LA Times Crossword 25 Oct 26, Sunday

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Constructed by: Pam Amick Klawitter

Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Theme: Easing Does It

Themed answers are common phrases with a long E-sound taken OFF, and swapped with an -ING suffix:

• 21A Light fare after a breakup? : PARTING SNACKS (from “party snacks”)
• 51A Like the first little pig? : STRAW-BEARING (from “strawberry”)
• 69A Best time of year to visit a pawn shop? : HOCKING SEASON (from “hockey season”)
• 84A Golf club that’s almost too heavy to swing? : TAXING DRIVER (from “taxi driver”)
• 116A One who makes relocating even harder than it already is? : MOVING VILLAIN (from “movie villain”)
• 15D Task for a haunted house after Halloween? : GHOST STORING (from “ghost story”)
• 63D Youngest sibling’s lot? : LIFE OF RILING (from “life of Riley”)

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

Bill’s time: 16m 10s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1A Muted hue : PASTEL

A “pastel” is a crayon made from a “paste” containing a powdered pigment in a binder. The term “pastel” can also be used to describe a work created using pastels, and a muted hue.

18A Queen of mystery : ELLERY

The Ellery Queen series of detective novels was somewhat unique in that Ellery Queen was the hero of the tales, and was also the pen name of the author. Actually, the “author” was a pair of writers; two cousins from Brooklyn, New York.

20A “South Pacific” song : BALI HA’I

The song “Bali Ha’i” is from the musical “South Pacific” by Rodgers and Hammerstein. Bali Ha’i is a volcanic island that neighbors the island on which the story takes place. A prominent character in the musical is a Tonkinese vendor named Bloody Mary, and it is Bloody Mary who sings the song in the musical.

24A Ramen mushroom : ENOKI

Enokitake (also known as “enoki”) are long and thin white mushrooms often added to soups or salads.

25A Caffeine-rich nut : KOLA

The nut of the kola tree has a bitter taste, and is loaded with caffeine. Despite the taste, the nut is habitually chewed in some cultures, especially in West Africa where the tree is commonly found in the rainforest. Here in the US we best know the kola nut as a flavoring used in cola drinks.

37A __ penguin : EMPEROR

The emperor is the largest species of penguin, weighing in at 50-100 pounds fully grown. Emperor penguins are known for the incredible journey taken by the adults during the breeding season in the Antarctic winter. Females lay an egg and then trek 30-70 miles from the breeding colony to the sea to feed, returning to feed their chicks.

40A Tree on the Lebanese flag : CEDAR

The Lebanese flag has two red stripes, one at the top and one at the bottom, designed to symbolize the blood that was shed in the cause of the country’s liberation. Between each red stripe is a white background that represents peace as well as the snow on the Lebanese mountains. In the center of the flag is a green cedar tree, a reference to the cedars of Lebanon that are mentioned several times in the Bible.

43A Haberdashery clip : TIE BAR

Back in the 14th century, a haberdasher was a dealer in small wares. By the late 1800s, the term had evolved to mean a purveyor of menswear, and in particular was associated with the sale of hats.

46A __ as a pin : NEAT

Apparently, the idiom “neat as a pin” arose in the early 1800s, with the advent of mass production. Up until that time, pins were handmade and so were irregular and relatively flawed. Mass-produced pins were uniform and of consistent quality. So, something that was uniform and of consistent quality came to be described as “neat as a pin”.

51A Like the first little pig? : STRAW-BEARING (from “strawberry”)

The fairy tale about “The Three Little Pigs” has been around for centuries, although it first appeared in print in the 1840s. One little pig built a house using straw and another built one using wood. The cleverest little pig built its house using bricks.

54A Save from ruin : BAIL OUT

The phrase “to bail out” (sometimes just “to bail”) means to leave suddenly. We’ve been using the term since the early thirties, when it originated with airline pilots. To bail out is to make a parachute jump.

57A Blokes : LADS

“Bloke” is British slang for “fellow”. The etymology of “bloke” seems to have been lost in the mists of time.

60A Enter traffic : MERGE

The “zipper merge” or “late merge” is encouraged by most traffic authorities when two lanes of traffic are merging into one. The alternative “early merge”, where cars move out of the lane that is closing before reaching the merge point, tends to be discouraged. The favored technique is to use both lanes until the merge point, and then alternate (zipper) from each lane through the merge itself. That said, one should always obey whatever instructions are given by the traffic authorities at the scene. And I know, I know … a lot of people think it rude to merge late …

61A Brazilian icon known as “The King of Football” : PELE

“Pelé” was the nickname of Edson Arantes do Nascimento, a soccer player who used the name “Pelé” for most of his life. For my money, Pelé was the world’s greatest ever player of the game. He was the only person to have been a member of three World Cup winning squads (1958, 1962 and 1970), and was a national treasure in his native Brazil. One of Pelé’s nicknames was “O Rei do Futebol” (the King of Football).

64A “Unstoppable” singer : SIA

“Unstoppable” is a 2016 song co-written and recorded by Australian singer Sia. It has been used in several different marketing campaigns. For example, Major League Baseball used “Unstoppable” to promote the 2016 season, Lancôme used it in ads featuring Zendaya promoting the Idôle fragrance, and Samsung used it in an ad for the Galaxy S22 Ultra smartphone.

67A Longtime language columnist William : SAFIRE

William Safire was a syndicated columnist for “The New York Times”. In that paper, he wrote the column title “On Language”, which explored the etymologies of popular words. Safire also worked for the Nixon election campaigns in 1960 and 1968, and was a speechwriter for both Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew.

69A Best time of year to visit a pawn shop? : HOCKING SEASON (from “hockey season”)

The phrase “in hock” is an American invention. Back in the mid-19th century “in hock” meant both “in debt” and “in prison”. The word “hock” comes from the Dutch “hok” meaning “jail”.

I remember the bad old days growing up in Dublin, Ireland, when my mother had to go to the pawnshop (bad times!). I’d wait outside with my brother, looking up at the pawnbroker’s sign, three gold balls hanging down from a metal bar. This traditional sign used by pawnbrokers is said to date back to the Medici family as the sign had symbolic meaning in the province of Lombardy where the Medici family reigned supreme. Because of this connection, pawnshop banking was originally called Lombard banking.

73A Pan coating : TEFLON

Teflon is a brand name for the polymer called PTFE (polytetrafluoroethylene). Teflon is used as a coating for nonstick pans, a lubricant in machinery and as a graft material in surgery. Dupont discovered PTFE in 1938, and registered Teflon as a trademark in 1945.

77A Some NCOs : SGTS

A non-commissioned officer (NCO) might be a sergeant (sgt.) or a corporal (cpl.).

78A Oscar winner Tatum : O’NEAL

Tatum O’Neal is the youngest actress to win a competitive Oscar. She won the Best Supporting Actress Award in 1974 when she was just 10 years old, for her role as Addie in “Paper Moon”. The youngest person to win an honorary Academy Award was Shirley Temple, who was only 6 years old when she was presented with an Oscar in 1935.

79A Play thing : PROP

We use the word “props” for objects that are used by actors on stage during a play. The term is a shortening of the older term “properties”, which was used with the same meaning up through the 19th century.

82A Chemical variant : ISOTOPE

An isotope is a variant of an element. All isotopes of an element have the same number of protons and electrons, but not the same number of neutrons. This means that isotopes of an element have different atomic weights. The term “isotope” was coined in 1913, and translates from Greek “having the same place”. The idea is that isotopes may have different atomic weights, but they occupy the same place in the periodic table.

94A Dec. 25 : XMAS

The abbreviation “Xmas” that is used for “Christmas” comes from the Greek letter chi (X), which is the first letter of the Greek word for “Christ” (“Χριστός”).

95A Charcuterie slice : SALAMI

“Salame” (note the letter E at the end) is an Italian sausage that is traditionally associated with the peasant classes. The meat in the sausage is preserved with salt, and it can be hung and stored for weeks and even months, depending on conditions. The name “salame” comes from “sale”, the Italian word for salt, and “-ame”, a suffix indicating a collective noun. Our English word “salami” is actually the Italian plural for “salame”.

In French, a “charcutier” is a pork butcher, although the term “charcuterie” has come to describe a genre of cooking focused on prepared meats such as bacon, ham, sausage and pâté. Although these meats often feature pork, it is not exclusively so. The word “charcuterie” comes from the French “chair” meaning “flesh” and “cuit” meaning “cooked”.

96A “Not That Fancy” writer McEntire : REBA

“Not That Fancy: Simple Lessons on Living, Loving, Eating, and Dusting Off Your Boots” is a 2023 best-selling book written by Country music star Reba McEntire. It features a foreword by Garth Brooks, and includes dozens of food recipes alongside some personal anecdotes. The title is a play on her 1990 hit song “Fancy”, and underscores her preference for unpretentious hospitality.

98A “Tiny Alice” playwright : ALBEE

“Tiny Alice” is a play by Edward Albee that premiered on Broadway in 1964. The play deals with the corruption that can arise with the mixing of religion and money.

103A Over the moon : ON CLOUD NINE

I don’t think that anyone is really certain of the etymology of the term “on cloud nine” meaning “elated”, but I do like the following explanation. The 1896 “International Cloud-Atlas” was a long-standing reference used to define cloud shapes that was based on a classification created by amateur meteorologist Luke Howard some decades earlier. The biggest and fluffiest of all cloud shapes (and most comfortable-looking to lie on) is cumulonimbus. And you guessed it, of the ten cloud shapes defined in the atlas, cumulonimbus was cloud nine …

108A 76-Across strand shape : HELIX
[76A Genetic letters : DNA]

Francis Crick and James Watson discovered that DNA had a double-helix, chain-like structure, and published their results while working at Cambridge University in 1953. To this day the discovery is mired in controversy, as some crucial results collected by fellow researcher Rosalind Franklin were used without her permission or even knowledge. In 1962, along with molecular biologist Maurice Wilkins, Watson and Crick were awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine.

Down

2D Huntsville’s st. : ALA

Huntsville is a city in northern Alabama that was founded in 1805 as a settlement with the name “Twickenham”. One of the early landowners was LeRoy Pope, and he opted for “Twickenham” as that was the name of the town in England where Alexander Pope lived, as Alexander was a distant relative. The settlement was renamed within a few years in honor of John Hunt, another early settler and veteran of the Revolutionary War.

5D Source of some 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.

6D Swann who won four Super Bowls with the Steelers : LYNN

After his professional football career with the Pittsburgh Steelers, Lynn Swann became a sportscaster and has been very active in Republican politics in recent years. Swann ran unsuccessfully for Governor of Pennsylvania in 2006. He also publicly declared his interest in running for the House of Representatives in 2008, but bowed out of the race early.

13D “Last Week Tonight” host John : OLIVER

John Oliver is a British comedian and satirist who has been hosting the late-night talk show “Last Week Tonight” since 2014. He moved to the United States in 2008 to host “The Daily Show” on Comedy Central, after having worked as the show’s Senior British Correspondent since 2006.

17D Actress Spacek : SISSY

Actress Sissy Spacek got her big break in the movies when she played the title role in the 1976 horror movie “Carrie”, which is based on a Stephen King novel. Her most acclaimed role is the lead in the 1980 biopic about Loretta Lynn called “Coal Miner’s Daughter”, for which she won a Best Actress Oscar. Spacek’s first cousin was the actor Rip Torn.

28D Team whose mascot’s head is a baseball : METS

Mr. Met is the mascot of the New York Mets. He is a guy with a large baseball as a head. There’s also a Mrs. Met, a mascot who was previously known as Lady Met.

31D Primary event : DEBATE

The US is one of just a few countries that uses primary elections, selections of party candidates by popular vote. In the runup to most national elections outside of the US, political parties select their own candidates.

34D Teller’s partner in magic : PENN

Penn Jillette is one half of the duo of magicians known as Penn & Teller (Penn is the one who talks). Penn teamed up with Teller on stage in 1981, having met him through a friend back in 1974. As well as being talkative onstage, Penn is very vocal offstage when it comes to his causes and beliefs. He is a devout atheist, a libertarian and a supporter of free-market capitalism.

The illusionist Teller, of Penn & Teller, was born Raymond Teller in Philadelphia, although he legally changed his name to simply “Teller”. Teller decided not to speak during his performances way back in his youth. He was doing magic at college fraternity parties and discovered that by remaining silent, the potentially rowdy audience focused on his act and refrained from throwing beer at him!

39D “Only the Lonely” singer : ORBISON

The marvelous rock ballad “Only the Lonely (Know the Way I Feel)” is a song written and recorded by Roy Orbison. The song was released in 1960 and became Orbison’s first major hit.

42D Staff symbol : C CLEF

“Clef” is the French word for “key”. In music, a clef is used to indicate the pitch of the notes written on a stave. The bass clef is also known as the F-clef, the alto clef is the C-clef, and the treble clef is the G-clef.

44D Player coached by JJ Redick : LA LAKER

JJ Redick played college basketball for Duke University, where he remains the program’s all-time leading scorer. After a 15-year stint in the NBA, he retired from the game and pivoted to digital media, eventually co-hosting the podcast “Mind the Game” with LeBron James. In 2024, Redick made a rare move from sportscasting to the NBA sidelines when he was hired as the head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers.

45D Resource in Minecraft and Catan : ORE

Minecraft is a video game that was released in 2011. Apparently, it is the most popular video game of all time, with well over 200 million units sold.

The Settlers of Catan (now just “Catan”) is a board game that was introduced in 1995, in Germany as “Die Siedler von Catan”. The game is very popular in the US and was called “the board game of our time” by the “Washington Post”. My son plays it a lot, and as a lover of board games, I am going to have to check it out …

53D Tumbler : GLASS

A tumbler is a glass. Back in the 1660s a tumbler was a glass with a rounded or pointed base so that it could not be put down without spilling its contents, as it would “tumble” over. The idea was that one had to drink up before putting the glass down.

55D Somali supermodel : IMAN

Iman Mohamed Abdulmajid is a supermodel from Somalia who goes simply by the name “Iman” these days. “Iman” is an Arabic word for “faith”. She is a smart cookie. She has a degree in political science and is fluent in five languages: Somali, Arabic, Italian, French and English. Iman was married to English rock star David Bowie from 1992 until his death in 2016.

61D Local lingo : PATOIS

“Patois” is a word that we imported from French, in which language it also means “native or local speech”.

63D Youngest sibling’s lot? : LIFE OF RILING (from “life of Riley”)

The phrase “life of Riley” dates back to at least 1919. It may have originated in a song from the 1880s about a man named O’Riley and how he became rich and lived an easy life.

70D __ Jima : IWO

Iwo Jima is a volcanic island located south of Tokyo that today is uninhabited. The name is Japanese for “Sulfur Island”, referring to the sulfur mining on which Iwo Jima’s economy once depended. There were about a thousand Japanese civilians living on the island prior to WWII. In 1944, there was a massive influx of Japanese military personnel in anticipation of the inevitable US invasion. As the Japanese military moved in, the civilians were forced out and no one has lived there since. Control of the island was wrested from the Japanese in the five-week Battle of Iwo Jima in 1945. Said battle was one of the bloodiest in the Pacific theater in WWII.

74D Hot drink with foam art : LATTE

“Latte art” is the name given to the designs that can be drawn on the surface of coffee drinks. Some of those designs can be quite intricate.

79D Shell game pellet : PEA

A shell game (also “thimblerig”) is a gambling game, at least at first sight. It is usually a confidence trick. Typically, a small ball is placed under three face-down containers on a flat surface. The containers are shuffled around, and a player wins if he or she can “follow the ball” and correctly guess which container has that ball. In an illegal street game, the operator will often use sleight of hand to fool the players. The alternative name “thimblerig” comes from the fact that the con was originally played out using sewing thimbles.

80D The Marlins, on scoreboards : MIA

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.

81D Zurich transport : TRAM

The Zurich tram network first opened as a horse-drawn service in 1882. Now fully electrified, the iconic system carries over 200 million passengers annually.

86D Jean Grey’s cohort : X-MEN

In the Marvel Comics Universe, Jean Grey is a superhero and founding member of the X-Men. The character first appeared in print in 1963, and used the codename Marvel Girl. Her “marvelous” superpower is the ability to use telekinesis and telepathy.

89D Board game played on a map : RISK

Risk is a fabulous board game that was introduced in France in 1957. It was invented by a very successful French director of short films called Albert Lamorisse. Lamorisse called his new game “La Conquête du Monde”, which translates into English as “The Conquest of the World”. A game of Risk is a must during the holidays in our house …

92D Bueno’s opposite : MALO

In Spanish, something might be “bueno” (good) or “malo” (bad).

97D Olympic sport since 1904 : BOXING

When boxing made its debut in the 1904 Summer Olympic Games in St. Louis, Missouri, the sport was outlawed in many parts of the world at the time. As a result, the US was the only nation to enter competitors, ensuring an all-American podium sweep across all seven weight classes.

99D Luxury watchmaker bought by Citizen in 2008 : BULOVA

The Bulova Watch Company was founded by Bohemian immigrant Joseph Bulova in New York City in 1875. The brand made history in 1941 by airing the world’s first legal television commercial, a ten-second spot just before a baseball game between the Brooklyn Dodgers and Philadelphia Phillies.

100D “Jeopardy!” creator Griffin : MERV

Merv Griffin was quite the entertainer, and truly a mogul in the business. He started his career as a singer on the radio during the big band era. In the sixties he hosted his own talk show, and then famously developed such great game shows as “Jeopardy!” and “Wheel of Fortune”.

102D __ Hall University : SETON

Seton Hall University is a private, Roman Catholic college in South Orange, New Jersey. The most famous of the school’s sports programs is men’s basketball, played by the Seton Hall Pirates.

105D Baltimore’s __ Harbor : INNER

Baltimore’s Inner Harbor was once a major gateway for immigrants to the US, second only to New York City. In recent decades, the Inner Harbor has been transformed from an industrial area full of dilapidated warehouses into a major tourist destination and commercial district, with some very expensive real estate.

106D Bugs or badgers : NAGS

To badger is to harass. The verb “to badger” comes from the cruel practice of badger-baiting, which dates back to medieval times. Badger-baiting is a blood sport in which dogs are set upon a captive badger in its den to draw it out into the open. The den is an artificial structure built to resemble a natural badger’s den, complete with a tunnel entrance. The dog is sent down the tunnel, causing the badger and dog to lock their jaws on each other. The badger and dog are then removed from the den by pulling on the dog’s tail. Horrible …

109D “Heated Rivalry” role for Connor Storrie : ILYA

“Heated Rivalry” is a Canadian TV drama that is based on the “Game Changers” series of books by Rachel Reid. The story follows a decade-long secret romance between professional hockey rivals Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov, played by Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie. In honor of the international success of the show, Williams and Storrie served as torchbearers for the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy, carrying the Olympic flame through the town of Feltre. In the show, their characters competed in a fictionalized version of the Winter Games.

112D Big Four bank name : CITI

Internationally, the Big Four (Central) Banks are:

• The Federal Reserve (US)
• The European Central Bank
• The Bank of Japan
• The Bank of England

In American terms, the Big Four Banks are:

• JPMorgan Chase
• Bank of America
• Citigroup
• Wells Fargo

113D Bank opening : SLOT

The word “pig” can be used for earthenware, or an earthenware shard. From this usage there evolved the term “pig jar” that described an earthenware pot that could be filled with water for use as a bed-warmer. Crockery pots were also used to collect coins and these were also termed “pig jars”. By the 1700s, these pig jars had evolved into the first “piggy banks”.

115D “The Batman” actress Kravitz : ZOE

Zoë Kravitz is an actress and singer. Zoë has a couple of famous parents, namely musician Lenny Kravitz and actress Lisa Bonet.

“The Batman” is a 2022 film, and a reboot of the “Batman” film franchise. It stars Robert Pattinson as the title character (aka Bruce Wayne), and Paul Dano as the Riddler, the antagonist of the piece.

117D To wit, for short : VIZ

The abbreviation “viz.” is short for the Latin “videlicet”, which literally translates to “it is permitted to see”. It is used primarily in legal and academic writing meaning “that is to say” or “namely”, and often introduces a detailed list or specifies a previous statement.

118D Skater Midori : ITO

Midori Ito is a Japanese figure skater. She was the first woman to land a triple/triple jump and a triple axel in competition. In fact, Ito landed her first triple jump in training when she was only 8 years old. Ito won Olympic silver in 1992, and was chosen as the person to light the Olympic cauldron at the commencement of the 1998 Winter Games in Nagano, Japan.

120D DOJ division : ATF

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) today is part of the Department of Justice (DOJ). The ATF has its roots in the Department of Treasury dating back to 1886, and at one time was known as the Bureau of Prohibition. “Explosives” was added to the ATF’s name when the bureau was moved under the Department of Justice (DOJ) as part of the reorganization called for in the Homeland Security Act of 2002.

122D __ sequitur : NON

We use the Latin term “non sequitur” to describe an illogical statement, usually irrelevant to what has immediately preceded. The literal translation of “non sequitur” is “it does not follow”.