LA Times Crossword 5 Sep 19, Thursday

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Constructed by: Kristian House
Edited by: Rich Norris

Today’s Reveal Answer(s): Two Can Play … at that Game

Themed answers are GAMES PLAYED by TWO persons:

  • 11D With 28-Down, words to a cheater … or an honest hint to the answers to starred clues : TWO CAN PLAY …
  • 28D See 11-Down : … AT THAT GAME
  • 17A *Brain trust member : MASTERMIND
  • 22A *Nixon’s cocker spaniel : CHECKERS
  • 38A *Influential record company named for co-founding brothers Leonard and Phil : CHESS
  • 50A *Playful question spoiled by caller ID : GUESS WHO?
  • 60A *The USS Iowa, e.g. : BATTLESHIP

Bill’s time: 5m 10s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1 Isla surrounder : AGUA

In Spanish, “agua” (water) is found in a “río” (river), and around an “isla” (island).

5 Real cutup : JOKER

A person who is a cutup or a riot is hilariously funny.

10 Italian volcano : ETNA

Mount Etna on the island of Sicily is the largest of three active volcanoes in Italy, and indeed the largest of all active volcano in Europe. Etna is about 2 1/2 times the height of its equally famous sister, Mt. Vesuvius. Mt. Etna is home to a 110-km long narrow-gauge railway, and two ski resorts. It is sometimes referred to as “Mongibello” in Italian, and as “Mungibeddu” in Sicilian. The English name “Etna” comes from the Greek “aitho” meaning “I eat”.

14 TV series that had flashbacks, flash-forwards and multiple timelines : LOST

In the TV show “Lost”, the plane that crashed was operated by Oceanic Airlines. The fictional airline Oceanic Airlines or Oceanic Airways turns up a lot on the big and small screen. Try to spot Oceanic in the movies “Executive Decision” and “For Love of the Game”, and in episodes of the TV shows “Castle”, “Chuck”, “Flipper”, “The Goldbergs” and “The X-Files”.

15 Kemper of “The Office” : ELLIE

Actress Ellie Kemper’s big break came with the role of Erin Hannon, a receptionist on the sitcom “The Office”. More recently, Kemper has been playing the title role on the Netflix comedy series “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt”.

The excellent sitcom “The Office” is set in a branch of a paper company in Scranton, Pennsylvania. If you haven’t seen the original UK version starring Ricky Gervais, I do recommend you check it out. Having said that, the US cast took the show to a whole new level. Great television …

16 Truant GI : AWOL

MPs (military police officers) often track down personnel who go AWOL (absent without leave).

The initialism “GI” stands for “Government Issue”, and not “General Infantry” as is widely believed. “GI” was first used in the military to denote equipment made from Galvanized Iron and during WWI, incoming German shells were nicknamed “GI cans”. Soon after, the term GI came to be associated with “Government Issue” and eventually became an adjective to describe anything associated with the Army.

“Truant” is such a lovely word. We have been using it to describe someone who wanders from an appointed place since the mid-1400s. Prior to that, a truant was a beggar or a vagabond.

17 *Brain trust member : MASTERMIND

Mastermind is a code breaking game that uses colored pegs on decoding board. The “code maker” sets a hidden “code” of four colored pegs into one end of the board, and then the “code breaker” guesses the sequence of colors by laying four pegs into the decoding section of the same board. The code maker responds by revealing how many pegs are guessed correctly and in the right position, and how many are guessed correctly and in the wrong position. The codebreaker uses this information to break the code within a specified number of guesses.

19 Meander : ROVE

To meander is to follow a winding course. Meander was a river god in Greek mythology who was patron of the Meander river in modern-day Turkey. The meandering Meander is now known as the Büyük Menderes River.

21 Gastric woe : ULCER

Until fairly recently, a peptic ulcer was believed to be caused by undue amounts of stress in one’s life. It is now known that 70-90% of all peptic ulcers are in fact associated with a particular bacterium.

22 *Nixon’s cocker spaniel : CHECKERS

President Richard Nixon’s most famous dog was a cocker spaniel named Checkers. The Nixon family also owned a poodle called Vicky that was bought for daughter Julie.

“Checkers” is yet another word that I had to learn moving across the Atlantic. In Ireland the game is called “draughts”.

25 PC key : ALT

The Alt (alternate) key is found on either side of the space bar on US PC keyboards. The Alt key evolved from what was called a Meta key on old MIT keyboards, although the function has changed somewhat over the years. Alt is equivalent in many ways to the Option key on a Mac keyboard, and indeed the letters “Alt” have been printed on most Mac keyboards starting in the nineties.

26 Reel Big Fish music genre : SKA

Reel Big Fish is a ska punk band from Southern California that was founded in 1991.

29 Pigs out (on) : OD’S

Overdose (OD)

30 Flying frenemy of Godzilla : RODAN

Rodan is a flying pterosaur appearing in a series of Japanese monster movies, created by the same studio that had earlier come up with Godzilla.

The terrifying monster Godzilla is a Japanese invention. The first in a very long series of “Godzilla” films was released way back in 1954. The original name in Japanese was “Gojira”, but this was changed to Godzilla for audiences outside of Japan. “Gojira” is a combination of “gorira” and “kujira”, the Japanese words for gorilla and whale, apt because Godzilla is a big ape-like creature that came out of the deep.

A frenemy is someone who feigns friendship but who is actually an enemy or competitor.

32 “Beaten” ways : PATHS

As in “off the beaten path” …

34 One who is rotten to the core? : BAD APPLE

The only apples that are native to North America are crab apples. And so, the 17th-century colonists brought apples to the New World, with the first apple orchard being planted in Boston in 1625. Today, about half of the apples cultivated in the world are grown in China.

37 Quartet member : ALTO

A mixed vocal quartet is often composed of a soprano, alto, tenor and bass.

38 *Influential record company named for co-founding brothers Leonard and Phil : CHESS

Chess Records was founded in 1950 in Chicago by brothers Leonard and Phil Chess. The Chess brothers set up a sister label two years later called “Checker Records”. The 2008 movie “Cadillac Records” chronicles the life of Leonard Chess, who is played by Adrien Brody.

It is believed that the game of chess originated in northwest India. It evolved from a 6th-century game called “chaturanga”, a Sanskrit word meaning “four divisions”. These four (military) divisions were represented in the game:

  • Infantry (now “pawns”)
  • Cavalry (now “knights”)
  • Elephants (now “bishops”)
  • Chariots (now “rooks”)

40 Serb or Croat : SLAV

The Slavic peoples are in the majority in communities covering over half of Europe. This large ethnic group is traditionally broken down into three smaller groups:

  • the West Slavic (including Czechs and Poles)
  • the East Slavic (including Russians and Ukrainians)
  • the South Slavic (including Bulgarians, Croats and Serbs)

45 Ox tail? : -IDE

Oxides are usually named for the number of oxygen atoms in each molecule of the oxide. Oxides with one oxygen atom are called monoxides (as in carbon monoxide: CO). Oxides with two oxygen atoms are dioxides (as in carbon dioxide: CO2). Oxides with three oxygen atoms are trioxides (as in sulfur trioxide: SO3). Oxides with four oxygen atoms are tetroxides (as in dinitrogen tetroxide: N2O4).

47 Hankering : YEN

The word “yen”, meaning “urge”, has been around in English since the very early 1900s. It comes from the earlier word “yin” imported from Chinese, which was used in English to describe an intense craving for opium.

50 *Playful question spoiled by caller ID : GUESS WHO?

The basic technology behind caller ID was developed in Athens, Greece by “Ted” Paraskevakos in the late sixties and early seventies. The man should be made a saint …

Guess Who? is a guessing game aimed at children that was introduced in 1979. The game has been criticized over the years for a lack of diversity in the list of characters depicted in the game. As a result, recent versions of Guess Who? include more women and is more racially diverse.

53 2010 Supreme Court appointee : KAGAN

Elena Kagan was the Solicitor General of the United States from 2009 until 2010, when she replaced Justice John Paul Stevens on the US Supreme Court. That made Justice Kagan the first female US Solicitor General and the fourth female US Supreme Court justice. Kagan also served as the first female dean of Harvard Law School from 2003 to 2009.

60 *The USS Iowa, e.g. : BATTLESHIP

The USS Iowa battleship that saw action in WWII was the fourth vessel to be so called by the US Navy. Among her many missions, the Iowa carried President Franklin D. Roosevelt to Casablanca in 1943 for one of the famed war summits with Winston Churchill and Josef Stalin.

In the days of sail, a naval fleet of ships often formed a “line of battle” in the vessels formed up end to end. The advantage of such a formation was that all vessels could fire a battery of cannon along the full length of the ship. Vessels deemed powerful enough to join the line of battle became known as “ships of the line”, or “line of battle ships”. The term “line of battle ship” shortened over time to become our modern word “battleship”. The main feature of a contemporary battleship is a battery of large caliber guns.

Battleship is a remarkably fun guessing game that I used to play as a child. Back then, we would play it just using pencil and paper. These days kids are more likely to play an electronic version of the game.

62 Toon mail-order company : ACME

The Acme Corporation is a fictional company used mainly by Looney Tunes, and within the Looney Tunes empire it is appears mostly in “Road Runner” cartoons. Wile E. Coyote is always receiving a new piece of gear from Acme designed to finally capture the Road Runner, but the equipment always leads to his downfall.

66 “Aw, fudge!” : NERTS!

“Nerts” is a slang term, a corruption of “nuts!”

67 Corddry of TV’s “Mom” : NATE

Nate Corddry is an actor and comedian who is perhaps best known for playing the manager of the restaurant where Christy works in the sitcom “Mom”. Corddry also played lawyer Adam Branch on the sitcom “Harry’s Game” alongside Kathy Bates. Nate is the younger brother of comedian and actor Rob Corddry, whe turned up quite frequently as a correspondent on “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart”.

Down

2 Animal on the Cubs’ 2016 World Series rings : GOAT

The Chicago Cubs baseball team was supposedly subject to the “Curse of the Billy Goat” from 1945 until 2016. Billy Sianis, the owner of a Billy Goat Tavern in Chicago, took his pet goat with him to a World Series game against the Detroit Tigers at Wrigley Field. Fans sitting nearby didn’t like the smell of the goat, and so the owner was asked to leave. As he left, Sianis yelled out, “Them Cubs, they ain’t gonna win no more.” And that is how a curse is born …

3 Space Race inits. : USSR

The Soviet Union launched the Sputnik satellite towards the end of 1957 in a development that shocked the establishment in the US. Within months, President Eisenhower created the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA, now DARPA) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The Space Race had begun …

4 Room often with a slanted ceiling : ATTIC

An attic or loft is a room or space located below the roof of a building. The term “attic” is a shortened form of “attic story”, the uppermost story or level of a house. This term “attic story” originally applied to a low, decorative level built on top of the uppermost story behind a building’s decorative facade. This use of decoration at the top of buildings was common in ancient Greece, and was particularly important in the Attica style. That Attica style was so called because it originated in the historical region of Attica that encompassed the city of Athens. And that’s how our attics are linked to ancient Greece.

6 Early Mexicans : OLMECS

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

7 “Hogan’s Heroes” colonel : KLINK

On the sitcom “Hogan’s Heroes”, Colonel Klink was the Camp Commandant, played by Werner Klemperer. Klemperer was born in Cologne in Germany, and fled the country with his family in 1935 due to Nazi persecution of Jews. Later, Klemperer joined the US Army and ended up using his show business talent to entertain the troops in the Pacific. Werner was the son of renowned conductor Otto Klemperer.

“Hogan’s Heroes” is a sitcom that ran in the late sixties and early seventies. The show starred Bob Crane as the ranking prisoner in a German POW camp during WWII. The four major German roles were played by actors who all were Jewish, and who all fled from the Nazis during the war. The French-American actor Robert Clary, who played Corporal Lebeau, spent three in concentration camps before being liberated from Buchenwald in 1945.

8 German article : EIN

The definite article in German is der, die or das, for masculine, feminine and neuter nouns. The indefinite article is ein, eine or ein, again depending on the gender of the noun. A further complication, relative to English, is that the masculine form (and only the masculine form) of the article changes when used in the accusative case, when used with the object of a sentence. The accusative forms are “den” and “einen”.

10 Bluegrass legend Scruggs : EARL

Earl Scruggs and Lester Flatt are the musicians who founded the bluegrass band called the Foggy Mountain Boys in 1948.

18 Heart sonograms, familiarly : ECHOS

A sonogram of the heart is referred to as an echocardiogram. Echocardiography is often employed in the test commonly known as a stress echo. Images of the heart are taken at rest and “under stress”, when the heart rate is at maximum after the patient has walked on a treadmill.

21 Food Safety agcy. : USDA

The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) actually dates back to 1862, when it was established by then-president Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln referred to the USDA as the “people’s department” as our economy had such a vast agrarian base back then.

23 Paleozoic and Cenozoic : ERAS

The Paleozoic Era (with “Paleozoic” meaning “ancient life”) was a geologic era from roughly 542 to 251 million years ago. Notably in the Paleozoic Era, fish populations thrived and vast forests of primitive plants covered the land. Those forests were the source material for the coal which we dig out of the ground now in Europe and the eastern parts of North America. The end of the Paleozoic Era was marked by the largest mass extinction in the history of the Earth, killing off 96% of all marine species and 70% of all terrestrial vertebrates. Causes of the extinction have been suggested, with one hypothesis being gradually accelerating climate change (scary!).

The Cenozoic Era (with “Cenozoic” meaning “new life”) is the most recent geologic era, and covers the period from 65.5 million years ago to the present day. The start of the Cenozoic Era is defined as the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction event, the cataclysm that led to the extinction of the dinosaurs. The mass extinction allowed mammals to diversify and dominate the planet, and so the Cenozoic is also known as the “Age of Mammals”.

24 Retina cells : RODS

The retina is the tissue that lines the inside of the eye, and is the tissue that is light-sensitive. There are (mainly) two types of cells in the retina that are sensitive to light, one called rods and the other cones. Rods are cells that best function in very dim light and only provide black-and-white vision. Cones on the other hand function in brighter light and can perceive color.

31 Church area : APSE

The apse of a church or cathedral is a semicircular recess in an outer wall, usually with a half-dome as a roof and often where there resides an altar. Originally, apses were used as burial places for the clergy and also for storage of important relics.

33 The Cardiff Giant, notably : HOAX

In the 1860s, a New York tobacconist named George Hull ordered a 10-foot long block of gypsum from Iowa and shipped it to Chicago. There he had a German stonecutter carve the block into the likeness of a man, swearing him to secrecy. The “statue” was stained and mechanically aged to make it look weathered. The completed “giant” was transported to the farm belonging to his cousin in Cardiff, New York, and there it was buried. A year later, on the pretext of digging a well, the statue was “discovered”, and was labelled as a petrified giant. The crowds started arriving in droves, paying good money to see the oddity. Very quickly experts deemed the Cardiff Giant to be a fake, but the money kept rolling in, especially after showman P. T. Barnum got involved. If you want to see the Cardiff Man today, it’s on display in the Farmer’s Museum in Cooperstown, New York.

34 __ Bath & Beyond : BED

Bed Bath & Beyond is a retailer of domestic merchandise that was founded in 1971 as Bed ‘n Bath. During one of the few visits I’ve ever made to a Bed Bath & Beyond store, I said to my wife, “I honestly cannot understand why this store even exists”. Not my cup of tea …

38 __ En-lai : CHOU

Zhou Enlai (also “Chou En-lai”) was the first government leader of the People’s Republic of China and held the office of Premier from 1949 until he died in 1976. Zhou Enlai ran the government for Communist Party Leader Mao Zedong, often striking a more conciliatory tone with the West than that of his boss. He was instrumental, for example, in setting up President Nixon’s famous visit to China in 1972. Zhou Enlai died just a few months before Mao Zedong, with both deaths leading to unrest and a dramatic change in political direction for the country.

39 Iron-rich blood pigment : HEME

Heme (also “haem”) is an organic structure containing iron, and is a component of hemoglobin, the protein that transports primarily oxygen around the body. It is the “heme” in “hemoglobin” that binds the oxygen atoms. A plant-derived version of heme is the magic ingredient in the famous Impossible Burger that has become so popular lately on vegetarian menus.

48 1556-1605 Mogul emperor : AKBAR

Akbar the Great was Mughal Emperor from 1556 until his death in 1605. Akbar’s reign was a successful one for empire, as he consolidated the Mughal influence in the whole of the Indian subcontinent. Akbar made significant social reforms that improved the lives of women, legalizing the remarriage of widows and raising the legal age of marriage. He also banned “sati”, the practice whereby a widow immolated herself on the funeral pyre of her husband.

49 Screwball comedy : FARCE

A farce is a comedy play that features an exaggerated and improbable storyline, with lots of physical humor. I love a good farce …

The original screwball was a delivery in the sport of cricket. That term “screwball” was imported into baseball in the 1920s, and applied to an erratic baseball pitch. By the 1930s, a screwball was an eccentric and erratic person.

51 Celestial red giant : S STAR

Stars are commonly classified by the color of the light that they emit. Classically, these classifications are, from hottest to coolest, O, B, A, F, G, K and M. The list of classes has been expanded to include class D for white dwarfs, and classes S and C for carbon stars.

Red giants are very large stars with a relatively low mass. The atmosphere of a red giant is also very inflated and extends a long way into space so the surface of that atmosphere that we see is relatively cool, which gives it a red color. Stars are classified by their spectral characteristics, basically the color of the light they emit. As such, red giants are classified as M stars. Cool red giants are of a color beyond the usual range, and are classified as S stars.

52 Director Welles : ORSON

Orson Welles is perhaps best-remembered in the world of film for his role in 1941’s “Citizen Kane”. In the world of radio, Welles is known for directing and narrating 1938’s famous broadcast of “The War of the Worlds”, a broadcast that convinced many listeners that the Earth was indeed being invaded by aliens.

56 LaBeouf of “Transformers” films : SHIA

Shia LaBeouf is an actor who started out in the Disney television series “Even Stevens”. Adult audiences might be more familiar with his leading role in the 2003 film “Holes”.

The 2007 blockbuster hit movie “Transformers” was inspired by a line of toys. Toy transformers can be morphed from their mundane looking appearance as a vehicle or perhaps an animal, into a robotic action figure. Not a movie that I’ll be renting though …

Complete List of Clues/Answers

Across

1 Isla surrounder : AGUA
5 Real cutup : JOKER
10 Italian volcano : ETNA
14 TV series that had flashbacks, flash-forwards and multiple timelines : LOST
15 Kemper of “The Office” : ELLIE
16 Truant GI : AWOL
17 *Brain trust member : MASTERMIND
19 Meander : ROVE
20 Afflicted with illness, say : STRICKEN
21 Gastric woe : ULCER
22 *Nixon’s cocker spaniel : CHECKERS
25 PC key : ALT
26 Reel Big Fish music genre : SKA
29 Pigs out (on) : OD’S
30 Flying frenemy of Godzilla : RODAN
32 “Beaten” ways : PATHS
34 One who is rotten to the core? : BAD APPLE
37 Quartet member : ALTO
38 *Influential record company named for co-founding brothers Leonard and Phil : CHESS
40 Serb or Croat : SLAV
41 Went over again and again : REHASHED
43 Razz : TEASE
44 Geometric given : AXIOM
45 Ox tail? : -IDE
47 Hankering : YEN
48 Toward the stern : AFT
50 *Playful question spoiled by caller ID : GUESS WHO?
53 2010 Supreme Court appointee : KAGAN
55 Shows derision for : SNEERS AT
59 Boast : BRAG
60 *The USS Iowa, e.g. : BATTLESHIP
62 Toon mail-order company : ACME
63 Be of use to : AVAIL
64 Sty sound : OINK
65 Swamp stalk : REED
66 “Aw, fudge!” : NERTS!
67 Corddry of TV’s “Mom” : NATE

Down

1 Help for the needy : ALMS
2 Animal on the Cubs’ 2016 World Series rings : GOAT
3 Space Race inits. : USSR
4 Room often with a slanted ceiling : ATTIC
5 Pulled quickly : JERKED
6 Early Mexicans : OLMECS
7 “Hogan’s Heroes” colonel : KLINK
8 German article : EIN
9 Crimson, e.g. : RED
10 Bluegrass legend Scruggs : EARL
11 With 28-Down, words to a cheater … or an honest hint to the answers to starred clues : TWO CAN PLAY …
12 Original : NOVEL
13 At the ready : ALERT
18 Heart sonograms, familiarly : ECHOS
21 Food Safety agcy. : USDA
23 Paleozoic and Cenozoic : ERAS
24 Retina cells : RODS
26 Exchange barbs : SPAR
27 Curly cabbage : KALE
28 See 11-Down : … AT THAT GAME
31 Church area : APSE
33 The Cardiff Giant, notably : HOAX
34 __ Bath & Beyond : BED
35 Zap with a beam : LASE
36 Equally matched : EVEN
38 __ En-lai : CHOU
39 Iron-rich blood pigment : HEME
42 Portent : SIGN
43 Giggly sound : TE-HEE
45 “Don’t you agree?” : ISN’T IT?
46 Resides : DWELLS
48 1556-1605 Mogul emperor : AKBAR
49 Screwball comedy : FARCE
51 Celestial red giant : S STAR
52 Director Welles : ORSON
54 Like good Scotch : AGED
56 LaBeouf of “Transformers” films : SHIA
57 Informal contraction : AIN’T