google.com, pub-2774194725043577, DIRECT, f08c47fec0942fa0 L.A.Times Crossword Corner: Wednesday, May 3, 2017, Thomas Takaro

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May 3, 2017

Wednesday, May 3, 2017, Thomas Takaro

Title: I CAN'T GET NO... 


Thomas has given us a fun mid-week puzzle which was a pleasure to solve. However, like the cartoon below, the gimmick evaded me and then hit me OUT OF left field!

Every starred answer was a two word phrase to which OUT OF can be added to either word and make two more common phrases. Very nice.

The fill went very smoothly with only this proper noun speed bump on the way

11. Tony-winning actress for "Miss Saigon" : LEA SALONGA - A name we had recently and I had already forgotten but it solved itself.

THEME ANSWERS, (plus adding OUT OF to first word):

18. *Cubicle, e.g. : WORK SPACE - becomes OUT OF WORK and OUT OF SPACE. - Conducting research while OUT OF WORK?


27. *Singing skill that enables good phrasing : BREATH CONTROL - OUT OF BREATH and OUT OF CONTROL - Breath holding is now a sport called Static Apnea. Here German Tom Sietas beats Brazilian Ricardo Bahia


45. *Number after a circled "c" : COPYRIGHT DATE - OUT OF COPYRIGHT and OUT OF DATE - In Canada, books are OUT OF COPYRIGHT 50 yrs after the author's death. That's January, 2015 for Ian Fleming


60. *Unobstructed view : SIGHT LINE - OUT OF SIGHT and OUT OF LINE - Less is more.


...and the reveal

69. Lacking, and what can go with each word in the answers to starred clues : OUT OF - This silly 1920's song tells of the vendor who is OUT OF bananas!


Now, before I am OUT OF time...

Across

1. Greek played by Anthony Quinn : ZORBA

6. Small plateau : MESA

10. Slick-talking : GLIB - Have I got a lemon car for you!


14. "That is to say ... " : I MEAN

15. Channel showing many games : ESPN


16. Sommelier's prefix : OENO - What he probably won't tell you


17. Incessantly : NO END

20. Kids' racing vehicles : GO KARTS

22. Chicken __ king : ALA - A high school favorite of mine when served on homemade biscuits

23. Prefix with pass or plus : SUR

24. Cultural funding org. : NEA

25. Mottled : PIED

26. MGM motto word : ARS


32. Get an __: ace : A ON

33. Casino gratuity : TOKE - Short for TOKEN of appreciation

34. Overseer : BOSS - The dealer above must call out "TOKE for the dealer" and tap the table to satisfy the pit BOSS that he or she is not stealing.

37. Harbor protectors : JETTIES - The Bussleton JETTY in Western Australia is well over a mile long and has its own railroad


39. "Vitruvian Man" artist : DA VINCI - Robert and Sophie find her dead grandfather in the Louvre posed as the Vitruvian Man at the beginning of The DA VINCI Code


42. Pacific Rim continent : ASIA

43. Mozart's "__ fan tutte" : COSI - "All women behave the same"

44. Jupiter or Mars : GOD

50. EPA pollution std. : AQI


52. Wetland plant : REED

53. Capri suffix : OTE - CAPRIOTE - A resident of the beautiful island of Capri or a conical hat worn by Spanish Clerics. Yeah, I know what they look like.


54. Bit of wordplay : PUN

55. Aviation stat. : ALT - At an ALT of ~50 miles, the sky starts to turn black and you are on the threshold of space


56. "Flags of Our Fathers" setting : IWO JIMA - The Marine Memorial is a sculpture of the raising of the flag on IWO JIMA's Mt. Suribachi and is just "a stone's throw" north of Arlington National Cemetery

63. Inn postings : RATES

64. Cosmopolitan rival : ELLE

65. Gold diggers' objectives : ORES

66. First in a line of Russian princes : IVAN I - 14th century Grand Duke Of Moscow

67. River crossed by Charon : STYX

68. Old or Wild follower : WEST - A 9-part series that tells all you need to know about The West and how it was won/stolen. It may not make you feel very proud.




Down

1. Zest : ZING - "ZING, ZING, ZING went my heartstrings"

2. Melville novel set on Tahiti : OMOO - His second novel - a sequel to Typee and four years before the one about that big fish, uh, mammal

3. Really stink : REEK

4. Split fruit? : BANANA - ~800cal but...


5. Mario who won IndyCar races in four different decades : ANDRETTI

6. Sussex stable area : MEWS - A row of houses or apartments converted from stables. Now you know as much as I do.


7. Anka's "__ Beso" : ESO - This has been a frequent visitor this spring


8. Common sports injury : SPRAIN - The Morris Boot is a way to ice 'em down and still be somewhat mobile

9. Short sock : ANKLET - When you don't need the boot

10. Rep. group : GOP

12. Run up, as debts : INCUR - $19,000,000,000,000 and counting here in the U.S.A. Your share is ~ $61,290.

13. Afrikaans speakers : BOERS

19. Iraq's __ City : SADR

21. Western border lake : TAHOE - Or a humongous SUV




25. "The Purloined Letter" writer : POE - Dupin replaces The Purloined Letter with a fake


27. Westernmost Mexican state, familiarly : BAJA - BAJA California is the home of my best friend from school (I'd say ELHI if I didn't despise that word)

28. Small deer : ROES - A Eurasian deer


29. With allure : ENTICINGLY

30. Bank statement listings: Abbr. : CKS - I can't be out of money, I still have some CKS!

31. Japanese sash : OBI


35. Edinburgh native : SCOT - Edinburgh native Stu Sutcliffe quit the Beatles to pursue an art career. They did however, picture him on this famous cover - Far left, third row from the top. I doubt that he got any royalties.

36. Agree (with) : SIDE

38. Eastern spiritual path : TAO

39. One may be fetching : DOG

40. __ of hands : A SHOW

41. Director De Sica : VITTORIO - Did you see his academy award winner Il Giardinao dei Finzi-Contini? Me either.

43. Spanish hero El __ : CID

46. Start to fall? : PRAT - A PRAT fall by Patrick Swayze in Ghost


47. Soccer penalty card color : YELLOW

48. Make more time for hobbies, say : RETIRE - Yeah, like crossword puzzles

49. "Here we go again" feeling : DEJAVU - Didn't I just blog a puzzle recently...

50. Cathedral areas : APSES 

51. Blanket that's often hand-sewn : QUILT

56. Superlative suffix : IEST

57. "Do __ once!" : IT AT


58. Less, musically : MENO - With (Un) slightly (poco) less (MENO) motion (mosso) as you see here

59. "Not a chance!" : AS IF - AS IF I knew what Un poco meno mosso meant!

61. Bad spell : HEX

62. Game console letters : NES


Now for some comments from you that hopefully are not OUT OF whack:

The Grid



45 comments:

fermatprime@gmail.com said...

Greetings!

Thanks to Thomas and Gary!

Nice puzzle!

Had good appointment with k-laser therapist. Feel better all over. Must go back tomorrow. (Not covered by insurance.)

Have a great day!

fermatprime@gmail.com said...

Thanks to all of you who wished me luck with k-laser treatment!!!

Hungry Mother said...

A bit of hesitation with TOKE. I never heard of that abbreviation and thought that "cts" might be a reasonable cross there. I guessed right. I didn't use the theme in solving.

OwenKL said...

No prob with the puzzle, but I pondered long and hard about the theme. Concentrated on the final words, and decided the all worked with IN : IN SPACE, IN CONTROL, IN LINE. IN DATE was an outlier, but did sound like it might be fashion industry jargon. If I'd looked at the first words, I would have ditched it : IN COPYRIGHT and IN SIGHT are okay, but IN BREATH and IN WORK are awkward. Once I saw the reveal, I figured I wasn't tooo far off anyway.

Moe, FLN: The SUMO pun was hilarious! If you want another name, perhaps your own HICOO could be made to serve, at least in print!

{A-, B, A-.}

The BOSS was maybe the worst in the WEST.
Sharing WORKSPACE was a quotidian test!
And his vino woo-woo
Brought on DEJA VU.
To hear him, he was the ONEO-snob-IEST!

It was early one morning, OUT OF bed Hunter rose.
CHECKED his deer rifle, he was off to get ROES.
His wife plead for mercy,
Those poor deers, how could he?
That evening he brought home for his wife, just a rose.

Fritz and Hans would make SURPASSING plans
To prank and cause PRATFALLS for the rest of their clans.
So when only one of the kits
Could be found (it was Fritz),
Pa was suspicious, said, "I want A SHOW of Hans!"

desper-otto said...

Good morning!

Is this the Thomas Takaro who's librarian for the Houston Symphony? Bet he'd know what MENO means.

I enjoyed this one, but it took forever to parse AON -- with only three letters, that doesn't say much for my parsing abilities. I also really wanted ID EST at 14a, but it was not to be. Wite-Out to the rescue. Anybody else notice the Anka-SPRAIN-ANKLET mini-morph up top?

We're expecting showers today. Good. That'll put the kibosh on my eave-cleaning plans. Procrastination continues.

Jinx in Norfolk said...

The best thing about today's puzzle for me was Gary's terrific explanation. Starting with a Gary Larson 'toon can't be bad. On the other hand, Wednesday puzzles containing both LEA SALONGA and VITTORIO will never be my friend. I didn't get CKS until the reveal, maybe because I write almost no physical checks and don't even receive bank statements these days. I don't know why I can't remember ARS; we see it often enough.

Don't know what kind of casinos they have in Nebraska, but I have never heard a dealer call out a toke to the pit boss. And I have spent WAY too much time sitting at blackjack tables in Nevada, Mississippi, Florida, Indiana and New Jersey. I've only seen "tap-tap" and either stack it near the dead cards or put it in a shirt pocket. I sometimes offer a one-roll bet on eleven for the craps dealers, and the stickman calls out "five dollar yo for the boys", then "thank you for trying, sir" when it doesn't win. This is done to clarify how the money is intended to be played, not really a call to the boss.

Fermatprime, I'm glad the laser treatment worked. Hope you have continuing improvement.

Zoe has been a pet for almost three months. She has become a stair expert, something that was hard for her to learn. She has always liked people, but is only now starting to look forward to going out for walks or car rides. When she's really tired she curls up on a bath mat in a bathroom, and I think it is like a crate to her - small, cool, and quieter than the busy parts of the house.

TTP said...

Good morning all.

Thank you Thomas and Gary.

Unlike Hungry Mother, I guessed wrong and went with CTS. Don't know much about any casino games.

Chairman Moe said...

"Puzzling Thoughts":

A bit rushed today but I got the puzzle save for missing the AON / ROES intersection

No other write-overs, but clearly a Weds level puzzle. Too many proper nouns and names for my liking, but the perps took care of those I didn't recognize (LEA SALONGA & VITTORIO)

Owen, loved the "show of Hans"

How odd that the word PUN would show up today as we debated LN about limericks and haikus

And although I edited it to fit the 5-7-5 meter, this is not my work:

I sent in ten quips
For contest. None made the cut.
No PUN in ten did.

Yellowrocks said...

Fermatprime, good news. I hope it continues to provide healing.
I knew toke, but never realized it came from token. That makes sense. Thanks, Gary.
POE keeps popping up all the time.
I didn't know MENO, all perps. The only new word for me.
I finally thought of LEA SALONGA, after many perps were filled. It slowed down that corner. The rest was faster.
I needed the reveal to catch the theme.
Fine puzzle, Thomas. Always great blogging. Gary.
Moe, from last night. I do enjoy your poems. You are correct. It is just the HAIKU name that bothers me. Also Bill G. I agree with you about limericks.

Spitzboov said...

Good Morning everyone.

I had to wait on perps for LEA SALONGA, too. Rest of the solve went well. Got AQI ok, but had to see Gary's map before the exact definition hit me. Fill had a bit of Italian bent today. Couple J's made it interesting, as well.

Not much to comment on so try this:

SQRT( x + 15) + SQRT(x) = 15.

What is x?

BunnyM said...

Good morning all!

What a great Wednesday offering from Thomas. Just a tad crunchy but got the reveal early which helped with the theme fills.
Thanks Husker Gary for an excellent write up- fun and informative!

The crunch was mostly due to some missteps on my part and of course a few unknowns.
I had No End for ONEND and didn't know OMOO. So Omno seemed ok but Ziog? Uh, no lol :)
I can never remember the MGM motto so ARS was unknown as was LEAHSALONGA and BOERS so the NE corner took awhile to fill.
SADR was also UK

AnonT- I know you thought of Rush with ASHOW of Hands :) Love their live work- just amazing. I've always thought their Starman emblem was inspired by The Vitruvius Man but not sure.

I've missed the blog for over a week. Extremely busy and a bit overwhelmed by a variety of things. I've been solving the puzzles and have checked in here a couple of times but feel out of the loop, lol

Misty- I did see that your Dad is home and seems to be doing well. That is excellent news! I'm sure it's a huge relief for you :)
Fermatprime- wishing you continued success with the laser treatments!

Hope everyone else is doing well and has a wonderful day!

P.S.- I finally filled out my blogger bio if anyone is interested ( thanks again to Bill G for the reminder!) :-)

PK said...

Hi Y'all! Fun, fun but WEES, thanks, Thomas & Gary!

Static Apnea? Good grief, I thought kids outgrew holding their breaths without being under water. This competition sounds worse than beer pong.

CKS: my grandson, at 16, is writing checks, keeping a check register and balancing his monthly statement. His parents insisted on this rather than just giving him a credit card to teach him to keep track of financial matters. His friends who all have credit cards laugh at his old-fashioned ways. I still write checks for monthly bills and take a credit card to stores for convenience, then pay off the credit card bill monthly. No interest charges.

Ferm: So glad the K-laser treatment helped. Keep us posted. I googled to see just what a K-laser does because I never heard of it before. It is available locally so might have to try it if you get continued good results.

PK said...

Went back and looked and I guess the static apnea competition IS underwater. How'd I miss that? At least that would be useful to divers & swimmers.

Anonymous said...


The third to last letter of the alphabet ?

Chairman Moe said...

YR @ 8:21 ---> If you noticed today, I did not refer to my three line, 5-7-5 as a Haiku! 😜

I also will not refer to my AA BB A rhyming work as a limerick unless it contains a bit of sophomoric humor.

If no one objects, I propose the following codes for these schemes with PUNS:

1. An "Owen": any five line poem where lines 1, 2, and 5 rhyme (or nearly rhyme) and lines 3 and 4 do the same. Words, phrases, and or message must be from today's LAT crossword puzzle

2. A "WC": same as above but with more attention to meter as well as a more risqué message, and also use words from today's puzzle

3. A "Moe-ku": any pun or quip written as a 5-7-5 (syllables) "poem", where clearly rhyming is not the object, but also contains a word from today's puzzle

Any thoughts? Comments? 😀

My first official "Owen":

The mine worker fled Crete; went to seek
New vocation in high tech. Found Shiekh
In Iraq who needs man
Who's well-versed in FORTRAN.
Now he's known there as ZORBA the Geek

desper-otto said...

So, apparently her name isn't Leasa Longa. Parsing problems continue.

Spitz, x = 49.

Anonymous said...

Tinbeni w/o Avatar, said ...

Husker: Good job on the very informative write-up.

D-N-F ... No idea about the Tony-winning, "Miss Saigon" actress, LEA SALONGA,
nor the Director VITTORIO, or the "Vitruvian Man" artist being DA-VINCI (which I got with a WAG).

Not a fan of the answers like 57-d, IT-AT, or 59-d, AS-IF. But 40-d, A-SHOW (of hands) was OK.

It is a beautiful, sunny, walk-on-the-beach day ... so I guess I will say hello to about 100 dogs on Honeymoon Island dog beach.
(And probably get a sunburn, LOL).

Cheers!

Yellowrocks said...

MOE,
In re: "OWEN", "WC", "MOE-KU"
Seems like a good idea to me.

Bill G said...

Spitz, I got 49. What trap did I fall into?

BunnyM, I enjoyed reading that. Thanks.

Spitzboov said...

No trap. 49 is what I got.

CanadianEh! said...

Thanks for the fun Wednesday workout, Thomas and Husker Gary.
(BTW did anyone answer Bluehen's question yesterday about Gary IND being the city and not C.C. referring to Husker G's state of Nebraska, or was that a joke?)
I started out strong but ended up a DNF because of SALONGA DAVINCI cross.

CKS did not make sense to this Canadian who uses cheques!
I had Workplace before WORKSPACE. Out of Place fits the theme also.
I always debate between CID or CYD.
SUR required an alphabet run and I was unfamiliar with TOKE in that context (not a casino frequenter). A cannabis reference would have been easier LOL!

I was not aware of the Canadian copyright differences. Thanks Gary. AnonT informed me that my Adele link yesterday would not work for Americans due to copyright issues.

Have a great day. We finally have some sunshine.

dbud said...

The clue for 47 down deserves a yellow card, well, probably a red card. Just terrible. Penalty card? No.

Argyle said...

CanadianEh!, say if you could picture a dance routine between El Cid and Cyd Charisse might help your debate.

CrossEyedDave said...

Why am I writing on this Blog?

I have an appointment in 10 minutes!

Misty said...

Fun Wednesday puzzle--thanks, Thomas--but I did have one little goof-up. I just couldn't figure out the TO_E and C_S cross, which ticked me off a little because I used to love to go to the casinos but don't remember a word like that. I wanted to put CDs for the Bank statements, because mine always list my CDs. Never heard of the abbreviation CK for Check. But I knew TODE for that Casino gratuity couldn't be right, so was just stumped. Well, except for that crummy thing in the middle, the rest of the puzzle was a lot of fun, and I even got VITTORIO, which I knew, and LEA SALONGA whom I didn't know but the perps took care of that. Also nice to see DA VINCI.

Thank you too, Gary, for the helpful expo, although I wish you'd explained AQI, which is unfamiliar to me.

BunnyM thanks for the kind comment about my Dad. And, Fermatprime, to glad the K-laser is helping. Finally, how nice to get such a sweet update about Zoe, Jinx.

Have a great Wednesday, everybody!

desper-otto said...

Misty, AQI stands for Air Quality Index.

Wilbur Charles said...

Moe, how about a YK. Where the ideal of the Haiku is attempted and reference to that days xword is optional. And, on the Owen's and Moe's there's a Wilbur rider that xword words of recent xwords count. An emoji to be named later attached.
So. A YK:
Sipping his DECAF
Oblivious to chatter
Working his crossword

Or
The stork GRASPed the snake
In his TALON. Furious
And powerless. Prey.
The former occurred this morning at the Frog Pond in St Pete Beach. The latter in my backyard the other day.

C-Moe your stuff recently has inspired Owen to new heights.

Btw. I'm working on a sitcom where three cruciverbalistes rent a Condo near St Petersburg. I have a title for it.

WC

Ol' Man Keith said...

A fine pzl from Mr. Takaro. I appreciated its consistency, each sector turning out to be equally challenging.
The only name I wasn't sure of was LEA SALONGA. Funny isn't it? - How with all the controversy set off by Miss Saigon, the only name I remember is that of Jonathan Pryce, and not of the actor in the title role.

CanadianEh! said...

Thanks Argyle @12:05. I'll have to remember that picture.

Irish Miss said...

HI Everyone:

Late again but with good reasons: doctor's appointment, grocery shopping, and a very late lunch. (My doctor's pronouncement that I weigh the same today as I did a year ago was both welcome and surprising.). I enjoyed the puzzle but went astray a few times with Orb/God, Vietnam/Iwo Jima, and needed perps for Lea Salonga and others. Theme was well obscured so that was a fun reveal.

Thanks, Thomas, for keeping us "Out of" trouble and thanks, HG, for your fun and witty write-up.

Ferm, fingers crossed for your continued improvement.

Jinx, thanks for the Zoe update; pictures would be welcome.

Abejo, how is your new companion doing?

Have a great day.

Wilbur Charles said...

Regarding the xword. Yes, C-eh, you beat me to it. I was going to say that Thomas had another clue for TOKE but Rich vetoed it.
Misty, I went Your route with CD and TODE. Hasty. And of course the POEt laureate of our blog. Is the PL the one where the letter is hidden"In plain sight"?
I think a lot of literature has things hidden in plain sight. Doyle who borrowed from Poe being suspect numero uno.

WC

Ps. Thanks to Gary and Thomas. You got us with the theme "hidden in plain sight"

Misty said...

Husker Gary, I forgot to say that your pictures this morning were simply wonderful! Thank you for posting so many of them.

Wilbur, thank you for reminding me about POE. I'm not a great fan of creepy fiction, but I should revisit some of his mystery and detective work some time, which I seem to remember I liked back in the day.

Big Easy said...

Good day from a very rainy New Orleans. Although the 'OUT OF' theme answers were gimmes, the intersection of VITTORIO & CapriOTE got me. I never heard of the director, his (her?) movie, and CAPRIOSE sounded as good a CAPRIOTE; Google doesn't like either spelling.

MEWS- we had a few puzzles back but I solved it by perps. TOKE- never heard that other than a description of a dope smoker taking a puff. ZING for 'Zest'- got it from perps but it makes no sense to me. ZEST for life or a bar of soap.

Wilbur Charles said...

Some random thoughts. Speaking of poetry we had some sneak in today, to wit. Reread Jinx' paragraph about Zoe, Particularly the last sentence. Pure poetic charm. A natural.

"Usher" is "creepy" and complex as I recall. Poe, except for the well-known poems was a long time ago for me too.
And...
Along with the beanball war we had a racist taunting incident in Boston. Meanwhile, I'm"solving" in McDonald's and some inbred DOLT is on a racist rant.

They are coming out of their holes it seems.
Actually, no less than Ted Williams was the subject of merciless taunting at Fenway.
I hope this won't be considered political. If so, mea culpa

WC

Yellowrocks said...

Wilbur, your snake verse had the feel of a classical haiku. Great one. I am not sure I understand your catagories. Please explain. I did understand and like Moe' s.

Wilbur Charles said...

YR, I meant that something like "The Snake" is inspired by your link to Eastern Haiku and similar verse. By saying you like it, the type will be known as a YR

It seems that we Don't have to search far for xword words. TALON and GRASP were relatively recent.
The other inspiration is to craft the Haiku from one's experience: nature or the everyday.
Especially since cleverness and creativity are the forte of Owen and C-Moe.

Btw. You're the star of my Florida, Golden Girls-type sitcom. I hope your sense of humor is at full blast.

I even have the theme song started and the pilot episode framed.

Ps. I'm not sure there'll be anymore WCs.

Except the one and only

WC

Wilbur Charles said...

Another YR

Reptile glides downstream
Two red eyes. Incandescent.
Silent, seeking. What?

Yesterday's pond action as night fell.

WC

PK said...

YR: Hey girl, you've really inspired poetic competition or whatever you want to call that! Rhyme on guys!

Yellowrocks said...

Wilbur, though I am flattered I am not a haiku maven or authority, just a persnickity fan.
I am kinda flattered about starring in your play. Am I the hot to trot Balanche, LOL, the ditzy Rose, the prosaic Dorothy or the feisty Sopia?

OwenKL said...

On names for our varied aphorisms and apothegms 🏺🙄, I've already made my suggestion for funny hicoos, and WC long ago started using "l'icks" for my poems, though he inexplicably puts an apostrophe at the front, instead of after the L, where it could variously stand for "Lorionate limerick", "Lousy limerick", "Loosely like a limerick", or most appropriately, with a tad of French: "La ick!"

On WC's rider, I occasionally use words from the prior days' puzzles, and since you like, may try a bit harder to do so for the future. But I'll still HIGHLITE only the ones from the current day's puzzle.

Moe:
As intendid, fine
old joke made fresh by
new presentation!

Since SQRT is usually irrational, x needed to be a perfect square as did x+15. So I just looked at the sequence of perfect squares until I found a pair that differed by 15. Practically no calculations required: x=49, x+15=64.

Moe & WC -- outstanding 🙄🏺 !
DO -- I also thot LEASA LONGO pre-blog.

PK said...

YR: I can't see you in any of those G.G. rolls. Not a single one of them square danced. Surely you've inspired a fresh new idea in sitcom presentation.

Anonymous T said...

Hi All!

Two lookups :-(. I didn't know 11d nor 41d and perps were not going to fully cover 'em (16a & 53a, respectively).

Thank Thomas for helping pass the time at the Dr's office (BP is down!) this morning. Too many names and what Tin said. But, the theme was fun.

Thanks HG for the expo - the annotated Larson was funny!

WOs: sMee b/f OMOO; BAhA (d'oh!)
ESPs: ZORBA, CKS, OTE, PIET, MENO and I'm sure more. This was Thurs-hard for me.

Fav: BunnyM called it: A SHOW of Hands. I listened to it 2x in my WORKSPACE (office) after filling the X-word.

{A-, A, A} {moan :-)}

C, Eh! I took Bluehen's comment as a joke. Maybe I was wrong? :-)

Argyle - run over and add 'Moe-ku' to the olio! Newbies are going to be confused...

CED's OUT OF his mind and I'm OUTTA Time.

Cheers, -T

Wilbur Charles said...

The Sit-Com is titled The Yellowrocks of Largo. Of course all references to persons past or present are purely coincidental.

Ms YL Rock is a retired Colonel of Marines living in Largo FL, a hotbed of competitive square dance calling. Her friends, Bunny and Margo have "flown over" for a visit thus the beginning of the theme song:

They flew over, Bunny and Margo
To see the Yellowrocks of Largo...

Here's an excerpt from the TV reviewer ABNER Askerazy of Bffld.com:

YL has overhead Margo rehearsing for a lecture she's giving. The words "intertextual" and "dialogic" were enough to know she needed to plan an escape.

So she tells Marge that SgtNajor Flashback, formerly of Parris Island is in town to introduce close-order drill into "Calling".
"But that's not on Friday" says Bunny, appalled at the fib.

Later, to enhance the lie Bunny concocts a Rehab intervention for "Cousin Wilbur" who has contracted Cossellianism-The prolonged use of highly nasal, extremely boring accounts of sports arcana from the 50s.
Apparently, he was going on and on about Ferris Fain when the BA* folks grabbed him.
So tune in to this zany comedy of three cruciverbalistes sharing a Condo in Largo.

WC

* BA. Boraholics Anonymous

Wilbur Charles said...

Regarding the previous. To get the jokes one would have to be familiar with The Big Bang Theory (Episode 3, year one). Btw, there was a Colonel IL Ray.

WC

Picard said...

Glad I wasn't the only one who had trouble with the crossing of AON and ROES! I did WAG it correctly in the end.

LEA SALONGA and VITTORIO were unknowns. TOKE I got with a WAG. Only know OMOO from crosswords. I did read the one about the big... mammal... in college.

Interesting learning moment about MEWS!

I got the theme about half way through. Clever!