LA Times Crossword Answers 15 Oct 15, Thursday

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CROSSWORD SETTER: Marti DuGuay-Carpenter
THEME: They’re Loaded … we have the same clue for each of our themed answers today, namely “They’re loaded”.

17A. They’re loaded FILM CAMERAS
29A. They’re loaded CROOKED DICE
45A. They’re loaded BIG SPENDERS
61A. They’re loaded SIX-SHOOTERS

BILL BUTLER’S COMPLETION TIME: 6m 33s
ANSWERS I MISSED: 0

Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across

1. Chinese secret society TONG
A “tong”, in the sense of being an organization within the Chinese immigrant community, is a North American phenomenon. The original intent of the tongs was to provide benevolent support and protection for members, but even since the early 1800s some tongs have been associated with crime. The word “tong” means “hall” or “gathering place”.

11. “Big Blue” IBM
The origin of the IBM nickname “Big Blue” seems to have been lost in the mists of time. That said, maybe it has something to do with the fact that the IBM logo is blue, and almost every mainframe they produced was painted blue. I remember visiting IBM on business a few times in my career, and back then we were encouraged to wear white shirts and blue suits to “fit in” with our client’s culture.

14. Ancient concert halls ODEA
In Ancient Greece an odeon (also odeum) was like a small theater, with “odeon” literally meaning a “building for musical competition”. Odea were used in both Greece and Rome for entertainments such as musical shows and poetry readings.

15. Music industry underhandedness PAYOLA
“Payola” is the illegal practice of paying radio stations or disk jockeys to repeatedly play a particular piece of music. The impetus behind the crime is that the more often a song is played, the more likely it is to sell. The term “payola” comes from the words “pay” and “Victrola”, an RCA brand name for an early phonograph.

19. K+, e.g. ION
Potassium is the chemical element with the symbol K. The “K” stands for “kalium”, a neo-Latin name for the element that is taken from the word “alkali”. The name “potassium” comes from “potash”, as potash is a mixture of potassium salts.

21. Dye source HENNA
Henna has been used for centuries as a dye, not just for leather and wool, but also for the hair and skin. In modern days, henna is also used for temporary tattoos.

23. Editor’s mark STET
“Stet” is a Latin word meaning “let it stand”. In editorial work, the typesetter is instructed to disregard any change previously marked by writing the word “stet” and then underscoring that change with a line of dots or dashes.

24. Fla.-to-Cal. route I-TEN
I-10 is the most southerly of the interstate routes that cross from the Atlantic right to the Pacific. I-10 stretches from Santa Monica, California to Jacksonville, Florida. Various stretches of the route have been given different names, for example, the Rosa Parks Freeway, the Santa Monica Freeway, the San Bernardino Freeway and the Christopher Columbus Transcontinental Highway.

26. Former CNN host Alina CHO
Alina Cho is a former CNN broadcast journalist who hosted the show “Fashion: Backstage Pass”.

34. Terra firma EARTH
“Terra firma” is Latin for “solid ground”.

36. Wedding announcement word NEE
“Née” is the French word for “born” when referring to a female. The male equivalent is “né”.

37. Poet __ St. Vincent Millay EDNA
Edna St. Vincent Millay was an American poet and playwright, the third woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry (in 1923 for “The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver”). Millay was noted not only for her work, but also for the open arrangement that she and her husband had in their marriage. Millay took many lovers, including the poet George Dillon for whom she wrote a number of sonnets.

38. One who may need an alibi LIAR
“Alibi” is the Latin word for “elsewhere” as in, “I claim that I was ‘elsewhere’ when the crime was committed … I have an ‘alibi'”.

41. Energy source ATOM
The amount of energy that we extract from atoms in a nuclear reaction is determined by Albert Einstein’s famous equation E = mc2. Basically, a nuclear reaction is the conversion of a small mass (m) into a lot of energy (E), because the multiplier “c2“ is the square of the speed of light, and that’s a big, big number.

42. Mediterranean tourist attraction ETNA
Mt. Etna is the largest of three active volcanoes in Italy. Mt Etna is about 2 1/2 times the height of its equally famous sister, Mt. Vesuvius.

43. Alley target PIN
Bowling has been around for an awfully long time. The oldest known reference to the game is in Egypt, where pins and balls were found in an ancient tomb that is over 5,000 years old. The first form of the game to come to America was nine-pin bowling, which had been very popular in Europe for centuries. In 1841 in Connecticut, nine-pin bowling was banned due to its association with gambling. Supposedly, an additional pin was added to get around the ban, and ten-pin bowling was born.

49. Some ranges GES
The General Electric Company is usually referred to simply as “GE”. One of the precursor companies to GE was Edison General Electric, founded in 1890 by the inventor Thomas Edison. What we know today as GE was formed two years later when Edison merged his company with Charles Coffin’s Thomson-Houston Electric Company. In 1896, GE was selected as one of the 12 companies listed on the newly formed Dow Jones Industrial Average. GE is the only one of the original 12 that is still on that list. I spent over ten years with GE at the beginning of my working career, and in fact it was GE that asked me to transfer to the US back in the 1980s …

51. UFO-tracking org. SETI
SETI is the name given to a number of projects that are searching for extraterrestrial life. The acronym stands for “search for extraterrestrial intelligence”. One of the main SETI activities is the monitoring of electromagnetic radiation (such as radio waves) reaching the Earth in the hope of finding a transmission from a civilization in another world.

53. Carl Reiner’s nine EMMYS
The multi-talented Carl Reiner is from the Bronx, New York. Reiner was married to singer Estelle Roberts. You might remember Roberts from the film “When Harry Met Sally”directed by Carl’s son, Rob Reiner. Estelle was the woman in the deli who said the famous line “ I’ll have what’s she’s having” on seeing how excited Meg Ryan apparently was with her sandwich.

60. Eastern way TAO
The Chinese character “tao” translates as “path”, but the concept of Tao signifies the true nature of the world.

64. Jungfrau, for one ALP
The Jungfrau is a peak in the Bernese Alps in Switzerland. “Jungfrau” translates from German as “maiden” or “virgin”.

66. Carrier with only kosher meals EL AL
El Al Israel Airlines is the flag carrier of Israel. The term “el al” translates from Hebrew as “to the skies”.

According to Jewish dietary law, “kosher” food is “fit” to eat, and food that is not kosher is called “treif” (or tref).

67. Grant foe LEE
The Battle of Appomattox Court House was the last engagement by the Army of Northern Virginia, led by Confederate General Robert E. Lee. Immediately after the battle, Lee surrendered to Union General Ulysses S. Grant. When the two men met for the signing of the surrender documents, even though the pair were acquaintances, it was the first time they had seen each other in almost 20 years. Grant started off the conversation by discussing a previous meeting they had during the Mexican-American War, when they were fighting on the same side.

69. Long ride LIMO
The word “limousine” actually derives from the French city of Limoges. The area around Limoges is called the Limousin, and it gave its name to a cloak hood worn by local shepherds. In early motor cars, a driver would sit outside in the weather while the passengers would sit in the covered compartment. The driver would often wear a limousin-style protective hood, giving rise to that type of transportation being called a “limousine”. Well, that’s how the story goes anyway …

Down
1. Vegan staple TOFU
Tofu is another name for bean curd, and is a Japanese word meaning just that … bean that has “curdled”. Tofu is produced by coagulating soy milk, using either salt or something acidic. Once the protein has coagulated, the curds are pressed into the familiar blocks. Personally I love tofu, but my wife, she absolutely hates it …

2. Role in the 2011 film “Thor” ODIN
The 2011 movie “Thor” is yet another film based on a comic book hero. Even though I won’t be seeing it (I don’t do comics), I must admit it does have an impressive cast. Chris Hemsworth plays Thor, supported by Natalie Portman, Rene Russo and Anthony Hopkins. And to crown it all, Kenneth Branagh is the director.

3. “Little” Dickens girl NELL
“The Old Curiosity Shop” by Charles Dickens tells the story of little 14-year-old Nell Trent and her grandfather who live in the Old Curiosity Shop in London. If you visit London, there actually is an “Old Curiosity Shop”, in Westminster. It is an establishment selling odds and ends, old curiosities, and is believed to have been the inspiration for the shop in the Dickens story. The building has been around since the 1500s, but the name “The Old Curiosity Shop” was added after the book was published.

5. “The Blacklist” star SPADER
“The Blacklist” is an entertaining, albeit a little formulaic, crime drama TV show starring James Spader and Megan Boone. Spader plays a successful criminal who surrenders to the FBI in order to help catch a “blacklist” of high-profile criminals.

9. Stevedore’s gp. ILA
International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA)

A stevedore, or longshoreman, is someone employed in the loading and unloading of ships at a port. The word “stevedore” comes from the Spanish “estibador”, meaning “one who loads cargo”, with the verb “to steeve” meaning to load cargo in a hold. The word “longshoreman”, is simply from “a man who works alongshore”.

13. Pulitzer poet Van Duyn MONA
Mona Van Duyn was a poet from Waterloo, Iowa. Van Duyn won the National Book Award in 1971, the Pulitzer Prize in 1991, and served as US Poet Laureate from 1992 to 1993.

24. Furniture store that sells frozen meatballs IKEA
Every IKEA store features a restaurant that serves traditional Swedish food, including Swedish meatballs and lingonberry jam. Each store also has a Swedish Food Market where customers can purchase specialty foods from Sweden.

27. “The Pearl of the Antilles” HAITI
The Caribbean island of Hispaniola was a target for European settlers, and ended up being a disputed territory between France and Spain. The two countries divided the island, with the French taking control of the western third, which they named Saint-Domingue. Saint-Domingue was later to become the independent, and French-speaking, Republic of Haiti.

The Antilles islands are divided into two main groups, the Greater Antilles and the Lesser Antilles. The Greater Antilles includes the islands of Cuba, Jamaica, Hispaniola and Puerto Rico. The Lesser Antilles are made up of the Leeward Islands, the Windward Islands and the Leeward Antilles, and lie just north of Venezuela.

28. Sumatran simian ORANG
Orangutans (also “orangs”) are arboreal creatures, in fact the largest arboreal animals known to man. They are native to Indonesia and Malaysia, living in the rain forests. Like most species in rain forests these days, orangutans are endangered, with only two species surviving. The word “orangutan” is Malay, meaning “man of the forest”.

Sumatra is a very large island in western Indonesia, the sixth largest island in the world and home to 22% of the country’s population.

“Simian” means “pertaining to monkeys or apes”, from the Latin word “simia” meaning “ape”.

31. Attachment seen on a carousel ID TAG
A suitcase might have an ID tag, which is useful when searching for the right bag on a luggage carousel at an airport.

33. Furniture designer Charles EAMES
Charles and Ray Eames were a husband-wife team of furniture designers. One of the more famous of their designs is the Eames lounge chair that comes with an ottoman. This trendy piece of furniture featured in a late episode of the television show “Frasier”. In the show, Frasier’s Dad remarks that the Eames chair is so comfortable that he might have gotten rid of his tatty old recliner a long time ago.

39. Autobahn auto OPEL
Adam Opel founded his company in 1863, first making sewing machines in a cowshed. Commercial success brought new premises and a new product line in 1886, namely penny-farthing bicycles. Adam Opel died in 1895, leaving his two sons with a company that made more penny-farthings and sewing machines than any other company in the world. In 1899 the two sons partnered with a locksmith and started to make cars, but not very successfully. Two years later, the locksmith was dropped in favor of a licensing arrangement with a French car company. By 1914, Opel was the largest manufacturer of automobiles in Germany. My Dad had an Opel in the seventies, a station wagon (we’d say “estate car” in Ireland) called an Opel Kadett.

40. El __ NINO
When the surface temperature of much of the Pacific Ocean rises more that half a degree centigrade, then there is said to be an El Niño episode. That small temperature change in the Pacific has been associated with climatic changes that can stretch right across the globe. El Niño is Spanish for “the boy” and is a reference to the Christ child. The phenomenon was given this particular Spanish name because the warming is usually noticed near South America and around Christmas-time.

47. Old Testament queen ESTHER
Esther was a Jewish queen, wife of the Persian king Ahasuerus, and the heroine of the Book of Esther in the Bible. By the way, Esther is the only book in the Bible that doesn’t mention the word “God”.

54. Drake, e.g. MALE
A male duck is called a “drake” and a female duck is called a “duck”, or sometimes a “hen”.

57. Sub assembly location DELI
The word “delicatessen” (or “deli” for short) came into English from the German “Delikatessen”. The Germans borrowed the word from French, in which language “délicatesse” means “delicious things (to eat)”. The term’s ultimate root is “delicatus”, the Latin for “giving pleasure, delightful”.

59. Aftenposten newspaper headquarters OSLO
“Aftenposten” is a Norwegian newspaper with the largest circulation in the country. Published daily since 1860 in Oslo, the paper’s title translates into English as “The Evening Post”.

62. “__ Got You Under My Skin” I’VE
“I’ve Got You Under My Skin” is a 1936 Cole Porter song that first appeared in the musical film “Born to Dance”. The song went on to become a big hit for the Four Seasons, and then a signature song for Frank Sinatra.

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For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. Chinese secret society TONG
5. Like many a rural road SCENIC
11. “Big Blue” IBM
14. Ancient concert halls ODEA
15. Music industry underhandedness PAYOLA
16. Call from a pasture MOO
17. They’re loaded FILM CAMERAS
19. K+, e.g. ION
20. Morning beverage choice, facetiously UNLEADED
21. Dye source HENNA
23. Editor’s mark STET
24. Fla.-to-Cal. route I-TEN
26. Former CNN host Alina CHO
29. They’re loaded CROOKED DICE
34. Terra firma EARTH
36. Wedding announcement word NEE
37. Poet __ St. Vincent Millay EDNA
38. One who may need an alibi LIAR
39. Bar closing hr. ONE AM
41. Energy source ATOM
42. Mediterranean tourist attraction ETNA
43. Alley target PIN
44. Give an address ORATE
45. They’re loaded BIG SPENDERS
49. Some ranges GES
50. Crown of light HALO
51. UFO-tracking org. SETI
53. Carl Reiner’s nine EMMYS
56. Take care of ATTEND TO
60. Eastern way TAO
61. They’re loaded SIX-SHOOTERS
64. Jungfrau, for one ALP
65. Leveling tool EVENER
66. Carrier with only kosher meals EL AL
67. Grant foe LEE
68. Vacation destination RESORT
69. Long ride LIMO

Down
1. Vegan staple TOFU
2. Role in the 2011 film “Thor” ODIN
3. “Little” Dickens girl NELL
4. Olympic __ GAMES
5. “The Blacklist” star SPADER
6. Woke up CAME TO
7. Looked up and down EYED
8. Neither partner NOR
9. Stevedore’s gp. ILA
10. Left the tables for the night, with “in” CASHED
11. “Let’s do it!” I’M IN!
12. Blessing BOON
13. Pulitzer poet Van Duyn MONA
18. __ of the day: menu offering CATCH
22. Make lovable ENDEAR
24. Furniture store that sells frozen meatballs IKEA
25. Swarm TEEM
26. 69-Across user CELEB
27. “The Pearl of the Antilles” HAITI
28. Sumatran simian ORANG
30. Upright ON END
31. Attachment seen on a carousel ID TAG
32. 100 bucks C-NOTE
33. Furniture designer Charles EAMES
35. Inferior TRASHY
39. Autobahn auto OPEL
40. El __ NINO
44. Bone: Pref. OSTEO-
46. Quarterback, at times PASSER
47. Old Testament queen ESTHER
48. Comeback RETORT
52. Recon consequence INTEL
53. List shortener, for short ET AL
54. Drake, e.g. MALE
55. Pout MOPE
56. “It came __ surprise” AS NO
57. Sub assembly location DELI
58. Theme park transport TRAM
59. Aftenposten newspaper headquarters OSLO
62. “__ Got You Under My Skin” I’VE
63. Symbolic kisses XES

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