Theme: None
Words: 70
Blocks: 32
Four criss-crossing "theme"-like answers, two spanners, two climbers;
20A. Line before "Et tu, Brute?" : SPEAK HANDS FOR ME - Shakespeare's Julius Caesar
54A. Ethical concern for a bar association : AMBULANCE CHASER - I shoulda known this
3D. Symbol of phoniness : THREE-DOLLAR BILL
11D. Dearborn attraction : HENRY FORD MUSEUM - this one I nailed
Wow, this one kicked my butt - too many obscure references in the NW for me to complete it without red-letter help
ACROSS:
1. Candy vehicle : SCTV - Canadian skit show, at least I guess - I have no clue on the "Candy" part....{ it just came to me, about 2 hours later - John Candy }
5. Imported wheels : SAAB - I once owned an '83 900
9. Gone crackers? : HIHOS - crackers, no longer available; Sunshine, then Keebler, then Kellog's were the companies
14. Education acronym : ELHI - ugh, I don't think of this as an acronym; it's abbreviation for EL-ementary thru HI-gh school....
15. Brad's role in "Inglourious Basterds" : ALDO - great movie; this guy's performance outdid Brad's
16. Certain Yemeni : ADENI - again, ugh, really? Am I a "Long Island-i" ?
17. Brings out : AIRS
18. Side of beef part : SLAB
19. Like some raincoats : LINED
23. Tailless mammal : APE - had "MAN" first
24. Self-titled 1988 R&B album : LATOYA - one of the Jacksons
25. Initial response to a yenta? : MYOB - Mind Your Own Business - Yenta is yiddish, originally a woman's name, comes to mean a "busy-body" or gossip
26. Skyscraper feature : LEDGE - UGH~! There are ledges here in my one-story house....
28. Part of psi?: Abbr. : LBS - now this was a good one - psi, for Pounds per Square Inch, like tire pressure, and the imperial abbreviation for pounds - lb., from the Roman libra, a weight measure.
30. Dom alternative : FRA - not really sure; I think this is airport codes, but it could be types of champagne for all I know....
31. Metaphors, e.g. : TROPES - never heard this; from Greek tropos "to turn"
33. Ice cream parlor order : MALT - hey, I got one ~!
34. "... lay the sod __ me": "Streets of Laredo" lyric : O'ER - poetic contraction, over
35. Celebrity mentioned in Warren Zevon's 1978 hit "Werewolves of London" : LON CHANEY, JR. - super fun song 2:38
38. World Chess Champion after Botvinnik : TAL - sure, OK
40. Valley in the first book of Samuel : ELAH - um, OK, here's a map?
41. Heavy hitter : SLEDGE - I typo'ed Stylish as styhish, so it took a moment for this to appear.
44. Santa __ : ANA - California
45. Some signatures : XES - makes me think of the Blues Brothers, right Melissa Bee?
46. Blend : IMMIX - yup, it's a "word", from Latin
47. "Beetle Bailey" cartoonist Walker : MORT
49. Members of an Afrocentric movement : RASTAS -short for Rastafarian
53. Exhaust : USE
57. Daughter of Muhammad : LAILA - the boxer, Ali - she boxes, too.
58. Court ritual : OATH
59. Green : GELT - a long way to go, from Yiddish for money to dollar bill color
60. Coty Award winner Perry : ELLIS - designer
61. Fonda's beekeeper : ULEE - from the movie, Ulee's Gold - popular crossword answer
62. Golden __ : RULE
63. Willowy woman : SYLPH
64. Polanski film based on a Hardy novel : TESS
65. Wrote, as an AOL buddy : IM'ed - Instant Message
Down:
1. Epicure's condiment : SEASALT - an epicure is a connoisseur, did not know
2. Fast ship : CLIPPER - I went down my list of ships, and forgot this one
4. Traveler's need : VISA
5. White House girl : SASHA - Obama
6. __ once : ALL AT - "all at once, it came to me that I was NOT going to finish"
7. Hersey setting : ADANO - "A Bell for Adano", by John Hershey. Total stumper - was thinking Pennsylvania for the park
8. Winner of a 2008 Pulitzer Prize Special Citation for his "profound impact on popular music and American culture" : BOB DYLAN - not a fan
9. Game division : HALF - really only soccer; all others are quarters, periods and innings
10. Way of putting things : IDIOM - I wanted a Monty Python link; this is, um, the scene, at 1:19
12. Encore, basically : ONE MORE ~!!!
13. News supplement : SIDEBAR - this is more legalese than news related, for me
21. Box for a cold : KLEENEX - had tissues to start, funny how a lot of words and phrases have same letter-number commonality
22. Luxury furs : SABLES
27. Mail hub: Abbr. : GPO - General Post Office, more British
29. In : STYLISH
32. White of the eye : SCLERA
33. __-jongg : MAH - a game
36. Isn't trapped : HAS AN OUT - always leave yourself an "out" when driving - I have avoided many a cell-phone driver this way....
37. "To Kill a Mockingbird" brother : JEM
38. Cantina servings : TAMALES - not the Cantina I was thinking of....
39. Unusual occurrence : ANOMALY - like in Star Trek, or the X-files, an "anomaly" was usually the seed for the episode.
42. Princess in Disney's "Enchanted" : GISELLE - image
43. Applied : EXERTED - as force
48. __ mania, 17th-century Dutch phenomenon : TULIP
50. Model aspect : SCALE -had ratio to start
51. Sorbonne heads? : TETES - French for head, Sorbonne, France
52. Inflammation symptoms : ACHES
55. Tie securely : LASH - had bind to start
56. Business intro? : AGRI - frequently appears in crosswords. Agribusiness.
OK, I am ready for a Monday/Tuesday now ~!
Splynter
Good morning, Splynter, C.C. and friends - Splynter, my comments echo yours -- way too many totally obscure clues. I totally crashed and burned. Wasn't pretty.
ReplyDeleteBut a great job with the blog, Splynter. You're a natural.
Morning, all!
ReplyDeleteBit of a slog for me today. I'm not as up on my Shakespeare as I should be, so the long quote at 20A remained a mystery until nearly the end. I don't recall seeing ADENI before, but Splynter's "again?" must mean I've simply forgotten. And as for IMMIX...
On the bright side, I was able to throw down THREE DOLLAR BILL with no hesitation at 3D, so that should count for something, right?
You outdid yourself Splynter on this difficult puzzle.
ReplyDeleteFor future reference, DOM and FRA are both types of herbal liquors that were originally made by monks. DOM stands for Deo Optimo Maximo, which is latin for "For Our Best, Greatest God."
Good day folks,
ReplyDeleteThis one had me from the moment I printed it out. Dennis mentioned obscure, my descriptive is impossible. Most of my success was in the SW. The other sections were barren.
Splynter, you should get double time for blogging this beauty.
9D Game division; HALF applies to a college BB game too.
ReplyDeleteSplynter, Great write-up.
ReplyDeleteDNF ... pretty much a sea of blank spaces.
(I think I had 14 entries before punting).
Don't really care that:
I can't rememeber the line before "Et-tu, Brute?"
Know 'WHO' succeeded 'WHO' as the World Chess Champ.
Know the name of a Disney Princess from a movie I've never seen.
Do know I'm not an Epicure ... I so desired 1-D to be Scotch but it wouldn't fit.
For 46-A, Blend, I did want 'Pinch' ...
Cheers to all a 'wee-bit-early.'
Yup, it's Saturday and Gareth sure came up with a Saturday stumper for us to chew on. Great job on the blog, Splynter.
ReplyDeleteI thought I was going to zip through this one when I nailed CLIPPER, SAAB/SASHA, HIHOS/HENRY FORD MUSEUM and LATOYA. Then I started hitting all of the obscure stuff and the too clever cluing. I finally got everything except the JE_/I_MIX crossing. Wagged a 'D'. Oh, well...
Have a great weekend everyone.
By far the most difficult Saturday in a very long time; I echo my appreciation for your efforts Splynter. The Shakespeare quote from Casca is not one anybody but an actor who played the part or an English professor would recall.
ReplyDeleteThe GELT/GREEN, I do not believe is related to the color of money, but the use of GREEN as an additional euphemism for money- "let me see the GREEN".
I never heard of Deo Optimo Maximo, but like Splynter I thought of Champagne; the DOM is an Italian designation for a monk (Pierre Perignon) and FRA is I believe Italian for Father, so even if I am completely wrong, that was one I solved quickly.
There was little else which went fast.
Yup. What y'all said. Yer a trooper for finishing Splynter. I sure couldn't, but after 90 minutes and a few googs I nearly did.
ReplyDeleteThe first toehold I found was 19A and with the N in place I took a flyer on 11D, Henry Ford Museum. This plus Lon Chaney Jr. instilled false confidence. Not a good thing. North Dakota was the hardest area, but I managed to piece it together with some help. In the end I had a blank at the P in Tropes/GPO and misspelled ANOMoLY.
I usually enjoy Gareth Bain puzzles more than this one. Today, I just kind of wish I had the hour and a half back.
Football games are definately divided into halves.
ReplyDeleteHalves are divided into quarters.
Several rules are applied to halves not quarters.
e.g. timeouts, kickoffs, possessions, two minute warnings
Hi Splynter, C.C. and all:
ReplyDeleteSaturdays usually kick my butt and this was no different. As others have said too many obscures. All I could do was put the ones I knew and try to work around them. Wasn't pretty!
Dennis: I am guessing your'e back. Did you stay in Boca again? And, you said you were looking at property did you buy anything? I tried to send you this message a while ago, but the Blog was down.
Oh yes, wish me luck! My husband and I are in the 8-Ball playoffs tomorrow afternoon. If we win the first game then we have to play another team and beat them also. If we win both we are off to Las Vegas. What a hoot that would be! We were also in the 9-Ball playoffs but lost!
Have a great day everyone!
Re 30A Dorm Alternative - I think FRA stands for Fraternity House.
ReplyDeleteHello Puzzlers - I am relieved to know I'm not the only one who struggled with this stumper. My hat is off to you, Splynter, not only for blog bravery but for thinking of the same links that came to me! My mind flew to that Star Wars cantina and the Python idiom scene when those answers emerged.
ReplyDeleteLots of unknowns, such as John Candy's roots at SCTV, the Disney princess, the chess guy...and Goog made the Caesar quote even less clear, rather than helping with the answer. I chose to let the machine auto-fill that one, just to move the puzzle along.
g8rmomx2, yes, had a great vacation in Boca, thanks. We did look at a lot of properties, but we're still trying to get comfortable with the various neighborhoods. We liked Delray Beach, which seems to have a lot going on. Trying to find something small on or just off the Intercoastal. Any suggestions?
ReplyDeleteJune, actually, the clue is 'Dom', not 'Dorm' -- I read it as dorm at first too.
g8rmomx2, BTW, my store manager here is a serious pool player and is also in 8- and 9-ball tournaments this weekend in Atlantic City.
ReplyDeleteWell, it is Saturday isn't it?
ReplyDeleteSplynter,
You must have been up half the night on this one. I spent way too long at Mr.G's site. I need to return to my earlier resolution not to bother trying Saturdays. Way too much obscurity.
Gelt is a Jewish term relating to any currency, and also related to the German Geld = money, and to their word gelten = to be of value. Since the USA is the only place I know of where all currency notes are green, I would never have connected the two.
The only fun thing was dragging out my dog-eared school copy of Julius Caesar to find that line, and seeing that I really did make notes and study it thoroughly back in 1962 when I had it for our HS final in English.
FRA and DOM are both titles for religious men.
ReplyDeleteHi all.
ReplyDeleteI'm from southeastern Michigan so I knew "Henry Ford Museum" immediately, although they've renamed the complex to "The Henry Ford" now, which just seems wrong to me (and that didn't fit).
http://www.thehenryford.org
Thanks.
Good morning all. Thanks for the write-up, Splynter.
ReplyDeleteWhat Dennis said. Many obscure clues. The NE was last to fall. WAGs included ELLIS, SYLPH and GISELLE. Liked clueing for AMBULANCE CHASER, SLEDGE and STYLISH. Finally remembered ULEE from a previous puzzle. Got BOB DYLAN from the perps (lan). Did not know TROPES and the SPEAK HANDS quote.
SAAB - Swedish acronym for Swedish Airplane Co. Ltd. Began making cars in late '40's.
Enjoy your weekend.
THANK YOU, Splynter!! and you still had enough left over to give us some great links.
ReplyDeleteI did everything possible to finish this one, but still seemed a few blocks short.My first run-through was a disaster and I would have quit, but it is a rainy day, and no yard work today.
Enjoyed the frustration, one letter at a time.
g8rmomx2, good luck..have fun!
Good Morning All, "Et tu, Gareth?" Maybe not quite an assassination attempt, but I skinned my knees pretty badly!
ReplyDeleteI think it was a "grayed uncle" who used to voice his skepticism with "Phoney as a THREE DOLLAR BILL". My 8th grade trip to Dearborn Village finally paid off with HENRY FORD MUSEUM There was a payoff for reading Julius Caesar in high school too. I didn't know the complete phrase at 20A, but the perps took care of most of it.
I loved Warren Zevon's music, quirky guy and "Werewolves of London" was fun at parties. Lawyers, Guns and Money was one that really caught my attention and made me a fan.
Too many WAGs. I only knew ELAH because of the "Valley of ELAH" movie. GPO, IMMIX, TAL, GISELLE and IM-ED were all filled in with a shoulder shrug.
It's raining today, so I kept plugging at it.
Good Luck and enjoy, g8rmomx2
My hat is off to you Splynter. Good job as others have said with a sucky Saturday puzzle. (If Mr. Bain can use "IMMIX" I figure I can use sucky.)
ReplyDeleteI did finish the puzzle with the help of my Harvard graduate daughter. You see an Ivy League education does pay off. She popped in TROPES, JEM, SYLPH, the Et Tu quote, SCLERA - no problem. I was pretty proud of myself remembering ELAH.
Raining steadily here in NorCal. Perfect day for matinee.
A good weekend to all!
Hello everybody. Well, putting in MALIA and LOIN and SPEAKING AS FOR ME really got me off to a bad start from which I never recovered. Were it not for LOIN I probably would have gotten ADANO and so on. IMMIX completely stumped me, not remembering JEM. All in all, incomplete.
ReplyDeleteNow I'll read all your comments.
When I saw Dom and finally entered FRA, I thought of champagne. I think Fra means Brother, as in Brother Juniper. So maybe Dom and Fra are different ranks or types of monks.
ReplyDeleteLike Tinbeni, I'm not sure I really care. Some fun and memorable things to learn, others forgettable.
Splynter, great job!
Splynter...Thanks for an incredible job on this puzzle - way too hard for me. I could barely fill in 10 squares!!!
ReplyDeleteI totally agree, not a fan of Bob Dylan
I HATED this puzzle. There were 3 - no, 2 - answers I was sure of. It made be feel very dumb again.
ReplyDeleteOther business: C.C., I was thinking about you this morning. I don't think you are a tennis fan, but today was special. It was the ladies finals at the French Open in Paris - one of 4 biggest annual events in professional tennis. And it was won by a wonderful young lady named Li Na and she was the first citizen of China to win a Grand Slam event ever, man or woman. Obviously Li Na is a great tennis player and more - she has done great things for the game of tennis in China. Be proud of her. I am.
I think Robert Zimmerman aka Bob Dylan needs to be viewed as a prophetic poet rather than a singer. My earliest memory of him was on my roommate's LP's when I was first teaching in 1967. I hated the whining voice, and couldn't see past that. When I met DH in 1971, he was, and still is a great fan, and I thought, "Oh no!". But after years of having to put up with the whining, I've decided the words are worth listening to if you can block out the fingernail on chalkboard effects of his voice. He has a lot to say. I just wish he wouldn't sing it.
ReplyDeleteFRA is part of the Latin word for brother: frater. DOM is part of dominus, Latin for lord, or leader.
From Wikipedia:
ReplyDeleteSome religious orders, for example the Franciscans or the Dominicans, have "Third Orders" of associated religious members who live in community and follow a rule (called Third Order Religious or TOR), or lay members who, without living in formal community with the order, have made a private vow or promise to it, such as of perseverance in pious life, hence are not "religious", that is to say, not members of the Consecrated life (often called Third Order Secular, or TOS).
Thus FRA would be an alternative to DOM in choosing a religious order to be aligned with.
I can certainly understand not being a fan of BOB DYLAN's scratchy voice, but it's about the poetry AND being in the right place at the right time. He became one of the most important voices of the civil rights movement in the early '60's.
ReplyDeleteI was 20 when I first heard of that new guy, Bob Die-lan. By 1963, there was no doubt how to pronounce his name. "Blowin' In The Wind" and "The Times They Are a-Changin" still have the power to give me goosebumps. And I still get a kick out of the biting "Positively 4th Street".
I believe Windhover quoted a little bit from "My Back Pages", just a few days ago. I think he's younger than that now.
Not his vocals (it's singer/songwriter Nanci Griffith, so don't be afraid), but definitely his voice with the lovely and sad Boots of Spanish Leather.
Good Afternoon Splynter, C.C. et al.
ReplyDeleteSuperb job on this one, Splynter! You had your hands full just finishing the puzzle, let alone getting together all the great information and links you gave us.
My internet has been down all day, so I am just now able to get online and comment on this beaut . I started by looking at both the across and down clues, and found myself at 47A MORT, before I actually felt that I knew what I should put for the answer.
HIHOS for “Gone crackers?”. HO HO, that one had me going for a while.
Loved “Initial response to a yenta”, MYOB (the initials for “mind your own business”). Great clue/answer!
Not crazy about ADENI or IMMIX, but I won’t get out the SLEDGE hammer on Gareth for those, with all the other great stuff in this one.
I managed to finish by working my way back from bottom to top, left to right, with lots of erasures/changes/wags, but no lookups ! Great fun for a Saturday challenge – and what the H…, the yard work could wait for a while!
Have a lovely evening, everyone!
Nice job today, Splynter! Reading many of your comments felt like someone had been taking notes on my reactions as I did the puzzle.
ReplyDeleteMy niece's husband used to live in the NYC apartment Bob Dylan had lived in before him. He said fans would go to check it out, and sometimes even knock on the door to come in.
A friend in college would get really depressed when she drank. She'd hole up in her dorm room, in the dark, play Bob Dylan and cry.
I'm not a fan of themeless puzzles and this one was especially frustrating. Without red-letter help available, I would have given up soon after starting. I'm impressed with everybody who completed most of it successfully. Some clever clues for HIHOS and MYOB.
ReplyDeleteI'm watching the Dodgers play Cincinnati. It's in the mid 90s there with high humidity. Here, we seem to be starting June gloom. It was overcast this morning though it's clearer now with temps about 64 F.
Jordan got a Little League trophy this morning. Nobody kept score and everybody got a trophy. That's a great thing for the little kids. I wonder if they do the same thing for the older kids. Self esteem should be earned, shouldn't it?
Good Afternoon C.C., Splynter and all,
ReplyDeleteGot up early this AM to work the puzzle before I had to be out of here. Got all but the NE corner.
Back at it, then boom; put my first thought in: HALF { Splynter, I always say first or second HALF, no matter what it is}. SIDEBAR, is only known to me from the OJ trial { which I lived and breathed}; but I left it and scrambled to Splynter’s write-up.
JEM/ IMMIX was my downfall. I had inmix, which sounded like a ‘blend’ to me.
Oh well. Thanks to Splynter for his masterful write-up and thanks to Gareth for this grueling puzzle. Bring it on.
Have a nice evening everyone.
what a disaster! Lost from the get go. Never did realize Candy vechicle was John Candy until Splynter's ans.
ReplyDeleteImmmix? New word for me.
Too ambiguous!
Hi There ~!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the compliments, and I am 'glad' to see that a lot of you struggled with this as well - sometimes, I think I am just not on the right wavelength.
I didn't mean we had seen ADENI before, I just meant I had an "UGH" reaction, again, to an answer that made me cringe - so don't go looking for the word in any earlier puzzles, Barry.
As for Bob Dylan, I am still not a fan, but I wanted to link "My Back Pages", remade by Eric Johnson - I will add it when I am in front of my computer. While Bob may be poetic, I can't hear it coming thru the nails on a blackboard....(LOL)
Still not clear on DOM/FRA....
Let's go Canucks ~!
Splynter
Hola Everyone, Thanks Splynter for a great writeup with a difficult puzzle. I filled in my missing letters with a red pen and my puzzle looked like it had the Chicken Pox.
ReplyDeleteWay too many obscure clues for me. As a result I had a DNF today.
I put in NCLB (No child Left Behind) for an Educational acronym. I agree with Splynter that El Hi is more of an abbreviation .
Gelt for Green wasn't even on my radar for money.
Lucina also serves tamales at her Cantina. Her family is lucky as their tamales are served at all their special occasions.
Have a great rest of the weekend everyone. We have more rain predicted for tomorrow through Monday.
Music, like any other form of beauty, is truly in the eye of the beholder. Dylan is a polarizing artist. Ya love him or hate him. But his imprint on music IS undeniable.
ReplyDeleteSplynter, Steve Earle has a very good cover of My Back Pages as well, but I couldn't find it.
Probably my all time favorite Dylan tune is One Too Many Mornings. (This is a cover by Waylon and Johnny Cash.) On this particular song I hate the original by Dylan because it's almost unintelligible, but Jerry Jeff did an incredible cover. Can't find that one, so this'll have to do.
Gotta go plow the north 40 and get the last of the sweet corn in.
Splynter,
ReplyDeleteThe game starts @5PM out here. So,
we'll be watching together. Hope that it doesn't go into OT so you can get some sleep.
Thought DOM = Dominican and Fra =
Franciscan. JES would = Jesuit.
Saw a piece of blue sky and the sun
for a few seconds.
Great looking C7 from Corvette with F1 type engine next year.
Hope that the cable problem gets resolved.
Take care.
What a bunch of characters...
ReplyDeleteHere's another lesser known Dylan cover, this one by Emmylou. (For the record, Emmylou could have her way with me. I have an unhealthy attraction to her:-)
ReplyDeleteEvery Grain of Sand
Not to give Warren Zevon short shrift, I always thought the best song off Excitable Boy was Accidently, Like a Martyr.. This one got very little air play, but is a great song.
ReplyDeleteI'll quit now.
Good evening, everyone. Splynter, great blogging amid a frustrating solve!
ReplyDeleteIt's so late now as I was at a birthday party and had started this prior to leaving and decided to work on it again. The entire west and bottom was fairly doable; had MUSEUM but since Dearborn was unknown, I had to wait for more fill. Finally, too tired, I Ggld it and found HENRYFORDMUSEUM, makes sense.
DOM and FRA are monastery words; they may also refer to champagne, I don't know. But DOM and FRA also can mean Abbot or Prior.
I hope your Saturday has been terrific.
Hersey, Pennsylvania? John Hershey?
ReplyDeleteUh,
ReplyDeleteAnd I, uh, would have to say, I am pretty unclear, still - punch in DOM and FRA, you get flights from Frankfurt to Dominica....
Carry on ~!!
See you at the game, Eddy B ~!
Splynter
Kazie, I'm with you on resolving to just forget about Saturday puzzles; maybe Friday, too. Takes too much unrewarded time! I gave up on this one early on!
ReplyDeletedodo
Avg Joe, thanks for more Warren Zevon. I still play the Excitable Boy CD when I'm driving along. The title song is another favorite.
ReplyDeleteOh heck, it's 5 o'clock somewhere...oh my...here! I think I'll have a glass of wine and while I'm at it... Fair warning, not a cover on this one, the real BOB DYLAN's Subterranean Homesick Blues.
Have a good evening all.
Here is my favorite Bob Dylan song.
ReplyDeleteClearAyes,
ReplyDeleteWith your taste in music and singer/songwriters, it's no wonder we have a mutual admiration society. And like Joe said of Emmylou, I'd follow Nancy Griffith right thru the door to hell.
And whoever mentioned Steve Earle, whose Copperhead Road was the herbal equivalent of Robert Mitchum's Thunder Road, check my favorite tune of his, A Week of Living Dangerously.
Back later, maybe. After a long hot week in the hayfield, the Irish and I are doing two of our favorite things in Lancaster, Kentucky, drinking beer and listening to live music. So far we've heard covers of Buffett, Prine, Pure Prairie League, and Steve Miller. They're promising to rock when it gets dark. Here, that means Skynyrd, the Allmans, Molly Hatchet, maybe Seger (not Southern rock, but Southern Michigan. Close enough.)
Life is good on Saturday night. More damn hay next week.
The truest song Dylan ever sang.
ReplyDeleteCA, you really brought my youth back to life with that vidoe, with Allen Ginsberg in the background and ridiculously young Bob Dylan, but then I was too at the time. It goes os quickly; do our children have a Bob Dylan or Allen Ginsberg to challenge them?
ReplyDeleteLemonade:
ReplyDeleteBest poem ever written in English - Howl.
I'd link it if I didn't have the technological equivalent of ED.
Prize winning Rooster:
ReplyDeleteFor Jerome and others
JOHN'S EGG BUSINESS
John was in the fertilized egg business. He had several hundred young hens,called 'pullets,' and ten roosters to fertilize the eggs. To track the roosters, he bought some tiny bells and attached them to his roosters.
Each bell had a different tone,
So he could tell which rooster was performing.
John's favorite rooster, was old Butch, but one morning he noticed
Old Butch's bell hadn't rung at all! John saw the other roosters were busy Bells-a-ringing, but the pullets, hearing the roosters coming, ran for cover.
Old Butch had his bell in his beak, so it couldn't ring.
He'd sneak up on a pullet,
Do his job and walk on to the next one.
John was so proud of old Butch,
Old Butch was awarded the No Bell Piece Prize and the Pulletsurprise as well.
Lm714: That`s a very old yolk!
ReplyDeletethis used to be such a good blog.
ReplyDeleteI know I said I'd quit. I lied. I'm like that. Get used to it.
ReplyDeleteI'd be remiss if this musical smorgasbord weren't tied together. Zevon's last effort, recorded while he was dying, was a fantastic album called "The Wind". Among other things, it had a....wait for it....Dylan cover. Knockin' On Heaven's Door.
The help he had on this recording was unbelievable. Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty, Jackson Browne, Dwight Yoakam, Ry Cooder, Joe Walsh, Don Henley, John Waite, Tim Schmit, T-Bone Burnett, and....Emmy Lou :-), as well as several other well known names. Even Billy Bob Thornton did some backup vocals. Who knew he could sing?
The album's not entirely maudlin, but the best cuts do acknowledge the inevitable. Please Stay has some touching tenor sax (and Emmylou:-) and Keep Me in Your Heart wraps it up on a poignant note. This last song was played at a funeral I attended in January. Not a dry eye in the house.
If you like Warren Zevon, buy this album. Today. It's his best work by far. OK, I'm out.
For Larry and the rest:
ReplyDeleteHOWL .
Anon:
ReplyDeleteYep! But didn't everything used to be better? Guess we'll just have to go with the blog we've got. (Rumsfeld).
Thanks, Jason. Copied it.
Good Evening, folks. This puzzle was a bust. Appreciate your efforts, Gareth, but I think you made it just too tough. Crosswords should be able to be completed without lookups, just a printed puzzle and a pen.
ReplyDeleteAppreciate your efforts, Splynter, excellent job!
I bounced around this puzzle all day, off and on. I got many of the answers, here and there, but many were just out of my league.
One that I got easily was ADENI.
IMMIX and JEM crossing was impossible. 20A Line before "Et Tu Brute?" was a blank for me. I tried a few things, but could not get it all. Perps might have helped, but I was not competent on all of those either.
I was trying for the wrong Muhammed daughter forever.
RASTAS was not possible for me.
Anyhow, I guess I deserve this, because I said earlier in the week how easy the puzzles were and that I would probably pay for that comment.
See you tomorrow.
Abejo
Good jokes!
ReplyDelete(I was wondering if one of them would be removed or not. Probably not appropriate but still funny.)
My daughter talked Barbara into fixing her fantastic spaghetti and meatballs tomorrow for her and her boyfriend. I'm looking forward to it but I wonder why my daughter isn't helping out? A few of our family's favorite recipes may not make it past this generation. Actually, the spaghetti and meatballs recipe started with Barbara and me. We found a recipe in an advertising leaflet. It sounded good, we made it and the rest is history.
Bill G., I worry about that in our family too. So many traditions are lost with each generation... It's sad.
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