LA Times Crossword 22 Jul 24, Monday

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Constructed by: Dan Caprera
Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Reveal Answer: Build-A-Bear

Themed answers include letters that collectively BUILD to “BEAR” as we descend the grid:

• 18A Common key in big band music : B-FLAT MAJOR
• 26A “Stop futzing with that!” : LEAVE IT BE!
• 48A Actress who played Dorothy Zbornak on “The Golden Girls” : BEA ARTHUR
• 60A “The Stuff You Love” toy company, and what this puzzle’s circled letters do : BUILD-A-BEAR

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

Bill’s time: 6m 04s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

16 Eastern priest : LAMA

“Lama” is a Tibetan word meaning “chief, high priest”.

22 Catholic prayer beads : ROSARY

The rosary is a set of prayer beads used in the Roman Catholic tradition. The name “rosary” comes from the Latin “rosarium”, the word for a “rose garden” or a “garland of roses”. The term is used figuratively, in the sense of a “garden of prayers”.

23 Historic space station : MIR

Russia’s Mir space station was a remarkably successful project. It held the record for the longest continuous human presence in space at just under 10 years, until the International Space Station eclipsed that record in 2010. Towards the end of the space station’s life however, the years began to take their toll. There was a dangerous fire, multiple system failures, and a collision with a resupply ship. The Russian commitment to the International Space Station drained funds for repairs, so Mir was allowed to reenter the Earth’s atmosphere and burn up in 2001. “Mir” is a Russian word meaning “peace” or “world”.

26 “Stop futzing with that!” : LEAVE IT BE!

To futz around is to waste time on trivial matters, to fool around. “Futz” is probably derived from a “not-so-nice” word that has been merged with “putz”.

34 Cleveland’s lake : ERIE

Cleveland, Ohio was named after the man who led the team that surveyed the area prior to the founding of the city. General Moses Cleaveland did his work in 1796 and then left Ohio, never to return again.

39 Large body of eau : MER

In French, a “mer” (sea) is a large body of “eau” (water).

45 Houston MLBer : ‘STRO

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.

48 Actress who played Dorothy Zbornak on “The Golden Girls” : BEA ARTHUR

Actress Bea Arthur’s most famous roles were on television, as the lead in the “All in the Family” spin-off “Maude” and as Dorothy Zbornak in “The Golden Girls”. Arthur also won a Tony for playing Vera Charles on stage in the original cast of “Mame” in 1966, two years after she played Yente the matchmaker in the original cast of “Fiddler on the Roof”.

“The Golden Girls” is a sitcom that originally aired in the eighties and nineties. The show features Bea Arthur, Betty White, Rue McClanahan and Estelle Getty as four older women who share a house in Miami.

53 Open, as a banana : UNPEEL

The banana is actually a berry, botanically speaking. And, bananas don’t really grow on trees. The “trunk” of the banana plant is in fact a pseudostem. The pseudostem is a false stem comprising rolled bases of leaves, and it can grow to 2 or 3 meters tall.

60 “The Stuff You Love” toy company, and what this puzzle’s circled letters do : BUILD-A-BEAR

Build-A-Bear Workshop is a retailer of stuffed animals, mainly teddy bears, that was founded in Saint Louis in 1997. The “gimmick” is that customers get to customize their stuffed animal during the purchasing process in the store.

64 Kitchenware brand : EKCO

The EKCO brand of kitchenware dates back to 1888 when Edward Katzinger founded his company in Chicago to make baking pans. The acronym “EKCO” stands for “Edward Katzinger Co”.

65 “__ Mia!”: ABBA musical : MAMMA

The hit musical “Mamma Mia!” was written to showcase the songs of ABBA. I’m a big fan of ABBA’s music, so I’ve seen this show several times and just love it. “Mamma Mia!” is such a big hit on the stage that on any given day there are at least seven performances going on somewhere in the world. There is a really interesting film version of the show that was released in 2008. I think the female lead Meryl Streep is wonderful in the movie, but the male leads … not so much! By the way, one can tell the difference between “Mamma Mia” the ABBA song and “Mamma Mia!” the musical, by noting the difference in the punctuation in the titles.

66 Emulate some species of jellyfish : GLOW

Jellyfish are found all over the ocean, right across the whole planet. They have been around for 500-700 million years, and so are the oldest multi-organ animal extant.

69 Part of BPOE : ELKS

The Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks (BPOE) was founded in 1868, and is a social club that has about a million members today. It started out as a group of men getting together in a “club” in order to get around the legal opening hours of taverns in New York City. The club took on a new role as it started to look out for poor families of members who passed away. The club now accepts African Americans as members (since the seventies) and women (since the nineties), but atheists still aren’t welcome. The list of US presidents that have been members of the BPOE includes Presidents Eisenhower, Harding, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy and Ford.

Down

3 First heavy metal band to have a video air on MTV : IRON MAIDEN

Iron Maiden is a heavy metal band from London that has been around since 1975. Heavy metal – not really my cup of tea …

9 Colorful tropical fish : TETRA

The neon tetra is a freshwater fish that is native to parts of South America. The tetra is a very popular aquarium fish and millions are imported into the US every year. Almost all of the imported tetras are farm-raised in Asia and very few come from their native continent.

13 Quaint negative : NARY

The adjective “nary” means “not one”, as in “nary a soul” or even “nary a one”.

19 Some eels : MORAYS

Morays are a large group of about 200 species of eels found across the world’s oceans. They are carnivorous and look pretty scary but they’re quite shy when confronted and present no threat to humans. One interesting thing about morays is that they will sometimes work in cooperation with the grouper fish found in reefs, the two helping each other hunt for food.

24 Actor Vigoda : ABE

Abe Vigoda played Detective Sergeant Phil Fish in television’s “Barney Miller” in the seventies, and even got his own spin-off show called “Fish”. On the big screen, Vigoda played Sal Tessio in “The Godfather” and Grandpa Ubriacco in “Look Who’s Talking”. When Vigoda was 60 years old, he was mistakenly reported as dead by “People” magazine. In response, Vigoda had a photo published in “Variety” showing him sitting up in a coffin, holding a copy of the offending issue of “People”.

25 Former name of Iran : PERSIA

Before 1935, the country we know today as Iran was referred to as Persia by the Western world. The official name of the country since the Iranian Revolution of 1979 is the “Islamic Republic of Iran”.

27 “Rubber Duckie” Muppet : ERNIE

Ernie is one of the Muppets on the children’s TV show “Sesame Street”. He is usually seen with his roommate Bert, whom he frequently annoys and frustrates. Ernie is known for taking long baths with his rubber duckie. That “Rubber Duckie” is the title character in a hit song that Ernie (voiced by Jim Henson) released in 1970.

28 “Law & Order: SVU” co-star : ICE-T

Rapper Ice-T must be tired of having his name come up as an answer in crossword puzzles (I know I am!). Born Tracy Marrow, Ice-T has been interested in acting for decades and made his film debut in the 1984 movie about breakdancing called “Breakin’”. He has also played Detective Fin Tutuola in the TV show “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” starting the year 2000.

31 Bonkers : OFF THE WALL

The word “bonkers” meaning “crazy” originated in the fifties. The term might come from navy slang meaning “slightly drunk”, behaving as though one received a “bonk” on the head.

32 Tiny South Pacific nation : NAURU

Nauru is the world’s smallest island nation, and is located in the South Pacific 300 km to the east of Kiribati. The island was taken as a colony by Germany in the late 1800s, and came under the administration of Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom after WWI. The Japanese invaded during WWII, but Nauru was one of the islands that was bypassed in the US advance across the Pacific towards Japan. Nauru achieved independence in 1968.

36 Costa __: San José’s country : RICA

San José is the capital of Costa Rica. Costa Rica is in Central America, bordered by Nicaragua in the north and Panama to the South. It is a remarkable county in my opinion, a leader on the world stage in many areas. It has been referred to as the “greenest” country in the world, the “happiest” country in the world, and has a highly educated populace. In 1949, the country unilaterally abolished its own army … permanently!

47 Spotted wildcat : OCELOT

The ocelot is a wild cat found mainly in South and Central America, although there have been sightings as far north as Arkansas. An ocelot doesn’t look too different from a domestic cat, and some have been kept as pets. Perhaps most famously, Salvador Dali had one that he carried around everywhere with him.

51 San Antonio mission : ALAMO

The San Antonio mission known as the Alamo may have been named for a grove of nearby cottonwood trees. “Álamo” is the Spanish name for the cottonwood.

54 Microwave, informally : NUKE

One might rewarm a meal by nuking it, by zapping it in the microwave.

56 Catan or Codenames : GAME

The Settlers of Catan (now just “Catan”) is a board game that was introduced in 1995, in Germany as “Die Siedler von Catan”. The game is very popular in the US and was called “the board game of our time” by the “Washington Post”. My son plays it a lot, and as a lover of board games, I am going to have to check it out …

Codenames is a fun card game that was introduced in 2015. There are a few variations also available, e.g. Codenames: Deep Undercover and Codenames: Pictures.

58 Helter-skelter : AMOK

The phrase “to run amok” (sometimes “to run amuck”) has been around since the 1670s and is derived from the Malay word for “attacking furiously”, “amuk”. The word “amok” was also used as a noun to describe Malay natives who were “frenzied”. Given Malaya’s troubled history, the natives probably had a good reason for that frenzy …

59 Trees with pliable wood : YEWS

Yew is the wood of choice for the longbow, a valued weapon in the history of England. The longbow is constructed with a core of yew heartwood (as the heartwood resists compression) that has a sheath of yew sapwood (as the sapwood resists stretching). The yew was in such demand for longbows that for centuries yew trees were in short supply in Britain and the wood had to be imported from all over Europe.

61 “Shaun the Sheep” sound : BAA!

“Shaun the Sheep” is a popular children’s TV show in Britain and Ireland. The title character first appeared in the even more popular “Wallace and Gromit”. Famously, both shows are created using stop-motion animation.

62 Ambulance gp. : EMS

Emergency medical services (EMS)