LA Times Crossword 4 May 26, Monday

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Constructed by: Janice Luttrell

Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Theme (according to Bill): Left Irritated

Themed answers each start with a synonym of “irritated”:

• 17A Cactus with showy flowers : PRICKLY PEAR
• 28A Like some Winter Olympics skiing : CROSS-COUNTRY
• 45A Tummy trouble : UPSET STOMACH
• 61A Satirical periodical featuring Alfred E. Neuman : MAD MAGAZINE

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

Bill’s time: 5m 12s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1A Airtight excuse for a defendant : ALIBI

“Alibi” is the Latin word for “elsewhere” as in, “I claim that I was ‘elsewhere’ when the crime was committed, I have an ‘alibi’”.

11A Moroccan cap with a tassel : FEZ

A fez is a red, cylindrical hat worn mainly in North Africa, and by Shriners here in the US. The fez used to be a very popular hat across the Ottoman Empire. The etymology of “fez” is unclear, although it may have something to do with the Moroccan city named Fez.

15A Snowboarding jump : OLLIE

An ollie is a skateboarding trick invented in 1976 by Alan “Ollie” Gelfand. Apparently it’s a way of lifting the board off the ground, while standing on it, without touching the board with one’s hands. A similar move can be performed on a snowboard. Yeah, I could do that …

16A Big name in jarred tomato sauce : RAO

Rao’s Italian restaurant opened in East Harlem in New York City in 1896. Rao’s also sells a small line of Italian foodstuffs in supermarkets, such as pasta, sauces and olive oil.

17A Cactus with showy flowers : PRICKLY PEAR

A prickly pear is the edible fruit of the Opuntia cactus, named for its pear-shape and spiny skin. The juicy flesh has a flavor often compared to that of a watermelon-bubblegum cross. Before eating, the fruit’s tiny spines (called glochids) must be removed carefully to allow the thick skin to be peeled away.

20A Sn, to a chemist : TIN

The Latin word for tin is “stannum”, and so tin’s atomic symbol is “Sn”. One of the ores used as a source of tin is “stannite”.

22A Extremely absurd : ASININE

The adjective “asinine” means “stupid, obstinate”, and comes from the Latin for “like an ass”.

24A Fish-eating bird : SEA EAGLE

The ern (sometimes “erne”) is also known as the white-tailed eagle or the sea eagle.

28A Like some Winter Olympics skiing : CROSS-COUNTRY

Nordic skiing differs from Alpine skiing in the type of equipment used. Nordic ski boots are fixed to the binding so that the heel can lift off the ski, whereas Alpine ski boots are fixed to the binding along the whole sole. Alpine skiing is also known as downhill skiing, and Nordic skiing disciplines include cross-country skiing and Telemark skiing.

33A Kindle download : E-BOOK

Amazon’s Kindle line of e-book readers was introduced in 2007. The name “kindle” was chosen to evoke images of “lighting a fire” through reading and intellectual stimulation. I bought myself a Kindle Fire HD several years ago. I started reading e-books for the first time in my life, as well as enjoying other computing options available with the tablet device …

37A “Christopher Robin” joey : ROO

“Christopher Robin” is a 2018 movie inspired by A. A. Milne’s series of “Winnie-the-Pooh” children’s books. The title character is Milne’s son, who features in the stories. In the film, Christopher Robin has grown up, and lost touch with his sense of imagination, but is ultimately reunited with the characters created by his father. Christopher Robin is portrayed by Scottish actor Ewan McGregor.

38A Dollywood’s st. : TENN

Dollywood is a theme park in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee that is owned by country singer Dolly Parton. The park opened in 1961 under the name Rebel Railroad. That name was changed to Goldrush Junction in 1970, Goldrush in 1976, Silver Dollar City Tennessee in 1977 and finally to Dollywood in 1986 when Parton became a co-owner.

41A Lettuce unit : HEAD

Lettuce is a leaf vegetable in the daisy family.

42A Lipton product : TEA

Sir Thomas Lipton was a grocer in Glasgow, Scotland. He founded a tea packing company in North America in 1893, in Hoboken, New Jersey. He was very successful, primarily due to his blends of tea becoming popular in the US.

43A Stratford-upon-__ : AVON

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.

44A Tuscan cathedral city south of Florence : SIENA

Siena is a beautiful city in the Tuscany region of Italy. In the center of Siena is the magnificent medieval square called Piazza del Campo, a paved sloping open area made up of nine triangular sections. The square has to be seen to be believed. Twice a year, the famous bareback horse-race called the Palio di Siena is held in the Piazza.

54A OPEC units : BARRELS

The volume of one oil barrel is equivalent to 42 US gallons. A barrel is correctly abbreviated to “bbl”. Barrels aren’t really used for transporting crude oil anymore. Instead, oil moves in bulk through pipelines and in tankers. “Barrel” is just used as a unit of volume these days.

59A “You’ve got mail” ISP : AOL

The iconic phrase “You’ve got mail” was first used by AOL in 1989. The greeting was recorded by voice actor Elwood Edwards. Edwards has parlayed his gig with AOL into some other work. He appears in an episode of “The Simpsons” as a doctor who says the line “You’ve got leprosy”. Edwards also worked as a weatherman for a while and got to use the line “You’ve got hail” …

60A Stack starter in solitaire : ACE

I think that a single-player card game is usually called “Solitaire” in the US, whereas we use the name “Patience” back in Ireland.

61A Satirical periodical featuring Alfred E. Neuman : MAD MAGAZINE

Alfred E. Neuman is the mascot of “Mad” magazine, although the image of the smiling, jug-eared youth had been around for decades before the magazine. “Mad” first used the likeness in 1955, and young Mr. Neuman has appeared on the cover of almost every issue of the magazine since then. Neuman’s name was inspired by American composer Alfred Newman, a prolific writer of film scores.

64A Lingerie top : BRA

“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).

65A British baby buggies : PRAMS

Another word used in Britain and Ireland that’s rarely used over here is “pram”, which in my day was the most common term for what is called a baby carriage in the US. “Pram” is short for “perambulator”.

66A Free-for-all : MELEE

Our term “melee” comes from the French “mêlée”, and in both languages the word means “confused fight”.

69A Sarcastic commentary : SNARK

“Snark” is a term that was coined by Lewis Carroll in his fabulous 1876 nonsense poem “The Hunting of the Snark”. Somehow, the term “snarky” came to mean “irritable, short-tempered” in the early 1900s, and from there “snark” became “sarcastic rhetoric” at the beginning of the 21st century.

Down

2D San Francisco mayor Daniel : LURIE

Daniel Lurie took over as mayor of San Francisco in 2025, having defeated incumbent London Breed in the 2024 election. Lurie opted to forego the $350,000+ salary that came with the office, and instead set his salary at $1 per year. You see, Lurie is a multi-millionaire heir to the Levi Strauss fortune.

3D Singer Turner’s rock memoir : I, TINA

“I, Tina” is a 1986 autobiography by Tina Turner. The book was so successful it was adapted into a movie called “What’s Love Got to Do with It?” The film version was released in 1993 and stars Angela Bassett as Tina Turner. The first chapter of the biography is called “Nut Bush”, a reference to the small farming community of Nutbush, Tennessee where Turner was born (as Anna Mae Bullock).

4D Clic Stic pen brand : BIC

Société Bic is a company based in Clichy in France. The first product the company produced, more than fifty years ago, was the Bic Cristal ballpoint pen that is still produced today. Bic also makes other disposable products such as lighters and razors.

6D Kansas City baseball team : ROYALS

The Kansas City Royals Major League Baseball team was founded in 1969. The team takes its name from the American Royal, a livestock show and rodeo held annually in Kansas City since 1899.

7D Swiss peak : ALP

The Swiss Alps are home to about 1,400 glaciers, which cover an area of over 300 square miles. These glaciers are a crucial source of freshwater for much of Europe. In fact, 6% of the continent’s freshwater is found within the borders of Switzerland, giving it the nickname “Water Tower of Europe”.

8D Pest on a pet : FLEA

Flea collars are designed to release insecticides or insect growth regulators onto an animal’s fur. Some studies suggest they can be helpful in reducing flea populations, particularly around the neck and head, but their ability to provide full-body protection is often limited. The active ingredients tend to concentrate in the areas closest to the collar, and their spread can be uneven.

13D The “Z” of ZIP code : ZONE

ZIP codes were introduced in 1963. The acronym “ZIP” stands for “Zone Improvement Plan”, a name indicating that mail travels more efficiently when the codes are included in the postal address.

18D Brick that’s painful to step on : LEGO

Lego is manufactured by the Lego Group, a privately held company headquartered in Billund, Denmark. The company was founded by a carpenter called Ole Kirk Christiansen in 1934 and the now-famous plastic interlocking blocks were introduced in 1949. The blocks were originally sold under the name “Automatic Binding Bricks” but I think “Lego” is easier to remember! The name “Lego” comes from the Danish term “leg godt” meaning “play well”.

23D Convent figure : NUN

A convent is a community devoted to religious life, and especially a community of nuns. The term “convent” ultimately comes from the Latin “com” (with, together) and “venire” (to come).

26D Bad Bunny’s native language, in his native language : ESPANOL

“Español” is Spanish for “Spanish”.

Bad Bunny, born Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, is a Puerto Rican rapper and singer. He was the first non-English language act to top Spotify’s most-streamed artist list, doing so in 2020. He stormed past that record that year, and in the following years, becoming Spotify’s most-streamed artist in 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2025 (losing out to Taylor Swift in 2023 and 2024). In 2026, Bad Bunny headlined the Super Bowl halftime show.

31D Reddish speckled horse : ROAN

In horses, there are two types of roan: red roan, which has a mixture of red and white hairs, and blue roan, which has a mixture of black and white hairs.

32D Green Jedi Master : YODA

In the “Star Wars” universe, the members of the Jedi Order progress through four ranks:

1. Jedi Youngling
2. Jedi Padawan
3. Jedi Knight
4. Jedi Master

33D “__, Brute?” : ET TU?

It was Shakespeare who popularized the words “Et tu, Brute?” (meaning “And you, Brutus?”). They appear in his play “Julius Caesar”, although the phrase had been around long before he penned his drama. It’s not known what Julius Caesar actually said in real life (if anything at all) as he was assassinated on the steps of the Senate in Rome.

34D Microwave sound : BEEP

The first household microwave oven was introduced to the market in 1955, by the Tappan Stove Company in Ohio.

39D MinuteClinic drugstore chain : CVS

The name of the drugstore chain CVS once stood for “Consumer Value Stores”, although these days the company uses the initialism to denote “Convenience, Value and Service”.

41D Kermit’s greeting : HI-HO!

Kermit has to be the most readily recognized puppet character created by the late great Jim Henson. Henson came up with Kermit way back in 1955 when he appeared on a puppet show called “Sam and Friends” that aired in Washington, D.C. Kermit is loved so much that he even has his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

46D AirPod holder : EAR

AirPods are Apple’s line of bluetooth earbuds. When AirPods were introduced in 2016, the market reacted with some skepticism. The left and right AirPods are not connected by any wire, so there was concern that individual earbuds could fall out of the ear, and possibly get lost. Another concern was Apple’s stated intent to abandon the wired headphone socket on new iPhone models. That was then, and this is now …

51D Undefeated boxer Ali : LAILA

Laila Ali is the daughter of the great Muhammad Ali and is a very capable boxer in her own right. Laila’s professional record is an impressive 24 wins, including 21 knockouts. Now retired, she never lost a fight, and nor did she ever draw. One of those victories was against Jackie Frazier-Lyde, daughter of her father’s nemesis Joe Frazier. Laila is not a bad dancer either, coming in third place in the fourth season of “Dancing with the Stars”.

56D “__ Croft: Tomb Raider” : LARA

Lara Croft was introduced to the world in 1996 as the main character in a pretty cool video game (or so I thought, back then) called “Tomb Raider”. Lara Croft moved to the big screen in 2001 and 2003, in two pretty awful movie adaptations of the game’s storyline. Angelina Jolie played Croft, and she did a very energetic job.

57D Mt. Rushmore’s st. : SDAK

The Dakota Territory was formed in 1861 and ceased to exist with the admission to the Union of the states of North Dakota and South Dakota. The territory was split into two states in 1889 largely due to lobbying by the Republican Party, which enjoyed a lot of support in the Dakota Territory. The admission of two states added to the political power of the party in the US Senate, by adding four safe Republican seats.

The four presidents whose faces are carved into the granite face of Mount Rushmore are (from left to right) George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln. Each of the presidents is about 60 feet in height, although they might have been larger. The original intent was for each president to be depicted from head to waist, but the project lost funding.

62D Marseille Mrs. : MME

Marseille (often written “Marseilles” in English) is the second largest city in France, after Paris. Marseille is also the largest commercial port in the country. I used to live nearby, and can attest that Marseille and environs is a great place to visit …

63D School of Buddhism : ZEN

Zen is a Buddhist school that developed from Chan Buddhism, a tradition that was established in China back in the 7th century AD. “Zen” is a Japanese spelling of the Chinese word “chan”, which in turn derives from the Sanskrit word “dhyana” meaning “meditation”.