LA Times Crossword 28 Sep 21, Tuesday

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Constructed by: Catherine Cetta
Edited by: Rich Norris

Today’s Reveal Answer(s): Chopped Veggies

Three rows of the grid contain the name of a VEGGIE, one that has been “CHOPPED” into two by a black square:

  • 56A With 58-Across, salad fixings … and what you’ll find aptly hidden in puzzle rows 4, 6 and 10 : CHOPPED …
  • 58A See 56-Across : … VEGGIES
  • 20A Typically tricolored ice cream dessert : SPUMONI
  • 22A Really tough, as tasks : ONEROUS (chopped “ONI-ON”)
  • 26A Made to order : CUSTOM
  • 29A Do penance : ATONE (chopped “TOM-ATO”)
  • 47A Witty Wilde : OSCAR
  • 48A Bad to the core : ROTTEN (chopped “CAR-ROT”)

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

Bill’s time: 5m 38s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1 Hissed “Over here, behind the sofa!” : PSST!

“Sofa” is a Turkish word meaning “bench”.

5 Notable Titanic casualty : ASTOR

John Jacob Astor IV was a member of the famous and wealthy Astor family of New York. Astor and his second wife Madeleine were passengers on the RMS Titanic when it made its fateful journey in 1912. John did not survive the tragedy, and was the wealthiest person to go down with the ship. Madeleine was picked up in a lifeboat, along with her nurse and maid.

The RMS Titanic set off on her tragic maiden voyage in 1912, sailing from Southampton, England bound for New York City. Regulations only required that the ship have lifeboat capacity for 1,178 people, even though a full complement of passengers and crew was 3,547. When the order was given to abandon ship, the captain adhered to the traditional protocol of “women and children first”. As a result, only 20% of male passengers survived the disaster, compared to 75% of the female passengers. Perhaps more telling is that 61% of those in first class survived, and only 25% of those in third class. The crew fared even worse though, with only 24% making it.

15 Actress __ Neal of “Law & Order: SVU” : DIANE

Actress Diane Neal is best known for playing Assistant DA Casey Novak on “Law & Order: SVU”. In 2018, Neal took a break from acting to make a very unsuccessful run for the US House of Representatives.

“Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” is a spin-off from the TV crime drama “Law & Order”. “SVU” has been on the air since 1999, and is set in New York City. Interestingly (to me), there is a very successful Russian adaptation of the show that is set in Moscow.

17 Unrefined sort : BOOR

Back in the early 1500s, a boor was a rustic person, a peasant farmer, someone associated with the countryside. The term “boor” ultimately comes from the Latin “bos” meaning “cow, ox”. By the mid-1500s, someone described as boorish was considered rude in manner, which is our usage today.

18 Trooper automaker : ISUZU

Isuzu is a Japanese auto manufacturer that is very successful in the medium and heavy truck market in particular. You’ll be seeing fewer and fewer Isuzu passenger cars on American roads though, as the company exited the US passenger car market in 2008. The Isuzu Trooper was one of the company’s most successful SUVs, and was produced between 1981 and 2005.

20 Typically tricolored ice cream dessert : SPUMONI

Spumone (plural “spumoni”) is an Italian dessert, one made with a mixture of three ice cream flavors and containing candied fruit and nuts.

24 Either Bush, e.g. : TEXAN

President George H. W. Bush served in the US Navy during WWII. Future President Bush postponed his entry into college after the attack on Pearl Harbor and enlisted in the navy instead. When he earned his wings, he was the youngest aviator in the US Navy at that time.

Future president George W. Bush declared his bid for the governorship of Texas in 1994, at the same time that his brother Jeb Bush started his first campaign to become governor of Florida. George W. won his race, whereas Jeb had to wait another four years.

32 FreeCell or Snapchat : APP

FreeCell is a solitaire card game. These days, it is best known as a computer game, one very much associated with the Windows operating system.

Snapchat is a messaging system that allows users to send photos and video clips to a limited list of recipients. The photos and clips, called “snaps”, can be viewed for only a few seconds before they are deleted from the recipient’s device, and from the Snapchat servers.

39 Barcelona buddy : AMIGO

Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain, after the capital Madrid. Barcelona is the largest European city that sits on the Mediterranean coast. It is also the capital city of the autonomous community of Catalonia.

41 Rig on the road : SEMI

A “semi” is a “semi-trailer truck”. The vehicle is so called because it consists of a tractor and a half-trailer. The half-trailer is so called because it only has wheels on the back end, with the front supported by the tractor.

44 Gaming novice, slangily : NOOB

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

46 Bambi’s mother : DOE

The 1942 Disney classic “Bambi” is based on a book written by Felix Salten called “Bambi, A Life in the Woods”. There is a documented phenomenon known as the Bambi Effect, whereby people become more interested in animal rights after having watched the scene where Bambi’s mother is shot by hunters.

47 Witty Wilde : OSCAR

When Oscar Wilde was at the height of his success, he had the Marquess of Queensberry prosecuted for libel. Wilde claimed that Queensberry had left a note at his club with a note that accused the former of sodomy. Queensberry was exonerated during the trial, and Wilde dropped the charges. But the damage was done. Evidence revealed during the trial led to Wilde’s immediate rearrest. He was convicted and served two years in jail.

52 Andes or Rockies : RANGE

The Andes range is the longest continuous chain of mountains in the world. It runs down the length of the west coast of South America for about 4,300 miles, from Venezuela in the north to Chile in the south. The highest peak in the Andes is Mt. Aconcagua in Argentina, at an elevation of 22,841 feet. Interestingly, the peak of Mt. Chimborazo in Ecuador is the furthest point on the Earth’s surface from the center of the planet. That’s because of the equatorial “bulge” around the Earth’s “waist”.

North America’s Rocky Mountains stretch from the very north of British Columbia in Canada to New Mexico in the US. The length of the range is over 3,000 miles. The highest point is Mount Elbert in Colorado, which has an elevation of 14,440 feet.

61 __ curls: arm exercises : BICEP

The biceps muscle is made up of two bundles of muscle, both of which terminate at the same point near the elbow. The heads of the bundles terminate at different points on the scapula or shoulder blade. “Biceps” is Latin for “two-headed”.

68 __ Island Rams: Atlantic 10 conference baseball team : RHODE

The University of Rhode Island (URI) was chartered as an agricultural school back in 1888. Rhody the Ram was chosen as the school’s mascot in 1923, a nod to URI’s agricultural past. As a result, the school’s sports teams are known as the Rams. URI’s main campus today is located in the village of Kingston, with smaller campuses in Providence, Narragansett and West Greenwich.

69 Chai and rooibos : TEAS

Chai is a drink made from spiced black tea, honey and milk, with “chai” being the Hindi word for “tea”. We often called tea “a cup of char” growing up in Ireland, with “char” being our slang word for tea, derived from “chai”.

Red tea is made from the leaves of the South African rooibos plant. The name “rooibos” translates as “red bush”.

Down

1 Part of PBR : PABST

Frederick Pabst was a brewer from the Milwaukee, Wisconsin area who had immigrated to the US from Prussia with his parents. Pabst bought himself into his father-in-law’s small brewery and over the years grew the enterprise into a public company. The most famous beer from Pabst is Pabst Blue Ribbon.

3 Iowa’s __ City : SIOUX

Sioux City, Iowa has a history that is inextricably linked with the Missouri River. The city grew from a camp established by the Lewis and Clark expedition that traveled up the river in 1804. Today, Sioux City is the navigational head of the Missouri, the furthest point upstream that is accessible by general cargo ships.

4 Airport surface : TARMAC

The terms “tarmac” and “macadam” are short for “tarmacadam”. In the 1800s, Scotsman John Loudon McAdam developed a style of road known as “macadam”. Macadam had a top-layer of crushed stone and gravel laid over larger stones. The macadam also had a convex cross-section so that water tended to drain to the sides. In 1901, a significant improvement was made by English engineer Edgar Purnell Hooley who introduced tar into the macadam, improving the resistance to water damage and practically eliminating dust. The “tar-penetration macadam” is the basis of what we now call “tarmac”.

5 Favorable score for a server : AD IN

In tennis, if the score reaches deuce (i.e. when both players have scored three points), then the first player to win two points in a row wins the game. The player who wins the point immediately after deuce is said to have the advantage. If the player with the advantage wins the next point then that’s two in a row and that player wins the game. If the person with the advantage loses the next point, then advantage is lost and the players return to deuce and try again. The player calling out the score announces “ad in”, or more formally “advantage in”, if he/she has the advantage. If the score announcer’s opponent has the advantage, then the announcement is “ad out” or “advantage out”. Follow all of that …?

7 Letter after sigma : TAU

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

8 Like many 2020 meetings : ON ZOOM

Zoom is a videoconferencing app that became remarkably popular in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. The market deemed Zoom to be the easiest to use of the free videoconferencing apps. I’ve been using it, but really prefer Google’s Meet offering …

13 Nice summers : ETES

The French city of Nice is on the Mediterranean coast in the southeast of the country. Although Nice is only the fifth most populous city in France, it is home to the busiest airport outside of Paris. That’s because of all the tourists flocking to the French Riviera. Something described as “à la niçoise” is “of Nice”.

23 “Ozark” actor Morales : ESAI

Actor Esai Morales is best known in the world of film for the 1987 movie “La Bamba”, which depicted the life of Ritchie Valens and his half-brother Bob Morales (played by Esai). On the small screen, Morales plays Lt. Tony Rodriguez on “NYPD Blue” and Joseph Adama on “Caprica”.

“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.

25 Pizza Hut competitor : DOMINO’S

Domino’s Pizza started out as DomiNick’s, a pizza store in Ypsilanti, Michigan. The store was purchased by Dominic’s founder Tom Monaghan in 1960, along with his brother. Tom bought out his brother a few months later, for the price of a used VW! The store was renamed Domino’s Pizza in 1965, and two years later the first franchise store was opened. There are now over 8,000 stores worldwide, including one in Tallaght in Ireland, the town where I lived for many years in my youth. That Tallaght store became the first Domino’s outlet in the world to hit a turnover of $3 million a year.

27 Red and Black : SEAS

There are four seas named in English for colors:

  • the Yellow Sea
  • the Black Sea
  • the Red Sea
  • the White Sea.

28 Scot’s cap : TAM

A tam o’shanter is a man’s cap worn traditionally 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”.

Here are a few lines from the anglicized version of the poem “Tam O’Shanter” by Robert Burns:

This truth finds honest Tam o’ Shanter,
As he from Ayr one night did canter;
Old Ayr, which never a town surpasses,
For honest men and bonny lasses.

30 Memorable captain’s name that’s a sign backwards : NEMO

In the 1954 movie “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea”, Captain Nemo goes down with his ship. In the novel by Jules Verne, the fate of Nemo and his crew isn’t quite so cut and dry, although the inference is perhaps that they did indeed head for Davy Jones’ Locker.

31 Actress Falco : EDIE

Actress Edie Falco won three Emmy Awards for playing Carmela Soprano on HBO’s outstanding drama series called “The Sopranos”. Falco also won an Emmy in 2010 for playing the title role in “Nurse Jackie”, an excellent black comedy.

32 Lhasa __ : APSO

The Lhasa apso breed of dog originated in Tibet and is named after “Lhasa” (the capital city) and “apso” (a Tibetan word meaning “bearded”). The Lhasa apso has been around since 800 BC and is one of the oldest breeds in the world, one very closely related to the ancestral wolf.

33 Thumbs-down reviews : PANS

To pan something is to criticize it harshly.

34 Monitored, as an exam : PROCTORED

A proctor is a supervisor, and especially a person overseeing a school examination or a dormitory. The word “proctor” originated in the late 1500s, and is a contraction of the word “procurator”, the name given to an official agent of a church.

45 Glacier chunk : BERG

An iceberg is a large piece of freshwater ice that is floating freely after having broken away from a glacier or ice shelf. Our use of “iceberg” comes from the Dutch word for the same phenomenon “ijsberg”, which translates literally as “ice mountain”.

A glacier is a body of ice that persists throughout the seasons, and which moves under its own weight. The term “glacier” ultimately derives from the Latin “glacies” meaning “ice”.

48 Peppery root : RADISH

Radishes are edible root vegetables that are commonly grown for use in salads. Gardeners also use radishes as companion plants as the odor given off can deter pests such as aphids, ants and cucumber beetles.

51 Concrete-reinforcing rod : REBAR

A steel bar or mesh used to reinforce concrete is called “rebar”, which is short for “reinforcing bar”.

The terms “cement”, “mortar” and ”concrete” are related, and tend to get confused at times. Cement is a binder that hardens over time and binds other materials together. Cement mixed with a fine aggregate forms mortar, a workable paste used to bind building blocks together. Cement mixed with sand and gravel forms concrete, a pourable slurry that hardens into an extremely robust building material.

53 Dorothy, to Em : NIECE

In the children’s novel “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” by L. Frank Baum, Dorothy Gale lives with her Aunt Em and Uncle Henry.

54 Thelma portrayer Davis : GEENA

“Thelma and Louise” is a much-respected 1991 movie starring Geena Davis as Thelma and Susan Sarandon as Louise. Brad Pitt has a supporting role, and indeed “Thelma and Louise” was the film that gave Pitt his big break.

55 Mississippi quartet : ESSES

There is a quartet of the letters S (esses) in the word “Mississippi”.

57 “Castle Rock” airer : HULU

Hulu is a video-on-demand service. Although competing directly with Netflix and Amazon Prime, Hulu’s primary focus is the streaming of television shows rather than movies.

The TV series “Castle Rock” is based on a fictional town that Stephen King uses in several of his novels and stories. In turn, King’s use of the name “Castle Rock” came from William Golding’s excellent 1954 novel “Lord of the Flies”. Golding’s “Castle Rock” is the name the boys in the story gave to a mountain of stones that they reimagined as a fort.

59 Duel tool : EPEE

The sword known as an épée has a three-sided blade. It is similar to a foil and sabre, although the foil and saber have rectangular cross-sections.The sword known as an épée has a three-sided blade. The épée is similar to a foil and sabre, although the foil and saber have rectangular cross-sections.

62 Pigeon sound : COO

Taxonomically, doves and pigeons are the only members of the order Columbidae. The terms “dove” and “pigeon” are often used interchangeably. Scientifically speaking, dove species tend to be smaller than pigeon species. Colloquially though, many refer to doves as the white or nearly white species in the family.

Complete List of Clues/Answers

Across

1 Hissed “Over here, behind the sofa!” : PSST!
5 Notable Titanic casualty : ASTOR
10 Stir up : RILE
14 Latin “others” : ALIA
15 Actress __ Neal of “Law & Order: SVU” : DIANE
16 Give off : EMIT
17 Unrefined sort : BOOR
18 Trooper automaker : ISUZU
19 “Ooh, fun!” : WHEE!
20 Typically tricolored ice cream dessert : SPUMONI
22 Really tough, as tasks : ONEROUS
24 Either Bush, e.g. : TEXAN
25 Exhausts : DOES IN
26 Made to order : CUSTOM
29 Do penance : ATONE
32 FreeCell or Snapchat : APP
35 Sewn line : SEAM
36 Multilevel, as wedding cakes : TIERED
37 Auditioner’s hope : PART
39 Barcelona buddy : AMIGO
41 Rig on the road : SEMI
42 Sounds from sties : SNORTS
44 Gaming novice, slangily : NOOB
46 Bambi’s mother : DOE
47 Witty Wilde : OSCAR
48 Bad to the core : ROTTEN
50 Crowns for some queens : TIARAS
52 Andes or Rockies : RANGE
56 With 58-Across, salad fixings … and what you’ll find aptly hidden in puzzle rows 4, 6 and 10 : CHOPPED …
58 See 56-Across : … VEGGIES
60 For all of us : OURS
61 __ curls: arm exercises : BICEP
63 Observes : SEES
64 Unmitigated joy : GLEE
65 Together : AS ONE
66 Teen woe : ACNE
67 Bathtub bubbles : SUDS
68 __ Island Rams: Atlantic 10 conference baseball team : RHODE
69 Chai and rooibos : TEAS

Down

1 Part of PBR : PABST
2 Slippery __: risky course of action : SLOPE
3 Iowa’s __ City : SIOUX
4 Airport surface : TARMAC
5 Favorable score for a server : AD IN
6 Maria’s ayes : SI SI
7 Letter after sigma : TAU
8 Like many 2020 meetings : ON ZOOM
9 Meet up in 25 years, maybe : REUNE
10 Second drafts, say : REWRITES
11 “This is very flattering!” : I’M HONORED!
12 Stead : LIEU
13 Nice summers : ETES
21 Burden : ONUS
23 “Ozark” actor Morales : ESAI
25 Pizza Hut competitor : DOMINO’S
27 Red and Black : SEAS
28 Scot’s cap : TAM
30 Memorable captain’s name that’s a sign backwards : NEMO
31 Actress Falco : EDIE
32 Lhasa __ : APSO
33 Thumbs-down reviews : PANS
34 Monitored, as an exam : PROCTORED
36 Little honk : TOOT
38 Walks aimlessly : TRAIPSES
40 Understood : GOT
43 Tough-to-get-out-of situation : TRAP
45 Glacier chunk : BERG
48 Peppery root : RADISH
49 Bugs : NAGS AT
51 Concrete-reinforcing rod : REBAR
53 Dorothy, to Em : NIECE
54 Thelma portrayer Davis : GEENA
55 Mississippi quartet : ESSES
56 Wheel teeth : COGS
57 “Castle Rock” airer : HULU
58 Sell : VEND
59 Duel tool : EPEE
62 Pigeon sound : COO