LA Times Crossword 3 Apr 26, Friday

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Constructed by: Kyle Dolan

Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Theme (according to Bill) Assembly Required

Themed answers are common two-word phrases, reinterpreted. The first word is a synonym of the phrases listed in the corresponding clue, and the second is a synonym of “assembly”:

• 17A “Pay attention, “Listen up,” and “Eyes on the prize” : “FOCUS” GROUP
• 24A “Unbelievable!,” “That’s crazy!,” and “What a coincidence!” : “WILD!” BUNCH
• 38A “Gee whiz!,” “Golly!,” and “Holy cow!” : “BOY!” BAND
• 49A “Sleep tight,” “Sweet dreams,” and “Don’t let the bedbugs bite” : “‘NIGHT” CREW
• 61A “Check this out,” “I’ll demonstrate,” and “Eyes on me” : “WATCH” PARTY

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

Bill’s time: 6m 38s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

5A Less cockamamie : SANER

“Cockamamy” (sometimes “cockamamie”) is a very colorful slang term meaning “ridiculous, incredible”. The term goes back at least to 1946, but may have originated as an informal term used by children in New York City in the 1920s.

10A Hydropower sources : DAMS

Hydroelectric power is the most common source of renewable energy on the planet, with hydropower accounting for about one sixth of the world’s generated electricity.

14A “__, sing America”: Hughes : I TOO

Langston Hughes was a poet active in the Harlem Renaissance, and someone who helped develop the literary form known as “jazz poetry”. His poem “I, Too” was published in 1926.

I, too, sing America.

I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.

Tomorrow,
I’ll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody’ll dare
Say to me,
“Eat in the kitchen,”
Then.

Besides,
They’ll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed–

I, too, am America.

16A Rapper who plays Fin on “Law & Order: SVU” : ICE-T

Rapper Ice-T must be tired of having his name come up as an answer in crossword puzzles (I know I am!). Born Tracy Marrow, Ice-T has been interested in acting for decades and made his film debut in the 1984 movie about breakdancing called “Breakin’”. He has also played Detective Fin Tutuola in the TV show “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” starting the year 2000.

“Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” is a police drama TV show that started airing in 1999. It features Mariska Hargitay as Captain Olivia Benson, the lead protagonist. Hargitay’s tenure as Benson is record-breaking: the longest-running regular character in live-action scripted television history.

20A Place for post-debate interviews : SPIN ROOM

A spin room is an area where reporters can meet with candidates and their representatives after an election debate. Set up by the campaigns, a spin room is designed to influence the reporting of the debate in favor of a particular candidate. The first spin room was set up by the Reagan campaign in 1984, when President Ronald Reagan was being challenged for a second term by Walter Mondale.

29A Tampa Bay team, familiarly : BUCS

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers joined the NFL in 1976, along with the Seattle Seahawks, as an expansion team. The Bucs had a tough start in the NFL, losing their first 26 games. Things went better in the early eighties, but then the team went through 14 consecutive losing seasons. Their luck changed again though, and they won the Super Bowl at the end of the 2002 season.

37A Hospital dept. : ICU

Intensive care unit (ICU)

43A Art __ : DECO

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”.

44A Former quarterback Aikman : TROY

Troy Aikman is a former quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys. When he retired from football, Aikman started working as a sportscaster.

45A Winery purchase : CASE

The word “case” is commonly used to denote a specific quantity of items, particularly for beverages and packaged goods. For example, a case of beer usually contains 24 bottles or cans, and a case of wine usually holds 12 bottles.

56A Low-cal drink : LITE BEER

The first light beer was produced by Chicago’s Meister Brau brewery in the sixties. Miller took over Meister Brau, reformulated the light beer using the same process and became the first of the big breweries to come out with a light beer, “Lite Beer from Miller” introduced in 1973. There really wasn’t a serious competitor to Miller Lite until Anheuser-Busch finally came up with a process and a product in 1982 that they called Bud Light.

60A Singer Lambert : ADAM

Singer Adam Lambert is one of the successes to come out of the “American Idol” machine. After hitting the big times, Lambert started a collaboration with Brian May and Roger Taylor, performing as Queen + Adam Lambert.

65A Viking character : RUNE

A rune is a character in an alphabet that is believed to have mysterious powers. In Norse mythology, the runic alphabet was said to have a divine origin.

Norse explorers, often referred to as Vikings, were remarkable for their long-distance voyages. Around 1000 CE, they established a settlement at L’Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland, Canada, making them the first Europeans known to have reached North America, nearly 500 years before Christopher Columbus.

Down

1D Motion pictures? : GIFS

The Graphic Interchange Format (GIF) is an image format developed in the 1980s by CompuServe (remember CompuServe?). GIF images are compressed, reducing the file size, but without losing information. So, the original image can be reconstructed perfectly from the compressed GIF version. But, and it’s a big but, GIF images use only 256 individual colors. This means that GIF is a relatively poor choice of compression for color photographs, while it is usually fine for logos with large blocks of single colors.

5D Starchy palm product : SAGO

When I was growing up in Ireland I was very familiar with pearl sago, which is very similar to pearl tapioca. Pearls of sago are simply little balls of sago starch used to make breads, pancakes, biscuits, or steamed puddings that we ate as kids. Sago comes from the pith of the sago palm tree. To get at the starch the tree has to be cut down and the trunk split to reveal the pith. The pith is crushed and manipulated to make the starch available, which is then washed out of a fibrous suspension. One sago palm tree yields about 150-300 kg of starch. Personally I love the stuff, but then, I am a bit weird …

7D Swedish actress Rapace who plays Lisbeth Salander : NOOMI

Swedish actress Noomi Rapace really hit the big time when she took on the title role in the Swedish version of the “Millenium” series of movies, starting with “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” in 2009. Born Noomi Norén, she and her husband, actor Ola Norell, decided to jointly adopt the family name “Rapace” simply because it sounded “cool” (it means “bird of prey” in French and Italian).

8D Bird in the bush : EMU

In Australia, the land outside of urban areas is referred to as the outback or the bush. That said, I think that the term “outback” is sometimes reserved for the more remote parts of the bush.

9D Word after Grand and Cedar, in city names : RAPIDS

Grand Rapids is the second-most populous city in Michigan. As perhaps one might expect, it takes its name from a wide set of rapids in the Grand River that used to flow through the area. The city earned the “Furniture City” nickname following the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, where local woodworkers established the city as the nation’s hub for the manufacture of furniture.

12D French red wine : MEDOC

Médoc is an appellation for wine in the Bordeaux region of France. The area produces red wine almost exclusively, and no white wine can be labeled as “Médoc”.

18D Sp. miss : SRTA

“Señorita” (Srta.) is Spanish, and “Mademoiselle” (Mlle.) is French, for “Miss”.

22D Classic car, informally : T-BIRD

Ford manufactured the Thunderbird (T-Bird) from 1955 to 2005. Originally a two-seater sporty convertible, the T-Bird was introduced as a competitor to Chevrolet’s new sports car, the Corvette. The “Thunderbird” name is a reference to a legendary creature from the culture of several Native-American peoples. There’s also a story that the name is a direct reference to the Thunderbird Country Club in Rancho Mirage, California of which the then chairman of Ford’s board was a member.

25D Light purple : LILAC

The ornamental flowering plant known as lilac is native to the Balkans, and is a member of the olive family.

26D Dark purple : PUCE

The name of the purple shade known as “puce” has a strange derivation. “Puce” came into English from French, in which language “puce” means “flea”. Supposedly, puce is the color of a flea … or a bloodstain left after a flea is quashed!

27D Scooby-__ : DOO

“Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!” is a series of cartoons produced for Hanna-Barbera Productions, first broadcast in 1969. The title character is a great Dane dog befriended by a young male called Shaggy Rogers. The character’s name was inspired by the famous “doo-be-doo-be-doo” refrain in the Frank Sinatra hit “Strangers in the Night”. Shaggy was voiced by famed disk jockey Casey Kasem. Shaggy and Scooby’s friends are Velma, Fred and Daphne.

31D Winona of “Stranger Things” : RYDER

Hollywood actress Winona Ryder’s real name is Winona Horowitz. She was born near the town of Winona in Minnesota, from which she got her name. Ryder’s success on the screen has garnered as much media attention as her life off the screen. The papers had a field day when she was arrested in 2001 on a shoplifting charge followed by a very public court appearance. Her engagement with Johnny Depp in the early nineties was another media frenzy. Depp had “Winona Forever” tattooed on his arm, which he had changed after the breakup to “Wino Forever”. A man with a sense of humor …

“Stranger Things” is a sci-fi horror TV show made for Netflix that aired its first season in 2016. I don’t do horror, and so haven’t seen it …

32D Actor Vigoda : ABE

Abe Vigoda played Detective Sergeant Phil Fish in television’s “Barney Miller” in the seventies, and even got his own spin-off show called “Fish”. On the big screen, Vigoda played Sal Tessio in “The Godfather” and Grandpa Ubriacco in “Look Who’s Talking”. When Vigoda was 60 years old, he was mistakenly reported as dead by “People” magazine. In response, Vigoda had a photo published in “Variety” showing him sitting up in a coffin, holding a copy of the offending issue of “People”.

44D Haberdashery accessories : TIE BARS

Back in the 14th century, a haberdasher was a dealer in small wares. By the late 1800s, the term had evolved to mean a purveyor of menswear, and in particular was associated with the sale of hats.

46D Both sides of America? : SCHWAS

A schwa is an unstressed and toneless vowel found in a number of languages including English. Examples from our language are the “a” in “about”, the “e” in “taken” and the “i” in pencil.

50D Birthplace of novelist Kiran Desai : INDIA

Indian author Kiran Desai made literary history in 2006 when she became the youngest woman, up to that time, to win the Man Booker Prize. She won the award at the age of 35 for “The Inheritance of Loss”, her second novel. Kiran’s mother, the acclaimed novelist Anita Desai, Had been shortlisted three times for the same prize, but had never won.

51D Exams for future MBAs : GMATS

If you want to get into a business school’s graduate program then you might have to take the Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT), which will cost you $275-300, I believe …

52D John with an EGOT : ELTON

Singer and musician Elton John joined the hallowed club of EGOT winners in 2024. He had already won five Grammy Awards, two Academy Awards, a Tony Award, and finally an Emmy (for the documentary “Elton John: Farewell from Dodger Stadium”).

53D Thread in tea lights : WICKS

A tealight is a candle designed to liquefy completely within its thin aluminum or plastic “cup”, which acts as a reservoir to ensure the wick consumes every drop of wax. It derives its name from its 19th-century origin as a heat source for keeping teapots warm on small ceramic or metal stands.

58D Peak near Catania : ETNA

Catania is the second-largest city on the island of Sicily (after Palermo). Catania has a long and rich cultural history, and today is best known as a center for technology industries earning it the nickname of the “European Silicon Valley”.