LA Times Crossword 17 Oct 20, Saturday

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Constructed by: Sheryl Bartol
Edited by: Rich Norris

Today’s Theme: None

Read on, or jump to …
… a complete list of answers

Bill’s time: 8m 39s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1 They clean up : JANITORS

A janitor is someone who takes care of the maintenance or cleaning of a building. An older definition of the term is “doorman”. Our word comes from the Latin “ianitor” meaning “doorkeeper”.

15 Monopoly player? : CARTEL

A cartel is a group of independent businesses who cooperate to regulate production, pricing and marketing of their common product(s).

16 Sign in many restaurant windows : UBER EATS

Uber Eats is a food-delivery platform offered by ride-sharing service Uber. For a delivery fee of a few bucks, users can order food from local restaurants using an app. That food might be delivered by car, bike or foot depending on the city and courier.

17 Emblem on a dollar bill : US SEAL

The Great Seal of the United States is a device used to authenticate some US federal documents. The obverse (front) of the Great Seal is used as the coat of arms of the US, and is a design that can be seen on all American passports.

19 Parisian street food : CREPES

“Crêpe” is the French word for “pancake”.

21 CPR group : EMS

Emergency medical services (EMS)

Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) has for decades involved the simultaneous compression of the chest to pump blood using the heart, and artificial respiration by blowing air into the lungs. Nowadays emergency services are placing more emphasis on heart compressions, and less on artificial respiration.

22 “__ Story” : TOY

1995’s “Toy Story” was the world’s first feature-length computer-animated movie. “Toy Story” was also the studio Pixar’s first production. The main roles in the film are Woody and Buzz Lightyear, who are voiced by Tom Hanks and Tim Allen respectively. Hanks was the first choice to voice Woody, but Allen was asked to voice Buzz after Billy Crystal turned down the role.

25 Female rabbit : DOE

An adult male rabbit is called a “buck”, and an adult female is a “doe”. A young rabbit is a “kitten” or “kit”.

26 Like “Home Alone” : RATED-PG

“Home Alone” is a 1990 film starring Macaulay Culkin that has become a Christmas classic. Culkin was nominated for a Best Actor Golden Globe for his performance, becoming the youngest actor ever to be so honored.

28 City NNW of Park City : OGDEN

Ogden was the first permanent settlement by people of European descent in what is now the state of Utah.

Park City in Utah is located just 30 miles or so southeast of Salt Lake City. Park City’s economy is very much dependent on tourism. It is home to two ski resorts: Deer Valley and Park City Mountain. It is also home to the annual Sundance Film Festival.

33 Queen dowager of Jordan : NOOR

Queen Noor is the widow of King Hussein of Jordan. Queen Noor was born Lisa Halaby in Washington, D.C., the daughter of Najeeb Halaby. Her father was appointed by President Kennedy as the head of the Federal Aviation Administration, and later became the CEO of Pan Am. Lisa Halaby met King Hussein in 1977, while working on the design of Jordan’s Queen Alia Airport. The airport was named after King Hussein’s third wife who had been killed that year in a helicopter crash. Halaby and the King were married the next year, in 1978.

Originally, a dowry was money that was set aside by a man for his wife and children, to be used in the event that he passed away. A widow who received said money was known as a dowager. Over time, “dowry” became a term used for the money, goods or estate that a woman brought into a marriage, and “dowager” came to mean an elderly woman with an elevated social position.

34 Browning but not cooking : POET

Robert Browning met fellow poet Elizabeth Barrett in 1845. Elizabeth was a sickly woman, confined to her parents’ house in Wimpole Street in London, largely due to the conservative and protective nature of her father. Robert and Elizabeth eventually eloped in 1846, and lived in self-inflicted exile in Italy. Away from the country of his birth, Browning was moved to write his now famous “Home Thoughts, From Abroad”, the first line of which is “Oh, to be in England …”

42 “Erie Canal” mule : SAL

The song “Fifteen Miles on the Erie Canal” was written in 1905. The lyrics are nostalgic and look back to the days when traffic on the canal was pulled by mules, bemoaning the introduction of the fast-moving engine-powered barges. The first line is “I’ve got an old mule and her name is Sal”.

The Erie Canal runs from Albany to Buffalo in the state of New York. What the canal does is allow shipping to proceed from New York Harbor right up the Hudson River, through the canal and into the Great Lakes. When it was opened in 1825, the Erie Canal had an immediate impact on the economy of New York City and locations along its route. It was the first means of “cheap” transportation from a port on the Atlantic seaboard into the interior of the United States. Arguably it was the most important factor contributing to the growth of New York City over competing ports such as Baltimore and Philadelphia. It was largely because of the Erie Canal that New York became such an economic powerhouse, earning it the nickname of “the Empire State”. Paradoxically, one of the project’s main proponents was severely criticized. New York Governor DeWitt Clinton received so much ridicule that the canal was nicknamed “Clinton’s Folly” and “Clinton’s Ditch”.

43 App update messages, say : PUSH ALERTS

In the world of the Internet, push technology involves a data transfer initiated by the publisher. On the other hand, pull technology involves a transfer initiated by the receiver.

46 Award show VIPs : MCS

The term “emcee” comes from “MC”, an initialism used for a Master or Mistress of Ceremonies.

51 “What can I help you with?” speaker : SIRI

Siri is a software application that works with Apple’s iOS operating system. “Siri” is an acronym standing for Speech Interpretation and Recognition Interface. Voice-over artist Susan Bennett revealed herself as the female American voice of Siri a few years ago. The British version of Siri is called Daniel, and the Australian version is called Karen. Also, “Siri” is a Norwegian name meaning “beautiful woman who leads you to victory”, and was the name the developer had chosen for his first child.

54 It often includes a colon : EMOTICON

An emoticon is a glyph created using text characters to represent facial features, and usually oriented sideways. The emoticon is designed to indicate emotion or attitude. The classic example is the smiley face: 🙂

56 Amtrak speedsters : ACELAS

The Acela Express is the fastest train routinely running in the US, as it gets up to 150 mph at times. The service runs between Boston and Washington D.C. via Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York. Introduced in 2000, the brand name “Acela” was created to evoke “acceleration” and “excellence”.

Down

1 Renaissance faire contest : JOUST

“Jousting” and “tilting” are synonyms describing the medieval competition in which two horsemen yielding blunted lances attempt to unseat each other. Such an event has been referred to as “jousting” since the 1300s. At some point, the path of the two charging horsemen was separated by a cloth barrier known as a tilt (“tilt” meant “cloth covering”). The term “tilting” was applied to the sport in the 1500s, although by then the cloth barrier had been upgraded to a wooden fence.

A Renaissance faire (Ren faire) is an outdoor public event in which many participants recreate historical settings by dressing in costume. Usually held in North America, many such fairs are set during the English Renaissance, and more particularly during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. The definition of “Renaissance” is often stretched quite a bit, with fairs also set during the reign of Henry VIII, and maybe even during medieval times.

2 Challenging H.S. science class : AP BIO

The Advanced Placement (AP) program offers college-level courses to kids who are still in high school (HS). After being tested at the end of an AP course, successful students receive credits that count towards a college degree.

4 Memo intro : IN RE

The term “in re” is Latin, and is derived from “in” (in) and “res” (thing, matter). “In re” literally means “in the matter”, and is used to mean “in regard to” or “in the matter of”.

5 Menlo Park, N.J., notable : TAE

Thomas Alva Edison (TAE) was a very successful inventor. He held over a thousand US patents in his name. Included in the list of Edison’s inventions is the phonograph, the movie camera and the long-lasting light bulb. He passed away in 1931. There is a test tube at the Henry Ford Museum that supposedly holds Edison’s last breath. Ford convinced Thomas’s son Charles to seal up a tube of air in the room just after the inventor died, as a memento.

Menlo Park, New Jersey is noted as the home to the laboratory belonging to Thomas Edison (TAE). We also have a pretty well-known Menlo Park out here in California, home to many of the venture capital companies that tend to make a lot of money out of Silicon Valley businesses.

6 Pythia of the Temple of Apollo, for one : ORACLE

In ancient Greece and Rome, an oracle was someone believed inspired by the gods to give wise counsel. The word “oracle” derives from the Latin “orare” meaning “to speak”, which is the same root for our word “orator”. One of the most important oracles of ancient Greece was Pythia, the high priestess to Apollo at Delphi.

8 MS enclosures : SASES

An SAE is a “stamped, addressed envelope”. An SASE is a “self-addressed, stamped envelope”.

9 Volkswagen sedan : PASSAT

“Passat” is one in a series of model names related to winds that has been used by Volkswagen. “Jetta” comes from the German for “jet stream”, and the model name “Passat” comes from the German for “trade wind”.

10 MGM motto word : ARS

It seems that the phrase “art for art’s sake” has its origins in France in the nineteenth century, where the slogan is expressed as “l’art pour l’art”. The Latin version “Ars gratia artis” came much later, in 1924. That’s when MGM’s publicist chose it for the studio’s logo, sitting under Leo the lion. Who’d a thunk it?

11 Safe room barrier : STEEL DOOR

A panic room or safe room is a fortified refuge installed in a building for use in the event of a break-in or natural disaster.

13 Start of a Shakespeare title : ALL’S …

“All’s Well That Ends Well” is a play by William Shakespeare, one with elements of both tragedy and comedy. As such, “All’s Well That Ends Well” is classified as one of Shakespeare’s “problem plays”, plays of his that cannot be neatly classified as either tragedy or comedy.

24 Ingredient in the Indian dish dal : LENTIL

The Latin name for the lentil plant is “lens”. Because the first lenses were double-convex shaped like a lentil, the glass structures were given the name “lens”.

I love dal dishes, which are prepared from various peas or beans (often lentils) that have been stripped of their outer skins and split. Dal is an important part of Indian cuisines. I suppose in Indian terms, split pea soup (another of my favorites) would be called a dal.

27 Like a cloudy London day : GREY

The spellings “gray” and “grey” are used on both sides of the Atlantic, but “gray” appears about twenty times more often than “grey” in the US. That same ratio is reversed over in Britain and Ireland.

London is the largest metropolitan area in the whole of the European Union (and one of my favorite cities in the world). London has been a major settlement for over 2,000 years and was founded as a town by the Romans who named it Londinium. The name “Londinium” may have existed prior to the arrival of the Romans, and no one seems too sure of its origins. Famously, the City of London is a one-square-mile area at the center of the metropolis, the area that marked old medieval London. “The City”, as it is commonly called, has its own Mayor of the City of London (the Mayor of London is someone else), and it’s own City of London Police Force (the London Metropolitan Police are the police usually seen on the streets, a different force).

31 Charley, in Steinbeck’s “Travels With Charley” : POODLE

“Travels with Charley: In Search of America” is a kind of travel diary by John Steinbeck. It tells the story of a road trip taken by Steinbeck with his pet poodle called Charley. The traveling companions started out in Long Island, New York and worked their way around the country in a counterclockwise loop that covered almost 10,000 miles.

32 National Mustard Day mo. : AUG

National Mustard Day has been celebrated on the first Saturday in August since 1991. The event is sponsored by the National Mustard Museum in Middleton, Wisconsin.

35 Adheres … or separates : CLEAVES

I’ve always found “to cleave” an interesting verb. When used with an object, to cleave something is to split it, as one would would using a cleaver. When used without an object, to cleave is to cling, to adhere, as in “to cleave to one’s principles in the face of adversity”. Although not exactly so, the two definitions seem to have opposite meanings to me …

39 “__ Kapital” : DAS

“Das Kapital” (entitled “Capital” in English versions) is a book about political economy written by Karl Marx, first published in 1867. The book is in effect an analysis of capitalism, and proffers the opinion that capitalism relies on the exploitation of workers. Marx concludes that the profits from capitalist concerns come from the underpaying of labor.

41 Angle symbols : THETAS

The Greek letter theta is the one that looks like the number zero with a horizontal line across the middle.

The Greek letter theta is commonly used in geometry to represent the angle between two lines (say at a corner of a triangle).

44 Online show offering Hollywood info : E! NEWS

E! Entertainment Television started out in 1987 as Movietime, and hired on-air hosts such as Greg Kinnear and Paula Abdul. It was renamed in 1990 to E! Entertainment Television, underscoring the focus on Hollywood gossip and the like.

46 Biblical prophet : MICAH

The Book of Micah is one of twelve books in the Bible written by the so-called minor prophets. The name “Micah” translates into English from Hebrew as “Who is like God?”

47 “Time in a Bottle” singer : CROCE

“Time in a Bottle” is a song written by Jim Croce in 1970 and recorded by him in 1972. The song was released as a single in 1973, soon after Croce died in a plane crash. It was to be Croce’s last number-one hit.

48 Some islands have them : SINKS

That would be a kitchen island.

49 Temperature control syst. : HVAC

Heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC)

51 They’re often rivals : SIBS

A sibling (sib) is a member of a family (fam).

53 Ginger __ : ALE

The brand most closely associated with ginger ale is Canada Dry. “Canada Dry Pale Ginger Ale” was first formulated in 1904 by a Canadian chemist called John McLoughlin from Ontario. Prohibition in the United States helped sales of the drink as it was particularly effective in masking the taste of illegally-produced, homemade liquor.

55 Ring decision, briefly : TKO

In boxing, a knockout (KO) is when one of the fighters can’t get up from the canvas within a specified time, usually 10 seconds. This can be due to fatigue, injury, or the participant may be truly “knocked out”. A referee, fighter or doctor may also decide to stop a fight without a physical knockout, especially if there is concern about a fighter’s safety. In this case the bout is said to end with a technical knockout (TKO).