LA Times Crossword 3 Oct 26, Saturday

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Constructed by: Tom Pepper

Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Theme: None

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

Bill’s time: 14m 43s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1A Item dropped in the drink : STRAW

Apparently, the noun “straw” is related to the verb “to strew”. The idea is that, in days of old, “straw” was commonly “strewn” over floors as carpeting and over beds as bedding. Over time, the meaning of “straw” extended to the hollow tubes through which we suck up drinks. I suppose, in days of yore, we sucked up drinks using hollow, straw-like reeds or stalks.

6A Chiromancer’s target : PALM

The practice of telling fortunes by studying palms is known as palmistry, palm reading, chiromancy or chirology. The term “chiromancy” comes from the Greek “kheir” (hand) and “manteia” (divination).

17A Baseball’s all-time RBI leader : AARON

The great Hank Aaron (“Hammerin’ Hank” or “the Hammer”) has many claims to fame. One notable fact is that he was the last regular active major league baseball player to have also played in the Negro leagues.

19A Bases for busts : PLINTHS

A plinth is a block on which something is placed, especially a column. The Greek word “plinthos” means “squared stone”.

A bust is a sculpture of the upper torso and head. We imported the word “bust” from Italy, where “busto” means “upper body”.

22A Oft-redacted fig. : SSN

Our word “redact”, meaning to revise or edit, comes from the past participle of the Latin “redigere” meaning “to reduce”.

27A Ones correcting they’re gaffes, perhaps? : GRAMMAR POLICE

Our word “gaffe”, meaning “blunder”, comes from the French “gaffe” meaning “clumsy remark”, although it originally was a word describing a boat hook. The exact connection between a boat hook and a blunder seems to be unclear.

34A Christmas song : NOEL

“Noël” is the French word for the Christmas season, and ultimately comes from the Latin word for “birth” (natalis). “Noel” has come to be used as an alternative for “Christmas carol”.

36A Tough to form a bond with : ALOOF

I suppose one might guess from the feel of the word “aloof” that it has nautical roots. Originally “aloof” meant “to windward” and was the opposite of “alee”. A helmsman might be instructed to stay aloof, to steer the boat into the weather to keep a distance from a lee-shore. It is from this sense of maintaining a distance that aloof came to mean “distant” in terms of personality. Interesting, huh …?

37A Media that led to record losses : CDS

The compact disc (CD) was developed jointly by Philips and Sony as a medium for storing and playing sound recordings. When the first commercial CD was introduced back in 1982, a CD’s storage capacity was far greater than the amount of data that could be stored on the hard drive of personal computers available at that time.

40A WoW, for one : RPG

World of Warcraft (WoW) is an online role-playing game (RPG). My son informs me that the game is not that great. Like I would know …

41A Visit a souk : SHOP

Souks are traditional marketplaces (bazaars) located outside the city walls of ancient Middle Eastern and North African urban centers. The term “souk” jumped into English via French from the Arabic “suq” meaning “marketplace”.

43A Steer clear of : ESCHEW

“To eschew”, meaning “to avoid, shun”, comes from the Old French word “eschiver” that means the same thing.

44A Product of green energy? : ROOKIE MISTAKE

The term “rookie”, used for a raw recruit, first appeared in Rudyard Kipling’s collection of songs and poems called the “Barrack-Room Ballads”, which was originally published in 1892.

47A Relatively helpful business practice? : NEPOTISM

Nepotism is the practice of giving relatives preferential treatment. The term originated during the Middle Ages with favoritism shown by Roman Catholic bishops and popes. The ministers of the church had taken vows of chastity, and some gave preferred positions to their nephews, as they didn’t have sons of their own to favor. The term “nepotism” derives from the Latin “nepos” meaning “nephew”.

48A Hip-hop figures : MCS

In the context of hip-hop, an MC (Master of Ceremonies) is a rapper who uses their lyrical skills to entertain and command attention.

62A “Gigi” composer : LOEWE

Frederick Loewe was a composer who was best known for his collaborations with the lyricist Alan Jay Lerner, the most famous of which were “My Fair Lady”, “Gigi” and “Camelot”.

“Gigi” is a very popular 1958 musical film starring Leslie Caron in the title role. The movie’s screenplay is based on a 1944 novella of the same name by French author Colette. Colette’s “Gigi” was also adapted into a 1951 stage play by Anita Loos, in which Audrey Hepburn played the title role in the original Broadway production.

63A Chocolate brand owned by Berkshire Hathaway : SEE’S

See’s is a candy manufacturer that was founded in Los Angeles in 1921 by Canadian Charles See and his mother Mary See. Many of us remember the chocolate factory episode of “I Love Lucy”. Well, Lucille Ball and Vivian Vance spent time at the See’s facility in LA learning how to dip chocolates and work the production line prior to filming that show.

Berkshire Hathaway is the holding company that is controlled by Warren Buffett, the so-called “Oracle of Omaha”. Berkshire Hathaway is the eighth largest public company in the world.

65A Samsung appliance : DRYER

Samsung is a huge multinational company based in Seoul, South Korea. We tend to think of Samsung as a supplier of consumer electronics perhaps, but the company is into so much more. For example, Samsung Heavy Industries is the world’s second-biggest shipbuilder. The name “Samsung” means “three stars” in Korean.

Down

2D Birds for whom a color is named : TEALS

The beautiful color teal takes its name from the duck called a teal, which has dark greenish-blue (teal) markings on its head and wings.

4D Bath water : AVON

The River Avon that flows in the southwest of England is sometimes referred to as the Lower Avon or Bristol Avon. The extra wording is to distinguish it from a number of other River Avons in the country, including the famous one through William Shakespeare’s Stratford. The Lower Avon passes through the cities of Bristol and Bath.

6D Play __ : POSSUM

The idiom “playing possum” means “pretending to be dead”. The phrase is used in recognition of the behavior of the Virginia Opossum that does just that, plays dead as a defense mechanism. We often use the term “possum” colloquially for the opossum species that live here in North America, but in fact, the true “possums” are marsupials native to Australia.

7D Ararat lander : ARK

Mount Ararat is in Turkey. It is a snow-capped, dormant volcano with two peaks. The higher of the two, Greater Ararat, is the tallest peak in the country. Ararat takes its name from a legendary Armenian hero called Ara the Beautiful (or “Ara the Handsome”). According to the Book of Genesis, Noah’s ark landed on Mount Ararat as the Great Flood subsided.

10D “Yentl” setting : SHTETL

The Yiddish word for “town” is “shtot”, and so “shtetl” is the diminutive form meaning “small town”.

“Yentl” is a play that opened in New York City in 1975. The move to adapt the play for the big screen was led by Barbra Streisand, and indeed she wrote the first outline of a musical version herself as far back as 1968. The film was eventually made and released in 1983, with Streisand performing the lead role.

11D Spencer of “Good Morning America” : LARA

Lara Spencer started co-anchoring “Good Morning America” in 2011, working alongside Robin Roberts and George Stephanopoulos. Back in 2004/2005, PBS viewers will have seen Spencer hosting the hit show “Antiques Roadshow”.

12D “Don’t Matter” singer : AKON

“Don’t Matter” is a 2007 single by Senegalese American singer Akon. The song’s chorus features an interpolation of the 1979 song “Zimbabwe” by Bob Marley and the Wailers. As a result, Marley got a posthumous co-writing credit for “Don’t Matter”.

13D Move to another state? : MELT

When I was a schoolkid, I was taught that there were three fundamental states of matter: solid, liquid and gas. I think it is now generally accepted that there is a fourth fundamental state matter, namely plasma. Plasma is a state without a definite shape or volume, and in that sense is similar to a gas. In a plasma, electrons have been ripped away from their nuclei, forming a conductive electron “sea”. Plasmas are created from gases by applying a massive voltage difference or an extremely high temperature.

20D Heart’s location? : HOME

The idiom “Home is where the heart is” has been attributed to Roman author Pliny the Elder. His version was more like “… where the soul is, there are the eyes …”

24D Long jumper’s destination : SANDPIT

The long jump was the only jumping event in the Olympic Games held in ancient Greece. There is some evidence that the original long jump differed from today’s event in that athletes were restricted to a very short run-up. They also carried a weight in each hand that was swung forward to increase the jumper’s momentum.

25D Olympic archer? : EROS

In Greek mythology, Eros is the god of love, desire, and sexual attraction. He is often depicted as a winged youth carrying a bow and arrows, with which he shoots either golden arrows to inspire love or leaden ones to inspire aversion. His Roman counterpart is Cupid.

26D Safety gear for ER workers : PPE

Personal protective equipment (PPE)

28D “The White Tiger” actor Rajkummar : RAO

Actor Rajkummar Rao is much acclaimed, especially in his native India. He won the prestigious National Film Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of journalist Sharad Joshi in the biographical drama “Shahid” released in 2012. Rao is prepared to suffer for his art. He underwent a dramatic physical transformation for the 2016 survival thriller “Trapped”, losing weight and surviving on a coffee and carrot diet for the 30 days of filming. A vegan, he also agreed to eat small amounts of meat for the first time in his life, contributing to the movie’s realism.

30D Sandra’s “Ocean’s 8” co-star : CATE

2018’s “Ocean’s 8” is the fourth in the “Ocean’s” series of films made by Steven Soderbergh. The lead character in the original trilogy is Danny Ocean, played by George Clooney. The lead character in “Ocean’s 8” is Danny’s sister Debbie Ocean, played by Sandra Bullock. The gang of “8” thieves is an all-female troupe played by the likes of Cate Blanchett, Anne Hathaway, Rihanna and Helena Bonham Carter.

Cate Blanchett is a great actress from Australia, and a winner of an Academy Award for playing Katharine Hepburn in “The Aviator”. Winning for that role made Blanchett the first person to win an Academy Award for playing an actor (Hepburn) who had also won an Oscar. Now that is trivial information …

Actress Sandra Bullock is the daughter of a part-time voice coach (her father) and an opera singer and voice coach (her mother). Her father was an American soldier stationed in Nuremberg in Germany when he met his German wife. Sandra Bullock’s maternal grandfather was a rocket scientist working in Nuremberg.

31D DIY help site : EHOW

eHow is a how-to website that was founded in 1999. eHow has an awful lot of content but doesn’t do a great job of assessing the value of that content. I wouldn’t recommend it …

32D “Fire Country” actress Diane : FARR

While studying acting, actress Diane Farr worked as a model, and became the youngest person to be crowned “Miss New York” when she was 19 years old. She kept up her studies, and graduated magna cum laude with a joint BA in Theatre from Stony Brook University in New York and Loughborough University in England. Notable TV roles have been profiler Megan Reeves in “NUMB3RS”, firefighter Laura Miles in “Rescue Me”, and division chief Sharon Leone in “Fire Country”.

37D Lombardy birthplace of Pliny the Elder and Pliny the Younger : COMO

The city of Como lies on a branch of Lake Como at the foot of the Alps in Lombardy, Italy. It has been the birthplace of several notable figures in history, including uncle and nephew authors Pliny the Elder and Pliny the Younger, Pope Innocent XI, and Alessandro Volta, inventor of the electric battery.

Lake Como is a glacial lake in Lombardy, Italy that has long been a retreat for the rich and famous. Lakeside homes there are owned by the likes of Madonna, George Clooney, Gianni Versace, Sylvester Stallone and Richard Branson.

45D Mike Brown’s NBA team : KNICKS

Basketball coach Mike Brown has moved around a lot, with coaching jobs for the Washington Wizards, San Antonio Spurs, Indiana Pacers, Cleveland Cavaliers (twice), Los Angeles Lakers, Golden State Warriors, Sacramento Kings, and New York Knicks. In 2020, he was appointed head coach of the Nigerian men’s national team.

46D Afternoon outing? : SIESTA

We use the word “siesta” to describe a short nap in the early afternoon, and imported the word into English from Spanish. In turn, the Spanish word is derived from the Latin “hora sexta” meaning “the sixth hour”. The idea is that the nap is taken at the sixth hour after dawn.

49D “Almost Famous” director : CROWE

Cameron Crowe was a contributing editor for “Rolling Stone” magazine before he moved into the world of film becoming an actor, producer, director and screenwriter. Crowe wrote “Fast Times at Ridgemont High”, and wrote and directed “Say Anything…” and the huge hit “Jerry Maguire”. He also wrote and directed the semi-autobiographical movie “Almost Famous”, which was released in 2000.

52D Toner additive : ALOE

A skin toner is a cosmetic used to cleanse the skin and to shrink pores.

53D Turn on an axis : SLUE

To slue (also “slew) is to turn sharply, or to rotate on an axis.

55D Toffee bar : SKOR

The candy bar named “Skor” is produced by Hershey’s. “Skor” is Swedish for “shoes”, and the candy bar’s wrapping features a crown that is identical to that found in the Swedish national emblem. What shoes have to do with candy, I don’t know …

59D Semi : RIG

A “semi” is a “semi-trailer truck”. The vehicle is so called because it consists of a tractor and a half-trailer. The half-trailer is so called because it only has wheels on the back end, with the front supported by the tractor.