LA Times Crossword 21 Jun 22, Tuesday

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Constructed by: Stella Zawistowski
Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Reveal Answer: Party in the Back

Themed answers each feature a synonym of PARTY at the BACK end:

  • 52A Tongue-in-cheek description of a mullet, and of the answers to the starred clues : PARTY IN THE BACK
  • 20A *Broadcast quality determined by a car antenna : RADIO RECEPTION
  • 26A *Sine or cosine, for short : TRIG FUNCTION
  • 43A *Issue best kept within the clan : FAMILY AFFAIR

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

Bill’s time: 5m 59s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

5 Prefix with sphere : ATMO-

An atmosphere is the layer of gasses surrounding a body, usually a planet. The word “atmosphere” comes from the Greek “atmos” meaning “vapor, steam”. The term was first applied to the Moon, which is a real paradox as the Moon doesn’t have any atmosphere.

9 Jousting weapon : LANCE

“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.

16 Negatively charged particle : ANION

As we all recall from science class, a positive ion is called a cation and a negative ion is an anion. The names “cation” and “anion” come from Greek, with “kation” meaning “going down” and “anion” meaning “going up”.

17 Many millennia : AEON

Geological time is divided into a number of units of varying lengths. These are, starting from the largest:

  • supereon
  • eon (also “aeon”)
  • era
  • period
  • epoch
  • age

18 Surrealist Salvador : DALI

The famous surrealist Salvador Dalí was born in Figueres, Spain. I had the privilege of visiting the Dalí Museum in Figueres some years ago, just north of Barcelona. If you ever get the chance, it’s a “must see” as it really is a quite magnificent building with a fascinating collection of art.

20 *Broadcast quality determined by a car antenna : RADIO RECEPTION

We tend to use the term “aerial” and “antenna” interchangeably. Strictly speaking, the aerial is the top part of an antenna. The lead-in is the lower part of the antenna, the part providing the electrical connection between the aerial and the instrument, radio or TV.

23 NFL six-pointers : TDS

A National Football League (NFL) player might score a touchdown (TD).

26 *Sine or cosine, for short : TRIG FUNCTION

The most familiar trigonometric functions are sine, cosine and tangent (abbreviated to “sin, cos and tan”). Each of these is a ratio: a ratio of two sides of a right-angled triangle. The “reciprocal” of these three functions are cosecant, secant and cotangent. The reciprocal functions are simply the inverted ratios, the inverted sine, cosine and tangent. These inverted ratios should not be confused with the “inverse” trigonometric functions e.g. arcsine, arccosine and arctangent. These inverse functions are the reverse of the sine, cosine and tangent.

32 Mongolia’s continent : ASIA

The East Asian nation of Mongolia lies between Russia to the north and China to the south. With an area of over 600,000 square miles and a population of about 3 million people, Mongolia is the most sparsely populated sovereign nation on the planet. Almost half of the Mongolian populace lives in the capital city of Ulan Bator.

34 Load, as cargo : LADE

The verb “to lade” meaning “to load” comes from an Old English word “hladan”. “Lade” also used to mean “draw water” and indeed gave us our word “ladle”. So “lade” and “ladle” are close cousins.

35 Movement-sensing game console : WII

Introduced in 2006, Nintendo’s Wii quickly became the biggest-selling game console in the world.

37 Fireplace ducts : FLUES

The flue in a chimney is a duct that conveys exhaust gases from a fire to the outdoors. An important feature of a flue is that its opening is adjustable. When starting a fire, the flue should be wide open, maximizing airflow to get help ignition.

40 Go kaput : DIE

“Kaput” is a familiar term meaning “incapacitated, destroyed”, and comes to us from French (via German). The original word “capot” means “not having won a single trick” in the French card game Piquet.

41 Sheet music symbol : CLEF

“Clef” is the French word for “key”. In music, a clef is used to indicate the pitch of the notes written on a stave. The bass clef is also known as the F-clef, the alto clef is the C-clef, and the treble clef is the G-clef.

49 Boxer’s stat : KOS

Knockout (KO)

52 Tongue-in-cheek description of a mullet, and of the answers to the starred clues : PARTY IN THE BACK

A mullet haircut is one that is short at the front and sides, and is long in the back.

59 Double Stuf cookie : OREO

Double Stuf Oreos were introduced in 1975, and have twice the normal amount of white cream filling as the original cookie. Nabisco really went big in 2013, introducing the Mega Stuf Oreo that has even more white cream filling.

60 Cosmetician Lauder : ESTEE

Estée Lauder was a very successful businesswoman, and someone with a great reputation as a salesperson. Lauder introduced her own line of fragrances in 1953, a bath oil called “Youth Dew”. “Youth Dew” was marketed as a perfume, but it was added to bathwater. All of a sudden women were pouring whole bottles of Ms. Lauder’s “perfume” into their baths while using only a drop or two of French perfumes behind their ears. That’s quite a difference in sales volume …

62 Actor Sharif : OMAR

Omar Sharif was a great Hollywood actor from Egypt, someone who played major roles in memorable movies such as “Doctor Zhivago” and “Lawrence of Arabia”. But to me, he was my bridge hero (the card game). In his heyday, Sharif was one of the best bridge players in the world.

Down

1 Microwave button : START

The first household microwave oven was introduced to the market in 1955, by the Tappan Stove Company in Ohio.

4 Gymnast Lee who won a gold medal at the 2020 Olympics : SUNI

Suni Lee is an American gymnast who won the women’s artistic individual all-around event at the 2020 Olympics. A few weeks after her victory in Tokyo, Lee competed in the 30th season of “Dancing with the Stars”, finishing in 5th place.

5 Nobel Peace Prize winner Sakharov : ANDREI

Andrei Sakharov was a Soviet nuclear physicist, and in his later life a human rights activist. Sakharov participated in the USSR’s program to develop the country’s first atomic bomb, and was an even more crucial contributor to the development of the devastating hydrogen bomb. By the fifties, he was concerned about the consequences of his work, and in the sixties Sakharov started to become active, raising awkward questions not appreciated by the Soviet administration. He was banned from further work with the military as a consequence, and later found himself under constant police surveillance and harassment. He was then moved from Moscow and put into internal exile in Gorky. It was only under Mikhail Gorbachev’s leadership that Sakharov was able to return home to Moscow. Sakharov was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1975.

6 Hard-boiled Chinese snack : TEA EGG

The tea egg is a dish from Chinese cuisine made by boiling an egg in water, cracking the shell, and then reboiling the egg in tea or a spiced sauce. Often sold as a snack food, the tea egg is also called a marble egg, referring to the marbled appearance of the cracked shell after boiling in a colored liquid.

7 Sporty Spice of the Spice Girls : MEL C

Melanie C is a member of the English girl band the Spice Girls, with whom she has the nickname “Sporty Spice”. “Mel C” got the gig with the Spice Girls by replying to an ad in “The Stage” magazine, and auditioning alongside about 40 women who responded to the same ad. Sporty Spice really is quite sporty, and has completed the London Triathlon … twice.

8 Garfield’s drooling frenemy : ODIE

Jon Arbuckle is a fictional character, and the owner of Odie from Jim Davis’s comic strip “Garfield”. Garfield is Arbuckle’s orange tabby cat. Odie is his less-than-smart beagle.

11 Yucatán boy : NINO

Yucatán is one of Mexico’s 31 states and is located in the east of the country, on the northern tip of the Yucatán peninsula.

12 Last name of filmmakers Ethan and Joel : COEN

I think it’s great to see two brothers working together and being so successful. Joel and Ethan Coen are two movie producers and directors who both live in New York City. The Coen brothers do love the movie-making business and they even married industry “insiders”. Ethan’s wife is film editor Tricia Cooke, and Joel is married to one of my favorite actresses, the talented Frances McDormand.

21 Bhindi masala pod : OKRA

Bhindi masala is a dish in Indian cuisine that consists mainly of okra sautéed with onions and tomatoes.

“Masala” is a Hindi word meaning “mixture”, and describes a mixture of spices. A dish named “masala” uses the spices incorporated into a sauce that includes garlic, ginger, onions and chili paste. Who doesn’t love Indian cuisine? Yum …

26 Felt-__ marker : TIP

The felt-tip marking pen was patented in 1910. The marking pen was popularized when the Magic Marker brand was introduced in 1953.

28 Abu Dhabi’s fed. : UAE

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is a federation of seven emirates (states) in the Middle East. Included in the seven are Abu Dhabi and Dubai, with the city of Abu Dhabi being the UAE capital and cultural center.

31 Put the kibosh on : NIX

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.

32 “Eri tu,” but not “Eres Tu” : ARIA

Every crossword constructor’s favorite aria “Eri tu” is from Verdi’s opera “Un ballo in maschera” (“A Masked Ball”). The opera tells the story of the assassination of King Gustav III of Sweden during a masked ball.

We have a big event across Europe every year called the Eurovision Song Contest. Each nation enters one song in competition with each other, and then voters across the whole continent decide on the winner. That’s how ABBA got their big break when they won in 1974 with “Waterloo”. In 1973, Spain’s entry was “Eres tú” (“It’s You”, literally “You Are”) sung by the band Mocedades. “Eres tú” came second in the competition, but should have won in my humble opinion.

36 Many an email attachment : PDF

Portable Document Format (PDF) is a file format introduced by Adobe Systems in 1993. PDF documents can be shared between users and read using many different applications and platforms, making them more universally accessible than documents saved by one particular program.

38 “Miss Saigon” Tony winner Salonga : LEA

Lea Salonga is a singer and actress from the Philippines who is known for originating the lead role in the musical “Miss Saigon” in both the West End and on Broadway. Salonga also provided the singing voice for the Disney princesses Jasmine (in “Aladdin”) and Fa Mulan (in “Mulan”). She was the first Asian woman to win a Tony Award, for her performance in “Miss Saigon”.

“Miss Saigon” is a musical that premiered in London in 1989, and one that is based on Puccini’s opera “Madame Butterfly”. “Miss Saigon” was written by Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil, the duo responsible for “Les Misérables”. We saw both shows in London during their heyday, and I much preferred “Miss Saigon”. Back then the big thing was to have a big “special effect” in a stage musical, and for “Miss Saigon” this is the landing of a life-size helicopter on the stage. At the performance we attended there was an announcement that “the helicopter was broken”, so we had a fun time watching actors running around pretending there was a helicopter in that climactic scene …

39 Salsa container : JAR

“Salsa” is simply Spanish for “sauce”.

44 Holy Land nation : ISRAEL

The Holy Land is a region in the Middle East located between the Mediterranean Sea and the River Jordan. The area is regarded as holy by followers of all three major Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

45 Step-counting device : FITBIT

Fitbits are wearable activity trackers that are mainly used to track the number of steps walked, although more and more features have been added over time. A Fitbit was even used as evidence in at least one murder case. A Connecticut man claimed that a home intruder had shot and killed his wife. Police used data from the wife’s Fitbit to disprove the husband’s story, and ended up charging him with the murder.

46 Capital of Greece : ATHENS

Athens is the capital city of Greece and is one of the world’s oldest cities, with a history that goes back around 3,400 years. In its heyday, Classical Athens was a remarkable center for the arts and philosophical debate, and was home to Plato and Aristotle. Athens is often called “the cradle of Western civilization” and “the birthplace of democracy”. The city was named for the Greek goddess Athena.

49 Cosmic balance : KARMA

Karma is a religious concept with its basis in Indian faiths. Karma embraces the notion of cause and effect. Good deeds have good consequences at some later point in one’s life, one’s future life, or one’s afterlife. And, bad deeds have bad consequences.

51 Hybrid garment : SKORT

The garment called a “skort” is a hybrid between a “skirt” and “shorts”.

54 Bird in Egyptian art : IBIS

The ibis is a wading bird that was revered in ancient Egypt. “Ibis” is an interesting word grammatically speaking. You can have one “ibis” or two “ibises”, and then again one has a flock of “ibis”. And if you want to go with the classical plural, instead of two “ibises” you would have two “ibides”!

57 TiVo remote button : REC

TiVo was introduced in 1999 and was the world’s first commercially successful digital video recorder (DVR).

Complete List of Clues/Answers

Across

1 Drains of energy : SAPS
5 Prefix with sphere : ATMO-
9 Jousting weapon : LANCE
14 Drive-__ ATM : THRU
15 Have to have : NEED
16 Negatively charged particle : ANION
17 Many millennia : AEON
18 Surrealist Salvador : DALI
19 Muscular : TONED
20 *Broadcast quality determined by a car antenna : RADIO RECEPTION
23 NFL six-pointers : TDS
24 Beer barrel : KEG
25 One, in Germany : EIN
26 *Sine or cosine, for short : TRIG FUNCTION
32 Mongolia’s continent : ASIA
34 Load, as cargo : LADE
35 Movement-sensing game console : WII
36 Get set, casually : PREP
37 Fireplace ducts : FLUES
39 “You said the same thing as me!” : JINX!
40 Go kaput : DIE
41 Sheet music symbol : CLEF
42 Really, really stinky : RANK
43 *Issue best kept within the clan : FAMILY AFFAIR
47 Cry inconsolably : SOB
48 “__ go time!” : IT’S
49 Boxer’s stat : KOS
52 Tongue-in-cheek description of a mullet, and of the answers to the starred clues : PARTY IN THE BACK
57 Move rapidly toward : RUN AT
58 Sweetie : BABE
59 Double Stuf cookie : OREO
60 Cosmetician Lauder : ESTEE
61 “Yes, let’s do it!” : I’M IN!
62 Actor Sharif : OMAR
63 Youngster : CHILD
64 Sitcom backgrounds : SETS
65 Breathe hard : PANT

Down

1 Microwave button : START
2 Coming up : AHEAD
3 Urges along : PRODS
4 Gymnast Lee who won a gold medal at the 2020 Olympics : SUNI
5 Nobel Peace Prize winner Sakharov : ANDREI
6 Hard-boiled Chinese snack : TEA EGG
7 Sporty Spice of the Spice Girls : MEL C
8 Garfield’s drooling frenemy : ODIE
9 Crisscross pie crust pattern : LATTICE
10 Bless with oil : ANOINT
11 Yucatán boy : NINO
12 Last name of filmmakers Ethan and Joel : COEN
13 Come to a close : END
21 Bhindi masala pod : OKRA
22 Isn’t yet decided : PENDS
26 Felt-__ marker : TIP
27 Material in a lint trap : FLUFF
28 Abu Dhabi’s fed. : UAE
29 “Victory is mine!” : I WIN!
30 Pigpen grunt : OINK
31 Put the kibosh on : NIX
32 “Eri tu,” but not “Eres Tu” : ARIA
33 Look like : SEEM
36 Many an email attachment : PDF
37 Low-altitude airplane pass : FLYBY
38 “Miss Saigon” Tony winner Salonga : LEA
39 Salsa container : JAR
41 Formed clumps : CLOTTED
42 Get out of bed : RISE
44 Holy Land nation : ISRAEL
45 Step-counting device : FITBIT
46 Capital of Greece : ATHENS
49 Cosmic balance : KARMA
50 Salty expanse : OCEAN
51 Hybrid garment : SKORT
52 Pull’s opposite : PUSH
53 Voting against : ANTI
54 Bird in Egyptian art : IBIS
55 First line on a form, often : NAME
56 “Touched your nose!” sound : BOOP!
57 TiVo remote button : REC