LA Times Crossword 8 Oct 24, Tuesday

Advertisement

Constructed by: Shannon Rapp & Will Eisenberg
Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Reveal Answer: Out and Out

Themed answers each comprise two words, both of which are often followed by “OUT”:

• 58A Complete, or what can follow both parts of the answers to the starred clues : OUT AND OUT

• 17A *Martial arts achievement : BLACK BELT (black out & belt out)
• 23A *Target range in sports betting : POINT SPREAD (point out & spread out)
• 35A *Toolmaking period when bronze was replaced with steel : IRON AGE (iron out & age out)
• 49A *Simple drawing of a person : STICK FIGURE (stick out & figure out)

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

Bill’s time: 6m 22s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

15 Habitats threatened by coral bleaching : REEFS

When coral reefs lose the algae living within the coral tissue, they also lose the colors associated with that algae. The algae have vibrant colors due to the presence of photosynthetic pigments. Without those colorful algae, the coral reefs appear white, as we just see the coral skeleton made up of calcium carbonate. This “coral bleaching” is mainly the result of rising ocean temperatures caused by climate change.

17 *Martial arts achievement : BLACK BELT (black out & belt out)

Practitioners of judo and karate proceed through a series of proficiency grades known as the kyu-dan system. At each progression, a different colored belt is awarded.

23 *Target range in sports betting : POINT SPREAD (point out & spread out)

The point spread is the number of points offered to equalize the chances in a wager on a sports event. The team that is perceived as more likely to lose is given “free” points before the game starts, and the person backing the winning team wins only when his/her team scores more than the losing team, including the point spread.

26 Tuskegee __: WWII aviators : AIRMEN

The Tuskegee Airmen were a group of African-American WWII pilots, the first African Americans to fly for the US military. They made up the 332nd Fighter Group and the 477th Bombardment Group of the Army Air Corps. The 332nd Fighter Group was particularly noted for the effectiveness of its bomber escort missions. The Tuskegee Airmen lost about half the number of bombers compared to other escorting fighter groups.

28 Everything pizza, no anchovies, e.g. : ORDER

Anchovies are saltwater fish that are quite small, although their adult size can vary from under an inch to over 15 inches depending on the species. Vegans should beware, as they are an ingredient in several common foods including Worcestershire sauce and Caesar salad dressing.

30 Japanese sash that might be tied in tateya musubi style : OBI

The sash worn as part of traditional Japanese dress is known as an obi. The obi can be tied at the back in what is called a butterfly knot. The term “obi” is also used for the thick cotton belts that are an essential part of the outfits worn by practitioners of many martial arts. The color of the martial arts obi signifies the wearer’s skill level.

31 __ opera : SOAP

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 …

35 *Toolmaking period when bronze was replaced with steel : IRON AGE (iron out & age out)

Ancient societies can be classified by the “three-age system”, which depends on the prevalence of materials used to make tools. The three ages are:

• The Stone Age
• The Bronze Age
• The Iron Age

The actual dates defined by each age depend on the society, as the timing of the transition from the use of one material to another varied around the globe.

39 Clickable link : URL

Uniform resource locator (URL)

42 __ de la Cité: Notre-Dame home : ILE

There are two famous “îles” (islands) in the middle of the River Seine in Paris, one being the Île de la Cité, and the other Île Saint-Louis. Île de la Cité is the most renowned of the two, as it is home to the cathedral of Notre-Dame.

45 “Creed” actress Thompson : TESSA

Tessa Thompson is an actress from Los Angeles who is known for playing the supporting role of Jackie Cook on the TV show “Veronica Mars”, and for playing student leader Diane Nash in the 2014 film “Selma”. She also portrays superheroine Valkyrie in movies based on Marvel Comics characters.

“Creed” is a 2015 boxing movie, the seventh in the “Rocky” franchise. Sylvester Stallone returns as Rocky Balboa, but this time as a trainer. Rocky trains Apollo Creed’s son Adonis. Stallone was nominated for an Oscar for his supporting role in the film. It was the first Academy Award nomination he had received since the first “Rocky” film, which was released almost forty years earlier.

52 D.C. baseballer : NAT

The Washington Nationals (“Nats”) started out life as the Montreal Expos in 1969, and were the first Major League Baseball team in Canada. The Expos moved to Washington in 2005 becoming the Nats.

57 Pushy crowd : HORDE

A horde is a large crowd. “Horde” ultimately derives from the Turkish “ordu” meaning “camp, army”.

60 Sub-par performance? : EAGLE

The following terms are routinely used in golf for scores relative to par:

• Bogey: one over par
• Par
• Birdie: one under par
• Eagle: two under par
• Albatross (also “double eagle”): three under par
• Condor: four under par

No one has ever recorded a condor during a professional tournament.

62 San Diego __ Safari Park : ZOO

The world-famous San Diego Zoo opened its doors to visitors for the first time in 1916. It was founded in the Balboa Park area of the city, on the site of the Panama-California Exposition that was held the prior year. The zoo was needed to care for the abandoned exotic animal exhibits from the exposition.

63 Boxer Patterson : FLOYD

Boxer Floyd Patterson twice won the world heavyweight championship, against Archie Moore in 1956, and against Ingemar Johansson in 1960.

64 On the briny : AT SEA

The briny is the sea, with “brine” meaning “salty water”. The term “briny” was originally used for “tears”.

65 Clairvoyant’s claim : ESP

We’ve been using the term “clairvoyant” to describe a psychic since the nineteenth century. Prior to that, a clairvoyant was a clear-sighted person. The term comes from French, with “clair” meaning “clear” and “voyant” meaning “seeing”.

Down

1 Hands-on classes : LABS

Our term “laboratory”, often shortened to “lab”, comes from the Medieval Latin word “laboratorium” meaning “place for labor, work”. This in turn comes from the Latin verb “laborare” meaning “to work”.

2 “Collapsed in Sunbeams” singer-songwriter Parks : ARLO

“Arlo Parks” is the stage name of British singer and poet Anaïs Marinho. Parks seems to have hit the big time early in her career, with her first studio album “Collapsed in Sunbeams” (2021) garnering a lot of positive attention.

3 Like one who might communicate in ASL or BSL : DEAF

It’s really quite unfortunate that American Sign Language (ASL) and British Sign Language (BSL) are very different, and someone who has learned to sign in one cannot understand someone signing in the other.

5 “Little” name in snack cakes : DEBBIE

The Little Debbie brand of dessert snacks was introduced in the 1960s by O.D. and Ruth McKee. The couple named their product after their 4-year-old grandchild Debbie.

6 Country singer Womack : LEE ANN

Lee Ann Womack is a country music singer and songwriter from Jacksonville, Texas.

8 “Spring forward” hrs. : DST

On the other side of the Atlantic, daylight saving time (DST) is known as “summer time”. The idea behind summer/daylight-savings is to move clocks forward an hour in spring (“spring forward”), and backwards in the fall (“fall back”) so that afternoons have more daylight. Here in the US, DST starts on the second Sunday of March, and ends on the first Sunday of November.

10 Swanky evening dos : SOIREES

“Soir” is the French word for “evening” and a soirée is an evening party. The French word “soirée” has an acute accent over the first “e”, but we tend to drop this when using the word in English.

12 Goaded, with “on” : EGGED …

The verb “to edge” has been used to mean to incite, to urge on, from the 16th century. Somewhere along the way “edge” was mistakenly replaced with “egg”, giving us our term “to egg on” meaning “to goad”.

18 Blue Grotto island : CAPRI

The island of Capri off the coast of Southern Italy has been a tourist resort since the days of ancient Rome. Capri is home to the famous Blue Grotto, a sea cave that is illuminated with sunlight that’s colored blue as it passes through the seawater into the cave.

22 Rosemary piece : SPRIG

The herb known as rosemary is reputed to improve memory. As such, rosemary has been used as a symbol of remembrance, especially in Europe and Australia. For example, mourners might throw sprigs of rosemary into graves, symbolically remembering the dead. The character Ophelia in William Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” utters the line “There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance”. The name of the herb comes from the Latin “ros marinus” which means “dew of the sea”. The idea is that rosemary can in fact grow in some arid locations with only the moisture that is carried by a sea breeze.

25 Udon alternative : SOBA

Soba is a thin Japanese noodle made from buckwheat flour. In Japan, the word “soba” tends to describe any thin noodle, in contrast with the thicker noodle called “udon”.

26 Ages and ages : AEON

Geologic time is divided into a number of units of varying lengths. These are, starting from the largest:

• supereon
• eon (also “aeon”)
• era
• period
• epoch
• age

29 Queens airport code : LGA

Fiorello La Guardia was the Mayor of New York from 1934 to 1945, racking up three full terms in office. The famous airport that bears La Guardia’s name was built at his urging, stemming from an incident that took place while he was in office. He was taking a TWA flight to “New York” and was outraged when the plane landed at Newark Airport, in the state of New Jersey. The Mayor demanded that the flight take off again and land at a small airport in Brooklyn. A gaggle of press reporters joined him on the short hop and he gave them a story, urging New Yorkers to support the construction of a new commercial airport within the city’s limits. The new airport, in Queens, opened in 1939 as New York Municipal, often called “LaGuardia” as a nickname. The airport was officially relabeled as “LaGuardia” (LGA) in 1947.

Queens is the largest borough in New York City, and is today coterminous with Queens County. Queens is an amazingly diverse location in terms of ethnicity. There is a population of over 2 million people, with almost 50% of that population being foreign-born. Apparently there are over 130 native languages spoken in the area. Queens was named for Catherine of Braganza (from Portugal), Queen consort of King Charles II of England.

30 Dollar bill : ONE

If you look at the back of a one-dollar bill there is an eye sitting above a pyramid. This is known as the Eye of Providence, and is similar to the Eye of Horus that we see so often in ancient Egyptian designs and hieroglyphs. The Eye of Providence is a common Christian emblem from the Middle Ages and Renaissance.

32 Torah chests : ARKS

The Torah ark is found in a synagogue, and is the ornamental container in which the Torah scrolls are stored. The word “Torah” best translates as “teaching” or “law”. The Torah ark is referred to as the “Aron Kodesh” in Hebrew, meaning “Holy Ark”.

37 “Frozen” snowman : OLAF

In the 2013 animated film “Frozen”, Olaf is a happy-go-lucky snowman who provides a lot of comic relief in the movie. He is voiced by actor and comedian Josh Gad.

38 Washbasin jug : EWER

A pitcher is a container for liquid that has a handle, mouth and spout. The term “jug” is used for the same container in other English-speaking countries. “Ewer” is an older term describing a pitcher/jug. Today, a ewer is a highly decorative pitcher, often with a base and flared spout.

46 Bitter rant : SCREED

A screed is a long speech or piece of writing, often one that is full of anger and emotion.

47 Stripy marbles : AGATES

A playing marble made from agate is called just that, an agate. Steelies on the other hand, are made from solid steel.

Agate is a micro-crystalline form of quartz (and so is related to sand/silica). Some agate samples have deposited layers that give a striped appearance, and these are called “banded agate”.

49 Mussel habitat : SHOAL

A shoal is an underwater ridge or bank that is covered with a material such as sand or silt.

Some argue that eating mussels grown in farms may be friendlier to the planet than following a vegan diet. Mussel farms use no land, no freshwater, no fertilizer, and even clean up the surrounding seawater.

50 Nunatsiavut people : INUIT

Nunatsiavut is an autonomous area claimed by the Inuit in the Canadian. province of Newfoundland and Labrador. The name “Nunatsiavut” translates as “Our Beautiful Land”.

58 Tennis champion Tokito : ODA

Tokito Oda is a professional wheelchair tennis player from Japan. When he won the 2023 French Open at 17 years of age, he became the youngest male to win a tennis major in any discipline.