LA Times Crossword Answers 4 Aug 2018, Saturday

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

Today’s Theme: None

Bill’s time: 12m 29s

Bill’s errors: 2

  • SAL (sel!!!)
  • AREPA (arepe)

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Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

5. Hooded African menace : MAMBA

Mambas, and most famously black mambas, are highly venomous snakes that used to be responsible for a great number of fatalities before anti-venoms became available. Mamba venom is a deadly mix of neurotoxins that attack the nervous system and cardiotoxins that attack the heart. A bite, if left untreated, causes the lungs and the heart to shut down.

13. Put on board : LADE

The verb “to lade” meaning “to load” comes from an Old English word “hladan”. “Lade” also used to mean “draw water” and indeed gave us our word “ladle”. So “lade” and “ladle” are close cousins.

14. Girl Sebastian is referring to in the song “Kiss the Girl” : ARIEL

“Kiss the Girl” is a song from the 1989 Disney animated film “The Little Mermaid”. Nominated for the Best Original Song Oscar and Golden Globe, “Kiss the Girl” lost out to “Under the Sea”, which is also on “The Little Mermaid” soundtrack.

“The Little Mermaid” is a 1989 animated feature from Disney that is based on the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale of the same name. It tells the story of a mermaid princess named Ariel who falls in love with the human Prince Eric. Ariel’s father is chief merman King Triton. Her best friend is Flounder, who despite his name is not a flounder at all and is actually a tropical fish. Ariel is also friends with Sebastian, a red Jamaican crab whose full name is Horatio Thelonious Ignacious Crustaceous Sebastian.

16. Walks caused by walks, perhaps? : TRIPS TO THE MOUND

That would be baseball.

22. “Battle of the Sexes” co-star : EMMA STONE

The actress Emma Stone is from Scottsdale, Arizona. Stone really came to prominence with her performance in the 2010 high school movie called “Easy A”. She won the Best Actress Oscar for her performance in the 2016 movie “La La Land”. Now one of the most sought-after actresses in Hollywood, Stone values her privacy and works hard to maintain a low profile. Good for her, I say …

The 2017 film “Battle of the Sexes” is a fictional account of the famous 1973 tennis match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs. In the movie, King is portrayed by Emma Stone, and Riggs by Steve Carell. Stone and Carell had body doubles for the tennis scenes. Stone’s double was Kaitlyn Christian, and Carell’s double was Vince Spadea.

30. Graham who co-founded The Hollies : NASH

Graham Nash is a singer-songwriter from England. Nash is famous as one of the founders of the Hollies, and as a member of the supergroup Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young.

The Hollies are a great pop group from Manchester in the north of England. The band formed in 1962 and had big hits in the late sixties and early seventies. The list of songs from the Hollies includes classics like “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother”, “Carrie Anne”, “Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress” and “The Air That I Breathe”.

34. 11th-century navigator : ERICSON

Leif Erikson was a Norse explorer and the first European to land in North America, some 500 years before Christopher Columbus’s landing in 1492. The Norsemen named the area they discovered “Vinland”, which might translate as “Wine Land” or “Pasture Land”. Erikson built a small settlement called Leifsbudir, which archaeologists believe they have found in modern day Newfoundland, at L’Anse aux Meadows. The settlement discovered in Newfoundland is definitely Norse, but there is some dispute over whether it is actually Erikson’s Leifsbudir.

36. Occasion to spiff up : HOT DATE

A spiff is a well-dressed man.

39. Mother of the Titans : GAEA

The Greek goddess personifying the earth was Gaea (meaning “land” or “earth” in Greek). The Roman equivalent goddess was Terra Mater, “Mother Earth”.

The Titans were a group of twelve older deities in Greek mythology, the twelve children of the primordial Gaia and Uranus, Mother Earth and Father Sky. In the celebrated Battle of the Titans, they were overthrown by the Olympians, who were twelve younger gods. We use the term “titan” figuratively to describe a powerful person, someone with great influence.

40. App with pics, familiarly : INSTA

Instagram is a photo-sharing application, one that is extremely popular. Instagram was started in San Francisco in 2010. Facebook purchased Instagram two years later, paying $1 billion. The billion-dollar Instagram company had just 13 employees at the time of the sale …

42. Light color : RED

The first traffic lights date back to 1868 when they were installed outside the Houses of Parliament in London. They resembled the signals already in use for trains, with semaphore arms and red and green gas lamps for nighttime use. That first system was operated manually, by a policeman at the base. Sadly, one police officer was killed, just one year after the light’s installation, when the gas system exploded.

43. Cozumel coins : PESOS

Cozumel is an island in the Caribbean of the coast of the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico. It is a tourist destination, and is especially attractive to scuba divers. My son and I spent a great week there diving some years ago.

52. Oct. 2017 Dodgers-Cubs matchup : NLCS

The National League Championship Series (NLCS) is a round of postseason games played by teams from Major League Baseball’s National League to determine which team will go to the World Series.

61. “Hamilton” Tony winner Leslie __ Jr. : ODOM

Leslie Odom Jr. is the actor and singer who is originated the role of Aaron Burr in “Hamilton” on Broadway.

62. Cantina condiment : SAL

In Spanish, one might find “sal” (salt) on the table in a “cantina” (canteen, cafe).

63. Convenient app for some drivers : EPARK

epark is pay-by-phone parking app.

64. Scandinavian capital : OSLO

Oslo is the capital of Norway. The city of Oslo burns trash to fuel half of its buildings, including all of its schools. The problem faced by the city is that it doesn’t generate enough trash. So, Oslo imports trash from Sweden, England and Ireland, and is now looking to import some American trash too.

Down

1. Baja’s opposite : ALTA

In Spanish, “baja” is “low” and “alta” is “high”.

2. Creamy pasta dish : CARBONARA

A carbonara pasta dish includes a sauce made with eggs, cheese, bacon and black pepper. Apparently, the name of the dish is derived from “carbonaro”, the Italian for “charcoal burner”. One suggestion is that it was first made for Italian charcoal workers in the mid-1900s.

5. Drudge online : MATT

Matt Drudge came to fame along with the website he founded called the “Drudge Report”. The “Drudge Report” is a news aggregation site, mainly made up of links to stories published by the world media. The “Drudge Report” hit the big time in 1998 when it was first to report on the Lewinsky scandal, after “Newsweek” allegedly refused to run the story.

7. Sch. in the 2008 film “21” : MIT

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) was founded in 1861 and first offered classes in 1865, in the Mercantile building in Boston. Today’s magnificent campus on the banks of the Charles River in Cambridge opened in 1916.

“21” is a very entertaining 2008 film based on the Ben Mezrich book “Bringing Down the House”. Both movie and book are inspired by the true story of a team of the MIT Blackjack Team, a group of students who used card counting and other techniques to beat casinos at blackjack.

8. Monstrous creatures : BEHEMOTHS

A behemoth is something that is huge in size. The term comes from the Hebrew word “b’hemoth”, which is a beast described in the Book of Job. It is suggested that the Biblical creature is an elephant, hippopotamus, rhinoceros, crocodile or perhaps something mythical.

10. Mars in music : BRUNO

Bruno Mars is a singer-songwriter from Honolulu who has been active in the music business since 2006. “Bruno Mars” is a stage name, as Mars was born Peter Hernandez.

11. Journalist Farrow : RONAN

Ronan Farrow is a former US government advisor in the Obama administration who hosted “Ronan Farrow Daily” on MSNBC from 2014 to 1025. Farrow is the son of actress Mia Farrow and filmmaker Woody Allen. Ronan is estranged from his father, ever since Allen started a relationship with Mia Farrow’s adopted daughter Soon-Yi Previn, who is now Allen’s wife.

18. Private meal? : MESS

“Mess” first came into English about 1300, when it described the list of food needed for a meal. The term comes from the Old French word “mes” meaning a portion of food or a course at a meal. This usage in English evolved into “mess” meaning a jumbled mass of anything, from the concept of “mixed food”. The original usage, in the sense of a food for a meal, surfaced again in the military in the 1500s when a “mess” was a communal eating place.

23. Mic holders : MCS

The term “emcee” comes from “MC”, an initialism used for a Master or Mistress of Ceremonies.

25. Shih-__: mixed breed : POO

The designer dog known as a Shih-poo is a cross between a poodle and Shih Tzu.

31. Holdings for many seniors : AARP CARDS

“AARP” is now the official name for the interest group that used to be called the American Association of Retired Persons. The name change reflects the current focus of the group on all Americans aged 50 or over, as opposed to just people who have retired.

33. Lamarr of “Boom Town” : HEDY

Hedy Lamarr was an American actress who was actually born in Vienna in modern-day Austria. Not only was Lamarr a successful Hollywood performer, during WWII she was the co-inventor of the frequency-hopping spread-spectrum method of transmitting radio signals that is still used to this day in wireless communication. Impressive …

“Boom Town” is a 1940 movie with a great cast, namely Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy, Claudette Colbert and Hedy Lamarr. Gable and Tracey play oilmen who go through a series of booms and busts.

35. One side of New England’s Bourne Bridge : CAPE COD

The Bourne Bridge in Bourne, Massachusetts opened in 1935. Spanning the Cape Cod Canal, the bridge connects Cape Cod with the rest of the state.

37. Some NBA periods : OTS

Overtime (OT)

38. Red wine substance : TANNIN

Some red wines and teas can have an astringent taste, a dry and puckering feeling, because of the presence of tannins. Tannins occur naturally in plants, probably as a defensive measure against predators who shy away from the astringent. The word “tannin” comes from an Old German word for oak or fir tree, as in “Tannenbaum”.

41. Govt. code crackers : NSA

National Security Agency (NSA)

44. Hairy Genesis son : ESAU

Esau was the twin brother of Jacob, the founder of the Israelites. When their mother Rebekah gave birth to the twins “the first emerged red and hairy all over (Esau), with his heel grasped by the hand of the second to come out (Jacob)”. As Esau was the first born, he was entitled to inherit his father’s wealth (it was his “birthright”). Instead, Esau sold his birthright to Jacob for the price of a “mess of pottage” (a meal of lentils).

45. “Being and Nothingness” author : SARTRE

Jean-Paul Sartre wrote the philosophical treatise “L’Etre et le neant” in 1943. The title translates as “Being and Nothingness”.

Jean-Paul Sartre was a leading French philosopher, as well as a writer and political activist. Sartre also served with the French army during WWII and spent nine months as a prisoner of war having been captured by German troops. He was one of the few people to have been awarded a Nobel Prize and to have then refused to accept it. Sartre was named winner of the prize for Literature in 1964, for his first novel “Nausea”. Before his win, Sartre knew that his name was on the list of nominees so he wrote to the Nobel Institute and asked to be withdrawn from consideration. The letter somehow went unread, so he found himself having to refuse the award after he had been selected.

48. Forum wardrobe : TOGAS

In Ancient Rome, the classical attire known as a toga (plural “togae” or “togas”) was usually worn over a tunic. The tunic was made from linen, and the toga itself was a piece of cloth about twenty feet long made from wool. The toga could only be worn by men, and only if those men were Roman citizens. The female equivalent of the toga was called a “stola”.

The Latin “forum” (plural “fora”) translates as “marketplace, town square”. “The Roman Forum” is the most famous example of such a space. The Forum is at the heart of the city of Rome is surrounded by the ruins of several ancient government buildings, and has been referred to as the most celebrated meeting place in the world.

49. South American cornmeal cake : AREPA

Arepa is a cornmeal cake or bread that is popular in Colombian and Venezuelan cuisine in particular. Each arepa has a flat, round shape and is often split to make a sandwich.

50. __ One: vodka brand : KETEL

Ketel One is a brand of vodka from the Netherlands. The vodka is distilled from wheat in copper pot stills, and “ketel” is Dutch for “pot still, kettle”.

51. Harness race horse : PACER

In harness racing, the horses race using one of two specific gaits, i.e. trotting or pacing.

55. 1981 TV groom : MORK

“Mork & Mindy” is a sitcom that originally aired from 1978 to 1982. The title characters were played by Robin Williams and Pam Dawber. Mork is an alien from the planet Ork who reports back to his superior called Orson. Orson is played by voice actor Ralph James. Ralph James was also known for providing the voice of Mr. Turtle in famous Tootsie Pop commercials in the seventies. Nanu nanu!

56. Ticklish doll : ELMO

The toy called Tickle Me Elmo was a sensational fad in the late nineties, with stores raising prices dramatically above the recommended retail price to take advantage of demand. Reportedly, prices as high as $1500 were paid at the height of the craze. The toy’s manufacturer, Tyco, originally planned to market the “tickle” toy as Tickle Me Tasmanian Devil (after the “Looney Tunes” character), but then went with “Elmo” after they bought the rights to use “Sesame Street” names.

58. Grapefruit League locale: Abbr. : FLA

Professional baseball team head to Arizona and Florida for spring training. Arizona-training teams are collectively referred to as the Cactus League, and the teams in Florida are known as the Grapefruit League.

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Complete List of Clues/Answers

Across

1. Biting : ACID
5. Hooded African menace : MAMBA
10. One may be strapless : BRA
13. Put on board : LADE
14. Girl Sebastian is referring to in the song “Kiss the Girl” : ARIEL
15. Poke : PROD
16. Walks caused by walks, perhaps? : TRIPS TO THE MOUND
19. Snatches : ABDUCTS
20. Always there : ETERNAL
21. Aware of : ONTO
22. “Battle of the Sexes” co-star : EMMA STONE
24. Dealer’s order : ANTE UP
26. Small grove : COPSE
27. Close one : PAL
28. Fowl pole : ROOST
30. Graham who co-founded The Hollies : NASH
34. 11th-century navigator : ERICSON
36. Occasion to spiff up : HOT DATE
39. Mother of the Titans : GAEA
40. App with pics, familiarly : INSTA
42. Light color : RED
43. Cozumel coins : PESOS
46. Impatient : SNAPPY
48. Rests : TAKES A NAP
52. Oct. 2017 Dodgers-Cubs matchup : NLCS
53. Mine carriers : ORE CARS
54. “Did it start already?” : AM I LATE?
57. Lose it : GET OUT OF CONTROL
59. Imitated : APED
60. King, e.g. : RULER
61. “Hamilton” Tony winner Leslie __ Jr. : ODOM
62. Cantina condiment : SAL
63. Convenient app for some drivers : EPARK
64. Scandinavian capital : OSLO

Down

1. Baja’s opposite : ALTA
2. Creamy pasta dish : CARBONARA
3. “That was a fact!” : I DIDN’T LIE!
4. Appoint as a posse member, say : DEPUTE
5. Drudge online : MATT
6. Cropped up : AROSE
7. Sch. in the 2008 film “21” : MIT
8. Monstrous creatures : BEHEMOTHS
9. Microbrewery fixture : ALE TAP
10. Mars in music : BRUNO
11. Journalist Farrow : RONAN
12. Puzzle : ADDLE
15. Presage : PORTEND
17. Rubs clean : SCOURS
18. Private meal? : MESS
23. Mic holders : MCS
24. Take down __ : A PEG
25. Shih-__: mixed breed : POO
29. Introductory French course : ONION SOUP
31. Holdings for many seniors : AARP CARDS
32. Aid in changing a light bulb : STEP STOOL
33. Lamarr of “Boom Town” : HEDY
35. One side of New England’s Bourne Bridge : CAPE COD
37. Some NBA periods : OTS
38. Red wine substance : TANNIN
41. Govt. code crackers : NSA
44. Hairy Genesis son : ESAU
45. “Being and Nothingness” author : SARTRE
47. Overly : ALL TOO
48. Forum wardrobe : TOGAS
49. South American cornmeal cake : AREPA
50. __ One: vodka brand : KETEL
51. Harness race horse : PACER
55. 1981 TV groom : MORK
56. Ticklish doll : ELMO
58. Grapefruit League locale: Abbr. : FLA

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