google.com, pub-2774194725043577, DIRECT, f08c47fec0942fa0 L.A.Times Crossword Corner: Thursday, June 23, 2022, Emma Oxford

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Jun 23, 2022

Thursday, June 23, 2022, Emma Oxford

 

 
 
Higgs Boson
Large Hadron Collider
Geneva Switzerland


Emma Oxford, our constructor today,  is  a graduate student in particle physics and I thought the above splash screen  might make a nice welcome mat.  And it's even tangentially related to one of the themers. This is her second outing with the LAT,   her first was on Thursday March 25, 2021, reviewed by my partner in crime Malodorous Manatee.  Emma has long been solving crosswords, but only began constructing them about a year ago.  During this brief time she has also had puzzles published by Universal, WSJ, and Inkubator, as well as mini and "meta" puzzles on the constructor site CrossHare, under the username damefox

Outside of crosswords and physics, Emma is a fan of baking, running, jigsaw puzzles, reading, keeping her cat away from the houseplants, and as we'll soon see, she has very eclectic tastes in music.  Check out The Inkubator site where I found Emma's bio - it has some other names I'm sure you'll recognize. 

For today's outing she presents us with a classic theme: taking a common phrase, dropping a letter from the last word, and cluing the rump with a punny riff.  So that I can discuss both shades of meaning together, I'll start with the reveal:

63A. Decisive defeat, and a two-word hint to the answers to the starred clues: ROUT (my italics). To make sense of the fill, you have to parse this R OUT

Here are the themers with the removed R restored:

16A. *Frying pans anyone can use?: PUBLIC WORKSThe Chinese WOK provides an ingenious way of controlling heat when heating vegetables, sea foods, and meats that cook at different rates.  This link will school you on its history and usage.

Some examples of PUBLIC WORKS projects are, but are not limited to: Parks and recreational facilities; Public education facilities (elementary schools, middle schools, high schools, universities and community colleges, etc.); Health care institutions (hospitals, community health care facilities, etc.). 


22A. *Group that attends Mass together every week?: SUNDAY BRUNCH.  My BIL and SIL attend Mass with a Sunday BUNCH, who follow the service with a pot luck Sunday BRUNCH in the under croft of the Church.

36A. *Discussion about what fruit to bake for dessert?: PIE CHART.  Make mine CHERRY (topped with home made whipped cream).

46A. *Fitting motto for Pisa's tower keeper?: LIVE AND LEARNGalileo Galilei (15 February 1564 – 8 January 1642) whom many consider to be the first experimental scientist, lived in Pisa and legend has it that he used the Leaning Tower to conduct a series of revolutionary experiments  on gravity and acceleration.  Here's the picture worth a thousand words.

Galileo's Experiment

Galileo's findings at the LEANing Tower were the very beginning of experimental physics, and eventually led to the state of the art stuff that Emma is LEARNING.

55A. *Devil on one's shoulder?: CLOSE FRIEND.  We've all heard the first one whispering in our ear, "You can't do that, you're not good enough".  Add the R back and you'll hear the second one saying, "I know you can do it.  I'm pulling for you!"

Here's the grid:
 

And here's all the 'est:

Across:

1. "You Shook Me All Night Long" band: ACDC.  As I'm not a particular fan of Heavy Metal, I originally intended to use this clue to focus on the dispute between Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison over the best way to transmit electricity over long distances.  I suppose, had Edison won this one, the band might have been called DCAC.  They've popped up on my watch twice now, and both times I've used the Muppets to cover for them.  This time I've decided to let the band sing for themselves.  As comedian Garrison Keillor used to say, "they're not bad", although I'm not sure he'd have said that  about ACDC.  But they are pretty naughty, so there will be no lyrics with this clip.   Not a problem unless you read lips:



5. Apiphobe's phobia: BEESFear of bees, technically known as melissophobia (from Ancient Greek: μέλισσα, melissa, "honey bee" + , Ancient Greek: φόβος, phobos, "fear") and also known as apiphobia (from Latin: apis for "honey bee" + Ancient Greek: φόβος, phobos, "fear"), is one of the common fears among people and is a kind of specific phobia. Not a CSO to our Melissa Bee.

9. "I __ confused": AM SO.  On the theme for this puzzle, not so much.  Unlike the last two.

13. Wintry mess: SLUSH.

14. Sole: ONLY.  Also a flat fish.

15. Mountain cat: PUMAPuma is a genus in the family Felidae whose only extant species is the cougar (also known as the puma, mountain lion, and panther).  The only large cat that purrs.  Not a sound you'd like to hear on a mountain path.
Cougar
18. "Oh, please!": AS IF.

19. Revealing session on Reddit, for short: AMAAsk Me Anything.
 
AMA Subreddit Logo
20. Christmas song: NOEL.

21. Shrimp and __: GRITSHere's Bobby Flay's recipe.

25. Treeless plain: STEPPE.  Sounds pretty bleak, but if you look closely enough steppes abound with life.  Chemist and composer Alexander Borodin (12 November 1833 – 27 February 1887) painted  a beautiful sound portrait of that life in his Steppes of Central Asia, here conducted by Vladimir Ashkenazy (7:07 min.)


 
28. Districts: AREAS.

29. Like some dental floss: WAXY.

30. Shortcomings: VICES.  I guess that depends on how short.

32. "The Last O.G." network: TBSThe Last O.G. is an American comedy television series, starring Tracy Morgan.  It was created by Jordan Peele and John Carcieri and premiered on March 31, 2018. The series follows ex-convict Tray (the O.G. or "original gangster") who is released from prison after serving fifteen years, and returns to Brooklyn to find that his old neighborhood has changed and that his ex-girlfriend is raising their children with another man. The co-stars are Tiffany Haddish, Allen Maldonado, Ryan Gaul, Taylor Christian Mosby, Dante Hoagland, and Cedric the Entertainer.
Tracy Morgan 2009
 35. Bother: ADO.

38. In the style of: ALA.

39. Spoil: MAR.

40. Man of many words?: ROGET.  I tried all the online thesauri and none would cough up a synonym for ROGET.  But here's a link about Peter Mark Roget (1779–1869), British physician, natural theologian and lexicographer.

41. Wild beasts also called wildebeests: GNUS.  Also a recursive ("self-referential") pun on AT&T's old Unix operating system: GNU is NOT UNIXGNU is an extensive collection of free software (383 packages as of January 2022), which can be used as a stand alone operating system, or parts of it can be used in other operating systems.  The use of the completed GNU tools led to the family of operating systems popularly known as Linux.  Here's their logo:
GNU is NOT UNIX
42. Water filter brand: BRITA.

44. Some surprise hits: B SIDES.  The best place to look for B sides that made it big are Beatles songs.  There are so many to chose from, but here's one of my favorites, the B-Side for the 1969 single Get Back (lyrics):


49. Big name in applesauce: MOTTS.

50. Tirade: RANT.

51. Bath mother: MUM.  My Mum was a Stoke-on-Trent mother, but we just called her Mom.  I had the opportunity years back to do some consulting in Bath, a fascinating town that goes back to the Romans and was later the home of Jane Austen for several years.
Jane Austen Center
Bath, England.
54. Way off: AFAR.

58. "What __ say?": CAN I.

59. Catholic leader: POPEThe POPE (Latin: papa) is the bishop of Rome (or historically the patriarch of Rome.  He is believed by Catholics to be a successor to the Apostle Peter, the closest of Jesus Christ's disciples.  Interestingly enough, his diocesan church is not St. Peter's Basilica, but rather the Archbasilica of Saint John Lateran.  Pope Francis is the current bishop of Rome.  He is the first Pope to take that name:
 
Pope Francis

60. Old Dodges: OMNISThe Dodge Omni (also marketed as the Plymouth Horizon) is a subcompact car that was produced by Chrysler Corporation from the 1978 to 1990 model years. The first Chrysler model line produced with front-wheel drive, the Omni and Horizon were also the first front-wheel drive economy cars assembled in the United States.
1990 Dodge Omni

61. URL starter: HTTPURL stands for Uniform Resource Locator, the symbolic Internet address for an object such as a file or webpage.  HTTP stands for HyperText Transport Protocol, the rules that govern the transfer of copies of Hypermedia (e.g. web pages) across the Internet.   Note that HTTP is not the only URL "starter".  See 3D for a clecho.

62. Spy-fi country: USSR.  All that "spy-fi stuff" came to an end on December 26, 1991, the day the Soviet Union fell.  And if you believe that, perhaps I can interest you in a bridge I own in New York.

Down:

1. Grad: ALUM.
 
2. Gloria Estefan's birthplace: CUBAGloria Estefan (Spanish: [ˈɡloɾja esˈtefan]; born Gloria María Milagrosa Fajardo García; 1 September 1957) is a Cuban and American singer, actress, and businesswoman. She has been married to Emilio Estefan Gómez since 1978.  A contralto (hand up if you can name a pop music soprano?), Gloria started her career as the lead singer in the group Miami Latin Boys, which later became known as Miami Sound Machine.  Here's her breakout song "Conga" (lyrics):


3. ISP option: DSLPet peeve: as used in crossword puzzles, the term ISP (Internet Service Provider) is very ambiguous. Today it was filled with DSL, tomorrow it could be AOL.  The two are very different however. The latter is a service that the customer actually "sees", whereas the former provides its services "under the covers".  As it turns out, it takes 7 different types of hierarchically layered services to move information from point A to point B on the Internet. These services are commonly described by the OSI Model defined by the International Standards Organization.  Here's the big picture:
ISO/OSI Model

Roughly speaking DSL (Digital Subscriber Line)  is a service of OSI Layer 2 near the bottom and AOL (America OnLine) is a service of Layers 5-7 at the top.  If you're a real techno-masochist, watch this for more info (6 min).

4. "Things'll turn around, you'll see": CHIN UP.  Or as my Mom would say "Stiff upper lip!"

5. Showed respect, in a way: BOWED.

6. Sherlock's sister, per a 2020 Netflix film: ENOLAEnola Holmes is a 2020 mystery film based on the first book in the young adult fiction series of the same name, The Case of the Missing Marquess by Nancy Springer.  I've not seen the film, as we're still waiting for the flick's revenues to fall and for Netflix to DROP it on Prime.  Here's the trailer:



7. Caribou kin: ELK.  If it has an S on the end then it's a bunch of old guys sitting around drinking beer in a lodge.

8. Pt. of GPS: SYSGlobal Positioning System.  Hand up if you travel without one of these?

9. "Just Putting It Out There" comedian Nancherla: APARNA Aparna Nancherla (born August 22, 1982) is an American comedian and actress of Indian descent. She has appeared on Inside Amy Schumer and has written for Late Night with Seth Meyers, and Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell.  Here is "(Some of) The Best of Aparna Nancherla" (8:34 min):



10. Score keeper?: MUSIC STAND.  Cute.

11. Patti known as the "Godmother of Punk": SMITH.   Patricia Lee Smith (born December 30, 1946) is an American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and poet who became an influential member of the New York City punk rock movement with her 1975 debut album Horses.  One of her best known songs, Because the Night, was co-written with Bruce Springsteen, and released on her album Easter: (lyrics):



12. Clods: OAFS.

13. Place for pampering: SPA.

17. Ice cream holder: CONE.

21. Word in many Wi-Fi network names: GUEST.  E.g. if you're staying in a hotel.  Wi-Fi provides internet services at OSI Layers 1-2 (see 3D)

22. Intel collector: SPY.

23. Luxury vessel: YACHT

24. La __ Tar Pits: BREA.  More Spanish.  La Brea Tar Pits and Museum is an active paleontological research site in urban Los Angeles. Hancock Park was formed around a group of tar pits where natural asphalt (also called asphaltum, bitumen, pitch, or tar; brea in Spanish) has seeped up from the ground for tens of thousands of years. Over many centuries, the tar preserved the bones of trapped animals. The George C. Page Museum is dedicated to researching the tar pits and displaying specimens from the animals that died there. La Brea Tar Pits is a registered National Natural Landmark.  Below a Saber-tooth cat is attacking a Dire Wolf trapped in the mire.  The tiger will probably be caught in the pit too before it's all over.
 
Saber-tooth tiger
Dire Wolf


25. Did the breaststroke, e.g.: SWAM.  Diner, "What's this fly doing in my soup?".  Waiter, "Looks like the breaststroke sir."

26. "Voilà!": TADA.

27. Outrageous, as a price: EXORBITANT.  For example, the price of a gallon of gasoline these days.

30. Like the Beyond Burger: VEGAN.  Well McDonald's is selling them and Kim Kardashian is their Chief Taste Consultant, so they must be good!

31. Curling surface: ICEEverything you want to know about this slippery sport.  It sounds confusing.

33. Sad: BLUE.

34. Back talk: SASS.  You can do this in the Comments: section below.

36. Noses around: PRIES.  Looking for intel no doubt.

37. Wee bit: IOTA.

41. Negroni need: GINA Negroni is an Italian cocktail, made of one part gin, one part vermouth rosso and one part Campari, garnished with orange peel. It is considered an aperitivo. A traditionally made Negroni is stirred, not shaken; it is built over ice in an old-fashioned or rocks glass and garnished with a slice of orange.
Negroni

43. Family vacay, perhaps: RV TRIP.

44. "Molto __!": BENE.  Very good!  Today's Italian lesson.

45. Had done, as a portrait: SAT FOR.

46. Diet-friendly: LO FAT.

47. Comes out, as an album: DROPS.  We use this to describe the arrival of a new streaming series or episode.  DNK this usage originated with albums.

48. __ tag: LASER.

49. Namesake of a speed ratio: MACHErnst Mach (/mɑːx/ MAHKH; 18 February 1838 – 19 February 1916) was a Moravian-born Austrian physicist and philosopher, who contributed to the physics of shock waves. The ratio of one's speed to that of sound is named the Mach number in his honour.
Ernst Mach

51. List that may be accessed by scanning a QR code: MENU.  The usage of these has increased as a result of the pandemic.  If you live in the vicinity of Rockaway, NY and have a yen for Irish food, try the QR code in this link (above the  SCAN ME  bar).  Just scan it with Google Lens or iPhone Live Text and see what you get.

52. One of a kind: UNIT

53. Rx writers: MDS.  Let's C?  CSO's to inanehiker and Ray - O.  Anyone else?

55. PC core: CPU. Central Processing Unit, the component of a computer that actually processes the machine instructions in a program or app.

56. Grammy winners __ Lonely Boys: LOSLos Lonely Boys are an American musical group from San Angelo, Texas, who had their first hit nearly twenty years ago.  They play a style of music they call "Texican Rock n' Roll," combining elements of rock and roll, Texas blues, brown-eyed soul, country, and Tejano.  Here's their song Heaven (lyrics)


 
Guitarist Henry Garza wrote the lyrics and in his own words he states,“Losing a son, when I was 18 years old. That’s where the music comes from, deep inside. What God has entrusted us with is to make the music".

57. "As I see it" shorthand: IMO or sometimes IMHO.  As I see it, I've certainly got a lot to be humble about.

waseeley

And thanks as always to Teri for proof reading and constructive suggestions.

Cheers,
Bill

Emma, you are invited to post anything you'd like to share about this puzzle, its evolution, the theme, or whatever in the Comments section.  We'd love to hear from you.  Perhaps you could even share a bit about the Higgs Boson.

43 comments:

Subgenius said...

The gimmick of this puzzle was easy to suss. Of course, I didn't know "Aparna" but got it through ESP. The same goes for "RV trip." And it's interesting that "music stand", a long, tricky solve, was apparently not part of the theme. But on the whole,, it was a very doable puzzle. FIR, so I'm happy.

OwenKL said...

FIRight. Fairly easy for this far into the week.
Theme was also easy to see right from the first themer. A letter dropped, the second themer clinched that it was R.

A new-car price may seem EXORBITANT,
Are you buying a car, or blanched elephant?
But it comes, as well,
With that new-car smell,
An aroma most people find poignant!

Of a PIE CHART, Euclid and Pythagores
Mostly agreed on points A, B, C.
But at a circle's circump.,
Each thought the other a dunce,
Which led to a PI CHAT melee!

{A-, B+.}

desper-otto said...

Good morning!

Yay. D-o got the theme. Boo. D-o missed the reveal...again. Twasn't a WOK in the Park, but it all came together quickly. Nice, Emma. Very technical expo, Waseeley. Reminds me of the old Novell Network courses back in the '90s -- chock full of useless information. Interesting Jane Austen illustration, Bill. I guess "Center" is to affirm that she's the person in mid-frame, not the portly creature behind her and to her right. Do they really spell it CentER? CanadianEh! shudders to think of it.

desper-otto said...

Aha, I see it's spelled "Centre" in the placard on the wall. I'm guessing that's not actually Jane Austen.

KS said...

FIR. Several solves had help from perps. As a resident of the south, I love grits, but have never had shrimp and grits. New to me.

Lemonade714 said...

Fun puzzle and write-up. Thank you Emma and Bill. It is too bad there aren't any photographs of Jane, but I would guess they chose an appropriate model.

Your soprano comment led me to this WIKI LINK . Having 0 musical ability or insight I just add it for the conversation. Be well all and keep on Boomer.

Yellowrocks said...

FIR w/o lookups or red letters. Fast for a Thursday with a slight pause in TX.I doubted LOS crossing USSR, but there seemed to be no other choices.
AMA and APARNA were ESP. A few answers were filled in before I got to them. AOL before DSL.
ICE, hello Tin Man. We would love to hear from you.
My nephew is employed by UPENN and has worked in CERN on the Large Hadron Collider project. Although he used to make frequent trips there, he has not gone there or mentioned it lately.
I read that for "Keep your chin up," in the UK they say, "Keep you pecker up." Obviously, not widely used in the USA.,
Vegan burgers, chicken hot dogs? I'll pass. I don't care for cooked cereal or grits. I'd never make it as a southerner. I do like hush puppies.
Favorite was score keeper/music stand.
I forgot what Negroni was until I perped GIN.
Zoom meeting with Alan's care team today.

Unknown said...

Thanks for the nice review, Bill!

Patti (and her assistant Christina) went back and forth with me a few times on these themers and fill, so thanks to both of them for their help. Some other theme entries considered at various points: GREEN BEETS (Oddly colored vegetables?), DAFT DODGER (LA ballplayer in la-la land?), OLIVE TWIST (Unusual cocktail garnish?), ENGLISH HON (Bae from across the pond?), and HEAT ATTACK (Sudden onset of sweltering weather?).

I submitted my final version of the grid a couple months ago, so the oddest thing about seeing the puzzle in print is trying to remember which clues I wrote and which the editor changed. For the most part I think any changes are improvements and I appreciate Patti making me look good. I wish there was a question mark after the clue for UNIT, but that clue is so much more interesting than what I had anyway I'm just happy they changed it. Along those same lines, the clue for ELK made me smile and was definitely a step up from the regular [Antlered animal] that I had.

I'm new to this blog... what does FIR mean?

Thanks everyone!
Emma

ATLGranny said...

I agree that today's puzzle seemed surprisingly easy for a Thursday FIR. Plus the theme was obvious with the second themer, though R OUT was a surprise reveal. A fun way to describe a missing R. Thanks, Emma. Come back often.

Thanks, waseeley (and Teri) for the richly embellished review. For a change I understood the fill before reading the blog, but appreciated all the extras you provided.

My WOs were due to NCP (Not Checking Perps) before writing. For example, I was gLUm before I turned BLUE, and for some reason I was convinced APARNA was going to be Andrew! Oh well, easily corrected.

Shrimp and GRITS, yum! I make that occasionally. Time to buy some shrimp again. Hope you all have a satisfying day!

waseeley said...

Lemony @7:43 AM Thanks for that soprano list. I sit corrected!

waseeley said...

Emma Oxford @7:53 AM FIR stands for Finished it Right as opposed to FIW (Finished it Wrong), DNF (Did Not Finish), or TITT (Threw in the Towel). Here is some more argot you'll see around the Corner. Please visit us whenever you can. This is a very interesting place.

Anonymous said...

Took 6:10 today for me to let the r out.

Didn't know "Aparna," "Bene," or "Enola."

Good puzzle. Well done, Emma.

Jinx in Norfolk said...

FIR, but erased rot for MAR, did i for CAN I, and no fat for LO FAT. The last one delayed me all morning while I, of all people, struggled to get RV TRIP and my CSO. THAT V8 can was the industrial-size quart can, and hurt when it finally bounced off my head.

My DIL has a severe allergy to BEE stings. She found out as an adult when a single sting almost killed her. She carries an EpiPen at all times now. She's not phobic, just realistic.

I have a great mesh network WiFi with very fast cable access, and I have a GUEST logon for visitors. Gives them good access and keeps them out of where they shouldn't be.

Thanks to Emma for the fun puzzle, and for checking in here. And thanks to Bill for the fine tour. Along with the bridge you offer, you might want to market some Ocean Front Property in Arizona.

waseeley said...

Jinx @ 8:47 AM Thanks for the link Jinx. Strait is bound to roll around in some future puzzle and I've bookmarked that song.

CrossEyedDave said...

Rout?

Here ya go Anon-T,
I saved you the trouble .
(Month Python Trojan Rabbit)

Irish Miss said...

Good Morning:

This was an easier than a usual Thursday due to the obviousness of the theme, but that didn’t detract from the enjoyable solve. Only a few unknowns to contend with, I.e., Aparna and, as clued, TBS and Los. I’ve heard of The Last O.G. but had not idea what it was about or what O.G stood for, let alone what network it was on. I liked all of the themers but felt Devil on one’s shoulder=Close Fiend was not quite as strong as the others. This type of puzzle doesn’t need a revealer, but Emma gave us a perfect one in the perfect spot. Emma also brought her A Game with Puma, AMA, Ala, Brita, Spa, Cuba, Enola, Aparna, Brea, and Iota. We were also treated to a mini-mini creature theme with Bees, Puma, Gnus, and Elk.

Thanks, Emma, for a delightful offering and for stopping by and sharing your thoughts (Loved the discarded Daft Dodger!), and thanks, Bill, for the much appreciated explication. If facts were food, you gave a a veritable Feast! As usual, a return trip will be necessary to see the illusive visuals and links. Thanks to Teri, as well. You two make a dynamic duo!

FLN

Anonymous @ 2:35 am, please join the Corner camaraderie more often, preferably with a name. I enjoyed your post.

Have a great day.

Subgenius said...

Irish Miss, if you like "anonymous" people to have a name, maybe you can help me convince AnonymousDNLC (aka Speedy Solver) to adopt some kind of avatar. He's so witty and intelligent, it seems a shame not to have some way to refer to him besides the monikers we've given him. What do you say? (I'm assuming "he's" a "he", but of course I may be wrong. That's part of the problem in referring to "him.")

Lemonade714 said...

Bill, that was not a correction merely a response to your direction to find the list.

Emma. please do not be a stranger. we have a fun time here as part of our devotion to puzzles and solving while making friends all under the guidance of the unstoppable Zhouqin "Ce Ce" Burnikel.

Husker Gary said...

Musings
-Fresh and fun! I was GLUM before BLUE at _ L U _ but it corrected easily.
-Even an obscure word like Apiphobe was given away by the prefix
-The Great Plains were also treeless steppes before J. Sterling Morton started Arbor Day in Nebraska
-“TBS once home to a sprawling scripted slate, has been retreating from the pricey genre for the past three years.”
-During the middle 60’s the Beatles could have had a hit by singing the phone book
-How ‘bout dat, an ENOLA whose name is not painted on a B-29.
-My iPhone uses GPS for this function
-Ping pong is tennis on a table and curling is shuffleboard on ICE
-A Class A RV fuel tank holds 100 gallons. Hmmm…at $7/gallon that would be…
-G_N – I wonder if there was ever anyone named Negroni who owned a gun
-Thanks for the visit, Emma! Even your discards were a hoot! Our HEAT ATTACK is ending here on the steppes.

Chairman Moe said...

Puzzling thoughts:

FIR with a red-letter assist; that is a feature of doing this on Across Lite that makes it easier to identify a mistake, than if I were solving it on paper with a pen

LIVEANDLEAN was my lone hangup, mostly because I had RDTRIP in 43-down. I waffled back and forth between NOFAT and LOFAT, but missing the "V" in RVTRIP made this solve a failure

I must've turned off the built-in timer (Across Lite) on the puzzle software, because the clock says it took me only 00:05 to solve

I knew the "R" was missing from the entries; nice to see that all of them were uniformly missing from the second word. I, too like "DAFT DODGER", but it would be an altered entry with the R missing from the first word

Liked the puzzle; certainly didn't know many of the words based on the clues given, but I feel I've exhausted that RANT

Bill S - you amaze me at the depth and content of your blogs. I KNOW how long it takes to do a minimal one. You have a gift, my friend

Mark McClain has a puzzle running @ Newsday today. Think I'll head there next to try and solve it

See y'all tomorrow; bright and early ...

Irish Miss said...

Subgenius @ 10:23 ~ I agree with everything you said and if I could wave a Magic Wand, Speedy Solver’s avatar would be either The Road Runner or, better yet, Speedy Gonzales. Of course, only he can make this happen. BTW, I would be very surprised if he is not a he, per woman’s intuition.

Misty said...

Fun Thursday puzzle, many thanks, Emma--and thank you for stopping in and chatting with us. And I always enjoy your commentary, Waseeley, thanks for that too.

My favorite clue was 'showed respect' for BOWED.

I usually think of ENOLA as ENOLA GAY, which I thought was a boat or a ship. Looked it up, and it turned out to be a plane.

NOEL always cheers up a puzzle. So does TA-DA.

There were a few VICES in the puzzle, if pretty minor ones like RANT and SASS and MAR. Hope they lead to a ROUT.

Owen, I loved your rhyming of 'poignant' and 'elephant.'

Have a great day, everybody.

Anonymous T said...

Hi All!

Fun Thursday theme. Thanks for the quick puzzle and stopping by The Corner, Emma.
DAFT Duck DODGERS would have been fun ;-)

Nice expo, waseeley - I enjoyed to OSI model and GNU references.
//Government Open Systems Interconnect Protocol [GOSIP] was the closest actual "implementation" [on paper] of OSI model and mandatory for vendors selling to Uncle Sam. Fortunately, the mandate was always waived 'cuz nothing complied.
Eventually, NIST sent out a "Death of GOSIP" memo in favor of adopting the ubiquitous TCP/IP. My boss at DOD let me respond to the memo on behalf of our outfit. I had to be nice but my feeling: "about damn time." That was in '94(?) and I wasn't even 25yrs yet.
Who let that happen? :-)

WOs: did I ->CAN I, Dr.s. -> MDS
ESPs: APARNA
Fav: MUSIC STAND was cutely clued.

{B++, B}

CED - LOL IKEA Trojan Horse. And only one allen wrench in all of Troy ;-)
Thanks for the Python - I need a laugh today.

HG - The B-29 reference is how I remembered Sherlock's Sis.

Misty - RUSH is probably not your cuppa... but Manhattan Project's lyrics: The pilot of ENOLA Gay / Coming out of the shockwave/ on that August Day [@3:03 - and who doesn't like an orchestra backing up Rock & Roll? :-)]

NOW NOW... Let's not put peer-pressure on SS. Like PK years ago, I'm sure s/he has reasons for not going BLUE just yet.

Cheers, -T

Misty said...

Thank you for the "Manhattan Project" lyrics, Anonymous T--I hadn't heard them before.

PK said...

Hi Y'all! Thank you, Emma, Christina & Patti for a doable and fun puzzle. No red-letter runs which is remarkable for me. Thank you, Bill & Teri, for an interesting expo.

Got the "R OUT" theme on WOKS which helped on the others.

Last fill was the CLOSE/CPU/DROPS section. Never heard "Comes out, as an album," = DROPS.

DNK: NEGRONI. WAGd an "I" to get GIN.

Liked the LOS Lobos clip. That type of ceiling reminded me of a very fun trip to San Antonio, TX with a side visit to one of the mission churches. It had a similar type of ceiling which I (into remodeling an old structure) stumped the guide asking about.

PK said...

Yikes! LOS Lonely Boys, not Lobos. Didn't seem write when I wrote it. I've known of them for years.

Lucina said...

Hola!

As a pun lover, I really enjoyed this puzzle! Thank you, Emma. R OUT is really good.

PUBLIC WOKS really made me chuckle as did PIE CHAT. I loved seeing EXORBITANT.

I'll take a CSO along with my pew mates at "group that attends Sunday Mass".

Dare I say that this puzzle has a decidedly Catholic leaning? POPE and the above mentioned group. All we need is a confessional and a priest for all those VICES. The CLOSE FIEND obviously kept them AFAR.

APARNA is completely unknown to me and it took all six perps to fill it.

LA BREA tar pits never ceases to amaze me for its repetitiveness.

Have a great day, everyone!









Unknown said...

@Lucina my original clue for SUNDAY BUNCH was [Group of friends who hang out only at the end of the weekend?], and for POPE it was [Famed English translator and poet] so the Catholic-bent is all on Patti! Although I guess VICES and CLOSE FIEND are on me.

;)
Emma

Lemonade714 said...

Funny.

Anonymous said...

Subgenius and Ms. Irish Miss: I appreciate the flattery, but you've clearly overstated my wit and intelligence. And yes, I am a "he."

Anonymous T: THank you for taking some of the pressure off of me (even though I really didn't feel any).

Emma: Thank you for dropping-by. I enjoy constructors' insights, even if they are not provided an advance copy of the published puzzle.

Monkey said...

Very satisfying puzzle. I appreciate Susan dropping by, and Waseeley’s write up.

I had rum instead of gin for Negroni, but soon changed it.

I also make shrimp and grits sometimes, although I don’t use the classic recipe, but my own. Not bad IMO.



Wilbur Charles said...

I never posted I see

I thought while solving that we had two constructors, easy one in top; tough one at bottom. But Emma went solo.

Re. Pisa…I'm leaning Galileo's way.

Having AMA and MOTTS recently helped. I was stymied for awhile in the East but it broke with MUSIC STAND and finally, the foreign to me, idea of GRITS with Shrimp. I was thinking qUEST might be a Wi-Fi word

PUMA was the mountain lion I thought but I had a hard time with the perps .

I hear POPE Francis may be stepping down

I was sure "Score keeper" would be baseball

WC who managed to FIR

Vidwan827777 said...



Thank You Emma Oxford for a charming puzzle with a twist, all of which I enjoyed.

Also thank you for your writing in the blog .... it is always nice to hear from the constructor, and all sorts of alternate clues.
Best wises for the future ... I could never figure out the Math for Particle Physics.

BTW, the Boson is named for an Indian physicist-mathematician, Satyendra Nath Bose, who was a prof. in Dacca Univ. now in Bangladesh. He is also known for Bose-Einstein statistics.

Thank you Lemonade, Thanks for the Wiki on Sopranos... I found 2 Indians there, one of them, Ms. Asha Bhosle', ...

... but not her far, far, more famous sister-singer, .... probably, and arguably, the most famous Indian female singer, in all of Indian music history, the inimitable, Ms. Lata Mangeshkar ... who died due to Covid, at 93 yrs old, early this year in February. She had sung close to 25,000 songs in 36 Indian languages ... and even in English, in Canada.

Thank you Waseely and Teri for a very nice and informative review blog on the puzzle.
I finally got the theme about the missing R from R-OUT.

Regarding your jokes, I remember, one ... about a book on .... 101 Ways to wok your dog ...

***************
An Englishman in Paris, found a large fly in his soup. He called the waiter over, and pointing said ... La fly !!

The waiter, more concerned about the correct grammar in the French, where fly is a feminine gender, corrected him ... Le fly ....

The Englishman peered, and exclaimed .... Boy, you've got jolly good eyesight !@!!!@

I am at a public computer, hence better stop.
Have a nice day, all.




Wilbur Charles said...

Ps, I really enjoyed waseeley write-up

Vidwan827777 said...


Aparna, also the name of my nephrologist, here, is another name for the more famous UMA and Durga and Parvati ... Hindu Gods and their female counter parts have many alternate names.

I was surprised at this rare name in a CW.

Aparna means the 'leaf-less one' as in a bare tree ... an ascetic who gives up, sacrifices herself, to bring joy to the world citizens. Wife of Shiva, equivalent to Zeus ...
Also a precious gemstone.

Ol' Man Keith said...

Enjoyed this one from Ms. Oxford, as expanded upon by waseeley.
It is probably a hit with me because I thought it difficult, and yet it collapsed under my repeated overtures.

I credit my wife with BRITA. I was stuck for a while with two wrong letters, meaning I was also stuck on two of its perps.
Janice to the rescue!
(For those interested in our Jumble site, she also inspired a change in my morning posting over there. Go see!)
~ OMK
____________
DR:
A three-way in opposition.
The central diagonal has five vowels and offers an anagram (11 of 15 letters) tribute to one of the great characters in the Commedia tradition.
I speak of the great...

"SCARAMOUCHE"!

If this puts you in mind of Queen's song, I have no more vowels to help him "do the fandango."
Ah, but if I borrow an "o" from the upper diag, he can contribute three more letters and, at least...

"TR(o)T" along!

Anonymous said...

Hi All. I have tried to become a member of this really nice blog, but it wants my credit card number. Not doing it. I’m Lizza from other posts.
Today’s puzzle I found a little difficult, that’s what I like, a little challenging.
Thanks so very much to all the constructors and the always great commentary. So very delightful. You put a smile on my face during times I would rather not think or talk about. Thanks so very much. Lizza

Anonymous T said...

Lizza: I don't know what's asking for your credit-card but it ain't Blogger.
See here for tips on going Blue.

Funny French Fly Vidwan. The maths behind Higgs'B isn't that hard [play with Schrodinger's toys for 'where'd the cat go?' giggles]

LOL DR, OMK. And, since Anthony Scaramucci put his face on TV, I can't listen to Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody the same way :-)

Cheers, -T

Michael said...

Part of the CC deep structure of the universe: Today's local news-themed advertising organ, had a front page blurb about a new restaurant in Corvallis, OR, which features as a menu item: Shrimp & Gritz!

PK said...

I was reading a book this week which featured a woman cooking shrimp & grits. Never heard of that before.

Lucina said...

When we first traveled through the South, my sister, Marge, immediately loved GRITS. I did not. Hush puppies were my downfall.

Lee said...

Concerning the fly, in French, LE is masculine, and LA is feminine. You may want to rearrange those reference.

CanadianEh! said...

Teific Thursday (I ROUTed twice). Thanks for the fun, Emma, and waseeley and Teri.
I FIRed and saw the theme. Favourite was PIE CHAT.
NO TADA from my newspaper though.

Some crunch with the unknown to me APARNA (the linked video is not available to me in Canada either!), TBS, LOS.
I had LO cal before FAT, glum before BLUE.
I required perps for BEES, but should have known API from Apiary.

We had AMA (I finally learned that meaning) and MDS (I’ll take a CSO for filling all those Rxs).
Curling is quite popular here. We had ICE and SLUSH today (in the CW not IRL).
We also had RANT and ADO, SOY and SPA.
EXORBITANT was a $50 word today.

We are cooler today. Beautiful weather for concert in the park tonight. But our power just went off (ACDC)- I’ll save and post later hopefully.
Wishing you all a great day.