the portly “Cannon”.

43 Some Nordics : DANES

Someone is described as Nordic if he or she is a native of Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland or Iceland.

44 [not a typo] : [SIC]

[Sic] indicates that a quotation is written as originally found, perhaps including a typo. “Sic” is Latin for “thus, like this”. The term is more completely written as “sic erat scriptum”, which translates as “thus was it written”.

52 Stretch for the stars? : LIMO

The word “limousine” derives from the name of the French city of Limoges. The area around Limoges is called the Limousin, and it gave its name to a cloak hood worn by local shepherds. In early motor cars, a driver would sit outside in the weather while the passengers would sit in the covered compartment. The driver would often wear a limousin-style protective hood, giving rise to that type of transportation being called a “limousine”. Well, that’s how the story goes …

58 Ursa minor? : CUB

Ursa Minor (Latin for “Smaller Bear”) sits right beside the constellation Draco (Latin for “Dragon”). Ursa Minor used to be considered the wing of Draco, and was once called “Dragon’s Wing”. The tail of the “Smaller Bear” might also be considered as the handle of a ladle, and so the constellation is often referred to as the Little Dipper.

Complete List of Clues/Answers

Across

1 What a left arrow might mean : BACK
5 Setting for much of “A Farewell to Arms” : MILAN
10 Convalescent’s need, for short : TLC
13 Where Ulysses encountered the Cyclops : ETNA
14 Saw : ADAGE
15 Blacken : CHAR
16 With 1 Across, warning at sea : SHOT ACROSS THE BOW
18 Accrue in large amounts, with “in” : RAKE …
19 “Aww”-inspiring one : TOT
20 Small batteries : AAAS
21 Feature of the Devil : GOATEE
23 Capital city with three consecutive vowels : SEOUL
25 “Bad Guy” singer Billie : EILISH
26 With 1 Down, like a free-for-all fight : KNOCK-DOWN-DRAG-OUT
30 Dostoyevsky novel, with “The” : … IDIOT
33 Air alternative : RAIL
34 1930s Depression-fighting org. : NRA
35 Dings : NICKS
36 Otoscope-using M.D. : ENT
37 Scales on a pangolin, e.g. : ARMOR
39 Farm delivery letters : CSA
40 Hero feature, often : MAYO
41 They’re attached to many houses : LIENS
42 With 1 Across, charity event involving a coast-to-coast human chain : HANDS ACROSS AMERICA
46 Besmirches : STAINS
47 Cheese often mixed with Monterey Jack : COLBY
50 It’s funky : STENCH
51 Death Valley’s is -282.2 ft. : ELEV
53 Glass part : RIM
55 “Houston, ___ had a problem” (message misquoted in “Apollo 13”) : WE’VE
56 With 1 Down, dessert sometimes made with pineapple : UPSIDE-DOWN CAKE
59 Father of Phobos and Deimos : ARES
60 Tennis star Osaka : NAOMI
61 Hula accompaniers, informally : UKES
62 Web portal with a butterfly logo : MSN
63 Three-time Emmy winner Cicely : TYSON
64 ___ Myerson, only Jewish woman crowned Miss America : BESS

Down

1 Outdo : BEST
2 Malkovich’s role in “The Man in the Iron Mask” : ATHOS
3 Benjamin : C-NOTE
4 ___ Chow, author of 2021’s “Seeing Ghosts: A Memoir” : KAT
5 Hawaiian “thanks” : MAHALO
6 “You have no ___” : IDEA
7 Places to find dishes of different cultures : LABS
8 Fifth word of “American Pie” : AGO
9 Zooey Deschanel sitcom : NEW GIRL
10 “I take the blame” : THAT’S ON ME
11 Great place to visit near Michigan? : LAKE HURON
12 Largest First Nations group : CREE
15 “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” actor Robinson : CRAIG
17 Baits, in a way : TAUNTS
22 Greeting in Portuguese : OLA
24 “Enough already!” : OK OK!
25 One behind The Times : EDITOR
27 Some Sephora purchases : CREAMS
28 West of Malibu : KANYE
29 Ones on the briny : TARS
30 The “i” in p.s.i. : INCH
31 Worst-case scenarios : DISASTERS
32 Words from the “speechless” : I CAN’T EVEN …
37 Nook : ALCOVE
38 Yemeni money : RIAL
40 Much of “The Fugitive” : MANHUNT
43 Some Nordics : DANES
44 [not a typo] : [SIC]
45 Stuck until a thaw : ICED IN
48 Mini freezer? : BRAKE
49 “Oh no!” : YIKES!
50 Made a bank getaway? : SWAM
51 Those, in Spanish : ESOS
52 Stretch for the stars? : LIMO
54 Tinker (with) : MESS
57 Word before “a fine” or “a visit” : PAY …
58 Ursa minor? : CUB