LA Times Crossword 15 Nov 18, Thursday

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Constructed by: C.C. Burnikel
Edited by: Rich Norris

Today’s Reveal Answer: Rookie Mistake

Themed answers are FRESH FACES who might make a ROOKIE MISTAKE:

  • 51A. Error the answers to starred clues might make : ROOKIE MISTAKE
  • 28A. *Fresh face in a newsroom : CUB REPORTER
  • 58A. *Fresh face at online gaming : NOOB
  • 59A. *With 60-Across, fresh face at a dojo : WHITE …
  • 60A. *See 59-Across : … BELT
  • 3D. *Fresh face at boot camp : RAW RECRUIT
  • 11D. *Fresh face in the Boy Scouts : TENDERFOOT

Bill’s time: 9m 29s

Bill’s errors: 0

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Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1. Passé saver of fave programs : VCR

“Passé” is a French word, meaning “past, faded”. We’ve imported the term into English, and use it in the same sense.

14. Parseghian of Notre Dame : ARA

Ara Parseghian coached the Notre Dame football team from 1964 to 1974, a period known as “The Era of Ara”.

16. Juan Perón’s wife : EVA

Eva Perón was the second wife of President Juan Perón who was in office from 1946 to 1955. The Argentine First Lady was known affectionately by the people as “Evita”, the Spanish language diminutive of “Eva”. “Evita” is also the title of a tremendously successful musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice that is based on the life of Eva Perón.

19. Say no to : NIX

The use of “nix” as a verb, meaning “to shoot down”, dates back to the early 1900s. Before that “nix” was just a noun meaning “nothing”. “Nix” comes from the German “nichts”, which also means “nothing”.

20. Medicare section : PART B

Medicare is divided into four parts:

  • A: Hospital Insurance
  • B: Medical Insurance
  • C: Medicare Advantage Plans
  • D: Prescription Drug Plans

22. Big name in shoe stores : DSW

DSW is retailer of footwear that was founded in 1969. The initialism “DSW” stands for “Designer Shoe Warehouse”.

25. Camper’s heater : STERNO

Sterno is a jellied alcohol that usually comes in a can. The can is opened and the contents burn very easily and persistently. The brand name “Sterno” comes from the original manufacturer, S. Sternau & Co. of Brooklyn, New York.

27. Links targets : GREENS

The oldest type of golf course is a links course. The name “links” comes from the Old English word “hlinc” meaning “rising ground”. “Hlinc” was used to describe areas with coastal sand dunes or open parkland. As a result, we use the term “links course” to mean a golf course that is located at or on the coast, often amid sand dunes. The British Open is always played on a links course.

32. ORD airport postings : ARRS

Arrival (arr.)

The IATA airport code for O’Hare International in Chicago is ORD, which comes from Orchard Place Airport/Douglas Field (OR-D).

35. Giant in nonstick sauté pans : T-FAL

Tefal (also “T-Fal”) is a French manufacturer of cookware, famous for its nonstick line. The name “Tefal” is a portmanteau, of TEFlon and ALuminum, the key materials used in producing their pots and pans.

41. Galaxy, e.g. : PHONE

The Galaxy is a series of mobile computing devices made by Samsung that was introduced in 2009. Almost all of the Galaxy devices have used Google’s Android operating system, until a Windows 10 Galaxy device was introduced by Samsung in 2016.

43. Tense NFL periods : OTS

Overtime (OT)

44. “Bleeding Love” singer Lewis : LEONA

Leona Lewis rocketed to fame after winning the British TV show called “The X Factor” (the show that spawned the UK’s “Pop Idol” and America’s “American Idol”).

“Bleeding Love” is a 2007 song released by British singer Leona Lewis. The song had remarkable success around the world, and became only the second record to reach number-one in the charts in 35 countries. The first song to achieve that record was “Candle in the Wind 1997” by Elton John.

48. Turncoat : RAT

A turncoat is a traitor. The concept behind the term is that a traitor might “turn” his or her “coat” inside-out, to hide a badge or uniform that identifies loyalty or fealty.

50. Cable network since 1972 : HBO

Home Box Office (HBO) is the oldest continuously-operating pay TV service in the US, having launched in 1972. HBO is a favorite of mine as I really like many of the HBO made-for-television movies and especially the HBO original series. Among the list of original series from HBO are “Mildred Pierce”, “The Pacific”, “John Adams”, “Big Love”, “Extras”, “The Wire”, “Sex and the City”, “From the Earth to the Moon”, “The Sopranos” and “Band of Brothers”. What great television …

51. Error the answers to starred clues might make : 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.

58. *Fresh face at online gaming : NOOB

“Noob” is a not-so-nice slang term for a “newbie”, and often refers to someone who is new to an online community.

59. *With 60-Across, fresh face at a dojo : WHITE …

60. *See 59-Across : … BELT

The Japanese word “dojo” literally means “place of the way”. Originally the term applied to training halls that were found in or beside temples. The teaching in a dojo was not limited to the martial arts, but in the Western world we use the dojo as the name for a training facility for judo, karate and the like.

63. Zeus’ shield : AEGIS

Someone is said to be under the aegis (also “egis”) of someone else (for example) if that other person provides protection, or perhaps sponsorship. The word “aegis” comes from the Greek word for a goat (“aigis”). The idea is that the goatskin shield or breastplate, worn by both Zeus and Athena, gave some measure of protection.

65. Website for handmade jewelry : ETSY

Etsy.com is an e-commerce website where you can buy and sell the kind of items that you might find at a craft fair.

67. “Match Game” host Baldwin : ALEC

“Match Game” is a television game show that had many incarnations. The original run was from 1962 until 1969, and it came back in varying formats several times after that. The best-known host of the show was Gene Rayburn. The most recent is Alec Baldwin, starting in 2016.

Down

1. Improvises, in jazz : VAMPS

To vamp is to improvise musically, usually on a piano. A vamp is often an accompaniment to a solo.

2. Dubrovnik resident : CROAT

Dubrovnik is a Croatian port city on the Adriatic Sea, and in the very south of the country. It has been a major tourist destination since the end of the war that raged after the breakup of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s. So many tourists have been flocking to the city that the authorities have resorted in recent years to staggering the arrival of cruise ships in order to manage the flow of visitors.

4. Site with many home pages? : AIRBNB

Airbnb is a website-based service that matches people wanting to rent out short-term living quarters to people seeking accommodation.

5. CalArts degree : MFA

Master of Fine Arts (MFA)

The California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) is a private school located in Santa Clarita, California. CalArts was founded in 1961 by merging the Chouinard Art Institute and the Los Angeles conservatory, a merger that was very much sponsored by Walt Disney.

7. George of “MacGyver” : EADS

George Eads is an actor from Fort Worth, Texas. Eads is best known for playing the investigator Nick Stokes on the CBS show “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation”, and more recently for playing Jack Dalton on the show “MacGyver”.

“MacGyver” is an action-adventure TV show that started airing in 2016. It is described as a reboot of the successful show of the same name from the late eighties and early nineties. The title character is an agent with a unique ability to solve problems and jury-rig technical fixes when he is in a bind. Actor Lucas Till plays MacGyver this time time round, whereas Richard Dean Anderson played him 25 years ago.

10. Keith Haring genre : POP ART

An artistic work in the pop art style includes images taken from popular culture, perhaps from the news or an advertisement. The pop art movement started in the mid-fifties in Britain and emerged in the late-fifties in the US. One of the more famous pop artists was American Andy Warhol.

Keith Haring was an artist who started out making chalk drawings on the New York City subway system in the late seventies and early eighties. As his work gained some recognition, he became friends with Andy Warhol, who helped Haring achieve his success.

11. *Fresh face in the Boy Scouts : TENDERFOOT

The adjective “tender-footed” originally applied to horse, describing an animal that was young and inexperienced, not sure of foot. That was back in the late 17th century, By the mid-1800s the term was being applied to humans, with a “tenderfoot” being a novice, and particularly a newcomer to the worlds of ranching and mining in the American West.

12. French postcard word : AVION

“Avion” is French for “airplane”.

27. Hurdle for a future Ph.D. : GRE

Passing the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) is usually a requirement for entry into graduate school here in the US.

29. Red Muppet : ELMO

The “Sesame Street” character named Elmo has a birthday every February 3rd, and on that birthday he always turns 3½ years old. The man behind/under Elmo on “Sesame Street” is Kevin Clash. If you want to learn more about Elmo and Clash, you can watch the 2011 documentary “Being Elmo: A Puppeteer’s Journey”.

30. Frost, e.g. : POET

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.

33. Amazon Fire TV Stick alternative : ROKU

Roku is a manufacturer of digital media players that allow access to audio and video programming over the Internet that is shown on televisions. Roku was founded in Los Gatos, California in 2002 by Anthony Wood. Wood chose the company name “Roku” as it is the Japanese word for “six”, and Roku is the sixth company that Wood founded.

Amazon Fire TV is Amazon’s digital media player. It is used to deliver audio and video programming to televisions by picking up content from the Internet. I use the smaller version of the player quite a lot, which is branded as a Fire TV Stick.

36. Hathaway of “Ocean’s 8” : ANNE

Actress Anne Hathaway is a favorite of mine, I must say. She starred in “The Devil Wears Prada” in 2006 and in 2007’s “Becoming Jane”, a film that I particularly enjoyed.

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.

39. __ plug : SPARK

There are two main types of internal combustion engine. Most cars in the US use spark injection engines (gasoline engines) in which a spark plug sparks in order to ignite the fuel-air mixture. A diesel engine, on the other hand, has no spark plug per se, and uses the heat generated by compressing the air-fuel mixture to cause ignition.

41. Plum-apricot hybrid : PLUOT

Hybrids of plums and apricots are known as plumcots and apriplums. The later generation hybrid known as a pluot is ¼ apricot and ¾ plum in terms of genetics. An aprium is ¼ plum and ¾ apricot.

46. Where bubble tea originated : TAIWAN

Prior to 1945, the island that we know today as Taiwan was called “Formosa”, the Portuguese word for “beautiful”. Portuguese sailors gave the island this name when they spotted it in 1544. The official name for the state of Taiwan is the “Republic of China”.

Bubble tea, sometimes called Boba tea, is a tea-based drink from Taiwan. The “bubbles” are chewy tapioca balls that are usually added to the drink.

51. Carrot or turnip : ROOT

The names of veggies cause me grief sometimes. What’s called a turnip here in the US, we call a swede back in Ireland. An Irishman’s turnip is a rutabaga over here. Thank goodness a potato is a potato, or I’d just give up altogether 🙂

54. “Top Gun” enemy planes : MIGS

The Russian fighter jets that we know as “MiGs” are so called because they were designed by the Mikoyan-and-Gurevich Design Bureau, and MiG is an acronym for “Mikoyan-and-Gurevich” in Russian.

55. “Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again” group : ABBA

“Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again” is a 2018 sequel to the hit 2008 movie “Mamma Mia!” I am an unashamed fan of the original film, and really loved the “Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again”. I especially enjoyed Cher’s rendition of a couple of ABBA hits at the end of the movie, and have Cher’s 2018 album “Dancing Queen” on my Christmas list.

57. Glamour rival : ELLE

“Elle” magazine was founded in 1945 in France and today has the highest circulation of any fashion magazine in the world. “Elle” is the French word for “she”. “Elle” is published monthly worldwide, although you can pick up a weekly edition if you live in France.

The women’s monthly magazine “Glamour” was founded in 1939 as “Glamour of Hollywood”.

58. Mobile-to-Knoxville dir. : NNE

Mobile, Alabama was founded in 1702, and the first capital of French Colonial Louisiana. The city takes its name from the Mobilian tribe of Native Americans who lived in that area.

Knoxville is the third largest city in Tennessee, after Nashville and Memphis. It was also the state’s first capital, serving as such from 1796 until 1817. The city was named for Henry Knox, who was a general in the Revolutionary War and the US’s first Secretary of War.

61. Dr. Mom’s skill : TLC

Tender loving care (TLC)

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Complete List of Clues/Answers

Across

1. Passé saver of fave programs : VCR
4. Energized : AMPED UP
11. Sales add-on : TAX
14. Parseghian of Notre Dame : ARA
15. “Alas, it’s true” : I FEAR SO
16. Juan Perón’s wife : EVA
17. Level the playing field? : MOW
18. Was felt very strongly : RAN DEEP
19. Say no to : NIX
20. Medicare section : PART B
22. Big name in shoe stores : DSW
23. “Same here” : AS DO I
25. Camper’s heater : STERNO
27. Links targets : GREENS
28. *Fresh face in a newsroom : CUB REPORTER
32. ORD airport postings : ARRS
34. Get hitched on the run : ELOPE
35. Giant in nonstick sauté pans : T-FAL
38. Big oafs : LOUTS
40. Saw : MET
41. Galaxy, e.g. : PHONE
42. Practice frugality : SKIMP
43. Tense NFL periods : OTS
44. “Bleeding Love” singer Lewis : LEONA
45. Beat in a pie contest, say : OUTEAT
47. Booted out : OUSTED
48. Turncoat : RAT
50. Cable network since 1972 : HBO
51. Error the answers to starred clues might make : ROOKIE MISTAKE
58. *Fresh face at online gaming : NOOB
59. *With 60-Across, fresh face at a dojo : WHITE …
60. *See 59-Across : … BELT
62. “Try again” : NOPE
63. Zeus’ shield : AEGIS
64. Bike signal : BELL
65. Website for handmade jewelry : ETSY
66. Egg holders : NESTS
67. “Match Game” host Baldwin : ALEC

Down

1. Improvises, in jazz : VAMPS
2. Dubrovnik resident : CROAT
3. *Fresh face at boot camp : RAW RECRUIT
4. Site with many home pages? : AIRBNB
5. CalArts degree : MFA
6. Await a decision : PEND
7. George of “MacGyver” : EADS
8. Picked from the deck : DREW
9. Find a place for : USE
10. Keith Haring genre : POP ART
11. *Fresh face in the Boy Scouts : TENDERFOOT
12. French postcard word : AVION
13. Graph line : X-AXIS
21. “I wouldn’t lie” : TRUST ME
24. Is really boiling : SEETHES
26. Mining find : ORE
27. Hurdle for a future Ph.D. : GRE
29. Red Muppet : ELMO
30. Frost, e.g. : POET
31. Goes (for) : OPTS
32. Too : ALSO
33. Amazon Fire TV Stick alternative : ROKU
36. Hathaway of “Ocean’s 8” : ANNE
37. Take charge of : LEAD
39. __ plug : SPARK
41. Plum-apricot hybrid : PLUOT
46. Where bubble tea originated : TAIWAN
47. Persistently haunt : OBSESS
49. Little laugh : TE-HEE
50. “Start the music!” : HIT IT!
51. Carrot or turnip : ROOT
52. “My bad” : OOPS
53. Follow orders : OBEY
54. “Top Gun” enemy planes : MIGS
55. “Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again” group : ABBA
56. Ship’s backbone : KEEL
57. Glamour rival : ELLE
58. Mobile-to-Knoxville dir. : NNE
61. Dr. Mom’s skill : TLC

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