google.com, pub-2774194725043577, DIRECT, f08c47fec0942fa0 L.A.Times Crossword Corner: Saturday, August 22, 2020, Joe Deeney

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Aug 22, 2020

Saturday, August 22, 2020, Joe Deeney

Saturday Themeless by Joe Deeney


Joe and his lovely daughter born in April
This challenging Saturday pinwheel-style puzzle by, Joe our Supply Chain Project Manager in Massachusetts, took some effort. Another New Yorker cartoonist, an obscure desert, a familiar word used as a sailing term and a city in South Sudan were partially balanced by my instant recognition of ENOS Slaughter, SEA-TAC and PARSEC. Here's a nice note from Joe along with a new picture of him and his daughter:

Hi Gary,

Hope you are doing well. I've attached a more recent picture for you to use.

As with last month's puzzle, this came out of experimenting with how many 10-letter entries I could reasonably fit into the grid. Would have loved to lose the cheater squares and get two more, but I couldn't make the NW work in a way that was both clean enough and colorful enough. I tinker with this grid pattern every so often to try to 

make that work for a future puzzle - maybe someday. For this one, I tried to make each corner of this puzzle as lively as possible without sacrificing too much to weak shorter fill. ONER is a dud as is the plural IANS, but most of the rest is O.K. Lots of trial and error with this one - I don't remember what the original seed was, but I do remember that it's no longer in the puzzle - It was in the SE corner and I ended up redoing the entire corner later on. Glad my clue for TASTE TEST survived. 

-Joe


Let's see what Joe has put into the supply chain here at our little popsicle stand. 

Across: 


1. NASCAR stat: MPH - I first thought it might be LAP because NASCAR does compile the number of LAPS led and it's Saturday but...

4. Afternoon entertainment staples: SOAP OPERAS.


14. Asia's __-Kum Desert: KARA - KARAKUM or KARA-KUM

15. Certain junkie's stimulus: ADRENALINE - Some people like our crossword friend Evel are called ADRENALINE junkies 


16. Slaughter on the diamond: ENOS - This N.C. boy had the nickname of "Country"


17. One sharing a pedigree: LITTER MATE - Mom and five LITTER MATES - three white and two black


18. Frittata base: EGGS - A Frittata compared to an omelet


19. Inexperienced: UNSEASONED.


20. Combined: POOLED - Many shrinking outstate Nebraska schools have POOLED resources to keep their academic and athletic programs going


22. Belgian or brown: ALE.


23. Canonized pope known as "The Great": ST LEO - 440 - 461 A.D.


24. Sea-__: TAC - It's about a 27 min drive from the SEAttle-TAComa airport to the Space Needle


26. Longtime New Yorker cartoonist Roz: CHAST - Last week Chris Adams had New Yorker cartoonist Peter Arno in his puzzle


31. Starbucks selection: CAFFE MOCHA - A venti costs $4, has 240 cals and 150 mg of caffeine 


34. Pi, for a circle with a radius of one: AREA - AREA of a circle = A = π r². So if the radius of a circle is 1, the circle's sAREA = π x 1 x 1 = π

35. Where the action in Chicago's County General Hospital took place: ON ER.


36. Peripheral: OUTER.


37. "Phooey!": RATS.


38. Folklore fiend: OGRE.


39. Folklore trickster: BRER RABBIT - A tale of fooling someone into doing exactly what you want them to do. 


41. Gets rid of: LOSES - C'mon, you know the rest (*answer below)


43. Recognizes: IDS.

44. "The Red House Mystery" author: MILNE - His only mystery book (1922) predated Winnie The Pooh by three years (1925)


45. Delivery pros: OBS.


47. "Truly!": HONEST.


48. "Truly!": I CAN NOT LIE - Every wedding dance we go to these days features the song, I Like Big ______, I CAN NOT LIE.


54. Stadium ticket info: GATE.


55. Some white research subjects: ALBINO MICE.


56. Freudian subjects: EGOS - Let's boil it down

57. Cosmetic coating: NAIL ENAMEL.

58. Little pig, maybe: RUNT 


59. Great places to make contact: SWEET SPOTS 


60. Match with chips: SEE.



Down:


1. Rhyming cocktail: MANGO TANGO - Or a fruity drink sans liquor

Ingredients
  • 3 cups ice
  • 1 12oz bag frozen mango chunks
  • 1 15.2oz Odwalla® Mango Tango® flavored smoothie
  • 1 lime
  • Chamoy sauce

2. Ones working on the links: PRO GOLFERS - Blog editors just wouldn't fit


3. Easy to use: HASSLE FREE - Turbo Tax for me


4. Mexican toast: SALUD.

5. God played by Anthony Hopkins in "Thor": ODIN.

6. Fine __: ARTS.


7. H.S. instructors who show you the ropes?: PE TEACHERS - A nightmare for many


8. "Inside the NBA" analyst: O'NEAL - Shaq


9. About 3.26 light-years: PARSEC - Like a light year, it's a measure of distance not time


10. Muppet who refers to himself in the third person: ELMO.


11. "Knives Out" writer/director Johnson: RIAN - I was told I would really like this movie


12. Required wager: ANTE.


13. Tournament position: SEED - A #16 SEED in the NCAA Basketball Tournament has to be a sacrificial lamb for a #1 SEED. At least they made it to the tournament


14. Doesn't freak out: KEEPS COOL - This courageous woman did and helped change a nation

21. Fair-hiring letters: EOE.


24. Hotel handout: TOURIST MAP - I just use my phone now but I really liked the 3-D ones


25. Didn't do nothing: ACTED - I can hear our grammarians grinding their teeth. They'd press for "Did something" instead of the double negative.


27. Precursors: HARBINGERS - My spring HARBINGER of The Masters got postponed


28. Group that suspended Syria in 2011: ARAB LEAGUE.


29. Permanent: SET IN STONE.


30. Challenge often undertaken while blindfolded: TASTE TEST.


32. Unruly group: MOB.


33. Talk Like a Pirate Day syllable: ARR.


40. "Te __": Rihanna song: AMO Te Quiero Mucho (I Love You Very Much) is what you might say to your mom rather than the romantically tinged Te AMO


42. Emma Lazarus' "The New Colossus," e.g.: SONNET The last five lines can be found at the Statue Of Liberty


46. Godsends: BOONS - Ten movies that proved to be a BOON to sales of a product


47. Tips to one side: HEELS - Happy to learn a new use for this word


48. Olympic swimmers Crocker and Thorpe: IANS - Not Joe's fav fill. 



49. Arcade game grabber: CLAW.


50. Irish Rose's beau: ABIE - The poster for the comedy ABIE'S Irish Rose (about a Jewish boy marrying an Irish Catholic girl) performed in Brooklyn in 1928


51. Juba's river: NILE - Here you see the White Nile emerging from Lake Victoria, flowing through Juba, the capital of South Sudan and then proceeding up to Khartoum, Sudan where it joins the Blue Nile which continues on to the Mediterranean. 


52. Long way to go?: LIMOusine 


53. Rapper-turned-actor: ICE T.


*No soup for you!

Click below to leave Joe a comment

48 comments:

Lemonade714 said...

Good morning Gary and Joe. I am very impressed by your 10 letter challenge.

I found this to be a doable Saturday with RIAN the only complete unknown. Oo and I really enjoyed KNIVES OUT YMMV.

The poster for ABIE's IRISH ROSE is just transliteration, English to Hebrew characters.

Happy Saturday

Hungry Mother said...

Tough one, but FIR with no write-overs. The NW was the last to fall. Very rewarding challenge.

desper-otto said...

Good morning!

Oooof! I think I strained my vocabulary on this one. Anyone care for a MONGO TONGO? Didn't think so. I've never been to that desert or been inside a Starbucks, so I figured KORA and COFFE MOCHA were probably OK. Bzzzzt. Looked at PET EACHERS for quite some time. Had SWEET SPOT, but didn't understand it until Husker's expo. Nice pinwheel, Joe. Thanx for 'splainin' my mess, Husker.

TTP said...



Good morning.

What Hungry Mother said, "Very rewarding challenge"

Two sittings to get it done. Had all but the SE after the first sitting, and that was all done in good time. But that SE would not budge because I had really for "Truly", and I kept trying various combos of darn, drat and nuts for "Phooey", as well as various combos of tier, seat and line for "Stadium ticket info"

After another hour and a half of sleep, and a cup of coffee, I thought of HONEST and HEELS rather than really and rEELS. That paved the way for LEAGUE, then ARAB LEAGUE, and in short order the battle was finally won, unaided.

Laughed when I finally realized TASTE TEST. Was fixated on some kind of "pin the tail on the donkey" answer for the blindfold clue.

SWEET SPOTS - Also used in baseball by color commentators.

Thanks, Joe. Great puzzle. Congrats on the new family addition.
Nice job, Husker Gary. Always enjoy your reviews.

Anonymous said...

23:47 to finish. Enjoyable puzzle.
Wanted reels or even keels instead of heels. Never heard of Ms. Chast. Had polish before enamel.

For the record, I'll gladly deal with cheater squares than trite fill.

Wilbur Charles said...

Some interesting stuff late FLN

ENOS Slaughter (accidentally) stepped on Jackie Robinson's foot at first base. Jackie had never played there but REESE and Stanky were mainstays. ENOS got a lot of grief from what today would be termed "The Left". A fair assessment *

Oops LEO somehow convinced Attila not to sack Rome. Occam's Razor would say he bought him off.

My rusty math had trouble with Pi. Does he mean 3.14….? That Pi?

ONE R is similar to the xword chestnut One L(Grisham)

CSO to Gary and Boomer(et al) on SWEET SPOTS. I was an addict but couldn't find the time after I retired. Actually I saw that clue as baseball.
When I solved I noted the sports clues and I anticipate the groans.

I was surfing Hulu and watched "The Wonder Years pilot where the gym teach says "This is PE!". I loved gym and especially bombardment**

I found it difficult in the SE. I had inked REALLY for the second truly. HEELS was ???. No problem with the plural of IAN but sympathize with all the sports clues. Is RIAN familiar?

WC

*I just commented on the Tony C "beaning" and the layers of "Truth" involved
** I think it was renamed "Dodge ball"

Ps, after two FIW's I FIR

desper-otto said...

Wilbur, yes it is that 3.14. One L wasn't Grisham.

Spitzboov said...

Good morning everyone.

I finally got it all without lookups. One whiteout - I had Abby before ABIE. Should have known better. When I saw 4 cells for Juba's river, I assumed the NILE. ALBINO MICE clinched it. Favorite clue was for LITTERMATE.
Thanks Joe for the note to Gary and sharing your construction thoughts. Congrats on the baby.
HEELS - Our destroyer once took a 59º roll, according to the inclinometer on the bridge, during a strong Winter storm. Destroyers have strong righting moments, but we were glad our fuel tanks were properly ballasted down.
MICE - One of those juicy English nouns made plural by vowel change: mouse - MICE, German Maus - Mäuse, L. Ger. Muus - Müüs, Dutch muis - muizen. (The last is a regular plural; when -en is added for the plural, a final 's' becomes 'z'.)

inanehiker said...

This started out a faster than normal Saturday but then slowed down in the south to make sure I knew it was a Saturday. Like TTP I was going for something like Pinatas or pin the tail on the donkey for the Blindfolded challenge - before a course correction was needed for TASTE TEST. Having the unknown cartoonist on the top made it a tough start to that column!

I got the ALBINO but waited for perps to decide on rats vs. MICE. I also think of SWEET SPOT on a tennis racket or baseball bat to make a good swing.
IAN Thorpe was quite the swimmer from Australia at one of the Olympics - I think his nickname was "Thorpedo"!

Thanks Gary for a fun blog and thanks to Joe for the puzzle and stopping by!

billocohoes said...

SWEET SPOTS are also important in tennis racquet design

Abbot and Costello had routine about "This bat was made for Slaughter." (Yeah, you could slaughter a whole team with that bat.) Enos Slaughter famously scored from first on what was scored a single in the last game of the 1946 World Series.

Bluehen said...

I'm getting to where I really look forward to Mr. Deeney's puzzles. I finished this one in 26:35, which is really fast for me on a Saturday. I must be getting attuned to Joe's vocabulary and mindset (there's a scary thought). I even very vaguely remembered the Karakum Desert, although I wondered for a while if I was just confusing it with Khartoum. Took the plunge with a "K" and got the TADA. Sweet satisfaction. Thank you, Joe Deeney, for an enjoyable puzzle, congratulations on the new daughter, and thank you HG for an always erudite expo.

Not much new going on at the Bluehen Ponderosa. Lately I've been power washing everything in sight with my new toy. House, tool shed, cars, truck, descaling trees, etc. Found out that it doesn't work all that well on cats. They get all upset and leave and are in a snit all the rest of the day.

OK, IM. Chili Verde tonight with sides of grilled cheese sandwiches (queso blanco) and chipotle street corn. Chateaubriand tomorrow.

Stay safe and sane, everybody. Cya!

OMaxiN said...

SE was last to fill with one bad cell. Should have double checked my spelling.
Otherwise I was fortunate to correctly wag several entries for this challenging puzzle.
Thank you Joe and H.G.
MO

Ray - O - Sunshine said...

I'm sure many Cornerites agree what a heartwarming picture of Joe Deeney and his beautiful baby girl. Uplifting event among such unfortunately health issues.

He put together a fun puzzle but not the usual Saturday toughie. Maybe he decided to give us a break to celebrate. The layout of the crossword was a different style. New to me at least..

I CANNOT LIE ..made a lot of errors but FIR,

I would posit the action took place INER , ON(the series called)ER. Held off on poetry for the Lazarus clue. SONNET needed perps. Mai tai, the only rhyming cocktail I could think of.

By the way SHREK and FIONA are quite upset with the OGRE clue! 😡

Never heard of Kara Kum desert. Is it a type of ice cream cake? (oh DESERT! not Dessert..lol). Got SEA-TAC only because we had it once before and I still didn't remember what it meant

Always thought it was café mocha a Spanish phrase, but LIU, it actually is CAFFÈ (Italian) and MOCHA is a town in Yemen. On to harder drinks: Belgian and brown was a WAG. The ague at the end of the Syria clue had me trying to shoehorn The Hague into the boxes till finally perpwalked.

Anon @ 8:13...23:47? What took you so long?...lol

Which ends the week for me with...

Trying out police crowd control equipment....TASTETEST

Many millenia....IANS

Antarctica, almost....UNSEASONED

Laying a finger aside of his nose up the chimney ......EGOS

Lady go mambo....MANGO TANGO.

Enjoy a safe weekend

Lucina said...

Hola!

Thank you, Joe Deeney and congratulations on that SWEET baby! Thank you for sharing the photo. I liked your puzzle and it was speedy for a Saturday. I don't time myself but I know it was fast. When those long strands fill, they cover a lot of real estate.

Having been to Seattle, SEA-TAC was easy and though I didn't see THOR, ODIN was a good guess. Yes, Knives Out is definitely one to see!

Once MANGOTANGO was completed, the entire strand blossomed HASSLEFREE.

I won't comment on the double negative.

And I have to confess, I looked at the New Yorker right in front of me to find Roz CHAST. Otherwise it would have been quite a challenge although HARBINGER and ARABLEAGUE sprang right up as did TOURISTMAP. It's the first thing we did after registering in a hotel. We collected the street MAP and off we went.

Thank you, Gary, for your always thorough review with nice illustrations.

Have a gorgeous day, everyone!






Phipps44 said...

I'm new to this blog, what is FIR? I really enjoyed this puzzle!

Irish Miss said...

Good Morning:

It took two sittings and 37+ minutes to complete this bear. Unlike most Saturday puzzles, I wasn’t able to crack the long fill quickly, so I just couldn’t get any toeholds. There were a lot of unknowns, to me, anyway, but once I finished, everything looked fairly straightforward so I’ll chalk up my sluggish solve to Joe’s challenging and creative cluing and construction. (Actually, when the timer showed 37 minutes, I was shocked that it wasn’t much longer.)

Thanks, Joe, for stretching the brain muscles and for sharing your insights; congratulations on your new darling daughter. Thanks, HG, for another A+++ summary and stunning visuals and links.

Bluehen @ 9:21 ~ You’re lucky I live so far away, otherwise, you’d be hearing a knock on your door every night! 🤗 Bon Appétit!

Have a great day.

oc4beach said...


A good Saturday DNF because I had to LIU 4 answers. Red House author, Irish Rose's beau, Juba's river, the New Yorker cartoonist and the two swimmers. Gary's tour was enjoyable and enlightening.

I too, had to wait for perps to finish the ALBINO____. I also had LAP before MPH. DRAT was in place before it changed to RATS. NAIL POLISH was my choice before ENAMEL was changed by perps.

One sharing a pedigree had me thinking about English Royalty before LITTERMATE showed me that animals are the real royalty.

For A Little Pig I wanted SHOAT, but it didn't fit. One thing you learn on a farm is to never name anything you are going to eat. My father in law gave us a piglet that was intended to become chops, sausage, bacon, etc. The kids named her Elizabeth and treated her like a pet. When butchering time came she was sold because my FIL couldn't go through with it. The kids would have been devastated.

WC: Scott Turow was the author of OneL. A very good book by a very good author.

Phipps44 @ 11:02am: FIR means Finished It Right. If you go to the Olio section of the blog, you will find many of the abbreviations used here.

Another beautiful day in the neighborhood. It's sunny and supposed to get to 90° today.

Hope you all have a great day and please wear your masks.

Wilbur Charles said...

Oh my. D-O, yes it's Scott Throw. Funny that my addled mind would mix the two. Style? And .. I was thinking area was Pi. I had to use the formula, duh?

Billicoes, first Curse in the Bambino saga. I've posted my take on that

RayO, Man go tango-lol

IM, so, you shut off timer on the break? Mine was two sittings, too. I found this equally difficult as last Saturday, thus I never try to predict said difficulty.

The top two SEEDs got a ride awakening in game 1 of the NBA "Tournament"

WC

Ps, IMHO, the GATE clue would have been better with just "Ticket info"

Malodorous Manatee said...

Because everyone above has covered the technique very thoroughly and because today is a busy day what with baking rye bread, steaming pastrami, spreading mustard, twice cooking French fries and decanting some good wine, I will take just a moment to continue the recent chain of Mel Brooks-inspired references:

See 49 Down

Have a great Saturday.

Irish Miss said...

WC @ 11:26 ~ When I exit the App, the timer stops automatically. I solved late last night, then finished this morning.

Irish Miss said...

MalMan @ 11:32 ~ If you weren’t 3000 miles away, I’d be knocking on your door, too! Bon Appétit to you and yours!

Shankers said...

First fill was changed from mpg to mph which helped complete the NW. The NE filled in pretty easily too with no real hang-ups. The big stumbling block was the SW though. I had albino rats instead of mice, nail polish instead of enamel, UPS instead of Obs for a resounding FIW. Nevertheless, a good exercise to start the weekend.

Malodorous Manatee said...

Merci, I.M.
...et asussi, you'd be most welcome to partake.

Wilbur Charles said...

IM, I find when I'm at an impasse and take ab break my brain continues to work on the xword. I had said impasse on this one.

WC

PK said...

Hi Y'all! Thank you for the challenge, Joe Deeney! I CANNOT LIE, it was a challenge I didn't think I could fill at first, but I did a few squares at a time, lots of WAGs, & a few red-letter vowel runs. Congrats on your lovely daughter!

Thanks, Gary for a great expo and letting me know where is the SWEET SPOT. My husband used to use the term for a very different place.

The west third of the puzzle was mostly white for a long time.

DNT: RIAN, CHAST, MILNE as clued, ST LEO, or KARA-KUM. Tried GOBI which is the only Asian desert I knew.

Like D-O, I got stumped on PET__,PETE-- PET EACH__ then finally TEACHER. Hated PE in the worst way. Never climbed ropes.

Flew in and out of SeaTAC but my answers were all wet at first.

Not UPS but OBS for delivery pros. I've had UPS more recently for my deliveries than OBS (45 yrs. ago).

OC4beach: We ate our named 4-H pig. We were chowing down and my son, the namer, said "When you think who this was..." and we all paused a moment. That pig had such a delightful personality -- kept us laughing at him. But he fulfilled his purpose of filling us.

staili said...

Great puzzle, Joe! And great writeup, Gary!

I was able to get SOAPOPERAS right away, which was wonderful because I then had the initial letters for all of the NE downs. I've never heard of MANGOTANGO, but having the rhyming part of the clue really helped.

I've never seen "Inside the NBA" so when I got ONE AL, I thought, "Is there someone on there whose name is Al whose uniform had the number one on it during his playing days?" But Gary has helped me understand that it's actually O'NEAL!

Wilbur Charles said...

Shaq(ONEAL) is more widely known for commercials. fe The General

Anonymous said...

and I always thought FIR meant Forgot It Right away ( - of no consequence )
The hassle free way of solving crosswords, without getting cross.

FIW is Flopped it With (help).. umm, Cheats.
Is there is FIL ... Followed In Lousy ( didnt get anywhere..)

Picard said...

I thought this would end in a rare DNF for me in the SW.
Did anyone else have LAB ANIMALS before ALBINO MICE?
Once I got ALBINO it started to fall in place.

Plenty of unknown proper names: ENOS, KARA, ABIE, IANS, CHAST, RIAN, ONEAL, CAFFE MOCHA, MANGO TANGO, ST LEO, JUBA.

Husker Gary Learning moment about HEELS. Thanks also for explaining SWEET SPOTS as clued! Proud to FIR.

When I was in PERU an UNRULY MOB blockaded the road with these rocks.

I was trying to get to the floating village at Lake Titicaca and did not want to miss the boat. Fortunately, the MOB did not direct its anger at me or my taxi driver and we got to our destination on time.

Picard said...

From Yesterday:
Misty, Ol' Man Keith, Wilbur Charles, Lemonade thank you for the kind words about the BYRDS connection to the Beatles and RAGA!

Lemonade cool clip of the Beatles and David Crosby of the BYRDS. But both of your links were the same. Can you post the second link, please?

CrossEyedDave I did indeed see your late night post (this morning). Thank you for starting a most interesting discussion starting with SHELL FISH. Sorry if my attachments were a HASSLE to deal with. I just sent you another email with the links to the original articles. They are both quite short. The second one is the "jot and tittle" reference that Wilbur Charles mentioned. Thanks!

Ol' Man Keith said...

Fun today! - Two words I can't always use on a Saturday pzl.
I appreciated Mr. Deeney's balance between chewiness and solvability.
At first glance, this appeared to be a typical Saturday challenge. My first fill was ANTE, which confirmed my WAG of SOAP OPERAS for 4A.
And my next easy fill wasn't until ABIE at 50D. But these were enough to inspire confidence, enough to last through the end of the pzl.

I made one tiny peek, to confirm my suspicion that the NASCAR technicality at 1A was merely MPH. That keeps me from claiming a pure finish. But still...

Our Jr Hi PE TEACHER was Mr. Gustafson, a towering man who literally beat up a kid, whacked him backhanded across the face, tore his jacket off and ripped his clothes--for flirting a little too lasciviously with a girl or girls.
We all wanted him to date our science teacher, Miss Egan, or our drama teacher, Miss Oliva. But nothing came of our speculations. The science teacher met and married somebody else.
Poor Miss Oliva, my favorite, became an Old Maid.

Too bad there are no diagonals today...
~ OMK

Picard said...

Also From Yesterday:
Lemonade thank you for the learning moment about OH SUSANNA. I had no idea about the offensive lyrics in the second verse or history. It was a "minstrel song" and white performers would perform it in blackface.

Apparently it is one of the most popular American Songs ever written. I remember singing it often as a child with my friends.

Some of the other lyrics are just hilarious. Copied from Wikipedia:
The lyrics are largely nonsense, as characterized by lines such as "It rain'd all night the day I left, The weather it was dry, The sun so hot I froze to death..." (first verse) and "I shut my eyes to hold my breath..." (second verse)

Lemonade714 said...

Damn, I am getting ...well anyway, here is the second CSNY and Beatles link.

GRAHAM NASH and the BEATLES

Sorry TTP and Picard

Lemonade714 said...

MalMan, just email your address, I haven't been able to think of anything but rye bread, hot pastrami, and mustard all day. Oo is a wonderful cook, but genetically hot pastrami is in my blood. What kind of pickles are on the side? Dr. Brown's cream soda?

Jayce said...

I loved this puzzle. It was start small, with a toehold here and there, such as ODIN, ENOS, ALE, ABIE, EGOS, and ICET. I had huge trouble in the SE, where I wanted -----EIGHT at 28d and TIER at 54a. I finally caved and looked up the "Red House" author; I was quite surprised to learn who it was. But that broke open that corner for me.

I also had a hard time getting MANGO TANGO, which I certainly have heard of but did and do not consider to be a "cocktail". I was looking for something alcoholic.

I immediately thought of Bill G at RATS, and scratched my head at ONER.

Altogether a very satisfying puzzle. Thank you, new father Joe Deeney.

Frankly, neither LW nor I liked Knives Out. Hard to put my finger on why, but aside from Daniel Craig's terrible accent we both thought it was overly "campy" as if trying too hard, we both felt the acting was wooden except for Christopher Plummer's performance, and we couldn't relate to the flashback-flash forward presentation of the story. There are plenty of other movies that use the flashback-flash forward technique that we did enjoy, but for some reason we felt this was clumsily and in-adeptly executed.

The air here is pretty stinky from smoke and you can feel the micro-particles coating your throat. LW and I are doing a lot of rinsing out our mouths. Nowhere to drive to to get away from it that is practical or reasonably nearby, and besides it's a "spare the air" day (minimize driving). Wearing a mask helps.

Good wishes to you all.

Yuman said...

Bluehen, an image of you power washing your cat made me LOL.
Oc4beach I agree Scott Turow Is a good author. When I lived in Chicago, his father Dr. David Turow, was my OBGYN, might explain his use of all the medical terminology in his novel Presumed Innocent, that was made into a movie starring Harrison Ford.
To all of you dealing with the smoke and fires in CA and now the threat of two hurricanes be safe.

Yellowrocks said...

FLN,
I can’t keep silent any longer. This theoretical discussion about shellfish is contrary to what most US Christians beileve. I have known thousands of Mainline Protestant and Roman Catholic Christians over my 80+years, from diverse denominations, none whom obey the prohibition against eating pork and shellfish. Only a tiny handful even know about this prohibition. Many churches have ham dinner fund raisers, pancake and sausage breakfasts, and Easter breakfasts with bacon and sausage. I doubt that you can find any widespread prohibition among Mainline Protestants and Roman Catholics against eating pork and shellfish.
The first Christians were Jews and many of them still practiced the Jewish religion as fully observant Jews and added Jesus and his teachings to that. As Christianity spread to the Gentile world there was a great controversy about whether Gentiles needed to become Jews and practice all the Mosaic laws.
The Council of Jerusalem, a conference of the Christian Apostles in Jerusalem about 50 CE , decreed that Gentile Christians did not have to observe the Mosaic Law of the Jews, just the moral laws like the Ten Commandments. The dietary laws and circumcision were declared unnecessary for Gentiles.
There are many verses in the New Testament that speak to this, including, “Not that which entereth into the mouth defileth the man; but that which proceedeth out of the mouth, this defileth the man.”
Just to be sure, I again looked up the beliefs of the more common denominations.

Chairman Moe said...

Puzzling thoughts:

I had to look up MILNE and CHAST to finish the SE corner. Had REELS/HEELS. Started putting in COFFE before MOB arrived, and allowed me to correct. ON ER? I know that ONER is a bit trite as an xword solve, but the clueing first 35 across was a bit sticky

Misspelled ADRENALINE which screwed up PARSEC. Which is a word with which I’m not familiar

Hey, it’s a Saturday puzzle; not supposed to be easy

1 down —> my cocktails all contain booze. And most are served “neat”. About the only mixed drink I consume is a Gin & Tonic

I got Sea-TAC; why wasn’t the clue “SEA”-___?

An old dancer, who lives in Durango,
Went to market to purchase a MANGO,
For his daily cocktail.
Which just makes his wife wail;
But you know that it takes two to TANGO.

ATLGranny said...

Unlike you earlier posters, today was a total disaster for me. The SE had mostly white squares and above that MPH, KARA, STLEO and CAFFE didn't come to mind today. To my surprise, the rest of the puzzle had only one wrong guess: PeRSEC. So, overall it could have been worse, but was a DNF.

At 5pm I quit coming back to the puzzle to try again so I could read the blog and enjoy the comments finally. Thanks to new father Joe and to Husker Gary. Your reaching out to the constructors adds a lot to the puzzle learning experience.

Anonymous T said...

Hi All!

MPH, ENOS & EGGS was all I needed to get the long downs in the NE. Thought I was going to fly through the puzzle but, nope. //@1d I was thinking Ted Nuget's wANGO TANGO - Google @your own risk.

I needed 4 lookups to finish this off - RIAN (and I've seen the move! [good fun HG]), CHAST, MILNE, and IANs. [note: NAMES!!!! :-)] //Ha! Oc4 & C.Moe - our Venn overlaps greatly :-)

Thanks for the puzzle Joe. Also, thanks for responding to HG. I enjoy the backstories.
//I look forward to your daughters constructions in the future.

Nice TOUR of the puzzle HG. HONEST! :-)
//I have a Splunk Tee that reads "I like big data, I CANNOT LIE"

WOs: ODeN, I read 55a and filled 58a with RATS [Phooey!], aN ER b/f finding my COOL
ESPs: KARA, ABIE, others -- I'm sure
Fav: The CLAW [Toy Story //MManatee beat me to my 1st choice :-)]

Nice prose C. Moe.

Did no one else want 'bocce balls' for afternoon entertainment? Thought about it for a min b/f PE TEACHER showed me the ropes [great clue!]

Ray-O: LOL @TASETEST & MAN GO...

Phipps44 - Welcome to the Corner. See oc4beach's @11:01a link.

Lem - thanks for the follow-up on second Nash-Beatles link.

Bluehen - we got a power-washer at the beginning of the New Times. Youngest did this, this, and this with it.
//Sadly, we don't have a cat :-)

Jayce - how close are you to the fires? In any imminent danger?
To all near the CA fires - stay safe. And, please, return those wishes next week when TD 13 (or 14?) hits.

Off to make DW some stir-fry.

Cheers, -T

Crockett1947 said...

Bluehen,

Be very careful when you go to bed tonight. The cat is plotting his revenge!!

Anonymous T said...

Well, my stir-fry was a bust; 2nd nastiest thing I've ever made. I'm not sure where I went wrong but, Yuck!

Pizza will be here in 45m.

1st worst, you ask? - Once, I way over-salted ham-bone bean soup.
It was so, so, so salty that cows would'a refused that salt-lick.

Cheers, -T

ATLGranny said...

It's been that kind of day. SE problems should have been SW. Even got my directions wrong!

Malodorous Manatee said...

Lemonade, we definitely share some genes. No Dr. Brown's this time although we did have that last time with the home-made pastrami! Tonight it will be Gurrachi Cabernet and some Compass Box Flaming Heart 15th Anniversary Scotch Whisky.

Anon-T, sorry about posting The Craw before you were able to.


To both of you, great minds think alike.

Unknown said...

WOW! Finished a Saturday in less than an hour!! And no alcohol involved, no blood pressure problems,no unprintable words used,!!! Real fun!! Must have been the afterglow of yesterday's event I attended where Bank of America donated masks and hand sanitizers for THOUSANDS of local school kids returning to school. Our Educational Foundation spearheaded the event. Made everyone feel pretty good, something really important in these crazy times!

Anonymous T said...

ATLGranny - sonnava... me too!

"MPH, ENOS & EGGS was all I needed to get the long downs in the NE." Oy! It was NW :-)

MManatee - anyone that know's Henry & Brooks' work that well... Hazzah!

Cheers, -T

Abejo said...

Good evening, folks. Thank you, Joe Deeney, for a fine puzzle. Thank you, Husker Gary, for a fine review.

Well, this puzzle was too tough for me. Needed help.

Generally liked it once I got through it. All the long answers were very good. Getting them was tough.

With all that I am going to hit the floor. See you tomorrow.

Abejo

( )

Terry said...

I believe that stands for "finished it right"