LA Times Crossword 20 Sep 22, Tuesday

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Constructed by: Amie Walker
Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Reveal Answer: Split Ticket

Themed answers each include a type of TICKET hidden within, SPLIT between two words:

  • 58A Voter’s crossover ballot, and what can literally be found in the circled letters : SPLIT TICKET
  • 17A Showers someone with money? : MAKES IT RAIN (giving “train ticket”)
  • 27A “Spit it out!” : TELL ME ALREADY! (giving “meal ticket”)
  • 44A Cheese, beans, guacamole, sour cream, etc. : NACHO TOPPINGS (giving “hot ticket”)

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

Bill’s time: 5m 21s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1 Snorkeler’s destination : REEF

Our word “snorkel” comes from German navy slang “Schnorchel” meaning “nose, snout”. The German slang was applied to an air-shaft used for submarines, due to its resemblance to a nose, in that air passed through it and it made a “snoring” sound. “Schnorchel” comes from “Schnarchen”, the German for “snore”.

10 Chef’s meas. : TSP

Teaspoon (tsp.)

20 Lead-in to gender : CIS-

The term “cisgender” is used as the opposite of “transgender”. Cisgender people have a gender identity that matches the sex they were assigned at birth.

23 City in northern Illinois : DEKALB

The city of DeKalb, Illinois was founded as DeKalb Center in the 1850s. It was named for a major general in the Revolutionary War named Baron Johann de Kalb.

26 Breakfast chain with bottomless stacks : IHOP

The International House of Pancakes (IHOP) was founded back in 1958. IHOP was originally intended to be called IHOE, the International House of Eggs, but that name didn’t do too well in marketing tests.

32 Sheltered, at sea : ALEE

Alee is the direction away from the wind. If a sailor points into the wind, he or she is pointing aweather. The sheltered side of an island, for example, might be referred to as the “lee” side.

34 Clock-setting std. : GMT

Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) is the time at the Prime Meridian, the meridian that runs through Greenwich in London.

37 “Top Gun” nickname : MAV

Here are some of the more notable characters in the 1986 movie “Top Gun”:

  • Pete “Maverick” Mitchell (Tom Cruise)
  • Charlotte “Charlie” Blackwood (Kelly McGillis)
  • Nick “Goose” Bradshaw (Anthony Edwards)
  • Tom “Iceman” Kazansky (Val Kilmer)
  • Mike “Viper” Metcalf (Tom Skerritt)
  • Rick “Jester” Heatherly (Michael Ironside)

“Top Gun” is an entertaining action movie released in 1986 starring Tom Cruise and Kelly McGillis. The movie is all about pilots training at the US Navy’s Fighter Weapons School. A lot of footage was shot on board the Navy’s carrier the USS Enterprise during flight operations. At one point in a day’s shooting, the commander of the Enterprise changed course as needed for normal operations, but this altered the light for the cameras that were filming at the time. Director Tony Scott asked for the course to be changed back, but was informed that a course change would cost the Navy $25,000. Scott wrote out a check there and then, and he got another five minutes of filming with the light he needed.

38 Poolside structures : CABANAS

Our word “cabana” comes from the Spanish “cabaña”, the word for a small hut or a cabin. We often use the term to describe a tent-like structure beside a pool.

40 __ Grande : RIO

The Rio Grande (Spanish for “big river”) is a waterway that forms part of the border between Mexico and the United States. Although we call the river the Rio Grande on this side of the border, in Mexico it is called the Río Bravo or Río Bravo del Norte (Spanish for “furious river of the north”).

44 Cheese, beans, guacamole, sour cream, etc. : NACHO TOPPINGS (giving “hot ticket”)

The dish known as “nachos” was supposedly created by the maître d’ at a restaurant called the Victory Club in the city of Piedras Negras, Coahuila, Mexico. The name of the maître d’ was Ignacio “Nacho” Anaya.

50 Creamy chocolate dessert : MOUSSE

Our word “mousse” is an Old French term meaning “froth”.

58 Voter’s crossover ballot, and what can literally be found in the circled letters : SPLIT TICKET

A split-ticket ballot is one in which a voter votes for candidates from more than one political party.

63 Journalist Rather : DAN

Journalist and former news anchor Dan Rather is from Texas, and began his career as a reporter for the Associated Press in Huntsville, Texas. Rather was the man chosen to replace Walter Cronkite as anchor and Managing Editor of “CBS Evening News” when Cronkite retired in 1981.

64 Linney of “Ozark” : LAURA

Actress Laura Linney is a native New Yorker from Manhattan. The performances of hers that I most admire are in “The Truman Show” and “Love Actually” on the big screen, and in “John Adams” and “Ozark” on the small screen.

“Ozark” is an excellent TV crime show starring Jason Bateman and Laura Linney as a married couple who relocate from Chicago to the Missouri Ozarks. The couple fall foul of a Mexican drug lord after a money laundering scheme goes awry. The show is set at a lake resort in the Ozarks, although filming actually takes place at lakes in the Atlanta area in order to take advantage of tax breaks offered by the State of Georgia.

65 Peak in Greek myth : MT IDA

There are two peaks called Mount Ida that are sacred according to Greek mythology. Mount Ida in Crete is the island’s highest point, and is where one can find the cave in which Zeus was reared. Mount Ida in Asia Minor (located in modern-day Turkey) is where Ganymede was swept up by Zeus in the form of an eagle that took him to Olympus where he served as cupbearer to the gods.

66 Portland’s st. : ORE

Portland is the largest city in Oregon. The city was founded by two claimholders from back East, one from Boston, Massachusetts and one from Portland, Maine. Both of the founders wanted to name the new city after their hometowns, and settled the dilemma with a coin toss. Portland won …

67 Early Mesoamerican : OLMEC

The Olmecs were an ancient civilization that lived in the lowlands of south-central Mexico from about 1500 BC to about 400 BC.

Mesoamerica is a region extending from Central Mexico, south to Costa Rica. It is known as an area where societies flourished prior to the Spanish colonization of the Americas in the 16th and 17th centuries.

Down

2 Clean air org. : EPA

The Clean Air Act of 1963 is administered by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

3 Cartoon shriek : EEK!

The word “cartoon” was originally used for a “drawing on strong paper”, a durable drawing used as a model for a work of art. The term comes from the French word “carton” meaning “heavy paper, pasteboard”. Cartoons have been around a long time, with some of the most famous having been drawn by Leonardo da Vinci.

5 Acct. balance, e.g. : AMT

Amount (amt.)

6 “The Incredibles” family name : PARR

“The Incredibles” is a 2004 animated feature from Pixar, and not a great movie if you ask me. But asking me probably isn’t a good idea, as the film won two Oscars …

8 Egyptian fertility goddess : ISIS

Isis was the ancient Egyptian goddess of fertility, as well as the protector of the dead and the goddess of children. She was the personification of the pharaoh’s power. The name “Isis” translates as “throne”, and she is usually depicted with a headdress shaped like a throne.

11 __ Domingo: Caribbean capital : SANTO

Santo Domingo de Guzmán (often just “Santo Domingo”) is the capital city of the Dominican Republic. Christopher Columbus was the first European to visit what is now the Dominican Republic, in 1492. Four years later Christopher’s younger brother, Bartholomew Columbus arrived, and founded Santo Domingo, making the city the oldest, continuously-inhabited European settlement in the Americas.

24 Bilbo Baggins’ age at the start of “The Lord of the Rings” : ELEVENTY-ONE

In J. R. R. Tolkien’s fantasy novel “The Hobbit”, the title character is Bilbo Baggins. He is a hobbit who stumbles across a magical ring and then embarks on a series of adventures.

25 Panda’s diet : BAMBOO

The grass known as bamboo is one of the fastest-growing plants in the world. Sadly, there are stories of growing bamboo being used as a device of torture. Supposedly, a victim can be staked out over bamboo shoots so that the shoots grow into the human flesh. Theoretically, bamboo can grow several inches in just three days.

The giant panda is a bear, and so has the digestive system of a carnivore. However, the panda lives exclusively on bamboo, even though its gut is relatively poorly adapted to extract nutrients from plants per se. The panda relies on microbes in its gut to digest cellulose, and consumes 20-30 pounds of bamboo each day to gain enough nourishment.

30 Incoming flight stat : ETA

Estimated time of arrival (ETA)

35 Gnatlike insect : MIDGE

“Midge” is a familiar term used for many different kinds of small flies.

45 IM pioneer : AOL

Even though instant messaging (sending and receiving IMs) has been around since the 1960s, it was AOL who popularized the term “instant message” in the eighties and nineties. The “AOL Instant Message” service was known as AIM.

47 Jewish festival when the Book of Esther is read : PURIM

Purim is a festival commemorating the deliverance of the Jewish people from a plot to wipe them out by Haman the Agagite, as recorded in the Book of Esther.

48 Pollo __: grilled chicken dish : ASADO

“Pollo asado” is Spanish for “grilled chicken”.

49 Of a forearm bone : ULNAR

The bones in the forearm are the radius and ulna. “Ulna” is the Latin word for “elbow”, and “radius” is Latin for “ray”. The humerus (plural “humeri”) is the long bone in the upper arm.

52 Norway’s capital : OSLO

Oslo, the capital of Norway, is an ancient city that was founded around 1048. The medieval city was destroyed by fire in 1624 and was rebuilt by the Danish-Norwegian king Christian IV and renamed to Christiana. In 1877 there was an official change of the spelling of the city’s name to “Kristiana”, and then more recently in 1925 the name was restored to the original Oslo. Things have almost gone full circle and now the center of Oslo, the area that would have been contained by the original medieval walls, has apparently been renamed to Christiana.

53 Milky white gem : OPAL

An opal is often described as having a milky iridescence known as opalescence.

54 Supermodel Heidi : KLUM

German-born Heidi Klum was married to the successful English singer, Seal. Klum is a talented lady and has built a multi-faceted career based on her early success as a model. She is the force behind the Bravo reality show called “Project Runway” that has been on the air since 2004. Klum has been nominated 4-5 times for an Emmy for her association with the show. Klum was also signed up as the official ambassador for Barbie in 2009, the 50th anniversary of the Barbie Doll, and for her service that year a Heidi Klum Barbie was produced. She has been adding a touch of class to the judging panel on the show “America’s Got Talent” from 2013 through 2020.

59 Tic-__-toe : TAC

When I was growing up in Ireland we played “noughts and crosses” … our name for the game tic-tac-toe.

61 School URL ending : EDU

The .edu domain was one of the six original generic top-level domains specified. The complete original list is:

  • .com (commercial enterprise)
  • .net (entity involved in network infrastructure e.g. an ISP)
  • .mil (US military)
  • .org (not-for-profit organization)
  • .gov (US federal government entity)
  • .edu (college-level educational institution)

62 Indent key : TAB

Like most features on our computer keyboards, the tab key is a hangover from the days of typewriters. When using a typewriter, making entries into a table was very tedious, involving lots of tapping on the spacebar and backspace key. So, a lever was added to typewriters that allowed the operator to “jump” across the page to positions that could be set by hand. Later this was simplified to a tab key which could be depressed, causing the carriage to jump to the next tab stop in much the same way that the modern tab key works on a computer.

Complete List of Clues/Answers

Across

1 Snorkeler’s destination : REEF
5 Challenging H.S. science class : AP BIO
10 Chef’s meas. : TSP
13 Musical “Jeopardy!” category that’s tough for many contestants : OPERA
15 Swampy area : MARSH
16 Rower’s blade : OAR
17 Showers someone with money? : MAKES IT RAIN (giving “train ticket”)
19 Undivided : ONE
20 Lead-in to gender : CIS-
21 Use when there are no better options, say : RESORT TO
23 City in northern Illinois : DEKALB
26 Breakfast chain with bottomless stacks : IHOP
27 “Spit it out!” : TELL ME ALREADY! (giving “meal ticket”)
32 Sheltered, at sea : ALEE
33 Beef and pork : MEATS
34 Clock-setting std. : GMT
37 “Top Gun” nickname : MAV
38 Poolside structures : CABANAS
40 __ Grande : RIO
41 Potato spot : EYE
42 Prepares for a recipe, as onions : CHOPS
43 __ one’s time: be patient : BIDE
44 Cheese, beans, guacamole, sour cream, etc. : NACHO TOPPINGS (giving “hot ticket”)
48 Car : AUTO
50 Creamy chocolate dessert : MOUSSE
51 Sidelong glances : SLY LOOKS
56 Afore : ERE
57 “Is that __?”: “Are you declining?” : A NO
58 Voter’s crossover ballot, and what can literally be found in the circled letters : SPLIT TICKET
63 Journalist Rather : DAN
64 Linney of “Ozark” : LAURA
65 Peak in Greek myth : MT IDA
66 Portland’s st. : ORE
67 Early Mesoamerican : OLMEC
68 Puny pencil : STUB

Down

1 __-com: date movie, maybe : ROM
2 Clean air org. : EPA
3 Cartoon shriek : EEK!
4 Skin spot that may be darkened by sunlight : FRECKLE
5 Acct. balance, e.g. : AMT
6 “The Incredibles” family name : PARR
7 Scottish hillside : BRAE
8 Egyptian fertility goddess : ISIS
9 “That’s not good!” : OH NO!
10 Wide smiles : TOOTHY GRINS
11 __ Domingo: Caribbean capital : SANTO
12 Hosp. stop before surgery : PRE-OP
14 “Take me __” : AS I AM
18 Small landmass : ISLE
22 Free (of) : RID
23 Make late : DELAY
24 Bilbo Baggins’ age at the start of “The Lord of the Rings” : ELEVENTY-ONE
25 Panda’s diet : BAMBOO
27 Domesticated : TAME
28 Jumped : LEAPT
29 Kidnapper’s demand : RANSOM
30 Incoming flight stat : ETA
31 Pack animal : ASS
35 Gnatlike insect : MIDGE
36 Pedicure targets : TOES
38 Junk bond rating : CCC
39 “That hits the spot!” : AHH!
43 Divides equally : BISECTS
45 IM pioneer : AOL
46 Bard : POET
47 Jewish festival when the Book of Esther is read : PURIM
48 Pollo __: grilled chicken dish : ASADO
49 Of a forearm bone : ULNAR
52 Norway’s capital : OSLO
53 Milky white gem : OPAL
54 Supermodel Heidi : KLUM
55 “Your Majesty” : SIRE
59 Tic-__-toe : TAC
60 Assembly-required boxful : KIT
61 School URL ending : EDU
62 Indent key : TAB