LA Times Crossword 19 Oct 19, Saturday

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Constructed by: Jeffrey Wechsler
Edited by: Rich Norris

Today’s Theme: None

Bill’s time: 13m 56s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1 Safari sight : WILD ANIMAL

“Safari” is a Swahili word meaning “journey” or “expedition”.

15 MRI safety consideration : ENERGY DOSE

An MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) machine uses powerful magnetic fields to generate its images so there is no exposure to ionizing radiation (such as X-rays). We used MRI equipment in our chemistry labs at school, way back in the days when the technology was still called Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Imaging (NMRI). Apparently the marketing folks didn’t like the term “nuclear” because of its association with atomic bombs, so now it’s just called MRI.

16 Fabric used in sci-fi costumes : LAME

Lamé is a fabric that has metallic yarns included in the weave. Lamé is a popular fabric for stylish evening wear, and also in the sport of fencing. The metallic threads are conductive and so help register a touch by an épée.

19 Where food may be collected : BIB

The word “bib” comes from the Latin “bibere” meaning “to drink”, as does our word “imbibe”. So, maybe a bib is less about spilling the food, and more about soaking up the booze …

20 Many Egon Schiele works : EROTIC ART

Egon Schiele was an Austrian painter who was noted for his explicit and sexual drawings. Indeed, his style got him locked up in 1912 and he was eventually found guilty of exhibiting erotic drawings in a place accessible by children. The judge even burned one of Schiele’s drawings over a candle flame in the court.

31 “__ Mio” : O SOLE

“O sole mio” is a famous Italian song from Naples, written in 1898. The song’s lyrics are usually sung in the original Neapolitan, as opposed to Italian. The title translates from Neapolitan into “My Sun” (and not into “O, My Sun” as one might expect). It’s a love song, sung by a young man declaring that there is a sun brighter than that in the sky, the sun that is his lover’s face. Awww …

32 Gradual process of concern to periodontists : BONE LOSS

Periodontics is that branch of dentistry dealing with the gums and the tissue supporting a tooth. The word “periodontal” was coined in the mid-19th century. The term comes from the Greek for “around the tooth”.

34 Recognizes : IDS

Identity document (ID)

38 Annoying sort : TWERP

“Twerp” and “pipsqueak” are both terms used for someone who is insignificant and contemptible.

39 Leporello in “Don Giovanni,” e.g. : BASS

“Don Giovanni” is a comic opera by Mozart, with a libretto in Italian by Lorenzo Da Ponte. The opera follows the adventures of Don Giovanni, a young rakish nobleman who finally comes to a bad end.

40 Dorm figs. : RAS

A resident assistant/adviser (RA) is a peer leader found in a residence hall, particularly on a college campus.

43 French dispatch boat : AVISO

A dispatch boat is a military vessel designed to carry dispatches to and from ships. In the French navy, a dispatch boat is called an aviso. Nowadays, the need for dispatch boats has disappeared, but avisos still exist and are a class of combat vessel usually used in the defense of a coast against encroachment by enemies.

49 Cetera of Chicago : PETER

Musician Peter Cetera was one of the original members of the rock band Chicago. After his days with Chicago, Cetera built a successful solo career for himself.

50 __ powder : TALCUM

Talc is a mineral, hydrated magnesium silicate. Talcum powder is composed of loose talc, although these days “baby powder” is also made from cornstarch.

56 Greece neighbor: Abbr. : ALB

The Republic of Albania is a country in the Balkans in southeastern Europe. Albania was made a communist state after WWII but became independent again with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990. Albania has been a member of NATO since 2009, and was accepted as an official candidate to join the European Union in 2014. The nation’s capital and largest city is Tirana.

57 Oklahoma city : ENID

Enid, Oklahoma takes its name from the old railroad station around which the city developed. Back in 1889, that train stop was called Skeleton Station. An official who didn’t like the name changed it to Enid Station, using a character from Alfred Lord Tennyson’s “Idylls of the King”. Maybe if he hadn’t changed the name, the city of Enid would now be called Skeleton, Oklahoma! Enid has the nickname “Queen Wheat City” because is has a huge capacity for storing grain, the third largest grain storage capacity in the world.

62 Coleridge work : RIME

“The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” is an epic poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge that was first published in 1798. The publication of “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” is said to mark the beginning of the Romantic period of British literature. Perhaps the lines most often quoted from the poem are:

Water, water, every where,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, every where
Nor any drop to drink

65 Musical with the song “Sex Is in the Heel” : KINKY BOOTS

“Kinky Boots” is a 2012 musical with music and lyrics by singer/songwriter Cyndi Lauper. The musical is based on a 2005 film of the same name, which in turn was inspired by an episode from a BBC documentary series “Trouble at the Top”. “Kinky Boots” is based on the true story of struggling shoe factory that was saved from closure when it started producing fetish footwear for men.

Down

3 Sappho’s home : LESBOS

Lesbos is a Greek island in the northeast of the Aegean Sea. The Greek poet Sappho came from Lesbos, and she was a woman noted for her powerful emotional poems directed towards other females. It is because of the writings of Sappho from Lesbos that we have our word “lesbian”.

4 Gere title role : DR T

The 2000 movie “Dr. T & the Women” is a pretty good film, and stars Richard Gere in the title role. It’s a romantic comedy about a gynecologist, and the women in his private and public life. The list of actresses playing those women is impressive, and includes Helen Hunt, Farrah Fawcett, Laura Dern, Shelley Long, Kate Hudson and Liv Tyler.

5 Ottoman honorific : AGA

“Aga” (also “agha”) is a title that was used by both civil and military officials in the Ottoman Empire.

6 News initials since 1851 : NYT

“The New York Times” (NYT) has been published since 1851, and is sometimes referred to as “the Gray Lady”. These days a viable alternative to buying the paper is to read the news online. NYTimes.com is the most popular online newspaper website in the country.

7 Romeo’s last words : I DIE

In Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet”, the last words uttered by Romeo are:

O true apothecary!
They drugs are quick. Thus with a kiss I die.

Juliet’s last words are:

Yea, noise? then I’ll be brief. O happy dagger! This is thy sheath; there rust, and let me die.

8 Baskerville Hall setting : MOOR

“The Hound of the Baskervilles” is one of four “Sherlock Holmes” novels written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and it is regarded by many fans as the best of the series. “The Hound …” tells of a murder attempt on Dartmoor in Devon, England that is disguised as the act of a legendary supernatural hound. The novel also marks Doyle’s revival of his Sherlock Holmes character after he “killed him off” eight years earlier in a story called “The Final Solution”.

11 Eatery “just a half a mile from the railroad track” : ALICE’S

Arlo Guthrie is the son of Woody Guthrie. Both father and son are renowned for their singing of protest songs about social injustice. Arlo is most famous for his epic “Alice’s Restaurant Massacree”, a song that lasts a full 18m 34s. In the song Guthrie tells how, after being drafted, he was rejected for service in the Vietnam War based on his criminal record. He had only one incident on his public record, a Thanksgiving Day arrest for littering and being a public nuisance when he was 18-years-old.

13 Green shades : EMERALDS

The mineral beryl is a source of a number of different semi-precious stones, depending on the nature of the impurities present. Pure beryl is colorless; blue beryl is called aquamarine, and green beryl is emerald. Traces of iron cause the blue color, and traces of chromium give the green hue.

14 Antsy : RESTLESS

The word “antsy” embodies the concept of “having ants in one’s pants”, meaning being nervous and fidgety. However, “antsy” has been used in English since the 1830s, whereas “ants in the pants” originated a century later.

21 Wall St. events : IPOS

An initial public offering (IPO) is the very first offer of stock for sale by a company on the open market. In other words, an IPO marks the first time that a company is traded on a public exchange. Companies have an IPO to raise capital to expand (usually).

New York’s famous Wall Street was originally named by the Dutch “de Waalstraat”.

23 Ink spots? : NIBS

“Nib” is a Scottish variant of the Old English word “neb”, with both meaning the beak of a bird. This usage of “nib” as a beak dates back to the 14th century, with “nib” meaning the tip of a pen or quill coming a little later, in the early 1600s.

25 Tempo of Chopin’s “Marche funèbre” : LENTO

A lento passage is a piece of music that has a slow tempo. “Lento” is Italian for “slow”.

Frédéric Chopin’s “Piano Sonata No. 2” includes a third movement that is better known as his “Marche funèbre” (Funeral March). That famous movement was played at Chopin’s own funeral in 1849 as he was laid to rest in Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.

29 Last Olds model : ALERO

The Oldsmobile Alero was the last car made by General Motors under the Oldsmobile brand. It was produced from 1999 to 2004.

30 Where the heart is : TORSO

“Torso” (plural “torsi”) is an Italian word meaning the “trunk of a statue”, and is a term that we imported into English.

35 Early Hudson’s Bay Company employees : TRAPPERS

Today’s Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) was founded in London, way back in 1670, and was for many years primarily a fur-trading business. In those early days, the company was the de facto government in the area surrounding Hudson Bay, which was then known as Rupert’s Land.

39 Franklin half-dollar image : BELL

The Franklin half dollar coin became available in 1948. It features a profile Benjamin Franklin on the obverse (hence the name “Franklin”), and the Liberty Bell (complete with crack) on the reverse. It was replaced by the Kennedy half dollar in 1964, just a few months after President John F. Kennedy’s assassination.

42 Org. with beeping wands : TSA

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is the agency that employs the good folks who check passengers and baggage at airports.

44 Like some rye : SEEDED

That would be rye bread.

47 Pleasing to the ear : DULCET

“Dulcet” means “pleasing to the ear” and is such a lovely word, I think. It comes from the Old French word “doucet”, a diminutive of “doux”, which is the French for “sweet”.

52 “Star __” : TREK

When Gene Roddenberry first proposed the science fiction series that became “Star Trek”, he marketed it as “Wagon Train to the Stars”, a pioneer-style Western in outer space. In fact his idea was to produce something more like “Gulliver’s Travels”, as he intended to write episodes that were adventure stories on one level, but morality tales on another. Personally I think that he best achieved this model with the spin-off series “Star Trek: The Next Generation” (TNG). If you watch individual episodes you will see thinly disguised treatments of moral issues such as racism, homosexuality, genocide etc. For my money, “The Next Generation” is the best of the whole franchise …

53 First name in casual wear : LEVI

Levi Strauss was the founder of the first company in the world to manufacture blue jeans. Levi Strauss & Co. opened in 1853 in San Francisco. Strauss and his business partner were awarded a patent in 1873 for the use of copper rivets to strengthen points of strain on working pants.

60 Q neighbor : TAB

Like most features on our computer keyboards, the tab key is a hangover from the days of typewriters. When using a typewriter, making entries into a table was very tedious, involving lots of tapping on the spacebar and backspace key. So, a lever was added to typewriters that allowed the operator to “jump” across the page to positions that could be set by hand. Later this was simplified to a tab key which could be depressed, causing the carriage to jump to the next tab stop in much the same way that the modern tab key works on a computer.

Complete List of Clues/Answers

Across

1 Safari sight : WILD ANIMAL
11 Class clown, at times : APER
15 MRI safety consideration : ENERGY DOSE
16 Fabric used in sci-fi costumes : LAME
17 Ones concerned with public images? : TV STATIONS
18 Infuriates : IRES
19 Where food may be collected : BIB
20 Many Egon Schiele works : EROTIC ART
22 Lacking a key : ATONAL
26 __ code : PENAL
27 Has as an address : RESIDES AT
31 “__ Mio” : O SOLE
32 Gradual process of concern to periodontists : BONE LOSS
34 Recognizes : IDS
35 See 46-Down : … THIS
38 Annoying sort : TWERP
39 Leporello in “Don Giovanni,” e.g. : BASS
40 Dorm figs. : RAS
41 Vacation itinerary entry : TOUR SITE
43 French dispatch boat : AVISO
45 Summer fun item attached to a ladder : POOL SLIDE
49 Cetera of Chicago : PETER
50 __ powder : TALCUM
51 Intellectual property statute : PATENT LAW
56 Greece neighbor: Abbr. : ALB
57 Oklahoma city : ENID
58 Payment : REMITTANCE
62 Coleridge work : RIME
63 Fair : EVEN-HANDED
64 Hightailed it : SPED
65 Musical with the song “Sex Is in the Heel” : KINKY BOOTS

Down

1 Rec room amenity : WET BAR
2 Ask : INVITE
3 Sappho’s home : LESBOS
4 Gere title role : DR T
5 Ottoman honorific : AGA
6 News initials since 1851 : NYT
7 Romeo’s last words : I DIE
8 Baskerville Hall setting : MOOR
9 “It came __ surprise” : AS NO
10 Opposite of provided : LEST
11 Eatery “just a half a mile from the railroad track” : ALICE’S
12 Conspiracy theory origin, perhaps : PARANOIA
13 Green shades : EMERALDS
14 Antsy : RESTLESS
21 Wall St. events : IPOS
23 Ink spots? : NIBS
24 Commotion : ADO
25 Tempo of Chopin’s “Marche funèbre” : LENTO
28 Clinch : SEW UP
29 Last Olds model : ALERO
30 Where the heart is : TORSO
33 Like some wasted milk : SPILT
35 Early Hudson’s Bay Company employees : TRAPPERS
36 Imbibe minimally : HAVE A NIP
37 Anticipatory question : IS IT TIME?
39 Franklin half-dollar image : BELL
41 Undecided : TORN
42 Org. with beeping wands : TSA
44 Like some rye : SEEDED
46 With 35-Across, self-confident words : I CAN DO …
47 Pleasing to the ear : DULCET
48 Places firmly (in) : EMBEDS
52 “Star __” : TREK
53 First name in casual wear : LEVI
54 “And that goes for me, too!” : AMEN!
55 Pretend not to see, with “at” : WINK …
59 Old possessive : THY
60 Q neighbor : TAB
61 “Is that __?” : A NO