LA Times Crossword Answers 21 Oct 16, Friday




la-times-crossword-solution-21-oct-16







Constructed by: Chuck Deodene

Edited by: Rich Norris

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Theme: Drive

Our themed clues today all reference the word DRIVE:

  • 36D…Theme of this puzzle..DRIVE
  • 17A…Place to take a 36-Down..EXPRESSWAY
  • 25A…Place to run a 36-Down..CATTLE RANCH
  • 37A…Place to install a 36-Down..DESKTOP COMPUTER
  • 47A…Place to hold a 36-Down..BLOODMOBILE
  • 57A…Place to hit a 36-Down..GOLF COURSE

Bill’s time: 7m 49s

Bill’s errors: 0




Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies

Across

6…Work with a number..OPUS

The Latin for “work” is “opus”, with the plural being “opera”.

15…Probe-launching org…NASA

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

20…Euripides drama..MEDEA

“Medea” is a tragedy penned by Ancient Greek playwright Euripides. Dealing with the myth of Jason and Medea, it was not received well at its debut in 431 BC. It was premiered at that year’s Dionysia festival in Athens, competing against plays by Euphorion and Sophocles. Euphorion’s play won the competition and Euripides’ “Medea” came in last.

Euripides was a celebrated playwright of Ancient Greece, renowned for his tragedies. Euripides was one of the three great writers of tragedy of classical Athens, alongside Aeschylus and Sophocles.

22…Venomous reptile..ASP

The asp is a venomous snake found in the Nile region of Africa.

31…__ Throne: “Game of Thrones” monarchy..IRON

HBO’s “Game of Thrones” is a fantasy television drama that is adapted from a series of novels by George R. R. Martin called “A Song of Ice and Fire”. “Game of Thrones” is actually filmed in and around Belfast, Northern Ireland.

42…Members of an exclusive league..IVIES

The term “Ivy League” originally defined an athletic conference, but now it is used to describe a group of schools of higher education that are associated with both a long tradition and academic excellence. The eight Ivy League Schools are: Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Princeton, the University of Pennsylvania, and Yale.

43…Pasta choice..ZITI

Cylindrical pasta is known in general as “penne”, and there are many variants. For example, ziti is a particularly large and long tube with square-cut ends. “Penne” is the plural of “penna”, the Italian for “feather, quill”.

52…PC file extension..EXE

In the Windows Operating System, a file with the extension .exe is an “executable” file.

54…Lead-in to a drink?..I NEED …

Don’t tempt me …

62…”Totally!”..AMEN!

The word “amen” is translated as “so be it”. “Amen” is said to be of Hebrew origin, but it is likely to be also influenced by Aramaic and Arabic.

65…Not..NARY

The adjective “nary” means “not one”, as in “nary a soul”.

67…Neighborhood posting..FLYER

“Fliers” are notices that are circulated. The original fliers (also “flyers”) were police bulletins that were “scatter-broadcast”.

Down

1…”__ Hate Me”: Spike Lee film..SHE

Film director Spike Lee was born in Atlanta, Georgia but has very much made New York City his home and place of work. Most of Lee’s films are set in New York City, including his first feature film, “She’s Gotta Have It”. That film was shot over two weeks, with a budget of $175,000. “She’s Gotta Have It” grossed over $7 million at the US box office.

2…Prom duds..TUX

The style of men’s evening dress called a “tuxedo” was apparently first worn to a country club event in 1886 in New York. The use of a dark dinner jacket without tails became fashionable at the club with the members, and the tradition spread from there. The country club was located in Tuxedo Park, New York, giving the style of dress its name.

“Duds” is an informal word for clothing, coming from the word “dudde” that was used around 1300 as the name for a cloak.

5…Country bordering three seas..GREECE

The nation of Greece is located at the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula. The mainland of Greece is bordered by three seas: the Aegean to the east, the Ionian to the west, and the Mediterranean to the south.

8…”Royal Pains” network..USA

“Royal Pains” is a medical drama that has aired on the USA network since 2009. The storyline revolves around a “concierge doctor” named Hank Lawson, a doctor who provides medical support to residents of a resort community in the Hamptons.

12…With 45-Across, “The Bicentennial Man” author..ISAAC

45…See 12-Down..ASIMOV

Isaac Asimov was a wonderful science fiction writer, and a professor of biochemistry. He was a favorite author as I was growing up and I must admit that some hero worship on my part led me to study and work as a biochemist for a short while early in my career. My favorite of his works is the collection of short stories called “I, Robot”. Asimov wrote three autobiographies, the last of which was called “I, Asimov”, which was published in 1994, two years after his death.

“The Bicentennial Man” is a 1976 novelette by science fiction author Isaac Asimov, one of his “Robot” series of stories. The novelette provided the basis for the 1999 film “Bicentennial Man”, starring Robin Williams as the title character, a robot named “Andrew”.

18…Deadwood’s state: Abbr…SDAK

The South Dakota city of Deadwood was named for the numerous dead trees found in the area when it was settled illegally by gold miners in the 1870s. The land was owned by the Lakota people, as specified in the Treaty of Laramie signed by the US government in 1868.

26…Locking blocks..LEGOS

Lego is manufactured by Lego Group, a privately held company headquartered in Billund, Denmark. The company was founded by a carpenter called Ole Kirk Christiansen in 1934 and the now-famous plastic interlocking blocks were introduced in 1949. The blocks were originally sold under the name “Automatic Binding Bricks” but I think “Lego” is easier to remember! The name “Lego” comes from the Danish term “leg godt” meaning “play well”.

29…Letterpress need..INK

Letterpress is the original printing press technique, invented by Johannes Gutenberg in the mid-1400s. The basis of such printing is the use of type (letters) in relief, raised from some surface so that the letters alone make contact with the paper being printed.

32…VP after Hubert..SPIRO

Spiro Agnew served as Vice-President under Richard Nixon, before becoming the only VP in American history to resign because of criminal charges (there was a bribery scandal). Agnew was also the first Greek-American to serve as US Vice President as he was the son of a Greek immigrant who had shortened the family name from Anagnostopoulos.

Hubert Humphrey was the running mate of President Lyndon Johnson in the 1964 presidential campaign. Humphrey was sworn in as Vice President in 1965, becoming the 38th person to hold the office. Humphrey was the Democratic candidate for president in the 1968 election, but lost to Richard Nixon.

34…Fairy-tale intro words..A TIME

The stock phrase “Once upon a time” has been used in various forms as the start of a narrative at least since 1380. The stock phrase at the end of stories such as folktales is often “and they all lived happily ever after”. The earlier version of this ending was “happily until their deaths”.

38…El Niño feature..TILDE

A diacritic mark is added to a letter to indicate that it has a special phonetic sound. Examples of diacritic marks are the tilde above the n in Spanish words like “jalapeño” and “niño “, and the cedilla under the c in French words like “façade”.

When the surface temperature of much of the Pacific Ocean rises more that half a degree centigrade, then there is said to be an El Niño episode. That small temperature change in the Pacific has been associated with climatic changes that can stretch right across the globe. El Niño is Spanish for “the boy” and is a reference to the Christ child. The phenomenon was given this particular Spanish name because the warming is usually noticed near South America and around Christmas-time.

39…Female gamete..OVUM

A gamete is a reproductive cell that has half the full complement of genes needed to make a normal cell. In sexual reproduction, it takes two gametes, one from each parent, to fuse into one cell which then develops into a new organism. The female gamete is the ovum, and the male the sperm.

40…Action film weapon..UZI

The first Uzi submachine gun was designed in the late 1940s by Major Uziel “Uzi” Gal of the Israel Defense Forces, who gave his name to the gun.

44…Mendel’s science..BOTANY

Gregor Mendel was an Austrian monk, and a scientist who achieved fame after his passing when his work in the field of genetics was rediscovered. The conclusions he drew from his studies of garden peas led to him earning the moniker “father of modern genetics”.

45…Novelist Waugh..ALEC

Alec Waugh was the older brother of the more famous Evelyn Waugh. Both were successful novelists (Evelyn of “Brideshead Revisited” fame), but what I like about Alec is that he supposedly invented the cocktail party. He invited his friends around “for tea” in the twenties, and served them all rum swizzles instead!

48…Andean transport..LLAMA

The wool from a llama is much softer than that from a sheep, and it is also free from lanolin.

49…Edmonton NHL player..OILER

The National Hockey League’s Edmonton Oilers are so called because they are located in Alberta, Canada … oil country.

50…Hull region..BILGE

The bilge is lowest internal part of a ship. The water that collects in there is called bilge water. The term “bilge” is also used as slang for nonsense talk.

58…Shelley work..ODE

Percy Bysshe Shelley was an English Romantic poet. Shelley had strong views on vegetarianism. He was dedicated to the cause of all sentient beings, believing that the slaughter of animals by humans for the use of food was a barbaric practice. He wrote a famous essay on the subject called “A Vindication of Natural Diet” in 1813.

59…Scheider of “Jaws”..ROY

Hollywood actor Roy Scheider really made it big when he landed the role of Police Chief Martin C. Brody in the 1975 blockbuster “Jaws”. The Brody character uttered one of the most iconic lines in the history of movies in “Jaws”, namely “You’re gonna need a bigger boat”. That was a line improvised by Scheider.

“Jaws” is a thrilling 1975 movie directed by Steven Spielberg that is based on a novel of the same name by Peter Benchley. The film has a powerful cast, led by Roy Scheider, Richard Dreyfuss and Robert Shaw. “Jaws” was perhaps the first “summer blockbuster” with the highest box office take in history, a record that stood until “Star Wars” was released two years later.

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Complete List of Clues and Answers

Across

1…Deceptive operation..STING

6…Work with a number..OPUS

10…Deceptive distortion..SPIN

14…Indulge..HUMOR

15…Probe-launching org…NASA

16…Words often after a number.. … OR SO

17…Place to take a 36-Down..EXPRESSWAY

19…Attire..WEAR

20…Euripides drama..MEDEA

21…Cook books, say..CHEAT

22…Venomous reptile..ASP

25…Place to run a 36-Down..CATTLE RANCH

28…Horror film reaction..SHRIEK

30…Way out..EXIT

31…__ Throne: “Game of Thrones” monarchy..IRON

32…They may span decades..SAGAS

34…Tack on..ADD

37…Place to install a 36-Down..DESKTOP COMPUTER

41…Pasture parent..EWE

42…Members of an exclusive league..IVIES

43…Pasta choice..ZITI

44…Lack of focus..BLUR

45…See 12-Down..ASIMOV

47…Place to hold a 36-Down..BLOODMOBILE

52…PC file extension..EXE

53…One percent, so to speak..ELITE

54…Lead-in to a drink?..I NEED …

56…Fund-raiser, perhaps..GALA

57…Place to hit a 36-Down..GOLF COURSE

62…”Totally!”..AMEN!

63…Brink..EDGE

64…Mill output..FLOUR

65…Not..NARY

66…Wolfish look..LEER

67…Neighborhood posting..FLYER

Down

1…”__ Hate Me”: Spike Lee film..SHE

2…Prom duds..TUX

3…Devil..IMP

4…Social convention..NORM

5…Country bordering three seas..GREECE

6…Kickoff..ONSET

7…Grab for clumsily..PAW AT

8…”Royal Pains” network..USA

9…Declare..SAY

10…”Well, whoop-de-do”..SO WHAT

11…Get duded up..PREEN

12…With 45-Across, “The Bicentennial Man” author..ISAAC

13…Up __..NORTH

18…Deadwood’s state: Abbr…SDAK

21…Like new bills..CRISP

22…Out of the way..ASIDE

23…Nag..SHREW

24…Essay makeup..PROSE

26…Locking blocks..LEGOS

27…End-of-term ordeal..EXAM

29…Letterpress need..INK

32…VP after Hubert..SPIRO

33…Expert..ACE

34…Fairy-tale intro words..A TIME

35…Do a juice cleanse, say..DETOX

36…Theme of this puzzle..DRIVE

38…El Niño feature..TILDE

39…Female gamete..OVUM

40…Action film weapon..UZI

44…Mendel’s science..BOTANY

45…Novelist Waugh..ALEC

46…Wave to from the dock..SEE OFF

47…Initiated..BEGAN

48…Andean transport..LLAMA

49…Edmonton NHL player..OILER

50…Hull region..BILGE

51…Deduce..INFER

55…Sigh-inducing..DULL

57…Holder of locks..GEL

58…Shelley work..ODE

59…Scheider of “Jaws”..ROY

60…Seek payback, maybe..SUE

61…Fumble, e.g…ERR

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