LA Times Crossword 29 Jun 19, Saturday

Bill’s time: 13m 53s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1 Drink containing neither of the ingredients in its name : EGG CREAM

Egg cream is a beverage, and one that I only know of from crosswords. It is remarkable, I think, in that it contains neither egg nor cream! The drink supposedly dates back to the late 1800s and was invented in Brooklyn. It is a fountain drink, made up from chocolate syrup, milk and seltzer (soda).

9 Kidder who played Lois in four “Superman” films : MARGOT

Margot Kidder was a Canadian-American actress who is perhaps best remembered for playing Lois Lane in the “Superman” series of films. Sadly, she committed suicide in 2018 at the age of 69.

15 Trendy Starbucks option : SOY LATTE

The term “latte” is an abbreviation of the Italian “caffelatte” meaning “coffee (and) milk”. Note that in the correct spelling of “latte”, the Italian word for milk, there is no accent over the “e”. An accent is often added by mistake when we use the word in English, perhaps meaning to suggest that the word is French.

17 “Kennedy” biographer : SORENSEN

Ted Sorensen was John F. Kennedy’s speech-writer, and he wrote a biography about the President called “Kennedy”. President Kennedy once referred to Sorensen as his “intellectual blood bank”.

18 “Grey’s Anatomy” showrunner Rhimes : SHONDA

Shonda Rhimes is the creator and head writer of the TV shows “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Scandal”. She also serves as executive producer for the crime shows “How to Get Away with Murder” and “The Catch”. Rhimes also runs her own production company called Shondaland.

“Gray’s Anatomy” is a very successful human anatomy textbook that was first published back in 1858 and is still in print today. The original text was written by English anatomist Henry Gray, who gave his name to the work. The TV medical drama “Grey’s Anatomy” (note “Grey” vs. Gray”) is centered on the character Dr. Meredith Grey, but the show’s title is a nod to the title of the famous textbook.

22 “__ Rosenkavalier” : DER

“Der Rosenkavalier” is a comic opera composed by Richard Strauss, with the title translating as “The Knight of the Rose”.

23 Actor Danny Trejo, for one : LATINO

Actor Danny Trejo tends to play the villain in movies. His most famous bad guy role is Machete, in the “Spy Kids” series of films.

32 Here, in Juárez : AQUI

“Here” is “aquí” in Spanish, and “ici” in French.

The Mexican city sitting across the border from El Paso is more correctly called Ciudad Juárez. Juárez used to be called El Paso del Norte (the North Pass). It was to be the younger settlement on the northern side of the Rio Grande which would retain the “El Paso” name.

33 2022 World Cup city : DOHA

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

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.

35 “Nunsense” costume : HABIT

“Nunsense” is a very entertaining musical comedy that was first staged in 1985. That original Off-Broadway production was destined to become the second-longest-running Off-Broadway show ever, second only to “The Fantasticks”. It closed after ten years, and 3,672 performances.

38 Academic dictum : PUBLISH OR PERISH

The phrase “publish or perish” is commonly used in the world of academia to describe the pressure to continually produce academic papers in order to further one’s career. The phrase probably dates back to the 1920s.

42 Heavyweight fight? : SUMO

Sumo is a sport that is practiced professionally only in Japan, the country of its origin. There is an international federation of sumo wrestling now, and one of the organization’s aims is to have the sport accepted as an Olympic event.

44 Album by Destroyer with a German title meaning “broken” : KAPUTT

Destroyer is a rock band from Vancouver that formed in 1995.

46 Ameliorate, in a way : LESSEN

To ameliorate is to make better, with the verb coming to us from French. The French for “better” is “meìlleur”.

48 Burns miss : LASS

Robert Burns is a cultural icon in Scotland and for Scots around the world. As a poet, Burns was a pioneer in the Romantic movement in the second half of the 18th century. One of his most famous works is the poem “Auld Lang Syne”, which has been set to the tune of a traditional Scottish folk song and is used to celebrate the New Year in the English-speaking world.

50 Eponymous Portland bookstore founder : POWELL

Powell’s City of Books in Portland takes up a full city block, and lays claim to be the largest new and used bookstore in the world. The building contains over 1½ acres of retail floor space.

52 Evil Tolkien soldier : ORC

According to Tolkien, Orcs are small humanoids that live in his fantasy world of Middle-earth (also called “Mordor”). They are very ugly and dirty, and are fond of eating human flesh.

53 Big note : C-SPOT

“C-note” and “C-spot” are slang terms for “$100 bill”.

58 Fictional 1719 autobiographer : CRUSOE

When Daniel Defoe wrote his marvelous 1719 novel called “Robinson Crusoe”, he was likely thinking of real-life Scottish castaway, Alexander Selkirk. Selkirk was marooned and lived alone on the Pacific Island called “Mas a Tierra” off the coast of Chile, for four years. The island was officially renamed in 1966, and is now called Robinson Crusoe Island.

63 Tasmanian capital : HOBART

Hobart is the capital of Australia’s island state of Tasmania. Hobart was founded by the British in 1804 as a penal colony. The colony was named for the British Secretary of State for War and the Colonies at the time, Lord Hobart.

Tasmania is the large island lying off the southeast coast of Australia. The Dutch explorer Abel Tasman was the first European to sail past the island, in 1642. Tasman named his discovery Van Diemen’s Land after the Governor of the Dutch East Indies, Anthony van Diemen. The name was officially changed to Tasmania, after the discoverer himself, in 1856. In Australia, a more familiar name used is “Tassie”.

65 Ace of Base, e.g. : SWEDES

Ace of Base is a pop group from Sweden. The band had several names before settling on “Ace of Base”, which was inspired by the Motörhead song “Ace of Spades”.

Down

1 Head of state? : ESS

The head of the word “state” is a letter S (ess).

3 Greek deli item : GYRO

A gyro is a traditional Greek dish of meat roasted on a tall vertical spit that is sliced from the spit as required. Gyros are usually served inside a lightly grilled piece of pita bread, along with tomato, onion and tzatziki (a yogurt and cucumber sauce).

4 Psychic Miss : CLEO

Miss Cleo was the stage name of psychic Youree Dell Harris. She was a spokesperson for the Psychic Readers Network, a pay-per-call service, for many years.

6 “The Martian” has none : ETS

“The Martian” is an intriguing 2015 science fiction film starring Matt Damon as an astronaut who is accidentally stranded on Mars. The movie is based on a 2011 novel of the same name by Andrew Weir. One thing that I liked about the film is that the science cited is fairly realistic. In fact, NASA collaborated with the filmmakers extensively from script development to principal casting.

8 1927 Hemingway short story collection : MEN WITHOUT WOMEN

“Men Without Women” is a 1927 collection of short stories by Ernest Hemingway. The stories deal with such “uplifting” subjects as bullfighting, prizefighting, infidelity, divorce and death.

9 Arctic grazer : MUSKOX

The muskox is a large hoofed mammal with a thick coat that primarily lives in the Greenland and the Canadian Arctic. The ox-like animal is named for the strong, musky odor that males emit during the mating season.

10 Court immortal : ASHE

Arthur Ashe was a professional tennis player from Richmond, Virginia. In his youth, Ashe found himself having to travel great distances to play against Caucasian opponents due to the segregation that still existed in his home state. He was rewarded for his dedication by being selected for the 1963 US Davis Cup team, the first African American player to be so honored. Ashe continued to run into trouble because of his ethnicity though, and in 1968 was denied entry into South Africa to play in the South African Open. In 1979, Ashe suffered a heart attack and had bypass surgery, with follow-up surgery four years later during which he contracted HIV from blood transfusions. Ashe passed away in 1993 due to complications from AIDS. Shortly afterwards, Ashe was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Bill Clinton.

11 Parthenon P : RHO

Rho is the Greek letter that looks just like our Roman letter “p”, although it is equivalent to the Roman letter R.

The Parthenon is the ruined temple that sits on the Athenian Acropolis. Although the Parthenon was dedicated to the goddess Athena as a sacred building in the days of the Athenian Empire, it was actually used primarily as a treasury. In later centuries, the Parthenon was repurposed as a Christian Church dedicated to the Virgin Mary, and was also used as a mosque after Ottoman conquest.

14 Peter and Paul, but not Mary : TSARS

Peter the Great (aka “Peter I”) was perhaps the most successful of the Romanov tsars, and was famous for modernizing Russia and expanding the country’s sphere of influence, creating the Russian Empire. He ruled from 1682 until his death in 1725.

Paul I was Tsar of Russia, and the only son of Peter III and Catherine the Great. Paul was on the throne for only five years, before being assassinated in a conspiracy that brought his son Alexander I to power.

21 Like show-offy push-ups : ONE-ARM

Easy. I do one-finger push-ups …

25 Trick-taking game : HEARTS

Hearts is a fun card game that is in the Whist family of trick-taking games, as are Bridge (my favorite) and Spades.

26 Mushroom parts : CAPS

A mushroom isn’t a complete living organism per se but rather is one part of a fungus, the fruiting body that is responsible for distributing reproductive spores. The mushroom generally has three main components: the stipe (or “stem”), the pileus (or “cap”) and the lamellae (or “gills”) under the cap which distribute the spores.

28 It has over 43 quintillion configurations : RUBIK’S CUBE

What was originally called the “Magic Cube” became better known as “Rubik’s Cube”, and was named for its inventor Ernő Rubik. Rubik’s Cube is the world’s biggest selling puzzle game, with over 350 million sold in just over 30 years.

Numbers were another thing that caused me problems when I moved to the US. Where I come from, a thousand million is just that, a thousand million, whereas in the US that’s a billion. All the names for numbers bigger than a US billion are different than in Europe. What’s called a quintillion here (a million x a trillion US) we just call a trillion.

36 Archipelago component : ISLE

“Archipelago” is our spelling of the Italian “arcipelago”, a word that has Greek roots. The Aegean Sea was once known as the Archipelago. The usage of “Archipelago” migrated over time, eventually applying only to the Aegean Islands. As a result, we use the term “archipelago” today not for a sea, but for a group or chain of islands.

37 Second of a logical pairing : THEN

In the world of computer programming, an “if-then-else” construct is a type of conditional statement. The idea is that IF a particular condition is met THEN a particular action is executed. The additional ELSE statement can be used to define an alternative action.

39 MSN, for one : ISP

The Microsoft Network (MSN) used to be an Internet service provider (ISP). These days, MSN is mainly a web portal.

45 Some March Madness madness : UPSETS

“March Madness” is the name given to the NCAA Men’s Division 1 Basketball Championship (among others), that is held in spring each year.

48 Leven and Lomond : LOCHS

Loch Leven is a freshwater lake in central Scotland. Loch Leven Castle lies on one of the islands in the loch, and it was there that Mary, Queen of Scots was imprisoned from 1567-1568, during which time she was forced to abdicate the Scottish throne.

Loch Lomond is one of the two most famous lakes in Scotland. Loch Ness is famous for its “monster”, and Loch Lomond is famous for the lovely song “The Bonnie Banks o’ Loch Lomond”. Oh, ye’ll tak’ the high road, and I’ll tak’ the low road …

49 The CW show about a vigilante archer : ARROW

“Arrow” is a TV show based on the DC Comics superhero Green Arrow. The title character is played by Canadian actor Stephen Amell.

51 Scriabin work : ETUDE

An étude is a short instrumental composition that is usually quite hard to play and is intended to help the performer master a particular technique. “Étude” is the French word for “study”. Études are commonly performed on the piano.

Alexander Scriabin was a composer and pianist from Moscow, Russia. Scriabin’s early works were in the Romantic style, but later works exhibited more dissonance and were more atonal.

53 Fission site : CORE

A nuclear reactor is a device designed to maintain a self-contained nuclear chain reaction. Nuclear fission generates heat in the reactor core. That heat is transferred out of the core by a nuclear reactor coolant, and is used to turn steam turbines. Those steam turbines usually drive electrical generators, or perhaps a ship’s propellers.

55 __ mater : ALMA

The literal translation for the Latin term “alma mater” is “nourishing mother”. The phrase was used in ancient Rome to refer to mother goddesses, and in Medieval Christianity the term was used to refer to the Virgin Mary. Nowadays, one’s alma mater is the school one attended, either high school or college, usually one’s last place of education.

57 Roger Maris’ uniform number : NINE

Roger Maris (whose original family name was “Maras”) was the son of Croatian immigrants. It was Maris’s single-season record of 61 home runs that Mark McGwire broke in 1998 (hitting 70 that season). Maris’s own record of 61 runs (from 1961) beat the previous record of 60 set in 1927 by Babe Ruth.

62 Frat letters : NUS

The Latin equivalent of the Greek letter nu is N. An uppercase nu looks just like the Latin capital N. However, the lowercase nu looks like our lowercase V. Very confusing …