LA Times Crossword 7 Aug 26, Friday

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Constructed by: Gali Ellenblum & Tal Wagner

Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Reveal Answer: Side Streets

Themed answers require “ST” to be added to one SIDE to match the corresponding clues:

• 38A Features of some detours, or what four answers in this puzzle need in order to match their clues? : SIDE STREETS

• 17A “Our previous recommendation stands”? : STILL ADVISED
• 25A “My peacock’s tail is the best!,” e.g.? : FEATHER BOAST
• 49A Record of one’s attempts to enter a hedge maze? : START HISTORY
• 60A Promise made by a serial dater who aspires to commit? : ONE MORE TRYST

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

Bill’s time: 7m 23s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

6A Walrus kin : SEAL

Male seals are called bulls, females are cows, and babies are pups. A group of seals comprising one or two males, with several females and their offspring, is known as a harem.

Walruses are large marine mammals with very prominent tusks. Their natural habitat is in and around the northern hemisphere’s Arctic Ocean.

10A Waffle over in the freezer aisle : EGGO

Eggo is a brand of frozen waffles that was introduced by the Dorsa brothers in 1953 and later acquired by Kellogg in 1968. The brand experienced a surge in popularity in the 1980s due to a successful ad campaign featuring a family sitting down to breakfast together and enjoying Eggo waffles. The tagline of the commercials, “Leggo my Eggo”, is still recognized today.

14A Bête __ : NOIRE

“Bête noire” translates from French as “black beast”, and is used in English to describe something or someone that is disliked.

19A Explore Mars, perhaps : ROVE

There have been several rovers sent to Mars from Earth. The Soviet Union’s Mars 2 landed in 1971, and failed. Mars 3 landed the same year, and ceased operation just 20 seconds after landing. NASA’s Sojourner landed in 1997 (what a great day that was!) and operated from July through September. NASA’s Spirit landed in 2004, and operated successfully for over six years before getting trapped in sand and eventually ceasing to communicate. NASA’s Opportunity also landed in 2004, and operated for over fourteen years. And then NASA’s Curiosity made a spectacular, hi-tech landing in 2012 and is continuing to explore the planet today. Based on the Curiosity design, NASA’s Perseverance rover landed in 2021, along with the Mars helicopter named Ingenuity. The China National Space Administration landed its first rover, named Zhurong (after a Chinese god of fire), three months after Perseverance started its mission on the planet.

22A Vein of ore : LODE

A lode is a metal ore deposit that’s found between two layers of rock or in a fissure. The mother lode is the principal deposit in a mine, usually of gold or silver. “Mother lode” is probably a translation of “veta madre”, an expression used in mining in Mexico.

23A Genesis locale : EDEN

According to the Book of Genesis, Adam and Eve lived in a garden “in” Eden, with Eden being geographically located by reference to four rivers, including the Tigris and the Euphrates. Some scholars hypothesize that Eden was located in Mesopotamia, which encompasses much of modern-day Iraq.

25A “My peacock’s tail is the best!,” e.g.? : FEATHER BOAST

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.

29A Genesis locale : SODOM

The cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, as well as Admah and Zeboim, were destroyed by God for the sins of their inhabitants, according to the Bible. The name Sodom has become a metaphor for vice and homosexuality, and gives us our word “sodomy”.

33A French bean : HARICOT

In French, one might be fond of eating “haricots” (beans).

37A “We are not alone” subj. : SETI

“SETI” is the name given to a number of projects searching for extraterrestrial life. The acronym stands for “search for extraterrestrial intelligence”. One of the main SETI activities is the monitoring of electromagnetic radiation (such as radio waves) reaching the Earth in the hope of finding a transmission from a civilization in another world.

42A “Call Me” band : BLONDIE

“Call Me” is a 1980 song that was recorded by Blondie and written as the theme song for the excellent 1980 film “American Gigolo”. The tune was composed by Giorgio Moroder, and the lyrics were written by Blondie’s lead vocalist Debbie Harry.

45A Sticker : DECAL

A decal is a decorative sticker. “Decal” is a shortening of “decalcomania”. The latter term is derived from the French “décalquer”, the practice of tracing a pattern from paper onto glass or perhaps porcelain.

54A Mountain lion : PUMA

The mountain lion is found in much of the Americas from the Yukon in Canada right down to the southern Andes in South America. Because the mountain lion is found over such a vast area, it has many different names applied by local peoples, such as “cougar” and “puma”. In fact, the mountain lion holds the Guinness record for the animal with the most number of different names, with over 40 in English alone.

56A Utah city near two national parks : MOAB

Moab is a city in eastern Utah that attracts a lot of visitors each year, mainly those heading for Arches and Canyonlands National Parks, which are nearby.

The gorgeous Arches National Park is located in eastern Utah, just outside of Moab. The main focus of the park is the preservation of over 2,000 natural sandstone arches. The arches are relatively fragile, and 43 have collapsed since 1977, mainly due to erosion caused by wind and rain.

Canyonlands is a magnificent national park in southeast Utah, not far from Moab. The canyons in the park, and the associated mesas and buttes, were formed mainly by the Colorado and Green Rivers.

60A Promise made by a serial dater who aspires to commit? : ONE MORE TRYST

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.

63A Early Bond foe : DR NO

“Dr. No” may have been the first film in the wildly successful James Bond franchise, but it was the sixth novel in the series of books penned by Ian Fleming. Fleming was inspired to write the story after reading the Fu Manchu tales by Sax Rohmer. If you’ve read the Rohmer books or seen the films, you’ll recognize the similarities between the characters Dr. Julius No and Fu Manchu. By the way, the author Ian Fleming tells us that Julius No attended medical school in Milwaukee.

64A Actor Auberjonois : RENE

René Auberjonois was an American actor. His most famous role on the big screen was Father Mulcahy in the movie “M*A*S*H”. On the small screen, he played Odo on the “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine” in the 1990s.

Down

2D Home of the El Greco Museum : TOLEDO

The El Greco Museum is located in Toledo, Spain because the artist spent much of his life there. Although the museum does not actually sit on the site of his original home, the building was designed to recreate his 16th-century living quarters.

4D Pitching stat : ERA

Earned run average (ERA)

6D Substance celebrated by the Sloomoo Institute : SLIME

Slime (also “flubber”) entered the toy market in 1976 when Mattel started selling a neon green, reversible cross-linking gel packaged in a miniature plastic trash can. That gel was made primarily from vegetable-grade guar gum and sodium borate. Slime oozed its way into pop culture and was featured heavily in movies like “Ghostbusters” and “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles”. There is even a Sloomoo Institute that offers vats of the stuff for your gooey pleasure, with operations in several cities such as New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Houston, Charlotte, and Los Angeles.

8D Best club in Vegas? : ACE

The suit in a deck of cards that we refer to as “clubs” comes from the standard French deck. In French, the suit is known as “trèfles” meaning “clovers”, as the club icon resembles a clover leaf. Our name “clubs” comes from the Italian-Spanish standard deck, in which the equivalent suit is “Bastoni”, meaning “batons”.

13D The Grand __ Opry : OLE

The Grand Ole Opry started out as a radio show in 1925 originally called the WSM “Barn Dance”. In 1927, the “Barn Dance” radio show was broadcast in a slot after an NBC production called “Musical Appreciation Hour”, a collection of classical works including Grand Opera. In a December show, the host of “Barn Dance” announced, “For the past hour, we have been listening to music taken largely from Grand Opera. From now on we will present the ‘Grand Ole Opry'”. That name was used for the radio show from then on.

18D TV broadcast band : VHF

TV frequencies here in North America are divided into two bands. The VHF band covers channels 2 through 13; the UHF band covers channels 14 through 83.

24D Like a 2024 Blake Snell game : NO-HIT

Blake Snell is one of only seven pitchers in Major League Baseball history to win the Cy Young Award in both the American and National Leagues. His first win was in 2018 with the Tampa Bay Rays, and then he repeated the achievement in 2023 with the San Diego Padres.

34D Symbolic puzzle that dates to the Middle Ages : REBUS

A rebus is a puzzle that uses pictures to represent letters and groups of letters. For example, a picture of a “ewe” might represent the letter “U” or the pronoun “you”, a picture of an “oar” might represent the letter “R” or the conjunction “or”, and a picture of an “awl” might represent the word “all”.

36D Cybersecurity exec : CTO

Chief technology officer (CTO)

38D Source of some pink seasoning : SALT MINE

Himalayan salt is harvested from the Khewra Salt Mine in Pakistan, which is actually about 200 miles away from the Himalayan peaks. Impurities, mainly iron oxide, give the salt a pink hue.

39D Ramadan-ending holiday, informally : EID

Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar. Fasting during Ramadan is one of the Five Pillars of Islam. The fast begins at dawn and ends at sunset each day. The end of Ramadan is marked by a three-day festival called Eid al-Fitr, which means “festival of breaking the fast.”

48D “The People’s Princess” : LADY DI

Just after Diana, Princess of Wales died in a car accident, then Prime Minister Tony Blair addressed the nation. In so doing, he described her as “the People’s Princess”. That description resonated with many, and is still used today when referring to “Lady Di”.

52D Shakespeare lover : ROMEO

William Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” is all about the love between the two title characters, which is forbidden as the pair come from two families who are sworn enemies. Early in the play, Romeo (a Montague) sneaks into a masquerade ball being held by the Capulets in the hope of meeting a Capulet girl named Rosaline. Instead, he meets and falls for Juliet, also a Capulet. Tragedy ensues …

53D Former NBA star Ming : YAO

Yao Ming is a retired professional basketball player from Shanghai who played for the Houston Rockets. At 7’6″, Yao was the tallest man playing in the NBA. He has a cute nickname: “the Ming Dynasty”.

57D Jewish rite : BRIS

A mohel is a man who has been trained in the practice of brit milah (circumcision). Brit milah is known as “bris” in Yiddish. The brit milah ceremony is performed on male infants when they are 8 days old.

62D CPR expert : EMT

An emergency medical technician (EMT) might administer cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR).