Theme: No Standing - Sit anywhere.
20A. *Mattress support : BOX SPRING. Box Seats.
39A. *Light, friendly punch : LOVE TAP. Love Seats.
56A. Spots for airline magazines ... and, literally, what the first words of the answers to starred clues can all have : SEATBACKS
11D. *Wishful lifetime agenda : BUCKET LIST. Bucket Seats.
27D. *Slapstick slipping cause : BANANA PEEL. Banana Seats.
Argyle here. One problem I anticipate is certain anons will have a nit field day.
Across:
1. Potato bag : SACK
5. Rod in a grill : SPIT
9. Macaroni shape : ELBOW
14. Vintage soda : NEHI
15. Chisholm Trail city : WACO
16. Red, in roulette : ROUGE
17. Mine extracts : OREs
18. Club used for chipping : IRON
19. Capital of Ghana : ACCRA
22. Spoken for : TAKEN
23. Skinny fish : EELs
24. Quick message : NOTE
25. Blue Ribbon beer : PABST
28. Palm Pilot, e.g., briefly : PDA. (personal data assistant)
30. Carve in stone : ETCH
33. Attributive menu words : À LA
34. Parisian partings : ADIEUs
37. Leave rolling in the aisles : SLAY
38. Sermon topic : SIN
41. Sitter's handful : IMP or 63A. Sitter's handful : BRAT
42. What some missiles seek : HEAT
44. Stevenson title doctor : JEKYLL
45. "I warned you!" : "SEE!"
46. Gothic fiction author Rice : ANNE. The Vampire Chronicles.
47. WWII espionage gp. : OSS. (Office of Strategic Services)
48. Bugs and Jags : AUTOS. Volkswagen and Jaguar Land Rover.
50. "Fire" bugs : ANTS. Fire ants.
52. Bourgogne and Chablis : VINs. French spelling of regional wines.
54. Longstocking of kiddie lit : PIPPI. Another red-headed girl but not like Anne of Green Gables.
61. NBA great Shaquille : O'NEAL
62. Footnote "p" : PAGE
64. Modern mil. treaty violation : N-TEST
65. Egg cell : OVUM
66. Humdinger : LULU
67. Knuckleheads : DOLTS
68. Short- or long-sleeved tops : TEEs
69. Marked, as a ballot : EXed
Down:
1. Stereotypical "Dahling!" speaker : SNOB
2. Flight-related prefix : AERO
3. General Mills brand : CHEX
4. Affectionate greetings : KISSES. Air kisses, Dahling.
5. Marble cake pattern : SWIRL
6. Capital on the Seine : PARIS
7. Pic to click : ICON
8. Grab from the grill, as a hot dog : TONG
9. Poetry Muse : ERATO
10. Tracks down : LOCATES
12. Storybook brute : OGRE
13. Withdraw gradually : WEAN
21. "He loves me" piece : PETAL
24. Sounding like one has a cold : NASAL
25. Old Turkish title : PASHA
26. Otherworldly : ALIEN
28. Sneaks a look : PEEKS
29. Obligation : DUTY
31. Typical Hitchcock role : CAMEO
32. Publicizes aggressively : HYPEs
35. Martial arts schools : DOJOs
36. Currier's colleague : IVES. Millard Fillmore's?
40. Backup strategy : PLAN B
43. When the big hand is on two : TEN PAST
49. In working order : USABLE
51. Leans slightly : TILTS
52. Beating around the bush : VAGUE
53. Agenda bullets : ITEMS
54. Common koi habitat : POND
55. Look __: investigate : INTO
56. Washday woe : SPOT
57. Nesting site, perhaps : EAVE
58. Essence : CRUX
59. Leafy veggie baked for chips : KALE. Baby Blues/Rick Kirkman and Jerry Scott/Jan. 10, 2016
60. Gym specimen : STUD. How to find a stud.
Argyle
They say Susie's heart is an affection trap,
ReplyDeleteShe absorbs all amour from across the map.
She deems it her DUTY
To give out that booty,
She pours it like PABST from her heart's LOVE TAP!
The kid was an IMP, a noxious rat.
A distillation of the CRUX of "BRAT"!
PIPPI, the fixer,
Gave him an elixir,
Changed him from Hyde to JEKYLL, just like that!
Morning, all!
ReplyDeleteI found this to be a bit harder than a normal Monday, but not too bad overall. Except that I had had a complete mental malfunction at the crossing of PAGE and VAGUE and simply couldn't come up with either one. With VA_UE in place, I could only think of VALUE, despite the fact that it didn't match the clue, and I kept thinking the Footnote "p" referred to "postscript" or some Latin term you might find in a footnote (ibid or the like). I finally had to run the alphabet through my head until I came up with VAGUE, and then I had my light bulb moment.
Greetings!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Gail, Bruce and Santa!
Agree with Barry. Chewy for a Monday. But all worked out in the end.
Have been free-reading all of the Agatha Raisin mystery stories by M. C. Beaton. Lots of fun.
Cheers!
Liked the Sitter' s Handful clecho and the juxtaposition of KALE and STUD. Gail and Bruce continue to produce quality puzzles though I never really thought of TONG as a stand alone verb.
ReplyDeleteThanks Argyle
Fun CW, thanks Gail and Bruce! 2 minutes longer than my usual Monday time, same reasons mentioned by Barry and Lemonade. Thanks for the nice write-up, Argyle! Thanks for the fun limericks, Owen!
ReplyDeleteGood morning!
ReplyDeleteStill posting from XP-land, but I'm going to try to get connected to my blogger account and post "blue."
Nice puzzle. Tried DEBT before DUTY, but ADIEUS set me straight. Otherwise, no problems. Thanks Gail, Bruce and Argyle.
Why is it a banana PEEL, orange RIND and potato SKIN? Why can't we standardize on a single word to denote outer fruit/vegetable covering?
Busy day...lotsa passwords to change today.
Good Morning:
ReplyDeleteHand up for finding a little crunchiness for a Monday. Had pool before pond and misspelled Jekyll at first, but all fell into place.
Thanks, B and G, for your never-disappointing offerings, and thanks, Argyle, for your witty take on the world in general and our Corner, in particular.
CED, a belated thank you for yesterday's links; they were quite funny and certainly apropos ! 🤗
Have a great day.
Good Morning, Argyle and friends. Tough Monday puzzle. It took more than my usual Monday one pass. I got the SEATS easily, however.
ReplyDeleteSeveral Louisiana references today ~ ANNE Rice (b. 1941) is from Louisiana. Shaquille O'NEAL (b. 1972) was an LSU basketball player and an LSU grad. The capital of the state is Baton ROUGE, where today's inauguration of the new governor will take place. (And for state employees who work in the capital city, today is a holiday.) Also, there are lots of Fire ANTS in my neighborhood. Don't go barefoot in the backyard!
Julia Child (1912 ~ 2004) served in the OSS.
I love Trader Joe's ELBOW Mac and Cheese.
There is a lot more to WACO than what one hears in the news.
QOD: There will never be a new world order until women are a part of it. ~ Alice Paul (Jan. 11, 1885 ~ July 9, 1977)
Creative puzzle - I always like it when themes are vertical and horizontal. Only hold up - I had LOVE PAT instead of LOVE TAP, but perps changed it around. I've never heard of of a LOVE TAP before so learning moment of the day.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Argyle, Gail and Bruce!
I failed at theme recognition but had a great time anyway!
ReplyDeleteMusings
-Is there a more worthless and less used skill we all sweated over than formatting footnotes. Word makes it much easier.
-The BANANA Seat was the “must have” of my girls’ childhood
-Remember the SACK dress? Yuck. Here’s a SACK potato dress or potato SACK dress.
-Don’t you hate telling people “TAKEN”, when you’re saving seats
-I watched 20 min. of Larry The Cable Guy on YouTube last week and despite trying to resist, his crude humor did SLAY me
-Today’s missiles are more likely GPS seeking
-It only takes a few minutes to see which way a news network TILTS
-Off to get a haircut
"Puzzling Thoughts":
ReplyDeleteLike Barry G, my final fill was the SPOT/PAGE/VAGUE intersection in the "Deep South" of the puzzle - most everything fit fine and today's offering by Gail and Bruce was very doable while being just a tad tougher than most Mondays. I kept trying to think of a "theme", and was avoiding looking at clue 56a (the reveal) until perps filled in most of it. 28a clue/answer ... I know that the acronym PDA has another meaning, too. And while I don't want to step our "resident" poetry "muse's" toes (Owen), but I'll be a BRAT and post it anyway! Hope you like it:
"My new boyfriend", she said with aplomb,
"Likes to text all the time; can't keep calm!"
But if I had my way
He'd use his PDA
To just once have MY palm in his palm!
Good morning everyone.
ReplyDeleteWBS. Agree with Barry about VAGUE. Merriam Webster is VAGUE about including the sense of "beating around the bush". Maybe VAGUE deserves a vague clue.
AAG! A Monday DNF. I put in my last letter expecting the TADA and nothing. Total review revealed no inkling of where I had gone wrong so I resorted to red letters. Turns out I had dojAs instead of DOJOS and the cross of ASS vs OSS was unknown to me.
ReplyDeleteI got the theme and actually thought that there was a double use of SEAT and BACK. Did anybody else see Spring Back, Tap Back, BackList, and Peel Back as being part of the theme (although not consistent)??
I had Pool before POND and Oner before LULU. I also thought of Air kisses for 4D.
Waiting for a photo for 60D!
Enjoyed the Canadian content (MOWAT, Anne of Green Gables, CANOE) from yesterday's puzzle but finished too late to comment.
Have a great day!
ReplyDeleteNot a bad puzzle for a Monday. I didn't really get the theme until Argyle pointed it out, but then again, I rarely get the the theme.
I went through the puzzle rather quickly with a few blanks, but not like Friday.
Perps were very useful today.
I remember the beverages in the puzzle from my earlier days. It was always a treat to get a NEHI bottle of pop (not soda) when I was a kid. Remember Radar O'Rielly on "M*A*S*H" drinking Grape Nehi. Although I was too young for the other one, I remember the the slogan/jingle of "What'll you have" - "Pabst Blue Ribbon" on TV Ads. A little bit of nostalgia.
Looks like snow is coming to the NE, so the skiers will be happy.
Enjoy your day.
Clever, crunchy Monday puzzle today. Thanks Gail and Bruce, and Argyle for walking us through it. I had no real problems, and no nits!
ReplyDeleteOwen, the poems were fun, too. Thanks!
Hahtoolah, I also noticed the local entries, although Shaq seems to belong to the world now, including the crossword world!
I'm sure you saw that the Bonnet Carre Spillway was opened yesterday (to relieve the Mississippi River swollen by heavy rains, for those who don't follow such things.). Does this have an impact where you are? We down south of it are pleased, of course, but it causes as many problems as it solves.
Argyle: Nice write-up. Enjoyed the Hitchcock CAMEO from The Birds.
ReplyDeleteGail & Bruce: Thank You for a FUN Monday puzzle. Enjoyed the SEAT-BACKS theme.
Well, if you aren't going to have some booze in the grid, I guess Radar's NEHI is a close second.
A couple of write-overs ... @13-d, Withdraw gradually, had "wane" before WEAN, and @ 29-d, Obligation, had debt before DUTY.
All-In-All an enjoyable solving experience.
Cheers
PS Husker (from Saturday) you were correct 63.376 years, or 23,148.15 days.
Thanks Gail and Bruce for a fun Monday puzzle with just a little bit of crunch, no unknowns. Argyle,thanks for your always informative contribution.
ReplyDeleteI remember the old Pabst Blue Ribbon commercials. Nehi was not popular where I lived. Anywhere I have ever lived the word SODA was used instead of POP.
Hatoolah, nice to hear from you. Thanks for the WACO article. You are right, all we everhear about from WACO is the whacko doings of certain people
TONG used as a verb is another one of those words used more in writng than in speech.
Some times people deliberately beat around the bush to hedge with a VAGUE answer instead of a giving a perhaps unpalatable specific one.
A more universal word would be PEEL: potato peel, banana peel, orange peel, apple peel.
Off for another medical appointment. Alan came home yesterday and is now an outpatient. The merry-go-round keeps spinning.
Ditto on Tong, felt weird...
ReplyDeleteSeatbacks?
(Well, what do you think of at the word "seatbacks?")
Hmm, this may take a while. Every Hitchcock cameo...
Hello, friends!
ReplyDeleteThank you, Gail and Bruce, for a fast, easy start to Monday. I sashayed as quickly as I could write and finished in regular Monday time. Had to write over WINE for VINS and USEFUL/USABLE as well as CAVE/EAVE. There is always a moment of doubt when two consonants fill side by side, NTEST, e.g. but of course it worked out.
Thank you, Argyle, for putting it all into perspective.
Hahtoolah, it's wonderful to see you again.
Have a delightful day, everyone!
CanadianEh!,
ReplyDeleteSince you're looking for a 60D, I went back and put one in, just for you.
Fun puzzle. Didn't quite get the theme, even revealed, but it doesn't matter because it was fun anyway. Hand up for filling the VAGUE/PAGE area last.
ReplyDeleteThat washday woe was a big woe for Lady MacBeth!
I guess you all have already heard the "NEHI to a grasshopper" expression a million times.
I guess there are other shapes of macaroni besides ELBOW. After your comment, Hahtoolah, I'm gonna look for it at Trader Joe's.
Loved that Baby Blues comic, Argyle. Thanks for posting it. By the way, I don't like KALE no matter how it is prepared.
TEN AFTER wouldn't fit in the space for TEN PAST.
Lucina, agreed on words like NTEST.
Best wishes to you all.
I always enjoy Gail and Bruce puzzles, and this one was a Monday delight. Many thanks, you two, and great pics and comments this morning, Argyle.
ReplyDeleteI too always associate NEHI with Radar O'Reilley on M.A.S.H.
Have a great week, everybody!
Like Barry G said. Hands up for the L when I didn't get the TADA I did letters in my head and the G hit me.
ReplyDeleteLove Anne Rices writing.
Misty I thought of Radar also, his preferred drink in the bar was grape Nehi ~!~!
Hello Everyone, A Monday puzzle with a few problems here and there. Hands up for the Vague/Page crossing. I wasn't sure what red was called in roulette, but rouge finally fell into place with ogre. Spot didn't come right away, either.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Lucina about two consonants coming together, never quite sure if it is correct. Today's puzzle wasn't as easy as most Monday's, but fun, and I didn't need to go to Google for help.
We have three kinds of kale planted in our winter garden. I've found about 15 recipes so I can use it before the bugs get it. Kale cooked with garlic, kale cooked with bacon and onion, and kale salads are our favorites. We've always liked greens, so kale is new one for us to try. Sorry Jayce, I guess our kale would be like zucchini if it were left on your porch--unwelcome!
Have a great day, everyone.
Chickie, good point about zucchini. We and our neighbors used to grow it, and none of us could give it away! Left unpicked, those suckers can get huge enough and tough enough to carve into a CANOE!
ReplyDeleteI am supposed to be cleaning out the basement,
ReplyDeletewhich means more links for you guys...
What's in your boxspring?
Come to think of it, what's in my boxspring?
Love tap? (I don't get it...)
My bucket list...
& I fail to see what is so funny about a banana peel!
Re 68A: T-shirts by definition have short sleeves (unless you're using one of Yellowrocks' dictionaries).
ReplyDeleteMonday, Monday, you make me feel smart. I didn't know how to spell JEKelE/JEKYLL and treE/EAVE, it was pretty easy. Thanks, Gail, Bruce and Argyle.
ReplyDeleteI have a winning Power Ball ticket! I matched one number and the Power Ball so my $2 ticket will pay $4. I will buy more tickets, so when I win my share of the $1.4B I will remember all my friends here. This should be as sure a deal as the Nigerian prince's deal and other email offers.
Have a nice evening and stay warm.
Pat
RIP David Bowie. The world has lost an enormous talent.
ReplyDeleteFrom his last album, just released on Friday: Lazarus
Argyle@11:32
ReplyDeletePshaw on your stud picture. The clue clearly says GYM specimen, but in the walls?
ANON @ 2:44, long sleeved T shirts did raise an eyebrow for me. I checked Internet shopping, not dictionaries, and found many sleeveless, short sleeved and long sleeved T shirts. The merchandisers are in the know! Short sleeved, of course, are the most common. Sometimes T shirts are called tee shirts.
ReplyDeleteAfter your goading I checked the dictionaries. The most common definitions mention short sleeves, but others mention sleeveless or long sleeved.
Many questions here on the corner can be answered by Internet shopping.
Hello Puzzlers -
ReplyDeleteA bit late to the dance. I'm at another aviation technical school in Mobile, Alabama. Hi there Hatoolah, we're almost neighbors for now!
What Lemon said about Tong as a verb. Nice to have a Monday with a bit more challenge, though.
There is an interesting mix of folks in my class here in Mobile. One memorable one is a delightful young woman of 28 who is preparing to take an around the world solo trip in a light aircraft; it's part of a larger effort to bring more women into aviation, a pursuit that has been woefully imbalanced since it was invented. She's an engaging ambassador.
If there was ever a Final Jeopardy for C.C., it was today!
ReplyDeletegmail me if you want the answer!
Dudley,
ReplyDeleteInteresting effort to bring more women into aviation ...and one I sincerely support. I do understand the situation.
However, reading your post made me think immediately of Amelia Earhart and Anne Morrow Lindbergh...both early aviation pioneers. I'll be interested to hear more of your young solo flight ambassador!
Thanks for telling us about this.
Argyle- LOL!
ReplyDeleteAgree with Lucina @3:37
Hi All!
ReplyDeleteFun easy Monday w/ WEES in the S. Central. Thanks Gail & Bruce. Thanks Argyle. I enjoyed the KALE comic & the STUD pic.
W/os: wINe b/f VINS, JEKYLe b/f PLAN B, and ADeaUS (I knew there were lots of vowels in there - which ones & where? :))
Didn't know if 3D was going to be CHEX or Trix - perp-wait.
Hatoolah - Loved your LA expo for the puzzle.
We have Fire ANTS too; they were responsible for electrical problems at the proposed Waxahachie (north of WACO)super-collider. Congress killed it off in the 90s :-(
CED - I can check off #7 from my BUCKET LIST. I did that at an ATM in Vegas. The guy behind me almost hit the floor laughing.
A great talent TAKEN from us... RIP Bowie.
Cheers, -T
Re peels, I knew about Leach, but not Blondin.
ReplyDeleteBTW, don't eat watermelon or pomegranate peels, but coconut peels, I don't know.
OKL - I always thought the BANANA PEEL was a prat more than a real threat. (I actually tried once in the kitchen... Nothing happened). Death didn't cross my mind.
ReplyDeleteTIN - No booze? Did you not have a PABST nor a glass of VIN? That's a SIN.
CED - I like the VIN-box water-bed. Talk about a LOVE TAP :-)
I made beef stroganoff for dinner w/ the left over T-Bones (they were frozen for a week) and left over roast. I boiled the bones down for my own beef broth. Darn it was good (but then again, how can you go wrong w/ wine & 1.5c sour-cream :-))
Bowie said Chris Hatfield's rendition of Space Oddity was the most poignant.
Cheers, -T
Good Tuesday morning, folks. Thank you, Gail Grabowski and Bruce Venzke, for a fine puzzle. Thank you, Argyle, for a fine review.
ReplyDeleteI was too busy on Monday to do this puzzle, so I did it Tuesday morning. Here I am.
Puzzle was no problem. No inkblots. Theme was fine. Made sense.
Had to wait for a few perps for ROUGE. Same for ACCRA.
I have had a few PABST's in my life. A long time ago I toured the brewery in Milwaukee.
Stepping on my own BANANA PEEL will never happen. I do not eat bananas.
Liked the Hitchcock CAMEO. I have seen that movie many years ago.
I even knew how to spell JEKYLL.
Have never had KALE chips. I will have to check that out. Sounds like a Whole Foods item. I really like that store.
Now, to go out and shovel my driveway. Maybe it has warmed up to 15 degrees.
See you tomorrow.
Abejo
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