ANONYMOUS EPONYMOUS
I do not recognize the constructor of today's puzzle, and congratulations are in order if this be their LA Times debut~! I am not entirely sure I grasped the theme - can't be sure I get how it connects with two of the "*" starred clues exactly. Add to that over a dozen proper names, and I have to give this a mere "⭐⭐" rating, despite the fact that it's a shout-out to yours truly, Splynter, who in the "real" word is "Rich". The theme answers;
17. *Layered dessert with coffee buttercream and chocolate ganache: OPERA CAKE - pretty much THE definition of a RICH cake
25. *Evergreen used to make incense: SANDALWOOD - the plant wood is RICH in fragrant oils, and highly aromatic - also used in perfumes, and expensive
36. *Silicon Valley success story: TECH BILLIONAIRE - my last fill was the "B", which I had as "M", so a Natick of a theme crossing a name. . . . "BOO~!" - the better use of this 14A. word
And Away We Go~!
1. All the rage: HOT
4. "Same here": "DITTO." - from the Latin dictus, "said"
9. "CBS News Sunday Morning" correspondent Mo: ROCCA - name #1, but I do know of him
14. Sweetie: BOO - not a fan of this type of "abbreviation". Period.
15. Strike caller?: UNION - I read that the East & Gulf coast Dockworkers went on strike, but then suspended it until January - which seems to defeat the purpose of a strike, but it means our economy won't collapse before the upcoming Christmas season. . . .😜
16. Cartography collection: ATLAS - Seven syllables : two syllables = clue : answer
19. Barren and severe: STARK - or better yet, a description of Tony
27. Live (in): RESIDE
29. Celtic "The Celts" singer: ENYA - crossword staple, still a name, #2
30. Sambuca flavor: ANISE
31. Cooped (up): PENT - I would not mind being cooped up in a PENT house
33. Network that airs many MGM and RKO films: TCM - Turner Classic Movies
40. CIA forerunner: OSS - crossword staple; the Office of
41. Mountain route: PASS
42. Eatery with its own lingo: DINER - A Greasy Spoon List from Wikipedia
43. Bridge: SPAN - I love the architecture of bridges; this one is in Frawnche Bordeaux
51. Game with a rhyming name: I SPY
52. Performs penance: ATONES
53. Wheelchair-bound "Glee" teen: ARTIE - name #3, had him once this past year, so I "64A." knew it
55. Up: RAISE - meh. Give me a sentence with a one-to-one swap of these two words
60. Discovery astronaut Ochoa: ELLEN - I knew this one, but still a name, #4
61. Pigpens: STIES
62. Shade of green: PEA
63. Map lines: ROADS
64. Rather, informally: KINDA - Sorta like, you know, slang
65. Outside the mainstream, genrewise: ALTernative - I like the Vevo video channel Alternative 80s
DOWN:
1. "House of the Dragon" network: HBO - shoulda known this; my buddy insisted that I watch "Game of Thrones" because I like castles and dragons, but that's not the only thing going on in the series
I don't have HBO, and I've only seen scenes of GoT
2. Alley-__: OOP
3. Low digit?: TOE - crossword comedy
4. Binary: DUAL
5. Carve: INCISE - dah~! not SCULPT
6. Disney princess voiced by Anika Noni Rose: TIANA - Disney's The Princess & The Frog - name #5
7. Arcade coin: TOKEN
8. "Best Song Ever" singers __ Direction: ONE - name #6, don't know this 'boy band'
9. Without thinking things through: RASHLY
10. Canadian capital: OTTAWA - CanadianEh~!, hockey is here~! ( name-ish)
11. Spanish "Of course": CLARO - Filled via perps; I really should learn a second language
12. __ shorts: garment with lots of pockets: CARGO
18. Peppery salad slice: RADISH - Ah. Took me two passes before I got it
21. Poem division: CANTO - A long subsection of an epic or long narrative poem, such as Dante Alighieri’s Commedia (The Divine Comedy)
22. Muse for poets: ERATO - crossword staple, still a name #7
23. Part of one's inheritance?: GENES - har-har
24. "Sound Mind, Sound Body" athletic brand: ASICS - name #8
26. "Dune" and "Dune: Part Two" director Villeneuve: DENIS - name #9 - I cannot get into "DUNE"
28. DOI head Haaland: DEB - name #10 - Dept of the Interior - her website
31. Jet: PLANE
32. Raised trains: ELs - Seamus, in the Pipe Organ picture above, is from Chicago, known for its ELevated trains
33. Shades: TINTS - as in color tones, not window treatments
34. Advance slowly: CREEP
35. "__ Christmas!": "MERRY~!"
37. Apple tablets: iPADS - I am PC
38. Confidentiality contract, for short: NDA - Non-Disclosure Agreement - I have three board games I have "invented", and would like to get published/produced, but I cannot go to any company without having some sort of 'theft protection' - and a patent costs about $3K
43. Had a feeling: SENSED
"I've A Very Bad Feeling About This"
44. Primps: PREENS - good for "PR" - get it~?45. Went for a run?: BATTED - baseball reference for C.C.
46. Less common: RARER
47. Novelist Calvino: ITALO - name #11
48. "Behold!": "VOILA~!" - Frawnche
49. Christine of the Paramount+ series "Evil": LAHTI - name #12 - her IMDb
50. Coach: TRAIN - ooh, I got this; I guessed at the 'verb' definition
54. Rae of "Barbie": ISSA - crossword staple, still a name #13
56. Sound of shame: TSK
57. Hoppy brew, for short: IPA - every other crossword
58. Cartoon frame: CEL
59. Pillbox, for one: HAT - standard uniform item in the 60s, for most airlines
14 comments:
Some of the names seemed a bit obscure. And I’m not clear on how a river delta is “rich.” But besides those nits I enjoyed this (somewhat) challenging puzzle. FIR, so I’m happy.
Good morning!
HON morphed to BOO and BUNTED to BATTED. Only know Mo ROCCA from Celebrity Jeopardy! and WWDTM. Otherwise, this was a smooth solve. If this is a debut, I'd call it a good one. Thanx Blair and Splynter.
FIR, but hand up for erasing million for BILLION, my only smudge mark today.
Visited Ektorp today with ENYA and A LINE. Wonder if Misty will have ENYA wearing an A LINE?
Game with a rhyming name reminded me of Shirley Ellis's The Name Game. I kept waiting for her to do "Chuck."
I also don't get up->RAISE.
FLN - Thanks to Jayce for your comment. Sadly, I think it is the best for all. Also, I would ask the doc to clarify what he wants you to do to wean off that med. You have too much at stake to figure it out on your own, even if you are 99% sure you know what he meant for you to do.
Thanks to Blair for the fun outing. In spite of some clunky cluing it was fun. And thanks once again to Splynter for the RICH comments.
BTW - I have a friend who is a bit of a cornball. His first name is RICH and his wife's name is Janet, but when he introduces them he says "I'm RICH and she's famous." (She isn't.)
Thank you, Blair Hassett, and thank you Splynter.
D'OH! I wasn't paying enough much attention to the puzzle, and ended with four incorrect cells. I had SHO at 1D and ONE at 3D (and also at 8D). HON would have worked for 14A Sweetie. Say la vee.
Anyway Splynter, I don't understand why you said you didn't quite get how two of the theme answers were related, and then explained them clearly. Maybe I'm not paying enough attention.
I also had endive before changing it to RADISH, but endive is bitter rather than peppery.
I liked the DINER lingo terms. Most of that lingo was new to me. Very colorful.
Oh, Maverick and few cowpokes are sitting in the saloon playing poker and drinking rot gut whiskey. One asks Brett, "Do you want to up the ante?" I think RAISE fits there.
Learning moment (for me anyway) while watching an episode of Maverick the other day. I knew of Brett and Bart. But in that episode, there was Beau, played by Roger Moore. I read the IMDb and Wikipedia articles, and found out there was also a fourth Maverick named Brent. Who knew?
D'oh!
Much was supposed to have been parenthesized. "I wasn't paying enough (much) attention..."
TTP, my media professor informed our class that in the radio pilot for Gunsmoke, the sheriff was named Mark Dillon. They backed up to the previous Bible book shortly thereafter.
FIR. I'm not a fan of the theme as it seems a bit of a stretch on a few of them.
And there were too many proper names for my liking, especially two of them crossing at Artie and Lahti. Yuk!
But the puzzles done so there's that. Not an enjoyable Wednesday offering.
Took 8:06 today for me to ... miss the former LAT crossword puzzle editor?
I didn't notice the theme while solving, but it seemed like the theme was a real "Who's Who" (if you catch my drift) based on all the proper names, such as, Rocca, Lahti, Artie, Tiana, Deb, Denis, Italo, Erato, Issa, Enya, & Ellen.
I managed to guess correctly at today's Spanish lesson (claro) and at the DOI head being Deb rather than Dem.
The things we learn in crosswords!
Here's another that I found when reading about Mark/Matt. In The Simpsons episode Forgive and Regret in the cold opening, Maggie Simpson has a gunfight with Marshal Matt Dillon, marking the show surpassing Gunsmoke as the longest-running scripted American primetime television series by number of episodes.
So they were obviously aware of the historical significance and worked it into the script.
Splynter's Diner lingo link had a citation for "The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America" and I have been reading sections of it for the last hour or so. It's good. I think you'd like it. It's almost 2200 pages.
Going to have to quit though so I can get some of the tasks marked off my list.
Good Morning:
I guess the themers fit the reveal closely enough, but it’s not as strong or tight a theme as we’re used to, IMO. I never heard of Opera Cake, nor Artie, Ellen, Tiana, or Claro, but perps were fair, so no complaints. One, Cargo, and Merry could have been clued less blatantly. Overall, though, the solve was smooth and Wednesday appropriate.
Thanks, Blair, and congrats if this is a debut, and thanks, Splynter, for your continued pinch-hitting and interesting commentaries.
Have a great day.
I guess my reaction to this puzzle is sort of a "Meh." The relationship of the theme
answers--and to each other--is somewhat tenuous and inconsistent.
And there was certainly a plethora of names, some of which were pretty obscure. I will say that they were fairly well spread out, so abundant Natick perils were for the most part avoided.
As a sports nut, I see that Kevin McHale played Artie in "Glee." The only Kevin McHale I know was one of the best power forwards in NBA history. He won a bunch of NBA championships for the Boston Celtics. So either Artie was 6'9" or there is another Kevin McHale.
Some clues I enjoyed: "Went for a run" (BATTED); "Low digit" (TOE); and "Part of one's inheritance" (GENES).
Blair, thanks for your hard work on an interesting Wednesday-appropriate puzzle, and I hope to see you here again.
18 proper nouns. Too many
After I retired, I dedicated a chunk of each morning to watching classic Westerns that were favorites of my parents. Wagon Train, Rawhide, Bat Masterson, and Maverick to name a few. Maverick was my favorite, and I was crushed when James Garner left and was replaced by Roger Moore (as Beau). I lasted just two more episodes after that ill-advised casting.
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