LA Times Crossword Answers 1 Jan 14, Wednesday

Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across
13. “Splendor in the Grass” author INGE
Playwright William Inge had a run of success on Broadway in the early fifties. Inge’s most celebrated work of that time was the play “Picnic”, for which he was awarded a Pulitzer Prize. The original 1953 cast of “Picnic” included a young male actor making his debut on Broadway. His name was Paul Newman. Many of Inge’s works are set in the American heartland and so he became known as the “Playwright of the Midwest”.

“Splendor in the Grass” is a 1961 film with an Oscar winning screenplay by William Inge. The film stars Natalie Wood and Warren Beatty, and even Inge himself makes a brief appearance as a clergyman.

14. Premier Zhou who hosted Nixon’s 1972 visit ENLAI
Zhou Enlai (also Chou En-Lai) was the first government leader of the People’s Republic of China and held the office of Premier from 1949 until he died in 1976. Zhou Enlai ran the government for Communist Party Leader Mao Zedong, often striking a more conciliatory tone with the West than that of his boss. He was instrumental, for example, in setting up President Nixon’s famous visit to China in 1972. Zhou Enlai died just a few months before Mao Zedong, with both deaths leading to unrest and a dramatic change in political direction for the country.

15. Lauderdale neighbor BOCA
The name of the city of Boca Raton in Florida translates from Spanish as “Mouse Mouth”. There doesn’t seem to be a definitive etymology of the name but one plausible explanation is a nautical one. “Boca”, as well as meaning “mouth” can mean “inlet”. “Ratón”, as well as meaning “mouse” was also used to describe rocks that chewed away at a ship’s anchor cable. So possibly Boca Raton was named for a rocky inlet.

16. *Sargent Shriver was its first director PEACE CORPS
The Peace Corps is an organization of American volunteers that is run by the US government. The Peace Corps was established by President Kennedy in 1961, and has a three-part mission:

1. Providing technical assistance
2. Helping people outside the US to understand American culture
3. Helping Americans to understand the culture of other countries

Sargent Shriver was the running mate of George McGovern, the Democratic nominee for US President in the 1972 race. Shriver was a member of the Kennedy clan, as he was married to Eunice Kennedy, sister to President John F. Kennedy. Among Shriver’s many roles in public life, he was the man behind the founding of the Peace Corps.

19. Dry gulch ARROYO
An arroyo is a small stream, or more often, a dry riverbed.

20. Wite-Out maker BIC
Société Bic is a French company, based in Clichy in France. The first product the company produced, more than fifty years ago, was the Bic Cristal ballpoint pen that is still produced today. Bic also makes other disposable products such as lighters and razors.

31. National rival AVIS
Avis has been around since 1946, and is the second largest car rental agency after Hertz. Avis has the distinction of being the first car rental company to locate a branch at an airport.

National Car Rental was founded back in 1947, a conglomerate of 24 independent rental agencies that already existed around the country.

33. Supreme Court justice Kagan ELENA
Elena Kagan was the Solicitor General of the United States who replaced Justice John Paul Stevens on the US Supreme Court. That made Justice Kagan the fourth female US Supreme Court justice (there have been 108 men!). I hear she is a fan of Jane Austen, and used to reread “Pride and Prejudice” once a year. Not a bad thing to do, I’d say …

35. Dark horse BAY
Bay is a reddish-brown color, usually used to describe the coat of a horse.

36. *With 45-Across, Iowa’s most populous city DES
(45. *See 36-Across MOINES)
The city of Des Moines is the capital of Iowa, and takes its name from the Des Moines River. The river in turn takes its name from the French “Riviere des Moines” meaning “River of the Monks”. It looks like there isn’t any “monkish” connection to the city’s name per se. “Des Moines” was just the name given by French traders who corrupted “Moingona”, the name of a group of Illinois Native Americans who lived by the river. However, others do contend that French Trappist monks, who lived a full 200 miles from the river, somehow influenced the name.

37. Many Greta Garbo films, and what you’ll find at the intersections of four pairs of answers to starred clues SILENTS (and “SILENT S”)
Famously, Greta Garbo lived a life of seclusion in New York City after she retired from the entertainment business. Commentators often associated her need for privacy with a line she uttered in the great 1932 movie “Grand Hotel”. Her character, Grusinskaya the Russian ballerina, said, “I want to be alone (…) I just want to be alone”.

39. Runway disaster RIP
A rip in a dress might be a disaster on a runway or catwalk in the world of fashion.

40. Bigger picture: Abbr. ENL
Enlargement (enl.)

43. Caroline and Maria, to Ted Kennedy NIECES
Ted Kennedy was the youngest boy in the family that included his older brothers: Joseph Jr. (killed in action in WWII), John (assassinated) and Robert (assassinated). Ted went into the US Senate in 1962 in a special election held after his brother became US President. He remained in the Senate until he passed away in 2009, making Ted Kennedy the fourth-longest-serving Senator in history.

Caroline Bouvier Kennedy is the only surviving child of President John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy. Caroline’s elder sister, Arabella, was stillborn; younger brother John Jr. died in a small-plane crash off Martha’s Vineyard in 1999; youngest brother Patrick died at only two days old.

Maria Shriver is the only daughter of Sargent Shriver and Eunice Kennedy, sister of President John F. Kennedy. Maria was married to Arnold Schwarzenegger and as such was First Lady of California. Shriver now works as a special correspondent for NBC News.

48. Some cosmetic surgeries, for short LIPOS
Liposuction dates back to the 1920s when it was developed by a surgeon in France. However, the procedure quickly lost favor when a French model developed gangrene after surgery. As a result it wasn’t until the mid-seventies that modern liposuction took off, after being popularized by two Italian-American surgeons in Rome.

50. Midday NOON
Our word “noon”, meaning “midday”, comes from the Latin “nona hora” that translates as “ninth hour”. Back in Ancient Rome, the “ninth hour” was three in the afternoon. Over the centuries, traditions such as church prayers and “midday” meals shifted from 3 p.m. to 12 p.m., and so “noon” became understood as 12 noon.

53. Classic Pontiac GTO
The acronym GTO stands for Gran Turismo Omologato.

59. Gift-bearing trio MAGI
“Magi” is the plural of the Latin word “magus”, a term applied to someone who was able to read the stars. Hence, magi is commonly used with reference to the “wise men from the East” who followed the star and visited Jesus soon after he was born.

60. *Aptly named New York region LONG ISLAND
Long Island in New York State is the largest island in the 48 contiguous states. It has a population of over 7 million, making it the most populous island in the 50 states. In fact, there are more people living in Long Island than there are in the whole of the island that I come from, namely the island of Ireland.

63. Company removed from the Dow 30 in 2013 ALCOA
The Aluminum Corporation of America (ALCOA) is the largest producer of aluminum in the United States. The company was founded in 1888 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where its headquarters are to this day.

Dow Jones & Company was founded as a publishing house in 1882 by three newspaper reporters, Charles Dow, Edward Jones and Charles Bergstresser. Today, the company’s most famous publication has to be “The Wall Street Journal”. In 1884, Charles Dow started reporting the average dollar value of the stock of eleven companies, an index which spawned a whole host of metrics that carry the Dow Jones name to this day, including the renowned Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA), also known as the “Dow 30”.

64. Sicilian resort ENNA
The city of Enna sits very high up in the hills of Sicily, overlooking the whole island below. Enna is the capital of the province that bears its name, which is the highest province in the whole of Italy.

Down
1. Strahan co-host RIPA
When Kelly Ripa secured the co-host spot on morning television with Regis Philbin, she was still acting in “All My Children” in a role she had been playing for over ten years. After a year of holding down two jobs, she eventually gave up the acting job.

When Regis Philbin retired from his famous morning talk show with Kelly Ripa, he was eventually replaced by former NFL player Michael Strahan. Apparently Strahan’s addition to the show has been extremely well received by audiences.

2. Nuke-testing dept. ENER
The US Department of Energy (DOE) came into being largely as a result of the 1973 oil crisis. The DOE was founded in 1977 by the Carter administration. The DOE is responsible for regulating the production of nuclear power, and it is also responsible for the nation’s nuclear weapons.

3. Petri dish gel AGAR
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 a nutrient source for the specimen being grown and studied, in which case the dish plus agar is referred to as an “agar plate”.

5. Artist Yoko ONO
John Lennon and Yoko Ono had a very public honeymoon in a hotels in Amsterdam and then Montreal, when they staged their famous “bed-in” for peace. In answering questions from reporters Lennon found himself often repeating the words “give peace a chance”. While still in bed, he composed his famous song “Give Peace a Chance” and even made the original recording of the song in the Montreal hotel room, with reporters present, and with a whole bunch of friends. The song was released later in 1969 and became a smash hit.

6. Workers’ rights gp. NLRB
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) was set up in 1935. The NLRB is an independent government agency with the roles of conducting elections for labor unions as well as investigating and rooting out any labor practices that are deemed to be unfair.

8. *Rank below earl VISCOUNT
In the ranking of nobles, an earl comes above a viscount and below a marquess. The rank of earl is used in the British peerage system and is equivalent to the rank of count in other countries. Other British ranks have female forms (e.g. marquess and marchioness, viscount and viscountess), but there isn’t a female word for the rank of earl. A female given the same rank as an earl is known simply as a countess.

9. Beale Street blues legend BB KING
B.B. King is the stage name of Riley B. King, the celebrated blues guitarist and singer-songwriter. He truly is a dedicated performer, as he has been doing gigs for 52 years, and has made over 15,000 appearances on stage.

Beale Street in downtown Memphis, Tennessee is a major tourist attraction. In 1977, by act of Congress, the street was officially declared the “Home of the Blues” due to its long association with the musical genre. Apparently “Beale” is the name of some forgotten military hero.

11. Cornfield measure ACRE
At one time, an acre was defined as the amount of land a yoke of oxen could plow in a day. This was more precisely defined as a strip of land one furlong long (660 feet) and one chain wide (66 feet). The word “furlong” is actually derived from the Old English words meaning “furrow long”, the length of the furrow plowed by the oxen.

14. Food recall cause E COLI
Escherichia coli (E. coli) are usually harmless bacteria found in the human gut, working away quite happily. However, there are some strains that can produce lethal toxins. These strains can make their way into the food chain from animal fecal matter that comes into contact with food designated for human consumption.

23. Deli counter qty. ONE LB
The unit of mass that we know today as a “pound” is descended from the old Roman unit of weight known as a “libra”. That “libra” connection is why we abbreviate pound to “lb”. The name “pound” though comes from the Latin “pondo” meaning “weight”.

27. Procter & Gamble toothpaste GLEEM
Gleem is a Procter & Gamble brand of toothpaste. The original formulation was introduced back in 1952, with a mystery ingredient called GL-70 which the manufacturers claimed had a unique ability to fight mouth odor and tooth decay. No one seems to know what GL-70 is, or if in fact it existed at all! Gleem II was introduced in 1969 in an attempt to revitalize sales. It seemed to work. Must have been the green sparkles …

30. Prepare a blog post, say TYPE
… and type, and type, and …

31. Yemen’s Gulf of __ ADEN
The Gulf of Aden is the body of water that lies south of the Red Sea, and just north of the Horn of Africa.

32. Part of a memorable boast VENI
The oft-quoted statement “Veni, vidi, vici” (“I came, I saw, I conquered”) is believed by many to have been written by Julius Caesar. The words date back to 47 BC and refer to the short war between Rome and Pharnaces II of Pontus.

34. “Conspiracy of Fools” company ENRON
After all the trials following the exposure of fraud at Enron, several of the key players ended up in jail. Andrew Fastow was the Chief Financial Officer. He plea-bargained and received ten years without parole, and became the key witness in the trials of others. Even Fastow’s wife was involved and she was sentenced to one year for helping her husband hide money. Jeffrey Skilling (ex-CEO) was sentenced to 24 years and 4 months. Kenneth Lay (CEO) died in 2006 after he had been found guilty but before he could be sentenced. The accounting firm Arthur Andersen was found guilty of obstruction of justice for shredding thousands of pertinent documents and deleting emails and files (a decision that the Supreme Court later overturned on a technicality). But still, Arthur Andersen collapsed under the weight of the scandal and 85,000 people lost their jobs (despite only a handful being directly involved with Enron).

“Conspiracy of Fools: A True Story” is a an account of the Enron scandal that was written by Kurt Eichenwald and first published in 2005.

42. U.K.-based luxury automaker BENTLEY
The Bentley is a luxury car that is built in the UK. Bentley Motors was founded in 1919 by W. O. Bentley, and taken over by Rolls Royce in 1931. The company has been owned by Volkswagen since 1998.

44. Two in a Dickens title CITIES
“A Tale of Two Cities” by Charles Dickens is the most printed book that was originally written in English. The two cities in the title are of course London and Paris. The novel’s famous opening words are:

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness …

The novel’s closing words are almost as famous:

It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.

46. Ancient region of present-day Turkey IONIA
Lydia and Ionia were ancient territories in a part of the world now covered by modern-day Turkey. Both territories eventually fell under Greek and then Roman rule.

47. *We, to Monet NOUS
Claude Monet painted the harbor of Le Havre in the north of France in 1872, giving it the title “Impression, Sunrise”. The painting is not a “realistic” representation of the scene in front of him, hence the name “impression”. It was this very painting that gave rise to the name of the Impressionist movement.

51. Neighbor of Saudi Arabia OMAN
Oman lies on the southeast coast of the Arabian Peninsula and is neighbored by the OAE, Saudi Arabia and Yemen. The capital city of Muscat has a strategic location on the Gulf of Oman and has a history of invasion and unrest. Centuries of occupation by the Persians ended in 1507 when the Portuguese took the city in a bloody attack. The Portuguese held Muscat for much of the next one hundred years until finally being ousted by local Omani forces in 1648. A Yemeni tribe invaded the area in 1741 and set up a monarchy that has been in place in Oman ever since.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is the largest Arab country in the Middle East and is the world’s largest oil producer, home to the world’s largest oil reserves. The Saudi dynasty started in central Arabia in 1744 when the secular leader Muhammad ibn Saud joined forces with the Islamic scholar and Imam, Muhammad ibn Abd-al-Wahhab. At the time, Saud was a ruler of a town near Riyadh and he was determined to bring “true” Islam to the Arabian peninsula. Since 1744 the fortunes of the Saudi family have risen and fallen, but it is that same family who rules what we know today as Saudi Arabia.

52. Defensive spray MACE
Mace is actually a brand name, originally introduced by Lake Erie Chemical when they started to manufacture “Chemical Mace”, with the name being a play on the club-like weapon from days of old. Mace was originally a form of tear gas, but Mace today uses a formula that is actually a pepper spray.

54. “The Raven” opening ONCE
“The Raven” is a narrative poem by Edgar Allen Poe that tells of a student who has lost the love of his life, Lenore. A raven enters the student’s bedchamber and perches on a bust of Pallas. The raven can talk, to the student’s surprise, but says nothing but the word “nevermore” (“quoth the raven, ‘Nevermore’”). As the student questions all aspects of his life, the raven taunts him with the same comment, “nevermore”. Finally the student decides that his soul is trapped beneath the raven’s shadow and shall be lifted “nevermore” …

56. Downfall cause BANE
Today we tend to use the word “bane” to mean anathema, a source of persistent annoyance. A few centuries ago, a bane was a cause of harm or death, perhaps a deadly poison.

57. “Breaking Bad” Emmy winner Gunn ANNA
Anna Gunn is an actress from Santa Fe, New Mexico. She is best known for playing Skyler White on the TV show “Breaking Bad”.

I hadn’t seen the AMC drama “Breaking Bad” until recently when my wife borrowed the first and second seasons from our local library. It is a well-written show about a high school teacher stricken by lung cancer who turns to a life of crime to make money.

58. Old cereal box stats RDAS
Recommended Daily Allowances (RDAs) were introduced during WWII and were replaced by Recommended Daily Intakes (RDIs) in 1997.

61. Mars, e.g. GOD
Mars was the god of war in Ancient Rome. He was viewed as the father of the Roman people, and the father of Romulus and Remus, the twin brothers who founded Rome according to Roman mythology..

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For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. Tail end REAR
5. Airing, as a golf tournament ON TV
9. Spoiled kid BRAT
13. “Splendor in the Grass” author INGE
14. Premier Zhou who hosted Nixon’s 1972 visit ENLAI
15. Lauderdale neighbor BOCA
16. *Sargent Shriver was its first director PEACE CORPS
18. Go-__: small racer KART
19. Dry gulch ARROYO
20. Wite-Out maker BIC
21. Mind flash IDEA
22. Move, to an agent RELO
24. Seemingly forever NO END
26. Doing the math, in a way ADDING
28. Top-priority URGENT
31. National rival AVIS
33. Supreme Court justice Kagan ELENA
35. Dark horse BAY
36. *With 45-Across, Iowa’s most populous city DES
37. Many Greta Garbo films, and what you’ll find at the intersections of four pairs of answers to starred clues SILENTS (and “SILENT S”)
39. Runway disaster RIP
40. Bigger picture: Abbr. ENL
41. Fireplace bit EMBER
42. Ill humor BILE
43. Caroline and Maria, to Ted Kennedy NIECES
45. *See 36-Across MOINES
48. Some cosmetic surgeries, for short LIPOS
50. Midday NOON
51. Fail to mention OMIT
53. Classic Pontiac GTO
55. Crunchy snack NUT BAR
59. Gift-bearing trio MAGI
60. *Aptly named New York region LONG ISLAND
62. Longing ACHE
63. Company removed from the Dow 30 in 2013 ALCOA
64. Sicilian resort ENNA
65. Fish catchers NETS
66. Scout’s good work DEED
67. Positive votes YEAS

Down
1. Strahan co-host RIPA
2. Nuke-testing dept. ENER
3. Petri dish gel AGAR
4. Audiophile’s collection RECORDS
5. Artist Yoko ONO
6. Workers’ rights gp. NLRB
7. Six-inch putt, say TAP IN
8. *Rank below earl VISCOUNT
9. Beale Street blues legend BB KING
10. *Driving hazard ROAD DEBRIS
11. Cornfield measure ACRE
12. “Ciao!” TATA
14. Food recall cause E COLI
17. Watched EYED
23. Deli counter qty. ONE LB
25. Times in history ERAS
26. *Theater guide AISLE LIGHT
27. Procter & Gamble toothpaste GLEEM
29. Polish target NAIL
30. Prepare a blog post, say TYPE
31. Yemen’s Gulf of __ ADEN
32. Part of a memorable boast VENI
34. “Conspiracy of Fools” company ENRON
37. Drain slowly SEEP
38. “That makes me happy” I’M SO GLAD
42. U.K.-based luxury automaker BENTLEY
44. Two in a Dickens title CITIES
46. Ancient region of present-day Turkey IONIA
47. *We, to Monet NOUS
49. Lifted or boosted STOLE
51. Neighbor of Saudi Arabia OMAN
52. Defensive spray MACE
54. “The Raven” opening ONCE
56. Downfall cause BANE
57. “Breaking Bad” Emmy winner Gunn ANNA
58. Old cereal box stats RDAS
61. Mars, e.g. GOD

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