LAXCrossword.com

Advertisement

Constructed by: David Levinson Wilk
Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Reveal Answer: I Haven’t Got All Day

Themed answers are common phrases that usually include the name of a DAY, but we HAVEN’T GOT ALL of the letters in that DAY:

• 59A Impatient person’s comment, or an apt title for this puzzle? : I HAVEN’T GOT ALL DAY

• 18A “Whew! I was so worried the Kahlo was counterfeit!” : THANK GOD IT’S FRIDA (not all FRIDAY)
• 30A NFL document intended to protect the secrets of the Big Game? : SUPER BOWL NDA (not all SUNDAY)
• 45A Retro-chic style that originated with the family of a movie charioteer? : THROWBACK HUR (not all THURSDAY)

Read on, or jump to …
… a complete list of answers

Bill’s time: 9m 08s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1 Brewer’s ingredient : HOPS

The foodstuff that we call “hops” are actually the female flowers of the hop plant. The main use of hops is to add flavor to beer. The town in which I used to live here in California was once home to the largest hop farm in the world. Most of the harvested hops were exported all the way to the breweries of London, where they could fetch the best price.

5 Paragons : IDEALS

A paragon is a model of excellence, a peerless example. Ultimately the term “paragon” derives from the Greek “para-” meaning “on the side” and “akone” meaning “whetstone”. This derivation comes from the ancient practice of using a touchstone to test gold for its level of purity by drawing a line on the stone with the gold and comparing the resulting mark with samples of known purity.

11 Tea, in Hindi : CHAI

Chai is a drink made from spiced black tea, honey and milk, with “chai” being the Hindi word for “tea”. We often called tea “a cup of char” growing up in Ireland, with “char” being our slang word for tea, derived from “chai”.

16 Like some cottage cheese : NON-FAT

Cottage cheese got its name because it was a simple cheese that was made by simple folk living in cottages, using any milk left over from butter production.

17 Captain’s post : HELM

In its broadest sense, the term “helm” describes the whole of a ship’s steering mechanism, including the rudder and tiller. In a more specific sense, the helm is the handle, tiller or wheel that is used to control the steering gear.

18 “Whew! I was so worried the Kahlo was counterfeit!” : THANK GOD IT’S FRIDA (not all FRIDAY)

Frida Kahlo was a Mexican painter famous for her self-portraits. She was married to the equally famous artist Diego Rivera. Kahlo was portrayed by actress Salma Hayek in a film about her colorful life called “Frida” released in 2002.

“Thank God It’s Friday” (TGIF) is a relatively new expression that apparently originated in Akron, Ohio. It was a catchphrase used first by disk jockey Jerry Healy of WAKR in the early seventies. That said, one blog reader wrote to me to say that he had been using the phrase in the fifties.

22 Swift composition : LYRIC

Singer Taylor Swift had one of her first gigs at the US Open tennis tournament when she was in her early teens. There she sang the national anthem and received a lot of favorable attention for the performance.

23 Chinese: Pref. : SINO-

The prefix “Sino-” is used to refer to things Chinese. It comes from the Latin word “Sinae” meaning … “Chinese”!

30 NFL document intended to protect the secrets of the Big Game? : SUPER BOWL NDA (not all SUNDAY)

Non-disclosure agreement (NDA)

37 Bygone toy company : TYCO

The Tyco brand of toys was founded in 1926 as Mantua Metal Products by John Tyler. The first products made were scale model trains using die-cast metal. The company introduced the Tyco brand in the fifties, with “Tyco” standing for “Tyler Company”.

38 “The Bear” Emmy winner __ Moss-Bachrach : EBON

Actor Ebon Moss-Bachrach is perhaps best known for playing the restaurant manager in the hit TV comedy-drama “The Bear”.

“The Bear” is a comedy-drama TV show that started airing in 2022. It stars Jeremy Allen White (of “Shameless” fame) as a chef from a Michelin-star restaurant who heads home to Chicago to run his family’s sandwich shop after his brother dies. I really enjoyed this one …

41 Electric shaver brand : BRAUN

Braun is a manufacturer of consumer goods based in Kronberg, Germany.

44 Mortar’s partner : PESTLE

I’ve loved the sound of the words “mortar” and “pestle”, ever since I was first introduced to them in the chemistry lab. The Romans called a receptacle for pounding or grinding things a “mortarium”, giving us “mortar”. Mortarium was also the word for the product of pounding and grinding, which gives us our “mortar” that’s used with bricks to build a wall. And further, short stubby cannons used in the 16th century resembled a grinding bowl and so were called “mortars”, which evolved into our contemporary weapon of the same name. As far as the pestle is concerned, it is also derived from its Latin name “pistillum”, which comes from the word for “crush”.

45 Retro-chic style that originated with the family of a movie charioteer? : THROWBACK HUR (not all THURSDAY)

The celebrated 1959 Charlton Heston movie “Ben-Hur” is a dramatization of a book published in 1880 by Lew Wallace titled “Ben-Hur: A Tale of Christ”. The 1959 epic film won a record 11 Academy Awards, a feat that has been equaled since then but never beaten. The other winners of 11 Oscars are “Titanic” (1997) and “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” (2003).

48 Oxford Word of the Year for 2021 : VAX

The Oxford University Press, publisher of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), announces a Word of the Year annually, for both the UK and the US. Here are some examples:

• 2005: sudoku (UK) & podcast (US)
• 2007: carbon footprint (UK) & locavore (US)
2013: selfie (UK & US)
• 2014: vape (UK & US)
• 2016: post truth (UK & US)
• 2021: vax (UK & US)

49 Extinct birds : DODOS

The dodo was a direct relative of the pigeon and the dove, although the fully-grown dodo was usually three feet tall. One of the reasons the dodo comes to mind when we think of extinction of a species, is that it disappeared not too long ago (last recorded alive in 1662) and humans were the reason for its demise. The dodo lived exclusively on the island of Mauritius and when humans arrived, we cut back the forests that were its home. We also introduced domestic animals, such as dogs and pigs, that ransacked the dodo’s nests. The dodo was deemed to be an awkward flightless bird and so the term “dodo” has come to mean a dull-witted person.

63 Facts and figures : DATA

Our word “data” (singular “datum”) comes from the Latin “datum” meaning “given”. The idea is that data are “things given”.

65 Green land? : EIRE

Ireland is often referred to as “the Emerald Isle” (and described as “green”). There is a common misconception that the association with the color green is because of all that green grass that grows due to the seemingly non-stop rain. However, the use of green has more political overtones, as it is associated with many of the rebellions against British colonial rule over the centuries.

66 Yelp rating unit : STAR

yelp.com is a website that provides a local business directory and reviews of services. The site is sort of like Yellow Pages on steroids, and the term “yelp” is derived from “yel-low p-ages”.

67 Étouffée cuisine : CREOLE

Étouffée is a Cajun and Creole dish made with shellfish, the most famous version being Crawfish Étouffée. Étouffée is like a thick shellfish stew served over rice. The dish uses the cooking technique known as “smothering” in which the shellfish is cooked in a covered pan over a low heat with a small amount of liquid. “Étouffée” is the French word “stifled, smothered”.

Down

1 Start of some addresses : HTTP

“http” are the first letters in many Internet links. “http” stands for HyperText Transfer Protocol. More secure and “safer” websites (like this one!) use links starting with “https”, which stands for “http secure”).

3 __ moss : PEAT

Peat moss is actually sphagnum moss that has partially decayed and dried. The term “peat” moss is used as sphagnum moss is often found in “peat” bogs. Sphagnum moss has the ability to store large quantities of water, so the dried form is used by gardeners to condition soil, i.e. to increase the soil’s capacity to retain moisture.

5 Naive stock character : INGENUE

So often in literature, movies and on stage, there is an innocent woman at the center of the story. Such stock characters came to be known as “ingénues”, a term derived from the French adjective “ingénu” meaning innocent, virtuous, candid and “ingenuous”.

6 “Why Do Fools Fall in Love” genre : DOO-WOP

“Why Do Fools Fall in Love” is a 1956 song released by Frankie Lymon & the Teenagers. It has been covered several times, perhaps most notably by the Beach Boys in 1964, as the B-side for their hit “Fun, Fun, Fun”.

8 “100 Years… 100 Movies” org. : AFI

The American Film Institute (AFI) was founded in 1967 by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). One of the AFI’s more visible programs is the “100 Year Series”, including lists of Best Movies in several categories and a list of the Best Movie Quotes in 100 years of movie-making.

9 Back muscle, for short : LAT

The muscles known as the “lats” are the “latissimi dorsi”, and are the broadest muscles in the back. “Latissimus” is Latin for “broadest”, and “dorsum” is Latin for “back”.

11 LeBarons, e.g. : CHRYSLERS

The Chrysler LeBaron made from 1977 to 1995 was a low-priced mid-sized automobile. However, the original LeBaron made in the 1930s was Chrysler’s luxury model, which competed with other luxury cars such as the Lincoln and the Packard.

13 No-frills grocery chain : 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.

14 Apple desktop once marketed with the Rolling Stones song “She’s a Rainbow” : IMAC

The iMac is a desktop computer platform that Apple introduced in 1998. One of the main features of the iMac is an “all-in-one” design, with the computer console and monitor integrated. The iMac also came in a range of colors that Apple marketed as “flavors”, such as strawberry, blueberry and lime.

“She’s a Rainbow” is a 1967 song Mick Jagger and Keith Richards wrote for the Rolling Stones, and a very “un-Rolling Stones” song it is. It was intended as a satirical piece. John Lennon claimed that “She’s a Rainbow” imitated the Beatles song ”All You Need Is Love”.

19 Actress Swanson : KRISTY

Actress Kristy Swanson is perhaps best known for playing the title character in the 1992 film “Buffy and the Vampire Slayer”. In 2006, she appeared as a contestant in the TV reality show “Skating with Celebrities”, and was partnered with Canadian professional skater Lloyd Eisler. The pair started a relationship while filming the show, and married in 2009.

24 Need for some copiers : DRY INK

The key features of a laser printer (or copier) are that it uses plain paper and produces quality text at high speed. Laser printers work by projecting a laser image of the printed page onto a rotating drum that is coated with photoconductors (material that becomes conductive when exposed to light). The areas of the drum exposed to the laser carry a different charge than the unexposed areas. Dry ink (toner) sticks to the exposed areas due to electrostatic charge. The toner is then transferred to paper by contact and is fused into the paper by the application of heat. So, that explains why paper coming out of a laser printer is warm, and the ink is sometimes powdery.

29 “Li’l” fellow : ABNER

“Li’l Abner” was created and drawn by Al Capp for over 43 years starting in 1934. Al Capp stopped producing the strip in 1977, largely due to illness (he died from emphysema two years later). As the strip finished up, he went so far as to apologize to his long-standing fans, saying that he should have stopped 3-4 years earlier as he felt that the quality of his work had gone down in those latter years. The title character’s full name is “Li’l Abner Yokum”. Despite being referred to as “Li’l”, Abner is 6’ 3” tall.

33 Birthing coach : DOULA

A doula is a person who provides non-medical support for women and their families during childbirth as well as in the period immediately following the arrival. The term “doula” comes from the Ancient Greek word “doule” which means “female slave”. Given such a negative association, “doula” is often dropped in favor of “labor companion” or “birthworker”.

36 “Talk to Her” Oscar winner Pedro : ALMODOVAR

Pedro Almodóvar is a very successful Spanish film director, born in a small town in the region of La Mancha (made famous by Don Quixote). I’m afraid I don’t recognize any of Almodovar’s films.

“Talk to Her” is a 2002 Spanish film that was written and directed by Pedro Almodóvar. I haven’t seen the movie, but it does have an interesting storyline. It is about two men who become friends, while each cares for a woman who is in a coma.

40 Rosalind of “3 Body Problem” : CHAO

Actress Rosalind Chao’s big break came with the role of Rose Hsu Jordan in the 1993 hit film “The Joy Luck Club”. That said, she also played a South Korean refugee in the closing episodes of the TV series “M*A*S*H”. That character ended up marrying Klinger in the final episode, which led to Chao co-starring in the “M*A*S*H” sequel “AfterMASH”.

French mathematician Henri Poincaré was also a physicist, and is often described as a polymath. Notably, he contributed to the “three-body problem” of classical mechanics. That phrase became familiar to the non-scientific community when Netflix started airing the TV series “3 Body Problem”.

43 Sked placeholder : TBD

To be determined (TBD)

44 Occasion for a launch party, informally : PUB DATE

Publication (pub.)

47 Having a gap : HIATAL

A hiatus is a break or opening in a material object, or an interruption in time. “Hiatus” is Latin for “opening”.

51 Polk predecessor : TYLER

President John Tyler was one of two US presidents who lost their wives and remarried while in office (the other was Woodrow Wilson). President Tyler’s first wife was Letitia Christian Tyler, who died of a stroke in the White House in 1842. Two years later, Virginia-born Tyler married 22-year-old Julia Gardiner, a native New Yorker who was thirty years his junior. Tyler already had eight children from his first marriage, and eventually had seven more with his second wife. That total of fifteen means that John Tyler fathered more children than any other US president.

James Knox Polk was the 11th US President. He is known as a president who delivered on promises that he made during his election campaign. He left office after serving only one term, as he had promised the voters, and then contracted cholera on a goodwill tour of the South. Polk died at only 53 years of age, the youngest age for any president to die in retirement. He also enjoyed the shortest retirement of any president, at only 103 days.

55 Ono from Tokyo : YOKO

Yoko Ono was born in 1933 in Tokyo into a prosperous Japanese family, and is actually a descendant of one of the emperors of Japan. Yoko’s father moved around the world for work, and she lived the first few years of her life in San Francisco. The family returned to Japan, before moving on to New York, Hanoi and back to Japan just before WWII, in time to live through the great firebombing of Tokyo in 1945. Immediately after the war the family was far from prosperous. While Yoko’s father was being held in a prison camp in Vietnam, her mother had to resort to begging and bartering to feed her children. When her father was repatriated, life started to return to normal and Yoko was able to attend university. She was the first woman to be accepted into the philosophy program of Gakushuin University.

56 College basketball coach Barnes : ADIA

Adia Barnes is a former WNBA player who was appointed head coach of the University of Arizona Wildcats women’s basketball team in 2016. Earlier in her career, Barnes played internationally for Dynamo Kyiv in Ukraine, and also turned out for several Euroleague teams. She is married to a basketball coach she met in Italy.

60 Peacock network : NBC

The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) has had a number of different logos in its history, including the famous peacock with which we are familiar today. The first peacock logo was introduced in the early days of color television and was designed to illustrate how wonderful color television would be, so go buy one! (NBC was owned by RCA, and so had a vested interest in sales of color television sets).

62 Test for prospective M.A. students : GRE

Passing the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) is usually a requirement for entry into graduate school here in the US.