LA Times Crossword 28 Mar 19, Thursday

Advertisement

Constructed by: Timothy Schenck
Edited by: Rich Norris

Today’s Reveal Answer: Top Hats

Themed answers are all in the down-direction. The TOP of each answer is a type of HAT:

  • 38A Partners of tails … and what’s found in the answers to starred clues : TOP HATS
  • 10D *Italian pistols : BERETTAS (topped by “beret”)
  • 11D *A skeptic’s wont : TO QUESTION (topped by “toque”)
  • 28D *Quaker Oats cereal with a naval officer on the box : CAP’N CRUNCH (topped by “cap”)
  • 38D *The Sunshine Skyway Bridge spans it : TAMPA BAY (topped by “tam”)

Bill’s time: 6m 45s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1 Ancient gathering place : STOA

A stoa was a covered walkway in Ancient Greece. A stoa usually consisted of columns lining the side of a building or buildings, with another row of columns defining the other side of the walkway. The columns supported a roof. Often stoae would surround marketplaces in large cities.

11 “Waterfalls” pop trio : TLC

The girl band called TLC is from Atlanta, Georgia. The band’s name comes from the trio’s original members:

  • Tionne “T-Boz” Watkins
  • Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes
  • Rozonda “Chilli” Thomas

“Waterfalls” was a hit in 1995 for girl group TLC. It was to become the band’s signature song, and is notable in that it is the first number-one song to reference AIDS. In fact, “Waterfalls” also mentions the illegal drug trade and promiscuity.

17 Dict. label : ABBR

Abbreviation (abbr.)

19 Sine __ non : QUA

“Sine qua non” is a Latin phrase that we use to mean “the essential element or condition”. The literal translation is “without which not”. One might say, for example, “a challenging crossword is the sine qua non of a good newspaper”. Well, crossword fans might say that …

25 Reason for a warm eye compress : STYE

A stye is a bacterial infection of the sebaceous glands at the base of the eyelashes, and is also known as a hordeolum.

26 Race town near Windsor Castle : ASCOT

Ascot Racecourse is used for thoroughbred horse racing, and is located in the town of Ascot, Berkshire in England. The course is located just six miles from Windsor Castle, and is often visited by members of the royal family. Royal Ascot is the name given to the most famous race meeting in the year, at which members of the royal family attend each day, arriving in horse-drawn carriages amidst great ceremony.

Windsor Castle is located on the River Thames in Berkshire, just 20 miles outside London. It was built in the early 11th century by William the Conqueror after the Norman invasion of England. Queen Elizabeth II likes to spend her weekends at Windsor. She has lots of room to move around there, as it’s the largest inhabited castle in the world.

36 Greek cross : TAU

Tau is the 19th letter of the Greek alphabet, and the letter which gave rise to our Roman “T”. Both the letters tau (T) and chi (X) have long been symbolically associated with the cross.

37 ChapStick target : LIP

ChapStick is a brand of lip balm produced by Pfizer, although the brand is so popular that the term “chapstick” tends to be used generically. ChapStick was invented way back in the 1880s by a Dr. Charles Browne Fleet in Lynchburg, Virginia.

40 The Stratford, in TV’s “Newhart” : INN

“Newhart” is a very entertaining sitcom starring Bob Newhart and Mary Frann as innkeepers in rural Vermont. The show is remembered by many for its last episode, which aired in 1990. In that final episode, Bob Newhart wakes up in bed and suggests that the whole of the show’s eight-year run was just a dream. He is lying beside actress Suzanne Pleshette who played his wife in an earlier sitcom “The Bob Newhart Show”. Very, very clever …

41 Pupil surrounder : AREOLA

An areola (sometimes “areole”) in anatomy is a small ring of color, as in the areola surrounding the nipple, and the areola surrounding the pupil of the eye. “Areola” comes from Latin, meaning “small open space”, and is a diminutive of the Latin word “area”, meaning “open space”.

42 Frost lines? : POEM

The wonderful poet Robert Frost was a native of San Francisco, but lived most of life in New England. He also spent a few years in England, just before WWI. Frost was well recognized for his work during his lifetime, and received four Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry. He was also Vermont’s first Poet Laureate, a position that he held from 1961 until his death in 1963.

47 “__ always makes it better”: Anne Burrell : BACON

Anne Burrell is co-host of the show “Worst Cooks in America” that airs on the Food Network. Here’s a Burrell quote:

I always use my “Holy Trinity” which is salt, olive oil and bacon. My motto is, ‘”bacon always makes it better”. I try to use bacon and pork products whenever it can.

50 Throat dangler : UVULA

The uvula is that conical fleshy projection hanging down at the back of the soft palate. The uvula plays an important role in human speech, particularly in the making of “guttural” sounds. The Latin word for “grape” is “uva”, so “uvula” is a “little grape”.

52 Aboveboard : ALLOWABLE

Something described as aboveboard is legitimate, without tricks. The term originated in card games, where a sneaky move under the table (“board”) might involve a switching of cards.

56 Solder component : 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”.

Solder is a metal alloy that is used to join pieces of a work together using the principle that the melting point of the alloy is below the melting point of the workpieces.

57 Caviar source : BELUGA

Caviar is the roe of a large fish that has been salted and seasoned, and especially the roe of a sturgeon. Beluga caviar comes from the beluga sturgeon, which is found primarily in the Caspian Sea. It is the most expensive type of caviar in the world. 8 ounces of US-farmed beluga caviar can be purchased through Amazon.com for just over $850, in case you’re feeling peckish …

60 Anti-apartheid org. : ANC

The African National Congress (ANC) started out as the South African Native National Congress in 1912 with the goal of improving the lot of black South Africans. After years of turmoil, the ANC came to power in the first open election in 1964.

Apartheid was the system of racial segregation used in South Africa from 1948 to 1994. “Apartheid” is an Afrikaans word meaning “apart-hood, the state of being apart”.

61 Landfall for Noah : ARARAT

Mount Ararat is in Turkey. Ararat 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.

62 Word before and after sweet : HOME

“Home! Sweet Home!” is a song that has been around at least since 1827. The melody was composed by Englishman Sir Henry Bishop, using lyrics written by American John Howard Payne.

Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam,
Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home;
A charm from the skies seems to hallow us there,
Which seek thro’ the world, is ne’er met elsewhere.
Home! Home!
Sweet, sweet home!
There’s no place like home
There’s no place like home!

63 Part of a snarky laugh : HEH

“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.

65 Terminal info : ETAS

Estimated time of arrival (ETA)

Down

5 Likely to err, eventually? : HUMAN

Alexander Pope’s 1709 poem “An Essay on Criticism” is the source of at least three well-known quotations:

  • A little learning is a dangerous thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring.
  • To err is human, to forgive divine.
  • For fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

7 Vestige : TRACE

We use the word “vestige” for a trace, mark or sign. The term comes from the Latin “vestigium” that also means trace, as well as footprint.

8 Spork prong : TINE

“Spork” is the more common name for the utensil that is a hybrid between a spoon and a fork. The same utensil is less commonly referred to as a “foon”.

10 *Italian pistols : BERETTAS (topped by “beret”)

Beretta is an Italian manufacturer of firearms, one that has been selling firearms since 1526! The company got a big boost of sales in the US in the eighties, when it’s Beretta 92 pistol was selected by the US Army for use as its service handgun (although it was known as the “M9” pistol by the US Army).

11 *A skeptic’s wont : TO QUESTION (topped by “toque”)

The adjective “wont” means “accustomed”, as in “I am wont to solving the crossword of an evening”.

A toque was a brimless style of hat that was very fashionable in Europe in the 13th to 16th centuries. Nowadays we associate toques with chefs, as it is the name given to a chef’s hat (called a “toque blanche” in French, a “white hat”). A chef’s toque is quite interesting. Many toques have exactly 100 pleats, often said to signify the number of ways that an egg can be cooked.

12 __-garou: werewolf : LOUP

A werewolf can also be referred to as a “loup-garou”, which is a term borrowed from French.

21 Safety feature at a trapeze school : NET

The circus act known as the “trapeze” is so called because the shape defined by the crossbar, ropes and ceiling of the tent is a “trapezium”.

23 Scandinavian rug : RYA

A rya is a traditional Scandinavian rug, originally used as heavy covers by mariners as an alternative to furs. The name “rya” comes from a village in southwest Sweden.

25 Seasonal visitor : SANTA

The name “Santa Claus” is American English, and came into the language as a phonetic variant of “Sinterklaas”, the Dutch for “Saint Nicholas”.

26 Stage surprise : AD LIB

“Ad libitum” is a Latin phrase meaning “at one’s pleasure”. In common usage, the phrase is usually shortened to “ad lib”. On the stage, the concept of an ad lib is very familiar.

27 River with 37 bridges in Paris : SEINE

There are 37 bridges spanning the River Seine in Paris, including 5 pedestrian-only bridges and 2 rail bridges.

28 *Quaker Oats cereal with a naval officer on the box : CAP’N CRUNCH (topped by “cap”)

The first Cap’n Crunch commercials aired in 1963, at the time the product line was launched. The Cap’n’s full name is Captain Horatio Magellan Crunch, would you believe? Crunch’s voice was provided for many years by Daws Butler, the same voice actor who gave us Yogi Bear and Huckleberry Hound. Cap’n Crunch is commander of the S.S. Guppy.

30 Conference room stand : EASEL

The word “easel” comes from an old Dutch word meaning “donkey” would you believe? The idea is that an easel carries its load (an oil painting, say) just as a donkey would be made to carry a load.

33 Social customs : MORES

Mores are the moral attitudes and binding customs of a particular group. Mores are generally not binding in the sense that a law is binding, however social mores often dictate the nature of laws adopted by a society.

35 Letter before sigma : RHO

Rho is the Greek letter that looks just like our Roman letter “p”, although it is equivalent to the Roman letter “R”.

38 *The Sunshine Skyway Bridge spans it : TAMPA BAY (topped by “tam”)

The Sunshine Skyway Bridge spans Tampa Bay in Florida, and is just over four miles long. The current bridge opened in 1987, replacing a prior structure that opened in 1954. Part of the old bridge collapsed in 1980 when the freighter MV Summit Venture collided with a pier. The collision caused 35 deaths as six cars, a truck and a Greyhound bus fell 150 feet into the water.

A tam o’shanter is a man’s cap traditionally worn by Scotsmen. “Tams” were originally all blue (and called “blue bonnets”) but as more dyes became readily available they became more colorful. The name of the cap comes from the title character of the Robert Burns poem “Tam O’Shanter”.

42 Grand style : PANACHE

Someone exhibiting panache is showing dash and verve, and perhaps has a swagger. “Panache” is a French word used for a plume of feathers, especially in a hat.

44 Safflower __ : OIL

Safflower looks pretty much like a yellow-flowered thistle, with sharp spines on the leaves. For the past five decades the safflower has been cultivated for its seeds, which yield an oil that is similar to sunflower oil.

50 Arches National Park state : UTAH

The gorgeous Arches National Park is located in eastern Utah, just outside of Moab. The main focus of the park is the preservation of over 2,000 natural sandstone arches. The arches are relatively fragile, and 43 have collapsed since 1970, mainly due to erosion caused by wind and rain.

51 Hollywood crosser : VINE

Vine Street is a famous thoroughfare in Hollywood. Hollywood’s movie industry grew up around the intersection of “Hollywood and Vine”, where Hollywood Boulevard crossed Vine Street. That same intersection is now home to the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the collection of brass stars embedded in the sidewalks that are monuments to achievement in the entertainment industry.

54 Revered Tibetan : LAMA

“Lama” is a Tibetan word meaning “chief” or “high priest”.

58 “Blood hath been shed __ now”: Macbeth : ERE

There is a superstition in the theatrical world that uttering the name “Macbeth” in a theater will bring disaster of some sort. To avoid this, the euphemism “the Scottish Play” is used instead.

Complete List of Clues/Answers

Across

1 Ancient gathering place : STOA
5 Warm place to chill : HOT TUB
11 “Waterfalls” pop trio : TLC
14 Medical breakthrough : CURE
15 Revolt : UPRISE
16 “That looks good!” : OOH!
17 Dict. label : ABBR
18 Not as nice : MEANER
19 Sine __ non : QUA
20 Impressive vocal quality : RESONANCE
22 Spew : ERUPT
24 Have a feeling : SENSE
25 Reason for a warm eye compress : STYE
26 Race town near Windsor Castle : ASCOT
29 Information to process : DATA SET
32 “Sounds fair” : DEAL
33 Berth place : MARINA
36 Greek cross : TAU
37 ChapStick target : LIP
38 Partners of tails … and what’s found in the answers to starred clues : TOP HATS
39 Doctrine suffix : -ISM
40 The Stratford, in TV’s “Newhart” : INN
41 Pupil surrounder : AREOLA
42 Frost lines? : POEM
43 Flatters : BECOMES
45 Masculine : MANLY
46 Cheats, with “off” : RIPS
47 “__ always makes it better”: Anne Burrell : BACON
50 Throat dangler : UVULA
52 Aboveboard : ALLOWABLE
56 Solder component : TIN
57 Caviar source : BELUGA
59 Morsel on a shellfish platter : CLAW
60 Anti-apartheid org. : ANC
61 Landfall for Noah : ARARAT
62 Word before and after sweet : HOME
63 Part of a snarky laugh : HEH
64 Approvals : YESSES
65 Terminal info : ETAS

Down

1 Emotional trauma consequence : SCAR
2 Skin cream holder : TUBE
3 Poetic spheres : ORBS
4 Spray starch dispenser : AEROSOL
5 Likely to err, eventually? : HUMAN
6 Hits theaters : OPENS
7 Vestige : TRACE
8 Spork prong : TINE
9 Finish, with “up” : USE …
10 *Italian pistols : BERETTAS (topped by “beret”)
11 *A skeptic’s wont : TO QUESTION (topped by “toque”)
12 __-garou: werewolf : LOUP
13 Facebook option : CHAT
21 Safety feature at a trapeze school : NET
23 Scandinavian rug : RYA
25 Seasonal visitor : SANTA
26 Stage surprise : AD LIB
27 River with 37 bridges in Paris : SEINE
28 *Quaker Oats cereal with a naval officer on the box : CAP’N CRUNCH (topped by “cap”)
29 Retro phone part : DIAL
30 Conference room stand : EASEL
31 Tot’s ache source : TUMMY
33 Social customs : MORES
34 Imitates : APES
35 Letter before sigma : RHO
38 *The Sunshine Skyway Bridge spans it : TAMPA BAY (topped by “tam”)
42 Grand style : PANACHE
44 Safflower __ : OIL
45 Cut grass : MOW
47 Gets fuzzy : BLURS
48 Diet for some aquarium fish : ALGAE
49 Paint layers : COATS
50 Arches National Park state : UTAH
51 Hollywood crosser : VINE
52 “Oh dear!” : ALAS!
53 Ink smudge : BLOT
54 Revered Tibetan : LAMA
55 Farm females : EWES
58 “Blood hath been shed __ now”: Macbeth : ERE