google.com, pub-2774194725043577, DIRECT, f08c47fec0942fa0 L.A.Times Crossword Corner: Friday, February 17, 2023, Jeff Stillman

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Feb 17, 2023

Friday, February 17, 2023, Jeff Stillman

 


Good morning, cruciverbalists.  Malodorous Manatee here with today's puzzle recap.

Let's jump right into things with the reveal:

36 Across:   Ones fated to fail, or what the answers to the starred clues are, initially?: BORN LOSERS.

At four successive places in today's grid, starred for our convenience, our puzzle setter, Jeff Stillman, has removed the letters B, then O, then R and finally N from otherwise well-known brand names.  So, taken together, we lose BORN.   In each case, the Stillman-omitted letter "stands alone" in the name in that all but a single letter of a word has been omitted in the brand name itself.  So first, the marketing departments pared words down to a single letter, or initial if you will (in two of the four cases, the letter coincidentally also happens to be the initial letter of the word).  Then Jeff came along and removed those vestigial letters.   It is far simpler than I have made it sound.

Coincidentally, BORN is an appropriate word of the day as we will see at the end of this recap.

Here are the themed clues and answers:

*18 Across:  Children's apparel company: OSH KOSH GOSH.  Bye, bye B for By.



*27 Across:  Candy with a bee on its wrapper: BIT HONEY.  No O for Of here.
  

*51 Across:  Superstore for new parents: BABIES US.  That backwards R for aRe has been banished.




*61 Across:  Snack brand with Buttery Toffee and Almond Supreme flavors: CRUNCH MUNCH.  No N for aNd to be found,




Across:

1. Metric unit: GRAM.  Back in the sixties and seventies I became quite adept in working with the metric system.  I told my mother that I had learned it all in chemistry class.

5. Some workplace discrimination: Var.: AGISM.  Often spelled with the e not removed.  AGEISM.

10. Icy street risk: SKID.



14. "Brooklyn Nine-Nine" detective Diaz: ROSA.  A TV show reference.


15. Good-natured teasing: BANTER.  BANTER is often modified, as in the clue, with the descriptive "good-natured".

17. Pre-stereo: MONO.  An audiophile reference.  Then came quad and surround sound.

20. Swivel around: SLUE.

21. Avenue that's the eastern border of Midway Airport: CICERO.  Easier if you knew your Chicago geography.  Not too hard to figure out even if you did not.  Thanks, perps.

22. Basilica recesses: APSES.


24. Consumed: 
ATE.

25. Bewitches: ENAMORS.

Ella - Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered

29. Russo of "Thor": RENE.  A frequent visitor - or is that Magritte?

30. Shampoo ad buzzword: BODY.  A somewhat undefined term.  Not here.  In shampoo marketing.



32. Campus security?: TENURE.  Not security as in physical safety.  Job security.

33. QB stats: YDS.  A football reference.  QuarterBack is abbreviated so YarDS is also.

34. Sunday seating: PEWS.  A Sunday-go-to-meetin' reference.

35. Dealer's inventory: AUTOS.  Ah, it's not a drug reference.



40. Like some diets: VEGAN.  Hand up for first thinking of the trendy PALEO diet.

43. Barrels into: RAMS.

44. Half of cuatro: DOS.  A Spanish and math lesson mashup.

47. Roma locale: ITALIA.  An Italian lesson.  ROMA not ROME so ITALIA not ITALY (which would not fit in any event).

49. Remain undecided: PEND.

50. Landlord's income: RENT.

53. Herbal drink: SAGE TEA.  Personally, this is a type of tea that I have never (knowingly) tasted.

55. Kid: RIB.  Not a baby goat this week.


56. Math functions: 
SINES.



58. File menu option: SAVE AS.  It is always a good idea to periodically save one's work.

59. "C'est la vie": ALAS.



63. Jamboree shelter: TENT.  A scouting reference.
64. Put under: SEDATE.


65. French 101 verb: ETRE.  In French the verbs are conjugated with either ETRE (to be) of Avoir (to have).

66. Voiced: ORAL.

67. Jumps up and down to music: POGOS.

Paul Reubens Shows Us How

68. Origin: 
SEED.  As in the germ of an idea.  Both are biology metaphors.


Down:

1. Grub hub?: GROCERY.  Nice word play.  A nexus for food.

2. Prepared for use, as a violin bow: ROSINED.  Or a fiddle.



3. Depth charges, in navy slang: ASH CANS.  I learned this term as a child from watching WWII movies.  Manatees are not fond of depth charges.  Wait a minute.   Do manatees watch movies?



4. Defiant response: MAKE ME.




5. Shock __: ABSORBER.  Hand up for first trying something along the lines of Shock and Awe.  An automobile suspension parts reference.

6. "This is a disaster!": GAH.  Today's punt,  GAH!

7. "Young Frankenstein" role: INGA.



8. Visit: STOP BY.

9. 2022 World Cup Golden Ball winner Lionel: MESSI.



10. Texting letters: SMS.  Short Message Service is a protocol used by cellphones to send and receive text messages.

11. Caffeine source for some soft drinks: KOLA NUT.

12. Prenatal: IN UTERO.  Also, a Nirvana album.

13. Makeup trend that imparts an innocent look: DOE EYES.



16. "Country Again" Grammy nominee Thomas: RHETT.  I wonder if he has a butler.



19. Spanish gold: ORO.  Another Spanish lesson.

23. Shrub cutters: SHEARS.  Garden SHEARS are cutting hedge technology.

26. Scattered, as seeds: SOWN.

28. Heavy load: ONUS.


31. ISP option: DSL.  Internet Service Provider.  Digital Subscriber Line.  For transmitting digital data over telephone lines.

34. Stable figures: PONIES.   A bit of word play.  Stable as in, well, a place to house horses.  Not as in a stable economy.



36. Island east of Java: BALI.



37. Redstone in Minecraft, e.g.: ORE.  Minecraft is a video game franchise.

38. __-serif: SANS.  Fonts without the little dashes at the ends of each letter.

39. Punctuation marks that set off a series within a phrase: EM DASHES.



40. Singer's wavering tone: VIBRATO.



41. Entity with net income?: E-TAILER.  Not net income as in what's left over after costs and taxes.  Net as in internet.

42. Dolce & __: GABBANA.  An Italian luxury fashion house.

44. Cold War warmup: DETENTE.  Not as in warming up before starting something,  Warmup as in a thaw or easing.

45. Plot size, perhaps: ONE ACRE.

46. Hidden: STASHED.



48. #LiveUplifted sneakers brand: ASICS.

49. Not genuine: PSEUDO.



50. Some Broadway fare: REVUES.  REVUES are variety shows with topical sketches, songs, dancing and comedians.

The New Zoo Revue


52. General Assembly figure, for short: UN REP United Nations REPresentative

54. Whale group: GAM.




57. Hitch: SNAG.



60. Mo. city whose MLS team will play its first game in 2023:  STL.  Missouri and Major League Soccer are abbreviated in the clue.  Therefore the answer is, too.  Jeff is also riffing on the name of the team with the "Mo. city" bit because the soccer team is calling itself the Saint Louis City Soccer Club.  More often, STL is clued with reference to the SainT Louis Cardinals baseball team.



62. Exec at a gaming startup, e.g.: CTO.  Chief Technology Officer.  EXECutive is truncated in the clue, therefore . . . .


Here is the completed grid:



That wraps things up for today . . . except for one last thing.  A usually reliable source informs me that today is the birthday of my fellow Friday blogger (I tried to come up with something alliterative but could not), Chairman Moe!  Thirty-nine, right?






____________________________________________


Notes from C.C.:

1) As Joseph mentioned, today's the Chairman Moe's birthday. A big milestone. Happy 70th birthday, Chris! Here he is with his love Margaret.

2) Big Easy just sent me this picture of him and his wife Diane at their Mardi Gras pickleball tournament.


3) Happy 57th anniversary to our incomparable Husker Gary and his wife Joann. Here's a picture of them with their grandson Hawkin three years ago. 


40 comments:

Subgenius said...

I figured something was up when I got “Osh Kosh Gosh”. So, after finishing the themed fills, the reveal was not a big surprise. So, anyway, FIR, so I’m happy. Also, Happy Birthday, Chairman Moe! Your wit and humor, as well as your terrible puns, have often brightened my day! May you live to be 100! Okay, ‘nuff said! SubG out!

desper-otto said...

Good morning!

A lot of the fill in today's puzzle evoked memories. Had to correct pod/GAM and tremolo/VIBRATO -- Hooray for Wite-Out. D-o even got the theme and noticed the reveal. Wow. Thanx, Jeff and Mal-Man.

PEWS: Memory of my ute.

CICERO: When I was a manufacturing rep, one of my distributors was located near Cicero at the Tri-State.

ASH CANS: Evokes that '57 movie The Enemy Below with Robert Mitchum and Curt Jurgens.

DSL: Tried to get it when we moved here. Nope, the telephone infrastructure couldn't support it. Still can't.

BALI: Made it to Java several times over the years, but never had the time for a side trip to BALI.

ONE ACRE: That's the size of our lot...one of the smaller lots in this area.

HBD, C-Moe. Ah, to be 70 again...

TTP said...


Thank you, Jeff Stillman, and thank you, Melodious Manatee.

Happy Birthday, Moe ! Also, Happy Anniversary to Husker Gary and Joann !

Well nuts. Got the solve, but didn't think too much about the reveal. My mind was elsewhere.

Very clever, Jeff. Good cluing and a reasonably tough solve for me. I had to work the grey matter to figure out some of the answers. I like that.

I didn't know ROSA and RHETT, had to dredge up ASH CANS, and never heard of CRUNCH N MUNCH. I liked the clue for GROCERY, although the company that goes by that name annoys me with too many emails. "Campus security?" for TENURE was also good. As was "Entity with net income" for E-TAILER.

It didn't help that I made a real mess of the NE corner with my initial answers of slid and spin where SKID and SLUE belonged. Not into makeup, so I wasn't aware of DOE EYES, but I get it.

Nailed LIONEL, CICERO and GABBANA. VIBRATO, UN REP and PSEUDO took a moment to work out. Had pod before GAM, and guessed Avias before ASICS. Oh yeah, and a brain cramp with sewn before SOWN. Yes, my mind was elsewhere.

Fun review, Mischievous Manatee !
Mono, Stereo, Quad and Surround. Anyone else remember the Marantz Quadraphonic receivers of the 70's?
LOL at "cutting hedge technology"

Big Easy, were you in it to win it ? How did you do in the pickle ball tournament ?

KS said...

FIR, but quite a workout. I knew the answers to the first two theme clues, but couldn't fathom how they were entered till the unifier "born lovers" appeared. Then I had my "aha" moment. Finally a puzzle suitable to the day of the week!

Jinx in Norfolk said...

FIR, but erased spin for SLUE, honey nut for BIT HONEY, tds for YDS, igor for INGA, detante for DETENTE (UNTIE!), phoney for PSEUDO (isn't that a prefix?) and pod for GAM (hi TTP).

Gotta run to Sanford because Zoe has a date with her vet for a follow-up. Read everybody later.

unclefred said...

Big DNF. Entire SE a sea of white. Had DUO at 44A and POD at 54D and that was enough to snuff out any further progress. I count 34 cells either empty or with the wrong fill when I gave up. Two days in a row now I am unable to finish. AND never got the theme. Ya got me, JS. Thanx for the terrific write-up, MalMan.

Big Easy said...

I knew something was missing when the B wouldn't fit in OSH KOSH BGOSH. The missing O in BIT-O-HONEY set the trend and is BABIES-R-US still in business? The nearby former Toys-R-US building is now a Goodwill store. I had a slow start in the NW thinking KITCHEN for "Grub hub" before the perps made it GROCERY. I wrote BORN on the side of the page but didn't think of LOSER, as in the Beatles' song "I'm a Loser and I'm not what I appear to be"

CRUNCH-N-MUNCH- tastes better, bigger box and cheaper than Cracker Jack. And no silly toy.
ROSA, RENE, CICERO, POGOS, GAH (new to me), DOE EYES, GABBANA- perps for those unknowns.

VIBRATO or TREMOLO. SKID or SLIP, ASICS or AVIAS, GAM or POD-waited for a perp
The only DOE EYES I've seen are RED ones when driving down the road at night. The old 'deer in the headlights'

TENURE can be great but it makes it nearly impossible to get rid of lazy incompetent teachers.
MAKE ME response that I always heard- 'You're already made and too dumb to know it".
I filled Shock ABSORBER immediately. Proper description would be DAMPER but in the US they are just 'shocks'.

Happy birthday young man Chairman.

Anonymous said...

Took 12:29 for me today to avoid, I guess, being born a loser.

Figured it had to be Osh Kosh B'Gosh, but yet it wasn't. When I hit the "born losers" reveal, then the lightbulb went on.

Tenure, as stated above, was clued very well.
Wasn't sure how to take a "warmup" of a Cold War.

I knew Gabbana, but wasn't sure of the spelling. "Kola nut" crossing "slue" was tricky.

waseeley said...

Thank you Jeff for a Friday that I made harder than it needed to be and ALAS would have gotten a FIR had I proofread before coming here. That said, I sussed the theme early and it was helpful in getting all the themers, which also helped with all the intersecting perps.

And thanks for the fun round up MM and dotting the i's and crossing the t's on the thiem.

Some favs:

1A GRAM. [BLUSH] This should have been a gimme for someone who has used a metric triple-beam balance for weighing out glazes for the last 40 years. The operative word here was "unit" and I was somehow fixated on a multiplier like KILO, which worked with KITCHEN for 1D, which was just as good as "GROCERY" [emdash] but wrong!.

22A RENE. Add another E and we have a CSO to our Monday sherpa.

32A TENURE. Favorite clue.

33A YDS. TDS worked until it didn't.

36A BORN LOSERS. I dwelt among them for this puzzle.

2D ROSINED. Got this early and when 3D ASH CANS bobbed to the surface the light bulb came on and the NW fell.

41D ETAILER. Didn't proof read this and ALAS didn't get ALAS.

44D DETENTE. Yeah and we fell for it.

54D GAM. Aren't these feminine appendages? Wanted POD, but 58A SAVE AS nixed that and 61A CRUNCH MUNCH gave me _AM. Heaven knows where I came up with MAM? An alphabet run would have fixed it.

Cheers,
Bill

And HBD, MG, and Anniversary -- to MOE, Big Easy, and HUSKER+JOANN -- respectively.

YooperPhil said...

A good puzzle with an appropriate Friday flair! Took me a tick under a half hour for the FIR which is about average for me on a Friday. Figured out the theme after filling the reveal and looking back at the top two themers which helped in solving the bottom two. Of course I needed perp help to get the unknown names - ROSA, RHETT, and GABBANA, and also CTO. 🖐 for having POD before GAM (waseeley ~ thought the same thing about GAM, but maybe not PC to clue it as a woman’s leg 🤷🏼‍♂️). I’ve never used the expression GAH, most of my responses to “This is a disaster” come in the form of a four letter expletive. My experience with CICERO Ave.- coming from the north en route to a friends wedding in Evergreen Park on the south side, I got detoured off the freeway to CICERO, miles and miles with a traffic light very block, driving a Camaro with a stick shift and a hard to depress clutch, pretty much wore out my left foot and leg. Anyway, thank you Jeff for the Friday challenge!

MM - very nice write up today, thank you for that! Was just curious if you learned about GRAMs and the metric system by hanging little plastic bags from a scale with an alligator clip? 😂

Happy b/day Chris! I’ll be joining you in that age group in July.

Huskier G ~ glad your surgery was a success and it was a mini reunion for you and former students. And happy anniversary to you and Joann!

Malodorous Manatee said...

Actually, YooperPhil, my Ohaus scale was not a triple-beam. It had pans on either side of the fulcrum so a small, or series of small, brass weight(s) sat in one pan and the plastic bags and their contents sat in the other. The alligator clips came into use a bit "downstream". I didn't totally lie to my mother. I also used the metric system quite a bit in chemistry classes (where they most often did have triple-beam balances).

Irish Miss said...

Good Morning:

Wherever TTP’s mind was, mine was there, too. I completely missed the absent letters spelling B O R N, so couldn’t make sense of the revealer, which is why I’ll never be a Blogger. This revelation gave me a new appreciation for the cleverness of the theme. I found the solve challenging because of the many first entries that I held onto for far too long: Kilo/Kitchen instead of Gram/Grocery, which was bolstered by the C being correct for Cicero; others were Hi Fi/Mono, Rag/Rib, Cards/Autos, and Pod/Gam. I needed perps for Rhett, Sage Tea, ASICs, Rosa, and CTO. Pogos as a dance move was new to me. Campus Security=Tenure was a gem of a clue and props for the relatively low three letter word count.

Thanks, Jeff, for a Friday workout and thanks, MalMan, for the excellent dissection of the theme and your bright and cheerful visuals and commentary. The Dubliners were a treat and that prancing Shetland (?) pony was priceless. The plumpness of the body on those little short legs was comical.

Thanks, CC, for the lovely photos of the Cornites:

Happy Birthday, Moe, may it be a special 70th for you and Margaret. 🎂🎁🎈🎉

Happy Anniversary, Gary and Joann, may it be a special 56th! 💞

Happy Mardi Gras, George and Diane.

FLN

sumdaze, thanks for the CSO

Parsan, from a few days ago. How cool that you knew Sam Huff. He was before my time as a football fan, but I’m sure my father and brothers were well acquainted with him.

Ray O, any new developments on the missing chocolates?

Have a great day.

Wilbur Charles said...

I finally found B O R N missing. I couldn't grok the NE nor SW. ETAILER/ALAS shouldn't have been so hard.

My choice for SKID was ACID as in "Ice" on the streets. SMS shouldn't have been hard and I had SLUE but inked it out. And, from Wikipedia:
Z"[Coca Cola] refers to two of its original ingredients: coca leaves and kola nuts (a source of caffeine)"

Big FIW (I also had ReSIN)

Happy Birthday, C-Moe ! Also, Happy Anniversary to Husker Gary and Joann ! Nice write-up maloman

I thought E-TradER fit re. "Net income " but I had to work in BABIES

So… TTP, you can still think? I'm envious but then again, I'm saving my CBD smart pill for Sat xword
.
w/o's: pod/GAM, enTENTE, igor/INGA and others. Thomas Joseph had ink BLOT yesterday

Anybody think of Shock and awe?

WC

Husker Gary said...

Musings
-Wonderful gimmick where BIT (O) HONEY, uh, clued me in
-Today’s theme sung by an incomparable singer
-I was weighed before surgery in kiloGRAMS which is lbs./2.2. I liked that number.
-I saw an ad for VEGAN chicken nuggets yesterday
-TENURE has saved many mediocre-at-best teachers
-“I was just kidding” can be an attempt to rationalize bullying
-I had a template for my lesson plans and did a SAVE AS to file them away
-Some constructors start puzzles with a SEED entry
-From Thank God I’m A Country Boy - “When the work's all done and the sun's settlin' low, I pull out my fiddle and I ROSIN UP the bow.”
-A famous song with max VIBRATO in an insurance commercial
-Happy Birthday Chairman and thanks to all of you for best wishes on my surgery and anniversary.

ATLGranny said...

It's a fine Friday puzzle, Jeff, but you got me. FIW that was almost a DNF, when the NW didn't cooperate. I finally thought of GRAM and kept going. Proofreading helped but I left AsAS and GROCERs for two wrong squares. ALAS, that's life....

On the other hand, I got the theme early and that helped.Thanks, Jeff and MalMan, for challenging me and thoroughly explaining it all. Learning moment today: GAM.

Best wishes and congratulations to C Moe, Big Easy, and Husker Gary and Joann. It's a special time for you all! Nice to see your pictures.

TGIF everyone. Enjoy!

Yellowrocks said...

One look up. Easier than Monday's puzzle which was a complete bust for me.
I wondered how the missing B in OSHKOSH and the O in BIT O Honey would be explained. Great theme and reveal.
POD before GAM, but SAGE TEA -unknown to me- beat SADE TEA.
I had CRUNCH MUNCH, looked for the missing N, but failed to see it.
PSUEDO is an adjective.
I have been on Cicero Ave many times, visiting my sister in the Chicago suburbs.
C'est la vie, that's life, que sera sera. My new mantra. I have become more serene and accepting in my elder years.
My hair was fine and limp most of my life. Even teasing did not last overnight. About five years ago as my hair turned salt and pepper it finally had BODY and is easy to manage.
Happy anniversary Gary and Joann. Happy birthday, Moe.

Charlie Echo said...

DNF. Pretty much what Uncle Fred said. I thought of detente as a "thaw" in cold War tensions.....warming toward a hot war is what almost happened back in 1962.

CrossEyedDave said...

Interesting Friday gimmicky theme puzzle, but difficult to find silly links for...
Had to use ellipses above, (bindies) as I could not find the em dash on my Apple keyboard...

Don't mean to sound like a loser,
but all these multi-events are hard to find cakes for...

Hmm,
But it did give me an idea for a silly theme link?

Wilbur Charles said...

Note on TENURE. FL Pubs want to get rid of it for political reasons*

Ah, the fabulous Edith Piaf, CLIO Winner I hope

WC

** Chuckle, how to go Pol without the Pol

inanehiker said...

Fun solve today with a creative theme, thanks Jeff! After seeing the B missing in the first answer- I thought it was going to be all Bs but BIT (O) HONEY changed that. I don't see a lot of BIT O HONEY around these days - but a lady I know is nearly addicted to them - her Diabetes would be easily controlled if she could stop buying sacks of them to have at her house!

I thought of D-Otto when I started like many others with kitchen crossing kilo at 1D/1A until I had to change to GROCERY crossing GRAM. First knew I was in error when RENE Russo made the kitchen not work.

STL is getting very excited about having a MLS team- KC has had Sporting KC for a number of years.
It's been a celebration all week for KC Chiefs with the parade Wednesday. Travis Kelce was on the Tonight Show last night - so much energy and will host crossword staple SNL on March 4th
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxiGuapr18w

CICERO was a gimme because the years I lived in Chicago I lived just off 10900 S CICERO in Oak Lawn and traveled up to the Austin neighborhood of Chicago for a slew of blocks to 100 N Cicero to get to my multi-racial church. It wasn't faster to go on any of the highways so quite a slog 110 blocks up - past Midway Airport, past the tiny suburb of CICERO and then across the Eisenhower I-290 into Austin. Today CICERO is almost 90% Hispanic, but when I lived there in the 80s it was still pretty much white, Italian with the legacy of being the headquarters of Al Capone in the 1920s. It was a learning lesson for me that many of the members of our congregation who were black would do anything they could to avoid driving through CICERO, because the citizens and police in that town could be very prejudiced against them. If they HAD to drive through there - it was only on major streets and only in the daytime.

I'm in a community choir and though VIBRATO may be amped up for a solo - it's not great for the unified sound that a choir is shooting for and our director is always asking for people to tone that down. Hard for those who intention tremor because though it starts in people's hands it often eventually progresses to their vocal cords and nearly impossible to cut out!.

Thanks MalMan for the fun blog!
Happy celebrations for CM, Gary & Joann, and George!

inanehiker said...

oh - I forgot - and continued speedy recovery for Gary!

Misty said...

Fun Friday puzzle, many thanks, Jeff. And always enjoy your commentary, MalMan, thanks for that too.

Well, it was hard not to think of romance when starting this puzzle, and hope ROSA's BANTER doesn't SKID her into trouble. Her current boyfriend ENAMORS her with a BIT OF HONEY--both in his prose and in the VEGAN diet he buys at the GROCERY. Along with the SAGE TEA and some CRUNCH and MUNCH treats, he is certainly not a BORN LOSER and is getting some terrific reviews whenever he STOPs BY. Hope all continues well.

Have a great weekend coming up, everybody.

Misty said...

Forgot to wish you a Happy Birthday, Moe. And also, have a Happy Anniversary, Gary and Joann.

Anonymous said...

Cicero Avenue. Home constructed by grandfather, father and uncles from a Sears kit in 1910. Site of many celebrations. Still standing today.

Kelly Clark said...


Happy Birthday, Chairman Moe, and Happy Anniversary, Gary and Joann!

CanadianEh! said...

Friday Fooler. Thanks for the fun, Jeff and MalMan.
I finished after a long time and two Google visits, saw the lost BORN theme, but arrived here to discovered that I FIWed, twice!
My violin bow was Resined* and I forgot to check ROSA.
And my “ swivel around” went from Turn to SPUN but never changed to SLUE. That messed up KOLA NUT and DOE EYES but I was getting too exhausted to perp check by then.
GAH! Now I see I had three FIWs. I had GOGOS for the music jumping, not POGOS, which made that REP a reg.

I visited Google for the unknown-to-me BRETT and to parse BIT HONEY, as I am not familiar with that Candy. I am not a big Candy or snacks eater/buyer- CRUNCH N MUNCH was only partially familiar.

I wanted Shock — and Awe, but it was too short. Hi WC.
Ribbing was too long but BANTER fit; RIB was needed later.
I was walking on that icy street before driving, and moved from Fall to Slip to SKID. I see I am not alone.
Did we all think of POD before GAM for those whales?

We had ORO and ORE, plus ORAL.
GRAM, YDS, ONE ACRE for measurements. (That will be confusing)
46D is a good clue for today’s Wordle.

*Apparently ROSIN is a hard block made from Resin (sticky like tree sap). VIBRATO related. (Do we have any violinists?)

Happy 70th Birthday CMoe. No AGISM here.
Great photo Big Easy.
Happy 57th Anniversary, Husker Gary and Joann.

Wishing you all a great day.

Chairman Moe said...

Puzzling thoughts:

First, thanks MalMan and C.C. for the birthday SO; and thanks from the posters here for the birthday greetings. It's kind of fun knowing that in some circles, being 70 is still thought of as young! ;^)

I had a chat with Joseph via text yesterday with regards to the puzzle. For the record, I had several look-ups (aka, "cheats") in order to solve it. Count me among the "BORN LOSERS" on this one ...

YooperPhil - if you are still lurking about or checking in later, just a heads up that Margaret and I are planning on being in the UP later this year. Not sure of the dates or where we will be hanging out. Neither of us has visited the northern part of MI, and are looking forward to it

The Birthday Boy

Anonymous said...

“GAH” and “GAM”?

Come on man.

Anonymous said...

“GAH” and “GAM”?

Come on man.

Anonymous T said...

Hi All!

Thanks Jeff for the great puzzle. Took me a while to a) commit to BIT HONEY without the O and b) put two-and-two together the letters were lost. Fun stuff.

Thanks for the expo, MManatee but waseely had Rush yesterday :-)

WOs: BIT O HONE ?, GAM? not a POD?
ESPs: GAH(?), RHETT, ROSA, GABBANA
Fav: ITALIA -- It's even on my hat.

Happy Birthday C. Moe!
Happy Anniversary Joanne & HG!
Love Diane's Mardi Gras tights, BigE.

FLN - What care you must have gotten from all your former students, HG. Speedy recoveries!

C, Eh! Rosin (powder) is also what's in the little white bag behind the pitcher's mound.

Before The Far Side came along, Pop's favorite comic was The Born Loser.

Cheers, -T

sumdaze said...

I saw Jeff's clever theme but struggled with some of the fill due to a lack of confidence. Thank you for the education, MalMan!

Happy B-day to C-Moe! You share your birthday with 29A Rene Russo (69) and with Michael Jordan (60).

Happy Anniversary to H-Gary & his bride!

Malodorous Manatee said...

I would never presume to compete with Geddy Lee, AnonT🎸

Jayce said...

Now this is what a crossword puzzle should be! Well done, Mr. Stillman!

Jayce said...

If I recall, Dilbert used to exclaim "Gah!"

Monkey said...

Too much interference today. We have out of state guests and I couldn’t concentrate this fine puzzle.

TTP said...


Jayce, was it Dilbert ? If so, good call. I kept thinking that the cartoon Cathy used to say it, but she said ACK. I first learned of ACK with Bisync education :>)

Magnanimous Manatee, I completely missed your Nirvana reference at "In Utero". "All Apologies". I guess that's why Dash T made the Rush reference. Oh well, "Nevermind"

Anonymous said...

Edward in LA:
21. Avenue that's the eastern border of Midway Airport: CICERO. Easier if you know the lyrics to Chicago” Broadway musical.

CanadianEh! said...

AnonT- thanks for the reminder about another use for Rosin.

Anonymous said...

Can’t find my original comment if it even made it in here. My apologies 2-17-23 ; 27 across. * meaning - didn’t show up on computer printout. None of the answers to previous day either.
BitOHoney is not for people that have fillings. Eek.

kerek said...

Many of today's puzzle themes are such a stretch.