LA Times Crossword 26 Oct 26, Monday

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Constructed by: Zhouqin Burnikel

Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Reveal Answer: Slingback

Themed answers each include a synonym of “SLING”, the word “cast”, written BACKwards and hidden within:

• 64A Shoe with a strap behind the heel, or what can be found in each set of circled letters : SLINGBACK

• 17A “Piece of cake!” : IT’S A CINCH!
• 29A Airport screening spots : TSA CHECKPOINTS
• 47A Landmark antidiscrimination legislation of 1964 : CIVIL RIGHTS ACT

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

Bill’s time: 5m 14s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

8A Pumpkin’s place : PATCH

The pumpkin is a winter squash that is grown for food, and for carving as a jack-o’-lantern. They can grow to very large sizes. Mature giant pumpkins can weigh over 2,000 pounds!

13A Like a trusted mentor : WISE

A mentor is a trusted teacher or counselor, and the person receiving the advice is the mentee. The term “mentor” comes from Homer’s “Odyssey” in which there is a character named Mentor. He is a friend of Odysseus, although he is a relatively ineffective old man. The goddess Athena takes on Mentor’s appearance in order to guide Odysseus’s young son Telemachus through difficult times.

14A Not of the clergy : LAIC

Anything described as laic (or “laical, lay”) is related to the laity, those members of the church who are not clergy. The term “laic” ultimately comes from the Greek “laikos” meaning “of the people”.

16A Windy City airport : O’HARE

It seems that the derivation of Chicago’s nickname “Windy City” isn’t as obvious as I would have thought. There are two viable theories. Firstly, that the weather can be breezy with wind blowing in off Lake Michigan. The effect of the wind is exaggerated by the grid-layout adopted by city planners after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. The second theory is that “windy” means “being full of bluster”. Sportswriters from the rival city of Cincinnati were fond of calling Chicago supporters “windy” in the 1860s and 1870s, meaning that they were full of hot air in their claims that the Chicago White Stockings were superior to the Cincinnati Red Stockings.

17A “Piece of cake!” : IT’S A CINCH!

The term “cinch” was absorbed into American English from Spanish in the mid-1800s, when it was used to mean a “saddle-girth”. “Cincha” is the Spanish word for “girdle”. In the late 1800s, “cinch” came to mean a “sure thing”, in the sense that a saddle-girth can provide a “sure hold”.

20A Stingray relative : MANTA

The manta ray is the largest species of ray, with the biggest one recorded at over 23 feet across and weighing 6,600 pounds. It is sometimes referred to as the sea devil.

Rays are fish with flattened bodies that have gill slits on their underside. There are many, many species of ray, including stingrays and skates. Rays are close relatives of sharks, with both being cartilaginous fish, as opposed to bony fish.

29A Airport screening spots : TSA CHECKPOINTS

Transportation Security Administration (TSA)

34A Actor Lowe : ROB

Actor Rob Lowe is one of the “founding” members of the so-called Brat Pack, having appeared in the movie “St. Elmo’s Fire”. More recently, he played a regular character on the TV show “Parks and Recreation”. My favorite of his roles though, was playing Sam Seaborn on Aaron Sorkin’s great drama series “The West Wing”. When “The West Wing” first aired, Seaborn was billed as the show’s main character, but outstanding performances from the rest of the cast and some great writing meant that Lowe’s role became “one of many”. This led to some dissatisfaction on Lowe’s part, and eventually he quit the show.

42A Title for Louis XIV : ROI

Louis XIV is perhaps the most famous of the kings (“rois”) of France and was known as the Sun King (“le Roi Soleil”). Louis XIV was king from 1643 to 1715. That reign of over 72 years is the longest reign of any European monarch.

43A Tennessee NFL player : TITAN

The Tennessee Titans football team is based in Nashville, having relocated to Nashville from Houston in 1997. The team was called the Tennessee Oilers for two seasons, before adopting the “Titans” moniker.

45A Snowboarding great Chloe : KIM

Professional snowboarder Chloe Kim became the youngest woman to win a snowboarding Olympic Gold in 2018, at the Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea.

46A German 101 article : EIN

The definite article in German is der, die or das, for masculine, feminine and neuter nouns. The indefinite article is ein, eine or ein, again depending on the gender of the noun. A further complication, relative to English, is that the masculine form (and only the masculine form) of the article changes when used in the accusative case, when used with the object of a sentence. The accusative forms are “den” and “einen”.

47A Landmark antidiscrimination legislation of 1964 : CIVIL RIGHTS ACT

The Civil Rights Act was first proposed by President John F. Kennedy, and signed into law by his successor, President Lyndon B. Johnson. It officially outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, or national origin, putting an end to “Jim Crow” segregation in schools, workplaces, and public accommodations. Interestingly, segregationists hoped to kill the bill at the last minute by introducing “sex” as a protected category, anticipating this would make the bill unpopular. The gamble backfired, and the landmark act became a cornerstone of modern gender equality law alongside its racial protections.

52A Girl Scout Cookie with coconut : SAMOA

Depending on which bakery makes the particular variety of Girl Scout cookies, the name can vary. For example, Little Brownie Bakers makes Samoa cookies, while ABC Bakers uses the same recipe and calls the cookies Caramel deLites. The assumption is that these cookies have the exotic name “Samoa” because they contain the tropical ingredients of coconut and cocoa. The most popular variety of Girl Scout cookies sold is Thin Mints.

54A Oral health org. : ADA

The American Dental Association (ADA) is the largest and oldest national dental association in the world. Today the ADA is based in Chicago, but the association was founded in Niagara Falls, New York in 1859. The ADA started out as a group of 26 dentists, and it now has more than 152,000 members.

58A Golf course halves : NINES

There’s an urban myth that the standard number of holes on a golf course is 18 because it takes 18 shots to polish off a fifth of scotch whisky. However, the truth is that the standard number of holes in the Old Course at St. Andrews in Scotland happened to settle down over time at 18, and that standard was adopted all around the world.

62A Automaton : ROBOT

Karel Čapek was a Czech writer noted for his works of science fiction. Čapek’s 1921 play “R.U.R.” is remembered in part for introducing the world to the word “robot”. The words “automaton” and “android” were already in use, but Čapek gave us “robot” from the original Czech “robota” meaning “forced labor”. The acronym “R.U.R.”, in the context of the play, stands for “Rossum’s Universal Robots”.

68A Currency in Cyprus : EURO

The Cypriot pound was named for the pound sterling, which the British introduced on the island in 1879. The Cypriot pound broke parity with the pound sterling some twelve years after Cyprus gained independence from the UK in 1960. Today’s Republic of Cyprus replaced the Cypriot pound with the euro in 2008. However, the breakaway Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus continues to use the Turkish lira, which was introduced following a unilateral declaration of independence for that part of the island in 1983.

Down

2D Falafel bread : PITA

Falafel is a ball of ground chickpeas or fava beans that has been deep fried and served in pita bread. I love chickpeas, but falafel is often too dry for me …

4D Closest airport to Mt. Rainier, familiarly : SEA-TAC

Sea-Tac Airport (SEA) is more fully known as Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. Sea-Tac is the main hub for Alaska Airlines.

Mount Rainier is an active volcano in the state of Washington in the Cascade Mountain Range. Native Americans first called the peak “Tacoma” and “Tahoma” meaning “mother of waters”. When Captain George Vancouver discovered Puget Sound in 1792, he named the peak in honor of his friend Rear Admiral Peter Rainier. There have been movements to change the name back to Tacoma, but these seem to have “petered” out (pun!).

5D Mahershala of “Green Book” : ALI

Mahershala Ali is an actor and sometime rapper. Among the more memorable roles Ali has had are lobbyist Remy Danton in TV’s “House of Cards”, and Colonel Boggs in “The Hunger Games” series of movies. He also won Best Supporting Actor Oscars for playing Juan in the 2016 drama “Moonlight”, and Dr. Don Shirley in 2018’s “Green Book”.

“Green Book” is a 2018 comedy-drama film that is based on the true story of a 1962 tour of the Deep South by Florida-born classical and jazz pianist Don Shirley. Shirley, an African American, hires Italian-American bouncer Frank “Tony Lip” Vallelonga as his driver and bodyguard. I haven’t seen this one, but I hear that audiences and critics loved it …

7D Sets the dogs (on) : SICS

“Sic ’em” is an attack order given to a dog, one instructing the animal to growl, bark or even bite. The term dates back to the 1830s, with “sic” being a variation of “seek”.

10D Bull’s-eye vicinity : TARGET AREA

The bull’s eye (also “bullseye”) is the center of a target. The term was coined in the 1830s and comes from the resemblance of the target, in terms of size and color, to the eye of the bull.

11D One of Canada’s First Nations : CREE

The Cree are one of the largest groups of Native Americans on the continent. In the US, Montana is home to most of the Cree nation. They live on a reservation shared with the Ojibwe people. In Canada, most of the Cree live in Saskatchewan.

25D Laborer : PEON

A peon is a lowly worker who has no real control over his/her working conditions. The word “peon” comes into English from Spanish, in which language it has the same meaning.

26D Edinburgh native : SCOT

Edinburgh is the capital of Scotland, and a really beautiful city. In days gone by, it might not have been quite so charming. Like many cities, plumes of smoke hung over Edinburgh when coal and wood fires weren’t regulated. To this day, the city has the nickname “Auld Reekie”, Scots for “Old Smoky”.

30D Lightning-fast hedgehog of video games : SONIC

Sonic the Hedgehog is a title character in a videogame and the mascot of Sega, the computer game developer. Sonic was set up as a rival to Nintendo’s mascot Mario.

31D “No weaseling out! Pay up!” : A BET IS A BET!

To weasel out of something is to back away from a prior commitment. The association of weasels with the concept of not being trusted might have arisen from the behavior in which a weasel sucks out the contents of an egg while leaving the shell virtually intact.

32D Uniform color for some park rangers : KHAKI

“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.

33D Showing no emotion : STOIC

Zeno of Citium was a Greek philosopher famous for teaching at the Stoa Poikile, the “Painted Porch”, located on the north side of the Ancient Agora of Athens. Because of the location of his classes, his philosophy became known as stoicism (from “stoa”, the word for “porch”). We get our adjective “stoic”, meaning “indifferent to pleasure or pain”, from the same root.

39D Like Pixar movies : ANIMATED

Pixar Animation Studios started out as part of Lucasfilm in 1979, George Lucas’s production company. Lucas sold what was to become Pixar to Steve Jobs in 1986. Pixar produced its first feature film in 1995, the fabulous “Toy Story”, and followed up with a string of hits. The company was then sold to Walt Disney in 2006, when valued at $7.4 billion. That transaction resulted in Steve Jobs becoming the biggest shareholder in Walt Disney.

41D Intro to a texter’s two cents : IMHO

To put in one’s two cents is to add one’s opinion. The American expression derives from the older English version, which is “to put in one’s two pennies’ worth”.

44D “Selma” director DuVernay : AVA

Ava DuVernay is a filmmaker who became the first African American woman to win the Best Director Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, a feat she achieved in 2012 for her feature film “Middle of Nowhere”. “Middle of Nowhere” tells the story of a woman who drops out of medical school to focus on her husband when he is sentenced to 8 years in prison. DuVernay also directed the 2014 film “Selma” about the 1965 voting rights marches from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.

48D Fishy bagel topping : LOX

Lox is a brine-cured salmon filet that is finely sliced. The term “lox” comes into English via Yiddish, and derives from the German word for salmon, namely “Lachs”.

54D Bonsai and saikei : ARTS

The term “bonsai” is used more correctly to describe the Japanese art of growing carefully shaped trees in containers, although it has come to be used as the name for all miniature trees in pots. “Bonsai” translates literally as “tray planting”.

Saikei is the Japanese art of arranging miniature living dioramas within shallow trays. Traditional bonsai focuses heavily on the decades-long cultivation of a single specimen tree over perhaps decades, but saikei uses younger plants combined with rocks, soil, and moss to simulate a complete natural vista. The term “saikei” translates to “planted landscape”.

55D Gulf capital known for its futuristic skyline : DOHA

The Qatari capital Doha was established in the 1820s as an offshoot of an older settlement called Al Bidda. Its modern name comes from the Arabic word “dohat” meaning “roundness”, a reference to the curved bays along its Persian Gulf coastline. The city was officially designated as Qatar’s capital in 1971 following the nation’s independence from Britain. Today, Doha houses over 80% of the nation’s entire population within its metropolitan boundaries.

57D Slimy garden pest : SLUG

Snails and slugs are referred to collectively as gastropods. There are many, many species of gastropods, found both on land and in the sea. Gastropods with shells are generally described as snails, and those species without shells are referred to as slugs.

59D Table salt, to a chemist : NACL

NaCl is the chemical formula for sodium chloride, the scientific name for common table salt. It is an ionic compound formed from one sodium ion (Na+) and one chloride ion (Cl-). There are many “salts” found in a chemistry lab, but NaCl specifically refers to the one we use in our food.

65D 401(k) kin : IRA

A 401(k) account resembles an IRA in that contributions can be made from a paycheck prior to the deduction of income taxes. It differs from an IRA in that it is an employer-sponsored plan, with payments taken by the employer directly from an employee’s paycheck. Additionally, contributions can be fully or partially matched by an employer.

66D San Francisco’s __ Hill : NOB

Nob Hill is a very elevated and central location in the city of San Francisco. Because of its views of the surrounding city and environs, Nob Hill became a desirable place to live for the wealthy in the 1800s. The area is still one of San Francisco’s most affluent neighborhoods and is home to upscale hotels as well as the magnificent Grace Cathedral. The name “Nob Hill” comes from the slang term for someone who is well-to-do, a “nob”.