LA Times Crossword 15 Aug 25, Friday

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Constructed by: Zachary David Levy

Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Theme (according to Bill): Sounds Like Finality

Themed answers sound like common phrases, but with a “t-sound” added at the end:

• 17A Speed needed to harvest lilacs, violets, and lavender for dye? : PURPLE HASTE (sounds like “Purple Haze”)
• 28A “Waterfowl found to prefer celibacy”? : WILD GOOSE CHASTE (sounds like “wild-goose chase”)
• 44A Enigmatic pile of trash? : MYSTERIOUS WASTE (sounds like “mysterious ways”)
• 57A Fake gems that add sparkle to a gastropod shell? : SNAIL’S PASTE (sounds like “snail’s pace”)

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

Bill’s time: 7m 19s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1A Photo display option : ALBUM

The Latin word “album” translates as “white”. Back in the 17th century, public notices and lists of names were written on a board painted white, or in a souvenir book with white pages known as an “albo” (from “album”). Over time, the term “album” came to be used in English for a blank book created to collect signatures or other mementos. By the end of the 19th century, albums were used to collect photographs. The term “album” was applied to long-playing gramophone records in the early 1950s, because the record sleeves resembled large photographic albums.

6A Early PC platform : MS-DOS

MS-DOS (short for “Microsoft Disk Operating System”) was the main operating system used by IBM-compatible PCs in the eighties and for much of the nineties.

11A NFL Hall of Famer Marino : DAN

Dan Marino played his entire professional football career with the Miami Dolphins. He is widely regarded as one of the game’s greatest quarterbacks, even though he never played on a team that won the Super Bowl.

14A “CSI” city : MIAMI

I quite enjoy the “CSI” franchise of television shows, all except “CSI: Miami”. I find the character played by David Caruso to be extremely annoying. “CSI: Miami” was canceled in 2012. No loss …

17A Speed needed to harvest lilacs, violets, and lavender for dye? : PURPLE HASTE (sounds like “Purple Haze”)

“Purple Haze” is a 1967 song written and recorded by Jimi Hendrix that has been described as a “psychedelic drug song of the sixties”. In fact, the term “purple haze” came to refer to LSD. Hendrix denied any relation of the lyrics to drugs at all.

20A Tahini ingredient : SESAME

“Tahini” is the Arabic name for a paste made from ground sesame seeds. It is a major ingredient in hummus, one of my favorite dishes.

22A Custard ingredient : EGG

Our word “custard” evolved from the Middle French “croustade” meaning “meat or fruit pie with a crust”. Over time, the letter R fell away from “croustade” leading to “custard”, possibly due to the influence of the other food item “mustard”.

25A NYM rival : ATL

The Atlanta Braves are the only team to have won baseball’s World Series in three different home cities. They won as the Boston Braves in 1914, the Milwaukee Braves in 1957 and the Atlanta Braves in 1995.

28A “Waterfowl found to prefer celibacy”? : WILD GOOSE CHASTE (sounds like “wild-goose chase”)

To coin a phrase is to invent a new phrase or expression. The greatest “coiner” of them all has to be William Shakespeare. Here are a few everyday expressions that were created by the Bard:

• The game is afoot (Henry IV, Part I)
• Brave new world (The Tempest)
• Break the ice (The Taming of the Shrew)
• Dead as a doornail (Henry VI, Part II)
• Eaten me out of house and home (Henry IV, Part II)
• Forever and a day (As You Like It)
• For goodness’ sake (Henry VIII)
• Knock knock! Who’s there? (Macbeth)
• Set my teeth on edge (Henry IV, Part I)
• Wild-goose chase (Romeo and Juliet)

32A Blue shade : AZURE

The term “azure” came into English from Persian via Old French. The French word “l’azur” was taken from the Persian name for a place in northeastern Afghanistan called “Lazhward” which was the main source of the semi-precious stone lapis lazuli. The stone has a vivid blue color, and “azure” has been describing this color since the 14th century.

33A Russian saint for whom an alphabet is named : CYRIL

Saints Cyril and Methodius were brothers, and Christian missionaries among the Slavic peoples. As well as introducing Christianity to the region in the 9th century, the brothers taught many illiterate people to write. They invented two Slavic alphabets for use in translating the Bible into Slavic languages. One is the Glagolitic alphabet, but the more famous is the Cyrillic alphabet (named for Saint Cyril) that developed into the Cyrillic script that is used widely today across Eastern Europe and much of Asia.

34A Post-WWII gp. : NATO

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was founded not long after WWII in 1949 and is headquartered in Brussels, Belgium. The first NATO Secretary General was Lord Ismay, Winston Churchill’s chief military assistant during WWII. Famously, Lord Ismay said the goal of NATO was “to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down.”

41A Biblical song : PSALM

The Greek word “psalmoi” originally meant “songs sung to a harp”, and gave us the word “psalms”. In the Jewish and Western Christian traditions, the Book of Psalms contains 150 individual psalms, divided into five sections.

43A Yves Saint Laurent fragrance since 1977 : OPIUM

The Yves Saint Laurent (YSL) perfume named “Opium” was introduced in 1977. Opium caused quite a stir when it first hit the stores, as many interpreted the use of the term “opium” as an endorsement of drug usage.

49A “The Grass Harp” author : CAPOTE

Truman Capote’s 1951 novel “The Grass Harp” is rooted in his childhood memories in Monroeville, Alabama. Specifically, the novel features a cypress wood and tin-roofed treehouse, one resembling the one in his cousin Jenny’s backyard. There, Capote spent time there with his cousin Sook, who was also the basis for the story’s character Dolly Talbo, and childhood friend Harper Lee, author of “To Kill a Mocking Bird”. Apparently, “The Grass Harp” was his favorite personal work.

50A A Bobbsey twin : NAN

The “Bobbsey Twins” series of children’s novels was first written by Edward Stratemeyer in 1904. Stratemeyer used the pseudonym Laura Lee Hope, as did subsequent authors who wrote 72 books in the series between 1904 and 1979. The title characters are two sets of fraternal twins, one named Bert and Nan (who are 12) and the other named Flossie and Freddie (who are 6).

51A 1040 fig. : SSN

Form 1040, issued by the IRS, is the “US Individual Income Tax Return”. It was originally created just for tax returns from 1913, 1914 and 1915, but it’s a form that just keeps on giving, or should I say “taking” …?

52A Sleep apnea device, briefly : CPAP

Many people suffering from sleep apnea use a continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machine while sleeping. The patient wears a mask that supplies air to the upper respiratory tract at a pressure greater than atmospheric pressure. This positive pressure can prevent the collapse of the upper airway, which is the cause of obstructive sleep apnea.

53A Saguaro National Park growth : CACTUS

The saguaro is a beautiful cactus, one that is native to the Sonoran Desert in Arizona and Sonora, Mexico. Arizona is proud of its saguaros, featuring them prominently on its license plates. If you ever get a chance to visit the Saguaro National Park in southern Arizona, I thoroughly recommend it.

56A Car loan fig. : APR

Annual percentage rate (APR)

57A Fake gems that add sparkle to a gastropod shell? : SNAIL’S PASTE

Snails and slugs are referred to collectively as gastropods. There are many, many species of gastropods, found both on land and in the sea. Gastropods with shells are generally described as snails, and those species without shells are referred to as slugs.

63A “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up” writer Marie : KONDO

Marie Kondo (also known as “Konmari”) runs a very successful organizing consulting business that she founded when she was 19 years old, and while a student at Tokyo Woman’s Christian University. She wrote an extremely successful book titled “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing” that was first published in 2011. I’ve read it, and acted on at least some of the advice given therein …

64A Word in some bank names : TRUST

A trust company is a corporation that acts as a fiduciary, trustee, or agent of trusts and agencies. The “trust” in the name refers to their ability to act as a trustee, managing financial assets on behalf of another. These services can include investment management, real estate management, and safekeeping of valuables. Trust companies can also be named as an executor or personal representative in a will, handling the settling of a deceased person’s estate.

Down

2D Simu of “Barbie” : LIU

Simu Liu is a Chinese-born Canadian actor. One of his more famous roles was the title character in the Marvel Comics 2021 superhero movie “Shang-Chi and the legend of the Ten Rings”. He also played one of the Ken dolls in 2023’s “Barbie”.

4D Cricket officials : UMPS

Cricket is the national game of England. The term “cricket” apparently comes from the Old French word “criquet” meaning “goalpost, stick”.

8D Rx information : DOSE

There seems to be some uncertainty about the origin of the symbol “Rx” that’s used for a medical prescription. One explanation is that it comes from the astrological sign for Jupiter, a symbol put on prescriptions in days of old to invoke Jupiter’s blessing to help a patient recover.

9D Blue Jays prov. : ONT

The Toronto Blue Jays baseball franchise was founded in 1977. They are the only team based outside the US to have won a World Series, doing so in 1992 and 1993. And since the Montreal Expos relocated to Washington, the Blue Jays are the only Major League Baseball team now headquartered outside of the US.

12D Specification in a recipe : AMOUNT

The Latin “recipere” means “to take”, and the imperative form “recipe” was written at the top of medical prescriptions as an instruction, i.e. “take (the following)”. This use of “recipe” evolved into the instruction for preparing a dish of food in the mid-1700s.

13D Annoying one : NOODGE

“To noodge” is a slang verb meaning “to nag”. It comes into English from the Yiddish word “nudyen” meaning “to bore, be tedious”.

21D Fried dish named for a small boat : CHALUPA

A chalupa is a Mexican dish consisting of a tostada shaped into a “cup” and filled with various ingredients. “Chalupa” translates from Mexican Spanish as “small boat”.

22D Actor McGregor : EWAN

Ewan McGregor is a very talented Scottish actor, one who got his break in the 1996 film “Trainspotting”. McGregor’s first big Hollywood role was playing the young Obi-Wan-Kenobi in the “Star Wars” prequels. Less known is his televised marathon motorcycle journey from London to New York via central Europe, Ukraine, Siberia, Mongolia and Canada. The 2004 trip was shown as “Long Way Round” on TV. McGregor did a similar trip in 2007 called “Long Way Down”, which took him and the same traveling companion from the north of Scotland to Cape Town in South Africa.

23D Home of the Grand Egyptian Museum : GIZA

The Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM), also known as the Giza Museum, is located in Giza, just over a mile from the pyramid complex. The museum, which is still undergoing its full official opening, is set to be the world’s largest archaeological museum with over 850,000 sq ft of floor space to house over 100,000 artifacts from ancient Egyptian civilization.

27D Chinese life force : CHI

In Chinese culture, “qi” or “chi” is the life force in any living thing.

30D Knucklehead : SCHMO

“Schmo” (also “shmo”) is American slang for a dull or boring person that comes from the Yiddish word “shmok”.

36D Civil War-era pharmacist Lilly : ELI

Eli Lilly is the largest corporation in the state of Indiana. Founder Eli Lilly was a veteran of the Union Army in the Civil War, and a failed Mississippi plantation owner. Later in life he returned to his first profession and opened a pharmaceutical operation to manufacture drugs and sell them wholesale. Under Lilly’s early guidance, the company was the first to create gelatin capsules to hold medicines and the first to use fruit flavoring in liquid medicines.

38D Battleship cry : MISS!

Battleship is a surprisingly fun guessing game that I used to play as a child. Back then, we would play it just using pencil and paper. These days, kids are more likely to play an electronic version of the game.

44D Maker of Baked Apple Pie coffee K-Cups : MCCAFE

McCafé is a chain of coffeehouses owned by McDonald’s. The first McCafé was opened by a McDonald’s franchisee in Australia, after which the company took the concept worldwide. McCafé is the most successful coffee shop brand in Australia and New Zealand.

54D Elton John musical : AIDA

The rock musical “Aida” is based on Giuseppe Verdi’s original opera. It premiered in 1998 and is still performed today. Music is by Elton John and lyrics are by Tim Rice.

57D Slalom runner : SKI

“Slalom” is an anglicized version of the Norwegian word “slalam” that translates as “skiing race”. There is a longer version of the traditional slalom that is called giant slalom

58D Bobblehead’s motion : NOD

Bobblehead dolls are those little toys with big heads that bobble around if tapped, while the body remains still. They’re often given to ticket buyers at sports events as a promotion.