20. *Spider-Man's alter ego : PETER PARKER
41. Pseudonym ... and what the end of each answer to a starred clue is : PEN NAME
Melissa here. A pseudonym theme after yesterday's NAME CHANGE. Today, each theme answer ends with the brand name of a pen maker. It took all four for the light to come on, as I was expecting to find actual aliases. Northeast was the last to fall, due to an unknown, and a misread clue. Full of Scrabble-y letters, J, K, X - only a Q and V short of a pangram.
Across
1. Blue gem, briefly : LAPIS
6. See : ESPY
10. Units of electrical resistance : OHMS
14. "You __ serious": "I don't believe it" : AREN'T
15. When doubled, toy train sound : CHOO
16. Actress Cusack : JOAN
17. Bungle : MISDO
. If you say so.
18. Don't have : LACK
19. Number after dix : ONZE
. French ten and eleven.
23. DOJ anti-narcotics arm : DEA
. Not ATF.
24. Gen-__: boomers' kids : XERS
25. Lustrous patterned fabric : DAMASK
27. Rim : EDGE
30. SOS responder : USCG
. Coast Guard.
33. Vain dresser : FOP
. Funny word.
34. Protestant minister : PARSON
. Not PASTOR.
36. Leaving out : OMITTING
40. Mined metal : ORE
43. Texter's guffaw : LOL
44. Like shish kebab : SKEWERED
46. A __: based on deduction rather than experience : PRIORI
48. Family reunion attendees : KIN
49. Be an omen of : BODE
51. __ in the back: betray : STAB
52. Prickly plant : CACTUS
55. Burn soother : ALOE
57. "Ben-__" : HUR
64. Superstar : IDOL
66. BMW competitor : AUDI
67. Studio warning sign : ON AIR
68. Sushi bar soup : MISO
69. Corp. VIP : PRES
70. Bump in the night, say : NOISE
71. CancĂșn cash : PESO
72. Place for Girl Scout badges : SASH
73. Furry sci-fi creatures : EWOKS
Down
1. End table accessory : LAMP
2. Soul singer India.__ : ARIE
3. Irksome one : PEST
4. Reference aids in reference books : INDEXES
5. Sock away : STORE
6. Mercedes line of autos : E CLASS
7. __-Pei: wrinkly dog : SHAR
8. Small indentation : POCK
.
9. Hitched together, as oxen : YOKED
10. Spanish eye : OJO
12. Perplexing passages : MAZES
. Not literary passages.
13. Tiptoe, say : SNEAK
21. One shaping a rosebush : PRUNER
22. Roof support : RAFTER
26. Witty remark : MOT
27. Long narrative poem : EPOS
28. Chocolate option : DARK
. Not Milk.
31. Apartment type : CONDO
. Not enough letters for STUDIO.
32. Start-the-day ABC talk show, familiarly : GMA
35. "Let me in!" : OPEN UP
37. Drives forward : IMPELS
38. "You've Got Mail" director Ephron : NORA
. She felt bad about her neck.
39. Smooth-talking : GLIB
42. Platte River st. : NEB
45. Punster : WIT
47. "Finally got it" : I SEE NOW
50. From Copenhagen, e.g. : DANISH
52. Zoo primate : CHIMP
53. WWII hero Murphy : AUDIE
. Also an actor and song-writer.
54. Reactions to fresh comments : SLAPS
56. Depleted atmospheric layer : OZONE
59. Luminous glow : AURA
60. Mid-month date : IDES
61. "Charles in Charge" actor Scott : BAIO
62. Take a chance on : RISK
63. Warring son of Zeus and Hera : ARES
65. Lav, in Leeds : LOO
40 comments:
Hi everyone!
Thanks to Susan and mb!
Cute puzzle. Filled in rapidly. (Had "pastor" first also.) Have not heard of a ZEBRA pen.
(Why is Stevie Nicks there?)
BFF back from grandson's memorial service in Arizona. No help from police.
Hope to see you all tomorrow!
The IDES did not BODE well for Caesar
He was due to be betrayed by his vizer!
SKEWERED by friend and foe,
A STAB in the forum, oh, so low!
A stab in the forearm would have been easier!
Would a con use a condom to break into a CONDO?
Would AUDIE drive an AUDI with NOISE on the audio?
If CACTUS and ALOE are succulents
Which would return a sock you lent?
It takes how many cooks to MISDO the MISO?
{B-, C+.}
I misread the Cusack clue and had John there for awhile, seemed odd to have a word start MH.
Hi Y'all! I enjoyed doing this puzzle, Susan, thanks. Thanks, melissa b.
Theme was a loss for me. I had never heard of any of the PEN makers except PARKER. Bic & Papermate are what I buy.
PRIORI? India ARIE? New to me.
PRUNER made me laugh since I had suggested to AnonT he get information on pruning his tomatoes a couple of days ago. Since I told him about "blossom set" that I had googled, I am inundated with ads for the stuff. Big Brother is watching my internet traffic! Hate that. Waste of time since I no longer grow or eat tomatoes. Alas!
Good morning!
Not a single inkblot this morning. No, I didn't get the theme, and, like Fermat, ZEBRA pen is new to me. On my first anniversary with Zapata Corp I was given a CROSS pen with the company's Z logo on it. Linda Zapp, the bartender at my favorite watering hole saw it, liked it, took it, kept it. I never saw it again.
I remember A PRIORI reasoning from a philosophy course many years ago. It was a truth which was obvious from the given facts. (ie: Every mother has a child.)
Thanx, Susan and Melissa Bee.
Easy going today. I didn't know some things, but perps bailed me out. ZEBRA pen?
FIR, but erased exec for PRES and Wag for WIT. Kinda-sorta knew LAPIS, JOAN Cusack, PETER PARKER, DAMASK, A PRIORI and EWOKS. Didn't know NORA Ephron at all. ONZE looks like it would be pronounced like eleven in Spanish, "once".
I've had a Mercedes Benz SE300 and an SD300. The SE300 was gorgeous - valets would park it near the front door in many places. The SD300 was awful around town, but get it on the interstate, hit cruise control and life was good. I really wanted an SL-Class, but wouldn't spend the money for the car or the insurance. My current 104 year old house doesn't even have a driveway, so my nice car days are over.
I'll join the crowd that doesn't know ZEBRA pens. Vendors used to give me CROSS pen/pencil boxed sets at Christmas. I pried off the logo on the clips and re-gifted them.
Thanks to Susan for a challenging Tuesday exercise. And thanks to melissa b for yet another fine tour.
Good Morning.
Ah ha! Quite a bit of fun for me. Wagged PARKER, but the pens didn't strike me until PEN NAME showed up. So after my first horizontal run, I nailed it. Thanks, Susan, the puzzle was lots of fun this morning. USCG reminded me of the days when NAS Glenview was open and those little red helicopters commonly flew over us to Lake Michigan. Now, I think they are based in Gary, IN. I appreciate the tour, Melissa. Merci.
Madame is an addicted collector of fountain pens! Yes, I am in rehab now, but I still drool at the Fahrney's catalog. I have 3 Parker 51's, one of which was my dad's. Another is delightful ladies' 51 from 1949 (The dates are engraved on the body.), which was my aunt's. My pens are filled with various ink colors to match their bodies. Mmmm, I write with them all the time. Smooth and fast. I am happy to report that both my pen and yarn vices are under control. At my age, I have adequate supplies to sustain me. DH, however, is still confounded as to why all those bottles of ink are in a kitchen drawer. . . .
My nine year-old granddaughter begs me to teach her cursive, so that's always one of our projects when she's here. She is allowed to used my pens, which is pretty much a taboo with fountain pens. We also use some white board books and dry erase pens, which clean easily. Fun!
Have a sunny day. It looks like another beauty here.
Good morning all!
Clever theme from Susan but I didn't "get" the theme until reading the blog. I kept trying to think of authors with those particular PEN NAMES. I knew CROSS and PILOT but have never heard of PARKER and ZEBRA. I SEE NOW that they are writing implements- good learning moment :)
Thanks, Melissa for a fun tour! Especially enjoyed the clip from "School of Rock" JOAN Cusack is a hoot; I always like her work.
I don't know why I can't remember how to spell ARIE since she's in crosswords so often. I always think it's Irie.
MISO has been popular in the CW lately.
I tried Stash/STORE
Didn't know AUDIE. Perhaps because I'm a Gen XER? ;)
Off to the ophthalmologist to get my OJOs checked. Have to go every six months due to having early stages of glaucoma. It never fails that when I go, it's a bright, clear sunny day- have to get my pupils dilated, so getting home is a little nerve wracking!
Per yesterday evening's comments- nice that Bruce Haight checked in! Definitely enjoy his puzzles and yesterday's was a lot of fun.
AnonT - I had to laugh at your comment about me driving the motorcycle. I can't even get on the thing, lol. DH would love for me to ride with him but between my bad back, knee, hip and being of short stature, it's pretty much impossible. He has a Yamaha sport bike; I barley managed to get on his old Honda but never rode because I don't have a helmet. I did used to ride with him back in the day when he owned a different Yamaha but I was young and nimble then, lol. My dream is to buy a scooter. I'd love a Vespa but would settle for the more affordable Yamaha. Just to tool around on for fun. My Mom thinks I'm crazy and would kill my self on it!
Hope everyone has a wonderful day!
Crossword puzzles often have words I never heard of and/or would never use. Today:
Lapis
Mot - Really? Even the spell checker didn't like it.
Bode
Both today and very often:
Espy
Often:
Ort
Aver
These words never come up in conversation. đ
Going on, 4D: I had to choose between indexes and indices. 24A cleared it up.
73A: I knew EWOKS but didn't remember where it was from. I thought maybe H. G. Wells' "The Time Machine". I knew ELOI was in that novel; wasn't sure about EWOK. Turns out it's Star Wars. (BTW, neither is in the online M-W dictionary). When I saw the first Star Wars film I thought of it as a futuristic western. Haven't seen all the films and have no intentions. I only enjoy the graphics and gizmos like the BB-8 droid.
Sent from my iPhone 7
Good Morning:
This had some crunch for a Tuesday but perps saved the day. It wasn't a read-the-clue then immediately write in the answer, you had to check the downs first, in more places than usual; at least that was my experience. Because of the location of the reveal, I knew the theme with only Peter Parker and Honda Pilot filled in. As others have noted, Zebra was an unknown Pen brand but I well remember Parker fountain pens, along with Waterman and Estabrook. My only w/o was Pastor/Parson. CSO to HG at Neb.
Thanks, Susan, for a challenging Tuesday and thanks, Melissa, for a lovely tour.
Madame Defarge @ 8:34 ~ Thanks for sharing your "addictions" with us. I find it sad that your granddaughter has to rely on you to teach her cursive. Can any of our blog's dedicated teachers explain the decision to stop teaching cursive in our schools? Am I being too "old school" in not understanding or accepting this?
Have a great day.
Good day to all!
An enjoyable puzzle to solve even though I did not get the theme, as I was thinking along the lines of literary pen names. Thanks for explaining, Melissa. Zebra and Pilot pens are unknown to me. I rarely use ink pens. My preferred writing implement is a Dixon Ticonderoga #2 pencil.
Bill Graham--Congratulations on the AC. We finally had it installed a little over a year ago, and it has been such a blessing. I had wanted it for years, but DH disagreed. I finally put my foot down and arranged for the installation against his wishes. Guess who is the first to turn it on? And crank it down lower than I would? But I'm not about to complain. No more wasted days of sitting limp in front of a whirring fan.
Irish Miss--In our local school district cursive is taught in the 3rd grade. Many 4th and 5th teaches require students to complete some or all work in cursive.
Enjoy the day!
What a fun romp from Susan Gelfand! Thank you!
My hand is way up for not knowing ZEBRA but I'm familiar with all the other PENS. My preferred pen is a uni-ball gel PEN. It's almost like a fountain pen.
Re: cursive writing. Many people believe that 1) it's not needed because computers are now so prevalent; more important to learn typing; 2) other countries of the world use printing instead of cursive (teaching ESL I found this to be true).
In AZ a law was passed that requires cursive to be taught.
CSO to HGary at NEB
MOT is usually paired with bon, bon mot. It's commonly used in books. Crosswords would be in a bind if limited to words we use in conversation; that's normally 500 with most people, with others even less.
fermatprime:
Would you e-mail me the details of the grandson's death. Thank you.
Have a fine day, everyone!
Thank you as well, Melissa!
Fun puzzle.... thank you Susan, for a cute theme.
Thanks, Miss B, for a fine write-up.
Have a good week everyone. Hopefully, the monsoons here will quit sometime soon!
Nice write-up Melissa.
Thanks for the FUN puzzle Susan.
Needed ESP to get DAMASK ... not up on my "Lustrous patterned fabric" knowledge.
At first I had a hard time thinking what a "Hellenic religious symbol" would be ...
then remembered I live in Tarpon Springs, FL so GREEK CROSS became a gimmie.
Cheers!
The only good reason IMHO to not teach cursive is that the cursive handwriting of so many people is unreadable, probably because of lack of use. My husband had such bad cursive handwriting that it looked like an alien language. He had very neat easy to read printed writing. He had become adept at that as a tech sgt. crew chief in the USAF who had to print reports on the airplanes he was fixing.
For those with an interest in cursive:
http://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/325634-yet-another-story-of-cursive-return/
A WSJ story today suggests that text typing is on the way out because of video and voice commands
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-end-of-typing-the-internets-next-billion-users-will-use-video-and-voice-1502116070?mg=prod/accounts-wsj&mc_cid=9c1e27a966&mc_eid=b9e9750e4e
Full disclosure ... I collect pens, mostly classic vintage German. I worked for three years for one of the pens clued in today's puzzle. And I just bought three Hermes Baby typewriters from 1934, 1939, and 1964. I'll probably buy one from 1949. Great design progression. I also have my eye on am Olivetti Lettera 22. I write cursive or print and do the LAT and NYT puzzles in ink, usually with a Lamy 2000.
The puzzle was a fast fill but there were two ZEBRAs that I had never heard of before. Zebra PEN and PLAINS zebra. I know that there are species of ZEBRA but never bothered to call them anything other than a zebra. PEN NAME- I don't think I have bought a pen in 50 years because you get so many free with advertisers' names on them.
EPOS (not EPIC), JOAN ( not JOHN) Cusack, DAMASK- words not in my vocabulary.
IDOL-Went to a Lionel Richie concert Sunday and his 'special guest' was Mariah Carey. She thinks she is an IDOL but she sounded horrible. Lionel picked up the slack and did a fabulous two-hour show. She's worth over $500 million. I wonder if she paid him to be on the tour.
Jinx- my last two company cars were 450-SEL and 560-SEL. When I quit they told me to keep the 560. Drove it to 250,000 showed on the odometer and then gave it to my son.
DW drives the ML-350. Me? A 2002 Mercury.
Dick Swart- I got a Parker T-Ball Jotter (free) when I opened my first checking account when I started college. It didn't run out of ink until my junior year.
Musings
-Fun examples of OHMS, amps and volts
-GEN XER – My nephew has a college degree, works at a fast food place and lives at home
-“In the meadow we can build a snowman and pretend that he is PARSON Brown”. Some lyrics now OMIT him and say “…and pretend that he’s a circus clown”
-Interacting with my wife A PRIORI can be very dangerous
-So many Syrian streets are POCK marked
-A famous document in cursive
-Our local corn MAZES have a high tower in the middle to direct people out who are hopelessly lost
-Do you have these Japanese PESTS pruning roses in your area too?
-An adventure I need to try five miles from my house. It looks like fun and the picture shows the Platte as “a mile wide and an inch deep”
Well, I found this a bit of a Tuesday toughie, although in the end I got almost everything in spite of never "getting" the theme. My single goof-up was putting CMA instead of GMA. ABC is my prime TV channel, but I don't watch morning shows since that's my work time. Still, I'm sure I've heard of GMA ("Good Morning America"?) and should have gotten it. But the theme totally eluded me. I thought the only pens I use are BICs, but I just looked at the pen next to my computer and it's a Papermate. Turns out my BIC's are my pencils, not my pens--who knew? You can tell that in spite of my literary background, writing anywhere but on the computer is not my thing any more.
Still, all around fun puzzle--many thanks, Susan. And Melissa, I loved your picture of that sweet SHAR PEI. Poor thing--how does it manage to see with all those heavy wrinkles?
Do we now get LOO in every single puzzle?
Have a great day, everybody!
Seemed like a bit of a breeze today, not a complaint. Another fine example of a puzzle where you don't need to know or solve the theme to solve the puzzle. Should be a rule, IMO.
How would one read the Decalration of Independenace and the Constitution if you cannot read or write in cursive?
@Husker Gary“In the meadow we can build a snowman and pretend that he is PARSON Brown”. Some lyrics now OMIT him and say “…and pretend that he’s a circus clown”
That is incorrect.
Parson Brown is in the 1st verse and circus clown is in the 2nd verse.
In the meadow we can build a snowman
Then pretend that he is Parson Brown
He'll say: Are you married?
we'll say: No man
But you can do the job
when you're in town
In the meadow we can build a snowman
and pretend that he's a circus clown
We'll have lots of fun with mister snowman
until the the other kids knock him down
This was a speed run. I'm only now seeing some of the fills. Enjoyed it. As I did the write-up.
Owen, I liked #2 best. Btw, did you mean VIZIER, an imperial gofer?
Unless he's the grand VIZIER, as in pooh-bah. That eraser-mate wasn't mentioned. I've had my eye out for one.
WC
Ta- DA!
Sorry, gang! Apologies for my absence yesterday.
I meant to sign in but was busily engaged with a thorny problem that kept me far from the keyboard. Ms. Gelfand pinpointed the reason for my truancy in today's pzl at 21D. I spent much of the day transplanting a large Lady Banks rose bush. In the process I discovered a fungus infecting several otherwise healthy sections. After spraying the whole bush up and down, I turned to my intermediate skills as a PRUNER to lop off some of the worst areas.
I checked the bush this morning, and it seems to be doing well. Fingers crossed.
Changeling pzls? Today's pzl was a pleasant challenge, easy enough to get on a roll and stay there. I thought yesterday's was harder, at least for me. I could easily imagine their places switched by the pzl faeries.
This was my first encounter with EPOS. Why/where would you use epos rather than epic?
Good Tuesday to all! This week is starting off well. After getting 1a wrong yesterday I thought it was an omen of what the rest of the week would be, but I did better today. Thanks, Susan Gelfand, for the fun! I enjoyed your expo, mb, thank you!
The only pen I haven't heard of is the ZEBRA brand. I use uni-ball pens.
Today's weather is how I like it--76*, low humidity, light breeze. I've gotten to hate the 85*+ with 50%+ humidity that we often have.
Have a fine evening!
Hi All!
Whew - Two WAGs both right! The A in LAPIS & ARIE (ESP) and the M in DEMASK xing MOT; I've heard (maybe even used) Bon MOT but never heard it on it's own.
Thanks Susan for this hoot (loved the pen's names) that I found quite crunchy for a Tuesday; the Granola: LAPIS, OJO xing ONZE, DEMASK, NEB, AUDIE.
Two nits, quite minor; Witty for 26d and WIT in the grid; ditto with See @6a and I SEE NOW. ARENT Rich & Patti checking this? ;-)
Thanks mb for the expo. Love JOAN (& John Cusack) - both funny thespians.
WOs: nOoK @8d, I for got the R in ZEBAS so had to make it plural.
ESPs: See above
Gimme - PETER PARKER w/ LAMP as the only (unneeded) perp.
Fav: I liked the clue for MAZES; I was thinking some EPOS passage I couldn't parse before I hit the trail, er, path.
{A, B+}
I'm spending the day with USCG and other .GOV TLAs in re: GOM POCs to include in SOPs for ISC IOCs. If you can parse that then you know what fun we're having. :-). The DEA was not on hand.
PK - Ditto @ PRUNER. I don't have the ad problem though as I surf in SNEAK mode.
IM - I honestly don't think cursive is necessary and certainly shouldn't be how we teach folk to write. Like PK said, 1) they won't get enough practice and 2) you can't read those (see DW) who "write" in cursive. It should be offered as an art elective (or from Mde Defarge to Grand) as it can be very pretty (see MIL's or Pop's). Full disclosure: I print dirty-draftsman.
Lucina - LOL 500 words. Too true with too many #Sad.
Dick Stewart - I picked up the WSJ today so I'll look for that article on speech to text. All I can think from your comment is "Oh the homophonic whore!"
Cheers, -T
TedA @3:51,
EPOS and Epic are pretty much the same thing, except that Epic can be used as a noun or adjective, and EPOS is just a noun. Because EPOS is not in common use, some teachers think it serves more readily in seminars and technical discussions of poetic form.
But six of one...
Dick Swart: when I began writing for publication in 1974, I pounded out the words on a Remington that my husband bought in 1949 when his high school updated their typing class. I do mean "pounded" too. You had to strike the keys hard to get a readable impression. I upgraded finally in 1985 to a Mac and thought I'd gone to heaven. I gladly hauled the Remington to the dump when I moved in 2003. I just now googled and see some of those vintage typewriters are worth $50 to $250. Oh well! I still have my MIL's little Smith Corona electric portable and a legal length electric Coronomatic 716 I bought to use with genealogy forms. But if the electricity is off, I'm back to pens.
After Pat saying she got 1a wrong yesterday I remembered I didn't either. Today I didn't get 1a again, at least not until later after filling some of the downs. Doesn't BODE well, maybe. Interesting theme of pen brand names, but some of the theme fill seemed "made up" to me; specifically PLAINS ZEBRA and GREEK CROSS seemed like "green paint" fill. A decent way to spend some time on this fine Tuesday, nevertheless.
Okay, I checked the internet and I see that "plains zebra," aka common zebra or Burchell's zebra, is a real thing. I also see that "Greek cross" is also a real thing: Wikipedia says, "The term Greek cross designates a cross with arms of equal length, as in a plus sign." I withdraw my green paint statement. (Note to self: don't try to second-guess Rich.)
Best wishes to you all.
AnonT:
I read about the 500 when writing a paper many years ago. Today it might be even less!
Big Easy - Nice retirement gift, and VERY NICE company cars. My mechanic told me that my SD would need a top-end overhaul at 500,000 miles and a major overhaul at 1,000,000. My pal had a standard-shift 240D. He gave it to his son for his first car - the thing wouldn't do a jack-rabbit start if it got hit from behind by a speeding city bus. The only drawbacks were big front and back seats - not great for a hormone-poisoned teen.
Good evening, folks. Thank you, Susan Gelfand, for a fine puzzle. Thank you, Melissa Bee, for a fine review.
Just got back from Peoria today. Had the annual meeting of the Unified Craftsman Council of Engineers. Interesting.
I have done the puzzles each day, but no time or way to log in to the Blog. That's my life.
This puzzle went fairly quickly, but I had a lot of unknowns and therefore perps and wags.
Theme was very good. I liked Madame Defarge's tale of her pens. That is great! Cursive is my weakness, but I use it a lot. Mainly when I am taking Minutes of a meeting and have to write fast. When I want someone else to read it I print, such as the Post Office.
Tough words for me were: ONZE, DAMASK, PRIORI, MISO, EPOS, BAIO
Our drill team forms a Greek Cross while marching. As well as other crosses.
Have to run. See you tomorrow.
Abejo
( )
As Tin alluded, Tarpon Springs celebrates Epiphany by tossing a Greek Cross into the Gulf and the cream of the young Greek studs dive in and search the bottom for it.
Melissa Bee, I liked your French counting song.
The last golf major, the PGA, begins Thursday. I'll go with my guy Jordan Speith again although it's the international players turn to win.
WC
Wilbur: you are correct, I misspelt vizier as vizer. Didn't notice spellcheck's warning until I cross-posted to my Facebook account, but decided it was trivial/obvious enough that it wasn't worth re-posting a corrected version. Of course, Caesar didn't have anyone with that particular title, but Brutus or Casca could be considered to hold a comparable position as his advisor.
Back from NOLA! Dick Stewart, I read the WSJ and, OK, it makes sense that illiterate folk in India would use voice over text. Here's /.'s with typical wit and MOT take on it.
Two days in a row I did WSJ, NYT & LAT! Travel days can be fun :-). Oh, and Peterson, you got my in the North Central; I had to flip the page on your Southwest Airlines Pzl to finally suss RAG TAG. Nice.
Y'all have a great eve. Cheers, -T
I got in on a spirited blog exchange about Parson Brown and marriage being omitted from newer versions of Winter Wonderland but thanks for the info.
Forgot to look back for the theme. Hand up never heard of ZEBRA pen or PLAINS ZEBRA. Learning moment. Likewise for EPOS.
JOAN unknown. We have seen India.ARIE here before. Otherwise unknown. Same for BAIO.
Post a Comment