google.com, pub-2774194725043577, DIRECT, f08c47fec0942fa0 L.A.Times Crossword Corner: Sunday, April 26, 2015 Don Gagliardo & C.C. Burnikel

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Apr 26, 2015

Sunday, April 26, 2015 Don Gagliardo & C.C. Burnikel

Theme: Tea Party. Adding a TE, TEE or TY to a common phrase for a punny result was enough, but C.C. and Don also made a vowel sound in the new phrase with an alternate spelling. This made for a delightful "TEA PARTY" that is short on finger food but long on wit and cleverness.



It was a hoot to work and I am tickled to try to 'splain some of the wonderful fill these two great constructors have provided us! I am so pleased C.C. chose this FAULTY GUY to blog her and Hard G's construction!


Theme Answers


23A. Profitable agreement? : PLUM TREATY - Some of those treaties were more plum for one side than the other. One side didn't get so much as a PLUM TREE




29A. Ending a relationship in a text? : FAULTY BREAK - Talk about being on different pages! Maybe it happened during FALL BREAK and someone was feeling restless. Still a gutless thing to do!



37. Sherpa's responsibilities? : MOUNTAIN DUTY - After having a MOUNTAIN DEW?


63. Sale of Babe Ruth to the Yankees? : MIGHTY MISTAKE - Mated autographs of the greatest baseball player ever and the idiot who sold him to the Yankees to finance some Broadway musicals. Did he ever say, "That was MY MISTAKE!"




81. Search for the right beard? : GOATEE HUNTING - You could GO HUNTING among these for what you want. Do you recognize all the famous owners?




103A. Adoring father-to-daughter words? : THAT'S MY CUTIE - When she looks at me like that, THAT'S MY CUE to tell her what a cutie she is!




113. Result of substituting fabric strips for chips? : RAGGEDY ANTE - Yeah, substituting these for poker chips might make for a sloppy game even for RAGGEDY ANN




124. Delicate one in the kitchen? : DAINTY COOK - Probably never heard of comedian DANE COOK



Across         

1. Walk casually : AMBLE


6. Work : OPUS - A compilation of Michael Jackson's work




10. Soul, to Aristotle : ANIMA


15. In addition : ALSO


19. Place for highlights : SALON - Before and after




20. Walked out : WENT

21. Complete : TOTAL


22. __-pedi : MANI - I had one of these in a SALON and felt like a fish out of water


25. Path : TRAIL


26. Organic food giant : EDEN - New to me




27. Arabian pop : SIRE - A black Arabian Stallion




28. Canadian roadside sign : ESSO 


31. Ideal chaser? : ISM. Idealism.


33. "Wanderlust" actor Alan : ALDA - He'll always be Hawkeye, won't he?


35. "Love Jones" co-star Long : NIA - Okay, new to me




36. Ice show venues : RINKS

42. Elantra competitor : CIVIC - Kelly Blue Book says it was the 9th best selling vehicle in 2014


44. "Head and Shell" artist : ARP - One of Jean's pieces




45. Cal. listing : APPT - I've got APPT's with four different doctors this upcoming week just for checkups 


46. Exhausted : BEAT - Have you ever heard exhaustd as, "All in but your shoelaces!"


48. Aleve alternative : ANACIN - You're near my age if you remember this




52. Chilling spot : SOFA


54. Shanghai locale : ASIA


56. Stick together : COHERE 


59. Lennon's love : ONO - Our ubiquitous crossword resident


60. "Edda" author __ Sturluson : SNORRI (11-79 - 1241) - Yeah, if you thought I knew this guy, I've got some ocean front property in the Nebraska Sandhills I'd like to sell you


66. First, second and third : ORDINALS - Here compared to Cardinal numbers




69. More work : UTOPIA - Thomas More's 1516 work


70. Sea damaged by Soviet-era waterworks : ARAL - In 1989 and 2014




71. Like some breezes : GENTLE

72. Windows runners : PCS - We now officially have nary a Windows machine in our house!


73. "Murdering Airplane" and "The Hat Makes the Man" : ERNSTS - This is Dadaist Max Ernst's 1920 "Murdering Airplane" collage that depicts man's powerlessness against modern warfare




75. Mountain lake : TARN - From the Scandinavian tjǫrn


77. H.S. cooking class : HOME EC - My Family and Consumer Science colleagues bristled when I said Home Ec. BTW, no one takes "Shop" anymore either.


79. According to, with "in" : AS STATED 


84. Waffle : SEESAW - To be or not to be, make a decision already, Hamlet!


86. Bach's "Mass __ Minor" : IN B - Sure, I guess...




87. Surfing needs : BOARDS


88. 4 for He, e.g. : AT WT - 4x heavier than H, but doesn't blow when used in blimps!


91. Spanish surrealist : DALI - For him 
time didn't fly, it melted


92. Rankle : FESTER - Let it go, already! 





94. Talk back to : SASS


96. Exercise consequence, maybe : ACHE


99. __ cat : LAP - Ours is named Lily





100. Early Indo-European : ARYAN


106. Eddy : WHIRL


109. Poseidon's realm : SEA


111. Bullring cries : OLES


112. Chicago's __ Center : AON - At 200 East Randolph Drive




116. Condé __ : NAST

118. Societal troubles : ILLS


122. Run in place : IDLE


123. Jetson at the Little Dipper School : ELROY - George and Jane's 'toon boy


126. Traffic sound : TOOT - Road rage ain't worth it!


127. Provide, as money : PUT UP - As noted above, Harry Frazee sold the Babe so he could PUT UP money for theatrical productions


128. Mid-seventh-century year : DCLI - Into each puzzle some compromise must fall


129. Way around Paris : METRO - A single ride ticket is 
1,80. Unlimited day pass €7 ,00 and up





130. Grandson of Adam : ENOS


131. Hit hard, biblically : SMOTE - Adam's youngest son was SMOTE by his older 
brother 


132. Check : TEST


133. Time-time link : AFTER - A lovely song by Cyndi Lauper  
 

Down:
 
1. Some hieroglyphic squiggles : ASPS - There he is




2. Niger neighbor : MALI - Sure, it's between Mauritania, Burkina Faso and Niger 


3. Indistinct memory : BLUR - Joann said we had the month of March this year, but it's a BLUR to me


4. Chinese menu offering : LO MEIN


5. Upper-level doc? : ENT - These docs work on our upper-levels




6. Is behind, perhaps : OWES

7. "Frankenstein" torchbearers : PEASANTS - Pitchforks too


8. Incalculable : UNTOLD


9. Babe's home : STY 


10. Naan flour : ATTA - New to me




11. Like a shutout : NO RUN - Don Larsen's no hit,  NO RUN, perfect game in the 1956 World Series




12. Right-leaning, in a way : ITALIC

13. Curaçao cocktail : MAI TAI


14. Side (with) : ALLY


15. Longtime de facto U.S. national anthem : AMERICA - Rasmussen Reports survey said 82% of Americans favor keeping The Star Spangled Banner


16. Weighed down : LADEN - See Sherpa above


17. Stealthy sort : SNEAK


18. Pen emanations : OINKS


24. Update, as charts : REMAP - Before the Corps of Engineers channelized the Missouri River, the Nebraska/Iowa border had to be REMAPPED every so often


29. Lot : FATE - My feeling on FATE




30. Pickling liquids : BRINES

32. __-puf: old laundry product : STA


34. Home to the skyscraper Burj Khalifa : DUBAI


37. Considerable number : MASS


38. Maine college town : ORONO -Proud home of




39. Available to the highest bidder, say : UP FOR GRABS - If you don't buy Boardwalk when you land there, it's this

40. Bar brew, briefly : IPA - India Pale Ale that is regularly on tap here


41. Rides for tycoons : YACHTS - From the Dutch word Jacht which 
means "hunter". They were originally fast boats for chasing pirates


43. "Esthetic" and "egis" : VARIANTS - Can also be spelled Aesthetic and Aegis 


47. Miss Gulch's bane : TOTO


49. Large-grain seasoning : COARSE SALT - They sell 'em both





50. "__ Dinka Doo" : INKA - A signature song for Jimmy Durante who wrote the music


51. December number : NOEL - One more Christmas Carol in December and I might have lost it


53. Gung-ho : ARDENT


55. Uses Gchat, e.g. : IMS  - Instant Messages. See 29A. in theme answers above for a stupid one


57. Plugs : HYPES - We'll be hearing HYPE from now until Nov. 3, 2016


58. 34-Down dignitaries : EMIRS


61. Dog star's first name? : RIN - A staple of my youth




62. Supposedly : IN THEORY - Bobby Burns warning on what should work




64. Prada competitor : GUCCI - C.C. have you got $750 for Stonewashed GUCCI jeans to go with your Jimmy Choo shoes? ;- ) 



65. Covered in ink, with "up" : TATTED - Don't complain if you interview with all your TATS showing and fail to get a sniff at the job


67. Word heard coming and going : ALOHA - I hope to say this to our friend Chef Wendy on Kauai someday


68. Nocturnal primate : LEMUR


72. Watched the cats, say : PET SAT - Our dear neighbors PET SAT Lily while I was in the 
hospital. It was very comforting to know she was in good hands


74. Motor oil letters : S.A.E. - Society of Automotive Engineers.


75. Week-ending cry : TGIF - Everyday is Friday when you're retired!!


76. Crackerjack : A-ONE 


78. Pencil points and erasers : ENDS - Johnny Carson's pencils famously didn't have both





79. Cut taker: Abbr. : AGT 


80. __ Lama : DALAI


82. Big band era singer Ray : EBERLE - Sang with Glenn Miller


83. Sounding stuffy : NASAL


85. Picnic cleaner : WIPE - A staple at our house




89. Yuletide quaffs : WASSAILS


90. Where to see old MGM movies : TCM - Gets a lot of play here


93. They often have concentric circles : TARGETS - I think most of you know that the highest score in Darts is not in the innermost concentric circle or Bull's Eye.




95. Tongue site : SHOE

97. Marriott competitor : HYATT


98. Car starter? : ECO - Ecocars.Some of these cars are routinely getting over 100 MPG


101. Shelter : ASYLUM


102. Not far from : NEAR TO


104. Bridge holding : TENACE - Holding a broken honor sequence such as A
❤ Q❤. Our Bridge players knew that.


105. Danny Kaye was its first celebrity goodwill ambassador : UNICEF


106. Blog, say : WRITE



107. Wore : HAD ON 

108. Digs in the snow? : IGLOO


110. Have __: be ready with an excuse : AN OUT - My sister always has one when she skips family functions and she fools no one


114. Acct. entries : DEPS - Early in our marriage, our DEPS and W/D's were pretty close 


115. Blog, say : TYPE


117. Sulky state : SNIT 


119. Ex-senator Trent : LOTT - Did LOTT's wife looked back when she left D.C.


120. Traditional accounts : LORE - I wonder if C.C. remembers any folkLORE tales from her days in Guangzhou (From C.C.: Have any of you heard of Cantonese opera? It's steeped in Cantonese folklore)





121. Hershey's toffee bar : SKOR - Love 'em


124. Banned pesticide : DDT 


125. Sumac of Peru : YMA



Husker Gary

42 comments:

  1. Good morning Solvers,

    Tricky one for me this AM.
    Could not grasp the theme even
    tho I had a few of the answers.
    Didn't help that i misread 11D
    as "SHOUTOUT".

    Gary... You didn't ask met to pet sit
    your cat? I would have done a good job, Honest

    ReplyDelete
  2. Morning, all!

    Overall a very fun, clever puzzle, but there were some bumps along the way to be sure.

    Didn't get the theme until MOUNTAIN DUTIES since FAULTY BREAK was (and still is) a bit of a mystery to me. I get the underlying phrase is "Fall Break", but can't quite get my mind around why breaking up via text messaging is FAULTY. Knowing the trick helped me get the rest of the theme answers pretty quickly, but I still struggled with DAINTY COOK simply because I didn't know who "Dane Cook" is. Or was.

    Elsewhere, I had minor stumbles with unknowns such as EBERLE and AON and SNORRI and ERNSTS (as clued), but nothing the perps couldn't handle. I had a much bigger struggle trying to make sense of VARIANTS, even after getting all the letters.

    Loved the tricky cluing throughout, btw. Proud to say none of them fooled me, but I think that's just because I'm used to the way Don and C.C. like to roll.

    ReplyDelete
  3. It is fun to see the dynamic duo together again, and great to see that Gary is feeling well enough to take on Sunday duties as needed. Hi MANAC, loved the short film.

    Dali and Ernst in the same grid;that is art.

    Plum Treaty came slowly but the rest
    filled nicely

    Thanks all.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Good morning!

    I made a real mess of the grid before things finally came together in one swell foop. I was definitely not on C.C. and Don's wavelength this morning. FAULTY BREAK and DAINTY COOK didn't mean anything to me. Good job at confusing me, you two.

    Nicely done, Husker, though your extra hyphen in SNORRI really threw me -- had to look him up. I thought the name was more modern, and perhaps "she" was an east-ender who'd written a biography of Edda Opper.

    ReplyDelete
  5. HG- I read the the write-up and C.C. I overworked this puzzle to death, but it was a DNF because I don't know what DEPS are and I still don't. Debit- DEB? Departments? I knew Raggedy Ann, but my mind wouldn't get away from potato chips and poker never entered it. TYPE- IBM Selectric anybody? I just had brain farts on SHO_ and TY_E. But onward.

    ANACIN- Aspirin & caffeine-" Mother please, I have a headache"

    Complete unknowns- EDEN, WASSAILS, ATTA, SNORRI, NIA- 100% perps becaue I never heard of them. VARIANTS came out when I was down to one letter left. Didn't know Mrs. Gulch but TOTO seemed reasonable.

    I had some trouble in the NW because I initially wrote CHAD instead of MALI and ideal-IST for ideal-ISM but that worked out.

    TEN-ACE is what you want in blackjack when you have a big bet on the table.

    Tougher than usual Sunday for me.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Good Morning,

    I enjoyed this one because I was so slow to find my way, but I AMBLEd on; it's always a good feeling to finish even with errors. I corrected them when I finally arrived at the tea party. Thanks Don and C.C.

    Thanks Gary for the fine explanations and the great links. Fun!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Don and CC, clever puzzle. I got the theme quickly. HG, witty write up. I recognized your interesting style right away. It's wonderful that you are up for doing the honors so quickly. Physically I am recovering very rapidly, but I am still quite scatter brained.
    I knew SNORRI Sturlson. The strange name somehow sticks in my mind. No prob with EBERLE and VARIANTS. A few perps and wags gave me ERNSTS, AON, and DAINTY for DANE.
    One of my favorites was FAULTY BREAK. Texting a relationship break up is not the bravest or kindest way to go about it- a modern day Dear John letter.
    My last to fall was APPT. I couldn't suss CAL for a while. Changing IST to ISM gave me REMAP and then APPT.
    I think DEPS is deposits.
    Friday's puzzle was my bugbear this week, with a few red letters needed. Saturday's was somewhat easier and this was relatively fast for a Sunday.

    ReplyDelete
  8. I struggled and stumbled through until I got all the way down to THAT'S MY CUTIE, when the theme finally gelled in my head. But I still struggled to fill in the vast sea of white everywhere. In the end, it took me twelve minutes longer than today's NYT. Yikes!!

    But I enjoyed how the added sound wasn't just the same letter(s) stuck onto the words - it made an extra level of challenge that was interesting for me.

    Great writeup, HG! Good to see you in fine spirits despite all you have been through. Hang in there, pal!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Husker: Go back and re-read Genesis. After Cain slew Able, Adam and Eve had another son, Seth, who was actually the youngest son mentioned in the Bible.

    ReplyDelete

  10. ---> Ave. Joe, are you seeing this too?

    Two weeks ago the Sunday Journal Star prints an old puzzle that's a bleary mess. Last week they print the right puzzle, but so faded that entire sections are invisible.

    And today? No puzzle at all! Although they did print an answer key.

    This is not looking good. No, not looking good at all...

    ReplyDelete
  11. The Week in Review: M 5:46 T 6:08 W 6:01 T 10:58 F 15:18 S 14:43 S 25:18

    Aside from a couple of temporal anomalies (i.e. a quicker solve on two days than on the preceding day), not much to say that hasn't already been said. I'd never heard of Dane Cook so I just wasted too many minutes (that I'll never get back) listening to a clip on YouTube. You've been warned.

    And so now I'm reluctant to listen to IMAGINE DRAGONS (who I'd also never heard of). Once bitten, twice shy?

    Spring is having a tough time getting a foothold here in the beautiful mid-Hudson valley with April feeling more like March. Maybe May will at least feel like April.

    See y'all next weekend.

    ReplyDelete
  12. A challenging but enjoyable outing today from the dynamic duo........once I printed it out after looking through the entire Journal Star 3 times with no luck. So yes, ergo. I'm seeing it too. The bright side is that there will almost certainly be some folks in Lincoln that will discover this site for the first time today.

    Took more than one theme entry to wrap the brain around the trick, but it was helpful after that. All in all, found it to be quite difficult for a Sunday, but liked it a lot. Really liked the clue for Aloha.

    Haven't done last weeks NYT yet, but it's great fun to get a double dose of Don G and C.C. on a single day. Congrats to both of you.

    And it's good to see you back in the saddle, Gary! Thanks for the write up.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Biblical Scholar -- Abel had already been slewn/slain/kilt by the time Seth popped out. So at the time, he was Eve's youngest, if you follow the mythology.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Good Morning:

    I enjoyed this clever and challenging offering but, alas, it was a DNF due to the Ernsts/SAE cross. It never occurred to me that those titles were paintings; I thought they were some odd or tricky play on language, like malapropisms or something like them.

    Great job, Don and CC. You make a terrific duo. Gary, your expo was witty and well-detailed: kudos. Glad to see that you're feeling up to this challenging task. I had to chuckle when you said your colleagues "bristled"; I played bristled for a Bingo (using all 7 letters) in Scrabble and it was rejected as an unacceptable word. Boy, was I upset! Still have no idea why.

    Manac, loved the clip. Thanks for giving the canine contingent some equal time, as Mr. Meow is a tad biased toward the feline faction.

    Ergo, how is the new job going?

    Have a great day.

    ReplyDelete

  15. Very kind of you to ask Irish Miss. The new job (working for a Federal Government contractor) is unlike anything I've done before. The learning curve is high and the culture is taking some getting used to. For example, I am not allowed to make a photocopy. Zoinks! 1. Due to security protocol, and 2. The duty is not included in my job classification.

    But yeah, it's good to be putting beans back on the table again.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Good morning everyone.

    Not much to add. Agree with most of the other comments. Kinda got the theme but it was lost on me with the Dane Cook clue,
    SNORRI was a gimme. Wondered when it might show up in a puzzle.
    Some unknowns like EDEN and SKOR were easily coughed up by the perps.
    A good outing.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Very enjoyable theme, with an impressive variety of changes in spelling. Favorite was MIGHTY MISTAKE. Thanks C.C. & Don! [P.S. Did you consider adding the T sound other than at the end of words? Entries like "teetotal failure" or "Tebow and arrow" come to mind.]

    Add me to the list of those who hadn't heard of Dane Cook or EDEN. Surprisingly, I remembered SNORRI because I had recently listened to a radio-play of "Journey to the Center of the Earth."

    And thanks HG, for a great writeup.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Speaking of Journey to the Center of the Earth, when, as a kid, I saw the 1959 movie, there was a round mat in front of the theater that said something like, "3,959 miles below this point is the center of the Earth!". I remember wondering, in my youthful naïveté, at the amazing coincidence that a theater in the Bronx would be located at that precise spot.

    ReplyDelete
  19. Terrific challenging puzzle, terrific write-up. There were many "ooh I get it" moments.
    C.C. and Don, I'd love to know how you work together. Could you let us in on how it works?

    ReplyDelete
  20. I had to Google SNORRI & ERNSTS. Never got the W in WASSAILS. ANd I had CHAD for the longest time before I realized it was MALI for Niger neighbor.

    AL Cyone…. you're screen name should be 'Cyclone' seeing the times you finish the puzzles in! The Imagine Dragons link I provided earlier in the week won't kill you, I promise.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Hello Puzzlers -

    Struggled a bit. OK, it was a lot of struggle. Even when I had a few theme answers filled in I couldn't suss the gimmick. There were a few lucky toeholds, though - the best was Snorri. I remember that guy from a puzzle years ago. Thanks for the workout, DGCC!

    Howdy Husker, I hafta say thanks for the ordinal/cardinal thing. I wasn't aware of the distinction. Speaking of which, Lily is definitely a cat of distinction! Who wouldn't wuv that sweet Siamese face?

    ReplyDelete
  22. Hello, all! Congratulations to the dynamic duo! Today both of their works appear in the newspaper.

    Tough, tough, tough for me. I just could not enter into their wave length so it was a MIGHTY slog. To add insult to injury I stubbornly wanted the Burj al Kkalifa tower in Qatar! Finally it penetrated my skull that no, it was not and DUBAI helped to fill that region.

    More work, UTOPIA didn't fool me, though, but SNORRI did; had to look that up.

    An admirable theme with some tricky cluing that for the most part eluded me.

    Have a great Sunday, everyone!

    ReplyDelete
  23. Hi Y'all! Great puzzle, C.C. & Don! I thought it was hard but the words finally came flowing in. Very nice, Gary!

    Figured out the theme fairly early, but had trouble with RAGGEDY ANTE though I was thinking of the doll.

    Tried adHERE before COHERE.

    "Covered with ink" finally perped in TATTED after a lot of red-ink tries. I was "seeing" our newspaper printer in his apron smeared to the elbows with black stuff.

    "Picnic cleaner" likewise evaded me. Weren't "ants".

    I have HIGHLIGHTS put there by nature. I don't understand wanting the salon kind.

    Never have SKOR'd. Couldn't remember the candy bar we've had in CW land. I tried to spell SNORRI with a "K" & "H" instead of "N".

    Actually, I thought DANE COOK must be the COOK who got American Idol one year. Ooops!

    I knew the skyscraper was in Dubai because my son used to fly over it.

    ReplyDelete
  24. I liked this puzzle a lot. Terrific cluing and fill; a masterful construction. Patting myself on the back, I knew SNORRI right away. On the other hand, I did not know Dane Cook. I also spelled LO MEIN as Lo Mien. FESTER made me think of Uncle Fester of the Addams family. VILLAGERS wouldn't fit in the PEASANTS space. Fun puzzle! And excellent writeup, Gary; thank you.

    ReplyDelete
  25. This is anon JR from Illinois.
    In re to 61 down, I just finished a good book I think most on this blog would enjoy reading. "The dog who could fly" by Damien Lewis It is a year old so forgive me if you all have read it!
    Carson's pencils I have never seen.
    Also have you seen the Ozark course the senior golfers are playing this week? Rivals The Masters! Gotta ago watch it now. JR

    ReplyDelete
  26. Greetings!

    Thanks to CC, Don and Gary! Swell work.

    Really enjoyed the puzzle, but it took a while. No cheats. The theme was fun. (Had no problem with Dane COOK.) Didn't know AON, SNORRI. Had adHERE before COHERE.

    Wow. The sun is out today. Really have missed it!

    Cheers!

    ReplyDelete
  27. From G in IL: Probably fighting a losing battle but "sounding stuffy" is not nasal. It is hypo-nasal or denasal. It is when you can't produce the nasal sounds (m, n, ng) because you are stuffed up. A nasal voice (or hyper-nasal) is when all sounds are produced with nasality ("talking through your nose").

    ReplyDelete
  28. Hi everybody. I enjoyed the efforts of Don and CC as I thought I would. The puzzle and the cluing in particular seemed harder for me than I would have expected. It's interesting what qualities make a puzzle harder for one person than another. Maybe it's the particular storehouse of facts and trivial knowledge that we each possess. Thanks for the excellent writeup Gary.

    Lucina and others, did you see the segment about Helen Hunt on Sunday Morning? That ocean scenery is what I ride past every day. I think I'll head west soon.

    Anon (3:09): Interesting stuff about 'nasality' though I'm not sure I understand it. It would be interesting to be able to hear examples of what you are talking about.

    ReplyDelete
  29. For Bill G.: Wish there was a way to send you audio demonstration of hypo-nasality (stuffy) v. hyper-nasality I'm referring to. This MIGHT help: With hypo-nasality, m sounds like b,(mom sounds like bob), n sounds like d (nope sounds like dope), and ng sounds like g (ring sounds like rig). With hyper-nasality, all sounds sound like they're coming through your nose, like the stereotypical telephone operator on the old Laugh-in show. G from IL

    ReplyDelete
  30. As fate would have it, the puzzles of the last few days provide the perfect example. When trying o "hear" nasal speech in your mind's ear, think of Fran Drescher. It's not stuffy at all. It's nasal ( to say nothing of overwhelmingly irritating). Stuffed up speech is quite different.

    Am I close G?

    ReplyDelete
  31. Great write up Gary! This would be a good place for you to regain your strength, yes, do come over.

    I did like the puzzle, although as others have stated the theme was difficult to grasp and it felt a little disjointed.

    Funny clip Manac!

    ReplyDelete
  32. Bill G - You have a new celebrity in Manhattan Beach; Zooey Deschanel has just purchased a home there.

    ReplyDelete
  33. All right, fellows of the blog: Zooey or Emily?

    ReplyDelete
  34. So after my bike ride, I stopped by the coffee shop as is my wont. There were a number of local high school students there. I'm sure they will tell their moms, when asked, they met some friends for a study session. The reality is that their activities were about 95 percent laughing, looking at selfies, texting, etc.

    While they were so engaged, I was reading Dave Barry's new book on my Nook. When I got to the chapter about his grandson's bris, I began to laugh out loud. I tried to stifle it but I was close to choking on my latte.

    I'll have to keep an eye out for Zooey at the supermarket or down on the bike path. She is a cutie. Irish Miss, how did you come upon the news about her new digs?

    ReplyDelete
  35. Irish Miss, I was thinking of you tonight as I was reading "We Are Lincoln's Men: Abraham Lincoln and His Friends" by David Herbert Donald, an excellent book, BTW.
    In it I read that Mr. Lincoln's private secretary, Nicolay, BRISTLED at the suggestion he was incompetent.
    Who rejected your use of BRISTLED in Scrabble? Bristle is in many dictionaries as a verb with the past tense of BRISTLED. It is in my Official Scrabble Players Dictionary, too. You were gypped.

    ReplyDelete
  36. Ave Joe: You are absolutely right. Fran is a perfect example of hyper-nasal speech, and more familiar to younger people than a reference to Laugh-in. Opposite of stuffy. Thanks!
    G from IL.

    ReplyDelete
  37. Bill G @ 7:55 - My local paper has a feature every Saturday that lists celebrities' home sales.

    YR @ 8:38 - I was playing on the Scrabble app against the computer when bristled was not accepted. Who knows why it was rejected?

    ReplyDelete
  38. HowardW,
    Nope, from the get-go, it's adding T sound to the end. Don and I value much consistency.

    Maripro,
    Don and I often come up with a set of theme entries together, then we each fill in half and clue half.

    Are you a constructor?

    ReplyDelete
  39. PK,
    Look at Gary's SALON link. Hair highlights.

    ReplyDelete
  40. @C.C. I'm a wannabe. Never made the LAT or NYT though.

    ReplyDelete
  41. Frazee didn't sell Ruth to finance any musicals. He sold him to finance his purchase of the Red Sox, and because Ruth was holding out for more money even though he had a multi-year contract and Frazee thought he had a bad effect on team morale.

    ReplyDelete
  42. I am new to this blog and tend to get to the puzzles a week or so late.

    Surprised no one commented on the crossing of Dali and Dalai?

    ReplyDelete

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