LA Times Crossword 6 Dec 25, Saturday

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Constructed by: Emily Biegas

Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Theme: None

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

Bill’s time: 14m 20s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1A __ curtains : CAFE

Cafe curtains are a style of window treatment that covers only the bottom half of a window, providing privacy at eye level while allowing light to enter through the top. They get their name from their original use in 19th-century Viennese cafés, where they were hung to give patrons privacy from people on the street.

5A __ operandi : MODUS

“Modus operandi” (plural “modi operandi”) is the Latin for “mode of operating”, a term we’ve been using since the mid-1600s. It’s often used by the police when referring to the methods typically employed by a particular perpetrator of a crime, and is usually abbreviated to “M.O.”

10A Depop’s parent company : ETSY

Depop is an online fashion marketplace for secondhand and vintage clothing. It’s particularly popular with younger buyers and sellers, and is a major hub for what’s called “circular fashion” (thrifting).

14A Libation made with skin-contact grapes : ORANGE WINE

Orange wine is not made from oranges, but rather from white wine grapes. The grape skins are left in contact with the juice (as if making red wine) during fermentation, which gives the wine its characteristic amber (“orange”) color. This skin contact also adds tannins and a flavor profile that sets it apart from traditional white wine.

16A Geodesic structure : DOME

The term “geodesic” originally applied to the shortest route between any two points on the Earth’s surface. In this sense, a geodesic is an arc, a segment of a great circle that goes around the whole of the Earth. A geodesic dome is a structure that gets its strength from an interlocking network of triangular elements. The sides of those triangles are geodesics, arced segments of great circles that encompass the dome.

17A Main, often : STREET NAME

The most common street name in the US is “Second Street”. “First Street” comes in only at number three, and this is because many cities and towns forgo the use of “First” and instead go with “Main” or something more historical in nature. The spooky “Elm Street” appears on the list at number fifteen.

18A Subj. of some food labeling laws : GMOS

A genetically modified organism (GMO) is one with genetic material that has been altered by genetic engineering. One might argue that the oldest form of genetic engineering is selective breeding, the use of animals or plants with desired traits for the creation of the next generation.

19A Currency exchanged for GBP, perhaps : EUR

ISO 4217 is an international standard that lists currency designators, e.g.

• Canadian dollar (CAD)
• Euro (EUR)
• Pound sterling (GBP)
• Japanese yen (JPY)
• Mexican peso (MXN)

20A Singer __ Marie : TEENA

Teena Marie was a very successful R&B singer who was born Mary Christine Brockert in Santa Monica, California. She had several good celebrity friends, and so was godmother to Maya Rudolph (daughter of Minnie Ripperton) and Nona Gaye (daughter of Marvin Gaye).

28A Record holders : LOGS

The word “logbook” dates back to the days when the captain of a ship kept a daily record of the vessel’s speed, progress etc. using a “log”. A log was a wooden float on a knotted line that was dropped overboard to measure speed through the water.

35A American, for one : PROCESSED CHEESE

The term “American cheese” once referred to real cheese, a type of cheddar made in the US and exported to England, where it was given the name “American”. When processed cheese was developed in 1911, the term “American cheese” was applied to that “tasty” product …

37A Home of the Glastonbury Festival : SOMERSET

Somerset is a county in the southwest of England. Somerset’s county town is Taunton, although the county’s most famous city is Bath.

The Glastonbury Festival is a world-famous music festival held on Worthy Farm in Somerset, England. It began in 1970 as the Pilton Pop, Folk & Blues Festival, where 1,500 attendees paid £1 (a price that included free milk from the farm). Today, it’s known for attracting over 200,000 people annually for the 5-day event.

41A Trig ratio : SIN
1D Trig ratio : COSEC

The most familiar trigonometric functions are sine, cosine and tangent (abbreviated to “sin, cos and tan”). Each of these is a ratio: a ratio of two sides of a right-angled triangle. The “reciprocal” of these three functions are cosecant, secant and cotangent. The reciprocal functions are simply the inverted ratios, the inverted sine, cosine and tangent. These inverted ratios should not be confused with the “inverse” trigonometric functions e.g. arcsine, arccosine and arctangent. These inverse functions are the reverse of the sine, cosine and tangent.

48A Editorial override : STET

“Stet” is a Latin word meaning “let it stand”. In editorial work, the typesetter is instructed to disregard any change previously marked by writing the word “stet” and then underscoring that change with a line of dots or dashes.

50A “Mangia!” : DIG IN!

“Mangia!” is Italian for “Eat!” and is a word often used in the names of Italian restaurants or in brand names of Italian foods.

53A Common pendant on a graduate’s tassel : YEAR

Tasseled mortarboards, or square academic caps, are associated with school graduations all over the world, although traditions do differ. For example, in Ireland (where I come from) mortarboards are only worn by female graduates.

54A Talisman : MAGIC CHARM

A talisman is an object used as a charm to protect against evil and attract good fortune.

57A Enigmatic rock group : STONEHENGE

The magnificent Stonehenge monument in the south of England was built from 3000 to 2000 BC. “Stonehenge” has given its name to “henges”, a whole class of earthwork monuments that are circular in form with an internal ditch surrounded by a bank. Paradoxically, Stonehenge doesn’t qualify as a henge by this contemporary definition, as its earthen bank is surrounded by an external ditch.

59A Laconic : TERSE

Ancient Laconia was a region in southern Greece that was dominated by the city of Sparta. The people from Laconia were proud of their brevity of speech, which gives rise to our modern term “laconic” meaning someone who uses few words.

Down

2D Fischer who invented the plastic drywall anchor : ARTUR

Artur Fischer was a prolific German inventor who held over 1,100 patents, even more than Thomas Edison! He is best known for his 1958 invention of the expanding plastic wall anchor, known as the “S Plug”, that allows screws to be securely fastened into hollow or brittle materials like drywall.

3D Grain bowl ingredient with a nutty flavor : FARRO

The three hulled wheat species known as spelt, emmer and einkorn are referred to collectively as “farro”.

7D Kristen’s “Spencer” role : DIANA

2021’s “Spencer” is a psychological drama film starring American actress Kristen Stewart in the title role, the UK’s Princess Diana (born Diana Spencer). The film imagines three days in the princess’s life: Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and Boxing Day in 1991, which she spent with the royal family at the Sandringham estate. We see Princess Diana grappling with her failing marriage to Prince Charles, her eating disorder, and the stifling pressure of royal life.

Kristen Stewart is an actress from Los Angeles who topped the list of highest-paid actresses in 2010 and again in 2012. One of Stewart’s first roles was playing the daughter of Jodie Foster’s character in the 2002 film “Panic Room”. She later played Bella Swan in “The Twilight Saga” series of movies. Her portrayal of Diana, Princess of Wales in the 2021 film “Spencer” earned Stewart a nomination for that season’s Best Actress Oscar.

8D Part of UAV : UNMANNED

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are now commonly called drones. Believe it or not, the first military UAVs were used in 1849, when Austrians besieging Venice launched hundreds of unmanned balloons carrying explosives. The plan was not a total success, as the wind changed, and some of the balloons allegedly drifted back and exploded over the Austrian lines …

10D Browser with a blue-and-green wave logo : EDGE

Edge is a web browser developed by Microsoft. It was first released for Windows 10 in 2015, and replaced Internet Explorer as the default browser on Windows devices. Edge is based on the Chromium open-source project, the same engine that powers Google Chrome.

11D Natural shade produced by lycopene : TOMATO RED

Lycopene is a bright red carotenoid, a natural pigment found in plants. It is the compound responsible for the deep red color of ripe tomatoes, and is also found in other red and pink fruits like watermelons, pink grapefruits, and papayas.

12D Mezcal quality : SMOKINESS

Mezcal (also “mescal”) is a distilled spirit made from the agave plant. Technically, tequila is a type of mezcal that is distilled specifically from the blue agave.

31D Some riding mowers : DEERES

The John Deere tractor company introduced the slogan “Nothing Runs Like a Deere” in 1971. Surprisingly (to me), the slogan wasn’t for their mowers or farm tractors. It was actually created to market their (now-defunct) line of snowmobiles. The slogan was so effective that after the company stopped making snowmobiles, it was adopted by the lawn equipment division and eventually the entire brand.

32D “Pinky swear!” : PROMISE ME!

The use of “pinkie” or “pinky” for the little finger or toe comes into English from “pinkje”, the Dutch word for the same digit. Who knew …?

33D Genre for novelists Sarah J. Maas and Rebecca Yarros : ROMANTASY

Sarah J. Maas is a fantasy author known for both her young adult and adult novels. She gained widespread recognition with her debut series, “Throne of Glass”, which follows the journey of a young assassin named Celaena Sardothien. Maas further solidified her success with the “A Court of Thorns and Roses” series, a tale of faeries, romance, and adventure.

Rebecca Yarros is an author in the “romantasy” genre who is best known for her “Empyrean” novels, beginning with 2023’s “Fourth Wing”. The protagonist in the series has a chronic illness that makes her bones brittle, a condition based on Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, from which Yarros also suffers.

45D From Tehran : IRANI

Tehran is the capital of Iran and is the largest city in the Middle East, with a population of about 8.5 million. Iran has been around a really long time and Tehran is actually the country’s 31st national capital.

46D Requiem : DIRGE

A dirge is a slow and mournful piece of music, like perhaps a funeral hymn.

A requiem is a mass for the repose of the soul of the dead. “Requiem” is a Latin word meaning “rest after labor”. The use of the term has extended to also describe a musical composition to which the text of the mass is set.

47D Big name in midcentury modern design : EAMES

Charles and Ray Eames were a husband-wife team of furniture designers. One of the more famous of their designs is the Eames lounge chair that comes with an ottoman. This trendy piece of furniture featured in a late episode of the television show “Frasier”. In the show, Frasier’s Dad remarks that the Eames chair is so comfortable that he might have gotten rid of his tatty old recliner a long time ago.

49D Archer in Greek mythology : EROS

Eros was the Greek god of love, desire and attraction, and usually depicted as a winged youth wielding a bow and arrows. The arrows had the power to ignite feelings of love or passionate longing in whomever they struck. Eros (Cupid or Amor in Roman mythology) was the son of Aphrodite (Venus) and Ares (Mars).

51D Brand that once had a licensing deal with 7-Eleven : ICEE

The Slurpee is an iconic brand of frozen carbonated drink that is sold by 7-Eleven. However, the Slurpee is the result of a licensing deal that 7-Eleven made with the ICEE Company way back in 1965. The deal stipulated that 7-Eleven had to use a different name for the product. So, the Slurpee that we buy at 7-Eleven is the same as the ICEE that we purchase elsewhere.

The first precursor to the 7-Eleven store opened in Dallas, Texas in 1927. The stores were so named (much later, in 1946) because they were open longer than other stores, from 7am to 11pm.

53D __ butter : YAK

The English word “yak” is an Anglicized version of the Tibetan name for the male of the species. Yak milk is much prized in Tibetan culture. It is made into cheese and butter, and the butter is used to make a tea that is consumed in great volume by Tibetans. The butter is also used as a fuel in lamps, and during festivals the butter is even sculpted into religious icons.

54D DEN airport zone : MST

Denver International Airport (DEN) is the largest-area airport in the whole country, with 54 square miles of land. It is a relatively new facility, replacing Stapleton International Airport in 1995. One of Denver’s runways is 16,000 feet long, making it the longest public runway in the US. The extra length is needed for take-off of jumbo jets in the thin summer air at the mile-high altitude.

55D Like a cool cat : HEP

The slang term “hep” meaning “cool” has the same meaning as the later derivative term “hip”. The origins of “hep” seem unclear, but it was adopted by jazz musicians of the early 1900s.