Good Morning, Cruciverbalists. Malodorous Manatee here with the recap of a Wednesday puzzle by Sala Wanetick. Here is a link to an article published about Sala when she had her NY Times Crossword debut in 2024: Southfield Native Makes NYT Crossword Debut
For today's offering (and this is not her LAT debut) Sala shakes up seismic matters by turning faults into, well, faults. Let us start with the reveal:
56 Across: Fractured spots in the earth's crust, or what 17-, 23-, and 49-Across are: FAULT LINES.
As in earthquake faults. However, in this case FAULT LINES become what one might say when they are at fault as in being guilty of a misdeed or a mistake. All are self-explanatory. The mea culpas (culpae ?) appear at these three places within the grid:
17 Across: "I messed up": THAT'S MY BAD.
23 Across: First words in a confession booth, often: FORGIVE ME FATHER.
49 Across: "I totally did that, yep": GUILTY AS CHARGED.
Here is the completed grid:
... and below are the other clues and answers:
Across:1. Measuring device: GAUGE. Apropos of 42 Across, what was Patrick Stewart's favorite scale of train? N-gauge.
6. Shred the __: crush a black diamond run, say: GNAR. Derived from "That's gnarly", dude."
10. Bikini tops: BRAS. We'll skip fleshing this one out.
14. Stoneworker: MASON. Apropos of nothing to do with stone work, Dave MASON left us last month.
15. Roof overhang: EAVE. These hang out frequently in our puzzles.
16. Sound off: RANT. After he went on a RANT about certain track and field events I asked my dad "Why don't you like the field events ?" He replied, "I don't want to discus it."
19. Writer Wiesel: ELIE. Perhaps best known for the book
20. Half-inning trio: OUTS. A baseball reference.
21. Go by: ELAPSE.
28. Electric kettle part: SPOUT.
29. Oft-pickled taco topper: RADISH. I had never come across this until about ten days ago when the accomplished-chef son of a friend served this at his mother's birthday dinner.
30. "Fiddler on the Roof" milkman: TEVYE.
31. Kylo of "Star Wars": REN. This time, the clue let's us know up front that it's a Star Wars reference.
32. Flows back: EBBS.
36. Mined find: ORE.
37. Piper Cub, e.g.: PLANE.
39. Gloss target: LIP.
40. Pasta topper, for short: PARM. Parmesan cheese.
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| Photo by MM |
42. "Star Trek" captain Jean-__ Picard: LUC.
43. "Alfie" star Michael: CAINE. What's it all about?
45. Poses such as happy baby and humble warrior: ASANAS. Stances frequently assumed in our puzzles.
48. Hardware not found on a sliding door: HINGE.
53. Historic Harlem theater: APOLLO.
54. Put an end to: HALT.
55. Muscle quality: TONE.
62. Currently working the problem: ON IT.
63. Military flute: FIFE.
64. __-bouche: bite-size freebie: AMUSE. A complimentary, bite-sized portion of food served before a meal or between courses in a restaurant
65. Critics' picks, informally: RECS. RECommendationS
66. Meal for a pig: SLOP.
67. Consequently: HENCE.
Down:
1. Clock-setting std.: GMT. Abbreviated clue (std for standard) . . . . abbreviated answer. Greenwich Mean Time
2. Relaxing sound?: AAH. "Why the question mark?", I hear you ask. A sound you might make when relaxing as opposed to a sound that you find relaxing.
3. Olympic ice hockey gold medalists: Abbr.: USA. 1960, 1980 and 2026. Here, because nothing in the clue is abbreviated Sala alerts us the the answer will be an abbreviation.
4. Right-hand man: GO TO GUY.
5. Like a Jack and Jill bathroom: EN SUITE. An EN SUITE is a bathroom that can only be accessed from within the bedroom. A Jack and Jill bathroom is a bathroom with two doors, usually accessible from two bedrooms. There is no door to the hallway.
6. Old Faithful, e.g.: GEYSER.
7. Scoop up: NAB.
8. Director DuVernay: AVA. A frequent visitor.
9. Change the meaning of: REDEFINE.
10. Get some air?: BREATHE. A clue to be taken literally (despite the ?)
"
11. Actor Fiennes: RALPH. He is known for his roles in Schindler's List, The English Patient, Harry Potter, James Bond, and more.
12. Sambuca flavor: ANISE. Sambuca is an ANISE-flavored liqueur.
13. Turn a corner, perhaps: STEER.
18. "RuPaul's Drag Race" network: MTV.
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| A Real Drag Racer |
22. __ Vegas Aces: LAS. A WNBA reference.
23. Camera setting that affects depth: F-STOP. All you might wish to know: F-STOP Explained
24. Rossini work: OPERA.
25. App that connects pet sitters and pet owners: ROVER.
26. Musical rattles: MARACAS.
27. Old Testament garden: EDEN.
33. Flashy accessories: BLING.
34. Watch episode after episode of: BINGE.
35. Floor it: SPEED. A reference to pressing an automobile's gas pedal to the floor
37. Some postseason games: PLAYOFFS.
38. Moon goddess: LUNA. In the future, will LUNA be clued with something along these lines:
41. Whac-a-Mole whackers: MALLETS.
43. Rosh Hashanah bread: CHALLAH. It's not just for Rosh Hashanah.
44. Broadcast slot: AIRTIME.
46. Letters on a Cardinal: STL. Not a religious prelate reference. A baseball reference.
47. Inconvenient trip: SCHLEP. Today's Yiddish lesson. Used here as a noun although it is also employed as a verb.
49. Croc kin: GATOR.
50. Holding a small lead: UP ONE.
51. Like some chemical bonds: IONIC.
52. Lid: HAT. Slang.
57. Feel crummy: AIL.
58. Blurry craft in tabloid pics: UFO. Now "re-branded" as UAP - Unidentified aerial Phenomena.
59. Religious sister: NUN. A member of an order. Not your sister, Hannah, who keeps kosher.
60. Corner PC key: ESC.
61. Match, in poker: SEE. When a poker player says “I’ll SEE your bet”, they are choosing to match the current wager and stay in the hand rather than fold or raise.
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Well, that will wrap things up for today. Any errors or omissions were definitely my fault.
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| MM OUT |
16 comments:
One bad letter. I just
could not get “gnar” and finally had to ask the crossword app to get the “n” for me.
Oh, well, I guess you can’t win ‘em all!
Good morning!
Looked sideways at GNAR, but let it stand. Whew. D-o was once "treated" to a corporate dinner at a fancy restaurant where it was just a series of "AMUSE Bouche" thingees. D-o was not amused. Thanx, Sala and Mal-Man.
FIR, but snow->GNAR. Ick.
At MASON I thought of MASON Williams and Classical Gas.
My favorite Sir Michael CAINE (nee Maurice Joseph Micklewhite) movie is Blame It On Rio, costarring a teenager named Demi Moore.
Q: Was it the USA men's or USA women's team that won gold? A: Yes.
I always thought that the ACES was too card-game specific for the Vegas WNBA team. Should have called them the Odds because every game in town depends on them.
Thanks to Sala for the fun Humpday puzzle. There were far too many A&E entries for my taste, but perps took care of them. And thanks to our MalMan for delivering another fine review.
I enjoyed the puzzle despite the GNAR which filled with perps and Joseph's fun review. My unknown is why was MM in a storage room filled with Parmigiano.
Happy hump day indeed, thanks Sala
FIR. Talk about crunchy, this was certainly that. I don't mind misdirection but some of the answers left me bewildered. I stared at gnar for a long time because nab as the answer for "scoop up" didn't seem right. It still doesn't. Also "amuse" as clued was bizarre to me.
I needed the reveal to get the theme, and I must admit it was clever.
But overall not an enjoyable puzzle.
Lemonade, you've read his reviews. Mal-Man is automatically drawn to anything cheesy.
Musings
-The gimmick can be hidden in so many ways but this one was completly out in the open
-A principal was hopping mad when I made an innocous decision he didn’t like. I simply said “GUILTY AS CHARGED” and he was then mad that the argument was over.
-ELIE Wiesel spoke in our town and all of us who attended were searched and there was security people everywhere.
-I accompanied my nervous friend on his first attempt to land his Piper Cub at Omaha Eppley Airfield. Yikes!
-My principal was asked to write a REC for a very bad assistant principal. He wrote, “He was always on time.” When pressed for more, he repeated that sentence and the other party got the hint.
-Astronauts use GMT and they call it Zulu. Right now as I type, it is 13:58 Zulu.
-Master Bath has been REDEFINED as EN SUITE.
-Whenever I am at a concert and the orchestra chooses to play the fourth part of Rossini’s Paul Revere Overture, the audience, especially those of us with some miles on our tires, comes alive.
-I got hooked on The Lincoln Lawyer and BINGED that.
-The St. Louis Cardinals now use the nickname The Lou on their uniforms
-I finally talked my DW into not SCHLEPPING the lawn furniture down into the basement for winter
-Jinx, me too on Mason Williams.
Just two little letters kept from FIR. G__ __R. The whole clue was a mystery to me. I often hesitate between eVA and AVA. MEA CULPA MEA CULPA.
However, I found the rest of the puzzle easy and fun. I remember M. CAINE in Alfie.
Thank you MM for the neat review. That’s a lot of PARM.
Thanks for the memories. I had not thought of Mason Williams in an eternity.
Cheesy indeed! In this instance, I was staying at a 14th Century Italian farmhouse that had been converted to an inn. The inn was located in the town of Polesine Parmense and they offered tours of a nearby "Parm" making facility. The wheels were aging on the racks.
I have seen this a couple of times when reading comments. What does FIR mean?
I'm with Lemonade regarding MalMan's photo of all that wonderful Parmesan cheese. Inquiring minds wonder: where the heck was that picture taken? Also, I can see that MM has an artistic eye. His photograph could be in a visual arts textbook explaining linear perspective. But they'd have to explain how a manatee was capable of taking such a beautiful picture.
Oh--today's puzzle. I rather liked it, despite a couple rough spots, like GNAR and REN (re the latter, I am pretty ignorant of all things "Star Wars"). And I had a personal Natick down in the SE: CHALL_H/_MUSE. I lived in France decades ago, and the term "amuse-bouche" did not exist.
A few crossword staples were evident today, including the 4-letter E's: EAVE, EDEN, and ELIE. Sala's theme worked, and I liked that it necessitated two grid-spanners. Sala, I hope to see you back here soon.
Husker, are you sure about that Paul Revere Overture? I've never heard of it.
It means "Finished it right." Check out the Comments Section Abbreviations.
Blame It On Rio is my favorite Michelle Johnson movie. My favorite Michael Caine movie is Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, co-starring Steve Martin.
I re-watched both movies recently, and still enjoyed them for the same reasons as before.
Decades, and more, ago the term used was AMUSE-GUEULE. Somehow it was thought not lady-like enough so the pc term was devised. I still use amuse- gueule.
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