LA Times Crossword 9 Jul 26, Thursday

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Constructed by: Robin Stears

Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Theme (according to Bill): Compound Choreography

Themed answers are all common terms reinterpreted as dance moves:

• 17A Dance move performed when entering a room? : DOORSTEP
• 21A Cancan move performed while skydiving? : DROP KICK
• 35A Tango move on “Yellowstone”? : RANCH DIP
• 46A Five-point spin on the dance floor? : STAR TURN
• 56A Leap at a military ballet? : BASE JUMP
• 66A Pas de deux move performed where the road divides? : FORKLIFT

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

Bill’s time: 7m 27s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1A Hotel waiters : CABS

A hansom cab is a very specific design of horse and buggy that was patented by Joseph Hansom in 1834 in England. The “cab” in the name is short for “cabriolet”, an earlier design of carriage on which the hansom was based. It’s from “hansom cab” that we get our modern term “cab”.

16A Nikon product : CAMERA

The Japanese company Nikon was founded in 1917 with the merger of three manufacturers of various optical devices. After the merger, Nikon’s main output was lenses (including the first lenses for Canon cameras, before Canon made its own). During the war, Nikon sales grew rapidly as the company focused on (pun!) equipment for the military including periscopes and bomb sights.

26A Network supported by “viewers like you” : PBS

The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) was founded in 1969, and is my favorite of the broadcast networks. I love PBS’s drama and science shows in particular, and always watch election results coming in with the NewsHour team.

29A Number of legs on a prawn : TEN

Decapods are an order of crustaceans that includes crayfish, crabs, lobsters, prawns and shrimp. Even though decapods can have perhaps over 30 appendages, only ten of these are considered legs, hence the name “decapod”.

The terms “prawn” and “shrimp” are often used interchangeably on menus. Over in the UK, the term “prawn” is most common, while “shrimp” is seen more often here in North America. Sometimes there is a differentiation from a food standpoint, with “prawn” being used for larger species and “shrimp” for smaller species. As a result, “jumbo prawns” seems to be an acceptable descriptor for a dish, whereas “jumbo shrimp” seems to be an oxymoron.

35A Tango move on “Yellowstone”? : RANCH DIP

“Yellowstone” is a pretty successful drama series starring Kevin Costner that premiered in 2018. Costner plays a rich and powerful rancher in Montana. Such is the success of the show that two spin-off shows were commissioned, with other spin-offs planned:

1. “1883” (premiered in 2021, starring Sam Elliott, Tim McGraw and Faith Hill)
2. “1923” (starring Helen Mirren and Harrison Ford)

The dramatic tango dance originated in the late 1800s in the area along the border between Argentina and Uruguay. Dancers and orchestras from Buenos Aires in particular traveled to Europe and beyond in the early twentieth century and brought the tango with them. The tango craze first struck Europe in Paris in the 1910s, and from there spread to London and Berlin, crossing the Atlantic to New York in 1913.

Ranch dressing has been the best-selling salad dressing in the country since 1992. The recipe was developed by Steve Henson who introduced it in the fifties to guests on his dude ranch, the Hidden Valley Ranch in Northern California. His Hidden Valley ranch dressing became so popular that he opened a factory to produce packets of ranch seasoning that could be mixed with mayonnaise and buttermilk. Henson sold the brand for $8 million in 1972.

38A Half an Everest expedition : ASCENT

Mount Everest was first summited in 1953 by New Zealander Edmund Hillary and Nepalese-Sherpa Tenzing Norgay. Hillary and Norgay were part of an expedition from which two pairs of climbers were selected to make a summit attempt. The first pair were Tom Bourdillon and Charles Evans, and they came within 330 feet of their goal but had to turn back. The expedition sent up the second pair two days later, and history was made on 29 May 1953.

39A Actor Sharif : OMAR

Omar Sharif was a great Hollywood actor from Egypt, someone who played major roles in memorable movies such as “Doctor Zhivago” and “Lawrence of Arabia”. But to me, he was my bridge hero (referring to the card game). In his heyday, Sharif was one of the best bridge players in the world.

49A James M. Cain’s “__ Pierce” : MILDRED

“Mildred Pierce” is a 1941 novel penned by novelist James M. Cain. Cain was a very successful writer of crime fiction, but “Mildred Pierce” is a psychological work, focused on the domestic struggles of a middle-class mother during the Great Depression. Ironically perhaps, the extremely successful 1945 movie adaptation of the book introduced a murder into the storyline.

52A Contact site : EYE

The concepts that underpin the technology of contact lenses date back to Leonardo Da Vinci. Although Da Vinci didn’t propose the development of the contact lens, he did write about correcting vision by submerging the eye in a bowl of water. Over a hundred years later, René Descartes made a somewhat impractical suggestion, but along the right lines, of using a glass tube filled with liquid that could be placed in contact with the eye to correct vision. The first real contact lenses were developed by German ophthalmologist Adolf Gaston Eugen Fick in 1887.

53A Singer Yoko : ONO

Yoko Ono was born in 1933 in Tokyo into a prosperous Japanese family, and is actually a descendant of one of the emperors of Japan. Yoko’s father moved around the world for work, and she lived the first few years of her life in San Francisco. The family returned to Japan, before moving on to New York, Hanoi and back to Japan just before WWII, in time to live through the great firebombing of Tokyo in 1945. Immediately after the war the family was far from prosperous. While Yoko’s father was being held in a prison camp in Vietnam, her mother had to resort to begging and bartering to feed her children. When her father was repatriated, life started to return to normal and Yoko was able to attend university. She was the first woman to be accepted into the philosophy program of Gakushuin University.

54A Wasabi __ : PEAS

Wasabi peas are peas that have been fried and then coated with wasabi powder mixed with sugar, salt and oil. They make for a crunchy snack, and are a favorite of mine …

56A Leap at a military ballet? : BASE JUMP

BASE jumping is parachuting off fixed objects such as buildings or cliffs. The term “BASE” is an acronym standing for the four types of objects from which parachutists jump: Buildings, Antennas, Spans/bridges, Earth/cliffs.

65A Artful dodger? : EVADER

The Artful Dodger is a marvelous character in “Oliver Twist” by Charles Dickens. The Dodger’s real name is Jack Dawkins, and he is a talented pickpocket and a favorite of the devious Fagin.

66A Pas de deux move performed where the road divides? : FORKLIFT

In the world of ballet, a pas de deux is a duet in which the dancers dance together. A classic pas de deux has a particular structure. It starts with a short entree followed by an adagio and two variations, one for each dancer, and ends with a short coda. The term “pas de deux” is French for “step for two”, or I suppose “dance for two”.

69A Apple core, for short : CPU

The central processing unit (CPU) is the main component on the motherboard of a computer. The CPU is the part of the computer that carries out most of the functions required by a program. Nowadays you can get CPUs in everything from cars to telephones.

70A Store that sells Frakta shopping bags : IKEA

The FRAKTA is a blue, reusable tote bag sold by IKEA. The Spanish luxury fashion house Balenciaga introduced a bag in 2017 that is uncannily similar to the FRAKTA. The original sells for about a dollar, and the clone for over $2,000.

Down

1D Led Zeppelin’s final studio album : CODA

“Coda” is the aptly named, final album by the rock band Led Zeppelin. It was released in 1982, two years after the sudden death of drummer John Bonham forced the group to disband. It is a compilation album, comprising outtakes and leftover tracks spanning the band’s twelve-year career.

2D Famous __ cookies : AMOS

Wally Amos was a talent agent, one who was in the habit of taking home-baked cookies with him as an enticement to get celebrities to see him. He was urged by friends to open a cookie store (the cookies were that delicious, I guess) and this he did in Los Angeles in 1975 using the name “Famous Amos”. The store was a smash hit and he was able to build on the success by introducing his cookies into supermarkets. The brand was eventually purchased, making Wally a rich man, and Famous Amos cookies are still flying off the shelf. Wally Amos also became an energetic literacy advocate. He hosted 30 TV programs in 1987 entitled “Learn to Read” that provided reading instruction targeted at adults.

7D “Blue Bloods” org. : NYPD

“Blue Bloods” is a police drama series about a family of New York City police officers led by Police Commissioner Frank Reagan, played by Tom Selleck. The show first aired in 2010, and is a creation of husband and wife Robin Green and Mitchell Burgess. Green and Burgess also wrote together for the hit show “The Sopranos”.

8D Annabella of “The Sopranos” : SCIORRA

Actress Annabella Sciorra played Tony Soprano’s lover on HBO’s “The Sopranos”. I also remember Sciorra as the tormented mother in “The Hand That Rocks the Cradle”.

9D __ Ferry, West Virginia : HARPERS

Harpers Ferry is a town in West Virginia located at the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers. We tend to remember Harpers Ferry as the place where John Brown led a raid on a federal armory prior to the Civil War with the intent of arming slaves.

10D Wildly out of control : AMOK

The phrase “to run amok” (sometimes “to run amuck”) has been around since the 1670s and is derived from the Malay word for “attacking furiously”, “amuk”. The word “amok” was also used as a noun to describe Malay natives who were “frenzied”. Given Malaya’s troubled history, the natives probably had a good reason for that frenzy …

11D Start of Caesar’s boast : VENI

The oft-quoted statement “Veni, vidi, vici” (“I came, I saw, I conquered”) is believed by many to have been written by Julius Caesar. The words date back to 47 BCE and refer to the short war between Rome and Pharnaces II of Pontus.

12D Actor Bana : ERIC

Eric Bana is an Australian actor who enjoyed a successful career in his home country before breaking into Hollywood playing an American Delta Force sergeant in “Black Hawk Down”. A couple of years later he played the lead in Ang Lee’s 2003 movie “Hulk”, the role of Dr Bruce Banner. More recently he played the Romulan villain Nero, in the 2009 “Star Trek” movie.

13D Burlap bag : SACK

Burlap, also called “hessian”, is a coarse woven fabric made from fibers taken from jute, sisal or hemp plants.

18D Suffix that means “maker” : -SMITH

A smith (often “metalsmith”) is a metalworker, someone who fashions useful items out of various metals. The term “metalsmith” is often used to describe someone adept at working with many different metals. Other smiths tend to specialize, e.g. a blacksmith works mainly with iron and steel, a coppersmith works mainly with copper, a gunsmith builds and repairs firearms, and a locksmith works with locks.

22D Mens __: criminal intent : REA

“Mens rea” is Latin for “guilty mind” and is a central concept in criminal law. The concept is expanded to “actus non facit reum nisi mens sit rea” meaning “the act does not make a person guilty unless the mind be also guilty”. In other words, someone should not be deemed guilty of an act, unless he or she had a “guilty mind”, intended to do wrong.

24D Wednesday’s roommate at Nevermore : ENID

“Wednesday” is a dark and comedic supernatural mystery TV series, and part of the classic “Addams Family” franchise. The show follows Wednesday Addams, played by Jenna Ortega, during her time as a student at Nevermore Academy, a school for outcasts.

26D Many a charity tourney : PRO-AM

“Tourney” is another word for “tournament”. The term comes from the Old French word “tornei” meaning “contest of armed men”, which itself is from “tornoier” meaning “to joust, tilt”.

27D Deer friend of Flower and Thumper : BAMBI

In the 1942 animated feature “Bambi”, the title character is a white-tailed deer. His best friends are a pink-nosed rabbit named Thumper, a skunk named Flower, and another deer named Faline with whom Bambi eventually falls in love.

31D “Rhyme Pays” rapper : ICE-T

“Rhyme Pays” is a 1987 album released by musician Ice-T. It was the rapper’s first studio album, and is considered in retrospect to be perhaps the album that defined the genre now known as “gangsta rap”.

32D Locale : VENUE

A venue is a specified locale used for an event. The term “venue” came into English via French from the Latin “venire” meaning “to come”. So, a “venue” is a place to which people “come” for an event.

33D Log passage : ENTRY

The word “logbook” dates back to the days when the captain of a ship kept a daily record of the vessel’s speed, progress etc. using a “log”. A log was a wooden float on a knotted line that was dropped overboard to measure speed through the water.

34D Granite or marble : STONE

Granite is an igneous rock that forms underground when magma cools and solidifies. The term “granite” comes from the Latin word “granum” meaning “grain”, reflecting the coarse grainy structure of the rock.

Marble is formed when underground heat and pressure recrystallize limestone. The name “marble” comes from the Greek word “marmaros” meaning “shining stone”, reflecting (pun!) the stone’s ability to take a brilliant polish.

45D Terms of service : TENURES

A job in a university that is described as “tenure-track” is one that can lead to a tenured position. A tenured position is a “job for life”. A person with tenure can only be dismissed for cause.

48D “The Fountainhead” protagonist : ROARK

“The Fountainhead” by Ayn Rand was first published in 1943, and was her first novel to achieve public success. The story focuses on an idealistic architect named Howard Roark. Roark is uncompromising in his designs, refusing to give the public what it wants, staying doggedly loyal to his own vision.

50D __ Pérignon : DOM

Dom Pérignon is a prestige label of champagne from Moët et Chandon, the French winery. The label’s name honors the Benedictine monk, Dom Pérignon, who helped to improve the quality and production of champagne in the early 18th century. Although Dom Pérignon made major contributions to champagne production, many of the stories in which he figures are just myths. He did not “invent” champagne, nor sparkling wine in general. Nor did he say the famous words, “Come quickly, I am drinking the stars!”. That lovely line first appeared in a print advertisement in the late 1800s!

59D Falco of “The Sopranos” : EDIE

Edie Falco is the first actress to have won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series (which she won three times for playing Carmela Soprano in “The Sopranos”) as well as the Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series (which she won in 2010 for her title role in “Nurse Jackie”). As of 2025, she was the only actress to have achieved this feat.

60D Some USO patrons : PFCS

Private first class (PFC)

The United Service Organization (USO) was founded in 1941 at the request of President Franklin D. Roosevelt “to handle the on-leave recreation of the men in the armed forces”. A USO tour is undertaken by a troupe of entertainers, many of whom are big-name celebrities. A USO tour usually includes troop locations in combat zones.

67D Happy Greek cry : OPA!

“Opa!” is a celebratory cry very much associated with Greece and Greek restaurants, where it often accompanies the celebratory smashing of plates and glasses.