google.com, pub-2774194725043577, DIRECT, f08c47fec0942fa0 L.A.Times Crossword Corner: Friday, June 9, 2017, David Alfred Bywaters

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Jun 9, 2017

Friday, June 9, 2017, David Alfred Bywaters

Title: G, take T and see!

Our second puzzle from David, with his LAT debut a Friday in December last year. He began then by adding "EX" to phrases, and returns with a replace a letter - G becomes T -  which is revealed by the perfect G IS T (gist).  We have no other consistency, with three 3 letter second words, one with the first letter changed in the first word, one with the last letter in the first word and one with a middle letter.  We have six themers and the reveal to give us a packed puzzle, with little room for long sparkly fill.  This filled without any complete unknowns and the long non-theme fill, CRAYOLA, SEATTLE, RAMPANT, SARCASM, PRECINCT and IT'S A DEAL were all gettable.  let's look at the puzzle.

17A. Sports geek get-togethers? : STAT PARTIES (11). StaG Parties are no longer PC.

25A. Halloween decoration? : PAPER BAT (8).  Paper BaG. Want to make your own?

32A. Longhair cat's monotonous routine? : PERSIAN RUT (10). Persian RuG.  Very cute.

43A. Last one left angrily carrying on? : LONE RANTER (10). Lone RanGer. The only soft G.

48A. Imperfection in a pointillist painting? : STRAY DOT (8). Stray DoG

61A. Moral? : TALE WARNING (11). Gale warning. 

The reveal

69A. Essence ... and, read differently, a hint to six puzzle answers : GIST (4). 62 theme squares.

 Across: 

1. Dirt removal method : BATH. Very fun clue, so simple but like the soap, very slippery.

5. Like much religious music : CHORAL. Choral, chorale, choir, and chorus stand in obvious relationship to one another and are in some respects used interchangeably when a body of singers, for example, is referred to as a choir, a chorus (Latin noun derived from the Greek word choros), or a chorale, which properly is a Lutheran hymn tune. (Britannica).

11. Uncooked : RAW.

14. It replaced the Cypriot pound : EURO. I did not even know Cyprus used the Pound.

15. Go back : RENEGE. A word I learned playing bridge, which has nothing to do with the clue here.

16. Stumble : ERR. "To stumble is human", just does not have the same ring.

19. Gardening tool : HOE. I wonder if Santa uses one in his garden.

20. Upper part : TOP. Tempting to link something, some would like to...

21. Keep an __ : EYE ON.

22. Pesters online, in a way : SPAMS.

24. Wall St. event : IPOInitial Public Offering.

27. Western city named for a Suquamish chief : SEATTLE. Apparently he was Chief of this TRIBE.

31. Witness : SEE.

35. Throw : CAST. Your bread upon the water....

39. Early computer : ENIAC. You must know this by now.

40. Hound over a debt : DUN. Do people still refer to dunning letters?

41. Agile : LITHE.

42. Group of two : DYAD. From Latin and Greek root.

45. Job ad abbr. : EOEEqual Opportunity Employer.

47. Feature of many negative reviews : SARCASM. Sarcasm is not always negative.

53. Corp. leaders : MGT. Management.

54. Greets : HAILS.

55. Feel around : GROPE.

57. Printemps month : MAI. French for Spring and May.

60. Addams family cousin : ITT. I could not find one with Fester wearing a Fez.

64. Tasseled hat : FEZ.

65. Pair of ones? : ELEVEN. I have seen it before but still tricky.

66. Wary of : ON TO.

67. Test : TRY.

68. Fight against : RESIST.


Down:

1. Leading : BEST. The beginning was slow for such easy words, but the nearby fill was fiar.

2. Car : AUTO.

3. Door in the floor : TRAP. Did any of you fall for this clue?

4. Sweating, maybe : HOT. Perfect clue for summer.
5. Tropical Rain Forest seller since 1993 : CRAYOLA. Is this a single color or a set of greens?

6. "__ we go!" : HERE.

7. Leading : ON TOP. See 20A, 21A, 66A....

8. Spanish queen : REINA. I learned this Spanish word from puzzles.

9. Birthday count : AGE. How many put the correct number of candles on the cake?

10. Car user, maybe : LESSEE.

11. Detox locale : REHAB. I guess, since people are always going to rehab.

12. Draw from the oven : AROMA.

13. Take forcibly : WREST.

18. Digestive : PEPTIC. "...relating to digestion, especially that in which pepsin is concerned." Pepsin being a key digestive enzyme.

23. Administrative district : PRECINCT. There are voting precincts, police precincts....

24. Words spoken while shaking : IT'S A DEAL. Handshaking. Nice clue.

26. Winter hrs. in Berkeley : PSTPacific Standard Time.

27. Went fast : SPED.

28. Bitty : EENY. My thought...LINK.

29. "Nessun dorma," e.g. : ARIA. I never saw this clue until I was doing the write up; as stated it means nothing so...


30. Prefix with scope : ENDO. Endoscopy is a very important tool in modern medicine.

33. Race : RUN.

34. Quelques-__: a few, in French : UNES. If you do not speak French this is difficult.

36. "__ boy!" : ATTA.

37. Females : SHES.

38. Period : TERM.

41. Like L vis-à-vis XL, in some cases : LARGER. Did you size this one up?

43. Set the pace : LED. In the race...

44. Widespread : RAMPANT.

46. Bivalve at a bar : OYSTER. I spent way too much time trying to come up with the punch line to, " A bivalve burrowed in to an oyster bar...."

48. Nine to five, e.g. : SHIFT.

49. Spud : TATER.

50. Posh : RITZY.

51. Looks at in a bad way? : OGLES. Okay this matches with 57A. Revealing attire : MINI. LINK.

52. Rome's Fontana di __ : TREVI. This has appeared in many movies.

56. Is indebted to : OWES.

58. Social climbers? : ANTS. More like anti-social.

59. "__ Rhythm" : I GOT.. This was one of the musicals my sons appeared in during high school.

62. Pub offering : ALE.

63. Frothy quaff : NOG. Frothy? RECIPE.

Well another Friday in the record books; I found it very doable but YMMV. Have a great week end and then get ready for Father's Day and the U.S. Open without Phil, who will be at his daughter's high school graduation. Thanks David.


Note from C.C.:

Here are a few pictures of Lemonade's beautiful granddaughters Charlotte and Harper. You can also click here for all the Charlotte/Harper pictures we've shown on our blog. I smile every time I look at that lemonade stand.


Charlotte 2017 Dance Recital

Harper Does Slow Down
The Girls 2016

The Girls, June 2017

42 comments:

fermatprime said...

Hi everyone!

Thanks to David and Lemonade!

Not a difficult Friday! Nice theme.

Didn't know SEATTLE or CRAYOLA right off the bat, but filled in nicely with a few letters.

Cute kids, Lemon!

Have a great day!

TTP said...


Good morning. Thank you David and thank you Lemonade.

I'll take my two ERRors and move on. Never caught the theme.
Guess I should have slowed down, but had a sense this was going to be my fastest solve ever for a LA TIMES Friday, so I was more intent on speed.

My DUAD should have been changed to DYAD. And in that same row, I had a LONG RANTER rather than a LONE RANTER.

Haste makes waste. And an improperly completed puzzle.

Just a few type overs along the way. wash before BATH, and Spokane before SEATTLE.

Temps going to be in the 90's here for a few days. Guess I'll be testing the AC.

Time to get crackin'. See all y'all later n'at !

desper-otto said...

Good morning!

I was surprised to see both TOP and ON TOP in this one. I thought that as a no-no. CHORAL because SCARY was too short. REVERT morphed into RENEGE. SCAMS/SPAMS made PRECINCT slow to appear. Didn't get the theme until the reveal, but for me, that's a win. Still, it was a quick, enjoyable solve. Thanx, David and Lemonade.

"Nessun Dorma" -- I read somewhere that it means "None shall sleep." With all that hollerin', I can see why.

"Dunning letters" -- Nope, it's all done by phone now. For a two-year period I'd get dunning phone calls multiple times daily for a debt that wasn't mine. Told them I didn't owe them any money. They didn't care. I finally switched phone companies to one which allowed call-blocking.

Hahtoolah said...

Good Morning, Lemonade and friends. This was an easier puzzle than our usual Friday fare. Not without its challenges, though. It's never a good sign when I can't get 1-Across or 1-Down on the first pass. Dirt Removal Method = BATH is a great clue and answer, though.

I needed the unifier to help with some of the theme answers. I immediately saw that GIST could be read as G IS T.

Shout Out to Abejo with the FEZ.

The origin of SEATTLE was a learning moment.

My only concern was having both TOP and ON TOP appear as answers.

What is your favorite CRAYOLA color. Just click on the color to find out its official name.

Nice photos of your granddaughters, Lemon. They are really growing up!

QOD: If I have to go around telling everyone how great I am, then there’s something wrong with my act. ~ Les Paul (June 9, 1915 ~ né Lester William Polsfuss, d. Aug. 13, 2009)

billocohoes said...

For "L vis-a-vis XL" I was thinking Roman numerals, not sizes. But that would be in all cases, not "some".

In sizes, L would be smaller vis-a-vis XL

billocohoes said...

OK, so in cases when they're numerals, larger, in sizes, smaller. Got it

Big Easy said...

I was fairly sure that STAT was correct in the NW but there was a lot of white until I completed LONE RANTER. That opened up the puzzle with my only problems being REINA, CRAYOLA, ARIA, & UNES. I GOT Rhythm?- my wife says no.

As for the LARGER clue concerning L & XL, I filled it by perps but didn't think about it as Roman numerals. Tricky clue.

I had to make a couple of changes- TINY to EENY while thinking ITTY and ITSY; TOSS to CAST.
I was thinking HYMNAL until CHORAL changed my mind.

No SARCASM allowed today.

thehondohurricane said...


An FIW that used most of a new eraser to fill in all the blanks. For 32A I had purring cat, duad for 42A, and itraleal) for 24D. . Resulted in 28D & 34D being wrong too.

I did see the theme or gimmick David created, but PERSIAN CAT never crossed my mind and I was sure 24d was a goof, but my brain was out of business by then. Considering it's a Friday I'll take a close but no cigar.

Got the new Highlander. It will take me EONS to learn how to use all the features. Today I'm going for temp control, windshield wipers, turning on the night lights. Those seem important to know! I'm longing for the "good old days".... start the car, put it in gear, and DRIVE.

First heat wave of the year coming....whoopee too.

Jinx in Norfolk said...

As my dad would have said, I'm as magic as a goose. I wondered yesterday if we would get a Thursday-level puzzle today (since we had JW's Friday puzzle yesterday), and we got one! FIR without help, but erased Eeo for EOE, away we go for HERE we go (too much time watching the Honeymooners sitcom), tiny for EENY and it's a boy for ATTA boy.

I got a couple of the theme answers and understood the G->T early. That gave me GIST, which was a big help in solving the rest of the theme clues. Didn't know printemps, Tropical Rain Forest (thought "shampoo"), REINA, Nessum Dorma, or quelques-anything. I'm not getting how L is larger than XL, in some cases. Someone please throw the V8 can at me. Never mind, as I typed this I figured it out. After all the Roman number discussions we had this week I should have seen that one quicker.

DO - The legit folks still send dunning letters. Got one yesterday from the water company, as my payment was a couple of weeks late. They won't send billing notices via email, and the USPS delivery is TERRIBLE here. Some stuff just doesn't show, and a LOT of mail is delivered to an address that is different than the one shown on the envelope. And their forwarding "service" is nearly useless. The phone calls are from bottom-feeders. They buy bad debt at cents on the dollar. If they recover 10% of the debt they buy, they make big bucks. They have even brow-beaten folks who don't owe into paying up, just to stop the calls. Back when I had a landline I got several of these every day, often regarding folks with a different middle initial. They always promised to remove me from their list, but NEVER did so. I have Verizon Wireless exclusively now.

Cute kids, Lemonade. I'm sure they make your pain much more tolerable. Thanks for the write-up, especially the "hot" gif. And thanks to DAB for a fun, fun end-of-week puzzle.

Hungry Mother said...

Very nice theme and helpful as well. On the easy side for a Friday, but no compaint here.

Yellowrocks said...

Great puzzle, David, and great expo, Lemon. Adorable pics of your grandchildren.
Many write overs in the middle of the west coast because I confidently answered the wrong clue at 28D and nothing fit around it. That section got so messy I couldn't read it, and so I filled it online at master level. So easy, then.
I used to receive many dunning calls about a distant relative I have not been in touch with for 25 years. Finally, after several years of this I was able to get a rep to remove my name from the call list.
Thanks for linking "nessum dorma." It's not hollerin' to me. I enjoy Pavarotti's singing.
Most of the foreign words we see here have become crosswordese and are easy, but not so, quelques-unes. All perps. No other unknowns.
L stands for large and XL stands for extra large, XXL stands for extra, extra large. Those who don't know this must be blessedly thin.
"I'm as magic as a goose" is a new one to me. What does it mean?
Alan is still not feeling well, but I am more content, because we are now on the same page. Thanks for caring, Agnes. You made my day.

Irish Miss said...

Good Morning:

I caught the theme early on but still sputtered here and there. I wanted Persian Cat but there is no G, but Rut (Rug) finally dawned on me. And, I must have been in la la land because I completely missed Stray Dot and Tale Warning as being part of the theme. Nessun Dorma was Pavorotti's signature aria and was also the background music for much of the horrific scenes in "The Killing Fields." Overall, the puzzle's bark was worse than its bite, in a fun way.

Thanks, David, for an enjoyable solve and thanks, Lemony, for all of the details and links, especially the beautiful and haunting aria. Enjoyed seeing the adorable girls; can't believe how they've grown. Thanks, also, for the spot-on description of the nuns wimple yesterday.

Spitz, Dirty Ed's must have been before my time as I've never heard of it. However, I've had many a meal from Jack's Chinese restaurant in Albany. I used to work in that area and we would often get take-out. The food was very good, as I recall. I thought you might have gone to the Knotty Pine as that's so close to the campus and I thought the Red Front was a popular pizza place for all the students, although it's much closer to Russell Sage than RPI. You probably wouldn't recognize downtown Troy today.

Have a great day.

Lemonade714 said...

JINX, I thought of Jackie Gleason also, but his catch phrase was "And away we go."

BunnyM said...

Good morning all

Thanks, David for a fun Friday puzzle! Got the theme early with PERSIANRUT and the reveal of G IS T , so that helped with the other theme answers.
Great tour, Lemonade! Nice to see you back ONTOP of your game (sorry if I missed you before, as I've not been on the blog much for the last several weeks) Hope you are doing well and have continued improvement. Your grandchildren are precious- great photos :)

I expected this to be tougher ( went in with a Friday mindset) so it didn't start out well. The NW corner wasn't as hard as I made it to be but finally got it on my second time around.

A few W/O's : had Duet>DYAD, Away>HERE, Ahead>ONTOP, Tele>ENDO
Perps: ARIA, MAI and UNES (Doh! I should be able to remember more French than I do) and ENIAC- nope, I still don't know this Lemonade, lol :)
SEATTLE was a fun learning moment.

DUN- my worst job ever was working for JC Penney Credit. I was a debt collector for 30-60 day overdue accounts. It was terrible but the pay was excellent, the hours allowed me to get my kids on the school bus and be home when they returned and less than 10 minutes from home. I hated it though and wasn't cut out to be aggressive and demanding. I occasionally got to work in customer service taking incoming calls which was somewhat better but not much. Accounts were marked "DO NOT DUN" for certain situations (death in the family, certain financial situations, customers who went absolutely ballistic when called, etc) and within so many days of a major holiday like Thanksgiving and Christmas. I was actually relieved to lose my job when they were bought out by GE Card Services. We had the choice to join that company or take severance. I took the latter and then within a short time, landed my dream job at the library. I can't tell you how happy I was- it changed my whole outlook on life to have a job I enjoyed that didn't involve harassing people!

Gorgeous day here again but the oppressive heat is on the way. So I'll enjoy this while I can. Hope everyone has a great day and a wonderful weekend!

Husker Gary said...

Musings
-I thought PAPER BAT was lame until I saw it was part of the theme
-The CHORAL finale to Beethoven’s Ninth and the Nessun Dorma ARIA are both magnificent
-RENEGE dredges up the incredibly racist phrase of Indian Giver
-I am typing this outside while I keep an EYE ON our kitty
-SARCASTIC review – “Last night the symphony played Beethoven, Beethoven lost”
-The lower group of 11 is free this month on my Amazon.com site
-The TRAP DOOR scene from Charade (2:29)
-The correct “number” of candles on my last birthday cake
-My July “OSCOPY” will enter through the southern port
-I’ve received many “ATTA BOYS” in lieu of cash
-Fontana di TREVI is the only place I had to stand in line to throw a coin
-Grandkids are the best as you will see if you are my friend on Facebook
-Three links (erased two) and I’m outta here.

Lemonade714 said...

Why are there 12 people in the top Ocean's Eleven picture? I do not recognize all of the people in the top picture

Spitzboov said...

IM @ 0924 - I'm sure there were other places, up near Hoosick and on 5th ave, but i've long ago forgotten the names.. When #3 son attended RPI in the early nineties, I saw how much Troy had changed. Nice restaurants on the waterfront.

Got the puzzle done, Liked the theme - easy, but hard to parse right. I guess that's the fun and the challenge of it. GIST - G IS Twas superb.

PK said...

Hi Y'all! Fun puzzle, David. I got the theme early at PERSIAN RUT which helped fill ALL the others as well as the reveal G is T.

Thanks, Lemonade. Such cuties you got!

Only problems were TRiVI before TREVI and "ale" in the NOG spot. Hand up for "wash" before BATH.

Birthday count = AGE. No candles. I haven't had an edible cake in years. Daughter once took me to a new cupcake store for one of those. My only cakes have come from CED, thankfully non-fattening.

Other words spoken while shaking: "I do" didn't fit. Shaking from emotion here.

From yesterday, out here nuns no longer wear wimples or any head covering with conservative "civilian" clothes. Only a larger than usual cross is a clue they are religious.

C6D6 Peg said...

Thanks, David, for a fun Friday..... Didn't need the reveal, although it made filling much faster!

Nice job, Lemonade. Thanks for the Nessun Dorma. I'm normally not an opera fan, but that was beautiful! Cute grandkids! Keep the pics coming.

Wilbur Charles said...

Thanks Lemonade for explaining the two pictures. Not to speak of your always excellent write-up. Vous avez quelques-unes belles filles, je crois.

But. . The Fwanche stopped at SORTIES which led to the ridiculous SEPTIC. I'm​such a stupid as the late and much revered Roberto DiVencenzo said after the 1969 Masters was stolen from him.

I would say this was average difficulty except for a lot of gimmes (continuing the golf talk).

YR thanks for explaining bib vs habit on those nuns we learned to love much later.

Is Misty in Toronto?

WC

PS. Oh yeah CRAYOLA. In my day we had seven. In my day I still had a brain

And thx Monsieur Bywaters, tres bien

MJ said...

Good day to all!

Wonderful puzzle today from David Bywaters, and not a single unknown proper name, which made this seem much easier than a typical Friday. "Like L vis-a-vis XL, in some cases" for LARGER was my favorite clue/answer. Very clever. Thanks for the expo and links, Lemonade. Darling photos of your sweet granddaughters. They are growing up so quickly.

Enjoy the day!

Anonymous said...

Jinx here - there is something wrong with my "blue" status.

YR - I don't know where the "magic as a goose" came from. may have been an inside joke, as often happened in the country before the days of mass communication or transport. For example, my cousin Margaret had a dog hike his leg on her when she was very young. From then on she was known as "Posty" as in fence post. Even as an adult she went by that name.

My dad was of Welsh descent and grew up in the mountains of Southeastern Kentucky. No TV or radio when he was growing up, and a lot of people played music on hand-made instruments. His dad (my grandfather) died in the flu epidemic of 1918 when my dad was a young boy, so he spent a lot of time at his grandparents. They lived a couple of hours away by horseback, or he could take the train which would get him there in a roundabout way in about 3 hours. Things have changed a bit - If a parent sent a preteen on a two hour horseback trek alone through the woods these days, CPS would be involved before he could return home.

Yellowrocks said...

RENEGE is to fail to carry out or go back on a promise or commitment. To my mind, it kind of fits reneging at cards, too. The rules of the game commit one to follow suit if one is able to do so. Not following suit when one can is going back on this commitment.

Did you ever play SPUD. We played it a lot as kids.
SPUD

In those days there were no play dates and we, my sibs and kids, had more freedom than kids today. We just ran outside and picked up whatever friends and neighbors were hanging out. Recently some parents were visited by child protective services because their kids walked unsupervised two blocks on a quiet street to the park. And the world is safer today than it was 30 years ago. The modern children lose a lot of independence.
child safety

Misty said...

Woohoo! Woohoo! I got a Friday puzzle without a single cheat or look-up! Yay! Looks like I'm not the only one who thought this was a little easier than our usual Friday fare--but, boy, did it make me happy to get this one. It wasn't easy though, and as all those weird theme answers started cropping up, I had a hard time figuring out what on earth was going on. It wasn't until that last GIST fell into place that the G-IS-T suddenly dawned on me, and even allowed me to fix a few initial goof-ups. Delightful, fun, interesting puzzle, David--many thanks! And what sweet little grand-daughters you have, Lemonade.

Thanks for asking, Wilbur, but I'm still in town. Toronto comes up the week after next. I didn't check in yesterday, because I got caught up in the Comey hearings and had so much trouble with that very difficult puzzle that I never finished it. That's why this morning was such a blessing.

Have a great day, and a great weekend coming up, everybody!

Tinbeni said...

Yeah! .... Avatar is back!

D-N-F not even close ... thanks for the explanation Lemon.

A "toast-to-ALL" at sunset.
Cheers!

Ol' Man Keith said...

Ta-DA!
I had AWAY before HERE (6D) and TAM before FEZ (64A). Otherwise, Mr. Bywaters, I thank you for a steadily unfolding Friday pzl.
Ta-double-DA!!!
Lemon, thank you for the moving camera in support of the GQ model of HOT; the motion is somehow extra, well, "moving"; and thanks for Pavarotti, a fave rendition of Nessun dorma!
Maybe 10D could have been clued with, "OK, I'll check your addition..."
I'm glad I caught onto the theme early on. I doubt I could have made much sense out of several answers otherwise. STAT PARTIES was the most awkward. I enjoyed seeing how GIST (or G IS T) fit in, but it didn't clue me in. As it did for others, LONE RANTER did that service for me.

In the end it was all, well ...
Ta-dippitydappity-DA!!!!

Steve said...

@Jinx - Roman numerals - 50 is greater than 40. L > XL

On the Roman numerals subject from yesterday, we were taught in Latin class to use the smallest number of letters possible to make up the number as it made for quicker carving in the stone. Hence IIX rather than VIII. Doesn't appear to always be the case.

Thanks for the write-up there, Lemonade.

Jayce said...

Nifty puzzle, good theme. I actually like the fact it took me 5 minutes to get the LARGER clue.

I too watched the Comey hearings with great interest. Plenty of grist for conversations between LW and me.

Best wishes to you all.

Anonymous said...

Even though I needed help with some answers, I thought today's puzzle was easier then Wed. or Thurs. Thank you, David Bywaters, for the challenge. Lemonade, I needed your help, thankyouverymuch!

I had some of the same issues already discussed so no need to rehash them.

Our run of pleasant weather is ending. The hot/humids are moving in Sunday for an extended stay. Yuck! I thank the person(s) who invented air conditioning so that I am comfortable in my home.

Happy weekend to all!

Ol' Man Keith said...

Agree with Pat @3:53 as to today's pzl being less resistant than yesterday's. They all seem to be getting easier, but I can't tell if it's their pushoverness or my quicker, slicker sussing.

Misty & Jayce, yup, I too enjoyed the Comey show yesterday. Wondering why no one sees fit to remark that his name is only a "d" short of Comedy. Maybe that's only for cruciverbalists to see.
Today's Rose Garden response from Ubu (youknowho) was shorter but equally engaging - the name Trump being only five letters shy of Farce.

Lemonade714 said...

OLK great catch.

Anyone see the Wonder Woman movie?

Anonymous T said...

Hi All!

D'Oh! Taken down by a some-times vowel. I had DiAD/EENi (after DUET; Hi Bunny!)

Thanks David for this creative puzzle. It had to dawn on you at some point that GIST is spelt that way. Brilliant! My favorite themer was PERSIAN RUT. C/a for 58d was pretty novel too.

Thanks Lem for the expo. Boy, your Grands-SHES are growing fast.

On Fridays I try to keep track of the anatomy of a solve. I puzzle-play frenetically and I never 'know' what begat what... Since Fridays are hard, it makes it easy to keep track:
AUTO/EURO and CHORAL/HERE/AGE agreed and filled. RAW was a gimme ->REHAB->ERR->HOE->AROMA->WRE[SPAMS]ST->...BAT. PST->LEaSEE->PAPER. Back to the NW and on it went. //yeah, this was easier than normal and I lost track

WOs: 'No Stars' b/f SARCASM (I couldn't commit to PREsINCT w/ 53a being a pl.; the commit gave me MGT (thinking VPs) and LARGER [I was thinking 'modifier of some sort'; L > X ∴ X subtracts from L. And, then there's T-Shirts]
Duet->DiAD [bzzt];
and @52d TRa|e|i|o|u|y[sometimes]VI and RAMPeNT. Took a long time to un-parse TELaWeRNING.

ESP - who cares? MAI was tricky.
Fav: Do I go w/ fun word or themer? Mmmm... The LONE RANTER seems like the best of both worlds. The guy who rides in on the white horse and bloviates (that's his special power); just the mental image makes me giggle.

HG - I just linked Ode to Joy a week ago. Enjoy again.

Steve - Thanks for the feedback on Roman Numerals. Methinks that's why the empire collapsed.- too lazy to carve an extra I ?!? #SAD #MAKEROMEGREATAGAIN

Tin - good to see your snifter AVITAR back in blue.

sigh I'm contractually obligated [Splynter!]... It TOPs out at ELEVEN :-)

Cheers, -T

AnonymousPVX said...

Up front, I got the solve. I thought the clueing was ridiculously bad, strained, unfair, whatever. Gentle readers will anticipate my absolute dislike of this type of gimmick puzzle as well. Yuck.

Anonymous said...

I doubt you got the solve.

tawnya said...

Hi all -

Typical Friday solve for me - @anon 7:09 is correct that I did not get the FIR. No big deal! Enjoyable none the less! Saw the G/T connection but did not see G IS T until I got here. Thank you, Lemon, for the write up (I'm sure Splynter will appreciate it, too)!

Anon-T beat me to the ELEVEN link, of course!

Off to feed the dogs and myself!

t.

Anonymous said...

So we are down to under 40 comments on a Friday?

Well, I could help you to understand why.

It would be an hard pill to swallow.

But it's ok!

Lemonade714 is a thief. Fact

You understand why that affects my opinion of this blog?

Dude is toxic

Wilbur Charles said...

Wow, I thought he was going to skip his RANT for once.

Misty, I asked because yesterday had a Don Quixote theme that's ​right up your alley. As a literature maven, don't all roads whether Shakespeare or even Joyce start with Miguel de Cervantes?

That's what Prof Smith tried to tell me in 1963.

BTW. I'm reading a book by Barbara Rogan and she referred to a YENTA not YENTE.

YR, did you perhaps in your voracious reading happen to read "A Dangerous Fiction"?

Since this is an honest blog, I confess that I picked it up in the $ store.

WC

Wilbur Charles said...

I'll forgive the politics by contributing this: How one sees Mr Comey depends on whether you see through 🌹 or😇 glasses*

*The only blue I could find 😇

PS. This cuts close to home

PPS. I also refer to the venerable Bishop Oakham

WC

Misty said...

Sorry, Wilbur--took me forever to get the theme, and although I love Don Quixote, it's a little out of my league, I'm afraid. Now if someone ever did a Joyce puzzle, I'd better ace that one or I'll be in big trouble.

Anonymous T said...

It's late enough no one but Argyle cares...
WC, Misty, Jayce, et.al. The best synopsis of Comedy's Senate Hearing is that link. Yes, Trevor leans left. But, the clip is fair-ish, balanced-ish, and funny. The latter trumps all 3 in my book. And the 1st minute montage nails the overall feeling of 'Meh.' Cheers, -T

Anonymous T said...

Punching-the-clock-out-for-the-day says:

I finished slides 1-10 for Tuesday's presentation to my nerd-cult (Splunk) and, so, went to finish the newspaper. I came 'cross Pradeep's quip [I've told y'all about him; he's a Sugar Lander that sends jokes to the PAPER]:

The new band, 1023MB, is really good. Sadly, they've not had a gig yet.

[I changed Pradeep Anand's original but it's still his GIST. For us nerd-o-philes, 'tis cute. Pradeep always brings me a smile; like a C.C. Pzl on a Tuesday] Cheers, -T

Picard said...

This is my final catch-up puzzle from when I was away at a conference last month.

Thanks for the write-up Lemonade. I totally missed the L and XL meaning! I thought LARGER was breaking some rule of not having the answer be in the clue!

And thank you for the HOT moving GIF. Reminds me of showering with DW!

Fun puzzle with challenges, but seemed totally fair. Got the theme about half way through and it helped a lot.