LA Times Crossword 19 May 26, Tuesday

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Constructed by: Amanda Cook

Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Reveal Answer: Power Clashing

Themed answers each comprise two words, both of which can be preceded by the word “POWER”:

• 36A Fashion trend that embraces a bold mix of patterns and colors, or what can be found in 17-, 26-, 52-, and 62-Across? : POWER CLASHING

17A Midday break from work : LUNCH HOUR (power lunch & power hour)

26A Sony game console : PLAYSTATION (power play & power station)

52A Vacation with friends and their significant others : COUPLES TRIP (power couples & power trip)

62A Artistically repurposing, as trash : UPCYCLING (power up & power cycling)

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

Bill’s time: 6m 07s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

9A Amazon smart speakers : ECHOS

Amazon Echo is a voice-controlled hardware device that can be used to provide several services including playing radio programs and music, recording of shopping lists, and managing a calendar. The device just sits in the home listening, until it hears a “wake up” command.

17A Midday break from work : LUNCH HOUR (power lunch & power hour)

Power hour is a drinking game, or maybe one should say “social endurance test”. Participants have to consume sixty shots of beer in exactly sixty minutes, a pace that totals roughly five to seven standard cans in the hour. The term “power hour” has also been adopted by productivity gurus, to describe a high-intensity, sixty-minute window of undistracted work.

19A Ninja Turtle home : SEWER

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TMNT) started out as a parody of comic book superheroes, first appearing in a self-published comic book in 1984. A couple of years later the characters were picked up by someone who built a whole line of toys around the characters, and then television and movies followed. Do you remember the names of all four of the Turtles? Their names were all taken from Renaissance artists:

• Leonardo
• Raphael
• Michelangelo
• Donatello

20A Shoe designer Jimmy : CHOO

Jimmy Choo is a designer of handmade women’s shoes who was born in Malaysia but grew up and was educated in London. Choo sold the 50% stake that he had in his shoe manufacturing company in 2001, for 10 million pounds.

24A Low card in gin rummy : ACE

Gin rummy is a faster variant of standard rummy. It was introduced in 1909 by one Elwood Baker and his son.

26A Sony game console : PLAYSTATION (power play & power station)

Sony introduced the PlayStation line of video game consoles in 1994.

“Power play” is a term used in several sports. Perhaps most notably, the phrase is used in ice hockey when one team has a numerical advantage due to an opposing player serving a penalty.

29A Ithaca Ivy : CORNELL

Ezra Cornell was an associate of Samuel Morse and made his money in the telegraph business. After he retired he co-founded Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. He provided a generous endowment and donated his farm as a site for the school, and was then rewarded by having the institute named after him.

The city of Ithaca sits right at the southern tip of Cayuga Lake in New York State. Named for the Greek island, Ithaca is famous as home to Cornell University, which is located just east of the city.

36A Fashion trend that embraces a bold mix of patterns and colors, or what can be found in 17-, 26-, 52-, and 62-Across? : POWER CLASHING

Power clashing is the deliberate pairing of patterns that traditionally conflict but are worn together to project extreme confidence. The idea is that intentional clashing signals that the wearer is too influential to be bound by accepted fashion norms. I just thought my clothing choices were due to ignorance, but it turns out that I am sending a message …

57A Tiny terrier, e.g. : TOY

The toy group of dogs is made up of the smallest breeds. The smallest of the small breeds are sometimes called teacup breeds.

58A “Tulsa King” actor McDonough : NEAL

Actor Neal McDonough is perhaps best known for portraying Lieutenant Lynn “Buck” Compton in the outstanding TV series “Band of Brothers”. He is famously distinguished in Hollywood for his strict “no-kissing” policy, a personal boundary rooted in his Catholic faith that precludes him from filming romantic or sexual scenes. That policy led to him being fired after only three days of shooting for the TV show “Scoundrels”.

“Tulsa King” is a comedy-crime drama show that stars veteran action icon Sylvester Stallone headlining a scripted television series for the very first time in his fifty-year career. Stallone plays Dwight “The General” Manfredi, a Mafia capo who is exiled to Oklahoma to establish new criminal operations after serving twenty-five years in prison.

60A __ Park, Colorado : ESTES

Estes Park is a town in a beautiful part of the US, in northern Colorado. Estes Park is home to the headquarters of Rocky Mountain National Park.

62A Artistically repurposing, as trash : UPCYCLING (power up & power cycling)

To upcycle is to recycle in such a way that the new usage of a material is actually better than the original usage.

67A Barking marine mammal : 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.

69A Like pound cake : DENSE

Pound cake is so called because the traditional recipe calls for a pound of each of four ingredients:

• a pound of flour
• a pound of butter
• a pound of eggs
• a pound of sugar

I’d say that’s a lot of cake …

Down

1D Org. with Lions and Bears, but not Tigers : NFL

The Detroit Lions are the NFL team that play home games at Ford Field in Detroit, Michigan. The team was founded way back in 1929 as the Portsmouth Spartans from Portsmouth, Ohio. The Spartans joined the NFL during the Great Depression as other franchises collapsed. However, the Spartans couldn’t command a large enough gate in Portsmouth so the team was sold and relocated to Detroit in 1934.

The Chicago Bears football team was founded in Decatur, Illinois in 1919 and moved to Chicago in 1921. The Bears are one of only two franchises in the NFL that were around at the time of the league’s founding (the other being the Arizona Cardinals, also based in Chicago in 1921).

The origins of the Detroit Tigers baseball team’s name seems a little unclear. One story is that it was taken from the Detroit Light Guard military unit who were known as “The Tigers”. The Light Guard fought with distinction during the Civil War and in the Spanish-American War. Sure enough, when the Detroit baseball team went into the Majors they were formally given permission to use “The Tigers” name by the Detroit Light Guard.

3D Composition for soloist and orchestra : CONCERTO

A concerto is a musical work that is usually composed of three movements, and is often written for a solo instrument accompanied by an orchestra.

5D Podiatrist with a namesake orthopedic brand : SCHOLL

William Scholl worked part time as a cobbler and then in a shoe retailer in Chicago. Noting that many people had similar foot problems he went to night school and qualified as a podiatrist in 1904. Soon after he started his own company making footcare products, giving us the brand name Dr. Scholl’s.

Podiatry is a branch of medicine dealing with the foot, ankle and lower extremities. What I find surprising is that the two feet account for one-quarter of all the bones in the human body.

10D Distinctive features of cockatoos : CRESTS

Cockatoos are birds closely related to the true parrots. The name “cockatoo” probably comes from the Malay “kakak” (elder sibling) and “tua” (old).

11D The Big Island : HAWAII

The largest island in the state of Hawaii is named Hawaii, and nicknamed “the Big Island”. Of the Hawaiian islands that I’ve had the pleasure to visit, the Big Island is definitely my favorite.

12D Spotted wildcat : OCELOT

The ocelot is a wild cat found mainly in South and Central America, although there have been sightings as far north as Arkansas. An ocelot doesn’t look too different from a domestic cat, and some have been kept as pets. Perhaps most famously, Salvador Dali had one that he carried around everywhere with him.

27D Wonderland visitor who uses a flamingo as a croquet mallet : ALICE

In “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” by Lewis Carroll, Alice plays a game of croquet with the Queen of Hearts and some of her subjects. The unusual version of the sport that’s played in Wonderland involves the use of live flamingos as mallets and hedgehogs as balls.

28D Scholarly collection: Abbr. : ANTH

Strictly speaking, an anthology is a collection of poetic works, although the meaning of “anthology” has broadened over time to cover any literary collection, or even a collection of ideas, comments, complaints, etc. The term derives from the Greek “anthologia”, a word for a collection of short poems by several authors. The literal meaning is “flower collection” from “anthos” and “logia”, so an anthology is a book containing “flowers” of verse.

34D Camera type, for short : SLR

Single-lens reflex (SLR) camera

35D __ pointer : LASER

eBay was founded in 1995 as AuctionWeb. One of the first items purchased was a broken laser pointer, for $14.83. The buyer was a collector of broken laser pointers …

40D Jane Austen, for one : NOVELIST

English novelist Jane Austen is best known today for her six major novels, only four of which were published before she died in 1817, at the age of 41:

1. “Sense and Sensibility” (1811)
2. “Pride and Prejudice” (1813)
3. “Mansfield Park” (1814)
4. “Emma” (1816)
5. “Northanger Abbey” (1818)
6. “Persuasion” (1818)

44D Awareness-raising TV spot : PSA

Public service announcement (PSA)

45D Lengthy diatribe : SCREED

A screed is a long speech or piece of writing, often one that is full of anger and emotion.

A diatribe is a bitter discourse. The term “diatribe” comes from the Greek “diatribein” meaning “to wear away”.

47D “Keep __ Weird”: motto of a Texas city : AUSTIN

The unofficial slogan of the Texas capital is “Keep Austin Weird”. It was coined in 2000 on a call to a local radio show, defending the city’s eccentric local spirit against rapid commercialization. The phrase became so popular that it was co-opted by Portland in 2003, Louisville in 2005, and Indianapolis in 2013.

50D Audiophile’s collection : VINYLS

The first vinyl records designed to play at 33⅓ rpm were introduced by RCA Victor in 1931, but were discontinued due to quality problems. The first long play (LP) 33⅓ rpm disc was introduced by Columbia Records many years later in 1948, with RCA Victor following up with a 45 rpm “single” the following year, in 1949.

51D Oil cartel acronym : OPEC

The OPEC cartel was formally established in 1960 and has been headquartered in Vienna since 1965. The US is one of the big three oil producers in the world (along with Russia and Saudi Arabia). One reason America isn’t in OPEC is that, prior to 2019, we imported more oil than we exported. Then, of course, there are US federal antitrust laws …

53D March composer John Philip __ : SOUSA

John Philip Sousa was a composer and conductor from Washington, D.C. Sousa was well known for his patriotic marches and earned himself the nickname “The American March King”. He served as a member of the US Marine Band from 1868 to 1875, and after leaving the Marines learned to conduct and compose. One of the Sousa compositions that is well-known around the world is called “The Liberty Bell”, a tune used as the musical theme for BBC Television’s “Monty Python’s Flying Circus”. Sousa also wrote “Semper Fidelis”, which is the official march of the US Marine Corps.

63D Currency with toonies, briefly : CAD

Canadian dollar (CAD)

“Toonie” is the familiar name for a two-dollar coin in Canada. The toonie was introduced in 1996, and gets its familiar name from the one-dollar coin known as a “loonie”.

65D Hiatus : GAP

A hiatus is a break or opening in a material object, or an interruption in time. “Hiatus” is Latin for “opening”.