google.com, pub-2774194725043577, DIRECT, f08c47fec0942fa0 L.A.Times Crossword Corner: Friday, November 22, 2019, Jeffrey Wechsler

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Nov 22, 2019

Friday, November 22, 2019, Jeffrey Wechsler

Title: Come right in - no queue here.

Jeffrey is back on schedule with me and delivers another of his letter substitution puzzles. The letter "W" replaces "QU" in a varied group of common phrases. To understand how his mind must work, you need to think of the sound of "QU." From the dictionary, "quick/kwik/." So he is just removing the "k."
As I solved it seemed he was going for another group where all of the switched letters preceded the same vowel, but that was not to be. Instead, he ramped up the difficulty by adding some very original fill and his usual witty cluing. His long non-theme fill shows three introductions, highlighted in BLUE and one second-appearance highlighted in GREEN. He packs all of this into a 70-word gem. AIR TANK,  ALGIERS, ALL TAKENAPHELION, MAGNOLIA, TIRE CARE, TRAIN SET and TSUNAMIS are his sparklers.

16A. Colbert et al.?: WITS FOR THE NIGHT (15). JW, which comes first, the idea of QU to W or does a specific fill pop into your head?

29A. Part of a candlemaker's design process?: WICK DECISION  (11). I am glad he didn't clue this with a reference to this MOVIE. Definitely R-rated for violence.

34A. Outdoor wedding guests on a steamy day?: WILTING PARTY (11). When my son married they chose June in Florida for an outdoor wedding at the Miami Botanical Gardens. Oops.

51A. What a hiker might do after a nap on the trail?: WAKE IN ONE'S BOOTS (15). I always take mine off before sleeping in the forest.

Across:

1. New England's only National Park: ACADIA.  In Maine.

7. Eponymous explorer of Australia: TASMAN. I do not think ABEL TASMAN was much of a devil, just an explorer.

13. Pressure sensors attached to buoys are parts of their warning systems: TSUNAMIS. A learning moment.


15. Recorded, in a way: ON TAPE.

18. Useful thing: ASSET.

19. Additionally: TOO.

20. Coastal raptor: ERNE. Also known as the SEA EAGLE. They are a link to the Dinosaurs but not vegetarians.

21. Something to file: NAIL. Why do we file files but don't nail nails?

22. Frond source: PALM. There are a lot of old fronds of mine here.

23. With 53-Down, maxim: OLD. 53D. See 23-Across: SAW. A proverb or maxim, as in "Mom's always repeating the old saw, "Haste makes waste". This term uses saw in the sense of saying, and old in the sense of wise rather than old-fashioned.

25. Ob-__: GYN. A CSO to my dear departed mother who worked in that field for 50 or so years.

26. Jacket fabric: DENIM.

27. First name in a 2010s first family: MALIA. Means "Mary" in Hawaiian. Perfect for a Hawaiian born father.

31. Subarctic forest: TAIGA. Taiga, also called a boreal forest, biome (major life zone) of vegetation composed primarily of cone-bearing needle-leaved or scale-leaved evergreen trees, found in northern circumpolar forested regions characterized by long winters and moderate to high annual precipitation. Who knew?

33. Hawke of "Boyhood": ETHAN. Two weeks ago, it was ETHAN ALLEN.

38. "Over the Rainbow" composer: ARLEN. Somewhere was not in the title, and it was written specifically for the movie. Harold Arlen only wrote the music but this is a classic sung by so many. HISTORY. Judy Garland's version is embedded in the link.

39. Bowling venue: ALLEY. Another CSO to Boomer and TTP.

40. PD alert: APB. It has taken me a while to adjust to PD not meaning PUBLIC DEFENDER. With all the police procedurals on TV, I finally got it.

43. Understand: GET. Thee to a nunnery.

44. Oil equipment: RIGS.

45. "Because Freedom Can't Protect Itself" org.: ACLUAmerican Civil Liberties Union.

46. Meditation goal: CALM.

49. Keurig Dr Pepper brand: BAI. "Bai's mission is to share the powerful antioxidant goodness of coffee's superfruit and always move toward optimum, healthy living." I missed the $18,700,000,000.00 acquisition by Keurig in 2018. Their list of brands is very impressive and hard to avoid. LIST.
54. December decor: WREATH. It's beginning to smell a little like Christmas. The trees are already out for sale and it isn't even Thanksgiving.

55. Gift with tracks: TRAINSET. We took the family on a BRIGHTLINE train ride, and my 2-year-old grandson loved the ride. He now owns a beginner train set.

56. Absinthe herb: FENNEL. Traditional absinthe is made of anise, fennel, and wormwood (a plant), and various recipes add other herbs and flowers to the mix. Did you hallucinate when you tried it?

57. Chocolates, e.g.: SWEETS.

Down:

1. "You've heard this from me before ... ": AS I SAY. Over and over again.

2. Replaces a dancer: CUTS IN.

3. Adams with negatives: ANSEL. This PHOTOGRAPHER.

4. Bonkers: DAFT. Two old terms for mentally unwell.

5. "Here's a thought," briefly: IMOIMOpinion.

6. Reef diver's need: AIR TANK. Most divers use scuba tanks filled with simple compressed air (filtered and dehumidified).

7. Sock part: TOE.

8. Prince Harry's aunt: ANNE. Elizabeth II's  children are Charles, Prince of Wales; Anne, Princess Royal; Prince Andrew, Duke of York; and Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex

9. Ado: STIR. About nothing?

10. Early Mississippi flag symbol: MAGNOLIA.

11. Farthest-from-the-sun orbital point: APHELION. The perihelion is the point on the orbit of a planet or comet that is closest to the sun. The point on the orbit farthest from the sun is the aphelion. The speed of a body in the solar system is greatest at the perihelion and least at the aphelion.

12. Monarch catcher: NET. Butterflies. Hey- double CSO to John Lampkin, who was the constructor that introduced APHELION to the crossword world as well as teaching us about butterflies.

13. Country music sound: TWANG.

14. Unexcitable: STOLID.

17. Marseille man: HOMME. French.

22. Pie-topping nut: PECAN. A perfect almost Thanksgiving fill.

24. Newscaster Rather: DAN.

26. Invitation to eat: DIG IN. More Thanksgiving.

27. Daydreaming Walter: MITTY. 1947
2013


28. Wan: ASHY. Pale, white.

29. Bic's __-Out: WITE. Oh, gee.
30. First known asteroid: CERES. Dwarf planet Ceres is the largest object in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter and the only dwarf planet located in the inner solar system.

31. Car manual topic: TIRE CARE.

32. Like the seats in an SRO performance: ALL TAKEN. Somewhat tortured way to get there.

34. Funny one: WAG.

35. She never went to 50-Across ceremonies: GARBO. 50D. 1954 Honorary Award for 35-Down: OSCAR.

36. Flexible: PLIANT.

37. North African capital: ALGIERS.

40. Confront boldly: ACCOST. You need to careful these days.

41. China pieces: PLATES. Not Hong Kong and Mongolia.

42. Pop: BURST. My sons never call me burst.

45. Together: AS ONE.

47. Corned beef order: LEAN.

48. Tiny insect: MITE. All you did not want to know about these arachnids. Mites are not actually insects but belong to the related class Arachnida, which also includes spiders, scorpions, and ticks. The major morphological differences between mites and insects are found in the number of major body parts and the number of legs.
LINK.

50. "Hamilton" award: OBIE. Off-Broadway.

51. Scrabble-like app, briefly: WWFWords With Friends.

52. Puckish org.?: NHL. Punishing pun dropped here.
Before we go, I must go back to my early life and remember this date in 1963 when the history of this country was changed forever. Not a perfect man but a memorable one. RIP.
Always a pleasure to be the caddy for our prolific Friday legend. I
hope you had as much fun as I did and thanks for your views and your words. We all exist only because of you who read. Happy 
THANKSGIVING!
Lemonade out!




58 comments:

  1. Unknown TAIGA, BAI
    Last entry: changing spelling of ALGeERS. (Which, the prescience of the Blog, -T mentioned yesterday.)
    My paternal ancestors were ACADIAns, so I'll give them a CSO on 1a.
    Tinbeni got a CSO on the Jumble today.

    A miss from up in ACADIA
    Thought to enroll in academia.
    But she found the dons
    As nutty as PECANS,
    And the tutors more like macadamias!

    It's a myth that Earth's APHELION
    Has anything to do with the season.
    It comes July third
    When snow is observed
    In the Southern hemispherical region!

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  2. Good morning.

    Thank you, Jeffrey, and thank you, Lemonade.

    Nailed 1A ACADIA and was off and running. NW corner fell fast and then sputtered along from there. Bit by bit until the SW finally fell.

    There, having "reserved" where ALL TAKEN belonged was the road block. Thinking about the other theme answers led me to WIL in WILTING PARTY, and then changing the unlikely wit to WAG made me remember ARLEN. OK, ALL something... Had to be TAKEN. And then the SW finally fell.

    The thing I liked about this puzzle was that it was tough, but there were toeholds in each section, to wit TOE, MAGNOLIA and NET in the NE, MALIA and ETHAN in the mid east, ALLEY, RIGS, APB, ACLU, AS ONE and OBIE in the SE. In fact, the SE was really Wednesday easy... NHL was a gimme and WREATH fit well with the aforementioned reserved.

    Did not know BAI and had to dredge up ARLEN and TAIGA. I remembered TAIGA from reading about the Sami (Laplander) people of Scandinavia. WWF was completely unknown but filled by perps.

    TWANG - I love the slide of a steel guitar. I love the moan of an old blues harp. I love the shake of a tambourine. I love the bass, when it's low and mean. - Naomi and Wynona. Funny what thoughts can pop into your head when solving.

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  3. Good morning!

    JW did not disappoint. I give it a solid D -- difficult, do-able, delightful. Had to replace GNAT with MITE, but otherwise, my grid is clean. Thanx for the challenge, JW, and for the tour, Lemonade.

    TAIGA -- First learned about it when we vacationed in Yosemite back in '95.

    WITE-OUT -- Definitely a CSO to moi. I use the tape version, not the liquid stuff.

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  4. I noticed the W replacement early without thinking about QU. I initially misspelled TAIGA as 'TIAGA" and it caused trouble in the SW. BAI was an unheard of, unknown solved by perps along with FENNEL (knew wormwood), CERES, & WWF (World Wildlife Federation?).

    TSUNAMIS was an easy guess, a WAG (not a funny one).

    D-otto, I didn't find it as Difficult as other JWs. Only had to change GNAT to MITE and AIR HOSE to TANK.

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  5. I always scroll down to see who the puzzle constructor is and it makes my day when I see it’s Jeffrey Wechsler. I know I’m in for a treat and I usually learn something along the way. Very satisfying Friday puzzle.

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  6. WWF = CSO to Fermat'.
    Nails are nailed. (I'll leave to your imaginations the cartoons of Jesus having his nails filed.)

    A WILTING PARTY of witchy weights
    Had exhausted their WITS FOR THE NIGHT.
    When Banquo and MacBeth
    Disturbed their rest,
    And would WAKE IN their BOOTS with fright!

    A TRAIN SET sat 'neath a holiday WREATH
    And stockings brimmed with sugarplum SWEETS,
    As if Saint Nick
    Had very quick
    Set up all the Christmas treats!

    {A+, A, C, B.}

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  7. Got it done (finally). Never did get the theme🙁

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  8. DNF, resorting to Google for TAIGA and CERES. Erased nuts for DAFT, hash for LEAN, tony for OBIE, and AlLEN for ARLEN.

    My nephew bowled his first 300 game this week. His late father did so in his prime too.

    I'm so old that I remember when the ACLU defended the rights of everyone, regardless of political leaning.

    What's the difference between your genealogist and your gynecologist? Your genealogist looks up your family tree, and your gynecologist looks up your family bush.

    Thanks to JeffWech for the terrific challenge. And thanks to Lemonade for the fantastic tour.

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  9. Good morning everyone.

    Good précis, Lemonade. Thanks for the tour.

    Got almost all of it without help, but absinthe is one of my weak areas. Wanted 'anise', but it wouldn't fit. Reference gave FENNEL, but I think it is part of the anise family. Wormwood definitely wouldn't fit. Wanted 'gnat' before MITE fell. 3 perps gave me WWF. ACADIA was a gimme; we have been there.
    Familiar with TAIGA. (Think Ice Road Truckers.)
    DIG IN - My Dad always said "Hau rin." (infinitive Rinhauen). Literally: "Hit it!"

    Have a great day.

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  10. Lemon, interesting post. Your jokes were in the same vein as Boomer's usually are. Jeff, fun challenge, 2/3 of which was not too difficult, but made me think hard. SW was my downfall where I had to LIU ANSINTHE. Fennel? All I could think of was anise. Fennel led to finding the rest. Has anyone here tasted absinthe?
    I wondered what type of TIRE subject. I have seen tire inflation, but not tire care in manuals. Other than proper inflation, tires don't take much care. Without the C from CARE, I didn't think of CALM.
    I wanted GNAT, but kept MITE, although I know it is not an insect.
    BAI was all perps.
    I have played WWF, but didn't relate the letters to the game.
    We loved ACADIA National Park with Cadillac Mountain sunrise and Thunder Hole among other treats. We loved Bar Harbor, too, and the delicious lobsters and other seafood.
    I sat outside for half an hour last night and did not see any meteors. CED, thanks for your advice. I do not have a smart phone.

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  11. Musings
    -Another Wechsler gem, indeed.
    -My MIL’s only ASSET finally got sold yesterday. Now the nursing home will get all that equity
    -Our police department put out an APB for this guy yesterday
    -Boy,I SAY, boy…
    -The new superintendent where I sub is from BON HOMME county in South Dakota but had no idea what that meant until I dispensed that nugget of info to her at lunch last week
    -I was set to sub today in the very building where I was on that Friday 56 years ago but they called off school for “intensive cleaning” due to an outbreak of norovirus

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  12. Fabulous Friday. Thanks for the fun, Jeffrey and Lemonade.
    This CW was a workout but I FIRed and saw the W to QU theme. My newspaper does not credit the constructor (hello CED), but when I arrived here and saw it was a JW creation, I was not surprised.

    Let me count the inkblots (requiring WITE-out!).
    Fern changed to PALM, Hash to LEAN (Hi Jinx) (do you really have to specify Lean - who would want their corned beef fatty?), Sasha to MALIA (yes, Malia is the oldest and therefore "first".

    TAIGA and BAI filled with perps thankfully, as did APHELION. I thought of Apogee for the latter but it was too short. LIUed to find out the difference. Wiki says that -gee is the suffix for earth and -helion is the suffix for sun; apo is the Greek for "away from". (I'm not sure how the O was dropped in APHELION!)(For other host systems the generic suffix, -apsis, is used instead giving periapsis and apoapsis (or apapsis)). Lesson for the day, probably quickly forgotten.

    I'm guessing that we have a lot of different pronunciations of that Pie-topping nut here. I pronounce it as a tin of green legumes!
    I smiled to see OBIE crossing OSCAR (did you see it too IM?)
    Are you all aware of the Canadian tuxedo?
    DENIM

    Enjoy the day.

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  13. CanadianEh!, IMO denim is appropriate for all occasions. If it's deemed too casual for the occasion, I'll just skip that occasion.

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  14. Almost dislocated my shoulder patting myself on the back for a finished, no errors Friday puzzle.

    Been to the beautiful Maine Acadia National park on our drive to Nova Scotia so that plus an extra strong shot of caffeine in my cappuccino helped get me off to a running start.

    A fun mix of obscure but witty and obvious clues

    Must admit it helped to see early on that the themed clues would start with "w" but wasn't smart enough until I read the narrative that "w replaced "qu".

    (Wonder if an alarm on a buoy is enough time to escape a tsunami? What else does one do but .... RUN!!)

    Heard of "Bai" but filled in with perps. Seemed odd to see Keurig and Dr. Pepper in the same sentence.

    Can my Keurig make root beer too?

    Plan to "dig in" to Saturday's puzzle but expect to need lots of "wite-out".

    As they say in the Magnolia State. See y'all tomorrow

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  15. Great one, Jeffrey!

    Not so great-

    "I hear Earp's a bit sad"
    "Wyatt down a little"

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  16. Good Morning:

    For reasons unknown, it took me an inordinate length of time to see the theme. None of the themers made sense to me until I filled in the very last one, Wake In One's Boots, and then the light bulb went on. Why I didn't make the Q connection earlier shall remain a mystery. There were several of the dreaded (to me) proper names to slow me down: Aphelion, Magnolia, Tsunamis, Ceres, Taiga, Garbo, and Bai. Acadia, though, was a gimme. I'll always remember my acrophobic reaction while ascending and descending Cadillac Mountain. Seeing Bai reminded me of the departure this week of Bai Bai, the Panda, en route to China. My only w/os were And/Too and See/Get. CSOs to Boomer and TTP (Alley), DO (Wite/out), and Moi (WWF). (Ferm plays Word Solitaire.)

    Thanks, Jeffrey W, for a strenuous but satisfying solve and thanks, Lemonade, for a very witty and sparkly summary. You are always on Jeffrey's wave length and interpret and convey it spot on!

    CanadianEh, alas, I missed the Obie~Oscar crossing. I'll chalk it up to the same lack of observation that caused me to struggle with seeing the theme. Interesting article on the origin of the Canadian Tuxedo; thanks for sharing.

    After watching the video of Ben Stiller's Walter Mitty remake and seeing a December release date on the trailer, I Googled to see exactly when it was going to be released. Surprise, surprise. It was released in 2013. IMO, some movies should never be remade and this is one of them. There was only one Walter Mitty and that was the irreplaceable, irrepressible, Danny Kaye.

    November 22, 1963. Sad and sorrowful remembrances. RIP, JFK.

    Have a great day.

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  17. Great puzzle! Amazingly, for a Jeffrey Wechsler puzzle, I finished it without any problems. He must have just been in my wheelhouse today. The theme was clever and fun.

    Always learn new stuff from Jeffrey. today it was APHELION and TAIGA.

    Question for the regulars - how do you get a picture next to your name?

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  18. Well, I started out with ETHAN, MITTY, MALIA, and DAN as my first entries in this Friday puzzle, and then went on to OSCAR and OBIE, which helped with the bottom. Fun clues and theme, many thanks, Jeffrey.

    And, thank you for reminding us about our sad anniversary on this day, Lemonade. I was teaching 5th grade at a Catholic school in Bethesda, Maryland on this day, when the class got an announcement that our President had been shot and we were all asked to kneel and pray for him. Later we got the sad news that he was gone--especially devastating for the students since he was the first Catholic president. A sad day I have never forgotten.

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  19. Owen, so glad to have you and your poems back on the blog this morning.

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  20. Everyone who is old enough remembers where they were when they heard that JFK had been shot. I was watching the Thanksgiving parade in my little home town with my mother and father. I was not yet a teenager, but was old enough to have been thrilled by his "ask what you can do for your country" speech. I had never heard of last rites until that day. I was devastated by the event and spent the next several days glued to the TV. I was most moved by the specter of the riderless horse with reversed stirrups, Black Jack.

    Although in later life I learned about the implications of his questionable Bay of Pigs and missile crisis decisions, he remains my favorite president of my lifetime.

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  21. Wendy, just click on your name and select "edit options."

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  22. I enjoyed this puzzle much more than yesterday's and FIR with tsunamis being an immediate WAG that helped with the NW corner.

    Last fill to fall was ARLEN, which I didn't know but filled with perps.

    I like Jeffrey's puzzles.... they make one think without using arcane, obscure fills.

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  23. JudyB -- that's the right word for today's puzzle, "satisfying".

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  24. Had a good start on today's pzl, but figured the theme out too late to be of much help. I needed a coupla cheats to finish.

    AIR TANK reminded me of happy Scuba days of yore.
    (Tried OXY TANK first, but didn't get far on that.)

    Must rush to clean house. Ex-students are visiting today. Always a pleasure!
    One has just been nominated for a lead actress award... (Is pride still a sin?)
    ~ OMK

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  25. When I think of ANSEL Adams, I also think of Half Dome in Yosemite Valley. I wanted to climb it as a 10 year old, but had to wait for this trip.

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  26. Hola!

    Busy! Busy! Busy! That's how it's been all day today so I'll just say a JW puzzle is always a treat and this one took me an abnormally long time because in between I'm cooking the meat for the tamales, answering the telephone, etc., etc.

    Thank you, Lemonade, for your insights. I'll try to check in later. Right now I have to go on an hoja run, that is looking for good husks to wrap the tamales. For some reason they have been really poor where we shopped.

    I hope all are enjoying a beautiful day! I love my memories of ACADIA!

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  27. I was returning to my dorm after a vigorous flag football intramural game in the Berkshire Mountains. The TV was on, and the only reassuring note was the voice of Walter Cronkite, although I sensed JFK was not going to survive. The memory of John John saluting the casket tore at my tough guy teenaged heart.

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  28. Hi All!

    Thought the theme was add a W when 16a emerged (IT'S FOR THE NIGHT - sounds like a 'one-nite-stand' rock/country ballad). I figured out the QU @WAKE and that helped with WICK & WILT answers. Fun puzzle JW. Thanks.

    Lem, Thanks for the expo; I enjoyed it almost as much as the puzzle.

    WOs: RaGS->RIGS, ACCuSe -> ACCOST
    ESPs: ARCADIA, TAIGA, BAI, PLIANT was 4/6th. APHELION took 3 abc-runs for P, E, & O.
    Fav: LEAN. Y'all remember Buck Henry telling Belushi he specifically said Lean? [C, Eh! - it's better fatty :-)]
    Runner-up: FENNEL 'cuz I NAIL'd it w/ just the F.

    So glad I held-off on snorkel for AIR TANK.

    {A, B+ || A, B}

    YR - I had a shot of Absinthe once in college (Goldschlager, IIRC, it had gold-leaf in the bottle). I was already fairly toasty from beer so I don't (can't(?)) recall the taste. I do recall it was smooth.

    OMK - not when it's of your prodigy. I swell with pride just thinking about what good kids the Girls are. #NotASin

    JFK - I wasn't born yet (Challenger Explosion & 9/11 are my 'I know where I was when' moments) but everyone on both sides of my Catholic family had some image of him in the house. Mom even had a bust with the "Ask not" quote inscribed at the base; made an impression on me.

    Lucina - yummm, Tamales. Co-worker brought in some for our BreakfastClub this morning. I had a pork AND a chicken one :-)

    Cheers, -T

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  29. My daughter has heard -- too many times for her liking -- that I was so transfixed by the tv that morning that I didn't change her diaper often enough, and she got a diaper rash. I was watching CBS at the time and remember Walter Cronkite's voice making the original announcement. The phrase that has always stuck in my mind was "and the motorcade sped on". And I remember thinking repeatedly that it had to turn out all right because a tv story wouldn't end with him dying; it just couldn't happen. Conditioned by tv dramas, I guess.

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  30. Good afternoon, folks. Thank you, Jeffrey Wechsler, for fine puzzle. Thank you, Lemonade, for a fine review.

    Puzzle started slowly, obviously, Friday and Wechsler.

    Got a few gimmes as I went through. That helped. ACADIA, TASMAN, TOO, ERNE, NAIL, PALM, AKLLEY, APB, ACLU, WREATH, TRAIN SET, SWEETS, NHL, AS ONE, PLATES, BURST, WITE, PECAN, DAN, ANNE, AIR TANK, ANSEL, CUTS IN, TWANG, WWF. With all those I was able to get some more.

    Good to see WWF. I play Words With Friends every day with a few people. I love that game.

    WILTING PARTY was my first theme answer and helped me with the rest.

    ARLEN, TIRE CARE, and WAG were my last to get. You have to end somewhere.

    See you tomorrow.

    Abejo

    ( )

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  31. We Bostonians pronounce ACADIA as if there's an R in the word. From here I've learned to omit it.

    Lemonade, make sure you read him "Thomas the Tank Engine". My son loved it.

    Is that a cat(Siamese?) in the talons? We lost a cat up North (NH) and we suspect owl or eagle

    There's an OLD SAW over at the J today

    I was mixing MITTY with McGoo
    One of three days of infamy. For LEN* Deighton fans if you reread the second trilogy see if you agree that he hints at the JFK assassination. Embedded conspiracy theory. Just what did British intelligence conclude in the report sent to the FBI (and buried as deep as possible)

    This was a satisfying FIR with the SW almost defeating me.

    WC

    * I cap'ed it because we see it so often

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  32. Jeffrey, you win... again! But I had all the fun. So many fun clues. Adams with negatives, Puckish org, Gift with tracks, and others. Thanks for walking us through , Lemon. You were in rare form today!

    Absinthe Frappe is very familiar holiday cocktail here, so yes, I’ve had absinthe, both the real stuff with wormwood and it’s replacement which has just anise and fennel. Wormwood was supposed to make you crazy.

    Owen, thanks!!!

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  33. But Lemonade, we only read here because you exist ... along with CC and Canadian-eh! and IM and -T and CED and, well, all of you!

    The main memory of November 22 was pulling in to D.C. on the Sunday afterwards. I was just PCSing [permanent move, in Army-speak] from Benning to Meade, and when I got off the train, the gloom and shock were so palpable.

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  34. I had to relook at the J to get the"Tin" ref. Yep. And... I immediately went to my secret stash of Pepperidge Farm Macadamia cookies after Owen's #2. All W's today
    Then there's these
    WWF guys

    They say Absinthe makes the heart grow fonder, if you can just get her to drink enough of it

    "Can my Keurig make root beer too?". Ray-O, you better copyright that idea quick. It's brilliant. Lime Rickey next.*

    Ok. Explain the "Obie~Oscar crossing"?

    OMK, yes but who says sin has to be bad(see my absinthe comment)

    Btw, I just received a book on OXY Therapy. And, I better post

    WC

    *What ever happened to them. First the soda jerks disappear then the rickeys

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  35. OlManKeith congratulations on the success of your student. You deserve to be proud.

    Unknowns TAIGA and BAI almost did me in, but I FIR. I enjoyed the "KW" to W theme and it did help the solve for me.

    Lemonade thank you for the review and for the memory of President Kennedy on this day. We were living in Europe without TV. I remember getting the news from my parents when I woke up the next morning. JFK was one of the last of an era of US leaders with grand positive visions of the future. Even though I was a child then, I am very much the product of that way of thinking.

    Here I was at ACADIA National Park.

    ACADIA National Park was created in large part by oil man John D Rockefeller, Jr. He was concerned that oil and automobiles would come to dominate the landscape of America. So he wanted the park to be a break from that by excluding automobiles. The Carriage Road system he designed is for pedestrians, bicyclists and horses only.

    Which brings me to yesterday:
    AnonT you say you recently drove in SIENA, Italy? Perhaps just on the outer edges of the city? If you look at my photos yesterday you can see there are no cars allowed in the main inner part of the city. It is clear there is no place for them, except for a few delivery vehicles.

    Wilbur Charles thank you for the kind words and for the further explanations.

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  36. Whew! Did 3 puzzles today; liked them all. I found yesterday's to be harder than today's.

    The Richter scale is mostly used when describing an earthquake's magnitude to everybody except earth scientists. So if you see in the news that there was a magnitude 5.6 earthquake someplace, that is most likely the Richter scale measurement. It's a measurement of how much energy the quake released, regardless of how much damage it may or may not have caused. The "moment magnitude scale" is very similar to the Richter scale but does a better job of measuring really strong quakes, like over 8.0. But how often do they occur, eh? The Mercalli intensity scale is an evaluation of how strongly the quake was felt or the effects it produced, which obviously varies greatly depending on the distance from it, how deep the quake was, the type of ground (sandy, marshy, clay, etc.) the property is built on, and so on. It is not a measure of the quake's strength or power. So no, IMO the Richter scale is not obsolete.

    Happy Friday to you all.

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  37. Picard - yes, I was outside the square. But, the streets were so narrow in between buildings... I think I was still in the city but just out of the square/even narrower streets.

    Funny story: SO, I think they guy behind me was also following his iThing to get out of Siena. See, at some point, I let him in front of me (this is Douglas Adams' "Zen” navigation, which was simply to find any car that looked as if it knew where it was going and follow it).
    He took the same re-routes through the skinny streets I did much earlier.
    I finally looked to the stars an follow'd my heart. We got back to Florence a few hours later :-)

    WC - 'Absinthe makes the heart grow fonder' - LOL!
    Oh, Mr. Magoo's first name is Quincy, not Walter :-)

    Cheers, -T

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  38. I like the "7 Deadly Zins" wine; it's really not bad. If you like red blends (hi Steve) I find the "Ménage à Trois" to be extremely agreeable and it's 1/2000 the price of Screaming Eagle. As for a Cabernet Sauvignon, I would not hesitate to serve "Moss Roxx" to guests. For white wine, my wife and I like Chateau Ste. Jean chardonnay and Riesling.

    Anyway …

    I was in the military service on that fateful day. A buddy of mine and I were in his room in the barracks singing barbershop songs when the news came. We all immediately stopped what we were doing and turned on the radio (we had no TV.) I sort of collapsed onto the edge of his bed, sitting there slumped over with my head in my hands, silently weeping. I don't know why I was affected so strongly. Perhaps it had something to do with our having all been recently placed on high alert during the Cuban missile crisis, so it felt personal.

    Anyway …

    My wife picked up a six-pack of Ginger Beer today, for some reason, and she wants to make us Moscow Mules to sip on this evening as we watch Inspector Morse do his thing. Sounds good to me.

    Good wishes to you all.

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  39. Maybe that was Chateau Ste. Michelle, not Chateau St Jean. Don't have any in the fridge right now so I can't check.

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  40. Micheal - TO WIT - This is why I love the The Corner... Not only word nerds but real nerds!
    Jayce is an expert on seismic stuff and weighed in on Richter (and a good Zin!), Swamp gave us (me?) an idea on an NOG, and, Sandy set to rest her daughter's childhood diaper rash scar :-)

    SandyA - yeah, I felt the same "but everything is going be OK" as I watched the '16 blue-wall fall. //Ok, that my be political but I think a lot of folk were, like, WTF? on both sides. I know Pop voted YEA but really didn't think his middle-finger would count.

    Um, where was I? Oh, yeah... The Corner C.C. built is a collection of different-minded folks that can come together to share solving fun (and groans), stories, photos (Hi Picard!), and even recipes. This is a fun joint to visit daily.

    -T

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  41. I just read the unicorn meteor shower show the was a bust.

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  42. Yellowrocks, I was out there and I didn't see it either.


    I was too young to be aware when JFK was assassinated.

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  43. WC @ 5:43 ~ Just yesterday, CanadianEh and I had an exchange about how often we both pick up on the same patterns or word play or just interesting intersecting entries in puzzles, such as today's example; Obie and Oscar are both famous entertainment awards.

    I don't know what a Moscow Mule is but I know I wouldn't like it as I really dislike the taste of fennel, anise, licorice, etc.

    OMK, do you ever watch Inside the Actors Studio? I stumbled upon the new iteration (different host-interviewer each week) by accident. It's on a channel called Ovation (heretofore unknown to me) on Sunday nights at 10:00. (It's not on this coming Sunday, though, but returns on Dec. 1st for a celebration of their 250th episode.) This past Sunday the guest was Laura Dern, a very gifted actor, IMO. Earlier in the season, there was a special two hour sit-down with Al Pacino, and Henry Winkler was also showcased recently.

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  44. -T, that F was the last box I filled. The only WWF I knew was my link above. And.. as someone was talking about recently (YR?), it's amazing what people know and don't know. Zero SNL for this guy; not much Python either

    I just got back to this draft and I see -T has similar thoughts. And WTF was my first thought except how to link it to Scrabble?

    A Captain I worked for told me that parts of So. FLA. were under martial law at the height of the Cuban missle crisis. We were locked and loaded to invade Cuba. I can't imagine what revisionist historians mean with JFK's "Questionable decisions"????

    WC

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  45. IM, a Moscow Mule is simply vodka and ginger beer. Not everyone’s cup of tea, but not off the wall like absinthe!

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  46. Thanks Jeffrey for a fun solve, and thanks Lemon for the shout out. The fact that you remember past puzzle entries is truly astonishing! I can't even spell APHELION, let alone remember that I used it once.

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  47. Wilbur Cross, oops I mean Wilbur Charles I read Thomas the Tank Engine based on The Railway Series of books by the Reverend Wilbert Awdry and his son, Christopher Awdry. These books deal with the adventures of a group of anthropomorphized locomotives and road vehicles who live on the fictional Island of Sodor. I read them to my sons and my granddaughters so Owen will be next. I enjoyed them and their imported cartoons.

    It is so great to see so many comments from such a varied crowd. You never know who will appear on a Friday. Michael, your comment makes the time we spend putting together the write-ups very worthwhile. When we had the early days of the blog, I always asked all readers including lurkers to post on or about Thanksgiving to give special thanks to C.C. for creating this warm place where we can meet and discuss words and life and enjoy ourselves. Now that she is the queen of creating puzzles, she does not have much time to stop by, but I do know every comment goes to her and she is proud of what she created. We als give thanks for Boomer and his struggle continuing with a great attitude. Be well all.

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  48. What a wonderful addition to the day; thank you JL and remain the amazing person you are.

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  49. IM - the Italian (I'm actually >1/2 Irish mix TOO) comes out when I taste fennel, anise, or licorice; sucker for them all, I am.

    AFI's(?) Inside the Actor's Studio [wiki] usedta be Bravo!, IIRC.. (Doubt me; I can't find it online - everything points to 'ovation').
    I recall Henry Winkler's original interview (and one he did on NPT's WWDTM). It was the Fonz's admission to dyslexia
    (just one of many he did - this w/ Mo Rocca) that made it ok for me... Hyeeeeyy.

    -T

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  50. SwampCat @ 7:32 ~ Thanks for clarifying the drinks discussion. I guess I conflated your mention of the Absinthe Frappe with your love of a Moscow Mule! Silly me! 🙊

    Anon T @ 8:47 ~ Ovation is new to me; in fact, I don't even know the channel number as I have my DVR programmed to record the series. As I mentioned, I became aware of this strictly by accident.

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  51. In 1963 I was teaching in Denver. Our pastor poked his head in the door and told us about the assassination. I was heartbroken. Over the weekend we spent the entire time riveted on the TV watching the ensuing events in Dallas. History in the making! Jack Ruby, et al.

    Jayce, we seem to have the same taste in wine!

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  52. Today's constructor = Jeffrey Quechsler

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  53. Jayce, 7 Deadly Zins is our favorite red, and Menage a Trois is next.

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  54. Disciple of NAN'L please come back with your sense of humor.

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    Replies
    1. Thank you! I enjoy being here!

      Delete

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