20-Across. *Last president who was a Founding Father : JAMES MONROE.
36-Across. *Limp cause : GAME LEG.
3-Down. *In the low 70s, usually : ROOM TEMPERATURE. This winter, ours has been in the low 60s, usually.
7-Down. *Feature of most cars nowadays : FRONT WHEEL DRIVE. True, but I will stick with my AWD Subaru on these icy New England roads.
11-Down. *On one's own : ALONE IN THE WORLD.
And the reveal:
55-Across. Fixer-upper, perhaps, and a hint to the answers to starred clues : STARTER HOME. Put "home" at the start of the theme entires and you get quite a 12-Down:
"Home, James!" / Home game / Home room / Home front / and "Home Alone," the 1990 Macaulay Culkin movie.
From a construction standpoint, this was quite an impressive feat: Two grid spanners that each cross one other theme entry, and one grid spanner that crosses three! The two 11-letter entries each cross two other themers. Let's see what else Frank has to offer us.
Across
1. Big name in ATMs : NCR. Formerly National Cash Register.
4. Ten to twenty? : HALF. Nailed it on my first guess! [insert fist pump here]
8. On fire : AFLAME.
14. Worldwide workers' agcy. : ILO. International Labour Organization.
15. On __ with : A PAR.
16. Brooklyn Bridge features : CABLES. Yes, indeed.
17. "The Matrix" hero : NEO. All perps.
18. Utah lily : SEGO.
19. Delivers an old standard, perhaps : CROONS.
23. Not from a Scot : NAE.
24. Fifth-century leader succeeded by his son Ellac : ATTILA. I nailed it on the first WAG.
25. __ Aviv : TEL.
26. Tent holder : PEG.
27. Sportscaster Andrews : ERIN.
28. New Deal org. : WPA. Works Progress Administration.
29. Hustles : HIES.
31. Smith students : WOMEN.
33. "If only __ listened!" : HE'D.
34. Memo words : IN RE.
35. Smartphone buy : APP.
40. Hold 'em tell, maybe : TIC. Keep your poker face on, and keep the other players guessing.
41. Ingredient in Off! : DEET. Common name: diethyltoluamide.
43. Top-row poet on the "Sgt. Pepper" album cover : POE. In the middle, above Marilyn.
44. Remains at the campsite : ASHES.
46. Misses the mark : ERRS.
47. Party person : POL. Political party, that is.
48. Spillane's "__ Jury" : I THE. His 1947 debut novel.
49. Org. that produces the magazines Highroads and Journey : AAA. Intuitive guess.
50. The past, in the past : ELD.
51. Risk being caught off base : GO AWOL.
54. Grisham hero, often: Abbr. : ATT.orney.
57. Only reigning pope to write an autobiography : PIUS II.
59. Tiny bit : IOTA.
60. Gun, as an engine : REV.
61. Most irritated : SOREST.
62. Emptiness : VOID.
63. T size : LGE.
64. Baby's outfit : ONESIE. They are usually sml.
65. Luncheon ender : ETTE.
66. Patriotic gp. since 1890 : DAR. Daughters of the American Revolution.
Down
1. Turtle in a 2014 film : NINJA.
2. Soccer shoe feature : CLEAT. Spike also fits.
4. Bit of sibling rivalry : HASSLING. As the youngest of five, I got a lot of that.
5. Hypothetical primate : APE MAN. No such thing, really.
6. Titicaca, por ejemplo : LAGO. [updated] In South America, Titicaca is a lake (for example.)
8. Honor : ACCOLADE.
9. Charge for a ride : FARE.
10. Wall St. news : LBO. Leveraged Buy Out.
12. Varied mixture : MENAGERIE.
13. To be, to Ovid : ESSE.
21. Cork's location : EIRE.
22. Opposite of attract : REPEL.
26. Chi follows it : PHI.
30. "Just a few __" : SECS.
31. Dwyane of the Miami Heat : WADE. Absolutely no clue. All perps.
32. Mathematical process : OPERATION.
37. Good thing to have before a meal : APPETITE.
38. Dinero : MOOLA.
39. Winning football coach's surprise : GATORADE.
42. Airport screening org. : TSA. Transportation Security Administration.
45. Persian for "king" : SHAH.
48. ''Of course!'' : I GET IT.
52. Greek finale : OMEGA.
53. Piano keyboard component : LEVER.
54. Lhasa __ : APSO.
55. Spanish ayes : SI SI. Cute.
56. Warning sound : TOOT.
58. His, to Henri : SES. Possessive adjectives change, according to the gender of the noun: son, sa or SES are three of the possibilities here.
Marti, out!
62 comments:
I tried to spell Attila, Atilla, but perps quickly fixed that. This did not seem like a Thursday puzzle. Perps and a couple WAGs filled in unknowns.
Have a nice day, everyone.
Montana
Greetings!
Thanks for the very doable puzzle, Frank! Thanks for the cool write-up, Marti!
Fun theme!
Fastest Thursday that I have ever worked! No problems!
WADE all perps. PIUS II was some perps and a WAG.
Cheers!
Thanks for early write-up, Marti! Otherwise I would have to post very late, as usual.
8-Across, ABLAZE before AFLAME. Close.
Quick fill except for "Hold 'em tell, maybe" where I wanted anything but TIC. And the perpendicular perpetrator, SECS, I wanted anything but. SEES, SETS, etc. So an FIW for me but at least I got the theme early, thought it was a clever (or necessary?) layout.
Nice easy Thursday effort, otherwise. (And don't you love ERIN Andrews on DWTS?)
A few learning moments, such as PIUSII and an autobiography, NINJA turtle, HASSLING (I had no sibs).
And, I had to admire this layout with the spanners. Well done, Frank Virzi. Thanks, Marti, for the early post and informative summary.
Morning, all!
Fun, doable puzzle overall. Really hated HE'D, initially went with ATILLA instead of ATTILA [Hi there, Montana!], didn't know ERIN (as clued) and needed most of the perps to guess at HASSLING and PIUSII. These were all minor bumps in the road, however. I basically just mention them to have something to talk about... ^_^
Good morning!
Thursday speed run. I'll take it on this taxing day.
Thanks everyone for the well wishes on the new job.
Anonymous T thank you for posting my link.
I am one happy (and relieved) camper. :-)
This was really an impressive puzzle that was not a hard solve, but as usual I couldn't connect HOME with the starred clues. Thanks Marti.
Spelling MENAGERIE and ATTILA ( two Ts or Ls ?) and not knowing the Greek alphabet were the only things to slow me down. NINJA, PIUS II, and I THE were the unknowns. I initially put BE AWOL for GO and MONEY for MOOLA but quickly changed both.
GAME LEG was the only fill that gave me any trouble.
I didn't find this as easy as everyone else so far. Perps and WAGs to the rescue, and I got it out in the end, but struggled to see the theme, as I was trying to put HOME after each of the other theme things that could relate to it, and neither James nor Monroe fit in that way.
As usual, the acronyms were a mystery to me, and all the names too--although I easily guessed POE, and PIUS could only have the two I's after it since X and V wouldn't have worked between the 't's in APPETITE. I tend to succeed in such puzzles only through looking for the whole picture and guessing what makes sense as a word.
ELD is related to German: Eltern means parents, which amuses me, since in my youth (ute to Argyle), my friends and I used to refer to ours as the "oldies". German for "old" is "alt", which in the comparative and superlative forms takes an Umlaut: älter, ältest, which gives them the same sound as the "e" in ELD.
Hello Puzzlers -
Whenever we have Attila, I usually put in Atilla. For once I remembered. Just a few unknowns, such as that guy from The Matrix whose name I have trouble recalling (never saw the movie). Wouldn't have made the connection to Home without the unifier, but that's per usual.
Morning, Marti! Hope you're enjoying gradual melting today. I don't recall hating a winter as much as this one.
Lake Titicaca is on the border between Peru and Bolivia.
Thanks, Frank for a fun Thursday run. I, too, always stall at Attila/Atilla until I see it. Often I am a visual speller. The long downs were fun after I quit looking for golf in the 70's. I only know NEO from X-words--never saw Matrix. I struggled with GAME LEG. I looked to baseball and hence erred with GO AWOL. Liked STARTER HOME, but (DUH!) still didn't see the theme--Thanks, Marti.
Dudley, I agree. This has truly been a horrific winter. Yesterday I was able to let the cats outside for the first time in months. It took them almost half an hour to go 20 feet - they had to stop and smell every single leaf on every singe branch on every single bush!
Kim @ 8:52, thx - it has been updated.
The name of Lake Titicaca is made up of two compound words.
I won't speculate on what Titi means, but 'caca' refers to a certain waste product of the human body.
We Incas were not without our own sense of humor.
Good morning everyone.
Nice puzzle from Frank and great intro from Marti.
Not to hard for a Thursday. Fill was mostly regular vocabulary; some mis-direction made it more challenging. Only 2 words needed changing: SEGO, and GO AWOL. Thought at first that 3d had something to do with golf (low 70's), but perps were clear early about ROOM TEMPERATURE.
7d - FWD - I've always favored rear wheel drive because of the ease of over the road driving, even though I live on a hill that can be nasty in winter. My favorite car maker stopped their manufacture a couple years, ago, So when I replaced it last Summer, I ordered a FWD and have been very happy with it. They seem to be much improved, over the last couple decades.
Hey, the construction knocked me out too, Marti and I don’t know 1/10 what you do! I HIED right along.
Musings
-ROOM TEMP here is around 66˚F in winter
-Easter LILIES and Christmas poinsettias aren’t allowed here now with our kitty
-ATTILA helped finish off Rome
-Yeah, WOMEN makes more sense than DAMES for _ _M E _
-NFL team named for POE’s most famous work as he spent much time in that city
-Joann worked in this company’s LUNCHEONETTE just out of high school
-The most hated man in baseball, Ty Cobb, sharpened his CLEATS and did this at every opportunity
-I thought ERIN might cross ERIN at first
-Getting back an APPETITE is a prerequisite for getting out of the hospital
-The Fabulous MOOLA(H) in yellow
-TV GAME LEG #1 and of course TV GAMELEG #2
Hi gang -
Imposing looking puzzle, and quite a technical accomplishment, but a bit easier than the typical Thus.
I made it hard, though, with IPO for LBO and TAI for PHI - entirely the wrong kind of CHI! So the east side gave me the most trouble. [Strange, since that's where I grew up.]
The long downs filled in pretty easily with some perp help.
Somehow, I want MENANGERIE to have a 2nd N.
Even with the unifier, I could not suss this theme.
HOME, JAMES???? Really?
ATTILA/ATILLA and ATOLL/ATTOL always throw me.
Never saw the clues for AAA and SES - perps had them filled in.
I have my eye exam early this p.m. Hope I'm deblurred before rehearsal tonight.
Cooll Regards!
JzB
It has come to the notice of this agency that certain serious accidents have occurred because of the Captain and commander, of an aircraft in flight, taking a 'bathroom break' and the consequential loss of supervision in the cockpit. Accordingly, we have declared the following edict with immediate effect.
1. No bathroom breaks for any pilots for flights lasting less than 8 hours.
2. Every pilot and co-pilot shall wear 'Depend' undergarments. Never mind the bulkiness. No exceptions. Their seat belts, once latched, shall remain locked, until 2 separate air stewards will enter the required and necessary code to open.
3. Pilots of the female persuasion shall come under additional restrictions. They will wear the hexoflexo meter around their necks at all times. This will indicate, with an audible beep, as to whether the wearer is pre-PMS, post-PMS, or in or out of PMS. Further, the hexoflexo shall check for flushed faces, uncertain temperatures and/or a 'crabby' attitude which indicates the 'time of the month' at which instance she will be immediately relieved for a period of 15 days. This will be charged to her vacation pay or maternity leave, as applicable.
4. The piloting of Air Force One, if the President is on board, will be restricted to castrated eunuchs on hemodialysis.
It is so ordered.
Good Morning:
Breezed right through this, surprisingly. No hang-ups and pretty straightforward cluing. Needed the reveal to catch the theme, but overlooked the Home, James answer.
Thanks to Frank and Marti for a fun and enlightening Thursday treat. Marti, I think everyone in the Northeast is glad to see the end of the winter that was! Now, if only Spring would actually spring!
Hondo, are you going to the TU Center Saturday to see your beloved UConn ladies?
Gary, are you feeling like your old self again, yet?
Have a great day.
Hello, friends! Nice job, Marti, thank you.
This has to be the fastest Thursday puzzle for me. Most of the fill was straight forward except WADE, the only unknown. Like others I know NEO only from crosswords. Didn't even see ILO and AAA. They emerged.
Nice one, Frank Virzi, thank you.
I'm off to get a haircut.
Have a terrific Thursday, everyone!
Hi all - for those who've never seen the Matrix - the name is NEO. Best fight scene outside of Hong Kong ever and the 360 camera shots changed movie making... TTFN, -T
Good morning all,
Enjoyed your write up Martie more than the puzzle.I was impressed with the 2 15 letter spanners, the fill didn't shake my world. Guess I'm grumpy due to : NCO,ILO,NEO,WPA,INRE.POL,ELD, LBO AND the clue for TIC.
Tomorrow is another day.
Thank you Frank and Heart.
Nicely constructed, but far too easy for a Thursday. Not complaining, just surprised.
Not very difficult, but liked the theme. Fav was "HOMEJAMES". Thanks, Frank, for a very nice puzzle.
Nice write-up, Marti. Took me a while to find Poe on the album cover.
This was definitely not a Thursday level puzzle. WAGGED 55A with only "S" in place and theme became apparent when HOME before ALONE made sense.
I thought 51A was a baseball reference at first. SEGO, ILO, LBO, TSA, PIUSII helped by perps. Never had a problem spelling ATTILA. Knew Dwayne WADE due to living with my husband's sports obsession for a long time. It's taken awhile, but slowly I'm getting more educated in sport trivia.
Nothing in today's offering is over the top. Guess tomorrow will be another story. Let the next three days of torture begin!
Coneyro out...
Musings 2
-Congrats Ergo. You have way too much talent to be on the sidelines
-Thanks for asking, Irish. I am at about 75% but looking forward to having the surgery reversed in a month or so and being back to normal.
-Here is a 15 sec. video of one component of my rehab.
A perfect Thursday puzzle--challenging but doable, many thanks, Frank. And thanks for explaining the theme, Marti. I got everything including the reveal, but the JAMES kept me from figuring out the HOME starter notion.
Exhausting but fun family visit for the last two days, and off to see a production of "The Odd Couple" this afternoon.
Have a great day, everybody!
Marti: Nice write-up and links.
Three (3) 15-letter/down grid spanners (all easy) made for an interesting solve.
Not a fan of both ESSE & SES being in the same puzzle.
Yeah, this has been a tough winter. I almost thought about turning on the heater ... once.
Husker: Thanks for the rehab link.
Cheers!
HG - Lily is so pretty. How does she respond to the leash? BTW, you certainly look trim and fit!
Took a while, but very rewarding.
Lame before game.
Attilas Ts were already perped before he showed up.
I thought the last to fall, Wade/Women was going to be a Natick until an Alphabet run made it obvious. (Romen?Somen?Tomen?Uomen?Vomen? W....)
Learning moment: I always thought The Sargent Pepper Cover was a painting. Check out the life size mock up...
FAA General Poobah @ 10:07, I don't find that funny at all...
HG! Good to see you & Lily
P.S., The Luncheonette link was interrupted by a McAfee Site Advisor warning (Whoa! do you really want to go there?) Why I can't imagine, the brief second I saw it, it looked totally innocent.
Starter Home?
I didn't get the theme until I came here even though I finished the puzzle. Thanks Marti! Also thanks for explaining LBO and LAGO.
I had ied before HED. And ER IN before EIRE so that held me up.
Smiled at CROONS.
We had snow this morning and it is still coming down. When will spring finally come?
CED, you are right. That post was very tacky. I sincerely apologise for the post, and am surprised Marti did not delete it. But you may admit that there is a tiny grain of truth in there somewhere. We live in an incredibly topsy turvy world that even cultures and peoples that we appreciate, rightly, as solid as a rock of granite, may conatain some grains of sand that appear to give way beneath our feet. BTW, all american airlines have rules where a cockpit may not be left with a single pilot, even during a bathroom break. An air steward sits at a third seat, in the cockpit, as guard. And european airlines will also follow this practice - see the Norwegian airline announcement. And, finally, of course I share in the sadness and shock of this terrible, terrible tragedy. That goes without saying. Again my apologies.
The tacky part was the anti-women PMS part.
Musings 3
-Yes, Lily is not only a pretty kitty, but she adds another dimension to our household, which is very therapeutic. She has adapted to the leash such that she goes where she wants to go when she wants to go there but that is fine.
-Maybe we will let our kitty out like Marti does someday.
-I am more slim and trim, as I have now lost over 20 lbs since Feb 27. As I tell people, I would much rather have done it with Marie Osmond’s methods!
-Seeing newly married young couples shopping for STARTER HOMES on HGTV with a maximum of $450,000 is breathtaking to me.
Hi Y'all! Scary looking puzzle with all the long fills, but they turned out to be easier than some of the short one. Fun! Didn't get the theme until Marti 'splained it. Couldn't see any correlation between "fixer upper" and starred phrases.
Didn't know NEO.
Dwyane WADE was a gimmee. I've often seen him steal the ball, dash to the other end of the court and dunk it for the Miami Heat.
"I THE JURY" sounded familiar when it perped in, but was the last fill. I kept trying a "hung" jury.
APE MAN: Marti, I think I dated one once. Talk about REPEL.
I tried heMEN before WOMEN.
Knowing the great self-discipline and self-control any pilot has, I'm sure WOMEN pilots take medicinal preventatives to avoid PMS & menopause. The few I've met were ultra calm people.
Took seven tries to prove I'm not a robot just now. I've been called many things but never that.
From whence? "Cancel the kitchen scraps for lepers and orphans, no more merciful beheadings and call off Christmas!"
I haven't worried about the Captcha for a couple of months now. I just ignore it with no ill effects. In fact, now that I mention it, it isn't even visible anywhere at the moment. Are some of you still dealing with it?
Re: HOME JAMES
Don't know why someone has a problem with this. It is a perfectly legit phrase that has been around for over a hundred years(predates the car!). It has been the title of movie and song. Also, who hasn't slumped into the back seat before and ordered the driver/friend/spouse, "HOME, JAMES!"?
- Once worked for a hotel as a bellman/driver. Had to train a new hire once, 20 years old and named James. Had to explain to him why all his passengers supposedly knew his name!
- Used to utilize a shuttle service from Denver Stapleton to the ski resorts called HOME JAMES. Looks like they tweaked their scheduled drop offs slightly over the years.
p.s. I let my you tube link run in another tab as I prepared this post. After the song finished another video automatically loaded named "Banned MGM cartoon: Abdul the BulBul Ameer". HaHa, old people were so racist.
CED @ 12:34, that was an interesting behind-the-scenes look at the Sgt. Pepper cover. I understand that it cost $5,000 to produce. A very hefty price, considering that at the time, the average album cover would cost only about $50 to produce.
HG - lookin good!
Marti - I think I read somewhere they had to replace the SPLHB cover's live flowers every 10 minutes with new ones because of the heat of the camera lights. Anyone know better? Cheers, -T
JD- If you're going to load your grid with a ton of theme, be prepared for the boo birds to come home to roost... or grump.
Every constructor has to decide between a lot of theme and the inevitable dreck that will follow, or less theme and better fill.
PK, I am glad you are better, focusing on your jury being HUNG.
HG, I always lose weight when I am sick but it does not last. Glad you and the little missy are getting out.
See you all tomorrow gwatcdr
FYI: A new season of "Bones" starts tonight.
gwatcdr back at you there, Lemonade !
Hola Everyone, I had a few problems today, but finally finished on my own. I put in Ablaze for Aflame and VFW for DAR. Both those were righted after a bit of head scratching.
Neo was an unknown, but perps solved that. We've never watched the Matrix.
I loved the answer for Risk being caught off base. I was thinking baseball not Army base! Fun.
I finished the puzzle after lunch as we had a Dr's appointment for my husband in the morning. The good news is that he seems to be Cancer free and is healing. The Dr. doesn't want to see him for three months! All those radiation treatments did the trick.
Have a great rest of the day, everyone.
undertaker will be in fast and furious 8
General Poohbah @ 10:07 : Thank you for the apology for your post about the airline crash. However, I think that it would have been best to have not posted this at all. Jesting at something so horrific as this apparently deliberate act is not funny at all.
I can't imagine the pain and horror that the families of these innocent victims are going through and then to find out it was a deliberate act is probably more than they can bear.
Nuf said.
That's really good news Chickie.
No takers on the source of: "Cancel the kitchen scraps for lepers and orphans, no more merciful beheadings and call off Christmas!"
No input from anyone else whether or not they have to deal with the vexing Captchas?
Bill G Buddy - not a clue on the quote. Captchas have been acting normally (don't need to click I'm not a bot), but I can't get splle chekc to work on the iPad since the 8.x upgrade nor does shift-arrow select stuff anymore (I have a Logitec keyboard for the iPad).
Well, my 30' non-SEGO palm is gone. While grinding the stup the guys tried to make a hole for the new palm as a favor; now I've gotta replace the sprinkler PVC. I'm not the SOREST about it, but between that an the dentist, VOID this Saturday.
Cheers, -T
ERR, grinding the stump... Told you spell check went AWOL. -T
BillG:
I go directly to "publish" and ignore the "I'm not a robot."
The quote sounds like either Jonathan Swift or Dickens.
Right Lucina, that's what I do too.
The quote is from one of my favorite bad guys; Alan Rickman. In this case, he is playing the hateful Sheriff of Nottingham in "Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves." He is so over-the-top BAD that he gives me a chuckle from time-to-time.
I got everything except the G in LAGO and SEGO. I had LACO and SECO. It felt like a Thursday puzzle for me: I bought the paper yesterday (my time) and I drew a blank. The first thing I got was DAR (Daughters of the American Revolution) and I worked my way up until I got NCR.
When I saw the clue "It comes after chi" I didn't think of the Greek letter PHI: I thought of the actress SHU Chi. That's a weakness of mine, I guess.
I got each of the theme answers from the perps and then got the reveal. I knew the last part was HOME from the perps but I had MONEY instead of MOOLA and that slowed me down a bit.
Homes, James
Ellen had on a guy who is the owner of a small pizza shop. Somebody came in a while ago and gave him an extra dollar to "pay it forward" for anybody who needed something to eat. It caught on and now his bulletin board is cover with Post It notes representing a free slice of pizza. About 30 homeless people a day come in to get something to eat. What a great idea! I wonder if any local eatery does something similar?
Good evening, folks. Thank you, Frank Virzi, for a fine puzzle. Thank you, Marti, for a fine review.
Well, I got back from Pennsylvania yesterday. So today I used the newspaper. My favorite way to solve.
First, congratulations and extreme happiness to Ergo and chickie. Great news from both of you!
The puzzle, as others have said, seemed to be a tad easier than the normal Thursday. That is OK with me.
I finished, but did not catch the theme. I did not look real hard, though. Just glad to have filled in everything.
NCR was simple. As was ILO right under it.
JAMES MONROE took me a couple perps to get ahold of it.
ATTILA always stumps with with the TTs and LLs question. I got it after EIRE.
I learned DEET a long time ago when I was hiking the Appalachian Trail in Maine. I literally bathed in DEET. The bugs were something else.
I also was thinking of baseball for 51A. However, GO AWOL appeared after a few down perps.
SHAH was easy. I lived under his authority for a couple years.
I was very impressed with this puzzle and the three grid spanners. Outstanding.
Glad you are feeling better, HG.
See you tomorrow.
Abejo
( )
I'm with Jazz, this sucks. Just kidding, Jazz is stupid. What a great reveal that HOME, JAMES is!!!!
"Attiler the Hun never conquered Concord." from "How to speak N'hampsha like a native".
When I was a boy....
Nothing puzzle related just wanted to share.
Someone posted this Ode to Joy flash mob last year. While searching for it, I found this visually stunning rendition. I thought I'd share. Can anyone identify the locals? I'll put at least one on yesterday's BUCKET LIST. Cheers -T
Yet another ERR for today... this visually stunning rendition. C, -T
March 27, 2015 at 1:02 AM Delete
To Anon T
The videos that you posted are identical.
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