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 |
One bad letter. I just
ReplyDeletecould 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!
ReplyDeleteLooked 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.
ReplyDeleteAt 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.
Thanks for the memories. I had not thought of Mason Williams in an eternity.
DeleteBlame It On Rio is my favorite Michelle Johnson movie. My favorite Michael Caine movie is Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, co-starring Steve Martin.
DeleteI re-watched both movies recently, and still enjoyed them for the same reasons as before.
My goodness, thinking which Michael Caine movie was my favorite made me IMDB him, but honestly, I can't choose just one. Just looking the list made me wonder if he held the record for most movie roles, but that goes to some guy in India who did over a thousand religious movies. In the U.S.A. List he has 177 roles to date, and is somewhere around 30 in line. I could not find out who currently has the most, because there were so many ads on this site it crashed my iPad! but the list was fascinating. I got stuck somewhere in the teens countdown with Ward Bond...
DeleteI 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.
ReplyDeleteHappy hump day indeed, thanks Sala
Lemonade, you've read his reviews. Mal-Man is automatically drawn to anything cheesy.
DeleteCheesy 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.
DeleteLOL!
DeleteFIR. 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.
ReplyDeleteI needed the reveal to get the theme, and I must admit it was clever.
But overall not an enjoyable puzzle.
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.
ReplyDeleteHowever, 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.
I have seen this a couple of times when reading comments. What does FIR mean?
ReplyDeleteIt means "Finished it right." Check out the Comments Section Abbreviations.
DeleteI'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.
ReplyDeleteOh--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.
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.
DeleteActually, I had no problem with GNAR as I assumed it was short for GNARLY
ReplyDeleteMusings
ReplyDelete-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 were 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 William Tell Overture, the audience, especially those of us with some miles on our tires, comes alive. Hi Yo Silver!
-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.
Nicely done puzzle! And great blog!
ReplyDeleteGreat midweek measure of challenge. Interesting & enjoyable clues and fills.
Fun elaborating info and examples.
Caution: tmi ahead☺️ I did not know “gnarl”, & w/ the “a” in place from “eave” I impulsively filled “eat” for “scoop up”. But then saw it had to be “that’s my bad”! So went back and did a letter run to finish with “nab” to “gnarl”. Done! - I thought …. But on review, caught my brain-fart of “a” instead of “e” at end of “Tevye”. Finally, it was all sorted and complete with just 3 write-over letters. And quickly. And - I then noticed - having done the fill in a counter-clockwise sweep from NE corner down and around to finish at due North (may be a first in 60+ yrs of solves).
Thank you all❣️ and, to all, a great day❣️
I see I am not the only one who gnashed their teeth at gnar...
ReplyDeleteToday was a much better day at finding silly theme links, so many it's hard to choose...
my pick.
dishonorable mention.
just plain silly...
and, and honorable mention...
WMOS re GNAR. When it perped in I figured it was short for GNARLY, but I bet even hard-core snow skiers seldom if ever say "GNAR".
ReplyDeleteFWH in 14. I had red-letter help turned on and they popped up in a few places mostly due to me not taking the time to look at perps first. I did get the theme.
I've never seen radishes on a taco. DNK AMUSE as clued.
Thanx SW for the fun, and thanx MalMan for the terrific write-up. That picture of all the parmesan wheels looks like it could supply the planet for a year! Amazing amount of cheese!
Some discussion of movies. Yesterday I re-watched "Passengers". I saw it years ago, thought it was good, so re-watched it. Excellent movie, you need to watch it.
The PLANE clue reminded me of when I lived in Gainesville GA in the mid 70's, and had a friend with an airplane. He invited me to go for a ride. When we got to the airport and walked down the row of small planes, I looked at the fossil at the end of the row, and thought to myself, "Any plane but that one", but sure enough that was his plane: an aluminum 1947 Piper Clipper. We flew over Lake Lanier and he dove and buzzed several sailboats, a definite no-no. Somebody got his tail number, reported him, and he had to flee the state to avoid having his plane confiscated.
D.O.@5:34 you mention a corporate dinner. I once went to a corporate dinner that was a buffet ONLY serving sushi and sashimi. Up until then I had refused to eat raw fish, but I was very hungry, so forced to eat the sushi rolls. I discovered that I LOVED it. Learning moment.
Good Morning:
ReplyDeleteThis was a pretty crunchy solve but perps were fair for the most part. Gnar/Nab was vague but the only logical answer. I liked the theme, except my memory of a confession start is Bless me Father, for I have sinned. Could be regional differences, though. The added Jewish references, Challah, Tevye, and Schlep, gave us a secondary, albeit brief, theme.
Thanks, Sala, for a fun solve and thanks, MalMan, for a fun and funny review. Your humor and punning talents are as sharp as ever.
I’m not a big basketball fan but I am excited about the Knicks showdown. After such a long championship drought, they’re poised to win the crown. I hope!
Have a great day.
I never root for a New York City team in general - but I AM rooting for the Knicks this year, as one of their starters OG Anunoby grew up here in Jefferson City and went to my kids' high school. Also Landry Shamet is from KC my hometown.
DeleteTook 3:54 today to fess up.
ReplyDeleteThe clue/answer combo for "gnar" is, unfortunately, what I will remember about this puzzle. Well, maybe that and that there we no actresses (but there was "Ava", a director).
I second what our dear unclefred said: Passengers is a great movie.
Perfect puzzle for a Wednesday. I think ANSANA has appeared several times in the past weeks. We have two lab puppies in training for Guide Dog for the Blind in our yoga class. They are much better at “downward dog” pose than me. LOL
ReplyDeleteThis was one of the most clever, enjoyable puzzles I’ve done in a while! I live in the land of fault lines. I’m between San Andreas Fault and the Calaveras Fault. They pretty much behave themselves! I was stumped by “gnar”, however I was sure of the perps. So I FIR. Thank you Sala and MalMan!
ReplyDeleteHola! First, my one nit; I have never, ever, put a RADISH on a taco! and never will. Also I'm with IM, it's BLESS ME FATHER. That's the way I learned it and have taught it. Otherwise the puzzle was smooth and easy enough to finish. But I had GEAR instead of GNAR and never went back to correct it.
ReplyDeleteI once had a recipe that called for CHALLAH and found a nearby bakery that sold it. That's my only experience with it.
In my family we have people with all those names, LUNA, my late cousin, RALPH, and AVA.
Have an exceptional day, everyone!
Hand up weird NAB clue made GNAR almost impossible to get. But I guess it is a Friday, right? Otherwise enjoyable.
ReplyDeleteVery interesting Wednesday puzzle, many thanks, Sala. And your commentary and pictures were a pleasure, thanks for those too, MalMan.
ReplyDeleteWell, if that MASON started to GAUGE the size of women's BRAS, he might hear a lot of people RANT and might end up having to say THAT'S MY BAD, and GUILTY AS CHARGED, and FORGIVE ME FATHER. That'll give him a chance to BREATHE easier, and take some ANISE to STEER clear of getting a headache. After a tough morning like that he should probably take a nap to get some rest. Then later he might go out to see the sports PLAY OFFS, and after supper, go out with his wife to see an OPERA. I'd say by then he's past the FAULT LINES, and should play a FIFE to AMUSE his friends and family.
Have a lovely afternoon and evening, everybody.
I didn’t think this was all that hard, even with the several unknowns I was able to FIR w/out help in 9:57. Benevolent perps got me the unknown GNAR, TEVYE/ROVER, (the V was a WAG), AMUSE and IONIC (as clued, thought that was a type of architecture). THATS MY BAD isn’t in my vocabulary. Didn’t know SCHLEP was also a noun. RALPH Fiennes was brilliant playing the evil Amon Goth in ‘Schindler’s list’. I agree with Lucy and IM☘️ about the first line of a confession. Very enjoyable puzzle and recap, thank you Sala and MM,
ReplyDeleteAs per IM and Lucina, this Greek Catholic baptized, Roman Catholic raised atheist who grew up in the Cleveland area, also remembers it as "Bless me Father for I have sinned".
ReplyDeleteI also remember sitting in mass at around 7 or 8 years of age and looking around our (St. Patrick's) church...the crucifix above and behind the altar, a statue of St. Patrick with his staff and clover (the Trinity) and snakes on one side of the altar, a statue of the Virgin Mary on the other side of the altar, and the "Stations of the Cross" up and down the sides of the church...and thinking... how can these people believe this crap.