LA Times Crossword 29 Jul 26, Wednesday

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Constructed by: Sala Wanetick & Dena R. Verkuil

Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Reveal Answer: Made You Look!

Themed answers are all things that MADE YOU LOOK:

• 61A “Gotcha!,” and what can be said about the answers to the starred clues : MADE YOU LOOK!

• 18A *Book series with a character in red-and-white stripes : WHERE’S WALDO
• 26A *”Olly olly oxen free” game : HIDE-AND-SEEK
• 37A *Presentation tool that doubles as a cat toy : LASER POINTER
• 52A *Document in some pirate stories : TREASURE MAP

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

Bill’s time: 6m 31s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1A Daytona 500 org. : NASCAR

The coastal city of Daytona Beach in Florida is known for hard-packed sand on the beach. This makes a good surface for driving motorized vehicles, and resulted in Daytona Beach becoming a center for motorsports. The Daytona 500 is the event with the largest purse on the NASCAR calendar.

7A Poetic measure : IAMB

An iamb is a metrical foot containing an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. The lines in William Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 18” use five sequential iambs, e.g. “Shall I / compare / thee to / a sum- / -mer’s day?” With that sequence of five iambs, the poem’s structure is described as iambic pentameter.

15A Musical interval : OCTAVE

I find that terminology in music can be confusing. My way of looking at an octave (my way … don’t shout at me!) is thinking of a piano keyboard. In the key of C, the seven notes of the octave are C, D, E, F, G, A, B (or “do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, ti”). These are all white keys. Most of these “white notes” are separated by whole tones, so there is room to add a “semitone” in between most of them, and these are the black keys (C-sharp for example). There is room for five black keys in an octave, and 7 + 5 adds up to 12. I assume we use the term “octave” because we often add an eighth note on the end “to bring us back to do” as the song says (do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, ti, do … or … C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C). That eighth note is really the first note in the next octave up.

17A Stratford-__-Avon : UPON

Stratford-upon-Avon is a town in the county of Warwickshire in the English midlands. Most famously perhaps, it was the birthplace of William Shakespeare.

18A *Book series with a character in red-and-white stripes : WHERE’S WALDO?

The series of children’s illustrated books called “Where’s Waldo?” was originally titled “Where’s Wally?” in Britain, where the books originated. Each book contains page after page of illustrations with crowds of people surrounding famous landmarks from around the world. The challenge is to find Waldo/Wally, who is hidden in the crowd.

20A Café or thé lightener : LAIT

In French, you might pour “lait” (milk) “dans votre café ou thé” (in your coffee or tea).

23A Florence of Florence and the Machine : WELCH

Florence and the Machine is a rock band that formed in London in 2007. The group’s name is rooted in the nicknames of two of the founding members: Florence “Robot” Welch and Isabella “Machine” Summers. After toying with the clunkier “Florence Robot/Isa Machine”, they settled on the more streamlined “Florence + the Machine”.

26A *”Olly olly oxen free” game : HIDE-AND-SEEK

Children playing hide-and-seek might yell out “Olly olly oxen free” when a round of the game is over, and the hiders can safely return to home base without penalty. There is a suggestion that the phrase evolved from the German “Alle, alle, auch sind frei”, meaning “Everyone, everyone is also free”.

31A R&R provider for GIs : USO

The United Service Organizations (USO) was founded in 1941 at the request of President Franklin D. Roosevelt “to handle the on-leave recreation of the men in the armed forces”. A USO tour is undertaken by a troupe of entertainers, many of whom are big-name celebrities. A USO tour usually includes troop locations in combat zones.

32A Steamed bun : BAO

A baozi (also “bou, bao”) is a steamed, filled bun in Chinese cuisine.

33A Play-__: Fun Factory maker : DOH

Back in the 1930s, a manufacturer in Cincinnati produced a doughy compound that was used to clean wallpaper. Twenty years later, school-kids started using the cleaning material as a modeling compound, so the manufacturer reworked the formula, and sold it to local schools. It was given the name “Play-Doh”.

34A Tally : ADD

Back in the mid-1600s, a tally was a stick marked with notches that tracked how much one owed or paid. The term “tally” came from the Latin “talea” meaning “stick, rod”. The act of “scoring” the stick with notches gave rise to our word “score” for the number in a tally.

36A Garment worn with a choli : SARI

A choli is a blouse worn by women in the Indian subcontinent. It is a relatively short garment, and is usually worn along with a sari.

37A *Presentation tool that doubles as a cat toy : LASER POINTER

eBay was founded in 1995 as AuctionWeb. One of the first items purchased was a broken laser pointer, for $14.83. The buyer was a collector of broken laser pointers …

41A Nautical call : AHOY!

“Ahoy!” is a nautical term used to signal a vessel. When the telephone was invented by Alexander Graham Bell, he suggested that “ahoy” be used as a standard greeting when answering a call. However, Thomas Edison came up with “hello”, and we’ve been using that ever since.

44A Ecol. monitor : EPA

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was set up during the Nixon administration and began operation at the end of 1970.

46A Actress Thurman : UMA

Robert Thurman was the first westerner to be ordained a Tibetan Buddhist monk. Robert raised his children in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition and called his daughter “Uma” as it is a phonetic spelling of the Buddhist name “Dbuma”. Uma’s big break in the movies came with her starring role in Quentin Tarantino’s 1994 hit “Pulp Fiction”. My favorite Uma Thurman film is the wonderful 1996 romantic comedy “The Truth About Cats and Dogs”.

48A “Spoon River Anthology” poet Edgar Lee __ : MASTERS

Edgar Lee Masters was a poet and biographer from Kansas. His best known collection of poems is “Spoon River Anthology”, which was published in 1915. He also wrote biographies of Abraham Lincoln, Mark Twain and Walt Whitman.

56A Radar image : BLIP

Scientists have been using radio waves to detect the presence of objects since the late 1800s, but it was the demands of WWII that accelerated the practical application of the technology. The British called their system RDF standing for Radio Direction Finding. The system used by the US Navy was called “Radio Detection And Ranging”, which was shortened to the acronym “RADAR”.

58A Diarist Anaïs : NIN

Anaïs Nin was a French author who was famous for the journals that she wrote for over sixty years from the age of 11 right up to her death. Nin also wrote highly regarded erotica and cited D. H. Lawrence as someone from whom she drew inspiration. Nin was married to banker and artist Hugh Parker Guiler in 1923. Decades later in 1955, Nin married former actor Rupert Pole, even though she was still married to Guiler. Nin and Pole had their marriage annulled in 1966, but just for legal reasons, and they continued to live together as husband and wife until Nin passed away in 1977.

59A Orchestral pace : TEMPO

The tempo (plural “tempi”) of a piece of music is usually designated with an Italian word on the score. For example, “grave” is slow and solemn, “andante” is at a walking pace, “scherzo” is fast and light-hearted, and “allegro” is fast, quick and bright.

60A Kristen of “Bridesmaids” : WIIG

Kristen Wiig is a comic actress who appears on “Saturday Night Live”. She also made an appearance on the first season of Spike TV’s quirky “The Joe Schmo Show”, playing “Dr. Pat”. More recently, she co-wrote and starred in the 2011 hit film “Bridesmaids”, and co-starred in the 2016 reboot of “Ghostbusters”.

“Bridesmaids” is a 2011 comedy movie co-written by and starring Kristen Wiig. I wasn’t crazy about this film until Chris O’Dowd turned up as a traffic cop. Wiig and O’Dowd were great together, I thought. Pity about the rest of the movie …

65A Japanese noodle : UDON

Udon noodles are made from wheat flour and are very popular with Japanese dishes such as tempura.

Down

2D “Things Fall Apart” novelist Chinua : ACHEBE

“Things Fall Apart” is a 1958 novel by Nigerian author Chinua Achebe. It is set in Nigeria and deals with the changes that came with the invasion of Nigeria by Europeans, primarily from Britain. “Things Fall Apart” is regarded today as a seminal work, and is read and studied all over Africa and around the world. It is the most widely read book in the whole of African literature. The title is a quotation from the poem “The Second Coming” by W. B. Yeats.

3D Aspartame alternative : STEVIA

Stevia is a natural sweetener and sugar substitute. It is extracted from the leaves of the Stevia rebaudiana, a plant in the sunflower family that is native to Brazil and Paraguay. The active compounds in Stevia are many times more sweet than sugar, but are not metabolized by the body. As such, stevia has zero calories.

10D Cleveland team : BROWNS

The Cleveland Browns football team was a charter member of the All-America Football Conference, formed in 1946. Cleveland is the only NFL city that has never hosted nor sent a team to the Super Bowl. And, the Browns are the only NFL team without a logo on their helmets.

12D Long key : SPACE BAR

In early typewriters, the space bar was indeed a bar. It was a metal bar that stretched across the full width of the keyboard.

14D Demolition letters : TNT

Trinitrotoluene (TNT)

24D Tokyo, long ago : EDO

“Edo” is the former name of the Japanese city of Tokyo. Edo was the seat of the Tokugawa shogunate, a feudal regime that ruled from 1603 until 1868. The shogun lived in the magnificent Edo Castle. Some parts of the original castle remain and today’s Tokyo Imperial Palace, the residence of the Emperor of Japan, was built on its grounds.

27D A5 and Q5 automaker : 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.

35D Polka __ : DOT

A polka-dot pattern is one featuring an array of filled circles, usually of the same size and color. There doesn’t seem to be any connection between the name of the pattern and the polka dance, other than both the dance and the pattern gaining popularity around the same time, in the late nineteenth century.

37D LGBTQ+ rights slogan : LOVE WINS

The rallying cry “Love Wins” really took off in 2015, following the landmark Supreme Court decision in “Obergefell v. Hodges” that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide. The phrase exploded just minutes after the ruling when President Barack Obama tweeted the hashtag #LoveWins to his millions of followers.

39D Quarter-moon tide : NEAP

Tides on Earth are mainly caused by the gravitational pull of the Moon and, to a lesser extent, the gravitational pull of the Sun. During the new moon and full moon, the Sun, Earth, and Moon are roughly aligned. Their gravitational forces combine, resulting in stronger tides called spring tides, which have higher high tides and lower low tides. During the first and third quarter moons (when we see a half moon), the Sun and Moon are at right angles relative to the Earth. This means their gravitational forces partially counteract each other, resulting in more moderate tides called neap tides. High tides are not as high, and low tides are not as low.

40D Covers with sheets? : TPS

TP-ing (toilet papering) is a prank involving the covering of some object or location with rolls and rolls of toilet paper.

41D __ deco : ART

Art Deco is a style of design and architecture of the 1920s that actually had its roots in France and then spread throughout Europe before arriving in North America. Celebrated examples of Art Deco architecture are the magnificent Chrysler Building in New York City completed in 1930, and the GE Building that sits in the middle of New York City’s Rockefeller Center with the address of “30 Rock”.

42D Princess Leia, e.g. : HEROINE

The full name of the character played by Carrie Fisher in the “Star Wars” series of films is Princess Leia Organa of Alderaan, and later Leia Organa Solo. Leia is the twin sister of Luke Skywalker, and the daughter of Anakin Skywalker (aka “Darth Vader”) and Padmé Amidala. Leia is raised by her adoptive parents Bail and Breha Organa. She eventually marries Han Solo.

46D Word before “force” or “the Force” : USE …

The Force is a metaphysical power much cited in all of the “Star Wars” movies. We may even hear someone in real life say “May the Force be with you”. Fans of the movie franchise even celebrate May 4th every year as Star Wars Day, using the pun “May the 4th be with you”!

49D Blues guitarist __ James : ELMORE

Blues guitarist and singer Elmore James earned the nickname “King of the Slide Guitar” because of his expert technique with the instrument.