LA Times Crossword 9 Nov 23, Thursday

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Constructed by: Alexander Liebeskind
Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Reveal Answer: Tripoli

Themed answers each contain a TRIPLET of “E” sounds:

• 37A Capital of Libya, and a phonetic hint to a feature of this puzzle’s four longest answers : TRIPOLI

17A “Almost done!” : BE READY IN A JIFFY!

23A Command attributed to Captain Kirk : BEAM ME UP, SCOTTY

51A Cat call? : HERE KITTY KITTY!

59A 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, and so on : FIBONACCI SERIES

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

Bill’s time: 7m 12s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

6 Taj Mahal builder __ Jahan : SHAH

The Taj Mahal in Agra, India is a magnificent marble mausoleum. It was built in the mid-17th century by the fifth Mughal emperor Shah Jahan to house the tomb of his favorite wife Mumtaz Mahal, who died while giving birth to her 14th child in 1631. When Shah Jahan himself died in 1666, he was buried in the Taj Mahal, alongside his wife.

10 Balkan native : SERB

Serbs are an ethnic group native to the Balkans in southeastern Europe. Although Serbs exist as a minority group in many countries in the region, they are the majority ethnic group in Serbia, in Montenegro and in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

15 “Citizen __” : KANE

1941’s “Citizen Kane” was the first film made by Orson Welles, and is considered by many to be the finest movie ever made. It’s a remarkable achievement by Wells, as he played the lead and also produced and directed. Despite all the accolades for “Citizen Kane” over the decades, the movie was far from a commercial success in its early run and actually lost money at the box office.

17 “Almost done!” : BE READY IN A JIFFY!

“Jiff”, or “jiffy”, meaning “short time, instant” is thought originally to be thieves’ slang for “lightning”.

20 Homer’s neighbor : NED

Ned Flanders lives next door to Homer Simpson on TV’s “The Simpsons”. Ned was married to Maude, with whom he had two children Rod and Todd. Maude died in an accident involving a T-shirt cannon. Ned is voiced by actor Harry Shearer, and has been around since the very first episode aired in 1989.

23 Command attributed to Captain Kirk : BEAM ME UP, SCOTTY

The catchphrase “Beam me up, Scotty” has its origins in the TV show “Star Trek”. Supposedly, it is a line that was often spoken by Captain Kirk to the Starship Enterprise’s Chief Engineer Mr. Scott. All that said, the line was never ever spoken on the show, nor in any of the spinoff movies.

30 Image on the Connecticut state quarter : OAK TREE

The oak is the state tree of several US states:

• Oak tree: Iowa
• Northern red oak: New Jersey
• White oak: Connecticut, Illinois and Maryland
• Live oak: Georgia

The American quarter is a little unusual in the world of decimal currency, if you think about it. Most currencies have a “20-cent” coin, which is easier to work with mathematically. The US went for the quarter in deference to the practice of dividing Spanish Milled Dollars into eight wedge-shaped “bits”. That’s also why the quarter is sometimes referred to as “two bits”. We’ve been using the adjective “two-bit” to mean “cheap, tawdry” at least since 1929. State quarters were introduced in 1999.

34 New Haven collegian : ELI

The city of New Haven, Connecticut was founded in 1638 by Puritan immigrants from England. Famously, it is home to Yale University. The city also initiated the first public tree planting program in the country. The large elms included in the program led to New Haven being called “the Elm City”.

37 Capital of Libya, and a phonetic hint to a feature of this puzzle’s four longest answers : TRIPOLI

Tripoli is the capital city of Libya and sits on the Mediterranean Coast. The city was founded by the Phoenicians in the 7th century BC and was originally called Oea.

42 In __ parentis : LOCO

The Latin phrase “in loco parentis” translates as “in the place of a parent”. We use the term in the law when referring to a person or organization that takes on some of the responsibilities of a parent.

44 Megan Rapinoe’s team: Abbr. : USA

Megan Rapinoe is a professional soccer player and a star on the US national team. One of Rapinoe’s many claims to fame is that she is the only player, male or female, to score a goal directly from a corner kick in an Olympic Games.

47 Destructive wave : TSUNAMI

Even though the terms “tidal wave” and “tsunami” are often used interchangeably by the lay person, scientists use the terms to describe two related but different phenomena. A tsunami is an ocean wave triggered by the large displacement of water caused by a large earthquake (usually). A tidal wave is a wave triggered by the displacement of water under the gravitational influence of the Sun, Moon and Earth.

49 “Ideas worth spreading” offshoot : TEDX

The acronym “TED” stands for “Technology, Entertainment and Design”. TED is a set of conferences held around the world by a non-profit group called the Sapling Foundation. The conference subjects are varied, and the meetings are often led by big names such as Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Bill Gates and Jane Goodall. The Sapling Foundation then makes recordings of the conferences available for free online with the intent of disseminating the ideas globally. These conferences are known as “TED Talks”. There are also TEDx events, which are locally-run talks presented under license from TED.

55 Bronze element : TIN

Brass is an alloy of copper and zinc. Compare this with bronze, an alloy of copper and tin. Brass and bronze are often mistaken for each other.

57 Narrow inlet : RIA

A drowned valley might be called a ria or a fjord, and both are formed as sea levels rise. A ria is a drowned valley created by river erosion, and a fjord is a drowned valley created by glaciation.

59 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, and so on : FIBONACCI SERIES

Leonardo of Pisa was a famous and respected Italian mathematician, also known as simply “Fibonacci”. He is remembered for writing about a number sequence (although he didn’t “discover” it) that later was given the name “Fibonacci sequence”. He wrote about the series of numbers in his book called “Liber Abaci”, a celebrated work that introduced Arabic numerals (i.e. 0-9) to the Western world.

65 Art hub in New Mexico : TAOS

The town of Taos, New Mexico is named for the Native American village nearby called Taos Pueblo. Taos is famous for its art colony. Artists began settling in Taos in 1899, and the Taos Society of Artists was founded in 1915.

66 Larger relatives of violas : CELLI

The word “cello” (plural “celli” or “cellos”) is an abbreviation for “violoncello”, an Italian word for “little violone”, referring to a group of stringed instruments that were popular up to the end of the 17th century. The name violoncello persisted for the instrument that we know today, although the abbreviation “‘cello” was often used. Nowadays, we just drop the apostrophe.

67 “Othello” plotter : IAGO

Iago is the schemer in Shakespeare’s “Othello”. He is a soldier who fought alongside Othello and feels hard done by, missing out on promotion. Iago hatches a plot designed to discredit his rival Cassio by insinuating that Cassio is having an affair with Desdemona, Othello’s wife.

68 “While” prefix : ERST-

“Erst” is an archaic way of saying “formerly, before the present time”. The term is mostly seen as part of the word “erstwhile”, an adjective meaning “of times past”.

69 Swinton in many Wes Anderson films : TILDA

Tilda Swinton is an English actress who is quite famous in her native land. She made a big name for herself outside the UK when she played the “baddie” in the 2007 movie “Michael Clayton”, opposite the “goodie” played by George Clooney.

Down

1 Copyright page ID : ISBN

The International Standard Book Number (ISBN) was invented by one Gordon Foster who was a professor at Trinity College Dublin in Ireland. The code was originally developed for booksellers, so that they had a unique number (and now a barcode) for each publication. ISBNs are ten digits long if assigned before 2007. Since the start of 2007, ISBNs have been thirteen digits long.

The term “copyright” really derives from the concept of giving another party the “right to copy”. Usually “copyright” gives the holder the power to financially benefit from any copies made. Copyright was invented in essence soon after the development of the printing press, with the first legal statutes put in place in Britain in the early 18th century.

2 Nerdy type : DWEEB

“Dweeb” is relatively recent American slang that came out of college life in the late sixties. Dweeb, squarepants, nerd; they’re all not-nice terms that mean the same thing, i.e. someone excessively studious and socially inept.

3 “Sister Outsider” writer Audre : LORDE

“Sister Outsider” is a 1984 collection of essays and speeches by writer and civil rights activist Audre Lorde. The contents challenge a broad range of prejudices, including sexism, racism, ageism, homophobia, and classism.

6 Rogue artificial intelligence system in “The Terminator” : SKYNET

I sometimes forget that “the terminator” wasn’t the main character in the first “The Terminator” film. The story revolves around Kyle Reese (played by Michael Biehn). Reese is sent back from the future to protect Sarah Connor (played by Linda Hamilton) from the Terminator (played by Arnold Schwarzenegger).

7 17-syllable work : HAIKU

A haiku is a very elegant form of Japanese verse. When writing a haiku in English we tend to impose the rule that the verse must contain 17 syllables. This restriction comes from the rule in Japanese that the verse must contain 17 sound units called “moras”, but moras and syllables aren’t the same thing. Sadly, the difference is not so clear to me. Here’s an example of a Haiku:

Haikus are easy
But sometimes they don’t make sense
Refrigerator

8 __ Arbor, Michigan : ANN

Ann Arbor, Michigan was founded in 1824 by John Allen and Elisha Rumsey. Supposedly, Allen and Rumsey originally used the name “Annsarbour” in recognition of stands of bur oak that were on the land they had purchased and in recognition of their wives, both of whom were called “Ann” (i.e. Anns’ Arbor)

9 Attachment at the front of a sloop, e.g. : HEADSAIL

Sloops and cutters are sailboats, and each has just one mast. One major difference between the two types of vessel is that the mast on a cutter is set much further aft than the mast on a sloop.

10 Taps : SPIGOTS

Back in the 15th century, a spigot was specifically a plug to stop a hole in a cask. Somewhere along the way, a spigot had a valve added for variable control of flow.

12 Soccer official : REF

Soccer (also known as “association football”) is the most popular sport in the world. The term “association football” was introduced in 1863 in England, with the name chosen to distinguish the sport from rugby football. The term “soccer” started to appear about 20 years later in Oxford, as an abbreviation for “association”.

18 Coin with a torch : DIME

The term “dime”, used for a 10-cent coin, comes from the Old French word “disme” meaning “tenth part”.

25 Sport played on horseback : POLO

A game of polo is divided into periods of play called chukkers (sometimes “chukkas”). The game usually lasts for two hours, plus the time between the chukkers that is used to change horses.

27 Lukewarm : TEPID

The obsolete adjective “luke” meant “tepid, moderately warm”. Said adjective used to exist in words like “luke-hot” and “luke-hearted”, but now only survives in the word “luke-warm” (usually “lukewarm”). So, I guess “lukewarm” means “tepidly tepid” …

38 Dwell (on) : RUMINATE

Ruminants are animals that “chew the cud”. Ruminants eat vegetable matter but cannot extract any nutritional value from cellulose without the help of microbes in the gut. Ruminants collect roughage in the first part of the alimentary canal, allowing microbes to work on it. The partially digested material (the cud) is regurgitated into the mouth so that the ruminant can chew the food more completely, exposing more surface area for microbes to do their work. We also use the verb “to ruminate” in a figurative sense, to mean “to muse, ponder, chew over”.

53 Sing like a bird : TRILL

In music a “trill” is the rapid alternation of two tones that are very close to each other to make a vibrato sound.

59 “Criminal Minds” org. : FBI

“Criminal Minds” is a police drama that has aired on CBS since 2005. The stories revolve around the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit in Quantico, Virginia.

60 Nest egg letters : IRA

A nest egg is an amount of money laid down as a reserve. This is the figurative use of “nest egg” that originally described an artificial egg left in a nest to encourage a hen to lay real eggs in that spot. So our financial nest egg is set aside in anticipation of continued growth, more eggs being laid.

63 Camping apparel retailer : REI

REI is a sporting goods store, with the initialism standing for Recreational Equipment Inc. REI was founded in Seattle by Lloyd and Mary Anderson in 1938 as a cooperative that supplies quality climbing gear to outdoor enthusiasts. The first full-time employee hired by the Andersons was Jim Whittaker, who was the first American to climb Mount Everest.

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