google.com, pub-2774194725043577, DIRECT, f08c47fec0942fa0 L.A.Times Crossword Corner: Wednesday, June 7, 2023 ~ Jared Goudsmit

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Jun 7, 2023

Wednesday, June 7, 2023 ~ Jared Goudsmit

What Nonsense!

Happy hump day folks. Today we have three words that are synonyms for "Oh, BALONEY" spread at both ends of each theme entry (in circles that were too lightly printed for me to notice).

Why is this nonsense, you ask? Well, 1) baloney is spelt wrong and 2) the bologna words are outside the bread! 😀

Let's first visit the gobbledygook:

17. Ãœber-genius: ROCKET SCIENTIST. Not a brain surgeon nor a "rocket surgeon." A bunch of ROT.

33. National Historical Park in Boston that commemorates a 1775 battle: BUNKER HILL. "Don't fire until you see this whites of their eyes." Ah, BULL - that wasn't really said. //Note the bonus:  There's  a lot of BUNK in there.

40. Prominent feature of many a Jimi Hendrix song: GUITAR RIFF. A bunch of GUFF (not Jimi!).
 

Purple Haze

56. Classic grade-school lunch, and what's literally found in 17-, 33-, and 40-Across?: BALONEY SANDWICH. Classmates thought I was full of Bologna and my nickname was... well, you can put it together.


How I learned to spell BOLOGNA

Now, let's see what other hogwash we have today:

Across:
1. "Ray" Oscar winner Foxx: JAMIE. JAMIE played RAY Charles in the MOVIE (38a).
 

Ray Charles in a Different MOVIE

6. Beef or pork: MEAT.

10. Hon: BABE.

14. Sicily's country: ITALY. Also Bologna's county.

15. Make one's mark?: ETCH. Cute.

16. Skills barometer: EXAM.

17. [See: theme]

20. Pound pts.: OZS. 16 ounces are parts of a pound (which doesn't contain puppies).

21. __ Vegas Raiders: LAS. The Raiders (NFL team) left Oakland for Las Vegas 22 JAN 2020.

22. Puts on clothes: DRESSES.

23. Oily compound: LIPID. Natural oil & waxes insoluble in water.

25. Banh mi spread: MAYO. With a large Vietnamese population in Houston, we have great Banh mi all over town.
Recipie

26. Michael of "Alfie": CAINE. Don't think I've seen the MOVIE.

28. Distant: AFAR. Opposed to 19d - aNEAR (where the Blazing Saddles' sheriff was #AuthinticFrontierGibberish, er, Bologna).

30. New Deal pres.: FDR. Franklin Delano Roosevelt served as 32nd US president from 1933 to 1945.

33. [See: theme]

35. French father: PERE.

36. Clothesline alternative: DRYER.

37. In the vein of: ALA.

38. "Philadelphia" or "Chicago": MOVIE.

39. Stratford's river: AVON.  I think I should say something about a Bard upon there.

40. [See: theme]

42. Tender in Tokyo: YEN. Tender, cash, money.

43. Washed-out: PALE.

44. Used a prayer rug: KNELT.

45. Actress __ Rachel Wood: EVAN. Her IMDb.

47. Billionaire financier George: SOROS. Here thar be politics...

49. Where to watch Kings battle Senators: ICE RINK. NHL's Los Angeles Kings vs Ottawa Senators.

52. __ goo gai pan: MOO.
 Recipe

53. Prosecutors, for short: DAS. District Attorneys.

56. [See: theme]

59. "Supposing that's true ... ": IF SO.

60. Disney film featuring light cycles: TRON. A MOVIE and an old-school video game (which I filled with quarters).

1982 Trailer

61. The Scales of the Zodiac: LIBRA.
 
Our ancients had a heck of an imagination.

62. Come off as: SEEM.

63. Cab: TAXI.

64. And the following, in footnotes: ET SEQ. "What follows (used in page references). Eg: "see: vol2 p3 et seq" #Googled post solve.

Down:
1. "__ Dreams of Sushi": documentary about a Japanese chef: JIRO. I highly recommend it.


Trailer

2. Encyclopedic in range: A TO Z.

3. PC alternatives: MACS. Apple's Macintosh.

4. Sort: ILK.

5. Cosmetics item: EYELINER.

6. Argentine soccer superstar Lionel: MESSI.
 
Kinda looks like Ted Lasso's Roy Kent, no?

7. Space-saving abbr.: ETC. ETCetera.

8. Low-pH substance: ACID.

9. The "T" of BTU: THERMAL. British THERMAL Units or 1054.35 Joules.

10. Brandt of "Breaking Bad": BETSY.

11. Mid-2000s comedy tour featuring Ahmed Ahmed and Maz Jobrani: AXIS OF EVIL.

Trailer (w/ light #politics)

12. High-pH substance: BASE. Dumb me put in ACID first (and I was a lab-tech!).

13. CPR-performing team: EMTS. Emergency Medical Technicians.

18. Become pointed: TAPER.

19. Within a stone's throw: NEAR. Unless you can skip it on the lake AFAR.
 

Wait, there's professional stone skipping?

23. Compare: LIKEN.

24. Newsstand spread: DAILIES.

26. Learning __: CURVE.  Calculus III had many high ones.

27. "Who's next?": ANY ONE ELSE?  Not The Who's 1971 album?
 
Backstory behind the album cover

29. Unfizzy: FLAT. Or still ;-)

31. Get sidetracked: DRIFT.

32. Snorkeling locale: REEF.

33. Party time, casually: BDAY. Birthday abriv.

34. Heist loot: HAUL. I like this one.

35. Skin openings: PORES.

38. Mime played by Bill Irwin on "Elmo's World": MR NOODLE.
 

Elmo's World

40. Media giant that owns USA Today: GANNETT. I used to feel ashamed, sitting in my hotel room solving their doormat-DAILy crosswords, but Erik Agard has really up'd the game over there.

41. Ohio birthplace of LeBron James: AKRON.  He got game.
 
LeBron James - 6' 9"

43. Apt rhyme for "sprain": PAIN. Cute.

46. Race car sound: VROOM. Zoom, zoom, zoom.

48. Muscat citizen: OMANI. Muscat is Oman's port capitol.

49. Hieroglyphics bird: IBIS. This is interesting.

50. Bistro: CAFE.

51. Actress Sedgwick: KYRA.

53. "I claim that!": DIBS.

54. Land division: ACRE.

55. "Inside the NBA" analyst, to fans: SHAQ.
 
Shaq - 7'1" 325 pounds. 
//conversion to OZs is an exercise left to the reader.

57. Fenway team, briefly: SOX. The Bo[Red]-Sox. Not to be confused with the Chi[White]-Sox who play at Guaranteed Rate Field (nee: Comiskey Park).

58. Clever one: WIT.  No one has accused me of that.

Theme was "rubbish" and the fill solid. Thanks Jared (and Patti's team).
The Grid

WOs: acid -> BASE, papers(oops) -> DAILIES, area -> ACRE
ESPs: JIRO (couldn't recall his name), MESSI, BETSY, PERE, EVAN, KYRA, ET SEQ
Fav: HAUL was old-timey fun but TAXI made me think of one of the funniest sitcoms ever.

And, now, for Weird Al's

My Bologna

Cheers, -T
Coda: From what (little) research I did: Jared attended Tulane and has been constructing puzzles since then. He's currenly at St. Louis Aquarium entertaining. He also did a stint at the Magic House, St. Louis Children's Museum. His LinkedIn and a 2021 interview.


51 comments:

OwenKL said...

A rodeo BULL don't take no GUFF,
His goal in life is to make things rough
For a rider who
Can't stick like glue,
And "gently" place him on his duff!

Did a ROCKET SCIENTIST create TRON?
"Wherefore art thou not named Ron?
My kingdom for a bike!
In vain, we waste our light."
If it were written by the Bard of AVON!

{A, C+.}

Subgenius said...

This puzzle starts off poorly with a near-Natick at the intersection of one across and one down, but gets better from there. The theme was pretty clear from the start, and the reveal was apt and humorous. All in all, I’d say this was a pretty good puzzle, in spite of the meh start. FIR, so I’m happy.

desper-otto said...

Good morning!

Our resident WIT outdid himself pinch-hitting this morning's recap. Well done, Dash-T. Was proud of myself for immediately entering VROOM for that race car sound. D-o even managed to notice the circles and figured out the theme before the reveal appeared. Winner, winner, chicken dinner. Enjoyed your puzzle, Jared.

"Who's Next" -- Tom Lehrer. "We'll try to stay serene and calm...when Alabama gets the bomb."

Anonymous said...

JIRO ATOZ OZS ETSEQ... this grid just SCREAMS "forced pangram". Come ON. A lot of constructors and editors just don't understand that most solvers Don't. Care. At. All.

Jinx in Norfolk said...

FIR, but erased test for EXAM and gwinett for GANNETT. Guess my Atlanta days were more imprinted than I thought.

CAINE played a lovable incestist in Blame It On Rio. Ironically, Joseph Bologna starred in the MOVIE too.

I saw Jimi Hendrix in Cincinnati circa 1968. It was my first solo overnight road trip. I wore a black velvet suit that I bought the previous summer in London.

Us southerners know that the Three Wise Men smelled like smoke. After all, they came from A FAR. (For all y'all Yanks, "far" and "fire" are homophones in these parts.)

The National Lampoon 1964 High School Yearbook Parody was sited at the C. Estes Kefauver High School in dAcRON, Ohio.

When I was in my mid '40s, I worked with a guy who used GUFF to mean "lip" or "sass". First time I'd heard it.

Thanks to Jared for the challenge, and to -T for the fun tour. Oh yes, the sheriff's anear. And don't lose that handcar!

Jinx in Norfolk said...

Just heard that Lionel MESSI has agreed to a deal to play for Miami. Headlines will say "It's About To Get MESSI in Miami."

KS said...

FIR. And circles again? They don't belong in a puzzle with squares!

And the number of proper names was absurd. I took several WAG's and made it work, but seriously, are we all supposed to know the constructor's arcane favorites? C'mon. At least use names that are commonplace.

desper-otto said...

Jinx, I worked with a guy who called that body of water south of Louisiana the Guff, usually preceded by a colorful expletive.

Anonymous said...

CRushed this one today in less than 6 minutes, per the clOCK.
5:50, and that' no crock.

Jiro?
I don't know who today's actress is, but I recognize her name (sadly, from prior puzzles). Speaking of acting, Michael Caine and James Caan confuse me - when solving puzzles.


KS: Bless your heart for speaking the truth. Circles belong in the Jumble, not the crossword puzzles. I also agree with the "forced pangram" comment, as it doesn't add anything to the solving experience.

Oh joy, circles!

Big Easy said...

BALONEY!!! That's how everybody pronounces it. But more people are 'full of it' than eat bologna. MAYO and AXIS OF EVIL were guesses for unknowns. MR. NOODLE wasn't a guess, never heard of him (it). Theme? After I filled BALONEY S, I didn't read the clue and ANDWICH mad the perps easier. Had to change MINE to DIBS. I got shotgun.

Thank you ROCKET SCIENTIST because my knowledge of the Japanese language is less than zero. 1-D JIRO and his show were unknowns. Another unknown was 64-A- ET SEQ. The last time I used a footnote was 1969. They are for the academic world.

GANNETT- all their writers went on on or two day strike yesterday to protest job cuts. They had better wake up. If ad sales and subscriptions are down there's less money to pay for employees.

Anon@6:06- you're right. Who cares about A TO Z and everything in between. I don't.

waseeley said...

Anon 6:06 AM. Isn't a pangram a good thing? At least 26 letters are a gimme!

RosE said...

Good Morning! Today felt more like an end-of-the-week puzzle with UNK people and events. I left the north still awash with blank spaces and found the south quicker to fill.
On my return to the north the perps gave me a few AHA and oh, yeah, moments to finish.
One WO – SHAk -> SHAQ.
15A: WAG – iTCH or ETCH – guessed right!
25A: Banh mi – really??? For a simple MAYO answer, would it have killed you to clue a more familiar sandwich???
38A: Saw both movies. Liked “Chicago” better.
1D: JIRO – nope. I don’t eat raw protein.
40D: I grew up reading a small-town GANNETT newspaper many, many moons ago. Some habits are hard to break. Now I’m all digital except for Sunday which is mostly a waste – more ads than content, but still I persist…
Thanks Jared.
Thanks, Anon-T. I remember that BOLOGNA commercial! Fun!! Enjoyed your enlightening recap!

inanehiker said...

Amusing theme today, just kind of plugged along for the solve

my brown bag lunches I brought for school were usually of the bologna variety - never asked Mom why no PBJ? It may have been because my dad didn't like peanut butter, so we never had a lot of that around. I thought of it has a treat!

Thanks for blogging AnonT- I usually read along deciding if it is JzB or Melissa as I go - but I usually figure out it is you, part way down. Fun to have both Weird Al and Tom Lehrer(from D-O link) on the same day

Ray - O - Sunshine said...

I'll say it before anyone else does...Didn't need to be ROCKET SCIENTIST for this one. 🚀

The circles produce ROT BULL GUFF (oh forms of nonsense) "blarney" = BALONEY (SANDWHICH, a sangwidge where I come from). When I was in university (70's) there was one bar popular with American students in Bologna that served American style bologna sandwiches. The American bologna had to be imported to Bologna as a Bolognese would never have touched it. Bologna is famous for a spiced sliced cured meat mortadella, kind of a high-end much, more flavorful American bologna (like comparing hamburger to filet mignon). Came to be known as "Bologna sausage". How it eventually got dumbed down to our plain American bologna unknown

"A stones throw": NEAR, unless you use a catapult..😄. "Unfizzy": FLAT or what some of us recently learned still.

Some nationalist Sicilians would bristle at being considered part of ITALY. BABE: at least it's not bae todae. Michael CAINE's "Alfie" was on my bucket list. Finally saw it a couple years ago. Always thought it was a comedy. Boy was I wrong. PÈRE coulda also been CURÉ ("a father", parish priest).

I put MAYO on my fries, now they wanna ____ from the restaurant ....BANH MI
"In the vein of"...PHLEBOTOMY

Put Lionel on the fútbol team and things will get ____ ...MESSI

Have a Happy Humpday. 😊


Lee said...

FIR. Nice puzzle, Jared. I went from 1A JAMIE to 55D SHAQ without a hitch.

Filling 11D and 27D helped smooth the journey. The three theme answers were pretty straightforward. Didn't notice the panagram until Anon@6:06 mentioned it. I guess that is a kind of goal for some constructors, but I don't think it appears that often.

Thanks -T for the fine review. Enjoyed reading about the Who album cover. I own their greatest hits CD's and listen often.

Irish Miss said...

Good Morning:

If this puzzle screamed Pangram, I didn’t hear (or see) it, but I’m not that observant of individual letter appearances, only words or phrases. Speaking of words, the three letter count today was a more than acceptable 11. Hurray! If this puzzle’s clues had been increased in difficulty, it could have been offered without circles on a Thursday, giving the solver more of a challenge. There were plenty of unknowns to justify a more difficult solve, too: Jiri, Betsy, Axis of Evil, Base, Mr. Noodle, etc. I believe I had only one w/o with Pâté/Mayo. I’ve never had a Banh mi, but Pâté is far more appetizing to me than Mayo.

Thanks, Jared, for a fun solve and congrats on your academic and other achievements and thanks, Anon T, for the excellent review and for pinch hitting so successfully. Thanks also for the interview with Jared which gave us a small peek into his interesting and wide-ranging studies and avocations.

HG and TTP and any other golfer, I’m curious to know your opinion about the PGA/LIV merger/partnership.


FLN

Bart, thanks for dropping by and congrats on your LA Times debut.

Have a great day.

ATLGranny said...

Another in a string of satisfying FIRs. Thanks, Jared, for constructing and AnonT for deconstructing today's puzzle.

The solve went smoothly for me, thanks to helpful perps. And I knew for sure you were on the job when you referred to Houston, AnonT.

Lunch probably won't be a BALONEY SANDWICH, but it started the day with humor. Hope you enjoy it!

Big Easy said...

Ray- I live in a town that has a high concentration of Sicilians, not Italians. Darker hair, darker skin. The late head of the Mafia previously lived a couple of miles away. Everybody knew who he was, where he ate, and which table was ALWAYS his at the restaurants he frequented. I still remember when RFG was AG but couldn't get a conviction on him. He had him picked up, put him on a plane, and dumped him in Guatemala. The guy somehow just appeared back in town a few days later, nobody knew how he get back.

Italians always got a unearned bad reputation due to organized criminals. Profiling.

unclefred said...

Okay, I got the theme early, and did FIR, but was not too keen on this CW: too many obscure actors/actresses, AXISOFEVIL as a comedy group, never heard of. CW seemed Friday level, due to all the obscure names. Thanx -T for the fine write-up.

Yellowrocks said...

This was a little crunchy for a Wed. but solvable. Too many names. The NW was a bear until I realized POUND was a weight, not money. OZS gave me A to Z. Then I wagged the J in -AMIE, I have heard of JAMIE FOXX and know that JIRO is a Japanese name.
To me the pangram did not seem forced, but maybe so.
I solved this as a themeless and then read the circles. The circles are no problem unless they are absolutly necessary to the solve. Why not ignore them if you don't like them?
Dailies are getting thinner and thinner and more costly. There is much less local news. I could not even see the views of people running for school board.
MR NOODLE was ESP.
OKL I liked the first one. It can be read aloud very satisfactorily.
In some cases writers are earning less and less with fewer guaranteed opportunities to write.
Variety: "One of the most contentious issues in the writers strike that erupted May 2 is the assertion by the Writers Guild of America that screenwriting is in danger of becoming part of the “gig economy.” The WGA’s proposed solutions — mandatory staffing minimums and guaranteed weeks of employment — are equally dividing labor and management." The same can be said for print journalism. Many local writers who attended school board meetings and other local meetings and writing about them are no longer doing so. The exodus of talented writers can also kill an paper or a show.

Husker Gary said...

Musings
-Buzz Aldrin and I both have this T-shirt. One of us is more qualified!
-That Oscar Mayer jingle reminded me that I still know all the words to it and the McDonalds jingle that lists the ingredients in a Big Mac.
-Teacher candidates that ace every EXAM may not have the skills for the job
-Grandson’s graduating class in Lincoln had dozens of kids with the surnames of Nguyen and Tran
-For good or ill, FDR’s New Deal fundamentally changed the role of government in America
-I wonder if Jared knew JIRO and ETSEQ or used an app to fill the cells. No matter, just curious. :-)
-Learning CURVE: Youngest daughter is trying to get me to use VENMO
-FLAT 7-Up is great for a sour stomach. ACID/BASE neutralization.
-When LeBron left AKRON/Cleveland for Miami, he became an NBA Villain
-Any athletic trainer will tell you, “No PAIN, no GAIN” is nonsense
-Irish: the golf merger has plenty of hypocrisy and cash on both sides. I just like to see the game played well. Some marginal PGA players will now not be playing.
-Well done, -T!

waseeley said...

Thank you Jared for to me a surprisingly crunchy Wednesday puzzle, which I managed to FIW. Got the RIDICULOUS theme right away, but missed a few (in retrospect) very easy clues.

And thank you Tony B...... for the funny review. It had your fingerprints all over it!

A few favs and where I went wrong ...

14A ITALY. After England, my favorite country. It's the land of the greatest OPERAS ever written! We've never been to SICILY or BOLOGNA, but we've been to the cradle of the Renaissance, Florence, 3 times.

23A LIPID. I spent 4 years in a research lab at Hopkins testing LIPIDS. The scientists running the lab proved that Hyperlipoproteinemia was a major cause of heart disease, and that a class of drugs called STATINS could be used to treat it.

25A MAYO. Also a county in Ireland.

52A MOO. Monday we had MOO shu pork with sumdaze' hilarious illustration.

64A ET SEQ. DNK this footnoting abrev, but should have swagged 55D SHAQ. Unfortunately I'm not a fan of "Inside the NBA".

2D ATOZ. Shoulda' got this one too, if for no other reason than that it was a clue to the PANGRAM (which Anon @6:06 AM alerted me too), which I don't have any problems with and find rather clever.

Cheers,
Bill

Charlie Echo said...

This one came in smack dab on my frequency. Didn't even see most of the downs until reading Dash Ts great recap. (Thanks for the Wierd AL, T!) I guess that illustrates "YMMV". Jinx when I was stationed at Ft. Benning, we'd ask the local folks to explain the difference between "all" and "oil". Always wanted to put someone from the deep South in a room with a Maine Yankee, and see if a translator was required! YR, for 40-plus years my mornings started with coffee, a cig, and the Chicago Trib. Gave up smoking, and gave up the paper when they got rid of most of their reporters and columnists, and raised the price to an obscene amount. (Still gotta have that morning coffee fix, though!).

Anonymous said...

Yellowrocks: My dislike (or, my facetious "joy") of circles does not come from their shape or their visual presence in the puzzle. And to your point, I very rarely use the circles when solving, so I do ignore them. However, they usually detract from the solving experience because of what crossword circles often represent, which is the trade-off of poor fill in order to have some gimmicky theme. I think you'd agree with me on that point, given your comments that this puzzle was crunchy and had too many proper names.

@8:11 a.m.

Monkey said...

I like the symmetry of my failure by 2 letters: the NW tip and the SE tip. Otherwise somehow managed to get the dreaded proper names with perps and WAGS. The theme was easy enough to dissect. By the way circles don’t bother me.

A-t always has fun info for our enjoyment.

I too deplore the state of print journalism today.

Lucina said...

Hola!

I usually go with the flow and the puzzle fills quickly. And so it did not take a ROCKET SCIENTIST to solve this one.

However, words like LIPID, BASE, ACID, etc. recalled the chemistry lab of long ago.

I stopped using EYE LINER a long time ago.

No, I don't eat BALONEY SANDWICHES. The produce ACID in my stomach.

AVON products were sold by one of my neighbors and we always knew when the new catalog arrived.

MOO goo gai pan was a favorite of my late DH.

Time to refill my coffee. Thank you, Tony, for the narrative and thank you, Jared, for the puzzle.

Have a wonderful day, everyone!

Lucina said...

Our newspaper, The Arizona Republic, is still hanging in there, I'm happy to say and it is delivered to my driveway every morning. Though it is much thinner than it used to be, I enjoy reading the local news, the comics and, of course, the puzzles.

Picard said...

AnonT Thanks for the Weird Al My Bologna historical link. Fun puzzle and theme.

Here I was at BUNKER HILL.

Learning moment that the phrase "Don't fire until you see this whites of their eyes" probably never was said there.

Parsan said...

Some unknown people but a doable, interesting puzzle, thank you Jared! UBER GENIUS? - at first, I thought it meant the originator of the ride service, the alternative to a TAXI. So stupid. FaFavorite “tender in Tokyo” - YEN.

JINX @ 6:57 - yes, AFAR. (see below)

Ray-O @ 9:07) - I’ll trade your sangwidge for a sammich.

A lot of celebrities forget where they came from, but The LeBron James Foundation established by the hometown hoopster has done and continues to do great things for AKRON.I

JAMIE Fox, a fine actor, but now unwell with many conspiracy theories about his illness.

IM @9:22 - I don’t play but I do watch a lot of golf and the surprise merger is confounding and more complex than it initially seems.
As Irish golfer Padraig Harrington agreed, it was “sports washing”, but it was “——financial interest of both sides”. The bottom line, not morality —- just money.

Anon-T. Always happy to see Weird Al and love MR NOODLE! A happy dance that made me laugh and brought back memories of my grandchildren sitting in front of the TV watching and laughing at Elmo.

Happy day, all!

Jinx in Norfolk said...

I fell in love with French fries and mayo as a teen in Rotterdam. They had little shacks all over selling the treat. When I got back home, I was sorely disappointed to discover how gross our version of mayo is.

IM - The LIV/PGA merger cracks me up. The PGA executives stirred up much ill will against the LIV defectors, and now they all have to play nice. In the words of the great Emily Litella, "Never mind. Bitch." The guys who went with LIV guessed right.

CrossEyedDave said...

Report from New Jersey...

Thank goodness for the Blog, it,is keeping me busy while trapped in the house because of the smoke from the Canadian wildfires.
(I can barely see across the street!)

Anywho,
Thank you Anon-T for a "very" entertaining romp thru this puzzling puzzle...
Learning moment: wait! There's professional stone skipping?

-interlude-

Ray - O - Sunshine said...

Drove the hour down from camp to Utica for my dermatology basal cell survey. Of course they found something they think is benign but still removed from my back. Pathology pending. (Sheesh the lidocaine is wearing off, ouch)

By the time I got home my throat was burning from the imported Canadian fire air pollution and ozone.

Big E...@ 9:24 AM

My grandparents all came from Calabria..(the "toe" kicking the Sicilian "football"), very similar cultures. My paternal Gram was quite dark-skinned as a young women. Dad said she was sometimes mistaken for African American. But southern Italy had a Roman/Greek/Arab/French/particularly Norman/(originally Vikings) genetic mix. I was blond until my teens, had red headed freckled super light skinned classmates...etc. My HS was at least 75% Italian-American

Picard....On a tour of Boston learned that the Battle of Bunker Hill actually took place on Breed's Hill.

CrossEyedDave said...

RABBITHOLE!

Hmm,
Reminds me that while on VK in my "yout"
I was on Lake Champlain, and was teaching a 4 year old how to skip rocks...
I made sure to stand behind him, to avoid getting hit,
And when he wound up for his throw, the rock slipped out of his hand, and hit me right in the forehead...

(I wonder if it explains my blog postings...)

Jinx in Norfolk said...

IM - We both made a minor and common error. The PGA is an association of golf professionals who make their living in golf outside of tournaments, like teaching pros and course managers, while the PGA Tour is for pro tournament players.

Most of the big tournaments are run under the auspices of the PGA Tour, but not all. A notable example was the recent PGA Championship. Some fans don't know the difference - during the PGA, several Karens notified tour officials that Phil Mickleson was seen on TV switching balls on the green. PGA Tour events invoke a rule that makes that illegal, but the PGA does not. Phil, of course, had simply done his homework.

It was the PGA Tour that merged with LIV (and the DP Tour (nee the European Tour) too). The PGA remains outside of the new organization.

Jinx in Norfolk said...

Ray-O, I'll bet that doc saw that thing on your back and thought "oh my gawd - my boat payment is due Monday!"

Ol' Man Keith said...

Anonymous T brings us today's Goudsmit PZL.

ACID & BASE remind me of a long-ago incident in my HS chem lab. I ws the culprit (unwitting) and the hero (in my own mind) of the day.
We were engaged in some kind of teaching moment which required us to heat some acidic solution in a test tube. I didn't really know what I was doing, and in the course of passing my test tube (held in tongs) back & forth above a bunsen burner flame, I exploded the *#@! thing. Unfortunately it splashed acid over a classmate's hands.

I don't know how I knew what to do, but I very quickly ran to the large jar of limewater, kept on a stand, poured out a cup of it and ran back to throw it over my victim's hands.
That was apparently the right thing to do. Our teacher criticized me roundly (and rightfully) before the whole class, then praised my "quick-thinking" in throwing the base liquid over the acid-splashed hands.
There was no follow-up discipline to the event, so I guess it all came out OK.

But I still mentally blame the teacher. I don't think any of us really knew what we were doing.
~ OMK
____________
DR:
Three diagonals, far side.
The central diagonal gives us an anagram (12 of 15) marking the collapse of a blackberry crop, a....

"SALAS FAILURE"!

waseeley said...

@1:20 PM NOTHING can explain your blog postings CED! 🤣

Anonymous T said...

Hi All!

I just realized I didn't finish yesterday's puzzle and I didn't visit The Corner.

TanteNique - Not only Murder Podcasts but Murder Shows [SNL]. My Sis loves 'em.

Living in Shreveport, I quickly learned that it is part of the Ark-LA-Tex TriState.

Inanehiker - Severance has to be one of the most original SciFi concepts to come along in a long time.

In college, DW even came up with hurry-curry chicken which was a RAMEN based casserole.

Growing up, I had two paper-routes in Springfield, IL. A morning route and afternoon route. Now the paper is once a day, skinny and contains 90%+ of AP / UPI wire stories. Only the police blotter is local news. They don't even have a press anymore - they print it in Peoria and if the roads are closed due to snow, you don't get a paper. Sad.

Today:
Nice snap, picard.

Ray-O: Until I learned about the Vikings in Italy, we all assumed my Uncle was the product of the milk-man with his red hair & freckles :-)
Great-grand's Ellis Island papers say we come from Collevecchio but every old Italian says our last name is Sicilian. Maybe he owed money and had to run north? My skin is medium-olive and I still have a full (dark) head of hair.

CED - I was looking for that (frozen lake) video you've shared before when I found the professional stone skipping. I had to go with that 'cuz it seems so silly.

Youngest is in NYC doing a summer gig at Columbia. She called this morning to assure Mom & I she had her inhaler and is staying indoors today.

That's enough from me for now. Glad y'all enjoyed the blog today. I enjoyed reading y'all.

Cheers, -T

sumdaze said...

Thank you Jared for your puzzle of "encyclopedic range".
Thank you, -T for your excellent write-up. The Blues Brothers clip was so fun. I kept thinking it was time to hit pause and move on from the stone throwing video but I could not stop watching. Do golf commentators cover stone throwing contests on weekdays?

Father Christmas = Pere Noel

FLN, thank you for commenting on the Corner, Bart! Congratulations on your debut!

Irish Miss said...

Jinx @ 2:58 ~ Thanks for pointing out my faux pas. I was aware of the difference, just unthinkingly used incorrect shorthand. 🙄

Ray - O - Sunshine said...

I get the same feeling when I go to the dentist...😄

sumdaze said...

Oh, and I meant to add that MAYO feels like an Easter egg for BOLOgna SANDWICHES.

Jayce said...

I liked most of this puzzle. I liked reading all your comments more. I liked reading -T's write-up also.

Pangram? There was a pangram?

I am of approximately 1/4 German and 1/4 Scottish ancestry. I think I look rather Scottish in appearance: somewhat ruddy skin, a blob nose. On the other hand (as Tevye was fond of saying), I was very blond as a small boy, and very slender, which looked very English. Since about age 10 my hair has been dark brown.

So many Vietnamese food joints here, yet we have never (yet) had a banh mi. It's on my sangwidge list.

The Raiders' leaving Oakland for Las Vegas caused a lot of angst around here. Other sports teams have left or are leaving Oakland also.

Speaking of MACS, I hereby ask you, Melissa Bee, how you are still enjoying (or hating) your 24" iMac? I ask because I'm considering getting one when my current PC eventually dies.

Speaking of putting people on an airplane and dumping them somewhere...

Good wishes to you all.

Anonymous T said...

sumdayze - that's funny! Golf commentators

Jayce - It's the bread that makes the Bahn mi. Apparently with the French there so long, the Vietnamese got bread down. I always go with BBQ pork and add a little plumb sauce.
Oh, and look out for the jalapeno slice - I think they hide it in there as a joke to see how white you are ;-)

Cheers, -T

Lucina said...

I'm so glad I don't follow sports. It's so confusing sometimes.

Jayce said...

Thanks for the banh mi info and warning, -T.

Jinx in Norfolk said...

Some talking heads on a panel show this evening were discussing the NYC smoke problem. One guy opined that he could understand why the Yankees rescheduled their game, but didn't get why the WNBA's New York Liberty rescheduled theirs, since the play indoors in Madison Square Garden. Another wag explained that it was because the Liberty was concerned about the health of their fan.

Anonymous T said...

I just opened (and read) my NYT newsletter and Messi's in it(?!?)

I'll share the blurb:
"Huge recruit: Lionel Messi could join Major League Soccer in a matter of days. Multiple organizations, including the league and the Inter Miami team, along with Apple and Adidas, are preparing a huge financial package, The Athletic reports."

All I know about football, I learned from Ted Lasso (and having Pele visiting the puzzle oft). My buddy from Algeria still (at 51yrs on) plays (a scissor-kick put him down for 3 days) and my Boss-Man loves streaming games on his tertiary laptop.
//secondary laptop has chess tournaments playing in the background. And here I thought I was ADHD :-)

Kismet to have Messi in the puzzle today and then that, eh?
Cheers, -T

CrossEyedDave said...

My usual approach to crossword solving is like throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what will stick...
Imagine my surprise when I WAG'd "mayo", for bahn mi, and it stuck!

(TMI, this is how I learned the names of all the pasta types...)

I guess it is late enough to get personal, without offending the breakfast crowd...

You know how crazy I am about "The Play That Goes Wrong" from my previous ravings about how great they are...
I.E.: Peter Pan, Scrooge, that crazy hot Atlanta play thing 90 degrees...
Well, it was daughter #1 that turned me on to them, and I fell in love with the ensemble cast. (As I am sure our theatrical patrons will appreciate.) so much so, that I have been raving about them for the past several years on this blog, trying to get you to watch them.
Well,,
Daughter #1, in an early Father's Day present, bought tickets for us to see them live, "On Broadway!" (Yes, they are that good!)
And I went (thru the smoke) last nite to see them in person. It has been seven years since the YouTube video, but the look (& act) exactly the same, (much to my appreciation) live on Broadway, and I am so glad that their talents have been recognized.

Anywho,
I had a great time, and the play, exactly the same, except when it wasn't due to cast interaction with the audience, was tremendous fun! I said to daughter #1 before the show that we should hang out by the stage door after the show to get autographs like silly teenagers at a Beatles concert as a jest, but after we said our goodbyes, she sent me this picture as I was driving home saying you are going to kill me!

On right is Peter Pan, to his left is Tinkerbell, crouching middle is daughter #1, and behind is two stage hands with important parts I can't quite remember right now..

Aaaargh! I missed it! Rats!!!

Anywho,who...

here is the 7 year old YouTube play if you want to get a laugh out of life...

Wilbur Charles said...

I inked Faneuil hall/ BUNKER HILL

I tend to skip pop-cul and lo and behold CAINE perped and I realized it was Affie

ET SEQ/et ali;JIRO, BETSY were UNK

AKRON was the birthplace of something else(1935)

I got lucky with the Citrus Chronicle with extensive Sports coverage. My old TBTimes virtually gave up on anything that wasn't Bucs,Rays or Lightning. No PGA at all

MAYO on fries? Excuse me while I rend my tunic

IM, the pressure to merge may have come from the DP Tour which lost so many names. Decision was to throw money at lawyers or players. Big win for LIV guys(bonuses)

The battle, and maybe the saying was actually at Breed's Hill.

I actually finished xword last night but had a long day beginning early(for me). Some of my comments are dupes of later posts(fe. Breeds Hill)

Thx Tony (aka Dash-T)

WC

CrossEyedDave said...

Holy crap!

I just read they cancelled some broadway shows because of the smoke!

Oh well,
At least I can go outside and light my backyard fireplace for some relaxation...