JW features one of his favorite and difficult "add a three or four letter word" themes. He makes it especially Friday hard by including two very hard fill to parse. Then he generously gives us a reveal if we get lost. You need a wide variety of knowledge to get through this one. The First 2 themers add HAM to the first word in a phrase. Easy peasy lemon squeezy. The next 2? Well despite commentary to the contrary - that is what makes it a puzzle.
As always Jeffrey gives us some fun fill - IN TEARS, ONE PUTT, OVERUSE, RAT-A-TAT, STOOLIE, STRAP ON and TRUSSES, but mostly it is the theme that drives this wagon.
So with further ado....
16A. Early sustenance for Bruce Wayne? : GOTHAM MILK (10). GOT MILK is modified by the fictional name of Batman's New York City.
22A. Handing a St. Louis team an embarrassing loss? : SHAMING THE BLUES (15). SING THE BLUES (not the Cards) works as well.
33A. Tribal VIP's family? : SHAMAN KIN (10). SAN KIN? Huh? Of course, SANK IN.
49A. Easy out in rodent baseball? : POPUP TO A HAMSTER (15). And my favorite - POPUP TOASTER.
57A. Went all out on stage ... or a hint to the four other longest puzzle answers : HAMMED IT UP (10). That is it.
Across:
1. Kind of rain or rock: ACID.
5. Affect profoundly: AWE. Aww.
8. Often-converted residence: LOFT.
12. Like the "funny bone" nerve: ULNAR. Ulna and Radius.
14. Poet Silverstein: SHEL. I met Shel's work reading Playboy in the 60s. LINK. Hef outlived him by 18 years.
15. Declare firmly: AVER.
18. Country where Quechua is spoken: PERU. It is now an official language in three countries. In 1975 Peru became the first country to recognize Quechua as one of its official languages. Ecuador conferred official status on the language in its 2006 constitution, and in 2009, Bolivia adopted a new constitution that recognized Quechua and several other indigenous languages as official languages of the country. Wiki.
19. Great Plains native: UTE.
20. Pluto quintet: MOONS. LINK
21. Gets on the wrong train, say: ERRS.
26. Mother with a Nobel prize: TERESA. She shares her date of birth with Lyndon Johnson and Hannibal Hamlin, among others.
27. Fight in the backwoods: RASSLE.
28. Vacation fill-in: Abbr. : ASST. Temp? WTH?
29. Message often included in its response: EMAIL. Have any of you turned off the automatic inclusion?
32. Central Dallas? : ELS.
37. Elastic wood: ASH. I am sure you want to know more about this WOOD.
40. Sister magazine of Jet: EBONY.
41. God with a quiver: EROS. And a bow made out of ash?
45. Where the groom may walk down the aisle: STABLE. Really inventive and cute clue/fill. JW at his best.
47. Soi-__: self-styled: DISANT. JW, really? This is a very obscure term. DEFINE.
53. Components of 56-Across : HOPS. Not necessarily, ...strictly speaking ale can be made from simply malt, water and yeast. It is extremely unusual not to use hops. Home-brew handbook. 56A. Malt creations : ALES.
54. Quartet member : VIOLA. The four instruments in a string quartet are almost always 2 violins, 1 viola and 1 cello. Various.
55. Org. with Jungians : APA. American Psychological Association. Many of them are old.
59. Ticket booth sight : LINE.
60. Protected, in a way : ALEE.
61. Sister of Thalia : ERATO. The Nine Muses in Greek mythology have been an inspiration to artists since antiquity. They are (in alphabetical order): Calliope, Clio, Erato, Euterpe, Melpomene, Polyhymnia, Terpsichore, Thalia, and Urania. (Owlcation- do not go to this website, you may never escape).
62. Hardy heroine : TESS. I just had her in a puzzle recently.
63. Perception-changing drug : LSD. I just had some in a puzzle.
64. Letter heading abbr. : ATTN.
DOWN:
1. Masters course : AUGUSTA. Bobby Jones and the dream course. Take a TOUR
2. Fabled emperor's lack: CLOTHES. Did you know the STORY was written by Hans Christian Andersen? Andersen's fairy tales (of which there are no less than 3381 works !) have been translated into more than 125 languages... his most famous fairy tales include "The Emperor's New Clothes", "The Little Mermaid", "The Nightingale", "The Snow Queen", "The Ugly Duckling", "Thumbelina", and many others. Various.
3. Emotionally overwhelmed : IN TEARS.
4. Morse "T": DAH.
5. "Can't you take __?" : A HINT.
6. Like Roald Dahl, by birth: WELSH. The wonderful author - LINK.
7. Yellowstone grazer: ELK.
8. Settings for small American flags: LAPELS.
9. Do to death: OVERUSE.
10. Voice of President Business in "The Lego Movie": FERRELL. SNL grad Will.
11. Bridge supports: TRUSSES.
13. "Ghostbusters" actor : RAMIS. He died this year.
14. Air quality issue: SMOG. I believe this was my first known portmanteau (Smoke-Fog)
17. Lisa's title: MONA. Mona in Italian is a polite form of address originating as "ma donna" – similar to "Ma’am", "Madam." Wiki and others.
23. Team whose mascot's head is a baseball: METS. He got fired for giving the one finger
salute to a brewers fan. With only three to work with, which one is the bad one?
24. Viking history VIP: ERIK. No Minnesota players named Erik?
25. Island near Java: BALI.
29. Confessional music genre: EMO.
30. Anthropologist's subject: MAN.
31. Whichever: ANY.
34. Give a hand : HELP.
35. Assist badly? : ABET. Why not, "Give a hand, badly?"
36. Storied loch: NESS.
37. It might be on the road for years: ASPHALT.
38. Cop's info source: STOOLIE. Derived from stool pigeons - carvings used to trap hawks.
39. Stumbles (upon): HAPPENS.
42. Snare drum sound: RAT-A-TAT.
43. Feature of many a birdie: ONE PUTT. Bubba Watson had 11(18) ONE PUTT greens when he won his second masters title.
44. Secure, as a knapsack: STRAP ON. This is the second clue fill of the puzzle I have had to muzzle myself while writing.
46. Smooches: BUSSES.
47. Glen relative: DALE. Who is Dale Campbell? Oh, is that Chip's real name?
48. "__ these wars for Egypt": Antony: I MADE. A fun Friday Will Shakespeare quote.
"I made these wars for Egypt, and the Queen,
Whose heart I thought I had, for she had mine—
Which whilst it was mine had annexed unto ’t
A million more, now lost—she, Eros, has
Packed cards with Caesar and false-played my glory
Unto an enemy’s triumph."
50. Shapes formed by angled spotlights: OVALS.
51. Zeroed in: AIMED.
52. Telecommuter's workplace: HOME. Yeah me and the once mighty Barry G. You are missed.
57. Clarke computer: HAL.
58. Nest egg acronym: IRA. Individual Retirement Account.
Wowzer, here we are in middle of fall with shorter days and longer nights and so many birthdays - those cold January nights - but nothing slows JW (or C.C. and her minions) down. I had fun, enjoy the weekend. Lemonade out.
Hi everyone!
ReplyDeleteThanks to JW and Lemon!
Fun puzzle!
Had trouble with DISANT and AUGUSTA. But everything came out fine in the end.
Hope to see you all tomorrow!
FIR by no ta-da. The gimmick was my bane! The first two themers I got were SHAMING and SHAMAN, so I knew [ha!] the trick was to put SHAM in place of something. Only logic, right? What was being replaced I couldn't figure out, but I did confidently put SHAM at the start of the other two, then later moved them right to _OSHAM MILK and POP-UP TO SHAMSTER. Filled the grid, but too many wrong-looking words in the NW and mid-S and no ta-da. At last I finally broke down to read the reveal clue. Not SHAM but just HAM! Erased those two sham S's, and like dominoes the rest of the errors fell with ease!
ReplyDeleteBruce was a playboy from GOTHAM
Who was SHAMED by where his money had got him.
To make his guilt lighter
He became a crime-fighter --
But he AWED no ONE as the Dark HAMSTER-MAN!
A Georgian girl who was named MONA
Was a whiz at E-MAIL and as a phone-a!
Her lungs were so strong
She could talk all day long!
She was known as the Gust from AUGUSTA!
{B-, C.}
I don't understand your explanation. What is the difference in the four clues? It seems to me that they all add HAM.
ReplyDeleteSTRAP ON is one of the all-time great answers. How to clue thee? Let me count the ways...
ReplyDeleteAnother really easy Friday puzzle. But, the three seven letter downs in the SW corner did put up some resistance, and that was mainly because I threw in YEW before ASH. Also had KISSES before BUSSES (a word learned here a few years ago), but kisses wasn't working.
ReplyDeleteJoe: the first two themers just add HAM in the middle of a word. The last two, the whole phrase is parsed differently, but the HAM is left unsliced.
ReplyDeleteIt's possible to turn off inclusion? Ah, well, I can't even get my @owenkl.com outgoing e-mail to work any more, just incoming. One of the settings for my outgoing eddress is invalid, I haven't been able to figure out how to correct it. So I mostly use FB and this blog to communicate. In a pinch, I can use my gmail for outgoing, but it's so packed with spam I can't use it for incoming (ie, reply to) messages.
SOI-DISANT I've seen in print several times, but never bothered to look it up or figured it out from context, so didn't know what it meant.
YEW > ASH, TENOR > VIOLA
THALIA and Erato I've referred to often as my personal Muses -- humor and lyric verse, respectively.
MONA was a title? I always thought it was part of her name! Except IIRC the model was actually named something entirely different.
Thank you, Owen, for the early morning assist with explaining what I apparently did not make clear. Consistency is important in making puzzles fair. Consistency is also what you do here with your limerick/poem posts. Again thank you.
ReplyDeleteGood morning!
ReplyDeleteI was stumbling through the southwest until I made an ASH out of YEW, and things fell into place. Soi-DISANT resides somewhere in my file of useless information; it came welling up when summoned. STRAP ON also evoked a different image for me, Lemon. Thanx for the outing, JW.
Mr. Red in Cincy also has a baseball head. Threw me off.
ReplyDeleteSo, what is MED IT UP?
ReplyDeleteThat's not a theme answer, it's the "reveal" to the theme answers.
ReplyDeleteThe HAM sandwiched between theme phrases appeared quickly, thank you, JW, and thank you for the CSO at DALE.
ReplyDeleteAUGUSTA held me up because I was thinking of an academic master's. Oh, right, golf, along with ONEPUTT. STABLE was brilliant! And nearly lobotomized me when the V-8 can hit.
ASPHALT is also a clever one. Soi-Disant? Another French phrase I've never seen or heard of. Then there's HOME and LOFT to make things cozy.
Jeffrey Wechsler, you are brilliant! Lemonade, thank you, for making sense out of a puzzling theme.
Have a sensational day, everyone!
Great puzzle. One bad cell. ULNAL instead of ULNAR. LAMIS looked wrong. I didn't think of RAMIS. Last to fill was SW because I had YEW and KISSES for a while.
ReplyDeleteIt is thought the model for Mona Lisa was Lisa Gherardine
Wikipedia: Mona in Italian is a polite form of address originating as "ma donna" – similar to "Ma’am", "Madam", or "my lady" in English.
I was surprised that ale didn't have hops, so I looked it up.
"Historically, the term referred to a drink brewed without hops."
"Brown ales tend to be lightly hopped, and fairly mildly flavoured, often with a nutty taste."
India Pale Ale-"To avoid the spoilage, extra hops were added as a natural preservative. This beer was the first of a style of export ale that became known as India Pale Ale or IPA."
Stable and asphalt were my favorites.
In the New York area the baseball head logo is always the Mets. We see it everywhere.
My Yankees are one game away from the series. Go, Yanks!
Good morning to all!
ReplyDeleteWhat a great "ham sandwich" puzzle, as Lucina has pointed out. Favorite clue/answer was "Where the groom may walk down the aisle" for STABLE. RAMIS was all perps. Thanks for your faithful Friday guidance, Lemonade.
Enjoy the day!
Good morning everyone.
ReplyDeleteAnother Wechsler wonder. Thanks Jeff.
Luckily, got it all unassisted. Knew to throw all the HAMs in early, but had to wait for Lemon to show me the phrase alterations. Got the whole top, SE, and center; then RASSLED with the SW. 37a had to be ASH or yew; HAPPENS looked good, so I went with ash. That gave STOOLIE and ASPHALT and I romped home. Did not know DISANT, but somehow felt I had heard of soi-DISANT.
Leif or ERIK? RASSLE sorted that out.
Favorite fill that made me chortle was SHAMAN KIN.
Musings
ReplyDelete-An easy Jeff Wex Friday puzzle for me but clever as always!
-My POPUP TOASTER requires two cycles to get my English muffins dark enough
-The “too cute” restroom signs said Hens and Drakes. Without thinking I, uh, ERRED.
-My first elastic wood was YEW from my “Bow wood” experience here
-You are said to have HOPS, if you can do this
-Joe Friday encounters LSD (2:25)
-I found out that telling my superintendent that “he had no CLOTHES” wasn’t smart. Turned out I was right. Talk about your pyrrhic victories!
-I am on a quest to stomp out OVERUSE of the word AWEsome!
-ASPHALT – Cheaper than concrete up front but…
Good Morning:
ReplyDeleteThis was what one might call "Devil-ed Ham" as we are all familiar with Mr. Wechsler's devilish 😈 (sometimes diabolical) cluing. I caught the theme early on but the reveal was a surprise. The misdirection on the clue for stable brought a chuckle and, for me, the Malt Creations and their components conjured visions of soda fountains, bringing another chuckle when Ales and Hops appeared. Liked seeing help and abet side by side. W/o's included Dat/Dah, Vale/Dale, and Kisses/Busses. Soi disant was an unknown but perps solved that snag. My favorite themer was Pop up to a hamster because of the silly visual it evoked. (My pop up toaster propels more than it pops!)
Thanks, Jeffrey W, for a challenging but doable Friday offering and thanks, Lemony, for the informative summary.
We have been blessed with a stretch of beautiful Fall weather. According to the weather gurus, our winter will be on the mild side. But, then again, the best laid plans ............
Have a great day.
Husker, I had a similar quandary at a seafood restaurant with buoys and gulls -- not the words, just images.
ReplyDeleteThoroughly did NOT enjoy this puzzle!
ReplyDeleteHi Y'all! GOT the theme with the MILK. Looking for HAM helped fill the other theme entries. I thought the reveal would be HAM IT UP so I was close. Very amusing and easier than many Thursdays for me. Thanks, Jeffrey. Thanks, Lemonade.
ReplyDeleteThe SW gave me some trouble. The last fill was the "B" in STABLE/BUSSES with POPUP/HAPPENS. Had to work up from the bottom for those & ASPHALT. As for ASH, I was thinking elastic wood would be some sort of wood filler or putty like DAP with an elastic/plastic consistency. Even when ASH perped in, I was thinking, yeah wood ashes would be sorta elastic. Duh! Took awhile to suss TOASTER. Filled in HAMSTER first but tried "the" before TO A. Finally SANK IN.
Didn't know RAMIS or Soi DISANT. ESP.
Didn't know anything about "The Lego Movie". One of my son's four boys are avid Lego builders. My other son's youngest boy was insulted for some reason when I gave him Lego last birthday. He was asking for something to build earlier. They change so much so quickly. He's getting money this year. His father is a mechanic & builder and his kids don't build. Don't understand that.
Thanks, JW, for another fun Friday outing. Great theme and cluing. Loved "Masters Course" the best.
ReplyDeleteLemonade, thanks for the explanation. Only one I couldn't parse out was SAN KIN....some sort of Asian food? No, it was SANK IN!
TGIF and happy weekend to all!
The Utes are a Great Basin tribe. The Oto roamed the Great Plains.
ReplyDelete"Puzzling Thoughts":
ReplyDeleteI'm in AWE of how JW was able to add HAM to this crossword "omelet" and keep it "kosher"! Just brilliant - great recap Lemony, and I know you enjoyed this one a lot.
Some WO's: the misspelling of RAMIS; KISSES > BUSSES; TENOR > VIOLA; SCOT > DALE (which allowed me to perp in DISANT - my least favorite clue/solve of today's puzzle).
The included word made me think of this old college fight song (with apologies up front if it offends - none meant): "Izzy, Ikey, Jakey, Sam. We're the boys who don't eat HAM! Go Hofstra!!"
And the 53a on top of 56a gave me this Moe-ku:
A craft beer brewer
Makes ALES to enjoy, as he
Creates HOP-pyness.
And while many of you have merely hinted at the innuendo for 44d, I'll be the STOOLIE and throw out this PG-13 limerick:
There was once a young woman named Jeannie,
Who has found a new use for zucchini.
When she's feeling withdrawn
It becomes a STRAP-ON.
It's far better than any man's weenie.
Moe has left the building ...
Soi disant is literally self spoken.
ReplyDeleteWC
FYI: The Great Basin map.
ReplyDeleteWhat an elegant, chuckle- evoking Wechsler creation! Oh sure it was hard. Aren't they all? It has taken me all morning but I finally beat the master.
ReplyDeleteI thought the theme was clever and fair. POP UP TO A HAMSTER was just a delightful image! STABLE and Mother TERESA and. AUGUSTA were laugh out loud fun.
IM thanks also for your offering with CC earlier this week. I loved it! But my computer is on the fritz and I haven't been able to post all week.
Owen, yesterday was great. Today even better!!
PK:
ReplyDeleteYou made me look closely at the calendar! My doctor's appointment is today, Friday, so I had to make sure.
D-N-F ... only about 75% completed when I threw in the towel.
ReplyDeleteLemon: Thanks for explaining my blank spaces.
Fave today was that STRAP-ON clue and answer.
A "Toast-to-ALL" at Sunset ... or when the "Sun gets over the Yardarm."
Cheers!
A fine, do-able Wechsler pzl today! Ta- DA!
ReplyDeleteAnd what did I learn?
Mainly that Harold RAMIS spelled his name with an "I" instead of an "O." Also, that this pleasant low-key comedian died not long ago. (Well, in 2014, over three years ago according to Wiki sources.)
I did enjoy this one. It had just the right degree of challenge for me. Three times I reached the point of almost Googling, but then managed to hold out just that tiny bit longer - to be rewarded by another breakthrough.
My favorite fill was SOI-DISANT, because I have just that degree of Francophile snootiness to enjoy being asked to prove it. (In truth I nearly flunked junior high French in Miss Fusselman's class. But a few phrases stuck in the ol' walnut.)
I'm giving myself the win in choosing VALE / soi-VISANT (seeing oneself) rather than DALE / soi-DISANT (calling oneself). No fair with foreign language idiomatic expressions. My southwest corner got off to a slow start, penciling in YEW but keeping an open mind for FIR or other 3-letter woods that aren't OAK. ASH was revealed by perps. I loved the STABLE reveal, which turned KISSES into BUSSES. I found myself in a little trouble in the northwest corner by throwing in ULNIC rather than ULNAR and not knowing my DITs from my DAHs. I wasn't helped by the "Ghostbusters" clue because it didn't specify the original or the remake (which I haven't seen and wouldn't know its actors). The heavens were revealed when I discovered that Pluto had to have 5 MOONS! How did I miss the news that despite being down-graded from a planet, it has gained moons?
ReplyDeleteI forgot to mention how impressed I was to learn about little Pluto’s Five Moons.
ReplyDeleteWhen the lil’ guy got demoted I thought he’d just fade into oblivion. But now I admit to a bit of jealousy. I mean, five (count ‘em, five!) moons to Earth’s one!
(Even if they do look like a scatter of uneven gravel….)
And BTW, I notice that some solvers are surprised when a clue leads them to think in a context different from that of the answer.
An example is 1D. Like some others I first thought of something to do with a grad school program. When the answer turned out to be AUGUSTA, I felt a twinge of delight. Isn't this what Xwds are all about?
A standard rule for solvers is to ask yourself,
"How many contexts do I know for each clue?"
A toughie today with a DNF at the cross of DISANT and DALE. I guessed V instead of D, and unlike Maverick@12:48, I am NOT giving myself a win. I've never heard of DISANT or 'SOI____' and there are no hills in S. Louisiana so DALE, VALE, GLEN, COVE are mountain words that never used around here. DISANT was really my only unknown and the perp didn't help.
ReplyDeleteI caught the HAM handed theme immediately at GOT-HAM-MILK but the South gave me fits. I had YEW before ASH, KISSES before BUSSES, HOMED before AIMED, incorrectly filled COVE for DALE. The great 'groom' clue stumped me for a while. A lucky WAG for the ANTONY quote. I kept looking back at S-HAM-ANKIN and wondering what SAN-KIN was; it never did 'sink in' for me or C6D6 Peg until your explanation. Thanks.
I won't HAM IT UP this morning but tuck my tail and fun.
STRAP ON- okay, I see what Anon@4:51 is thinking.
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I'll say, as I often have said, I liked this puzzle very much. It being Friday today, and this being a Jeffrey Wechsler creation, I approached it with trepidation, fully expecting to be unable to solve it without substantial help. I am happy that I ERRed in that assessment. I did go down the wrong path on several answers, but as Ol' Man Keith said, "Isn't this what Xwds are all about?" I reply, "Yes."
ReplyDeleteSo, OTO -> UTE. Like Anonymous @ 11:26 AM, I thought the Utes are a Great Basin tribe and the Oto (aka Otoe) were native to the Great Plains.
A JOKE -> A HINT and SWEDE -> WELSH because of SHEL.
VALE -> DALE even though I didn't know DISANT from VISANT from a hole in the wall. This did take turning on red letters to discover.
RAMOS -> RAMIS.
YEW -> ASH. I didn't know ash is elastic. Baseball bats and rake handles sure don't seem elastic to me. Yew, of course, was used to make the great English longbows, which rely on the wood's great elasticity to function.
KISSES -> BUSSES.
A fine way to have spent much of my morning today. Best wishes to you all.
I love Jeffrey Wechsler puzzles although they're almost always toughies for me. This one started out very slowly (thank goodness I got Mother TERESA), but slowly, slowly things filled in. I pretty much worked from the bottom up, with ERATO and VIOLA and EROS, but before long I had everything but a few items in the west. Lots of fun misleading cluing, like STABLE and AUGUSTA--so, many thanks, Jeffrey. And always love your write-up, Lemonade. Thanks especially for giving us the Shakespeare citation.
ReplyDeleteGot a City of Laguna Beach parking ticket on my car yesterday even though I have a city parking permit that I pay for every year, displayed on the rear bumper of the car. The ticket even cited my permit information. Don't understand what's going on, and when I finally got hold of someone by phone they told me I had to write a letter explaining why I didn't think I deserved a ticket. I can't believe the amount of time I'm spending on BS stuff these days.
Wish I could say it's a beautiful day (drizzles, etc.). But hey, I'm well, I have Corner pals who commiserate, Dusty is snoozing on his pillow, life isn't bad, ticket notwithstanding.
Have a great day, everybody!
A first for me, I was on Jeffrey's wavelength today. Maybe it was because instead of starting the puzzle early, I started mid-afternoon after I got home from camping.
ReplyDeleteErased ride for LINE, and TReSSES for TRUSSES. I guess hair wouldn't make much of a bridge superstructure. Didn't know DISANT nor Antony's speech, but I MADE was easy enough to EWAG my way through the Natick. Other unknowns were Quechua and anything about The Lego Movie.
I know Morse code from my ham radio days in my ute. I could send at a rate about 20 words per minute, but could only receive at about 10 WPM. The most frequently used letters get short codes (dit for "e", Dah-Dah for "m", Dah-Dit for "n") while the letters that have high values in Scrabble get longer codes (Dah-Dit-Dah-Dit for "c", Dah-Dah-Dit-Dah for "q").
Saturday looms, so I'll just put my head on the executioner's block now.
Lucina, I have no idea what my mind was doing typing Thursday. I have Fri. in the notes I make while going through the puzzle & expo. However, I thought it was Friday all day yesterday. Today my neighbor rolled out her trash can which should have gone out on Thursday. I saw it just before I went to the computer. But I really can't blame her for my glitch. I didn't have enough trash to participate either day, so that shouldn't have messed me up. Old timers moment!
ReplyDeleteMisty, drizzles sounds beautiful for California if the alternative is fire.
AUGUSTA was my first choice. I knew watching those guys whack those little balls wasn't a waste of time like my kids think. I never thought of a higher academic degree. Maybe 'cause I don't have one. ONE PUTT held me up just a bit. My first thought was "do they make a ONE iron?" thinking of the clubs.
PK, you're absolutely, completely right that we should be thankful for the drizzles and for rain in the fire regions and elsewhere in California.
ReplyDeleteThis is the kind of theme I dislike. Got the solve with no joy.
ReplyDeleteNever saw DISANT before so that as new. Didn’t care for the HAMmy theme.
Meh.
Hey, guys, it's me the naysayer! Again, a Friday entry that baffled me - gave up after an hour of angst. I'm not brainless (two Masters degrees, a well stocked home library. What am I missing ( besides patients) that leaves me frustrated and full of self pity on Friday, unlike every other day of the week (including Sat.)?? Is it just my unlucky day??
ReplyDeleteHi All!
ReplyDeleteThank you JW for a doable Friday. Like OMK, I resisted going Googling and everything eventually MADE sense*. Took forever but it's all done in beautiful black ink.
Thanks Lem for the expo and link -- I only knew SHEL from Where the Sidewalk Ends and other books from my UTE.
WOs: I was thinking Steve Carell at 1st so a 'C' in box 10. Hand up w/ kiSSES.
ESPs: ULNAR, DISANT, BALI
Fav: POP UP TOASTER / HAMSTER for evoking this Young Ones scene [at the end of the @5:22 clip]
{B,C+} {cute, snicker}
IM - LOL'd at devil'd HAM.
HG - Thanks for the Dragnet clip. What's really confusing is the unisex bathrooms... Walk in, see a female, and walk out looking for the MAN's room. D'Oh!
@3:17 - I'm still not experienced enough to nail a Friday on a consistent basis and Saturdays are right out (I think I've nailed two sans cheat in the years! I've been playing).
*OK, not STABLE.... Someone please explain STABLE. The only thing I can figure out is a horse groomer is called a groom; uh, OK(?).
Cheers, -T
To anonymous @3:42
ReplyDeleteChill, kiddo. Chill.
rb
Several run-throughs gave me all the answers, with no blanks or look-ups.
ReplyDeleteAlso was thinking of master's degree, until the crosses forced me to AUGUSTA.
Saw all the HAM, but not the phrases around them until I read Lemonade's explanation. GOTHAM MILK sorta made sense based on the clue, but was puzzling (what's so special about milk from Gotham City?).
No fun at all!
ReplyDelete24d. Hands up everyone who observed Leif Eriksson Day on the ninth.
ReplyDeleteRoy - It's from lactating bats, man.
ReplyDelete//ducks, -T
Rebecca: Thank you for trying but the 3:42s of the world do not chill. I see someone deleted him.
ReplyDeleteLucina, I may get you to do some titles for me as HAM Sandwich was much better than either of the suggestions I had. Do was deviled ham for that matter. Thanks, Agnes.
A horse groomer is called a groom who might walk down an aisle in the barn.
Speaking of Rebecca, any of you solving the "celebrity" collaboration puzzles at the NYT?
Hand up for YEW before ASH. Soi DISANT and RAMIS were unknowns that looked wrong. But I was wrong and FIR.
ReplyDeleteGot the theme at SHAMAN KIN and hand up for not being able to parse it to SANK IN for way too long! Solved all the other theme answers before I got it. Not sure why some others did not like the theme. I enjoyed the theme and the rest of the puzzle.
Here are a few photos of me in PERU along with some QUECHUA speakers I met there
And here I am at Yellowstone observing some of those ELK grazers
Anonymous @ 3:17 ~ Judging by the amount of time you spent on the puzzle, I don't think lack of patience is your problem. If you read this blog on a regular basis, then you should know that we all have our difficult solving experiences and end up either not finishing or finishing incorrectly. Understanding the theme can help immensely with the solve, especially in a puzzle like today's. Try finding and understanding the reveal clue early on, before you get frustrated. OMK and I share the P and P approach; Patience and Perseverance. To that I would add Practice, i.e., do as many puzzles as time allows. Good luck and happier solving! 😉
ReplyDeleteToday I learned that ash, as well as yew, is used for bows.
ReplyDeleteWikipedia: "Ash is a hardwood and is hard, dense...... tough and very strong but elastic, extensively used for making bows, tool handles, baseball bats, hurleys and other uses demanding high strength and resilience."
"Due to its elasticity, ash can also be worked on to produce curved stair parts such as volutes (curled sections of handrail) and intricately shaped balusters."
Anonymous @ 11:26, I agree, "The Utes are a Great Basin tribe. The Oto roamed the Great Plains."
Picard:
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing your photos. They show such beautiful portions of our Globe and you remind me of the man who travels in South and Central America and narrates his travels on PBS. The title of the show escapes me at the moment.
PK:
I was joshing, of course, because I can easily relate to those slips of memory seemingly more and more lately.
BTW:
I'm happy to report that my ACL was 5.9%. Oh, happy day!
Hi, all
ReplyDeleteToday I picked the right letter! D instead of V. And what's Pluto doing with Moons now its not a planet any more?? Do Asteroids have Moons??
Big J - Like Planet, it depends on how one defines Moon. [JPL].
ReplyDeleteCrickets? on my response to Roy's:
"What's so special about MILK from GOTHAM?"
"Lactating bats, man"
Dang, I thoughts that was gold.. I'll just get back to my day-job protecting networks.
Cool pix Picard.
IM what does 5.9% ACL mean? I suspect good (and good for you) but...?
Cheers, -T
Er, Lucina re: ACL. Sorry. -T
ReplyDeleteA1C?
ReplyDeleteAnon @ 3:17, you asked "What am I missing?" I agree with everything IM said. It also helps if you have a sense of humor for puzzles like this which have a high silliness factor. If you've had all the silliness educated out of you and you are thinking too hard, trying to make sense of the senseless will drive you nuts.
ReplyDeleteTony, I got a good chuckle out of the "lactating bats". Bravo!
ReplyDeleteIrish Miss, @ 5:12:
ReplyDeleteIndeed, the double-P approach often carries the day.
But shouldn't such a Puritan attitude have worn out its welcome in this age of quick results & instant gratification?
I guess some tools don't need redesigning. Except - maybe - to add more of the same?
To have us a Swiss Army 'tude?
We could add Persistence and your Practice to turn it into a quadruple-P ...
Hm. Is there any difference between Perseverance and Persistence?
Thank you for the kind words about my photos Lucina and AnonymousT. And thank you for your amusing comment yesterday about my NICE sunbather photo Ol'ManKeith. Yes, the stony beach, not the topless lady, was the central point!
ReplyDeleteLearning moment today about the meaning of MONA.
I love this scene of the crowd photographing the MONA Lisa!
The first time I was there in the 1990s you could get closer. A museum guard woman had a full time job just saying "No Flash". As half the photographers used their flash anyway. I am just happy that the public still has access at all!
AnonT:
ReplyDelete(Sorry) A1C 5.9% is excellent for me and far cry from the 200% when I was originally diagnosed. Of course, it means no sugar, no chocolate, no desserts, etc. Now, that should make you cry!
Anonymous 3:17--I understand perfectly what you're saying, I often feel exactly the same way, especially with end of the week puzzles. I'm not sure I'm the person to offer advice since I often gripe about this--but the great thing about the blog is precisely that we can do this. Also, sometimes after being pretty discouraged about those end of the week puzzles, the odd this and that comes through and I end up doing better than I thought I would. It's worthwhile to just keep on trying. Anyway, my heart and thoughts are with you, with much understanding, and I hope you have a great next week.
ReplyDeleteJust finished today’s puzzle. Enjoyed it immensely and learned a lot. I look at these puzzles as learning experiences. Since I’ve been doing these for the last two months, I’ve never finished without googling. I just keep at it and know that in time I will be solving more and googling less.
ReplyDeleteMisty — wonderful comments.
Mark S:
ReplyDeleteThat is so wonderful to know you are determined to continue and to learn. That really is the secret: keep at it! Good for you!
Anon @ 3:17 --
ReplyDeleteWe all have differing things in our data bases. The "soi-disant" thing was no problem (for me), but ask me the name of the supporting actress in CSI:Milwaukee, and I'm off to Google if I can't perp the name. A good day is when the constructor and I are at about the same 'altitude', but some puzzlers, Jeffrey Wechsler being notorious here, have a fiendish skill at cluing.
Keep at it; it'll get better.
MarkS - That's the attitude I approach pzls with - Learn! (Do you think I knew what a UTE was or the word AVER 4 years ago?) For me, it was letter patterns - I'm a horrible speller (dyslexia sucks!) and forcing each letter into a box focus me. And the trivia is fun. [Totally nailed RAMIS after thinking Ackroyd and Murray (yes, I googled both for spelling)]
ReplyDeleteJinx you nailed it re: A1C.
Lucina - that stinks re: yummies but good for you! on prognosis. I guess you can't imbibe either [I hear red wine is OK for diabetics- at least DW says so [she's boarder-line II].
Picard - Q: Was the MONA Lisa a let-down 'cuz it's so small? I've never seen it but I heard it's like the Plymouth Rock - "Really?" is all I thought standing near the MA shore.
Com'on no one linked Sir Paul and Mr. Wonder for EBONY and Ivory?
Here's something I HAPPENED upon - Twitter accounts KFC follows. It made me giggle and, if you're in marketing, this is how to do social-media right.
PK - thanks for the Pity-Laugh. DW's @OU visiting Eldest so... No one here to hear my little jokes and say "That's nice dear."
Cheers, -T