Good morning, Cruciverbalists. Malodorous Manatee here with this morning's recap. Today's puzzle exhibits a wistful choice of themes for one published on a midsummer's day. As she did with her recent (last June 17th) LAT puzzle, at places within the grid our puzzle setter, Amie Walker, has added a letter or two at the beginning of common expressions and, thereby, created new and different expressions. In today's puzzle she has added two letters - BR as in "Brrrrrr it's cold". We can only wish.
The reveal comes at:
55 Across: Harbingers of lower temperatures, and a hint to the answers to the starred clues: COLD FRONTS. A COLD FRONT is the leading edge of a cold air mass. In the puzzle, BR is the COLD FRONT appended to the start of the answer.
The theme is applied at (starred for our convenience):
17 Across: *Lord of the grill?: BROIL BARON. Oil Baron.
Lord of the Grill - Stephen Raichlen
26 Across: *Some spring newlyweds?: BRIDES OF MARCH. Ides of March. Beware!
43 Across: *Warning words from one holding the reins?: BRIDLE THREATS. Idle Threats.
The balance of the clues/answers:
Across: 1. Furnish funds for: ENDOW. For example:
6. Sleep restlessly: TOSS. _____ and TURN. _____ a coin. ____ one's cookies.
10. Three-time Olympic gold medalist Devers: GAIL. One of only two women to successfully defend an Olympic 100 meter championship.
14. Jeweler's glass: LOUPE.
15. Dance that tells a story: HULA. What did the animal control officer ask the Hawaiian dancer? "HULA the dogs out?"
16. "Breaking Bad" Emmy winner Gunn: ANNA. Consistent with the current fashion there are many proper nouns in the puzzle. Depending on which answers you wish to count, there are a dozen or so. This is the first.
19. Wine list heading: REDS.
20. Small batteries: AAS.
Third From The Left
21. Subdivision divisions: LOTS.
22. Fake eyelash, informally: FALSIE. Eyelashes? Today's "I had best not go there" moment.
24. "No warranties": AS IS.
25. Went around: ORBITED. AVOIDED was briefly a working guess. Literally to go around (and around and around).
30. Borrower: LENDEE. Not too hard to suss out but a word rarely seen/heard.
31. "The Chi" creator Waithe: LENA. Unknown to me. Another day of the week it might have been Horne, Olin or the Hyena.
32. Text an embarrassing screenshot to the wrong person, say: ERR.
35. Pre-K basics: ABCS. The basis for a pop song.
36. Sports radio host Patrick: DAN. So many Dans from which to choose.
37. H.S. exam: PSAT. We sit for the PSAT quite often in our puzzles.
38. "Caught you!": HAH. OHO, the answer is not AHA!
39. Rip-off: SCAM. "This is an ugly word, this SCAM." - Carmine Sabatini
41. __ solution: SALINE.
46. "Please let me give it a go": MAY I TRY.
48. Pond plant: REED. The clue was likely going to be either pond or oboe-related, n'est-ce pas?
49. "The Ranch" actress Cuthbert: ELISHA. Another unknown. Thanks, perps.
50. Apple variety: GALA. Not an electronics reference this time.
51. Rio automaker: KIA. KIA recently adopted a new logo.
54. Skating site: RINK. THIN ICE was too long.
58. Peniston with the Top 10 hit "Finally": CECE. CSO to C.C.
CeCe
59. __-slapper: KNEE. Ha Ha.
60. Wed: UNITE. Not a dy of the wk.
61. How most TV shows air: IN HD. High Definition.
62. Tournament ranking: SEED.
63. Triumphant April Fools' Day cry: GOT YA. Crosses ITTY at 52 Down. See 26 Down.
Down:
1. Island in a classic palindrome: ELBA.
2. Comedy Central's "Awkwafina Is __ From Queens": NORA. Does she have to pay royalties to Pepsico?
3. Pairs: DUOS.
4. Big name in nail polish: OPI. This proper noun is now part of the Croswordese lexicon.
5. "Maybe yes, maybe no": WE'LL SEE.
6. "Oh, really?": THAT SO. Is it?
7. Sharing word: OURS.
8. "__ Pitch": Canadian web series about softball: SLO.
9. Bay city, briefly: SAN FRAN. The folks who live there don't usually take too well to this sort of thing.
11. Prime number?: ANESTHESIA. As in to make NUMB. This muttonheaded marine mammal initially missed the context. Thanks, Cat.
12. Not mainstream: INDIE. Usually used in a show-biz context.
13. Cut with light: LASED. Crossword constructors, and editors, love verbs that are the same in present and past tense - Cut, put, shed, cast, quit, hit, etc. etc. etc.
18. Capital known as "The City of Trees": BOISE. State Capital of Idaho.
23. Syllables in an incantation: ABRA.
24. Throws in: ADDS.
25. Black cat, to some: OMEN. Having passed on the Steve Miller Band possibility a couple of clues above, I shall attempt to redeem myself:
Howlin' Wolf - 1961
26. Meh: BLAH. 'Nuff said
27. "Queen of Country" McEntire: REBA.
28. Slowly but surely: INCH BY INCH.
29. Moth attractor: FLAME.
A moth goes into a podiatrist’s office. The doctor asks, “What’s the problem?” The moth replies, “Doc, let me tell you. I hate my job. Every single day I have to go but I hate my boss and I hate my work. I wake up every day next to a woman that I once loved, but I stopped loving her long ago. Last week my dog died. I don't know what to do." The doctor says, “Those are some serious problems. You need help. But you need a psychiatrist. Why in the world did you come into a podiatrist’s office?” The moth says, “Because the light was on.”
33. Harangue: RANT.
34. GPS lines: RTES. We never know if it will be Roads, Route, Avenues, Streets, Highways, etc. I love working with GPS devices. I do not love the clues/answers that they have brought us.
36. Tyne of "Judging Amy": DALY. The actress.
37. Begged: PLED. A robot accused of stealing his neighbor's electricity PLED guilty as charged.
39. Jedi enemy: SITH. A Star Wars reference.
40. Classic music libraries?: CD RACKS. In the age of Mp3s, Compact Discs qualify as "classic".
41. __ life: SHELF. Some items are marked with those dates that are overly pessimistic.
42. Accent piece: AREA RUG.
44. Gambled: RISKED.
45. Available on the stock exchange: TRADED. Hand up for first trying LISTED,
46. "__ beaucoup": MERCI. Today's French 101 lesson.
47. Unrecognizable: ALIEN. Used as an adjective not as a visitor from another galaxy.
50. Sheer delight: GLEE.
51. Work on a muffler, say: KNIT. Not an automotive reference.
52. __-bitty: ITTY. ITSY BITSY wouldn't work with the perps, I suppose. A musical moment missed.
53. Between ports: ASEA. Where we may sometimes find ourselves, metaphorically.
56. Low digit: ONE. The number this time (see 11 Down). Not (here) a part of the anatomy.
57. Artist Yoko: ONO. The last of today's proper nouns . . . and a frequent visitor.
Here is how all of this looks in the grid:
Amie, 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.
Well that wraps things up for today's puzzle recap. I am presently in Victoria British Columbia helping to celebrate two dear friends' 50th wedding anniversary. The scary part is that I was at the wedding. The temperature could not be considered to be cold but it is pleasantly closer to "brrrr" than it is presently in SoCal.
Have a great Thursday, everyone. And a great weekend, t00.
Once I got the first themed solve, the gimmick was obvious. And,yes, there were a lot of proper names, but the perps were fair, and, for the most part, they were either fairly common names or easily perped. FIR, so I’m happy.
Got 'er done, but my Wite-Out got a workout fixing STILL/SHELF, ANESTHEtIc, LISTED/TRADED (Hi, Mal-Man!), NICHE/INDIE, AVOIDED/ORBITED (Hello again, Mal-Man). The theme was obvious -- no reveal was needed, but we got one anyway. Enjoyed the excursion, Amie, and the explication, Mal-Man.
DAN Patrick: Also the name of the Texas Lt. Governoro -- a name frequently taken in vain at our house.
GPS RTES: "Grizzelda" responds pretty well to voice direction, but when she misunderstands the destination, she usually misses it by at least a thousand miles.
CD RACKS: There's one chock-full in the closet. I still buy CD's, rip 'em to my music server, and then off to the closet they go. CDs have better fidelity than the MP3s I could download from the web.
FIR, but erased debtor for LENDEE, light for FLAME, and toe for ONE. DNK GAIL, ANNA, LENA CECE, NORA or OPI. Won't know them next time if clued the same way.
I liked seeing FALSIE and ITTY together. There's an old gag that goes "Calista Flockhart chairs the ITTY bitty [breast] committee. Jennifer Aniston chairs the ITTY bitty [breast] pity committee." BLAH?
If it's a big subdivision, there are LOTS of LOTS. BLAH?
"Spring newlyweds" was clever, and it's interesting that the IDES OF MARCH occurs in winter.
ELISHA Cuthbert is Jack Bauer's only child.
I know Tyne Daly from her role as Cagney. Or Lacey.
I walk Zoe the greyhound every day on BOISsEvain Avenue.
My contact lens fitter got me using that SALINE solution in MalMan's photo. Turns out that using tap water can lead to an acanthamoeba infection, which will probably be Saturday fill soon.
Thanks to Amie for the fun puzzle, only tainted by the obscure (to this old man) pop-cult names. And thanks to our MalMan for delivering again.
"Loupe" crossing "Opi"? A lucky guess saved me. Neither were known. A foreign word crossing an unknown singer ("merci" x "Cece") wasn't a highlight either.
A surprising FIR today, but the perps and theme saved the day where unknowns abounded. Having the BR beginning was very helpful. Thanks, Amie. The cool theme is appreciated these hot days.
Thanks, MalMan, for your thorough and humorous review. I'm not as sleepy now as when I posted last night, but I'm still not sure of the context for ANESTHESIA and Prime number. Does it mean Main numb-er used? Otherwise, I don't have questions.
I see other early posters managed well with some of the same WOs I had. Nicely done. See you later.
Musings -Plenty of help on “ain’t no way” names -A COLD FRONT has descended onto the Great Plains and so we will play in 82F weather today -Earworm alert for TOSSIN’ -Those are not ten FALSIES on the amazing GAIL Deevers -Sorry, ELISHA Otis, the crossword world has its ups and downs -In 1998, #16 SEED Harvard women’s basketball team beat the #1 SEED Stanford -I might have left a bruise when I slapped my forehead after seeing number has a silent “B” -My GPS is six years old and so it couldn’t get me the correct RTE in a new area of Omaha last week -SHELF LIFE - my lovely bride throws out anything that is even one day past its “best when used by” date -Sadly, he turned down $416,000 and RISKED it all.
This was a very easy solve for a Thursday, thanks to the obvious theme, leading to a cute reveal. Coldness is usually suggested by Brr, though, but crosswords allow flexibility, which is fine with me. Mind you, flexibility has its limits in certain other areas, though, as I have often kvetched about. My only pauses were Lena, Cece, and Nora, all as clued. Those pesky proper names will get you every time! On the positive side, the very low three letter word count was noticed and appreciated.
Thanks Amie, for a fun Thursday and thanks, MalMan, for keeping us amused and informed. Your moth joke was recently featured on that other paper’s blog, but I still chuckled at your rendition Enjoy the cooler BC weather.
Good morning. Thank you Amie, and thank you, Malodorous Manatee.
Yay ! No typos today.
Unknown names were fine today because of fair perps, but ELISsA / SITH almost got me. SITs didn't look right for the enemy of the Jedi, but SITH came to mind as a frequent crossword fill.
Lord of the Grill - Stephen Raichlen - Nice choice, MM.
Bay city, briefly - My first thought was Frisco. Too short. Virginia Beach was too long. Oh, SAN FRAN. That's near where Otis was sitting after he left his home in Georgia. He was sitting on a dock if IIRC. Wasting time.
HULA the dogs out? - The Baja Men.
HAH ! I used my LOUPE the other day trying to find the defect in my new glasses. I just pulled it out of the box a moment ago to check the brand. It's actually called a Comparator, and was made by the Edmund Scientific Company of Barrington, NJ. So I guess it's not a LOUPE after all.
Same error of light before FLAME and almost entered toe for low digit, but checked the perps. That clues is almost always answered by one, two, or toe.
On trips to faraway destinations in my 1993 pickup truck, my GPS is a current edition of the Rand McNally Road Atlas. I don't think my neighbor's 16 year old brother would know what a road atlas is.
Thursday Triumph. Thanks for the fun, Amie and MalMan. (Enjoy beautiful Victoria BC. Will you have a chance to have high tea at the Empress or travel north to Butchart Gardens?) I FIRed and had an Aha moment when the theme finally dawned. Like IM, I would have preferred BRR, but obviously there are no words with that double R.
I thought I might need to RANT about all the names, but perps were fair (as it should be). Thanks for explaining numb-er. I was out COLD. More misdirection with that KNIT muffler (not on a car).
I had WE Might before WE’LL SEE, Light before FLAME (hi Jinx). I wanted OutrE but was confident of REDS. INDIE perped when I WAGged GAIL and ANNA. That could have been a Natick area for some folks. We have had OPI here previously. I had _ _ _ RACKS, entered a T, and then realized that I could not enter a number (prime or otherwise!). I really wanted 8 Tracks!
Wishing you all a great day. No COLD FRONT here yet, but finally a little rain.
I knew two of the many names, REBA and DALY, but none of the others. Hand up for LISTED:TRADED W/O. As long as I stared at ANESTHESIA could not parse the “numb”, till MalMan ‘splained it. Are you broiling something when you put it on the grill?? Anyway, overall a good CW, thanx, AW. I FIR IN a scorching fast time of 31 minutes. I didn’t get the gimmick until the reveal got me to go back and look. Clever, AW! Fake eyelashes are not what comes to mind when I think of falsies, though. Thanx for the outstanding write-up, MalMan.
Many thanks, Annie and MalMan. Have a great time! My sisters and I visited that area a few years ago and loved it. I'm sure the weather there is much cooler than it is here.
Ay caramba! So many proper names. I recalled ANNA from reading a review of "Breaking Bad" where it mentioned the actors. The surname GUNN stuck in my memory.
GAIL Devers was once a household name. HG, very funny re: ups and downs!
OPI is the brand of polish used at the nail salon where I go.
Sigh. R.I.P. my ex-brother-in-law who cut my hair for 50 years. He defied pancreatic cancer for about five years. He once told me he wasn't ready to die so I guess now he was.
Canadian Eh, tru dat on OPI. I did a blog search after reading comments about not knowing of three letter nail polish brand OPI.
As best I can tell, we've had it at about 5 times in the LAT in the last 5 years. I was expecting that I would find more occurrences.
I guess I remember it easily because I blogged a Tuesday Mark McClain crossword in 2018. The clue was to the effect of "Nail polish brand with a Cajun Shrimp color"
Dash T, neato. So you look at the WELD through rose colored glasses ? :> Mine is like the second and third images in this link.
I liked the mashup of Otis Redding's classic.
On my earlier comment about my Edmund Comparator... Turns out it actually fits the definition of a LOUPE after all. The google search on loupe shows one in the Wikipedia entry.
Nice quick puzzle for a Thursday- I thought the long answers would be slow to fill but after getting one with the BR at the front it made the rest easy.
OPI nail polish used to be only available at a salon - but now it's available everywhere. Interesting note - the company started out as Odontorium Products, Inc and was mostly a dental supply business but in 1981 ventured into the nail polish and supplies business and eventually dropped the dental supplies.
Close, but no cigar. DKN Lou?e and o?i. I'm going to need a clever way of remembering Opi for next time. Any ideas? Thank you MalMan for your write up and explaining Prime Numb-er! Thank you Amie for a fun puzzle! My favorite clue was 51D muffler. It's good to have a muffler when a COLD FRONT is coming in! AnonymousT @ 9:39. I second your recommendation of the Planet Money SHELF life episode. I'll be gone for a while. Tomorrow morning DH & I are flying to Calgary (Hello CanadianEh!), taking a bus to Banff, then doing a bike trip in the Canadian Rockies. I'm very excited! The most difficult part of the trip will be dropping off DD (Dear Dog, AKA Meadow) at the boarding kennel. Ugh! Catch you later!
Hi Y'all! Doable puzzle, thanks, Amie. Thanks, MalMan for making sense of it. Hope you enjoy Victoria, BC as much as I did. Butchart Gardens is a must see at this time of year.
Got the BR theme in time to go back and fill in the top two BRs.
DNK: GAIL, ANNA, LENA, ELISHA, CECE, NORA, OPI, BOISE. My hometown was known as the City of Trees, but it didn't fit & wasn't the capital. Who'da guessed BOISE? I got a novel idea for a cw -- NO proper names.
My brain is numb-er than last time we had this clue in a cw. I couldn't make sense of today's clue even after ANESTHESIA perped in. No problem last times we had it. DUH!
Lucina, sorry for the losses in your family. Sometimes deaths seem to come in bunches, especially in hot summers.
Google says:The main difference between broiling and grilling is the heat source. Broiling involves cooking food using an electric or gas-powered oven heat source (usually from above), while grilling involves cooking food over an open flame from below.Jan 31, 2022. Lucina sorry for the loss of your BIL. Pancreatic cancer is terrible. Please dwell pn the happy times with him.
Lucina - oh, pancreatic... That's how FIL went. Blessings to you.
Sumdaze - Enjoy The Great White North [Bob & Doug]. Calgary is just like Houston (we both have rodeos & oil!) but they're BRr cold. GLEE(?) your trip.
MManatee - I've been to Vancouver, BC (surprisingly awesome sushi!) a few times for CanSecWest. Take your time in Victoria. Oddly warm for being that far north.
I still want to go to Toronto (Hi C, Eh!) in hopes I bump into RUSH //silly scene - greatest band ever & I love they can poke at each other
And here I am, hours later, still refusing to touch FALSIES as a c/a. ;-)
Ta- DAH! But far too many proper names today. Just add up the complaints. Even when we know them, we despise them.
Otherwise, Amie Walker, this was a BRave PZL, thawed out for us by MalMan. (Thanks especially for explaining 11D. It was the last to fall for me, but I did not understand it until reading the Corner.) ~ OMK ____________ DR: Three diagonals on the far end. The main diag offers a quote for its anagram (13 of 15 letters). Imagine we are back in 1964. This is how the Beatles began their appeal to the host of America's most popular TV variety show, for a better time slot on his show:
Late for the party. Dental hygienist. Two hours of shopping for my BAE's ?? birthday. ... and straightening out a mess I created by ordering tires for my 2008 Camry from Amazon. We're trying to keep the geezer alive until Honda or Toyota ships us a new one from Tasmania. Has anybody had any luck buying a new car lately? Doing today's puzzle filled me with GLEE.
Thank you AMIE for a relatively easy Thursday FIR with a clever theme, which helped even me. I really liked the COLD FRONT you sent our way, as Chesapeake Bay country is in the middle of SAUNA SEASON. It's not always "The Land of Pleasant Living" around here ya know.
And thank you MalMan. I had a suspicion that you'd TURN up today. And thanks for a really COOL review!
29D FLAME. Sounds like what the moth really needed was a sleep therapist. Did I tell you've I've been waiting for 5 years for a replacement for my CPAP machine, and when it finally arrived it didn't work. Every now and then it would INHALE instead of EXHALE. It was enough to make me breathless.
37D PLED. ... but with diminished capacitance.
45D TRADED. Can stocks be LISTED if they're not TRADED. Where's Ron when we need him?
I wanted to stop by and say great puzzle and write-up and share the exciting morning Oo and I had on our beach walk. The waves were strong and the seaweed - Sargassum which is a brown seaweed, which thrives in ocean waters and is a habitat for marine life like crabs, shrimp, and tuna. It helps much marine life including our once threatened sea turtle population. Today as we walked along picking up the detritus of our beach goers, Oo spotted three different hatchlings trapped too far on the beach to make it to the ocean. Since we bring a red bucket along with bags, she extracted them from the sticky stuff and with the help of the nesting project volunteers sent to the ocean and on their way. Here is what we saw . We also saved a bear but that is another story.
Had to change MARRY to UNITE, LILY to REED, ROSE to REDS, AHA to HAH, and LIVE to INHD. I liked the gimmick of adding BR in front of common expressions, and I liked the reveal answer COLD FRONT. Yep, lots of proper names, most of which I didn't know, but, as Subgenius said, the perps were fair.
It has been raining off and on since last night and oh! how our dry desert needs it! I'll even defer washing my laundry until it's over. Most of you know that I like to dry my clothes with our usually ubiquitous sunshine. And though it's stopped raining, it's still cloudy. Maybe tomorrow. . . .
Sumdaze - thanks for sharing a bit more about yourself. I hope you enjoy your journey up North. Please update your profile and tell us more.
Speaking of up North. DNK the "Great White North", but it reminded me a bit of "The Red Green Show", one of Canada's most valuable exports.
I have a LOUPE designed specifically for mineralogy. One of it's features is a built in UV light that shows you whether a mineral exhibits fluorescence.
I've lost 2 close friends to pancreatic cancer. It's a disease that always seems to win in the end.
Lemony - thank you so much for your story about saving young sea turtles on the beach. It reminded me of Calypso, a rescue turtle who'd lost one of her fins out on the ocean. She found a home at the National Aquarium in Baltimore and delighted vistors there for many years, but eventually left us in 2020
Wow! Discussion about Canada today. Great White North, Red Green, Toronto, Rush, Victoria, Calgary, the Rockies (sumdaze - are you sure you want to bike in the Rockies? I hope you are in good shape . . . and watch out for the grizzly bears!)
Lemonade- great story about the turtles. Did you try to post a photo?
Re:: Kamala Harris, I wrote about her name, recently, ... but did not praise her. I was merely going into the etymology of her name. Anyhoo...
I knew ANESTHESIA, because its appeared before,... some language tricks you dont forget ...
At dinnertime, I asked DW on the answer to that clue, and she got it ..... after I had spelt out the first 5 letters ...
BTW, in our kitchen, we have a 2 pound Oval rock, of tumbled and polished, granite, .... with the following words Etched on it,.... Calibri Font, No less .....
GENERAL ANESTHETIC HMO FORMULARY APPROVED ...
It was a gift from Janssen Pharma, during one of the Anes confrnces, that DW attended. In the kitchen, we use the rock to smash and pulp the garlic pods and the frozen ginger roots etc.
I was also familiar with Loupe and Loupes ... I have several of them, with and without lighting. Thank you Anon-T for the magnifying eye glasses, I will definitely get a pair. I also have over 20 magnifiers of different shapes and sizes to compensate for my poor eyesight. .... Next I will need a prescription front windsheild glass on my car ....
on the CW ... Thank you Amie Walker for a challenging CW, that I completed and enjoyed, ... somewhat, .... the proper names were disconcerting ... but the long answers were easy ... and i did NOT get the theme despite solving the final answer. I couldn't think of the "BR" addition ... too complicated for me ...
Thank you MalMan for your instructive blog review.
Thank you, all, for the condolences. I had not seen much of my B-I-L lately because he and his wife moved in with his daughter in the northwest part of the city, very far from me. I regret now that I didn't make an effort to visit him at least once or twice. His daughters and granddaughters often posted photos of all of them on Facebook so I kept up with their activities that way.
43 comments:
Once I got the first themed solve, the gimmick was obvious. And,yes, there were a lot of proper names, but the perps were fair, and, for the most part, they were either fairly common names or easily perped. FIR, so I’m happy.
Good morning!
Got 'er done, but my Wite-Out got a workout fixing STILL/SHELF, ANESTHEtIc, LISTED/TRADED (Hi, Mal-Man!), NICHE/INDIE, AVOIDED/ORBITED (Hello again, Mal-Man). The theme was obvious -- no reveal was needed, but we got one anyway. Enjoyed the excursion, Amie, and the explication, Mal-Man.
DAN Patrick: Also the name of the Texas Lt. Governoro -- a name frequently taken in vain at our house.
GPS RTES: "Grizzelda" responds pretty well to voice direction, but when she misunderstands the destination, she usually misses it by at least a thousand miles.
CD RACKS: There's one chock-full in the closet. I still buy CD's, rip 'em to my music server, and then off to the closet they go. CDs have better fidelity than the MP3s I could download from the web.
FIW on hopeless Natick of LOU?E/O?I. Never saw OPI before
I'll make a quick visit. Anybody remember Annette Funicello as an early Mouseketeer?
I noticed the CSO to C.C.
HAH, Numb-er.
GPS routing can be mischievous. It's better to expand the map and pick your own RTE. However, GPS may avoid the hwy, fe , because of traffic
I inked Still life
Relatively easy for a Thursday
WC
FIR, but erased debtor for LENDEE, light for FLAME, and toe for ONE. DNK GAIL, ANNA, LENA CECE, NORA or OPI. Won't know them next time if clued the same way.
I liked seeing FALSIE and ITTY together. There's an old gag that goes "Calista Flockhart chairs the ITTY bitty [breast] committee. Jennifer Aniston chairs the ITTY bitty [breast] pity committee." BLAH?
If it's a big subdivision, there are LOTS of LOTS. BLAH?
"Spring newlyweds" was clever, and it's interesting that the IDES OF MARCH occurs in winter.
ELISHA Cuthbert is Jack Bauer's only child.
I know Tyne Daly from her role as Cagney. Or Lacey.
I walk Zoe the greyhound every day on BOISsEvain Avenue.
My contact lens fitter got me using that SALINE solution in MalMan's photo. Turns out that using tap water can lead to an acanthamoeba infection, which will probably be Saturday fill soon.
Thanks to Amie for the fun puzzle, only tainted by the obscure (to this old man) pop-cult names. And thanks to our MalMan for delivering again.
I see there's a LOUPE Sports card collectors app. And…
Boomer, did you see they're auctioning off the 1952 Nantle card? That was pre-Topps I think. I might have had it. Mickey and Willy were 1951 rookies
WC
This took me 7:53 to warm-up.
"Loupe" crossing "Opi"? A lucky guess saved me. Neither were known.
A foreign word crossing an unknown singer ("merci" x "Cece") wasn't a highlight either.
I found this one "blah."
A surprising FIR today, but the perps and theme saved the day where unknowns abounded. Having the BR beginning was very helpful. Thanks, Amie. The cool theme is appreciated these hot days.
Thanks, MalMan, for your thorough and humorous review. I'm not as sleepy now as when I posted last night, but I'm still not sure of the context for ANESTHESIA and Prime number. Does it mean Main numb-er used? Otherwise, I don't have questions.
I see other early posters managed well with some of the same WOs I had. Nicely done. See you later.
Musings
-Plenty of help on “ain’t no way” names
-A COLD FRONT has descended onto the Great Plains and so we will play in 82F weather today
-Earworm alert for TOSSIN’
-Those are not ten FALSIES on the amazing GAIL Deevers
-Sorry, ELISHA Otis, the crossword world has its ups and downs
-In 1998, #16 SEED Harvard women’s basketball team beat the #1 SEED Stanford
-I might have left a bruise when I slapped my forehead after seeing number has a silent “B”
-My GPS is six years old and so it couldn’t get me the correct RTE in a new area of Omaha last week
-SHELF LIFE - my lovely bride throws out anything that is even one day past its “best when used by” date
-Sadly, he turned down $416,000 and RISKED it all.
Atl, ANATHESIA makes you "Numb". It's the "Prime" method used. The more they use the NUMB-er you get
SS-anon, I wish I could guess that well. My guess was V
WC
Good Morning:
This was a very easy solve for a Thursday, thanks to the obvious theme, leading to a cute reveal. Coldness is usually suggested by Brr, though, but crosswords allow flexibility, which is fine with me. Mind you, flexibility has its limits in certain other areas, though, as I have often kvetched about. My only pauses were Lena, Cece, and Nora, all as clued. Those pesky proper names will get you every time! On the positive side, the very low three letter word count was noticed and appreciated.
Thanks Amie, for a fun Thursday and thanks, MalMan, for keeping us amused and informed. Your moth joke was recently featured on that other paper’s blog, but I still chuckled at your rendition Enjoy the cooler BC weather.
Have a great day.
Of 11 names I knew 2. Where 39 down and 49 across transverse I was lost. The clue for falsie didn't fit.
Hi All!
Bloody names took 1/2 the fun out of what is a giggle-inducing puzzle.
I did enjoy the theme and the clue @11a Amie. Thanks.
Fun expo, MManatee. Thanks for showing us who is who (BTW, GAIL is the 1st name encountered)
WOs: LOoPE, Goya(?) -> GALA
ESPs: OPI, NORA, GAIL, ANNA, ELISHA, CECE, DALY
Fav: The Aha @11d. Took nearly ESP before the V8 hit.
D-O: Lt. Gov Dan P is a [redacted - blog rules] who panders to the most extreme in his base..
HG - LOL Otis ups & downs.
Perhaps this re: SHELF life [NPR's Planet Money 25m] will change her food TOSSing habit.
Gotta run. Cheers, -T
Ah, the silent B. Thx.
Thanks, WC, I was beginning to get it and you confirmed it.
Good morning. Thank you Amie, and thank you, Malodorous Manatee.
Yay ! No typos today.
Unknown names were fine today because of fair perps, but ELISsA / SITH almost got me. SITs didn't look right for the enemy of the Jedi, but SITH came to mind as a frequent crossword fill.
Lord of the Grill - Stephen Raichlen - Nice choice, MM.
Bay city, briefly - My first thought was Frisco. Too short. Virginia Beach was too long. Oh, SAN FRAN. That's near where Otis was sitting after he left his home in Georgia. He was sitting on a dock if IIRC. Wasting time.
HULA the dogs out? - The Baja Men.
HAH ! I used my LOUPE the other day trying to find the defect in my new glasses. I just pulled it out of the box a moment ago to check the brand. It's actually called a Comparator, and was made by the Edmund Scientific Company of Barrington, NJ. So I guess it's not a LOUPE after all.
Same error of light before FLAME and almost entered toe for low digit, but checked the perps. That clues is almost always answered by one, two, or toe.
On trips to faraway destinations in my 1993 pickup truck, my GPS is a current edition of the Rand McNally Road Atlas. I don't think my neighbor's 16 year old brother would know what a road atlas is.
Thursday Triumph. Thanks for the fun, Amie and MalMan. (Enjoy beautiful Victoria BC. Will you have a chance to have high tea at the Empress or travel north to Butchart Gardens?)
I FIRed and had an Aha moment when the theme finally dawned. Like IM, I would have preferred BRR, but obviously there are no words with that double R.
I thought I might need to RANT about all the names, but perps were fair (as it should be).
Thanks for explaining numb-er. I was out COLD.
More misdirection with that KNIT muffler (not on a car).
I had WE Might before WE’LL SEE, Light before FLAME (hi Jinx).
I wanted OutrE but was confident of REDS. INDIE perped when I WAGged GAIL and ANNA. That could have been a Natick area for some folks.
We have had OPI here previously.
I had _ _ _ RACKS, entered a T, and then realized that I could not enter a number (prime or otherwise!). I really wanted 8 Tracks!
Wishing you all a great day. No COLD FRONT here yet, but finally a little rain.
I knew two of the many names, REBA and DALY, but none of the others. Hand up for LISTED:TRADED W/O. As long as I stared at ANESTHESIA could not parse the “numb”, till MalMan ‘splained it. Are you broiling something when you put it on the grill?? Anyway, overall a good CW, thanx, AW. I FIR IN a scorching fast time of 31 minutes. I didn’t get the gimmick until the reveal got me to go back and look. Clever, AW! Fake eyelashes are not what comes to mind when I think of falsies, though. Thanx for the outstanding write-up, MalMan.
TTP - I have something similar to these for up-close soldering work. //look at image 2 - rose colored glasses ;-)
I looked for Redding live and found this mashup. Beautiful.
C, Eh! - 8-tRACKS are Classic. I had Night at the Opera [$10?!?] among others I stole from Pop.
Back at it. C, -T
A fun Thursday but the overuse of proper names made me give this puzzle a cold shoulder.Brrr. Smacks of lazy editors.
Hola!
Many thanks, Annie and MalMan. Have a great time! My sisters and I visited that area a few years ago and loved it. I'm sure the weather there is much cooler than it is here.
Ay caramba! So many proper names. I recalled ANNA from reading a review of "Breaking Bad" where it mentioned the actors. The surname GUNN stuck in my memory.
GAIL Devers was once a household name. HG, very funny re: ups and downs!
OPI is the brand of polish used at the nail salon where I go.
Sigh. R.I.P. my ex-brother-in-law who cut my hair for 50 years. He defied pancreatic cancer for about five years. He once told me he wasn't ready to die so I guess now he was.
Have a fantastic day, everyone!
Manageable Thursday puzzle--many thanks, Amie. And always enjoy your commentaries, MalMan.
FALSIE made me laugh.
So the little kids learn ABCs, and the high school kids learn PSATs, all on the same line.
Fun puzzle, MERCI BEAUCOUP, Amie.
Yes, Wilbur, I do remember Annette Funicello back in the day.
Have a great day, everybody.
Canadian Eh, tru dat on OPI. I did a blog search after reading comments about not knowing of three letter nail polish brand OPI.
As best I can tell, we've had it at about 5 times in the LAT in the last 5 years. I was expecting that I would find more occurrences.
I guess I remember it easily because I blogged a Tuesday Mark McClain crossword in 2018. The clue was to the effect of "Nail polish brand with a Cajun Shrimp color"
Dash T, neato. So you look at the WELD through rose colored glasses ? :>
Mine is like the second and third images in this link.
I liked the mashup of Otis Redding's classic.
On my earlier comment about my Edmund Comparator... Turns out it actually fits the definition of a LOUPE after all. The google search on loupe shows one in the Wikipedia entry.
TTP - It was the Baha, not Baja, Men who Let the Dog Out. My spellcheck hates both.
Nice quick puzzle for a Thursday- I thought the long answers would be slow to fill but after getting one with the BR at the front it made the rest easy.
OPI nail polish used to be only available at a salon - but now it's available everywhere. Interesting note - the company started out as Odontorium Products, Inc and was mostly a dental supply business but in 1981 ventured into the nail polish and supplies business and eventually dropped the dental supplies.
Thank MM and Amie!
Way too many names and this has to be the lamest theme yet.
I was convinced the LA Times had printed the wrong clue for 11d.
Once again the Corner enlightens me (and saves my sanity).
Close, but no cigar. DKN Lou?e and o?i. I'm going to need a clever way of remembering Opi for next time. Any ideas?
Thank you MalMan for your write up and explaining Prime Numb-er! Thank you Amie for a fun puzzle! My favorite clue was 51D muffler. It's good to have a muffler when a COLD FRONT is coming in!
AnonymousT @ 9:39. I second your recommendation of the Planet Money SHELF life episode.
I'll be gone for a while. Tomorrow morning DH & I are flying to Calgary (Hello CanadianEh!), taking a bus to Banff, then doing a bike trip in the Canadian Rockies. I'm very excited! The most difficult part of the trip will be dropping off DD (Dear Dog, AKA Meadow) at the boarding kennel. Ugh!
Catch you later!
Hi Y'all! Doable puzzle, thanks, Amie. Thanks, MalMan for making sense of it. Hope you enjoy Victoria, BC as much as I did. Butchart Gardens is a must see at this time of year.
Got the BR theme in time to go back and fill in the top two BRs.
DNK: GAIL, ANNA, LENA, ELISHA, CECE, NORA, OPI, BOISE. My hometown was known as the City of Trees, but it didn't fit & wasn't the capital. Who'da guessed BOISE? I got a novel idea for a cw -- NO proper names.
My brain is numb-er than last time we had this clue in a cw. I couldn't make sense of today's clue even after ANESTHESIA perped in. No problem last times we had it. DUH!
Lucina, sorry for the losses in your family. Sometimes deaths seem to come in bunches, especially in hot summers.
Google says:The main difference between broiling and grilling is the heat source. Broiling involves cooking food using an electric or gas-powered oven heat source (usually from above), while grilling involves cooking food over an open flame from below.Jan 31, 2022.
Lucina sorry for the loss of your BIL. Pancreatic cancer is terrible. Please dwell pn the happy times with him.
Lucina - oh, pancreatic... That's how FIL went. Blessings to you.
Sumdaze - Enjoy The Great White North [Bob & Doug].
Calgary is just like Houston (we both have rodeos & oil!) but they're BRr cold.
GLEE(?) your trip.
MManatee - I've been to Vancouver, BC (surprisingly awesome sushi!) a few times for CanSecWest. Take your time in Victoria. Oddly warm for being that far north.
I still want to go to Toronto (Hi C, Eh!) in hopes I bump into RUSH
//silly scene - greatest band ever & I love they can poke at each other
And here I am, hours later, still refusing to touch FALSIES as a c/a. ;-)
Cheers, -T
Ta- DAH!
But far too many proper names today. Just add up the complaints. Even when we know them, we despise them.
Otherwise, Amie Walker, this was a BRave PZL, thawed out for us by MalMan.
(Thanks especially for explaining 11D. It was the last to fall for me, but I did not understand it until reading the Corner.)
~ OMK
____________
DR: Three diagonals on the far end.
The main diag offers a quote for its anagram (13 of 15 letters). Imagine we are back in 1964. This is how the Beatles began their appeal to the host of America's most popular TV variety show, for a better time slot on his show:
"LISTEN, BANAL ED!"
Late for the party. Dental hygienist. Two hours of shopping for my BAE's ?? birthday. ... and straightening out a mess I created by ordering tires for my 2008 Camry from Amazon. We're trying to keep the geezer alive until Honda or Toyota ships us a new one from Tasmania. Has anybody had any luck buying a new car lately? Doing today's puzzle filled me with GLEE.
Thank you AMIE for a relatively easy Thursday FIR with a clever theme, which helped even me. I really liked the COLD FRONT you sent our way, as Chesapeake Bay country is in the middle of SAUNA SEASON. It's not always "The Land of Pleasant Living" around here ya know.
And thank you MalMan. I had a suspicion that you'd TURN up today. And thanks for a really COOL review!
6A TOSS. And TURN. Sometimes you just can't get something off your mind.
48A REED. Wanted ALGA, but it was perpless.
12D ANESTHESIA. Fool me twice, shame on me.
29D FLAME. Sounds like what the moth really needed was a sleep therapist. Did I tell you've I've been waiting for 5 years for a replacement for my CPAP machine, and when it finally arrived it didn't work. Every now and then it would INHALE instead of EXHALE. It was enough to make me breathless.
37D PLED. ... but with diminished capacitance.
45D TRADED. Can stocks be LISTED if they're not TRADED. Where's Ron when we need him?
56D ONE. Well at least it's not a Prime number.
Cheers,
Bill
I wanted to stop by and say great puzzle and write-up and share the exciting morning Oo and I had on our beach walk. The waves were strong and the seaweed - Sargassum which is a brown seaweed, which thrives in ocean waters and is a habitat for marine life like crabs, shrimp, and tuna. It helps much marine life including our once threatened sea turtle population. Today as we walked along picking up the detritus of our beach goers, Oo spotted three different hatchlings trapped too far on the beach to make it to the ocean. Since we bring a red bucket along with bags, she extracted them from the sticky stuff and with the help of the nesting project volunteers sent to the ocean and on their way. Here is what we saw .
We also saved a bear but that is another story.
Damn you puzzle stuff
Had to change MARRY to UNITE, LILY to REED, ROSE to REDS, AHA to HAH, and LIVE to INHD. I liked the gimmick of adding BR in front of common expressions, and I liked the reveal answer COLD FRONT. Yep, lots of proper names, most of which I didn't know, but, as Subgenius said, the perps were fair.
Manatee: Great job. You will appreciate this ~ ANESTHESIA was my last fill this morning. My brain must have been NUMB.
QOD: The longest way is the most efficient way. ~ John Ashbery (né John Lawrence Ashbery; July 28, 1927 ~ Sept. 3, 2017), American poet and art critic
It has been raining off and on since last night and oh! how our dry desert needs it! I'll even defer washing my laundry until it's over. Most of you know that I like to dry my clothes with our usually ubiquitous sunshine. And though it's stopped raining, it's still cloudy. Maybe tomorrow. . . .
Hahtoolah
LOL!
Late thoughts on some random comments:
Sumdaze - thanks for sharing a bit more about yourself. I hope you enjoy your journey up North. Please update your profile and tell us more.
Speaking of up North. DNK the "Great White North", but it reminded me a bit of "The Red Green Show", one of Canada's most valuable exports.
I have a LOUPE designed specifically for mineralogy. One of it's features is a built in UV light that shows you whether a mineral exhibits fluorescence.
I've lost 2 close friends to pancreatic cancer. It's a disease that always seems to win in the end.
Lemony - thank you so much for your story about saving young sea turtles on the beach. It reminded me of Calypso, a rescue turtle who'd lost one of her fins out on the ocean. She found a home at the National Aquarium in Baltimore and delighted vistors there for many years, but eventually left us in 2020
Cheers,
Bill
Wow! Discussion about Canada today. Great White North, Red Green, Toronto, Rush, Victoria, Calgary, the Rockies (sumdaze - are you sure you want to bike in the Rockies? I hope you are in good shape . . . and watch out for the grizzly bears!)
Lemonade- great story about the turtles. Did you try to post a photo?
Lucina- sorry for the loss of your BIL.
Re:: Kamala Harris, I wrote about her name, recently, ... but did not praise her. I was merely going into the etymology of her name. Anyhoo...
I knew ANESTHESIA, because its appeared before,... some language tricks you dont forget ...
At dinnertime, I asked DW on the answer to that clue, and she got it ..... after I had spelt out the first 5 letters ...
BTW, in our kitchen, we have a 2 pound Oval rock, of tumbled and polished, granite, .... with the following words Etched on it,.... Calibri Font, No less .....
GENERAL ANESTHETIC
HMO FORMULARY APPROVED ...
It was a gift from Janssen Pharma, during one of the Anes confrnces, that DW attended.
In the kitchen, we use the rock to smash and pulp the garlic pods and the frozen ginger roots etc.
I was also familiar with Loupe and Loupes ... I have several of them, with and without lighting. Thank you Anon-T for the magnifying eye glasses, I will definitely get a pair. I also have over 20 magnifiers of different shapes and sizes to compensate for my poor eyesight. .... Next I will need a prescription front windsheild glass on my car ....
on the CW ... Thank you Amie Walker for a challenging CW, that I completed and enjoyed, ... somewhat, .... the proper names were disconcerting ... but the long answers were easy ... and i did NOT get the theme despite solving the final answer. I couldn't think of the "BR" addition ... too complicated for me ...
Thank you MalMan for your instructive blog review.
Have a nice evening, all.
OOops, I forgot to offer my sympathies and condolences to dear Lucina, for the passing away of her ex-B I L. Sorry, about that.
Thank you, all, for the condolences. I had not seen much of my B-I-L lately because he and his wife moved in with his daughter in the northwest part of the city, very far from me. I regret now that I didn't make an effort to visit him at least once or twice. His daughters and granddaughters often posted photos of all of them on Facebook so I kept up with their activities that way.
I know it's late late.
But please accept my condolences as well, Lucina.
~ OMK
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