LA Times Crossword 13 Jul 26, Monday

Advertisement

Constructed by: Mark Tomek

Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Reveal Answer: Speakeasy

Themed answers are all phrases meaning “SPEAK AT LENGTH”:

• 65A Hidden bar of the Prohibition era, or an apt title for this puzzle? : SPEAKEASY

• 18A Ramble at length : PRATTLE ON
• 23A Chat at length : CHEW THE FAT
• 41A Blather at length : TALK A BLUE STREAK
• 54A Jabber at length : BABBLE AWAY

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

Bill’s time: 4m 55s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

14A Printer cartridge : TONER

The key features of a laser printer (or copier) are that it uses plain paper and produces quality text at high speed. Laser printers work by projecting a laser image of the printed page onto a rotating drum that is coated with photoconductors (material that becomes conductive when exposed to light). The areas of the drum exposed to the laser carry a different charge than the unexposed areas. Dry ink (toner) sticks to the exposed areas due to electrostatic charge. The toner is then transferred to paper by contact and is fused into the paper by the application of heat. So, that explains why paper coming out of a laser printer is warm, and the ink is sometimes powdery.

15A “The Producers” filmmaker Brooks : MEL

Mel Brooks’ birth name is Melvin Kaminsky. He is one of relatively few entertainers to win the “Showbiz Award Grand Slam” i.e. an Oscar, Tony, Grammy and Emmy (EGOT). He is in good company, as the list also includes the likes of Richard Rodgers, Sir John Gielgud, Marvin Hamlisch and Audrey Hepburn. Brooks was married to actress Anne Bancroft for 40 years, until her passing in 2005.

“The Producers” is a 1968 satirical movie written and directed by Mel Brooks, and was indeed the first film he ever directed. Brooks adapted the movie into a hugely successful Broadway musical that won a record 12 Tony Awards. The original leads in the stage show, Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick, then appeared in a 2005 movie adaptation of the musical version of the original film.

16A “The Hunchback of __ Dame” : NOTRE

The title character in Victor Hugo’s novel “The Hunchback of Notre-Dame” is Quasimodo, the hunch-backed bell-ringer. Quasimodo falls for the beautiful Roma girl Esmeralda, and eventually rescues her just before she is due to be hanged. He carries Esmeralda into Notre-Dame crying out “Sanctuary!” There is some recent evidence that a hunchbacked stone carver, working at Notre-Dame at the same time Hugo was alive, may have been the inspiration for Quasimodo the bell-ringer.

17A Perennial with yellow flowers : TANSY

The tansy is a flowering plant of the aster family, native to Europe and Asia. It is found in other parts of the world, but there it is often considered to be invasive.

23A Chat at length : CHEW THE FAT

The expression “chew the fat” is possibly a reference to 19th-century sailors gnawing on salt pork with a thick rind while grumbling about their lot in life.

25A Fluffy lapdog, familiarly : POM

The Pomeranian is a small breed of dog named for the Pomerania region of Europe (part of eastern Germany and northern Poland). The breed was much loved by the royalty of Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries. In the 19th century, Queen Victoria owned a particularly small Pomeranian. Due to the notoriety of the monarch’s pet, the Pomeranian was bred for small size, so that during the Queen’s admittedly long reign, the size of the average “pom” was reduced by 50% …

27A Actress Mendes : EVA

I am most familiar with actress Eva Mendes as the female lead in the movie “Hitch”, in which she played opposite Will Smith. Mendes started a relationship with fellow actor Ryan Gosling in 2011, and the couple have two children together.

37A Figure __: skater’s pattern : EIGHT

Figure skating started out as a sport in which a skater demonstrated skill at carving out specific patterns into the ice (a figure-8, for example). Over time, the sport placed greater influence on free skating. Compulsory figures were dropped completely from most international competitions in the 1990s, but the name “figure” skating has been retained.

41A Blather at length : TALK A BLUE STREAK

Someone talking a blue streak is speaking rapidly and continuously. The use of the term “blue streak” to mean “rapidly” dates back to 1830s America, and is a reference to a bolt of lightning.

45A French cleric : ABBE

“Abbé” is a French word meaning “abbot”, although it is also used in France as a title for lower-ranking clergymen in the Roman Catholic faith.

46A Risk-taker’s hashtag : YOLO

You only live once (YOLO)

51A Theater chain letters : AMC

The AMC theater chain used to go by the name American Multi-Cinema Inc., hence the initialism “AMC”.

61A __ Springs, New York : SARATOGA

The New York city of Saratoga Springs is so named because of the area’s naturally carbonated mineral waters that have made it a popular resort destination since the early 19th century. It is also home to the famous Saratoga Race Course, a horse racing track that opened in 1863, making it the oldest major organized sporting venue in the US.

65A Hidden bar of the Prohibition era, or an apt title for this puzzle? : SPEAKEASY

A speakeasy is an establishment that sells alcoholic drinks illegally. Speakeasies were very big in the US in the days of Prohibition. The obvious etymology, of a speakeasy owner asking his or her customers to “speak easy” so as not to attract the attention of the authorities, is thought to have originated in 1888 in McKeesport just outside Pittsburgh.

69A 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.

72A Letters from a polite texter : PLS

A polite person might use “pls” (please) and “thx” (thanks) in a text.

Down

1D Storage space that often has a slanted ceiling : ATTIC

An attic or loft is a room or space located below the roof of a building. The term “attic” is a shortened form of “attic story”, the uppermost story or level of a house. This term “attic story” originally applied to a low, decorative level built on top of the uppermost story behind a building’s decorative facade. This use of decoration at the top of buildings was common in ancient Greece, and was particularly important in the Attica style. That Attica style was so called because it originated in the historical region of Attica that encompassed the city of Athens. And that’s how our attics are linked to ancient Greece.

2D Eggs Benedict recipe instruction : POACH

Eggs Benedict is a dish traditionally served at an American breakfast or brunch. It usually consists of a halved English muffin topped with ham and poached eggs, all smothered in Hollandaise sauce. The exact origin of the dish is apparently debated, but one story is that it is named for a Wall Street stockbroker called Lemuel Benedict. In 1894 in the Waldorf Hotel, Benedict ordered toast, poached eggs, crispy bacon and Hollandaise sauce as a cure for his hangover. The hotel’s maître d’ Oscar Tschirky was impressed by the dish and added the variant that we use today to the hotel’s menu, naming it for the gentleman who had first ordered it.

3D “__ Get Your Gun” : ANNIE

“Annie Get Your Gun” is an Irving Berlin musical, first performed on Broadway in 1946. The show is a fictionalized account of the life of sharpshooter Annie Oakley. It was written as a vehicle for Ethel Merman, and when she sang the hit tune “There’s No Business Like Show Business”, she apparently brought down the house.

5D Clandestine meetings : TRYSTS

In the most general sense, a tryst is a meeting at an agreed time and place. More usually we consider a tryst to be a pre-arranged meeting between lovers. The term “tryst” comes from the Old French “tristre”, a waiting place designated when hunting. Further, a tryst taking place at lunchtime is sometimes referred to as a nooner.

10D American Girl product : DOLL

American Girl is a line of dolls introduced in 1986. The dolls were originally young girls dressed in clothes that evoked various periods of American history.

19D London art gallery : TATE

Sir Henry Tate was a 19th-century English sugar magnate who revolutionized the sugar industry by introducing sugar cubes to the masses. A generous philanthropist, Tate is best known for his founding of the Tate Gallery in London in 1897. The Tate Gallery, now known as Tate Britain, has since expanded to become a network of four major art museums.

24D Sherlock’s sister, per three Netflix films : ENOLA

“The Enola Holmes Mysteries” is a series of detective novels for young adults by American author Nancy Springer. The title character is the 14-year-old sister of 34-year-old Sherlock Holmes, the detective created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Springer’s novels were adapted into a series of “Enola Holmes” films that Netflix picked up at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Very enjoyable movies …

28D Nov. honoree : VET

Veterans Day used to be known as Armistice Day, and is observed on November 11th each year. This particular date was chosen as the Armistice that ended WWI was signed on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918.

31D Language spoken in Vientiane : LAO

Vientiane is the capital city of Laos, and is situated on the Mekong River. The city was originally called the “city of sandalwood” by Buddhist monks, naming it after the valued trees that grew in the area. The French took the Pali words for “city of sandalwood” and rewrote it as the French-sounding “Vientiane”.

35D Chicago MLBer : CUB

The Chicago Cubs are one of only two charter members of baseball’s National League who are still playing, the other being the Atlanta Braves. The Cubs won the World Series in 2016 for the first time since 1908, which is a long time ago. In fact, the Cubs had the longest championship drought of any professional sports team in North America.

36D Shish __ : KEBAB

The term “kebab” (also “kabob”) covers a wide variety of meat dishes that originated in Persia. In the West, we usually use “kebab” when talking about shish kebab, which is meat (often lamb) served on a skewer. “Shish” comes from the Turkish word for “skewer”.

39D Sci-fi computer villain : HAL

In Arthur C. Clarke’s “Space Odyssey” (famously adapted for the big screen as “2001: A Space Odyssey”) the computer system that went rogue was called HAL 9000, or simply “HAL”. HAL stands for “Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer”. Even though Clarke denied it, there’s a good argument that can be made that the acronym HAL is a veiled reference to IBM, the big player in the world of computing at the time of the novel’s publication (1968). The acronym HAL is just a one-letter shift from the initials “IBM”.

40D Boxing ref’s ruling, for short : TKO

Technical knockout (TKO)

42D Brouhaha : ADO

“Brouhaha”, meaning “ado, stir”, was a French word that back in the 1550s meant “the cry of the devil disguised as clergy”. Wow!

51D Analyze for purity : ASSAY

One might assay an ore to determine its composition, its makeup.

52D Baseball bat wood : MAPLE

Ash wood has historically been a favored material for baseball bats due to its flexibility and strength, allowing for a good balance of power and durability. However, in recent years, maple has become more popular due to ash’s tendency to splinter.

53D Fishing basket : CREEL

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.

56D Pizza Margherita herb : BASIL

Pizza was invented in Naples, where it has a long tradition that goes back to ancient Rome. During an 1889 visit to Naples, Queen Margherita of Savoy was served a special pizza that was created with toppings designed to mimic the colors of the Italian flag. The ingredients of tomato (red), mozzarella (white) and basil (green) can still be found together on menus today, on a pie usually named Pizza Margherita after the queen. I do love basil on my pizza …

57D Avis rival : ALAMO

Alamo is a car rental brand owned by Enterprise Holdings, the largest car rental company in North America. Alamo was founded in 1974 in Florida, and made inroads (pun!) into the market by popularizing the idea of “unlimited mileage”.

58D React to a cringey faux pas : WINCE

The term “faux pas” is French in origin, and translates literally as “false step” (or “false steps”, as the plural has the same spelling in French).

59D Emotion voiced by Lewis Black in the “Inside Out” films : ANGER

“Inside Out” is a 2015 Pixar animated feature film. It’s all about a young girl who relocates with her family from Minnesota to San Francisco. The movie’s action is actually set inside the girl’s head, as five personified emotions deal with the changes she has to face. Those emotions are voiced by:

• Amy Poehler (Joy)
• Phyllis Smith (Sadness)
• Lewis Black (Anger)
• Bill Hader (Fear)
• Mindy Kaling (Disgust)

62D Senior advocacy group : AARP

The AARP (American Association of Retired Persons) was founded in 1958 and initially focused on providing health insurance to older Americans.

63D Times Sq. sales booth : TKTS

The TKTS booths sell discount theater tickets, notably in Times Square in New York and in the West End of London.

Times Square in New York City isn’t a square at all, but rather a triangle. When the New York Times newspaper opened new headquarters in the area in 1904, the city agreed to the name “Times Square”, changing it from Longacre Square.