Good Morning, Cruciverbalists. Malodorous Manatee here with the recap of a Friday Puzzle by Joe Rodini. Unlike the puzzle of two weeks ago, the theme of this one is quite straightforward. Let's start with the reveal (and the clue even uses that word - nice touch):
38 Across . Revealing garment, or how to make 17-, 23-, 49-, and 53-Across match their clues: CROP TOP.
A CROP TOP is a sleeveless or short-sleeved garment that is cut short to show the midriff. However, in the case of todays puzzle we are required to crop, as in to cut or remove, the letters T O P (or the word TOP, if you prefer) from four filled-in answers in order to make that fill properly answer its respective clue.
17 Across. Can't and won't: CONTRACTOPTIONS. Contract Options being an acceptable term for choices in an agreement. However, crop the top, and we are left with CONTRACTIONS. Can't, of course being a contraction for can not and won't being a colloquial contraction for will not.
23 Across. Respectful title in "Bridgerton": TOPHERGRACE. Topher Grace is an actor who was in That 70's Show (among other gigs). Crop the top and we are left with the title HER GRACE - a form of address for royalty.
49 Across. Tribute band's set list: COVERTOPS. Covert Ops (operations) are a form of intel gathering. Crop the top and we are left with COVERS. When a band plays a song that was popularized by another band it is called a COVER of that song. Below, the Grateful Dead at Woodstock performing a COVER of Merle Haggard's song "Momma Tried".
53 Across. Decorator'ssamples: STOPWATCHES. SWATCHES A stop watch is a timer. Crop the top and pieces of cloth, or SWATCHES, appear.
This is how things appear in the grid:
Here are the rest of the clues and answers:
Across:
1. Personal space, perhaps: BLOG. A BLOG is a website that allows users to reflect, share opinions, and discuss various topics in the form of an online journal where readers may comment on posts. Does this sound familiar?
5. 1950s politico Stevenson: ADLAI.
10. Wax-coated cheese: EDAM. Often eaten in our puzzles.
14. All that's left of a spent apple: CORE. Spent as in used up. Apple, Inc (the giant tech company paid Apple, Corps (the Beatles company) over $600,000,000 to settle a trademark dispute.
15. Rings up: DIALS. A reference to the days when telephones looked like this:
16. Chianti o pinot grigio: VINO. Lezione di italiano di oggi. Chianti and Pinot grigio are both wines. VINO in Italian.
20. Absolut rival: STOLI. A vodka reference.
21. Actor Watanabe: KEN. Ken Watanabe's Wiki page
22. Call off a romance: END IT. Weird Al said it best:
26. Oracle: SEER. A man goes to consult a SEER. He knocks on the door and from the inside the seer shouts "Who is it?" Disillusioned, the man walks away.
27. "__ all adults here": WE'RE. We are?
28. Jelly bean dispenser opening: SLOT. Remember these?
31. Reiteration opening: I SAID. Anything I say here will be redundant.
33. Take off politely: DOFF.
37. Babe: HON. Terms of endearment.
40. __ culpa: MEA. Literally, my fault or my mistake.
41. Eco-friendly beauty brand: AVEDA. Known to this solver only through crosswords.
43. To the __ degree: NTH.
44. "Army of Darkness" director Sam: RAIMI.
46. Insulation resistance tester's unit: MEGOHM. MEG - is a slightly shortened prefix for mega, which is 1x10 6; - OHM is the basic unit of resistance, which is represented by the Greek letter omega (Ω). A megohm, therefore, is an impedance measurement that represents one million OHMs.
48. Doorway: PORTAL. To another dimension?
55. Photo session: SHOOT. A bit of slang derived from "to shoot a photograph". The verb morphs into a noun.
57. Half and half?: ONE. Basic math
58. Put into effect: ENACT. As, for example, a law.
61. Sliced fruit in some salads: PEARS.
62. Metric weights, casually: KGS. Kilograms. Kilo, or sometimes "ki" (pronounced key), was a word commonly heard in the '60s.
63. Florida city that hosts an annual Pirate Festival: TAMPA.
64. Shows curiosity: ASKS. Why didn’t 4 ASK out 5? Because he was 2²
65. Match component: SET. A tennis reference - game, SET, match.
66. Sudden and jarring transition: LEAP. As in "a LEAP of faith".
Down:
1. Covertly includes on an email: BCCS. Blind Carbon Copy. Remember carbon paper?
2. Booty: LOOT. Buttocks would not fit.
3. "Welp, never mind": OR NOT.
4. "Amscray!": GET LOST.
5. Orthodontist's org.: ADA.
6. Hall of Famer Eric who was NFL rushing yards leader four times in the 1980s: DICKERSON. A football reference.
7. "Peace": LATER. Both are slang for "goodbye".
8. Accompanied by: ALONG WITH.
9. Web gateway co.: ISP. Internet Service Provider
10. Made plain to see: EVINCED.
11. Part of LED: DIODE. Light Emmitting DIODE. As in LED lamps.
12. Years of Caesar's reign: ANNI. Latin for years.
13. Guinness superlative: MOST. A reference not to the stout (beer) but to:
18. Stinky: RIPE. Slang
19. Wardrobe malfunction: TEAR. Wardrobe malfunction is a term (and a bit of a euphemism) popularized by an incident involving Janet Jackson.
NSFW ?
24. Beneficiary: HEIR.
25. Mulligan: REDO. The use has broadened from the origin in golf where a mulligan is a shot not counted as part of the score, granted sometimes in informal play after a poor shot is made.
28. Ersatz: SHAM. Which alcoholic drink can give you the illusion that you're hurt? Sham-pain.
29. Not just fancy: LOVE. Fancy as in the British English sense - to like something.
30. Universal donor's type, briefly: O-NEG. A reference to blood typing.
32. Germane: APT. Fitting.
34. Leave out: OMIT.
35. Disaster relief org.: FEMA.
36. Come to nothing: FAIL. What is it called when your knee transplant FAILs? Irony.
38. Partnership, informally: CAHOOTS. As in "to be in CAHOOTS with someone".
39. Oracle: PROPHET. ‘Atheism is a non-prophet organization.’ - George Carlin
39. Oracle: PROPHET. ‘Atheism is a non-prophet organization.’ - George Carlin
42. __ Without Borders: DOCTORS. A reference to the group providing charity medical care around the world.
45. Tottenham's opponent in the North London derby: ARSENAL. A soccer reference.
47. Letters for a GOAT, perhap: MVP. Goat, in this case does not refer to an animal. Greatest Of All Time = Most Valuable Player
48. Abbreviation that refers to many racial identities: POC. Person Of Color
50. Tree hut dwellers on Endor: EWOKS. A "Star Wars" reference.
51. Kitchen fixture: RANGE. Something you might use to provide the heat for cooking.
53. Water down, say: SOAK.
54. "Me too": SAME.
55. Self-care destination: SPA.
56. Chaps: HES. Not what a cowgirl might wear. Chaps being slang for men.
59. Busy bee in Apr.: CPA. Certified Public Accountant
60. Draft source: TAP. In this clue it is a reference to beer as in "cold beer on TAP"
Well, that will wrap things up for this Friday. A belated Merry Christmas to all and, if Tom Lehrer is correct about when to start plugging a song, then today would be the day to start:
__________________________________________________
Once I got the
ReplyDeletereveal, it all started to make sense, and getting the rest of the themers was
easy-peasy. It turned out to be a fun and very creative puzzle.
FIR, so I’m happy.
Good morning!
ReplyDeleteD-o actually read the reveal, and fruitlessly spent way to much time looking for CORN, WHEAT, or SORGHUM in the long answers. Bzzzzt. ONE-G made an encore performance today, but this time as O-NEG. MEGOHM reminds me of my days building HeathKit products. Being color-blind, I needed a multitester to confirm which resistor to install. We've restricted our donations to just a handful of charities. DOCTORS Without Borders is on the list. Thanx, Joe and Mal-Man.
Since you didn't ask, the potato dumplings came out great. D-o ate just one. No food coma was involved.
I didn’t find this easy like SubG, took some thought and work to FIR w/out help in 22:06. Interesting looking grid as the symmetry is east to west. I figured out three of the themers, TOP before HER GRACE made no sense cuz I’ve never heard of TOPHER the actor, (MOST guys with his name would go by Chris), also it’s close to an anagram of PROPHET. I don’t equate FAIL with the clue, and Guinness made me think of the actor or stout, not the book of records. There’s a dupe with ONE G and ONE. MEGOHM was unknown, and I’ve never seen ‘people of color’ abbreviated as POC. I followed the link to T TEST to see what the T stands for, and couldn’t find any word 🤷♂️. Thanks Joe for the Friday challenge, and to MM for explaining it all in detail!
ReplyDeleteI meant O NEG, ONE G was yesterday.
DeleteWhen I taught statistics, my students quite logically asked what the "t" in t-tests stood for. Well, actually nothing; it's an arbitrary letter. English chap came up with the statistical tool about 100 years ago. He was a chemist and statistician working for the Guinness Brewery. I'm not making this up. He tried various letters and ended up arbitrarily settling on t.
DeleteTook 11:42 today to blow the top off.
ReplyDeleteI struggled with "ttest" next to "poc", eventually realizing that 53A (covertops) was one of those theme answers.
"Megohm" was unknown, I dislike "hes", and I hate a foreign word intersecting another foreign word (which I refer to as a "foreign cross"), e.g., "vino" intersecting "anni." Sems like a lot of effort to construct this puzzle.
FIR. What a workout as most vertical puzzles are for me. It took more than a while for me to get the win.
ReplyDeleteI have to admit I didn't get the theme until I got here and it was explained to me.
Overall not an enjoyable puzzle.
A tough one to FIR today. Without the CROP TOP reveal already in place, I wouldn't have completed TOPHERGRACE.(BTW,my knowledge of the show is zero). It wasn't a real thing, unlike CONTRACT OPTIONS or STOP WATCHES, which didn't match the clues. I did not know what the statistical tool letter was but STOP WATCHES made it a T-TEST. .
ReplyDeleteAVEDA, RAIMI- guessed after a few perps for those.
Abbreviating MEGAOHM as MEGOHM reminds me of SINE to SIN. Why bother.
Tomorrow, DW and I are having our annual lunch with her maid of honor, her grown up family, and husband who just happened to be Eric DICKERSON (and Craig James) RB coach at SMU. Then he went to coach with Mac Brown at Tulane, N. Carolina, and Texas. The life of an assistant coach in college football.
Tottenham is unknown but ARSENAL is a name I am familiar with, that's about it.
Guinness and TAP- I was thinking maybe it was the MOST something in their ads. The record book didn't cross my mind today.
Techs say one MEGOHM, or simply one MEG. One MEG resistors are used mainly as current limiters. For instance, if you are working on solid state devices like transistors, DIODEs and integrated circuits, you need a conductive strap around your wrist, wired to a ground point to keep static electricity from zapping components you touch. But if you get your fingers into high voltage, that strap could cause your death. The manufacturers put a one MEGOHM resistor in series with the wiring to mitigate that danger, while still allowing static charges to dissipate. (They have long been associated with large capacitors in power supplies. Without these "bleeder resistors" the big capacitors could cause death if touched, even days after the device using the capacitor has been unplugged.)
DeleteFIR, but adali->ADLAI, fade->FAIL, and anos->ANNI. I knew all the pre-cropped themers except TOPHER GRACE. DNK POC, Tottenham, RAIMI, and AVEDA. If we have AVEDA 100 more times, maybe I'll remember it. It's about as relevant to me as hair care products.
ReplyDeleteWe should start a reference section for the use of our Gen Xer and younger Cornerites. "DIAL" for a circular device used to make a voice call. We could add "yellow pages," "DIAL tone," "pay phone," "operator," "directory assistance," "extension phone," "listen in," "Touch Tone," "Princess Phone," "cordless phone," "toll call," "party line," "ringer," "telephone installer," "collect call," "long distance operator," "411," "611," and "DIAL-a-joke."
I was going to complain about STOLI being an abbreviation, but then I discovered that the vodka company uses the URL STOLI.com and labels their bottles STOLI.
Weird Al is coming to Norfolk June 7. My guess is that I will have moved to Florida by then. Hope he does One More Minute.
WE'RE all adults here. Why would we need suits in the hot tub?
I got TAMPA without a single perp, and also knew the name of the parade. On Gasparilla weekend, the nearby cigar town of Ybor City gets rowdy after the sun goes down. Don't even think about dining and watching the Flamenco dancing at the Columbia Restaurant unless you made reservations way ahead of time.
I wonder if Doctors Without Borders buy their books at Barnes & Noble instead.
Thanks to Joe for the easy-ish Friday puzzle. And thanks to our MalMan for another punny recap.
Add ‘time lady’ to your list….”at the tone the time will be…”
DeleteCould work like a wiki - crowd sourced!
DeleteI was on the constructor’s wavelength for most of the puzzle, and the answers that were unknown to me became known with an assist from friendly perps.
ReplyDeleteTopher Grace was part of a great cast that included Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis on That 70s Show, a very funny show that mirrored a lot of my own experiences as a teen in that era.
FIR in 11:01. I give this puzzle an 8/10.
Good Morning:
ReplyDeleteNot my cup of tea themewise, but Fridays have long been disappointing compared to past standards, so it’s no surprise to see an add/subtract gimmick. I had a couple of hiccups, i.e., Megohm and T Test but, overall, the fill was pretty straightforward, with helpful perps sprinkled here and there. Personally, I would prefer a more challenging grid.
Thanks, Joe, and thanks, MalMan, for the fun, facts, and humor. Tom Lehrer is always a treat.
Have a great day.