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Constructed by: Chase Dittrich
Edited by: Rich Norris
Today’s Reveal Answer: Middle Ground
Themed answers are types of PARTY, and CROSS at letters circled in the grid:
- 38A Act in a bipartisan way, and what the circled letters do Across and Down : CROSS PARTY LINES
- 16A Game with cues and balls : POOL (pool party)
- 11D Toil : WORK (work party)
- 17A Social event with costumes and facial covers : MASQUERADE (masquerade party)
- 3D “Y.M.C.A.” music genre : DISCO (disco party)
- 9D Unifying feature of many escape rooms : THEME (theme party)
- 61A Kitchen storage brand : TUPPERWARE (Tupperware party)
- 50D Chasing : AFTER (after-party)
- 52D Surfer’s hangout : BEACH (beach party)
- 64A Rolled-up sandwich : WRAP (wrap party)
- 57D Without a date : STAG (stag party)
Read on, or jump to …
… a complete list of answers
Want to discuss the puzzle? Then …
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Bill’s time: 5m 16s
Bill’s errors: 0
Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies
Across
1 Rogues : CADS
Our word “cad”, meaning “person lacking in finer feelings”, is a shortening of the word “cadet”. “Cad” was first used for a servant, and then students at British universities used “cad” as a term for a boy from the local town. “Cad” took on its current meaning in the 1830s.
14 Rose’s Broadway love : ABIE
“Abie’s Irish Rose” is a comedy play by Anne Nichols that opened in 1922 on Broadway and ran for over five years. Back then, that made it the longest run for any show in New York. The show then went on tour, and stayed on tour for an amazing 40 years. The play tells of a young Jewish man called Abie Levy who marries an Irish Catholic girl called Rosemary Murphy. Abie lies to his family and pretends that his “Irish Rose” is Jewish.
15 Copier brand : RICOH
Ricoh is a Japanese company that started out in 1936 and by the year 2000 was the biggest manufacturer of copiers in the world. The company is also well known as a supplier of cameras. The most successful of Ricoh’s lines of cameras is the compact model called a Caplio.
16 Game with cues and balls : POOL (pool party)
The more correct name for the game of pool is “pocket billiards”. The designation “pool” arose after pocket billiards became a common feature in “pool halls”, places where gamblers “pooled” their money to bet on horse races.
19 Gaelic tongue : ERSE
There are actually three Erse languages: Irish, Manx (spoken on the Isle of Man) and Scots Gaelic. In their own tongues, these would be “Gaeilge” (in Ireland), “Gaelg” (on the Isle of Man) and “Gaidhlig” (in Scotland).
20 Defunct Amer. soccer competition : US CUP
The US Cup was a soccer tournament held from 1992 to 2000, and hosted by the US Soccer Federation. Each year, three international teams were invited to compete alongside the US national team in a single round-robin format.
23 Footwear insert : SHOE TREE
A shoe tree is an adjustable, foot-shaped device that is placed inside a show to preserve its shape. Shoe trees are often constructed from solid wood that absorb odor and wick away moisture from the shoe’s leather.
28 Accustom (to) : ENURE
“Enure” is a variant spelling of “inure”, which means “to harden oneself against the effects of, to accustom oneself to”.
32 Ron Weasley’s pet Scabbers, for one : RAT
Harry Potter, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger are the principal characters in the “Harry Potter” series of fantasy novels by J. K. Rowling. The three are the best of friends.
35 The “S” in CBS : Abbr. : SYS
William S. Paley was a pioneer in the world of broadcasting. Paley’s father purchased a 16-station radio network based in Philadelphia in 1920s. Within a decade, William had expanded the network, called the Columbia Phonographic Broadcasting System, to over 100 affiliate stations. Paley was the first to really understand that advertisers were the broadcaster’s customers, and that good programming attracted great advertisers/sponsors. Paley streamlined the company name to Columbia Broadcasting System, which eventually became the global giant named CBS.
37 San Diego ball club : PADRES
The San Diego Padres baseball team was founded in 1969, and immediately joined the ranks of Major League Baseball as an expansion team. The Padres took their name from a Minor League team that had been in the city since 1936. The name is Spanish for “fathers” and is a reference to the Franciscan Friars from Spain who founded San Diego in 1769.
42 Major blood vessels : AORTAS
The aorta originates in the heart and extends down into the abdomen. It is the largest artery in the body.
44 Northern Calif. airport : SFO
San Francisco International Airport (SFO) served as the main base of operations for Virgin America (sold to Alaska Airlines), and is also the maintenance hub for United Airlines.
46 Lunch hour : NOON
Our word “noon”, meaning “midday”, comes from the Latin “nona hora” that translates as “ninth hour”. Back in ancient Rome, the “ninth hour” was three in the afternoon. Over the centuries, traditions such as church prayers and “midday” meals shifted from 3 p.m. to 12 p.m., and so “noon” became understood as 12 noon.
49 Nutrition fig. : RDA
Recommended Daily Allowances (RDAs) were introduced during WWII, and were replaced by Recommended Daily Intakes (RDIs) in 1997.
51 Native encountered by Crusoe : CANNIBAL
The term “cannibalism” was coined by the Spanish, working from the name of the Carib people of the Lesser Antilles. The Spanish explorers of the Caribbean believed that the Carib people ate human flesh for food, but apparently this was untrue (although there was a war ritual that involved some chewing of an enemy’s flesh). The eating of human flesh has been noted throughout history, in many parts of the world. In fact, Fiji in the South Pacific was once known as “Cannibal Isles”.
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.
55 Large watchdogs : MASTIFFS
There are a number of Mastiff breeds of dog, all of which are noted for their large size. Even though modern Mastiffs generally have an easy temperament, over the centuries the Mastiff breeds have been used as guard dogs and war dogs, even back to Ancient Roman times.
59 “SNL” alum Cheri : OTERI
Cheri Oteri was the SNL (“Saturday Night Live”) cast member who regularly appeared with Will Ferrell in the skit featuring a pair of Spartan cheerleaders.
60 Rebuke from Caesar : ET TU?
It was Shakespeare who popularized the words “Et tu, Brute?” (meaning “And you, Brutus?”). They appear in his play “Julius Caesar”, although the phrase had been around long before he penned his drama. It’s not known what Julius Caesar actually said in real life (if anything at all) as he was assassinated on the steps of the Senate in Rome.
61 Kitchen storage brand : TUPPERWARE (Tupperware party)
Back in the 1930s, Earl Tupper was working at the DuPont Chemical Company, and from DuPont obtained inflexible pieces of polyethylene slag. Tupper purified the slag and shaped it into unbreakable containers. He added airtight lids with a “burping seal”, which were provided tight seals similar to that provided by the lids on paint cans. He called his new product Tupperware.
64 Rolled-up sandwich : WRAP (wrap party)
When shooting of a film is concluded the movie is said to wrap, and everyone heads to the wrap party. There is one story that “wrap” is actually an acronym for “wind, reel and print”, a reference to the transition of the filming process into post-production. But, this explanation is disputed.
67 Internet transmission delays : LAGS
In Internet terms, lag is a delay in response caused by network latency. We might notice lag when streaming a video, for example.
Down
1 “The Stranger” novelist Albert : CAMUS
Albert Camus was a French author, and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957. Sadly, Camus died in a car accident just two years after he received the prize, at only 46 years of age.
“The Stranger” was Albert Camus’ first novel, and it is probably his most famous. The original title in French is “L’Étranger”, which can indeed be translated as “The Stranger”. However, the book is usually called “The Outsider” when translated into English, as this alternative meaning of “L’Étranger” better reflects the novel’s theme.
3 “Y.M.C.A.” music genre : DISCO (disco party)
“YMCA” was released in 1978 by Village People and has been adopted as an anthem by the gay community. The song was written by Victor Willis, a straight member of the mostly gay band, and he clarifies that the lyrics are extolling the virtues of the “YMCA” as a source of recreation for black urban youth. I think he might have been winking when he said that …
Discotheques first appeared during WWII in Occupied France. American-style music (like jazz and jitterbug dances) was banned by the Nazis, so French natives met in underground clubs that they called discotheques where records were often played on just a single turntable. After the war, these clubs came out into the open. One famous Paris discotheque was called “Whiskey a Gogo”. In that Paris disco, non-stop music was played using two turntables next to a dance-floor, and this concept spread around the world.
5 Charlemagne’s domain: Abbr. : HRE
Charlemagne was the first king to use the title “Holy Roman Emperor”, even though the Holy Roman Empire (HRE) was not actually founded until over a century later when Otto I was crowned Emperor. Otto was the first of an unbroken line of Holy Roman Emperors who ruled Central Europe from 962 until 1806.
7 Hiccups cure, so they say : SCARE
Hiccups is a series of forced intakes of breath, caused by spasms in the muscles of the chest and throat. The most common cause of hiccups is some sort of irritation to the stomach or oesophagus, usually taking place while eating. Apparently, we don’t really understand the reason why we hiccup, but a favored suggestion is that it may be something that we inherited from our ancestors of long ago who didn’t stand up quite as straight as we do. Gravity helps us swallow our food, but animals who walk on all fours don’t have that advantage as the food moves horizontally down the throat and into the stomach. Such beasts are in greater need of an involuntary hiccup should some food get stuck. Just a theory …
8 Lymph __ : NODE
Lymph is a fluid that exists alongside blood in the body that is transported through lymph vessels. One of the functions of the system is to pick up bacteria in the body, transporting them to lymph nodes where they are destroyed by lymphocytes (a type of white blood cell). Lymph can also carry metastatic cancer cells, which can lodge in lymph nodes making lymph nodes a common site where tumors may be found growing.
10 Part of MO : OPERANDI
“Modus operandi” (plural “modi operandi”) is the Latin for “mode of operating”, a term we’ve been using since the mid-1600s. It’s often used by the police when referring to the methods typically employed by a particular perpetrator of a crime, and is usually abbreviated to “M.O.”
13 Iditarod conveyance : SLED
The Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race covers an incredible 1,161 miles, from Anchorage to Nome in Alaska. The race starts every year on the first Saturday in March, with the first race having been held in 1973. Finishing times range from over 8 days to 15 days or more. The first few races only used a northern route, but then a southern route was added to the roster every second year. It’s kind of a good thing, because when the racers take the northern route they don’t even pass through the town of Iditarod!
25 One-named “Only Time” singer : ENYA
“Only Time” is a song written and recorded by Irish singer Enya. Released in 2000, “Only Time” is the biggest solo hit for Enya in the US.
30 Snorkeling spot : REEF
Our word “snorkel” comes from German navy slang “Schnorchel” meaning “nose, snout”. The German slang was applied to an air-shaft used for submarines, due to its resemblance to a nose, in that air passed through it and it made a “snoring” sound. “Schnorchel” comes from “Schnarchen”, the German for “snore”.
31 Gas brand in Canada : ESSO
The brand name Esso has its roots in the old Standard Oil company as it uses the initial letters of “Standard” and “Oil” (ESS-O). The Esso brand was replaced by Exxon in the US, but ESSO is still used in many other countries.
36 Mrs., in Madrid : SRA
In Spanish, a “dama” (lady) might be referred to as “Señora” (Mrs.).
Madrid is the largest city in Spain, and is the nation’s capital. Madrid is located very close to the geographical center of the country. It is the third-largest city in the European Union (after London and Paris). People from Madrid called themselves Madrileños.
40 Broadway restaurant founder : SARDI
Sardi’s is a famous restaurant in the Theater District of Manhattan that was opened in 1927 by Italian immigrant Vincent Sardi, Sr. Sardi’s is famous for attracting celebrities who sometimes pose for caricatures that are then displayed on the restaurant’s walls. After the death of actress and director Antoinette Perry in 1946, her friend and partner Brock Pemberton was having lunch at Sardi’s and came up with the idea of a theater award that could be presented in Perry’s honor. The award was to be called the Tony Award. In fact, Vincent Sardi, Sr. was presented with a special Tony at the first award ceremony, held in 1947.
41 “Mean Girls” screenwriter Fey : TINA
“Mean Girls” is a teen comedy movie released in 2004 starring Lindsay Lohan. Tina Fey also puts in an appearance, which really isn’t surprising as Fey wrote the screenplay.
51 “Washington Journal” channel : C-SPAN
C-SPAN is a privately-funded, nonprofit cable channel that broadcasts continuous coverage of government proceedings. C-SPAN Video Library is an amazing online archive provided by C-SPAN that offers a complete audio and video archive of Congressional proceedings going back to 1987. Users can search the archive for free, by topic, speaker date and more. When the site was launched in 2010, the archive already contained 160,000 hours of programming. There is a is a section of the archive called “Congressional Chronicle” that is particularly easy to navigate.
53 Pianist Claudio : ARRAU
Claudio Arrau was a greatly respected Chilean pianist who performed for much of the twentieth century until his death in 1991. Arrau left Chile to study in Germany where he lived for many years, having married a German opera singer. During WWII, Arrau and his family left Germany and settled in New York City.
54 Real estate claims : LIENS
A lien is the right that one has to retain or secure someone’s property until a debt is paid. When an individual takes out a car loan, for example, the lending bank is usually a lien holder. The bank releases the lien on the car when the loan is paid in full.
56 Gillette brand : ATRA
Fortunately for crossword constructors, the Atra was introduced by Gillette in 1977, as the first razor with a pivoting head. The Atra was sold as the Contour in some markets and its derivative products are still around today.
62 Mango remnant : PIT
The delicious mango is the national fruit of India, Pakistan and the Philippines. Almost half of the world’s supply of mangoes comes from India.
63 Trains over the street : ELS
Elevated railroad (El)
Read on, or …
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Complete List of Clues/Answers
Across
1 Rogues : CADS
5 Is without : HASN’T
10 Possesses : OWNS
14 Rose’s Broadway love : ABIE
15 Copier brand : RICOH
16 Game with cues and balls : POOL (pool party)
17 Social event with costumes and facial covers : MASQUERADE (masquerade party)
19 Gaelic tongue : ERSE
20 Defunct Amer. soccer competition : US CUP
21 Commented : REMARKED
23 Footwear insert : SHOE TREE
26 Slice of history : ERA
27 Homebuyer’s need : LOAN
28 Accustom (to) : ENURE
32 Ron Weasley’s pet Scabbers, for one : RAT
35 The “S” in CBS : Abbr. : SYS
37 San Diego ball club : PADRES
38 Act in a bipartisan way, and what the circled letters do Across and Down : CROSS PARTY LINES
42 Major blood vessels : AORTAS
43 Have a bug : AIL
44 Northern Calif. airport : SFO
45 Avow : SWEAR
46 Lunch hour : NOON
49 Nutrition fig. : RDA
51 Native encountered by Crusoe : CANNIBAL
55 Large watchdogs : MASTIFFS
59 “SNL” alum Cheri : OTERI
60 Rebuke from Caesar : ET TU?
61 Kitchen storage brand : TUPPERWARE (Tupperware party)
64 Rolled-up sandwich : WRAP (wrap party)
65 Office communication : EMAIL
66 “__ hardly wait!” : I CAN
67 Internet transmission delays : LAGS
68 Uses for a fee : RENTS
69 Therefore : THUS
Down
1 “The Stranger” novelist Albert : CAMUS
2 Make self-conscious : ABASH
3 “Y.M.C.A.” music genre : DISCO (disco party)
4 Book that continues a story : SEQUEL
5 Charlemagne’s domain: Abbr. : HRE
6 Balloon filler : AIR
7 Hiccups cure, so they say : SCARE
8 Lymph __ : NODE
9 Unifying feature of many escape rooms : THEME (theme party)
10 Part of MO : OPERANDI
11 Toil : WORK (work party)
12 Odor detector : NOSE
13 Iditarod conveyance : SLED
18 __ no good: scheming : UP TO
22 “That’s __ shame” : A REAL
24 Speaks in a gravelly voice : RASPS
25 One-named “Only Time” singer : ENYA
29 Caterer’s coffeepots : URNS
30 Snorkeling spot : REEF
31 Gas brand in Canada : ESSO
32 Some TVs : RCAS
33 In __: lined up : A ROW
34 Ripped up : TORE
36 Mrs., in Madrid : SRA
37 Traffic cone : PYLON
39 Recipients of venture capital : STARTUPS
40 Broadway restaurant founder : SARDI
41 “Mean Girls” screenwriter Fey : TINA
47 __ about: roughly : ON OR
48 Peabrain : NITWIT
50 Chasing : AFTER (after-party)
51 “Washington Journal” channel : C-SPAN
52 Surfer’s hangout : BEACH (beach party)
53 Pianist Claudio : ARRAU
54 Real estate claims : LIENS
55 Whimper : MEWL
56 Gillette brand : ATRA
57 Without a date : STAG (stag party)
58 Do a slow burn : FUME
62 Mango remnant : PIT
63 Trains over the street : ELS
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12 thoughts on “LA Times Crossword 29 Oct 19, Tuesday”
Comments are closed.
LAT: 5:07, no errors. WSJ: 5:00, no errors. Newsday: 5:06, no errors. Jones: 20:05, no errors. Themeless, but with a little trick that I spent about 5 minutes of that working out.
Easy puzzle, understand the party theme. So any letter in the grid could be circled for that particular word.?? I think, I don’t know for sure. Tell me if u can. Thx
11:03, no errors. Meh theme.
I don’t think so. If you put “party” after each word, across and down, where there’s a circle, you get a kind of party. So “stag party,” “wrap party,” “Tupperware party,” “beach party,” etc. I agree it was quite easy.
19:02 no errors….too dumb to figure out the theme
No Googles or errors, but I don’t know what an escape room is or how a PYLON is a traffic cone.
Thanx Bill for explaining a WRAP PARTY.
Finished the puzzle in about ten minutes. I’m not as fast as most folks, I guess, but I do one or two crosswords a day. I don’t have time to make them a true hobby. Not that there’s anything wrong with doing that. The theme of “cross” “party” “lines” wasn’t enough of a clue for me to get to the theme. I’m not sure that “disco party” is a type of party or that “work party” is a type of party. I’ll keep trying.
7:35. Paid no attention to the theme, but it was clever enough.
Escape rooms have a THEME? Really? I’ve never seen an escape room except in the movies, but I never noticed they were THEME based.
Regarding my computer the last couple of days. It’s a little involved so I left my whining generic, but you asked so here it goes.:
I use a Dell Latitude E5570 (now almost 3 years old and needing replacing) laptop. I have it set so that Dell updates (they update drivers for the hardware and most importantly the BIOS on the computer) automatically as does Windows 10, my OS. Somehow some of these updates came through at almost the same time. The result is that Windows kept crashing on my machine. The Dell techs had seen this before and had said it’s the graphics driver that was the issue. I just needed to uninstall and re-install it….which did nothing. They had me try a bunch of other stuff the end result of which was that I couldn’t even power up my machine anymore.
I knew that OS crashes could be intermittent so I just kept trying to power it up. The definition of insanity is supposedly doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result? Not in this case. I finally powered up the machine (for the 7th or 8th time) and finally got to my login. From there I knew to press “SHIFT” and keep holding it while I restarted the machine. That got me to the troubleshooting page.
From there I hit a “System restore” point of October 17th which would wipe out all the updates that didn’t load properly.
Then….
Normally re-installing the OS will wipe out everything on your device. It will just have the OS and nothing else on it. But Windows 10 has a function that allows the system to re-install the OS AND keep all your personal files. So that’s what I did. I lost all the apps on my computer – i.e. the browsers, Adobe, Microsoft Office and various others, but I can re-install those.
So generally, I was able to throw out the updates, re-install the OS and keep all my personal files intact without having to go retrieve them from backup. They (the techs) said that since the issues were “underneath” the OS that re-installing it wouldn’t do anything. They were wrong. Sorry you asked yet?
There’s more to the story, but that’s it in a nutshell
Bill I hope your power is back and all is well where you are.
FYI – He mentioned on his NYT post on Sunday that he was about to lose power as were many in his area from the fires and was working via a generator.
Best –
Dude, just get a Mac. I’ve been using them for over 25 years. They always work, never crash, and are far more secure. Drivers are tightly integrated. It’s hilarious (and sad) that Microsoft skipped from Windows version 8 to version 10, to catch up with Mac OS version numbers. Do you still get the BSOD (“blue screen of death”)?
Jeff, you sound like a good computer geek to me.
I thought today’s puzzle was easier than yesterday’s but we made 2 errors. Didn’t know
CAMUS or HRE. I had seen the clue on “Charlemagne’s domain” in a previous LAT puzzle,
but could only remember the obvious E. We had 5A for the H, but did not know the R
to complete the answer .
We will just have to “settle” for 99% and put it beside our 100% from yesterday. Took our
usual hour, maybe even a tad more, not an issue. Good start to the week for two Super Seniors.
I came to realize why we missed 5D and did not want to sleep on it. The E
did not stand for Europe at all, rather for Empire, as in Holy Roman Empire (HRE).
Sorry, gang. A pleasant evening to all.
Escape Room: A real-time in-person game in which you and your team must solve puzzles/clues to escape from a “locked” room.
Safe Room: A room in a house or other building that is invulnerable to attack or intrusion, and from which security operations can be directed.