LA Times Crossword 21 Sep 24, Saturday

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Constructed by: Maddy Ziegler
Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Theme: None

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

Bill’s time: 11m 29s

Bill’s errors: 2

  • ROAN (Ryan)
  • OOH! (yoh!)

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1 Only marsupial native to the Americas : OPOSSUM

Although they are both marsupials, the opossum and the possum are two distinct animals. True possums are found in Australia and other places in the South Pacific. Opossums are found in North America.

Marsupials are mammals that carry their young in a pouch called a marsupium. Better-known marsupials are kangaroos, koalas, wombats and Tasmanian devils. As you can probably tell from this list, most marsupials are native to the Southern Hemisphere.

16 Mogadishu language : SOMALI

Mogadishu is a major port city on the east coast of Africa, and is the capital of Somalia. The city is known locally as “Xamar”.

19 Stimulator of Vitamin D production : SUN

The term “vitamin D” is applied to a group of fat-soluble chemicals related to steroids. Most of the vitamin D that we use in the human body is synthesized in the skin’s epidermis in the presence of UV light, usually coming from the sun. One of the main consequences of vitamin D deficiency is the softening of bones. In children, this can lead to rickets.

20 Spurs great Ginóbili : MANU

Manu Ginóbili is a retired NBA player from Argentina. Before joining the San Antonio Spurs of the NBA, he played professional basketball in Italy. He is one of only two players to have won a EuroLeague title, an NBA championship, and an Olympic Gold. The other is Bill Bradley.

21 Body style : COUPE

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”.

27 Some flowering succulents : ALOES

Succulent plants are those with thickened stems and/or leaves that have evolved to retain water. As such, succulents are often found where the climate is particularly dry. The term “succulent” comes from the Latin “sucus” meaning “juice, sap”.

33 Flapper’s cut : BOB

A bob cut is a short hairstyle in which the hair is cut straight around the head, at about the line of the jaw. Back in the 1570s, “bob” was the name given to a horse’s tail that was cut short, and about a century later it was being used to describe short hair on humans. The style became very popular with women in the early 1900s (as worn by actress Clara Bow, for example), with the fashion dying out in the thirties. The style reemerged in the sixties around the time the Beatles introduced their “mop tops”, with Vidal Sassoon leading the way in styling women’s hair in a bob cut again. Personally, I like it …

Flappers were the so-called “new breed” of young women of the twenties. The flappers wore their hair short (with ringlets), dressed in short skirts and generally rebelled against the accepted norms of the time. The term “flapper” comes from the 1920 movie “The Flapper” starring Olive Thomas as a young woman who lived the more liberal lifestyle that was emerging at that time.

39 Walk-__ : ONS

A “walk-on role” in a performance is one in which the actor makes an appearance on stage or on set, but has no dialog. One line of dialog elevates the role to a “bit part”.

40 Game element that requires a hands-on approach : TWISTER MAT

Twister is a game requiring a lot of physical dexterity and flexibility. It involves players placing specific hands and feet onto colored pads on a mat, as directed by a spinning arrow on a board. Sales of the game got a great boost in 1966, when Eva Gabor played Twister with Johnny Carson on “The Tonight Show”.

43 __ car : CABLE

A cable car is a vehicle that is propelled by attaching it to a moving, endless cable. There are two main types of cable: one is suspended from an overhead cable (like a ski lift), and the other moves along tracks on the ground (like a San Francisco cable car).

44 Actress Seyfried : AMANDA

Actress Amanda Seyfried’s first film role was in the 2004 teen comedy “Mean Girls”, supporting Lindsay Lohan. Seyfried has quite the voice too, using it to good effect in her leading roles in 2008’s “Mamma Mia!” and 2012’s “Les Misérables”. Seyfried married fellow actor Thomas Sadoski (from “Life in Pieces”) in 2017.

46 Harajuku district locale : TOKYO

Harajuku is a lively district in Tokyo that is very much associated with youth culture and fashion. Takeshita Street, a narrow pedestrian lane, is the heart of Harajuku, and is home to shops selling everything from cosplay costumes to quirky accessories.

49 “Good Luck, Babe!” singer Chappell : ROAN

“Chappell Roan” is the stage name of singer/songwriter Kayleigh Amstutz. Roan got her start in the music industry after she uploaded an original song titled “Die Young” to YouTube, when she was just 17 years old. She signed on with Atlantic Records soon after.

58 Eczema treatment brand : AVEENO

Aveeno is a manufacturer of skincare and haircare products that was founded in 1945. The name Aveeno comes from the Latin name for the common oat, i.e. Avena sativa.

Eczema is a form of dermatitis. The term “eczema” comes from the Greek for “to boil over”.

59 Nonverbal “D’oh!” : HEAD SLAP

“The Simpsons” is one of the most successful programs produced by the Fox Broadcasting Company. Homer Simpson’s catchphrase is “D’oh!”, which became such a famous exclamation that it has been included in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) since 2001. “D’oh!” can be translated as “I should have thought of that!”

61 “The Bear,” for one : DRAMEDY

“The Bear” is a comedy-drama TV show that started airing in 2022. It stars Jeremy Allen White (of “Shameless” fame) as a chef from a Michelin-star restaurant who heads home to Chicago to run his family’s sandwich shop after his brother dies. I really enjoyed this one …

Down

1 “The Elder Scrolls” beasts : ORCS

“The Elder Scrolls” is a series of role-playing video games that debuted in 1994 with “The Elder Scrolls: Arena”.

2 Arequipa’s land : PERU

Arequipa is located in the south of Peru and is the second-most populous city in the country, after the capital Lima. Arequipa has been the center of many uprisings since the city was founded in 1540, and was declared the nation’s capital on two occasions, in 1835 and in 1883.

4 Sp. honorific : SRA

The equivalent of “Mrs.” in French is “Mme.” (Madame), in Spanish is “Sra.” (Señora) and in Portuguese is also “Sra.” (Senhora).

7 Award for Simone Biles : MEDAL

Simone Biles holds the record for the most gold medals won by an American gymnast in a single Olympic Games. She achieved the feat at the 2016 games held in Rio. Biles has also won more World medals than any other gymnast in history. She was presented the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2022, by President Joe Biden.

8 Classified ad shorthand : ISO

In search of (ISO)

11 Scarf : EAT UP

To snarf down is to gobble up, to eat voraciously. “Snarf” is a slang term that is probably related to “scarf”, which has the same meaning.

15 __ Bernardino : SAN

San Bernardino, California is located about 60 miles east of Los Angeles. The city was named for the Italian priest and Franciscan missionary Bernardino of Siena. One of San Bernardino’s claims to fame is that it was home to the world’s first McDonald’s. It is now home to the McDonald’s Museum, which is located on the site of that first restaurant.

18 Halls of fame, essentially : MUSEUMS

The first Hall of Fame (HOF) established in the US was the Hall of Fame for Great Americans, an outdoor sculpture gallery located in the grounds of Bronx Community College in New York City. Completed in 1900, it is an open-air colonnade featuring the bronze busts of renowned Americans such as President George Washington, author Henry David Thoreau, musician John Philip Sousa and baseball legend Jackie Robinson. The Hall of Fame of Great Americans was inspired by the Ruhmeshalle (“Hall of Fame” in German) located in Munich, Germany that exhibits busts of important people from Bavaria.

23 Mulligan : REDO

There doesn’t seem to be a definitive account for the origin of the term “mulligan”, which is most often used for a shot do-over in golf. There are lots of stories about golfers named Mulligan though, and I suspect that one of them may be true …

24 Letters on an outdated globe : USSR

The former Soviet Union (officially “Union of Soviet Socialist Republics” or “USSR”) was created in 1922, not long after the Russian Revolution of 1917 that overthrew the tsar. Geographically, the new Soviet Union was roughly equivalent to the old Russian Empire, and comprised fifteen Soviet Socialist Republics (SSRs).

26 VMI student : CADET

The Virginia Military Institute (VMI) is one of the six senior military colleges in the country, and is located in Lexington, Virginia. The sports teams of VMI are known as the Keydets, southern slang for “cadets”.

27 West Coast gas brand : ARCO

The company name “ARCO” is an acronym standing for “Atlantic Richfield Company”. One of ARCO’s claims to fame is that it is responsible for the nation’s largest Superfund site. Mining and smelting in the area around Butte, Montana polluted the region’s water and soil, and ARCO has agreed to pay $187 million to help clean up the area.

28 “Gold-Diggers Sound” singer Bridges : LEON

“Gold-Diggers Sound” is a 2021 album released by soul singer Leon Bridges. The title comes from the Gold Diggers Hotel in East Hollywood, where Bridges was living while he wrote and recorded the songs on the album.

29 Pal : HOMIE

“Homie” is short for “homeboy”, someone from one’s home neighborhood.

32 Like some diets : LOW CARB

A ketogenic (also “keto”) diet is a high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet. When a body consumes insufficient carbohydrates to meet the need for energy, then the liver converts fat into fatty acids and ketone bodies in order to make up the energy deficit. An elevated level of ketone bodies in the bloodstream is known as “ketosis”, a term that gives rise to the name “ketogenic diet”. Medical professionals sometimes prescribe a ketogenic diet in order to control epilepsy in children. A condition of ketosis can reduce the frequency of epileptic seizures.

33 Buffalo : BAMBOOZLE

It’s thought that the lovely word “bamboozle” came into English from the Scottish “bombaze” meaning “perplex”. We’ve been using “bamboozle” since the very early 1700s.

To buffalo is to bewilder, baffle. The verb probably comes from the animal’s name, as back in the early 1900s, “to buffalo” was “to alarm, overawe”. This meaning likely originated with the tendency for a herd of buffalo to mass panic in the face of danger.

35 Storage unit : BYTE

In the world of computing, a bit is the basic unit of information. It has a value of 0 or 1. A “byte” is a small collection of “bits” (usually 8), the number of bits needed to uniquely identify a character of text. The term “byte” is an abbreviation for “binary digit”.

37 Make out : NECK

The term “necking” applies to kissing and caressing. I like what Groucho Marx had to say on the subject:

Whoever named it necking was a poor judge of anatomy.

41 Check list? : PAYEES

Checks and checking accounts caused me some language trouble when I first came to the US. Back in Ireland (and the UK) we write “cheques” using funds from our “current” accounts.

44 Naproxen brand : ALEVE

“Aleve” is a brand name used for the nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug Naproxen sodium.

45 Members of a stable family? : MARES

There are lots of terms to describe horses of different ages and sexes, it seems:

  • Foal: horse of either sex that is less than one year old
  • Yearling: horse of either sex that is one to two years old
  • Filly: female horse under the age of four
  • Colt: male horse under the age of four
  • Gelding: castrated male horse of any age
  • Stallion: non-castrated male horse four years or older
  • Mare: female horse four years or older

52 Bricked : DEAD

When an electronic device, like a smartphone or laptop, completely stops working, one might say that it has “bricked”, has become as useful as a “brick”.

53 Award for Simone Biles : ESPY

The ESPY Awards, also known as the Excellence in Sports Performance Yearly Awards, were first presented in a ceremony in 1993. The ESPYs were created by ESPN as a response to the lack of sports coverage during the summer months. ESPN decided to create an awards show to help fill that gap.

56 Nutrition fig. : RDA

Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA)

Complete List of Clues/Answers

Across

1 Only marsupial native to the Americas : OPOSSUM
8 Least approachable : ICIEST
14 Repeating numbers : REPRISES
16 Mogadishu language : SOMALI
17 Unleashed unintended consequences : CREATED A MONSTER
19 Stimulator of Vitamin D production : SUN
20 Spurs great Ginóbili : MANU
21 Body style : COUPE
22 Bleak breakfast : GRUEL
25 Carve out a career? : SCULPT
27 Some flowering succulents : ALOES
29 Picked up : HEARD
30 Entertains with a story, say : READS ALOUD
33 Flapper’s cut : BOB
36 Broadcast booth role : COLOR COMMENTARY
39 Walk-__ : ONS
40 Game element that requires a hands-on approach : TWISTER MAT
41 Slice : PIECE
43 __ car : CABLE
44 Actress Seyfried : AMANDA
46 Harajuku district locale : TOKYO
48 Kills it : SLAYS
49 “Good Luck, Babe!” singer Chappell : ROAN
51 Tribute poem : ODE
54 Kellogg’s Light-Up Saber Spoon, Super Sugar Crisp Mystery Ball, Alpha-Bits Pocket Printer, et al. : CEREAL BOX PRIZES
58 Eczema treatment brand : AVEENO
59 Nonverbal “D’oh!” : HEAD SLAP
60 Meddles (with) : MESSES
61 “The Bear,” for one : DRAMEDY

Down

1 “The Elder Scrolls” beasts : ORCS
2 Arequipa’s land : PERU
3 Easy shots : OPEN GOALS
4 Sp. honorific : SRA
5 Host’s request : SIT
6 Volunteer’s offer : USE ME
7 Award for Simone Biles : MEDAL
8 Classified ad shorthand : ISO
9 Agree : CONCUR
10 “Agreed!” : I’M SOLD!
11 Scarf : EAT UP
12 Lay dormant : SLEPT
13 Many a tree swing : TIRE
15 __ Bernardino : SAN
18 Halls of fame, essentially : MUSEUMS
23 Mulligan : REDO
24 Letters on an outdated globe : USSR
26 VMI student : CADET
27 West Coast gas brand : ARCO
28 “Gold-Diggers Sound” singer Bridges : LEON
29 Pal : HOMIE
31 Played a part : ACTED
32 Like some diets : LOW CARB
33 Buffalo : BAMBOOZLE
34 Lacking a paper trail : ORAL
35 Storage unit : BYTE
37 Make out : NECK
38 Printer part : TRAY
41 Check list? : PAYEES
42 Outrageous : INSANE
44 Naproxen brand : ALEVE
45 Members of a stable family? : MARES
46 Took a toll on : TAXED
47 Equal (with) : ON PAR
48 Con : SCAM
50 “Wow!” : OOH!
52 Bricked : DEAD
53 Award for Simone Biles : ESPY
55 L.A. City Council leader? : LOS
56 Nutrition fig. : RDA
57 Philosophy : ISM