LA Times Crossword 24 Sep 24, Tuesday

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Constructed by: Norman M. Aaronson
Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Reveal Answer: Bubbles Up

Themed answers are all in the down-direction. There are types of BUBBLE, UP at the top of each:

• 36D Rises to the top, or what can be found in this puzzle? : BUBBLES UP

• 3D Melodramatic series : SOAP OPERA (giving “soap bubble”)
• 5D Professional who helps correct communication disorders : SPEECH THERAPIST (giving “speech bubble”)
• 9D Summer coolers : AIR CONDITIONERS (giving “air bubble”)

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

Bill’s time: 6m 07s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

5 South Pacific island group : SAMOA

The official name for the South Pacific nation formerly known as Western Samoa is the Independent State of Samoa. Samoa is the western part of the island group, with American Samoa lying to the southeast. The whole group of islands used to be known as Navigators Island, a name given by European explorers in recognition of the seafaring skills of the native Samoans.

15 St. __ Girl beer : PAULI

St. Pauli Girl beer is brewed in Bremen in Germany. The beer gets its name from the former St. Paul’s Monastery in Bremen, next door to which was located the original brewery. Apparently, St. Pauli Girl is not sold in Germany, because the beer’s formulation isn’t pure enough to pass the nation’s purity laws.

17 Super-vision? : X-RAY

X-ray specs were a novelty item much advertised in comic books in the 1950s and 1960s. Advertisements suggested that the spectacles allowed one to see through skin and view the underlying bones. In fact, the glasses produced two identical but slightly overlapped images. There was a darker image at the point of the overlap. Especially when one looked at a hand, this gave the illusion of seeing a darker (“bony”) hand within a lighter image. Excellent value for one or two bucks!

19 Mr. Peanut accessory : CANE

Planters is the company with the Mr. Peanut icon. Mr. Peanut was the invention of a first-grader named Antonio Gentile, a young man who won a design contest in 1916. A remarkable achievement, I’d say …

20 Congressional helper : PAGE

The first page employed in the US Senate was a 9-year-old boy appointed by then Senator and future Secretary of State Daniel Webster, in 1829. For almost a century and a half, only males could enter the Senate Page Program, until three female pages were appointed in 1971. Pages were also employed in the US House of Representatives starting the 1820s, but the House Page Program was discontinued in 2011.

24 “No seats” B’way sign : SRO

Standing room only (SRO)

26 Sch. near Hollywood : UCLA

The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) gets more applications from potential students than any other university in the country. UCLA also has more students enrolled than any other university in the state.

34 Coarse woolens : TWEEDS

Tweed is a rough woolen fabric that is very much associated with Scotland in the UK, and with County Donegal in Ireland. The cloth was originally called “tweel”, the Scots word for “twill”. Apparently a London merchant misinterpreted some handwriting in the early 1800s and assumed the fabric was called “tweed”, a reference to the Scottish River Tweed, and the name stuck …

36 Chem. in some plastics : BPA

Bisphenol A (BPA) is an organic chemical that is used extensively in the manufacture of plastics. The main source of the controversy surrounding the use of the chemical is that BPA has hormone-like properties and has been classified as an endocrine disruptor, meaning that it can interfere with human hormone systems. BPA is “everywhere”, given the amount of plastic that we use in society. The debate seems to be whether or not the levels that we are exposed to are sufficient to create a health risk.

39 Cayenne automaker : PORSCHE

The Cayenne is a series of luxury crossover SUVs that Porsche started producing in 2002. Cayennes are built on the same platform as the Volkswagen Touareg and the Audi Q7, and share many of the same parts.

46 Online bidding site : EBAY

There have been some notable things sold on eBay over the years. For example:

• Ad space on a guy’s forehead, in the form of a temporary tattoo – $37,375
• William Shatner’s kidney stone – $25,000
• A cornflake shaped like Illinois – $1,350
• A single corn flake – $1.63
• A box of 10 Twinkies – $59.99
• The original Hollywood sign – $450,400
• The meaning of life – $3.26

47 Downtime, briefly : R‘n’R

Rest and relaxation/recuperation/recreation (R&R, R‘n’R)

50 Tater Tots brand : ORE-IDA

Ore-Ida frozen foods are all made using potatoes. The company is located in Oregon, just across the border from Idaho. “Ore-Ida” is a melding of the two state names.

55 Harmonica ancestor : PANPIPE

Pan flutes (also “panpipes”) are folk instruments that have been around a long time, and are believed to be the first mouth organs. The pan flute is named for the Greek god Pan, who was often depicted playing the instrument.

The harmonica is a reed instrument. It contains a number of reeds, which are usually made from metal and are all arranged on a reed plate.

68 Ballet skirt : TUTU

The word “tutu”, used for a ballet dancer’s skirt, is actually a somewhat “naughty” term. It came into English from French in the early 20th century. The French “tutu” is an alteration of the word “cucu”, a childish word meaning “bottom, backside”.

69 Pond croaker : TOAD

Toads are a type of frog. The main difference between them is that toads have dry, warty skin, while frogs have smooth, moist skin.

Down

3 Melodramatic series : SOAP OPERA (giving “soap bubble”)

The original soap operas were radio dramas back in the fifties. Given the structure of society back then, the daytime broadcasts were aimed at women working in the home as housewives. For some reason the sponsors of those radio shows, and the television shows that followed, were soap manufacturers like Procter & Gamble, Colgate-Palmolive and Lever Brothers. And that’s how the “soap” opera got its name …

4 Taylor-Joy of “The Menu” : ANYA

Actress Anya Taylor-Joy had quite the international upbringing. She was born in Miami, and raised in Buenos Aires and then London. She is perhaps best known for playing the title character in the 2020 film adaptation of Jane Austen’s “Emma”, and the lead role in the Netflix miniseries “The Queen’s Gambit”.

“The Menu” is a 2022 comedy horror movie starring Ralph Fiennes as a celebrity chef with an exclusive restaurant. I’m afraid that I don’t do horror, not even comedy horror …

6 Duracell size : AAA

Duracell is a brand of batteries made today by Procter & Gamble. “Duracell” is a portmanteau of “durable” and “cell”.

8 Fútbol cheers : OLES

In Spanish, a “fútbol” (football, soccer) supporter might shout “olé!” (bravo!).

12 “Girls5eva” co-star __ Elise Goldsberry : RENEE

Renée Elise Goldsberry is an actress and singer who is best known to me for playing the attorney Geneva Pine on the TV show “The Good Wife”. Goldsberry also originated the role of Angelica Schuyler Church in the hit Broadway musical “Hamilton”.

“Girls5eva” is a musical comedy TV show that debuted in 2021. It is about a one-hit-wonder girl group from the nineties who reunite in an attempt to rediscover past glories.

21 Director Van Sant : GUS

Gus Van Sant is a movie director (among other things) who has been nominated twice for an Oscar, for “Good Will Hunting” in 1997 and for “Milk” in 2008.

24 Garlic stalk available at springtime farmers markets : SCAPE

In the world of botany, a scape is a leafless, flowering stalk that arises from a bulb. The scapes of plants such as garlic, chives and scallions can be harvested as vegetables.

25 Automaton : ROBOT

Karel Čapek was a Czech writer noted for his works of science fiction. Čapek’s 1921 play “R.U.R.” is remembered in part for introducing the world to the word “robot”. The words “automaton” and “android” were already in use, but Capek gave us “robot” from the original Czech “robota” meaning “forced labor”. The acronym “R.U.R.”, in the context of the play, stands for “Rossum’s Universal Robots”.

27 Home Depot rival : LOWE’S

Lucius S. Lowe opened the first Lowe’s hardware store in 1921, in North Wilkesboro, North Carolina. Lucius only knew the one store, as it was his family who expanded the company after he passed away in 1940.

35 Piano practice piece : ETUDE

An étude is a short instrumental composition that is usually quite hard to play and is intended to help the performer master a particular technique. “Étude” is the French word for “study”. Études are commonly performed on the piano.

37 Writer Norman Vincent __ : PEALE

Norman Vincent Peale was the author of the bestseller “The Power of Positive Thinking”. Peale was a Protestant preacher, and for decades was pastor of the Marble Collegiate Church in Manhattan in New York City. Peale also founded the nonprofit group that publishes “Guideposts” magazine.

40 Singer Lauper : CYNDI

If you’ve ever heard Cyndi Lauper speaking, you’d know that she was from Queens, New York. She is the daughter of divorced parents, and strongly influenced by a supportive mother. Lauper was always a free spirit, and even as a young teen in the mid-sixties she dyed her hair different colors and wore outlandish fashions. She was a young woman who wanted to “find herself”, and to that end she once spent two weeks alone in the woods up in Canada, well, just with her dog.

42 Mediterranean __ : SEA

The Mediterranean Sea is almost completely enclosed by land, and is connected to the Atlantic Ocean by the narrow Strait of Gibraltar. The sea takes its name from the Latin “mediterraneus”, which means “in the middle of land”.

45 “Queen __”: pop music nickname : BEY

Beyoncé Knowles established herself in the entertainment industry as the lead singer with the R&B group Destiny’s Child. She launched her solo singing career in 2002, after making her first appearance as an actor. In 2006 she played the lead in the very successful movie adaptation of the Broadway musical “Dreamgirls”. Beyoncé is married to rap star Jay-Z. She is also referred to affectionately as “Queen Bey”, a play on the phrase “the queen bee”. Her fan base goes by the name “Beyhive”.

50 Visually stimulating images : OP ART

Op art is also known as optical art, and puts optical illusions to great effect.

52 Sherlock’s teen sister : ENOLA

“The Enola Holmes Mysteries” is a series of detective novels for young adults by American author Nancy Springer. The title character is the 14-year-old sister of 34-year-old Sherlock Holmes, the detective created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Springer’s novels were adapted into a 2020 film “Enola Holmes” that Netflix picked up at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. I saw this one, and the sequel, and enjoyed both …

56 Red resident of Sesame Street : ELMO

Back in 1966, the Carnegie Institute allocated money to study the use of television to help young children prepare for school. The institute gave a multimillion dollar grant to set up the Children’s Television Workshop with the task of creating an educational TV program for young people. The program began to come together, especially after Jim Henson (of Muppet fame) got involved. The name “Sesame Street” was chosen simply because it was the “least disliked” of all names proposed just before the program went on the air.

61 Actor Cariou : LEN

Len Cariou is a Canadian actor who is famous for his Broadway portrayal of “Sweeney Todd”. I most recognize Cariou from supporting roles in “Flags of Our Fathers” and “Thirteen Days”, two great movies.

65 Pecan or cashew : NUT

Our everyday usage of “nut” is often at odds with the botanical definition of the term. Examples of “true nuts” are acorns, chestnuts and hazelnuts. On the other hand, even though we usually refer to almonds, pecans and walnuts as “nuts”, botanically they are classified as “drupes”. Both drupes and true nuts are fruits, the vehicles that flowering plants use to disseminate seeds. True nuts are examples of a “dry fruit”, a fruit that has no fleshy outer layer. Drupes are examples of a “fleshy fruit”, a fruit with a fleshy outer layer that often makes it desirable for an animal to eat. Familiar examples of drupes are cherries, peaches and plums. We eat the fleshy part of these drupes, and discard the pit inside that contains the seed. Other examples of drupes are walnuts, almonds and pecans. The relatively inedible flashy part of these drupes is usually removed for us before they hit our grocery stores shelves. We crack open the pit inside and eat the seed of these drupes. No wonder we use the term “nuts” to mean “crazy”!