Words: 70 (missing Q)
Blocks: 27
UGH~!
- I was so pleased with myself for getting 80% of this beast solved
without any cheating - no Google, no red-letter, despite some very
clever cluing that did NOT get past me. I was plugging away, one cell at
a time, and making my way from the bottom up - but the NW corner was
just not giving in, and once I caved and checked my 1a. answer, I
realized it was never going to work out. Oh well. Big chunky 9x6 corners, and triple 8's in the down;
1. Four Corners collectible : NAVAJO RUG - *%$&^#@~! I was
so, so pleased I came up with NEVADA FLAG, as the Four Corners consist
of the four US States that meet at a single point; however, NEVADA is
not among Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Colorado - duh.
57. Strips at a party : STREAMERS - oh, uh, the um, noun, not the verb. Right. Maybe the anons are right about me....
13. 1964 World's Fair giant tire Ferris wheel creator : UNIROYAL
- a major flub as far as I am concerned - at the fair in
Queens, NY, the one with the Unisphere, the wheel was U.S. Royal; maybe all the same company, but it
doesn't jibe with me
32. Colorful fall tree : RED MAPLE
ACROSS:
10. Edit, as a soundtrack : RE-DUB
15. "Be right there" : ONE MINUTE - I considered this, but because I had FLAG, I put in FAIR for "Just" @ 6d.
16. Dior style : A-LINE - dress style; at least Mr. Sessa was on my "fashion wavelength" today
17. Window-adjusting tool : SCROLL BAR - the doohickey on the side of your screen;
18. Sheep or goat : BOVID - Someone correct me - this is totally wrong; I thought this category of animals was O-vine; BO-vine is cattle; cows, bison, buffalo, etc.
19. Two after love? : THIRTY - I knew this was going to be tennis scoring; 0-30 or 30-0 is two points scored after the opening of a game
20. Aria from "Carmen" : HABANERA - perps and a WAG
22. Some drills : ROTES - meh. period.
23. Champagne toast : SALUT - I had saluD; close enough, and 80% correct
24. English lit pseudonym : BOZ - perps - learning moment for me; the Wiki
25. Father of Phobos : ARES
26. Bounty maker, briefly : P AND G - think "P&G" - Proctor and Gamble, the makers of the paper towel
18. Sheep or goat : BOVID - Someone correct me - this is totally wrong; I thought this category of animals was O-vine; BO-vine is cattle; cows, bison, buffalo, etc.
19. Two after love? : THIRTY - I knew this was going to be tennis scoring; 0-30 or 30-0 is two points scored after the opening of a game
20. Aria from "Carmen" : HABANERA - perps and a WAG
22. Some drills : ROTES - meh. period.
23. Champagne toast : SALUT - I had saluD; close enough, and 80% correct
24. English lit pseudonym : BOZ - perps - learning moment for me; the Wiki
25. Father of Phobos : ARES
26. Bounty maker, briefly : P AND G - think "P&G" - Proctor and Gamble, the makers of the paper towel
27. R&B's __ II Men : BOYZ - they were popular when I was in school - but not with me
28. Murky milieus : FENS - Ugh. SEAS was my thought
29. __ cracker : ANIMAL - # 1
31. Facing dauntlessly : BRAVING
35. Like sparkling wine : ABUBBLE - crossed with another "A-" clue
36. Real estate pioneer with a Long Island town named for him : LEVITT - Nailed it - but that's not saying much - I live on Long Island
37. Clan member : SCOT - dah~! Not CELT
38. Ruler of Asgard : ODIN
39. American Leaguer since 2013 : ASTRO - I thought this was wrong, too - but then I remembered that they were once a National League team
41. Ray : BEAM
45. 1975 ABC debut, for short : GMA - Good Morning America
46. Like music to one's ears? : ON KEY
47. Skater Harding : TONYA
48. Best ever : CAT'S MEOW - the Bee's Knees
50. Evil : ROTTEN
51. Splatter catcher : APRON - catcher~? deflector or collector maybe
52. will.i.am, for one : RAP ARTIST - from the Black-eyed Peas. Sorry, but I think their stuff is at best amateur
54. Baggage carousel feeder : SLIDE - we have lots of slides at UPS - here's a pic of my "office"
28. Murky milieus : FENS - Ugh. SEAS was my thought
29. __ cracker : ANIMAL - # 1
31. Facing dauntlessly : BRAVING
35. Like sparkling wine : ABUBBLE - crossed with another "A-" clue
36. Real estate pioneer with a Long Island town named for him : LEVITT - Nailed it - but that's not saying much - I live on Long Island
37. Clan member : SCOT - dah~! Not CELT
38. Ruler of Asgard : ODIN
39. American Leaguer since 2013 : ASTRO - I thought this was wrong, too - but then I remembered that they were once a National League team
41. Ray : BEAM
45. 1975 ABC debut, for short : GMA - Good Morning America
46. Like music to one's ears? : ON KEY
47. Skater Harding : TONYA
48. Best ever : CAT'S MEOW - the Bee's Knees
50. Evil : ROTTEN
51. Splatter catcher : APRON - catcher~? deflector or collector maybe
52. will.i.am, for one : RAP ARTIST - from the Black-eyed Peas. Sorry, but I think their stuff is at best amateur
54. Baggage carousel feeder : SLIDE - we have lots of slides at UPS - here's a pic of my "office"
55. Eatery serving 47-Downs : TRATTORIA - this week is "restaurant week", and the Italian one I work at, aMano, was jimm-jamming on the frim-fram last night
56. State with a red, white and blue flag : TEXAS
56. State with a red, white and blue flag : TEXAS
DOWN:
1. Pisan possessive : NOSTRA - I WAGed from my understanding of "Cosa Nostra"
2. It's dropped on purpose : ANCHOR
3. Cinema __ : VERITE - dredged up from somewhere deep in my brain; "truth in cinema", or documentary style - I found a great list on IMDb - some titles you have heard
4. Ovid work : AMORES - written in 16BC; love stories are eternal
5. Dumps : JILTS - with my "NEVADA", DIVES worked here. Talk about a cluster***k
6. Just : ONLY - not FAIR, nor EVEN; this is the "I was just going to eat one piece of candy"
7. Prepare for a grilling : RUB - BBQ related
8. Jazz followers : UTAHANS - gave myself a big pat on the back for NOT confusing this basketball team Jazz with musical jazz
9. Memorable '70s Ford : GERALD - ha HA~! - not TORINO; in fact not even a car....
10. Capital SSW of Tangier : RABAT
11. Tar Heel State campus : ELON - half perps; a little misdirection here, as the Tar Heels of UNC are sports foes of the college at Elon
12. Attack from above : DIVE BOMB
12. Attack from above : DIVE BOMB
14. Enchant : BEDAZZLE
21. Cause of worry : BUGABOO - think "boogeyman"; there's also a stroller of the same name - sort of paradoxical, if you think about it
23. Blabbed : SANG
26. Compound with five carbon atoms : PENTANE - formula C₅H₁₂ ; C₅H₁₀ is pentEne
27. Crab house accessory : BIB
28. In good shape : FIT
30. Fruit served with a cracker? : NUT - # 2
31. Online clip : BLOGCAST - I filled in BLOG----, the rest was perps; is this post a blogcast, or just a blog~?
33. Anne Morrow Lindbergh, but not Charles : AVIATRIX - clever; only women can be the -TRIXes
34. Café quaff : VIN
35. "__ in the Dark": 1988 Neill/Streep film : A CRY
37. Noah's predecessor : STEWART - not a clue; turns out, Trevor Noah replaced Jon Steward on the Daily Show
40. Hybrid apparel : SKORTS - I love them; the looks of a skirt, the fit of shorts - and followed up with 41d.~? Mr. Sessa, you're the man~!
41. Rear end : BOTTOM
42. Complete : ENTIRE
43. Bos'n's response : AYE, SIR - sailing term; a boatswain is a crewman
44. Large rays : MANTAS - this time, MANTA was correct
46. Exeunt __: all go out : OMNES - straight Latin
47. 55-Across dessert : TORTA
49. __ cracker : SODA - # 3
50. Assign value to : RATE
53. Four on Augusta's fifth : PAR - the golf course, and it's 'Magnolia' hole
43. Bos'n's response : AYE, SIR - sailing term; a boatswain is a crewman
44. Large rays : MANTAS - this time, MANTA was correct
46. Exeunt __: all go out : OMNES - straight Latin
47. 55-Across dessert : TORTA
49. __ cracker : SODA - # 3
50. Assign value to : RATE
53. Four on Augusta's fifth : PAR - the golf course, and it's 'Magnolia' hole
Splynter - # 4, former "cracker" from Jacksonville, FL
34 comments:
Morning, all!
Yeah, BOVID was most definitely cruel and unusual, especially when clued with regard to sheep and goats. I had OVINE in there for the longest time and finally removed it out of desperation when nothing else in that section would work. I looked it up afterward and discovered that it is accurate ("Any of various hoofed, horned ruminant mammals of the family Bovidae, which includes cattle, sheep, goats, buffaloes, bisons, antelopes, and yaks"). Still cruel and unusual, however.
After much effort, I had the entire right side of the puzzle finished, but the left side was still mostly white space. Up in the NW I had a similar experience to Splynter in that I was sure 1A had something to do with NEVADA. Once again, though, after being unable to get anything else to work up there I finally took out the E in NEV and looked at it with fresh eyes. I ran through the alphabet (starting with Q on the keyboard) until ANCHOR finally clicked in my brain. Even then, it was awhile before I could get ROTES, AMORES, GERALD, JILTS and UTAHANS. I appreciated the clever cluing on GEALD and UTAHANS, but wasn't really fond of ROTES. AMORES was just plain unknown.
Down in the southwest, it took awhile to finally get rid of SNL and stick in GMA instead. Yeah, I know. Wrong network. It still took a long time before I could finally come up with BLOGCAST. I wanted VIDEO CLIP or PODCAST. I'm sure it's a thing, but I've just never heard of a BLOGCAST before.
Oh, and I really, really hated ABUBBLE, despite guessing it almost immediately. I guess if we can have ABOIL we can have ABUBBLE, but that doesn't mean I have to like it...
One follow up. BOVINE does, in fact, refer to just cows and not sheep. But BOVINE and BOVID are actually different words. BOVINE refers to the subfamily "Bovinae", which includes cattle, buffalo, and kudus, whereas BOVID refers to the family "Bovidae", which includes cattle, sheep, goats, buffaloes, bisons, antelopes, and yaks.
In other words, BOVIDAE is the family that includes BOVINAE as a subfamily. All BOVINES are BOVIDS, but not all BOVIDS are BOVINES.
Still cruel and unusual, but I definitely learned something today as a result. The only question is whether I'll remember it next time...
Hello Puzzlers -
Much of WBS. I started out with Ovine, all the while doubting that it applied to goats. When perps forced Bovid on me I resisted thinking it only applied to cows (see above). Promptly threw down Verite, which made Points look good for the tennis scoring, and thus the NW was long bollixed. Only Only got me to erase Points, and thus the northwest was won.
Oooftah!
I managed to prevail, but the Wite-Out got a workout in the process. Unlike Splynter and Barry, I thought the NW was pretty easy. It was the SW that took forever. But when TEXAS popped into my head (I wonder why?), I was able to suss AVIATRIX. That broke open the logjam.
I remember TONYA Harding. She was the skater who took "Break a leg!" literally -- Nancy Kerrigan's leg, that is.
Hello, HABANERA! I must've been prescient when I inked you in back on Oct. 25th. Oops, it should've been habanero.
Cinema VERITE made me think of the Netflix program I watched yesterday about two Korean girls, one adopted to a French family and the other to a California family. An Internet video clip (not BLOGCAST) led to them meeting and learning that they were identical twins. It would have made a very good 30-minute documentary. Unfortunately, it was 90 minutes long.
Wow! I can't believe I finished it. Way too many wrong starts and had to read Splynter's write up to find that all was correct. The NW was the last to fall as THIRTY was the only thing filled. MERE became ONLY, NBA FANS became UTAHANS, DIVES became JILTS and I remembered La Cosa NOSTRA from Joe Valachi's testimony. ARES was a WAG. Other write overs were AUNT to SCOT and AYE-AYE to AYE SIR.
BOVID also looked strange but it's correct and we have BUBBLE and DAZZLE altered to 'A' and 'B' and becoming ABUBBLE and BEDAZZLE. CASSANDRA would complete yesterday's ABC theme.
HABANERA(sauce??),will.i.am, "A CRY in the Dark", STEWART, OMNES - these were unknowns filled by perps. On 56A I was thinking of five-letter states- Idaho, Maine, TEXAS, and the X gave me AVIATRIX, which was a WAG.
Now is only LSU wins tonight against Alabama.
Hi All!
Sessa beat me up again. Once I broke the SW w/ PAR and RAP ARTIST, I thought "I'm on my way" (that was my 15a) to a Sat solve. Oh, heck no. After I crib'd 15a from Splynter I ONLY got that (6d), RUB, and NAVAHO RUG, but nothing else. TITT.
Thanks Splynter for the write up. I like crackers (yeah, I have some white friends :-)) #1-3 and the SKORT pic top to BOTTOM.
I kept trying to go bit-by-bit back the the NE, but so many wrong WAGs I didn't stand a chance. E.g. PENTANE gave me Perps for 26a (that's how Dawg gets his dough...), then I misunderstood 31a and put fearING. 49d was pitA _crackers (we love those w/ hummus).
I still feel good I nail'd the SW & knew ASTROS & TEXAS. BOYZ in BIBs still stands alone in the NW and BUBBLie(?) is close, but no cigar. I knew Trever NOAH - I love his standup.
Oh, well, at least I'm getting better (CED, it must be Beatles week; I ain't complainin')*
Cheers, -T
*I was looking for a live version and hit the RED square concert. I thought it was cool.
Muscled my way through this puzzle until I had one letter left. At an impasse until I realized that what I read as "Bounty marker" was "maker." I can either blame declining eyesight or small newsprint. I'll blame the latter.
Waaaay above my pay grade today! I was proud of myself for getting a few right. (BOVID was not one of those!). Thanks, Splynter, for 'splaining it.
This one went well for me, faster than usual. There were relatively few current pop-culture references, and those were familiar. [And no, I don't count CAT'S MEOW as current.] Although I did spell TONYA as TONiA at first.
NW was hardest for me, NAVAJO RUG took a long time to develop, and the Ford clue was devilish. Had ONE second before ONE MINUTE, briefly. Elsewhere, UNIROYAL was a guess -- I don't remember the Ferris wheel although I did attend the World's Fair. Liked the crossing of ray (BEAM) with large rays (MANTAS). And Ovid/BOVID, although they don't intersect.
Thanks for a challenging puzzle Ed, and an excellent writeup Splynter.
The top was not budging but little by little the bottom gave up its young and voila, C'est fait (this is done) – a little Frawnch for Splynter!.
Musings
-It took NAVAJO RUG and UTAHANS (NBA) to unlock gnarly NW
-Dang, Splynter, your Strippers graphic was blank. I wanted to be offended
-RED MAPLE I see out my window as I work this puzzle
-OVINE found my eraser too
-A literary midget like I, remembers this BOZ
-Do you remember this character talking of “Romping with his school chums through the FENS and spinneys”
-LEVITT was to housing what Ford was to motoring
-Beating the ASTROS was one step to the World Series for the Royals
-Michael Moore’s Cinema VERITE’ cause much discussion
-JUST one. I can’t!!
-Tiny ELON took its annual opening day drubbing vs a Division I school, collected a big check and moved on
Badly beaten. Threw in the towel with about 60-65% filled, mostly in the east. From there it was a googlefest, so no lunch money left.did get the Navajo rug, though. So there's that.
HG - I though you were going to link Boz Scaggs (show's my literacy), but I'll take Bosworth. BOOMER!
You know, it's fun to be a Sooner (just for grad school, but hey). As you walk past someone in an OU swag ONLY whisper Boomer. They'll keep moving and yell SOONER!
I was in Chicago at the RUSH concert and spotted an OU shirt. I said to my sister, "Watch this...". I did it, he responded. She was stunned.
Cheers, -T
Good Morning:
This was a toughie, for the most part, but with patience and perseverance, I finished w/o any help. But, drat, it was FIW due to on key instead of in key. Whatever was I thinking? Liked amores next to jilts and loved the clues for Utahans and Gerald. I, too, had SNL and really went off the rails with Colbert before Stewart. Who can keep these funny guys straight? Big CSO to CED with Cat's Meow! 🐈 🐱
Thanks, Ed Sessa, for a Saturday stumper and thanks, Splynter, for your "bedazzling" review. I must say, however, that I have never seen a skort as short as the one in your picture.
Have a great day.
Like many I got 80% of this one quite easily, but the NW did me in. I looked up AMORES. GERALD and P and G were too devilish for me, but now I applaud their cleverness. I red-lettered and did a ABC run for the D. I was stuck on a Ford auto and I should have picked up on the "briefly" for P and G.
BOVID and LEVITT were not a problem. I liked CATS MEOW, a CSO to all of us kitty lovers.
My pharmacy went out of business this week and CVS wants to charge me $69 for what I used to pay $4 and change for. There has been with no change in my insurance. I have CVS researching it. Arrrgh!
On a happy note, Alan has felt fine since last night. I am not sure why, but we both are relieved. I hope it lasts. Thank you all for your support.
Thanks Ed for a lovely Saturday workout. And Splynter for the explanation.
I was able to finish it correctly with a little help from my Kindle ODE dictionary. The East came with just plugging away.
I was a lot like Barry, but I got VERITE, RUB AND GERALD (because Edsel didn’t fit). This led me to NAVAhO RUG. Changing the h to a J so JILT fit the 1a clue was the last to go.
ROTE is a mass noun, according to ODE, so it cannot be made plural. So ROTES is a fishy fill for 22a.
For 37a, I spent a while trying to think of a Biblical character with a name beginning with ST! When I got STEWART from perps I thought NOAH must be a Star Trek commander.
An early grateful thanks to all our veterans.
VS
• So nice to see BOTTOM - know what I mean, nudge, nudge, say no more? Strange that the word is rarely used in the U.S. in this sense. I hear odd euphemisms all the time, such as TUSH; or the anatomical BUTTOCKS, but never BOTTOM. My MacDict indeed gives it as chiefly Brit. in this sense.
• Barry, thanks for your analysis of the family BOVIDAE. BOVINE, BOVID -- OVINE, OVID…? Oh no, he wrote AMORES.
• I checked "ABUBBLE". I could only find it used in its figurative sense of "full of enthusiasm", never in the literal sense as clued here.
• Sorry to be a PC bore, but I consider it disrespectful to Native Americans to clue their work as "tourist art" , i.e., in the context of people drawn their by the arbitrary Anglo-Saxon divisions of the continent. One wonder how many treaties were reneged upon to create those 4 corners and deny them their homeland. End of polemic.
Greetings to all!
Yowza! Great puzzle, Ed Sessa, thank you. 75% was quite doable, from NE to S and SW. Hand up for OVINE before BOVID but knew RABAT as Morocco's capital.
The scattering of cracker crumbs was fun and really, nothing too difficult appeared in the above mentioned sections. NAVAJORUG was sloooow in emerging. It was a long time ago, but when I visited the Four Corners area no shops were around, maybe there are now. I have two genuine Navajo Rugs which need to be appraised.
RED MAPLE trees BEDAZZLE me whenever I see them in person.
Thank you, again, Ed and Splynter, too for your wonderful write up. Like IrishMiss, I have never seen a short SKORT as shown in your picture.
I'm in the process of cooking the meat for tamales which we shall make tomorrow and since I bought an electric pressure cooker the process is so much easier, cleaner and quicker. Some technology is so great!
Have a fun-filled Saturday, everyone!
Having read her biography, I knew Anne Morrow Lindbergh was an AVIATRIX and assisted her husband at times.
Like others of you, Cosa NOSTRA gave me that pronoun.
NC - Just for those who don't know what you mean - nudge, nudge wink, wink...
BOTTOM is quite innocuous here. Ass is way out unless you're quoting the Bible. Kinda like the C-word is fine in AU but toxic if uttered in the US. Hoover no one gets (yes, I watch too much BBC).
Here's Louis CK on indigenous North Aztecians (???). MA only.
Cheers, -T
This beat me badly. I don't consider it a solve if I have to look things up, but after I gave up trying to solve I googled a bunch of "clues" and still didn't get it done. Wow.
LOTSA LOOKUPS, but I still count it as a win because there were plenty of challenges left. A measure of its difficulty is that my first fill was 27A BOYZ, and I know Zero about pop bands.
The real Doh! moment came when I finally slapped my forehead and entered GERALD.
PS. I enjoy Splynter's explanations and especially the confession & self-effacement.
This was very very hard and damn clever. A couple of nose wrinklers, as already mentioned. After much thinking (a pleasurable process) and plinking away I finally got every cell filled but no tada. Search as I might, I couldn't find where I went wrong, and finally turned on red letters. Only one letter was red. I had entered TORTE at 47D, which gave me STREEMERS at 57A. Ooops, didn't see it even when searching for it. Good puzzle!
Splynter, thanks for your write-ups; you produce interesting reads.
Y-R - You might try going to your meds' manufacturer's website. They often offer discount cards on their products. My bp medicine went from $80 per month to $4. Perhaps your pharmacy had one of those card's info loaded into its computer, but that info didn't transfer over to CVS? Anyway, worth a try and good luck!
TX Ms, thanks for your concern. I discovered CVS is not at all proactive in settling insurance problems. They just don't try as hard as most other pharmacies. I contacted my former pharmacist who is available just for this last weekend. She told me my meds are available under Part B Medicare. CVS was trying Part D and had no other ideas. CVS finally gave me my meds for $0.00, a far cry from $69. I need another pharmacy.
I just realized that Alan's "recovery" is in response to Prednisone. He took 6 day course of it several weeks ago and was pain free for a few days and then after he stopped taking it the pain returned. He is now on another 6 day regimen and will probably fall back again. I see that there is a more long term use of Prednisone. I will have to explore it.
Hi Y'all! This puzzle had a lot of learning experiences. So much I didn't know. Thanks, Ed! Thanks, Splynter!
Four Corners was a brief stop at sundown on a bus tour through Canyon Country. Yup, I done stood on the lines of four states at the same time. There was an open-air Indian crafts market set-up there, but everyone had gone home by the time we were there. I had two small NAVAJO RUGS that I laid over sand colored bedspreads on twin beds in my son's room on the farm. He wanted a southwest theme. Loved those little rugs. His friends thought that was a great room. He even made the bed every morning. Still have them but no place to display them.
Hand up for Ovine. See, a learning experience. Ovid in the other section kinda threw me. "Love stories are eternal." Yeah, I've often thought how wonderful it is that every person has the potential for their own great love story. It's a shame when it doesn't always turn out as hoped.
Drills weren't ROTeS but ROTES. I'll second the MEH!
My 3 MAPLEs aren't RED but they turn a pretty golden. The fall foliage in my neighborhood is reaching its peak. Glorious on my drives to do errands yesterday! I'm living in a golden haze right now looking out my window at many mature trees.
Here the maples are a brilliant red similar to Splinter's picture. My favorite maple just outside my window died two years ago. I miss it terribly every autumn.
Hello everyone,
NW was my Bagaboo today, even with
Gerald (DOH!) in place.
My window adjusting tool wanted to
be a Sledge Hammer ( Let me try, boss!)
And with only trix in place for 33D I wanted
Dominatrix. (It would have fit using the sledge hammer).
Maybe because this was my only thought for
Cat's Meow
If only I had remembered how to spell NAVAHO...geez, I knew HILTS didn't have anything to do with dumps. Duh, is right.
As soon as I filled in ABUBBLE I felt arumble. Must have been our dear friend Dodo rolling over in her grave! Oh the conversations we would have over all those dopey "A words. (Adrift. Aboil. Aroar. Asea. etc. etc.)
Anonymous T, I just returned from visiting a friend in Jay, OK and came home with a brand, new OSU Sooner t-shirt. Very snazzy and quite red and bedazzling. BOOMER SOONER, BOOMER SOONER...
Off tonight to a cool venue in town, The Barn, to see The T Sisters. Fabulous trio.
Happy Saturday everyone.
I was driving WSW toward the Pacific about 4:30. The sun was low and DIRECTLY in my eyes to the extent that I felt it was unsafe to drive. I really didn't have any other good alternative except to slow way down. I finally got to the bike path and went for a short bike ride. On the way back, I stopped and watched the rays from the last segment of the setting sun disappear into the ocean. I've seen that sight often before but I never get tired of it.
GarlicGal, that might have been me you heard being all atwitter, afluster, aruffle, atizzy and annoyed also.
G.G. - I'm sure you meant OU and not that other school in Oklahoma ;-)
The University of Oklahoma is the perfect place for dyslexics - OU!
Boomer!, -T
Well! That was an interesting finish to the Nebraska / Michigan State game.
Still wondering how Splynter entered NevadaFlag into the nine boxes for 1A.
Good one, Bill G.
Anonymous T, YIKES! What a faux pas. Of course I meant OU!!!
This one looked impossible at first, but mostly fell into place, with lotsa use of my ERASABLE PEN. (Much more convenient than white-out.) NW: the V in Verite led me to think Navajo for Four Corners; the Rug came later.
For Carmen, I had to get at least one perp to OPT for Habañera instead of Toreador. For those of you unfamiliar with Carmen, look up the Habañera on UTube and listen to it. It's a very catchy tune, and I'd be surprised if you'd never heard it before.
Speaking of a-words, I've never seen asea anywhere but in crosswords, but "adrift" is a perfectly good word - if not a good condition to be in. And having been in the Navy, I've never heard a single Aye; it's always Aye Aye, Sir; but I soon realize the puzzler wanted Sir. I also wanted ovine or bovine; the V had to be in the middle, from DIVE, but eventually gave in to perps. Glad to get the classification info on "bovid".
I had to go to IMDb to get the Y for A Cr- in the Dark (wherein, I learned, Streep originated "The dingos ite my byby" or something near it - forgive my attempt at an Ozzie accent); other than that, no cheating. Good puzzle - we have to let the puzzlers use a-words, and other inventions like nonexistent comparitives. Hard enough already to construct a puzzle.
Oops! I meant "comparatve." My spell checker must have given up by that time. My laptop made me do it.
I couldn't think of any nonexistent ones at the time, but have since come up with "haler" for the clue "more healthy." There are many others.
To digress, as is my wont, I was chagrined not to find Ozzie in my dictionary, but when I looked again just now, there it was, but the entry was Aussie. I preferred the Urban Dictionary version:
An Ozzie or (Aussie) is an Australian slang term to name themselves, often used in chants on Australia day "Ozzie ozzie ozzie" "oi oi oi."
We had "Circus Oz" here in the '84 Olympics Arts Festival, from Australia, an event we didn't attend. I was puzzled by the name, untilI making the connection years later. Duh.
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