google.com, pub-2774194725043577, DIRECT, f08c47fec0942fa0 L.A.Times Crossword Corner: Friday, August 17, 2018, Paul Coulter

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Aug 17, 2018

Friday, August 17, 2018, Paul Coulter

Title: Breaking out the creatures.

PC makes a rapid return with this very creative 'reorganize the word' theme. As an added bonus each separation results in a living being.  The themers are set out in a pinwheel pattern, with wonderful consistency, as 1, 3 and 5 have an animal appear with 2 and 4 revealing bugs. Really well done. This is not an easy solve, but if you remembered the people in AVATAR are called NA'VI the whole puzzle falls in place. We have had many puzzles where the reveal was dependent on reparsing a word, but I do not recall one like this one. The hard part, of course, is that the clue does not inform as to the fill directly. The fill is just the pieces that together make a real word. The challenge of the concept left little room for much long fill, but we do get AMASSES  ROSEATE ROUTINE SMOTHER and TRISECT.

17A. Alien reptile in "Avatar"?: NA'VI  GATOR.(9). NAVIGATOR. This word is derived from the identical Latin word Navigator. Na'vi came from the mind of James Cameron; I loved the MOVIE. You think Cameron was thinking about the Navy?

42A. Pest that's gotten into the cheese?: BRIE  FLY (7). BRIEFLY. Brie was named from where it was first made; briefly from the Latin BREVE, which also gave us brevity. 

68A. Long-eared mascot of an L.A. newspaper?: TIMES  HARE (9). TIMESHARE. I love this CSO to the publisher, though I doubt a rabbit is the mascot of the paper. Most have decided timeshare is a waste of money, but the business still thrives.

11D. Tiny insect that casts spells?: COVEN  ANT (8). COVENANT. They both derive from the Latin word "convenire", which is a contraction of "com venire" or "come together". The words convene (to come together at an appointed place and time) and convent (a home for nuns) also have the same root. various. I love the imagery of some ants getting together inside a pentagram. 

41D. One of a group of feline predators?: GANG  LION (8). GANGLION.  Another wonderful mental picture of lions wearing leather and tats hanging out by their hogs.  It all has nothing to do with a structure containing a number of nerve cell bodies, typically linked by synapses, and often forming a swelling on a nerve fiber. I have a ganglion cyst on my shoulder. Oo plays with it and considers it her 'toy.'

On that bizarre note on to the solving. 

Across:

1. Amendment dealing with states' rights: TENTH. "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." No politics.

6. Hobby shop buy: KIT. A CSO to former hobby shop impresario and longtime Corner fixture DENNIS.

9. Longtime Wall Street name: SACHS. Goldman Sachs is major and controversial diversified investment company which was led by founder Marcus Goldman and his son-in-law SAMUEL SACHS. No politics.

14. Spanish month: ENERO. January.

15. Draft pick: IPA. Not a sports clue, but draft beer and India Pale Ale.

16. Outfielder Mike who finished first (twice) or second (three times) in 2012-2016 A.L. MVP voting: TROUT. This excellent PLAYER is not related to one of my favorite Detroit Tiger players of the past Dizzy Trout.

19. Snake, e.g.: RIVER. This water often winds its way into a grid.

20. Racks up: AMASSES.

21. Corpulent: OBESE. Or perhaps - fat, overweight, plump, portly, stout, chubby, paunchy, beer-bellied, heavy, bulky, chunky, well upholstered, well padded, well covered, meaty, fleshy, rotund, broad in the beam, tubby, pudgy, beefy, porky, roly-poly, blubbery, corn-fed. Cruel or not?

23. Connecting point: NODE.

24. "Bad Moon Rising" band, initially: CCRCredence Clearwater Revival.
                                       https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BmEGm-mraE

26. First of a series: OPENER.

29. Small amount: TRACE. Made famous by CSI.

31. Worked the soil: HOED. Be careful there Mr. Imus.

33. Shopper stopper?: SALE.  Who doesn't love a good rhyming clue?

34. TV schedule abbr.: TBA. To Be Announced.

36. Buttonhole, say: SLIT.

38. Affirmative action: NOD. Cute.

39. Bit of horseplay: GAG. For three letters, this was tricky.

44. Castilian kin: TIO. Uncle. Spanish.

45. GP gp.: AMA. American Medical Association for General Practitioners.

46. Mex. miss: SRTA. Senorita. Spanish.

47. Jr. and sr.: YRS.

49. Brass component: ZINC. Brass is a metallic alloy that is made of copper and zinc.

51. Bit of swearing: OATH.

53. Slate et al., for short: EMAGS.

57. Merchant ship flotilla: ARGOSY. 1. a large merchant ship, esp. one with a rich cargo. 2. a fleet of such ships. 3. an opulent supply or collection. Not a word I use.

59. Ring bearer: EAR. Cute misdirection.

61. Baker: OVEN. More misdirection as it is, after all,  the oven that bakes it.

62. Sprite flavor: LEMON. I knew Paul liked some of my write-ups, and it is great to be in one of his puzzles - oh it wasn't for me?

64. Stage bit: ROUTINE.

66. North African site of a 1943 conference: CAIRO. An echo of last week's WWII conferences.

70. Stun: SHOCK.

71. "We've exceeded seating capacity" sign: SRO.

72. Gauge: METER.

73. Chief Justice after Marshall: TANEY. Two very influential jurists, and members of a very exclusive group. There have only been 17 CHIEF JUSTICES compared to 45 Presidents. No politics.

74. It's big in London: BEN. Clock humor.

75. Salad green: CRESS. We have this word going back to 2008 when C.C. did all the blogging. LINK.


Down:

1. Letter?: TENANT.  This is also cute but is not a real word, as it is the landlord who has an apartment to let-  "chiefly British: to offer or grant for rent or lease let rooms."

2. Captivate: ENAMOR. Derived from the French, AMOUR. Love.

3. Area 51 locale: NEVADA. The true STORY.  Or if you prefer...

4. Cut into three equal parts: TRISECT. BI = 2. TRI = 3.

5. Keeps to oneself: HOGS.

6. Lawn gnomes, e.g.: KITSCH. Not to be confused with brownies. Infra. Kitsch is considered to be in poor taste but appreciated in an ironic or knowing way.

7. Snapchat had one in Mar. 2017: IPO. Initial Public Offering. Stock offering, actually pioneered by Goldman and Sachs, I think.

8. Poi source: TARO. Do you think a Hawaiian dish made from the fermented root of the taro, which has been baked and pounded to a paste sounds yummy?

9. Antibiotic target: STREP. Streptococcus bacteria. A nasty little guy a threat not only to your throat.

10. Crops up: ARISES.

12. Peach, e.g.: HUE. Hey you, what your hue, Hugh?

13. Orch. section: STRings.

18. Old nuclear agcy.: AEC. We had this recently.

22. __ harm: BODILY.

25. Promising: ROSEATE. Picturing the world through rose-colored glasses.

27. Wells race: ELOI. Always nice to have an excuse to post a pic of Yvette Mimieuz.


28. Make over: REDO.

30. Drops off: EBBS. And flows.

32. Brownie, in folklore: ELF. This was unknown to me. The most well-known and loved house elf in folklore is the Scottish Brownie. A brownie or broonie, also known as a brùnaidh or gruagac. The Brownie is a small male creature, between one and two feet tall, who takes up residence in a deserving family's home and is helpful. They were the precursor to Alexa and other modern household helpers. Various sources.

35. Dry gulch: ARROYO.

37. Rubber in a boot?: TYRE. Boot being British for the trunk of a car where you keep your spare "tire."

39. __ Strip: GAZA. Gaza is a densely populated strip of land that is mostly surrounded by Israel and peopled almost exclusively by Palestinians. Israel used to have a military presence but withdrew unilaterally in 2005. Gaza was part of the Ottoman Empire before it was occupied by the United Kingdom (1918–1948), Egypt (1948–1967), and then Israel, which in 1994 granted the Palestinian Authority in Gaza limited self-governance through the Oslo Accords. Since 2007, the Gaza Strip has been de facto governed by Hamas, which claims to represent the Palestinian National Authority and the Palestinian people. Various sources. No politics.

40. "The Kite Runner" boy: AMIR. A very powerful and disturbing book and movie. A must watch, but no politics.

43. "Give __ rest!": IT A.

48. Overwhelm: SMOTHER.  A little daily double of mayhem, with...

50. Strong-arm: COERCE.

52. Mark of "NCIS": HARMON. When I first watched NCIS, initially it seemed like a mediocre cop show, as some have suggested. Now having watched all 15 seasons with Oo I see the skill of the writers who are putting forth a family drama, with all kinds of interesting twists and turns of personality.

54. Do the Wright thing?: AVIATE. I did not say it was not a real word, it just sounds funny to me. Now on the popular list.

55. Types: GENRES. I learned the word from watching movie reviewers.

56. Nasty smiles: SNEERS. Snidley Whiplash had my favorite sneer.

58. Idaho's __ Mountains: SMOKY. This chain is part of the Rocky Mountains and not to be confused with the Great Smoky Mountains in Tennessee.

Idaho                      Tennessee
↞                            ↠






60. Fluke-to-be: ROE. Roe is fish eggs, and Fluke is a fish.
All Fluke Are Flounder but Not All Flounder Are Fluke. Generally speaking, left-side up flounder are flukes, and right-side up flounders are called flounders.  That sounds easy enough to remember, but it gets worse.  Flukes are also called “summer flounder,” and flounder, or right-side fish, are called “winter flounder.”

63. Black-box analyzers: Abbr.: NTSBNational Transportation Safety Board.

65D. Camp Pendleton letters: USMCUnited States Marine Corps.

66. K.C. hours: CSTCentral Standard Time.

67. "Caught you!": AHA. We all have our AHA moments here, as well as ones that inspire...

69. Rage: IRE.

I hope you have all put aside any anger in your lives and felt the joy of solving another fun but challenging puzzle from Paul. There was lots going on but in the end, we came to the end. Lemonade out.


Note from C.C.:

Here are two pictures of Lemonade's lovely granddaughters Charlotte and Harper. Lemonade said, "Charlotte is in real kindergarten" now. Click here for more. 

 

 

53 comments:

  1. A SenioR Teaching Assistant had a dilemma.
    In Spanish he couldn't tell TIO from tia!
    Walking in ENERO
    He fell in an ARROYO,
    But was rescued by a comely SenoRiTA!

    The TENANT COVENANT at the TIMESHARE
    Taxed the GANGLION under anyone's hair!
    To employ a lawyer
    As a NAVIGATOR
    Would help to BRIEFLY come up for air!

    A miss AMASSES coin in NEVADA.
    The casinos are a ROSEATE Nirvana.
    She can get tips galore
    On the gaming room floor,
    Or BODILY in a brothel if she had'a!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hello Puzzlers -

    I’d say this is a high-quality project from Paul. A bit tricky in spots - I had trouble in that little room from gag down to argosy. Despite having read and enjoyed The Kite Runner, I tend to have trouble remembering the boy’s name. Argosy is a word I’ve encountered only one place I can think of, and that’s in the book Airport. The transatlantic Boeing at the center of the story was named The Golden Argosy. I sure didn’t know the word could be applied to a fleet as well as a single ship.

    Morning Lemon, them’s cute grandkids.

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  3. Good FGIF! My typo is so meaningful, I am going to copy-write it. It means ("ForGot" It's Friday).

    Thank you Mr. Paul Coulter for this difficult CW. I am pausing sans my first pass to marvel at the north cells which are so white. My only fill is 8 D TARO. Wish me good WAGing and P & P.
    - - On the NE I BAILed at 9, and 19A/10D. I was able to go on at that point. I BAILed at the Natick of 44A TIO, and 27 D ELOI. Neither word meant anything to me. My last BAIL was at 53A EMAGS and 55D GENRES. I could not see the "G". I was able to complete the CW.

    Thank you Lemonade for you informative review with many synonyms for 21A.

    21A - Corpulent: OBESE. I resemble that remark.

    We have had the first death of our residents since I came to Hoskinson house. He sat at my table in the dinning room. His obit is like him, short and sweet. It follows:

    William E. Smith, Jr.

    Louisville

    90, 15-Aug

    Our Matriarch resident, Edith, has lived here 14 years, ind is 98. I wonder how many people have died here in that time.?

    Ðave

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  4. Good Morning, Lemonade and friends. Youch! This was a true toughie.

    Lots of fun misdirections, though. I especially liked Baker = OVEN and Rubber in a Boot = TRYE.

    I confidently wrote in Gem for Peach, since that appeared in a puzzle earlier this week. Oh, today we are looking at its HUE.

    I liked the crossing of IPA and IPO.

    I knew that Slate was an E-MAG.

    There was an ARGOSY Casino in Louisiana. I think it is under a different name. It certainly didn't look all that attractive.

    Roger B. TANEY was the 5th Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and he served on the Court from 1836 until his death in October 1864. He is primarily remembered for delivering the majority opinion in the Dred Scott case

    QOD: He’s the kind of man a woman would have to marry to get rid of. ~ Mae West (Aug. 17, 1893 ~ Nov. 22, 1980)

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  5. Good morning!

    The southwest did me in this morning. No excuse. Just a solid DNF. ARGOSY, CAIRO and TANEY were the cause. SHOCKing! Paul, you banished me to the abasement this morning, but thanks just the same. Cute grandkids, Lemon. You can really tell they're sisters.

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  6. Thanks Lemonade for a very insightful review. I love learning the roots of words. The photos of your granddaughters are very cute. My granddaughter Adeline, whom we all call Addie, was going to be a Charlotte, until the moment my daughter-in-law saw her and decided she just didn't look like one. Maybe Addie will have a little sister named Charlotte some day. Owen, go stand in the corner for your final stanza. Very naughty, which is why it made me laugh.

    This puzzle happened when I noticed the word Navigator in my morning paper. To a contructor's mind, this suggested Navi gator, a croc on Pandora. Okay, I thought, what else works this way? Ganglion came quickly, since I taught anatomy for many years. I also knew there are many words ending with ANT that would work. In building a crossword, you do the hard theme answers first, then match lengths with the easy ones. A 7 letter one often works in the middle, so I searched for ????FLY and came up with briefly. That left the final longer one. Mind you, it couldn't be something obvious like clotheshorse that doesn't really change the animal. It changes the sense, and you could do others like roadhog, cashcow, jailbird, etc. - that's a theme I've seen many times - but not the basic word unit. So I searched a list of animals, and saw that hare could become share. I like the image of a long-eared newspaper mascot. By the way, constructors are often either praised or criticized for particular clues. About half the time, it's the editor responsible. They often change clues, or titles (if that syndication uses them.) They do work with us on theme answers, and they quite often improve the fill, after consultation.

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  7. Good Morning:

    My entire post just disappeared while I was typing. What's that all about, my techie friends? Anyway, onward and upward. This was a toughie (31:30) for me, partly because of holding onto HMO far too long and stumbling around with Enrapt>Endear>Enamor. For a short, three-letter word, Gag was very slow to register, as Lemony said. The only w/o was Staph/Strep and the only unknown was Navigator, as I didn't see "Avatar". Nice CSOs to dear Argyle and Dennis at USMC and Lemony at Lemon, sans ade! I, too, like the IPA/IPO crossing. My favorite themer was Pest that's gotten into the cheese=Brie Fly. Too funny!

    Thanks, Paul, for a challenging Friday workout and for dropping by and thanks Lemony for the witty and wise write-up. Charlotte and Harper are adorable little girls; thanks for keeping us updated on their progress.

    Dave, I'm sorry for the loss of your table mate.

    My doctor's visit yesterday went well, although my BP was a little high. I blame that on the torture I endured in the waiting room, listening to a woman's cell phone conversation for 20 minutes, non-stop. It didn't help that the woman sitting next to me kept muttering under her breath, "Shut up, shut up." The cell phone culprit had a little boy with her who, based on her conversation, she was baby sitting. She informed whomever she was talking to that he wanted (and got) what he told her was a healthy breakfast of ice cream and watermelon. I'm still shaking my head.

    Have a great day.

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  8. Difficulty with vIpER instead of RIVER, GENera for GENRES.

    Have seen ARGOSY as a name but never checked what it meant.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Ice cream and watermelon- not a bad idea. Sounds like an US Mary Poppins.

    PC, thank you for stopping by and letting us in on your process. I have a grand-niece (or is it great-niece) Adelaide .

    Dave 2, I have lived at this 55 and older condo for about 10 years and I know the feeling of loss. This year two of 90+ friends who were regulars at the pool have moved on to the great condo in the sky.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Good morning everyone.

    BZ to Lemonade for explaining how the theme works. I figured it out while solving, but I would feel hapless in trying to explain it to someone else; how to approach it.

    A very fine puzzle as others have said. Many good but solid misdirections such as the Snake RIVER. SMOKY was a learning; The author seems to be in Idaho this morning. FIR w/o lookups or erasures. A fine puzzle.
    CAIRO - I think FDR met there before flying on to the Tehran conference but ICBW.
    BRIE - I love a good creamy Brie. Some of the best I've had was at a company cafeteria in Radisson, QUE as a guest of Hydro-Quebec at their James Bay La Grande complex.
    ARGOSY - Got it but I've probably seen it once in my life. Never actually heard it used. I was thinking 'convoy' at first. In the Navy I took a Convoying course and ARGOSY was not used. A group of ships owned by a shipping company like Maersk would perhaps be called a 'Line'. (I always liked the German word "Reederei" for this.)
    KITSCH - From the German (southern dialects)

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  11. Spitz, you are not wrong. Tehran was next.
    The Tehran Conference (codenamed Eureka) was a strategy meeting of Joseph Stalin, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill from 28 November to 1 December 1943, after the Anglo-Soviet Invasion of Iran. It was held in the Soviet Union's embassy in Tehran, Iran. MAN IN THE MIDDLE

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  12. TGIF! This was a workout. Thanks for the fun Paul (great to have you drop in and give us some background info on the CW) and Lemonade (lovely photos of the grands).

    Several ink blots and a couple of visits to Google today. NW was the last to fall.
    Theme construction was fabulous especially BRIE FLY, I was looking for a mouse in the cheese.
    Smiled at the TYRE cluing.

    Interesting to have NODE and GANGLION.
    I toyed with oat for the bit of horseplay but GAG fit the play idea better.
    BONE yesterday, Peach HUE today.

    My lawn gnome lives in the garden and is called ELFie. He is not KITSCH but a family heirloom passed down from my parent's garden. Several generations of children have loved him.

    Lucina, does the ARROYO have to have SECO to be considered dry?
    I'll claim Canadian disadvantage for the TENTH amendment, TANEY, and even NEVADA as clued.

    Dave, Sorry for the loss of your table mate.

    Enjoy the day.

    ReplyDelete
  13. DNF,

    I was sure it was convoy. (argosy?)
    arroyo's "Y" made it look like convoy,
    no other perpage. Rats!

    And it did not help that I read the clue too quickly for WWII
    conference site, and put Yalta...

    This one looks like a fun puzzle to find silly theme pics for,
    but it is harder to do than it looks.

    Gang of lions? Cute, but not silly...

    Silly, but possibly inappropriate?

    Busy day, and I have no time to do it right.
    So can any of you find silly theme pics for me?

    Like an ant doing witchcraft maybe?

    this is all I've got so far.

    Got to go walk the dog!

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  14. Hi everybody.

    Charlotte and Harper - Very cute!

    I thought this puzzle was tricky, clever, hard, doable, enjoyable; one of the best in recent times IMO. Thanks Paul and Lemon.

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  15. A Friday toughie for me, but a delightful one, and having you check in with us, Paul, makes it a special treat. Many thanks! I worked hard to get as much as I could and wish I were a little braver. I had both KIT and SACHS right away, but feared they weren't right and erased them until they came back much later. I would never have gotten that Snake RIVER; couldn't let go of an animal word as the answer. But there were lots of words that fell in right away--TIO and SRTA and OATH and EAR (Ring bearer made me laugh as the clue for that one). TRISECT and ARROYO and LEMON came quickly too. Anyway, a lot of fun, but I didn't see all the animals until your write-up, Paul. And Lemonade, you gave us a real delight this morning with all your witty comments. And the pictures of those sweet grand-daughters, gave us a perfect ending, C.C.

    Irish Miss, I found your doctor's visit account a real hoot--though I can understand why it didn't feel like that at the time.

    Dave, so sorry to hear about the first loss you encountered in your new home. Oh dear, to think there will be others to come. But sadly, that's life. I have family photos all over my refrigerator and realized the other day that so many of them were gone. I guess the important thing is to celebrate and be thankful for their lives.

    Have a good weekend coming up, everybody.

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  16. Wow. What a creative puzzle and theme! Hand up for my appreciation! Hand up this was a challenge to solve. Only a few total unknowns like TANEY, HARMON and AMIR. But the clues were oh, so clever. I instantly knew that BOOT meant an English trunk. But slow to figure out how RUBBER fit in. Wondered if it involved someone rubbing. Laughed when I got TYRE.

    Hand up with billocohoes had VIPER before RIVER. Quite a clever clue!

    And so many learning moments worth remembering! CAIRO, TANEY, ARGOSY, ROSEATE, SMOKY. I have been to the Tennessee SMOKY Mountains and have travelled through Idaho. Missed their SMOKY Mountains.

    My friend Gerry Ching led us on this off-trail hike in the Santa Ynez RIVER bed. It is really an ARROYO or else we could not be there!

    Here is my article on our Fiesta OPENER. Many a lovely SRTA!

    Here is Tom Lehrer's musical take on how the USMC is used all too often. Don't click unless you are OK with biting satire.

    How many people have heard Bad Moon Rising by CCR and thought they heard different words than "There's a bad moon on the rise?"

    I have family photos at the WRIGHT Brothers National Memorial at Kill Devil Hills, NC. Perhaps another time.

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  17. From yesterday:
    Mike Sherline: Glad you also appreciated the prescience of my VERNE post the day before!

    And thank you for your appreciation of my photos. And of the time needed to document everything. Every set has a title explaining when and where the set was taken.

    OwenKL: Thanks for the clarification about VERNE and captions. My posts can take an hour or more to create. Finding the relevant photos, editing them and posting them. The relevant bits are always explained and noted. Captioning the other bits is beyond my time boundaries for this project. But thanks for your interest!

    I am always happy to explain any specific photos or details on request!

    ReplyDelete
  18. Surprisingly, FIR!

    Did not see NA'VI in NAVIGATOR, but got the theme at BRIE-FLY. Still had to work for the answers.

    ARMADA>CONVOY>ARGOSY. VIPER>RIVER.

    My wife was offended when a doctor said I was obese; I knew it wasn't cruel, but a precise medical term.

    HARMON, TANEY, and SACHS were WAGs.

    Took a while to make the connection between boot and TYRE.

    Always need perps to decide between AHA and OHO. (I don't use either.)

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  19. Lemonade: I almost forgot to say thanks for your extensive review.

    D4E4H: I am sorry to learn of the death of your housemate. It is a down side of living in assisted living. But I hope you are getting many benefits of living there, too. It is a luxury out of reach of many, unfortunately.

    Lemonade, D4E4H and Roy: Your comments about OBESE inspired me to dig out some more photos.

    Here are my photos of Weird Al Yankovic performing "I'm Fat" which is his take on OBESE. And a parody of Michael Jackson's "I'm Bad"

    Here is a music video of the same OBESE take with over 45 million hits.

    OBESE is big.

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  20. Good afternoon, folks. Thank you, Paul Coulter, for a fine puzzle. Thank you, Lemonade, for a fine review.

    Puzzle was tough. Theme appeared with TIMESHARE.

    Many unknowns that were helped with perps and wags: TROUT, ARGOSY, TANEY, NEVADA, ROSEATE.

    A friend and co-worker of mine died in a flash flood in an ARROYO many years ago in Arizona. Was in his pickup truck and the water hit him as he was driving across.

    On my way to Indianapolis for our Drill competition tomorrow. I will look for fermatprime’s friend Harvey.

    See you tomorrow.

    Abejo

    ( )

    ReplyDelete
  21. Musings
    -NAVIGATOR made no sense but it had to be and the other themers were fun
    -Thanks for the visit, Paul!
    -Politicians that come to D.C. as paupers and AMASS fortunes disgust me
    -Obesity has spawned the sale of these
    -How many big-time bands can you think of where personal issues split up the group like they did CCR?
    -SALE at auto dealers? Does anyone pay the MSRP?
    -I first thought of buttonhole as GRAB
    -Me? Water 95% of the time, SPRITE 5%
    -The county fair kept selling tix @$12 for demo derby even when they told people it was SRO
    -I remember TRISECTING angles in H.S. geometry using a compass
    -Did ___ harm ring this bell for anyone else?
    -Nice job and pix, Lemon

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  22. Cross-Eyed Dave - Your photos are terrific. I really got a kick out of the turtles riding gators and the cute gang of lions.

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  23. Husker Gary....I thought that one cannot trisect an angle, only bisect.

    Also....bands breaking up due to personnel issues.....wouldn’t that be just about all of them? Beatles, Supremes, Eagles....

    Anyhow, this was a crunchy Friday with lots of misleading clues, and still fun. Happy as always to get the solve.

    And on to Saturday.

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  24. Ouch! The NE was hard! Thank you, Paul Coulter, for a unique challenge and for your analysis of how it originated.

    Of course, I loved all the Spanish: ENERO, SRTA, and ARROYO.

    I also liked the cluing for TENANT. Like to say the word, KITSCH. TYRE/boot was clever.

    In the NE, I would not give up SACKS, didn't know Mike TROUT and VIPER held me hostage. Then after erasing it all, I saw COVENIANT and STREP so finished it but not without LIU TROUT which I didn't believe.

    CSO to Dudley at AVIATE.

    I've seen ARGOSY but don't recall where. And I have been to the Great SMOKY Mountains but didn't know Idaho had them, too.

    I believe the clue for HOGS should be "keeps for oneself" instead of "to oneself." IMHO

    LEMON, CSO to you, even without the -ade and thank you for a comprehensive and illuminating analysis. Your grands are beautiful!

    Have a splendid day, everyone!

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  25. Oops. COVENANT not coveniant.

    Dave, I, too, am so sorry for your loss of a fellow resident.

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  26. CrossEyedDave: Thank you for the CCR Bad Moon Rising parody! The song is hilarious, but the graphics are a bit too... graphic!

    Yes, I had always wondered why they were singing about a Bathroom on the Right. Makes about as much sense as a Bad Moon on the Rise.

    Here is a Psychology Today article on how we mis-hear lyrics.

    Here are all the mis-heard lyrics just for that one CCR song.

    Reading these mis-heard lyrics can make me laugh out loud!

    Husker Gary: I did not know that CCR ended with a falling out among its members. Very sad. But I am grateful for all their music that is recorded and out there to enjoy!

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  27. The west was a disaster. How did I miss GAG
    And I completely missed the theme. If this xword had a title perhaps "Animal words?" .

    I said to Mr S., "I didn't know there were BRIE FLies. ". His response "Whatever".

    The kite kid was unknown . TROUT? Overrated . Of course, I'm a Mookie guy.

    WC

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  28. Oh, did I ever bomb in the SW, as did D-O. GANGLION is a word I haven't seen since my zoology courses back in '69, but there was no way to fill it due to the fact that I had CONVOY and well ARGOSY's definition of a "merchant ship flotilla' was unknown. Add three more unknowns, (TANEY, SMOKY Mountains (in Idaho?) & AMIR), and I threw in the towel.

    NAV'I-GATOR- perps on the NAV'I. Ditto for TENTH & ROSEATE. Let the lawyers worry about the Amendments. I'm only glad the 21st Amendment passed. Pass the booze.

    TYRE, the rubber in a boot fill was easy. A good friend had her TESLA delivered this week. She said there's a trunk in the back and a 'frunk' in the front. My wife laughed because she the friend had no need for luggage. When I asked if her husband still had his Porsche 911, she said yes AND his Ferrari also. If you can't be rich, it's nice to have rich friends.

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  29. CED, notice how the lions are gathered in a circle to conserve heat and keep each other warm. You are having a great day picking pics. The alligator/turtles was surprising. Trout overrated? He is the most consistent ball player for the past 6 years. While Mookie is having a career year, he has only one prior .300 season. Mike 5 out of 7 years.

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  30. Hey Gary, I always enjoyed geometric constructions. I think you have misremembered about trisecting an angle though...

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  31. - - Thanks for your condolences. I happened to be handy when a son came today retrieve some of Bill's belongings. We talked one on one and I found out that Bill had multiple internal issues. His body simply shut down. We had celebrated his 90th birthday several weeks ago.

    Ðave

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  32. It concerns construction of an angle equal to one third of a given arbitrary angle, using only two tools: an unmarked straightedge and a compass. ... However, although there is no way to trisect an angle in general with just a compass and a straightedge, some special angles can be trisected.

    ACCORDING TO WIKI

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  33. This was both nasty & fun from Mr. Coulter. I had a difficult time, but appreciated the smart cluing. I almost did the whole thing on my own, but finally had to look up a baseball reference (TROUT) to break into that NE corner.

    Dave ~ Condolences on the loss of your housemate. Every death takes something essential from us. I have a funeral to attend tomorrow for one of my longest friends, a woman I have known since 1964. She was once part of our campy music-hall act - the "Hack Family Singers, the oldest living vaudeville routine on the planet."
    Those were the days ....

    ~ OMK

    ____________
    Diagonal Report:
    One mirror line. No hidden messages.

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  34. Hi Y'all! Neato puzzle, Paul and thanks for stopping by. I had the GATOR & FLY before backing into the NAVI & BRIE with perps. Got a good chuckle. Only remembered the NA'VI after it was filled. But I got the theme and liked it.

    Thanks for the informative expo & cute pictures, Lemony. You asked: OBESE synonyms "cruel or not?" OBESity is cruel to the person who has to pack around the pounds. The words are just annoying.

    GP gp? = AMA: couldn't come up with General Practitioners though I went to them most of my life. Grade Point popped up and got in the way.

    Did not know: TROUT, ARGOSY, TANEY, AMIR, Slate = EMAG. Tins before ZINC in Brass = learning moment. Promising = ROSEATE had to LIU after filling to believe it. Noted that TROUT & KIT were also animals.

    SMOKY Mountains in Idaho? I was a passenger through Idaho twice with an Atlas on my lap researching what we were seeing and didn't see any SMOKY Mts. on the maps. Went back to that atlas just now and still don't see them. SNAKE River is another matter. I still have nightmares about a four-lane highway where my husband was driving 90 mph neck-and-neck with a trucker with his reckless-sounding name painted on the door. We were going down this steep grade with the SNAKE River Gorge at the bottom where you had to make a right hand curve along the Gorge. I thought we were going to die. The SNAKE Gorge looks like the entrance to hell. I kid you not.

    D4: Sorry about your table mate. Almost not worth it to make new old friends, I told my SIL.

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  35. I did get/understand NAVIGATOR. Maybe 'cause that's the last movie I saw in a theater. I don't get out much..

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  36. Hi All!

    Almost but not quite... TBD was in my @34a TV Guide.

    Thanks Paul for a clever puzzle. I finally grog'd the theme at TIMES HARE and then NAVI GATOR made sense and gave me confidence to enter ANT and LION and back-think the word-play. BREI FLY was filled w/ only B & Y. Thanks for stopping by the corner with your 'theme-seed' and process.

    Thanks Lem for the expo and Latin ent|etymology. Fun CSO @62a for you.
    Boy, those darling girls are growing up.

    WOs: NRC b/f AEC, toE b/f EAR, err b/f ROE.
    ESPs + copious WAGs: ARGOSY, dRROYO(?), TANEY, HUE/TROUT as clue'd.

    Fav: Lots to pick from just due to misdirection/clue-puns c/as: NOD, TYRE, ROE, AVIATOR. HUE, however, was just mean :-)
    TROUT over RIVER, clue'd as neither that belong together, is #Bonus!

    {B, A-, A}

    D4 - sorry to hear about your table mate. Losing those even tangential to one can be hard. Your friends are here. You too OMK.

    Wait, what? Picard; a Weird Al fan? Really? Tanya - did you read that? There's more of us!
    The article on misheard lyrics cracked me up. One, I always read the liner notes and two, This was total embarrassment :-) [Vacant Lot - Blinded by the Light 3:52]

    HG - Um, The Beatles? :-) To your other question... I really thought 'bout stretching out DO NOoo Harm...

    For completeness: The Boss' Blinded by the Light [performed by Manford Mann's Earth Band 7:18]

    Cheers, -T

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  37. Dave, sorry about your mate. USMC has me recall a mate whom I was talking to at 1pm on the Saturday of the second week of OCS. A grueling week since we were new .

    He died of meningitis that night . We were quarantined for a week

    WC

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  38. It is actually MANFRED Mann

    Blinded by the Light

    Manfred Mann

    Blinded by the light
    Revved up like a deuce
    Another runner in the night
    Blinded by the light
    Revved up like a deuce
    Another runner in the night
    Blinded by the light
    Revved up like a deuce
    Madman drummers bummers
    Indians in the summer
    With a teenage diplomat
    In the dumps with the mumps
    As the adolescent pumps
    His way into his hat
    With a boulder on my shoulder
    Feelin' kinda older
    I tripped the merry-go-round...

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  39. Lem - Man'Ford' wan't my only typo; look at my BRIE transposed too :-)

    Where Manfred Mann when off-lyric was the

    Mamma always told me not to look into the eye of the sun
    But Mamma
    That's where the fun is...

    bit. Those are not in Springsteen's lyrics. Google 'blinded by the light lyrics' and don't click links; just read what Google gives.

    Cheers, -T

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  40. I liked this puzzle and got lots of pleasure grokking the theme.

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  41. It may be I misremembered the trisection idea but it got me to do some fun research on compass constructions and woke up some old brain muscles.

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  42. Today's episode of "As the Stomach Turns.":

    - - This afternoon the President of Wesley Manor, Jerry, caught me in my room, and passed on an accusation of a female resident that I had "exposed myself to her". Naturally he would not reveal her name, and when I assured him that I would never do such a thing, he concluded the conversation with "This is just between you and me."
    - - I immediately went to my trusted neighbor across the street (hall), Martha Ann, who is in a hand full of women with whom I have been seen talking, who he assured me were not "the woman", and after careful reflection she suspects the Matriarch.
    - - I wear shorts, and one day said Ma, who lives next to me, closer to the corner, stopped in the hall announcing to Martha that she could not follow me.
    - - At dinner I had a new pastime as they filed past the steam table. "Is it you?"

    Ðave

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  43. T. I thought you were conjuring up this classic Passover breakfast MATZO BREI not misremembering BRIE.

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  44. Dave 2, are you hanging out at the food court?

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  45. Lemonade714 at 9:13 PM
    - - Wrote "Dave 2, are you hanging out at the food court?" - - We eat in the "Dining room". There are 14 tables called to the steam table in a rotating order. This helps control the plethera of walkers, and Rollators. I hang out there 3 times a day. A good breakfast group is 13, but lunch and supper draw all 42 residences. Aides carry the plates to the table for the eaters.

    Ðave

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  46. D4: How old is this supposed voyeur? Can she even see well enough to tell what you are doing? Maybe it was wishful thinking. Or maybe she was watching you when she shouldn't have.

    I looked at a second atlas I have with bigger print. No Smoky Mountains in Idaho. I finally found in Wikipedia that they are called that because of all the forest fires there. They are tucked into an area between the Bitterroot, Boulder, Pioneer & Soldier Ranges.

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  47. Lemonade: Er...is there an innuendo meaning to D4 in "Are you hanging out at the food court?"

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  48. Only because it's so late do I bore you with the tale of woe to follow:

    IM, I generally compose"outside the box" in my case(using a smartphone) as a text to myself which I copy and paste to the box and then preview.

    My problem had been the profile button but composing (using Android Chrome) meant correcting jibberish*.

    I never got the "theme". The ? was supposed to have clued me. But no excuse for missing GAG. Ironically, I've been wrestling with a NYT with the same idea.
    On top of everything, I was solving at McDonald's per usual, and managed to get my expensive glasses mixed up with the newspaper which I tossed and the trash got emptied.

    I was trying to get the manager to help but when he realized I was a one drink "sitter" he lost enthusiasm.

    Fortunately, I have a replacement pair on the way. I need my reading glasses to do xword work.

    Dave, if nothing else this business will spice things up. Take notes and write a book. Btw, "groups" tend to spawn that kind of fabrication as I know first-hand

    WC

    * The Jumble blog has less jibberish

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  49. Talk about your misheard lyrics...

    I was just reading the tributes to Aretha in the paper - it's not R.E.S.E.C.P.T.!

    //dyslexics untie!

    Cheers, -T
    tongue firmly planted in cheek :-)

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  50. PK, double entendre is in the ears of the listener. The rest is up to you, and you and you. I do think the steam table is like a food court. I am just glad Dave 2 has a safe place to play.

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