LA Times Crossword 16 Nov 20, Monday

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Constructed by: Mark McClain
Edited by: Rich Norris

Today’s Reveal Answer: Recycle Shop

Themed answers each include the letter sequence S-H-O-P, but in a different order, RECYCLED:

  • 54A Earth-friendly retailer … and a hint to the circled letters : RECYCLE SHOP
  • 17A “Fingers crossed!” : HERE’S HOPING
  • 24A American addition to Chinese cuisine : CHOP SUEY
  • 34A Vessel carrying soldiers : TROOPSHIP
  • 46A Steph Curry hoops specialty : JUMP SHOT

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

Bill’s time: 5m 35s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

11 Image file suffix : JPG

The JPEG file format (also “.jpg”) was created by the Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG), hence the name.

14 Garden-guarding spirit : GNOME

In English folklore, the fairy’s anti-hero is the diminutive gnome, an evil ugly character. Although the charastics of gnomes vary in folklore, typically they are described as diminutive humanoids who live underground. Over the centuries, the gnome has become more lovable. We now have garden gnomes, and even the Travelocity Gnome.

15 Free-for-all : MELEE

Our term “melee” comes from the French “mêlée”, and in both languages the word means “confused fight”.

24 American addition to Chinese cuisine : CHOP SUEY

Although the exact origins of the Chinese-American dish called “chop suey” are disputed, it seems clear that it started appearing on the menus of Chinese restaurants in the US in the 1880s. The dish became so popular that restaurants serving Chinese cuisine were often referred to as “chop suey houses”. “Chop suey” translates as “assorted pieces”, which is perhaps an appropriate name. The dish generally consists of an assorted mix of local ingredients stir-fried in a wok with a sauce.

27 Hawaii’s Mauna __ : LOA

Mauna Loa on the Big Island of Hawaii is the largest volcano on the planet (in terms of volume). The name “Mauna Loa” is Hawaiian for “Long Mountain”.

29 Shakespearean rumpus : ADO

“Much Ado About Nothing” is a play by William Shakespeare, and a favorite of mine. It is a comedic tale of two pairs of lovers with lots of mistaken identities and double meanings. I once saw it performed in the fabulous Globe Theatre in London … by an all-female cast. Such a performance was somewhat ironic, given that in Shakespeare’s day the practice was to use an all-male cast.

30 Sad on the Seine? : BLEU

In French, someone who is “bleu” (blue) is sad.

32 Migratory salmon : SMOLTS

When young salmon (born in freshwater) are at the smolt stage, they become adapted to saltwater and head for the sea. They return to freshwater to reproduce, often traveling long distances upstream.

43 Yemeni port : ADEN

Aden is a seaport in Yemen that is located on the Gulf of Aden by the eastern approach to the Red Sea. Aden has a long history of British rule, from 1838 until a very messy withdrawal in 1967. A native of Aden is known as an Adeni. Some believe that Cain and Abel are buried in the city.

45 Hoity-toity sort : SNOB

Back in the 1780s, a snob was a shoemaker or a shoemaker’s apprentice. By the end of the 18th century the word “snob” was being used by students at Cambridge University in England to refer to all local merchants and people of the town. The term evolved to mean one who copies those who are his or her social superior (and not in a good way). From there it wasn’t a big leap for “snob” to include anyone who emphasized their superior social standing and not just those who aspired to rank. Nowadays a snob is anyone who looks down on those considered to be of inferior standing.

Believe it or not, the term “hoity-toity” has been in the English language since the 1660s, but back then it meant “riotous behavior”. It began to mean “haughty” in the late 1800s, simply because the “haughty” sounds similar to “hoity”.

46 Steph Curry hoops specialty : JUMP SHOT

Steph Curry is a professional basketball player who was named the league’s MVP in 2015, the same season that he led the Golden State Warriors to their first NBA championship since 1975. Steph’s father is former NBA player Dell Curry, and the older brother of current NBA player Seth Curry.

62 Doctrinal belief : TENET

A tenet is an article of faith, something that is held to be true. “Tenet” is Latin for “he holds”.

Down

3 Fictional captain Hornblower : HORATIO

The “Horatio Hornblower” series of novels was written by English author C. S. Forester. Hornblower is an officer in the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars.

4 “Bam!” chef : EMERIL

Emeril Lagasse is an American chef who was born in Massachusetts. Lagasse first achieved celebrity as executive chef in Commander’s Palace in New Orleans. Now famous for his television shows, his cuisine still showcases New Orleans ingredients and influences. Lagasse started using his famous “Bam!” catchphrase in order to keep his crew awake during repeated tapings of his show.

6 Air quality issue : SMOG

“Smog” is a portmanteau formed by melding “smoke” and “fog”. The term was first used to describe the air around London in the early 1900s. Several cities around the world have a reputation of being particularly smoggy. For example, the most smog-plagued city in Latin America is Mexico City, which is located in a highland “bowl” that traps industrial and vehicle pollution.

8 “Happy Endings” actress Cuthbert : ELISHA

Elisha Cuthbert is a Canadian actress who came to world attention playing Kim Bauer, Jack Bauer’s daughter on TV’s “24”. After “24”, Cuthbert played one of the lead characters on the sitcom “Happy Endings” that ran from 2011 to 2013.

9 Largo relative : LENTO

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

18 __ trick: hockey player’s three goals in a game : HAT

A hat trick is the scoring of three goals by the same player in a game of say, soccer or hockey.

22 SLR setting : F-STOP

Varying the f-stop in a lens varies how big the lens opening (the aperture) is when a photograph is taken. Smaller apertures (higher f-stop values) admit less light, but result in a greater depth of field (more of the photograph is in focus).

The initialism “SLR” stands for “single lens reflex”. Usually, cameras with changeable lenses are the SLR type. The main feature of an SLR is that a mirror reflects the image seen through the lens out through the viewfinder, so that the photographer sees exactly what the lens sees. The mirror moves out of the way as the picture is taken, and the image that comes through the lens falls onto unexposed film, or nowadays onto a digital sensor.

23 “Selma” director DuVernay : AVA

Ava DuVernay is a filmmaker who became the first African-American woman to win the Best Director Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, a feat she achieved in 2012 for her feature film “Middle of Nowhere”. “Middle of Nowhere” tells the story of a woman who drops out of medical school to focus on her husband when he is sentenced to 8 years in prison. DuVernay also directed the 2014 film “Selma” about the 1965 voting rights marches from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.

“Selma” is a 2014 film about the Selma-to-Montgomery marches of 1965. Directed by Ava DuVernay, the movie stars David Oyelowo as Martin Luther King, Jr. and Tom Wilkinson as President Lyndon B. Johnson.

27 Zodiac feline : LEO

Leo is the fifth astrological sign of the Zodiac. People born from July 23 to August 22 are Leos.

31 __ Angeles : LOS

The California city of Los Angeles (L.A.) is the second most populous city in the country, after New York. L.A. was established in 1781 as a pueblo named “El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles del Río de Porciúncula”, which translates as “The Town of Our Lady the Queen of Angels of the Porciúncula River”. This name evolved into “Los Angeles”, and the Porciúncula River is now called the Los Angeles River.

36 Friend of TV’s Sheldon and Leonard : RAJ

Raj Koothrappali is a character on the sitcom “The Big Bang Theory” who is played by British-Indian actor Kunal Nayyar. Nayyar is married to Neha Kapur, a former Miss India.

41 Mount __: oldest Seven Sisters college : HOLYOKE

Mount Holyoke College is a private school for women located in South Hadley, Massachusetts. It was founded as Mount Holyoke Female Seminary in 1834 as the sister school to Andover Seminary.

The Seven Sisters are a group of (traditionally women’s) colleges in the northeast of the country that were founded to parallel the all-male (as they were then) Ivy League colleges. The seven are:

  • Mount Holyoke
  • Vassar
  • Wellesley
  • Smith
  • Radcliffe
  • Bryn Mawr
  • Barnard

42 Civil War prez : ABE

Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the US, elected in 1860 as the first president from the Republican Party. Lincoln’s electoral support came almost exclusively from the north and west of the country, winning only 2 out of 996 counties in the Southern slave states. Lincoln led the country through the Civil War, and then was assassinated in 1865 just a few days after Robert E. Lee surrendered his army of Northern Virginia. President Lincoln was succeeded in office by Vice President Andrew Johnson.

44 Red Square city : MOSCOW

Moscow’s Red Square is surrounded by several significant buildings, for example:

  • Lenin’s Mausoleum that is the final resting place for the embalmed body of Vladimir Lenin
  • The Moscow Kremlin that serves as the official residence of the President of Russia
  • GUM (for “Main Universal Store”), which is the main department store in the capital
  • Saint Basil’s Cathedral, which now operates as a museum.

47 Nursery rhyme dieter : SPRAT

“Jack Sprat” is a nickname given in the 16th century to people of small stature. Jack featured in a proverb of the day:

Jack will eat not fat, and Jull doth love no leane. Yet betwixt them both they lick the dishes cleane.

Over time, this mutated into a nursery rhyme that is still recited in England:

Jack Sprat could eat no fat. His wife could eat no lean. And so between them both, you see, they licked the platter clean.

48 Spanish omelet ingredient : HUEVO

In Spanish, one needs at least one “huevo” (egg) to make an omelet.

49 Joe Biden’s st. : DEL

The state of Delaware takes its name from Virginia’s first colonial governor, Englishman Thomas West, 3rd Baron De La Warr. Delaware is known as “the First State” as it was the first to ratify the US Constitution, in 1787.

Vice President Joe Biden was a US Senator representing the state of Delaware from 1973 until he joined the Obama administration. While he was a senator, Vice President Biden commuted to Washington from Wilmington, Delaware almost every working day. He was such an active customer and supporter of Amtrak that the Wilmington Station was renamed as the Joseph R. Biden Railroad Station in 2011. Biden has made over 7,000 trips from that station, and the Amtrak crews were known to even hold the last train for a few minutes so that he could catch it. Biden earned himself the nickname “Amtrak Joe”.

52 Certain TV screens : LCDS

Liquid Crystal Displays (LCDs) are the screens that are found in most laptops today, and in flat panel computer screens and some televisions. LCD monitors basically replaced Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) screens, the old television technology.

53 With 53-Across, money transfer app : PAY-
(53A See 53-Down : -PAL)

PayPal is an e-commerce business that has been around since the year 2000, born out of a merger of two older companies: Confinity and X.com. PayPal performs payment processing for online vendors. The company was so successful that it was the first of the beleaguered dot.com companies to successfully complete an IPO after the attacks of 9/11. Then in 2002, PayPal was bought by eBay for a whopping $1.5 billion.

55 Yang’s counterpart : YIN

The yin and yang can be illustrated using many different metaphors. In one, as the sun shines on a mountain, the side in the shade is the yin and the side in the light is the yang. The yin is also regarded as the feminine side, and the yang the masculine. The yin can also be associated with the moon, while the yang is associated with the sun.

56 Wash. winter hours : PST

Pacific Standard Time (PST)

Complete List of Clues/Answers

Across

1 Wedding party escort : USHER
6 Witch’s incantation : SPELL
11 Image file suffix : JPG
14 Garden-guarding spirit : GNOME
15 Free-for-all : MELEE
16 Poetic “before” : ERE
17 “Fingers crossed!” : HERE’S HOPING
19 Golf starting point : TEE
20 Cattle identifier : EAR TAG
21 Puts dressing in, as a turkey : STUFFS
23 Painter or sculptor : ARTIST
24 American addition to Chinese cuisine : CHOP SUEY
26 Face cover : VEIL
27 Hawaii’s Mauna __ : LOA
28 Watch over : TEND
29 Shakespearean rumpus : ADO
30 Sad on the Seine? : BLEU
32 Migratory salmon : SMOLTS
34 Vessel carrying soldiers : TROOPSHIP
36 Directs (to), as a specialist : REFERS
39 Fibbed : LIED
40 __ moment: revelation : AHA
43 Yemeni port : ADEN
44 Bumped into : MET
45 Hoity-toity sort : SNOB
46 Steph Curry hoops specialty : JUMP SHOT
49 Draw idly : DOODLE
51 College grounds : CAMPUS
52 Lighthearted banter : LEVITY
53 See 53-Down : -PAL
54 Earth-friendly retailer … and a hint to the circled letters : RECYCLE SHOP
57 Consumed : ATE
58 Stay away from : AVOID
59 Offends the nose : REEKS
60 “Spot on!” : YES!
61 Dots on a map : TOWNS
62 Doctrinal belief : TENET

Down

1 “This tastes awful!” : UGH!
2 Smiled with disdain : SNEERED
3 Fictional captain Hornblower : HORATIO
4 “Bam!” chef : EMERIL
5 Takes ten : RESTS
6 Air quality issue : SMOG
7 __ talk: team motivator : PEP
8 “Happy Endings” actress Cuthbert : ELISHA
9 Largo relative : LENTO
10 Assistance, with “a” : … LEG UP
11 Propellant for a flying fighter : JET FUEL
12 Roll call response : PRESENT
13 “Who knew?” : GEE
18 __ trick: hockey player’s three goals in a game : HAT
22 SLR setting : F-STOP
23 “Selma” director DuVernay : AVA
24 Rhyming pair : COUPLET
25 NFL stats : YDS
27 Zodiac feline : LEO
30 “Turn on the heat!” : BRR!
31 __ Angeles : LOS
32 “… __ loves me not” : SHE
33 Prefix with night : MID-
34 Local news hr. : TEN PM
35 Obedience school command : SIT
36 Friend of TV’s Sheldon and Leonard : RAJ
37 Provide schooling for : EDUCATE
38 Ewes and does : FEMALES
40 “Subsequently … ” : AND THEN …
41 Mount __: oldest Seven Sisters college : HOLYOKE
42 Civil War prez : ABE
44 Red Square city : MOSCOW
45 “It’s pretty obvious” : SO I SEE
47 Nursery rhyme dieter : SPRAT
48 Spanish omelet ingredient : HUEVO
49 Joe Biden’s st. : DEL
50 Unconcealed : OVERT
52 Certain TV screens : LCDS
53 With 53-Across, money transfer app : PAY-
55 Yang’s counterpart : YIN
56 Wash. winter hours : PST