LA Times Crossword 25 Mar 24, Monday

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Constructed by: Amy Johnson
Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Reveal Answer: Make a Wish!

Themed answers each start with something on which one might MAKE A WISH:

• 56A Words said over a lit birthday cake, and upon the start of 17-, 26-, or 42-Across : MAKE A WISH

• 17A Box office attraction : STAR POWER
• 26A Ancient vintner’s quaff : DANDELION WINE
• 42A Makeup bag contraption : EYELASH CURLER

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

Bill’s time: 6m 04s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1 “The __ of the Furious”: film sequel also known as “F8” : FATE

“The Fate of the Furious” is a 2017 action movie, and the eighth in the “Fast & Furious” series. Some of the big names in the cast are Vin Diesel, Dwayne Johnson, Jason Statham, Kurt Russell and Charlize Theron. Much of the film’s storyline is set in New York City, although the New York scenes were actually shot in Cleveland.

9 Former Speaker of the House Pelosi : NANCY

Nancy Pelosi first became Speaker of the House in 2007, and was the 60th person to hold that position. Ms. Pelosi represents a district not far from here, which covers most of San Francisco. She was the first Californian, the first Italian-American and the first woman to be Speaker of the House. As Speaker is second-in-line to the presidency, after the Vice President, Nancy Pelosi was for many years the highest-ranking female politician in US history. That was until Kamala Harris became Vice President in 2021.

15 Teri’s “Young Frankenstein” role : INGA

I am not really a big fan of movies by Mel Brooks, but “Young Frankenstein” is the exception. I think the cast has a lot to do with me liking the film, as it includes Gene Wilder (Dr. Frankenstein), Teri Garr (Inga), Marty Feldman (Igor) and Gene Hackman (Harold, the blind man).

Actress Teri Garr had a whole host of minor roles in her youth, including appearances in nine Elvis movies. Garr’s big break came with the role of Inga in “Young Frankenstein”, and her supporting role in “Tootsie” earned Garr an Academy Award nomination. Sadly, Teri Garr suffers from multiple sclerosis. She is a National Ambassador for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.

16 Honolulu hello : ALOHA

Honolulu is the largest city in Hawaii, and the state capital. Located on the island of Oahu, the name “Honolulu” translates from Hawaiian as “place of shelter, calm port, sheltered bay”.

20 Tee or cami : TOP

A camisole (also “cami”) is a sleeveless undershirt worn by women that extends down to the waist. “Camisole” is a French word that we imported into English that ultimately derives from the Latin “camisia” meaning “shirt, nightgown”.

21 Suffix with oct- : -ANE

The difference between a premium and regular gasoline is its octane rating. This is a measure of the resistance of the gasoline to auto-ignition i.e. its resistance to ignition just by virtue of being compressed in the cylinder. This auto-ignition is undesirable as multiple-cylinder engines are designed so that ignition within each cylinder takes place precisely when the plug sparks, and not before. If ignition occurs before the spark is created, the resulting phenomenon is called “knocking”. We sometimes use the adjective “high-octane” to mean “intense, dynamic, high-powered”

24 Scott Turow work : ONE L

Scott Turow is an author and lawyer from Chicago. Turow has had several bestselling novels including “Presumed Innocent”, “The Burden of Proof” and “Reversible Errors”, all three of which were made into films. He also wrote the autobiographical book “One L: The Turbulent True Story of a First Year at Harvard Law School”.

26 Ancient vintner’s quaff : DANDELION WINE

Wines made from fruits other than grapes are called “fruit wines”. Some of the more famous fruit wines are made using elderberries, plums or dandelion petals.

31 __ and pestle : MORTAR

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”.

32 Dr. Jekyll creator’s monogram : RLS

Robert Louis Stevenson’s novella “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” was published in 1886. There are many tales surrounding the writing of the story, including that the author wrote the basic tale in just three to six days, and spent a few weeks simply refining it. Allegedly, Stevenson’s use of cocaine stimulated his creative juices during those few days of writing.

35 Belgium money : EUROS

Belgium is one of the six founding members of the European Economic Community (EEC) that evolved into today’s European Union (EU). Belgium also acts as host of several international organizations, including NATO. There are two large regions in the country. Flanders in the north is predominantly Dutch-speaking, and Wallonia in the south is predominantly French-speaking. The capital city of Brussels is officially bilingual, although from personal experience I can attest that it is mainly French-speaking even though it is located in the Flemish part of the country.

36 Heaven knows where, for short : MIA

Missing in action (MIA)

37 Subway in Washington, D.C. : METRO

The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) provides transit service within and around Washington, D.C. The service generally goes by the name “Metro”. The authority’s two main services are Metrorail and Metrobus.

39 Flight safety org. : TSA

Transportation Security Administration (TSA)

41 Lox fish : SALMON

Lox is a brine-cured salmon filet that is finely sliced. The term “lox” comes into English via Yiddish, and derives from the German word for salmon, namely “Lachs”.

47 Classic TV role for Ron Howard : OPIE

Opie Taylor is the character played by Ron Howard on “The Andy Griffith Show”. Opie lives with widowed father Andy Taylor (played by Andy Griffith) and his great-aunt Beatrice “Aunt Bee” Taylor (played by Frances Bavier). Ron Howard first played the role in 1960 in the pilot show, when he was just 5 years old. Howard sure has come a long way since playing Opie Taylor. He has directed some fabulous movies including favorites of mine like “Apollo 13”, “A Beautiful Mind” and “The Da Vinci Code”.

48 Millennium Falcon pilot : HAN SOLO

The Millennium Falcon is the starship owned by Han Solo (among others) in the “Star Wars” universe. In the “Star Wars” storyline, Solo won the vessel in a game of cards from his friend Lando Calrissian.

55 Renowned baseball family : ALOUS

Felipe Alou is a former professional baseball player and manager. Alou managed the Montreal Expos from 1992 to 2001, and the San Francisco Giants from 2003 to 2006. Alou was born and raised in the Dominican Republic and came to the US to play for the Giants in 1955. Felipe’s brothers Matty and Jesús followed him to the US, and into Major League baseball.

Down

1 “The __ and the Furious”: action film franchise : FAST

“The Fast and the Furious” (also “Fast & Furious”) is a series of action movies about street racing and car heists. The original 2001 film spawned several sequels, making it Universal Pictures most successful franchise of all time.

3 U-shaped part of a drainpipe : TRAP

Most sinks in a home have a P-trap in the outlet pipe that empties into the sewer line. This P-trap has at its heart a U-bend that retains a small amount of water after the sink is emptied. This plug of water serves as a seal to prevent sewer gases entering into the home. By virtue of its design, the U-bend can also capture any heavy objects (like an item of jewelry) that might fall through the plughole. But the “trapping” of fallen objects is secondary to the P-trap’s main function of “trapping” sewer gases.

4 Spot for an AirPod : EAR

AirPods are Apple’s line of bluetooth earbuds. When AirPods were introduced in 2016, the market reacted with some skepticism. The left and right AirPods are not connected by any wire, so there was concern that individual earbuds could fall out of the ear, and possibly get lost. Another concern was Apple’s stated intent to abandon the wired headphone socket on new iPhone models.

8 Curve in algebra class : PARABOLA

A parabola is roughly a u-shape curve. Parabolic mirrors have cross-sections that are parabolic curves. Such mirrors have the characteristic that light emanating from the parabola’s focal point leaves the mirror as a parallel beam, a collimated beam.

10 School reunion attendees : ALUMNI

An alumnus (plural “alumni”) is a graduate or former student of a school or college. The female form is “alumna” (plural “alumnae”). The term comes into English from Latin, in which an alumnus is a foster-son or pupil. “Alum” is an informal term used for either an alumna or alumnus.

11 “Julie & Julia” writer/director Ephron : NORA

Nora Ephron had many talents, including writing film scripts and novels. Many of the movies that she wrote, she also directed. These would include some of my favorite movies of all time like “Sleepless in Seattle”, “You’ve Got Mail” and most recently, the wonderful “Julie & Julia”. And, did you know that Nora Ephron’s second marriage was to journalist Carl Bernstein of Watergate fame? She wrote an autobiographical novel based on her life with Bernstein, which deals in particular with Bernstein’s affair with the daughter of British Prime Minister James Callaghan.

“Julie & Julia” is a wonderful 2009 Nora Ephron film that juxtaposes the lives of celebrity chef Julia Childs and home cook/blogger Julie Powell. Childs is played by Meryl Streep, and Powell by Amy Adams. Ephron’s screenplay is based on two nonfiction books: Child’s autobiography “My Life in France”, and Powell’s memoir “Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously”. Highly recommended …

12 Spiced tea brewed in milk : CHAI

Chai is a drink made from spiced black tea, honey and milk, with “chai” being the Hindi word for “tea”. We often called tea “a cup of char” growing up in Ireland, with “char” being our slang word for tea, derived from “chai”.

18 Bamboo-eating bears : PANDAS

The giant panda is a bear, and so has the digestive system of a carnivore. However, the panda lives exclusively on bamboo, even though its gut is relatively poorly adapted to extract nutrients from plants per se. The panda relies on microbes in its gut to digest cellulose, and consumes 20-30 pounds of bamboo each day to gain enough nourishment.

The grass known as bamboo is one of the fastest-growing plants in the world. Sadly, there are stories of growing bamboo being used as a device of torture. Supposedly, a victim can be staked out over bamboo shoots so that the shoots grow into the human flesh. Theoretically, bamboo can grow several inches in just three days.

28 From Donegal : IRISH

Donegal is the most northerly county in Ireland, and is also the name of the town that gave the county its name. “Donegal” is the anglicized form of the Irish “Dún na nGall” meaning “fort of the foreigners”. County Donegal is a really beautiful part of the country …

34 “__ voyage!” : BON

“Bon voyage” translates literally from French into English as “good journey”.

37 Oscar winner Tomei : MARISA

Marisa Tomei’s first screen role was in the daytime soap “As the World Turns”, but her break came with a recurring role in “The Cosby Show” spin-off “A Different World”. Tomei won an Oscar for her delightful performance in “My Cousin Vinny” in 1992.

40 Heist booty : HAUL

“Booty”, meaning “plunder, profit”, is derived from the Old French word “butin” that has the same meaning.

43 Big name in nutritional shakes : ENSURE

Ensure is a line of meal replacement beverages introduced in 1973.

48 Biblical verb : HAST

In archaic English, the terms “you have” and “he/she has” were “thou hath” and “he/she hast”.

52 Thailand, once : SIAM

Siam was the official name of Thailand up to 1939 (and again from 1945 to 1949).

57 “Sting like a bee” boxer : ALI

Muhammad Ali first used his famous catchphrase “float like a butterfly and sting like a bee” before his world title fight against Sonny Liston in 1964. Back then Ali still went by his birth name of Cassius Clay.

58 “Doctor __”: BBC series starring Ncuti Gatwa : WHO

The iconic science-fiction television show “Doctor Who” first aired in 1963 on the BBC, and relaunched in 2005. The relaunched series is produced in-house by the BBC in Cardiff in Wales, the location that is the setting of the successful “Doctor Who” spin-off called “Torchwood”. The new show is about the Cardiff branch of the Torchwood Institute which investigates incidents involving extraterrestrials. Why “Torchwood”? Well, “Torchwood” is an anagram of “Doctor Who”.

Ncuti Gatwa is a Rwandan-born Scottish actor whose breakout role was Eric, the gay best friend of the lead character in the excellent comedy-drama TV show “Sex Education”. In 2023, became the fifteen incarnation of the Doctor in the iconic BBC sci-fi series “Doctor Who”. That made Gatwa the first black actor to lead the show, taking over from Jodie Whitaker, the first female Doctor.