LA Times Crossword Answers 7 Jul 14, Monday

CROSSWORD SETTER: Jerry Edelstein
THEME: This Is My Song … today’s themed answers are song titles, each starting with “Me and …”

1A. With 66-Across, 1967 Petula Clark hit, and a hint to the three longest puzzle answers THIS IS
66A. See 1-Across MY SONG

23A. 1927 soft-shoe classic ME AND MY SHADOW
35A. 1971 Janis Joplin chart-topper ME AND BOBBY MCGEE
47A. 1972 Billy Paul #1 hit ME AND MRS JONES

BILL BUTLER’S COMPLETION TIME: 5m 54s
ANSWERS I MISSED: 0

Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across

1. With 66-Across, 1967 Petula Clark hit, and a hint to the three longest puzzle answers THIS IS
(66A. See 1-Across MY SONG)
“This Is My Song” was a hit for Petula Clark in 1966. What I find most interesting about this song is that it was written by the great comic actor Charlie Chaplin. Chaplin and Clark lived nearby to each other in Switzerland in the mid-sixties.

10. Bal. sheet expert CPA
Certified public accountant (CPA)

15. Amtrak and B&O, e.g. RRS
Amtrak is the name used commercially by the National Railroad Passenger Corporation. “Amtrak” comes from a melding of the words “America” and “track”.

The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) was one of the oldest in the country. Construction started on the railroad in 1828 in order to offer a method of transportation inland from Baltimore. This was deemed necessary as Baltimore was losing business to New York City after the completion of the Erie Canal (which cheaply and efficiently moved goods inland).

19. __ Paulo, Brazil SAO
São Paulo is the largest city in Brazil. São Paulo is also the city with the highest number of helicopters in the world. This is partly driven by the horrendous traffic jams in São Paulo, but also by the wealthy having a very real fear of being kidnapped on the city’s streets.

20. Web surfing devices MODEMS
A modem is a device that is used to facilitate the transmission of a digital signal over an analog line. At one end of the line a modem is used to “modulate” an analog carrier signal to encode the the digital information, and at the other end a modem is used to “demodulate” the analog carrier signal and so reproduce the original digital information. This modulation-demodulation gives the device its name: a MOdulator-DEModulator, or “modem”.

22. Baseball’s Rose PETE
Pete Rose was a talented baseball player who holds the record for all-time Major League hits. In recent years of course his reputation has been tarnished by admissions that he bet on games in which he played and managed.

23. 1927 soft-shoe classic ME AND MY SHADOW
“Me and My Shadow” is a song first published in 1927. The music was composed by Dave Dreyer and the lyrics written by Billy Rose. Singer and actor Al Jolson was also given credit as a writer. Apparently that used to happen a lot back then, so that Jolson could earn some extra cash.

27. Charlotte and Norma RAES
Charlotte Rae is an American actress, best known for playing the character Edna Garrett on two sitcoms from the seventies and eighties: “Diff’rent Strokes” and “The Facts of Life”. Towards the end of the series, the Edna Garrett character operated her own gourmet food shop called “Edna’s Edibles”.

“Norma Rae” is a 1979 movie starring Sally Field as Norma Rae Webster in a tale of union activities in a textile factory in Alabama. The film is based on the true story of Crystal Lee Sutton told in a 1975 book called “Crystal Lee, a Woman of Inheritance”.

31. Singer Ives BURL
As well as being an actor, Burl Ives was a folk singer, his original calling. In Hollywood Ives had a distressing experience with the House Un-American Activities Committee and avoided being blacklisted by cooperating at some level with McCarthy and his cohorts. This cooperation created a rift between him and Pete Seeger in particular, a fellow singer whom he “discussed” with the committee.

35. 1971 Janis Joplin chart-topper ME AND BOBBY MCGEE
Janis Joplin recorded the song “Me and Bobby McGee” just a few days before she died in 1970. The song was released anyway, and it became Joplin’s only number one single. There have been just two posthumous number one singles, Joplin’s “Me and Bobby McGee”, and Otis Redding’s “(Sittin’ on) the Dock of the Bay”.

The singer Janis Joplin was from Port Arthur, Texas. A loose version of Joplin’s wild life is told in the 1979 film “The Rose”, with Bette Midler playing the lead. Famously, Joplin died in 1970 at 27 years of age from an overdose of heroin.

40. __ diem PER
“Per diem” is the Latin for “by the day”. We tend to use the term for a daily allowance for expenses when traveling for work.

41. Morning brew JAVA
Back in 1850, the name “java” was given to a type of coffee grown on the island of Java, and the usage of the term spread from there.

43. ” Pretty Woman”co-star Richard GERE
Richard Gere has played such great roles on the screen, and I find him to be a very interesting character off the screen. Gere has been studying Buddhism since 1978 and is a very visible supporter of the Dalai Lama and the people of Tibet.

“Pretty Woman” is a great movie, a 1990 romantic comedy starring Richard Gere and Julia Roberts. The film was originally written as a very dark story, with the female lead not only a prostitute, but also a drug addict, The Disney studio who took up the project demanded that it be rewritten as a modern-day fairy tale, and what a good decision that was.

44. Med. plan options PPOS
Preferred Provider Organization (PPO) or Health Maintenance Organization (HMO). Make your choice …

47. 1972 Billy Paul #1 hit ME AND MRS JONES
“Me and Mrs. Jones” is a fabulous blues song first recorded by Billy Paul, in 1972. It’s all about a man and the extramarital affair he has with Mrs. Jones. The song is used to great effect in the soundtrack of the 2001 movie “Bridget Jones’s Diary”.

52. “The Thin Man” dog ASTA
Asta is the wonderful little dog in the superb “The Thin Man” series of films 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.

53. Andre of tennis AGASSI
Renowned tennis professional Andre Agassi wrote an autobiography called “Open”, published in 2009. An amazing revelation in the book is that Agassi’s famous head of hair was actually a wig for much of his playing career. Can you imagine how hard it must have been to play tennis at his level with a rug stuck on?

59. Johannesburg section SOWETO
Soweto is an urban area in the city of Johannesburg, South Africa. The name comes from SOuth WEstern TOwnship, a black township that was set up the days of apartheid. The famous Soweto Uprising took place in 1976, triggered by government policy forcing education to be given in Afrikaans rather than in English.

63. “I’m a __, not a divider”: Bush UNITER
“I’m a uniter, not a divider” is a statement made in a 1999 interview with David Horowitz by then presidential candidate Governor George W. Bush.

65. Guidance counselor’s deg. MSW
Master of Social Work (MSW)

Down
2. Wife of Zeus HERA
In Greek mythology, Hera was the wife of Zeus and was noted for her jealous and vengeful nature, particularly against those who vied for the affections of her husband. The equivalent character to Hera in Roman mythology was Juno. Hera was the daughter of Cronus and Rhea.

5. O’Neill’s “The __ Cometh” ICEMAN
“The Iceman Cometh” is a play written by American playwright Eugene O’Neill and first performed in 1946 on Broadway. The play centers on some down-and-out men in a shabby saloon in Manhattan. The title is a reference to the “ice man”, the man who would have delivered ice to homes back in the time of the play. The reference is to a bawdy joke in which the “ice man” was having an affair with someone’s wife.

6. “Red Rocks” resort near Flagstaff 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.

8. Diplomatic representative EMISSARY
An “emissary” is an ambassador, an agent sent on a mission, usually from one government to another. The term derives from the Latin “emissarius” meaning “that is sent out”.

9. Hi-fi spinners LPS
Hi-fi systems were introduced in the late forties, and is audio equipment designed to give a much higher quality reproduction of sound than cheaper systems available up to that point. “Hi-fi” stands for “high fidelity”.

11. Prefix with plasm PROTO-
The word “protoplasm” comes from the Greek, meaning first (protos) thing formed (plasma). It is the name given to the cell contents, everything that is surrounded by the plasma membrane. The protoplasm in most cells is divided into two parts, the cytoplasm which surrounds the nucleus, and the nucleoplasm found within the nucleus.

21. Banned bug killer DDT
DDT is dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (don’t forget now!). DDT was used with great success to control disease-carrying insects during WWII, and when made available for use after the war it became by far the most popular pesticide. And then Rachel Carson published her famous book “Silent Spring”, suggesting there was a link between DDT and diminishing populations of certain wildlife. It was the public outcry sparked by the book, and reports of links between DDT and cancer, that led to the ban on the use of the chemical in 1972. That ban is touted as the main reason that the bald eagle was rescued from near extinction.

28. Current unit AMP
The unit of electric current is the ampere, abbreviated correctly to “A” rather than “amp”. It is named after French physicist André-Marie Ampère, one of the main scientists responsible for the discovery of electromagnetism.

29. Gesture from a winner VEE
One has to be careful making that V-sign depending where you are in the world. Where I came from, the V for victory (or peace) sign has to be made with the palm facing outwards. If the sign is made with the palm facing inwards, it can be interpreted as a very obscene gesture.

31. Finance major’s deg. BBA
Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA)

33. Calligraphy tool PEN
Calligraphy is the art of fine handwriting, and a term derived from the Greek “kallos” meaning “beauty” and “graphein” meaning “to write”.

36. Spun 9-Down at a party, say DJED
The world’s first radio disc jockey (DJ) was one Ray Newby of Stockton, California who made his debut broadcast in 1909, would you believe? When he was 16 years old and a student, Newby started to play his records on a primitive radio located in the Herrold College of Engineering and Wireless in San Jose. The records played back then were mostly recordings of Enrico Caruso.

44. Nightwear, briefly PJS
Our word “pajamas” comes to us from the Indian subcontinent, where “pai jamahs” were loose fitting pants tied at the waist and worn at night by locals and ultimately by the Europeans living there. And “pajamas” is another of those words that I had to learn to spell differently when I came to America. In the British Isles the spelling is “pyjamas”.

45. Death-feigning critter POSSUM
The idiom “playing possum” means pretending to be dead. The phrase is used in recognition of the behavior of the Virginia Opossum that does just that, plays dead as a defense mechanism. We often use the term “possum” colloquially for the opossum species that live here in North America, but in fact, the true “possums” are marsupials native to Australia.

47. Bea Arthur title role MAUDE
Actress Bea Arthur’s most famous roles were on television, as the lead in the “All in the Family” spin-off “Maude” and as Dorothy Zbornak in “The Golden Girls”. Arthur also won a Tony for playing Vera Charles on stage in the original cast of “Mame” in 1966, two years after she played Yente the matchmaker in the original cast of “Fiddler on the Roof”.

48. Cable sports awards ESPYS
The ESPY Awards are a creation of the ESPN sports television network. One difference with similarly named awards in the entertainment industry is that ESPY winners are chosen solely based on viewer votes.

50. Smart-alecky talk SASS
Apparently the original “smart Alec” (sometimes “Aleck”) was Alec Hoag, a pimp, thief and confidence trickster who plied his trade in New York City in the 1840s.

56. Bjorn with five Wimbledon wins BORG
Björn Borg is a retired tennis player from Sweden, and a former World No. 1. Borg won 41% of the 27 Grand Slam singles tournaments that he entered, which is a record that stands to the day. He was known for reacting very calmly under pressure on the tennis court and hence earned the nicknames “Ice Man” and “Ice Borg”, which is my personal favorite.

60. Green Bay’s st. WIS
The city of Green Bay is the third-largest in the state of Wisconsin, after Milwaukee and Madison. The city is located on an arm of Lake Michigan called Green Bay. People in the area refer to the city as “Green Bay” and the body of water as “the Bay of Green Bay” in order to avoid confusing one with the other.

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For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. With 66-Across, 1967 Petula Clark hit, and a hint to the three longest puzzle answers THIS IS
7. Address book no. TEL
10. Bal. sheet expert CPA
13. Lure SEDUCE
14. Gas station machine PUMP
15. Amtrak and B&O, e.g. RRS
16. Readied for new paint PRIMED
17. Thing left out OMISSION
19. __ Paulo, Brazil SAO
20. Web surfing devices MODEMS
22. Baseball’s Rose PETE
23. 1927 soft-shoe classic ME AND MY SHADOW
26. Body sci. ANAT
27. Charlotte and Norma RAES
28. Swear to be true AVER
31. Singer Ives BURL
32. Suitable APT
35. 1971 Janis Joplin chart-topper ME AND BOBBY MCGEE
40. __ diem PER
41. Morning brew JAVA
42. Excellent A-ONE
43. “Pretty Woman” co-star Richard GERE
44. Med. plan options PPOS
47. 1972 Billy Paul #1 hit ME AND MRS JONES
52. “The Thin Man” dog ASTA
53. Andre of tennis AGASSI
54. Fall back, as a tide EBB
57. On the floor above UPSTAIRS
59. Johannesburg section SOWETO
61. Coloring agent DYE
62. Pledges exchanged at the altar I DOS
63. “I’m a __, not a divider”: Bush UNITER
64. Spanish “that” ESA
65. Guidance counselor’s deg. MSW
66. See 1-Across MY SONG

Down
1. Recipe amts. TSPS
2. Wife of Zeus HERA
3. “Pound the pavement” or “break the ice” IDIOM
4. Addition result SUM
5. O’Neill’s “The __ Cometh” ICEMAN
6. “Red Rocks” resort near Flagstaff SEDONA
7. Upside-down puppy’s massage TUMMY RUB
8. Diplomatic representative EMISSARY
9. Hi-fi spinners LPS
10. Sobbed CRIED
11. Prefix with plasm PROTO-
12. Good __: fixed AS NEW
14. Ode, for one POEM
18. Health resorts SPAS
21. Banned bug killer DDT
24. Make, as money EARN
25. Ship’s wheel HELM
28. Current unit AMP
29. Gesture from a winner VEE
30. Corn serving EAR
31. Finance major’s deg. BBA
32. In times past AGO
33. Calligraphy tool PEN
34. Golf ball raiser TEE
36. Spun 9-Down at a party, say DJED
37. Some tavern workers BARMAIDS
38. Crowd with foliage OVERGROW
39. 24 cans of beer, e.g. CASE
43. Annoying bug GNAT
44. Nightwear, briefly PJS
45. Death-feigning critter POSSUM
46. Like some dips ONIONY
47. Bea Arthur title role MAUDE
48. Cable sports awards ESPYS
49. On a freighter AT SEA
50. Smart-alecky talk SASS
51. Deal with SEE TO
55. Bingo call B-TEN
56. Bjorn with five Wimbledon wins BORG
58. Goal AIM
60. Green Bay’s st. WIS

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5 thoughts on “LA Times Crossword Answers 7 Jul 14, Monday”

  1. Hello Bill, (and wife -), and friends,

    Hope you are having a pleasant drive and various stays. Be safe.

    Puzzle easy. Faintly remember all the songs.

    So Sao Paulo has the largest number of helicopters. One of my queries would be how do they coordinate their air traffic, so that they avoid accidents. Most air traffic controllers don't direct helicopters. Also considering that helicopters are generally very expensive – it seems a very disproportionate extravagance for a rather poor nation.

    At least, nowadays, for a short time, there's futbol they can count on.

    Have a pleasant day, all you all.

  2. Hello Bill et al –

    Fun Monday puzzle. I really don't know any of the songs, but I had heard of them enough that I got them. The "me and" parts were easy to spot.

    Bjorn Borg was actually quite temperamental as a youth player. He just decided that it served no purpose to get upset and it ultimately worked in his favor to not let things get to him. Easier said than done….

    I wish I had that kind of will to just change on a dime like that. President Eisenhower smoked 80 cigarettes per day for decades until one day he decided it was too much. He never smoked another cigarette again in his life after that decision.

    I've always been both impressed with and envious of people who could do that…wow.

    Best –

  3. Hi Bill and your wife, Hope you are enjoying your road trip!
    Pick me up a sterling concho belt if you can! ^0^
    I almost thought I wasn't going to finish a Monday. Between HERA and SEDONA, thought I was a goner.
    NOW I remember Petula's version of THIS IS MY SONG, but it wasn't the first thing I thought of.
    Piano Man, thanks for the Cub Scout info. We had AKELA not too long ago. I went to lunch with a friend whose sun is in cub Scouts. She never heard of it.
    Kristin, I liked Merl's puzzle, but also had trouble with the
    clue "Get started on laundry day"
    I had PRE-WASH.
    Have a cool day…wish it was cool here, sigh

  4. Janis Joplin grew up across the street from and went to high school with another famous JJ: Jimmy Johnson, former coach of the Dallas Cowboys and now a TV sports commentator. Must have been something in the water down there in Texas.

    The V sign is also a widely used symbol of friendship, especially in China. As I travelled I saw this frequently when I took pictures. They were friends, weren't they?

    Bjorn Borg was only 18 when he won his first Grand Slam tennis championship in 1974. My favorite nickname for him, coined by Bud Collins, was "Teen Angel".

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