LA Times Crossword 28 Jun 26, Sunday

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Constructed by: Emet Ozar

Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Theme: Write-Ups

Themed answers are all in the down-COLUMNS. Each starts with a common name for a NEWSPAPER:

• 41D Editorial essays, or what 3-, 8-, 13-, 48-, and 56-Down are : NEWSPAPER COLUMNS

• 3D Pride and joy of many an audiophile : RECORD COLLECTION
• 8D One who takes the snap and the spotlight : STAR QUARTERBACK
• 13D Insist on a debate, perhaps : PRESS THE ISSUE
• 48D Memorization aid in math class : TIMES TABLE CHART
• 56D Cultural movement of the 1960s and 1970s : POSTMODERNISM

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

Bill’s time: 15m 26s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1A Dragon roll wrap : NORI

Nori is an edible seaweed that we used to know as “laver” when we were living in Wales. Nori is usually dried into thin sheets. Here in the US, we are most familiar with nori as the seaweed used as a wrap for sushi.

A dragon roll is a sushi dish made from eel, cucumber, seaweed, rice and avocado. I am sure it’s delicious … without the eel!

5A X-ray specs? : REMS

The legacy, traditional unit of radiation is the “roentgen equivalent in man”, abbreviated to “rem”. The contemporary international standard (SI) unit is the sievert (Sv), where 1 sievert equals 100 rem.

9A Sea anemone, e.g. : POLYP

Polyps are tiny sea creatures that are found attached to underwater structures or to other polyps. They have a mouth at one end of a cylindrical “body” that is surrounded by tentacles. Some polyps cluster into groups called stony corals, with stony corals being the building blocks of coral reefs. The structure of the reef comprises calcium carbonate exoskeletons secreted by the coral polyps.

The name “anemone” means “daughter of the wind” in Greek, and at one time it was believed that the wind was what actually caused the flower to bloom. The sea anemone is named for the terrestrial plant even though the sea anemone isn’t a plant at all. It is a predatory animal (polyp) found on the ocean floor.

14A Spanakopita cheese : FETA

Spanakopita is a savory pastry from Greece. The term “spanakopita” translates from Greek as “spinach pie”. The pie’s filling includes feta cheese, onions and egg, along with the spinach.

19A Awards achievement completed by Steven Spielberg in 2026 : EGOT

Steven Spielberg achieved the much-respected EGOT awards combination in 2026 by winning a Best Music Film Grammy as a producer for the documentary “Music by John Williams”. His other honors include Oscars for “Schindler’s List” and “Saving Private Ryan”, a Tony Award for producing the Broadway musical “A Strange Loop”, and multiple Emmy Awards for TV miniseries including “Band of Brothers” and “The Pacific”.

25A K, in the NATO alphabet : KILO

The NATO phonetic alphabet is also called the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) phonetic alphabet. Alfa, Bravo, Charlie … X-ray, Yankee, Zulu.

28A Rogan josh bread : NAAN

Rogan josh is a curried, aromatic dish from Kashmiri cuisine that is made with red meat. The traditional Kashmiri recipe does not include tomatoes, but many western versions base the sauce on tomato.

31A Caramel candies : ROLOS

Rolo was a hugely popular chocolate candy in Ireland when I was growing up. It was introduced in the thirties in the UK, and is produced under license in the US by Hershey. I was a little disappointed when I had my first taste of the American version as the center is very hard and chewy. The recipe used on the other side of the Atlantic calls for a soft gooey center.

33A Feathery pen : QUILL

Quills have been used as writing implements since the 6th century. Historically, goose, swan and turkey feathers have been the quills of choice. A bird’s feather is well suited for writing, as the hollow shaft acts as a reservoir for ink which then flows to the tip due to capillary action. Choice of feather is important. Right-handed writers are best served by feathers from the left wing, as the feather curves away from the palm of the hand when writing. The tip of the quill is sharpened using a “quill knife”. This quill knife is the ancestor of what we know today as a “penknife”.

35A Kaplan prep course subj. : PSAT

Kaplan Inc. was founded in 1938 by Stanley Kaplan, who started his career tutoring students for the New York State Regents Exam in the basement of his parents’ home in Brooklyn. He opened up locations for tuition around the country, and in 1984 sold the company to the Washington Post. Revenue for Kaplan was over 2½ billion dollars in 2009.

38A Biceps exercise : ARM CURL

The biceps muscle is made up of two bundles of muscle, both of which terminate at the same point near the elbow. The heads of the bundles terminate at different points on the scapula or shoulder blade. “Biceps” is Latin for “two-headed”.

40A Falcons city : ATLANTA

The Atlanta Falcons joined the NFL in 1965. The team name was suggested by a schoolteacher called Miss Julia Elliott. Elliott suggested that “the Falcon is proud and dignified, with great courage and fight. It never drops its prey. It is deadly and has a great sporting tradition.”

46A Marimba player : MALLET

A marimba is a musical instrument that is somewhat like a large xylophone. It originated in sub-Saharan Africa, and the word “marimba” is of Bantu origin. And, it is the instrument that plays the default ringtone on Apple phones.

56A 1492 ship : PINTA

Famously, Christopher Columbus used three ships in his first voyage across the Atlantic: the Santa Maria, the Niña and the Pinta. The Pinta was the fastest of the three, and it was from the Pinta that the New World was first spotted by a sailor named Rodrigo de Triana who was a lookout on the fateful day. “Pinta” was a nickname for the ship that translated as “the painted one”. The Pinta’s real name has been lost in the mists of time.

60A Pre-1991 atlas initials : SSR

When the former Soviet Union (USSR) dissolved in 1991, it was largely replaced by the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). The formation of the CIS underscored the new reality, that the former Soviet Republics (SSRs) were now independent states. Most of the 15 former SSRs joined the CIS. Notably, the three Baltic SSRs (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) opted not to join the new commonwealth, and in 2004 joined NATO and the EU.

65A Lyric poet of Lesbos : SAPPHO

Sappho was an Ancient Greek poet born on the Greek island of Lesbos. Sappho was much admired for her work, although very little of it survives today. She was renowned for writing erotic and romantic verse that dealt with the love of women as well as men. It was because of this poetry that the word “lesbian” (someone from Lesbos) is used to describe a gay woman.

73A Canadian prov. : ONT

The Canadian province of Ontario takes its name from the Great Lake. In turn, Lake Ontario’s name is thought to be derived from “Ontari:io”, a Huron word meaning “great lake”. Ontario is home to the nation’s capital of Ottawa as well as Toronto, Canada’s most populous city (and the capital of the province).

74A Empire Builder operator : AMTRAK

Amtrak’s Empire Builder passenger train route operates between Chicago and either Seattle or Portland. The service dates back to 1929, when it was inaugurated as the flagship service of the Great Northern Railway. When Amtrak assumed control of intercity passenger rail in the US in 1971, the Empire Builder was one of the few legacy routes to preserve its original name.

78A Target of a brood parasite such as the cowbird : NEST

Brood parasites are animals that trick another animal into raising their young, sometimes even tricking an animal of another species. It’s a strategy used by some birds, insects and fish, with the most famous example being perhaps the cuckoo. Many species of cuckoo will lay their eggs in the nests of other birds. This results in our use of the term “cuckoo’s egg” as a metaphor describing an unwanted item placed in a system, with malicious intent.

85A Mass transit option : BUS

We use the term “bus” for a mode of transportation as it is an abbreviated form of the original “omnibus”. We imported “omnibus” via French from Latin, in which language it means “for all”. The idea is that an omnibus is a carriage “for all”.

86A American Eagle Outfitters loungewear brand : AERIE

Aerie (stylized as “aerie”) is a retailer of lingerie and general undergarments that was founded in 2006. Aptly enough, Aerie was initially a sub-brand of American Eagle. The name “Aerie” comes from “American Eagle lingerie”).

87A Home of Jupiter : FLORIDA

Jupiter is a town on the Florida coast, located about 80 miles north of Miami. It takes its name from the Hobe Native American people that lived in the area when the Spanish arrived, although the naming took a circuitous route. The Spanish recorded the tribal name “Jobe” on maps, and after the British took control of Florida in 1763, a mapmaker misread this as “Jove”. Subsequent mapmakers assumed this to be a reference to the Roman god Jove, and adopted the more familiar name for the god: Jupiter.

93A Gorillagram costume : APE SUIT

A gorillagram is a message delivered by a performer in an ape suit. Gorilla Gram introduced the service in 1980, a variant of the Western Union singing telegrams that were suspended in the mid-1970s.

96A Bluetooth device’s lack, often : WIRE

Bluetooth is a standard for wireless technology that was introduced by Swedish telecom vendor Ericsson in 1994. The name was chosen in honor of Harald Bluetooth, a medieval King of Denmark and Norway. Harald is said to have earned his name because of his love of blueberries, which stained his teeth. Harald was said to have a gift for convincing diverse factions to talk to one another, so Ericsson’s communication protocol was given Harald’s name.

101A Composer Bach : JOHANN

Johann Sebastian Bach died when he was 65-years-old, in 1750. He was buried in Old St. John’s Cemetery in Leipzig, and his grave went unmarked until 1894. At that time his coffin was located, removed and buried in a vault within the church. The church was destroyed in an Allied bombing raid during WWII, and so after the war the remains had to be recovered and taken to the Church of St. Thomas in Leipzig.

104A “Alice’s Restaurant” singer Guthrie : ARLO

Arlo Guthrie is the son of Woody Guthrie. Both father and son are renowned for singing protest songs about social injustice. Arlo is most famous for his epic “Alice’s Restaurant Massacree”, a song that lasts a full 18m 34s. In the song Guthrie tells how, after being drafted, he was rejected for service in the Vietnam War based on his criminal record. He had only one incident on his public record, a Thanksgiving Day arrest for littering and being a public nuisance when he was 18-years-old.

115A Last name of sisters Rooney and Kate : MARA

Actress Rooney Mara is noted for her role in the 2010 film “The Social Network” and for playing the title character in the 2011 hit movie “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”. Mara has American football in her blood. Her mother’s family founded the Pittsburgh Steelers, and her father’s family founded the New York Giants.

Kate Mara is an actress who plays a lead character in the US TV series “House of Cards”. She got her big break with a supporting role in the 2005 Oscar-winning film Brokeback Mountain, in which she played Heath Ledger’s daughter, despite being only four years younger than Ledger. Kate is the sister of fellow actress Rooney Mara, who played the lead in the American version of the film “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”.

121A Smidgens : TADS

Our word “smidgen” (sometimes shortened to “smidge”) is used to describe a small amount. The term might come from the Scots word “smitch” that means the same thing or “a small insignificant person”.

Down

7D Mean relative? : MODE

In a set of numbers, the mean is the average value of those numbers. The median is the numeric value at which half the numbers have a lower value, and half the numbers a higher value. The mode is the value that appears most often in the whole set of numbers.

10D Lakers legend Shaquille : O’NEAL

Shaquille O’Neal picked up the nickname “The Big Cactus” (among many others) during his stint playing for the Phoenix Suns in the NBA. Phoenix is in the Sonoran Desert, known for its cacti.

14D Sunless glow-ups : FAKE TANS

The most effective fake tans available today are not dyes or stains. Instead, they are sprays with the active ingredient dihydroxyacetone (DHA). DHA reacts chemically with amino acids in the dead layer of skin on the surface of the body. Sounds a little risky to me …

20D Spice native to Mesoamerica : VANILLA

The flavor extract that we call “vanilla” comes from the pod-like fruit of climbing orchids belonging to the genus Vanilla. Genuine vanilla is a relatively expensive spice, second only to saffron, due to the amount of work required to grow and harvest the fruit (also called “beans” and “pods”). Spanish and Portuguese explorers came across the Vanilla orchid while exploring the Gulf Coast of Mexico. They gave it the name “vainilla” meaning “little pod”.

Mesoamerica is a region extending from Central Mexico, south to Costa Rica. It is known as an area where societies flourished prior to the Spanish colonization of the Americas in the 16th and 17th centuries.

30D Senegal neighbor : MALI

The Republic of Mali is a landlocked country in western Africa located south of Algeria. Formerly known as French Sudan, the nation’s most famous city is Timbuktu. Mali is the third-largest producer of gold on the continent, after South Africa and Ghana.

The Republic of Senegal is a country on the far western coast of Africa. For many years Senegal was a French colony, gaining independence in 1960. The capital of Senegal is Dakar. Dakar is located on the Cap-Vert Peninsula that juts out into the Atlantic Ocean, thus making it the westernmost capital on the African mainland.

35D Carbonara ingredient : PASTA

A carbonara pasta dish includes a sauce made with eggs, cheese, bacon and black pepper. Apparently, the name of the dish is derived from “carbonaro”, the Italian for “charcoal burner”. One suggestion is that it was first made for Italian charcoal workers in the mid-1900s.

37D Pizzazz : BRIO

“Brio” is borrowed from Italian, in which language the term means “vigor and vivacity”. “Con brio” is a musical direction often found on a score, instructing the musicians to play “with energy, vigor”.

Pizazz (also “pizzazz”) is energy, vitality. There’s a kind of cool thing about the “pizzazz” spelling, namely that it is the only 7-letter word in English that cannot be played in Scrabble. You can get close by using the Z-tile with the two blank tiles to get to three of the required four Zs, but there’s no way to get to the fourth Z.

43D Houston pro : ASTRO

The Houston baseball team changed its name to the Astros (sometimes “’Stros”) from the Colt .45s in 1965 when they started playing in the Astrodome. The Astrodome was so called in recognition of the city’s long association with the US space program. The Astros moved from the National League to the American League starting in the 2013 season.

45D Single-celled creature : AMOEBA

An ameba (also “amoeba”) is a single-celled microorganism. The name comes from the Greek “amoibe” meaning “change”. The name is quite apt, as the cell changes shape readily as the ameba moves, eats and reproduces.

53D Kaplan prep course subjs. : APS

The Advanced Placement (AP) program offers college-level courses to kids who are still in high school (HS). After being tested at the end of an AP course, successful students receive credits that count towards a college degree.

56D Cultural movement of the 1960s and 1970s : POSTMODERNISM

Postmodernism was a late 20th-century movement that challenged the established norms of modernism. Emerging in the aftermath of World War II, it embraced subjectivity, fragmentation, and irony, often blurring the lines between high and low culture. Postmodernism left its mark on everything from Andy Warhol’s pop art to the deconstructivist architecture of Frank Gehry.

57D Fairbanks resident : ALASKAN

Fairbanks is the second largest city in Alaska (second to Anchorage), and home to almost 100,000 residents in the metropolitan area. The city was founded in 1901 and is named for Charles W. Fairbanks, a senator from Indiana who served as US Vice President during Theodore Roosevelt’s second term as President.

62D CNN anchor Bash : DANA

Journalist Dana Bash became co-host of CNN’s Sunday morning show “State of the Union” in 2021, alongside Jake Tapper. She was born Dana Schwartz, and was married to Jeremy Bash, a senior adviser in the Obama administration. She was also married to fellow CNN broadcast journalist John King.

64D Luau instrument, informally : UKE

The ukulele (uke) originated in the 1800s and mimicked a small guitar brought to the Hawaiian Islands by Portuguese immigrants.

67D Koyukon name of North America’s tallest peak : DENALI

“Denali” means “the high one” in the native Koyukon Athabaskan language, and is the name used for the peak formerly known as Mount McKinley. Denali’s summit stands at 20,310 feet, making it the highest mountain peak in North America. I was surprised to learn that there is a Denali State Park, as well as the Denali National Park. The two are located adjacent to each other (which makes sense!). The State Park is undeveloped for all practical purposes, with just a few campgrounds and trailheads.

79D Lingerie fabric : SILK

“Lingerie” is a French term. As used in France, it describes any underwear, worn by either males or females. In English we use “lingerie” to describe alluring underclothing worn by women. The term “lingerie” comes into English via the French word “linge” meaning “washables”, and ultimately from the Latin “linum”, meaning “linen”. We tend not to pronounce the word correctly in English, either here in the US or across the other side of the Atlantic. The French pronunciation is more like “lan-zher-ee”, as opposed to “lon-zher-ay” (American) and “lon-zher-ee” (British).

90D Prefix with Pen : EPI-

EpiPen is a brand of epinephrine auto-injector. An EpiPen delivers a measured dose of epinephrine, which is a common treatment for an extreme allergic reaction.

91D Desert deceptions : MIRAGES

A mirage occurs when light rays are bent by passing from cold air to warmer air. The most often cited mirage is a “lake” seen in a desert, which is actually the blue of the sky and not water at all. The word “mirage” comes to us via French from the Latin “mirare” meaning “to look at in wonder”. “Mirage” has the same root as our words “admire” and “mirror”.

98D Rocky of “Project Hail Mary,” for one : ALIEN

“Project Hail Mary” is an excellent 2021 sci-fi novel by Andy Weir, an author who really hit the big times with his 2011 debut novel “The Martian”. The 2021 book focuses on two main characters: biologist turned spaceman Ryland Grace, and an alien that he encounters and names “Rocky”. Just like “The Martian”, “Project Hail Mary” was adapted into a blockbuster Hollywood movie, this one starring Ryan Gosling.

106D Oaxaca water : AGUA

Oaxaca is a state in the southern part of Mexico on the Pacific coast. The state takes the name of Oaxaca, its largest city.

108D Team that shares an arena with the Liberty : NETS

The Barclays Center is an arena in Brooklyn, New York that is home to the Brooklyn Nets of the NBA, and the New York Liberty of the WNBA. Barclays ended up paying over $200 million for the naming rights, even though the London-based banking group has no retail banks or ATMs in the US.

112D Vardalos of “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” : NIA

Not only is Nia Vardalos the star of the 2002 hit movie “My Big Fat Greek Wedding”, she also wrote the screenplay. The film never made it to number one at the box office, but it still pulled in more money than any other movie in history that didn’t make it to number one. That record I think reflects the fact that the film wasn’t a blockbuster but rather a so-called “sleeper hit”, a movie that people went to see based on referrals from friends. The big fat mistake came when a spin-off TV show was launched, “My Big Fat Greek Life”. It ran for only 7 episodes. “My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2” hit movie theaters in 2016.