LA Times Crossword Answers 11 Jul 2018, Wednesday

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Constructed by: Andrew Linzer
Edited by: Rich Norris

Today’s Reveal Answer: Noah’s Ark

Themed answers are animals, with TWO occurrences of the same animal sitting side-by-side in the grid. One might say that pairs of animals go TWO-BY-TWO into the grid, just as they did into NOAH’S ARK:

  • 12D. Craft for six puzzle answers : NOAH’S ARK
  • 41D. 12-Down queueing pattern depicted by six puzzle answers : TWO-BY-TWO
  • 7D. One in the headlights? : DEER
  • 8D. Critter on XING signs : DEER
  • 32D. Ref, slangily : ZEBRA
  • 33D. Last critter in an ABC book : ZEBRA
  • 61D. Throat trouble : FROG
  • 62D. Kissable fairy-tale critter : FROG

Bill’s time: 6m 01s

Bill’s errors: 0

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Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

5. Box for tea leaves : CADDY

A caddy is a container used for tea. “Caddy” comes from the Malay word “kati”, a unit of weight used as a standard by British tea companies in the East Indies.

10. Japanese box lunch : BENTO

A bento is a single-person meal that is commonly eaten in Japan. A bento can be purchased as a take-out meal, or it may be packed at home. A bento is usually sold as a “bento box”.

15. Tree with an oil-rich seed : SHEA

Shea butter is a common moisturizer or lotion used as a cosmetic. It is a fat that is extracted from the nut of the African shea tree. There is evidence that shea butter was used back in Cleopatra’s Egypt.

17. Frank __ Wright : LLOYD

The architect Frank Lloyd Wright embraced the philosophy of designing structures that were in harmony with the environment. One of his most famous works is an elaborate home in rural Pennsylvania known as Fallingwater, which is partially built over a waterfall.

21. “Lady and the __” : TRAMP

“Lady and the Tramp” is a classic animated feature from Walt Disney, released in 1955. The title characters are a female American Cocker Spaniel and a male stray mutt. Who can forget the scene where the Tramp and Lady are “on a date”, and together eat that one strand of spaghetti? So cute!

25. Stage of grief : ANGER

Swiss psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross published a book called “On Death and Dying” in 1969. In this book she proposed a five-step model to describe the emotions experienced by patients after they are given a fatal diagnosis. That same model is often extended to describe the series of emotions experienced by survivors after losing a family member or intimate friend. In this context, the series is referred to as “the five stages of grief”.

  1. Denial
  2. Anger
  3. Bargaining
  4. Depression
  5. Acceptance

28. Manhattan liquor : RYE

The cocktail called a Manhattan is made from whiskey, sweet vermouth and Angostura bitters. I favor my own version of a brandy Manhattan, using brandy, sweet vermouth and orange bitters.

34. “Ben-Hur” extras : ROMANS

The celebrated Charlton Heston movie “Ben-Hur” is a dramatization of a book published in 1880 by Lew Wallace titled “Ben-Hur: A Tale of Christ”. The 1959 epic film won a record 11 Academy Awards, a feat that has been equaled since then but has never been beaten. The other winners of 11 Oscars are “Titanic” and “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the Rings”.

38. Sonogram subject : EMBRYO

A sonogram is an image made created using ultrasound. “Ultrasound” is the name given to sound energy that has frequencies above the audible range.

50. Slugger Hank : AARON

The great Hank Aaron (“Hammerin’ Hank” or “the Hammer”) has many claims to fame. One notable fact is that he is the last major league baseball player to have also played in the Negro League.

54. Rum-flavored cakes : BABAS

Rum baba (also “baba au rhum” in French) is a small yeast cake saturated in rum, and sometimes filled with whipped cream. Rum baba is derived from the recipe for the tall “babka” yeast cake that was introduced to the world by the Polish communities. The Polish words “baba” and “babka” mean “old woman” or “grandmother” in English. I guess someone must have thought that all grandmothers were saturated in rum!

56. River mouth formation : DELTA

A river delta is a triangular landform at the mouth of a river created by the deposition of sediment. The most famous “delta” in the United States isn’t actually a delta at all. The Mississippi Delta is an alluvial plain that lies 300 miles north of the river’s actual delta, yet it is known as the Mississippi River Delta. Very confusing …

65. Passover staple : MATZO

Matzo is an unleavened bread that is very brittle. The bread is crushed, creating Matzo meal that is then formed into balls using eggs and oil as a binder. The balls are usually served in a chicken stock.

69. Dam that created Lake Nasser : ASWAN

Lake Nasser is a large artificial lake created as a result of the construction of the Aswan High Dam (initiated by President Nasser). Lake Nasser lies in southern Egypt and northern Sudan. Strictly speaking, the section of the lake in Sudan is called Lake Nubia.

70. Simoleons : MOOLA

Lettuce, cabbage, kale, dough, scratch, cheddar, simoleons, clams and moola(h) are all slang terms for money.

73. Goad : EGG ON

The verb “to edge” has been used to mean to incite, to urge on, from the 16th century. Somewhere along the way “edge” was mistakenly replaced with “egg”, giving us our term “to egg on” meaning “to goad”.

Down

1. Beatty/Hoffman box office flop : ISHTAR

I guess “Ishtar” did bomb and was a indeed a disaster, because I’ve never come across the title outside of crosswords. The film stars Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman as lounge singers working in Morocco! There’s a Cold War plot and, thank goodness, it’s a comedy. It’s so bad apparently, that it never even made it to DVD.

5. Fort Collins sch. : CSU

Colorado State University (CSU) was founded in Fort Collins in 1870 as the Colorado Agricultural College. The school’s athletic teams are known as the Colorado State Rams, although back in the days of the Colorado Agricultural College, the teams were referred to as the Aggies.

6. Actress Jessica : ALBA

Actress Jessica Alba got her big break when she was cast in the Fox science fiction show “Dark Angel”. Alba had a tough life growing up as she spent a lot of time in hospital and so found it difficult to develop friendships. As a youngster she twice had a collapsed lung, frequently caught pneumonia, suffered from asthma, had a ruptured appendix and a tonsillar cyst. On top of all that, Alba acknowledges that she suffered from obsessive-compulsive disorder as a child.

12. Craft for six puzzle answers : NOAH’S ARK

The term “ark”, when used with reference to Noah, is a translation of the Hebrew word “tebah”. The word “tebah” is also used in the Bible for the basket in which Moses was placed by his mother when she floated him down the Nile. It seems that the word “tebah” doesn’t mean “boat” and nor does it mean “basket”. Rather, a more appropriate translation is “life-preserver” or “life-saver”. So, Noah’s ark was Noah’s life-preserver during the flood.

13. Rapper whose name sounds like a big cat : TYGA

“Tyga” is the stage name of hip hop artist Michael Stevenson from Compton, California. Apparently, the stage name comes from the phrase “thank you God always”.

19. “A Wrinkle in Time” (2018) actress : OPRAH

“A Wrinkle in Time” is a book by Madeleine L’Engle. Published in 1962, it is described as a science fantasy. Included in the book’s cast of characters are Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who and Mrs. Which, all of whom turn out to be supernatural beings who transport the antagonists through the universe. “A Wrinkle in Time” was adapted into a 2018 movie of the same name starring Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon and Mindy Kaling as the three “Mrs” characters.

31. Can. neighbor : USA

The world’s longest international borders are:

  1. Canada – United States: 5,525 miles
  2. Russia – Kazakhstan: 4,254 miles
  3. Argentina – Chile: 3,293 miles
  4. China – Mongolia: 2,906 miles
  5. India – Bangladesh: 2,518 miles

35. TV’s “Science Guy” : NYE

That would be “Bill Nye the Science Guy”. Bill’s show ran on PBS for four years, from 1993-97.

37. Honshu port : OSAKA

The Japanese city of Osaka used to be called Naniwa, with the name changing to Osaka sometime before 1500. “Osaka” can be translated either as “large hill” or “large slope”. Osaka is sometimes referred to as “the Chicago of Japan” as it is a major center of commerce and industry. The city has also been named the “nation’s kitchen”, and was a center for Japan’s rice trade for centuries.

Honshu is the largest island in Japan, with the name “Honshu” translating as “Main Island”. It is the seventh largest island in the world.

40. “One card left!” game warning : UNO

UNO is a card game that was developed in the early seventies and that has been sold by Mattel since 1992. UNO falls into the “shedding” family of card games, in that the goal is to get rid of all your cards while preventing opponents from doing the same.

41. 12-Down queueing pattern depicted by six puzzle answers : TWO-BY-TWO

Genesis 6:19-20 states that Noah was instructed to take two animals of every kind into the ark. Later, in Genesis 7:2-3 Noah was instructed to take on board “every clean animal by sevens … male and female, to keep offspring alive on the face of all the earth”. Apparently “extras” (7 rather than 2) were needed for ritual sacrifice.

52. 58-Down default music program : ITUNES
(58. Apple computer : IMAC)

iTunes is a very, very successful software application from Apple. It’s basically a media player that works on platforms like the iPad, iPhone and iPod. It connects seamlessly to the iTunes store, where you can spend all kinds of money.

57. Defunct scandal-plagued company : ENRON

After all the trials following the exposure of fraud at Enron, several of the key players ended up in jail. Andrew Fastow was the Chief Financial Officer. He plea-bargained and received ten years without parole, and became the key witness in the trials of others. Even Fastow’s wife was involved and she was sentenced to one year for helping her husband hide money. Jeffrey Skilling (ex-CEO) was sentenced to 24 years and 4 months. Kenneth Lay (CEO) died in 2006 after he had been found guilty but before he could be sentenced. The accounting firm Arthur Andersen was found guilty of obstruction of justice for shredding thousands of pertinent documents and deleting emails and files (a decision that the Supreme Court later overturned on a technicality). But still, Arthur Andersen collapsed under the weight of the scandal and 85,000 people lost their jobs (despite only a handful being directly involved with Enron).

58. Apple computer : IMAC

The iMac is a desktop computer platform from Apple introduced in 1998. One of the main features of the iMac is an “all-in-one” design, with the computer console and monitor integrated. The iMac also came in a range of colors, that Apple marketed as “flavors”, such strawberry, blueberry and lime.

62. Kissable fairy-tale critter : FROG

“The Frog Prince” is a fairy tale about a princess and her encounter with a frog who magically turns into a prince. In the version that is most common today, the prince appears when the princess kisses the frog. In the original Brothers Grimm version of the tale, the transformation takes place when the princess throws a gold ball against a wall in disgust at seeing the frog. In even earlier versions of the tale, the frog changes into the prince when it is allowed to spend a night on the princess’s pillow.

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Complete List of Clues/Answers

Across

1. Teensy : ITSY
5. Ace of clubs? : CADDY
10. Japanese box lunch : BENTO
15. Tree with an oil-rich seed : SHEA
16. Streamlined : SLEEK
17. Frank __ Wright : LLOYD
18. “Long time no see” follower : HOW YOU BEEN?
20. Old enough : OF AGE
21. “Lady and the __” : TRAMP
22. Traffic signals : ARROWS
24. Possesses : HAS
25. Stage of grief : ANGER
26. Smartens (up) : WISES
28. Manhattan liquor : RYE
29. Full of activity : ABUZZ
34. “Ben-Hur” extras : ROMANS
37. “Now it’s clear” : OH, I SEE
38. Sonogram subject : EMBRYO
39. Sticks (out) : JUTS
42. Had a nice chitchat : GABBED
44. __ out a living : EKED
45. Ahead : ONWARD
47. Not for kids, filmwise : R-RATED
49. One whose wages come from wagers : BOOKIE
50. Slugger Hank : AARON
51. Feel crummy : AIL
54. Rum-flavored cakes : BABAS
56. River mouth formation : DELTA
58. Far from friendly : ICY
60. Steep headlands : BLUFFS
64. With deleted scenes included : UNCUT
65. Passover staple : MATZO
67. Likely to goof : ERROR-PRONE
69. Dam that created Lake Nasser : ASWAN
70. Simoleons : MOOLA
71. Cookie cooker : OVEN
72. Pork cuts : CHOPS
73. Goad : EGG ON
74. Twitter headquarters? : NEST

Down

1. Beatty/Hoffman box office flop : ISHTAR
2. Sticky : THORNY
3. Water treatment plant input : SEWAGE
4. “I did good!” : YAY ME!
5. Fort Collins sch. : CSU
6. Actress Jessica : ALBA
7. One in the headlights? : DEER
8. Critter on XING signs : DEER
9. Informal “See what I mean?” : Y’KNOW?
10. Come into one’s own : BLOSSOM
11. Pixie : ELF
12. Craft for six puzzle answers : NOAH’S ARK
13. Rapper whose name sounds like a big cat : TYGA
14. Poems of praise : ODES
19. “A Wrinkle in Time” (2018) actress : OPRAH
23. Electrically connected with : WIRED TO
27. Plant firmly : EMBED
30. “So what?!” : BIG DEAL!
31. Can. neighbor : USA
32. Ref, slangily : ZEBRA
33. Last critter in an ABC book : ZEBRA
35. TV’s “Science Guy” : NYE
36. Lawn starter : SOD
37. Honshu port : OSAKA
39. Chore : JOB
40. “One card left!” game warning : UNO
41. 12-Down queueing pattern depicted by six puzzle answers : TWO-BY-TWO
43. Corn unit : EAR
46. Science fair awards : RIBBONS
48. Ultimately become : END UP
51. Nook : ALCOVE
52. 58-Down default music program : ITUNES
53. Under the surface : LATENT
55. “So I was wrong!” : SUE ME!
57. Defunct scandal-plagued company : ENRON
58. Apple computer : IMAC
59. Toll lane choice : CASH
61. Throat trouble : FROG
62. Kissable fairy-tale critter : FROG
63. Unaccompanied : SOLO
66. Ray gun sound : ZAP!
68. Legged it : RAN

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