LA Times Crossword 29 Jul 24, Monday - LAXCrossword.com (2024)

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1 Hooded snake : COBRA

“Cobra” is the name given to a group of snakes, some of which are in different families. The term is reserved for those snakes that can expand their neck ribs to create a hood. The name “cobra” is an abbreviated form of “cobra de capello” which translates from Portuguese as “snake with hood”.

15 La __ Tar Pits: tourist attraction in L.A.’s Hanco*ck Park : BREA

The La Brea Tar Pits are located right in the heart of the city of Los Angeles. At the site there is a constant flow of tar that seeps up to the surface from underground, a phenomenon that has been around for tens of thousands of years. What is significant is that much of the seeping tar is covered by water. Over many, many centuries animals came to the water to drink and became trapped in the tar as they entered the water to quench their thirst. The tar then preserved the bones of the dead animals. Today a museum is located right by the Tar Pits, recovering bones and displaying specimens of the animals found there. It’s well worth a visit if you are in town …

Hanco*ck Park is a 23-acre facility in central Los Angeles that is home to the La Brea Tar Pits and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the largest art museum in the western US. The park was created in 1924 and is named for George Allan Hanco*ck, who donated the land to Los Angeles County.

16 Israeli airline : EL AL

El Al Israel Airlines is the flag carrier of Israel. The term “el al” translates from Hebrew as “to the skies”. The company started operations in 1948, with a flight from Geneva to Tel Aviv. Famously, El Al only operates six days a week, not flying on the Sabbath.

19 __ adieu: said farewell : BADE

“Adieu” is French for “goodbye, farewell”, from “à Dieu” meaning “to God” The plural of “adieu” is “adieux”.

20 Fashion magazine with a French name : ELLE

“Elle” magazine was founded in 1945 in France and today has the highest circulation of any fashion magazine in the world. “Elle” is the French word for “she”. “Elle” is published monthly worldwide, although you can pick up a weekly edition if you live in France.

21 Hasty escape : LAM

To be on the lam is to be in flight, to have escaped from prison. “On the lam” is American slang that originated at the end of the 19th century. The word “lam” also means “beat” or “thrash”, as in “lambaste”. So “on the lam” might derive from the phrase “to beat it, scram”.

22 Aromatic spice in chili and curry : CUMIN

Cumin is a flowering plant native to the region stretching from the eastern Mediterranean to East India. Cumin spice is made from the dried seeds and is the second most common spice used in the world (only black pepper is more popular). Cumin is particularly associated with Indian cuisine and is a key ingredient in curry powder. Lovely stuff …

27 “The Raven” poet Edgar Allan __ : POE

“The Raven” is a narrative poem by Edgar Allan Poe that tells of a student who has lost the love of his life, Lenore. A raven enters the student’s bedchamber and perches on a bust of Pallas. The raven can talk, to the student’s surprise, but says nothing but the word “nevermore” (“quoth the raven, ‘Nevermore’”). As the student questions all aspects of his life, the raven taunts him with the same comment, “nevermore”. Finally, the student decides that his soul is trapped beneath the raven’s shadow and shall be lifted “nevermore”.

29 Words on a cake in “Alice in Wonderland” : EAT ME

In Lewis Carroll’s “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”, Alice follows the white rabbit down a rabbit hole and finds a bottle labeled “DRINK ME”. When she drinks the contents, it causes her to shrink. She also sees a cake adorned with the words “EAT ME” written using currants, and when she eats the cake she grows so big she finds it hard to stand up. After eating the cake, she utters the words, “Curiouser and curiouser”.

34 Sailor’s greeting : AHOY!

“Ahoy!” is a nautical term used to signal a vessel. When the telephone was invented by Alexander Graham Bell, he suggested that “ahoy” be used as a standard greeting when answering a call. However, Thomas Edison came up with “hello”, and we’ve been using that ever since.

38 Anthony Doerr novel whose title comes from an Aristophanes play : CLOUD CUCKOO LAND

“Cloud Cuckoo Land” is a 2021 novel by author Anthony Doerr. The storyline focuses on five characters who exist in three different time periods, all connected by an ancient Greek tale about a man seeking a utopian city in the sky. The title of the novel comes from a comic play by ancient Greek playwright Aistophanes titled “The Birds”, which features a city named Nephelokokkygia (literally “cloud cuckoo land”).

44 Old PC platform : MS-DOS

MS-DOS (short for “Microsoft Disk Operating System”) was the main operating system used by IBM-compatible PCs in the eighties and for much of the nineties.

45 All-__ cookware : CLAD

All-Clad is a premium cookware brand that was founded in 1971 by John Ulam, who was a metallurgist by profession. He was working in the aerospace industry in the sixties when he began experimenting with bonding different metals together to create a more efficient heat conductor. He applied this knowledge to cookware and developed a unique process of bonding multiple layers of metals, including stainless steel and aluminum, to create cookware that would heat evenly and retain heat for a long time.

49 Exhortation during cold and flu season : WASH YOUR HANDS

Influenza (the “flu”) is an ailment that is caused by a virus. The virus is readily inactivated by the use of soap, so washing hands and surfaces is especially helpful in containing flu outbreaks, and other virus pandemics …

57 Timothée’s “Call Me by Your Name” role : ELIO

“Call Me by Your Name” is a 2007 coming-of-age novel by Italian-American author André Aciman. It was adapted into an Oscar-nominated 2017 film of the same name. In 2019, Aciman published a sequel titled “Find Me”.

Actor Timothée Chalamet played two notable roles in the early 2020s. He portrays Paul Atreides in the two-part film adaption of the sci-fi novel “Dune”. He also plays the title character in the musical fantasy film “Wonka”. Chalamet is bilingual, in English and French. Born in New York City to an American mother and French father, he spent many summers as a youth with his grandparents just outside Lyon.

60 Surrealist Salvador : DALI

The famous surrealist Salvador Dalí was born in Figueres, Spain. I had the privilege of visiting the Dalí Museum in Figueres some years ago, just north of Barcelona. If you ever get the chance, it’s a “must see” as it really is a quite magnificent building with a fascinating collection of art.

64 “__ go bragh!” : ERIN

“Erin go bragh!” is an anglicization of the Irish phrase “Éirinn go brách!”, which translates as “Ireland forever!”

66 River mammal : OTTER

Male and female otters are known as dogs and bitches, with the offspring called pups. Males and females are sometimes referred to as boars and sows. A collection of otters is a bevy, family, lodge or perhaps a romp. When in water, a collection of otters can be called a raft.

67 Chianti, merlot, etc. : REDS

Chianti is a red wine from the Chianti region of central Tuscany in Italy. Historically, Chianti was stored in a characteristically bulbous bottle wrapped in a straw basket. However, the pragmatists have won the day and regular wine bottles tend to be used nowadays.

Merlot is one of the main grapes used to make Bordeaux wines, along with Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot.

68 Marvel hero played by Chris Hemsworth : THOR

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, Idris Elba and Anthony Hopkins. And to crown it all, Kenneth Branagh is the director.

Australian actor Chris Hemsworth had a prominent role in the Australian TV series “Home and Away” that became a stepping stone to a successful career in Hollywood. HIs first major role was playing the title character in the superhero movie “Thor”. Chris is the younger brother of fellow actors Luke and Liam Helmsworth, and is married to Spanish actress Elsa Pataky.

69 Rapper/actor __ Jackson Jr. : O’SHEA

O’Shea Jackson Jr. is an American actor and rapper who is best known for his portrayal of his own father, rapper Ice Cube, in the biopic “Straight Outta Compton” (2015).

Down

1 Bistro : CAFE

“Bistro” was originally a Parisian slang term describing a little wine shop or restaurant.

2 Shape of a presidential office : OVAL

Although there have been several “oval” offices used by US presidents in the White House, the current Oval Office was designed and constructed at the bequest of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The room has four doors. One door opens onto the Rose Garden; a second door leads to a small study and dining room; a third opens onto the main corridor running through the West Wing; the fourth door opens to the office of the president’s secretary.

8 __ Lingus : AER

Aer Lingus is my favorite airline! Well, the service isn’t that great, but when I get on board an Aer Lingus plane I feel like I am back in Ireland. Aer Lingus is the national airline of Ireland, with “Aer Lingus” being a phonetic spelling of the Irish “aer-loingeas” meaning “air fleet”. These days Aer Lingus can only lay claim to the title of Ireland’s oldest airline as it is no longer the biggest. That honor goes to the controversial budget airline Ryanair.

11 Rental car company : ALAMO

The third-largest car rental company in recent years is Alamo, which was founded in 1974. Alamo made inroads (pun!) into the market by popularizing the idea of “unlimited mileage”.

12 Lowest point : NADIR

The nadir is the direction pointing immediately below a particular location (through to the other side of the Earth for example). The opposite direction, that pointing immediately above, is called the zenith. We use the terms “nadir” and “zenith” figuratively to mean the low and high points in a person’s fortunes.

18 __ gobi: potato and cauliflower dish : ALOO

Aloo gobi is a very tasty vegetarian dish in Indian cuisine made from potatoes and cauliflower, flavored with traditional Indian spices. “Aloo” translates to “potato” and “gobi” to “cauliflower”.

24 Newspaper column : OP-ED

“Op-ed” is an abbreviation for “opposite the editorial page”. Op-eds started in “The New York Evening World” in 1921 when the page opposite the editorials was used for articles written by a named guest writer, someone independent of the editorial board.

30 Jungfrau, for one : ALP

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

32 Donut holes, at Dunkin’ : MUNCHKINS

Dunkin’ Donuts introduced “Munchkins” in 1973, the company’s name for doughnut holes. Previous attempts to market them as “doughnut holes” didn’t go well. Times have changed, though.

36 Artist Yoko : ONO

Yoko Ono is an avant-garde artist. She met her future husband John Lennon for the first time while she was preparing her conceptual art exhibit called “Hammer a Nail”. Visitors were encouraged to hammer in a nail into a wooden board, creating the artwork. Lennon wanted to hammer in the first nail, but Ono stopped him as the exhibition had not yet opened. Apparently Ono relented when Lennon paid her an imaginary five shillings to hammer an imaginary nail into the wood.

39 Italian goodbye : CIAO

“Ciao” is Italian for “‘bye”. “Arrivederci” is more formal, and translates as “goodbye”.

40 Lahore language : URDU

Lahore is a large city in Pakistan that is second in size only to Karachi. It is known as the Garden of the Mughals (or in English, Moguls) because of its association with the Mughal Empire. The Mughals ruled much of India from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries.

41 Saudi Arabia neighbor : OMAN

The Oman-Saudi Arabia border runs just over 400 miles. It extends from the tripoint shared with Yemen in the south to the tripoint shared with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in the north.

46 Caustic cleaner : LYE

What we call “lye” is usually sodium hydroxide (NaOH), although historically the term “lye” was used for potassium hydroxide. Lye has many uses, including to cure several foodstuffs. Lye can make olives less bitter, for example. The chemical is also found in canned mandarin oranges, pretzels and Japanese ramen noodles. More concentrated grades of lye are used to clear drains and clean ovens. Scary …

48 The “P” of IPA : PALE

India pale ale (IPA)

49 Shorebird : WADER

“Shorebird” is a common term used to describe many species of bird that routinely wade along shorelines and mudflats searching for insects and small crustaceans as food. We use the term “wader” in Britain and Ireland for the same group of birds.

53 Shoulder muscles, briefly : DELTS

The deltoid “muscle” is actually a group of muscles, the ones that cover the shoulder and create the roundness under the skin. The deltoids (delts) are triangular in shape resembling the Greek letter delta, hence the name.

54 Couch potato’s sin : SLOTH

“Sloth”, meaning “indolence, sluggishness”, comes from the Middle English word “slowe”, which is also the root of our contemporary word “slow”. The animal, the sloth, is so named as it exhibits slow-moving behavior.

59 Gumbo-thickening pod : OKRA

Gumbo is a type of stew or soup that originated in Louisiana. The primary ingredient can be meat or fish, but to be true gumbo it must include the “holy trinity” of vegetables, namely celery, bell peppers and onion. Okra used to be a requirement but this is no longer the case. Okra gave the dish its name as the vernacular word for the African vegetable is “okingumbo”, from the Bantu language spoken by many of the slaves brought to America.

63 Dove’s sound : COO

Taxonomically, doves and pigeons are the only members of the order Columbidae. The terms “dove” and “pigeon” are often used interchangeably. Scientifically speaking, dove species tend to be smaller than pigeon species. Colloquially though, many refer to doves as the white or nearly white species in the family.