LA Times Crossword Answers 14 Mar 2018, Wednesday

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Constructed by: Robin Stears
Edited by: Rich Norris

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Today’s Theme: Work

“WORK” is often seen before the both words in today’s themed answers:

  • 66A. 2016 #1 hit for Rihanna, which can precede both parts of 17-, 25-, 35-, 49- and 59-Across : WORK
  • 17A. Door-to-door seller’s form : ORDER SHEET (giving “work order” and “worksheet”)
  • 25A. Do some bargain-hunting : SHOP AROUND (giving “workshop” and “workaround”)
  • 35A. Text with maps and timelines : HISTORY BOOK (giving “work history” and “workbook”)
  • 49A. Residential get-together : HOUSE PARTY (giving “workhouse” and “work party”)
  • 59A. Game with ringers : HORSESHOES (giving “workhorse” and “work shoes”)

Bill’s time: 6m 49s

Bill’s errors: 0

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Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

10. Column in a pugilist’s record : TKOS

In boxing, a knockout (KO) is when one of the fighters can’t get up from the canvas within a specified time, usually 10 seconds. This can be due to fatigue, injury, or the participant may be truly “knocked out”. A referee, fighter or doctor may also decide to stop a fight without a physical knockout, especially if there is concern about a fighter’s safety. In this case the bout is said to end with a technical knockout (TKO).

“Pugilism”, another word for “boxing”, comes from the Latin “pugil” meaning “boxer”. In turn, “pugil” derives from “pugnus”, the word for “fist”.

14. Congressional auditing org. : GAO

The Government Accounting Office, established as a branch of the US Congress in 1921, was renamed the Government Accountability Office (GAO) in 2004. A much better name, I think …

15. Rhine wine region : ALSACE

Of the 27 regions of metropolitan France (i.e. the territory of France within Europe), the smallest is Alsace. Alsace sits at the very east of the country, right on the border with Germany.

The river running through Europe that we know in English as the Rhine, is called “Rhein” in German, “Rhin” in French and “Rijn” in Dutch.

19. Very smart : CHIC

“Chic” is a French word meaning “stylish”.

20. Gosling of “Blade Runner 2049” : RYAN

Ryan Gosling is a Canadian actor who really seems to be riding high right now. He is one of a string of entertainers to graduate from the Mickey Mouse Club on the Disney Channel.

“Blade Runner 2049” is a 2017 sequel to 1982’s “Blade Runner”. Harrison Ford appears in both movies. Ford has stated that he is open to appearing in another sequel, about which there is a lot of chatter.

21. Tupperware sound : BURP

Back in the 1930s, Earl Tupper was working at the DuPont Chemical Company, and from DuPont obtained inflexible pieces of polyethylene slag. Tupper purified the slag and shaped it into unbreakable containers. He added airtight lids with a “burping seal”, which were provided tight seals similar to that provided by the lids on paint cans. He called his new product Tupperware.

23. Jeans label : LEE

The Lee company that’s famous for making jeans was formed in 1889 by one Henry David Lee in Salina, Kansas.

24. Nightly TV staple : NEWS

Even though the word “news” uses the initial letters from the directions north, east, west and south, it’s not an acronym. “News” actually comes from the singular “new”. Back in the 14th-century, “news” were “new things”.

28. Where K-I-S-S-I-N-G goes on : IN A TREE

The somewhat cruel kid’s rhyme goes:

“Jack” and “Jill” sitting in a tree:
K-I-S-S-I-N-G
First comes love,
then comes marriage,
then comes baby in a golden carriage!

31. Fabled beast : ASS

Aesop used an ass in at least four of his fables:

  • The Ass and his Masters
  • The Ass and the Pig
  • The Ass Carrying an Image
  • The Ass in the Lion’s Skin

32. Brad Paisley venue : OPRY

Brad Paisley is a country singer from Glen Dale, West Virginia. As well as singing, Paisley has written a couple of books. He co-wrote “Jug Fishing for Greazy and Other Brad Paisley Fishing Stories”, which was published in 2003. Bradley then co-wrote an autobiography titled “Diary of a Player: How My Musical Heroes Made a Guitar Man Out of Me”, which came out in 2011.

39. Org. in Dan Brown’s “Digital Fortress” : NSA

Dan Brown is a somewhat controversial author who is best known for his 2003 novel “The Da Vinci Code”. I’ve read all of Brown’s books and must say that his early ones are awful (“Digital Fortress” and “Deception Point”). Having said that, I loved “Angels and Demons”, and found “The Da Vinci Code” to be a great read.

41. “There’s an __ for that” : APP

“There’s an app for that” is a trademarked slogan used by Apple in marketing the iPhone. I suppose there are ways around trademark restrictions. For instance, Verizon hyped the impressive extent of the company’s geographic cell phone coverage using the phrase “There’s a map for that”.

44. Figures on a sports news crawl : STATS

A news ticker, or “crawler”, is a text-based graphic that runs across the bottom of a TV screen providing perhaps news headlines or continuous stock quotes.

54. Pop __ : ART

An artistic work in the Pop Art style includes images taken from popular culture, perhaps from the news or an advertisement. The pop art movement started in the mid-fifties in Britain and emerged in the late-fifties in the US. One of the more famous pop artists was American Andy Warhol.

55. Mongolia locale : ASIA

The East Asian nation of Mongolia lies between Russian to the north and China to the south. With an area of over 600,000 square miles and a population of about 3 million people, Mongolia is the most sparsely populated sovereign nation on the planet. Almost half of the Mongolian populace lives in the capital city of Ulan Bator.

56. Camp Lejeune gp. : USMC

Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune is located in Jacksonville, North Carolina. The 246-square mile facility includes 14 miles of beaches, making Camp Lejeune important for amphibious assault training. Built in 1941, the base was named for the 13th Commandant of the Marine Corps John A. Lejeune, who served in the USMC for nearly forty years, and who is often referred to as the “greatest of Leathernecks”.

59. Game with ringers : HORSESHOES (giving “workhorse”)

In the game of horseshoes, a ringer is scored when the tossed shoe lands around the target stake. A leaner is almost as good as a ringer, and is scored when a horseshoe lands upright or leans against the stake.

64. Smart people? : ALECKS

Apparently the original “smart Alec” (sometimes “Aleck”) was one Alec Hoag, a pimp, thief and confidence trickster who plied his trade in New York City in the 1840s.

65. NBC skit show : SNL

NBC first aired a form of “Saturday Night Live” (SNL) in 1975 under the title “NBC’s Saturday Night”. The show was actually created to give Johnny Carson some time off from “The Tonight Show”. Back then “The Tonight Show” had a weekend episode, and Carson convinced NBC to pull the Saturday or Sunday recordings off the air and hold them for subsequent weeknights in which Carson needed a break. NBC turned to Lorne Michaels and asked him to put together a variety show to fill the vacant slot, and he came up with what we now call “Saturday Night Live”.

66. 2016 #1 hit for Rihanna, which can precede both parts of 17-, 25-, 35-, 49- and 59-Across : WORK

The singer Rihanna was born and grew up on the island of Barbados and moved to the US when she was 16-years-old to pursue a singing career. “Rihanna” is her stage name, as she was born Robyn Rihanna Fenty. The name “Rihanna” is derived from the Welsh name “Rhiannon”.

Down

2. Scrubby wastelands : BARRENS

Yep, “barren” is a noun as well as an adjective. A barren is a tract of land that’s … barren.

4. Setting for most of “Charlotte’s Web” : BARN

“Charlotte’s Web” is a children’s novel by author E. B. White. Charlotte is a barn spider, who manages to save the life of a pig named Wilbur. Wilbur is a pet pig, owned by the farmer’s daughter, Fern Arable. The story also includes a gluttonous rat named Templeton who provides some light and comical moments.

5. Overhead trains : ELS

Elevated railroad (El)

7. Billy Blanks’ workout system : TAE BO

Tae Bo isn’t an ancient martial art, even though it perhaps sounds like one. The discipline was developed as a form of aerobic exercise in the 1990s by taekwondo expert Billy Blanks who gave it the name Tae Bo, a melding of “taekwondo” and “boxing”.

9. Aquarium fish : TETRA

The neon tetra is a freshwater fish that is native to parts of South America. The tetra is a very popular aquarium fish and millions are imported into the US every year. Almost all of the imported tetras are farm-raised in Asia and very few come from their native continent.

10. SHO sister channel : TMC

Showtime (SHO) is a competitor of the Movie Channel (TMC) in terms of program lineup, although both channels are in fact owned by CBS.

11. Liqueur in an espresso martini : KAHLUA

Kahlúa is a rum-based liqueur from Mexico that has a coffee flavor.

An espresso martini is a cocktail that is often served with a couple of coffee beans as a garnish. Most recipes call for a mixture of vodka, espresso coffee, Kahlua and sugar syrup.

24. “Empire” actress Long : NIA

Nia Long is an American actress who is probably best known for playing Will Smith’s sometime girlfriend and fiancee Lisa Wilkes on the TV show “The Fresh Prince of Bel Air”.

“Empire” is a musical drama TV series about the hip hop music business. Star of the show is Terrence Howard, who plays drug-dealer turned hip hop mogul Lucious Lyon. Lyon is CEO of Empire Entertainment.

25. Nasal dividers : SEPTA

In the world of anatomy, a septum (plural “septa”) is a dividing wall within a chamber or other structure. For example, the interatrial septum separates the left and right atria of the heart, and the nasal septum separates the nostrils of the nose.

27. Cookie with a Peeps variety : OREO

Peeps Oreos were introduced in 2017 and consist of pairs of vanilla cookies filled Marshmallow Peeps flavored creme. The creme is the traditional pink color of Peeps marshmallow candy. Apparently, the pink dye used in Oreo version turns the inside of the mouth and tongue a bright pink that is pretty persistent.

Peeps are marshmallow candies usually in the shapes of chicks and bunnies, primarily sold around the Easter holiday. Peeps were introduced in 1952 by a Russian immigrant called Sam Born whose company “Just Born” makes the candies to this day. The original candies were yellow and hand-shaped to look like little chicks, hence the name “Peeps”.

29. Antarctic waters : ROSS SEA

The Ross Sea is a bay in the Southern Ocean of Antarctica. It was discovered by one James Ross in 1841. A more recent discovery, in the waters of the Ross Sea, was a 33 feet long giant squid that was captured in 2007.

34. “__ Road”: Beatles album : ABBEY

Abbey Road in London was named for Kilburn Priory and the Abbey Farm in the priory’s grounds. The road is famous for the Abbey Road recording studios used most famously by the Beatles. The band’s last studio album is called “Abbey Road”, and the famous cover photo depicts John, Paul, George and Ringo walking across the zebra crossing located just outside the studio.

36. QB’s mistakes : INTS

Interception (Int.)

37. Mongolian tent : YURT

A yurt is a wood-framed dwelling that is used by nomads in the steppes of Central Asia. Although a yurt is a substantial structure, it is also extremely portable.

38. London-born supermodel : KATE MOSS

Kate Moss is an English supermodel. Moss is reported to have earned $9 million for her work in 2007. In 2008, a gold statue valued at almost $3 million was made of Moss for an exhibition in the British Museum. It is thought that the work is the largest gold statue to have been produced since those made by the Ancient Egyptians.

43. Quid __ quo : PRO

“Quid pro quo” is Latin for “something for something”, i.e. a swap.

44. Omen on February 2nd : SHADOW

Punxsutawney is a borough in Pennsylvania that is located about 80 miles northeast of Pittsburgh. Punxsutawney Phil is the famous groundhog that lives in the area. Phil comes out of his hole on February 2 each year and if he sees his shadow he goes back into his hole predicting six more weeks of winter weather. February 2 is known as Groundhog Day.

45. “Starsky & Hutch” Ford model : TORINO

Ford produced the Torino from 1968 to 1970. The name “Torino” is Italian for “Turin”, and a nod to the city that has been dubbed “the Italian Detroit”. Turin is home to auto manufacturers FIAT, Lancia and Alfa Romeo. Famously, the Ford Torino was used by the title characters in the seventies cop show “Starsky & Hutch”. Starsky’s Torino was red in color, with a large white vector stripe running along both sides. Ford cashed in on the popularity of the show by producing a thousand replicas of the “Starsky and Hutch” car, although they weren’t much more than the standard vehicle with a specialty paint job.

“Starsky & Hutch” is a fun cop show that ran for four seasons on television in the seventies. The lead roles were played by David Soul (Ken “Hutch” Hutchinson) and Paul Michael Glaser (David Starsky). It was Glaser who really brought the show to a close. He tried to get out of his contract during filming of the third season (even suing to do so). He tried again during the fourth season, and then plans to film a fifth season were just dropped.

46. Highbrow filmmaker : AUTEUR

We use the term “auteur” to describe a film director with a distinctive style, and someone who is distinguished enough to overcome the influence of a movie studio and other commercial pressures. Examples often cited are Akira Kurosawa, Alfred Hitchcock, Howard Hawks and Jean Renoir. “Auteur” is a French word meaning “author”.

48. The “N” of CSNY : NASH

Graham Nash is a singer-songwriter from England. Nash is famous as one of the founders of the Hollies, and as a member of the supergroup Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young.

The supergroup Crosby, Stills & Nash (CSN) is made up of David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash. The band can grow to “CSNY” when the trio is joined by Neil Young. Fans have been known to call the act “C, S, N and sometimes Y”, a play on the expression that names all the vowels, “A, E, I, O, U and sometimes Y”.

51. Garlic mayonnaise : AIOLI

To the purist, especially in Provence in the South of France, aioli is prepared just by grinding garlic with olive oil. However, other ingredients are often added to the mix, particularly egg yolks.

56. KGB country : USSR

The “Komitet gosudarstvennoy bezopasnosti” (KGB) was the national security agency of the Soviet Union until 1991. The KGB was dissolved after the agency’s chairman led a failed attempt at a coup d’état designed to depose President Mikhail Gorbachev.

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Complete List of Clues/Answers

Across

1. Flow back : EBB
4. “Get outta here!” : BEAT IT!
10. Column in a pugilist’s record : TKOS
14. Congressional auditing org. : GAO
15. Rhine wine region : ALSACE
16. Stable parent : MARE
17. Door-to-door seller’s form : ORDER SHEET (giving “work order”)
19. Very smart : CHIC
20. Gosling of “Blade Runner 2049” : RYAN
21. Tupperware sound : BURP
23. Jeans label : LEE
24. Nightly TV staple : NEWS
25. Do some bargain-hunting : SHOP AROUND (giving “workshop”)
28. Where K-I-S-S-I-N-G goes on : IN A TREE
30. Hold the floor : ORATE
31. Fabled beast : ASS
32. Brad Paisley venue : OPRY
34. Copycat : APE
35. Text with maps and timelines : HISTORY BOOK (giving “work history”)
39. Org. in Dan Brown’s “Digital Fortress” : NSA
40. Temps : SUBS
41. “There’s an __ for that” : APP
44. Figures on a sports news crawl : STATS
47. Input, as accidentally erased data : RE-ENTER
49. Residential get-together : HOUSE PARTY (giving “workhouse”)
53. Aviation prefix : AERO-
54. Pop __ : ART
55. Mongolia locale : ASIA
56. Camp Lejeune gp. : USMC
57. Losing proposition : DIET
59. Game with ringers : HORSESHOES (giving “workhorse”)
63. Burden : ONUS
64. Smart people? : ALECKS
65. NBC skit show : SNL
66. 2016 #1 hit for Rihanna, which can precede both parts of 17-, 25-, 35-, 49- and 59-Across : WORK
67. More sinewy : WIRIER
68. Farm area : STY

Down

1. Cause of star wars? : EGO
2. Scrubby wastelands : BARRENS
3. Fragrant shower gel : BODY WASH
4. Setting for most of “Charlotte’s Web” : BARN
5. Overhead trains : ELS
6. Volcanic __ : ASH
7. Billy Blanks’ workout system : TAE BO
8. Become frozen : ICE UP
9. Aquarium fish : TETRA
10. SHO sister channel : TMC
11. Liqueur in an espresso martini : KAHLUA
12. Point in the right direction : ORIENT
13. Formally withdraw : SECEDE
18. Point in the right direction? : EAST
22. Ask for a hand? : PROPOSE
24. “Empire” actress Long : NIA
25. Nasal dividers : SEPTA
26. Deli option : HERO
27. Cookie with a Peeps variety : OREO
29. Antarctic waters : ROSS SEA
33. Many mos. : YRS
34. “__ Road”: Beatles album : ABBEY
36. QB’s mistakes : INTS
37. Mongolian tent : YURT
38. London-born supermodel : KATE MOSS
42. Word of interest? : PERCENT
43. Quid __ quo : PRO
44. Omen on February 2nd : SHADOW
45. “Starsky & Hutch” Ford model : TORINO
46. Highbrow filmmaker : AUTEUR
48. The “N” of CSNY : NASH
50. “Get outta here!” : PSHAW!
51. Garlic mayonnaise : AIOLI
52. Worth more to collectors : RARER
56. KGB country : USSR
58. “Naughty, naughty!” : TSK!
60. __-fi : SCI
61. Squeeze (by) : EKE
62. Plotting : SLY

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