LA Times Crossword Answers 16 Aug 14, Saturday

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CROSSWORD SETTER: Ned White
THEME: None
BILL BUTLER’S COMPLETION TIME: 20m 04s
ANSWERS I MISSED: 0

Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across

8. Avocation, slangily BAG
One’s “avocation” is one’s regular job, one’s “bag”.

11. Plant activity: Abbr. MFG
Manufacturing (mfg.)

18. Attacks with gusto DIVES IN
“Gusto” is an Italian word meaning “taste”. We use it in the sense of “with gusto”, with great enjoyment.

19. “Rescue 911” fig. EMT
Emergency medical technician (EMT)

“Rescue 911” is a reality TV show hosted by William Shatner that told the stories of actual 911 calls. The show ran on CBS from 1989 to 1996.

22. Persian Gulf capital DOHA
Doha is the capital city of the state of Qatar located on the Persian Gulf. The name “Doha” translates from Arabic as “the big tree”.

Qatar is a sovereign state in the Middle East occupying the Qatar Peninsula, itself located in the Arabian Peninsula. Qatar lies on the Persian Gulf and shares one land border, with Saudi Arabia to the south. Qatar has more oil and gas reserves per capita of population than any other country in the world. In 2010, Qatar had the fastest growing economy in the world, driven by the petrochemical industry.

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.

24. One in charge of many couples NOAH
Genesis 6:19-20 states that Noah was instructed to take two animals of every kind into the ark. Later, in Genesis 7:2-3 Noah was instructed to take on board “every clean animal by sevens … male and female, to keep offspring alive on the face of all the earth”. Apparently “extras” (7 rather than 2) were needed for ritual sacrifice.

28. Colorado __, Colo. SPRS
Colorado Springs is located near the base of Pike’s Peak mountain in the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains. “The Springs”, as it is often called, was named in 2006 the best US big city in which to live by “Money” magazine. The city is home to the US Air Force Academy as well as the US Olympic Training Center, both of which are marvelous places to tour when visiting the area.

31. Grinder PESTLE
I’ve always loved the sound of the words “mortar” and “pestle”, ever since I was first introduced to them in the chemistry lab. The Romans called a receptacle for pounding or grinding things a “mortarium”, giving us “mortar”. Mortarium was also the word for the product of pounding and grinding, which gives us our “mortar” that’s used with bricks to build a wall. And further, short stubby cannons used in the 16th century resembled a grinding bowl and so were called “mortars”, which evolved into our contemporary weapon of the same name. As far as the pestle is concerned, it is also derived from its Latin name “pistillum”, which comes from the word for “crush”.

33. A little, in music POCO
“Poco” is an Italian word for “little” and is used in musical notation to mean “to a small degree, a little”.

35. Some NFL blockers RTS
Right tackle (RT)

36. Cleese antic in a Monty Python sketch SILLY WALK
In a famous “Monty Python” sketch, John Cleese appears as a bowler-hatted government employee who has a very odd walk. As the sketch progresses, we discover that Cleese is playing a man who works at the Ministry for Silly Walks, and whose job it is to hand out grants to people who wish to develop silly walks of their own.

The zany comedy show called “Monty Python’s Flying Circus” was first aired in 1969 on the BBC. The show ran for four seasons and finished up soon after John Cleese decided to leave the team and move onto other projects.

The magnificent actor and comedian John Cleese came to the public’s attention as a cast member in the BBC’s comedy sketch show “Monty Python’s Flying Circus”. Cleese then co-wrote and starred in the outstanding comedy “Fawlty Towers”. He even had a role in two “James Bond” films.

39. Ring gp. WBA
World Boxing Association (WBA)

42. Per __ DIEM
“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.

51. “Paper Moon” Oscar winner O’NEAL
Tatum O’Neal is the youngest actress to win a “competitive” Oscar. She won the Best Supporting Actress Award in 1974 when she was just 10 years old, for her role as Addie in “Paper Moon”. The youngest person to win an honorary Academy Award was Shirley Temple, who was only 5 years old when she was presented with an Oscar in 1934.

“Paper Moon” is a 1973 comedy film that tells the story of a father and daughter during the Great Depression. The onscreen father and daughter are played by real-life father and daughter Ryan and Tatum O’Neal. The original choices for the lead roles were Paul Newman and his daughter Nell Potts, but they left the project after director John Huston also dropped out.

52. 19th-century presidential middle name ABRAM
James Abram Garfield, the 20th President, was of course assassinated in office. He was shot twice, and one bullet could not be found (it was lodged in his spine). The inventor Alexander Graham Bell developed a metal detector in an attempt to locate the bullet, but apparently he was unsuccessful because of interference from the metal bed frame on which the president lay. Garfield died two months after being shot.

56. Kerfuffle TO-DO
“Kerfuffle” comes from the Scottish “curfuffle”, with both words meaning “disruption”.

61. Hogan dwellers NAVAHOS
There are more speakers of the Navajo (also “Navaho”) language than any other Native American language north of the US-Mexico border. Famously, the Navajo language was used by the “code talkers” in the Pacific Theater during WWII to send secure communications by radio. These Navajo “coded” messages were used in fast tactical communications, with one bilingual Navajo speaker talking over the radio to another speaker, and the two acting as translators at either end of the conversation. The Navajo code was never broken by the Japanese.

Hogan is the anglicization of a Navajo word meaning “the home place”.

65. One that didn’t show? ALSO-RAN
In the world of betting, “to place” means finishing 1st or 2nd. “To show” means finishing 1st, 2nd or 3rd.

66. JFK speechwriter Sorensen TED
Ted Sorensen was John F. Kennedy’s speech-writer, and he wrote a biography about the President called “Kennedy”. President Kennedy once referred to Sorensen as his “intellectual blood bank”.

67. Burn cause, perhaps LYE
What we call “lye” is usually sodium hydroxide, although historically the term was used for potassium hydroxide. Lye has many uses, including to cure several foodstuffs. Lye can make olives less bitter, for example. The chemical is also found in canned mandarin oranges, pretzels and Japanese ramen noodles. More concentrated grades of lye are used to clear drains and clean ovens. Scary …

Down
2. Clematis relative ANEMONE
The name “anemone” means “daughter of the wind” in Greek, and at one time it was believed that the wind was what actually caused the flower to bloom. The sea anemone is named for the terrestrial plant even though it isn’t a plant at all. The sea anemone is a predatory animal found on the ocean floor.

The genus of flowering plant known as clematis is in the buttercup family. The name of the genus comes from an Ancient Greek word for “a climbing plant”.

4. Brooklyn closer -ITE
The New York City borough of Brooklyn used to be its own city, but was annexed by its larger neighbor in 1989. Brooklyn takes its name from the original village that was settled by the Dutch, which they called Breuckelen. The village in turn took its name from the town of Breukelen back in the Netherlands.

5. Actor Bud of “Harold and Maude” CORT
Bud Cort is the actor who played the title role in the 1970 film “Brewster McCloud”, and Harold in the 1971 movie “Harold and Maude”.

7. Solo couple? LONG OS
Both of the letters O in word “solo” are long Os.

10. MacLeod of “The Love Boat” GAVIN
The actor Gavin MacLeod is noted for his television roles as Happy Haines on “McHale’s Navy”, Murray Slaughter on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and Captain Stubing on “The Love Boat”.

“The Love Boat” TV series was born out of 1976 made-for-TV movie with the same title. The movie was which itself was an adaptation of a nonfiction book called “The Love Boats” written by real-life cruise director Jeraldine Saunders.

21. McDonald’s offering HAPPY MEAL
The McDonald’s Happy Meal was introduced in 1977. The Happy Meal was inspired by a selection of food designed in a Guatemala McDonald’s to suit children that was called “Menu Ronald”.

23. Court workers: Abbr. ATTS
Attorney (att.)

32. Clinton and both Bushes, but not Obama ELIS
Elihu Yale was a wealthy merchant born in Boston in 1649. Yale worked for the British East India Company, and for many years served as governor of a settlement at Madras (now Chennai) in India. After India, Yale took over his father’s estate near Wrexham in Wales. It was while resident in Wrexham that Yale responded to a request for financial support for the Collegiate School of Connecticut in 1701. He sent the school a donation, which was used to erect a new building in New Haven that was named “Yale” in his honor. In 1718, the whole school was renamed to “Yale College”. To this day, students of Yale are nicknamed “Elis”, again honoring Elihu.

34. Stick in a dish OLEO
Emperor Louis Napoleon III of France announced a competition to develop a substitute for butter, a substitute that would be more accessible to the lower classes and more practical for the armed forces. In 1869, a French chemist called Hippolyte Mege-Mouries came up with something that he called oleomargarine, which was eventually manufactured under the trade name “margarine”. The name “oleomargarine” also gives us our generic term “oleo”.

38. “The Metaphysics of Morals” writer KANT
Immanuel Kant was an 18th-century, German philosopher. Kant published “Perpetual Peace” in 1795, laying out what he believed were conditions for ending all wars and creating a lasting peace. The good news for us is that one of these conditions was to have a world full of constitutional republics, so it seems we are on the right track here in the US!

“The Metaphysics of Morals” is a 1797 treatise on ethics by the German philosopher Immanuel Kant. In the work, Kant discusses the the rights that people have and can acquire, as well as the virtues that Kant believed people should acquire.

39. More of the same WHATNOT
One might add the phrase “and whatnot” to a list of things, as in “crosswords, puzzles, games and whatnot”. “Whatnot” is indicating “other unspecified things of the same ilk”.

44. Impala predator LEOPARD
The four “big cats” are the tiger, lion, jaguar and leopard. The smallest of these is the leopard.

“Impala” is the Zulu word for “gazelle”. When running at a sustained speed, gazelles can move along at 30 miles per hour. If needed, they can accelerate for bursts up to 60 miles per hour.

45. Seized the opportunity MADE HAY
Make hay while the sun shines … seize the opportunity.

46. Spot finishers, often SLOGANS
Our word “slogan” comes from the Gaelic “sluagh-ghairm”, which was a battle cry used in Scotland and Ireland. We’ve been using “slogan” to mean a phrase used by a political or other movement since the early 1700s.

48. “Histoire de __”: French children’s book BABAR
“Babar the Elephant” originated in France, a creation of Jean de Brunhoff in 1931. The first book was “Histoire de Babar”, a book so successful it was translated into English two years later for publication in Britain and the US. Jean de Brunhoff wrote six more Babar stories before he died in 1937, and then his son Laurent continued his father’s work.

50. Mel Gibson persona MAD MAX
“Mad Max” is a series of Australian movies starring Mel Gibson in the title role. Well, Gibson played the lead in the first three films and Tom Hardy plays Max in the fourth movie, which is currently in production.

Mel Gibson is an American actor, and not Australian as many believe. Gibson was born in Peekskill, New York and moved with his family to Sydney, Australia when he was 12 years old.

53. Urdu for “palace” MAHAL
“Mahal” is the Urdu word for “palace”, as in “Taj Mahal” meaning “crown of palaces”. The Taj Mahal is a mausoleum holding the body of Mumtaz Mahal, the third wife of Mughal emperor Shah Jahan. The name “Mumtaz Mahal” translates as “the chosen one of the palace”.

58. Hardly energetic LOGY
Something or someone that is “logy” is dull and heavy. “Logy” might come from the Dutch word “log” that means “heavy, dull”.

59. Tabula __ RASA
Tabula rasa (plural: tabulae rasae) is the idea that people are born with a “blank slate”, and that knowledge comes from experience and perception.

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For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. Like fairies MAGICAL
8. Avocation, slangily BAG
11. Plant activity: Abbr. MFG
14. “Almost done” ONE TO GO
15. Mostly AS A RULE
17. Experienced VETERAN
18. Attacks with gusto DIVES IN
19. “Rescue 911” fig. EMT
20. Like one claiming to be short, maybe TIGHTFISTED
22. Persian Gulf capital DOHA
24. One in charge of many couples NOAH
25. White __ NOISE
26. Yards, e.g. UNITS
28. Colorado __, Colo. SPRS
30. Common result of use WEAR
31. Grinder PESTLE
33. A little, in music POCO
35. Some NFL blockers RTS
36. Cleese antic in a Monty Python sketch SILLY WALK
39. Ring gp. WBA
42. Per __ DIEM
43. Dominions REALMS
47. Flavor enhancer HERB
49. Stop STEM
51. “Paper Moon” Oscar winner O’NEAL
52. 19th-century presidential middle name ABRAM
54. Hat tipper’s word MA’AM
56. Kerfuffle TO-DO
57. Source of wisdom TRIBAL ELDER
60. Identify PEG
61. Hogan dwellers NAVAHOS
62. Evil laugh MWAHAHA!
64. Excess OVERAGE
65. One that didn’t show? ALSO-RAN
66. JFK speechwriter Sorensen TED
67. Burn cause, perhaps LYE
68. Unknowns to figure out XS AND YS

Down
1. Advanced MOVED UP
2. Clematis relative ANEMONE
3. Rumor starter? GET THIS
4. Brooklyn closer -ITE
5. Actor Bud of “Harold and Maude” CORT
6. “Not __!” AGAIN
7. Solo couple? LONG OS
8. It may be over one’s head at first BAD THROW
9. “Oh, sure” AS IF
10. MacLeod of “The Love Boat” GAVIN
11. More like the typical attic MUSTIER
12. Attacks FLIES AT
13. Bases for some roles GENDERS
16. Plant anew RESOW
21. McDonald’s offering HAPPY MEAL
23. Court workers: Abbr. ATTS
27. Dropped SLID
29. Traumatize SCAR
32. Clinton and both Bushes, but not Obama ELIS
34. Stick in a dish OLEO
37. “Hmm …” LET ME SEE …
38. “The Metaphysics of Morals” writer KANT
39. More of the same WHATNOT
40. Encouraging words BE BRAVE
41. Got in ARRIVED
44. Impala predator LEOPARD
45. Seized the opportunity MADE HAY
46. Spot finishers, often SLOGANS
48. “Histoire de __”: French children’s book BABAR
50. Mel Gibson persona MAD MAX
53. Urdu for “palace” MAHAL
55. Whimpers MEWLS
58. Hardly energetic LOGY
59. Tabula __ RASA
63. Doll HON

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