LA Times Crossword 10 Nov 18, Saturday

Bill’s time: 8m 19s

Bill’s errors: 0

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Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1. Cheese manufacturing by-product : WHEY

When milk curdles it separates into two parts, the solid curds and the liquid whey.

5. 2017 events for SNAP and Blue Apron : IPOS

Snapchat is a messaging system that allows users to send photos and video clips to a limited list of recipients. The photos and clips, called “snaps”, can be viewed for only a few seconds before they are deleted from the recipient’s device, and from the Snapchat servers.

13. Green feature : HOLE

That would be golf.

14. Soup bar staple : MINESTRONE

Minestrone is a hearty Italian soup with varying ingredients, but usually including lots of vegetables in a vegetable broth with added pasta or rice. The term “minestrone” comes from the Italian “minestrare” meaning “to serve”.

17. Dwarf planet named for a Greek goddess : ERIS

In Greek mythology, Eris was the goddess of discord. The name “Eris” is derived from the Greek word for strife, and translates into Latin as “Discordia”. In Greek her counterpart was Harmonia, and in the world of the Roman gods, Concordia. The largest dwarf planet in our solar system is called Eris, named after the goddess.

18. Annual awards for which many adolescents vote : TEEN CHOICE

Fox television network’s Teen Choice Awards were created in 1999 to cater for the teen demographic, along the lines of the existing Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Awards. Sadly, the Teen Choice Awards have been plagued with controversy, with apparently well-founded claims that winners have been selected and sometimes notified even before voting has closed.

19. “Do I dare to eat a peach?” poet : TS ELIOT

“The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock”, the famous poem by T. S. Eliot, includes the line “Do I dare to eat a peach?”

“The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock” is a poem by T. S. Eliot that was first published in 1915. The rather odd name of “Prufrock” seems to have just come to Eliot, although there was a Prufrock-Littau Company in St. Louis while he lived there.

24. Grafton’s “__ for Alibi” : A IS

Sue Grafton wrote detective novels, and her “alphabet series” feature the private investigator Kinsey Millhone. She started off with “A Is for Alibi” in 1982 and worked her way up to “U is for Undertow” before she passed away in 2017.

25. Oceanus, for one : TITAN

Oceanus was a mythical figure and the personification of the enormous river that the ancient Greeks and Romans believed encircled the world. It is from the name “Oceanus” that we get out modern term “Ocean”.

The Titans were a group of twelve older deities in Greek mythology, the twelve children of the primordial Gaia and Uranus, Mother Earth and Father Sky. In the celebrated Battle of the Titans, they were overthrown by the Olympians, who were twelve younger gods. We use the term “titan” figuratively to describe a powerful person, someone with great influence.

26. Shot in a tiny cup : ESPRESSO

Espresso is made by forcing extremely hot water, under pressure, through finely ground coffee beans. The result is a thick and concentrated coffee drink, which contains quite a lot of solids and a lot of foam. An espresso machine was first patented in 1884 in Italy, although it was a machine to make the beverage in bulk. The first patent for a machine that made individual measures was applied for in 1901, also in Italy.

33. “Rich Man, Poor Man” novelist : SHAW

Irwin Shaw was an author from New York City. Shaw’s most famous works were his novels “The Young Lions” (1948) and “Rich Man, Poor Man” (1970). The former was made into a successful 1958 film of the same starring Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift and Dean Martin. The latter became a successful TV miniseries of the same name starring Peter Strauss and Nick Nolte.

39. “This other __, demi-paradise”: Shak. : EDEN

Here are some famous lines from William Shakespeare’s “Richard II”.

This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands,
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.

41. Obsessed mariner : AHAB

Captain Ahab is the obsessed and far from friendly captain of the Pequod in Herman Melville’s “Moby-Dick”. The role of Captain Ahab was played by Gregory Peck in the 1956 John Huston film adaptation. Patrick Stewart played Ahab in a 1998 miniseries in which Peck made another appearance, as Father Mapple.

42. Like sea lions : EARED

There are three families of seals. The first is the walrus family, the second the eared seals (like sea lions), and thirdly the earless seals (like elephant seals).

46. Data breach causes : HACKS

A computer hacker is a computer expert, and in particular one who uses that expertise to solve problems with hardware and software. So, the original use of the term “hacking” was very positive. Since the 1980s, the term “hacker” is more commonly used for an expert in subverting computer security.

48. Small two-seater : SMART CAR

“smart cars” are manufactured by Daimler AG, the same company that makes Mercedes-Benz automobiles. The smart car was developed in cooperation with the wristwatch brand Swatch. The name “smart” (always in lowercase letters) stands for Swatch Mercedes ART.

56. Rash-causing shrubs : POISON OAKS

Two of the plants that are most painful to humans are poison oak and poison ivy. Poison oak is mainly found west of the Rocky Mountains, and poison ivy to the east.

63. Body shop figs. : ESTS

Estimate (est.)

Down

1. Sharpens : WHETS

The words “whet” and “pique” can both be used in the sense of sharpening or awaking one’s interest or desire.

2. Shrewd bargain : HORSE TRADE

“David Harum” by Edward Noyes Westcott was a very successful novel when it was first published in 1899. The book is noted for introducing the colloquial term “horse trading” into the language (meaning “shady business practices”).

3. The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Award was renamed for him : ELIE WIESEL

Elie Wiesel was a holocaust survivor, and is best known for his book “Night” that tells of his experiences in Auschwitz and Buchenwald. Wiesel was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986. He was also the first recipient of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum Award, which was later renamed the Elie Wiesel Award in his honor.

6. Only work Michelangelo ever signed : PIETA

The Pietà is a representation of the Virgin Mary holding in her arms the dead body of her son Jesus. The most famous Pietà is undoubtedly the sculpted rendition by Michelangelo that is located in St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City. That particular sculpture is thought to be the only work that Michelangelo signed. In some depictions of the Pietà, Mary and her son are surrounded by other figures from the New Testament. Such depictions are known as Lamentations.

The celebrated Italian Renaissance artist and poet Michelangelo was born Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni in a village near Arezzo in the present-day province of Tuscany. Michelangelo achieved renown during his own lifetime. He was the first Western artist to see his biography published during his own lifetime.

9. Mass symbols : CROSSES

The principal act of worship in the Roman Catholic tradition is the Mass. The term “Mass” comes from the Late Latin word “missa” meaning “dismissal”. This word is used at the end of the Latin Mass in “Ite, missa est” which translates literally as “Go, it is the dismissal”.

10. Hi’s wife, in comics : LOIS

“Hi and Lois” is a comic strip that first appeared in 1954 and is still running today. The strip was created by Mort Walker (also known for “Beetle Bailey”) and was originally illustrated by Dik Browne (also known for “Hägar the Horrible”). The title characters Hi and Lois Flagstone first appeared in “Beetle Bailey”. Lois is Beetle’s sister, and the characters occasionally show up in each other’s strip.

16. “__ Eyes Were Watching God”: Hurston novel : THEIR

Zora Neale Hurston was an American author, most famous for her 1937 novel “Their Eyes Were Watching God”. Like the author, the main character in the novel is an African American woman, and a part played by Halle Berry in a television movie adaptation that first aired in 2005.

31. “Believe” singer : CHER

When Cher recorded the 1998 song “Believe”, the audio engineers routinely corrected the sound of Cher’s voice to ensure that all notes were sung with perfect pitch (all singers “cheat”, it seems!). The software that does this pitch correction is called “Auto-Tune”. Then, for a bit of fun, the same engineers played with the Auto-Tune software and created a special effect in her voice that she so liked it was left in the final release. You can easily detect the strange effect if you listen to the song. The process is now called the “Cher Effect” and is used by other artists in their recordings.

32. Court immortal : ASHE

The great American tennis player Arthur Ashe spent the last years of his life writing his memoir called “Days of Grace”. He finished the manuscript just a few days before he passed away, dying from AIDS caused by a tainted blood transfusion.

40. Waterloo : NEMESIS

Nemesis was a Greek goddess, the goddess of retribution. Her role was to make pay those individuals who were either haughty or arrogant. In modern parlance, one’s nemesis (plural “nemeses”) is one’s sworn enemy, often someone who is the exact opposite in character but someone who still shares some important characteristics. A nemesis is often someone one cannot seem to beat in competition.

Waterloo is a small municipality in Belgium. The name “Waterloo” originated with the Dutch and is probably an anglicization of a Dutch word meaning “wet clearing in a forest”. The town is famous for the Battle of Waterloo that took place nearby in 1815. Said battle was fought between the Imperial French army led by Emperor Napoleon, and an Anglo-Allied army led by Irish-born British Field Marshal, the Duke of Wellington. Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo led to his abdication and the restoration of King Louis XVIII to the throne of France. Bonaparte was exiled to the British-owned island of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic, where he died in 1821. Such is the fame of the battle that the term “Waterloo” is used figuratively today for any decisive or crushing defeat.

45. Alphabetically first Baseball Hall of Famer : AARON

The great Hank Aaron (“Hammerin’ Hank” or “the Hammer”) has many claims to fame. One notable fact is that he is the last major league baseball player to have also played in the Negro League.

49. Powerful sharks : MAKOS

The shortfin mako shark can appear on restaurant menus, and as a result the species is dying out in some parts of the world. The mako gets its own back sometimes though, as attacks on humans are not unknown. It is the fastest-swimming shark, and has been clocked at speeds of over 40 miles/hour. And the shark in Ernest Hemingway’s “The Old Man and the Sea”, that’s a mako. “Mako” is the Maori word for “shark” or “shark tooth”.

53. “Women and Love” author : HITE

Shere Hite is a German sex educator, although she was born in the US. She married German concert pianist Friedrich Höricke in 1985 and renounced her US citizenship in favor of German nationality in the mid-nineties. Hite’s work focuses on sexual experience and what meaning it holds for an individual.

57. Yahoo! sister company : AOL

The telecom giant Verizon acquired AOL in 2015, and Yahoo! in 2017. Just after the latter purchase, Verizon launched Oath, a subsidiary company that served as the umbrella under which AOl and Yahoo! continued to operate. Oath was renamed to Verizon Media Group after a corporate reorganization at the end of 2018.