google.com, pub-2774194725043577, DIRECT, f08c47fec0942fa0 L.A.Times Crossword Corner: Friday, September 15, 2017, Mark McClain

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Sep 15, 2017

Friday, September 15, 2017, Mark McClain

Title: Am I coming or going?

After more than 7 years of blogging puzzles, I do not often need the reveal to understand the theme. Mark got me, even though I knew the likely theme fill made no sense, I did not get what they had in common until the reveal. Telling us to break 58A into three words gave me DRAW TO WARD, and after a slow brain moment the light bulb went on - DRAW backwards is WARD. GAB becomes BAG and the rest fell into place. To maintain consistency, Mark has the second word reverse in the first two themers and and the first word reverses in the next two. The grid with many three and four letter fill makes this a fair test for Friday even before you deduce the reversal. Also it features many witty clue/fill combinations. Ringing organ? : EAR; Taking something badly? : THEFT - come to mind. That did not leave much room for other sparkle, but Mark did include SAPPORO, SATISFY, DYSTOPIAN and RAISE CAIN.

18A. Chat at the supermarket checkout? : GROCERY GAB (10). Grocery Bag jumped out at me as soon as I had the reveal.
-
24A. Marsh bird with uncontrollable urges? : COMPULSIVE RAIL (14). Compulsive is a word most often seen with Liar and Gambler.

38A. Way into Wayne Manor? : BAT KEYS (7). Tab Keys are very important when typing. The shortest fill, BAT to TAB.

51A. Work of a major opera house villain? : EVIL FROM THE MET (14). I watched this SHOW when it aired Live starting in 1977 trying to appreciate opera.

58A. Attract ... or, as three words, sequence change with a hint about 18-, 24-, 38- and 51-Across : DRAW TOWARD (10). If you suss this as DRAW to WARD, you see that this is a word reversal puzzle.

The rest...

Across:

1. Alan of "Tower Heist" : ALDA. It is amazing how well he has played smarmy bad people in this and other projects. A Stiller connection.


5. Partridge family tree? : PEAR. Not sure which family this refers to, the TV series or the Christmas chant.

9. Eliot's Bede : ADAM. This was the first novel published by George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans). Silas Marner and Middlemarch were her best.

13. He shared the AP Driver of the Century award with Andretti : FOYT. A. J. was a major STAR. when I was growing up.

14. Consumed : EATEN.

16. Con __: tempo marking : MOTO. The word has the same stem as motion but what does it mean in MUSIC?

17. Museum figure : BUST. Tempting...

20. Bigelow offering : TEA.

22. "Utopia" author : MORE. Is this the first fantasy novel? Was his Utopia appealing?  What about 3 Down?

23. Request on "ER" : MRI.

28. Oldest Japanese beer brand : SAPPORO.

29. Discounted by : LESS.

30. Cut out : OMIT.

31. Trivial amount : SOU. Although the French sou as a coin disappeared more than two centuries ago, it is still used to mean of little value. (various).

33. __ science : EARTH. Needed perps.

37. Paella veggie : PEA. Not a dish I cook, but here is a RECIPE.

41. "Eureka!" : AHA. Another made up word, but I guess they all are.

42. Legendary first name in skating : SONJA.  The second name was HENIE. A reminder to some of us of Clear Ayes. 48D. 42-Across' homeland : NORWAY.

44. Northwest Passage explorer : RAE. A true PIONEER.

45. Cinco times dos : DIEZ. Purists would prefer "cinco veces dos."

46. Noodle bar order : UDON.

49. Fulfill : SATISFY.

55. Animal house : DEN.

56. Pertaining to : IN RE.

57. SHO-owned cinematic channel : TMC. The Movie Channel, not TCM or AMC.

62. Not at all tough : EASY.

65. Skye, for one : ISLE.

66. Card worth a fortune? : TAROT.

67. Stir up : RILE.

68. Slender swimmers : EELS.

69. Sweet tubers : YAMS.  Can you pass the QUIZ?

70. Winter coat : SNOW. Another nice one.

Down:

1. Laughlin in Tex., e.g. : AFBAir Force Base.

2. He often batted after Babe : LOU. Gehrig.

3. Like "The Hunger Games" society : DYSTOPIAN. Should this be included when you have 22A?

4. Tackle : ATTEMPT.

5. Wood fastener : PEG.

6. Ringing organ? : EAR. I like this clue, not the phenomenon.

7. Physics class topic : ATOMS.

8. Cringe : RECOIL.

9. Youngest of the "Little Women" : AMY. Meg. Margaret is the oldest of the March sisters, Jo. Josephine is the second oldest March sister, Beth. Elizabeth is the third eldest sister, Amy. The youngest, Amy is the pet of the family.

10. Article of faith : DOGMA. I liked the movie.

11. Arcade giant : ATARI.

12. Exxon follower? : MOBIL.

15. Guts : NERVE.

19. Giant in little candy : REESES.  Pieces. Phone home.

21. GI's address : APO.

24. Typical Hitchcock role : CAMEO. Stan Lee has taken over as king of the Cameos.

25. Celestial bear : URSA.

26. Take from a job : LOOT. Oh, that kind of job.

27. Johannesburg's land: Abbr. : RSARepublic of South Africa, home to constructor and blogger Gareth Bain.

28. Finishes (up) the gravy : SOPS.

32. Former SSR : UKRaine.

34. Go ballistic : RAISE CAIN. A THEORY.

35. Taking something badly? : THEFT. Not new but still witty.

36. Unclear : HAZY.

38. Mismatch : BAD FIT.

39. __ Coast : EAST. WEST?

40. Repeated word in the Beatles' "She Loves You" : YEAH. yeah, yeah.

43. National Ice Cream mo. : JULy. Y abbreviate?

45. Aids for romantic evenings : DIMMERS.

47. Hedger's last words : OR NOT. This fill is absolutely correct, or not.

50. Vietnamese holiday : TET.

51. __ Bauer : EDDIE. The STORY.

52. Part of a song : VERSE.

53. Collectively : IN ALL.

54. Anne of comedy : MEARA. Wife of Jerry, mother of Ben; sadly she died in 2015.

59. Director Craven : WES. Unlike  Hitchcock and Stan Lee, Craven (who also died in 2015) often played himself in movies.

60. Danube Delta country: Abbr. : ROMania.

61. Drying-out hurdle : DTSDelirium Tremens. I had a math teacher, first period, my junior year in high school who brought his coffee to class in a cup and saucer and the sound of his shaking was unnerving before 8 AM.

63. __-mo replay : SLO.

64. Taxus shrub : YEW. They look like junipers but the yew berry has a poisonous seed instead of the base for gin.

I am always curious when we have a theme like this one, as some of our crowd wants only clues and fill and no theme, while others love creativity. Thank you Mark; hope all are well. Lemonade out.


 Note from C.C.: 

Lemonade is safe and sound. His power was finally back last night. He also has a new grandson, who was born on Wednesday Sept 13, 2017. So sweet! You can click here to see more pictures of his beautiful grandkids.



51 comments:

fermatprime said...

Greetings!

Thanks to Mark and Lemonade!

Cute theme! Not too difficult!

A few unknowns: DYSTOPIAN, YEW, AFB. Perped out.

Cute pics, Lemon!

Hope to see you all tomorrow!

OwenKL said...

I got the theme early, but thought it was the second word consistently, so spent time pondering BAT CAVE/EVAC before TAB KEYS. (Those Keys weren't hurt by Irma, right?).
Spent an hour or so researching semordnilap (aka anadrome, heteropalindrome, volvogram, inversion, back-word, mynoreteh, etc.).(My fave: STRAP ON = NO PARTS!) before deciding not to write any l'icks about them.

Not to get religious, but DOG MA is a bitch.

Other oddities: shout-out to "Madam, I'm ADAM". semordnilaps EAR & RAE, palindromes AHA & TET.
~ . ~ . ~
King Henry has a problem, it makes him feel blue!
The French have MORE men. He has too few!
His bowmen go forward then
Their bowstrings DRAW TOWARD them!
The longbow wins the day -- but it had to be YEW!

ADAM went to the GROCERY, and there bought a PEAR.
Had Eve bake a pie, to auction at the fair.
But a THEFT made by CAIN
RILED Adam to complain,
"That was for biddin' fruit that you've EATEN there!"

{B+, A-.}

Hahtoolah said...

Good Morning, Lemonade and friends. Interesting theme. Even after getting DRAW TOWARD, I didn't parse this into 3 words, so didn't quite catch the cleverness of the unifier. I did, however, see that words were spelled backwards. I got the GAB portion of the GROCERY GAB clue and immediately recognized that BAG was spelled backwards. That is what helped with the other non-unifier clues.

My favorite clue was the Major Opera House Villain ~ EVIL FROM THE MET. The Houston Grand Opera intends to move forward with its season despite the flood damage caused by Harvey.

Glad you are safe from Irma, Lemonade. Hope the rest of the Florida contingency is also safe and didn't suffer too much harm.

QOD: Never do anything yourself that others can do for you. ~ Agatha Christie (Sept 15, 1890 ~ Jan. 12, 1976)

desper-otto said...

Good morning!

Failure was an option this morning. I was so sure the "Bigelow offering" would be a RUG that I held onto it way too long. I'd heard of Bigelow carpets, but not Bigelow tea. It was APO that set me straight. It ended well. Thanx, Mark and Lemonade (and congrats on the new grandchild).

In my ute I thought her name was Sonya Heinie.

The do a lot of cane raising in Louisiana.

Interesting to see MORE (did you notice, PK?) and DYSTOPIAN, since the latter could be defined as anti-Utopian.

Big Easy said...

Lemonade- I solve the puzzle and just stared at DRAW TO WARD or DRAW TOWARD (filled by perps) and had no idea what or how it pertained to the theme fills. I was thinking of Burt Ward as Batman on TV in the 60s might somehow be a solution. But the puzzle was an EASY one to complete, even if the theme was HAZY.

I've never heard of Bigelow TEA. I knew Cinco & dos we 5 & 2 but DIEZ was perped. The cross of ALAN and DYSTOPIAN was a perp-wag because I didn't know anything about either of the movies.

SLO and JUL as abbreviations for SLOW and JULY- hard to understand. Why abbreviate.

'Aids for romantic evenings': DIMMERS? - Really, how about ON/OFF switch. Candlelight dinner- I prefer to be able to see what I'm eating. Now I couldn't sleep Wed night and flicked on the TV and there was an infomercial about 'Aid for romantic evenings' but it didn't involve an AC current regulator, only AA batteries. Couldn't believe it was on television.

Spitzboov said...

Good morning everyone.

Only one booboo; had Hoyt for FOYT. Got everything else so it was a good Friday solve for me. Had the same conniptions as Lemonade about the theme reveal. Finished it all without sussing it, but after a 2nd cup of Joe, the light went on. Pretty clever.
SONJA - Also the name of Norway's queen. When we were in Oslo, the map show there was a SONJA Henies Plass near the hotel. So we strolled over there but were disappointed; it was an important connecting street, but in an industrial part of the city. Not much to look at, really. (BH is a former skater, so we had to see it.:-))

Anthony Gael Moral said...

JUL is 3 letters and matches the other 11 abbrs.

Chairman Moe said...

"Puzzling Thoughts":

Abbr version as I am working more hours due to fellow employees not yet back to FL from their evacuation

Congrats Lemon on your newest grandkid

Owen, loved #2 today - quite clever

Other than not getting the theme until reading Lemony's recap, I did fill in everything with only one lookup

No limerick today, but a Moe-ku, instead:

The Bigelow's son,
Born on Saigon holiday,
Aptly named: TET Lee

Yellowrocks said...

Welcome to your new grandson, Lemonade. How sweet! Lovely pics.
Anthony G M, I agree. JUL has its uses.
Hahtoolah, your first paragraph states my thoughts exactly. I got the reversals, but couldn't parse DRAW TOWARD as the reveal. Clever. This kind of split is common in crosswords. V8 can moment.
DO, hand up for rug before tea. I have heard of both.
Lovely ISLE of Skye brings back happy memories.
It took quite a while to remember FOYT and AFB. FIR in the end.
IMO dimmers and candlelight are more romantic than dark or OFF.
Strangely, I can read novels about evil characters and regimes, but I was turned off by The Hunger Games. Maybe because it involved kids or maybe because there was nothing but dystopia, no "better angels."
Have a lovely day. Clear skies and cool weather here. Perfect.

Jinx in Norfolk said...

I thought I was over my head when I first started, but - TADA! Let's blame JUL on the RPG language - if the culprit isn't RPG, COBOL must be at fault. Must be some technology that prefers static field width.

I worked with a recovering alcoholic who told me that he used to stop by a bar on his way to work at 7 AM every day. He said he tied the skinny end of his tie around his wrist, put the tie around the back of his head, and pulled on the other end so he could get his first drink to his lips without spilling it. With the DTs in check, he put on his tie and reported to work. Scary.

in the 1960s, a guy from my home town wrote a book titled "Evil is Live Spelled Backwards". Otherwise forgettable, his futuristic government recognized the "four sexes": Hetero-male, homo-male, hetero-female and homo-female. 50 years later it doesn't seem that abstract.

Erased con brio for MOTO, and wanted Jack Bauer instead of EDDIE. When I gave up brio to make room for AMY, the final NE area fell into place.

My linear-thinking engineering brain couldn't grasp the DRAW - WARD connection, so I only understood BAG and LIAR until Lemonade 'splained the theme.

Thanks to Mark for a puzzle that stretched my abilities, but was achievable. And thanks Lemony for another fine tour.

desper-otto said...

Can't believe that he-who-never-gets-the-theme caught it early on at GAB/BAG (though he thought it just meant a reversal of the first and last letters). Oops! RAIL/LIAR fixed that.

Garlic Gal, good to hear from you last night. Drop by often.

Montana, good to hear that relief is finally in sight.

JHG-K said...

I so totally did not get that theme! Oww...that hurt the brain! I'm very glad for this blog, though!

PK said...

Hi Y'all! Should have EATEN before ATTEMPT at a Friday puzzle. HAZY brain made this harder than it should have been when I couldn't dredge up names I should have known. Well, the ALDA movie was so atypical of him I might be excused. The NW & NE corners were last to fill with several red-letter runs. But a very interesting puzzle, Mark.

Welcome back, Lemony, good expo & congrats on the grandson. Nice that he waited past the peak of the storm to come. Cute pictures.

DYSTOPIAN: new word for me. Hadn't read the book or seen anything but the movie trailer for "Hunger Games" (and won't). I think such movies contribute to the general lack of civility of our youth.

D-O: YEAH, I got MORE quickly. I'm so proud of you for getting the theme.

I got the theme with GROCERY GAB but only after filling the others, so no help. I'm proud that I also got the DRAW TO WARD, but it took concentrated study. Did anyone notice the word THEME in THE MET? I couldn't make sense of BAT KEYS. Kept trying to find the theme in KEYS. Duh! TAB! Thanks, Lemony.

Knew SONJA, but "J" evaded me for a while. I was thinking Sonya Harding at first. Forget Henie until NORWAY perped in.

Montana: hope the rain & SNOW were enough to put out your fires. I got chills thinking of you driving through the smoke. So dangerous both from possible encounters with flames and other cars with obstructed vision. Stay well!

Irish Miss said...

Good Morning:

Even though I knew what was afoot after filling in Gab (Bag) and Rail (Liar), the reveal was definitely an Aha moment and a second Aha moment when I parsed it and saw the Draw-Ward connection. Pretty darn clever, IMO. I never heard of Bigelow tea and had Ione (actress) Skye before Isle. My biggest boo boo was putting Jan in before Jul. Why on God's green earth would anyone think January would be National Ice Cream month? Have never seen "The Hunger Games" and have no desire to do so.

Thanks, Mark, for a very pleasant workout and thanks, Lemony, for the informative summary. No offense, but judging by that trailer for "Dogma", I won't be putting that movie in my Netflix queue. Congratulations on the new grandchild; Charlotte and Harper must be pleased as punch, having a little brother to dote on.

Have a great day.



MJ said...

Greetings!

It took a number of google searches to finish up today. Very clever, well executed theme, Mark. Thank you. DYSTOPIAN is a new word to me.

Thanks for being our faithful Friday guide today, Lemonade, and congratulations on your beautiful new grandson. It almost seems like yesterday when you introduced Charlotte to us.

Best wishes to all!

Lemonade714 said...

Anthony Gael Moral , thank you for the comment. Did you actually count the abbreviations? Are you the author/critic who writes about SF and Fantasy?

It is a credit to More that he not only coined a word - Utopia- but it bred Dystopia; a word using a real prefix - a word-forming element meaning "bad, ill, abnormal," from Greek dys-, inseparable prefix "destroying the good sense of a word or increasing its bad sense" (dict.)

Also a warm post-hurricane welcome to JH Grimson . Please stop by with your comments.

After 6 days of no power, it is good to be plugged in again.

Lucina said...

Big Easy said: "he puzzle was an EASY one to complete even if the theme was HAZY." My feelings exactly.

Surprisingly for a Friday, I sashayed right through this one with hardly much thought. Knowing very little about race car drivers I do know three names, Andretti, Unser and FOYT thanks to the excitement of the newscasters.

Also, I know of Bigelow TEA but not rugs. And I had DINNERS instead of DIMMERS so that area suffered a defeat all the way. Didn't notice I had NET and TNC.

Did anyone see the photo of EARTH from the rocket Cassini which burned out yesterday after circling Saturn for 13 years? It looked like a blue dot.

Thank you, Lemonade; without your explanation, the theme would have passed me by completely and congratulations on your new grandson!

Thank you, Mark McClain. Your puzzle was a joy to solve even if the theme eluded me.

Have a delightful day, everyone!

Lucina said...

Oops. Should be "the puzzle" not he.

Mark McClain said...

Thanks, (and congrats) Lemonade on the new grandkid and this nice expo . . . and to all for comments. This was a fun theme to execute, and as usual on wordplay themes, the "get" experience ranges from the first encounter to never (at least that's my personal solving experience). The real challenge for the constructor is to elicit more "Aha" moments than "So What?" comments.

Hmm . . . abbreviations. Rich normally allows no more than ten (that counts all non-words, prefixes, suffixes, acronyms, initialisms, letter runs, Roman numerals, etc. I think there were nine (ten if you count SLO) in the puzzle as I submitted it, but one was added in the edit due to a word I used that Rich evidently didn't like. Personally, I think a non-word is way better than a lame, overused, obscure or crosswordese word.

Especially . . .

Abbreviations/acronyms that are pronounced in everyday speech, particularly those that are used more often than the full word or phrase (NASA, Mic, PAC, Inc.)

Initialisms/abbreviations that are pronounced in everyday speech such as MRI, USA, APO, CBS, Ph.D.



SwampCat said...

Did I misread the original comment on abbreviations? I thought the "other eleven" referred to the other Eleven MONTHS of the year which are three letter abbreviations. So using JUL for July matches Jan, Feb, Mar. etc.

Thanks, Mark, for a fun challenge. And Lemon...congratulations! And thanks for walking us through.

A, A !

Unknown said...

TADA...for the week!!! FOYT came last as though a Detroiter not a car racing fan. Plus I had spelled 3d with an I. finally got it with an alphabet run and AJ Foyt came to mind from a long ago Memorial day neighborhood BArBQ with the indy race blaring on the radio. AMY crossed with MOTO was a problem for a while too. Never red little women and although I read music Treble better than bass cleff, I never learned the tempo marks. I played the keyboard to my own inner rhythm and drove Dad crazy. He would yell "Tempo tempo" as I played as fast as I could with my "technique" self taught. Ah the memories of a good crossword !

Irish Miss...The Hunger Games is a pretty good film. If you like any fantasy/ adventure movies you will like the Games. The screenplays get progressively worse though through the sequels.

Husker Gary said...

Musings
-Cleverness and challenge abounded! I never thought of BAT KEYS being a themer because of its length but got it anyway and finally saw the reversal was on the first word in EVIL… (JAN was probably not ice cream month) -GRRRREEAT!
-A 1963 Ferrari 250 GT Lusso was a big part of The Tower Heist just as a 1961 Ferrari 250 GT SWB California Spider was featured in Ferris Beuller’s Day Off
-First thought of a Cats character for the wrong Eliot
–For good or ill, BUSTS and statues are now under attack
-Less? Maybe I need this hat to make sure!
-I’ve never had any EARTH science hours but learned a lot when I was forced to teach it
-Me? Caffeine – slight EAR RINGING. No caffeine – slight headache.
-A movie about a DYSTOPIAN RSA
-I watched a scene on last night and it was Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara playing two people on a date. Some of you know that their son Ben Stiller lives near our own Chef Wendy on Kauai.

Misty said...

I almost, almost, got this cool Friday Mark McCain puzzle--but didn't know FOYT and so wrote DISTOPIA instead of DYSTOPIA and AMB instead of AFB (didn't know the Air Force Base in Texas either). But other than that, all was great, although this was a lot of tough work but with great results. It was especially fun slowly getting the reversed end letter theme. So, many thanks, Mark--and also for checking in with us today. And thank you too, Lemonade, and congratulations on the sweet new grandchild!

Owen, I loved your second limerick.

Welcome to the blog, JH Grimson.

Have a great day, everybody!

Ol' Man Keith said...

Didn't catch onto the theme until well past the middle (time, not distance) in solving this. I earned my Ta- DA! although admit to a couple of confirmations (SAPPORO & RAIL) before completion.
Seemed a fine pzl from Mr. McClain. Not exactly sure where to place it on the scale of chewiness. It was a bit frustrating - in the good sense - as I had to wave off so many 3-letter fills before gaining a toehold at PEA and SOU.
I needed Lemonade's write-up to see that BAT KEYS was also a theme answer. I hadn't noticed the giveaway question mark in the cluing. (Glad you got your power back, Lemon!)

In the long run I appreciated learning that a RAIL is indeed a marsh bird as well as being reminded of the beautiful Ms. Henie, the "other" Scandinavian ice queen who captured my fancy in my youth.

Ingrid Bergman was the other, and I was delighted to watch her once again in Casablanca via cable last night. (The Germans wore grey, and Ilsa wore blue... Be still, my beating heart!) Isn't it wonderful how some movies age so well? - like the finest of wines? The dialogue is so sharp, so perfectly tuned to its era. The script avoids all the little holes that modern writers seem to fall through. Why does Ilsa keep her marriage secret? There's a good answer. Why does Louie accompany Rick to the airport? Also answered.
I value period movies for their time machine aspect, vivid windows to the past, and I especially like war movies made while the war was still on and the outcome uncertain. I love pondering how many allied troops hit the Normandy beaches with the impact of films like Casablanca and In Which We Serve still in their minds.

Here the heroics stand out for being so blatant, yet so cool. No hero could be noble in that time unless he denied it, which Bogie's Rick does throughout the film - as does Louie in Claude Rains' smoothest comical manner. No wonder the pals head off together to Brazzaville in the end.
Vive le Free French!

Ol' Man Keith said...

I did pause for the longest time at TEA in answer to "Bigelow offering" at 20A. I wanted a 3-letter movie title from director Kathryn Bigelow - and of course couldn't get any closer than K19, not exactly an easy answer to squeeze into a Xwd.
I see that desper-otto and others thought of the brand as a rug flogger.
I had no idea that Bigelow was a well-known TEA merchant.
Shows you something about our frames of reference.

Montana said...

I struggled with the puzzle today. However, I thoroughly enjoyed Lemon's expo.
Congrats on the grandson. (We still have a printed photo of you carrying my baby granddaughter around in Denver. She now has 3 sisters!)

Rain and SNOW are great. Glacier and Waterton Lakes Parks aren't getting any of it, so they continue to burn. They did save the famous old hotel in Waterton and the Lodge at Lake McDonald, but many original structures have been lost. Over a million acres have burned. I find it amazing how many fenceposts burned when the quarter-million acres of prairie burned early this summer. But i just read that in that fire last spring in the mid-south, you guys lost 18,000 miles of fence.

Montana

Irish Miss said...

Chuck L @ 1:05 ~ Thank you for your comment but I do not like fantasy/adventure/horror/SciFi/western movies. I like good dramas (Hidden Objects, e.g.) good love stories (Too many to list) and good comedies (Few and far between, these days.) As I mentioned the other day, "Nine Lives" with Kevin Spacey was silly, far-fetched, over the top and totally preposterous but, and that is a big but, it was hilariously funny and it made me laugh. 😉

Mark McClain ~ Thanks for dropping by; it's always a treat to learn about the constructor's thought process.

JH Grimsome ~ I second that welcome to the blog.

Irish Miss said...

Sorry, that should read "Hidden Figures."

AnonymousPVX said...

Wow this was tough, with a ridiculous gimmick. Or a great theme, depending. Hated it, even getting the solve was more of a relief than a sense of achievement.
My grid looks like my pen threw up.

Jayce said...

Mark McClain hits another one over the fence; great job, man. I didn't cotton to the theme at all, thinking that GROCERY GAB was simply a letter change from GROCERY TAB, so I kept expecting some sort of T to G substitution. I gotta do a better job of thinking outside the XOB.

Cool that we had MORE as an answer today and "More work" as a clue yesterday (or was it the day before.)

I liked the play on the lyric "Partridge in a pear tree."

CON MOTO never made any sense to me, since all it means is that a passage is to be played "with motion." What the heck does that mean? Of course, our asshole music teacher, that pompous martinet, never did explain it, just scoffed when asked.

Gosh, soon we might be expected to know what, for example, 45 is in Spanish. Or French. Or German. How about Icelandic? Maybe some day a puzzle might require us to know what 10,000 is in Chinese.

I like the clue for LOOT, where "take" is a noun, not the expected verb.

Yes, Hidden Figures was an excellent movie. LW and I watched The Hunger Games but neither of us liked it much. Ugly Betty on TV did a better job of satirizing the shallowness of a society driven primarily by commerce.

Wow, upon previewing what I just wrote I realize I come across as a real grump today. Please be assured I am really my normally cheerful, yet skeptical, self.

Congratulations and welcome back, Lemonade, and best wishes to you all.

Lemonade714 said...

Swamp Cat, sometimes when you are exhausted, worn down by a hurricane you type stupid things. Yes obviously he meant the other 11 months.

Mark, always good to get one of your puzzles to review and to read what insight you provide on the process. Time to leave Texas and Louisiana and Florida alone for a while.

Anonymous T said...

Hi All! And welcome back the the power and puzzle-grid Lem. Good to see you back in good spirits - congrats on the grand too!

The NW was my undoing... I, like Misty, spelt it DiSTOPIA. I had to do the ABC run for 13a/1d against that. VOIT looked good (isn't there one named John?*) but then AVB sounds like sot w/ DTs trying to say ABV (this Stone Delicious I'm sippin' is 7.7%)... AFB (Oh, "Loftin'" is spelt like that)! But FOiT stayed. FIW. #sadCuzIknewOfMario #AGoodItalianBoy

Re: the THEME(t). I got 1/2 of it. I saw GAB BAG and lyin' RAIL but SYEK nor TEM were things I heard of. "Lem will explain," I thought confidentially :-)

I also pondered the other ? clues; might they be themers? PEAR / REAP seemed a good FIT for what you sow. REA EAR has nothing to do with each other clue wise; and LIBOM is right out at 12d. OKL - nice string of other omes; good eye!

Thanks Mark for a fun, almost didable, Friday puzzle. Thanks Lem for a link-fest of an expo. And, of course, for pointing out TAB Keys :-)

WOs: BAT cave, (YEAH, that held up the center for a spell) JUn b/f JUL, SAPPaRO
ESPs: SOU, MOTO/AMY (WAG'd M), ADAM (WAG'd the A).

Fav: SAPPORA. Sure, I couldn't spell it but it goes great with EELS & UDON.

{A,A+}

Jinx - I had the same thought re: COBOL/ADA and JUN/JUL And at AGM's comment that went to 11.

PK - Hunger Games (my girls are fans) is, IMHO, updated dystopian (there I spelt it right!) warnings along the same lines as 451F et.al. Basically what centralized wealth/gov't collusion will lead to. Meh, read Animal Farm, I did. #muchShorter

JHG - First, that's fun to type; just swipe left :-). Welcome to the corner; stay and play.

Jayce - LOL IN RE: Con MOTO; Eldest is dealing with her TA piano instructor @OU -- the same pompous scoffer if there were the archetype.

Mark - thanks for stopping in with a little inside baseball. If you're still reading, was DRAW TO WARD being near-palindromic inspire this? OR NOT, what was the seed?

I'm over 20, the IPA is almost done, and it's nap time.
Play later... Cheers, -T
*Google says I'm thinking of Voight, Jon.

Anonymous T said...

**and apparently still can't - Fav: SAPPORO. -T

Montana said...

How's this for crazy road conditions in Glacier Park?

We currently have road closures due to fire and ice. The west side of the Going-to-the-Sun Road, between Apgar and Big Bend, is closed due to the Sprague Fire. And, the Going-to-the-Sun Road is currently closed between Big Bend and Siyeh Bend due to winter driving conditions.

Montana

Lemonade714 said...

Be safe Montana. Yes, my Denver son just pointed out that he moved there in August 5 years ago. Next I will have Charlotte's 5th birthday to remind me how time flies.

Lucina said...

Like YR, I disliked that were was no redemption in The Hunger Games except, I suppose, that they walked away in the end. Not my style of movie, anyway.

Thank you, Mark McClain, for stopping by and commenting on your puzzle.

Montana:
What contrasting weather patterns you have! I just hope you stay safe.

AnonT:
I believe you would enjoy Beneath a Scarlet Sky. Now, there's a good Italian boy for you and a real war hero, too. He's still alive at age 91.

Ol' Man Keith said...

Funny thing, Misty, is I might have gotten hung up in the same NW passage, except the single thing - the only thing - that I remembered about any 4-letter racing car driver's name was that it had a "Y" in it! The very opposite of your problem.
And since I also wanted (for a spell) to go with DRACONIAN in place of DYSTOPIAN, that *#@Ã¥! "Y" was giving me trouble - or so I thought.
Only late in the game did it bail me out

SwampCat said...

Lemonade, go take a nap! You have been working too hard. We love you!!

Lemonade714 said...

Swamp Cat, how funny - that is exactly what I was doing...sleeping in Florida without a/c is not easy.

SwampCat said...

Lemon, we get too soon dependent on our creature comforts. I have often bemoaned the loss of a/c or heat. But we do rise to the occasion. Take care of yourself whatever that means. You mean so much to so many of us!!

Misty said...

Glad it all worked out for you, O'Man Keith.

Big Easy said...

LEMONADE- "sleeping in Florida without a/c is not easy." I know how tough it is. Try August 29-Sept 23, 2005 without electricity in New Orleans. I was here for a few of those days ( I did NOT stay when Katrina decided to pay a visit; I'm not that stupid)

Lucina- race car drivers Andretti, Unser, & Foyt are the only ones you know? I bet you've heard of RICHARD PETTY.

Lemonade714 said...

Swamp Cat- AWW.

Wilbur Charles said...

What of the Bow
The bow was made in England
Of true wood, of YEW wood
The wood of English bows

So men who are free
Love the old YEW tree

And the land where the YEW tree grows

WC

AC Doyle. The White Company

Wilbur Charles said...

I purchased the Sunday TBTimes just for the xword. And I'm glad I did. Except it was so enjoyable that I never got to Friday until very late

Plus, two in one day exhausted my PEA brain. I got both but didn't ATTEMPT to suss the theme. I knew Lemonade would rescue me there.

I too was stuck in the NW. It had to be LOU, it had to be... Interestingly, Waite HOYT was a teammate of Babe and LOU. As was the late Joe Dugan who was a good friend of mine.

Yep I had the I before the Y in FOYT popped.

Thanks Mark for a doable albeit crunchy Friday. I liked both l'icks Owen.

YR, if you're ever going to try something in the fantasy realm go right to the too and read the Tolkien trilogy. Vol I. starts slow but the tale is mesmorizing.

Misty, you could give it a try too. At least you'd know your ENTs, ORCs and Elfs.

WC

I'll read the blog for Sunday later

Lucina said...

Big Easy:
Yes, I've heard of Richard Petty, but the name did not come to me immediately as the other three did.

Misty said...

The Tolkien trilogy, Wilbur? I'll give it some thought--let me think about it.

OwenKL said...

Tolkien is the epitome of the perfect fantasy writer, and nearly everything written in the genre since then, or even before, is just homage to his work! But the Fellowship of the Ring is rather daunting. The Hobbit shows off his mastery just as well, but at only a third the commitment!

Wilbur Charles said...

I just woke up. I did a lot of driving yesterday. I used to drink the BIGELOW no caffeine teas. Now it's McDonald's Unsweetened.

Owen, The Hobbit started as a book for JRR's children. The style might be off-putting. When the Trilogy was suggested to me I scoffed. I was an Idiot. Fan, I mean of Doestoevsky's classic.

Then when I started I read the three, front to back twice, consecutively.

Boromir

Picard said...

Fun and clever puzzle ruined by unfair crossing in NW. Thought Laughlin in Tex. maybe was a record ALB and LOYT seemed as good as FOYT to me. HOYT is a normal name but AHB clearly was not anything.

Ringing in the EAR is no joke. It is a significant cause of suicide. My mother has had tinnitus for most of my adult life.

I got the theme to the extent that I saw part of the theme answers were scrambled. It helped a lot when I realized they were exactly backward.

Only know TCM from these puzzles. Decided maybe I just remembered it wrong, but apparently TMC is another movie channel. We don't have cable and only two channels over the air.

Lemonade714 said...

WC, Tolkien's motivation, and plan were more complicated than writing for his children. This OPINION is interesting.