LA Times Crossword 26 Jun 26, Friday

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Constructed by: Jeremy Venook

Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Reveal Answer: Disassociation

Themed answers are common phrases, but with DIS- added to the start (“ASSOCIATED”):

• 51A Process of detachment, or an apt title for this puzzle : DISASSOCIATION

• 20A Hours at an art gallery? : DISPLAYING TIME (from “playing time”)
• 25A Factory that produces bad vibes? : DISCONTENT MILL (from “content mill”)
• 44A Admit to wearing a dental prosthetic? : DISCLOSE THE GAP (from “close the gap”)

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

Bill’s time: 7m 18s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1A Carrefour’s country : HAITI

Carrefour (French for “crossroads”) is a major residential commune in Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti. The area developed in the mid-1900s as a suburban retreat for the elite, but today is home to almost half of the population of Port-au-Prince.

14A “Snowy” bird rarely found in snowy places : EGRET

The snowy egret is a small white heron that is native to the Americas. At one time the egret species was in danger of extinction due to hunting driven by the demand for plumes for women’s hats.

15A Hindu mentor : GURU

“Guru” is a Hindi word meaning “teacher” or “priest”.

16A Pixar film set partially in the afterlife : COCO

“Coco” is a 2017 Pixar movie about a 12-year-old boy named Miguel who ends up in the land of the dead by accident. There, he seeks out the help of the great-great-grandfather to get back to his family in the land of the living.

17A Inner self, to Jung : ANIMA

The concepts of anima and animus are found in the Carl Jung school of analytical psychology. The idea is that within each male there resides a feminine inner personality called the anima, and within each female there is a male inner personality known as the animus.

23A Munich article : EINE

Munich is the capital of the German state of Bavaria, and is the third-largest city in the country (after Berlin and Hamburg). The city is called “München” in German, a term that derives from the Old German word for “by the monks’ place”, which is a reference to the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city in 1158.

24A Memoji platform : IOS

Apple introduced the “Memoji” with the iOS 12 release of their mobile operating system, in 2018. Basically, Memojis are customizable personal avatars.

25A Factory that produces bad vibes? : DISCONTENT MILL (from “content mill”)

In the Internet world, a content farm (also “content mill”) is the equivalent of a real-world sweatshop. It is an operation that exploits freelance writers for mass-produced, low-wage digital copy that attracts advertising revenue. I’m guessing that AI plays a role in the content farm model these days …

34A Trout’s team, on scoreboards : LAA

Mike Trout debuted as a professional baseball player for the Los Angeles Angels in 2011. Trout’s nickname is “the Millville Meteor”, as he grew up in Millville, New Jersey.

41A Word in a Samin Nosrat cookbook title : ACID

“Salt Fat Acid Heat: Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking” is a 2017 cookbook penned by chef and TV host Samin Nosrat. A best seller, it has been described as more of a reference book than a collection of recipes. Nosrat explains how to master flavor and texture using salt, fat, acid and heat, four elements that she calls the “cardinal directions” of cooking.

50A Ivy in New Haven : YALE

The city of New Haven, Connecticut was founded in 1638 by Puritan immigrants from England. Famously, it is home to Yale University. The city also initiated the first public tree planting program in the country. The large elms included in the program led to New Haven being called “the Elm City”.

58A Slam dance : MOSH

Moshing (also “slam dancing”) is the pushing and shoving that takes place in the audience at a concert (usually a punk or heavy metal concert). The area directly in front of the stage is known as the mosh pit. When a performer does a “stage dive”, it is into (or I suppose “onto”) the mosh pit. It doesn’t sound like fun to me. Injuries are commonplace in the mosh pit, and deaths are not unknown.

59A Viola clef : ALTO

“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.

The viola looks like and is played like a violin, but is slightly larger. It is referred to as the middle voice in the violin family, lying between the violin and the cello.

60A Getty Images download : PHOTO

Getty Images is a company founded in 1995 that mainly supplies stock images from its massive library of nearly 500 million items. I am guessing that co-founders Mark Getty and Jonathan Klein opted for the more recognizable company name, using the fact that Mark is the grandson of oil tycoon J. Paul Getty. Reportedly, a Getty Images photo or video is downloaded somewhere in the world every single second.

65A School founded in 1440 : ETON

Eton College near Windsor in the south of England was founded way back in 1440 by King Henry VI. Originally known as “The King’s College of Our Lady of Eton beside Wyndsor”, the school was intended to provide free education to poor boys. Free education today at Eton? Not so much …

Down

2D Hindu god of fire : AGNI

Agni is the principal Hindu deity of fire, and divine messenger who accepts sacrificial offerings and delivers them to the other gods. He is depicted with two heads to symbolize both the life-giving warmth of the domestic hearth and the destructive power of a forest fire.

3D Eye piece : IRIS

The iris is the colored part of the eye. It has an aperture in the center that can open or close depending on the level of light hitting the eye.

5D Bold alternative : ITALIC

Italic type leans to the right, and is often used to provide emphasis in text. The style is known as “italic” because the stylized calligraphic form of writing originated in Italy, probably in the Vatican.

6D “The Sympathizer” Pulitzer winner Viet Thanh : NGUYEN

Author Viet Thanh Nguyen won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for his debut novel “The Sympathizer”. Nguyen was born in Vietnam, and fled the country with his family after the fall of Saigon in 1975, when he was just five years old.

7D German auto : AUDI

The predecessor to today’s Audi company was called Auto Union. Auto Union was formed with the merger of four individual entities: Audi, Horch, DKW and Wanderer. The Audi logo comprises four intersecting rings, each representing one of the four companies that merged.

8D Nutrient in beans and rice : IRON

Iron is an essential nutrient that the human body cannot produce on its own. At the molecular level, it is key to the functioning of hemoglobin, binding tightly to oxygen in the lungs and carrying it through the bloodstream to vital organs.

10D Doctrinal rupture : SCHISM

A schism is a split or division, especially in a religion.

11D Arachne’s device : LOOM

In Greek and Roman mythology, Arachne was a mortal woman who was a great weaver. Arachne boasted that her weaving was greater than that of the goddess Athena (or Minerva in Roman myth), and this was proven true in a contest. As a result, Arachne was turned into a spider by Athena. “Arachne” is the Greek word for spider.

25D Start of a Tibetan religious title : DALAI

The Dalai Lama is a religious leader in the Gelug branch of Tibetan Buddhism. The current Dalai Lama is the 14th to hold the office. He has indicated that the next Dalai Lama might be found outside of Tibet for the first time, and may even be female.

29D Glazer of “Broad City” : ILANA

Ilana Glazer is a comedian from Long Island, New York. Along with comedian Abbi Jacobson, she is the co-creator of the Comedy Central sitcom “Broad City”.

36D “The Godfather” actress Shire : TALIA

Actress Talia Shire is best-known for playing Rocky’s wife Adrian in the “Rocky” series of movies. She also played Connie, the daughter of Don Corleone, in “The Godfather” films. Shire is the sister of movie director Francis Ford Coppola and the aunt of actor Nicolas Cage. Her son is the actor Jason Schwartzman.

42D Boutonniere partner : CORSAGE

“Corsage” is a word that we imported from French in the late 15th century. Back then it meant, believe it or not, “body size”. By the early 1800s, a corsage was a bodice, or the body of a woman’s dress. At the beginning of the 20th century, the French term “bouquet de corsage” was being used for a “bouquet worn on the bodice”, and this has been shortened simply to “corsage”.

A boutonnière is a flower worn by men in the lapel of a jacket, in the buttonhole. In fact, sometimes a boutonnière is referred to as a “buttonhole”, which is the translation of the French term.

45D Nut used to make cheese or butter : CASHEW

The cashew is the seed of the cashew tree. The pulp of the cashew tree fruit (the cashew apple) is also consumed, and is usually processed into a fruit drink or distilled as a liquor.

46D Titan of industry : TYCOON

Our term “tycoon” meaning powerful business person was originally used by foreigners to describe the shogun of Japan. “Tycoon” is an anglicization of the Japanese “taikun” meaning “great lord or prince”.

51D Barbie or Ken : DOLL

Barbie’s male counterpart doll is Ken, and Ken’s family name is Carson. Barbie’s full name is Barbie Millicent Roberts. When Ken was introduced in 1961, it was as Barbie’s boyfriend. In 2004 it was announced that Ken and Barbie were splitting up, and needed to spend quality time apart. Soon after the split, Barbie “met” Blaine, a boogie boarder from Australia. Happily, Barbie and Ken reconciled and reunited on Valentine’s Day 2011.

52D Rae of “Barbie” : ISSA

In the 2023 hit movie “Barbie”, actress Issa Rae plays President Barbie, the ruler of Barbieland.

54D Springfield Elementary bus driver : OTTO

Otto Mann drives the school bus on the TV show “The Simpsons”. He is a Germanic character voiced by Harry Shearer, and his name is a play on “Ottoman Empire”. Whenever Bart sees him, he greets Otto with the words “Otto, man!”

56D Elevator name : OTIS

Otis is a manufacturer of elevators, escalators and moving walkways. By some accounts, Otis is the world’s most popular transportation company, with the equivalent of the whole world’s population traveling on Otis devices every few days.

58D Mayo o diciembre : MES

In Spanish, a “mes” (month) might be “mayo o diciembre” (May or December).