Theme: Stay Behind the Line - A police show staple, "Get Back!" except today it is GET that is back, backwards that is. TE ends the first word and G begins the second word.
41A. Regain, and hint to a hidden letter arrangement in 20- and 59-Across and 11- and 35-Down : GET BACK
20A. Hockey player's blade cover : SKATE GUARD
59A. Meticulous, as premium service : WHITE GLOVE
11D. Roofing color : SLATE GRAY
35D. Rather nice : QUITE GOOD
Argyle here. It seems rather flat to me. A couple of tens and nines that lack sparkle. I hope you enjoyed it.
Across:
1. Fraternal title for a fictional fox : BR'ER. from the Uncle Remus folktales.
5. Easily bamboozled sort : PATSY
10. Former Mach 2 fliers, briefly : SSTs
14. Top-rated : A-ONE
15. Hawaii hello : "ALOHA"
16. Butterlike spread : OLEO
17. Steak cut : LOIN
18. U.S.-Canada defense letters : NORAD. (North American Aerospace Defense Command)
19. With 54-Down, longtime Jeep competitor : LAND 54D. See 19-Across : ROVER
22. __ Place: Butch and Sundance companion : ETTA
23. Music rights gp. : ASCAP. (American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers)
24. Wonderland cake words : [EAT ME]
26. Bolivian capital : LA PAZ. An elevation of roughly 3,650 meter (11,975 feet).
30. Ticked off : ANGRY
33. www help pages : FAQs. (Frequently asked questions)
36. Old vendor of cold blocks : ICEMAN
39. French king : ROI
40. Sch. in Columbus : OSU. (Ohio State University)
42. Sound system part : AMP
43. Xbox 360 competitor : Wii. (Nintendo)
44. Log-on requirement : USER ID
45. Work on a keyboard : TYPE
46. Mechanic on TV's "Taxi" : LATKA. Portrayed by Andy Kaufman.
48. Foil maker : ALCOA
50. Sinclair Lewis' "__ Gantry" : ELMER
53. Swampy areas : MIREs
57. Senate gofer : PAGE
63. Swine's supper : SLOP
64. No longer squeaking : OILED
65. Fifty-fifty : EVEN
66. Get a glimpse of : SPOT
67. Do a bakery job : KNEAD
68. Socially awkward type : NERD
69. Bustle : TO DO
70. "My apologies" : "SORRY"
71. Prohibitionists : DRYS. Opponents of the WETS.
Down:
1. Lightweight wood : BALSA
2. Corner chessmen : ROOKS. How's the table, Splynter?
3. Room-size computer unveiled in 1946 : ENIAC. (Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer)
4. U-Haul vans, e.g. : RENTALS
5. Sign of hunger : PANG
6. Baseball family name : ALOU
7. Afghanistan's __ Bora : TORA
8. Divvy up : SHARE
9. When tripled, "and so on" : "YADDA..."
10. Serious : SOLEMN
12. No-frills shelter : TENT
13. Fountain drink : SODA
21. Org. concerned with greenhouse gases : EPA
25. Gas holder : TANK
27. Bakery array : PIES
28. French play part : ACTE
29. Striped equine : ZEBRA
31. One-sided win : ROMP
32. "Holy cow!" : YIPE
33. Pheasant or turkey : FOWL
34. Sri Lanka setting : ASIA. Travelogue
37. Letters in a box : MAIL
38. Electrical adapter letters : AC/DC
41. Largest of the Mariana Islands : GUAM
45. Final part : TAIL END
47. Compulsive thief, for short : KLEPTO. Kleptomania is the inability to refrain from the urge to steal items and is done for reasons other than personal use or financial gain.
49. Texter's "Zounds!" : [OMG!]
51. Furry "Star Wars" creatures : EWOKS
52. Thick-skinned beast : RHINO
55. All-inclusive adjective : EVERY
56. Ships : SENDS
57. Subtle "Over here!" : "PSST!"
58. Kibbles 'n Bits alternative : ALPO
60. Robert of "The Sopranos" : ILER. Where is he NOW?
61. Fabric mishap : TEAR
62. Whirling current : EDDY
Argyle
Note from C.C.:
Happy
Birthday to D-Otto, who has been quietly helping me and this blog the past few years. Our team blogging would be very stressful had Tom not taught me the basic know-how. He is always caring and patient, though he did become a loving Desper-otto when we brainstormed a very demanding theme set a few months ago :-)
53 comments:
Dennis,
Please!!
I have no control over Slang Dictionary.
Submit yourself whatever you coin and don't let me go through the application procedure for you again.
Morning, all( and Happy B-Day, D-otto)!
I agree with Argyle that this one was a little flat. The theme was gibberish during the solve, and when I figured it out afterwards I was underwhelmed with TEG. The rest of the puzzle was very straightforward with nothing really memorable. I think my only write-over was putting in AIDE before PAGE.
**SPOILER ALERT**
Seattle Times crossword solutions mentioned here.
Wow, I thought the Seattle Times and LAT were going to be similar with a clue of "swampy tract" in one and "swampy areas" in the other, but there were THREE words that appeared in both grids today, one technically not even English: aloha, oleo, & romp. Oleo and aloha might be crosswordese, but romp isn't. There's something downright Fortean about this. Take two sets of 70-some random words out of the tens of thousands in English (plus generous portions of French, Spanish, German, and Latin, and a smattering from other languages), and what are the probabilities of them having at least one word in common nearly every day!? Incidentally, rook was in yesterday's ST with the same odd clue (singular) as LAT had for ROOKS today.
HBDTY D-O and many more.
I usually love pinwheel puzzles and Gail and Bruce puzzles but this did seem bland. I liked KNEAD NERD next to each other sandpaper site all you do Argyle
Good morning, gang - stayed up watching an amazing Eagles comeback, then I was too pumped to sleep.
I had the same reaction as Argyle with this puzzle; just a straightforward solve. Clever theme, though.
Happy Birthday, D-Otto, and many many more!
C.C., as I said yesterday, I was talking about "our list of abbreviations/unique terms", not the Urban Dictionary, but regardless, it's not a big deal.
Hope it's a great day for everyone; muggy and rainy here.
Happy birthday Tom (DO). Hope your day is full of things you like to do along with your favorite foods and a libation or two of a favorite liquid refresher.
Good morning everybody,
Happy Birthday D-Otto!!!
Today's puzzle had a few new words for me, including LAPAZ.
I wanted MOORS instead of MIRES at 53A.
Have a great day!
Happy B-Day, D-otto! You do a great job. Thanks
Musings
-This theme’s, uh, theme song (3:02)
-I’m just a PATSY! (:46)
-OSU football is a multimillion dollar enterprise whose year seems to have suffered a big setback due to an injury to 21-year-old Braxton Miller
-Wonderful uses for Wii’s
-I had trouble buying Shirley Jones as a prostitute in the 1960 movie Elmer Gantry, for which she won an academy award, after first seeing her in Music Man
-That senator’s not squeaking any more, he must have been “OILED”
-Cuter KNEADING
-SORRY can be a big word in a marriage whether it was your fault or not
-Every U-haul RENTAL I’ve used has been a piece of junk
-TENT could have been cross-referenced as “Typical venue for 50 Across”
-I dragged a gas TANK for a half mile after it had dropped under my car. How it didn’t explode is beyond me.
-There are many ROMPS early in the college football season where the big schools get an easy win and the little schools (like our friend ELON) get a big check
-Each foul pole at UNL Baseball Park is sponsored by KFC and is called, you guessed it, the FOWL pole
-Happy Birthday Otto!
-What was the name for NORAD’s supercomputer in War Games?
Happy Birthday, Tom! Thanks for all you do for this cozy corner! Hope your day is special.
¸¸¸.•*¨*♫♥♫¸¸¸.•*¨*♫♥♫¸¸¸.•*¨*♫♥♫¸¸¸.•*¨*♫♥♫
I didn't have the same reaction as others about the theme. While it wasn't scintillating, I thought it was QUITE GOOD for a Tuesday puzzle.
Just one minor nit: Alcoa does not make foil - it merged with Reynolds in 2000, but sold off that consumer products division in 2008. Alcoa manufactures aluminum and fabricated products for industry.
My only write over was aidE instead of PAGE for the senate gofer. (I also read that as "Senate golfer" at first. Huh?)
Rainy here today, so no painting. (A day off, yay!!!) But we really need the rain, so I'm not complaining!
"Puzzling thoughts for Tuesday"
**Another quick romp (maybe 6-1/2 or 7 minutes) but a good Tuesday solve
**Hands up for putting AIDE before PAGE, which also led to IAMS before ALPO - made the SW corner look a little silly
**Liked the theme; LATKA is a new solve I'd never seen; nice recap, Argyle
**HBD, Desper-Otto
Here's a non-themed limerick for Tuesday:
They say that a smile is contagious,
And mine just develops, in stages:
It most always begins
With a few pursed-lip grins,
Then builds up to something outrageous!
Have a great day, y'all!
Good morning!
Late again after dodging school buses...
Thanks for all the birthday wishes. I still haven't decided how I plan to celebrate. The problem with getting a year older is that you're getting a year older!
I see the double-d YADDA made another appearance today. I guess that's now the "official" spelling.
GUAM was a gimme. I had some good times there. I'd like to go back, but I bet I wouldn't recognize the place 40-odd years later.
Hi Y'all! No excitement or puns today, but fun for me anyway. Thanks, Gail & Bruce.
Thanks, Argyle! I'll go back for the tour of Sri Lanka after this. I took an intriguing peek. LATKA was always a favorite, another comedian who died too young.
Instead of ASCAP I tried ASdAk. What was I thinking? Probably got it confused with the stock market thing.
Happy Birthday, Desper-Otto! May all your wishes come true.
I was asleep and missed the first half of Dancing With The Stars. How could I do such a thing? I'm not sure I like some of the changes. I'd rather see Julianne dance than judge.
Good morning, folks. Thank you, Gail and Bruce, for fine puzzle. Thank you, Argyle, for a fine review.
I liked this puzzle. Zipped through it pretty easily, and it is a Tuesday, so it should be fairly easy.
My only inkblot is the SW corner where I also wrote in AIDE for 57A. Then I started putting in other letters around it that I thought might work. No cigar. So I started over and tried PAGE. Everything filled in easily. Of course I have a big smudge there.
Could not remember EWOKS, but perps helped.
Theme was fine. Figured it out after it was all done.
Liked BRER for 1A. For some reason we do not see a lot of stuff from Uncle Remus. I suspect it has something to do with political correctness, which I abhor. You cannot change history, so why try.
I think of the ICE MAN now and then, since my ice cube make in my freezer broke. We then used some plastic ice cube trays that you cannot get the cubes out of easily. So, I went to EBay and bought some old aluminum ones that you pull the lever on and it loosens the cubes. Works great. My wife wants to buy a new refrigerator. We'll see.
Happy Birthday, D-O. And many more.
See you tomorrow.
Abejo
(112)
Happy Birthday Tom! Hope it's a great one.
Puzzle? OK. Interesting fill, but the theme just sort of laid there.
An easy fill, even by Tuesday standards. I too was looking for more of an 'aha! moment.'
Good Morning:
A typical Tuesday-level offering but, as others have said, a bit bland, especially coming from Gail and Bruce. Tin's nemesis shows up again at 36A. Brr! I think my only miscue was Tora/Bora. Nice job, Gail and Bruce, and neat expo, Argyle.
Happy Birthday, DOtto, hope you do something special. Thank you for all you do for the blog.
Gloomy right now but sun and nicer weather due later. I'm off to get my hair cut.
Lemon, that is a sweet picture of Charlotte. I envy those curls. Is that a glass of lemonade in front of her?
Have a great day.
Happy birthday D-O and thanks for everything. Thanks Gail, Bruce and Argyle; it seemed like a perfectly pleasant puzzle.
They're hooking up the solar panels today so I'll probably be kicked off the computer shortly when they turn off the power for a few minutes.
Seeking guidance...
I have a concept in mind for a puzzle but I am one letter long (or short depending upon how you look at it) from symmetry.
Am I messing with an unbendable sacred rule of compilation?
Thanks in advance for your insight.
Well we had Patsy and Eddy in the same puzzle, so Ab Fab for me.
I thought ACDC would raise at least an eyebrow or three.
Owen: I would assume that the coincidences in filler answers and clues owe much to the adoption of similar or identical software available to constructors.
Finally, having been away for a few day, I took a look back: OMG, IMHO I thought that muck-raking and downright offensive posts contravened the ground rules and would be purged, as required. And those hiding behind "anonymity" should be subject to special scrutiny/extraordinary rendition.
NC
Ergo, there are 16 x 15 puzzles, but I am not sure that is what you had in mind.
Irish Miss, yes it is lemonade but I was not present at that meal, so it was just he way things go these days.
NC, I think if you have an open blog without membership you will always get offensive posts; having been down this road for years, it seems a waste of time to purge a stupid post no one cares about. I think deleting makes them believe they matter. Ignoring is all that is left.
Happy Birthday D-Otto!
Thanks for the write-up, Argyle. Loved the "Taxi" link.
I just got back from a trip to visit Ford at part of their galactic HQ in Dearborn. I turned up in a fire-engine red rental VW from Avis. I was surprised they let me in!
Well, this felt more like a Wednesday than a Tuesday to me, although in the end I was happy that I got it all and I did enjoy solving it--so, many thanks, Gail and Bruce!
Had some of the same problems as others and a few of my own (had ELOIS before EWOKS--just wasn't thinking) and the AIDE/PAGE problem slowed down the SW corner for ages. I loved "Taxi" in the old days, so it was sweet to be reminded of LATKA, Argyle.
Happy birthday, Desper-otto, hope you do something fun.
PK, I agree with you about Julianne Hough--would rather see her dance than judge.
Have a great Tuesday, everybody!
Gail & Bruce: Thank you for a QUITE-GOOD and FUN Tuesday puzzle.
I thought your GET-BACK theme was very clever.
desper-otto, Happy Birthday! Hope it's a good one.
The "_ _ _MAN" is never needed at Villa Incognito, where being DRYS is unacceptable.
Cheers!!!
ALOHA!
And happiest of birthdays, desper-otto! Thank you for all your help on the Blog. I hope you have a very special day.
Late to the party today because a good friend dropped in for a visit and a long chat.
When she arrived I had about half the puzzle done so finishing it wasn't bad but I was seriously distracted and ran into a Natick at FAQS/WII and couldn't recall LATKA for the life of me.
Since it was so late I just came to look at Argyle's post and GET enlightened. AIDE/PAGE fooled me, too but I caught it.
I loved the EWOKS. That was probably my favorite part in Return of the Jedi.
I hope you are all having a happy Tuesday!
Argyle:
Those embedded links never open for me. I get a blank page. Do you have any suggestions on what I could do to open them?
Hello Puzzlers -
Back to the Corner after a few days of aviating. Real piece of cake today; didn't need theme help. Never watched Taxi, but somehow I remember the mechanic. ALCOA is familiar from the one year I lived in Pittsburgh. They once had a huge presence (in the form of corporate aircraft) at the Allegheny County airport, but all that has gone away.
Howdy Argyle, you make it look easy.
HBTY D Otto and many happy returns/exchanges. :-)
Lucina, do you use a computer, Ipad or phone to view links? & what browser do you use. (i.e.: internet explorer, chrome firefox etc...)
Also, Argyle my Etta Place pic had a broken picture icon...
Ergo @ 11:43, as Lemon said, there can be 15 x 16 grids (but only if the puzzle is VERY special and appealing to Rich!) But I think you mean that two of your theme entries do not match in length, correct? Sometimes a constructor can "cheat" by making one of them plural, but that is a very inelegant fix. I have had many such theme length problems, and I always end up just putting them on the shelf.
Aide b/4 page, but 12D no frills shelter, I had tarp b/4 tent...(my tent has lots of frills, pockets, flashlight hanger etc..)
1D Balsa, interesting wood, but there is not much on the internet about the tree & its cultivation. I did find this video, guess how many legs were broken in this classroom science experiment?
Hmm, I have tried to find a Desper-otto cake before, (it aint easy) so I hope you won't mind if I just go with HBD Tom!
(note) see what comes up when you Google Image Search Desper-Otto!
Get back #1
Get back #2
& if you are really bored at work, here are 46 pictures you may not have seen before...
I've added source links. I hope they work for you.
Happy Tuesday everybody!
Straight forward solve, didn't like or dislike the GET BACK theme - just another early week puzzle for me....
Only one write-over, ESPY for SPOT....
100% agreement with ignoring ghost posters, to the point of not even acknowledging their existence. If no one responds, they will (hopefully) take their ball and go play somewhere else....
To quote Latka Gravas, "Thank you very much" Argyle for the Taxi clip....
Finally, HBD to Desper-Otto...!
Ergo @ 11:43 again - I was looking for some examples of non-symmetrical puzzles that I have liked in the past, and just got lost going from one page to another.
I remember one puzzle in particular that had three theme entries, all different lengths. The constructor is quite brilliant, and always comes up with wacky and unusual stuff. But that sort of construction is out of my league, so I just stick to the "normal" symmetry grids.
Argyle, I can see all but one of the pictures. ETTA Place at 22-A. The source link for it also gives me a "Referral Denied" error.
I tried a different source, same picture.
Late to the party; very busy day.
Happy birthday, desper-otto. Hope it's a great one.
WES about PAGE and SPOT.
Needed DH's help on a few spots today, so it's a DNF by myself.
Cheers
Musings
-Perfect day for 36 holes today at the TAIL END of summer and since I sub on Wed and Fri…
-I hope my “work around” works so I can defeat the filter and post from school tomorrow
-NORAD’s Supercomputer in War Games (1:45)
Hello everybody. Our DSL has been down since last Thursday, so LW and I have had no internet for several days. After much arm twisting we finally got AT&T to stop blaming our modem and reluctantly investigate their own equipment, in which they did find a "bad port" which required them to do a small amount of rewiring. As soon as they did that, voila the DSL is working again. They still are clinging to the belief that our modem is going to fail any day now and that we should keep an eye on it, even though it is a brand new one, fresh out of the box, with which, at their insistence, we replaced our "old" modem. Those guys sure have no imagination or authority to venture outside their script. So anyway, I've been catching up, reading the past 6 days of this blog, and now I'm all worn out. It's like too many tomatoes in my salsa or too many eggs in my mooncakes, haha.
Happy birthday wishes to all you recent birthday boys'n'girls, and best wishes to you all.
This was a fairly quick solve. Thanks, Gail and Bruce. Nice expo, Argyle.
I liked seeing Bolivia with Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. That's where they escaped to after robbing the train. Unfortunately, they didn't escape from Bolivia.
I learned a Senate gofer as a PAGE before an aide, so that's my first entry.
Until I graduated from high school I was known as PATSY. HATED IT. Now I prefer to be known as Pat.
I've enjoyed all the links, as usual.
Have a nice evening.
Pat
To: Lemon and HeartRx:
Thank you for your insight. Yes, it is one of my theme entries that is off by one space.
There may still be hope. If nothing else, at least it's a good brain exercise.
Cheers
CEDave:
I use a PC with internet Explorer. Now I see that the picture has been changed though I didn't try the sources link.
I did however, just go through the 46 pictures which are all amazing. I have actually seen the lion sculpture in Lucerne, Switzerland and the street at the Gibraltar airport. It's a tiny country.
Hi All!
HBD D-O! We H-Town bunch (are there others here?) should at least do a lunch one day.
I don't know why all the meh here today. I had fun with it and like the Cryptic-esque theme. But then I'm a NERD.
Big ink blot at 54d. I put in Range thinking of the Range ROVER and almost had MARSH for 53 as a result.
Fav AC/DC and LATKA. I'll find links after dinner.
HG - You just couldn't wait for me to login and link WOPR (aka Joshua), eh? :-)
CED - that brick laying machine - wow / how? Are there really just a bunch of little masons inside? Now to go look at the other 63 links.
Cheers, -T
-T - I got wondering about that bricklayer too, and found video on YouTube. Two operators were shown arranging the bricks on the machine at a convenient work height. The machine is a conveyor that gently slides the patterned bricks onto the ground. Not magic, but a real labor saver.
The real NORAD defense system was SAGE. Here is a video that explains SAGE and a great website that explains the NORAD and SAGE defense system.
NORAD SAGE
Really hot here with no A/C. It's supposed to ease off by Thursday.
Best pals
ALOHA again:
As promised / warned(?) AC/DC with all their AMPs.
LATKA on the one thing you (K)NEED in life.
Dudley - I'll go look for that video. The pic made it look like "dump bricks in top; street comes out bottom." Thanks.
Cheers, -T
Hi all,
Bon Fete D Otto.
Wow breezy today in south Louisiana and the puzzle was one too. !!
Well except for 1 lil fill in wrong on Clepto and didn't look back. The 46a should have helped me since Andy Kaufman was my favorite in Taxi.
Andy was an excellent comedian by far. Also he was the best Elvis Presley impersonator in his time. Elvis himself said Andy was his favorite. RIP both of you !!!
@ PK Freds lounge 07-24-10 white shirt jeans and a big key ring @ 59 - 106 dancing with a plaid shirt cousin she is the accordion players wife. I'm acknowledging the drummer. See me ??
Bon nuit from Cajun Country !!
Oh well, 14A has made me toss another crosswordese theory out the window...
(I always thought oneA was classification, & Aone was a steak sauce!)
Lucina @ 6:07, if you saw the 46 pictures, then I guess you have no trouble with the links. Argyles Etta Place pic has been replaced with one that is not copy protected so everyone should be able to see it now.
I use Chrome as my browser now, it is much more user friendly. But I still use a lot of shortcuts out of habit from Internet explorer.
One was that it used to drive me nuts that every time I clicked on a link, & then returned to the Blog, it would bring me to the top of the screen & I would have to scroll through the whole Blog to get back to where I was. So I always right click the mouse over the link & choose "open link in a new window." This way when I closed the window I would be right back in the middle of the Blog.
If I find something that needs research for discussion later I always open a new tab to search in. An open tab would always remind me that I found something worthy of linking later while not losing my place in the Blog.
The "CTRL" key combined with the "F" key opens a search window in the upper right, if I type in "Lucina" I can see that your name is mentioned 6 times. It is great for finding a word like AONE in the puzzle when you cannot remember its number across or down.
If print or pics are too small to read the CTRL key combined with the +/= key makes them bigger. (CTRL and _/- makes them smaller)
Copy & paste are essential for linking...
& when people (like me) go on about stuff you probably already knew, that little red X upper right is a lifesaver...
CEDave:
Thank you so much! I usually don't have trouble with links but the original one Argyle had of Etta and the Sundance Kid was embedded and wouldn't open for me.
Otherwise, you or someone else had explained to open "in new window" with right click and so I'm familiar with that but I do appreciate your taking the time to re-explain it. I'm very computer illiterate and sometimes I forget things about it. Your links are normally very easy to open.
Is anyone else watching "The Roosevelts" on PBS? I am so enjoying the series. Good job by Ken Burns.
Lucina, I'm watching The Roosevelts but like all historical documentaries, it's a bit of a struggle for me. It's long and all taken from old photographs, though the Ken Burns effect helps with the drabness. Still, it's about as good a history lesson on that era as I can imagine. I like it as well as I could like any history lesson, better than most of my college classes.
Lucina:
Another easy way to open a new (blank - depending on browser) window is CTLR-N. Also, if you have a clicking-wheel-mouse, you can just click the wheel to open a new tab. YMMV.
I'm a huge fan of War Games 1) its a great movie 2) I wouldn't be doing what I do had I not watched it as an impressionable ute.
Here's a cool near-real-time PAGE of cyber-attacks around the world. Sometimes it looks like the ending of War Games. No USERID required.
Cheers, -T
Oops Lucina - I meant click the link with the wheel, not just click the wheel.
Ken Burns was on Jon Stewart and NPR yesterday discussing his new work. I'm going to have to watch it the next time it comes on.
Cheers, -T
BillG:
Don't you think the narration is excellently done? And since much of the information is new or I've forgotten, it's very interesting to me. It's definitely better than most college classes I ever had.
AnonT:
Thank you. I can use all the help I can get!
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