LA Times Crossword 13 Jul 21, Tuesday

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Constructed by: Matt Skoczen
Edited by: Rich Norris

Today’s Theme (according to Bill): City of Song

Themed answers are popular songs that use US cities for titles:

  • 16A 1994 Collin Raye hit (AR) : LITTLE ROCK
  • 65A 1959 Wilbert Harrison song (MO) : KANSAS CITY
  • 10D 1969 Glen Campbell song (TX) : GALVESTON
  • 32D 1982 Billy Joel song (PA) : ALLENTOWN

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

6 Garfield, e.g. : CAT

“Garfield” is a comic strip drawn by Jim Davis since 1978. The title character is an orange tabby cat. Davis named his cartoon hero Garfield after his own grandfather.

13 Nunavut native : INUIT

Nunavut is Canadian territory that dates back to 1999, when it was separated from the Northwest Territories. That makes Nunavut the youngest of all Canada’s territories. It is also the nation’s largest territory, the least populous, as well as the furthest north. Even though it is the second-largest country subdivision in North America (after Greenland), Nunavut is home to just over 30,000 people, who are mostly Inuit.

16 1994 Collin Raye hit (AR) : LITTLE ROCK

“Little Rock” is a 1994 song recorded by country singer Collin Raye. It relates the story of a recovering alcoholic trying to get his life back on track in Little Rock, Arkansas.

The city of Little Rock is the capital of Arkansas, and is located in the center of the state. Early French travelers used a small rock formation on the Arkansas River as a landmark, a formation that they named “La Petite Roche” (The Little Rock) in 1722. “The Little Rock” actually lies across the river from a large bluff known as “Big Rock”, which was once the site of a rock quarry.

18 Sommer of “The Prize” : ELKE

Elke Sommer is a German-born actress who was at the height of her success on the silver screen in the sixties. Sommer won a Golden Globe as Most Promising Newcomer Actress for her role opposite Paul Newman in 1964’s “The Prize”. She also sings and has released several albums. Now Sommer focuses on painting, producing artwork that is strongly influenced by the work of Marc Chagall.

“The Prize” is an excellent spy movie released in 1963 and starring Paul Newman, Elke Sommer and Edward G. Robinson. Based on a 1962 novel of the same name, the “prize” in question is a Nobel Prize, and so the action takes place in Stockholm.

19 Pianist Gilels : EMIL

Emil Gilels was a pianist from the Soviet Union who was born in Odessa (now part of Ukraine). Gilels was one of the first musicians allowed to perform concerts outside of the Eastern Bloc. His debut appearance in Philadelphia with Eugene Ormandy was a resounding success.

20 __ Army: golfer Palmer’s fans : ARNIE’S

Arnold Palmer was one of the greats of the world of golf. He was very popular with many fans of the game, and his followers were usually referred to as “Arnie’s Army”. Off the course, Palmer was an avid pilot until his latter years. He resided in Latrobe, Pennsylvania for much of the year and the local airport is named in his honor: Arnold Palmer Regional Airport.

22 Gall : VEX

Today, we use the verb “to gall” to mean “to vex, irritate”. This is a figurative usage of the same verb that arose mid-1400s, when it meant “to make sore by chafing”. Back then, a gall was a sore on the skin caused by rubbing or chafing.

23 For all ages, filmwise : RATED-G

The Motion Picture Association of America’s (MPAA) film-rating system (PG-13, R, etc.) is purely voluntary and is not backed by any law. Movie theaters agree to abide by the rules that come with the MPAA ratings in exchange for access to new movies.

27 Spicy dip for chips : SALSA

“Salsa” is simply Spanish for “sauce”.

29 Pulpit talks: Abbr. : SERS

Our word “sermon” comes from the Latin “sermonem” meaning “discourse, talk”. The literal translation of “sermonem” is “a stringing together of words”, from the Latin “serere” meaning “to join”, as in the related word “series”.

A pulpit is a platform in a church from which a sermon is delivered by a preacher. The term comes from the Latin “pulpitum” meaning “scaffold, stage, platform for actors”. “Pulpit” can also be used figuratively, to describe the clerical profession generally.

35 Songwriter Redding : OTIS

Otis Redding is often referred to as the “King of Soul”, and what a voice he had. Like so many of the greats in the world of popular music it seems, Redding was killed in a plane crash, in 1967 when he was just 26 years old. Just three days earlier he had recorded what was to be his biggest hit, “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay”.

40 Sunny-side-up feature : EGG YOLK

The yolk is the yellow part of a chicken’s egg. The term “yolk” comes from the Old English “geolu” meaning “yellow”.

44 Historic Jordanian city : PETRA

The archaeological city of Petra in Jordan sounds like a fabulous sight, and is known for its beautiful buildings that have been carved out of the natural rock. Petra is Jordan’s most visited tourist attraction.

47 Key of Vivaldi’s “Spring Concerto” : Abbr. : E MAJ

“The Four Seasons” is the most famous work by Italian Baroque composer Antonio Vivaldi. It is a collection of four violin concerti that evoke the seasons of the year. Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons” is a favorite choice for background music in elevators and elevators. Personally, my favorite use of the piece is as a backdrop to the 1981 romantic comedy film “The Four Seasons”, starring Alan Alda and Carol Burnett.

Antonio Vivaldi was one of the great composers of the Baroque period. He achieved fame and success within his own lifetime, notoriety that faded soon after he died. Vivaldi’s music has reemerged in recent decades and I am sure everyone is familiar with at least part of his most famous composition, the violin concerto called “The Four Seasons”. Vivaldi was nicknamed “The Red Priest” because he was indeed a priest, and he had red hair.

50 Mazda MX-5, familiarly : MIATA

The Mazda MX-5 is sold as the Miata in North America, and as the Roadster in Japan. I’ve always liked the looks of the Mazda Miata, probably because it reminds me so much of old British sports cars. The Miata is built in Hiroshima, Japan. The name “Miata” comes from an Old High German word meaning “reward”.

52 “The Sound of Music” family name : VON TRAPP

Baron Georg Johannes von Trapp was an officer in the Austro-Hungarian Navy who achieved worldwide fame when his family became the inspiration for the musical “The Sound of Musical”.

55 Wild clashes : MELEES

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

59 Pick, to a QB : INT

In football, if a quarterback’s (QB’s) pass ends up in the hands of a cornerback (CB), then that’s an interception (INT).

62 Smithsonian, e.g.: Abbr. : INST

The Smithsonian Institution was established in 1846 as the United States National Museum. The institution was renamed in honor of British scientist James Smithson who indirectly provided the initial funding. The funds were collected from England on the orders of President Andrew Jackson, and arrived in the form of 105 sacks containing 104,960 gold sovereigns.

63 MGM mascot : LION

There has been a lion in the logo of the MGM studio since 1924. The original was an Irishman (!), a lion named Slats who was born in Dublin Zoo in 1919. However, it wasn’t until Jackie took over from Slats in 1928 that the roar was heard, as the era of silent movies was coming to an end. The current lion is called Leo, and he has been around since 1957.

65 1959 Wilbert Harrison song (MO) : KANSAS CITY

“Kansas City” is a song first recorded by Willie Littlefield in 1952. The most famous version was released by R&B performer Wilbert Harrison, a version that topped the charts in 1959. Harrison recorded a so-called “answer song” the following year, with the title “Goodbye Kansas City”.

The Kansas City (KC) metropolitan area straddles the stateline between Kansas and Missouri. The metropolitan area includes several cities, with the largest being (in order):

  • Kansas City, Missouri
  • Overland Park, Kansas
  • Kansas City, Kansas
  • Independence, Missouri

67 Premier League soccer anchor Rebecca : LOWE

Rebecca Lowe is a sportscaster working for NBC. Rebecca is from London, and is the daughter of Chris Lowe, a former newscaster for the BBC for almost 40 years. Lowe is married to Paul Buckle, the head coach for the Sacramento Republic soccer team.

The best soccer teams in England and Wales play in the Premier League. The league was founded in 1992 as the FA Premier League to take advantage of a generous television deal. Today, the Premier League is the most-watched soccer league in the world.

70 Gunn of “Breaking Bad” : ANNA

Anna Gunn is an actress from Santa Fe, New Mexico. She is best known for playing Skyler White on the TV show “Breaking Bad”.

71 Old televangelist org. : PTL

“The PTL Club” was a daily television show hosted by televangelists Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker. PTL is short for both “Praise the Lord” and “People that Love”. The show ended its run of over ten years in 1987 when it was revealed that Jim Bakker was involved in financial and sexual scandals. Bakker served 5 years in jail as part of an 18-year sentence.

72 Behind the times : PASSE

“Passé” is a French word, meaning “past, faded”. We’ve imported the term into English, and use it in the same sense.

Down

2 Jungian concept : ANIMA

The concepts of anima and animus are found in the Carl Jung school of analytical psychology. The idea is that within each male there resides a feminine inner personality called the anima, and within each female there is a male inner personality known as the animus.

Carl Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist, and the founder of analytical psychology. Jung was very much associated with the analysis of dreams, and also introduced us to the psychological concepts of introversion and extroversion.

4 Library names : TITLES

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 movement of the head from left to right as we glance along our bookshelves.

5 Cards’ cap letters : STL

The St. Louis Cardinals Major League Baseball team plays at Busch Stadium. Busch Stadium is the third stadium in the history of St. Louis to have the Busch name. The first two were named for Gussie Busch, the brewing magnate and former Cardinals team owner. The current stadium is named for the brewery though, and not Gussie per se.

7 Computer acronym : ASCII

ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) lists codes for 32 “control” characters, as well as the 95 printable characters. These binary codes are the way that our computers can understand what we mean when we type, say a letter or a number. Unicode is a more contemporary standard, and is like “Ascii on steroids”, encompassing more characters.

8 Arcade coins : TOKENS

Our word “arcade” comes from the Latin “arcus” meaning “arc”. The first arcades were passages made from a series of arches. This could be an avenue of trees, and eventually any covered avenue. I remember arcades lined with shops and stores when I was growing up on the other side of the Atlantic. Arcades came to be lined with lots of amusements, resulting in amusement arcades and video game arcades.

10 1969 Glen Campbell song (TX) : GALVESTON

“Galveston” was composed by Jimmy Webb and recorded by Glen Campbell in 1969. Webb actually wrote it as an anti-war song while the Vietnam War was raging. It tells of a soldier whose hometown is Galveston, Texas, and who is getting ready to head off to fight.

Galveston is an island city on the Gulf coast of Texas, located just southeast of Houston. It is the site of the deadliest disaster to hit the US. Galveston Island was struck by a hurricane in 1900 that led to deaths of somewhere between 6,000 and 8,000 people.

14 Part of ETA: Abbr. : ARR

Estimated time of arrival (ETA)

17 Aerie hatchling : EAGLET

An aerie (sometimes “eyrie”) is an eagle’s nest. The term “aerie” can also more generally describe any bird’s nest that is located on a cliff or a mountaintop.

26 “Iliad” setting : TROY

The ancient city of Troy was located on the west coast of modern-day Turkey. The Trojan War of Greek mythology was precipitated by the elopement of Helen, the wife of the king of Sparta, with Paris of Troy. The war itself largely consisted of a nine-year siege of Troy by the Greeks. We know most about the final year of that siege, as it is described extensively in Homer’s “Iliad”. The city eventually fell when the Greeks hid soldiers inside the Trojan Horse, which the Trojans brought inside the city’s walls. Beware of Greeks bearing gifts …

Ilion (or in Latin “Ileum”), was the ancient name for the city of Troy. It’s this name for Troy that gives rise to the title of Homer’s epic poem “Iliad”.

30 PD alert : APB

An All Points Bulletin (APB) is a broadcast from one US law enforcement agency to another.

32 1982 Billy Joel song (PA) : ALLENTOWN

“Allentown” is a 1982 song by Billy Joel. While writing the song, Joel titled it “Levittown”, after a town on Long Island near to where he grew up. “Allentown” addresses the plight of steel workers laid off in the Lehigh Valley of Pennsylvania and New Jersey. After its release, the song became somewhat of an anthem for America’s blue-collar workers.

The Pennsylvania city of Allentown was founded in 1762 by William Allen, a loyalist who served as Chief Justice of the Province of Pennsylvania and also mayor of Philadelphia. Allen named the new development “Northampton Town”, although the name “Allentown” was used by locals for decades. The official name change had to wait until 1838. Today, Allentown is the third-largest city in Pennsylvania, after Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.

34 Himalayan legend : YETI

The yeti, also known as the abominable snowman, is a beast of legend. “Yeti” is a Tibetan term, and the beast is fabled to live in the Himalayan regions of Nepal and Tibet. Our equivalent legend in North America is that of Bigfoot, also known as Sasquatch. The study of animals whose existence have not yet been substantiated is called cryptozoology, and a cryptid is a creature or plant that isn’t recognized by the scientific community, but the existence of which has been suggested.

36 Waterfront org. : ILA

International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA)

39 Monthly acct. summary : STMT

Statement (stmt.)

45 Select, as a jury : EMPANEL

A jury is a group of people who have sworn to render a verdict. The term “jury” comes into English via French, ultimately from the Latin “iurare” meaning “to swear”.

48 Ongoing story line : ARC

A story arc is a continuing storyline in say a television show that runs through a number of episodes. Story arcs are also found in comics, books, video games, and other forms of media.

49 Prepare for changing a flat tire : JACK UP

“Jack” is a nickname for “John”. Back in the 1500s, the term “jack” came to be used colloquially to describe any man of low status (as in “jack of all trades, master of none”). The usage was extended to describe any tool that saved work, perhaps replaced menial labor. By the end of the 1600s, the term “jack” became particularly associated with a portable device used to lift heavy weights using leverage.

51 Keys on a piano? : ALICIA

“Alicia Keys” is the stage name of Alicia Cook, an R&B and soul singer from Hell’s Kitchen in New York City.

53 Gibson garnish : ONION

A Gibson is simply a regular martini (gin and vermouth) with the traditional olive garnish replaced with a pickled onion.

56 Authors Blyton and Bagnold : ENIDS

Enid Blyton wrote stories for children that were very popular when I was growing up in Britain and Ireland. Not so long ago, I purchased and reread my favorite of her stories growing up, a children’s novel called “The Secret Island”.

Enid Bagnold was a British author who is best known for her 1935 novel “National Velvet”, which famously was adapted into a very successful film starring Elizabeth Taylor.

61 Ed.’s backlog : MSS

An editor (ed.) might read or edit a manuscript (MS)

64 PBS funder : NEA

The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an agency funded by the federal government that offers support and financing for artistic projects. The NEA was created by an Act of Congress in 1965. Between 1965 and 2008, the NEA awarded over $4 billion to the arts, with Congress authorizing around $170 million annually through the eighties and much of the nineties. That funding was cut to less than $100 million in the late nineties due to pressure from conservatives concerned about the use of funds, but it is now back over the $150 million mark. I wonder how long that will last though …

The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) was founded in 1970, and is my favorite of the broadcast networks. I love PBS’s drama and science shows in particular, and always watch election results coming in with the NewsHour team.

66 Longtime NASCAR sponsor : STP

STP is a brand name of automotive lubricants and additives. The name “STP” is an initialism standing for “Scientifically Treated Petroleum”.

“NASCAR” stands for the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing. NASCAR is very, very popular and commands the second-largest television audience of any professional sport in America, second only to football.

Complete List of Clues/Answers

Across

1 They’re what really happened : FACTS
6 Garfield, e.g. : CAT
9 Eye wolfishly : OGLE
13 Nunavut native : INUIT
14 Kid’s comeback : AM SO!
15 Sit tight : WAIT
16 1994 Collin Raye hit (AR) : LITTLE ROCK
18 Sommer of “The Prize” : ELKE
19 Pianist Gilels : EMIL
20 __ Army: golfer Palmer’s fans : ARNIE’S
22 Gall : VEX
23 For all ages, filmwise : RATED-G
25 Most trifling : MINUTEST
27 Spicy dip for chips : SALSA
29 Pulpit talks: Abbr. : SERS
30 Cry of illumination : AHA!
33 Wee : TEENY
35 Songwriter Redding : OTIS
38 Throb : PULSATE
40 Sunny-side-up feature : EGG YOLK
43 Accessory put through loops : BELT
44 Historic Jordanian city : PETRA
46 Opposing vote : NAY
47 Key of Vivaldi’s “Spring Concerto” : Abbr. : E MAJ
50 Mazda MX-5, familiarly : MIATA
52 “The Sound of Music” family name : VON TRAPP
55 Wild clashes : MELEES
59 Pick, to a QB : INT
60 Stage lighting hardware : C-CLAMP
62 Smithsonian, e.g.: Abbr. : INST
63 MGM mascot : LION
65 1959 Wilbert Harrison song (MO) : KANSAS CITY
67 Premier League soccer anchor Rebecca : LOWE
68 French articles : UNES
69 Scary kind of wave : TIDAL
70 Gunn of “Breaking Bad” : ANNA
71 Old televangelist org. : PTL
72 Behind the times : PASSE

Down

1 Taxpayer, e.g. : FILER
2 Jungian concept : ANIMA
3 Make the grade : CUT IT
4 Library names : TITLES
5 Cards’ cap letters : STL
6 “Don’t mess with me, bro!” : C’MON MAN!
7 Computer acronym : ASCII
8 Arcade coins : TOKENS
9 Be indebted to : OWE
10 1969 Glen Campbell song (TX) : GALVESTON
11 Enjoys : LIKES
12 Digital book format : E-TEXT
14 Part of ETA: Abbr. : ARR
17 Aerie hatchling : EAGLET
21 Curt legal advice : SUE
24 Almanac info : DATA
26 “Iliad” setting : TROY
28 Ooze : SEEP
30 PD alert : APB
31 Color gradation : HUE
32 1982 Billy Joel song (PA) : ALLENTOWN
34 Himalayan legend : YETI
36 Waterfront org. : ILA
37 Wild blue yonder : SKY
39 Monthly acct. summary : STMT
41 Family nickname : GRAMPA
42 Flight board info : GATE
45 Select, as a jury : EMPANEL
48 Ongoing story line : ARC
49 Prepare for changing a flat tire : JACK UP
51 Keys on a piano? : ALICIA
52 Luxurious residence : VILLA
53 Gibson garnish : ONION
54 Garden growth : PLANT
56 Authors Blyton and Bagnold : ENIDS
57 These, to Tomás : ESTAS
58 Hairdresser’s concern : STYLE
61 Ed.’s backlog : MSS
64 PBS funder : NEA
66 Longtime NASCAR sponsor : STP