google.com, pub-2774194725043577, DIRECT, f08c47fec0942fa0 L.A.Times Crossword Corner: Saturday, June 15, 2019, Craig Stowe

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Jun 15, 2019

Saturday, June 15, 2019, Craig Stowe

Themeless Saturday Puzzle By Craig Stowe



Today marks the the celebration of a big source of renewable energy - Wind. As you can see by the accompanying chart, wind turbines are sprouting up at a good clip out here on the Great Plains. 

My daughter and her family just returned from a vacation in Palm Springs, CA two days ago and were amazed when they saw this huge wind farm on I-10 near there


The main issue of course, is how to store this energy when the wind is not blowing. This is being addressed in many ingenious ways

Today, Craig Stowe has blown up a challenging puzzle to solve. Let's see "watt" he has done:


Across:

1. Word with H or I: BEAM.



5. Key of Chopin's Étude Op. 10, No. 3: E MAJ Gee, I'd love to hear some of that

9. Wont: HABIT - It is my wont to blog every Saturday 

14. Old: OUT OF DATE.


16. "The Faerie Queene" woman: IRENA - IRENA appeals to "The Faerie Queen" for help in Edmund Spencer's 1590 epic poem

17. U.S. gross national debt units since 1981: TRILLIONS - and the beat goes on...

56. Disproportion: IMBALANCE - Speaking of which

18. Fictional musket wielder: ATHOS - He was one of The, uh, Three Musketeers

19. Ready for action: HOT TO TROT 

20. Medieval feudal lord: THANE - Macbeth as the Thane of Glamis



21. Prepare quickly, with "up": WHIP.

22. Shudder: QUIVER - The master



23. Some partygoers: STAGS.

27. Aristotle in the 20th century: ONASSIS - Mr. Jackie O

29. River in Tuscany: ARNO - The ARNO 15. Runs: FLOWS  out of the Apennines, goes through Florence and empties into the Ligurian Sea at Pisa. There are no boat rides on the ARNO as much of it is not navigable  



30. "Middlemarch" author: ELIOT - An 1871 novel of provincial English life by George ELIOT (Mary Anne Evans)

32. Low digits: TOES.

34. YMCA leader and Peace Prize co-Nobelist John: MOTT His Bio.

35. Coup group: JUNTA.



36. Normandy department: ORNE - France's NW Region of Normandy is divided into five Administrative Departments seen below. The beaches of Calvados were much celebrated nine days ago.



37. Lofty verse: EPOS Here ya go!

38. Glyceride, for one: ESTER Here ya go!

39. Tabula __: RASA - Latin for Tablet Erased



40. Japanese electronics giant: HITACHI.

42. "Black Velvet" singer Alannah: MYLES - Some nice Saturday listening/viewing



43. Sovereign: DYNAST - Yes, I suppose a DYNAST would have a dynasty

44. Early one-named Velvet Underground vocalist: NICO - 60's vintage



47. Great service providers: ACERS - They can make for tennis matches played with few strokes

48. Looked raptly: STARGAZED - Mine would be more directed at the heavens than anything terrestrial 

53. Photo finish: MATTE.

54. It may be a stretch: LIMOUSINE - At Disney Studios, Rock 'n Roller Coaster is a ride in a "stretch LIMOUSINE" at 57mph into a black light adventure with Aerosmith blasting in your ears! I'd allow "awesome" as a description!



55. Colorado's __ Park: ESTES.

57. Origins: SEEDS - 800 miles south of the North Pole lies the Svalbard Global Seed Vault that stores nearly a million seeds from around the world



58. Nudnik: PEST.

59. Hit, as with snowballs: PELT.


Down:

1. Choice when you can't decide?: BOTH An old commercial about this dilemma

2. Prefix with vision: EURO Need more info?



3. Working: AT IT.

4. Shed: MOLT.

5. Bunker on Hauser Street: EDITH - Jeanne Stapleton won an Emmy for her wonderful portrayal



6. "The Piano" extra: MAORI - In this movie the MAORI unload Ada's piano on the beach in western New Zealand 



7. Never: AT NO POINT IN TIME.

8. Kid: JEST.

9. Break: HIATUS - Kids and teachers are on one now

10. Subject including the Renaissance: ART HISTORY.

11. Type of economics: BEHAVIORAL Five interesting examples

12. From that perspective: IN ONE SENSE.

13. Cop show shocker: TASER.



22. Doha's country: QATAR - Doha is a 2-hr flight from Baghdad 



23. Word of equality: SAME.

24. Cup holder: TROPHY CASE.

25. Name wrongly associated with cake: ANTOINETTE - Most feel Marie never said "Qu’ils mangent de la brioche" (Let them eat cake) in response to hearing the peasants had no bread. However it became a rallying cry for French revolutionaries 

26. Took the first step: GOT STARTED - Debate continues on how attribution to Marie Antoinette of "Qu’ils mangent de la brioche" GOT STARTED

28. One on a staff: NOTE - This NOTE is the top of my range
30. Kick out: EJECT.

31. Green: LUSH - Redux from last Saturday

33. Tranquility and Serenity: SEAS - A lunar reconnaissance orbiter caught site of the Apollo 11 landing site in the SEA of Tranquility 45 years later. (Yeah, we really went!)



41. Rate: ASSESS.

42. Big kahuna: MOGUL 

43. Some royal wedding guests: DAMES - DAME Judi Dench became the first woman to play James Bond's boss, M. Her role was modeled on DAME Stella Rimington, the real-life head of MI5 between 1992 and 1996



45. Feet in a meter?: IAMBS - Ba BUM, Ba BUM, Ba BUM, Ba BUM, Ba BUM (each "ba BUM" is an IAMB and of course there are five in this smart aleck's answers)



46. Balkan native: CROAT.

48. Err: SLIP.

49. Pronto: ASAP - Add Stat in a hospital 

50. E-__: ZINE - Not an online magazine but just for fun-  What time is it in EZINE, Çanakkale, Turkey right now?

51. Letter-bottom abbr.: ENCL - The ENCL can be a S.A.S.E. for an R.S.V.P.

52. Bugs' bane: DEET - The EPA now says DEET is safe when used as directed but this product advertises it is DEET FREE



Now the person in this house could comment on his computer that is powered by WIND and solar energy!







47 comments:

PK said...

Hi Y'all! Engrossing puzzle, Craig. Great expo, Gary.

Groan! Ouch! Not on my wave-length, but managed to fill it after a struggle. Looked easier AT that POINT IN TIME.

Barry G. said...

Morning, all!

Managed to get through this one eventually, but really struggled on the Eastern Seaboard. Had LIEGE instead of THANE, didn't know IRENA or MYLES, couldn't remember ORNE, had no idea that BEHAVIORAL economics was a thing and really had trouble seeing IN ONE SENSE from the clue "from that perspective" (why not "from a certain perspective"?).

Anywho, I eventually ripped out LIEGE and was then able to piece things together (especially after finally remembering ORNE). Still wasn't happy with IN ONE SENSE, but I went with it and it worked. The end!

desper-otto said...

Good morning!

There was plenty of crunch in my corn flakes this morning. Hand up for LIEGE before THANE. I really liked those triple-stacks of nines and tens. How do the puz people do that? It all came together in usual Saturday time, so life is good. Well done, Craig and Husker.

TTP said...

Good morning. Thank you Craig and Husker Gary.

I'm happy with 28:58 this morning, especially when it looked like I wasn't going to get it solved. It wasn't the triple stacked nines. The northwest and southeast fell pretty quickly, as did the middle.

The triple stacked tens in the southwest and northeast burnt most of the time, and that was with having ANTOINETTE and ART HISTORY in place. TROPHY CASE broke open the SW, and changing from IN the SENSE to IN ONE SENSE cleared the paths and confusion.

Great puzzle, Craig. And thanks for the excellent review, Gary.

D4E4H said...

FIR in way too long a time.

Supper Saturday Solvers!

Thank you Craig Stowe for this monster. I was certain I would need to reveal letters in every cell, but I Perped and Wagged my way to a clean solve.

Thank you Husker Gary for your excellent review.

Ðave

Madame Defarge said...

Good Morning.

Nicely done, Craig. I was not making any progress except for bits and pieces until I broke through with ANTOINETTE and TROPHY CASE. After that ART HISTORY and LIMOUSINE saved the day.

Thanks for the tour, Gary. I loved teaching Macbeth so THANE was an gimme.

I love how some young-uns think the Invasion lasted a few days. Actually the Allies continued to disembark at Calvados until August--about the same time Paris was liberated. My dad landed at Utah--the French say OO-tah--on D+4: June 10. In 2012, I brought one copy of his company journal to the museum at Utah. I think I will take the other to New Orleans. They were kept by a fellow company member--a school teacher (natch)--from West Allis, WI. Mimeographed and tattered. Secondary sources. I'd love to see the original. . . . When I left the one at Utah, it was off-season, and no one spoke English. I was never so happy to bring my college minor to good use.

Have a sunny day. Enjoy the weekend. Happy Fathers' Day to all of you around the Corner.

OKL: Thank you for sharing--especially through your poetry. Be well.

Spitzboov said...

Good morning everyone.

Toughie. Got the NE first; then the S. Wanted Four-H first, but no downs worked so rethought it and went to BEAM. Also had 'liege' before THANE. Made some good guesses and finally bulled my way through with EPOS and DYNAST. Being Saturday, you have to be flexible on these things.
Lucky to have guessed right with the grid spanner - AT NO POINT IN TIME.

Good to see Barry this morning.

Enjoy the weekend.

Jerome said...

Just in case anyone else is making the same mistake-

I always pronounced Maori as May oree. It's actually Mao, as in the chairman, ree.

Acers- I'm willing to bet anything that no tennis player has ever used the word. However, it is a bit fun. Scare, races, acres, cares, Cesar, as in Cesar Chavez.

Athos said...

Tsk! Athos did NOT wield a musket, he wielded a sword.

Anonymous said...

I did NOT wield a musket, I wielded a sword.

Irish Miss said...

Good Morning:

As usual, the typical Saturday long fill helped greatly, especially seeing At No Point In Time so quickly, and being able to suss some of the others with just a few letters in place: Trophy Case, Antoinette, Art History, etc. I stumbled over Shiver/Quiver (Qatar settled that), Stars/Stags, and Muir/Mott. (Muir was a guess as Mott was unknown) Other unknowns were Irena, Myles, and Nico. I was pleased with my time of 23:00 but I do long for those 45:00 + workouts from Barry Silk!

Thanks, Craig, for an enjoyable solve and thanks, HG, for the commentary, visuals, and links, especially the melodic and moving Chopin elude. Learning moment was Behavioral Economics, although I'm not quite sure I understand the principles. Also, I think I've heard of Eurovision but had no idea what it meant.

FLN

BigEasy, my mother also subscribed to "Etude" magazine: she was organist at our church for many years.

Have a great day.

Irish Miss said...

Sorry, Chopin's Etude, not elude.

Spitzboov said...

Re: ATHOS - - Since he was a Musketeer I'm assuming he wielded a musket

musketeer noun
mus·​ke·​teer | \ ˌmə-skə-ˈtir \
Definition of musketeer
1 : a soldier armed with a musket

YMMV

Lemonade714 said...

What an interesting idea to have your own wind generator. The next hurricane we would not lose power.

Thank you, Gary and Craig, for a good start to the day, though it was not a walk in the park. I have never heard of "Black Velvet" singer Alannah: MYLES nor Early one-named Velvet Underground vocalist: NICO. I liked the smoothness of velvet connection.

Had lots of trouble seeing Cup holder: TROPHY CASE especially as I did not like DYNAST

The three musketeers belonged to the Mousquetaires de la Garde, who were the king's soldiers armed with, indeed, muskets. In the books, they are mentioned to have guns - Athos shot at least two people in the first book with his pistols; they used muskets when they had breakfast in Bastion Saint-Gervais.

Barry, glad you stopped by. Craig created the Saturday puzzle blogged by C.C. the week when Splynter left the post unmanned.


Lemonade714 said...

An illustration from an ealy edition of Dumas' book...ATHOS with MUSKET

Lemonade714 said...

Ealy = early

desper-otto said...

Lemonade, the natural gas supply doesn't (normally) get cut off during a hurricane. That's why so many folks around here (d-o included) have installed whole-house natural gas generators. The generator fires up 30 seconds after the power goes out, and the lights are back on a few seconds later. It's nice to have A/C and to be able to cook, do laundry and watch TV after a hurricane. In the past, we've been out of utility power for almost two weeks following a storm, not pleasant if you're in the dark.

Anonymous said...

Original and much better version of Black Velvet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tT4d1LQy4es

Lucina said...

Hola!

What a nifty puzzle from Craig Stowe, thank you!

In the NW, SW, center and bottom I sailed through in under 15 minutes then came to a grinding halt in the NE. I wouldn't give up LIEGE until THANE pushed its way through.

Had to look up Alannah MYLES of whom I've never heard and ORNE which I knew but forgot and only then did the rest fill. With QUIVER and LIEGE in place I was conflicted about two i's and knew one would have to go eventually. It did.

This was really fun today. Thank you, Gary, for enhancing the entertainment!

I must go now. The Book Club will be here this afternoon and there is still much to do.

Have a happy day, everyone!

AnonymousPVX said...


So who is this Craig Stowe and how on Earth did he come up with this....as above....Monster Saturday puzzle.

This is the type of puzzle that I would have quit on not too long ago.

But I kept at it, hopping around the grid as I got stuck (everywhere). And as one section filled, it was back to ground zero to solve another.

Finally it filled. But not without numerous

Markovers...ONIT/ATIIT, JOSH/JEST, LIEGE/THANE, NABOB/MOGUL, ETAL/ENCL, FUDD/DEET, NERD/PEST.

I think that’s all of them....hard to see through all the ink, looks like my pen got sick.

Have a great weekend.

Jayce said...

Neato puzzle. First toeholds were ATHOS, ELIOT, QATAR, TOES, RASA, TASER, and NOTE. From there greater footholds include ONASSIS, EJECT, and HITACHI. 31 minutes well spent in solving al the rest without "help." I did stall out for a while at INONESE-S- because I wanted IN ONES EYES but that S from RASA was in the wrong place. Oh, and I had BARON before TASER showed that to be wrong; didn't even think of LIEGE.

I admire Mr. Stowe's skilled construction. A heck of a good puzzle.

Good wishes to you all.

Misty said...

Let's see: I started out with ELIOT, RASA, EVICT (wrong, EJECT), DESPOT (wrong, DYNAST), DAMES, ASAP, and E-MAIL (wrong, E-ZINE). So, even my start wasn't too great. But after cheating a little, things started to fill in here and there, and I still enjoyed doing the puzzle. Many thanks, Craig and Husker Gary.

Have a great weekend, everybody.

Misty said...

Forgot to say that my favorite clue was "Bunker on Hauser Street." I cracked up when the answer turned out to be ETHEL--who knew that she and Archie lived on Hauser Street!

Northwest Runner said...

Here is another piece on the fascinating subject of behavioral economics.

This Giants fan wants to know when someone (like C.C. maybe?) will clue Estes with "Former MLB pitcher."

desper-otto said...

Northwest Runner, that'll be about the same time when someone clues it as "Former Senator Kefauver."

Lucina said...

d-o:
I have actually seen "former senator Kefauver" in one of my puzzle books. Craig Stowe also has many contributions in those books.

Yuman said...

If you are ever in the area of Palm Springs, CA I recommend you take the 2 hour Windmill tour, very informative.

Ol' Man Keith said...

A tightly reasoned nail-biter from Mr. Stowe today--and a brilliant exegesis from Husker G! Thanks to both.

Er, Misty--EDITH, not ETHEL.
When I was a kid, there was an Ethel in the upstairs flat. (But we lived on Union Street, not Hauser.)
~ OMK
____________
DR:
A 3-way on the mirror side. The central diagonal warns us to be careful when yakking near folks who might be traitors.
"SHH, TURNCOATS!"
("Loose Lips Sink Ships," y'know...)

Anonymous T said...

Hi All!

Whoot! Cold air! $5k (not TRILLION!) and I have a new A/C unit, blower, etc. for the upstairs. What's crazy is the unit they replaced was installed in '91 - think about that - it lasted 28 years. That's impressive. //A/C guy said, "They don't make 'em like that anymore." The guy's funny, like a 'right out of central casting for Chicago/Michigan A/C' kinda guy.

Speaking of impressive, Craig, this is a heck of a grid; with the stack'd 10s and 9s - wow!
On IMBALLANCE, my performance was not impressive. Like TTP, the NW & SE were doable but, for me, the SW & NW required a peek at HG's grid.

Flat-wrongs: ones for small digits. Sepia for photo finish and Danes for Great service (are Great Danes service dogs too? I donno.... Raggie?*)
Unlike Misty, I just took a peak at HG's grid to clear those up to get my extra play.

Anyone else read 48a as 'Looked Rapidly'? I did even after it filled. It took HG's fine expo for the V8-whack.

Speaking of the fine expo... HG, I don't know where you found the IAMB comic but let's give Munroe some love. I've enjoyed xkcd for years and, if you, fine Cornerites, have never seen it, take some time to get lost in his world.

For more on BEHAVIORAL econ... Freakonomics. I enjoyed the books and look forward to their podcasts.

Have a wonderful Saturday afternoon!

Cheers, -T
*That's how Scooby, a Great Dane, says Shaggy.

WikWak said...

Gloomy, rainy day here. Perfect match for my mood after the first run through on this beast. I personally found this to be one of the more difficult puzzles I’ve worked. I lost track of the time it took to finish, but it was quite a while; probably about an hour, double my usual time. Congratulations, Craig, on a whale of a Saturday stumper. And HG, I loved seeing XKCD in your writeup today.

I found the long answers a lot more difficult than usual today. I guess I wasn’t on Craig’s wavelength today.

Getting ANTOINETTE quickly (well… pretty quickly) really helped me in the W and SW. Some of my favorite entries today were HOT TO TROT, TOES, and MATTE.

I’m going out to play in the puddles now. Be good.

Anonymous said...

If karma has anything to with with it, Gary Woodland will win The U.S. Open this weekend at Pebble Beach. This video was just played on the Fox broadcast.

Gary Woodland plays a hole with Amy

I'm not crying. You're crying!

Oh, and Husker, I know you would approve of using the word AWESOME to describe that video.

Avg Joe said...

This effort was only a bit short of brutal. Reminded me of a Silkie. And it played like one too. I don't time my pencil/paper efforts, but I'd guess it was around 45 minutes...or close to double a typical Saturday. BUT....victory was had, despite thinking it would never be.

Anon @4:44, that was a great clip. Thanks.

-T, you've been living on borrowed time on that AC unit for 15 years or more. But, on the bright side, it prolly had a SEER rating of no more than 10 and your new unit should be at 14+. So it'll pay for itself eventually.

Abejo said...

Good afternoon, folks. Thank you, Craig Stowe, for a fine puzzle. Thank you, Husker Gary, for a fine review.

Barry G, nice to see you again.

This puzzle was excellent, but very difficult for me. It took me many hours to get. I lost count. Fortunately, I have a lot of time on my hands at the moment. Healing is nothing but time.

I got the SW and the NE corners first. Getting HITACHI and ANTOINETTE really helped. Next was the NW corner. The easiest two in that corner were EDITH and TRILLIONS. The rest I had to grind out slowly.

The SE was my last to fill. I had ASAP, PELT, and DEET. All the rest came slowly with lots of trial and error.

Working through this puzzle really helped me get through the day. I am glad i do this.

See you tomorrow.

Abejo

( )

Anonymous T said...

Jinx - another xkcd fan? Sweet.

Did you see Monroe is having a contest for city-stops on his book tour? It's basically put a sentence together from book titles. As it happens, I'm reading 'An Economist Walks into a Brothel'..

What if? An Economist Walks into a Brothel Blink, Gulp, Grunt... On Second Thought Forbidden Creatures.

I've read 'em all :-)

AveJoe - let's hope; Summer electric bills usually hover around $750.

Cheers, -T

WikWak said...

Way to hang in there, Abejo! Glad to see you’re in good spirits and healing. Hang in there.

Big Easy said...

After a week HIATUS at the beach I GOT STARTED yesterday and worked a crossword puzzle. The NE on Mr. Stowe's Saturday puzzle gave me fits until I finished it. I was stuck with LIEGE for the 'Feudal lord', didn't know there was such a thing as BEHAVIORAL economics, and had no idea who the "Faerie Queene' woman was. After guessing ATHOS I remembered THANE and IRENA worked her way onto the grid.

NICO, Alannah MYLES, John MOTT- never heard of any of them but their perps made the puzzle work. But I have heard the song many times.

ACERS- I'm late to the blog today because I watched my grandson (age 13) play in a tennis tournament against an older player. How old? He is a junior at Trinity COLLEGE in Hartford, CT and plays on the Intercollegiate Tennis team. Joshua will be entering the 8th grade. He held his own but lost in two sets, 6-1, 6-2. He was only aced twice.

jfromvt said...

Like some others, had trouble with the NE corner. Couldn’t get the three long down answers, so a DNF.

PK said...

Abejo, you are such a "going guy", I wondered if you would be content to rest & heal. Hang in there and give it time. Thinking of you with compassion.

My A/C had a refrigerant leak with none left in it. My tech was so frustrated trying to find out what was wrong with it, I thought he would cry. It's working okay after filling with refrigerant. He was trying hard to make it not cost a lot for me. I finally told him not to worry, I had money enough. Probably not what a person should tell a repairman, but I didn't want shortcuts and no COOL.

Before Rural Electrification Admin. went thru in the 1940's, my husband's farm family had a windcharger (windmill) on the house attached to batteries in the basement to run electric lights. Much smaller than todays windmills but not a new technology. Another windmill on the farm pumped water for livestock.

Anonymous T said...

WikWak - apologies - don't know why I typed Jinx re: xkcd... -T

OwenKL said...

FIWrong. TROPHY bASE + AbERS.

Re: xkcd -- It is one of a number of cartoons (Wondermark is another) which have a second punch line as a pop-up when you hover your mouse over it, like the bold print above!

Bill G said...

Hi everybody. Themeless puzzles aren't my favorite so I'll find something else to mention. Like, Barbara and I went to a late lunch at our favorite up-scale restaurant today, Il Fornaio, to celebrate our 54th anniversary. The food and service were excellent as expected.

Then I spent an hour helping Jordan review for his algebra final. It's somewhat of a struggle for him. But we managed without exceeding his tolerance for frustration.

Lucina said...

Bill G:
Congratulations on your 54th anniversary! I wish you many more years together. Is that restaurant Brazilian?

Yesterday I went to a friend's funeral (nasty cancer!) and learned she and her husband had been married 59 years. Her daughter gave a beautiful eulogy.

D4E4H said...

This gives a whole new meaning to "Gone With the Wind."

Thanks -T.

Ðave

D4E4H said...

What does XKCD stand for?

It's not actually an acronym. It's just a word with no phonetic pronunciation -- a treasured and carefully-guarded point in the space of four-character strings.

Ðave

Bill G said...


Lucina, good guess but not Brazilian. Italian.

Misty said...

Of course, Ol'Man Keith--I even got EDITH in the puzzle, not ETHEL. Just a tired and busy morning, I guess.

Anonymous T said...

BigE - you've got a ACER on your hands. A 13yro holding his own against college kids is impressive.

Misty - I knew what you meant. I wanted Archie when I read the clue but EDITH it is 'cuz Meat-head had too many letters :-)

BillG - I don't know that DW will keep me around for another week let alone 23 more years. Good on you! and Happy Anniversary.

OKL - The "mouse-over" is the Easter-Egg in Monroe's work. I love his stuff because it's so smart and orthogonal to the way I regularly think.

D4 - glad you also found delight in xkcd.

Best of Car Talk is on the Radio now - Tom is the philosopher's philosopher.

Cheers, -T