LA Times Crossword 21 Oct 25, Tuesday

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Constructed by: Kieran Boyd & Brian Callahan

Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Reveal Answer: Young at Heart

Themed answers each include the YOUNG of an animal at its HEART, within:

• 64A Feeling like age is just a number, and an apt description of 18-, 25-, 40-, and 53-Across : YOUNG AT HEART

• 18A Animated Disney film set in an arcade : WRECK-IT RALPH (KIT at heart)
• 25A Hole in an argument : LOGICAL FALLACY (CALF at heart)
• 40A Rock group with flashy outfits : GLAM BAND (LAMB at heart)
• 53A “Consider this … ” : NOW LET‘S SUPPOSE … (OWLET at heart)

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

Bill’s time: 6m 39s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1A Asian country that dominates badminton in the Olympics : CHINA

The game of badminton was developed in the mid-1700s by British military officers in India. There was already an old game called battledore and shuttlecock, so the creation of badminton was essentially the addition of a net and boundary lines for play. The game was launched officially as a sport in 1873 at Badminton House in Gloucestershire in England, hence the name that we now use.

6A Expert who works with both feet and meters? : POET

In poetry, a foot is a metrical unit comprising usually two, three or four syllables. Lines of verse are often classified by the number of feet that they contain, e.g. pentameter: containing five feet.

The meter of a poem is its rhythmic structure.

10A Cape __, Massachusetts : COD

Cape Cod is indeed named after the fish. It was first referred to as “Cape Cod” by English navigator Bartholomew Gosnold in 1602, as his men caught so many fish there.

17A São Paulo salutation : OLA

São Paulo is the largest city in Brazil. It is also the city with the highest number of helicopters in the world. This is partly driven by the horrendous traffic jams in São Paulo, but also by the wealthy having a very real fear of being kidnapped on the city’s streets.

18A Animated Disney film set in an arcade : WRECK-IT RALPH (KIT at heart)

“Wreck-It Ralph” is a 2012 animated movie from Disney. The title character is an arcade game villain who dreams of losing his bad guy image and becoming a hero.

20A Brief “I don’t need the details!” : TMI!

Kits are the young of several mammalian species, including the ferret and fox. “Kit” is probably a shortened form of “kitten”.

21A “Peter Pan” pirate : SMEE

In J. M. Barrie’s play and novel about Peter Pan, Smee is one of Captain Hook’s pirates and is Hook’s bosun and right-hand man. Smee is described by Barrie as being “Irish” and “a man who stabbed without offence”. Nice guy! Captain Hook and Smee sail on a pirate ship called the Jolly Roger.

25A Hole in an argument : LOGICAL FALLACY (CALF at heart)

A logical fallacy is a flaw in reasoning that weakens an argument or renders it invalid. These errors can be accidental or intentional, used to deceive or persuade. A common example is the “ad hominem” fallacy, in which one attacks the person making the argument rather than the argument itself. Another example is the “straw man” fallacy, in which one misrepresents an opponent’s position to make it easier to attack.

A calf is a young cow of either sex that is not more than a year old. A heifer is a young cow that has not calved, and the term “cow” can be used for a female of the species that has given birth.

29A __ fide : BONA

“Bona fide(s)” translates from the Latin as “in good faith”, and is used to indicate honest intentions. It can also mean that something is authentic, like a piece of art that is represented in good faith as being genuine.

40A Rock group with flashy outfits : GLAM BAND (LAMB at heart)

I remember the days of glam rock so well, as it was a hugely popular genre of music in Britain and Ireland during the early seventies. Artistes wore the wildest of clothes, big hair, shiny outfits and really high platform boots. Names associated with glam rock are T. Rex, David Bowie, Roxy Music and the infamous Gary Glitter.

An adult male sheep is a ram, although a castrated ram is known as a wether. An adult female is a ewe, and a young sheep is a lamb.

43A Boise’s st. : IDA

Boise, Idaho is the capital and the largest metropolitan area in the state by far. There are a number of stories pertaining to the etymology of the name “Boise”. One is that French trappers called the tree-lined river that ran through the area “la rivière boisée”, meaning “the wooded river”. Boise is known today as “The City of Trees”.

53A “Consider this … ” : NOW LET’S SUPPOSE … (OWLET at heart)

A baby owl is an owlet. The term “owlet” can also be used for the adults of the smaller species of owls.

60A “__ bien!” : TRES

“Very good” is written as “sehr gut” in German, and as “très bien” in French.

63A With 31-Down, “Life of Pi” director : ANG …
31D See 63-Across : … LEE

Ang Lee is a Taiwanese-born filmmaker who has directed several critically acclaimed and commercially successful movies. He has worked in a variety of genres, including romantic comedies (“Sense and Sensibility”), dramas (“Brokeback Mountain”), and superhero movies (“Hulk”).

The 2012 movie “Life of Pi” is based on a 2001 novel of the same name by Yann Martel. The “Pi” in the title is an Indian boy named Pi Patel who finds himself adrift for 227 days in a small boat with a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker.

68A Rob __ cocktail : ROY

Rob Roy was a folk hero in Scotland from the 18th century. He was a sort of Scottish Robin Hood, an outlaw who had the support of the populace. Rob Roy’s full name was Robert Roy MacGregor, itself an anglicization of the Scottish Raibeart Ruadh. He gave his name to a famous cocktail called a Rob Roy, which is a relative of a Manhattan but made with Scotch instead of bourbon.

69A Writer Proulx : ANNIE

Author Annie Proulx’s second novel, “The Shipping News”, won her a Pulitzer and was adapted into a 2001 movie of the same name. Her 1997 short story “Brokeback Mountain” also made it to the big screen, as a 2005 film also with the same name.

70A Belgrade’s country : SERBIA

Belgrade is the capital city of Serbia. The name “Belgrade” translates into “White City”.

71A Early Beatle 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.

73A County of southeast England : ESSEX

Essex is a county in England that is referred to as one of the home counties, one of the counties that surround the city of London. The name “Essex” comes from the Old English “Eastseaxe”, referring to the Kingdom of the East Saxons founded in the 6th century.

Down

1D Ranch ruminants : COWS

Ruminants are animals that “chew the cud”. They eat vegetable matter but cannot extract any nutritional value from cellulose without the help of microbes in the gut. Ruminants collect roughage in the first part of the alimentary canal, allowing microbes to work on it. The partially digested material (the cud) is regurgitated into the mouth so that the ruminant can chew the food more completely, exposing more surface area for microbes to do their work. We also use the verb “to ruminate” in a figurative sense, to mean “to muse, ponder, chew over”.

7D Pop singer Rita : ORA

Rita Ora is a British singer who was born Rita Sahatçiu in Pristina, Yugoslavia to Albanian parents. The family name “Sahatçiu” comes from a Turkish word meaning “watchmaker”. Rita’s parents changed their name to make it easier to pronounce. So, the family name morphed from “watchmaker” to “time”, which is “ora” in Albanian.

9D Big enchilada : TOP BANANA

The expression “top banana” is used to mean “the main man” or “the main woman”. The first person to use “top banana” was supposedly Vaudeville performer Harry Steppe in 1927, who applied the term to the top comic on the bill. The phrase comes from a comedy routine in which three comics struggle to share two bananas.

“Enchilada” is the past participle of the Spanish word “enchilar” meaning “to add chili pepper to”. An enchilada is basically a corn tortilla rolled around some filling and then covered in chili pepper sauce. The term “big enchilada” is used in the same way as we would use “big cheese” i.e. to refer to the top dog. The phrase was popularized in the sixties when John Ehrlichman refers to Attorney General John Mitchell as “the big enchilada” on one of the Watergate Tapes. Similarly, the term “whole enchilada” emerged in the early sixties, used alongside such phrases as “whole nine yards”, “whole shebang” and “whole ball of wax”.

10D Terra-__ tiles : COTTA

The tem “terra cotta” comes to us from Latin via Italian and means “baked earth”. Terra-cotta is a ceramic made from clay which is left unglazed. Maybe the most famous work in terra-cotta is the Terracotta Army, the enormous collection of life-size figures that was buried with Qin Shi Huang, the First Emperor of China around 210 BC. I had the privilege of seeing some of this collection when it toured the US a few years ago, and even the few pieces on display were very impressive.

11D Native of Veracruz : OLMEC

The Olmecs were an ancient civilization that lived in the lowlands of south-central Mexico from about 1500 BC to about 400 BC.

Veracruz is one of Mexico’s 31 states, and is located on the country’s east coast. The state takes its name from the city of Veracruz, which is a major port city in the state. Veracruz is not the state capital, however, that honor goes to the city of Xalapa.

12D No-no for a vegan : DAIRY

A vegan is someone who stays away from animal products. A dietary vegan eats no animal foods, not even eggs and dairy that are usually eaten by vegetarians. Ethical vegans take things one step further by following a vegan diet and also avoiding animal products in other areas of their lives, e.g. items made from leather or silk.

14D Classic LP player : HI-FI

Hi-fi systems were introduced in the late 1940s. They are pieces of audio equipment designed to give a much higher quality reproduction of sound than cheaper systems available up to that point. “Hi-fi” stands for “high fidelity”.

16D Sedimentary rock : SHALE

Shale is a fine-grained sedimentary rock formed from the compaction of clay-rich minerals. It has a layered structure and is easily split into thin sheets. Shale often contains fossils, making it valuable to paleontologists.

19D __-tac-toe : TIC

When I was growing up in Ireland we played “noughts and crosses” … our name for the game tic-tac-toe.

24D Some camera shop buys, for short : SLRS

Single-lens reflex (SLR) camera

27D “Stay” singer Lisa : LOEB

Singer Lisa Loeb was discovered by actor Ethan Hawke, who lived just across the street from her in New York City. Hawke took a demo of her song “Stay (I Missed You)” and gave it to director Ben Stiller, who in turn used it over the ending credits of his 1994 movie “Reality Bites”. The movie was a hit, the song went to number one, and Loeb became the first artist ever to hit that number one spot without having signed up with a record label. Good for her!

32D Subatomic particles with a negative charge : ELECTRONS

An electron is a fundamental particle of matter that is negatively charged. They are found in all atoms, orbiting the central nucleus, and their movement is responsible for the flow of electricity. The name “electron” was coined in 1891 by Irish physicist George Johnstone Stoney from the Greek word “ēlektron” meaning”amber”. This is a nod to the ancient observation that rubbing amber can develop a static charge that can attract light objects, one of the earliest known demonstrations of what we now call electricity.

33D “… amber __ of grain” : WAVES

Here are some lines from the patriotic song “America the Beautiful”:

Oh beautiful, for spacious skies
For amber waves of grain
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain

42D First queen of Carthage : DIDO

Dido was the founder of Carthage, and the city’s first queen. Some sources use the name “Elissa” for the same person.

45D “Do the Right Thing” pizza place : SAL’S

“Do the Right Thing” is a Spike Lee movie that was released in 1989. Much of the action in the film is centered on a local pizzeria called “Sal’s” owned by Italian-American Salvatore Frangione (played by Danny Aiello).

55D Japanese cattle breed : WAGYU

“Wagyu” is a name given to four different breeds of beef cattle in Japan. The famous Kobe beef is obtained from wagyu cattle. The name comes from the Japanese “Wa gyu”, which simply translates as “Japanese cattle”.

56D Word after “chick” or before “hen” : PEA

The garbanzo, or chickpea, is absolutely my favorite legume to eat.

Male peafowl are peacocks, females are peahens, and the young are peachicks. A group of peafowl are referred to as an ostentation, pride or muster.

61D Cleveland’s lake : ERIE

Cleveland, Ohio was named for the man who led the team that surveyed the area prior to the founding of the city. General Moses Cleaveland did his work in 1796 and then left Ohio, never to return again.

62D Lay’s chips in a tube : STAX

Stax is a brand of potato snack made by Lay’s. Stax is similar to the brand’s famous competitor Pringles.

65D __, due, tre : UNO

“One, two, three” in Italian is “uno, due, tre”.