Theme: AFTERMATH (60. Consequence, and where the ends of the answers to the starred clues can be found) - The last word can follow "math".
17. *Cracker topper from Kraft: CHEEZ WHIZ.
24. *Expensive travel option: FIRST CLASS.
36. *"Anything wrong?": IS THERE A PROBLEM?
49. *Constellation that translates to "greater dog": CANIS MAJOR.
Boomer here. Math whiz. Math class. Math problem. Math major.
The hurricane and its AFTERMATH in Florida makes me feel terrible for everyone in the Southeastern part of our country. I wish you safety and recovery.
Across:
4. Like dive bars: SEEDY. Our lawn in the Spring.
9. Letters near a padlock in an address bar: HTTPS.
14. Quiet speech syst.: ASL. American Sign Language.
15. More than needed: EXTRA. EXTRA! Read all about it!
16. "Home Alone" actress Catherine: O'HARA.
19. Gathered, as leaves: RAKED. That season is near. Luckily, we have an association that hires the leaf disposal work to be done.
20. A's, Jays, or Rays: TEAM. Or Vikings!
21. Suffix with elephant or serpent: INE.
22. Appease fully: SATE.
23. Beach pailful: SAND. Also our driveway. Still waiting for asphalt.
28. Actor Guinness: ALEC.
30. Shoe lift: HEEL TAP. Never heard of this. Of course there are a lot of things that I have never heard of.
31. En __: as a group: MASSE.
34. Opponent: FOE. Cleveland Guardians. Wait 'til next year.
35. Lisbon greeting: OLA. Spanish is HOLA!
41. Women's History Mo.: MAR.
42. Not new: OLD. Not C.C. but Me.
43. Ships' tillers: HELMS.
44. Monogram part: INITIAL.
47. Meat and potatoes: FOOD. Glorious FOOD! Hot sausage and mustard!
51. The Dalai __: LAMA.
55. Missing sections: GAPS.
56. Cardinals, on NFL scoreboards: ARI.
57. Quite a long time: AGES. That hasn't happened for the longest time.
58. Part of TNT: NITRO.
62. Solos often sung in Italian: ARIAS.
63. Small game pieces: PAWNS. 16 of them in chess.
64. Ball-bearing peg: TEE. Wooden summer golf tool.
65. Grown goslings: GEESE.
66. Easy running paces: TROTS.
67. Urgent care ctrs.: ERS. I have had a few trips in the last few years. No fun!
Down:
2. "Just Mercy" actor __ Jackson Jr.: O'SHEA.
3. Collect bit by bit: GLEAN. Play a slot machine.
4. "Oh yeah? __ who?": SEZ. I always thought it was spelled SAYS.
5. Former spouse: EX-WIFE.
6. Sharing a common culture: ETHNIC.
7. More in need of moisturizer: DRIER. Happy that Minnesota is DRIER THAN FLORIDA these days!
8. Red Sox legend, to fans: YAZ. Carl started his career as a Minneapolis Miller in the 1950s.
9. "Ars Poetica" poet: HORACE.
10. "__ teach 'em!": THAT'LL. be the day
11. Have cumulative negative effects: TAKE A TOLL. Some medicines.
12. __-game show: PRE. Too much TV. Just show the football game. Thanks.
13. "That's a shame": SAD. For those in Florida.
18. Punctuation mark often used in pairs: EM DASH.
22. Use handlebars: STEER. Or the wheel on the driver's side.
25. Hunt for bargains: SHOP.
26. Beaver State capital: SALEM. Cigarettes.
27. Bombards with junk email: SPAMS. We get it by the handful here.
29. "Da 5 Bloods" director Spike: LEE.
31. Ape: MIMIC.
32. Yoga pose: ASANA.
33. Thin neckwear: STRING TIE. Not my favorite. Never wore one.
34. Fleeting fashion: FAD.
37. Roves about: ROAMS.
38. Scat queen Fitzgerald: ELLA. My Grandma's name.
39. "Caught you!": OHO. Sounds like the name of a cracker.
40. Pandemonium: BEDLAM. I am sure that's how the Floridians felt while leaving their homes.
45. Sparkly crowns: TIARAS.
46. "Reckon so": I 'SPOSE.
47. Like a table at a romantic restaurant: FOR TWO. Order tea.
48. Point in the right direction: ORIENT. Used to be a Northwest airline.
50. "Aladdin" villain: JAFAR.
52. Banded rock: AGATE. Also where you lined up to board the plane.
53. Parking lot device: METER. Used to be a penny or nickel. Now you need a credit card!
54. Fire pit remains: ASHES. ASHES to ASHES, dust to dust. They didn't believe in makin' no fuss.
58. Remind over and over again: NAG.
59. Rage: IRE.
60. Abbr. in a high-rise address: APT. Not my favorite. Bought a townhome in 1997.
61. __ feed: online news aggregator: RSS.
Boomer
29 comments:
Good morning!
It may be time to hang up my crosswording license -- 3-letter month MA_. I could only think of MAY. D'oh. Also tried AEON for AGES and S'PECT for S'POSE. Wite-Out, please. Prasanna put a little crunch into the Monday morning cereal. Well done. Thanx for 'splainin' it all, Boomer.
Heel TAP -- They were popular in my ute, but not as a "lift." They kept the heels from wearing down so quickly. And they also made plenty of noise in the halls at school.
I had exactly the same difficulties as D-O, but eventually got through them. And I also agree with him that this Monday puzzle had some crunch. However, in the end, I FIR, so I’m happy.
FIR, but never heard of heel tap. Otherwise, an easy Monday puzzle.
Took 4:43 for me to calculate this one.
Like the earlier posters, I was unfamiliar with a heel tap. I also didn't know the movie or the actor ("Oshea").
Good Morning:
I agree with DO and SG that there was a little crunch but nothing serious. Jafar was unknown to me but perps took care of that little hiccup. I had no idea of the theme, so the reveal was a nice Aha surprise. The scant number of pop culture references and proper nouns was refreshing.
Thanks, Prasanna, for a pleasant start to the week and thanks, Boomer, for the, as always, colorful commentary and humorous asides. Hope you have a restful week.
Have a great week.
Typical Monday but CHEEZWIZ!! (Kraft food company taking the name of the lord in vain??) the theme was something else. (Social studies was my class AFTERMATH 😃)
Seems a Monday level clue for "Catherine" OHARA would be more likely "Schitt's Creek" Emmy winner. "Beaver State Capital" oughtta be DENver 😄 (yeah I know...it's called a lodge, but close enuff).
EMDASH? Isn't a HEEL TAP for "tap dancing"? Not a lift..WEES
Inkover: (like DO/SubG), May/MAR, aeon/AGES also aha/OHO (but never "oha" or "aho" 😏). Point toward the East: ORIENT.
"ASANA in the highest!" ... Everything I know about Yoga I learnt here.🧘♂️
A Grown Gosling
Controversial Helms
"Sgt Friday did you get my email?" "No, just the ___ ma'am.".....FACTS. ..
Mr. ED's surname....HORACE.
That nasty album just came out on ____ ...SEEDY.
What you do with various watercraft....SALEM.
For most kindergarten is their ....FIRSTCLASS
Alpha Male....CANIS MAJOR
Kid's stuffed animal...dolly ___.. LAMA
Have a fun week. and thanks Boomer.
9 proper names, knew 3, the others filled nicely with crosses. Never heard of heel taps as lifts. In high school we put them on our shoes to make them last longer. Didn't know emdash or Canismajor, or Rss
Musings
-I’ve always been a bit of a math WHIZ, who loved math PROBLEMS in math CLASS and got a degree in MATH and so the gimmick did stand out quickly.
-Golf carts carry bottles of seed and SAND to repair divots.
-The bridge/causeway GAP out to Sanibel Island is part of the AFTERMATH of Ian that has led constructor Ed Sessa to plan on leaving there
-We recently had Ovid’s Ars Amartoria
-Me too, Boomer! Just tell me when the ball is being put on the ball-bearing TEE for kickoff.
-Sure, you can park near T.D. Ameritrade Ball Park for the College World Series in Omaha, but be prepared for a surprise on the METER
Musings 2
-Today, the Omaha World Herald ran this on its front page about crosswords it prints every day. It had eliminated the very easy “Daily Crossword” by Jacqueline Matthews but now has restored it and kept the LA Times puzzle as well. The reasoning is very interesting and since you have to be a subscriber to get into it, I have printed the text here:
Readers, we heard you loud and clear.
Starting today, the “Commuter Crossword” puzzle is returning to the Omaha World-Herald. We’re happy to bring back this popular crossword, Monday through Saturday.
And in another move, we’ll resume printing the bridge column on Sundays, starting this week.
Both of these changes are based on listening to your reactions to our new lineup of comics, puzzles and other features.
Nearly three weeks ago, The World-Herald launched a streamlined set of those features — using the same lineup offered at each of the 75-plus newspapers owned by Lee Enterprises. For Omaha readers, that meant just one crossword puzzle a day instead of the two we had been publishing. The L.A. Times puzzle remained in the lineup; the Commuter Crossword (which our readers knew by the name “Daily Crossword”) did not.
Since the change, I’ve spoken with dozens of you and exchanged emails with many more. So have others at The World-Herald. As with any issue, opinions vary widely about what people like and don’t like.
But a couple things stood out. And based on that reader feedback, we’re bringing some things back.
First, lots of you enjoy the Commuter Crossword. People who reached out to me said they liked how they can do it fairly quickly, often over a single cup of coffee. Some find it to be generally easier than the L.A. Times crossword, which gets harder during the week. An easier, faster puzzle fits better with some people’s interests and daily routines.
So we’re going to add it back here in Omaha, while the L.A. Times puzzle remains in the standard lineup. We’ll publish the Commuter Crossword with our classified ads. That’s where we used to run the L.A. Times crossword; basically, the two puzzles will have switched places in the paper. As before, readers will have a choice of crosswords — or, for the most dedicated crossword fans, an opportunity to do both!
(Side note: the Commuter Crossword solution for the same day’s puzzle will be nearby in the classified ads. That should please some readers who prefer same-day answers. Other puzzles in the paper, however, will continue to have solutions printed the following day.)
Second, a large group of readers asked about the bridge strategy column we used to publish. Omaha has a thriving bridge community, and some of you were unhappy that this feature had been left out of the new lineup.
So we’ve figured out a way to bring the bridge column back once a week on Sundays. Look for it in the Sunday Living section.
As I said last month in a column — and as I’ve told some of you individually in recent weeks — we know that some changes in the new features lineup may disappoint you. But the money saved helps preserve and strengthen our ability to cover local news and sports here in Omaha. Overall, I think that’s a good thing for Omaha World-Herald readers.
And I hope you are as pleased as I am that we also can restore these popular features for our local readers.
Thank you for reading and supporting your hometown paper.
Math-maze Monday. Thanks for the fun, Prasanna and Boomer.
I started well, but bogged down in the SE. Fought my way to the finish (*see below re 47D), but arrived here to discover that I FIWed (on a Monday!).
I had HEEL cap (never heard of HEEL TAP) and failed to notice that 11D did not make sense with Cool.
But I did get the AFTERMATH theme!
Lotsa slang today with SEZ (yes I wanted Says), THATLL, ISPOSE. Yuck.
Aha changed to OHO. which changed Meal to FOOD.
Hand up for entering May, but then I noticed the abbreviation in the clue. MAR was correct.
ALEC was not Smart today.
*I needed Boomer’s correct parsing of FOR TWO to make sense of 47D. My FORT WO made no sense. D’uh!
Catherine OHARA is a Canadian actress, more recently lauded for her work in the CBC TV series Schitt’s Creek.
She would probably join me in wanting Metre not METER (but I know better than to expect that in CWs).
Wishing you all a great day.
I see that Ray-o knows OHARA.
LOL re that Gosling, a Canada Goose (without the messy AFTERMATH).
HuskerG- Good for the Omaha World Herald to respond to its customer base.
Many years ago, our local newspaper dropped the LA Times CW and kept the easier CW. There was such a hue and cry, that within weeks, it was returned, and to this day, both CWs appear daily.
In my Monday haste having MA for the month I inked MAy. And I read the neckwear as a STylING TIE, not taking a close enough look. FIW again.
I caught and inked over meal/FOOD and aeon/AGES
YAZ went to Notre Dame on a basketball scholarship
WC
NE corner gave me pause because I read paddock for PADLOCK! Couldn't figure out what that had to do with horses! Also, DNK HORACE or OHARA. Missed the first "Z" in CHEEZWHIZ. Got O'SHEA, JAFAR and RSS with the perps. Nice Monday puzzle. Compliments to Prasana. Thanks, Boomer for your comments.
Regular Monday level for me. JAFAR all perps. _RI had to be Arizona. RRS was new to me. S'POSE took a while to accept.
Not a fan of Cheese Whiz's texture or taste. It makes a gooey mess on a cheese steak. Provolone, American or sharp cheddar is more to my liking.
There has been a drastic change in kitchen and dining personnel here in the last months. For what we pay, we used to be served 5 star dinners. Now many of us leave a large portion of our meals on our plates. After constant griping from the residents, management is trying to remedy this. So much is wrong, it will take weeks to get back to 5 star quality. Last night I made myself a cheese steak sandwich with sautéed peppers and onions, the best dinner I had all week.
We are overrun with geese. Often a large goose will raise his head to act as sentinel until I pass by. Others are afraid of the geese, but the geese do not chase us. Just the sentinel acts wary.
I think of heel taps as added to heels to prevent wear, as DO and Sherry said. They were popular when I was a kid to avoid costly shoe repair. I don't think of heel taps as useful to increase height. The lifts for that are usually inside the shoe as insoles, etc. YMMV.
I had a Z in Cheez Whiz in my puzzle.
Alas, I didn’t know JAFAR crossed with ARI, so I didn’t finish, otherwise no problems, math or otherwise.
We have Canada geese that visit our little subdivision frequently since we have a wide green space with a water feature. However, when I go walking, I must watch out for the AFTERMATH of their dinners on the walking path.
WMOS, about slang and a bit of a crunch for Monday. Of the 8 names I knew 4 and had to rely on perps for 4. FIR in 17, a bit longer than a typical Monday for me. Very nice CW, thanx PK for the effort. Thanx too for the nice write-up, Boomer. In FLL we got lucky with this hurricane. Lots of rain, some wind, but nothing major. I never lost power from the grid, but was ready with fully charged batteries that would last all night if I only ran the small A.C. in my bedroom. Lots of stuff in the pool to clean out, but that too is easily manageable. I know people in Cape Coral that as of today still have no power or water. My friends in Clearwater lost power for three days, then only got partial power back. Yesterday I went to Slacker’s, the big Packer bar here in FLL, to watch my Packers barely edge out the Patriots 27-24 in OT. Rodgers looked bad the whole game. The Pats played their third string quarterback most of the game and still almost beat the Packers at home in Green Bay. Geez. Next Sunday the Packers play the Giants in London, and will be the LAST NFL team to play in London. Game starts at 9:30am. Weird time to be eating bratwurst and drinking beer, but I’ll hafta make the sacrifice, I guess.
I must ask when the new “editor” will do their job.
I guess it is a bit sad to realize the “editor” has no idea what a heel tap is (goes under the heel on the bottom of the shoe) vs a heel pad (goes under the heel on the inside of the shoe) despite any picture showing it.
As others have stated, the cap is used to protect the bottom of the heel/sole from wear, while a pad will raise the back of your foot inside the shoe providing a lift.
Even sadder that everyone here seems to know that, while the feckless “editor” does not know, or possibly doesn’t care.
Fun Monday puzzle, many thanks, Prasanna. And I always love your commentary, Boomer--instructive, interesting, funny--thanks so much for that too.
Little tough to find a theme in this puzzle, though maybe we did get a bit of a FOOD FAD.
I mean there was some CHEEZ to sate us, and hopefully it wasn't SEEDY. Wish those GEESE had given us some eggs to go with the CHEEZ for breakfast. That might have been EXTRA enough to SATE us.
But maybe we'll just have to settle on some music today, maybe some ARIAS performed by singers wearing TIARAS? That could be pretty FIRST CLASS.
Have a great week coming up, everybody.
Thank you Prasanna for a slightly crunchy Monday FIR and thanks for the review Boomer, groans and all.
Some favs:
9A HTTPS. Clever clue.
24A FIRST CLASS. I flew FIRST CLASS on AA for 18 months. Unfortunately it was during lunch time and the potato salad got pretty OLD month after month, but then the Manhattan made up for it.
31A MASSE. We had this last week clued as a forbidden POOL SHOT.
49A CANIS MAJOR. This BIG DOG has a SIRIUSLY bright star, in fact the brightest star in the Northern Hemisphere.
64A TEE. Clever too.
61D RSS. Really Simple Syndication, a web service that immediately sends you updates from participating websites. If you're not getting SATED with SPAM fast enough, then try RSS.
Cheers,
Bill
Ray - O @8:29 AM Wud'ja mean "in vain"? He was more than just a Whiz, some would say he was Omniscient!
Re MATH, this just in: the Babylonians, NOT the Greeks, invented trigonometry.
As you might S'POSE, the "sum" in my handle reflects my fondness for mathematics so today's theme made me TAP my HEELS. On that, I had already filled TAKEATOLL confidently so I didn't pause too much over the "T" in HEELTAP. Sometimes it's just a matter of luck as to which clues get filled in first.
CHEEZ/SEZ was my last fill. Took a while to work out the brand-name spelling with the perps.
APE - I like it when a common XW answer is used as a clue and we have to reverse-think.
Crunchy for a Monday. Maybe the progression through the week to puzzles of increasing difficulty isn’t the norm any more. I thought I FIR, but then saw my error at “Ses” for SEZ.
I still don’t get EM DASH - must be fumble brained today. Can someone ‘splain?
Thanks Prasanna and Boomer.
Wendybird @ 1:15. An "n-dash" is 1 hyphen and an "m-dash" is 2 hyphens (hence the clue "pairs"). I think of it as the letter "n" having 1 hump and the letter "m" having 2 humps.
Hi All!
Thanks Prasanna for a quick Monday run with a bit of crunch.
Thanks Boomer for your up-beat expo. Always fun reading after putting down the pen. You da' man.*
WOs: aHa->OHO, supose [sic] -> I S'POSE
ESP: O'SHEA
Fav: JAFAR - Not only was Robin Williams his brilliant self as the Genie in Aladdin, Gilbert Gottfried (IAGO) shined.
TNT made me think of Coyote. So, I like that too.
Unclefred - Your post the other day indicated you were safe & sound. Glad your new solar panels (and Packers) made it through too.
Ray-O: you never fail to amuse.
HG - Good on your local paper. Pop canceled his 'cuz it was all AP-Wire stuff and nothing locally relevant.
It's SAD, I threw that paper 2x daily (very much unlike the NEAP TIDE [insert EM DASH] oh, yeah, I lurked yesterday :-)) and now it's not worth lining a bird-cage with. //you could still wrap a dead fish in it... you know, to send a message. #TheresNoSuchThingAsTheMafia
PVX, Canadian, Eh!, et.al. The puzzles' editors (Erik @USAToday is doing it too) are aiming for a younger audience. It's OK. From puzzles, I learned stuff from way before my time - now I get to learn things from after I was happenin'.
DW & I, when dating, went camping... I took along a can of CHEEZ WHIZ & crackers for a snack. It was more fun to spray the (not) cheese straight into each other's mouths.
Cheers, -T
*hey, if the puzzles are going to be hep, I'm going to keep it groovy :-)
I liked this slightly crunchy Monday puzzle. Perps got me OHARA, OSHEA, HEELTAP, JAFAR, and AGES (vs AEON). Especially clever/enjoyable, I thought, was the cluing for HTTPS, FORTWO, INE, and TEE. Thanks, Prasanna Keshava.
Ray - O - Sunshine, I loved that photo of a Grown Gosling.
Husker Gary, thanks for that information. Thanks also for posting that info from Ed Sessa yesterday.
Good wishes to you all.
A Keshava PZL, brought home by Boomer...
Hmm. I know HEEL TAPs, but I wouldn't think anyone would consider them a "lift." I agree with desper-otto, PVX, & Sherry: their purpose was to prevent wear on the heel or toe of a shoe. They weren't used to gain height--and would have been a poor choice, if so used.
9A was my fave clue today. I believe very few of us are so observant as to remember seeing that lil' "padlock."
I use EM DASHes a lot.
This was EXTRA chewy for a Monday. Funnily enough, the one real gimme was HORACE, as I used to teach him to my grad theater students.
~ OMK
___________
DR: Three diags on the far side.
The central line yields an anagram (13 of 15) that tells how local restaurants nearly bankrupted my pal, Merv. Truth to tell, he was a cheerful drunk, with wine was his preferred dinner beverage.
It wasn't so much the cost of the bottles that did him in, as the hefty fees charged, per meal, for his many...
"CORKAGE STARTS"!
HuskerG @ 9:45 -- Thanks a lot for posting the Omaha Woo-Hoo's editorial letter. I forwarded their text to our local paper's editor, because we here also are afflicted by the Lee Enterprise's "one-mindless-decision-fits-everyone."
Dear Waseeley @ 12:16 -- Correction needed, IMHO: the Babylonians are the earliest people KNOWN SO FAR to have formulated trigonometry.
I write this because human prehistory is heavily subject to "Latest-Find-ism" ... Professor Twitchell has just found that Sumerians discovered trigonometry two millennia earlier than originally thought, so tune in tomorrow for the next "New!" episode.
Michael @9:33 PM Fair point.
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