LA Times Crossword 1 Oct 26, Thursday

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Constructed by: Cameron Barr & Annabel Blitzer

Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Reveal Answer: Milkshake

Themed answers all include the letter string “MILK”, with the order SHAKEN up:

• 61A Ice cream treat, or what can be found in 17-, 25-, 36-, or 51-Across? : MILKSHAKE

• 17A “Top Gun” and “Top Gun: Maverick” actor : VAL KILMER
• 25A Insect such as Bombyx mori : SILK MOTH
• 36A “The Kiss” painter : GUSTAV KLIMT
• 51A Appear as : SEEM LIKE

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

Bill’s time: 7m 07s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1A Pride letters : LGBT

Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT)

5A Latch (onto) : GLOM

“Glom” is a slang term meaning “steal”, although it can also be used to mean “latch onto” when used as “glom onto”. The term probably comes from the Scots word “glam” meaning “to snatch at”.

9A Pricey strings, familiarly : STRAD

Antonio Stradivari crafted his world-renowned string instruments in Cremona, Italy, during the 17th and 18th centuries. It is estimated that he produced about 1,200 instruments, with only about 600 surviving today. There’s a lot of debate about the reasons for the unparalleled acoustics of a “Strad”, and little certainty, it seems. The highest price ever paid publicly for one of his violins was $15.9 million in 2011 for the “Lady Blunt”.

16A Canines, e.g. : TEETH

The canine teeth of a mammal are also called the eyeteeth or cuspids. The name “canine” is used because these particular teeth are very prominent in dogs. The prefix “eye-” is used because in humans the eyeteeth are located in the upper jaw, directly below the eyes.

17A “Top Gun” and “Top Gun: Maverick” actor : VAL KILMER

Val Kilmer’s first big leading role in a movie was playing Jim Morrison in Oliver Stone’s 1991 biopic “The Doors”. A few years later, Kilmer was chosen for the lead in another big production, “Batman Forever”. Off the screen, he flirted with the idea of running for Governor of New Mexico in 2010. A Hollywood actor as a governor? Would never happen …

“Top Gun” is an entertaining action movie released in 1986 starring Tom Cruise and Kelly McGillis. The movie is all about pilots training at the US Navy’s Fighter Weapons School. A lot of footage was shot on board the Navy’s carrier the USS Enterprise during flight operations. At one point in a day’s shooting, the commander of the Enterprise changed course as needed for normal operations, but this altered the light for the cameras that were filming at the time. Director Tony Scott asked for the course to be changed back, but was informed that a course change would cost the Navy $25,000. Scott wrote out a check there and then, and he got another five minutes of filming with the light he needed.

2022’s “Top Gun: Maverick” is the long-awaited sequel to the 1986 film “Top Gun”. Tom Cruise reprises his role as the navy pilot with the handle “Maverick”, this time training a group of younger Top Gun graduates to fly a dangerous mission. Personally, I think that the sequel is better than the original.

21A Fastest qualifier in auto racing : POLE CAR

In motorsports, the car starting in pole position is the one starting in the most advantageous position on the track. In most cases, drivers earn the pole position by posting the best qualifying times. The term “pole position” originated in horse racing. The fastest qualifying horse was granted the inside part of the starting line, the one next to the pole marking that line.

25A Insect such as Bombyx mori : SILK MOTH

Bombyx mori, the domestic silk moth, is a great example of how selective breeding by humans leads to a species being relatively unhealthy. Over 5,000 years of intensive domestication has resulted in an adult moth that cannot fly, lacks functional mouthparts, and lives just a few days solely to reproduce. They serve their purpose as producers of silk. In the form of caterpillars, they feed on white mulberry leaves before spinning a protective cocoon formed from a single, continuous strand of silk that can stretch nearly 3,000 feet long.

33A Plemons of “The Power of the Dog” : JESSE

Actor Jesse Plemons got his big break playing nerdy freshman Landry Clarke on the excellent sports drama show “Friday Night Lights”. In almost everything that I’ve seen him in, he portrays a character who is quiet, and quite menacing. A good example is the character Todd Alquist from the “Breaking Bad” series and the film “El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie”. Those performances, and his resemblance to Matt Damon, earned him the nickname “Meth Damon”. In real life, he married Kirsten Dunst in 2022, with whom he co-starred in the TV version of “Fargo”.

36A “The Kiss” painter : GUSTAV KLIMT

Gustav Klimt was an Austrian painter who primarily painted the female body, often producing works that were described as erotic. One of Klimt’s most famous paintings is “The Kiss”, which he completed in 1908.

43A Resistance unit : OHM

German physicist Georg Ohm gave his name to the standard unit of electrical resistance. He first published his mathematical equation relating current, voltage, and resistance (V=IR, Ohm’s Law) in 1827. Ohm’s theories were so widely dismissed by the scientific community that he was even forced to resign from his college teaching position due to the hostile reception.

47A Org. overseeing LA28 : IOC

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) was founded in 1894, and has its headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland.

The 2028 Summer Olympic Games was awarded to Los Angeles in 2017. LA previously hosted in 1932 and 1984. The only other three-time host cities are London and Paris.

48A Part of B&B : BED

In the US, an intimate inn is a bed & breakfast (B&B). When I lived there, a bed & breakfast back in Ireland was more basic accommodation, and used to be much cheaper than a comparable hotel room.

54A “Friends” friend : PHOEBE

The character Phoebe Buffay (and her identical twin sister Ursula) is played on the sitcom “Friends” by the actress Lisa Kudrow. Kudrow plays the ditzy member of the troupe of friends, but I’ve always viewed her as the “smartest” of the group of actors in real life, as best I could tell. Kudrow is behind the US version of the British genealogy show “Who Do You Think You Are?” a very entertaining bit of television.

56A Lady Gaga, for one : POP DIVA

“Lady Gaga” is the stage name of Stefani Germanotta. Germanotta is a big fan of the band Queen, and she took her stage name from the marvelous Queen song titled “Radio Ga Ga”.

63A Nebraska city : OMAHA

Omaha, Nebraska is home to four Fortune 500 companies:

• Berkshire Hathaway (Warren Buffett’s holding company)
• Union Pacific (the second largest railroad in the US)
• Kiewit (a very large, employee-owned construction company)
• Mutual of Omaha (an insurance company founded back in 1909)

64A Fancy party spread : PATE

Pâté is a rich, spreadable paste made from a mixture of ground meat and fat to which various vegetables, herbs and spices may be added. The most famous version of the paste is pâté de foie gras, which is made from the fattened livers of geese (“foie gras” means “fat liver” in French).

65A Like leap years : EVEN

I wasn’t sure of the origin of the term “leap year”, and when I checked I found it to be fairly obvious. As a reference, let’s use March 25, 2007, a Sunday. The year before, in 2006, March 25th fell one weekday earlier on a Saturday. That follows the rule that any particular date moves forward in the week by one day, from one year to the next. However, the next year (2008) has an extra day, February 29th. So March 25, 2008 falls on a Tuesday, “leaping” two weekdays forward, not one, as 2008 is a “leap” year. I think I am more confused now than when I started this paragraph …

67A Lock lips, in London : SNOG

“Snogging” is British slang of unknown origin that dates back to the end of WWII. The term is used for “kissing and cuddling”, what we call “making out” over here in the US.

Down

3D Some ball attendees : BELLES

A beau (plural “beaux”) is the boyfriend of a belle, a young lady. “Beau” and “belle” are the masculine and feminine forms of the French word for “handsome, beautiful”.

7D Cookies with many limited-edition flavors : OREOS

Starting in the early 2010s, Oreo cookies were produced in limited edition runs, many of which were very, very popular. Some examples are:

• Birthday Cake: to celebrate Oreo’s 100th birthday
• Fruity Crisp: to emulate Fruity Pebbles breakfast cereal
• Firework: with Pop Rocks candy in the crème, to celebrate Fourth of July
• Lady Gaga: to promote Lady Gaga’s 2020 album “Chromatica”
• Team USA: to promote the 2020 US Olympic Team

8D Miami baseball player : MARLIN

The Miami Marlins baseball team was founded in 1993 as the Florida Marlins. The franchise changed its name to the Miami Marlins in 2011 when it relocated to the newly constructed Marlins Park.

13D UPS competitor : DHL

Back in the sixties, Larry Hillblom was making pocket money as a Berkeley law student by doing courier runs between San Francisco and Los Angeles. After law school, Hillblom decided to parlay his experience into his own business and set up a courier service flying bills of lading ahead of freight from San Francisco to Honolulu. He brought in two buddies, Adrian Dalsey and Robert Lynn, as partners and the three were soon hopping on and off commercial flights and gradually making more and more money. And DHL was born … D (for Dalsey) H (for Hillblom) L (for Lynn). DHL was acquired by Germany’s Deutsche Post in 2002.

18D Van Gogh flowers : IRISES

Van Gogh painted his “Irises” while he was in an asylum in the south of France the year before he committed suicide. The original owner was a French art critic and supporter of van Gogh who paid 300 francs to purchase the painting. “Irises” was bought for $53.9 million in 1987, making it the most expensive painting sold up to that point. But, the buyer didn’t actually have the necessary funds, so it had to be resold in 1990. It was picked up by the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, where you can see it today.

26D Danson of “The Good Place” : TED

Actor Ted Danson is noted in particular for three successful roles that he has played on television. He played Sam Malone on the sitcom “Cheers”, the title role on the sitcom “Becker”, and eventually led the cast on the drama series “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation”. Danson has been married to actress Mary Steenburgen, his third wife, since 1995. He had a very public divorce from his second wife after an affair with Whoopi Goldberg that was covered widely in the tabloid press.

“The Good Place” is a fantasy-comedy TV show about a woman who wakes up in the afterlife. The woman is played by Kristen Bell, and the afterlife is a heaven-like utopia designed by Michael, an immortal architect portrayed by Ted Danson. I haven’t seen this one …

30D ID checkers at an airport : TSA

Transportation Security Administration (TSA)

34D Chargeable autos, for short : EVS

Electric vehicle (EV)

35D “Good Hang” podcaster Poehler : AMY

Good Hang with Amy Poehler is a podcast that the comedian launched in 2025. It is basically an online talk show in which Poehler converses with guests from the entertainment industry, in a comfortable and relaxed atmosphere. In 2025, Good Hang won the first ever Golden Globe for Best Podcast.

37D Fish that turns into a dragon, per myth : KOI

According to ancient Chinese legend, a school of koi attempted to swim up a waterfall on the Yellow River. Those that successfully made it over the final gate were transformed into powerful celestial dragons. It is this tale that inspired the traditional Japanese koinobori windsocks flown on Children’s Day, with the black and brightly colored carp representing family members swimming upstream against adversity.

38D Roller coaster feature : LOOP

When a body moves at a steady speed along a circular path, the force that keeps the body in that circular path (rather than a straight line) is the centripetal force. For example, if we’re on a roller coaster doing a loop, the force that keeps the coaster moving in a circular direction, preventing it from flying off in a straight line, is centripetal force. The opposing force that we riders feel while looping on the coaster is centrifugal force, the force that we feel pinning us to our seats.

52D Frappuccino flavor : MOCHA

The Frappuccino is a sweet, iced coffee drink sold by Starbucks.The drink was first developed and marketed by the Coffee Connection chain of coffee shops. Starbucks bought the Coffee Chain in 1994, and thus inherited the “Frappuccino” brand name and original recipe.

53D Water brand : EVIAN

Évian-les-Bains (or simply “Évian”) is in the very east of France, on the shores of Lake Geneva directly across the lake from Lausanne, Switzerland. As one might imagine, Évian is the home of Évian mineral water, the most successful business in town. Personally, I can’t stand the distinctive taste of Évian water …

60D Animal mascot for Liberty Mutual : EMU

Liberty Mutual is an insurance company based in Boston. The business was founded in 1912 as the Massachusetts Employees Insurance Association (MEIA). Liberty Mutual has a famous advertising icon named LiMu Emu.