LA Times Crossword 19 Jun 25, Thursday

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Constructed by: Joe Rodini
Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Reveal Answer: Comes Full Circle

Collectively, the starting words of the three themed clues sound like “2πr”, the formula that gives us the FULL circumference of a CIRCLE (where “r” is the radius of that CIRCLE):

• 58A Returns to the beginning, as suggested by the phonetic formula found at the starts of 17-, 37-, and 42-Across : COMES FULL CIRCLE

• 17A Annoyingly shrewd : TOO CLEVER BY HALF (sounds like “2”)
• 37A Unrealistic enterprise : PIE IN THE SKY (sounds like “π”)
• 42A “Hello?” : ARE YOU THERE? (sounds like “r”)

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

Bill’s time: 8m 02s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

5 Closed, as drapes : DREW

When I was growing up on the other side of the pond, a drapery was a shop where one could buy cloth for making clothes or curtains. It was only when I came to America that I heard the term “drapes” used for curtains.

17 Annoyingly shrewd : TOO CLEVER BY HALF (sounds like “2”)

The word “shrewd” is believed to have originated in Middle English, coming from the noun “shrew” which originally meant “scold, peevish person”. Over time, “shrewd” evolved to describe someone clever and astute, having qualities associated with a “shrew”, but painted in a more positive light.

22 Basketball Hall of Famer Bob : PETTIT

Bob Pettit is a retired NBA basketball player who played for the Milwaukee/St. Louis Hawks in the fifties and sixties. In 1956, he became the NBA’s first recipient of the Most Valuable Player Award.

The Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts is more correctly known as the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. The facility is named for James Naismith, the Canadian-American physical educator who invented the sport. Although the first Hall of Fame class was inducted in 1959, the first Basketball Hall of Fame building did not open until 1968, on the grounds of Springfield College. The increasing number of visitors resulted in the construction of a new building, which opened in 1985 on the banks of the Connecticut River in Springfield. The current facility is also located on the river, and opened in 2002.

30 Wine shop order : CASE

The word “case” is commonly used to denote a specific quantity of items, particularly for beverages and packaged goods. For example, a case of beer usually contains 24 bottles or cans, and a case of wine usually holds 12 bottles.

35 SeaWorld performer : SEAL

Male seals are called bulls, females are cows, and babies are pups. A group of seals comprising one or two males, with several females and their offspring, is known as a harem.

SeaWorld was started in San Diego in 1964. The original plan was to build an underwater restaurant with a marine life show. Eventually the founders dropped the idea of the eating establishment and just went with a theme park. SeaWorld has been mired in controversy since the 2013 release of the documentary “Blackfish”, which tells of the involvement of a particular orca (killer whale) in the death of two SeaWorld employees and one SeaWorld visitor.

36 Invoice no. : AMT

An invoice is an itemized bill. The term “invoice” comes from the Middle French “envois” meaning “dispatch (of goods)”. The root verb is “envoyer”, which translates as “to send”.

Amount (amt.)

37 Unrealistic enterprise : PIE IN THE SKY (sounds like “π”)

We use the phrase “pie in the sky” to describe a ridiculously optimistic goal. The expression was coined by songwriter and labor activist Joe Hill in 1911 as a lyric in the hymn parody “The Preacher and the Slave”. The chorus is:

You will eat, bye and bye
In that glorious land above the sky
Work and Pray, live on hay
You’ll get pie in the sky when you die

Pi is the sixteenth letter of the Greek alphabet, and is probably most famous to us as a symbol for a mathematical constant, the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter. The letter pi has represented this constant since the mid-1700s, and was chosen because pi is the first letter of the Greek word “perimetros” meaning “circumference”.

39 Singer Flack : ROBERTA

Singer and pianist Roberta Flack was known for her smooth vocals and sophisticated blend of soul, jazz, and folk music. She rose to prominence in the early 1970s with hits such as “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face”, “Killing Me Softly with His Song” and “Feel Like Makin’ Love”. Flack also interpreted songs by The Beatles, and had a personal connection to John Lennon and Yoko Ono, as she was their neighbor in the Dakota Building in New York City.

41 Tried to win over : COURTED

To court someone is to woo them, to offer homage. One might do something similar at a royal court, hence the use of the term.

44 London facilities : LOO

It has been suggested that the British term “loo”, meaning “toilet”, comes from “Waterloo” (water closet … water-loo), but no one seems to know for sure. Another suggestion is that the term comes from the card game of “lanterloo”, in which the pot was called the loo!

London, England has been a major settlement for over 2,000 years and was founded as a town by the Romans who named it Londinium. The name “Londinium” may have existed prior to the arrival of the Romans, and no one seems too sure of its origins. Famously, the City of London is a one-square-mile area at the center of the metropolis, the area that marked old medieval London. “The City”, as it is commonly called, has its own Mayor of the City of London (the Mayor of London is someone else), and its own City of London Police Force (the London Metropolitan Police are the police usually seen on the streets, a different force).

46 Pink perennial : PEONY

The flowering plant called a peony is named for Paean, the mythical physician to the Greek gods. Indiana adopted the peony as its state flower in 1957.

47 __ shui : FENG

Feng shui is the ancient Chinese tradition of arranging objects, buildings and other structures in a manner that is said to improve the lives of the individuals living in or using the space. “Feng shui” translates as “wind-water”, a reference to the belief that positive and negative life forces ride the wind and scatter, but are retained when they encounter water.

52 Chest bone : RIB

In the human rib cage, the top seven sets of bones are known as true ribs as they are attached directly to the sternum or breastbone. The five sets below the true ribs are called false ribs as they don’t have this direct connection. The bottom two of the false ribs are also called floating ribs as they don’t connect to the sternum at all.

54 MLB sluggers : RBI MEN

Run batted in (RBI)

58 Returns to the beginning, as suggested by the phonetic formula found at the starts of 17-, 37-, and 42-Across : COMES FULL CIRCLE

65 Like the center space on a bingo card : FREE

Our game bingo is a derivative of an Italian lottery game called “Il Giuoco del Lotto d’Italia” that became popular in the 16th-century.

68 __ machine : SLOT

Slot machines earned the nickname “one-armed bandits” simply because they had “one arm”, the handle pulled to operate the machine. Well, they also rob your money!

Down

1 Salsa star Nieves : TITO

Tito Nieves is a salsa singer who was born in Puerto Rico, and raised in the US. He is known as the “Pavarotti of Salsa” for his powerful vocals and impressive range.

2 Saag __: spinach and potatoes dish : ALOO

Saag aloo is a vegetarian dish originating from the Indian subcontinent. It’s a combination of leafy greens, most commonly spinach (saag), and potatoes (aloo). The dish is typically seasoned with aromatic spices like cumin, coriander, turmeric, and sometimes ginger, garlic, and chili. Yum …

5 Real ID issuer : DMV

What we know today as “Real IDs” are the result of the Real ID Act of 2005. One of the most visible results of the law are state-issued drivers’ licenses that meet new minimum security standards set by the federal government.

6 Caviar : ROE

Caviar is the roe of a large fish that has been salted and seasoned, and especially the roe of a sturgeon. Beluga caviar comes from the beluga sturgeon, which is found primarily in the Caspian Sea. It is the most expensive type of caviar in the world. 8 ounces of US-farmed beluga caviar can be purchased through Amazon.com for just over $850, in case you’re feeling peckish …

8 Halloween decor : WEBS

All Saints’ Day is November 1st each year. The day before All Saints’ Day is All Hallows’ Eve, better known by the Scottish term “Halloween”.

9 Busch brewing partner : ANHEUSER

Adolphus Busch was born in Mainz in Germany. He emigrated with three of his brothers from Germany, to St. Louis in 1857. Still a young man, he met a married Lilly Anheuser, whose father owned a local brewery. When Busch’s own father died, he received a sizable inheritance, which he used to buy a substantial share in his father-in-law’s brewery. When Lilly’s father died, the brewery was renamed to Anheuser Busch.

10 Call to Bo Peep : BAA!

The lines that are most commonly quoted from the rhyme about “Little Bo Peep” are:

Little Bo-Peep has lost her sheep,
And can’t tell where to find them;
Leave them alone, And they’ll come home,
Wagging their tails behind them.

But, there are actually four more verses, including this one:

It happened one day, as Bo-peep did stray
Into a meadow hard by,
There she espied their tails side by side,
All hung on a tree to dry.

14 Allure competitor : ELLE

“Elle” magazine was founded in 1945 in France and today has the highest circulation of any fashion magazine in the world. “Elle” is the French word for “she”. “Elle” is published monthly worldwide, although you can pick up a weekly edition if you live in France.

“Allure” is a magazine published by Condé Nast in New York that was founded in 1991 by Linda Wells. “Allure” contains articles on beauty, fashion and women’s health.

24 Sundial three, and a loose depiction of the second part of the geometry formula hinted at in this puzzle : III

The ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter is a mathematical constant, which we denote with the Greek letter pi (π). Approximate values for the pi that are often used in calculations are 22/7 and 3.1415926. If you count the letters in each word of the mnemonic “How I wish I could calculate pi easily”, the sequence gives you the first eight digits of the value of pi, i.e. 3.1415926.

25 Like paperback novels, once : TEN-CENT

The genre of literature called “dime novels” originated with books from the 1860s called the “Beadle’s Dime Novel” series. Some of those books cost a dime, but many went for 15 cents.

27 Toll House chocolate chips maker : NESTLE

The Toll House Cookie was the first commercially produced chocolate chip cookie, and was the creation of chef Ruth Graves Wakefield in 1938. The name of the cookie comes from where Wakefield and her husband lived, the Toll House Inn in Whitman, Massachusetts.

30 Wine bar order : CARAFE

A carafe is a container made from glass that has no handles, and no stopper.

32 “Venerable” monk of Eng. history : ST BEDE

The Venerable Bede was a monk in the north of England in the eighth century AD. Saint Bede is mainly known as an author and scholar, publisher of “The Ecclesiastical History of the English People”. In his writings, Bede struggled with the two common ways of referring to dates at that time. Bede turned to the anno domini dating method that had been devised by Dionysius Exiguus in 525. Bede’s writings of circa 730 were extremely influential and helped popularize the “anno domini” method. He is sometimes referred to as “The Father of English History”.

34 Multiepisode narrative : STORY ARC

A story arc is a continuing storyline in say a television show that runs through a number of episodes. Story arcs are also found in comics, books, video games, and other forms of media.

37 Maven : PRO

I’ve always loved the term “maven”, which is another word for “expert”. Maven comes into English from the Yiddish “meyvn” describing someone who appreciates and is a connoisseur.

51 Everglades bird : IBIS

The ibis is a wading bird that was revered in ancient Egypt. “Ibis” is an interesting word grammatically speaking. You can have one “ibis” or two “ibises”, and then again one has a flock of “ibis”. And if you want to go with the classical plural, instead of two “ibises” you would have two “ibides”!

The Everglades are tropical wetlands that cover much of southern Florida. The area was named “River Glades” by a British surveyor in 1773, and it is suggested that poor transcription of the word “river” led to the use of “ever”. The southern 20% of the Everglades is a protected region that we know as Everglades National Park. The park is the third-largest National Park in the lower 48 states, after Death Valley NP (the largest) and Yellowstone NP.

53 Lifetime pals, briefly : BFFS

Best friend forever (BFF)

55 Future doc’s exam : MCAT

Medical College Admission Test (MCAT)

56 Idris of “The Wire” : ELBA

Idris Elba is a British actor and DJ. He was born in London to a Sierra Leonean father and a Ghanaian mother. Elba’s breakthrough role came in 2002, when he was cast as Stringer Bell in the HBO series “The Wire”.

57 Twigs digs : NEST

“Digs” is short for “diggings” meaning “lodgings”. Where “diggings” came from, no one seems to know.

58 Uber alternative : CAB

A hansom cab is a very specific design of horse and buggy that was patented by Joseph Hansom in 1834 in England. The “cab” in the name is short for “cabriolet”, an earlier design of carriage on which the hansom was based. It’s from “hansom cab” that we get our modern term “cab”.

59 First word of the Lord’s Prayer : OUR …

Our Father … (“Pater noster” in Latin) are the opening words of the Lord’s Prayer, which is probably the best-known prayer in the Christian tradition.

60 Source of inside info? : MRI

An MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) machine uses powerful magnetic fields to generate images that can be used by medical professionals to diagnose injury and disease.

61 Dot-com address : URL

Uniform resource locator (URL)

62 Sign for most of August : LEO

Leo is the fifth astrological sign of the Zodiac. People born from July 23 to August 22 are Leos.

63 Tennis call : LET!

Our modern sport of tennis evolved from the much older racquet sport known as real tennis. Originally just called “tennis”, the older game was labeled “real tennis” when the modern version began to hold sway. Real tennis is played in a closed court, with the ball frequently bounced off the walls.