LA Times Crossword 10 Sep 26, Thursday

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Constructed by: Alex Rohrer & Rodrigo Kerlegand

Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Reveal Answer: Breaking the Rules

Today’s grid includes four rows in which each hides a synonym of “RULE”, but “BROKEN” in two by a black square:

• 38A Cheating, or what the black squares in rows 3, 5, 11, and 13 are doing : BREAKING THE RULES

• 17A Start filming, say : HIT RECORD
• 19A Like a drive deep in the woods? : ERRANT (broken ORD/ER)

• 23A “Wowza!” : OH BABY!
• 25A One pushed to make cuts? : LAWN MOWER (broken BY/LAW)

• 53A First responder : PARAMEDIC
• 56A Game played in the trunk before a road trip? : TETRIS (broken EDIC/T)

• 62A Val Kilmer’s “Top Gun” role : ICEMAN
• 64A Couple’s outing : DATE NIGHT (broken MAN/DATE)

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

Bill’s time: 10m 16s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

9A Typical Stan Lee role : CAMEO

Even in my day, a cameo role was more than just a short appearance in a movie (or other artistic piece). For the appearance to be a cameo, the actor had to play themself, and be instantly recognizable. With this meaning it’s easy to see the etymology of the term, as a cameo brooch is one with the recognizable carving of the silhouette of a person. Nowadays, a cameo is any minor role played by a celebrity or famous actor, regardless of the character played.

Stan Lee did just about everything at Marvel Comics over the years, from writing to being president and chairman of the board. If you like superhero movies based on the characters from Marvel Comics, then you could spend a few hours trying to spot Stan Lee in those films as he had a penchant for making cameo appearances. Lee can be spotted in “X-Men” (2000), “Spider-Man” (2002), “Hulk” (2003), “Fantastic Four” (2005), “Iron Man” (2008) and many other films.

14A Manitoba people : CREE

Manitoba is the Canadian province that borders the US states of North Dakota and Minnesota. Even though Manitoba has an area of over 250,000 square miles, 60% of its population resides in the province’s capital city of Winnipeg.

15A Vinaigrette ingredient, initially : EVOO

Virgin olive oil is oil produced from olives with no chemical treatment involved in the production process at all. To be labeled “virgin”, the oil must have an acidity level of less than 2% and must be judged to have “a good taste”. Extra-virgin olive oil (EVOO) comes from virgin oil production, and is the portion with acidity levels of less than 0.8% acidity that is judged to have “superior taste”.

19A Like a drive deep in the woods? : ERRANT

That would be golf.

Someone described as errant is roving around, especially in search of adventure, as in “knight-errant”. The term “errant” has come to mean “behaving wrongly” and “straying outside the bounds”.

20A Pioneers of old-school rap, for short : OGS

The term “OG” originally designated a founding or senior member of the Crips street gang in LA during the early 1970s. It transitioned into the world of music through West Coast hip-hop, and that usage was popularized by Ice-T’s 1991 album “O.G. Original Gangster”. Since then, the slang term has been used to honor any pioneer, veteran, or originator in a given field.

21A “__ Lisa” : MONA

“Mona Lisa” is a marvelous 1950 song that topped the charts for Nat King Cole for eight weeks. The song was written for the film “Captain Carey, U.S.A.” that was released that same year, starring Alan Ladd. “Mona Lisa” won that season’s Oscar for Best Original Song.

30A Disaster response org. : FEMA

Federal emergency management has been structured for over 200 years, but what we know today as the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was created in 1979 in an Executive Order issued by President Jimmy Carter.

31A Actress Polo : TERI

Teri Polo’s most prominent role on the big screen was Pam Focker in “Meet the Fockers” and its sequels. Pam is the wife of the character played by Ben Stiller. Polo also played the wife of Presidential candidate Matt Santos in “The West Wing”.

32A Bombeck who advised, “Never lend your car to anyone to whom you have given birth” : ERMA

Erma Bombeck wrote for newspapers for about 35 years. She produced more than 4,000 witty and humorous columns under the title “At Wit’s End”, with all describing her home life in suburbia.

43A Abbr. in calculus class : LIM

Algebra and geometry are used to study a static world, to measure fixed shapes and steady speeds. Calculus is used to study continuous motion, to track things that are constantly changing. The key concept in calculus is the limit. Instead of just finding an average speed over a whole mile, for example, limits allow the calculation of exact values at specific, infinitely small instants.

48A Son of Hera : ARES

The Greek god Ares is often referred to as the Olympian god of warfare, but originally he was regarded as the god of bloodlust and slaughter. He united with Aphrodite to create several gods, including Phobos (Fear), Deimos (Terror) and Eros (Desire). Ares was the son of Zeus and Hera, and the Roman equivalent to Ares was Mars.

In Greek mythology, Hera was the wife of Zeus and the goddess of women, marriage, family and childbirth. She was noted for her jealous and vengeful nature, particularly against those who vied for the affections of her husband. The equivalent character to Hera in Roman mythology was Juno. Hera was the daughter of Cronus and Rhea.

50A Padre’s hermanos : TIOS

In Spanish, a “tio” (uncle) is the “hermano del padre o de la madre” (brother of the father or the mother).

56A Game played in the trunk before a road trip? : TETRIS

Tetris is a very addictive video game that was developed in the Soviet Union in 1984. The name Tetris comes from a melding of the prefix “tetra-” (as all the game pieces have four segments) and “tennis” (a favorite sport played by the developer). Since 2005 there have been more than 100 million copies of the game installed on cell phones alone.

That would be the game of Tetris played with pieces of luggage.

61A Medical pen prefix : EPI-

EpiPen is a brand of epinephrine auto-injector. An EpiPen delivers a measured dose of epinephrine, which is a common treatment for an extreme allergic reaction.

62A Val Kilmer’s “Top Gun” role : ICEMAN

Here are some of the more notable characters in the 1986 movie “Top Gun”:

• Pete “Maverick” Mitchell (Tom Cruise)
• Charlotte “Charlie” Blackwood (Kelly McGillis)
• Nick “Goose” Bradshaw (Anthony Edwards)
• Tom “Iceman” Kazansky (Val Kilmer)
• Mike “Viper” Metcalf (Tom Skerritt)
• Rick “Jester” Heatherly (Michael Ironside)

66A California wine valley : SONOMA

Did you know that there are far more wine grapes produced in Sonoma than Napa? Within Sonoma County some of the more well-known appellations are Chalk Hill and Russian River Valley. Personally, when I want to visit the wine country, I head for the Russian River Valley as it’s far less crowded and much more fun than Napa Valley.

68A Corner chess piece : ROOK

The corner piece in the game of chess is called a “rook”, a word coming from the Persian “rokh” meaning a “chariot”. The rook has also been called, perhaps incorrectly, the castle, tower, marquess and rector.

69A Actress who voices Bo Peep in the “Toy Story” franchise : POTTS

Annie Potts is an actress from Nashville, Tennessee. She had roles in successful films such as “Ghostbusters” and “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” and did voice work for “Toy Story” and “Toy Story 2”. Potts was lucky to survive a car crash when she was 21 years old, as she broke nearly every bone in her lower body.

70A “__ bien!” : TRES

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

71A Chlumsky of “Veep” : ANNA

Anna Chlumsky launched her career as a child actress playing the title role in the films “My Girl” (1991) and “My Girl 2” (1994). After taking time out to attend college, Chlumsky resumed her run of success with a regular role in the political satire show “Veep”.

“Veep” is a political satire sitcom created by Armando Iannucci, who also wrote the related British show “The Thick of It” (Warning: strong, strong language!). “Veep” is set in the office of fictional US Vice President Selina Meyer, played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus.

Down

1D Hay fever sound : ACHOO

The common term “hay fever” describes a type of seasonal allergic rhinitis, inflammation of the nose due to an immune reaction to airborne allergens. The term “hay fever” is quite the misnomer. It is not usually caused by “hay”, and there is no “fever”.

6D Stratford-upon-__ : AVON

Stratford-upon-Avon is a town in the county of Warwickshire in the English midlands. Most famously perhaps, it was the birthplace of William Shakespeare.

9D Pool bounce : CAROM

A carom is a ricochet, the bouncing of some projectile off a surface. “Carom” has come to describe the banking of a billiard ball, the bouncing of the ball off the side of the table.

13D Toronto’s prov. : ONT

The city of Toronto was originally established as York in 1793 by Lieutenant Governor John Graves Simcoe, who named it after Prince Frederick, Duke of York and Albany. It was incorporated and renamed Toronto in 1834. The name “Toronto” is believed to be of Indigenous origin, likely from Iroquoian words meaning “place where trees stand in the water” or “meeting place.”

18D Sets off : EMBARKS

In getting on and off a seagoing vessel, one embarks and disembarks (also “debarks”). The terms “embark” and “disembark” come from the name of the small ship known as a barque.

26D Amo, amas, __ : AMAT

“Amo, amas, amat” translates from Latin as “I love, you love, he/she/it loves”.

27D Shallowest Great Lake : ERIE

Lake Erie is the fourth-largest of the five Great Lakes by area (Lake Ontario is the smallest). The lake takes its name from the Erie tribe of Native Americans that used to live along its southern shore. Erie is the smallest of the Great Lakes by volume and the shallowest, something for which nearby residents must be quite grateful. Being relatively shallow, much of Erie freezes over part way through most winters putting an end to most of the lake-effect snow that falls in the snow belt extending from the lake’s edge.

33D “Mamma __!” : MIA

The hit musical “Mamma Mia!” was written to showcase the songs of ABBA. I’m a big fan of ABBA’s music, so I’ve seen this show several times and just love it. “Mamma Mia!” is such a big hit on the stage that on any given day there are at least seven performances going on somewhere in the world. There is a really interesting film version of the show that was released in 2008. I think the female lead Meryl Streep is wonderful in the movie, but the male leads … not so much! By the way, one can tell the difference between “Mamma Mia” the ABBA song and “Mamma Mia!” the musical, by noting the difference in the punctuation in the titles.

35D Wordsmith’s ref. : OED

Oxford English Dictionary (OED)

36D Many a Little Leaguer : PRETEEN

Little League Baseball was founded in 1939 in Williamsport, Pennsylvania by Carl Stotz. Back then, Little League was limited to boys. Participation was opened up to girls in 1974, although it took a lawsuit by the National Organization for Women for that to happen.

39D Pop star Ora : RITA

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.

41D Mel B and Mel C bandmate : GERI

Geri Halliwell was nicknamed Ginger Spice when she was with the Spice Girls, because of her red hair. Halliwell was quite a bit older than the rest of the group and so sometimes she was less charitably referred to as “Old Spice”. After launching her solo career, Halliwell released a fabulous 2001 version of the song “It’s Raining Men”, which was originally recorded by the Weather Girls in 1982. Great song …

47D Squirrel kin : MARMOT

Marmots are large ground squirrels. Included in the genus is the famous groundhog, but not the equally famous prairie dog.

49D Pastry choice : ECLAIR

The name for the pastry known as an “éclair” is clearly French in origin. The French word for lightning is “éclair”, but no one seems to be too sure how it came to be used for the rather delicious bakery item.

51D The Beaver State : OREGON

Oregon’s most widely-known nickname is the Beaver State. However, it is also called the Union State, the Pacific Wonderland, the Sunset State and the Webfoot State.

55D Crime novelist Buchanan : EDNA

Edna Buchanan is an author, mainly of crime mystery novels. She also worked as a crime journalist for “The Miami Herald”.

57D First capital of Alaska : SITKA

The city of Sitka is located on Baranof Island and part of Chichagof Island in the Alexander Archipelago off the coast of Alaska. Sitka used to be known as Redoubt Saint Michael and then New Archangel when it was ruled by the Russians. The current city name comes from a local term meaning “People on the Outside of Baranof Island”. Immediately after the purchase of Alaska by the US, Sitka served as the capital of the Alaska Territory until the seat of government was relocated north to Juneau. Sitka is a consolidated city-borough, and so by one definition, Sitka is the largest city in the US. The city-borough covers 2,870 square miles of land, although Urban Sitka covers just 2 square miles of land.

60D Eclectic magazine : UTNE

The “Utne Reader” is known for aggregation and republishing of articles on politics, culture and the environment from other sources in the media. It was founded in 1984 by Eric Utne, with management taken over by Eric’s wife Nina Rothschild Utne in 1990.

62D Web access co. : ISP

An Internet service provider (ISP) is just what the name indicates, a company that provides its customers with access to the Internet. One way that ISPs differentiate themselves from each other is in the way in which end users are connected to the ISP’s network. So, there are cable ISPs, DSL ISPs, dial-up ISPs and satellite ISPs.

64D Summer hrs. : DST

On the other side of the Atlantic, Daylight Saving Time (DST) is known as “summer time”. The idea behind summer/daylight-savings is to move clocks forward an hour in spring and backwards in the fall so that afternoons have more daylight. DST was first observed in the US in 1918, and is observed in all states other than Hawaii and Arizona. Hawaii doesn’t really “need” DST as the length of daylight doesn’t vary much due to the state’s tropical latitude. Arizona’s climate dictates that extra afternoon daylight is an economic burden due to increased use of air conditioning systems.

65D 401(k) kin : IRA

A 401(k) account resembles an IRA in that contributions can be made from a paycheck prior to the deduction of income taxes. It differs from an IRA in that it is an employer-sponsored plan, with payments taken by the employer directly from an employee’s paycheck. Additionally, contributions can be fully or partially matched by an employer.