LA Times Crossword 27 Oct 18, Saturday

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Constructed by: Michael Ashley
Edited by: Rich Norris

Today’s Theme: None

Bill’s time: 10m 01s

Bill’s errors: 0

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Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

9. Indonesian dyed fabrics : BATIKS

Genuine batik cloth is produced by applying wax to the parts of the cloth that are not to be dyed. After the cloth has been dyed, it is dried and then dipped in solvent that dissolves the wax. Although wax-resist dyeing of fabric has existed in various parts of the world for centuries, it is most closely associated historically with the island of Java in Indonesia.

16. Name attached to 14 Grand Slam tennis titles : EVONNE

Evonne Goolagong is a former Australian tennis player who was at the pinnacle of her success in seventies and early eighties. Her colorful family name Goolagong came from her Aboriginal father who worked for much of his life as an itinerant sheep shearer. When I watched tennis in 1970s, I remember admiring Goolagong’s quiet professionalism on the court …

22. Only driver to win Indy and Le Mans in the same year : AJ FOYT

A. J. Foyt is a retired racing driver. Foyt is the only driver to have won the Indianapolis 500 (four times, in fact), the Daytona 500, the 24 Hours of Daytona as well as the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

25. 2017 NLDS player : NAT

National League Division Series (NLDS)

The Washington Nationals (“Nats”) baseball team started out life as the Montreal Expos in 1969, and were the first Major League Baseball team in Canada. The Expos moved to Washington in 2005 becoming the Nats. There are only two Major Leagues teams that have never played in a World Series, one being the Mariners and the other the Nats.

27. Gaelic tongue : ERSE

There are actually three Erse languages: Irish, Manx (spoken on the Isle of Man) and Scots Gaelic. In their own tongues, these would be Gaeilge (in Ireland), Gaelg (on the Isle of Man) and Gaidhlig (in Scotland).

28. School closing? : -MARM

A schoolmarm is a woman who is a schoolteacher.

32. Offering from your server : EMAIL

In the world of computer science, a computer accessing a service is called a “client”. The service is provided on a computer called a “server”. These days, clients and servers often communicate via the Internet. I am typing up this blog post on my laptop (the client) and am connected via the Internet to the Google Drive service that resides on a computer somewhere (the server).

34. Corn containers : CRIBS

A corn crib is a storehouse used for the drying and storage of corn. Corn cribs must be elevated to reduce the chance of pests getting at the grain, and so the structure is traditionally built on posts.

36. Malamute pair? : EMS

There is a pair of letters M (ems) in the word “malamute”.

The Alaskan Malamute was bred as a working dog, in particular to pull sleds. The breed takes its name from the Mahlemut tribe of Inuit people. The Alaskan Malamute was designated as Alaska’s official state dog in 2010.

38. Principal aluminum ore : BAUXITE

Bauxite is an aluminum ore. It takes its name from the absolutely beautiful village of Les Baux in southern France, the home of the geologist who first recognized that the mineral was a useful source of the metal.

40. Habitual surfer : NETIZEN

A netizen is an “Internet citizen”, someone with a presence on the Internet. I guess I would be a netizen, then …

42. Red Cross provision : AID

Back in 1859, a Swiss businessman called Henri Dunant went to meet French emperor Napoleon III, to discuss making it easier to conduct commerce in French-occupied Algeria. The Emperor was billeted at Solferino, where France and Austria were engaged in a major battle. In one day, Dunant witnessed 40,000 soldiers die in battle and countless wounded suffering on the battlefield without any organized medical care. Dunant abandoned his business agenda and instead spent a week caring for the sick and wounded. Within a few years he had founded the precursor to the Red Cross, and in 1901 he was awarded the first ever Nobel Peace Prize.

43. California’s __ Beach : PISMO

Pismo Beach is a California city located just 15 miles south of San Luis Obispo. The name “Pismo” comes from a Native American word “pismu” meaning “tar”, a reference to tar springs that are located in nearby Price Canyon. The tar was used by the locals to caulk their canoes.

45. Mississippi river to the Mississippi River : YAZOO

The Yazoo River in the state of Mississippi was named by the French explorer La Salle after the Yazoo Native American tribe who lived near the river’s mouth. It was in the Yazoo River that a naval mine was used for the first time to sink a ship, in 1862. The Confederates successfully used a mine to sink the Union’s ironclad USS Cairo during the Civil War.

46. Green target : CUP

That would be golf.

48. Besmirch : TAINT

“Besmirch” is a derivative of “smirch”, with both words meaning to “make dirty”. In particular, to besmirch is to sully someone’s reputation.

50. Single-channel : MONO

Monophonic sound (“mono”) is sound reproduced using just one audio channel, which is usually played out of just one speaker. Stereophonic sound is reproduced using two audio channels, with the sound from each channel played out of two different speakers. The pair of stereo speakers are usually positioned apart from each other so that sound appears to come from between the two. Quadraphonic sound (4.0 surround sound) uses four audio channels with the sound played back through four speakers often positioned at the corners of the room in which one is listening.

51. Stock trader’s option : CALL

In the world of stock trading, a call option (also “call”) is type of financial contract. The buyer of a call option purchases the right, without obligation, to buy a particular commodity from the seller before a specified date (the expiration date) at a specified price (the strike price).

57. Title for Versace : SIGNOR

“Signor” (Sig.) is “Mister” in Italian.

Gianni Versace was an Italian fashion designer. Versace’s death was perhaps as famous as his life. He was murdered in 1997 outside his mansion in Miami Beach by one Andrew Cunanan. It is not certain that Cunanan knew who his victim was, as this was the last in a spree of five murders committed by him over a four month period. A few days after killing Versace, Cunanan used the same gun to commit suicide.

59. Pressured, in a way : DUNNED

To dun is to insist on payment of a debt. The etymology of the verb is unclear, but one suggestion is that it dates back to a well-known debt collector in London named Joe Dun.

65. Ran the show : EMCEED

The term “emcee” comes from “MC”, an initialism used for a Master or Mistress of Ceremonies.

67. Fly to flee : TSETSE

The tsetse fly is responsible for the transmission of sleeping sickness, a disease that is more correctly called African trypanosomiasis. The disease is only observed in humans who have been bitten by a tsetse fly that is infected with the trypanosome parasitic protozoan.

68. Ashley’s twin : MARY-KATE

I know very little about the Olsen twins, but I am told that folks believe Mary-Kate and Ashley to be identical twins. They look very much alike, but are in fact fraternal twins. The sisters were cast as Michelle Tanner on the eighties sitcom “Full House”, taking turns playing the role.

Down

2. Fangorn Forest dweller : ENT

Fangorn Forest is a location in the fictional world of Middle-earth created by J.R.R. Tolkien. Notably, it is the home of the Ents, a race of beings who closely resemble trees.

3. Goethe’s “I” : ICH

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a German writer (among many other things). Goethe’s most famous work is probably his play “Faust”. This epic work was published in parts, starting in 1808. The work was only published in toto after his death in 1832.

4. 1960s pioneer in countercultural strips : ZAP COMIX

Underground comix are self-published comic books that depict more adult content than found in mainstream publications. Such material was most prevalent in the late sixties and early seventies. The most popular and pioneering underground comix series was “Zap”, a title that was launched in 1968 in San Francisco.

5. Atlanta university : EMORY

Emory is a private school in Atlanta, Georgia with a focus on graduate research. The school was named after a Methodist Episcopal bishop called John Emory, who was very popular at the time of the school’s founding in 1836.

6. “60 Minutes” creator Don : HEWITT

Television news producer and executive Don Hewitt is best remembered for creating the long-running news magazine “60 Minutes” that debuted in 1968. Hewitt also produced the first televised presidential candidate debate, the celebrated back and forth between Senator John F. Kennedy and Vice President Richard Nixon in 1960.

The marvelous news magazine program “60 Minutes” has been on the air since 1968. The show is unique among all other regularly-scheduled shows in that it has never used theme music. There is just the ticking of that Aristo stopwatch.

8. Venus probe craft : MARINER

NASA’s Mariner program was a series of probes launched into space to investigate Mars, Venus and Mercury. There were ten Mariner probes launched in all (three were lost, though), with the planned Mariner 11 and 12 evolving into the Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft.

9. Rock’s Harper or Folds : BEN

Ben Harper is a singer-songwriter who is a noted rock guitarist. Harper was married for seven years to actress Laura Dern, but their divorce was finalized in 2013.

Ben Folds is a singer-songwriter who for several years led the alternative rock band Ben Folds Five.

10. Forum greetings : AVES

“Ave” is a Latin word meaning “hail” as in “Ave Maria”, which translates as “Hail Mary”. “Ave” can also be used to mean “goodbye”.

The Latin “forum” (plural “fora”) translates as “marketplace, town square”. “The Roman Forum” is the most famous example of such a space. The Forum is at the heart of the city of Rome is surrounded by the ruins of several ancient government buildings, and has been referred to as the most celebrated meeting place in the world.

11. Just right : TO A TEE

The expression “to a T” can also be written as “to a tee”, and has been around at least since 1693.

12. Brahms piano pieces : INTERMEZZOS

The original intermezzo (plural “intermezzi”) were comic interludes performed between acts of a more serious opera. By the 19th century, composers were writing intermezzi as instrumental pieces as short interludes between movements in larger works. Eventually, the term “intermezzo” was used more generally for a short piece of music.

Johannes Brahms wrote 18 intermezzi in total, and all of these towards the end of his life. Each of them was a piece of solo piano music.

14. Intuit : SENSE

“To intuit” is a verb formed from the noun “intuition”, and means “to know intuitively”.

22. Microscopic specimen : AMEBA

An ameba (or “amoeba”, as we spell it back in Ireland) is a single-celled microorganism. The name comes from the Greek “amoibe”, meaning change. The name is quite apt, as the cell changes shape readily as the ameba moves, eats and reproduces.

26. Hamlet’s first choice : TO BE

There has been centuries of debate about how one interprets Hamlet’s soliloquy that begins “To be or not to be …”. My favorite opinion is that Hamlet is weighing up the pros and cons of suicide (“to not be”).

To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The Slings and Arrows of outrageous fortune;
Or to take Armes against a Sea of troubles …

35. Home near a cote, perhaps : STY

The Old English word “cote” was used for a small house. Our modern word “cottage” comes from “cote”. We now use “cote” to mean a small shelter on a farm for sheep or birds.

37. Hair net : SNOOD

A snood is a net or a bag worn over the hair. “Snood” comes from the Old English word “snod” meaning “ribbon for the hair”.

39. Former Yugoslav leader : TITO

Marshal Josip Broz Tito led the Yugoslav resistance during WWII. After the war, he led the country as Prime Minister and then President.

41. Final cut on the “Sounds of Silence” album : I AM A ROCK

“I Am a Rock” is a lovely song written by Paul Simon that was recorded most famously by Simon & Garfunkel on their 1965 album “Sounds of Silence”. The song made its first appearance as the opening track on Simon’s solo album “The Paul Simon Songbook” that he released earlier the same year.

“Sounds of Silence” is a 1966 studio album released by Simon & Garfunkel. The album title reflects the name of the first track “The Sound of Silence”. Fans of the duo are probably familiar with the album cover, which features the pair walking down a wooded trail, and looking back towards the camera. That picture was shot in Franklin Canyon Park in Los Angeles.

44. A luge driver might wear one : MINICAM

A luge is a small sled used by one or two people, on which one lies face up and feet first. The luge can be compared to the skeleton, a sled for only one person and on which the rider lies face down and goes down the hill head-first. Yikes!

49. 1977 Australian Open winner Roscoe : TANNER

Roscoe Tanner is a retired professional tennis player from Chattanooga, Tennessee. Tanner was known for his fast serve, a serve that was clocked at 153 mph in 1978. The service speed was remained the fastest ever recorded until 2004. Sadly, Tanner has had many run-ins with the law since the late nineties.

51. VMI student : CADET

The Virginia Military Institute (VMI) is one of the six senior military colleges in the country, and is located in Lexington, Virginia. The sports teams of VMI are known as the Keydets, southern slang for “cadets”.

54. Like a pretty lass : BONNY

“Bonny” is a Scottish term meaning “pleasing, good-looking”. The exact etymology of the term is unclear, although the assumption is that it comes from the Old French “bon, bone” meaning “good”.

56. Matches in Hold ’em : SEES

The official birthplace of the incredibly popular poker game of Texas hold ’em is Robstown, Texas where the game dates back to the early 1900s. The game was introduced into Las Vegas in 1967 by a group of Texan enthusiasts including Doyle Brunson, a champion often seen playing on TV today. Doyle Brunson published a poker strategy guide in 1978, and this really helped increase the popularity of the game. But it was the inclusion of Texas hold ‘em in the television lineup that really gave the game its explosive surge in popularity, with the size of the prize money just skyrocketing.

58. Lady of song : GAGA

“Lady Gaga” is the stage name of Stefani Germanotta. Germanotta is a big fan of the band Queen, and she took her stage name from the marvelous Queen song titled “Radio Ga Ga”.

60. ’50s ticket initials : DDE

Future US president Eisenhower was born in Denison, Texas in 1890 and given the name David Dwight, but by the time he made it to the White House he was going by the name Dwight D. Eisenhower (DDE). Growing up, his family called him Dwight, and when “Ike” enrolled in West Point he himself reversed the order of his given names.

62. __ Maria : TIA

Tia Maria is a coffee liqueur that was invented just after WWII in Jamaica, using Jamaican coffee beans, Jamaican rum, vanilla and sugar. The drink’s name translates to “Aunt Maria”.

63. One might be made on the nose : BET

To make a bet “on the nose” is to bet that a horse wins the race, as opposed to placing or showing.

When betting on a horse race, the first-place finisher is said to “win”. A horse finishing first or second is said to “place”. A horse finishing first, second or third is said to “show”.

64. Canton ending : -ESE

Cantonese is a language that developed around the city of Guangzhou (also known as “Canton”) in South China. Cantonese is the language spoken by most of the inhabitants of Hong Kong and Macau, and by the major overseas Chinese communities around the world.

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Complete List of Clues/Answers

Across

1. “Grab that guy!” : SEIZE HIM!
9. Indonesian dyed fabrics : BATIKS
15. Speaking to a TV audience, say : ON CAMERA
16. Name attached to 14 Grand Slam tennis titles : EVONNE
17. Ultimate degree : NTH POWER
18. Pick up : NEATEN
19. Urgent event : CRISIS
21. Agitated states : STEWS
22. Only driver to win Indy and Le Mans in the same year : AJ FOYT
25. 2017 NLDS player : NAT
27. Gaelic tongue : ERSE
28. School closing? : -MARM
29. Link with : TIE TO
31. Music with expressive lyrics : EMO
32. Offering from your server : EMAIL
34. Corn containers : CRIBS
36. Malamute pair? : EMS
38. Principal aluminum ore : BAUXITE
40. Habitual surfer : NETIZEN
42. Red Cross provision : AID
43. California’s __ Beach : PISMO
45. Mississippi river to the Mississippi River : YAZOO
46. Green target : CUP
48. Besmirch : TAINT
50. Single-channel : MONO
51. Stock trader’s option : CALL
52. Cop to : OWN
53. Put down : ABASED
55. Real estate basics : AREAS
57. Title for Versace : SIGNOR
59. Pressured, in a way : DUNNED
61. Defies all logic : CANNOT BE
65. Ran the show : EMCEED
66. Service companies : AGENCIES
67. Fly to flee : TSETSE
68. Ashley’s twin : MARY-KATE

Down

1. Family business partner : SON
2. Fangorn Forest dweller : ENT
3. Goethe’s “I” : ICH
4. 1960s pioneer in countercultural strips : ZAP COMIX
5. Atlanta university : EMORY
6. “60 Minutes” creator Don : HEWITT
7. Angers : IRES
8. Venus probe craft : MARINER
9. Rock’s Harper or Folds : BEN
10. Forum greetings : AVES
11. Just right : TO A TEE
12. Brahms piano pieces : INTERMEZZOS
13. Had an in : KNEW SOMEONE
14. Intuit : SENSE
20. Attended casually : SAT IN ON
22. Microscopic specimen : AMEBA
23. Island spirits : JAMAICA RUMS
24. Deceit : FRAUDULENCE
26. Hamlet’s first choice : TO BE
30. Sharp winter tools : ICE SAWS
33. Rim : LIP
35. Home near a cote, perhaps : STY
37. Hair net : SNOOD
39. Former Yugoslav leader : TITO
41. Final cut on the “Sounds of Silence” album : I AM A ROCK
44. A luge driver might wear one : MINICAM
47. Revolver? : PLANET
49. 1977 Australian Open winner Roscoe : TANNER
51. VMI student : CADET
54. Like a pretty lass : BONNY
56. Matches in Hold ’em : SEES
58. Lady of song : GAGA
60. ’50s ticket initials : DDE
62. __ Maria : TIA
63. One might be made on the nose : BET
64. Canton ending : -ESE

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