LA Times Crossword Answers 22 Nov 14, Saturday

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CROSSWORD SETTER: Brad Wilber
THEME: None
BILL BUTLER’S COMPLETION TIME: 13m 18s
ANSWERS I MISSED: 0

Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across

9. Coke product FRESCA
Fresca is a Coca Cola product introduced in 1966, and is unusual in that it has no Pepsi Cola equivalent. It has always been marketed as a 0-calorie grapefruit drink, and so it’s artificially sweetened.

16. “Top Hat” dancer ROGERS
I am a huge Ginger Rogers fan. Rogers is famous as the on-screen and dancing partner of Fred Astaire. However, my favorite films are those romantic comedies she made later in her career, especially “The Major and the Minor” and “Monkey Business”.

“Top Hat” is a fun comedy musical starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. It is the most successful movie that the Astaire-Rogers team made.

17. How Dickens’ novels were first published SERIALLY
Charles Dickens was an English novelist who achieved great notoriety in his own time, and is still regarded as perhaps the greatest novelist of the Victorian period. Many of his novels explored the plight of the poor in Victorian society, perhaps driven by his own experiences as a child. Dickens had to leave school to work in a factory after his father was thrown into a debtor’s prison. As a result, Dickens had to educate himself, and did so with great success. He is said to have pioneered the serial publication of narrative fiction, with his first success coning with the 1835 serial publication of “Pickwick Papers”. And everyone’s favorite has to be his 1843 novella, “A Christmas Carol”.

20. Montreal Canadiens’ all-time leading point scorer LAFLEUR
Guy Lafleur is retired NHL hockey player who turned out for the Montreal Canadiens, New York Rangers and the Quebec Nordiques. Lafleur is now a helicopter pilot and operates his own helicopter rental company in Montreal.

22. Toon shopkeeper APU
The fictional Kwik-E-Mart store is operated by Apu Nahasapeemapetilon on “The Simpsons” TV show. Apu is married to Apu, and the couple have eight children. The convenience store owner doesn’t seem to be making much use of his Ph.D in computer science that he earned in the US. Apu’s undergraduate degree is from Caltech (the Calcutta Technical Institute), where he graduated top of his class of seven million students …

25. Highly visible septet BIG DIPPER
The constellation called Ursa Major (Latin for “Larger Bear”) is often just called the Big Dipper because its septet of stars resemble a ladle or dipper in the night sky. Ursa Major also resembles a plow, and that’s what we usually call the same constellation back in Ireland, the “plough”.

27. Year in Clement VIII’s papacy MDCI
Clement VIII was Pope from 1592 until his death in 1605. Clement was ordained a priest when he was already 45 years old, and became Pope just 12 years later.

28. Piquancy TANG
Something that is “piquant” is pleasantly sharp in taste and zesty. “Piquant” is the French word for “prickly”.

32. Clingy husk BUR
The hook-and-loop fastener we now call Velcro was invented in 1941 by Georges de Mestral, a Swiss engineer. Mestral noticed that the seeds of the burdock plant (burrs or burs) stuck to his clothes. Under the microscope he found hooks on the burrs that grabbed hold of loops in his clothing. After years of development, he came up with a way of simulating the natural hook using man-made materials, and Velcro was born.

38. Hot air ballooning watchdog: Abbr. FAA
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) was set up in 1958 (as the Federal Aviation Agency). The agency was established at that particular time largely in response to an increasing number of midair collisions. The worst of these disasters had taken place two years earlier over the Grand Canyon, a crash between two commercial passenger airplanes that resulted in 128 fatalities.

40. About 1% of the Earth’s atmosphere ARGON
Air is mainly composed of nitrogen (78%), oxygen (21%) and argon (1%). We hear a lot about carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. It makes up (or should make up!) about 0.04%, but that’s an important 0.04%.

43. Engine once known as Live Search BING
Bing is the search engine from Microsoft. Bing is the latest name for an engine that Microsoft used to call Live Search, Windows Live Search and MSN Search.

44. Abbey section APSE
The apse of a church or cathedral is a semicircular recess in an outer wall, usually with a half-dome as a roof and often where there resides an altar. Originally apses were used as burial places for the clergy and also for storage of important relics.

45. Gig at the brig GUARD DUTY
A brig, short for brigantine, is a type of ship. It was the use of brigantines as prison ships that led to the use of “brig” as the word for a jail or prison cell on a seagoing vessel.

47. Your alternative, at times ONE’S
Your answer, or one’s answer, might not be the same as mine …

49. 1974 top ten hit for Carole King JAZZMAN
“Jazzman” is a 1974 song by Carole King that is an ode to Curtis Amy and the effect that he had on her. Amy was known as a tenor sax player who had been the musical director for the Ray Charles band.

51. Kenyan export TEA
Kenya is a major producer of tea. In fact, tea is the leading source of foreign income for the country.

53. Green Giant morsel NIBLET
The Jolly Green Giant was introduced by Minnesota Valley Canning in 1925 to help sell the company’s peas. He was named after one of the varieties of pea that the company sold, the “Green Giant”. The Jolly Green Giant first appeared in a television commercial in 1953, walking through a valley with young boys running around at his feet. That first commercial proved to be so scary for younger viewers that it was immediately pulled off the air.

55. Dietary practice VEGANISM
President Bill Clinton had a quadruple heart bypass in 2004, and then had two coronary stents implanted in his heart in 2010. After the latter experience, he became a vegan and now eats a diet of whole plant-based foods.

58. Sea along the Balkan peninsula ADRIATIC
The Adriatic is the sea separating Italy from the Balkans. The sea is named for the Italian town of Adria that is located at the very north of the Adriatic.

Down
2. She played Principal McGee in “Grease” EVE ARDEN
The actress Eve Arden’s most famous role early in her career was playing the high school teacher in the 1950’s radio and television show “Our Miss Brooks”. Years later she played the Principal of Rydell High School in the movies “Grease” (a great film!) and “Grease 2” (a terrible film!).

4. Prefix with athlete TRI-
An Ironman Triathlon is a race involving a 2.4 mile swim, a 112 mile bike ride, and a marathon run of just over 26 miles. The idea for the race came out of a debate between some runners in the 1977 Oahu Perimeter Relay. They were questioning whether runners, swimmers or bikers were the most fit athletes. The debaters decided to combine three local events to determine the answer, inviting athletes from all three disciplines. The events that were mimicked to come up with the first triathlon were the Waikiki Roughwater swim (2.4 miles), the Around-Oahu Bike Race (115 miles) and the Honolulu Marathon (26.2 miles). The idea was that whoever finished first would be called “the Iron Man”. The first triathlon was run in 1978, with fifteen starters and only twelve finishers. The race format is used all over the world now, but the Hawaiian Ironman is the event that everyone wants to win.

5. Right-leaning type?: Abbr. ITALS
Italic type leans to the right. The style is known as “italic” because the stylized calligraphic form of writing originated in Italy, probably in the Vatican.

6. Bourbon Street city, informally NOLA
The city of New Orleans, Louisiana has the nickname “The Big Easy”. This name might come from the early 1900s when musicians found it relatively “easy” to find work there. The city is also known by the acronym NOLA, standing for New Orleans, LA.

When New Orleans was founded by the French, the House of Bourbon was ruling France. Bourbon Street was named in its honor.

9. Mountebank FRAUD
A “mountebank” is a charlatan, a swindler. The term applies more specifically to someone who sells quack medicines to a small crowd, using tricks and exaggerated stories to convince individuals to purchase. “Mountebank” comes into English via Italian from “monta” meaning “to mount” and “banco” meaning “bench”. The idea is that the swindler would “mount a bench” from where he can address the crowd and hawk his fraudulent wares.

10. Five-time A.L. home run champ RODRIGUEZ
Alex Rodriguez was home run champion for the American League five times; in 2001, 2002, 2003, 2005 and 2007.

11. A BMOC may have a big one EGO
Big man on campus (BMOC)

12. Colorful cover-up SERAPE
“Serape” is the English pronunciation and spelling of the Spanish word “zarape”. A zarape is like a Mexican poncho, a soft woolen blanket with a hole in the middle for the head. Most serapes have colorful designs that use traditional Mayan motifs.

13. Brunch order CREPES
“Crêpe” is the French word for “pancake”.

26. Blofeld’s cat, in Bond films PERSIAN
The Persian is that long-haired cat with a squashed muzzle. The breed takes its name from its place of origin, namely Persia (Iran).

Ernst Stavro Blofeld is a villain in the James Bond universe. Blofeld has been played on the big screen several times by different actors. My favorite is Donald Pleasance in 1967’s “You Only Live Twice”. In the original Ian Fleming novels, Blofeld was born on 28 May 1908, which happens to be Fleming’s own birthday.

27. Picture of health? MRI
A CT (or “CAT”) scan produces (via computer manipulation) a three dimensional image of the inside of an object, usually the human body. It does so by taking a series of two dimensional x-ray images while rotating the camera around the patient. The issue with CT scans is that they use x-rays, and high doses of radiation can be harmful causing damage that is cumulative over time. An MRI on the other hand (Magnetic Resonance Imaging), uses powerful magnetic fields to generate its images so there is no exposure to ionizing radiation (such as X-rays). We used MRI equipment in our chemistry labs at school, way back in the days when the technology was still called Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Imaging (NMRI). Apparently the marketing folks didn’t like the term “nuclear” because of its association with atomic bombs, so now it’s just called MRI.

28. “I’m off!” TATA!
An Englishman might say “tata” or “cheerio” instead of “goodbye”. Well, supposedly so!

31. Baryshnikov move GRAND JETE
A jeté is a leap in ballet, coming from the French word “jeter” meaning “to throw”. A “jeté en avant” is a “leap to the front”, towards the audience. A “grand jeté” is a long horizontal jump, a split in the air, leaping from one foot to the other.

32. Wimbledon five-peater BORG
Björn Borg is a retired tennis player from Sweden, and a former World No. 1. Borg won 41% of the 27 Grand Slam singles tournaments that he entered, which is a record that stands to the day. He was known for reacting very calmly under pressure on the tennis court and hence earned the nicknames “Ice Man” and “Ice Borg”, which is my personal favorite.

34. Largest moon of Jupiter GANYMEDE
Ganymede is the largest of Jupiter’s sixty-seven moons, and is the largest moon in the Solar System. Ganymede was discovered in 1610 by Galileo, and was named soon after by astronomer Simon Marius for Zeus’s lover, Ganymede of Greek mythology.

37. Topeka-to-Peoria dir. ENE
Topeka is the capital of Kansas, and is located on the Kansas River in the northeast of the state. The name “Topeka” was chosen in 1855 and translates from the Kansa and the Ioway languages as “to dig good potatoes”. The reference isn’t to the common potato but rather to the herb known as the prairie potato (also “prairie turnip”), which was an important food for many Native Americans.

Peoria is the oldest European settlement in the state of Illinois, having been settled by the French in 1680. The city is famous for oft being cited as “the average American city”.

39. Bar __ MITZVAH
A Jewish girl becomes a Bat Mitzvah at 12 years of age, the age at which she becomes responsible for her actions. Boys become Bar Mitzvahs at 13. The terms translate into English as daughter and son of the commandments.

40. Handout from a chair AGENDA
“Agenda”is a Latin word that translates as “things to be done”, coming from the verb “agere” meaning “to do”.

41. 40th anniversary symbols RUBIES
Some traditional gifts for wedding anniversaries are:

5th: wooden
10th: tin
15th: crystal
20th: china
25th: silver
30th: pearl
40th: ruby
50th: gold
60th: diamond

43. Sawyer of old comics BUZ
“Buz Sawyer” was a comic strip drawn by Roy Crane that ran from 1943 to 1989. The title character started out as an ace Navy fighter during WWII, and then became an oil company troubleshooter after the war. Buz signed up with the Navy again in the 1950s and flew off carriers over Vietnam in the 1960s.

46. “Antiques Roadshow” expert DATER
“Antiques Roadshow” is a very popular PBS TV show in which professional auctioneers appraise antiques brought to them by the general public. The American show is based on a long-running BBC production of the same name. In one episode of the American version of the show, four pieces of carved jade were presented for appraisal, and were given an estimated value of one million dollars!

50. Onetime capital of the Mughal Empire AGRA
The Indian city of Agra is home to three UNESCO World Heritage Sites:

– The Taj Mahal: the famous mausoleum built in memory of Mumtaz Mahal.
– Agra Fort: the site where the famous Koh-i-Noor diamond was seized.
– Fatehpur Sikri: a historic city that’s home to well-preserved Mughal architecture.

The Mughal Empire extended over much of the Indian subcontinent from 1526 to 1707.

52. Pacers and Ramblers AMCS
When Nash-Kelvinator Corporation and Hudson Motor Car Company came together in 1954, it was the largest US corporate merger to date. The new company was called American Motors Corporation (AMC), and was of a size that could compete with the “Big Three” automakers. A few months after the merger, George W. Romney was given the top job at AMC. George was father of presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

The AMC Pacer is an iconic car from the seventies. The Pacer has big glass windows leading to it being nicknamed “the Flying Fish Bowl” by “Car and Driver” magazine.

The AMC Rambler automobile was produced from 1950-69, and was known as the “Kenosha Cadillac” after the location of its manufacture in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

54. Bk. of the Torah LEV
In the Hebrew Bible, the Book of Leviticus comes after the Book of Numbers.

56. Baseball’s Ryan Zimmerman or Jordan Zimmermann, briefly NAT
Ryan Zimmerman and Jordan Zimmermann both play for the Washington Nationals baseball team. They aren’t related. Well, their family names are spelled differently …

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For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. Jeweler’s concerns SETTINGS
9. Coke product FRESCA
15. Passed OVERTOOK
16. “Top Hat” dancer ROGERS
17. How Dickens’ novels were first published SERIALLY
18. Is wild about ADORES
19. Backwash creator OAR
20. Montreal Canadiens’ all-time leading point scorer LAFLEUR
22. Toon shopkeeper APU
23. Signals one’s presence, in a way RAPS
25. Highly visible septet BIG DIPPER
27. Year in Clement VIII’s papacy MDCI
28. Piquancy TANG
29. Silly sorts GEESE
30. Jump back into the fray RE-ENGAGE
32. Clingy husk BUR
33. Paper fatteners INSERTS
34. Flips GOES APE
38. Hot air ballooning watchdog: Abbr. FAA
39. Almond confection MARZIPAN
40. About 1% of the Earth’s atmosphere ARGON
43. Engine once known as Live Search BING
44. Abbey section APSE
45. Gig at the brig GUARD DUTY
47. Your alternative, at times ONE’S
48. Taper off EBB
49. 1974 top ten hit for Carole King JAZZMAN
51. Kenyan export TEA
53. Green Giant morsel NIBLET
55. Dietary practice VEGANISM
57. Efface DELETE
58. Sea along the Balkan peninsula ADRIATIC
59. Letter closing AS EVER
60. Buoys up HEARTENS

Down
1. Underwhelming SO-SO
2. She played Principal McGee in “Grease” EVE ARDEN
3. View providers TERRACES
4. Prefix with athlete TRI-
5. Right-leaning type?: Abbr. ITALS
6. Bourbon Street city, informally NOLA
7. Drivers can be seen in them GOLF BAGS
8. Broad view SKYLINE
9. Mountebank FRAUD
10. Five-time A.L. home run champ RODRIGUEZ
11. A BMOC may have a big one EGO
12. Colorful cover-up SERAPE
13. Brunch order CREPES
14. Guarantee ASSURE
21. Whisking target EGG
24. Miss badly PINE FOR
26. Blofeld’s cat, in Bond films PERSIAN
27. Picture of health? MRI
28. “I’m off!” TATA!
31. Baryshnikov move GRAND JETE
32. Wimbledon five-peater BORG
34. Largest moon of Jupiter GANYMEDE
35. Fondness APPETITE
36. Submits, as an exam paper PASSES IN
37. Topeka-to-Peoria dir. ENE
39. Bar __ MITZVAH
40. Handout from a chair AGENDA
41. 40th anniversary symbols RUBIES
42. Unintelligible talk GABBLE
43. Sawyer of old comics BUZ
46. “Antiques Roadshow” expert DATER
47. Booth warning sign ON AIR
50. Onetime capital of the Mughal Empire AGRA
52. Pacers and Ramblers AMCS
54. Bk. of the Torah LEV
56. Baseball’s Ryan Zimmerman or Jordan Zimmermann, briefly NAT

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