Theme: Creasing, Collapsing and Flipping.
18. Tailgating seat: LAWN CHAIR. A light, collapsible chair made to be used outside.
20. Brunch choice: FRENCH OMELET. A dish of beaten eggs cooked in a pan until the outside is smooth and golden brown, and the inside is moist and custardy.
37. Part of a formal place setting: CLOTH NAPKIN. A small square of cloth used at meals to clean your fingers and lips, and to protect your clothes.
56. Medium for an artist whose work is in-creasing?: ORIGAM IPAPER. A flat sheet of paper that is transformed into a finished culture. [I love this clue WAY too much.]
59. Easy-to-store piece of furniture: CARD TABLE. A square table for playing cards on, typically having legs that collapse for storage. Ours slips neatly behind the china cabinet.
What do all these items have in common? Let's check the unifier.
62. Poker player's concession, and what 18-, 20-, 37-, 56-, and 59-Across might say?: I FOLD. The poker player is figuratively folding his cards, giving up on that hand. The theme fill are all items that can be folded in a more literal sense. Clever!
Hi Gang, JzB here to straighten things out. Sadly, I had a couple naticks which gave me a DNF. <sigh.> But I'm not going to hold a grudge. Let's press on.
1. Parenthesis, in an emoticon: SMILE. Like this -- :-)
6. Automaker __ Romeo: ALFA. Alfa Romeo Automobiles S.p.A. is an Italian luxury carmaker known for its sports-oriented vehicles, strong auto racing heritage, and iconic design. Headquartered in Turin, Italy, it is a subsidiary of Stellantis Europe and one of 14 brands of multinational automotive company Stellantis.
10. London elevator: LIFT. English English vs American English.
14. Word with roll or code: HONOR. An Honor Roll is a recognition of excellence for students; and Honor Code is a set of rules or principles that define what is considered honorable behavior in a given community.
15. Bank claim: LIEN. A legal claim or security interest on a property that secures the payment of a debt or obligation. The property owner who grants the lien is known as the lienee, and the person who benefits from the lien is called the lienor or lienholder.
16. Actress Taylor-Joy: ANYA. Anya-Josephine Marie Taylor-Joy [b. 1996] is an actress. Born in Miami and raised in Buenos Aires and London, Taylor-Joy left school at the age of 16 to pursue an acting career. After a series of small television roles, her breakthrough came with a leading role in the horror film The Witch.
Not my idea of a good time
17. Sundance film, e.g.: INDIE. A movie or short film that is produced and distributed outside of the major film studio system.
22. Freight weight: TON. A unit of weight equal to 2,000 pounds avoirdupois (907.19 kg).
23. Pointer: TIP. Helpful hints, suggestions, or key points that guide you towards understanding a subject or situation.
24. Use an X-ray on: SEE INTO. Observe the inner structure.
28. Meyers of late-night TV: SETH. Seth Adam Meyers [b. 1973] is an American comedian, television host, actor, writer, producer, and podcaster. He currently hosts Late Night with Seth Meyers, a late-night talk show on NBC.
30. Umami, for one: TASTE. Umami or savoriness, is one of the five basic tastes. It is characteristic of broths and cooked meats.
32. Clod: OAF. An awkward, foolish or stupid person.
33. Soul singer Baker: ANITA. Anita Denise Baker [b 1958] is an American singer-songwriter. She is known for her soulful ballads, particularly from the height of the quiet storm period in the 1980s. Starting her career in the late 1970s with the funk band Chapter 8, Baker released her first solo album, The Songstress, in 1983.
35. Porcine proboscis: SNOUT. A pig's nose. it's how they smell.
40. Annual NBA event: DRAFT. The NBA draft happens every year in June. It is where teams in the National Basketball Association (NBA) choose players who have never played in the NBA before. If a team chooses a player, that player cannot sign a contract to play for any teams other than that team.
42. Small change: TWEAK. Improve a mechanism or system by making fine adjustments to it.
43. Sully: MAR. Impare the appearance or quality of something.
44. Land parcel: TRACT. An area of indefinite extent, typically a large one.
46. Earth Day sci.: ECOLogy. the study of the relationships between living organisms, including humans, and their physical environment; it seeks to understand the vital connections between plants and animals and the world around them.
50. "America's Got Talent" judge SofÌa: VERGARA. Sofía Margarita Vergara Vergara [b. 1972] is a Colombian and American actress and television personality. She is known for her role as Gloria Delgado-Pritchett in the ABC sitcom Modern Family and Griselda Blanco in the Netflix miniseries Griselda.
53. RN workplaces: ORS. Operating Rooms, where surgeries happen.
55. British pop singer Rita: ORA. Rita Sahatçiu Ora [b. 1990] is a British singer, songwriter, television personality, and actress. Born in Pristina, modern-day Kosovo, she rose to prominence when she featured on DJ Fresh's 2012 single, "Hot Right Now", which peaked atop the UK singles chart.
63. Potatoes, in Indian cuisine: ALOO. As in, for example: Aloo gobhi, aloo gobi or alu gobhi is a vegetarian dish from the Indian subcontinent made with potatoes, cauliflower, and Indian spices. It is popular in Indian cuisine. It is yellowish in color due to the use of turmeric, and occasionally contains black cumin and curry leaves.
64. Spanish cat: GATO. Literal.
65. __ and effect: CAUSE. The direct relationship between an action or event and its consequence or result.
66. Like new: MINT. In mint condition, originally, the phrase related to the way collectors described the condition of coins.
67. Spengler of the Ghostbusters: EGON. Egon Spengler, PhD is a fictional character from the Ghostbusters franchise. He appears in the films Ghostbusters, Ghostbusters II, and Ghostbusters: Afterlife, in the animated television series The Real Ghostbusters and Extreme Ghostbusters, and in the video games Ghostbusters: The Video Game and Ghostbusters Beeline. Egon was portrayed by Harold Ramis in the films and voiced by him in Ghostbusters: The Video Game and Lego Dimensions.
68. ATM keypad key: ENTER. The enter key is a computer innovation, which in most cases causes a command line, window form, or dialog box to operate its default function. This is typically to finish an "entry" and begin the desired process, and is usually an alternative to clicking an OK button.
Down:
1. Work periods: SHIFTS. Any of two or more recurring periods in which different groups of workers do the same jobs in relay.
2. Curtis and Lemmon's "Some Like It Hot" co-star: MONROE. Marilyn Monroe, born Norma Jeane Mortenson (June 1, 1926 – August 4, 1962) was an American actress and model. Known for playing comic "blonde bombshell" characters, she became one of the most popular sex symbols of the 1950s and early 1960s, as well as an emblem of the era's sexual revolution. She was a top-billed actress for a decade, and her films grossed $200 million (equivalent to $2 billion in 2023) by the time of her death in 1962.
3. Use a Tab key: INDENT. Move a line of test a specified distance from the left margin
4. Pork portion: LOIN. Pork loin is a cut of meat from a pig, created from the tissue along the dorsal side of the rib cage
5. Put up: ERECT. Build, as, for example, a house.
6. Conventional doctor, to an alternative medicine practitioner: ALLOPATH. A doctor who treats disease by conventional means, i.e., with drugs having opposite effects to the symptoms.
7. Actor Neeson: LIAM. William John Neeson OBE [b. 1952] is a Northern Irish actor. He has received several accolades, including nominations for an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, three Golden Globe Awards, and two Tony Awards. In 2020, he was placed seventh on The Irish Times list of Ireland's 50 Greatest Film Actors.
8. Smallest in number: FEWEST. The least quantity of people or things.
9. Founder of the American Shakers: ANN LEE. Ann Lee ( 1736 – 1784), commonly known as Mother Ann Lee, was the founding leader of the Shakers, later changed to United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing following her death. She was born during a time of the Evangelical revival in England, and became a figure that greatly influenced religion at this time, especially in the Americas.
10. "Chicago Hope" Emmy winner Christine: LAHTI. Christine Ann Lahti [b. 1950]s an American actress and filmmaker. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for the 1984 film Swing Shift. Her other film roles include ...And Justice for All, Housekeeping, Running on Empty, Leaving Normal, and A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.
11. Food Network host Garten: INA. Ina Rosenberg Garten [b. 1948] is an American television cook and author. She is host of the Food Network program Barefoot Contessa, and was a former staff member of the Office of Management and Budget.
12. BTW relative: FYI. By the way and For Your information, phrases used to indicate you have something more to say.
13. La Brea __ Pits: TAR. La Brea Tar Pits is an active paleontological research site in urban Los Angeles. Hancock Park was formed around a group of tar pits where natural asphalt has seeped up from the ground for tens of thousands of years. Over many centuries, the bones of trapped animals have been preserved. You can decide if "La Brea Tar Pits" is redundant. in my opinion, since it is a recognized place name, it is not.
19. So-so grade: CEE. A letter grade given to work that is not particularly good nor bad.
21. Bandleader's cry: HIT IT. Start playing. In all my decades of playing in various venues and formats, I don't recall any leader ever saying this.
25. Halfway to midnight: NOON. The exact midpoint between one midnight and the next.
26. Sigma follower: TAU.
27. Many a time, in verse: OFT. Often is oft thus abbreviated.
29. __ Dome: Yosemite attraction: HALF. Half Dome is a quartz monzonite batholith at the eastern end of Yosemite Valley in Yosemite National Park, California. It is a well-known rock formation in the park, named for its distinct shape. One side is a sheer face while the other three sides are smooth and round, making it appear like a dome cut in half.
31. Present day celebrity?: SANTA. Famous mythical gift-giver who shows up between Christmas Eve and Christmas morning. Clever clue.
34. "__ on my watch!": NOT. The speaker is saying that they will not allow something to happen, and the intent is that they will be taking action to stop it.
35. Reggae precursor: SKA. Ska is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1950s and was the precursor to rocksteady and reggae. It combined elements of Caribbean mento and calypso with American jazz and rhythm and blues. Ska is characterized by a walking bass line accented with rhythms on the off beat.
36. Reebok rival: NIKE. An American athletic footwear and apparel corporation headquartered near Beaverton, Oregon, United States. It is the world's largest supplier of athletic shoes and apparel and a major manufacturer of sports equipment, with revenue in excess of US$46 billion in its fiscal year 2022.
37. NFL quarterback Derek: CARR. Derek Dallas Carr [b. 1991] is an American professional football quarterback for the New Orleans Saints of the National Football League.
38. "You're pulling my leg!": AW COME ON. Expression of disbelief.
39. Cultural dish?: PETRI. A shallow transparent lidded dish that biologists use to hold growth medium in which cells can be cultured, originally, cells of bacteria, fungi and small mosses.
40. ID-issuing org.: DMV. Department of Motor Vehicles.
41. "I Really Like You" singer Carly __ Jepsen: RAE. Carly Rae Jepsen [b. 1985] is a Canadian singer and songwriter. After studying musical theatre for most of her school life and while in university, Jepsen garnered mainstream attention after placing third on the fifth season of Canadian Idol in 2007.
44. System based on urgency: TRIAGE. In medicine, triage is a process by which care providers such as medical professionals and those with first aid knowledge determine the order of priority for providing treatment to injured individuals and/or inform the rationing of limited supplies so that they go to those who can most benefit from it.
45. Mishmash: RAGBAG. a confused mixture or a random collection of odds and ends.
47. Poor excuse: COP OUT. The act or an instance of backing out of a situation or commitment or avoiding responsibility for something. When you take the easy way out to avoid doing something challenging or making a difficult choice, that's a cop-out. An excuse can be called a cop-out.
48. "... you'll be sorry if you don't!": OR ELSE. A vague threat suggesting an unspecified outcome if certain conditions are not met.
49. Food storage spot: LARDER. A room or large cupboard for storing food.
51. Beckett's "Waiting for __": GODOT. Waiting for Godot is a play by Irish playwright Samuel Beckett in which two characters, Vladimir and Estragon, engage in a variety of discussions and encounters while awaiting the titular Godot, who never arrives.
52. Works in a gallery: ART. Works of art on display rather than labor performed.
54. Liven (up): SPICE. To add interest or excitement to something. For example, you can spice up a speech, a story, a performance, or food.
57. Silicon Valley city Palo __: ALTO. Palo Alto (Spanish for 'tall stick') is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto. As one of the principal cities of Silicon Valley, Palo Alto is home to the headquarters of multiple tech companies
58. Anonymous admirer's sign-off: A FAN. A person who has interest or likes something, or somebody.
59. Zoom meeting need, for short: CAMera.
60. Lord of the rings?: ALI. Muhammd Ali [1942- 2016] was an American professional boxer and activist. Nicknamed "The Greatest", he is regarded as one of the most significant sports figures of the 20th century. Widely regarded as the greatest heavyweight boxer of all time, he held the Ring magazine heavyweight title from 1964 to 1970
61. Actor Perlman: RON. Ronald N. Perlman [b. 1950] has a long list of movie acting and voice acting credits.
And so it ends. Hope you made it through with no structural damage.
If anyone is interested, the Dearborn Big Band, where I play, did a joint concert with the Dearborn Concert Band on Oct 30. Here is a video of the concert.
We play one O'clock Jump together at 41:20
Dearborn Big Band starts at 47:20 with Peter Gunn
My feature is at 49:40.
Cool Regards!
JzB
16 comments:
I had a little trouble with the Indian potatoes and
Derek and Sofia, but got through them and any other difficulties in the end. FIR, so I’m happy.
Good morning!
This was quite the name-fest. Most, but certainly not all, were familiar. Went sideways where SSA temporarily took DMV's place. ALFA immediately evoked Dash-T. ALLOPATH was a learning moment. Welcome back, David, and thanx for the esoterica, JzB. (I enjoyed your Minnie the Moocher. Well done.)
Yeah... 13 or 14 names, and some together in crosses. I guess this never stops.
"56. Medium for an artist whose work is in-creasing?: ORIGAMI PAPER. A flat sheet of paper that is transformed into a finished culture. [I love this clue WAY too much.]"
That was a crossword solving learning moment for me. Until JzB's recap, I did not consider that the clue's hyphen had any purpose other than as a line break for the word increasing. That made me wonder if I had ever seen a clue with a line-break hyphen. Hard to answer that based on recall alone, so I started scanning clues in some previous puzzles that I've solved. I checked clues at various sites to see if editors were consistent in not using the line-break hyphen. The answer seems to be a resounding yes. I couldn't find a single instance.
So I'm with JzB for loving this clue, albeit possibly for a different reason. I do like the clever word play, but henceforth (while solving) I'll be on the alert for end-of-line hyphenation. I will look at them as compound words, or as part of a normally hyphenated phrase, rather than as a line break at a syllable.
Neat.
FIW, running out of ideas and fun in the San Ysidro area, and throwing in CARl instead of CARR and Rea instead of RON. Way too much A&E junk for my liking.
It would have been great if we could have livened (up) with Jazz instead of SPICE, given today's color commentator.
Thanks to JzB for the fun and informative tour.
Took 5:29 today for me to finish doing the laundry.
Seems like a good title for this puzzle could have been "folderol".
Too many proper names for my liking, although I knew today's actress (Lahti - solely from prior puzzles) and today's foreign language lessons (gato and aloo).
The views of Half Dome and El Capitan in Yosemite National Park from the Yosemite Valley are some of the most beautiful that I've seen.
I encourage everyone to go there, except if there's a bomb cyclone heading that way.
Good Morning:
Had no clue about the theme until the reveal, so that was a plus, as was the very clever Present Day Celebrity=Santa and the Alfa CSO to Tony. However, IMO, the pluses were overshadowed by what I consider minuses, to wit, the questionable stand-alones of A Fan and See Into and the unnecessary proper name cluing for common words, i.e., Tar, Half, Alto, Lift, and Draft. I have never seen or heard the word Allopath, nor Ragbag used as a synonym for Mishmash, and all Ghostbuster references go right over my head, but fair perps saved the day.
Thanks, David, and thanks, JazzB, for explaining the finer points and giving us a clearer picture of the theme and its execution. Enjoyed your concert video and your Minnie The Moocher rendition. Bravo!
Have a great day.
FIW. Is it possible to have more proper names in a puzzle? Oh my word! This is ridiculous. And the crossing of Lahti and Anya is what did me in. So many proper names I didn't even bother to count them.
The reveal gave me what I needed to find the long answers. Card table eluded me the longest. And throwing down SSA instead of DMV slowed me down for a while.
But overall this was an annoying puzzle, and it's done, so there's that.
I’m in good company since our reviewer JzB DNF. I got caught by many of the proper names like VERGARA crossing RAE and CARR, as well as LAHTI crossing ANYA.
Never having seen RAGBAG before, I missed the EGON answer.
Indeed the ORIGAMI clue was neat, as were the clues for SANTA and PETRI.
I zipped down to the theme fill first so the theme answers were easy enough to fill.
Thank you JzB for á stellar recap.
I liked the theme, but needed the reveal. All except the SW corner was quite easy, which is where I failed. I didn't think of MINT or CAM, although they made perfect sense. Duh! This was not that hard to parse.
I wagged and perped all the names except RON where I wavered between ROD and RON.
I knew ALLOPATH after getting ALL.... RAGBAG was easy.
I especially liked cultural dish=petri and lord of the rings=Ali. Origami paper was clever.
Speaking of redundant:
Lake Tahoe. Tahoe means lake.
Minnehaha Falls. Minnehaha means falls.
Sahara desert. Sahara means desert.
And many more!
My MIL's property bordered Street Road.
Musings
-Me too, Jazz. We’ve had ALOO before but I failed to suss the cluing of ALI which made for one bad cell at their crossing. Otherwise, I zoomed through the puzzle sans CAM.
-On the other hand, ALLOPATH had sufficient help
-Many a CARD TABLE will be unfolded for the kids’ dining area for Thanksgiving
-I discovered ANYA in the wonderful The Queen’s Gambit
-Pro sports DRAFTS usually consign a good player to play on the league's worst team
-Nuestra GATA Lily es muy querida (Our cat Lily is dearly loved). Lily is, of course, a female.
-CAUSE/Effect – “Doctor, doctor, it hurts when I do this”
-I remember C.C. saying Carly RAE’s Call Me was a song she really liked
-COP OUT: An good excuse and $5 gets you coffee at Starbucks
-I still sigh when I think of all the MINT condition baseball cards I had in the 50’s.
Good Morning! Slow going today, but I made it to the finish line with only one hiccup. A single box (S) got painted over when I first thought of SSA as the ID issuer before DMV surfaced.
I filled the reveal before the two of the themers which helped. Overall, nicely tied together and well positioned for some added perp help.
I have an ORIGAMI crane mobile made by a in-law relative.
Perps for ALLOPATH, ANYA, CARR.
Fun clue for SANTA 🎅! On the other hand, not a fan of the clue for ALI.
Thanks, JazzB, for a wealth of information. You never know when these pearls of wisdom will help with another puzzle down the road.
Well I didn’t FOLD on this one, kept at it for 12:52 for the FIR. Took a WAG at the G in the GODOT/VERGARA cross. I get Sophia mixed up with Meredith Viera. I’ve heard of “ragtag” but not RAGBAG, the second G gave me the unknown EGON. We had ALOO and ALLO, missing was the CW favorite “aloe”. ✋ for SSA before DMV. “Some Like It Hot” starring MONROE is a classic comedy which I saw not long ago on TCM, I recognized the hotel in the film as somewhere I have been, the Hotel del Coronado, on a beautiful beach across the bay from San Diego. As Jayce often states, “I liked this puzzle”. Thank you David, and JazzB for your detailed expo!
Bravo, JzB! Good to have you back in the house, and thanks for sharing the concert!
David Poole gave us a nice puzzle and I FIR in good time, but he did throw in quite a few names (4 of which were unknown to me) and one learning moment re: ALLOPATH. Well, also RAGBAG as clued. Perps were kind to me, but I sympathize with anyone stuck in the mix of ALOO, MINT, CAM, ALI, and RON. Now that's a RAGBAG (as clued!).
I found this to be a clever puzzle by David, and enjoyed working out the folding theme--including solving FRENCHOMELET while I was eating one for breakfast!
But there is no denying that it was also less a crossword puzzle than a crossNAME puzzle. I didn't count the names, but there were clearly upwards of a dozen dominating the grid with incomprehensible (to me) pop culture. It is to David's credit--and perhaps Patti's--that these baffling names were spread around for the most part, so were vulnerable to neighboring perp attacks. I did have one Natick down near the SW, where Somebody Jepsen was crossing Sofia Somebody. I was able to WAG out of that successfully, and eventually got my FIR.
David brought in a couple names that are of local (southern California) interest: the La Brea Tar Pits; and Derek Carr. I recommend the tar pits to anyone visiting LA, because it is a fascinating site, I think, for all ages. Oddly, there is a redundancy in its name, because la brea is the Spanish word for tar.
Derek Carr, the quarterback for the New Orleans Saints, is from Bakersfield, down the mountain from Tehachapi. His high school team plays Tehachapi H.S., and Derek's father and brothers are the coaches at his old school. The Saints have won every one of Derek's games this season that he has quarterbacked; unfortunately, they have also lost every game when he was out due to injury.
David, I enjoyed many of your clues, such as "Works in a gallery," which turns out to be ART (a noun, not the anticipated verb); and "Lord of the rings?" for Muhammed Ali.
And thanks, David, for a well-constructed and Wednesday-appropriate puzzle with a fun theme that pleasantly occupied me this morning.
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