0525-23 NY Times Crossword 25 May 23, Thursday

Constructed by: Andrew Kingsley & Garrett Chalfin
Edited by: Will Shortz

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Today’s Reveal Answer: Split Peas

Themed answers each contain a pair of adjacent letters P, but those letters P are SPLIT by a black square, giving two new words:

• 35D Certain soup ingredients … or a homophonic hint to the answers to the starred clues : SPLIT PEAS or SPLIT Ps

• 17A *Dogs that can run up to 35 miles an hour : WHIP (WHIPPETS)
• 18A – : PETS

• 28A *Electrical current converter : POWER SUP (POWER SUPPLY)
• 30A – : PLY

• 45A *Country composed of over 7,000 islands : PHILIP (PHILIPPINES)
• 49A – : PINES

• 61A *Lacking seriousness, as an attitude : FLIP (FLIPPANT)
• 63A – : PANT

• 11D *Show up again : REAP (REAPPEAR)
• 30D – : PEAR

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Bill’s time: 13m 24s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

9 Exercise that incorporates ballet, yoga and Pilates : BARRE

Barre is a form of exercise that uses a ballet barre and incorporates classical moves from the world of ballet. The barre program dates back to 1959 when ballerina Lotte Berk introduced it in London.

16 ___ gas law (pV = nRT) : IDEAL

Ah yes, the Ideal Gas Law! I remember this from my chemistry classes. One of the basic conclusions one can draw from the law is that under ideal conditions, all gases have the same volume at the same temperature and pressure. The idea is that the individual molecules in a gas are so far away from each other that the actual components of the molecule have negligible influence on the physical properties of the gas. A gas molecule is just a gas molecule. Well, sort of …

20 Gmail alternative : AOL

Gmail users (like me) have the advantage of a 10-send grace period in which one can decide to undo the send command for a specific email. I like that “undo send” feature …

23 Pronoun heard in “Hamlet” and “Richard II,” appropriately : ROYAL WE

The “royal we” is more correctly called the “majestic plural”, and is the use of a plural pronoun to describe a single person in a high office. I suppose the most often quoted phrase that uses the majestic plural is “We are not amused”, which is often attributed to Queen Victoria. The “editorial we” is a similar concept, in which a newspaper editor or columnist refers to himself or herself as “we” when giving an opinion.

36 French 101 word with three vowels : EAU

“Eau” (plural “eaux”) is the French word for “water”.

38 Piece in the game Othello : DISC

The game of Reversi is also sold as Othello. The name “Othello” was chosen as a nod to the play by William Shakespeare.

39 Fabric for some formal table linens : DAMASK

Damask was originally a weaving technique associated with the Byzantine and Islamic weaving centers of the Middle Ages. “Damask” comes from the name of Damascus, which was a major trading city at that time.

42 Commonly torn tissue, for short : ACL

The anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) is one of four major ligaments that support the knee. It is located in the center of the knee and connects the femur (thigh bone) to the tibia (shin bone).

43 American charges : AIRFARES

American Airlines was founded in 1930 through the acquisition of 82 existing small airlines, and initially operated as American Airways. The company name was changed to “American Air Lines” in 1934. Back then, airlines made their profits by carrying the US mail, and American became the first airline to turn a profit on a route that could solely carry passengers. It did so by working with Donald Douglas to develop the DC-3 passenger plane. At that time, American started calling its aircraft “Flagships” and introduced its more wealthy passengers to the first Admirals Club.

45 *Country composed of over 7,000 islands : PHILIP (PHILIPPINES)
49 – : PINES

When the Spanish explorer Ruy Lopez de Villalobos discovered the islands of Leyte and Samar, he called them “Felipinas”, after King Philip II of Spain. Eventually, the name was used for the whole archipelago, becoming what we now call in English, the Philippines.

50 Religious scroll : TORAH

A Torah scroll (also “Sefer Torah”) is a handwritten copy of the Torah, the first five books of the Hebrew Scriptures.

59 Geological span : ERA

Geologic time is divided into a number of units of varying lengths. These are, starting from the largest:

• supereon
• eon (also “aeon”)
• era
• period
• epoch
• age

61 *Lacking seriousness, as an attitude : FLIP (FLIPPANT)
63 – : PANT

The adjectives “flip” and “flippant” mean the same thing, namely “frivolously disrespectful, lacking in seriousness”.

64 Chihuahua, for one : STATE

Chihuahua is a state in northern Mexico that shares a border with Texas and New Mexico. It is the largest state in the country, earning it the nickname “El Estado Grande”. Chihuahua takes its name from the Chihuahuan Desert which lies largely within its borders. The Chihuahua breed of dog takes its name from the state.

66 Nike competitor : AVIA

The Avia brand name for athletic shoes was chosen as “avia” is the Latin word for “to fly”, and suggests the concept of aviation. Avia was founded in Oregon in 1979.

67 Syrian strongman : ASSAD

Dr. Bashar al-Assad is the son of the former President Hafez al-Assad, whom he replaced as President of the Syrian Arab Republic in 2001. President Bashar al-Assad is a medical doctor, and speaks fluent English and conversational French. Assad was studying ophthalmology in London when he met his wife, who is an Englishwoman by birth.

68 Brand of coolers and insulated drinkware : YETI

YETI is a manufacturer of coolers and related products that is based in Austin, Texas. There was a kerfuffle between YETI and the National Rifle Association in 2018, when YETI removed the NRA from its membership discount program. That kerfuffle got quite public when some NRA members published videos of themselves destroying their own YETI products in protest.

69 Obsolescent film format : REEL

Something described as “obsolescent” is going out of use, becoming “obsolete”.

Down

1 Like much of Europe beginning in 1939 : AT WAR

World War II started on September 1, 1939 when Germany invaded Poland, falsely claiming that Poland had invaded German territory. Two days later, France and the UK declared war on Germany as a reprisal. The former British dominions of Australia, India and New Zealand followed suit within hours.

4 International Day of Peace mo. : SEP

September 21 has been designated as the International Day of Peace since 2001, although the day itself was inaugurated in 1981 (then the third Tuesday of each September). There is a Peace Bell in the United Nations that rings out on each Peace Day, a gift from the Diet of Japan. The bell itself was cast from coins donated by children all over the world.

6 Bracketologists’ picks, often : ONE-SEEDS

“Bracketology” is a term used to describe the process of predicting which college basketball teams will advance in a bracket in the annual NCAA Basketball Tournament. President Barack Obama famously participates in an ESPN segment called “Baracketology” in which he predicts the outcome of the tournament, game by game.

9 JPEG alternative : BITMAP

A bitmap is an image file format used to store digital images. Basically, each pixel in a bitmap file is stored as a “bit” of information, hence the name “bitmap”. In 1987, CompuServe introduced a new type of image file called the Graphics Interchange Format (GIF). A GIF image takes the same information as a bitmap and then compresses it, resulting in a smaller file size. However, during compression the image may lose some resolution. The GIF format also handles short video clips, usually animations.

10 “Ciao!” : ADIOS!

The term “adiós” is Spanish for “goodbye”. “Adiós” comes from the phrase “a Dios vos acomiendo” meaning “I commend you to God”.

22 Satyajit Ray’s “The ___ Trilogy” : APU

Satyajit Ray was a Bengali filmmaker famous for directing “The Apu Trilogy”. These were three Bengali films that were released between 1955 and 1959. They featured music composed by Ravi Shankar, and are considered to be some of the greatest movies of all times by international critics, yet they were filmed on tiny budgets.

24 Like the fact that Lance Bass sang bass for ‘N Sync : APT

Lance Bass sang with the very successful boy band NSYNC. As luck would have it, Bass’s voice type is a bass.

31 Hit light-ly? : LASE

The term “laser” is an acronym standing for “light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation”. It has been pointed out that a more precise name for laser technology is “light oscillation by stimulated emission of radiation”, but the resulting acronym isn’t quite so appealing, namely “loser”.

33 Hip-hop subgenre : TRAP

Trap is a genre of hip hop music that originated in the early 21st century in the southern US. The name “trap” is a slang word used in Atlanta for a house used to sell drugs.

39 Bond’s debut film : DR NO

“Dr. No” may have been the first film in the wildly successful James Bond franchise, but it was the sixth novel in the series of books penned by Ian Fleming. Fleming was inspired to write the story after reading the Fu Manchu tales by Sax Rohmer. If you’ve read the Rohmer books or seen the films, you’ll recognize the similarities between the characters Dr. Julius No and Fu Manchu. By the way, the author Ian Fleming tells us that Julius No attended medical school in Milwaukee.

46 Banned book of 1955 : LOLITA

Vladimir Nabokov’s novel “Lolita” has a famously controversial storyline, dealing with a middle-aged man’s obsession and sexual relationship with a 12-year-old girl named Dolores Haze. 38-year-old professor Humbert Humbert privately refers to Dolores as “Lolita”. Although “Lolita” is considered a classic today, after Nabokov finished it in 1953 the edgy subject matter made it impossible for him to find a publisher in the US (where Nabokov lived). In 1955, he resorted to publishing it in English at a printing house in Paris. Publication was followed by bans and seizures all over Europe. A US printing house finally took on the project in 1958, by which time the title had such a reputation that it sold exceptionally quickly. “Lolita” became the first book since “Gone with the Wind” to sell over 100,000 copies in its first three weeks in stores.

51 Glad rival : HEFTY

Hefty is a brand name of trash bags and related products.

54 Saxophone-playing Muppet : ERNIE

Ernie is one of the Muppets on the children’s TV show “Sesame Street”. Ernie is usually seen with his roommate Bert, whom he frequently annoys and frustrates. Ernie is known for taking long baths with his rubber duckie. That “Rubber Duckie” is the title character in a hit song that Ernie (voiced by Jim Henson) released in 1970.

56 She, in Sicily : ESSA

In the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe, the “boot” is the mainland of Italy, and the “ball” being kicked by the boot is the island of Sicily.

57 National League expansion team of 1962 : METS

The New York Mets (NYM) baseball team was founded in 1962 as a replacement for two teams that the city had lost, namely the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Giants. For several years the Mets played very poorly, finishing no better than second-to-last in their division. Then along came the “Miracle Mets” (aka “Amazin’ Mets”) who beat the Baltimore Orioles in 1969 to claim the World Series in a huge upset.

58 Writer Wiesel : ELIE

Elie Wiesel was a holocaust survivor who is best known for his book “Night” that tells of his experiences in Auschwitz and Buchenwald. Wiesel was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986. He was also the first recipient of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum Award, which was later renamed the Elie Wiesel Award in his honor.

62 Golden ratio symbol : PHI

The golden ratio, sometimes called the “golden mean” and denoted by the Greek letter phi, is a mathematical constant that often turns up in the world of art. Phi is approximately equal to 1.61, and is represented by the two distances, a and b, where (a+b)/a = a/b. Somehow we perceive the ratio of 1.61 as “pleasing” so it appears in many works of art and in building design. For example, many aspects of the Parthenon in Athens have a ratio of 1.61 (width compared to height). Leonardo da Vinci’s famous drawing of the Vitruvian Man also illustrates the golden ratio in the proportions of the human body, where he shows that the distance from the foot to the navel, compared to the distance from the navel to the head, is 1.61.

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Complete List of Clues/Answers

Across

1 Wows : AWES
5 Food ___ : COMA
9 Exercise that incorporates ballet, yoga and Pilates : BARRE
14 Not daring at all : TAME
15 “Our treat” : ON US
16 ___ gas law (pV = nRT) : IDEAL
17 *Dogs that can run up to 35 miles an hour : WHIP (WHIPPETS)
18 – : PETS
19 It’s fit for a queen : TIARA
20 Gmail alternative : AOL
21 Secretly unseal, perhaps : STEAM OPEN
23 Pronoun heard in “Hamlet” and “Richard II,” appropriately : ROYAL WE
27 Establishments for facials and waxing : SPAS
28 *Electrical current converter : POWER SUP (POWER SUPPLY)
30 – : PLY
33 Option at many bike shops : TEST RIDE
36 French 101 word with three vowels : EAU
37 Freestyle, maybe : RAP
38 Piece in the game Othello : DISC
39 Fabric for some formal table linens : DAMASK
42 Commonly torn tissue, for short : ACL
43 American charges : AIRFARES
45 *Country composed of over 7,000 islands : PHILIP (PHILIPPINES)
49 – : PINES
50 Religious scroll : TORAH
52 “Since that’s over with …” : NOW THEN …
56 Staff : EMPLOYEES
59 Geological span : ERA
60 Act as an usher for : SEE IN
61 *Lacking seriousness, as an attitude : FLIP (FLIPPANT)
63 – : PANT
64 Chihuahua, for one : STATE
65 Nickname for Letitia : TISH
66 Nike competitor : AVIA
67 Syrian strongman : ASSAD
68 Brand of coolers and insulated drinkware : YETI
69 Obsolescent film format : REEL

Down

1 Like much of Europe beginning in 1939 : AT WAR
2 “Yippee!” : WAHOO!
3 ___ Greene Balch, American humanitarian who won the 1946 Nobel Peace Prize : EMILY
4 International Day of Peace mo. : SEP
5 “Good” or “bad” questioner : COP
6 Bracketologists’ picks, often : ONE-SEEDS
7 Animal crossing? : MUTT
8 Eye up and down : ASSESS
9 JPEG alternative : BITMAP
10 “Ciao!” : ADIOS!
11 *Show up again : REAP (REAPPEAR)
12 Not well at all? : RARE
13 Flair : ELAN
22 Satyajit Ray’s “The ___ Trilogy” : APU
24 Like the fact that Lance Bass sang bass for ‘N Sync : APT
25 Well-manored sort? : LORD
26 “Jojo Rabbit” setting: Abbr. : WWII
29 Rundown : RECAP
30 – : PEAR
31 Hit light-ly? : LASE
32 Chortles : YUKS
33 Hip-hop subgenre : TRAP
34 Allotment term : EACH
35 Certain soup ingredients … or a homophonic hint to the answers to the starred clues : SPLIT PEAS or SPLIT Ps
39 Bond’s debut film : DR NO
40 Not too many : A FEW
41 Boom holder : MAST
44 “No, really!” : I INSIST!
46 Banned book of 1955 : LOLITA
47 Flattened, in a way : IRONED
48 Tap one’s phone, perhaps : PAY
51 Glad rival : HEFTY
53 What chests and waves may do : HEAVE
54 Saxophone-playing Muppet : ERNIE
55 From birth : NATAL
56 She, in Sicily : ESSA
57 National League expansion team of 1962 : METS
58 Writer Wiesel : ELIE
62 Golden ratio symbol : PHI
63 Course goal : PAR

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