LA Times Crossword 20 Jun 24, Thursday - LAXCrossword.com (2024)

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

5 Caramel custard : FLAN

Flan (also “crème caramel”) is a delicious dessert comprising a molded custard topped with a clear caramel sauce. The related crème brûlée is a dessert made from molded custard with a hard, burnt caramel layer on top.

15 Country great McEntire : REBA

Reba McEntire is a country music singer and television actress. McEntire starred in her own sitcom “Reba” that aired on the WB and the CW cable channels from 2001 to 2007. She is sometimes referred to as “The Queen of Country”.

16 “Feliz año nuevo” month : ENERO

In Spanish, coming up to midnight on New Year’s Eve, one might hear “cinco, cuatro, tres, dos, uno!” (five, four, three, two, one) and then “Feliz Año Nuevo!” (Happy New Year!).

17 Ballpark figures : ESTIMATES

A ballpark figure is an estimated quantity. The original “ballpark figure” was an estimate of the number of people attending a baseball game, the size of the crowd in the “ballpark”.

24 Chromebook maker : ACER

A netbook is in effect a stripped-down laptop. It is a small machine without a hard drive that is intended for use with an Internet connection. Netbooks were largely pushed out of the market by tablet computers. Google’s Chromebooks have really taken over the netbook concept, and have proven to be very successful in recent years. I love my Chromebook …

28 Mythological event depicted in a 2017 “Thor” film : RAGNAROK

“Ragnarök” is the name given to a set of events in Norse mythology that resulted in the deaths of many famous gods, including Odin and Thor.

“Thor: Ragnarok” is a 2017 superhero film in the “Thor” series. Not my cup of tea …

35 “Xanadu” rock gp. : ELO

The title song of the 1980 movie “Xanadu” was performed by the Electric Light Orchestra (ELO) and Olivia Newton-John (who starred in the film). Despite the popularity of ELO around the world, the song “Xanadu” was the band’s only number-one hit back in their homeland of the UK.

37 Baghdad currency : DINAR

The dinar is the official currency in many countries, such as Iraq, Tunisia, Bahrain and Serbia. The gold dinar dates back to the early days of Islam, with the name deriving from the Roman currency called “denarius” meaning “ten times” (as it was originally a coin worth ten asses).

43 __-switching : CODE

The linguistic term “code-switching” refers to the practice of a speaker switching between languages or dialects while in the same conversation.

44 Gold-loving king : MIDAS

King Midas of Greek mythology might be termed an alchemist as he had the power to turn everything he touched into gold i.e. the Midas touch. That power became a curse, as everything he touched turned to gold, including his food and drink, and even his children.

48 Home of the world’s tallest building, briefly : UAE

Burj Khalifa is a spectacular skyscraper in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE). It is the tallest man-made structure in the world, and has been so since the completion of its exterior in 2009. The space in the building came onto the market at a really bad time, during the global financial crisis. The building was part of a US$20 billion development of downtown Dubai that was backed by the city government which had to go looking for a bailout from the neighboring city of Abu Dhabi. The tower was given the name Burj Khalifa at the last minute, apparently as a nod to UAE President Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan who helped to broker the bailout.

55 California wine region : NAPA

“Wine Country” is a name used to describe the wine-growing region of Northern California located north of the San Francisco Bay area. Although the term “Wine Country” is informal, it generally equated to the combined counties of Napa, Sonoma, Mendocino, Lake, and Solano. The area is home to over 1700 wineries.

56 __ choy : BOK

Bok choy is a variety of Chinese cabbage. “Bok choy” translates as “white vegetable”.

60 JD-to-be’s hurdle : LSAT

Law School Admission Test (LSAT)

The law degree that is abbreviated to “J.D.” stands for “Juris Doctor” or “Doctor of Jurisprudence”.

63 Dogpatch name : ABNER

Cartoonist Al Capp set his classic comic strip “Li’l Abner” in the fictional community of Dogpatch. According to one of the “Li’l Abner” strips, Dogpatch is located somewhere in the state of Kentucky.

65 Headwear featured four times in this puzzle : BUCKET HAT

Bucket hats are soft items of headgear with downward-sloping, narrow brim. They also go by the name fisherman’s hat and Irish country hat. They are often made from hard-wearing material, like cotton, and can have metal eyelets in the crown for ventilation.

69 Like one of Picasso’s periods : BLUE

Picasso’s Blue Period comprises works completed between 1901 and 1904. All his paintings in the era were basically monochromatic, using different shades of blue. HIs best-known work from the period is “The Old Guitarist”, which you can see at the Art Institute of Chicago.

70 Trickster of Asgard : LOKI

Loki is a trickster god in Norse mythology known for continually creating chaos. Loki is the father of sons with his wife Sigyn. Because Loki is also a shape-shifter, he gave birth to children “himself” by assuming the shape of the opposite sex.

Down

1 Civil War POTUS : ABE

Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the US, elected in 1860 as the first president from the Republican Party. Lincoln’s electoral support came almost exclusively from the north and west of the country, winning only 2 out of 996 counties in the Southern slave states. Lincoln led the country through the Civil War, and then was assassinated in 1865 just a few days after Robert E. Lee surrendered his army of Northern Virginia. President Lincoln was succeeded in office by Vice President Andrew Johnson.

2 “Abbott Elementary” actress __ Ann Walter : LISA

Actress and comedian Lisa Ann Walter is perhaps best known to TV audiences for playing second-grade teacher Melissa Schemmenti on the mockumentary sitcom “Abbot Elementary”. Movie audiences might know her for playing housekeeper Chessy in the 1998 romcom “The Parent Trap”. Walter also wrote a 2011 comic memoir “The Best Thing About My Ass Is That It’s Behind Me”.

4 Staple of some plant-based diets : SEITAN

Seitan is a foodstuff made from wheat gluten that is often used as an alternative to meat. “Seitan” is a word that was coined in Japanese in 1961 by George Ohsawa, the founder of the macrobiotic diet.

5 Title for a monk : FRA

The title “Fra” (brother) is used to address Italian monks.

7 One of Eve’s sons : ABEL

According to the Bible, Adam and Eve had several children, although only the first three are mentioned by name: Cain, Abel and Seth.

11 Self-identifier such as “ze” or “hir” : NEOPRONOUN

Neopronouns are third person personal pronouns that are coined as alternatives to the existing pronouns. They are usually used by non-binary individuals to reflect their gender identity more faithfully than the pronouns accepted by convention.

12 “My Soft Machine” singer Parks : ARLO

“Arlo Parks” is the stage name of British singer and poet Anaïs Marinho. Parks seems to have hit the big time early in her career, with her first studio album “Collapsed in Sunbeams” (2021) garnering a lot of positive attention.

13 Played scissors against rock, say : LOST

Rock-paper-scissors is a hand game played by two people, at least here in North America. Back in Ireland we called the game “scissors-paper-stone”, and another name encountered around the English-speaking world is “roshambo”. The game is often used as a way to choose between two options or two individuals.

18 Book between Jonah and Nahum : MICAH

The Book of Micah is one of twelve books in the Bible written by the so-called minor prophets. The name “Micah” translates into English from Hebrew as “Who is like God?”

28 Paper orders : REAMS

A ream is 500 sheets of paper. As there were 24 sheets in a quire, and 20 quires made up a ream, there used to be 480 sheets in a ream. Ever since the standard was changed to 500, a 480-sheet packet of paper has been called a “short ream”. We also use the term “reams” to mean a great amount, evolving from the idea of a lot of printed material.

29 Classic TV’s “Kate & __” : ALLIE

The sitcom “Kate & Allie” ran from 1984 to 1989, starring Susan Saint James as Kate, and Jane Curtin as Allie. Jane Curtin won two Emmy awards for her work on the series, while Susan Saint James … did not.

31 Turtlelike Mario Bros. foe : KOOPA

Koopa Troopas are turtle-like creatures that appear in the Mario video game franchise. “Koopas” are known in Japan as “Nokonoko”.

33 Nobelist Anwar : SADAT

Anwar Sadat was the third President of Egypt right up to the time of his assassination in 1981. Sadat won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1978, along with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, for the role played in crafting the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty of 1978 at Camp David. It was this agreement that largely led to Sadat’s assassination three years later.

34 Forest denizens : TREES

Nowadays we use “denizen” to mean simply “resident”, but historically a denizen was an immigrant to whom certain rights had been granted, somewhat like today’s resident alien.

41 Hairstyle with a uniform length : BLUNT CUT

In a blunt cut hairstyle, the hair is cut to the same length all around, with straight ends. Blunt cuts can be worn on all hair lengths. I guess that’s what I do when I trim what hair I have left using a number-one setting on my hair clipper. Or, maybe not …

42 Streets of Rage game company : SEGA

“Streets of Rage” is a series of video games released by Sega starting in 1991. Described as a “beat ‘em up” game, it features ex-cop vigilantes taking out a crime syndicate in a fictional American city. The game is sold in Japan under the title “Bare Knuckle”.

45 Baseballs and basketballs, but not rugby balls : SPHERES

In the game of rugby, a try is scored by grounding the ball behind the opposition’s goal line. A try is similar to a touchdown in American football, although in rugby the ball must be manually placed on the ground by the player making the score. The term “try” is used as originally that act of touching the ball to the ground simply qualified a team for a “try at goal”, an opportunity to kick the ball at goal to make the score.

52 Nabe south of Pasadena : EAST LA

East Los Angeles (usually “East LA”) is the most populous census-designated place in California, and is home to over 125,000 people.

54 Bar mitzvah figure : RABBI

A Jewish girl becomes a bat mitzvah at 12 years of age, the age at which she becomes responsible for her actions. Boys become bar mitzvahs at 13. The terms translate into English as daughter and son of the commandments.

57 Clarinet kin : OBOE

The clarinet is a lovely-sounding instrument, isn’t it? The name “clarinet” comes from the Italian word “clarino” meaning “trumpet”, with the “-et” suffix indicating “small”.

61 Nautical call : 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.

64 Subj. for some citizenship applicants : ESL

English as a Second Language (ESL) is sometimes referred to as English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) and English as a Foreign Language (EFL).

66 __ lime pie : KEY

The species of citrus fruit called a key lime is so named due to its association with the Florida Keys.