Theme: "Interview With the Vampire" - Each common phrase contains a vampire-related word and rephrased as Vampire's answer to an question.
23. "What is your least favorite form of advertising?": CROSS PROMOTIONS.
34. "What pricing advice do you have for garden centers?": RAISE THE STAKES.
51. "What aspect of your personality are you working on?": SELF-REFLECTION.
68. "What would you wear, say, when spending St. Patrick's Day in Madrid?": CAPE VERDE.
85. "Not to put you on the spot, but who is your favorite pet?": BAT ONE THOUSAND.
97. "What investment do you recommend to your fellow creatures of the night?": CRYPTOCURRENCY.
115. "Above all else, what must your minions be?": DOWN FOR THE COUNT.
We've
seen a few Vampire puzzles in the past, but none with this approach.
Perfect title. I'm sure this puzzle starts the title first. I don't
recall a Sunday grid with two 15-letter non-theme fill. Stunning. John
is a great themeless constructor.
I mentioned before that John (upper left) runs the Boswords. The guy on the upper right is Andrew Kingsley. And you all know the third guy.
Across:
6. Foldable dish: TACO.
10. Study like mad: CRAM. You need
14. Nightstand lights: LAMPS and
19. Hotel bookings: ROOMS.
20. Wrinkle remover: IRON.
21. Georgetown athlete: HOYA.
22. Words of empathy: I CARE.
26. Edible Arrangements bit: MELON. Not famliar with Edible Arrangements.
27. Australian hub, for short: SYD. Sydney Airport.
28. Starters: A TEAM.
29. March Madness openers?: EMS. Starting letters of March Madness.
30. Last part: TAIL END.
32. Procedures: WAYS.
37. Les États-__: UNIS.
39. High pts.: MTS.
40. Spanish gold: ORO.
41. Depends (on): RELIES.
44. She, in Lisbon: ELA.
46. Phillies slugger Harper: BRYCE. Boomer would have proudly told you that he owned Harper's rookie card. We also have 42. Pitcher's stat: ERA. 99. BoSox rivals: YANKS.
48. HDTV choice: LCD.
55. Domed homes: IGLOOS.
57. Help at a wedding, informally: USH.
58. Took a spill: ATE IT.
59. Former SCOTUS monogram: RBG. Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
60. Sunscreen: PARASOL. I probably would have added ?
61. Garish: LOUD.
63. Does harm to: INJURES.
65. Pink cat in "Garfield": ARLENE.
66. "Tomorrow" musical: ANNIE.
70. Aquarium fish: TETRA.
73. Soy-based meat alternative: TEMPEH. Not fond of its taste.
75. Inorganic: MINERAL.
77. Sealed: SHUT.
78. Rum cocktails: MAI TAIS.
80. Finish with zero cards in Uno, say: WIN.
81. Couldn't stand still, say: PACED.
83. Musician Brian: ENO.
84. Throat part: TONSIL.
88. Math subj.: ALG.
89. 1970s Renault model: LE CAR.
91. Fútbol cheer: OLE.
92. Pan-fried: SAUTED.
93. Sis or bro: SIB.
94. "It's __-brainer!": A NO.
96. Missives: Abbr.: LTRS.
105. Trickster of the 109-Across: LOKI. 109. Norse pantheon: AESIR.
107. Title girl in a No. 1 song by the Knack: SHARONA.
108. Poetic contraction: OER. And
111. Poetic contraction: TIS.
114. __ grigio: PINOT.
119. Oft-taped joint for athletes: ANKLE.
120. Alan of "Bridge of Spies": ALDA.
121. Running shoe brand: AVIA.
122. Actress McDonald with six Tony Awards: AUDRA. She also has two Grammys.
123. Bouquets, at a vineyard: NOSES.
124. Articulates: SAYS.
125. "Roundball Rock" composer John: TESH.
126. Guide: STEER.
Down:
2. Like some horror movies: GORY.
3. Film with the Boston-accented line "How do you like them apples?": GOOD WILL HUNTING. Such a good movie. Partnered with a great 48. "Enough with your sass!": LOSE THE ATTITUDE.
4. Some online exchanges, briefly: IMS.
5. Composition: ESSAY.
6. Run out of steam: TIRE.
7. Like a cheering crowd: AROAR.
8. Grammatical pause: COMMA.
9. Musician Yoko: ONO. 12. Author Rand: AYN. 16. Oscar winner Rami: MALEK. 82. "Dance the Night" singer Lipa: DUA. All regulars in our grids.
10. Wind __: CHIMES.
11. Perch: ROOST.
13. Virtuosity: MASTERY. People were often surprised when I told
them that Boomer had 20 perfect games. He would have turned 77 today.
This photo was taken in 2002. Myrtle Beach.
14. Maximum or minimum: LIMIT.
15. Northeast Corridor train: ACELA.
17. Given (to): PRONE.
18. Elates: SENDS.
24. NBA stat: Abbr.: PTS.
25. "This is only a __": TEST.
31. Standoffish: ASOCIAL.
33. "Yeah, right!": AS IF.
35. Apple desktop: IMAC.
36. Shofar, e.g.: HORN. Shofars are used for Jewish religious purposes, according to Wikipedia.
37. "The Little Mermaid" witch: URSULA.
38. Liam of "Taken": NEESON.
43. Org. looking for alien life: SETI.
44. Seder prophet: ELIJAH.
45. Relent: LET UP.
46. Peaty wetland: BOG.
47. Everglades bird: EGRET.
49. Murmur: COO.
50. Broadband letters: DSL.
52. Yard dividers: FENCES.
53. Golf great Lee: TREVINO. He used to be here for the 3M Championship. Always in the same group as Jack Nicklaus & Gary Player.
54. "Peer Gynt" playwright: IBSEN.
56. Highway divisions: LANES.
60. Deliver a sermon: PREACH.
62. Meal plans: DIETS.
64. Send payment: REMIT.
65. Classified stat: AD RATE.
67. Inbox message: EMAIL.
69. Drive off: REPEL.
71. Athlete in a triathlon's last leg: RUNNER.
72. Holding conflicting views: AT ODDS. With.
74. Supplies additional criticism: PILES ON.
76. Many August babies: LEOS.
78. NYC subway org.: MTA.
79. Early ISP: AOL.
80. "One, two, three, four, I declare a thumb __!": WAR.
85. Hindu "sir": BABU.
86. Midday: NOON.
87. Brood: SULK.
90. Noisy insects: CICADAS. Tasty when fried.
94. Sports venues: ARENAS.
95. Foam toy material: NERF.
97. Channel created as a community service: C-SPAN.
98. Thick-skinned herbivore: RHINO.
100. Member of the working class: PROLE. Short for proletariat.
101. "For sure!": TOTES.
102. Rambunctious: ROWDY.
103. Make one's mark, in a way: CARVE.
104. Legendary Himalayans: YETIS. Called "Xue Ren" in Chinese, literally "snowman".
105. Tell tales: LIE.
106. Black-and-white whales: ORCAS.
110. Deposed Iranian ruler: SHAH.
112. Memo starter: IN RE.
113. Coveted symbol in Dr. Seuss's "The Sneetches": STAR.
116. Lisbon greeting: OLA.
117. Cheerios grain: OAT.
118. Tennis call: OUT.
I'd like to recommend this puzzle book to you guys. You can read this blog post from
Brooke Husic. I don't remember solving a puzzle book with
constructor notes. Quite a few LAT constructors have a puzzle in the
collection. Just from my puzzle answer sheet page, I see Rafa Musa, Darby Ratliff and Adam Aaronson (yesterday's constructor).
C.C.
22 comments:
I protest the crossing of “DSL” and “LCD.” Otherwise, I didn’t have too much trouble with this puzzle, which seems very appropriate for the Sunday before Halloween. FIR, so I’m happy.
Good morning!
Bzzzzt. D-o was definitely not BATting ONE THOUSAND this morning. I guess that's a baseball reference, but not sure what it means. Thought the Hindu "sir" was SABU and looked sideways at Sat One Thousand, but let it stand. Rats. Thanx, John and C.C. (It must be bittersweet to remember Boomer's birthday. I miss his unique sense of humor.)
FIW, missing BoYCE x HOoN. Guess I shoulda known HORN, but I don't know about a shofar, at least so far. I was worried about AESIR and TEMPEH, but those were right. We had a little help from Ektorps ALDA, TESH and TACO.
(My) SHARONA was immediate fill. I can't remember any other song by them.
CAPE VERDE is the birthplace of a lot of the hurricanes we get. I still don't understand why we don't call it CAPo VERDE like it is on the globe, or Green CAPE if we want it Anglicized.
I rented a LE CAR in Italy. It was a pezzo di merda.
I have quite a set of wind CHIMES. Hand made by a local welding shop owner with a penchant for music, they are 2 1/2" aluminum pipe averaging 3 1/2 feet long. Beautiful, low tones. The maker told me that most of the cost is the labor to tune each pipe, and installing the hanging devices in each pipe.
Is NERF actually a material? Can I buy a sheet of it like buying Styrofoam?
TOTES raises its ugly head again today.
Telltails are how sailors "see" the flow of wind over the sails. They were originally called "woolies" because wool yarn was used for the purpose, until the advent of superior man-made fabrics. My buddy sold his sleek racing boat to buy is big, heavy, luxurious retirement boat and named it TELL TALES. He always had plenty of rum aboard to get the conversation started.
Edible Arrangements are great alternatives to getting an ill person flowers. They are fruit art that looks like a bouquet.
Thanks to John for the fun puzzle, and to CC for the tour. I miss our Boomer too.
FIR. I too first put Boyce before Bryce, and stared at hoon scratching my head. Aa I ran through the alphabet I realized my error and saw horn. Doh!
The theme was clever and I got it early on. That helped a lot.
My only trouble spot was the SW. For some reason I just struggled with that section, and it was the last to fall.
Overall, a very enjoyable puzzle today.
Took 13:27 today to slay this one.
In hindsight, it would've been quite helpful to look for a title before solving. I had no idea what was going on with these questions, and I couldn't believe anyone's favorite pet would be a bat instead of a cat (it's much different than the dog v. cat debate).
Today's unknowns included : today's foreign language lessons (the Lisbon she & the Lisbon greeting), today's actress (Audra), Cape Verde, the Norse thing, and tempeh.
A timely puzzle today where the title helped with the solve, I thought GARLIC would show up somewhere in the themers, but no. Unknowns were minimal, TEMPEH, AESIR, and HORN as clued. We had SYD the other day with a different clue. BRYCE was a gimme for me. GOOD WILL HUNTING is a great movie and Robin Williams, was really good in it. FIR in 21 minutes.
C.C. ~ when I first discovered the Corner, Boomer was the Monday blogger, always appreciated his wit and insights. I know his memory stays alive here, especially when a CW has a reference to bowling. 😊
Good Morning:
Well, no tricks with this treat from John. He gave us a timely, fun theme with lots of cute and clever C/As. Unlike many Sunday grids, there were no obscure names and, in my case, no second guessing. I did need perps for the unknown Arlene, Tempeh, Aesir, and Babu, but perps were more than fair throughout the puzzle. My only small nits are Ush (said no one ever) and Totes (shouldn’t be said by no one ever) and the higher than normal Sunday TLW count of 32, although I wasn’t distracted by them while solving, probably due to their scattered placement.
Thanks, John, for an early Halloween treat and thanks, CC, for the always appreciated pro opinion (and the CSO). It’s a highlight, for me, anyway, when you point out the inner workings of the construction process and the pluses and minuses of the end result. I also appreciate learning about the individual constructor’s strengths and talents. That photo of you and Boomer is lovely. Today is a poignant reminder to us all of how much he is missed.
Well, my Yanks are in deep trouble, I fear. But, as that great wise sage, Yogi, said, “It ain’t over till it’s over!” Realistically, though, I think the fat lady has already sung! 😥
As CC mentioned, several of my nieces and nephews call me Aunt Aggie, but one calls me Auntie Ag. I wonder if there is any Auntie Mame vibes about it? 😂
Have a great day.
Is John Lieb taunting me today with 1A- AGGIE. LSU was running all over them last night, then missed three field goals, threw three interceptions, and imploded on defense. The A&M crowd of over 108,000 was certainly AROAR last night.
At first I thought this puzzle might be a one letter change and filled CRASS PROMOTIONS and GOAD WILL HUNTING. Then I realized the fills would be normal. I never noticed the vampire connections. The biggest trouble was in the Everglades area. I stuck with LET WAY too long for the tennis and had no idea who AEDRA (or AUDRA) McDonald was. DOWN FOR THE CL-U-NT wouldn't be right.
Still can't figure out DOWN FOR THE COUNT has to do with its clue but it is a familiar saying. The rest of the puzzle was and easy Sunday type. I guess I'm a PROLE instead of a COUNT.
TEMPAH- thank you perps; never heard of it.
MINERAL- Inorganic, as in no carbon
LE CAR- almost as bad as a YUGO
CICADAS- I'll take C.C.'s word for being tasty. When they start to come out, night herons show up in my yard at sundown and just before sunrise to eat them.
I always timely themes, so got my wish today. At first I was baffled since I had CRaSS PROMOTIONS, but GOOD WILL HUNTING set me straight.
Unknowns were few: TEMPEH, AUDRA, SHARONA. USH, not really and TOTES is not in my vocabulary.
So, very enjoyable Sunday puzzle.
Nice picture of you and Boomer, CC. I too remember Boomer as our Monday reviewer.
Like is missing from my post. Sorry.
I took it to be homage to COUNT Dracula, or Sesame Street's COUNT von Count.
Nice picture of Boomer and CC. Thanks for sharing it.
Fang-tastic puzzle. This one didn't suck!
Only error was AUDRy which seemed more likely than AUDRA, and it produced STyR which looks like a Seussian word if I ever saw one.
Agree with Jinx that no toys are made of NERF just like no hoops are made of hula.
Musings
-Fun and timely!
-The Dodger's win over the YANKS Friday night with a walk-off grand slam was incredible
-Sportscaster Craig Sager was famous for his GARISH jackets
-TEMPEH and AESIR were foreign to me but crosses were solid
-TREVINO’s main assets was a great golf game and sheer joy. Also, his playing partner Jack Nicklaus would spend a great deal of time over a putt and Lee would just step up and hit it. I'm more in Lee's camp on that!
-If a batter gets 30 hits in 100 time at she has a batting average of .3 or 30%. I wonder who got the idea of saying she has a batting “average” of 300.
-I was surprised last year when my 50-yr-old daughter said something was totes adorbs
-Happy Birthday in memoriam, Boomer! Loved the picture C.C.!
Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha! John Lieb's puzzle was spooky fun. FIR in one fun run, only changing "mull" to SULK.
Hugs to you, C.C., on Boomer's birthday. Thank you for creating this space and sharing it with us.
FIR, although still don’t get the clue for “Down for the Count.” Are the movie minions supposed to be some sort of feathered creatures? Although I guess if “sends” is an apt answer for “elates” (as in he sends me?) I guess a minion could be “down for anything” his boss wants him to do. The bat clue seemed a bit of a stretch too.
Maybe I ought to brush up on Polish or Czech to round out the language skills now required?
Favorite Lee Trevino quote: “People ask me about the pressure of being in a televised tournament. Well, I’ll tell you what pressure is…having to make a putt for a five dollar bet with two dollars in your pocket.” (paraphrasing)
Wonder what other tricks and treats Patti has in store for us? Maybe the Eagles Witchy Woman, Donovan's Season of the Witch, The Fifth Estate's Ding Dong the Witch Is Dead, Classics IV's Spooky, or even from Pink Floyd's early days Lucifer Sam. But probably not - I've heard of all those.
Thanks, C.C., for ushering--er, ushing--us through John's brilliant and fun Sunday challenge. I relished every theme answer, corny as some (all?) of them were. The puzzle was an amusing prelude to Halloween.
Yes, I had a problem with the verb "ush." It seems to me that the verb "usher" works just fine. And don't get me started on "totes."
Regarding 85 Across, two clarifications: first, I am assuming Dracula's pet is a bat named One Thousand; second, the expression is generally "batting a thousand," not "one thousand."
Speaking of which, I loved all the baseball references, including the presence of a future Hall of Famer, Bryce Harper.
My only time-waster doing the puzzle was up in the NE corner, where a bunch of those five-letter words up there were perplexing, like MALEK, ACELA, and MELON (as clued; I don't know Edible Arrangements). Oddly, what saved the day for me were the two perps at the bottom, TAILEND and RAISE THE STAKES.
Thanks again, John, for providing us with such a clever and amusing challenge.
All in all a fun puzzle. My favorite, "took a spill", "ate it". LOL. I miss Boomer's insight and humor on dull Mondays. He's always remembered on bowling clues. He was one of a kind in my mind. GC
For those who aren't sure of using down as a verb, it means you are in favor of, or loyal to, the object of the verb "down". For example, "I'm down with that" means you are in favor of the action specified by a second party or loyal to a second party mentioned.
However, the phrase also means knocked down in boxing for the count of ten.
Enjoyed the puzzle. Thanks C.C. and John.
Only hangups were pEtal for MELON and knees for ANKLE.
Great weather we're having. When will it rain?
Revolting.
Fun Sunday puzzle, many thanks, John. And your Sunday commentaries are always such a pleasure, C.C., thank you for this one too. I especially loved the picture of you and Boomer.
Well, by the time we've finished a Sunday puzzle, we're ready to CRAM some TACOS followed by a MELON, along with some MAI TAIS or some PINOT to keep us in good shape. After I ATE IT, I felt in some pretty GOOD WILL, thanks to these good DIETS. Wonder if I have enough CRYPTO CURRENCY to get some new LAMPS for the ROOMS in our place, and a new mirror to get a better SELF-REFLECTION. A new PARASOL would be nice too, wouldn't it? I think all that stuff would be enough--I don't want to RAISE THE STAKES any higher than this. Time to watch some ALAN ALDA on TV.
Have a lovely Sunday afternoon, everybody!
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