Theme: Double Takes. Common phrases with the word “double” are transformed cleverly by doubling the key word, instead, like this:
17A. Much-feared economic situation. DIP DIP RECESSION. “Double” dip recession, or a recession, short-lived recovery, followed by another recession.
24A. Sightseer’s option. DECKER DECKER BUS. “Double” decker bus. Often, a London sightseer’s option.
42A. It both aids and hinders. EDGED EDGED SWORD. “Double” edged sword. If one edge is pointing at the enemy, the other edge is pointing directly back at yourself…
56A. Optimal design for clinical trials. BLIND BLIND STUDY. So, here is where I got the AHA moment. I had ****D BLIND STUDY. And I knew it was “double blind study”, or one where neither the participants nor the administrators of the study know the parameters. DUH! Pass the V8 can, please. How many double blind studies have I overseen in my research years? And to think that the most satisfactory one was in an LA Times crossword puzzle!!
Marti signing in today, and totally loving this puzzle! So let me share some of my thoughts…
Across:
1. Like gates, at times. AJAR. When is a gate not a gate?
5. Wide-brimmed hat wearers. AMISH. Did anyone want Tom Mix? (You are dating yourself!)
10. 5-Across, e.g. SECT. This actually let me go back and fill in AMISH for 5A.
14. Pasture gait. LOPE. Not pace, trot, step, clip or walk…
15. Archaeologist’s prefix. PALEO
16. Chat room “Just a thought…” IMHO. In my humble opinion…
20. AOL feature. ONLINE AD. Ubiquitous, IMHO.
21. Like grapefruit. CITRUS
22. Cross shape. TAU. The Greek cross.
23. It often has two slashes. DATE. 11/03/11. Yep, they’re right…two slashes!
32. Despises. ABHORS
33. Angst. WOE. “Angst is me!”
34. Egyptian threat. ASP
35. Bell, book and candle. NOUNS. We’ve had “Tom, Dick and Harry, e.g.” for NAMES before.
Why no “e.g.” here?
36. Reunion attendees. KIN.
37. Humeri attachments. ULNAE. Filled in rapidly, without thinking about it. But to analyze, “humeri” is the Latin plural of “humerus”, or the long bone of the arm from elbow to shoulder, and ULNAE is the Latin plural of ulna, which is the long bone from the elbow to the wrist.
39. Former station for 26-down. CNN. And 26D. Povich co-anchor. CHUNG. Maury and Connie Chung. “Weekends with Maury and Connie” debuted in January 2006, but was cancelled for lack of interest in June. Connie did a parody of herself in this “Thanks for the Memories” clip when it was cancelled.
40. Go astray. SIN. Who wanted “err”?
41. Advil alternative. ANACIN. Tylenol alternative yesterday, for “Bayer”. Today, ANACIN and Advil are both solid brand names, right? Either way, I’m getting a headache…
46. Mil. Field rations. MRES. Meal Ready to Eat…s. So, how would YOU do the plural? I would probably say “meals ready to eat”…or to abbreviate: MRE.
47. Fruity suffix. ADE. Lemon-, lime-, orange-, block- (…whatever!)
48. Noted. ESPIED. “I espied, with my little eye…” Link.
51. Cold ones. BREWSKIS. Ahhh..now here’s one we can all relate to, right?
58. Tops. A-ONE. My favorite steak sauce!
59. Wading bird. EGRET.
60. Yeats’s homeland. ERIN. Note, the apostrophe in Yeats’s name!
61. Huck Finn-like assent. YES’M. Note, the apostrophe in the contraction…
62. Golden, south of the border. DE ORO. Literally, “of gold” in Spanish.
63. Something on the house?: Abbr. MTGE. Most people have a mortgage on their house.
Down:
1. Tough guy actor __ Ray : ALDO. No clue. This guy.
2. Make one : JOIN
3. Laundry room item: Abbr. : APPL. Appliance
4. __-Tea: White Rose product : REDI. The world's first instant iced tea (or is it "ice-tea"?)
5. Manifests itself : APPEARS
6. Emulate a conqueror : MARAUD
7. "__ Three Lives": old TV drama : I LED
8. Champagne designation : SEC . Meaning "dry" in French. Not to be confused with "sekt", which is the German term for "sparkling" wine.
9. Dixie breakfast fare : HOECAKE. Mmmm..DH loves him some HOE CAKE, made with cornmeal and milk, for breakfast!
10. Convent address : SISTER
11. Mideast chieftain : EMIR
12. Mid-20th-century Chinese premier : CHOU. En-lai, or Zhou Enlai. First Premier of the PRC. C.C. taught me that Cantonese has no "zh" word. Hence Zhou En-Lai becomes Chou En-Lai.
13. Scads : TONS.
18. Lays in a grave : INTERS. Spooky clue - should have had this one on Monday!
19. Where it's at : SITE. Loved this clue! Here's my first thought...
23. Brand in a ratty apartment? : D-CON. Ewww...
24. Ball : DANCE
25. WWII investment choice : E-BOND
27. Heyerdahl's "__-Tiki" : KON
28. Basketball Hall of Fame center since 2008 : EWING
29. Baccarat cry : BANCO. John Lennon mistakenly yelled "Bingo!" in "A Hard Day's Night".
30. Carrier renamed in 1997 : US AIR. Now US Airways.
31. Shell out : SPEND
36. "The __ Are All Right": 2010 Oscar nominee : KIDS
37. Prepares to redo, as a quilt section : UNSEWS. Comments?
38. Court standard : LAW
40. Ready-to-plant plot : SEED BED
41. Augmented : ADDED TO
43. "Crack a Bottle" rapper : EMINEM. Sorry, you're going to have to provide your own links here. I'm going to go crack a bottle of wine...(Hey, it is almost 11 PM when I am doing this, not 5:30 AM!!) (Jeesh!!)
44. Scott in an 1857 case : DRED. Review: Dred Scott unsuccessfully sued for his freedom, and that of his wife and children, because he had lived with his master in states where slavery was illegal. All this was made moot by Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation.
45. Dough maker? : EARNER
48. Modern option for sellers : EBAY
49. English jelly fruit : SLOE. I like mine with gin!
50. Establishes, with "down" : PINS
51. Ballpoint pen brand : BIRO
52. __ cell research : STEM. Gail Martin at UCSF is a pioneer in this area, and one of my "heroines".
53. "Timequake" author Vonnegut : KURT
54. Hipster's "Gotcha!" : I DIG
55. Word sung on New Year's Day : SYNE. Auld...lang...
57. Bigger than med. : LGE. (You want fries with that??)
That's it for now. See you next week, same time, same blog spot!
Marti
84 comments:
Morning, all!
This one nearly kicked my butt. It took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out the theme gimmick, but once I did I was able to quickly go back and fill in all three theme answers. Even with that, though, the NW and SW corners almost did me in.
Up in the NW, I wanted OPEN for AJAR, couldn't think of a famous "tough guy" named RAY, had never heard of REDI-Tea, couldn't think of an 4-letter abbreviation for either "washer" or "dryer" that would fit, and became convinced that 20A was part of the theme and was therefore something called a ONEONEAD.
Down in the SW, it was just as bad. I was thinking "famous" for "noted" at 48 and kept trying to fit some form of ESTEEMED, I misspelled (as usual) EMINEM as EMENEM, and couldn't get PINS down to save my life.
I did finally make it through unassisted, but this was the longest weekday puzzle for me in a loooong time.
Good Morning, Marti and friends. After the first pass across I thought I was doomed. I was sure that 56-Across was Double Blind Test. It wasn't until I figured out EDGE EDGE SWORD, that i caught on to the puzzles gimmick. It amused me.
I learned that Lays in a Grave is INTERS and not Buries. We had MREs recently.
I did initially think of Err instead of SIN, but I smiled at the rhyming of KIN directly over SIN.
Although I didn't think of the musician, I am a fan of Beck.
I remember seeing Patrick Ewing play B'ball at the Cambridge Rindge and Latin High School.
Never heard of HOE CAKES and I've lived in the south for the past many years. I'll have to ask my colleagues at our monthly communal breakfast this morning.
QOD: Always be smarter than the people who hire you. ~ Lena Horne
Hahtool, hoecakes were one of the staples eaten by the Joad family in “The Grapes of Wrath”, along with "side meat". They are mentioned on page 110 of the book, here.
Hi gang -
Well done, Marti -- YES'M!
I'm up way too early this morning. Call it late-onset insomnia. Lots of trouble with this puzzle. I wonder why? Not seeing double was part of it. Finally caught on. Half an hour and a flock of red letter later, I'm done.
There are some blatantly pickable nits, but I'll just go have some breakfast.
HOECAKE?!? Bring on the bad jokes.
Cheers!
JzB
Thanks, HeartRx. I read The Grapes of Wrath years ago, and probably just skipped over the reference to the Hoe Cakes!
Now I just go and UNSEW my quilt.
My three criteria for a good puzzle – 1) tough but fair, 2) fun and helpful theme and 3) a learning opportunity. Thanks for the hat trick Jeff!
Musings
-Double blind was my epiphany too Marti
-My wife suggested that the recent east coast storm probably bothered the Amish the least
-Free ain’t really free on the web with all the ads
-I guess a marauder must MARAUD
-My reunion attendees first had diplomas
-ULNAE not RADII
-Oh no, more plural and pain reliever issues – brewskiEs and ANACIN
-When you activate the MRE’s they become too hot to handle
-Huck had an asset and Champagne had a destination before I read more carefully
-LIE in the grave is passive and LAYing in the grave is my neighbor’s occupation
-Like Ernie Banks, Patrick was great but never won a professional championship
-My renamed carrier floated first
Happy Thursday and as always Julian was challenging and Marti entertaining. This was clever and the solving experience really depended on seeing the theme, which emerged for me with DIP DIP, so I had a fine time. I also have had many Hoecakes while living in Gainesville; they are yummy.
I will always remember Aldo Ray from his role in WE'RE NO ANGELS where he co-starred with Humphrey Bogart and Peter Ustinov. If you have not seen the original, it is a delightful film. (4:49).
The ON LINE AD and APPL was the last to fall for me.
Got ALDO immediately, and then inked in DOUBLE RECESSION, because DOUBLE DIP RECESSION wouldn't fit. Soon figured out that the first word must be DIP, and the second word had to be DIP as well, and I was off and running. Nice theme.
Good fill today also, with the exception of UNSEWS (Eeew!). I'd rate it a Friday-level puzzle.
I don't know this for sure, but I never heard of anyone "unsewing." What we do is when we need to undo stitches is rip them out. And we use an inexpensive little tool called a seam ripper. Unsew is just wrong. But I did get it early in the puzzle.
What HG said:
My three criteria for a good puzzle – 1) tough but fair, 2) fun and helpful theme and 3) a learning opportunity. Thanks for the hat trick Jeff!
Marti. I always enjoy your wit.
It seemed difficult at first as I picked up a word here and there until I had BLINDBL--DSTU-Y.. Double blind study! Aha! There's the theme. It was easy thereafter.
The last to fall was MTGE. I don't have one and was taking the clue literally. I DIG gave it to me.
On Sat. my sister and I are going to a PA German (commonly PA Dutch) museum in Lancaster, PA. Most of the sightseeing info. about the PA Germans is about the Amish and other Plain people. The largest majority of the PA Germans were not Amish or Plain people. Here is one for us, the "Fancy" Dutch! We used to be called the Gay Dutch, until "Gay" had a different connotation.
L-714, if the rest of the movie is as good as the clip, Im watching it. Hard to believe I havent seen it before.
OK, who stole my apostrophes?
The double-double made the fill easy, but I did get stumped a few times.
My favorite clue was 63A: Something on the house? MTGE. I also liked 23A (the one with two slashes). And yes, I did have ERR for 40A.
Almost there, just two more days.
I struggled with the whole north end of this one. I did get AJAR, LOPE, PALEO, IMHO but that was all. Couldn't think of AMISH, despite being near a lot of them in this area. Wanted TAK???? A TOUR BUS, OCTOBER RECESSION and BURIES for so long they blotted out any other perps that might have helped. I was just reading yesterday how this October was the best in years in the market, but the worst recessions in recent years have been in October. Had no idea what was an AOL feature. From CITRUS on down I got everything unaided, though very slowly.
Hahtool,
In education the QOD situation is unavoidable in my experience.
I unPICK my seams when I ERR.
My first thought for slash slash was http://
G'Day, all. Great write up, Marti.
Like several others, I got the theme with BLIND BLIND STUDY and went back to easily fill the other three. Jeff did a great job on this one.
My only nit in this one was TAU with no indication that a foreign word would be needed. Fortunately, I had already filled APPEARS or I would have entered Tee with absolute certainty.
That gate was open and then shut before it was left AJAR. ALDO Ray was there once I had the A.
Did anyone else want HTTP for that thing with two slashes?
No fair posting while I'm typing, Argyle.
Kazie: I agree with you, but one only work for idiots for so long.
Hi there ~!
Me, too, I thought of HTTP first.
And I am clearly smarter than the clown in charge on my line at UPS.
Splynter
Hahtool and Kazie, re QOD. Poor principals don’t bother you if
a) They think you are doing a good job or, more importantly,
b) You are not causing them any problems.
That’s how I lasted 42 years.
The USA Today puzzle had this clue/answer I can’t figure out: 6D Perfect start for a grammarian. PLU. I know our blog is rife with grammarians, so can you help me out?
I’ve had grits and hush puppies and I have never had nor seen a HOECAKE.
YR, Amish musings
-My understanding of the phrase “Pennsylvania Dutch” was originally “Pennsylvania Deustch” thus referring to Germany and not Holland.
-The Amish call all non-Amish people Englishmen.
-The Amish kids were capitalists as they boarded our bus barefooted selling their wares.
-The best tractor repairmen in Lancaster were Amish men who could not own or use one
Hahtool,
It's one reason I retired early. But the reason I stuck with it so long was that being the only one teaching my subjects, I was left pretty much to my own resources, so I could stay out of their way.
One funny story concerns an assistant principal who came on a student trip to Germany with us one year. He stupidly left his passport in a hotel room and had to apply at a consulate for a replacement. Meantime, the hotel forwarded the lost one back to our family stay address. When boarding the plane to return home, he had the new one in his baggage, and even more stupidly presented the old one, which was of course flagged as stolen and he was hauled off to an "interview" behind closed doors. I had to suppress my amusement in front of the kids but they all thought it funny anyway.
I agree the QOD certainly applies to education. I saved my money and retired early to avoid that. I loved the kids and teaching, so I turned to tutoring and became my own boss.
CROSS SHAPE, my first thought was of religious crosses. I had the T and the only one beginning with T that I know of is TAU.
Link TAU crosses
HG,
PLUPERFECT is the "more than perfect" form with the auxiliary "had":
I have done it = Present Perfect Tense, i.e. complete at the present time.
I had done it = Past (or) Pluperfect Tense, completed at some time in the past.
Found the "double" theme like HeartRx at BLIND-BLIND-STUDY ... right after my Double-DECKER-BUS pulled out-of-the-station.
Then I remembered Maury Povich once was a genuine journalist and had a show with his wife, Connie CHUNG, on CNN, before his "real, calling-in-life" was to determine paternity on national TV.
Hand-up for http(//).
My Dixie breakfast had a hoTcake at first.
And UNSEWS is just ugly, though it is in the Scrabble Dictionary and scores a '9'.
geez, what a nice Ink-Blot.
YES'M, I need some BREWSKI'S.
Cheers ...
Gary -
I aint no grammarian (though I am married to a gramma) but I finded this: PLUPERFECT.
Now I got's to take me a nap, so's I'll have enough energy to cut me some lawn. (Last time I hope's.)
Cheers!
JzB harvester
Our school system had the "flavor of the month," no make that "year," for teaching reading. New styles and parameters were always being adopted without rescinding the older ones. It was like painting in the Grandma Moses , Dali, Georgia O'Keefe, et al. styles all in the same painting. We all taught reading "under the table" or "sub rosa" according to what actually works,hauling out the flavor needed whenever we were scrutinized.
My teaching friends all complaiun that silliness, unreasonable regulations, etc are getting worse by the year.
In the well to do suburban northeast, especially in these last years, teachers may get along with their principals, but they are unhappy about their idiot decisions.
Hello.
Got and loved the theme early on.
A lot of the rest just filled in.
Remembered Aldo Ray in Battle Cry.
Worked very closely with the Principle of Brian's middle school.
She was one of the good ones.
She did persist in calling me the
chairperson of the SSC. I added MR to the title. She laughed and let it go.
The other half of an order came this AM. Not sure which order was filled as there was no package slip again. Could have been 1 of 3.
Hockey and Bones tonight.
Tahoe area getting lots of snow.
Take care. eddy
I loved this puzzle and all the head scratching it caused. Progress was slow, but steady, and finishing took about 45 minutes. Was able to get it all unassisted. This is highly unusual for me on a Thursday as I normally resort to working them on line with red letter help. My desktop is in sick bay with a nasty virus so it was all pen and paper this morning. I left with a feeling of immense satisfaction.
I agree "unsews" was ugly but acceptable. Thanks to Julian for the mental gymnastics and to Marti for a stellar write up. I'll definitely be joining you at sunset, Tinbeni.
Enjoy your Gateway to the Weekend (Thursday in Bob and Sheri speak) everyone. Cheers to all.
Meh.
Meh.
Almost same puzzle to 2009 ACPT puzzle, http://crosswordfiend.blogspot.com/2009/03/2009-acpt-puzzle-4.html
Good morning all. Marti, good job.
I used TONS of Wite™ Out before wrestling this one down, but it got finished ok. With BLIND² STUDY, The theming became clear, and helped with the DIP… and DECKER… acrosses. Thought the clue for JOIN was really clever. The NC was last to fall, but finally thought of PALEO and with AMISH the light went on, and there was MARAUD!. 58d choices all had 4 letters so SYNE had to await the perps.
IMHO nobody here is really 'old'. Take a look at this babe: centenarian with her 81 yr old car. She changes her own oil.
I think it's iced tea - ice-T is a rapper/actor.
Really nice - like others BLINDBLIND got me on the right track with the theme, and like @BarryG this took me a lot longer than usual. Loved it. Excellent write-up @Marti.
I didn't like UNSEWS but I didn't even stop to think about it.
Funny about ANACIN and MRES after yesterday. On the pluralization question, strictly speaking MRE is "Meal Ready-to-eat", therefore MRES is fine with me.
Is Anon 11:16 channeling "whatever" from @Sfingi yesterday?
Funny seeing SLOE and PINS right next to each other - when you make sloe gin, you have to pierce each berry, usually with a pin, so that the juice can infuse the gin. Takes ages when you've got a few pounds of berries to stab.
Spitzboov, wonderful video of that lady and her car...neither one of them looks like an "antique" to me!
VirginiaC, LOL. But my comment about "iced tea" vs. "ice tea" was tongue-in-cheek, since there are a lot of folks on this blog who grind their teeth every time they see "ice tea" in a puzzle.
I really liked this. Was having trouble when I suddenly got it and filled in all the answers- except BIRO crosses DEORO.
I had never heard of BIRO, and it didn't occur to me to put the article in front of Spanish gold.
However, I did not like LGE as an abbrev for LRG. Nor do I know anyone who calls pulling out thread UNSEWing, though I got the answer.
There was some cute fill, such as DCON. We've certainly had a lot of pain killers, lately.
Got HOECAKES and YES'M immediately. Hoecakes are made with corn flour. We always loved to combine maple syrup (Mother's New England side and way better than Karo) with any corn fritter or cake (Dad's Baltimore side). Best of both worlds.
Italians often double the adjective or adverb rather than using some "very" slternative: pian' piano would mean very softly.
@Tinbeni - I guess Povich and other gross talk show emcees have to cry all the way to the bank, or piange a fut. I'd have to get drunk before each show.
Thanx HeartRx, This is my first time at this blog and...I am one of those who grinds teeth at ice tea, both in puzzles and on menus.:-)
What everybody else has said--although I had to cheat a little on the NW corner since I was also stuck with 'open' and 'shut' rather than 'ajar' (Doh!). It helped coming from Lancaster, PA, and getting 'Amish' right away.
So I have to ask: what's with the V-8 can which pops up from time to time?
Fun way to start a Thursday morning, so thanks Marti and Mr. Lim.
Greetings, Marti, C.C. and all puzzlers.
Well, Julian Lim never fails in trying to frustrate me but I ESPIED his double doses on EDGEDEDGEDSWORD.
Still, he led me on a BLINDBLINDSTUDY throughout the puzzle. Thee were many unknowns here, BANCO, BIRO, and EWING. Then the obscurity of like gates, at times, AJAR and wide brimmed hat wearers, AMISH. But got it with SECT.
Yet I kept up with him and finished though I had ALLEVE before ANACIN and TEE then TAU. And worst of all BLANDBLANDSTUDY. And yes, http// was my first guess.
Thanks, Julian and Marti for your ever dazzling blog. Good Thursday entertainment.
Have a superb Thursday, everyone!
First time posting after following PuzzleGirl's blog. Good to see some familiar faces in Tinbeni, Sfingi and VirginiaC.
This was a good challenge for a Thursday, with some nice misdirection and nothing that obscure. The cold-war drama "I LED Three Lives" was a new one, though.
A few minor nitpicks:
- MARAUD is a little groanworthy. My new standard for this is: if someone played it on a Scrabble board, would I think, "Oh, come on!"
- APPL for appliance is just meh...
- How is "PINS down" establishes?
Good Morning All, It took me until DECKER DECKER BUS to realize that the first theme wasn't DIP DIPRECESSION. I was thinking of a "Dip in some kind of depression". Never mind that it was misspelled. I saw it and then like yesterday, I RESAW it.
So when I looked up 37D)UNSEWS post-puzzle, I wasn't surprised to see it show up in several dictionaries. I'm still with the other blog seamstresses. Ya sew it and then, by whatever means, if necessary ya rip or clip it out.
Trouble in the NW was with 2D)Make One/JOIN. The "marital" light bulb didn't go off until just about now. I've never heard of 4D)REDI-Tea either. I did know gravel-voiced ALDO Ray, so I managed to perp it. Several other mini tough spots, but sloowwly, I worked it out.
About 16A)IMHO, is anyone's opinion really HUMBLE? It sounds kind of disingenuous to me.
Hahtool, thanks for the nice comment yesterday.
@Clear Ayes re IMHO - it's used in a tongue-in-cheek fashion when you make a strong statement in an attempt to deflect the undoubted vitriol that's going to be coming your way.
Something along the lines of "Any constructor who uses a word like UNSEWS in a puzzle should be permanently banished into the Slough of Despond never to be heard of again, IMHO, of course"
:)
Never thought I'd see the day when decades of CWing would give me the answer to the Jumble (LAT Business Section). Today's: "... the center of gravity" = [the] LETTER V.
Good afternoon everyone.
I got all of 12 correct on this puzzle. Didn't catch on to the doubles
Nit: I've always sung Auld Lang SYNE on New Year's Eve, not day.
Had USMINT for dough maker.
Yellowrocks, that was a wonderful link to TAUs
Spitz; the "babe" is great.
Thanks Marti for the explanations. I surely needed them.
Cheers
This took me a while but it was fun when I caught onto the theme. I can live with UNSEW because it makes sense even though nobody I know has ever used the word.
Hey Misty, in case no one else responds to your question, here's my take on the V-8 can. V-8 is supposed to be good for you; maybe even make you smarter according to the advertisements. So when we miss something we think we should have gotten, we sometimes either need a V-8 or some folks hit themselves in the head with it creating a dent in both the can and their head. I enjoy V-8 for breakfast or most any other time too )though not for dessert).
Actually, the V-8 can routine is in reference to the V-8 commercial where the person smacks him/herself in the forehead and says, "I shoulda had a V-8!"
I thought everyone knew that.
Hello Puzzlers -
How timely. I spent a couple of days this week fixing an old British double-decker bus. Why, you ask? Because it was converted to a rolling ice cream parlor, and was therefore outfitted with a large diesel generator to run the freezers. Desperate for electricity, I got the old beast going and hooked it up to the nearest house. We thus had some lights, water, and a working fridge.
Still no services in our neighborhood. We are cold and tired. Mostly tired.
Sallie, re the song, I thought the same thing for a moment, but memory (fading) led me to the visual(audio?) image of the song coming just after the countdown, which would technically make it 1/1, not 12/31.
Perhaps it's a semantic thing, sorta like: "Did the 21st century begin on 1/1/00 or 1/1/01?"
John W - pins down: Example: When you pin down the (crime) evidence, you 'establish' who the perpetrator is.
Argyle and Grumpy: Hands up for HTTP although I didn't write it down. DATE came in due course.
On the 101 yr old woman. See how she steps on the small red rug on the running board; then after entering the vehicle, she sets it inside to use later when she egresses. Very particular.
Too bad Julian missed out on a new way to get that ubiquitous CW cookie into the grid:
STUFSTUFOREO
(too few letters?)
BARRELBARRELSHOTGUN
(too many)
NECKNECKGUITAR
(Jimmy Page and Rick Nielsen come to mind)
PANEPANEWINDOW
Misty, did you ever have one of those moments when an answer that has eluded you suddenly becomes obvious and you slap your forehead and say "how could I have missed that"? Now imagine you're having a can of V8 juice with your breakfast while doing the puzzle and don't set it down before smacking your forehead. That's a "V8 moment" or "another dent in the V8 can" here on the blog.
Thanks for the puzzle a blog.
I couldn't finish. But that's usual for me on Thursday.
I think of a "feature" as something useful and that the user likes. So 20A, AOL feature, threw me. I was looking for something good. I consider online ads an annoyance to be tolerated, not a feature. IMHO :-)
Steve, Spitzboov used IMHO earlier and I take him at his word. He actually is an informative and yet humble guy. I've learned a lot of science stuff from him (not enough to make much of a dent in my Slough of Science Despond).
Otherwise, I think you are probably right, although I hope Julian Lim doesn't take your banishment literally.
Bill G. I think it was our now-seldom-seen Carol who first bashed a figurative V-8 can to her forehead on the blog and told us, "I coulda used a V-8" to get her brain going in the right direction.
Speaking of right directions, I had a tough time with 35A)Bell, book and candle/NOUNS. I tried to fit MAGIC for a while, but I had to give it up. One of those slow downs I had.
I never have heard of a BIRO pen. Wiki says it is more of a generic term in England.
Good morning all,
Like Sallie, this was a wallapolooza for me.( one of my many words I've heard but never seen..it fits).I struggled and could do about 1/3 of it on my own.Slow brain action today.
Marti, I never want to miss your write-ups because I learn so much . Thanks for the weekly effort.
Crisp fall weather has finally arrived in CA.
Tino-Techie, don't you remember the catch phrase of the 90's, usually directed toward Microsoft products? "That's not a bug, it's a feature!"
About that Irish poet from 60A)ERIN...Aedh, appears in Yeats's poetry as an archetypal character who is lovelorn and is at at the mercy of his lover. If it sounds familiar this poem has been used in the films "Equilibrium" and "84 Charing Cross".
Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven
Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
- William Butler Yeats
Your puzzle was double- fun, Julian; as was your write-up, Marti. Thanks you two.
And thanks to the creative posters and linkers. Packard Lady is wonderful, Spitz.
I can rip out, but I don’t know how to UNSEW. This really goes on the GAVEUP list. OK, NC? Remember, CA, you have the final say on this. ( Wish I could remember what it stood for.)But NC and I named you as final ‘say’ on it.
My big fat blank was the O in BRIO. Didn’t think about an article (DE) for ORO.
It’s so nice to keep hearing from new refuges; and many have gone blue. I haven’t had time to check where everyone is from (end of sentence).
Back to barn cleaning on a rainy, chilly day. ‘Free access’ so no stall mucking; all are potty trained. Well, except on brutally cold days.
Happy Friday eve. Think I like “Gateway to the Weekend” better, Mtnest995.
Hello everybody. Pretty good puzzle today. I found it challenging but fair. Starting out, i left a lot of white space, as nothing came to me as I read the across clues until I tentatively entered ASP. A little bit here, a little bit there, and I managed to finally solve it all.
Hands up for immediately thinking of HTTP, but I didn't want to write it in because somehow I just knew that wouldn't be it. Without the perps I probably would never have thought of DATE, since I always write my dates with hyphens rather than slashes. Why? Because (1) my slashes look too much like ones (or sevens), and (2) I often put dates in my file names and you can't have slashes in file names. I also thought maybe the clue referred to literal slashes, so my mind flipped through the list of knives, fingernails, and various other objects that can slash.
On the whole a fun hour this morning.
@Bill G., Grumpy, Clear Ayes, and Anon., thank you so much for explaining V-8 to me. Since I do remember the commercial, it all makes perfect sense now.
In thanks, let me offer another W.B. Yeats poem about
The Isle of Innisfree
I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee;
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.
I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.
IMHO Maraud is a perfectly legitimate verb, but, of course, not a legitimate deed. I would never think to question the verb. Somali pirates are marauding in the Gulf of Aden.
Inre: ANON@11:16 Did I hear that a puzzle theme cannot be repeated on LAT, or is it in any published puzzle? The URL ANON posted shows that this theme has been used before. Check it out.
Dudley, so sorry about your plight. Clever use of the bus generator. We still have a few towns with closed schools and quite a few homes without power, but most are back on the grid.
I used to be naive in playing Scrabble. Then I learned that un- and re- are added to almost any verb. Apparently some of you do play Scrabble. Have you played "Upwords! Scrabble?" I like it.
Loved the lady with the Packard.
Spitz, I love that old car. There's something about the style of an old Packard that pleases. Do any of you remember a made-for-TV movie in parts called The Last Convertible? It featured a similar Packard. I really enjoyed that show and I haven't been able to find it anywhere. I wonder if it's available somewhere on DVD?
CA, thanks for the kind words. I guess I agree with both your and Steve's takes. It's probable not humble to characterize one's opinion as 'humble'. I guess, like most, I use the mnemonic as a shortcut phrase because it has crept into the texting world which most now recognize. Maybe I should use small 'h' in IMhO.
Re UNSEW. Many feed bags and bird food bags have a stitched closure. As a kid I learned that if you start at the correct end, you could open it if you pulled at the correct thread, and it would simply undo or unravel itself. (works for single and double thread stitching.) Is this an example of UNSEWing?
Yellowrocks:
In-Re the Anon "Meh" of the whole puzzle ...
I'd say "half" todays theme was used in the 2009 ACPT #4 puzzle.
Since I didn't compete that year (or any other year for that matter) the puzzle was fresh for me.
Then again, I have seen KON Tiki clued as today.
And MRES goes all-the-way-back to...yesterday.
We've had "that" U.S.AIR clue before.
Hell, now that I think about it, UNSEWS & BANCO are probably the only "fresh-fill."
I just hope tomorrow doesn't have an "Add-a-letter" or "Change-a-letter" punny theme.
(Or repeat ANY "clues/answers" ever used before in a Crossword).
Maybe after a "sip-of-Avatar" I'll change my mind.
Cheers !!!
Thanks, Creature. Wish I could take credit for the phrase, but when I heard it I had to adopt it since I live in the Gateway to Yosemite. LOL
@Clear Ayes and @Spitzboov especially - I in no way intended my IMHO comment as a dig at anyone on this blog, I just intended to note that many people use it as a blast deflector.
And I certainly would never send any of the LAT constructors to the Slough of Despond!
On the BIRO subject, the classic Bic ball-point pen in the UK is branded as "Biro", but it's become a generic term for a ball-point, much as a vacuum cleaner is usually called a hoover.
"I hoovered up a biro yesterday and needed a band-aid to fix it" has three generics in one sentence.
Marti had a puzzle rejected because its theme was like another published theme.Was it PRO and CON? In my opinion,I thought this to be a bad call because Marti's theme was quite fresh and took a different angle. I enjoyed her puzzle. In light of this, although I enjoyed today's puzzle,I am amazed that it repeats a published theme. It is not just repeat cluing, which, as has been pointed out, is inevitable, but a repeat of a published theme. This has not diminished my solving pleasure today but has led me to question the rules. It's just like our stupid teaching rules. We have had two of Marti's puzzles rejected for nits.
I do understand that ANON's post was not pleasant or tactful, and can see why it got people's backs up, but fair is fair.
do you all understand how many puzzles are published each week? the repeats are inevitable, and like others, since i did not do competition puzzles, this was very fresh for me.
as for no add a letter punny theme; IT'S FRIDAY soon,. so
I think the LAT no repeat theme rule would apply only to ones published by LAT, and probably within a time frame, perhaps three years or so, that Rich has determined. I dabble in puzzles from other sources and often see a LAT theme that is similar to one that I had done recently on another site. Today's theme seemed quite novel to me.
Steve, I thought the ubiquitous vacuum in the UK was Dyson, rather than Hoover. "Nothing sucks like a Dyson".
Yellowrocks, thanks for the kind words. But, I have the highest esteem for Rich's decisions on any puzzle he accepts or rejects. I can't speak for what he does or doesn't consider "original". I just submit puzzles, and if he likes it, it gets published.
Like Tinbeni, I never have participated in the ACPT, so I thought this was a fun theme! Matter of fact, one of the advantages of senility is that you forget the puzzle you did last week, let alone two years ago. I'm thinking of hiding my own Easter eggs this year...
I see that Spitzboov has "unraveled" a chain stitch. I'm still not sure how I got in charge, but never fear, Creature, I'll never UNSEW anything!
mtnest995, are we next door neighbors? Maybe you're in Groveland? Mariposa? Sonora?....or maybe even Coulterville? We'll have to talk.
No worries Steve, it is all good. Just kidding around and not taking comments seriously. "Band-aid" was easy for the stateside folks, but thanks for the unusual "hoover" and "biro" explanation.
Grumpy1, laughed at the Dyson comment.
As always, appreciation to Marti and all the lovely people who take the daily commentaries and cleverly make them their own. Friday is rough, but Lemonade makes me want to check it out. Other days and other people are just as special!
Isn't a feature just a characteristic? Neither good nor bad, simply a part of something. E.G.: good humor and exquisite poetry is a feature of this blog.
Yeats brings me to tears.
'ello, peeps,
Great puzzle, Julian. Thank you very much and you, too, Marti, for another scintillating synopsis!
The first third of this on had me thinking about taking a pass, but I told myself that things often get better in the south. This turned out to be slmoat the case, so I hung on till the end. Like Lucy, it was edged edged that finally straightened me out as to the theme.I had been badly stuck on the fisrt two theme answers, so it was a bit of help and by that time blind blind study came easily.The NW I had to leave until I was almost finished. But it worked out with just one bit of help for banco. I have no idea about the game of Baccarat (I thought it was just crystal) So I felt it was a necessary learning experience to look up the game. And of course banco appeared.
Oh, dear, too long again and I wanted to say that if you are, like me, an avid reader of English authors, you are well acquainted with words such as biro,hoovering, lino, jumper, and many others.
Grumpy, your rmark about Dyson had me laughing.
Forgive me if I missed this, what with 71 responses already, but could somebody please explain to me 2d) how "make one" = JOIN? I do not get this at all. Only thing I could think of is maybe it is a knitting reference or something. However, when you JOIN two stitches, one is really decreasing rather than "making one."
I hated APPE - was looking for washer, dryer, iron, ironing board, clothes line, detergent, fabric softener, etc. You can all see, it has been a rough day!
Addict:
Two references come to mind, though I'm sure others will chime in.
When a couple is wed, they are "joined" and become as one. (couple)
When two pieces of steel are welded, they are "joined" and make one piece.
Dodo:
You are correct; things are often better in the South. ;)
I love Yeats's poems! I just reread them and decided I have to buy a volume of his works.
We Southern women who sew do NOT Unsew. We rip out the thread when we have a do-over!
Thank you Windhover, all I can say now is "duh" - it is amazing how the original perception of a clue can cloud one's mind. I was thinking "Make one what?" However, in my defense, a better clue would have been "make as one."
APPL is also a better abbreviation for appliance than APPE. I thought this was a tough puzzle, particularly in the NW corner. Wonder what's coming tomorrow!
Addict:
If this were Monday, I'm sure it would have. But I know what you mean. When I take a couple weeks off, my brain (more) often falls for the misdirection.
Addict, recheck your grid. 3d is APPL, not APPE.
My high school freshman sewing teacher would not let sewing mistakes pass. "A good seamstress always rips," she would declare. Often! It became the class buzz word for a lot of things. But as a family seamstress years later I taught my girls the same thing. No one "unsews", although a seam might accidentally tear at the stitching, thus coming unsewn. Spell check doesn't even like it. So I join the chorus here: "Let 'er RIP!"
-PK
Rain is supposed to be on its way for tomorrow. We'll see.
Dodo, I just read your next-to-last post. No worries. It only had 18 lines on my end.
Barbara and I went out for lunch today. We had a coupon for buy one, get one free at a very nice local restaurant. We split everything including a bowl of cream of corn soup (delicious!), a salad made with baby beet greens, a Reuben sandwich with rye bread, corned beef, sauerkraut, swiss cheese and Thousand Island dressing. For dessert, we split Barbara's favorite, creme brulée.
If you haven't seen this video about an autistic high school basketball player, I'm sure you will enjoy it. If you have seen it, you might enjoy watching it again.
Basketball player
Bill G.: great video. I'd seen a short clip of JMac before, but enjoyed this. So encouraging. My youngest grandson has been diagnosed with autism and is doing well with special schooling at age 4. They live far from me so I don't get to see him often. His mother (my DIL) is the best he could have.
-PK
PK, since you have become a regular contributor, why don't you fill out a resumé and go blue? That way we'd get to know a little more about you.
CA what a lovely, lovely poem. Thanks so much.
Bill G. Maybe the lines are a little bit wider when printed. Anyway, thanks for checking; it makes me feel better! I do get carried away!
I had forgotten to join the chorus on UNSEW which is very unsightly and never used by me. Rip is what I do to a bad stitch.
But then, it's a puzzle!
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