LA Times Crossword 28 Jul 24, Sunday - LAXCrossword.com (2024)

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

10 Chat room admin : MOD

Moderator (mod)

13 Blackjack cards : ACES

In the card game blackjack, an ace has the point value of one or eleven. When one of the two cards dealt to a player is an ace, the hand is called “soft”. This means that the player cannot go bust by taking another card, as the ace can be revalued at “one” if necessary in order to stay under 21.

18 Full body exercise : BURPEE

Burpees are strength-training exercises. Each burpee involves a squat thrust followed by a straight stand. The exercise is named for its inventor, physiologist Royal Huddleston Burpee, Sr.

20 Shiba __ : INU

The Shiba Inu is a Japanese breed of dog that was developed for hunting. Although the exact etymology of “Shibu” is unclear, the term translates as “brushwood”. “Inu” is Japanese for “dog”.

27 “Schitt’s Creek” surname : ROSE

In the excellent Canadian sitcom “Schitt’s Creek”, the character Moira Rose is an outrageous former soap star, and wife of Johnny Rose and their two adult children, David and Alexis. Moira is played by actress and comedian Catherine O’Hara. Supposedly, the character was inspired by the reality stars on “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” and “The Real Housewives” franchise.

30 Spuds : TATERS

The word “spud”, used as a slang term for “potato”, was first recorded in the mid-1800s, in New Zealand would you believe?

33 Read a QR code : SCANNED

A QR Code (for “Quick Response Code”) is a two-dimensional barcode that is favored over UPC barcodes as it can read more quickly and can store much more information. The QR Code comprises black squares within a square grid on a white background.

36 Cacao __ : NIB

The seeds of the Theobroma cacao tree are cacao beans. The beans can be dried, and crushed. The resulting pieces are sold as cacao nibs.

41 Animation frames : CELS

Animation cels are transparent sheets made of celluloid acetate that were used in traditional hand-drawn animation to create animated films. They were first introduced in the 1930s and were widely used in animation production until the late 1990s, when digital animation techniques began to dominate the industry.

44 Olympic table tennis team? : SPIN DOCTORS

Ping-Pong is called table tennis in the UK, where the sport originated in the 1880s. Table tennis started as an after-dinner activity among the elite, and was called “wiff-waff”. To play the game, books were stacked in the center of a table as a “net”, two more books served as “”rackets” and the ball used was actually a golf ball. The game evolved over time with the rackets being upgraded to the lids of cigar boxes and the ball becoming a champagne cork (how snooty is that?). Eventually the game was produced commercially, and the sound of the ball hitting the racket was deemed to be a “ping” and a “pong”, giving the sport its alternative name. The name “Ping-Pong” was trademarked in Britain in 1901, and eventually sold to Parker Brothers in the US.

48 Spider-Woman voice actress Rae : ISSA

Issa Rae is a Stanford University graduate who created a YouTube web series called “The Mis-Adventures of Awkward Black Girl”. Rae also plays the title role in the series, a young lady named “J”. “Awkward Black Girl” was adapted into an HBO comedy-drama called “Insecure”, in which Issa Rae stars.

“Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” is an animated superhero film released in 2018 that won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. The animation style of the movie is called “comic book come to life.” The filmmakers wanted to create a movie that felt like a living, breathing comic book, and they achieved that by incorporating comic book elements like thought bubbles and sound effects into the animation.

52 Olympic volleyball team? : BLOCK PARTY

Indoor volleyball was invented in 1895 and was originally called “mintonette”, a reference to the related game of “badminton”. The variant called beach volleyball originated in 1915 on Waikiki Beach in Honolulu, but was popularized on the beaches of Santa Monica starting in 1920.

54 Pakistani language : URDU

Urdu is one of the two official languages of Pakistan (the other being English), and is one of the 22 scheduled languages in India. Urdu partly developed from Persian and is written from right to left.

55 Bryant of “Human Resources” : AIDY

Actor and comedian Aidy Bryant made her debut on “Saturday Night Live” in 2012. Bryant married fellow comedian Conner O’Malley in 2018.

“Human Resources” is an animated sitcom aimed at adults that is a spinoff of “Big Mouth”. The main voice cast of “Human Resources” is joined by an impressive list of actors voicing recurring characters, including Hugh Jackman, Rosie Perez, Chris O’Down, Henry Winkler, Miley Cyrus, Florence Pugh, Eugene Levy, Isabella Rossellini, and even Helen Mirren.

59 D’backs, on a scoreboard : ARI

The Arizona Diamondbacks (also “D-backs”) joined Major League Baseball’s National League in 1998. By winning the World Series in 2001, they became the fastest expansion team to do so in Major League history.

70 TV series pts. : EPS

Episode (ep.)

72 Upscale : POSH

No one really knows the etymology of the word “posh”. The popular myth that “posh” is actually an acronym standing for “port out, starboard home” is completely untrue, and is a story that can actually be traced back to the 1968 movie “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang”. The myth is that wealthy British passengers traveling to and from India would book cabins on the port side for the outward journey and the starboard side for the home journey. This trick was supposedly designed to keep their cabins out of the direct sunlight.

75 Gender-affirming treatment: Abbr. : HRT

Hormone replacement therapy (HRT)

80 Title for Julie Andrews : DAME

Actress and singer Julie Andrews was made a dame in 2000 by Queen Elizabeth II. The most famous roles played by Andrews were probably the leads in “Mary Poppins” (1964) and “The Sound of Music” (1965). More recently she has had a recurring role in “The Princess Diaries” (2001) and the film’s 2004 sequel. A favorite Julie Andrews film of mine is a comedy drama set in WWII called “The Americanization of Emily”, which was released in 1964.

81 “Breaking Bad” actress Gunn : ANNA

Anna Gunn is an actress from Santa Fe, New Mexico. She is best known for playing Skyler White on the TV show “Breaking Bad”.

82 Olympic weightlifting team? : CLEAN SLATE

There are two weightlifting events in the Olympics. One is the “snatch” in which the competitor lifts the barbell from the platform over his or head in one continuous movement. The “clean and jerk” is a two-part lift. The “clean” brings the barbell off the platform mainly using the knees. The “jerk” brings the barbell over the head to complete the lift.

86 Pro __: at no charge : BONO

The Latin term “pro bono publico” means “for the public good”, and is usually shortened to “pro bono”. The term applies to professional work that is done for free or at a reduced fee as a service to the public.

87 “Atlanta” actor __ Tyree Henry : BRIAN

“Atlanta” is a comedy-drama television show that was created by and stars Donald Glover. Glover plays a Princeton dropout named “Earn” who returns penniless to his native Atlanta. Brian Tyree Henry plays an up-and-coming rap artist named “Paper Boi”, and Earn’s cousin. Earn makes efforts to reconnect with Paper Boi, and hilarity ensues …

93 Cartoon explorer : DORA

“Dora the Explorer” is a cartoon series shown on Nickelodeon. Part of Dora’s remit is to introduce the show’s young viewers to some Spanish words and phrases. Dora’s constant companion is an anthropomorphic monkey named “Boots”, because he always wears red boots. She also hangs out with Isa, an iguana.

95 “Evita” role for Mandy Patinkin : CHE

Mandy Patinkin is a stage and screen actor, and a tenor vocalist. Patinkin played the part of Che in the original Broadway production of “Evita”, and won a Tony for his performance. He has appeared in many TV shows, perhaps most notably playing Saul Berenson on the excellent espionage thriller series “Homeland”. On the big screen, one of Patinkin’s most notable roles is Inigo Montoya in 1973’s “The Princess Bride”.

98 “This way to your table” speaker : MAITRE D’

The full title of a maître d’ is “maître d’hôtel”, which means “master of the hotel”.

100 Jelly Roll Morton of jazz, e.g. : PIONEER

“Jelly Roll Morton” was the stage name of Ferdinand LaMothe, a ragtime and early jazz musician. Morton apparently had quite the ego and claimed to have “invented” the jazz genre in 1902. That said, he did indeed record the first ever published jazz composition, his own “Jelly Roll Blues” in 1915. Early in his career, Morton worked as piano player in a brothel, and there took the nickname “Jelly Roll”, a suggestive slang term related to female anatomy.

107 Pi Day follower : IDES

There were three important days in each month of the old Roman calendar. These days originally depended on the cycles of the moon but were eventually “fixed” by law. “Kalendae” were the first days of each month, originally the days of the new moon. “Nonae” were originally the days of the half moon. And “idus” (the ides) was originally the day of the full moon, eventually fixed at the 15th day of a month. Actually, the ides were the 15th day of March, May, July and October. For all other months, the ides fell on the 13th. Go figure …

The first three digits of the mathematical constant pi are 3.14. Pi Day has been celebrated on March 14th (3/14) every year since 1988, when it was inaugurated at the San Francisco Exploratorium. In countries where the day is usually written before the month, Pi Day is July 22nd, reflecting the more accurate approximation of pi as 22/7. Interestingly, March 14th is also Albert Einstein’s birthday.

108 Actor Wilson : OWEN

Actor Owen Wilson was nominated for an Oscar, but not for his acting. He was nominated for co-writing the screenplay for “The Royal Tenenbaums” along with Wes Anderson. My favorite of Wilson’s performances, by far, is in the excellent movie “Midnight in Paris”.

116 Supermarket with an aisle of “Finds” affectionately dubbed the “Aisle of Shame” : ALDI

Aldi is an extremely large discount supermarket chain based in Germany with outlets in many countries, including the main European nations and Australia. Here in the US, Aldi owns the Trader Joe’s chain of stores. The chain was founded in 1946 by brothers Karl and Theo Albrecht. The name “Aldi” is an abbreviation of “Albrecht Diskont”, “Albrecht Discount” in English.

Discount supermarket chain ALDI features a central aisle of rotating items that are available at low, low prices for a limited time. The store refers to this as the “Aldi Finds” aisle, perhaps because the goods on display have little or nothing to do with grocery shopping. Fans of the Aldi Finds aisle are fond of referring to it as the “aisle of shame”.

118 Puts sourdough in the fridge overnight, say : PROOFS

When baking, proofing (also “proving”) is the resting of a dough made with yeast, allowing it to rise prior to baking.

The active ingredient used to make sourdough bread is found in a pre-ferment (also “starter”). This pre-ferment is a mixture of flour and water that has been allowed to ferment for some time (maybe days) to grow a colony of wild yeast and lactobacilli. The starter is added to the dough used to make the final bread, with the start accounting for about 20% of the weight of the final mixture. During baking, the wild yeast causes the bread to rise and the lactobacilli produce lactic acid, which gives sourdough its characteristic sour taste.

119 Surgical tube : STENT

In the world of surgical medicine, a stent is an artificial tube inserted inside a vessel in the body, say an artery, in order to reduce the effects of a local restriction in the body’s conduit.

121 Online convos : DMS

Direct message (DM)

122 Eldest Haim sister : ESTE

Haim is a Los Angeles band consisting of three Haim sisters: Este, Danielle and Alana.

Down

3 “Toodle-oo!” : ADIOS!

The term “adiós” is Spanish for “goodbye”. “Adiós” comes from the phrase “a Dios vos acomiendo” meaning “I commend you to God”.

6 Wrinkly-faced dogs : PUGS

The pug is a dog breed of Chinese origin. Our last family pet was a boxer/pug cross, and was a good-looking mutt!

8 Coachella mo. : APR

The first Coachella Valley Music Festival was held in 1999, and then annually from 2001 until the present day. Coachella Valley is located in the Colorado Desert that, despite the name, is found in Southern California.

13 Rabbit kin with a white winter coat : ARCTIC HARE

The arctic hare, as the name suggests, lives in icy biomes such as the Arctic tundra. It is well adapted to the harsh environment. It has a thick, white coat of fur in the winter, and a body fat percentage of nearly 20%. It stays warm when sleeping by burrowing into the snow. The arctic hare can also move at quite a clip, reaching speeds of up to 40 miles per hour.

14 The plush toy Funshine, for one : CARE BEAR

The Care Bears franchise includes a line of toys as well as TV shows and movies. The original Care Bears were characters created for greeting cards marketed by American Greetings starting in 1981.

23 Crunchy addition to corn salad : FRITO

The Frito Corporation was started in 1932 by Elmer Doolin, basically in his mother’s kitchen. Doolin paid $100 for a corn chip recipe from a local restaurant and started producing Fritos at the rate of 10 pounds per day.

25 Neb. neighbor : KAN

The US state of Kansas is named after the Kansa Native American tribe that lived in the area. The first European to explore what is now Kansas Spanish conquistador Vázquez de Coronado, who also was first to see the Grand Canyon and the Colorado River. The first permanent settlement of Europeans was Fort Leavenworth, founded in 1827. The territories of Nebraska and Kansas were established at the same time in 1854, with the Kansas-Nebraska Act. In the following decade, settlers arrived in Kansas, both from slave states and slave-free states. Violent conflict between the two factions led to the territory earning the name “Bleeding Kansas”. Kansas was eventually admitted as a slave-free state in 1861, making it the last state admitted prior to the Civil War that broke out later that year.

29 Caribbean archipelago : ANTILLES

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.

34 Celebrity chef Cat : CORA

Cat Cora is yet another celebrity chef. She appears on the reality shows “Iron Chef America” and “Around the World in 80 Plates”.

35 Backbone bit : DISC

Our intervertebral discs are composed mainly of cartilage. They perform the crucial functions of separating the vertebrae while allowing slight movement, and also absorbing shock. A “slipped disc” isn’t really a disc that has “slipped”, but rather a disc that “bulges”. If that bulge causes pressure on the sciatic nerve then the painful condition known as sciatica can result.

42 Like the Olympic torch : LIT

A flame is used as the symbol for the Olympic Games in commemoration of the theft of fire for humanity by Prometheus from Zeus in Greek mythology. The symbolic flame was introduced to the Modern Olympics in the 1928 Summer Games in Amsterdam. The tradition of the Olympic torch relay started out as political theater devised and funded by Nazi Germany for the 1936 Summer Games in Berlin.

46 Stripe between 86-Down and violet : INDIGO
86 Stripe between green and 46-Down : BLUE

“Roy G. Biv” can be used as a mnemonic for the colors in a rainbow:

• Red
• Orange
• Yellow
• Green
• Blue
• Indigo
• Violet

47 Egyptian capital : CAIRO

Cairo is the capital city of Egypt. It is nicknamed “The City of a Thousand Minarets” because of its impressive skyline replete with Islamic architecture. The name “Cairo” is a European corruption of the city’s original name in Arabic, “Al-Qahira”.

56 Kunta __-Alex Haley Memorial: Maryland landmark : KINTE

Not only did Alex Haley author the magnificent novel “Roots”, he was also the collaborator with Malcolm X on “The Autobiography of Malcolm X”. His 1976 novel “Roots” is based on Haley’s own family history, and he claimed to be a direct descendant of the real life Kunta Kinte, the slave who was kidnapped in the Gambia in 1767. If you remember the original television adaptation of “Roots”, you might recall that Kunta Kinte was played by LeVar Burton, who later went on to play another famous role, Geordi La Forge on “Star Trek: the Next Generation”.

60 Jack’s twin on “Black-ish” : DIANE

“Black-ish” is a sitcom starring Anthony Anderson and Tracee Ellis Ross that premiered in 2014. The lead actors play Dre and Rainbow Johnson, a married couple leading an upper-middle class black family. The show is noted for tackling tough issues such as racism, police brutality, attitudes toward the LGBT community, and the 2016 US presidential election.

62 Hat hair cause, maybe : BEANIE

A beanie is a knitted, close-fitting hat with no brim. The name probably comes from the slang term “bean” meaning “head”.

63 “This Is __ Tap” : SPINAL

“This Is Spın̈al Tap” is a rock musical mockumentary about the fictional band Spinal Tap, directed by the great Rob Reiner. I love Rob Reiner’s work, but this movie … not so much …

67 Marvel villain who said, “I am inevitable” : THANOS

Thanos is a supervillain in the Marvel Comics universe. He was portrayed by Damion Poitier in the 2012 movie “The Avengers”, and by Josh Brolin in several subsequent movies including 2014’s “Guardians of the Galaxy”.

71 Is super into, in slang : STANS

“Stan” is a song by rapper Eminem (featuring Dido) that was recorded in 2000. The title refers to a fictional Eminem fan named “Stan” who becomes obsessed with the rapper, and who grows irate when his letters to his idol go unanswered. Stan’s final act is to make a voice recording as he drives into a river, with his pregnant girlfriend locked in the trunk. One of the legacies of the song is that “stan” is now used as a slang term for an obsessed and maniacal fan.

73 Well-worn style? : SHABBY CHIC

Shabby chic is the name of a style of interior design. The look is very elegant, and mimics the style seen in large country houses in Britain that have many worn and faded furniture items. The shabby chic look is usually achieved using furniture items that have been given a faux-antique finish.

76 Yard entrance : GARDEN GATE

Here’s another difference in English terminology used on the two sides of the Atlantic. Here in the US, we refer to the space at the front and back of houses as front and back yards. In Britain and Ireland we tend to call the same spaces front and back gardens. In Ireland, we think of a yard as a fully paved space, usually adjacent to a commercial building.

80 Yoda’s words before “There is no try” : DO OR DO NOT …

In the “Star Wars” series of films, the character named Yoda has a unique speech pattern. He often uses the word order object-subject-verb. For example:

• Patience you must have …
• Truly wonderful, the mind of a child is.
• To answer power with power, the Jedi way this is not.

82 Syringe units : CCS

Cubic centimeter (cc)

84 The Get Up Kids and Saves the Day : EMO BANDS

The Get Up Kids is an emo rock band that formed in 1995 in Kansas City. The band hit a rough patch after ten years together, and relationships deteriorated to the extent that it broke up in 2005.They managed to pull together a reunion tour in 2009, and have been together ever since.

Saves the Day is an emo rock band that formed in 1997 in Princeton, growing out of a band called Sefler that formed three years earlier.

85 Weaving tool : LOOM

There are many types of loom used to weave cloth, but they all hold parallel threads in tension in one direction, while allowing the interweaving of threads in the perpendicular direction. The threads held under tension are the warp threads, and the “woven” threads are the “weft” threads.

87 Festival aesthetic : BOHO

“Boho” is short for “Bohemian”.

91 Hosting, casually : MC’ING

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

99 UMD player : TERP

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

100 Calligraphy tools : PENS

Calligraphy is the art of fine handwriting. The term “calligraphy” comes from the Greek “kallos” meaning “beauty” and “graphein” meaning “to write”.

104 Text repeatedly : SPAM

The term “spam”, used for unwanted email, is taken from a “Monty Python” sketch. In the sketch (which I’ve seen) the dialog is taken over by the word Spam, a play on the glut of canned meat in the markets of Britain after WWII. So “spam” is used for the glut of emails that takes over online communication. I can just imagine nerdy Internet types (like me) adopting something from a “Monty Python” sketch to describe an online phenomenon …

105 Grammy winner Downs : LILA

“Lila Downs” is the stage name used by singer Ana Lila Downs Sánchez from Mexico. Downs has lived in both the US and in Mexico at various stages in her life. She is also known for her political activism, mainly in support of Latin America’s indigenous population.

106 Stuff in a long-jump pit : SAND

The long jump was the only jumping event in the Olympic Games held in ancient Greece. There is some evidence that the original long jump differed from today’s event in that athletes were restricted to a very short run-up. They also carried a weight in each hand that was swung forward to increase the jumper’s momentum.

112 JFK, but not La Guardia : DEM

John Fitzgerald Kennedy (JFK) was the son of Joe Kennedy and Rose Fitzgerald, hence the president’s double-barreled name.

Fiorello La Guardia was the Mayor of New York from 1934 to 1945, racking up three full terms in office. The famous airport that bears La Guardia’s name was built at his urging, stemming from an incident that took place while he was in office. He was taking a TWA flight to “New York” and was outraged when the plane landed at Newark Airport, in the state of New Jersey. The Mayor demanded that the flight take off again and land at a small airport in Brooklyn. A gaggle of press reporters joined him on the short hop and he gave them a story, urging New Yorkers to support the construction of a new commercial airport within the city’s limits. The new airport, in Queens, opened in 1939 as New York Municipal, often called “LaGuardia” as a nickname. The airport was officially relabeled as “LaGuardia” (LGA) in 1947.

115 N.Y. Rangers home ice : MSG

Madison Square Garden (MSG) is an arena in New York City used for a variety of events. In the world of sports it is home to the New York Rangers of the NHL, as well as the New York Knicks of the NBA. “The Garden” is also the third busiest music venue in the world in terms of ticket sales. The current arena is the fourth structure to bear the name, a name taken from the Madison Square location in Manhattan. In turn, the square was named for James Madison, the fourth President of the US.