IT DEPENDS ON
HOW YOU SLICE IT
HOW YOU SLICE IT
(see also 35D)
Today's constructor Katherine Simonson makes her LAT debut with 4 across theme clues identified only by trailing question marks. The clues are all references to countries, but they don't make a whole lot of sense and the two word fills don't make any sense either -- but on closer inspection the second word can be combined with a word embedded at the end of the first fill to make an in the language phrase. Here are the themers ...
17. Warmup bands from Casablanca?: MOROCCAN OPENERS. This one did make a bit of sense -- here's Ilsa and Sam warming up in Rick's Cafe in the movie Casablanca ...
As Time Goes By
23. Liquid from Munich?: TEUTONIC WATER.
45. Faucet hardware from Stockholm?: SWEDISH WASHER.
53. Ice cream treats from Manila?: PHILIPPINE CONES.
I couldn't see any particular connection between the in the language part of these phrases.
Here's the grid ...
Here's the rest ...Across:
1. Rudimentary elements: ABCS.
5. Service station job: LUBE.
9. Automaker owned by Stellantis: FIAT.
13. "Hot To Go!" singer Chappell: ROAN. My granddaughter would define this fill as a particular color of a horse, but in this case it refers to Kayleigh Rose Amstutz (born February 19, 1998), known professionally as Chappell Roan, an American singer and songwriter. Here's the clue song ...
A recent article reveals that MS. Amstutz is having some trouble adjusting to her meteoric rise to fame.
14. Grand film format: IMAX. The IMAX theater at the Maryland Science Center is on our short list of places to visit to see the film Deep Sky ...
15. Collector of synonyms: ROGET. The only synonym that thesaurus.plus suggests for this fill is Peter Mark Roget, a British physician, natural theologian, lexicographer, and founding secretary of The Portico Library.
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| Peter Mark Roget 18 January 1779 – 12 September 1869 |
20. Olympic gymnast Strug who was part of the gold-winning American team in 1996: KERRI. Kerri Allyson Strug (born November 19, 1977) is a retired American gymnast from Tucson, Arizona. She was a member of the Magnificent Seven, the victorious all-around women's gymnastics team that represented the United States at the 1996 Summer Olympics. Strug performed the vault that clinched the gold for the U.S. team despite having injured her ankle.
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| Kerri Strug |
22. Intel org.: NSA. CIA fit, but didn't perp. We pass by the NSA every time we go to Washington, but it's best not to talk about that. 😑
23. [Theme clue]
26. Wag: CARD. One who is quick with BON MOTS.
27. Acid type produced during exercise: LACTIC. Lactic acid is fuel for your cells during intense exercise. It’s created when your body breaks down glucose and other carbohydrates. It’s a common myth that muscle soreness you feel after exercise is caused by lactic acid trapped in your cells. Studies have found that’s not true. The temporary rise in lactic acid caused by intense physical activity isn’t dangerous and usually won’t cause any symptoms.
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| Yaks, aka Muskoxen |
30. Loose overcoat: ULSTER. New to me. The Ulster coat was a Victorian working daytime overcoat, with a cape and sleeves. It has long since gone out of fashion, but is often mentioned in Victorian literature, e.g. in Dickens and in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The name derives from a popular synonym for Northern Ireland, where the style originated.
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| Ulster coats |
35. Amazon Prime vehicle: VAN.
36. Not virtually, briefly: IRL. The only Cornerite we've met IRL is inanehiker (Nina). She, Teri, and I spent a wonderful day together exploring the National Museum of Art and getting lost in D.C. (pretty easy to do. 😀)
37. Kitchen gadget brand: OXO.
38. Broadway legend Ethel: MERMAN. Ethel Merman (January 16, 1908 – February 15, 1984) was an American actress and singer. Known for her distinctive, powerful voice, and her leading roles in musical theater, she has been called "the undisputed First Lady of the musical comedy stage."[ She performed on Broadway in Anything Goes, Annie Get Your Gun, Gypsy, and Hello, Dolly! Here she is singing There's No Business Like Show Business ...40. Diner coffee: JOE.
41. Failed, as a fuse: BLEW. These guys were so frustrated when they failed to get what they wanted that they threatened to BLOW a fifty amp fuse! ...
42. Timeworn saying: OLD SAW. They also make beautiful music. Here's a CSO to Misty.
44. Standing on the street: CRED. "Standing" as in CREDIBILITY.
45. [Theme clue]
49. Afr. neighbor: EUR. AFRICA is abbreviated and so EUROPE is abbreviated.
50. Bilateral: DUAL.
51. Fillable flatbreads: PITAS.
53. [Theme clue]
57. Understood implicitly: TACIT.
58. Irish New Age singer: ENYA. Last week she gave us an instrumental, so this week we'll hear her sing May It Be ...
59. Elite Eight org.: NCAA.
60. Fleet: NAVY. FAST fit but didn't perp.
61. Fawning parents: DEER. A herd of fawning parents lives in our back yard and forced us to put an eight foot fence around our vegetable garden. 😞
62. Dispatched: SENT.
Down:
1. Branch: ARM.
2. Work that's bound to sell?: BOOK. Clever clue.
3. Keeper: CARETAKER.
4. Nocturnal noisemakers: SNORERS. I'd recommend a CPAP machine, but they're addictive.
5. Allowed: LICIT.
6. Actress Thurman: UMA.
7. Potassium-rich snacks: BANANAS.
8. Different in an alluring way: EXOTIC. IMHO all of reality is EXOTIC!
9. Opposite of determinism: FREE WILL. The question as to whether we have free will, or our actions are pre-determined by forces beyond our control is a question that goes back at least to the early Greek philosophers.
10. Charged particle: ION.
11. Plant that's hard to find: AGENT. A MOLE in spy speak. Another clever clue.
12. Crisp: TERSE.
16. Russian monarch: TSAR. The TSARS and TSARIST art and culture were an interest of the famous heiress, art collector and philanthropist Margorie Merriweather Post (March 15, 1887 – September 12, 1973). Her collection of decorative art, fine art, and artifacts from this period are on display at her Hillwood Museum and Gardens in Northwest Washington, D.C. Among the highlights are several fine paintings, a large collection of Fabergé eggs, Russian liturgical vessels, and porcelain dinner services from all over the world. Teri and I have visited Hillwood several times and definitely recommend this fascinating estate.
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| Hillwood Mansion |
19. Imagine: PICTURE. Here is large oil painting at the Hillwood Museum that helps us imagine what life was like in Tsarist Russia ...
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| A Boyar Wedding Feast Konstantin Egorovich Makovskii St. Petersburg, Russia 1883 |
25. Summer systs.: ACS. Air Conditioners, not Hurricanes.
26. Peninsular land formation: CAPE. E.g. Cape Cod, Mass.
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| Cape Cod |
29. Cry at the end of a cooking competition: HANDS UP. Here's a cooking competition between fictional Chef Sir Lenny Henry, CBE and real Chef Gordon Ramsey, OBE. Guess who wins ...
I bet Henry had way too many Scotch Bonnets 🌶🌶🌶in his dish.
31. Capacity to endure: TOLERANCE. Assuming ENDURANCE as a one word synonym I asked the dinosaur if he thought this fill was a synonym -- nope ....
32. Struck (out): EXED.
33. Work out on an erg: ROW. ERG is short for ERGOMETER, an indoor rowing machine that measures work units called ERGS. This is not a new concept -- Chabrias, an Athenian admiral of the 4th century BC, introduced the first rowing machines as supplemental military training devices. To train inexperienced oarsmen, Chabrias built wooden rowing frames onshore where beginners could learn technique and timing before they went onboard ship.
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| Rowing Machines |
35. Sound quality?: VALIDITY. As in the soundness of an argument, i.e. its validity. Another clever clue.
36. State where sliced bread was invented: IOWA. Otto Frederick Rohwedder of Davenport, Iowa, United States, invented the first single loaf bread-slicing machine making it convenient to package uniformly and eliminating the need for the consumer to cut it with a knife. It was first sold in 1928, advertised as "the greatest forward step in the baking industry since bread was wrapped". By 1933, around 80% of bread sold in the US was pre-sliced, leading to the popular idiom "the greatest thing since sliced bread".
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| Sliced Bread |
40. Place for stubble: JAW LINE.
41. Natives of northwest France: BRETONS. The Bretons are an ethnic group native to Brittany in north-western France. They trace their heritage to groups of Brittonic speakers who emigrated from southwestern Great Britain, particularly Cornwall and Devon, mostly during the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain. They migrated in waves from the 3rd to 9th century (most heavily from 450 to 600) into Armorica, which was subsequently named Brittany after them. Here's a Breton song called Imram an Enez
44. Stylish: CHIC.
45. Huit minus un: SEPT. Today's French lesson: "8 - 1 = 7".
46. Capital of China's Hubei Province: WUHAN. With a population of over eleven million, Wuhan is the most populous city in Hubei and the ninth-most-populous city in China. It is also one of the nine national central cities. Since early 2020, it is probably best known as the epi-center of the COVID-19 pandemic. As this article from the New England Journal of Medicine tells, the actual origins of SARS-CoV-2 are somewhat controversial.
47. CNN national correspondent Hill: ERICA. Erica Ruth Hill-Yount is an American journalist who works for CNN. She serves as a primary substitute anchor and as a correspondent. She co-anchored Weekend Today for NBC from 2012 to 2016, following prior work at CBS.
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| Erica Hill |
52. Son of John and Yoko: SEAN. Sean Taro Ono Lennon (born 9 October 1975) is a British-American musician, songwriter, and producer. He is the son of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, and half-brother to Julian Lennon. He has played in several bands over the years, including The Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger formed by he and his partner, model Charlotte Kemp Muhl -- whom he found out only a year after he'd started dating her that she was also a musician! He is also a composer and has released two solo albums: Into the Sun (1998) and Friendly Fire (2006). Here's the song Midnight Sun that he cowrote with Kemp Muhl from the album The GOASTT ...
54. Actress Tyler : LIV. Here she is as Arwen rescuing Frodo from the Nazgul in The Fellowship of the Ring in Peter Jackson's adaptation of the Lord of the Rings ...
55. Emmy-winning TV scientist Bill: NYE. Bill Nye is a former mechanical engineer who plays a scientist on TV. And like Matt Smith and Bill Nighy he likes bow ties.
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| Bill Nye |
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| Matt Smith and Bill Nighy From a scene in Dr. Who -- Vincent and the Doctor -- click it, you'll love it! |
Cheers,
Bill
And as always, thanks to Teri for proof reading and for her constructive criticism.
waseeley
16 comments:
Good morning!
Needed my trusty Wite-Out to correct CRap to CRUD. Otherwise, this was an error-free stroll through the grid. D-o even managed to suss the theme in the process. Nice. Thanx, Katherine, waseeley, and Teri. (Interesting Doctor Who clip.)
DEER: There's a herd of about ten that frequents our back yard. We don't have any ornamental plants, so they're free to browse as they wish. I wish they'd leave the bird feeder alone, though. They like to bump it with their heads, spilling the sunflower seeds to the ground. Some folks in the neighborhood have installed small mangers filled with shelled corn for the deer.
FIR, but erased KERRY for KERRI, a tee for A TIE, and cia for NSA. Got the gimmick before coming here, for a change.
Anybody know of a service station that still does LUBE jobs?
Yes, NHL and NFL games can end in A TIE, if OT fails to determine a winner. The international golf competitions such as the Ryder Cup and the recently-played President's Cup can end in A TIE, which results in the team that last won the title retaining it.
Thanks to Katherine for the Thursday challenge, which was just within my abilities. And thanks to Bill 'n' Teri for 'splainin' it all. BTW, one of the ROAN links gave me "access denied." I will add that ROAN got into a huge controversy that has affected her mental health and caused her to cancel appearances. Her big sin? Saying she would vote for a particular presidential candidate, but would not endorse her. We really need to somehow relegate this awful cancel culture to the (crossword favorite) ash bin of history.
FIR. For a Thursday puzzle this really didn't give me too much trouble. A few too many proper names, but the perps solved them.
The theme really confused me. I get the idea, but aside from Moroccan openers, the others do not make sense. Oh well.
Overall this puzzle left me blah.
I'm not sure I caught the gist of the previous comments, so I'll just plunge ahead...
FIR on a crunchy Thurs. Liked 11D clue: a plant that's hard to find. 25D not so much as I live in Florida and ACs are on year-round. Also the last themer feels off - who doesn't enjoy ice cream in a nice pine cone?! Finally, slices were the "wonder" of Wonder bread.
I enjoyed today's puzzle. Katherine, it was well-constructed (two of your theme clues were even grid-spanners), and I appreciated clever misdirected clues such as "Work that's bound to sell" (BOOK), "Fawning parents" (DEER), and "Plant that's hard to find" (AGENT).
I loved seeing Ethel Merman in the puzzle. What a voice! There should be a misdemeanor cited to anyone else who tries to sing "There's No Business Like Show Business."
I thought you were clueing me at 24 Down ("Actor/director Ken"). Alas, no such luck.
Katherine, I look forward to a return engagement!
Took 9:31 today to get across the borders.
I struggled with the lower-left: the foreign language math problem next to the Chinese provincial capital next to some national correspondent.
I also confidently entered "duster" where this ulster should've gone. I held strong for a while, but eventually came to recognize that duster just might not be what they were looking for.
I knew today's actresses (Uma & Liv)!
There were definitely a
few obscure names (Wuhan, anyone?).
On the other hand, it didn’t take me long to suss the gimmick, and that made the whole puzzle easier to solve. FIR, so I’m happy.
Sorry this is so late. I got “ distracted “!
For those of you arriving here after 9:15am, there were a dozen posts in Arabic between KS and me. All deleted now.
After some erasures, I FIR. I changed Germanic to TEUTONIC, drat to CRUD, and CARE giver to TAKER. I wanted endurance, but onlymTOLERANCE would fit.
I was so pleased with my finish I forgot to take a second look at the theme answers to notice the new phrases. Thank you waseeley for pointing them out and for an informative review.
There were some neat clues like CRED, BOOK, and AGENT.
I enjoyed this CW in spite of a few unknowns like ROAN, as clued, and LIV.
Thank you Bill because even though I FIR I never could figure out those theme fills. Maybe a little gin and TONIC WATER later will help. I kept wanting Teutonic LAGER but the perps wouldn't allow. I liked the puzzle with those good clues. AGENT, NAVY, ROW, DEER, PICTURE, SNORERS, ...ETC weren't the first things I thought when I read the clues.
LUBE- are there any 'service stations' left? And have any of you had a lube job on a car in the last 20 years? I remember grease guns and pumping them until the excess grease came out past the seals. I haven't been under a car in years and don't know if they even have grease fittings.
Play to a TIE? That's for losers.
ROAN, ERICA, OLIN, ROW, WUHAN, HANDS UP-DNK
I worked mostly bottom up and sussed the theme with pine cones.
I thought of CRAP but decided it was too coarse for an X-word,
I wondered why agent fit. Thanks, Bill and Terri.
W suggested WUHAN which is famous for its connection to COVID.
Technically yams and sweet potatoes are not the same. We seldom or never see real yams which are grown in Africa and Asia. In the US the terms are used interchangeably. The same is true for bison and buffalo. Technically they are not the same, but these terms, too, are used interchangeably. The popular forms, yam and buffalo, seem to be more popular than than the technical terms.
Another meaning of tolerance is capacity to endure pain or hardship. I have a higher tolerance for pain than most people.
I knew Ulster coat from this folk song:
My name is Solomon Levi,
And my store's on Salem street;
That's where to buy your coats and vests
And ev'rything else that's neat;
Second-handed ulsterettes
And overcoats so fine,
For all the boys that trade with me
At Hundred and Forty-nine
Amusing theme for this puzzle - as I sussed the gimmick it made the later theme solves quicker like PHILIPPINE CONE. Like Monkey, I tried Germanic and also Bavarian before crosses headed me to TEUTONIC WATER. Being in Oktoberfest season I also wanted some sort of beer/bier for the last part.
After the W was in the grid from SWEDISH, WUHAN filled easily as it was in the news constantly with the COVID pandemic and Patient Zero coming from the neighborhood near the WUHAN Institute of Virology
Thanks Bill & Teri for the blog and IRL it was wonderful to spend the day with you all - look forward to another time when we visit the DC area to get over to Baltimore and it will be fun to see all your pottery creations and workshop Bill
And congrats to Katherine for the debut puzzle
Jinx @7:02 AM I think the link problem is fixed (different link). I agree with you about all this cancel CRUD.
Good Morning:
I thought this was a refreshing and clever theme, enhanced by some very witty cluing, to wit, those for Book, Agent, Deer, etc. There was a bit of crunch but fair perps solved any hiccups. I liked the Mod/Chic and Cred/Crud duos, and the Ape crossing Cape. Overall, the grid was clean with lots of lively, strong fill.
Thanks, Katherine for an enjoyable solve and thanks, Bill, for the fun, facts, and frivolity. Scenes from Casablanca are always welcome, as is any crooning from Mr. Sinatra. I may be wrong, but I have a feeling that As Time Goes By will be around a lot longer than Hot To Go. Just a feeling, mind you. 🤫 Thanks, also, to Teri.
Have a great day.
Musings
-I was doing this puzzle this morning when my phone rang. They needed a sub after school had already started and so I agreed to come over. They were so happy I could make it but I did not have a tee time, so…
-Therefore, I am writing this surrounded by teenagers.
-Who do I see to get back the time I wasted trying to find some connection with the starting letters?
-SW was somewhat vexing.
-Service station job: When was the last time anyone pumped your gas?
-ROAN is appearing across the Missouri from Omaha in Council Bluffs, IA tonight
-Seeing and hearing/feeling a Shuttle launch in IMAX is amazing
-MERMAN: Have you noticed that younger solvers never blog here complaining about names of older stars?
-Understood implicitly: Not a skill I have mastered in my marriage
-How did any of us survive childhood without AC?
-Mashed potatoes sculpting
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