Theme: "Male Bonding" - MAN is added into each theme answer.
27A. One whose citations are always on target? : QUOTATION MARKSMAN. Quotation marks.
47A. Where go-betweens learn their craft? : MIDDLEMAN SCHOOL. Middle school.
63A. Civil civil servant? : FRIENDLY FIREMAN. Friendly fire.
74A. Show segment that included shots of New York City? : LETTERMAN OPENER. Letter opener.
94A. Work force breakdown? : MANPOWER FAILURE. Power failure.
114A. Ambiguous packing instructions? : MANHANDLE WITH CARE. Ambiguous indeed. Handle with Care.
So
we have four 15's and two 17's. Total 94 theme squares. Manageable
themeage. Anytime you go over 100 theme squares, fill will suffer.
Such a clean grid. No splashy long fill. It's difficult to
arrange long slots when your theme answers are all quite long. 9s, 10s
and 11's are more pliable.
Across:
1. Insignificant disruption : BLIP. All four corners of this grid are sectioned off. Unusual.
5. Part of a familiar Latin sequence : AMAS
9. Make very thirsty : PARCH
14. Those girls, in Guadalajara : ELLAS
19. Start to correct? : AUTO. Auto-correct.
20. Riga native, e.g. : BALT
21. 2003 NBA Rookie of the Year Stoudemire : AMAR'E. We had him before. I just could not remember his name. How cool to have this jersey number!
22. "There!" : VOILA
23. Demolish, in Dover : RASE
24. 1968 self-titled folk album : ARLO
25. Introvert : LONER. Our LaLaLinda is one. You're missed, pal.
26. __ wrench : ALLEN
31. "Fore!" site : TEE
32. Phishing catch: Abbr. : SSN
33. Share with followers, in a way : RE-TWEET. Rare lovely RE* entry.
34. Chaucer works : TALES
36. Salon service : PEDI
37. D.C. team : NATS
40. Pathfinders and such : NISSANS
44. Toledo homes : CASAS. Same as Italian. There's a nice Italian restaurant in Guangzhou. It's called La Casa. I had my very first Caesar salad there.
51. California city with an annual classical music festival : OJAI
52. Give up : CEDE
53. __ Palmas: Canary Islands port : LAS
54. Shredder : TEARER. Glue entry.
55. Aslan's land : NARNIA
57. Past curfew : LATE
60. "Children of the Poor" author : RIIS (Jacob). I got via crosses.
62. Fund-raising orgs. : PTAS
66. Tree in a carol : PEAR
67. "__: Cyber": 2015 spin-off : CSI
68. Hammered : LIT
69. Dedicated lines : ODE
71. Foolhardy : RASH
83. Block brand : LEGO
84. Med. research org. : NIMH (National Institute of Mental Health). I can never remember this one either.
85. Come across as : SEEM
86. Subject of passing concern? : ESTATE. Great clue.
87. Not on edge : AT EASE
89. Some Caltech grads : EES
91. Bar freebie : NUTS
93. What bar patrons may run : A TAB. And 100. Up-good connection : TO NO. Partials.
98. Flora and fauna : BIOTA
99. Scout shirt feature : EPAULET
101. Hebrew for "skyward" : EL AL
103. Candidate who opposed NAFTA : PEROT
105. Researcher's reference : ALMANAC
108. Dallas NBAer : MAV (Mavericks)
111. Director's bane : HAM
118. Great quantity : OCEAN
120. Ancient Aegean region : IONIA
121. Florida's __ City : DADE
122. Drummer Van Halen : ALEX. I only know Eddie Van Halen.
123. Part of a beach house collection : SHELL. Been a long time since I last saw a beach.
124. Desilu co-founder : ARNAZ
125. Resolve, with "out" : IRON
126. Artist Magritte : RENE
127. "Our Gang" pooch : PETEY. Got via crosses.
128. Rope loop : NOOSE. Thought of RIATA, then LASSO.
129. Breton or Gael : CELT
130. Awareness-raising TV ads : PSAs
Down:
1. Root beer that "has bite!" : BARQ'S. Never had root beer before.
2. Waikiki wingdings : LUAUS
3. Fighting words : IT'S ON
4. One concerned with rhythm : POET. Hi there, Owen!
5. Tapered off : ABATED
6. Nautical : MARITIME
7. Let : ALLOW
8. Paving unit : STONE
9. Like some consonants : PALATAL. This upper section was the last to fall for me. As the following two clues stumped me.
10. "El __ brujo": de Falla work : AMOR. Wiki says it means "literally, Spell-bound Love or The Bewitched Love".
11. Relative position : RANK. Easy in retrospect.
12. High spot : CREST
13. Novelist Hesse : HERMANN
14. Fade from sight : EVANESCE. I've only used Evanescent.
15. "OMG ur 2 funny" : LOL
16. Bouncy tune : LILT
17. Captain's direction : ALEE
18. Sensible : SANE
28. Son of Zeus : ARES
29. Darn : MEND
30. Highly regarded groups : A-LISTS
35. Double curve : S-SHAPE
36. "The Age of Reason" writer : PAINE (Thomas)
38. No. preceded by a code : TEL
39. Excessive flattery : SMARM
41. Cardiologist's concern : AORTA
42. Musical deficiency : NO EAR
43. Some shooters, for short : SLRs. I like this clue also.
44. NCAA division : CONF (Conference)
45. Slightly cracked : AJAR
46. Asian wrap : SARI. Have you heard of "Ao dai"? Vietnamese national dress. Very pretty.
48. In a slothful way : IDLY
49. Unheeding : DEAF
50. Home to billions : ASIA. Thank God China only started One-Child Policy in 1978. I can't imagine life without my little brother, who was born in 1975.
52. Rakes : CADS
56. Move very carefully : INCH
58. Arcade concern : TILT
59. Cat Nation people : ERIES
61. Part of, plotwise : IN ON. Not land "plot".
64. Actress Taylor : LILI
65. French 101 word : ETRE
66. Spices (up) : PEPS. Try some wasabi in your avocado. Yum!
70. Completes : DOES. I just changed all the old Pamela Amick Klawitter or Pam
Klawitter labels in our blog to Pam Amick Klawitter. Now all her puzzles will be under one label.
Klawitter labels in our blog to Pam Amick Klawitter. Now all her puzzles will be under one label.
71. Put another hole in, as a keg : RE-TAP
72. Gemini docking target : AGENA. Got via crosses also.
73. Get in a lather : SOAP UP
75. 911 situation: Abbr. : EMER
76. It may be grand : THEFT
77. Where to see available courses : MENU
78. River to the Strait of Tartary : AMUR. Russia/China border river. It's called "Black Dragon River" in Chinese.
79. Cybersales : E-TAIL
80. Partnership for Peace gp. : NATO. Easily guessed.
81. __ de Louisiane : ETAT
82. 2000s sitcom set in Houston : REBA
83. Not even a little cool : LAME
84. Big name in sports caps : NEW ERA. Read here, Majestic has the MLB jersey monopoly.
88. Common way to swear : SOLEMNLY
90. __ Tomé : SAO
92. One Direction band member, e.g. : TEEN IDOL. They're breaking up.
95. Ian Fleming or James Bond : ETONIAN
96. Stupefied : IN A DAZE
97. Veg out : LOLL
98. Composer of six unaccompanied cello suites : BACH
102. Not yet visible : LATENT
104. Detailed, briefly : THORO
106. Front VIP : MEDIC. Battlefront.
107. Mindful : AWARE
108. NFL players, e.g. : MALES. And 109. Game site : ARENA
110. Bugs : VEXES
111. "H" on a blue road sign: Abbr. : HOSP
112. Pang : ACHE
113. Comply with : MEET. Lots of 4-letter answers in this puzzle.
115. Year in Sicily : ANNO
116. Actress Vardalos et al. : NIAs
117. Moan and groan : CARP
119. Pub buy : ALE
C.C.
27 comments:
Got it without reds, but it took a long time, and a lot of time just plain flummoxed. It didn't help that I assumed the gimmick wrong.
QUOTATION MARKS + MARKSMAN,
FRIENDLY FIRE+FIREMAN,
MANPOWER+POWER FAILURE,
HANHANDLE+HANDLE WITH CARE
all fit one pattern, but MANSCHOOL and MANOPENER couldn't be shoehorned into the same pattern.
There once was a MANxMAN from MAN,
Who had a most oddly-shaped can.
It wasn't a soup can
Nor even a trash can,
But the can he sat on in the can!
Greetings!
Thanks very much, Pam and CC!
Loved the theme. Too tired see it immediately, but sure helped when I did. AMAR'E, AMUR and ALEX were perped. (Only knew of Eddie also, CC.)
No cheats. PALATAL was cool. BACH was a gimme.
Treat yourself to a root beer float, CC! (At least once.)
Have a great day!
Morning, all!
Lovely theme today. I liked that it wasn't just randomly inserting "MAN" into existing phrases to come up with a new phrase, since each time the addition of MAN resulted in an actual word (like MIDDLEMAN or MANHANDLE).
NEW ERA flummoxed me a bit, since I've never heard of it, but everything else was smooth sailing today. Well, mostly. I struggled a bit with one little section down south where it took some extra thought to get MEDIC from the clue, I initially had TEENAGER instead of TEEN IDOL, and I didn't realize that there was a DADE City in addition to the better known DADE County. Other than that, though, it really was smooth sailing...
Good morning!
I raced out of the gate with A AND W Root Beer. D'oh! That set the tone for the whole solve. I struggled, but finally prevailed. My Riga native was a LETT, my double-curve a SLALOM. And so it went.
Wasn't NIMH a place somewhere, sometime? Like Narnia?
I couldn't parse the band member. Finally accepted that it was some guy named TEE NIDOL. I've got a relative whose name is Nadal. Could'a been.
My last fill was a WAG: the M at the AMOR/AMARE cross. Whew! Turned out to be right.
Learning moment: REBA took place in Houston. I guess if I'd watched it, I might have known that.
Pam, you almost got me. C.C., I chuckled at your "glue entry."
Got the theme relatively early, which helped quite a bit. Had a bunch of mis-steps: LETT rather than BALT (as d-o), TEENAGER for TEEN IDOL (Barry G.), but the one which caused the most grief was HEED for MEET. Only a few unknowns to wag or perp.
D-Otto, you may be thinking of the movie The Secret of NIMH, although that's the same NIMH.
Very clever puzzle and very challenging for a Sunday. At least Friday level for me. Very few gimmes, and those that were easy rarely were adjacent to another. Ojai crossing ajar, I suppose. Had the same final wag...the M...pleased to see it was correct. Thank Pam, and thank you C.C..
The Week in Review: M 4:32 T 4:54 W 26:34 T 14:25 F 15:15 S 15:23 S 25:27
Wednesday: It came down to the crossing of SERT and BREN. First I tried all the vowels. Then the rest of the alphabet. TaDa? Nope, nada. The problem had to be somewhere else (and hopefully just in one place!). I had A SET for "No. 2" which didn't make a lot of sense (if you have No. 1 and No. 2 you have A SET?) but EINE looked good (Eine kleine Nachtmusik?). And when I counted, "EINE, zwei . . . ", it sounded right. I don't know why I thought to try an S there (desperation?) but, as soon as I did, ASST made sense. Then it was back to plugging in letters at the crossing of SERT and BREN until the "TaDa!".
Sunday: Like d-o and AJ, I finished with a WAG at the crossing of AMARE and AMOR.
See y'all next weekend.
Good Morning:
I found this a little more challenging than the usual Sunday, even though the theme was easy to surmise early on and certainly helped with the solve. OTOH, some of the fill required lots of perp help. Overall, though, the challenge was met and the tada was a fitting reward.
Thanks, Pam, for an enjoyable journey and thanks, CC, for being our reliable guide.
Lots of disappointment yesterday at Saratoga, but American Pharoah is still a champion.
Have a great day.
Lovely puzzle, lovely write-up. Bottom left finally fell when I gave up on obey. Then, as C.C. says, it was easy in retrospect.
Have a great day, everyone.
A tough, fair Sunday for me, Pam! I get athletes but authors take time and help. Fair’s fair.
Musings
-Hilarious rendition of Chaucer’s The Miller’s TALE (1:28)
-Our town, Fremont, NE, is named for the man known as the PATHFINDER
-What Mexico CEDED in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848
-TEARING paper off these devices is a real skill teachers need
-RIIS is one of those fills I forgot I knew until I needed it
-Very funny PTA fund raising form
-Oh yeah, a PEAR tree not a XMAS tree
-Who has more spinoffs, CSI or Law and Order?
-Wanna find the lost LEGO, take off your shoes and socks
-Will Trump be the next PEROT as a third party spoiler?
-Hamlet’s soliloquy talked of a sea of troubles, not an OCEAN
-PO _ _ made me think of Rome’s rhythm method
-How could any SANE person at Gettysburg march into these?
-None so DEAF…
-Mon Dieu, Poirot is IN ON something we aren’t until the reveal
Clever theme. I liked that the middle word in each theme answer could be combined with the word on the right or the word on the left. Quotation MARKS/MARKS man.
The bottom 2/3 was relatively easy. The northern third took a while.
Marching into the cannons at Gettyburg was about as insane as landing on Omaha Beach in Normandy. At Antietam the soldiers marched headlong into massed rifles, just as deadly. It was the bloodiest single-day battle in American history, with a combined tally of dead, wounded, and missing at 22,717.
I am so sick of hearing about TRUMP. Why do the news outlets harp on one and the same story day after day and ignore all the other news? They do it with plane accidents, shooting of innocents, death or marriage of a celebrity, etc. etc.
"Puzzling Thought": My favorite NEW ERA baseball cap was the "we are family" style of the late 1970's Pittsburgh Pirates. I have a NewEra Pirates cap (the Gold one) from that "era"; 100% wool; made in the USA; even found the company who made the appliqués (black "Stargell stars") and affixed a few to the brim.
Glad to see the Pirates contending this year; not sure they'll catch the Cardinals for the Division title but hope they advance as a Wild Card into the NL playoffs. They have a great team chemistry this year, ala the '79 team which won the World Series
Yellowrocks, I noticed your last paragraph, and while C.C. has made it clear that this forum is not an outlet for religious or political debate, I will merely comment by saying:
1. "News" outlets thrive on presenting "sensationalistic" stories; it's how they get people to tune in, listen or read, and it drives ad revenues
2. Most, if not all, of us "hear or see" what we want to when we listen, watch or read about a specific news item. Our "bias" is pretty much already formed. It's hard to be objective when you follow the news, as there is always some "slant" added to the story
3. While Donald Trump is definitely "hogging" the news these days, he's a "home run" for the news "deliverers" because he is talking less like a politician than what the other candidates are. And whether you believe his message or not, the NEWS carriers are ecstatic because his non-political correctness draws viewers
I won't proffer any solutions for what's going on news-wise as I don't want this exchange to morph into anything more political, or be debated on the Crossword blog. I feel your frustration, regardless of whether we might agree on the "news" that's aired or not.
Good afternoon everyone.
Not so hard. Enjoyed the theme.
78d - Strait of Tartary. Also called Tatar strait among others. One of 5 water routes into or out of the Sea of Japan. Probably the shallowest and narrowest.
84d - NEW ERA - When we lived in Eden, NY, Their facility at Derby was just one town away. I believe New Era provides ball caps to various Navy commands for "at sea" wear. They are personalized with the command logo, symbol, etc. Alas, my last 3 ball caps from ship reunions were made in Bangladesh. Sigh. Wonder where the John Deere caps are made.
Really cute theme, Pam. Thank you. Especially liked Middlemanschool and Manhandlewithcare. It was a DNF with crossing of AMOR and AMARE.
Thanks, C.C. for the time you spend putting a Sunday blog together. I'm sure it takes you hours!
Spitzboov: Have you heard Greg Brown's song Counting Feedcaps?
Let's go down to the café and count feedcaps,
and count feedcaps, in a row.
Red and blue and green over the coffee cups,
Stirrin' easy, fadin' slow.
Hello everybody. I had to work at this puzzle, and it was worth the time and effort. The first theme answer I got was MIDDLEMANSCHOOL, so I thought the "Male Bonding" was putting a MAN between two words to "bind" them together. That wasn't it, but the theme was ingenious as all heck, and shows what an terrific imagination Ms. Klawitter has.
My Natick was the N crossing NIMH and NEWERA. I should have gotten NIMH, though.
Knew BACH and AMOR right away. I like some of Manuel de Falla's work, including the Ritual Fire Dance, which is from El Amor Brujo. And Chaucer's The Miller's Tale makes me think of The Miller's Dance from de Falla's The Three-Cornered Hat, which I also like.
Best wishes to you all.
Mr. Google, thanks for the Greg Brown tune. Not a very well known singer/songwriter. Did you know he's married to Iris DeMent?
That song reminded me of an old joke. It's a little too coarse for mixed company, but the punch line is: "I'm positve he was a farmer. First he complained it was too dry. Then it was too wet. And when it was over he wanted to know if he got a free feed cap."
This was a steady challenge even with having the theme early on. Enjoyed it.
I did the same thing D-Otto did with Tee Nidol on the NEWERA ( looked at that as one word and just chalked it up to not knowing that brand name)
Another answer with AMOR in the last week or so
The animated movie was "The Secret of NIMH" and the book it was based on was "Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH". It was about lab rats from NIMH that had acquired special skills from being used in experiments.
Thanks CC, and Pam!
Hello, friends!
I almost missed the party. One of my friends is in the hospital with two broken legs so after Mass we went to visit her. She is heavily sedated but we visited with her husband.
Thank you Pam and C.C. Today's puzzle was great fun with some good cluing. I liked the theme, too, and it helped knowing that MAN was in there somewhere.
Yes, THE SECRET OF HIMH. Fourth graders loved it; they saw it after reading the book. Interesting that it's Mental Health Institute; makes me wonder if that's where the rat lab was located.
Trouble in the NW for a long while as AANDW seemed firmly entrenched. BARQS was the only one available when we were kids but could I think of it? Of course not, finally had to look it up.
I hope your Sunday has been relaxing and enjoyable.
I thought that 108D MALES was a neat fit with the theme.
Lucina, I wish your friend speedy healing.
BARQ was the last to fall, although I have seen it on the supermarket shelves many times. I didn't know the catch phrase.
If it has a Barq (bark) does it also have a bite?
YR - Yes, Barqs has bite. -T
YR:
Thank you. Since she was alone at the time we don't know if she fell or if the bones gave way and then she collapsed. Her husband found her lying in the hallway. She is quite tall, 6'1" and so lifting her was difficult but the EMTS took her.
She is someone I've known since high school and so is very dear to me. We're the same age.
Lucina.... I am so sorry to hear about your friend... I also am wishing her a quick recovery... and sending my blessings to you both.. you are a good friend... I hope you weathered last nite's storms with little or no problems... wind blew extremely hard here but that was about all... lost a couple good sized tree branches... fortunately no one had a car parked there at the time...
Puzzle was a total DNF for lack of time and knowledge... :)
Hope you all have had a good day and evening...
thelma :)
I was evanescing fast but I was saved by alonely Baltic man who was the one!
New Era is only easy if you live in Buffalo, where the company is headquartered...a little unfair, I think!
Also had a little problem with 93 across, "ATAB" instead of "TABS" as to what bar patrons run, never been a fan of crossword answers that have articles such as "a, an,the"-- a little sneaky, if you ask me.
Found the theme easy, but the overall solution a little more difficult (but enjoyable) this Sunday.
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