LA Times Crossword 21 Apr 20, Tuesday

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Constructed by: Chase Dittrich
Edited by: Rich Norris

Today’s Reveal Answer: Run in Circles

Themed answers each include a synonym of “RUN” as a hidden word shown in CIRCLED letters in the grid:

  • 48A Waste one’s time … or what 20-, 27- and 42-Across contain? : RUN IN CIRCLES
  • 20A Stretched wall hangings : CANVAS PRINTS (hiding “sprint”)
  • 27A Semi-casual garment named for an Atlantic island : BERMUDA SHORTS (hiding “dash”)
  • 42A Major blood vessel in the neck : CAROTID ARTERY (hiding “dart”)

Bill’s time: 5m 50s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1 Seer’s card : TAROT

Tarot cards have been around since the mid-1400s, and for centuries were simply used for entertainment as a game. It has only been since the late 1800s that the cards have been used by fortune tellers to predict the future. The list of tarot cards includes the Wheel of Fortune, the Hanged Man and the Lovers.

10 No. on an invoice : ACCT

An invoice is an itemized bill. The term comes from the Middle French “envois” meaning “dispatch (of goods)”. The root verb is “envoyer”, which translates as “to send”.

16 Cub or Brave, briefly : NL’ER

The Chicago Cubs baseball team was supposedly subject to the “Curse of the Billy Goat” from 1945 until 2016. Billy Sianis, the owner of a Billy Goat Tavern in Chicago, took his pet goat with him to a World Series game against the Detroit Tigers at Wrigley Field. Fans sitting nearby didn’t like the smell of the goat, and so the owner was asked to leave. As he left, Sianis yelled out, “Them Cubs, they ain’t gonna win no more.” And that is how a curse is born …

The Atlanta Braves are the only team to have won baseball’s World Series in three different home cities. They won as the Boston Braves in 1914, the Milwaukee Braves in 1957 and the Atlanta Braves in 1995.

17 Lawman Earp : WYATT

Wyatt Earp is famous as one of the participants in the gunfight at the O.K. Corral. Earp was a city policeman in Wichita, Kansas and also in Dodge City, Kansas. Earp was also deputy sheriff in Tombstone, Arizona where the O.K. Corral gunfight took place. Years later, Earp joined the Alaska Gold Rush and with a partner built and operated the Dexter Saloon in Nome.

18 Armory contents : AMMO

The word “munitions” describes materials and equipment used in war. The term derives from the Latin “munitionem” meaning “fortification, defensive wall”. Back in the 17th century, French soldiers referred to such materials as “la munition”, a Middle French term. This was misheard as “l’ammunition”, and as a result we ended up importing the word “ammunition” (often shortened to “ammo”), a term that we now use mainly to describe the material fired from a weapon.

27 Semi-casual garment named for an Atlantic island : BERMUDA SHORTS

The short trousers that we now know as Bermuda shorts were introduced by the British Army for wear in tropical climes. When there was a shortage of clothing during WWII in the British Overseas Territory of Bermuda, some local banks supplied their male employees with pants using the British military design. The employees were also issued knee-length socks to wear with the shorts. To this day, a dress shirt, tie and blazer with Bermuda shorts and knee-length socks is considered as appropriate business attire on the island.

Bermuda is a British Overseas Territory that is located off the east coast of the US. It is named for the Spaniard Juan de Bermúdez who in 1503 became the first European to discover the archipelago. Bermuda is the oldest remaining British Overseas Territory (since Newfoundland became part of Canada in 1949). It is also the most populous British Overseas Territory (since Hong Kong was returned to China in 1997).

33 Words of empathy : I CARE

“Sympathy” and “empathy” are related but different terms. A person exhibiting sympathy acknowledges another person’s emotional distress. A person exhibiting empathy also acknowledges distress, but understands the emotions felt as they have had a similar experience, or can at least put themselves in the shoes of the person affected.

41 Leg bone : TIBIA

The tibia is the shin bone, and is the larger of the two bones right below the knee. It is the strongest weight-bearing bone in the human body. “Tibia” is the Roman name for a Greek flute and it is thought that the shin bone was given the same name because flutes were often fashioned out of the shin bones of animals.

42 Major blood vessel in the neck : CAROTID ARTERY

The common carotid artery is in effect two arteries that run up either side of the body. By the time the carotids reach the neck, they are virtually identical, with one on either side.

45 21st-century president with a Nobel Peace Prize : OBAMA

President Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009, becoming the fourth US president to be so honored. He is the only one of the four to have been awarded the prize during his first year of office. The Nobel committee gave the award citing President Obama’s work towards a new climate in international relations, particularly in reaching out to the Muslim world.

54 Dueling blade : EPEE

The French word for sword is “épée”. In competitive fencing the épée is connected to a system that records an electrical signal when legal contact is made on an opponent’s body.

55 Take potshots : SNIPE

Snipes are wading birds with very long and thin bills that they use to search for small invertebrates in mud. In bygone days, a shot taken by a hunter at one of these wading birds became known as a “snipe”. This usage evolved into the word “sniper” applying to anyone shooting from a hidden position.

When firing a gun, a potshot is a “shot” taken purely to get the prey into the “pot” for cooking. The term “potshot” was coined in the 1830s, hence distinguishing between a shot taken for sport or marksmanship and a shot taken while hunting for game.

59 Early automaker : OLDS

Ransom Eli Olds was a pioneer in the automotive industry, and the founder of the Oldsmobile and REO brands. Olds introduced the first modern “stationary” assembly line (Henry Ford’s famous innovation was the “moving” assembly line). As a result, it can be argued that the Oldsmobile Curved Dash was the first mass-produced, low-priced automobile, rather than the Ford’s Model T.

60 Billionth: Pref. : NANO-

The prefix “nano-” is used for units of one thousand-millionth part. “Nano-” comes from the Greek “nanos” meaning “dwarf”.

61 Raptor’s claw : TALON

“Raptor” is a generic term for a bird of prey, one that has talons to grip its victims.

62 Senate spot : SEAT

The US Senate comprises 100 senators, with each of the fifty states being represented by two popularly elected senators. US senators were appointed by their state legislators from 1798 through 1913, until the Seventeenth Amendment called for popular elections.

Down

1 AAA job : TOW

The American Automobile Association (AAA) is a not-for-profit organization focused on lobbying, provision of automobile servicing, and selling of automobile insurance. The AAA was founded in 1902 in Chicago and published the first of its celebrated hotel guides back in 1917.

3 Color TV pioneer : RCA

Early television programming was broadcast in monochrome, i.e. black-and-white or grayscale. The introduction of color television built on the technology behind monochrome TV in the sense that color television images are a combination of three monochrome images. The colors of these three monochrome signals are red, green and blue (RGB).

5 The “T” in DPT : TETANUS

Tetanus is caused by a bacterial infection, one generally contracted through an open wound. As the infection spreads throughout the body, a toxin produced by the bacterium causes prolonged contraction of skeletal muscles. One muscle that is notably affected is in the jaw, giving the condition its common name “lockjaw”.

The DPT vaccine is a combination vaccine providing protection against diphtheria (D), pertussis (P) and tetanus (T).

6 Croat, for one : SLAV

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)

The Republic of Croatia is a Balkan country. The Croats declared independence from Yugoslavia in 1991. Croatia became a member of NATO in 2009, and a member of the European Union in 2013.

7 Mountain cat : PUMA

The mountain lion is found in much of the Americas from the Yukon in Canada right down to the southern Andes in South America. Because the mountain lion is found over such a vast area, it has many different names applied by local peoples, such as “cougar” and “puma”. In fact, the mountain lion holds the Guinness record for the animal with the most number of different names, with over 40 in English alone.

12 Boston NBAers : CELTS

The Boston Celtics NBA basketball team were founded just after WWII in 1946. The Celtics won eight league championships in a row from 1958 to 1966. That’s the longest consecutive championship winning streak of any professional sports team in North America.

13 Private rendezvous : TRYST

In the most general sense, a tryst is a meeting at an agreed time and place. More usually we consider a tryst to be a pre-arranged meeting between lovers. The term comes from the Old French “triste”, a waiting place designated when hunting. Further, a tryst taking place at lunchtime is sometimes referred to as a nooner.

21 Actor Beatty : NED

Actor Ned Beatty is possibly best remembered for the rather disturbing “squeal like a pig” scene in the movie “Deliverance”. Beatty also earned an Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actor for his performance in the 1976 movie “Network”.

22 Like Flying Eagle pennies : RARE

The Flying Eagle cent was the first “small-sized” one-cent coin minted in the US, and was produced from 1856 to 1858. The design was a little difficult to produce and the dies used in manufacture had to be replaced quite often. As a result, the Flying Eagle was replaced by the Indian Cent in 1859.

23 First name in advice : ABBY

The advice column “Dear Abby” first appeared in 1956. Pauline Phillips was Abby back then, but now the column is written by Jeanne Phillips, her daughter. The full name of the “Abby” pen name is Abigail Van Buren, which Pauline Phillips came up with by combining “Abigail” from the biblical Book of Samuel, and “Van Buren” after the former US president. “Dear Abby” was also a radio show in the sixties and seventies.

24 Fiddling emperor : NERO

The Great Fire of Rome raged for five and a half days in 64 AD. Of the fourteen districts of Rome, three were completely destroyed and seven more suffered serious damage. The emperor at the time was Nero, although reports that he fiddled, played his lyre or sang while the city burned; those accounts are probably not true. In fact, Nero was staying outside of Rome when the fire started and rushed home upon hearing the news. He organized a massive relief effort, throwing open his own home to give shelter to many of the citizens who were left living on the street.

25 With 32-Across, record-setting New Orleans Saints quarterback : DREW …
(32A See 25-Down : … BREES

Drew Brees is a quarterback who played for the San Diego Chargers before signing with the New Orleans Saints in 2006. On top of his success in the NFL, Brees was an excellent tennis player in his youth. In one competition, he actually beat a young Andy Roddick who later became the world’s number one.

29 Jules Verne genre : SCI-FI

Jules Verne really was a groundbreaking author. Verne pioneered the science-fiction genre, writing about space, air and underwater travel, long before they were practical and proved feasible. Verne is the second-most translated author of all time, with only Agatha Christie beating him out.

31 Hosp. areas : ORS

Surgery (surg.) is usually performed in an operating room (OR).

37 Lyft alternative : UBER

The rideshare service Uber takes its name from the English colloquial word “uber” meaning “super, topmost”, which in turn comes from the German “über” meaning “above”.

38 Turkish money : LIRA

The currency of Turkey is the Turkish lira, which is divided into 100 kuruş. In 1927, the Turkish lira replaced the Ottoman lira, which had been in use since 1844.

39 Potato chip brand : LAY’S

Lay’s potato chips were introduced in 1938 by Herman W. Lay. Lay started selling his chips out the trunk of his car, travelling all over the US. In those days the chips were pretty much handmade, but Lay put an end to that in 1942. He invented the first continuous potato processor in 1948, and chips started to take over the world!

40 Prefix with berry : CRAN-

When early European settlers came across red berries growing in the bogs of the northern part of America, they felt that the plant’s flower and stem resembled the head and bill of a crane. As such, they called the plant “craneberry”, which evolved into “cranberry”.

42 Country with the longest coastline : CANADA

Measurement of a country’s coastline is no trivial task. The coastline paradox tells us that measurements of a coastline’s length varies with the distance between points on the coastline at which measurements are taken. So, the length of coastline reported for countries around the world varies depending on the source. However, all sources seem to list Canada as the country with the longest coastline.

44 World’s busiest airport, on luggage tags : ATL

Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport is the world’s busiest airport, as measured by passenger traffic. Atlanta has had that distinction since 1998, and was the world’s busiest in terms of take-offs and landings from 2005 until 2013. Over 50% of Atlanta’s traffic comes from Delta Air Lines.

45 Layered cookies : OREOS

Oreo cookies actually come in a few flavors, but it takes some work to find them. For example, Green Tea Oreos are only available in China and Japan. Many flavors are only available for a limited time. For example, Watermelon Oreos were only sold in the summer of 2013, and Cookie Dough Oreos were only available in March 2014.

46 Taps horn : BUGLE

“Taps” is played nightly by the US military to indicate “lights out”. It’s also known as “Butterfield’s Lullaby” as it is a variation of an older bugle called the “Scott Tattoo”, arranged during the Civil War by the Union Army’s Brigadier General Daniel Butterfield. The tune is called “Taps”, from the notion of drum taps, as it was originally played on a drum, and only later on a bugle. The whole tune comprises just 24 notes, with there only being four different notes within the 24, i.e. “low G”, C, E and “high G”. Minimalism at its best …

49 Wrestler John : CENA

John Cena is a professional wrestler turned rapper and actor. Although wrestling, rapping and “Cena-style” movies wouldn’t be my cup of tea, I have to admire Cena’s philanthropic record. He holds the title for the most wishes granted by a single individual for the Make-A-Wish Foundation that benefits children with life-threatening medical conditions.

50 Tablet with Siri : IPAD

Siri is a software application that works with Apple’s iOS operating system. “Siri” is an acronym standing for Speech Interpretation and Recognition Interface. Voice-over artist Susan Bennett revealed herself as the female American voice of Siri a few years ago. The British version of Siri is called Daniel, and the Australian version is called Karen. Also, “Siri” is a Norwegian name meaning “beautiful woman who leads you to victory”, and was the name the developer had chosen for his first child.

51 “The Son of Man” painter Magritte : RENE

Belgian artist René Magritte was a surrealist. His most recognized work maybe is “The Son of Man”, a painting he created as a self-portrait. It is the work that shows a man in a bowler hat with his face covered by an apple. The image features prominently in a great movie, the 1999 remake of “The Thomas Crown Affair”.

52 Corp. bigwigs : CEOS

A bigwig is someone important. The use of the term “bigwig” harks back to the days when men of authority and rank wore … big wigs.

57 “Annabel Lee” poet : POE

“Annabel Lee” was the last complete poem written by Edgar Allan Poe. The opening lines are:

It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee;

The closing lines are:

And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling—my darling—my life and my bride,
In her sepulchre there by the sea—
In her tomb by the sounding sea.

Complete List of Clues/Answers

Across

1 Seer’s card : TAROT
6 On __: without a contract : SPEC
10 No. on an invoice : ACCT
14 When directed : ON CUE
15 Downtime : LULL
16 Cub or Brave, briefly : NL’ER
17 Lawman Earp : WYATT
18 Armory contents : AMMO
19 Like a slick garage floor : OILY
20 Stretched wall hangings : CANVAS PRINTS
23 … __ to grow on: extra birthday cake candle : AND ONE
26 Severe anxiety : ANGST
27 Semi-casual garment named for an Atlantic island : BERMUDA SHORTS
32 See 25-Down : … BREES
33 Words of empathy : I CARE
34 Cries of pain : YOWS
35 Leaves out : OMITS
36 Bottom of a ship : HULL
40 Cause abrasion : CHAFE
41 Leg bone : TIBIA
42 Major blood vessel in the neck : CAROTID ARTERY
45 21st-century president with a Nobel Peace Prize : OBAMA
47 Sparkly headwear : TIARAS
48 Waste one’s time … or what 20-, 27- and 42-Across contain? : RUN IN CIRCLES
53 “My goodness!” : EGAD!
54 Dueling blade : EPEE
55 Take potshots : SNIPE
59 Early automaker : OLDS
60 Billionth: Pref. : NANO-
61 Raptor’s claw : TALON
62 Senate spot : SEAT
63 Citrus drinks : ADES
64 Leered at : OGLED

Down

1 AAA job : TOW
2 At least one : ANY
3 Color TV pioneer : RCA
4 Results : OUTCOMES
5 The “T” in DPT : TETANUS
6 Croat, for one : SLAV
7 Mountain cat : PUMA
8 Shade trees : ELMS
9 Trotting sound : CLOP
10 Bless with oil : ANOINT
11 Holds on tight : CLINGS
12 Boston NBAers : CELTS
13 Private rendezvous : TRYST
21 Actor Beatty : NED
22 Like Flying Eagle pennies : RARE
23 First name in advice : ABBY
24 Fiddling emperor : NERO
25 With 32-Across, record-setting New Orleans Saints quarterback : DREW …
28 Set one’s sights on : AIM AT
29 Jules Verne genre : SCI-FI
30 Couldn’t stand : HATED
31 Hosp. areas : ORS
35 “Gotcha!” : OHO!
36 Ran into trouble : HIT A SNAG
37 Lyft alternative : UBER
38 Turkish money : LIRA
39 Potato chip brand : LAY’S
40 Prefix with berry : CRAN-
41 Gives it a go : TRIES TO
42 Country with the longest coastline : CANADA
43 In the thick of : AMIDST
44 World’s busiest airport, on luggage tags : ATL
45 Layered cookies : OREOS
46 Taps horn : BUGLE
49 Wrestler John : CENA
50 Tablet with Siri : IPAD
51 “The Son of Man” painter Magritte : RENE
52 Corp. bigwigs : CEOS
56 Under the weather : ILL
57 “Annabel Lee” poet : POE
58 Coincidentally and aptly, it was also yesterday’s last Down answer : END