LA Times Crossword 24 Jul 25, Thursday

Advertisement

Constructed by: Katherine Baicker & Laura Dershewitz

Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Reveal Answer: That’s Not a Thing!

Themed answers are all THINGS that are NOT real:

• 57A Snide dismissal, and what can be said about 20-, 33-, and 42-Across? : THAT’S NOT A THING!

• 20A Spot where parallel lines appear to converge : VANISHING POINT
• 33A Sensation experienced after a long day of sewing : PHANTOM THREAD
• 42A Erroneous result on a medical test : FALSE POSITIVE

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

Bill’s time: 6m 52s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

5A Circle dances : HORAS

The hora is a circle dance that originated in the Balkans. It was brought to Israel by Romanian settlers, and is often performed to traditional, Israeli folk songs. The hora (also “horah”) is a regular sight at Jewish weddings. Sometimes the honoree at an event is raised on a chair during the dance.

15A Maker of a Breakout hit : ATARI

Breakout is an Atari arcade game that was released in 1976. It is really like a complex version of Pong, and involves destroying a layer of bricks in the top third of the screen using a “ball” that is “batted” against the brick wall. I wasted a few hours playing Breakout back in the day …

19A Money mgrs. : CFOS

Chief financial officer (CFO)

20A Spot where parallel lines appear to converge : VANISHING POINT

The concept of a vanishing point is fundamental to linear perspective in art, and is a technique that emerged during the Renaissance to create the illusion of depth in a painting. All parallel lines in a drawing that recede into the distance appear to converge at a single “vanishing” point on the horizon, making the scene look three-dimensional.

25A Electric creature : EEL

Electric eels are so called because they are capable of delivering an electric shock that debilitates their prey. They are also able to electrolocate their prey. They do so by generating a weak electric field. The prey causes a distortion in this electric field, which is picked up by the eel’s electroreceptor organs.

33A Sensation experienced after a long day of sewing : PHANTOM THREAD

The term “phantom thread” refers to a phenomenon observed in the Victorian era where seamstresses, after long hours of shift work, would continue to experience the physical sensation of stitching, even when they were no longer holding a needle and thread.

49A “I don’t trust stairs because they’re always up to something,” e.g. : PUN

Here are some of my favorite puns:

• A man died today when a pile of books fell on him. He only had his shelf to blame.
• I hate negative numbers and will stop at nothing to avoid them.
• I wasn’t going to get a brain transplant, but then I changed my mind.
• I should have been sad when my flashlight batteries died, but I was delighted.

50A Number of fielders in slow-pitch softball : TEN

The sport we know today as softball was created as an indoor version of baseball. The first game was played on Thanksgiving Day in Chicago, in 1887. Back then, a “soft” ball was indeed used, but the name “softball” wasn’t adopted until 1926.

52A Animated pics : GIFS

The Graphic Interchange Format (GIF) is an image format developed in the 1980s by CompuServe (remember CompuServe?). GIF images are compressed, reducing the file size, but without losing information. So, the original image can be reconstructed perfectly from the compressed GIF version. But, and it’s a big but, GIF images use only 256 individual colors. This means that GIF is a relatively poor choice of compression for color photographs, while it is usually fine for logos with large blocks of single colors.

62A Home of the “American Gothic” house : IOWA

The iconic Grant Wood work titled “American Gothic” was painted in 1930. It depicts a farmer holding a pitchfork standing beside his spinster daughter. Grant used his sister as a model for the daughter, and his dentist as a model for the farmer. You can see “American Gothic” on display at the Art Institute of Chicago. You can also visit the house depicted in the painting, in the city of Eldon, Iowa. Perhaps predictably, the house is located on what is now called American Gothic Street.

63A Avis rival : ALAMO

The third-largest car rental company in recent years is Alamo, which was founded in 1974. Alamo made inroads (pun!) into the market by popularizing the idea of “unlimited mileage”.

64A __ contendere : NOLO

“Nolo contendere” (sometimes shortened to “nolo”) is a legal term that translates from Latin as “I do not wish to contend”. It’s the plea of no contest, and is an alternative to guilty and not guilty, meaning that one doesn’t admit guilt but nor does one dispute the charge.

66A Average in math class? : MEAN

In a set of numbers, the mean is the average value of those numbers. The median is the numeric value at which half the numbers have a lower value, and half the numbers a higher value. The mode is the value that appears most often in the whole set of numbers.

68A Picked, as a Scrabble tile : DREW

The game of Scrabble has been around since 1938, and is the invention of an architect named Alfred Mosher Butts. Butts was born on April 13th, and we now celebrate National Scrabble Day on April 13th each year in his honor.

69A Sherbet brand : EDY’S

Sherbet, the frozen dessert, is very similar to sorbet, the difference being that sherbet contains a small amount of milkfat.

Down

2D Chicken __ : KIEV

Chicken Kiev may indeed be a Ukrainian dish, one named for the capital city of Kiev. It is a boneless chicken breast rolled around garlic, herbs and butter, breaded and deep fried. It was my Dad’s favorite …

3D “Eureka!” elicitor : IDEA

“Eureka” translates from Greek as “I have found it”. The word is usually associated with Archimedes, uttered as he stepped into his bath one day. His discovery was that the volume of water that was displaced was equal to that of the object (presumably his foot) that had been submerged. He used this fact to determine volume (and density) of a crown, something he needed in order to determine if it was made of pure gold or was a forgery.

4D Pasta with angled ends : PENNE

The pasta known as penne comes in two main types, i.e. penne lisce (which is smooth) and penne rigate (which is furrowed).

5D Longtime Harrison Ford role : HAN SOLO

Han Solo is the space smuggler in “Star Wars” played by Harrison Ford. Ford was originally hired by George Lucas just to read lines for actors during auditions for “Star Wars”, but over time Lucas became convinced that Ford was right for the pivotal role of Han Solo.

6D Texter’s equivocation : OTOH

On the other hand (OTOH)

7D “Ghostbusters” actor Harold : RAMIS

Harold Ramis was a real all-rounder; a very successful actor, director and writer. Indeed, in both “Ghostbusters” and “Stripes” he was a co-writer as well as playing a lead character. Ramis worked as writer-director on “Caddyshack”, “National Lampoon’s Vacation”, “Groundhog Day” and “Analyze This”.

1984’s “Ghostbusters” really is an entertaining movie. It stars Bill Murray and Harold Ramis, and was directed by Ivan Reitman (a trio that also worked together on 1981’s “Stripes”). The first draft of the screenplay was written by another star of the movie, Dan Aykroyd. Aykroyd originally envisioned “Ghostbusters” as a vehicle for himself and John Belushi, but sadly Belushi passed away before the project could be realized.

8D The Eras Tour venue : ARENA

Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour started on Saint Patrick’s Day in 2023 in Glendale, Arizona, with a schedule covering five continents over two years. Swift described the line up songs as “a journey through the musical eras of [her 17-year] career”.

10D Baylor University home : WACO

Baylor is a private Baptist university in Waco, Texas that was founded in 1845, making it the oldest continuously-operating university in the state. Baylor is named for US Congressman and Baptist minister Robert Emmett Bledsoe Baylor, who co-founded the school. The list of Baylor’s past presidents includes Ken Starr, the independent counsel whose investigation led to the impeachment of President Bill Clinton.

12D Cairn elements : STONES

A cairn is a man-made pile of stones that can have various uses. A cairn might be a prosaic trail marker, or a distinctive landmark or monument. Our term “cairn” derives from the Gaelic “carn” meaning “rocky hill, heap of stones”.

13D Mortar’s companion : PESTLE

I’ve loved the sound of the words “mortar” and “pestle”, ever since I was first introduced to them in the chemistry lab. The Romans called a receptacle for pounding or grinding things a “mortarium”, giving us “mortar”. Mortarium was also the word for the product of pounding and grinding, which gives us our “mortar” that’s used with bricks to build a wall. And further, short stubby cannons used in the 16th century resembled a grinding bowl and so were called “mortars”, which evolved into our contemporary weapon of the same name. As far as the pestle is concerned, it is also derived from its Latin name “pistillum”, which comes from the word for “crush”.

21D “Rhyme Pays” rapper : ICE-T

“Rhyme Pays” is a 1987 album released by musician Ice-T. It was the rapper’s first studio album, and is considered in retrospect to be perhaps the album that defined the genre now known as “gangsta rap”.

22D Napoleon’s father : PERE

In French, a “père” (father) is a “membre de la famille” (member of the family).

27D “Eureka!” : AHA!

“Eureka” translates from Greek as “I have found it”. The word is usually associated with Archimedes, uttered as he stepped into his bath one day. His discovery was that the volume of water that was displaced was equal to that of the object (presumably his foot) that had been submerged. He used this fact to determine volume (and density) of a crown, something he needed in order to determine if it was made of pure gold or was a forgery.

28D Like the galaxy from which 5-Down hails : FAR, FAR AWAY
[5D Longtime Harrison Ford role : HAN SOLO]

Every “Star Wars” film starts out with an opening crawl announcing “A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away….”

34D Linguist Chomsky : NOAM

Noam Chomsky is a former professor of linguistics at MIT. He is known as one of the fathers of modern linguistics.

35D Blouse : TOP

A blouse is a loose-fitting shirt, particularly one worn by women or children. The term “blouse” is French, and originally described a peasant’s smock.

36D Stud alternative : HOOP

Those would be earrings.

44D Ingredient in a Florentine dish : SPINACH

Catherine de’ Medici was an Italian noblewoman who became Queen consort of France in 1547 as wife of King Henry II. Catherine was very fond of spinach, and so had it served at every meal. Catherine hailed from Florence, and to this day dishes that are made with spinach are referred to as “Florentine”, reflecting Catherine’s city of birth.

53D Shakespearean volume : FOLIO

“First Folio” is the name commonly used for a collection of William Shakespeare’s plays published in 1623 under the title “Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories & Tragedies”. The “First Folio” originally sold for one pound, which is about $230 in today’s money. About 750 copies were made, and there are just under 230 copies believed to still exist. A copy stolen from Durham University in 1998 was recovered in 2008, and was valued at about 15 million pounds.

59D Amo, amas, __ : AMAT

“Amo, amas, amat” translates from Latin as “I love, you love, he/she/it loves”.

65D BYOB part : OWN

Bring Your Own Beer/Bottle/Booze (BYOB, and sometimes just “BYO”)