google.com, pub-2774194725043577, DIRECT, f08c47fec0942fa0 L.A.Times Crossword Corner: Thursday, August 21, 2014 Mark Feldman

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Aug 21, 2014

Thursday, August 21, 2014 Mark Feldman

Theme: "Speak!"

17-Across. Tarot card representing union : TWO OF CUPS.

24-Across. Brightening near a sunspot : SOLAR FLARE.

35-Across. Mixer? : BAR KEEPER. Great clue! And this is a scene with my favorite mixer.

49-Across. Ingredient that mimics the flavor of an edible fungus : TRUFFLE OIL. It really doesn't, though. I prefer real truffles, but have only had them on rare occasions.


And the reveal:
58. Checkers' speech? (or what are hidden in 17-, 24-, 35- and 49-Across) : DOG SOUNDS. Checkers is perhaps the most famous dog who never lived in the White House.

Very nice!  Well-hidden dog vocalizations: three split between two words, one hidden totally in the first word. I seem to have had a run of easy puzzles for the past few Thursdays. There may have been a couple trouble spots, but eventually perps revealed the correct answers.


Across

1. Travelocity user's request : AISLE. Nope, I prefer the window.

6. Get too personal : PRY.

9. Prepare a spread for : CATER.

14. Word after open, in retail : UNTIL.

15. Duvall's role in "Gods and Generals" : LEE. The movie focuses on Stonewall Jackson.

16. Rap sheet entry : CRIME.

19. Hobbles : LIMPS.

20. Wind that can be controlled : HORN. And then we have 18-Down. Trumpet protector : CASE. I sense a CSO to Jazzbumpa!

21. Chowed down : ATE.

22. Prairie home : TEEPEE.

23. Fertility lab supply : OVA. Singular ovum.

26. Genre that evolved from ska : REGGAE. Not to be confused with "raga."

29. Spanish article : LAS.

30. Wordless okay : NOD.

31. __ preview : SNEAK.

32. Leveling piece : SHIM.

34. Spruce cousins : FIRS.

38. Auto club amenities : MAPS.

41. Work for : EARN.

42. See 5-Down : SANTA. And 5-Down. 42-Across helper : ELF. Not much to go on here, except 5-letters and three-letters, with "helper," will almost always point to SANTA and his ELF. CSO to Argyle!

46. Mountain ending : EER. Mountaineer.

47. Inclined : APT. I am apt to agree...

48. Pantomime : ACT OUT. Oh, so that's what the little brats are doing at the supermarket when they can't get the candy they want?

53. Citi Field player : MET. Citi Field replaced Shea Stadium.

54. Set of devotional prayers : ROSARY.

55. Genetic stuff : RNA.

56. React to yeast : RISE. You won't get a rise out of me, yeast!

57. Time piece? : ISSUE. Cute misdirection.  The magazine, not the watch.

60. Nickel and dime : COINS. Straight-forward, but nice misdirection as well.

61. Lennon's love : ONO.

62. Swindler : CHEAT.

63. Cut drastically : SLASH.

64. Youngster : TOT. The ones doing pantomimes at the supermarket.

65. Low cards : TREYS. Three OF CUPS? It's meaning is joyful camaraderie.



Down

1. King and Queen : AUTHORS. Great misdirection.  Stephen KING. Ellery QUEEN was actually the pen name of two cousins: Frederic Dannay and Manfred Lee, which were assumed names of Daniel Nathan and Manford Lepofsky. (Quiz, later.)

2. Meshed together : INWOVEN. This answer didn't mesh at first.

3. Place to put things : STORAGE. Simple!

4. Beast in the Royal Arms of England : LION. Lucky WAG.

6. Second-most-massive dwarf planet : PLUTO. The New Horizons probe will visit it next July.

7. Force back : REPEL.

8. __-man : YES. Or in Reggae, "Yeah, mon."

9. Symbols seen in viola music : C CLEFS.

10. "The Tempest" spirit : ARIEL.

11. Percussion instruments : TIMPANI.

12. Beethoven's last piano concerto, familiarly, with "the" : EMPEROR. Officially titled "Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-Flat Major, Op. 73," it was dedicated to his patron Archduke Rudolf. It was the English publisher  who called it "The Emperor" concerto. I only linked a portion - the full concerto is 45 min. long, and I am sure you would finish reading this post long before it was over!

13. Deals with a patchy lawn : RESEEDS.

22. __ steamer : TRAMP. TRAMP ships carry goods from one port to another, without any fixed schedule. They are still used today, but they no longer are powered by steam.

25. Stranger : ALIEN.

27. Yaks : GABS.

28. Letters in a dossier : AKAAlso Known As.

32. Do lutzes, say : SKATE. Here's an incredible quadruple lutz by Brandon Mroz. Now, that's skating!  0:19

33. The Beatles' "And I Love __" : HER.

34. Host of some off-campus parties : FRAT. With beer kegs and togas.

36. Wedding invitation request : REPLY.

37. "Abort!" key : ESC.ape.

38. Poet's art : METRICS.

39. Spray : AEROSOL.

40. Frederick the Great's realm : PRUSSIA.

43. Party choice : NOMINEE.

44. Time associated with graceful children : TUESDAY. I'm a Wednesday child. You?


Monday's child is fair of face,
TUESDAY's child is full of grace,
Wednesday's child is full of woe,
Thursday's child has far to go,
Friday's child is loving and giving,
Saturday's child works hard for a living,
But the child who is born on the Sabbath Day
Is bonny and blithe and good and gay.


45. Swears (to) : ATTESTS.

47. From the beginning : AFRESH.

48. "That's a shame!" : ALAS.

50. Mythical goat-men : FAUNS.

51. Academic Maine town : ORONO.

52. Gold brick : INGOT.

56. Oberhausen's region : RUHR. Germany.

58. Period, for one : DOT. It was already filled for me by the across answers, but did anyone want "era?"

59. Autumn mo. : OCT.ober. Coming soon to a neighborhood near you!!

And that's all I have to say about that...0:05

Marti


51 comments:

desper-otto said...

Good morning!

Guess everybody's sleepin' in today. Nice puzzle with clever misdirection: King and Queen: BED SIZE (Nope!), ROYALTY (Nope!), oh, AUTHORS. I think that was my favorite. At least it caused the most grief. ESSAY/ISSUE was another.

I don't travel in Marti's circles, so I've never had TRUFFLE OIL. No real truffles, either. But I am an experienced Morel hunter. They're great deep-fried in a beer batter. Dang, I'm making myself hungry.

Time for that three-mile march before the sun makes that impossible. More later, maybe.

OwenKL said...

There once was a dog who said "RUFF"
He's a guard dog who looks really rough!
But you pet him, he'll simper;
With pleasure he'll whimper,
When you scratched at his neck through his ruff!

There once was a dog who said "ARF"
As he checked every tree in the park.
Dogs don't have e-mail,
Instead they use pee-mail,
And Bowser's browser is LCD* BARK!

* Liquid Canine Display

There once was a dog who said "WOOF"
And spent all his time on his roof.
He flew it to France,
Met the Baron by chance;
The bullet-hole rows are his proof!

inanehiker said...

Clever puzzle from Mark! Thanks for the write up, Marti
Slow in the NW with the King/Queen- authors answer and not knowing anything about tarot. I filled in two of cups slowly with perps, but still wasn't sure if it was right until I came to the corner.
Eyes were slow to wake up-- so thought the hobbles clue was hobbies. Couldn't think of a hobby with li_ _s, but soon it all fell into place.

Mari said...

Good morning everybody.

Good puzzle today, but a toughie. I wasn't familiar with Checkers the dog, so the unifying clue made little sense to me.

A couple of the clues were really clever. I liked:

- 20A: Wind that can be controlled: WIND
- 57A? Time piece: ISSUE

I wanted novena for ROSARY.

Strange seeing seeing SANTA and his ELF in August.

Have a great day.

Mari said...

I meant Wind that can be controlled: HORN

HeartRx said...

Mari, LOL. When I first saw that clue, I almost entered "fart."

Husker Gary said...

Oh, the dog’s speech and not Nixon’s. What fun where the west side took some doing.

Musings
-I am fine with people who take comfort in TAROT cards and ROSARIES. Me, not so much
-Oprah demands truffle salt and TRUFFLE OIL at hotels where she stays.
-That ingredient is prominently featured in her nice little movie she produced with some guy named Spielberg
-A professor of mine made the women of the class put up a TEEPEE because that was who would have done that task on the prairie
-Because of PREVIEWS, movies now start 20 minutes after the listed time
-MAPS? I don’t have to fold my iPhone
-TV and cultural time capsule based on Pantomime (9:57) Walter Brennan on a game show?!
-Granddaughter’s car was “nickel and diming” my daughter for a while
-Esoterica alert! Forget ERA and RBI – Here’s baseball (saberMETRICS). WHIP and WAR?
-Would you like to try to beat out Hilary to be the NOMINEE?
-A COIN flip decided that Portland, OR would be named after Portland, MAINE and not Boston, MA, the hometowns of two of its early entrepreneurs

Mari said...

Marti - that's too funny!

Dudley said...

Hello Puzzlers -

What Mari said, as in I didn't think of Checkers the Dog, but having noticed Woof and Arf along the way I had a feeling about what the reveal would be. Smooth sailing for a Thursday.

Morning Marti! I too noticed that Fart would fit but supposed it wouldn't pass the breakfast test. I've never had a truffle or truffle oil; I wonder what I'm missing...

Melissa Bee from yesterday - good to see you! Your Corner family misses you.

Husker Gary said...

Addendum
-As a man nearing 70, Marti, I prefer AISLE seating ;-).
-As to your controlled wind comment, I belong to the Fremont Area Retired Teachers organization. The ensuing acronym is pretty funny, especially when preceded by the word “old”
-Funny story about the Tuesday’s child poem. We were messing around with biorhythms in class years ago that ascribe characteristics to someone according the day on which they were born. For fun, I was reciting this poem and when I came to the last line, “But the child who is born on the Sabbath day is bonnie, blithe, fair and gay”, I paused for just a heartbeat after “fair” and Vanessa Clark (I’ll never forget her name) jumped up and exclaimed “That’s me!!” after which I finished “and gay” in METER without realizing what was going to happen. The ensuing uproar was incredible and it took a while to get things calmed down. I checked with her to make sure she was all right and she seemed to take it okay.
-Melissa Bee, ditto to what Dudley said!
-What famous couple had a theme song with the lyric “UNTIL we meet again”?

desper-otto said...

Husker, that'd be Roy and Dale. As a man approaching 70, I prefer to stay on the ground and avoid those TSA hassles.

Marti, they're not always controllable. In fact, the harder you try, the less controllable, more numerous and noisier they tend to become. Just sayin'...

Melissa Bee, nice to "see" you yesterday. Come back often.

Dudley said...

Husker 9:00 - of course we've made much of the fluidity of language here at the Corner. Word meaning and usage are shifting sands. However, I for one am sorry that we eclipsed the old meaning of "gay" with the pesky new one. It was such a nice word while it lasted!

Abejo said...

Good morning, folks. Thank you, Mark Feldman, for a fine puzzle. Thank you, Marti, for a fine review.

My first entry was LION for 4D. Then I put OBOE for 20A and deleted LION. I figured OBOE had to be right because it is a wind instrument. Later on after AISLE became obvious, I re-entered LION and put in HORN. OK for that corner.

I kind of bounced around in this puzzle. Got all the themes, but no idea what 58A was. My last entry was 58A. Then I saw what I was looking for. Various DOG SOUNDS.

I also thought AUTHORS was excellent. Great clue/answer.

SHIM was a good one. Have used many in my life.

TRUFFLE OIL was new to me.

Thank goodness for PRUSSIA and AEROSOL. Those iced the SW corner for me.

Never heard the TUESDAY poem before. Got it with perps and a wag.

Off to my day. Loads to do.

See you tomorrow.

Abejo

(815)

Abejo said...

Nice to see you yesterday, Melissa Bee. I just went back and read yesterday's blog. Good luck with everything.

Abejo

Spitzboov said...

Good morning everyone.

Fun puzzle from Mark today. Lite Thursday. Only writeover was I had satyr before FAUNS, although I realized I had to have plural agreement. AUTHORS was a great misdirection as Marti said. Anything with DOG SOUNDS is OK by me.

Marti - I was born on the Sabbath so I guess I'm gay. May be a little blithe, too.

Irish Miss said...

Good Morning:

What a nice "treat" for the Corner's Canine Crowd! Really enjoyed this offering with just one nit: inwoven sounds forced. Favs were King and Queen=Authors, and Time piece=Issue (Had essay first). CSO to Argyle AKA Santa!

Thanks, Mark, for a fun Thursday and thanks, Marti, for a "woof-woof" write-up.

From last night, Ferm, glad you are back swimming and Blue Iris, glad to hear your PT is going well.

Have a great day.

Husker Chuck (a.k.a. Ergo) said...

Hello ever-growing list of friends. Husker Gary - you made me LOL at the acronym for the Fremont Area Retired Teachers organization. (btw - regarding your pics from yesterday, I've played some golf in Fremont but don't recall a course with grain silos along the fairway. Is that a new course?)

Anyway, back to the puzzle. Thoroughly enjoyable for a Thursday. I anguished changing DNA to RNA but ORONO required it. ORONO was also a nice little mind prompt for 'King and Queen.' The puzzle filled nimbly and in its entirety.

Either they are getting easier or I'm getting better. :-)

HeartRx said...

Todays "Ted Talk" is about depressed dogs and animal behavioral issues. Very enlightening, and apropos to today's theme! It also explains some of those You Tube videos we see so often here on the corner. 19:29

Bill G. said...

Good morning. Well, I had a rougher time than most of you. The lower-left corner gave me fits mostly because of essay instead of ISSUE. Also, not being Catholic, ROSARY didn't come to mind right away. Neither did NICKLE and DIME or AFRESH or METRICS. That corner felt like Saturday to me. I think it all depends if you get one or two correct words to anchor the rest or whether you have one or two incorrect words that lead to a mess like oboe instead of HORN. Still a fun challenge. Thanks Mark and Marti.

I agree with Dudley about 'gay.' I miss the old word.

Misty said...


Fun Thursday, puzzle, Mark--many thanks. Our dachshunds, Dusty and Misty (Jr.) just loved it. And great write-up, as always, Marti.

I pretty much sailed through this except for the NW corner. That was a toughie, and like Abejo, I wanted OBOE long before I tried HORN. At some point, when I had the theme and noticed the F from ELF, I figured I'd try WOOF, and then it all came together.

Like Mari, I also tried NOVENA before ROSARY.

Even though I didn't see it at the time, I do remember seeing videos of Nixon's CHECKER's speech. So that helped with the theme.

Have a great Thursday, everybody!

Anonymous said...

I came to the Corner today to read Barry G's sniveling about the 42a & 5d cross-referential clues, but he's not here. ALAS...

And, D-O, don't get the Corner started on morels!

Chairman Moe said...

"Puzzling thoughts" . . .

Very tough for a Thursday, but also, a very clever and cute theme. Well-disguised and creative; nice job, Mark. I had to look up one (oddly, 40D), but that helped me solve the SW corner. The entire West side of this puzzle was awash with write-overs and blank spaces, re-writes, etc. I had PRICE for 1A; STOCK for 14A; OBOE for 20A at one time or another. But when I got ELF, LION and STORAGE, the rest of the NW fell.

I think my last fill-in was 60A/50D (COINS/FAUNS). I was thinking outside the box for 60A and 50D was filled by perps. SATYR is the only mythical goat-man I know, but SATYRS didn't fit. The string of V-8 cans hit me when TRUFFLE OIL came into view. I had the "theme" figured out, and was left with _____LEOIL, and started looking for other DOG SOUNDS. Kept trying to fit GROWL and SNARL into that spot. Never considered RUFF until the perps helped.

Never heard of a TRAMP steamer (22A); thought 44D (TUESDAY) clue and solve was the most clever.

I am a Tuesday child, but from the tone of most of my limericks, you'd not guess that!! :^D

Ol' Man Keith said...

LOL - Had the hardest time giving up this pzl because after it was all filled in I kept seeing 43D as NO MINEE. Should it be NO MONEY? Maybe even NO HOSTS? It took me forever to see it as a single word, obvious as it is to me now...

Chairman Moe said...

My limerick for today:

Many bald-headed men are too vain,
To admit that they must use Rogaine.
If instead he RESEEDS
When his hairline recedes,
Would the gain outweigh all of the pain?!

kazie said...

Lots of "never heard of" things today, including Checkers the dog, tarot cups, truffle oil, C CLEFS. I wanted a 'y' at the end of TIMPANI, and tried DNA before RNA.

I also was stuck trying to think of a four letter way to express Bavaria/Bayern, since I was sure that a town called Ober-anything had to be there, and not in the flat Ruhr area. Must have been thinking of Ober- and Unterammergau.

Spitz or Jazz,
Either of you know the tongue-twisting song that goes with the above?

Also, who else could hear the lilting tune of "...and I love her..." when filling that one in?

I ended up getting everything out, but it was largely a guessing game, though very clever.

Spitzboov said...

kazie @ 1224 - I don't know the piece whereof you speak, but is this it?

Ob er aber über Oberammergau

Anonymous said...

I know it is being overly sensitive but the Cheers clip was hard to enjoy considering the recent news of journalist James Foley.

Bill G. said...

I've never had truffles or truffle oil. I would like to try them though.

You recall I mentioned the conjunction of Venus and Jupiter? Here they are from Elba, though not in exile. (Double click.) Conjunction

Yes, what a tragedy about Foley. I can't even listen to the news about it. I just turn the sound off whenever his name is mentioned.

Chairman Moe said...

Spitz @ 12:43 - back in 1980 I had the opportunity to visit Oberammergau and be in the audience for the presentation of their decadal Passion Play. Quite moving, and obviously a major part of the village's heritage and income. If I recall, all of the "actors" in the Passion Play are native to Oberammergau, and rehearsals/auditions consume a lot of time. When I was there in 1980, the actors performed on a stage that was uncovered (outdoors), so if any weather occurred, the "show went on" regardless of conditions.

Big Easy said...

Nice easy flowing Thursday puzzle that required some WAGS due to the unknowns ( and never heard of either). TWO OF CUPS- I don't follow voodoo. TRUFFLE OIL- MUST BE EXPENSIVE. I would have called this a musical puzzle until I got to 58A, and no, Nixon is not returning the dog ( for those of you who remember that). We had C-CLEF TIMPANI (tYmpani is the correct spelling), HORNS, BEETHOVEN , REGGAE & SKA, even Yoko ONO (And I Love HER- Lennon didn't know her then). The perps solved many for me today, especially EMEPEROR RUHR LEE & PLUTO. If PLUTO is the 2nd most massive dwarf planet, which one is the most massive? A moon of Jupiter or Saturn since Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars are still considered planets.

My only write overs were CRIME instead of PRIOR and ISSUE instead of ESSAY.

I read yesterday that C.C. had a puzzle in the NYT. Is there any way to download their puzzle and PRINT it?

Tinbeni said...

Marti: Nice write-up & informative links.
The Blogger's here do an amazing job every day!!!

Like Bill G. and OMK ... I found this to be a tougher than most Thursday puzzles.

Quite frankly ... I was amazed when I finished without any write-overs and 100% correct.

Fave today, of course, was that clue/answer 35-a, "Mixer" = BARKEEPER ...
Especially since my preferred libation is SOOOOOO difficult for Barkeepers to "mix" !!!
Hmmm, let's see:
Step 1 Get a clean glass.
Step 2 Pour Pinch Scotch into it (Two-Fingers, Please!)
Step 3 Serve it to me ... lol!!!

Cheers!!!

Irish Miss said...

Big Easy @ 2:07 - To access NY Times puzzles, you need to have a paid subscription.

Ol' Man Keith said...

A Thursday child here...

... who prefers an aisle seat, as I like to get up and stretch my legs. It is also much easier suffering people to climb over me to get to the toilets, rather than me having to climb over them.

PK said...

Hi Y'all! The DOG theme was APT today because it required so many WAGs! I enjoyed the challenge, Mark. Great one, Marti! I, too, thought of the rude wind.

The NW was hard to get started. I wanted "rates"/"royalty". Nope the more obscure AISLE/AUTHOR. I struggled with TWOO and saw WOOF there before I remembered CUPS. So that was a hint to the theme. Didn't help with TRUFFLES though.

INWOVEN? Seems it would be INterWOVEN or entwine.

SW also took some study. I could picture Freddy's castle but not the country. Knew it was Germanic but tend to forget PRUSSIA.

Poet's art is METRICS? Okaaay, if you say so...

PK said...

My son moved away and left his German shepherd at my farm. That dog was so depressed, he wouldn't come out of his doghouse to eat. Finally, son's cousin, and former roommate at another farm house, came over and was familiar enough that the dog came out wagging his tail. So cousin took the dog to his house. I think he would have died otherwise. He wasn't drinking either.

Granddaughter, 15, got an anatomy lesson on the way home from school yesterday. A naked man was walking along the side of the road. Daughter called 911. She was afraid he'd get hit or cause an accident by gawkers on the busy road. Dispatcher said police had talked to the man who wasn't sick or high on anything. He just wanted to enjoy the sunshine! Indecent exposure isn't enough to corral the guy? 911 had been flooded with calls.

Boo LuQuette AKA Boudreaux in Eunice, La. said...

Hi all,
Hands up for oboe and bartender, which lead me to trend on 22d. I misread steamer for streamers as in trend setters/ streamers. Finished with one FIW. I put les for Las blame it on my French heritage. Had Croatia for Prussia but truffle oil fixed that. Lol at fart comments. 34d is a 20a with the middle letters transposed. Une autre fois from Cajun Country!!

Jayce said...

FIW. Had DNA instead of RNA, and didn't even notice ODONO. Cute theme.

Chairman Moe said...

PK @ 3:01

Don't know if I would've chosen "metrics" to define "poet's art" either, but by golly, there is a definition for the noun, metrics, that says it's "the use or study of poetic meters".

Certainly not confessing to being a poet, but I must admit, that since coming here and re-kindling my limerick writing, I am paying more attention to the "meter", or in the case of a limerick, how well it "scans".

kazie said...

Spitz,
Yes, that's it--only I was only ever aware of the first verse. So much more there than I ever knew. The first verse was enough to make my students stumble!

Chairman Moe,
You're right on all points on the Passion Play. In addition, those actors are supposed to "live" in the reality of the characters they play in the time leading up to each performance every ten years.

PK said...

Moe, I'm sure you are right. I tend to think of metrics as belonging to math. As a poet myself, I trust my inbred natural rhythm to make the poem sound right and don't really think of the mechanics of the structure.

Bill G. said...

I see where a girl in Tennessee was suspended for saying "Bless you" after a classmate sneezed. While I understand what the teacher was trying to accomplish, that is certainly misguided.

It reminded me of an instance early in my teaching career. I was inexperienced and less adept at maintaining a peaceful classroom environment conducive to learning. This particular class continued to be noisy and I ran out of patience. I told them that I wanted them to get quiet and if anybody said ANYTHING, it was detention for sure. An uneasy calm settled over the room. Wouldn't you know it? Somebody accidentally sneezed. Innocently and automatically, a quiet little girl said, "Bless you." I was about to explode but common sense took over. I glared at her, paused, smiled and we all had a good laugh.

Luckily, as I got a reputation for being a good teacher and being fair, I also developed more skill at maintaining a good classroom environment and disruptions became almost nonexistent.

O.N. Cale said...

There once was a girl from Nantucket
Who had a bucket
She was a friend of Dick's
Who wrote poetry without any regard to metrics
And they laughed and had a great time at the dance and then stole away behind the barn and...ah @&#% it!

HeartRx said...

PK @ 3:01, "...so many WAGs." Too funny!

Lemonade714 said...

PK you dog and WAG line is a classic.

Melissa B how wonderful to hear from you and to know you are ok.

Morel, Morel MOREL .

Avg Joe said...

Hand up for struggling with this one. Enjoyed it, and got it right, but it was never easy. Toughest misdirection was King and Queen.

BillG, I'd agree, the reaction to the "Bless you" was overblown. And I like your handling of a related situation.

That said, I saw something on Facebook the other day that I found hilarious. And I don't think this crosses the line on the blog protocol.

"Religion is like a penis. It's fine to have one, and it's fine to be proud of it. But if you take it out and wave it in my face.....we've got a problem."

Jazzbumpa said...

Hi gang -

Sunday's child here: homely, pudgy, pasty-faced and straight as Mongo.

Sorry Kazie, don't know the song.

Sadly, though, I do know C CLEFS. It is not only violists who are afflicted with that abomination.

Every Fall I have to learn to read tenor clef all over again.

Gaaak!

Oh - nice puzzle. Lots of challenging misdirection.

Anyone who thinks a HORN is a wind that can be controlled needs to spend some time with a trombone - the wind powered variable length pitch approximator.

Cool regards!
JzB

fermatprime said...

Greetings!

Thanks for chewy puzzle, Mark, and swell write-up.Marti. (PS Marti: I hit the control key on my Mac when I bring up the blog and thus can keep listening to the music! Of course, enjoyed what we got of the EMPEROR.)

Yes, Viola clef was a pain for me!

It is late. I had a few red letters.

Cheers!

Dudley said...

JzB and Fermat - I don't recall ever needing to read sheet music in the C Clef, but I do seem to recall that that particular clef was designed to be kind of variable, meaning it could be connected to more than one place on the staff. That's just evil.

Bill G. said...

O.N. Cale (4:36), very droll!

WAGS, good one! We could've had 'Yip-pee' in the puzzle too. And how about 'Grow longer' or 'GROWL'-ONGER?

Anonymous T said...

Hi all!

Ouch - I had 2 lookups (17a & 56d) to PRY open those corners. @44d TUES___ sat there forever 'cuz I kept singing Beatles Lady Madonna... "TUESDAY afternoon is never ending..." so I knew I wasn't right :-)

Kazie - Can you guess what I heard at 33d too?

TRUFFLEOIL took until the theme appeared and I looked for RUFF - that broke that corner!

I can't recall where, but I just heard excerpts from Checkers Speech last week.

Fav - PLUTO just because I have Dr. De Grasse Tyson's book PLUTO Files.

Thanks for the pzl Mark and the wonderful writeup Marti!

HG - You don't come off as an old FART (my 1st want for 20a too). Funny.

OMK - I have the same sentiment about AISLE, I'd rather they bug me than I them.

PK - WAGS - LOL!

I'm a Thursday child - I guess I still have a long way to go (in more than one way). Next overseas trip - AU!

Cheers, -T

Bill G. said...

A Beluga whale teasing some children. (The good part starts about halfway through.) Playful whale