Good Morning, Cruciverbalists. Malodorous Manatee here with the recap of a Friday puzzle by Kelly Richardson. Kelly has had several puzzles previously published by the LA Times and made her NY Times debut in July, 2024. Today's puzzle contains many answers that we have seen before as well as quite a few proper nouns - many music-related.
While there is no reveal" in today's grid there is a theme. At four places Kelly has created punny word play employing the names of U.S. states. At three of those places she uses abbreviations for the states' names (although not the official USPS abbreviations) and for the fourth she truncates the name by dropping the word NEW.
Here are the four places where the gimmick appears:
16 Across: Play staged by Boston's Commonwealth Shakespeare Company?: MASS PRODUCTION. From Massachusetts.
23 Across: . Demand policy changes from lawmakers in Olympia?: PRESSURE WASH. From Washington. Tell those politicians what you want.
53 Across: Digits starting with 908?: JERSEY NUMBER. 908 is the (telephone calling) Area Code for New JERSEY.
62 Across:. Fortunes made in Chicago?: ILL GOTTEN GAINS. From Illinois.
This is how everything appears in the grid:
.... and here are the rest of the clues and answers:
Across:1. One of Islam's five pillars: HAJJ.
5. Avocado dip, for short: GUAC. GUACamole.
9. Truckful: LOAD.
13. Margarine: OLEO. A spread frequently slathered in (on?) our puzzles.
14. Not fooled by: ON TO.
15. General vibe: AURA. Anybody need a crystal?
20. Johnny of "Point Break": UTAH. A fictional character.
21. Audio jack abbr.: MIC. MICrophone
26. Trails: PATHS.
29. Vegetable in bamia: OKRA.
30. DOL division: OSHA.
31. "Don't Bring Me Down" gp.: ELO. Electric Light Orchestra
34. Robed ruler: EMIR. A position frequently occupied in our puzzles.
36. Steinem who co-founded Ms. magazine: GLORIA.
38. More repulsive: ICKIER.
42. Betting figures: ODDS.
I know. I know.
65. Jelly that may be added to boba tea: ALOE. How do I clue thee? Let me count the ways.
66. Tear: REND.
67. Let go of: DROP.
68. Window-rattling: LOUD. If Dan could scream very loudly how LOUD would Daniel?
69. Contributes: ADDS.
70. So small: EENY. EENY. Meeny. Miny.
1. Last word of "The Wizard of Oz": HOME.
2. Woeful cry: ALAS. My experiment of cross breeding a hen with a Slinky has failed. ALAS, I've no spring chicken!
3. Quip: JEST.
4. Soul and gospel singer Margie: JOSEPH. Great name.
6. Card game cry: UNO. Frequently played in our puzzles.
7. Just before nightfall: AT DUSK.
8. High fashion: COUTURE. From the French.
9. Woodworking tool: LATHE.
10. "Mais __!": OUI. Une autre des leçons de français d'aujourd'hui.
12. Coffee pastry: DANISH. Culinary Misnomers
17. __ meteor: many an August streaker: PERSEID.
18. Italian term of affection: CARA MIA.
24. Mop (up): SOP.
25. Stop __ order: bad news on a construction site: WORK.
26. Cribbage marker: PEG. Fifteen two, fifteen four and a pair is six.
27. More than most: ALL. ALL would, indeed be more.
28. Additionally: TOO.
33. Rueful reply: SADLY NO. Alas.
35. Glacial calving result: ICE BERG. Sometimes clued with reference to a salad.
37. "I'm Coming Out" singer: ROSS.
39. USDT division: IRS.
40. Take off the table?: EAT. Not a negotiation reference.
41. Reuben bread: RYE.
43. "Strangers in the Night" crooner: SINATRA.
46. Supplies tunes, briefly: DJS. Used here as verb . . . and what this blogger seems to be doing today.
47. Like drone footage: AERIAL.
48. Kitchen pad: BRILLO.
50. Got the ball rolling?: PUTTED. A golf reference.
52. Game point?: ARCADE. Not a tennis reference. The point (place) where one plays pinball and other games.
54. Spurred (on): EGGED.
55. Stripes: BANDS. As in BANDS of color.
59. Employ: HIRE.
60. Hip to: IN ON.
61. Athletic honor: ESPY. Frequently awarded in our puzzles.
63. "The Incredible Hulk" star Ferrigno: LOU.
15 comments:
Now THAT’S what I call a Friday-worthy puzzle! I don’t think
IM can claim it was “too easy” for a Friday, yet for the most part it was fair, and definitely doable (or, at least, I ended up being able to do it). FIR, so I’m happy.
Good morning!
There sure were lotsa names in this one, but most were familiar. Got the state theme early on -- didn't really help with the solve. I doubt that anyone under 60 remembers Eydie GORMÉ -- you can blame it on the bossa nova. That "Dodge pickup" clue should be retired. RAM is its own brand now. Still, d-o liked this puzzle and it came into the station in good time. Thanx, Kelly and Mal-Man.
FIR, thanks to the theme. Erased tENY for EENY.
I knew COUTURE but, of course, I had no idea how to spel it. Ditto haute, but that wasn't needed today.
Took me a while for ROSS. I was thinking of I'm coming up, so you'd better Get the Party Started, recorded by Shirley Bassey and made famous by Pink.
When I saw USDT I thought of the Transportation Department. No, that's DOT. As far as I can tell, there isn't an abbreviation for the Treasury Department. But I only checked the official A-Z index of U.S. government departments and agencies.
Thanks to Kelly for the fun puzzle that washed away the foul taste of yesterday's offering. And thanks to our MalMan for another enjoyable review. Loved all the tunes.
way too many names and cutesy obscure garbage. titt
Took 9:30 today for me to get to Cleveland's water source (OH well).
Despite knowing today's actress (Rae), I didn't know singer Joseph or singer Gorme (though I knew singer Lipa). I also failed the foreign language portion of this puzzle, not knowing: the Chinese tea, the French expression, the Italian expression, or bamia. Those sucked most of the fun out of this puzzle, as did "game point?" for arcade.
Ram is still a DODGE. You can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig.
Good morning all. I made it harder than it should have been by misspelling HOME as HOPE and couldn't figure it out until the end and realized it was also a state abbr. CARA MIA was an unknown and I couldn't figure out what PRESUME WASH had to do with the clue, MAMA MIA, PRODUCTION appeared. Voila! At the same time the SE had me stumped my "Game point" was an ANTLER (12 point buck) and that allowed King ARTHUR, not Prince ARHCIE. Had to back out of that corner and start over. I finally managed ro FIR.
RAE and LIPA are both "frequent visitors" to go along with ORA, IDRIS, and a few others.
JOSEPH, ALOE and UTAH were unknowns filled by WAG and perps.
FIR. One expects Friday puzzles to be difficult, and this one didn't disappoint. But the clues were fair and the theme was clever.
Yes there were several proper names, but well placed perps made them doable.
Overall this was an enjoyable puzzle.
FIR. More like a Wednesday, but I'm not complaining. Rough start with HAJJ (I've heard of "the Hajj" never dawned on me that it was spelled with two Js). Perps filled it in though. SW corner a little choppy, but still worked out fairly smoothly. I've finally learned DUA as an answer but got lost with it as clue and needed perps. Thought there should have been a hint someplace that the theme involved shorthand names for states, but they were easy enough.
Good Morning:
The only unknowns, and therefore perp-dependent, were Joseph and Perseid, so I didn’t find the solve difficult and certainly not Friday-level difficult, at least by old Friday standards. I thought the theme was very clever, even with the outlier of Jersey being truncated rather than a fourth abbreviation.
Thanks, Kelly, and thanks, MalMan, for the punny review and the musical memories.
Have a great day.
It was a bit of a slow start not knowing the Islam pillar or the gospel singer it crossed, but perps demanded HAJJ/JOSEPH (don’t know of any English words that end in double J). Ultimately I didn’t MISS the boat like yesterday and came in at 18:51 for the FIR. PRESSURE WASH was the first long fill I got and sussed the theme from that. (I saw a sandwich board sign on a street corner advertising a pressure washing business “Two Bros and a Hose”. We had RAE, RYE, and RAY, missing was CW favorite roe. CARA MIA and UTAH were all perps. ICKIER and EENY can retire. I knew GORME, but didn’t know she spelled her first name like that. A Friday worthy puzzle IMO, thank you Kelly for that, and to MM for your recap. I liked the OSHA cartoon, and your SO to the Chairman on his day off.
Much better puzzle than yesterday. Held up for a while in the Northwest Territory, but once that cleared up, the rest came easier. Enjoyed the sound track today, MalMan! The Smothers Brothers show was definitely "must see TV" for me back in the day. When it comes to pads, I always prefer SOS to Brillo.
Before I weigh in on the puzzle per se, I first want to thank Malodorous Manatee for your usual amusing recap. I have just one nit to pick, where you said that 908 is the Area Code for New Jersey. Uh, no. That is actually only one of many Area Codes in New Jersey--which is necessary in a state with nearly 10 million population.
Kelly's puzzle today was challenging, but I felt that that had less to do with cleverness and durable construction than it did with pop culture obscurities and proper names.
The theme was mildly interesting. I was disappointed that the answer to the first theme answer had essentially nothing to do with Shakespeare, notwithstanding what the clue inferred. There were other odd clues in the puzzle, like "Game point?" = ARCADE. There is a difference between clues that are misdirected, and those that are just misleading.
Thanks, Kelly, for your efforts in constructing today's puzzle; and thanks, MalMan, for your helpful review.
Kelly was able to dodge for the most part the deluge of state vowel-rich words like ACAI, ALE, and OREO that are spit out by the generator Crossword Compiler. She did, however, succumb to ALOE and OLEO. Yuck.
First, the last two paragraphs above were somehow printed out of order; second, the word "state" should be "stale."
Musings
-Gimmick was fun and helpful once I got ONTO it
-I live in a VERY flat area and so any new building requires LOADS and LOADS of fill dirt to get above the flood plain.
-Loved the OSHA cowboy MM!
-Issa Rae and Dua Lipa have taken up residence here.
-Window rattling: SAC had to reroute their flights because the sonic booms were breaking things and spooking cattle
-I remember Edyie blaming it on the bosa nova
-Jay Black could still belt out Cara Mia 40 years after he and The Americans recorded it
-The Ruben sandwich looks good except for sauerkraut which is ICKY to me!
-Supplies tunes: We have Sirius XM in our cars and Apple devices
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