LA Times Crossword 26 Nov 25, Wednesday

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Constructed by: Daniel Hrynick

Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Reveal Answer: Shape of You

Themed answers are each U-SHAPED:

• 31D Ed Sheeran hit, and a phonetic hint to the answers to the starred clues : SHAPE OF YOU and SHAPE OF “U”

• 17A *Device whose poles are close together : HORSESHOE MAGNET
• 24D *Polish sausage : KIELBASA
• 28D *Commuter’s cushion : NECK PILLOW

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

Bill’s time: 7m 22s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

5A Worker with lots to attend to? : VALET

A varlet was an attendant or servant, and perhaps a knight’s page. The term “varlet” comes from the Old French “vaslet” meaning “squire, young man”. “Vaslet” also gave us our contemporary word “valet”. The term “varlet” came to be pejorative, describing an unprincipled person.

10A Actor Guinness : ALEC

Sir Alec Guinness played many great roles over a long and distinguished career, but nowadays is best remembered (sadly, I think) for playing the original Obi-Wan Kenobi in “Star Wars”. He won his only Best Actor Oscar for playing Colonel Nicholson in the marvelous 1957 WWII movie “The Bridge on the River Kwai”. Guinness himself served during the Second World War, in the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve. He commanded a landing craft during the Allied invasion of Sicily in 1943.

14A Primer, e.g. : COAT

Primer is the first layer of paint, a coating on the base surface that serves as a sealant.

16A “De __”: “Gracias” response : NADA

“Nada” is the Spanish word for “nothing”. “De nada” translates literally from the Spanish as “of nothing”, and is used to mean “you’re welcome” or “don’t mention it”. The French have the same expression “de rien”, also translating to “of nothing” and used the same way.

17A *Device whose poles are close together : HORSESHOE MAGNET

The U-shape of a horseshoe magnet is a functional design that brings the north and south poles close together. This proximity concentrates the magnetic field into the small gap between the two poles, creating a much stronger lifting force in that specific area than a straight bar magnet of the same size would have.

20A Rio Grande city : EL PASO

Although there have been human settlements in the El Paso area for thousands of years, the first European settlement was founded in 1659 by the Spanish. That first community was on the south bank of the Rio Grande, and was called El Paso del Norte (the North Pass). Most of the urban development under Spanish rule took place on the south side of the river, with El Paso del Norte acting as the center of governance for the Spanish for the territory of New Mexico. The Rio Grande was chosen as the border between Mexico and the US in 1848, so most of the city of El Paso del Norte became part of the Mexican state of Chihuahua (and is now called Ciudad Juárez ). The area north of the river developed as a US military post, eventually becoming the modern city of El Paso, Texas.

The Rio Grande (Spanish for “big river”) is a waterway that forms part of the border between Mexico and the United States. Although we call the river the Rio Grande on this side of the border, in Mexico it is called the Río Bravo or Río Bravo del Norte (Spanish for “furious river of the north”).

29A Actress Long : NIA

Nia Long is an actress who is probably best known for playing Will Smith’s sometime girlfriend and fiancee Lisa Wilkes on the TV show “The Fresh Prince of Bel Air”.

37A Spiced tea : CHAI

Chai is a drink made from spiced black tea, honey and milk, with “chai” being the Hindi word for “tea”. We often called tea “a cup of char” growing up in Ireland, with “char” being our slang word for tea, derived from “chai”.

42A Chess piece on f1 or f8 : KING’S BISHOP

In the game of chess, the piece known in English as the “bishop” can have other names when translated from other languages. For example:

1. Elephant: Chinese and Russian
2. Jester: French
3. Runner: German
4. Camel: Hindi
5. Standard-bearer: Italian

45A Home __ : DEPOT

The Home Depot is the largest home improvement retail chain in the US, ahead of Lowe’s. Home Depot opened their first two stores in 1979. The average store size is just over 100,000 square feet. The largest Home Depot outlet is in Union, New Jersey, and it is 225,000 square feet in size. That’s a lot of nuts and bolts …

47A Khaki kin : TAN

“Khaki” is an Urdu word that translates literally as “dusty”. The term was adopted for its current use as the name of a fabric by the British cavalry in India in the mid-1800s.

48A The Most Stuf cookies : OREOS

The Most Stuf Oreo is the variety with the most creme filling ever released by Nabisco. It boasts nearly four times the amount of “stuf” as a classic Oreo, easily surpassing the Double Stuf and Mega Stuf varieties.

51A Actor/director Ken : OLIN

Ken Olin was one of the stars on the hit television series “thirtysomething”, playing Michael Steadman. After “thirtysomething”, Olin moved behind the camera and is now a producer and director.

54A NYSE listing : CORP

New York Stock Exchange (NYSE)

55A 128 oz. : GAL

The name of our fluid measure called a “gallon” ultimately comes from the Medieval Latin term “galleta” meaning “bucket, pail”.

57A Medication-approving gp. : FDA

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has its roots in the Division of Chemistry (later “Bureau of Chemistry”) that was part of the US Department of Agriculture. President Theodore Roosevelt gave responsibility for examination of food and drugs to the Bureau of Chemistry with the signing of the Pure Food and Drug Act. The Bureau’s name was changed to the Food, Drug and Insecticide Organization in 1927, and to the Food and Drug Administration in 1930.

58A Exercise similar to yoga : PILATES

Pilates is a physical exercise system developed by, and named for, Joseph Pilates. Pilates introduced his system of exercises in 1883 in Germany.

61A Floofy canine breed : SAMOYED

The Samoyed is a Eurasian breed of dog that is named for the Samoyedic people of Siberia. Samoyeds were originally used as hunting dogs, for herding reindeer and for pulling sleds.

64A Battery terminals : ANODES

A battery is a device that converts chemical energy into electric energy. A simple battery is made up of three parts: a cathode, an anode and a liquid electrolyte. Ions from the electrolyte react chemically with the material in the anode producing a compound and releasing electrons. At the same time, the electrolyte reacts with the material in the cathode, absorbing electrons and producing a different chemical compound. In this way, there is a buildup of electrons at the anode and a deficit of electrons at the cathode. When a connection (wire, say) is made between the cathode and anode, electrons flow through the resulting circuit from the anode to cathode in an attempt to rectify the electron imbalance.

Down

3D Lobby group for seniors : AARP

AARP is the official name now for the interest group that used to be called “The American Association of Retired Persons”. The name change reflects the current focus of the group on all Americans aged 50 or over, as opposed to just people who have retired. The AARP was founded by Dr. Ethel Percy Andrus in 1958 and is a successor to the National Retired Teachers Association, also founded by Andrus over ten years earlier.

7D Southeast Asian language : LAO

Lao is the official language of Laos. It is also spoken in the northeast of Thailand, but there the language is known as Isan.

13D Pets with toe beans : CATS

The squishy, pink pads on the bottom of a cat’s paws are known as digital pads. More casually, they are referred to as toe beans.

23D Wall Street figures : INVESTORS

New York’s famous Wall Street was originally named by the Dutch “Het Cingel” (or “the Belt”). That “belt” was the city “wall”, a wall erected by Dutch colonists to protect them from an attack by the British from the north. The attack by land never came, but the British did mount a successful invasion by sea. The British demolished the wall two decades later, in 1699.

24D *Polish sausage : KIELBASA

Kielbasa is a type of sausage. The name “kielbasa” translates from Polish simply as “sausage”.

27D Friend who likely celebrates Bastille Day : AMI

The Bastille is a former fortress in Paris that was used as a prison by the kings of France. On 14 July 1789, an angry mob stormed the Bastille during the French Revolution. The mob was actually after the stores of gunpowder in the fortress, but while inside the building freed seven prisoners and killed the Bastille’s governor. The storming of the Bastille became a symbol of the French Revolution and has been celebrated in France every July 14th since 1790. That celebration is referred to as “la fête nationale” (the national day) in France, but in English-speaking countries it is usually known as “Bastille Day”.

31D Ed Sheeran hit, and a phonetic hint to the answers to the starred clues : SHAPE OF YOU and SHAPE OF “U”

“Shape of You” is a 2017 song co-written and recorded by Ed Sheeran. In 2018, it became the first song on Spotify to hit two billion streams. By the end of 2019, it was Spotify’s most streamed song of the whole decade.

32D Topper in a Super Mario costume : CAP

“Super Mario” is a series of video games created by Nintendo that features the character Mario, and his adventures in the Mushroom Kingdom.

39D Blast letters : TNT

The energy released in an explosion is often expressed using a TNT equivalent. The basic unit is “ton of TNT”, the amount of energy released when a metric ton (a thousand kilograms) of TNT is detonated.

43D Cyclotron particle : ION

A cyclotron accelerates charged particles (ions) using a magnetic field, usually directing the particles round and round a huge underground circular structure.

44D Lumbering Tolkien creature : ORC

According to Tolkien, Orcs are small humanoids that live in his fantasy world of Middle-earth (also called “Mordor”). They are very ugly and dirty, and are fond of eating human flesh.

46D “Seinfeld” role for Julia : ELAINE

The character Elaine Benes, unlike the other lead characters (Jerry, Kramer and George), did not appear in the pilot episode of “Seinfeld”. NBC executives specified the addition of a female lead when they picked up the show citing that the situation was too “male-centric”.

52D Winery discard : LEES

The dregs in wine, the sediment that settles during fermentation (and sometimes in the bottle), are also called “lees”.

53D Sail the seven __ : SEAS

The phrase “the seven seas” has been used for centuries by many different peoples. The actual definition of what constitutes the collection of seven has varied depending on the period and the culture. Nowadays we consider the seven largest bodies of water as the seven seas, namely:

• The North Pacific Ocean
• The South Pacific Ocean
• The North Atlantic Ocean
• The South Atlantic Ocean
• The Indian Ocean
• The Southern Ocean
• The Arctic Ocean

62D Voice artist Blanc : MEL

Mel Blanc was known as “The Man of a Thousand Voices”. We’ve all heard Mel Blanc at one time or another, I am sure. His was the voice behind such cartoon characters as Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Tweety Bird, Woody Woodpecker, Elmer Fudd and Barney Rubble. And the words on Blanc’s tombstone are … “That’s all folks”.

63D Singer Yoko : ONO

John Lennon and Yoko Ono had a very public honeymoon in a hotel in Amsterdam and then Montreal, when they staged their famous “bed-in” for peace. In answering questions from reporters Lennon found himself often repeating the words “give peace a chance”. While still in bed, he composed his famous song “Give Peace a Chance” and even made the original recording of the song in the Montreal hotel room, with reporters present, and with a whole bunch of friends. The song was released later in 1969 and became a smash hit. Writing credit was initially given to Lennon-McCartney, as was the agreement between John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Later versions of the song were credited just to Lennon, even though Lennon stated that Yoko Ono actually wrote the song with him.