LA Times Crossword 29 Nov 23, Wednesday

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Constructed by: Jeanne D. Breen
Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Reveal Answer: All Kidding Aside

Themed answers ALL include a synonym of “KID” as a hidden word at one SIDE:

• 38A “But seriously,” and an apt description of the answers to the starred clues : ALL KIDDING ASIDE

• 17A *Collection for an afternoon party : TEA SERVICE (hiding “TEASE”)
• 26A *Subject of many June parades : GAY PRIDE (hiding “RIDE”)
• 49A *Bed in a nursery : BABY CRIB (hiding “RIB”)
• 59A *Desert plant on the back cover of a U2 album : JOSHUA TREE (hiding “JOSH”)

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

Bill’s time: 7m 09s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

14 Poet/activist Lorde : AUDRE

Audre Lorde was an American feminist author and civil rights activist who spent many years in Germany. She held a visiting professorship at the Free University of Berlin, and while holding that position became a leading light in the Afro-German movement.

15 Leather stickers : AWLS

An awl is a pointed tool used for marking a surface or for piercing small holes. The earliest awls were used to pierce ears, apparently. The tool then became very much associated with shoemakers.

20 “Malo” opposite : BUENO

In Spanish, something might be “bueno” (good) or “malo” (bad).

26 *Subject of many June parades : GAY PRIDE (hiding “RIDE”)

The first gay pride parades were held all on the same weekend in 1970, in New York City, Los Angeles and San Francisco.

28 Disneyland city : ANAHEIM

The California city of Anaheim is famous as home to the Disneyland resort. Prior to Disneyland opening in 1955, Anaheim was largely an agricultural community. It had been founded in 1857 by a group of German-Americans who were looking for an area suitable for growing grapes. The name “Anaheim” comes from “Ana”, referring to the nearby Santa Ana River, and from “Heim”, a German word meaning “home”.

30 Unwelcome picnic visitor : ANT

Our term “picnic” comes from the French word that now has the same meaning, namely “pique-nique”. The original “pique-nique” was a fashionable potluck affair, and not necessarily held outdoors.

31 Classic clown name : BOBO

“Bobo the Clown” was the stage name of Chester Barnett who worked the circus circuit from the 1920s to the 1970s. Barnett gave himself the nickname “Bobo” when he was a child, using it for a persona that he adopted when he ran around the house wearing a paper bag on his head, with two holes cut to allow him to see.

35 Director Luhrmann : BAZ

Baz Luhrmann is a film director from Australia best known for the hit films “Strictly Ballroom” (1992) and “Moulin Rouge!” (2001). He also directed the epic movies “Australia” (2008) starring Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman, and “The Great Gatsby” (2013) starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire.

42 Issa of “Insecure” : RAE

“Insecure” is a comedy-drama TV show that premiered in 2016. It is co-written by and stars Issa Rae, who also created the comedy web series “Awkward Black Girl” on which “Insecure” is based.

44 Jerseys and Guernseys : COWS

Jersey cattle were bred originally on the island of Jersey in the Channel Islands, off the coast of France. If you’ve seen Elsie the Cow, the mascot of Borden in the US, then you’ve seen a Jersey cow.

Guernsey cattle were bred originally on the island of Guernsey in the Channel Islands, off the coast of France. There are three Channel Island breeds of cattle, each named for one of the islands. The other two are Jersey and Alderney.

46 Place to practice asanas : YOGA MAT

“Asana” is a Sanskrit word that translates literally as “sitting down”. The asanas are the poses that a practitioner of yoga assumes. The most famous is the lotus position, the cross-legged pose called “padmasana”.

49 *Bed in a nursery : BABY CRIB (hiding “RIB”)

In Old English, the word “cribbe” applied to a manger, an open box holding fodder for livestock. Probably because of the association of a manger used as a bed for the infant Jesus, the word “crib” came to describe an enclosed bed for a child.

54 Major route : ARTERY

Arteries are vessels that carry blood away from the heart, and veins are vessels carrying blood to the heart.

56 Secret stash : CACHE

A cache is a secret supply. We imported the term “cache” into English from French-Canadian trappers in the 17th century. Back then, “cache” was slang for “hiding place for stores”, derived from the French verb “cacher” meaning “to hide”.

58 “Collapsed in Sunbeams” singer Parks : ARLO

“Arlo Parks” is the stage name of British singer and poet Anaïs Marinho. Parks seems to have hit the big time early in her career, with her first studio album “Collapsed in Sunbeams” (2021) garnering a lot of positive attention.

59 *Desert plant on the back cover of a U2 album : JOSHUA TREE (hiding “JOSH”)

“Joshua tree” is the common name for the plant species more correctly called Yucca brevifolia. One of the best places to see Joshua trees is in the beautiful Joshua Tree National Park in Southern California. The plant was named by Mormon settlers crossing the Mojave Desert in the mid-1800s. The name was chosen as the shape of the tree reminded the settlers of Joshua reaching his hands to the sky in prayer.

“The Joshua Tree” is a 1987 album by Irish band U2 that really propelled the band into the realm of superstars. The album spawned three hit singles: “With or Without You”, “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” and “Where the Streets Have No Name”.

64 AnnaSophia of “Little Fires Everywhere” : ROBB

Actress AnnaSophia Robb portrayed the lead character, Carrie Bradshaw in “The Carrie Diaries”, a prequel series to “Sex and the City”. On the big screen, she played Violet Beauregarde in the 2005 Tim Burton film “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”.

“Little Fires Everywhere” is an 8-episode miniseries that first aired in 2020. It is based on a 2017 novel of the same name by Celeste Ng. Reese Witherspoon is the big name in the cast, and she plays a picture-perfect mother of four teenagers. Kerry Washington plays an artist and part-time waitress who lives in her car with her daughter.

69 Sing “The Lonely Goatherd,” say : YODEL

“The Lonely Goatherd” is a song from the musical “The Sound of Music” by Rodgers and Hammerstein. In the original 1959 stage show. Maria sings the song to comfort the Von Trapp children during a storm. In the 1065 film adaptation, Maria sings the song with the children, as part of a puppet show put on for the children’s father.

Down

1 Cindy Clawford of “Ted Lasso,” for one : CAT

“Ted Lasso” is a marvelous sports-comedy TV show about an American college football coach who moves to the UK to manage an English soccer team. The title character is played very admirably by Jason Sudeikis. Sudeikis first played Lasso in a series of TV commercials commissioned to promote NBC’s coverage of the British Premier League. The character became so popular that he inspired a whole TV series. Great stuff, and highly recommended …

3 Princess in the Monument Valley video game : IDA

Monument Valley is a computer game that was released in 2014. It was very successful, and was named the best game for the iPad that first year. It is a little unusual in the pantheon of computer game hits in that it was developed not by the big gaming companies, but rather by the relatively small London-based studio called Ustwo.

7 Big Band style : SWING

The swing style of dance was developed to accompany the swing style of jazz music that became particularly popular in the swing era (1933-1947). Examples of swing dances that persist to this day are the Lindy hop and Charleston.

8 Metal giant : ALCOA

The Aluminum Corporation of America (ALCOA) is the largest producer of aluminum in the United States. The company was founded in 1888 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where its headquarters are to this day.

11 Arcade pioneer : ATARI

Atari was founded in 1972, and was one of the pioneers in the video game industry. One of the company’s early employees was Steve Jobs, who was hired to work on the game design for the arcade game “Breakout”. Jobs was tasked with reducing the number of chips needed for the game and he recruited his friend, Steve Wozniak, to help with the project. Wozniak designed a circuit board that used only 46 chips, a significant improvement over the original design that had over 100 chips.

13 Gothenburg native : SWEDE

Gothenburg is Sweden’s second-largest city, and is located on the west coast of the country. It was founded in 1621, primarily as a port for trading with the Dutch. Today, the Port of Gothenburg is the largest port in the Nordic countries.

18 Persian poet who wrote the “Spiritual Couplets” : RUMI

Rumi was a poet, theologian and mystic who lived and worked in the 13th century, towards the end of the Islamic Golden Age. HIs best known work is a six-volume poem titled “Spiritual Couplets” in English, which is sometimes referred to as “the Quran in Persian”.

21 Sleep malady : APNEA

Sleep apnea (“apnoea” in British English) can be caused by an obstruction in the airways, possibly due to obesity or enlarged tonsils.

22 Kid-lit elephant : BABAR

“Babar the Elephant” originated in France, a creation of Jean de Brunhoff in 1931. The first book was “Histoire de Babar”, a book so successful it was translated into English two years later for publication in Britain and the US. Jean de Brunhoff wrote six more Babar stories before he died in 1937, and then his son Laurent continued his father’s work.

23 Sherlock’s sister in a book series by Nancy Springer : ENOLA

“The Enola Holmes Mysteries” is a series of detective novels for young adults by American author Nancy Springer. The title character is the 14-year-old sister of 34-year-old Sherlock Holmes, the detective created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Springer’s novels were adapted into a 2020 film “Enola Holmes” that Netflix picked up at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. I saw this one, and the sequel, and enjoyed both …

27 Bowen of “SNL” : YANG

Bowen Yang is an actor and comedian who joined the cast of “Saturday Night Live” in 2019, after working for a year with the show’s writing staff. When Yank became a cast member, he was the first Chinese-American to appear regularly on SNL.

29 Emmy-winning journalist Roger : MUDD

After a career with CBS and NBC, Roger Mudd was more recently an anchor for the History Channel. Mudd is perhaps best known for his 1979 interview with Senator Edward Kennedy. Ted Kennedy’s lackluster responses to some of Mudd’s questions were cited as the reason support plummeted for the senator’s 1980 Presidential nomination.

37 Piquant : ZESTY

Something that is piquant is pleasantly sharp in taste and zesty. “Piquant” is the French word for “prickly”.

39 Apples that come in seven colors : IMACS

The iMac is a desktop computer platform that Apple introduced in 1998. One of the main features of the iMac is an “all-in-one” design, with the computer console and monitor integrated. The iMac also came in a range of colors that Apple marketed as “flavors”, such as strawberry, blueberry and lime.

41 Sing like Ella : SCAT

Ella Fitzgerald, the “First Lady of Song”, made her real stage debut at the Apollo Theater in Harlem on Amatuer Night when she was just 17 years old. She had intended to perform a dance routine, but decided to sing instead after seeing a superior dance act. She won the Amatuer Night competition.

45 Hall of Famer known as the “Georgia Peach” : TY COBB

Baseball player Ty Cobb was born in Narrows, Georgia and died 74 years later in Atlanta, Georgia. He was nicknamed “The Georgia Peach”. Cobb was one of the richest baseball players of all time. When he retired, Cobb was a major stockholder of the Coca-Cola Corporation. By the time he passed away in 1961, Cobb had an even bigger investment in General Electric. He left an estate after his death worth about $86m (in 2008 dollars). The most common nickname associated with Cobb during his career was “the Georgia Peach”.

47 Waimea Bay island : OAHU

Waimea Bay is located on the north shore of Oahu in the Hawaiian Islands.

48 __ spoon : GREASY

“Greasy spoon” is a familiar term describing a restaurant, usually a diner, that is less than pristine and that serves cheap food.

50 Garment that may say “World’s Okayest Cook” : APRON

In Old French, a “naperon” was a “small table-cloth”. The term was absorbed into English as “napron”, describing a cloth used to cover the front of a person at work. Over time, “a napron” was heard as “an apron”, giving us our contemporary noun “apron”.

51 Baggins of Bag End : BILBO

Bilbo Baggins is the main character in J. R. R. Tolkien’s fantasy novel “The Hobbit”, and a supporting character in “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy.

53 Verb in cooking or sewing instructions : BASTE

To baste is to sew loosely, just holding a join in a fabric together temporarily using large running stitches.

59 MLK Day’s mo. : JAN

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is a US Federal holiday taking place on the third Monday of each year. It celebrates the birthday of Dr. King, and was signed into law by President Reagan in 1983, and first observed in 1986. However, some states resisted naming the holiday MLK Day, and gave it alternative names (like “Civil Rights Day”). It was officially celebrated as MLK Day in all 50 states from the year 2000 onwards.

61 Divining tool : ROD

Dowsing is the practice of divining, not just for water but also for buried metals and gemstones. Often a dowser will use a Y-shaped or L-shaped rod as a tool, which can also be called a dowser. Here in the US, the tool used might be referred to as a “witching rod”, as it is usually made from witch-hazel.

63 Rainbow roll fish : EEL

In Japanese cuisine, the rainbow roll is an example of “uramaki” (inside-out roll). Uramaki is rolled sushi in which the rice is on the outside of the “nori” (seaweed). Rainbow rolls are then topped with different colors of sushi, and laid out on the plate in a rainbow-like array. Those topping are usually thinly sliced maguro (tuna), hamachi (yellowtail), ebi (shrimp) and avocado.