LA Times Crossword Answers 7 Apr 14, Monday

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CROSSWORD SETTER: Jack McInturff
THEME: CFO … each of today’s themed answers is made up of two words, the first starting with C and the second with FO:

17A. Takeout option CHINESE FOOD
27A Subject for a meteorologist CLOUD FORMATION
37A. Look after CARE FOR
47A. Bill Gates or Paul Allen, vis-à-vis Microsoft COMPANY FOUNDER
62A. Summoned up CALLED FORTH

68A. Exec. moneyman, and a hint to 17-, 27-, 37-, 47- and 62-Across CFO

BILL BUTLER’S COMPLETION TIME: 6m 45s
ANSWERS I MISSED: 0

Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across

16. Sinking ship signal SOS
The combination of three dots – three dashes – three dots, is a Morse signal first introduced by the German government as a standard distress call in 1905. The sequence is remembered as the letters SOS (three dots – pause – three dashes – pause – three dots), although in the emergency signal there is no pause between the dots and dashes, so SOS is in effect only a mnemonic. Similarly, the phrases “Save Our Souls” and “Save Our Ship” are also mnemonics, introduced after the “SOS” signal was adopted.

19. Wash. neighbor IDA
The states of Washington (Wash.) and Idaho (Ida.) share a border.

20. Personal IDs SSNS
The main purpose of a Social Security Number (SSN) is to track individuals for the purposes of taxation, although given its ubiquitous use, it is looking more and more like an “identity number” to me. The social security number system was introduced in 1936. Prior to 1986, an SSN was required only for persons with substantial income so many children under 14 had no number assigned. For some years the IRS had a concern that a lot of people were claiming children on their tax returns who did not actually exist. So, from 1986 onward, it is a requirement to get an SSN for any dependents over the ago of 5. Sure enough, in 1987 seven million dependents “disappeared”.

21. Ambulance destinations, for short ERS
Emergency room (ER)

22. Comfy shoe LOAFER
The type of slip-on shoe called a “loafer” dates back to 1939. “Loafer” was originally a brand name introduced by the Fortnum and Mason’s store in London.

26. Bic products PENS
Société Bic is a French company, based in Clichy in France. The first product the company produced, more than fifty years ago, was the Bic Cristal ballpoint pen that is still produced today. Bic also makes other disposable products such as lighters and razors.

27. Subject for a meteorologist CLOUD FORMATION
“Meteorology” is the science dealing with weather and weather conditions. The term comes into English via French from the Greek “meteoron” and “-logia” meaning “thing high up” and “treatment of”.

33. Ross of the Supremes DIANA
The Supremes were the most successful vocal group in US history, based on number one hits. The group started out in 1959 as a four-member lineup called the Primettes. The name was changed to the Supremes in 1961. One member dropped out in 1962, leaving the Supremes as a trio. Lead singer Diana Ross began to garner much of the attention, which eventually led to a further name change, to Diana Ross & the Supremes.

34. “__ won’t be afraid”: “Stand By Me” lyric NO I
“Stand By Me” is a marvelous song co-written and first recorded in 1961 by Ben E. King. King and his partners actually wrote “Stand by Me” for the Drifters, but they passed on it. Over 400 cover versions have been recorded, including one by by Muhammad Ali (when he was using the name Cassius Clay) and even one by Stephen King!

36. Jerusalem’s land: Abbr. ISR
Jerusalem is one of the oldest cities in the world, with the oldest part of Jerusalem having been settles in the 4th millennium BCE. The city is considered holy in all three of the big Abrahamic traditions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam and as a result is one of the crucial issues to be resolved in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

41. Chicken __ king A LA
A dish prepared “a la king” (usually chicken or turkey), is food prepared in a cream sauce, with mushrooms, pimentos, green peppers and sherry.

44. Prefix with classical NEO-
Neoclassicism is a movement in the field of music, art or perhaps architecture, one that draws on the classical art of Ancient Greece or Ancient Rome.

45. Bernese Alps peak EIGER
The Eiger is a mountain in the Bernese Alps in Switzerland. It is a noted peak for mountain climbing, with its treacherous north face being the most famous approach to the summit. Over sixty climbers have died since 1935 on that north face.

47. Bill Gates or Paul Allen, vis-à-vis Microsoft COMPANY FOUNDER
Microsoft founders Bill Gates and Paul Allen met and became friends in high school. The Gates was three years younger than Allen, but the pair gravitated towards each other due to a shared interest in computers. One of their first programming projects was to create a computerized version of tic-tac-toe, which they did together on a time-shared computer that was donated to the school by the Mothers’ Association. The two parted company when they graduated and went to different colleges, Allen to Washington State and Gates to Harvard. Allen dropped out of school to start work as a programmer, and he later convinced Gates to drop out of Harvard so that they could create Microsoft.

56. Co. that merged into Verizon GTE
GTE was a rival to AT&T, the largest of the independent competitors to the Bell System. GTE merged with Bell Atlantic in 2000 to form the company that we know today as Verizon.

57. Gas company with toy trucks HESS
The Hess Corporation is an oil company based in New York City. In 1964, the company started selling toy trucks with the Hess logo on them, in Hess gas stations. The company has been selling them every since, bringing out new models just before Christmas. Hess toy trucks have become quite collectible and the old ones can fetch a pretty penny.

67. Muhammad Ali’s boxing daughter LAILA
Laila Ali is the daughter of the great Muhammad Ali and is a very capable boxer in her own right. Laila is not a bad dancer either, coming in third place in the fourth season of “Dancing with the Stars”.

68. Exec. moneyman, and a hint to 17-, 27-, 37-, 47- and 62-Across CFO
Chief financial officer (CFO)

Down
3. Supreme Norse god ODIN
In Norse mythology, Odin was the chief of the gods. Odin’s wife Frigg was the queen of Asgard whose name gave us our English term “Friday” (via Anglo-Saxon). Odin’s son was Thor, and his name gave us the term “Thursday”.

4. __-Salem, N.C. WINSTON
The city of Winston-Salem started out as two separate towns, with Salem being the older of the pair. The US Postal Service started referring to the towns as Winston-Salem in the 1880s, and the city of Winston-Salem incorporated in 1913. The Post office doesn’t officially recognize the hyphen in the city’s name, although the local Minor-League baseball team does. The team has called itself the Winston-Salem Dash since the 2009 season, apparently a celebration of the “dash” symbol in the city’s name.

5. Fr. holy woman STE
“Sainte” (ste.) is French for “saint”, when referring to a female.

6. 1994 Denis Leary film about a crook who acts as an arbiter THE REF
“The Ref” is a black comedy, a 1994 movie starring Denis Leary as a thief who ends up holding a family hostage after a heist goes wrong.

Denis Leary is an actor from Worcester, Massachusetts. Leary is a dual Irish and American citizen as both of his parents come from Killarney in Ireland. Leary is also a third cousin by marriage to talk show host Conan O’Brien.

8. Batman and Robin, e.g. DUO
Batman and Robin are unique among their superhero compatriots in that they have no special powers, just a whole load of cool gadgets.

9. Italian tenor standard O SOLE MIO
“‘O sole mio” is a famous Italian song from Naples, written in 1898. The song’s lyrics are usually sung in the original Neapolitan, as opposed to Italian. The title translates from Neapolitan into “My Sun” (and not into “O, My Sun” as one might expect). It’s a love song of course, sung by a young man declaring that there is a sun brighter than that in the sky, the sun that is his lover’s face. Awww …

10. Spiritual Arizona resort SEDONA
The city of Sedona is noted for its location amid an array of red sandstone rock formations, which are particularly beautiful at sunrise and sunset. Sedona was named after the wife of the city’s first postmaster, one Sedona Arabella Miller Schnebly.

13. Old Russian royal TSAR
The term czar (also tsar) is a Slavic word that was first used as a title by Simeon I of Bulgaria in 913 AD. “Czar” is derived from the word “Caesar”, which was synonymous with “emperor” at that time.

23. Nick and Nora’s dog ASTA
Asta is the wonderful little dog in the superb movie “The Thin Man” starring William Powell and Myrna Loy (as Nick and Nora Charles). In the original story by Dashiell Hammett, Asta was a female Schnauzer, but on screen Asta was played by a wire-haired fox terrier called “Skippy”. Skippy was also the dog in “Bringing up Baby” with Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn, the one who kept stealing the dinosaur bone. Skippy retired in 1939, so Asta was played by other dogs in the remainder of “The Thin Man” films.

25. Former Congressional gp. concerned with Communist infiltration HUAC
The House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) was formed by the US House of Representatives in 1947 and disbanded in 1975. The House Committee is best remembered for its investigation of the Hollywood film industry in the late forties and fifties which led to the blacklisting of hundreds of people. The House Committee had no formal connection with Senator Joseph McCarthy who was Chairman of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.

27. “The __ Kid”: ’50s TV Western CISCO
The Cisco Kid is a character who was first introduced in an O. Henry short story called “The Caballero’s Way”. The original O. Henry character was a cruel outlaw, but the character depicted in subsequent movies and television shows is more heroic.

28. Former Calif. NFLer LA RAM
The St. Louis Rams has only won the Super Bowl once, in 1999, against the Tennessee Titans. The Rams were based in Cleveland from 1936-45, Los Angeles from 1946-94 and St. Louis from 1995 to the present day.

31. Persian Gulf ship OILER
The Persian Gulf is very nearly an inland sea although it technically is an offshoot of the Indian Ocean. The outlet from the Persian Gulf to the Indian Ocean is one of the most famous maritime “choke points” in the world: the Strait of Hormuz. About 20% of the world’s supply of petroleum passes through the Strait of Hormuz.

33. Checker, e.g. DISC
“Checkers” is yet another word that I had to learn moving across the Atlantic. In Ireland the game is called draughts.

39. Curious George creators Margret and Hans REYS
Curious George is a character in a series of children’s books written by Hans Augusto and Margret Rey. The couple wrote the original stories in Paris, taking the manuscripts with them as they fled from the city ahead of the German invasion, in 1940.

40. Actress Russo 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 …

43. Video file format MPEG
The Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) was established in 1988 to set standards for audio and video compression. The standards they’ve come up with use the acronym MPEG.

46. Boise resident IDAHOAN
Boise, Idaho is the largest metropolitan area in the state by far. There are a number of stories pertaining to the etymology of the name “Boise”. One is that French trappers named the tree-lined river that ran through the area “la rivière boisée”, meaning “the wooded river”.

49. Old cowboy movies OATERS
The term “oater” that is used for a western movie comes from the number of horses seen, as horses love oats!

58. Emerald Isle ERIN
“Éire”, is the Irish word for “Ireland”. “Erin” is an anglicized version of “Éire” and actually corresponds to “Éirinn”, the dative case of “Éire”.

Ireland is called the “Emerald Isle” (and described as “green”) because of all that green grass that grows due to the seemingly non-stop rain.

59. Normandy battleground ST LO
Saint-Lô is a town in Normandy that was occupied by Germany in 1940. Saint-Lo stood at a strategic crossroads and so there was intense fighting there during the Normandy invasion of 1944. After a prolonged bombardment, very little of the town was left standing.

60. One-horse carriage SHAY
A chaise is a light carriage with a folding hood that transports one or two people. “Chaise” is the French for “chair”, and takes its name from the “sedan chair” means of transportation. In the US, the name “chaise” evolved into “shay”.

63. Dixie general LEE
Robert E. Lee is of course renowned as a southern officer in the Civil War. Lee was a somewhat reluctant participant in the war in that he opposed the secession of his home state of Virginia from the Union. At the beginning of the war, President Lincoln invited Lee to take command of the whole Union Army but he declined, choosing instead to stay loyal to his home state.

“Dixie” is a nickname sometimes used for the American South, and often specifically for the original 11 states that seceded from the Union just prior to the Civil War. It’s apparently not certain how the name “Dixie” came about. One theory is that it comes from the term “dixie” which was used for currency issued by banks in Louisiana. The 10-dollar bills had the word “dix” on the reverse side, the French for “ten”. From the banknote, the French speaking area around New Orleans came to be known as Dixieland, and from there “Dixie” came to apply to the South in general.

64. St. Pete’s state FLA
St. Petersburg, Florida is often referred to as St. Pete by locals and visitors alike. The neighboring city of St. Petersburg Beach also had its name shortened routinely, so in 1994 the residents voted to change the name officially to St. Pete Beach.

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For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. Theater attractions SHOWS
6. Big fusses TO-DOS
11. Gallery display ART
14. Taxpayer’s worry AUDIT
15. Real estate offering HOUSE
16. Sinking ship signal SOS
17. Takeout option CHINESE FOOD
19. Wash. neighbor IDA
20. Personal IDs SSNS
21. Ambulance destinations, for short ERS
22. Comfy shoe LOAFER
24. Biblical pronoun THEE
26. Bic products PENS
27. Subject for a meteorologist CLOUD FORMATION
33. Ross of the Supremes DIANA
34. “__ won’t be afraid”: “Stand By Me” lyric NO I
35. French lady friend AMIE
36. Jerusalem’s land: Abbr. ISR
37. Look after CARE FOR
41. Chicken __ king A LA
42. Swindle SCAM
44. Prefix with classical NEO-
45. Bernese Alps peak EIGER
47. Bill Gates or Paul Allen, vis-à-vis Microsoft COMPANY FOUNDER
51. Those, to Tomás ESOS
52. On an ocean liner, say ASEA
53. All for __: to no avail NAUGHT
56. Co. that merged into Verizon GTE
57. Gas company with toy trucks HESS
61. Egyptian snake ASP
62. Summoned up CALLED FORTH
65. Curtain support ROD
66. Shed __: cry A TEAR
67. Muhammad Ali’s boxing daughter LAILA
68. Exec. moneyman, and a hint to 17-, 27-, 37-, 47- and 62-Across CFO
69. Requirements NEEDS
70. Aggravate ANNOY

Down
1. Animal pouches SACS
2. Comments from the confused HUHS
3. Supreme Norse god ODIN
4. __-Salem, N.C. WINSTON
5. Fr. holy woman STE
6. 1994 Denis Leary film about a crook who acts as an arbiter THE REF
7. Gut-punch reactions OOFS
8. Batman and Robin, e.g. DUO
9. Italian tenor standard O SOLE MIO
10. Spiritual Arizona resort SEDONA
11. “Keep dreaming” AS IF
12. Came by horse RODE
13. Old Russian royal TSAR
18. Flower starter SEED
23. Nick and Nora’s dog ASTA
25. Former Congressional gp. concerned with Communist infiltration HUAC
26. Univ. teacher PROF
27. “The __ Kid”: ’50s TV Western CISCO
28. Former Calif. NFLer LA RAM
29. __ a kind: unique ONE OF
30. Mental picture IMAGE
31. Persian Gulf ship OILER
32. Pretty close NEAR
33. Checker, e.g. DISC
38. Provide critical comments for ANNOTATE
39. Curious George creators Margret and Hans REYS
40. Actress Russo RENE
43. Video file format MPEG
46. Boise resident IDAHOAN
48. Trash bin ASHCAN
49. Old cowboy movies OATERS
50. Previously owned USED
53. Drug cop NARC
54. Dating from AS OF
55. High hairstyle UPDO
56. Happy GLAD
58. Emerald Isle ERIN
59. Normandy battleground ST LO
60. One-horse carriage SHAY
63. Dixie general LEE
64. St. Pete’s state FLA

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