Susan Gelfand has been constructing crosswords for over five Winter Olympics! To celebrate the victories of both the men's and women's USA Hockey teams, she offers us a POWER play. She trying to stay current.
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| If you unwrap them, there's chocolate inside! |
No reveal, just five nice phrases that begin with something an electrician would deal with.
17. Electrician's favorite method of payment?: CHARGE CARD.
25. Electrician's favorite exercise?: POWER WALK.
36. Like an electrician's favorite sweater?: CABLE KNIT.
51. Like an electrician's favorite eyeglasses?: WIRE FRAME.
61. Electrician's favorite shopping venue?: OUTLET MALL. My favorite of the bunch.
Nothing shocking here, so it didn't put up much resistance for a Thursday. Minimal proper nouns (only two of which were people) was a big plus. Thanks Susan!
Let's CHARGE ahead.
Across:
1. Rx orders: MEDS. MEDICATIONS. The "Rx" symbol is derived from the Latin word recipe or “recipere,”which means to take, often the first word in a prescription. It was later abbreviated to Rx.
5. Accumulate: AMASS.
10. Jacksonville team, familiarly: JAGS. JAGUARS football team.
15. Valletta's island: MALTA.
16. HarperCollins romance imprint: AVON.
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| Ding. Dong. Romance calling! |
17. [theme]
19. Was dressed in: WORE.
20. Vicinity: REGION.
21. "You __ my day!": MADE.
23. Chef-training sch. in Hyde Park: CIA. Julia Child is the most famous "chef spy," having worked for the OSS (precursor to the CIA) during WWII. Wait, that has nothing to do with this! They're talking about the Culinary Institute of America.
24. Floating: ALOFT.
25. [theme]
27. "Au contraire, __ frère": MON. "On the contrary, my brother." Those Frenchmen, they have a different word for everything!
28. The WNBA's Sky, on scoreboards: CHI. The CHICAGO Sky of the Women's National Basketball Association.
30. Tease: NEEDLE.
31. Nav. rank: ENS. An ENSIGN is the lowest commissioned officer rank in the Navy, and is equivalent to a Second Lieutenant.
32. Shucks: HULLS. I wrote HUSKS before shucking it.
35. Fly like an eagle: SOAR. Land like an eagle: SORE.
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| Two bald eagles crash landed but survived the fall. |
39. California valley that was one of the first American Viticultural Areas: NAPA. Viticultural pertains to growing grapes for wine production.
42. Flight part: STAIR. Flight part: STAGE.
43. Craze: FAD. It's all the rage!
46. Make true: EVEN UP. In carpentry, "true" means perfectly straight and aligned.
49. Chinese philosophical concept: TAO.
50. "Is that __?": A NO. Yes, it's A NO.
51. [theme]
54. Game with a caller: BINGO.
56. Game with a chaser: TAG. I thought this might be a drinking game of some sort. Like every time I enter the wrong word first, I have to take a shot. If this review stops making sense near the bottom, now you know why.
58. Lounged around: LOAFED. I wrote LOLLED at first...bottoms up!
59. Perched on: ATOP.
61. [theme]
63. Caffeine-rich nut: KOLA. I had COLA first, which goes nicely with shots of rum.
64. Trademarked refrigerant: FREON. Is it cold in here, or is it just me?
65. French cheese with a rind: BRIE.
66. Notable periods: ERAS. The one at the end of this sentence is not notable.
67. Some Slavs: SERBS.
68. Min. divisions: SECS. Three minute divisions are Triple SECS.
Down:
1. Knotty craft: MACRAME.
2. Level: ECHELON.
3. Creatures on the flags of Wales and Bhutan: DRAGONS.
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| Wales (left) and Bhutan (right) |
4. Calligraphy stroke: SERIF.
5. "Could not agree more": AMEN.
6. Big name in laptops and lipstick: MAC. I knew the Apple product, but not MAC Cosmetics.
7. San Antonio field trip destination: ALAMO. I remember going there.
8. Scarecrow contents: STRAW. Now, if it only had a brain...
9. Make melancholy: SADDEN.
10. Mandible: JAW. Here's Richard Kiel in his memorable role as JAWs, a villain with metal teeth, in two James Bond movies: The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker. Turns out his bite was worse than his bark.
11. Toast spread: AVOCADO.
12. Silverback, for one: GORILLA.
13. Puma, for one: SNEAKER. True, but I like to buy them in pairs. Conversely, here's a puma SNEAKER:
18. "Heard": GOTCHA. Roger that.
22. Quaint preposition: ERE.
25. Contents of some weekly organizers: PILLS. I don't think this person knows how they are supposed to work.
26. Dominic of "Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale": WEST. Dominic WEST is an English actor, director, producer, and musician.
29. Center of activity: HUB.
33. Lead-in to "It Go" and "It Be," in song titles: LET. "LET It Go" from Disney's Frozen, and "LET It Be," from the Fab Four.
34. Manta ray kin: SKATE. SKATEs and manta rays are both cartilaginous fish (like sharks), but they have significant differences. SKATEs lay eggs, have stocky tails with small thorns, and live on the seafloor. Conversely, manta rays give birth to live young, have long, whip-like tails without stingers, and are large, filter-feeders that swim near the surface.
36. Sugar stalk: CANE. Sugar stalker: NINJA.
37. "Hedda" writer/director DaCosta: NIA. NIA daCosta is an award-winning American filmmaker.
38. Asimov collection first published in 1950: I, ROBOT. I, ROBOT serves as a cautionary tale, warning against issues like unchecked AI and monopolized control. Written in 1950, it predicted a world with "smart" machines that are integrated into daily life, and is still relevant today.
39. Fresh perspective: NEW TAKE. I entered NEW FACE, which fit with KOLA (misspelled with a "C"). It worked for a while, but now I'm tipsy.
40. Cockpit occupant: AVIATOR. We hope so, anyway.
41. Covered walkway: PERGOLA.
43. Fuss and feathers: FANFARE.Tar and feathers: FORFEIT. Tarring and feathering was a form of punishment and public humiliation used primarily in 18th-century America.
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| A Cure for the Refractory (Williamsburg, Va) |
44. Sporting a halo: ANGELIC. Just like my kids...now that they're out of prison.
45. Absent-minded scribbles: DOODLES. Some are worth more than others.
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| John Lennon |
47. Strange sight in the night sky: UFO. An Unidentified Flying Object is now called a UAP (Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena), but we still don't know what it is.
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| Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. |
48. Reads for errors: PROOFS. Or proofreads.
52. Sky blue: AZURE.
53. Olympic track unit: METER.
55. Sonnet line quintet: IAMBS. For example, "Mary had a little IAMB..."
58. Binoculars part: LENS. Pet peeve: In movies, they use a mask like this to simulate looking through binoculars, but when you actually use them, you see a single round image like a telescope.
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| Is that alien from a UFO or a UAP ? |
60. Faux __: PAS.
62. Arcing throw: LOB.
Stay positive and let the negativity discharge.
Be good. RB
4 comments:
I don’t have too much
to say about this puzzle, except that it was not terribly difficult and it was a lot of fun.
FIR, so I’m happy.
Good morning!
Yay, another Wite-Out-free day with no head-scratchers anywhere. Gotta like it. My favorite sweater was a boat-neck CABLE-KNIT. My sister bought it, but it was too big. I got it as a teenager and dw finally disposed of it a couple years ago (after threatening for decades). Nice effort, Susan. I enjoyed your take on things RB.
I ROBOT: Asimov is probably best remembered for I Robot and the Foundation trilogy, both written early in his career. In his lifetime he published more than 500 books including science fiction, science non-fiction, and Bible history. He's credited with creating the three Laws of Robotics: 1) A robot may not injure a human being or through inaction allow a human to come to harm; 2) A robot must obey human orders unless that conflicts with the First Law; 3) A robot must protect its own existence so long as that does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
FIR, but hand up for erasing lolled for LOAFED.
I knew the CHI Sky today for a change. Will I remember it next time? Oh magic eight ball, were art thou now that I really need you?
Four-letter "California valley blah, blah, blah" is gonna be NAPA, except that SIMI sneaks in on rare occasions.
Here's Taylor Swift joining Idina Menzel (crossword-favorite Elsa) to singLET It Go.
Thanks to Susan for another fun, easy-ish puzzle. My favorite was "level" for ECHELON. Lots of names, but easy perps. And thanks to Rusty Brain for another fine review.
Enjoyed the puzzle and the review. Here's to you, RB! Recalled from Civil War history that Maj. Gen. Winfield Scott was called "Old Fuss and Feathers" because of his excessive insistence on correct military dress (he must have hated Grant); don't think of it as a synonym for "fanfare".
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