google.com, pub-2774194725043577, DIRECT, f08c47fec0942fa0 L.A.Times Crossword Corner: Sunday July 27, 2014 Ed Sessa,

Gary's Blog Map

Jul 27, 2014

Sunday July 27, 2014 Ed Sessa,

Theme: "Double Talk"- Clues, all in quotation marks (hence "talk"), serve dual purpose (hence "double talk"), explaining both words in theme answers which are all in the pattern of *ING *

23A. "Uh-oh, there's a ball and glass shards under the window"? : BREAKING NEWS

45A "Give 20% for great service"? : TIPPING POINT. Tipping was new to me when I first arrived in the US.

61A. "You shoulda seen the one that got away"? : FISHING LINE. The Annandale flea market we go on Saturdays are surrounded by many many lakes.

70A. "The children were angels and in bed by eight"? : SITTING BULL

86A. "Hooray, you're up!"? : ROUSING CHEER

112A. "Here's a good way to use your comb"? : PARTING WORDS

17D. "Who's ahead?"? : LEADING QUESTION

43D. "A daily jog is good for you"? : RUNNING ARGUMENT

So, all the theme entries are completely re-interpreted with amusing effect. It takes imagination & humor to execute this type of gimmick. Ed is a pro.

Also I love the fill today. So clean for a 140-worder.

Across:

1. Be a slacker : DOG IT

6. Soft-bodied swimmers : OCTOPI. The meat is chewy.

12. Kin of raspberries : CATCALLS. Not other fruit.

20. One may be seen with glasses : OPERA. Opera glasses.

21. Forgoes : WAIVES

22. Like sloths : ARBOREAL

25. "No sweat" : REAL EASY!

26. Prohibited : BANNED

27. Organ with a drum : EAR

28. Small strings on the Big Island : UKES

30. Presages : BODES

31. Destroys, as illusions : SHATTERS. That's why I disliked Juiced.



33. Forced with a crowbar : PRIED

35. 68-Down maker : DELI. 68. 35-Across order : BLT. I already harvested two tomatoes from our garden.

36. __Kosh B'Gosh : OSH

37. Rhone feeder : SAONE

38. "The Great Schnozzola" : DURANTE

41. Taj Mahal setting : AGRA

48. St. leader : GOV. "St" can stand for quite a few things.

49. Dull-edged : BLUNT

51. Trekkie, to some : NERD

52. Get into : DON. Oh, clothes.

53. "__ se habla espaƱol" : AQUI. Here. Spanish is spoken here.

54. Wrigley's Big Red flavoring : CINNAMON

56. Silver lining : UPSIDE

59. Pitch : HURL

60. RR stop : STN

64. Composer Camille Saint-__ : SAENS

65. Link up with : TIE TO

67. "The Dark Knight" director Christopher : NOLAN. I confused him with the creepy X-Men director Bryan Singer.


68. Brazilian dance opener : BOSSA (Nova)

69. Jamboree quarters : TENTS

74. "Enough already!" : TMI

76. Therefore : ERGO

77. Like this answer : ACROSS. So meta.

78. Things : ENTITIES

80. Indian flatbread : NAAN

81. Mauna __ : LOA. "Long" in Hawaiian.

82. Part of a family business name : SONS

84. Unmanned flier : DRONE

85. Copier size: Abbr. : LTR

91. Hold 'em opener : ANTE

92. Most monumental : BIGGEST

94. Aloe targets : SORES

95. Batt. terminal : NEG

97. Sources in a modern bibliog. : URLS

98. Playwright Chekhov : ANTON. Masha, one of  "Three Sisters",  was modeled on his future wife, a stage actress.

99. Mason : STONEMAN

104. '50s first lady : MAMIE

106. Cocktail hour spread : PATE

107. Hieroglyphic serpent : ASP

109. Wisconsin city on Lake Michigan : RACINE. Not familiar with this city. Siren, Wisconsin has a Burnikel Road.


110. Mass approval : AMEN AMEN

115. Beltway : RING ROAD

116. Each : A PIECE

117. Like a good watchdog : ALERT

118. Chant : INTONATE. Only know the noun "Intonation".

119. Headed for the Styx : DOOMED

120. Helps through difficulty, with "over" : TIDES

Down:

1. Lou of Fox Business Network : DOBBS. I used to watch him faithfully in his CNN days.

2. TV book club creator : OPRAH

3. Actress Davis : GEENA

4. "__, Therefore I Am": Dennis Miller book : I RANT

5. Become fond of : TAKE TO

6. Possess : OWN

7. Cockatoo quarters : CAGES

8. '90s "New Yorker" editor Brown : TINA. Sharp wit. She bought this famous cartoon & published it immediately. Like LA Times crosswords, "New Yorker" has a long queue of cartoons.

"No, Thursday's out. How about never - is never good for you?"

9. Didn't shop around, maybe : OVER-PAID

10. Benchlike seat : PEW

11. Distributing : ISSUING

12. Liked, with "for" : CARED

13. Greek war god : ARES

14. Not decided, in skeds : TBA

15. Comic with a satiric news show : COLBERT. I prefer Jon Stewart. Who's your favorite comic, Jayce?

16. Colorful ring : AREOLA

18. Zap : LASE

19. Stone and others : SLYS

24. Caesar's "that is" : ID EST

29. Maintain : KEEP

32. Endangered Sumatrans : RHINOS

34. Kim Possible's sidekick __ Stoppable : RON. No idea. Never watched Kim Possible.

35. "An Inconvenient Woman" novelist : DUNNE

37. Three-mo. period : SPR

38. LED component : DIODE

39. Open, for one : TOURNAMENT

40. Bad things : EVILS

41. Kindergarten basics : ABCS

42. People people : GLITTERATI. People magazine.

44. Gothic novelist Radcliffe : ANN

46. Phnom __ : PENH

47. God in both Eddas : ODIN

50. Political family spanning three centuries : TAFTS.  I even remember Bob Taft. Must be some scandals.

53. Cries of discovery : AHAs

55. Mine in Milan : MIO

56. Citrus hybrids : UGLIS. Very juicy.

57. It may contain steps : PLAN

58. Perform, in a way : SING

62. Digging : INTO

63. Have-__: disadvantaged ones : NOTS

64. Reliable, as a citizen : SOLID

66. Prince William's alma mater : ETON

69. Workout wt. : TEN LB

70. Jamboree attendee : SCOUT. Have any of you read "The Mockingbird Next Door"? Harpee Lee called Truman Capote a "psychopath".

71. Some savings accts. : IRAS

72. Prefix with diction : BENE

73. Not posted yet : UNSENT

75. "Understood" : I SEE

77. Puzzled, after "at" : A LOSS

79. La-la lead-in : TRA

82. Script outline : SCENARIO

83. Aptly named Quaker cereal : OHS. I've been enjoying the Test Kitchen steel cut oatmeal D-Otto mentioned on the blog a few months ago. Too bad he does not like it himself.

86. Master again : RE-LEARN

87. Ain't good? : ISN'T. Grammatically.

88. Place for a to-do list : NOTE PAD

89. Garden product word : GRO. Miracle-Gro.

90. Bankruptcy result, briefly : REORG

93. "__ Viejo": Carlos Fuentes novel : GRINGO. Carlos Fuentes said Spanish was the only language he could make love with. That's why he only married Mexican women.

96. Plague : GNAW AT

98. "Duck Dynasty" airer : A AND E

99. Rub ingredient : SPICE

100. Bacteria found in the GI tract : ECOLI

101. Stuck in muck : MIRED

102. Wrestler known as "the Giant" : ANDRE. He was in The Princess Bride.

103. Tweeting locales : NESTS. Not Twitter tweet.

104. Spouse on the Seine : MARI. Husband.

105. Ugandan despot : AMIN

106. Organic fuel : PEAT

108. Poppy prop : STEM

111. Minn. shopping mecca : MOA. Mall of America, where Gary & his wife will visit next month.

113. GI's address : APO

114. Beatty of "Deliverance" : NED. Wish I did not see the movie. 

C.C.


34 comments:

  1. C.C. must have been in a hurry to have not linked this.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks C.C. for explaining Ed Sessa's puzzle.

    Baseball fans, today's our big day! Step up to the plate and try They Sure Managed, Chicks Dig the Long Ball, and (ironically) What Do These Great Sluggers Have in Common?.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I'm definitely improving! No look-ups and no red letters today, though had to WAG naticks at (D)OG IT/(D)OBBS & R[O]N/SA[O]NE. Not familiar with DOG IT, but it was nicely balanced by CAT CALLS in the opposite corner.
    The entire theme of today's puzzle is examples of the Cryptic technique of "double definition," although presented in a different form. For a Cryptic, both meanings would have to be in the clue, not just one. For example, 70a would have been: Indian warrior says, "the children were angels and in bed by eight".

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~

    The solution to this Cryptic clue is in today's puzzle.

    Life, shining unfocused, is wrapped around a reel (7,4)

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~

    The first date a girl seldom declines
    She's sure we'll be having high times.
    But they accuse me of gimmicks
    When I have us write limericks --
    Though I warn them we'll be "doing lines!"

    ReplyDelete
  4. Morning, all!

    I enjoyed the theme and all the various theme answers. I enjoyed most of the rest of the puzzle as well, until I got down to the bottom and ran into INTONATE, AMENAMEN, RINGROAD, STONEMAN, MARI, and MOA. I won't say that section ruined the rest of the puzzle for me, since the rest of the puzzle really was quite good. But it did end things on a sour note for me.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Good morning!

    I enjoyed Ed's offering, and it came in right on schedule. When I saw the SSA of BOSSA I thought maybe Ed was going to pull a CHRISTIAN stunt. Nope.

    C.C., nice shoutout to you with the M-O-A. And no, I'm just not a fan of oatmeal -- steel-cut or otherwise.

    Racine, WI may be best known as the home of Johnson's Wax.

    RHINO's in Sumatra? Who knew? I thought they were all in Africa.

    RING ROAD is a sore subject around here. A third loop around Houston, this one 30-40 miles out from the city center, is going to pass just a mile south of our town. We are not amused.

    ReplyDelete
  6. This went pretty smoothly (a nice recovery after yesterday's debacle) though a two-minute typo hunt was required (I had TASE instead of LASE) before I heard the "TaDa!".

    I didn't get to (and fail at) yesterday's puzzle until last night as I had spent a very enjoyable day on Governors Island. A friend's daughter was producing a dance performance and, as I had never been there, I went along for the ride. It was a great day and a great place with great views of the Statue of Liberty and the lower Manhattan skyline (including the new "Freedom Tower"). If you're ever in the area it's definitely worth a visit.

    [20:46]

    ReplyDelete
  7. Hi Y'all! I got the theme early and found them amusing and fun, as are most of Ed's puzzles. But this was not REAL EASY for me with the NE corner remaining white except for ARES & DURANTE until last. I could not remember COLBERT although his show is certainly well-advertised. I've never watched it. Just enough perps & WAGs to fill it.

    TINA & DUNNE also evaded me awhile although I had read the latter's book years ago.

    AQUI gave me fits. I'd forgotten that basic Spanish. Tried "esta".

    Skeds is not an abbreviation I recognized. All perps followed by "Hunh? Oh!"

    Good workout for an early Sunday morning when I woke up earlier than I wanted to. Think I'll go back and try to finish my rest.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Good morning all.

    CSO to MARI, and I think she doesn't do the weekend puzzles.

    I wasn't feeling it today, although I did get her done. Had to use red letters at the end.

    DOG in the upper left and CAT in the upper right. And OCTOPI in between.

    Stone and others = SLYS. The only Sly I know is the same one you've heard of. Are there others we would know ?

    Liked raspberries kin CATCALLS. LASE not so much. Meh.

    Another haboob in Phoenix yesterday. I saw it on TV. I wonder if it has colorful rings ?

    CC, Jose Canseco shattered your impression of baseball. Years before, Jim Bouton did the same to me in his book, "Ball Four."

    ReplyDelete
  9. Good morning C.C. et al.

    I really enjoyed this one in the end...the beginning, not so much. It took me the longest time to get into it, but once I "got" the theme, I started chuckling to myself. My favorite entries were SITTING BULL and PARTING WORDS. Very clever!

    C.C., Bob Taft was convicted of receiving gifts from lobbyists. He had the lowest approval rating of any politician in the history of Ohio. He himself is the one who initiated the investigation, as he was unaware of the ruling about gifts. I remember thinking at the time, that there were probably many other politicians who accepted gifts like that, but never admitted it. For that, I admired his honesty.

    It's raining here today, so no outdoor work. (Yay!!) Have a relaxing day, everyone!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Good Morning:

    This was a FIW due to tase/lase and accepting cat calts, thinking it was some sort of raspberry (fruit) that I had never heard of. Oh well, win some, lose some.

    Kudos to Mr. Sessa for a clever theme and an enjoyable, if somewhat tricky, solve. Nice write-up, CC, with your MOA shout-out.

    I think we're in for some stormy weather for the next few days. It's been a roller coaster summer, so far.

    Have a relaxing Sunday.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Good morning. I found that the theme answers were REAL EASY to guess, all INGS but there were many unknowns that wracked my brain. My wife just got in from Norway last night and I took a break from the puzzle (with many blanks) and we went to IHOP. As a GRINGO, I should have known 93A even though Fuentes draws a complete blank. I had some trouble with the NE because I had STEWART instead of COLBERT and CAFE instead of DELI and don't know whether ARES and/or MARS is Greek or Latin. SW was another guess because MARI was a WAG and INTONATE was new to me but A&E was a gimme, especially since my brother played college football at LA Tech with Phil Robertson & Terry Bradshaw. TEN LB gave ,e fits and I had always heard GLITTERATI used for the glamorous big spenders, not people who like other people. French rivers always give me trouble since they are usually used as fill ins but QTR kept SPRinging into my head for the three mo. period of 37D.

    The one clue and answer I still do not get is St. and GOV. I know it is state government but I don't recall ever seeing it used as st. gov. ERGO let's have a ROUSING CHEER FOR Mr. SESSA and those are my PARTING WORDS. You can say AMEN to that twice.

    ReplyDelete
  12. 118A INTONATE is not a word. You INTONE for an intonation.

    86A "Hooray, you're up!" is not a ROUSING CHEER; it's a POST-ROUSING CHEER.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Hello.

    Very quickly I first have to admire Ed Sessa's puzzle. Much of it was EASY but SAONE & RON eluded me. I've never watched Kim Possible so the answer was impossible for me.

    Otherwise all went well with some really clever clues. MOA was fun to visit and we met C.C. there.

    The center gave me fits for a while because I entered FISHING TALE and of course couldn't make it work. Once I erased TALE, LINE became obvious and the PLAN emerged.

    Have yourselves a lovely Sunday, everyone!

    ReplyDelete
  14. Hello to all,

    Had to go back and read yesterday's comments, because I was sure someone would say something about TRS-80. Mainly because this was my first computer and boy did I get hooked on electronics!

    ReplyDelete
  15. Good morning everyone.

    Workaday puzzle today; not real difficult. The perps seemed to give small nudges where needed, so the solve came in due course. The theme fill was fun to suss.
    109a - RACINE. If I recall correctly it was the home of J I Case Company, manufacturer of farm equipment. Our first corn chopper was a Case; it was powered by a Wisconsin air-cooled engine.

    ReplyDelete
  16. I loved this theme and knowing it helped greatly in the solving. SITTING BULL was clever. This theme is more in my wheelhouse than the Cryptics.
    I wanted BETTE Davis. I watched all her old movies many times over. When I erased her name I was able to fill the NW corner. The crossing N in DON and DUNNE caused me to run the ABCs in my mind. Oh, "Don we now our gay apparel."
    I didn't have any nits.
    INTONATE is a less common form of intone. Who says weekend puzzles need to use the most common form of a word?
    "Hooray, you're up," is a rousing cheer because it is said upon someone's rousing.
    I like both Stewart and Colbert.
    GOV. is commonly used as an abbreviation for Governor, especially when used as a title, Gov. Christie.
    I hated to be on teams in school where we got a collective grade and some students would DOG IT. We had to do their work or receive a bad grade.
    LASE is OK with me. "Laser (light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation) surgery uses an intensely hot, precisely focused beam of light to remove or vaporize tissue and control bleeding in a wide variety of non-invasive and minimally invasive procedures." The tissue is LASED or more informally zapped.

    ReplyDelete
  17. I liked this puzzle a lot. Got it done with no write-overs.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Southern Belle, we always referred to them as Trash-80's. My first computer was a you-put-it-together Heathkit H-11. Came standard with 8KB of memory, but could be upgraded to 64K. J.I. Case was a big company in my ute, but got "swallered" up by the competition. I don't think the name even exists anymore.

    YR, your DOG IT comment describes the way our military runs its boot camps. Woe be unto the poor slob who screws up and brings punishment down on the whole recruit company.

    ReplyDelete
  19. Case merged with IH and they are Case International now. Farmall Red though.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Life, shining | unfocused, | is | wrapped around a reel (7,4)
    [LIFE SHINING] [anagram] [=] [FISHING LINE]

    Big Easy: As C.C. implied in her write-up, the clue for GLITTERATI was misdirection. Not "people people" (people who like people), but "People people" (people who are talked about in People magazine).
    Also misdirection was "St. leader" -- we've gotten used to that form of clue meaning a prefix, so this time it's literal -- the leader of a state is it's GOVernor!

    Sly and the Family Stone was a rock band. I was working the desk at a hotel when they were at the height of their fame, when they came to check in. This was in Alabama, c.1973, and a group of about 20 Black men (including roadies), no reservation (de rigueur for any group), show up at my desk at 2 AM! Sly was quite miffed that I'd never heard of him, and insisted on extra ID before I'd accept his credit card!

    I also had QTR > SPR, had trouble with MOA because I thought it was Mall Of The Americas. Saw "Deliverance" for a film class (also c.1973) and I agree, except for the dueling banjos, I wish I'd never seen it either.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Marti and others,

    Regarding Robert (Bob) Taft. ex-Governor of Ohio. 1999-2007.

    I will let the record speak for itself.

    Since this blog prohibits politics, I will merely link Robert 'Bob' Taft, 67th Gov. of Ohio. Wikipedia.

    The so called 'scandals' in his administration, were self declared, and IMHO were very minor. His achievements were far more significant, meaningful and profound.

    He was a great Governor, and IMHO, served with great distinction.
    He comes from a distinguished family, and was aware of his antecedents, and lives to serve accordingly.
    There have been others, who, even without the exposure of scandals, have been much worse and simply terrible.

    Its too bad, that especially in the USA, a politician is only known for his scandals, however minor, - never for his illuminating successes. I guess, thats the way the cookie crumbles ...

    ReplyDelete
  22. D/O. Those students dogging it to our detriment were begging for retribution, but in the college milieu we couldn't administer retribution the way you in the military did.
    Southern Belle and D/O, my first experience with computers was at the school where I taught. We called them Trash-80's, too. They were not that good but they provided much experience.
    My first at-home machine was a Brother word processing typewriter with which you could edit and save to discs. When those machines became obsolete my discs became useless.
    Then I bought an ancient out-of-date MAC floor model, creaky and slow. It required inventing countless work-arounds. No multitasking. Upon my retirement my son and DIL bought me a Dell PC. It was very fast and it could multitask. Amazing! I have replaced it twice and have been able to transfer everything I needed to keep.
    I have been a life long library user and have looked up everything under the sun in books. With the computer it is wonderful to have all this at my fingertips 24-7.

    ReplyDelete
  23. Ed Sessa, I enjoyed your puzzle. WEES.

    Southern Belle, I knew of the TRS-80 (Radio Shack, yes?) but my computer was an Apple II+. I got pretty good at programming in Basic and I enjoyed the early, simple-minded computer games. Later on, I was a big Myst fan. These days, the only game I can remember playing and enjoying is Samorost.

    CC, Owen and others, we have the same opinion about "Deliverance." Barbara disliked it even more than I did. I'll bet she wouldn't take you up on it if you offered to pay her $100 to watch it again.

    ReplyDelete
  24. As I understand it, Truman Capote royally screwed Harper Lee, who was of great assistance to him in researching his book In Cold Blood. Reportedly she was so traumatized and disillusioned that she never wrote another book.

    My favorite comic is Ryan Stiles.

    Loved this puzzle! Each and every theme clue/answer elicited a laugh. I was smiling and giggling all morning! SITTING BULL almost made me snort coffee out my nose.

    ReplyDelete
  25. Southern Belle, I once owned a TRS-80. Although I liked it a lot and even designed and built a joystick interface board for it, the Commodore PET eventually won me over. I wrote a game, called "Pipes," for its successor, the Commodore 64, which won the 1982 Consumer Electronic Show (CES) award for best game of the year. Fond memories.

    ReplyDelete
  26. Time Magazine's take on the TRS-80 in August 2012.
    Link from TIME
    Of course, back in the TRS-80 days I was not at all qualified to opine about this.

    ReplyDelete
  27. A gentle, pleasant, stroll today.

    I'm surprised SITTING BULL made it through the censors.

    One pet peeve: OCTOPI. This is so often seen nowadays that I suppose it should be considered "standard" English. But it still bothers me, nearly as much as the misuse of DECIMATE does.

    OCTOPUS is NOT of Latin origin; it is NOT a -US masculine noun, but GREEK for 8 Feet: OCTO-PUS. The plural of PUS is PODES, so it should be OCTOPODES, if your are feeling pretentious.

    Otherwise, OCTOPUSES will do just fine.

    End of rant.

    NC

    OwenKL

    I got your cryptic. An anagram for a change. Nice.

    NC



    ReplyDelete
  28. Since we're ranting, what's up with people who "sign" their posts (twice!) when the heading clearing indicates who's posting?

    ReplyDelete
  29. Link octopodes?
    Most dictionaries list octopuses and octopi, but not octopodes. Spell check flags octopodes.

    ReplyDelete
  30. ROUST vs ROUSE; you roust someone out of bed and then you can give them a rousting cheer.

    ReplyDelete
  31. ooops, that would be a ROUSING cheer!

    ReplyDelete
  32. Rousing means awakening someone, not rousting. The Japanese regretted rousing the sleeping tiger when they attacked Hawaii.

    ReplyDelete
  33. Greetings!

    Swell puzzle, Ed, and fine expo, CC!

    No cheats! But I still do not understand the theme.

    RING ROAD is new to me.

    Am very tired, even though I had a good sleep.

    Cheers!

    ReplyDelete
  34. Growing up back east, I was used to lightning and thunder in the summer months. It's much more unusual on the southern coast of California. I was startled by a big boom a couple of hours ago. The warm, humid weather had produced a thunderstorm. (If there was lightning and thunder when I was teaching, I might as well take a break 'cause nothing would be accomplished for the next few minutes.) Anyway, I see on the news that several people were hit by lightning on Venice Beach about 10 miles north of here.

    Los Angeles Fire Department spokeswoman Katherine Main told CNN the lightning hit in the water and on the beach. Those that were injured were either in or near the water, she said.
    At least 13 patients were assessed on the scene, and of those, seven adults and one teenager were transported to local hospitals -- including one who had to be pulled from the water.
    Witnesses tweeted they saw a huge bolt of lightning strike the area, with one Twitter user describing an explosion that blew off nearby roof tiles.

    MISSING: A small scruffy brown dog, blind in one eye, one ear chewed off, limps; answers to the name of Lucky.

    ReplyDelete

For custom-made birthday, anniversary or special occasion puzzles from C.C., please email crosswordc@gmail.com

Her book "Sip & Solve Easy Mini Crosswords" is available on Amazon.

Please click on Comments Section Abbrs for some blog-specific terms.

Please limit your posts to 5 per day and cap each post length at about 20 lines in Preview mode.

No politics, no religion and no personal attacks.