LA Times Crossword 15 Jan 26, Thursday

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Constructed by: Michael Hobin

Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Reveal Answer: Twinsies

Themed answers each have TWIN letter Zs within:

• 39A “We’re dressed the same!,” or a phonetic feature of 18-, 25-, 51-, and 62-Across : TWINSIES! … or TWIN Zs

• 18A Humvee or motor home, typically : GAS GUZZLER
• 25A Cookies-and-cream Dairy Queen treats : OREO BLIZZARDS
• 51A Exciting points in time? : BUZZER-BEATERS
• 62A Pi Day celebration, perhaps : PIZZA PARTY

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

Bill’s time: 8m 22s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

14A Many an April baby : ARIES

Aries the Ram is the first astrological sign in the Zodiac, and is named after the constellation. Your birth sign is Aries if you were born between March 21 and April 20, but if you are an Aries you would know that! “Aries” is the Latin word for “ram”.

16A Dubliner’s home : EIRE

The city of Dublin, the capital of Ireland, is known as “Baile Átha Cliath” in Irish (“town of the hurdled ford”). The English name “Dublin” is an anglicized form of the older Irish name for the city “Dubh Linn”, meaning “black pool”.

18A Humvee or motor home, typically : GAS GUZZLER

“Humvee” and “Hummer” are nicknames for the military vehicle developed by AM General. The full name is High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle i.e. HMMWV, or simply “Humvee”.

20A Fruit in a fritter : APPLE

A fritter is a fried food usually consisting of batter or breading filled with something sweet or savory. The term “fritter” ultimately derives from the Latin “frigere” meaning “to fry”.

21A Caterer’s heat source : STERNO

Sterno is a jellied alcohol that usually comes in a can. The can is opened and the contents burn very easily and persistently. The brand name “Sterno” comes from the original manufacturer, S. Sternau & Co. of Brooklyn, New York.

22A Ace stat : ERA

Earned run average (ERA)

25A Cookies-and-cream Dairy Queen treats : OREO BLIZZARDS

A Blizzard is an offering on a menu at Dairy Queen outlets. The original Blizzard was introduced in the 1960s, and was a thick milkshake. The Blizzard was reintroduced in 1985, with a recipe of soft-serve ice cream mixed with a choice of ingredients that include common sundae toppings, brownies and candy. Apparently, the DQ employee serving today’s Blizzard must hold it upside down to demonstrate to the customer that it won’t spill. If that demonstration doesn’t take place, there’s a coupon available for a free Blizzard at the next visit. Well, that’s what I just read …

29A Ski lodge drink : COCOA

The beverages hot cocoa and hot chocolate differ from each other in that the latter contains cocoa butter, whereas the former does not.

33A Golfer Jon who won the 2023 Masters Tournament : RAHM

Jon Rahm is a golfer from Basque Country in Spain who climbed to the world number one ranking in 2020. He attended Arizona State University, and now lives in Scottsdale. Rahm is often referred to by his nickname “Rahmbo”.

35A Capt. Kirk crewmate : LT SULU

Mr. Hikaru Sulu was played by George Takei in the original “Star Trek” series. Takei has played lots of roles over the years, and is still very active in television. Did you know that he appeared in the 1963 film, “Pt-109”? He played the helmsman steering the Japanese destroyer that ran down John F. Kennedy’s motor torpedo boat. From destroyer helmsman to starship helmsman …

38A Sashimi choice : AHI

Ahi tuna is also known as yellowfin tuna and is a popular fish for sushi and sashimi. However, due to overfishing, ahi tuna populations are at risk.

42A Smith and Jones sci-fi film : MIB

“Men in black” (MIB) are said to have appeared in the past whenever there have been reports of UFO sightings. Supposedly, these men are government agents whose job it is to suppress reports of alien landings. The conspiracy theorists got their day in the movies with the release of a pretty good sci-fi comedy in 1997 called “Men in Black”, starring Will Smith (as Agent J) and Tommy Lee Jones (as Agent K).

43A Ball State University city : MUNCIE

The Indiana city of Muncie was chosen by sociologists as the subject of the landmark 1929 “Middletown” studies. They deemed it the quintessential average American community. Muncie was also the filming location for the PBS TV show “The Joy of Painting”, in which Bob Ross painted his “happy little trees” from 1983 to 1994.

Ball State University is located in Muncie, Indiana. The school took on the name “Ball” in recognition of the generosity of the Ball Brothers, local industrialists who saved the institution from collapse in 1917 by intervening financially.

45A NBC founder : RCA

Radio manufacturer RCA founded NBC in 1926 simply to create content that would drive sales of their hardware. RCA originally operated two networks, the entertainment-focused NBC Red and the news-focused NBC Blue, but were forced by regulators to sell off the Blue network in 1943, which was then renamed ABC.

51A Exciting points in time? : BUZZER-BEATERS

In basketball, a “buzzer-beater” is a shot taken just before the game ends, one that passes successfully through the net after the buzzer has sounded.

62A Pi Day celebration, perhaps : PIZZA PARTY

The first three digits of the mathematical constant pi are 3.14. Pi Day has been celebrated on March 14th (3/14) every year since 1988, when it was inaugurated at the San Francisco Exploratorium. In countries where the day is usually written before the month, Pi Day is July 22nd, reflecting the more accurate approximation of pi as 22/7. Interestingly, March 14th is also Albert Einstein’s birthday.

65A Egypt’s Mubarak : HOSNI

Hosni Mubarak was the fourth President of Egypt, taking over after Anwar Sadat was assassinated in 1981. Mubarak resigned in 2011 in the early months of the Arab Spring after 18 days of public demonstrations. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2012, released in 2017, and passed away in 2020.

69A Half a salad grabber : TONG

A pair of tongs is a tool with a scissor-like hinge used to pick up things, like meat cooking on a barbecue grill or ice from an ice bucket. The verb “to tong” means “to handle with tongs”.

Down

2D The “E” of QED : ERAT

The initialism “QED” is used at the end of a mathematical proof or a philosophical argument. QED stands for the Latin “quod erat demonstrandum” meaning “that which was to be demonstrated”.

5D Treat from a dispenser : PEZ

PEZ is an Austrian brand of candy sold in a mechanical dispenser. Famously, PEZ dispensers have molded “heads”, and have become very collectible over the years. The list of heads includes historical figures like Betsy Ross and Paul Revere, characters from “Star Wars” and “Star Trek”, and even British royalty like the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge (“William and Kate”). The name “PEZ” comes from the first, middle and last letters of “Pfefferminz”, the German word for “peppermint”.

7D Angler baskets : CREELS

A creel is a basket used for catching sea creatures (lobsters, for example). Creel is also the name given to the small wicker basket used to hold fish that have been caught by an angler. “Creel” is originally a Scottish word.

9D Tax efficient fund, for short : IRA

Tax shelters are methods used to reduce taxable income, hence reducing tax liability. Tax shelters can be legal or illegal. The most common example of a legal tax shelter is a sanctioned retirement plan, such as an individual retirement account (IRA).

10D Headgear for Jiminy Cricket and Scrooge McDuck : TOP HATS

In the 1883 children’s novel “The Adventures of Pinocchio” by Carlo Collodi, there is a character referred to as “the Talking Cricket”. When Walt Disney made his animated version of the story, 1940’s “Pinnochio”, the Talking Cricket was given the name “Jiminy Cricket”. The name already existed as a minced oath for “Jesus Christ”, and is even used in that context by the seven dwarfs in the earlier Disney cartoon feature “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”.

Scrooge McDuck is a rich uncle of Donald Duck. Donald first hit the screens in 1934, and Uncle Scrooge made his debut performance in 1947.

15D The Arkestra jazz band leader : SUN RA

“Sun Ra” was the stage name of jazz composer and performer Herman Blount. Sun Ra was a bit “out there”, and claimed that he wasn’t from Earth, but rather was of the Angel Race from the planet Saturn.

19D “Lioness” actress Saldaña : ZOE

American actress Zoë Saldaña played the Na’vi princess in “Avatar”, and Uhura in the 2009 movie “Star Trek” (and sequels). Saldaña seems to pick the right movies, as she is the only actress to have three different films in the top twenty at the box office for three consecutive weeks (“Avatar”, “The Losers” and “Death at a Funeral”).

The “Special Ops: Lioness” series stars Zoe Saldaña as a CIA operative in a program inspired by the real-life “Team Lioness”. The show focuses on espionage, and female operatives who go undercover to gather intelligence on terrorists. The actual Marine unit was created in Iraq and Afghanistan, where male soldiers were culturally forbidden from searching local women, so female Marines were deployed to man the checkpoints.

23D “Fancy” artist Iggy : AZALEA

The 2014 song “Fancy” was recorded by Iggy Azalea, and features Charli XCX. It was a chart topper, and it had a music video that garnered a lot of attention. The story portrayed in the video is a shot-by-shot remake of key scenes from the 1995 movie “Clueless”.

28D Comic strip about a high schooler : ZITS

“Zits” is a popular cartoon strip written by Jerry Scott and illustrated by Jim Borgman. The strip debuted in 1997, and features a teenage boy called Jeremy Duncan as the main character.

30D Honolulu locale : OAHU

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”.

31D Most tacky and cheap : CHINTZIEST

Chintz is a calico fabric that is very florid, and which originated in India. Indian chintz was in such great demand in Europe in the 17th-century, and so much was sold, that both England and France banned its import. This contributed to the term “chintz” being applied derogatively to a fabric, and from there to anything cheap or gaudy.

39D Hankook product : TIRE

Hankook is a tire manufacturer based in Seoul, South Korea that is the seventh largest producer of tires in the world. Apparently, the name “Hankook” can be translated simply as “Korea”.

41D “The Coldest Rap” rapper : ICE-T

“Cold Wind Madness” was the first single recorded by rap singer Ice-T, in 1983. The song also went by the title “The Coldest Rap”, and can be described as “an underground success”. It was not played by radio stations, because back then, broadcasters were reluctant to feature songs with hardcore lyrics.

44D “The Card Players” painter : CEZANNE

“The Card Players” is a series of five paintings from the 1890s by French Post-Impressionist Paul Cézanne. All of the paintings feature male Provençal peasants smoking pipes and playing cards intently. One painting in the series was sold in 2011 for $250-300 million, making it the third most expensive work of art ever sold.

57D Subj. where teachers go off on tangents? : TRIG

In a right-angled triangle, the tangent is the ratio of the side opposite an angle to the side adjacent to it.

58D Blues Hall of Famer James : ETTA

Inaugurated in 1980, the Blues Hall of Fame used to be just a list of people who made significant contributions to the blues genre of music. There is now a music museum with the name Blues Hall of Fame, located in Memphis.

59D Like the Chicago River on March 17 : DYED

This tradition of coloring the Chicago River green around Saint Patrick’s Day began in 1962, inspired by plumbers using dye to trace illegal sewage leaks. When a union boss saw a worker’s coveralls stained a perfect “Irish Green” by the chemical, he had the idea to dye the whole river.

61D Round Table title : SIR

King Arthur (and his Round Table) probably never really existed, but his legend is very persistent. Arthur was supposedly a leader of the Romano-British as they tried to resist the invasion of the Anglo-Saxons in the late 5th and early 6th centuries.

63D __ garden : ZEN

Japanese Zen gardens are inspired by the meditation gardens of Zen Buddhist temples. Zen gardens have no water in them, but often there is gravel and sand that is raked in patterns designed to create the impression of water in waves and ripples.