Greetings, curciverbalists. Malodorous Manatee, here. Today marks an anniversary of sorts. My first recap was posted on 17 September 2020. Waseeley, my partner in Thursday crime, wrote up the puzzle on the 16th of this month and that would have been exactly one year. I have never been one for counting rotations of this planet or its orbits around our sun (ask anyone who has put up with my commenting on the time references in any Star Trek television show or movie) but I realize that other folks like to keep track of such things. In any event, today is more-than-close-enough to mark the one-earth-year anniversary of may alter ego, MM, writing recaps for the corner. Please allow me to repeat what I said at that time: Thank you all for allowing me play in your sandbox. - - Joseph
Today's puzzle-setter is our frequent friend, Ed Sessa, and he has come up with something a bit unusual in that the theme answers are not located simply as Across or Down words patiently waiting to be filled in. Instead, they cross . . . and those patterns are placed diagonally, to boot. The reveal comes at:
54 Across. Linked in a way illustrated by three pairs of puzzle answers: JOINED AT THE HIP.
At three locations in the grid Ed has crossed the word HIP and the I of each word is shared in both directions. The completed long answers provide no hints whatsoever about the theme. It's the siting that counts. Pretty clever, if you ask this marine mammal. Here is how it looks in the grid:
Here is what this structure was built UPON (see 59 Across, although the word is used somewhat differently there):
Across:
1. "The Giving Tree" author Silverstein: SHEL. Most people do not know that SHEL Silverstein also wrote this:
The Highwaymen (Johnny Cash)
5. Gravelly voiced sort: RASPER. It's too bad that CEDO is not a word because RASPER is a bit of a stretch.
11. Top (out): MAX. From MAXimum or MAXimize. It can be stressful to MAX Out one's credit cards.
14. Ritzy: LUXE. DeLUXE (There's a Ray-ism in this one, for sure).
15. City on the Rio Grande: EL PASO. Also, a Marty Robbins classic.
The Drifter TV Show - 1965
16. Flamenco dancer's cry: OLE. Today's Spanish lesson.
17. Org. mandating eyewash stations: OSHA.
18. Canvassing technique: DOOR TO DOOR. Ding dong. Or, if you have a Ring camera, "There is someone at your DOOR."
20. Animals in a herd: HIPPOPOTAMUSES. The animals could have been many other species and still answered the clue. This answer sent me down a rabbit hole trying to figure out what the theme might be. Still, I want one.
Gayla Peevey Then (1953) and Almost Now (2016)
22. Face value: PAR. A financial reference. This could also have been clued with a golf reference.
23. Org. with 132 Pulitzer Prizes: NY TIMES. The New York Times.
24. Initiation rite: BAPTISM.
28. Tear up: WEEP. Oh, it's "crying" as opposed to "ripping into pieces".
29. Batter's stat: RBI. A baseball reference. Runs Batted In
30. One hanging around in the forest?: SLOTH. Also, a Deadly Sin - but not today. Anyone try HIKER first?
32. Give and take: SWAP. Today's "let's pass on a potential reference" moment.
37. Title teacher in a James Hilton novella: MR CHIPS.
40. Kipling's "Follow Me __": OME. OM, OM, Range
41. Insect dating from the Jurassic era: WASP. 150 - 200 million years later we now get the so-called Murder Hornets.
43. Board, as a bus: HOP ON. Board a Bus? Nicely teed up. Fore!
Weird Al Yankovic with Jon "Bermuda" Schwartz on The Tomorrow Show - 1981
Another One Rides The Bus
44. Darling of baseball: RON. A nice play on words.
45. Daughter of Cronus and Rhea: HERA.
48. Becomes clear: SOAKS IN. Ah, the idiom.
50. Digs: SHOVELS. Ah, not the idiom.
53. Stadium shout: RAH.
58. Hardwood with an edible seed: ALMOND TREE. The tree itself isn't often referred to as, simply, "hardwood" but Ed, or Rich, could not, for obvious reasons work the word "tree" into the clue.
59. After: UPON. UPON further reflection . . .
61. '60s-'70s Pontiac: GTO. My aunt Millie had a GTO. I have never been able to figure out how that come to be. Wa-wa,Wa, Wa. Wa. Wa. Wa. Wa
Ronnie and the Daytonas
62. Venetian Renaissance painter: TITIAN. I would have loved to use a video clip of the E. Buzz Miller's Art Classics (SNL) pronunciation-based wordplay here but I could not find one that was not copyright protected.
63. Mystery-solving Wolfe: NERO.
64. Virtual-city denizen: SIM. As in Sim City, the video game.
65. Strips in the freezer: STEAKS.
New York Strip Steaks
66. Torah holders: ARKS.
Down:
1. __-mo: SLO. SLOw-motion
2. Muzzle: HUSH. Used as a verb - as is muzzle. Interesting clue.
3. What some Woodstock attendees eventually became: EX - HIPPIES.
Who? Me?
4. Seize eagerly: LEAP AT. Does a ballerina LEAP AT the chance to show off her skills?
5. Go over again: REDO.
6. Cockeyed: ALOP. We have heard this word before but not often. Does anyone here use it?
7. Table setting item: SPOON. Hey diddle diddle.
8. House disciplinarians: PARTY WHIPS. The House of Representatives. A PARTY's WHIP is generally considered to be the member tasked with ensuring that members of a given party vote the way the party leadership wishes.
Toe The Line
9. Impressive spread: ESTATE. Hands up for thinking first of something to do with food.
10. One sharing quarters: ROOMIE. A bit slangy even though the clue is not.
11. Bullwinkle's last name: MOOSE.
12. Sunburn applications: ALOES. Balms applied frequently in crossword puzzles.
13. Boomers' kids: XERS. My XERS: Before anyone cries discrimination, please be aware that the settings of the photos could have been, and have been, switched for both of them.
Daughter - Law School Graduation
Son on the Great Wall
19. Breaks up with: DUMPS.
21. Feature of some eyeglasses: PRISM. PRISM eyeglasses are used to correct double vision.
24. Pub order: BREW.
25. Magician's opening: ABRA. ABRA Cadabra. ABRA is the Aramaic equivalent of the Hebrew "avra" meaning "I will create." Cadabra is the Aramaic equivalent of the Hebrew "kedoobar" meaning "as was spoken." "I will create as spoken!" Makes sense.
26. Camera type, briefly: SLR. Single Lens Reflex. Note the pentaPRISM.
27. Espresso-based coffee concoction: MOCHA LATTE. If "chocolate" had been in the clue this one would have been easier.
31. However, in poetry: THO. Short form of ALTHO?
33. Churchgoer, e.g.: WORSHIPER.
34. Mine, in Amiens: A MOI. Today's French lesson.
35. "Mystic River" Oscar winner Sean: PENN.
38. Nanki-__: POO. A Mikado reference (Gilbert and Sullivan).
39. Capture: SNARE.
42. Graph lead-in: PHONO. Thought, for a moment, that PORNO might work.
46. Social functions: EVENTS.
Somebody Forgot The Name Tags
47. "The front page of the internet" website: REDDIT.
49. Island big shot: KAHUNA. Today's Hawaiian lesson.
50. Chicago Symphony conductor with 31 Grammys: SOLTI.
Sir Georg Solti
51. Mouthed stadium greeting:HI MOM.
52. Narrow groove: STRIA. Often one of a number of similar parallel features.
54. Benders: JAGS. Not the British cars.
55. Shipbuilding wood: TEAK.
56. Toms' counterparts: HENS. A Turkey reference (not the country).
Hen and Tom
57. Questionable political spending: PORK.
60. Apt. IDs: NOS. Apartment Numbers. The clue (abbreviated so the answer will be, also) could have referred to streets, symphonies, or come to think of it, anything that is numbered.
I believe that this is No. 29. You know what's odd? Every other integer.
Oh, what can we say about HIPPOPOTAMUSES? If they JOIN a fraternity, how do they do at rushes? Of Eta Rho have you heard? They pledged a whole HERD! They all became HIPPIES when the deans made such fusses!
There is a rumor that NERO has been naughty. It's caffeine that does it when he SOAKS IN coffee! He went DOOR-TO-DOOR Fiddling for an encore, With a burning desire for a hot MOCHA LATTE!
Very clever theme from Dr. Ed -- too hip for this dude to suss. It had a fresh feel to it. Hey, when's the last time you saw HIPPOPOTAMUSES in a cw? WORSHIPER looks like it's missing a P? Thanx for the outing Ed, and for the expo, Mal-Man. (So that's what Abra Cadabra means. I thought they were just gobbledy-gook words.)
First, a comment about yesterday's CW. I wrote a comment yesterday on my iPhone, as usual, but when I touched "Publish" the comment didn't publish, it just disappeared! I didn't have time yesterday to re-write it on my laptop. The same thing happened this morning, after I took the time to write a comment on my iPhone. Let's see if it will post from my laptop, where I'm writing this. Anyway, I enjoyed yesterday's CW, thanx Craig, and managed a FIR in 15 which is a good Wednesday time for me. Today I also managed to FIR, but it took a staggering 40 minutes. Too many DNKs: 1A, 36A, 45A, 62A, 64A, 38D, and 50D. So it took a while to suss the fill for all these from the PERPs. Also did not help when I filled LUSH for 14A, buggering-up the NW for quite a while. And ELDERLY did not fit 3D. Funny I should take so long to fill MOCHALATTE while I was drinking a Premier Protein Shake "Cafe Latte", my usual breakfast. 30g protein, 24 vitamins and minerals, and the caffeine of one cup of coffee. And very tasty. Eventually got 'er done today, and came to appreciate the cleverness of the theme, and theme answer placements within the CW. Thanx, ES, for the terrific CW. It's not your fault that I am such a poor solver that it would take sooooo loooong to fill. MM, thanx for the very good, and entertaining, write-up. Not one of Weird Al's best performances, though. I like his "Food" album. I guess in line with yesterday's CW, we could call Weird Al "The Pied Accordianist"! Have a good day, everyone!!
Good morning all. The JOINED AT THE HIP was noticed at HIPPO & HIPPIES but not at HIPS & CHIPS. It didn't SINK(s) IN; didn't SOAKS IN either, which was my last fill. Nanki-POO was unknown. But my real trouble was in the SW. I'd heard of REDDIT but that's about it. Their self proclaimed title of 'front page' is laughable. My bigger problems were changing MEHTA to SOLTI and PHOTO to PHONO (HERA wasn't into PORNO).
SLOTH- took a while but never thought of HIKER. MOCHA LATTE-not a coffee drinker but it was an easy guess PORK- that's what Congress is known for, spending money it doesn't have. UPON- thank you perps; would have never thought of it as 'After' KAHUNA- always proceeded by BIG
unclefred-I thought LUSH but the EX HIPPIES wouldn't allow it. Also DW likes the "Premier Protein Caffe Latte" which she puts in a blender with left over coffee that she freezes in ice trays.
A happy FIR, thanks to Ed's fun HIP puzzle. WOs today were Beer/BREW, SinKS IN/SOAKS IN, and PeRK/PORK. I thought of LUsh but waited since I already had SHEL and didn't know how LH could start a word. Before I had JOINED, I wrote "to" THE HIP but perps cleared that up. The theme was clever today. Learning moment was WASP. I knew cockroaches had been around for ages but the word was too long. As I said, lots of fun today.
A year already, MalMan? How time flies when you are having fun! Thanks for today's review (including pictures) and for your hard work for us the past year. We appreciate it.
Hand up for thinking of food first for "spread." This second day of fall is so cool that my hot oatmeal and hot coffee really were appreciated. Hope you all have a great day!
Another creative theme from Ed - what a challenging theme construction! A few snags or SNAREs along the way with LUSH before LUXE, PHOTO before PHONO graph and PERK before PORK
Need to start work - so Thanks and congrats on your 1 year anniversary MM!
One wrong letter; PeRK vs. PORK. Sigh. But I did get TITIAN and SOLTI, so I'm happy. Nice meaty puzzle today and interesting theme word choices. Some lesser used synonyms added to the challenge, but they were fair. STRIA on Central Park bedrock attest to the Wisconsin glaciation's extended visit to NYC some 20000 yrs. ago.
Easy Thursday...not a lot of remote PP. Usually at least 3 theme clues unless I'm missing something, ahhh never noticed the vertical HIPS......very clever Mr Ed! 😃
ALOP? another CW exclusive ...Impressive spread? (was looking for food).
"The Giving Tree": A tale of self-serving inefficient orchard management: 🌳 destroy an entire apple tree to create a single chair for one selfish fellow..
RASPER is under the photo Johnny Cash !! Daughter of Danny and Rhea: "Matilda"
If your congressional constituency consists of pig farmers, PORK is foremost!
Cockney greetings to their OMES......ALOES Seaman on a destroyer....WORSHIPER 100 acre bonsai wood gardner, "Nanki the ___ " POO (is he wearing no pants in that picture? 😳.. like Winnie!!) Lucy's perm....REDO
Musings -72F and a crystal clear sky on this beautiful second day of autumn. I will seek out PAR. -Dr. Ed’s gimmick was a real hoot. My error was a “T” for A_OI/O_E -The song What I Did For Love from A Chorus Line is appropriate for the song El Paso -BAPTISM under fire: My cooperating teacher gave me his class five minutes after I walked in to student teach -My friend is the official scorekeeper for the KC Royals AAA farm team in Omaha and must decide if a batter gets an RBI or not. -PARTY WHIPS can make you check your integrity at the congressional door if you want your PORK -I was thinking of these eyeglass PRISMS -FORE!
Terrific Thursday. Thanks for the fun, Ed and MalMan (congrats on your one year anniversary). I FIRed with some inkblots, but the theme flew right over my head. I was looking for connections in the middle, HIP areas, of those pairs, but totally missed the actual HIP crossings. D’uh!
Spelling corrections were required for HIPPOPOTAMUSES (are they any relation to Erato? Why do we not pronounce as a Long U?), REDDIT, and KAHUNA. Roomers changed to ROOMIES, Drops to DUMPS, Get on to HOP ON, Gen X to XERS (progeny of those EX HIPPIES).
Misdirections aplenty (an A word to go with ALOP) today. The initiation rite was religious, not a hazing (I see Owen had the same thought); we were drying not ripping MM saw that too); the Toms were roosters not cats; another hand up for thinking of food for that spread.
This Canadian always has to remember the letter order in OSHA- we have the OHSA (Occupational Health and Safety Act) in Ontario.
I noted BAPTISM and WORSHIPER (I spell it with a double P too, d’o), TEAK for Noah’s ARK(S), and a trio of Stadium cries - OLE, RAH and HI MOM.
Ray-o - LOL re those Cockney ( any relation to Cockeyed?) OMES and ALOES.
Clever puzzle from Ed. I didn't see the theme until Mal-Man 'splained it in his excellent write-up.
Coupla hiccups along the way today. Had SauL before SHEL, LUsh before LUXE and rEnd before WEEP.
If you want to see a PARTY WHIP portrayal, watch the first season of "House of Cards" on NetFlix. Not saying it's an accurate portrayal, but it is interesting.
RASPER was a MEH. Otherwise it was enjoyable.
Fall is officially here and a lot of leaves have started to fall already, especially the Honey Locusts and Red Maples. Temperatures are a little lower also.
Hand up to Spitzboov as I too FIW with perk instead of pork. Otherwise a pleasant Thursday solve. I wanted 3 down to be exhausted. I liked the isms crossing of prism with baptism.
Haven't heard from Irish Miss in about a week. Hope all is well with her.
Thank you Ed for a fine Thursday FIR and congrats to MM for keeping your head above water for a whole year on the team. I guess it's the big bucks that keep you blogging. And thanks for throwing me a life preserver from time to time.
Random selections (still in A/D numerical order though):
30A HIKER first? That's INANE!
45A You mean to tell me that ZEUS was married to his SIS?
62A I searched high and low for a copy of that skit with Ackroyd's truly erudite art analysis, but couldn't find one.
3D METOO MM, although I didn't make it to Woodstock.
50D I owe to Georg SOLTI my love of opera. I got hooked listening to Solti conducting Das Rheingold from the first complete recording of the 4 part Der Ring Des Niebelungen. Here's the overture (4 min).
Thanks to Ed Sessa and MalMan for my morning entertainment! The puzzle took a large chunk of time to suss, but I FIR despite several W/O’s. And I read through, and watched/listened to Joseph’s recap in its entirety. I’m always in awe of your ability to capture the right images and videos. Maseltov (sp?) on your anniversary as a co-blogger on Thor’s Day
Anyone else notice that HERA is an anagram of RHEA?
MalMan - where on earth did you ever find the Gayla Peevey videos re the HIPPOPOTAMUSES song? Also, are the STEAKS in 65-Across WAYGU? Or are they like your number 29 (as in blogs), PRIME?
EX-HIPPIE - Joseph, you looked the part, and somehow you and a French Bulldog fit! 🤡
And in closing, a haiku somewhat connected to the clue for 56-down:
If you bred a tom To a poodle, would you get A cockadoodle?
FIW, missing my Naticks OtE x AtOI and TITeAN x STReA. Several other unknowns, but it's late.
Erased Rex Darling, a guy I worked with in Rolling Hills, CA. "Rend" became WEEP, and "sinks in" became SOAKS IN.
The service tech came for my RV at 8:15 this morning, so DW and I drove around western South Carolina for a few hours. Beautiful area of the country. Hard to believe that the Brits and the Patriots found each other to fight a big battle of the American Revolution in a meadow called Cow Pens, nearby what is now a small town called Cowpens.
With the Ryder Cup starting tomorrow, I'm glad that we got RAH instead of "ole."
What many EX-HIPPIES actually were at Woodstock? NOT THERE. I saw a study once (can't remember the source) that estimated the people who CLAIM to have attended Woodstock was many times even optimistic attendance estimates.
A neat hipster PZL from Mr. Sessa! After a very slow start, I surprised myself by coming to a happy conclusion. FIR thanks to old-fashioned P+P.
I'm with desper-otto in wondering about the missing "P" from WORSHIP(P)ER. ??? What do YOU say, Malodorous Man?! Even if a dictionary should accept the single "P," we must not fear speaking Truth to Power! ~ OMK ____________ DR: Two diagonals, one to a side. The near side anagram (12 of 15 letters) tells us of the long-forgotten inventor of the strikeable matchstick, who very probably tried to keep the central element of his device a secret. Nowadays we all know it was atomic element no. 15, in its "red" form, but back then he (or she!) probably only told his (or her) best pals, whispering...
I liked this puzzle. UPON having filled the reveal it was fun to go back and find those joined hips. LUSH --> LUXE ORANG --> SLOTH GET ON --> HOP ON BEER --> BREW PERK --> PORK. I have not, nor will I ever use the word ALOP in conversation or writing. Interesting that ABRA is the name of a female character in East of Eden. Good wishes to you all.
My Random House Dictionary gives both HIPPOPOTUMUSES and HIPPOPOTUMI as plurals. My daughter had a game called Hungry, hungry Hippos. It was great fun to "feed" the hippos as fast as possible.
ALOP does not even seem like a word but yes, I know it is. Neither will I ever use it. It would most likely be found in poetry.
I knew I had to have something wrong because 50d didn't make sense letter-wise [SnLTI] but I never reconsidered PHOtO @42d so unItED AT THE HIP filled. I also have to claim a DNF at AMOI crossing OME. The 'M' isn't filled (glad to know I'm in good company, Lucina. Thanx)
Fantastic puzzle, Ed. Really well conceived and well constructed & clue'd.
Thanks for the expo MManatee - good lookin' kids. Oh, and I love Weird Al. (I am under no no-copyrighted material restrictions - TITIAN)
WO: I'm in the PeRK -> PORK club; wanted MOCHAccino but couldn't spell it so had CH in others' squares for a while. ESPs: POO, STRIA, TITIAN Fav: MOOSE & Squirrel Sparkle: Digs wasn't slang, XERS & EX-HIPPIES (yes, C, Eh! Mom was/is but not at Woodstock), SWAP's & PARTY WHIP's [not an RA?] clues
Anyone else think "When is someone going to clue SESAME [open, one each] as a magic word?" yesterday and then dumbstruck / smiled when the 'opening' was ABRA today? Am I just that ALOP'd? [nope, never used it MMan.]
{B, A} OMK - and save the matches :-)
I second C, Eh!, Ray-O: OMES and ALOES was pretty cute.
WC - Is Betsy allergic or was it really plural WASPs? Ouch!
CED - I've never known you to be a silly-quitter... Don't let that HIPPO get you down. Even if he doesn't get the most marbles (there your are Lucina :-)).
Unclefred @6:08 AM I've learned thru bitter experience that it's best to compose long comments in a text editor or word processor and then cut and paste them into the comment editor.
-T @5:53 PM I found the same NBC vid that you did, but like yours it just HANGS (but at least it doesn't need an ABRA). What am I doing wrong? (that's NOT and open ended questions!)
waseely - um, yeah. I just tested on my garage computer (which is NOT logged into to Peacock and/or xFinity(?)) and it no workie either.
I guess I'm not above copyright :-( //well, I could pirate and post it but, you know, I gots kids & a mortgage now. And those NBC lawyers?!? No, I've see 30-Rock :-)
Bill @ 6:19 PM - My guess is that Anon T is a subscriber and that neither you nor I are.
OMK A 3:46 PM, Oddly, I just pulled a puzzle at random out of my Mega Crossword Puzzle Book Volume 21 (300 puzzles) and it had WORSHIPERS (one P) as an answer. Weird.
CH. Moe @ 1:46 PM, Gayla Peevey clip was surprisingly easy to find. Why it was thought of in the first place is a deeper, more troubling, question.:-) Oh, and the dog is a Boston Terrier.
Uncle Fred @6:08 AM, you are correct about Weird Al's performance. It was, however, his national TV debut and he had yet to fully develop his presentation skills. I saw him much later with "a cast of thousands" at the Greek Theater.
Thanks to everyone for the good wishes. Onward Through The Fog!
Re. Friday xword. I had a two hour hiatus and things cleared up but it was harder than many Saturdays. As usual some of the clues were V8 's. But I was ASEA until I wasn't.
I have to get back to maloman 's links. Ryder Cup is not too far from Boomer country. Speith is playing with his buddy JT
32 comments:
Oh, what can we say about HIPPOPOTAMUSES?
If they JOIN a fraternity, how do they do at rushes?
Of Eta Rho have you heard?
They pledged a whole HERD!
They all became HIPPIES when the deans made such fusses!
There is a rumor that NERO has been naughty.
It's caffeine that does it when he SOAKS IN coffee!
He went DOOR-TO-DOOR
Fiddling for an encore,
With a burning desire for a hot MOCHA LATTE!
{A-, B-.}
Good morning!
Very clever theme from Dr. Ed -- too hip for this dude to suss. It had a fresh feel to it. Hey, when's the last time you saw HIPPOPOTAMUSES in a cw? WORSHIPER looks like it's missing a P? Thanx for the outing Ed, and for the expo, Mal-Man. (So that's what Abra Cadabra means. I thought they were just gobbledy-gook words.)
First, a comment about yesterday's CW. I wrote a comment yesterday on my iPhone, as usual, but when I touched "Publish" the comment didn't publish, it just disappeared! I didn't have time yesterday to re-write it on my laptop. The same thing happened this morning, after I took the time to write a comment on my iPhone. Let's see if it will post from my laptop, where I'm writing this. Anyway, I enjoyed yesterday's CW, thanx Craig, and managed a FIR in 15 which is a good Wednesday time for me. Today I also managed to FIR, but it took a staggering 40 minutes. Too many DNKs: 1A, 36A, 45A, 62A, 64A, 38D, and 50D. So it took a while to suss the fill for all these from the PERPs. Also did not help when I filled LUSH for 14A, buggering-up the NW for quite a while. And ELDERLY did not fit 3D. Funny I should take so long to fill MOCHALATTE while I was drinking a Premier Protein Shake "Cafe Latte", my usual breakfast. 30g protein, 24 vitamins and minerals, and the caffeine of one cup of coffee. And very tasty. Eventually got 'er done today, and came to appreciate the cleverness of the theme, and theme answer placements within the CW. Thanx, ES, for the terrific CW. It's not your fault that I am such a poor solver that it would take sooooo loooong to fill. MM, thanx for the very good, and entertaining, write-up. Not one of Weird Al's best performances, though. I like his "Food" album. I guess in line with yesterday's CW, we could call Weird Al "The Pied Accordianist"! Have a good day, everyone!!
Good morning all. The JOINED AT THE HIP was noticed at HIPPO & HIPPIES but not at HIPS & CHIPS. It didn't SINK(s) IN; didn't SOAKS IN either, which was my last fill. Nanki-POO was unknown. But my real trouble was in the SW. I'd heard of REDDIT but that's about it. Their self proclaimed title of 'front page' is laughable. My bigger problems were changing MEHTA to SOLTI and PHOTO to PHONO (HERA wasn't into PORNO).
SLOTH- took a while but never thought of HIKER.
MOCHA LATTE-not a coffee drinker but it was an easy guess
PORK- that's what Congress is known for, spending money it doesn't have.
UPON- thank you perps; would have never thought of it as 'After'
KAHUNA- always proceeded by BIG
unclefred-I thought LUSH but the EX HIPPIES wouldn't allow it. Also DW likes the "Premier Protein Caffe Latte" which she puts in a blender with left over coffee that she freezes in ice trays.
A happy FIR, thanks to Ed's fun HIP puzzle. WOs today were Beer/BREW, SinKS IN/SOAKS IN, and PeRK/PORK. I thought of LUsh but waited since I already had SHEL and didn't know how LH could start a word. Before I had JOINED, I wrote "to" THE HIP but perps cleared that up. The theme was clever today. Learning moment was WASP. I knew cockroaches had been around for ages but the word was too long. As I said, lots of fun today.
A year already, MalMan? How time flies when you are having fun! Thanks for today's review (including pictures) and for your hard work for us the past year. We appreciate it.
Hand up for thinking of food first for "spread." This second day of fall is so cool that my hot oatmeal and hot coffee really were appreciated. Hope you all have a great day!
LUXE not LUsh. Betsy got stung by WASPS last week. Still swollen and painful.
I liked the AandE NERO Wolfe series. We just had PSHAW.
I got DUMPED by a Dear Wilbur letter
Uncle Fred, I compose on Docs, one for each day. I then C&P to CC. I reread previous week before erasing
I saw the HIPs but didn't notice they were JOINED.
WC
Another creative theme from Ed - what a challenging theme construction!
A few snags or SNAREs along the way with LUSH before LUXE, PHOTO before PHONO graph and PERK before PORK
Need to start work - so Thanks and congrats on your 1 year anniversary MM!
Good morning everyone.
One wrong letter; PeRK vs. PORK. Sigh. But I did get TITIAN and SOLTI, so I'm happy. Nice meaty puzzle today and interesting theme word choices. Some lesser used synonyms added to the challenge, but they were fair.
STRIA on Central Park bedrock attest to the Wisconsin glaciation's extended visit to NYC some 20000 yrs. ago.
Good intro MM. Thanks.
Easy Thursday...not a lot of remote PP. Usually at least 3 theme clues unless I'm missing something, ahhh never noticed the vertical HIPS......very clever Mr Ed! 😃
ALOP? another CW exclusive ...Impressive spread? (was looking for food).
Inkovers: beer/BREW , geton/HOPON, mochaccino/MOCHALATTE.
"The Giving Tree": A tale of self-serving inefficient orchard management: 🌳 destroy an entire apple tree to create a single chair for one selfish fellow..
RASPER is under the photo Johnny Cash !! Daughter of Danny and Rhea: "Matilda"
If your congressional constituency consists of pig farmers, PORK is foremost!
Cockney greetings to their OMES......ALOES
Seaman on a destroyer....WORSHIPER
100 acre bonsai wood gardner, "Nanki the ___ " POO (is he wearing no pants in that picture? 😳.. like Winnie!!)
Lucy's perm....REDO
Happy Anniversary Mal Man. 😊
"A few snags or SNAREs along the way with LUSH before LUXE, PHOTO before PHONO graph and PERK before PORK"
Exactly my three, too, inanehiker
Musings
-72F and a crystal clear sky on this beautiful second day of autumn. I will seek out PAR.
-Dr. Ed’s gimmick was a real hoot. My error was a “T” for A_OI/O_E
-The song What I Did For Love from A Chorus Line is appropriate for the song El Paso
-BAPTISM under fire: My cooperating teacher gave me his class five minutes after I walked in to student teach
-My friend is the official scorekeeper for the KC Royals AAA farm team in Omaha and must decide if a batter gets an RBI or not.
-PARTY WHIPS can make you check your integrity at the congressional door if you want your PORK
-I was thinking of these eyeglass PRISMS
-FORE!
Terrific Thursday. Thanks for the fun, Ed and MalMan (congrats on your one year anniversary).
I FIRed with some inkblots, but the theme flew right over my head. I was looking for connections in the middle, HIP areas, of those pairs, but totally missed the actual HIP crossings. D’uh!
Spelling corrections were required for HIPPOPOTAMUSES (are they any relation to Erato? Why do we not pronounce as a Long U?), REDDIT, and KAHUNA.
Roomers changed to ROOMIES, Drops to DUMPS, Get on to HOP ON, Gen X to XERS (progeny of those EX HIPPIES).
Misdirections aplenty (an A word to go with ALOP) today. The initiation rite was religious, not a hazing (I see Owen had the same thought); we were drying not ripping MM saw that too); the Toms were roosters not cats; another hand up for thinking of food for that spread.
This Canadian always has to remember the letter order in OSHA- we have the OHSA (Occupational Health and Safety Act) in Ontario.
I noted BAPTISM and WORSHIPER (I spell it with a double P too, d’o), TEAK for Noah’s ARK(S), and a trio of Stadium cries - OLE, RAH and HI MOM.
Ray-o - LOL re those Cockney ( any relation to Cockeyed?) OMES and ALOES.
Wishing you all a great day.
Been very busy of late,
But I had to come to the Blog today
Because I was not hip to the theme connections...
Also see that I am not needed as there is
No way I could come up with something sillier
Than "I want a hippopotamus for Christmas."
Clever puzzle from Ed. I didn't see the theme until Mal-Man 'splained it in his excellent write-up.
Coupla hiccups along the way today. Had SauL before SHEL, LUsh before LUXE and rEnd before WEEP.
If you want to see a PARTY WHIP portrayal, watch the first season of "House of Cards" on NetFlix. Not saying it's an accurate portrayal, but it is interesting.
RASPER was a MEH. Otherwise it was enjoyable.
Fall is officially here and a lot of leaves have started to fall already, especially the Honey Locusts and Red Maples. Temperatures are a little lower also.
Have a great day everyone.
Hand up to Spitzboov as I too FIW with perk instead of pork. Otherwise a pleasant Thursday solve. I wanted 3 down to be exhausted. I liked the isms crossing of prism with baptism.
Haven't heard from Irish Miss in about a week. Hope all is well with her.
Thank you Ed for a fine Thursday FIR and congrats to MM for keeping your head above water for a whole year on the team. I guess it's the big bucks that keep you blogging. And thanks for throwing me a life preserver from time to time.
Random selections (still in A/D numerical order though):
30A HIKER first? That's INANE!
45A You mean to tell me that ZEUS was married to his SIS?
62A I searched high and low for a copy of that skit with Ackroyd's truly erudite art analysis, but couldn't find one.
3D METOO MM, although I didn't make it to Woodstock.
6D BTW Bullwinkle J Moose's middle name was probably after his GODFATHER Jay Ward.
50D I owe to Georg SOLTI my love of opera. I got hooked listening to Solti conducting Das Rheingold from the first complete recording of the 4 part Der Ring Des Niebelungen. Here's the overture (4 min).
Cheers,
Bill
Hola!
Thank you, Ed Sessa! I like your puzzles. They are always fair and comical.
SHEL Silverstein's poems are very readable which I enjoyed with my classes.
Not too many DOOR TO DOOR sales people visit here. Occasionally people from the JW's church across the street used to come around but not recently.
BAPTISM is an important rite in our church.
PHOtO before PHONO for me. I have a shelf full of LPS but nothing on which to play them.
Seam PENN is often involved in charitable works. Good for him!
Oops. I forgot to finish AMOI because OME made no sense to me.
Seeing a SLOTH on top of trees in Costa Rica was one of the weirdest sights there.
One of the nicest persons I ever met was a vice-principal named RHEA.
Thank you, MalMan, and congratulations on your first anniversary!
Enjoy your day, everyone! It's 92 degrees here so no sign of autumn yet.
Puzzling thoughts:
Thanks to Ed Sessa and MalMan for my morning entertainment! The puzzle took a large chunk of time to suss, but I FIR despite several W/O’s. And I read through, and watched/listened to Joseph’s recap in its entirety. I’m always in awe of your ability to capture the right images and videos. Maseltov (sp?) on your anniversary as a co-blogger on Thor’s Day
W/O’s: LUSH/LUXE; DROPS/DUMPS; GENX/XERS; FLORA/SLOTH
Anyone else notice that HERA is an anagram of RHEA?
MalMan - where on earth did you ever find the Gayla Peevey videos re the HIPPOPOTAMUSES song? Also, are the STEAKS in 65-Across WAYGU? Or are they like your number 29 (as in blogs), PRIME?
EX-HIPPIE - Joseph, you looked the part, and somehow you and a French Bulldog fit! 🤡
And in closing, a haiku somewhat connected to the clue for 56-down:
If you bred a tom
To a poodle, would you get
A cockadoodle?
FIW, missing my Naticks OtE x AtOI and TITeAN x STReA. Several other unknowns, but it's late.
Erased Rex Darling, a guy I worked with in Rolling Hills, CA. "Rend" became WEEP, and "sinks in" became SOAKS IN.
The service tech came for my RV at 8:15 this morning, so DW and I drove around western South Carolina for a few hours. Beautiful area of the country. Hard to believe that the Brits and the Patriots found each other to fight a big battle of the American Revolution in a meadow called Cow Pens, nearby what is now a small town called Cowpens.
With the Ryder Cup starting tomorrow, I'm glad that we got RAH instead of "ole."
What many EX-HIPPIES actually were at Woodstock? NOT THERE. I saw a study once (can't remember the source) that estimated the people who CLAIM to have attended Woodstock was many times even optimistic attendance estimates.
C.Moe
When you have to take
A cockadoodle for walkies,
Bring bag for doo-doos.
A neat hipster PZL from Mr. Sessa!
After a very slow start, I surprised myself by coming to a happy conclusion.
FIR thanks to old-fashioned P+P.
I'm with desper-otto in wondering about the missing "P" from WORSHIP(P)ER. ???
What do YOU say, Malodorous Man?!
Even if a dictionary should accept the single "P," we must not fear speaking Truth to Power!
~ OMK
____________
DR: Two diagonals, one to a side.
The near side anagram (12 of 15 letters) tells us of the long-forgotten inventor of the strikeable matchstick, who very probably tried to keep the central element of his device a secret.
Nowadays we all know it was atomic element no. 15, in its "red" form, but back then he (or she!) probably only told his (or her) best pals, whispering...
"SH... PHOSPHORUS"!
I liked this puzzle. UPON having filled the reveal it was fun to go back and find those joined hips.
LUSH --> LUXE
ORANG --> SLOTH
GET ON --> HOP ON
BEER --> BREW
PERK --> PORK.
I have not, nor will I ever use the word ALOP in conversation or writing.
Interesting that ABRA is the name of a female character in East of Eden.
Good wishes to you all.
Isn't it HIPPOPOTUMi*
I have to leave at 625*. Can I finish Friday?
My Random House Dictionary gives both HIPPOPOTUMUSES and HIPPOPOTUMI as plurals. My daughter had a game called Hungry, hungry Hippos. It was great fun to "feed" the hippos as fast as possible.
ALOP does not even seem like a word but yes, I know it is. Neither will I ever use it. It would most likely be found in poetry.
Hi All!
I knew I had to have something wrong because 50d didn't make sense letter-wise [SnLTI] but I never reconsidered PHOtO @42d so unItED AT THE HIP filled.
I also have to claim a DNF at AMOI crossing OME. The 'M' isn't filled (glad to know I'm in good company, Lucina. Thanx)
Fantastic puzzle, Ed. Really well conceived and well constructed & clue'd.
Thanks for the expo MManatee - good lookin' kids. Oh, and I love Weird Al.
(I am under no no-copyrighted material restrictions - TITIAN)
WO: I'm in the PeRK -> PORK club; wanted MOCHAccino but couldn't spell it so had CH in others' squares for a while.
ESPs: POO, STRIA, TITIAN
Fav: MOOSE & Squirrel
Sparkle: Digs wasn't slang, XERS & EX-HIPPIES (yes, C, Eh! Mom was/is but not at Woodstock), SWAP's & PARTY WHIP's [not an RA?] clues
Anyone else think "When is someone going to clue SESAME [open, one each] as a magic word?" yesterday and then dumbstruck / smiled when the 'opening' was ABRA today?
Am I just that ALOP'd? [nope, never used it MMan.]
{B, A}
OMK - and save the matches :-)
I second C, Eh!, Ray-O: OMES and ALOES was pretty cute.
WC - Is Betsy allergic or was it really plural WASPs? Ouch!
CED - I've never known you to be a silly-quitter... Don't let that HIPPO get you down. Even if he doesn't get the most marbles (there your are Lucina :-)).
A SLOTH named Flash [3:50 Zootopia]
Cheers, -T
Unclefred @6:08 AM I've learned thru bitter experience that it's best to compose long comments in a text editor or word processor and then cut and paste them into the comment editor.
-T @5:53 PM I found the same NBC vid that you did, but like yours it just HANGS (but at least it doesn't need an ABRA). What am I doing wrong? (that's NOT and open ended questions!)
waseely - um, yeah. I just tested on my garage computer (which is NOT logged into to Peacock and/or xFinity(?)) and it no workie either.
I guess I'm not above copyright :-(
//well, I could pirate and post it but, you know, I gots kids & a mortgage now. And those NBC lawyers?!? No, I've see 30-Rock :-)
Cheers, -CorpShill
Bill @ 6:19 PM - My guess is that Anon T is a subscriber and that neither you nor I are.
OMK A 3:46 PM, Oddly, I just pulled a puzzle at random out of my Mega Crossword Puzzle Book Volume 21 (300 puzzles) and it had WORSHIPERS (one P) as an answer. Weird.
CH. Moe @ 1:46 PM, Gayla Peevey clip was surprisingly easy to find. Why it was thought of in the first place is a deeper, more troubling, question.:-) Oh, and the dog is a Boston Terrier.
Uncle Fred @6:08 AM, you are correct about Weird Al's performance. It was, however, his national TV debut and he had yet to fully develop his presentation skills. I saw him much later with "a cast of thousands" at the Greek Theater.
Thanks to everyone for the good wishes. Onward Through The Fog!
Waseely and -T - Not sure I follow you, but I got the 'Titian' link to play with Safari.
-T, ½ dozen bites. Got too close to nest.
Re. Friday xword. I had a two hour hiatus and things cleared up but it was harder than many Saturdays. As usual some of the clues were V8 's. But I was ASEA until I wasn't.
I have to get back to maloman 's links. Ryder Cup is not too far from Boomer country. Speith is playing with his buddy JT
WC
MalMan @6:47PM I find it unSUPPORTable that you missed a riff on ABRA.
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