google.com, pub-2774194725043577, DIRECT, f08c47fec0942fa0 L.A.Times Crossword Corner: Sunday June 13, 2021 Matt Skoczen

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Jun 13, 2021

Sunday June 13, 2021 Matt Skoczen

Theme: "Get Wise" - Y is added to the end of one word in each common phrase.

23. Irish region named for a literary nobleman?: COUNTY DRACULA. Count Dracula.

31. Commiseration at a cookout?: BARBECUE PITY. Barbecue pit.

51. Sham indignation?: IMITATION FURY. Imitation fur.

67. Excited cry from a gemologist?: AY THERE'S THE RUBY. Ay there's the rub.

85. Dilemma presented by a suspicious peace offering?: TRICK OR TREATY. Trick or treat.

104. Young farm animals' taxi company?: CALVES' LIVERY. Calves' liver.

116. Cues from the Miracles' lead singer?: SMOKEY SIGNALS. Smoke signals. Smokey Robinson.

We've had a few "Why Not" puzzles where Y's are removed. I don't recall Y additions on Sundays. Fun phrases.

Shouldn't it be CALF'S LIVER though? Boomer used to make beef liver with onions. The smell!

Across:

1. Jelly Roll Morton genre: RAGTIME. I don't know Jelly Roll Morton, who was jazz's first arranger, according to Wiki.
 

8. Benjamin: C SPOT.

13. Kind of manner: BEDSIDE.

20. Repertoire: ARSENAL.

21. Riveting WWII icon: ROSIE.  Rosie the Riveter. Read this fascinating story about the real life model.


22. Volatile solvent: ACETONE.

25. Vehicle in a pit: RACE CAR.

26. Works with purls: KNITS. Hi there, Madame Defarge!

27. Easy comparison: ABC.

28. Heartache: SORROW.

30. "Star Wars" antagonist: SITH.

35. Inquire: ASK.

38. Advance with determination: SOLDIER ON.

40. "The Purloined Letter" author: POE.

41. Cream additive: ALOE.

42. __-jongg: MAH. Spelled as Majiang in China. When I lived in Guangzhou, my neighbors often played Majiang until earlier mornings. Noisy.

45. Normandy city: CAEN. Have not seen this entry for a year. 

46. Bro, for one: SIB.

48. Spent: ALL IN.

49. Bouquets: AROMAS.

56. San Juan __: California mission city: CAPISTRANO. Another unknown to me. It's in Orange County.


59. Athlete-turned-sportscaster Rashad: AHMAD. Ahmad Rashād was a Viking.


60. "Weeds" law org.: DEA.

61. Word with rule or show: SLIDE.

62. Wears down: ERODES.

65. USG successor: RBH. OK, Rutherford Birchard Hayes. Ulysses S. Grant.

66. "It's __ a while": BEEN.

71. Short rules?: REGS. Regulations.

74. Female lobster: HEN.

75. Wells' island doctor: MOREAU.  "The Island of Dr. Moreau"

76. Degrade: ABASE.

80. Junior Olympic Games org.: AAU. The Amateur Athletic Union. We also have 17. Games org.: IOC.

81. __ Tranquility: SEA OF.

83. Feature of much commercial maple syrup: ADDED SUGAR. Great fill.

89. "Yeah, right!": OH SURE.

90. Ho-hum feeling: ENNUI.

91. India is home to a plurality of its employees: IBM. No surprise. So many IT talents there, Vidwan!

92. __ Victoria: LAKE.

94. Remote needs: AAS.

95. "Do-Re-Mi" critter: DEER.

96. Three Kingdoms Chinese state: WEI. Luckily the crossings are fair. I always keep Jayce's comment in mind. He likes to solve crosswords, not cross names.


99. Trading post visitors: BARTERERS.

103. Nutrition fig.: RDA.

106. Radio switch: AM FM.

110. Middle Jackson sister: LA TOYA. Janet on the right.



111. Uzbekistan, once: Abbr.: SSR.

112. Farm song letters: E I E I O.

113. Coup member?: SILENT P. The last letter of "Coup".

121. Loom power source: TREADLE. My grandma used to have a loom.

122. White-plumed heron: EGRET.

123. Hot air: PRATTLE.

124. Gave the okay: SAID YES.

125. Framing supports: STUDS.

126. Night flights: RED EYES.

Down:

1. Spaces for spices: RACKS.

2. Rice-__: A-RONI.

3. Astronaut's apparel: G SUIT.

4. 5, in 2.5: TENTHS.

5. QB's concerns: INTS. Interceptions.

6. 5, in 5/8, say: MAY. Chinese calendar adds a leap month every 3 years. Back in 1971, we had two Mays. I was born on May 8 in the second May.

8. Buster of old Hollywood: CRABBE.


9. Game with strikers: SOCCER.

10. Nittany Lions' sch.: PSU.

11. Jed Clampett's find: OIL.

12. Needle: TEASE. See here to calculate your Chinese age. Be warned, you'll be one or two years older!  This also happens in Korea, babies are one-year old when they're born.

13. Hispanic city area: BARRIO.

14. Whist relative: ECARTE. Is it still a popular game?



15. Shill: DECOY.

16. Booyah or bouillabaisse: STEW. Unfamiliar with the stew Booyah.

18. CSI stuff: DNA.

19. Poetic adverb: EER.

24. __ to go: eager, colloquially: RARIN'.

29. On the facing pg.: OPP.

31. Really good time: BLAST.

32. Block ending: ADE. Blockade.

33. Mozart's "__ fan tutte": COSI.

34. Textbook segment: UNIT.

35. Refer (to): ALLUDE.

36. Nighttime shindig: SOIREE.

37. Ugandan neighbor: KENYAN.

39. "The Plough and the Stars" playwright Sean: O'CASEY.



41. TV alien: ALF.

42. Apple offerings: MACS.

43. Depleted sea: ARAL.

44. Southwestern native: HOPI.

47. Song cry heard here, there and everywhere?: BAA. Old MacDonald Had a Farm.

48. Furthermore: AND.

50. Golden touch king: MIDAS.

51. "You __ out?": IN OR.

52. Internet link: MODEM. Sigh. Does not look like CenturyLink will bring fiber to our area soon. Our modem is just too slow to handle our new Blogger format.

53. Sequence of online posts: THREAD.

54. Saturate: IMBRUE. New word to me. I only know IMBUE.

55. Nicole Kidman's island birthplace: OAHU. Gimme! Bruno Mars was born in Honolulu, by the way.

57. Try again: RE-HEAR. Try in court.

58. Playground crack?: ARE NOT.

63. That, to Tito: ESO.

64. Classic Fender, for short: STRAT.

66. One way to get around town: BY BUS.

68. Vincent van Gogh's brother: THEO. Now people just text "u ok?"



69. Actress Lamarr: HEDY.

70. Harsh critic: BASHER.

71. Very violent, perhaps: RATED R.

72. Made: EARNED.

73. Mali neighbor: GUINEA.

77. Río contents: AGUA.

78. Poet Teasdale: SARA. First one to win Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.



79. Cockney toast opener: 'ERES.

81. __ lodge: SKI.

82. "Good" day occurring once a yr.: FRI.

84. "Okey-__!": DOKEY.

86. Snake: CUR.

87. Declines: EBBS.

88. Human rights lawyer Clooney: AMAL. Outshines George Clooney.



92. Skeptical: LEERY.

93. BOS posting: ARR.

96. Rooster feature: WATTLE.



97. Runs off to wed: ELOPES.

98. Boston __: IVY. Boston ivy here, right?



100. Wagered: RISKED.

101. Den furnishings: TV SETS.

102. Jeanne d'Arc, par exemple: SAINTE. Also 108. Dijon daughter: FILLE.

104. Reese's output: CANDY.

105. Relieves: EASES.

107. Rich, as tomato sauce: MEATY. So happy to learn from Moe that there's "Super Firm Tofu". I wonder why House Foods does not make Super Firm. They only go "Extra Firm".



109. Exodus leader: MOSES.

110. It's usually played by a star: LEAD.

112. "Yikes!": EGAD.

113. Mark and Luke: Abbr.: STS. Probably should go the road angle due to SAINTE.

114. "Deathtrap" playwright Levin: IRA.

115. Island garland: LEI.

117. Co. heads: MGT.

118. Okla. campus with a Prayer Tower: ORU.

119. 6-Down is in it: Abbr.: SPR.

120. Hot state: IRE.

C.C.


42 comments:

OwenKL said...

FIWrong. A lot of WAGs, so not surprised.
C-NOTE wouldn't perp, so went to C-SlOT instead of C-SPOT.
A rooster's comb might be a mAnTLE, but it was WATTLE. The perps looked funny, but I didn't know them for sure, and IVY was one of my WAGs.
The real natick was USG = R?H + I??RUE + AH?AD. I WAGed AHMAD correctly, but couldn't place what agency USG was. Even when I identified it as U.S.Grant, I couldn't remember who succeeded him. And IMBRUE wasn't in my vocabulary.

A ROOSTER, preening at his WATTLE
ASKED a HEN why she did waddle.
"I've walked this way
Ever since the day
I was cooed by a swallow at CAPISTRANO!"

Two-B or not two-B, that is the question!
Does the darker lead make a better impression?
AY, THERE'S THE RUB,
Can a RUBY eraser fix a flub?
Or must contumely haunt my writ expression?

{A, A+.}

Lizza said...

Good morning. I really enjoyed this puzzle, lots of really good clues and surprising answers. Several unknowns, but it all worked out well for me. Didn’t know Wei, Sitth, Theo, embrue, ecarte. I just simply don’t get aythererestheruby. Can’t make sense of it.
Love the picture of San Juan Capistrano. Been there and I have almost exactly that same beautiful picture.!Where the loons return every year if I’m not mistaken.
Great puzzle and great write up, thanks!
Sorry I don’t visit as often as I would like to, I really enjoy this blog and alll who contribute here. Very hectic times right now, lots going on. Mostly good though. Some sad. Anyway, hope you’re all doing well. Have a great day!

Lizza said...

Thanks D-Otto, swallows is correct.

desper-otto said...

Good morning!

Lizza, you can "trash" those extra posts with the icon at the bottom of them. I'm pretty sure it's swallows, not loons, that return every year to Capistrano.

Got 'er done, but thought it was quite the slog. The "____ Tranquility" slowed me down. Totally missed the underscore and went with PEACE for far too long. D'oh. Interesting to see G-SUIT and C-NOTE together. Nice to see the late-great Abejo in that photo with Mme Defarge. Thanx, Mark and C.C. (Never heard of a "second May" before.)

STS: Was not aware that Mark and Luke are considered saints. I only knew them as gossipers.

CRABBE: He was one of the heroes of my ute in his roles as Tarzan and Flash Gordon. (Actually, I preferred Johnny Weissmuller's Tarzan.)

desper-otto said...

Maybe the third time will be the winner. Here's that song I keep trying to link: Pat Boone.

Lemonade714 said...

My comment was just erased; that IMBRUES me with disappointment. It is good to see Matt again who has published many at the LAT going back long before C.C. started the Corner.
Booyah !

When I was a kid, they used to track the swallows return to Capistrano on the news.

Have a great week all even if I was deprived of my CSO with BLOCK___ADE

billocohoes said...

Lizza, AY THERE'S THE RUBY is from Hamlet, "rub" meaning problem

To die — to sleep.
To sleep — perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub!
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause.

Traditionally the migrating swallows returned to Capistrano to nest in the mission's eaves on St. Joseph's Day, March 19. I've read they now tend to go to newer, higher buildings in the area.

Anonymous said...

C.C., I think it's calves' liver because the apostrophe at the end of animals indicates plural animals' livers.

Husker Gary said...

Musings
-Fun all the way ‘round!
-Great teachers have an ARSENAL of methods to facilitate learning
-USG -> RBH took a while but it finally hit me!
-Those G-SUITS are supposed to keep blood from pooling in your lower extremities which would keep it from your brain
-Buster – I’m the only one who immediately put in KEATON! ARE NOT, AM SO, ARE NOT, AM SO…
-Spectrum here in town will finally have competition as ALLO is finishing up laying it fiber network
-If you want the court to REHEAR your case, your attorney still gets his $400/hr
-Gotta run!

Anonymous said...

Very fun hour this morning chipping away at this delightful entry. DNF for many of the reasons mentioned already.

USG successor is a little rough unless one is a mensa member perhaps.

Rooster feature also rough unless one grew up on a farm.

Remember Buster Crabbe from an old commercial hawking some kind of tee shirt , found out from my parents his true claim to fame.

Brian said...

I don't get 6 Down, "5, in 5/8, say". "5, in 5/12" would have made more sense. It must be as CC indicated that the Chinese calendar only has 8 months and I'm surprised the fifth month in the Chinese calendar is called "MAY".

staili said...

Lots of initials/single letters today: CSPOT, ABC, DEA, RBH, AAU, IOC, IBM, AAS, RDA, AMFM, SSR, EIEIO, SILENTP, and that's just the acrosses! They aren't generally guessable, so that made the puzzle harder.

I guess some might think SAINTE/STS (clued as an abbreviation for Saints) is a mini-theme, but I think that's awfully close to a duplication. I agree with CC that STS should have been clued differently.

I'm curious if anyone here has heard of anyone playing ECARTE or whist. I don't know if either was played much in the 20th or 21st centuries, although they are referenced in novels from the 1800s.

desper-otto said...

Brian, just think of 5/8 as a date (current year assumed). The 5 is definitely May in that case.

Brian said...

Thanks, DO.

Hungry Mother said...

Wagged the B and FIR. I got a word that almost sounded familiar. This was a full on slog. I liked the theme and enjoyed working on the themers. At least I got a good mind stretching, and that’s not bad.

Jinx in Norfolk said...

FIW, missing qOSI fan tutte and Ah THERE'S THE RUBY. Now I understand "RUB of the green," a term that was in the golf rules until the newest edition, meaning "too bad, so sad, you get no relief."

You can sell ACETONE for a lot more money if you package it in small bottles and label it "Fingernail Polish Remover."

"Exodus leader" had to be MOSES because "bob marley" wouldn't fit. But I knew SMOKEY immediately.

I would have liked the clue better if it had been "5, in 5/8/45, say" which was V-E day in WWII.

It seems strange to have high hopes for Lightning, but I like Tampa a lot more than NYC so there you go. Nice that the game is on at 3:00 EDT. I'll have to record Westminster. (One of the announcers called it west-minister yesterday. What a dog.)

Misty said...

Delightful Sunday puzzle, many thanks, Matt. And always enjoy your comments and pictures, C.C., thank you for those too.

Lots of interesting clues and items this morning. BENJAMIN floored me, as a clue, who? I figured it had to be FRANKLIN, but cspot just didn't register as money to me, so I had to look that one up. Oh, a C NOTE, $100. Opened a wallet I rarely use, and there he was, Benjamin Franklin on my C SPOT.

Enjoyed seeing SAN JUAN CAPISTRINO. This morning I saw my first annual MONARCH butterfly in my back yard, and I believe I saw the first one, decades ago, in San Juan Capistrano.

Have a great Sunday, everyone.

Malodorous Manatee said...

A nice solve this morning. Valerie did most of the work while I got to watch the last half hour of last night's Svegoolie movie "How To Make a Monster" - 1958. Not a very good film but they never are on that show - and that is the point of the exercise. The best part of it was that the villian's assistant was played by the actor who played Wishbone, the cattle drive cook, on the Rawhide t.v. series. It's often fun to see familiar things a bit out of context.

I once was at the mission in San Juan Capistrano when the swallows returned so that one would have been easy had I been asked for assistance.

Alice said...

While I greatly enjoyed working on this clever puzzle, I had many problems with it. Like others I interpreted 5/8 as a fraction, not a date. I agree with Brian that 5/12 would have been a more comprehensible clue (at least for me). UGS was very obscure. The perp IMBREW did not help, since I wanted imbue there, but it didn’t fit. I’m unfamiliar with IMBRUE.

RATED R eluded me. In retrospect it’s a good clue.

Thank you, Matt Skoczen and C.C.

Chairman Moe said...

Puzzling thoughts:

DNF, as I left the square connecting WEI to WATTLE unfilled

Otherwise I FIR, but with several W/O’s:

REPEAT/REHEAT/REHEAR
BAY/IVY
GOS/STS

C.C., the TOFU “firmness” reference came from Wikipedia, but I’m glad you found it helpful!

Hope your week ahead is fun-filled; ours will be trying to stay cool; temp’s all week are going to feature highs in excess of 110 degrees, with overnight lows not dipping below 90! But it’s a dry heat, don’t ya know

ATLGranny said...

Hand up for FIW today, because of RBH. A president's initials never crossed my mind. IMBRUE is new to me. Maybe I will remember it. I should have gotten MOREAU but put an S at the end since I tried to fit imerse (not spelled right) in 54D. Maybe because it was a down answer I didn't catch it while proofreading?

But I got lucky with other fill and appreciate C.C.'s explanation. I thought the theme was fun, Matt. Thanks! And thanks for making sense of 5/8, DO, Jinx, and Brian. I got MAY ok but didn't know why. Too cryptic for me. Overall the puzzle took a while to fill but wasn't frustrating. Aha moments kept me going. Now we prepare for Monday. Til then.....

Lucina said...

Hola!

I just got around to finishing the puzzle which I started early this morning. I liked the theme, puns, you know. Thank you, Matt!

As usual for Sunday this was a slow slog but ultimately doable especially if I SOLDIER ON. That is a good expression.

My main doubt was with IMBRUE but I see that it's a real word. Loved AY! THERE'S THE RUBY. It never hurts to allude to Shakespeare. And even to Homer at TRICK OR TREATY, dilemma presented by a suspicious peace offering. Love that one!

I have to say, though, that since CALVES is plural, it should be LIVERies. But it's such a small nit for such a good puzzle.

SMOKEY SIGNALS really takes the prize. SMOKE SIGNALS!

All good! Thank you, C.C. As always you educate us with bits of Chinese learning. I think I would have liked knowing your grandmother.

I hope you are all having a great Sunday!

Jayce said...

Whew, this puzzle was a lot of work. The BAA, AHMED, IMBRUE area gave me fits. I had no idea of which school the Nittany Lions are the mascots; Louisiana (and C SLOT) it was not. At least I got that other school, ORU, right. DEER went in, came out, and went in again because of that entry ending in DR. I finally had to resort to looking up AHMAD Rashad's name and the Nittany Lions. I disliked how MAY and STS were clued. And SPR. Hand up for KEATON before CRABBE.

Our DSL connection here is also very slow. I thought that AT&T had a contract with the city of San Jose to bring fiber to every neighborhood, but perhaps I am wrong; AT&T has explicitly and clearly stated it has no plans at all to bring fiber to our neighborhood, so copper wire it is, which AT&T also no longer supports or maintains. Even a couple of the technicians that have come out in the past have advised us to "go with the other guys." That would be Comcast (aka Xfinity) cable, which is the one and only other (undesirable) option. Fortunately our cellular telephone plan includes "personal hotspot" which I use most of the time, and which seems to be maybe 10 times faster. So far I have not exceeded the 30 GB data limit per month. It might be worth it for you to get a personal hotspot for your household, C.C.

I did somehow remember the WEI kingdom from my studies of Chinese history, but only after I filled WATTLE and ELOPES. The third letter had to be I (or N).

Jinx, you mentioned that "One of the announcers called it west-minister yesterday. What a dog." A few days ago I mentioned that a local talking head called a magnetometer a "mag-o-meter." Every time one of them mispronounces a word my level of distain for them increases a notch. Don't those people rehearse, or at least review ahead of time what they are going to be reading before they read it? Apparently the answer is no. It's clear in my mind they actually don't know what they are saying.

Good wishes to you all.

Wilbur Charles said...

At first relatively easy until the west and some of the theme fills. Tbh, when opening CC it dawned on me to check those theme fills for the added Y. So, technical FIW although my WAGS on RBH and WATTLE proved out.

Lot of w/os : Maui/OAHU, asp/cad/CUR,piece/CANDY. Those African countries are a mystery. I was thinking Uganda/ GUINEA.

LIVERY is a general term for taxis,limos etc. The CALVES owned one. And we do refer to this as CALVES LIVER.

WC

PK said...

Hi Y'all! Engrossing & satisfying puzzle, Matt. THe theme was very chuckle-worthy. Always enjoy your Chinese info, C.C., among other things.

Last to fill was the west section from 71 down. Solved from the bottom up to AAU & REGS after TRICKS which was TRICKy. From the clue I tried TRojan Horse there early on before I caught onto the pun theme.

I knew Jelly Roll played RAG but it took a bit to dredge up the term.

My brother taught at PSU Medical School early in his career, so a gimmee.

Learning moment: I thought Nicole Kidmann was born in Australia which wouldn't fit.

Hand up for Keaton before CRABBE. DNK ECARTE, O'Casey, IMBRUE, USG/RBH, WEI, LATOYA.

Big Easy said...

Good afternoon. A DNF today. No way BE (or The Chairman) would've ever gotten WEI or WATTLE. Went ABC and nothing seemed right ( no red letters in the newspaper). Ditto for IMBRUE and MOREAU. I just leave them blank. IMHO, A WAG is okay to FIR if you think it fits but doesn't count as a completed puzzle if you are just putting a letter down.

IMBRUE is an unknown word, didn't know if it was ESA or ESO, and MOREAU (a common name in S. LA) was unknown. Wasn't sure if the president following Grant was one of the Harrisons or Hayes or where the skin and bones actress was born. I thought she was Australian. At least I did fill RBH & OAHU. Three letters- O,U, & W- made it a DNF for me.

But when you work puzzles and don't know a few things you just SOLDIER ON even if the outcome is inevitable. I "Got Ys" at COUNT-Y DRACULA". Those were easy fills.

CAEN & ST LO- crossword staples from years past.
Coup has a SILENT P and a SILENT O. 'KU'
'Whist' and ECARTE- both unknowns. Ditto for AMAL.
STEW- I only knew 'Booyah' as something the Marines said.
Ferdinand Morton- 'Jelly Roll' had a different meaning back then and it didn't refer to baking. A different type of jelly.

d-otto- it was a C-SPOT, not C-NOTE.
Jinx- any way you package ACETONE it still stinks

Anonymous T said...

Sunday Lurk say...

Jayce - my 7th & 8th grade teacher said 'therm-o-meter.' He thought he was being cute, I guess.
//I have both ATT DSL and Xfinity (#redundancy) - both equally suck.

{A+ x2}

5/8 to me is a wrench/drill-bit size. Glad I didn't encounter that today.

'Ay There's the Ruby' is pure genius.

Staili - Canasta is the only obscure (archaic?) card game I've heard of. No idea how to play it nor ECARTE or whist(?).

Whowa - second May? Must be a lunar calendar leap-thing.
//ILU - and found this.
Is it right? I donno.

Moe - It hit 97F here w/ a heat-index (we love our humidity!) of 109F (just standing outside you break into a sweat).
I didn't care - took the Alfa out for a spin and gave it a nice wash.
//it was hard to keep the soap from drying b/f I could rinse :-)

Cheers, -T

Chairman Moe said...

Dash T

This is the first state in which I've lived where the humidity levels DIDN'T hover at or near the actual temperature. But hot is hot; whether humid or dry. I plan on getting in the pool in a short while to cool off, if even for a few minutes.

Lucina said...

It was a complete surprise to learn that Nicole Kidman was not born in Australia! I don't know why but I have always thought so.

CMoe"
If you have lived here a while you know that humidity typically occurs in August. Otherwise, yes, it's a dry heat! Heat being the operative word.



Emile O'Touri said...

I started off really enjoying this puzzle. Theme was fine - definitely not challenging. Problem here was the fill.We know that three letter words are necessary evils. Why construct a puzzle that needs so many? Once again it came down to a single letter personal Natick involving the name of a not so-well-known Chinese state crossing a never-before-heard term *wattle* which led to a DNF. After almost completing the puzzle its crap like this that really pisses me off.

Jayce said...

Yes, I was also surprised to learn Nicole Kidman was born in Hawaii.

waseeley said...

Thanks Matt for an interesting puzzle and a Sunday slog. I SOLDIERED ON and eventually got a FIR. And thank you CC for your review. I especially liked the link for Rosie the Riveter. My Mom was a British "Rosie", who at age 15 was welding the fins on 500 lb. bombs.

Didn't get the theme until CC explained it, but the puns were pretty obvious and made easy fill. Some of the other answers went through some changes as the perps piled up, e.g.

8A CNOTE --> CSPOT

22A TOLUENE --> ACETONE

113D GOS (Gospel) --> EVG (Evangelists) --> STS (SAINTS)

100D SAINTE didn't change.

56A As West Coast Cornerites will now, there are 21 Mission Cities along the Camino Royale from SAN DIEGO to SAN FRANCISCO.

37D The "PLOUGH AND THE STARS" always sounded like an agrarian story. But O'CASEY sets it in the verismo world of Ireland during the "troubles".

96D Perps pulled this in. Wasn't familiar with WATTLE's usage to describe head ornamentation for ROOSTERS. The only definition I knew was "noun: wattle and daub - a material formerly or traditionally used in building walls, consisting of a network of interwoven sticks and twigs covered with mud or clay."

121A TREADLE a lever worked by the foot that imparts motion to a machine. They provide power to not only LOOMS, but also SEWING MACHINES, PUMPS and POTTERS WHEELS.

8D BUSTER CRABBE got his start as an Olympic swimming champion.

Cheers,
Bill

TXMs said...

Loved this puzzle, but USG threw me for a loop. Trying to think of an acronym for a US entity until "Grant" seeped in. Didn't know Smokey Robinson was in the Miracles (b4 my time). That photo of LaTonya looks she used the same plastic surgeon as did Michael. Per wiki that I read this a.m. to confirm OAHU (Kidman's POB), she was born in Honolulu, Hawaii (yeah, wiki editors might not be detail pros) to Australian parents who were attending college there while on a student visa. When Kidman was four, they returned to Australia where she grew up.

Lucina, wish I could be so lucky as to find any $ in a rarely used wallet! :)

Naomi, hope your 90yo mom's on the mend; as Anon-T mentioned, UTI's can be serious, but especially so in the elderly.

Lemonade714 said...

I guess many of you have not gone to a turkey farm to pick out a fresh turkey for thanksgiving, but wattle is a word I learned at a very early age. I thought it sounded cool.

Not that it matters, the term NATICK refers to the cross of two unknown proper names.

Thank you for the RAT link, -T. I was born in the year of the rat. The Hebrew calendar paralells the Chinese calendar in many aspects, a leap month 7 out of 19 years/ Adar I and Adar II with AdarII aded to the end of the calendar, just before Purim

Malodorous Manatee said...

5781 and 4719, IIRC.

Lucina said...

TXMS:
No, not I. It was Misty who found the wallet.

MalMan:
Did you happen to watch the news that manatees are declining? Apparently their food source is disappearing.

Unknown said...

"Go West, young solvers!" Yes, this is a left-handed compliment ...'cause the right (but incorrect) side flummoxed me. DNF and a real slog. Blacked out the NW corner since it was completely archane! Why, oh why are constructors so hell-bent on being so "cutesy"??? Is the point of the constructor to frustrate the solver??? I, again call on Norris & Nichols to do their job! N.B.S.S. at F. C.and P.L?!?!.

TXMs said...

Sorry, Lucina, should've reread the comments as I usually do before posting.

NaomiZ said...

Thank you, TXMs -- Mom is doing very well now that she's taking antibiotics.

Never finished today. Met my Waterloo at IMBRUE!

Unknown said...

Correct



Puzzled said...

Why is ABC an easy comparison?

TXMs said...

Puzzled, it's easy as A-B-C. Old phrase but popularized by (I think) the Jackson Five (kid band; Michael was the youngest) had a song about it.