LA Times Crossword 19 Aug 25, Tuesday

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Constructed by: Kyle Dolan

Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Reveal Answer: High-Energy

Themed answers are in the down-direction. The HIGH part (start) of each is a synonym of “ENERGY”:

• 31D Like some protein-rich snacks, or what can be found in 3-, 7-, 9-, and 28-Down? : HIGH-ENERGY

• 3D Potential basketball assist that hits the floor : BOUNCE PASS
• 7D Fast-food pickup location : DRIVE-THRU WINDOW
• 9D “Quiet!” : ZIP YOUR LIP!
• 28D Kitchen gadget often used on oranges : JUICE PRESS

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

Bill’s time: 5m 22s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

6A QB’s successes : TDS

In American football, one “goal” of a quarterback (QB) is to score touchdowns (TDs).

9A Sassy letter-shaped gesture : Z-SNAP

The “Z-snap” gesture is delivered by forming the letter “Z” with the moving hand, while making a distinct snapping sound made with the fingers. It’s a non-verbal expression often used to convey sass, dismissal, or agreement. I’m just too old for that kind of thing …

15A Cards, on scoreboards : ARI

The Arizona Cardinals were founded in 1898 as the Chicago Cardinals. That makes the Cardinals the oldest, continuously-run, professional football team in the whole country.

19A Spotted bean or horse : PINTO

Pinto beans are so-called because their skins have a mottled (“pinto”) appearance.

A paint horse is a breed of horse. The coloring of a paint horse is known as “pinto”. That said, the term “paint” and “pinto” are often used interchangeably.

20A Gas in bright signs : NEON

The basic design of neon lighting was first demonstrated at the Paris Motor Show in 1910. Such lighting is made up of glass tubes containing a vacuum into which has been introduced a small amount of neon gas. When a voltage is applied between two electrodes inside the tube, the neon gas “glows” and gives off the familiar light.

23A Kindergarten recitation : ABCS

“Kindergarten” is a German word, one translated as “children’s garden”. The term was coined by the German education authority Friedrich Fröbel in 1837, when he used it as the name for his play and activity institute that he created for young children to use before they headed off to school. His thought was that children should be nourished educationally, like plants in a garden.

25A Bygone automaker from South Korea : DAEWOO

The company Daewoo was founded in 1967 by Kim Woo-choong as Daewoo Industrial, and grew to become the third-largest conglomerate in South Korea. However, in 1999, Daewoo declared bankruptcy with debts of approximately US$50 billion, having been unable to recover from the 1997 Asian financial crisis.

28A Leave at the altar : JILT

To jilt someone with whom you have a relationship is to drop them suddenly or callously. “Jilt” is an obsolete noun that used to mean “harlot, loose woman”.

29A The “L” of MLK : LUTHER

Martin Luther King, Jr’s father was born Michael King. On a trip to Germany in 1934, Michael came to admire Protestant leader Martin Luther and changed his name to Martin Luther King on his return to the United States. Famously, he passed on his new name to his son, the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr (MLK).

34A Swiss peak : ALP

There are eight Alpine countries:

• Austria
• Slovenia
• France
• Switzerland
• Liechtenstein
• Germany
• Monaco
• Italy

35A Great Salt Lake state : UTAH

The Great Salt Lake in Utah is extremely shallow, and so the area of the lake fluctuates greatly with the changing volume of water. Back in 1963, the lake shrunk to 950 square miles, whereas in 1988 the area was measured at a whopping 3,300 square miles.

36A Beethoven’s Third : EROICA

Beethoven originally dedicated his “Symphony No. 3” to Napoleon Bonaparte. Beethoven admired the principles of the French Revolution and as such respected Bonaparte who was “born” out of the uprising. When Napoleon declared himself Emperor, Beethoven (and much of Europe) saw this as a betrayal to the ideals of the revolution so he changed the name of his new symphony from “Bonaparte” to “Eroica”, meaning “heroic, valiant”.

37A South Beach neighbor : MIAMI

South Beach is a neighborhood in Miami Beach, Florida that is often referred to by the nickname “SoBe”. SoBe is known for its active and vibrant LGBT community. The title of the marvelous 1996 film “The Birdcage” refers to a fictional Birdcage drag nightclub located in South Beach.

39A Sign at a packed B’way theater : SRO

Standing room only (SRO)

41A McDonald’s arches et al. : LOGOS

The McDonald’s fast-food chain uses a stylized letter M as a logo, with the logo going by the name “Golden Arches”. Those Golden Arches are commonly integrated into the architecture of purpose-built McDonald’s restaurants.

42A Fly or flea : INSECT

Flies belong to the insect order Diptera, a name derived from Greek meaning “two wings”. Flies use only a single pair of wings for flight, with their hindwings having evolved into specialized “halteres” that help stabilize the body during flight.

Fleas are flightless insects, but they sure can jump. Their very specialized hind legs allow them to jump up to 50 times the length of their bodies.

44A Citrus with an unappealing name : UGLI

The ugli fruit is a hybrid of an orange and a tangerine that was first discovered growing wild in Jamaica where most ugli fruit comes from today. “UGLI” is a trademark name that is a variant of “ugly”, a nod to the fruit’s unsightly wrinkled rind.

47A End section of an Italian sonnet, e.g. : SESTET

A sestet is a group of six lines of poetry. It is similar to a quatrain, a group of four lines.

A sonnet is a 14-line poem with a specific structure and rhyming scheme. A popular rhyming scheme for what is known as the Italian sonnet is ABBA, ABBA, CDECDE. Compare this with the Shakespearean sonnet which rhymes as ABAB, CDCD, EFEF, GG.

48A Burrito kin : WRAP

A burrito is a common dish served in Mexican cuisine. It is a flour tortilla filled with all sorts of good stuff. The term “burrito” is Spanish for “little donkey”, the diminutive of “burro” meaning “donkey”. It’s thought that the name was applied as a burrito looks like a bedroll or pack that might be carried by a donkey.

50A Pocketful in a nursery rhyme : POSIES

“Poesy” was the name given to a line of verse engraved on the inner surface of a ring. The related word “posy”, for a bouquet of flowers, arose with the notion that giving a posy might be a message of love, just as a poesy inside a ring could have the same meaning.

“Ring a Ring o’ Roses” is a nursery rhyme that I well remember from my childhood.

Ring-a-ring o’ roses,
A pocket full of posies,
A-tishoo! A-tishoo!
We all fall down.

The lyrics tend to be a little different over here in North America:

Ring-a-round the rosie,
A pocket full of posies,
Ashes! Ashes!
We all fall down.

There’s an urban legend that the rhyme refers to the Great Plague that struck England in 1665. The inference is that “ring o’roses” is a rosy rash, and that “posies” of herbs were carried to ward off the disease. Victims would sneeze “a-tishoo” and “all fall down” dead.

52A QB’s errors : INTS

In football, if a quarterback’s (QB’s) pass ends up in the hands of a cornerback (CB), then that’s an interception (INT).

53A Neverland boy who befriends the Darling children : PETER PAN

In J.M. Barrie’s play and novel about Peter Pan, Peter takes Wendy Darling and her two brothers (John and Michael) on adventures on the island of Neverland. Back in the real world, the Darling children are taken care of by a nanny, a Newfoundland dog called Nana. It is Nana who takes Peter Pan’s shadow away from him as he tries to escape from the Darling house one night.

59A Ooze, as charm : EXUDE

To exude is to ooze out, or to display conspicuously. “To exude” comes from the Latin verb “exudare” meaning “to ooze out like sweat” (from “ex-” meaning “out” and “sudor” meaning “sweat”).

64A Buffalo __ : WINGS

There are a few stories about how Buffalo wings were first developed, most of them related to the Anchor Bar in Buffalo, New York. If you’re looking for Buffalo wings on a menu in Buffalo, you’ll note that in and around the city they’re just referred to as “wings”.

65A __ de plume : NOM

“Nom de plume” translates from French simply as “pen name”.

66A “Copy that” : ROGER

The term “roger”, meaning “yes” or “acknowledged”, comes from the world of radiotelephony. The British military used a phonetic alphabet in the fifties that included “Roger” to represent the letter “R”. As such, it became customary to say “Roger” when acknowledging a message, with R (Roger) standing for “received”.

69A Tim Gunn’s area of expertise : STYLE

Tim Gunn is a fashion consultant, and these days a television personality as well. He makes regular appearances on the reality TV show “Project Runway”, and is so popular a character that he now has his own show called “Tim Gunn’s Guide in Style”.

Down

2D Knee surgery target, for short : ACL

The anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) is one of four major ligaments that support the knee. It is located in the center of the knee and connects the femur (thigh bone) to the tibia (shin bone).

4D Some Winter Olympics sleds : LUGES

“Luge” is a French word meaning “sled”. It describes a small sled used by one or two people, on which one lies face up and feet first. The luge can be compared to the skeleton, a sled for only one person and on which the rider lies face down and goes down the hill head-first. Yikes!

5D Cogito, __ sum : ERGO

The great French philosopher Rene Descartes made the famous statement in Latin, “Cogito ergo sum”. This translates into French as “Je pense, donc je suis” and into English as “I think, therefore I am”. Anything pertaining to the philosophy of Descartes can be described by the adjective “Cartesian”.

6D Smidge : TAD

Our word “smidgen” (sometimes shortened to “smidge”) is used to describe a small amount. The term might come from the Scots word “smitch” that means the same thing or “a small insignificant person”.

7D Fast-food pickup location : DRIVE-THRU WINDOW

Kirby’s Pig Stand was the nation’s first drive-in restaurant, opened in Dallas in 1921. The owners replicated the drive-in concept around the country, using carhops to take orders and deliver food to the patrons in their vehicles. Even though a California Pig Stand franchise pioneered a drive-through service in 1931 that bypassed carhops, the first identified drive-through restaurant opened in 1947: Red’s Giant Hamburg in Springfield, Missouri.

11D El __: climate pattern : NINO

When the surface temperature of much of the Pacific Ocean rises more than half a degree celsius, then there is said to be an El Niño episode. That small temperature change in the Pacific has been associated with climatic changes that can stretch right across the globe. El Niño is Spanish for “the boy” and is a reference to the Christ child. The phenomenon was given this particular Spanish name because the warming is usually noticed near South America and around Christmas-time.

22D Auditioner’s goal : ROLE

A trial performance to appraise the merits of an entertainer is known as an audition. When a group of entertainers is involved, the informal term “cattle call” might be used instead of “audition”. The idea is that those auditioning are often corralled into a single, large room (like “cattle”) prior to performing.

23D One of the Three Musketeers : ARAMIS

Alexandre Dumas’ “Three Musketeers” are Athos, Porthos and Aramis, although the hero of the novel is the trio’s young protégé D’Artagnan. A musketeer was an infantry soldier who was equipped with a musket. Funnily enough, the three “musketeers” really don’t use their muskets, and are better known for prowess with their swords.

33D Jah worshippers : RASTAS

Rastafari, often shortened to “Rasta”, is an Abrahamic religion that developed in Jamaica during the 1930s. Its adherents believe Haile Selassie I, the former Emperor of Ethiopia, is God incarnate and the returned Messiah.

“Jah” is a shortened form of “Jehovah”, and is a name often associated with the Rastafari movement.

43D Camaro roof option : T-TOP

The Chevrolet Camaro is a car produced by General Motors from 1966 to 2002, and reintroduced in 2009. The Camaro shared much of its design with the Pontiac Firebird, and was introduced as a potential competitor to the Ford Mustang.

53D Congregants’ benches : PEWS

A pew is a church bench, usually one with a high back. The original pews were raised and sometimes enclosed seats in the church used by women and important men or families. “Pew” comes from the Old French “puie” meaning “balcony, elevation”.

61D “Seems to me,” online : IMO

In my opinion (IMO)