google.com, pub-2774194725043577, DIRECT, f08c47fec0942fa0 L.A.Times Crossword Corner: Saturday, Sep 10, 2011, Brad Wilber

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Sep 10, 2011

Saturday, Sep 10, 2011, Brad Wilber

Theme: None

Words: 70

Blocks: 31

My second Brad WilbEr in a month (August 6th), which offered us "This Is Spinal Tap"; this puzzle's movie is-

62A. 1988 film set in a New England pie maker's shop : MYSTIC PIZZA - which I know stars what's-her-name, but not one I have seen;

moving around our 11-letter pinwheel grid, we have -

15A. Pompous : OVERWEENING - a new word for me - I had over-BEARing to start

18A. Risky telecast : LIVE EPISODE - like much of early TV, but before my time

58A. Tenant, say : LEASE HOLDER - this whole block came easily for me, but I did have to dip into Red-letter for the first time in a while to get this one done - PHEW~!

Onward~!

ACROSS:


1. Charade : ACT - don't get the opening three-letter word right away? Not a good sign....

4. Range barrier : BARBED WIRE - at one point, I thought this might be a firing range clue; looking for "cement wall"

14. Roller coaster part : CAR

17. Link between handles? : A.K.A. - "Also Known As" from police reports, a very misleading clue. I had CBs

19. Reduced in status : DECLASSE

21. Gave away : LET ON

22. Some Olympians' tools : EPEES - not Fencing blade

23. Movement traced to an ancient flower sermon : ZEN

26. Dean's reality TV partner : TORI - complete unknown to me; this show

27. Hall of Fame NFL owner Wellington __ : MARA

28. Natural history museum attractions : T-REXES - had the "X" from eXcuses

31. Divided country : USA - believe it or not, this was my first guess at a three-letter country, but I couldn't commit to it; divided into states, that is, not 'Nam (N & S Vietnam)

32. Sucker : ENSNARE - ah, the verb

34. Court address : COUNSEL

36. 1998 Apple rollout : IMAC - not a Mac person, and I am disappointed with my iPhone, too - only my iPod still works, and that was my first fill

37. Sch. whose students have won more than 200 Olympic medals : UCLA

38. Reach equilibrium : EVEN OUT

41. Steamy container : SOUP POT

45. When the French Open starts : MAY

46. Cymbeline's daughter, in Shakespeare : IMOGEN

48. Japanese script : KANA

49. Botched : BLEW

51. Palindromic Altar : ARA

52. 2008 Palin counterpart : BIDEN - as in "potential" VP status

53. Mystery middle name : ALLAN - Edgar ALLEN Poe

55. "Dead Man Walking" Oscar winner : SARANDON - Spelled it wrong, had -AN, and One-a-Cat sounded good enough for me

61. Yegg's haul : ICE - as in diamonds

63. Hammer site : EAR - misdirection to the three little bones in the ear

64. Cut with the tenderloin removed : SHELL STEAK

65. Oink spot : STY - cute clue for the day

DOWN:

1. Egghead's environs : ACADEME - WAGed at AV ROOMS, and left the "S" in place; didn't help

2. Where the batter goes : CAKE PAN - I know C.C. was not thinking this batter

3. Shipping inquiries : TRACERS - tracking number was too long

4. Corded weapons : BOLAs - this weapon

5. Alamo rival : AVIS - they try harder

6. Tach count : REVs

7. Succeed without difficulty, with "in" : BREEZE

8. Romano source, usually : EWE - sheep's milk cheese?

9. ATM transaction : DEPosit

10. "Gravity and Grace" writer Simone : WEIL

11. Cartographic closeup : INSET - like this

12. Uninhibited : RIOTOUS

13. Stand behind : ENDORSE

16. Good-natured : GENIAL

20. Sit angularly, as a wall : LEAN IN - if your wall is starting to "lean in", better call someone fast; I had Bend in, which seems to make a more artistic impression

24. "My alarm didn't go off," e.g. : EXCUSE

25. One who's now right-brained? : NEOCON - extremist political term - more here

28. Therapist's concern : TRAUMA

29. Parish leader : RECTOR

30. Sci-fi character named for an Asian sea : SULU - of Star Trek fame; still riding the popularity wave after having come out of the closet



33. Mine, in Metz : A MOI - this would be French, non?

35. You'll need more than one in a rib joint : NAPKIN - the ones around here leave you a roll of paper towel

38. Insulate from change : EMBALM - oh, so cool for a clue

39. Big dips : VALLEYS - had plunges at first

40. Very slim margin : EYELASH

42. Rice fields : PADDIES

43. Baseball-like game with two bases : ONE O'CAT - Origins of Baseball

44. Leather maker : TANNERY - the shop, not the person

47. Like many Sherlock Holmes settings : GAS-LIT

50. Profligacy : WASTE

52. 2000 Camp David summit attendee : BARAK

54. Diamond in music : NEIL

56. Bladed tool : ADZE

57. Two-time Tony-winning playwright Yasmina __ : REZA

59. Strong acid, chemically : HCL - HydroChLoric Acid

60. Black __: spy doings : OPs - this and OXO are getting to be popular

Well, not much for me to link today, mostly words of a self-explaining nature - and the blog site was giving me trouble tonight,too....see you next Saturday~!



Answer grid.

Splynter

Note from C.C.:

A belated Happy 39th Wedding Anniversary to Kazie. Today, we celebrate the 46th Wedding Anniversary of Jayce and his beautiful wife, who was born & grew up in Hongkong. Look at these sweet "Then and Now" pictures.

33 comments:

  1. I do this puzzle daily in the Taipei Times, and they had a different clue for 31-across. It was not divided country, but rather SEATO member. Odd?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Good day folks,

    I seldom have the opportunity to tackle a Saturday puzzle, but thanks to my slow healing knee, sleep wasn't much of an option last night. So I thought, what the Hell, why not get my butt kicked.

    Surprisingly, I nailed it without the need of assistance from Messrs G or Webster. But to be sure, perp help was mandatory. And I was fortunate where I was hung up o a clue or two, the perps unravelled it for me.

    The NE was the toughest for me and it fell thanks to some swags (car & ensnare). I initially entered up to hit for where the batter goes , but it became apparent I had to go in a different direction. Imogen was all perp assistance. Never heard of her.

    Today the galaxy was properly alined for me. Think I'll wait a while before trying a Saturday offering again.

    Time for another ice bag. Happy weekend to all.

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  3. Good Morning Splynter, C.C. et al.

    Happy 46th, Jayce! Wonderful pictures – thanks for sharing!

    Hand up for OVERbearING before OVERWEENING, Splynter! But I did fill in ACT for charade right away, so I took it as a good sign. Lo and behold, the rest of the puzzle fell without too many slips-ups, and I finished 10 minutes quicker than my usual Saturday time. BTW – I didn’t see a link at your 11D map INSET?

    Lots of misdirection in the clues today, and a couple names I did not know , like WEIL (even though that one “sounded” familiar) and REZA. But perps to the rescue! I liked seeing BARBED WIRE, T-REXES and MYSTIC PIZZA with all those scrabbly letters.

    Hope your healing picks up speed soon, Hondo!

    Not much else to comment on, so have a fun Saturday, everyone!

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  4. I think the date below Jayce's second picture is a typo. 1955 no, maybe 1985?

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  5. Morning, all!

    Yep, this one kicked my butt royally as well, although I did managed to finally finish unassisted. There was the usual crop of unknown/barely remembered proper nouns (WEIL, MARA, IMOGEN, REZA, TORI) and then a bunch of new (or nearly new) vocabulary words such as OVERWEENING, SHELL STEAK, DECLASSE, and KANA).

    What really killed me, though, were the words I actually knew but couldn't get from the clues. Things like, well, pretty much the rest of the puzzle. The NE corner remained mostly blank for the longest time until I finally figured out that the "range" in 4A referred to "home on the range" and not "mountain range" or "gas range." Similarly, I never thought of EYELASH as being a "margin" before.

    Ah, well. As the poet said, my head is bloodied, but unbowed. My butt, on the other hand...

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  6. Theme: Minutiae

    I can't care for a puzzle that provokes more frowns than smiles.

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  7. Good morning! Great job, Splynter.
    Happy anniversary, Jayce and LW, and a day late happy anniversary, Kazie and DH.

    I got off to a bad start on this one with 'lie' instead of ACT and OVERbEaRING. I skipped down to the SE corner and recalled One O'cat from a discussion here a few weeks ago. That helped me get the whole East side done but it lead to some other errors as I tried to fill the front end of _STEAK and _C PIZZA. Grill and Cosmic? Nope! Priest instead of RECTOR, lined up with balance instead of EVEN OUT. That pretty much BLEW my chances of finishing this one. I couldn't even see the oh so obvious IMAC with those foulups.

    Going back up to the top and finding ACT instead of 'lie' finally broke it open. My career at UPS was long before tracking numbers, but TRACERS were put on packages that didn't arrive.

    There were a few unknowns, but most of my problems were allowing myself to be misled and then being too stubborn when I thought I had nailed one.

    Good Saturday level puzzle.

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  8. Hi Again -

    Here's my intent with "inset" - the blog page was taking WAY too long to load last night in between edits, and then it would sometimes tell me it "failed" - and after spending a lot of time on the write up, I cut my losses short.

    Splynter

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  9. Hey Saturday solvers, again enjoyed your work Splynter, and Brad is one of the many reliable professionals who always deliver.

    In addition to the comments from Hearti and barry G., I really enjoyed "Link between handles?": A.K.A., and COUNSEL is what the Judge says when he wants to talk, e.g. “Counsel, approach the bench.” Thought SOUP POT and DECLASSE were good Saturday words; never heard of OVERWEENING, nor the term SHELL STEAK,nor REZA but it is Saturday and the perps did their job.

    However, the crossing of ONE O’CAT and KANA was really hard. My brothers studied and taught Karate so I put in KATA which are the scripted (choreographed) moves done to teach Karate. I did not want to give that up, especially without knowing ONE O’CAT, but I knew OTEOCAT could not be right.

    Happy Anny Jayce, and health to you all.

    Thanks Brad and Splynter.

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  10. Good morning Splynter and all.

    Happy Anniversary to Jayce. Nice pix. Belated Happy Anniversary to Kazie, too.

    What Barry said. I pretty much BLEW this one. Main difference seemed to be my problems were worst in the SW. Easy ones were BARBED WIRE and PADDIES. Finally 'saw' SULU Sea (which I think is down near Java). Liked the NAPKIN and CAKEPAN clues. But OVERWEENING? C'mon. Overall though, I agree with Argyle on his overarching view.

    BTW - 31a -- My paper had it clued as SEATO member. USA came easily.

    Have a great day.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Theme for Saturday puzzles, “Why do you keep hitting yourself in the head with the hammer?” “Because it feels so good when I quit!” I felt great today when I got this one done! Thanks Brad for a wonderful time!

    Musings
    -Splynter, good job even though the graphics did not load
    -Congrats Jayce!
    -Overbearing, Meted, RPMS, Jovial, By A Nose, Begin and Pastor came first
    -Kana, Imogen, Ara and Déclassé were learning opps
    -I wish live TV was still around. I remember seeing Death of a Salesman that way! Is there a better American play?
    -Barbed wire tamed the Wild West as much as the 6 gun
    -USA seems clued a lot lately as NATO and SEATO and OAS member
    -No soup for you today?
    -The older you get, the more you see life EVENOUT
    -Brad, you got shell steak by the guy who lives in the “beef state”
    -I’ve learned more from people from the real world than ANYONE from Academe!
    -Go Big Red today!

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  12. Good Morning, folks. Thanks, Brad, for occupying my morning. Interesting puzzle, but tough. Thank you, Splynter, for the great write-up.

    As usual, I bounced all over this puzzle. Finally got it, but with a couple errors.

    Missed SHELL STEAK. Never heard of that one. Missed ONE O CAT. Had an M instead of the N.

    Got all the other big words, some by guesses. Never heard of OVERWEENING, but wagged it. A MOI was a pure wag. Still not hot on foreign languages in an english speaking crossword.

    Looking forward to tomorrow's puzzle. See you tomorrow.

    Abejo

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  13. To Jayce: I forgot. Happy Anniversary. Great Photos.

    Abejo

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  14. Good afternoon everybody.

    Great job, Splynter. It was a DNF for me, no surprise.

    I had lie, which also gave me library for Egghead's environs. I also misread source for sauce, which didn't help solve 8D.

    Happy anniversary Jayce and LW. Great pix. Thanks.

    Hope you get some relief from that knee, Hondo.

    Mr. Birtwell, the Naples News also had SEATO for 31A.


    Off to Steak n Shake for a great lunch. Especially the double chocolate shake.

    Cheers

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  15. Greetings, Splynter and all.

    Birthday party to attend so I have to shorten this.

    I enjoyed the top as it was fairly easy for Saturday but the bottom and center gave me fits and had to resort to Google for IMAC as I refused to give up LEAN TO, also IMOGEN, an unknown for me, MYSTICPIZZA, who knew?

    Had no idea about KANA or ONE'OCAT either so N was empty cell.

    Still it was fun, thank you, Brad.

    Have a fantastic Saturday, everyone! Rain expected here today; now that's an event!

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  16. Hello everybody. The San Jose Mercury News also had "SEATO member" as the clue for 31A. Made me want to put in NAM.

    Also had OVERBEARING at first.

    Misspelled COUNCIL, which screwed me up for a while.

    Forgot what Yegg meant; thought it referred to some Norwegian guy, so I got ICE anyway.

    Never heard of a shell steak. Sounds like a mere shell of itself.

    Wanted RPMS instead of REVS.

    Simone WEIL was the only lookup I needed to do today.

    Never heard of the SULU Sea.

    Funny that LW and I were just discussing tannins in wine last night and making jokes about ouor stomach linings being turned into leather.

    The pictures in Splynter's writeup don't show up for me. Just the "X" symbol.

    I remember the movie MYSTIC PIZZA. Don't recall that I understood it much, though.

    That would be 1995.

    Many happies, Kazie. Now LW and I are heading for the beach, an exploration of the tide pools, and a bowl of clam chowder at our favorite seaside joint.

    Scuse the stream-of-consciousness writing today. Best wishes to you all.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Hello.

    Just a quick hello today.
    Didn't do puzzle. Did copy answer sheet last night.

    It was a very moving tribute to
    to the KHL team.

    See that Anon @10:25 hasn't let go.

    Off to BHC pretty soon.

    Take care.

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  18. Husker Gary, are you aware there's a post size limit?

    ReplyDelete
  19. Hi everybody. Happy anniversaries to Kazie and Jayce. Hearty congratulations!

    Sallie, I hope you have a good lunch. Maybe we'll go out too. We've got a few dollars left on a gift certificate at a nice local restaurant. Plus our kitchen is messed up with a new refrigerator that's not working properly and with preparation for new linoleum on Monday.

    I've never heard of a shell steak either. Here it's called a New York strip; the bigger part of a Porterhouse or T-bone, not the tenderloin.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Jayce: Nice pic's. Happy 46th.

    Kazie: Happy 39th.

    RPMS for that Tact count.
    BY-A-NOSE for Very slim margin.
    WTF's for too many others to mention.

    Argyle: I agree. When puzzles have too much arcane Minutiae they lose their FUN Factor.

    I'm just glad my "2 cups of java" rule kicked in on another "proud" Saturday DNF ...

    ReplyDelete
  21. Hola Everyone, I just wanted to check in and say Happy Anniversary to Jayce and his LW.

    Enjoy your trip over the hill to wade in the tide pools. Which restaurant has the best clam chowder?

    Have a great weekend, everyone.

    ReplyDelete
  22. Anon @1:43, yup I'm aware of the limit of ABOUT 20 lines and today I wrote 26 with several lines being one or two words. Since I am not Anon, C.C. knows how to email me.

    ReplyDelete
  23. Hi Everyone ~~

    I guess I liked this puzzle because I was able to get most of it. I had a blank square where OVERWEENING (huh?) crossed WEIL. A lot of lucky guesses and perps helped in a number of places. I knew MYSTIC PIZZA because it was filmed here in CT. I had some of the same unknowns that others have already mentioned, including SHELL STEAK and ONEOCAT.

    Spylnter ~~Thanks for explaining the things that were still unclear even after it all fell into place!

    All in all this was enjoyable and seemed a bit easier than a usual Saturday puzzle.

    Congrats and best wishes on your anniversary, Jayce!

    ReplyDelete
  24. Hello Puzzlers - This one had Saturday all over it. Took multiple passes to refine and refine more, but got there with Goog help on unfamiliar names, plus confirmation about sheep's milk in Romano (mmmm).

    Thanks for hanging in there, Splynter!

    Husker from yesterday - thanks for the lag explanation. I get it now, it's an angular velocity thing.

    ReplyDelete
  25. I just got back from Warren's pottery sale. There were some gorgeous pots for sale.

    I bought a blue glazed vase for a B/day gift that Warren's wife had made. Her jams were yummy. If I didn't have over 5 doz jars of my own jam from this year, I would have purchased some of her very unique combinations. The pepper jams over cream cheese was especially good.

    While my applesauce is cooking, I'm going to try doing the puzzle. Saturday's aren't usually on my agenda, but I'll have some down time to relax and give it a try.

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  26. My daughter was in a tiny little accident yesterday. Another car barely scraped the side of her car when she was getting off the freeway. It's hard to see the very little damage. I decided not to ask her if she was texting at the time.

    ReplyDelete
  27. Hello.

    Back from the Pottery Sale. Just
    got three jars of Ruth's jam.

    Nice meeting Chickie this time.

    Think shell steak is just New York Strip Steak.

    Had to laugh last night. Was reading a Robert Parker novel.
    Spencer kept ordering iceD tea.

    Photo tomorrow, CC?

    eddy

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  28. I could have sworn I posted congratulations to Jayce and his wife earlier. Lovely photos with interesting progression, thank you for sharing.

    Shall we know how you met you LW?

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  29. A DNF for me today, but I had most of it in. Overweening is not in my vocabulary, and I don't think I'll be using that word in a sentence in the near future. But a learning moment for me today.

    I enjoyed meeting Warren and Eddy B. at the sale today. We all had our picture taken in front of Warren and Ruth's display. Picture to post soon.

    ReplyDelete
  30. As with most Saturdays, DNF. Oh well, it is a good exercise to learn new words

    I had MAI for 45A. Its the french spelling for May.

    And for 43D I had Cricket.

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  31. You're welcome Dudley! That is how a 140 lb man can drive the ball as far as a 230 lb man and a 60 year old man like Tom Watson can come very close to winning the British Open against the best golfers in the world! It ain't the size of the dog in the fight...

    ReplyDelete
  32. Hale goodfolk,

    I liked this puzzle even though I really BLEW it! Even with a number of lookups, it was pretty well filled with errors! But I tried!I won't bore you with a rundown on all of them.

    Happy anniversary on the right day, Jayce! What a lovely wife you have! You look pretty good, too!


    We had an unusual occurence last night about dinner time. A short but noisy thunderstorm! Even some rain, which is unheard of this time of year! I thought at first it was just sound effects from the t.v. I was watching Richard Engle and Rachel Maddow in their excellent documentary about how life has changed since the 9/11 disaster. If you didn't see it, try to find a rerun. We no longer have any tv or movie directory in our daily paper, so you're sort of on your own trying to pin down any program in our area. Guess I'll have to subscribe to the T.V. Guide. Ever more clutter to deal with!

    It's getting late and I haven't had dinner yet, so "hasta la vista, babies". dodo

    Way over the limit! Mybad, C.C.

    ReplyDelete

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