LA Times Crossword Answers 20 Jul 14, Sunday

Frequently Asked Question: Why isn’t the puzzle in my paper the same as the one shown on your blog?
If the puzzle in your paper doesn’t match the one that I solved, it is probably a Sunday crossword. On Sundays, the “LA Times” chooses to publish Merl Reagle’s excellent crossword, and not their own “LA Times” Crossword. The “LA Times” puzzle is still sent out in syndication, and is also published in the “LA Times” online. I’ve been asked to blog about Merl Reagle’s crossword, but frankly I don’t have the time. Sunday puzzles have lots of clues!

Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across
19. “Good Eats” host Brown ALTON
Alton Brown is a celebrity chef who is behind the Food Network show “Good Eats”, and the host of “Iron Chef America”.

20. Party hearty REVEL
It seems that “party hearty” is a colloquial phrase used meaning “revel, have a great time”. That said, these kind of phrases drive me crazy, as “hearty” is an adjective and shouldn’t be modifying “party”, a verb. I know it doesn’t alliterate, but the phrase should be “party heartily”. Please don’t write in …

27. City on I-5 SANTA ANA
Santa Ana is the county seat of Orange County, California and takes its name from the Santa Ana River that runs through the city.

30. Pequod co-owner PELEG
The Pequod is the ship that figures in Herman Melville’s classic novel “Moby Dick”. The ship is owned by a consortium of the citizens of Nantucket Island, including Captains Ahab, Bildad and Peleg.

39. Car loan figs. APRS
Annual percentage rate (APR)

42. *Clara, to Tabitha, on “Bewitched” GREAT-AUNT
“Bewitched” ran from 1964-72. Clara was the lovable but bumbling aunt of Samantha, played by Marion Lorne. Lorne won a posthumous Emmy for her performances.

On the hit sitcom “Bewitched”, Samantha and Darrin’s daughter is Tabitha. Tabitha has supernatural powers just like her mother. The daughter also got her own spinoff show called “Tabitha”.

48. Source of fries SPUD
The word “spud” is used as a slang term for a potato and was first recorded in the mid-1800s, in New Zealand would you believe?

49. Elisabeth of “Gracie” SHUE
Elisabeth Shue has always been a favorite actress of mine. She has been in several popular films including “The Karate Kid”, “Cocktail”, two of the “Back to the Future” movies, “Leaving Las Vegas”, and my personal favorite “Adventures in Babysitting”. Shue now has a recurring role on the TV crime drama “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation”.

“Gracie” is a 2007 sports film set in the days when organized women’s soccer was rare in the US. The title character is a young tomboy who convinces her parents to let her play soccer in a boys’ team, along with her brother. The film’s storyline is loosely based on the real-life experiences of actress Elizabeth Shue growing up. Shue actually appears in “Gracie”, playing Gracie’s mother.

51. Silas Marner, e.g. MISER
“Silas Marner: The Weaver of Raveloe” is a novel written by George Eliot and first published in 1861. There’s an excellent BBC TV version of the tale (shown on PBS) starring Ben Kingsley in the title role, with Patsy Kensit playing Eppie, the young orphaned child that Marner takes under his wing.

53. Words on an initial reference volume A TO
Volume A to B, perhaps, or maybe volume A to M.

55. *Legislation of 2001 PATRIOT ACT
The USA PATRIOT Act was signed into law in 2001 soon after the September 11th terrorist attacks. The name of the act is actually an acronym, standing for “Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism”.

59. Quaker in the forest ASPEN
The “quaking” aspen tree is so called because the structure of the leaves causes them to move easily in the wind, to “tremble, quake”.

64. Radium co-discoverer CURIE
Marie Curie lived a life of firsts. She was the first female professor at the University of Paris, the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, and indeed was the first person to win two Nobel prizes (in 1903 and 1911). Most of Curie’s work was in the field of radioactivity, and was carried out in the days when the impact of excessive radiation on the human body was not understood. She died from aplastic anemia, caused by high exposure to radiation. To this day, Curie’s personal papers are kept preserved in lead-lined boxes as they are highly radioactive, even her personal cookbook.

68. Diagonal line, on some score sheets SPARE
In bowling, the downing of all ten pins in two balls in the same frame is a “spare”, scoring ten points. The player gets a bonus, equal to the number of pins downed with the next ball, which could be up to ten. Hence, a spare can be worth up to 20 points.

71. Toaster opening HERE’S
Here’s to the birthday boy, for example.

72. Gin cocktails MARTINIS
The name “martini” probably takes it name from the “Martini & Rossi” brand of dry vermouth, although no one seems to be completely sure. What is clear is that despite the Martini name originating in Italy, the martini drink originated in the US. The original martini was made with gin and sweet vermouth, but someone specifying a “dry” martini was given gin and dry vermouth. Nowadays we use dry vermouth for all martinis and the term “dry” has become a reference to how little vermouth is included in the drink. Famously, Noel Coward liked his drink very dry and said that a perfect martini is made by “filling a glass with gin then waving it in the general direction of Italy”.

75. Mary __: ill-fated ship DEARE
“The Wreck of the Mary Deare” is a novel by Hammond Innes, as well as a 1959 movie adaptation of the book, starring Gary Cooper.

76. *Hippo RIVER HORSE
The name “hippopotamus” comes from the Greek for “river horse”. Hippos are the third largest land mammals, after elephants and rhinos. The closest living relatives to hippos don’t even live on land. They are the whales and porpoises of the oceans.

82. Like Solomon WISE
According to the Bible, Solomon was the son of David and a king of Israel. Notably, Solomon is described as being very wise. In the story known as “the Judgment of Solomon”, Solomon was asked to decide who of two quarreling women was the mother of a baby. He suggested that they cut the baby in two with a sword, forcing one of the women to surrender the child rather than see it die. Solomon gave the child to the woman who showed compassion.

84. Calculus calculation AREA
Remember doing calculus at school, and all those derivatives and integrals? Well, you probably also remember that an integral calculates the area under a curve (for example).

91. “King of the Bullwhip” star LARUE
Alfred LaRue was an actor who appeared in a lot of western movies in the forties and fifties. He was very adept with the bullwhip, earning him the nickname “Lash”. Years after his on screen career ended, LaRue was the guy who trained Harrison Ford how to use a bullwhip for his role in the “Indiana Jones” series of films.

93. Logician Turing ALAN
Alan Turing was an English mathematician. He was deservedly well-respected for his code-breaking work during WWII at Bletchley Park in England. However, despite his contributions to cracking the German Enigma code and other crucial work, Turing was prosecuted for homosexuality in 1952. He agreed to chemical castration, treatment with female hormones, and two years later he committed suicide by taking cyanide.

96. Author Allende ISABEL
Isabel Allende is a Chilean writer, apparently the world’s most widely-read, Spanish-language author. Isabel is related to Salvador Allende, the ex-President of Chile.

99. Baseball’s Steroid __ ERA
Steroids are found commonly in nature, with familiar examples being cholesterol and testosterone. The controversial class of drugs called anabolic steroids (known informally as “roids” or simply “steroids”) are artificially produced chemicals designed to mimic the effect of the male sex hormone, testosterone. They are termed “anabolic” as they build up cellular tissue (particularly muscle) in a process called anabolism.

100. Successor to Bess MAMIE
Mamie Eisenhower has to have been one of the most charming of all the First Ladies of the United States. Ms. Eisenhower suffered from an inner ear complaint called Ménière’s disease which caused her to lose her balance quite often. Because she was unsteady on her feet there were unfounded rumors floating around Washington that Ms. Eisenhower had a drinking problem. People can be very unkind …

Harry and Bess Truman met when they were very young children, at Sunday school. They were friends right through high school and became engaged in 1918 just before Harry went off to France during WWI, marrying the next year. Bess Truman never really took to the Washington scene when she became First Lady and stayed out of the limelight as much as she could. Perhaps that contributed to her longevity. Mrs. Truman lived to the age of 97, making her the longest living First Lady in US history.

101. Bris, e.g. RITE
A mohel is a man who has been trained in the practice of brit milah (circumcision). Brit milah is known as “bris” in Yiddish. The brit milah ceremony is performed on male infants when they are 8-days old.

114. Boston College athlete EAGLE
Boston College is a private Jesuit school located in Chestnut Hill, just a few miles from Boston, Massachusetts. The list of notable Boston College alumni includes Secretary of State John Kerry and former Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill.

115. Name meaning “born again” RENEE
“René” and “Renée” are French for the adjective “reborn”, when applied to masculine and feminine nouns.

116. Sport scored electronically EPEE
The French word for sword is “épée”. In competitive fencing the épée is connected to a system that records an electrical signal when legal contact is made on an opponent’s body.

119. Marshy lowland SWALE
A swale is a narrow tract of low-lying land that is usually wet or marshy. A swale can be naturally occurring or man-made. One might create a swale to help manage drainage of adjacent land.

Down
2. Raines of old movies ELLA
Ella Raines was a Hollywood film and television actress who was at the height of her career in the early 1940s.

7. Olin of “Chocolat” LENA
The lovely Lena Olin is a Swedish actress, clearly someone who had acting in her blood. Her mother was the actress Britta Holmberg and her father the actor and director Stig Olin. Olin had a very successful career in Sweden, often working with the great Ingmar Bergman. Olin’s breakthrough international and English-speaking role was playing opposite Daniel Day-Lewis in “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” released in 1988. Way back in 1974, the lovely Miss Olin was crowned Miss Scandinavia in a beauty pageant for Nordic women held in Helsinki, Finland.

The movie “Chocolat” released in 2000 is a big screen adaption of the novel of the same name by Joanne Harris. “Chocolat” tells the story of a young mother with a six-year-old daughter who opens up a chocolate shop in a French village. The mother is played by the lovely Juliette Binoche.

8. ERA part: Abbr. AVG
Earned run average (ERA)

9. “Snow White” frame CEL
In the world of animation, a cel is a transparent sheet on which objects and characters are drawn. In the first half of the 20th century the sheet was actually made of celluloid, giving the “cel” its name.

In the original Brothers Grimm fairy tale called “Snow White”, the seven dwarfs were not given any names. The names were added for the 1937 classic Disney film “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”. The seven dwarfs are:

– Doc (the leader of the group)
– Grumpy (that would be me, according to my wife …)
– Happy
– Sleepy
– Bashful
– Sneezy
– Dopey

10. Sophocles tragedy ELECTRA
“Electra” is a tragedy penned by Greek playwright Sophocles. The title character is the daughter of King Agamemnon, commander of the Greek forces in the Trojan War. In the play, Electra takes revenge on her mother Clytemnestra, who killed Agamemnon.

11. Derby town EPSOM
The Surrey town of Epsom in England is most famous for its racecourse (Epsom Downs), at which is run the Epsom Derby every year, one of the three races that make up the English Triple Crown. You might also have heard of Epsom salt. Epsom salt is magnesium sulfate, originally prepared by boiling down mineral waters. Epsom was indeed a spa town at one time.

12. Vehicle brand with a bulldog in its logo MACK
Mack Trucks was founded by John Mack in the early 1900s, after he had spent some years working in companies that made carriages and electric motor cars. Along with his two brothers, Mack started their company to focus on building heavy-duty trucks and engines.

17. Curriculum suffix -OLOGY
A science curriculum might contain a lot of “-ologies”, such biology, ecology, paleontology.

18. One-word def. SYN
Synonym (syn.)

26. Hammer end PEEN
The peen of a hammer is on the head, and is the side of the head that is opposite the striking surface. Often the peen is in the shape of a hemisphere (as in a ball-peen hammer), but usually it is shaped like a claw (mainly for removing nails).

34. Occasionally amended doc. CONST
Constitution (const.)

35. City of southeastern Iraq BASRA
The Iraqi city of Basra is the country’s main port, located on the Shatt al-Arab river that empties into the Persian Gulf. Basra is believed by many to have been the location of the Garden of Eden.

43. At full throttle AMAIN
“Amain” is an old term meaning “at great speed” or “of great strength”.

46. Lone Star State sch. UTEP
The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) was founded in 1914, originally as the Texas State School of Mines and Metallurgy. To this day there is a mine shaft on the campus, and the mascot of the school’s sports teams is Paydirt Pete, a prospector from the mining industry.

47. “West Side Story” hero TONY
Leonard Bernstein’s musical “West Side Story” is of course based on William Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet”. The musical is set in New York City and features two rival gangs: the Sharks from Puerto Rico and the Jets with working-class, Caucasian roots. Tony from the Jets falls in love with Maria from the Sharks. All this parallels Romeo from the House of Montague falling for Juliet from the House of Capulet in the Italian city of Verona.

60. Voice of the iPhone SIRI
Siri is software application that works with Apple’s iOS operating system. “Siri” is an acronym standing for Speech Interpretation and Recognition Interface. You’ve probably seen the ads on television, with folks talking to their iPhones asking for information and responding with a voice. I hear that Google is a little scared by Siri, as Siri is non-visual. There’s no need to touch a screen or a keyboard to work with Siri, no opportunity to click on one of Google’s ads! By the way, voice-over artist Susan Bennett recently revealed herself as the female American voice of Siri. The British version of Siri is called Daniel, and the Australian version is called Karen. By the way, “Siri” is a Norwegian name meaning “beautiful woman who leads you to victory”, and was the name the developer had chosen for his first child.

62. Talk like a lush SLUR
“Lush” is a slang term for a heavy drinker. Back in the 1700s, “lush” was slang for “liquor”.

63. Points at the table? TINES
The points of a fork are called “tines”.

67. New Orleans protector LEVEE
A levee is an artificial bank usually made of earth, running along the length of a river. A levee is designed to hold back river water at a time of potential flooding. “Levée” is the French word for “raised” and is an American term that originated in French-speaking New Orleans around 1720.

71. Blackjack request HIT ME
The game of “twenty-one” was first referred to in a book by Cervantes, the author famous for writing “Don Quixote”. He called the game “ventiuna” (Spanish for “twenty-one”). Cervantes wrote his story just after the year 1600, so the game has been around at least since then. Twenty-one came to the US but it wasn’t all that popular so bonus payments were introduced to create more interest. One of the more attractive bonuses was a ten-to-one payout to a player who was dealt an ace of spades and a black jack. This bonus led to the game adopting the moniker “Blackjack”.

72. Sports doc’s pics MRIS
A CT (or “CAT”) scan produces (via computer manipulation) a three dimensional image of the inside of an object, usually the human body. It does so by taking a series of two dimensional x-ray images while rotating the camera around the patient. The issue with CT scans is that they use x-rays, and high doses of radiation can be harmful causing damage that is cumulative over time. An MRI on the other hand (Magnetic Resonance Imaging), uses powerful magnetic fields to generate its images so there is no exposure to ionizing radiation (such as X-rays). We used MRI equipment in our chemistry labs at school, way back in the days when the technology was still called Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Imaging (NMRI). Apparently the marketing folks didn’t like the term “nuclear” because of its association with atomic bombs, so now it’s just called MRI.

73. Klutzy INEPT
“Klutz” comes from Yiddish. The Yiddish word for a clumsy person is “klots”.

74. Boxcars, for high rollers SIXES
Boxcars is a slang term for two sixes rolled on a pair of dice, particularly in the game of craps. The idea is that the twelve pips on the dice resemble a pair of boxcars on a freight train.

76. The Phantom’s rival RAOUL
In Gaston Leroux’s novel “The Phantom of the Opera”, the young Christine Daaé is obsessively admired by Erik, the “phantom” who lives below the Paris Opera House. Christine is also pursued by her childhood friend Raoul, Viscount of Chagny.

77. Berlin Olympics star OWENS
Jesse Owens won four gold medals at the Berlin Olympic Games in 1936, much to the chagrin of Adolph Hitler. Jesse’s real name was James Cleveland Owens, and he went by “JC” as a child. However, his Alabama accent was misconstrued at school when his family moved to Cleveland, so teachers and classmates called him “Jesse” instead of “JC”, and the name stuck.

85. Dessert menu phrase A LA MODE
In French, “à la mode” simply means “fashionable”. In America, the term has come to describe a way of serving pie, usually with ice cream, or as I recall from when I lived in Upstate New York, with cheese.

95. Sea divided by shrinkage ARAL
The Aral Sea is a great example of how man can have a devastating effect on his environment. In the early sixties the Aral Sea covered 68,000 square miles of Central Asia. Soviet Union irrigation projects drained the lake to such an extent that today the total area is less than 7,000 square miles, with 90% of the lake now completely dry. Sad …

96. Beatnik’s “Got it!” I’M HIP!
The term “beatnik” was coined by journalist Herb Caen in 1958 when he used it to describe the stereotypical young person of the “beat generation” that was oft associated with the writer Jack Kerouac. That stereotypical beatnik would be playing the bongos and rolling his or her own cigarettes. Male beatniks tended to sport goatees and wear berets.

97. River to the Rhone SAONE
The Saône is a river in eastern France that joins up with the Rhône in Lyon.

101. Pipsqueak RUNT
Back around 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.

103. Gumbo, for example STEW
Gumbo is a type of stew or soup that originated in Louisiana. The primary ingredient can be meat or fish, but to be true gumbo it must include the “holy trinity” of vegetables, namely celery, bell peppers and onion. Okra used to be a requirement but this is no longer the case. Okra gave the dish its name as the vernacular word for the African vegetable is “okingumbo”, from the Bantu language spoken by many of the slaves brought to America.

104. Mount near Catania ETNA
Catania is the second largest city on the island of Sicily (after Palermo). Catania has a long and rich cultural history, and today is best known as a center for technology industries earning it the nickname of the “European Silicon Valley”.

107. __-crab soup SHE
She-crab soup is a specialty in coastal Virginia, South Carolina and Georgia. The soup is very rich as it is made with cream and so is similar to a bisque. The list of ingredients includes Atlantic blue crab, and crab roe. It is the use of the roe that gives the name “She-crab”, as that’s where the roe comes from!

108. Bossy Stooge MOE
If you’ve seen a few of the films starring “The Three Stooges” you’ll have noticed that the line up changed over the years. The original trio was made up of Moe and Shemp Howard (two brothers) and Larry Fine (a good friend of the Howards). This line up was usually known as “Moe, Larry and Shemp”. Then Curly Howard replaced his brother when Shemp quit the act, creating the most famous trio, “Moe, Larry And Curly”. Shemp returned when Curly had a debilitating stroke in 1946, and Shemp stayed with the troupe until he died in 1955. Shemp was replaced by Joe Besser, and then “Curly-Joe” DeRita. When Larry Fine had a stroke in 1970, it effectively marked the end of the act.

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For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. Rad relative NEATO
6. Take second PLACE
11. Downloaded ‘zine EMAG
15. Most minigolf pars TWOS
19. “Good Eats” host Brown ALTON
20. Party hearty REVEL
21. Matching __ PAIR
22. Smooth-talking OILY
23. *Hit that just clears the infield BLOOP SINGLE
25. *Recyclable metal SCRAP IRON
27. City on I-5 SANTA ANA
28. “Order up!” shouter COOK
30. Pequod co-owner PELEG
31. Plunk (down) PUT
32. It’s a fact DATUM
34. Inferior, in slang CHEESY
35. eBay users, at times BIDDERS
39. Car loan figs. APRS
40. Ell or tee JOINT
41. Romantic affair AMOUR
42. *Clara, to Tabitha, on “Bewitched” GREAT-AUNT
44. Stopped operating, with “down” SHUT
48. Source of fries SPUD
49. Elisabeth of “Gracie” SHUE
51. Silas Marner, e.g. MISER
53. Words on an initial reference volume A TO
54. Johnny __ REB
55. *Legislation of 2001 PATRIOT ACT
59. Quaker in the forest ASPEN
61. Players in a July contest ALL-STARS
64. Radium co-discoverer CURIE
65. Curt SNIPPY
66. Silk-stocking ELITE
67. Many mottoes are written in it LATIN
68. Diagonal line, on some score sheets SPARE
69. On key IN TUNE
71. Toaster opening HERE’S
72. Gin cocktails MARTINIS
75. Mary __: ill-fated ship DEARE
76. *Hippo RIVER HORSE
78. Prefix with sex UNI-
79. Cartoon shriek EEK!
80. One of Mexico’s 31 STATE
82. Like Solomon WISE
83. Top APEX
84. Calculus calculation AREA
86. *Half a team’s schedule HOME GAMES
90. Skip the festivities, in a way ELOPE
91. “King of the Bullwhip” star LARUE
93. Logician Turing ALAN
94. Brings up PARENTS
96. Author Allende ISABEL
98. Loses crispness WILTS
99. Baseball’s Steroid __ ERA
100. Successor to Bess MAMIE
101. Bris, e.g. RITE
102. Put forward again, as a claim REASSERT
107. *Typical Western SHOOT ‘EM UP
109. One spans two words in each answer to a starred clue GREEK LETTER
112. Back HIND
113. Used up GONE
114. Boston College athlete EAGLE
115. Name meaning “born again” RENEE
116. Sport scored electronically EPEE
117. Sees GETS
118. Put up with STOOD
119. Marshy lowland SWALE

Down
1. Collars NABS
2. Raines of old movies ELLA
3. Zillions A TON
4. Traffic sound TOOT
5. “Well, it looked good __” ON PAPER
6. Dusting may reveal them PRINTS
7. Olin of “Chocolat” LENA
8. ERA part: Abbr. AVG
9. “Snow White” frame CEL
10. Sophocles tragedy ELECTRA
11. Derby town EPSOM
12. Vehicle brand with a bulldog in its logo MACK
13. Pump output AIR
14. Golf club shaft material GRAPHITE
15. Rest stop features TOILETS
16. What spies may wear WIRES
17. Curriculum suffix -OLOGY
18. One-word def. SYN
24. Reptilian tail? -SAUR
26. Hammer end PEEN
29. Drum out OUST
32. Risk taker DARER
33. Make fun of APE
34. Occasionally amended doc. CONST
35. City of southeastern Iraq BASRA
36. Urge forward IMPEL
37. *Delayed reaction DOUBLE TAKE
38. Flop DUD
40. Steroids, slangily JUICE
42. Nerve GUTS
43. At full throttle AMAIN
45. *Run into HAPPEN UPON
46. Lone Star State sch. UTEP
47. “West Side Story” hero TONY
49. Dramatic outpouring SPATE
50. Hound’s prey HARE
52. Charged RAN AT
56. Empathetic words I CARE
57. Word with ear or wear OUTER
58. McEvoy of cosmetics TRISH
60. Voice of the iPhone SIRI
62. Talk like a lush SLUR
63. Points at the table? TINES
65. Shopping __ SPREE
67. New Orleans protector LEVEE
68. Get wise with SASS
69. “That’s the general __” IDEA
70. Not e’en once NE’ER
71. Blackjack request HIT ME
72. Sports doc’s pics MRIS
73. Klutzy INEPT
74. Boxcars, for high rollers SIXES
76. The Phantom’s rival RAOUL
77. Berlin Olympics star OWENS
81. Like some omelets THREE-EGG
83. It’s drawn in bars ALE
85. Dessert menu phrase A LA MODE
87. Pace GAIT
88. Asserts without proof ALLEGES
89. Yoga class need MAT
90. Mistake-fixing tools ERASERS
92. Not much A BIT
94. Snuck a look PEEKED
95. Sea divided by shrinkage ARAL
96. Beatnik’s “Got it!” I’M HIP!
97. River to the Rhone SAONE
98. Cleaning cloths WIPES
101. Pipsqueak RUNT
102. Move, to a Realtor RELO
103. Gumbo, for example STEW
104. Mount near Catania ETNA
105. Irish dance REEL
106. One with rings TREE
107. __-crab soup SHE
108. Bossy Stooge MOE
110. Informer RAT
111. It may be massive EGO

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