LA Times Crossword Answers 4 Apr 13, Thursday

CROSSWORD SETTER: Jeff Chen
THEME: Where’s the Ball? … there are eight “hidden balls” in the grid, four-letter square clusters. Also, the eight hidden balls are arranged in the shape of another ball:

7D. Diamond deception found in this grid nine times: eight in square four-letter clusters, the ninth formed by the clusters’ outline HIDDEN BALL TRICK

COMPLETION TIME: 18m 10s
ANSWERS I MISSED: 0

Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across
1. Vicious with a bass SID
Sid Vicious was a famous English musician, the best-known member of the seventies punk rock group called the Sex Pistols. In 1978, Vicious woke up out of a drugged stupor in his hotel room in New York, to find his girlfriend stabbed to death in the bathroom. Vicious was charged with the murder, and ten days later sliced his wrist in a suicide attempt. Vicious made bail a few months later and at a celebratory party his own mother supplied him with heroin on which Vicious overdosed and died, at the age of 21.

14. Visitor-friendly Indonesian island BALI
Bali is the most important tourist destination in Indonesia and is an island lying east of Java. In recent years, Bali’s tourist industry has been badly hit in the aftermath of two terrorist bombings. The first one, in 2002, killed 202 people, mainly foreign tourists in a nightclub.

15. __ Mama: rum drink BAHAMA
If you’d care to try the drink called a Bahama Mama, one recipe is:

– 1 part rum
– 1 part coconut rum
– 1 part grenadine
– 2 parts orange juice
– 2 parts pineapple juice

19. Kelly who voiced Nala in “The Lion King” MOIRA
Moira Kelly is an actress from Queens, New York. Kelly provided the voice for the female lion cub Nala in “The Lion King” and its sequel. I mostly remember her for playing a White House media consultant in the first series of the wonderful TV drama “The West Wing”.

20. “Ooky” family name ADDAMS

They’re creepy and they’re kooky,
Mysterious and spooky,
They’re altogether ooky,
The Addams Family.

22. Financial degs. MBAS
The world’s first MBA degree was offered by Harvard’s Graduate School of Business Administration, in 1908.

24. Its four-color logo no longer has overlapping letters EBAY
eBay rolled out a new logo for the company in October 2012, part of an official campaign to “reinvent” the eBay brand. I always worry about companies that find the need to “reinvent” …

28. First name in jazz ELLA
Ella Fitzgerald, the “First Lady of Song”, had a hard and tough upbringing. Fitzgerald was raised by her mother alone in Yonkers, New York. Her mother died while Ella was still a schoolgirl, and around that time the young girl became less interested in her education. She fell in with a bad crowd, even working as a lookout for a bordello and as a Mafia numbers runner. She ended up in reform school, from which she escaped, and found herself homeless and living on the streets for a while. Somehow Fitzgerald managed to get herself a spot singing in the Apollo Theater in Harlem. From there her career took off and as they say, the rest is history.

31. In medias __ RES
“In media res” is a Latin phrase that translates as “into the middle of things”. We use “in media res” to describe a literary technique in which a story starts at some point other than the beginning of the plot.

32. Re-entry request STUB
One might need to use one’s ticket stub when looking for reentry into a ticketed event.

39. Twist in a gimlet LIME
A gimlet is a relatively simple cocktail, traditionally made with just gin and lime juice. The trend in more recent times is replace the gin with vodka.

40. Giant slugger OTT
At 5′ 9″, Mel Ott weighed just 170 lb (I don’t think he took steroids!) and yet he was the first National League player to hit over 500 home runs. Sadly, Ott died in a car accident in New Orleans in 1958 when he was only 49 years old.

44. Latch (onto) GLOM
“Glom” is a slang term meaning “steal”, although it can also be used to mean “latch onto” when used as “glom onto”. The term probably comes from the Scots word “glam” meaning “to snatch at”.

46. “__ vostra salute!”: Italian toast ALLA
The toast “Alla vostra salute!” translates as “here’s to you!” in Italian.

47. Cigna rival AETNA
When the health care management company known as Aetna was founded, the name was chosen to evoke images of Mt. Etna, the European volcano.

48. Fashion monthly ELLE
“Elle” magazine was founded in 1945 in France and today has the highest circulation of any fashion magazine in the world. “Elle” is the French word for “she”.

51. Ethiopia’s Selassie HAILE
Emperor Haile Selassie I ruled Ethiopia until he was removed from power in a revolution in 1974. Selassie died in 1975 under suspicious circumstances and it is widely believed that he was assassinated.

52. Winter melon CASABA
A casaba is type of honeydew melon.

59. That, in Tijuana ESA
Tijuana is the largest city in the Mexican state of Baja California, and lies just across the US-Mexico border from San Diego. Tijuana is also the most westerly of all Mexican cities. A lot of Tijuana’s growth took place in the twenties as tourists flocked south of the border during the days of prohibition in the US. One of the many casinos and hotels that flourished at that time was Hotel Caesar’s in the Avenida Revolución area. Hotel Caesar’s claims to be the birthplace of the now ubiquitous Caesar Salad.

62. Additive sold at AutoZone STP
STP motor oil takes its name from “Scientifically Treated Petroleum”.

Down
4. Beatles song syllables OB-LA
“Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” was one of many songs credited to Lennon/McCartney that was actually written by just one of the pair. Paul McCartney wrote this one, a song that John Lennon really did not like at all. Apparently Lennon was quite obstructionist during the recording of the song and even walked out at one point.

5. Delta rival: Abbr. UAL
United Airlines is the world’s largest airline by most measures, but that will probably change soon assuming the merger of American Airlines and US Airways goes ahead as planned.

7. Diamond deception found in this grid nine times: eight in square four-letter clusters, the ninth formed by the clusters’ outline HIDDEN BALL TRICK
The hidden ball trick has been used over 300 times with success in the Major Leagues. The idea is to fool a runner into thinking the ball is elsewhere, while it is actually hidden on a player’s person. When a runner heads off to the next base, the ball is revealed and used to tag out the deceived player.

8. Burt’s Bees product BALM
Burt’s Bees is a line of personal care products that uses natural ingredients with minimal processing. The company started out in 1984 as a partnership between two entrepreneurs who made candles out of excess beeswax from hives owned by one of the partners. Today the company has over $250 million in sales and is a division of Clorox.

10. Skedaddle LAM
To be “on the lam” is to be in flight, to have escaped from prison. “On the lam” is American slang that originated at the end of the 19th century. The word “lam” also means to “beat” or “thrash”, as in “lambaste”. So “on the lam” might derive from the phrase “to beat it, to scram”.

“Skedaddle ” is a slang term meaning “run away” that dates back to the Civil War.

11. Actress Thurman UMA
Robert Thurman was the first westerner to be ordained a Tibetan Buddhist monk. Robert raised his children in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition and called his daughter “Uma” as it is a phonetic spelling of the Buddhist name “Dbuma”.

12. Stockholm flier SAS
SAS was formerly known as Scandinavian Airlines System and is the flag carrier of three countries: Denmark, Norway and Sweden.

15. Hugo’s “Ruy __” BLAS
“Ruy Blas” is a tragic play written by French writer Victor Hugo. The title character is a common man in Madrid, Spain who dares to love the Queen.

17. Nocturnal bear URSA
The constellation called Ursa Major (Latin for “Larger Bear”) is often just called the Big Dipper because of its resemblance to a ladle or dipper. Ursa Major also resembles a plow, and that’s what we usually call the same constellation back in Ireland: the “plough”.

Ursa Minor sits right beside the constellation Draco (Latin for “dragon”). Ursa Minor used to be considered the wing of Draco, and so was once called “Dragon’s Wing”.

21. Wallace of “E.T.” DEE
The actress Dee Wallace is best known for playing young Elliot’s mother in the Steven Spielberg 1982 masterpiece “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial”.

23. In an arranged swap, she guest-hosted “The Tonight Show” in 2003 on the same day Jay guest-hosted “The Today Show” KATIE
Katie Couric left NBC’s “The Today Show” in 2006 and took over as news anchor for “CBS Evening News”. In so doing she became the first solo female anchor of a broadcast network evening news program. Couric also has the honor of being the only person to guest-host on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno”. In fact she “swapped jobs” on that particular day, and Leno filled in for Couric on “The Today Show”.

25. Tripart sandwich BLT
The BLT (bacon, lettuce and tomato) is the second most popular sandwich in the US, after the plain old ham sandwich.

26. Newcastle specialty ALE
Newcastle-Upon-Tyne in the North of England is home to the famous Newcastle Brown Ale.

27. French designer’s inits. YSL
Yves Saint-Laurent was a French fashion designer, actually born in Algeria. Saint-Laurent started off working as an assistant to Christian Dior at the age of 17. Dior died just four years later, and as a very young man Saint-Laurent was named head of the House of Dior. However, in 1950 Saint-Laurent was conscripted into the French Army and ended up in a military hospital after suffering a mental breakdown from the hazing inflicted on him by his fellow soldiers. His treatment included electroshock therapy and administration of sedatives and psychoactive drugs. He was released from prison, managed to pull his life back together and started his own fashion house. A remarkable story …

36. Org. with towers AAA
The American Automobile Association (AAA) is a not-for-profit organization focused on lobbying, provision of automobile servicing, and selling of automobile insurance. The AAA was founded in 1902 in Chicago and published the first of its celebrated hotel guides back in 1917.

37. Two-bagger: Abbr. DBL
In baseball, a two-bagger is a double, a hit that gets the batter onto second base.

38. Laurel & Hardy producer Roach HAL
Stan Laurel was an English comic actor (born Arthur Stanley Jefferson), who made a great career for himself in Hollywood. Laurel ended up at the Hal Roach studio directing films, intent on pursuing a career in writing and directing. However, he was a sometime actor and was asked to step in when another comic actor, Oliver Hardy, was injured and couldn’t perform. Laurel and Hardy started to share a stage together during that time and when it was clear they worked so well together, their partnership was born. Oh, and the oft-quoted story that Clint Eastwood is the son of Stan Laurel … that’s just an urban myth.

41. Guinness superlative TALLEST
“The Guinness Book of World Records” holds some records of its own. It is the best-selling, copyrighted series of books of all time and is one of the books most often stolen from public libraries! The book was first published in 1954 by two twins, Norris and Ross McWhirter. The McWhirter twins found themselves with a smash hit, and eventually became very famous in Britain hosting a TV show based on world records.

45. Pb is its symbol LEAD
“Plumbum” is the Latin for lead, explaining why the symbol of the element in the Periodic Table is “Pb”. It also explains why the original lead weight on the end of a line used to check vertical was called a “plumb line”. And, as pipes were originally made of lead, it also explains why we would call in a “plumber” if one of them was leaking.

47. “(I’ve Got __ in) Kalamazoo” A GAL
“(I’ve Got a Gal in) Kalamazoo” is a song made famous by Glenn Miller and his Orchestra.

A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H
I got a gal in Kalamazoo
Don’t want to boast but I know she’s the toast of Kalamazoo
(Zoo, zoo, zoo, zoo, zoo)

52. Nos. not on some restaurant menus CTS
Yeah, they round up to the nearest dollar …

54. His, in Honfleur SES
Honfleur is a port town at in France on the Normandy coast, sitting right at the estuary of the Seine river (that runs through Paris). On the other side of the Seine estuary is the more famous city of Le Havre.

56. Rain-__: bubble gum brand BLO
Rain-Blo bubble gumballs were introduced in 1940.

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For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. Vicious with a bass SID
4. “That’s gotta hurt!” OUCH!
8. It’s close to 90 B-PLUS
13. XL piece: Abbr. LGE
14. Visitor-friendly Indonesian island BALI
15. __ Mama: rum drink BAHAMA
16. Voided ANNULLED
18. Woolly beasts LLAMAS
19. Kelly who voiced Nala in “The Lion King” MOIRA
20. “Ooky” family name ADDAMS
22. Financial degs. MBAS
23. Prayer supports? KNEES
24. Its four-color logo no longer has overlapping letters EBAY
28. First name in jazz ELLA
29. Spotty coverage? ACNE
30. Canvasses POLLS
31. In medias __ RES
32. Re-entry request STUB
33. Spot for many a curio MANTEL
34. Solo GO IT ALONE
36. Hold fast ADHERE
39. Twist in a gimlet LIME
40. Giant slugger OTT
43. Ebb ABATE
44. Latch (onto) GLOM
45. Letter-shaped brace L-BAR
46. “__ vostra salute!”: Italian toast ALLA
47. Cigna rival AETNA
48. Fashion monthly ELLE
49. Takes the spread, e.g. WAGERS
51. Ethiopia’s Selassie HAILE
52. Winter melon CASABA
55. Items that can open doors ID BADGES
57. “__ never know what hit ’em!” THEY’LL
58. 1-Down unit CELL
59. That, in Tijuana ESA
60. Fresh SASSY
61. Boy scout’s handiwork KNOT
62. Additive sold at AutoZone STP

Down
1. Clink SLAMMER
2. Not virtuous IGNOBLE
3. Some kneejerk responses DENIALS
4. Beatles song syllables OB-LA
5. Delta rival: Abbr. UAL
6. Freshly groomed CLEAN-CUT
7. Diamond deception found in this grid nine times: eight in square four-letter clusters, the ninth formed by the clusters’ outline HIDDEN BALL TRICK
8. Burt’s Bees product BALM
9. Startup segment PHASE ONE
10. Skedaddle LAM
11. Actress Thurman UMA
12. Stockholm flier SAS
15. Hugo’s “Ruy __” BLAS
17. Nocturnal bear URSA
21. Wallace of “E.T.” DEE
23. In an arranged swap, she guest-hosted “The Tonight Show” in 2003 on the same day Jay guest-hosted “The Today Show” KATIE
25. Tripart sandwich BLT
26. Newcastle specialty ALE
27. French designer’s inits. YSL
30. French door part PANE
32. Nursing a grudge SORE
33. Family nickname MOMMA
34. Vacation spots GETAWAYS
35. Prideful place? LION’S DEN
36. Org. with towers AAA
37. Two-bagger: Abbr. DBL
38. Laurel & Hardy producer Roach HAL
40. Accommodates OBLIGES
41. Guinness superlative TALLEST
42. Syrup source TREE SAP
44. “Golly!” GEE
45. Pb is its symbol LEAD
47. “(I’ve Got __ in) Kalamazoo” A GAL
50. With proficiency ABLY
51. “Red light!” HALT
52. Nos. not on some restaurant menus CTS
53. “Got it!” AHA!
54. His, in Honfleur SES
56. Rain-__: bubble gum brand BLO


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