CROSS [ I ] EYED
Iron Maiden's Cross-Eyed Mary cover - I grew up with these guys,
but if you prefer the Jethro Tull orignal . . .
This is the second LA Times collaboration between Sara & Doug; Moe had the other one two years ago. Mr. Peterson is a regular, and I found this link to a crossword blog from Sara - I like the phrase she used to 'celebrate' her first published NYT puzzle. We have a "sort-of" visual theme to the puzzle, as the sans serif font of the LA Times crossword makes a capital "I" look like a vertical line; when rotated, or "rolled", it becomes a hyphen. Took me a bit to suss, but once 'EYE" did, 'EYE" smiled - a fresh, thought[ I ]provoking theme -AND - there are NO other wandering "I"s in the entire frame. Well done, constructors~! A standard grid, a handful of names, no circles, a balance of twenty 3LWs, and, having added in the "I"s, the 'straight definition' themers become unique;
17. *Inlay material, often: MOTHER [ I ] OF [ I ] PEARL - mother-of-pearl
28. *Not cooped up: FREE [ I ] RANGE - free-range
49. *Flexible: OPEN [ I ] ENDED - open-ended
61. *Lightheaded ones?: JACK [ I ] O' [ I ] LANTERNS - jack-o'-lanterns
37. Silent display of skepticism, or a phonetic hint for making sense of the answers to the starred clues: EYE ROLL - that is, one takes the "I"s in the themers and "rolls" them 90° ( either clockwise or counterclockwise, it works the same 🙄), and now they make sense~!
But Wate, There's More ~!
ACROSS:
1. After-dinner drink: DECAF - Oh, coffee; "EYE" went straight to alcohol 😜 A rolled-eye [ I ] Easter Egg in the clue, too~!
6. Players who may have to start over many times: NOOBS - short for 'Newbies', one who is unfamiliar with whatever they're involved in; here's my Revit T-shirt ( it's a drafting inside joke )
BIM = Building Information Modeling - essentially 3D CAD
11. Cannabis compound: THC - TetraHydroCannabinol - what gives the "buzz/high" of smokin' the (Cross-eyed) mary jane, weed, ganja, pot, herb, grass, dank, chronic, etc.
14. Tickle: AMUSE - some of the slang for marijuana does tickle me
15. Home of the first jet bridge: O'HARE - EYE love clues/answers where EYE learn something new
16. Peach or plum: HUE - it was fruitless trying to fit FRUIT 🙄
20. Opposite of very: A TAD - Atwurd
21. "iZombie" setting: SEATTLE - no clue, but perps gave me all but the two "E"s
22. Lip __: BALM
25. "The Phoenician Scheme" director Anderson: WES - name #1; more from IMDb
27. Surgical tool: LASER
32. Boris Johnson, for one: TORY - no ( British ) politics at the Corner~! Name(ish)
33. Keeps (off): FENDS
34. Treats embossed with flowers, dots, and dashes: OREOs - well, it's not just one OREO today
36. Blue: SAD - another color con clue
40. Cash back?: COW - "Cash Cow"
Dunk your Oreos in your cash cow "output" 🙄
43. Leavening agent: YEAST
46. Typical choice: GO-TO - e.g., when EYE get Chinese, my "go-to" choice is General Tso's Chicken
52. Totally believed: ATE UP - believe it - EYE "ate up" my egg roll, too 🙄 ( and a Thusday dupe )
54. Rx writer: DOC
55. Price points: TAGS
56. Moseys: STROLLS
59. "Poppycock!": "TOSH~!"
66. Short-horned bighorn: EWE - Another rolled-eye [ I ] Easter Egg in the clue, plus a change-up from the "ewe"sual 🙄
67. Key in: ENTER
68. Acrobat's platform: ADOBE - oh so very clever; not a performing acrobat - Adobe Acrobat - the PDF managing software; EYE was stumped for a while
69. "¿Qué __?": Spanish greeting: "TAL~?" - Español, which filled via perps, but still doesn't look right; the literal translation is "¿~What [is] such~?"
70. Run-down: SEEDY - rolled-eye [ I ] Easter Egg in the clue
71. Rub it in: GLOAT - EYE did not have to reach out to the other Corner bloggers for help with an explanation of the theme; EYE figured it out all by mEYEself~! 😁 🙄
DOWN:
1. Reservoir creator: DAM - a dam good way to start the Down clues 🙄
2. Punk subculture: EMO - three-letter "music" genre~? = EMO
3. Share of the profit: CUT - members of Ocean's Eleven got an even cut of . . .
"My advice to you is this [ I ] run and hide"
4. Fearing disgrace: ASHAMED - slighly meh; feeling seems to work better
5. Stanza units: FEET - LINES and IAMBS were just inches too long . . . 🙄
6. "Ask someone else": "NO IDEA." - what do you call a blind Bambi~? no "EYE" deer 🙄
7. Exultant cry: "O-HO~!"
8. Bumblers: OAFS
9. "The Marvels" star Larson: BRIE - the EYE in her name was my one error; EYE had BREE, ergo, did not get my "ta-DA~!". It took a while to find my mistake; once I grasped the theme and changed the vowel - "O-HO~!" name #3
10. Floral leaf: SEPAL - had this one two weeks ago
11. "For real?": "THAT SO~?"
12. Starter, e.g.: HURLER - baseball reference; one of the team's pitchers
13. Sticks in the refrigerator: CELERY - Ah. Not BUTTER
18. Cutesy growl: "RAWR~!" - this is becoming acceptable, I guess
19. Divisions d'une nation: ETATS - Franwche for states ( of the nation )
22. Pair sharing halves of a heart charm, informally: BFFs - Best Friends Forever
23. Environs: AREA
24. Furnish temporarily: LEND - I had LOAN, which is {teeth-suck} close, but 50% wrong
Close, but, definitely wrong
26. Expressed contempt: SNORTED
29. "10-4": "I SEE." - eh, a bit meh, but a rolled eye [ I ] in the clue again
30. Miracle-__: GRO - another rolled-eye [ I ] Easter Egg clue; EYE ordered new house plants through Amazon; they sat on my cold February porch for a few hours - but it looks like they'll be OK . . .
31. Serpentine creature: EEL - ASP would work, too
35. Ye __ Shoppe: OLDE
38. NBA legend Ming: YAO - name #4, crossword staple
39. Predict-ability?: ESP - Har-har; ExtraSensory Perception - another rolled-eye [ I ] in the clue
40. Musical conclusion: CODA - and Led Zeppelin's "last" studio album
41. Earth's pull, for short: ONE G - one (unit) of gravity
42. Settles down, in a way: WEDS - I used to blog WEDs
43. "Just checking in": "YOU OK~?"
45. Discreetly, in slang: ON THE DL - the "Down Low" - not a unique fill
46. Chemistry lab fixture: GAS JET - "HAL" doesn't like this; EYE kept getting GAS KET suggestions
"I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do jet"
"I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do jet"
47. National Gallery of Canada locale: OTTAWA - nailed it, but six-letters Canada~?
48. Old Toyota subcompact: TERCEL - had it, took it out; crossing 'go-to' eluded me at first
My buddy Mark in Florida called his the "turbo Tercel"
50. Public figure?: NOTARY - that person at the bank, e.g., that can attest to your signature
51. Symbol: ICON - Dah~! Not RUNE
53. Works at, as a trade: PLIES
57. Solitary: LONE
58. Venue: SITE
60. __ beetle: STAG - EYE am not posting a picture of this insect 😝
62. Took charge: LED - Zeppelin - no, wait . . . we had that already 🙄
63. Joey of fiction: ROO - Winnie the Pooh, and Kanga's "Roo"
64. "Space Jam" org.: NBA - Not a basketball fan, but I did know this
65. Fully taken care of: SET - win the lotto, and you're "SET" for life~!
Splynter
Spent a few minutes looking for my error
Grid Flow a very low 17.4
4 comments:
The constructors
may think their puzzle was clever, but I don’t. I think it was strained and artificial. And I missed “Brie” and “cow” (the latter’s clue which I would nominate for the worst one of the month) which means a FIW for the third day in a row. Will this misery ever end?
Sub-g sorry you did not like this puzzle but enjoyed immensely. I also think this was an ideal creation for Splynter to explain, great job Richard. We have a second Doug P. offering this time a collaboration with a relative noob who is in the creative business.
It took me much longer to finally accept the Is which had to be correct based on the perps. BRIE LARSON has been in the news a lot lately and I would think appreciating her legs would mandate know her name.
Lots of music which also is perfect for Splynter. ROSE MCIVER the actress from New Zealand who starred in iZombie a cute bizarre show before became one of the leads in the US version of GHOSTS. A quick question for all, do you stir your coffee clockwise or counterclockwise?
Happy Friday and March is almost here. Have fun all.
Good morning!
D-o noticed the stray i's in the themers, but didn't try to roll 'em. Maybe I should'a read the full reveal clue. Interesting theme concept, but a little to cerebral for me. It took an alphabet run to get that W in COW. The division where I worked was a CASH COW for the mother corporation. Until it wasn't. Hand up for BUTTER before CELERY stalked in. Thanx for the amusement, Sara and Doug, and for the eye-filling expo, Splynter.
Lemonade, black -- no stirring required.
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