Theme: ADDED (Parse it as ADD ED) (65. Extra, and a two-word hint to the answers to the starred clues)
17. *Teachers who demand perfect asanas?: YOGA PEDANTS. Yoga pants.
24. *Blogs and newsletters about raising a family?: MAMMA MEDIA. Mamma Mia.
49. *Lion or tiger in the National Zoo?: FEDERAL CAT. Feral cat.
58. *Ocean predator taking whatever comes its way?: MAKEDO SHARK. Mako Shark.
C.C. here. Lemonade had some computer issues and could not access his write-up. When he's back online, I'll copy and paste his writeup here.
If you have any questions, please ask in the Comments section.
Across:
1. Blood relative?: FLESH.
6. Like a WiFi-enabled toaster: SMART.
11. Storage acronym: ROM.
14. "Always Innovating" infomercial brand: RONCO.
15. Pointed, in a way: TINED.
16. AQI monitor: EPA.
19. High pts.: MTS.
20. Acrylic alternative: ENAMEL.
21. California's Big __: SUR.
22. Word with hot or fine: MESS.
23. Semi: RIG.
27. Gets: SEES.
29. Notable time: ERA.
30. Wickerwork: CANING.
31. Fancy-free adventures: LARKS.
33. Willing subject?: ESTATE.
34. City on the Rhine: BASEL.
37. Recital pieces: SOLOS.
38. Confirmed, in a way: UPHELD.
40. Farm machine: BALER.
43. Exactly right: SPOT ON.
44. Mike and __: IKE.
45. Inbox clogger: SPAM.
51. Mendes of "Girl in Progress": EVA.
52. Actress Cheryl: LADD.
53. Hägar creator Browne: DIK.
54. Area that's far from a strike zone: GUTTER.
57. Inventor Whitney: ELI.
60. Summer along the Seine: ETE.
61. "SNL" alum Cheri: OTERI.
62. Nightingale, notably: NURSE.
63. Sci-fi/fantasy publisher whose logo is a mountain peak: TOR.
64. Velvety garden flower: PANSY.
Down:
1. Young chickens: FRYERS.
2. Coin that's for the birds?: LOONIE.
3. Order from Captain Picard: ENGAGE.
4. Many a "We've suspended your account" text: SCAM.
5. Pandora's box remnant: HOPE.
6. Benchmark: Abbr.: STD.
7. Oppressive atmospheres: MIASMAS.
8. Per __: ANNUM.
9. Go back over: RETRACE.
10. XFL scores: TDS.
11. Like some skill-building classes: REMEDIAL.
12. Joins: OPTS INTO.
13. Treatments that many are prone to enjoy?: MASSAGES.
18. Bull on a glue bottle: ELMER.
22. Life guides: MENTORS.
25. Synagogue structure: ARK.
26. Shot not allowed in some pool halls: MASSE.
28. Came down hard?: SLEETED.
32. __ nothing: ALL OR.
34. After-school lineup: BUS FLEET.
35. Entrance: APPEAL TO.
36. Less liable to last: SHODDIER.
39. 23andMe's stock in trade: DNA DATA.
40. Quarrels: BICKERS.
41. Pseudonym letters: AKA.
42. Free: LET GO.
46. "Hoist with his own __": Hamlet: PETARD.
47. Unwilling: AVERSE.
48. Prominent: MARKED.
50. Compare: LIKEN.
55. Sch. where John McCain is buried: USNA.
56. Dull sound: THUD.
58. Custodial need: MOP.
59. Handy initials: DIY.
38 comments:
I don’t get how “entrance” is “appeal to “ but other than that it don’t have many caveats. I got the gimmick pretty much right away and that helped me solve the puzzle. One thing I appreciated about this puzzle is that there were few proper names, and those that were there were either well-known or easily perped. No WNBA obscurities for JW! Anyway, FIR, so I’m happy.
Subgenius @3:59 - not ENtrance but enTRANCE. One of my favorite clues for sure. This was SPOT ON for a Friday and easily the most enjoyable puzzle for me this week.
Subg - Entrance as a verb, rather than as a noun. Stress the second syllable. "Having lived all his life as a flat-lander, he was entranced by the sheer beauty and magnitude of the snow-topped Colorado Rockies on his first flight to the west coast."
Good morning!
Plenty of clever misdirection in this one, a Wechsler trademark. ENGAGE, because MAKE IT SO was too long. Was thinking fabric before ENAMEL elbowed in, baseball before falling into the GUTTER. Also wanted DNA TEST rather than DATA. But that's what Wite-Out's for. I only remember Cheryl LADD from the original Charlie's Angels, not sure what she's done lately. Really enjoyed this one. I agree with Anon@4:09 -- "...easily the most enjoyable puzzle for me this week." Thanx, Jeffrey, and thanx for subbing at the last minute, C.C.
Took 12:15 for me to ... [self-censored "ED" joke].
Like SubG before me, I was thrown by the entrance clue, but mainly because of the French word on top of "Tor" (whatever that is). Despite that ugly corner, it's a very good puzzle, and definitely the best of the week, so far.
Wechsler never fails to APPEAL TO solvers or provide a good puzzle with minimal A&E proper names. No GUTTER balls from him. I FIR but started BADLY in the NW with SPAM instead pf SCAM for 4D and ENAMEL as the only fills. I felt none too SMART. Then the V8 hit and Ron Popeil's Vegamatic and RONCO came to mind and the ADDed ED showed its face. From then on it was "Set It And Forget It" and the puzzle was on cruise control.
PETARD was the only unknown filled by perps today. EVA Mendes and TOR were guesses. LADD & OTERI I knew.
SMART- so lazy that you can't operate a toaster without the internet? That's DUMB. Put in a slice of bread; push the lever down; wait for it to pop up. But what if your internet connection is down? Do you go hungry?
FIR, but a bit of a workout. Got the theme right away, but still struggled with some of the starred clues.
FIR, but erased sweat for FLESH. My excuse is that I thought "tears" would appear elsewhere to complete the triad. DNK PEDANTS, TOR, MIASMAS, and PETARD.
Agree that buying a SMART toaster is dumb. Is there such a thing, or just Jeffrey-play?
CSO to C-Eh! @ LOONIES.
The average player will damage the table's felt if they attempt a MASSE shot. Good players pull it off by shooting almost straight down on the cue ball, curving it around an obstructing ball to reach the object ball. These skilled players don't touch the felt with the cue tip.
I just finished Fair Warning by Michael Connelly. Scary story about misuse of data from a fictional competitor to 23andMe.
I'm going to leave the MASSAGE clue and fill alone. The wisecracks are too obvious, even for me.
Thanks to JefWech for another gem. My favorite was "entrance" for APPEAL TO. And many, many thanks to Patti for not screwing up this fine puzzle.
FIW in NE as I failed to WAG EPA and settled for GETS INTO. No idea on ROM (duh, as in CD ROM). MIASMA must have clouded my brain. Still I should have grok'ed EPA for the monitor. EEO I thought was Equal Emp. Opp
Shortly after starting I peeked at the author and sure enough, Jeff W was back. Stiffer than his usual Fridays but having the theme kept it out of Saturday level.
Just as SubG posed the EN- TRANCE' question the V8 dropped.
The GUTTER Clue was great and a CSO to our stalwart Monday host.
Lemonade can be forgiven, even the SE coast caught some of Ian's wrath
WC
Jinx, MASSAGE Therapy is a noble occupation practiced by Licensed practitioners.
Now, there are certain parlors which employ masseuse but nobody in here samples their wares.
Tsk, tsk. However, the Mall in Ocala offers chair massage for $20/ 10 minutes.
Betsy is a licensed MT and the program and exams is rigorous. I was her "body" for the state exam. "All you had to do was lie still for 15 minutes..!"
WC
Good Morning:
Thanks to the ever-reliable JW for giving us a pleasant respite from the usual profusion of pop culture references. My only w/o was Slammed/Sleeted and I needed perps for Engage and Tor, as clued. Miasma is one of those words, like Ennui, that I like but never use. Spam and Scam are only a welcome duo in a puzzle. I liked all the themers but Federal Cat was my favorite.
Thanks, Jeffrey W, for an enjoyable solve and will look forward to Lemony’s review. Thanks, CC, for keeping us informed.
Happy Birthday, Pat, hope it’s a very special day. 🎂🎁🎉🎈🎊
Have a great day.
Too vague. If I had looked at the constructor I would not have bothered to try to solve. Never get Mr Wechsler.
Fabulous Friday. Thanks for the fun, Jeffrey and C.C. Hope Lemonade and all our Florida contingent are OK.
I finished, saw the ADDED theme, but arrived here to discover I FIWed. My chicks were Flyers, and the unknown to me RONCO was Lonco. Oh well!
Several inkblots. Hand up for Slammed before SLEETED, DNA test before DATA.
Misdirections with GUTTER, ENTRANCE, TINED, ESTATE.
I too noted SCAM and SPAM. NURSE crossing AVERSE created a rhyming pair.
Why does MAMMA have two Ms in MAMMA MIA?
I DON’t think of a PANSY as being velvety. Snapdragon or rose maybe.
I don’t want to rely on Wifi for a SMART toaster!
Yes, I’ll take a CSO with LOONIES. We had some LARKS today also, plus that Nightingale NURSE.
The unknown to me TOR could have been clued as Capital of Ont.
Picard got a CSO today also. HOPE he joins us.
We did not get to BASEL on our tour of Switzerland.
Wishing you all a great day.
ENtrance/enTRANCE/excellent
I learned all about Petards right here on the Blog!
Musings
-Brilliant! Any puzzle that starts with PEDANT and MIASMA, has four wonderful themers and clever cluing to the max fits my fits criteria.
-I remember RONCO’s Pocket Fisherman
-If a verdict is UPHELD by the SCOTUS, you’re out of options
-Note to our PICARD: Will you blog today? Make it so!
-Nietzsche on HOPE
-At-home “learning” during the lockdown has reduced the number of kids reaching benchmarks
-As a rookie teacher 54 years ago, I could have really used a MENTOR but my school’s philosophy was “sink or swim”.
-At my second school I came in as a 38 year veteran and was assigned a young man who was in his third year as a MENTOR. He showed me where the faculty restrooms and copy machines were and thanked me profusely for what I taught him.
-RETRACE – “Now where in the world did I leave my [insert anything I own]?
-All Or Nothing At All was a Sinatra standard and the title of an Amazon Prime documentary of his life
-Happy Birthdays, ladies! Gotta run.
Thank you JeffWech for a very EDucational puzzle. It was what every puzzle should be: with a FUNny, PUNishing theme, a minimum of obscure, hip P&P, and a dab of Shakespeare (I didn't, but should have guessed it was you). As it was I DNF for want of one letter I forgot to fill and had I noticed, might have figured out the perp, but c'est la vie.
And thank you C.C. for pinch hitting for Lemonade. I hope it was a problem with his RAM and not his ROM.
Some favs:
All of the themers which were double the fun. My favoritest was MAKE DO SHARK.
13A FLESH. D-O's curse. You caught me right out of the gate with a first stab of SERUM, but it didn't bleed.
11A ROM. Last to fill as I went for RAM right away and while it worked with REMEDIAL and MASSAGE, I couldn't get anything going with 12D.
33A ESTATE. EXECUTOR and PROBATE were too long and I had to wait for OPTS INTO at 12D to fill this.
26D MASSE. I remember that we had this clue awhile back, but needed perps to get the fill. Here's a clip demonstrating it. I suspect that it's not allowed in some halls because the downward cuing might damage the felt. A CSO to any SHARKS on the Corner who have a different explanation.
62A TOR. DNK this and left it blank. Here's their logo. The logo echos 19A MTS. TOR is also a synonym for a TOWER.
35D APPEAL TO. ENTRANCE is a heteronym of this meaning vs. e.g. a DOOR WAY. My undoing.
46D PETARD. Jeff's Shakespeare.
Cheers,
Bill
HBD Pat!!!
Jinx @8:02 AM I'm sure some college geeks have developed one for a LARK.
Husker @ 10:05 AM Nietzsche was lost in a MIASMA.
CanadianEh, Husker Gary, Jeffrey Wechsler What a wonderful welcome home from almost a month of travels to see PICARD in the puzzle and an invitation to appear here! Just back today from the polar opposite location on the planet from where we live!
Big Easy I totally agree Wechsler came through with a tough but fair puzzle without crossed proper names. Proud to FIR after nearly a month away from solving.
Here we were on Sunday along the SEINE, two days after the end of ETE.
At this point we were exactly half way home from where we had been!
Picard doesn't blog here. He comments here. I think he may still be in Madagascar. C.C. has the list of bloggers under the title "Contributors" on the main page of this blog site.
With Florida in the news, MASSAGES in the puzzle, and then Jinx's comments, I thought of New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft. A judge ordered the video tapes of the billionaire's "massages" destroyed, and all charges against him and 23 other men were dropped. The detective's surveillance videos were made illegally. The women involved had to pay thousands of dollars in fines and do community service.
Dash T knows about using the TOR browser for the Dark Web.
Hah !
Welcome back, Picard. A few minutes sooner, and... Oh well.
Hope you had a great time and look forward to your pics.
Always love a Jeffrey Wechsler puzzle, even if it's a bit of a Friday toughie. So, many thanks, Jeffrey. And C.C., thank you so much for standing in for Lemonade--a very helpful support.
Have a great weekend coming up, everybody.
Ach! I missed the birthdays. Happy Birthday to Pat and her DH!
Welcome back Picard. Glad you had a great trip. We HOPE to see more photos!
Hi All!
Again, JW beat me by one square: PaTARD | aVA. FIW :-(
Thanks, JW, for a fantastic puzzle. The theme helped me breakup the SW.
Thanks for stepping in for Lem, C.C..
WOs: N/A (I'm very careful w/ JW's puzzles)
ESPs: MIASMAS, BASEL
Fav: Even after it filled, APPEAL TO took a second for the penny to drop.
Happy Birthday, Pat & DH! Hope to see one of you at The Corner today.
Welcome back, Picard. A (not) Nice picture... You're in Paris.
Jinx - Currently, 23andMe are only selling anonymized DNA data for drug research. I don't doubt the data will be abused in the future.
TTP - Yep, The Onion Router (TOR) browser is on my 'hacking' box.
Anyone else binge DIY shows? I still like them but they're not your father's TV -- the projects today all seem either too big or require tools that a weekend-warrior can only drool over.
At $330, this SMART Toaster doesn't even come with WiFi?!? How will my iThing alert me when the toast is done?
Cheers, -T
-T, "Currently, 23andMe are only selling anonymized DNA data for drug research." That's the way it was in the book, too. But the bad guys got a backdoor into the DNA company's data base, sold the de-anonymized data to a licensed subcontractor for a drug company, who sold specific data on the dark web to a specific customer base.
Nope. DNF. I am often not on JW’s wavelength, but today was completely so. I’m embarrassed to admit that I couldn’t even CHEAT my way to finishing the CW. Oh well. Thanx for the terrific write-up, C.C.
I loved this puzzle for all the reasons you all have mentioned.
-T @12:32 PM Here's our rare antique SANYO Bagel Best Toastie. You can't buy these any more. It's equipped with the latest DTAD feature ("Dumber than a doorknob"). If you look closely you can see where I epoxied the handle back onto the front.
Hello, Cornerites! I looked at the puzzle online, didn't have the answer to the first several clues, saw who the constructor is and moved on to reading C.C.'s excellent write-up. A good puzzle, J.W., but over my ability. One of these years.
Thanks for the birthday wishes! It's been a great day. I've been spending time at the shelter with a dog who started out life as part of a feral pack. She got hit by a car, had her front left leg amputated. Nadia is now 5 years old and hasn't been well socialized so she's hesitant/afraid of people. I've been spending a couple weeks outside her kennel, tossing in small pieces of cheese, talking to her and trying to gain her trust. Tuesday she took a treat from my hand! Wednesday I got to meet her in a fenced play yard on neutral territory and she didn't run away from me. Today I took her for a short walk, then into the adoption room. After she relaxed a bit she laid down and tolerated me petting her! This has made my day. Dinner with DH tonight, we'll exchange cards and that's the extent of the festivities.
Have a wonderful day and on to October!
A "Meeting of Aces" today, with a Wechsler XWD meeting the analysis of our own C.C.!
With regard to 35D:
SMART as it is, I think APPEAL TO can be a proper fill for "Entrance" only in the very broadest sense. IMHO, it is not precise enough to be truly clever.
I certainly get that the clue is to be read as "enTRANCE." But I spent too many years in my avocation as a Certified Hypnotherapist to be willing to accept an APPEAL as a mode of entrancing anyone.
In technical usage, we speak of an induction if we wish to place someone in a trance; a trance may be induced.
In a more general--or conversational--sense, sure, we could APPEAL in order to get a person's attention, to ENGAGE them, as it were--perhaps as a preliminary step before winning them over.
But we would still need to charm them, or seduce them if we expect to to succeed in entrancing them.
Just sayin'.
~ OMK
I love JW’s misdirections, they make me think beyond the end of my nose. My long hold out was the NE because I had RAM for ready access memory. I should have read the clue closer. But finally got it right.
I wonder when “smart” bananas will be available. I never know when mine are just ripe to eat, but not mushy.
OMK, her sense of humor APPEALed to you, and you were ENTRANCEd by her.
FIW with PaTARD/aVA and TeR instead of TOR. I'm delighted to have come this close with a JW puzzle -- certainly no GUTTER ball. I liked all of the themed answers, esp FEDERAL CAT.
I have a LOONIE and a toonie left over from my trip this past summer. "Toonie" is just too fun! Hello C-Eh!
Welcome back, Picard! I HOPE trip was all you HOPE-d it would be.
Pat @ 2:48. Happy B-day thank you for your work with the shelter dogs! Your story made my day!
Thanks for covering, CC.
Welcome back, Picard - in 27 hours I'll be heading across the pond.
Happy Birthday, Pat.
Pat, your rescue dog story brought a lump to my throat. What a lovely thing to do.
Have a very happy birthday Pat,
You deserve a cake!
Thanks for the cake, CED! I hope the pooch will share with me.
Thanks for the kind words on my experience with Nadia. You can have the puppies. I need to limit my dogs to 30 lbs and under. Shy/timid/under socialized? I'm on it! My favorite kind of dogs to spend time with
Sumdaze- when Canada changed over from one dollar bills to a dollar coin in 1987, the wonderful loon on the back of the coin led to the nickname of Loonie. (Apparently the Royal Canadian Mint secured the rights to that name in 2006!)
Then in 1996 when the two dollar coin replaced that bill, we joked that it should be called a Two-ny. It just seemed a natural progression. We Canadians love our unique Loonies and Toonies (even if they do become heavy in the change purse).
Pat- what a wonderful story about the dog you have been working with at the shelter. Your patience and care are commendable.
Safe travels and a great trip, MalMan.
CanadianEh! That's a great explanation! Canadians have a wonderful way of being practical and fun at the same time! I used to live in Japan where they have a 500 yen coin (about 5 USD). I have to say that I learned to respond much more quickly to hearing a coin drop on the floor. In the US, we think, "25 cents (at most), not urgent". Knowing it could be $5 rolling away changes one's reaction.
Just catching up after a long P&P on the Saturday xword.
Pat you've made my day too. On your birthday you made Nadia's day. Hope she finds a loving home.
And CED with the perfect cake. Hbd
WC
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