LA Times Crossword Answers 22 Mar 13, Friday

CROSSWORD SETTER: David Poole
THEME: Vowel Exchange … each of today’s themed answers is a well-known phrase, but with the vowels swapped in the second word:

17A. Army mints? MILITARY TIC TACS (from “military tactics”)
29A. Temperamental Midler impersonators? BETTE DIVAS (from “Bette Davis”)
37A. Penalize a Russian leader? FINE LENIN (from “fine linen”)
49A. Poll on where to sink the eight ball? POCKET VOTE (from “pocket veto”)
64A. Seasonal shade of pink? A CHRISTMAS CORAL (from “A Christmas Carol”)

COMPLETION TIME: 13m 54s
ANSWERS I MISSED: 0

Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across
1. Circa AROUND
“Circa” is a Latin word meaning “around, near, about the time of”. We use “circa” directly in English to mean “about the time of”, as well as in derivative words such as “circle” and “circus”.

7. Snack brand with a monocled mascot PLANTERS
Planters is the company with the Mr. Peanut icon. Mr. Peanut was the invention of a first-grader called Antonio Gentile, a young man who won a design contest in 1916. A remarkable achievement, I’d say …

16. One of a kind RARA AVIS
A “rara avis” is anything that is very rare, and is Latin for “rare bird”.

17. Army mints? MILITARY TIC TACS (from “military tactics”)
Tic Tacs aren’t American candy (as I always mistakenly believed). Tic Tacs are made by the Italian company Ferrero, and were introduced in 1969.

20. Plural Spanish pronoun ELLAS
“Ellas” is Spanish for “they”.

21. Emu’s extinct kin MOA
Moas were flightless birds native to New Zealand that are now extinct. The fate of the Moa is a great example of the detrimental effect that humans can have on animal populations. The Maoris arrived in New Zealand about 1300 AD, upsetting the balance of the ecosystem. The Moa were hunted to extinction within 200 years, which had the knock-on effect of killing off the Haast’s Eagle, the Moa’s only predator prior to the arrival of man.

22. Fleming and crime writer Rankin IANS
Ian Fleming is most famous of course for writing the “James Bond” series of spy novels. You might also know that he wrote the children’s story “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang”, which was made into a cute movie released in 1968 and even a stage musical that opened in 2002.

Ian Rankin is crime writer from Scotland. Rankin’s most famous novels feature his hero “Inspector Rebus” and are set in and around Edinburgh.

24. Smidgen MITE
A mite is a small amount, as in “the widow’s mite”, the story from the Bible.

Our word “smidgen”, meaning a small amount, might come from the Scots word “smitch” that means the same thing or “a small insignificant person”.

29. Temperamental Midler impersonators? BETTE DIVAS (from “Bette Davis”)
I must confess that I have a problem watching movies starring Bette Davis. I think I must have seen her play one of her more sinister roles when I was a kid and it gave me nightmares or something. So, I have never seen the 1950 classic “All About Eve”, given that Bette Davis gets top billing. But, the title role of Eve Harrington was played by Anne Baxter, and Ms Baxter’s movies I do enjoy. Coincidentally, on the epic television series “Hotel”, when Bette Davis became ill, it was Anne Baxter who was chosen to take on her role.

I am a huge, huge fan of Bette Midler. I love everything about the woman, her bawdy humor, her expansive personality, and of course her amazing voice. Midler will forever be associated with the 1979 film “The Rose”, loosely based on the life of the self-destructive singer Janis Joplin, with Bette playing the lead. Midler shows that she can act in this movie, and boy does she show that she can sing. The title song was written by Amanda McBroom and became a huge hit for Midler in 1979.

36. Student of Elves, in Tolkien ENT
Ents are those tree-like creatures that live in J. R. R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth in his series of books “The Lord of the Rings”. “Ent” is an Old English word for “giant”.

37. Penalize a Russian leader? FINE LENIN (from “fine linen”)
“Lenin” wasn’t the birth name of the Russian leader. He was born Vladimir Ulyanov, and originally took the name Lenin as a pen name.

44. Shrimp RUNT
Back in 1500 a runt was an old or decayed tree stump, and by the early 1600s “runt” was being used to describe animals that were similarly old and decayed. Ultimately “runt” came to mean the smallest and often sickest in a litter.

45. __ Galilee SEA OF
The Sea of Galilee is actually a lake, the largest freshwater lake in Israel and the lowest elevation freshwater lake in the world. The main source of the water in the Sea of Galilee is the Jordan River which flows through it.

49. Poll on where to sink the eight ball? POCKET VOTE (from “pocket veto”)
In the US, “pocket veto” is the term used for the legal maneuver that kills a piece of legislation when the President takes no action at all. The Constitution requires that the President sign or veto (i.e. a “regular veto”) any legislation within ten days while Congress is in session. If Congress adjourns within the 10-day period, then the bill does not become law. It is this inaction by the President when Congress is out of session that is called a “pocket veto”.

54. Inner Hebrides isle SKYE
The Isle of Skye is off the northwest coast of Scotland in the Inner Hebrides. It is the second largest island in the country, and has been linked to the mainland by a road bridge since 1995. I’ve never been there, but I hear the views are spectacular.

55. “Cheers” accountant NORM
The character of Norm Peterson was the only customer of the bar to appear in every episode of “Cheers”, something that one couldn’t really call ironic since he loved that barstool! George Wendt played Norm, and I suppose the fact the Wendt was expelled from Notre Dame after one semester, with a 0.0 GPA, might have helped him get the role!

57. Texter’s afterthought lead-in BTW
By the way (BTW).

62. More than just calls RAISES
“Raise” and “call” are options in a game of poker, say.

64. Seasonal shade of pink? A CHRISTMAS CORAL (from “A Christmas Carol”)
The classic 1843 novella “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens has left us with a few famous phrases and words. Firstly, it led to the popular use of “Merry Christmas”, and secondly it gave us the word “scrooge” meaning a miserly person. And thirdly, everyone knows that the character Scrooge was fond of using the now famous line “Bah! Humbug!”.

68. Semisoft cheese with an orange rind MUENSTER
Muenster is an American cheese, not to be confused with Munster cheese which is from the department called Vosges in the northeast of France. The American cheese is named for the German city of Münster (also Muenster) in the northwest of the country, a city that doesn’t actually have a local cheese named for it.

71. Jimmy follower RONALD
Ronald Reagan started out his political career as a member of the Democratic Party, but switched to the Republicans in the early fifties. Reagan served as Governor of California for eight years, and vied unsuccessfully for the nomination for US President on two occasions. He finally succeeded in 1980 and defeated President Jimmy Carter to become the 40th US President in 1981.

President Jimmy Carter is a graduate of the US Naval Academy. Carter served in the Navy on surface ships and submarines, and chose to pursue a career in the submarine service as he was interested in nuclear power and believed it had a great future in submarine design. As a result, he became an expert in nuclear propulsion. In 1952, the Navy sent the young Carter to the Chalk River Laboratories in Canada to lead the US effort to shutdown the reactor after an accident and partial meltdown of a reactor core. He and his team had to be lowered into the leaking reactor core for mechanical disassembly, staying there for only seconds at a time to minimise exposure to radiation. Decades later as US President, it was this experience that influenced Carter’s decision not to complete the development of the neutron bomb.

Down
3. City saved by Joan of Arc ORLEANS
Joan of Arc (also Jeanne d’Arc, her birth name) led the French Army successfully into battle a number of times during the Hundred Years War with England. When she was eventually captured, Joan was tried in Rouen, the seat of the occupying English government in France at that time. There she was burned at the stake having been found guilty of heresy. Joan of Arc was canonized some 600 years later, in 1920, and is now one of the patron saints of France.

5. 1930s-’40s Chicago Outfit “enforcer” NITTI
Frank Nitti was one of the top henchmen working for Al Capone. Unlike American-born Capone, Nitti was actually from Italy and was born near the city of Salerno. When Capone was eventually put away for 11 years for tax evasion, Nitti was convicted of the same crime. Nitti was only imprisoned for 18 months, and when released he was labelled as the new head of Capone’s Chicago Outfit. However the truth seems to be that he was just a frontman, with others making the decisions.

9. Seed cover ARIL
The casing called the aril, which surrounds many seeds, may be quite fleshy. This fruit-like characteristic makes it desirable as a food and aids in the dispersion of the seeds.

10. Chemist’s salt NACL
Sodium chloride (NaCl) is an ionic compound, a crystal lattice made up of large chloride (Cl) ions in a cubic structure, with smaller sodium (Na) ions in between the chlorides.

11. Teahouse floor covering TATAMI
A tatami is a traditional mat used on floors in Japan. The term “tatami” comes from the Japanese word “tatamu” meaning “to fold”, reflecting the fact that the mat is designed to be folded up for storage.

13. Rocker Ocasek RIC
Ric Ocasek is an American musician of Czech heritage, and was the lead vocalist of the rock band known as the Cars.

14. Old draft org. SSS
The US government maintains information on all males who are potentially subject to military conscription, using what is called the Selective Service System (SS). In the event that a draft was held, men registered would be classified into groups to determine eligibility for service. Class 1-A registrants are those available for unrestricted military service. Other classes are 1-A-O (conscientious objector available for noncombatant service), 4-A (registrant who has completed military service) and 4-D (Minister of religion).

18. Pierce’s co-star in “The Thomas Crown Affair” RENE
The lovely and very talented actress Rene Russo is a native of Burbank, California. Russo went to highschool (with actor/director Ron Howard), but dropped out in tenth grade. At seventeen, she was given the opportunity to train as a model and within a very short time appeared on the cover of “Vogue”. As her modelling jobs slowed down in her early thirties, Russo made a career change and studied theater and acting. I am so glad she did, as Rene Russo is one of my favorite actresses …

“The Thomas Crown Affair” is an excellent 1998 remake of the 1969 film of the same name that starred Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway. The remake stars Pierce Brosnan and Rene Russo, with Faye Dunaway making a cameo appearance as Thomas Crown’s psychiatrist.

23. Cheese with which port is traditionally served STILTON
Stilton is a lovely village in Cambridgeshire, and the original home of the delicious blue cheese called Stilton.

26. Setting for Columbus: Abbr. EST
Eastern Standard Time (EST).

The city of Columbus, Ohio is a “purpose-built” state capital. The state legislature selected the location for Ohio’s new capital in 1812, choosing dense forestland with no significant settlement, largely due to its strategic location in the center of the state. The name was of course chosen in honor of the explorer Christopher Columbus.

28. OED entry DEF
The “Oxford English Dictionary” (OED) contains over 300,000 “main” entries and 59 million words in total. It is said it would take a single person 120 years to type it out in full. The longest entry for one word in the second edition of the OED is the verb “set”. When the third edition was published in 2007, the longest entry for a single word became the verb “put”. Perhaps not surprisingly, the most-quoted author in the OED is William Shakespeare, with his most quoted work being “Hamlet”. The most-quoted female author is George Eliot (aka Mary Ann Evans).

30. Grizabella creator’s monogram TSE
Grizabella is a character in T. S. Eliot’s “Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats”. In the musical ”Cats” that is adapted from the book, Grizabella is the character who sings the show-stopping song “Memory”.

32. Agnus __: Mass prayers DEIS
“Agnus Dei” is Latin for “Lamb of God”, a term used in Christian faiths for Jesus Christ, symbolizing His role as a sacrificial offering to atone for the sins of man.

38. Aficionado NUT
An “aficionado” is an enthusiast, a word that came to us from Spanish. “Aficionado” was originally used in English to describe a devotee of bullfighting.

41. SUV option GPS
GPS stands for Global Positioning System. The modern GPS system that we use today was built by the US military who received the massive funding needed because of fears during the Cold War of the use of Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles. We civilians all round the world owe a lot to President Ronald Reagan because he directed the military to make GPS technology available to the public for the common good. President Reagan was moved to do so after the Soviet Union shot down KAL flight 007 carrying 269 people, just because the plane strayed accidentally into Soviet airspace.

43. Bush hooks, e.g. SCYTHES
A brush hook or bush hook is a gardening and farming instrument like a scythe.

46. Banff National Park locale ALBERTA
Banff National Park in Alberta, Canada is located high in the Canadian Rockies and is a popular tourist destination. The town of Banff and the surrounding park were given their name in 1884 by then president of the Canadian Pacific Railway, George Stephen. He named Banff for his birthplace of Banffshire in Scotland.

47. Defeat in the regatta OUTSAIL
The word “regatta” is Venetian dialect and was originally used to describe boat races among the gondoliers of Venice on the Grand Canal back in the mid-1600s.

48. Hardly hordes FEW
A “horde” is a large crowd. “Horde” ultimately derives from the Turkish “ordu” that means “camp, army”.

50. “Team of Rivals” author Doris __ Goodwin KEARNS
Doris Kearns Goodwin is a noted biographer and historian. Goodwin has authored biographies of several US presidents, and won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1995 for “Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt”. Her most recent book is “Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln”, which was adapted into the marvelous 2012 film “Lincoln” directed by Steven Spielberg.

51. One-third of a WWII film TORA
The pre-determined code word to be used by the Japanese if they managed to achieve surprise in their attack on Pearl Harbor was “tiger”, or “tora” in Japanese. This gave the name to the excellent 1970 movie “Tora! Tora! Tora!”.

59. Actress Virna LISI
Virna Lisi is an Italian film actress who made a few movies in Hollywood in the sixties. Lisi appeared opposite Jack Lemmon in the fun movie “How to Murder Your Wife” in 1965 and with Frank Sinatra in “Assault on a Queen” in 1966.

61. Acronymous submachine gun STEN
The STEN gun was an iconic armament used by the British military forces. The name STEN is an acronym. The S and the T comes from the name of the gun’s designers, Shepherd and Turpin. The EN comes from the Enfield brand name, which in turn comes from the Enfield location where the guns were manufactured for the Royal Small Arms Factory, an enterprise owned by the British government.

64. Trans __ AMS
The Trans Am was a specialty version of the Pontiac Firebird produced from 1969 to 2002.

65. Stick around a pool hall? CUE
The more correct name for the game of pool is pocket billiards. The name “pool” arose after pocket billiards became a common feature in “pool halls”, places where gamblers “pooled” their money to bet on horse races.

66. Union title, often MRS
Mr. is the abbreviation for “master”, and Mrs. is the abbreviation for “mistress”.

67. Calculator display, for short LCD
Liquid Crystal Displays (LCDs) are the screens that are found in most laptops today, and in flat panel computer screens and some televisions. LCD monitors basically replaced Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) screens, the old television technology.

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For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. Circa AROUND
7. Snack brand with a monocled mascot PLANTERS
15. Retire TURN IN
16. One of a kind RARA AVIS
17. Army mints? MILITARY TIC TACS (from “military tactics”)
19. Bug NETTLE
20. Plural Spanish pronoun ELLAS
21. Emu’s extinct kin MOA
22. Fleming and crime writer Rankin IANS
24. Smidgen MITE
27. Endow FUND
29. Temperamental Midler impersonators? BETTE DIVAS (from “Bette Davis”)
33. Estate item ASSET
35. “Got it!” I SEE!
36. Student of Elves, in Tolkien ENT
37. Penalize a Russian leader? FINE LENIN (from “fine linen”)
41. Blast GAS
44. Shrimp RUNT
45. __ Galilee SEA OF
49. Poll on where to sink the eight ball? POCKET VOTE (from “pocket veto”)
53. Down BLUE
54. Inner Hebrides isle SKYE
55. “Cheers” accountant NORM
57. Texter’s afterthought lead-in BTW
58. Accounts TALES
62. More than just calls RAISES
64. Seasonal shade of pink? A CHRISTMAS CORAL (from “A Christmas Carol”)
68. Semisoft cheese with an orange rind MUENSTER
69. Titillating EROTIC
70. Recordings are made in them SESSIONS
71. Jimmy follower RONALD

Down
1. Provider of bucks ATM
2. Catastrophic RUINOUS
3. City saved by Joan of Arc ORLEANS
4. Troop group UNIT
5. 1930s-’40s Chicago Outfit “enforcer” NITTI
6. Crime-solving locale DNA LAB
7. Pull with effort PRY
8. Behind LATE
9. Seed cover ARIL
10. Chemist’s salt NACL
11. Teahouse floor covering TATAMI
12. Not forthcoming EVASIVE
13. Rocker Ocasek RIC
14. Old draft org. SSS
18. Pierce’s co-star in “The Thomas Crown Affair” RENE
21. Museum curator’s deg. MFA
23. Cheese with which port is traditionally served STILTON
25. Salon offering TAN
26. Setting for Columbus: Abbr. EST
28. OED entry DEF
30. Grizabella creator’s monogram TSE
31. Bard’s adverb E’EN
32. Agnus __: Mass prayers DEIS
34. Flag TIRE
38. Aficionado NUT
39. P.O. purchase ENV
40. Neighbor of Colo. NEB
41. SUV option GPS
42. Hunky-dory A-OK
43. Bush hooks, e.g. SCYTHES
46. Banff National Park locale ALBERTA
47. Defeat in the regatta OUTSAIL
48. Hardly hordes FEW
50. “Team of Rivals” author Doris __ Goodwin KEARNS
51. One-third of a WWII film TORA
52. Backspace key, at times ERASER
56. Minuscule MICRO
59. Actress Virna LISI
60. José’s this ESTO
61. Acronymous submachine gun STEN
63. Procrastinator’s word SOON
64. Trans __ AMS
65. Stick around a pool hall? CUE
66. Union title, often MRS
67. Calculator display, for short LCD


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