LA Times Crossword 3 Nov 21, Wednesday

Advertisement

Constructed by: August Miller
Edited by: Rich Norris

Today’s Reveal Answer: Out-Muscled

Themed answers each include OUTER letters that are circled. Those letters spell out the names of MUSCLE groups:

  • 59A Overpowered … or how the Across answers with circles might be described? : OUT-MUSCLED
  • 18A Yeast-free loaf : QUICK BREAD (giving “QUAD”)
  • 24A Opposite of a roast : GLOWING TRIBUTE (giving “GLUTE”)
  • 29A Fictional legal secretary : DELLA STREET (giving “DELT”)
  • 42A Three-horned dinosaur : TRICERATOPS (giving “TRICEPS”)
  • 49A Job for the police : LAW ENFORCEMENT (giving “LAT”)

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

Bill’s time: 7m 43s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1 Site-hop, Webwise : SURF

In essence, the World Wide Web (WWW) is a vast collection of documents that is accessible using the Internet, with each document containing hyperlinks which point to other documents in the collection. So the “Web” is different from the Internet, although the terms are often used interchangeably. The Web is a collection of documents, and the Internet is a global network of computers on which the documents reside. The Web was effectively the invention of British computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee. The key to Berner-Lee’s invention was bringing together two technologies that already existed: hypertext and the Internet. I, for one, am very grateful …

9 Beetle relative : JETTA

“Jetta” is one in a series of model names related to winds that has been used by Volkswagen. “Jetta” comes from the German for “jet stream”, and the model name “Passat” comes from the German for “trade wind”.

“VW” stands for “Volkswagen”, which translates from German into “people’s car”. The original Volkswagen design was the Beetle and was built under a directive from Adolf Hitler, who wanted a cheap car built that ordinary people could afford to purchase. Hitler awarded the contract to engineer Ferdinand Porsche, whose name (paradoxically) would forever be associated with high performance, expensive cars. The Beetle was the official name of the VW model released in North America, but it was usually referred to as a “Bug” here in the US, and a “Beetle” elsewhere in the world.

15 Fish that ought to go well with a cobbler? : SOLE

The group of flatfish known as soles take their name from “solea”, the Latin word for “sandal”. And, they do have that shape, kind of …

18 Yeast-free loaf : QUICK BREAD (giving “QUAD”)

Quick breads are breads that use chemical rather than biological leavening agents. The most common biological leavening agent used in bread is yeast, and the most common chemical leavening agent is baking soda.

The quadriceps femoris is the muscle group at the front of the thigh. It is the strongest muscle in the human body, and is also the leanest. The “quads” are actually a group of four muscles in the upper leg, hence the use of the prefix “quad-”.

20 Au courant, with “in” : TUNED …

“Au courant” means “up-to-date” and comes into English directly from French, in which language it has the same meaning.

22 Common lunch hour : NOON

Our word “noon”, meaning “midday”, comes from the Latin “nona hora” that translates as “ninth hour”. Back in ancient Rome, the “ninth hour” was three in the afternoon. Over the centuries, traditions such as church prayers and “midday” meals shifted from 3 p.m. to 12 p.m., and so “noon” became understood as 12 noon.

“Lunch” is an abbreviated form of “luncheon”, but the exact etymology of “luncheon” seems unclear. That said, back in the 1650s, a luncheon was a light snack eaten between regular mealtimes, as opposed to a regular midday repast.

23 Instrument for Este Haim of the pop rock trio Haim : BASS

Haim is a Los Angeles band consisting of three Haim sisters: Este, Danielle and Alana.

24 Opposite of a roast : GLOWING TRIBUTE (giving “GLUTE”)

There are three gluteal muscles in the human body, the largest of which is the gluteus maximus. It’s the gluteus maximus which really dictates the shape and size of the human buttocks. In evolutionary terms, the human “glutes” (also “glutei”) are larger than those in related species because they play a big role in maintaining our erect posture.

27 “When They See Us” creator DuVernay : AVA

Ava DuVernay is a filmmaker who became the first African-American woman to win the Best Director Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, a feat she achieved in 2012 for her feature film “Middle of Nowhere”. “Middle of Nowhere” tells the story of a woman who drops out of medical school to focus on her husband when he is sentenced to 8 years in prison. DuVernay also directed the 2014 film “Selma” about the 1965 voting rights marches from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.

“When They See Us” is a miniseries created by Ava DuVernay and first aired in 2019. It is a crime drama based on events surrounding the Central Park jogger case from 1989. The show explores the lives of the Central Park Five, the five Black males who were falsely accused and prosecuted on charges related to the rape of a White woman.

29 Fictional legal secretary : DELLA STREET (giving “DELT”)

Della Street is Perry Mason’s very capable secretary in the Erle Stanley Gardner novels. Street was played on the fifties-sixties TV show by Barbara Hale. Juliet Rylance portrays Street on the more recent HBO “Perry Mason”.

The deltoid “muscle” is actually a group of muscles, the ones that cover the shoulder and create the roundness under the skin. The deltoids (delts) are triangular in shape resembling the Greek letter delta, hence the name.

35 Org. impacted by the Real ID Act : DMV

In most states, the government agency responsible for vehicle registration and the issuing of driver’s licenses is called the DMV. This initialism usually stands for the Department of Motor Vehicles, but there are “variations on the theme”. For example, in Arizona the responsible agency is called the Motor Vehicle Division (MVD), and in Colorado the familiar abbreviation “DMV” stands for Division of Motor Vehicles.

What Americans know today as “Real IDs” are the result of the Real ID Act of 2005. One of the most visible results of the law are state-issued drivers’ licenses that meet new minimum security standards set by the federal government.

38 “CHiPs” actor Estrada : ERIK

Actor Erik Estrada’s big break came with the movie “Airport 1975”, in which he played the doomed flight engineer of a Boeing 747. A couple of years later, Estrada began a six-year gig, co-starring on the television show “CHiPs” as motorcycle police officer Poncherello.

The TV cop show “CHiPs” ran from 1977 until 1983. Stars of the show were Larry Wilcox and Erik Estrada, who played two California HIghway Patrol (CHP) motorcycle officers. I find it interesting that the storylines never once called for the officers to draw their firearms over the six seasons (how shows have changed!). Erik Estrada had to learn how to ride a motorcycle for the show, but wasn’t licensed to drive one during the entire run of the series. He eventually qualified, but only after three attempts to pass the test.

42 Three-horned dinosaur : TRICERATOPS (giving “TRICEPS”)

The triceratops is a dinosaur that kind of looked like a rhinoceros, but with three horns. The name “triceratops” is derived from the Greek for “three-horned face”.

48 Hoppy brew letters : IPA

India pale ale (IPA) is a style of beer that originated in England. The beer was originally intended for transportation from England to India, hence the name.

49 Job for the police : LAW ENFORCEMENT (giving “LAT”)

The muscles known as the “lats” are the latissimi dorsi, and are the broadest muscles in the back. “Latissimus” is Latin for “broadest”, and “dorsum” is Latin for “back”.

56 DEA agent : NARC

“Narc” and “narco” are slang terms describing a law enforcement officer who tracks down criminals associated with illegal drugs. Both words are short for “narcotics officer”. Narcs might work for the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

64 Save for later, as a TV show : TIVO

TiVo was introduced in 1999 and was the world’s first commercially successful digital video recorder (DVR).

65 Pacific salmon : COHO

The Coho salmon is dark blue with silver along the side of its body, but only during the phase of its life while it is in the ocean. When spawning and heading up into a freshwater river, the Coho has bright red sides.

68 Suffix with Jumbo : -TRON

A Jumbotron is a big-screen television system that is often seen in sports stadiums. The brand name “JumboTron” was introduced by Sony in 1985. “Jumbotron” is used pretty generically now for any big-screen system in such venues as Sony exited the business in 2001.

Down

1 What Germany has that Greece doesn’t? : SOFT G

The word “Germany” starts with a soft G, and the word “Greece” starts with a hard G.

2 DIY mover : U-HAUL

The U-Haul company was started by married couple Leonard Shoen and Anna Mary Carty in Ridgefield, Washington in 1945. The Shoens used $5,000 of seed money to build trailers in their garage, and then cleverly recruited gas station owners as franchisees with whom they would split the rental revenue. There are now about 15,000 U-Haul dealers across the country.

3 Mighty mammal with keratin horns : RHINO

There are five types of rhinoceros that survive today, with the smaller Javan Rhino being the most rare. The rhinoceros is probably the rarest large mammal on the planet, thanks to poaching. Hunters mainly prize the horn of the rhino as it is used in powdered form in traditional Chinese medicine.

Keratin is a fibrous protein found in many vertebrates. Specifically, it is found in hair, nails, feathers, horns, claws, hooves and many other structural tissues.

4 Rite of passage involving hot embers : FIREWALK

Firewalking is walking across hot embers in bare feet. Although the practice appears to be dangerous, physics shows us that the skin does not burn because the amount of time it is in contact with the hot material is minimal. Also, embers are not good heat conductors. All that said, do not try this at home …

5 Law firm abbr. : ESQ

The title “esquire” is of British origin and is used differently today depending on whether one is in the US or the UK. Here in America the term is usually reserved for those practicing the law (both male and female). In the UK, “esquire” is a term of gentle respect reserved for a male who has no other title that one can use. So a mere commoner like me might receive a letter from the bank, say, addressed to W. E. Butler Esq.

6 Kits and cubs : YOUNG

Kits are the young of several mammalian species, including the ferret and fox. “Kit” is probably a shortened form of “kitten”.

7 “Silas Marner” author : ELIOT

“George Eliot” was the pen name of English novelist Mary Anne Evans. As one might think, Evans chose a male pen name in order that her work might be best appreciated in the Victorian era. Eliot wrote seven novels including “Adam Bede” (1859), “The Mill on the Floss” (1860), “Silas Marner” (1861) and “Middlemarch” (1871-72).

“Silas Marner: The Weaver of Raveloe” is a novel written by George Eliot and first published in 1861. There’s an excellent BBC TV version of the tale (shown on PBS) starring Ben Kingsley in the title role, with Patsy Kensit playing Eppie, the young orphaned child that Marner takes under his wing.

21 Soprano superstar : DIVA

The term “diva” comes to us from Latin via Italian. “Diva” is the feminine form of “divus” meaning “divine one”. The word is used in Italy to mean “goddess” or “fine lady”, and especially is applied to the prima donna in an opera. We often use the term to describe a singer with a big ego.

25 Rapper Lil __ X : NAS

“Lil Nas X” is the stage name of rapper Montero Lamar Hill. He was born and raised just outside of Atlanta. His first hit was “Old Town Road”, which is classified as country rap.

26 Upside-down sleeper : BAT

Bats are the only mammals that are capable of sustained flight. There are many, many different kinds of bats, and indeed they make up about 20% of all mammalian species.

31 Author who wrote the Thongor fantasy series : LIN CARTER

Lin Carter was an author and editor, mainly of science fiction. He is best-remembered as the editor of the Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series of books that were published from 1969 to 1974.

32 “That’s enough!” : TMI!

Too much information (TMI)

40 Short-lived 1765 legislation : STAMP ACT

A stamp act is a law requiring that taxes be paid when certain documents are “stamped” to make them legal. Such taxes are known as “stamp duty”. The infamous Stamp Act of 1765 was a tax imposed by Britain on the American colonies. The colonies famously rejected the Act declaring “No Taxation without Representation”, and the disagreement became a significant factor in the decision to declare independence.

42 Amount past due? : … TRE

“One, two, three” in Italian is “uno, due, tre”.

44 Rocker Ocasek : RIC

Ric Ocasek was an American musician of Czech heritage. He was the lead vocalist of the Cars rock band.

45 Goodall subjects : APES

Jane Goodall is a British anthropologist famous for studying wild chimpanzees in Africa for 45 years. Working at Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania, Goodall made many discoveries. She was the first to see chimps constructing and using tools, an activity thought to be limited to the human species. She also found out that chimpanzees are vegetarians.

49 Linney of “Ozark” : LAURA

The wonderfully talented 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.

51 Skateboard leap : OLLIE

An ollie is a skateboarding trick invented in 1976 by Alan “Ollie” Gelfand. Apparently it’s a way of lifting the board off the ground, while standing on it, without touching the board with one’s hands. Yeah, I could do that …

52 Christopher who played Superman : REEVE

Actor Christopher Reeve was most associated with his portrayal of Superman in the late seventies and early eighties. Reeve became paralyzed from the neck down when he fell from a horse in a jumping event in 1995. He published a best-selling autobiography 1999 called “Still Me”, and sadly passed away in 2004.

53 Boot on a diamond : ERROR

I think the reference is to a baseball term “to boot one”, to misplay a ground ball.

54 Cheesy chip : NACHO

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.

55 Cicely of “Roots” : TYSON

Cicely Tyson was an actress whose career really took off after her performance in the 1972 film “Sounder”, for which she received an Oscar nomination. In the outstanding mini-series “Roots”, she played the role of Binta, Kunta Kinte’s mother back in his homeland of Gambia. More recently, she played Analease Keating’s mother on the show “How to Get Away with Murder”. Tyson was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Obama in 2016. Sadly, she passed away in 2021 at the age of 96 years.

Not only did Alex Haley author the magnificent novel “Roots”, he was also the collaborator with Malcolm X on “The Autobiography of Malcolm X”. His 1976 novel “Roots” is based on Haley’s own family history, and he claimed to be a direct descendant of the real life Kunta Kinte, the slave who was kidnapped in the Gambia in 1767. If you remember the original television adaptation of “Roots”, you might recall that Kunta Kinte was played by LeVar Burton, who later went on to play another famous role, Geordi La Forge on “Star Trek: the Next Generation”.

61 Bubbly title : DOM

Dom Pérignon is a prestige label of champagne from Moët et Chandon, the French winery. The label’s name honors the Benedictine monk, Dom Pérignon, who helped to improve the quality and production of champagne in the early 18th century. Although Dom Pérignon made major contributions to champagne production, many of the stories in which he figures are just myths. He did not “invent” champagne, nor sparkling wine in general. Nor did he say the famous words, “Come quickly, I am drinking the stars!”. That lovely line first appeared in a print advertisement in the late 1800s!

Complete List of Clues/Answers

Across

1 Site-hop, Webwise : SURF
5 Watched closely : EYED
9 Beetle relative : JETTA
14 “Small world” : OH, HI
15 Fish that ought to go well with a cobbler? : SOLE
16 Paddled : OARED
17 Not at all biased : FAIR
18 Yeast-free loaf : QUICK BREAD (giving “QUAD”)
20 Au courant, with “in” : TUNED …
22 Common lunch hour : NOON
23 Instrument for Este Haim of the pop rock trio Haim : BASS
24 Opposite of a roast : GLOWING TRIBUTE (giving “GLUTE”)
27 “When They See Us” creator DuVernay : AVA
28 Become less brilliant, as colors : FADE
29 Fictional legal secretary : DELLA STREET (giving “DELT”)
35 Org. impacted by the Real ID Act : DMV
38 “CHiPs” actor Estrada : ERIK
39 Kitten’s cry : MEW!
40 Place in an overhead bin, say : STOW
41 Not looking good : WAN
42 Three-horned dinosaur : TRICERATOPS (giving “TRICEPS”)
46 Self-__ : CARE
48 Hoppy brew letters : IPA
49 Job for the police : LAW ENFORCEMENT (giving “LAT”)
56 DEA agent : NARC
57 Valley : DALE
58 Application of small drops : SPRAY
59 Overpowered … or how the Across answers with circles might be described? : OUT-MUSCLED
62 Bends : ARCS
63 Surg. holding area : PRE-OP
64 Save for later, as a TV show : TIVO
65 Pacific salmon : COHO
66 Puts in the work for : EARNS
67 Appear : SEEM
68 Suffix with Jumbo : -TRON

Down

1 What Germany has that Greece doesn’t? : SOFT G
2 DIY mover : U-HAUL
3 Mighty mammal with keratin horns : RHINO
4 Rite of passage involving hot embers : FIREWALK
5 Law firm abbr. : ESQ
6 Kits and cubs : YOUNG
7 “Silas Marner” author : ELIOT
8 Interior design : DECOR
9 Role : JOB
10 iPod accessory : EARBUD
11 Showed, as a good time : TREATED TO
12 Rag on : TEASE
13 Puts into the mix : ADDS
19 Carver’s tool : KNIFE
21 Soprano superstar : DIVA
25 Rapper Lil __ X : NAS
26 Upside-down sleeper : BAT
29 Dawn phenomenon : DEW
30 Slice of history : ERA
31 Author who wrote the Thongor fantasy series : LIN CARTER
32 “That’s enough!” : TMI!
33 Word with hall or room : REC …
34 Woolly mama : EWE
36 Unruly head of hair : MOP
37 9-Across et al. : VWS
40 Short-lived 1765 legislation : STAMP ACT
42 Amount past due? : … TRE
43 Tears to shreds : RENDS
44 Rocker Ocasek : RIC
45 Goodall subjects : APES
47 “You gotta be kidding!” : AW C’MON!
49 Linney of “Ozark” : LAURA
50 Indisputable evidence : FACTS
51 Skateboard leap : OLLIE
52 Christopher who played Superman : REEVE
53 Boot on a diamond : ERROR
54 Cheesy chip : NACHO
55 Cicely of “Roots” : TYSON
56 “Ain’t gonna happen” : NOPE
60 Market advances : UPS
61 Bubbly title : DOM