LA Times Crossword 22 Apr 19, Monday

Advertisement

Constructed by: C.C. Burnikel
Edited by: Rich Norris

Today’s Reveal Answer: Screen Time

Themed answers each end with a type of SCREEN:

  • 55A Amount of TV watching limited by parents, and a hint to the last word of the answers to starred clues : SCREEN TIME
  • 16A *Last bit of decoration : FINAL TOUCH (giving “touchscreen”)
  • 34A *Coastal wetland often exposed at low tide : MUDFLAT (giving “flat screen”)
  • 10D *Talks big : BLOWS SMOKE (giving “smoke screen”)
  • 26D *Lone Ranger’s shout : HI-YO, SILVER! (giving “silver screen”)

Bill’s time: 5m 01s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1 River-end formation : DELTA

A river delta is a triangular landform at the mouth of a river created by the deposition of sediment. The Nile Delta in Northern Egypt is one of the world’s largest river deltas, and covers 150 miles of coastline on the Mediterranean. 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 …

9 “Dancing Queen” group : ABBA

“Dancing Queen” is a great, great song from 1976 that was released by the Swedish group ABBA. ABBA’s music has never been as popular in the US as it is in other countries, but “Dancing Queen” did make it to the number-one spot in the charts here. It was in fact, ABBA’s only #1 hit in the US.

13 Disney mermaid : ARIEL

In the 1989 Disney animated film “The Little Mermaid”, the title character is given the name “Ariel”. In the original fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen that dates back to 1836, the Little Mermaid is given no name at all. There is a famous statue of the unnamed Little Mermaid sitting in Copenhagen Harbor, in Andersen’s homeland of Denmark.

14 “A Doll’s House” heroine : NORA

“A Doll’s House” is probably the most famous play by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. The play deals with the feminist awakening of the lead character, Nora Helmer. “A Doll’s House” is sometimes referred to as the “first true feminist play”.

18 “Dirty Jobs” host Mike : ROWE

Mike Rowe is host of the successful reality show called “Dirty Jobs” that is broadcast by “Discovery Channel”. Rowe is also a spokesperson for Ford Motor Company in a series of television commercials. He is quite the singer too, and he sang professionally with the Baltimore Opera for a while.

20 Pressure cooker sound : HISS

A pressure cooker reduces cooking times because water boils at a higher temperature when under pressure. Water boils at 100°C at atmospheric temperature, but will boil at over 120°C in most pressure cookers. As a result, pressure cooking takes place at this higher temperature. In general, chemical reactions double with every ten degrees of increased temperature, and so a pressure cooker can speed up the cooking process by about four times.

21 New Zealand fruits : KIWIS

What we call kiwifruit today (and sometimes just “kiwi”) used to be called a Chinese gooseberry. Marketing folks in the fifties decided to call it a “melonette”, and then New Zealand producers adopted the name “kiwifruit”.

28 Kimono-clad entertainer : GEISHA

The Japanese term “geisha” best translates as “artist” or “performing artist”.

The lovely Japanese kimono is a garment worn by men, women and children. The word “kimono” translates simply as “thing to wear”, with “ki” meaning “wear” and “mono” meaning “thing”.

33 Pony up : PAY

“To pony up” means “to pay”. Apparently, the term originated as slang use of the Latin term “legem pone” that was once used for “money”. “Legem Pone” was the title of the Psalm that was read out on March 25 each year, and March 25 was the first payday of the year in days gone by.

37 Corrida cry : OLE!

Spanish bullfighting is known locally as “corrida de toros”, literally “race of bulls”.

38 Moving like sloths : SLOW

“Sloth”, meaning “indolence, sluggishness”, comes from the Middle English word “slowe”, the same root for our contemporary word “slow”. The animal, the sloth, is so named as it exhibits slow-moving behavior.

46 Rural storage buildings : SILOS

“Silo” is a Spanish word that we absorbed into English. The term ultimately derives from the Greek “siros”, which described a pit in which one kept corn.

47 Serta alternative : SEALY

The Sealy Corporation makes mattresses. The company name comes from the city where it started out in 1881, namely Sealy, Texas. Sealy Corporation is now headquartered in Trinity, North Carolina.

54 Like many ESPN broadcasts : LIVE

The initialism “ESPN” stands for Entertainment Sports Programming Network. ESPN is a cable network that broadcasts sports programming 24 hours a day, and was launched back in 1979. ESPN has a lot of ardent fans. Several parents have named children Espn (usually pronounced “Espen”) on honor of the network.

59 Slugger Judge : AARON

Aaron Judge is a baseball outfielder who was selected as 2017’s American League Rookie of the Year. Judge is a big guy. He weighs 282 pounds, and is 6 foot 7 inches tall.

Down

2 Only Great Lake that borders Pennsylvania : ERIE

Lake Erie is the fourth largest of the five Great Lakes by area (Lake Ontario is the smallest). The lake takes its name from the Erie tribe of Native Americans that used to live along its southern shore. Erie is the smallest of the Great Lakes by volume and the shallowest, something for which nearby residents must be quite grateful. Being relatively shallow, much of Erie freezes over part way through most winters putting an end to most of the lake-effect snow that falls in the snow belt extending from the lake’s edge.

7 Fly ball trajectories : ARCS

That would be baseball.

9 Presupposed by experience : A PRIORI

In the world of philosophy, one can have “a priori” knowledge or “a posteriori” knowledge. A priori (“from the earlier”) knowledge is independent of experience, it is just known or assumed. For example, one might say that “all boys are males” is a priori knowledge. A posteriori knowledge relies on experience or some empirical evidence. For example, one might say that “boys are more likely to be diagnosed with ADD” is a posteriori knowledge.

11 “Space Oddity” rocker David : BOWIE

In early 1969, the struggling David Bowie recorded a promotional film in an attempt to reach a wider audience. The film called “Love You Till Tuesday” featured seven of Bowie’s songs in what amounted to an extended music video, with one of the tracks being “Space Oddity”. Somebody smart put two and two together later in the year and decided that a fresh version of “Space Oddity” should be released, to coincide with the Apollo moon landings. Sure enough, the BBC snagged the track for their coverage of the landings and gave Bowie huge audiences. And the song still gets an awful lot of air time on the small screen. Famously, Bowie turned down the honor of Commander of the British Empire (CBE) in 2000. The British government tried again in 2003, offering a knighthood, but Bowie stuck to his guns and refused that honor too. Bowie did however accept the French title of Commander of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 1999.

17 Synonym-loaded reference : THESAURUS

The first person to use the term “thesaurus” to mean a “collection of words arranged according to sense” was Roget in 1852, when he used it for the title of his most famous work. Up to that point in time, a thesaurus was basically an encyclopedia. Before being used with reference to books, a thesaurus was a storehouse or treasury, coming from the Latin “thesaurus” meaning “treasury, treasure”.

21 Zen garden fish : KOI

Koi are fish that are also known as Japanese carp. Koi have been bred for decorative purposes and there are now some very brightly colored examples found in Japanese water gardens.

Japanese Zen gardens are inspired by the meditation gardens of Zen Buddhist temples. Zen gardens have no water in them, but often there is gravel and sand that is raked in patterns designed to create the impression of water in waves and ripples.

23 __ Emanuel, Obama’s first Chief of Staff : RAHM

Rahm Emanuel was an Illinois representative in the US House before resigning in 2009 to take up President Obama’s offer to become the White House Chief of Staff. Emanuel moved on from the White House the following year in order to run as a candidate in Chicago’s mayoral election in 2011. He won the 2011 race, and was re-elected in 2015.

The position of White House Chief of Staff is regarded as the most senior post at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. The designation “White House Chief of Staff” was introduced in 1953 under President Dwight D. Eisenhower. From 1946 to 1953, the Chief of Staff’s responsibilities were carried out by the Assistant to the President of the United States.

26 *Lone Ranger’s shout : HI-YO, SILVER! (giving “silver screen”)

“The Lone Ranger” was both a radio and television show that dated back to its first radio performance in 1933 on a Detroit station. The line “Hi-yo, Silver! Away!” was a device used in the storyline to signal that a riding sequence was starting; so cue the music!

27 “2001” computer : HAL

In Arthur C. Clarke’s “Space Odyssey” (famously adapted for the big screen as “2001: A Space Odyssey”) the computer system that went rogue was called HAL 9000, or simply “HAL”. HAL stands for Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer. Even though, Clarke denied it, there’s a good argument that can be made that the acronym HAL is a veiled reference to IBM, the big player in the world of computing at the time of the novel’s publication (1968). The acronym HAL is just a one-letter shift from the initials “IBM”.

28 Rte.-finding aid : GPS

A global positioning system (GPS) might point out a route (rte.).

29 Bay Area airport letters : SFO

The San Francisco Bay Area is served by three major airports: San Francisco (SFO), Oakland (OAK) and San Jose (SJC).

35 Guacamole, e.g. : DIP

Guacamole is one of my favorite dishes. It is prepared by mashing avocados and perhaps adding the likes of tomato, onion and lime juice. The guacamole recipe dates back as early as the 16th century, to the time of the Aztecs. “Guacamole” translates as “avocado sauce”.

39 State fish of South Dakota : WALLEYE

Walleye is a freshwater fish that is native to Canada and the northern US. The walleye takes its name from its distinctive eyes. The eyes reflect light, rather like those of a cat, creating a phenomenon of “eyeshine”. The walleye’s eyes are well adapted for hunting for food in turbid waters, but makes them a more visible prey to anglers that hunt for them at nighttime. The walleye is the state fish of Minnesota and South Dakota, and the state warm water fish of Vermont.

44 How-__: DIY guides : TOS

Back in Ireland, we don’t have “hardware stores” as such, but rather “DIY centres” (and that’s the spelling of “centres”). “DIY” is an initialism standing for “do-it-yourself”.

45 Meal at Passover : SEDER

The Passover Seder is a ritual feast that marks the beginning of the Jewish Passover holiday, celebrating the liberation of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. One of the traditions at the meal is that the youngest child at the table asks “The Four Questions”, all relating to why this night is different from all other nights in the year:

  • Why is it that on all other nights during the year we eat either bread or matzoh, but on this night we eat only matzoh?
  • Why is it that on all other nights we eat all kinds of herbs, but on this night we eat only bitter herbs?
  • Why is it that on all other nights we do not dip our herbs even once, but on this night we dip them twice?
  • Why is it that on all other nights we eat either sitting or reclining, but on this night we eat in a reclining position?

46 Fancy watch brand : SEIKO

Watch manufacturer Seiko was founded as a watch and jewelry shop in Tokyo in 1881. The store was opened by one Kintaro Hattori, who started to produce clocks under the name Seikosha, which can be translated as “House of Exquisite Workmanship”. The first Seiko watches went on sale in 1924, and today the company suggests that the name “Seiko” is Japanese for “exquisite” and “success”.

51 County Kerry country : EIRE

County Kerry is located in the southwest of Ireland. It is a popular tourist destination, largely because it is home to the town of Killarney. Killarney is a jumping off point for the famous Ring of Kerry and the Lakes of Killarney. Kerry’s county town is Tralee, home to the world-famous Rose of Tralee festival.

Complete List of Clues/Answers

Across

1 River-end formation : DELTA
6 Sprinted : RAN
9 “Dancing Queen” group : ABBA
13 Disney mermaid : ARIEL
14 “A Doll’s House” heroine : NORA
15 Snow remover : PLOW
16 *Last bit of decoration : FINAL TOUCH (giving “touchscreen”)
18 “Dirty Jobs” host Mike : ROWE
19 Casual tops : TEES
20 Pressure cooker sound : HISS
21 New Zealand fruits : KIWIS
22 Standing tall : ERECT
24 Off the leash : LOOSE
25 Sentence part : PHRASE
27 Ones gathering for a will reading : HEIRS
28 Kimono-clad entertainer : GEISHA
29 Droop : SAG
30 Little devils : IMPS
33 Pony up : PAY
34 *Coastal wetland often exposed at low tide : MUDFLAT (giving “flat screen”)
37 Corrida cry : OLE!
38 Moving like sloths : SLOW
40 Spanish river : RIO
41 Heart-shaped photo holder : LOCKET
43 Suddenly became attentive : SAT UP
45 Beat the goalie : SCORED
46 Rural storage buildings : SILOS
47 Serta alternative : SEALY
48 Church ringers : BELLS
49 Gives a hand : AIDS
50 Religious subdivision : SECT
54 Like many ESPN broadcasts : LIVE
55 Amount of TV watching limited by parents, and a hint to the last word of the answers to starred clues : SCREEN TIME
57 “__-doke!” : OKEY
58 Harbor structure : PIER
59 Slugger Judge : AARON
60 Party pooper : BORE
61 Pop-up annoyances : ADS
62 Mix : BLEND

Down

1 Nutty : DAFT
2 Only Great Lake that borders Pennsylvania : ERIE
3 Ticket booth annoyance : LINE
4 Commercial lures : TEASERS
5 Every bit (of) : ALL
6 Awaken rudely : ROUST
7 Fly ball trajectories : ARCS
8 “Don’t think so” : NAH
9 Presupposed by experience : A PRIORI
10 *Talks big : BLOWS SMOKE (giving “smoke screen”)
11 “Space Oddity” rocker David : BOWIE
12 Fills with wonder : AWES
14 “Hold the rocks” : NO ICE
17 Synonym-loaded reference : THESAURUS
21 Zen garden fish : KOI
23 __ Emanuel, Obama’s first Chief of Staff : RAHM
24 Attorney’s job : LEGAL CASE
25 Gong sound : PEAL
26 *Lone Ranger’s shout : HI-YO, SILVER! (giving “silver screen”)
27 “2001” computer : HAL
28 Rte.-finding aid : GPS
29 Bay Area airport letters : SFO
31 Implored : PLED
32 Good to go : SET
35 Guacamole, e.g. : DIP
36 Jack or hammer : TOOL
39 State fish of South Dakota : WALLEYE
42 Seer’s __ ball : CRYSTAL
44 How-__: DIY guides : TOS
45 Meal at Passover : SEDER
46 Fancy watch brand : SEIKO
47 Stable studs : SIRES
48 Gooey mass : BLOB
49 Etching fluid : ACID
51 County Kerry country : EIRE
52 “Let’s do it!” : C’MON!
53 Take care of : TEND
55 Place for a massage : SPA
56 Arrest, as a perp : NAB