IN BLOOM
April
showers bring....hey, wait, we're too early for the flowers~! This is
my second blog of an Emma Oxford puzzle this year ( see 67A.). Four
11-letter and one 13-letter spanners for the theme - scrambled, or
"wild" - flower names. No circles, but "in my opinion" ( see 59D. ) it
might have helped, as the first two themers are two-word scrambles, but
then the second two are just the first four letters. Your Experience
May Be/Might've Been Different - in fact, I'm coining a new term,
"YEMBD" - pronounced "yem-beady". Very few names, plenty of foreign
(read) French words, but a longer than usual solve time for me, as I did
not get the "ta-DA~!" at the end due to my "LIKE to serve" mistake,
which took a while to find.
18. *Be extremely helpful: LIVE TO SERVE - VIOLET - the original Willy Wonka
29. *Staged a fireworks show: LIT UP THE SKY - TULIP - ah, there's an organ joke in there....
36. *Start of an instruction to an automated assistant: SIRI SET A TIMER - IRIS
44. *Sensitive area: SORE SUBJECT - ROSE - and the 'start' of the joke ....
58. Colorful elements of a meadow, and what can be found at the starts of the answers to the starred clues?: WILDFLOWERS
And Away We Go~!
ACROSS:
1. Gasteyer of "Mean Girls": ANA
4. Stand-up individual?: COMIC
9. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner: MEALS
14. Place for a pint: PUB - Bzzzt~! Not BAR - AND - 20A. Some pints: ALES
15. Miso soup mushroom: ENOKI - perps, but then again, a crossword staple lately
16. Data processor's need: INPUT
17. Lenovo products: PCs - Lenovo is a Windows-based computer maker
22. Crying harder: TEARIER - meh.
23. Tempo similar to largo: LENTO
25. Prepares, as a sleeping bag: UNROLLS
33. Part of EVOO: OIL - Extra Virgin Olive Oil
34. Used DoorDash, say: ATE IN - had food delivered, that is; I made my own version of General Tso's chicken the other day~!
35. Auction site: eBAY
41. Very: MOST - as in "she is most attractive"
42. Rene of "Tin Cup": RUSSO
43. Death on the Nile cause, perhaps: ASP - "Very dangerous...you go first"
50. Frightening vision: DAYMARE - as opposed to NIGHTmare - a new word for me; more here
52. Part of TNT: NITRO - Everything you ever wanted to know about trinitrotoluene
53. Do over and over: ITERATE - so to REiterate is to do over and over AND OVER~?
57. "Begone!": SHOO
62. Convent figure: NUN
63. Adult stage in insects: IMAGO
64. Provide an address: ORATE - ooh, clever misdirection
65. Here, in France: ICI - Frawnche #2
66. Airport structure: TOWER
"We have no tower - just a bridge, Sir"
67. "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" host Aisha: TYLER - strangely, this is the second time with this clue/answer for me in an Emma Oxford puzzle blog
68. "Evita" role: CHE
DOWN:
1. Revolt: APPALL - the "ick" revolt, not the political one
2. Atomic cores: NUCLEI - I read somewhere that our constructor Emma has atomic knowledge
3. Playing hooky, perhaps: ABSENT
4. Cartoon still: CEL
5. "Roger that, boss!": "ON IT~!"
6. Make emotional: MOVE - MOKE seemed like a possibility 😜
7. Maker of Ektorp sofas: IKEA - I have learned to default to "IKEA" when it's an oddly-named furniture clue....
8. Fruit type that tends to be in season in winter: CITRUS - I did not know this; read more here from "The CIA"
9. Kathy Bates film based on a Stephen King novel: MISERY - I am not a fan of this genre
10. Month after diciembre: ENERO - the Spanish spelling of January
11. Mo. after Mar.: APRil - the current "mid-spring" month - I have daffodils in my front yard
12. Hon: LUV - Thank God it was not the "other" three-letter cringe word
13. Sault __ Marie: STE - Frawnche #3
19. Sty sound: OINK
21. Queen Anne's house: STUART - I have had this type of misdirection before; not the actual house as in structure/style, but the "political" one - see the Wiki highlighted
24. __-Free: contact lens solution: OPTI
26. Piercing spot: LOBE
27. "Not true!": LIAR - I had "LIES~!" to start
28. Devious: SLY
30. Your, in Tours: TES - Frawnche #4
31. Dash, quaintly: HIE
32. __ nous: ENTRE - fifth and finale Frawnche
35. Characters in some texts: EMOJIS - 😀😎😜
36. Slugger Sammy: SOSA - an easy baseball reference, tho I am
not a fan like our blog host C.C. - I did like the link to the two guys
trying to hit 100mph fastballs, Chairman~!
37. Guessing game: I SPY
38. Ger. neighbor: AUStria
39. Nashville sch.: TSU - I WAGed this, figured it was something like "Tennessee State University"
40. ID on a Barnes & Noble buy: ISBN - ID is abbr., so too the International Standard Book Number
41. Outraged: MAD
44. Took, as an exam: SAT FOR
45. Baseball analyst Hershiser: OREL - does this mean he offers "Orel" exams~? ba-dum-tiss
46. Transplant: REROOT - I re-potted my houseplant a month ago,
and it's still in shock; I don't want to lose it, because it was my
mother's plant and I kept it when we sold the LI house after she passed
47. Pertaining to a certain culture: ETHNIC
48. Catcher's stance: CROUCH - ah; much better than "SQUAT", which was my first thought
49. Nickname for the Canadian $2 coin: TOONIE - I filled in LOONEY, as I have seen this before in Crosswords, but obviously had the wrong $ value, and spelling - but 50% correct~!
51. Small fly: MIDGE
54. Out of whack: AWRY
55. Blue-green shade: TEAL
56. Art Deco icon: ERTÉ - I happen to "MOKE" (😁) the Art Deco style - his Wiki
58. Cleverness: WIT
59. Brief "I would say ... ": IMO - In My Opinion
60. Order's partner: LAW - for those who are interested, the LAW & ORDER tab for the TV show theme from Ultimate Guitar; you'll have to create a log-in to see it if you don't already have one
61. Msg. from a pulpit: SERmon
Splynter
39 comments:
After I completed the puzzle, and got the reveal, I looked back and saw all the “flowers.” Pretty clever, I thought. Anyway, FIR, so I’m happy.
Good morning!
Missed the reveal. Never saw the theme. Some things never change. [Sigh] Didn't know the Gasteyer name, so tried RISE UP (revolt) for 1d. (Have I ever mentioned...?) Otherwise, my grid was Wite-Out-free. Thanx, Emma. And thanx for pinch-hitting yet again, Splynter.
Took 6:57 today for me to finish, though the theme did not OCCURS to me.
Way too many foreign words today, which has become a trend. But, I passed today's Spanish lesson (Enero) and I even knew both of today's actresses (Ana & Russo).
Going back-to-back-to-back with "tes, hie, entre" was painful. Then, shortly thereafter we had the pleasure of "aus, tsu, isbn."
I find those "ici".
FIR, getting my Wag @ IMAGO x MIDGE. Hand up for lOONIE->TOONIE, also bad omen->DAYMARE, and okay->ON IT.
Today is:
NATIONAL MO-KU DAY (no, no, no. It is actually NATIONAL HAIKU POETRY DAY)
NATIONAL ELLIS ISLAND FAMILY HISTORY DAY (way back when we actually wanted to know who was entering)
NATIONAL CHEESEBALL DAY (conjures up memories of soirees with fancy appetizers)
NATIONAL CRAWFISH DAY (evokes memories of great boils)
NATIONAL BANANA DAY (“fosters” memories of great deserts)
I liked Tin Cup, but I really got to know RUSSO in the remake of The Thomas Crown Affair.
CSO to C-Eh! I remember her teaching us about loonies/TOONIES, but not in time to avoid incorrectly filling it.
I agree with Splynter about where tulips should be located. I also enjoyed the rest of his commentary. And thanks to Emma for the fun tester, even though I didn't get the theme before coming here.
FIR. Didn't even notice the reveal until I got here and then went back and saw the anagrams of flowers in the clues. Perhaps I didn't see them at first because today's puzzle was really a snap.
For a Wednesday puzzle, this was very enjoyable.
Good Morning! I had to work “the little gray cells” today, more so than earlier this week, but with only LIes -> LIAR. The middle north was the last to fill, easy once it was done, but hindsight often is.
The theme was a mystery until I got to the Corner, then the AHA moment.
I am unfamiliar with the expression DAYMARE. Even with the definition, it seems contrived.
Perps for TYLER, TES.
CSO to Canadian Eh for TOONIE.
Thanks, Splynter, for your delightful recap and Emma for a fun puzzle to start my day.
Good Morning:
On the positive side, this was a clever, well-hidden theme with a very surprising reveal, although I parsed all of the flowers, except Tulip, as plurals. I'm not sure if this was the intention of the constructor, but it seems obvious to me. I liked the proximity of Pub and Ales and the rhyming echoing of Sly/Sky/Spy. On the negative side was the tortured Tearier and the over abundance of TLWs, but, overall, it was an enjoyable solve and Wednesday appropriate.
Thanks, Emma, and thanks, Splynter, for pitching in once again. I'm impressed with your domestic endeavors of replanting and replicating the General's speciality!
Have a great day.
Whew! I got 'er done but Emma's puzzle almost put me out of my MISERY. I was stuck in the middle. I didn't know 'frawnch' for yours and forgot about about the I SPY game. The only Apples at my house are in the fridge. I'd forgotten about SIRI. Android has a 'Hey Google' but since my phone is locked it won't work unless I unlock it and then touch the microphone symbol. If you add ALEXA it just shows how lazy people have become.
The scrambled WILD FLOWERS were not noticed and was filled by perps.
IMAGO- have not seen that fill in years
MOST for 'Very' and APPALL for "Revolt"- filled them but don't get it. Neither makes sense. Appalling and revolting makes sense.
"Begone!" Wanted SCAT before the perps made it SHOO
TYLER- complete unknown
I had to change L to T to get TOONIE
FIR. I filled the grid the way I enjoy the best, by only filling an answer where I already have at least one letter already filled, except for the first answer. It adds a bit of challenge. I always try, but often I fall short.
Nice puzzle, Emma. Fine review, Splynter.
I checked the definitions of ITERATE and REITERATE. Basically, iterate means to perform the same process on a set of data again and again. Kind of like a "FOR/NEXT loop in a program. Reiterate means to repeat, possibly more than once, an action or explanation, possibly in a different way or manner. Interesting.
If it wasn't for scavengers, we would have a lot more messes to clean up.
Foible.
Amen to Rene and Pierce.
Checked. DAYMARE was uses (maybe coined) by Charles Dickens in DAVID COPPERFIELD in 1859.
Hola!
Thank you, Splynter, for subbing again. Nice job! Actually I did not know who was on duty until the legs appeared. Aha!
This filled fast for a Wednesday and I had to make sure by the calendar it wasn't Monday. And if I've ever seen DAYMARE before I do not recall. It seems odd though nightmare doesn't.
Stephen King is nowhere in my radar but I remember seeing MISERY on a long ago Sunday afternoon. It was impressive and horrifying all at once.
Yes! Canadian Eh's lesson came back to me on TOONIE and loonie.
Have a wonderful Wednesday, everyone!
FIR, but had a couple head scratchers where appall crossed lento and midge crossed imago, but eventually it came to me. Also never saw the mixed flowers until coming here for my aha moment! Clever and fun.
Musings
-When I thank my wife for doing something for me, her response is, “I LIVE TO SERVE”
-Once again, I am subbing in a school full of PCS! There is just enough commonality that I can help with most problems, especially all the Office apps. Today we attack Excel and I am GOOD TO GO!
-INPUT: Every computer person knows the acronym GIGO
-On overnighters with 50 kids, they UNROLLED their sleeping bags and I inflated my queen-sized bed
-There’s no way a woman like Rene RUSSO would stay with this guy in real life
-We’ve had a very warm APR but there are frost warnings for this weekend
-Nice job, Splynter and as usual, “What Irish Said!”
I love flowers, so the reveal was a pleasant surprise. I too went back and saw that all except TULIP were in the plural as one would expect since the reveal is plural.
I too had LIes before LIAR.
All the Frawnch as Splynter likes to say didn’t bother me. 🤣
There were a couple of names I didn’t know but perps filled them anyway.
I frequently use SIRI to set timers and especially alarms for me.
Nice recap, Splynter.
I don't speak French. 22, 50, and 53 were off, perhaps obscure?
Originally I wrote Bae for 12down was happy to erase.
Wow. Third easy puzzle in a row! Kinda makes me dread the rest of the week! DAYMARE was new to me, and I thought TEARIER was a touch of green paint. Had to pause, as Jake the Husky was insisting that I feed him breakfast, and never went back for the theme. Not overly fond of anagrams, so thanks for that, Splynter. (And the legs!)
Did the puzzle, totally missed out on the theme...
It may be because I really hate anagrams.
The theme however, does have some linkage possibilities...
I googled "the most dangerous flower," and , it appears they are everywhere!
PSA:
what you need to know. (4:02)
and 9 poisonous plants you might own. (10:00)
I didn’t finish this puzzle quickly, but I enjoyed a slow and steady pace and FIR with a smile on my face. I liked it a lot and think many of the clues were interesting/tricky. APPALL, AWRY, TOONIE, IMAGO to name a few. Rene RUSSO is one of my favorite actresses, MISERY is horrifyingly unforgettable, and Sammy SOSA is well known to this Cubs fan, so I had a leg up on the proper names, and perps helped with the unknown ones.
.
BTW, HIE and AUS are not foreign words, as someone here said. Hie is old fashioned English, and Aus. Is the abbreviation for Austria.
Thanks, Emma, for a most enjoyable, satisying puzzle. Thanks, Splynter, for the great tour. I loved the Airplane II clip.
Not as enjoyable as the past couple days, partly I guess because I'm no fan of anagrams. And even there, I didn't see much consistency: some singular, some plural, anagrams of varying length....
I FIRed, despite bizarre entries like TOONIE, ENOKI, and DAYMARE. And despite hundreds of potential interesting clues for TYLER, we were confronted with Aisha?!
"Tiptoe through the window
By the window, that is where I'll be
Come tiptoe through the tulips with me!"
I enjoyed today's romp through the WILDFLOWERS, and recognized each with the help of the reveal at 58 Across. DNK Gasteyer or Aisha, and TOONIE was a learning moment, but FIR and liked it.
Many thanks to Emma, Patti, and Splynter for brightening my morning.
Thank you, Emma, and thank you, Splynter.
The flowery puzzle was fine, as was the review.
That looked and sounded like Doug Llewelyn in the intro.
Golf this afternoon. Gotta run.
Not anagrams. These were jumbles or scrabbles.
Anagram: a word or phrase made by transposing the letters of another word or phrase.
The word "secure" is an anagram of "rescue."
Thanks for the nice comments everyone! I do want to point out, in case it helps, none of the anagrams are intended to be plural. Any letter that is part of the next word isn't part of the intended anagram. So, LITUP/THESKY, LIVETO/SERVE, SIRI/SETATIMER, and SORE/SUBJECT. It's just a weird coincidence that three of the four entries ended up with the next word starting with S. Maybe I should've gone with SORETHROATS or SOREWINNERS to balance it out.
Another point of interest: Will Pfadenhauer and I have been trying to get "ektorp" into the crossworld lexicon. Much like natick, it is also a small city that no one has heard of (IKEA furniture is named after real places, fun fact), but where natick means "an impossible crossing," we submit for your consideration that ektorp should mean "a clue whose answer you can get from context without actually knowing it." Splynter has proved my point above, saying that weird furniture names is all that's needed to know the answer must be IKEA, even if you wouldn't have been able to come up with those furniture names independently.
Thanks everyone for solving!
-EO
i forgot to say how much I liked the FLOWER theme! I love all kinds of flowers; the more colorful, the better. When my nieces visited a few weeks ago they each brought me a bouquet which lasted for over a week. Pure joy!
I used to love planting them every year but now bending is a problem. My golden years have tarnished!
My doctor has referred me to a specialist so I'm off to see him/her. I'm not sure since I have only a surname to go by.
So proud of myself yesterday for getting the theme early. You know what they say about pride, and sure enough like, d-o, I never saw the theme, even when I looked for it. I did FIR, but it didn't occur to me that the wildflowers were scrambled, so never figured it out. Very clever, EO, thanx. Yet another terrific write-up, Splynter, thanx.
Thanks for stopping by our little word stand, Emma! Ektorp is a fun idea!
Thank you Emma for a fun Wednesday FIR and for teaching us yet another nuance in puzzle thematics. I had to do quit a bit of head scratching before the blooms blossomed in my mind.
And thank you Splynter for another fun, fact filled expo.
Just a few favs:
18A LIVE TO SERVE. Changed from LIKE TO SERVE, as 6D MOKE didn't make any sense.
67A TYLER. Perhaps EMMA (or PATTI) could change the next one to LIV for all of us LOTR fans.
2D NUCLEI. When I blogged EMMA on June 23, 2022 she was working on a graduate degree in particle physics. Let's hope she stops by and tells us how she and that field are doing. It seems like every other day I read a pop-phys article telling us that "everything we know about physics is wrong". Or more likely most pop-phys articles are wrong.
49D TOONIE <-- LOONIE.
Cheers,
Bill
Puzzling thoughts:
REPEATS in 53-across caused me problems, and ITERATE was last to fall ... but by then I had already made a couple of errors in that section, so although I FIR, it was not a perfect grid
Thanks Emma for stopping by, and thanks Splynter for the recap and explanation of the reveal. I honestly did not see the WILD FLOWERS in the starred clue's answers
Jinx @ 7:22 ==> thanks for reminding me (and all others) that today is National (Hai) Moe-ku Day! In honor of that it is only fitting that I create a couple to go with today's puzzle:
Would raging rivers
And over-filled washes be
Known as WILD FLOWERS?
In baseball circles,
Once Sammy quit his steroids,
SOSA was so-so
EO@12:49. I like the “ektorp” suggestion.
By the way, in my 7:17 a.m. post, I didn't say "hie" and "Aus" were foreign words. I just called them (like ISBN) part of a painful section. I stand by that.
Solved this puzzle pretty quickly, without having to look anything up. Very much enjoyed Splynter's recap and all your comments.
OCCURS —> CROCUS (Good one, Anon!)
Anon@7:17 AM
Thanks, Emma for your puzzle and for stopping by! I agree with what you said about IKEA. That's how I got that one, too.
FAV: Death on the Nile cause, perhaps
This one was difficult for me. I enjoyed the flower theme but got a one-box FIW. I fell into the MOKE trap. As a result, I could not parse the first flower. I finally gave up and came here.
Thanks for the tour, Splynter! I saved your helpful Tempo chart. Daffodils are my favorite flower. Yours are lovely. I repotted my Boston fern yesterday so I share your feelings about hoping the plant can survive the shock. Try to not give it too much love. We sometimes kill plants with kindness. Good luck!
One more time….
Completed this relatively easy Wednesday puzzle while standing in line with my daughter Catherine waiting to get on a Dr. Seuss ride at Universal Studios in Orlando. Fun Day! 😄
Fav. clue “Provide an address”
Inkovers: cyan/TEAL, scat/SHOO, like,love/LIVE, loony/loonie/TOONIE (apologies to C. Eh)
Wonder how hair-pulling hard an IKEA Ektorp sofa is to put together 😳. Sault Ste. Marie (the “Rapids of the St Mary River”) is French name of an American town….Can I ASP a question? Can a ASP swim and then nip you in the Nile? (Ital) LENTO = slow, Largo = broad/wide
Learned that IMAGO is the adult form of an insect from CWs . Not “adult” like I learnt in kollidge
The thought I could experience a DAYMARE gives me nightmares 😱… ANA Gasteyer has been showing up on CWs longer than she was on SNL.
“Do over“ INTERATE, “Do over and over” reITERATE, No, Splynt “to do over, over and over again would be re-re-interate. 😉 …. Is that “General TSU (var) chicken”?
Miriam “MIDGE”: The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel great “standup” COMIC, lousy Mom IMO.
Weepy dog breed…..TEARIER
Kind of loaf used to make “Rubens” and “Rachels”…. AWRY
Object of a detour….REROOT
MAD citizen of the realm….SORESUBJECT
Ditty sung by a monarch’s lady…DAYMARE
Create an unhappy mood. Cast ____ …APPALL
Time to board…..wait wait I didn’t figure out the theme yet😳
😄
EMMA @12:59 PM I love it! Could someone with admin capability please add "EKTORP: a clue whose answer you can get from context without actually knowing it." to the Comments Section Abbrs page. And perhaps credit Emma Oxford for it.
Prof M @4:25 PM Thank you Prof M for pointing out SS' clever (real) acronym.
Natick, which has been incorporated into crossword language, is an actual town.
Wonderful Wednesday. Thanks for the fun, Emma (thanks for stopping by) and Splynter.
I FIRed and got the WILD FLOWERS theme. Thanks for clarifying re singular not plural, Emma. I was thinking that none of those flowers (except maybe a wild violet) are truly Wild Flowers that grow in a meadow, but I think the WILD was a clue that the letters were mixed up.
I’m very late to the party after doing our income tax today. Fun fact- Canadians have until APR 30 to complete our taxes.
I did drop by to accept my CSO. Thanks for the love, Emma. I’m glad my Canadian Loonie/TOONIE lesson was remembered by many of you. Perhaps I should repeat it for you Newbies. But no time tonight.
Wishing you all a good night.
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