google.com, pub-2774194725043577, DIRECT, f08c47fec0942fa0 L.A.Times Crossword Corner: Friday July 16, 2010 Joon Pahk

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Jul 16, 2010

Friday July 16, 2010 Joon Pahk

Theme: ZZ Top - ZZ is inserted to familiar two-word phrases, changing mostly long vowel sounds into short vowel sounds.

17A. Amaze a racing legend? : DA(ZZ)LE EARNHARDT. The base phrase is Dale Earnhardt, the racing legend.

26A. Simple but exciting abode? : PIZZA(ZZ) HUT. Pizza Hut. Pizzazz is also spelled as pizazz. No long vowel to short vowel sound change in this one. What is the English word with the most Zs?

48A. Headgear delayed in shipment? : LATE FE(ZZ)ES. Late Fees. Did not know the plural for fez is fezzes. The only theme answer ZZ is added to the second word.

61A. Furniture design flop? : FI(ZZ)LING CABINET. Filing Cabinet.

Total 11 Zs. The record is 18. Low black square count too. Only 33.

Must be a bear to construct this puzzle. Hard to come up with common Z containing words to conveniently intersect those Zs in the theme answers, esp when Z is the second letter in a word. AZIZ (23D: Saddam Hussein adviser Tariq) the "Who?" dude just has to be there. No other good alternative. It's easier when the slot has a *ZE ending pattern, like 3D & 41D.

Additionally, the constructor tried to be original & tricky in his clues, hence quite a few unfamiliar references. Just a slog for me.

Puns are always subjective, don't you think? What tickles one might not work for another. Even good puns can be painful.

Across:

1. Place to get clean? : REHAB. Clean the bad addiction.

6. Dip : SWIM

10. Grade-schooler's reward : STAR

14. Roasted, on Mexican menus : ASADA. As in Carne Asada (roasted meat).

15. Animal in two constellations : URSA. Bear. Ursa Major & Ursa Minor (constellation).

16. "Hiya, José" : HOLA

20. Seek retribution, in a way : SUE

21. Prefix with meter : ALTI. Altimeter is an instrument used to measure the altitude of an object above a fixed level. New word to me.

22. Unchallenging courses : EASY AS. Learned Easy A courses from doing Xword.

23. "I ain't got no quarrel with the Viet Cong" speaker : ALI. Not aware of this quote.

24. A goner, in slang : TOAST

30. On the road : AWAY

34. When Macbeth kills Duncan : ACT II. Had ACT?? there forever.

35. Blender brand : OSTER. We also have T-FAL (53D. Maker of nonstick cookware). Two kitchen appliance brands.

37. Knock out, so to speak : AWE

38. Brainchild? : WHIZ KID. Was in the "idea" line of thinking.

40. Iris parts : AREOLAS. Was only familiar with the nipple ring definition.

42. Time Warner spin-off of 2009 : AOL. Did its stock price rise after the spin-off?

43. America's most wanted? : A LIST. Playing on the TV show "America's Most Wanted".

45. Yvette's "our" : NOTRE. As in Notre Dame.

46. "__ chic!" : TRES. Two French in a row.

50. Draw out : EDUCE

52. "Maa" ma : EWE. Nice clue.

53. Basic religious tenet : THEISM

56. Silents star Naldi : NITA. Can never remember this lady's name.

58. Four-song discs, briefly : EPS. EP = Extended Play. Got me.

64. Toward shelter : ALEE

65. Stooge chuckle : NYUK. Curly's chuckle: Nyuk, Nyuk, Nyuk.

66. Off one's trolley : LOOPY. "Off one's trolley" is a new idiom to me.

67. House member : LORD. House of Lord. British Parliament. Stumped.

68. Choosing word : EENY. "Eeny, meeny, miny, moe". Mystery for me.

69. Newark's county : ESSEX. No idea. Only knew the Essex in England. Not NJ.

Down:

1. Angular measures: Abbr. : RADS. Radians. See this diagram.

2. Twin in the Torah : ESAU. Jacob's twin. Was picturing the animals in Noah's Ark.

3. Skyline obscurer : HAZE

4. Tool whose blade is at right angles to the shaft : ADZ. Know the word. But the clue stymied me.

5. Russian instrument with a triangular body : BALALAIKA. A complete stranger.

6. Bird feeder filler : SUET. Really? My neighbors use millet.

7. Ghostly figures : WRAITHS

8. Knesset's land: Abbr. : ISR. And EZER (55. Weizman of 8-Down), whose name escaped me again.

9. Femme fatale : MAN EATER. Another new slang to me.

10. View from Weed, California : SHASTA. Mount Shasta. I've never heard of Weed. It's 10 miles west-northwest of Mount Shasta.

11. Labourite's opponent : TORY. The British Conservative party. Labourite is a person who supports the Labour Party. Another new word to me.

12. Robert of Broadway's "Guys and Dolls" : ALDA. No idea. He's the father of Alan Alda.

13. "Phooey!" : RATS

18. Daughter of Henry VIII: Abbr. : ELIZ. OK, Elizabeth I, daughter of Anne Boleyn.

19. Is down with : HAS. I don't get this clue.

25. Defeated in an annual Nathan's contest : OUT ATE. Know the repulsive hot dog contest, not the venue.

26. Grab for roughly : PAW AT

27. Blood of the gods : ICHOR. Learned from doing Xword also.

28. Scrabble 10-pointer: Z TILE. Could be an alternative theme title, no?

29. 12-sign system : ZODIAC

31. Minute piece? : WALTZ. Chopin's "Minute Waltz".

32. Not ignorant : AWARE

33. Sycophants' replies : YESES

36. Like wind energy : RENEWABLE. Terrific answer.

39. Shed light on : ILLUMINE. Only know illuminate.

41. Slow mover : OOZE. And ICKY (57. Like 41-Down, perhaps).

44. Simply designed British firearm : STEN GUN. We seen STEN often.

47. Appropriated : SEIZED

49. Crumbly cheese : FETA

51. Broadband option: Abbr. : DSL

54. Big Island city : HILO (Hee-loh)

58. Chimp in the Mercury program : ENOS. I forgot.

59. Skunk Le Pew : PEPE. Pepe Le Pew.

60. Charon's river : STYX. The Hades river. Charon is the ferryman.

62. Emmy-winning scientist : NYE. Bill Nye the Science Guy.

63. Cyclades island : IOS. Another stumper. Homer is said to be buried on this island.

Answer grid.

Here is Part VI of Kazie's Oz series. Day 2 on their Kakadu tour. That resting place under the rock looks dangerous, doesn't it? Click here to see all the pictures from her Oz trip.

C.C.

65 comments:

Dennis said...

Good morning, C.C. and gang - a tough, tough puzzle for me today; lots and lots of lookups. I had a difficult time finding traction anywhere, but finally got a toehold in the center East. The first theme answer I got was 'Late fezzes', which gave me the help I needed for the rest of them.
I'll always remember Tariq Aziz for declaring the American troops had been routed, when they were actually within shouting distance of him. C.C., Ali made that comment when he refused the draft; he was stripped of his title and his boxing license and didn't fight again for four years, but never went to jail.

Some pretty obscure clues in this one, for me anyway, led by 'Balalaika'. Quite a challenge. Off to the gym to clear my head.

Today is International Juggling Day.

Did you know:

- Apropos of yesterday's conversation, as much as fifty gallons of maple sap are used to make a single gallon of maple sugar.

- The first toilet ever seen on television was on Leave It to Beaver.

- Jeans were named after Genoa, Italy, where the first denim cloth was made.

fermatprime said...

Hi CC!
"He came down with the mumps today" or "he has the mumps"

Happy weekend all!

Puzzle took longer than usual to do. Perhaps because we are roasting here in the San Fernando Valley!

Clever work Joon! Loved the ZZs

Hahtoolah said...

Good Morning, CC and all.

This was quite a challenge for me. Although all the Zs popped out at me, even after I finished the puzzle, I didn't catch on to the theme. I couldn't quite tease out the familiar phrases.

I originally had Seed instead of SUET for Bird-Feeder fill.

I thought the word Goner was already slang, but after filling in the final T, I realized the word was TOAST.

Does one grow Weed in Weed, California?

The only word I didn't know was ICHOR.

Mu favorite clue was the Minute WALTZ.

I apologize for my long post last night. And, Lucina, I can't claim authorship. It came to me uncredited.

Today's QOD is from 55D: Give it a kick at the right place and it'll work. ~ Ezer Weizman

Lemonade714 said...

What a fun puzzle from JOON PAHK, who we saw back in December PUZZLE , and who was mentioned as a favorite by both Brad Wilber and Gareth Bain in their interviews with C. C.

Using the ultimate scrabbly ZZ (not to be confused with the sleeping comic book Z’s) as the add in letters, was very impressive. It also had a little of many things, French, Spanish, Latin and very few proper names.

Any puzzle that uses AREOLAS as fill, certainly will get some comments.

Also fun was the mention of IOS, one of the Cyclades island group. IOS is not far from NAXOS, which is where my son Aaron stayed when he was involved in a dig on KEROS one of the KOUFANISIA ; my other son, the musical one, has played a BALALAIKA, and reprised ROBERT ALDA’s role in the high school production of Guys ‘n Dolls; so it really helps to have children to keep you learning new things.

Joon is also an active participant on other blogs, so maybe he will visit us today.

Enjoy all

Argyle said...

Hahtool, pretty clever, slippng in the Chopin Minute Waltz played by Tzvi Erez.

Hahtoolah said...

Argyle: Good eye. I wondered if anyone would notice!

Anonymous said...

This one is real puZZle.

Barry G. said...

Morning all!

Definitely a challenge today. I enjoyed the theme and loved all the scrabbly Zs. I wasn't quite as enamored with the non-theme fill and clues, however. ELIZ, in particular, stood out like a sore thumb. I mean, sure, you could certainly abbreviate Elizabeth as ELIZ, but does anybody actually do that?

Overall, though, a fun solving experience and not an unenjoyable slog like some challenging puzzles turn out to be.

Spitzboov said...

Good morning C. C. and all.

A Bravo Zulu to Joon for all the ZZ's. A fun puzzle for a Friday. No lookups needed; perps helped with unknowns like IOS and ASADA. WAGs included STENGUN and SHASTA, Thought WALTZ and REHAB were clever. URSA was a virtual gimme. After finally getting MANEATER (I wonder if she was Zaftig), SWIM was the last to fall; as WRAITHS was an unknown.

Stay cool.

Anonymous said...

Good morning C.C. and everyone.
What a puzzzzle!!Even ASPIRIN can get a headache on this one.I can't seem to get a traction anywhere, bouncing from one corner to another, filling in answers that I know, then googled a couple of times, guessed here and there and then the perps came into play. Very challenging but a satisfying solve in th end.

So to amuse myself, I made up a story about ALDA, A LAD who plays the instrument BALALAIKA and calls himself AKILA BAAL.He is an ARTS STAR looking for AREOLAS to LOSE LARA. He found NITA who AIN'T nobody but an A LIST who TAILS only
LORD ALI in every LIL' ROAD he goes
Then came SUE who likes to USE his instrument. She's a SWIM STAR,a.k.a
MISS WART to some for a reason nobody knows. Known also as a MAN EATER, at one point she RAN A MEET to EARN MEAT. In his SPO mind, he remembered yerterday's puzzle that in MAIN STREETS, you can RENT A_ _
TIME( fill in the miSSing letters).
So he SEIZED the oppurtunity to DESIZE his STEN GUN and made a SNUG NET, then he invited her to EAT OUT( at PIZZA HUT?) but he never OUT ATE her.

ACT II to follow

AUGUST

Anonymous said...

Friday is always, always difficult ... oh well...oye, oye.

Friday's child is full of woe ...

Is Joon Pahk a Korean name ? ... just curious ...

CC, Altimeter should be familiar if you read flying or airplane novels. Pilots always looking at the bank of altimeters ( I guess there must be more than one at a time ...).


I got 'ALI' ... but I thought it was Ali McGraw ( Love story ) ... who might have said such a thing in the spirit of Jane Fonda . an early Viet Nam protester. Thanks for correcting my misconception... now, I know for sure.

I think AOL was spun off because it was a total drain on the parent company ... they had paid too much for it in the first place ...AOL tanked with the rest of the dot com collapse.

Tried to fit in 'Chaim' Weizmann ... first Pres of Isr. ... famous British chemist,...acetone manuf. Cordite explosive etc.early Zionist, a cofounder of Hebrew Univ etc.

Well, it didn't fit ... one letter too many in the first and last name ( has an extra 'n' ).

.... Uncle of Ezer ... 7th Pres ?... General, Isr Air force.

Have a great weekend, y'all.

Anonymous said...

ACT II

Remember LARA? Yes. She's the one hidden in AREOLAS. She's back and our STAR can oly say RATS! He tried to EDUCE a DEUCE but not as easy. His FATE is now like a FETA cheese." I wish you were DALE EARNHARDT; he HAD LEARNED ART too you know. No LATE FEES with him; i
FEEL SATE all the time. I'm leaving you now my BILTING FIANCE...your FILING CABINET is now empty but what I leave you IS
WRATH from the WRAITHS of my decendants," her words. But for our hero WRATH IS just a _HIT WAR(fill in the miSsing letter) between SEXES in ESSEX. YEs, they're from England.

So that's the story of ALDA, A LAD who craved for more ASADA..AA..SAD. He's now in REHAB,
weakened like a HEBRA, ready to snap. Alone in his room, he dreams to become like ENOS so that for EONS he'll be remembered. He SAT TO
make a TOAST to himself, raised a glass of wine and said " TO THE WOUND THAT NEVER HEALS"

Then someone stepped in......
Nurse RACHET?( HELLO, BUCKEYE!).
And that's another story.

Have a good day everyone.

August

Fred O said...

eeny, meeny miny, mo

(In the South--in the days of signs that read (for whites only, etc)

This was a common "procedure" to determine who is "out" among a group of kids. The kids would extend their two fists in front of them. Then a separate kid would lightly pat the fists in a row to this jingle--"Eeny, meeny, miny, moe, catch a nigger by the toe. If he hollers, make him pay fifty dollars every day. One, two, three out goes he." (The fist that received the "he" pat was out of the next round. This kept up until only one fist was left. The one left was the winner.(The nigger word started disappearing in the late 1950's or so.)

kazie said...

This one toasted me good and proper! I had more than half empty before coming here for the theme answers, all of which were a mystery to me. Then I was able to do a few more, but ceased resisting and just got the rest from the blog. There were so many trivia things I was totally ignorant of. Never heard of Earnhardt or Nathan.

I too started with SEED for SUET--URSA fixed that. But there were 16 clues that would have needed g'ing, and I just don't have the time to spend doing that today.

Slang gets me. I used to think it was an Oz thing, but now I think it's generational. A lot comes from TV, and I can't stand many of the programs aimed at teens, and much of the humor seems sophomoric on TV anyway, so I watch only a few shows that don't indulge so much in slang.

Anonymous said...

Now the choosing rhyme goes ...

Eenie, meenie, Myna, Moe,
Catch a tiger by his toe,
If he cries, let him go,
Eenie, Meenie, Mina, Moe.

The Duitch kids also had a similar rhyme ... it went ...

Eena, Meena, Deeka
Dia dama neeka ...
Chika, Pika, Rika (?)
Cheerum, pum po ...

I forget the rest....

Anonymous said...

C.C. - I love to read your comments and often rely on your solutions or a Google look-up. But was surprised that altimeter was a new word to you. Where have you been in the aviation age? Also used re mountain climbing, etc.

It was a hard puzzle today, but the end of the week is always challenging.

John Lampkin said...

Good morning C.C. and solvers around the world,

Some of you may not know that the constructor Joon Pahk is also a champion solver, winner of the B division of the Crosswords Tournament in Brooklyn this past spring. He sometimes posts his solving times for puzzles on the blog, and they always appear to be ridiculously fast, to the point that I was sure he was fudging a bit. And then I saw him in action at the tourney. Wow! You have to see it to believe it. Congrats to Joon for that and for todays fine offering.

From a construction standpoint this is a tough theme to work with because his choices are nearly exhaustive. There is MUZZLE TEAM, Iditarod racers? Are there more?

So we all agree then that Z is a fun letter. It looks funny, sounds funny, and is worth 10 points in Scrabble. Go Z! Double go ZZ!

Bob said...

Not too hard for a Friday. 21 minutes. Tariq Aziz was in the news this week, an inmate in one of the Iraqi prisons just handed over to Iraqi authorities.

Anonymous said...

Good afternoon everyone.

Didn't even try today's puzzle. Yesterday's was hard enough. Thank heavens for this blog!

Kazie, your pictures are beautiful and inspiring. I especially liked the rock art, which is a subject that has always interested me. Saw some in a Spanish cave. Fascinating. Melissa B's write-up on Wednesday was great, as always.

And I enjoyed Gunghi's pictures of the SW too, having lived in New Mexico and traveled through Arizona.

Cheers

daffy dill said...

OUCH!!! My brain is bent! I was TOAST from the beginning. Took almost an hour with no interruptions.

I caught onto the 'ZZ' theme quickly, but things went downhill after that. Lots of visits to "Dr. G" and some red letter help.

Got off on the wrong foot by entering "detox" when it should have been REHAB. I thought that perhaps a "Russian instrument" could start with an 'X.' I completely forgot the name of the chimp in 58D. Not a Stooge fan, so I didn't know NYUK. I did know the ALI quote, though.

I'm glad hubby made really strong coffee this morning!

Dudley said...

Hello Puzzlers - I had better luck with this one, went through it smoothly except for the SW, and that was at midnight after a gin & tonic! Clever theme, and I'll bet it was a slog to construct.

Sticky spots: EDUCE, THEISM, ILLUMINE.

BALALAIKAs were made famous in Dr. Zhivago - think Lara's Theme, for example. A schoolmate built one from a kit, while I built a dulcimer. (Neither instrument turned out well)

RADS (radians) are well known to engineering students. My first TI scientific calculator had a D-R-G switch to select the type of angular calculation to be made, degrees, radians, or grads.

ALTImeter was a gimme, of course. I hold an FAA license to test & recertify them. I spent much of yesterday in a HOT hangar doing just that.

I don't give a rolling doughnut about NASCAR, but I did some video work at the Daytona 500 once. DALE EARNHARDT won it that year. I wouldn't have known him otherwise.

A neighbor has recent video of a large bear escaping through her yard. It turns out a nearby bird feeder was filled with SUET, which attracts bears even better than plain seed. We never put out suet in the summer.

G'Day All!

Anonymous said...

@August, LOL, you outdid yourself.

Mary

Tinbeni said...

C.C. Very informative write-up.

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZ ... I should have stayed in bed. Geezzzzz !!!

Started with 1a & 1d being Detox and Degs. (degrees). Boy did that take a long time to fix.

DaZZle Earnhardt got me the theme, confirmed by the Late FeZZes. Nice punz.

Had ACT I_ for the longest time. Finally looked up BALALAIKA for the spelling.

Like Hahtool, I wanted Seed for the Bird feeder. But those bears, URSA, changed that.

Like Anon 9:30, tried to fit Chaim Weizman, ISR 1st Pres. into 55d.

The solve came like a slow OOZE.

Any puZZle with the 3 Stooge phrase, NYUK and AREOLAS is acceptable to me.

Good job JOON!
I'll TOAST you at sunset.

I see the toady/sycophant is saying YESES again today.

kazie said...

Another stumble for me was having TREE for HAZE and then was sure the end of 1A was TUB, but had no way to get the first part. Living in a rural area ever since smog became an issue, HAZE didn't occur to me. Doesn't haze obscure more than just the skyLINE?

Anonymous said...

@John Lampkin or Jerome - Is today's puzzle a pun theme as CC and Tinbeni commented?

Warren said...

Hi C.C. & gang, a rough puzzzzle for Friday.

I had to find out the name origin for Weed CA

"The town of Weed gets its name from the founder of the local lumber mill and pioneer Abner Weed, who discovered that the area's strong winds were helpful in drying lumber. In 1897, Abner Weed bought the Siskiyou Lumber and Mercantile Mill and 280 acres (110 ha) of land in what is now the City of Weed, for the sum of $400.[2] By the 1940s Weed boasted the world's largest sawmill."

This reminds me of the Fremont Older open space where 'Older' was the guy's last name.

Argyle said...

Is today's puzzle a pun theme?

I wasn't asked but I'd say no. Dare Earnhardt might be a pun or Pizza Slut(what I called them after they screwed up my order and wouldn't make good on it.)

Com'on punsters, I know you're out there and can do better I.

Lucina said...

Good day, puzzlers!

What a fun puZZle today!

I was on Joon Pahk's wave length with BALALAIKA which, as Dudley mentioned was made famous in Dr. Zhivago. I have loved the sound ever since then.

ASADA, HOLA, and URSA gave me a firm toehold and the top filled quickly. I chuckled with the first theme fill, DAZZLEEARNHARDT though wasn't exactly sure about the spelling of "-hardt" but ALDA, TORY, RATS, SHASTA helped.

All other ZZs were just fun. Tarik AZIZ is memorable from the news back when Saddam was alive and I glommed onto it because I like the sound of Tarik Aziz.

ICHOR was new to me, too.

And how often does one get to use WRAITHS? A great word! EZER was a good guess because of, what else, the Z!

I really liked this and had a great time for thirty minutes and beyond while looking it over.

Dennis:
You post some really interesting factoids. Thanks.

Hahtool:
Wherever that dialogue came from, it's rich. Thank you for posting it.

August:
Funny stuff!

Kazie:
More brilliant photos. The color is suberb.

Have a fantastikc Friday everyone.

John Lampkin said...

Anon at 11:48 asked if today's theme is a pun theme.

Here is one online definition of "pun:"
n. A play on words, sometimes on different senses of the same word and sometimes on the similar sense or sound of different words.

Think of puns as "sound-alikes" in one form or another. PIZZAZZ hut doesn't sound at all like PIZZA HUT.

So the answer is no. Today's theme is of the "add two letters to a common phrase" type. Because ZZs make for an extremely tight constraint, the resulting phrases don't have to be related. In other words, if you look at the four theme entries, you will see that they have nothing in common other than the linguistic gimmick of an added double ZZ. That's OK.

For add-a-letter puzzles where there are dozens or hundreds of results to choose from, an editor will want to see the theme entries all related in some other way. That narrows the focus and makes for a more interesting set. Coincidentally, I have two Sundays in the queue that are of this type.

Bottom line is that most daily puzzles except for some Mondays involve wordplay, but "wordplay" is not synonymous with "pun." A pun is simply one type of wordplay, as are anagrams, which seem to be sprouting around here like mushrooms!

Jerome said...

This puzzle has an 'add a letter theme'. In this case, two letters. The result is wacky phrases and not really puns. A pun is mostly wordplay where a particular word, or words, have their meaning altered to create a humorous phrase, but the word itself hasn't been altered.

FIZZLING CABINET- Alter FILING by adding two Z's creates a wacky phrase, not a pun.

FILING CABINET clued as "President's advisors doing their nails" would be a pun. Though a bad one.

Jerome said...

John- You're right about wordplay. I used it in a bit of a different context. I think were saying the same thing however.

Anonymous said...

john lampkin. yeah. just like some of amy's sub three minutes solves.
she is also a first rate solver.

i'm about 2.5X slower.

Tinbeni said...

John Lampkin said:
"Here is one online definition of "pun:"
n. A play on words, sometimes on different senses of the same word and sometimes on the similar sense or sound of different words.

Think of puns as "sound-alikes" in one form or another."

Hey guys, I did NOT say they were PUNS.

I did say, PUNZ ... which I do believe is the definition you gave.

As to what is this puZZle.
Obviously it is "add two Z's, create wacky phrase. Whoop-de-doo!

Al said...

It's amazing what can be done with only three strings on a balalaika. Here he's just showing off.

Joon said...

thanks, all. in response to a few random comments, in no particular order:

1. yep, korean name. i was born in seoul but moved to the states when i was 1. i like to say that english is my second and only language.

2. it really is very nearly exhaustive. i started kicking about DALE->DAZZLE, and then a few other names PIA->PIZZA and JAY->JAZZY, but i couldn't come up with enough (and the right lengths) for an entire theme of names. then i realized that PIZZA could take another ZZ to become PIZZAZZ and that was that. i've never been able to resist PIZZAZZ in any form.

3. BALALAIKA is another wonderful word. i don't remember whether i learned it first from "back in the USSR" or from reading 19th-century russian novels in translation (an old hobby of mine). it seems to have given a lot of people trouble today, though.

4. my definition of "pun theme" is pretty much like john lampkin's: they involve sound-alikes. more broadly, the insert-letters theme is what people seem to call a wordplay theme, although i'm not really sure why. aren't all themes wordplay? anyway, it seems to mean "take a bunch of not-necessarily-related base phrases and apply the same transformation to each of them to get phrases with wacky surface sense; then clue the surface sense."

Dennis said...

Joon, John & Jerome (sounds like a 60s rock group), thanks for all the great input. We all learn a great deal from your explanations. Good of you all to check in here; means a lot.

gGerry said...

Trudging incremental progress today, finally a miracle, finished. Guess I didn't get enough ZZZZs last night.

Now that Cleveland has lost its 'Big Z' (Zydrunas Ilgauskas), its DAZZLE has FIZZLED putting the Cavs into REHAB.

Started with almost nothin'!-- which was rife with mis-fills:

1d 'degs' (which stalled Earhardt's startup);
15a 'bear', then -after 8d 'Isr' conflicted- the 'bear' evolved into 'fish' (guess I just couldn't stop translating out of Latin);
4d 'hoe' which (like overgrown weeds in a garden) blocked so much for so long -- couldn't believe "...HB" would fill ...4a, so no music for my balalaika;
28d: tried spelling out 'queue' which caused troubles forever, until finally I let AOL give Q the boot (this being the key that unlocked 'pizzazzhut' [even though most huts don't have keys --sorry]);
21a: 'kilo'meter;
48a: 'latefedora'.

I'm amazed that after I pawed at this enough the haze finally lifted, the whole puzzle illumined. It left me feeling like I'm toast and (obviously) tres loopy.

gGerry said...

As a KID, I knew a song "Tumbalala tumbalala tum balalaika". Today 'balalaika' gave 'kid', but I was not 'whiz' enough to find the start of 38a!

Living in the Appalachians near the Mason-Dixon line, there's no way to miss 'Earnhardt', as a high percentage of vehicles have a decal "in memory of Dale" or his number "3".

Dennis & Bob, I guess Tariq AZIZ was SEIZED (note 23d immediately above 47d). I also liked 19a 'hard' directly over 22a 'easy'.

After 'latefedora' & later 'fizzlingcabinet', I went looking for a theme: Reisling cabinet? no way.

Progress flowed when 'Earnhardt' & 'swim' gave 'maneater' & 'wraiths', which gave 'hut' which (after AOL won over Q) gave 'pizzazz' which gave the theme which corrected 'fedora' and gave 'dazzle', multiplying my 'degs' by pi divided by 180. (Let your eyes scroll from 22a around to 26a (skipping the intervening line) and this bit of math is as "EASY AS PI"!

Thought maybe the real LBJ said what Ali did. Got 46a 'tres' tout suite, but kept coming up short with 'nous' instead of 'noTre' (the T being last letter of the puzzle to fall). Hurrah!

Zhouqin (C.C.) Burnikel said...

Argyle, John, Jerome & Joon,
Thanks for correcting my error. I've had this long-rooted misconception that letter(s) addition/deletion/substitution all fall under the category of pun.

John,
I was indeed looking for a second tie-in among Joon's theme answers, beyond the ZZ insertion. Hence the long vowel to short vowel sound comment. Thanks for explaining that ZZ themselves make for an extremely tight constraint.

Zhouqin (C.C.) Burnikel said...

Jerome,
Twice in our blog you talked about "Awesome Blossom" . What does it evoke beside the rhyme? Sounds like a Chinese style "Mayflower Madam". Really.

Dodo,
Here are some pictures I took when we were at Twins' game.

Annette said...

I haven't even had a chance to see who today's Constructor was until now because I've been "Juggling" all day.

Before I find another block of time to work on the puzzle, I wanted to share something I saw in our newspaper the other day that I think C.C. and a few others may be interested in - Baseball Cruises

Chickie said...

Hello All--My puzzle solving today was burnt toast and I had to come to the Blog to finish up.

What I did have in place was almost all correct(much to my amazement), but I just couldn't get the second part of the Z words. I'm not a racing fan, so Earnhardt didn't come to me, and I had put in Fizzle instead of Fizzling, so that area was not doable to the finish.

Joon, a real puzzler today for me. But thank you for coming to the Blog to give your insight into your construction. It is always instructional and I have learned something to tuck away into my fried brain.

August, Act I was great and Act II even better. They gave me a real chuckle.

Jerome said...

C.C.- Awesome Blossom is simply my own made-up phrase for someone I think is pretty damn cool.

gGerry said...

Folks, sorry about the double post. I'll try to keep them shorter too.

Jayce said...

Hi everybody. Mixed feelings about the puzzle today: on one hand it was kind of a slog, but on the other hand the pleasure of realizing the cleverness finally did wrap me up.

Interestingly, BALALAIKA was gimme for me, I don't know why. I've heard balalaika music and for some reason always associate it with Russian music.

Other entries that I filled right off the bat were AZIZ, HOLA, ASADA, OSTER, and SHASTA, to list a few.

ADZ fooled me, because I am so used to seeing it spelled ADZE, and even though I wanted HOE the D in ASADA wouldn't allow it.

I really liked the double ZZ concept. The first one I finally got was LATE FEZZES and then all I had to do was to ficure out where to put ZZ in the other fills. I got fooled by PIZZA, however, because I thought the two Zs wre the ones that were added, and that I'd see the underlying phrase if I took them out. But PIA simply didn't trigger any little grey cells. Took me a long tie to realize the two Zs had yet to be added, and then PIZZAZZ educed sighs of appreciation from me.

Interesting how our thought processes work.

Unknowns to me, or perhaps ones that were long forgotten, are EZER, ICHOR, ENOS and ESSEX.

We used to put suet out in our birdfeeders during the winter, and the birds loved it. I guess the fat helped them get throught the severe winters. My mom even made suet pudding a few times, and believe it or not it's actually not bad. Haven't had it since I was a kid. Amazing what people will make puddings out of!

Favorites that elicited admiration and chuckles include WALTZ, WHIZKID, and TOAST.

I always like longer fills, and WRAITHS, RENEWABLE, ZODIAC, AREOLAS, and the aforementioned BALALAIKA educed oodles of awe from me. (Wasn't as enchanted with ILLUMINE, though.)

Is there an English word with more Zs than pizzazz?

As long-time owners of (very modest amounts of) Time-Warner stock, my wife and I were appalled that their management swallowed Steve Case's AOL. they even changed their stock symbol to AOL! We were so glad they finally dumped it. I have no idea if AOL stock is even still traded or not.

By the way, the view of Mt. Shasta from Weed is awe-educing. The mountain looks so different from "the other side."

Best wishes to you all.

Jayce said...

Dang, my comment posted three times. I deleted two of them. Sorry. I wonder if it's because it was too long. When I have shorter comments this problem does not occur.

kazie said...

Posting must be going slow for some people today with several triple posts.

I guess BALALAIKA was one that I found easy today too. like Jayce, I have also always associated it with Russian music.

C.C.,
Really nice photos of you and Boomer at the Twins game. Nothing wrong with the vibrancy of those colors either!

I've had my head down and my bum up (old family expression) yesterday and today, trying to make headway on the August newsletter I have to get out. But the days pass by and it seems at the end very little has been achieved. Part of the reason I didn't want to linger too long over the XW today.

Jazzbumpa said...

Hi Gang -

No EASY A'S - Tough go today, but well worth the effort. Even teazzing out the theme was a challenge.

Mis-spelt EARNHARDT, so didn't get HAS, which I still didn't get until I saw fermatprime's explaination. Now I'm down with it!

We're Grandaughter sitting to
day, and I'm on Amanda's very unfamialr laptop, so I'm stumbling around here too. She's at ABT, the younger girls are watching Hannah Montana, dad's at work, and mom is out of town. Later we're going for PIZZA.

Not sure if I'll come up blue.

Great to hear from the 3 J's!

Lot's of fun and clever comments and more brilliant anagrams again today. It's been quite the week here.

IMBO, so Cheers!
JzB who is no WHIZ KID

Spitzboov said...

This doesn't have a whole lot to do with anything.

You know that I'm not usually a sentimental type but I thought you might like this story about a husband wife relationship in the Military.

Please see Husband and Wife hooking up.

Dennis said...

Spitzboov, how cool is that? Great story - thanks for the link.

Clear Ayes said...

Good Afternoon All, Another fun Friday puzzle. Joon Pahk got a terrific one for us.

Sorry (I'm sure sorry, at least!) to let you know that the Clear Ayes family has some personal issues that we have to get settled, so I won't be checking in for a while. Once the "stuff" is taken care of, I be back with more poems and irrelevant comments. Here's one poem for the road and good advice for everybody.

A Psychological Tip

Whenever you're called on to make up your mind,
and you're hampered by not having any,
the best way to solve the dilemma, you'll find,
is simply by spinning a penny.

No - not so that chance shall decide the affair
while you're passively standing there moping;
but the moment the penny is up in the air,
you suddenly know what you're hoping

- Piet Hein

To take a line from my oft-absent brother Buckeye, IMBO

Argyle said...

Here is a nice visual to go with Spitzboov's story.

Warren said...

Hi C.C.

Re: Awesome Blossom?


The Outback Steakhouse has something similar they call a 'Blooming Onion', we tried it with a group once and liked it.

"When it existed, the similar style Awesome Blossom at Chili's was ranked "Worst Appetizer in America" by Men's Health Magazine in 2008 for the unusually high totals of calories and fat, with 2,710 calories, 203 grams (1,827 calories) of fat, 194 grams of carbohydrates, and 6,360 milligrams of sodium, with as much fat as 67 strips of bacon. "

JD said...

Hi all,

First of all, I'd like to say that this blog rocks! Joon, John and Jerome, we all appreciate when you drop in and explain Wordplay Wonders to us.

Unfortunately, I fizzled out on this one. 20% gimmes, and no computer for HELP.So thanks C.C. for helping me finish.
gGerry, loved your excuse! MAY I borrow it?

August, excellent wordplay! That would have taken me F O R E V E R to write just a couple of those.

Spitzboov, your story made me teary, and Argyle, your visual was like icing on the cake.

C.C., thanks for sharing your pictures of you and Boomer.Such a great smile!!

To get out of the heat, we went to see Inception this afternoon.I really had to focus to keep up with what was going on. It was confusing at first with the opening being a dream sequence.The special effects were great, and, as always,DiCaprio was a winner.

Bill G. said...

Spitzboov, I really enjoyed your story. Thanks.

CA, good luck with the personal family issues. I hope things work out well.

I enjoyed the recent photographs of Kazie's trip and the motorcycle trip. I noticed that they were good photographs of scenery and objects mostly with few people in the pictures. I like to take pictures of scenery too. Interesting, when I see Japanese visitors in scenic places and they want to take a photo of the Manhattan Beach pier or some other scenic shot, they always have a person in the foreground. Is that a cultural thing do you suppose?

Anonymous said...

Hello all you puZZle solvers,

Happy Juggling Day! I actually juggle a heck of a lot better than I solve crossword puZZles today. I guess I'm still not back in the swing of things yet.

I wanted haze to be smog, and I had thinker for whiz kid. I never heard of a Balalaika (thank you for the links Al-truly amazing). I had soak for swim, and could not figure out how the second Z in feZZes was going to work with a word ending in tZ.

I am toast! Tomorrow is another day, but it is Saturday...AARGH!

Dudley said...

Spitzboov - A lovely story, thanks! I have no military background (Why? I have always had poor eyes) but as a civilian aviator I have boundless respect for my brothers-in-arms-and-feathers.

CA: Wishing you well. I know a thing or two about family matters, having experienced a broad sampling. May the Force be with you!

Annette said...

Is this worth 20 points?

FRI(ZZ)ED HAIR: Flat iron subject?

:-)

Anonymous said...

Good night all.

Clear Ayes, sending good thoughts your way.

Spitzboov, great story.

Cheers

Dennis said...

CA, best wishes, and positive thoughts for you for whatever's in your way now. Nobody's better equipped to handle problems than you.

dodo said...

Hi, there, cohorts,

This was not a puzzle I want to talk much about! Plenty of zzs. But thanks, Joon. Maybe I'll do better next time! Also thank you to Jerome and John. We're so lucky to be in such an 'in' group!

ClearAyes, I wish you well and look forward to your return.

Kazie, what fabulous pictures! You are a many-talented lady. What newsletter is it that you write?


Thank you, C.C., for the pix of you and Boomer! I love that one of you: your baseball enthusiasm really shows!

Jazzbumpa, what a sweet story! What a handsome couple, too! You are too a romantic!

Jayce, 'balalaika' was a gimme for me, too. This is not the first time our brain wiring has been similar! The slow music (on the clip) was beautiful, but that faster playing made me think of "duelling banjos"..thankx to whoever it was that put in the clip.

Lemonade714 said...

Joon, thank you for the puzzle and the time.

CA, you need anything, you let us know.

Spitzboov, just when I am ready to hate humanity, you have to go and spoil it...thanks

MJ said...

Clear Ayes, I wish you and your family the best.

Hugs from me!

MJ

dodo said...

BTW thank you, Dudley, Jayce, and gGerry, for taking the time to enter a profile so we can get an idea of where and who you are. Suddenly we have a whole lot of people who haven't identified themselves. I, for one, miss the bios.

kazie said...

CA,
I certainly hope everything works out for you and your family. I also hope it's not a recurrence of your health issues. My best wishes are with you either way.

Dodo,
Thanks for your comments. The newsletter is mainly a matter of writing a little, but mostly editing articles that are emailed by other members of the organization involved (Delta Kappa Gamma, for "Key Women Educators"). Using Publisher and fitting it all together is what takes most of the time. My photography editing skills, spacial relations and writing all play a part. That goes with a lot of frustration, e.g. tonight I thought I'd lost something I'd spent all day working on, but fortunately was able to reinvent it from the PDF I'd saved of it.