LA Times Crossword 1 Jun 20, Monday

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Constructed by: Jesse Goldberg
Edited by: Rich Norris

Today’s Reveal Answer: Kick-starts

Themed answers each START with a kind of KICK:

  • 58A Reinvigorates, as an economy … or a hint to the beginnings of the answers to starred clues : KICK-STARTS
  • 17A *Where hockey punishments are served : PENALTY BOX (giving “penalty kick”)
  • 22A *Local retailer : CORNER STORE (giving “corner kick”)
  • 36A *Insignificant amount : DROP IN THE BUCKET (giving “drop kick”)
  • 46A *Car rooftop attachment for a Schwinn : BICYCLE RACK (giving “bicycle kick”)

Bill’s time: 5m 26s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1 Antacid brand named for the organ it soothes : TUMS

The main ingredient in Tums antacid, made by GlaxoSmithKline, is calcium carbonate. Tums have been on the market since 1930. If you want to save a few pennies, Target brand antacid is identical to Tums, or so I hear …

14 Cognac letters : VSOP

Brandy is a spirit distilled from wine. The term “brandy” ultimately comes from the Dutch “gebrande wijn” meaning “burnt wine”. The length of this aging of the spirit defines the various grades of brandy:

  • VS: Very Special … at least 2 years storage
  • VSOP: Very Special (or Superior) Old Pale … at least 4 years storage
  • XO: Extra Old … at least 6 years
  • VSO: Very Superior Old … 12-17 years

Cognac is a famous variety of brandy named after the town of Cognac in the very west of France. To be called cognac, the brandy must be distilled twice in copper pot stills and aged at least two years in very specific French oak barrels.

16 Frosty coating : HOAR

The Old English word “har” meant “gray, venerable, old”, and came into English as “hoar” (and later “hoary”) with the same meaning. The term “hoar-frost” dates back to the 13th century, and reflects the similarity of the white feathers of frost to the gray/white of an old man’s beard.

19 Jason’s ship : ARGO

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.

25 Sharp-wittedness : ACUMEN

“Acumen” is such a lovely word, I think, one meaning “keenness of judgment or insight”. “Acumen” is Latin for “point, sting”, the idea being that someone with acumen has mental sharpness.

29 Spanish painter Francisco : GOYA

Francisco Goya was a Spanish painter who was often called the last of the Old Masters and the first of the moderns. Two of Goya’s most famous works are “The Nude Maja” and “The Clothed Maja”.

30 Part of “Hey Jude” that lasts nearly four minutes : CODA

In music, a coda is primarily a passage that brings a movement to a conclusion. “Coda” is Italian for “tail”.

“Hey Jude” was originally a song called “Hey Jules”, written by Paul McCartney. He wrote the original song for John Lennon’s son Julian, in an attempt to comfort the boy during his parents’ divorce. There’s a phenomenal coda in “Hey Jude” after the fourth verse that lasts for over four minutes.

31 Slavic prefix : SERBO-

The Slavic peoples are in the majority in communities covering over half of Europe. This large ethnic group is traditionally broken down into three smaller groups:

  • the West Slavic (including Czechs and Poles)
  • the East Slavic (including Russians and Ukrainians)
  • the South Slavic (including Bulgarians, Croats and Serbs)

40 MSNBC rival : CNN

CNN (Cable News Network) was launched in 1980 by the Turner Broadcasting System, and was the first television channel in the world to provide news coverage 24 hours a day.

43 Highlands native : GAEL

A Gael is anyone of a race that speaks or spoke one of the Erse tongues. There are actually three Erse languages. Irish, Manx (spoken on the Isle of Man) and Scots Gaelic. In their own tongues, these would be “Gaeilge” (in Ireland), “Gaelg” (on the Isle of Man) and “Gaidhlig” (in Scotland).

The Scottish Highlands are that part of the country not classified as the Lowlands(!). The Highlands make up the north and west of Scotland.

44 In the arms of Morpheus : ASLEEP

Morpheus was the Greek god of dreams and sleep, and is my favorite of the Greek gods. Morpheus gave his name to morphine, the sedative. The idiom “in the arms of Morpheus” means “asleep”.

46 *Car rooftop attachment for a Schwinn : BICYCLE RACK (giving “bicycle kick”)

Schwinn is an American bicycle company that was founded in Chicago in 1895. The founder was Ignaz Schwinn, a German-born mechanical engineer. Schwinn dominated the market for domestic bicycles in the fifties, helped along by hefty tariffs imposed on imported cycles by the Eisenhower administration.

A bicycle kick is an acrobatic move in soccer that’s also known as an overhead kick or a scissors kick.

51 Febreze targets : ODORS

The odor-eliminating product we know today as Febreze was developed in England in the early nineties. Febreze is now produced by Procter & Gamble.

57 Scarlett’s plantation : TARA

In Margaret Mitchell’s novel “Gone with the Wind”, Scarlett O’Hara’s home is the Tara plantation. Tara was founded not far from the Georgia city of Jonesboro by Scarlett’s father, Irish immigrant Gerald O’Hara. Gerald won the square mile of land on which Tara was built in an all-night poker game. He named his new abode after the Hill of Tara back in his home country, the ancient seat of the High King of Ireland. Rhett’s rival for the affections of Scarlet is Ashley Wilkes who lives at the nearby Twelve Oaks plantation.

61 WWII bomber __ Gay : ENOLA

The Enola Gay was the B-29 that dropped the first atomic bomb, the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima in August 1945. Enola Gay was the name of the mother of pilot Col. Paul W. Tibbets, Jr.

65 Norwegian capital : OSLO

Oslo, the capital of Norway, is an ancient city that was founded around 1048. The medieval city was destroyed by fire in 1624 and was rebuilt by the Danish-Norwegian king Christian IV and renamed to Christiana. In 1877 there was an official change of the spelling of the city’s name to “Kristiana”, and then more recently in 1925 the name was restored to the original Oslo. Things have almost gone full circle and now the center of Oslo, the area that would have been contained by the original medieval walls, has apparently been renamed to Christiana.

Down

3 “__ Lisa” : MONA

“Mona Lisa” is a marvelous 1950 song that topped the charts for Nat King Cole for eight weeks. The song was written for the film “Captain Carey, U.S.A.” that was released that same year, and starred Alan Ladd. “Mona Lisa” won the Oscar for Best Original Song.

4 Fix, vet-style : SPAY

Our verb “to spay”, meaning “to surgically remove the ovaries of” (an animal) comes from an old Anglo-French word “espeier” meaning “to cut with a sword”.

5 “Avengers: Age of __” (2015) : ULTRON

2015’s “Avengers: Age of Ultron” is a superhero movie, and a sequel to 2012’s “The Avengers”. Reportedly, it was the second-most expensive ever made, after 2011’s “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides”.

6 Ending with nay or sooth : -SAYER

A soothsayer is someone who claims to have the ability to predict the future. The term comes from “sooth”, an archaic word for “truth”. So a soothsayer was supposedly one who told the “truth” (about the future).

9 Evil Luthor : LEX

Lex Luthor is the arch-nemesis of Superman in comics. Luthor has been portrayed in a number of guises in the comic world as well in movies and on the small screen. For example, he appeared as Atom Man in the 1950 film series “Atom Man vs. Superman”, and was played by actor Lyle Talbot, opposite Kirk Alyn’s Superman.

10 Soda named for a California mountain : SHASTA

The soft drink company called Shasta Beverages started off bottling mineral water from Shasta Springs in Northern California back in 1889. The water was originally shipped in railroad cars that were lined with glass. Costly transportation, I’d say …

Mount Shasta is in northern California. The origin of the name “Shasta” seems to be unclear. It may have come from the Russian “tchastal” meaning “white, clean, pure”, a name given to the volcanic peak by early Russian immigrants.

11 Trunk of the body : TORSO

“Torso” (plural “torsi”) is an Italian word meaning the “trunk of a statue”, and is a term that we imported into English.

13 “Murder, She __” : WROTE

“Murder, She Wrote” is a mystery television show with the lead character Jessica Fletcher, a mystery writer who is also an amateur detective. Fletcher is played by the charming Angela Lansbury. The show was created by Richard Levinson and William Link who had just failed with the TV series “Ellery Queen”, which was pulled after only one season. “Ellery Queen” was also about a mystery writer who was an amateur detective.

23 “Snowy” heron : EGRET

The snowy egret is a small white heron that is native to the Americas. At one time the egret species was in danger of extinction due to hunting driven by the demand for plumes for women’s hats.

24 Eddard Stark’s heir on “Game of Thrones” : ROBB

Robb Stark is a prominent character in the George R. R. Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire” novels, and in the TV adaption of the books “Game of Thrones”. He is portrayed by Scotticsh actor Richard Madden in the show.

25 “High Voltage” band : AC/DC

The hard rock band AC/DC recorded two albums titled “High Voltage”. The first was released in 1975, only in their native Australia. The second was released in 1976, but this version of “High Voltage” was marketed internationally. The second album bears little resemblance to the first.

27 Japanese noodle : UDON

Udon noodles are made from wheat-flour and are very popular in Japanese cuisines such as tempura.

28 Image in an atlas : MAP

The famous Flemish geographer Gerardus Mercator published his first collection of maps in 1578. Mercator’s collection contained a frontispiece with an image of Atlas the Titan from Greek mythology holding up the world on his shoulders. That image gave us our term “atlas” that is used for a book of maps.

31 Subway entrance : STILE

A stile is a structure allowing people to pass over or through a fence, while at the same time preventing livestock from escaping. The derivative term “turnstile” describes a revolving structure in a wall or fence that allows the controlled passage of people.

33 Texan’s neighbor : OKIE

“Okies” is a derogatory term used during the Dust Bowl of the 1930s for farming families who migrated from Oklahoma (hence the name), Arkansas, Kansas and Texas in search of agricultural jobs in California. The road used by many of these migrant families was Route 66, which is also called “Mother Road”.

34 Legendary soccer star : PELE

“Pelé” is the nickname of Edson de Nascimento, a soccer player who has used the name “Pelé” for most of his life. Pelé is now retired, and for my money was the world’s greatest ever player of the game. He is the only person to have been a member of three World Cup winning squads (1958, 1962 and 1970), and is a national treasure in his native Brazil. One of Pele’s nicknames is “O Rei do Futebol” (the King of Football).

37 Apple desktops : IMACS

The iMac is a desktop computer platform that 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 as strawberry, blueberry and lime.

38 Holiday carol : NOEL

“Noël” is the French word for the Christmas season, and ultimately comes from the Latin word for “birth” (natalis). “Noel” has come to be used as an alternative for “Christmas carol”.

39 Calgary Stampeders’ org. : CFL

Canadian Football League (CFL)

The Calgary Stampeders are the CFL franchise based in Calgary, Alberta. The town was founded in 1945, and named for the annual rodeo and festival held in the city.

47 Boise’s state : IDAHO

Boise, Idaho is the capital and the largest metropolitan area in the state by far. There are a number of stories pertaining to the etymology of the name “Boise”. One is that French trappers called the tree-lined river that ran through the area “la rivière boisée”, meaning “the wooded river”.

48 Reef material : CORAL

Polyps are tiny sea creatures that are found attached to underwater structures or to other polyps. Polyps have a mouth at one end of a cylindrical “body” that is surrounded by tentacles. Some polyps cluster into groups called stony corals, with stony corals being the building blocks of coral reefs. The structure of the reef comprises calcium carbonate exoskeletons secreted by the coral polyps.

49 Big name in copiers : RICOH

Ricoh is a Japanese company that started out in 1936 and by the year 2000 was the biggest manufacturer of copiers in the world. The company is also well known as a supplier of cameras. The most successful of Ricoh’s lines of cameras is the compact model called a Caplio.

53 Speedy shark : MAKO

The shortfin mako shark can appear on restaurant menus, and as a result the species is dying out in some parts of the world. The mako gets its own back sometimes though, as attacks on humans are not unknown. It is the fastest-swimming shark, and has been clocked at speeds of over 40 miles/hour. And the shark in Ernest Hemingway’s “The Old Man and the Sea”, that’s a mako. “Mako” is the Maori word for “shark” or “shark tooth”.

54 Greek god of war : ARES

The Greek god Ares is often referred to as the Olympian god of warfare, but originally he was regarded as the god of bloodlust and slaughter. Ares united with Aphrodite to create several gods, including Phobos (Fear), Deimos (Terror) and Eros (Desire). Ares was the son of Zeus and Hera, and the Roman equivalent to Ares was Mars.

55 Texter’s sign-off : TTYL

Talk to you later (ttyl)

56 Standard Oil brand : ESSO

The Esso brand has its roots in the old Standard Oil company as it uses the initial letters of “Standard” and “Oil” (ESS-O). The Esso brand was replaced by Exxon in the US, but ESSO is still used in many other countries.

58 Mauna __ : KEA

Mauna Kea is a dormant volcano on the Big Island of Hawaii, the peak of which is the highest point in the whole state. Mauna Kea is in effect the tip of a gigantic volcano rising up from the seabed.

59 Business mag : INC

“Inc.” is a business magazine that specializes in articles about growing companies. “Inc.” publishes a list of the 500 fastest-growing private companies in the country each year, calling it the “Inc. 500”. The “Inc. 5000” is an expanded list also published by the magazine.

Complete List of Clues/Answers

Across

1 Antacid brand named for the organ it soothes : TUMS
5 “Same as always, bartender,” with “the” : … USUAL
10 Slow-cooked dish : STEW
14 Cognac letters : VSOP
15 Size above medium : LARGE
16 Frosty coating : HOAR
17 *Where hockey punishments are served : PENALTY BOX (giving “penalty kick”)
19 Jason’s ship : ARGO
20 Situation lacking clarity : GRAY AREA
21 Selling point : ASSET
22 *Local retailer : CORNER STORE (giving “corner kick”)
25 Sharp-wittedness : ACUMEN
29 Spanish painter Francisco : GOYA
30 Part of “Hey Jude” that lasts nearly four minutes : CODA
31 Slavic prefix : SERBO-
33 Intel missions : OPS
36 *Insignificant amount : DROP IN THE BUCKET (giving “drop kick”)
40 MSNBC rival : CNN
41 Damp : MOIST
42 Info in a folder : FILE
43 Highlands native : GAEL
44 In the arms of Morpheus : ASLEEP
46 *Car rooftop attachment for a Schwinn : BICYCLE RACK (giving “bicycle kick”)
51 Febreze targets : ODORS
52 Like a very close relationship : INTIMATE
57 Scarlett’s plantation : TARA
58 Reinvigorates, as an economy … or a hint to the beginnings of the answers to starred clues : KICK-STARTS
60 Gab : CHAT
61 WWII bomber __ Gay : ENOLA
62 Lock openers : KEYS
63 Putter’s target : HOLE
64 Post-workout pains : ACHES
65 Norwegian capital : OSLO

Down

1 Freq. sitcom rating : TV-PG
2 One logging on : USER
3 “__ Lisa” : MONA
4 Fix, vet-style : SPAY
5 “Avengers: Age of __” (2015) : ULTRON
6 Ending with nay or sooth : -SAYER
7 Citified : URBAN
8 Gone by : AGO
9 Evil Luthor : LEX
10 Soda named for a California mountain : SHASTA
11 Trunk of the body : TORSO
12 Raring to go : EAGER
13 “Murder, She __” : WROTE
18 Delicate fabric : LACE
21 Words before wish or were : AS YOU …
23 “Snowy” heron : EGRET
24 Eddard Stark’s heir on “Game of Thrones” : ROBB
25 “High Voltage” band : AC/DC
26 On-the-cob veggie : CORN
27 Japanese noodle : UDON
28 Image in an atlas : MAP
31 Subway entrance : STILE
32 “Say what?” sounds : EHS
33 Texan’s neighbor : OKIE
34 Legendary soccer star : PELE
35 Ladder rung : STEP
37 Apple desktops : IMACS
38 Holiday carol : NOEL
39 Calgary Stampeders’ org. : CFL
43 Swing one’s hips : GYRATE
44 Plays the role of : ACTS AS
45 Amusing sketch : SKIT
46 Bungle : BOTCH
47 Boise’s state : IDAHO
48 Reef material : CORAL
49 Big name in copiers : RICOH
50 Bracelet spot : ANKLE
53 Speedy shark : MAKO
54 Greek god of war : ARES
55 Texter’s sign-off : TTYL
56 Standard Oil brand : ESSO
58 Mauna __ : KEA
59 Business mag : INC