LA Times Crossword 20 Jan 26, Tuesday

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Constructed by: Dylan Schiff

Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Reveal Answer: Reversed Course

Themed answers each include COURSES at a meal spelled out in circled letters, and in REVERSE:

• 51A Backpedaled, or what’s found in 20-, 30-, and 38-Across : REVERSED COURSE

• 20A Trousers with tool-carrying pockets and loops : CARPENTER PANTS (hiding reversed “STARTER”)
• 30A “So glad I don’t have to deal with that” : BETTER YOU THAN ME (hiding reversed “ENTREE”)
• 38A Goal of meditation, perhaps : STRESS REDUCTION (hiding reversed “DESSERT”)

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

Bill’s time: 8m 39s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

10A Target’s target, for one : LOGO

Target isn’t your average retail corporation, at least in one sense. It also operates two of the nation’s most sophisticated crime labs, in Minneapolis and Las Vegas. They were originally created to investigate internal theft and fraud, and now provide pro bono forensic services to law enforcement agencies, including the FBI. Apparently, Target’s expertise in video forensics is so renowned that police frequently send them grainy surveillance footage that even government labs struggle to enhance.

14A “Well done!” : BRAVO!

To express appreciation for a male performer at an operatic performance, traditionally one calls out “bravo!”. Appreciation for a female performer is shown by using “brava!”, and for more than one performer of either sex by using “bravi!”

15A Double-reed woodwind : OBOE

A double-reed instrument is one in which two pieces of cane vibrate against each other to produce sound. In a single-reed instrument, just one piece of cane vibrates the mouthpiece. The best-known examples of double-reed instruments are the oboe and the bassoon.

19A Tuckered out : BEAT

The exact etymology of the verb “to tucker”, meaning “to tire”, seems to be uncertain. However, it seems to have originated in New England, and at least dates back to the 1830s.

20A Trousers with tool-carrying pockets and loops : CARPENTER PANTS

Carpenter pants originated as workwear for tradespeople, defined by a signature “hammer loop” on the leg designed to keep tools within reach. In the late 1990s, the style was co-opted by followers of hip-hop and skater culture, and sales really took off. I’ve read that professional carpenters usually refuse to use the loop as intended, claiming that a heavy hammer swinging from the pants bangs painfully against the knee with every step. Best use a standard tool belt …

24A Bubble source, maybe : GUM

Chewing gum has been around for thousands of years, but bubblegum only dates back to 1928. The latter was developed by Walter Diemer of the Fleer Chewing Gum Company. Diemer was a Fleer accountant, and apparently an accountant who liked to mess around with gum recipes in his spare time.

25A __ Lanka : SRI

The island nation of Sri Lanka lies off the southeast coast of India. The name “Sri Lanka” translates from Sanskrit into English as “venerable island”. Before 1970, Sri Lanka was known as Ceylon, a name given to the country during British rule.

26A Give up, in an idiom : CUT BAIT

To cut bait is to give up, and is a term that has its origin in angling. When fishing, if you’re not getting any bites, you might as well “cut your bait”, i.e. stop preparing and using bait, and move on to something else.

45A Lifestyle brand with origins in surf culture : HANG TEN

Hang Ten was a clothing company founded in 1960 in California to sell surfing apparel. The company was sold ten years later, but the brand persists, applying to a whole range of casual clothing. “To hang ten” is a verb used in surfing. A surfer hangs ten when he or she is able to walk forward and hang ten toes over the nose of the board because the back of the board is covered by the waves being ridden. The original logo associated with the brand was a pair of little feet.

47A Liquor in a bee’s knees cocktail : GIN

The Bee’s Knees is a classic, Prohibition-era cocktail made from gin, lemon and honey. The sweet honey and tart lemon were essential to mask the harsh taste of homemade “bathtub gin” often served in speakeasies.

58A Whirlpool subsidiary : AMANA

The Amana Corporation takes its name from the location of its original headquarters, in Middle Amana, Iowa. Today, the Amana name is very much associated with household appliances. The company was founded in 1934 to manufacture commercial walk-in coolers.

60A __ de gallo: salsa choice : PICO

Pico de gallo is a condiment in Mexican cuisine made from tomato, onion and chili peppers. “Pico de gallo” is Spanish for “beak of rooster”. Apparently this name was given as eating of the condiment with the thumb and forefinger resembled the pecking of a rooster. An alternative name for pico de gallo is “salsa fresca”, which translates literally as “fresh sauce”.

61A “Hot To Go!” singer Chappell : ROAN

Chappell Roan’s hit “Hot to Go!” was inspired by her childhood dream of becoming a cheerleader. The song gained viral popularity for its accompanying dance, where audiences spell out the song’s title with their arms. As a result, Roan has herself described “Hot to Go!” as “like the ‘Y.M.C.A.’ but gayer”.

64A IDs that never begin with 666 : SSNS

666 is the number of the beast that is linked to Satan or the Antichrist, according to the Book of Revelation in the Bible. The fear of the number 666 has been given a name, i.e. hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia. Don’t forget that …

65A Punctuation in a web address : SLASH

Most website addresses start with either “https://” or “http://”, a structure defined by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web. At a symposium in 2009, Berners-Lee went so far as to apologize for the double slash, stating that they served no purpose. He even lamented the sheer amount of paper, ink, and human time that could have been saved if we hadn’t spent decades typing those two extra keystrokes. These days, browsers usually hide the whole character string “https://” in the address bar, acknowledging that it is something regular users shouldn’t have to worry about.

Down

1D “EastEnders” airer : BBC

“EastEnders” is a very, very successful soap opera produced and aired by the BBC since 1985. The title refers to the East of London.

2D Oldest child on “The Goldbergs” : ERICA

“The Goldbergs” is a very entertaining sitcom that started airing in 2013. The show was created by Adam F. Goldberg and is based on Goldberg’s own childhood and family. My favorite part of the show comes at the end of each episode, when a clip from Goldberg’s real home movies is shown, which clip relates back to that episode’s storyline.

4D “Into Thin Air” mountain peak : EVEREST

“Into Thin Air” is a 1997 book by Jon Krakauer in which he gives a firsthand account of the 1996 Mount Everest disaster. That disaster was centered on a rogue storm that enveloped the summit of the mountain and led to the death of eight climbers. The book was adapted into an intense 1997 TV movie of the same name.

10D Ritchie Valens hit : LA BAMBA

“La Bamba” is a folk song from Veracruz, Mexico that became a huge hit for Ritchie Valens in 1958. It appears in the oft-cited list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time compiled by “Rolling Stone” magazine, and is the only song in the list not sung in English. The song lent its name to the 1987 biopic about the life of Ritchie Valens, starring Lou Diamond Phillips as Valens.

12D Farm animal in some yoga classes : GOAT

Believe it or not, goat yoga is a thing, a thing that has been around since 2016. It’s doing yoga on a farm with goats around you.

21D Dubai dignitary : EMIR

Dubai is one of the seven emirates that make up the federation known as the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The two largest members of the UAE (geographically) are Dubai and Abu Dhabi, the only two of the seven members that have veto power over UAE policy.

22D “How Long” singer Charlie : PUTH

Charlie Puth is a singer-songwriter whose career started in 2008 with his own YouTube channel on which he posted acoustic covers of well-known songs. If you’ve seen him perform, you might have noticed a distinctive slit in his right eyebrow. That’s a permanent scar from a near-fatal dog attack that Puth suffered through when he was only two years old.

29D Many a promgoer : TEEN

A prom is a formal dance held upon graduation from high school (we call them “formals” over in Ireland). The term “prom” is short for “promenade”, the name given to a type of dance or ball.

31D “At Last” singer James : ETTA

The 1942 song “At Last” was written for the 1941 musical film “Sun Valley Serenade” in which it is performed by Glenn Miller and his orchestra. Etta James recorded a version of “At Last” in 1960, after which it became her signature song.

32D Arctic seabird : TERN

Terns are seabirds that are found all over the world. The Arctic Tern makes a very long-distance migration. One Arctic Tern that was tagged as a chick in Great Britain in the summer of 1982, was spotted in Melbourne, Australia just three months later. The bird had traveled over 14,000 miles in over those three months, an average of about 150 miles a day. Remarkable …

33D Crochet need : YARN

Crochet is a process of making a fabric using a hooked needle. “Crochet” is a French word meaning “hook”.

39D Spurred to action : EGGED ON

The verb “to edge” has been used to mean to incite, to urge on, from the 16th century. Somewhere along the way “edge” was mistakenly replaced with “egg”, giving us our term “to egg on” meaning “to goad”.

40D Tend to risotto : STIR

Risotto is an Italian rice dish that is usually served as a first course in Italy, but as a main course here in North America.

49D Yoga pose : ASANA

The word “asana” comes from the Sanskrit root “as”, which means “to sit” or “to be present”. In ancient yogic texts, “asana” primarily referred to a stable and comfortable seated position for meditation, rather than the array of physical postures that we associate with modern yoga practice today.

52D Source of Buffalo’s lake-effect snow : 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.

Lake-effect snow is produced when cold air moves across a relatively warm lake picking up moisture from the water below. The warm moisture rises through the cold mass of air, freezes and then falls as snow on the downwind side of the lake.