google.com, pub-2774194725043577, DIRECT, f08c47fec0942fa0 L.A.Times Crossword Corner: Friday, June 23, 2023, Luke Schreiber

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Jun 23, 2023

Friday, June 23, 2023, Luke Schreiber

 


Good Morning, Cruciverbalists.  Malodorous Manatee here, once again, with a Friday recap.  Today's puzzle setter is Luke Schreiber.  As seems to be more common recently, I could find no previous reference to Luke here at the Corner so this may be his L A Times debut.  In any event, today, Luke has elected to do a riff on RIGHTs.  Right turns, Right angles, human Rights.

Two weeks ago I recapped a puzzle in which the theme answers were placed vertically in the grid in lieu of the more often seen horizontal placement.  Today, we get yet another approach.  At five places in the puzzle, all identified with circles, Luke requires us to make a right-angle (90 degree) turn to the right in order to get the right answer to the Down clue.  The answer to that clue requires the combining of the Down clue's answer with the corresponding Across clue's answer. Here are the five places that make up the themed answers:

1 Down:  Bounces back: RALL with 20 Across:  "It's all untrue!": LIES.  RALLIES  I imagine that most everyone went "Huh!?" when 1 Down filled.  Or did it?

7 Down:  Some Arctic Cats: SNOWMOB  with 35 Across:  Gymnast Simone: BILES.  SNOWMOBILES

10 Down:  RuPaul's competition: DRAG with 22 Across:  Coup de __: GRACE.  DRAG RACE  This one confused yours truly for a bit as the down answer, DRAG, is able to stand alone as a real word, a feature exhibited at none of the other four theme-word combinations.  After scratching my head for a while I assumed that RALL and SNOWMOB (which had previously been filled in) were, indeed, the right answers and that it was time to stop overthinking things and move right along.

26 Down:  Extremely beautiful, perhaps: HEARTST with 54 Across: Froyo choice: TOPPING.  HEART STOPPING.  A little bit odd as FROYO was a "truncated" clue (FROzen YOgurt) but the answer was a complete word.

48 Dwon:  Quilting technique: APPLIQ with 71 Across:  "¿__ pasa?": QUE.  APPLIQUE

The unifier comes at 64 Across:

64 Across:  Freedoms protected by the Equality Act, and an apt title for this puzzle?: LGBTQ RIGHTS.  Note that, when taken in order, the pivot points spell out LGBTQ.


Here is how all of this looks in the grid:


Here are the rest of the clues and answers.  Content warning:  Roughly a dozen or so are proper names.  Some additional theme-related answers also appear here and there:

Across:

1. Noisy toy: RATTLE.  Shouldn't RATTLEsnake warnings be called "Cautionary Tails"?

7. Went fast: SPED.


11. Oroville structure: 
DAM.



14. Legends on the road: ACURAS.  An automobile make/model reference.

15. Depilatory brand: NAIR.  Was it going to be NEET or VEET?  Nope.

16. Post-op area: ICU.  The Intensive Care Unit at a hospital.

17. Beatles song with the lyric "Sunday morning creeping like a nun": LADY MADONNA.  I strongly suspect that the Beatles imagery was not meant to evoke anything quite like these self-described "nuns":
.

19. Fistful of bills: WAD.  A wad of cash.  I guess the Times wished to avoid paying a royalty on this clue.



21. Possess: OWN.

24. Remorseful: ASHAMED.  Why was the pterodactyl not ASHAMED to use the toilet?  Its "P" was silent.

28. Nobelist Wiesel: ELIE.



29. Epicurious.com offering: RECIPE.  A very good web site to visit when you are looking for a RECIPE.

32. Lucille Clifton's "Homage to My Hips," for one: ODE.  In puzzles, the poems almost always turn out to be ODEs.

33. Lab container: VIAL.  Why are almost all test tube manufacturers single?  People seem to find them VIAL.

34. Bright bloom: DAHLIA.


37. "Rules __ rules": ARE.    . . and they are meant to be followed,  we are told.
 
38. Hesitant sound: ERM.  Punt!


40. Minor matter: NIT.  Idiomatic, unless you are, perhaps, a chimpanzee.

41. "Delish!": YUM.

44. SLR setting: F-STOP.  A photography reference.  The aperture setting on a Single Lens Reflex camera.

46. Halloumi, e.g.: CHEESE.  If it were Monday the clue might have been Cheddar.

48. Québec chum: AMIE.  Français dans l'indice donc Français pour la réponse.

51. Early Beatle Sutcliffe: STU.  Sometimes referred to as "the fifth Beatle".  We sometimes see this clued along the lines of "letter run after R".

52. Got bronze?: TANNED.  Not an Olympics reference.


53. Window part: PANE.  My stupid, hungry donkey decided to eat a window.  It was a pane in the ass.

56. Subject of many June parades: PRIDE.  Continuing with the theme.

58. "Awesome!": RAD.  "Bitchin'!"  "Groovy!"  "Far Out, Man!"  "Phat!"



59. Exercise aftermath: ACHE.

63. Cap: LID.  Remember when a LID cost $10?

68. "__ say!": I'LL.

69. Pouty face: MOUE.

70. Backup squads: B-TEAMS.

72. Cheek: SASS.



73. Attend without a partner: GO SOLO.


Down:

2. Berry that's a superfood: ACAI.  Frequently served in our puzzles.

"3. Truculent behavior, informally: TUDE.  Derived from attiTUDE.  "Don't Cop a TUDE, bro."

4. Seafarer's choice during a storm: TRYSAIL.  New to this solver.  "A TRYSAIL is a substitute mainsail designed solely for storm conditions. Setting independently of the boom it is loose-footed and designed to sit above the stack of your mainsail using a long tack strop."  Got it?

5. On the __: LAM.  Fleeing from the law.

6. Finnish conductor __-Pekka Salonen: ESA.  He led the Los Angeles Philharmonic from 1992 until 2009 when Gustavo Dudamel succeeded him.

8. Prepared for a close-up shot: PANNED IN.  A pan shot is a horizontal camera movement in which the camera pivots left or right while its base remains in a fixed location.

9. German article: EIN.  Was is going to be DER?  Nein.

11. South Asian festival of lights: DIWALI.  A bit obscure (to us North Americans) but we have seen this reference to the Hindu Festival of Lights a few previous times.

12. Tree favored by giraffes: ACACIA.



13. Bottom-dwelling fish: MUD EEL.  Also known as Heterenchelyidae but that would not fit the allotted space.   

18. __ double take: DO A.

23. Cranks (up): REVS.


25. Spots: SPIES.  Used as a verb.  Not, for example, a Dalmatian dog reference.

27. Corpus __: prosecutor's concern: DELICTI.

29. Nutrition fig.: RDA.  For those of you who have may not read a food product information label in the last twenty or thirty years, Recommended Daily Allowance.

30. Sideburn neighbor: EAR.

31. Michael of "SNL": CHE.

36. Actor Hawke: ETHAN.

39. Tour vehicle, quaintly: MOTOR BUS.

41. Osaka currency: YEN.  Money in Japan.

42. Exploit: USE.  Used as a verb.

43. __ school: MED.  DAY?  OLD?  LAW?  ART?  At least those are not abbreviated as is MEDical in response to a non-abbreviated clue.

44. Satellite signal: FEED.

45. Leaves the larval stage: PUPATES.  Rarely seen in our puzzles as a verb.  More often we see PUPA as in the insect stage between larva and adult.

47. Ties up: ENGAGES.  Perhaps a new take on an ENGAGEment announcement?

49. Henner of "Taxi": MARILU.  A TV sitcom reference.  There should be no trouble picking her out in this photo:


50. Warming up the car, say: IN IDLE.

55. ASAP kin: PDQ.  Pretty Darn Quick

57. Trees with many streets named after them: ELMS.  And streets with many movies named after them.


60. Rosalind of 2020's "Mulan": CHAO.



61. Web page standard: HTML.  HyperText Markup Language is used, among myriad other applications, to produce our daily Crossword Corner blogs.

62. Petro-Canada rival: ESSO.  A reprise from two weeks ago.  This time without the "petrol" reference.

65. Indian state known for white-sand beaches: GOA.  At 18 Down we had DO A.  Do these fit ___  T?



66. First member of SCOTUS to officiate a same-sex wedding: RBG.  Supreme Court OThe United States justice The "Notorious" Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

67. Manga artist Junji: ITO.  Often clued with reference to Judge Lance ITO.


As I am otherwise engaged, this seems like the right time to bid adieu for this morning  . . .
_________________________________________________________



45 comments:

unclefred said...

Mind-bogglingly brilliant CW design, which I totally missed, and therefore DNF. Too clever, literally. And too many words and names I DNK. Two days in a row I have been stymied. Oy. And tomorrow’s Saturday! Terrific write-up, MalMan, only when I read it did the V-8 can hit.

Subgenius said...

Well! There’s nothing that can cause controversy and debate among Cornerites in THIS puzzle, is there? But seriously, friends, I want to ask everybody to “take it easy “ and remember to be considerate and tolerant of each other’s views, and we’ll get through this “blog session “ intact, okay? Alright! Now all I basically have to say about the puzzle itself is that it seemed quite difficult at first, but as soon as I got the gimmick (which was pretty quickly) it became much easier to solve. Anyway, FIR, so I’m happy.

desper-otto said...

Good morning!

Was proud of ANY PORT as "Sailor's choice in a storm." Nope. PANNED IN just seems wrong, very wrong. GOA figured prominently at the start of Matt Damon's second Bourne movie. Caught the gimmick at SNOW MOBILES, and powered through to victory. Thanx, Luke. If this was a debut, it was a good one. If this wasn't a debut, it was still a good one. Very punny, Mal-Man. Well done.

OwenKL said...


In Nome, RALLY RACES have no wheels.
Instead, they are done on SNOWMOBILES!
They run on real runners,
Their engines sound like thunder,
They don't leave skid marks when out they peel!

The MOTOR BUS collided with a truck as
The "We 'R' Windows" guy stopped for a ruckus.
The people in the coach
Were okay, nothing broke,
But the glazier now has a PANE in his tuchus!

{A, B+.}

inanehiker said...

This was a creative multi-layered theme. My paper didn't come this morning so I solved on-line - interestingly the circles only came up as I solved and weren't in the grid at the start!

All the unknown names came up already solved by perps.
We have friends who grow and show prize-winning DAHLIAs
As our country grows in it's multi-cultural variety, I'm usually aware of when DIWALI from Hinduism and Eid Al Fitr from Islam are being celebrated

Thanks MM for the fun blog and congrats to Luke if it is his debut

KS said...

DNF. NW was a total mystery to me partly because I didn't notice the theme answers going down and to the right. Never heard of trysail or Esa, so this corner just wouldn't fill for me.
This was not a puzzle I particularly liked; seemed a bit contrived.

Shirley Z said...

Good puzzle and just difficult enough. Not as strenuous as yesterday’s gem.

Jinx in Norfolk said...

DNF with 14 unfilled squares, all near the Canadian border.

DO - You are correct. You don't PAN IN, you zoom in. You pan left or right. You tilt up or down (or dolly up or down if the director wants to keep the original camera angle). I've spent too many hours in TV productions wearing headphones and listening to directors to let that one pass.

ERM? - OK, I'm a believer if Yellowrocks has seen or heard it.

IN IDLE? I ain't buying that one either. You can be idling IN neutral or at IDLE, but you can't be IN IDLE (I think.) As usual, I'm receptive to a V8 can on this one.

I remember Corpus DELICTI from being a Dick Tracy addict as a kidlet. The bad guys were going to launch unwanted humans into space, sing-songing "no more corpus DELICTI!" Funny that I can remember that stupid comic strip from more than 60 years ago, but I can't remember where I left my favorite ball cap yesterday.

I just saw coverage of the NYC Mermaid Parade. I wish Norfolk would copy it for our fair city during PRIDE Month. After all, we have nicknamed ourselves "The Mermaid City." Reminded me of the Fantasy Fest Parade in Key West, which I attended every year before my buddy in Key Colony Beach died. Homophobes need to stay home.

AtlGranny and I think that THE tree with many streets named after them is "peachtree." BTW - Congratulations on your restored vision, ATL-G. Sorry it took all the pratfalls to nudge you along.

Maybe the best thing about this puzzle is that GO SOLO provides an excuse to link the catchy hit by Wham!

FLN - Jace, a craps table takes at least four dealers. The one who manipulates the dice is what some call a croupier, but casinos call "the stick." (S)he works at the middle of the table on the players side. Directly across the table (on the pit side) is a dealer called "the box." (S)he is kinda like the "pit boss" in blackjack, but exchanges bills for chips, organizes the house chip supply, and watches for mistakes / cheating on that one table only. There is a dealer on either side of the box who pay winnings and rake in losses on their half of the table. If those positions have a name other than "dealer" I don't remember hearing it.

FLN Part Deux: I'm surprised our Texas contingent didn't brag about Shiner BOCK beer. When I lived there, everyone snubbed Lone Star beer but extolled Shiner BOCK. (I haven't liked dark beer since I got sick on Bud Dark at an after-hours party in a Pizza Hut that featured that brew.)

Thanks to our Malman for the fun, interesting tour.

Big Easy said...

I managed to FIR but don't consider it a win. Placing R for HEART ST was the only logical fit for 26 down. ERM- doesn't seem right; anything non-word ending in m would also fit. The puzzle never made sense because I didn't notice the RIGHT angle finishes.

I started badly in the NW with DRY LAND. I've owned three sailboats and never heard of TRYSAIL. Main sail, Genoa, Jib, Spinnaker, but not TRY. If the wind was blowing too hard you TRIMMED the main sail and FURLED the jib.

3D "Don't Cop a TUDE, bro."- you got it backwards- should be "Don't have a TUDE to a cop, bro." SASS will get you nowhere.

SNOWMOB- thought northerners might call SNOCATS that.
APPLIQ- thought maybe an alternate spelling
RALL- looked strange but it fit
DRAG- when I saw the name Ru Paul I wrote it in and it is a real word.
CHAO, ESA, GOA, ITO- didn't know those strangers filled by perps. CHEESE was not a stranger but Halloumi certainly is.

The theme? Take it for what you think it's worth.

Subgenius said...

Well, folks, apparently I inveighed against a problem that hasn’t even occurred. Sorry for the presumption. You guys are the best!

CrossEyedDave said...

Wees!
(+an OMGosh!)

Erm....
(The above is me hesitating to post)
I was going to take a Thumper, because of my moue crossing moa, gave me a pouty face. Plus the really weird selection of words that I had no idea took a turn towards the brilliant...

(Thank you blog, I would have had no idea and would have gone away grumpy...)

Once again, the write up and comments are going to send me down a rabbit hole for the rest of the day.
I have not even seen this video on trysails yet, but already the side links have made me save "9 types of sails explained" in my video queue.

If you don't hear from me for a while, it's because I'm...

desper-otto said...

Jinx, I thought that when moving the camera you could dolly in or out and truck right or left. Pan, as you said, was accomplished by swinging left or right atop a stationary camera base. Of course what I learned was in the waning days of the Vidicon camera. Those newfangled Image Orthicon cameras were too expensive. Terminology has likely changed in the decades since. Technology certainly has.

Irish Miss said...

Good Morning:

I thought the execution of the theme was clever indeed and, at first glance, the letter placement did not give it away, especially with Drag being a standalone word. It finally became evident to me at Heartstopping when Heartst made no sense, then the lightbulb went off. The reveal was a spot-on surprise and after seeing it, the Easter Eggs of Pride and RBG stood out, not to mention the inclusion of Drag Race as a themer. The numerous unknowns, to me, were Lady Madonna, Esa, Ito, Diwali, Chao, Trysail, and Mud Eel, combined with the numerous (28) three letter words, 9 fill-in-the blank answers, and at least 6 common words clued with proper noun references, all personal pet peeves, detracted from the solving experience. Tude, Erm, and In Idle were clunkers, IMO, but the beautiful Dahlia (I have a great-great niece named Dahlia), Acura (We had one for years), and Yum (Hahtoolah’s truncated mantra) all brought smiles.

Thanks, Luke, and thanks, MalMan, for the excellent analysis and expo of the theme and, as always for the punny fun. Loved all of the visuals, particularly the ever-so timely Elie Wiesel quote. Nice job!

FLN

ATLGranny, so happy to hear how delighted you are with your new world view! 🤗

Have a great day.

Malodorous Manatee said...

Subgenius, I don't think that your inclination was incorrect. I restrained myself from commenting at a number of places because we Cornerites have been trained to do so.

inanehiker, I came across that "appearing circles" phenomenon (when solving a puzzle online) for the very first time just last Sunday when solving an Evan Birnholz puzzle on the Washington Post site. I wonder if that will become more widely utilized "tech"
feature.


RosE said...

Good Morning! DNF. NW – I never saw the gimmick, but very Friday-ish clever when I read the Blog. Thanks, MalMan, for revealing it, and for your fun review.
OwenK, I look forward to reading your poems in the Blog. I may have missed your rating system meaning but thought today’s MOTOR BUS was hilarious! 🤣A+!!
I may have to shop for more Wite.Out after trying to spell DELICTI. Vowels & phonetics – Ugh!!
I know DIWALI and ERM from previous CWs.
DNK: CHE or CHAO
New species: MUD EEL
Thought of Hah2Lah with YUMmers.

Lee said...

ERM??? ERS OK, or even ARM. FIR with a couple of WAGs. Didn't see the gimmick even with the reveal.

You can say in neutral but not INIDLE. Ridiculous! Finally, agreed you zoom in, not pan.

Give Luke an 'A' for effort and Malman a huge 'attaboy' for his review

Picard said...

Enjoyed the cleverness of the construction. In most such puzzles we would not be given the clue for the second half of the themes. This was quite kind and generous to have the extra help. Hand up learning moment about TRY SAIL. And the NIT about ERM. FIR.

Biggest challenge was thinking the NOISY TOY was a reference to an annoying DOG.

MalMan I enjoyed your take on RATTLER. They are very common here.

Here is a photo of a RATTLER we encountered in the desert, along with a close-up of its RATTLE.

By the way, this photographer has never heard PANNED IN for making a CLOSE-UP. PANNED indeed means pivoted.

From Yesterday:
Irish Miss Thank you for your amusing come back regarding the ROOSEVELT ISLAND Aerial TRAM!

waseeley said...

Thank you Luke for a fun Friday FIR -- you should take PRIDE in your debut!

And thank you MalMan for your WRY commentary and your deft explication of the theme. I got the REVEAL, saw the letters in the CIRCLES, saw that they were a set of RIGHTS, but all the turns went RIGHT over my head. It must be because I'm LEFT handed. Heavens to Betsy thankfully everything perped.

A few favs:

1A RATTLE. Here's Sir Simon RATTLE conducting Mr. Bean at opening night concert for the 2012 Olympics.

28A ELIE. Favorite JPEG.

40A NIT. NIT often appears in Cwds, more often during the AFTER PARTY, and even occasionally in reviews - e.g. at today's 43D. 😁

63A LID. They'll be legal in Maryland after July 1st, but I bet you can't score one for under $50.

69A MOUE. And here I thought it was a Mexican chocolate sauce.

4D TRY SAIL. DNK this, but it perped. I would have issued a CSO to Jinx, but he wasn't up yet.

6D ESA. Here's the Finnish conductor leading everybody's favorite work by Jan Sibelius, everybody's favorite Finnish composer.

Cheers,
Bill

Anonymous said...

Amazingly clever debut! Keep them coming, Luke.

Charlie Echo said...

Nope. DNF. Didn't see the angles at all until MM got me the V-8 can. Clever! The clues were poor, though. IDLE? ERM? MED? I can possess something without OWNing it. Bad editing spoiled things for me.

Anonymous said...

What is the difference between “gay”and “queer”?

Parsan said...

This took a while but finally made sense at APPLIQUÉ (I have sown many), and finding the other L shaped theme answers was fun. Before that discovery, RATTLE and RALL (rattle and roll?) seemed wrong so marble and rude was tried, and then I finally got it but thought TRYSAIL wasn’t right. Snowbob before SNOWMOB(ILE) Very clever LS, thank

Did not know what Froyo meant but got.the T after it was obvious with the other LGB-Q circles.

Why is MOTOR BUS clued “quaintly”? ERM? Can you say “Don’t leave yet, put it IN IDLE”? A stretch?

Black DAHLIA, an interesting film noir movie starring Scarlett Johansson about an unsolved case based on a real murder.

Interesting info MalMan. RATTLEsnake - funny! Agh! AC keeps changing it to MailMan!!!

Happy day, all!



Jinx in Norfolk said...

Here's a picture of a SNOWBOB

I've bought many sails over the years, including one TRYSAIL. I only bought that one because the rules of the Annapolis to Bermuda race mandated it. That also required me to put another sail track on my mast, something I was loathe to do. The more holes in the mast, the easier the mast can break. Modern sailboats that go offshore usually have a mainsail with three reef points (hardware sewn into the sail to make the sail smaller) which should be good to 50-60 knots of wind, with a survival plan for heavier wind to strike all sail and deploy a sea anchor (a parachute-looking device to stabilize the boat somewhat and keep it from going so fast that it sails itself under the surface of the water.

OK, has the definition of LID changed? When I may-or-may-not have been buying them back in the day, they were sold as one ounce of "content." $10 for locally grown stuff; $20 for mported stuff from California, and $50 - $100 for "Maui Wowie." When I moved to LA in the late '70s and discovered that the prices were $50 and up for a a half ounce, I quit cold turkey (except for the occasional passed stick at concerts.) Maybe I should visit son and DIL more often in Olney, MD.

Misty said...

Tough, but fun, Friday puzzle, many thanks, Luke. And I always appreciate your commentary, MalMan, thanks for that too.

Well, even if this puzzle was a bit tough, it wasn't HEART STOPPING and didn't RATTLE me.
Guess it's fair to say folks should be ASHAMED if they tell LIES. If they GO SOLO when they follow a RECIPE or write an ODE, they'll be doing a good job, and can take PRIDE in what they do. In return they should be rewarded by getting a SNOW MOBILE--wouldn't that be nice?

Have a good weekend, everybody.

Anonymous said...

Big Easy

Jinx, our last boat was a 33 ft Morgan sloop. Hell would freeze over before I would drill anything into the mast. I loved sailing but my skin could not take the sun.

Years ago I was asked to be part of a crew (not our boat,) for the Pensacola to Isla Mujeres race. Sailing across the Gulf one way would be miserable but you have to bring the boat back. No thanks.

Malodorous Manatee said...

Parsan, I thought for a while about going with a Black Dahlia riff but unless one is very familiar with Los Angeles history or the motion picture it was likely going to be missed. Thanks for catching that. Speaking of which, Jinx, I am glad that you caught the lid reference.

Ol' Man Keith said...

MM leads us through a prideful offering by Mr. Schreiber.

A neat Friday contribution, on this side of doable.

ACACIAs? Who is to say that giraffes enjoy them for their taste, or their height?
Did Nature grow them to match the giraffes' necks, or the necks to match the tall trees?
Or both? (Clever Nature!)

Among words I rarely (if ever) use, MOUE is a true fave.
~ OMK
____________
DR:
8 x 8; ergo, no diags.

Yellowrocks said...

The electricity here wavered before I saved, so I lost anther post this morning.
I had two bad spots, one because I didn't get the theme. I wondered about RALL, SNOWMOB, DRAG and HEARST. I should have realized the endings were somewhere nearby. I knew APPLIQUE immediately, missed the UE. The QUE now stands right out. DUH! The theme was both clever and fair.
And I couldn't think of DELICTI, just Corpus Christi .
I almost never hear TRUCULENT, but see it in print often. The same for MOUE. It is annoying that we can't use perfectly good words like these in daily speech for fear of being thought pretentious. We cater to the lowest common denominator.
I see ERM more and more in print. Thinking about it, in daily conversation I hear ER followed by a humming sound. ERMMMM. Like "uh huh", these vocalizations are hard to capture in writing. Sometimes people say UMMMM.
TRYSAIL came to me from reading nautical fiction.
Google says, "African acacia trees have been documented as the preferred food source of giraffe. This is thought to because these trees have higher protein levels in their leaves than many other trees."

Jinx in Norfolk said...

Big Easy - the Morgan was a fine boat before Charlie sold the business to Catalina, and even after that they were pretty good. (My Bermuda boat was a Catalina 38, a Sparkman / Stephens design Frank Butler bought when it was called the Yankee 38. Beautiful (if you like reverse tumblehome), fast, sturdy old lady. Dennis Conner was sailing my boat when he won the Congressional Cup, the oldest match racing event in the USA. It graced the cover of Yacht Racing / Cruising magazine. (I would go on sail Dennis Conner's Stars and Stripes 12 meter in the Virgin Islands after she had been retired from racing. What a thrill. We raced against another 12 (I think it was the sparring partner of the AC boat and was also called Stars and Stripes), but the race was orchestrated between the skippers so that the tourists on both boats got to lead the race for a while, and the finish was "too close to call" a winner.

Irish Miss said...

MalMan, Bill, and Jinx ~ Thank you all for enlightening me about Lid. I have never in my life heard that reference used. Then again, I have never had any contact, direct or indirect, with it. Not bragging or complaining, just explaining. 🙄

Husker Gary said...

Musings
-I “finished” this puzzle (RALL?) on the way out the door to the course and the oh so clever gimmick flew right by me.
-DRY SAIL seemed perfectly fine and I discovered it is simply stowing and covering your sail for storage or for minimizing storm damage I thought.
-GO SOLO – Something that is not done in this marriage except to a golf course
-Here is a quick PANNED version of what I see as I blog
-A Nebraska man was recently sent to prison for life with an abundance of evidence minus a corpus delecti
-Some satellite FEEDS have a time delay to allow the signal to get to one person, get a response and that response sent back

AnonymousPVX said...


If you’re going to have a gimmick puzzle, you just cannot have something like ERM. That’s just fugly.

But of course this “editor” has no rules, but apparently has great job security which I cannot understand.

Parsan said...

Jinx - Thanks for the picture of the Snowbob; I thought I made up the word and I didn’t know there was such an animal. Beautiful!

MalMan - The Black DAHLIA film certainly sensationalized a very tragic event. In the 40’s, the tabloid press made a fortune on the lies, false witnesses, and shocking details about the story. I understand it is one of the most notable unsolved cases in the US. So sad it was never solved. Such a tragedy for her family.

Anonymous said...

Assuming you are asking seriously (and not just trolling) perhaps these will help

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queer

Jayce said...

Well, I liked the "rights" gimmick after I figured it out but didn't care much for the rest of the puzzle.

Unless you live in or know a lot about California I think it is unlikely you would know to what "Oroville" refers.

Agree that ERM is just plain ugly, but we have had it before.

I had to change GO STAG to GO SOLO and change LEESIDE to TRYSAIL (of which I had never heard).

Agree that PANNED IN is just plain wrong, as is the phrase IN IDLE.

ESA-Pekka Salonen is currently the new music director/conductor of the San Francisco Symphony, replacing the retired Michael Tilson Thomas. I doubt anybody who isn't into classical music and orchestras and stuff has ever heard of him.

Indian state having just 3 letters? Has to be GOA, no?

Never heard of Junji ITO. Just as many of you have probably never heard of ESA-Pekka Salonen.

Anyway, I liked your verses, OwenKL, as I usually do. And I enjoyed reading everyone's comments. Good wishes to you all.

Anonymous said...

Perhaps 'erm' is more common in British English? It looked okay to me so I was quite surprised at some of the reactions here.

Yellowrocks said...

These mumbled sounds are so hard to represent. It mostly depends on one's ear and frame of reference. But I have seen erm dozens of times in novels. I read 7 or 8 novels a month.
Other indistinct sounds are uh huh for yes and unh uh for no. I don't use them.

Jinx in Norfolk said...

I finally remembered the song lyric I was trying to recall:

"Yeah, I thought I might sail down to Bridgetown
Spend some time in the Barbados sun
But my plans took a skid when I smoked a whole LID
Wound up where I'd begun"

It's from Jimmy Buffett's I've Got Presents to Send You, from his old A1A album.

sumdaze said...

What IM@10:02 said -- except my niece's name is not Dahlia.

ATLGranny. I am so happy for you!!!

H-Gary@3:01. Good move, putting on clean socks for the pic.

PK. Can you please let us know if you are doing OK?

Thanks to MalMan and Luke for the Friday entertainment!

ATLGranny said...

FIR today but no credit for getting the meaning of the theme. I kept coming back to the puzzle during the day as I tried to make sense of the NW corner. I finally filled in all the squares correctly but wondered about the RIGHTS in the reveal. I even connected the circles which resulted in a large number seven but didn't help. I guess I was too distracted to see what I was missing.

But I found much to like in this puzzle exercise, Luke, and thank you. Your debut? Favorite fill today was PDQ which I hadn't seen in ages.

Thanks MalMan for your punny review and helpful explanation of what all I missed. The song Lady Madonna ran through my mind as I worked on the puzzle. Definitely not the worst earworm to have. The last word I completed was ACURAS, I am embarrassed to say, but it didn't help with the strange perps there.

I am finding that better eyesight is a boon to doing a thorough job of delayed spring cleaning. Enjoy your weekend everyone!



Anonymous said...

Took 18:45 today.

Oh joy, circles.

Long day.

kerek said...

Not a good puzzle. Alphabet groups should not appear in puzzles.

Anonymous said...

Agreed, D.O.; as a former camera operator, if the director wanted me to set up for a C/U, I would have either ZOOMED IN or PUSHED IN. Panning is a lateral following move…

====> Darren / L.A.

Anonymous said...

Been around a lot of Brits, so ERM is very familiar.

Loved your hungry donkey gag, Manatee — that’s a keeper! And this puzzle was definitely that (a PITA 😎). My V8-can moment arrived with APPLIQUÉ, and all the weirdness finally fell into place.

Already spouted off above in my reply to D.O. about PANNEDIN, so I’ll just FingSTOP here…

====> Darren/ L.A.

Anonymous said...

I spent way too long trying to figure out what HEARTST meant. Also, as others have said panning is a lateral move.