LA Times Crossword 16 Apr 20, Thursday

Bill’s time: 11m 08s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

6 Pagoda instruments : GONGS

Pagodas are tiered (“storied”) towers, found in various parts of Asia, that are usually built for religious purposes.

15 No-frills type : ARIAL

Arial is basic font.

16 “Yo, Hadrian!” : AVE!

“Ave” is a Latin word meaning “hail” as in “Ave Maria”, which translates as “Hail Mary”. “Ave” can also be used to mean “goodbye”.

19 Cooper’s creation : KEG

A cooper is a craftsman who makes wooden vessels, such as barrels. The term “cooper” ultimately derives from the Latin “cupa” meaning “barrel”.

21 Long-term digs in orbit: Abbr. : ISS

The International Space Station (ISS) is a modular facility that comprises components launched into space by Russian Proton and Soyuz rockets, and by American Space Shuttles. The station has been occupied by astronauts and scientists continually since November, 2000.

“Digs” is short for “diggings” meaning “lodgings”. Where “diggings” came from, no one seems to know.

24 Three-time Cy Young Award winner Scherzer : MAX

Max Scherzer is a professional baseball pitcher with the nickname “Mad Max”. Clearly, a great pitcher has great eyes. Scherzer’s eyes happen to be different colors; one blue and one brown.

27 Story of how the spider monkey climbed the tree? : PREHENSILE TALE (from “prehensile tail”)

A part of the body that is described as prehensile is adapted for grasping. Examples would be an elephant’s trunk and a monkey’s tail.

Spider monkeys live in the tropical forest of Central and South America. They have really long arms and legs, as well as a long prehensile tail. The long, gangly limbs give rise to the name “spider monkey”.

33 Asian language : LAO

Lao, the language of Laos, does not use spaces between words (or periods!), although this is apparently changing. Spaces are used between sentences and clauses.

35 Cookware brand : T-FAL

Tefal (also “T-Fal”) is a French manufacturer of cookware that is famous for its nonstick line. The name “Tefal” is a portmanteau of TEFlon and ALuminum, the key materials used in producing their pots and pans.

43 JFK alternative : LGA

The three big airports serving New York City (NYC) are John F. Kennedy (JFK), LaGuardia (LGA) and Newark (EWR).

44 Obstetrician’s job, sometimes? : DELIVER THE MALE (from “deliver the mail”)

In Latin, the word for midwife is “obstetrix”. “Obstetrix” translates more literally as “one who stands opposite” i.e. the one opposite the woman giving birth. The Latin term gives rise to our modern word “obstetrics” used for the branch of medical science concerned with childbirth.

47 Manicurist’s tool : EMERY

Emery is a very hard type of rock that is crushed for use as an abrasive. Emery paper is made by gluing small particles of emery to paper. Emery boards are just emery paper with a cardboard backing. And emery boards are primarily used for filing nails.

48 NBC skit show : SNL

NBC first aired a form of “Saturday Night Live” (SNL) in 1975 under the title “NBC’s Saturday Night”. The show was actually created to give Johnny Carson some time off from “The Tonight Show”. Back then “The Tonight Show” had a weekend episode, and Carson convinced NBC to pull the Saturday or Sunday recordings off the air and hold them for subsequent weeknights in which Carson needed a break. NBC turned to Lorne Michaels and asked him to put together a variety show to fill the vacant slot, and he came up with what we now call “Saturday Night Live”.

49 Sad-eyed hound : BASSET

The basset hound wouldn’t be my favorite breed of dog, to be honest. Basset hounds have a great sense of smell with an ability to track a scent that is second only to that of the bloodhound. The name “basset” comes from the French word for “rather low”, a reference to the dog’s short legs.

51 Moody rock genre : EMO

The emo musical genre originated in Washington D.C. in the 80s, and takes its name from “emotional hardcore”. “Emo” is also the name given to the associated subculture. Not my cup of tea …

57 Hundred Acre Wood know-it-all : OWL

Hundred Acre Wood is where Winnie the Pooh lives with his friends. According to a map illustrating the books by A. A. Milne, Hundred Acre Wood is part of a larger forest, with Owl’s house sitting right at the center. Piglet also lives in the Hundred Acre Wood, in a beech tree next to a sign that says “TRESPASSERS W”. Piglet says this is short for Trespassers William, which is his grandfather’s name.

58 Put the fix in on Black Friday? : RIGGED A SALE (from “rigged a sail”)

In the world of retail, Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving in the US. Black Friday is when many stores start the holiday shopping season, and so offer deep discounts to get ahead of the competition.

61 Med. scan : MRI

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.

62 “Middlemarch” novelist : ELIOT

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.

“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).

64 Competition pass : BYE

The word “bye”, as used in sport, originated in cricket. A bye is a run scored due to an error by the wicketkeeper (similar to a catcher in baseball) when he fails to stop a ball bowled by the bowler (like a pitcher in baseball). Later the word “bye” in sport came to mean the position of a player in a tournament who is left without a competitor when the rest have drawn pairs. In these commercial times, those byes tend to be awarded to the best (seeded) players, so that the most popular players always advance past the first round of competition.

Down

1 Nickname for Haydn : PAPA

Josef Haydn was an Austrian composer, often called the “Father of the Symphony” due to his prolific output of symphonies that helped define the form. This is one of the reasons that he was known, even in his own lifetime, as “Papa Haydn”. Haydn was also the father figure among “the big three” composers of the Classical Period: Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. Haydn was a good friend to Mozart, and a teacher of Beethoven.

3 Cummerbund alternative : VEST

Here’s another word that often catches me out. What we call a vest here in the US is a waistcoat back in Ireland. And, the Irish use the word “vest” for an undershirt.

A cummerbund is a sash worn around the waist by some men, usually with a dinner jacket or tuxedo. Cummerbands came to us from Afghanistan in the early 1600s.

6 April 1 array : GAGS

April Fools’ Day is celebrated on April 1st in the Western world. In the US (and Ireland) one can make practical jokes all day long if one wants. But in the UK there is a noon deadline. Anyone pranking after midday is called an “April Fool”.

7 Swingers on a perpetual-motion desk toy : ORBS

Perpetual motion is a term used for motion that continues without any external source of energy. In practical terms, perpetual motion is impossible because friction causes the loss of energy as heat.

8 “NCIS: Los Angeles” actress Long : NIA

Nia Long is an American actress who is probably best known for playing Will Smith’s sometime girlfriend and fiancee Lisa Wilkes on the TV show “The Fresh Prince of Bel Air”.

NCIS is the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, which investigates crimes in the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps. The service gives its name to the CBS TV show “NCIS”, a spin-off drama from “JAG” in which the main “NCIS” characters were first introduced. The big star in “NCIS” is the actor Mark Harmon. “NCIS” is now a franchise, with spin-off shows “NCIS: Los Angeles” and “NCIS: New Orleans”.

9 Laverne and Shirley, e.g. : GAL PALS

On the late-seventies and early-eighties sitcom “Laverne & Shirley”, Penny Marshall played Laverne (De Fazio) , and Cindy Williams played Shirley (Feeney). The show was a spin-off of “Happy Days”, in which Laverne and Shirley were friends of the Fonz.

13 Cello parts : PEGS

The word “cello” (plural “celli” or “cellos”) is an abbreviation for “violoncello”, an Italian word for “little violone”, referring to a group of stringed instruments that were popular up to the end of the 17th century. The name violoncello persisted for the instrument that we know today, although the abbreviation ‘cello was often used. Nowadays we just drop the apostrophe.

18 Put the kibosh on : NIXED

A kibosh is something that constrains or checks. “Kibosh” looks like a Yiddish word but it isn’t, and is more likely English slang from the early 1800s.

23 Sporty Chevy : VETTE

The Chevrolet Corvette was introduced to the world in 1953, and was named after the small maneuverable warship called a corvette. The “Vette” has legs. It is the only American sports car that has been around for over 50 years.

28 Ygritte portrayer on “Game of Thrones” : ROSE LESLIE

Actress Rose Leslie hails from Scotland. Her big break came with playing Gwen Dawson on “Downton Abbey”, which was followed by playing Ygritte on “Game of Thrones”. She has quite the family tree, and is descended from a Mayor of Mexico City (Guillermo Landa y Escandón) and a Prime Minister of New Zealand (Frederick Weld). In 2018, Leslie married actor Kit Harrington, who played Jon Snow, her love interest on “Game of Thrones”.

29 __ public : NOTARY

A notary public is a public officer licensed to perform specific legal actions in non-contentious legal matters. The main duties are to administer oaths, take affidavits and witness the execution of documents.

30 Cricket, for one : SPORT

Cricket is the national game of England. The term “cricket” apparently comes from the Old French word “criquet” meaning “goalpost, stick”.

32 Idina’s “Frozen” role : ELSA

“Frozen” is a 2013 animated feature from Walt Disney Studios that is based on the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale “The Snow Queen”. The film is all about the exploits of Princess Anna, the younger sister of Elsa, Snow Queen of Arendelle. Spoiler alert: Prince Hans of the Southern Isles seems to be a good guy for most of the film, but turns out to be a baddie in the end. And, a snowman named Olaf provides some comic relief.

39 “His Eye Is on the Sparrow,” e.g. : HYMN

“His Eye Is on the Sparrow” is a Gospel hymn that dates back to 1905. The most famous version of the hymn was sung by Ethel Water, who used the title of the song for her 1951 autobiography. Whitney Houston’s 2012 recording of the song was her last, and was released four months after her passing.

46 Yukon neighbor : ALASKA

The US-Canada border is the longest international border in the world. The total length is 5,525 miles. Canada’s border with the lower 48 states is 3,987 miles long, and the border with Alaska extends 1,538 miles.

Canada’s federal territory known as Yukon takes its name from the Yukon River. “Yukon” means “Big Stream” in the local Gwich’in language.

51 Four-award acronym : EGOT

The acronym “EGOT” stands for “Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony”, and is a reference to performers who have won all four awards. Also known as the “Showbiz Award Grand Slam”, there are relatively few individuals who have been so honored. The first five to do so were:

1. Richard Rodgers in 1962
2. Helen Hayes in 1977
3. Rita Moreno in 1977
4. John Gielgud in 1991
5. Audrey Hepburn in 1994 (posthumously)

52 1969 MLB upstarts : METS

The New York Mets baseball team was founded in 1962 as a replacement for two teams that the city had lost, namely the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Giants. For several years the Mets played very poorly, finishing no better than second-to-last in their division. Then along came the “Miracle Mets” (aka “Amazin’ Mets”) who beat the Baltimore Orioles in 1969 to claim the World Series in a huge upset.

54 Midway event : FAIR

Back at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition held in Chicago there were rides and amusements that were all concentrated in one place, away from the exhibition halls. The rides included the world’s first Ferris wheel, and one could also see Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West show. All these attractions were located in the mile-long linear park on the South Side of Chicago known as Midway Plaisance. Ever since then, the attractions at any fair have been located at “the midway”.

55 Redbook rival : ELLE

“Elle” magazine was founded in 1945 in France and today has the highest circulation of any fashion magazine in the world. “Elle” is the French word for “she”. “Elle” is published monthly worldwide, although you can pick up a weekly edition if you live in France.

“Redbook” is a monthly magazine aimed at women. It was introduced in 1903 as “The Red Book Illustrated”, and was focused on the publication of short fiction by established authors. In fact, Dashiel Hammett’s marvelous story “The Thin Man” first saw the light of day in “Redbook”, in 1933.

59 Sling spirits : GIN

A sling is a cocktail made of brandy, whiskey or gin that is sweetened and flavored with lemon. The most famous version of the sling is the Singapore sling, which was invented by a bartender at the Raffles Hotel in Singapore. I am proud to report that I once had a Singapore sling in Raffles Hotel, many moons ago …

60 Deadly biter : ASP

The asp is a venomous snake found in the Nile region of Africa. It is so venomous that the asp was used in ancient Egypt and Greece as a means of execution. Cleopatra observed such executions noting that the venom brought on sleepiness without any painful spasms. When the great queen opted to commit suicide, the asp was therefore her chosen method.