LA Times Crossword 20 Dec 18, Thursday

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Constructed by: Frank Virzi
Edited by: Rich Norris

Today’s Reveal Answer: Top Dollar

Themed answers are in the down-direction. The TOP of those answers, the first word, is a familiar term used for a DOLLAR:

  • 35D. Highest price, and what five Down answers have : TOP DOLLAR
  • 3D. Uncovered, in a way : BUCK-NAKED
  • 6D. Grade-school formation : SINGLE FILE
  • 9D. Personal, as a talk : ONE-TO-ONE
  • 31D. Political commentator who wrote “Men at Work: The Craft of Baseball” : GEORGE WILL
  • 39D. Beach cookout : CLAMBAKE

Bill’s time: 8m 12s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

5. Car ad fig. : MSRP

Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price (MSRP)

9. Poppy extract : OPIUM

The opium poppy is the source of the narcotic alkaloids known as opiates. To produce opiates, the latex sap of the opium poppy is collected and processed. The naturally-occurring drugs of morphine and codeine can both be extracted from the sap. Some synthesis is required to make derivative drugs like heroin and oxycodone.

15. Cambodian cash : RIEL

The Cambodian riel was introduced in 1953, and was taken out of circulation by the Khmer Rouge in 1975 when they completely abolished money on taking control of the country. After the Vietnamese invasion of 1978, money was reintroduced and the Cambodian people are still using the “second” riel. The original riel was divided into 100 centimes, but this was changed to 100 “sen” in 1959.

16. Italian grandma : NONNA

“Nonna” is Italian for “grandmother”.

17. West Coast gas acronym : ARCO

The company name “ARCO” is an acronym standing for “Atlantic Richfield Company”. One of ARCO’s claims to fame is that it is responsible for the nation’s largest Superfund site. Mining and smelting in the area around Butte, Montana polluted the region’s water and soil, and ARCO have agreed to pay $187 million to help clean up the area.

20. Kipling’s Rikki-__-Tavi : TIKKI

In Rudyard Kipling’s “The Jungle Book”, one of the short stories is titled “Rikki-Tikki-Tavi”, the story about a mongoose, the brave pet of an English family that protects them from a succession of snakes.

22. __ Dane : GREAT

The Great Dane breed of dog isn’t actually from Denmark, and rather is from Germany.

23. Familia member : TIA

In Spanish, the “hermana” (sister) of your “padre” (father) is your “tia” (aunt).

32. Ararat lander : ARK

Mount Ararat is in Turkey. Ararat is a snow-capped, dormant volcano with two peaks. The higher of the two, Greater Ararat, is the tallest peak in the country. Ararat takes its name from a legendary Armenian hero called Ara the Beautiful (or Ara the Handsome). According to the Book of Genesis, Noah’s ark landed on Mount Ararat as the Great Flood subsided.

33. “__ be married, / My grave is like to be my wedding bed”: Juliet : IF HE

In William Shakespeare’s play “Romeo and Juliet”, when Juliet first sets eyes on Romeo she says:

If he be marrièd
My grave is like to be my wedding bed.

So, before she even knows his name, Juliet has fallen in love with Romeo. She states rather dramatically, that if he is already married, then she will die. And of course, by the play’s end, Juliet does indeed go to her grave.

34. Potentially offensive, briefly : NOT PC

To be un-PC is to be politically incorrect, not be politically correct (PC).

39. MDX ÷ X : CLI

In Roman numerals, MDX ÷ X (1510 ÷ 10) equals CLI (151).

43. Feature of some Gene Autry songs : YODEL

Gene Autry was a so-called singing cowboy who had an incredibly successful career on radio, television and in films starting in the thirties. Autry’s signature song was “Back in the Saddle Again”, and his biggest hit was “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”. He also had a hit with his own Christmas song called “Here Comes Santa Claus”. There’s even a town in Oklahoma called Gene Autry, named in his honor. Famously, Autry owned the Los Angeles Angels baseball team for many years, from 1961 to 1997.

45. Pasternak heroine : LARA

The heroine of Boris Pasternak’s epic novel “Doctor Zhivago” is Lara. The Lara character was inspired by Pasternak’s mistress Olga Ivinskaya.

47. “An everyday spud is a commentator,” e.g. : PUN

An everyday spud is a “common tater”.

48. Super Soaker, e.g. : WATER GUN

The Super Soaker brand of water gun first went on sale in toy shops in 1989. Since then, over a billion dollars worth of Super Soakers have been sold.

51. It starts in Mar. : DST

On the other side of the Atlantic, daylight saving time (DST) is known as “summer time”. The idea behind summer/daylight-savings is to move clocks forward an hour in spring (“spring forward”), and backwards in the fall (“fall back”) so that afternoons have more daylight. Here in the US, DST starts on the second Sunday of March, and ends on the the first Sunday of November.

52. Distressed damsel’s cry : SAVE ME!

A damsel is a young woman, and often a lady of noble birth. The term “damsel” came into English from the Old French “dameisele”, which had the same meaning. The modern French term is “demoiselle”, which in turn is related to the term of address “mademoiselle”.

57. Takeout menu general : TSO

General Tso’s chicken is an American creation, and a dish often found on the menu of a Chinese restaurant. The name General Tso may be a reference to General Zuo Zongtang of the Qing Dynasty, but there is no clear link.

63. Too high for people to catch? : ULTRASONIC

“Ultrasound” is the name given to sound energy that has frequencies above the audible range.

67. Jacobi of “Murder on the Orient Express” (2017) : DEREK

Derek Jacobi is an English actor, and a holder of a knighthood. Although Jacobi is mainly a stage actor, the role I most associate him with is the title character in the marvelous television adaptation of Robert Graves’ “I, Claudius”.

“Murder on the Orient Express” is a 2017 film adaptation of the great Agatha Christie novel published in 1934. It is very much a Kenneth Branagh project, as he directs and stars as the Belgian detective Hercule Poirot. At the end of the movie, Poirot receives a message asking him to investigate a “death on the Nile”. That’s a reference to a sequel, with Branagh Poirot in an adaptation of the Christie novel “Death on the Nile”.

68. UNC Chapel __ : HILL

The University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill started enrolling students way back in 1795, making it the oldest public university in the country, i.e. the first to enrol students.

69. Shakespearean schemer : IAGO

Iago is the schemer in Shakespeare’s “Othello”. He is a soldier who fought alongside Othello and feels hard done by, missing out on promotion. Iago hatches a plot designed to discredit his rival Cassio by insinuating that Cassio is having an affair with Desdemona, Othello’s wife.

70. Nobel, for one : SWEDE

Alfred Nobel was a Swedish chemist and businessman. Nobel is famous for the invention of dynamite during his lifetime, as well as for instituting the Nobel Prizes by providing the necessary funds in his will.

71. Rights org. : ACLU

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has its roots in the First World War when it was founded to provide legal advice and support to conscientious objectors. The ACLU’s motto is “Because Freedom Can’t Protect Itself”. The ACLU also hosts a blog on the ACLU.org website called “Speak Freely”.

72. 1990s-2010s slugging nickname : A-ROD

Baseball player Alex Rodriguez, nicknamed “A-Rod”, broke a lot of records in his career, albeit under a shroud of controversy due to his use of illegal performance-enhancing drugs. When he signed a 10-year contract with the Texas Rangers for $252 million in 2000, it was the most lucrative contract in sports history. In 2007, Rodriguez signed an even more lucrative 10-year contract with the New York Yankees, worth $275 million. Rodriguez retired in 2016.

Down

1. Californie or Floride : ETAT

In French, “Californie” (California) is an “état” (state), as is “Floride” (Florida)

2. Italian port : BARI

Bari is a major port city on the Adriatic coast of Italy. Bari has the unfortunate distinction of being the only city in Europe to experience chemical warfare during WWII. Allied stores of mustard gas were released during a German bombing raid on Bari in 1943. Fatalities caused by the chemical agent were reported as 69, although other reports list the number as maybe a thousand military personnel and a thousand civilians.

3. Uncovered, in a way : BUCK-NAKED

Apparently the term “buck-naked” is just a polite way of saying “butt-naked”, and has nothing to do with a buck at all.

5. Hosp. test : MRI

An MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) machine uses powerful magnetic fields to generate its images so there is no exposure to ionizing radiation (such as X-rays). We used MRI equipment in our chemistry labs at school, way back in the days when the technology was still called Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Imaging (NMRI). Apparently the marketing folks didn’t like the term “nuclear” because of its association with atomic bombs, so now it’s just called MRI.

7. Browser button with a curved arrow icon : REFRESH

A web browser is a piece of software used to access the World Wide Web. The first web browser was called “WorldWideWeb” and was invented in 1990 by Tim Berners-Lee, the man who created the World Wide Web. The browser known as Mosaic came out in 1993, and it was this browser that drove so much interest in the World Wide Web, and indeed in the Internet in general. Marc Andreessen led the team that created Mosaic, and he then set up his own company called Netscape. Netscape created the Netscape Navigator browser that further popularized the use of the Web starting in 1994. Microsoft responded by introducing Internet Explorer in 1995, which sparked the so-called “browser war”, a war that Microsoft clearly won. As Netscape floundered, the company launched the open-source Mozilla project which eventually led to the Firefox browser. Apple then came out with it’s own Safari browser in 2003. Google’s Chrome browser, introduced in 2008, is by far the most popular way to view the Web today.

8. Move in a tutu : PLIE

The French word for “bent” is “plié”. In the ballet move known as a plié, the knees are bent. A “demi-plié” is a similar move, but with less bending of the knees.

The word “tutu”, used for a ballet dancer’s skirt, is actually a somewhat “naughty” term. It came into English from French in the early 20th century. The French “tutu” is an alteration of the word “cucu”, a childish word meaning “bottom, backside”.

10. Party pro : POL

Politician (pol)

11. Monogram ltrs. : INITS

A monogram is a design with two or more letters intertwined or combined in some way to make a single symbol. The term “monogram” comes from the Greek “mono” meaning “single” and “gramma” meaning “letter”.

13. Uxmal inhabitants : MAYAS

Uxmal is an ancient Maya city located in present-day Yucatán, Mexico. The most famous structure still standing in Uxmal is the Pyramid of the Magician, a Mesoamerican step pyramid that is over 130 feet tall.

19. Five-O nickname : DANO

Danny Williams is a character on the TV show “Hawaii Five-O”, both in the original version that first aired in 1968 and in the remake that was first broadcast in 2010. The original “Danno” is played by James McArthur. In the remake, Danno is played by Scott Caan, son of Hollywood actor James Caan. Book him, Danno!

29. McFlurry flavor : OREO

A McFlurry is an ice cream dessert served McDonald’s restaurants. A McFlurry is made from soft-serve ice cream to which are added crushed candy bars or cookies. Cleverly, a McFlurry is mixed on a machine with the mixing blade then doubling as a spoon with which one eats it.

31. Political commentator who wrote “Men at Work: The Craft of Baseball” : GEORGE WILL

George Will is a journalist and author who is noted for his conservative political commentary. Outside the world of politics, Will is a big baseball fan and wrote the bestseller “Men at Work: The Craft of Baseball”.

41. Songwriter with John : PAUL

John Lennon and Paul McCartney made an agreement before they became famous that they would always give joint credit for their songs. In the early days, the duo wrote their songs together, working alongside each other. Soon they would write songs individually, with one giving the other limited input. Regardless, the Lennon-McCartney attribution was used for all the songs they wrote either individually or together right up to 1974. The partnership was officially dissolved in December 1974, in the Polynesian Resort in Walt Disney World, Florida. There, John Lennon put his signature to official documents couriered to him by Apple’s lawyers (Apple being the Beatles record label).

46. Poison in some whodunits : ARSENIC

Arsenic is element #33 in the periodic table, and has the chemical symbol “As”. Because of arsenic’s toxicity, it was very commonly used in pesticides. These compounds are getting banned over time, but it seems there is a long way to go. Arsenic in aquifers continues to be a problem around the world, including here in the US. China has introduced limits to the amounts of arsenic permitted in food as well as water, mainly as the Chinese staple rice is particularly good at accumulating arsenic from groundwater.

49. Tight ends? : TEES

There are two letters T in the word “tight”, one at either end.

50. Viet Cong org. : NLF

During the Vietnam War, the political organization opposing the US and South Vietnamese governments was the National Liberation Front (NLF). The NLF was referred to as “Viet Cong” by the Western media, which is a contraction of “Viet Nam Cong-san” meaning “Vietnamese communist”.

53. Heaps : A SLEW

Our usage of “slew” to mean “large number” has nothing to do with the verb “to slew” meaning “to turn, skid”. The noun “slew” come into English in the early 1800s from the Irish word “sluagh” meaning “host, crowd, multitude”.

54. “À __ santé!” : VOTRE

“À votre santé” is French for “to your health”. Cheers!

56. Calf neighbor : 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.

59. Persian Gulf capital : DOHA

Doha is the capital city of the Persian Gulf state of Qatar. The name “Doha” translates from Arabic as “the big tree”.

61. Mar-a-__: Florida estate : LAGO

Mar-a-Lago is resort in Palm Beach, Florida that was built in the 1920s by Marjorie Merriweather Post, the only child and heiress to the fortune accumulated by cereal manufacturer C. W. Post. The name “Mar-a-Lago” translates from Spanish as “Sea-to-Lake”, and is a reference to the fact that property extends from the Atlantic Ocean to the Lake Worth Lagoon, which is part of the Intracoastal Waterway. When Post died in 1973, she willed it to the US government for use as a Winter White House. The federal government returned the resort to the Post Foundation ten years later due to the high cost of maintenance and difficulties in maintaining security. Donald Trump purchased Mar-a-Lago in 1985, and the resort finally became an alternative to the White House after he was became US president.

65. Gulager of “The Virginian” : CLU

Clu Gulager is a television and film actor. He is best known for playing Billy the Kid in the TV show “The Tall Man” in the early sixties, and then for playing Emmett Ryker in “The Virginian” in the late sixties.

“The Virginian” is a Western TV series that first aired from 1962 until 1971. The show was loosely based on a 1902 novel by Owen Wister titled “The Virginian: Horseman of the Plains”. The title character, played by James Drury, was never given a real name. The character with the most recognizable name was the cowboy Trampas, who was played by doug McClure.

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Complete List of Clues/Answers

Across

1. Goes out : EBBS
5. Car ad fig. : MSRP
9. Poppy extract : OPIUM
14. Stretched to the max : TAUT
15. Cambodian cash : RIEL
16. Italian grandma : NONNA
17. West Coast gas acronym : ARCO
18. Violation of trust : INFIDELITY
20. Kipling’s Rikki-__-Tavi : TIKKI
22. __ Dane : GREAT
23. Familia member : TIA
24. Really get to : NETTLE
26. Beeps and peeps : NOISES
28. Fluffy neckwear : BOA
30. Acts charitably : DOES GOOD
32. Ararat lander : ARK
33. “__ be married, / My grave is like to be my wedding bed”: Juliet : IF HE
34. Potentially offensive, briefly : NOT PC
38. Bumbling one : BEE
39. MDX ÷ X : CLI
40. Unlock, in verse : OPE
42. Bit of soccer support : OLE!
43. Feature of some Gene Autry songs : YODEL
45. Pasternak heroine : LARA
47. “An everyday spud is a commentator,” e.g. : PUN
48. Super Soaker, e.g. : WATER GUN
51. It starts in Mar. : DST
52. Distressed damsel’s cry : SAVE ME!
55. Do business with : SELL TO
57. Takeout menu general : TSO
58. Moisten : BEDEW
60. Tops off : FILLS
63. Too high for people to catch? : ULTRASONIC
66. Meh : BLAH
67. Jacobi of “Murder on the Orient Express” (2017) : DEREK
68. UNC Chapel __ : HILL
69. Shakespearean schemer : IAGO
70. Nobel, for one : SWEDE
71. Rights org. : ACLU
72. 1990s-2010s slugging nickname : A-ROD

Down

1. Californie or Floride : ETAT
2. Italian port : BARI
3. Uncovered, in a way : BUCK-NAKED
4. Stir up : STOKE
5. Hosp. test : MRI
6. Grade-school formation : SINGLE FILE
7. Browser button with a curved arrow icon : REFRESH
8. Move in a tutu : PLIE
9. Personal, as a talk : ONE-TO-ONE
10. Party pro : POL
11. Monogram ltrs. : INITS
12. Loosen, as laces : UNTIE
13. Uxmal inhabitants : MAYAS
19. Five-O nickname : DANO
21. “__ be an honor!” : IT’D
25. Work up a sweat : TOIL
27. Altar words : I DO
28. Treat with supreme care : BABY
29. McFlurry flavor : OREO
31. Political commentator who wrote “Men at Work: The Craft of Baseball” : GEORGE WILL
35. Highest price, and what five Down answers have : TOP DOLLAR
36. + : PLUS
37. Lowest price : CENT
39. Beach cookout : CLAMBAKE
41. Songwriter with John : PAUL
44. Girl in a pasture : EWE
46. Poison in some whodunits : ARSENIC
49. Tight ends? : TEES
50. Viet Cong org. : NLF
52. Small earrings : STUDS
53. Heaps : A SLEW
54. “À __ santé!” : VOTRE
56. Calf neighbor : TIBIA
59. Persian Gulf capital : DOHA
61. Mar-a-__: Florida estate : LAGO
62. Flip-flopped? : SHOD
64. Rosy : RED
65. Gulager of “The Virginian” : CLU

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