Theme: Monty Python's Flying Circus - The Man Who Speaks in Anagrams.
OK, so strictly speaking these are not anagrams, they are scrambles, but I couldn't pass up the opportunity to link a sketch from the classic comedy.
Back on topic, as the reveal explains:
62A. Whole new person who can literally be found in the answers to starred clues: CHANGED MAN.
This picture is a shot of a competitor in annual TT motorcycle races on the Siel fo Amn. The road course can unscramble a rider as surely as you can unscramble the name of the island.
As we work our way down the theme entries, we find that each man has a MAN scramble in his name, and the first clue has "Man" to start, just for fun.
17A. *Man Booker Prize winner for "Life of Pi" : YANN MARTEL. Great book, on my all-time favorites list.
27A. *Star of '70s TV's "Good Times" : JOHN AMOS. Who? Thank you, crosses.
47A. *Actor in two "Jurassic Park" films : SAM NEILL. Vaguely remembered this chap. I needed plenty of crossing help though.
11D. *Gomer Pyle portrayer : JIM NABORS. Another who? for me, I'm sure all you US denizens didn't even stop to think, but again I needed all the help I could get.
34D. *"Atonement" novelist : IAN MCEWAN. There's no doubt he's a great writer, but I recall this novel as being awfully bleak.
Neat theme from Craig, I liked that all the theme entries were men, and there was a pretty solid letter count from the them all. I like seeing the theme entries in both the acrosses and downs, it changes things up a little. Usual Thursday-level cluing and misdirection. For the second week running the NE corner was my problem area, but eventually everything fell into place.
Clunker of the day: SRTAS. I know it's acceptable, but I never like it it when I see it.
Let's see what else jumps out:
Across:
1. Tell target : APPLE. The legend of William Tell. I can't remember why he had to shoot an apple from his son's head, but I do remember being told that the Swiss hero was Austrian by birth.
6. Look for : SEEK
10. Letting in some air : AJAR. Almost my last fill, took a while to see this, but it did unlock the unknown JIM NABORS for me.
14. Dakota natives : SIOUX
15. Lyft alternative : TAXI. First impulse here is UBER.
16. Record, in a way : TIVO. Darn, I had TAPE first which slowed down my progress in the NE.
19. Put out : EMIT. Another tricky one that required some teasing out.
20. When the fewest pieces are on the chess board : ENDGAME
21. Detoxification diet : CLEANSE. I've done what is called the Jedi Cleanse, it was the longest month of my life.
23. Lean-__: sheds : TO'S
24. [Boring!] : YAWN!
26. "Letters From Iwo __": Eastwood film : JIMA
29. "Thwack!" : BAM!
32. Less ingenuous : SLIER. I prefer the SLYER spelling, but this is accepted as an alternative. I read it as "SLEE-ER" though.
35. __ window : BAY
36. Through : DONE. I'm done. Actually, I'm not through yet, I've still got quite a lot of the write-up to go.
37. Scuttlebutt : HEARSAY
40. Souvenir shop display : T-SHIRTS
42. Farm sound : OINK
43. Farm animal : NAG. An old horse. I don't really associate a nag with a farm animal, but I guess it's fine. I recall that the carthorse Boxer from Orwell's "Animal Farm" became a broken down nag towards the end. It didn't finish well for the horse.
45. Watering hole : OASIS
46. Brimless hat : TAM
50. Steamboat fuel : COAL
52. Inflates, as expenses : PADS
53. Significant time : ERA
56. Eurasian plains : STEPPES
59. ADHD medication : RITALIN
61. Fuzzy fruit or fuzzy bird : KIWI. The fruit doesn't have a lot of flavor, but it makes a nice contrast in a fruit salad or garnish for a dessert.
64. OPEC member : IRAN
65. 2-point G, e.g. : TILE. Scrabble, of course. Wasn't my first thought when I was trying to figure out the clue.
66. Dreadlocks wearer : RASTA
67. Island goose : NENE
68. Zipped : SPED
69. Sp. titles : SRTAS. I just think this is clumsy. Spanish seƱoritas.
Down:
1. Up to now : AS YET
2. Composer John Cage's "Suite for Toy __" : PIANO. Schroeder from the "Peanuts" strip famously played the toy piano, but he preferred playing Beethoven.
3. Cold cream name : PONDS. This was lurking somewhere in the dim recesses of my mind, I'm not sure why I even knew it at all.
4. Organ with alveoli : LUNG
5. Richard M. Daley and Ed Koch : EX-MAYORS. I liked this one, fresh fill. Daley in Chicago, Koch in New York.
6. Scattered : STREWN
7. Put down a hero : EAT. This one was fun to figure out. A hero sandwich.
8. Corp. head : EXEC. Yeah, I suppose so. More usually the head of a corporation would be the president or CEO.
9. Party poopers : KILLJOYS
10. Elite squad : "A" TEAM
12. Driving company that sounds more like a flying company : AVIS. Now this one bothers me. Is Avis a "driving" company? No, it's a car rental company. If you took a poll on the street to describe Avis, Hertz or Enterprise, "driving company" would be about 1,000th on the list.
13. "Thy love did read by __, that could not spell": "Romeo and Juliet" : ROTE. Friar Lawrence telling Romeo that Rosalind knew very well that Romeo was not truly in love with her.
18. Eastern nurse : AMAH. Known to me only from crosswords.
22. Frozen Wasser : EIS. German lesson for the day.
25. Capture : NAB
27. __ chicken: Jamaican dish : JERK. Food! I love making jerk chicken, I get to chop a whole chicken into about 16 pieces with my bad-ass cleaver. My friend can't watch, she's convinced I'm going to chop my fingers off some day.
28. Floor covering : MAT
30. Start to trust? : ANTI- I liked this one.
31. Fool (with) : MESS
32. Worn out : SHOT
33. "The Last Jedi" general : LEIA. I keep forgetting Princess Leia was a general towards the end of the series of movies. Crosses usually reveal it pretty quickly
36. First antibacterial soap : DIAL. Didn't know this was the first, but it came pretty easily.
38. Confucian text, with "The" : ANALECTS. "Never give a sword to a man who can't dance." I like that one.
"Analects" in Chinese. Seal script at the top, traditional in the middle and simplifed at the bottom.
39. November tuber : YAM. What did the sweet potato say to the turkey at Thanksgiving? "I yam what I yam".
41. Oater belt attachments : HOLSTERS. You need to know that "oater" is an industry slang term for one of the many cowboy movies that flooded out of the Hollywood studios back in the day.
44. Economic fig. : G.N.P. Gross National Product. If recall correctly from my school economics, the total value of goods and services produced by a country.
47. Plant juice : SAP
48. Made : EARNED
49. "With ya so far" : "I DIG"
51. State one's views : OPINE
53. Slasher film setting: Abbr. : ELM ST.
54. Western prop : RIATA. Often clued as "oater prop" but we just had that above.
55. Actresses Gunn and Kendrick : ANNAS. Gunn best known for her role in "Breaking Bad", Kendrick won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for "Up in the the Air".
56. Hide : SKIN
57. Wear out : TIRE
58. Armada unit : SHIP. There must be a minimum number of ships before you can describe the force as an armada, right? 20, 30? There were 130 in the Spanish Armada of 1588. Didn't do them a lot of good, though.
60. Purim month : ADAR
63. Full Sail Amber __ : ALE. Took me a while to see this, and I've even drunk the beer, which is brewed in Oregon.
Well, that about wraps it up for me. Back in Manhattan this week, heading back to LA and hopefully some warm weather tomorrow in time for the weekend. Maybe I'll crack open a bottle of the Amber Ale. Cheers!
Oh, and here's the grid!
Steve
OK, so strictly speaking these are not anagrams, they are scrambles, but I couldn't pass up the opportunity to link a sketch from the classic comedy.
Back on topic, as the reveal explains:
62A. Whole new person who can literally be found in the answers to starred clues: CHANGED MAN.
This picture is a shot of a competitor in annual TT motorcycle races on the Siel fo Amn. The road course can unscramble a rider as surely as you can unscramble the name of the island.
As we work our way down the theme entries, we find that each man has a MAN scramble in his name, and the first clue has "Man" to start, just for fun.
17A. *Man Booker Prize winner for "Life of Pi" : YANN MARTEL. Great book, on my all-time favorites list.
27A. *Star of '70s TV's "Good Times" : JOHN AMOS. Who? Thank you, crosses.
47A. *Actor in two "Jurassic Park" films : SAM NEILL. Vaguely remembered this chap. I needed plenty of crossing help though.
11D. *Gomer Pyle portrayer : JIM NABORS. Another who? for me, I'm sure all you US denizens didn't even stop to think, but again I needed all the help I could get.
34D. *"Atonement" novelist : IAN MCEWAN. There's no doubt he's a great writer, but I recall this novel as being awfully bleak.
Neat theme from Craig, I liked that all the theme entries were men, and there was a pretty solid letter count from the them all. I like seeing the theme entries in both the acrosses and downs, it changes things up a little. Usual Thursday-level cluing and misdirection. For the second week running the NE corner was my problem area, but eventually everything fell into place.
Clunker of the day: SRTAS. I know it's acceptable, but I never like it it when I see it.
Let's see what else jumps out:
Across:
1. Tell target : APPLE. The legend of William Tell. I can't remember why he had to shoot an apple from his son's head, but I do remember being told that the Swiss hero was Austrian by birth.
6. Look for : SEEK
10. Letting in some air : AJAR. Almost my last fill, took a while to see this, but it did unlock the unknown JIM NABORS for me.
14. Dakota natives : SIOUX
15. Lyft alternative : TAXI. First impulse here is UBER.
16. Record, in a way : TIVO. Darn, I had TAPE first which slowed down my progress in the NE.
19. Put out : EMIT. Another tricky one that required some teasing out.
20. When the fewest pieces are on the chess board : ENDGAME
21. Detoxification diet : CLEANSE. I've done what is called the Jedi Cleanse, it was the longest month of my life.
23. Lean-__: sheds : TO'S
24. [Boring!] : YAWN!
26. "Letters From Iwo __": Eastwood film : JIMA
29. "Thwack!" : BAM!
32. Less ingenuous : SLIER. I prefer the SLYER spelling, but this is accepted as an alternative. I read it as "SLEE-ER" though.
35. __ window : BAY
36. Through : DONE. I'm done. Actually, I'm not through yet, I've still got quite a lot of the write-up to go.
37. Scuttlebutt : HEARSAY
40. Souvenir shop display : T-SHIRTS
42. Farm sound : OINK
43. Farm animal : NAG. An old horse. I don't really associate a nag with a farm animal, but I guess it's fine. I recall that the carthorse Boxer from Orwell's "Animal Farm" became a broken down nag towards the end. It didn't finish well for the horse.
45. Watering hole : OASIS
46. Brimless hat : TAM
50. Steamboat fuel : COAL
52. Inflates, as expenses : PADS
53. Significant time : ERA
56. Eurasian plains : STEPPES
59. ADHD medication : RITALIN
61. Fuzzy fruit or fuzzy bird : KIWI. The fruit doesn't have a lot of flavor, but it makes a nice contrast in a fruit salad or garnish for a dessert.
64. OPEC member : IRAN
65. 2-point G, e.g. : TILE. Scrabble, of course. Wasn't my first thought when I was trying to figure out the clue.
66. Dreadlocks wearer : RASTA
67. Island goose : NENE
68. Zipped : SPED
69. Sp. titles : SRTAS. I just think this is clumsy. Spanish seƱoritas.
Down:
1. Up to now : AS YET
2. Composer John Cage's "Suite for Toy __" : PIANO. Schroeder from the "Peanuts" strip famously played the toy piano, but he preferred playing Beethoven.
3. Cold cream name : PONDS. This was lurking somewhere in the dim recesses of my mind, I'm not sure why I even knew it at all.
4. Organ with alveoli : LUNG
5. Richard M. Daley and Ed Koch : EX-MAYORS. I liked this one, fresh fill. Daley in Chicago, Koch in New York.
6. Scattered : STREWN
7. Put down a hero : EAT. This one was fun to figure out. A hero sandwich.
8. Corp. head : EXEC. Yeah, I suppose so. More usually the head of a corporation would be the president or CEO.
9. Party poopers : KILLJOYS
10. Elite squad : "A" TEAM
12. Driving company that sounds more like a flying company : AVIS. Now this one bothers me. Is Avis a "driving" company? No, it's a car rental company. If you took a poll on the street to describe Avis, Hertz or Enterprise, "driving company" would be about 1,000th on the list.
13. "Thy love did read by __, that could not spell": "Romeo and Juliet" : ROTE. Friar Lawrence telling Romeo that Rosalind knew very well that Romeo was not truly in love with her.
18. Eastern nurse : AMAH. Known to me only from crosswords.
22. Frozen Wasser : EIS. German lesson for the day.
25. Capture : NAB
27. __ chicken: Jamaican dish : JERK. Food! I love making jerk chicken, I get to chop a whole chicken into about 16 pieces with my bad-ass cleaver. My friend can't watch, she's convinced I'm going to chop my fingers off some day.
28. Floor covering : MAT
30. Start to trust? : ANTI- I liked this one.
31. Fool (with) : MESS
32. Worn out : SHOT
33. "The Last Jedi" general : LEIA. I keep forgetting Princess Leia was a general towards the end of the series of movies. Crosses usually reveal it pretty quickly
36. First antibacterial soap : DIAL. Didn't know this was the first, but it came pretty easily.
38. Confucian text, with "The" : ANALECTS. "Never give a sword to a man who can't dance." I like that one.
"Analects" in Chinese. Seal script at the top, traditional in the middle and simplifed at the bottom.
39. November tuber : YAM. What did the sweet potato say to the turkey at Thanksgiving? "I yam what I yam".
41. Oater belt attachments : HOLSTERS. You need to know that "oater" is an industry slang term for one of the many cowboy movies that flooded out of the Hollywood studios back in the day.
44. Economic fig. : G.N.P. Gross National Product. If recall correctly from my school economics, the total value of goods and services produced by a country.
47. Plant juice : SAP
48. Made : EARNED
49. "With ya so far" : "I DIG"
51. State one's views : OPINE
53. Slasher film setting: Abbr. : ELM ST.
54. Western prop : RIATA. Often clued as "oater prop" but we just had that above.
55. Actresses Gunn and Kendrick : ANNAS. Gunn best known for her role in "Breaking Bad", Kendrick won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for "Up in the the Air".
56. Hide : SKIN
57. Wear out : TIRE
58. Armada unit : SHIP. There must be a minimum number of ships before you can describe the force as an armada, right? 20, 30? There were 130 in the Spanish Armada of 1588. Didn't do them a lot of good, though.
60. Purim month : ADAR
63. Full Sail Amber __ : ALE. Took me a while to see this, and I've even drunk the beer, which is brewed in Oregon.
Well, that about wraps it up for me. Back in Manhattan this week, heading back to LA and hopefully some warm weather tomorrow in time for the weekend. Maybe I'll crack open a bottle of the Amber Ale. Cheers!
Oh, and here's the grid!
Steve
43 comments:
Rabbit Rabbit
Hello Puzzlers -
Had a little trouble around the completely unknown Analects, but reasonable guesses saved the day. Perps took care of the proper nouns.
Never tried Full Sale Amber Ale. I did order a familiar red ale at a local brewpub, only to find they’d altered the recipe to make it hoppy. It was terrible, but for some reason this country has gone crazy for hops.
Morning Steve, I’m pretty good with either a hatchet or an axe, but my confidence does not extend to the meat cleaver. Be careful with that thing!
Good morning!
"Driving company that sounds like a flying company" -- gotta be UBER, right? Wrong. Got that fixed, but when I got to the bottom I drew blanks on Confucius and the 2-point G. Didn't help that I had WAGged A HANGED MAN. Bzzzzzt! Thanx, Craig and Steve.
Thanx Craig Stowe for the workout.
A bit crunchy but not too difficult. I don’t know why the scrabble tile G eluded me . After sussing all the rest I looked up Confucius to get the T in ANALECTS . Didn’t understand TILE for 2pt G
Thanks Steve for the review. Duh!! And Doh!!
Played lots of scrabble in younger years and its still a favorite for sibs at family gatherings. More sun and light winds . The March lamb arrives in the northwestern midwest.
Rabbit, rabbit.
Enjoyed this puzzle. Since I was getting the theme clues out of order - at first I thought they were all variations on the name JOHN when I got IAN- expected "Sean" to pop op but BZZT was barking up the wrong tree!
Enjoyed the write-up - especially the Monty Python anagram skit- Thanks Steve!
and thanks to Craig as well!
FIR w/o help, but I had the same sticking point as others. I didn't know ANALECTS. I didn't want NAG, but wrote it in. That left the T in TILE as a lucky wag. I never thought of Scrabble. Fine puzzle, Craig. Interesting, expo, Steve.
My problem in the NE is that I read IWO (a gimme) as TWO.
UBER before AVIS. I also tried UBER before TAXI. In today's paper I read that an inebriated man booked UBER for a local ride home in WV, but gave his PA address. He fell asleep for most of the way. Charges were $1600.
Steve, toy piano brought to mind Peanuts, same as you.
No prob with EXEC. A president and a CEO are execs.
I finally looked up the pronunciation of NENE. It is nay nay, not neen.
Steve, good luck getting out of NYC with the nor'easter coming tonight and tomorrow.
"Puzzling Thoughts":
My grid is full of WO's today, as I, too, had UBER>TAXI; TAPE>TIVO; CAP>TAM; SNRAS>SRTAS. Never got ANALECTS or TILE, so this was a DNF/FIW. Oops.
I kept looking at the clue for 65a and was thinking about a basketball term - never considered Scrabble
I'm guessing that when Tinbeni is in Germany, he doesn't use EIS
Nice recap, Steve - enjoyed the MP clip
I'll be MIA for a week
Been crazy busy (as always), but it beats the alternatives.
A couple Moe-ku's:
The basketball team
Drove through Starbucks. Was that a
Very Tall order?
One from an earlier puzzle-themed clue/solve:
My punny haiku du jour:
At poker table,
The origami maker
Won't call; always FOLDs.
And one limerick:
At the food store, we notice the users
Of "ten items or less" are abusers.
They'll come there with full cart,
But they cannot outsmart;
You see, baggers can really be choosers.
Musings
-Quick note on a subbing day in shop, no wait, it’s called industrial technology today
-This scene in Jurrasic Park stunned me (3:26) as much as it did Sam Neill’s character
-Spielberg’s Jurrasic Park EARNED 4x what his other 1993 film did in 1993 but his second, mostly b/w, film got an Oscar. Name the second film
-Gomer Pyle USMC was filmed right across the street from Wally’s Gas Station where he worked in the Andy Griffith Show on the Desilu Lot
-If you want to see contempt, look at TAXI driver’s face when LYFT or UBER pull up
-Teacher’s lounges are full of scuttlebutt this time of year about whose leaving, retiring, getting fired and who’s being hired
-Aren’t women much quicker to realize clothing is SHOT before men?
Addendum
-File this under, “They don’t make ‘em like that anymore: Top grossing movies of 1993 We went to see a bunch of these and now can’t find one to go see. Entertain me!!
Good Morning:
This was no stroll in the park by any means and took several perps to get to the Tada. The many unknowns included: Analects, Leia, as clued, and Yann Martel. It took me forever to fill in Ian McEwan as I always mix him up with Ewan McGregor. W/os were oases/oasis and eon/era. That clue for tile had me thinking basketball, also. When I saw the reveal as Changed Man, I thought each man's name contained an anagram of another man's name.
Thanks, Craig, for a challenging solve and thanks, Steve, for a jolly good expo. I agree that "Atonement" was bleak but I think most of his novels are, at least the ones that I've read. Best of luck on your travel plans.
After reading all of the trials and tribulations of those requiring that sleep aid machine (I forgot the name), I'm thankful that I don't have apnea, or any other sleep disorder. Good luck, HG.
Have a great day.
After YANN, JOHN, & IAN I thought maybe the theme was about variations of the name John. But Gomer killed that thought. I knew SAM NEILL & JIM NABORS but the other three were unknowns filled by perps, along with the ANNAS. But it was a DNF. I had no idea what a '2-point G' referred to and the 'Confucian text' ANALECTS was not guessable for me. I had _AG and _ILE (I was thinking T would be the only fit) and couldn't think of an three word farm animal that ended in AG. CHANGED MAN? Never noticed it.
Dudley- you were a better WAGger than me.
Son of Addendum
-My first night with the CPAP machine was awkward but at least I DID NOT SNORE. Even with my quite unobtrusive nosepiece which allows me to turn in any direction, there is still a slight feeling of claustrophobia and it is hard to get used to breathing against a forceful stream of air.
Crunchy today. Lots of misdirection. Thanks for the fun, Craig and Steve.
Hand up for Uber before TAXI, fighting entering NAG, an almost Natick at TILE and ANALECTS.
That ALE was unknown.
I must LIU because my German is lacking and I did not understand the clue or the answer that filled in. WASSER is water which freezes to give us Tin's dreaded EIS.
There's an idea for our constructors in the misdirection some of you experienced. Theme: NAME CHANGE. possible theme answers: variations of JOHN, IAN, IVAN, SEAN, JEAN, IWAN. Any more languages? JOHAN in German (as I said previously, my German is sparse!)?
March is getting set to come in like a lion here. Weather forecast predicting snow storm for tonight.
HG: It takes some getting used to before you reach the point where you don't even notice that you have it on. But it will get better.
Good luck.
Rabbit, Rabbit.
Thank you Steve for a good explanation. Craig, I have to say I had mixed feelings about this puzzle. It had too many answers I did not know, as others have said above. I ended up using the red letters and even then did the QWERTY scroll across all the keys on some.
I also read IWO as TWO the first time through which slowed me down.
I was fixated on thinking that the 2-pt G was some sort of GPA answer. It was about the last one I got. A 'doh' moment.
We are expecting rain all day, followed by winds then snow. A real March like a Lion in Cleveland.
Live Well and Prosper
VS
Jim Nabors who played a country boy with a corn pone accent had a wonderful singing voice with perfect diction.
Lovely
Samples from The Analects of Confucius:
“The superior man has a dignified ease without pride. The mean man has pride without a dignified ease.”
“The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.”
A similar quotation to the last one is attributed to Laozi. "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step" That one has been very helpful to me when I face a daunting task.
Thanks to Craig Stowe for an odd assortment of noted men and some difficult fill. Steve’s commentary continues to entertain. Never knew about the ALE though. Or the Analects. And I am promising myself to read that “Pi” book!
Please see below:
The door was ajar and I walked into a mess, Anna was playing the piano. Books were strewn about; “Amsterdam”, by Ian McEwan – a grim story, “Life of Pi,” by Yann Martel, a better book, if I were to opine a review. A young man sat at an Apple computer, his T-shirt had small text on the back, “Never give a sword to a man who can't dance.” – The ANALECTS. Thanks for the heads up.
She stopped playing and jerked her head to me, “Sam! I’m so shot with worry!”
“Hi Anna, I hear say you needed me. Who’s the kid?”
“That’s Jim – he’s my neighbor. He’s trying to figure out who took my Tivo box.”
“Yeah,” I said with a yawn. “It was a good place to hide your Ritalin. I hate to be a killjoy but you don’t expect me to believe you’re all worked up over something so trite. What’s really in the box?”
She and the kid exchanged glances, “Okay, you earned my confidence over the years. Sit down.”
I sat and she told me about her work with the government. How she and several ex-mayors hooked up with anti-coal groups who wanted to ship all our coal over to Iran; thinking this would cleanse the U.S. of carbon emitting fuel and help clear our lungs. There was a ship in the bay, the captain; a native Sioux was to dump the coal into tankers that would bring it to different oasis, ponds and even the far away steppes of unfriendly countries. She kept the printouts of all this nonsense in the box, along with the medicine.
“Don’t think me a jerk, Sam. I just hope you can get it back.”
Just then a taxi screeched to a halt at the front door. I peeked out the window and a man with a Rasta head of hair and no shirt came running out. He had two holsters strapped to his skin. I hoped he had bathe with Dial soap. I bolted the door and readied my pistol. He slammed right into the window, crashing though it and burst into the room.
Bam! I shot him. The shot seemed to sap the life out of him, but he was slier than I thought. The skin wasn’t real skin, it was armor; he didn’t tire and pulled out both guns. Then, as luck would have it in that messy room, he slipped on a rotten kiwi fruit on the tile, hit his head and he was done. The End Game had come.
“It’s him!” Said Anna. “The Sioux captain! He must have taken the whole bottle of Ritalin and become…”
“I dig,” I said. “Become a changed man?”
Thank you, Craig Stowe (any relation to Harriet Beecher?) I am now a CHANGED woman because of the things I learned in this puzzle.
ANALECTS, I can't believe I've never heard of this and I haven't played Scrabble in such a long time that when TILE emerged that didn't occur to me. Thanks, Steve.
The top of the grid was quick except for UBER/TAXI and I noted the two X's and a V. The Life of Pi was one of our Book Club selections and though it's a good story I thought I would never be DONE. Too long.
It's nice to recall JOHN AMOS, I loved "Good Times" and JIM NABORS who died not too long ago. What a voice!
As for Jurassic Park, I saw only the first one and it was too long ago to recall who was in it except Laura Dern.
I've been trying to memorize the Jewish calendar months but my memory is no longer as agile as it once was so it's a slow process. Since ADAR is at the top I got that one.
Oops. I see that I have SLYER which bodes ill for IAN.
Again, thank you, Craig and Steve. Safe travels, Steve.
Everyone, have a fantastic day!
Rick:
I love that story! The end made me laugh.
Earlier I forgot to mention that my mother used PONDS cold cream all her life both to remove make up and as a moisturizer. She was loyal to certain products including Lux soap. Both scents remind me of her whenever I smell them which I sometimes do at the store just to remember her. Jergens lotion, too.
This was tough for me. The only MAN I knew was JIM NABORS. Never heard any of those other names. I puzzled for a long time when I was done to figure out the theme. Since I did not know the other names, I thought maybe they were anagrams. But JIM NABORS was solid as-is.
Also, GNP has not been used in decades. It has been replaced by GDP. Did anyone else get held up by that? There also were a lot of Js in this puzzle. Did anyone notice that?
After all that, I thought I FIR, but I was wrong. Had SLYER/YAN MCEWAN. I have never seen it spelled SLIER and YAN seemed as good as IAN. A sour note to end on. Too bad, as I liked most of the puzzle and the theme was a good idea.
Here is JERK CHICKEN being prepared and served at our Caribbean Festival.
Sadly, this and most of our other Ethnic Festivals were shut down when the city got greedy and tried to increase the park rental fee. The result? They got nothing.
From Tuesday:
Roy wrote "In "The Trouble with Tribbles", Korax refers to Kirk as "a tin-plated dictator with delusions of godhood": in my opinion, a TIN GOD."
This Star Trek fan also immediately thought of that scene! But I did not figure out how to turn it into TIN GOD.
Ditto, Uber/taxi, Tape/tivo etc...
What the changed man can expect...
Actually, things haven't changed that much...
In truth, we haven't changed at all!
Fun Thursday puzzle, Craig--many thanks! I actually figured out the theme pretty early, but had trouble with some of the names (got JIM NABORS, but never heard of YANN MARTEL or SAM NEILL)and saw a picture of ANNA KENDRICK when reading US magazine yesterday, so got that. I too thought of UBER before TAXI and TAPE before TIVO. But in the end I had to look up ANALECTS--don't know my Confucian texts, I'm afraid. But lots of fun with an always delightful write-up by Steve. Made for a good Thursday morning.
I've had four solid nights of sleep in a row, without any meds, thank goodness--a huge relief after my last week of insomnia.
Fun poems, Chairman Moe, and fun crazy story, Rick.
We haven't heard from Fermatprime this morning, have we? Worries me a little.
Have a great day, everybody!
PS:
Steve: Thanks for the Monty Python anagram video!
Husker Gary: Thanks for the Jurassic Park video!
Lucina! Thanks for the compliment. My mom, now 93 years old, also used the product, and that smell? I can't say I ever liked it so much but memories are memories. My wife uses Cetaphil, no discernible odor. Dial soap. Unscented and for sensitive skin.
Mr. CrossEyedDave, a most ironic comic.
Picard 11:24 - it’s been a long, long time since I last watched Trouble with Tribbles. I sure didn’t recall the quote.
Related to Tribbles, and the like:
The city of Springfield MA is home not only to the Basketball HOF but to a solid symphony orchestra as well. The conductor is a friend of mine; he’s an energetic fellow of about 50, and a confirmed Trekkie/nerd sort of person. Last year, after concluding the normal classical music season, he dedicated an entire performance to the compositions of John Williams. There was a particular emphasis on Star Wars background music, of course. The whole thing was spectacularly well received by the public, and the Maestro was obviously having one hell of a good time!
This year, he decided to do the same thing with Star Trek music. This is going to be fun, and it’s two days from now. Boldly we go!
:-)
Well, another crunchy puzzle, I guess this is becoming Crunch Week.
Never saw ANALECTS before, new to me. Had TAPE b4 TIVO, ala others. Also agree NAG was a bit of a stretch.
But a solve is a solve.
Funny how now, years and years later, Jim Nabors sexuality isn’t even mentioned. A good social trend, minding one’s own business.
In a hurry, off to my stress test. So, so to be brief:
Thanks to Craig Stowe.
Ta- DA! - almost had to cheat because of the spelling of RITALIN, but managed with only a confirmation.
Atonement is one of my favorite contemporary novels. I liked Life of Pi as well, but it comes down to taste in the end, a personal preference for subject & style.
And I think Steve will agree that "bleak" doesn't mean bad. Sometimes it means a healthy acceptance - or confrontation.
____________
Diagonal report: Two sub diags on the mirror side, NE to SW.
≠
HI Y'all! Thank you for the stress test without the expense, Craig! Good one, Steve, fly safe!
WEES. Gomer was the only name I knew and it took a second pass before that surfaced.
Never played Scrabble enough to learn the point system.
"Full Sail Amber" had nothing to do with the "Amber Alert". However, if I drank ale, I would cease to be alert.
ATE AM had nothing to do with breakfast. A TEAM! Silly me!
YR: I knew the pronunciation of NENE because a basketball player had legally changed his name to that, according to game announcers. I wondered whatever prompted a big strong man to take the name of a silly goose. Goose Tatum he is not.
Dudley: Glad to recall the joy of the Tribbles and other Star Trek memorabilia!
I meant to note that RITALIN today was a throwback to the memorably creative Star Trek episode "Requiem for Methuselah".
Here is a clip of their urgent search for RITALIN to save the crew from Rigelian Fever.
What (rather who) they find living on the planet was the true treasure.
Crunchy munchy puzzle today. I liked it. We all have different wheelhouses; I knew ANALECTS, SAM NEILL (although I misspelled it NIELL at first), JOHN AMOS (loved him in Roots), and JIM NABORS immediately but did not know YANN MARTEL or IAN MCEWAN. It also took me 7 perps to get CLEANSE. Hand up for too-quickly entering UBER as "Lyft alternative" and then having to change it. My other hand up for wondering about AVIS as "driving" company.
In grad school I studied the Confucian ANALECTS. Despite its (deliberately?) scary name, the English translation is really easy and fun to read. It is a collection of his teachings as recorded by his students, mostly in the form of aphorisms, examples of which Yellowrocks has posted. One of my favorites is the Rumsfeldian "To know when you know something, and to know when you don’t know, that’s knowledge." It's fun to say it aloud in Chinese (ē„ä¹ē²ē„ä¹、äøē„ē²äøē„。ęÆē„ä¹). Pardon my very non-standard spelling, but here's more or less how to pronounce it: jirr jirr way jirr jirr, boo jirr way boo jirr, shirr jirr yeah. Fun stuff.
Best wishes to you all.
Thumper, thumper. Too many unknown names for me today but I appreciate the effort.
I couldn't imagine how to pronounce ELMST. Oh. ELM ST. Duh!
Maybe tomorrow....
Hi All!
A Big Fat could-not-finish (CNF?). I had to lookup names just to keep moving through the grid and even that wasn't enough. You stump'd me Craig but I had fun. I got your theme enough (after copies Googles) but there was still fill outside of my wheelhouse. @38d, The Art of War was right-out (it fit! but for the perps).
Thanks Steve for the Cleaver, er, clever, expo. Love me some Python. Safe cooking & travels.
WOs: misspelt Souix [sic], Uber b/f TAXI, Tape->TIVO, Eon->ERA which nix'd Nora b/f ANNAS
ESP: right
Fav: Tell target == APPLE; I was so hung up on poker-players' tics or some such -- Big smile when the V8 hit.
Runner-up: END GAME. Hand up if you like placing a few chessmen at random on a board (not so random that they're on the wrong spaces) and then play both side's end-game.
{}{groan, chuckle/nice, ha!}
HG - S'sList?
What IM said about C-PAP; glad I don't have that issue. Good wishes to all who do.
A buddy worked at SGI and all I got was this lousy [Awesome!] souvenir Jurassic T-SHIRT [found on the web - mine's lost somewhere - Caption SAYs "Helping build a better dinosaur"]
Jayce - and then there's the "unknown unknowns."
Play more later, -T
Jayce:
It's interesting to me that you actually studied the ANALECTS as I had not heard anyone mention them nor have I read anything about them before today. My education continues. In Wikipedia I found the following about Confucius' motivation in teaching:
"a ruler's sense of virtue was his primary prerequisite. His primary goal in educating his students was to produce ethically well cultivated men who would carry themselves with gravity, speak correctly, and demonstrate integrity in all things."
We could surely use that in modern times. Only a handful of presidents comes to my mind and I've lived through many starting with FDR.
Man oh man, I sure do sometimes not know what I do not know. I've gotten into many a tight spot by asserting something as true when I really don't know what I'm talking about. Tough to extricate oneself from that. On the flip side, I've debated-argued-discussed with others who do that when I'm the one who does know what it is I know. One learns from experience as one navigates through life, and I believe I have (finally!) learned at least enough to avoid that pitfall most of the time, although I occasionally still fall into it.
I'm reminded of another thing Confucius was recorded as saying, which I very loosely paraphrase here: As a youth I was adventurous and thought I could do anything; as a young man I began to appreciate listening and learning; at age 30 I was committed to learning, moderation, and temperance but did not yet know how to practice them; at age 50 I had gained a sense of how to steer myself; and now at my advanced age I can follow my heart's desire without transgressing the norm.
I think these days we call it learning to be comfortable in your own skin.
Confucius also taught "What you don't want done to yourself, don't do to others." Sound familiar?
I love this stuff.
Had to Genie for SAM NEILL, but got everything else with a lot of perp help. But this one wasn't much fun for me. I thought I had landed on the Hollywood Today crossword. Hand up for not liking GNP. And although YR says its OK, I also didn't like EXEC for "corp. head". May as well fill EMPL. All CEOs are employees. HR said I was an EXEC at GTE / VERIZON, but (like hundreds of other "execs") was FAR from being CEO. It was just a category for determining salary treatment and perquisites, and I had an "E" after my employee number. By the way, we ordered blank expense reports by the PAD.
As a kid I giggled at the sound of Jim Nabors singing "Back Home in Indiana" before the Indy 500. My distressed parents couldn't change the channel to teach me a little respect - we only got one channel, and they had to keep the TV on because it was a draw for our restaurant.
Hand up for Tape before TIVO and Exit before EMIT.
I'll probably get my butt kicked worse tomorrow, but I hope it is at least fun. Are you there, Jeffrey?
corporate head = type of exec
cat = type of pet
bridge = type of card game
aunt = family member
OK, back now from my stress test.
They sure have made it fancier than when I last took one. They put me in a tube - like for an MRI but with my head sticking out the far end. I lay there for about 30 minutes while they took picture of my heart from the control room. When they shot the junk into me I felt my IV arm go cold, and then I needed to breathe harder. That was it.
When It was over, nurse Stacey came in to compliment me on "What a good job" I had done.
(Between us, I never did a thing.)
Lots of fun exchanges today, especially in reacting to Jayce's knowledge of Confucius & the ANALECTS.
Jayce, I love saying out loud your phonetic transliteration of the jirr jirr proverb.
Does that include your final "yeah" as "yeh"? - or were you starting your personal commentary there?
Is "less" ingenuous like disengenuous?
As I said this morning, I played my annual 18 holes .Except the ranger "suggested" we skip a hole; probably because I had a bunch of shanks earlier.
I did putt for birdie once, took bogey. Boy am I stiff
I put OMAH . LIU Time . And of course, I said "Wilbur, how does YANNM anagram to MAN. As dad used to say "Stupid, stupid, stupid
I too noticed a lot of those proper nouns but I had an advantage . When I left the course I went to McDonald's for a refill on my ice tea and forgot a pen . So I did a lot of mental fill. And... When I got the pen, it filled fast.
Iwo Jima will always be a CSO to the brave Marines who fought and fell there.
My uncle who served in the Navy shuddered when he heard I was going OCS .
I was thinking of that stuff my neice took and RITALIN finally popped.
Lucina, that was a nice story about your mother. And Moe the Ku is back. And Rick P was hilarious . I had entered RASTA until ELM ST perped.
And, I ECHO the kudos to owen and Steve
Ho Chi Minh was a Confucian. When he worked at the Boston Parker House he was wont to say. " Man may be rich, but can he fill".*
Phil says he'll hit some balls with me
Enough already
WC
* Ok .I'll explain the pun. Fill Boston cream pies and xwords
Well, I LIU'ed it and there's no OMAH .
Plenty of Omaha talk .
And I'm thrilled for Misty licking that sleep problem. I could lick mine by cutting back on that McDonald's iced tea.
It's literally the same as an alcoholic knocking down near beers. Whats your biggest vice Wilbur? " I drink too much Ice tea" . Yeah .
WC
Ol'Man Keith, I'll pray that you get really good results from your stress test.
Wilbur, thank you so much. My good sleep may not last, but it sure had been wonderful! I wish you good sleep too!
Late to the party today. Basically, my experience was the same as others. I did finish with a few alphabet runs.
I saw all ten of the top ten movies in 1993 and 15 of the top twenty. Probably haven't seen a total of 15 since.
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