LA Times Crossword Answers 15 Jan 15, Thursday

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CROSSWORD SETTER: David Steinberg
THEME: Whipped Cream … each of today’s themed answers contains the letter sequence C-R-E-A-M in some order. So CREAM has been WHIPPED up and hidden in our themed answers:

53A. Dessert topper … or a literal hint to what’s hidden in 20-, 29- and 44-Across WHIPPED CREAM

20A. About whom Alice said, “… perhaps as this is May it won’t be raving mad” THE MARCH HARE
29A. Dirty politics SMEAR CAMPAIGN
44A. “They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?” event DANCE MARATHON

BILL BUTLER’S COMPLETION TIME: 7m 38s
ANSWERS I MISSED: 0

Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across

14. Desktop since 1998 IMAC
The iMac is a desktop computer platform from Apple introduced in 1998. One of the main features of the iMac is an “all-in-one” design, with the computer console and monitor integrated. The iMac also came in a range of colors, that Apple marketed as “flavors”, such strawberry, blueberry and lime.

15. Cream-filled cake HO HO
Ho Hos snack cakes were first produced in San Francisco in 1967; not the best thing to come out of the sixties I’d say …

17. __ mining DATA
The process of data mining is used to extract information from a database and present it in a form that facilitates further use.

18. Slaughter in baseball ENOS
Enos Slaughter has a remarkable playing record in Major League Baseball over a 19-year career. Slaughter’s record is particularly remarkable given that he left baseball for three years to serve in the military during WWII.

19. Facebook posting EVENT
An “event” on Facebook is a calendar item, to which one can invite individuals or groups.

20. About whom Alice said, “… perhaps as this is May it won’t be raving mad” THE MARCH HARE
The March Hare is a character in Lewis Carroll’s “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”. It was the March Hare who hosted the tea party near the start of the story, in which we are introduced to another famous character, the Mad Hatter.

“Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” is often cited as as the origin of the expression “mad as a March hare”, perhaps because of confusion between the March Hare and the Mad Hatter who appear together at the famous “tea party” in the story. However, the expression actually predates the Lewis Carroll tale, and arose as hares were said to behave quite “madly” in the March breeding season.

24. PC heart CPU
The Central Processing Unit (CPU) is the main component on the “motherboard” of a computer. The CPU is the part of the computer that carries out most of the functions required by a program. Nowadays you can get CPUs in everything from cars to telephones.

25. Doodlebugs and polliwogs LARVAE
“Doodlebug” is a name given to the larva of an antlion, a type of flying insect. Antlions tend to live in sandy areas, and their larvae move through the sand leaving winding spirals that look like doodles, inattentive drawings. Hence the name “doodlebug”.

Polliwog is another word for a tadpole, the larval stage of an amphibian such as a frog or a toad. The term “polligwog” has been around since the mid-15th century and probably comes from the Old English words “pol” (head) and “wiglen” (wiggle).

35. Skin care brand OLAY
Oil of Olay was developed in South Africa in 1949. When Oil of Olay was introduced internationally, it was given slightly different brand names designed to appeal in the different geographies. In Ireland we know it as Oil of Ulay, for example, and in France it is Oil of Olaz.

40. Baffin Bay sight FLOE
An ice floe is a sheet of ice that has separated from an ice field and is floating freely on the ocean.

Baffin Bay is that part of the North Atlantic Ocean located between Baffin Island in Canada and the island of Greenland. Both the bay and island are named for English navigator William Baffin. Baffin Bay is largely covered with ice and icebergs for most of the year and so is usually unnavigable.

41. Molokai memento LEI
“Lei” is the Hawaiian word for “garland, wreath”, although in more general terms a “lei” is any series of objects strung together as an adornment for the body.

Molokai is the fifth largest of the Hawaiian Islands. Famously, Molokai was home to a leper colony that was managed by Father Damien, a Roman Catholic priest from Belgium. Father Damien cared for the victims of Hansen’s Disease (then known as “leprosy”) for sixteen years before succumbing to the illness himself in 1889. Father Damien was declared a saint in 2009.

42. Game divided into chukkers POLO
A game of polo is divided into periods of play called chukkers (sometimes “chukkas”). The game usually lasts for two hours, and the time between the chukkers is used to change horses.

43. Bleachers filler CROWD
At a sports event one might sit in the “bleachers”. “Bleachers” is a particularly American term used to describe the tiered stands that provide seating for spectators. These seats were originally wooden planks, and as they were uncovered they would be “bleached” by the sun, giving them the name we use today. Sometimes the fans using the bleachers might be referred to as “bleacherites”.

44. “They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?” event DANCE MARATHON
“They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?” is a powerful 1969 film adaptation of a novel of the same name by Horace McCoy. It’s all about couples engaged in a dance marathon during the Great Depression. The marathon lasts weeks, and we get to see some very disturbing behavior as the exhausted contestants reach their physical and mental limits. At the end of the movie (spoiler alert!), the male leading character (played by Michael Sarrazin) shoots the female lead (played by Jane Fonda) in an assisted suicide. When the please ask the man why he shot the woman, he responds, “They shoot horses, don’t they?”

48. Only vice president born in D.C. AL GORE
Al Gore was born in Washington DC, the son of Al Gore, Sr., then a US Representative for the state of Tennessee. After deferring his military service in order to attend Harvard, the younger Gore became eligible for the draft on graduation. Many of his classmates found ways of avoiding the draft, but Gore decided to serve and even took the “tougher” option of joining the army as an enlisted man. Actor Tommy Lee Jones shared a house with Gore in college and says that his buddy told him that even if he could find a way around the draft, someone with less options than him would have to go in his place and that was just wrong.

50. Shares an email with CCS
I wonder do the kids of today know that “cc” stands for carbon copy, and do they have any idea what a carbon copy was? Do you remember how messy carbon paper was to handle?

57. Bossa nova ancestor SAMBA
Samba is a Brazilian dance, very much symbolic of the festival known as Carnival. Like so much culture around the world, the Samba has its roots in Africa, as the dance is derived from dances performed by former slaves who migrated into urban Rio de Janeiro in the late 1800s. The exact roots of the name “samba” seem to have been lost in the mists of time. However, my favorite explanation is that it comes from an African Kikongo word “Semba” which means “a blow struck with the belly button”. We don’t seem to have a need for such a word in English …

Bossa Nova is a style of music from Brazil that evolved from samba. The most famous piece of bossa nova is the song “The Girl from Ipanema”.

61. Ticklish Tyco toy for tots ELMO
Tickle Me Elmo was a sensational fad toy in the late nineties, with stores raising prices dramatically above the recommended retail price to take advantage of demand. Reportedly, prices as high as $1500 were paid at the height of the craze. The toy’s manufacturer, Tyco, originally planned to market the “tickle” toy as Tickle Me Tasmanian Devil (after the “Looney Tunes” character), but then went with “Elmo” after they bought the rights to use “Sesame Street” names.

64. Knighted Guinness ALEC
Sir Alec Guinness played many great roles over a long and distinguished career, but nowadays is best remembered (sadly) for playing the original Obi-Wan Kenobi in “Star Wars”.

65. Ed Asner septet EMMYS
The Emmy Awards are the television equivalent of the Oscars in the world of film, the Grammy Awards in music and the Tony Awards for the stage. Emmy Awards are presented throughout the year, depending on the sector of television being honored. The most famous of these ceremonies are the Primetime Emmy Awards and the Daytime Emmy Awards. The distinctive name of “Emmy” is a softened version of the word “immy”, the nickname given to the video camera tubes found in old television cameras.

Ed Asner is most famous for playing the irascible but lovable Lou Grant on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and on the spin-off drama “Lou Grant”. Asner has won seven Emmy Awards in all, five for playing Lou Grant. That’s the most Emmy Awards won by any male actor. Off-screen Asner is noted for his political activism. He served two terms as president of the Screen Actors Guild, and was very involved in the 1980 SAG strike. When “Lou Grant” was cancelled in in 1982, despite decent ratings, there was a lot of talk that the cancellation was a move by the network against Asner personally. In fact, one of Anser’s activist colleagues, Howard Hesseman (who played Johnny Fever) found that his show “WKRP in Cincinnati” was also cancelled … on the very same day.

67. Knight’s neighbor ROOK
The corner piece in the game of chess is a called a rook, a word coming from the Persian word “rokh” meaning a “chariot”. The rook has also been called, perhaps incorrectly, the castle, tower, marquess and rector.

Down
2. Beach near Utah? OMAHA
The Normandy landings on D-Day in 1944 took place along a 50-mile stretch of the Normandy coast divided into five sectors: Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword. The worst fighting by far took place on Omaha Beach, a sector assigned to the US Army that was transported by elements of the US Navy and the Royal Navy.

3. Sport invented using boards and a clothesline WATER-SKIING
The world’s first water-skier was a gentleman by the name of Ralph Samuelson. Samuelson donned a pair of boards as skis and attached himself to a boat using some clothesline as a towrope. He did all this on Lake Pepin Lake City, Minnesota, and that was back in 1922.

4. It may involve wiring SCAM
Mail and wire fraud have been federal crimes in the US since 1872.

5. Mountain guide SHERPA
In the Tibetan language, Sherpa means “eastern people” (sher = east, pa = people). Sherpas are an ethnic group from Nepal, but the name is also used for the local guides who assist mountaineers in the Himalayas, and particularly on Mount Everest.

8. __ pit MOSH
Moshing (also “slam dancing”) is the pushing and shoving that takes place in the audience at a concert (usually a punk or heavy metal concert). The area directly in front of the stage is known as the mosh pit. When a performer does a “stage dive” it is into (or I suppose “onto”) the mosh pit. It doesn’t sound like fun to me. Injuries are commonplace in the mosh pit, and deaths are not unknown.

10. Baseball’s career save leader RIVERA
Mariano Rivera is a professional baseball pitcher from Panama City. Rivera played for the New York Yankees from 1995 until his retirement at the end of the 2013 season. Rivera holds the league record for the most career saves (at 652).

13. Big bang producer TNT
TNT is an abbreviation for trinitrotoluene. Trinitrotoluene was first produced in 1863 by the German chemist Joseph Wilbrand, who developed it for use as a yellow dye. TNT is relatively difficult to detonate so it was on the market as a dye for some years before its more explosive properties were discovered.

22. Skin care brand ALMAY
The Amlay brand of cosmetics was established back in 1931. Almay was founded by Alfred and Fanny May Woititz, who melded their given names to come up with the brand name (Al-may). The couple were driven to invent the products as Fanny May needed cosmetics that did not irritate her skin.

26. Solo instrument for which six Bach suites were written VIOLONCELLO
The word “cello” is an abbreviation for “violoncello”, an Italian word for “little violone”, referring to a group of stringed instruments that were popular up to the end of the 17th century. The name violoncello persisted for the instrument that we know today, although the abbreviation ‘cello was often used. Nowadays we just drop the apostrophe.

Johann Sebastian Bach’s “Six Suites for Unaccompanied Cello” include some of the most recognizable pieces of cello music in the repertoire. The actual instrument for which Bach wrote these pieces (if any) is the subject of some debate.

28. Put the kibosh on ENDED
“Kibosh” is something that constrains or checks. “Kibosh” looks like a Yiddish word but it isn’t, and is more likely English slang from the early 1800s.

30. Eldest March sister MEG
“Little Women” is a novel written by American author Louisa May Alcott. The quartet of little women is Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy March. Jo is a tomboy and the main character in the story, and is based on Alcott herself.

32. The whole schmear ALL
The word “schmear” comes from the Yiddish word “shmir” meaning “spread”. The phrase “the whole schmear” is a relatively recent one, dating back to around 1969 and coming from the world of business.

33. Broom-__: comics witch HILDA
“Broom-Hilda” is a comic strip created by Russell Myers that has been running since 1970. The idea for Broom-Hilda came from Myers’s business manager, Elliot Caplin (brother of Al Capp, the creator of “Li’l Abner”).

38. Marisa of “The Wrestler” TOMEI
Marisa Tomei’s first screen role was in “As the World Turns”, but her break came with a recurring role in “The Cosby Show” spinoff called “A Different World”. Tomei won an Oscar for her delightful performance in “My Cousin Vinny” in 1992.

“The Wrestler” is a really hard, gritty movie from 2008, a comeback film for actor Mickey Rourke. Rourke stars as an over-the-hill professional wrestler, with Marisa Tomei playing a faded stripper, the love interest. The film received really strong reviews, but I found it to be a tough movie to sit through.

39. Mode lead-in A LA
In French, “à la mode” simply means “fashionable”. In America, the term has come to describe a way of serving pie, usually with ice cream, or as I recall from when I lived in Upstate New York, with cheese.

43. Smart CHIC
“Chic” is a French word meaning “stylish”.

46. 2001 Audrey Tautou title role AMELIE
“Amélie” is a French film, a romantic comedy about a shy waitress in Montmartre, Paris played by Audrey Tautou. The movie was originally released under the French title, “Le Fabuleux Destin d’Amélie Poulain” (“The Fabulous Destiny of Amélie Poulain”).

Audrey Tautou is an actress and model from France whose first major success was playing the lead in the 2001 hit French film “Amélie”. She is perhaps best known to North American audiences for playing the female lead opposite Tom Hanks in the 2005’s “The Da Vinci Code”.

51. Stan Lee had one in “The Avengers” (2012) CAMEO
Even in my day, a cameo role was more than just a short appearance in a movie (or other artistic piece). For the appearance to be a cameo, the actor had to playing himself or herself, and was instantly recognizable. With this meaning, it’s easy to see the etymology of the term, as a cameo brooch is one with the recognizable carving of the silhouette of a person. Nowadays, a cameo is any minor role played by a celebrity or famous actor, regardless of the character played.

Stan Lee did just about everything at Marvel Comics over the years, from writing to being president and chairman of the board. If you like superhero movies based on the characters from Marvel Comics, then you could spend a few hours trying to spot Stan Lee in those films as he has a penchant for making cameo appearances. Lee can be spotted in “X-Men” (2000), “Spider-Man” (2002), “Hulk” (2003), “Fantastic Four” (2005), “Iron Man” (2008) and many more.

54. Sibilant summons PSST!
“Sibilant” is a lovely word, describing a sound of speech, the sound of an “s” or “z”, a hissing sound. The word “sissies”, for example, has three sibilant sounds.

55. __ Tax: $15 Monopoly fee POOR
One of the Chance cards in the game of Monopoly instructs a player to pay a “poor tax” of $15. I think that this “poor tax” might be reference to the “poor rate” that was paid by property owners in England and Wales in the 17th through the 19th centuries. This tax was collected to pay for relief of the poor.

56. Derriere REAR
“Derrière” is French for “behind, rear”. We’ve absorbed the word into English to refer specifically to the anatomical “behind”.

57. Coeur d’Alene-to-Sun Valley dir. SSE
The city, lake and river in Idaho called Coeur d’Alene are all named for the Coeur d’Alene People, Native Americans who lived in the area when it was first explored by French Canadian fur traders. “Coeur d’Alene” translates from French as “heart of an awl”. The Native American people were given this name as they were perceived as shrewd traders by their Canadian counterparts.

The resort city of Sun Valley, Idaho was developed by W. Averell Harriman in the 1930s as he was convinced that there was a call for a winter resort destination after the success of the 1932 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York. A 220-room hotel called the Sun Valley Lodge was opened in 1936, quickly followed by the Swiss-style Sun Valley Inn in 1937. Sun Valley became home to the world’s first chairlifts, installed in 1936, a replacement for rope tows.

58. Cabbage source? ATM
Lettuce, cabbage, kale, dinero, dough and moola (also moolah) are all slang terms for money.

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For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. Impresses big-time WOWS
5. Aquarium growth SCUM
9. Development site TRACT
14. Desktop since 1998 IMAC
15. Cream-filled cake HO HO
16. Try to pick up HIT ON
17. __ mining DATA
18. Slaughter in baseball ENOS
19. Facebook posting EVENT
20. About whom Alice said, “… perhaps as this is May it won’t be raving mad” THE MARCH HARE
23. Guffaw syllable HAR
24. PC heart CPU
25. Doodlebugs and polliwogs LARVAE
29. Dirty politics SMEAR CAMPAIGN
33. Enjoyed a trail HIKED
35. Skin care brand OLAY
36. Like many a joke OLD
37. “Gotcha, man” I DIG
38. Count TALLY
40. Baffin Bay sight FLOE
41. Molokai memento LEI
42. Game divided into chukkers POLO
43. Bleachers filler CROWD
44. “They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?” event DANCE MARATHON
48. Only vice president born in D.C. AL GORE
49. Word of feigned innocence MOI?
50. Shares an email with CCS
53. Dessert topper … or a literal hint to what’s hidden in 20-, 29- and 44-Across WHIPPED CREAM
57. Bossa nova ancestor SAMBA
60. Agent’s favorite sign SOLD
61. Ticklish Tyco toy for tots ELMO
62. Posture problem STOOP
63. Bed covering SOIL
64. Knighted Guinness ALEC
65. Ed Asner septet EMMYS
66. Trap, in a way TREE
67. Knight’s neighbor ROOK

Down
1. Side to side? WIDTH
2. Beach near Utah? OMAHA
3. Sport invented using boards and a clothesline WATER-SKIING
4. It may involve wiring SCAM
5. Mountain guide SHERPA
6. See eye to eye CONCUR
7. “This spells trouble!” UH-OH!
8. __ pit MOSH
9. Curative treatment THERAPY
10. Baseball’s career save leader RIVERA
11. Had ATE
12. 4-Down CON
13. Big bang producer TNT
21. Served to perfection? ACED
22. Skin care brand ALMAY
26. Solo instrument for which six Bach suites were written VIOLONCELLO
27. Radiant AGLOW
28. Put the kibosh on ENDED
30. Eldest March sister MEG
31. Lemon or tangerine COLOR
32. The whole schmear ALL
33. Broom-__: comics witch HILDA
34. Perfectionist’s goal IDEAL
38. Marisa of “The Wrestler” TOMEI
39. Mode lead-in A LA
40. Pendulum direction? FRO
42. “Could happen” PERHAPS
43. Smart CHIC
45. Drive rider COWBOY
46. 2001 Audrey Tautou title role AMELIE
47. Take baby steps TODDLE
51. Stan Lee had one in “The Avengers” (2012) CAMEO
52. Clothes protector SMOCK
54. Sibilant summons PSST!
55. __ Tax: $15 Monopoly fee POOR
56. Derriere REAR
57. Coeur d’Alene-to-Sun Valley dir. SSE
58. Cabbage source? ATM
59. Palindromic tat MOM

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