LA Times Crossword Answers 2 Jun 15, Tuesday

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CROSSWORD SETTER: Mike Peluso
THEME: Talking Heads … each of today’s themed answers starts with a type of TALKING:

23D. Pundits … and what the first words in the answers to starred clues literally are TALKING HEADS

4D. *Round before the Elite Eight SWEET SIXTEEN (giving “sweet-talking”)
6D. *Ball carrier’s maneuver depicted by the Heisman Trophy STRAIGHT ARM (giving “straight talking”)
26D. *Two over par DOUBLE BOGEY (giving “double-talking”)

BILL BUTLER’S COMPLETION TIME: 5m 31s
ANSWERS I MISSED: 0

Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across

1. Tostitos dip SALSA
“Salsa” is simply the Spanish for “sauce”.

Tostitos are a brand of tortilla chips. If you’re a vegetarian though you might want to leave them on the supermarket shelf as Frito-Lay uses pork enzymes to “enhance” flavor.

15. Universal donor’s group TYPE O
In general, a person with type O-negative blood is a universal donor, meaning that his or her blood can be used for a transfusion into persons with any other blood type: A, B, AB or O, negative or positive (although there are other considerations). Also in general, a person with type AB-positive blood is a universal recipient, meaning that he or she can receive a transfusion of blood of any type: A, B, AB or O, negative or positive.

16. Sports drink suffix -ADE
Gatorade was developed at the University of Florida by a team of researchers at the request of the school’s football team. And so, Gatorade is named after the Gators football team.

19. Musician’s booking GIG
Musicians use “gig” to describe a job, a performance. The term originated in the early 1900s in the world of jazz.

20. Gallic gal pal AMIE
A male friend in France is “un ami”, and a female friend is “une amie”.

The Gauls were a Celtic race, with Gaul covering what is now known as France and Belgium. We use the term “Gallic” today, when we refer to something pertaining to France or the French.

24. Thor Heyerdahl’s raft KON-TIKI
The Kon-Tiki was a raft used by Thor Heyerdahl in 1947 to cross the Pacific Ocean from South America to the Polynesian islands. The original raft used in the voyage is on display in the Kon-Tiki Museum in Oslo, Norway (Heyerdahl was a native of Norway).

26. Lady of Lisbon DONA
Lisbon is the capital of Portugal. Lisbon is the westernmost capital city in Europe, and indeed is the westernmost large city on the continent. It is also the oldest city in Western Europe and was founded hundreds of years before London, Paris and Rome.

27. Beijing skyline haze SMOG
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the cities with the worst air quality on the planet are, starting with the worst:

– Ahwaz, Iran
– Ulan Bator, Mongolia
– Lahore, Pakistan
– New Delhi, India
– Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

28. Home of the Raiders OAKLAND
The Oakland Raiders football team was founded in 1960, and was originally intended to play in Minnesota. Instead, the team played in Oakland from 1960 to 1981 and then spent 12 years in Los Angeles before returning to Oakland in 1995.

32. Video game brother MARIO
Mario Bros. started out as an arcade game back in 1983, developed by Nintendo. The more famous of the two brothers, Mario, had already appeared in an earlier arcade game “Donkey Kong”. Mario was given a brother called Luigi, and the pair have been around ever since. In the game, Mario and Luigi are Italian American plumbers from New York City.

35. High, in the French Alps HAUT
In French, things can be bas (low) or haut (high).

37. Swiss painter Paul KLEE
The artist Paul Klee was born in Switzerland, but studied art in Munich in Germany. You can see many of Klee’s works in the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and if you get to Bern in Switzerland, even more of them can be seen at the Zentrum Paul Klee that was opened in 2005.

38. Green card in the credit world AMEX
“Amex” is short for American Express. In dollar terms, there are more transactions conducted in the US using the Amex card than any other card.

42. Hair clipper brand WAHL
The Wahl Clipper Corporation is a company based in Sterling, Illinois that makes grooming clippers for both humans and animals.

46. Periodical with a URL EMAG
Internet addresses (like NYTCrossword.com and LAXCrossword.com) are more correctly called Uniform Resource Locators (URLs).

48. Oater actor Jack ELAM
Jack Elam was a movie actor noted for playing the bad guy in Westerns. When Elam was a boy scout, he was accidentally stabbed in the eye with a pencil. The incident left him blind in that eye, and the iris remained skewed to the outside of his face. This gave Elam a crazed, wide-eyed look that helped add a sense of menace to the characters he played.

49. Chess pieces that move only diagonally BISHOPS
It is believed that the game of chess originated in northwest India, evolving from a 6th-century game called “chaturanga”, a Sanskrit word meaning “four divisions”. These four (military) divisions were represented in the game:

– Infantry (now “pawns”)
– Cavalry (now “knights”)
– Elephants (now “bishops”)
– Chariots (now “rooks”)

53. Venus, e.g. PLANET
The planet Venus is the second brightest object in the night sky, after our Moon.

56. Dress for success, with “up” TOG
The verb “tog”, meaning to dress up, comes from the Latin “toga”, the garment worn in Ancient Rome. “Tog” can be use as an informal word for a coat or a cloak. Back in Ireland, togs are what we call swimming shorts.

57. Gardner of mystery ERLE
I must have read all of the Perry Mason books when I was in college. I think they kept me sane when I was facing the pressure of exams. Author Erle Stanley Gardner was himself a lawyer, although he didn’t get into the profession the easy way. Gardner went to law school, but got himself suspended after a month. So, he became a self-taught attorney and opened his own law office in Merced, California. Understandably, he gave up the law once his novels became successful.

58. Old nuclear agcy. AEC
The Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) was set up right after WWII in 1946, with the aim of promoting the peaceful use of atomic energy. Establishing the AEC was a significant move made by President Truman, as it passed control of atomic energy from the military to the civilian sector. The AEC continued to operate until 1974 when its functions were divided up into two new agencies: the Energy Research and Development Administration and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).

59. Repair, as faulty software DEBUG
Back in 1947, the famed computer programmer Grace Hopper noticed some colleagues fixing a piece of equipment by removing a dead moth from a relay. She remarked that they were “debugging” the system, and so she has been given credit for popularizing the term.

61. Morocco’s capital RABAT
Rabat is the capital city of the Kingdom of Morocco. After WWII, the United States maintained a major Air Force Base in Rabat, part of Strategic Air Command (SAC). Responding to pressure from the Moroccan government of King Mohammed V, the USAF pulled out in 1963.

62. Pixar collectible CEL
In the world of animation, a cel is a transparent sheet on which objects and characters are drawn. In the first half of the 20th century the sheet was actually made of celluloid, giving the “cel” its name.

Pixar Animation Studios started out as part of Lucasfilm in 1979, George Lucas’s production company. Lucas sold what was to become Pixar to Apple CEO Steve Jobs in 1986. Pixar produced its first feature film in 1995, the fabulous “Toy Story”, and followed up with a string of hits. The company was then sold to Walt Disney in 2006, when valued at $7.4 billion. That transaction resulted in Steve Jobs becoming the biggest shareholder in Walt Disney.

63. Loon kin GREBE
A grebe is a small to medium-sized freshwater diving bird. Although they appear to be very different, recent molecular studies have shown that grebes and flamingos are closely related.

The bird known as a loon here in North America is called a diver in the British Isles. The name “diver” comes from the bird’s habit of swimming calmly and then suddenly diving below the surface to catch a fish. The name “loon” comes from an Old English word meaning “clumsy” and reflects the awkward gait of the bird when walking on land.

65. Nonstandard product-tracking no. SKU
Stock-keeping unit (SKU)

Down
1. Command to Fido SPEAK!
“Fido”, the name for many a dog, is Latin for “I trust”.

2. “Drive Happy” rental company ALAMO
The third largest car rental company right now is Alamo, a relative newcomer founded in 1974. Alamo made inroads (pun intended!) into the market by popularizing the idea of “unlimited mileage”.

3. “Good __”: 1966 Young Rascals hit LOVIN’
The Rascals was a band that was big in the late sixties and early seventies. It was a “blue-eyed soul” group, which I just learned is white guys playing soul music. I am so out of touch …

4. *Round before the Elite Eight SWEET SIXTEEN (giving “sweet-talking”)
In the NCAA Division I Basketball Championship, the teams remaining at various stages of the tournament are known as:

– The “Sweet Sixteen” (the regional semi-finalists)
– The “Elite Eight” (the regional finalists)
– The “Final Four” (the national semi-finalists)

5. Biblical mount ASS
The ass or donkey is mentioned several times in the Bible. One of the most-quoted biblical stories involving an ass is the story of Balaam. Balaam was a diviner who appears in the Book of Numbers in. In one account, Balaam is held to task by an angel for particularly cruel treatment of an ass.

6. *Ball carrier’s maneuver depicted by the Heisman Trophy STRAIGHT ARM (giving “straight talking”)
The Heisman Trophy is awarded to the most outstanding college football player each season. The trophy was first awarded in 1935, and the following year was given the name Heisman after the death of John Heisman, a noted college football player and football director.

7. Martha of “Some Came Running” HYER
Martha Hyer is a retired American actress. Hyer’s most noted role was playing the love interest for Frank Sinatra in 1958’s “Some Came Running”. Hitchcock considered casting Hyer for the “Psycho” role that eventually went to Janet Leigh.

“Some Came Running” is a 1958 film starring Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Shirley MacLaine. The movie is based on the novel of the same name written by James Jones. Jones’ earlier book “From Here to Eternity” had been adapted into a very successful 1953 film, and so “Some Came Running” was an attempt to exploit that success.

8. Therapists’ org. APA
American Psychiatric Organization (APA)

9. Revolutionary soldiers REDCOATS
Most soldiers in the British Army from the 17th to the 19th centuries wore distinctive red coats. There is a commonly held belief that the color red was chosen to mask the inevitable bloodstains that would occur during battle, but there seems to be no foundation for this assertion. It is more likely that red was chosen to aid in distinguishing friend from foe on a smoke-filled battlefield.

10. Middle-of-nowhere town PODUNK
“Podunk” is an Algonquian word, meaning a boggy place (literally “where you sink in mire”). European settlers used the name Podunk for the indigenous people that lived in what is now southern New England. These “Podunks” had no name for themselves as a tribe, and they were christened “podunks” as they lived on relatively marshy lands. Podunk has come to mean “the middle of nowhere”.

11. Star-struck 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.

12. Drooly toon dog ODIE
Odie is Garfield’s best friend and is a slobbery beagle, a character in the Jim Davis comic strip.

13. Cribbage pieces PEGS
Cribbage is a great card game that originated in 17th-century England, a creation of the poet Sir John Suckling. One of the unique features of the game is that a cribbage board is used to keep score. Here in the US, cribbage is very much associated with the submarine service, as it is a favorite game of submariners of all ranks.

21. Bout decision TKO
In boxing, a knockout (KO) is when one of the fighters can’t get up from the canvas within a specified time, usually 10 seconds. This can be due to fatigue, injury, or the participant may be truly “knocked out”. A referee, fighter or doctor may also decide to stop a fight without a physical knockout, especially if there is concern about a fighter’s safety. In this case the bout is said to end with a technical knockout (TKO).

23. Pundits … and what the first words in the answers to starred clues literally are TALKING HEADS
A pundit is a learned person who one might turn to for an opinion. “Pundit” is derived from the Hindi word “payndit” meaning “learned man”.

“Talking head” is TV slang for a participant in a talk show. The term arises from the closeup shot of the person contributing to the discussion.

25. Texter’s “I think …” IMO
In my opinion (IMO)

26. *Two over par DOUBLE BOGEY (giving “double-talking”)
The term “Bogey” originated at the Great Yarmouth Golf Club in England in 1890, and was used to indicate a total round that was one-over-par (and not one-over-par on a particular hole, as it is today). The name Bogey came from a music hall song of the time “Here Comes the Bogey Man”. In the following years it became popular for players trying to stay at par to be “playing against Colonel Bogey”. Then, during WWI, the marching tune “Colonel Bogey” was written and named after the golfing term. If you don’t recognize the name of the tune, it’s the one that’s whistled by the soldiers marching in the great movie “The Bridge on the River Kwai”.

29. “M*A*S*H” star ALDA
Alan Alda had a great television career, perhaps most memorably on “M*A*S*H”. Alda won his first Emmy in 1972, for playing Hawkeye Pierce on “M*A*S*H”. He won his most recent Emmy in 2006 for his portrayal of Presidential candidate Arnold Vinick in “The West Wing”. When it comes to the big screen, my favorite of Alda’s movies is the 1978 romantic comedy “Same Time, Next Year” in which he starred opposite Ellen Burstyn.

33. Amo, amas, __ AMAT
“Amo, amas, amat: … “I love, you love, he/she/it loves”, in Latin.

34. Philosopher Descartes RENE
The great French philosopher Rene Descartes made the famous statement in Latin, “Cogito ergo sum”. This translates into French as “Je pense, donc je suis” and into English as “I think, therefore I am”.

45. Telethon promise PLEDGE
The world’s first telethon was took place in 1949. It was a 16-hour fundraiser hosted by Milton Berle that raised over a million dollars for the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation. The term “telethon”, a portmanteau of “television” and “marathon”, was coined in the news media the day after the event.

47. Russian fighter MIG
The Russian fighter jets that we know as “MiGs” are so called because they were designed by the Mikoyan-and-Gurevich Design Bureau, and MiG is an acronym for “Mikoyan-and-Gurevich” in Russian.

51. “Peyton __” PLACE
Grace Metalious’ 1956 novel “Peyton Place” had such an impact that to this day, the expression “Peyton Place” is used to describe a neighborhood where the residents have sordid secrets. The novel has it all, including incest, abortion, adultery, lust and murder. No wonder it stayed on “The New York Times” bestseller list for 59 weeks …

53. Lobbying orgs. PACS
A Political Action Committee (PAC) is a private group that works to influence the outcome of a particular election or group of elections. Any group becomes a PAC by law when it receives or spends more than $1,000 for the purpose of influencing the outcome of an election. In 2010 the Supreme Court ruled that PACS that did not make direct contributions to candidates or parties could accept unlimited contributions. These “independent-expenditure only committees” are commonly referred to as “super PACs”.

54. Scallion kin LEEK
The leek is a national emblem of Wales (along with the daffodil), although I don’t think we know for sure how this came to be. One story is that the Welsh were ordered to wear leeks in their helmets to identify themselves in a battle against the Saxons. Apparently, the battle took place in a field of leeks.

55. First Amendment defender: Abbr. ACLU
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has its roots in the First World War when it was founded to provide legal advice and support to conscientious objectors.

The Constitution of the United States was adopted on September 17, 1787. There have been 27 amendments to the constitution, the first ten of which are collectively called the Bill of Rights. In essence the Bill of Rights limits the power of the Federal Government and protects the rights of individuals. For example, the First Amendment states:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords from Arizona participated in the reading of the US Constitution in the floor of the House of Representatives just a few days before she was shot in Tucson, Arizona on January 8, 2011. The First Amendment was that part of the Constitution that Congresswoman Gifford chose to read.

56. Oom-pah maker TUBA
The tuba is the lowest pitched of all the brass instruments, and one of the most recent additions to the modern symphony orchestra (usually there is just one tuba included in an orchestral line-up). “Tuba” is the Latin word for “trumpet, horn”. Oom-pah-pah …

61. Popular Roaring Twenties auto REO
The REO Motor Company was founded by Ransom E. Olds (hence the name REO). The company made cars, trucks and buses, and was in business from 1905 to 1975 in Lansing, Michigan. Among the company’s most famous models were the REO Royale and the REO Flying Cloud.

The 1920s are often called the Roaring Twenties, a period of dynamic change across all aspects of life. Things were finally returning to normal after WWI, jazz became popular, some women “broke the mold” by becoming “flappers”, and Art Deco flourished. The whole decade came to a tragic end with the Wall Street Crash of 1929, and was followed by the Great Depression.

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For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. Tostitos dip SALSA
6. #, in music SHARP
11. Swabbing need MOP
14. Makes furrows in fields PLOWS
15. Universal donor’s group TYPE O
16. Sports drink suffix -ADE
17. Roof overhangs EAVES
18. Check the total of READD
19. Musician’s booking GIG
20. Gallic gal pal AMIE
21. Paving goo TAR
22. Adorable ones CUTIES
24. Thor Heyerdahl’s raft KON-TIKI
26. Lady of Lisbon DONA
27. Beijing skyline haze SMOG
28. Home of the Raiders OAKLAND
32. Video game brother MARIO
35. High, in the French Alps HAUT
37. Swiss painter Paul KLEE
38. Green card in the credit world AMEX
39. Wild guesses STABS
40. Brainchild IDEA
41. Breathe heavily PANT
42. Hair clipper brand WAHL
43. Twist into knots GNARL
44. More vertical STEEPER
46. Periodical with a URL EMAG
48. Oater actor Jack ELAM
49. Chess pieces that move only diagonally BISHOPS
53. Venus, e.g. PLANET
56. Dress for success, with “up” TOG
57. Gardner of mystery ERLE
58. Old nuclear agcy. AEC
59. Repair, as faulty software DEBUG
61. Morocco’s capital RABAT
62. Pixar collectible CEL
63. Loon kin GREBE
64. Official command EDICT
65. Nonstandard product-tracking no. SKU
66. College paper ESSAY
67. “Bone” prefix OSTEO-

Down
1. Command to Fido SPEAK!
2. “Drive Happy” rental company ALAMO
3. “Good __”: 1966 Young Rascals hit LOVIN’
4. *Round before the Elite Eight SWEET SIXTEEN (giving “sweet-talking”)
5. Biblical mount ASS
6. *Ball carrier’s maneuver depicted by the Heisman Trophy STRAIGHT ARM (giving “straight talking”)
7. Martha of “Some Came Running” HYER
8. Therapists’ org. APA
9. Revolutionary soldiers REDCOATS
10. Middle-of-nowhere town PODUNK
11. Star-struck trio? MAGI
12. Drooly toon dog ODIE
13. Cribbage pieces PEGS
21. Bout decision TKO
23. Pundits … and what the first words in the answers to starred clues literally are TALKING HEADS
25. Texter’s “I think …” IMO
26. *Two over par DOUBLE BOGEY (giving “double-talking”)
29. “M*A*S*H” star ALDA
30. At no time, in poems NE’ER
31. Negotiation ender DEAL
32. Plans (out) MAPS
33. Amo, amas, __ AMAT
34. Philosopher Descartes RENE
36. Contented sigh AAH
39. Cool weather clothes SWEATERS
43. Fun time GAS
45. Telethon promise PLEDGE
47. Russian fighter MIG
50. Heavenly path ORBIT
51. “Peyton __” PLACE
52. Spat SET-TO
53. Lobbying orgs. PACS
54. Scallion kin LEEK
55. First Amendment defender: Abbr. ACLU
56. Oom-pah maker TUBA
60. Wanna-__: pretenders BES
61. Popular Roaring Twenties auto REO

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