Theme: "Academic Circles"
Or, as 77a indicates:77. End-of-term cry, and an alternate title for this puzzle: SCHOOLS OUT.
Hi All!
Today, C.C. graces us with another Sunday puzzle. This time, she splits SCHOOLS on the OUTside of each theme answer and then circles them to provide what they call in Academic Circles, um, well, just that -- academies in circles. Let's study them:
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| XKCD |
24. Seeking a seat: RUNNING FOR OFFICE. Houston's own Rice University.
38. Explains something in simple terms: BREAKS IT DOWN. Brown University.
55. "Roman Holiday" star: AUDREY HEPBURN. Auburn University.
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| Hepburn & Peck in the 1953 Classic. It was her debut. |
81. Auto-erased item on a hard drive: TEMPORARY FILE. Temple University.
98. Connecticut state song: YANKEE DOODLE. Yale.
114. Fluffy brunch item baked in a skillet: DUTCH BABY PANCAKE. Duke University.
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| I had to Google the Dutch Baby variety. |
3. "Oh boy, that's uncomfortable": HOW AWKWARD. Howard University.
Well, what do you non circle-haters think? Prety neat, eh?
There's only one thing to do before moving onto the fill and that's introduce Detroit's Vincent Furnier:
Alice Cooper's Schools Out
Across:
1. Org. on workplace posters: OSHA. Occupational Safety and Health Administration.5. Sweet-toothed crawlers: ANTS.
9. Financial resources: MEANS.
14. Clubs for chips: IRONS. Golf. Woods to drive; IRONS for chip shots. And that's all I know. HG?
19. More than expected: ALOT.
20. Adversaries: FOES.
21. Group of eight: OCTET.
22. Unaccustomed to: NEW AT.
23. Mike of "Dirty Jobs": ROWE. Did you also know Rowe sang with the Baltimore Opera? I read it on the internet.
24. [See: Theme]
27. Pacific coast barkers: SEA LIONS.
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| Going Pro? |
29. __ Estados Unidos: LOS. Translation: The United States.
30. Feeling of gloom: PALL.
31. Hard-to-split wood: ELM.
32. Comes out on top: WINS.
33. Not trans or enby: CIS.
34. Unsubstantiated: TENUOUS.
36. Staged: FAKED.
38. [See: Theme]
41. Playful growl: RAWR.
42. Yukon gold rush region: KLONDIKE.
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| What would you do? |
47. 401(k) alternatives: IRAs. Individual Retirement Accounts.
48. De-iced?: NEAT. Cute.
49. State flower of New Mexico: YUCCA.
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| Eatable? |
53. Pucker-inducing: TART.
54. The Blue Jays, on sports crawls: TOR. Toronto, Canada.
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| If you know, you know. |
55. [See: Theme]
59. GameCube successor: WII. One year, Santa brought a Wii for the girls. We played games all of Christmas break and then almost never again :-(.
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| Nintendo's Wii |
60. Burned, in a way: ON DISC. Remember burning your data to CD?
62. "The Pioneer Woman" host Drummond: REE.
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| My copy of Dinnertime. |
65. Scolding sounds: TSKS.
67. Tossed dish: SALAD.
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| A caprese I "tossed" together |
71. Harmless fib: WHITE LIE.
75. Angry growl: GRR.
76. Time-honored maxim: OLD SAW. From One Word A Day: "The "saw" in old saw comes from the Old English word sagu, meaning "saying, speech, story, or report." This is related to Old Norse saga and Old High German saga - all stemming from the Proto-Germanic sagō ("saying, report")." Read more.
80. House Stark patriarch: NED. Game of Thrones reference [thanks Google!]
81. [See: Theme]
86. Exec overseeing accounts: CFO. Chief Financial Officer.
87. Healing ointment: BALM. Myrrh is a balm...
Monty Python's "Life of Brian" Manger Scene
89. Spacious hotel offering: SUITE.
90. Core constituency: BASE.
91. "Get outta here!": SHOO.
92. Starting lineup: A TEAM.
94. Crude structures: OIL WELLS. Cute.
97. Spot for solar panels: ROOF.
98. [See: Theme]
102. Hilarious sorts: RIOTS.
103. Leaves high and dry: MAROONS.
104. Calendar divs.: WKS. Weeks.
105. Noble above a viscount: EARL.
106. High euchre card: ACE.
108. Classical closing: CODA.
109. Copa Mundial cheer: OLE.
110. Products that help prevent chapping: LIP MASKS. For the uninitiated: "Lip masks and lip 87a [balms] are both formulated to hydrate your lips, however lip masks are generally thicker and more intensive than a lip 87a." [Google again]
114. [See: Theme]
118. Wind like a snake: COIL.
119. Solo: ALONE.
120. Anne of fashion: KLEIN. Nee Hanna Golofsky (3 AUG 1923 - 19 MAR 1974)
121. __-Ball: SKEE.
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| History here. |
122. "Shogun" streaming service: HULU.
123. Lightheaded?: BLOND. Cute.
124. Put in stitches: SEWED. Also cute.
125. Leaves in hot water: TEAS. Hat Trick!
126. Really small matter: ATOM.
Down:
1. Steering implements on dragon boats: OARS. Every Fall, the community just north of me has a dragon boat race. |
| The Woodlands' Dragon Boat Race |
2. Blackthorn berry: SLOE. Flavors the SLOE gin in the fizz.
3. [See: Theme]
4. Drawing rooms?: ATELIERS. WikiP says "An atelier (French: [atəlje]) is the private workshop or studio of a professional artist in the fine or decorative arts or an architect."
5. Picked hairstyles: AFROS.
6. Plus or minus: NOUN.
7. Change for a 20, maybe: TENS.
8. ID with hyphens: SSN.
9. Snowboard cousin: MONOSKI. So it's a snowboard but with your feet side-by-side(?)
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| A Monoski. |
10. Heart charts, briefly: ECGS.
11. Org. concerned with traffic: ATF. Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms
12. Virtual animal such as Xweetok: NEO-PET. I'll just let the internet explain what a Xweetok is. Here's an image for the TL;DR:
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| Xweetoks |
14. Tributary streams: INFLOWS.
15. Penalty caller: REF.
16. Injuries, to a tot: OWIES.
17. Salt, in a chem lab: NACL. Na (Sodium) + Cl (Chloride) = salt.
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| Salt's Crystalline Structure |
18. Thorn's spot: STEM.
25. "Odyssey" prequel: ILIAD.
26. "Be a Revolution" author Ijeoma: OLUO.
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| Her WikiP |
28. Neither Rep. nor Dem.: IND. An Independent is neither a Republican nor a Democrat.
33. Part of CDC: CENTERS. Centers for Disease Control (and Prevention).
34. Traffic jam: TIE UP.
35. Newton or tesla: UNIT.
36. Corn chip: FRITO.
37. "The West Wing" creator Sorkin: AARON.
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| His WikiP |
38. Ran in the wash: BLED.
39. Crowd noise: ROAR.
40. "The __ Boat Song": classic Scottish ballad that opens "Outlander": SKYE.
42. Oft-cracked joints: KNUCKLES.
44. Babe in the woods: FAWN.
45. Destiny's Child, for one: TRIO.
46. Mix: STIR.
50. Chem. in some dispensary products: CBD. Cannabidiol derived from hemp.
51. Sticks in a pool hall: CUES.
52. Tank top openings: ARM HOLES.
55. Good thing to have: ASSET.
56. Vote in favor: YEA.
57. "Hey Arnold!" bully: HELGA.
 |
| Helga G Pataki |
58. Writer Zora __ Hurston: NEALE.
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| Neale's WikiP |
61. Hairy Addams cousin: ITT.
64. Contribute: ADD.
66. Shang-Chi player Liu: SIMU.
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| Simu's WikiP |
68. Flight board abbr.: ARR. Arrival.
69. Signs of drought: DRY BEDS.
71. Org. for the Fever: WNBA. Indiana's Women's National Basketball Association team.
72. Preliminary race: HEAT.
73. Doing nothing: IDLE.
74. Prefix with dermis: EPI. Skin.
77. [See: Theme]
78. Underway: AFOOT. "Come, Watson, come!' [Holmes] cried. 'The game is afoot. Not a word! Into your clothes and come!'"
79. Dog sounds: WOOFS. What the dog says when asked, "Where do the solar panels go?"
82. Great Plains Natives: OTOES.
83. Tara of "Sharknado": REID.
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| Tara's WikiP |
84. Leaf-peeping season: FALL.
85. Archipelago part: ISLE.
88. Guatemala native: MAYA.
91. Hot sauce served with pho: SRIRACHA. A buddy loves this stuff and puts it on everything. Yes, even ice cream.
93. Moved in step: MARCHED.
95. Area prone to flooding: LOW LAND.
96. No longer asleep: WOKEN.
99. Gaming greenhorn: NOOB. Typed n00b; the opposite of 1337.
100. Some classic cameras: KODAKS.
101. Make possible: ENABLE.
102. Sheep with horns: RAM.
103. "Same here!": ME TOO.
105. Swords with bell guards: EPEES.
106. Tiny amount: A DAB.
107. Cherry-pick: CULL.
109. Mayberry boy: OPIE. Ron Howard but y'all knew that.
110. Michigan, for one: LAKE.
111. Store with a Swedish food market: IKEA.
112. Metric weight: KILO.
113. Urban renewal target: SLUM.
115. "Inside Politics" channel: CNN.
116. Wood used in cabinetry: YEW.
117. Duluth winter hrs.: CST. Central Standard Time
The Grid:
 |
| The Grid |
My $0.02:
WO: HaLGA @57d
ESPs: ATELIERS, OLUO, DUTCH BABY (but I inked DUKE from just the K in IKEA :-))
Fav: ROOF crossing WOOF 'cuz of the implicit dog joke.
There you have it folks. Have a great Sunday and, for those of you in the path of the Polar Vortex, stay warm tonight!*
Cheers, -T
*Forecast where I am: Today is in the 70's; tomorrow I'll wake to 38F.
16 comments:
There were a few pretty
obscure names, but that didn’t stop me from completing C.C.’s enjoyable puzzle. FIR, so I’m happy.
Good morning!
Anyone else think it was weird to have six horizontal themers and just one vertical themer? Thanx for splainin' IRONS, Dash-T. My one-track mind never made it to golf. When we'd drive west dw would shout, "Jumpin' cholla!" (rhymes with La Jolla) when we entered New Mexico -- I thought that was the state flower. AFOOT always evokes Holmes for me, too. Thanx, C.C. and Dash-T.
Good Morning:
Still on my phone - hopefully I'll be back online later today if my nephew knows what he's doing. 🙏
I enjoyed the theme and the solve, although, with a few exceptions , it was on the easy side. Any obstacles were remedied by friendly perps. Some of the cluing was quite clever, as well.
Thanks, CC, and thanks, Anon T, for the entertaining review. We don't hear from you often enough these days, especially with updates on the family.
Have a great day.
FIR. Circles, oh great! Ignored as usual. And way too many proper names for my liking, and most quite obscure. And the crossing of Ree and Helga seems somewhat unfair.
But the perps were there where needed. The cluing was fair for the most part. Once I uncovered the reveal I went back and found all the colleges.
I've never heard of Dutch baby pancakes, so that was a learning moment for me.
Overall an OK puzzle.
D-O: The vertical themer is symmetrical with the vertical reveal.
Just a weird thing I noticed while solving--many letter K's. You don't see that often (and I liked that it held throughout).
A bit trickier than the usual CC puzzle, but still fair and enjoyable. The circles actually sped up the solve, as I only needed a couple of letters to figure out the universities in question.
Finished in 24:43, pretty typical for a Sunday.
106A - the highest card in euchre is a jack, although ace is a high card. Did anyone else think this was an unfair clue?
FIW, missing with an "L" at the totally unknown (to me) ATELIERS x the made-up RAWR. Tainted an otherwise fun puzzle.
I'm a little surprised that Bayou Tony didn't note that WINS (Windows Internet Name Service) was the predecessor to the better-known DNS (Domain Name System.) Both are useful in preventing effective home computer networks.
I'm not so sure those TEMPORARY FILES auto-erase. It used to be more important to police unneeded files back in the days before storage drive space became cheap.
The clue for ACE is weak. Of all the card games I can think of, euchre ACEs are the weakest. Any other trick-taking game would have been better, but a game that doesn't have trump suits would have been ideal. To make matters worse, euchre has the Right Bower and Left Bower which are higher than any ACE.
Never heard of the Skye Boat Song,>/i> but I'm quite familiar with the banana boat song.
I think I'm confusing tank tops with tube tops. I guess either can be considered easy-opening tops.
Maybe it's because of my recent caregiving activities, but DRY BEDS are my signs that the Depends are working.
Thanks to CC for the fun workout. I especially liked the doggie subtheme. And thanks to Bayou Tony for another pinch-hit appearance.
Yeah, but I was more verbose about it.
OH NO! I screwed up the end pareth ah=gain. Lets see if this foxes it
Fixes, not foxes
Emd ital, not end parenth
Looks ok after my post now. If subsequent posts are still in italics, let me know and I'll delete my original post.
Caught on the circles right away and that really helped with the solve. RAWR was a real stumbling block for me. Thanks CC for a somewhat challenging and very fun puzzle and to Anon T for the absolutely hilarious XKCD. I used to read those all the time.
13:15. Ugh. That's about as weak of a theme as you can get.
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