google.com, pub-2774194725043577, DIRECT, f08c47fec0942fa0 L.A.Times Crossword Corner: Thursday, November 12th, 2015 Kurt Krauss

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Nov 12, 2015

Thursday, November 12th, 2015 Kurt Krauss

Theme: Six Servings - a veggie melange today. The circles reveal four jumbles and two anagrams thrown into the pot for good measure.

10A. Long-armed beasts : APES. Peas.

17A. Diamond heist? : STOLEN BASE. Beans.

23. Bare-bones staff : SKELETON CREW. Leeks. Here's a cheery bunch, courtesy of artist Ian O'Keefe:


47A. Divides, as lovers : COMES BETWEEN. Beets.

57A. Stereotypical bachelors' toys : SPORTS CARS. Carrots. You can have one of these McLarens for around $275,000 if you stick with the base package.


63A. He's fifth on the career home run list : MAYS. Yams. Second of the baseball-referencing themers. I know someone around these parts who didn't have any trouble there.

and the reveal:

35A. Dinner side, and what can literally be found in this puzzle's circles : MIXED VEGETABLES. Food! Here's some with a Thai flavor:


Hi everyone - Steve here with Kurt's challenge for the day. I definitely found this one crunchier than usual (and not because the vegetables were under-cooked!) - that middle top section almost did me in, egads! 

Any of you solving without circles might have been handicapped by their lack; once I'd tumbled to the theme they definitely gave me a leg-up with the trickily-clued STOLEN BASE when I was having conniptions up in the North Dakota/Minnesota area.

Let's see what else we can find to ponder upon:

Across:

1. Thin locks, as of hair : WISPS

6. League fraction : MILE. This was my first "what????" moment up here. I was fixated on sports league references. Finally, right at the end, the penny dropped. Three miles in a league. Here's the opening to Tennyson's "Charge of the Light Brigade". Cheerful stuff.

Half a league, half a league, Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death rode the six hundred.
"Forward, the Light Brigade!
"Charge for the guns!" he said:
Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred.

14. Tin Pan Alley org. : ASCAP. Performing rights royalty collections agency. The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers. Irving Berlin was one of the founders, which gives me the perfect excuse to have a little fun with Jeeves and Wooster.

15. "... but I play one __" : ON TV. Second "what?????" up here. Took a while, and had me doubting "EVE" - what word ends in "V"?

16. Lead-in for sci : POLI

19. Tiger Woods' ex : ELIN. Still crossword-current though.

20. Fresh from the oven : HOT

21. One may be tossed after a wish : COIN. I read "crossed" first, and wondered how you can cross one finger?

22. Rub the wrong away : ERASE. Nice clue - of course I read "wrong way" first. Something wrong with my eyesight today.

26. Painter who was a leader of the Fauvist movement : MATISSE. Familiar with the artist, unfamiliar with the movement.


29. "__ Ben Adhem" : ABOU. Who? Thank you, crosses. Title character of the Leigh Hunt poem, apparently.

30. Shooting star, to some : OMEN

31. 1928 Oscar winner Jannings : EMIL. He won the very first Best Actor Oscar. (It was actually in 1929, but you could argue he won for his 1928 performances).

32. Early Beatle Sutcliffe : STU. He quit the band in Hamburg to go to art school, leaving the bass-playing duties to be picked up by the left-handed Paul McCartney. Sadly, he died a year later of a brain aneurysm.

40. Firm : SET

41. Reason for a tow job : REPO. Not a flat, as I first thought.

42. Literary governess : EYRE. Quick - name a literary governess who isn't Jane Eyre.

43. Controversial video game feature : GORE. Controversial? To whom?

44. Does a security job : SCREENS

51. Squirrel away : AMASS

52. Fruit discard : RIND. I used to eat orange rinds. I only did it because it annoyed my mom.

53. __ bath : MUD

56. Cost of living? : RENT

60. Eye rakishly : OGLE

61. Place to see crawls : POOL. The front and back varieties. A lot of people think the front crawl is called "freestyle". It's not, the freestyle race allows you to pick your own stroke, it just happens that everyone uses the front crawl because it's the quickest one.

62. Rock's __ Boingo : OINGO

64. Kennel sounds : YIPS

65. Graph lines : X-AXES. Looks odd in the grid, better with the hyphen.

Down:

1. Break-even transaction : WASH. Or, as the water-colorist replied when he was asked what he was putting on the paper - "It's a wash".

2. Comparative words : IS TO

3. Nae sayer : SCOT. The Scots recently voted "nae" in their referendum to leave the United Kingdom.

4. Frequent companion : PAL. I guess that means you can't pal around with an infrequent chum.

5. Dust motes : SPECKS. I like this crossing WISPS for no good reason.

6. Calder piece : MOBILE. I had no clue this gentleman was known as "The father of the mobile". That top section remained stubbornly blank for a long time.

7. Featherbrained : INANE

8. SFPD ranks : LTS. Police lieutenants. SFPD ain't got periods, so I'll leave them out of the answer. Annoyingly.

9. Memorable temptation victim : EVE

10. Brief outline : APERÇU. I know the word, in the sense that I can recognize it when I see it, and spell it, but I realized today that I didn't actually know what it meant. Now I do!

11. __ cap : POLAR. Aren't we missing the word "ice" here?

12. Beethoven's "Für __" : ELISE. I learned this on the piano when I was a kid. My mother loved it, so taken along with the orange peel eating, it was a wash.

13. Resilient strength : SINEW. I've never seen this in the sense of "possessing strength" before. I like it.

18. Anti votes : NOES

22. Name on a historic B-29 : ENOLA. Gay, the pilot's mom.

23. Cosecant's reciprocal : SINE

24. Teach, in a way : TAME

25. Final notice? : OBIT. Common enough in the shortened form not to need an abbreviation indication in the clue.

26. Kids' drivers, often : MOMS. Moms drive their kids. In return, orange-peel-eating kids drive their moms nuts.

27. Valéry's valentine : AMIE. Former president of France is Valéry Giscard d'Estaing. I hope it's his wife he's sending valentines to - his successor, François Mitterrand, famously had a string of mistresses.

28. Printed words : TEXT

31. It may need a boost : EGO

32. Roy Rogers' birth name : SLYE. He wasn't born "Roy" either. Franklin Slye.

33. Fork-tailed flier : TERN

34. Exploits : USES

36. Smeltery waste : DROSS. Smeltery? I think most people call 'em steelworks.

37. Hit or miss : VERB

38. Three-sided blade : EPÉE. It's only got one side when you get to the business end - the point.

39. " ... I've __ to the mountaintop": King : BEEN. Martin Luther King Jr's last speech. He was assassinated the next day.

43. Beaux __: noble deeds : GESTES. Note the pluralization of both words.

44. Ice cream designs : SWIRLS

45. Copper : CENT

46. Three-time 21st-century World Series champs : RED SOX. In 2004, most Bostonians would have doubted they'd ever live to see the day they won one, considering they hadn't won one since 1918. Chicago Cubs fans take heart.

47. Billiards shot : CAROM. Aha! I said. MASSE! That came out about two seconds later.

48. Greek finale : OMEGA. The last letter of the alphabet. Nice clue.

49. Virile : MANLY

50. Military unit : TROOP. Funny old word, troop. In the plural, it's ambiguous - compare "American troops" (a non-specific number) and "The army is sending 1,000 troops to .." (a very specific number). "Troops" is interchangeable with "soldiers", but "soldier" is not interchangeable with "troop". "A troop of soldiers" is some number more than a few. Confused much?

53. Tailless cat : MANX. From the Isle of Man.

54. Goad : URGE

55. British mil. decorations : D.S.O.S. Distinguished Service Orders. It's no use giving distinguished service if you're not an officer - you won't get this gong. Officers only. Weird.

57. Tom Clancy figure : SPY

58. Hawaiian dish : POI

59. Org. in Tom Clancy novels : C.I.A. I see what you did with 57A there.

And I think that's all I've got. Here's the grid:

Steve


46 comments:

Anonymous said...

Got the theme and most of the theme answers but was stumped by MAYS / YAMS and the cross CAROM. I thought "Cost of living" was PELT. Couldn't think of RENT.

Anonymous said...

Martin

fermatprime said...

Greetings!

Thanks, Kurt and Steve!

No circles but no problems. Certainly slower than yesterday's delightful offering.

Was watching part of the (recorded) Jesse Stone marathon and let the time slip away. Love him!!!

Cheers!

Barry G. said...

Morning, all!

No circles, so no theme appreciation for me. It didn't make it any harder, but just not as joyful.

I thought the clue for VERB ("Hit or miss") was a bit on the cruel and unusual side since it didn't include an "e.g.", but the perps took care of it. Also, I never considered the SPORTS CAR I owned as a bachelor to be a toy (although everybody who saw me with it probably did).

Everything else was smooth sailing today (for a Thursday puzzle, at least).

Lemonade714 said...

This puzzle was clearly in Steve's wheelhouse with the food theme and some scrambling of words. It is interesting that STOLEN BASE and ON TV were filmed to me but we're a challenge due to cultural background differences.

I did not know DSOS and APERCU always takes a while but the rest filled well for Thursday

Thanks KK and Steve.

Hahtoolah said...

Good Morning, Steve and friends. Fun Thursday puzzle. I loved finding the Mixed Vegetables.

My first thought for the literary nanny was Marry Poppins. It was a book before it became a Disney movie.

Roy Roger's (1911 ~ 1998) birth name was Leonard Franklin Slye.

Hand up for reading Rub the Wrong Way instead of Wrong Away. I finally answered ERASE after getting most of the letters and re-reading the clue.

APERCU was a total unknown and my last fill.

I initially tried Hoard in lieu of AMASS for Squirreling Away.

I also wanted to discard the Core of fruit instead of the RIND.

DSO appears with some frequency in the puzzles.

QOD: Sometimes I think that the one thing I love most about being an adult is the right to buy candy whenever and wherever I want. ~ Ryan Gosling (b. Nov. 12, 1980)

OwenKL said...

PEAS and BEANS grow above the ground
Under's where BEETS and CARROTS are found.
There's a sailor man
Says, "I YAM what I YAM!"
And N.S.A. LEEKS make nary a sound!

Wonder about governess Jane, nee EYRE,
Is her name pronounced to sound like Lake Erie?
Or is her name EYRE
Homophonic with air?
If it's said "eye-er", well, that's getting eerie!

(I've probably read the name a hundred times in various contexts, but I don't believe I've ever heard it aloud, and now that I'm deaf, I never shall!)

A governess you want, with a bookish flair?
Why, Mary Poppins will come along in the air!
And if a movie you would see
You mustn't slight Ms. Nanny McPhee!
And Maria von Trapp is also started from there!

desper-otto said...

Good morning!

There were circles in my newspaper, so no problems with the theme. Unless, that is, you count my inability to unscramble CARROTS from spORTS CARS. My car was a No-Go before it became a REPO, and my vegetables were initially GREEN. It's been some time since we've seen ABOU, may his tribe increase. I WAGged the final O in OINGO; I was thinking the awards were DSCs, not DSOs.

TTP said...



Good morning all.

Thank you Kurt Krauss and Steve.

This would have been record time for me on a Thursday, had it not been for two silly errors and another one that should have been seen.

The silly errors ?

INANE somehow morphed to aNANE with MaLE as league division.

Didn't know ABOU, and needed that U to fill out APERCU. The clue "outline" threw me off, and I just didn't think of APERCU even though it was staring me in the face. To me, it is about having the ability to quickly grasp complex material or make understanding of nebulous concepts. I've had leaders that had great business apercu, and a couple of bosses that were clueless. Maybe that's the difference between a leader and a boss ?

SHS (should have sussed) ? Didn't know Roy Rogers birth name, but should have seen EYRE with E_RE and the clue.

I think it was having that sense that this was going to be the fastest ever Thursday that led to the errors. That's my story.


Steve, hand up for first reading way before away.

Also, my place to see crawls was initially Pubs. Pub crawls were once a craze along the commuter rail lines here. Still might be for all I know.

HowardW said...

No circles, but no problems. And it was fun to guess where the circles were located after the reveal. I only looked for them in the long answers, though, so missed the short ones in the NE & SW corners. This one was a speed run, only SLYE was unknown. Liked the CIA/SPY connection, and "hit or miss" as a clue for VERB. Happy to see the RED SOX cluing -- and I agree with Steve's sentiment. Shame they've done so poorly the past couple of years, though.

Very enjoyable puzzle from Kurt. Thanks for the great writeup, Steve. Especially liked the Jeeves & Wooster link.

Montana said...

I almost solved a Thursday puzzle.
I got the theme right away and it helped a lot, but the 'U' in abou and aperçu did me in. So, a DNF. There'll always be another Thursday puzzle.

Have a nice Thursday,

Montana

Big Easy said...

When I started with a blank 1A and PUSH (blackjack) for WASH, the NW gave me fits and it didn't help the middle filling STONE before STOLEN BASE worked its way onto the paper. 'Calder', were 'Fauvist movement' drew blanks but MATISSE seemed a reasonable guess after the down clues but MOBILE was all perps. The ON TV drove me crazy because I was sure EVE was correct.

The U cross of ABOU and APERCU was a lucky guess, as I had seen them before but didn't really know them. 37D-'Hit or miss'- no way I would have ever solved it if I hadn't already filled MIXED VEGETABLES. After struggling with the top, the bottom filled rapidly until I came to 62A and had written OING_ and DS_S; figured it had to be a vowel and luckily I wrote O.

As for filling the theme answer early, it really didn't help with the agrarian clues.

SPORTS CARS- by the time you're old enough to afford one, you don't want it because they are uncomfortable to sit in or get out of. Almost 40 years ago my next-door neighbor had two LAMBORGHINIS and a Triumph Stag, and when you got in you felt like you were almost laying of your back. But every time he parked them, women would be hanging around.

Gotta go- 9am Tee time

HowardW said...

Big Easy -
The ladies liked the Triumph because it showed that the owner had a hart.

thehondohurricane said...


Found the cluing today to be pretty vague or misdirected which led to a DNF. I was thinking 29A was ABOU, but no way could 10D be APERCU so I left the square for the U blank. Meant to come back to, but simply forgot. I was wavering between a U & an H.

One would think the SFPDS has other ranks then LTS. Got it, but did't like the cluing.

No circles, no theme recognition, not that either would have made a difference.

Took a while for STOLEN BASE to appear. I kept thinking of a heist. I'm guessing OINGO BOINGO is a rock group? Never knew of them, heard them, or care to.

Inspite of my bitching, I did enjoy the puzzle. It was a pleasant challenge, albeit unfinished.

Least favorite clue/fill was 46D RED Sucks.

kazie said...

Actually, aperçu, with or without appropriate agreement endings (e,s,or es), is the past participle of the French verb apercevoir = to perceive. I've never heard of the English usage referred to here. I guess if an outline just gives a metaphorical glimpse of the whole item, it would work. Being familiar with the French probably helped me more than the perps here.

On the whole I liked this puzzle, though I had to wag a lot of the sports clues and my last to fall was also the middle north section. I guess I was unaware of the length of a league, and always thought it was a nautical measure.

Jazzbumpa said...

Hi Gang -

Puzzles with circles are not my favorite and anagrams are not my forte. Also have some nits with the cluing, so this was a bit of a slog. "Diamond heist" is very good, though.

Sussed all the veggies, and that helped. The long theme fill also came rather easily.

Didn't realize I too had misread "Rub the wrong away" until Hatoolah pointed it out.

Upper middle was nip and tuck. Never heard of that CALDER. The CALDER Cup is the championship trophy of the American Hockey League.

"U" seemed the most likely ending for ABO_, and that swag got me APERCU, which then looked right, but I have no idea why.

Steve - love the write up. And who else would have come up with that brilliant Jeeves and Bertie clip? My dad clued me into Wodehouse when I was in high school.

Cool regards!
JzB

Irish Miss said...

Good Morning:

This was pretty straightforward for a Thursday and With strong perps, I had no problems with the solve. Guessed Bingo for Oingo, but was soon corrected. No problems with Abou or aperçu. Hand up for wrong way instead of away. Our eyes really do play tricks on us.

Thanks, KK, for a romp through the vegetable garden, and thanks, Steve, for your food-for-thought expo.

We have a cold, windy, dreary day but, at least, no white stuff!

HG, are you getting any storms?

Have a great day.

Husker Gary said...

Musings
-Theme came easily and I thought how appropriate for Steve to blog. I can’t imagine how circle-less friends would get the theme without the reveal
-apercU/aboU cost me a bad cell. I went with an E
-Is this really the best strategy for WISPS of hair?
-I wonder if Sam Waterston ever got asked for legal advice because he played McCoy ON TV
-Dozens also threw their COIN into the world’s most famous fountain when I did
-This TV show proved REPO guys had to be formidable
-Where the line between AMASSing and hoarding?
-If only the orange RIND came off like a banana’s
-How ‘bout this RENT for 1,559 sq. ft. on Venice Beach?
-A WASH – Summer shade from my neighbor’s tree, mulching those leaves in the fall
-My golf PAL now has a girlfriend and will spend the winter in Texas with her
-Dirty Harry made INSP. not LT.
-Does anyone else here speak TEXT rather than type it when possible?
-I wonder if the incompetents who send the Light Brigade to their deaths got a D.S.O.

Husker Gary said...

Musings 2
-IM, we got an inch and a half of rain with 45 mph winds and a little sleet. Many around us did worse with hail and tornadoes.
-This forecast shows there still some golf weather coming.
-Steve posed a question in his great write-up about literary nannies and Owen knocked it out of the park with a wonderful limerick.
-Für Elise - Here is our 10-year-old Elise as a “50’s girl for Halloween” this year!

Lucina said...

Hello, friends!

A big thank you to Kurt and Steve! Lovely work from both.

The theme reveal provided me with just the right information to unscramble the circled letters. Fun! But I had problems in the center north and with EN inside the circles, realized that BEANS had to be the missing veggie so BASE emerged; TV never did, thanks, Steve.

Loved the clues for RENT as well as VERB.

It was all fun.

Have a gorgeous day, everyone!

Nice Cuppa said...

I enjoyed that veggie stew,

but cannot perceive Aperçu as a "Brief Outline". For me, it's related to wit, puns, and repartee, rather than a précis.

My dictionary defines it as "A comment or brief reference which makes an illuminating or entertaining point".

Anonymous said...

Thought this was a fair Thursday, saw leeks and filled mixedvegetables without a problem. But then KNEW 46D was GIANTS which messed up SE for far too long.

Dudley said...

Hello Puzzlers -

Well, there's a perfectly good morning gone for good. Oh, the puzzle was fine and all, but I couldn't stop giggling at Steve's Jeeves & Wooster link, and ere long the missus and I had spent at least an hour watching more clips on YouTube. It was worth it! Besides, the morning really isn't perfectly good, in fact it's dreary out.

Hand up for not knowing that use of Aperçu. Like Kazie I took the word to be a past tense of a verb (though I wouldn't have known it was a past particle) so I just filled it in and moved on. Smiled right out loud when Carrots got descrambler from Sports Car!

Misty said...

I was so excited that I got this Thursday toughie, until I came to the blog and discovered I had CENT for "Cost of living" instead of RENT. That would be a pretty cheap cost of living, wouldn't it? But otherwise this was a fun challenge. I had to work my way up slowly from the bottom, and enjoyed watching those veggies emerge in the clues as I moved along. I had gotten the TABLES before I got the VEGE-TABLES, and it was a relief to have that clarified. Anyway, lots of fun and many thanks, Kurt. And I especially liked seeing that bit of Tennyson, Steve.

Have a great day, everybody!

AnonymousPVX said...

I thought this a pretty easy go through, but I've been on the other side of this as well. "Ones man's ceiling is another man's floor" so to speak.
Nicely clued and very appropriate for a Thursday.
I had the circles but forgot about them until I got here.

Jayce said...

Wow, you folks are so literate; you described your experiences with this puzzle better than I could, although my opinions are mostly the same as yours. So WEES.
No circles here, so I missed out on that aspect.
Re cutting the cord: although we get most of what we want to watch ON TV from our rooftop antenna, there definitely are some shows we want to see but can't. These include some of the SHO offerings, for example. However, we do not regret being unable the watch the "debates" on Fox News and CNBC.
Why is it our taxes need to be repeatedly raised to pay for projects that supposedly were to have been paid for by the last tax increase?
Anonymous-T, thank you for saying what you did last night about taking care of our vets after they are discharged from active service. We are lucky to have a Congresswoman who actually does care about things like that. But she's just one person.
Best wishes to you all.

Yellowrocks said...

In my youth I memorized Abou Ben Ahem.

ABOU BEN ADHEM by James Henry Leigh Hunt
Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!)
Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,
And saw, within the moonlight in his room,
Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom,
An angel writing in a book of gold:—
Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold,
And to the Presence in the room he said
"What writest thou?"—The vision raised its head,
And with a look made of all sweet accord,
Answered "The names of those who love the Lord."
"And is mine one?" said Abou. "Nay, not so,"
Replied the angel. Abou spoke more low,
But cheerly still, and said "I pray thee, then,
Write me as one that loves his fellow men."

The angel wrote, and vanished. The next night
It came again with a great wakening light,
And showed the names whom love of God had blessed,
And lo! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest.

Yellowrocks said...

I recognized the theme of this lovely puzzle early on. I didn't need the circles to find the answers. Thanks, Kurt and Steve, for a fun x-word, just right for a Thursday.
I loved the clue for STOLEN BASES.
APERCU has many meanings, including the one given in the puzzle. Although I knew several meanings for this one, I frequently come across additional meanings for words I know. How exciting to make new acquaintances or to see another side of an old friend!
It was nice to see APES clued as beasts instead of the all too common copy-cats.
I think in Lit. class we learned that EYRE is pronounced like AIR. My research seems to bear that out.

CrossEyedDave said...

Wees, DNF.

I got the theme ok, but wound up with some blanks around the name fill.

Apercu/Abou
Amie/Matesse (spelt Matisse wrong:(
& thought a league faction was a"side"...

It's better when you can choose your vegetables...

(But choose wisely...)

Steve, I usually avoided Oranges as being too hard to peel, until I tried making these!

Another Anon said...

Thank you, YellowRocks for that poem, that I had heard long ago - but the message still resounds just as strong. Reminds me of Clear Ayes. (r.i.p.)

Thank you Steve for the charming blog and Jeeves. Apercu is a new word for me. I think it is very unfair for DSO's or any other military honor to be reserved for senior officers only. A life is a life.

HowardW said...

Yellowrocks -
I've always pronounced Eyre as "air", and that seems to be most common. However, in chapter eleven, when Jane meets her French-speaking charge Adela, there is the following exchange:
"And Mademoiselle — what is your name?"
"Eyre — Jane Eyre."
"Aire? Bah! I cannot say it."
...which isn't consistent with pronouncing it as "air"; it wouldn't be strange to a Francophone. E.g, there's the French expression "en plein air" (meaning in the open air) with the same sound. Perhaps "eye-er"?

Tinbeni said...

Steve: Nice write-up and informative links. Good Job!

WOW !!! What a Rorschacth Ink-Blot test. (I think it looks like a Bat).
I won't go into every write-over ... I count 13 of them. Jeez, what a mess!

Husker: Thanks for the ELISE photo ... and telling me "How to remember her name."

Fave today was remembering that Willie MAYS was # 5 on the all-time Home Run list.

It is wonderful being back in the 21st Century now that my WiFi is back up after 36 hours without ...

Suffering with a cloudless Blue Sky and only 84 degree "Perfect" day.
Cheers!

CanadianEh! said...

Fun visit to the vegetable patch today. Thanks Kurt and Steve.

Hand up for Core before RIND, Hoard before AMASS, and reading the clue as wrong way before away.
Also had Nays before NOES. Had to wait to see if X or Y AXES.

I did know APERCU but have never heard of OINGO Boingo.

Interesting discussion about pronunciation of EYRE. I am familiar with Air.

Windy day here. Have a great one.

PK said...

Hi Y'all! Good one, Kurt, but a little bland. Great, Steve, my reactions were much the same as yours.

Without the circles, I managed to "pick" all the vegetables except the LEEKS. There is CORN in that thar' clue.

Never heard of APERCU and mistrusted the fact that a "U" didn't turn red. OINGO? Whasat?

Smeltery waste wasn't "slag" but DROSS. I did a walk-through interview & subsequent story about a "smeltery" a/k/a "foundry". Same thing? Came out covered with fine black powdery grit and coughed it up for days.

Didn't know a league had MILEs. I finally thought of "40,000 leagues under the sea", but fathom didn't fit.

Someone gave me graphic renditions of the classics (comic books) when I was a kid. One was "Beau GESTE". Who knew that would help me solve a cw in my old age?

Very windy here. Blew away most of my leaves that were on the ground except for a foot deep drift on the north side of the house. Left enough downed limbs to supply me with kindling for the winter - if I burned wood, which I don't. The neighbor with the big sycamore had about a foot-deep covering of dinner-plate-sized leaves on her front lawn. I was hoping they wouldn't end up in my yard as usual. By evening, her yard had blown almost bare of leaves. Can't see where they went. Such a surprise. Hope they aren't packed into the little "canyon" on the east side of my house.



desper-otto said...

PK, it was actually 20,000 Leagues. I guess that's proof that in hindsight, we remember things as being longer than they actually were.

Anonymous said...

43 down was a problem, then remembered "all that blood and gore," "they are too gory," etc.

Yellowrocks said...

Jane Eyre was published in London, not France. The French pronunciation is not necessarily the one to be used. In this YouTube trailer it sounds like AIR to me. Please click on the fourth choice.
Link Eyre pronunciation

Jayce said...

Tonight LW and I are going to watch PBS: Midsomer Murders (which she likes but I sleep through) and another police procedural called Shetland (which I like.) We have to turn on Closed Captioning to know what they are saying.

PK said...

D-O: I always get in too deep with things. LOL! Thanks for the correction.

Anonymous T said...

Hi all!

This was a fun puzzle that I had a only a few problems w/ but still BEETS me in the end. Thanks Kurt for the diversion and thanks Steve for correcting my E to a U (and of course your witty write-up).

I got the them as soon as I entered TEXT w/ 22&39d already in place. I looked up at the circles to confirm (yep, LEEKS) and entered 35a. I got STOLEN BASE (great c/a pair) w/ only S__LE.

ESPs - 31a, 43d, 55d and 10d. Like HG, I guessed an E. FIW.

I once read a book w/ magic 7 League Boots in it - I guess that sounds cooler than 21 MILE loafers.

Fav: c/a for STOLEN BASE

CED - Loved VEGETABLE wind farm.

You may not know OINGO Boingo, but you've probably heard them in Weird Science and other 80's movies (they still make music for movies).

Steve - GORE is controversial because we don't talk politics on C.C.'s blog :-)

HG - AMASS v. hoard. It's your stuff; it's their s*** (Carlin @2:09)

Cheers, -T

Anonymous T said...

Wow - the Interwebs are amazing. I Googled 7-League Boots and found it was Ruth Chew's What the Witch Left. I must have been 7 or 8 when I read that. I didn't know the origin though. C, -T

Another Anon said...


PK and Desper-Otto ... as regards, the '20,000 leagues under the sea' , I recently read an explanation of a statistic that we rarely even think of, or question. ... BTW, One league = 3.45234 miles.

20,000 leagues under the sea ---- would be equivalent to ~ about ~ 70,000 miles under the sea - which is deeper than the deepest ocean trench. Even in those days, when Jules Verne wrote the novel, this fact was very well known.

The deeepst pt. in the world's oceans, the Sirena deep, in the Mariana Trench, is only 35,400 FEET deep.

So 70,000 miles is an impossibility.

Mt. Everest in only 29,000 feet above sea level, give or take one percent ~ 290 ft.

The explanation is that the 20,000 leagues is not the depth of the submarine dive ...OR ... of its location, under the sea level - but the horizontal distance that it had - or had to ( in the futre - ) travel in its journey. That is certainly possible ---- given enough power.

An Anon said...

The actual diameter of the Planet Earth is ONLY 7920. miles. So, 70,000 miles under the sea would be through the earth and halfway to the moon. ;-D)

Anonymous T said...

So it's only 2,300 leagues under the sea and we find ourselves in a submarine atop a skyscraper in Dubai? That's a brave squid for sure :-) C, -T

Abejo said...

Good evening, folks. Thank you, Kurt Krauss, for a fine puzzle. Thank you, Steve, for a fine review.

Got to San Jose, OK. Having fun with the group. Now I am ready for bed.

Worked on the puzzle off and on and finally finished it. Was tougher than usual for a Thursday.

Enjoyed the theme. I did have the circles on my IPad.

Steve: I thought Roy Rogers was Leonard Slye.

APERÇU took a while to get. As did ELIN.

MILE was not easy. I was also looking at sports.

Liked SKELETON CREW. Took me a while to get that one.

I am tired with a two hour time difference, good night.

Abejo

( )

Magilla Go-Rilla said...

33D: Actually it's Leonard Franklin Slye.