BRING 'B' RING
We have seen Brian's name on crosswords before, but I do believe this is the first for Alex Rossell Hayes, so congrats on your debut~! I loved this puzzle - solid fill, brilliant cluing, it made me smile, and not only is it clever, but in alphabetical order, too - paired A, E, I, O, & U five-letter words 'broken up" to provide some humorous results. Friday level difficulty, but I was on the constructors' wavelength and breezed through, despite the chunky triple-7-letter plus corners. An over-sized 15x16 grid, two handfuls of names, no circles, and an even spread of 3-, 4-, 5-, 6- AND 7-letter words. The themers, no reveal;
18. Vague advice for space travelers worried about black holes?: "AVOID A VOID."
26. Air travel that's the fifth-best option?: "PLAN E" PLANE
36. "My job is ranking people on a scale of 'miffed' to 'downright furious'"?: "I RATE 'IRATE'."
😑😕😖😠😡
"The in-flight meal was unacceptable~! 😡"
51. Juliet's response when her love asks what city is as eternal as their bond?: "ROME, O ROMEO." - "Wherefore art thou~? Not in Rome, and frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn"
60. Helpful draw when trying to play a Q word in Scrabble?: UTILE "U" TILE
ACROSS:
7. Unleash (on): SIC - I had SET to start
10. Chemically quiet: INERT - like the rightmost column in last week's periodic chart
15. Rocker Dee: SNIDER - Name #1, but I knew him because his band, Twisted Sister, were from my home area of Long Island
16. "Industry" network: HBO - had the "H", WAGed the rest
17. Levi's Stadium player: NINER - What if they actually played IN Levi's~?
20. Prickly plants: CACTI
DOWN:
1. Org. with a "Get Ready for Baby" page: SSA - Great new clue for this tired fill, but it took waaay to long for me to find that page on the Social Security Administration website
2. Multiplication, to division: INVERSE - You'd have to "subtract" a letter to fit 'opposite' . . . 🙄
3. Bishop's domain: DIOCESE - nailed it, spelling and all
4. Hard to translate, in a way: IDIOMATIC - "the whole nine ( letters ) yards"
5. Nancy Drew's boyfriend: NED - name #4, and I thought it was NED, but hesitated
7. Slip-ons lack: SHOELACES - nine-letters #2
8. Third-largest of the Balearic Islands: IBIZA - geo name #5
9. Fish oil source: COD
10. Like LOL, but not haha: IN CAPS - slighly Twurdish, but Friday clever - LIKE WHEN PEOPLE TEXT IN CAPS TO INDICATE THEY ARE SHOUTY~!!!!
11. Horan of One Direction: NIALL - no clue, filled via perps, name #6
12. Lesotho, for one: ENCLAVE - learning moment for me; the Wiki
13. Organ parts with rods and cones: RETINAS - I knew we needed an EYEpart, tried CORNEAS - Bzzzzt~!
14. Aquaman's staff: TRIDENT - seemed the logical answer for a "sea-based" superhero
19. __ pen: VAPE - ooof. Friday vague - this thing
23. Honey or sugar: PET NAME - I figured we were looking for something like this
24. Feline: CAT - "Fe" line is sooo last week . . .
25. Pt. of USA: AMERica
27. Far from far: NEAR - har-har
29. Goods people: TRADERS
34. Scope rival: LISTERINE - Solid fill, simple cluing, nine-letters #3
35. Wedding attire, for some: RENTAL TUX - nine-letters #4; I rented my tux for the premiere of "The Golem", the movie I worked on back in 1997-8 - available on YouTube July 20th
37. "Mambo Birdland" Grammy winner Puente: TITO - two weeks in a row; name #7
38. Low digits?: TOES
39. Milky Way kin: MARS BAR
40. Silo: ISOLATE - Phew~! Friday vague - verb def. #2
41. Indonesian island crossed by the equator: SUMATRA - geo name #8
44. Bring up again: RERAISE - e.g. an issue, not the poker version of re-raise
45. Colorful songbirds: ORIOLES - nailed it
46. Sourdough starter?: ESS - Sourdough, meta-clue; my trainer put me on to sourdough bread
48. Charges: GOES AT
50. Product removed by shear force?: WOOL - sheAr, not sheEr
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52. Value system: ETHIC
53. Heavy __: METAL - so, so last week . . .
57. Shut tight: SEAL
61. Thurman of "Gattaca": UMA - crossword staple, name #9
62. Philly summer hrs.: EDT - Philadelphia, PA is currently observing Eastern Daylight Time
Splynter
Grid Flow 59.8 - high
Notes from C.C.:
Happy 71st birthday to dear
Naomi, our brilliant Monday Sherpa! Her Monday write-ups are always
thoughtful, informative, and beautifully crafted. Thanks for all you do
for our blog, Naomi, and have a fantastic birthday!
 |
| NaomiZ |
2) Happy 73rd birthday to YooperPhil, another longtime member of our Crossword Corner family. Wishing you a wonderful birthday and many happy returns!
Once I figured out
ReplyDeletethe theme, it was pretty easy to fill out the “double words” that fit the puzzle. So I have no complaints about it.
FIR, so I’m happy.
Good morning!
ReplyDeleteThings looked bleak in the snow-covered NW, but warmed up as I headed south. That photo of the airplane reminded me of the aircraft graveyard in Tucson, just off I-10. Couldn't remember DIOCESE -- Bishopric wouldn't fit, and I've learned it's not a descriptive term. It was near SUMATRA where our ship crossed the equator, kicking off a shellback ceremony. Folks who'd never crossed aboard a ship were "pollywogs" and needed to be beaten and shamed by the experienced shellbacks. I taped my shellback certificate to the underside of our toilet lid. Thanx for the amusement, Alex, Brian, and Splynter. (Do you suppose I could register myself as a "classic" and stop paying income taxes?)
Happy B-day Naomi~!
ReplyDeleteSplynter
ooops - and YooperPhil, too~!
DeleteOops, I completely forgot to wish a "happy birthday" to our Monday sherpa, NaomiZ and YooperPhil, our upper peninsula denizen. Hope you do something to make it special.
ReplyDeleteEnjoyed the puzzle and the review-thanks to all 3. Reverse seemed to be right but I couldn't get the rest of the clues to agree. And like serener (my spell check doesn't even like the word), laxest, though correct, grates to my reading ears. It fits the rule, but it should be an exception imho (I don't feel all that strongly about it) and most lax used (I guess I'm in favor of ex-laxest).. Happy birthday wishes to NaomiZ and YooperPhil!
ReplyDeleteFIW, refusing to believe that the SSA would have a "get ready for baby" page. Scope creep much? I also missed with Dee SNyDER. Knew him, just not how to spel his name. Finally, I had ASrAM TEA. So It's WHAT KIND of AM TEA? (I've never been a TEA guy. I'll drink unsweetened if I'm at a banquet.)
ReplyDeleteApropos to the above ASS-something TEA, last night's news featured a 77-year-old Florida woman who was upset at being ASSigned license plate "SQZ A55."
In spite of getting some stuff wrong, I really liked this puzzle. One glaring error though - a black hole is the opposite of a void. A black hole is so massive that its gravitational force collapses atoms and doesn't even allow light to escape. Once radiation or matter crosses a black hole's event horizon there is no escape. But that's just an unfortunate clue to clever fill. Thanks to Alex and Brian for the fun workout, and to Splynter for another fine review. Happy birthday to NaomiZ and Phil.
I saw that license plate in the news as well and they said she could exchange it, but now I'd keep it for notoriety. My son got DU1-... which looks like DUI.
DeleteThank you, Alan, Brian, and Splynter.
ReplyDeleteWelcome back, Brian, and congrats on your LAT debut, Alex.
That was a fun Friday, albeit a bit predictable after the first theme answer filled. Not complaining though, because it was still clever. I had a hard time deciding which theme answer is my favorite because each has its merits, but I guess I'll go with UTILE U TILE.
The only real mistake I had was entering Surinam where SUMATRA belonged. Two main issues with that. It is spelled Suriname and Suriname is not an island. Plus, the perps weren't making sense. A delay in my solving time, but mox nix.
Like Splynter, I immediately knew SNIDER, but initially spelled it with a Y. I remember when he testified before Congress.
"The whole nine yards" Clever comment for the answer, Splynter!
Unfortunately, your Tux link didn't link.
Happy Birthday, NaomiZ! You look so happy!
Happy Birthday, YooperPhil! Time to start taking those RMDs!
Splynter, speaking of Heavy METAL, Riot Fest is an annual multi-day concert in the city here. This Sun Times article posted by the local NPR caught my attention.:
ReplyDelete"Move over, Kirk Hammett. Captain Kirk wants to be the next heavy metal star — and he’s kicking things off at Riot Fest, Selena Fragassi reports for the Chicago Sun-Times.
Festival organizers have announced that 95-year-old entertainment icon and apparent metalhead William Shatner will debut his newly assembled band The *uckers on Sept. 20 at Douglass Park on the final day of the fest, joining a lineup that includes Twenty One Pilots, Tool, Alanis Morissette, Patti Smith and Morrissey.
The appearance coincides with Shatner’s forthcoming album on Cleopatra Records, reported to include covers of Black Sabbath, Judas Priest and Iron Maiden, in addition to several original tunes.
Backing him up will be an assembly of metal musicians, including guitarists Marcus Nand (Mike Tramp, Candice Night) and Britt Lightning (Vixen, Cactus), bassist Phil Soussan (Ozzy Osbourne, Billy Idol) and drummer Fred Aching (Kings of Thrash, Dead Groove, Fraxures). [Chicago Sun-Times]"
FIR. For a Friday this wasn't as difficult as some. What snags there were, there were perps in place to help.
ReplyDeleteI got the theme early on and that helped a lot. They were cleverly put together.
Overall an enjoyable puzzle.
Took 6:58 today to finish finish.
ReplyDeleteI knew Dee Snider, but also originally misspelled it with a "y". Speaking of singers, I don't think I knew that Monroe was a singer, other than "Happy Birthday," and I finally spelled "Baez" correctly and remembered "Tito."
The "cremea" on "assamtea" area was the last to fall for me.
And Happy Birthday to
ReplyDeleteNaomi Z (thanks for all your hard work)
and Yooper Phil!
In spite of not finishing, I really liked this puzzle. I just missed the NW. I DNK SNIDER and SSA was not on my mind, and I entered reVERSE.
ReplyDeleteI got the theme at ROME O ROMEO, so the rest was fun to fill. In the SE I first entered tAmEST, but the TUX changed my mind.
Lots of clever clues or misdirections like TRIDENT, IN CAPS, or SLATES. Now, ISOLATE is interesting since it includes the word silo.
Thank you Splynter for an interesting review. Great looking VAN.
Happy birthday to NaomiZ, nice pic, and Yooperphil. 🎉🎊
Whoever wins the World Cup Sunday, OLÉ will be the cheer.
Nice to see Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" make an appearance, aptly clued as one of the theme answers. "R &J" brings to light a tragic side of Italian vendettas. Instead of Hatfield-McCoy, the feuding families of Verona are Capulet and Montague. When Juliet Capulet comments "Wherefore art thou Romeo," she's reflecting on the absurdity that his being a Montague keeps them apart. "Wherefore" means "why": "Why does the fact that you are Romeo Montague have to make a difference in our love?"
ReplyDeleteFast Friday. End of week difficult clues mixed with the obvious plus a theme that easily parsed. But didn’t notice the vowel progression. Nice touch.
ReplyDeleteInkovers: rented tux/RENTAL, hair/WOOL,
Anyone know Lesotho = ENCLAVE?
LAXEST should join serener in the wordsmith circular file.
After “Pulp Fiction” next saw UMA in the fascinating dystopian film “Gattaca” with Jude Law and Ethan Hawke. Never heard SILO used in that way until I served as a board member of an organization striving to avoid the isolation (SILOS) of its various departments .
Speaking of dystopian, anyone
watching the new season of “SILO” ? Please explain what goin’ on.
“Industry” was/is (on hiatus) an HBO series following a group of ambitious young people hired by an aggressive financial institution.
Didn’t know Pres. James MONRO could sing! (as well as Frank SUMATRA?)
Naomi you had a baby at 71? Amazing!!! 😄 HBD, U 2 Yoop.
Happiest Bday NaomiZ and YooperPhil! Go ahead and take the REST of the day off.
ReplyDeleteTheme was fun but once I had the first one, the rest filled in 2 letters at a time (5 letters apart) making it easier for a Friday.
Splinter, great catch on the AEIOU order. As for espresso et al. we use drip and drink it black. RightBrain and I just embarked on our own taste test and bough 8 different brands of medium roast. Stay tuned...
My own preference is Kirkland Whole Bean French Roast. Its actually the same blend as Starbucks, but a bit less expensive. I put the whole beans in my Cuisinart Grind and Brew coffee maker. It makes one cup at a time of excellent coffee, and is $190 at Amazon, not the insane $7,000 mentioned by Splynter. That machine probably makes a whole pot of coffee though, not just one cup, so there is that. I prefer the single cup (actually, 12 oz) though so it's always freshly brewed.
DeleteA brilliant Friday offering that had me seeing double.
ReplyDeleteI loved the fresh fill, symmetry, and fair perps.
Fav clues were : Running groups and Product removed by shear force.
Nice to see Dee Snider from Twisted Sister make an appearance. I haven’t heard “ We’re not gonna take it” in a while. Dee chose to retire from performing due to declining health. He didn’t want his fans to see him not give his best performance.
Thanks Splynter for the insightful recap and pointing out that the themers went aeiou.
Happy birthday Phil.
Musings
ReplyDelete-This puzzle was a true delight. However, it took Splynter’s keen eye to see the alphabetic order and PLAN E PLANE (Impatient me accepted PLANE PLANE at face value and moved on – Doh!) which made me love it even more.
-I had the second “Grab” as NET (not GET) and finally saw GOES AT for a very satifying “got ‘er done”.
-The Huskers beat UCLA in the Foster Farms Bowl in 2015 in LEVI Stadium. (The Huskers lost by 3 to ASU in their own ASU Sun Devil Stadium in the 1975 Fiesta Bowl.)
-Today I learned Espresso and CREMA are both Italian words
-I think I would much prefer ASSAM tea to yesterday’s TISANE
-Treble maker/TWEETER, Running group/SLATE, Shear force/WOOL? Loved ‘em!
-It wouldn’t be Friday without an uber obscure NIALL.
-Goods people: I recently watched documentaries on the rise and fall of JC Penny and FW Woolworth.
-Silo proves any noun can be made into a verb!
-ORIOLES are the stars of our spring bird feeding stations
-Happy birthday to Naomi and Phil (I’d trade your Yooper 70’s temps today for our 90’s here on the Great Plains)
Sears is another total CEO failing. They had the Sears catalog. At the dawn of the internet, had they put the Sears catalog online, Sears would be today's Amazon. Instead, the then CEO genius discontinued the catalog completely and bought K-mart, which was struggling to stay afloat. That CEO should be the star at "The CEO Hall of Failure".
DeleteActually K-Mart bought Sears.
DeleteHG ~ you may enjoy the cooler temps, but the wildfire smoke blanketing the area is pretty intolerable and very unhealthy these past few days, had to cancel golf day yesterday. May get a slight reprieve this weekend.
DeleteAnonymous is YP
DeleteA fine Friday puzzle, FIR in 11:11. So far, this week's puzzles have been "day-appropriate."
ReplyDeleteThumbs up for the clever MARSBAR.
Thumbs way down for LAXEST.
Jinx explained black holes very well. I wish the word hole was in quotes: this phenomenon is anything but a hole. If we could just see the blasted thing, it would be the Greatest Show on Earth...er, Universe. I'll bet it would be bloody loud, too, under normal circumstances.
ReplyDeleteNot to pile on--because Alex and Brian have given us an otherwise masterful puzzle--but I have a small problem with 66 Across. REACT does not always entail emotion. For instance, where is the emotion in a chemical reaction?
Good Morning:
ReplyDeleteI guess I’m in the minority this morning as I didn’t care for the theme. However, it’s slightly redeemed by the nifty vowel progression which went unnoticed. What didn’t go unnoticed and is praise worthy is the fresh and impressive fill, to wit: Diocese, Enclave, Idiomatic, Mars Bars, Sumatra, Shoe Laces, Rental Tux, Listerine, etc., although Laxest actually made me wince.
Thanks, Alex and Brian, and thanks, Splynter, for a great review and analysis, even though I disagree with your assessment.
Happy Birthday to Naomi and Yooper Phil. 🎂🎉🎈🎊
I was kind of "meh" on the theme but my goodness the rest of the puzzle absolutely sparkling. Really great fill and cluing.
ReplyDeleteHappy Birthday YooperPhil!
ReplyDeleteSorry for the "Pete" reference, but you know what the say about a Yooper by any other name...
Happy Birthday Naomi!. Not sure if this link is going to work, had to use the Facebook version video to show the twinkling!
Like HG, I started out with "avoid a void," but got lost at plane/plane, thinking it must be just doubled words. Thank you Splynter for your deep dive insight into all things crossword! I wish I could see all the crossword levels you see! (SSA? I never would have found that in a milllion years!)
I really liked this puzzle, thought it was going to be a real slog, but then the theme brought on the "aha" moments.but in the end I still missed out not seeing Rome "O" Romeo... still, puzzling at its finest!
Note: another puzzle: TTP, maybe you can help me, this is CrossEyedDave. Today (only) I can only comment as Anonymous, because my Google Account option is grayed out. I don't understand it, because I am signed in on Google/Youtube etc...
Dave, you have to allow 3rd party cookies. I do not know how to do that in Safari or iPad. I do not know if they allow you to trust a single site or allow you let 3rd party cookies occur on a single site.
DeleteWe comment on site crosswordcorner.blogspot.com. Authentication is on blogger.com. If blogspot.com can't exchange info with blogger.com, you can't authenticate.
Well, now I am doubly confused... because without doing anything different, I am replying to your response, (thank you very much by the way,) and I was about to ask why they would need "3rd party anything" when Google is the only party involved in Blogger. (Hmm maybe apple to blogger, i dunno...) but, weirdness of weirdness, where Google account was grade out before, it it not now... ( what could be different about commenting and replying to a comment that would cause the change?) or maybe it's just timing.... again I dunno, my explanation is that I have Gremlins that like messing with me...
DeleteDave, probably heuristics.
DeleteTrue, these are Google (blogspot) to Google (blogger) connections. It is your browser that is getting in the middle of it.
Haven't you seen the Apple / Safari commercials on TV where there are people in silver colored bodysuits hanging over people on smartphones, tablets and computers? Then the silver suited people get blown up to smithereens because they are 3rd party trackers and Apple came to the rescue?
The message is that 3rd party trackers are watching your every online activity, collecting bits of data about you and your preferences, and that Apple / Safari is protecting you. What they don't tell you is that their overzealous protection from tracking cookies is also breaking sites where 3rd party cookies are needed for normal functions to operate correctly.
As I have said before, we can only be hopeful that the browser people will at some point give users an easy way to approve of cookies so that sites don't break.
FIR
ReplyDeleteTheme was pretty neat, but I am the worst at remembering SNIDER when it shows up.
See you tomorrow.
I printed out the CW and counted the names: 18. I counted the DNKs: 14. So I went online to solve, and as I worked it the name DNK gradually dropped to 11. Eventually I managed to FIR in 18. Took a lot of thought, but it IS Friday.
ReplyDeleteI saw the theme early, which helped. Never noticed the AEIOU sequence. Thanx Splynter!
Overall a very clever CW with too many great clues to mention. I enjoyed working it, thanx ARH&BC.
Thanx too to Splynter for the informative write-up. And nice legs pic.
HBD NaomiZ & YP!!
Hola! First, happy birthday NaomiZ and YPhil! I hope you enjoy a great celebration.
ReplyDeleteI always expect a Friday puzzle to be difficult, but this one sailed through to the end. It helped that repetition was a theme.
I'll take a CSO at CACTI and ASU, my second alma mater.
My granddaughter loves VAN's shoes, and I would take her to buy some whenever hers wore out.
Oh, my, how I love a MARS or any other chocolate bar!
And I can do without LISTERINE; I prefer Scope.
Nicely done, splynter. Thank you. And thanks to Alex and Brian for a great puzzle experience. Have a happy day, everyone!
A very fine collaboration crafted by Alex and Brian, befitting of a Friday as per difficulty level IMO, as it took me over 25 minutes to FIR w/out help. Of course I was aided by friendly perps which got me the unknowns IDIOMATIC, ENCLAVE, ISOLATE (as clued, never heard ‘silo’ referenced in that way). An English reference to an India tea was a nice misdirection. I saw the repeating words theme early, but didn’t think of parsing them correctly, and the A,E,I,O,U progression was lost on me. Thanks to the authors for the clever design and fun solve. Also thanks to Splynter for the explication in your entertaining style!
ReplyDeleteC.C. ~ thank you for the shout out on my birthday, I very much enjoy being a part of the Cornerite family!
And last but not least, wishing my birthday buddy NaomiZ a very happy day! As C.C. stated, your contributions to the Corner are very much appreciated, always enjoy your delightful blogs and comments. 😊🎉🎊
Puzzling thoughts:
ReplyDeleteFirst off, a Happy Birthday greetings to both NaomiZ and YooperPhil - enjoy!
Second, to Splynter - that was quite the find with the vowel progression, as well as the PLAN E (5th choice). Good catch to both and to a great recap of the puzzle
Third, I always tip my cap to a constructor who makes their debut. It has become even more competitive to get a puzzle published despite the larger number (now) of venues
Easy peasy…. Until the south east. Slates and atria would not shake out.
ReplyDeleteI very much enjoyed this puzzle and admire the clever theme and construction.
ReplyDeleteMany thanks for all the birthday greetings! I am honored to share the day with YooperPhil. It was nice of C.C. to run that photo of me taken last year when our son and his wife came to live with us for a few months, and brought their first child home from the hospital to our place. That little fellow is 10 months old now.
ReplyDeleteI loved Alex and Brian's puzzle, but DNF. In the NW corner, I was convinced that multiplication was the reVERSE of division, which kept me from completing SSA, SIDING, and SNIDER. Jinx, I suspect the reason for a "Get Ready for Baby" page at the SSA is that all babies are assigned SSNs now. Our generation waited until we were seeking our first paid employment.
Brilliant expo, Splynter. Like most of my COHORT here (parking back to a word from yesterday), I missed the vowel progression. More to love!
Loved this puzzle. For every reason Splynter noted…clever and brilliant! And the review was equally clever and brilliant! Finding the vowel progression was really cool! I got the gimmick at
ReplyDelete“irateirate” and quickly filled in the rest. I also first thought reverse, then inverse. Loved the Niners in Levis! They are in my backyard! Big fan!
Happy birthday Naomi and YooperPhil! And thank you Alex, Brian and Splynter!
Thanks to Alex and Brian for their clever contribution! Hand up for missing the A, E, I, O, U progression. Nice catch, Splynter! I also needed your help to parse PLAN E PLANE.
ReplyDeleteI have 3 guys here today working on walls, floors, and doors so I basically need to stay out of their way. I'm using this time to try to catch up on the puzzles I've been missing. I'm happy to be in time today so I can wish a very happy birthday to NaomiZ and to YooperPhill. Both of you have brought smiles to my face on many occasions through your friendly posts. Cheers!