3/16/25 - Have It Both Ways ↔️

🏁 Solve –> Have It Both Ways by Paul Coulter

22A | Host of a 1990s late-night talk show that was briefly revived 20 years later

ARSENIO HALL

After receiving high marks as a fill-in host on The Late Show (a FOX program originally developed for Joan Rivers), comedian/actor Arsenio Hall (Coming to America) was given the opportunity to helm his own show, an eponymous endeavor that originally aired from 1989-1994 and had a short-lived revival in 2013-2014.

Of The Arsenio Hall Show's 1,400+ episodes, perhaps its most influential aired on June 3, 1992 – the date on which the world witnessed presidential candidate Bill Clinton perform a saxophone cover of Elvis Presley's "Heartbreak Hotel."

Decked out in dark shades that made him if not the epitome of cool, then at least adjacent to it, Clinton's appearance is credited with being one of the factors that helped propel him to an unexpected victory over incumbent George H. W. Bush in that year's election.

32A | Subway commuters, informally

STRAPHANGERS

A fairly on-the-nose name for standing passengers on public transportation who maintain their balance by holding onto straps hanging from the ceiling, "straphangers" entered the common English vernacular after Chicago launched its elevated train system in 1892. (Nowadays, though, a metal bar is more often provided.)

57A | Longtime children's clothing store with a portmanteau name

GYMBOREE

Gymboree's name (a mash-up of "gymnasium" and "jamboree") makes a lot more sense in its original context: that of a safe environment where young children and parents could play together.

The first Gymboree Play & Music location opened in California in 1976 and the concept has since expanded to more than 700 locations across 40+ countries.

Although they were once under the same umbrella, the retail clothing brand – launched in 1986 as just "Gymboree" – was sold to The Children's Place in 2019 after filing for its second bankruptcy in two years.

87A | Metaphor for Juliet, in Romeo's soliloquy

SUN

As spoken by the smitten Montague in Act II, Scene 2 upon spying the forbidden Capulet on her balcony:

But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.
Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,
Who is already sick and pale with grief,
That thou her maid art far more fair than she.

106A | In 2021 she became the first tennis player to light the Olympic cauldron during the opening ceremony

OSAKA

23-year-old professional tennis player Naomi Osaka, a four-time Grand Slam champion, was selected by Japan to perform the symbolic cauldron-lighting ritual at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo (an event that actually took place in 2021 after having been delayed for a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic).

The debut of the now-iconic Olympic flame occurred at the 1928 Summer Games in Amsterdam. Eight years later, the tradition of the torch relay – in which a flame is ignited in Olympia, Greece, and then conveyed via a continuous chain of handlers to the host country – was established by Nazi Germany to promote the 1936 games taking place in Berlin.

⚠️ FYI: Although the relay's first iteration employed more than 3,000 runners who each covered a distance of approximately one kilometer across seven countries in 12 days, future versions have made use of ships, airplanes, and, in one instance (Montreal; 1976), a laser triggered by a satellite transmission.

14D | Creator of the mystery-solving C. Auguste Dupin

POE

American writer Edgar Allan Poe introduced the character of C. Auguste Dupin in his 1841 short story "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," a work often declared the first example of "detective fiction."

The Parisian sleuth pops up again in 1842's "The Mystery of Marie Rogêt" and 1844's "The Purloined Letter" – exhibiting in each his aptitude for (as Poe labeled it) "ratiocination," that is, the act of logical deduction.

👉 BONUS BIT: Dupin is believed to be based, at least in part, on François Vidocq (1775-1857), an ex-criminal who established a proto-detective agency and was elsewhere immortalized in fiction as Vautrin in Balzac's The Human Comedy and both Jean Valjean and Javert in Hugo's Les Misérables.

44D | Florentine artist known for frescoes

GIOTTO

Often termed the "father of European painting," Giotto di Bondone (1267?-1337) is acclaimed for his use of three-dimensional realism and natural settings – elements that distinguished his works from the "flat" Byzantine style pervasive during the Middle Ages and placed him firmly at the forefront of the Italian Renaissance.

During this lifetime, the Florentine's reputation was further bolstered by a shout-out from Dante in The Divine Comedy, in which the Italian poet notes that Giotto's skill has surpassed that of his mentor, Giovanni Cimabue:

In painting Cimabue thought that he
Should hold the field, now Giotto has the cry,
So that the other's fame is growing dim.

Purgatorio, Canto 11, lines 94-96; trans. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

👉 BONUS BIT: Since 1920, an Italian company has used the brand name "Giotto" to sell colored pencils, markers, paints, and other art materials for children.

45D | "The Jetsons" boy

ELROY

Elroy is a variation on the French name Leroy, meaning "the king."

Although the moniker is not currently popular (ranking #3,899 for U.S. boys), one can only assume it will be fashionable 30 years from now when Orbit City citizens George and Judy Jetson welcome their second child on April 19, 2055.

65D | Zola who wrote "J'Accuse …!"

EMILE

In 1894, a cleaning woman-cum-spy working at the German embassy in Paris discovered a torn-up note in the trash can of a military attaché that revealed French military secrets. A French army captain named Alfred Dreyfus was soon convicted of having authored the treasonous document and sentenced to life imprisonment on a penal colony known as "Devil's Island."

Four years later, French writer Émile Zola penned an open letter to President Félix Faure that was published on the front page of his friend's newspaper, L'Aurore (The Dawn). Under the headline "J'Accuse...!," Zola's 4,500-word missive blasted the army for making the Jewish Dreyfus a convenient scapegoat at a time when anti-semitism was rampant in the country.

Although Zola was subsequently put on trial for libel and forced to flee to England, Dreyfus was pardoned in 1899 and exonerated in 1906, whereupon he re-joined the military and later rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel while serving in WWI.

👉 BONUS BIT: In 1908, Dreyfus survived an assassination attempt – he was shot in the arm – during a ceremony in which Zola's ashes were being transferred to the Panthéon, a mausoleum housing the remains of prominent French citizens.

86D | "Agnus ___"

DEI

Agnus Dei – Latin for "Lamb of God," a name by which John the Baptist referred to Jesus Christ – is a liturgical prayer spoken or sung during Catholic Mass.