LA Times Crossword 16 Aug 21, Monday

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Constructed by: Kurt Krauss
Edited by: Rich Norris

Today’s Reveal Answer: Playmates

Themed answers each start with a word that often is MATED with (follows) “PLAY”:

  • 66A Sandbox sharers … and a hint to the starts of the answers to starred clues : PLAYMATES
  • 17A *Vacation condo, perhaps : TIMESHARE (giving “playtime”)
  • 21A *Foldable whittling tools : PENKNIVES (giving “playpen”)
  • 33A *Nickname for Batman’s Robin : BOY WONDER (giving “playboy”)
  • 46A *News article starters : DATELINES (giving “play date”)
  • 59A *Roadside ad medium : BILLBOARD (giving “playbill”)

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

Bill’s time: 4m 40s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1 Delhi dress : SARI

New Delhi is the capital city of India. New Delhi resides within the National Capital Territory of Delhi (otherwise known as the metropolis of Delhi). New Delhi and Delhi, therefore, are two different things.

9 Morocco’s capital : RABAT

Rabat is the capital city of the Kingdom of Morocco. After WWII, the United States maintained a major Air Force Base in Rabat, part of Strategic Air Command (SAC). Responding to pressure from the Moroccan government of King Mohammed V, the USAF pulled out in 1963.

16 Primer mes del calendario : ENERO

In Spanish, the “primer mes del calendario” (first month of the calendar) is “enero” (January).

17 *Vacation condo, perhaps : TIMESHARE (giving “playtime”)

The terms “condominium” and “apartment” tend to describe the same type of residential property, namely a private living space with facilities shared with others residing in the same building or complex. The difference is that a condominium is usually owned, and an apartment is rented. At least that’s how it is in the US. The word “condominium” comes from the Latin “com-” (together) and “dominum” (right of ownership).

19 French states : ETATS

In French, an “état” (state) is an “entité politique” (political entity).

20 Crème de la crème : A-LIST

The crème de la crème are the elite, the best of the best. The term “crème de la crème” is French, and translates as “cream of the cream”.

21 *Foldable whittling tools : PENKNIVES (giving “playpen”)

Quills have been used as writing implements since the 6th century. Historically, goose, swan and turkey feathers have been the quills of choice. A bird’s feather is well suited for writing, as the hollow shaft acts as a reservoir for ink which then flows to the tip due to capillary action. Choice of feather is important. Right-handed writers are best served by feathers from the left wing, as the feather curves away from the palm of the hand when writing. The tip of the quill is sharpened using a “quill knife”. This quill knife is the ancestor of what we know today as a “penknife”.

33 *Nickname for Batman’s Robin : BOY WONDER (giving “playboy”)

Batman is sometimes referred to as the Caped Crusader, Robin as the Boy Wonder, and the pair as the Dynamic Duo.

39 Concrete support rod : REBAR

A steel bar or mesh used to reinforce concrete is called “rebar”, which is short for “reinforcing bar”.

40 Poet Khayyám : OMAR

Omar Khayyám was a Persian with many talents. He was a poet as well as an important mathematician, astronomer and physician. A selection of his poems were translated by one Edward Fitzgerald in a collection called “Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám”. Here are some famous lines from that collection:

Here with a Loaf of Bread beneath the Bough,
A Flask of Wine, a Book of Verse — and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness —
And Wilderness is Paradise enow.

41 Leaf under a petal : SEPAL

In a flower, the sepals are the green, leaf-like structures that are “interleaved” with the petals, providing support. Prior to acting as support for the petals, the sepals protect the flower in bud.

43 Double Dutch need : ROPE

Double Dutch is a skipping game that uses two jump ropes that are turned in opposite directions.

44 Scrabble pieces : TILES

The game of Scrabble has been produced in many international versions, and each of these editions has its own tile distribution to suit the local language. For example, in English we have two tiles worth ten points: one “Q” and one “Z”. If you play the game in French then there are five tiles worth ten points: one “K”, one “W”, one “X”, one “Y” and one “Z”.

48 Artery inserts : STENTS

In the world of surgical medicine, a stent is an artificial tube inserted inside a vessel in the body, say an artery, in order to reduce the effects of a local restriction in the body’s conduit.

50 Caribbean or Aegean : SEA

The Caribbean Sea takes its name from the Island Carib people. The Island Caribs are an American Indian people that live in the Lesser Antilles islands, part of the West Indies.

The Aegean Sea is that part of the Mediterranean that lies between Greece and Turkey. Within the Aegean Sea are found the Aegean Islands, a group that includes Crete and Rhodes.

51 Guthrie of folk : ARLO

Singer Arlo Guthrie is known for his protest songs, just like his father Woody Guthrie. The younger Guthrie only ever had one song in the top 40: a cover version of “City of New Orleans”. He has lived for years in the town of Washington, just outside Pittsfield, Massachusetts. His 1976 song “Massachusetts” has been the official folk song of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts since 1981.

54 Not family-friendly, moviewise : R-RATED

The Motion Picture Association of America’s (MPAA) film-rating system (PG-13, R, etc.) is purely voluntary and is not backed by any law. Movie theaters agree to abide by the rules that come with the MPAA ratings in exchange for access to new movies.

64 Accused’s “I was somewhere else” story : ALIBI

“Alibi” is the Latin word for “elsewhere” as in, “I claim that I was ‘elsewhere’ when the crime was committed, I have an ‘alibi’”.

65 Onetime default Word typeface : ARIAL

Microsoft Word was introduced in 1981 as Multi-Tool Word for Xenix (Xenix is a discontinued version of the Unix operating system). I used to be a power user of Word, but now use Google Docs for all of my word processing needs.

68 Starbucks choice : LATTE

The term “latte” is an abbreviation of the Italian “caffelatte” meaning “coffee (and) milk”. Note that in the correct spelling of “latte”, the Italian word for milk; there is no accent over the “e”. An accent is often added by mistake when we use the word in English, perhaps meaning to suggest that the word is French.

Starbucks is a coffee company based in Seattle, Washington. It is the largest coffeehouse company in the world and has over 19,000 stores. In the 1990s, Starbucks was opening one new store every single day! Starbucks is named after the chief mate on the Pequod in Herman Melville’s book “Moby Dick”.

69 New Rochelle campus : IONA

Iona College is a Roman Catholic school run by Christian Brothers in New Rochelle, New York. The school’s sports teams are called the Iona Gaels, and the team mascot goes by the name “Killian”.

70 Artist Chagall : MARC

Marc Chagall was a Russian-French artist, one of the most successful of the 20th century. Unlike so many painters, Chagall was able to achieve wealth and fame for his work during his own lifetime. It did help that Chagall lived to a ripe old age though. He passed away in 1985, when he was 97 years young. One of Chagall’s most famous works is the ceiling of the Paris Opera. The new ceiling for the beautiful 19th-century building was commissioned in 1963, and took Chagall a year to complete. Chagall was 77 years old when he worked on the Paris Opera project.

Down

1 Prince of Darkness : SATAN

Satan is the bringer of evil and temptation in the Abrahamic religions. The name “Satan” is Hebrew for “adversary”.

“Prince of Darkness” is a term used for the Devil. “Prince of Darkness” is a translation of the Latin “princeps tenebrarum”, a phrase used in a fourth century work entitled the “Acts of Pilate”.

4 Latin “that is” : ID EST

“Id est” is Latin for “that is”, and is often abbreviated to “i.e.” when used in English.

5 Baseball bat wood : ASH

The wood of the ash tree is a hardwood, although it is relatively elastic. Famously, ash is the wood of choice for baseball bats. It is also the wood of choice for hurleys, the wooden sticks used in the Irish sport of hurling.

7 Divided land : KOREA

Korea was occupied by the Japanese military from 1910 until Japan surrendered at the end of WWII in 1945. While the UN was working towards a trusteeship administration for Korea, the Soviet Union managed the Korean Peninsula north of the 38th parallel and the US managed the south. The UN’s plans came to naught as the Cold War dictated the establishment of the two separate states of North Korea and South Korea. North Korea invaded the South in 1950, leading to the Korean War. After three years of fighting, the border between the two states became the demarcation line between the two military forces on the day the Armistice Agreement was signed. That line runs diagonally across the 38th parallel, and is better known as the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ).

8 Disbursed : SPENT

To disburse is to pay out. The term “disburse” comes from the old French terms “des” and “bourse” meaning “out of purse”.

11 Wally’s little bro, in old TV : BEAV

Wally Cleaver and his younger brother Theodore (“the Beaver”) were the children of Ward and June Cleaver on the fifties sitcom “Leave It to Beaver”.

12 Prado display : ARTE

The Museo del Prado is in Madrid, the capital of Spain, and has one of the finest art collections in the world. The gallery’s most famous work is “Las Meninas” By Velazquez.

18 Court figure, briefly : STENO

Stenography is the process of writing in shorthand. The term comes from the Greek “steno” (narrow) and “graphe” (writing).

22 Josh : KID

When the verb “to josh”, meaning “to kid”, was coined in the 1840s as an American slang term, it was written with a capital J. It is likely that the term somehow comes from the proper name “Joshua”, but no one seems to remember why.

27 Had too much, briefly : ODED

Overdose (OD)

29 Garr of “Tootsie” : TERI

Actress Teri Garr had a whole host of minor roles in her youth, including appearances in nine Elvis movies. Garr’s big break came with the role of Inga in “Young Frankenstein”, and her supporting role in “Tootsie” earned Garr an Academy Award nomination. Sadly, Teri Garr suffers from multiple sclerosis. She is a National Ambassador for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.

“Tootsie” is a hilarious 1982 comedy starring Dustin Hoffman in the title role, a male actor who adopts a female identity in order to land an acting job. Jessica Lange won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her performance in the film. “Tootsie” also provided Geena Davis with her first movie role.

30 Poetic black : EBON

Ebony is another word for the color black (and is often shortened to “ebon” in poetry). The color is named for the dark black wood called ebony that is very dense, one of the few types of wood that sinks in water. Ebony has been in high demand so the species of trees yielding the wood are now considered threatened. It is in such short supply that unscrupulous vendors have been known to darken lighter woods with shoe polish to look like ebony, so be warned …

31 Cod or Hatteras : CAPE

Cape Cod is indeed named after the fish. It was first referred to as “Cape Cod” by English navigator Bartholomew Gosnold in 1602, as his men caught so many fish there.

Cape Hatteras is located on Hatteras Island, which is one of the barrier islands off the coast of North Carolina. The famous Cape Hatteras Light is the tallest brick lighthouse in the country, and second-tallest such structure in the world. It stands at 210 feet, and was built in 1870. The 1870 lighthouse replaced the original beacon that was constructed in 1803. The current lighthouse had to be moved in 1999, due to erosion of the seashore.

32 Half of seis : TRES

In Spanish, “tres y tres” (three plus three) is “seis” (six).

33 Sources of much spam : BOTS

Spambots are nasty little computer programs that send out spam emails and messages, often from fake accounts. This blog gets about 300 spam comments a day that I have to delete, almost all of which are written by spambots.

35 Harvard rival : YALE

Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut was founded in 1701, making it the third-oldest university in the US. Originally called the Collegiate School, it was renamed to Yale University in honor of retired merchant Elihu Yale, who made generous contributions to the institution. Yale University’s nickname is “Old Eli”, in a nod to the benefactor.

Harvard University was founded in 1636 as New College, the college at New Towne. The school was renamed three years later after John Harvard, a deceased clergyman and who donated books and money.

36 Small songbird : WREN

The wren is a small songbird belonging to the family troglodytidae and the genus troglodytes. Wrens are known for making dome-shaped nests.

37 Govt. antipollution org. : EPA

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was set up during the Nixon administration and began operation at the end of 1970.

42 Lascivious look : LEER

“Lascivious” is such an appropriate-sounding word, I always think. It means “lecherous, salacious”.

47 West Coast NFLer : LA RAM

The Los Angeles Rams are the only franchise to have won NFL championships in three different cities, i.e. Cleveland (1945), Los Angeles (1951) and St. Louis (1999). The Rams were based in Cleveland from 1936 to 1945, in Los Angeles from 1946 to 1994, in St. Louis from 1995 to 2015, and returned to Los Angeles in 2016.

49 Sign of a sellout : SRO

Standing room only (SRO)

52 __ lazuli: blue gem : LAPIS

Lapis lazuli is a blue, semi-precious stone mined mainly in Afghanistan. “Lapis Lazuli” is Latin for “stone of Lazhward”, referring to the Persian name for the location where the stone was mined. Our word “azure”, a shade of blue, has the same root.

53 Crease-resistant fabric : ORLON

Orlon is the brand name used by the DuPont Corporation for the acrylic fibers the company developed in 1941.

55 Rent-a-car biggie : ALAMO

The third-largest car rental company in recent years is Alamo, which was founded in 1974. Alamo made inroads (pun!) into the market by popularizing the idea of “unlimited mileage”.

56 Industry bigwig : TITAN

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.

57 Movie critic Roger : EBERT

Roger Ebert co-hosted a succession of film review television programs for over 23 years, most famously with Gene Siskel until Siskel passed away in 1999. Siskel and Ebert famously gave their thumbs up or thumbs down to the movies they reviewed. Ebert himself died in 2013.

58 ’70s music genre : DISCO

Discotheques first appeared during WWII in Occupied France. American-style music (like jazz and jitterbug dances) was banned by the Nazis, so French natives met in underground clubs that they called discotheques where records were often played on just a single turntable. After the war, these clubs came out into the open. One famous Paris discotheque was called “Whiskey a Gogo”. In that Paris disco, non-stop music was played using two turntables next to a dance-floor, and this concept spread around the world.

59 Pitcher’s false move when on the rubber, e.g. : BALK

To balk is to stop and refuse to go on. It’s not just a baseball term …

60 Persia, now : IRAN

Before 1935, the country we know today as Iran was referred to as Persia by the Western world. The official name of the country since the Iranian Revolution of 1979 is the “Islamic Republic of Iran”.

61 Beer for dieters : LITE

The first light beer was produced by Chicago’s Meister Brau brewery in the sixties. Miller took over Meister Brau, reformulated the light beer using the same process and became the first of the big breweries to come out with a light beer, “Lite Beer from Miller” introduced in 1973. There really wasn’t a serious competitor to Miller Lite until Anheuser-Busch finally came up with a process and a product in 1982 that they called Bud Light.

62 After the deadline : LATE

Our use of the term “deadline”, to mean “point in time before something must be done”, arose as jargon in the American newspaper industry in the 1920s. During the Civil War, a deadline was a do-not-cross line drawn on the ground in Confederate prisons.

63 Comedian Carvey : DANA

Dana Carvey, along with the likes of Phil Hartman and Kevin Nealon, was part of the new breed of “Saturday Night Live” (SNL) comedians credited with resurrecting the show in the late eighties. One of Carvey’s most popular characters was the Church Lady, and he became so associated with her that among fellow cast members Carvey was often referred to simply as “the Lady”. Another favorite Carvey character was Garth Algar who went to feature in the “Wayne’s World” movies. Carvey had open-heart surgery in 1997 to clear a blocked artery, but the surgical team operated on the wrong blood vessel. To recover, he had to have five more procedures. He ended up suing for medical malpractice and donated his $7.5 million compensation payment to charity.

Complete List of Clues/Answers

Across

1 Delhi dress : SARI
5 Wants to know : ASKS
9 Morocco’s capital : RABAT
14 Like much brandy : AGED
15 Feed, as hogs : SLOP
16 Primer mes del calendario : ENERO
17 *Vacation condo, perhaps : TIMESHARE (giving “playtime”)
19 French states : ETATS
20 Crème de la crème : A-LIST
21 *Foldable whittling tools : PENKNIVES (giving “playpen”)
23 Took home after taxes : NETTED
25 Going __: bickering : AT IT
26 Prefix with natal or liberal : NEO-
28 Get a hint of : DETECT
33 *Nickname for Batman’s Robin : BOY WONDER (giving “playboy”)
39 Concrete support rod : REBAR
40 Poet Khayyám : OMAR
41 Leaf under a petal : SEPAL
43 Double Dutch need : ROPE
44 Scrabble pieces : TILES
46 *News article starters : DATELINES (giving “play date”)
48 Artery inserts : STENTS
50 Caribbean or Aegean : SEA
51 Guthrie of folk : ARLO
54 Not family-friendly, moviewise : R-RATED
59 *Roadside ad medium : BILLBOARD (giving “playbill”)
64 Accused’s “I was somewhere else” story : ALIBI
65 Onetime default Word typeface : ARIAL
66 Sandbox sharers … and a hint to the starts of the answers to starred clues : PLAYMATES
68 Starbucks choice : LATTE
69 New Rochelle campus : IONA
70 Artist Chagall : MARC
71 Leg joints : KNEES
72 Break loudly, as a twig : SNAP
73 Not fooled by : ONTO

Down

1 Prince of Darkness : SATAN
2 Nimble : AGILE
3 Send payment : REMIT
4 Latin “that is” : ID EST
5 Baseball bat wood : ASH
6 Waves-against-dock sound : SLAP
7 Divided land : KOREA
8 Disbursed : SPENT
9 Confirm, as a password : RE-ENTER
10 Against : ANTI
11 Wally’s little bro, in old TV : BEAV
12 Prado display : ARTE
13 Mix, as salad : TOSS
18 Court figure, briefly : STENO
22 Josh : KID
24 Homes for bears : DENS
27 Had too much, briefly : ODED
29 Garr of “Tootsie” : TERI
30 Poetic black : EBON
31 Cod or Hatteras : CAPE
32 Half of seis : TRES
33 Sources of much spam : BOTS
34 Leave out : OMIT
35 Harvard rival : YALE
36 Small songbird : WREN
37 Govt. antipollution org. : EPA
38 “Darn it all!” : RATS!
42 Lascivious look : LEER
45 Horses’ houses : STABLES
47 West Coast NFLer : LA RAM
49 Sign of a sellout : SRO
52 __ lazuli: blue gem : LAPIS
53 Crease-resistant fabric : ORLON
55 Rent-a-car biggie : ALAMO
56 Industry bigwig : TITAN
57 Movie critic Roger : EBERT
58 ’70s music genre : DISCO
59 Pitcher’s false move when on the rubber, e.g. : BALK
60 Persia, now : IRAN
61 Beer for dieters : LITE
62 After the deadline : LATE
63 Comedian Carvey : DANA
67 Talk and talk : YAP