LA Times Crossword 1 Oct 25, Wednesday

Advertisement

Constructed by: Katherine Simonson

Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Reveal Answer: Pass the Buck

Themed answers include synonyms of BUCK that PASS from left to right as we descend the grid:

• 58A Shift responsibility to someone else, and an apt title for this puzzle : PASS THE BUCK

• 18A Enthralled by the theater : STAGESTRUCK
• 31A Green-and-yellow farm playthings for kids : JOHN DEERE TOYS
• 45A Folks who get creative in court : SKETCH ARTISTS
• 58A Shift responsibility to someone else, and an apt title for this puzzle : PASS THE BUCK

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

Bill’s time: 6m 58s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

11A Passed with flying colors : ACED

The idiom “with flying colors” has a nautical origin. In the Age of Exploration, ships returning to port would signal their success or defeat by the position of their flags, or “colors”. If a ship was victorious, it would sail into port with its flags flying high from the mastheads. A defeated ship, on the other hand, would “strike her colors”, meaning to lower its flags, indicating surrender. So, to pass “with flying colors” literally meant a ship had succeeded, and the phrase later evolved to describe any triumph.

15A Zenith’s opposite : NADIR

The nadir is the direction pointing immediately below a particular location (through to the other side of the Earth for example). The opposite direction, that pointing immediately above, is called the zenith. We use the terms “nadir” and “zenith” figuratively to mean the low and high points in a person’s fortunes.

16A Stand in art class : EASEL

The term “easel” comes from an old Dutch word meaning “donkey”, would you believe? The idea is that an easel carries its load (an oil painting, say) just as a donkey would be made to carry a load.

17A Theater box : LOGE

In most theaters and stadiums today, “loge” is the name given to the front rows of a mezzanine level. “Loge” can also be used for box seating.

20A Apple variety : IMAC

When Apple chose the letter “I” prefix for the iMac in 1998, that letter “I” stood for “Internet”. Steve Jobs and his marketing team followed up with the message that I also stood for “individual, instruct, inform and inspire”.

22A Swimwear brand founded in Australia in 1914 : SPEEDO

Speedo brand swimwear was first produced in Australia, in 1928 by a hosiery company that wanted to diversify. The brand name was chosen after a slogan competition among employees was won by “Speed on in your Speedos”. It was a long time ago, I guess …

24A Viola clef : ALTO

“Clef” is the French word for “key”. In music, a clef is used to indicate the pitch of the notes written on a stave. The bass clef is also known as the F-clef, the alto clef is the C-clef, and the treble clef is the G-clef.

The viola looks like and is played like a violin, but is slightly larger. It is referred to as the middle voice in the violin family, lying between the violin and the cello.

27A Scallions’ kin : LEEKS

The leek is a vegetable closely related to the onion and the garlic. It is also a national emblem of Wales (along with the daffodil), although I don’t think we know for sure how this came to be. One story is that the Welsh were ordered to wear leeks in their helmets to identify themselves in a battle against the Saxons. Apparently, the battle took place in a field of leeks.

Scallions are edible plants with a mild onion flavor. They are also called green onions or spring onions.

31A Green-and-yellow farm playthings for kids : JOHN DEERE TOYS

John Deere invented the first commercially successful steel plow in 1837. Prior to Deere’s invention, farmers used an iron or wooden plow that constantly had to be cleaned as rich soil stuck to its surfaces. The cast-steel plow was revolutionary as its smooth sides solved the problem of “stickiness”. The Deere company that John founded uses the slogan “Nothing Runs Like a Deere”, and has a leaping deer as its logo.

34A Krauss of bluegrass-country : ALISON

Alison Krauss is a bluegrass-country singer and musician from Illinois. You can hear some of her music on the soundtracks of movies like “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” and “Cold Mountain”.

40A Frozen Four org. : NCAA

The semi-finals and finals of the NCAA Men’s Ice Hockey Championship tournaments are collectively referred to as the “Frozen Four”. This term is a play on “Final Four”, which is the name given to the final round of the NCAA Men’s Division I Basketball Championship tournament.

43A Early bloomers : TULIPS

We usually associate the cultivation of tulips with the Netherlands, but they were first grown commercially in the Ottoman Empire. The name “tulip” ultimately derives from the Ottoman Turkish word “tulbend” that means “muslin, gauze”.

51A Detective story? : ALIBI

“Alibi” is the Latin word for “elsewhere” as in, “I claim that I was ‘elsewhere’ when the crime was committed, I have an ‘alibi’”.

53A Smoothie fruit : PAPAYA

The papaya (also “papaw”) tropical fruit is native to Mexico and South America. When cultivating papaya trees, only female plants are used. Female plants produce just one, high-quality fruit per tree. Male plants produce several fruit per tree, but they are very poor quality.

55A Lower back bones : SACRA

The sacrum is a large, triangular bone at the base of the spine, formed by the fusion of typically five sacral vertebrae in adulthood. The term “sacrum” comes from the Latin “os sacrum”, meaning “sacred bone,” possibly because it was offered in sacrifices or believed to contain the soul.

58A Shift responsibility to someone else, and an apt title for this puzzle : PASS THE BUCK

The phrase “passing the buck” supposedly comes from poker. The marker that indicates whose turn it is to deal is called the buck, and it is passed from player to player. Over time, the phrase came to mean the passing of responsibility (or usually blame). President Harry S. Truman popularized the derivative phrase “the buck stops here” by placing a sign bearing those words on his desk in the Oval Office. President Truman had received the sign as a gift from a prison warden who was also an enthusiastic poker player.

64A Spot for curlers : RINK

I think curling is such a cool (pun!) game. It’s somewhat like bowls, but played on a sheet of ice. The sport was supposedly invented in medieval Scotland, and is called curling because of the action of the granite stone as it moves across the ice. A player can make the stone take a curved path (“curl”) by causing it to slowly rotate as it slides.

65A Lauder of cosmetics : ESTEE

Estée Lauder was a very successful businesswoman, and someone with a great reputation as a salesperson. Lauder introduced her own line of fragrances in 1953, a bath oil called “Youth Dew”. “Youth Dew” was marketed as a perfume, but it was added to bathwater. All of a sudden women were pouring whole bottles of Ms. Lauder’s “perfume” into their baths while using only a drop or two of French perfumes behind their ears. That’s quite a difference in sales “volume” …

68A Veggies for chips : SPUDS

The word “spud”, used as a slang term for “potato”, was first recorded in the mid-1800s, in New Zealand would you believe?

Down

1D LiMu business : INS

Liberty Mutual is an insurance company based in Boston. The business was founded in 1912 as the Massachusetts Employees Insurance Association (MEIA). Liberty Mutual has a famous advertising icon named LiMu Emu.

2D D.C. ballplayer : 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.

3D 1990 accessibility law, for short : ADA

Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA)

4D Statue toppers : PIGEONS

Taxonomically, doves and pigeons are the only members of the order Columbidae. The terms “dove” and “pigeon” are often used interchangeably. Scientifically speaking, dove species tend to be smaller than pigeon species. Colloquially though, many refer to doves as the white or nearly white species in the family.

5D Dino with long teeth and short arms : T-REX

The Tyrannosaurus rex was a dinosaur known for its powerful legs and disproportionately small arms. Hence the quip, “T. rex hates pushups”.

6D Small sofa : SETTEE

“Settee” is another word for “couch”. The term comes from the Old English “setl”, which was a long bench with a high back and arms.

8D Tempe sch. : ASU

Arizona State University (ASU) has a long history, and was founded as the Tempe Normal School for the Arizona Territory in 1885. The athletic teams of ASU used to be known as the Normals, then the Bulldogs, and since 1946 they’ve been called the Sun Devils.

9D Advent mo. : DEC

In the Christian tradition, Advent is the season of expectation prior to the Christmas celebration of the birth of Jesus. The term “Advent” comes from the Latin “adventus” meaning “coming”. In non-religious contexts, an advent is a coming into being.

10D Community group with lodges : ELKS

The Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks (BPOE) was founded in 1868, and is a social club that has about a million members today. It started out as a group of men getting together in a “club” in order to get around the legal opening hours of taverns in New York City. The club took on a new role as it started to look out for poor families of members who passed away. The club now accepts African Americans as members (since the seventies) and women (since the nineties), but atheists still aren’t welcome. The list of US presidents that have been members of the BPOE includes Presidents Eisenhower, Harding, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy and Ford.

12D Extraterrestrial visitor, certainly : COMET

Comets and asteroids are similar, both being relatively small celestial bodies orbiting the sun. Comets differ from asteroids in that they have a coma or tail, especially when they are close enough to the sun. The coma and tail are temporary fuzzy atmospheres that develop due to the presence of solar radiation. Comets are sometimes referred to as “dirty snowballs”, a reference to their composition: rock, dust, water ice and frozen gasses.

25D Title person in a Kinks hit : LOLA

“Lola” is a fabulous song that was written by Ray Davies and released by the Kinks back in 1970. Inspired by a real life incident, the lyrics tell of a young man who met a young “lady” in a club, danced with her, and then discovered “she” was actually a transvestite. The storyline isn’t very traditional, and the music is superb.

The Kinks were an English band who participated in the British Invasion of America in the sixties, although only briefly. After touring the US in the middle of 1965, the American Federation of Musicians refused permits for the Kinks to book concerts for four years, apparently in response to some rowdy on-stage behavior by the band.

28D Mauna __: alphabetically first of two Hawaiian volcanoes with similar names : KEA

Mauna Kea is a dormant volcano on the Big Island of Hawaii, the peak of which is the highest point in the whole state. Mauna Kea is in effect the tip of a gigantic volcano rising up from the seabed.

29D Mo. town : STL

The city of St. Louis, Missouri was settled by French explorers in 1763. Sitting on the Mississippi River, it grew into a very busy port. By the 1850s, it was the second busiest port in the country, with only New York moving more freight. St. Louis was named for Louis IX of France. Louis was canonized in 1297 by Pope Boniface VIII, and was the only French king to be declared a saint.

32D Party animal? : DONKEY

The donkey became associated with the Democratic Party largely thanks to Andrew Jackson. During his 1828 presidential campaign, his opponents called him a “jackass”. Jackson embraced the epithet, using the donkey as a symbol of his stubborn determination. Later, political cartoonist Thomas Nast popularized the donkey symbol for the party in his widely circulated cartoons.

33D Big bird : OSTRICH

The world’s tallest bird is the common ostrich (9.2 feet). The smallest is the bee hummingbird (2-2.4 inches).

36D Tuscan tower town : PISA

The Leaning Tower of Pisa is one of the most popular tourist attractions in the world. It is known for its nearly four-degree lean, which is caused by an unstable foundation. The tower was built in the 12th century and began to lean during construction. The lean worsened over time, and by the 1990s, the tower was at risk of collapse with a lean of 5½ degrees. A major stabilization project was undertaken in the 1990s, which reduced the lean to 3.97 degrees.

42D Knee stabilizer, 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).

45D Snidely critical : SNARKY

“Snark” is a term that was coined by Lewis Carroll in his fabulous 1876 nonsense poem “The Hunting of the Snark”. Somehow, the term “snarky” came to mean “irritable, short-tempered” in the early 1900s, and from there “snark” became “sarcastic rhetoric” at the beginning of the 21st century.

49D Label printer maker : CASIO

Casio is a Japanese manufacturer of mainly electronic products, including calculators, watches and electronic keyboards. It was Casio that produced the first portable and compact all-electric calculator, way back in 1957.

54D Gibbons, e.g. : APES

Gibbons are referred to as lesser apes as they differ in size and behavior from the great apes e.g. chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans and humans.

59D Nile snake : ASP

We use the term “asp” today to refer to several venomous species of snakes found in the Nile region. Even though “asp” comes from the Greek “aspis” meaning “viper”, the asp that we know as the symbol of ancient Egyptian royalty was not a viper at all. Rather, it was the Egyptian cobra.

60D Early Beatles bassist Sutcliffe : STU

Stu Sutcliffe was one of the original four members of The Silver Beatles (as The Beatles were known in their early days), along with John Lennon, Paul McCartney and George Harrison. Sutcliffe apparently came up with the name “Beatles” along with John Lennon, as a homage to their hero Buddy Holly who was backed by the “Crickets”. By all reports, Sutcliffe wasn’t a very talented musician and was more interested in painting. He went with the group to Hamburg, more than once, but he eventually left the Beatles and went back to art school, actually studying for a while at the Hamburg College of Art. In 1962 in Hamburg, Sutcliffe collapsed with blinding headaches. He died in the ambulance on the way to hospital, his death attributed to cerebral paralysis.

61D Scanned lines on a pkg. : UPC

The initialism “UPC” stands for Universal Price Code or Universal Product Code. The first ever UPC-marked item to get scanned in a store was on June 26, 1974 at 08:01 a.m. at Marsh’s supermarket in Troy, Ohio. It was a 10-pack of Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit chewing gum.

62D Margaret of “Fire Island” : CHO

Margaret Cho is a Korean American comedian and actress who was born in San Francisco in 1968. As well as performing as a comedian, Cho has also had a successful acting career, appearing in films such as “Face/Off,” “Bam Bam and Celeste,” and “All About Steve,” as well as TV shows such as “Drop Dead Diva” and “30 Rock.”

“Fire Island” is a 2022 romantic comedy about a group of gay friends taking a vacation on Fire Island on the South Shore of Long Island. The film’s storyline was inspired by Jane Austen’s classic novel “Pride and Prejudice”. I really enjoyed this one …

63D Mo. neighbor : KAN

The State of Kansas has many claims to fame, including recognition as the geographic center of the contiguous US. The actual center of the contiguous US is located just under 3 miles northwest of the city of Lebanon.