LA Times Crossword 21 May 24, Tuesday

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Constructed by: Catherine Cetta
Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Reveal Answer: Standing O’s

Themed answers are all STAND in the down-direction. Each includes two sets of double-Os:

• 31D Enthusiastic audience reactions, and a feature of the answers to the starred clues : STANDING O’S

• 3D *Pasta-shaped colorful foam float : POOL NOODLE
• 9D *Totally chill : LOOSEY-GOOSEY
• 21D *Celebratory search engine logo : GOOGLE DOODLE
• 25D *”So awesome!” : TOO COOL!

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

Bill’s time: 5m 05s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

5 Played music at a dance club, say : DJ’ED

The world’s first radio disc jockey (DJ) was one Ray Newby of Stockton, California who made his debut broadcast in 1909, would you believe? When he was 16 years old and a student, Newby started to play his records on a primitive radio located in the Herrold College of Engineering and Wireless in San Jose. The records played back then were mostly recordings of Enrico Caruso.

9 Led Zeppelin’s “Whole __ Love” : LOTTA

“Whole Lotta Love” was a 1969 song that became Led Zeppelin’s first hit in the US. Some of the song’s lyrics were adapted from the Muddy Waters 1962 hit “You Need Love”, which was written by blues musician Willie Dixon. Led Zeppelin didn’t credit Dixon on their recording. A lawsuit ensued, which was settled in 1985.

14 “The Time Machine” race : ELOI

In the 1895 novella by H. G. Wells called “The Time Machine”, there are two races that the hero encounters in his travels into the future. The Eloi are the “beautiful people” who live on the planet’s surface. The Morlocks are a domineering race living underground who use the Eloi as food.

20 Triangle or quadrilateral : POLYGON

The suffix -gon comes from the Greek “gonia” meaning “angle, knee”. An octagon, for example, has eight angles, and a polygon has many angles.

26 Boomer’s kid, perhaps : XER

The term “Generation X” originated in the UK where it was the name of a book by Jane Deverson. Her book detailed the results of a study of British youths in 1964, contrasting their lifestyle to those of previous generations. It was Canadian author Douglas Coupland who was responsible for popularizing the term, with his more successful publication “Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture”. By one definition, Gen-Xers were born between 1961 and 1981.

29 Maker of Regenerist products : OLAY

Oil of Olay was developed in South Africa in 1952. When Oil of Olay was introduced internationally, it was given slightly different brand names designed to appeal in the different geographies. In Ireland we know it as Oil of Ulay, for example, and in France it is Oil of Olaz.

31 Bath tourist spot : SPA

Bath is a beautiful city in South West England of which I have very fond memories. It is an old Roman spa town, and the city’s name comes from the Roman baths that have been excavated and restored.

34 First __ equals : AMONG

The phrase “first among equals” is a translation of the Latin “primus inter pares”. The expression was used by Roman emperors to describe themselves, mitigating the appearance of dictatorship after the demise of the Roman Republic.

36 Pogo stick sound : BOING!

What we know today as a pogo stick was invented in Germany by Max Pohlig and Ernst Gottschall. The name “pogo” comes from the first two letters in each of the inventors’ family names: Po-hlig and Go-ttschall. The highest jump on a pogo stick was achieved by Fred Grzybowski in 2010. He jumped over three cars and reached a height of 9 feet, 6 inches.

37 Toy that resembles a gyroscope : TOP

A gyroscope is basically a spinning disc combined with a pair of gimbals. As a result, the rotating disc maintains its position regardless of the movement of the surrounding structure. The first known gyroscopic device was invented by English sea captain John Serson, who used it to create an artificial horizon that held its position on a moving ship. French physicist Léon Foucault created his own gyroscope in a followup to his pendulum experiment that demonstrated the rotation of the Earth. It was Foucault who coined the term “gyroscope”, from the Greek “gyros” meaning “circle” and “skopos” meaning “watcher”.

38 Rafael who is one of tennis’s “Big Three” : NADAL

The so-called “Big Three” of men’s professional tennis are:

• Novak Djokovic
• Roger Federer
• Rafael Nadal

39 Healthcare.gov law, for short : ACA

The correct name for what has been dubbed “Obamacare” is the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” (ACA).

40 Chi-town airport : O’HARE

Lieutenant Commander Edward “Butch” O’Hare was the US Navy’s first flying ace and a Medal of Honor recipient in WWII. He received that medal for intercepting single-handedly nine heavy bombers that were approaching his aircraft carrier. He had limited ammunition at the time, but used what was left to shoot down five bombers and damage a sixth. The following year, in 1943, his aircraft was shot down while he led the first ever nighttime fighter attack from a carrier. His body was never found. The USS O’Hare destroyer was named in his honor, as was Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport.

46 World Cup cheer : OLE!

The FIFA World Cup is the most prestigious tournament in the sport of soccer. The competition has been held every four years (excluding the WWII years) since the inaugural event held in Uruguay in 1930. The men’s World Cup is the most widely viewed sporting event in the world, even outranking the Olympic Games. And, the women’s World Cup is fast catching up …

47 Wonderland bird : DODO

The Dodo is a character who appears early in Lewis Carroll’s novel “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”. It is thought that the Dodo is a caricature of the author himself, as both author and character have a stutter.

48 Abbr. on a company sign : ESTD

Established (“est.” or “estd.”)

50 “My only __ sprung from my only hate!”: Juliet : LOVE

Here are some lines from William Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet”:

My only love sprung from my only hate!
Too early seen unknown, and known too late!
Prodigious birth of love it is to me
That I must love a loathèd enemy.

Juliet has fallen in love with Romeo, her “only love”. Ironically, Romeo is from the Montague clan that her family detests (her “only hate”).

55 Church deliveries : SERMONS

Our word “sermon” comes from the Latin “sermonem” meaning “discourse, talk”. The literal translation of “sermonem” is “a stringing together of words”, from the Latin “serere” meaning “to join”, as in the related word “series”.

59 Artist with the 2024 album “Cowboy Carter” : BEYONCE

“Cowboy Carter” is a 2024 album released by Beyoncé. Also titled “Act II: Cowboy Carter”, it is the second in a trilogy of albums that started with 2022’s “Act I: Renaissance”. Several artists make guest appearances on “Cowboy Carter”, including Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton and Miley Cyrus.

61 Slowpoke’s opposite : SPEED DEMON

Back in the early 1800s, a “poke” was a device attached to domestic animals such as pigs or sheep to keep them from escaping their enclosures. The poke was like a yoke with a pole, and slowed the animal down, hence the term “slowpoke”.

63 Petri dish gelatin : AGAR

Julius Richard Petri was a German bacteriologist and was the man after whom the Petri dish is named. The petri dish can have an agar gel on the bottom which acts as a nutrient source for the specimen being grown and studied, in which case the dish plus agar is referred to as an “agar plate”.

66 Answering system limbo : HOLD

In the Roman Catholic tradition, “Limbo” is a place where souls can remain who cannot enter heaven. For example, infants who have not been baptized are said to reside in Limbo. Limbo is said to be located on the border of Hell. The name was chosen during the Middle Ages from the Latin “limbo” meaning “ornamental border to a fringe”. We use the phrase “in limbo” in contemporary English to mean “in a state of uncertainty”.

67 Clotted cream accompaniment : SCONE

Clotted cream is a product associated with the southwest of England. It is thick cream prepared by heating rich cow’s milk and allowing it to cool and “clot”. The clots are collected, and sold as “clotted cream”. If you ever order a “cream tea” in England, you’ll get scones, jam and clotted cream. Delicious …

Down

1 Cuts with a sickle : REAPS

Sickles and scythes are similar tools that are used for reaping crops. A sickle has a short handle, forcing the user to stoop down. A scythe has a long handle, allowing it to be used while standing erect.

2 Singers between sopranos and tenors : ALTOS

The voice types soprano, alto, tenor and bass can be abbreviated to the initialism “SATB”.

6 Denim pants : JEANS

Denim fabric originated in Nîmes in France. The French phrase “de Nîmes” (meaning “from Nîmes”) gives us the word “denim”. Also, the French phrase “bleu de Genes” (meaning “blue of Genoa”) gives us our word “jeans”.

7 Rocky Mountain National Park grazer : ELK

Rocky Mountain National Park was established back in 1915. It covers over 250,000 square miles of federal land in Colorado, between the towns of Estes Park to the east and Grand Lake to the west. The Continental Divide bisects the park, running in the north-south direction. Rocky Mountain NP gets a lot of visitors, and routinely ranks as one of the top five most popular of our national parks.

10 Aquatic mammal : OTTER

Sea otters actually hold hands while sleeping on their backs so that they don’t drift apart. When sea otter pups are too small to lock hands, they clamber up onto their mother’s belly and nap there.

13 Boats like Noah’s : ARKS

According to the Bible’s Book of Genesis, Noah was instructed to build his ark 300 cubits long, 50 cubits wide and 30 cubits high. That’s about 450 feet long, 75 feet wide and 45 feet high.

19 Austinite, e.g. : TEXAN

Austin is the capital of the state of Texas. When the area was chosen to be the capital of the Republic of Texas, it was known as Waterloo. The name was changed in honor of Stephen F. Austin, a native of Virginia who was raised in Missouri and led the first successful colonization of Texas.

21 *Celebratory search engine logo : GOOGLE DOODLE

Google Doodles are temporary alterations to the standard logo on the Google homepage that are used to commemorate a special day or event. There are also Doodle 4 Google competitions in which school students create their own Google Doodles, with the winner’s entry going live on the Google homepage for 24 hours.

28 Personal code? : DNA

I’ve always been fascinated by the fact that the DNA of living things is so very similar across different species. Human DNA is almost exactly the same for every individual (to the degree of 99.9%). However, those small differences are sufficient to distinguish one individual from another, and to determine whether or not individuals are close family relatives.

31 Enthusiastic audience reactions, and a feature of the answers to the starred clues : STANDING O’S

Give ’em a big hand, maybe even a standing “O”, a standing ovation.

32 Chorizo meat : PORK

Chorizo is a type of pork sausage that is made with different recipes around the world. The term “chorizo” originated in the Iberian Peninsula.

33 “Planet of the __” : APES

The “Planet of the Apes” franchise of films is based on a French novel by Pierre Boulle called “La Planète des singes”. The book was published in English as “Monkey Planet”, but was re-released as “Planet of the Apes” when Hollywood had made its choice for a movie title.

34 __ Domini : ANNO

The Latin word for year is “annus” (plural “anni”). We often see it used in Latin phrases, but usually with a different spelling. In “anno Domini”, the “anno” is the ablative case of “annus” as the phrase means “in the year of the Lord”. Another example is “per annum”, in which “annum” is the accusative case as the literal translation of the phrase is “during the year”.

35 Pigeonhole filler : MAIL

Back in the 16th century, a pigeonhole was a small recess used by pigeons for nesting. Towards the end of the 17th century, the term “pigeonholes” had been borrowed to describe compartments at the back of a writing desk. Two hundred years later, we were using the verb “pigeonhole” figuratively, to mean “label mentally”.

44 18 holes of golf, typically : ROUND

There’s an urban myth that the standard number of holes on a golf course is 18 because it takes 18 shots to polish off a fifth of scotch whisky. However, the truth is that the standard number of holes in the Old Course at St. Andrews in Scotland happened to settle down over time at 18, and that standard was adopted all around the world.

51 Double-reed woodwinds : OBOES

A double-reed instrument is one in which two pieces of cane vibrate against each other to produce sound. In a single-reed instrument, just one piece of cane vibrates the mouthpiece. The best-known examples of double-reed instruments are the oboe and the bassoon.

54 Giraffe groups : HERDS

The giraffe is the tallest terrestrial animal on the planet. Its main source of food is acacia leaves that they eat from high, high up in trees, where other herbivores cannot reach.

55 Phased-out jets : SSTS

The most famous supersonic transport (SST) is the retired Concorde. Concorde was developed and produced under an Anglo-French treaty by France’s Aérospatiale and the UK’s British Aircraft Corporation (BAC). Concordes were mainly operated by Air France and British Airways, with both companies buying the planes with substantial subsidies from the French and British governments. The final Concorde flight was a British Airways plane that landed in the UK on 26 November 2003.

60 Banzai Pipeline island : OAHU

The Banzai Pipeline is an area where the waves start to break off Ehukai Beach on Oahu’s North Shore. The spot was given its name in 1961 by a movie producer filming surfers. At that time there was an underground pipeline being constructed nearby, so the producer named the surf reef break “Pipeline”. The “Banzai” was added to the name in honor of Banzai Beach, where the waves come ashore.

62 Rendezvoused : MET

A rendezvous is a meeting. The noun used in English comes from the French phrase “rendez vous” meaning “present yourselves”.