Today we have another outing with Paul Coulter, as he shares with us his favorite drinks and mixers. The themers might be a bit easier to follow if we start with the Grid. As there are 4 pairs of related theme clues, I've shown the pairs here connected by red lines:
The first answer set consists of four beverages, 3 alcoholic (1A,
5A, and 60A) and one a mixer (45A). These
respective beverages are then "mixed" in anagrams embedded in 4 two word
answers (46A, 27A, 17A, and 66A). The
anagrams don't seem to have any particular relationship to the drinks in the
first set of clues, but EDAM cheese
(in 46A) might pair nicely with a
CLARET (5A).
Paul, please feel free to stop by and comment if I'm missing something. Here are the paired theme clues:
1. Ancient beverage
"mixed" in 46-Across: MEAD. A drink fermented from honey. Also the name of the famous anthropologist
Margaret Mead, best known for her seminal book
Coming of Age In Samoa
and for her autobiography Blackberry Winter. The anagram here
is EDAM.
46. "Give me time to collect myself":
I NEED A MOMENT. I needed a lot of MOMENTS to suss all of the
above!
5. Dinner beverage "mixed" in 27-Across:
CLARET. The British term for the dry red wines vinified just across the
Channel in the Bordeaux region of France. Clarets are generally
BLENDS (mixes) of the VARIETALS Cabernet Sauvignon,
Merlot, and Cabernet Franc. The anagram here is
CARTEL:
27. Driver's aid, once:
CAR TELEPHONE. Hands up if you've ever
used one. Bluetooth links to your cellphone don't count.
45. Fountain beverage "mixed" in 17-Across:
SODA. The anagram here is ADOS. I guess all that fizzin' stirs up a fuss!
17. Air Force
Academy city: COLORADO SPRINGS. Also known for
The Garden of the Gods:
and for
The Will Rogers Shrine of the Sun: 
66.
After-dinner beverage "mixed" in 60-Across:
PORT. All ports are made from a blend of grapes grown throughout
Portugal's Douro valley. There are two kinds of port:
TAWNY and RUBY.
Beyond that I've got to issue a CSO to C Moe for any additional exegesis
on PORTS. The anagram here is TROP:
60. Balancing act: TIGHTROPE WALKER. Here French tightrope walker Bongonga completed a stunt on a cord hanging 35 meters from the ground at Paris' picturesque Montmartre hill, with no security cable attached to her costume. I can barely bear to watch this. Sacré-Coeur!
The anagram here was TROP, which imported from French into English still means TOO MUCH. It might describe the throbbing in your head the next morning if you mixed "TOO MUCH" MEAD, CLARET, and PORT on New Years Eve! Cheers, and here's all the rest ...
Across:
11. Cooking meas.: TSP. It couldn't be the abbreviation for tablespoon, as that's four letters.
14. Part of a pot: ANTE. On the other side of the pond it's pronounced ONTIE, as in your mother's sister.
15. On a smaller scale: LESS SO.
16. Bit in a horse's mouth: OAT.
20. Abbr. between names, perhaps: AKA. An author's
PSEUDONYM or perhaps more often an ALIAS for someone suspected
of figuring out a crossword answer from the intersecting answers. But
who might get BUSTED by the dreaded NATICK.
21. Gulf of __: OMAN. Could be the Gulf of ADEN. You
might have to perp it.
22. Starkers, on this side of the pond: NAKED. On this side of
the pond we have a similar sounding noun STREAKERS, but on the
other side of the pond the former word is an adjective. Here's a
TV frame of a breathless Benedict Cumberbach (AKA Sherlock
Holmes) being Scandalised in Bohemia by his STARKERS nemesis
Irene Adler. While this image is RATED PG, the one on the
BBC was definitely RATED R:
23. Not fooled by: WISE TO.
25. City blight: SLUM.
33. Sneeze syllable: CHOO. Doubled this becomes a kiddie
TRAIN.
36. It's a wrap: SARAN. I'll make mine with a
TORTILLA thank you.
37. Bond was kicked out of it: ETON. If it's a four letter English
school, you can count on it being ETON.
38. Fireplace shelf: HOB. Dw will be happy to know we have one on
our gas grill. It's also "a machine tool used for cutting gears or screw threads". CSO to
Dash T, I know you've got a SONIC SCREWDRIVER, but do you
have a HOB? TAPS and DIES don't count.
39. Berkeley sch.: CAL. CALs are something we've all
resolved to avoid for at least another mo.
40. Effort: TRY.
41. ESPN MLB analyst: AROD.
43. Drive: MOTOR. These have been known to throw
A ROD from time to time.
49. Animal rights gp.: PETA. Also a homo-phonic pocket bread used
to serve FALAFELS with TAHINI and shredded lettuce.
50. Make more powerful: SOUP UP. Like I did with the ham
HOCK left over from Christmas dinner. A bit salty though.
54. Gut feeling?: AGITA.
57. Simon Says player: APER. So Simon was a simian?
59. That, in Oaxaca: ESA.
64. Artist Yoko: ONO. Yoko was in the last puzzle I blogged and
I'm happy to report that she is still with us.
65. Filling out forms, often: HASSLE.
67. Make a dent in: MAR.
68. Drove off: SHOOED.
69. Costner role: NESS. A much more famous NESS is the
LOCH in Scotland, the home of NESSIE, the MONSTER who
warms the hearts of the Scottish tourist industry:
Down:
1. Rainforest parrot: MACAW.
2. Mushroom in Asian cuisine: ENOKI. 
Not to be confused with these cuddly creatures on the planet
ENDOR.
3. World record?: ATLAS. Cute clue. OTOH
Icelandic actor and strongman Hafthor Bjornsson set a
world record for the deadlift last May, when he lifted 1,104
pounds (501 kg) at Thor's Power Gym in Iceland.
4. "Gloria in Excelsis __": DEO. The beginning of the hymn from
the Latin Mass. Here is Antonio Vivaldi's setting:
5. Demands loudly, with "for": CLAMORS Wannabe OYSTERS if
you ask me.
6. Helen of Troy's mother: LEDA. An early
#METOO
victim.
7. John Irving's "__ of the Circus": A SON. I have but one.
And 8 grandchildren. And sometimes it IS a circus!
8. __ feed: online news aggregator: RSS. "Really Simple Syndication" is a web protocol that allows users and
applications automatic access to website updates in a standardized,
computer-readable format. These FIFO feeds can give you a pull down menu
on your browser listing any new posts to a site. In order for this
to work the site must support the RSS protocol.
9. Medium gift: ESP. IMHO there is some statistical evidence that
there is something to this.
10. Ripped to shreds: TORN UP.
11. Honky-__: TONK. I read somewhere that COVID-19 has really
wreaked havoc on these convivial watering holes.
12. Wise one: SAGE. A very wise man indeed. Without him
there would be no SAUSAGES.
13. Condition once called "shell shock," for short: PTSD. My
father suffered from this for 10 years after WWII. But he recovered and
managed to raise a family of 5, four very bright girls and a boy.
18. Membership list: ROTA.
19. "You found the right guy," formally: I AM HE.
24. Novelist Umberto: ECO.
He was much more than a novelist, but is perhaps best known for his first novel, "The Name of the Rose",
which was later made into a movie.
25. Go this way and that: SLALOM. Sort of a gentle ZIG and
ZAG.
26. Actor Cariou: LEN. Canadian[Eh!] actor and stage
director, best known for his Tony award winning portrayal of Sweeney Todd in
the original Broadway cast of
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.
28. City near Seattle: TACOMA.
From the Salish Indian word for the mountain that provided
water to their tribe (later changed to Mount Rainier - I have no have no
idea what that means in Salish. Rainer maybe?).
29. Muse for Shelley: ERATO.
30. "The Simpsons" bus driver: OTTO.
31. North of Paris: NORD.
32. One-named New Ager: ENYA. Please forgive the recursion but
... I used to like this singer, but as time went by she became
increasing derivative of ENYA.
33. Spiced tea: CHAI.
34. Cornucopia shape: HORN. An almost clecho to 35B next.
Both BRASSES and WOODWINDS have HORN shaped instruments, but
they have different timbres and belong to different orchestral groups.
35. Bassoon kin: OBOE. One of my favorite pieces for this
instrument is Ennio Moriconi's "Gabriel's Oboe" for the film "The
Mission" starring Jeremy Irons:
52. Computer operators: USERS. The oft overlooked system
"component". I prefer the term STAKEHOLDER. And when
the computer is a personal computer, USERS are the
chief stakeholders.
53. Labor go-with: PARTS.
54. Tiny bit: ATOM. But not the tiniest. There is ample
evidence for SUBATOMIC PARTICLES, like the familiar
ELECTRON, the PROTON, and the NEUTRON But the
latter two are further composed of even smaller particles called
QUARKS. Physicists, despairing of describing them in terms that
we mere mortals might understand, assign them bizarre names like UP,
DOWN, CHARM, STRANGE, TOP, and BOTTOM, , with a
total of 17 denizens in the particle zoo known as
The Standard Model. And if that's not STRANGE enough, there is a whole theory of
near infinitesimally smaller particles called STRINGS, for which
there is no experimental evidence whatsoever! And I'm not
stringing you along. But the theorists might be.
55. Carano of "Deadpool""Deadpool": GINA. I've never seen it, but
it does get a lot of press, whatever it is. Sounds like a scary
place.
56. Horror movie assistant: IGOR. Sometimes you have to perp it
for the first letter, which may be a Y.
57. Lhasa __: APSO. This breed originated in Tibet. How they
could survive Tibetan winters I have no idea. I knew one of them
once, and I know I shouldn't generalize on a sample of one, but my
impression of it was that it was a warm. cuddly, white furry lizard with a
ganglion in place of a brain. A CSO to any Lhasa Apso owners on the
Corner - as a dog lover I'd be happily disavowed of my prejudice if you've had
a different experience.
58. Soccer great: PELE.
61. "Go team!": RAH.
62. Spanish bear: OSO. I don't think I can bear that again.
63. Hosp. staffer: LPN. A CSO to the LPNs, RNs, LAB TECHS and DOCTORS (inanehiker,
Ray-O and any I've missed) on the Corner.
YOU ARE HEROES!!!
waseeley
Note from C.C.:
Here are two lovely pictures of JD's family. JD lives close to her two daughters and she often helps with the grandkids' school work.
37 comments:
The Picts fought NAKED, except for bluing,
Which disconcerted foes, to their undoing.
While the Viking breed
Enjoyed their MEAD,
And wore hair-shirts for Berserker hewing!
There was a young miss from TACOMA
Who could prattle her friends to a coma.
She didn't like travel,
To MOTOR was a HASSLE --
Until she got a CAR TELEPHONE-a!
The letter from PETA was TORN UP.
Their campaign they intended to SOUP UP.
In retaliation,
A dog pound collation
Cut adoption fees down to a SOU PUP!
A poem for our own Desper-OTTO
Would require input from ERATO.
Whatever the theme
It would pass as a dream,
That he wouldn't see till tomorrow!
{A, B, B+, B-.}
Good morning!
What a cluster! The security forces knew it was possible, likely even, but did nothing to prepare. It didn't have to go down the way it did.
Enjoyed the puzzle, but assumed all those numerical references were pointed at the same answer. Yup, d-o did it again. Got 'er done, though, so life is good. Thanx, Paul and Waseeley. (Exegesis: Wow, now that's a 64-dollar word.)
HOB: One of my father's favorite expressions was "harder than the HOBS of hell," -- and it's probably the only one that can be quoted here.
LEN: Len Cariou currently appears as the paterfamilias in Blue Bloods.
Excelsis Deo: In my ute our local plywood factory also produced excelsior as a by-product. That led me to infer that Excelsis Deo must have something to do with God's packing peanuts.
TONK: Increasing Covid cases have "triggered" more business restrictions around here. Bars unable to reclassify as restaurants must shutter their doors. At least two local bar owners say, "Ain't gonna happen!" They'll probably get away with it. Our county sheriff's department is notoriously lax at enforcing Covid regulations.
Finished in a little under 12 minutes today. I liked having the "built-in reveals," rather than circles. I would've liked it better had I known that a Claret is a thing. Gina & Nora were unknown.
Good morning everyone.
Entered MEAD, CLARET, and SODA before confirming their mixed modes elsewhere in the puzzle. I found this puzzle to be lots of fun. COLORADO SPRINGS got the top firmly underway. Couple head scratchers like ECO and AGITA had strong perp support. NORD came from HS French. OSO and ESA we've had before. Seem to get ONO couple times a week.
Easy for a Thursday; FIR.
Hola!
I agree. Easy for a Thursday but a fun scavenger hunt for the MIXED DRINKS. And I found them! Thank you, Waseeley, for helping in such a detailed manner.
As usual ESA and OSO awaited perps to confirm whether their endings would be A or O.
While living in Denver in the 1960s, an outing to COLORADO SPRINGS, the Garden of the Gods and the Royal Gorge was required. Beautiful places all. Canadian Eh! might have a difficult time sussing that as well as TACOMA which combined with Seattle makes part of SEATAC airport.
I learned today that AROD is an ESPN MLB analyst though I started with ARON. All sports knowledge is out of my DEPTH.
However, I have seen LEN Cariou in Blue Bloods which I occasionally watch.
I am TORN UP about yesterday's events.
May we all have a peaceful day today!
2 letters wrong because of proper names. Stop it!
Anyone else find the theme application not super consistent and a bit underdeveloped? PORT and SODA appear in reverse order in their respective long answers: colorADOSprings and tighTROPewalker. But MEAD and CLARET are simply jumbled up, i.e., "mixed" in their respective long answers.
Also, I thought there was going to be more with the theme after revealing SODA / COLORADOSPRINGS. For the first long answer, I saw COLOR-SODA-SPRINGS, and thought the "unmixing" would turn the long answers into something new, as Soda Springs is a place. But, alas, there wasn't anything more.
I'm not sure if STARKERS and STREAKERS are as closely related as implied in the blog today: STARKERS is British slang for "stark naked", while STREAKERS is a more recent usage refering to people who "streak", or run around naked in public with the purpose of shocking crowds, for example at a football match or anywhere such behavior is normally inappropriate.
Musings
-Paul and Rich must have gone to an after-Christmas clearance on proper nouns!
-Heads – I soldier on and “get ‘er done”. Tails – I give up and kvetch. It’s Heads!
-I NEED A MINUTE was a bump in the road
-Boomer would love that this very early CAR TELEPHONE was made by Western Electric
-Red-clad Husker fans at a FB game at CAL in the 90’s provided their first “sold-out” game in decades
-My Dr.’s office now has eliminated the HASSLE of starting all over with a paper and pencil form
-Costner also played EARP
-TACOMA is the TAC of the SEA-TAC airport
-I was dating a Jean when Johnny Mathis’ beautiful GINA was popular. Memories…
-Great pix, Judy!
Deadpool is not a place, it's a character- Ryan Reynolds - himself a character.
I had a few missteps to start, but eventually filled in everything.
Labor PARTY at first. Oh...my car bill has PARTS and Labor.
I NEED A SECOND -- hey I'm from NY--we only need a "NY Second" to get things done. (If you don't know the reference, it is the time btwn. a red light turning green and honking your horn at the guy in front of you MOTOR.)
IT IS I. Oops. Not that formal one. Fixed.
I thought initially LNP for Licensed Nurse Practitioner. Never heard of an LPN.
Also SMOG instead of SLUM. Nope.
So a lot of wrong early guesses, but managed everything. It was fun!
Thank you, Paul, for an excellent puzzle, and for coming by to comment! Thank you, Waseeley, for elucidating the finer points. I had a little trouble in the area of the TORN UP NAKED SLUM, but FIR. Now back to my daily routine of "filling out forms." A HASSLE, for sure, but LESS SO than some other occupations!
Terrific Thursday. Thanks for the fun, Paul (congrats on your triple play today) and waseeley. Although I found this CW rather crunchy (but it is Thursday afterall!), I finished and saw the theme/found all the anagrams. But I arrived here to discover that I FIWed and in the final bottom corner at that! My "Labor go-with" was PARTy (thinking of the UK, but I should have noted the lack of U). I had questioned NESy for the Costner role. Ah well.
Were CHAI and PEKOE teas our Easter egg beverages today??
WC, I LOLed when I saw SODA again today.
Some Canadian disadvantage today (and I was not familiar with Cariou except from CWs so no advantage there either! Oh, Thanks d'o, I did not realize he was Pops in Blue Bloods). 17A, 39A, 28D, even 63D since we have RPNs not LPNs.
I wanted GIVE ME A second or minute before MOMENT perped.
I waited for perps to decide between OLE or RAH (but there was no Spanish or soccer in the clue).
FLN - thanks NaomiZ for clarifying EXILE. I was thinking of EXILE (noun) as the state and forgetting that it can also refer to the person.
Lunch time. Read the rest of you later.
Puzzling thoughts:
Paul, thanks for stopping by; Bill, excellent recap; loved the classical music clips.
Not sure I deserve the CSO for PORT, but in case anyone’s interested, the process for making a “Port” wine (named for the area in the Iberian Peninsula known as Oporto) is to add either brandy or a neutral spirit to a fermenting wine prior to the end of its natural fermentation. The higher alcohol in the brandy or neutral spirit “kills” the yeast in the wine, thus leaving residual sugar which provides the sweetness. The resulting ABV (alcohol by volume) is more or less 20%. This provides a much better preservative to the bottled “wine”. This was done back in the day when sailors would go off for months on end exploring what’s now pictured in an ATLAS, and have a beverage that tastes like wine. Once opened, a bottle of PORT could last 3-6 months
So, back to the puzzle ... I was at first a bit perplexed doing this, as I’m one of those who usually begins their solving @ 1-Across. And that clue tied itself to another clue further down in the puzzle ... OK, I’ll move on to 5-Across ... hmm, this looks familiar! Dang; oh well, suck it up buttercup! And I did. And eventually solved all the squares despite a bit of extra ink here and there.
As Ray-O said, 46a went from Minute to Second back to Minute and finally landed on MOMENT
I wonder if anyone else saw 20-Across and came up with “AND” instead? As in the symbol ampersand (&) as in Abbott & Costello
That’s enough of my spiel ... you’ll get plenty from me manaña
I had a HUGE car telephone. I finally realized the car had to be running for it to work.
Deadpool is a wonderful funny movie. I never saw the second one.
Yesterday made me cry.
Becky
Actually, it's 9:38 here.
Becky
Oops. I forgot the CSO at 30D, OTTO to our own depser-o. It's very early for me when I solve the puzzle so I hope d-o will forgive me. I then return to bed for further sleep.
It is a wise cook who uses SAGE to season food.
Sad to say the neighborhood where in grew up in central Phoenix is now a SLUM.
Post partum was too long for "labor go-with".
I kive ib=n Colorado Springs. It's worth a visit to see:
Air Force Academy
Garden of the Gods
Pikes Peak - 13 miles to 14100'
Barr Trail rises 7800 'from 6200'
There is also the Broaadmoor Hoteel (very expensive). You can walk in and go onto the bak patio to see the view.
Enjoyed this puzzle. Lhasa Apso's were rare, actually. They were companions to the monks who had their monasteries secluded in the mountains of Tibet. The Lhasa was the indoor dog. Larger, more hearty creatures were the outside dogs. The point was that the monasteries were so well insulated, especially during the winter months, the residents needed an indoor dog to hear the outdoor dogs barking. When the howl went up outside, the Lhasa would hear it, even if the monks couldn't, and they would bark, alerting the monks that someone was outside. Lhasa Apsos are actually quite smart, tho' it probably depends on the breeder. Cheers!
We're fortunate to have wonderful puzzles after a horrendous day like the one we experienced yesterday. So, thank you for a delightful puzzle, Paul, and you too, Waseeley, for an interesting and lively commentary.
Yes, a little early in the day, but what a treat to get all those fine drinks, MEAD, CLARET, PORT, and SODA for a mixer. And then we got to hang out with a crew of very interesting people: ENYA, ECO, NESS, LEDA, OTTO, and IGOR (well, maybe not IGOR). And all of this accompanied by fun music with a HORN and an OBOE and a bit of HONKY-TONK.
Owen, you are in terrific poetic form these days.
Have a great day, everybody.
I easily got the fill. I didn't see the anagrams, but I didn't look too hard. Not in a patient mood today. Yesterday's news was totally dismaying. Will the anarchy repeat itself in the two weeks to come?
This clue was fine: Starkers, on this side of the pond: NAKED. I agree, Waseeley, that it brings to mind the similar sounding naked streakers.
Here we do call them LPNs, licensed practical nurses.
My sinusitis is back with a low grade fever Mon. and Tue. Still weak with no motivation, but with meds I have been reading a book and a half a day. Thankful for my Kindle. Also thankful that this is not Covid 19.
YR
Rita @12:14pm Thank for the scoop on Lhasa Apso's. So the Tibetans invented dog division of labor. Thinking back I now recall that LA I knew was just a puppy and probably became more SAGELY as the years went by.
Bob @10:42am. IIRC an LPN is Licensed Practical Nurse, doesn't need a college degree and handles more basic care like bathing, changing clothes, getting basic vitals, etc. An LNP is roughly equivalent to a PA. I believe both can prescribe certain medications and are closer to an MD. An RN is in the middle and requires a college degree, a sound understanding of anatomy and physiology, gives injections,etc. A CSO to inanehiker or Ray-O for more details.
FIR today and figured out the theme, appropriately challenging for Thursday. Not too many WOs, easily explained by perps when first thought was wrong. AGITA was new but agitation seemed related to me, so left it in. Didn't know DINA so no help there. Put REnEWED first so that slowed things down. But a FIR! Thanks, Paul, for a good Thursday puzzle and for stopping by. Thanks, waseeley, for your excellent explanation today.
With everything else going on, the puzzle is a joy to do every day. Our old house has developed yet another problem to resolve, hopefully soon since it impacts our carriage house tenant as well. One thing after another....
Hope you feel better soon, YR, and I'm glad you're able to read books to pass the time. Enjoyed your family pictures, JD. And best wishes to everyone!
I FIR but there wasn't a chance I would notice the anagrams for drinks. It took a few WAGs to get it done.
Starkers? new term for me-NAKED was a guess after a couple of letters
HOB, GINA- unknowns filled by perps
ECO, ENYA, LEN Cariou, OTTO, CHAI- Crossword staples
Rita @ 1214 - - It's a good think the monks weren't using Basenjis the barkless dogs. If they heard a noise, they'd have to point and someone would have to watch for them to do that.
Waseeley - Are you mixing up LPN with NP(nurse practitioner)? In NYS, both PA's and NP's can issue prescriptions. I think an NP needs a Master's Degree.
America needs to unite!
Had to change my “in a minute” to “in a moment”
After a day like yesterday, I needed some MEAD, PORT, CLARET AND SOME TEQUILA for good measure.
@hungry mother I'm with you on the names. What's frustrating is the way crosswords made by constructors here and in other venues have been playing really fast and loose with proper names, niche terms and slang. FIR but the theme escaped me.
JD:
Your grandchildren look wonderful and are, of course, growing nicely.
Re. Streakers/STARK (Naked). During the streaker craze a guy hopped into the string of Marathon runners on Beacon St(Boston) and trotted down the street. He was back at the Tan O'Sheanter bar minutes later (from whence he'd left)
Interesting about M. ECO. "Pendulum" was apparently about conspiracy and Brown credited Eco with inspiration for his DaVinci conspiracy which he plagiarized from another conspiracy (Holy Blood…). And as we saw yesterday, debunking them is not easy.
The cabs in chi-town didn't wait A SEC to honk (in 003 when I was there)
They actually are referred to as LPN's. My sister wouldn't hire them, saw no use for LPN's at her hospital.
This was the one that I solved thinking it was 'difficult' for a Wednesday. Somewhere in the course of the solve I saw the mixers. COLORADO SPRINGS filled a lot of boxes. But overall it didn't fill easy.
And as C-Moe alluded to tomorrow's no picnic either. That reminds me…
TTP, I completed that Evan Birnholz Wa-Post and am AT SEA re. the "matrix" and the hints to figure it out. I'd need a bunch more. Ironically, filling was relatively easy.
"Owen, you are in terrific poetic form these days.". I second that Misty. Where did I just see ERATO?
YR, this time of year is sinitis time. That EINK must make reading the kindle easier. I've got to do that.
Waseely (Bill?)(Great Write-up btw), there's also the CNA(sst) who believe it or not needs Anatomy study for certification.
WC
Thanks WC. Top of the evenin' to you.
Bill
I'm back in hopes of a more regular schedule after the holidays!
Fun puzzle today--for once in my life I got all the drinks words (it's usually alcohol and sports that catch me off guard as I like neither). I didn't understand AGITA though--filled it on perps. Can anyone explain?
From the net.
Agita" which first appeared in American English in the early 1980s, comes from a dialectical pronunciation of the Italian word acido,(AH'-chi-doh) meaning "heartburn" or "acid," from Latin acidus.
I was quite surprised when I heard a WASP colleague use this term during residency. Thought it was limited to the local ethnic community I grew up in.
Very late to the party today. Lots of what Bank of America used to refer to as "the business of living" to focus on. Not much to add to what has been said above but I did want to add my thanks to Paul and Bill.
Wow! A can’t believe I got the whole thing! Worked on the puzzle this morning and got ALL but AGITA/GINA. Had to make a couple of business phone calls and then go do some shopping, so I figured I would wait until I returned to figure out which of the 26 letters fit. Got back, did a couple of alphabet runs, and figured “G” was my best bet. Voila!
First fill, of course, was COLORADOSPRINGS, which pointed the way to the theme. The others were not too hard to suss, once I filled in some of the DOWN clues. CLARET was the last one to fall. Along with all the other neat sights to see in the area, a visit to the Air Force Academy Cadet Chapel is a must. It is an amazing piece of architecure --- inside and outside. Unfortunately, it is currently closed for repairs.
I knew Bond got tossed out of Eton, but before I got to that clue, I had already entered IT IS I for 19D. Had to take it out, but it took a while to come up with the correct phrase.
Speaking of Bond and CLARET, it was Mr. Wint’s not knowing exactly what a CLARET is that foiled Mr. Kidd’s and his attempt to assassinate Bond and Tiffany Case at the end of “Diamonds Are Forever.”
---
(Bond tastes the Mouton Rothschild wine served by Wint)
James Bond: The wine is quite excellent. Although for such a grand meal I would have expected a claret.
Mr. Wint: But of course. Unfortunately our cellar is poorly stocked with clarets.
James Bond: Mouton Rothschild IS a claret. And, I've smelled that aftershave before, and both times - I've smelled a rat.
---
Yes, had to wait for perps for OMAN.
Guess I was around 20 the first time I visited NYC. My buddy (a native) and I drove up there Saturday to visit his old 'hood and went back to DC Sunday. I was shocked --- I say SHOCKED --- at all the horn honking when the lights turned green. There’s a bumper sticker on cars here in Texas: “Keep honking! I’m reloading!”
In North Jersey agita is used to mean stress. The news these days gives me agita. The term is common among the Italians and has been adopted cross culturally.
Thanks, Waseeley!
Spitzboov - yer' funny! :D
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