LA Times Crossword 28 Jul 21, Wednesday

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Constructed by: Owen Travis & Jeff Chen
Edited by: Rich Norris

Today’s Reveal Answer: Exercise Caution

Themed answers are common phrases representing the antithesis of EXERCISING CAUTION:

  • 61A Do the opposite of what those who 17-, 28- or 35-/38-Across do : EXERCISE CAUTION
  • 17A Expand regs to one’s advantage : STRETCH THE RULES
  • 28A Impulsively get involved : JUMP IN HEAD-FIRST
  • 35A With 38-Across, take a dangerous risk : SKATE ON …
  • 38A See 35-Across : … THIN ICE

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

Bill’s time: 7m 15s

Bill’s errors: 2

  • STOKELY (Stakely)
  • EROSE (erase!!!)

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

5 Michelle who wrote “Becoming” : OBAMA

“Becoming” is a 2018 memoir by former First Lady Michelle Obama. After “Becoming” was published in November 2018, it took just 15 days for it to break the record for copies sold of any book in the US that year.

10 Rikishi’s sport : SUMO

Sumo is a sport that is practiced professionally only in Japan, the country of its origin. There is an international federation of sumo wrestling now, and one of the organization’s aims is to have the sport accepted as an Olympic event.

“Rikishi” is the term used for a sumo wrestler. “Rikishi” translates from Japanese as “strong man”.

15 __ Wiggum, Lisa Simpson classmate : RALPH

Ralph Wiggum is a character on “The Simpsons”. He is the son of Police Chief Wiggum, and a classmate of Lisa Simpson. Ralph is voiced by Nancy Cartwright, who also voices Bart Simpson.

16 Bracketology org. : NCAA

“Bracketology” is a term used to describe the process of predicting which college basketball teams will advance in a bracket in the annual NCAA Basketball Tournament. President Barack Obama famously participates in an ESPN segment called “Baracketology” in which he predicts the outcome of the tournament, game by game.

20 SEA postings : ETAS

Sea-Tac Airport (SEA) is more fully known as Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. Sea-Tac is the main hub for Alaska Airlines.

22 Emerald City creator : BAUM

The Emerald City is the capital of the Land of Oz in L. Frank Baum’s series of “Oz” novels.

23 NBC’s “Weekend Update” show : SNL

“Weekend Update” is the longest-running of any recurring sketch on “Saturday Night Live” (SNL). In fact, the segment made its debut on the very first show, back in 1975. The first “anchor” at the “Weekend Update” desk was Chevy Chase.

26 Exile isle : ELBA

Napoleon was sent into exile twice. A coalition of European powers sent him to the island of Elba in Tuscany in 1814, only for him to escape after a year and return to power. After Wellington defeated him at Waterloo, Napoleon was dispatched to the British-owned island of St. Helena in the South Atlantic, where he spent the last six years of his life.

32 Nanny, mostly? : ENS

The word “nanny” includes three letters N (ens).

33 ” … a farm, __” : E-I-E-I-O

There was an old American version of the English children’s song “Old MacDonald Had a Farm” (E-I-E-I-O) that was around in the days of WWI. The first line of the older US version goes “Old MacDougal had a farm, in Ohio-i-o”.

34 AP rival : UPI

Founded in 1958, United Press International (UPI) used to be one of the biggest news agencies in the world, sending out news by wire to the major newspapers. UPI ran into trouble with the change in media formats at the end of the twentieth century and lost many of its clients as the afternoon newspapers shut down due to the advent of television news. UPI, which once employed thousands, still exists today but with just a fraction of that workforce.

The Associated Press (AP) is a news agency based in New York City. AP is a non-profit cooperative that was set up by five New York newspapers in 1846 to share the cost of transmitting news. Nowadays, AP recoups most of its cost by selling news stories and related materials to newspapers all around the world, mostly outside of the US.

42 Sub detector : SONAR

The British developed the first underwater detection system that used sound waves. Research was driven by defence demands during WWI, leading to production of working units in 1922. This new sound detection system was described as using “supersonics”, but for the purpose of secrecy the term was dropped in favor of an acronym. The work was done under the auspices of the Royal Navy’s Anti-Submarine Division, so ASD was combined with the “IC” from “superson-ic-s” to create the name ASDIC. The navy even went as far as renaming the quartz material at the heart of the technology “ASDivite”. By the time WWII came along, the Americans were producing their own systems and coined the term SONAR, playing off the related application, RADAR. And so, the name ASDIC was deep-sixed …

43 Mystical old letter : RUNE

A rune is a character in an alphabet that is believed to have mysterious powers. In Norse mythology, the runic alphabet was said to have a divine origin.

46 Salty margarita glass spots : RIMS

No one seems to know for sure who first created the cocktail known as a margarita. The most plausible and oft-quoted is that it was invented in 1941 in Ensenada, Mexico. The barman mixed the drink for an important visitor, the daughter of the German ambassador. The daughter’s name was Margarita Henkel, and she lent her name to the new drink. The basic recipe for a margarita is a mixture of tequila, orange-flavored liqueur (like Cointreau) and lime juice.

51 Many an April birth : ARIES

Aries the Ram is the first astrological sign in the Zodiac, and is named after the constellation. Your birth sign is Aries if you were born between March 21 and April 20, but if you are an Aries you would know that! “Aries” is the Latin word for “ram”.

57 Actress Ullmann : LIV

Liv Ullmann is a Norwegian, best known to us in North America as an actress (I saw her recently in the classic war movie “A Bridge Too Far”). Ullmann has also directed several films, including “Sofie” released in 1992. Ullmann lived with famed Swedish director Ingmar Bergman for several years in the 1960s.

58 Rights activist Carmichael : STOKELY

Stokely Carmichael was a civil rights leader who was prominent in the Black Power movement, the Black Panther Party and All-African People’s Revolutionary Party. He became a target of the FBI under the leadership of J.Edgar Hoover, which resulted in Carmichael leaving the US and settling in Africa, first in Ghana and then in Guinea. There he became an influential figure in the Pan-African movement.

60 “Planet Money” network : NPR

“Planet Money” is an NPR-produced podcast and blog that was launched in 2008, at the end of the 2007-2008 financial crisis.

64 Ritzy NYC thoroughfare : PARK AVE

Park Avenue in New York City used to be known as Fourth Avenue, and for much of its length carried the tracks of the New York and Harlem Railroad. When the line was built, some of it was constructed by cutting through the length of the street and then forming underground tunnels by covering over the line with grates and greenery. This greenery formed a parkland between 34th and 40th Streets, and in 1860 the grassy section of Fourth Avenue was renamed Park Avenue, a name that was eventually used for the whole thoroughfare.

The adjective “ritzy” meaning “high quality and luxurious” derives from the opulent Ritz hotels in New York, London, Paris, etc.

Down

2 Chow down : EAT

“Chow” is a slang term for “food” that originated in California in the mid-1800s. “Chow” comes from the Chinese pidgin English “chow-chow” meaning “food”.

5 Hobbit enemies : ORCS

According to Tolkien, Orcs are small humanoids that live in his fantasy world of Middle-earth (also called “Mordor”). They are very ugly and dirty, and are fond of eating human flesh.

6 Exclamation from Scrooge : BAH!

The classic 1843 novella “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens has left us with a few famous phrases and words. Firstly, it led to popular use of the phrase “Merry Christmas”, and secondly it gave us the word “scrooge” to describe a miserly person. And thirdly, everyone knows that Ebenezer Scrooge uttered the words “Bah! Humbug!”.

7 Key to some shortcuts? : ALT

The Alt (alternate) key is found on either side of the space bar on US PC keyboards. The Alt key evolved from what was called a Meta key on old MIT keyboards, although the function has changed somewhat over the years. Alt is equivalent in many ways to the Option key on a Mac keyboard, and indeed the letters “Alt” have been printed on most Mac keyboards starting in the nineties.

10 Aptly named baby carrier brand : SNUGLI

An American nurse called Ann Moore served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Togo in the sixties. Moore noticed how content the local children were when transported by their mothers in a sling that held the baby on their backs. Moore returned from West Africa and developed a backpack harness that she patented in 1969 as the Snugli.

11 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, in coll. : UCLA BRUIN

The UCLA Bruins’ mascots are Joe and Josephine Bruin, characters that have evolved over the years. There used to be “mean” Bruin mascots but they weren’t very popular with the fans, so now there are only “happy” Bruin mascots at the games.

Basketball legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s name at birth was Ferdinand Lewis “Lew” Alcindor. Alcindor changed his name when he converted to Islam.

12 Sallie __ : MAE

“Sallie Mae” is a nickname for SLM Corporation that was created in 1972 by the US government as the Student Loan Marketing Association. By 2004, the government had severed all its ties with Sallie Mae. Today, SLM is basically a profit-focused lender.

13 Western treaty gp. : OAS

The Organization of American States (OAS) was founded in 1948, and has its headquarters in Washington, D.C. Not all of the independent states in the Americas are members. Cuba was barred from participation in the organization after a vote in 1962. Honduras had her membership suspended after the country’s 2009 coup.

18 Suspense novelist Hoag : TAMI

Tami Hoag is a novelist best known for writing romances and thrillers. She is a prolific writer and once had five consecutive titles on the New York Times bestsellers list, all in a 20-month period.

19 Great Barrier __ : REEF

The Great Barrier Reef is located in the Coral Sea, off the coast of Queensland, Australia. It is a system of almost three thousand individual reefs, and is the largest such system on the planet. The Great Barrier Reef is also the only living thing on Earth that can be seen from outer space.

22 Swindling scheme : BUNKO

“Bunco” (also “bunko”) is a term dating back to the 19th century with the meaning “confidence trick”. It’s very possible that “bunco” comes from the Italian word “banco” meaning “bank”.

24 Once known as : NEE

“Née” is the French word for “born” when referring to a female. The male equivalent is “né”. The term “née” is mainly used in English when referring to a married woman’s birth name, assuming that she has adopted her husband’s name, e.g. Michelle Obama née Robinson, Melania Trump née Knavs, and Jill Biden née Jacobs.

25 Pain au __: French dessert : LAIT

Pain au lait (literally “milk bread”) is a bun from French cuisine that is similar to brioche but is not as sweet or as rich, is made with less sugar and fewer eggs.

27 Org. concerned with boxers : ASPCA

Unlike most developed countries, the US has no umbrella organization with the goal of preventing cruelty to animals. Instead there are independent organizations set up all over the nation using the name SPCA. Having said that, there is an organization called the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) that was originally intended to operate across the country, but really it now focuses its efforts in New York City.

The boxer breed of dog (one of my favorites) originated in Germany. My first dog was a boxer/Labrador mix, a beautiful combination. Our current family dog is a boxer/pug mix, and is another gorgeous animal.

30 Exclamation from Homer : D’OH!

“The Simpsons” is one of the most successful programs produced by the Fox Broadcasting Company. Homer Simpson’s catchphrase is “D’oh!”, which became such a famous exclamation that it has been included in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) since 2001. “D’oh!” can be translated as “I should have thought of that!”

36 One of two for 52-Down : TERM

(52D Prez before Jack : IKE)
The US president serves for four-year terms. George Washington, the nation’s first president, set a precedent by agreeing to serve only two terms. Subsequent presidents adhered to this custom, serving only two terms, until 1940 when President Franklin D. Roosevelt agreed to run for a third term. Roosevelt was elected to a fourth term during WWII, after which the Congress adopted the Twenty-Second Amendment to the constitution, which bars anyone from being elected president more than twice.

45 Like jagged edges : EROSE

An edge that is erose is irregularly notched or indented.

46 Volleyball star Gabrielle : REECE

Gabrielle Reece is quite the athlete. She was on the team that won the first ever Beach Volleyball World Championship, in 1997. She is also a great golfer, and tried hard to make it onto the LPGA circuit.

47 Madagascar, e.g. : ISLAND

Madagascar is a large island nation lying off the southeast coast of Africa in the Indian Ocean. The main island of Madagascar is the fourth largest island in the world (after Greenland, New Guinea and Borneo).

49 “Inside Out” studio : PIXAR

“Inside Out” is a 2015 Pixar animated feature film. It’s all about a young girl who relocates with her family from Minnesota to San Francisco. The movie’s action is actually set inside the girl’s head, as five personified emotions deal with the changes she has to face. Those emotions are voiced by:

  • Amy Poehler (Joy)
  • Phyllis Smith (Sadness)
  • Lewis Black (Anger)
  • Bill Hader (Fear)
  • Mindy Kaling (Disgust)

50 Looney Tunes animator Tex : AVERY

Tex Avery was a cartoon animator and voice actor in Hollywood. He was the man who created Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, and it was Avery who gave Bugs Bunny the line “What’s up, doc?” Apparently it was a phrase that was common in his native Texas and one that became a bit of a catchphrase at North Dallas High School, which Avery attended in the twenties.

52 Prez before Jack : IKE

When the future president was growing up, the Eisenhowers used the nickname “Ike” for all seven boys in the family, as “Ike” was seen as an abbreviation for the family name. “Big Ike” was Edgar, the second oldest boy. “Little/Young Ike” was Dwight, who was the third son born. Dwight had no sisters.

54 Licorice-like flavoring : ANISE

The essential oil in the anise plant is anethole. Anethole has a licorice-like flavor, and is used extensively in cooking and to flavor several distilled alcoholic drinks.

56 Physicist Mach : ERNST

The Mach number of a moving object (like say an airplane) is its speed relative to the speed of sound. A plane travelling at Mach 2, for example, is moving at twice the speed of sound. The term “Mach” takes its name from the Austrian physicist Ernst Mach who published a groundbreaking paper in 1877 that even predicted the “sonic boom”.

58 Read, as a bar code : SCAN

The initialism “UPC” stands for Universal Price Code or Universal Product Code. The first ever UPC-marked item to get scanned in a store was on June 26, 1974 at 08:01 a.m. at Marsh’s supermarket in Troy, Ohio. It was a 10-pack of Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit chewing gum.

59 ‘Tis the season : YULE

Yule celebrations coincide with Christmas, and the words “Christmas” and “Yule” (often “Yuletide”) have become synonymous in much of the world. However, Yule was originally a pagan festival celebrated by Germanic peoples. The name “Yule” comes from the Old Norse word “jol” that was used to describe the festival.

62 “Citizen Kane” distributor : RKO

1941’s “Citizen Kane” was the first film made by Orson Welles, and is considered by many to be the finest movie ever made. It’s a remarkable achievement by Wells, as he played the lead and also produced and directed. Despite all the accolades for “Citizen Kane” over the decades, the movie was far from a commercial success in its early run and actually lost money at the box office.

63 Chickadee kin : TIT

The birds known as chickadees or titmice in North America, are usually called simply “tits” in the rest of the English-speaking world.

Complete List of Clues/Answers

Across

1 Rural assent : YES’M
5 Michelle who wrote “Becoming” : OBAMA
10 Rikishi’s sport : SUMO
14 Beat fast, as a heart : RACE
15 __ Wiggum, Lisa Simpson classmate : RALPH
16 Bracketology org. : NCAA
17 Expand regs to one’s advantage : STRETCH THE RULES
20 SEA postings : ETAS
21 Very large : MEGA
22 Emerald City creator : BAUM
23 NBC’s “Weekend Update” show : SNL
26 Exile isle : ELBA
28 Impulsively get involved : JUMP IN HEAD-FIRST
32 Nanny, mostly? : ENS
33 ” … a farm, __” : E-I-E-I-O
34 AP rival : UPI
35 With 38-Across, take a dangerous risk : SKATE ON …
38 See 35-Across : … THIN ICE
41 Carried : TOTED
42 Sub detector : SONAR
43 Mystical old letter : RUNE
46 Salty margarita glass spots : RIMS
48 Fishy email asking for personal info, perhaps : SPAM
51 Many an April birth : ARIES
53 Lessen in intensity : EASE
57 Actress Ullmann : LIV
58 Rights activist Carmichael : STOKELY
60 “Planet Money” network : NPR
61 Do the opposite of what those who 17-, 28- or 35-/38-Across do : EXERCISE CAUTION
64 Ritzy NYC thoroughfare : PARK AVE
65 Joins the service : ENLISTS
66 Taste test request : TRY ONE
67 Can’t bear : DETEST

Down

1 Jr. and sr. : YRS
2 Chow down : EAT
3 Lets have it : SCREAMS AT
4 Connect (with) : MEET UP
5 Hobbit enemies : ORCS
6 Exclamation from Scrooge : BAH!
7 Key to some shortcuts? : ALT
8 Meas. with city and highway calculations : MPH
9 “If I might interrupt … ” : AHEM …
10 Aptly named baby carrier brand : SNUGLI
11 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, in coll. : UCLA BRUIN
12 Sallie __ : MAE
13 Western treaty gp. : OAS
18 Suspense novelist Hoag : TAMI
19 Great Barrier __ : REEF
22 Swindling scheme : BUNKO
23 Place for a soccer guard : SHIN
24 Once known as : NEE
25 Pain au __: French dessert : LAIT
27 Org. concerned with boxers : ASPCA
28 Kid : JEST
29 Classical prefix : NEO-
30 Exclamation from Homer : D’OH!
31 Level : TIER
36 One of two for 52-Down : TERM
37 Dot follower, on campuses : EDU
39 Doctrine suffix : -ISM
40 Win by a __ : NOSE
44 Locally grown : NATIVE
45 Like jagged edges : EROSE
46 Volleyball star Gabrielle : REECE
47 Madagascar, e.g. : ISLAND
48 Snoozed : SLEPT
49 “Inside Out” studio : PIXAR
50 Looney Tunes animator Tex : AVERY
52 Prez before Jack : IKE
54 Licorice-like flavoring : ANISE
55 Parking places : SPOTS
56 Physicist Mach : ERNST
58 Read, as a bar code : SCAN
59 ‘Tis the season : YULE
62 “Citizen Kane” distributor : RKO
63 Chickadee kin : TIT