Theme: Colorful Windmill - with the reveal at the hub.
40A. 1950s RCA innovation ... or this puzzle's four longest answers? : COLOR TV
17A. Albert/Gabor sitcom set on a farm : GREEN ACRES. CBS
11D. Sitcom for which Candice Bergen won five Emmys : MURPHY BROWN. CBS
59A. Tom Selleck police series : BLUE BLOODS. CBS
25D. Drama in which Tatiana Maslany plays several clones : ORPHAN BLACK. BBC America
{Rabbit Rabbit} Argyle here. Jason has been HERE before. A neat start to the week and the month. It is a little odd that the color starts the Across themes and ends the Down themes. Is there a purpose?
Across:
1. Veggies in Mendel's experiments : PEAs
5. Wear away : ERODE
10. Key with five sharps: Abbr. : B MAJor
14. Apiece : EACH
15. Name of nearly 20 French kings : LOUIS
16. Deceptive scheme : RUSE
19. Spring flower : IRIS
20. Auction unit : LOT
21. Remain firm : STAND PAT
23. Chided : SCOLDED
27. Slangy affirmative : YEAH
28. Gives a hoot : CARES
29. Fingers in a lineup : IDs
32. Pictograph : GLYPH
35. Award for Tiger Woods or Roger Federer : ESPY. (short for Excellence in Sports Performance Yearly Award)
36. Con's early release : PAROLE
38. Spelling contest : BEE
39. High degree : NTH
41. Hwy., e.g. : RTE
42. Stat for Cy Young : ERA. (earned run average) lower is better.
43. Compensated (for) : ATONED
44. Thesaurus entry : WORD
45. Top 40 listings : SONGS
47. Solidify : GEL
48. "Space Oddity" singer David : BOWIE
49. Raised, as horses : BRED
51. Longed (for) : YEARNED
53. Amphitheater : COLISEUM
57. Jan. honoree : MLK. (Martin Luther King Jr.)
58. Garden of Eden exile : ADAM
64. Scalp parasites : LICE
65. Prefix with mural : INTRA
66. "Go back!" computer command : [UNDO]
67. Signs, as a contract : INKS
68. __ Tots : TATER
69. Thomas Hardy heroine : TESS
Down:
1. Pin for hanging : PEG
2. Organ associated with van Gogh : EAR
3. Crack pilot : ACE
4. Frankenstein creator : SHELLEY
5. Make wildly happy : ELATE
6. Legendary big bird : ROC
7. Belonging to us : OURS
8. Slimming-down strategy : DIET
9. Student's composition : ESSAY
10. Type of shower or gown : BRIDAL
12. Most populous continent : ASIA
13. In __: as a prank : JEST
18. Approving bobs : NODS
22. Israeli desert : NEGEV
23. Parts of acts : SCENES
24. Big name in recent Cuban history : CASTRO
26. Back-and-forth talk : DIALOG
30. Unmanned spy plane : DRONE
31. In a bad way : SORELY
33. "The Dick Van Dyke Show" surname : PETRIE. Rob Petrie, his wife Laura, and son Richie.
34. Listened to, as advice : HEEDED
36. Pan partner : POT. Pot and pan just sounds wrong.
37. Old Ford model : LTD. Etymology
40. They're tried in court : CASES
44. Get in one's reps : WORKOUT
46. Tony winner Tammy : GRIMES. Her daughter is Amanda Plummer.
48. Soccer sphere : BALL
50. __ card: payment method : DEBIT
52. Block : EMBAR
53. Colombian metropolis : CALI
54. Chief Norse god : ODIN
55. Bone near the radius : ULNA
56. Mixed-breed dog : MUTT
60. Before, poetically : ERE
61. United : ONE
62. Driller's deg. : DDS. (Doctor of Dental Surgery)
63. Palindromic call for help : S-O-S
Argyle
63 comments:
Good morning all.
Thank you Jason Mueller and Argyle.
Nice Monday puzzle.
That center area just begged to be filled first. There sat the reveal. First theme answer I filled was BLUE BLOODS. Thought for sure that I'd then see red and green, especially after the reveal.
Greetings!
Hare! Hare!
Fun puzzle, Jason! Great expo, Santa!
Easy peasy theme!
No problems.
Cheers!
Morning, all!
Easy, peasy Monday solve. It helped that I knew all of the theme shows and am old enough to remember who the PETRIES were. My only stumbling block today was COLISEUM, which I always think has at least one double letter somewhere. Perps to the rescue!
Good morning, folks. Thank you, Jason Mueller, for a fine puzzle. Thank you, Argyle, for a fine review.
Well, I was not sleeping real well, so I got up, made a cup of Earl Grey, and worked the puzzle. Went quickly.
Theme was easy. COLOR TV may have been invented in the 50's, but I am sure we did not have one until the 60's.
Not sure what a GLYPH is. I may look it up later.
COLISEUM was my last word, since I spelled it incorrectly the first pass.
Some of the best dogs are MUTTs.
Never heard of ORPHAN BLACK. Perps helped.
Never heard of MURPHY BROWN. Perps helped. I guess I don't get out much.
Easily got NEGEV.
I like the word EMBAR.
Anyhow, I will make another cup of Earl Grey and then think about going back to bed for an hour.
See you tomorrow.
Abejo
( )
Good Morning, Argyle and friends. Easy Monday puzzle ~ just right for easing into the work week. With GREEN ACRES, I guessed that the theme would be color related.
Davie BOWIE died earlier this year, just 2 days after his 69th birthday.
A nice shout out to Chickie with CALI.
New FAA regulations take effect later this month which governs the use of DRONES.
QOD: Constantly choosing the lesser of two evils is still choosing evil. ~ Jerry Garcia (Aug. 1, 1942 ~ Aug. 9, 1995)
I liked the balance of the two themeless across having the color come first and the two downs with the color last, made sense to me. I like a Monday pinwheel with the reveal in center. I think this gives the new solver a nice boost.
COLISEUM is derived from the Latin COLOSSEUM which has two sses so the the hesitation makes see, though I have seen it as coliseum enough.
White Rabbit, white rabbit
Good morning!
Thanks, Jason and Argyle. Despite my color-blindness I managed to get through this with only a single scathe: With the D in place, I went with DEBATE at first. Failed to read the entire reveal clue...again.
Years ago we made a side trip to Canyon De Chelly (pronounced "shay") in Arizona for a guided tour through the ancient petroGLYPHs. It was miles from anywhere, and the tours began early in the morning, so it required an overnight stay at the visitors' station. The canyon is a national monument today.
Learning moment #1: ESPY isn't named for some athlete.
Learning moment #2, because I was curious and looked it up: A coliseum (no cap C) is a building designed to look similar to the Colosseum (with cap C) in Rome. We've got a Colosseum Court in our town.
MUTT goes to the vet today to see if he's totally rehabilitated. He's gained about 8 pounds in the four weeks since we found him, and looks like a normal puppy now. If he gets a clean bill of health we can put him up for adoption. He's gonna be a big boy. He's rambunctious and needs to be with a family with kids and a fenced yard -- not with a couple of oldsters with no fence and cats.
Good Morning.
Thanks, Jason for a pleasant Monday start. Recalling the older shows was fun. My dad said we couldn't get a COLOR TV until they improved the quality. Apparently that was some time in the early 70's. I was already married, and we had our own! ;-o He liked watching it at our place!
Thanks, Argyle for today's tour and the COLORful fill.
Have a good day.
Pinch, Pinch ...
Argyle: Nice write-up & musical links. Good Job!
Jason: Thank You for a FUN colorful Monday puzzle speed-run.
Needed ESP to get the theme ORPHAN BLACK ... the others were gimmies.
Hope everyone has a great week.
Cheers!
Actually Cy Young retired ERE the ERA became an official statistic, though earned run averages have been computed retroactively.
Quick Monday romp with a few areas to fill with perps like EMBAR, a word I can intuit but don't think I've heard before.
We got our first color TV in the late sixties - it was a very small screen (due to the expense) but we were still enamored because of the color! Annual watching of Wizard of Oz was a whole new experience!
Thanks Argyle and Jason!
I liked that the Across fill had the color first and the Down fill had the color last. I never heard of Orphan Black, four perps and an easy wag to the rescue. The other theme entries I have seen many times in reruns. They never really go away.
DO,it seems most of us were thinking of the Colosseum in Rome, so we wanted the double S and O instead of I. Thanks for the explanation.
DO, you were kind to take the puppy and rehabilitate it.
We saw the fascinating glyphs at Lake Powell and Glen Canyon. It is so sad that many visitors deface these glyphs or add their own modern "glyphs" (graffiti).
Hahtoolah, thanks for the QOD: "Constantly choosing the lesser of two evils is still choosing evil." I would add to that thought. Not choosing the lesser of two evils is actually choosing the greater of two evils, because it wins by default.
"Not to decide is to decide." Reminds me of our Condo Assn. Dithering for years for fear of making a bad move is actually deciding for the status quo.
Easy today until I got to the cross of GLYPH and NEGEV, which I guessed wrong. We got our color TV because we saw Bonanza on one at a friend of my mom's house. We could receive only one channel, an NBC affiliate. I had to visit friends in town where cable was available to watch Wide World of Sports or American Bandstand.
Rabbit rabbit.
Easy and quick Monday. I liked the rotating colors. Thanks Jason and Argyle. Good to hear Peg o My Heart again.
Good morning everyone.
WEES. No strikethroughs or look-ups. Liked the theme. Don't know that the color positioning has any significance. They are: 2 front and 2 rear. 3 are five letter and 1 is four letter.
LICE is another word demonstrating English's Germanic roots by vowel shifting for the plural:
English: Louse - LICE
German: Laus - Läuse
Low German: Luus - Lüüs
A polite German speaker might use the term Einwohner (inhabitants).
Spitzboov, Lice/Louse made me think immediately of Mice/Mouse vowel shifting in German. Mäuse / Maus
We had LTD Sunday and today.
Inre: Yesterday's comments: What Percentage of Your Car Was Made in America ?
Hmm... DW's Camry seems to be more American-made than many models with American nameplates.
Further reading
TTP - Yes, I agree. I think we had mouse a short while back. Funny how German kept the vowel shift for house, but English lost it and simply adds (s), similarly to most nouns.
Canadian Eh. - Wanted to wish you a Happy Civic Day (Ontario) holiday.
Hi Y'all! Fun & fast, just like a Monday should be. Thanks, Jason! Thanks, Argyle! First time I ever really listened to all the words to Space Oddity other than "Ground Control to Major Tom". Ear worm du jour!
I tried ORPHAN Annie before BLACK. Never heard of ORPHAN BLACK. Hadn't figured out the theme yet when I got there.
EMBAR was all perps. Only problem besides the above.
I drove Ford LTD's for years. Had 1969, 1976, & 1983 models. The 1976 was pea green with a darker green top. Hated the color, but it was a big comfortable family car with 4 kids. The 1983 was a retired police car with a 400 engine and police package. That baby would take off like a scalded dog when I put my foot down. But a huge fat policeman had ruined the driver's seat. I was driving down the road and the seat back suddenly fell over backwards. Real let down feeling, I'll tell you. We had to put in new seats before I drove it again. My mechanic husband paid $750 for the car at local auction and was very proud of his purchase. I was humiliated. Got stranded with it more times than I can remember.
Rabbit, rabbit ears.
Bah! FIWrong on a Monday! Wasn't sure if COLƏSEUM was spelled with an O or U. Didn't matter, since neither was right.
{C}
Mendel was an ecologist before it was cool,
Decided that PEAS cross-BRED by some rule.
Had he worked this cross-WORD,
His result would be blurred --
The theme would have COLORed his PEA-GREEN gene pool!
TTP: my nieces husband works in a Kansas City Chevy/GMC plant. Several years ago they were making Chevy Malibus then were retooling for a Buick SUV. Can't remember what model. Haven't talked to him lately about it. Out in the boondocks where I used to live, Fords & GMC products were all that were available to buy locally. If you had something else, you had to drive one to three hours for repairs if the car could be moved. No local mechanics could work on other makes and parts weren't available. Tended to make us stick with those products.
TTP, I just looked at all 4 of our cars - 0< % made in America. There, I feel so relieved. Seriously. Sad, but business is business. You've got to earn my business the old fashioned way. Thats the way I survive, every day.
Hahtoolah, Cali is a shoutout to Chickie ? What, ohmigosh, shes a front for a violent cocaine gangster cartel ? Sorry, Chickie, my apologies - just a silly joke. Is there anything else Cali is famous for ? Other than psychedelic colors on houses and street sweepers.
Sorry, all, I am really cranky today.
Argyle, do the honors, and delete this post. Stat.
Louse/lice, mouse/mice, spouse/spice
Good Morning:
An easy breezy start to the week and new month. Cute theme with some personal highlights: LH was Louis, first company car was an LTD, (also LH's initials) and Blue Bloods, one of my favorite TV shows. Lots of fun! We got our first color tv in the early 60's and it was only possible because I worked at an RCA wholesaler and was able to pay for it out of my weekly paycheck. (God knows how long it took to pay it off!)
Thanks, Jason, for a fun solve and thanks, Argyle, for the "colorful" commentary.
Have a great day.
This was an easy WORKOUT, thank you, Jason Meuller. ORPHAN BLACK was the only unknown for me and I know of the other sitcoms, but usually I taught night classes when those aired so never got to see MURPHYBROWN or GREENACRES. I don't care for BLUEBLOODS though I've seen it a few times.
I hope Chickie comments but I believe her time in CALI happened before the cartels took it over.
Also, Tammy GRIMES is unfamiliar to me but I love Martha GRIMES' novels. Interesting that Tammy is Amanda Plummer's mom so was she married to Christopher?
D-O, thanks for the research on COLISEUM. I was similarly confused.
Have a happy day, everyone!
Fun puzzle with some bite. Worked clockwise for most of it, so had the Green Brown and Blue before the reveal. Wanted Orphan Annie for the 4th, but held off since that had no TV tie in. Had to rely on perps for Black. Also needed perps for coliseum as many have pointed out.
I was 5 when we got our first B&w TV in 1960. Had to endure Disney and Bonanza in B&W unless we were visiting my cousins. I bought my first color TV in 1975, used, for $60. It had the most awful reds and greens, but wow was it cool. My parents bought their first color set later that same year, also used. So I beat them to it.
Argyle, though I don't always say it, I appreciate your weekly appearances and always interesting photo and musical links.
When Frankenstein is asked if he likes SHELLEY HE YELLS HELL YES
• As noted, RIP David Bowie. We will miss you, more so after you got rid of that ridiculous orange hair and got your British teeth straightened out into the Hollywood mould.
• COLOR TV immediately reminded me of the song by another Brit band, DIRE STRAITS - MONEY FOR NOTHING
• EMBAR is listed by M-W as obsolete or archaic and not at all in my MacDict. Is it still used in legal circles? Everything else was cool.
• GLYPH is rarely seen. Although it might be thought of as an Abbr. for the more familiar HIEROGLYPH, it has its own respectable etymology/meaning in architecture.
• May I be the first pedant to point out that BLACK is not a color (rather the ABSENCE of color).
• Those of you who never heard of ORPHAN BLACK cannot be fans of Dr. WHO or TOP GEAR, as it was plugged relentlessly on BBC America this past year.
A dandy start to a new week. EMBAR was a strange Monday entry, not among the common fare we're used to seeing in the traditionally easiest pzl. Still, not weird enough to raise a fuss over...
Thanks to Mr. Mueller and Argyle for kickstarting August for us!
That was a very pleasant Monday puzzle though it made me stumble in a few places. Thanks Jason, Rich and Argyle.
Our family was the least 'comfortable' among my childhood friends. We were the last ones to get TV, both B&W and color. I wasn't envious of my friend's color TVs though. They were colorful but blotchy.
My first car was a used 1950 Ford for a Christmas present, the best Christmas ever. We never had an LTD. I loved the Fords and Chevys from the middle 50s. That's when all the cars had a distinctive style, not the cookie cutter shapes they all have now.
NC, I had the same first thought about black when I came across it used as a color. But that's just with light. When dealing with paint, etc., black is certainly a color.
Do you remember another colorful police drama called NYPD Blue? It was a favorite of mine. I remember one scene where a beloved sergeant had died and was cremated. They didn't know what to do with his urn full of ashes. They finally went out one midnight and sprinkled the ashes on a street where he spent most of his time patrolling. They finished with their heads bowed in remembrance. They finally completed their solemn goodbyes, got back in their squad care and drove off. The next scene showed a noisy old street sweeper motoring down the street and sweeping up his ashes along with all the detritus...
I found this distantly related clip: Cheech and Chong Les Morpions.(5:56)
• One last quibble: SORELY = IN A BAD WAY? My Dictionary defines SORELY as "to a very high degree or level of intensity", which could have a positive or negative connotation:
- Help was SORELY needed.
- He was SORELY missed.
Hmm, still trying to get the kids to watch anything in black & white (i.e: To Kill a Mockingbird.) They have no idea what they are missing...
Anyone remember degaussing your color tv back in the 60'S?
(a must if you were a reader of Popular Electronics...)
Hmm, Hmm, I wonder if this is what the kids see when I try to make them watch old B&W movies...
Hahtoolah made me think twice - or thrice - about choosing between evils. The Jerry Garcia quote doesn't quite cover the available options.
Keeping in mind Edmund Burke's famous statement, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing,"
I would propose something on the order of...
Opting for the lesser of two evils is often the way to evade a third and worse evil, the failure to choose at all.
Anybody care to amend?
"Puzzling Thoughts":
Total speed run today and without any ink blots. I left the "key signature" blank in 10a until the perp of BRIDAL filled it in. Other than that, very easy. I thought the cluing was about right for a Monday; liked the "drillers deg." clue - almost fell into putting EGR or some such form as the answer, but didn't fall for the trap.
COLOR TV was not a part of my childhood - my folks bought their first Color TV (Sony 19") after my sister and I left home for college. And it was promptly stolen, when our house was broken into (while they were traveling - over a holiday). Don't recall if they replaced it right away or not. I always thought of Color TV, along with Air Conditioning and Power Windows in cars, as a real luxury.
I know the spelling is different, but seeing the word PETRIE in today's puzzle brought back this old limerick I penned a year or so ago . . .
A biologist named PETRIE did wish,
That she looked just like Lillian Gish.
So she fashioned her hair
With some curls to spare;
Now the guys think that she's quite a dish.
Glyph is its own entry in the dictionary, not listed as a shortened form. I have never seen GLYPH used for Egyptian hieroglyphs. But, having been out west to see the pictographs on the canyon walls, I found that the words, petroglyph and glyph, were used interchangeably. Both were common.
As for black- Words do have a technical or scientific meaning, but they have other meanings, as well. Words have many shades and nuances which is what makes them interesting.
Technically, black is the absence of color, but there’s a problem with trying to introduce technical terms to artistic endeavor.
When speaking about pigments, you can walk into any art supply or paint store, and, sitting right on the shelf next to all the blues, yellows, reds and other colors, you can see containers of black and white paints. So, by those terms, which are the ONLY terms working artists care about, black is a color, the same as any other. Pigment and color in this sense are near synonyms.
As for color TV, I don't think many ever saw it in the '50s. We were lucky, because my in-laws operated the largest music and electronic instrument store in SE Ohio, so we were treated to color TVs in the early to mid '60s.
I am not certain of the date because I can't pin down the time-specific shows we watched. I remember we were on our 2nd or 3rd set (Magnavox was a big brand back then) by the late '60s - when we were watching Laugh-In and Smothers Brothers.
O' Man Keith, I see you agree with my post on the lesser of two evils. Right on! Well said.
"Two boll weevils grew up in South Carolina. One went to Hollywood and became a famous actor. The other stayed behind in the cotton fields and never amounted to much.
The second one, naturally, became known as the lesser of two weevils."
Bill G, I agree about black being a color in common parlance.
My dictionaries give two meanings for sorely:
1. Painfully; grievously. (Thus, in a bad way)
2. Extremely; greatly: Their skills were sorely needed.
Ol' Man- It may be too simply put, but if I have the choice between two lousy meals I'll take the least lousy. If I choose nothing I starve.
Thanks to Desper-Otto for explaining the COLISEUM situation. That was the only stumble for me today.
WEES (mostly) about the theme word first in across but second in downs. There's a nice logic in it somehow.
Thank you Argyle for the earworm-filled walk-through and for the LTD learning moment. And of course thanks to Jason for the puzzle.
Musings
-I knew two shows and didn’t know two but that was no problem
-Play Part 1 (:40) and then Part 2 (:40) to see how well you do IDing the perp
-The Top 40 of 50 years ago
-The UNDO function on my #2 Ticonderoga is very low tech
-Do you know any couple who have yours, mine and OURS?
-Grading 8th grade drivel (ESSAYS) is very tough
-If you know the ACT and SCENE of Romeo’s and Juliet’s balcony exchange, you’ll impress me
-Interesting car info TTP!
-Do you remember all these on early COLOR TV?
-Hill Street BLUES: If this isn’t the funniest line you’ve ever heard on a TV cop show (1:41) let me know what is
In my ute I had a classmate whose family owned the plywood factory -- the major employer in our small town. His dad bought the first color TV in those parts. At that time very few programs were broadcast in color. And we had very limited station selection: Channel 2 WBAY from Green Bay 50 miles away and Channel 4 WTMJ from Milwaukee 130 miles away. Only WTMJ, the Milwaukee Journal station, had color broadcast equipment. At that time, mid-to-late 50's, the Bell System (AT&T), would sponsor an occasional special, usually a science program, and it would be broadcast in color. My classmates and I gathered over at Rick's house to watch the show. Even with a rotor-equipped rooftop outdoor antenna, the picture from Milwaukee was snowy at best, but it was colored snow, so we were all duly impressed. Prior to that, our experience with TV was mostly limited to watching Howdy Doody in late afternoon. Most of us also watched the test pattern that came on 30 minutes earlier.
I came to this country with my Austrian mom and my American step-dad in 1954, and in early 1955 Dad got a job at the RCA plant in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. It turns out they were doing lots of hiring because COLOR TV was being produced! So I owe a lot to this invention, and as a result loved this Monday puzzle. Many thanks, Jason, for a delightful experience.
GREEN ACRES, was one of my favorite TV comedies of all time. I just loved Eddie Albert (was that his name) and especially Eva Gabor's animal-loving character. And the cute theme song has been buzzing in my ear all morning.
Argyle, what a lovely IRIS photo--many thanks,
Have a wonderful week, everybody!
Trying not to use perps on a Monday led to some write overs. Had ANNIE and DEBATE
B Owen only because of all your As
I think I was 12 when we first got a color TV, so that would have been in 1978 or so. The funny thing is that my mom bought one as a present for my dad and my dad bought one as a present for my mom, so there were two identical large boxes under the Christmas tree that year. Years later I saw a T.V. commercial depicting the same exact event occurring. Go figure...
Straight-forward Monday solve with just a few delays. Elegant grid. Thanks Jason and Argyle.
My car went from REO to GTO to LTD. I wanted STAY. ?. ?. before STAND PAT appeared.
Don't we usually have DEBAR not EMBAR?
Husker G, I think the answer would be 2 and 2.
I always have to remember to use the American spellings and today it was COLOR and DIALOG vs. my Canadian usual usage of COLOUR and DIALOGUE.
I waited for perps to complete the American January honoree with MLK day. We have Civic holiday today. Thanks Spitzboov!
No good Canadian could let the opportunity pass to link astronaut Chris Hadfield's version of Space Oddity recorded in space. Apparently David Bowie loved it and helped to overcome some legal issues with copyright so it could be posted on YouTube.
SpaceOddityCoverByChrisHadfield
Off to tend my GREEN ACRES.
CanadianEh!
Thanks for the Space Oddity ... excellent cover!
Of the four 'colorful' shows in the them clues, the only one I ever watched was GREEN ACRES before I had a COLOR TV. It was obvious what the theme would be after I filled MURPHY by perps with BROWN to follow. I never watched that show ( or BLUE BLOODS) I remember it for the fun it had at the expense of Dan Quayle. ORPHAN BLACK was all perp as was Tatiana Maslany.
Very easy Monday for me. Haven't left my back porch yet today.
What a great start to the week and the month! Thanks, Jason M., for the fun puzzle. Thanks for the expo, Argyle!
If I hadn't been eating lunch while doing the puzzle it would have been a speed run. Only w/o's were 16a,scam/RUSE, and 65a, exTRA/INTRA. I watched GREEN ACRES and MURPHY BROWN when they were on but didn't know the other 2 shows. Perps to the rescue!
Have a great week!
Pat
Rats! Gary, you reminded me of the name of the show my earlier post was about; Hill Street Blues rather than NYPD Blue. It was a favorite of mine and the source of that remembered scene.
D-O, my buddy and I used to watch the test pattern before Howdy Doody also.
Re. B&W movies, the best of them all, in my opinion, was The Third Man. There were so many memorable scenes in beautifully-shot black and white. It would be a travesty if somebody tried to colorize it.
A nice Monday puzzle, interesting and fun. And it's August already, wow. Time sure flies - one way or the other.
HG@12:26
SPOILER ALERT: Boring commentary follows!
The reason the essays are so horrific to read is the result of test prep and reliance on the 5 paragraph essay, also known as the Hamburger. Writing and thinking are so closely aligned. The 5PE teaches the kids to fill in the blanks. Some teachers even give them a preprinted form. When my students used to say, I can't think of a third reason, I'd suggest they simply begin by focusing on the two they have and let's see how this develops. I was a process writing teacher. If one writes a paper tonight to turn in tomorrow, it's a first draft and most certainly needs work. That's what we did--the work. My grade book was so complicated because I seldom assigned a grade to the first draft. I wanted the kids to think about what they were doing rather than what grade they were getting. We conferenced. I didn't correct. I asked questions.
I taught via invention and heuristics. Very Socratic with an emphasis on the critical thinking process. I used to laugh when a kid said he needed help with the introduction! I'd say, what are you introducing? Um, it's my first paragraph. Yes, but you haven't worked out your ideas. Write the introduction last. My AP seniors were flummoxed. 5PEs might be fine for third grade, but not for critical thinking.
Yesterday in the grocery store, a mom stopped me to say her son just graduated from college and was sports editor of the college paper. She told me he felt I taught him to use writing as a tool for thinking. Sometimes we never know if what we do makes a difference; it's a great treat to hear after all those hours of reading and re-reading essays. ��
I kept a dog toy hamburger, which I tossed at any kid who mentioned 5PE or Hamburger. No profanity in the classroom!
Essay comes from the French essayer--to try. Not a final document but a process.
H-G @ 12:24 - That clip from Hill Street Blues is hilarious! Sad to say, I never watched the show.
Nice Cuppa
"Those of you who never heard of ORPHAN BLACK cannot be fans of Dr. WHO or TOP GEAR, as it was plugged relentlessly on BBC America this past year."
Don't watch BBC,..OR..., ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, CNN, FOX, or MSNBC. Only know of Dr. Who from mentions on this blog and my granddaughter's husband from England is a huge fan of Top Gear.
Argyle- It's possible that Jason thought that BLACK and BROWN, and GREEN and BLUE were closer to each other than any other combo so he kept them together as symmetrical partners. But, I doubt that there is any planned purpose in the placement of the colors. Jason probably simply decided to use a pinwheel type grid design because he liked it and what colors he used down and across served no real purpose just because of their position in the grid. However, someone who is a real rookie constructor could have made a big mistake. Having one color in front and three in back, or the opposite. I don't believe that kind of design would have been acceptable. Unbalanced, not elegant.
Well, no one really knows but Jason. Heck, it could have been Rich's idea, too.
Joe Namath came in and NFL Films went to color in 1965, for me that defines the beginning of the modern era.
While choosing the lesser evil still means choosing evil, the difference between bad and worse is much more important than that between good and better.
Yellowrocks, Yes - we're clearly united in shunning the 3rd. Historically, 3rd parties have been nothing but disastrous for whatever the dissenter thought to be the lesser evil. I do like that Weevil story!
Jerome, that's it in a nutshell.
I once saw a bumper sticker that said, "The Third is a Turd." I never knew for sure what it was supposed to mean, but it was in '96 when, coincidentally, Nader was running.
Had to go read about Tammy Grimes. Do you think she favors Holly Hunter ?
Then I had to listen to more than half of the songs on Gary's Top 40 list from 50 years ago. Many were recognized by the title and artist, but there were others I can't remember as having ever heard before. I don't know for sure, but that would be about the time of our first color TV. Maybe a year or two later.
Irish Miss, hand up here for being a Blue Bloods fan. Tom Selleck is masterful in his role as the Commissioner.
CED, your degaussing coil pic and comments brought back memories of fixing TVs for extra spending money while going to school.
The old CRT color TVs produced all colors by the use of three "guns." One red, one blue, and one green. So with the reveal as COLORTV, I would have been satisfied with three theme answers. At least from a technical point of view... Still liked the puzzle though.
Canadian Eh, I loved Chris Hadfield's cover of Space Oddity. Judging from the number of views at over 32.5M, apparently a lot of other people did to !
I especially liked the theme today. I also like the many 5, 6, and 7-letter answers. Filled the acrosses so quickly that I missed several of the down clues. As Gordon Ramsey was so fond of saying. "Well done!"
Rabbit Rabbit
Hello Puzzlers -
Late to the party. Hand up for being unaware of Orphan Black, but otherwise smooth sailing.
Color TV, you say? My dad wouldn't hear of it. He certainly didn't favor being an early adopter of quality-of-life gadgets, no siree! About '66 my brother won a then-fabulous Zenith console model in a raffle, and promptly offered it for sale, preferring loot to television. My grandmother thought that was poor sportsmanship, and bought him off so the TV could stay in our living room. And so it did - our Zenith showed us the Apollo program, Vietnam, I Dream of Jeannie, Gilligan, The Flintstones, all in marvelous color. That was the set we all crowded around in the wee hours to watch Neil Armstrong step onto the moon. I hated to retire it when it stopped working.
Hi all!
Late to the party - I'm still working...
Thanks Jason for the puzzle (in Technicolor). I knew all the shows (DW watches ORPHAN BLACK) but only watched a few episodes of each excepting, of course, GREEN ACRES. Everyday it was on before F-Troop at lunchtime broadcast from a station in STL.
Thanks Argyle for the expo and BOWIE clip (Cheech & Chong was fun too). C, Eh!, you beat me to Hadfield's version.
WOs: Thor b/f ODIN (d'oh!) and tICs b/f LICE. GRIMES was ESP.
Favs: Tossup between adding the BLACK&W PETRIEs to the puzzle or mirroring BOWIE & SONGS.
CED - Creepy-tubbies indeed.
M. Defarge - I'm glad I was taught your way (begin by brainstorming, right?). I didn't think I'd need writing as an EE and thought it a waste of credit-hours (and $$). Riiiight. I'm drafting stuff for the Board right now... Oh, the irony.
If we ever had only B&W it was when I was 2 or 3 (early '70s) - I recall Star Trek in B&W. That's my earliest memory of TV.
Nice Cuppa: Nice linking Money for Nothing on MTV's 35th birthday. Video Killed the Radio Star.
Back to it...
Cheers, -T
AnonT @ 7:29
Yep!!! Brainstorming. Heuristics. Invention. It's all about thinking before getting to START the essay. Yes! It works for science, lit, history and ..... Before my seniors wrote college essays, I had them bring in a photo of themselves, and after a guided free write, I had them write about who that person was. No essays about summer camp, Lalapalooza, Amigos, and on and on. The colleges don't care, they want to know who the kids are. Not some 5PE. It was so much fun to see them realize how cool they were for who they were.
Inquiry is as important in writing as it is in science. It's about critical thinking. The 5PE does not encourage thinking. It's only important because it's easy for the readers to grade. In 60-90 seconds!!!! On to the next one! Like Husker G said today: Boring drivel.
By the way, Anon T, M. Defarge is Mr. D. Mme. is Madame. Do let the teacher/professor who taught you how to write well know what it means to you. S/he will be ever grateful. AND happy to know that the tired eyes were worth it, ;-)
Oops. Also, don't forget to mention you are a famous cruciverbalist-- at least in these parts!
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