LA Times Crossword Solution 27 May 16, Friday

LA Times Crossword Solution 27 May 16 - 125%







Constructed by: Roland Huget

Edited by: Rich Norris

Quicklink to a complete list of today’s clues and answers

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Theme: Shh!

Each of today’s three themed answers starts with word associated with silence and calm:

  • 17A…’60s executive order creation..PEACE CORPS
  • 35A…Societal change begun in Quebec during the ’60s..QUIET REVOLUTION
  • 52A…’60s aviation nickname..WHISPERJET

Bill’s time: 11m 19s

Bill’s errors: 0




Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies

Across

1…Man of many words..ROGET

Peter Mark Roget was an English lexicographer. Roget was an avid maker of lists, apparently using the routine of list-making to combat depression, a condition he endured for most of his life. He published his famous thesaurus in 1852, with revisions and expansions being made years later by his son, and then in turn by his grandson.

10…Hiker’s map, briefly..TOPO

A topographic map (“topo”) is one that illustrates “land relief” the vertical and horizontal dimensions of the terrain. Typically, this is done using contours lines that show the steepness of slopes.

15…Virna of “How to Murder Your Wife”..LISI

Virna Lisi is an Italian film actress who made a few movies in Hollywood in the sixties. Lisi appeared opposite Jack Lemmon in the fun movie “How to Murder Your Wife” in 1965, and with Frank Sinatra in “Assault on a Queen” in 1966.

16…Organic compound..ENOL

An enol is an alkene with a hydroxyl group, sort of part-alkene and part-alcohol. The term “enol” therefore, is a portmanteau of “alkene” and “alcohol”.

17…’60s executive order creation..PEACE CORPS

The Peace Corps is an organization of American volunteers that is run by the US government. The Peace Corps was established by President Kennedy in 1961, and has a three-part mission:

  1. Providing technical assistance
  2. Helping people outside the US to understand American culture
  3. Helping Americans to understand the culture of other countries

21…Human Be-In attendee..HIPPIE

Just before 1967’s “Summer of Love” in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco, a Human Be-In was held in the city’s Golden Gate Park. The Be-In is described as a “happening”, a gathering triggered by a new state law banning the use of LSD. The term “Human Be-In” is a play on “humanist sit-in”.

23…1988 Cabinet resignee..ED MEESE

Ed Meese was born in Oakland, California just down the road here and spent 24 years in the office of the Treasurer of Alameda County, the county in which I live. After military service, Meese earned himself a law degree at UC Berkeley. Later, as Chief of Staff for Governor Reagan, he was instrumental in a famous decision to crack down on student protesters at Berkeley which resulted in one protester dying and a two-week occupation of the city by the California National Guard. Meese served as Counselor to President Reagan and as such became heavily involved in the Iran-Contra affair, and then in Iraq-Jordan oil pipeline deal that came under the scrutiny of Congress. Meese was forced to resign amid allegation of financial improprieties associated with the pipeline deal.

27…Apostle known as “the Zealot”..ST SIMON

Simon the Zealot was one of the lesser known of the Apostles, not to be confused with Simon Peter, leader of the early Christian Church. There are suggestions that Simon the Zealot may be the same person as Simon, brother of Jesus.

29…Steady..BEAU

A “beau” is the boyfriend of a “belle”, a young lady. “Beau” and “belle” are the masculine and feminine forms of the French word for “handsome, beautiful”.

30…Comfort and others..INNS

The Comfort Inn chain is part of Choice Hotels International. I stay in Comfort Suites every so often. Not bad for the price …

31…Avid surfers..NETIZENS

A netizen is an “Internet citizen”, someone with a presence on the Internet.

35…Societal change begun in Quebec during the ’60s..QUIET REVOLUTION

The “Révolution tranquille” (Quiet Revolution) was a period of great change in the history of Quebec. More specifically, the term originally applied to the six years when the Quebec Liberal Party was in power in the sixties with Jean Lesage as Premier. Lesage’s government made sweeping social, economic and political changes that led to a strengthening of the Québécois identity.

40…Subway purchase..HERO

“Hero” is another name for a submarine sandwich. The hero originated in New York City in the 1800s among Italian immigrants who wanted an Italian sandwich that reminded them of home. The name “hero” was coined in the 1930s, supposedly by a food critic in the “New York Herald Tribune” when he wrote that “one had to be a hero” to finish the gigantic sandwich. Hero is a prevalent term to this day in New York City, reserved for a submarine sandwich with an Italian flavor.

41…Blue dye..ANIL

Anil is another name for the indigo plant, as well as the name for the blue indigo dye that is obtained from it. The color of anil is relatively close to navy blue. The main coloring agent in indigo dye is a crystalline powder called indigotin.

48…Greasy spoon..BEANERY

A beanery is an inexpensive restaurant, and a term that’s been in American English since the 1800s.

“Greasy spoon” is a familiar term for a restaurant, usually a diner, that is less than pristine and that serves cheap food.

50…Small flaw..WART

A wart is a small eruption on the skin caused by a localized viral infection. The most successful treatment is topical use of salicylic acid, with a cure rate of 75%. I think it’s best to try to avoid getting them …

52…’60s aviation nickname..WHISPERJET

The British Aerospace 146 airliner was marketed under the name “Whisperjet”, a reference to the aircraft’s relatively quiet operation. The BA 146 was produced from 1983 to 2001. It has a high-wing design with a roomy fuselage. The plane is popular on short-haul routes within Europe, but I haven’t seen that many of them over here in North America …

58…Quattro competitor..ATRA

Fortunately for crossword setters, the Atra razor was introduced by Gillette in 1977. The Atra was sold as the Contour in some markets and its derivative products are still around today.

Quattro (Italian for “four”) is a series of four-bladed safety razors made by Wilkinson Sword under the brand name Schick.

59…Quattro, e.g…AUDI

Audi introduced the Quattro model in 1980. It was the first car to use Audi’s “quattro permanent” four-wheel drive system, hence the name “Quattro”.

60…2013 One Direction hit..DIANA

One Direction is a UK-based boy band. Each member of the band competed in the reality show “The X Factor”, and didn’t do very well. The five were then combined in a boy band at a later stage of the competition. They only finished in third place, but I don’t think they care. They’re doing very, very well for “losers” …

61…Victor’s “Samson and Delilah” co-star..HEDY

Hedy Lamarr was an American actress, originally from Vienna in modern-day Austria. Not only was Lamarr a successful Hollywood performer, during WWII she was the co-inventor of the frequency-hopping spread-spectrum method of transmitting radio signals that is still used to this day in wireless communication. Impressive …

“Samson and Delilah” is epic film produced and directed by Cecil B. Demille and released in 1949. The title roles are played by Victor Mature and Hedy Lamarr.

63…Lustrous synthetic..RAYON

Rayon is a little unusual in the textile industry in that it is not truly a synthetic fiber, but nor can it be called a natural fiber. Rayon is produced from naturally occurring cellulose that is dissolved and then reformed into fibers.

Down

3…1998 Angelina Jolie biopic..GIA

Gia Carangi was a fashion model, often described as the world’s first supermodel. Carangi was from Philadelphia, and had her first modelling jobs appearing in newspaper ads. She started to abuse heroin in 1980, at 20 years of age. She contracted AIDS, and died at 26 years old. Carangi was one of the first famous women to succumb to the disease, in 1986. HBO made a biopic about Carangi’s life called “Gia” in 1998. Angelina Jolie plays the title role.

4…F1 neighbor..ESC

The escape key (Esc) is usually beside the F1 key on a PC keyboard.

5…It’s across from Alice Tully Hall..THE MET

The Metropolitan Opera (the Met) of New York City is the largest classical music organization in the country, presenting about 220 performances each and every year. Founded in 1880, the Met is renowned for using technology to expand its audiences. Performances have been broadcast live on radio since 1931, and on television since 1977. And since 2006 you can go see a live performance from New York in high definition on the big screen, at a movie theater near you …

Alice Tully Hall is a concert hall located in the Juilliard Building at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City. The hall is named for Alice Tully, a performer whose philanthropy helped fund its construction.

6…One of many in “Orphan Black”..CLONE

“Orphan Black” is a Canadian sci-fi TV show about several women who discover that they are in fact clones. Star of the show is Tatiana Maslany, who has what must be an exhausting job, playing all of the clones.

8…Sixth of five?..ESP

Extrasensory perception (ESP) is sometimes referred to as the “sixth sense”.

10…Largo and presto..TEMPI

Largo is a instruction to play a piece of music with a very slow tempo. “Largo” is the Italian word for “broadly”.

On a musical score, presto is used to indicate a fast tempo. “Presto” is the Italian word for “quick”.

11…Matinee hr…ONE PM

“Matinée” is a French word used to describe a musical entertainment held during the daytime. “Matinée” is derived from the word “matin”, meaning “morning”, although here the term is used in the sense of “daylight”. Theater performances in the US tend to be either in the evening (for the night owls) or in matinees in the afternoon (for “the early-to-bed crowd”, of which I am a member).

12…March of Dimes’ original crusade..POLIO

In the fifties, especially after the 1952 polio epidemic, the biggest health fear in the US was polio because it killed thousands, left even more with disabilities and most of the victims were children. The situation was dire and the authorities immediately quarantined the family of any polio victim, and that quarantine was so strict that in many cases the families were not even permitted to attend the funeral of a family member who died from the disease.

President Roosevelt was a major driver in the founding of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis. The Foundation’s most successful fund raising campaign was to encourage the public to just send a dime to support the charity, so that even before the Foundation officially changed its name, the public were already calling it March of Dimes. After President Roosevelt passed away in office, Congress passed legislation calling for a new design for the dime, one featuring the image of FDR. The Roosevelt dime was introduced in 1946, on the day that would have been the President’s 64th birthday.

18…Mama in music..CASS

Cass Elliot was one of the four singers in the Mamas and the Papas, a sensational group from the sixties. “Mama Cass” was performing sold-out concerts in London in 1974 when she was found dead one morning, having had a heart attack. She was only 32 years old. Eerily, Elliot died in the same flat (on loan from Harry Nilsson) in which the Who’s drummer, Keith Moon, would die just four years later.

22…Trooper’s outfit?..ISUZU

Isuzu is a Japanese auto manufacturer, very successful in the medium and heavy truck market in particular. You’ll be seeing fewer and fewer Isuzu passenger cars on American roads though, as the company exited the US passenger car market in 2008. The Isuzu Trooper was one of their most successful SUVs, produced between 1981 and 2005.

23…La Salle of “ER”..ERIQ

Eriq La Salle played Dr. Peter Benton on “ER”, and is best known in film for his portrayal of Darryl in the 1998 comedy “Coming to America”.

26…Thomas Cromwell’s earldom..ESSEX

Essex is a county in England, referred to as one of the “home counties”. The home counties are the counties that surround the city of London, outside of London itself. “Home county” is not an official designation but has been in popular use since the 1800s.

Thomas Cromwell was the 1st Earl of Essex, and a trusted advisor of King Henry VIII of England. Cromwell very much drove the English Reformation, the break with the Catholic Church in Rome. He was also the man who arranged for the annulment of Henry’s first marriage so that the king could marry Anne Boleyn. But, like so many of those close to Henry VIII, Cromwell fell out of favor and was executed. Cromwell’s “crime” was that he arranged Henry’s fourth marriage, to Anne of Cleves, and this turned out to be a terrible match.

29…Oblique cut..BEVEL

A bevelled edged is like a chamfered edge. The edge of a mirror is often bevelled, meaning that it is cut at an angle that isn’t perpendicular to the mirror’s surface.

31…Half a Caribbean federation..NEVIS

Nevis is an island in the Caribbean Sea, which along with the island of Saint Kitts makes up the Federation of Saint Kitts and Nevis. At the center of Nevis is a volcano, called Nevis Peak. Apparently the clouds at the top of this peak reminded someone of snow, so the island was given the Spanish name “Nuestra Señora de las Nieves” (Our Lady of the Snows). The name “Nevis” then comes from “nieves”, the word for “snow”.

32…Tom’s “Mission: Impossible” role..ETHAN

It was Tom Cruise’s idea to adapt the “Mission Impossible” television series for the big screen, and it became the first project for Cruise’s own production company. Tom Cruise took on the starring role of Ethan Hunt in the movies, the point man for the Impossible Missions Force (IMF).

42…Former Blue Devil rival, briefly..TERP

The sports teams of the University of Maryland are called the Maryland Terrapins, or “the Terps” for short. The name dates back to 1932 when it was coined by the the university’s president at the time, Curley Byrd. He took the name from the diamondback terrapins that are native to the Chesapeake Bay.

Duke University was founded in 1838 as Brown’s Schoolhouse. The school was renamed to Trinity College in 1859, and to this day the town where the college was located back then is known as Trinity, in honor of the school. The school was moved in 1892 to Durham, North Carolina in part due to generous donations from the wealthy tobacco industrialist Washington Duke. Duke’s donation required that the school open its doors to women, placing them on an equal footing with men. Trinity’s name was changed to Duke in 1924 in recognition of the generosity of the Duke family. Duke’s athletic teams are known as the Blue Devils.

44…Shore show of the ’70s..DINAH!

Dinah Shore had a lot of success as a singer in the forties and fifties in the Big Band Era, and then in the sixties as a hostess of variety programs on television. Shore was also a big fan of golf, both as a player and a spectator. She founded the Colgate Dinah Shore golf tournament which is now the Kraft Nabisco Championship, one of the four majors on the LPGA Tour.

47…Jim-dandy..A-OKAY

Our term “A-OK” is supposedly an abbreviation for “A(ll systems are) OK”, and arose in the sixties during the Space Program.

A jim-dandy is someone or something that is excellent. The term might possibly arise from the song “Dandy Jim of Caroline” that was popular in the 1840s.

48…Pizza sauce herb..BASIL

Traditionally, basil is considered “the king of herbs”. And in fact, the herb’s name comes form the Greek “basileus” meaning “king”.

54…46-Down kin..RIA

(46D. Alaskan cruise sight FJORD)

A drowned valley might be called a ria or a fjord, both formed as sea level rises. A ria is a drowned valley created by river erosion, and a fjord is a drowned valley created by glaciation.

55…Magpie relative..JAY

The bird known as a “jay” is sometimes called a “magpie”, although the terms are not completely interchangeable.

56…”Microsoft sound” composer..ENO

Brian Eno started out his musical career with Roxy Music. However, Eno’s most oft-played composition (by far!) is Microsoft’s “startup jingle”, the 6-second sound you hear when the Windows operating system is booting up. Eno might have annoyed the Microsoft folks when he stated on a BBC radio show:

I wrote it on a Mac. I’ve never used a PC in my life; I don’t like them.

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Complete List of Clues and Answers

Across

1…Man of many words..ROGET

6…Course designer..CHEF

10…Hiker’s map, briefly..TOPO

14…Words spoken on a star?..I WISH

15…Virna of “How to Murder Your Wife”..LISI

16…Organic compound..ENOL

17…’60s executive order creation..PEACE CORPS

19…Combine..MELD

20…Locks in a zoo..MANE

21…Human Be-In attendee..HIPPIE

23…1988 Cabinet resignee..ED MEESE

27…Apostle known as “the Zealot”..ST SIMON

28…Facetious tributes..ROASTS

29…Steady..BEAU

30…Comfort and others..INNS

31…Avid surfers..NETIZENS

35…Societal change begun in Quebec during the ’60s..QUIET REVOLUTION

39…Money-saving refuge..TAX HAVEN

40…Subway purchase..HERO

41…Blue dye..ANIL

42…Hints..TRACES

44…Renders harmless..DEFANGS

48…Greasy spoon..BEANERY

49…It’s not widely understood..IN JOKE

50…Small flaw..WART

51…Cozy spot..NOOK

52…’60s aviation nickname..WHISPERJET

58…Quattro competitor..ATRA

59…Quattro, e.g…AUDI

60…2013 One Direction hit..DIANA

61…Victor’s “Samson and Delilah” co-star..HEDY

62…Line holder for a cast..REEL

63…Lustrous synthetic..RAYON

Down

1…Swindle, with “off”..RIP

2…Run a tab, say..OWE

3…1998 Angelina Jolie biopic..GIA

4…F1 neighbor..ESC

5…It’s across from Alice Tully Hall..THE MET

6…One of many in “Orphan Black”..CLONE

7…Engage..HIRE

8…Sixth of five?..ESP

9…Skid..FISHTAIL

10…Largo and presto..TEMPI

11…Matinee hr…ONE PM

12…March of Dimes’ original crusade..POLIO

13…Ancient..OLDEN

18…Mama in music..CASS

22…Trooper’s outfit?..ISUZU

23…La Salle of “ER”..ERIQ

24…Fried treat..DONUT

25…Obsession..MANIA

26…Thomas Cromwell’s earldom..ESSEX

27…Determined about..SET ON

29…Oblique cut..BEVEL

31…Half a Caribbean federation..NEVIS

32…Tom’s “Mission: Impossible” role..ETHAN

33…Reunion attendee..NIECE

34…More put out..SORER

36…”__ heaven”..THANK

37…American West conflict..RANGE WAR

38…Overly curious..NOSY

42…Former Blue Devil rival, briefly..TERP

43…Not suitable for kids..RATED-R

44…Shore show of the ’70s..DINAH!

45…Modern message..E-NOTE

46…Alaskan cruise sight..FJORD

47…Jim-dandy..A-OKAY

48…Pizza sauce herb..BASIL

50…Off-target..WIDE

53…Color distinction..HUE

54…46-Down kin..RIA

55…Magpie relative..JAY

56…”Microsoft sound” composer..ENO

57…Brown shade..TAN




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