Dress Codes
Today's constructor Keegan Edgar is making his LAT debut (his constructor debut anywhere I think), and he wants to know why people who perform certain services are such conformists when it comes to their garb ... 20A. Court garb: TENNIS WHITES. These people don't wear robes, but they do serve. So why do tennis players wear white -- at least on the poncier courts? Turns out it's a Victorian thing.
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| Serena Williams Wimbledon 2012 |
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| Two Sailors in Dress Whites Fleet Week in New York |
47A. Restaurant garb: WAIST APRONS. There are several types of aprons for those who serve in restaurants: bib aprons cover from the neck to waist, full body aprons cover from the neck to the knees and are most often used by cooks in the kitchen, and waist aprons are most likely worn by the ladies and gents who take your order and serve your food ...
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| Waist apron |
I thought the reveal was a bit forced until I googled SERVING LOOKS and discovered that it's Gen-Z speak for "someone who is confidently wearing a distinctive and memorable outfit" -- and thus a clever pun on the three "services" in the theme clues ...
55A. Very well-dressed, or what 20-, 29-, and 47-Across are?: SERVING LOOKS. IMHO they're really just an invitation to be ogled 😀 -- here are 200 examples from Pinterest (apparently cell phones are required accessories).
Here's the grid ...
Here's the rest ...
Across:
1. Early __: RISER.
6. Have empathy (for): FEEL.
10. Model/actress Delevingne: CARA. Cara Jocelyn Delevingne (born 12 August 1992) is an English model and actress. She signed with Storm Management after leaving school in 2009. Delevingne won Model of the Year at the British Fashion Awards in 2012 and 2014, and has also received three Teen Choice Awards and nominations for a British Independent Film Award and an MTV Movie & TV Award.
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| Cara Delevingne |
15. Kent co-worker: LANE. As in Lois. There have been a lot of Kents and Lanes over the years, but here they meet for the first time in the 1978 film Superman played by Christopher Reeve and Margot Kidder ...
16. Hoppy brews: ALES. IPAS fit, but didn't perp.
17. Deluge: FLOOD.
18. Some mnemonic devices: ACROSTICS. An acrostic mnemonic is a sentence or poem where the first letter (or letters) of each part of the text represents a thing that you’re trying to memorize. Here are some common examples, and how you can create your own. An acrostic is also a type of word puzzle, related somewhat to crossword puzzles, that uses an acrostic form. It typically consists of two parts. The first part is a set of lettered clues, each of which has numbered blanks representing the letters of the answer. The second part is a long series of numbered blanks and spaces, representing a quotation or other text, into which the answers for the clues fit.
20. [Theme clue]
22. Slurpable course: SOUP. TSK, TSK -- such bad manners!
23. Spam holder: CAN. 22A comes in CANS too but we make our own. One of our favorites is vegetable soup -- here's Jaclyn's recipe.
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| Vegetable soup |
27. Negotiator's abbreviation: OBO. Or Best Offer.
29. [Theme clue]
33. Basis for a civil action: TORT.
35. Jamaican genre: 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. Here's Give It To Me by one of the founders of the genre, Stranger Cole.
36. Waffle House alternative: DENNYS. IHOP was too short.
37. "They went __ in a Sieve, they did": Lear: TO SEA. Nice misdirection -- not a quote from the Shakespeare play, but from the poem The Jumblies by 19th century English artist, illustrator, musician, author and poet Edward Lear. Probably his most famous poem was The Owl and the Pussy-Cat published in 1870.
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| Edward Lear 1866 |
41. Cliched: STALE.
42. B flat equivalent: A SHARP. B flat and A sharp are examples of "enharmonic equivalents" that is notes, intervals, scales, key signatures, or chords that sound the same but have different names.
44. Dawn goddess: EOS. This is the tale of Eos and Tithonus: a tragic story of immortality and love.
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| The goddess EOS The Bringer of Light |
47. [Theme clue]
50. Cable alternative: DSL. Digital Subscriber Line -- you might have faster ways to get to the Internet, but if you don't, here's what you need to know about DSL.
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| DSL connections |
51. Energy storage molecule, briefly: ATP. Adenosine triphosphate is often referred to as "molecular unit of currency" for intracellular energy transfer. The energy that it supplies is contained in its phosphate bonds and when one of them is broken that energy is available for use to by various cellular processes. The depleted ATP results in either ADP (Adenosine diphosphate) or ADM (Adenosine monophosphate). But as cells have a constant need for energy, there an ongoing process for "recharging" ATP via a complex enzyme called ATP synthase, a so called "molecular machine". Here is an amazing simulation of ATP synthase converting ADP to ATP ...
... but the most amazing thing about ATP synthase is that it resulted from zillions and zillions of accidental mutations 😀.
52. Son of a son: III. Assuming that the sons have the same given name, the second son's name will be suffixed with "Jr" and the third son's will be suffixed with "III".
53. Organizer entry: Abbr.: APPT.
55. [Theme reveal]
60. Fish commonly prepared à la meunière: DOVER SOLE. The term à la meunière translates from the French literally as "in the style of the miller's wife". The name implies a simple dish, usually fish, which is first dusted with flour and then cooked in butter sprinkled with lemon juice and chopped parsley. The simplicity of the dish derives from the delicacy of the fish -- anything more would be "gilding the lily" ...
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63. Golfer Palmer, familiarly: ARNIE. Arnold Daniel Palmer (September 10, 1929 – September 25, 2016) was an American professional golfer who is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most charismatic players in the sport's history. Since embarking on a professional career in 1955, he won numerous events on both the PGA Tour and the circuit now known as PGA Tour Champions. Nicknamed "The King", Palmer was one of golf's most popular stars and seen as a trailblazer, the first superstar of the sport's television age, which began in the 1950s.
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| Arnold Palmer sporting his US Coast Guard whites in 1953 |
64. CNN anchor Burnett: ERIN. Erin Isabelle Burnett (born July 2, 1976) is an American news anchor, currently the anchor of Erin Burnett OutFront on CNN. She has also worked over the years in various positions for CNBC, NBC. and MSNBC.
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| Erin Burnett |
66. Stretch: STINT.
67. Pulsate: BEAT.
68. Soft summons: PSST.
69. Ingredients in traditional collard greens: HOCKS. Here's LaKita's recipe for Southern Collard Greens with Ham Hocks. Collards will get leathery if you leave them in the garden too long, and our advice is to pick them when they're young and tender.
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| Collard Greens with Ham Hocks. |
BTW my first google hit on HOCKS had a dad joke, which I wasn't going to use, but now I can't resist -- it reminds me just a little of O'Henry's Gift of the Magi.
Down:
1. Rapids transport: RAFT. If you're going to do this sort of thing, it pays to work with pros ...
I wonder if Renee or anyone else has any rafting stories?
2. Tropical spot: ISLE. We spot this one on the Corner a lot too.
3. Big deal for an Olympian: SPONSORSHIP. The story of advertising and sponsorships at the modern Olympics begins in Athens, Greece, during the 1896 Games, when stamps were sold to help fund the event. In 1908, OXO became the first official sponsor of the Olympics, providing athletes with beef stock drinks for energy. Jump forward to 1928, when Coca-Cola signed its first contract with the Games and remains a major sponsor 104 years later. Sponsorships have evolved considerably since the early days and are currently regulated by Rule 40, a by-law in the Olympic Charter. I think sponsorships really are a "big deal" in that you need a lawyer to understand them! Here is some guidance that was put together for 2024 athletes and sponsors to navigate advertising restrictions. CSO to Jason and Susan for a simpler explanation?
4. __ Lodge: ECONO.
5. Spoke on a bicycle wheel, e.g.: RADIUS.
6. Fatal __: FLAW.
7. Made for __ other: EACH.
8. Henry, in Italian: ENRICO. Of course the most famous ENRICO is Enrico Caruso, widely regarded as the greatest tenor of all time. Here he's singing the aria Nessun Dorma from Giacomo Puccini's last opera, Turandot ...
... and a CSO to Anonymous T.
9. Bodysuit named for a trapeze artist: LEOTARD. Jules L̩otard (1 August 1838 Р16 August 1870) was a French acrobatic performer and aerialist who developed the art of trapeze. He also created and popularized the one-piece gym wear that now bears his name and inspired the 1867 song The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze" here sung by the inimitable Eddie Cantor ...
10. Lions and tigers, but not bears: CATS. "Oh my Toto! Maybe we really ARE still in Kansas!" 😀
11. Oscar winner Mahershala: ALI. Mahershala Ali (born Mahershalalhashbaz Gilmore on February 16, 1974) is an American actor. He has received multiple accolades, including two Academy Awards, a British Academy Film Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Primetime Emmy Award. Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2019, and in 2020, The New York Times ranked him among the 25 greatest actors of the 21st century. Like wow!
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| Mahershala Ali |
12. Cam button: REC. As in RECORD.
13. Pack animal: ASS. Constructors seem to pack a lot of this fill into puzzles as well.
19. Has a feeling: SENSES.
21. Facilities for rest and relaxation: SPAS. I think we need to give this fill a rest too.
24. Cocktail that often contains quinine: GIN AND TONIC. Tonic water is a carbonated soft drink in which quinine is dissolved. Originally used as a prophylactic against malaria, modern tonic water typically has a significantly lower quinine content and is often more sweetened than the original medicinal form. It is consumed for its distinctive bitter flavor. Here's a recipe for a gin and tonic.
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| Gin and tonic |
25. "Harry's House" pop singer: STYLES. Harry Edward Styles (born 1 February 1994) is an English singer and actor. Known for his influence in popular culture, showmanship, artistry, philanthropy and flamboyance in dressing, he is a subject of widespread public interest with a vast fanbase. Styles is considered to be among the most successful solo artists who have emerged from a boy band. Styles' musical career began in 2010 as part of the pop band One Direction. They became one of the best-selling boy bands of all time before going on an indefinite hiatus in 2016. Harry's House is Styles' 3rd studio album. Here he sings As it Was, issued as one of the singles from the album ...
If you haven't seen the Christopher Nolan film Dunkirk it's definitely worth viewing -- in his feature film debut Styles plays the character Alex, one of thousands of British soldiers waiting on the exposed beaches of Dunkirk for evacuation to England, while being strafed and dive bombed by the German Luftwaffe.
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| The Great Seal of the United States |
27. Bilingual North American capital: OTTAWA. French and English.
28. Expresses disdain for: BOOS AT.
30. One half of a candy duo: IKE. Thank you perps. DNK this candy. Mike and Ike is an American brand of fruit-flavored candies that were first introduced in 1940 by the company Just Born, Inc. Despite conjecture, the origin of the candy's name remains unknown. Mike and Ike were originally all fruit flavored but now come in several varieties.
31. Golden brew: LAGER. The basic difference between these two major beer classifications is how they are fermented. Ales are fermented with top-fermenting yeast at warm temperatures (60˚–70˚F), and lagers are fermented with bottom-fermenting yeast at cold temperatures (35˚–50˚F). Because of their warm fermentations, ales can generally ferment and age in a relatively short period of time (3-5 weeks). On the other hand, lagers take much longer to ferment (up to 6 to 8 weeks) because they are cold fermented. And I say "Vive la difference!"
32. Golden Rule word: UNTO. As I used the Golden Rule ("Do unto others as you would have them do unto you") as a part of a non-denominational answer last week I'm going to steal from myself (gee, I hope that doesn't violate the Golden Rule 😀).
34. Steeped brews: TEAS. These are usually bottom-brewed for only a couple of minutes. Here's our favorite ...
40. Gunk: GOO.
43. Finds a partner: PAIRS UP. A lot of pairing up goes on at square dances ...
... and a CSO to Yellowrocks.
45. Unforeseen impediment: SNAG.
48. Swivels: PIVOTS. Another common square dance activity.
49. Eclat: SPLASH. To do something with éclat could be described as making a SPLASH. The word is obviously derived from the French and has an interesting history.
54. Douro River city: PORTO. Thank you perps -- not a river or a city I knew. The Douro is the largest river of the Iberian Peninsula by discharge. It originates in Spain and flows generally west through Castile and León into northern Portugal. Its largest tributary (carrying more water than the Douro at their confluence) is the right-bank Esla. The Douro flows into the Atlantic Ocean at Porto, the second largest city of Portugal.
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| The Path of the Douro |
56. "Southern Man" novelist Greg: ILES. The novel Southern Man by Greg Iles is "a political thriller from his Natchez Burning series". Here's the goodreads review.
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| Amazon page |
57. With 39-Across, funds for a rainy day: NEST. A "rainy day" is a metaphor for times when things don't go right. The band Coldplay has set one to music ...
58. Hose problem: KINK. LEAK fit but didn't perp. Preventing kinks in long garden hoses requires a sturdy metal hose hanger, e.g. the one shown below available from Amazon. As you're coiling a hose for storage you need to give it a slight twist after each turn to preventing kinking ...
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| Hose storage hanger |
59. Volleyball match divisions: SETS. Volleyball matches are made up of SETS, typically three or five sets. Three-set matches are two sets to 25 points and a third set to 15 points. Each set must be won by two points. The first team to win two sets is the winner of the match. Researching this term was a bit confusing, as SET is also the term used as part of a one-two maneuver to pass the ball to a player near the net to either dump the ball over into an undefended spot or to “set” the ball into a position that allows the hitter to spike it over. Fortunately I didn't have to ask my third granddaughter about this, as she is a volleyball specialist, and despite having driven her to many games I'm still unclear on the nuances of the sport -- I can see her just rolling her eyes and saying "Granddad? ..." 😀
60. Food blogger Perelman: DEB. Smitten Kitchen is a blog for home cooks created and maintained by foodie Deb Perelman -- her site has a lot of tempting recipes. Perelman received undergraduate and graduate degrees from George Washington University, where she studied psychology and art therapy. She originally started writing online in 2003 while also working as an art therapist, and she eventually began the Smitten Kitchen blog in 2006. IIRC our very own sumdaze is one of her fans.
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| Deb Perelman |
61. Load from a lode: ORE. Very punny -- crosswordese for pay dirt?
62. By way of: VIA. Today's Latin lesson: "ROAD".
Cheers,
Bill
And as always, thanks to Teri for proofreading and for her constructive criticism.
waseeley
15 comments:
This was not a terribly easy puzzle; particularly because I was unfamiliar with the term “waist aprons.” Nevertheless, I persevered and got the win. (And, by the way, the reveal was lame.)
FIR, so I’m happy.
Unlike succinct SubG, I am not happy with a FIW on a Thursday. I dawdled for a bit in the SE, and my WAGs proved correct when I clicked on “reveal grid”. Nothing seemed right about SERVING LOOKS. Not surprisingly, my one bad cell was the cross of two unknown names from the fashion world and cinema. I had ELI Mahershala instead of ALI, oh he’s an actress I thought, then the expo showed me ALI is a guy and it’s his last name. STYLES, ILES, and ACROSTICS were all perps, as was ATP (I would guess practically everyone needed perps for that, except for any physicists in the crowd). Have never heard of the specific WAIST APRONS either, or that there are terms for different kinds. Congrats on your debut Keegan, you got me on this one. Bill and Teri ~ thanks for your well-researched review, even in layman’s terms I don’t think I’ll ever grasp ATP 🤣.
Good morning!
D-o struggled with this one, but finally emerged victorious. Yay me. Figured that half candy would be either TIC or TAC. Nope. Was that SPAM sold in a TIN or a CAN? The perps decided. DOVER SOLE à la meunière reminded me of the time a member of our inspection team proudly (and loudly) ordered trout à la manure on a transatlantic flight. That picture of ARNIE indicates he was a Coast Guard yeoman, yes? My first thought at ENRICO wasn't Caruso, but Fermi. Lots to like in this puzzle. Thanx, Keegan (nice debut), waseeley, and Teri.
DSL: It's a pretty slow internet alternative. I tried to order it when we first moved up here to redneck land. Turns out that our local infrastructure was too primitive to allow it. We had to go with a cable modem, instead.
DNF. I struggled from Atlantic City to Panama City. Odd - it's usually the West Coast that gives me heartburn. I had about a dozen blanks when I realized I wasn't having fun, and so TITT.
ARNIE won $3.6 million in his long and lustrous career. Scotty Sheffler won $25 million over the weekend of September 15th, 2024.
Even though I lived in Atlanta, the only schools I remember are Emory and Georgia Tech.
Another day, another CNN reference. At this point, CNN's audience is so small that it is nearing the point where "zero" is within the margin of error. How about "Fox News' Dana _____" for Perino?
Airline captains and first officers in this country must have an ATP (Air Transport Pilot) certificate. I'm so old I remember when we had pilots and copilots. And stewardesses.
I remember my mom working the Quote Acrostic in the paper. Until today I thought ACROSTIC was a made-up word. Didn't know that I used one frequently - Bad Boys Rape Our Young Girls, but Violet Gives Willingly - for the color bands on resistors used in electronics. (Black, Brown, Red, Orange, Yellow, Violet, Green, White.) Then there's the obsolete Make Virginia Eat More Jumbo Suckers Under Nancy's Porch. Guess that they teach kids today to Eat More Jumbo Suckers Under Nancy.
Thanks to Bill 'n' Teri for explaining this one. I still don't get the dad joke.
FIR. What a workout. The SE was the last to fall. And I still don't get "serving looks", but I can live without understanding it, or knowing.
Once again several obscure proper names flooding the zone. Yuk!
This definitely was NOT an enjoyable puzzle.
Here is DAB's bi-weekly puzzle, entitled "Overworked abbreviations" and here is his meditation on its meaning ...
Where would crossword constructors be without abbreviations? How many themes would have to be discarded if it weren’t for EEO and EOE? And the AAA and the ABA and the ACA and the ADA and the BBA and the BBB and the BBC? Indignant solvers may complain that they’ve never seen a screen referred to as an SCR, that SSRs aren’t much talked about anymore, that SPR is not a season they’ve encountered outside of a crossword, that an STR is not and has never been an orchestra section, or a narrow maritime passageway, or a stock unit, or a riverboat, or a soft-shell clam. And they have a point. But what they don’t consider is just what these guessable letters may have spared them in the way of unguessable jargon, or trivia, or slang. This puzzle is a grateful tribute to the hard-working, much-abused abbreviations that have got us all out of more than one tight cruciverbal corner with minimal semantic damage.
YP @5:45 AM In simple terms ATP is the cell's battery for metabolism. I don't grasp it either - where did it come from?
KS @8:04 AM "Serving looks" is Gen-Z slang for self-obsessed "beautiful people" offering a free license for others to ogle/leer them. If you think this obscure, wait until next Thursday!
Jinx @7:37 AM Here's the link that contained it --
"The hock is a joint on an animal's hind leg, or hock (as a verb) can also mean "to pawn." If you are hard up for cash, you may need to hock that ham hock for a few bucks. Good luck!"
I guess it's not really a Dad joke, but rather a paradox -- if you hock the ham for cash, you won't have any ham to make the "Southern greens with ham hocks".
Musings
-A potential proper name Natick on the top row that yielded to a educated guess and a reveal that was completely foreign to me.
-The south 40 gave me some issues
-For some reason I remember ATP and ATCG from biology class. As irony would have it, I am typing this in a biology class where I am subbing.
-As a math teacher I had heard of the ACROSTIC, Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally for order of operations but had always thought of it as mnemonic like HOMES for the Great Lakes. An acrostic can not be one word. Our music peeps know Every Good Boy Does Fine.
-Oh, not King Lear! I think I’ve sailed in that sieve.
-Named for real people: LEOTARD : Tights = Bloomers : Not tights
-OTTAWA and Canberra are two national capitals that are not well known because of more famous cities in their countries
If this was indeed Keegan's initial puzzle, I feel he did a serviceable job. Obscure proper names and trendy pop culture nonsense were kept to a minimum, as were all those stale, overused vowel-rich staples provided by Crossword Compiler.
The puzzle was well-constructed, and by pluralizing the three theme answers as well as the reveal, Keegan obtained two 12's and two 11's. There were also two vertical non-theme 11's.
Like others, I had been unacquainted with the term SERVING LOOKS until Waseeley explained. Good old "GenZ-speak."
Thanks, Waseeley, for your informative and entertaining guidance, and thanks, Keegan, for a fine debut today. I look forward to more of your challenges.
FIR. Seemed an appropriate difficulty level for a Thursday, but agree with comments about “SERVINGLOOKS.” We can hope that term will end up on the dustbin of CW history. Had a tough time in the SW, which wasn’t helped by the aforementioned theme answer.
I always thought of a nest egg as a retirement or other long term planning fund, not as a rainy day fund.
Needed perps for Porto, but do know that it’s where Port wine got its name (too sweet for me).
I learned ADP/ATP long ago (maybe even in High School Biology, but most likely in College Organic Chemistry), and, as waseeley’s write-up says, it’s a key molecular transition for transporting energy in living cells. The chemical reaction either takes up or gives off energy (depending on the direction), hence serves as a convenient way to transport energy within the cell. YP, please don’t give physicists credit/blame for that!
FLN, in Germany would Harry Styles be called “Herr Styles.” I guess that’s enough of that one.
Good Morning:
I’ll defer to Thumper today.
Thanks, Bill, for your very informative and entertaining review. I enjoyed Mr. Caruso’s rendition of Nessun Dorma very much but, IMO, Pavarotti owns that Aria. Mahershala Ali was outstanding in Green Book, as was his co-star, Viggo Mortensen. Thanks, also, to Teri.
Have a great day.
im sorry but the whole thing was lame
Three alcoholic drink references in a single puzzle doesn't seem right. "III" was a stretch as clued. The theme unifier can join "YEET" and "YAS" on the trash pile imo. I give this puzzle a 5/10.
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