LA Times Crossword Answers 10 Dec 13, Tuesday

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CROSSWORD SETTER: C.C. Burnikel
THEME: Heading for a Fall … today’s themed answers end with a word that often precedes a FALL:

11D. Destined for one’s comeuppance … or what the last words of 3-, 9- and 25-Down are doing? HEADING FOR A FALL

3D. Sultry stretch DOG DAYS OF SUMMER (summer precedes fall)
9D. Vacation with worms? FISHING TRIP (a trip precedes a fall)
25D. Slogan on a Boston basketball fan’s shirt CELTIC PRIDE (“pride comes before a fall”)

BILL BUTLER’S COMPLETION TIME: 6m 17s
ANSWERS I MISSED: 0

Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across

14. Big name in skin care AVON
In 1886, a young man called David McConnell was selling books door-to-door. To enhance his sales numbers he was giving out free perfume to the ladies of the houses that he visited. Seeing as his perfume was more popular than his books, he founded the California Perfume Company in New York City and started manufacturing and selling across the country. The company name was changed to Avon in 1939, and the famous “Avon Calling” marketing campaign was launched in 1954.

15. Sculpture subjects TORSI
“Torso” (plural “torsi”) is an Italian word meaning the “trunk of a statue”, a word that we imported into English.

16. Jay with a column in Popular Mechanics LENO
Jay Leno was born James Leno in New Rochelle, New York. Jay’s father was the son of Italian immigrants, and his mother was from Scotland. Leno grew up in Andover, Massachusetts and actually dropped out of school on the advice of a high school guidance counsellor. However, years later he went to Emerson college and earned a Bachelor’s degree in speech therapy. Leno also started a comedy club at Emerson in 1973. Today Jay Leno is a car nut and owns about 200 vehicles of various types. You can check them out on his website: www.jaylenosgarage.com.

24. 2013 Literature Nobelist Munro ALICE
Alice Munro is a writer from southwestern Ontario in Canada. As a proud (and quite rightly so!) Canadian blog reader pointed out to me recently, Munro won the 2013 Nobel Prize for Literature.

28. Ice cream maker Joseph EDY
Dreyers’ ice cream sells its products under the name Dreyers in the Western United States, and Edy’s in the Eastern states. The company’s founders were William Dryer and Joseph Edy.

30. Cultural funding gp. NEA
The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an agency funded by the federal government that offers support and financing for artistic projects. The NEA was created by an Act of Congress in 1965. Between 1965 and 2008, the NEA awarded over $4 billion to the arts, with Congress authorizing around $170 million annually through the eighties and much of the nineties. That funding was cut to less than $100 million in the late nineties due to pressure from conservatives concerned about the use of funds, but it is now back over the $150 million mark. I wonder how long that will last though …

32. Large group PASSEL
A passel is a large group or quantity. “Passel” is a variant of the word “parcel”.

34. Two-time Oscar-winning director Lee ANG
Taiwanese director Ang Lee sure has directed a mixed bag of films, mixed in terms of genre but not in terms of quality. He was at the helm for such classics as “Sense & Sensibility” (my personal favorite), “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”, “Hulk”, “Brokeback Mountain” and “Life of Pi”. Lee won the Best Director Oscar twice, for “Brokeback Mountain” (2005) and “life of Pi” (2012).

39. Fortuneteller’s deck TAROT
Tarot cards have been around since the mid-1400s, and for centuries were simply used for entertainment as a game. It has only been since the late 1800s that the cards have been used by fortune tellers to predict the future.

41. Corp. moneymen CFOS
Chief Financial Officer (CFO)

46. Classic role for Nimoy SPOCK
Leonard Nimoy played the logical Mr. Spock in the original “Star Trek” television series. Spock has to be the most popular character on the show, and he keeps popping up in “Star Trek” spin offs to this day. Nimoy first worked alongside William Shatner (Captain Kirk) in an episode of “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” (I loved that show!), with Nimoy playing a bad guy and Shatner playing an U.N.C.L.E. recruit.

49. Be a fink RAT
A “fink” is an informer, someone who rats out his cohorts.

52. “Aida,” for one OPERA
“Aida” is a famous opera by Giuseppe Verdi, actually based on a scenario written by French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette. Mariette also designed the costumes and stages for the opening performance. The opera was first staged in 1871 in an opera house in Cairo. In the storyline, Aida is an Ethiopian princess brought into Egypt as a slave. Radames is an Egyptian commander who falls in love with her, and then of course complications arise!

66. “You’ve Got Mail” co-screenwriter Ephron DELIA
Delia Ephron is the sister of the more famous Nora Ephron, and is a screenwriter and producer in her own right. Among Delia’s writing credits is the 2005 movie “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants”.

“You’ve Got Mail” is a 1998 romantic comedy film starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan, directed by Nora Ephron. The film is an adaptation of the Miklos Laszlo play “Parfumerie”. The storyline of “Parfumerie” was also used for the movies “The Shop Around the Corner” (from 1940 starring James Stewart and Margaret Sullivan) and “In the Good Old Summertime” (from 1949 starring Van Johnson and Judy Garland).

68. Civil suit cause TORT
The word “tort” is a French word meaning “mischief, injury or wrong”. Tort law is generally about negligence, when the action of one party causes injury to another but that action falls outside of the scope of criminal law.

Down
1. Home of the Texas Sports Hall of Fame WACO
The Texas Sports Hall of Fame was established in 1951, making Texas the first state to have a sports hall of fame.

3. Sultry stretch DOG DAYS OF SUMMER
“Dog Days” is the term given to the warmest and most humid days of summer. The term derives from the ancient belief that hot weather was caused when Sirius (the Dog Star) was in close proximity to the sun.

5. Fr. holy woman STE
Sainte (Ste.)

6. Drink with dim sum HOT TEA
Dim sum is a Chinese cuisine made up of small portions of various dishes. The tradition of serving dim sum is associated with the serving of tea, when small delicacies were offered to travelers and guests along with tea as a refreshment. The name “dim sum” translates as “touch the heart” implying that dim sum is not a main meal, just a snack “that touches the heart”.

7. Art Deco artist ERTE
Erté was the pseudonym of French artist (Russian born) Romain de Tirtoff. Erté is the French pronunciation of his initials “R.T.”

10. Nikon product, for short SLR
SLR stands for “single lens reflex”. Usually cameras with changeable lenses are the SLR type. The main feature of an SLR is that a mirror reflects the image seen through the lens out through the viewfinder, so that the photographer sees exactly what the lens sees. The mirror moves out of the way as the picture is taken, and the image that comes through the lens falls onto unexposed film, or nowadays onto a digital sensor.

Nikon was founded in 1917, a merger of three companies making various optical devices. After the merger, the company’s main output was lenses (including the first lenses for Canon cameras, before Canon made its own). During the war, Nikon sales grew rapidly as the company focused on (pun unintended!) equipment for the military including periscopes and bomb sights.

18. Queen, in Quebec REINE
“La reine” (the queen) is the wife of “le roi” (the king), in French.

Québec is the largest province in Canada, and the only one with French as its sole office language. The name “Québec” comes from an Algonquin word “kebec” meaning “where the river narrows”. This refers to the area around Quebec City where the St. Lawrence River narrows as it flows through a gap lined by steep cliffs.

22. Additive sold at Pep Boys STP
STP motor oil takes its name from “Scientifically Treated Petroleum”.

The Pep Boys automotive stores started out in Philadelphia when four friends pooled their money ($800, in 1921) to open an auto parts store. The name “Pep” was taken from a Pep Valve grinding compound that they carried. They changed the name to Pep Boys as at least one local used to refer to the store as “the boys at Pep”. One of the friends cashed out of the business, and the remaining trio eventually rebranded the store as “The Pep Boys – Manny, Moe & Jack”.

36. Jewish wedding dance HORA
The hora (also “horah”) is a circle dance that originated in the Balkans. The hora was brought to Israel by Romanian settlers, and is often performed to traditional Israeli folk songs. The dance is a regular sight at Jewish weddings and at bar and bat mitzvahs. At such events, it is common for the honorees to be raised on chairs during the dance.

48. __ and Herzegovina BOSNIA
Bosnia and Herzegovina was one of six federal units in former Yugoslavia that gained independence after the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s. There are three main ethnic groups in Bosnia. The largest group are the Bosniaks, the second the Bosnian Serbs, and the third the Bosnian Croats.

53. John who married Pocahontas ROLFE
John Rolfe was one of the early English settlers in America, perhaps most famous for marrying the Native American Pocahontas, daughter of Chief Powhatan. For a few months before her death, Pocahontas lived with Rolfe in England. The couple had actually boarded a ship to return them to Virginia when Pocahontas became ill and had to be brought ashore on the south coast of England, where she soon passed away.

56. Top pilots ACES
A flying ace is an aviator who has shot down a number of enemy planes during combat. The qualifying number of kills seems to vary, but five is common. The first use of “ace” was during WWI when the French newspapers dubbed pilot Adolphe Pegoud “l’as” (French for “the ace”) when he shot down his fifth German plane.

64. Boxing’s Sugar __ Leonard RAY
Sugar Ray Leonard is a retired boxer from Rocky Mount, North Carolina. Leonard was the first in the sport to earn more than $100 million in prize money.

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For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. Says “I do” to WEDS
5. Harvest bundle SHEAF
10. Bone below the knee SHIN
14. Big name in skin care AVON
15. Sculpture subjects TORSI
16. Jay with a column in Popular Mechanics LENO
17. Smokes CIGARETTES
19. Speak wildly RANT
20. Dated song OLDIE
21. Computer repair pros TECHS
23. Fizzle out DIE
24. 2013 Literature Nobelist Munro ALICE
26. Words sighed after a defeat I TRIED
28. Ice cream maker Joseph EDY
30. Cultural funding gp. NEA
31. Let loose, as pigs UNPEN
32. Large group PASSEL
34. Two-time Oscar-winning director Lee ANG
35. Turkish general AGHA
38. Pop star IDOL
39. Fortuneteller’s deck TAROT
41. Corp. moneymen CFOS
42. Sidewalk eatery CAFE
43. Suffix for a school of thought -ISM
44. Chopper blades ROTORS
46. Classic role for Nimoy SPOCK
48. Highchair protection BIB
49. Be a fink RAT
50. “Zip it!” SHUT UP!
52. “Aida,” for one OPERA
54. Sewn edge HEM
55. Catches in a sting TRAPS
58. Until now SO FAR
61. Poor box deposit ALMS
63. “Tell me about it” I CAN RELATE
65. Kennel pest FLEA
66. “You’ve Got Mail” co-screenwriter Ephron DELIA
67. Complete failure FLOP
68. Civil suit cause TORT
69. Philosophy test component ESSAY
70. Shade trees ELMS

Down
1. Home of the Texas Sports Hall of Fame WACO
2. Villainous EVIL
3. Sultry stretch DOG DAYS OF SUMMER
4. Slow mollusk SNAIL
5. Fr. holy woman STE
6. Drink with dim sum HOT TEA
7. Art Deco artist ERTE
8. “Be there in __” A SEC
9. Vacation with worms? FISHING TRIP
10. Nikon product, for short SLR
11. Destined for one’s comeuppance … or what the last words of 3-, 9- and 25-Down are doing? HEADING FOR A FALL
12. Navel type INNIE
13. Well-known NOTED
18. Queen, in Quebec REINE
22. Additive sold at Pep Boys STP
25. Slogan on a Boston basketball fan’s shirt CELTIC PRIDE
27. Flinch, say REACT
28. Long heroic poem EPIC
29. Pop, to baby DADA
31. One, for Juan UNO
33. Got some shuteye SLEPT
34. Pitcher’s asset ARM
36. Jewish wedding dance HORA
37. Lead-in for prof. or D.A. ASST
40. Show curiosity ASK
45. More than heavyset OBESE
47. Not at home OUT
48. __ and Herzegovina BOSNIA
50. Golf club part SHAFT
51. Greeting word HELLO
53. John who married Pocahontas ROLFE
56. Top pilots ACES
57. Buds PALS
59. Molecule part ATOM
60. Crunch count REPS
62. Used a chair SAT
64. Boxing’s Sugar __ Leonard RAY

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