google.com, pub-2774194725043577, DIRECT, f08c47fec0942fa0 L.A.Times Crossword Corner: Saturday, Jul 21st, 2012, Bruce Venzke

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Jul 21, 2012

Saturday, Jul 21st, 2012, Bruce Venzke

Theme: None

Words: 66

Blocks: 35

PHEW~! - Thank God for DWEEBS~! It's the word that gave me a chance....then, one letter at a time, I had just enough to go back and literally piece together this challenge from Mr. Venzke - and I had a premonition we were due for one from Bruce. Two brilliant sets of triple-stacked grid spanners today, which is visually intimidating, to say the least ~!

1A. Steve Irwin wildlife documentary series, with "The" : CROCODILE HUNTER - Crikey~! Just could not recall the name of the show - all I remembered was his shocking death from a stingray barb

16A. It may involve a step : AEROBIC EXERCISE - I had SPIRAL STAIRCASE here, and the -C-SE at the end was good enough to get going....



17A. Senator, perhaps : STATE LEGISLATOR - considered --- ORATOR early on

54A. Valuable floor coverings? : SUNKEN TREASURES - The floor of the sea, that is; wooden ships run aground (or "a-reef"), spilling their treasure all over the bottom so that future vacationing divers have something to look for....

57A. Questionable prospects : UNCERTAIN FUTURE - can I get rich finding sunken treasure~?

58A. Some evaluations : PEER ASSESSMENTS - it's how we graded our Home Inspection tests this past winter

Onward, my lexeme liberators~!

ACROSS:

18. Hoppers : BINS - Ah, not ROOs or Rabbits; the container-type "bin"

19. Lummoxes : LOUTS

20. You might encounter a jam in one : AUTO

21. Luanda is its cap. : ANGola, Africa - map

22. The Keydets of the Big South Conf. : VMI - Virginia Military Institute - more here

23. Constellation near Virgo : LEO - image - one of those "can't be, too easy, but I'll try it" clue/ answers; considered ARA, but that constellation is near Scorpio

24. Rainbow features : HUES - I didn't think it would be ARCs, so after some pondering....

26. "Glee" extras : TEENS - never watched the show, but I know the premise - and TEENS was not my first thought....

28. Old Dodge : DART - Not OMNI, or NEON

29. Williams of "Bathing Beauty" : ESTHER

31. Get fouled up : GO AWRY

33. Addl. : AUXiliary

34. Blow smoke : LIE - and it's usually directed here

35. Pet store swimmers : TETRAS

38. Cab Calloway's signature line : HI-DE-HO - I know this from the "Blues Brothers"

41. 1891 title mother of an infant named Sorrow : TESS - a summary, here

42. One who doesn't stay put : NOMAD

44. Investor's purchase : BOND

46. Scrub sites, briefly : ORs - Operating Rooms

47. Kids usually don't want to hear them : NOs - Growing up in my house it was "We'll see...", and my mother would hope my brother and I would "forget" what we wanted

48. Month after avril : MAI - Le Freunche

49. Butter-yielding tree : SHEA - ah, I know of shea butter, did not know it was from a tree

51. Keep an __ the ground : EAR TO - "one eye on the road/price upon his head/one ear to the ground/he's listening to the dead" - song; @ 0:51

53. Items from drawers? : CELS - draw-ers, those who draw cels, animation elements

DOWN:

1. African landmark near the Mediterranean : CASBAH - someone else can link the song - not my thing

2. Entourage : RETINUE

3. Juicy fruit : ORANGES - well, that they are~!

4. Barracks lineup : COTS - not Barrack's line up

5. Brit. award : OBE - Order of the British Empire - my aunt and cousin are visiting from Nottingham, England this week - they spent quite a lot of time helping clean up the yard - then again, were I to go there, I would love to build them a deck~!

6. Parsley family herb : DILL

7. Freeze : ICE OVER

8. Lentil, for one : LEGUME - had it, took it out for my "staircase", brought it back with the 'crocodile hunter'

9. Like some traffic : EXITING - if only it was ALL exiting....

10. British pianist Dame Myra __ : HESS

11. Address letters : URL

12. Bracketology org. : NCAA - College hoops, basketball - more on 'bracketology' here

13. Like figureheads : TITULAR - as in title, only - but hey, go ahead and get DF, my friends~! Dennis, Lois, anyone? Bueller? DF for the guys

14. Abstruse stuff : ESOTERY - good words; try working one into your day today....

15. Establish a fresh foothold : RE-ROOT - several times this puzzle, I would say

25. Ballpark figures : STATS

26. Janis Joplin or Scott Joplin : TEXAN - a WAG from -E-AN; Janis you might know; Scott was a ragtime composer - there's a link to "Maple Leaf" on the right, here

27. All muscle : SOLID

28. Social misfit : DWEEB - well, I suppose I am a dweeb, by this definition

30. Ben-__ : HUR - Classic Hollywood - what year? (before my time) - IMDb

32. Developing country's need : AID

35. Founder of Sunnybank Kennels : TERHUNE - Albert Payson - learning moment for me; I was watching a science show that said Collies are the smartest of all dogs (training-wise, I think)

36. Scent : ESSENCE

37. Recital pieces : SONATAS

38. Gets a move on : HASTENS

39. Big hit : HOME RUN

40. Ready : ON ALERT

41. Tough decision for a bettor : TOSS-UP

43. Title professor in a Mitch Albom best-seller : MORRIE - the Wiki - another learning moment

45. Puts down : DISSES - Slang; to "dis" someone is to show them disrespect

50. Oslo's river : AKER - huh - all I could find was Akerselva, and not much luck finding a map that called it that

51. Middle-earth creatures : ENTs - "Even the %^&*~! trees walked" - LOTR "dis" - strong language from Clerks II

52. Lummoxes : OAFS

53. Like a button? : CUTE - as in "Cute as a Button"

55. Internet __ : ERA

56. Cartesian conclusion : SUM - Latin, "I am", and some philosophy here

Answer grid.

Splynter

46 comments:

Barry G. said...

Morning, all!

Another toughie for me today. In no particular order:

* ESOTERY? Never heard of it and really wanted ESOTERICA. When that didn't fit, I tried EXOTICA. Which did fit, except that it was wrong.

* Yep, I had ROOS instead of BINS. Actually, after finally jettisoning ROOS I went with CANS and didn't get BINS until much later.

* And I did think that 24A would be ARCS and that stayed in until nearly the very end.

* Misread the clue for 2D as "Encourage" instead of "Entourage." Oops. As you can probably tell, the NW corner was a mess.

* Finally made a WAG and got TERHUNE. Never heard of the kennel, but vaguely remembered him as the author of a famous book about a dog (named Lad, I believe).

* Had no idea that Mr. and Mrs. Joplin were TEXANs. Learning moment of the day.

* At the end, I had to play "guess the letter" at the crossing of SHEA and AKER. Didn't know the river and, although I've vaguely heard of something called SHEA butter, I've never heard of a tree with the same name. Again, live and learn.

* ESOTERY???

Yellowrocks said...

This grid looked intimidating at first , but getting 10,11,12, and 13 Down right off the bat heartened me. That was enough to fill in the NE quadrant. I had ESOTERA which kept me from GOAWRY for a little bit, but DWEEB solved that.

Then completing the grid spanners in the NW gave me that quadrant.The SE filled quickly and I moved to the SW to complete the grid spanners.

SHEA, TOSSUP, SUNKEN, and and AKER were a bit tricky. Then I got SUNKEN. The ? said it was no ordinary floor covering. All I needed was the S and K in SUNKEN so letter substitution did it. SHEA was my last entry.

20 minutes for a Saturday puzzle.

Barry G. said...

Oh, and I forgot...

Anybody else think it a bit odd that the clue for 5D included "Brit" which is also part of the answer? That threw me for a bit, since I didn't think it was allowed and I therefore figured it couldn't really be OBE...

Argyle said...

Mr. and Mrs. Joplin ? Such
jocularity.

I went red letter about halfway through.

The new Dodge Dart. Image.

Dudley said...

Hello Puzzlers -

WBS, except that I got lucky and nailed the entourage answer. Oh, and I wasn't sharp enough to question the Brit in that clue.

Visited Steve Irwin's zoo in Beerwah, Queensland, shortly before he died. Still had to strain to remember the name of the show.

Morning, Splynter, and I quite agree that HTML makes life just a bit better.

Dudley said...

Wow, Argyle, that is not your father's Dart.

HeartRx said...

Good morning and Hail to our Lexeme Liberator Leader!!

I immediately filled in CROCODILE HUNTER, because I used to hate that show so much!! But 16 and 17A had to wait for the downs before they appeared to me. I also stared at "Hoppers" for a loooong time. Fortunately it filled in with CASBAH, RETINUES and ORANGES (which I hesitated to fill in at first because it seemed to "easy").

Loved the clue for SUNKEN TREASURE, "Valuable floor coverings?" And I have read "Tuesdays with MORRIE" - great book, and quite a tribute to his college professor, who was dying of ALS. Mitch Albom used the proceeds from the book to pay for all of Morrie's medical expenses.

Did not know TERHUNE or AKER, but again - perps to the rescue!

Beautiful weather coming this weekend to the Northeast. You flying, Dudley?

Yellowrocks said...

I agree with HeartRx, Tuesdays with Morrie was a great book and also a great movie.
I stayed up untill 3:30 this AM finishing my lastest book.

Avg Joe said...

Took one look at the grid and said "This looks like trouble". Lot's of open acreage to fill.
Stayed with it most of the way, but had to resort to Google on the West Coast. Refused to let go of roos and arcs up north and had ers instead of ors down south, so those held things up a lot. Finally finished with a lot of help and felt pretty good about it despite the technical DNF.

Hope you all have a great Saturday. We're freezing corn here, and it's only predicted to hit 104 this afternoon.

Argyle said...

More of "Not your father's Dart".

Travis Pastrana, in his blue/'Red Bull' Dodge Dart, picked up the victory on July 14, 2012, at New Hampshire Motor Speedway in Loudon, N.H. Ralleycross(1:38)

Your father's Dart, drag racing. Clip(0:54).

PK said...

Hope springs eternal! Every Saturday I think I will do the puzzle. I oft GO AWRY! Today was no exception. The crosses on the grid stand like Arlington tomb markers to my dead hopes!

Irish Miss said...

Hi everyone:

This had the same effect on me that Bill G.'s math problems have: a headache and a strong desire to pull some hair out!

Needed help in southwest corner but otherwise just kept slogging through. What on God's good earth is a shea tree?

Tough offering, Bruce V, and good expo, Splynter. I hope tomorrow's challenge is a wee bit kinder to the gray matter!

Happy Sarurday to all.

PK said...

Splynter, thanks for your work and the "Maple Leaf Rag" link. My youngest kid fell in love with that song and tickled the ivories with it until I thought I'd never want to hear it again. But I enjoyed it, ear worm though it will be probably for several days.

kazie said...

This one was pretty much a complete WAG for me, other than TERHUNE and AKER, which I had to look up. On not finding AKER, I was frustrated and came here for the final solution (not Cartesian!)

Lemonade714 said...

Another Saturday that looked bleak with DART and ESTHER all that filled easily; like Splynter I could bring back CROCODILE HUNTER for a while. Anyway, the South opened things up and I worked backwards and had a great time, with many fun clues which you all have mentioned.

I like the message of Morrie, and the man himself was great, but thought the book was not well written at all. That is what makes life interesting.

Enjoy the week end.

desper-otto said...

Good morning, Saturday Soldiers!

It did look daunting, didn't it? But I finished in good time -- not as fast as YR, but in the ballpark.

Learning moments: I had no idea that "cartesian" was related to Descartes. I thought it had to do with maps and graphs. And who knew that SHEA butter comes from a tree? And what's is used for, anyway?

Splynter, Ben-Hur was also a silent movie. Big deal back in '25. TERHUNE came easily. His Lad, A Dog was one of the few "real" books in my bookcase when I was young. I remember being real sad when Lad died.

I knew that Janis was a Texan, but not Scott. I thought he'd been a piano player in a house of ill repute in Missouri. Maybe I'm just getting Joplin (Scott) and Joplin (Missouri) confused...

Hand up for ROOS/BINS, and also LONER/DWEEB. But, it was a fun romp today. Thanks, Bruce.

CrossEyedDave said...

What PK & Irish Miss said...

I got about as far with this puzzle as i did with the one i posted yesterday. ( a litttle help pls?)

Spitzboov said...

Good morning all. Good write-up, Splynter on a tough puzzle.

I, too, was intimidated by the stacked 15 letter acrosses, but a good break to make breakfast, some coffee, and I got the top to fill in rather nicely. Most of the bottom followed except for the SW. Guessed at AKER because it's a place name of some prominence in Oslo. WAGged at TESS and TERHUNE, and TOSSUP coughed up SHEA, a new learning. My first car was a 1960 Dodge DART with the high fins. Had the push-button automatic gearshift on the left side of the dashboard. I thought the clues for CELS and CUTE were quite clever. Good job, as usual, Bruce.

Enjoy the day.

kazie said...

Desperotto,
Shea butter is an ingredient in face creams and moisturizers.

I thought the grid today was particularly striking.

CED,
I have no idea how to tackle the puzzle you posted, but I do know what geo-caching is, and wondered if the diagram that looked like a CW grid was a way to identify and label the separate areas for the search.

Sfingi said...

At first, I saw the shape of the puzzle and the name and said, "Oh no!" I went through and entered what I could. Before entering SUM, I thought, "What conclusion can be drawn about co-ordinates? That all points on a plane can be referenced?" Until I remembered, "Oh, his other stuff - philosophy."

Went to Google. That yielded ANG, HESS, TESS and TERHUNE, but failed looking up keydets and gave me a wrong answer, Alna, for Oslo river.

Then, I began going here and there, letter by letter, until, it's hard to believe, I got it all. Maybe I can get used to Venzke after all.

ESOTERY was ESOTERA, first. About 13 yrs ago, we sold Grampa's junk, which the auctioneer listed as "ephemera." It was mostly paper - posters, magazines, ads, "handbills," etc. And, yes, it included an $8,000 baseball card.

Anonymous said...

CRICKY!!!!! Itsa black Maaaamba--the most daaaangerous snake on the planet............I think I'll poke it with a stick. Too funny!!

HeartRx said...

Spitzboov @ 9:55, look at the color of the + and - in the puzzle grid. Then look at the color of each letter in the grid. Let me know if you need more?

HeartRx said...

Sorry, I meant CrossEyedDave @ 9:31!!

Anonymous said...

FTP'er here.

Whew ! I'm exhausted. 1hr, 51 minutes. Super challenging for me. Had a few "want to's" that just wouldn't fit. eg 14D exotery until EXERCISE appeared in 16A. And 42A, couldn't get typea outta my mind until 37D gave me the O and 38D gave me the A in 42A NOMAD. Aargh ! 53A was also a stumper, because I never saw the simile in 53D. Last fill was 49A and 50D A for SHEA and AKER. Almost had to be a vowel. Good grief. I'm going to have to study this one for awhile, do some google searches, and then read the write up and commentary.

CrossEyedDave said...

Thanks for the Key Marti!
(it still took me about 45 minutes to decipher the dang thing, & its missing a digit that i assume to be a zero)

Who the heck is Archie? I guess i will have to go to the co-ordinates to find out.

Jayce said...

Holy mackerel, what a grid! The five pluses looked very cool but very intimidating. Actually, it was all that white space that was intimidating. Well, if you love long fill and stacks of it, as I do, you'll love this puzzle, as I did.

Took lots and lots of back and forth and up and down to fill it in little by little. Got it all, finally, except for my Natick of SHEA and AKER. Took a guess at filling the "A" but did not know whether it was correct or not until I pulled up good ole Google.

Thank you for a fun 90 minutes of head-scratching pleasure, Mr. Venzke. 'Twas brilliant.

Lucina said...

Hello, Splynter, et alii. Always love your expose, S.

At 5:00 A.M. I sashayed through the south, confidently starting with ESTHER, my TEEN idol, then TETRAS, NOMAD and so forth. Surprised myself to know MAI and filled all the SE then slowed to a crawl as I was looking for an actual floor covering but TOSSUP and ESSENCE corrected that.

Who can forget "cogito ergo sum."

After all that effort I returned to bed and was awakened by two year old granddaughter a 7:30 and finished the top while chasing after her.

LUANDA was a mystery so looked it up and that opened the NW though I tried STATE POLITICIAN first. No go. It all worked out in the end.

Thanks, Bruce, for the fun.

Have a wonderful Saturday, everyone!

Misty said...

I took one look at the grid this morning, with its amazing crosses and grid-spanners and debated whether I should even bother to try. But I got a tiny foothold with ESTHER and TEXAN and TETRAS and then slowly, slowly things began to fill in here and there and everywhere except the SW corner, which stumped me in the end. I goofed (stupidly) by putting ERS instead of ORS, but I never heard of SHEA BUTTER and still don't understand what that is. But I love a Saturday challenge that's largely doable, so thanks, Bruce, and you too, Splynter, for your help.

Have a great weekend, everybody!

Yellowrocks said...

Sorting through my lotions and soaps, I see that some contain SHEA butter, a fat from the seeds(or nuts) of the African shea tree. Shea butter acts as a moisturizer. It is also used in candle making.

HeartRx said...

CED, zero is -
Otherwise, you would be somewhere is Kazakhstan...

Avg Joe said...

74 ears of corn have been picked, shucked, blanched, cut off the cob, bagged and tossed in the freezer today. And I'm happy to report that each and every one was firm and milky. That ends 3 days of harvest. One more should do it.

Dudley said...

Argyle - Crikey, that's no Slant Six in that old Dart!

Marti - been flying all week, actually resting this gorgeous weekend!

Bill G. said...

Avg Joe, I forgot where you are located. I keep hearing about corn crops being poor because of the drought. For some reason, your description of the ears as firm and milky sounds oddly appealing...

Scott Joplin's music is a big favorite of mine. Here is a favorite of mine that's not as well known. It really starts to swing about 2:34. Elite Syncopations

Avg Joe said...

BillG, I live 15 miles SW of Lincoln. Far enough from the city that we're surrounded by farm land, but close enough to commute easily. The reports you hear are true. The dry land corn is nearly dead. Irrigated fields are doing OK, but the pivots are running around the clock trying to keep up.

My sweet corn patch is doing surprisingly well this year, but nearly every drop of water has come from the well not the sky. I've kept my other garden beds green as well but the lawn is a carpet of crunch. Not a pretty year!!

Husker Gary said...

Just back from a short trip for Bruce’s Saturday exercise. The grid itself was daunting to do and certainly to make. Every cell has a resident but I am worried about 2 of them. Let’s see.

Musings
-The grid spanners were very helpful and gettable
-All the LEGISLATORS put prospective bills into a HOPPER
-Favorite jam is rhubarb but I can’t find it unless it is paired with another fruit
-Mom pulled that “We’ll see” stuff on us too
-Oops, S _ E _ butter crossed with Oslo river and kennel founder made for 2 wrong cells. Too embarrassed to tell you what I put. Natick or learning moment(s)? I choose the latter. I even resorted to think of some tree being butted.
-Marti, your perpitude exceeds mine.
-DRAWers and NUMBers always get me for a while
-DILL can take over your garden
-She could be the Titular head of my group, Splynter. Great html on that gal!
-EXITING and left turning traffic at our new middle school is so bad that a traffic light has had to be installed for 7:30 – 8:30am/3:30-4:40pm traffic.
-Trying to get a common JOPLIN link was interesting

Abejo said...

Good afternoon, folks. Thank you, Bruce Venzke, for one tough puzzle. Good one, however. Thank you, Splynter, for the excellent review.

Wow! What a puzzle. Pure Saturday, no doubt!

Bounced around and got some easy ones. ESTHER, LEGUME, DART, TETRAS, DWEEB, MORRIE, etc.

My first long answer was CROCODILE HUNTER. Only I spelled Crocodile with an 'A'. That goofed me up for while.

Was able to get a bunch of the downs up top. Those fixed 16A and 17A. Then I had to go south.

I changed the spelling of MORRIE about five times. I even read the book a few years ago. PEER ASSESSMENTS appeared. I almost put BEER ASSESSMENTS. Oh well.

Anyhow, got it with a lot of trial and error.

Out to the garden for a while.

Abejo

CrossEyedDave said...

Thanks for all your help Marti. I came up with the same answer, but when i went to look, i had a feeling something was wrong when the Co-ords where 3 miles further SW than i thought they should be. I wound up in part of Morristown NJ's Jockey Hollow trail system. I expected to arrive at a burial ground, but after a mile of hiking thru the woods, i wound up at a spot on the trail where it was supposed to be ground zero, but it was a 45 degree climb on the right, & a 60 degree fall on the left! My GPS was telling me to jump left,,, i decided (screw this!) & went home to figure out where i went wrong!

Even Tho, i got to drive thru country roads that were so narrow, i am sure they were made for horse & carriage! ( made me wish i still had my old motorcycle!)

HeartRx said...

CED, bravo for trying, at least! I thought the co-ords would be much further north than NJ, but what do I know? My map points to an area at the NE part of Long Lake in NY, btw Spruce Top and Buck Mountain (Due north btw Syracuse and Albany). Email me with the ones you used, 'cuz I am out of posts!

BTW, DH bought me a GPS tracker two Christmases ago, which I love to use for geo-caching around here. But I don't think I am quite as adventurous as you are!

Lucina said...

CED or Marti:
Exactly what are you looking for when you go GeoCaching?

Yellowrocks said...

CED, welcome to our lovely Morris County, NJ. The trails at Jockey Hollow and Lewis Morris Park are delightful. Did you have time to visit nearby Tempe Wick House, Washington's winter encampment and Morristown National Park? Well worth your while.

Bill G. said...

Lucina, I have been geocaching in the past so maybe I can start an answer for you. You go to a website. People have hidden things, give you some clues and you have to find them. It might just be they give you the latitude and longitude, you enter it into your GPS unit and follow your nose until you get there. Usually, you will be within 15-20 feet or so. The hiding place will often be disguised and hard to see. You may find a little container with a log to leave your name and containing little trinkets. You can take one and leave one of your own. So mostly it's a sophisticated hide-and-seek game played among clever people with GPS trackers.

Avg Joe, Back in Virginia, our house had a dug well. I didn't realize how good the water tasted until I left home. A couple of times I went camping/fishing out in the countryside with my father. Occasionally, we'd stop at a local house to ask for some water for our canteens. Sometimes, they would have well water where the well was located in an area with iron or sulfur deposits in the ground. Geez, that water smelled and tasted bad though the locals were used to it. I'd drink it only when holding my nose.

Bill G. said...

Do you ever lose yourself when you find something fun on YouTube and then you start exploring the other links? Well, that just happened to me. Here's Emmy Lou Harris doing a lesser-known song by Woody Guthrie called Hobo's Lament.

Here's a young woman I'd never heard of before but she sure plays great Boogie Woogie piano. Stephanie Trick. If you like her, you will find lots more links on the right side of the page.

PK said...

One of my problems was putting "adict" for the Joplin commonality. I had a dim memory that they both died of an addiction and at 4 a.m. the wrong spelling didn't even bother me.

AveJoe: boy, do I remember the years of cutting corn off the cob and freezing it. Was sure tasty, though!

They tell me my irrigated corn is still doing well and I expect the price will be good this year. We flood irrigate from the river and I suspect less water is lost to evaporation than with the pivots.

Anonymous said...

Normally I don't even attempt Saturday puzzles, but I knew CROCODILE HUNTER right off the bat, so gave it a try, and kept going, and going.

Got the top half fairly quickly, the bottom half was slower, but I did it!

First Saturday puzzle I have finished in a loooong time!

CrossEyedDave said...

AW CRAP, I JUST TYPED A NOVEL TO LUCINA & MARTI, but Google thinks i don't exist. (I guess it's just how my day has been going!)

Lucina said...

Thank you, Bill G. That's really interesting.

And thank you, CED, for whatever you meant to say.