LA Times Crossword 15 Jun 19, Saturday

Bill’s time: 8m 15s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

5 Key of Chopin’s Étude Op. 10, No. 3 : E MAJ

Chopin’s “Étude Op. 10, No. 3” is a popular piece of solo piano music. The main melody used was the composer’s most beautiful, and that’s according to Chopin himself.

9 Wont : HABIT

The adjective “wont” means “accustomed”, as in “I am wont to solving the crossword of an evening”.

16 “The Faerie Queene” woman : IRENA

The Faerie Queene is an epic poem by Edmund Spenser. It is one of the longest poems written in the English language.

17 U.S. gross national debt units since 1981 : TRILLIONS

Historically speaking, increases in the US national debt expressed as a percentage of the gross domestic product are really dependent on only two major factors: either war or recession. So, we should just avoid both of those things …

18 Fictional musket wielder : ATHOS

Alexandre Dumas’ “Three Musketeers” are Athos, Porthos and Aramis, although the hero of the novel is the trio’s young protégé D’Artagnan. A musketeer was an infantry soldier who was equipped with a musket. Funnily enough, the three “musketeers” really don’t use their muskets, and are better known for prowess with their swords.

20 Medieval English feudal lord : THANE

Thanes were Scottish aristocrats. The most famous thanes have to be the Shakespearean characters Macbeth (the Thane of Glamis, later Thane of Cawdor, and still later King of Scotland) and MacDuff (the Thane of Fife). Other thanes in “Macbeth” are Ross, Lennox and Angus, as well as Menteith and Caithness.

27 Aristotle in the 20th century : ONASSIS

Aristotle “Ari” Onassis was born to a successful Greek shipping entrepreneur in Smyrna in modern-day Turkey. However, his family lost its fortune during WWI and so Aristotle worked with his father to build up a new business empire centered on the importation of tobacco. In 1957, Aristotle founded the Greek national airline, what is today called Olympic Air, and he also got into the business of shipping oil around the world. He married Athina Livanos in 1946, the daughter of a wealthy shipping magnate. They couple had two children together, with one being the famous Christina Onassis. Livanos divorced Onassis on discovering him in bed with the opera singer Maria Callas. Onassis ended his affair with Callas in order to marry Jackie Kennedy in 1968.

29 River in Tuscany : ARNO

The Arno is the principal river in the Tuscany region of Italy, and passes through the cities of Florence and Pisa. Famously the Arno flooded in 1966, the worst flood in the region for centuries. There were numerous deaths and extensive destruction of priceless art treasures, particularly in Florence.

30 “Middlemarch” author : ELIOT

“George Eliot” was the pen name of English novelist Mary Anne Evans. As one might think, Evans chose a male pen name in order that her work might be best appreciated in the Victorian era. Eliot wrote seven novels including “Adam Bede” (1859), “The Mill on the Floss” (1860), “Silas Marner” (1861) and “Middlemarch” (1871-72).

George Eliot’s novel “Middlemarch” was first published in installments in 1871-72. The storyline is set some fifty years earlier, in the fictional English Midlands town of Middlemarch.

34 YMCA leader and Peace Prize co-Nobelist John : MOTT

John Mott was an evangelist and activist who led for many years the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) and the World Student Christian Federation (WSCF). His work was recognized with a Nobel Peace Prize in 1946.

35 Coup group : JUNTA

A junta is a group of military officers that rule a country, usually after having seized power forcibly. “Junta” is a Spanish word meaning “council”.

36 Normandy department : ORNE

Orne is a department and river in the northwest of France. Perhaps one of the most famous locations in Orne is the village of Camembert, the home of the famous (and delicious!) cheese.

The Normans were the people who gave their name to Normandy in the north of France. They were descended from Viking stock, so the name “Norman” derives from a translation of “North Men”.

37 Lofty verse : EPOS

“Epos” is a Greek word meaning “story poem”. We have absorbed the term into English with the same meaning. We also use “epos” in English to mean “epic”, i.e. a long narrative poetic work featuring heroic deeds and ventures.

38 Glyceride, for one : ESTER

Esters are very common chemicals. The smaller, low-molecular weight esters are usually pleasant smelling and are often found in perfumes. At the other end of the scale, the higher-molecular weight nitroglycerin is a nitrate ester and is very explosive, and polyester is a huge molecule and is a type of plastic. Fats and oils found in nature are fatty acid esters of glycerol known as glycerides.

39 Tabula __ : RASA

“Tabula rasa” (plural “tabulae rasae”) is the idea that people are born with a “blank slate”, and that knowledge comes from experience and perception.

40 Japanese electronics giant : HITACHI

Hitachi is a huge Japanese company that operates in many different sectors of the market. It was founded in 1910 by an electrical engineer named Namihei Odaira, with the first production being an induction motor used in copper mining. The name “Hitachi” comes from the kanji characters “hi” meaning “sun” and “tachi” meaning rise.

42 “Black Velvet” singer Alannah : MYLES

Alannah Myles is a singer-songwriter from Toronto. Her first big hit was “Black Velvet” released in 1989.

43 Sovereign : DYNAST

A dynast is someone who rules by virtue of heredity. “Dynastes” is a Greek word meaning “ruler, chief, master”.

44 Early one-named Velvet Underground vocalist : NICO

Nico was the stage name of the German singer born Christa Päffgen. Nico was one of Andy Warhol’s superstars, a group of personalities that gathered around him and whom he promoted in the sixties and seventies. It was Warhol who introduced Nico to the Velvet Underground, the New York City band that Warhol was managing at the time.

47 Great service providers : ACERS

That would be tennis, perhaps.

54 It may be a stretch : LIMOUSINE

The word “limousine” derives from the French city of Limoges. The area around Limoges is called the Limousin, and it gave its name to a cloak hood worn by local shepherds. In early motor cars, a driver would sit outside in the weather while the passengers would sit in the covered compartment. The driver would often wear a limousin-style protective hood, giving rise to that type of transportation being called a “limousine”. Well, that’s how the story goes …

55 Colorado’s __ Park : ESTES

Estes Park is a town in a beautiful part of the US, in northern Colorado. Estes Park is home to the headquarters of Rocky Mountain National Park.

58 Nudnik : PEST

“Nudnik” is a slang term describing a boring and bothersome person. The word comes from Yiddish, with “nuda” being the Polish for “boredom”.

Down

2 Prefix with vision : EURO-

Eurovision is a TV network that was founded in 1954 in Geneva. The network encompasses dozens of broadcasting organizations, not only in Europe, but around the world. Eurovision was set up initially to facilitate the exchange of TV programming. Today, the Eurovision brand is mainly associated (to the public) with multinational competitions that are arranged with a host broadcaster. The best example of such an event is the Eurovision Song Contest that is held annually. Another Eurovision event that was huge in Europe from the sixties through the nineties was “Jeux Sans Frontières”, a multinational TV game show.

5 Bunker on Hauser Street : EDITH

Archie Bunker’s wife Edith was played by Jean Stapleton on the 1970s sitcom “All in the Family”. By 1980, Stapleton was growing tired of playing the role and appeared in fewer and fewer episodes. When the show’s spin-off series “Archie Bunker’s Place” premiered, the storyline revealed that Archie Bunker had just lost his wife, setting the tone for the new show.

6 “The Piano” extra : MAORI

The Māori are the indigenous people of New Zealand. They are eastern Polynesian in origin and began arriving in New Zealand relatively recently, starting some time in the late 13th century. The word “māori” simply means “normal”, distinguishing the mortal human being from spiritual entities. The Māori refer to New Zealand as “Aotearoa”.

“The Piano” is a 1993 film set and filmed in New Zealand starring Harvey Keitel, Holly Hunter and Anna Paquin. The movie tells the story of a mute piano player and her daughter, and her efforts to regain her piano after it is sold. Holly Hunter managed to get three screen credits in “The Piano”. She was credited for her acting role, for playing her own piano pieces in the film, and for being the sign-language coach for young Anna Paquin.

9 Break : HIATUS

A hiatus is a break or opening in a material object. “Hiatus” is Latin for “opening”.

10 Subject including the Renaissance : ART HISTORY

The Renaissance is the period in European history that bridges the Dark Ages and the Modern Era. “Renaissance” is French for “rebirth”, and is a term reflecting the rebirth of interest in the learnings from Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome.

13 Cop show shocker : TASER

Victor Appleton wrote a novel for young adults called “Tom Swift and His Electric Rifle”. The company that developed the TASER electroshock weapon partly named its product as a homage to the novel. The acronym “TASER” stands for “Thomas A. Swift’s Electric Rifle”.

22 Doha’s country : QATAR

Qatar is a sovereign state in the Middle East occupying the Qatar Peninsula, itself located in the Arabian Peninsula. Qatar lies on the Persian Gulf and shares one land border, with Saudi Arabia to the south. Qatar has more oil and gas reserves per capita of population than any other country in the world. In 2010, Qatar had the fastest growing economy in the world, driven by the petrochemical industry. Qatar is scheduled to host the 2022 FIFA World Cup, although the nation’s eligibility to do so is under question after a far-reaching bribery scandal was uncovered at the sport’s governing body.

Doha is the capital city of the Persian Gulf state of Qatar. The name “Doha” translates from Arabic as “the big tree”.

25 Name wrongly associated with cake : ANTOINETTE

There is no evidence that Marie Antoinette ever uttered the words “Let them eat cake”. The phrase was attributed to “a great princess” though, by the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Rousseau wrote in his autobiography:

Finally I recalled the stopgap solution of a great princess who was told that the peasants had no bread, and who responded: “Let them eat brioche (cake).”

33 Tranquility and Serenity : SEAS

The Moon’s Mare Tranquillitatis (Latin for “Sea of Tranquility”) was named in 1651 by astronomers Francesco Grimaldi and Giovanni Battista Riccioli. Famously, the first manned landing on the Moon was in the Sea of Tranquility, when the Apollo 11 Lunar Module named Eagle touched down there in 1969. However, the first man-made vehicle to reach the Sea of Tranquility arrive four years earlier. the Ranger 8 spacecraft was deliberately crashed there in 1965, sending back thousands of photographs to Earth in the last 23 minutes of its mission.

The Moon’s Mare Serenitatis (Latin for “Sea of Serenity”) connects with the more famous Mare Tranquillitatis (Latin for “Sea of Tranquility”), which is where Neil Armstrong took those first steps on the Moon. Mare Serenitatis, like most of the “seas” on the Moon, was named in 1651 by Italian astronomer Giovanni Battista Riccioli. Anyone who likes looking at “the Man in the Moon” might be interested to know that the Sea of Serenity forms the right eye.

42 Big kahuna : MOGUL

A mogul is a person with power. The term comes from the Mughal emperors of India and South Asia.

Like many words in Hawaiian, “kahuna” has several English translations, everything from a priest to an expert in some profession. The expression “the Big Kahuna” comes from the 1959 movie “Gidget”. The Big Kahuna was the leader of one of the surfing gangs in the film, and was played by Cliff Robertson.

45 Feet in a meter? : IAMBS

An iamb is a metrical foot containing an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. The lines in William Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 18” use five sequential iambs, e.g. “Shall I / compare / thee to / a sum- / -mer’s day?” With that sequence of five iambs, the poem’s structure is described as iambic pentameter.

46 Balkan native : CROAT

The Republic of Croatia is a Balkan country. The Croats declared independence from Yugoslavia in 1991. Croatia became a member of NATO in 2009, and a member of the European Union in 2013.

The Balkan Peninsula in Southeast Europe is usually referred to as “the Balkans”. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains located in present-day Bulgaria and Serbia. “Balkan” is Bulgarian for “mountain”.

49 Pronto : ASAP

The Spanish and Italian (and now English) word “pronto” is derived from the Latin “promptus” meaning “ready, quick”.

50 E-__ : ZINE

Online magazines are variously referred to as webzines, e-zines, cyberzines, hyperzines or maybe e-magazines.

51 Letter-bottom abbr. : ENCL

Enclosure (encl.)

52 Bugs’ bane : DEET

“DEET” is short for N,N-Diethyl-meta-toluamide, an active ingredient in insect repellents. DEET is most often used to repel mosquitoes by applying it to the skin and/or clothing. It is also used to protect against tick bites.