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:
__________________________________________________
28 comments:
Once I got the
reveal, 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!
D-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!
I meant O NEG, ONE G was yesterday.
Took 11:42 today to blow the top off.
I 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.
I 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. .
AVEDA, 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.
FIR, 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.
We 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…”
When 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.
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.)
Could work like a wiki - crowd sourced!
I 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.
Topher 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:
Not 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.
Another Friday DNF for me. Just couldn't get DIALed in on the correct frequency this morning. Too many unknowns for me, and unable to figure out the theme entries until MM 'splained things. D'oh! On to the weekend.
Top'o the morning to ya! I liked all of Joe's clever CROP TOPs, although the one that crossed P_C and _TEST proved to be a stumbling block.
Great review, MalMan. I see what you did there with Oracle! LOL
had a party line in jersey in the 50's. also had some neighbors who thought it was great entertainment to listen in !
I finished thinking, “this is an ingenious puzzle and I’ve FIR, assuming MEGOHM is correct.” It was, and I did.
DICKERSON, EVINCED, and ARSENAL propelled me as I filled in most of the answers, including the unifier CROP TOP, wondering how weird the theme entries would be before TOPHER GRACE made it clear. It was tougher when the “top” to be cropped appeared within the answer, especially when I sussed SWATCHES but couldn’t make the perps work at first. CAHOOTS didn’t come easily to me, and I’d better get more savvy about TTESTs.
I was reluctant to concur that a CPA could be a bee, I would never merely say SAME in concurrence with something, PEACE as a departure statement was never prevalent, and I didn’t admire the salad clue for PEARS, but there wasn’t much to dislike about Joe’s puzzle. Well, except MEGOHM.
Fun and interesting CW, thanx JR. I had so many comments in mind, but most have already been covered, especially by Jinx @ 8:15, so I'll just say: I love Edam cheese (of course, I love ALL cheese, except Limburger); I also love Weird Al; last to fill was 1A: "blog" just didn't occur to me. And I started to fill "BEATIT" for 4D...until I saw it was gonna be too short. Also had SNAP before LEAP, so my pen-on-paper CW is a bit messy. But did FIR in 18, which is good time for me on a Friday. And I DID get the theme, but only upon filling the reveal. Some of the theme fills worked as real words with or without TOP, some did not. At least to me. 'nuff said. Thanx to MalMan for the terrific write-up, especially the Weird Al video. The first time I saw an LED was the late '60s. I was teaching chemistry in Brevard County, and one of my students brought in an LED. His dad worked at the Kennedy Space Center, and said someday these would replace lightbulbs. I was more than skeptical, since it barely emitted any light at all. But his dad told him, "It's only a matter of refining the chemistry to get much more light out of it," which is why his son brought it in to show his chemistry teacher (me). That same kid also brought in the first LASER I had ever seen.
Hola! Well, not in a million years would I have known MEG OHM. It's quite specific in its definition. Thank you, MalMan, for explaining. OHM, however, appears often in puzzles.
A lot of guessing occurred in this puzzle; RAIMI is at the top. And ARSENAL as a name is just cruel. For us of a certain age, ADLAI, is well known.
Thanks to Joe Rodini for the challenge today. I hope everyone has recovered from the festivities. Btu its's not the end yet!
oops. But, not btu.
You don't know BIPOC, another ridiculous acronym to try to clarify people.
Can you still make a "person-to-person" call if you dial 0 on a cell phone?
Interesting Saturday puzzle, many thanks, Joe. And thank you too for your helpful commentary, MalMan, also much appreciated.
Well, today's puzzle had a potentially positive start this morning with EDAM and VINO at the top right corner. That would give us a possibly nice breakfast with some cheese and some wine, and as we move near the end, with some PEARS as well. That sounds pretty good, but to get something fancier and richer we'd need a better LOOT, and that might require some better CONTRACT OPTIONS.
I think we'd best just find an indoor spa--on this day with a torrent of windy rain raging outside--and SOAK in some hot water before we go back inside and take our nap. Sounds pretty good, doesn't it?
Have a warm and comfortable and happy day in spite of this terrible weather, everybody.
Took a while to reveal the reveal, cahoots along with Dickerson had to be perped out first. (Hmm, need commas between cahoots, along with, and Dickerson, or this comment may turn into a poetic essay ALA Misty...) but once again, the Friday gimmick saved my butt...
From several days ago, (Tuesday to be exact) the puzzle i reviewed includes a band named INXS. (I thought it was called Inks, you never know what young kids will call there bands names these days, or for that matter, what your senior medication is going to be called...) but daughter #1 read my review today, and blew my mind saying she was aware of the band "In Excess."
I had no idea I didn't know I didn't know...
silly theme link...
Not only an honorable mention, but a winter crop top prerequisite...
Crop Tops, LOL! I wonder if we could pitch a non GMO angle.
Happy Boxing Day, everyone!
Guess I was on Mssr. Rodini’s wavelength today; clear flying all the way (thanks mainly to a bunch of friendly perps) until I got to N. CA — major stall-out there, almost crashed & burned but pulled up at the last second with SHAMxSLOT for the FIR, woohoo!
“PEACE, out” is currently a pop exit line; and if you grew up in the 60’s>’70s, “PEACE” was a common way to announce one’s departure, usually accompanied by the “V” sign ✌🏽☮️. Had to be there…
Like D.O., Médicins Sans Frontières is one of my go-to charities; these days, we get 287 pieces of mail seeking charitable donations; we’d go broke if we did ‘em all, so we get picky — Drs. w/o Borders, Habitat for Humanity, and about 4 others we regularly throw coin to.
I remember back in the party-line days, my Nana liked to snoop, so I showed her the trick of unscrewing the mouthpiece cap before lifting the receiver, so the other parties in line wouldn’t hear you breathing (or gasping!). Pretty snazzy for a 7-yr-old, huh? 🤣
====> Darren / L.A.
Oh, almost (well, did…) forgot to thank our Malodorous One for another fun review! Enjoyed the Weird Al and Lehrer links!
====> D.
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