LA Times Crossword 24 Jan 23, Tuesday

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Constructed by: Rebecca Goldstein
Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Reveal Answer: Give It a Rest!

Themed answers are each things that one might REST:

  • 53A “Enough already!” or what one may do to each answer to a starred clue : GIVE IT A REST!
  • 18A *Traditional Thanksgiving entree : ROAST TURKEY
  • 24A *Feature of anxiety, often : RACING MIND
  • 35A *The “order” part of a “Law & Order” episode : COURT CASE
  • 47A *Piano lesson pages : SHEET MUSIC

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

Bill’s time: 4m 57s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1 Cert. for some babysitters : CPR

Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) has for decades involved the simultaneous compression of the chest to pump blood using the heart, and artificial respiration by blowing air into the lungs. I hear that nowadays, emergency services are placing more emphasis on heart compressions, and less on artificial respiration.

4 Golden St. region : SOCAL

Southern California (SoCal)

“Golden State” has been the official nickname of California since 1968. The nickname reflects the expansion of the state’s economy that followed the discovery of gold in 1848, and also the fields of golden poppies seen growing wild across California in the spring.

13 Summer arrival : LEO

Leo is the fifth astrological sign of the Zodiac. People born from July 23 to August 22 are Leos.

14 “Sweet Love” singer Baker : ANITA

Anita Baker is an R&B and soul singer who was raised in Detroit, Michigan. Baker’s most successful song is the Grammy-winning “Sweet Love” that was released in 1986.

15 Maker of G-Shock watches : CASIO

Casio is a Japanese manufacturer of mainly electronic products, including calculators, watches and electronic keyboards. It was Casio that produced the first portable and compact all-electric calculator, way back in 1957.

18 *Traditional Thanksgiving entree : ROAST TURKEY

Thanksgiving Day was observed on different dates in different states for many years, until Abraham Lincoln fixed the date for the whole country in 1863. Lincoln’s presidential proclamation set that date as the last Thursday in November. In 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt moved the holiday to the fourth Thursday in November, arguing that the earlier date would give the economy a much-needed boost.

20 Venezuelan cornmeal cake : AREPA

An arepa is a cornmeal cake or bread that is popular in Colombian and Venezuelan cuisines in particular. Each arepa has a flat, round shape and is often split to make a sandwich.

22 “Big Blue” : IBM

The origin of the IBM nickname “Big Blue” seems to have been lost in the mists of time. That said, maybe it has something to do with the fact that the IBM logo is blue, and almost every mainframe they produced was painted blue. I remember visiting IBM on business a few times in my career, and back then we were encouraged to wear white shirts and blue suits “to fit in” with our client’s culture.

29 Egyptian boy king : TUT

“King Tut” is a name commonly used for the Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun. Tutankhamun may not have been the most significant of the pharaohs historically, but he is the most famous today largely because of the discovery of his nearly intact tomb in 1922 by Howard Carter. Prior to this find, any Egyptian tombs uncovered by archaeologists had been ravaged by grave robbers. Tutankhamun’s magnificent burial mask is one of the most recognizable of all Egyptian artifacts.

30 Novelist Jaffe : RONA

Rona Jaffe was an American novelist perhaps most famous for two of her books, “The Best of Everything” and “Mazes and Monsters”. “The Best of Everything” was published in 1958 and has been compared with the HBO television series “Sex and the City” as it depicts women in the working world. “Mazes and Monsters” was published in 1981 and explores a role-playing game similar to Dungeons & Dragons and the impact it has on players.

32 Cultural no-nos : TABOOS

The word “taboo” was introduced into English by Captain Cook in his book “A Voyage to the Pacific Ocean”. Cook described “tabu” (likely imitative of a Tongan word that he had heard) as something that was both consecrated and forbidden.

35 *The “order” part of a “Law & Order” episode : COURT CASE

“Law & Order” ran for many, many years on NBC, from 1990 to 2010. It is a police drama that spawned a huge franchise of shows both here in the US and overseas. I am probably a bit biased, but my favorite is the version shown in BBC America called “Law & Order: UK”.

40 Hardly fresh : OLD HAT

The use of “old hat” to mean something “out of date, stale” started about 1911. Before that, the term “old hat” meant something very different, and very vulgar. “Old hat” was the name given to a very private part of the female anatomy, the idea being that it was “often felt” (as in a “felt hat”). I just don’t know what to say …

42 Alexander Hamilton’s birth island : NEVIS

Nevis is an island in the Caribbean Sea, which along with the island of Saint Kitts makes up the Federation of Saint Kitts and Nevis. At the center of Nevis is a volcano, called Nevis Peak. Apparently the clouds at the top of this peak reminded someone of snow, so the island was given the Spanish name “Nuestra Señora de las Nieves” (Our Lady of the Snows). The name “Nevis” then comes from “nieves”, the word for “snow”.

Alexander Hamilton was one of America’s Founding Fathers, chief of staff to General George Washington and the first Secretary of the Treasury. It was Hamilton who established the nation’s first political party, the Federalist Party. He is also famous for fighting a duel with Vice President Aaron Burr, which resulted in Hamilton’s death a few days later.

51 Big part of an alligator : JAW

Crocodiles and alligators do indeed bear a resemblance to each other, although they belong to distinct biological families. One of the main ways used to distinguish them is by their teeth and jaws. Both the upper and lower sets of teeth of a crocodile are visible when its mouth is closed, whereas only the upper teeth of an alligator are visible with the mouth shut.

52 Bygone anesthetic : ETHER

Ethers are a whole class of organic compounds, but in the vernacular “ether” is specifically diethyl ether. Diethyl ether was once very popular as a general anesthetic.

58 “How Easy Is That?” cookbook writer Garten : INA

Ina Garten is an author as well as the host of a cooking show on the Food Network called “Barefoot Contessa”. She is a mentee of Martha Stewart, and indeed was touted as a potential “successor” to the TV celebrity when Stewart was incarcerated in 2004 after an insider trading scandal. Garten has no formal training as a chef, and indeed used to work as a nuclear policy analyst at the White House!

59 Aromatic bulb : ONION

When an onion is sliced, cells are broken. Enzymatic reactions take place that result in the generation of a volatile gas, syn-propanethial-S-oxide. The gas irritates the eyes and tears are produced in order to clear them.

60 Brief appearance in a film : CAMEO

Even in my day, a cameo role was more than just a short appearance in a movie (or other artistic piece). For the appearance to be a cameo, the actor had to play himself or herself, and was instantly recognizable. With this meaning it’s easy to see the etymology of the term, as a cameo brooch is one with the recognizable carving of the silhouette of a person. Nowadays, a cameo is any minor role played by a celebrity or famous actor, regardless of the character played.

61 Tony winner Vereen : BEN

Ben Vereen is an American actor and dancer who is probably best known for playing Chicken George in the magnificent television miniseries “Roots”. When he was applying for a passport in the sixties, Vereen discovered that he was adopted. He then went looking for his birth parents and identified his birth mother (who had passed away by this time). She went away on a trip when Ben was very young, only to return and find that her child and the person minding him had disappeared. She never saw her son again.

62 Group after boomers : GEN X

The term “Generation X” originated in the UK where it was the name of a book by Jane Deverson. Her book detailed the results of a study of British youths in 1964, contrasting their lifestyle to those of previous generations. It was Canadian author Douglas Coupland who was responsible for popularizing the term, with his more successful publication “Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture”. By one definition, Gen-Xers were born between 1961 and 1981.’

A baby boomer is someone who was born in the post-WWII baby boom. The rate of births had been falling fairly steadily in the US at least since 1900, but this trend was sharply reversed in 1946 after WWII. The higher birth rate continued until 1964, when it returned to pre-war levels. Since then the birth rate has continued to decline, although at a slower pace. The period between 1946 and 1964 is often defined as the “baby boom”.

63 City considered Japan’s cultural capital : KYOTO

The city of Kyoto was once the capital of Japan, and in fact the name “Kyoto” means “capital city” in Japanese. Kyoto is sometimes referred to as the City of Ten Thousand Shrines.

64 Biblical craft : ARK

According to the Bible’s Book of Genesis, Noah was instructed to build his ark 300 cubits long, 50 cubits wide and 30 cubits high. That’s about 450 feet long, 75 feet wide and 45 feet high.

Down

3 Circular diamond shape : ROSE CUT

Diamonds that are rose cut are rarely seen these days, with most examples being found in antique jewelry.

Diamonds can be cut in various shapes. The most common cuts are:

  • Princess
  • Cushion
  • Heart
  • Pear
  • Marquise
  • Radiant
  • Asscher
  • Emerald
  • Oval

4 See-through wrap : SARAN

What’s known as plastic wrap in America, we call cling-film in Ireland. The brand name “Saran” is often used generically in the US, while “Glad” wrap is common down under. Plastic wrap was one of those unintended inventions, a byproduct of a development program to create a hard plastic cover for cars.

5 Grammy-winning Yoko : ONO

Yoko Ono was born in 1933 in Tokyo into a prosperous Japanese family, and is actually a descendant of one of the emperors of Japan. Yoko’s father moved around the world for work, and she lived the first few years of her life in San Francisco. The family returned to Japan, before moving on to New York, Hanoi and back to Japan just before WWII, in time to live through the great firebombing of Tokyo in 1945. Immediately after the war the family was far from prosperous. While Yoko’s father was being held in a prison camp in Vietnam, her mother had to resort to begging and bartering to feed her children. When her father was repatriated, life started to return to normal and Yoko was able to attend university. She was the first woman to be accepted into the philosophy program of Gakushuin University.

6 “Homeland” org. : CIA

“Homeland” is a psychological drama on Showtime about a CIA officer who is convinced that a certain US Marine is a threat to the security of the United States. The show is based on a series from Israeli television called “Hatufim” (Prisoners of War”). I highly recommend it …

7 @ signs : ATS

The “at symbol” (@) originated in the commercial world, as shorthand for “each at, per” and similar phrases. I suppose we see the symbol most commonly these days as part of email addresses.

8 Sonia Sotomayor, for one : LATINA

Sonia Sotomayor was the first Hispanic justice appointed to the US Supreme Court, and the third female justice. Sotomayor was nominated by President Barack Obama to replace the retiring Justice David Souter.

16 Raw bar mollusk : OYSTER

A group of oysters is commonly referred to as a “bed”, and oysters can be farmed in man-made beds. The largest body of water producing oysters in the US today is Chesapeake Bay, although the number of beds continues to dwindle due to pollution and overfishing. Back in the 1800s, most of the world’s oysters came from New York Harbor.

Molluscs (also “mollusks”) are invertebrate (no-backbone) animals that comprise about a quarter of all known marine organisms. Examples are squid, cuttlefish, oysters and octopodes.

19 Letters on an incomplete schedule : TBD

To be determined (TBD)

21 Crunchy hummus scooper : PITA CHIP

The lovely dip/spread called hummus usually contains mashed chickpeas, tahini, olive oil, lemon juice, salt and garlic. The name “hummus” is an Arabic word for “chickpeas”.

25 Backsplash binder : GROUT

Grout is a thin mortar used to fill the joints between ceramic tiles. The name “grout” comes from the Old English word “gruta”, the word for a “coarse porridge” (due to the similarity in appearance of the two). Interestingly, the word “grits” comes from the same root. Grout … grits … makes sense …

26 “Wuthering Heights” setting : MOOR

“Wuthering Heights” is the only novel written by Emily Brontë, and one that she published using the pen name Ellis Bell. It was published in December of 1847, a date chosen to take advantage of the wave of success enjoyed by Charlotte Brontë’s “Jane Eyre” that had been published just two months earlier.

28 Nattily dressed snack food mascot : MR PEANUT

Planters is the company with the Mr. Peanut icon. Mr. Peanut was the invention of a first-grader named Antonio Gentile, a young man who won a design contest in 1916. A remarkable achievement, I’d say …

34 Military rookie : CADET

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.

36 Whodunit board game : CLUE

Clue is a board game that we knew under a different name growing up in Ireland. Outside of North America, Clue is marketed as “Cluedo”. Cluedo was the original name of the game, introduced in 1949 by the famous British board game manufacturer Waddingtons. There are cute differences between the US and UK versions. For example, the man who is murdered is called Dr. Black (Mr. Boddy in the US), one of the suspects is the Reverend Green (Mr. Green in the US), and the suspect weapons include a dagger (a knife in the US), and a spanner (a wrench in the US). I think it’s a fabulous game, a must during the holidays …

37 “Closer to Fine” duo __ Girls : INDIGO

Indigo Girls are a folk rock music duo made up of Amy Ray and Emily Saliers. Ray and Saliers are considered icons in the LGBT community as both identified themselves as lesbians a long time ago, although they have never been a couple.

39 Lifetime channel offering : TV MOVIE

Lifetime is a pay TV channel with programming aimed at women, and programming featuring women in leading roles.

41 Japanese electronics giant : TOSHIBA

The Japanese company that we know today as Toshiba was formed in 1939 with the merger of Tokyo Electric and Shibaura Engineering Works. The “To-shiba” name comes from a melding of TO-kyo and SHIBA-ura.

45 Ballpark frank : WIENER

What we call a wiener in this country is known as a Vienna sausage in Germany. It was first produced by a butcher from Frankfurt who was living in Vienna, hence the name “Wiener”, which is German for “of Vienna”. Paradoxically, the same sausage is called a Frankfurter in Vienna, as it was created by someone from Frankfurt. It’s all very confusing …

The frankfurter sausage that is typically used in a North American hot dog gets its name from Frankfurter Würstchen. The latter is a German sausage that is prepared by boiling in water, just like a hot dog frank.

48 “I feel the same way” : ME TOO

So do I …

49 Curmudgeon : CRANK

“Curmudgeon” is a favorite word used by my wife to describe me. A curmudgeon is a bad-tempered person full of resentment and stubborn notions. I am sure she uses the term very affectionately …

51 Curse : JINX

A jinx is a charm or a spell. The word “jinx” comes from an older word “jyng” from the 17th-century. A “jyng” was a wryneck, a type of bird much used in witchcraft.

54 Geologic time unit : EON

Geologic time is divided into a number of units of varying lengths. These are, starting from the largest:

  • supereon
  • eon (also “aeon”)
  • era
  • period
  • epoch
  • age

56 Full of feelings : EMO

“Emo” is short for “emotional hardcore”.

Complete List of Clues/Answers

Across

1 Cert. for some babysitters : CPR
4 Golden St. region : SOCAL
9 Chase a fly, maybe : SWAT
13 Summer arrival : LEO
14 “Sweet Love” singer Baker : ANITA
15 Maker of G-Shock watches : CASIO
17 Sci-fi invaders : ETS
18 *Traditional Thanksgiving entree : ROAST TURKEY
20 Venezuelan cornmeal cake : AREPA
22 “Big Blue” : IBM
23 Certain sib : SIS
24 *Feature of anxiety, often : RACING MIND
28 N. Dak. neighbor : MONT
29 Egyptian boy king : TUT
30 Novelist Jaffe : RONA
31 Mean monster : BRUTE
32 Cultural no-nos : TABOOS
34 Successful dogcatcher, e.g. : CAPTOR
35 *The “order” part of a “Law & Order” episode : COURT CASE
37 “Or even less” : IF THAT
40 Hardly fresh : OLD HAT
42 Alexander Hamilton’s birth island : NEVIS
43 __-false test : TRUE
44 This minute : NOW
46 Trashy place? : DUMP
47 *Piano lesson pages : SHEET MUSIC
50 Words of agreement : I DO
51 Big part of an alligator : JAW
52 Bygone anesthetic : ETHER
53 “Enough already!” or what one may do to each answer to a starred clue : GIVE IT A REST!
58 “How Easy Is That?” cookbook writer Garten : INA
59 Aromatic bulb : ONION
60 Brief appearance in a film : CAMEO
61 Tony winner Vereen : BEN
62 Group after boomers : GEN X
63 City considered Japan’s cultural capital : KYOTO
64 Biblical craft : ARK

Down

1 See-through : CLEAR
2 Domesticated rodent : PET RAT
3 Circular diamond shape : ROSE CUT
4 See-through wrap : SARAN
5 Grammy-winning Yoko : ONO
6 “Homeland” org. : CIA
7 @ signs : ATS
8 Sonia Sotomayor, for one : LATINA
9 Film on a pond : SCUM
10 “This means __!” : WAR
11 Invites to dinner, maybe : ASKS OUT
12 Connect with : TIE INTO
16 Raw bar mollusk : OYSTER
19 Letters on an incomplete schedule : TBD
21 Crunchy hummus scooper : PITA CHIP
25 Backsplash binder : GROUT
26 “Wuthering Heights” setting : MOOR
27 About to happen : IN STORE
28 Nattily dressed snack food mascot : MR PEANUT
31 Rager : BASH
33 Feathery accessories : BOAS
34 Military rookie : CADET
36 Whodunit board game : CLUE
37 “Closer to Fine” duo __ Girls : INDIGO
38 In a row? : FEUDING
39 Lifetime channel offering : TV MOVIE
41 Japanese electronics giant : TOSHIBA
43 Hitting sound : THWACK!
45 Ballpark frank : WIENER
47 Won at musical chairs : SAT
48 “I feel the same way” : ME TOO
49 Curmudgeon : CRANK
51 Curse : JINX
54 Geologic time unit : EON
55 Line in a child’s drawing of the sun : RAY
56 Full of feelings : EMO
57 “Quiet on the __!” : SET