This first Saturday in September also marks National Tailgating Day across the country as college football finally gets going. As you can see in this picture in Lincoln, tailgating has progressed mightily from setting refreshments on the tailgate of a pickup to tents and motor homes lining the streets outside memorial stadium and across the country with full buffets.
Husker fans are famous for spotting opposition fans and inviting them in to have a bite. Today, some Akron Zip supporters will dine alfresco with Nebraska Cornhusker fans who make the stadium the third largest city in the state for that day and where games have been complete sellouts for well over 50 years.
GO BIG RED!
Let's see what else Greg has for us today:
1. Reality show whose Dutch version was called "Now or Neverland": FEAR FACTOR - No pictures here as many of their stunts involved snakes, spiders and other fauna in some very close encounters
11. Conceal: MASK - Some meds just MASK the pain
16. "Hairspray" mom: EDNA - A conversion that took five hours every day of filming
17. Ballpark figure: ATTENDANCE - Teams list number of tickets sold, not how many seats actually had occupants
18. Film noir crime fighters: T-MEN - Treasury officers
19. Calendar abbr.: THU.
20. "__: Cyber": CSI - A CBS spinoff series that was cancelled in 2016
21. Fluctuates: VARIES.
23. Marsh growth: SEDGE - European Meadow Sedge used in a landscape
 |
| European Meadow SEDGE |
25. Dinette piece with cupboards: CREDENZA - I've always associated CREDENZAS with formal dining room sets but I don't get out much
27. City on the Oka: OREL.
28. Org. in "This Film Is Not Yet Rated": MPAA - A documentary about how ratings are determined
30. Starts to slip and slide?: ESSES - Slip and Slide
31. Collection area: DONATION BOX - Some churches have a POOR BOX near the exit that try to tap into your aura of holiness as you leave
34. Chrysler Building style: ART DECO - This beautiful building was the world's tallest for a year
35. Source of suds: BREW PUB - BREW PUBS feature beers made on-site such as this one in Toronto
40. Label on some foreign goods: MADE IN CHINA - Hmmm...
42. Colorful almanac pg.: US MAP - I wonder if this map we had for our kids was MADE IN CHINA
47. Enjoying the Smithsonian, briefly: IN DC - We had breakfast with our friend and U.S. Senator Ben Sasse when we were IN D.C.
48. Pirates rival: PHILLIES - MLB
50. Fire starter: SPARK - If you teach/taught science, I'll bet you've done this
51. Drama set in '60s Manhattan: MAD MEN - A fabulous 4 min scene about MAD MEN and renaming Kodak's "Wheel." 22. 51-Across bigwig: AD EXEC Don Draper shows the art of advertising at its highest level.
52. Music genre: POP - MOP, BOP, RAP, nope
54. Spare a friend's feelings, maybe: FIB - "Does this dress make me look fat?"
55. "Your turn": OK GO.
56. One level higher than: A STEP ABOVE - See preceding picture
60. British weapon acronym: STEN - A submachine gun made by Reginald Sheperd and Harold Turpin at The Royal Small Arms Factory at ENfield
61. Source of shade: WOODED AREA.
62. Like apron strings: TIED
63. Temptation: ENTICEMENT.
Down:
1. Result of a gas shortage?: FLAT SODA - Dr. Wife's secret weapon
2. Must-choose situation: EITHER OR.
3. Top performer: A-STUDENT - Sam Cooke sang Now, I don't claim to be an A-STUDENT, But I'm trying to be. For maybe by being an A-STUDENT, baby, I can win your love for me. Name that tune!
4. Cal.'s 101, e.g.: RTE - We took this Pacific Coast Highway tour a few years ago
5. Thrust and parry: FENCE - With your epee, perhaps
6. Words between partners?: ANDS - A partnership whose lyrics are quoted often here
7. Starbucks tea: CHAI - CHAI is the Hindi word for tea from cha the Chinese word for tea
8. Common base: TEN - An outgrowth of our number of fingers by most accounts
9. Mordor menace: ORC - For $70 this ORC costume, from Lord Of The Rings, is yours for Halloween
10. "The Canterbury Tales" estate manager: REEVE - Here it is a sample of how Chaucer wrote of OSEWOLD the REVE and how it is translated
11. Liverpool lengths: METRES.
12. Online forum VIPs: ADMINS - Ours head ADMIN. here is a lovely lady named C.C.
13. Eyes-closed event: SNEEZE
14. "The Wizard of Oz" setting: KANSAS.
24. Rags or bags lead-in: GLAD - I'll bet you know the song that starts "Put your glad RAGS on and join me hon"
25. Fire: CAN - I've been lots of things but never FIRED/CANNED
26. Multiplication symbol?: RABBIT.
28. Mineral in thin sheets: MICA.
29. Smart dog: POODLE - I don't know if Greg was going for something like this or being fashionable. Of course I chose the lowbrow option. 😬
32. Mayan structure: TEMPLE.
33. Landlocked Normandy department: ORNE - Departments (départements) in France are administrative levels below the national level. ORNE is Department #61 below in the southern Normandy area.
36. Light and fluffy dessert: WHIP - We use Cool WHIP
37. Garment in a Gilbert and Sullivan title: PINAFORE - I don't know any show-stoppers from this comic opera
38. Like a car in storage: UNDRIVEN - MIL drives her '92 Olds every two weeks or so and I bought a charger to "jump" her car when necessary
39. Syncopated rhythmic element: BACKBEAT - A quick tutorial on BACKBEATS in drumming and playing bass
41. Frozen Wasser: EIS - Unser Freund Andy mag EIS in seinen Getränken nicht (Our friend Andy does not like ice in his drinks)
42. Loftiest: UPMOST - synonym for UPPERMOST
43. Cosmic energy, in Hinduism: SHAKTI - Shakti – Astitva Ke Ehsaas Ki (lit.: Strength of feeling of existence) is a Hindi Soap Opera
44. Tiny Tootsie Roll: MIDGEE.
45. __ butter: ALMOND.
49. Amazed: IN AWE - Skeptical Simon was IN AWE of Susan Boyle after she started singing
50. One of four ... and of thirteen: SPADE - So simple now...
52. Service with painted nails: PEDI - PEDI? Maybe. Paint? Never!
53. Gp. with many barrels: OPEC - I think most of us remember the OPEC oil embargo of the 70's
58. Youngster: TOT.
59. Loud sound: BAM - Half the name of Barney and Betty's 57. Youngster's address: SON.
Go ahead and comment if you have finished watching your favorite college football game today. If my Huskers do not clobber the Akron Zips today, I am in for a long autumn!
DA GRID:
74 comments:
25d! 🐰 25d! 🐇
FIRight! Had a few bumps along the way, tho, and wouldn't have gotten it on paper since it was the lack of a ta-da that kept me looking until I found the final errors. Bin > BOX, and the rest all in the SW corner. UPpeST > UPMOST, echO > OK GO, SHAKTI, MIDGEE, MAD MEN, AD EXEC, ORNE depended on perps. Before I got to that point, I also had StatE > SPADE (4 states of matter, 13 original states), ASTUtEsT > A STUDENT, BREWery > BREW PUB.
The first time Eddie met EDNA,
He remarked on her fine CREDENZA.
She blushed a bright pink,
Said, "I'm GLAD you don't think
It's too big for this size hacienda!"
A RABBIT met up with a POODLE,
But the pair were too shy to canoodle.
The conversational fog
Was dispelled by a frog,
Said, "I go 'rabbit' when I splash in a poodle!"
My volume, very widely it VARIES
I can be quiet as sleepy canaries.
While you may bust an ear,
If you LISTEN HERE,
When I SNEEZE -- the sound really carries!
Some think it rude, when looking askance,
To rate beauty without giving a chance
To judge inner light
That gives them the right
Of ATTENDANCE as a guest at a TEN dance!
{A, B+, B+, B.}
RABBIT RABBIT, right in the middle. How apt is that for Sept. l. We're off & running, er limping er guessing to TADA! Thanks, Greg for a challenge. Thanks, Gary for taking on the expo of this beast.
FEAR FACTOR is a good starting entry. I FEAR I didn't know it from the clue, never having watched Dutch TV or this show anywhere. I FEARed I'd "never land" a finish here. I ended up doing this differently from any puzzle I'd worked before, filling a bloc before moving on to the next because I wasn't getting any of it. 1st pass I had EITHER OR & TEN in the NW.
FLAT SODA was ESP despite the CO2 shortage being recent news.
WAG FACTOR was alive and well in doing this puzzle. TEN, ART DECO, KANSAS, TIED were the only answers I got on 1st reading of the clues. No way I'd have worked this without red letters to tell me "try again, dummy". OK, GO Big Red! (and I don't mean Huskers. Sorry, Gary!)
Eyes-closed event wasn't "kisses" but SNEEZE. That's not as much fun.
RABBIT, RABBIT indeed. I did wonder if Greg is getting into our monthly ritual.
As with most Saturdays, the puzzle looked undoable but picking away here and there it all filled. It is always unsettling when 1 Across brings nothing to mind. There were other unknowns like MIDGEE and SHAKTI ; nice misdirections like Result of a gas shortage?: FLAT SODA and Multiplication symbol?: RABBIT.
Having visited way too many BREW PUBS I wonder why so many are set up like Gary's picture.
Thank you to the G-boys.
Good morning Cornies and Cornhusker fans.
Thank you Mr. Greg Johnson for this CW with so many long fills. I had to P & P for a long time to get close. I had to BAIL at the Natick of 55 A and 43 D to complete the CW.
Thanks Husker Gary for the excellent review which I have only glanced at.
CanadianEh! FLN at 8:48 PM
- - Wiki needs your help. The display on Yahoo is out of date, but the article on him appears to be correct. Picard corrected an entry one day.
Ðave
Good morning!
My grid looks like a winter wonderland - Wite-Out everywhere. The very first entry was I DOS where ANDS needed to go. My ADMINS were SYSOPS, T-MEN were G-MEN, and the UNDRIVEN car was ON BLOCKS. MANI made my music genre MOR (Middle-of-the-Road) until SPADE showed up and forced PEDI. This turned into a real workout. Alas, I scored a DNF for the second time this week. At 55a I had O__O and couldn't see anywhere to go with it...so in true Beatle fashion, I let it be. Thanx, Greg and Husker.
PINAFORE: Husker, bet you'd recognize I'm Called Little Buttercup.
MADE IN CHINA: Check your MAGA cap.
CREDENZA: I think it's used more as office furniture than as dining room storage.
Tough puzzle this morning. At first I thought I was just overly tired from two solid days of painting and staining, but then quickly decided a lot of it had to do with the cluing.
Got the NE first, followed by the SW, then the middle, and then SE. But that NW corner was my undoing, and at my newly instituted self imposed time limit of an hour for a Saturday puzzle, I changed the game to Regular.
Got three red letters. "Words between partners ?" Had I DOS. Got caught looking for two words, and that answer fit so beautifully. Except it didn't fit the puzzle. Never thought of pairings of partners, like Rogers and Hammerstein, Simon and Schuster, Tom and Jerry, Fullbright and Jaworski, etc.
"Ballpark figure ?" Ran through each player and bench position, those in the announcer's booth and those in the media. Then decided it must be in the sense of a contractor's rough guess, as in estimation, which would have fit in the squares too, but it didn't work in the puzzle.
Wanted someone on the playbill or marquee for "Top Performer."
My "Source of suds" answer was BREWery before PUB.
In that area, I read the clue "Fire starter" and went to fill in pyro. Bruce Springsteen wrote and sang "You can't start a fire, You can't start a fire without a SPARK, This gun's for hire, Even if we're just..." Can you fill in the lyrics AND name the young actress that got up on stage with him in the official video ? He didn't know who she was... Neither did I, until years later.
Oh well. Thanks for the great challenge Greg, and thanks for the tour Husker Gary.
Lots of long answers. Beautifully constructed puzzle! A great Saturday challenge.
'Good Morning:
I started out like gangbusters and thought I was going to break my best Saturday completion time but did I get my comeuppance, in one of 4, or 13! The unknowns Midgee and Shakti did me in, so, a big, DNF. I found the cluing a tad off kilter, e.g.: Light and fluffy dessert=Whip. To me, whip, as a standalone, isn't a dessert. Also, Credenza as a dinette piece seems off, to me, anyway. My favorite C/A was the Multiplication symbol=Rabbit. Thought of Tin at Eis, naturally. Lots of w/os: Hide/Mask, Orem/Orel, Emo/Pop, Grab/Glad, and Willow tree/Wooded area. Fear Factor and Orc needed perps, as clued. Minor nits, for me, anyway, are Undriven and Upmost.
Thanks, Greg, for a challenging but doable (almost) solve and thanks, HG, for your upbeat and informative review, especially the pix of the "Potty Poodle"!
I watched "I, Tonya" last night and had mixed feelings about it. If even half of it was completely true, Tonya Harding had a hardscrabble, tumultuous life. She was surrounded by toxic people, especially her mother and abusive husband. Margot Robbie and Allison Janney gave superb performances but the film was tarnished, in my opinion, by the never-ending, gratuitous F-bombs. Do people really talk like that in every day life, not being able to utter one sentence without using that expletive?
FLN
CanadianEh, I'll bet a Bloody Mary tastes a lot better than a Blooy Mary! I never even noticed that error; maybe other Cornerites thought I was mimicking the theme because you're the only one who mentioned it! 🤓
Have a great day.
I was up early and spotted the Mordor clue, one box led to another and I finished. It wasn't RAP, it wasn't BOP so I started a mental alphabet run and lo and behold..
But first, a salute to yesterday's constructor with a particularly interesting Doonesbury
Be back later
WC
Ps. Betsy who loves all things esoteric had a friend named SHANTI Oom Gaya
Same Natick, needed an alphabet run with red letters to get OKGO. Had to go online today because I'm in Pittsburgh to see the Albany Great Danes play Pitt to start the CFB season. Hope they don't get embarrassed too badly, and nobody gets hurt.
Gilbert AND Sullivan is a partnership in today's clues. "When I was a lad" is another famous song from HMS Pinafore
How about a puzzle for the NON-mensas, for a change!
One duh du jour for me was confidently filling in HMS Petticoat which fit but blushed very red. Next pass, I remembered PINAFORE. Mental gymnastics like today are supposed to keep me sharp but are humiliating sometimes.
My BFF from ELHI school called last night and we talked for two hours. We each had some awful news to discuss as usual, but get a lift from talking it out with the friend we've cherished longest.
Anon@9:25 -- It's Saturday. The puzzle is supposed to be the toughest of the week. Get over it.
A couple blank cells in the same place as IM, but otherwise very doable.
Never liked Mad Men. Watched 2 Seasons then gave up
HG...IF, and that's a big IF, Scott Frost can repeat what he accomplished at UCF, good times ahead for the 'Huskers. BTW a friend of mine is now your Senior Offensive Analyst.
Good morning everyone.
Got hung up in the SW, same as HG, with SHAKTI, but also with MIDGEE. OK GO wasn't that obvious at first. But it was mostly good and I had a satisfied Saturday. Liked seeing SEDGE in the puzzle.
EIS - ZinnMann mag kein EIS. (Tinman doesn't like ice.)
Always get a kick how Iceland is Island in Icelandic.
SPARK - HG - Is that a Meker burner in the video?
Have a great day.
If Mr. Johnson had 26 D RABBIT in the CW, do I still have to write Rabbit also for my Prosperity?
PK at 5:20 AM
- - Your prose rivaled the excellent poems of OwenKL at 3:42 AM. Thanks to each of you.
- - You wrote of a "CO2 shortage being recent news." I don't keep up with life outside of my bubble, but this sounds like the answer to our greenhouse gas problem, make more soda water. That was simple.
- - When I LIU, I found to my dismay that CO2 is used at Quality Pork Limited, in Brechin, Angus, to stun the animals before they are killed.
Ðave
Rabbit rabbit! Welcome to September.
I got hung up in the same places others of you have mentioned but enjoyed the part I got right. Thanks Greg and Gary.
Pinafore brought back happy memories. I was in it in high school and my son was in it 20 years later in the same high school. I would think a show stopper is “ I am the monarch of the sea.” “When I was a lad” is also lively as someone else mentioned. I love Gilbert and Sullivan.
I agree a CREDENZA seems more formal than a dinette set. I had my mother’s for years before my daughter whisked it away when she got married. It has served several generations of us.
Owen, all A+ !!
Good morning, folks. Thank you, Greg Johnson, for a fine puzzle. Thank you, Husker Gary, for a fine review.
This puzzle was tough. I was able to get it last night via cruciverb, but barely put a dent into it. This morning I hit it again and with a fresh mind made great process. My last to get was the SW corner. MADMEN was the key for me.
Tried for 35A BAR ROOM, BEER PUB, then BREW PUB. That gave me WHIP and IN DC. That's the way these puzzle work.
PHILLIES beat the CUBS last night 2-1 in extra innings.
I saw "Hairspray" at a high school musical. Could not think of EDNA until I had three perps, then the D fell.
I love Tootsie Rolls, but never heard of a MIDGEE. I am sure I have eaten tons of them, just never took the time to read the wrapper.
Tried WILDERNESS before that fell apart. WOODED AREA eventually appeared.
Why is a POODLE a smart dog? Any thoughts?
ORNE was a stumper. Thank you perps.
Was planning on working outside today, but it has been raining most of the morning. We'll see.
See you tomorrow.
Abejo
( )
Pinch, Pinch ...
GO BIG RED !!!
A "Toast-to-ALL" at Sunset.
Cheers!
Hit Big G for FEAR FACTOR and was pretty proud of myself to finish the rest. Until I clicked on the reveal button and realized that On tO should have been OK GO - the perps SHAKTI and MIDGEE were totally foreign to me. Hell, I had already erased "next" and "over"; I think I was just tired of messing with the Carlsbad area.
I thought of Chuck Barry's line "...its got a BACK BEAT you can't lose it, any old time you use it..." in "Rock and Roll Music".
Gary, I remember Vin Scully saying that attendance and the payout for visiting MLB teams is by turnstile count, not sold seats. The context was a frustrated owner of another team (maybe the braves in the bad old days) announcing that admission the next day would be free because of the poor play that day. It may vary by sport and even by league.
To me, the best think about opening day for college football is that college basketball will be with us soon. Kentucky's public scrimmage event called "Big Blue Madness" starts in 41 days! Can't wait to see how this bunch of "diaper dandies" will fare.
Thanks to Greg for a Saturday puzzle that even I could play with. Most Saturdays I just sit on the bench. And thanks to Gary for another jolly good review.
TTP @ 7:15 -- I think I know an answer, yay!
Is it Courteney Cox?
Rabbit Rabbit
Hello Puzzlers -
This rascal was hard. I didn’t catch on to the spade trickery until coming here. Midgee was a complete unknown. Shakti wasn’t a breeze either, but at least it looked vaguely familiar.
So glad to see September. We’ve had no end of trouble and expense with our nearly-new air conditioning, and could use a break from needing it so much.
Also, why did everyone have so much trouble with WHIP? Reminds me of my dating days: Dinner, movie, chaps, WHIP.
I almost gave up on this one, but I persisted, and finished. The Starbuck's TAZO tea from the other day put me on the wrong foot to start. Once I figured that 7D. was CHAI, I was sure 1A. must be THE X FACTOR rather than FEAR FACTOR (I don't watch any of these reality shows. The real world gives me more reality than I can handle). I didn't recognize the terms SHAKTI or MIDGEEs before. I had SHAKRA (should be CHAKRA) and MIDGETS (must've eaten a million of 'em after Halloweens) but I knew the crossses must be STEN and TIED. I understood the 13 SPADEs, but failed to grasp the 4 SPADE. An internet search brought up several possibilities but I can't decipher the author's intent. Any help?
Maverick @ 11:40 ~ Spades are one of four suits. 😉
My first fill in was KANSAS and so I got most of the northeast corner before the cheating started. A real Saturday toughie, but hey, that's what they're supposed to be, so, many thanks, Greg. I loved the barrels clue for OPEC. My German helped me get EIS right away. And it was fun to see the HMS PINAFORE in the puzzle. But I guess I'm the only person who doesn't get what RABBIT has to do with multiplication. So, although I'm embarrassed to ask, could someone please explain it? Husker Gary, you explanations and pictures this morning were superb--many thanks!
Have a great weekend, everybody!
I found this quite challenging. Last to fall was SPADE/WOODED AREA. I was not sure if I fully grasped the 4/13 meaning of SPADE. But I left that nasty other cross blank until the last minute.
Wilbur Charles I have a friend from the University of California named "Harmony SHANTI". I knew him for years before I found out his legal name which was something quite different. SHANTI made perfect sense. (It means "peace"). ON GO, not so much. But I went with it. To FIW. Argh. Kind of spoiled the rest of the puzzle. Never heard of MIDGEE. Or EDNA.
Husker Gary Thanks as always for the extensive illustrated writeup. Loved the Maxwell Smart reminder! Softened the FIW blow a bit! Yes, I remember the fun of using that SPARK to light the burner! I did it in my father's lab as a child. And thanks for explaining ANDS.
METRES used to be defined by a particular platinum-iridium bar with two scratches, stored in France. It is now defined this way in terms of light:
"The METRE is the length equal to 1 650 763.73 wavelengths in vacuum of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the levels 2p10 and 5d5 of the krypton 86 atom."
Here I visited a Mayan TEMPLE
I grew up IN DC and worked at the SMITHSONIAN.
Here I was more recently visiting the curator of our division of amphibians and reptiles.
Here I photographed fans holding vigil at the entrance to Michael Jackson's NEVERLAND Ranch in 2005
Can someone explain the connection between FEAR FACTOR and NEVERLAND?
A MASK does not always conceal. It can also create a new persona.
Here is a nice example from our Solstice Parade.
Somewhere I have MASK examples created by our greatest MASK maker Edwin who is now disabled.
Misty RABBITS are known to reproduce (MULTIPLY) prolifically
desper-otto and TTP Hand up for I DOS before ANDS. Anyone else also try VOWS?
From yesterday:
D4E4H Glad you also enjoyed Dr Demento and the Beep Beep AUTO song!
CanadianEh Thank you for the kind words about my survival! I use my bicycle for most daily transportation needs. I actually have two. One I keep at our apartment. The other is stored in downtown Santa Barbara, twelve miles away. At the Transit Center. I can take the express bus downtown and jump on my downtown bike and speed away! It is a pleasure to pass all the cars downtown! We have pretty good bike lanes.
Yes, it takes attention and confidence to ride in traffic. I had hoped your country made it easier than ours. In much of Europe it is a joy to see people of all ages and abilities getting around by bicycle. From pregnant women buying groceries to children to older men in business suits on their way to work.
(Head slap!) Thanks Irish Miss!
And oh yes, "dancing in the dark". Right?
Stumbled on Shakti/okgo too. I had SHANTI as it is also a Hindu term I guess. OKGO is terrific band, just google their music videos. Very elaborate.
Poodle is the second most inteligent breed after border collie.
I had Spares instead of Spades too. Why is HMS Pinafore known? I mean I see what it is, but do not understand how everyone knows it.
Oh please! Admins, you will be deleting this Bitcoin shill soon, I hope.
Thank you for explaining the RABBIT, Picard. I get it, though I've never heard it as an expression before this.
Krijo, many of us are either familiar with, or have heard of, the Gilbert and Sullivan musical, HMS PINAFORE, which was probably quite popular back in the day.
Well I see I missed a couple. SHANTI was wrong as Gary pointed out and I never fixed BEER PUB. I originally had OISE, then OENE. Careless.
Is it me or are colleges starting their football early?
As usual I liked#4 best, Owen#. Can't wait to see what you cooked up at the J.
IM, yes. I had to wean myself of that word when I left"Country" and entered"World"
I was sure I had FIR, now I'm bummed. I should have put it down at 8:00 am and after finishing my "stuff" gone back.
I see a little bit of Hindi did Picard in too but I should have gotten OKGO. I had inked in BEER and was reluctant to change it even though I'd thought of WHIP.
But otherwise a relatively easy and doable Saturday xword and sparkling write-up from HG
WC
* Ok I'll go with those straight A's
Like always, on a Saturday, I look at the puzzle and say"No way,Becky." And yet I get a toe hold somewhere and eventually fill everything in. It's way fun, and I'm amazed ate the construction, but this week, without cheating at all, I FIW with four bad cells. But still WAY fun!! Thank you, Mr.Johnson.
Misty Glad to explain RABBIT. There is a cruder version of this! Stop here if you don't want to be offended!
F--- like a Jack RABBIT!
Hope no one is too offended. My father used that expression when I was growing up. If I had a particularly difficult teacher, he would lighten the moment with that expression!
Did anyone else try REEDS before SEDGE?
As for Cal's 101, we call it Highway 101 and it is our main artery. It is a narrow pass between mountains and see. If Highway 101 is closed, we go nowhere.
Here we were high above the Gaviota Pass of Highway 101 leading a hike.
Here are the rest of those hike photos.
Note the "secret passage" I showed people under Highway 101!
D4: Thank you for your kind compliment on my prose.
Misty, RABBITs breed several times a year and start young so the population multiplies rapidly. I think this is nature's plan for the food chain providing plentiful nourishment for carnivores who usually only breed once a year. One snowy year on the farm, my yard looked like a rabbit feed yard with all the feces from rabbits preserved by the cold. The coyotes, which usually kept the population in check, had died off with mange. I had to hire a guy to thin out the rabbits because they were eating all my shrubs and all the bark off my expensive little red maple tree. I had no trouble coming up with RABBIT for that clue.
Picard enjoyed your photos. Don't you mean "a narrow pass between mountains & SEA"?
Hi All!
IM, you call that a "big" DNF? LISTEN HERE...
NE filled OK(ish) with KANSAS in the game. Central had MPAA, MICA, POODLE EIS, LITE but I couldn't figure CAN or sAc for 25d. I had my suds coming from closer to the source: BEER TAP.
MADE IN sat there lonely... was it going to be the obvious CHINA OR EITHER Japan or Yalta(?)?
Mani was right out. OPEC was the only correct letters in the S.
In the NW - EITHER OR ART DECO was it. Base Ten or two, so I had the T at 8d. TAZO (hi Maverick!) was right out.
Chalk it up to another learning Saturday.
Thanks HG for the "red letters" :-) And thanks Greg for a puzzle to play with while having my coffee and listening to Ask Me Another.
Gas shortage? had nothing to do with He? Our Strategic He Reserves were tapped in '13 keeping party balloons A-float.
{B, A, B+, B}
@9:25a - See: M-THU
Picard - yes, wanted reeds and epees to perp it. Bzzt x2.
TTP - SandyAnon beat me to Dancing in the Dark AND the mystery-dancer.
Jinx - hard to see WHIP w/ an R from Beer and wanting 'flint' for fire-starter. Dessert: R--L(?) :-)
55a's OK GO [3:43] would be better known if clued as "Visual musicians" or some such, right Krijo?
Misty - while other's have alluded to it, I'll let Bugs explain. [@:36 ]
Have a great Saturday! Cheers, -T
A real toughie today....
HIDE b4 MASK, REEDS b4 SEDGE, BREWERY b4 BREWPUB, LIE b4 FIB, METERS b4 METRES (hah), AGAPE b4 INAWE. Geez. So happy to get a “clean” solve.
TTP...Courtney Cox, later on FRIENDS.
ABEJO...many studies show the Border Collie the most intelligent, the Poodle is next, then the German Shepherd, I believe.
NOT LOOKING FOR AN ARGUEMENT....BUT.....I find schools like Nebraska - or any of the football factories paying college coaches multimillions - who play these much inferior teams as “tune ups” morally reprehensible, and that includes the schools that agree to play them for the big payout. Nice...treating student athletes as cannon fodder.
I would not even give these schools a credit for the victory, no playoff points....nothing.
Today in SC we have Clemson....ranked #2....playing Furman. It’s such a bad match that their doesn’t seem to be a betting line, but locally they are favored by..... 42 1/2.
SC is playing Coastal Caroline...only favored by 29 1/2.
Disgusting.
Sandyanon, yes, great job ! Dancing in the Dark, and a young Courtney Cox before she became famous on the sitcom Friends.
Good job to you PVX and Dash T too !
Wasn't dissing your responses. Typed my response to Sandyanon, but then had to go send an email before I hit the publish button. Shoulda checked by using preview...
Loved that Bugs toon Dash T. That hare was so smart ! Never heard of the "OK GO" band.
Ta- DA!
This is the first Saturday pzl in a long time I've licked w/o any Googling to help. I'm proud of my patience - which deserves top credit - and secondarily of the Ol' Walnut, which finally came up with the answers.
And of course, Mr. Johnson gets his credit for making it tough enough to be a worthy challenge. And I can't leave Husker G out of today's Thank Yous!
HMS PINAFORE Show Stopper?
How about "He is an Englishman"?
I first sang this in choir in junior high, and even then it brought a kind of reflected jingoistic pride to our young rosy cheeks. Gilbert meant it as a spoof, but years later when I staged the show in Richmond VA those Anglophile audiences ate it up!
Ans there's "Little Buttercup," and the most rousing of all, "Sir Joseph Porter's Song"!
"When I was a lad I served a term
As office boy to an Attorney's firm.
I cleaned the windows and I swept the floor,
And I polished up the handle of the big front door.
(He polished up the handle of the big front door.)
I polished up that handle so carefully
That now I am the Ruler of the Queen's Navy!
(He polished up that handle so carefullee,
That now he is the ruler of the Queen's Navee!)"
A personal note: HMS PINAFORE was one of the first stage shows I ever saw as a kid. I will never forget being knocked for a loop by the flashing eyes and bright teeth of the beautiful ladies who made up the dancing chorus of Sir Joseph's female relatives,
"his sisters and his cousins
whom he reckons up by dozens
and his aunts"!
I marveled how they knew all those words and was even more impressed by how rapidly they spouted them in unison!
Wow, and double wow!
And thanks very much for posting an original bit of The Canterbury Tales. Way back in the '70s I devoted one of my radio programs to readings from Chaucer. I practiced for weeks to get the ME pronunciations down. Turned out it wasn't that far off from modern English, except for sounding like speaking though hiccups.
~ OMK
____________
Diagonal Report: Again no diags. (What else is new?)
TTP - no diss'n' taken... I've been known not to refresh b/f posting :-)
Are you sure you've not heard of OK GO? This was viral [treadmills] a few years back. There music is POP-y and eeh [I got their CD based off that song and wasn't IN AWE of the rest of their tunes].
What's amazing about their videos - it's all one continuous take.
Cheers, -T
Addendum:
"Sir Joseph's Porter's Song" is the general title for both "I am the Monarch of the Sea" and "When I was a Lad..."
The first serves as the prelude to the latter, which is the show's main patter song.
~ OMK
One thing about Saturday crosswords, is that if I wasn't feeling overwhelmed before, by the time I'm [not] done, I am.
"Shakti"??? Not only is this not in my wheelhouse, it's not even in my dictionary. **
Michael the Whelmed
** I stand, well, sit, corrected -- 'shakti' is in the dictionary after all, but if we need to use a dictionary, it stops being a fun challenge, and the puzzle just descends into w-o-r-k.
OMK - I knew you'd know 37d and wanted to phone-you-as-a-friend. I was over in Technicolor Dream Coat land on that one...
Apparently I post w/o proofing too :-) 'There' should be 'their' there before 'music is...'
-T
Many thanks for the fuller explanation, PK. And that Bugs Bunny sure knows his multiplication, doesn't he, Anon T?
My son played Sir Joseph Porter when his high school did Pinafore I was a “sister or a cousin or an aunt” my year so the patter songs are burned into my brain.
I think that accounts for the long term popularity of G&S. They are still being performed. The songs are so memorable! And the satire is so clever.
For any who wonder about the fun of these old tunes, here's a link to the last scene of HMS PINAFORE.
They knew how to do finales in those days; here you can catch snatches of some of the already-mentioned numbers.
(I couldn't find a great visual video, but the sound here is what's most important.)
Here's your link to a Pinafore Finale.
~ OMK
PS. After listening, if you're interested, stay on YouTube for a BBC Proms concert version of the full show. Or skip to the last 3 minutes for another fuller-orchestrated rendition of the finale.
Thanks for posting the link to that delightful Pinaforte finale, Ol'Man Keith. Brought back sweet musical memories.
OMK - thanks for the Pinafore clip. Nostalgia - in my youth I played in the orchestra for most of their operettas. As Swamp Cat says, excellent music and satire.
Starting in the NW in regular mode (red letters on) I had no idea - I've never watched more than a few minutes of any "reality" show, so was trying to think of their names, but every 1st letter I tried turned red. For some unknown reason at 11a MASK came to me before hide. Then the right answer came to mind for 15a, and so on. It was hard and there was quite a lot I've never heard of: OREL, SHAKTI, MIDGEE. I couldn't remember EDNA, though I saw and liked "Hairspray". Lots of others I just wouldn't think of without getting many crosses and red letter help to rule out all my wrong guesses.
One nit in my particular wheelhouse (music): 39d - backbeat doesn't have anything to do with syncopation. Backbeat just means emphasizing beats 2 & 4 of a 4-beat measure, instead of 1 & 3 as in a march or foxtrot. Syncopation is when the accent (emphasis) is on the 2nd half of a beat, usually tied over to the next beat. Think of the 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th notes of "The Entertainer".
I know it's me, but the last three days have been toughies, including today's - very few speed-run clues. Got it almost, almost - SHANTI sounded about right, and didn't do the alphabet run, so like D-O, I let it be. IDOS was my first wite-out, followed by MEDI/PEDI. I never know what kind of music genre the young'uns will come up with next - MOP? Duh, POP.
Bound to over-post today says...
MikeS made me do it! Joplin's Entertainer for him and Bill G. [who share'd his love of math (music, rhythm, syncopation and maths go together like PB&J) and Joplin w/ me].
Cheers, -T
Well nuts !
Dash T, linked to your OK GO video right after you commented, and it took forever and a day to load. Been doing PD and speed tests ever since. Looks like I need to go to the Xfinity store on Monday for a new router.
Ethernet connection is fine. 179 to 185 Mbps downloads time after time. WiFi has dropped to as low as 1.27 Mbps as near as 25' away from the router. Getting a paltry 12 Mbps over WiFi in the same room as the router. NWP, and in the words of Gloria Gaynor, I will survive.
As Hahtoolah often says, and as Lemonade714 said today,"It is always unsettling when 1 Across brings nothing to mind." It was a complete absolute full-fledged unknown to me. Then I put in CLEAR AIR for 1 Down, thinking myself oh so veddy clever, which I erroneously thought was a nice foothold. After finding very few other footholds I turned on red letters. All of CLEAR AIR was red except the L! Also totally red was AXE (shoulda been CAN), and all but the I in MANI was red. Etc. etc. At least I got KANSAS, MICA, MPAA, and STEN right, which served as my only toeholds.
But after looking up "Now or Neverland" I got FEAR FACTOR and my CLEAR AIR tuned into FRESH AIR. Nope, still way wrong. So I left red letters on and chipped away until I finally solved it. Overall, I agree with jfromvt: "Lots of long answers. Beautifully constructed puzzle! A great Saturday challenge." Yes it sure was!
Does anybody here have a Roomba or other brand of robotic vacuum cleaner? I'm thinking of buying the Eufy Robovac 11s. I'm attracted that it focuses on actual cleaning rather than being larded up with "connectivity" to smartphones and stuff.
Best wishes to you all.
This all all I know about Backbeats
Jayce I have a friend who loves her robo-vac.
WC
Wow! This was way to tough for me today and I didn't have time to really grind it out. I got the NE, MADE IN CHINA, PHILLIES & STEN in the SW, SEDGE, OREL, & ORC in the NW. The SE was a sea of white with the OPEC oil spill floating in it.
US MAP, FEAR FACTOR, BACKBEAT, CSI:Cyber, ORNE, SHAKTI, MIDGEE- complete unknowns that I would never filled. I know what syncopated music sounds but never heard the term BACKBEAT to describe the 'usually' unaccented note.
Uncle, Rabbit, I bow to those who solve it. Maybe even kowtow.
Thanks, Wilbur Charles.
So late but today was a busy day. Welcome September! I'll read your comments tonight and apologize if I repeat what has been posted.
While this looked daunting at first as I hopped around and found foothold in the SW then slid to the SE and climbed upwards I believe I could have posted this morning if only I hadn't had to leave for a luncheon at my friend's senior living anniversary celebration.
Sadly, SHAKTI is unknown to me, too so one bad cell doomed me. However, once I had INAWE, WOODEDAREA jumped out at me. Perhaps because I saw so much of that in Dayton. Then ENTICEMENT SUPRISED me. And on it went. Only the NW remained and when I returned this afternoon FLATSODA occurred to me. I don't know FEAR FACTOR but have heard of it.
CHAI tea and TEN were early fill but the rest got in by bits and pieces. SEDGE and OREL are familiar CW staples.
Thank you, Greg Johnson and Gary! For me it's a good end to a long day.
I hope you all have had a marvelous Saturday and are enjoying the long weekend!
And who can forget, "Refrain, Audacious Tar!"?
Not me.
~ OMK
Gilbert and Sullivan definitely wrote many memorable songs.
Yes, Jayce! I have many embedded in my head. Earwigs?? But pleasant ones!
Jayce, I have a Roomba which is about three years old. I like it for hard surface floors very much. Don't use it much on carpet because I think the carpet needs more suction of an upright to pull up the dirt. Maybe if I used it everyday from the carpet being new, I would be more satisfied with it. My Roomba has some clock & automatic cleaning features, but I only set it in place, block the room entries and press clean. Other than empty the cup of dirt, I haven't done anything else with it. I move things out of its way, like kitchen chairs & my bedskirt.
Smart dogs: Another smart dog breed we had was a dachshund-rat terrier mix. We had a border collier and two German shepherds who were very intelligent, empathetic and had ESP that was uncanny.
SwampCat ~
Hmm.
I haven't heard of "earwigs" in reference to memorable songs.
The German word Ohrwurm does indeed translate as "earwig," but I think our English word for a catchy tune is "earworm."
But maybe there's more than one version of the term. Does anybody have the definitive answer?
~ OMK
DNF - extremely!
Except for TAZO the answers I did have were correct; but a lit of white.
Krijo at 12:49 PM and Anonymous T at 2:05 PM
- - Thanks for introducing me to the music of OK GO.
Ðave
In my reference to "The Entertaainer" I was counting notes starting with the last two eighth notes at the end of the introduction, which I forgot about. Thanks for linking it, Anon-T.
Thanks, PK.
Ohrwurm also translates into catchy tune or earworm.
AnonT, I'm happy I helped you enjoy Scott Joplin as much as I do.
It's EAR WORM for me. An earwig is an unpleasant insect/beetle.
Earwig - I will not link the beginning of Wrath of Khan before bedtime... too scary.
D4 - Glad you enjoyed OK GO... Want another? [their most audacious IMHO; again - one take (they actually did everything in 1/4 motion and sped things up in post)]
So, TTP, just reboot your X-Finity BOX and watch :-)
Did y'all read that The Village Voice is shuttering? I did and learnt Norman Mailer was one of the 3 founders. Just random trivia for those still up.
Cheers, -T
-T, that’s impressive! (The umbrella one)
It must have been a good camera drone operator, and the battery life of the machine must have been above average, especially at one-quarter speed.
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