google.com, pub-2774194725043577, DIRECT, f08c47fec0942fa0 L.A.Times Crossword Corner: Tuesday September 17, 2024 Doug Peterson

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Sep 17, 2024

Tuesday September 17, 2024 Doug Peterson

Sailing, Sailing Over the Ocean Blue.  Today we are traveling over the vast waters in various vessels, some more comfortable than others.  Let's see how we're traveling.


20-Across. Comic strip that's been running since 1918: GASOLINE ALLEY.  Galley.  Probably not the most comfortable way to travel.

25-Across. Significant other: LIFE PARTNER.  Liner.  Ocean liners can be comfortable, unless you're on the Titanic.


44-Across. "Delta Dawn" country singer: TANYA TUCKER.  Tanker.  Not designed for tourists since it's designed to carry or store bulk liquids or gases.

And the unifier:

49-Across. Vessel transporting standard-sized cargo units, and a description of each set of circled letters: CONTAINER SHIP.  Each of the theme clues begins and ends with a type of ship with the other letters of the answer "contained" within the Ship.  In 2021, the huge container ship, the Ever Given, got stuck in the Suez Canal.

And some other boat references

64-Across. Sailboat pole: MAST.


Across:
1. Persian Gulf nation: IRAN.  I just read The Lion Women of Tehran, by Marjan Kamali.  It's a fabulous novel about Iran and its political situation from the 1950s to present day.


5. Tree with fronds: PALM.

Anatomy of a Palm Tree


9. Made a lot?: PAVED.  Think of a Parking Lot.


14. Special attention: CARE.

15. Track on an opera CD: ARIA.  My favorite Aria from Carmen.


16. Pithy saying: ADAGE.

17. "I __ you'd say that": KNEW.

18. Prestigious British boarding school: ETON.  Eddie Redmayne and Prince William were classmates at Eton.


19. Steps on a ladder: RUNGS.


23. Burrowing animal: MOLE.  They are ugly little critters.


24. Obtained: GOT.

30. Winter bug: FLU.


33. Corrosive chemicals: ACIDS.

34. Appear in print: RUN.

35. Open-handed hit: SLAP.


36. Quite small: MINI.



37. Fuji or Vesuvius: MOUNT.  Both Mount Fuji and Mount Vesuvius are volcanic mountains.  At 12,388 feet, Mt. Fuji is Japan's tallest peak.  Mt Vesuvius is in Italy and is best known for destroying the ancient city of Pompeii about 79 CE.  Mt. Vesuvius last erupted in 1944.

Woodblock print of Mt. Fuji


Mt. Vesuvius and ruins of Pompeii

39. Territory, so to speak: TURF.

40. "A Wrinkle in Time" actor Michael: PEÑA.  Michael Peña portrayed a character known as Red in the 2018 version of A Wrinkle in Time.  The movie is a science fantasy adventure based on Madeleine L'Engle's 1962 novel of the same name.  I remember reading A Wrinkle in Time back when I was in grade school.


41. Hunting bird active at night: OWL.


42. Drum at a poetry slam: BONGO.  Everything you wanted to known about a Poetry Slam but didn't care to ask.

43. Fourth-yr. students: SRs.  As Seniors.

47. __ rummy: GIN.  Everything you wanted to know about Gin Rummy.  Well, maybe not everything.

48. Poster fastener: TACK.


55. Any of the Transformers: ROBOT.


56. Zoo trench: MOAT.

57. Strong smell: ODOR.

59. "Demon Slayer" genre: ANIME.  Okay.

60. Emmy-nominated "Insecure" star Rae: ISSA.  Issa Rae was the co-writer of the television comedy-drama series Insecure.
Issa Rae is the woman in the middle.

61. Toy with a BrickHeadz line: LEGO.  BrickHeadz weren't available when I was playing with Legos.


62. Electricity usage tracker: METER.

63. Adolescent: TEEN.

Down:
1. "That's nasty!": ICK!

2. Telephoned: RANG.

3. Polygon calculation: AREA.

4. Providers of "breaking" coverage: NEWS MEDIA.

5. Saffron-flavored Spanish dish: PAELLA.  Yummers!  Paella is one of the best known dishes in Spanish cuisine.  There is a restaurant in town that makes wonderful Paella, but it takes a long time to make, so you need to call in your order before you arrive at the restaurant.



6. More bohemian: ARTIER.

7. Predator that roars: LION.


8. 7-Down's locks: MANE.


9. Tattoo __: PARLOR.


10. The "A" in YA fiction: ADULT.  What makes a book Young Adult fiction?

11. Wind indicator: VANE.


12. Like many rich batters: EGGY.

13. __ Moines, Iowa: DES.


21. "My bad!": OOPS.

22. Tinseltown power broker: AGENT.

25. Bulb holders: LAMPS.


26. More frigid: ICIER.

27. Swedes' neighbors: FINNS.  //  And 35-Down. Capital east of Oslo: STOCKHOLM.


28. In all honesty: TRULY.

29. Sisterhood member: NUN.


30. Fail to make the grade: FLUNK.

31. Jumbo: LARGE.

32. Willing to try: UP FOR.

37. Disney movie set on the island of Motunui: MOANA.


38. Have the rights to: OWN.

42. Tampa Bay NFLers: BUCS.  As in the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.


44. Nervous laugh: TITTER.

45. "Relax, recruit": AT EASE.

46. Kilt pattern: TARTAN.

MacLeod Dress Tartan.

47. Bearded lawn decoration: GNOME.  One of the funniest scenes from The Fully Monty involved a garden GNOME.


49. Gelato holder: CONE.  Yummers!


50. Somber bio: OBIT.  As in an Obituary.  Not all obituaries are somber, however.

51. Cry in a game of tag: I'M IT.  Don't you say, "Tag, You're it!"?


52. Rocket section: NOSE.

Anatomy of a Rocket

53. Creative start: IDEA.


54. 1990s fad discs: POGS.


55. Fish follower, in the zodiac: RAM.  Also known as Pisces (Fish) and Aries (Ram).


58. Decompose: ROT.

Here's the Grid:



חתולה


41 comments:

Subgenius said...

Some of the themed answers seem simple, but might be a little hard to suss if you haven’t reached a certain age. On the other hand, I doubt that posed a problem for those of us who usually frequent this site. Anyway, FIR, so I’m happy.

desper-otto said...

Good morning!

The Barnacle had the circles. Guess who forgot to look at 'em? This one worked just fine as a themeless. "Frond" evoked a FERN -- nope, PALM. Noticed the SLAP and BONGO pairing -- didn't Disney have a cartoon about Bongo the bear which had a song "Bears Always Say It With A Slap?" [The aging mind works in mysterious ways.] Thanx, Doug and Hahtoolah. (Loved the "While you wait" cartoon.)

Jinx in Norfolk said...

FIR, but erased TANYA TUrnER for TANYA TUCKER. I blame bleary eyes from working the puzzle at 2 am, escaping DW’s jabbering in her sleep.

No OTT or ORR today, but we got ANIME and LEGO. EATON and ARIA too.

Interesting (to me at least) that the standard-sized cargo unit is a twenty-foot container. The capacity of a CONTAINER SHIP is expressed in TEUs, or “twenty foot equivalent units.” Since nearly all containers are actually 40 feet long, the actual number of boxes a ship will carry when fully loaded is about half its TEU capacity.

Alejandro Peña pitched for the Braves. He was my DW’s boss’s neighbor in Atlanta, and I met him a couple of times at her parties. He just introduces himself as “Al,” but I knew him right away. (This was before my divorce from MLB.) I didn’t know the actor dude.

Thanks to Doug for the puzzle that I found much easier than Monday’s. And thanks to Ha2La for the fun expo. I liked the diagram of the toy rocket – I used to fly them first as a teen, then later on dry lake beds as an adult. Great diversion when there's too little wind to sail the landyacht. I especially liked the Escher cartoon. And I just wanted to point out that the USCG has it’s own 3-MASTed beauty, the USS Eagle.

Hahtoolah said...

Good Morning, Crossword friends. I have noticed that recently the puzzles have a greater mix of generational references. I often don't recognize names of actor or television/movie references. Michael Peña was unknown to me, although I knew of the recent-ish movie A Wrinkle in Time. Issa Rae, on the other hand, I knew.

QOD: It is the set of the sails, not the direction of the wind, that determines which way we will go. ~ James Rohn (né Emanuel James Rohn; Sept. 17, 1930 ~ Dec. 5, 2009), American motivational speaker

KS said...

FIR. I had no problems with this puzzle despite my groan when I saw circles. But as I went a-solving, I found they were superfluous.
When I got finished, looking back at the circles, I saw two that made sense; liner and tanker. I thought galley was a part of a ship and not a ship itself. Am I wrong?
I wasn't fooled with a tree with fronds; I have palm trees on my patio. This was a gimme.
So ignoring the "theme", this was an enjoyable puzzle

billocohoes said...

Not wrong, KS. A galley can be a ship's kitchen, but it's also a type of ship powered by oars and/or sails

Jinx in Norfolk said...

Or, as Jimmy Dean said, “I can't change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination.”

LACW Addict said...

To KS:

Per Merriam-Webster a galley is:

a ship or boat propelled solely or chiefly by oars: such as
a
: a long low ship used for war and trading especially in the Mediterranean Sea from the Middle Ages to the 19th century
also : galleass
b
: a warship of classical antiquity
compare bireme, trireme
c
: a large open boat (such as a gig) formerly used in England
2
: the kitchen and cooking apparatus especially of a ship or airplane

Hope this answers your question!

Anonymous said...

YACkety yak, it took 4:40 today to get it rigHT.

I first tried Cera or Cena, but it was Pena. I am definitely not a foreign language expert, but in Spanish, isn't the "n with a ~" considered a distinct letter than just "n"?

I've heard of Tanya Tucker, but couldn't name a song of hers, which means the song clue didn't provide much help at all.

Oh joy, circles!

Jinx in Norfolk said...

We sailors tend to know a limited number of words, so we have to make the best of those we do know. Like "port." We use that word as the left side of a boat (when looking forward,) a window, and also a place to park the danged thing.

Tehachapi Ken said...

A swift nautical Tuesday solve that I enjoyed; thanks, Doug!

The only troublesome answers for me were PENA, MOANA, TANYATUCKER, ISSA, and POGS, but they pretty much solved themselves since they were no match for all the surrounding friendly perps.

The nautical theme continued to the very end, with MAST in the SE corner. All in all, Doug, I had a merry time (maritime--get it?) with today's puzzle. Thanks again, Doug!

Big Easy said...

I made it tougher than it should have been today. Filling NEWS MAKER instead of MEDIA threw me off, making LIFE the last fill. When I saw the ships in circles, LINER changed my maker to media.

DNK PENA.
TANYA TUCKER- I never saw the clue or knew it was in the puzzle until Ha2lah wrote it. 100% perps took care of it first. I would have filled Helen Reddy.

BONGO- DNK anything about a poetry slam.
ANIME-DNK as clued but it shows up a lot.
POGS-DNK. It wasn't faddish enough for me to know about it.

CanadianEh! said...

Terrific Tuesday. Thanks for the fun, Doug and Hahtoolah (we were on the same wavelength today seeing the MAST Easter Egg and thinking of Joni Mitchell with PAVED). I thought of Call Me Maybe with RANG.
I FIRed in good time (better than yesterday) and saw the CONTAINER SHIP theme (although I also thought the circles Contained the Ships).

I thought of Tape before TACK, Plaid before TARTAN.
This Canadian has learned the CW American spelling for ODOR, PARLOR and METER. No OOPS there.
I saw the plural clue for 4D and entered the S, but an A was needed for MEDIA.

I noted LARGE and MINI.
We also had NUN (CSO to Lucina) crossing RUN, and OWL crossing OWN.
A Scandinavian visit today with FINNS, STOCKHOLM ( east of Oslo), and the ECKTORP LEGO. We were just missing IKEA.

Wishing you all a great day.

CanadianEh! said...

Groan re Maritime!

RosE said...

Good Morning! I thought this quite tricky for a Tuesday puzzle.
The theme conjured up the recent container ship collision with the Baltimore Key Bridge, so not a pleasant reveal.
A mess of WO trial & errors for me. Oman, tiny, Danes didn’t work, plus some spelling issues. So, just glad it’s done.
Thanks, Hah2lah, I enjoyed your opening tunes, and wealth of info.

Monkey said...

I got the theme, found the ships, but ran aground in the West. First, I held on to yuk for ICK, but finally came to my senses, but then I forgot about the FINNS, and was too certain the neighbors were the Danes, I had tiny for MINI, didn’t know PEÑA, result: DNF.

POGS showed up, but somehow I missed that fad since I had no clue what they were.

Thanks Hahtoolah for your usual fun review. That is a wicked looking VANE. And I loved that last cartoon.

Ray - O - Sunshine said...

I have commented about this in the past. But gave up. If an answer contains an Ñ so should the perp, not an N . It’s just a thing with me but so should all accented letters. It would be more of a challenge for the constructor likely why I’ve never seen it happen

Irish Miss said...

Good Morning:

Doug presented us with a basic theme, a dreck-free grid, minimal pop culture, and a modest TLW count of 12, all leading to an easy, enjoyable solve. Circles in an early week puzzle are almost a must, at least by Patti's standards, to be fair to new or beginner solvers.

Thanks, Doug, and thanks, Hahtoolah, for a fun review. Favorite comics were the Tattoos While You Wait and the last one about swallowing the foreign objects. Always enjoy hearing your Carmen Aria, and who wouldn't end up drooling over the yummy-looking Gelato and Paella! Best offering, though, was the assorted obituaries which certainly captured the essence of each subject.

Have a great day.

Anonymous said...

I ignored the circles and the gimmick and found smooth sailing to the finish line in 5:39. This puzzle was much more Monday level than yesterday’s offering.

NaomiZ said...

I agree with Anonymous at 9:56 AM; this is the Monday puzzle that everyone wanted yesterday! Thanks for the smooth sailing, Doug!

Hahtoolah, thank you for the deeply layered exposition. I loved the early animation of "By the Sea," and the fabulous aria from Carmen.

CrossEyedDave said...

A container ship might not be what you might expect... this image was captioned "professional pirates..."

In the unknown trivia department, in addition to a U.S. Hydrogen Bomb lost, and still missing somewhere in the muck near the coast so South Carolina, (google it if you don't believe me.) I did not know that there is (a container ship?) that sunk in the Thames River in 1944 that still contains 1,500 pounds of mixed munitions, that if it explodes, what create a 16 foot tidal wave in the middle of London, in addition to a very big hole...

The SS Richard Montgomery.

Malodorous Manatee said...

Thanks, Hahtoolah, for all of the wonderful cartoons...especially the Escher bit.

Charlie Echo said...

Ah, NOW it's Monday!(?) FIR, and found all the ships. Great recap, Ha2la! Gotta get me one of those Godzilla weathervanes!

Anonymous said...

Red Deer, a city in Alberta, has a tourist strip called “ gasoline alley”.

Picard said...

Enjoyed the CONTAINER SHIP theme. We see a lot of them passing through the Santa Barbara Channel. They are under a voluntary advisory to slow down to avoid hitting whales.

Big Easy Hand up I only knew Helen Reddy sang DELTA DAWN. It is kind of an annoyingly repetitive song. When it came on the radio, my mother said it sounds like a broken record.

Hand up I never heard that TAG CRY. I seem to remember people yelling out "NOT IT" and the last one who doesn't say NOT IT is IT.

Hand up stuck with DANES before FINNS and TINY before MINI. That area was last to fill to FIR.

Here we both were with MOUNT FUJI

I previously shared a photo of just Merlie with MOUNT FUJI that is a better photo.

Lucina said...

Hola! Doug Peterson is a pro! I always enjoy his work and this was no exception. The SHIP's theme brings to mind the book I just read, "The Huguenot Chronicles" by Paul Monk. It's a saga that includes shipwreck, escape from religious persecution as well as religious wars, etc, etc. and a really good read.
It was surprising to see TANYA TUCKER emerge instead of Helen Reddy whose version of "Delta Dawn" I'm more familiar with. And I do enjoy your take on the puzzle, Hahtoolah. Thank you for that.
Have a wonderful day, everyone!

desper-otto said...

Fourteen-year-old Tanya Tucker had a top 10 country hit with Delta Dawn in 1972. The Helen Reddy cover was released the following year.

Jinx in Norfolk said...

Gasoline Alley is also the nickname for the area with the garages within the Indianapolis Motor Speedway

YooperPhil said...

FIR without much fanfare in 11:02. A * on the themer clues probably would have been sufficient to suss the theme but the circles don’t bother me. About the only unknown was PEÑA. Like others I was more familiar with Helen Reddy’s version of ‘Delta Dawn’, Bette Midler also sang it while Barbra Streisand turned down the opportunity. Saw the maritime Easter eggs of MAST, TACK, and to an extent BUCaneerS. ISSA RAE appears quite often, both first and last names as fill or clue. Thank you Doug for the puzzle and Hahtoolah for another outstanding run down!

FLN ~ was in Meijer today and noticed Coke flavored Oreos and Oreo flavored Coke stocked side by side, I passed on both.

Misty said...

Delightful puzzle, many thanks for this treat, Doug. And your commentary is always helpful and interesting, thanks for that too, Hahtoolah.

Well, I got excited seeing ARIA, thinking we might get a music theme of sorts. Don't know if they teach that at ETON, although they probably do, maybe to the TEENS and ARTIER students. Don't know if TANYA TUCKER might have taken classes there, or that she learned how to play a BONGO somewhere. But she'd be great at whatever she does.
Well, time to get lunch although all we might be able to find is some PAELLA here, and maybe something EGGY to go along with some GIN. Next year we should think about going to Europe and maybe visiting FINNS in Finland and some folks in STOCKHOLM. But we're stuck here for now, so let's just go to the zoo after lunch and check out a LION, an OWL, a MOLE, and many more. That's not a bad afternoon, is it?

Have a great one, everybody.

Prof M said...

Being a Clan Maxwell member, I know the difference between tartar and TARTAN.

unclefred said...

Monday came on a Tuesday this week. FIR faster than yesterday, and I even got the theme. By my count 12 names, but I knew all but 4. Do not remember anything about POGS, but if it was a 90's fad, I would surely have missed it. Those were the years I worked every waking hour. I found this CW to be fun, unlike a few recently. Not much else to say about this CW. Thanx DP for the fun. And thanx to Hahtoolah for the as always fun and informative write-up, with, also as always, right on the mark cartoons.

Husker Gary said...

Musings
-Yesterday we learned our bank accounts had been hacked and we are finally on the downside of rearranging all our financial affairs.
-What a nice puzzle and write-up.
-Gasoline Alley harkens back to my childhood when comics were a very big deal
-Those CONTAINER SHIPS look huge in open water but I remember being stunned as we saw one pass by us on the Savannah River.
-Much of IRAN’s population would like to leave the 7th century and at least join the 20th
-D-O has told us Houston’s flooding issues have been cause because so many TRACTS have been PAVED
-After nearly 60 years of marriage, “I knew you’d say that” is heard quite often
-I married into a Bohemian family not a bohemian one
-FLUNKING a TEEN student today is (and should be) difficult

Anonymous said...

Fifty or so years ago, the Dome division of Miles Laboratories (now Bayer) had a product named DELTA DOME. When the song came out the sales rep joked that it was like Delta Dawn, both has-beens.

Anonymous said...

Gary, you should know that everybody's child is above average. Everybody deserves an A and a GPA of at least 3.75.

Lemonade714 said...

Late to the show but i do want to thank the dynamic duo of sumdaze and Hahtoolah and remind you all of the harvest moon and eclipse scheduled for tonight. I hope there are no storms. I met Tanya Tucker when she was dating George Lucas; she was tiny and young and friendly.

Anonymous said...

I am honored to be in the came class as Sumdaze.

Anonymous said...

Puzzle was goof and quick to solve. Only 4 proper nouns. Only knew one but three others filled in nicely. Good Tues.

Jayce said...

I totally agree with Lucina's comment that "Doug Peterson is a pro! I always enjoy his work and this was no exception."

And yet, and yet --- I think such clues/answers as "That's nasty!": ICK and "My bad!": OOPS and "Relax, recruit": AT EASE were not Doug's and IMO brought the quality level down.

As far as I'm aware, nobody playing tag ever says I'M IT.

I liked that song "Call Me Maybe."

Thanks again for a terrific write-up, Hahtoolah. And thanks to all of you for your comments, which I enjoy reading.

Lucina said...

Jayce, regarding your comment from last night, I appreciate that you like the Sonora desert. Actually, I do too. I love it, in fact and every day I am grateful to live in such a beautiful place, with not only stark loveliness, but free from so many elements such as snow, blizzards and floods. However, I also enjoy other parts of the country and have been fortunate to experience much of our country's beauty.

sumdaze said...

Thanks to Doug for his MASTerful puzzle!
FAV: POGS because it just so happened that this morning I listened to a podcast about fads and it included the whole POGS story. Timing! POGS were the cardboard tops on milk bottles that became a game and then became a commercialized game.

Thanks to D-O@12:45 for straightening out the whole Delta Dawn confusion.
; )

H-Gary@3:17. Sorry to hear about the hacking. Oof!

Extra thanks to Hahtoolah for linking my favorite Joni Mitchell song! I also loved the sharks, owl, and moat comic.