google.com, pub-2774194725043577, DIRECT, f08c47fec0942fa0 L.A.Times Crossword Corner: Sunday October 2, 2022 Taylor Johnson

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Oct 2, 2022

Sunday October 2, 2022 Taylor Johnson

Theme: "Change the World" - One word in each common phrase is replaced by sound-alike city name.

22. Data collection in Germany?: COLOGNE SAMPLES. This one confuses me as "Cologne sample" is a real in-the-language phrase.

32. Boulder in the Czech Republic?: PRAGUE ROCK. Prog rock.

43. Census taker in India?: DELHI COUNTER. Deli counter.

64. Ancestry in Taiwan?: TAIPEI BLOOD. Type A blood.

71. Gems in Afghanistan?: KABUL STONES. Cobblestones.

95. Crooners in South Korea?: SEOUL SINGERS. Soul singers.

103. Serving dish in France?: BREST PLATE. Breast plate.

116. Cuisine in Ecuador?: QUITO-BASED DIET. Keto-based diet.

We've had SEOUL FOOD & SEOUL MATES in the past, but the other phrases are quite creative. Amazing TAIPEI!

As Husker Gary mentioned in his last writeup, Taylor is based in Minneapolis.

Across:

1. Mont Blanc's range: ALPS. Easy start.

5. __ and pans: POTS.

9. Urge: ITCH.

13. Vatican leaders: POPES.

18. Cheer (for): ROOT.

19. Estrada of "CHiPs": ERIK.


20. Grand Canyon animal: MULE.

21. Chests: BOSOMS.

25. Third-party account: ESCROW.

26. Japanese robe: KIMONO. The casual one is called yukata.

27. "Heat of the Moment" band: ASIA.

28. Step to the bar, for short?: LSAT. State bar.

29. Violin protector: CASE.

30. Former White House press secretary Psaki: JEN.

37. Smart __: ALECS.

39. Biblical peak: HOREB. Not SINAI.

41. Freebies from a party: SWAG.

42. "It's WonderWater" drink brand: BAI. Never had it. This word means "white" in Chinese.


46. ESPN datum: STAT. 91. Power hitter's 46-Across: RBI.

48. Hectic hosp. areas: ERS.

49. Egg: Prefix: OVI.

50. Sets (down): PUTS.

51. Declined: SAID NO.

53. Desolate areas: WILDS. Did you watch this movie?


55. Writes: PENS.

57. Short diner orders: BLTS.

59. Eye layer: UVEA.

60. Farm herder: COLLIE.

61. Start a golf hole: TEE UP.

63. "More or less": ISH.

66. Heats quickly: ZAPS.

68. Pastoral poems: IDYLS.

70. Garage sale caveat: AS IS.

75. Driveway surface: TAR. Hope to get the new driveway in mid-Oct.

77. Pushpins, e.g.: TACKS.

81. Battery-powered rides: eBIKES.

82. Place with nine circles, per Dante: HELL.

83. Bank deposit: SILT. Good old clue.

85. Cry of pain: YEOW.

86. Toyota subcompact discontinued in 2020: YARIS.

87. Beer named for a Dutch river: AMSTEL.



89. Rig behind a cab: SEMI.

92. ProFlowers parent co.: FTD.

93. "Barry" rating: TV MA.

98. "That's gonna leave a mark!": OOF.

99. ProActive Health brand: IAMS.

101. Window sections: PANES.

102. Priests with prayer wheels: LAMAS.


107. Sudoku fill: Abbr.: NOS.

108. Big name in 126-Across: TAZO. 126. Assam, oolong, pekoe, etc.: TEAS.

109. Raison d'__: ETRE.

110. "I got this!": ON IT.

112. Put on the right path: ORIENT.

114. "Sure, hon": OK DEAR.

120. Marketing gimmicks: TIE-INS.

121. State whose motto is "Industry": UTAH. Our state motto is "L'Étoile du Nord".  Minnesota used to have a hockey team named North Stars.

122. Post-gym feeling: ACHE.

123. Dynamic leader?: AERO. Aerodynamic.

124. Farm structures: BARNS.

125. Suffix with fluor-: ESCE. Hard to avoid gluey fill in a big grid.

127. Kitchen qtys.: TSPS.

Down:

1. Pop-up path: ARC.

2. "Check it out!": LOOK.

3. "Do not cross" area marked with yellow tape: POLICE LINE.

4. Handle: STOMACH.

5. __ alla vodka: PENNE.


6. Sweet sandwich: OREO.

7. Poetic contraction: TIS.

8. Reggae kin: SKA.

9. Mischief-makers: IMPS.

10. Dutch bulb: TULIP.

11. Nets: CLEARS.

12. Chaps: HES.

13. Entourage: POSSE.

14. NBA great Robertson nicknamed "The Big O": OSCAR.


15. Meaty mushroom: PORTOBELLO. And its symmetrical partner: 73. Backyard seed holder: BIRD FEEDER. Both great fill.

16. Motion City Soundtrack genre: EMO.

17. U-turn from NNE: SSW.

21. "Baby __": Raffi song about a whale: BELUGA. Helpful clue.

23. Scuttlebutt: GOSSIP.

24. Some Musée d'Orsay works: MANETS.

30. Uses a lance a lot: JOUSTS.

31. Sea eagle: ERN.

33. "Shoot!": AW SNAP.

34. Spanish cat: GATO. Cat is called "mao" in Chinese. Popular slogan in China in late 1990s.


35. Aerobic regimen, familiarly: CARDIO.

36. Barely touched: KISSED.

37. Vote to accept: ADOPT.

38. Flood preventer: LEVEE.

39. Catalog of personal favorites: HOT LIST.

40. A little extra shut-eye: BEAUTY SLEEP. Another great fill. Boomer gets quite a bit these days.

44. Ursa minor?: CUB. Cute.

45. Archenemy: RIVAL.

47. Insignificant: TWO BIT.

52. Certain people of faith: DEISTS.

54. "Amen to that!": I'LL SAY.

56. Japanese motorcycle brand: SUZUKI. Suzu= Bell. Ki = Tree/Wood in Japanese.

58. Rises to the top: SHINES.

60. Prefix with gender: CIS.

62. Least flush: PALEST.

65. Like certain monitor lizards: EARLESS.

67. Ltr. addenda: PSS.

69. Shoulder muscles, briefly: DELTS.

71. Unlocking device for a car: KEY FOB.

72. Nuisance remover, in law: ABATOR.

74. "Dang, baby!": OH MAMA.

76. Shopping centers?: AISLES.

78. Solemn rituals: CEREMONIES.

79. Brazilian muralist Eduardo: KOBRA. Learning moment for me. Wikipedia says "he has painted over 3,000 murals on five different continents."


80. Sandwich cheese: SWISS.

84. "OMG! Stop talking!": TMI.

87. International lawyer Clooney: AMAL. Very grid-friendly name.

88. Let use for a while: LOAN TO.

90. Like some tiles: INLAID.

94. Poisonous reptiles: VIPERS.

96. Card player's call: UNO.

97. Stared upon: GAZED AT.

100. Strong brews: STOUTS. And 104. Hofbrau mug: STEIN.

105. Prefix with gender: TRANS.

106. Room-sized computer unveiled in 1946: ENIAC.

108. Canopy makeup: TREES.

111. "Am __ only one?": I THE.

112. Workplace safety org.: OSHA.

113. Maryland athlete, for short: TERP.

114. Gambling venue letters: OTB.

115. Sportage automaker: KIA.

116. "¿__ pasa?": QUE.

117. Cricket club: BAT.

118. "Helpful hardware folks" company: ACE.

119. Talking-__: stern lectures: TOS.

A few extra notes:

1) Lemonade is safe and sound. He just had some computer issues. Hope it'll be resolved soon.

2) We had a good week. No falls. Plus, the butt sores that had been bothering Boomer for a few weeks eased up greatly. He probably won't need the dressing in a few days, esp with the Roho cushion he just got. We're going to the VA next Tuesday for more blood draw and meeting with the oncologist.

C.C.  

27 comments:

  1. I agree with C.C. about “Cologne sample.” It doesn’t seem witty at all, unlike the other themed entries. Other than that, I don’t have too much to say about this puzzle, except that it was enjoyable, and there were relatively few obscure proper names (“Kobra”, notwithstanding.) Anyway, FIR, so I’m happy.

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  2. Good morning!

    Yup, fell into the SINAI trap. (Only knew of Mount HOREB as a small town southwest of Madison.) Also tried ADDers before VIPERS perped in. Enjoyed the outing, Taylor. Thanx for the expo, C.C. (Glad you two had a good week.)

    SUZUKI -- My first motorcycle (if you could call it that) was a mighty 80 C.C. (ring-ding-ding) two-cycle SUZUKI. Bought it merely as a means of transportation on Guam.

    BIRD FEEDER -- Our feeder's been a popular place lately with cardinals and bluejays on one arm of the shepherd's hook, and hummingbirds carbing up for the long flight south on the other arm. The bird bath is also popular. It's the "watering hole" for a herd of nine deer that hang out in our neighborhood. It needs filling at least three times a day.

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  3. Agreed about COLOGNE SAMPLES. My favorite themers were DELHI COUNTER and TAIPEI BLOOD. Some great long bonuses like BEAUTY SLEEP (which by the way crosses FOUR (!) theme answers).

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  4. Musings
    -Poll takers are taking data samples in a population
    -TAIPEI BLOOD and Ursa minor made me laugh at loud and learning ABATOR was painless
    -Huskers won last night but it’s hard to ROOT for a team that has 12 penalties
    -All press secretaries have to step to the mic and put lipstick on pigs
    -Grandson has told me many stories about life in the ER, one place where he draws blood
    -ZAPS – Makes bread chewy
    -The “concrete cowboys” pulling SEMI trailers make this country work
    -Cats can quickly ORIENT their bodies in midair
    -LOOK always reminds me of this pleasant childhood memory
    -We love our BIRD FEEDERS but have learned how to use them more wisely
    -This is also called a JOUST

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  5. Also…

    This from Ed Sessa:

    One step at a time. Our greatest hope for now is to get back to our home and take out all the things we really treasure-from our family’s past! some of my bird carvings and penny’s quilts, pictures and our kids school day drawings and letters. My biggest regret was leaving her Bernina sewing machine and our pet tug’s ashes. We’re told Sanibel won’t be habitable for a long time so I think we’re considering we’ve had enough of these hurricanes and moving, perhaps to Virginia. We’re probably luckier the most people here and have loved Sanibel.

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  6. FIR, got the theme early, but not familiar with prog rock? Didn't like the fill at 125A; fluor-esce seemed to be a stretch.

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  7. The easiest was COLOGNE SAMPLES. And like KS the hardest to understand after filling it was PRAGUE ROCK- prog rock is new to me. But the best were TAI-PEI BLOOD and KABUL STONES.

    Good morning all. Just a few unknowns that were easy fills with two unheard of words- HOREB and ABATOR. Baby BELUGA, BAI, & KOBRA were filled by perps. AMAL shows up enough to remember. I had no idea what "Barry" referred to but the perps showed it was a TV show for mature audiences.

    MANETS or MONETS- had to wait for the band-ASIA- to fill

    It was an easy, fast fill today from our constructor but was TAYLOR male or female? But with two of the fills it might be CIS or TRANS.

    D-OTTO, as for Suzuki you should have got an X-6 Hustler instead of the 80-CC model. Even C.C. would have said so.

    Off for a bike ride to get some CARDIO in.

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  8. BE, there were lotsa bikes I would have preferred (350-CC Honda, for example), but that 80-CC Suzuki was what I could afford on my meager Navy pay.

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  9. Very enjoyable puzzle. Easier than some Sunday’s but I’m not complaining after yesterday’s.

    Having gone through a direct hit from a hurricane, I know somewhat what some Floridians are going through. These strong hurricanes are life altering events. These disasters make you rethink your possessions. We can’t help collecting mementos of happy days, travels and family histories but the pain of losing them is overwhelming.

    Best wishes to all affected by Ian.

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  10. Thank you Taylor - finally a FIR after wandering in the WILDS for several days now. I got all the PUNS but had to rely on C.C. for fully explaining the theme. BTW "COLON SAMPLES" can be used to test for occult ("hidden") blood in stools, a diagnostic indicating the need for a colonoscopy.

    As C.C. said, 1A ALPS was an easy start, but as I progressed southward I got the sinking feeling that Taylor was thinking "This is too easy, I've gotta make it harder ...".

    Some favs:

    13A POPES. CURIA would have fit both the clue and the space, but it didn't perp.

    21A BOSOMS. I'm not touching this one. I'll save it for Jinx.

    39A HOREB. Where MOSES received the Ten Commandments.

    103A BREST PLATE. Kissing cousin to 21A.

    13D POSSE. Learned this from crosswords.

    24D MANETS. MONETS would have fit and both are found in the Musée d'Orsay, but I'd never heard of a rock band called "OSIA".

    44D CUB. Favorite clue.

    72D ABATOR. Never 'eard of it. Thank you perps.

    79D KOBRA. Rejected this at first but then remembered that Portuguese is the language of Brazil. As I suspected their alphabet, unlike Spanish and Italian does have a "K".

    87D AMAL. She seems to be in the news a lot lately. Anybody know her hubby George?

    Cheers,
    Bill

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  11. One snafu, "ahsnap" instead of "awsnap". Good luck on the appointments this week. Glenn

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  12. Husker @9:56 AM Thanks for that pleasant childhood memory. I too learned to read and spell through the "Look and see" method, and I still sometimes close my eyes to remember what a word looks like. IMHO when we got "hooked by phonics" into believing that there was some rationale to English spelling, it marked the beginning of the end of American education.

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  13. waseely@12:30 p.m. - Bill, thank your so much for your input on “colon samples”! I see now that I had unjustly maligned Taylor and that her themed entries were all very witty after all! Live and learn!

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  14. This puzzle was a pleasure to solve. The themers were fun, especially KABUL STONES and TAIPEI BLOOD, which were especially clever. A few groaners, such as AW SNAP (IMHO) but many creative ones, my favorite being ASIA MINOR = CUB. Thank you, Taylor, for a nice start to Sunday.

    As a former literacy teacher of at-risk first through third graders, I agree with Waseely and Husker that phonics alone doesn’t work, and you also need “whole word” to get the job done. Just try to get a student who doesn’t know the word “the” to sound it out phonetically- impossible. Both methods are needed.

    Thanks for the update on Boomer, C.C. We keep you two in our hearts.

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  15. Superb Sunday. Thanks for the fun, Taylor and C.C. (Glad to hear of your good week).
    I needed a couple of red letter helps today. Monet changed to MANET (which gave the better-sounding ASIA group.
    Gaped at changed to GAZED which corrected the TEA to TAZO (I like Red Rose).

    I got the themers (except the first one - thanks for explaining waseeley. I think we were not seeing the Cologne-Colon connection because of the different placement of the accent, plus the second O changing from hard to soft).

    Hand up for Sinai before HOREB, adders before VIPERS.
    Anyone else have a smart phone before ALECS.
    I loved the lance a lot clue for JOUSTS,

    Happy memories of my daughter’s love for Raffi songs, including Baby BELUGA (playing incessantly on her Fisher Price tape recorder!).

    Note to Taylor and editor: Ltr. addenda should be PPS which stands for the Latin Post Post Script

    Wishing you all a great day.

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  16. May I weigh in on the “LOOK and See” method of learning to read. (Yes, I am old enough to remember Dick and Jane!)
    I’m not an educator, but have raised three children. The two oldest are visual learners, and the Look and See, whole word method was fine for them. (I think they would have learned to read just fine with either method!)
    But the youngest child struggled with the whole word method, solely (phonics was blacklisted in the school curriculum at that time). I learned that he was an auditory listener and did not remember the words from just seeing them on paper. Phonics tutoring came to the rescue, and he learned to sound out the words.
    I agree that both methods are needed, but teaching phonics is especially important for that smaller proportion of kids who are not visual learners.

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  17. another fun Sunday puzzle! There were a few clues that I had to think about differently to get the perps to match up, e.g., "Third-part account", "Bank deposit", and "Shopping centers?" Note to self, there are no a's in PORTOBELLO

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    Replies
    1. I also didn't know if Portobello was spelled with A's or O's. Had to wait for the crosses

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  18. Edward in Los Angeles here,
    UTEP Grad, BS Biology 1981, BS civil engineering, 1983….
    UTEP campus architecture (Google pix of it) is derived from Bhutanese dzongs. Some carved ornamentation feature prayer wheels. University Museum includes prayer wheels that were gifts from the kingdom of Bhutan
    https://pin.it/1Lh3sjw

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  19. As for English spelling, when I first ran across the word "Thames," i pronounced it, logically enough, as "THaymz," only to be corrected -- by Australians, no less -- to "TEmz."

    Neither 'see-and-say,' nor phonics, alone, work, because English spelling is implacable. The one language that really has "one-letter-one-sound" is Georgian, but their alphabet came to them from Phoenicia via Armenia, so we can't win.

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  20. Michael @8:56 AM German and Italian also have "one-letter-one-sound". I doubt that there are spelling bees in countries where these languages are spoken.

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  21. Never got to post last week so, reading my last post, it's two weeks since Sonic the sheep found a new home

    The LSAT measures aptitude for Law School. I took it in 76 but never pursued law school
    My mark was decent c. 700

    Aha, that's not OVa nor LaNE after all the successful WAGS
    Anybody got an example of OVI as an egg prefix?

    Y?RI/AB?TOR was another bad WAG. As was MoNEt. Yes, ASIA made sense, thanks BigE

    Aha, the PENNE has a vodka based sauce. A pic is worth 7 words

    OSCAR is the G.O A.T. for some. He almost Interrupted the Celtics streak one year, something Wilt and West never could do

    If the Raffi song was about caviar it would have been easier
    Of course as we discussed last week, DEISTS are believers who ESCHEW faith(religion)

    fluo·resce
    shine or glow brightly due to fluorescence.
    "the molecules fluoresce when excited by ultraviolet radiation"

    I spent a week in Okinawa on my way to Nam. 20 years later I realized they had to get Field Grade to pass on my Kidney functioning. I think my IGA came from my year in LeJeune

    I see from Bill's S link that Sinai is equally correct. As a Catholic I learned it as Sinai

    Speaking of 5 yr old reading, anyone remember Uncle Wiggily and his nemesis the Skeeziks?

    My FIW is easy to take because of built in Naticks. I have my Saturday FIR to console me. Entertaining though

    WC

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  22. FLN: WC @ 9:58p: I have never heard of YaRIS (Toyota subcompacts) or ABaTOR, and I've been a litigation secretary for over 45 years. Oh, well, it was only one cell left blank [sigh].

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  23. Today's entry is a record breaker for me: started at 10 a.m., finished at 2 a.m.C'mon, folks !! "Wilds" are teeming with life and most certainly NOT "desolate". I could go on with at least a dozen other examples of misdirection ...but I need to eat a sandwich and go to bed!!!

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  24. Could have clued 22A as Data collector in Germany. Then filled with COLOGNESAMPLER crossed with HER.

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