LA Times Crossword 6 Nov 19, Wednesday

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Constructed by: Gary Larson
Edited by: Rich Norris

Today’s Theme (according to Bill): Wright’s Right to Write the Rite

Themed answers start with the homophones WRIGHT, RIGHT, RITE AND WRITE. Additionally, the answers sound like common phrases:

  • 17A Financial support at Kitty Hawk? : WRIGHT AID (sounds like “Rite Aid”)
  • 29A Remove italics from text? : RIGHT LETTERS (sounds like “write letters”)
  • 43A Siblings sharing a ceremony? : RITE BROTHERS (sounds like “Wright brothers”)
  • 59A Contact a fictional pirate? : WRITE HOOK (from “right hook”)

Bill’s time: 5m 43s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

14 Historic British school : ETON

Eton College near Windsor in the south of England was founded way back in 1440 by King Henry VI. Originally known as “The King’s College of Our Lady of Eton besides Wyndsor”, the school was intended to provide free education to poor boys. Free education today at Eton? Not so much …

15 Plains native : OTOE

The Otoe (also “Oto”) Native American tribe originated in the Great Lakes region as part of the Winnebago or Siouan tribes. The group that would become the Otoe broke away from the Winnebago and migrated southwestward, ending up in the Great Plains. In the plains the Otoe adopted a semi-nomadic lifestyle dependent on the horse, with the American bison becoming central to their diet.

16 Indy participant : RACER

The Indianapolis 500 race is held annually at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Speedway, Indiana. The race is run around a 2.5 mile oval, hence requiring 200 laps for completion. The first Indy 500 race was held on Memorial Day in 1911. The winner that day was one Ray Harroun. Harroun had seen someone using a rear view mirror on a horse-drawn vehicle, and decided to fit one on his Marmon “Wasp” motor car. Supposedly, that was the first ever use of a rear view mirror on a motor vehicle.

17 Financial support at Kitty Hawk? : WRIGHT AID (sounds like “Rite Aid”)

Kitty Hawk is a town in North Carolina. The Wright brothers made the first powered airplane flight four miles south of Kitty Hawk, at the Kill Devil Hills.

What we know today as Rite Aid started out as one store in Scranton, Pennsylvania in 1962. Rite Aid is now the biggest chain of drugstores on the East Coast of the United States and has operations all over the country.

29 Remove italics from text? : RIGHT LETTERS (sounds like “write letters”)

Italic type leans to the right, and is often used to provide emphasis in text. The style is known as “italic” because the stylized calligraphic form of writing originated in Italy, probably in the Vatican.

33 “All __ Jazz” : THAT

“All That Jazz” is a song from the 1975 musical “Chicago”, which was choreographed by the great Bob Fosse. “All That Jazz” was later used as the title for a 1979 film directed by Fosse that features a main character who is a theater director and choreographer, and who greatly resembles Fosse himself.

36 “The A-Team” actor : MR T

Mr. T’s real name is Laurence Tero Tureaud. Mr. T is famous for many things, including the wearing of excessive amounts of jewelry. He started this habit when he was working as a bouncer, wearing jewelry items that had been left behind by customers at a nightclub so that the items might be recognized and claimed. It was also as a bouncer that he adopted the name Mr. T. His catch phrase comes from the movie “Rocky III”. In the film, before he goes up against Rocky Balboa, Mr. T says, “No, I don’t hate Balboa, but I pity the fool”. He parlayed that line into quite a bit of success. He had a reality TV show called “I Pity the Fool”, and produced a motivational video called “Be Somebody … or Be Somebody’s Fool!”.

“The A-Team” is an action television series that originally ran in the eighties. The A-Team was a group of ex-US special forces personnel who became mercenaries. Star of the show was Hollywood actor George Peppard (as “Hannibal” Smith), ably assisted by Mr. T (as “B.A.” Baracus) and Robert Vaughn (as Hunt Stockwell).

37 Bread served with tandoori chicken : NAAN

Naan (also “nan”) bread is very popular in Indian restaurants, as well as in other West, Central and South Asian cuisines. Indian Naan is traditionally baked in a clay oven known as a tandoor.

38 Met highlights : ARIAS

The Metropolitan Opera (often simply “the Met”) of New York City is the largest classical music organization in the country, presenting about 220 performances each and every year. Founded in 1880, the Met is renowned for using technology to expand its audiences. Performances have been broadcast live on radio since 1931, and on television since 1977. And since 2006 you can go see a live performance from New York in high definition on the big screen, at a movie theater near you …

39 Spelling contests : BEES

Back in 18th-century America, when neighbors would gather to work for the benefit of one of their group, such a meeting was called a bee. The name “bee” was an allusion to the social nature of the insect. In modern parlance, a further element of entertainment and pleasure has been introduced, for example in a quilting bee, or even a spelling bee.

40 Some iTunes downloads, briefly : EPS

An extended-play (EP) record, CD or download contains more music than a single, but less than an LP.

41 Cal. entries : APPTS

Appointment (appt.)

43 Siblings sharing a ceremony? : RITE BROTHERS (sounds like “Wright brothers”)

Wilbur was the older of the two Wright brothers, and he was born in 1867 in Millville, Indiana. By the time that Orville was born in 1871, the family was living in Dayton, Ohio. The Wrights spent a few years of their youth back in Richmond, Indiana, before settling in Dayton for the rest of their lives. The brothers both died in Dayton; Wilbur in 1912 and Orville in 1948.

55 Women’s rights activist Nellie : BLY

“Nellie Bly” was a pen name used by American journalist Elizabeth Cochran. In 1888, Bly took a trip around the world, emulating the fictional trip of Phileas Fogg in “Around the World in Eighty Days”. She departed from New York and arrived back in San Francisco two days behind schedule, jeopardizing her goal of beating the “eighty days”. The owner of her newspaper chartered a private train for her and she made it back to New York in just over 72 days. Quite a woman …

56 Battleship barrage : SALVO

A salvo is a simultaneous discharge of guns. Ironically, “salvo” comes from the Latin “salve” meaning “be in good health”. Salvo was originally the name given to the firing of guns in the air as a sign of respect or greeting for an important visitor. Good health!

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.

59 Contact a fictional pirate? : WRITE HOOK (from “right hook”)

Captain Hook is the bad guy in “Peter Pan”, the famous play by J. M. Barrie. Hook is Peter Pan’s sworn enemy, as Pan cut off Hook’s hand causing it to be replaced by a “hook”. It is implied in the play that Hook attended Eton College, just outside London. Hook’s last words are “Floreat Etona”, which is Eton College’s motto. Barrie openly acknowledged that the Hook character is based on Herman Melville’s Captain Ahab from the novel “Moby Dick”.

65 They’re often loaded : SOTS

Our word “sot” comes from the Old English “sott”, meaning “fool”. The word “sot” started to be associated with alcohol and not just foolery in the late 1500s.

Down

1 Semiaquatic salamanders : NEWTS

Salamanders are lizard-like amphibians found all across the northern hemisphere. They are the only vertebrate animals that can regenerate lost limbs.

2 Skylit courts : ATRIA

In modern architecture, an atrium (plural “atria” or “atriums”) is a large open space usually in the center of a building and extending upwards to the roof. The original atrium was an open court in the center of an Ancient Roman house. One could access most of the enclosed rooms of the house from the atrium.

3 Lacy place mat : DOILY

There was a draper in London in the seventeenth century named Doiley, and he gave his name to the lace fabric that he sold, which in turn gave its name to the ornamental mat that we call a “doily”. I can’t stand doilies …

4 With 58-Down, “Life of Pi” director : ANG …
(58 See 4-Down : … LEE)

Taiwanese director Ang Lee sure has directed a mixed bag of films, mixed in terms of genre but not in terms of quality. He was at the helm for such classics as “Sense & Sensibility” (my personal favorite), “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”, “Hulk”, “Brokeback Mountain” and “Life of Pi”.

The 2012 movie “Life of Pi” is based on a 2001 novel of the same name by Yann Martel. The “Pi” in the title is an Indian boy named Pi Patel who finds himself adrift for 227 days in a small boat with a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker.

5 Ballpark treat : HOT DOG

A hot dog is a sausage served in a split roll. The term “hot dog” dates back to the 19th-century and is thought to reflect a commonly-held opinion that the sausages contained dog meat.

6 State that celebrates Pioneer Day : UTAH

Pioneer Day is a state holiday celebrated on July 24th in Utah. The holiday commemorates the arrival into the Salt Lake Valley of Brigham Young and the first Mormon pioneers on 24 July 1847. Some members of the LDS Church celebrate by walking portions of the Mormon Trail.

7 Pâté base : FOIE

Pâté is a rich spreadable paste made from a mixture of ground meat and fat, to which various vegetables, herbs and spices may be added. The most famous version of the paste is pâté de foie gras, which is made from the fattened livers of geese (“foie gras” means “fat liver” in French).

8 Govt. agents : FEDS

A fed is an officer of a US federal agency, although the term “fed” usually applies to an agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

9 Fancy scarves : CRAVATS

The cravat originated in Croatia and was an accessory used with a military uniform. Cravats were introduced to the fashion-conscious French by Croatian mercenaries enlisted into a regiment of the French army. The English placed a lot of emphasis on the knot used for the cravat, and in the period after the Battle of Waterloo the cravat came to be known as a “tie”. What we now call a tie in English is still called a “cravate” in French.

12 Notable Downing Street address : TEN

In the UK, the Prime Minister’s residence at 10 Downing Street in London is most usually referred to as “Number 10”. The building is really quite large, with three floors (and a basement kitchen) and has about one hundred rooms. The top floor is the private residence of the Prime Minister and his or her family. Number 10 is large, as it was originally three houses. The structure was remodeled into a residence for Prime Minister Sir Robert Walpole in 1732, as a gift from King George II.

22 Think tank products : IDEAS

A think tank is a research institute. The use of the term “think tank” dates back to 1959, and apparently was first used to describe the Center for Behavioral Sciences in Palo Alto, California.

24 Tehran’s land : IRAN

Tehran is the capital of Iran and is the largest city in the Middle East, with a population of about 8.5 million. Iran has been around a really long time and Tehran is actually the country’s 31st national capital.

26 Dudes with fab abs : HE-MEN

Our term “dude” arose as slang in New York City in the 1880s, when it was used to describe a fastidious man. In the early 1900s, the term was extended to mean “city slickers”, easterners who vacationed in the West. The first use of the term “dude ranch” was recorded in 1921.

28 Fast Atl. crossers, once : SSTS

The most famous supersonic transport (SST) is the retired Concorde. Concorde was developed and produced under an Anglo-French treaty by France’s Aérospatiale and the UK’s British Aircraft Corporation (BAC). Concordes were mainly operated by Air France and British Airways, with both companies buying the planes with substantial subsidies from the French and British governments. The final Concorde flight was a British Airways plane that landed in the UK on 26 November 2003.

The earliest known mention of the name “Atlantic” for the world’s second-largest ocean was in ancient Greece. The Greeks called said ocean “the Sea of Atlas” or “Atlantis thalassa”.

30 Horn-honking Marx : HARPO

Harpo Marx was the second oldest of the Marx brothers. Harpo’s real name was Adolph, and he earned his nickname because he played the harp. Famously, Harpe didn’t speak on screen, a routine that he developed after reading a review that he performed really well when he just didn’t speak! He would usually whistle or toot a hand-held horn instead of speaking.

31 Country singer Travis : TRITT

Travis Tritt is a country singer from Marietta, Georgia.

32 Chow line? : LEASH

The chow chow is a breed of dog that originated in China. The Chinese name for the breed is “Songshi Quan”, which translates as “puffy-lion dog”, a rather apt name given its appearance …

33 Piglike forest dweller : TAPIR

All four species of tapir are endangered. Even though the tapir looks much like a pig, it is more closely related to the horse and the rhinoceros.

37 Successor to Claudius : NERO

Nero was Emperor of Rome from 54 to 68 CE, and he had quite the family life. When he was just 16-years-old Nero married his step-sister Claudia Octavia. He also had his mother and step-brother executed.

I find Claudius to be the most fascinating of all the Roman Emperors. Claudius had a lot going against him as he walked with a limp and was slightly deaf. He was put in office by the Praetorian Guard (the emperor’s bodyguards) after Caligula was assassinated. Claudius had very little political experience and yet proved to be very forward-thinking and capable.

38 __-ski : APRES

“Après-ski” is a French term meaning “after skiing”. It refers to the good times to be had after coming off the slopes.

44 Gridiron complement : ELEVEN

We never used the word “gridiron” when I was growing up in Ireland (meaning a grill used for cooking food over an open fire). So, maybe I am excused for taking two decades as a US resident to work out that a football field gridiron is so called because the layout of yard lines over the field looks like a gridiron used in cooking!

48 Deadly African virus : EBOLA

The Ebola virus causes a very nasty form of hemorrhagic fever. The name of the virus comes from the site of the first known outbreak, in a mission hospital in the Ebola River Valley in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (then known as Zaire). The disease is transmitted from human to human by exposure to bodily fluids. In nature, the main carrier of Ebola is the fruit bat.

49 Single-master : SLOOP

Sloops and cutters are sailboats, and each has just one mast. One major difference between the two types of vessel is that the mast on a cutter is set much further aft than the mast on a sloop.

50 Small fry : TYKES

“Tyke” has been used playfully to describe a young child since at least 1902, but for centuries before that a tyke was a cur or mongrel, or perhaps a lazy or lower-class man.

Juvenile fish that have just grown to the point where they can feed themselves are known as “fry”. By the end of the 17th century, the phrase “small fry” was common, when referring to such fish. More recently, the phrase was applied figuratively to insignificant people, and then to little children.

52 What Noah counted by : TWOS

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.

53 Constellation named for a mythological ship : ARGO

The constellation Argo Navis (“Argo the Ship” in Latin) is no longer officially recognized. Instead, it has been divided into its constituent parts: Puppis (“The Poop Deck”), Vela (“The Sails”) and Carina (“The Keel”).

In Greek mythology, Jason and the Argonauts sailed on the Argo in search of the Golden Fleece. The vessel was called “Argo” in honor of the ship’s builder, a man named Argus.

56 Place for a retreat : SPA

The word “spa” migrated into English from Belgium, as “Spa” is the name of a municipality in the east of the country that is famous for its healing hot springs. The name “Spa” comes from the Walloon word “espa” meaning “spring, fountain”.

Complete List of Clues/Answers

Across

1 Zippo : NADA
5 State of irritation : HUFF
9 Produce carrier : CRATE
14 Historic British school : ETON
15 Plains native : OTOE
16 Indy participant : RACER
17 Financial support at Kitty Hawk? : WRIGHT AID (sounds like “Rite Aid”)
19 Skybox setting : ARENA
20 Up to, casually : ‘TIL
21 Sticky : ADHESIVE
23 Tie the knot : SAY “I DO”
25 Runs like mad : DASHES
29 Remove italics from text? : RIGHT LETTERS (sounds like “write letters”)
33 “All __ Jazz” : THAT
35 Zones : AREAS
36 “The A-Team” actor : MR T
37 Bread served with tandoori chicken : NAAN
38 Met highlights : ARIAS
39 Spelling contests : BEES
40 Some iTunes downloads, briefly : EPS
41 Cal. entries : APPTS
42 Have an inclination : TEND
43 Siblings sharing a ceremony? : RITE BROTHERS (sounds like “Wright brothers”)
46 “… because you don’t want to cross me” : … OR ELSE
47 Up-to-the-minute : LATEST
51 In seventh heaven : ECSTATIC
55 Women’s rights activist Nellie : BLY
56 Battleship barrage : SALVO
59 Contact a fictional pirate? : WRITE HOOK (from “right hook”)
61 Fuss over feathers : PREEN
62 Stare at creepily : OGLE
63 Balm ingredient : ALOE
64 Change, as a will : AMEND
65 They’re often loaded : SOTS
66 Continuity problems : GAPS

Down

1 Semiaquatic salamanders : NEWTS
2 Skylit courts : ATRIA
3 Lacy place mat : DOILY
4 With 58-Down, “Life of Pi” director : ANG …
5 Ballpark treat : HOT DOG
6 State that celebrates Pioneer Day : UTAH
7 Pâté base : FOIE
8 Govt. agents : FEDS
9 Fancy scarves : CRAVATS
10 Hardest to come by : RAREST
11 Whiz : ACE
12 Notable Downing Street address : TEN
13 Important span : ERA
18 Seen enough : HAD IT
22 Think tank products : IDEAS
24 Tehran’s land : IRAN
26 Dudes with fab abs : HE-MEN
27 Slipped up : ERRED
28 Fast Atl. crossers, once : SSTS
30 Horn-honking Marx : HARPO
31 Country singer Travis : TRITT
32 Chow line? : LEASH
33 Piglike forest dweller : TAPIR
34 Swiftness : HASTE
37 Successor to Claudius : NERO
38 __-ski : APRES
39 Second to none : BEST
41 Hurry off and hide : ABSCOND
42 Hunt down the source of : TRACE
44 Gridiron complement : ELEVEN
45 High society types : ELITES
48 Deadly African virus : EBOLA
49 Single-master : SLOOP
50 Small fry : TYKES
52 What Noah counted by : TWOS
53 Constellation named for a mythological ship : ARGO
54 List : TILT
56 Place for a retreat : SPA
57 Usher’s offering : ARM
58 See 4-Down : … LEE
60 Folklore crone : HAG