Theme: Book 'em, Steve-o! Miscreants to be tracked down and dealt with.
20A. The blacksmith was busted for __: FORGING CHECKS. Have you seen the "Forged in Fire" show on the History Channel? They create some badass weapons each week. The producer came up with the idea after being "forced" to watch cooking shows like "Chopped" by his 14-yo daughter.
26A. The miner was busted for __: PICKING POCKETS
42A. The marathoner was busted for __: RUNNING NUMBERS
50A. The barber was busted for __: SHAVING POINTS
and a "bonus" unifier:
53D. Blacksmith, miner, marathoner or barber, in this puzzle: PERP
Morning! I tend to associate puzzles like this with the late Merl Reagle - he was extremely fond of the punning theme. Ed's done a nice job with the theme entries, nothing is forced, and there's also a couple of non-theme 10's in the across entries for good measure. The theme entries tie together well, and there's that "bonus" PERP cropping up late in the downs.
When you create a puzzle with a lot of theme squares, you can leave yourself a problem with the rest of the fill. Ed's done a pretty good job for the most part, but there are some clunkers which I didn't love.
Let's see what pops:
Across:
1. Lacks options: HAS TO
6. Passion: FIRE
10. Asian holidays: TETS
14. When Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are last seen in "Hamlet": ACT IV. They died at the hands of pirates, according to Hamlet.
15. Super-large film format: IMAX
16. Tons: A LOT
17. Give some space: LEAVE ALONE
19. Filmmaker Wertmüller: LINA. Who? She was the first woman nominated for "Best Director" Oscar back in 1975.
22. Chow line?: ARF. Woof. A "line" a chow (hound) might use.
24. Clamor: DIN
25. Pistons great Thomas: ISIAH
31. Pattern for some school uniforms: PLAID
32. French peak: ALPE. The Alpe d'Huez is a famous, grueling climb which makes a frequent appearance in the Tour de France stage race, including this year's route. The crowds of spectators can be more of a challenge than the hill itself.
33. Toxin fighters: SERA
34. Dogpatch name: ABNER. Looks a little racy for the time:
36. Some: A FEW
40. Desertlike: ARID
41. Jane Curtin title role: ALLIE. Kate's mutual support cohort in the 80's sitcom.
47. Confuse with booze: BESOT. One of those verbs you rarely see, if ever. The adjective is more common, but nothing to do with booze: "I was besotted by ..."
48. Vein find: ORE. I think I've seen ORE in every Thursday puzzle for the last couple of months.
49. Word with bar or suit: WET
55. "I hate the Moor" speaker: IAGO. Shakespeare's "Othello".
56. Creates opportunities: OPENS DOORS
59. Piano piece for four hands: DUET
60. "Love Song" singer Bareilles: SARA. Who? Oh - this song!
61. China's Zhou __: EN LAI
62. Alternatively: ELSE
63. Cheribundi Tart Cherry Boca Raton Bowl airer: ESPN. Now that's a proud moment for the players! Rose Bowl? Pah! Set your clocks for December 18th this year. Where would you rather be, let's face it!
64. Real cards: RIOTS
Down:
1. "I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that" speaker: HAL. "2001: A Space Odyssey" The mischievous computer, the primary antagonist. HAL 9000 for completeness. If you tick up one letter of the alphabet, HAL becomes IBM. Coincidence?
2. Big heart?: ACE
3. Military wheels: STAFF CAR
4. Watch-when-you-want gadget: TIVO. Is Tivo a thing any more? I thought cable boxes come with DVR built in.
5. Went too far with: OVERDID
6. Taxpayer's chore: FILING
7. "That's my cue!": I'M ON
8. Gave a buzz: RANG
9. Office VIP: EXEC
10. "The Voyeur's Motel" writer Gay: TALESE.
11. Evoke: ELICIT
12. Some small trucks: TONKAS. "Small" is relative. They're big toys to little kids!
13. Secret store: STASH
18. Not fer: AGIN. There's more, further down.
21. Walk in the woods: HIKE. Ignore the movie (usually good advice) - try the book.
22. iPhone downloads: APPS
23. Agitate: RILE
27. Soul supplier: KIA.
28. Pampers maker, for short: P AND G. Procter and Gamble. Not the easiest letter progression to parse.
29. World Cup cheer: OLÉ! I think it might be time to retire this one. I watched almost every minute of the 2018 World Cup and my recollection count of "olés" is nil.
30. EMT's skill: CPR
34. MSNBC journalist Melber: ARI. Thank you, crosses.
35. Compost holder: BIN
36. Clerical vestment: ALB. Three letters. Fill it in and move on.
37. Had no co-pilot: FLEW SOLO
38. Joyce's land: ÉIRE. Not really. Joyce left Ireland in 1912, never to return. Éire wasn't adopted as the official name of the free state until 1937 under Éamon de Valera. Confused?
39. Old place?: WEST
40. Not for: ANTI. Brother of AGIN in 18D
41. One changing a bill: AMENDER. Yeah. No. Clunk.
42. Move again, as lumber: RE-HAUL. Yeah, No. Clunk. One-two punch of "really?" for me here.
43. Linguist's concerns: USAGES
44. Dissenting ballot: "NO" VOTE. I say Nay Nay! Enough!
45. Presidential speechwriter Peggy: NOONAN. She wrote some remarkable speeches for Reagan and Bush 41. She was inspired in one case by John Gillespie Magee Jr's poem "High Flight" which he wrote while he was a fighter pilot with the Royal Canadian Air Force in WWII. He completed the verses a few weeks before his death in 1941:
46. "Mila 18" novelist: URIS
47. Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive" was one: B-SIDE. Beloved of karaoke bars everywhere.
51. Odor detector: NOSE
52. Students' stats: GPA'S
54. "Beloved" author Morrison: TONI
57. Squeal: RAT
58. Part of the fam: SIS. Could be BRO or SIB, so wait for the crosses.
Pip, Pip!
Steve
20A. The blacksmith was busted for __: FORGING CHECKS. Have you seen the "Forged in Fire" show on the History Channel? They create some badass weapons each week. The producer came up with the idea after being "forced" to watch cooking shows like "Chopped" by his 14-yo daughter.
26A. The miner was busted for __: PICKING POCKETS
42A. The marathoner was busted for __: RUNNING NUMBERS
50A. The barber was busted for __: SHAVING POINTS
and a "bonus" unifier:
53D. Blacksmith, miner, marathoner or barber, in this puzzle: PERP
Morning! I tend to associate puzzles like this with the late Merl Reagle - he was extremely fond of the punning theme. Ed's done a nice job with the theme entries, nothing is forced, and there's also a couple of non-theme 10's in the across entries for good measure. The theme entries tie together well, and there's that "bonus" PERP cropping up late in the downs.
When you create a puzzle with a lot of theme squares, you can leave yourself a problem with the rest of the fill. Ed's done a pretty good job for the most part, but there are some clunkers which I didn't love.
Let's see what pops:
Across:
1. Lacks options: HAS TO
6. Passion: FIRE
10. Asian holidays: TETS
14. When Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are last seen in "Hamlet": ACT IV. They died at the hands of pirates, according to Hamlet.
15. Super-large film format: IMAX
16. Tons: A LOT
17. Give some space: LEAVE ALONE
19. Filmmaker Wertmüller: LINA. Who? She was the first woman nominated for "Best Director" Oscar back in 1975.
22. Chow line?: ARF. Woof. A "line" a chow (hound) might use.
24. Clamor: DIN
25. Pistons great Thomas: ISIAH
31. Pattern for some school uniforms: PLAID
32. French peak: ALPE. The Alpe d'Huez is a famous, grueling climb which makes a frequent appearance in the Tour de France stage race, including this year's route. The crowds of spectators can be more of a challenge than the hill itself.
33. Toxin fighters: SERA
34. Dogpatch name: ABNER. Looks a little racy for the time:
36. Some: A FEW
40. Desertlike: ARID
41. Jane Curtin title role: ALLIE. Kate's mutual support cohort in the 80's sitcom.
47. Confuse with booze: BESOT. One of those verbs you rarely see, if ever. The adjective is more common, but nothing to do with booze: "I was besotted by ..."
48. Vein find: ORE. I think I've seen ORE in every Thursday puzzle for the last couple of months.
49. Word with bar or suit: WET
55. "I hate the Moor" speaker: IAGO. Shakespeare's "Othello".
56. Creates opportunities: OPENS DOORS
59. Piano piece for four hands: DUET
60. "Love Song" singer Bareilles: SARA. Who? Oh - this song!
61. China's Zhou __: EN LAI
62. Alternatively: ELSE
63. Cheribundi Tart Cherry Boca Raton Bowl airer: ESPN. Now that's a proud moment for the players! Rose Bowl? Pah! Set your clocks for December 18th this year. Where would you rather be, let's face it!
64. Real cards: RIOTS
Down:
1. "I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that" speaker: HAL. "2001: A Space Odyssey" The mischievous computer, the primary antagonist. HAL 9000 for completeness. If you tick up one letter of the alphabet, HAL becomes IBM. Coincidence?
2. Big heart?: ACE
3. Military wheels: STAFF CAR
4. Watch-when-you-want gadget: TIVO. Is Tivo a thing any more? I thought cable boxes come with DVR built in.
5. Went too far with: OVERDID
6. Taxpayer's chore: FILING
7. "That's my cue!": I'M ON
8. Gave a buzz: RANG
9. Office VIP: EXEC
10. "The Voyeur's Motel" writer Gay: TALESE.
11. Evoke: ELICIT
12. Some small trucks: TONKAS. "Small" is relative. They're big toys to little kids!
13. Secret store: STASH
18. Not fer: AGIN. There's more, further down.
21. Walk in the woods: HIKE. Ignore the movie (usually good advice) - try the book.
22. iPhone downloads: APPS
23. Agitate: RILE
27. Soul supplier: KIA.
28. Pampers maker, for short: P AND G. Procter and Gamble. Not the easiest letter progression to parse.
29. World Cup cheer: OLÉ! I think it might be time to retire this one. I watched almost every minute of the 2018 World Cup and my recollection count of "olés" is nil.
30. EMT's skill: CPR
34. MSNBC journalist Melber: ARI. Thank you, crosses.
35. Compost holder: BIN
36. Clerical vestment: ALB. Three letters. Fill it in and move on.
37. Had no co-pilot: FLEW SOLO
38. Joyce's land: ÉIRE. Not really. Joyce left Ireland in 1912, never to return. Éire wasn't adopted as the official name of the free state until 1937 under Éamon de Valera. Confused?
39. Old place?: WEST
40. Not for: ANTI. Brother of AGIN in 18D
41. One changing a bill: AMENDER. Yeah. No. Clunk.
42. Move again, as lumber: RE-HAUL. Yeah, No. Clunk. One-two punch of "really?" for me here.
43. Linguist's concerns: USAGES
44. Dissenting ballot: "NO" VOTE. I say Nay Nay! Enough!
45. Presidential speechwriter Peggy: NOONAN. She wrote some remarkable speeches for Reagan and Bush 41. She was inspired in one case by John Gillespie Magee Jr's poem "High Flight" which he wrote while he was a fighter pilot with the Royal Canadian Air Force in WWII. He completed the verses a few weeks before his death in 1941:
"Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air....
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace.
Where never lark, or even eagle flew —
And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
– Put out my hand, and touched the face of God."
46. "Mila 18" novelist: URIS
47. Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive" was one: B-SIDE. Beloved of karaoke bars everywhere.
51. Odor detector: NOSE
52. Students' stats: GPA'S
54. "Beloved" author Morrison: TONI
57. Squeal: RAT
58. Part of the fam: SIS. Could be BRO or SIB, so wait for the crosses.
Pip, Pip!
Steve
55 comments:
What a great theme from one of our professional constructors. For those who do not appreciate themes, this may change your mind. After all, a CWP is not only a game but entertainment.
And educational as I never heard of Ari Melber, did not know the book Voyeur’s Motel and did not remember SARA singing.
I do know Lina Wertmuller and her WORK . She turns 90 on the 14th.
Nice to see two references to Will Shakespeare, and loved the inclusion of the poem Steve, which was heard for years at Disney World on the Wings of Man ride.
Great job Ed and Steve. Thanks for the late-night funnies T. Misty PLEASE go see another eye doctor; one who is that insensitive is not worth trusting.
The surveillance camera showed, clear in the photo,
Napoleon, from UNCLE, hijack plane and cargo.
He would LEAVE ALONE,
Buzz the villain's home --
Just to RILE him, Solo FLEW so low, SOLO!
A LOT may be called in the DIN of a larm,
But only A FEW will leave office or farm!
To OPEN DOORS to
That pen at the zoo --
It's amazing the noise from a single Larm!
{C+, B-.}
Good morning Corner writers.
Thank you Mr. Ed Sessa for this challenging Thursday CW. My last fill was at the natick of 19 A - LINA and 10 D - TALESE. I have never heard of either. I BAILED to complete the CW in 32:04.
Thanks Steve for your educational review. Thanks for the poem "High Flight".
Ðave
Thanks Ed and Steve.
Did not think I could do this one at first pass .
Too many unknown names .
Stayed with it an managed to finish with one error ,
Did not know TALESE or LINA guessing Tina made me FIW.
Had to leave the Northwest and move clockwise around the grid to finish at the beginning.
Have a great day.
Wow, swiftly through in under 10 minutes with no mistakes. Without knowing who Toni, Ari, Sara, Lina, Isiah or Talese are. I guess I have made a lot of good guesses.
Here in Europe we do not need TiVo as we have a full archive for the last 7 days via cable.
Perfect way to watch all the old movies, which run late at night. I have almost not used Netflix, HBO or Amazon Prime in the last couple of months.
Good Morning, Steve and friends. I really had fun with today’s theme. This seemed like an easier Thursday puzzle to me.
The “B” in BESOT ways my last fill. I was a bit hesitant to write in TiVo because I, too, wondered if they were still around.
I learned that Passion is not Love but FIRE.
My sister had a Pink TONKA Surrey Jeep like this one.
I read Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods fairly recently. Having HIKEd portions of the Appalachian Trail in New England, I was interested to hear his take on that portion of the mountain range. SPOILER ALERT: Bryson wimped out before he made it to Mt. Katahdin in Maine.
My favorite clues were Bit Heart = ACE, and Old Place = WEST
QOD: When you have two alternatives, the first thing you have to do is look for the third that you didn’t think about, that didn’t exist. ~ Shimon Peres (Aug. 2, 1923 ~ Sept. 28, 2016).
Proper name 19a crossing proper name 10d gets me when they are both unknowns. Tina looked OH, Not.
Remembered Gay TALESE as a novelist (Honor Thy Father, Thy Neighbor's Wife) but I guess he's been mostly a NYT and magazine sportswriter and celebrity writer.
Steve, glad you said 1975 for LINA, I had her confused in my mind with Nazi propagandist LeNi Riefenstahl.
Are there still any more NUMBERS RUNNers, or have the daily state lotto games put them out of business? The Sting used a numbers runner as the mark in the opening scenes.
POINT SHAVING will always be a problem as long as there's betting on basketball. (It's when a player tries to hold down his team's margin of victory, because he or whoever bribed him has bet on his opponent to lose by a smaller margin than the point spread)
An idiot "inspired" by Forged in Fire burned down three blocks in my city of Cohoes NY last fall.
Like Bob and OAS I struggled with _INA, but from some nether region I pulled out the "L" for my FIR. I think I have heard of TALESE, probably from this Corner. My only erasure was daisy for ABNER.
Thanks to Ed Sessa for the Fun, if relatively easy, Thursday delight. Three favorites: ARF (of course), "Soul supplier" for KIA, and the mini-theme "Debbie Downer" with fills NO VOTE, AGIN, ANTI and NOonan. And thanks to Steve for the interesting and informative tour. I prefer the Starship version of SARA.
FLN, -T I almost choked when I read that it would probably have to be a gay wedding. I took a Pascal class at Pierce College (everyone called it PU) in the San Fernando Valley, and the teacher called the people who took care of the network and computers "hardware weenies". Until last night I assumed she just meant they were nerdy. Now I think she meant they were a bunch of beta-males.
FLN - WC, I'll bet spellchecker did you in. PROSCRIBE means to ban something, kind of opposite of PRESCRIBE. I'll bet that's not news to you.
Off to preop consult for DW. Small matter in her breast is benign, but they want it out just in case the path was a false negative. Either that or the Lexus payment is coming due.
Good morning, folks. Thank you, Ed Sessa, for a fine puzzle. Thank you, Steve, for a fine review.
Thanks to cruciverb, I finished this last night while watching Perry Mason. When cruciverb works it is great, when is does not. . . . .
Liked the theme. 53D PERP really clued me in. That helped me with the puzzle.
Got ACT for 14A easily. Just was not sure if it would be II or IV. OVERDID solved that mystery.
LINA and TALESE were unknown. TALESE with an L sounded logical, so I went with it. Lucked out again.
Dogpatch was my favorite comic strip until Al Capp died. I still remember the characters. My favorite was "Big Barn Smell" Inside man at the Skunk Works. Also Senator Phogbound. U S Senator from Dogpatch. Of course Eddie Ricketyback, Pilot for Dogpatch Airlines. I'll stop here.
KIA Soul Supplier? Not sure of that one.
Off to my day. See you tomorrow.
Abejo
( )
Good morning!
Was zipping right along until I "remembered" writing RUNNING as BURNING so NUMBERS started out as RUBBERS -- BURNING RUBBERS (what?). AMENDER showed me the error of my ways. Cute theme, Mr. Sessa. Steve, enjoyed the tour.
Thanx for the kind words about my pinch-hitting yesterday. It's fun once in a while, but I'll keep my day job, unmitigated sloth.
TIVO is having a resurgence in this age of cord-cutting. The BOLT VOX has 6 tuners, can record in 4K UHD, and can simultaneously search across live TV, DVR recordings and streaming sources. To compete with Siri/Alexa, it's voice controlled. The model with a 500GB drive starts at $200 plus $15/mo service fee. Another option is the Roamio OTA Vox at $400 with no service fee. Yeah, I've looked into cord-cutting, but so far inertia has prevailed.
Lots of struggles and lots of fun! Loved the theme and once I caught on they came easy.
Favorite was Old place for WEST, mainly because I worked at it for so long. I also loved NOSE as clued.
Thanks Ed for the challenge. Steve, you were in fine form today! Thanks!
No no no Owen!! All A’s. I’m still tripping over all those Solos with Napoleon! Too funny.
Steve: Nice write-up.
Ed: Thank you for a FUN Thursday puzzle. I really liked today's theme's.
I have been known to be BESOT at times. And it is today's fave.
(Go figure, LOL)
Cheers!
Good morning everyone.
I thought Ed made a fairly clever theme using puns, but also out of gerunds. After the second theme was entered, I prefilled the ING in the remaing slots which eased the solve. Agree with Steve about RE-HAUL. Nice to see PERP as a perp. On 14a, I wasn't sure but it looked like ACT something would fit. % slots so, ergo, II or IV. ACT IV seemed more likely.
No searches or strikethroughs were needed.
Gerund- English has a lot of inflected verbs, but with gerunds, adding ING without inflecting the root is universal. Being, going, doing, etc. (Only the final 'e' is dropped, or a final consonant is added to preserve the sound. Loving or Dropping par exemple.).
NOSE - German Nase; Dutch neus; L. German Nees or Snuut.
STAFF CAR - Once, on training duty, in the late seventies, I needed to go from the CINCLANTFLT compound to the Fleet Weather Center at the Norfolk Naval Air Station. It was Summertime so we were wearing whites. So the drill was: request a staff car. (At this time women were rapidly increasing in numbers in the Navy.). So as I got to the STAFF CAR, I saw the driver was a very attractive young blonde. So, I thought, here goes. The 19 year old Seaman, and the 40 year old CMDR tooling across the Hampton Roads area in defense of our country. I remember that she was a good conversationist and was probably not going to be a staff car driver all her life.
The business at the weather center was accomplished.
Terrific Thursday. Thanks for the fun, Ed and Steve.
Thanks for the High Flight poem and background info too, Steve.
I actually had a DNF on this CW because I had issues in the NW with 1A and 5D.
I did not recognize HAL (d'uh) and filled in the S (plural) at the end of 1A. Then I was debating (like Abejo and Spitzboov) between ACT II and IV. The result was a mess for 5D.
I did get the theme (although my barber was Cutting before SHAVING. I dredged TALESE out of my memory bank. I thought there were a lot of names but PERPS helped to fill. (Krijo, I thought you might have had problems with this one. Impressive time.)
FILING crossing PICKING brought a smile, and I also noted the many dissentions with AGIN, NO VOTE and ANTI.
It took a minute to parse P AND G. I also did not get Old place=WEST until I came here. I am more used to the expression Wild West than Old West.
I seem to recall that Peg NOONAN had a last-page column in Good Housekeeping for many years. I enjoyed her writing.
Hahtoolah- QOD is very thought-provoking with 1A "Lacks Options"= HAS TO
Abejo- Kia makes a model called SOUL
Jinx- Trust that all will go well for DW.
Enjoy the day everyone.
Clever puzzle.
I too, at first that 19 A would be LeNi Riefenstahl, but it didn't fit with ELICIT
As a child of the 60's I never knew that "I Will Survive" was a "B" side.
What was the "A" side?
Truly an Ed Sessa Thursday puzzle. I wonder if Ed or anyone else has constructed a puzzle made up of only proper names? (Not that I would enjoy it) Steve's tour pulled the grid all together with the Aha moments.
I got most of the puzzle without help except for two of the proper names, LINA and SARA. I did know most of the other names and relied on perps to fill in ISIAH, ALLIE and IAGO. The others I knew.
OK folks, you've got to stay within the lines. It's National Coloring Book day. Other than playing with kids coloring, have any of you done any coloring as an adult? I gave my DW and Daughter-in-law coloring books and a big box of Crayola crayons a few years ago for Christmas. I got them a mix of adult and kid themed books. They weren't upset at all and had a lot of fun coloring. Some articles I've seen tout them as good stress relievers.
It's still raining. Enough already.
Have a great day everyone.
Kia makes the Soul, a compact crossover.
This Ed Sessa puzzle left me hanging "L"oose. If that "L" were in the 19A box. Steve's tour brought back that song. 82 million people went to YouTube hear that.
The top half of the puzzle was easier than the bottom. "Shaving Points" was stretching it for me. Barbers shave points?
I may as well rant about "The History Channel." Forged in fire is fine if you want to watch it a few times, or even Pawn Stars, or even American Pickers. But its the HISTORY channel! World history, American history, the history of the computer, the automobile, presidents, God, or crossword history. Any history would be preferable to hours and hours of those aforementioned recycled programs. Thanks for listening,I didn't want to rile anyone, but I'm not gonna write you a love song, to elicit your fire, so I guess I'll leave you alone.
Musings
-Me too, Steve. There was much to like about Dr. Sessa’s puzzle!
-My wife is going shopping with grandkids today. She will be SWIPING CARDS
-SHAVING POINTS potential?
-A wonderful line about what parents can think from Parenthood
-Teachers know when to LEAVE a troubled student ALONE
-Three adolescent sisters were in a demolition derby last night and asked us to come watch them. The DIN was incredible and the “action” soon got boring after the girls were eliminated on the purposely muddy track.
-The Marines are looking for A FEW…
-A beautiful 1960 hit-record for four hands inspired by a URIS book
-My lovely bride went on a “cleaning jag” and OVERDID yesterday
-USAGE – I wonder who first thought yesterday’s “TO BOLDLY GO” was a grammar offense
-Off to Lincoln to play golf with grandkids. I hope your day is as fun.
Thank you, Ed Sessa! I enjoyed this puzzle as many of the names were familiar to me. I even recalled having seen Ms. Werrmuller's name in a CW before but though it was LENA. ELICIT jolted me back to reality.
I loved the theme! FORGING, PICKING, RUNNING, SHAVING in a different context. And of course, through in a little Shakespeare, some TALESE, URIS and even NOONAN and the literary world smiles.
CSO to Misty with Joyce's land.
Luckily I finished this in under 15 mins and it's time to get ready to go to the funeral.
Thank you, Steve; good form today.
OwenKL:
Good job, too. I wonder how many recall Napoleon Solo.
Have a delightful day, everyone!
Oops. Throw in, not through in.
Usages??? Really. The correct term is USAGE. No friggin S. You Yanks never learn.
This was an enjoyable Thur. Treat that felt more like a Mon. gift. The few unknowns like Sara and Allie were filled by itself. I thought Thursday’s are supposed to be gimmick days: but I didn’t really see one here. Thank you Ed for a nice diversion. Enjoyed your write up Steve.
Mark S
Good Morning,
Thanks, Ed, for a challenge that in the end was really quite doable. I enjoyed it and didn't mind the "glue." Nicely done.
Thanks, Steve, for another fine tour. I especially enjoyed "High Flight" again. I'm pleased you included it.
Have a good day everyone. Be well.
PS:
Owen, I never thank you enough for your poetry. My grades are much less harsh than yours!
Merci beaucoup!
"I wonder how many recall Napoleon Solo." Lucina, I'll bet it's the exact same number who remember Ilya Kuryakin.
Child of the 60s, the "A" side was Substitute. Made it all the way to #108 on the charts.
Good Morning:
I loved, loved this puzzle because this type of theme is seldom seen but, to me, very clever and lots of fun. My favorite C/A was Chow line=Arf ( Hi, Jinx) and I also like the opposing Anti/Agin and A lot/A Few. These four entries, added to Arf, Ari, Ace, Alpe, Allie, Arid, Apps, Alb, and Act IV certainly made for an A Centric grid! Another feature I appreciated was the four "perps" were all from different backgrounds. Also liked the CSO to all of us with Perps! The only unknown was Ari Melber and I, too, was thinking of Leni R. rather than Lina W. But that was soon corrected.
Thanks, Ed, for a delightful offering and thanks, Steve, for the informative summary and especially for including that touching poem. I agree with you on the two clunkers but we've had some much clunkier fill, IMO, so all is well.
billocohoes, as soon as I saw "Forged in Fire" I thought of you and that catastrophic fire.
Jinx, best wishes for DW's positive consult.
Madame Defarge, welcome back!
Swampcat, hope to continue hearing good news about your son's situation.
Rick P, no, a barber doesn't shave points, any more than a blacksmith forges checks, or a miner picks pockets, or a marathoner runs numbers. A wordsmith as talented as you are can surely appreciate the word play going on. 😉
Have a great day.
OK, it was actually #107. I fat-fingered it.
When you play Scrabble at my house any verb can have an actor, and any verb can be performed a second time. Therefore, refaxer is a perfectly acceptable word. Nevertheless rehaul made be groan.
19a/10d was definitely a Natick,
lessee, 26 letters,
minus 5 vowels, and a y,
still could be anything, but it looks like an "L".
(I left it blank as I was not sure...)
Looking for silly pics, I typo'd "peeps."
However, I do have (one) nit with this puzzle.
I don't think it is right to connect valued trades with criminal activity...
Irish Miss! A barber doesn't shave points any more than a blacksmith forges checks, or a miner picks pockets, or a marathoner runs numbers. I understand the latter examples well enough, but that barber has got me scratching my head. Is the word play that the barber is using a razor to shave the nubs off a man's beard? Those are the "points?"
Fun theme. Nice job, Ed Sessa. Sure, some glue and some gratuitous plurals, but what the heck. How many TETS do Asians celebrate, anyway?
P AND G got me. I am easily fooled by those X AND Y answers. Come to think of it, from now on I won't be.
Owen, good stuff.
Steve, good stuff.
Peggy Noonan, good stuff but often self-consciously affectatious.
I wanted a Tivo Roamio OTA for Christmas but LW was strongly AGIN it. The hangup was that it would require a signal splitter.
Best wishes to you all.
Enjoyed the theme and the puzzle. Didn't we see a similar theme not too long ago? NE was a bit sketchy with proper names TALESE/LINA/ISIAH but I did WAG that OK.
ALLIE/AMENDER could just as well have been ELLIE/EMENDER. Tossed the coin correctly to FIR.
Steve: Thanks for the ALPE image! Not much of an escape into nature! And thanks for the SARA link. Never heard of her or that song. But she is pretty and a good singer.
As for Ms NOONAN I will definitely have to practice the Thumper Rule.
Hahtoolah: Thanks for that brilliant Shimon Peres quote. One of the most valuable skills we practice in puzzle solving is just that: Thinking of alternatives we had not considered. The world would be so much better if everyone got better at this!
DW and I visited this Death Valley ghost town of Rhyolite. An enjoyable remnant of the OLD WEST.
What makes it so enjoyable is that it is still a ghost town. Just a few whimsical adornments, but still in its original state.
Hi Y'all! Great puzzle, Ed. Great expo, Steve.
Thanks for including "High Flight". Made me cry. I first found that poem many years ago and read it to my then-pilot husband (who wasn't a poetry kind of guy) and my young son (who would become an USAF pilot years later). They loved the poem and asked me to read it again. High praise for "High Flight".
Headed back to bed. Got a virus or something. Sleeping & BESOTted feeling yesterday & today.
USAGES is used on Harvards Center for Astrophysics web site. Maybe John Moody would like to contact them and tell them they can't do that.
Rick P@ 12:22 ~ Please check out the billocohoes post at 7:32 for the meaning of Point Shaving; this may clarify your barber shaving quandry. 😉
Irish - it appears I'm reading too much into this.
This will be my chow (ciao) line. (Arf Arf!)
Thanx
TIVO...they may or may not be making machines, but they won the court case with DIRECTV, anyone using their proprietary recording methodology must pay them to use it. Others as well....don’t mess with patents.
Other than the giveaway “ING” once the theme is sussed, this was a nice Thursday solve. I misspelled ISIAH (as ISAAH)....again....ELICIT took care of that. Had ALSO b4 ELSE 4 62A and that was that.
Yankees and Red Sox for the next 4 days. Red Sox in front because they beat the lousy teams that the Yanks seem to let up on.
Many people celebrate ten tets in ten years.
TV sign-off I often watched, back when there were only 3 channels, and they were only on from the farm report at 5am until midnight. One channel ended with a prayer from St.Francis, one with the national anthem, and one with this. Do you remember?
Ta- DA!
I got a kick out of Mr. Sessa's Xwd, more than the usual bump. It seemed daunting at first glance, but it was one of those happy experiences where once the Ol' Walnut got a single letter from a perp, it filled in the rest - time & time again.
My only erasure was P AND G. Hands up if you started with PANDA! I had no idea who makes Pampers, so went (for a time) with the most obvious word. But the perp straightened me out.
I guess P AND G is the latest iteration of Proctor & Gamble?
I should know that. I used to live in a carriage barn across from the old Proctor estate-turned-frat-house on the Williams campus - that is, until the winter of '66 when it burned down in a spectacular blaze.
~ OMK
____________
Diagonal Report: One diagonal, on the mirror side, yielding a somewhat cryptic anagram: EVICTION IS GUILE.
I love Ed Sessa puzzle but worried because it was a Thursday, and I had to rush off to keep a couple appointments. But amazingly I got the whole thing perfectly! Woohoo! Woohoo! Many thanks, Ed. And great write-up, Steve.
Lucina, I did have a happy moment when I saw Joyce's land--and had no problem with it being Eire rather than Erin or some other name--although I did appreciate the reminder of history.
I'm exhausted and ready for a nap. Have a great day, everybody.
Blogger john moody said... "Usages??? Really. The correct term is USAGE. No friggin S. You Yanks never learn."
I'm not sure what being American has to do with this, but if there is, say, a California usage for, say again, brown, fizzy, sweetened drinks, and a different one in, say the third, New York or Minnesota ... then unless plurals are formed differently in Wigan, 'usages' describes two differing usages.
D-O Ilya Kuryakin still entertains 26 weeks or so a year performing as Donald "Ducky" Mallard though, like the rest of us, he has shrunk. I still love his work.
See what I mean- watch this NCIS CLIP
Picard, thanks for the ghost town pics!
I enjoyed reading about Maude the mule and her pancake breakfasts!
(zoom in on bulletin board...)
OwenKL, thanks for the TV sign off.
I want to share it with my Cliffs of Dover flying buddies
over at The Wrecking Crew Clan...
Lemon, Ilya Kuryakin, what a blast from the past!
Jinx, nice catch. Yeh that's the ticket, blame it on spell check. I hope all is well with your wife.
Abejo, let me add Joe BFLTSPK which I heard was spoken as Blitterspik
Ok Swamp, perhaps you can tell me what a LARM is. I agree with the A's
Owen's C's are often my faves
With internet gambling, the incidence of shaving points has obviously increased. Remember, BC shavers only we're caught by accident. And of course no serious gambler would bet on the NBA.
PVX, so funny. We were talking about"no-sports talk" the other day and I mentioned Redsox-Yankees. So tempting.
C's Thomas was Isaiah.
I thought "One changing a bill" was SPENDER. Eh, HG?
My 'Nam staff car was a Jeep
Thx Ed, smooth and entertaining. Not much brain work. Steve, I always like your write-ups.
Misty, come back later and give us some Joyce talk. Yes, he hung out with Ernie and Scott etal on that Parisian"Moveable Feast, eh?
WC
@John Moody - funny how the Oxford English Dictionary has:
1.1 The way in which a word or phrase is normally and correctly used.
count noun "there are various derivative usages"
You might like to check your facts before throwing out your "You Yanks" sneer, especially when you are commenting about a US-published puzzle on a US website.
Late to the game again. Been watching 3 grandchildren (5, 3, & 1) and it’s not all that conducive to puzzling. 17 minutes total but that included lots of distractions. I need a nap.
Picard, those pictures from Rhyolite duplicate many of mine. I've been there twice; the first time that concrete couch wasn’t there but the second time it was. We found a geocache stashed somewhere on it. Also found one attached by a magnet to the penguin. My favorite is the "spirit" getting ready for a bike ride in the desert.
I really liked this puzzle! Favorite: Chow line = ARF.
Going to be hit or miss for me for the next little while. We’ll be in CA and NV, dodging fire and smoke. No idea about internet availability.
Have a great evening, all.
Hi All! I’M ON; it’s what I HAS TO do.
Hand-up w/ WEES; xing of 10d &19a led to FIW; I’ll report it is not an N either.
Thanks Ed for the punny puzzle. Thanks Steve for the sparkly/witty review – I’d be afraid going through all those strangers so close if I tried to hump that hill.
WOs: FORGING CHange (that made the NE ever more challenging); Johnson AND Johnson.
ESPs: Names galore! (I did remember NOONAN!)
Fav: I got a chuckle out of c/a for ACE; Chow line was cute too but I got it too quickly to enjoy the Aha!/V8-slap moment.
{B+ [now that Lucina called out who N. Solo was], A-}
Hahtoolah – before the puzzle the other day, I’ve never noticed the word Surry and you bring it up as a TONKA toy?!? :-)
As PVX pointed out, TiVo is alive and well as both a license-grantor and a high-end DVR maker. My buddy’s been at TiVo since he left SGI. He wrote much of the early “you may want to watch” and interface code.
Jinx: While guys are over-represented in IT, there are females in our STAFF of 130(ish) – but... not on the hardware-focused teams. Female representation is on Database teams, enterprise software support, desktop support, and, of course, in the Project Management Office (PMO) keeping us guys on track. //I didn’t say nagging us, did I?
CED – A happy accident typing ‘peeps.’ LOL!
Cheers, -T
T, back in the 80s the staff had an East European gal, raised under Communism I'd guess .
She thought the "rules" were to be strictly adhered to. Aaarrrggghhhh!!!!!
Btw, my theory at the time was that management made two lists at the start of a project: The success list eg. Stock options; And the blame list. The latter compiled before the project even starts .
And if successfully completed the second list still gets no kudos nor rewards
WC
Thanks, Wilbur. The next time we have a Joyce clue, I'll try to fill in a little of his history! Just too busy and tired today.
I messaged my son and sent the "High Flight" poem asking him if he remembered me reading it to him & his dad. He didn't but he sent back a picture of a brass plaque he received when he graduated from USAF flight school. The poem is printed on the plaque. Neat! He definitely feels the spirit of the poem.
WC - LOL! That's why I failed at "management;" I cared about the project's success...
You know what clicking this link does? OPENS DOORS. //I'll see myself out #DadJoke. -T
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