The reveal is hidden at 39-Down. Medicine dispenser, and, in another way, a hint to the answers to starred clues : DROPPER. (DROP "PER")
17-Across. *Bargain dairy product? : ONE CENT MILK. One percent milk. Anyone who was alive during the Great Depression will remember milk selling for a penny a quart.
32-Across. *Nickname for a roller coaster highlight? : THE BIG DIP. The Big Dipper. Much better than "The Big Loo"...
37-Across. *Security workers asleep on the job? : BUM GUARDS. Bumper guards.
52-Across. *Really hot cold drink? : JALAPENO POP. Jalapeno popper. This was my favorite entry.
Just missing the Q for a pangram. Nicely done C6D6 Peg! Let's look at the nuts and bolts in the rest.
Across
1. Roam : GAD. Usually with "about."
4. Got ready for company, perhaps : SWEPT.
9. Norse shape-shifter : LOKI. Also, the evil villain in the 2012 movie "The Avengers."
13. Word often following "further" : ADO.
14. One adopting a puppy, say : NAMER. I might have considered putting NAMEs crossing TsE in this spot.
15. The Tempter : SATAN.
16. Trivial amount : SOU.
19. Go out : EBB. I toyed with "die" (like a fire).
20. Dedicated lines : ODES.
21. Eliminates completely : ERASES.
22. Bar supply : SELTZER.
24. Farm cries : BAAS. In Boston, BAAs are where we mix drinks with seltzer.
25. Vessel with a spout : EWER.
26. Database command : SORT.
27. Spots : ADS. I was on the "vision" line of thinking, so it took way too long to come up with this short name for advertisements.
30. __ of roses : ATTAR. Immediately started filling in "a bed," but ran out of letters before squares.
34. Reclined : LAIN.
35. Easily provoked : FIERY.
36. Soap containing ground pumice : LAVA.
39. Only Dwarf without a beard : DOPEY.
40. Had : ATE.
41. Goes after : SUES.
42. Oath for toondom's Dick Dastardly : DRAT.
43. Provide money for : FUND.
44. It's named for a trapeze artist : LEOTARD. When Leo Tard's accountant asked him what was his net worth, he answered "Every penny!"
47. Turkish tabby : ANGORA.
50. Deaden, as a piano string : DAMP.
51. Reason for an extra period : TIE.
54. Violin ending : IST.
55. Cuckoopints, e.g. : ARUMS. We used to call these flowers "Jack in the Pulpit."
56. Merge : UNITE.
57. "Well now!" : OHO.
58. Bar offerings : RYES.
59. It's a stunner : TASER.
60. Reject : NIX.
Down
1. They may be noble : GASES.
2. __ Reader : ADOBE.
3. Holiday rate, perhaps : DOUBLE TIME.
4. Loser-to-be? : SNOOZER. "You snooze, you lose!"
5. Stray : WANDER. I was on the "Tom cat" track.
6. Arab potentate : EMEER. Var. of "emir."
7. Muscle mag display : PECS.
8. Green Day drummer __ Cool : TRE. This was probably one of his best performances. 0:21
9. Lorenzo of "Renegade" : LAMAS. I remember him from "Falcon Crest."
10. Man with rising aspirations? : OTIS. Haha. The elevator guy.
11. Iron-rich cabbage : KALE. I love sautéed KALE.
12. Signs : INKS.
15. Layered clouds : STRATI.
18. Neighboring : NEARBY.
23. Bluegrass characteristic : TWANG.
24. Transvaal settlers : BOERS.
26. Shakes off : SHEDS. My cats are getting rid of their winter coats. I could make another cat from what they have SHED.
27. 2002 Cage/Streep film : ADAPTATION. I missed that one, but I did see "Being John Malkovich," which is part of the plot.
28. Honky-tonk : DIVE.
29. Fix, in a way : SPAY.
30. Goya's "The Duchess of __" : ALBA. He was supposedly romantically involved with her.
31. Stretched : TAUT.
32. Overused : TIRED.
33. Unsportsmanlike look : GLOAT.
35. Regional animal life : FAUNAE. I don't think I have ever seen this plural outside of scientific journals.
38. Seizes unlawfully : USURPS.
42. Bump at the office, maybe : DEMOTE.
43. Bar heads : FOAMS.
44. Blue gem, briefly : LAPIS.
45. Hindu sage : RISHI.
46. Withdrawal process : DETOX.
47. Open a touch : AJAR.
48. Not : NARY...a clue.
49. Kindergarten staple : GLUE.
50. Spanish lady : DONA.
53. Hardware item : NUT. Sometimes you feel like a hardware item...sometimes you don't.
T.G.I.F. !
Marti
45 comments:
Well no waking up today to dissect this Friday where the big reveal is that the constructor is a regular here.
A nice tight theme with some very nice cluing (OTIS clue e.g.) and an echo from yesterday with the fill DOPEY.
Enjoy all.
Morning, all!
Well, I somehow managed to get the theme early on, and boy did it help today! JALAPENOPOP was the last to fall, only because I'm not all that familiar with the base phrase Jalapeno Popper. But at least I understood it once I got it.
Got through most of this unscathed, but struggled a bit in two spots. Up top I didn't know TRE from a hole in the wall, and it didn't help that I misread the clue for 4A and entered SWEEP instead of SWEPT. O finally realized my mistake and that let me get PECS and NAMER, which took care of TRE for me.
I then crashed and burned at the crossing of ADS and DIVE. I'm not sure what I was thinking, but I initially went with JIVE, despite the fact that AJS made no sense to me and I knew something was likely wrong. At the end, when I didn't get the *TADA*, I knew exactly where to look. I took out the J, but still couldn't think of what the missing letter should be. I finally just ran the alphabet until I got to D (didn't take long, obviously) and got the *TADA*. So definitely a FWE if not a DNF for those keeping score.
All but right word...wrong spelling.
Good Morning, Marti and friends. This puzzle seemed hard as I was doing it, but in retrospect, the answers seem so self-evident!
I got the DROPPER which helped with the starred theme answers. The ONE CENT MILK was the first answer to "drop" for me.
My favorite clue was Man with Rising Aspirations = OTIS.
ATTAR appeared recently, so that answer was on the top of my mind.
QOD: Working gets in the way of living. ~ Omar Sharif (b. Apr. 10, 1932)
I didn't get the theme after BUM GUARDS, but did after JALAPENO POP, which definitely helped with the other theme answers. Overall it went fairly smoothly. I put FAUNA for 35D, but deleted it when (in Marti's words) I ran out of letters before squares. Only to see it re-emerge from the perps. Last to fall was SNOOZER -- took me a bit to figure out the connection to "loser".
Thanks Peg and Marti!
Good morning!
Got the theme at ONE CENT MILK, and that helped a lot. (Marti, don't tell me that you remember milk that cheap!) What didn't help was putting TRITE where TIRED needed to be. I don't think I've ever seen FAUNAE before. It'd be OK by me if I never see it again. It finally all worked out.
I liked this puzzle. It had to be tough trying to be original with the stacked 3's in the NW and SE. Longer non-theme fill like SELTZER, STRATI, ANGORA and LEOTARD were all nice. Nicely done, Peg.
Today I'm off to the big city for my annual physical. Wonder what new ailment he'll discover this year. It's always something.
Good Morning, everyone.
Thanks Peg for a challenging puzzle. I agree with Hahtoolah: it seemed pretty difficult in the process, but quite logical in the end.
I liked OTIS and of course, LAIN. English teachers love to play the lay/lie set/sit games. I could not see SWEPT and NAMER for the life of me. I realized the theme at ONE CENT MILK. Ah, the per is missing! That helped with the other theme clues.
Fun morning. Thanks, Marti and C. C. As I have said before, I love reading about the construction process.
d-otto, I'm not quite that old!!
Good morning all.
What Hahtoolah and Madame Defarge said. Seemed hard, and I made it harder.
IDS instead of ADS. TRITE, BANAL instead of TIRED. CEASES before ERASES. SHUNS instead of SHEDS. (what was I thinking there ?) VIOLINOLA instead of VIOLIST. (where did that come from... is there such a thing ?). SRTA instead of DONA. RUMS instead of RYES. And perhaps worst of all, had MAORI instead of BOERS for Transvaal settlers (right hemisphere, wrong country.)
Many of those first-pass-run-through errors were quickly corrected. Some hung tough, but I eventually got 'er done.
FAUNAE really slowed me down. I kept trying to think of a word synonymous to FAUNA, but with six letters.
I knew USURPS. I wanted USURPS. It took forever to think of USURPS. (All I could think of was wrests, but it was not unlawful enough...)
I am, more or less, as pretty much indifferent to cats as they are to me. Not an area I am especially well schooled in. But I remembered D-Otto ? or someone mentioning that they had an absinian or something like that. The "A" from AJAR fit. But not the character count, no matter how I tried to spell it. Getting rid of RUMS and replacing it with RYES led to NARY, then FOAMS and GLUE led to ANGORA. Yea me !
OK Peg, Marti, you two have made me late for work. Good stuff tho; I enjoyed it.
See all y'all later n'at
Marti: Excellent write-up & links.
Peg Slay: Thank You for a FUN Friday puzzle.
Though I will admit my head hurts from the V-8 Can smack when I "got" your theme DROP "PER".
Faves today, of course RYES and I enjoy a nice "Honky-tonk" DIVE and a Craft Beer with a "Bar heads" FOAMS.
Needed ESP to get ALBA, LAPIS and RISHI ... but that happens a lot on Friday.
Hope everyone has a Great Weekend!
Cheers!
I posted to the wrong comment section earlier.
I had a hard time getting going on this one. The NW was completely blank, although I figured GAD and ADO would be correct. And I had trouble in the SW. And the SE. I basically started with INKS and KALE and worked right to left.
I got the theme at THE BIG DIP before I got to DROP PER. But this one took some grinding to finish. Unknown answers for unknown clues took some time. Dick Dastardly, Cuckoopints, Green Day, filled with DRAT, ARUMS, TRE. I had to scratch my head when RISHI filled with the 3-letter crosses. ADAPTATION was all perps. I'm not a movie fan, although there is a new MAD MAX movie coming out that might be interesting to see.
A couple of latin endings, STRATI and FAUNAE were new to me. I had always heard the term STRATA for layers but maybe it is different for stratus clouds.
I liked the puzzle a lot.
A real crash and burn for me today. I was not aware of the clouds being STRATI rather than STRATA. On googling just now, I discovered that the former is for clouds--normal Latin plural of STRATUS, while the latter is from STRATUM, whose use I am more familiar with, as in layers of rock.
Other than that, I found plenty of other unknowns to trip me up as well as not getting either the reveal or the theme answers. Count this as an increasingly normal Friday for me. Very clever, but I am beginning to wonder where my brain is going.
Good Morning:
A tad crunchy in spots but definitely doable. Had Srta before Nona and aha before oho. Not familiar with Arums or Rishi but all fell into place. Fav was jalapeño pop! Thought of Tin at ryes and foams and seltzer, even tough he drinks Scotch, sans _ _ _!
Nicely done, Peg, and kudos to Miss Marti for a "cat's meow" of an expo.
Have a great day.
BUM GUARDS is bad enough, but "Regional animal life" = FAUNAE is simply WRONG. FAUNA already is plural (a collective noun). If the clue had indicated a plural of region, well, MAYBE . . . .
And, "Holiday rate, perhaps" = DOUBLE TIME? I just don't get it. Help, someone?
If you work over 40 hours a week you often get paid "time-and-a-half". If you work on holidays you sometimes will get paid DOUBLE TIME.
Never got double time, thank you, except in marching band (when, in the "trio," we went from 4/4 to 2/4).
I'm hopeful this isn't a harbinger of tomorrow. It was tough sledding. Had several likely guesses early, including Gad, Inks and Ewer, but couldn't commit. First actual fill was Ate, followed by Lava. First theme fill was the last one, and that helped a lot. Had the big dip before the reveal, but that also helped.
Little by little, it gave away its secrets, but it was challenging the entire duration.
Can one of the resident techies help me? Every time I post, I am asked to sign in. I never sign out but, apparently, I am not staying signed in, either. Thanks.
Hola!
This was not a walk in the park! I found it a bit tough, but doable, SORT of. The upper floor filled fairly quickly without much ADO. But the lower one gave me fits! I've not heard of the movie, ADAPTATION so that held me up.
And I resisted FAUNAE because as has been noted, FAUNA is already plural. Also, I didn't realize that a Turkish ANGORA existed so that slowed the SW solve. I limped to the end with no joy in it.
Well done, Peg, it was a mental challenge. Thank you! And to Marti, as well, for a lively expo.
Have a happy Friday, everyone!
This was honestly a head spinner for me. I got DROPPER, but did not realize it meant DROP PER. Even when JALAPENOPOP emerged, the light was still out. That's why it took so long. Had _MILK and _GUARDS but needed perp help and did not know ALBA, EMEER, and SNOOZER didn.t come until later.
Had STRATA instead of STRATI at first. Perps for ARUM, BOERS and RISHI. Like others have said, in retrospect, obvious in hindsight, but oblivious while doing it.
The SELTZER entry brought back pleasant memories. In Brooklyn the seltzerman arrived by truck and home delivered our spritzer bottles in a wooden crate, along with my favorite chocolate syrup, U-BET, and strawberry flavoring, as well. Egg creams(U-BET, milk and seltzer) are a New York tradition, and are DELISH. When I moved to Central Florida, no restaurant served (or even heard of) them. Now some deli's do, but they don't taste the same. Oh well, if you want it done right, do it yourself.
Is LAVA soap still on the market? The last time I puchased a bar was about 30 or so years ago. My husband was a printer and he used it, along with a product called GOOP, to get those tough ink stains off his hands. Today's puzzle really has me thinking of those good times of yore.
Back to the present. Everyone ready for a nice weekend? The only drawbacks will be the weekend puzzles, which are an exercise in self-flagellation. But I plod on, nonetheless. Give me an A for effort.
With my best wishes for a good day all.
Sorry for so long an entry. My mind wanders a bit. I'll try to cut in down in the future. So many memories, so little time.
Tough but solvable, IMHO. The NW was last to fall. A great effort by the constructor, as it doesn't fall easy but at the end one has no complaints. Nice one!
As Marti said in her post, FAUNAE is mainly used in scientific writing.
For example, Thomas Henry Huxley who lived in the 19th century wrote,"Thus there is a vast negative difference between the Cainozoic and the Mesozoic mammalian faunae of Europe." He seems to refer to different, distinct groups of FAUNAE.
FAUNAE is probably rare and obscure, but not wrong. Thinking of Latin plurals it was easy to "wag" the E.
Thank you all for the nice comments. I had a lot of fun constructing the puzzle, and hope you all enjoyed it as well.
Thanks to C.C. for her comments as well as Marti for the wonderful write-up. Let me know how that "cloned cat" turns out!
Have a great weekend, all!
When you put in ORT and SOU it makes for a tough start and then the SE was a bear too with SWAMI and BAN leaving the playing field and no idea on the movie. I saw the clever, helpful theme early and had a good time.
Musings
-Me too, Average Joe!
-In this BIG DIP, you feel as though your stomach is in your shoes
-Another BIG DIPPER
-ASA was a BUM GUARD!
-The Royals SWEPT the White Sox in the opening series
-As NAMERS, we changed Smokey to Lily in September
-DOPEY could never be used as a name today. Just as well
-Small town schools around here have had to MERGE with each other to exist. When one farmer can farm 5,000 acres by himself…
-Elisha OTIS did not invent the elevator; he just made the braking system than made them safe
-We only plant beautiful, inedible, ornamental KALE
-I had to shake MOONSTRUCK where Cage starred with Cher
Husker
That was a great photo of ASA, the BUM (bank) GUARD ... with Barney Fife the most manly Deputy of all time. lol
Obviously my favorite OTIS was from the same show ... who would always be welcomed at Villa Incognito.
I liked this puzzle a lot, for many of the reasons mentioned in C.C.'s interview. Maybe it's because I like the same sorts of wordplay that you do, Peg. Great job; thank you!
Excellent job! Congrats to Peg!
The top half filled pretty quickly for me. I got the theme right away from ONE CENT MILK. Maybe the bottom would have come to me sooner if I hadn't been stuck on trying to find a short version of "sapphire" (SAFFO? SAPHO? SOFXQ?) for "Blue gem, briefly." That had me locked into an initial "S" for the longest time, rendering me unable to see the cross (LEOTARD) until late in the game.
But much fun overall. Happy to see some short fills (GAD, SOU, NIX) that weren't the usual suspects.
Back from the doc and (surprise!), nothing bad to report. He wants me to get that new pneumonia shot, but otherwise the status is quo. Works for me.
Made two stops on the way home -- first at Harbor Freight and lastly at Wal*Mart. As I was walking down one of the aisles at Wally World both of my shoe heels crumbled. Wonder what type of solvent I may have stepped in!
Speaking of pet names, we have a formerly female kitten named Eubie. It resulted from observations such as "You be bad!" or "You be evil!"
Wow. I thought this an easy friday. No breeze thru but fun and not as tough as other fridays
Greetings!
Thanks, Peg and Marti! Fun but tough. Long time but no cheats.
RISHI was all perps. Scratched head at STRATI and FAUNAE.
Cheers!
desper-otto@2:38:
A "formerly female" cat. There must be a story to tell. . .
Got the dropped per, but goofed up with thinking about two cent milk. Is one percent skim milk in disguise? Anyway, this was a fun puzzle. I muddled through until I couldn't figure out anything but gad in the NW corner. Also thought seriously about "tamer" for the puppy-we had one that required a bit of that for a while. My favorite crossword dictionary gave me rishi (maha) and I had still it was a DNF. Oh well, thank you all for the explanations, giggles and to Peg for her puzzle! Off for the weekend!
Thanks Peg and Marti. That was good, clean hard fun. I even got the theme which, late in the week, is good for me.
Keith, I had the same problem as you did looking for a short version of SAPPHIRE. And that's funny too because I have bought Barbara many pieces of jewelry made with Lapis. It's a favorite of ours but for some reason it doesn't seem like a 'gem' to me; more like a pretty mineral.
Coneyro, It didn't seem overlong to me. I enjoyed it all 'cause you're a good writer. I see you are into 60s music. Did you see my link to the Ellen show yesterday with Bette Midler singing "Be My Baby"? I LOVED it.
On a whim, I got lunch at the local fish taco emporium. Really tasty.
The sun is shining, the sky is blue and there's a gentle sea breeze. Time for a short bike ride and an espresso.
Thank you Peg and Marti.
This offering was one that I enjoyed coming back to again and again during the day to try to top it off. My undoing was the SE corner.
And unlike those puzzles that make you step away for a breather due to frustration, this one carried my interest throughout the day with the promise of building just a little bit more with each visit.
For the second time ever (both times this week) the reveal DROPPER appeared before any of the theme clues. And that really helped open up the world.
My computer this morning was whatever you call slower than crawl so I contacted my computer maintenance company in India and they took over my computer to clean it up. Meanwhile, having only the newspaper to work on I diligently managed to get almost all of the bottom half-done on paper (with help from Mr Google).
Very nicely constructed. Tough in places. (FAUNAE? Seriously? Yep, it's in my unabridged dict.)
Nice writeup, Marti.
Peg, don't call me a big dip, please. Thanks.
Back to the Masters now. (Doesn't Jordan Spieth remind you of someone?)
TGIF.
Lucina, Eubie's been fixed. I probably should've said formerly fertile rather than formerly female.
D-Otto, you have us all wondering about cats! I had a cat named Mineaux....which I was told was Fraunch for ...well...cat. I have no idea if that is true.
Thanks, Peg and Marti...fun Friday, but a complete failure for me. I feel stupider and stupider each weekend! But today was fun, just for those (few) solves I did manage!!
Hi All!
Total Crash and burn today... @17a I was too cute by half entering halfaNdhaLf. That woked so well with NEARBY and KALE xing LOKI it stayed. Didn't I say yesterday I was SORTa DOPEY?
Peg - you win.
Thanks for the write-up Marti and Peg's interview C.C.
D-O glad to hear there's nothin' new wrong with you 'ceptin' your shoes.
Cheers, -T
And your Cat... Cheers, -T
Hello Puzzlers -
Late to the party. Didn't want the day to slip by without thanking Peg for an enjoyable challenge. I sure had to work at it! Seeing the theme was necessary.
Stratus-Strata-strati-stratum.
Has anyone ever seen stratus used as a noun?
I have only seen or heard it used as an adjective, as in Stratus clouds, not strati cloud(s).
And Dodge Stratus or Chrysler Cirrus don't count. Would two Dodges be called Dodge STRATI?
LSMFT Do you remember that? (Not that I especially want to. It just popped into my addled brain.)
Big Easy, dunno. I thought it already was a noun. I looked it up on two online dictionaries and it was given as a plural noun.
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