LA Times Crossword Answers 15 Mar 13, Friday

CROSSWORD SETTER: Jack McInturff
THEME: S&P … each of today’s themed answers is a well-known phrase, with SP inserted:

17A. Cherub? RELIGIOUS SPRITE (from “religious rite”)
30A. Slogan for certain Lee fans? I LIKE SPIKE (from “I Like Ike”)
35A. Sendoff for a Christmas shopper? HAPPY SPENDING! (from “happy ending”)
45A. Pepper? BLACK SPICE (from “black ice”)
61A. Windy day misfortunes during a spa visit? HATS IN THE SPRING (from “hats in the ring”)
66A. “500” index that hints at this puzzle’s theme S AND P

COMPLETION TIME: 14m 35s
ANSWERS I MISSED: 2 … ELI (Eti), LOCALE (locate)

Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across
11. Kid’s cry MAA
“Maa” is the call of a goat.

14. Harden ENURE
“Enure” is a variant spelling of “inure”, meaning to harden oneself against the effects of, to accustom oneself to.

15. It may shimmer in the desert OASIS
The most famous oasis in the US is … Las Vegas, in the middle of the Mojave Desert.

16. Off-road transp. ATV
An all-terrain vehicle (ATV).

20. Film buff’s station AMC
AMC, formerly known as American Movie Classics, is one of my favorite television channels. Although the channel’s focus has shifted from airing classic movies to including other programming, there’s still a lot of quality output. AMC’s flagship show is “Mad Men”.

21. Luanda is its cap. ANG
Angola is a country in south-central Africa, on the west coast. Angola is the fourth largest diamond exporter in Africa, after Botswana, the Congo and South Africa. Such a valuable export hasn’t really helped the living standard of the country’s citizens as life expectancy and infant mortality rates are among the poorest on the continent.

25. Chewy caramel candy ROLO
Rolo was a hugely popular chocolate candy in Ireland when I was growing up. Rolo was introduced in the thirties in the UK, and is produced under license in the US by Hershey. I was a little disappointed when I had my first taste of the American version as the center is very hard and chewy. The recipe used on the other side of the Atlantic calls for a soft gooey center.

29. Sicilian resort city ENNA
The city of Enna sits very high up in the hills of Sicily, overlooking the whole island below. Enna is the capital of the province that bears its name, which is the highest province in the whole of Italy.

30. Slogan for certain Lee fans? I LIKE SPIKE (from “I Like Ike”)
Shelton Jackson Lee is the real name of Spike Lee, the film director and producer. Lee’s first feature-length film, released in 1986, was “She’s Gotta Have It”. Lee shot the film in just twelve days, and kept the movie within its relatively small budget of only $175,000. “She’s Gotta Have It” grossed over $7 million …

“I Like Ike” was a political slogan that originated with the grassroots movement to get Dwight D. Eisenhower to run for president in the 1952 presidential election.

34. Sorvino of “Mighty Aphrodite” MIRA
Mira Sorvino is an American actress, winner of an Oscar for her supporting role in the 1995 Woody Allen movie “Mighty Aphrodite”. Sorvino also played a title role opposite Lisa Kudrow in the very forgettable “Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion”.

42. Van Gogh subject IRIS
Van Gogh painted his “Irises” while he was in an asylum in the south of France the year before he committed suicide. The original owner was a French art critic and supporter of Van Gogh who paid 300 francs to purchase the painting. “Irises” was bought for $53.9 million in 1987 making it the most expensive painting sold up to that point. But, the buyer didn’t actually have the necessary funds, so it had to be resold in 1990. It was picked up by the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, where you can see it today.

43. Adult polliwog TOAD
Polliwog is another word for a tadpole, the larval stage of an amphibian such as a frog or a toad. The term “polligwog” has been around since the mid-15th century and probably comes from the Old English words “pol” (head) and “wiglen” (wiggle).

45. Pepper? BLACK SPICE (from “black ice”)
Black ice on a road is not in fact black, but rather is ice that is almost transparent so that the black asphalt surface of the road shows through.

51. Spanish river to the Mediterranean EBRO
The Ebro is the longest river in Spain. The river was known by the Romans as the Iber, and it is the “Iber” river that gives the “Iberian” Peninsula its name.

52. Firenze fellow UOMO
“Uomo” is the Italian word for “man”. The Italian for “woman” is “donna”.

“Firenze” is the Italian name for the city that we know in English as Florence.

53. “But all I want is __ ‘iggins’ ‘ead!”: “My Fair Lady” lyric ‘ENRY
Eliza Doolittle is Professor Henry Higgins’ speech student in George Bernard Shaw’s “Pygmalion”. Of course “Pygmalion” was adapted by Lerner and Loewe to become the Broadway musical “My Fair Lady”. The musical spun off the wonderful 1964 film of the same name starring Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison. To cockney Eliza Doolittle, Professor Henry Higgins was “‘Enry ‘Iggins”.

60. Oolong, for one TEA
The name for the Chinese tea “oolong” translates into English as “black dragon”.

65. Divine healer in “Xena” ELI
The Xena character, famously played by New Zealander Lucy Lawless, was introduced in a made-for-TV movie called “Hercules and the Amazon Women”. Lawless reprised the role in a series called “Hercules: The Legendary Journeys”. Xena became so popular that a series was built around her character, with Lawless retained for the role.

66. “500” index that hints at this puzzle’s theme S AND P
Standard & Poor’s (S&P) is a financial services company, famous for its stock market indices, especially the S&P 500. The company also publishes credit ratings for sovereign governments, and in 2011 famously lowered the rating of the US federal government from AAA to to AA+.

67. Unexpected lamp benefit? 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 …

68. Aspin of the Clinton Cabinet LES
Les Aspin was Secretary of Defense in the Clinton administration, just for a year. He had a turbulent year in office, and during this time oversaw the introduction of the “dont’ ask, don’t tell” policy for the military. But it was the loss of US lives in Somalia that brought his year to an end, causing him to resign for personal reasons at the end of 1993.

70. Aircraft fuel portmanteau AVGAS
Avgas is aviation fuel (a portmanteau of “aviation” and “gasoline”). The gasoline used in cars is called “mogas” (a portmanteau of “motor” and “gasoline”).

Down
1. Reams out BERATES
I must admit that I find the slang term “to ream”, with its meaning “to scold harshly”, quite distasteful. The usage of the word as a reprimand dates back to about 1950.

3. Beloved in “Man of La Mancha” DULCINEA
The full name of Cervantes’s novel is “The Ingenious Hidalgo Don Quixote of La Mancha”. In the story, Don Quixote is a retired country gentleman who heads out as a knight-errant and who renames himself Don Quixote of la Mancha. In his mind he designates a neighboring farm girl called Aldonza Lorenzo as his lady love, and renames her Dulcinea del Toboso.

4. Airport near a Gt. Lake ERI
Erie International Airport (ERI) is located five miles from the city of Erie, Pennsylvania.

5. Dreamcast maker SEGA
Sega is a Japanese video game company headquartered in Tokyo. Sega actually started out 1940 in the US as Standard Games and was located in Honolulu, Hawaii. The owners moved the operation to Tokyo in 1951 and renamed the company to Service Games. The name “Sega” is a combination of the first two letters of the words “Se-rvice” and “Ga-mes”.

6. Number beyond comprehension GOOGOL
The search engine “Google” was originally called “BackRub” would you believe? The name was eventually changed to Google, an intentional misspelling of the word “googol”. A googol is a pretty big number, 10 to the power of 100. That would be the digit 1 followed by 100 zeros.

7. Indian author Santha Rama __ RAU
Santha Rama Rau was a travel writer from India who lived much of her life in the US. As well as writing her own books, Rau also adapted the E. M. Forster novel “A Passage to India” for the stage.

9. Frisbee, e.g. DISC
The Frisbee concept started back in 1938 with a couple who had an upturned cake pan that they were tossing between each other on Santa Monica Beach in California. They were offered 25 cents for the pan on the spot, and as pans could be bought for 5 cents, the pair figured there was a living to be earned.

10. Hockey’s Phil, to fans ESPO
Phil “Espo” Esposito is a former professional hockey player who played for the Chicago Blackhawks, Boston Bruins and New York Rangers.

11. Rum and curaçao cocktail MAI TAI
The Mai Tai cocktail is strongly associated with the Polynesian islands, but the drink was supposedly invented in 1944 in Trader Vic’s restaurant in Oakland, California. One recipe is 6 parts white rum, 3 parts orange curaçao, 3 parts Orgeat syrup, 1 part rock candy syrup, 2 parts fresh lime juice, all mixed with ice and then a float added of 6 parts dark rum.

12. “Sic ’em!” ATTACK
Sic ’em is an attack order given to a dog, instructing the animal to growl, bark or even bite. The term dates back to the 1830s, with “sic” being a variation of “seek”.

18. Crucifix letters INRI
The letters written on the cross on which Jesus died were “INRI”. INRI is an acronym for the Latin “Iesus Nazarenus, Rex Iudaeorum”, which translates into English as “Jesus the Nazarene, King of the Jews”.

19. “Let us know,” initially RSVP
RSVP stands for “Répondez s’il vous plaît”, which is French for “please, answer”.

24. Reindeer raiser LAPP
Lapland is a geographic region in northern Scandinavia, largely found within the Arctic Circle. Parts of Lapland are in Norway, Sweden and Finland. The people who are native to the region are called the Sami people. The Sami don’t like to be referred to as Lapps as they regard the term as insulting.

27. “The Grapes of Wrath” character OKIE
John Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath” is set during the Great Depression. The novel tells the story of the Joad family from Oklahoma, farmers who had to leave their home and head for California due to economic hardship.

31. Sea eagle ERN
The ern (also erne) is also called the white-tailed eagle, and the sea-eagle.

38. ’70s-’80s quarterback Brian SIPE
Brian Sipe is a former professional football quarterback who played for the National Football League and the US Football League. As well as playing football, Sipe played in the Little League World Series in 1961.

39. Road to the Forum ITER
An “iter” is an anatomical passageway, from the Latin word for “journey”.

The Roman forum was the public space in the middle of a city, taking it’s name from the Latin word “forum” meaning “marketplace, town square”.

41. Fragrant white flower GARDENIA
The genus of flowering plant called gardenia is actually in the coffee family.

45. Orchardist’s market measure BUSHEL
In the imperial system of weights and measures, a bushel is a unit of dry volume made up of 4 pecks. In the US system, a bushel is a dry volume of 8 gallons.

47. Valuable violins AMATIS
The first of the Amati family to make violins was Andrea Amati, who lived in the 14th century. He was succeeded by his sons, Antonio and Girolamo. In turn, they were succeeded by Girolamo’s son, Nicolo. Nicolo had a few students who achieved fame making musical instruments as well. One was his own son, Girolamo, and another was the famed Antonio Stradivari.

56. Tower site PISA
The city of Pisa is right on the Italian coast, sitting at the mouth of the River Arno, and is famous for its Leaning Tower. The tower is actually the campanile (bell tower) of the city’s cathedral, and it has been leaning since it was completed in 1173. Just shows you how important good foundations are …

59. Org. for women drivers? LPGA
The Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) was founded in 1950 by a group of 13 lady golfers, and today it is the oldest ongoing women’s sports professional organization in the US.

62. Detonation cause TNT
TNT is an abbreviation for trinitrotoluene. Trinitrotoluene was first produced in 1863 by the German chemist Joseph Wilbrand, who developed it for use as a yellow dye. TNT is relatively difficult to detonate so it was on the market as a dye for some years before its more explosive properties were discovered.

63. Cholesterol letters HDL
HDL (high-density lipoprotein) is a compound that is used to transport fats around the body. When HDL is combined with (i.e. is transporting) cholesterol, it is often called “good cholesterol”. This is because HDL seems to remove cholesterol from where it should not be, say on the walls of arteries, and transports it to the liver for reuse or disposal. Important stuff …

LDL (low-density lipoprotein) is one of the compounds responsible for transporting fats around the body. When LDL is combined with cholesterol it can be referred to as “bad cholesterol”. This is because LDL actually transport cholesterol into the inner walls of blood vessels leading to atherosclerosis.

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For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. Suggests for the future BODES
6. Mark on a paper GRADE
11. Kid’s cry MAA
14. Harden ENURE
15. It may shimmer in the desert OASIS
16. Off-road transp. ATV
17. Cherub? RELIGIOUS SPRITE (from “religious rite”)
20. Film buff’s station AMC
21. Luanda is its cap. ANG
22. Share the bill COSTAR
23. Put in long hours TOIL
25. Chewy caramel candy ROLO
28. Carpet cleaners, briefly VACS
29. Sicilian resort city ENNA
30. Slogan for certain Lee fans? I LIKE SPIKE (from “I Like Ike”)
33. Part of a process STEP
34. Sorvino of “Mighty Aphrodite” MIRA
35. Sendoff for a Christmas shopper? HAPPY SPENDING! (from “happy ending”)
42. Van Gogh subject IRIS
43. Adult polliwog TOAD
45. Pepper? BLACK SPICE (from “black ice”)
51. Spanish river to the Mediterranean EBRO
52. Firenze fellow UOMO
53. “But all I want is __ ‘iggins’ ‘ead!”: “My Fair Lady” lyric ‘ENRY
54. Unburdens RIDS
55. Little rascals SCAMPS
58. Fish you can smoke EEL
60. Oolong, for one TEA
61. Windy day misfortunes during a spa visit? HATS IN THE SPRING (from “hats in the ring”)
65. Divine healer in “Xena” ELI
66. “500” index that hints at this puzzle’s theme S AND P
67. Unexpected lamp benefit? GENIE
68. Aspin of the Clinton Cabinet LES
69. In a fitting way APTLY
70. Aircraft fuel portmanteau AVGAS

Down
1. Reams out BERATES
2. Calendar unit, perhaps ONE MONTH
3. Beloved in “Man of La Mancha” DULCINEA
4. Airport near a Gt. Lake ERI
5. Dreamcast maker SEGA
6. Number beyond comprehension GOOGOL
7. Indian author Santha Rama __ RAU
8. Biblical mount ASS
9. Frisbee, e.g. DISC
10. Hockey’s Phil, to fans ESPO
11. Rum and curaçao cocktail MAI TAI
12. “Sic ’em!” ATTACK
13. Ill-disposed AVERSE
18. Crucifix letters INRI
19. “Let us know,” initially RSVP
24. Reindeer raiser LAPP
26. Enters the poker pot with a minimum bet, slangily LIMPS IN
27. “The Grapes of Wrath” character OKIE
31. Sea eagle ERN
32. Living in a blue state? SAD
36. Water__: dental gadget PIK
37. Jr. and sr. YRS
38. ’70s-’80s quarterback Brian SIPE
39. Road to the Forum ITER
40. Mom’s admonition to a rambunctious tot NO BITING
41. Fragrant white flower GARDENIA
44. Amounts that often specify a time frame DOSAGES
45. Orchardist’s market measure BUSHEL
46. Place LOCALE
47. Valuable violins AMATIS
48. Dot-__ COMS
49. Spine-tingling CREEPY
50. Buds on spuds EYES
56. Tower site PISA
57. Clothes closer SNAP
59. Org. for women drivers? LPGA
62. Detonation cause TNT
63. Cholesterol letters HDL
64. Gun REV


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3 thoughts on “LA Times Crossword Answers 15 Mar 13, Friday”

  1. Bill, Nice to see that your not infallible and admits to it. My mistake was Strads for Amatis. Messed up that whole area for a while. But It is crosswords and all for fun (and some learning moments).

  2. Hi Addict,

    Yes, very fallible! I was convinced that LOCATE was the right answer and didn't see the LOCALE option. I just couldn't walk away 🙂

    Have a great Paddy's Day weekend, Addict!

Comments are closed.