LA Times Crossword 13 Apr 20, Monday

Bill’s time: 5m 25s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

5 Wedding VIPs with playlists : DJ’S

The world’s first radio disc jockey (DJ) was one Ray Newby of Stockton, California who made his debut broadcast in 1909, would you believe? When he was 16 years old and a student, Newby started to play his records on a primitive radio located in the Herrold College of Engineering and Wireless in San Jose. The records played back then were mostly recordings of Enrico Caruso.

8 Shot of liquor : JIGGER

A jigger is a 1.5 ounce shot glass.The term “jigger” was originally used for an illicit distillery in the 1800s.

14 Do recon at, as an enemy camp : SCOUT OUT

A reconnaissance (recon) is a preliminary survey carried out to gather information. The term “reconnaissance” came into English in the early 19th century from French, from which language it translates literally as “recognition”.

16 Collection of beehives : APIARY

An apiary is an area where bees are kept, apiculture is beekeeping, and an apiphobe has a fear of bees. The Latin word for “bee” is “apis”.

17 Colorful Top 10 Beatles hit : YELLOW SUBMARINE

Paul McCartney wrote the song “Yellow Submarine” with Ringo Starr in mind as the lead singer. As McCartney said himself, because it was for Ringo, he wrote something that wasn’t “too rangey”. It turned out to be more like a children’s song, and a couple of years later in 1968, the song was used as the title for an animated film. The song is full of sound effects, including John Lennon blowing through a straw into a bowl of water to create a “bubbling”, and Lennon and McCartney speaking into tin cans to create the sound of the captain and officer exchanging orders. And at one point in the recording, a backing vocalist led everyone around the studio on a conga line, while pounding on a bass drum. What a way to make money, and lots of it …

19 Apple mobile platform : IOS

iOS is what Apple now call their mobile operating system. Previously, it was known as iPhone OS.

20 “When is a door not a door?,” e.g. : RIDDLE

When it’s ajar!

Here are a few riddles:

1. Imagine you are in a dark room. How do you get out?
2. What can travel around the world while staying in a corner?
3. There is a word and six letters it contains. Take one away and twelve is what remains. What word is it?
4. Two girls were born to the same mother, on the same day, at the same time, in the same month and year and yet they’re not twins. How can this be?
5. What is so delicate that even saying its name will break it?
6. What word in the English Language is always spelled incorrectly?

And the answers:

1. Stop imagining.
2. A stamp
3. Dozens
4. They’re in a set of triplets
5. Silence
6. Incorrectly

21 Colorful Top 10 Prince hit : PURPLE RAIN

“Purple Rain” is a 1984 song by Prince that is the title track from an album of the same name. The album in turn was the soundtrack from the film “Purple Rain”. The song reached #2 in the charts in 1984, but then made it to #1 soon after Prince’s death in 2016.

26 GPS suggestions : RTES

A global positioning system (GPS) might point out a route (rte.).

27 Bad picnic omen : ANT

Our term “picnic” comes from the French word that now has the same meaning, namely “pique-nique”. The original “pique-nique” was a fashionable potluck affair, and not necessarily held outdoors.

33 Vienna’s land: Abbr. : AUS

Vienna is the capital of Austria. Vienna has a long musical tradition and was home to Franz Schubert, Johann Strauss (I and II), Josef Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, Franz Liszt, Johannes Brahms and Gustav Mahler. As such, Vienna is sometimes called the “City of Music”. It is also called the “City of Dreams” as it was home to the psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud.

34 Delhi dress : SARI

New Delhi is the capital city of India. New Delhi resides within the National Capital Territory of Delhi (otherwise known as the metropolis of Delhi). New Delhi and Delhi, therefore, are two different things.

36 Hamm’s “Mad Men” role : DRAPER

“Mad Men” was the flagship show on the AMC television channel for several seasons. Set in the sixties, it’s all about an advertising agency located on Madison Avenue in New York (hence the title). “Mad Men” became the first show created by a basic cable channel to win an Emmy for Outstanding Drama Series.

Jon Hamm lived the life of a struggling actor for quite some time before he hit gold with a starring role in the AMC drama “Mad Men”. He plays the main character, advertising executive and man about town Don Draper.

37 Colorful Top 10 Lemon Pipers hit : GREEN TAMBOURINE

“Green Tambourine” was a big hit for one-hit-wonder rock group the Lemon Pipers. It was released in 1967, and is sometimes described as the bubblegum pop chart-topper.

41 “Jeopardy!” first name : ALEX

Alex Trebek has been the host of “Jeopardy!” since the syndicated version of the game show launched in 1984. Trebek has missed just one episode since then, when he and host of “Wheel of Fortune” Pat Sajak swapped roles in 1997 as an April Fool’s joke. In 2014, Trebek picked up the Guinness World Record for hosting the most episodes of a game show.

42 Moon lander, for short : LEM

In the Apollo program, the Lunar Excursion Module (LEM) was the vehicle that actually landed on the moon and returned the astronauts to the command module that was orbiting overhead. The third LEM built was named “Spider”, and it participated in the Apollo 9 mission which tested the functionality of the LEM design in space. The fourth LEM was called “Snoopy” and it flew around the moon in the Apollo 10 mission, the dress rehearsal for the upcoming moon landing. Apollo 11’s LEM was called “Eagle” and it brought Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to and from the moon’s surface. Another famous LEM was Apollo 13’s Aquarius. Although Aquarius never landed on the moon, it did serve as a “lifeboat” for the three astronauts after the explosive rupture of an oxygen canister in the Service Module.

43 English county on the North Sea : ESSEX

Essex is a county in England that is referred to as one of the “home counties”. The home counties are those 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. The list of home counties usually comprises Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Kent, Surrey, and Sussex.

The North Sea is an offshoot of the Atlantic Ocean that is located between Britain and Scandinavia.

46 Colorful Top 10 Rolling Stones hit : BROWN SUGAR

“Brown Sugar” is a Rolling Stones song attributed to Keith Richards and Mick Jagger, but which was actually written by the latter. Jagger wrote it while he was filming the 1970 movie “Ned Kelly”.

49 __ of Liberty : STATUE

The Statue of Liberty was a gift from the people of France to the United States. It was designed by sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi and constructed in France by civil engineer Gustave Eiffel (of Eiffel Tower fame). The statue was disassembled, shipped to the US, and reassembled on its pedestal on Bedloe’s Island (now “Liberty Island). A ceremony of dedication was held in 1886. If you take a boat ride down the Seine in Paris you will probably see a one-third replica of Lady Liberty standing on a small island in the river, looking quite magnificent. That copy was given to the people of Paris by the city’s American community in 1889.

53 Granola kernel : OAT

The names “Granola” and “Granula” were trademarked back in the late 1800s for whole-grain foods that were crumbled and baked until crisp. Granola was created in Dansville, New York in 1894.

54 Colorful Top 10 Santana hit : BLACK MAGIC WOMAN

Before “Black Magic Woman” became a hit for Santana in 1970, it was a relatively popular release by Fleetwood Mac that charted in 1968.

60 Portable HP, say : LAPTOP

The giant multinational HP (originally “Hewlett-Packard”) was founded in 1939 with an investment of $538 in a one-car garage in Palo Alto, California by Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard. The company name would have been Packard-Hewlett, if Dave Packard had won a coin toss!

63 Home of MLB’s Cardinals : STL

The St. Louis Cardinals Major League Baseball team plays at Busch Stadium. Busch Stadium is the third stadium in the history of St. Louis to have the Busch name. The first two were named for Gussie Busch, the brewing magnate and former Cardinals team owner. The current stadium is named for the brewery though, and not Gussie per se.

Down

1 College maj. for a future therapist : PSY

Psychology (psy.)

3 Note after fa : SOL

The sol-fa syllables are: do, re, mi, fa, sol, la & ti.

4 Dutch floral export : TULIPS

We usually associate the cultivation of tulips with the Netherlands, but they were first grown commercially in the Ottoman Empire. The name “tulip” ultimately derives from the Ottoman Turkish word “tulbend” that means “muslin, gauze”.

5 Search for water : DOWSE

Dowsing is the practice of divining, not just for water but also for buried metals and gemstones. Often a dowser will use a Y-shaped or L-shaped rod as a tool, which can also be called a dowser. Here in the US, the tool used might be referred to as a “witching rod”, as it is usually made from witch-hazel.

6 Gravy, on menus : JUS

The French term “au jus” is usually translated as “with its own juice”.

9 Apple tablet : IPAD

The iPad wasn’t Apple’s first foray into the world of tablet computing. Apple created great buzz by introducing the Newton MessagePad way back in 1993. This innovative machine was fraught with problems and really died a very slow death, finally being withdrawn from the market in 1998.

10 Encircle with a belt : GIRD

The phrase “gird your loins” dates back to ancient Rome. The expression describes the action of lifting “one’s skirts” and tying them between the legs to allow more freedom of movement before going into battle. Nowadays, “gird your loins” (or sometimes just “gird yourself”) is a metaphor for “prepare yourself for the worst”.

11 O’Grady of “NYPD Blue” : GAIL

Actress Gail O’Grady’s biggest role was playing the squad’s administrative aide Donna Abandando on the police procedural TV show “NYPD Blue” (Donna is the blonde with the big hair).

12 Sea eagle : ERNE

The ern (sometimes “erne”) is also known as the white-tailed eagle or the sea eagle.

13 Corned beef on __ : RYE

Corned beef is beef that has been cured with salt. “Corn” is an alternative term for a grain of salt, giving the dish its name. Corned beef is also known as “salt beef”, and “bully beef” if stored in cans (from the French “bouilli” meaning “boiled”).

15 Home Depot purchase : TOOL

Home Depot is the largest home improvement retail chain in the US, ahead of Lowe’s. Home Depot opened their first two stores in 1979. The average store size is just over 100,000 square feet. The largest Home Depot outlet is in Union, New Jersey, and it is 225,000 square feet in size. That’s a lot of nuts and bolts …

18 Petrol pumper : BRIT

Petrol is the same thing as gasoline. “Petrol” comes via French from the Latin “petroleum”, itself derived from “petra” meaning “rock” and “oleum” meaning “oil”.

The gas pump was actually around before there were cars on the road. The first gas pump was the invention of one Sylvanus Bowser from Fort Wayne, Indiana. His first pump was designed to pump kerosene for lamps and stoves, and was introduced in 1885. As automobiles became popular, he modified the design to pump gasoline. He introduced the Self-Measuring Gasoline Storage Pump in 1905. He marketed his devices all around the world, and in some parts the name “bowser” is still used sometimes to refer to fuel pumps, and indeed some fuel tankers.

21 Czech Republic capital : PRAGUE

The beautiful city of Prague is today the capital of the Czech Republic. Prague’s prominence in Europe has come and gone over the centuries. For many years, it was the capital city of the Holy Roman Empire.

24 __ avis : RARA

A “rara avis” is anything that is very rare. The Latin term translates as “rare bird”.

25 Lively, in music : ANIMATO

As one might expect, the Italian word “animato” is used in a musical score to indicate that one should play “spiritedly”.

28 Central idea : CRUX

“Crux” is the Latin word for “cross”. The term came into English meaning “a central difficulty” in the early 1700s.

29 Kramden laugh syllable : HAR

Ralph Kramden is the character played by Jackie Gleason on “The Honeymooners”. The classic sitcom only aired for 39 episodes, with the last being broadcast in September of 1956. However, the sitcom itself was based on a recurring sketch that appeared on “Cavalcade of Stars” and then “The Jackie Gleason Show” from 1951-1955.

30 Literary wrap-up : EPILOG

Our word “epilog” (also “epilogue”) applies to an addition at the end of a play or other literary work. The term ultimately comes from the Greek “epi-” signifying “in addition”, and “logos” meaning “speech”.

31 Five Nations tribe : SENECA

The Iroquois Confederacy was also known as the Five Nations and was composed of the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga and Seneca nations.

35 Novak Djokovic’s org. : ATP

The Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) is an organization that looks out for the interests of male tennis professionals. The equivalent organization for women is the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA).

Novak Djokovic is a Serbian tennis player and former world No. 1 ranked player. Djokovic is quite the character on and off the court, earning him the nickname “Djoker”. He is also very popular on the talk-show circuit, all around the world. It helps that Djokovic is fluent in several languages.

36 Anonymous John : DOE

Though the English court system does not use the term today, “John Doe” first appeared as the “name of a person unknown” in England in 1659, along with the similar “Richard Roe”. An unknown female is referred to as “JaneDoe ”, and the equivalent to Richard Roe is Jane Roe (as in Roe v. Wade, for example). Variants of “John Doe” used outside of the courts are “Joe Blow” and “John Q. Public”.

47 Diet-friendly : NO-CAL

I wish we’d stop using the term “calorie”, because it is so confusing. In terms of physics, a calorie is the amount of energy needed to raise the temperature of one gram of water by one degree celsius (at one atmosphere of pressure). The so-called “food calorie” is one thousand times as large, as it is defined in terms of kilograms instead of grams. In attempts to differentiate between these two definitions, the former is sometimes referred to as the “small calorie” and is given the symbol “cal”. The latter is referred to as the “large calorie” and given the symbol “Cal”, with a capital C. If only we’d use the SI system of units, we’d be think in just joules, instead of large and small and food calories.

49 Concrete section : SLAB

The terms “cement”, “mortar” and ”concrete” are related, and tend to get confused at times. Cement is a binder that hardens over time and binds other materials together. Cement mixed with a fine aggregate forms mortar, a workable paste used to bind building blocks together. Cement mixed with sand and gravel forms concrete, a pourable slurry that hardens into an extremely robust building material.

50 Lights-out music : TAPS

“Taps” is played nightly by the US military, indicating “lights out”. It’s also known as “Butterfield’s Lullaby” as it is a variation of an older bugle call named the “Scott Tattoo”, arranged during the Civil War by the Union Army’s Brigadier General Daniel Butterfield. The tune is called “Taps”, from the notion of drum taps, as it was originally played on a drum, and only later on a bugle. The whole tune comprises just 24 notes, with there only being four different notes within the 24, i.e. “low G”, C, E and “high G”. Minimalism at its best …

51 Part of un drame : ACTE

In French, an “acte” (act) is a part of “un drame” (a play).

52 Bout enders, briefly : TKOS

Technical knockout (TKO)

54 Rain-__ gum : BLO

Rain-Blo bubble gum balls were introduced in 1940 by Leaf Confectionery, a company that was then based in the Netherlands.

55 PX patrons : GIS

A PX is a Post Exchange, a retail store operating on a US Army Base. The equivalent store on an Air Force Base is called a Base Exchange (BX).

56 Bad result for a QB : INT

In football, if a quarterback’s (QB’s) pass ends up in the hands of a cornerback (CB), then that’s an interception (INT).

57 Cultural Revolution chairman : MAO

China’s Cultural Revolution was started by Mao Zedong in 1966, and continued until Mao’s death in 1976. The Cultural Revolution replaced the Great Leap Forward, the economically and socially disastrous movement that Mao launched in 1958.

59 Phillies’ div. : NLE

National League East (NLE)

Philadelphia’s baseball team was founded in 1883 as the Quakers, with the name changing to “Philadelphias” and “Phillies” not long into the team’s history. The Phillies have been based in the same city using the same team name longer than any other team in US professional sports.

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