MAY MAYDAY~!
"May Day~? Why, that's the Russian New Year~!"
And the Frawnche reason for the emergency distress call
Happy first of May~! John Michael Currie is a regular here at the LA Times crossword, but it's been while; his last appearance was in Nov 2024. Today we have a calm, gimmick-free puzzle compared to last Friday, but alas, "Ah me", we have a dozen names again. 55 theme squares of the total fill, or about 30% of the construction, the theme is basically a simple 'self-regarding' play on words/abbrs, half clever, half not so much. A standard 15x15 grid, a balance again of 3-, 4- & 5-letter words, no circles, too many names, and a couple of twurds; the themers;
20. Color commentator's remark about a zebra on the field?: REF REFERENCE - typically an NFL slang term, 'zebra' refers to the REFeree
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29. Pickling, canning, headspace, annealing, etc.?: JAR JARGON - I understand pickling and canning, but I had to look up headspace, and annealing in reference to jars
37. Like clockwork, e.g.?: ANALOG ANALOGY - The clip below is too funny - and too sad
Can you tell me what time it is~?
45. Pressing the "permanent press" button?: IRON IRONY - It does seem to be Ironic
The 'perm press' setting is in the center
56. "Words are but wind"?: META METAPHOR - oooh, trippy . . .
Wait, But More There Is . . .
ACROSS:
1. Departing word: CIAO - Italian lesson
5. "Of course," in Oviedo: CLARO - Español lesson, technically means "clear"; Oviedo is this city in Spain ( geo name #1 ) - see also map at 18A.
10. Chevrolet model until 2019: VOLT - really rough way to start the first row of Across fills; foreign word/foreign word/name - sheesh, can we get an English words puzzle~?
The Wiki for those who are curious
14. Address letters: HTTP - website address, that is
15. Bleachers shoutout: "HI MOM~!" - this twurd has made 36 other crossword puzzles
16. Biblical plot: EDEN - plot as in land, not story arc
17. Dramatic sigh: "AH ME..."
18. St. Teresa's birthplace: AVILA - geo name #2 - more here
Dos cuidades
19. Succeeding: NEXT
23. Created hazardous driving conditions, perhaps: SLEETED - uh-huh . . .
24. Two-digit sign: PEACE - my parents, both born in the UK, made it clear that "palm in" was a far more vulgar version of the sign . . .
The origins of the "V" for Victory ( peace ) sign
28. Org. that promotes vegan leather: PETA - Tuesday Dupe
33. Quaint affirmation: "'TIS"
35. Sticky stuff: GOO
36. Abnormal: ODD
42. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, for one: DUO - names #3 - the Wiki, and a tie-in to 4D.
43. Comedian Wong: ALI - name #4; see also the last Down clue
44. Prefix with binary: NON
49. Swim/bike/run races, briefly: TRIs - meh, a semi-abbr for triathlon
52. Growing alarm: PANIC - "Not only is it slightly cheaper, it has the words DON'T PANIC printed in large, friendly letters on its cover"
The Hichhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
53. Lifeblood: ESSENCE
60. Place to find one's credit history?: IMDb - the Internet Movie Database, and film credits
63. Home of Creighton University: OMAHA - filled via perps, geo name #5
64. Net: EARN - think paycheck
65. Tarot figure carrying a bindle: FOOL
From the Rider-Waite Deck
66. Program broadcast from Rockefeller Plaza: TODAY - good clue/answer for this fill; I didn't know it
67. Gastropub pours: ALES - a WAG
68. Maker of Inzone gaming gear: SONY - got most via perps; name (ish)
69. Presents inaccurately, as data: SKEWS
70. Try out: TEST
DOWN:
1. Nears burning: CHARS - I got it, but it seems slightly 'off ' - I mean, the outside is burned . . .
2. Geek Squad offering: IT HELP - this has appeared in seven other puzzles
I can't see the problem . . .
3. Charge for cash: ATM FEE - this has appeared in twenty other grids
4. Gilbert and Sullivan work: OPERETTA - filled via perps; I recognize the names, but not their legacy
5. Abrade: CHAFE - not SCUFF
6. Club record holder?: LIVE DJ - not a unique fill
7. "The Kite Runner" boy: AMIR - a name, #6, a book, and a movie - it's IMDb
8. Part: ROLE
9. Yemen neighbor: OMAN - geo name #7
10. Deceptive layer: VENEER - I suppose "deceptive" refers more to a persona, than, say, furniture
11. Amanda Gorman's "An __ We Owe": ODE - the poem, here; name (ish)
12. Latin law: LEX - oops, not RES; I can't remember a 'thing' 🙄
13. Boom operator's need?: TNT - har-har; trying to be fresh with a stale fill
21. Cybercommerce: eTAIL
22. Audit firm exec: CPA - Certified Public Accountant, CW staple
25. Spellbound: AGOG - Dah~! Not AWED; only 25% correct
26. "Dirt Cheap" country singer Johnson: CODY - the sentimental YouTube music video, name #8
27. Terminus: END
30. "From the top": AGAIN
31. Kim Possible sidekick __ Stoppable: RON - name #9 - Here's a family tree I found - I also noted that the Downy in-wash scent booster "Unstopables" product is spelled wrong . . .
Coor's Artic Ice ( missing the inner c ) is another example
32. Cusack of the "Toy Story" franchise: JOAN - I tried John, her brother, just one letter off, but still Bzzzzt~! name #10
34. Skyrocket: SOAR
37. Lighting effect: AURA - I tried HALO . . .
38. Lunch hour, for some: NOON - neither ONE PM nor TWO PM would fit
39. Mop & __: GLO - More product spelling trickery - from founders John Mop & Tom Glo 😜
I don't use Mop & Glo, but I do have the spin bucket
40. "__ luck!": LOTSA - two Fridays in a row with this answer
41. How viral videos might be played: ON REPEAT - also not a unique fill
42. Short decline: DIP - I notice the price of gasoline spikes, but only "dips" back to its previous level
46. With quick movements: NIMBLY
47. Clinch: ICE - like a playoff spot
48. Rodeo cry: "YEEHAW~!" - has made two other crosswords
50. Half of a meditative refrain: INHALE - Exhale . . . Omm . . .
Eddie Van "Inhalen"
51. Film compositions: SCORES - Ah. I filled in FRAMES; well, they are composed of frames . . .
54. Collar supports: STAYS
55. Dada pioneer Max: ERNST - name #11, but I learned this from doing crosswords - bizarre stuff
57. Fries alternative: TOTS - I got flak from my gym class people because I made my shepherd's pie "wrong" - tater tots are not the "same thing" as mashed potatoes 🙄
...and then my trainer says "It does look good~!"
58. Out of control: AMOK
59. Not natural: MADE - I guess . . . Friday vague
60. Hypotheticals: 'IFs' - A Pulp Fiction quote two weeks in a row . . . here's the NSFW clip with Jules on the phone to Mr. Wallace
61. Ranch sound: MOO - take your guess; BAA, MAA, "GIT~!" 😜
62. Put on: DON - "on" and "on" in clue & answer, a bit weak . . . but then again, the alternate is a name
Splynter
Grid Flow 22.7
22 comments:
The themed entries
became obvious quickly; however, some of the “little” words, like “tris” were not so easy to get. So this was, after all, a Friday-worthy puzzle.
Anyway, FIR, so I’m happy.
Good morning!
Methinks the saga of John MOP and Tom GLO is suss. Splynter and I were chugging along the same wrong track with Awed/AGOG and rEs/LEX. Paul Stookey (Peter, Paul, and Mary) explained Churchill's Vee sign. -- Everyone knows that Churchill smoked a cigar which he nestled into the Vee. The hand signal actually asks, "Want a drag?" Thanx, John Michael, the themers were cute and the perps were kind. Excellent expo, Splynter.
What do the theme answers have in common besides the repetition? I really want this theme to be tighter than it looks.
I thought REF REFERENCE was clever, because REF can be short for REFERENCE. So I assumed that was the gimmick until JAR JARGON proved me wrong. And then ANALOG ANALOGY comes along and shows that the length of the repeated bit isn't consistent either.
Maybe it's something to do with figures of speech? METAPHOR and IRONY are related to this but JARGON is not. So that's not the connection.
I'm really trying to find a common thread that makes this theme actually a theme. "Wacky phrase made of a short word + a longer word that starts with the short word" isn't exactly hard to accomplish or all that interesting. You could make a full theme set with just animals, for example. CAT CATASTROPHE! COW COWARDICE! BOA BOASTING! BULL BULLETIN! And so on.
Took 11:28 today to finish this cross crossword.
Spent a good chunk of the time trying to make sense of the top-center. Not knowing "Oviedo" didn't help, and I thought "claro" was 'clear' from my long-ago Spanish class days. I had "DJ" but struggled to come up with "live" (trying "rave") and I didn't know "The Kite Runner" boy (Amir).
Patience and perseverance and lucky guesses enabled the finish.
Not a fun puzzle, but I guess it was Friday worthy.
FIR. This took more time than usual even taking into consideration that it's Friday.
Ironically when I started off in the NW, I thought this was going to be somewhat easy. Was I ever wrong. There were way too many obscure proper names which made things most difficult.
I got the theme early on and that helped a bit. But 6D ending in "dj" had me flummoxed for a while. The top center was the last to fall.
Overall not an enjoyable puzzle.
It was a toughie today but I managed to finish. CLARO and AVILA were unknowns, HTTP or HTML, TATA or CIAO, SPCA or PETA, SEARS or CHARS, nobody says AH ME, I've never paid an ATM FEE (use my own bank),and it's obvious why GM discontinued the VOLT. A twurd of a car for the same price as a Tesla. The north was almost blank and I figured out the theme at IRON IRONY. At least OPERETTA was a gimme.
CODY, FOOL, ODE, JOAN (John wouldn't work), RON Stoppable, and TIS for affirmation all took perps. The puzzle was a tough one and I passed the TEST today.
Saturday? Probably not.
Musings
-The best a REF can hope for is to not be mentioned at all.
-Veteran pilot to gunner, “Bogies at 3 o’clock!” Gen Z gunner, “Huh?”
-I use HTTP to get to my blog which is written in HTML
-Oh, that shout out is to the bleachers not from them
-Giving half the peace sign changes the entire message :-)
-My DW struggles to remember that the suflower seed waste left in our bird feeders is chaff and not CHAFE
-I have lived on the US Hwy 30 all my life. Its western Terminus/END is in Astoria, OR.
-While teaching, my lunch hour has never been NOON. It has varied from 11:30 to 1:30
-Field goal kickers are often called on to ICE a game
-I’ve never used collar STAYS but have used this device
-Subbing today where HS and MS track meets and music contests have pretty much emptied the halls.
I had no trouble with this CW. In fact I really enjoyed it. RON was my only unknown name. The theme was neat and easy.
Some clever clues like the one for IMDB. I remember the movie Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead.
Thank you Splynter. Airplane the movie is always a good source of REFERENCE. I wanted more of that scene.
Happy first of May, the beginning to the loveliest month of the year. It celebrates my wedding anniversary, Mother’s Day, and my birthday. 😜
I found it tougher than a usual Friday, and not in a good way. Two really substandard sections which included a Spanish language test, two geography tests (as if I could care any less where Ms. Teresa was born), someone fictional named AMIR, tarot cards, and two more proper nouns (IFDB and SONY). That type of reliance on trivia all jammed into two small segregated segments is not at all enjoyable for me.
My favorite answer was JarJargon. (But it made me think of Jar Jar Binks). But I finally gave up on the middle North answers. O---M being OhMom never came to mind.
As far as the Volt, it actually had a lot of advanced technology for its time. Not many people know that, in 2011, GM traded off its advanced battery and electric car technology to China. Now look at cheap Chinese electric cars eating into all the legacy car manufactures' sales.
Oops..meant H---M being HiMom
Good Morning:
Sorry but this was not my cup of tea. Too many unknowns, too many overly cutesy clues, and an, arguably, inconsistent theme. The difficulty level was certainly Friday-worthy, but the juice wasn’t worth the squeeze for this solver.
Thanks, John Michael, and thanks, Splynter, for the honest and balanced review. The clip of those lacking analog time-telling abilities is sad, indeed.
Have a great day.
A few thoughts:
---"Rosencrantz and Guildenstern" made me think of "R and G are Dead," the play by Tom Stoppard, who we just lost a few months ago;
---The word TAME is embedded in the last theme answer, and that's kind of how I saw today's puzzle;
---nice to see Gilbert & Sullivan make an appearance;
---the clue for CLARO would set it perhaps in Madrid on a Monday, but on a Friday it's in Oviedo;
---a part of Oman sits directly on the Strait of Hormuz opposite Iran;
---thanks, JMC and Splynter, for supplying us with a fun Friday diversion.
Sometimes I FIW but enjoy the puzzle. Today’s experience was the inverse: I FIR, but I felt like should have been paid for it.
I sometimes count “annoyances,” which can be unknowns like CODY Johnson; vague or misleading clues; and/or clunky entries. The latter category encompassed the general tenor of the theme entries today. IRON IRONY and JAR JARGON are just plain lame, and META METAPHOR requires more knowledge of what “meta” means than most people have. There were 30 annoyances today, which is the threshold for a flawed puzzle often reached by brainy young Saturday constructors.
As someone already said, I guess it was Friday-worthy, but it was not a fun puzzle.
Interesting Friday puzzle, many thanks, John Michael. And Splynter, your commentary and pictures are always a pleasure, so thanks for those too.
Well, finding CIAO, which usually suggests 'Good Bye', as the first word of this puzzle was a bit strange, given that the next line gives us 'HI MOM'. You'd think CIAO would have appeared at the end, rather than the beginning. But we're soon encouraged to calm down, and enjoy some PEACE, maybe even in EDEN. But there's still a bit of drama in this puzzle, including some pleasant items, like that OPERETTA right at the beginning, along with IT HELP and the encouragement to INHALE. It gets even a little crazier with that rodeo YEE HAW. Well, it's NOON, so let's avoid any PANIC and just drink some ALES and enjoy a pleasant lunch on this nice morning TODAY.
Have a happy and lovely day, everybody.
A Friday worthy level of difficulty.
I found the clueing to be contrived and too cutesy.
I’m not sure if that was the constructors choice or if the editorial team decided to show their superior knowledge and ruin the fun.
As said by others the juice wasn’t worth the squeeze.
The best part of this was Splynters’ recap. Always informative and entertaining.
H-Gary@9:27. It took me a bit to figure out the to/from bleachers thing, too.
Also, when I was a teacher, my lunch hour was never an "hour". No time to leave campus and run errands. I'm sure you can relate.
Thanks to John Michael Currie! FAV themer was ANALOG ANALOGY. "Two-digit sign" was fun, too.
Thanks to Splynter as well! Once again, you've found a clever title for the puzzle and added spot on videos. Loved the VENEER comic, too.
Hola! A puzzle is a puzzle is a puzzle in my opinion. Though it may not be to everyone's liking, John Michael gave us a challenge. I accepted it and finished in a reasonable time. The bottom came together first, and I noted HGary's home city, OMAHA. The TODAY Show also emerged easily as did the rest of that section. All the way, it was hard won letter by letter until the end.
It's been many, many years since our book club read THE KITE RUNNER and I could not recall AMIR. ALEXA helped. I'm an avid fan of St. TERESA and AVILA is a beautiful city which I visited on my first trip to Spain.
Enjoy your day, everyone!
Thanks again, John Michael and splynter.
I started slow but soon realized the theme and things fell together quickly. I enjoyed this one and have no gripes. Thanks for the always humorous recap MM.
DNF, getting stalled around International Falls. Didn't know what language was spoken in Oviedo, where Mother Teresa was born, who the kite kid was (other than Charlie Brown,) and couldn't come up with _I_E DJ. Didn't help that I had iran where OMAN was supposed to be.
CSO @ PETA, since their world HQ is a mile or so away from my home.
I do remember TODAY Out Your Way with Dave Garroway. TODAY has enjoyed a much longer run than its NBC stablemate, (crossword favorite) SNL.
Who's your favorite film composer? I think mine would be a tie between Henry Mancini and John Williams.
Two of my favorite singers have birthdays today. Judy Collins, the heartthrob subject of the CSN classic Suite: Judy Blue Eyes, is 87. Rita Coolidge, the golden voice behind her album The Lady's Not For Sale, is 81.
Thanks to S[lynter for another fine review.
Finicky Friday. Thanks for the fun, John and Splynter.
Like Monkey, I sorta (not LOTSA) liked this CW. Figuring out the REFERENtial theme helped the fill. But I still had LOTSA inkblots.
The cross of CLARO and AMIR was almost a Natick, but I WAGged the A (thinking of clarity).
Hand up for Awed before AGOG.
I had nON Stoppable, but RON was a play on that.
I had Yippee Before YEEHAH, and with only the pa ending for 63A I guessed Tampa. Bzzt. Sorry HuskerG. Canadian disadvantage. Finally that area cleared and OMAHA showed up.
Hamlet (II.ii): Polonius famously says, "That 'tis true 'tis pity; / And pity 'tis 'tis true". TIS a quaint affirmation!
Somewhere, I saw a skit with a Gen Z scavenger hunt using a map, clock, rotary phone, telephone book. It was hilarious and sad at the same time. But some of us Boomers might be just as hilarious if tested with some modern computer technology.
Wishing you all a great day.
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