Friday, March 15, 2019, Susan Gelfand

Beware the Ides of March!

Title: I've heard that before.

Susan is back for her 10th LAT publication and second Friday. her first PUZZLE that I blogged also relied on ordinary phrases not tampered with, only redefined for humorous effect. This type can be difficult to get a foothold on because there are no tricks. You just need to let your imagination run free. The let a few perps get you started. The long fill is also varied and sparkly with ALTOONA, EMANATE, HASIDIM, ROACHES, BLUEMOON, and HYSTERIA all good. I may be a little brief today as I had my colonoscopy yesterday afternoon. I like to think of it as my spring cleaning, but enough of that let's solve.

20A. High-quality tennis venue?: SUPERIOR COURT (13). The TRIAL COURT in many states is repurposed.

34A. Well-known boxing venue?: FAMILIAR RING (12). This time an idiom is repurposed. To sound like something one has heard before. I must have read this before—the words in the opening paragraph have a familiar ring to them.

41A. Virtual golf venue?: ONLINE COURSE (12). My massage therapist got her Bachelor's of Alternative Medicine at this local UNIVERSITY. 

56A. Attractive soccer venue?: MAGNETIC FIELD (13). Do you what a MAGNETIC PERSONALITY is?

Speaking of personalities, this is my tenth year blogging with most of my work on Friday, and with a few new things in my life, I am going to be sharing the duties starting next week, but I will let C.C. fill in the details. I appreciate all the wonderful words and friendships from this venue. But let us go back to work.

Across:

1. No-way man?: JOSE. I was going to start week this with the old joke about the National Anthem at the ballpark but remembered the joke was recently used. "Jose, can you see?"

5. Shade-loving plant: HOSTA. Similar sound.

10. Brainiac: WHIZ. Often associated with "kid."

14. At Dodger Stadium, briefly: IN LA. Back to baseball. Hello, left-coasters.

15. Playwright Fugard: ATHOL. I already had him once this year.

16. London's __ Park: HYDE.  Hyde Park is a Grade I-listed major park in Central London. It is the largest of four Royal Parks that form a chain from the entrance of Kensington Palace through Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park, via Hyde Park Corner and Green Park past the main entrance to Buckingham Palace. It was created by Henry VIII.

17. Walk, e.g.: GAIT.

18. Electrical problem: SHORT. Electrician talk for a short circuit, where the electricity is diverted from its intended path. One of my nephews is a master electrician who started his own business this year as Florida's building boom returned.

19. "Makes sense to me": I SEE.

23. Made amends: ATONED. Early days for me, as Yom Kippur is months away, but we are in Lent.

24. Fireplace shelf: HOB. This is a flat metal shelf at the side or back of a fireplace, having its surface level with the top of the grate and used especially for heating pans. Wiki, I think.

25. Noteworthy stretch: ERA.

28. Earned: WON.

29. Legal tender with an 8-Down: DIME. On the obverse. 8D. Statue of Liberty feature: TORCH.

32. Kind of network: NEURAL.

36. Udon cousin: SOBA. Not a cousin but a related FOOD. Oo uses both.

39. Texting format, briefly: SMS. Short Message Service (SMS) is a text messaging service component of phone, Web, or mobile communication systems. It uses standardized communications protocols to allow fixed line or mobile phone devices to exchange short text messages.


40. Infatuated: GAGA. You want a song?

46. Early morning hr.: FOUR AM. Three thirty four AM here, now.

47. Catch sight of SPOT.

48. Maple output: SAP. We harvested the sap when I was at boarding school and made our own maple syrup. When I went back for my 50th reunion, they are still making it, but the bottles and labels are prettier.

51. Art nowadays?: ARE. Tricky three letter fill.

52. MLB player nickname since 2005: NAT. The Washington Nationals are a Major League Baseball team formed in 1969 as the Montreal Expos. In 2005, the Expos moved to Washington, D.C. and were renamed the Nationals. The franchise has never won a World Series or National League pennant but has won its division five times. We also have 68A. Trade shows: EXPOS.

54. Em, for one: AUNTIE. Go, Dorothy. We never learn Emily's last name, in the book or movie.

60. Declare: AVOW. Not AVER today.

62. Starting word containing five of the letters of what it starts: ALEPH. ALPHABET, and the first letter in the Hebrew alphabet.

63. Street __: CRED.

64. Fashionable Christian: DIOR. Cute clue.

65. Curt: TERSE.

66. Ship's spine: KEEL. We must have some music.

67. Like the Marx Brothers: ZANY.

69. Loudness unit: SONE. I know decibels, not Sone, which is a unit of loudness. Loudness is a subjective characteristic of a sound (as opposed to the sound-pressure level in decibels, which is objective and directly measurable). Consequently, the sone scale of loudness is based on data obtained from subjects who were asked to judge the loudness of pure tones and noise. Well, that cleared it up for me. Not!

Down:

1. Something to put together: JIGSAW. Not a puzzling clue at all.

2. Running by itself: ON AUTO. Pilot?

3. Comfy shoe: SLIP ON.

4. Polished off: EATEN.

5. Orthodox Jewish sect: HASIDIM. The plural of  Hasid - pronounced. Chas·sid  (KHä′sĭd). 

6. Emperor after Galba: OTHO. In the year of four emperors. I also get him often but I learned when my oldest was studying the classics.

7. Toots in a restaurant: SHOR. No doubt a soon to be forgotten figure, as baseball is no longer king. LINK. My brothers and I ate there a couple of time with my father when we were kids just to see who we would see.

9. Pennsylvania railroad city: ALTOONA. Home of the Railroader MUSEUM. I am not sure I knew it was called "railroad city", but with the A, I plunked in Altoona.

10. Spinning sound: WHIR. Onomatopoeia. Damn, I spelled it right!

11. Frenzied state: HYSTERIA. A good definition for a fun fill.

12. Suffix with ox-: IDE.

13. Middle of Venezuela?: ZEE. The Middle of Venezuela is not a place I would want to be.

21. "The Scarlet Letter" letter: RED A.

22. Means of getting around town: UBER. I prefer Lyft.

26. Summoned, in a way: RANG. From last week.

27. Pond growth: ALGA.

30. Odds-and-ends abbr.: MISC.

31. St. __ Fire: ELMOS. We have this often.

33. Craving: URGE.

34. More susceptible to sunburn: FAIR. I have been blessed with skin that does not burn unless I really overdo it.

35. Bats: IS UP.

36. Sectional __: SOFA. We had one in our house after my father re-did the living room.

37. Words before before: ON OR. I like the clue clue.

38. Very long time: BLUE MOON. A blue moon is an additional full moon that appears in a subdivision of a year: either the third of four full moons in a season or a second full moon in a month of the common calendar. The phrase has nothing to do with the actual color of the moon, although a literal "blue moon" may occur in certain atmospheric conditions: e.g., if volcanic eruptions or fires leave particles in the atmosphere of just the right size to preferentially scatter red light. Wiki.

42. Da __, Vietnam: NANG.

43. Spring (from): EMANATE.

44. Raid targets: ROACHES.

45. Word after Double in a cookie name: STUF. The Alabama defensive lineman who ran the fastest 40-yard dash for a 300+ pound person at the NFL combine ate 4 as part of his prerun breakfast.

48. Assembly with speakers?: STEREO.

49. Quinn of "Annie": AILEEN. I could not find anything but a two-hour link, so I chose this clip.

50. Hawk: PEDDLE. "to sell in the open, peddle," late 15c., back-formation from hawker "itinerant vendor" (c. 1400), agent noun from Middle Low German höken "to peddle, carry on the back, squat," from Proto-Germanic *huk-. Related: Hawked; hawking. Despite the etymological connection with stooping under a burden on one's back, a hawker is technically distinguished from a peddler by use of a horse and cart or a van.

53. Fax ancestor: TELEX. I still remember my first office fax machine in 1984.

55. Steals, in British slang: NICKS. A gimme for this lover of British fiction and BBC TV, A backhanded shout out to Steve and our other uncommon Commonwealth people. A good DISCUSSION of its history.

57. Out of kilter: AWRY.

58. Md. athlete: TERP. Back again.

59. __ facto: IPSO. A law term.

60. Wood shaper: ADZ.

61. Routing term: VIA.

So there you have it, another puzzle and another Friday. Nobody was stabbed in the Senate and I withstood another colonoscopy. I will avoid all the bad puns and wish you all a quick solve and great weekend. Lemonade out. Thank you Susan G.