L.A. Times Crossword Wednesday, October 25, 2023 Jill Singer

Theme:  Saving Face.  Some ideas about the FACE are preserved in this puzzle.  Let's see how it works.

18 A. *"Attractive!":  EYE CATCHING.  Immediately appealing or noticeable; striking.

24 A. *"Noisy!": EAR PIERCING.  A sound that is high pitched, annoyingly loud and unpleasant.

49 A. *"Amazing!": JAW DROPPING.  Causing great surprise or astonishment.

64. *"Delicious!": LIP SMACKING.  Highly pleasing or appealing to the sense of taste or smell

And the unifier -- 40 A. Many an emoji, and a feature of the starred clues and their answers?: FACIAL EXPRESSION.   A motions or position of the muscles beneath the skin of the face. According to one set of controversial theories, these movements convey the emotional state of an individual to observers. Facial expressions are a form of nonverbal communication.

So, what's going on here?  The theme fill don't really describe facial expressions - at least not in any consistent way.  So we must dig a layer deeper.  A verbal expression is the act of making your thoughts, feelings, etc., known by speech or writing.  Here we have idiomatic expressions that relate to parts of the face, hence FACIAL EXPRESSIONS.  Well done Jill Singer!

Hi gang, JazzBumpa here, with eyes wide open.  Let's nose our way into the puzzle, lick our lips,  and see what we can sink our teeth into.

Across:

1. Whomp, quaintly: SMITE.  Strike with a firm blow.  The past tense is smote.

6. Religious subdivisions: SECTS.  Group of people with somewhat different religious beliefs from those of a larger group to which they belong.  World wide, there are about 40,000 Christian denominations.  Do they qualify? 

11. Injury reminder: SCAR.  A mark left on the skin or within body tissue where a wound, burn, or sore has not healed completely and fibrous connective tissue has developed.

15. Hoosier hoopster: PACER.  The Indiana Pacers are an American professional basketball team based in Indianapolis. The Pacers compete in the National Basketball Association as a member of the Central Division of the Eastern Conference.

16. Sunlit courtyards: ATRIA.  An ATRIUM is a central hall or court in a modern building, with rooms or galleries opening off it, often glass-covered.

17. Large volume: TOME.  The dormant scientist in me wanted this to be the amount of space inside a geometric figure.  But, alas, it is a large, weighty, often scholarly book.

20. Othello's false friend: IAGO.   Iago is the main antagonist in Shakespeare's play OTHELLO, and Othello's standard-bearer. He is the husband of Emilia, who is in turn the attendant of Othello's wife Desdemona. 

21. Marketplaces on smartphones: APP STORES.  In the singular, a type of digital distribution platform for computer software called applications, often in a mobile context.

22. Urchin-eating mammal: OTTER.  Otters are carnivorous mammals in the subfamily Lutrinae. The 13 extant otter species are all semiaquatic, aquatic, or marine, with diets based on fish and invertebrates. Lutrinae is a branch of the Mustelidae family, which also includes weasels, badgers, mink, and wolverines, among other animals.  Sea urchins are spiny, globular echinoderms in the class Echinoidea. About 950 species of sea urchin are distributed on the seabeds of every ocean and inhabit every depth zone from the intertidal seashore down to 5,000 meters. The spherical, hard shells of sea urchins are round and covered in spines.  Yum!

23. Place to stop on an RV trip: KOA.   KOA (short for Kampgrounds [sic] of America) is an American franchise of privately owned campgrounds. Having more than 500 locations across the United States and Canada, it is the world's largest system of privately owned campgrounds.  It was founded in 1962 and is based in Billings, Montana, United States. 

27. Replayed tennis serve: LET.    A serve is called a LET when the ball hits the net cord but still lands in the service court. Such a serve is not considered a fault and the server may repeat the service attempt.

30. Not particularly inspiring: BLAH.  Used to refer to something which is boring or without meaningful content.  Something to which you might say, "Meh!"

31. Thin nails: BRADS.  Small wire nails with small, often asymmetrical heads.  The depressions caused by driving them are brad pits.

33. Fundamental: BASAL.   Of or relating to the foundation, base, or essence of a thing.

36. Pulitzer winner Ferber: EDNA.   Edna Ferber [1885 - 1968] was an American novelist, short story writer and playwright. Her novels include the Pulitzer Prize-winning So Big, Show Boat, Cimarron, Giant and Ice Palace, which also received a film adaptation in 1960.

43. Pedal pushers: FEET.  Pedal pushers are calf-length trousers that were popular during the 1950s and the early 1960s. Often cuffed and worn tight to the skin.  But that's not we are talking about.  We are talking about the lower extremity of the leg below the ankle, used to push the pedals of, frex, a bicycle. 

44. Heeds: OBEYS.  Complies with the command, direction, or request of a person or a law. 

45. Expert in Islamic law: MUFTI.    An Islamic scholar who is legally able to rule on various religious and personal matters. In some places, people going through a divorce might need the help of a mufti. In Islamic countries, muftis are officials who are authorized to make legal decisions or help judges in deciding cases.

46. Breakfast brand: EGGO.   Eggo is a brand of frozen waffles owned by the Kellogg Company, and sold in North America. Several varieties are available, including homestyle, miniature, cherry, blueberry, strawberry, vanilla bliss, brown sugar cinnamon, apple cinnamon, buttermilk, chocolate chip, and Thick & Fluffy. Wikipedia

48. Sunscreen letters: SPF.   Sun Protection Factor, a measure of how much solar energy (UV radiation) is required to produce sunburn on protected skin 

56. Function: USE.   An activity or purpose natural to or intended for a person or thing.

59. Say "y'all," say: ELIDE.  Omit a sound or syllable when speaking.

60. Without a rival: UNOPPOSED.   Unchallenged.

63. Big fuss: TODO.   A commotion or fuss.

66. Site with tutorials: EHOW.   eHow is an online how-to guide with many articles and 170,000 videos offering step-by-step instructions. eHow articles and videos are created by freelancers and cover a wide variety of topics organized into a hierarchy of categories.

67. Water filter brand: BRITA.   Brita GmbH is a German manufacturer of water filters headquartered in Taunusstein near Wiesbaden, Hesse. The company's manufacturing facilities are located in China, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, and the United Kingdom. Brita products are distributed in 69 countries

68. Plain text: PROSE.   Written or spoken language in its ordinary form, without metrical structure.

69. Cut, as a log: SAWN.  Here, "cut" is functioning as a verbal adjective rather than a verb, describing the condition of a log.

70. Meal that gets tossed: SALAD.   Garden salads use a base of leafy greens such as lettuce, arugula or rocket, kale or spinach; they are common enough that the word salad alone often refers specifically to garden salads.  A tossed salad is one mixed with an oil dressing.

71. More rational: SANER.  The comparative form of sane, thus, more sane.

Down:

1. Bark elicitor: SPEAK.   Command to a canine.

2. Breakfast brand: MAYPO.  

3. Winter carnival structure: ICE PALACE.   A castle-like structure made of ice.

Or this

4. Gumshoes: TECS.  Slang words for detective.

5. Latin 101 verb: ERAT.  Meaning “he/she/it was.”

6. Pelvic bones: SACRA.  The sacrum is a triangular bone in the lower back formed from fused vertebrae and situated between the two hipbones of the pelvis.

Source

7. Old anesthetic: ETHER.   A pleasant-smelling colorless volatile liquid that is highly flammable. It is used as an anesthetic and as a solvent or intermediate in industrial processes.

8. Like potato chips but not mashed potatoes: CRISP.   Firm, dry, and brittle, especially in a way considered pleasing or attractive: "crisp bacon."

9. Metal derived from cassiterite: TIN.   Tin is a chemical element with the symbol Sn and atomic number 50. A silvery-coloured metal, tin is soft enough to be cut with little force, and a bar of tin can be bent by hand with little effort.

10. Droop: SAG.   Bend or hang downward limply.

11. Sutures: STITCHES UP.  Closes a wound by sewing it shut.  An oddity of the English languages that the word up is superfluous in this construction.

12. South American mammal related to the raccoon: COATI.   Coatis, also known as coatimundis, are members of the family Procyonidae in the genera Nasua and Nasuella. They are diurnal mammals native to South America, Central America, Mexico, and the southwestern United States. The name "coatimundi" comes from the Tupian languages of Brazil, where it means "lone coati".

San Diego Zoo

13. Pharmaceutical giant: AMGEN.   Amgen Inc. is an American multinational biopharmaceutical company headquartered in Thousand Oaks, California. 

14. Corp. makeover: REORG.   A reorganization is a significant and disruptive overhaul of a troubled business intended to restore it to profitability. It may include shutting down or selling divisions, replacing management, cutting budgets, and laying off workers.

19. Small digit?: TOE.   Any of the five digits at the end of the human foot.  Alternatively, could be the numbers one or two.  Any of these cold also be call a low digit.

22. "You for Me" singer Rita: ORA.

25. Letter-shaped girders: I-BARS.   An iron or steel beam that is I-shaped in cross section. 

26. International fashion magazine: ELLE.   A worldwide women's magazine of French origin that offers a mix of fashion and beauty content, together with culture, society and lifestyle. The title means "she" or "her" in French. Published by the Paris-based Lagardère Group, Elle is considered one of the world's leading women magazine, with 45 editions around the world and 46 local websites.

28. Made shorter, in a way: EDITED  DOWN.   To edit down is to make changes to a text or movie, deciding what will be removed and what will be kept in, in order to prepare it for being printed or shown: 

29. Gp. known for travelers' checks: TSA.   The Transportation Security Administration: the US government organization that checks that the activities of companies transporting people or goods are safe, legal, etc.  Another cleverly misdirecting clue.

31. Buddy letters: BFF.   Best Friend Forever.

32. Issa of "The Photograph": RAE.

33. Free jazz kin: BEBOP. BEBOP is a type of jazz originating in the 1940s and characterized by complex harmony and rhythms.  On the other hand, free jazz is an improvised style of jazz characterized by the absence of set chord patterns or time patterns.  If they are kin, it is of a very distant variety.

34. Firetruck tool: AXE.  A tool typically used for chopping wood, usually a steel blade attached at a right angle to a wooden handle.

35. Intel collector: SPY.   A person who secretly collects and reports information on the activities, movements, and plans of an enemy or competitor.

37. Spread of cultural ideas, e.g.: DIFFUSION.    The spreading or merging of different cultural ideas. It occurs directly, indirectly, or through force and appears in various forms, including: Relocation diffusion: When people migrate to new places and influence or become influenced by the existing cultures.

38. "__ a chance!": NOT.   Ain't happenin'.

39. Singer-songwriter DiFranco: ANI.   Angela Maria "Ani" DiFranco [b. 1070]  is an American-Canadian singer-songwriter. She has released more than 20 albums. DiFranco's music has been classified as folk rock and alternative rock, although it has additional influences from punk, funk, hip hop and jazz

41. Amazon's arrow smile, e.g.: LOGO.   A logo is a graphic mark, emblem, or symbol used to aid and promote public identification and recognition. It may be of an abstract or figurative design or to include the text of the name that it represents as in a wordmark.

42. Texting tech: SMS.   Short Message/Messaging Service, commonly abbreviated as SMS, is a text messaging service component of most telephone, Internet and mobile device systems. It uses standardized communication protocols that let mobile devices exchange short text messages.

47. Hurdle for Ph.D. hopefuls: GRE.   The Graduate Record Examination is a standardized test that is an admissions requirement for many graduate schools in the United States and Canada and a few other countries. The GRE is owned and administered by Educational Testing Service.

49. Ballet leaps: JETES.  Jumps in which a dancer springs from one foot to land on the other with one leg extended outward from the body while in the air.

50. Hilo hello: ALOHA.  Hawaiian greeting.

51. Inelegant bit of typesetting: WIDOW.  A widow occurs when the last line of a paragraph is not able to fit at the bottom of a page or column. Instead, it sits at the top of the next page, looking out of place. 

52. Dilation target: PUPIL.   The opening at the center of the iris through which light passes. The iris adjusts the size of the pupil to control the amount of light that enters the eye.   It is dilated [opened wider] for certain medical examinations of the eye.

53. Place to share pics: INSTA.  Short for Instagram - a photo and video sharing social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. The app allows users to upload media that can be edited with filters, be organized by hashtags, and be associated with a location — via geographical tagging.

54. Wanderer: NOMAD.   A member of a people having no permanent abode, and who travel from place to place to find fresh pasture for their livestock.

55. Dean's list no.: GPA.  Grade Point Average.

57. Gut feeling: SENSE.  A feeling or reaction based on an instinctive emotional response rather than considered thought.

58. Tool for making neat beds: EDGER.   This ambiguous clue refers to garden beds, not pieces of furniture designed for sleeping.

61. Patients' main MDs: PCPS.  Primary Care Physicians.

62. Pod in Cajun cuisine: OKRA.   Abelmoschus esculentus, known in some English-speaking countries as lady's fingers, is a flowering plant in the mallow family. It has edible green seed pods used in the cuisine of many countries.. 

64. Lots of ozs.: LBS.   Sixteen ounces make a pound.

65. George Gershwin's songwriting brother: IRA.   Ira Gershwin [1896 - 1983] was an American lyricist who collaborated with his younger brother, composer George Gershwin, to create some of the most memorable songs in the English language of the 20th century.

Here we are at the end of another Wednesday.  Did you save face?  Win by a nose?  See you next time.  I'll keep an eye out for you.

Cool regards

JzB