google.com, pub-2774194725043577, DIRECT, f08c47fec0942fa0 L.A.Times Crossword Corner: Thursday, October 14, 2021 Jim Holland

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Oct 14, 2021

Thursday, October 14, 2021 Jim Holland


Today we get a return visit from constructor Jim Holland, whose last puzzle here was on December 17, 2020 and who started with us nearly 10 years ago on December 18, 2011.  Perhaps Lemony can add some spice to this from his secret stash.

Jim is not revealing his theme, but it appears to involve adding an S to common phrases, thus transforming them into PUNISHING new ones:

17A. Fan on a farm?: SWINE COOLER.  A riff on WINE COOLER, for those who use a thermometer to check their wine temperatures.  Very expensive.  We keep the REDS in the cellar because it's cool, and we keep WHITES and ROSÉS in the refrigerator.

 27. Hors d'oeuvres for a horror movie?: SCREAM CHEESE. A take on CREAM CHEESE. Teri makes a delicious dish with cream cheese, cream, butter, shrimp, fresh peas, and pasta.  Yummy!

49A. Surveillance snacks?: STAKEOUT FOOD.  A riff on TAKEOUT FOOD. Cops can get pretty hungry on a 7 x 24 stake out, and the Brit bobbies seem to prefer  CHINESE or KEBABS (see 50D for a recipe).

64A. Finishing touch for a gastropod?: SNAIL POLISH.  A take on NAIL POLISH. My NAILS are galvanized, so they don't need to be polished.

And if that weren't enough, here's some more polysemous punishment ...

Across:

1. Geometry numbers: AREAS.

6. Shows displeasure (at): CARPS.  I don't mean to be KOI about it, but if you eat a CARP, you'll probably CARP about it for days.

11. Part of A&E?: ANDAND?  Is that all?

14. Absorb: SOP UP.  In case you've been wondering what the difference is between absorb and adsorb?

15. Ferrell's "SNL" cheerleading partner: OTERI.  We did that clip in a previous review where CHERI appeared.  She is well known for her impersonations, especially of BABA WAWA and here she is seen interviewing herself:


16. Card-beats-card game: WAR.  As it's a perennial favorite, here's a quote from Ambrose Bierce:
 

19. Shakespearean title noun: ADO.  As in Much Ado About Nothing, the story of Beatrice and Benedick.  Which Begins here ...
 


... followed by Much Ado about literally Nothing (you'll have to read the play to find out what it Isn't)  ...

...and then Ends here ...
 

20. Bee attraction: NECTAR.

21. Wrestling place: MAT.

22. "Armageddon" author: URISLeon Marcus Uris (August 3, 1924 (Baltimore, MD – June 21, 2003 (Shelter Island, NY)) was an American author of historical fiction who wrote many bestselling books including Exodus (published in 1958) and Trinity (published in 1976).  Armageddon: A Novel of Berlin, is a chronicle which ends with the lifting of the Berlin Blockade in 1949.
 
Uris in Israel in the 1950s

23. Chain founded by Ingvar Kamprad: IKEA. As the founder's name sounded suspiciously Sveedish, it had to be IKEA.  Which painfully reminds me, three IKEA drawers in one of my office cabinets have been jammed shut for years and will have to be opened somehow before we can sell this house!

25. Movie trailers: TEASERS.  You've been teased enough for one day.

31. "Gotcha!": OHO.

32. Head of Paris: TETE.  Today's French lesson. LOO was too short.

33. Like some escapes: NARROW.

37. Done in: BEAT.

39. AOL, e.g.: ISPInternet Service Provider.  One of the earliest.  And I'm pretty sure we had it two weeks ago.

41. Aria, say: SOLO.  Here's Mimi pouring her heart out in the eponymous La Bohème:
 

42. Watch all night, maybe: STREAMBINGE might have been better, but you need to be able STREAM to do it.

45. Topers: SOTS.  Those who tope too much.

48. High flier until 2001: MIR. The Russian space station Mir ended its mission on 23 March 2001, when it was "deorbited", entered the atmosphere and was destroyed.  The next time you see MIR, it'll probably be clued "Deorbited in 2001".

52. Make like the original: RESTORE.

55. Hurry away: FLEE.

56. Place for a bid: EBAY.

57. Arabic "son of": IBN. Today's Arabic lesson.  Everything you want to know about Arabic name structures, of which IBN is only a small part.

59. Syrup once used as a poison remedy: IPECAC.  No longer used for these reasons.  IPECAC causes vomiting and has been abused by bulimics, notably singer Karen Carpenter who probably died as a result of it.

63. No-frills bed: COT.  The plural COTS is a also an acronym for Commercial Off-the-shelf Software, a better alternative to "rolling your own", unless you really know what you're doing.  Of course you still need to know what you're doing to implement COTS based systems.  These people will sell you a COTS product to help you implement your COTS products!  Something I like to call the "Cybernetic Imperative".

66. Aussie school: UNI.

67. Cellist Casals: PABLOPau Casals i Defilló ( 29 December 1876 – 22 October 1973), usually known in English by his Spanish name Pablo Casals was a Catalan and Puerto Rican cellist, composer, and conductor. He is generally regarded as the pre-eminent cellist of the first half of the 20th century and one of the greatest cellists of all time. Click here to hear him play Bach's Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major, BWV 1007: IV. Sarabande.

Pablo Casals
with his Stradivarius Cello
     

68. Capone henchman known as "The Enforcer": NITTIFrancesco Raffaele Nitto,  January 27, 1886 – March 19, 1943), known as Frank Nitti, was an Italian-born American gangster in Chicago. Nitti was in charge of all money flowing through the operation. He later succeeded Capone as boss of the Chicago Outfit. No mug shot for him!

69. Whiskey choice: RYE.  One brand was originally distilled just up the road from where we live in Pikesville, MD, now produced in Louisville, Kentucky:

70. Sales rep's friendly personality, e.g.: ASSET.

71. Early computer: ENIACElectronic Numerical Integrator and Computer) was the first programmable, electronic, general-purpose digital computer made in 1945.  It was Turing-complete and able to solve "a large class of numerical problems" through reprogramming.  Here's a comparison of the ENIAC to your cell phone.

Down:

1. Part of NCAA: Abbr.: ASSN.  The sponsors of March Madness. This was prepared to help students of English as a Second Language understand this madness (but maybe useful to sports noobs on the Corner as well, e.g. yours truly).

2. "Dirty Jobs" host Mike: ROWE.  You never know what kind of "dirt" you can surf up on somebody on the Internet.  Here is philosopher Mike Rowe, in a church in Baltimore, describing a "tough job" he once had: that of auditioning for the role of the philosopher Shaunard, singing his heart out as he set off to  the Paris streets to sell his trusty overcoat to buy medicine for la Bohème, whom we met in 41A, and who is now dying:


3. Large-scale tale: EPIC.  For example The Epic of Gilgamesh. a lengthy poem from ancient Mesopotamia c. 2100 BC, and probably the origin of the story of Noah's flood in the Hebrew Bible.  Gilgamesh is regarded as the earliest surviving notable literature and the second oldest religious text, after the Pyramid Texts:
The Deluge tablet
of the Gilgamesh epic

"Ahem", I can hear Vidwan saying,  "You call those Epics?  I'll give you Epics!"

4. Pretzel chain __ Anne's: AUNTIE.

5. Deliver an address for: SPEAK AT.  I could try the groaner about the Gettysburg Address, but MalMan beat me to it last Thursday.

6. Soft cry: COO. The cry of a Pigeon or Mourning Dove perhaps?

7. __ smasher: ATOM.  The first cyclotron ("atom smasher"), invented by Ernest Lawrence and colleagues in 1931, was a mere 4" in diameter.   Its modern successor, the CERN Large Hadron Collider, first turned on in September of 2008 is 17 miles across.  Here's an aerial view:

8. Tell: RELATE.

9. Many a junior high student: PRETEEN.

10. Polite title: SIR.  Or MAAM. Like my Mom always said, "Mind your manners!"

11. Clued in: AWARE.  I hope everyone was clued in on this clue.

12. Zenith's opposite: NADIR.  More Arabic. The NADIR at a given point is the local vertical direction pointing in the direction of the force of gravity at that location. The direction opposite of the NADIR is the ZENITH.
13. Slag: DROSS.

18. Liqueur word: CREME.

22. Password creators: USERS.  There are as many ways to create passwords as there are USERS (who are just another SYSTEM component in the eyes of many programmers).  My passwords are constructed from acronyms derived from selected verses of PSALMS, and are probably still hackable.  A CSO for your method.

24. "Hamlet" beginning: ACT I.  Or to be more specific Who's there?

26. Solid-rock link: AS A.  Not always, e.g. Pumice, which is more like solidified foam.  Still solid I guess, but not something you'd want to build a house on.

27. Emotional outbursts: SOBS.

28. Guitarist Atkins: CHETChester Burton "Chet" Atkins (June 20, 1924 – June 30, 2001), known as "Mr. Guitar" and "The Country Gentleman", was an American musician, occasional vocalist, songwriter, and record producer who helped create the Nashville sound.  My Dad's kind of music:
 

29. "I am woman, hear me __ ... ": Helen Reddy lyric: ROARHelen Maxine Reddy (25 October 1941 – 29 September 2020) was an Australian-American singer, songwriter, author, actress, and activist. Born in Melbourne, Victoria, to a show-business family, Reddy started her career as an entertainer at age four.  Her feminist anthem "I am woman" is her most famous song, but she did write lots of others and also covered songs by others, like this number one hit written by Alan O'Day:


30. "Steppenwolf" author: HESSEHermann Karl Hesse (2 July 1877 – 9 August 1962) was a German-Swiss poet, novelist, and painter. His best-known works include Demian, Steppenwolf, Siddhartha, and The Glass Bead Game (my favorite novel), each of which explores an individual's search for authenticity, self-knowledge and spirituality. In 1946, he received the Nobel Prize in Literature.
 
Hermann Hesse

34. Former Dallas QB Tony: ROMOAntonio Ramiro Romo (born April 21, 1980) is a former American football quarterback and analyst who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 14 seasons with the Dallas Cowboys.

Romo before the 2008 Pro Bow

35. Hodgepodge: OLIO.  This review perhaps?  It's just a smorgasbord, so sample what you like.

36. "Agreed!": WORD.  Has anyone heard "WORD!" used as slang for AGREED?  Or could it be the most generic definition for "Agreed!",  a WORD?  Our favorite extinct reptile doesn't seem to AGREE:

38. Irritable: TESTY.  I used to be a LAB TECH and I was TESTY all day.

40. Sound accompanying a disappearance: POOF.  This is the second time I've had this in a month.  I can't seem to make it disappear.

43. From __ Z: A TO.  The entire GAMUT.

44. Places to tie up: MARINAS.  Often pretty swanky places.  Here's the Baltimore Inner Harbor Marina.  That's the Rusty Scupper restaurant in the foreground.  Great crab cakes:
 

46. Spring bloom: TULIP.  You can get the blooms or the bulbs year round from Holland, the TULIP capital of the world.
47. Start of a job: STEP ONE.  Begin at the beginning.

50. Skewered foods: KEBABSHere's a recipe!
 



51. "You've Lost That Lovin' __": 1964 hit: FEELIN.  "Blue-eyed Soul" by The Righteous Brothers:


52. Arise anew: RECUR.

53. Dark wood: EBONYEbony is a dense black/brown hardwood, most commonly yielded by several species in the genus Diospyros, which also contains the persimmons. Ebony is dense enough to sink in water. It is finely textured and has a mirror finish when polished, making it valuable as an ornamental wood. It is also considered an endangered species:
 
Rough Ebony

54. "Sonatine Bureaucratique" composer: SATIE. The Sonatine bureaucratique (Bureaucratic sonatina) is a 1917 piano composition by Erik Satie. The final entry in his "humoristic" piano music of the 1910s, it is Satie's only full-scale parody of a single musical work: the Sonatina Op. 36 N° 1 (1797) by Muzio Clementi.  The score is annotated with satirical remarks above the musical notes, which you'll see if you follow along:


58. Africa's Blue __: NILEThe Blue Nile is a river originating at Lake Tana in Ethiopia. It travels for approximately 1,450 km (900 mi) through Ethiopia and Sudan. Along with the White Nile, it is one of the two major tributaries of the Nile, and supplies about 80% of the water in the Nile during the rainy season.
The Course of the Blue Nile

60. __ Field: Mets' home: CITIThe home of the New York Mets.

61. Whodunit dog: ASTA.  The Cornerite's favorite puzzle pooch and pursuer of perpsBut even ASTA (alias SKIPPY) was guilty of a misdemeanor.
 
Asta in the Director's Chair

62. Geek __: CHIC.  I used to be a GEEK, but nobody has EVER accused me of being CHIC.  Apparently such a thing really does exist: for girls and for guys

64. Place for a peel: SPADoesn't sound very appeeling to me.

65. "'Salem's __": Stephen King novel: LOT.  King's second novel.  Scary stuff!.

 


Here's the grid:


waseeley

Cheers,
Bill

And thanks as always to Teri for proofreading and constructive criticism.


36 comments:

desper-otto said...

Good morning!

Nothing too exotic (take that, Google algorithm!) in this one. Tried ROMA before ROMO showed up. OLIO, a fitting CSO to C.C. But WORD? Weird. Thanx, Jim and Waseeley.

Jinx in Norfolk said...

FIR, but thought I didn't because Bill's grid shows EBAr x TESTr. (I always check the grid before I read the expo.) Erased dead for BEAT, sst for MIR, lilly for TULIP, OTaRI (UNTIE!) and hats for SOTS (read the damned clue, Jinx!). Waited for gym/MAT, aha/OHO, K?B?BS, and the ever-present OL?O. I decoded the theme to "get the S out of here!".

I DNK that OTERI was Baba Wawa on SNL, nor did I remember the cheerleading skits.

Thanks to Jim for the fun, easy-for-Thursday puzzle. I didn't like the clue for STREAM, but that's just me. And thanks to Bill for the fun review. I liked the ENIAC comparison, except that I HATE it when writers use "times less (as in "17,000 x less") comparisons. As far as I can figure out, such statements are meaningless (which is probably why we hear them on commercials a lot). If anyone can cite an authoritative source for the meaning of them, I would appreciate knowing about it.

Off to the dentist for cleaning today, then to get the RV ready for our final camping trip before our Florida wintering.

Wilbur Charles said...

I had to do an alpha to get the R in ROWE/SWINE. Was running out of letters.

FIR for a change. Lots of LHF. The O and I gave me OTERI which I recognized from here. I'm not an SNL fan.

W/O was sst/MIR.

I guess WORD is like Elaine's Get out!

Thanks waseeley for the informative links that I'll get to later

WC

billocohoes said...

Thought of a (s)WINE COOLER as a mix of cheap wine and soda used by impoverished college students to class up a party. Similar to a wine spritzer.

Gilda Radner was the original Baba Wawa.

KEBABS has several spelling variations

Oas said...

Good moist and easy morning .
Easier than yesterday. I caught the them early with SWINECOOLER and it helped with the rest of the long fills.
The only posers came at the very end . Wasn’t sure of ENIAC or CHIC . Got held up thinking chic or chin.
Felt a little left out when I saw Word, never heard that before.
Thanks to the constructor Jim and expounder Waseely for your efforts. Makes for a nice start to the day and the Mcd’s coffee is still warm.

Cheers

Spitzboov said...

Good morning everyone.

Finally got it all w/o mishap. Only white-out used was where I considered 'antsy' before TESTY loomed. Saw the them developing and (largely) pre-filled SWINE COOLER. @44d, held off on 'wharves' until MARINAS became clear. Cluing was Thursday level. Good job, Jim.
WINE COOLER - Guess I'm going to have to forego my wine nightcap. Not compatible with the Methotrexate treatment for rheumatoid arthritis. Bummer.

Thanks Waseeley for another fine intro.

Big Easy said...

If you have been working crosswords long enough you can just guess some correct fills if you don't know them. "Ingvar" sounds Swedish so I filled IKEA. I didn't know the "Sonatine Bureaucratique" composer but guessed SATIE after EBAY & COT were filled. But it seems to always take a trip to The Corner to find out a perped word. WORD for "Agreed". I would have never filled it and it still doesn't make sense.

Other than that the only problem was waiting for Mr. Holland's spelling of KEBAB. The added 'S' was obvious at SWINE COOLER and too predictable. My only changes were DEAD to BEAT and SST to MIR.

NITTI & Capone- I read where Capone's granddaughters auctioned some his things and cleared three million bucks. I guess crime pays for many generations.

waseeley- after listening to SATIE's sonatina I remembered Clementi's work and had to open up my piano bench at look at the sheet music. I still had it in one of my mother's collection of pieces that she taught her students. I remember it as a very easy piece to play.

Husker Gary said...

Musings
-I really liked STAKE OUT FOOD but all the themers were fun
-The AREA under a curve is a calculus concept
-My lovely bride and I used to be avid moviegoers but have not seen any recent TEASER that would lure us in
-NARROW ESCAPES – NFL games decided by which way a football bounces off a goal post
-Watching TV all night was not an option in my ute. The Star Spangled Banner played at about midnight and that was that
-Experts on Pawn Stars often say attempts to RESTORE an item can decrease its value
-Where’s NITTI?
-My standard password is a beloved person with capitalization variations and a number
-ROMO : Prescott = Pipp : Gehrig (Hey, I had no clue on SATIE!) :-)
-“WORD Up” was street slang for “I agree”. It devolved into simply “WORD”
-Omaha’s beautiful arboretum, Laurizen Gardens, is about halfway to planting a bed of one million TULIPS

Husker Gary said...

Musings 2
-FLN, I loved Vidwan’s take on test prep, the IT takes from our brilliant techies and the conjecture about the dethroned Jeopardy champ.
-FORE on a day that is started at 41F

waseeley said...

Husker @9:59 AM According to the Wiki article I linked in, he committed suicide with revolver. Cinematic license perhaps. Or the result of an EDIT WAR abetted by a NESS fan. 🙃

oc4beach said...


Got it done today once I saw the S added to WINE COOLER then the other themers fell into place. Good theme from Jim. Waseely's write up was expansive and enjoyable.

I had a couple of stumbles along the way today. POLLEN before NECTAR, AHA before OHO, SST before MIR and NITTY before NITTI. Perps helped solve those missteps. TULIP, CITI and ASTA were filled in before I got to the clues.

Waseely: I agree that the Rusty Scupper has great crab cakes, but I would add that the crab cakes at Timbuktu just south of Baltimore in Hanover, MD are hard to beat.

Today is National Dessert Day, so I hope everyone gets to have a dessert today.

CrossEyedDave said...

I think we can all agree, that agree=word is just plain weird...
Thank you HG for "splainin" that the origin is slang.
But it does beg the question, should not the clue give a clue?
Perhaps agree (slang) if the dang thingie is not in the dictionary?

Bill, your stuck drawer is another puzzle worthy of our puzzlers here.
Perhaps we can help! Pray tell, is it a wooden drawer? Or perhaps metal?
Does it move at all? (Coat hanger can reach stuck items)
However, if it doesn't move at all (wood) it is a definite sticky situation
That will require multiple heads to figure out a non damaging way.
My curiosity begs that you keep us informed of your results...

Anonymous T said...

Hi All!

FIW - DRegS instead of DROSS :-(

Thanks Jim for the 'add-an-S' puzzle; good bit of fun. First themer was STAKE OUT FOOD and that helped.
Thanks Waseeley for the extended expo (I still have links to click!).

WOs: I read Greek, not Geek and put in week, ePiCAC.
ESPs: PABLO, NITTI, SATIE, vowels in KEBABs
Fav: I'll go w/ ENIAC
We could have had an IBM if 58d was MILE :-)

"Word" or "Word-up" is the equivalent of 'Amen brother' in '90's (IIRC) slang.
//I see HG beat me to it. Do you too recall it was the '90s?

Billocohoes - that's how I thought of [s]WINE COOLERs too - cheep swill for the ladies who don't like beer.

Back to work; play later. Cheers, -T

Misty said...

Well, as I say every week, Thursday puzzles are toughies for me, but still fun, especially this one. Many thanks, Jim. And your pictures are always a pleasure, Waseely, thanks for those too.

My favorite was Helen Reddy's "I am woman, hear me ROAR"--huge hit for all of us feminists back in the day (though I suspect most of us never roared). Lots of music clues throughout the puzzle.

Some of the clues for the theme answers are hilarious--like "fan on a farm" for SWINE COOLER.

But like others, the "Agreed"/WORD made no sense to me, I'm afraid.

Have a great day, everybody.

unclefred said...

FIR in a disgraceful 28. W/Os DEAD:BEAT, SNAILBITERS:SNAILPOLISH. (That was a wrong WAG). DNK SATIE, a few perps helped. Also never heard of TOPERS before, perps again. As D.O. @5:38 said, WORD made no sense to me, even as slang. “Solid-rock link” made me think of the Rock of Gibraltar, often touted as “As solid as the Rock of Gibraltar!” I’ve been there, and there is not much I can think of that is less “solid”. There are so many caves, both natural and man-made, cracks, etc., it is anything but “solid”. Anyway, thanx JH for this appropriately-Thursday-difficult CW. And thanx Waseeley for your as usual fine and fun write-up. Send some pictures of your stuck drawers to my email, maybe I can help.

Jinx in Norfolk said...

For wine coolers, I first thought of Mike's Hard lemonade. And when Erik SATIE muscled himself in I thought of Blood, Sweat, & Tears wonderful "Variations on a Theme by Erik Satie" from their self-titled album. I think I wore out two copies of that fine vinyl, and still listen to the MP3 version 0occasionally.

I think I first learned about WORD from TV ads. Also "don't fruit the beer".

PK said...

Hi Y'all! Thanks, Jim, for an amusing theme & puzzle challenge. Thanks, Bill, for your efforts.

Filled in the "M" and tried Moorings before MARINAS.

36d My WORD, that was a stumper!

DNK: HESSE, ROWE, NITTI, SATIE.

ROAR: Knew the song. I have been known to ROAR with the best of women. But not a true feminist because I would really have ROARed if anyone had tried to burn my bra. I never understood that ritual.

desper-otto said...

TULIPS, Husker?

Kkflorida said...

A challenging Thursday. My word ! I’m not sure I agree that 36 down is a Word. It could have been clued differently. Thanks for the challenge Jim. A nice expo Waseely.

waseeley said...

Jinx @12:35 PM I think it was Gymnopédie No. 1. Is this the one?

CanadianEh! said...

Testing (not TESTY) Thursday. Thanks for the fun, Jim and waseeley (and Teri).
I FIWed today. ROWE was unknown to me and my alphabet run stopped prematurely at P. My farm had PINEs and a SPINE COOLing fan. LOL.

Hand up for inkblots to change SST to MIR, Aha to OHO, and wanting Binge before STREAM.
SPEAK To changed to AT.
No inkblot at KEBABS because I knew from past CWs to wait for perps for the vowels.
I waited for perps to decide between Saga or EPIC.
WORD perped and I figured it was slang like Bae and Totes Adorbs. Sigh!

I noted ENIAC crossing Geek CHIC. (Yes AnonT, IBM at 57A would have been great)
The French CREME crossing the (S) CREAM CHEESE was EPIC (anybody else remember that slang usage?)

Wishing you all a great day. Still beautiful here; DH and I had a hike at the local conservation area this morning.


Ol' Man Keith said...

A fine Thursday PZL. FIR, but it kept me busy. Only after completing it did I understand the Add-an-"S" theme.

My toughest fill? MARINAS.
Ironic, because I lived my first 21 years in San Francisco's MARINA district. I spent my PRE-TEEN years at MARINA Junior High. Half my Saturday movie matinees were at the MARINA Theater.
~ OMK
___________
DR:
Three diagonals in all, on the near side.
The central diag yields a strange anagram (12 of 15 letters). It seems to be a reference to the type of symbolic commemoration we see, as reported in some recent op-ed articles, in the naming of military bases after former enemies. Why, the columnists inquire, should we have named so many installations--e.g., Ft. Hood, Ft. Lee, etc.--after Confederate generals?
Not only were they traitors to the United States, but in several instances they were apparently poor leaders.
Indeed, it is a real question to ask who was the...

"ICKIEST TOTEM"?!

ATLGranny said...

FIR on a Thursday with an add-an-S theme that worked for me. Woohoo! Thanks, Jim, though I struggled in the SE corner with ENIAC and CHIC. Flying above that I had sst/MIR to deal with as did many others. Otherwise, perps saved the day in deciding the right WORD to fill. Thanks also to the waseeley team for an excellent review. Hope you all have an excellent day. Look forward to reading more comments as people post them.

Jayce said...

I enjoyed this Smashing puzzle. Had much of the same writeovers as many of you. I have sometimes heard characters on TV shows say "WORD" but I never really knew what it meant; I interpreted it from the context as meaning something like "Yeah, sure, okay."

A restaurant not far from here used to be called The Rusty Scupper. I assume it was sold because now it is called The Faultline.

Like Gary, LW and I have not seen any recent TEASER that would lure us in to seeing a movie.

Good wishes to you all.

Anonymous said...

On my phone you have ebar and testr for 38d and 56a in the puzzle part. Confusing.

Oas said...

Big Easy 9:06 Word, could have been me writing your first paragraph.

Husker 9:59 I guess we never hung out on the same streets . What decade was that . I remember the late sixties - early seventies if you missed hanging out at the pool halls a few weekends you had to catch up on the latest weird sayings.

Husker Gary said...

D-Otto, Dang, did I say TULIPS when I meant daffodils? Good catch, my friend.
On the tour of Lauritzen Gardens we are shown the building where the thousands of TULIPS they import from Holland every year are stored in dark, cool areas to fool them until they can be planted at the right time. For some reason, the goal is to plant a million daffodils in a large LEA and not TULIPS. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. :-)

waseeley said...

Anonymous @ 3:33 PM Thanks Anon. It confuses you? It confuses me even more. I solve the puzzle on paper and go back at the end only to put it in the Across Lite utility to get a screen shot for the grid. When I get to the last letter an ATTABOY always pops up. It must mean that "Congratulations You've finished", but I guess it doesn't mean you FIR. I recall a typo when it did this in the past, issued a SAVE, and then it red-marked the bad letters and wouldn't let me change them. I'll have to research this further. Thanks again. 😟

TTP said...


Hi all.

Did this fun Jim Holland puzzle well before daylight. I liked the alliteration in the clues for the theme answers. Fine review by Bill.


As for WORD, do a Google search on "Word definition" First would be the Noun definitions, then Verb, and third would be Exclamation. "Used to express agreement"

Not sure if I ever heard anyone use it.

Jinx in Norfolk said...

Waseeley, that's the tune. Good date music.

Vidwan827 said...


Thank you Mr Jim Holland for a challenging Thursday puzzle, and thank you Bill Waseeley for your heavenly links and interesting review.
I especially wanted to know, WHY the word WORD was the correct one !!! Sometimes, there are no explanations ... or rhyme or reason for slang or argot ...

Thank you, Bill W., for mentioning me, moi, on 3 D. EPIC. The hindu poetry epics are the Ramayana (the story of Rama ) and the Mahabharata ( the great bharat - presumably the country, Bharat ). The MahaBharata has been dated to be around 300 BCE, or even 400 BCE, so they are presumably not that old, as the epics, you mentioned, in your blog.

I watched all the links on the review blog and went down the rabbit holes on 'fences', and Nitti.

I also read all about Syrup of Ipecac ... I even had an occasion to use it, before the compound,( and the remedy) was banned by the FDA.

In the mid 1980's when my younger daughter was a couple of years old, I was driving her home from being at our baby sitter. I had taken a bottle of Vicks Formula 44 cough syrup , with Codeine sulfate, to the sitter, because the baby had a cough... this was the Rx variety. Tara was seated in a baby car carrier, on the middle seat of our Caravan, and I had carelessly left the Vicks syrup bottle, next to her....
On reaching home, I discovered that the sitter had not closed the bottle properly, to enable the child proof mechanism, and Tara had opened it, and drunk half the bottle contents...
After a quick discussion with my wife, who is a medical doctor, I rushed to the drug store, bought a bottle of Ipecac, and administered one tablespoonful to the baby. She eventually threw up a half hour later, and the situation was resolved. I still am not sure, if she had indeed imbibed a fatal over-dose, but out of an abundance of caution ....

Have a nice evening all.

Malodorous Manatee said...

I solved the puzzle at six this morning and it's now twelve hours later. Busy day. Thanks for the great write-up, Bill. I learned, and will use, polysemous.

According to Ken Burns, when the Carter Family was invited to join the Grand Ole Opry the condition was that they not bring their guitar player, Chet Atkins. Apparently, the session players were concerned that they would lose some gigs. Mother Mabel Carter refused and the Opry relented. The session player's concerns were well founded.

waseeley said...

Vidwan @6:50 PM Thank you for your EPIC correction of my EPIC misunderstanding of the relative antiquities of Middle Eastern vs Indian EPICS. You know what they say about making ASSumptions. The only piece of Indian literature I've read in it's entirety is the relatively short Bhagavad Gita and I couldn't tell you how old it is. Obviously I've got some homework to do on Indian Lit.

Thanks also for sharing the story of your young daughter's peril. Your use of Ipecac was a controlled situation and it had a good outcome. From what I gathered from the Wiki article the substance itself isn't particularly dangerous, but it's unsupervised use by bulimics can be.

Cheers,
Bill Seeley

Big Easy said...

Vidwan827-"Vicks Formula 44 cough syrup , with Codeine sulfate"

It must have been some other cough syrup because in the US Vicks 44 was and still is OTC and never had codeine. Robitussin had a Rx item- Robitussin AC- which was the only name brand cough syrup that contained codeine, which required a prescription.

Vidwan827 said...

Big Easy ... your point is well noted, and I should have clarified more. I should have realized that there are some very smart, intelligent and perceptive people on this blog. ;-)
You are absolutely right ...the Vicks Formula 44 in the US does not contain codeine, ... and none of the OTC cough syrups do, 1) per FDA directions and 2) because the drug stores were being 'held up' by drug addicts, who were desperate for the narcotics in the syrups.

However, Cough syrups are avaiable here, with Codeine, by prescription ... from a variety of smaller pharma firms. Ironically, they are cheaper than Formula 44, ....... a 16 fl oz. bottle I am holding, by Pharma Assoc Inc of Greenville SC, sells for $4.99 with Guaifenesin USP 100 mg. and Codeine Phosphate USP 10 mg. per 5 ml.

However, the Formula 44, I had, in those days, was brought from India, where codeine sulfate was routinely added in the OTC product. We bought a couple of bottles, from India, specifically so we would not have to go thru the hassle of a prescription. I know, .... not a good idea, but thats the truth.
Nowadays, drugs in India, mfed under license, still cost about 20% of the same cost of drugs in the US ... even if you dont have med insurance, or a drug plan. That is because there is a lower std of living, and most people do not have medical insurance ... so it is what the market will bear, and some form of govt price control ....something like in the north, our Canadian neighbors .... or neighbours .... have in their system.

Vidwan827 said...

Bill Waseeley .... sorry, I get too much caught up in my posts.
First the Syrup of Ipecac, ... its not just bulemia ... the FDA and the AMA and the docs are more concerned that
a) Some ipecac may indeed be poisonous to certain parts of the body ... See the article you linked ...
b) Some poisons should be handled by other means other than just emetics and throwing up. These poisons include hydrocarbons and petroleum derivatives, and others like say, Methanol ( methyl alchohol). That cannot be resolved by just throwing up but require other measures like chelation, or activated charcoal powder ... or a host of other interventions. Syrup of Ipecac just cannot cut it, and may give false hopes etc.
Plus ipecac cant do anything to the poison that has already passed beyond the stomach to the intestines... So the FDA says, in general, it is not a useful product....

*************************************

Re: The Bhagwat Gita is only a short chapter of The Mahabharat, itself. Therefore it was written around the same time, as the main story.
Without going too much into details .... the story of the B Gita is as follows...

When the 5 brother Pandavas and their cousins, the 100 brother Kavravas decide to go to war,..... Arjun, the Archer-brother of the P, gets (Lord) Krishna, the god, to be his charioteer ...

But, when he goes to the battlefield, and faces his enemy, who are his cousins, the K's, he is saddened and disillusioned by the fact that he has to fight his cousins, the K's, and his kinsmen....

So, Krishna gives him some serious advice, on where his motivation, honor and duty lies, and what morality is expected of him, and how he should conduct his battle ....
.... That is the Bhagwat Gita.

Good night, all.