Jared Cappel has been constructing for several years now, and has
appeared in all the major publications including four times here.
Today's puzzle is brought to you by the letters U and R.
57. "Correct!," or a phonetic hint to 18-, 24-, 34-, and 52-Across: RIGHT YOU ARE. Rephrased as RIGHT UR, the revealer tips us off that all the theme answers end in UR on the RIGHT.
18. Malaysian capital: KUALA LUMPUR. KUALA LUMPUR's modern skyline is dominated by the 1,483 foot-tall Petronas Towers, a pair of glass-and-steel-clad skyscrapers with a sky-bridge between them at the 41st floor.
24. Flying reptile of the Mesozoic Era: PTEROSAUR. PTEROSAURs were warm-blooded flying reptiles and are the earliest vertebrates known to have evolved powered flight.
34. Required by etiquette: DE RIGUEUR. This is a French loanword meaning if you want to fit into a specific crowd or event, doing certain things is mandatory, such as wearing a fancy hat at the Kentucky Derby.
52. Frothy cocktail from Peru: PISCO SOUR. A PISCO SOUR is a frothy, tart South American cocktail made with pisco (a grape brandy).
It occurs to me that Jared started with the revealing phrase, then looked up a bunch of non sequitur words that fit the pattern. The thing they have most in common, for me anyway, is they're all hard to spell. Do you concur?
Let's scour the rest:
Across:
1. Command that might precede "paw": SIT. We say SHAKE, not PAW. Who's a good boy?
 |
| Buster doing his Wookiee impression |
4. Response to "You awake?": I'M UP. Not quite the response I wanted. "I am now!" sounds more like it.
8. Home of the Zambezi: AFRICA.
14. Logical beginning?: ECO. ECOlogical.
15. Cosmic explosion: NOVA. Far out, man!
16. Racket: CLAMOR.
17. __ Speedwagon: REO. A rock band named after a car named after a person: Ransom Eli Olds.
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| Ransom Olds at the wheel of his 1905 Curved Dash Oldsmobile |
18. [theme]
20. TV spot sellers: AD REPS. AD REPresentatives.
22. __ Dhabi: ABU.
23. Fragrant tree: PINE.
24. [theme]
26. Group people are smart to join?: MENSA. RightBrain is very sharp. She's a member of WOMENSA.
27. Approved of, on social media: HEARTED. If you double-tap on a picture someone sent you, it sends back a HEART emoji which is similar to a "like." ❤️ Unfortunately, I sometimes receive a serious work photo and accidentally double-tap it while trying to enlarge it. 😬
28. "Brokeback Mountain" star Heath: LEDGER. The Australian actor accomplished a lot in his 28 years. He was in 20 movies and won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar posthumously for his iconic portrayal of the Joker in the 2008 film The Dark Night.
29. Method of driving people to the mall?: SALE. Winner: Best Clue. Could've been UBER, LYFT or TAXI.
30. Pig __: LATIN. Ig-pay atin-lay.
33. Unlikely pair?: ELS. A letteral clue. There are two Ls in "unlikely."
34. [theme]
38. Includes on an email: CCS. Carbon CopieS. If you want to include someone on an email without other recipients knowing, you BCC them - Blind Carbon Copy.
41. Physical effort: LABOR.
42. Give off: EMIT.
46. Request from someone in need of cuddling: HOLD ME.
48. "Way to go!": NICE ONE.
51. Fields of study: AREAS. Here's a field of study:
52. [theme]
54. __ Kringle: KRIS. I liked how this crossed with SLEIGHS, even though it's the beginning of summer.
55. Journalist Rather: DAN. The Texas-born journalist anchored the CBS Evening News for 24 years. He often peppered his speech with folksy phrases like, "Don't taunt the alligator until after you've crossed the creek."
56. Some dealmakers: AGENTS.
57. [theme]
60. "__ willikers!": GEE. Possibly said by DAN Rather when covering the Watergate Scandal.
61. Stick like glue: ADHERE.
62. Treat like a pariah: SHUN.
63. Surgery ctrs.: ORS. Operating RoomS.
64. Gives lip to: SASSES.
65. Jet stream direction: EAST. Jet streams are westerlies, which seems counterintuitive, but it just means they blow from the west to the EAST. There are four primary jet streams globally: two polar jets and two subtropical jets that affect everything from weather to airline flights.
66. Ellipsis component: DOT. More to come...
Down:
1. Highest-order angels: SERAPHS. I know them as SERAPHIM.
2. Lipton beverage: ICED TEA.
3. Uncomfortably close to home: TOO REAL.
4. Place to dip a quill: INK POT. More commonly known as an ink well. As I slooowly work on my great American novel, I joined a writing group called Ink Well, a clever pun (with clever people in it, but they let me join anyway).
5. Creamy chocolate dessert: MOUSSE.
6. Cavaliers sch.: UVA. When I attended the University of Virginia in the 70s, they had a wild blowout in the spring called Easters, ostensibly to shake off the winter doldrums. Thousands of East Coast college students made the pilgrimage to Charlottesville to help celebrate what Playboy called the "Best Party in the Country." My jeans were never quite blue again.
 |
| Massive weekend parties and mud slides! |
7. Country in Micronesia whose largest city is Koror: PALAU. While Micronesia refers to a broad subregion of Oceania with over 600 islands in the western Pacific Ocean, PALAU is politically distinct from the Federated States of Micronesia.
8. Org. with a People Power grassroots network: ACLU. The American Civil Liberties Union.
9. Winter bug: FLU.
10. Increased, with "up": RAMPED.
11. Encroach (on): IMPINGE.
12. Advice: COUNSEL. On advice of COUNSEL, I cannot confirm nor deny that I got pretty drunk on Easters Weekend.
13. Overdue debts: ARREARS.
19. Unlike the OED: ABR. The 20-volume set of the Oxford English Dictionary is about 40" wide, so obviously not ABRidged. You can look it up.
21. Messed up: ERRED.
25. Make up on the spot: AD-LIB. AD-LIB is short for the Latin ad libitum, meaning "at one's pleasure."
26. List that may be opened with a QR code: MENU. A QR (Quick Response) code is similar to a bar code, but it stores 10 times more data.
 |
| Kinda looks like a crossword puzzle! |
28. Tell tales: LIE.
31. Before now: AGO.
32. Spoils: TURNS.
35. Stately trees: ELMS.
36. "Call Me Maybe" singer Carly __ Jepsen: RAE. Carly Rae Jepsen is a Canadian singer, songwriter, and actress who first gained attention in 2007 as a third-place finisher on Canadian Idol. Her 2011 single “Call Me Maybe” became the 21st century's best-selling single by a female artist.
37. Angel who plays for Rose BC in the Unrivaled league: REESE. Unrivaled is a professional 3-on-3 women’s basketball league. It gives top players a high-paying, domestic alternative to playing overseas during the WNBA off-season. Men in the NBA are not allowed to play anywhere in the off-season, but they don't need to as they earn 20 times as much.
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| Angel Reese of the Rose Basketball Club |
38. Energy points in yoga: CHAKRAS.
39. Bullfight, in Spain: CORRIDA. Derived from the Spanish phrase CORRIDA de toros, "a running of the bulls."
40. Vehicles with runners: SLEIGHS. A famous red one is helmed by KRIS Kringle.
43. Lunar deity: MOON GOD. Virtually every ancient civilization had a lunar deity. Back then, there was no TV so the moon was the only thing to watch at night.
44. Prenatal: IN UTERO. IN UTERO is Latin for "in the womb."
45. Least loquacious: TERSEST. Yes.
47. Short races: DASHES. Not DOTS...which are ellipses.
49. Mythical figure who flew too close to the sun: ICARUS. He should've gone at night, but he was too busy watching MOON GOD reruns.
50. Convincing: COGENT. As in an argument stating a case.
52. Kung __ shrimp: PAO. Kung PAO Shrimp is a classic Sichuan stir-fry that pairs shrimp with a savory, sweet, and tangy sauce, toasted peanuts, and a spicy kick of dried chilies (which add the POW).
53. Occupied: IN USE.
55. Salon stock: DYES.
58. Three, in Italian: TRE. Derived from the Latin "tres."
59. "I get it now!": AHA. We all had to wait until the end for our AHA moment.
Be good. RB
16 comments:
It took some doing, but I
got it, even though I didn’t really know the French word, the liqueur, etc. Getting the reveal was helpful in solving this puzzle in entirety.
FIR, so I’m happy.
Being on the early end of the comments for this one, I don't want to say anything that sets the tone. So, I'll just say it was the most inane theme in recent corner history. I will withhold further comment till others chime in.
Urm… never mind.
Good morning!
Never noticed the theme, but didn't notice the reveal, either. Still, this one is going into the win column. When REESE showed up, I was thinking Peewee. Angel never occured to me. I do enjoy watching the occasional WNBA game. I like that they're very fast, even though I don't understand all the rules. Thanx, Jared and Rusty.
Angel Reese is a bad person (ask Caitlin Clark) as was Dan Rather (ask any honest journalist). Prof M , I’m with you
Took 4:49 today - much less than an hoUR.
I had no idea what was going on with the theme and didn't properly parse the French in the middle (de rigueur), not that it would've mattered. Seemed like a lot of geography early-on (Africa, Palau, Kuala Lumpur, Abu Dhabi), plus there was a Spanish bullfight, a Peruvian drink, an Italian number, and a Chinese shrimp.
No actress again today? At least I knew the singer (Rae) and WNBA player (Reese).
FIR, but snub->SHUN, pumped->RAMPED, and thanks to the theme, tenser->TERSER.
HOLD ME is a great song and was a big hit by Mel Carter. A little before my time, but I remember that my sisters loved it. The earlier Connie Francis version didn't have the same pizzaz.
I won't say that DAN Rather was a bad person, but he certainly tarnished CBS News.
FLN - Thanks to all who helped me with the church statement by Anon. I read the comment to mean that on one side of the church there was a statue of St. Pat, and also some snakes. Now I get that there weren't any live snakes, they were just immortalized in the sculpture.
Thanks to Jared for the toughie Thursday puzzle. And thanks to Rusty Brain for another chuckle-worthy review.
FIW. I took a WAG at the crossing of Reese and pisco sour and missed it by that much.
I get that Thursday's are hard, but they're not supposed to be arcane. This was that and then some.
The theme was totally lame. Even after completing the puzzle I couldn't suss out the gimmick.
Overall this was a very unenjoyable puzzle.
I truly believe the WNBA exists to give crossword constructors inane clues
On this date in Blog History
Anonymous T's first comment.
He then comments from time to time, often engaging with Bill G on Bill's math and logic quizzers, always as Anonymous with a "-T" closing tag.
On July 14th, Old Man Keith addresses him as "Anonymous T" and on the 19th he considers that as his avatar name.
And finally on July 22nd we get his first comment with a Blogger account and avatar.
I'd like to personally acknowledge Anonymous -T (abbreviated to Dash T by a few of us) for his significant contribution to this blogspot. He wrote the program that dramatically decreased the amount of tedious effort and time suck required by the daily bloggers.
Before his program, each of us had to manually create the list of all of the clues and then bold the answers, all before starting any embellishments. . With his program, C.C. now distributes .txt files with all of the tedium done. This allows the daily bloggers to focus on adding their explanations, images, videos, and links with the end result of creating (IMO) much more interesting reviews.
I know that C.C. very much appreciates it, as do the puzzle bloggers that create and publish the reviews. A great contribution to this blogspot.
Thanks Dash T, and Happy (blogspot) Anniversary of your first comment here!
I enjoyed all the geography in this puzzle as pointed out above. Granted the theme was a little lame, it couldn’t have been easy to find all those UR words.
I liked this CW. It had just enough crunch to make it interesting but not many proper names, and the few there were, I knew.
Thank you RB for the fine review. Buster is a charmer.
I enjoyed today's puzzle by Jared, as well as RB's helpful recap. The theme was straightforward, directing us to phonetically put "YOU ARE" (U-R) at the right end of each theme answer.
And in the process we were provided a teachable moment in such areas as geography and language. Thanks, Jared, for an enjoyable Thursday-appropriate challenge.
NICE ONE, A-t, and thank you TTP for the info.
Musings
-An obscure drink and soccer (I think) player made for one bad cell in this nice puzzle.
-This just in, The Angel REESE reference was about an WNBA player/personality who also plays in the even less well known Unrivaled League.
-I played a lot of vowel roulette for de rigueur. Would this be used in the Scripps Spelling Bee?
-Sue Grafton probably never wrote a mystery novel entitled, “P is for PTEROSAUR”
-Yes, RB, my mall shopper first took an UBER to get to the SALE
-This AGENT is ruthless!
-Jet Stream: Flying from Honlulu to LAX takes about 15 minutes less than the other way around
-Yes, I’m old enough to have had an opening for an INK POT on my sled runner high school desk
-I’d like to add my thanks to Tony for simplifying our blogging effort. My typing skills would not have held up.
RIGHT YOU ARE? Yes, I did FIR but the perps helped me spell words I knew but not their spellings, KUALA LUMPUR, PTEROSAUR, and DE RIGUEUR. The Kung PAO Chicken I bought last week and LSU's Angel REESE finished the drink I'd never heard before, PISCO SOUR.
I'd never heard of the Unrivaled league. Thanks to Caitlin Clark, the WNBA has raised the minimum salaries, maybe these girls won't have to play overseas to make ends meet. My neighbor's daughter played 10 years in the WNBA and also played in Europe and China during the off season.
LEDGER was unknown. PALAU was a guess over SAMOA.
INK WELL was one letter too long, so POT filled what nobody under 70 has ever used. Our school didn't allow fountain pens until the 8th grade and I used them with the bottle of in one year. Ink cartridges came out the next year, and then BIC came out with the 19-cent ball points. I never used a fountain pen after that. Pencil in grades 1-7, pencil and ink in 8th, and ball-point after that.
Never heard of that REESE or PISCO. Not sure I want to drink something called PISCO. Thought it might be REEVE and PIVCO. Just me?
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