Theme: Gravity brings me down!
Katie Hale, assistant crossword editor of the Los Angeles Times and today's constructor, starts the week on a grounded note, with a very down-to-earth puzzle. The big reveal of the theme occurs here:
54-Across. Fashion house release with autumnal colors, or what the ends of 20-, 34-, and 41-Across are: FALL COLLECTION. This reviewer is familiar with the cycle of seasonal fashion collections, but the answers referenced here contain a collection of synonyms for a different kind of FALL -- the kind where you plummet to earth.
20-Across. Official clearance to miss class: PERMISSION SLIP. I remember needing this type of note from the teacher if I had to be in the hallway after the bell rang. But like so many words in English, SLIP has another meaning -- it's a synonym for FALL.
34-Across. Perform dramatic flips down a sprung track: POWER TUMBLE. A sprung track is an elevated runway with flexible fiberglass rods or steel springs beneath a padded surface to provide the rebound necessary for the multiple high-speed flips and twists of power tumbling. (Congrats if you knew this!) And TUMBLE is another synonym for FALL.
41-Across. Outdoor family getaway: CAMPING TRIP. I don't go camping with my mom anymore, but I did make a TRIP to the ER with her a couple of weeks ago when she TRIPped. You will have noticed that TRIP is another synonym for FALL.
As we get older, FALLing is our Kryptonite. Steady on your feet, there, Solvers! Let's make our way carefully through the rest of the clues and answers.
Across:1. Stylish and classy: CHIC.
5. Olivia Rodrigo album with the hit "Vampire": GUTS. If you say so! Solved with perps (perpendicular entries). Here's the official video (with some language not for kids):
9. PD boss: SARGE. A Sergeant (SARGE) supervises Detectives and Uniformed Officers, but ranks beneath a Lieutenant, Captain, Commander, Deputy Chief (or Assistant Chief), and the Chief of Police. Your Police Department may vary.
14. Nike's Swoosh, for one: LOGO.
15. Fairy tale brute: OGRE.
16. "Stop the launch!": ABORT.
17. Wall St. investment opportunities: IPOS. Initial Public Offerings. These are the moments when private companies transition to publicly traded entities by selling shares on a public stock exchange. This is also when early investors in the private companies can recoup their money and get out.
18. "The Keep" novelist Jennifer: EGAN. Ms Egan's 2006 gothic horror thriller was a national bestseller.
19. Makers of mysterious footprints in the Himalayas: YETIS. You remember Yeti; he's the Himalyan counterpart of our North American Bigfoot (AKA Sasquatch).
 |
| Yeti and Bigfoot |
20. [Theme clue]
23. Little hellion: IMP.
24. Basketball three-pointer: TREY. "Trey" is basketball slang for a three-point shot.
25. Happens: OCCURS. Stuff occurs.
28. "As you wish": SO BE IT.
33. NHL great Bobby: ORR. A retired champion of the National Hockey League, who is still a favorite in crossword grids.
 |
| Bobby Orr, 1970 |
34. [Theme clue]
37. CBS military law drama: NCIS. This series portrays a fictional team of special agents from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. I delegate the watching thereof to DH.
39. Small battery size: AAA.
40. Nintendo consoles with balance boards: WIIS.
 |
| Life is but a dream ... or a video game. |
41. [Theme clue]
46. Actress Dennings: KAT. Kat Dennings is an American actress known for her starring roles as Max Black in the CBS sitcom 2 Broke Girls (2011–2017) and as Darcy Lewis in the Marvel Cinematic Universe superhero film and television franchise beginning with Thor (2011).
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| Kat Dennings in 2 Broke Girls |
47. Madrid's nación: ESPAÑA.
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| Madrid is magnificent. |
48. Happened after: ENSUED.
50. Boast: BRAG.
53. Bowling pin count: TEN.
54. [Theme clue]
61. Amazon basin bean: CACAO.
 |
| Cacao pods and beans |
62. Trash: RUIN. As a verb, "trash" means to throw away, destroy, or severely criticize something. DH and I once suffered through a night in Reno when the hotel guests in the room next to ours trashed the place, and security personnel seemed loathe to interfere. Staff members were removing broken furniture from that room when we ventured out in the morning.
63. Org. with a "Know Your Rights" handbook: ACLU. The American Civil Liberties Union was founded in 1920 to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed by the U.S. constitution.
64. Opener: INTRO.
65. __ off: angry: TEED. Everyone seems to agree that this expression came from golf, but it's hard to understand how. The nearest I can come is that when you take a hard swing at someone or something -- even if you use your words! -- you're pretty angy.
66. Bog material: PEAT. A bog is a wetland where partially decayed plant matter accumulates over thousands of years, forming PEAT. The water in a bog comes almost entirely from rainfall, and is acidic. Specialized plants thrive in the low oxygen bog, and their remains trap vast amounts of carbon, helping to regulate the global climate. Ireland has famously harvested peat for centuries as an energy source, but is now closing its commercial peat bog operations to slow climate change.
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| Soaring oil prices have contributed to individuals harvesting peat, even while commercial operations are closed by the government. |
67. Black tea variety: ASSAM.
68. Puts in: ADDS.
69. Ice cream brand: EDY'S. We never see EDY'S in L.A. The same company is called Dreyer's here.
Down:
1. Trim, as fingernails: CLIP.
2. "Fingers crossed" feeling: HOPE.
3. "The Rite of Spring" composer Stravinsky: IGOR. Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) was a composer and conductor. His ballet "The Rite of Spring" caused a near-riot at its Paris premiere in 1913 due to its modernist music and choreography.
 |
| Igor Stravinsky |
4. Astronomical: COSMIC.
5. Becomes a paid athlete: GOES PRO.
6. Fluffy winter boots: UGGS. "Ugg boots" have a long history in Australia, and have been commercially manufactured there since the 1930s, but the UGG brand was founded in Santa Monica, California in 1978 and primarily marketed to surfers, who were the main users of ugg boots in Australia. I bought Darling Daughter's first pair in a surf shop in L.A. -- but I did once visit New Jersey and see groups of tween girls wearing them in the mall in the winter.
 |
| UGG boots in their natural habitat |
7. Characteristic: TRAIT.
8. Mister, in 47-Across: SEÑOR.
9. "Well, that's not what I think": SAYS YOU.
10. Eve's second son: ABEL.
8. Mister, in 47-Across: SEÑOR.
9. "Well, that's not what I think": SAYS YOU.
10. Eve's second son: ABEL.
 |
| Abel and Cain |
11. Indian flatbread: ROTI.
12. Customizable part of a tennis racket: GRIP.
13. Non-earthlings, for short: ETS. Extraterrestrials.
21. Post-alarm utterance: I'M UP.
22. Wasp's home: NEST.
25. Two-tone ocean predators: ORCAS.
26. Pinch closed, as pie crust: CRIMP.
 |
| Basic crimping technique |
27. __ bag: party favors: SWAG.
29. Audi competitor: BMW.
30. Chargeable transport: E-BIKE.
31. Homeric saga about the Trojan War: ILIAD.
32. Evaluate: TEST.
33. "In the past ... ": ONCE.
35. Have dinner: EAT.
36. Not often seen: RARE.
38. Mud wrap venue: SPA.
42. Like a flower garden during spring: IN BLOOM.
43. Drug cop: NARC. Narcotics officer. Baby boomers also used NARC as a verb meaning to snitch on someone, especially in regard to drug use.
 |
| The tee shirt says "Don't be a narc." |
44. Means (to): INTENDS.
45. Fraction of a min.: PSEC. A picosecond is a unit of time equal to one trillionth of a second.
49. Take off a certain adhesive: UNTAPE.
51. Major artery: AORTA.
52. Put on a certain adhesive: GLUED.
54. Ardent supporters: FANS.
55. Performs in a play: ACTS.
56. Video game archaeologist Croft: LARA. Lara Croft is the main protagonist of the video game franchise Tomb Raider. She made the leap to film in 2001, portrayed by Angelina Jolie.
 |
| Lara Croft as she appears in the video games |
57. Wasn't honest: LIED.
58. Frosted, as a cake: ICED.
59. Regenerist brand: OLAY.
 |
| Being a woman requires specialized lotions for various body parts. |
60. Snack bowl filler: NUTS.
61. Spy org.: CIA.
Here's the grid:
Solvers,
I DNK (did not know) "The Keep" novelist Jennifer EGAN, the basketball three-pointer TREY, what a sprung track is or the POWER TUMBLE that takes place thereon, or actress KAT Dennings, even though I've covered her in a previous blog post. I found the middle east block pretty tough, where TUMBLE and KAT both lived. I'd say that Katie's puzzle was challenging for a Monday! On the other hand, I FIR (finished it right), thanks to perps (perpendicular entries) and the occasional WAG (wild ass guess).
How about you? Were you FANS of this puzzle? Were you NUTS about it?
Or did you go down to RUIN and defeat, and get TEED off by the exercise?
BRAG about it in the comments!
-- NaomiZ
Typical Monday.
ReplyDeleteEasy-Peasy. But cute theme and reveal.
Anyway, FIR, so I’m happy.
Good morning!
ReplyDeleteZipped through this one with nary a thought about a theme. Growing up, we never went on a CAMPING TRIP. Mom considered a motel stop as roughing it. This one came together in about 6 minutes, which is as fast as I can write. The Wite-Out got a rest. Thanx Katie and NaomiZ.
I'm the Anon at 5:41.
DeleteFIR, but chief->SARGE, naan->ROTI, grab->SWAG, and rate->TEST.
ReplyDeleteI know Kat from playing the boomerang daughter in Shifting Gears, starring Tim Allen.
When I was in high school and we bounced back from just about anything, "Have a nice trip? See you next fall" awaited any of our peers taking a public tumble.
FLN:
Ojai Guy - Please do pass on my regards to Jan Smithers. I think she is still beautiful in her late 70s.
Darren / LA - That's "First On Race Day" to you, sir!
Thanks to Katie for the enjoyable Monday wakeup, and to NaomiZ for another fun tour.
I got off to a slow start this week. Skipped unknown GUTS and wrote CHIEF at the top, but it smoothed out after that. Very nice Monday from Katie.
ReplyDeleteRightBrain plays in tennis leagues and often rewraps the GRIP on her rackets. The other customizable part is the strings, which make a much bigger difference but isn't a DIY job.
Perfect exposé from Naomi, as usual. I liked learning about PEAT and I had to learn more. I thought since they've been using it for fuel for 1000's of years, it would've run out by now. It regenerates extremely slowly (about 1 mm per year), so is essentially a non-renewable resource, but apparently they have 100s of years supply left. Sorry to bog you all down!
FIR. Nice and easy Monday presentation. I had a little trouble with the top center what with Guts and Egan there together, but the perps were there to help.
ReplyDeleteI got the theme early on and the reveal simply confirmed it.
Overall a very enjoyable puzzle.
Musings
ReplyDelete-A very nice puzzle to start the week
-Names were just an annoyance
-That WII board looks like it might help any balance issues
-Mom did trash my early 1950’s baseball cards. Who knew?
-Our town has many very young kids going very fast on E-SCOOTERS
-Your summative paragraph works for me, Naomi!
Thank you, Katie and NaomiZ
ReplyDeleteKatie, we are still enjoying summer. Why are you having us think of autumn so soon?
Learning moment: "a sprung track" - Didn't know there was such a thing.
That's a nice painting of Cain helping Abel up from the ground.
Why does Mickey Mouse seem to be promoting marijuana use?
The woman pictured at 40A looks just like my neighbor.
DW made an apple pie with a new crust recipe she wanted to TEST, but I didn't notice the CRIMPing.
What does FIR mean?
"I DNK (did not know) "The Keep" novelist Jennifer EGAN" - Neither did I, NaomiZ, especially by the name of the book. But I have solved enough crossword puzzles that anytime I see th name Jennifer in any context associated books or author, EGAN is the answer until proved otherwise. After a career as a librarian and as a bibliophile, I'm sure you are aware of many Jennifers, but for me, ignorance is bliss.
Marvellous Monday. Thanks for the fun, Katie and NaomiZ.
ReplyDeleteI FIRed in very good time, and saw the potential injury-causing FALLs early in the solve.
No particular issues as any unknowns perped.
My Spanish was adequate for SENOR today (and ESPANA).
I noted a plethora of past tense in the south with ENSUED, and then the grouping of GLUED, TEED, LIED. (I wanted GLUE but “put” was past tense).
I have many fond memories of CAMPING TRIPs with the family with a pop-up camper. We went from coast to coast, Victoria, BC to Newfoundland, over several summers. Great experience. We did have some American journeys too - New England, Finger Lakes, west through Illinois, Iowa, S Dakota to Wyoming and Yellowstone Park, north through Montana to our Rockies. We were fortunate to have good weather nearly all the time.
Wishing you all a great day.
Good Morning:
ReplyDeleteThis theme and particularly the reveal was very clever and very well executed, IMO. I have two minor nits, though, i.e., the cluing for Guts which was unnecessarily obtuse for a Monday, and the awkward and questionable Untape. Otherwise, the solve was enjoyable and a nice start to the week.
Thanks, Katie, and thanks, Naomi, for the informative and interesting commentary and asides, especially the data on Peat and Uggs.
Have a great day.
To quote Sub-genius, easy peasy this morning in spite of a few unknowns like GUTS, EGAN, BTW, thank you TTP for the trick to remember Jennifer, and POWER TUMBLE, though perps insisted on its being correct. So FIR and enjoyed the COLLECTION of FALLs.
ReplyDeleteDidn’t we have ASSAM yesterday? And in the north we had OGRE and YETI. Then an IMP appears. We’d better not TRIP.
Thank you NaomiZ for the informative review. Liked the comments on PEAT.
It may be my personal opinion, but I think they changed the Blog comment format so they could squeeze in more ads... today's write up, and comments had this ( Puzzles& Brainteasers) with a square to the left containing a dot and three lines, which seems to be an unannounced hyperlink (in black) to another site. That site has even more Ads, one of which I accidentally clicked on and received all sorts Malware warnings which required me to X out of the site to continue. This black writing hyperlink seems to appear at the end of comments and looks like something the commenter added, but it is not...
ReplyDeleteTTP, Anon-T,
If you think this is something on my IPad only, I would appreciate any suggestions on how to clean it up...
CE:D
Note: it just got added below my sign off, I did not add this "blog writing service"
DeleteDave, they are from Ad Servers. I got a similar hotlink in black for Puzzle Solving Techniques.
DeleteI also had ads for Bob's Discount Furniture, Accura, downloads for a free search extension, a click bait for Leg Swelling Edema and another about Alzheimers...
This was tagged onto a post I made a week ago when I clicked “publish”. But just that once so far. Don’t know how they could saturate us with anymore ads. Sometime I think the ads are part of the comments or reveal since there is non separation. Annoying.
DeleteAgree with NaZ… Atypical Monday: I TUMBLEd my way down what is usually a “walk in the park” but the theme was easy : a COLLECTION of FALLS. (Chic 🐥 attire?).
ReplyDeleteIf “fingers crossed” were behind your back you LIED 😉
“Jennifer” ”Olivia” ”Denning” (had this recently but I forgot) not Monday level clues.
OGRE=“brute”? (Shrek and Fiona would disagree). ”Post alarm utterance” all clear wouldn’t fit. POWERTUMBLE apparently is a thing, new to me.
YETIS agree that Sasquatch and Big Foot are silly North American myths
Where CAMPING TRIPS OCCUR … INTENDS
Regenerist brand shout in ESPAÑA , oil of ___ !! … OLAY
Its citizens were never told “as you wish” in the ____ Union .. SOBIET
Top ‘o the week to all 😊
Hola! Just a bit of a challenge for this Monday morning. Thank you, Katie and NaomiZ.
ReplyDeleteI liked starting with CHIC and saw the many ways to FALL. ASSAM tea seems to have become a staple in our puzzles. And I'm familiar with KAT Dennings though I don't watch her sitcom. It's so good reading all your comments. Yesterday I was not feeling well all day, so I did not finish the puzzle. Have a great day, everyone!
A Monday-level puzzle on a Monday, which has not always been the case recently.
ReplyDeleteFIR in 6:02, with zero gripes. The unknowns were crossed fairly, and the solving process was free of obstacles.
10/10
Fun puzzle, however I did have to use white out early on because I filled in the Indian Bread with Naan. If you've never tried it, naan makes a great personal size pizza. There is a great Middle Eastern grocery store near here which has great breads, including Naan and Roti.
ReplyDeleteThat’s an extremely thin crust pizza I would opine. 😉
DeleteTook 4:35 today to succumb to gravity.
ReplyDeleteI knew the Actress of the Day (Kat), although I find her voice/delivery grating.
"Power tumble" was new to me.
As usual, Ms. Irish Miss summed up this puzzle nicely (as did NaomiZ).
I am more or less a FAN of this puzzle, but have the same two nits as Irish Miss.
ReplyDeleteCHIEF-->SARGE.
Good reading all your comments.
Great Monday CW, which I thoroughly enjoyed and even saw the theme. 9 minutes to FIR, pen-on-paper.
ReplyDelete17 names, DNK 5, but managed to perp them in w/o too much headache.
Thanx KH for the fun.
Thanx too to NaomiZ for the terrific write-up. That's one hell of a video. It reminded me of Miles O'Brien, who had a camera case fall on him her he was in the Philippines. While it only left a bruise, it pinched shut an artery and he ended up losing his left arm. If anybody didn't watch the video NaomiZ attached (embedded?) they should.
I'm running a little late today. I met my friend Joel for a Meezer's lunch. A bunch of us old retired geezers who used to work for Merck used to meet twice a year for lunch. At one time there were twelve of us. We are down to just Joel and I now.
I agree with NaomiZ that there was a little more crunch than usual for a Monday, but FIR nevertheless. E-scooters don’t always use the bike lane. I’ve been surprised by some coming up behind me on the sidewalk. Not a fun experience. I manage to hear them at the last second and jump off the walk! Thanks Katie and NaomiZ for a fun puzzle and review!
ReplyDelete