LA Times Crossword 16 Dec 23, Saturday

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Constructed by: Ryan Patrick Smith
Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Theme: None

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

Bill’s time: 26m 09s

Bill’s errors: 2

• ORLAN (Orlap)
• NIECE (piece!!!)

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1 Like some windows : ONE-WAY

A one-way mirror is a mirror that reflects when viewed from one-side, but is transparent when viewed from the other. In order for a one-way mirror to work properly, one side of the mirror must be brightly lit, while the other side is dark. One-way mirrors are also known as two-way mirrors. I tried to work out which is the “correct” name, and just got a headache …

7 Notes app? : SHAZAM

The Shazam application is used to identify a piece of music as it is picked up by the microphone on which the app is installed.

13 Sotomayor alma mater : YALE LAW

Yale Law School was established in 1824. The school only admitted male applicants up until 1918, when it began accepting the first female students.

Sonia Sotomayor was the first Hispanic justice appointed to the US Supreme Court, and the third female justice. Sotomayor was nominated by President Barack Obama to replace the retiring Justice David Souter in 2009. She is the subject of a picture book in the series “Ordinary People Change the World” by Brad Meltzer. “I Am Sonia Sotomayor” was published in 2018.

15 Gap : LACUNA

A lacuna is a missing piece of text (or music) in a larger work. Usually the text has been lost due to damage of an older manuscript. Lacunae can be very controversial as experts vie with each other to suggest what words have been lost.

16 Wyo. has one : STATE REP

As a result of the 2020 census, the state with the largest delegation to the US House of Representatives is California, with 52 representatives. Six states have just one representative: Alaska, Delaware, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming.

18 GM system : ONSTAR

The OnStar system was developed as a joint venture between GM, EDS and Hughes. The product itself was launched in 1996. Today, OnStar is only available on GM cars, although it used to be offered on other makes of car through a licensing agreement. OnStar is a subscription service that packages vehicle security, telephone, satellite navigation and remote diagnostics.

23 Disney heroine whose sister is beguiled by 8-Down : ELSA
[8D See 23-Across : HANS]

“Frozen” is a 2013 animated feature from Walt Disney Studios that is based on the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale “The Snow Queen”. The film is all about the exploits of Princess Anna, the younger sister of Elsa, Snow Queen of Arendelle. Elsa was originally intended to be a villain, a malicious and power-hungry character. By the final version of the film, Elsa had transformed from a one-dimensional villain into a fully fleshed-out protagonist. Spoiler alert: Prince Hans of the Southern Isles seems to be a good guy for most of the film, but turns out to be a baddie in the end.

25 Texas MLBers : ‘STROS

The Houston baseball team changed its name to the Astros (sometimes “’Stros”) from the Colt .45s in 1965 when they started playing in the Astrodome. The Astrodome was so called in recognition of the city’s long association with the US space program. The Astros moved from the National League to the American League starting in the 2013 season.

27 Instagram feature since 2020 : REELS

Reels is a feature introduced by Instagram in 2020. Essentially, it is a feature that competes with TikTok.

29 Pedant’s preoccupation : NIT

A pedant is a person “who trumpets minor points of learning”, a person who tends to nit-pick. “Pedant” comes via Middle French from the Italian word “pedante” meaning “teacher”.

30 Small garden party? : GNOME

In English folklore, the fairy’s anti-hero is the diminutive gnome, an evil ugly character. Although the charastics of gnomes vary in folklore, typically they are described as diminutive humanoids who live underground. Over the centuries, the gnome has become more lovable. We now have garden gnomes, and even the Travelocity Gnome.

31 Subject with strange attractors : CHAOS THEORY

Chaos theory has been called the science of surprises, and directs us to expect the unexpected. A lot of science that we learn at school deals with predictable phenomena such as electricity, magnetism, gravity and chemical reactions. Chaos theory covers phenomena that are relatively impossible to predict such as weather, turbulence and the movement of the stock market.

36 Gambits : RUSES

A gambit is a chess opening that intrinsically involves the sacrifice of a piece (usually a pawn) with the intent of gaining an advantage. The term “gambit” was first used by the Spanish priest Ruy Lopez de Segura who took it from the Italian expression “dare il gambetto” meaning “to put a leg forward to trip someone”. Said priest gave his name to the common Ruy Lopez opening, which paradoxically is not a gambit in that there is no sacrifice. The chess term dates back to the mid-1600s. We’ve been using “gambit” more generally for any opening move designed to gain advantage since the mid-1800s.

37 Wane : EBB

The verbs “to wax” and “to wane” come from Old English. To wax is to increase gradually in size, strength, intensity or number. To wane is to decrease gradually.

38 Features of some classic coupes : T-TOPS

A T-top is a car roof that has removable panels on either side of a rigid bar that runs down the center of the vehicle above the driver.

The type of car known as a “coupe” or “coupé” is a closed automobile with two doors. The name comes from the French word “couper” meaning “to cut”. In most parts of the English-speaking world the pronunciation adheres to the original French, but here in most of North America we go with “coop”. The original coupé was a horse-drawn carriage that was cut (coupé) to eliminate the rear-facing passenger seats. That left just a driver and two front-facing passengers. If the driver was left without a roof and out in the open, then the carriage was known as a “coupé de-ville”.

43 French multimedia artist who refers to her work as “carnal art” : ORLAN

French multi-media artist Orlan is perhaps best known for pioneering what she calls “carnal art”. Between 1990 and 1993, she underwent several surgical procedures that she described as performances.

46 Voyage opener : BON …

“Bon voyage” translates literally from French into English as “good journey”.

49 Actress Tyler : LIV

Actress and model Liv Tyler is the daughter of Steven Tyler, lead singer with Aerosmith, and Bebe Buell, a celebrated model and singer. Apparently, Buell hid the fact that Tyler was Liv’s father until Liv was 8 years old. Buell wanted to insulate her child from the rock-and-roll lifestyle. Liv Tyler plays the Elf maiden Arwen Undómiel in Peter Jackson’s “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy.

54 Repetitive Black Eyed Peas hit : IMMA BE

“Imma Be” is a 2010 song co-written and recorded by the Black Eyed Peas. The song’s title is a slang term meaning “I am going to be”.

55 Moped kin : SCOOTER

The word “moped” was coined in 1952 by a Swedish journalist named Harald Nielsen. The term is a portmanteau of “motor” and “pedal”.

57 War reporters, often : EMBEDS

Although journalists have been directly reporting from the front lines in military conflicts for some time, the term “embedded journalism” only came into fashion during the 2003 Invasion of Iraq. A formal arrangement was made between the US Military and hundreds of reporters allowing journalists to travel with military units and, under pre-ordained conditions, report directly from those units. Some say that the arrangement was mutually beneficial. On the one hand the journalists had relatively little to worry about in terms of transportation and travel through combat zones. On the other hand, the military had better control over what did and did not get reported.

Down

1 Peacemaker po’boy morsel : OYSTER

One variant of the po’boy sandwich features both fried shrimp and fried oysters. That variant is known as a peacemaker (or “La Médiatrice” in French).

A po’ boy is a submarine sandwich from Louisiana. The name of the sandwich apparently dates back to 1929. It was a sandwich given away free to streetcar workers in New Orleans during a strike, i.e. to “poor boys” not earning a wage. A po’ boy differs from a regular submarine sandwich in that it uses Louisiana French bread, which is soft in the middle and crusty on the outside.

2 Celebrazione religiosa a dicembre : NATALE

In Italian, one “celebrazione religiosa a dicembre” (religious celebration in December) is “Natale” (Christmas).

5 Model Wek who was appointed a goodwill ambassador for UNHCR in 2013 : ALEK

Alek Wek is a supermodel originally from Southern Sudan. In her native language, Wek’s name translates as “Black Spotted Cow”, which is a symbol of good luck for the Dinka, her native people.

The UN agency tasked with aiding and protecting refugees is the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). It was created in 1950, initially in response to the refugee crisis resulting from World War II, and is headquartered in Geneva.

6 Longtime Toyota subcompact : YARIS

The Yaris is a subcompact car made by Toyota since 1999. The Yaris was sold into some markets from 1999 to 2005 as the Toyota Echo. The name “Yaris” was inspired by the Charites (singular “Charis”), the Greek goddesses of charm and beauty.

7 Mirage enticement : SLOTS

When the Mirage Hotel opened in Las Vegas in 1989, it was the most expensive hotel built in history, costing $630 million. The building has distinctive gold windows that were colored using real gold dust.

10 “Sacré bleu!” : ZUT ALORS!

“Zut alors!” is a relatively mild exclamation that translates from French as maybe “oh no!” or “oh dear!”. That said, I don’t think I’ve ever heard a Frenchman use the expression …

11 Gray area? : ANATOMY

“Gray’s Anatomy” is a very successful human anatomy textbook that was first published back in 1858 and is still in print today. The original text was written by English anatomist Henry Gray, who gave his name to the work. The TV medical drama “Grey’s Anatomy” (note “Grey” vs. Gray”) is centered on the character Dr. Meredith Grey, but the show’s title is a nod to the title of the famous textbook.

12 Role for Laura in 2019’s “Little Women” : MARMEE

The “Little Women” in Louisa May Alcott’s classic (1868) novel are all sisters. The names of the five main characters in the book are a mother and her four daughters:

• Margaret “Marmee” (the mother)
• Margaret “Meg”
• Josephine “Jo”
• Elizabeth “Beth”
• Amy Curtis

24 Mosques’ mihrabs, e.g. : ALCOVES

A mihrab (also “mehrab”) is a semicircular niche in an inside wall of a mosque. As such, it resembles an apse in a Christian church. However, a mihrab also indicated the direction of Mecca, and hence the direction the faithful should face when praying.

A minaret is an architectural feature of Islamic mosques, a tall tower with an onion-shaped crown that is used for the call to prayer. The world’s oldest minaret is part of the Great Mosque of Kairouan in Tunisia, having been completed in 836 CE. The term “minaret” comes from the Arabic for “lighthouse”.

32 Dossier letters : AKA

A dossier is a collection of papers with information about a person or subject. “Dossier” is a French term meaning “bundle of papers”.

39 Rock whose name means “egg stone” : OOLITE

Oolite is a sedimentary rock also called “egg stone”. Indeed, the term “oolite” comes from the Greek “ooion” meaning egg. The rocks are often round and white (hence the name) and are composed of calcium carbonate.

47 A’ja Wilson’s org. : WNBA

Professional basketball player A’ja Wilson was the first pick in the 2018 WNBA draft, after which she signed for the Las Vegas Aces. She won Olympic Gold at the 2020 Olympics, and captained the Aces in 2022 when the team won their first league championship title.

48 Ancient Dead Sea kingdom : EDOM

Edom is an ancient Iron Age kingdom located in the south of modern-day Jordan. The area is known for its red-colored sandstone, which gave the kingdom its name. According to the Bible, the Edomites were the descendants of Esau. “Edom” translates from Hebrew as “red”, and was the name given to Esau when he ate the “red pottage”.

The Middle East’s Dead Sea lies more than 1,400 feet below sea level, making it the lowest point on the Earth’s landmass. It is also one of the saltiest bodies of water in the world, with a salt content that is almost ten times that of most oceans.