LA Times Crossword 29 Aug 23, Tuesday

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Constructed by: Amanda Cook
Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Reveal Answer: Double-Talk

Themed answers each comprise two words, both of which are types of TALK:

• 58A Deliberately ambiguous language, and an apt description of 18-, 26-, and 46-Across : DOUBLE-TALK

• 18A Java joint : COFFEE SHOP (coffee talk & shop talk)
• 26A In-demand spot at a busy bistro : EMPTY TABLE (empty talk & table talk)
• 46A Source of lumbar support : BACK PILLOW (back talk & pillow talk)

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

Bill’s time: 5m 50s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1 Kindergarten basics : ABCS

“Kindergarten” is a German term, one translating as “children’s garden”. The term was coined by the German education authority Friedrich Fröbel in 1837, when he used it as the name for his play and activity institute that he created for young children to use before they headed off to school. His thought was that children should be nourished educationally, like plants in a garden.

5 1996 film that earned Frances McDormand her first Oscar : FARGO

“Fargo” is one of my favorite films of all time, and stars perhaps my favorite actress: Frances McDormand. The movie was directed by the Coen brothers, Joel and Ethan. Frances McDormand is Joel’s wife.

The marvelous actress Frances McDormand has been well recognized for her work. Along with Emmy Awards and a Tony, she won Best Actress Awards for her performances in “Fargo” (1997), “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” (2018) and “Nomadland” (2021). She has been married to director Joel Coen since 1984.

16 Church recess : APSE

An apse of a church or cathedral is a semicircular recess in an outer wall, usually with a half-dome as a roof and often where there resides an altar. Originally, apses were used as burial places for the clergy and also for storage of important relics.

18 Java joint : COFFEE SHOP (coffee talk & shop talk)

Back in 1850, the name “java” was given to a type of coffee grown on the island of Java, and the more general usage of the term spread from then.

26 In-demand spot at a busy bistro : EMPTY TABLE (empty talk & table talk)

“Bistro” was originally a Parisian slang term describing a little wine shop or restaurant.

34 Resistance unit : OHM

The unit of electrical resistance is the ohm (with the symbol omega) named after German physicist Georg Simon Ohm. Ohm was the guy who established experimentally that the amount of current flowing through a circuit is directly proportional to the voltage applied, (V=IR) a relationship that every school kid knows as Ohm’s Law.

45 “Ignore that suggested edit” : STET

“Stet” is a Latin word meaning “let it stand”. In editorial work, the typesetter is instructed to disregard any change previously marked by writing the word “stet” and then underscoring that change with a line of dots or dashes.

46 Source of lumbar support : BACK PILLOW (back talk & pillow talk)

The human spine comprises five regions of vertebrae, which are (starting at the neck):

• Cervical (C1 – C7)
• Thoracic (T1 – T12)
• Lumbar (L1 – L5)
• Sacral (S1 – S5)
• Coccyx (also known as the tailbone)

52 Oscar-winning song from “Selma” : GLORY

“Glory” is a 2014 song recorded by rap artist Common and singer John Legend. It served as the theme song for that year’s award-winning film “Selma”, in which Common co-starred.

“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.

57 “His Dark Materials” actor __-Manuel Miranda : LIN

Lin-Manuel Miranda is a composer and playwright from New York City, and the creator and star of the hit Broadway musicals “Hamilton” and “In the Heights”. Miranda also co-wrote the songs for the 2016 Disney animated feature “Moana”. He started composing early, and wrote jingles as a child. One of those jingles was later used by Eliot Spitzer in his 2006 gubernatorial campaign.

“His Dark Materials” is a fantasy television series based on the epic trilogy of novels of the same name by Philip Pullman. Not for me …

60 Edinburgh resident : SCOT

Edinburgh is the capital of Scotland, and is a really beautiful city. In days gone by it might not have been quite so charming though. Like many cities, plumes of smoke hung over Edinburgh when coal and wood fires weren’t regulated. To this day, the city has the nickname “Auld Reekie”, Scots for “Old Smoky”.

62 Code with dots and dashes : MORSE

Samuel Morse was a very accomplished and reputable painter (he was engaged to paint a portrait of President John Adams, for example). In 1825 Morse was in Washington working on a commissioned painting when he received a one-line letter by horse-messenger telling him that his wife was ill. He left immediately for his home in New Haven, Connecticut but by the time that Morse arrived his wife had already died and had been buried. This single event spurred him to move from painting to the development of a rapid means of long distance communication, leading to the single-wire telegraph and Morse code.

63 __ Alto, California : PALO

“The city of Palo Alto, California takes its name from a specific redwood tree called El Palo Alto (Spanish for “the tall stick”) that is located within the bounds of the city. The tree is 110 feet tall and over a thousand years old.

64 Clarinet need : REED

The clarinet is a lovely-sounding instrument, isn’t it? The name “clarinet” comes from the Italian word “clarino” meaning “trumpet”, with the “-et” suffix indicating “small”.

Down

4 Thesaurus entry: Abbr. : SYN

The first person to use the term “thesaurus” to mean a “collection of words arranged according to sense” was Roget in 1852, when he used it for the title of his most famous work. Up to that point in time, a thesaurus was basically an encyclopedia. Before being used with reference to books, a thesaurus was a storehouse or treasury, coming from the Latin “thesaurus” meaning “treasury, treasure”.

8 Animated pic : GIF

A bitmap is an image file format used to store digital images. Basically, each pixel in a bitmap file is stored as a “bit” of information, hence the name “bitmap”. In 1987, CompuServe introduced a new type of image file called the Graphics Interchange Format (GIF). A GIF image takes the same information as a bitmap and then compresses it, resulting in a smaller file size. However, during compression the image may lose some resolution. The GIF format also handles short video clips, usually animations.

11 Collectibles such as ticket stubs and matchbooks : EPHEMERA

“Ephemera” was originally a medical term used to describe a fever that only lasted a day. The use of the term was expanded in the 17th century to include insects that were short-lived. By the end of the 18th century, ephemera were any items of transitory existence.

12 Understood by a select few : ESOTERIC

Something described as esoteric is meant only for a select few with special knowledge. The term “esoteric” comes from the Greek “esoterikos” meaning “belonging to an inner circle”.

13 Counts at a gym : REPS

Our word “gymnasium” comes from the Greek “gymnasion” meaning “public place where exercise is taken”. The Greek term comes from “gymnos” meaning “naked”, as that physical training was usually done unclothed in ancient Greece.

19 Sinusitis doc : ENT

Ear, nose and throat specialist (ENT)

The suffix “-itis” is used to denote inflammation, as in laryngitis (inflammation of the larynx), otitis (inflammation of the ear), tendinitis (inflammation of a tendon), tonsillitis (inflammation of the tonsils) and sinusitis (inflammation of the sinuses).

29 Relating to element 56 : BARIC

Barium is the chemical element with the atomic number 56, and the element symbol “Ba”.

36 Rom-com encounter : MEET-CUTE

“Meet-cute” is a term used since the 1930s or 1940s for a scene in a film or TV show in which a future couple have an amusing first encounter.

42 Pulsed, as lights in a light show : STROBED

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”.

46 Defiant retort : BITE ME!

“Bite me!” is one of those idiomatic expressions that I find quite distasteful. This one does indeed have raunchy and obscene origins and might be described as a minced oath. It developed as a less offensive form of a more pornographic insult.

47 Meme feline : LOLCAT

A lolcat is an image of a cat with a humorous message superimposed in text. Such images have been around since the late 1800s, but the term “lolcat” only surfaced in 2006 as the phenomenon was sweeping across the Internet. “Lolcat” is a melding of the acronym for “laugh out loud” (LOL) and “cat”.

48 Baltimore MLB player : ORIOLE

The Baltimore Orioles (also the O’s, the Birds) are one of the eight charter teams of MLB’s American League, so the franchise dates back to 1901. Prior to 1901, the team had roots in the Minor League Milwaukee Brewers, and indeed entered the American League as the Brewers. In 1902 the Brewers moved to St. Louis and became the Browns. The team didn’t fare well in St. Louis, so when it finally relocated to Baltimore in the early fifties the team changed its name completely, to the Baltimore Orioles. The owners so badly wanted a fresh start that they traded 17 old Browns players with the New York Yankees. The trade didn’t help the team’s performance on the field in those early days, but it did help distance the new team from its past.

49 Jazz trumpeter Marsalis : WYNTON

Wynton Marsalis is a trumpeter and composer. He holds the position of Artistic Director of Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City. In 1997, Marsalis became the first jazz musician to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music.

51 Syst. with hand gestures : ASL

It’s really quite unfortunate that American Sign Language (ASL) and British Sign Language (BSL) are very different, and someone who has learned to sign in one cannot understand someone signing in the other.

54 The __ of Avon : BARD

William Shakespeare is referred to as the Bard of Avon, as he was born and raised in the lovely town of Stratford-upon-Avon in the English Midlands.

59 Immense weight : TON

Here in the US, a ton is equivalent to 2,000 pounds. In the UK, a ton is 2,240 pounds. The UK unit is sometimes referred to as an Imperial ton, long ton or gross ton. Folks over there refer to the US ton then as a short ton. To further complicate matters, there is also a metric ton or tonne, which is equivalent to 2,204 pounds. Personally, I wish we’d just stick to kilograms …

60 Galentine’s Day destination, perhaps : SPA

“Galentine’s Day” is an unofficial holiday celebrated annually on February 13th, the day before Valentine’s Day. The holiday, a day for “ladies celebrating ladies”, originated as an episode of the hit sitcom “Parks and Recreation”.