LA Times Crossword 22 Oct 20, Thursday

Advertisement

Constructed by: Ed Sessa
Edited by: Rich Norris

Today’s Reveal Answer: Jumping Jacks

Themed answers come in pairs. Each pair include a HIDDEN “JACK” whose last name JUMPS across a black square:

• 55A With 58-Across, cardio exercise … and what’s hidden in three puzzle rows? : JUMPING …
• 58A See 55-Across : … JACKS

• 20A Showing shock : AGASP
• 21A Squalid quarters : RATHOLE (giving “Jack Sprat”)

• 35A Like a pendulum’s motion : TO AND FRO
• 37A Light at some roller rinks : STROBE (giving “Jack Frost”)

• 42A One of the Magi : CASPAR
• 45A Sidewall-sharing abode : ROW HOUSE (giving “Jack Sparrow”)

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

Bill’s time: 7m 26s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1 Radio toggle : AM/FM

Amplitude modulation/frequency modulation (AM/FM)

15 Place where fast bucks are made : RODEO

“Rodeo” is a Spanish word that is usually translated into English as “round up”.

23 Surrealist Tanguy : YVES

Yves Tanguy was a surrealist painter from Paris who moved to the US during WWII. HIs most famous work is probably his 1927 painting “Mama, Papa is Wounded!”, which can be seen in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

25 Color in four-color printing : CYAN

Four-color printing uses four different color inks: cyan, magenta, yellow and black. The black ink is also known as the “key”. The first letter of the colors (with black being ”key”) give the more common name for four-color printing, namely CMYK.

29 Fraternal order member since 1868 : ELK

The Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks (BPOE) was founded in 1868, and is a social club that has about a million members today. It started out as a group of men getting together in a “club” in order to get around the legal opening hours of taverns in New York City. The club took on a new role as it started to look out for poor families of members who passed away. The club now accepts African Americans as members (since the seventies) and women (since the nineties), but atheists still aren’t welcome. The list of US presidents that have been members of the BPOE includes Presidents Eisenhower, Harding, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy and Ford.

31 Blocks that lock : LEGOS

Lego is manufactured by the Lego Group, a privately held company headquartered in Billund, Denmark. The company was founded by a carpenter called Ole Kirk Christiansen in 1934 and the now-famous plastic interlocking blocks were introduced in 1949. The blocks were originally sold under the name “Automatic Binding Bricks” but I think “Lego” is easier to remember! The name “Lego” comes from the Danish term “leg godt” meaning “play well”.

35 Like a pendulum’s motion : TO AND FRO

A weight suspended from a pivot so that it can swing freely is called a pendulum. The term “pendulum” comes from the Latin “pendere” meaning “to hang”.

37 Light at some roller rinks : STROBE

A strobe light is a device that produces regular flashes, like the light on top of a police car. The term derives from the Greek “strobos” meaning “twisting, whirling”.

38 Critical hosp. area : ICU

Many a hospital (hosp.) includes an intensive care unit (ICU).

41 Ref. whose first edition took decades to complete : OED

Work started on what was to become the first “Oxford English Dictionary” (OED) in 1857. Several interim versions of the dictionary were published in the coming years with the first full version appearing, in ten bound volumes, in 1928. The second edition of the OED appeared in 1989 and is made up of twenty volumes. The OED was first published in electronic form in 1988 and went online in 2000. Given the modern use of computers, the publishing house responsible feels that there will never be a third print version of the famous dictionary.

42 One of the Magi : CASPAR

“Magi” is the plural of the Latin word “magus”, a term applied to someone who was able to read the stars. Hence, “magi” is commonly used with reference to the “wise men from the East” who followed the star and visited Jesus soon after he was born. In Western Christianity, the three Biblical Magi are:

• Melchior: a scholar from Persia
• Caspar: a scholar from India
• Balthazar: a scholar from Arabia

49 Business VIP : CEO

Chief executive officer (CEO)

51 Scintilla : IOTA

Iota is the ninth letter in the Greek alphabet, and one that gave rise to our letters I and J. We use the word “iota” to portray something very small, as it is the smallest of all Greek letters.

A scintilla is a small amount. The term can also be used to describe a spark or a flash (as in “to scintillate”). The term came into English from Latin, in which language it means “spark, particle of fire, atom”.

55 With 58-Across, cardio exercise … and what’s hidden in three puzzle rows? : JUMPING …

58 See 55-Across : … JACKS

The original jumping jack was a child’s toy. It is a figure, generally made from wood, that has jointed limbs. The limbs can be made to “jump” by pulling on a string. The physical exercise known as a jumping jack takes its name from the toy, due to the similarity in motion of the arms and legs.

61 Court loser, maybe : PERP

Perpetrator (perp)

66 Satchel Paige’s first name : LEROY

Satchel Paige pitched baseball in the Negro leagues and then the majors, before retiring in 1966. When he moved to the Major League, Paige was 42 as he pitched his first game, making him the oldest ever “rookie” to play Major League Baseball. And when he was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1971, Paige was the first person to be so honored from the Negro leagues.

67 The Big Easy, informally : NOLA

The city of New Orleans, Louisiana has the nickname “The Big Easy”. This name might come from the early 1900s when musicians found it relatively “easy” to find work there. The city is also known by the acronym NOLA, standing for New Orleans (NO), Louisiana (LA).

68 Motley : PIED

Something described as motley is mottled, marked with different-colored spots. The term probably comes from the Old English word “mot” meaning “speck”. We can use the term “motley” figuratively to mean “diverse, heterogeneous”.

69 Shangri-las : EDENS

Shangri-La is the earthly paradise in the mountains of Tibet described by James Hilton in his novel “Lost Horizon”. Shangri-La is “edenic” (perfect, like the Garden of Eden from the Book of Genesis). Frank Capra directed a wonderful screen adaptation of “Lost Horizon” in 1937 starring Ronald Colman.

Down

2 “Mary Magdalene” star Rooney __ : MARA

Actress Rooney Mara is noted for her role in the 2010 film “The Social Network” and for playing the title character in the 2011 hit movie “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”. Mara has American football in her blood. Her mother’s family founded the Pittsburgh Steelers, and her father’s family founded the New York Giants.

“Mary Magdalene” is a 2018 movie starring Rooney Mara in the title role. Mara’s partner Joaquin Phoenix plays Jesus Christ.

4 Kuala Lumpur native : MALAYAN

The capital city of Malaysia is Kuala Lumpur, which is often abbreviated to “KL”. The name “Kuala Lumpur” translates into English as “muddy estuary”. Famously, KL is home to the spectacular Petronas Twin Towers, which are currently the tallest twin towers in the world and was the tallest of any building from 1998 to 2004.

5 Thin pancake : CREPE

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

6 Old school dance : HOP

Sock hops were high school dances typically held in the school gym or cafeteria. The term “sock hop” arose because the dancers were often required to remove their shoes to protect the varnished floor in the gym.

10 Forensic team member : CORONER

The term “coroner” is derived from the Latin “custos placitorum coronae”, which was once the title of the officer responsible for protecting the property of the royal family (“corona” is Latin for “crown”). Over time, the responsibilities of the office narrowed and changed until by the 17th century, the main task was to determine the cause of death in cases not obviously natural.

Something described as forensic is connected with a court of law, or with public discussion or debate. The term comes from the Latin “forensis” meaning “of a forum, of a place of assembly”. We mainly use the word today to mean “pertaining to legal trials” as in “forensic medicine” and “forensic science”.

11 Feat on ice : AXEL

An axel is a forward take-off jump in figure skating. The maneuver was first performed by Norwegian Axel Paulsen at the 1882 World Figure Skating championships.

12 Code carrier : GENE

A gene is a section of a chromosome that is responsible for a particular characteristic in an organism. For example, one gene may determine eye color and another balding pattern. We have two copies of each gene, one from each of our parents, with each copy known as an allele.

18 Got back to, in a way : RSVP’D

“RSVP” stands for “répondez s’il vous plaît”, which is French for “answer, please”.

24 Feudal laborer : SERF

A serf was a member of the lowest feudal class, someone attached to land owned by a lord. “Serf” comes from the Latin “servus”, meaning “slave”.

26 Erie Canal city : UTICA

Utica in New York is known as “Second Chance City” these days, due to the recent influx of refugees from war-torn parts of the world and from Bosnia in particular. These immigrants have helped revitalize the area and reverse a trend of population loss.

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”.

27 Diet drink spec : NO-CAL

I wish we’d stop using the term “calorie”, because it is so confusing. In terms of physics, a calorie is the amount of energy needed to raise the temperature of one gram of water by one degree celsius (at one atmosphere of pressure). The so-called “food calorie” is one thousand times as large, as it is defined in terms of kilograms instead of grams. In attempts to differentiate between these two definitions, the former is sometimes referred to as the “small calorie” and is given the symbol “cal”. The latter is referred to as the “large calorie” and given the symbol “Cal”, with a capital C. If only we’d use the SI system of units, we’d be think in just joules, instead of large and small and food calories.

30 Longest river in France : LOIRE

The Loire is the longest river in France. It is so long that it drains one-fifth of the nation’s land mass. The Loire rises in the southeast, in the Cevennes mountain range, then heads north then due west, emptying into the Bay of Biscay at the city of Nantes. The Loire Valley is home to some of France’s most famous wine production, and includes the wine regions of Sancerre, Pouilly-Fumé and Muscadet.

34 Meal with matzo : SEDER

The Passover Seder is a ritual feast that marks the beginning of the Jewish Passover holiday, celebrating the liberation of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt.

Matzo is an unleavened bread that is very brittle. The bread is crushed, creating a Matzo meal that is then formed into balls using eggs and oil as a binder. The balls are usually served in a chicken stock.

37 Verb that becomes its homophone by changing its vowel : SEW

“Sew” is a homophone of “sow”.

Homophones are words that are pronounced in the same way (e.g., ere, air, err and heir). Homonyms are a subset of homophones, and are words that have the same spelling and the same pronunciation but different meanings, for example, skate (a fish) and skate (worn on the foot).

47 Words engraved under the Lincoln Memorial? : ONE CENT

The US one-cent coin has borne the profile of President Abraham Lincoln since 1909, the centennial of Lincoln’s birth. Fifty years later, a representation of the Lincoln Memorial was added to the reverse side.

49 Paddled, perhaps : CANOED

The boat known as a canoe takes its name from the Carib word “kenu” meaning “dugout”. It was Christopher Columbus who brought “kenu” into Spanish as “canoa”, which evolved into our English “canoe”.

52 Book list listing : TITLE

In the US, the convention is to write the title on the spine of a book from top-to-bottom. In most of Europe, the convention is to write the title from bottom-to-top. We have a lot of books in the “library” in our house from both sides of the Atlantic, and so there is much moving of the head from left to right as we glance along our bookshelves.

54 “Love Train” singers, with “The” : O’JAYS

The O’Jays are an R&B group from Canton, Ohio. They came together in 1963 as a band of five singers and are still performing today, although now only as a trio. The band took the name of the O’Jays as a tribute to a radio disk jockey called Eddie O’Jay who was big in Cleveland at the time. The biggest hit for the O’Jays is “Love Train”, released in 1972.

55 Sci-fi good guys : JEDI

The Jedi are the good guys in the “Star Wars” series of movies. The most famous Jedi knights from the films are Obi-Wan Kenobi (played by Alec Guinness, and later Ewan McGregor) and Yoda (voiced by Frank Oz). Well, they’re my favorites anyway …

57 “It’s My Party” singer Lesley : GORE

“It’s My Party” is a great song from the sixties that was released by Lesley Gore in 1963 when she was just 16 years of age. “It’s My Party” tells the story of a teenage girl whose boyfriend hooks up with another girl at her own birthday party. The song struck such a chord with the listening audience that Gore recorded a sequel called “Judy’s Turn to Cry” in which the teenage girl gets her revenge, and her boyfriend returns to her.

63 Actor Chaney : LON

Lon Chaney, Sr. played a lot of crazed-looking characters in the days of silent movies. He did much of his own make-up work, developing the grotesque appearances that became his trademark, and earning himself the nickname “the man of a thousand faces”. Most famous were his portrayals of the title characters in the films “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” (1923) and “The Phantom of the Opera” (1925).