There are 612 people in the US named Darin McDaniel: our Darin McDaniel had One (1) NYT published puzzle in 2010, a Sunday no less! That PUZZLE (spoiler alert- this has the answers) was a delight. He then had One (1) LAT five years ago that was also a DELIGHT. Today, Darin who went to the same high school as the late great Merl Reagle, found six known entertainers who had last names that both began and ended with the letter "S." He then removed the first S to reveal a new word and paired that with a word that used the removed "S" as a possessive. He then clued the new phrase with wit. I love word play and deception and this was fun, simple once you got the gimmick, and it is a smooth pangram! With 70 spaces used up in the 6 themers, there was not room for much else but we did get ASPIRED, BAPTIZE, ALL WISE, BLUEBIRD and OLD SALTS. If you hate proper names go home now, otherwise hop on for the ride.
17A. "What's My Line?" comedian's craft brewery? : SOUPY'S ALES (10). This old COMIC.
23A. Pop diva's fruit stand? : BRITNEY'S PEARS (13). This DIVA.
30A. American Idol winner's amusement chain? : JORDIN'S PARKS (12). This WOMAN.
39A. Rapper's shopping center properties? : BIGGIE'S MALLS (12). This MAN.
49A. Guitarist's cash register company? : STEPHEN'S TILLS (13). This ROCKER.
59A. "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" comedian's flooring store? : RYAN'S TILES (10). This not old COMIC.
Across:
1. Arafat's successor : ABBAS. lat name clue, last name answer. LINK. More...45D. Syrian ruling family : ASSADS. Some HISTORY.
6. City near Yorba Linda : BREA.
10. Brief responses to common concerns : FAQS. Frequently Asked Questions.
14. Composer of a seven-movement work that excludes Earth : HOLST. I could recall the PLANETS but not his name.
15. Tach count : REVS. Revolutions measured on your tachometer.
16. "... even now / __ myself to thy direction": "Macbeth" : I PUT.
From overcredulous haste. But G-d above
Deal between thee and me, for even now
I put myself to thy direction and
Unspeak mine own detraction, here abjure
The taints and blames I laid upon myself...
19. Sail support : SPAR.
20. R.E.M.'s "The __ Love" : ONE I. A love song?
21. Heifetz's teacher : AUER.
22. Present : HERE.
27. City of northern Spain : OVIEDO. Northern Spain
29. David and Bird : LARRYS. Seinfeld and the Celtics, quite a pair,
34. In a blue state : SAD.
35. Nile reptile : ASP.
36. Corvallis sch. : OSU. In this case, Oregon State University. The Beavers.
45. Equally speedy : AS FAST.
48. Forest bovine : WILD OX. Very popular in the Torah. More Bible, 61A. Número de Mandamientos : DIEZ. The ten Commandments.
53. Collate : SORT. Having copiers that collate was great.
54. Film on water : SCUM. Pond scum anyone?
55. Toddler's drink : WAWA. Bobwa? Not last week's musical clue.
58. Farm opening? : AGRIculture.
62. Frank of 1950s Broadway : ANNE. The PLAY starred Lee Strasberg's daughter Susan.
63. Basketwork fiber : ISTLE. We have had this little used word a few times but not since 2013; it was very popular in the NYT for years. I wonder if AGAVE is used to make a 66A. Jai alai basket : CESTA.
64. Bone-dry : SERE.
65. Hwy. crossings : JCTS. Junctions.
Down:
1. "Understood" : AH SO. For me this is almost a pejorative.
2. Windfall : BOON.
3. Symbol of happiness : BLUEBIRD. My go to...
4. Had ambitions : ASPIRED.
5. Mess : STY.
6. Big name in coffee makers : BRAUN. More famous for their RAZORS, I think.
7. Civil War signature : R. E. LEE.
8. __ other: alternating : EVERY. Maybe we could blog that way.
9. Sancho's "steed" : ASS. Sancho Panza faithful squire to Don Quixote...
10. Pole users : FISHERS. I guess the name comes from people who fish, but don't we really say fishermen (fisherwomen, fisherperson)?
11. Materialize : APPEAR.
12. Slate source : QUARRY. noun: a place, typically a large, deep pit, from which stone or other materials are or have been extracted.
13. Burnout cause : STRESS.
18. Squelched : SAT ON. Ideas or rumors, not people, hopefully
24. Forest's 2006 Oscar-winning role : IDI. He came a long way from A Crying Game and Species
26. Where the Indus flows: Abbr. : PAKistan.
27. IHOP orders : OJS. Orange Juices.
28. U.S. news source since 1942 : VOA. Voice of America.
31. Slump : SAG.
32. Tire pressure meas. : PSI. Pounds per Square Inch.
33. Parody : APE.
36. Veterans of the briny : OLD SALTS. With 57D. Where to find 36-Down : ASEA.
37. __-pitch : SLO. I think they only use this term in CANADA, so hey EH.
38. Steel giant, as it was known from 1986-2001 : USX. Before that they were known as X.
39. Cleanse spiritually : BAPTIZE. No religion but an ancient rite.
40. Book ending : ISH.
41. Co. merged into Verizon : GTE.
42. Moves in a school : SWIMS. I love this clue, nice and tricky.
43. .001 of an inch : MIL.
44. Omniscient : ALL WISE
46. Cheap smoke : STOGIE.
47. "Cyrano de Bergerac" Best Actor (1950) : FERRER.
50. "Bye Bye Bye" band : NSYNC. They were Justin Timberlake, JC Chasez, Chris Kirkpatrick, Joey Fatone, and Lance Bass.
52. iPod contents : TUNES.
56. Shoemaker's strip : WELT. Shoes 101.
59. British rule in India : RAJ.
60. Hold 'em tell, maybe : TIC. We are talking Poker. The WSOP final table starts on this Sunday, 8 Million to the winner.
Well that was over quickly with lots of music; welcome to Fridays Darin. Thank you all for coming to my party. Lemonade out.
Greetings!
ReplyDeleteThanks to Darin and Lemonade!
Had a natick at the V in VOA. Darn!
Good swim today in new wetsuit. Huge but not quite tall enough. Ah well. Swimming friend needs lots of windows and doors open. (I do not have that problem; I get cold easily. Arthritis is terrible,)
Have a great day!
FIW. Had no idea on 27, 30, or 61 across (?VIE?O, ?ORD?N, DIas), nor 27 or 24 down (??S, I??), and misspelt both 39 & 47 down (BAPTIsE, FERRaR). 4-6 naticks, which is way above my norm!
ReplyDelete{C+, C-, A, A+!}
Behold the brave apostrophe
It notes possessions of you and me!
Its teardrop shape
Is what it takes
For Dad to claim a Pa's trophy!
When the Padre guns the engine on one of his antique Chevs,
Is that the REV'S REVS?
When we get meta and ask about queries of facts,
Are those the FAQ'S FAQS?
When President Bashar brags of his lads,
Are those ASSAD'S ASSADS?
When playgrounds named for Rosa are where kids go for larks,
Are those PARK'S PARKS?
When quotation marks surround dittos "''" on lists of fees,
Are those apostrophe's apostrophes?
A Spaniard there was from OVIEDO
Who studied SOUPY SALES and Plato.
Said, "I know, with a pang,
This pie's not meringue,
It's just an ideal of Play-doh!"
There once was a FISHER named Fischer
Of a wishing-well he was a well-wisher.
He was fishing in the well
When down a gap he fell!
They had to fish Fischer from the fissure!
fermat', did you see the poem about your wetsuit on Tuesday?
ReplyDeleteThat last poem today was channeling memories from one (which I just looked up) I learned as a little kid:
There was a young fisher named Fischer
Who fished for a fish in a fissure.
The fish with a grin,
Pulled the fisherman in;
Now they're fishing the fissure for Fischer.
Good morning!
ReplyDeleteCute theme -- I even got it! But after WAGging OJS and with SAD in place, I couldn't come up with VOA. Never watched American Idol, so JORDIN SPARKS was an unknown. DNF. Thanx, Darin and Lemon.
BRAUN is also well-known for their Oral-B electric toothbrushes.
picked up on the theme and nailed all of the long fills...never heard of OVIEDO, WILDOX or CESTE so that sunk my hopes of completion...hope everybody has a nice friday
ReplyDeleteGood morning...
ReplyDeleteI' d never heard of ISTLE or CESTA, so didn't know if down cross was TIC or TAP...
Got all the theme names easily, as I watch Way Too Much TV!!! :-)
Also missed the V in VOA/OVIEDO....
Good morning to all!
ReplyDeleteClever puzzle! Had to use Google help for first names of JORDIN SPARKS (a complete unknown) and BIGGIE SMALLS. The latter I was familiar with as Notorious B.I.G. And if I've ever heard of OVIEDO, Spain, I didn't recall it. All perps. Thanks, Darin, for today's challenge, and thanks Lemonade for guiding us through it.
Enjoy the day!
The North was all white until I changed MAST to SPAR, then filled the NE, and after SPEARS appeared I changed RPM to REV and the gimmick was obvious. It was a DNF today, only because of sloppy writing and writing CSNY's STEPHEN STILLS as STILSS. And I wrote the stock symbol for US Steel as USS instead of USX and the 'Forest bovine' WILD OX could never make it into the newspaper grid.
ReplyDeleteThe six theme fills cause the puzzle to have too many abbrs.- OJS, AGRI, REV, JCT, SLR, PAK, USX,FAQS, VOA. I never knew a MIL was .001"; 'mm'=.001M
FRANK, WELT FERRER, DIEZ, ISTLE, BIGGIE SMALLS, RYAN STILES- unknowns today. Since I'm not 'Omniscient' I will disAPPEAR until tomorrow.
Didn't get AUER, which kept me from BRAUN, which failed me on BREA. Also, my DIEZ went in as "Diaz", guess I was daydreaming again. Liked the theme and had no problem with the theme entries.
ReplyDeleteInteresting theme. FIW at FERR(a)R because I forget how to spell DIEZ. I also forgot how to spell BRAUN, so I looked up AUER, having A-E-. I looked up JORDIN when GORDON didn't work. Shoulda had them all. I learned CESTA and ISTLE from CWs. I guessed VOA from the 1942(WW II) clue.
ReplyDeleteI remember Soupy Sales from years ago. He famously asked kids to look in their moms' purses and dads' pants and send him those green pieces of paper with pictures of men with beards.Link Soupy Sales
Soupy's humor and pie in the face schtick enchanted kids. His more sophisticated jokes amused us adults.
Good Morning:
ReplyDeleteWell, this was a fun run with a clever theme that was obvious early on. Heard of everyone except Ryan Stiles. Also, didn't know
Jordin was spelled that way. Needed a few perps here and there but, overall, a smooth sail to the Tada!
Thanks, Darin, for the entertainment and thanks, Lemony, for the enlightenment.
We had our first snowfall ☃ yesterday, only an inch or so but way, way too early! I think the forecast is decent for the little ghosts and goblins to do their tricks or get their treats! 👻 💀 🎃 🕸
Have a great day.
Fisher for fisherman is not too common, but it is used. "Of that, 72 percent will be out of bounds to commercial fishers." New York Times, Oct 27, 2016
ReplyDeleteFisher is much more common as a surname. It also refers to a small mammal which lives in the forest and preys on smaller mammals. An omnivore, it also eats berries and mushrooms. Surprisingly, it seldom eats fish.
Kingfishers are birds.
Alan is sick in bed for the third day. After three glorious, healthy weeks, back on the merry-go-round.
Misty I am glad your surgery went well. I know several friends who had something similar and there is no trace of a scar today.
Tuesday I went for my quarterly periodontal treatment, no picnic, but nothing compared to your ordeal, CC. I hope it is soon over.
Lemon: Thank you for explaining my Rorschach Ink Blot ... D-N-F.
ReplyDeleteToo many unknowns, I've never watched American Idol, nor do I care whoever won.
Fave theme, for me, today was STEVEN'S TILLS ... I'm a big CSNY fan.
GO CUBS !!!
ReplyDeleteAn official DNF which is to be expected for a Friday. It was a good theme and I sort of got it which helped fill in some of the unknowns. However there were enough truly unknown clues that I had to resort to alphabet runs with Red Letters turned on.
This was a good puzzle by Darin and Lemon 'splained it well.
OVIEDO, BREA, HOLST, DIEZ, and VOA were the true unknowns for me.
I had RPMS before REVS. I don't think REVS is an accurate answer for the clue as written, but that's just me.
I tried BISON and BUFFALO before perps revealed WILDOX. They didn't have the right amount of letters anyhow. I also had MUSIC before TUNES.
We would visit relatives in Detroit when I was a kid and I would watch Soupy Sales before he was on national TV. He was really funny to an adolescent. My parents on the other hand didn't think he was funny at all, but they didn't have the sense of humor of an 8 year old.
Today is National Chocolate day. The food of the gods. Enjoy.
Musings
ReplyDelete-Wow, a cultural span from SOUPY SALES to BIGGIE SMALL in this great puzzle
-So many Disney stars like Britney went from nice to…
-HOLST, AUER and OVIEDO (Not TOLEDO) muddied the waters
-C’mon you put RPM’S like I did
-3 commandments and 7 “do the best you can’s”?
-Only place I’ve heard of FISHERS
-More later. If I know what’s good for me I’ll get my vacuuming and then yard word done now! ☺
HG one of the cool things about the puzzle in addition to the inclusion of all 26 letters was seein BRITNEY and JUSTIN together again. Miley has calmed down enough to join Christin Aguilera as post-Disney judge on the VOICE
ReplyDeleteThanks to Darin for a very fun Friday puzzle and to Lemonade for the great write-up.
ReplyDeleteThe theme was fun and even the unknown, JORDAN SPARKS was easy enough to guess.
Although it didn't matter to me, you would need a counter to count the revolutions. A tach measures the revolutions per minute. Depends on how you look at the clue, I guess.
HG, my first thought for fishers was that Bible verse, too. I learned it very young in Sunday School. Come to think of it, I have read a good bit about commercial fishers. With sports fishing, though, we seem to use only fishermen.
ReplyDeleteI liked the movie, The Last King of Scotland. Forest Whitaker played a spot-on IDI, mean, psychotic and menacing. I thought the role of Idi’s personal physician, was quite shallow. He didn’t seem to grow up or be much affected by Idi’s horrors, except when his paramour was tortured and killed by Idi. I believe this shallowness was due to the script writer more than to the actor.
My hubby and I used to watch the 1964 iteration of the Soupy Sales show, which then continued in syndication. I addition to the juvenile humor and slapstick, there were sophisticated jokes that went right over the kiddies’ heads. My hubby and I who were in our 20’s enjoyed it.
"There'll be bluebirds over
ReplyDeleteThe white cliffs of Dover
Tomorrow, just you wait and see..."
• Since bluebirds do not exist in Britain, this WWII always song puzzled me. No, not some friendly U.S. fighter aircraft, but a symbol of happiness!
• And talking of blue: I live in a blue state - California - and I am very happy.
• The South-East was a Natick nightmare: ISTLE (which is some butchered variant of IXTLE"; WAWA = baby-talk I suppose for water, so I think we should have been given a "perhaps" or "?"; CESTA lives in the dictionary only as the basket used in JAI ALAI - a sport that only exists in crosswords and the Basque country of Spain.
• I knew all the Northern coastal towns on the map of Spain, but not Oviedo -its soccer team is in the Spanish second division, so they never make it into European competitions.
• Of the theme entries, I only knew Stephen Stills (Cosby, Stills, Nash (and Young)) and Britney Spears.
• Agree that a TACH measure RPM, not total REVS.
Hi All!
ReplyDeleteBig-Fat-DNF. Wow Darin, I like the theme and once I caught on it was easy(ish). But the fill - Ouch! I don't know jack.
Thanks Lem for the writeup and filling in all the blanks. Enjoyed REM and "Who's Line Is It?" links.
WEES - Mast b/f SPAR, RPMs b/f REVS, songs b/f TUNES.
Fav: FAQS as clued. When the penny finally drop'd ("brief") I chuckled.
3d also gave me a big smile. TMBG's Birdhouse in your Soul mentions BLUE BIRD of happiness. If you listen to the words it's pretty funny. The song is from the perspective of a Blue Canary night-light. Listen for his primitive ancestry (a light-house) verse. The beat is great for juggling too :-)
{C+, B, A, A+}. OKL, APE'n' is sincere flattery :-)
YR - SOUPY's link was LOL. Thanks.
IM - you're getting snow and we are set for a record-high (86F) today!
Cheers, -T
Well, I'm afraid this Friday puzzle was a disaster for me, sadly coming after what had been a great solving week. None of the names came to mind right away and required perps and cheating, although I found the theme cute after I finally got them. But there were other unknowns (ISTLE, CESTA) and some things I thought of but was afraid to put down without any perps to confirm that they were right. A tough slog all around. I'm just praying that tomorrow's Saturday puzzle will work a little better for me.
ReplyDeleteBut it's still fun to come to the blog. Many thanks for the encouraging words, Yellowrocks--and so sorry to hear about Alan's relapse. Enjoyed your FISHER poems, Owen, and your Macbeth lines, Lemonade.
Have a great weekend coming up, everybody!
Hmm. How curious that some others seemed to be having trouble with this Friday pzl, while I found it atypically easy. I suppose it is just random chance that sometimes our backgrounds give each other the advantage at different times. I found this one fun to do, but also just on the near edge of challenging.
ReplyDeleteI started with some real gimmes in 14-A HOLST, 16-A I PUT, 21-A AUER, 35-A ASP (EVERYBODY's gimme, right?), 47-D FERRER, and 59-A RAJ.
What I didn't get through gimmes or a few moments of reflection came fairly quickly via perps. The only answer I felt dubious was ISTLE, but perps gave me no choice but to go with it.
I had a couple of write-overs, MAST before SPAR and TOLEDO before OVIEDO, although I remember staying in Toledo once (hardly in the north but in the smack-dab center of Spain).
My Toledo mistake reminds me of visiting the Alcazar--and its most inspirational tale of patriotism during the Spanish Civil War.
(Hands up everybody who regrets that the story of the son bidding farewell by phone to his father favors the "wrong" side, the fascists.)
Anyway, an enjoyable puzzle from Mr. McDaniel--and let me add my thanks to Lemonade, for both his exegesis and the added GOT clue-and-answer.
Actually Jai Alai is very much active in Florida with frontons all over the state. I actually own a Cesta given to me by a sports writer friend who ended up going to law school.
ReplyDeleteHello everyone.
ReplyDeleteYou can tell it's Friday when you scratch your head about: OVIEDO, WELT, ISTLE, CESTA and AUER. Notwithstanding, today's performer's proper names are not generally in my wheelhouse. Didn't remember HOLST, but knew it had to do with Planets.
WILD OX - Clue. Cattle generally dwell in areas where grasses grow, so the 'forest' clue seems like a bit of an oxymoron to me.
Wild oxen are also known as aurochs.
Too hard for me today.
ReplyDeleteLate to the party. My sister, niece and I went to buy ingredients for our tamales; yes, it's that time already! Though I started the puzzle while drinking coffee, didn't finish it until my return.
ReplyDeleteThe theme answers APPEARed fairly quickly. I recall JORDINSPARKS more from her weight loss commercials for Weight Watchers than her singing and BRITNEYSPEARS held up the north central for a long time since I misspelled her name as BRITANY. In time that was corrected.
I have a copy of Master Heifetz poetry (I Heard God Laughing) but wasn't aware of who taught him.
ISTLE finally overtook OSIER which is the usual answer and CESTA is not only for Jai Alai, but any basket in general along with canasta.
On a trip to northern Spain we drove through OVIEDO but I don't recall it so likely we didn't stop there. Also my atlas does not list either Yorba Linda or BREA so had to Google that one.
My reference to FISHERS was the same as Gary's and YR's.
WILDOX was a learning moment.
Thank you, Darin McDaniel and Lemonade. It was a lovely time provided by both of you.
I hope you are having a magnificent day, everyone! Still in the 90s here.
Tough puzzle with an easy theme. Too many unknowns to list, but only needed to look up three: OVIEDO, JORDIN SPARKS and CESTA. Maybe if I would attend a Jai Alai session when I'm wintering in Florida I would finally remember the latter. I worked hard to remember who the Idol guy Sparks was. After finding out he was a she I remembered the person I was trying to conjure up was Hicks. Never saw the show, but Hicks enjoyed some fame otherwise. Never heard of Sparks.
ReplyDeleteAfter the three cheats my only error was DIaZ.
Got LARRYS right off the bat. Loved to watch Bird and Magic Johnson go after it in the NBA. Also got REVS. Started to write rpms, but re-read the clue. The instrument must count revs, then divide by minutes to get rpm. Close, but no erasure.
Thanks Darin for a puzzle that seemed way beyond my capability, but turned out to be just a little beyond it. And to Lemon, whose escort through the answers was a pleasure as usual.
"Puzzling Thoughts":
ReplyDeleteVery late today and just a few additions as many others said identical what kept me from finishing the puzzle correctly
I had ABSOLVE before BAPTIZE and even though I knew US Steel was USX, WILDOX was a complete blank
My biggest goof was trying to fit STRIPPER into 10d, but DANCER did fit, and that kept me from getting the NE corner. When I figured DANCER was incorrect I tried MAST for 19a before SPAR came into view
OVIEDO/OJS was a Natick; JORDIN SPARKS was also a total unknown
GO TRIBE!! ⚾️⚾️⚾️
Talk about the land of the unread. This was a three day job. Almost gave up with the West pretty much blank. But I persevered and while driving thought of BOON.
ReplyDeleteYou know you've got trouble with a map of Naticks when you can't spell BRITNEY.
Finally, it came down to IDI for which I should have taken another drive. Which might have given me VOA.
So close. Great write-up Lemonade, very Friday Friday Darin.
Owen, agree on that A+.