LA Times Crossword 9 May 26, Saturday

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Constructed by: Sarah Sinclair & Erik Agard

Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Theme: None

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

Bill’s time: 14m 05s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

15A Generational tendency to delay speaking on video recordings : MILLENNIAL PAUSE

A millennial pause is a brief moment of silence a video creator takes to ensure their camera is actually recording before they start to speak. Culture writer Kate Lindsay coined the term in 2022, suggesting that the pause was due to technical lags that came with early 2010s smartphone hardware. Apparently, Gen Z creators typically skip this buffer, often speaking before the frame even settles. We baby boomers, I am sure, did not notice any difference …

21A “Ya es suficiente” : NO MAS

In Spanish, when offered an extra helping, one might respond with “Ya es suficiente” (That’s enough) or “No más” (No more).

23A 2015 NL Rookie of the year Bryant : KRIS

Kris “KB” Bryant is an MLB player who has the distinction of being the only person in baseball history to win the Golden Spikes Award (2013), Minor League Player of the Year (2014), Rookie of the Year (2015), and MVP (2016) in four consecutive seasons.

28A Fencing defense : PARRY

In competitive fencing, a parry is a maneuver that blocks an attack by an opponent. There are actually nine defined ways to execute a parry.

34A Place that has rooms and a board : CONDO

The terms “condominium” and “apartment” tend to describe the same type of residential property, namely a private living space with facilities shared with others residing in the same building or complex. The difference is that a condominium is usually owned, and an apartment is rented. At least that’s how it is in the US. The word “condominium” comes from the Latin “com-” (together) and “dominum” (right of ownership).

35A Garments often adorned with metallic thread called zari : SARIS

Saris might be embellished with zari, a traditional thread made by winding fine gold or silver wire around a silk core. The term “zari” comes from the Persian “zar”, meaning “gold”.

36A Big name in comfort footwear : TAOS

Taos Footwear, founded in 2005, is headquartered in Gardena in Southern California, not in Taos, New Mexico.

43A Stiller’s partner : MEARA

Anne Meara married fellow comedic actor Jerry Stiller in 1954. The couple’s children are actors Ben and Amy Stiller. Meara co-starred with Carroll O’Connor and Martin Balsam in the eighties sitcom “Archie Bunker’s Place”, a spin-off from “All in the Family”.

45A “Hello __”: classic barbershop song : MARY LOU

“Hello Mary Lou” was a 1961 hit for teen idol Ricky Nelson, released as the B-side to his chart-topping single “Travelin’ Man”. It was co-written by singer Gene Pitney and musician Cayet Mangiaracina. The latter made the rare pivot from rock-and-roll songwriter to Dominican priest. “Hello, Mary Lou, Goodbye Heart …”

51A Pulitzer-winning play chronicled in the oral history “The World Only Spins Forward” : ANGELS IN AMERICA

“Angels in America” is a two-part play by Tony Kushner, part one of which premiered in 1991. The play explores AIDS and homosexuality in the context of America in the 1980s. “Angels in America” was adapted into a miniseries of the same name in 2003 by HBO.

“The World Only Spins Forward: The Ascent of Angels in America” is an oral history collected into a 2018 book. It chronicles the journey of the Tony Kushner play “Angels in America” from a low-budget regional show to a seven-hour, two-part phenomenon on Broadway. “The World Only Spins Forward” takes its name from the final monologue of the play.

53A Feature of the logos of Heineken and Macy’s : RED STAR

Heineken lager beer is named for Gerard Adriaan Heineken, the brewer who founded the brewery in the Netherlands in 1873. The label on a bottle of Heineken beer includes a red star logo. The red star was a symbol used by European brewers in the Middle Ages. During the Cold War, the red star came to have a negative connotation, an association with communism. So for several years, Heineken used a white star with a red outline as a logo.

The original Macy’s store was opened by Rowland Hussey Macy in Haverhill, Massachusetts in 1851. This store, and several others that Macy opened, all failed. Macy picked himself up though, and started over again in New York City. Those early New York stores all focused on the sale of dry goods, but added departments quickly as the clientele grew. The Macy’s red star logo has been around since the company was first established. Macy chose the star because it mimicked the star tattoo that he got as a teenager when he was working on a whaling ship out of Nantucket.

Down

3D Composition of most of the observable universe : PLASMA

The most common state of matter in the universe is plasma, making up an estimated 99% of all visible material. Every star that we see, including our sun, is a giant ball of plasma.

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.

4D West __: upscale furniture store : ELM

West Elm is an upscale furniture store that is owned by Williams-Sonoma. The West Elm chain was founded in 2002.

5D Some dabbling ducks : TEALS

Several species of small, fast-flying dabbling ducks go by the name “teal”. As dabbling ducks, they feed in shallow water by tipping their heads down and tails up, rather than diving fully underwater. The familiar blue-green color “teal” is named after the iridescent patch on the wing of the Eurasian teal.

7D Candy named for a Mars family horse : SNICKERS

Snickers is a candy bar made by Mars. When I was growing up in Ireland, the same candy bar was sold as a Marathon. The name was changed in Europe to Snickers in 1990. They were named after a beloved family horse that lived on Frank Mars’s 2,800-acre Milky Way Farm in Tennessee.

8D Big name in loans : SALLIE

“Sallie Mae” is a nickname for SLM Corporation that was created in 1972 by the US government as the Student Loan Marketing Association. By 2004, the government had severed all its ties with Sallie Mae. Today, SLM is basically a profit-focused lender.

9D French dips? : PLIES

The French word for “bent” is “plié”. In the ballet move known as a plié, the knees are bent. A “demi-plié” is a similar move, but with less bending of the knees. A fondu is similar to a plié, except that only one leg remains on the ground.

10D Short lines at the register? : UPCS

The initialism “UPC” stands for Universal Price Code or Universal Product Code. The first ever UPC-marked item to get scanned in a store was on June 26, 1974 at 08:01 a.m. at Marsh’s supermarket in Troy, Ohio. It was a 10-pack of Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit chewing gum.

11D “Diet Pepsi” singer Addison : RAE

Addison Rae is a dancer, singer and social media personality. She uploaded her first dance video onto social media as a joke. One year later, Forbes named her the world’s highest-earning TikTok creator.

13D Magazine whose first editorial director was Gordon Parks : ESSENCE

“Essence” is a women’s magazine aimed at an African American female audience, covering fashion and beauty. First published in 1970, the magazine’s slogan is “Fierce, Fun and Fabulous”.

14D One of the Ramones : DEE DEE

The Ramones were an American punk rock band. The group formed in Forest Hills, New York in the mid-seventies. The band members took on the stage names Dee Dee, Joey, and Johnny Ramone, even though they were not related. The “Ramone” name was imitative of the pseudonym used by Paul McCartney when he booked into hotels anonymously, namely “Paul Ramon”. Arguably, the Ramones were the first punk rock group, defining the genre. Something else that’s not my cup of tea …

16D Miranda Cosgrove sitcom : ICARLY

Actress and singer Miranda Cosgrove was listed in the “Guinness World Records” book as the highest-paid child actress in 2012, while she appeared in the lead role of the Nickelodeon sitcom “iCarly”.

22D Popular tablet : ASPIRIN

“Aspirin” used to be a brand name for the drug acetylsalicylic acid, which was introduced by the German drug company Bayer AG in the late 1800s. As part of the war reparations paid by Germany after WWI, Bayer AG lost the use of the trademark “Aspirin” (as well as the trademark “Heroin”!) and it became a generic term.

26D Chic accessory? : TRES

“Très chic” is a French term meaning “very stylish”.

31D Sagittarius, for one : FIRE SIGN

Each of the twelve astrological signs is associated with one of the classical elements:

• Fire signs: Aries, Leo, Sagittarius
• Earth signs: Taurus, Capricorn, Virgo
• Air signs: Libra, Aquarius, Gemini
• Water signs: Cancer, Scorpio, Pisces

33D Zohran who walked the length of Manhattan on June 20, 2025 : MAMDANI

Before entering into the world of politics, Zohran Mamdani was a hip-hop artist who performed and released music under the stage name “Young Z”. He made history in 2020 as the first South Asian man elected to the New York State Assembly, representing the Astoria district in Queens. In 2025, Mamdani was elected as Mayor of New York City.

35D “Holes” novelist Louis : SACHAR

Louis Sachar’s “Holes” is a young adult novel that cleverly weaves together stories of Stanley Yelnats, a teenager unjustly sent to a juvenile detention camp called Camp Green Lake, and the historical legend of Kissin’ Kate Barlow, a schoolteacher turned outlaw. Stanley and his fellow inmates are forced to dig one five-foot hole every day, supposedly to “build character”. It eventually becomes clear that the true purpose behind their labor is to dig for a buried treasure left behind by Kissin’ Kate.

36D Trinidad’s Pitch Lake, for one : TAR PIT

Pitch Lake is an enormous deposit of asphalt. Containing about 10 million tons of the viscous liquid, it is the largest such natural deposit in the world. Pitch Lake is located close to the town of La Brea on the island of Trinidad in the Caribbean. “Brea” is the Spanish word for “tar”, hence the town’s name. Note that locals in Trinidad pronounce “La Brea” as “la bray”, unlike the La Brea in Los Angeles that is home to the famous American tar pits.

39D Lingua __ : FRANCA

A lingua franca is a common language used to communicate among those who do not routinely speak each other’s native tongue. The term “lingua franca” originally applied to the common language used in commerce around the Eastern Mediterranean from the Middle Ages through the Renaissance. This ancient Lingua Franca was a simplified form of Italian, with a generous sprinkling of loanwords from Greek, French, Portuguese, Spanish and other local languages.

40D __ sauce : TARTAR

Tartar sauce is basically mayonnaise with some chopped pickles, capers and onion or chives. The recipe was invented by the French (as “sauce tartare”) with the name somehow linked to the Tatars, a people who once occupied Ukraine and parts of Russia.

45D King of Prussia attraction : MALL

The Pennsylvania town of King of Prussia was named for the historic King of Prussia Inn that was constructed as a cottage in 1710. It was converted to a tavern 60 years later, and originally named Berry’s Inn. There is a suggestion that it was renamed to the King of Prussia Inn to attract German soldiers fighting in the American Revolution.

49D On the __: chronically, casually : REG

“On the reg” is a shortening of “on the regular”. It is used to describe an activity performed frequently and habitually.

50D Title for some spouses : MRS

“Mr.” is an abbreviation for “mister”, and “Mrs.” is an abbreviation for “mistress”.