LA Times Crossword Answers 25 Feb 13, Monday

CROSSWORD SETTER: Don Gagliardo & C.C. Burnikel
THEME: Developing Relationship … by taking the ends of the first three themed answers, we progress through a romantic relationship, with the fourth themed answer giving us the happy day:

17A. Soft hit that barely makes it over the infield BLOOP SINGLE
28A. Archaeological age-determination process CARBON DATING
45A. Completely absorbed FULLY ENGAGED
59A. Sign in a limo that aptly concludes the sequence formed by the last words of 17-, 28- and 45-Across JUST MARRIED

COMPLETION TIME: 6m 53s
ANSWERS I MISSED: 0

Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across
1. Apt. parts, in ads BRS
Bedrooms (brs.)

4. Talking head PUNDIT
A pundit is a learned person who one might turn to for an opinion. “Pundit” is derived from the Hindi word “payndit” meaning “learned man”.

10. Big name in ATMs NCR
NCR is an American company that has been in business since 1884, originally called the National Cash Register Company. The company has done well in a market where new technologies seem to be constantly disrupting the status quo.

16. Suffix for pay -OLA
Payola is the illegal practice of paying radio stations or disk jockeys to repeatedly play a particular piece of music. The impetus behind the crime is that the more often a song is played, the more likely it is to sell. The term “payola” comes from the words “pay” and “Victrola”, an RCA brand name for an early phonograph.

17. Soft hit that barely makes it over the infield BLOOP SINGLE
A bloop single is more usually called a blooper. It’s fly ball that drops for a single between an infielder and an outfielder (in baseball, of course!).

19. Cranberry-growing area BOG
When early European settlers came across red berries growing in the bogs of the northern part of America, they felt that the plant’s flower and stem resembled the head and bill of a crane. As such, they called the plant “craneberry”, which later evolved into “cranberry”.

20. Africa’s Sierra __ LEONE
The Republic of Sierra Leone is a country in West Africa, lying on the Atlantic Coast. The capital city of Freetown was originally set up as a colony to house the “Black Poor” of London, England. These people were mainly freed British slaves of Caribbean descent who were living a miserable life in the run-down parts of London. Perhaps to help the impoverished souls, perhaps to rid the streets of “a problem”, three ships were chartered in 1787 to transport a group of blacks, with some whites, to a piece of land purchased in Sierra Leone. Those who made the voyage were guaranteed British citizenship and protection. The descendants of these immigrants, and others who made the journey over the next 60 years, make up the ethnic group that’s today called the Sierra Leone Creole.

21. Fed. retirement org. SSA
The Social Security Administration (SSA) was of course set up as part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. The first person to receive a monthly retirement benefit was Ida May Fuller of Vermont who received her first check for the sum of $22.54 after having contributed for three years through payroll taxes. The New Deal turned out to be a good deal for Ms. Fuller, as she lived to 100 years of age and received a total benefit of almost $23,000, whereas her three years of contributions added up to just $24.75.

23. Like dodos and dinosaurs EXTINCT
The dodo was a direct relative of the pigeon and dove, although the fully grown dodo was usually three feet tall. One of the reasons the dodo comes to mind when we think of extinction of a species, is that it disappeared relatively recently, in the mid-1600s, and humans were the reason for its demise. The dodo lived exclusively on the island of Mauritius, and when man arrived he cut back the forest that was its home. He also introduced domestic animals, such as dogs and pigs, that ransacked the dodo’s nests.

The most popular dinosaurs depicted in the movies, especially the older ones, are the Tyrannosaurs and the Allosauruses. They look very similar, with the former being the really big guy.

28. Archaeological age-determination process CARBON DATING
Carbon-14 is a radioactive isotope of carbon that is found in nature in small amounts Carbon-14 is used in the technique known as radiocarbon dating, a relatively accurate way of determining the age of something up to about 60,000 years old. When an organism is alive, the amount of radioactive carbon-14 it has compared to the amount of regular carbon-12, is a fixed ratio. After the organism dies, it is no longer exchanging carbon with the atmosphere through metabolism. So, the stable carbon-12 stays in the body as it rots but the radioactive carbon-14 gradually decays, causing the ratio of carbon-14 to carbon-12 to fall. Scientists can determine the age of remains by measuring this carbon-14/carbon-12 ratio.

35. Wish granter GENIE
The “genie” in the bottle takes his or her name from “djinn”. “Djinns” were various spirits considered lesser than angels, with people exhibiting unsavory characteristics said to be possessed by djinn. When the book “The Thousand and One Nights” was translated into French, the word “djinn” was transformed into the existing word “génie”, because of the similarity in sound and the related spiritual meaning. This “génie” from the Arabian tale became confused with the Latin-derived “genius”, a guardian spirit thought to be assigned to each person at birth. Purely as a result of that mistranslation the word genie has come to mean the “djinn” that pops out of the bottle. A little hard to follow, I know, but still quite interesting …

40. Sinus doc ENT
Ear, Nose and Throat specialist (ENT).

In anatomical terms a sinus is a cavity in tissue. Sinuses are found all over the body, in the kidney and heart for example, but we most commonly think of the paranasal sinuses that surround the nose.

43. Simpsons neighbor Flanders NED
Ned Flanders lives next door to Homer on TV’s “The Simpsons”. Ned is voiced by actor Harry Shearer and has been around since the very first episode aired in 1989.

54. Merle Haggard’s “__ From Muskogee” OKIE
Merle Haggard is a country singer and songwriter whose most famous recording has to be “Okie from Muskogee” released in 1969. Haggard will tell you that the song was actually meant as a spoof, but it has become a country “anthem”.

55. N.J. neighbor DEL
The state of Delaware takes its name from Virginia’s first colonial governor, Englishman Thomas West, 3rd Baron De La Warr. Delaware is known as “The First State” as it was the first to ratify the US Constitution, in 1787.

58. Libertarian politician Paul RON
Ron Paul is a celebrated Republican Congressman from Texas. He is a libertarian, and actually ran for president in 1988 as a Libertarian Party candidate. He ran for the Republican nomination for President in 2008 as a member of the Liberty Caucus of the party, meaning that he values a federal government that is limited in size and scope.

59. Sign in a limo that aptly concludes the sequence formed by the last words of 17-, 28- and 45-Across JUST MARRIED
The word “limousine” actually derives from the French city of Limoges. The area around Limoges is called the Limousin, and it gave its name to a cloak hood worn by local shepherds. In early motor cars, a driver would sit outside in the weather while the passengers would sit in the covered compartment. The driver would often wear a limousin-style protective hood, giving rise to that type of transportation being called a “limousine”. Well, that’s how the story goes anyway …

62. Mystery novelist Grafton SUE
Sue Grafton writes detective novels, and her “alphabet series” features the private investigator Kinsey Millhone. She started off with “A Is for Alibi” in 1982 and is working her way through the alphabet, most recently publishing “U Is for Undertow” in 2009. What a clever naming system!

63. Houston team ASTROS
The Houston baseball team changed its name to the Astros from the Colt .45s in 1965 when they started playing in the Astrodome. The Astrodome was so called in recognition of the city’s long association with the US space program.

Down
2. Pricey watch with a gold crown logo ROLEX
My most prized possession is a stainless steel Rolex watch that my uncle bought while serving with the RAF in Canada during WWII. Rolex watches were made available to the Canadian servicemen at that time as they were shipping overseas. My uncle brought his Rolex home to Ireland after the war. He needed money for booze one weekend and so sold the watch to my Dad, for five pounds. My Dad gave it to me just before he died, as he knew I loved the watch, and my brothers weren’t interested in it all. Not so long ago I had the watch appraised ($3,000!), and my brothers all of a sudden took a liking to it! Still, it’s not something that will ever be sold, that’s for sure.

3. Nose-in-the-air type SNOOT
“Snoot” is a variant of “snout” and is a word that originated in Scotland. The idea is that someone who is snooty, or snouty, tends to look down his or her nose at the rest of the world.

4. “Nova” airer PBS
“Nova” is an excellent science television series on PBS. “Nova” was created back in 1974, and was inspired by a very similar BBC show called “Horizon”, a show that I grew up with. Many “Nova” episodes are actually co-productions with the BBC with an American narrator used for the PBS broadcasts and a British narrator for the BBC broadcasts.

5. Ocean State sch. URI
The University of Rhode Island (URI) was first chartered as an agricultural school, back in 1888. URI’s main campus today is located in the village of Kingston.

Rhode Island is known as the Ocean State, largely because about 14% of the state’s area is made of ocean bays and inlets.

6. Convent dwellers NUNS
Convents have been religious houses since the 1200s, but it wasn’t until the 1700s that convents became purely female institutions.

8. Manhattan is one ISLAND
The island we know as Manhattan was inhabited by the Lenape Indians when the first Europeans explorers arrived in the area. According to the logbook of one of the officers on Henry Hudson’s yacht, the island was called “Manna-hata” in the local language, from which the modern name derives.

11. Metaphorical state of elation CLOUD NINE
I don’t think that anyone is really certain of the etymology of the term “cloud nine”, but I do like the following explanation. The 1896 “International Cloud-Atlas” was a long-standing reference used to define cloud shapes. The biggest and puffiest of all cloud shapes (and most comfortable looking to lie on) is cumulonimbus. And you guessed it, of the ten cloud shapes defined in the atlas, cumulonimbus was cloud nine …

14. Former (and likely future) Seattle NBA team SONICS
The Seattle SuperSonics were the professional basketball team based in Seattle from 1967 to 2008, at which time the franchise moved to Oklahoma City (and became the Oklahoma City Thunder). There are moves afoot to relocate the Sacramento Kings to Seattle, and revive the “Sonics” team name.

18. ’90s Cabinet member Federico PENA
Federico Peña served as the Secretary of Transportation and as the Secretary of Energy in the Clinton administration.

25. Skier’s way up T-BAR
A T-bar is a type of ski lift in which the skiers are pulled up the hill in pairs, with each pair standing (not sitting!) either side of T-shaped metal bar. The bar is placed behind the thighs, pulling along the skiers as they remain standing on their skis (hopefully!). There’s also a J-bar, a similar device, but with each J-shaped bar used by one skier at a time.

27. Glad __: party clothes RAGS
“Glad rags” is a slang term for one’s best clothes.

29. Long-armed primate ORANG
Orangutans are arboreal creatures, in fact the largest arboreal animals known to man. They are native to Indonesia and Malaysia, living in the rain forests. Like most species in rain forests these days, orangutans are endangered, with only two species surviving. The word “orangutan” is Malay, meaning “man of the forest”.

31. Tick off MIFF
“To miff” is “to put out, to tee off”, a word that has been around since the early 1600s. Interestingly, in 1824 Sir Walter Scott described the word “miffed” as “a women’s phrase”. That would get him a slap, I’d say …

37. Leonard __: Roy Rogers’s birth name SLYE
Cowboy actor and singer Roy Rogers’ real name was Leonard Franklin Slye, and his nickname was “King of the Cowboys”. Roy Rogers married Dale Evans in 1947. Evans’ nickname was “Queen of the West”.

42. Nastase of tennis ILIE
I think that Ilie Nastase was the most entertaining tennis player of the 1970s, the days of Jimmy Connors, Bjorn Borg and John McEnroe. No matter how much pressure there was in a match, Nastase always had time to give the crowd a laugh.

47. Big bomb trials N-TESTS
There are two classes of nuclear weapons, both of which get the energy for the explosion from nuclear reactions. The first nuclear bombs developed, called atomic bombs (A-bombs), use fission reactions. In an atomic bomb, uranium nuclei are split into smaller nuclei with the release of an awful lot of energy in the process. The second class of nuclear weapons are fusion bombs. Fusion devices are also called thermonuclear weapons or hydrogen bombs (H-bombs). In a fusion reaction, the nuclei of hydrogen isotopes are fused together to form bigger nuclei, with the release of even greater amounts of energy than a fission reaction.

53. Icelandic sagas EDDAS
The Poetic Edda and Prose Edda are two ancient works that are the source for much of Norse mythology. Both Eddas were written in the 13th century, in Iceland.

60. Stooge with bangs 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. Apt. parts, in ads BRS
4. Talking head PUNDIT
10. Big name in ATMs NCR
13. Charged particles IONS
15. Black-and-blue mark, e.g. BRUISE
16. Suffix for pay -OLA
17. Soft hit that barely makes it over the infield BLOOP SINGLE
19. Cranberry-growing area BOG
20. Africa’s Sierra __ LEONE
21. Fed. retirement org. SSA
22. “T” on a test, usually TRUE
23. Like dodos and dinosaurs EXTINCT
26. Foray INROAD
28. Archaeological age-determination process CARBON DATING
31. Texting units: Abbr. MSGS
34. Rowboat mover OAR
35. Wish granter GENIE
36. “How was __ know?” I TO
37. Abrasions SCRAPES
40. Sinus doc ENT
41. Not exactly robust FRAIL
43. Simpsons neighbor Flanders NED
44. Makes really angry IRES
45. Completely absorbed FULLY ENGAGED
49. Lawyer’s customer CLIENT
50. Accessory often carried with a wallet KEY CASE
54. Merle Haggard’s “__ From Muskogee” OKIE
55. N.J. neighbor DEL
57. Lightened EASED
58. Libertarian politician Paul RON
59. Sign in a limo that aptly concludes the sequence formed by the last words of 17-, 28- and 45-Across JUST MARRIED
62. Mystery novelist Grafton SUE
63. Houston team ASTROS
64. Statistician’s input DATA
65. NHL tiebreakers OTS
66. Tinkers (with) MESSES
67. Figs. NOS

Down
1. The Good Book BIBLE
2. Pricey watch with a gold crown logo ROLEX
3. Nose-in-the-air type SNOOT
4. “Nova” airer PBS
5. Ocean State sch. URI
6. Convent dwellers NUNS
7. Starts to eat with gusto DIGS IN
8. Manhattan is one ISLAND
9. Golf ball’s perch TEE
10. Choice you don’t have to think about NO-BRAINER
11. Metaphorical state of elation CLOUD NINE
12. Violent anger RAGE
14. Former (and likely future) Seattle NBA team SONICS
18. ’90s Cabinet member Federico PENA
22. Lug TOTE
24. Gator’s kin CROC
25. Skier’s way up T-BAR
27. Glad __: party clothes RAGS
29. Long-armed primate ORANG
30. Comprehends GETS
31. Tick off MIFF
32. Went down swinging STRUCK OUT
33. Touchdowns require crossing them GOAL LINES
37. Leonard __: Roy Rogers’s birth name SLYE
38. Mountain top PEAK
39. Advantage EDGE
42. Nastase of tennis ILIE
44. Security checkpoint request ID CARD
46. Ultimate application END USE
47. Big bomb trials N-TESTS
48. Binoculars user EYER
51. Made in China, say ASIAN
52. Look after SEE TO
53. Icelandic sagas EDDAS
54. Estimator’s words OR SO
56. P.O. box inserts LTRS
59. Printer problem JAM
60. Stooge with bangs MOE
61. Pack animal ASS

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