LA Times Crossword Answers 15 Apr 14, Tuesday

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CROSSWORD SETTER: Annemarie Brethauer
THEME: Composer’s Output at Last … today’s themed answer each end with something one might find on SHEET MUSIC:

17A. Yellow sticky brand POST-IT NOTE
26A. Caffeination station COFFEE BAR
40A. Crisis phone service HOTLINE
55A. Café serving group WAIT STAFF

65A. Composer’s output, and where to find the last words of 17-, 26-, 40- and 55-Across SHEET MUSIC

BILL BUTLER’S COMPLETION TIME: 5m 22s
ANSWERS I MISSED: 0

Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across

5. Australian gemstone OPAL
97% of the world’s opals come from Australia, so it’s no surprise perhaps that the opal is the national gemstone of the country. The state of South Australia provides the bulk of the world’s production, about 80%.

16. Saintly ring HALO
The Greek word “halos” is the name given to the ring of light around the sun or moon, which gives us our word “halo”.

17. Yellow sticky brand POST-IT NOTE
The Post-it note was invented at 3M following the accidental discovery of a low-tack, reusable adhesive. The actual intent of the development program was the discovery of a super-strong adhesive.

19. Eric of “Spamalot” IDLE
Eric Idle was one of the founding members of the Monty Python team. Idle was very much the musician of the bunch, and is an accomplished guitarist. If you’ve seen the Monty Python film “The Life of Brian”, you might remember the closing number, “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life”. It was sung by Idle, and was indeed written by him. That song made it to number 3 in the UK charts in 1991.

“Monty Python and the Holy Grail” was released as a movie in 1975, and was a great success. Some thirty years later the film’s storyline was used as inspiration for the hit musical “Spamalot”. I saw “Spamalot” recently and wasn’t that impressed. But, mine was very much a minority opinion …

22. “Breaking Bad” award EMMY
I hadn’t seen the AMC drama “Breaking Bad” until recently when my wife borrowed the first and second seasons from our local library. It is a well-written show about a high school teacher stricken by lung cancer who turns to a life of crime to make money.

30. Vessel for the Mad Hatter TEACUP
In Lewis Carroll’s “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”, the Mad Hatter makes his first appearance in a chapter called “A Mad Tea-Party”. This event is usually described as “The Mad Hatter’s Tea Party”, even though the Mad Hatter was just a guest. The host was the March Hare.

32. Fast-running bird OSTRICH
The ostrich is a flightless bird that is native to Africa. The ostrich is extensively farmed, mainly for its feathers but also for its skin/leather and meat.

33. Kibbutz country ISRAEL
A kibbutz is a collective community in Israel. Kibbutzim were traditionally agriculture-based, but now are often centered around high-tech and other industrial enterprises. The first kibbutz was established in 1909 in Palestine under Ottoman rule. This kibbutz is called Degania, which now is in northern Israel.

36. 18th-century composer Thomas ARNE
Thomas Arne was an English composer from London. Arne wrote some iconic compositions including “Rule, Britannia!” He also wrote a version of “God Save the King” that became the British national anthem.

37. Kenya neighbor: Abbr. SOM
Somalia is a country located in the Horn of Africa. The tragic civil war in Somalia began in 1991 and is still raging, creating tremendous instability in the region. The United Nations resolved to intervene in 1992 resulting in a US-led task force of peacekeepers entering the country to manage the distribution of humanitarian aid. In 1993 the peacekeepers became directly involved in the fighting leading to the death of 24 Pakistani soldiers and 19 US soldiers. Most of these were killed in the Battle of Mogadishu, the incident that is the basis for the movie “Black Hawk Down”. After incurring more casualties, the UN forces withdrew from Somalia in 1995.

Kenya lies on the east coast of Africa, right on the equator. The country takes her name from Mount Kenya, the second highest peak on the continent (after Kilimanjaro).

43. “Breaking Bad” law org. DEA
Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)

46. Shed, with “off” SLOUGH
“To slough off” is “to cast off”, especially when one is talking about the skin of a snake or other animal.

48. Solar or lunar phenomenon ECLIPSE
A lunar eclipse occurs when the moon passes into the shadow cast by the earth from the light of the sun, in other words when the earth is positioned directly between the sun and the moon. The more spectacular solar eclipse takes place when moon passes in front of the sun, so that the earth falls into the shadow cast by the moon.

62. Electronic eavesdropping org. NSA
The National Security Agency (NSA) was set up in 1952 by President Truman, a replacement for the Armed Forces Security Agency that had existed in the Department of Defense since 1949. The NSA has always been clouded in secrecy and even the 1952 letter from President Truman that established the agency was kept under wraps from the public for over a generation. I really like the organization’s nickname … “No Such Agency”.

63. Jalopy HEAP
The origins of our word “jalopy” meaning “dilapidated old motor car” seem to have been lost in time, but the word has been around since the 1920s. One credible suggestion is that it comes from Jalapa, Mexico as the Jalapa scrap yards were the destination for many discarded American automobiles.

68. Sicilian volcano ETNA
Mt. Etna is the largest of three active volcanoes in Italy. Mt Etna is about 2 1/2 times the height of its equally famous sister, Mt. Vesuvius.

69. Golf targets HOLES
There’s an urban myth that the standard number of holes on a golf course is 18 because it takes 18 shots to polish off a fifth of scotch whisky. However, the truth is that the standard number of holes in the Old Course at St. Andrews in Scotland happened to settle down over time at 18, and that standard was adopted all around the world.

70. Quick gander PEEK
To take “a gander” is to take a long look. It’s a term we’ve been using since the 1880s and comes from the idea that in taking a long look one might be craning one’s neck like a goose (or gander).

71. Light bulb unit WATT
James Watt was a Scottish inventor, a man who figured prominently in the Industrial Revolution in Britain largely due to the improvements he made to the fledgling steam engine. The SI unit of power is called the watt, named in his honor.

Down
1. Part of Uncle Sam’s outfit TOP HAT
The Uncle Sam personification of the United States was first used during the War of 1812. The “Uncle Sam” term was so widely accepted that even the Germans used it during WWII, choosing the code word “Samland” for “America” in intelligence communiques.

3. Pre-euro Spanish coin PESETA
The peseta is the former currency of Spain, replaced by the euro in 2002.

4. Repair shop fig. EST
Estimate (est.)

7. 2014 Olympics skating analyst Ohno APOLO
Speed-skater Apolo Ohno has won more Winter Olympics medals than any other American. Ohno also did a great job winning the 2007 season of television’s “Dancing with the Stars”.

9. Fire-breathing Greek monster CHIMERA
In Greek mythology, a chimera was a female monster with the body of a lioness, a tail that ended in a snake’s head, and the head of a goat that emanated from the lioness’s spine. The term chimera has entered into our modern language and means a fanciful illusion or fabrication.

10. 1960s White House nickname LADY BIRD
President Lyndon Johnson’s wife Claudia Alta Taylor was named after her mother’s brother Claud. Taylor’s more familiar name came from her childhood nurse Alice Tittle, who remarked that as a little baby Claudia was “purty as a ladybird”. A ladybird is what we call a ladybug on the other side of the Atlantic. So, the moniker Lady Bird stuck with the future First Lady throughout her life.

12. Anonymous Jane DOE
Although the English court system does not use the term today, John Doe first appeared as the “name of a person unknown” in England in 1659, along with another unknown, Richard Roe. The female equivalent of John Doe is Jane Doe, with the equivalent to Richard Roe being Jane Roe (as in Roe v. Wade).

28. Clearasil target ACNE
Clearasil acne medication was developed in 1940 by Ivan Combe and Kedzie Teller. Combe promoted the product by sponsoring the television show “American Bandstand” for many years.

29. Actress Perlman RHEA
Rhea Perlman’s most famous role has to be “Carla Tortelli”, the irascible waitress in the long-running sitcom “Cheers”. Perlman is also a successful children’s author, and has published a series of six books called “Otto Undercover”. She is of course married to Hollywood actor Danny DeVito, and has been so since 1982. The couple went through a separation in 2012/2013 but happily are reconciled and back together again.

38. Ocean predator ORCA
The taxonomic name for the killer whale is Orcinus orca. The use of the name “orca”, rather than “killer whale”, is becoming more and more common. The Latin word “Orcinus” means “belonging to Orcus”, with Orcus being the name for the Kingdom of the Dead.

49. Hollywood hrs. PST
The iconic “HOLLYWOOD” sign located in the hills overlooking the Los Angeles district of Hollywood was erected in 1923. The sign originally read “HOLLYWOODLAND” and was placed as an advertisement for a new housing development with that name. The plan was for the sign to stay in place for 18 months, but as it became associated with the growing film industry, it was left in place. The sign was refurbished in 1949 by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, with the stipulation that the “LAND” be dropped. A new version of the sign using more permanent materials was unveiled in 1978.

52. Karate instructor SENSEI
“Sensei” is a Japanese form of address used for figures of authority, from lawyers to martial arts instructors.

54. Men’s Wearhouse items SLACKS
The term “slacks” was introduced in the early 1800s with the the meaning “loose trousers”. Those early slacks were part of a military uniform.

Men’s Wearhouse is a retailer of men’s dress clothes that was founded in 1973 by George Zimmer. Zimmer is known for the slogan “You’re gonna like the way you look. I guarantee it.”

61. Online crafts marketplace ETSY
Etsy.com e-commerce website where you can buy and sell the kind of items that you might find at a craft fair.

64. SFO posting ETA
Expected time of arrival (ETA)

San Francisco International Airport (SFO) serves as the main base of operations for Virgin America, and is also the maintenance hub for United Airlines. SFO was the site of a 2013 crash of an Asiana Airlines Boeing 777 that resulted in three fatalities. My wife and I had flown into SFO 24 hours earlier. That tends to be sobering …

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For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. Wire insulator TAPE
5. Australian gemstone OPAL
9. Dressed CLAD
13. They’re found in veins ORES
14. Zany escapade CAPER
16. Saintly ring HALO
17. Yellow sticky brand POST-IT NOTE
19. Eric of “Spamalot” IDLE
20. Color HUE
21. Manicurist’s concern NAIL
22. “Breaking Bad” award EMMY
24. Out of bed ASTIR
26. Caffeination station COFFEE BAR
30. Vessel for the Mad Hatter TEACUP
32. Fast-running bird OSTRICH
33. Kibbutz country ISRAEL
36. 18th-century composer Thomas ARNE
37. Kenya neighbor: Abbr. SOM
40. Crisis phone service HOTLINE
43. “Breaking Bad” law org. DEA
44. Journey TRIP
46. Shed, with “off” SLOUGH
48. Solar or lunar phenomenon ECLIPSE
51. Hiss and hum NOISES
55. Café serving group WAIT STAFF
58. Flawless IDEAL
59. British “Bye-bye” TATA
60. Tees off IRES
62. Electronic eavesdropping org. NSA
63. Jalopy HEAP
65. Composer’s output, and where to find the last words of 17-, 26-, 40- and 55-Across SHEET MUSIC
68. Sicilian volcano ETNA
69. Golf targets HOLES
70. Quick gander PEEK
71. Light bulb unit WATT
72. Circular current EDDY
73. Respectful titles SIRS

Down
1. Part of Uncle Sam’s outfit TOP HAT
2. Turn on AROUSE
3. Pre-euro Spanish coin PESETA
4. Repair shop fig. EST
5. Penta- plus three OCTA-
6. Lose one’s cool PANIC
7. 2014 Olympics skating analyst Ohno APOLO
8. Replayed tennis serve LET
9. Fire-breathing Greek monster CHIMERA
10. 1960s White House nickname LADY BIRD
11. Every one ALL
12. Anonymous Jane DOE
15. Snorkeling areas REEFS
18. Arrival en masse INRUSH
23. Bumped into MET
25. Here, to Henri ICI
27. Folded manuscript sheet FOLIO
28. Clearasil target ACNE
29. Actress Perlman RHEA
31. Expert PRO
34. On a cruise, say AT SEA
35. Angled pipe fitting ELL
37. Meat-and-potatoes dish STEW
38. Ocean predator ORCA
39. Combatively supportive MILITANT
41. Religious sister NUN
42. Self-absorption EGOISM
45. Rain-on-the-roof rhythm PIT-A-PAT
47. Kept secret HID
49. Hollywood hrs. PST
50. Money in the mattress, e.g. STASH
52. Karate instructor SENSEI
53. More like child’s play EASIER
54. Men’s Wearhouse items SLACKS
56. Chase flies or grounders FIELD
57. Let loose FREED
61. Online crafts marketplace ETSY
63. Chop with an ax HEW
64. SFO posting ETA
66. Gardening tool HOE
67. Portfolio-increasing market moves UPS

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