google.com, pub-2774194725043577, DIRECT, f08c47fec0942fa0 L.A.Times Crossword Corner: Thursday, September 4, 2014 Bruce Haight

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Sep 4, 2014

Thursday, September 4, 2014 Bruce Haight

Theme: HERE We Go!                             

17-Across. Keep one's landlord happy : PAY THE RENT. Even better, pay in cash!

23-Across. Box instruction : OPEN OTHER END. And the instruction there? "Open Other End..."

37-Across. Optional learning : HIGHER EDUCATION. For my sisters and me, it wasn't optional!

46-Across. Usually not a good way to get married : ON THE REBOUND. Uh, not even a good way to date.

57-Across. "You listen to me," and an instruction about what to look for in 17-, 23-, 37- and 46-Across : NOW SEE..."HERE."

HaHa!!  You got me, Bruce!  I had absolutely no clue what the unifier would be, and I chuckled when I finally "saw" it.  I believe this is Bruce's LAT debut, although he has several NYT puzzles under his belt. This was a very typical Thursday solve for me. Some gimmes, some question marks and a couple of "Huhs?"  Let's see how it goes.


Across

1. Gusto : ZEST. Elan? (Check perps: has to start with "Z.") Zing? (Nah, that doesn't work with EL AL...) Z-E-al?  (Nah, the 4-letter vodka has to be SKYY...) Z-E-S-... (Bit of ink? Hmmm...) AHA! TAT!!  Z-E-S-T.  And so it went...

5. Reynolds Wrap maker : ALCOA. Gimme.

10. Reptile house attractions : BOAS. Asps? (Check perps: Has to start with "B"...)

14. __-Seltzer : ALKA.

15. Luxury hotel with a YouFirst rewards program : LOEWS. Tough one. There are only 20 locations in the US and Canada, so it might not be the first hotel that solvers would think of.

16. Nothing but : ONLY.

19. Cross the threshold : GO IN.

20. Tricky : SLY.

21. Big name in dangerous stunts : EVEL. Knievel, the late motorcycle daredevil. You'd think he would have died in one of those crazy stunts. But no, he died of pulmonary fibrosis at the age of 69.

22. Sierra follower, in the NATO alphabet : TANGO.

26. Not familiar with : NEW AT.

29. Staff symbols : RESTS.

30. Part of Q.E.D. : ERAT. Quod Erat Demonstrandum.

31. __ Belt : ORION'S. Were the pyramids purposely situated to align with it?

34. Jan. honoree : MLK. Martin Luther King.

40. Suffix with concert : INO. Hands up for filling "ina" at first?

41. "__ Fideles" : ADESTE.

42. Back in the day : ONCE. upon a time...

43. They may be counted : NOSES.

45. Golden number? : OLDIE. Great clue!

51. Exposed : BARED.

52. Film with talking bugs : ANTZ. It's the only movie with Woody Allen (the voice of "Z") that I ever enjoyed.

53. NFL's Jaguars, for short : JAX. Jacksonville, FL.

56. "The Year of Magical Thinking" author Didion : JOAN. It won the Pulitzer prize for autobiography. It chronicles her grief during the year following her husband's death in 2003.  It is a heart-wrenching account, and a must-read for anyone grieving the loss of a loved one. Her only daughter died in 2005, and led to a second book, "Blue Nights."

60. Qatari bigwig : EMIR.

61. Chicago's __ Planetarium : ADLER. America's first planetarium.

62. Roughage source : BRAN.

63. Facetious nickname for a big guy : TINY.

64. Gnocchi topping : PESTO.

65. Kan. neighbor : OKLA.


Down

1. Prepares, as leftovers : ZAPS.

2. Mideast airline : EL AL. It means "To the Skies," which is a great lead-in for the the next answer:

3. Absolut rival : SKYY. Vodka. Cheers, Tin!

4. Bit of ink : TAT.

5. Naproxen brand : ALEVE.

6. "Two Women" Oscar winner : LOREN.

7. "Fool for You" Grammy winner Green : CEE LONo clue. 4:06

8. Have : OWN.

9. PEI hours : AST. Prince Edward Island. Atlantic Standard Time.

10. "The African Queen" co-star : BOGART. Husker Gary, I know you nailed this one!

11. Under consideration : ON ONE'S MIND.

12. Straighten : ALIGN.

13. Church council : SYNOD.

18. Oct- minus one : HEPT. Huh? Prefixes for eight and seven.

22. "The Gondoliers" girl : TESSA. Gilbert and Sullivan Opera. Nailed it!

23. Four-letter word : OATH. HaHa...not what I had in mind.

24. Rainbow __ : TROUT.

25. As a result : HENCE.

26. Fruity soda : NEHI.

27. Yeats' home : ERIN. Ireland, to natives.

28. Top-rated evening TV show of 1961-62 : WAGON TRAIN. My parents used to love this show. Me, not so much...

31. Turkey on rye, e.g. : ORDER.

32. Actress Witherspoon : REESE.  She's such a cutie.

33. Some badges : IDs.

35. Centers of activity : LOCI.

36. Seat for a dummy : KNEE. Dummy, as in Mortimer Snerd.

38. Relaxed : EASED.

39. Ratted (on) : TOLD.

44. Literary award named for a writer : O'HENRY.

45. Dix et un : ONZE. 10 + 1 = 11 in French.  (Funny...it adds up to the same thing in English!)

46. __ d'art : OBJET. More French.

47. Wynonna's mom : NAOMI. The Judds.

48. Cries : BAWLS.

49. Commencement : ONSET.

50. In __: unborn : UTERO.

53. Sudden movement : JERK.

54. __ Sea : ARAL.

55. Lawless character : XENA. Lucy Lawless, that is.

57. Go out in the afternoon? : NAP.

58. Keats poem : ODE.

59. "The Leftovers" airer : HBO. No clue.  Oh, I see that it just premiered on June 29th, and "The Leftovers" are those people left after the "rapture" took 2% of the world's population.

That's it for this week!

Marti



56 comments:

Lemonade714 said...

Bruce has had some fun visual puzzles at the NYT and finding hidden runons is a test of one's perception. For the experienced cryptic solvers, these are a common challenge.

I really liked the puzzle and the cluing with very little unknown and Marti as always added up a fun review. It was great to see Sophia Loren

Dudley said...

Hello Puzzlers -

Definitely felt the Thursday in this one. Took a little longer than most, but I attribute that partly to grogginess.

Morning, Marti! Higher education appears to have worked out for you. :-)

Barry G. said...

Morning, all!

Pretty straightforward solve for me this morning. Didn't know LOEWS (as clued), ADLER, JOAN or TESSA, but the perps were solid.

Enjoyed the cluing on NAP and XENA.

And yes, I could only think of concertINA until the perps forced INO.

Dudley said...

Oh, yes, hand up for Concertina first.

Jerome said...

It wasn't only Radar that liked a particular fruity soda. In the series "Kung Fu" Master Po gave Caine the same soda ever since he was Nehi to a Grasshopper.

desper-otto said...

Good morning!

Hand up for ASPS, ZEAL and INA. Marti, I enjoyed your math revelation.

LOEWS was a gimme; it was the parent corp of my previous employer. Wasn't CEELO a brand of sponge mops?

Jerome, groan!

Time for that 3-mile school bus dodge.

Mari said...

Good morning everybody,

I found today's puzzle tough, but finishable.

I liked the clues at:
- 55D: Lawless character: XENA
- 57D: Go out in the afternoon? NAP.

Have a great Thursday!

oc4beach said...

Today's puzzle started out slow, but "Perps" came to the rescue and resulted in a few V8 moments.

I agree on "ina" at first. Are there any Marines out there who thought it should be "Semper" instead of "Adeste"?

Have a great day and watch out for the kids and the school buses out there today.

C6D6 Peg said...

Nice puzzle today, and fun solve.

BTW, Alcoa no longer makes Reynolds Wrap. Reynolds joined with Hefty in 2010 to form Reynolds Consumer Products. Just some info for thought.

www.reynoldsconsumerproducts.com/

Spitzboov said...

Good morning everyone.

Like Marti said; didn't see the unifier coming and yet it was plain as the NOSE on my face. Good clues. Got the solve without searches or write-overs.
ONZE - Darn 'earworm' wants it to mean 'our' in Dutch.

Have a great day.

HeartRx said...

Lemony, your link didn't work - "Error 404."

HERE is the link again.

CrossEyedDave said...

Oath is a 4 letter word? (So is Hept!)

Oh well, I guess I'll go count my losses, er , uh noses?

P.S., don't tell...


Oh Crap!

Casually Curious said...

CED always love your linkages. I wonder where the photographer of the lion image was - unless its been photo shopped.

I read the lyrics for 'Fool for you' and surprise, they actually make sense. Whowoodhave thunk that ?

Happy day all.

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



A good Thursday offering. There's something to be said for being totally mystified by a clue the first time through and then revel in the 'aha' moment after your perps have pulled back just enough of the bedspread.

Hands up on concert INA. (hah! I just glanced at my puzzle while drafting this and discovered that I had yet to fix it) Oh well, W A G A (sic) N T R A I N it is.

Misty said...


I almost almost nailed this Thursday puzzle but in the end had JAG instead of JAX. But still not bad, considering there were lots of items I never heard of, like CEE LO and SKYY, which sounded totally wrong to me but I couldn't put in anything else. So, all in all, still a good run--many thanks, Bruce, and thanks to you too, Marti, for your always helpful expo.

I do remember "Wagon Train," and can picture the older lead actor but can't remember his name.

Have a great day, everybody.

Lucina said...

Greetings! ThanX, Marti. I enjoyed your ZESTful expose.

Yes, hand up for contertINA and just what is concertino? I really hesitated on the O, but of course WAGON forced it. Nice to see ONSET/UTERO side by side.

Fairly quick solve for a Thursday. I agree about Woody in ANTZ; he may be a genius but he's a much better writer/director than actor. I loved the opening scene in Magic in the Moonlight!

Having stayed in dozens of hotels over the years, LOEWS has not been one of them. Oh, and I will forever eschew the Day's Inn.

Thank you, Bruce and Marti!

Have a thrilling Thursday, everyone!

Kevin said...

Good morning.

All in all, a very nice Thursday puzzle.

For "Usually not a good way to get married" (46a), I was hoping for WITH A SHOTGUN. I have heard of dating on the rebound, but have not heard of a rebound spouse. Oh well.

Also, I am drawing a blank on the meaning of the phrase "counting NOSES." Can anyone offer up an expo for that one?

Chairman Moe said...

Kevin @ 12:07

The best expose I could find for counting NOSES is here

desper-otto said...

Kevin, it's a fairly common expression (at least in my experience) for determining the yeas and nays of any group of people -- you count noses.

Misty, I think that old guy you can't pin a handle on was Ward Bond.

desper-otto said...

Lucina, there's got to be a story behind that Day's Inn comment....

PK said...

Hi Y'all! I found this easier than some Thursdays despite a number of unknowns. Good one, Bruce!
Did you notice that all but one of the theme answers also had THERE there? But that's neither HERE nor THERE.

SKYY: missed seeing both the word and clue until Marti mentioned them. They were filled in okay.

Never saw a LOEWS sign on my travels.

For some reason I thought Anna Magnani was in that film, but it had to be LOREN.

When I was taking bus tours, the host always had to "count NOSEs" every time we stopped and got back on before the driver could go again.

john28man said...

I saw Evel Knieval in the bar of the Tower Hotel one evening in May, 1975 nuy didn't talk to him. He was there to jump a line of London Buses at Wembley Stadium. Most folks thought we would jump over the red double-deckers but they were only the single-decker ones. After breaking his pelvis in this stunt, he told the crowd that was his last jump but it wasn't.

john28man said...

but not nuy

Chairman Moe said...

"puzzling thoughts" . . .

WEES, this was enough of a challenge for a Thursday, and had some thoughtful cluing. I nailed the SE and NW corners; used perps to get CEELO, TESSA and ADLER; I got WAGON TRAIN, so no hand in the air for INA instead of INO.

FWIW, this is an example of a CONCERTINO. According to Wikipedia, it's "a short concerto freer in form. It normally takes the form of a one-movement musical composition for solo instrument". The 7 year old flute player in the video is pretty talented for her age . . .

Misty @ 11:22 I think the WAGON TRAIN actor you were trying to remember is Ward Bond.

Kudos to the constructor, Bruce Haight, for a well-concealed theme. I didn't "see" the "here" until 57A filled in. Well done!

Ol' Man Keith said...

Got 'em all, Marti, although my hand is up for INA before INO.
And also for NEW TO before NEW AT.
And I hated to write two Ys in SKYY. I wanted it to be SKYE, as the way I'd prefer to spell it to pronounce it that way.

Kevin said...

Thanks everyone for the help with the counting "noses" expression. I guess I just grew up with counting heads.

It still sounded awkward to me so I had to do some digging. Apparently, when the Danes conquered Ireland in the ninth century, they imposed a "nose tax" on the inhabitants of the island after taking a census (by counting noses), and threatened to slit their noses if they did not pay the high sums, which is also where the expression "paying through the nose" comes from. This probably explains why Swift uses it so sardonically in the link you gave, Chairman Moe.

Next time I take attendance, I will count my students' noses and see how they react.

Misty said...

Yes, Ward Bond! Thank you, Desper-otto!

Chairman Moe said...

Today's limerick:

There are only five senses, you SEE,
Vision, touching and hearing, are three;
Add tasting and smell,
But oh, what the hell,
Make it six, 'cause I've got "ESP"!

Irish Miss said...

Hi Everyone:

Late to the dance due to an iPad training session and lunch with my brother. (I never thought I'd ever be teaching him anything!)

Great puzzle, Bruce, and witty write-up, Marti. Hand up for ina/ino; liked the clues for oldie and nap.

We have a glorious day today: sunny, 83, no humidity, a slight breeze, and skies of blue. Perfect!

Have a great day.

River Doc said...

Happy Thursday everybody!

Went fairly quickly for a late week puzzle. Hands up for ZEAL, ASP, INA....

Other Wrong-Overs: FIFTY for OLDIE, NAKED for BARED, TENN for OKLA, and OPEN WITH CARE for OPEN OTHER END....

Nailed SKYY, my brand of choice when making Tom Collins (pl?).... Yes, I know, vodka instead of gin (which is also how I prefer my MARTInis....)

Used to enjoy watching Ward Bond in WAGON TRAIN, which is one of the inspirations for the original Star Trek, per Roddenberry and Wiki....

Doc out

Unknown said...

I'm another one who had INA before INO.

When I saw Misty's question about the WAGON TRAIN lead, for some reason, I knew immediately that it was Ward Bond even though I was just a little kid when that show was on.

Bill G. said...

I see where Joan Rivers has just died. She always made me laugh. RIP.

Tinbeni said...

Bruce Haight: Thank you very much for a FUN Thursday puzzle.

Marti: I always enjoy your outstanding write-ups with the appropriate links.
It amazes me when I'm reading the expo how many "items" filled in themselves without remembering seeing their clue.
HENCE ... INO, TESSA, ONZE were just the result of ESP. Their clues never read.

Fave today was (of course) SKYY Vodka ... but that afternoon NAP was a close second.

Cheers ...

fermatprime said...

Greetings!

Thanks, Bruce and Marti! Great work!

Hand up for INA at first. No other problems.

Joan Rivers was 81. She did a funny Hot in Clevelandworking alongside Betty White, who was 90 at the time as I recall. Will miss her.

Anyone else watching Extant? Can't imagine what the "baby" looks like. Tired of waiting.

Cheers!

CrossEyedDave said...

Pay the rent

open other end...

Higher education has its perks...

If you are on the rebound.

Now See Here!

Jazzbumpa said...

Hi gang -

I had WAGON train before INO, so avoided that trap. But 2nd guessed myself on spelling, not being familiar with the concertino [which I see spell check does not like.] That little girl is amazing. Can't say I like that piece of music much though.

Somewhow Ward Bond came to me immediately. The theme - not so much.

ONZE was a pure guess. I thought ANTZ was right, but had some doubt.

There's a little more about LOREN in this link.

Had two teeth filled this morning.
Fortunately, I get a Sr. discount.

Cool regards!
JzB

CanadianEh! said...

Enjoyed this Thursday level CW. But I filled in 17A, 23A and 46A first and saw the repeated THERE initially.

Hand up for ELAN before ZEST, ASPS before BOAS, concertina before INO, SKYE before SKYY. Thank goodness for the perps!

I have finally learned NEHI (we don't seem to have it here)but I had to wait for perps to get MLK as we don't have that holiday in Canada.

I liked seeing BACK IN THE DAY (ONCE) over OLDIES.

Apparently, Ward Bond died of a heart attack in the 4th season of WAGON TRAIN and was replaced by John McIntire.

Ol' Man Keith said...

Fermatprime @ 3:01,

I can't imagine they'll ever let us see the "baby." Best left to our imaginations.
Anyway, you know what can happen if it lets you look!

Kevin said...

CED @ 3:06 - I liked your "open other end" link. It reminds me of when my wife tries to put together anything from Ikea; to be fair, she can do a lot of things far more gracefully than I.

Here's another Open At Other End link that made me think of Joan Rivers, who certainly did it her own way and well at that.

Lemonade714 said...

RIP Joan Rivers. Do we have any cornerites who frequent plastic surgeons? When it comes to elective surgery, I just will not vote.

Unknown said...

I just read the comments from yesterday about manual transmissions. Since my father owned a used car lot, I drove many different cars while in my teens. The first stick shift I ever drove was a VW Beetle when I was 16 (I don't remember who taught me how to drive a stick, but they didn't tell me how to put it in reverse). A friend and I were driving around just for fun and stopped at a fast food place in Los Gatos. When we were leaving, we realized neither one of us knew how to put it in reverse, so my friend got out and pushed the car so that I could back out of the parking space.

About a year later, my same friend and I were in San Francisco, and I was driving a Mustang with a stick shift. Of course, I got stopped at the top of a hill, and it took me quite a while to figure out how to not roll backwards down the hill. Pretty scary situation.

Husker Gary said...

Musings after 18 holes
-I love where the theme appears totally out of context of the actual word or phrase.
-Years ago I had to move my sister who couldn’t PAY THE RENT while the irate landlord watched. Yikes!
-OOPS!
-Floyd Cramer’s follow up to Last Date (1:17)
-We have LOWES for hardware not LOEWS hotels here
-When I was NEW AT this site, it took a while to “catch on” to its sensibilities
-The stars in ORION’S belt are trillions of miles apart but line up by chance
-Joann’s grandfather and uncles all played the CONCERTINA (not O)
-Did that TAT cost you a job? You’ll never know
-ALEVE keeps me moving and Prevacid lets me eat anything
-Even in gritty Two Women, LOREN looks beautiful
-Bogie got an Oscar as Charlie Allnutin The African Queen but suffered disease, leeches and more making this movie and, yup, I nailed it
-We didn’t get our teeth straightened as much as kids do today
-The ONSET of football season? It don’t get no better!

Husker Gary said...

A sign of the times
-The clean version of a CEELO GREEN song. For the dirty version, substitute the well known “F-word” for Forget and you get “F _ _ _ You” instead of “Forget You”. The dirty version sold 6,000,000 copies. Ah, progress!

kazie said...

Late to the party today due to house cleaning pre-houseful of guests arriving Sunday, but actually got this done early. I'm also guilty of -INA before -INO, but like Lucina, WAGON demanded the change. I also missed JAX, having ZENA gave me JAZ, which looked fine to me. Phonetical error I make frequently with that name.

Pesto is great with anything this time of year. The garlickier the better!

Avg Joe said...

Those of you west of CDT, take the time to catch the tribute to Joan Rivers at the very end of the CBS evening news today. It's touching, but it's also barefaced in its accuracy. RIP Ms Rivers, you were indeed one of a kind.

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

Hi all, dnf today, due to a look up on 56a hands up for Ina, ine for 40a south west had me because I put wages of war for wagon train and oharra for ohenry. When Joan got in there it filled in itself since I did rember wagon train since I'm a sixties boy. We have a Loews in north Louisiana but its a campground for deer hunters Rv's. Onze was a gimme but had ounce for oldie, but the downs took care of that. Bon Jeudi Tout le monde from Cajun Country!!

CrossEyedDave said...

IMDB The African Queen Trivia #1:

"Sources claimed that everyone in the cast and crew got sick, except Humphrey Bogart and John Huston, who said they avoided illness by essentially living on imported Scotch. Bogart later said, "All I ate was baked beans, canned asparagus, and Scotch whisky. Whenever a fly bit Huston or me, it dropped dead."

For 37 more trivia bits, follow this link.

HeartRx said...

Lemony, only reconstructive surgery after cancer. Otherwise, I'll stick with with what I got!

(HG, I knew you'd nail it!)

CrossEyedDave said...

Joan Rivers on Johnny Carson 1986 (12:10)

Lucina said...

R.I.P. Joan Rivers. Between her and Robin Williams, the after life will be laughing for eternity!

desper-otto:
Yes, there is a story. We stayed at the Days Inn in Vancouver, BC and to be fair, it was immaculately clean, well kept and the server in the restaurant kept us entertained as well as fed. But the security lock on our door was broken and stayed that way through the weekend.

More egregiously, however, was the situation at the parking structure, not the fact that it was three blocks away, we handled that but it closed at 7:00 P.M. on Sunday night. We arrived at 10:30, drove to the alternate address provided only to discover it was the hotel adjacent to the structure; we then proceeded to our own hotel and since streets in Vancouver are one-way, it took twice as long to arrive then to be told "oh, didn't anyone give you this (key)?" No, they hadn't. It was midnight by the time we settled in and we were not happy.

Abejo said...

Good evening, folks. Thank you, Bruce Haight, for a fine puzzle. Thank you, Marti, for a fine review.

Got started easily in the NW with ZEST and ZAPS. The rest filled in easily up there.

ALCOA was easy, LOEWS was not.

10D BOGART was easy. One of my favorite actors.

Got all the theme answers, but no idea what the theme was until I got NOW SEE HERE. Then it all appeared.

If they forbade french from crosswords, it would cut my solving time by 20 percent. No more about that, at least today.

Remember WAGON TRAIN well. Great show.

Liked seeing ERAT again. That is one of my favorite latin phrases Q.E.D. Like all those much better than french.

Now I have to report in on yesterday's puzzle. Finished it this morning.

See you tomorrow.

Abejo

(908)

Anonymous T said...

HI All!

TGTF (Thank Goodness Tomorrow's Friday)... Just got back from toting the kids all over Houston for Choir and Ballet...

Bruce - NOW SEE HERE - You killed me! Even in areas where there is ink (non TAT'd) it's wrong, wrong, wrong. Marti, thanks for ALINGNing me out.

First, did no one have efts at 10a or did everyone know BOGART? What about clefs at 29a? PAYsTHEREN? Doh! vitro before UTERO. Oh, BRAN is not a the salad Roughage I was thinking of.

Oh well, it was a fun 12 hours :-) and a great theme stream. (I did work on this for over two hours waiting for Eldest in choir while I waited at the pub.)

For movie buffs - there was a movie on the pub's TV on IFC that had a modern day guy go back to Camelot, messed up an incantation and brought the dead upon the castle. He had a chainsaw for the right hand but somehow wielded a shotgun. Anyone know this movie? Seemed awful, even in closed caption.

Favs - OLDIE for c/a and yummy PESTO. I've got a pint of it fresh from the garden in the fridge.

CED - links are so apropos! DW is a lefty, so she always OPENs OTHER END side of the box.

Catch you ON THE REBOUND...

Cheers, -T

Ambiguously Ambidextrous said...

wait, wait, wait Anonymous T

Did you just write:'DW is a lefty, so she always OPEns on the OTHER END' ?

IMHO --- TMI

I shore wish my DW was a lefty as well. But we can't all be that lucky.

Anonymous T said...

AA - No. Re-parse. C, -T

PK said...

Gary, thanks for the Floyd Cramer link. I also had to listen to "Music Box Dancer". Two of my kids were pianists and played this one over & over. Loved the tinkly little sounds coming from the parlor while I cooked.

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

Had boas for 10a but didn't know Bogart was the costar I thought he was the main star. Hands up for clefs and zeal didn't think about elan.