Theme: "THERE SHE IS" - SHE is added to each common phrase.
23. Launderer of USC football uniforms?: TROJAN WASHER. Trojan War.
33. Security measures at cosmetics counters?: LEASHED PENCILS. Lead pencils.
48. Sentiment from a Louisiana enthusiast?: I LOVE PARISHES. I Love Paris.
71. Shrubbery at an academy for wizards and witches?: MAGIC SCHOOL BUSHES. Magic School Bus.
90. Title of a bullfrog's autobiography?: LIFE ON MARSHES. Life on Mars.
109. One talking trash about our galaxy?: MILKY WAY BASHER. Milky Way Bar.
122. Result of holding a Nintendo DS too tightly?: SQUISHED GAME. Squid Game.
This is my ideal Sunday theme. Simple, playful and never been done before. Not easy to come up with original themes these days.
Across:
1. Above, in a sonnet: O'ER.
4. Yale attendees: ELIS.
8. One of 500 for Dr. Seuss's Bartholomew Cubbins: HAT.
11. Court option: CLAY. Tennis court.
15. "No seats left" sign: SRO.
18. Card player's call: UNO.
19. Funny one: RIOT.
20. Sense of self: EGO.
21. Sharpen, as a skill: HONE.
22. Tiny bit: TAD.
26. "Let's meet up then!": IT'S A DATE. I also love: 64. "Now, look here!": EYES ON ME.
28. Hard water issue: LIMESCALE. We have really hard water in Brooklyn Park.
29. North African viper: ASP.
31. Pries (from): WRESTS.
32. Hyaluronic __: ACID. Ingredient in many skincare products. Will plumb up your skin.
37. "Alack and alas!": WOE IS ME.
41. Worse, as a storm: NASTIER.
42. At a boat party, say: ASEA.
43. Challenging phrase: TOP THIS.
46. __ on the back: PATS.
54. Guide for going places: ROAD MAP.
59. Made a hasty entrance: RAN IN.
60. Cooling cubes: ICE.
61. Corp. leader: CEO. 102. 61-Across deg.: MBA.
63. Some migratory birds: GEESE.
67. Lemony beer drink: SHANDY.
70. Future DA's exam: LSAT.
75. Pontiff of 903: LEO V. Wikipedia says "after a reign of a
little over two months, Leo was captured by Christopher, the
cardinal-priest of San Lorenzo in Damaso, and thrown into prison.
Christopher then had himself elected pope (903–904)."
77. Almond product: NUT OIL.
78. Family member: RELATIVE.
81. Unpleasantly sharp: ACRID.
83. "That looks painful": OOF.
84. Cuddling in the open, for short: PDA.
86. Show again: RE-AIR.
87. Rants and raves: GOES OFF.
94. Eloquently insincere: GLIB.
96. Jazz Age style: ART DECO.
97. Sounds at pounds: ARFS.
101. Mercury, but not Mars: ELEMENT. Great clue.
104. Roosevelt recovery program: NEW DEAL.
113. Empire centered at Cuzco: INCA.
114. Old Testament prophet: ISAIAH. He delivered messages from God to the people of ancient Judah.
115. Granola bar bit: OAT.
116. Tidying: PICKING UP. And
120. Dances like no one's watching: GETS DOWN.
125. Ga. capital: ATL.
126. Big name in computers: IMAC. And 127. Big name in computers: IBM.
128. Narc's unit: KILO.
129. Frizz control product: GEL.
130. __ sauce: SOY.
131. Wonka player Wilder: GENE.
132. Screening org.: TSA.
133. Enervates: SAPS.
134. Nav. officer: ENS.
Down:
1. Western antihero: OUTLAW.
2. Colantoni of "Veronica Mars": ENRICO. Unknown to me.
3. Bert, to Ernie: ROOMIE.
4. Taylor Swift concert divisions: ERAS.
5. "The Mod Squad" role: LINC.
6. State that's home to Effigy Mounds National Monument: IOWA.
7. Stable feature: STALL.
8. [Snicker]: HEH.
9. Number on a birthday card: AGE.
10. Synagogue scrolls: TORAHS.
11. Guacamole, e.g.: CHIP DIP.
12. Parking area: LOT.
13. Work under: ANSWER TO.
14. Pine (for): YEARN.
15. Equilibrium: STASIS.
16. Baby's noisemaker: RATTLE.
17. West Texas city: ODESSA.
24. Obi-Wan Kenobi, for one: JEDI.
25. Match, in poker: SEE.
27. Nona- follower: DECA.
30. Collector's goal: SET.
34. Pernod flavor: ANISE.
35. Scout's accessory: SASH.
36. Prickly __ cactus: PEAR. Its fruit looks like pears, hence the name.
38. Shorthand pro: STENOG.
39. Messy locks: MOP.
40. Org. with a flower in its logo: EPA.
44. Sees if one can: TRIES TO.
45. Blazin' Blueberry juice: HI-C.
47. Show signs of age: SAG.
48. Hotheaded feeling: IRE.
49. Produce, as an egg: LAY.
50. "Encore!": ONE MORE.
51. Compared with: VIS-A-VIS.
52. Call return: ECHO.
53. Envelope closer: SEAL.
55. Removes: DELETES.
56. Handel oratorio: MESSIAH.
57. Simile center: ASA.
58. See 117-Down: PET. 117. With 58-Down, growing fad?: CHIA.
62. As expected: ON BRAND.
65. Trent Reznor's band, initially: NIN.
66. Franchise that includes "Iron Man" and "Ant-Man," for short: MCU. The Marvel Cinematic Universe.
67. __ de Janeiro: beauty company inspired by Brazilian beach culture: SOL. Famous for their Bum Bum cream. Smells amazing.
68. Expected: DUE.
69. Monogram on a Libre perfume bottle: YSL.
72. "Nifty!": COOL.
73. LP player: HI-FI.
74. Tilling tool: HARROW.
75. Streaming issue: LAG.
76. Green beginning: ECO.
79. Compete (for): VIE.
80. 24-hour care ctrs.: ERS.
82. Follow: DOG.
84. Australian city served by Fremantle Harbour: PERTH.
85. Part of any email address: DOT.
88. Came back from vacation: FLEW HOME. Someday I'll fly home.
89. Reebok competitor: FILA.
91. Stadium fillers: FANS.
92. Fellows: MEN.
93. Aro counterpart: ACE.
95. Pop star with a "Hive": BEYONCE. Beyhive.
97. Spanish friends: AMIGAS.
98. Meet, as expectations: RISE TO.
99. Without inflection: FLATLY.
100. Gear on a roof rack in Vail, maybe: SKIS.
103. Face-plants: EATS IT.
105. Service bell sound: DING.
106. Captivate: ENGAGE.
107. Shrewdness: ACUMEN.
108. Pin points?: LAPELS. Another great clue.
110. "Get what I'm sayin'?": YA DIG.
111. Pen prefix: EPI.
112. Downsides: RISKS.
118. Marine forest algae: KELP. My brother makes kelp salad often.
119. Altar exchanges: I DOS.
121. Pale: WAN.
123. Key NFL players: QBS.
124. Actress Thurman: UMA.
35 comments:
I don’t know about
“stenog” for “stenographer.”
Other than that, I didn’t have too much trouble with this fun puzzle.
FIR, so I’m happy.
Good morning!
Caught the theme early on, and that was a big help with the solve. Tried RIO before SOL barged in -- d-o doesn't spend a lot of time at the cosmetics counter. ISAIAH must be one of the most misspelled names ever. There's no LIME SCALE in the southland. When I lived up north, everyone had a water softener. They're seldom seen around here. Jim provided a pleasant Sunday romp. Thanx for 'splainin' it all, C.C.
FIR, but plea->CLAY, butter->NUT OIL, rerun->REAIR, neatening->PICKING UP, hot->SOY, and vis-a-vie->VIS-A-VIS.
Yesterday we had rubber, today we have TROJAN. And NUT OIL, for that matter. Worst job in the world must be TROJAN WASHER.
Many of the local GEESE that carry passports from Canada have decided to make this their permanent home. It is legal under state law to cull them and addle their eggs, but you had best be sure they aren't of the migratory flocks.
STENOG? You sure about that Jethro?
SoCal divers are taught about KELP. If you become entangled, your only option is to stop, relax, and the KELP will disentangle itself. If you struggle to free yourself, you will drown.
An important lyric n Jackson Browne's STAY is "ONE MORE song."
Thanks to Jim for the fun Sunday workout. My favorite was "pin points" for LAPELS. And thanks to CC for another good review. (I think you meant plump, not plumb.)
Took 17:23 today to get out of the she shed.
"Stenog" seemed odd. I didn't know: Linc, Enrico, sol, harrow, and a few others. But, I knew the Actress of the Day (Uma).
"Stay" is a great song.
Jinx is on is A game today.
Actually, this version of Stay, introduced by The Load Out, is much better.
FIR. I agree, stenog seems so wrong. And speaking of wrong, the crossing of Shandy and Sol seems to fall into that category. It took a WAG to get that.
But I got the theme early on and that helped a lot with the solve.
Overall an enjoyable puzzle.
Musings
-NIN, SOL, MCU, NUTOIL were never going to happen and so I’ll take three bad cells and go play golf.
Didn't like STENOG either. It's just "steno" except in a dictionary from 1913 so very dated.
I resisted the archaic "STENOG" until the end. I had Almond BUTTER before NUT OIL, otherwise smooth sailing from Jim.
Mountains in IOWA? LOL I've been to Mt. Dora in Florida (elevation 184') but I wouldn't call either state mountainous.
I caught the inserted girl at LEA-SHE-D PENCIL but it took a while to finish. Some thing you just don't know or are expected to know, and the perps usually help. But when three unknowns are stacked against an unknown six-letter fill, it takes P&P to get it. NIN, MCU, and SOL crossing the unknown NUT OIL and unknown drink SHANDY? That was the last area to finish.
93. Aro counterpart: ACE.- no idea about that answer
SHANDY- why would anybody waste a good beer like that
Dead ends to back out of today were ENAMOR to ENGAGE, PLEA to CLAY, NIKE to FILA, RIO to SOL.
ISAIAH- how many ways is it spelled? Foghorn Leghorn would say "I SAY, I SAY, that's a joke son"
STENOG- I guess we'll be seeing STENOGR sometime in the future.
LEO-V,I,X- wait for the perp.
Let me know if you know anybody who has that job. I certainly don't want to meet him.
I was a little slow getting the theme, but once I did, I had fun filling those answers. Like HG, I ran into a cluster of difficulties with SHANDY, NIN, SOL, MCU, and NUT OIL, all unknowns for me and my guessing faculties weren’t working. Otherwise enjoyed this puzzle.
I’ll take a CSO for those Louisiana PARISHES. Now we live in East Baton Rouge parish, before that we lived in Calcasieu parish. We still have some property in Beauregard parish.
Thank you CC for the nice recap. Hope you get to fly home when you want.
I live in Jefferson PARISH. The highest mountain here is maybe 2 feet. Last Sunday there was an article in the newspaper about the highest elevation in LA. Mt. Driskoll at 535' is in North LA close to Arcadia. The town's other claim to fame is where Bonnie & Clyde met their fate.
On Interstate 10, From the Texas line to the Mississippi line, it's flat with an occasional rise of a foot or two (except the bridges).
The highest land in Virginia Beach is Mt. Trashmore, a closed landfill turned into a city park. It can be scaled, without special mountaineering equipment, all the way to its 60-foot summit.
SQUID GAME? Am I the only one who never heard of this?
SHE finishes it right again! Thanks, Jim Quinlan and C.C.! Very cute, consistent theme. I don't know how Jim came up with the phrases, but they tickle my fancy.
You can get nose bleed and DeRidder. The elevation is almost 200 ft there.
Hola! I'm so upset right now. Unknown to me, a race/walk of some kind blocked my way to church! It then took me almost 30 minutes to return home from about three miles! So, what to do, but finish the puzzle which I had started earlier.
With some good guessing I got through most of it except the NUTOIL/NIN/MCU section. I had no idea about any of those and could not even venture a guess. Usually, NIN is referenced with Anais.
LIFE ON MARSHES really cracked me up!
Also, isn't HARROW a school in England? I may be wrong about that.
Same as NaomiZ, the phrases amused me, too!
I hope all are enjoying a wonderful day. It's lovely here at 71 degrees.
Delightful Sunday puzzle, Jim--many thanks. And thank you too, C.C., for your helpful commentary and neat pictures, also much appreciated.
Well, this puzzle made it hard not to stir up a kind of story with all the various interesting clues. I figured if that RIOT was a funny person, then we might have an interesting couple one of whom is ready to say IT'S A DATE. Before long we'd be hearing happy comments like I LOVE PARIS, and hopefully we'd hear absolutely no one saying WOE IS ME. We'd have to hope that the guy is not an OUTLAW, and that the girl is delighted to note that he has his EYES ON ME. Wouldn't it be nice if they could use their ROAD MAP to look for an apartment in an area that would give them a LIFE ON MARSHES. Once they find it, I bet they'd embellish it with ART DECO. Once all that was done they'd be ready to host a MILKY WAY BASH, and serve delicious snacks and make their SQUISH GAME popular. Looking back on this journey they took, I'd say they did a good job to RISE TO the occasion.
Have a lovely Sunday, everybody (even with our complicated wet weather).
No, I hadn't either. Just looked it up - it's a Korean TV series playing here on Netflix.
PSA...
The other day I posted a link to something called "796" which was a cute and funny website that is interactive, and you can click on images that take you elsewhere.
I WAS JUST DOING BROWSER MAINTENANCE, AND WAS SHOCKED TO DISCOVER this website put a cookie on my iPad that takes up 500 megabytes!!!
More than any other site!
Anon-T, can you pls check this for me, it may be innocent cookies, but this seems ridiculously excessive...
Anywho, you all should be checking your phone/ipad/pc once in a while for anything nefarious.
Go to your settings - (in my case, Safari, yours might be chrome etc...)
In the bottom of safari is advanced, the first th8ng there is web data, this is all that sites that put cookies on your device. 99% of these are innocent things that help you go back to sites you use and make your experience faster. But check the top of the list for anything excessive and delete it.
Actually, you can click on "delete all" but you may find you have to re-enter password and user info on certain sites.
When that Q filled in SQUISHED, and remembering the J in TROJAN, I thought pangram. But no X or Z..
Both 13A and 109A have SHE overlapping with HER.
That should be 23A
P.s. to CC
I deleted my comment containing this link from the 13th November
SQUID GAME isn't just a show on Netflix, it's their most watched show ever. College campuses have created intramural versions (minus the "death to losers" part).
Interesting. So, how many here have heard of SQUID GAME? I realize that many here never bother with the theme, so they may not even have seen SQUID GAME in the puzzle?
42
I liked this puzzle and the fun wordplay.
STENOG also made my nose wrinkle. So did the clue for SEE.
VOWS-->IDOS. PLEA-->CLAY. RERUN-->REAIR. SMUG-->GLIB. ROCK-->CHIA.
I've eaten prickly pear blossoms. They are really very sweet and tasty. I let the javelina eat the pads.
ACUMEN is a nifty word.
I hope you do someday fly home, C.C. You may find it to be very different from how you remember it.
Good wishes to you all.
I had a terrible time with technology today, in addition to the above, DW wanted to go to the beach to watch today's sunset, so I didn't do the puzzle, and printed it out to have somethng to do while waiting...
I know you probably won't bother to download my picture, or take the time to compare what printed out to today's actual puzzle, but I just had to take a picture as proof, even if it's just to convince "me" this happened.
The first page, which was supposed to be the whole puzzle and clues, printed only the grid and no clues. So I printed it out again, and the grid had "no" black boxes!?it wasn't til I got to the beach and tried to actually do the puzzle, that I discovered the 1st grid printout added black boxes where there are not supposed to be any!?!?!? I've never seen anything like this!
Take a close look at 19 across, funny one=riot, 4&5 down,,, and the addition of a 21 down without a clue because boxes were added to 11 across!
this is insane!
Oh, and here's a pic of today's sunset for your troubles...
Are you using that IThing again? My Win11 machines connected to the LAT site rarely misfire. But nice sunset pic - I want to keep watching for the green flash.
Geez I'm late today. Started this at lunch then got busy outside. I was enjoying it so I wanted to finish. I too started with "butter" before switching. "Stenog" is OK because Jim needed the G. Lucky he didn't need another letter. Heh. Besides several unknowns I got 'er done. I really liked this puzzle. Well done. Thanks for the recap CC.
Aro means “aromantic,” and Ace refers to “asexual.” It’s a whole new world out there!
NIN is Nine Inch Nails—Trent Reznor’s band. They had a hit with “Closer”(among others)—do NOT play at work, or around children or anyone with a problem with profanity!
Another Louisiana resident here—EBR.
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