Words: 72 (missing F,J,Q,X,Z)
Blocks: 29
Today marks Victor's Saturday themeless debut - as far as I can tell -
for the LAT. I just dove right in, not having had any experience with
this constructor on the weekend; his last LAT contribution was almost a
year ago - Nov 20th, a Wednesday. Got to talking to the
waitress about her costume, with the cat ears and the tail...WHERE WAS
I~? - Oh, yes - Nothing terribly obscure, a few witty
clues, and alas, one bad cell, so no "Ta-DA~!" Two triple 9-letter corners, a pair of 9-letter downs,
and two 8-letter acrosses intersecting a pair of 8-letter downs;
3d. Blue wall decorations : EROTIC ART - Hmmm, let me see if I can find any - I really like the implication in this piece - sort of M.C. Escher
32d. Salad ingredients : SCALLIONS - I like to read about how friends here at the blog trade food advice and recipes - just not in the place to try them myself - yet
O-rabbit N-rabbit W-rabbit ARD~!
ACROSS:
1. End of a digression : "WHERE WAS I~?" - as I was saying....
10. Christmas flier : COMET - Ah....SLED and SLEIGH did not fit; then the V-8 can flew....and then a clecho, to boot; 42d. Christmas flier : DASHER - Reindeer~! This Christmas season is a 'short' one at UPS; just 3 weeks, 3 days between Thanksgiving and Dec. 25th - I already know I am working a full 8hrs on Black Friday - at triple time. Nice~!
15. Like Gene Kelly's dancing : ACROBATIC
16. Ski resort north of Mount Snow : OKEMO
10. Christmas flier : COMET - Ah....SLED and SLEIGH did not fit; then the V-8 can flew....and then a clecho, to boot; 42d. Christmas flier : DASHER - Reindeer~! This Christmas season is a 'short' one at UPS; just 3 weeks, 3 days between Thanksgiving and Dec. 25th - I already know I am working a full 8hrs on Black Friday - at triple time. Nice~!
15. Like Gene Kelly's dancing : ACROBATIC
16. Ski resort north of Mount Snow : OKEMO
17. Pollster's challenge : CLOSE RACE
18. Stand in for : ACT AS
19. Wear out : TIRE - FLAG, FAIL, WANE
20. Haywire : KABLOOIE - Odd spelling, but the "word" is common enough
22. Circus prop : STILT - because tent pole was too long ( get it~?)
24. Lyra's brightest star : VEGA - Nailed it - but I am a big fan of astronomy
25. Rosencrantz or Guildenstern : ROLE - Shakespeare characters; DANE anyone~?
26. Netlike : LACY - I threw in "HOLY", but I knew it should have been HOLEY
27. Cabs may be lined up at one : WINE BAR - HAR-HAR~!!! Cabernets - but then again, I would hope to see taxis, too....
29. After : A LA - "in style of", "modeled after"
30. Soaks (up) : SOPS
31. Like some bread : YEASTY
35. Reasons for some low scores : BIRDIES - Ah, golf; I was thinking FICO scores ( I am having an issue with mine right now ), and then SAT/school test scores
37. Handy thing to have when you need a break? : POOL CUE - Har-har~!! I have two pool cues; a Sneaky Pete for playing, and another for the break - usually puts a lot of stress on the stick
38. Zen awakening : SATORI
39. Arabian checker : REIN - Clever misdirection; I was thinking of some type of Middle Eastern game piece - but we're looking for the Arabian, as in the horse, and the check-er
40. Turkish honorific : AGA
41. Expose a card, say : MIS-DEAL
43. Narrow strip : SLAT
44. Cuisine with a condiment called nam pla : THAI - WAG
47. Body __ : MASS
48. Attacks, as with snowballs : PELTS
49. Campaign fund : WAR CHEST
51. Vier minus eins : DREI - German, 4 minus 1
52. Sundance showing : INDIE - I tried MOVIE, knew it was too simple for Saturday; still, I was 40% right, right?
53. It's usually an eagle : HOLE IN ONE - Here I was on the golf wavelength, but I couldn't s-t-r-e-t-c-h TWO UNDER to fit; on a par-3, a two-under would be a "one"
57. "A Confederacy of Dunces" author : TOOLE - learning moment for me; published after the author's suicide
58. Clinton had a big role in its construction : ERIE CANAL - ah, that Clinton - a little history
59. Begat : SIRED
60. Held in : REPRESSED - I will refrain from my favorite Monty Python movie....um, no, I won't....see it @2:00
DOWN:
1. WWII female : WAC - Women's Army Corps
2. Digestive aid, to chemists : HCl - Hydrochloric Acid
4. How a pollyanna sees the world : ROSILY
5. "I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie" author : EBERT - Roger's take on the movie "North", and how it went on to become more
6. Hard or soft finish? : WARE - HardWARE, SoftWARE
7. __ loss : AT A
8. Nauseates : SICKENS
9. Glaciation period : ICE AGE
10. Combustible rock : COAL
11. 1881 trouble spot : O.K. CORRAL
12. "I'm with you" : "ME TOO~!" - also the name of Luke Skywalker's other, self-centered, R2 unit
13. Outlook service : E-MAIL
14. "__ a world in a grain of sand": Blake : TO SEE - I could not parse this in the 'down', and having it cross OKEMO did not help
21. Nursery bottle contents : BABY OIL
22. Hunks : SLABS
23. Shire in films : TALIA
24. Limo riders : VIPs
27. "Alack!" : "WOE IS ME~!"
28. Many millennia : AEON - I had EONS first
30. iPhone speaker : SIRI - I have an Android phone and tablet; did you hear that Apple is working on a vacuum to compete with the Dyson? It's called the "i-Suck"
33. Try to dislodge, perhaps : TUG AT
34. "Leda and the Swan" poet : YEATS
36. Home : DOMICILE
37. Pod occupants : PEAS
39. Make whole again : RESTORE
43. Perceived to be : SEEN AS
44. Ridicules : TWITS - I do not know why I went with twiPs, and Poole, especially with POOL CUE in the puzzle and my mother's favorite insult for the Rangers when they're losing ( "those twits" ) - but I did....
45. Asian capital : HANOI
46. Zeal : ARDOR
48. Haggler's target : PRICE
50. Mind : HEED
51. Roebuck, but not Sears : DEER - nyuck-nyuck-nyuck
54. Word with stick or service : LIP - Lipstick, Lip Service; the smell of some lipsticks is very erotic; see 3d.
55. "Auld Scotland wants __ skinking ware": Burns : NAE
56. Days of yore, in days of yore : ELD
Splynter
A swami was seeking SATORI
ReplyDeleteTo be one with serene, tranquil glory.
But instead, in a trance
Saw the first cosmic dance --
The Big Bang with its violent KABLOOIE!
"WOE IS ME," said the ink-covered tart.
"I have D-Day tats over my heart.
And on my right boob
Iwo Jima's tattooed --
But my WAR CHEST is called EROTIC ART!"
While swimming at the inn with my crew
To rehearse we'd use a POOL CUE!
We froze alcohol in a jar
Add a stick and lo! a WINE BAR!
The wife sale was really a steal;
I bought one and got a MISs DEAL!
I tried shooting skeet just for fun;
Of ten pigeons, only got a HOLE IN ONE!
My taxi driver was quite screwy;
He had named his hack as KAB LOOIE!
Ghosts are just in your head, said my pal;
I guess my ear has an eERIE CANAL!
I've missed your poetry
DeleteFunfilledpuns
Rabbit, Rabbit.
ReplyDeleteA really entertaining Saturday with much wit and misdirection. Thai cooks user lots of scallions ing with their Thai basil.
I especially loved the WINE BAR clue because it could be both the cabernet and taxi meaning.
Thanks Victor and Splynter 61 degrees as I get on my exercise bike. Enjoy November
Morning, all!
ReplyDeleteThis one was challenging throughout for me, mostly due to the obscure cluing, but also due to some obscure answers.
The crossing of TWIT and TOOLE was a total WAG since I've never heard of TOOLE and I only know TWIT as a noun meaning a foolish person. TOOLE didn't seem likely, but nothing else looked plausible except for TWIT.
The NE corner proved to be the second most difficult spot, at least at the beginning. I couldn't make any headway there at all at first, but when I came back to it at the very end I somehow managed to muddle through it after all. OKEMO is something I barely remembered, enough to guess at after getting a few letters, and that made the difference. But it was KABLOOIE that got me my foothold in that section, which I finally guessed after getting the trickily clued BABY OIL.
Rabbit Rabbit
ReplyDeleteHello Puzzlers -
WBS. Twit makes no sense to me in that usage.
Avg. Joe from last night - I had hoped to snag a photo, but it was busy in there. And LOUD.
Good morning!
ReplyDeleteNice misdirection from Victor. I thought New England was going to get me with SANTA/VIXEN/COMET and KABLOOEY/KABLOOIE. I also wanted FORMULA before BABY OIL showed up. When COMET finally occurred to me, things started to fall into place.
I notice that OKEMO was situated in New England; I'll bet Marti has skied there, and checked out the WINE BAR.
Nice shoutout to Husker with the BIRDIE and HOLE IN ONE.
Enjoyed your vaccuum one-liner, Splynter. Triple-time on the day after Thanksgiving? Sounds good.
Too cool to bike. It'll be a marching day....
4/4
Where does one start on this puzzle?
ReplyDeleteChristmas flier- Santa,Vixen,Cupid, COMET
Christmas flier-Dancer,Donner, DASHER
Asian Capital- Tokyo, Rupee,Ruble,Dinar,HANOI
I did finish this one but had to read Splynter's write-up to know if I did it correctly. I penciled in Aspen and Stowe before I wrote OKEMO which is new to me. The cross of Blake writing was blank as my poetry knowledge is limited to " There was a girl from Nantucket", oh that's a limerick.
I liked the crossing of LACY and EROTIC ART. I had to look at SATORI, an unfamiliar word, thinking WOE IS ME, due to the fact that 'Alack" is a word I have never heard before. WAG
44D-TWITS strictly came from the perps, as I had never seen it used as a verb. Living in New Orleans,TOOLE came easily. His mother was crazier than him.
KABLOOIE-is there a real 'correct' spelling of this word? My last fills were that, TO SEE, and OKEMO- a tough finish.
Quiz- What's the difference between patrons of a WINE BAR and bums on skid row? Answer-money
I really enjoyed this puzzle even though YEATS SATORI NAE VEGA were unknowns ( that makes it challenging ) and I wonder it the WAR CHESTs of some of these politicians will determine the outcomes of these CLOSE RACEs Tuesday. One set of crooks replaces another set of crooks.
Not quite as brutal as a Silkie, but it was close. Started wagging right out of the chute, and most, such as Ebert, were good. But I really wanted Core for 6d instead of Ware. I've never heard of Okemo, but perps saved that. Looks like a cry challenging middle peak!
ReplyDeleteMost the multi choice issues brought up by y'all were solved by having one cross....such as Thai from Domicile, which then gave me Hanoi. But in the end, I made the same fatal error you did, Splynter. I ran the alphabet for the crossing of Toole and Twits, and narrowed it to T and P. Not being familiar with that usage of Twit, I relegated the weight to the crossing -oole, and Poole seemed the more likely. Bzzzzzt!
But I'll take it with a smile. It was an enjoyable solve.
Sorry to hear it, Dudley. I was looking forward to that.
Oh how I love autocorrect.
ReplyDeleteThat should be "A very challenging middle peak" and "Most of the multi-choice.."
Rabbit, rabbit!
ReplyDeleteGreat write-up, Splynter! You really should read “A Confederacy of Dunces.” It won Toole a posthumous Pulitzer Prize, and is one of the most entertaining books I have ever read.
I was pretty much on Victor’s wavelength today. A quick check of 1-Down let me make a WAG at WAC right off the bat, and gave me WHERE WAS I. OKEMO was a gimme for this northeastern skier, even though I prefer to go to Killington or Stowe. And with the OK filled in at 11-D, OK CORRAL was a no-brainer. But it wasn’t all smooth sailing:
Toasty? Nope! YEASTY. Formula? Nope! BABY OIL. There were a couple others that gave me fits for a while, but the biggest one was 20-Across:
I think I’ll go ask DH to fix the garage door remote control – it went Kerflooey/kablooey/KABLOOIE yesterday.
Have a fun day everyone!
Pinch, Pinch ...
ReplyDeleteDNF ... I hit my "Mug-of-Coffee" time limit.
Faves were the CSO to Husker with the golf clues/answers.
(It's freezing here, but I'm toasty in a Nebraska long-sleeve T-shirt).
No Trick-or-Treater's" last night ... so I'm stuck with a bunch of Mini-Snicker's candy bars.
Cheers!
Seemed to be the easiest puzzle of the week for me. The rest of the week was like having a root canal for me. Obscure clueing and themes that gave me a headache just reading them.
ReplyDeleteThis one was nice.
Dang! TOOL_ was right but Mind was HEED and not HEAD and so TOOLA cost me one bad cell. Fun exercise!
ReplyDeleteMusings
-EROTIC ART – Our grad class met in the home of a member once and he had naked photos of his wife displayed on his wall.
-I digressed in a story to some juniors yesterday and then had to say, “WHERE WAS I?”
-COMET, you’re in for CUPID. BABY OIL you’re in for FORMULA
-It’s easy to TIRE of all the political ads, every candidate will save us and his/her opponent will ruin us
-My daughter’s VEGA was a piece ‘o junk
-When I SOP
-Yes, there is a POOL CUE in this picture of Jeanette Lee (The Black Widow)
-My HOLE-IN-ONE was a birdie on a par 4 after I hit my first shot out of bounds
-COAL pollution changes how people run a Beijing marathon
-Talk about your tasty SLABS
-SIRI got us to our Minneapolis hotel to meet C.C. and Boomer
-Official count – 250 Trick-or-Treaters last night! Very cute and polite!
Enjoyed the puzzle even though I had to use red letters to finish it. I had heard the word satori but didn't know its meaning. Once I figured out comet I was able to get Dasher. Also realizing we were talking golf that helped and realizing a different Clinton made me finish erie canal. I also come to the write-ups for help with the obscure(to me) words/definitions. My goal is to be able to finish a Friday puzzle without help.
ReplyDeleteSaturday puzzles are always too difficult for me to complete, but I did quite well today.
ReplyDeleteI stayed overnight at Okemo last fall on my New England bus tour.
Splynter, my Denver son was a seasonal UPS worker the past two holiday seasons. His work stories were fascinating and the overtime pay was great. He's a computer guru for the sheriff's department now, so no time for UPS this year.
Crazy weather in MT. 70s today, snow and highs in the 30s predicted tomorrow.
Have a good weekend everybody,
Montana
Good Morning:
ReplyDeleteOnce I got a few toeholds, it was smooth sailing to reach the TADA. Liked the clue for wine bar but never heard of kablooie, only kaflooey. Even that sounds weird. Poor Tin! The _ _ _ devil strikes again at 9D!
Thanks, Victor, for a great start to November and thanks to Splynter for enlightening and entertaining us every Saturday.
No leftover candy here as I know enough not to buy it. No trick or treaters, as usual. Just the deluge of political robo calls. I CANNOT wait until Tuesday when the incessant calls, fliers, and the vitriolic TV ads end.
Have a great day.
Good morning everyone.
ReplyDeleteWanted to try a Barocas puzzle. Fount that most of the fill was ultimately gettable but had to try to think broadly for the many clever misdirections. Since I had time today, I was able to enjoy it.
VEGA and DREI were early anchors. I wanted Claus before COMET. Then wanted Omdurman (Khartoum of Chinese Gordon fame) before OK CORRAL loomed from the perps.
WHERE WAS I was a WAG.
My early aha moment came with ERIE CANAL. Well done, Victor.
Learnt how to spell KABLOOIE.
Many real good clues such as for POOL CUE, WINE BAR, BABY OIL, and HOLE-IN-ONE.
Didn't like the ROLE clue - a little meh.
Didn't know TOOLE, YEATS, or OKEMO but perps were good.
BZ to Victor on his 1st Saturday themeless.
Husker 9:36 - huh? The date stamp on the Vega photo was 2011. Did you really have a Vega that would still run at that late date?
ReplyDeleteWe had a Vega back in the day, and it soon taught me that Chevrolet was willing to foist some pretty poor equipment onto the innocent public.
ReplyDeleteI can't believe it--I actually got a Saturday puzzle! Wow! A million thanks, Victor. Mind you, it started out tough with only YEATS and DREI. But slowly the bottom started to fill in and I slowly moved up. Lots of fun stuff, like YEASTY crossing YEATS, those Christmas reindeer along with the ROEBUCK, BIRDIE and EAGLE (boy, am I glad I played Fairway Solitaire for a while), HOLE IN ONE and POOL CUE, and lots of others. A really fun puzzle!
Thanks for the expo, Splynter, and have a great beginning to November, everybody!
Fun misdirections, great puzzle and expo. Three red letters, although I now see it was really "gettable." BABY BOTTLE and POOL CUE stumped me.
ReplyDeleteWe had 7 trick or treating kids last night in just three groups, one of which was my next door neighbors. Parents are worried about the kids being hit by a car in the dark and by dangerous strangers, although the parents accompany the kids in this calm and safe neighborhood. Instead our community does "Trunk or Treat." Right after school the generous adults park their cars in the elementary school lot and open their trunks which are artfully decorated. The children go from car to car in their costumes picking up treats.
20 years when we lived in a larger suburb we had may dozens of kids. The upper elementrary school kids would bring pillowcases of candy they collected home where the parents would recycle a lot of it and pass it out again to others. The kids still had plenty left for a sugar high. I suspect that some of the kids were dropped off from other neighborhoods.
Although door to door "begging" as my parents called it occurred in my youth it was not so big. We didn't participate. Our parents would say, "Go show Mrs. X you costume." Mrs. X would invite us in to visit for maybe 10 to 15 minutes and exclaim over us. Then she would offer us a treat to our innocent surprise. We only went to 3 or 4 houses owned by people we were friendly with.
ReplyDeleteI was chagrined when I was first married that none of the kids at our door had time to exchange even a few words or to identify themselves, including those we talked to every day.The good old days.
No rush to finish this morning as all games were cancelled due to some wonderful rain.
ReplyDeleteKnew just enough today to be able to perp and Wag thru some unknowns, like Okemo and Arabian checker. Erotic was the farthest thought in my head, while picturing weather maps. LOL
Thought of you Marti, when I saw Mt Snow.
Looking forward to more rain and falling leaves.
Jolly enough romp for a Saturday morning.
ReplyDeleteWhat made my morning was Splynter's link to Monty Python on the subject of REPRESSED. Fabulous stuff.
I join the ranks of never using TWIT as a verb, only as a noun, meaning an idiot. My MacDictionary lists noun (twit) and verb (ridicule) in both U.S. and Brit usage.
Curiously, my 1973 (revised 1984) Shorter Oxford Dictionary (the first one that includes all the rude words) lists TWIT only as the verb (dated 1533) meaning "to censure, blame" etc., but not the noun meaning "idiot".
Kablooey/Kablooie is not listed and is totally unknown to me, although its use in context would be obvious enough.
The most EAGLES I have scored are on short par fours, which is logical; with an occasional on a par 5. Never scored a hole-in-one in 40 years of playing.
NC
Musings
ReplyDelete-Yeah, right, Dudley! That was a stock picture of a VEGA as my daughter’s lemon went to auto purgatory long ago along with a lot of my dollars. Ya get what ya pay for!
-BTW, VEGA is the star from whose vicinity a signal is emerging in the movie worth dredging up from Netflix - Contact. Since VEGA is 25 light years away, the planet there had received pictures of the 1936 Olympics, interpreted them and sent them back to Earth 50 years later. The movie has great science in it but a cheesy ending. Frematprime would like the role of Prime Numbers in this scene.
-YR, many of our kids not only wanted to visit, they asked permission to pet our new kitty they could see in the background which of course we allowed to their delight and Lily’s chagrin (did I just use the word chagrin?). Of course there were parents everywhere and our street looked like a midway carnival.
-Older kids with no real costumes and just a bag were not my favorites but I’m not Mr. Wilson.
I may be one of the few people who actually owned two Chevy VEGAs. Both were second-hand and I liked them both. At some point I turned Japanese (three Hondas followed by two Subarus) and never looked back.
ReplyDeleteFurther etymological note on TWIT.
ReplyDeleteIt seems to derive from old english "AT" meaning "close to, nearly" and WITAN (source of WIT) meaning a clever/learned person. And there is an older form, ATWITE, with the same meaning.
So I think its origin, as a verb, means "[you are being ] nearly clever" - i.e., damned by faint praise.
NC
Greetings, word warriors! Hilarious blogging, Splynter.
ReplyDeleteThis was a hard won triumph with assistance I'm sad to say. Many tricky misdirections held me up but the Northwest and Southwest filled quickly. Clinton didn't fool me as I knew ERIE CANAL and DREI was pure guesswork but that gave me HOLE IN ONE.
The trouble spots were NE and SW. COMET, ACT AS and EMAIL finally helped. Thankfully, ROLE provided a toehold. It was my keystone for that corner. Checked that OKEMO was valid. Hi, Marti, I'm sure you've been there.
BABYOIL really caused me some head scratching. I was sure it would be PABLUM, FORMULA or some such.
Finally, I forgot to finish TWITS. Meant to return there but didn't. Still, it was a great challenge. Thank you, Victor Barocas.
No trick or treaters at our complex so I don't even buy candy.
My teaching was at an inner city school and the kids would tell me they would be taken to affluent neighborhoods for Halloween. That was several decades ago so it's not new.
Montana, what bus tour did you go on? I've been trying to find one for next summer.
Have a spectacular Saturday, everyone!
Hi Y'all! Great puzzle, Victor! Great expo, Splynter!
ReplyDeleteI didn't have enough patience to enjoy this. I filled it with several red-letter runs. Last to fill was the "R" in OK CORRAL/ROLE cross. Had to have all the other perps to see it. DUH!
Stumpers: "Blue wall decorations" & "end of a digression." Slowly, slowly filled.
I've never had SCALLIONS in or out of a salad. Perp & WAG.
Never heard of OKEMO.
My front door bolt lock is still stuck shut. I brought in the crowbar to see if I could pry the door into alignment or something. Couldn't find a space big enough for the crowbar. Maybe when it rains, it will self-correct. I have to go out through the garage. Bummer!
Went to sleep before 5 p.m. Don't know if there were goblins at my unopenable door.
I enjoyed this puzzle more than the usual Saturday stumper. Thanks Victor and Splynter.
ReplyDeleteJD, yes, some rain at last. Not enough to make a dent in the drought of course but it was nice to hear the long-missing sound on our skylights. I turned off our automatic water sprinklers for a few days.
I mostly know TWIT from the well-known Monty Python sketch. Funny stuff.
Upper-class Twit of the Year
Near Vega is the wonderful Ring Nebula in Lyra
Ring Nebula
PK - try leaning hard on the door while turning the bolt.
ReplyDeleteLeda and the Swan
ReplyDeleteby William B. Yeats
A sudden blow: the great wings beating still
Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed
By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill,
He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.
How can those terrified vague fingers push
The feathered glory from her loosening thighs?
And how can body, laid in that white rush,
But feel the strange heart beating where it lies?
A shudder in the loins engenders there
The broken wall, the burning roof and tower[20]
And Agamemnon dead.
Being so caught up,
So mastered by the brute blood of the air,
Did she put on his knowledge with his power
Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?
Link analysis
PS. Our next door neighbors did stop to talk last night.
I think this is a magnificently constructed puzzle. Wonderful fill and excellent cluing. Because I had HEAD instead of HEED for "Mind" (get outta my head) I had trouble settling on the letter T to cross it with TWITS. Udder dan dat, smooth as BABY OIL all around.
ReplyDeleteTin, if you're watching the Nebraska game, you should have a boilermaker. Oh what the hell, mix it up a little and make it a depth charge. It's all the same, just a different presentation....and no hard water.
ReplyDeleteIrish Miss, the soup is underway. Broth's been simmering for an hour and a half, onions will start to sauté in another hour. It's smelling good in the kitchen.
Go Big Red!
Avg Joe - I can almost smell that broth myself! Enjoy!
ReplyDeleteAnon @2:19, thanks for your input. I tried that to no avail. By that time I was so mad at the door, I jammed the prybar in the crack between the kicker plate and the bolt as well as leaning on the door. The other lock was jammed too, so I applied the prybar there. Voila! It opened. I went out, fed the cat, picked up my mail. While perusing the mail, I automatically closed the door and flipped the locks. Jammed again. But I can't leave it unlocked. Wanted to scream. Didn't. Also didn't kick the door or beat it with the crowbar. I hope you are impressed with my restraint.
ReplyDeleteSorry to enter so late today. I wasn't at the UD football game today for a change; more later. This is the first puzzle for me (in my foggy memory) from Victor Baracas and I thoroughly enjoyed it, although I needed ESP for OKEMO and the spelling of the back part of KABLOOIE.
ReplyDeleteI finished in very good time for a Saturday, even though I agonized over the final letter. I had never heard of TWITS as a verb (nice learning moment) and did not know the author TOOLE. After running a mental alphabet twice, I pressed the "T" and was rewarded with the "TADA" moment.
"TO SEE" was a gimme for me. I have always been a fan of Blake's poetry and "Auguries of Innocence" was assigned reading in one of my EngLit courses back in the Dark Ages. I remember this TA in our classroom regaling this poem as "doggerel" and "drivel". I really liked the poem and spoke up, saying that I thought his critique was overly harsh and how much I had enjoyed reading it. I was on that TA's s@#t list for the rest of that term. Thank goodness he wasn't responsible for the student's grades!
To continue: We decided to forego the football game today because the opponent is/was Rhode Island (meh) and our middle son had a housewarming party this afternoon. Given the rainy, cold, windy weather I guess we made a very perspicacious decision.
ReplyDeleteMiddle son is a " Special Olympian", and has lived in a group home since shortly after high school (he's late thirties now). He recently qualified for a pilot program that is a partnership of several state agencies and non-profit entities to promote integrating these folk into the community at large. No more group home! Jeff and his roommate now share an upscale condo on the riverfront, thanks to the generosity of some caring and capable philanthropists and the state, with minimal oversight, just the support they need. The condo is beautiful. I sincerely hope he succeeds; as I said, it's a pilot program and a lot is riding on this.
Almost forgot. Splynter, engaging expo as always. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteBluehen out.
I would have given up half way through Victor's gem, but DH and I did it together. Solved but still struggled.
ReplyDeleteIn our small town, the police station has a weenie roast starting at 6:00 on Halloween. The Baptist Church has trunk or treat in their parking lot. We saw about 20 kids from 7:00 to 8:30. We have lot of Pay-Days and Starburst left. I didn't buy chocolate on purpose. I'd be too tempted to finish it off.
I use TWIT as a verb in the same manner as in this sentence. "The schoolmaster was twitted about the lady who threw him over” (J.M. Barrie).
ReplyDeleteMy dictionary says about the origin of twit:
"From shortening of obsolete atwite, to reproach, taunt, from Middle English atwiten, from Old English ætwītan : æt, at; see at + wītan, to reproach; see weid- in Indo-European roots."
Blue Hen, good luck to your middle son in his new housing. That's an exciting opportunity. NJ says my son isn't eligible for housing unless I die or become too disabled because there are too many such people who are living in worse situations than his.
PK, I hope you find a solution to your annoying door jam.
If you like onions, you really should try scallions. I love them raw added to Mexican dip, salads and sandwiches, sauteed for hamburgers or steaks, as well as added to cooked dishes.
Blue Hen, I like Blake's poetry, too. It's too bad when some college teachers foist their dogmatic opinions on the student and will brook no arguments or counter opinions. I think perhaps the TA reviled the poem rather than regaled it.
PK@4:32: "I can't leave it unlocked"
ReplyDeleteOne of the best things about where I live (apart from the natural beauty) is that I can leave my door unlocked (and the keys in the car). I'd hate to have to live where I couldn't do either. But, of course, ya gotta do what ya gotta do.
YR@5:30: "I use TWIT as a verb in the same manner as in this sentence. "The schoolmaster was twitted about the lady who threw him over”
ReplyDeleteI never cease to be impressed by how some people can find a example to justify even the most obscure usage. It's truly a gift. If not for this forum I'd likely spend a lifetime searching for someone who used TWIT as verb.
Lime Rickey, you don't live in Maine by any chance? We met a woman on the Internet via a First Class Bulletin Board. We got to know each other so well, she invited us back to visit with her husband and her in a little town near Portland, Maine. She left her house unlocked and the keys in the car. When we got back from sightseeing, one of her neighbors had left a Whoopie Pie on her dining room table for us to enjoy. (We also had lobster and Moxie!)
ReplyDeleteI DO use twit as a verb. I DO hear it. I DO read it. I do not need to hunt for it.It is common.Just because you have not heard it, it is NOT obscure.
ReplyDeleteLime Rickey, I grew up in a little town where no one locked their door and left the keys in the car. My husband grew up on a secluded farm where they did the same. The first night after we moved to a farm house on a main highway, we had some sinister-looking young people come to our door wanting shelter from a storm. My husband took one look and refused to let them in. We locked our doors ever after.
ReplyDeleteI live in a nice neighborhood in the city now, but our residential side street is a natural walk way for all kinds of people, including some very strange obviously homeless people. So far they have been harmless, but......
One woman in another part of the city went next door and left her house unlocked. She came back some time later and found a homeless guy asleep in her bed. Police dislodged him.
I'd rather be safe than sorry.
PK, I miss those days. I've lived at the same address almost all my life, and in the early years the house had no locks and the keys just stayed in the cars where they were needed. Of course the kids all walked for Trick or Treating.
ReplyDeleteOne Christmas Eve in the 80's we were out for a bit and somebody walked right in and grabbed my stereo. What a feeling of violation! Now we lock up. The police keep on telling us, then and now, that it's all about heroin.
My parents built their house in 1950-51.They had locks on the front and back doors, but didn't have keys....or at a minimum, lost them. In the summer of 1972 they went on a 3 week trip while I was working on a ranch 200 miles away. They installed new locks, front and rear, and to my knowledge, it was the first time they locked the doors on that house.
ReplyDeleteI thought that was pretty neat that the house hadn't been locked in over 20 years, but later I realized it was just foolish. It never caused them grief, but it easily could have. A few years later, and in that same small town, I normally left my own doors unlocked and a neighbor kid decided to liberate my coin jar...just a small collection of change that totaled $35-40. That was real money to me at that time, as well as a serious violation of my privacy, so I learned a permanent lesson. I've locked my doors ever since, and wish I could meet up with that little shit, just once, to tell him what I thought about it.
It takes only a few seconds to lock and unlock a door. While it's hardly a fail safe measure, it's almost always enough of a deterrent to stop the casual burglar. Why take the risk?
Yellowrocks, calm down honey.
ReplyDeleteTemple beat a ranked opponent in their home stadium today for the first time since 1938 when they defeated a ranked Holy Cross team. The coach of that 1938 squad? None other than the great Pop Warner. Betcha didn't know that. Obscure? Hell yes! But I didn't have to hunt for the fact. That little tidbit just scrolled by at the bottom of my television screen and MILLIONS and MILLIONS of other screens in homes and sports bars all across this country and also on the U.S. Armed Forces feed around the world. I'd guess that well over 10 million people just read that trivia and yet if you ask for that information at a party in about a week, people will look at you as if you just said, "The schoolmaster was twitted about the lady who threw him over”.
Obscurity is in the eye of the beer holder.
Just finished reading the late nite, after a dinner party, with shrimp scampi, & wine...
ReplyDeleteDon't remember much of the puzzle, other than I couldn't solve it. But I was trying to figure out where the Blog thread of the unlocked home/car started. It reminded me of when I was living in Staten Island, with our home security alarm, & our neighbors (that were never friendly) had a yard sale...
We went out for a couple of hours, & when we came back, our charcoal grill on a little patio under the carport was gone! (I mean, who steals a used charcoal grill full of ashes!) To this day, I think they sold it!
Anywho, I would link a pic for the puzzle, but all I can think now is Erotic Art + Kablooie! (Hmm, probably just as well I left that one alone...)
Yellowrocks, I wish you could see how you come across.
ReplyDeleteSo THE ALAMO was 1836 and not 1881? Drat.
ReplyDeleteI also had AMERICANA instead of HOLE IN ONE because, a piece of AMERICANA is usually an eagle. I was feeling pretty good about that.
If anybody asks, my DVD collection is EROTIC ART.