I am back for this post-thanksgiving puzzle. My trip to Thailand to meet my wife's family, renew our vows and get her to doctors who speak Thai was a wonderful experience. Now on to the puzzle.
We have our second puzzle from LEONARD WILLIAMS who has 8 NYT publications, and a 2016 WSJ. His LAT was a SUNDAY in 2012. This was strange creation, easy in places, but no reveal for the theme. I have blogged enough puzzles where themers all go from bottom to top, but I don't recall one without a reveal. This will likely upset those who do not like themes but it was all well put together. The five all have second word (read from the bottom to the top) synonymous with "rising."
Two relate to climb/ascent and two relate to hike/increase. I had fun.
3D. Government revenue generator, aptly : ESAERCNI XAT (11). Tax increase.
13D. Hillary's feat, aptly : TNECSA TSEREVE (13). Everest ascent.
15D. Retailer's increase, aptly : EKIH ECIRP (9). Price hike.
23D. What Red Bull provides, aptly : TSOOB YGRENE (11). Energy boost.
27D. Scale a cliff, aptly : BMILC KCOR (9). Rock climb.
Across:
1. Old AT and T rival : GTE. General Telephone and Electric.
4. __ Na Na : SHA. More from Woodstock.
7. Pigsty : DUMP. These are not synonymous for me. A palace can be a pigsty if not cleaned etc.
11. Least used : RUSTIEST. A Friday stretch.
14. Nightmare reaction : TERROR. This was obscure to me.
16. "Collages" author : ANAIS NIN. Angela Anaïs Juana Antolina Rosa Edelmira Nin y Culmell, known professionally as Anaïs Nin, was an American diarist, essayist, novelist, and writer of short stories and erotica. wiki.
17. Grammy winner for "I Believe I Can Fly" : R KELLY.
19. Name suffix : III. On any application they ask for suffixes like jr. etc.
20. Ukr. and Georgia, once : SSRS.
21. With legal tender : IN CASH. meh.
23. Even prime : TWO. The only even number that cannot be divided by any other.
26. 2016 World Series Champions : CUBS.
28. Locale : SITE.
29. Con target : SAP.
30. "The Hunger Games" nation : PANEM. Bread. LINK.
32. Pianist Templeton : ALEC. I did not know this COMPOSER.
33. Estadio shout : OLE.
34. Formal reply to "Who's there?" : IT IS I.
35. Foul line shots: Abbr. : FTS. Free Throws.
36. "Too rich for my blood" : I FOLD.
38. Loose : LAX.
39. "__ and the Real Girl": 2007 film : LARS. I ended up enjoying this very odd movie.
42. Altar constellation : ARA. The name means ALTAR.
43. Hudson Bay native : CREE.
44. Like kittens : SPRY.
45. Honda subcompact : FIT.
46. Actor Culkin : KIERAN. Macaulay's brother. he continues to act, 2015 in tv series Fargo.
48. Some NCOs : SGTS.
51. Nipper's brand : RCA. Nipper was a mongrel -part fox terrier part jack Russell - from Bristol, England, who served as the model for a painting by Francis Barraud titled "His Master's Voice which was used by RCA
52. Saint of "On the Waterfront" : EVA MARIE.
54. Something to exercise: OPTION. This right so many ways.
57. Particularly noxious: VIRULENT.
58. Cialis competitor: VIAGRA.
59. Periodic table listing: ELEMENTS.
60. Numbered piece: OPUS.
61. Obstinate critter: ASS.
62. That, in Tijuana: ESA.
Down:
1. Alumni: GRADS. I know, no mention of abbreviation.
2. North African capital: TUNIS. Tunisia.
4. Emphatic Acapulco assent: SI SI.
5. Rousseau et al.: HENRIS.
6. Like many elephants: ASIAN. Here is Oo after she just fed a lime to an Asian Elephant.
7. Eins und zwei: DREI. Adding in German.
8. Google find: URL.
9. Basic chem. unit: MOLecule.
10. Ask too many questions: PRY.
12. Cold sufferer's boxful: TISSUES.In Thailand they use tissues in place of napkins and paper towels.
14. Sad, to Sartre: TRISTE. French.
22. Is out sick, say: AILS.
24. Pixar title robot: WALL-E.
30. Rice dish : PILAF.
31. Longtime video game name : ATARI.
35. For the taking : FREE.
37. On the market : FOR SALE.
40. Singer Grande : ARIANA. Seems like a very real person, but what do I know.
44. Certain drums : SNARES.
47. Walled Spanish city : AVILA. Not sure, but I immediately thought of out dear Lucina. LINK.
49. Colors : TINTS.
50. __ precedent : SETS A. A little law reference...
51. Fixes, in a way : RIGS.
53. Fall bloomers : MUMS. Mums the flower as well as the WORD.
54. Lacto-__ vegetarian : OVO. They eat milk products and eggs.
55. Domino depression : PIP.
56. Sigma follower : TAU.
I imagine most of us are somnabulant, but I learned today that chicken has more tryptophan than turkey. I renew my thanks to C.C. and all of you for 9 fun years.
Notes from C.C.:
1) As Lemonade mentioned earlier, he and his lovely wife Oo renewed their vows in Thailand. Here are a few pictures.
Greetings!
ReplyDeleteThanks to Leonard and Lemonade!
Liked the theme!
No cheats!
Very ill with chest cold, so sm going to quit now.
Hope to see you all tomorrow!
DNF¡ A lot of lucky WAGs at the cluster of crossing proper names LARS + ARIANA + KIERAN + AVILA, but what did me in was my inability to remember German numbers and French vocab¡ I spelt DRie and couldn't even guess at what T??STE could be, which together kept me from seeing ?KiLLY as R.KELLY or ?Ie was III.
ReplyDeleteThe gimmick took a long time to coalesce, but TAX INCREASE and EVEREST ASCENT came to me together, and from there the rest of the themers were easy!
D4E4H4 FLN -- You're the first person to comment on what's been my shtick for years! I'm of the opinion that if I write something, it should be worth a bang!, or I'm wasting people's time asking them to read it! I try to use a bang! at least every other sentence! But a bang! signals positive excitement. Sometimes the energy is there, but it's negative -- sorrowful, frustrated, discouraged. That's when I use the ¡ inverted exclamation mark symbol instead.
There was a FREE lover of TUNIS
Whose TERROR was becoming a eunuch!
On VIAGRA he over-dosed,
Rigor mortis it invoked!
To close his coffin took six men in earnest!
SPRY is what they call you IF OLD.
Better than RUSTY, or dead and cold!
But yoga keeps you limber
Into life's December!
When asked your asanas, you can answer, "I FOLD!"
{A-, B+.}
Good morning all. Thank you L & L
ReplyDeleteMCI before GTE (Hi Abejo, Hi Jinks) and OFFERED before FOR SALE were the only full word type overs in this Friday quickie. I also had to change from masculine to feminine for the Tijuana that.
ENERGY BOOST fell first. Prior to seeing it, I was stumped. I felt certain of so many answers, but the "aptly" answers were looking like gibberish. And as Owen said, once the first one fell, I knew what to look for and the others went down (or up, as it were) post haste.
Last letter to fill was a bad guess. Should have sensed that it was AVILA and not eVILA. So a delayed TADA. I'll have to give myself a score of 99.45355191256831 % on this one.
Early to sleep and early to rise. No BF shopping for me. Framing and finishing details on my BIL's shed. Closing in the eaves with soffit and fascia. That's the current agenda for what's supposed to be a warm and sunny but breezy day here in Chicagoland.
D4E4H (FLN) in re: Posts that seem to disappear. Many of have learned to compose in either a word processor or in a utility, eg Notepad or some such, rather than in the Blogger comment form.
Bottom's up? Had a few yesterday. Oh, the puzzle! After filling most of the crosses I could tell that some type of gimmick was in the offing but didn't know what it was. I didn't know the author of 'Collages' so the A, N, & N were not in place. Then I realized that TAX was upside down and the holes in my grid were completed in about 30 seconds, only changing _NELLY to R KELLY.
ReplyDeletePANEM, KIERAN, ALEC Templeton, TRISTE, LARS and the Real Girl- I never heard of any so they were perped. The puzzles was easier than I expected for a Friday.
R. KELLY- should be 'FLYing' to prison for cavorting with underage girls. But they can't convict him or catch Roman Polanski.
Red Bull- tasted it ONCE at a golf tournament ( it was free); spit it out.
Black Friday shopping for me? No way Jose.
Good morning!
ReplyDeleteWhen ESAER...appeared, I knew something was up. Didn't realize it was literally up. Once my SCREAM turned to TERROR, everything worked out. Thanx, Leonard and Lemon. Nice pix, BTW.
GTE -- CSO to Abejo?
Is it just me, or is equating SPRY with kittens a little weird? I can come up with lotsa adjectives for kittens, but SPRY would never occur to me.
I remember EVA MARIE Saint as Hitchcock's icy blonde in North By Northwest.
DW is one of those Lacto-OVO people. That's why we cook separate meals.
Today begins my annual holiday boycott: avoid all retail establishments that do not sell beer (and even some, Walmart I'm lookin' at you, that do).
Good Morning, Lemonade and friends. Today's theme totally escaped me. I knew what they should be, but didn't think to read the answer from bottom to top.
ReplyDeleteI confidently wrote down MCI as an AT&T competitor, which gave me Cairo as an African capital. So far so good. Then I ran into ANÄIS NIN and her book Colleges.
I learned that kittens are not Cute, but SPRY. Not the first work I think of when I think of kittens.
I couldn't tell you what ARIANA Grande sings, but I know she once licked donuts in a donut shop.
Nice photos of Lemonade and his wife. I hope Oo isn't ill, since he mentioned that she visited doctors in Thailand.
QOD: None are more taken in by flattery than the proud, who wish to be the first and are not. ~ Baruch Spinoza (Nov. 23, 1632 ~ Feb. 21, 1677)
ReplyDeleteO D D E
T R N D
- A A A
O N - N
S O - O
C E - M
- L - E
- - - L
Dave
ReplyDeleteIt turned out curvy but I mean it from the bottom of my heart up.
Dave
I was befuddled by the strange order of letters in the theme answers, until I sussed the upward trend, then I finished eins, zwei, drei. I have a German minor, bilingual PA Dutch speaking parents and my dad conducted church services in German, at one time.
ReplyDeleteThere were so many gimmes, drei, esa, III, Avila, in cash, Atari, two, op eds, elements, Viagra, trieste, ovo, Eva Marie Saint.
The gimmes were intermixed with difficult names to be perped and wagged,Kieran, Ariana, Lars, R Kelly, Wall-E. The gimmes supplied toeholds for the wags. FIR w/o LIU or red letters.
Trieste changed SCREAM to TERROR.
AN-IS-I- suggested ANAIS NIN, crossword favorite.
Some teenagers rooms, no matter how lavishly furnished, are often DUMPs or sties. We use DUMP to mean a dirty, messy place.
HATOOLAH, your quote is so true.
Ferm, feel better soon. Jason and OO, lovely pics. JD, lovely grandchildren.
I've been here since around July of 2008. Doesn't seem that long. Like others today I was done in by the names, but got the upside down theme rather quickly.
ReplyDeleteHope you're all enjoying your turkey leftovers. Since our sons are not around right now, one with his family in Germany, the other at work in Houston, we invited another couple we know to join us for the meal. It proved to be a great idea, with wonderful fellowship and conversation all afternoon.
Thanks from me to all who also do that for those who visit here.
Musings
ReplyDelete-Welcome back, Lemon!
-BOOST ENERGY gave me the fun gimmick and the ability to fill in the plethora of obscure names and foreign words
-IN CASH in jeopardy?
-The previous CUBS championship was the year the Model T was first assembled
-Sports fans here know what “Hack-a-Shaq” was vis-à-vis FT’S
-The same sports fans will know about this man’s fight for exercising OPTIONS
-Was VIAGRA just a serendipitous addition to a puzzle with this theme?
-It’s my memory that Chet and David gave us the news and not OP-EDS
-Lovely pix today!
Husker- Your comment about VIAGRA... got a rise from that.
ReplyDeleteGood Morning:
ReplyDeleteI'm afraid I will have to defer to my dear friend, Thumper, this morning.
Thanks to Leonard for his efforts and thanks, Lemony, for the informative summary. Lovely pictures, BTW.
JD, I can't believe how much those cute boys have grown!
CC, I will begin my eighth year on the blog come January.
Bill G from yesterday, you make a good point about the medicine/nightmare correlation but, if that were the case, wouldn't the occurrences be more frequent? Maybe the MSG/Chinese food experiences were just a coincidence, but it has made me a little leery of having any more anytime soon.
I hope everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving and are none the worse for the wear after the turkey dinner with all the trimmings! I think it took me longer to clean up the kitchen after the meal than it did to prepare it! Oh, my aching back!
I have never gone shopping on Black Friday and have a hard time understanding why anyone would willingly subject themselves to the madness of the crowds.
Have a great day.
Hi Gang -
ReplyDeleteMade it through, but it was a slog and not a lot of fun.
Reverse- spelt theme is clever, but the gimmick is annoying.
Too many names for my taste.
Some nice fill though - OPTION, VIRULENT, ELEMENTS.
Lions laid another egg.
Plying a concert for the homeless tonight. It's become a day after Thanksgiving tradition.
Cool regards!
JzB
Terrific Thanksgiving for eleven yesterday. I am thankful for my wonderful son and DIL who insisted I sit down after dinner and enjoy the company of my sibs. After I stored the leftovers they took over and cleaned up everything. Before they left they put the furniture back in order, vacuumed the carpet and spot-washed a stain. Ordinarily I would have felt the need to join them, but his time I was happy just to sit down. (I concede that I am no longer a spring chicken.) Dave also helped me with some minor repairs.
ReplyDeleteHave you ever had PA Dutch potato filling? What they serve in PA restaurants these days is meh or worse. I order plain mashed potatoes instead. My family loves homemade potato filling. To rather stiff mashed potatoes made with butter and scant milk, I add diced onions and celery sauteed in butter, a slice or two of fresh bread broken into cubes and an egg. Then I bake it until it is brown on top and heated through. We top it with turkey gravy. Would you believe 11 people ate 8 pounds of potatoes?
I am also thankful that today marks three weeks of wellness for Alan, the longest stretch in months. It does my heart good to see the smile on his face.
I rose to the challenge today. Thanks for the fun Leonard and Lemonade. (Great photos)
ReplyDeleteThe theme appeared with ENERGY BOOST and assisted in filling the other theme areas.
Like others, some of the names (R KELLY, LARS, KIERAN) required perps. We haven't seen ANAIS NIN for a while.
Some German (7A), French (5D) and Spanish (33A, 62A, 47D, 4D). Hand up for Eso before ESA.
Prescience of the blog with IM and BillG's nightmare discussion yesterday.
Canadians did not seem to ever use the name suffixes, I, II, III. Even Sr. and Jr. are not used as much as in the past. The numbers seem pretentious and symbolic of family tradition, old money. Do Americans see it this way now?
Feel better soon, fermat.
Cute grandkids, JD.
Hope everyone is recovering from the holiday.
Good morning, folks. Thank you, Leonard Williams, for a fine puzzle. Thank you, Lemonade, for a fine review.
ReplyDeleteLemonade: FYI, GTE originally meant General Telephone and Electronics. The electronics part was attributed mainly to the ownership of Sylvania.
Yellowrocks: Your potato filling sounds great. I used to live and work in the PA Dutch area of southeastern PA (York, Reading, Sassamansville, Boyertown, Douglasville, etc). I remember eating Hog Maw at a friend's house. Hog's stomach stuffed with sausage and potatoes and baked. It was great. Also had quite a bit of chicken corn soup. Not to mention shoefly pie.
This puzzle was pretty tough for me. I started last night via cruciverb and finished this morning. I did not catch the reverse spelling until this morning. After that it was pretty easy, well for a Friday.
The easiest answer was my first, GTE at 1A. They owned the company I worked for until about 1988 (Automatic Electric), when we were sold to AT & T. Joint venture for 15 years and then we were 100 percent AT & T, who moved us to Lucent.
The reverse answers were quite easy once I figured that out. Took me forever.
Liked III. I have a friend that has that suffix. His son is IV.
PANEM was a stumper. Thanks to perps. Then finding that it is not a real country via Lemonades link, made it logical that I could not get it on my own.
There are so many others I needed perps with, I will not list them all. Needless to say I was very happy to have finished.
Liked all the photos.
See you tomorrow.
Abejo
( )
Abejo @ 10:16 ---> ah, the typos from autocorrect: I think you meant shoofly, not shoefly!!
DeleteAlso, in case you didn't know, I grew up in York, so I am/was very familiar with the PA Dutch "cuisine". Daß schmeckte gut was a phrase I recall hearing from the true Germans. Chicken Pot Pie was one of my favorites. Especially when the noodles were homemade
Theme was fun.
ReplyDeleteHad DUSTIEST before I found GRADS.
"Slanted pieces" was a fun clue and fit nicely with the theme.
After Thanksgiving, I was looking forward to a good puzzle. What the heh?
ReplyDeleteYa'll make me crazy and I'm already half way there!
ReplyDeleteFerm. 341A
Things you can do to kick the immune system into a higher function:
1. Chicken noodle soup, a whole Campbells can with no extra water. Heat as hot as you can, and eat as hot and as fast as you can. Yum, mother was right.
2. Beat your chest like Tarzan, striking the sternum. This stimulates the thymus gland which lies just under the sternum. It will now produce more T cells which are critical to immunity. You'll be gland you did.
3. Purchase Echinacea which is especially helpful in your snotty problem. Yecch!
4. Bounce! If you have stairs, stand on the bottom step. Hold to the hand rail for dear life and jump. You're jumping back and straightening your legs so you stick it like a gymnast. No stairs, a doorway will do. This will wake up those lazy white blood cells, and they will search for germs to consume.
5. Drown yourself. All of the body's chemical reactions take place in water, and you need all you can get.
6; Tylenol Severe Cold or Sinus Relief. Look for the package with 4 ingredients. It will help you feel better while you get better
6. After reading this advice, get off the computer machine, and into the bed place. You are getting sleepy, "Sleep!"
These tips will allow you to recover in just 7 days. If you don't do anything it will take a full week.
Dave, MD
MD, My Darling
For a while this puzzle gave me FTS (fits) until realizing the long columns could be read upside down! Mama mia! Then I moved swiftly to finish them all as they were only partially filled.
ReplyDeleteI really liked seeing the complete DIESIRAE, a hymn with which I'm very familiar from our Latin days and usually we see only half of ANAISNIN so that was nice, too.
AVILA is a given. Thank you, Lemonade, for your kind thoughts. I visited there many years ago and the chapel where St. Theresa prayed.
ESO/ESA, it's always a toss up until the perps emerge. OPUS and OPED were sneakily clued. I have to agree that SPRY is not the first way I think of kittens. Really wanted cute there.
Now I must admit that I'm officially old. Not only was the Scrabble Queen crown torn from me, it was shattered! Yes, I was creamed by my younger nieces and nephew. It's not only humiliating but disappointing.
Thank you for sharing pictures, Lemonade and JD. Those boys are even cuter than I remember.
I started on this Corner in 2010 so it's been a pleasure for seven years.
Thank you, Lemonade and Leonard for some BF fun! I'd rather be here than fighting insane crowds.
Have a restful day, everyone!
Good morning everyone.
ReplyDeleteThe theme was easy to suss which helped make the whole puzzle easier than many Fridays. Had to look up TRISTE in my LaRousse. Had Im Out before I FOLD. Perps helped with proper names.
DREI - English shares its cardinal number names with its Germanic relatives. L. German dree, Dutch drie. (both long e sound as in three)
Mein Hut der hat drei Ecken
Mein Hut, der hat drei Ecken,
Drei Ecken hat mein Hut,
Und hätt er nicht drei Ecken,
So wär es nicht mein Hut.
My hat has three corners,
Three corners has my hat,
Had it not three corners,
It wouldn't be my hat.
"Puzzling Thoughts":
ReplyDeleteThis puzzle kicked my ASS. I had to cheat to get KIERAN, R KELLY, LARS, TANEM, EVA MARIE; I was scratching my head, until I saw BMILCKCOR, and noticed the "bottoms up". Then, the rest of the puzzle sussed
I almost didn't fill in 26a; I still am reeling from last years WS
I don't think this limerick has any puzzle words, but fits with the Thanksgiving "hangover" we're all having:
When we gave Turkey Day guest a bantem
Slice of bird, he thanked us; we granted him
A small pardon, of sorts,
As we know that it thwarts
The certain visit from "Trypto-Phantom".
Nope. Couldn't figure it out the bottom up answers. May have helped if the title had been known but my paper doesn't show it.
ReplyDeleteCanadian Eh! There are bank and other financial mix-ups when two people have the same name, and even more so when they also share a postal address. The suffixes help to distinguish them, but sometimes even that does not prevent the problem. How does it work in Canada without these suffixes? When we speak of two people with the same name we call them John Junior and John Senior, for instance, if there is any doubt which one we mean.
ReplyDeleteAbejo, my mom sometimes made hog maw. I never have made it but I make something similar to the filling; smoked sausage boiled with diced potatoes and onions and then thickened slightly.
My younger sister makes the best shoo-fly pie. Yummy.
I am talking it easy today, catching up on phone calls and emails and making appointments. Tomorrow I will write out the bills and wrap up the patio furniture for the winter. Then back to work full tilt.
I forgot to say that TRISTE means sad in Spanish, also.
ReplyDeleteOwenKL:
Your second one was especially amusing!
Once I figured out the gimmick it helped a lot. I learned that several of the letters in EVEREST are in the same place when it is spelled forward or backward, which made it more difficult to realize it had to be spelled upward.
ReplyDeleteI fondly remember an old 78-RPM recording of ALEC Templeton playing Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue with the Paul Whiteman Orchestra. An excellent performance. Another excellent, more recent, performance is the Emmy award winning one by the pianist Lola Astanova with the All-Star Orchestra conducted by the unflappable Gerard Schwarz.
Lemonade, thanks for sharing the photographs. Heartwarming that you and Oo renewed your vows. You both look so happy together. I hope she is not ill, or if she was/is, that she gets well soon.
My brother-in-law (sister's husband) has an III after his name. They did not name either of their sons after their father, though.
Best wishes to you all.
ReplyDeleteSpitzboov, I first heard that song...in English... as a nursery school song at Purim referring to the three cornered hat the evil Hamam (supposedly?) wore in the days of Queen Esther. The kids loved to sing the song because it was easy. And they loved even more the three cornered cookies we made to celebrate the holiday.
Thanks for the memory!
Thumper and I will sit out the puzzle but I do appreciate the work. Thanks Leonard. Lemonade, I almost understand it now! Welcome back.
Hello there,
ReplyDeleteThanks, Leonard. I am very excited to have figured this one out. At Hillary I saw EVEREST. I spend a lot of time reading student papers upside down as I walked around the room. I never wanted to lean over the kids and make them feel uncomfortable. Well, sometimes, I would KNEEL ON THE FLOOR in front of their desks. HA! That's a fantasy camp now. My grand kids think it's funny that I can read what they're writing from any direction. It worked for me today.
Thanks, Lemonade and welcome back. Lovely photos. Congrats, again.
FLN: Thanks Bill G, for explaining the clutch issue from the British side.
If anyone takes Melatonin as a sleep aid, one of its side effects is vivid dreams. I tried it for a minute, but my mind already runs wild of its own accord. That lasted about a week before I decided to go back to reading.
TTP: Good idea. You and Abejo have been here longer and knows who's in the area. Hmmm.
I've dug out some of the Christmas decs, bought some Poinsettias, and paid for my mini tree. I put a 5ft Fraser on an big end table, and the little ones are gone quickly. I'll pick it up later in the week. At my age I need to take care of this Holiday Folderol in little steps.
I, too, do not participate in BF events--well, maybe a couple online, but the crowds have always held little interest for me--as long ago as high school. Believe me that REALLY was long ago.
Enjoy the afterglow of your TG celebration.
WOW! That was a BIG jump from Thursday. I was more than befuddled. Wished I had seen the upside down gimmick, but there were too many unknowns for me to fill them in, so I gave up 1/2 way through. Tres triest.. As always, I enjoyed the cleverness of the creator, and all of your comments.
ReplyDeleteHahtoolah, great quote today.
OKL412A
ReplyDeleteThanks for the promotion to D4E4H"4." I really don't deserve the Final Four. Then there is "FLN." I know we had it just the other day, but what does it mean? TTP 635A used it also so it must be important. Hmm?
My key board does not have an inverted "!." It is also missing a tilde, and diaeresis. I'd die to have these diacritical marks.
The rhyme Limes gave a good groan.
My theme AHA came when I mounted Everest. "Someone has put this in upside down. Nepalese heads will roll down it for this."
BE641A
Red Bull, Red Blah. They make it from that Prairie Pastry, the Bull pie. Of course they do brush off the dung beetles. Monster helped me at the airport. I liked the taste and the lift it gave. When I gave up the airport monster went also.
DO645A
Awe aren't those kittens cute, and spry too. They can walk and everything. Wow!
Hah!648
I pray that Oo is fine. I would like Lemonade or agent to explain how to pronounce her name. I dated a girl once whoms surname was Vlk. "I'd like to buy a vowel."
Dave
1/5
Don't do that ! Bad enough for the mathematically inclined to take up this hobby to know enough words, pop culture, sports, literature, music etc but then to expect us single minded individuals to recognize upside down clues is beyond the pail. Half way through I did assume their was some trick like a missing letter or a transposed suffix but I couldn't see upside down.
ReplyDeleteI did complete the upper right and the reveal of RKelly as the voice behind such a beautiful song by apparently such a sick individual shocked me.
Time to hit the range. Golf course will be crowded but I hope a driving range mat will be open. Only about 85 today proving once and for all that Wednesday and Thursday this week were Chinese hoaxes !
The EVEREST and ROCK CLIMB solves might be "apt," but the rest? Hardly. One lame puzzle.
ReplyDeleteChuck, I had to chuckle at your "beyond the pail" comment. Sounds like my aim on a hung-over morning.
ReplyDeleteD4E4H, I still think of SPRY as an oldster's adjective -- agile for one's age, not kittenish. FLN = from last night. If you're on a Windoze machine you should have the "character map" utility program -- it'll let you print crazy symbols to your heart's content.
Happy un-Thanksgiving!
ReplyDeleteI caught the gimmick early so was able to get most of the fill. It was the NE that did me in. Hit or URL @8d?, Atom or Mol @9d (I was thinking Mol vis-a-vis Avogadro's number, not Molecule - thanks Lem!). No idea about 7d, 17a, 14d, and 10d - I kept thinking "You ask to many questions; you Bug me kid". -HAB nor -UMB conjured anything doing w/ a sty. DNF. 'Course, even if I did finish the corner, I had ALiC @ 32a for a FIW anyway. :-)
Thanks Lenard for a fun puzzle. Thanks Lem for the expo and nice pix. Hope Oo is OK now; Fermat - get that way too -- soon.
{A, A-} {cute}
YR - re: lbs of potatoes. I can believe it; 8 of us ate 6lbs. Good news about Alan.
@11:59 - Only Sunday's pzls have titles; the Blogger of the Day makes 'em up the rest of the week.
C, Eh! - I'm the 3rd AJC but don't have the III after my name; Gramps, Pop, and I all have different middle J-names.
HG - Ha! I thought VIAGRA was a cute Easter egg too for themers going UP.
Cheers, -T
Lemonade was certainly on target when he predicted that some of us might get angry at Mr. Williams for omitting a theme reveal.
ReplyDeleteI'm not by any means the oldest hand on the blog, but I've been at it for a few years, and I am used to quite a few tricks employed by pzl-mkrs to keep solvers from reaching an easy Ta- DA!
But, honestly, I have not seen one that purposely avoided cluing us. It's become an article of faith for Yrs Trly, enough so that I deliberately sought a theme cue when it began to turn nasty. When I saw there was none - no such clue - I thought, "Well, okay, I can eliminate that line of thinking."
Boy, was I wrong.
I admit that my being pissed is partly due to the fact that I finally cheated. Yep, this one broke my record, my friends - my proud November sweep. I haven't needed a single cheat or Google for over 25 days. I succumbed today at 45A (FIT), a tiny answer not even related to the bottoms-up theme, but caused nevertheless by my frustration. It was incidental to my lapse that I finally caught onto the theme.
Almost as if my pride had to be broken before I could see with fresh eyes. (From then on, it turned into a decent but not especially tough pzl.)
Oh, it's no big deal, and I'll get over it. I just had to go on record about how much some of us depend on consistency in our unwritten rules.
Like the British Constitution, y'know ...
YR@12:01 - yes, I still hear Sr. & Jr. but not nearly as often as in the past. Perhaps the custom of naming a boy after his father (I don't think I've ever heard of Jr. & Sr. girls and women) is dying out. (In our family, we used the father's name as the middle name.)
ReplyDeleteOne of my brother's grandsons is a III but they call him Trey, for tres, I believe.
ReplyDeleteAnon-T, that explains it, to merit Junior, Senior or II or III you need the exact same name.
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me that spry when said about people almost always refers to the elderly, but spry referring to sports, performances, machinees or animals is not age related. I thought of spry quickly and pictured a kitten
g
n
i
b
m
i
l
c
up the drapes or the Christmas tree.
Alan and I just returned from the Y. I am not as spry as I was yesterday, even with all the loving help and the resting today. I suppose the adrenaline is gone. I vow to be more faithful attending the Y. The injured nerve in my thigh is much more problematic since I have missed the Y so much. With Alan being well I have no more excuses to miss exercising.
Canadian Eh! thanks for your response. Now it seems more common to use a grandparent's given name or surname as a first name or a as a middle name to distinguish parent and offspring.
IrishMiss@9:24: "Bill G from yesterday, you make a good point about the medicine/nightmare correlation but, if that were the case, wouldn't the occurrences be more frequent?"
ReplyDeleteNot necessarily ... there are other factors involved, individual genetic variances in particular, set and setting, plus the fact that many of the Rxs I take have buried in the prescribing information [that long skinny sheet wrapped around the bottle that nobody reads] the fact that the "Exact mechanism of activity is not known," nor is that of nightmares. Any correlation is a distant hope.
Today's puzzle was a puzzler for the longest time, since each climbing answer was clued "... aptly." I must have spent 20 minutes looking for something that would somehow supply 'aptitude', but finally noticed that the answers gave their own 'aptness.' Surprisingly easy for a Friday, but only after the V-8 can of verticality had plowed through the turkey-encrusted frontal lobes.
Oh boy...look...the answers go UP. What fun!
ReplyDeleteNot.
I have one real comment to make. When one gives a clue, the answer should be correct.
Not this puzzle:
The ACTUAL definition of the word SPRY:
(especially of an old person) active; lively.
So, no one familiar with English would use SPRY to describe a kitten. Not Ever. Nor have I ever heard it used to describe a kitten. Ever.
So I got the solve despite incorrect clueing.
Tough puzzle. A lot of unknowns. Finding the upside down reveal helped to finish puzzle. Disagree about kittens and spry, though.
ReplyDeleteI found early on that to only solve Monday thru Wednesday puzzles won’t help you get better at solving Friday and Saturday puzzles. You just have to do all the puzzles no matter how challenging they are. Any comments about this strategy would be appreciated.
Cheers,
Mark
Got spry because of energy boost reveal.
ReplyDeleteI agree emphatically with desper-otto that SPRY is reserved for the elderly. Yellowrocks is nice enough to help Leonard Williams by trying it on athletes and other groups, but I believe that's just her being generous.
ReplyDeleteSure, it can be used as a synonym for "agile" and "nimble," etc. But in actual practice it just isn't. It's one of those "cute" words, restricted to a class of persons, such as myself - in the same vein as "feisty."
I usually don't blow smoke.
ReplyDeleteHere are examples in actual practice.
“There is a downside to the more spry birds, however”. The GuardianNov 21, 2017
"Davis’s Tristan, exuding laid-back cockiness and smarts, seems right at home in this spry but uneven production directed by Hannah Todd and Bridget Grace Sheaff for the classics-focused troupe We Happy Few." Washington PostNov 14,
"2017Seahawks tight end Luke Willson looked spry on the field last week and is feeling good off of it after a torturous free agency period led to him staying with the Seahawks." Seattle Times Sep 22, 2017
"And there again was the spry young women in the striped U.S " Golf DigestJun 17, 2017
"You might also use it to describe a goat that jumps easily along from mountain crag to mountain crag." Vocabulary.com If goats can be spry , why not kittens?
There is a whole world out there beyond our horizons and our own expereinces.
Did not get the theme (which made things a lot more difficult) until I saw that XAT was TAX. Aha! Bottom to top!
ReplyDelete16: I know the name ANAIS NIN, but none of her works.
17: What word begins with RK? Oh, it's an initial.
19: Looking for something like SON or SKY; accepted III(?) from crosses. Did not see the Roman numerals until the reveal.
36: Never seen FT for "free throw".
39: Never heard of this film. Crosses made the Scandinavian name obvious.
44: I too had CUTE for kittens; no argument with SPRY.
46: Tried fitting Macaulay; misspelled KIERAN.
57: Had REDOLENT until EVEREST made it VIRULENT.
5d: Did not remember Rousseau's first name.
All in all, enjoyed this puzzle; needed many of the crosses.
This has nothing to do with the puzzle, but everything to do with the way my mind works. I just had an Arbys sandwich with au jus. I was struck by how closely the phrase sounded to "Awe Jew." I translated it from French into Hebrew, and to Yiddish which were Greek to me. I went to English to check what I thought it meant "With juice" to find out it means "The juice." The fake news has new fodder now that he is out of Jail. Rad!
ReplyDeleteYR855A
Has your PA Dutch father thrown a cow over the fence a bale of hay? With the round bales, it might be a toss up.
Jazzb.925A
People are musing about how quickly time passes the corner. It might be because it is so breezy. Kazie908A has been on it since back in ought 8, spit. I may have been hanging around 8 weeks so forgive me for not knowing whom instrument you will be plying tonight, or did you mean a trade?
YR951A Not knowing much about spatzle (where's an umlaut when you need one), I thought you were describing it as your potato dish. Nope. CSO to Alan's three weeks of health. May it extend "In perpetuum."
C Eh!1002A My brother is a Jr. I believe that everyone should have their own name. I even know a couple of women who are Junioresses or ettes.
YR1201P We called my brother "Little Stanley." Your words made me realize why my cousin was called "Robbie." His father was brother to my father. No there is no puzzle to follow. You already know whom am I.
Dave
2/5
D4E4H, I knew farmers who would throw a cow over the fence a bale of hay. By the time I came along my parents were higly educated and fluent in English. They had lost their Dutch accent, too. I inherited my interest in the English anguage, crosswords and novels from my mom.
ReplyDeleteSpaetzles are made from flour, a noodle dough pressed through a seive into boilng water or broth.
Yes, we had Little Larry and Big Larry, etc.
D4E4H , you've posted five times, the first two before 8 AM.
ReplyDeleteWhy are you counting wrong?
Yellowrocks, I think you've missed the point in the SPRY discussion . Almost any word can be used in connection with almost any other word, for emphasis, irony, etc. and examples can always be found. But spry is not USUALLY used to describe a kitten. I think that's all anyone was saying.
ReplyDeleteI'm always appalled and amused at sportswriters reaching painfully for new ways to describe the same ole same ole!
You miss the point. It is more commonly used for the elderly, but it does not have to be exclusively used that way. OMK says it can be used in other ways but isn't. Yes, it is. Crosswords often use the less common usages. Why not? Let's be flexible.
ReplyDeleteI enjoy picturing a spry kitten.
Swamp, give up. YR is never wrong
ReplyDeleteAnon, go away! This is a friendly discussion of differing viewpoints!
ReplyDeleteHi everybody. I don't know how long I've been with this blog. Five or six years maybe? Is there an easy way to find out?
ReplyDeleteMy father was a Jr.; I am a III though I never used it much and don't use it anymore.
Hi Bill G. Go to your blog profile. It shows you have been around since 2013.
ReplyDeleteLucina1117A
ReplyDeleteSounds like your crown needs Gorilla Glue to put it back in ape shape. I am pleased that there will be another generation of cornerites behind us.
CM1249P
Shoefly pie is what you feed the hardworking fly farriers at lunch. They have to really be careful on the hind legs. Those beasts have a powerful kick. I'm reminded of a story my mother told of feeding the thrashers at harvest time. A bowl of jam sat on the table till one man picked it up and ate it all from the bowl.
I don't have auto-correct. I like the car I drive. The typos you see R me.
MD112P
"FLN" number 3 (see OKL412A. and TTP635A): I haven't picked it up from context, but it must really be useful. Thanks DO228P For explaining "From Last Night." When I reread the posts they made sense.
You said that TTP had a good idea that Abejo and she should persue. Please share.
Blogmeistress, Please add FYM, and FLN, or maybe just FY, not to be confused by FYI, to the Comments Section Abbreviations along with LIU "look it up." Thanks.
DO228P
Character map utility program huh, I'll have good marks once I find it.
Dave
3/5
I just saw an on-line dictionary which offered a synonym for SPRY as feline besides the usual: nimble, agile, etc.
ReplyDeleteI agree completely with Yellowrocks that relegating a word to one specific usage is unreasonable. Perhaps we are more accustomed to seeing spry as a descriptor for active elderly people but its usage can certainly extend beyond that. Surely there are spry athletes, spry children, spry dancers, and I can accept spry kittens; they are that and more.
Garlic Gal, thanks!
ReplyDeleteHi Y'all! I was so elated when I got the bottoms-up theme. Thanks, Leonard. Lots I didn't know in the puzzle, but that one HIGH made it worth doing. I almost quit on the fifth line because I was so tired at midnight and the theme entries didn't make sense. Perseverance paid off.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Lemonade. Nice pictures.
IM: I just read a book where someone thought it would be fun to add LSD to the Chinese food.
Ferm: take care of that cold. You don't need pneumonia again. Prayers for you, friend.
YR: How did Dave's leg get? Is he better able to get around?
My family met today -- 17 members. My son got his cousin to come who was like a third son to me until all the mess after my husband died. We had such good healing conversations. He now works for/with my son with whom he was closely raised.
I also got to visit with each grandchild one-to-one which is a rarity. My grandson with the scoliosis is in a great deal of pain. He had to go out and lie down and sleep about an hour while the rest of us ate supper. No wonder he is losing weight. But his smile is still great and he's looking forward to marching in the New Years Parade in London and flying there. One leg is shorter than the other so it is amazing that he wants to march.
My granddaughter was home from Loyola in N'awlins and loves it down there. She has a roommate who speaks French which gdtr took in high school and is enjoying using regularly. She loves jazz and got to meet Alex Marsalas, the daddy of them all.
My daughters and DILs are all great cooks and fed us well. Both sons-in-law were able to come which they hadn't because of work the last two years. Great warm day in the 70's. Only sour notes: one grandson flew his new Xmas present drone at dusk and lost it. One other grandson is playing HS varsity basketball and had to leave to go to practice and didn't get to be with his cousins he rarely sees. Winning games is more important than family gatherings. (Boo Hiss!)
My husband insisted on naming our oldest son his name but compromised on a different middle name. I was adamant, not wanting a Jr. So the younger one's buddies, who some times worked for my husband, always called the son "JR" anyway. When Sr. & Jr. wanted to name the next born son the same name, I had a real fit. He has his own different name.
YR - Right, I'm not III 'cuz middle names were intentionally different; it does perplex folk I'm not a III until I explain.
ReplyDeleteMisty - Here's the grand-Thanksgiving day reveal. MIL & SIL loved the salad! [sorry, I left the candle lighter in the shot]
PK - sounds like fun all around!
Mark S. Yes, until one suffers a series of Saturday's, one will never get better at thinking sideways. When I 1st started puzzling, I could only get 1/2 of a Wed. Now that bar has moved to Sat. New solvers stick with it and learn until you CLIMB the sumit [sic - what I had Hillary conquering until paying IN CASH].
The Girls and I made our 1st batch of 100 pizzelles tonight. Pic 1 and Pic 2.
Cheers, -T
Those look really good, AnonT! 100, wow!
ReplyDeleteLucina - Trade ya. 50 pizzelles for 10 tamales :-)
ReplyDeleteThose 5 backward clues were annoying, because I didn't associate "aptly" with backwards (why would anyone?).
ReplyDeleteMy last make-up puzzle from Thanksgiving! Got the theme at seeing TAX running up! I think we have seen a similar theme before. I enjoy themes and this was a good one.
ReplyDeleteWe had GTE here in Santa Barbara when I arrived in the 80s for grad school. They were always about ten years behind in technology. GTE did not even have touch tone service then!
Learning moment about KIERAN. Only heard of his brother. We have an AVILA Beach here on the Central Coast of California.
Unknowns: R KELLY, ALEC, FTS (thanks for explaining), PANEM
The CUBS win is one of the few sports events I paid attention to!