State Raps
It appears to me that our veteran constructors Kevin Christian and Drew Schmenner have given us another "modern lingo" Thursday theme for today's offering. We'll start with our themers, which are all the titles of songs ...17. Katy Perry song whose lyrics mention Venice Beach and Palm Springs: CALIFORNIA GURLS. This song was co-written with rapper Snoop Dogg and served as the lead single for her third studio album, Teenage Dream (2010). If you want to know why it's spelled that way, read this. I'd rate the official video an R for all the skin, but this PG-rated video just has the music, lyrics, and a few suggestive double-entendres ...
23. Stevie Ray Vaughan blues cover with the line "I'm standin' out in the rain": TEXAS FLOOD. In 1983 Stevie Ray Vaughan recorded this song originally by blues musician Larry Davis ...
54. Title song of a 1961 film featuring a lei-wearing Elvis Presley: BLUE HAWAII. Blue Hawaii is a 1961 American musical romantic comedy drama film directed by Norman Taurog and starring Elvis Presley. Here's the title song ...
61. "Just an old sweet song" performed by Ray Charles: GEORGIA ON MY MIND. Georgia on My Mind is a 1930 song written by Hoagy Carmichael (1899–1981), and Stuart Gorrell (1901–1963), and first recorded that same year by Hoagy Carmichael. The song has been most often associated with soul singer Ray Charles (1930–2004), a native of the U.S. state of Georgia ...
... and the enigmatic reveal ...
61. "Just an old sweet song" performed by Ray Charles: GEORGIA ON MY MIND. Georgia on My Mind is a 1930 song written by Hoagy Carmichael (1899–1981), and Stuart Gorrell (1901–1963), and first recorded that same year by Hoagy Carmichael. The song has been most often associated with soul singer Ray Charles (1930–2004), a native of the U.S. state of Georgia ...
... and the enigmatic reveal ...
37A Regulatory legal associations, and what 17-, 23-, 54-, and 61-Across are?: STATE BARS. Obviously the literal meaning -- state bar associations has nothing to do with music, so I started by assuming that each of the states named in the songs must have a famous BAR in them named after the song titles -- this sent me down a rabbit hole but all I came back with were some bunnies in a so-called "men's club" called "California Girls" in Anaheim, CA 🙃.
I finally hit pay dirt when I asked the Internet sage if the "word BARS might be slang for the words to a song and got this response ...
'the term "bars" is often used as hip-hop slang to refer to a song or a rapper's lyrics within a song, -- essentially meaning the musical bars of a song that are especially good, e.g. "the hook".
... each themer then associates a name of a state with the "bars" of a song. Hand up if you've got another explanation! 😀
Here's the grid ...
Across:
1. Two-time NBA MVP Malone: KARL. Karl Anthony Malone (born July 24, 1963) is an American former professional basketball player in the National Basketball Association (NBA). Nicknamed "the Mailman", he is considered one of the greatest power forwards in NBA history. Malone spent his first 18 seasons (1985–2003) in the NBA with the Utah Jazz. He was a two-time NBA Most Valuable Player, a 14-time NBA All-Star, and a 14-time member of the All-NBA Team, which include 11 consecutive First Team selection. His 36,928 career points scored rank third all-time in NBA history behind LeBron James and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
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| Karl Malone |
5. "Parks and __": REC. Parks and Recreation (also known as Parks and Rec) is an American political satire mockumentary television sitcom. The series aired on NBC from April 9, 2009, to February 24, 2015, for 125 episodes, over seven seasons. The series stars Amy Poehler as Leslie Knope, a perky, mid-level bureaucrat in the Parks Department of the fictional town of Pawnee, Indiana ...
8. Gray shade: SLATE. The National Slate Association begs to differ -- consider the nuanced tiles on this slate roof ...
13. Pet peeve?: FLEA. Pet peeves are all a matter of perspective ...
14. "The Little Mermaid" prince: ERIC. The Little Mermaid is loosely based on the story by Hans Christian Anderson, but the notion of a water nymph who falls in love with a human dates back at least to ancient Greece and the Myth of the Ondine. This is an enduring story that has been repeated in such works as Dvorak's opera Rusalka and German author Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué's 1811 novella Undine. The Disney studios have produced several versions of the myth and the Prince in these stories finally has a name: ERIC. The original animated version was made in 1989 and a live action version in was released in 2023. Here's a pic from the second version after Ariel (Halle Bailey) has saved Prince Eric (Jonah Hauer-King) from drowning ...
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| Prince Eric and Ariel |
16. Mongolian, e.g.: ASIAN. Mongolia is a landlocked country in East Asia, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south. It covers an area of 1,564,116 square kilometres (603,909 square miles), with a population of 3.5 million, making it the world's most sparsely populated sovereign state. Apparently Alexander Borodin was slightly mistaken when he titled this tone poem as In the Steppes of Central Asia.
17. [Theme clue]
20. Like fraternity brothers: MALE. -- And sorority sisters are FEMALE. Vive la différence!
21. Pantry array: CANS.
22. Seasonal illness: FLU. Have you had your flu shot? Rumor has it that they're no longer PC. 🙃
23. [Theme clue]
26. D-rated: POOR.
27. Poem of praise: ODE. A brief article on ODES by the Poetry Foundation.
28. Hot toddy option: TEA.
29. __ solution: SALINE. Saline solution is a mixture of water and salt (sodium chloride) that has many different uses for your health. Normal saline solution is a mixture of water and salt with a salt concentration of 0.9% -- for every 1 liter (1,000 milliliters) of water, there are 9 grams of salt. Normal saline is one type of IV fluid that healthcare providers give people in a hospital. This is because normal saline and human blood have the same balance of water and salt.
31. Zilch: NADA. Today's Spanish lesson: NOTHING.
33. Writer/actress Fey: TINA. Elizabeth Stamatina "Tina" Fey (born May 18, 1970) is an American actress, comedian, writer, and producer. She was a cast member and head writer for the NBC sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live from 1997 to 2006. After her departure from SNL, she created the NBC sitcom 30 Rock (2006–2013, 2020) and the Netflix sitcom Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (2015–2020). Here's a clip from the pilot episode of 30 Rock in which she starred ...
36. __ in comparison: PALED.
37. [Theme reveal]
40. Wash away suds: RINSE.
43. Cornerstone number: YEAR. Here is the cornerstone of the Roosevelt Arch at the main entrance to Yellowstone National Park, the first National Park. The Arch was dedicated by President Theodore Roosevelt on April 24, 1903. Here are some interesting facts about the structure.
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| Yellowstone National Park April 24, 1903 |
48. Skin care brand: AVEENO. I don't usually hype products, but I find this lotion to be very helpful in restoring moisture to my hands after a session of throwing pots ...
50. Old film channel: TCM. The channel isn't "old" (as in former), but the movies are. Turner Classic Movies (TCM) is an American movie-oriented pay-TV network owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. Launched in 1994, Turner Classic Movies is headquartered at Ted Turner's Techwood broadcasting campus in the Midtown business district of Atlanta, Georgia.
52. Kraken's realm, briefly: NHL. Thank you perps. The Seattle Kraken are a professional ice hockey team based in Seattle. The Kraken compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Pacific Division in the Western Conference. The Pacific Northwest region has a history of Scandinavian immigrants and ancestry, connecting Seattle to the team name which is derived from a legendary sea monster of Nordic mythology.
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| Kraken Logo |
54. [Theme clue].
58. "And so on" abbr.: ETC.
59. With, at le restaurant: AVEC. Today's French lesson -- AVEC = "with"
60. __ América: quadrennial soccer tournament: COPA. The Copa America, is the top men's quadrennial football (European for "soccer") tournament contested among national teams from South America. It is the oldest still-running continental football competition. The competition determines the champions of South America. Since the 1990s, teams from North America and Asia have also been invited to compete.
61. [Theme clue]
66. Come next: ENSUE. A clue about jeans will ENSUE ...
67. Jeans spot that might wear out first: KNEE. They might wear out before that if they're distressed ...
69. Maker of apple products: MOTTS. Mott's is an American company, founded in 1842 involved primarily in producing apple-based products, particularly juices and sauces.
70. "Stat!": NOW. When ASAP is not fast enough!!!
71. German "no": NEIN. Today's German lesson: NEIN = "no" and JA = "yes".
Down:
1. Fast-food chain owned by Yum! Brands: KFC. The original recipe for Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) is a closely guarded secret, but a nephew of Colonel Harlan Sanders who used to make it as a kid outed it to the Chicago Tribune.
2. San Francisco Bay city: ALAMEDA. There's a lot to see and do there.
3. Chill: RELAXED.
4. Boxer Ali: LAILA. Laila Amaria Ali (born December 30, 1977) is an American television personality and retired professional boxer who competed from 1999 to 2007. During her career, from which she retired undefeated, she held the WBC, WIBA, IWBF and IBA female super middleweight titles, and the IWBF light heavyweight title. Ali is widely regarded by many within the sport as one of the greatest female professional boxers of all time. She is the daughter of boxer Muhammad Ali. Here she is at a charity fashion show for Heart Truth in 2011 ...
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| Laila Ali |
6. Make a mistake: ERR.
7. Dos y tres: CINCO. Today's combined math and Spanish lesson: "2 and 3 = 5".
8. Gives in to gravity: SAGS.
9. The Tigers of the SEC: LSU. Louisiana State University (commonly referred to as LSU) is an American public land-grant research university in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, United States. The university was founded in 1860 near Pineville, Louisiana, under the name Louisiana State Seminary of Learning & Military Academy. The current LSU main campus was dedicated in 1926 and consists of more than 250 buildings constructed in the style of Italian Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio, occupying a 650-acre (260 ha) plateau on the banks of the Mississippi River.
And a CSO to our favorite Tiger, Hahtoolah!
10. Plane feature with a lift-to-drag ratio: AIRFOIL. An airfoil is a streamlined body that is capable of generating significantly more lift than drag. Wings, sails and propeller blades are examples of airfoils. Foils of similar function designed with water as the working fluid are called hydrofoils. When oriented at a suitable angle, a solid body moving through a fluid deflects the oncoming fluid (for fixed-wing aircraft, a downward force), resulting in a force on the airfoil in the direction opposite to the deflection. This force is known as aerodynamic force and can be resolved into two components: lift (perpendicular to the remote freestream velocity) and drag (parallel to the freestream velocity). The explanation I learned in HS physics was that the upper curve of the airfoil, being longer than the lower curve makes the air thinner on top than on the bottom. The difference between these air densities creates a vacuum effect literally "sucking" the wing upward. The mathematics of airfoils can get pretty complicated and I confess that I don't begin to understand them.
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| Airfoil geometry |
11. Beer, slangily: TALL ONE. Here's a pint of lager in a tall one ...
15. Milan farewell: CIAO. Today's Italian lesson: CIAO = "Ta Ta!". Google translate indicates that it's also like ALOHA -- it can be used for "Hi" as well.
18. Celebratory suffix: FEST. 11D's are frequently consumed at these celebrations.
19. "No ifs, __, or buts": ANDS.
23. Boatload: TON.
24. Greek cheese: FETA. Feta (Greek: φÎτα, féta) is a Greek brined white cheese made from sheep milk or from a mixture of sheep and goat milk. It is soft, with small or no holes, and no skin. Crumbly with a slightly grainy texture, it is formed into large blocks and aged in brine.
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| Feta cheese |
26. Ecto- or endo- finish: PLASM. The ectoplasm and endoplasm are components of the cytoplasm -- everything inside a cell membrane except for the nucleus. Shown circled in this diagram are the cytoplasm and its components, the rough and smooth endoplasmic reticula. Not labelled is the ectoplasm, which is the space between the plasma membrane and the cytoplasm.
30. Car loan fig.: APR. Annual Percentage Rate.
32. Donkeys: ASSES.
34. Bridal bio word: NEE.
35. Lessen: ABATE.
38. X, at times: TEN. -- also the social media company now usually referred to as "X, formerly known as Twitter". The owner of the company is very interested in efficiency these days, and I'm sure that he intended to shorten the name, but it seems as if he has actually lengthened it. 😀
39. Prefix with enemy: ARCH. See 43A for an alternate use of this word.
40. Red diamond, e.g.: RARE GEM. A red diamond is a diamond which displays red color and exhibits the same mineral properties as colorless diamonds. Red diamonds are commonly known as the most expensive and the rarest diamond color in the world, even more so than pink or blue diamonds, as very few red diamonds have been found. The largest and most perfect in the world is the Moussaieff Red Diamond.
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| The Moussaieff Diamond |
41. Words of dissension: I VOTE NO.
42. Sales figure: NET COST.
45. Heaped: IN A PILE.
46. Trattoria red: CHIANTI. This wine comes with its own Italian lesson -- Chianti is an Italian red wine produced in the Chianti region of central Tuscany, principally from the Sangiovese grape. It was historically associated with a squat bottle enclosed in a straw basket, called a fiasco ("flask"; pl.: fiaschi). However, the fiasco is now only used by a few makers of the wine; most Chianti is bottled in more standard-shaped wine bottles.
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| A fiasco of Chianti |
47. Yale student: ELI. e.g. our constructor for January 9, 2025, Jem Burch.
49. Terse "Of course!": OBVI. Meh.
51. "Shameless" star William H. __: MACY. Shameless is an American black comedy drama television series starring William H. Macy and Emmy Rossum. The series is set in the South Side of Chicago, Illinois. With the premiere of the ninth season on September 9, 2018, Shameless became the longest-running original-scripted series in Showtime's history. In January 2020, the series was renewed for its eleventh and final season.
55. Faucet problem: LEAK.
56. The NCAA's Huskies: UCONN. The University of Connecticut (UConn) is a public land-grant research university system with its main campus in Storrs, Connecticut, United States. It was founded in 1881 as the Storrs Agricultural School, named after two benefactors. In 1893, the school became a public land grant college, then took its current name in 1939. Over the following decade, social work, nursing, and graduate programs were established. During the 1960s, UConn Health was established for new medical and dental schools. UConn is accredited by the New England Commission of Higher Education. I think their name "Huskies" derives from the phonetic similarity between UConn and Yukon, a land of ice and snow. Here's their sports teams' logo ...
59. Long time: AGES.
62. Boring routine: RUT. The social-media company owner that I referred to in 38D has had some success in moving ruts underground, although speculation is that he may have gotten bored with the whole thing. 😀
63. "The Matrix" character who chooses the red pill: NEO. An adventurous sort who got his start in a different Sci-Fi film.
64. Kitten's sound: MEW.
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| [mew, mew, ...] |
65. Actor Cheadle: DON. Donald Frank Cheadle Jr. (born November 29, 1964) is an American actor. Known for his roles in film and television, he has received multiple accolades including two Golden Globe Awards, two Grammy Awards, and a Tony Award as well as nominations for an Academy Award, two BAFTA Awards, and 11 Primetime Emmy Awards. He is one of a few actors to have received nominations for the EGOT. His performance in Hotel Ruanda got him a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Actor ...
Cheers,
Bill
And as always, thanks to Teri for proofreading and for her constructive criticism.
waseeley
19 comments:
The only song I was unfamiliar with was “Texas Flood.” (And I forgot “California Gurls” was spelled that way, but I figured it out.) Anyway, FIR, so I’m happy.
Good morning!
My Wite-Out got a rest today. The only error was reading "lei-wearing" as "Levi-wearing," but that didn't result in an ink error. Thanx, Kevin, Drew, waseeley, and Teri. (Yes, those "bars" are definitely musical bars or "measures.")
Here's another DAB puzzle, all about his speech impediment -- or maybe it was about his myopia ...
I was saying something, I think, and it must have been something about crosswords, because this is where I introduce my fortnightly crosswords—but what? Was it about the power of crosswords to do something? Bend the arc of history toward justice maybe? No, no, that was something else. Cognitive function—that’s it. Crosswords help maintain or even improve cognitive function in aging adults. Studies have shown. I’m pretty sure I read that somewhere. Or did studies show that crosswords failed to improve cognitive function? Or, actually, weren’t there also some studies that showed a correlation between crosswords and the arc of history? I think I read about those too somewhere, maybe in the New York Times, or was it The New Yorker? I’ve got to look those up. If I could only find my glasses. . .
FIR without erasure. Knew BLUE HAWAII and GEORGIA ON MY MIND without a single perp. DNK the other two. (I really like Willie Nelson's cover of GEORGIA ON MY MIND.)
When I switched insurance companies, my agent asked me the age of my roof. I told him it was nearly 100 years old. "Oh, SLATE" was his reply.
Until today, I never knew that a hot toddy could be made with TEA. Still spiked, I assume.
TINA Fey was better at portraying Sarah Palin than Sarah Palin.
Auburn and Missouri are also SEC Tigers. (It also has GEORGIA and Mississippi State Bulldogs.)
Shameless put MACY on my radar screen, and now I've noticed him in many other productions. What a talented actor!
Thanks to Kevin and Drew for the fun, easy-ish Thursday puzzle. And thanks to Bill 'n' Teri for another fine review, except that I've already worked the linked DAB puzzle. Also, didn't you warn us about today's grid a week ago? Don't remember the context, but I didn't find this one to be ominous.
Here's the latest DAB puzzle. He says:
"Here is yet another in my series of crosswords exploring the dark side of the human condition (see, for example, Crosswords 112, 114, 115, 224, 306), the filth and misery that other crossword constructors never come near. Why don’t they, I wonder? Is it that they are afraid—afraid, perhaps of the darkness within themselves, lurking just beneath their facile self-regard, their bourgeois pieties?"
Took 6:57 today for me to finish my baked Alaska.
I hesitated to spell "gurls" like that, but LSU just had to be it - despite the other SEC Tigers that Jinx pointed out.
I wasn't thrilled with the Spanish nothing, the Milan farewell, the German no, and of course, doing math in Spanish.
I haven't seen many concerts in my life, but I did see Stevie Ray Vaughn perform - I think a year or two before he died. He was a wizard.
P.S. The Little Mermaid actress was Halle Bailey.
That said, I have a hard time remembering if it's Arial/Ariel (it's Ariel) or Erik/Eric (it's Eric).
" state bar associations has nothing to do with music" BUT "beats to the bars" has everything to do with music. Good morning. I took a long look at GURLS but having a family with with six degrees from LSU, and knew the Tigers were not the ones from Missouri or Auburn, I let it go. Bonus, KARL 'the mailman' Malone went to LA Tech. Getting the state theme after TEXAS FLOOD (DNK) made the puzzle easier to FIR.
Nice clues for today's puzzle. And ERIC, NHL, COPA, OBVI, CHIIANTI, DON all came from perps; DNK as clued.
None, Nary for Zilch? Nope, it's NADA.
My "Kraken's realm" was the SEA bur DNK it was a NHL team. Perps.
My own "Cat's prey" is anything it can catch, usually a lizard or gecko.
KNEE- I was "in style" 70 years too early. All my jeans (usually hand-me-downs) had patches from worn out knees.
FIR. Typical Thursday difficulty. The NW was the last to fall, and the theme made it happen when I suddenly realized we had states in the theme. California and Texas made that section fill in.
I'm still not sure I understand the reveal even after having it explained. The state part yes, but bars?
And the first two songs I didn't know, but since the states were in the other two, well, it made sense.
But overall I did enjoy this puzzle.
Jinx @7:10 AM Macy was in Fargo -- great flick.
I think you're right about the DAB puzzle. I think he's got a bot that recycles them.
Last week I was commenting on the reveal "SERVING LOOKS" while I was working on today's "STATE BAR ASSOCIATIONS" which I found problematic,
but it seems others haven't.
"Six degrees from LSU" sounds like a copycat of the old Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon game, and the book it was based on.
I'll have to give Fargo another chance. I hated it when it first came out, due to the over-the-top phony accents. I couldn't believe it won Best Picture. Kinda seemed like reverse black face to me.
Anonymous @7:30 AM Thanks for the catch -- it's fixed.
KS @7:48 AM As I explained to Jinx above, I had trouble with the theme too. "BARS" is hip-hop slang for a song, which consists of BARS, the measured intervals that comprise songs. I can assure everyone that the Feb 20 theme will be a piece of cake.
Hola! I wondered if there was a commonality among the STATES but did not see any except that they all border an ocean. AVEENO is a good product but it is very COSTly. Cheaper ones do the job just as well. CINCO, COPA, NADA and even ALTO(meaning "high") satisfy my Spanish yen. Thank you, Kevin and Drew for another good grid.
Have a wonderful day, everyone!
Good Morning:
Wasn’t familiar with California Gurls or Texas flood but had no problems with the solve. I assumed State Bars referred to the bars of music, so that wasn’t an issue. Copa and Airfoil needed perps but not w/os, although I started to enter Morph before Plasm until perps corrected it. Obvi is getting tiresome, as are all of the abbreviated entries, i.e., Convo, Sesh, etc. To me, it just seems not only unnecessary but lazy speech, to boot.
Thanks, Kevin and Drew, and thanks, Bill and Teri, for another review laden with facts and stats (Malone and Ali impressive careers). Enjoyed the music and the 30 Rock and Shameless videos, although I’ve never seen either show.
Have a great day.
The above comment is mine. Google is playing trickster again.
Musings
-GURLS provided a bump in the road but had to be
-Yeah, Jinx, Ray does a lovely rendition but Willie Nelson’s take on Georgia On My Mind is also great
-I agree with your gimmick idea, Bill.
-Our skies turned SLATE GRAY Tuesday as the snow bore down on us.
-We get a FLU shot every year and never get the FLU. Cause/Effect?
-Iconoclastic Kathy Griffin’s My Life On The D-LIST was fun to watch until she went off the rails politically.
-As I’ve mentioned before, my professional musician grandson Parker is named for Charlie
-I want to do my taxes ASAP but Turbo Tax is having issues
-AIR FOIL – Bernoulli’s Law makes for interesting demonstrations
-I am NOT going to mention that my Greek wife hates FETA cheese again!
-I VOTE NO. Party cabinet confirmation hearings line votes are de rigueur. What's the point?
This was a pleasant, easygoing Thursday challenge presented by Kevin and Drew. And except for nuisances like OBVI, the constructors seemed to have the best interests of the solver in mind.
Yes, a bar in music is synonymous with a measure, not to be confused with the legal use of bar like in the 37A Reveal.
My music of choice is classical, but even I was able to negotiate around the likes of Ray Charles and Elvis.
Thanks, Waseeley, for your expert guidance today; and Drew and Kevin, for an enjoyable Thursday-appropriate diversion.
FIR and enjoyed it, but did not understand the reveal until Bill explained it. Like others of you, I did not know the first two songs, but they perped. No peeves here! Thanks, Kevin and Drew, Bill and Teri!
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