DO YOU BELIEVE IN MIRACLES?
Andy's very challenging but fair Saturday puzzle left me playing a mental edition of this game:
The puzzle came down to an obvious vowel for the crossing of these two words:
27. Court dance : PAVANE - A slow, processional dance of 16th century Europe. I wonder if Cole Porter could have written When They Begin The PAVANE if he were alive in 1588.
Suffice it to say "I" made a bad pick but had a good time. Two stacks of nine-letter words and twin ten and eleven letter stacks looked very impressive to this humble blogger! Well let's see what other treats Andy has for us:
Across
1. Longtime employer of 26-Down : ABC SPORTS and 26. "Miracle on Ice" commentator : AL MICHAELS - Al called out, "Do you believe in miracles?" when the USA beat the 46. "Miracle on Ice" loser : USSR
10. Double shot? : STUNT - Fabulous clue! Here's Johnny Depp with his STUNT Double
15. "Geek sighting!" : NERD ALERT - Name calling abates when you really need one!
16. "Mad TV" alum Lange : ARTIE - You might know troubled ARTIE better as this guy's sidekick if you go for that type of entertainment
17. Runway-ready : DRESSED UP - Models properly adorned taking off down the runway
18. Boarding pass data : ZONES - Seating areas like this flight from Jeddah to Cairo
19. Pay stub abbr. : YTD - Year To Date
20. Kid gloves, so to speak : CARE - Parents have to know when to treat their child with kid gloves.
21. Turn down : REJECT
22. City on Lake Michigan : GARY - Or your humble Saturday blogger
23. African capital formerly called Salisbury : HARARE - Salisbury, Rhodesia became HARARE, Zimbabwe as the British Empire continued to shrink
24. "Cool, dude!" : GNARLY - Beach lingo
28. Hard-to-count quantity : PILES - PILES are much harder to count than stacks
29. Emit a powerful magnetic force? : OOZE CHARM - Delightfully phrased by Alan Jay Lerner and wonderfully sung by Professor Higgins in My Fair Lady describing a pompous Turkish man who dances with Liza32. It's all downhill from here : ACME
33. Hoofed it : HIKED
34. Comics pooch : ODIE - Here with his best friend
35. They're matched by foundations : SKIN TONES - Foundation/SKIN TONE match chart
37. Take forcibly : WREST
38. Like milk of magnesia : CHALKY - Mg(OH)2
39. "You Gotta Be" soul singer : DES'REE
40. Old-time feature film preceders : SHORTS - "One-reelers"
41. Corduroy feature : WALE - The "ridges" in the material that can make that swoosh sound when walking
42. Rose __: reddish mineral : QUARTZ
43. Big name in hair trimmers : WAHL - I bought one because Paul Harvey was pitching them. Meh...
44. Big Ten sch. that competes for the Paul Bunyan Trophy : MSU - Naturally enough, the other team is Michigan
47. Singer __ Marie : TEENA - Claimed to be a black artist with white skin
48. Exposes to public scorn : PILLORIES
50. Goldbrick : IDLER - Is Beetle Bailey the most famous one?
51. Ruins things? : ARTIFACTS - Pompeii is nothing but these
52. Pains : PESTS
53. 1790s political powder keg : XYZ AFFAIR - Our young country refused to pay a bribe
Down
1. "Honey, I'm Good" singer Grammer : ANDY - Not on my playlist but I think I've posted enough pictures of singers I don't know
2. "Sesame Street" roommate : BERT - He of the paper clip collection
3. Street __ : CRED - Short for credibility which can be gained by some overt act
4. '60s protest org. : SDS
5. Units of pressure : PASCALS
6. Owner of a legendary lantern kicker : O'LEARY - Most say her cow did not start the Chicago fire but it makes for a good story
7. Put through the wringer again? : REDRY
8. "Can't argue with that" : TRUE
9. Brand sold at Pep Boys : STP
11. Agent that undermines from within : TROJAN HORSE - Modern day application
12. "Cure Ignorance" magazine : UTNE READER - I only know this from crosswords. My ignorance is probably incurable anyway.
13. Victoria, to William IV : NIECE - Yup! William IV had a brother named Edward and Edward's daughter was Victoria
14. One of many taken in school : TEST
21. Rhapsodized : RAVED
22. Britt Reid's alter ego : GREEN HORNET - See alter egos below
 |
| Chen Zhen Britt Reid Bruce Wayne Dick Grayson |
24. Med school admissions data : GPA'S
25. __ of time : NICK - When the superheroes above appear
27. Cooler : POKEY - Colorful name for a jail
29. Hog calls : OINKS - For calling hogs at this school it's SOOIE!30. Obey a court order : RISE - When Officer Byrd says RISE for Judge Judy, you'd better or he will 31. Parcel (out) : METE out a big time glare
33. 1980s-'90s Notre Dame football coach Lou : HOLTZ - A great coach and speaker but a horrible TV football analyst
36. Medieval Turko-Mongol settlers : TARTARS
37. Comfortable : WELL OFF
39. National flower of Mexico : DAHLIA
40. Jacket material : SUEDE - Jerry Seinfeld muses about why water can hurt Suede when it comes from cows who stand out in the rain.
41. Strauss piece : WALTZ - Professor Higgins and Liza doing just that
42. Common applicator : Q-TIP
43. Like an Irish Terrier's outer coat : WIRY
44. Flaky mineral : MICA
45. Long-distance calling org.? : SETI - The best movie about Search for Extra Terrestrial Intellligence scientists
48. __ Romana : PAX - Sometimes it was PAX Romana or else!
49. Battle of Britain gp. : RAF - Royal Air Force
Your take?
DA GRID
Good morning Cornerites,
ReplyDeleteFermetprime FLN 948P
Wrote "I have an emergency dohickey (evidently not a word) on my wheelchair." You should keep it right next to your thingamabob. It is a word. This DoohicKey gives a new meaning to the term "Skull Key or Skeleton Key."
Now to the impossible puzzle. I don't know from whence cameth thy wordeths, but letter by letter they built til FIR. Thank you Mr. Andy Kravis.
Thanks HG for your fine review.
7D Put through the wringer again? : REDRY I rememmber my mother using a wringer washer. Did you or your mother use one?
Do you remember the warning to be careful with one's bosom.
Someone needs to restrain Ol' Man Keith. If my count is correct, I see a five mirror. Is there a hidden message? I'll wait for the report. My head is swimming just trying to see anything.
Dave
Sazerac because Hurricane wouldn't fit.
ReplyDeleteHello Puzzlers -
ReplyDeleteDNF today. Sazerac x Pavane = Natick.
Thanks Husker
"The pavane, pavan, paven, pavin, pavian, pavine, or pavyn is a slow processional dance common in Europe during the 16th century. Wikipedia"
ReplyDeleteGood Grief! I hope constructors don't get a hold of this one.
HG, I would call it challenging only because of the proper names. Living in NOLA, SAZERAC was a gimme. Sazerac liquor Company, Sazerac Bar, and the drink (I've never had one). I watched the USA-USSR hockey game back in 1980 but certainly didn't know who called the game for ABC so AL MICHAELS came from perps.
ReplyDeleteOINKS & Lou HOLTZ- he also coached Arkansas and NY Jets.
Brit Reid- never heard of him but GREEN HORNET came easily from a few perps.
ZONES- I've flown hundreds of time and have never noticed the word ZONES on any boarding pass.
WAHL- got mine so DW could remove some of the few hairs I have left every few weeks.
ANDY Grammer, TEENA Marie, DES"REE; whoever they are, are not on my playlist either; perped.
PAVANE and ARTIE were also filled from perps.
UTNE READER- I agree with Gary because other than crosswords I'm IGNORANT in my knowledge of their publication. Don't you love snooty highbrow people who think their area of expertise is what should be of interest to the more intelligent individuals.
D4E4H- in the current 'Age of Cleavage' (my definition of the last two decades) your warning would be very appropriate.
Good morning!
ReplyDeleteStruggled in snow-covered New England, but finally conquered. TROJAN HORSE and a wag for UTNE READER finally broke it open. This was suitably arcane for a Saturday. Thanx, ANDY (1D) and Husker.
SETI: Contact had a pretty good first half...and then it went off the rails.
PAVANE: For some reason, I wanted a second N. IIRC, the flip side of Ravel's Bolero on RCA Red-Seal was Pavane For A Dead Princess.
ZONES: That Z was my final wag. It was the only word that seemed to fit, but I don't recall seeing it on a boarding pass. SAZERAC, sounds like the companion of Meshac and Abednego.
PASCALs: This was a popular computer language of the '80s-'90s.
XYZ AFFAIR: Husker, did you notice that coin spells it "Defence?" And here, 200+ years later we're still taking about De Fence on the southern border.
Talking, not taking. Thank you, autocorrect. (Autocorrect doesn't like my spelling of autocorrect.)
ReplyDeleteQuite a loaded baked potato of a puzzle.
ReplyDeleteAndy, I like the shout to yourself 1D.
I did not know DES'REE took a long time on things I knew but stumbled through.
HG, this was quite a write-up. Where did you find a Saudi Airlines boarding pass? Khalid/Khalid? Was that your CIA cover name? And then an obscure movie advertisement from 1939?
My Fair Lady mini-theme?
I never remembered Britt Reid until I learned of his connection to the LONE RANGER John Reid.
Thank you, Andy and Gary, (you both made it into the puzzle!)
Got the upper left and then I gave up.
ReplyDeleteCrossing PAX and XYZ was my first foothold.
ReplyDeleteSAZERAC was total unknown but the Z was the only logical. D-O, I also remembered Ravel’s PAVANE
H-G, the oIlY (my first guess for the Irish Setter coat) Zoltan Karpathy was Hungarian, not Turkish. And I’m never sure if the Turkic group is Tatar or TARTAR, the Westernized form used for a white sauce on fish
Logical cross with _ONES
DeleteGood Morning,
ReplyDeleteThanks, Andy, for an aptly challenging Saturday puzzle. Like Big Easy, I remember the Miracle on Ice very clearly! It was a great game. I did remember AL MICHAELS called it so that opened the West for me as ABC SPORTS was then a gimme. I have always liked Michaels better than Costas. I struggled with, but in the end really liked, OOZE CHARM, ARTIFACTS, and SKIN TONES. XYZ AFFAIR fell in with PAX. Disney always had contracted SHORTS to go along with feature films.
Thanks for the tour, Gary. Nice SO to you.
D4E4H: Yep! I remember my mom's Maytag wringer machine. She had us so afraid of the wringer, we never went near it.
Have a cozy day, everyone.
Good Morning:
ReplyDeleteThe good news is that I finished this stumper without help; the bad news is that it took me almost an hour to do so. Scads of unknowns: Sazerac, Utne Reader (as clued), Harare, Andy, Des'Ree, Teena, Wahl, Pascals, and Britt Reid. For Cooler, I was thinking weather not jail and Gnarly for Cool, Dude was out of my grasp until perps settled that. Double shot was another head scratcher as I was thinking alcohol. The Skin Tones and Ooze Charm clues were devilishly deceptive. The week's canine streak continues with Odie and that Wiry-coated Irish Setter.
Thanks, Andy, for a very tough but finally doable offering and thanks, HG, for sorting it all out so concisely. Your colorful and charming visuals are always a treat!
Have a great day.
Good morning. Thank you Andy Kravis and Husker Gary.
ReplyDeleteCSOs to Andy and Gary.
Read 1A then jumped to 26D and immediately filled AL MICHAELS. Memorable. Then went back to 1A and filled in ABC SPORTS. Great start.
What Dudley said: "Sazerac x Pavane = Natick." And it didn't help that I also had TIDES (weather related shore phenomena) in that area and didn't know HARARE.
XYZ Affair - the impetus for the creation of the US Navy ?
Can't argue with that - Spandau Ballet
Me too, Madame Defarge. I usually mute the volume or leave the room when Costas starts talking. Same as this guy.
Saw this essay last night on Newshour. Sheila Nevins on writing her will.
Hi everybody. I did better on most of this one than I usually do on Saturday's themeless. Nevertheless, the intersections of SAZERAC, ZONES, HARARE and PAVANE did me in. What's ZONES got to do with a boarding pass? Anyway, I did OK on the rest of the puzzle but needed help on part of the NE corner.
ReplyDeleteI remember watching that hockey game live. Wow! How exciting it was. I've always liked Al Michaels.
Good morning everyone.
ReplyDeleteMostly enjoyed this one. Did not know AL MICHAELS' first name. DNK beach lingo, GNARLY, either. But a small price to pay for enjoying the rest of it. PAVANE was a new learning. 16th century stuff. They can keep it there. I knew XYZ AFFAIR, because I had read a book about Adams. Did not get the ACME clue until just now. D'oh. Lots of good cluing.
POKEY - Was used in a letter Radar read from his Mom.
RAF - I stood an 8 hr midwatch once at the NATO SACLANT command in Norfolk. The watch commander was an RAF Group Captain. He was a fine leader who seemed to get the most out of his team with minimal effort.
A better Saturday than usual for me. About a 60% finish.
ReplyDelete-Got it! It took a little longer than the normal Saturday. AL MICHAELS, the last to fill, held me up, all perps. I didn't parse in vertically. Who is ALMI CHAELS? A few perps suggested GREEN HORNET, whew!
ReplyDelete-They're matched by foundations. Foundation garments are corsets and girdles. BRA was too short. It took a while to think of make up. Cute. I also liked OOZE CHARM.
-When I was about 12 I got my long hair caught in the wringer. I screamed and my quick thinking mom cut the electric off just in time. My dad lifted me up and my mom cut my hair close to the scalp. Then my dad bobbed my hair. It looked quite okay and I attended a 4H cookout a few hours later. My parents were really shook.
- Does a wringer redry the clothing or does it just make it less damp? The clothing doesn't come out of the wringer dry.
- Talking about watch your cleavage... In Egypt a camel mouthed the breast of one of our tour members. The picture looks like he is eating a melon. She was unhurt, but slobbery. We razzed her the remainder of the tour.
I like Ravel so I knew PAVANE which helped with SAZERAC. CSO to our LA contingent.
Alan scammed me into letting him stay out sick on Thur PM. and Fri. because he didn't like his present assignment at the workshop. So I said no electronics or TV, no ride to anywhere for a day and a half. He was so bored he admitted the scam and hopefully will not try that again. I am too old for this stuff.
I would never have known HARARE if it had not been in the 1-1-2018 puzzle.
ReplyDeleteDNF. Mostly the NE corner, tho when I turned on the red, I discovered WeLt was wrong, which was helping to keep me from seeing TROJAN HORSE. DeHLIA seemed okay for the flower. CONTRA > MINUET > PAVANE, REFUSE > REJECT. SAZERAC, ARTIE Lange were flat-out unknown. Don't know where in my memory I dug up HARARE. STUNT was too deceptively clued. I've only flown twice in my life, neither in this century, so ZONES needed ESP. TEST/QUIZ/EXAM? Only the perps could know. Grinch, grinch, grinch. :(
ReplyDeleteThe math teacher's SKIN TONES were CHALKY,
ARTIFACT of numerical pedagogy
To impart (NERD ALERT)
That numbers don't hurt,
And in fact, that square roots are GNARLY!
ANDY's STUNTS caused only few smiles.
Most townsfolk REJECTED his wiles.
For an IDLER such as he:
The ACME® PILLORY!
But he RAVED, "This is great for my PILES!"
{A-, A.}
Well, I took one look at this Saturday bear and knew I wouldn't get it without cheating. The only items I got on my first run-through were O'LEARY, SHORTS, SUEDE, WELT, and WALTZ, and WELT turned out to be wrong and should have been WALE. Oh yes, and I had ARS Romana and it should have been PAX (duh). My problem was that there were just too many names I didn't know. So not much fun for the start of the weekend, but I loved all your pictures and explanations, Husker Gary, so many thanks for that.
ReplyDeleteSunny day, so have a great weekend, everybody!
Challenging, yes. Fair? The one word I would NOT use. Utterly unknown SAZERiC/PAViNE seemed just as good. Ruined an otherwise fair challenge.
ReplyDeleteHand up: Favorite clue was for STUNT as DOUBLE SHOT. Had SEIZE before WREST and RIBS before WALE.
I highly recommend the UTNE READER. I have subscribed for decades. No matter what your views, it will challenge you. I am sure you can try it for free.
Learning moments about DAHLIA and XYZ AFFAIR. Yes, I always loved that song from My Fair Lady about OOOZING CHARM. Thanks UAAlum72 for the correction. I always remembered the other line about the "hairy hound From Budapest" so I knew he was Hungarian.
Other Unknowns: ANDY, DESREE, AL MICHAELS, HOLTZ, MSU, TEENA. Fair crosses for those.
My friends built this TROJAN HORSE for our Solstice Parade.
Artist friend Laura Smith is famous for the special effect you see!
Here are some more photos from the first part of the parade that day.
As you know, I lead hikes for the Sierra Club so I have lots of photos of places we HIKED.
Here are photos of the last place we HIKED. I will be leading another hike tomorrow.
From yesterday:
PK: I forgot to thank you for the story of your son and the VTOL Osprey! Yes, he was lucky not to be one of its many casualties.
AnonT: Yes, I know you and D-O are joking about the green screens. I was just joining in the fun.
SwampCat and Yellowrocks: Glad that others remembered the ERIE CANAL song from childhood.
"Puzzling Thoughts":
ReplyDeleteToday's offering from ANDY Kravis was definitely above my pay grade. It was quite a TEST of my patience. After doing a couple of passes, I started cheating; but even that didn't totally help, so I came here, instead.
Go figure that the one day so far this year that I didn't do the puzzle, was on NYD, where the word HARARE first appeared (according to Lemon, who I thoroughly trust with his puzzle recall). And as I read that day's posts, I also saw that I missed a question about wine from Jayce. Jayce, if you're reading this, the answer is "no, I don't"! Sorry for the delay in replying ...
UTNE READER, PILLORIES, PAX, DES'REE, PASCALS, HARARE, and SAZERAC were among those answers I had to look up. I'd heard of SAZERAC, but it was still pretty obscure. Don't know that I've ever tried it ...
XYZ AFFAIR solved with perps once I got PILLORIES. I had GSAT before GPAS in 24d, even though I swore NICK was correct for 25d. I had GNARLY et al, but I couldn't get GPAS and SKIN TONES, for the life of me. Ah well, can't win 'em all ...
Re: AL MICHAELS and the Miracle on Ice; I recall the day well, as I had just caught a cold or the flu, and was prostrate in bed for nearly a week. It also marked the day I officially quit smoking cigarettes. As my cold and congestion was so bad, I figured that quitting afterward would be a tad easier. It was, and believe it or not, I still have the last, unopened pack of cigarettes. I used to buy cartons back then, and the penultimate pack was smoked the day before the USA beat the USSR to advance to the Gold Medal game.
My lame Moe-ku:
What did Campbell's call
Alphabet Soup's tryst? It's the:
XYZ AFFAIR.
Hi Y'all! Thank you for your hard work on this XYZ AFFAIR (a/k/a puzzle) Andy & Gary.
ReplyDeleteNERD ALERT: this puzzle may be harmful to your self-esteem, the ACME of fun-sponges. ICE telling you, it's a MIRACLE if you fill this. I didn't remember what was the MIRACLE ON ICE until I had a "U" for the loser. Oh yeah! I vaguely remember that. No idea who announced it. As for the puzzle, I managed to fill it with red-letter runs & WAGs only because I was too stubborn to quit. I found a plethora of naticks.
I didn't know a single proper noun except for BERT (duh!) and WAHL. I used a WAHL clipper to cut my husband's hair for 33 yrs. and my two sons' hair until they married. Got my money's worth out of that little buzzer.
My father-in-law brought me a wringer washer when I was newly married and complained about hauling my laundry to the down-town laundromat. I was not thrilled. Thanks to watching my mother with one until I was 7, I knew how to use it. I managed to avoid the painful meeting with a wringer, but had some close calls.
FIR, but not without a real struggle. Nearly every time I encounter a clue/answer I don't know, when it finally fills itself in the old V8 moment hits, but SAZERAC was a total unknown. TGFP! *
ReplyDeleteTook me nearly half an hour to complete, quite a bit longer than usual. Very clever cluing, Andy! Thanks, HG, for the expo.
YR, that must have been a terrifying few moments; thank goodness for your mom's quick thinking! I remember our old wringer washer too. I never went near it, having been duly terrified by my mother.
Tried "sooey" first for OINKS.
Having just recently made a ham radio contact with a fellow ham in HARARE, that was a gimme.
Everyone should have something to believe in; I believe I'll go outside and enjoy this beautiful Saturday! Have a great day, all.
* Thank Goodness For Perps
Fair? I don't think so. I found too many unknown names though I did manage to suss, grok and guess my through most of the grid.
ReplyDeleteDAHLIA was my first entry since I happen to know that; it's often the theme of many Mexican illustrations. Then the SE corner filled nicely with WIRY, WALTZ, etc.
Next came the SW corner. No way would I recall AL MICHAELS but had enough letters to guess it and GREEN HORNET. SKIN TONES over CHALKY doesn't bode well. HOLTZ filled itself.
Up north, ABCSPORTS finally emerged as did Mrs. O'LEARY and her cow. PASCALS is something I've learned from CWs, it's TRUE. Then I took a break and returned after a long while only to look up UTNE READER. SAZERAC? Not in a hundred years would I know that. The same with ARTIE as clued. I laughed when OOZE CHARM appeared as I had been thinking of some solar effect.
Today's learning:
TEENA Marie
ARTIE Lange
AL MICHAELS
DESREE
SAZERAC
XYZ AFFAIR is well known from studying history and sadly, PILLORIES as well.
Congratulations to you who found this easy and finished it quickly. My disadvantage is ignorance of sports figures, some popular culture and current singers. But I learn.
Good CSOs to ANDY and GARY. Thank you, Gary for your fine commentary and ANDY for the challenge.
I hope all are having a grand day!
Whew, this puzzle was well beyond my range of knowledge. I had to look up many things in order to solve it, and I benefited from learning new things that I didn't know before. The range of my knowledge is now somewhat larger. Wanting MINUET instead of PAVANE, APEX instead of ACME, WOOF or WEFT instead of WALE, TIDES instead of HAZES, and DEEDEE instead of DESREE held me back for a long time. An excellent puzzle, but very hard for me.
ReplyDeleteI, too, cannot stand Bob Costas. He just seems too much into himself and tries to be clever far beyond his intellectual ability to be so. I blame him for single-handedly creating the error of pronouncing Beijing as "Beizhing" (the zh sounding like the z in "azure"), an error which is still propagated by news announcers today, even those who have lived in Beijing! Costas also tried to pronounce Sochi as "Soshee" but thank goodness that mispronunciation didn't catch on. He is also the guy who asked speed skater Jennifer Rodriguez if he could call her "J-Rod," to which she testily replied, "No, you absolutely may not!" I applauded her when she said that.
desper-otto, I remember Pascal as a computer language. My wife and I were good friends with a guy who taught Pascal (among other things) at the local community college. I also agree with you about Contact and about Ravel's Pavane For A Dead Princess.
Best wishes to you all.
Chairman Moe, thank you for your reply.
ReplyDeleteAll this talk of getting body appendages caught in the wringer (my mom had a Speed Queen) brings back memories. When I was a wee lad my aunt Gladys had a mangle iron. I think it was so called because of what it could potentially do to you or your clothes. That was the first and last one I ever saw.
ReplyDeleteHi Puzzle Palz!
ReplyDeleteWhat C.Moe said. Like @8:22 I could only fully get the NW before copiously coping from HG's grid. CHALK it up to a learning-day of names. And SAZERAC(?) - that took BigE's expo to make it ring a bell.
Thanks 1d ANDY for the TEST (my mid-term GPA= Zero-Point-Zero [2m]) and 22a GARY for the sparkly expo.
With so many K's, a Q, W, XYZ's I looked for a pangram AFFAIR. It's a MIRACLE!
WOs: isobars b/f ABC SPORTS made PASCALS obvious. GMAT @24d, Art-someone @26d, Talc @44d and, with ODIE inked, I was certain there was a MOLE at the bureau. Denim was right out; SHORTS fixed the Jacket.
Fav: NERD ALERT... I say this to the kids as a WARNing that I'm going into excruciating (to them) detail.
{A+,A} {groan}
TTP - It's TRUE, I could have done w/o Spandau Ballet's ear-worm :-)
Grandma had one of those wringer machines (Maytag IIRC). Even w/ neither breasts nor long hair (that's scary YR!) I wasn't let near it when Grandma did the wash.
Hmm, does TROJAN HORSE call for obligatory Python [6m - you'll have to endure being taunted first (and a second time)] or Brooks pack of 'em?*
Cheers, -T
Bonus for real NERD CRED - name the HORSE in History of the World Part I.
ABC SPORTS and AL MICHAELS made for a quick start to this Saturday challenge - but the NE was the real bugger with the natick of unknowns which WEES mentioned SAZERAC/PAVANE!
ReplyDeleteWe're used to being in one of the last ZONES on most planes because we won't pay extra for a seat - which leaves very few choices these days. Our travel at the end of September was nice as we traveled with our son because his credit card/frequent travel allowed us to go up one zone in boarding - so it was very relaxed as no one was in our section yet as we got settled!
We just borrowed the TV show "The Crown" from the library - lots of interesting history. During her affair with Peter Townsend, Princess Margaret went on official business to Rhodesia while the UK govt got wind of the relationship and shipped him off to a post in Belgium while she was away. Life was a lot different in the 1950s!
Thanks HG and Andy!
HG, always enjoy your recaps with all the links. This one was a downright toughie - congrats to all of you who FIR w/o look-ups! I finally threw in the towel at Britt Reid and PAVANE. "They're matched by foundations" kept me on charity/donations too long - nicK of time should have told me that was the wrong road. After getting HARARE (with only the 1st R and E) and the SW early on, thought it might be doable - nah! Liked the fun challenge though. Favorite clue was "Ruins things?"
ReplyDeleteD-O: autocorrect got me too... Copying not coping (thought that might fit too :-)). -T
ReplyDeleteyep like many others the SAZERAC/PAVANE/HARARE intersection got me. Close but no TADA. I didn't know the singer, or the affair, or what a wale is or who Brett Reid was but the other fills forced the fill. I loved the PASCAL reference. Without looking it up I am thinking Newtons per Square Meter but it might be CMS. Units in Physics were the best clue you could have when working long difficult problems if your answer wasn't in the right units you know you were wrong...having imaginary length or velocity etc wasn't a very good sign either.
ReplyDeleteI didn't like HAZES as a shore weather phenomena. As a 42 year resident of Southern California (with a year in DC; and another year in what our president might call __holes) haze was generally over the basin and you could see it from my first apartment on the shore in Redondo especially in winter. Of course the !@#$%^&*!EPA put in all these clean air restrictions and now you can't even see the air that you breathe ! Luckily coal is coming back !!
BTW I played golf the day of Miracle on ice as I didn't want to watch the Ruskies massacre our kids. I played the game at a mediocre level but skated with college players and a couple of Red Wings that lived in the neighborhood. Unless you have seen up close and personal the difference between the two you cant appreciate the skill difference. I knew the Russians were going to beat the USA unmercifully. They had taken it easy on us at MSG a couple weeks before 10-1 I think. Well at least I got to play at a country club with my boss.
ReplyDeleted-o:
ReplyDeleteIn the convent we had several of those mangle irons to iron sheets and other types of linens. They measure about twice the length of the one shown in your link. Those were fun Saturdays in the laundry!
Very tough with some really obscure clues. Had to keep,working it, took a while.
ReplyDeleteOne of those solves that you get but don’t think you are done....lots of educated guesswork. Agree that 10D and 27A was Natick quality.
4 Zs, 4 Ys, throw in the odd Q and X....geez.
I forgot to mention my husband's aunt had a old ringer type washer all the way into the 1990s-she was a quirky gal. On the one hand she even got a replacement for the ringer washer when I wouldn't have even thought they made them anymore - but then she was one of the first people to get a VCR.
ReplyDeleteWith six of us sibs, and me being the second oldest, we all participated in the chores. From pre-teen age on up I fried foods for the 8 of us, helped with the cannning, baked cookies and cakes, ran the clothes through the wringer, ironed the easy pieces, and cleaned. We all worked in the huge garden keeping it weed free, clean as a whistle. Now looking back on it we sibs recall these as happy times with camaraderie and the sense of contributing to a common purpose.
ReplyDeletePS, about the wringer incident,my parents were far more "shook up" than I was.They fully realized what might have happened. I was warned to keep my fingers and clothing clear. I never thought of my hair.
I know wale from buying ready to wear corduroy clothing from catalogs and fabric for sewing. The buyer has to choose the wale.
Wikipedia in re corduroy: The fabric looks as if it is made from multiple cords laid parallel to each other and then stitched together. The word corduroy is from cord and duroy, a coarse woollen cloth made in England in the 18th century.
The width of the cord is commonly referred to as the size of the "wale" (i.e. the number of ridges per inch).The lower the "wale" number, the thicker the width of the wale.
I think of HAZE as a city phenomenon because cities tend to be more polluted than the shore.
Knowledge Nuts: There are a lot of different names for that stuff that causes reduced visibility—and an agonizingly long commute—in the morning. Mist and fog are caused by water droplets in the air, and the only difference is how far you can see. Haze is the reflection of sunlight off air pollution, while smog is what happens when pollution causes low-lying ozone. And vog only happens when a nearby volcano is releasing sulfur dioxide into the air to react with what’s already there.
I remember the excitement of watching Miracle on Ice. Michaels doesn't ring a bell.
Many unknown or barely known names. Tough but perpable.
Just noticed the first across answer begins ABC and the last across answer begins XYZ.
ReplyDeleteWhy did I even think it was a good idea to challenge YR on VOG - yep, I looked it up and it's real (related mostly to HAWAII). --Scrabble_Points for me....
ReplyDeleteInaneHIKEr - At the joy of starting another religious war - did your Aunt have BETA of VHS? //ducks
IInane - again, my Ignorance (maybe I should get UTNE)... I had to look up Margaret and Peter Townsend's affair. The date (50's) somehow seemed wrong for her to be dating The WHO's guitarist.[:20] What a difference an H makes. :-)
D-O & Jayce: PASCAL was an easy language like BASIC or PL/I. I'm the guy who's favorite hammer is still Perl (I'm being dragged kickin' & screamin' to Python).
I think someone mentioned Electric Dreams on Amazon Prime... With Youngest at Dance, DW & I had snuggle time and gave it a go. SciFi fans will enjoy (I did). It was a little violence-graphic but very trippy. We'll give episode two a go too.
Cheers, -T
This puzzle beat me up today.
ReplyDeleteJace: I’m in total agreement with the first part of your comments.
Cheers
Mark
YR: being stuck in the wringer sounds like no fun. I'm surprised that your machine didn't have a back-up button. Mine did, as I remember. I could back things thru to get more moisture out. Fingers didn't fair well in wringers either. I did see the results of the old tit-in-the-wringer event on a neighbor lady -- horrid colored bruise. Like you, I was expected to do adult chores, most often with very little instruction. I loved to iron, especially on the little mangle. I did all the sheets & pillowcases. Loved the smell of the fresh laundry that had dried on the outdoor lines. No better aroma therapy.
ReplyDeleteI tried "gavote" before PAVANE, altho I thought gavotte was the spelling. PAVANE glided in later.
Anon at 3:33: neat observation ABC to XYZ. Also neat puzzle feature. Too bad we were struggling too hard to notice.
Tony: if I had someone to snuggle with and the kid out of the house, I can think of better things to do than watch TV. LOL!
gavotte, galop, and now pavane?!?
ReplyDeleteI gotta say, a simple reminder of the RAF's Spitfires & Hurricanes is almost enough to make me overlook how very nasty Mr. Kravis's pzl was - overall. Husker Gary, your picture of a fighter in action stirred this ol' heart.
ReplyDeleteI could hardly get a foothold in today's pzl - nothing much past the bottom right (SE) sector where the XYZ AFFAIR was a "gimme" (as I just happened to be reading up on John Adams' administration). SAZERAC was another gimme because I have enjoyed my share of them (although hadn't memorized the spelling: SAZZIRAK, SIZERUC, ZIZLEROCK? I'll have what she's having...)
I confess (PILLORying myself) to 2 look-ups today. One was for HARARE. You can all guess the other one. After that, I stuck to the P+P principle and finally landed this baby, limping into a Ta- DA! the wrong way around.
I appreciated that this was (at least in part) a learning exercise. Where else would an old theater buff have learned that PASCALS are not only French gents named Blaise, but "Units of pressure"? (And, HG, thanks for the illustration of the displacement of hydraulic force - although I'm not entirely convinced nature works that way.)
If I have to pick a favorite clue, it must be 51A "Ruins things?" I had to stumble on the answer before realizing "Ruins" was a noun.
____________
Diagonal Report: A silver mine today! None of the proper golden diagonals reached further than six squares. BUT on the opposite side, the "mirror" or silver side, we hit pay dirt with a neat 5-way swath! A true rarity.
Check how we have f i v e uninterrupted diagonals running side by side, starting in the NE corner at squares 13, 14, 15, 30, and 45, and ending in the SW at 181, 196, 211, 212, and 213. This is practically unheard of in daily cruciverbal lore.
Mark today's date - January 27, 2018 -
for You Were Here.
UAAlum72,
ReplyDeleteI feel your pain - about the proper spelling of TARTAR. It took me decades to learn that "tartar" was wrong, or at least the non-preferred spelling. The correct, or preferred spelling, drops the first "R."
Now along comes Mr. Kravis to throw me back to the 4th grade and childhood memories of shrimp sauce.
After filling it (with serious reservations) I sought but found little consolation from our weaseling online dictionaries...
Anon @ 3:33, sharp observation, but I have to agree with PK, I struggled with it and didn't notice.
ReplyDeletePK @ 4:15 - LOL! Kinda wondering myself.
D-O, never ever saw, or heard of, a mangle iron, but Lucina knew about it. One of my many chores on the farm was ironing the sheets and pillowcases for the family (luckily two siblings had already left home). Hated every minute; which reminds me, I also hated ironing Daddy's khakis that he wore every day to work at Dow Chemical as a carpenter. Also, Mama's wringer washer also had a reverse button now that I remember.
YR - That was a pretty hairy scary story. I'm glad you weren't seriously hurt. We had a wringer washer, too, but I kept my hair short.
ReplyDeleteMANGLE - My Mom had a MANGLE iron, too, but she didn't use it a lot. Shirt sleeves and some such, I think.
HAZE - On our destroyer, we always tried to steam with a light brown HAZE from the stacks. That meant we we getting the most miles per gallon of Nº 6 bunker fuel oil. Too white meant too much air make-up; too black meant, well, not enough air.
The transliteration to the Latin alphabet led to alternate spellings, Tatar and Tartar.
ReplyDeleteI've enjoyed the talk about wringer washers. When I was 10-12 or so, I had to do the laundry for several months while my Mother was bedridden with a back injury. We had had an automatic washer, but it died. So, I learned how to use our fallback washer, which was a wringer....along with the appurtenant double laundry basin. I came to understand the machine, it worked well, and I appreciated it's simplicity. The only downside was the amount of labor involved. And, IIRC, it had not only a reverse gear, but also a "panic button" (more of a bar, actually) where you could hit the top of the wringer and release the tension, mitigating the threat to life, limb, long hair, and mammaries.
ReplyDeleteWe also had a mangle, but I never saw it in use. It evidently was working when I was too young to remember, but had also bailed out before I was old enough to see it in action. We gave it away after my Mother died, so I hope someone repaired it and got additional use out of the old machine.
Tartar and Tatar are alternate spellings caused by transliteration to the Latin alphabet.
ReplyDeleteThere was a great team spirit in our family, the family enterprise. We never resented or hated it. We are still close and cherish the memories.
YR,
ReplyDeleteYeah, the better dictionaries go on at length about the transliteration variants of Tatar and TARTAR. But all agree, it seems, on "Tartar" as the lesser used version, so we may leave it to our Xwd friends to inflict that one on us.
(Where else do we find "Tsar" these days?)
Lucina, TX Ms, etc.: we had a mangle on our back porch. My mom used it a lot. I was impressed by how much pressure it exerted on the wet wash. I used to help pin the newly washed to the clothes line from our back window, and actually wondered sometimes why we bothered hanging the dry mangled items out.
To get rid of the wrinkles was my best guess...
Anon T, I'll be interested in your opinion of Electric Dreams.
ReplyDeleteI just finished the series - and felt pretty much let down by it. But then I am not a sci-fi fan, and I was only "giving it a chance."
One of the problems I find typical of the genre is how much mental time is occupied with explanations. Sometimes the 'splaining will take up several wordy speeches. This wasn't in every episode, but it occurred enough to be off-putting. I don't take pleasure in being at a loss from scene one, only to be informed later on what the gimmick is.
There are some very good actors in the series, and their work sometimes compensated for a strained plotline.
But you may find more than I could - so, Happy Viewing!
YR 1102A
ReplyDeleteThank goodness for your quick thinking mom. You have far exceeded my expectations for response to my wringing question.
D-O 114P
My mother had, and used a mangle iron. Thanks for reminding me.
Picard 1156A
I saw the snake. Do I win a prize? Thanks for the beautiful pictures.
BTW You have mail.
Dave
D4E4H: I am impressed that you saw the snake! It was a baby rattlesnake right in the middle of the trail where we HIKED, coiled up tight. I did not see it until I almost stepped on it. The instant I took the photo it disappeared into the brush.
ReplyDeleteHere is a direct link to my baby rattlesnake photo.
I hope someone took the time to look at my TROJAN HORSE photo. It is quite an artistic and engineering creation.
My artist friend Laura Smith created the magnificent effect of the TROJAN HORSE snorting!
Kim Stanley is flexing her muscles in front of the beast. We have known each other since I was a grad student.
I have read much about the Tartars, the Mongolian and Turkic peoples under Genghis Kahn and his successors from the 1300's to the 1800's. Great historical fiction. Tartar is the most common spelling for these people. Tatar is the most common spelling for today's people.
ReplyDeleteNow that you mention it I remember trying fruitlessly to reverse the wringer. The hair was too tangled.
I'm getting (sloopy) sleepy. and meant to quit post last post, but you got me reminiscing and that aint good, it's great !
ReplyDeleteI have mentioned our Jersey cow Henrietta who kept us in cream, an essential ingredient for ice cream. We had a crank freezer, and told time by how many freezers it had been since "We last saw you."
My father got my mother a modern washing machine for Christmas one year so he engineered the apparatus of the wringer washer to our advantage. He cut a hole in he lid of the washer to fit the outside of the freezer, and connected the crank to the wringer by welding in a rod.
Voila, the largest electric ice cream freezer ever made, and it worked fine.
I haven't seen you for three freezers !
Dave
Picard 742P
ReplyDeleteDo know what she used for snort?
Backing to 1158A
A Splynter memorial --PHOTO.
and --another one.
Dave
OMK - I'll let you know what I think about eDreams. The 1st episode had me pacing (I actually left the room) when I thought the guy was going to get his hands chopped... I'm not good with those kinda scenes (I never un-see them) if I don't know how it's going to end (like, if it was Jason Borne who's hands were going to get cut-off, I'd know he'd prevail and I'D not have to empathetically worry).
ReplyDelete//Oh, and hydraulics work exactly like that: PV=nrT :-)
At the risk of RE-opening this tired debate... Youngest and I went to the local Cantina tonight; the joint has a free soft-serve machine...
Youngest asked, "Can I [er, MAY I] get some ICE cream?"
"Sure, but it's ICED Cream, like tea"
"Dad, everyone says ICE Tea..."
Then I thought, "Ah, but they say ICED Coffee now? Don't they?"
I went on to explain the Corner's take on the 'D' falling out of favour. I do wonder if it's because, when it's new it's ICED but, then after time, the D just falls away or is it the sound? - The T in tea almost makes you over emphasize the 'd whereas the C in coffee... No that's dumb...
Will we enter Duncan Donuts and ask for ICE Coffee 10+ years from now?
Oh, I forgot the warning: NERD ALERT
No takers on on the name of the HORSE in Brooks' History of the World, Part I? It's MIRACLE! (sans ICE).
Still don't believe that's the pony's name? The Roman Red scene [too much lewd learning yet Lucina? :-)]
Have a great eve! Cheers, -T
//PK - To your question... DW is back under the weather so just some 'quality time' talking and watchin' a programme. -T
ReplyDeleteAnonT:
ReplyDeleteIt's getting there!