Wednesday, July 29, 2026, Sala Wanetick & Dena R. Verkuil
Good Morning, Cruciverbalists. Malodorous Manatee here with the recap of a Wednesday puzzle by Sala Wanetick and Dena R. Verkuil. This is two-in-a-row for me recapping a puzzle by Sara and Dena and three-in-a-row for me blogging a puzzle by Sara. Sara and Dena, we really have to stop meeting like this. Or maybe not. It's been a whole lot of fun. Perhaps we'll do it again.
In today's puzzle, Sala and Dena riff on common activities during which we use our eyes to search, or LOOK, for things. The straight-forward unifier comes at:
61 Across: "Gotcha!," and what can be said about the answers to the starred clues: MADE YOU LOOK.
The gimmick is employed at these four places:
18 Across: *Book series with a character in red-and-white stripes: WHERE'S WALDO. In the books, readers LOOK for Waldo. Can you find him on this ski hill?
26 Across: *"Olly olly oxen free" game: HIDE AND SEEK. Children LOOK for one of their own who is hiding. "Olly olly oxen free" is a catchphrase used in children's games such as hide and seek to indicate that players who are hiding can come out into the open without losing the game.
37 Across: *Presentation tool that doubles as a cat toy: LASER POINTER. The cat clearly LOOKs at the dot or, closer to the mark, in its intended use, the LASER tool points to things that we need to LOOK at.
52 Across:. *Document in some pirate stories: TREASURE MAP. The MAP shows you where to LOOK for the TREASURE.
This is how it all looks in the grid:
Here are the rest of the clues and responses. Please note that a reference to an answer as "often seen in our puzzles" (or similar) is not intended as a criticism. In fact, without these "usual suspects" a Wednesday puzzle would likely solve more as if it were a Saturday offering:
Across:
1. Daytona 500 org.: NASCAR. An automobile racing reference. The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, LLC. Perhaps it should be NASCARL.
7. Poetic measure: IAMB. IAMB is a metrical foot consisting of one short syllable followed by one long syllable or of one unstressed syllable followed by one stressed syllable.
11. Hushed "Hey!": PSST. Frequently whispered in our puzzles.
15. Musical interval: OCTAVE. Imagine a piano. On it, the keys on the left are lower than the keys on the right. If you are pressing the white keys, starting from C, from left to right, the sequence will follow: C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C. From C to C is one OCTAVE.
16. Enunciate poorly: SLUR.
17. Stratford-__-Avon: UPON. Because it is the birthplace and burial place of the playwright and poet William Shakespeare, Stratford UPON-Avon is a popular tourist destination
20. Café or thé lightener: LAIT. Leçon de français d'aujourd'hui. Cafe = coffee, thé = tea and LAIT = milk. On first glance, this solver was wondering what the heck was the lightener.
21. "When pigs fly!": NEVER. A colloquial expression.
22. Gender-specific pronoun: HIM.
23. Florence of Florence and the Machine: WELCH.
25. Stage award: OBIE. TONY would have fit. OBIE derives from Off-Broadway.
29. More spent: WEARIER. Spent as in "I'm spent" meaning out of energy.
31. R&R provider for GIs: USO. United Service Organizations
32. Steamed bun: BAO. A treat often consumed in our puzzles.
33. Play-__: Fun Factory maker: DOH. DOH is often clued with reference to Homer Simpson.
34. Tally: ADD. Tally, used here, as a verb. As in the classic Harry Belafonte song:
36. Garment worn with a choli: SARI. A choli is an upper body garment (blouse or bodice). A SARI is a draped garment frequently donned in our puzzles.
41. Nautical call: AHOY. AHOY is derived from the Middle English cry, 'Hoy!'.The word fell out of use at one time, but was revived when sailing became a popular sport. AHOY can be used as a greeting, a warning, or a farewell
43. Decide (to): OPT. A choice frequently made in our puzzles.
48. "Spoon River Anthology" poet Edgar Lee __: MASTERS. No, not a Henry Mancini reference.
56. Radar image: BLIP.
57. Proprietor: OWNER.
58. Diarist Anaïs: NIN. A frequent visitor.
59. Orchestral pace: TEMPO.
60. Kristen of "Bridesmaids": WIIG.
64. Cozy quarters: INNS. Quarters, in the clue's context, could have been either single or plural making this one a bit more challenging.
65. Japanese noodle: UDON.
66. "That's a lie!": UNTRUE. That's a fact.
67. Put through the paces: TEST.
68. Petty quarrels: ROWS. The word ROW has several meanings (polysemy). Among them: Things in a line. To propel a boat with an oar. A succession without a gap. . . . and, here, a SPAT (no, not the kind you wear with a shoe).
69. Goes back to zero: RESETS.
Down:
1. "There, there": NOW NOW. Nice repetition in clue and answer.
2. "Things Fall Apart" novelist Chinua: ACHEBE. Unknown to this solver. Thanks, perps.
4. Opportunity for students to consider their futures: CAREER DAY.
5. State definitively: AVER. This solver often pauses over whether it will be AVER or Avow.
6. Hi-__ monitor: RES. HIgh RESolution
7. "To repeat ... ": I SAID. Do we really need to go over this again?
8. "I'll take complete credit, thanks": ALL ME. Time to pass on the obvious.
9. Mess around a sty: MUD. Mess in a sty?
10. Cleveland team: BROWNS. A football reference. Named after the original coach and co-owner, Paul Brown.
11. Drawer handles: PULLS. KNOBS would have fit.
12. Long key: SPACE BAR. . . . on a keyboard (typewriter or computer, not a piano keyboard)
13. "That's the word on the street": SO I HEAR.
14. Demolition letters: TNT. What do you get when you cross a dinosaur with TNT? Dino-mite
19. Sound like a fan: WHIR. See also 38 Down (clever).
24. Tokyo, long ago: EDO. A place visited frequently in our puzzles. EDO was renamed in 1868.
26. "lol": HE HE. Laughter
27. A5 and Q5 automaker: AUDI. As the clue says, an automotive reference.
28. Colorful carp: KOI. When I returned from a trip to Japan about a year ago my son asked if I had seen any KOI fish. I said no, the fish there were actually pretty sociable.
30. Safari platform: IOS. An Apple Computer reference.
37. LGBTQ+ rights slogan: LOVE WINS. Also the title of a song by Carrie Underwood.
38. Sound like fans: ROAR. See also 19 Down (clever).
39. Quarter-moon tide: NEAP. NEAP tides occur in puzzles far more often than do SPRING tides.
40. Covers with sheets?: TPS. Not bed sheets.
41. __ deco: ART. Shouldn't deco have been capitalized? From Wkikpedia: "Art Deco, short for the French Arts décoratifs, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design that first appeared in Paris in the 1910s just before World War I and flourished internationally during the 1920s to early 1930s, through styling and design of the exterior and interior of anything from large structures to small objects, including clothing, fashion, and jewelry. Art Deco has influenced buildings from skyscrapers to cinemas, bridges, ocean liners, trains, cars, trucks, buses, furniture, and everyday objects, including radios and vacuum cleaners."
42. Princess Leia, e.g.: HEROINE. A Star Wars reference. Why didn't Princess Leia have a boyfriend? She kept looking for love in Alderaan places.
46. Word before "force" or "the Force": USE. The second part of this clue is also a Star Wars reference.
47. Cooing sound: MURMUR.
48. Quite a few: MANY.
49. Blues guitarist __ James: ELMORE. For many of us, the reference by George Harrison on the Beatles recording of "For You Blue" might have been the first we had heard of ELMORE. For others, the Grateful Dead cover of It Hurts Me Too may have provided the introduction. The blues aficionados among us, of course, have known all along.
50. Remove, as knitted stitches: RIP OUT.
51. Rods in bike wheels: SPOKES. Radii, as a clue, would have made it even easier.
53. High anxiety: ANGST. MOVIE would have fit the allotted space....but anxiety would have to have been capitalized in the clue.
54. Supply funding for: ENDOW.
55. Attitudes: MIENS. I before E except after C (note that this comment was written before C.C.'s puzzle ran last last Sunday. Small world).
59. Song: TUNE. "The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down", for one:
60. Wisdom partner: WIT. As in the many book titles that begin The WIT and Wisdom of ...
62. Fuss: ADO. A common commotion in our puzzles.
63. Possessive word: OUR. OUR time, this morning, is now drawing to a close.
Whatever it is that you are looking for today I hope that you find it.
ACHEBE was unknown, and looked wrong after it filled. Buy d-o let it stand. Yay. Dad called it coffee "whitener" rather than "lightener." The Wite-Out got a rest again today; perps were friendly. Thanx, Dena, Sala, and Mal-Man. (Alderaan places, indeed.)
FIR. Once again a bunch of proper names, and even two crossing, Masters and Elmore. But at least no circles, so that's a plus. And there were perps where needed. This wasn't as difficult as yesterday, thank goodness. The theme was clever but I needed the reveal to connect the dots. Overall an enjoyable puzzle.
Hey MalMan - Otto Correct changed Sala to Sara three times on your intro. Bad Otto - bad. No more vowels for you!
I also thought of Moon River. Andy Williams was must-watch TV for my parents.
I hope that CARRER DAYs are now including CARRERs in the trades. Around here there is a large deficit in shipbuilding skills. Instead of going deeply into debt, you can actually get paid while learning a trade (such as welding or pipefitting) and land a six-figure job when you graduate - debt free.
I wonder if a pro cyclist calls his/her wheel rod specialist a SPOKESperson?
The Allman Brothers Band included a rendition of ELMORE James' One Way Out on their fantastic album Eat a Peach.
Thanks to Sala and Dena for the fun Monday puzzle. Just right for a hump day too. And thanks to our MalMan for all the chuckles.
FLN--Thanks, ChMoe, for your note on pangrams. Yes, I have a file of submission guidelines from various publications, and there is nary a mention of pangrams. Shrug of the shoulders.
I enjoyed this puzzle, and FIR in 7:17. A few obscure names elevated it above Monday-level, but proper perping led to an effortless stroll through the park. The themer clues were dead give-aways, leading to easy fills with zero perp help.
This was a cute theme with some very fresh fill, e.g., Love Wins, Seat Belts, Career Day, Space Bar, not to mention the solid themers. Achebe needed perps and He He needed two more Es, IMO. I liked the There, There clue and the most befitting answer, Now, Now.
Thanks, Sala and Dena, and thanks, MalMan, for the fun and facts. Loved all of the photos and illustrations, especially the opening one of the mischievous Jerry, sans Tom.
Sala and Dena came through again today with another appealing and thoughtful puzzle. You can tell they have the best interests of the solver in mind--probably because they know what it is like to be a solver.
Wherever there seemed to lurk a Natick danger zone, the constructors were careful to give us friendly perps in the vicinity. Such a situation for me was in the upper left, with the unfamiliar ACHEBE and STEVIA back-to-back.. Of course, Patti and staff probably deserve some credit for the helpful cluing.
The Shakespeare in me enjoyed seeing his home town (17-A) and poetic style (7-A) neighboring each other in the upper right.
And two sounds of fans (WHIR and ROAR) together helped anchor the middle.
Crossword staples like ACAI and OREO are in danger of being overtaken by UMA!
My grandmother always explained to my brothers and me that the "Olly olly oxen free" we were always yelling outside was actually a butchering of the German "Alle alle auch sind frei" or something like that.
The NFL's Cleveland Browns are one of the rare professional teams in any sport that is named for a living--at the time---person (Paul Brown).
Thanks, Sala and Dena, for the enjoyable solve, and MalMan for your usual entertaining recap.
Wonderful Wednesday. Thanks for the fun, Sala and Lena, and MalMan. I FIRed in good time and saw the LOOK theme. Perps were fair for the unknown names like ACHEBE, MASTERS, ELMORE, and the forgotten form old CW days, NIN and EDO.
I have all of my son’s Waldo books. Now the grands like to look for him.
I have never heard that Olly phrase used in HIDE AND SEEK.
I liked the crossing of TUNE and TEMPO. OCTAVE was in the opposite corner.
Stratford Ontario is also on the Avon River, and home of the Stratford Festival. I saw a brilliant performance of Othello there a few weeks ago.
Musings -The fun gimmick tickled made me go HEHE. -Cyndi Lauper’s range is four OCTAVES. Average pop singers have a range or 1 to 1.5 OCTAVES -Raquel was right there on the bench but we got Florence for WELCH. BTW, Thomas Bramwell WELCH started producing the J that goes into my PBJ. -OTOH, ACHEBE has no alternatives -When I used Play DOH in my classroom, the first things kids did was sniff it. BTW, it is a a mix of wheat, salt, borax, and artificial vanilla -AGB proposed using AHOY as a greeting on his newly invented device -“That’s a lie” – I’m watching the Fauci hearing and he’s not saying this or much else for that matter -A poisoned pack of STEVIA was used to eliminate Lydia in Better Call Saul -Thanks Sala, Dena and MM.
Hola! I have great memories of playing HIDE AND SEEK with my friends and siblings. I don't know how we learned OLLIE, OLLIE, OXEN FREE, but we knew it. That and hopscotch were our favorite games. Oh, jumping rope, too and jacks. There was no TV to saddle us at home. Toward the end of my teaching days, I acquired a LASER POINTER and I loved it! I could direct the beam exactly where I needed it. Thank you, Sala and Dena and MalMan. Now, I have to continue packing for tomorrow's trip. Have a lovely day, everyone. Please stay well and enjoy yourselves. I'll see you in two weeks.
Misty here, today. Delightful puzzle, Sala and Dena. And thanks too for your additional help, Mal Man and Rusty Brain--appreciated that too. Well, I sure don't know WHERE'S WALDO, but I am absolutely positive that pigs NEVER fly. Haven't played HIDE and SEEK since my school days, but for some reason OLLY OLLY OXEN FREE has stayed in my brain for all those years. I've never worn a SARI and have no idea what a CHOLI is. But I'd love to try to solve a TREASURE MAP someday, though I'd have to use a pretty slow TEMPO. Well, this puzzle MADE me LOOK up some things, but I think I paid the TEST--so I'm happy. Have a lovely rest of the day, everybody.
Finally, an enjoyable CW this week. Still some crossname in it, but not as bad as yesterdays. Best CW this week by far. FIR in 12, very good Wednesday time for me. 15 names, DNK 6. A few other things I DNK and needed perps, but that's the fun of a CW, no?
I, too, like the Art Deco style. Miami Beach has several small hotels in Art Deco style. I stayed in one many years ago for just one night. The rooms are small and not up to today's standards, and are quite pricey for what you get, but the hotels are still often sold out. The Chrysler Building in NYC is another example, this one capped in stainless steel, and still looking good after almost 100 years. And is still the tallest steel-framed brick building in the world. The saying, "They just don't make 'em like that anymore" certainly applies.
Thanx SW&DRV, best CW in quite a while. Try less names in the future please.
Thanx too to MalMan for the truly terrific write-up. I loved the renditions of "It Hurts Me Too" by Elmore James and The Grateful Dead. Especially the EJ version. Excellent. I saw Jerry Garcia in the GD version. When he died several years ago I actually sat down and cried: he was a great musician, AND his death marked the end of an era.
Uncle Fred, just yesterday I "discovered" an app called Deadhead Archives. The app gives access to recordings of shows year by year from 1965 through 2026 (sixty-one years !) and each year you select has a long list of live shows. There are also a few studio sessions..
First off, did I miss the "no mention" of the 15x16 grid size today which was needed for all of us to take a look?
Second, I hadn't recalled, MalMan, that you've done so many of this constructor's puzzles - reminds me of when Lemonade714 was always blogging Jeffrey Wechsler's
Third, Miss Margaret groaned with each and every pun of yours today ;^)
Fourth, thanks for the musical clips
Fifth - spoiler alert: next Wednesday's puzzle is also a 15x16
Like Jayce, I got the 4 themers w/o any perps. All were familiar. I also tried for the reveal, but couldn't suss it until I had some perps. I thought the reveal was very clever.
ACHEBE was unknown to me. Ditto WELCH. No matter. The perps made filling in their names easy.
That Beach Boys song sounds so quaint compared to the music I listen to now. I do like some of their big hit songs that received massive airplay on the oldies stations. My brother had a 45 RPM record player in his 65 or 66 Mustang, and I would guess he played their songs along with other hit songs. Whatever the girls and other guys liked to listen to. It was apparently a thing to have a record player in your car way back when. IIRC, his first Mustang was totaled on I-10 just west of Beaumont.
Prof M, from the other day, I'm not sure what to tell you about you not being able to be blue from time to time. I know your browser has to accept third party cookies, and that you should be able to configure it to do so. You might think that it's an on / off thing, like a single pole light switch. But it may not be, depending on which browser you use. Some browsers such as Firefox use heuristics in their programming to produce an accepable outcome. For instance, suppose a webpage's HTML code tells your browser to use a specific font, but that font is not installed on your computer. Your browser will use a heuristic to produce the text on your screen that is acceptable even if it is not what the HTML coder specified.
In the case of browser developers implementing privacy protections that are blocking third party cookies, your browser may allow the cookies to pass through a certain number of times before they get blocked again. You could try using different browsers to see if your symptoms change.
Read this help text from Mozilla (Firefox) to get an understanding of what I mean. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/third-party-trackers
This is Jayce. Holy mackeral, I know exactly about just west of Beaumont on I-10. We used to drive I-10 several times a year when going to Phoenix to visit family and going home again to San Jose. (It used to be one of our favorite gas-up spots.) That portion of I-10 is curvy and hilly; one has to be paying full attention to one's driving.
Enjoyed this puzzle and review. Cat chasing laser beam made me laugh, as did “I speak in cursive”. As a kid, I rode my bike everywhere, played ball, played “Jailbreak”, skated, jacks and investigated things I probably shouldn’t have! Those were the days!
Not too tough (in fact, I thought it was easier
ReplyDeletethan yesterday’s). And the reveal was clever and fun.
FIR, so I’m happy.
Good morning!
ReplyDeleteACHEBE was unknown, and looked wrong after it filled. Buy d-o let it stand. Yay. Dad called it coffee "whitener" rather than "lightener." The Wite-Out got a rest again today; perps were friendly. Thanx, Dena, Sala, and Mal-Man. (Alderaan places, indeed.)
FIR. Once again a bunch of proper names, and even two crossing, Masters and Elmore. But at least no circles, so that's a plus. And there were perps where needed.
ReplyDeleteThis wasn't as difficult as yesterday, thank goodness. The theme was clever but I needed the reveal to connect the dots.
Overall an enjoyable puzzle.
Give the circle complaint a rest!
DeleteI agree !
DeleteI’m an oval guy, myself.
DeleteFIR, but dunn->WIIG, and ennui->ANGST.
ReplyDeleteHey MalMan - Otto Correct changed Sala to Sara three times on your intro. Bad Otto - bad. No more vowels for you!
I also thought of Moon River. Andy Williams was must-watch TV for my parents.
I hope that CARRER DAYs are now including CARRERs in the trades. Around here there is a large deficit in shipbuilding skills. Instead of going deeply into debt, you can actually get paid while learning a trade (such as welding or pipefitting) and land a six-figure job when you graduate - debt free.
I wonder if a pro cyclist calls his/her wheel rod specialist a SPOKESperson?
The Allman Brothers Band included a rendition of ELMORE James' One Way Out on their fantastic album Eat a Peach.
Thanks to Sala and Dena for the fun Monday puzzle. Just right for a hump day too. And thanks to our MalMan for all the chuckles.
FLN--Thanks, ChMoe, for your note on pangrams. Yes, I have a file of submission guidelines from various publications, and there is nary a mention of pangrams. Shrug of the shoulders.
DeleteJinx, you are correct about Otto. Sorry for having missed those.
DeleteVery doable with a few hiccups. I needed the reveal to understand the theme, especially since WHERE’S WALSO and HIDE AND SEEK didn’t fill right off.
ReplyDeleteÁ few unknown names like ELMORE, WELCH. MASTERS was dredged from the depths of my memory bank, and I knew ACHEBE having taught some of his works.
WHIR and SPACE BAR were tricky. HE HE didn’t look right, still doesn’t. I like Art deco architecture. We had UPON and UDON.
Thank you MM for a terrific musical review.
I enjoyed this puzzle, and FIR in 7:17. A few obscure names elevated it above Monday-level, but proper perping led to an effortless stroll through the park.
ReplyDeleteThe themer clues were dead give-aways, leading to easy fills with zero perp help.
Good Morning:
ReplyDeleteThis was a cute theme with some very fresh fill, e.g., Love Wins, Seat Belts, Career Day, Space Bar, not to mention the solid themers. Achebe needed perps and He He needed two more Es, IMO. I liked the There, There clue and the most befitting answer, Now, Now.
Thanks, Sala and Dena, and thanks, MalMan, for the fun and facts. Loved all of the photos and illustrations, especially the opening one of the mischievous Jerry, sans Tom.
Have a great day.
Sala and Dena came through again today with another appealing and thoughtful puzzle. You can tell they have the best interests of the solver in mind--probably because they know what it is like to be a solver.
ReplyDeleteWherever there seemed to lurk a Natick danger zone, the constructors were careful to give us friendly perps in the vicinity. Such a situation for me was in the upper left, with the unfamiliar ACHEBE and STEVIA back-to-back.. Of course, Patti and staff probably deserve some credit for the helpful cluing.
The Shakespeare in me enjoyed seeing his home town (17-A) and poetic style (7-A) neighboring each other in the upper right.
And two sounds of fans (WHIR and ROAR) together helped anchor the middle.
Crossword staples like ACAI and OREO are in danger of being overtaken by UMA!
My grandmother always explained to my brothers and me that the "Olly olly oxen free" we were always yelling outside was actually a butchering of the German "Alle alle auch sind frei" or something like that.
The NFL's Cleveland Browns are one of the rare professional teams in any sport that is named for a living--at the time---person (Paul Brown).
Thanks, Sala and Dena, for the enjoyable solve, and MalMan for your usual entertaining recap.
Wonderful Wednesday. Thanks for the fun, Sala and Lena, and MalMan.
ReplyDeleteI FIRed in good time and saw the LOOK theme. Perps were fair for the unknown names like ACHEBE, MASTERS, ELMORE, and the forgotten form old CW days, NIN and EDO.
I have all of my son’s Waldo books. Now the grands like to look for him.
I have never heard that Olly phrase used in HIDE AND SEEK.
I liked the crossing of TUNE and TEMPO. OCTAVE was in the opposite corner.
Stratford Ontario is also on the Avon River, and home of the Stratford Festival. I saw a brilliant performance of Othello there a few weeks ago.
Wishing you all a great day.
Took 4:45 today to see the finish line.
ReplyDeleteI knew the Actress of the Day (Uma, Wiig), but not the writers (Achebe & Masters), nor the musicians (Welch & Elmore).
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteMusings
ReplyDelete-The fun gimmick tickled made me go HEHE.
-Cyndi Lauper’s range is four OCTAVES. Average pop singers have a range or 1 to 1.5 OCTAVES
-Raquel was right there on the bench but we got Florence for WELCH. BTW, Thomas Bramwell WELCH started producing the J that goes into my PBJ.
-OTOH, ACHEBE has no alternatives
-When I used Play DOH in my classroom, the first things kids did was sniff it. BTW, it is a a mix of wheat, salt, borax, and artificial vanilla
-AGB proposed using AHOY as a greeting on his newly invented device
-“That’s a lie” – I’m watching the Fauci hearing and he’s not saying this or much else for that matter
-A poisoned pack of STEVIA was used to eliminate Lydia in Better Call Saul
-Thanks Sala, Dena and MM.
Hola! I have great memories of playing HIDE AND SEEK with my friends and siblings. I don't know how we learned OLLIE, OLLIE, OXEN FREE, but we knew it. That and hopscotch were our favorite games. Oh, jumping rope, too and jacks. There was no TV to saddle us at home.
ReplyDeleteToward the end of my teaching days, I acquired a LASER POINTER and I loved it! I could direct the beam exactly where I needed it.
Thank you, Sala and Dena and MalMan. Now, I have to continue packing for tomorrow's trip. Have a lovely day, everyone. Please stay well and enjoy yourselves. I'll see you in two weeks.
A humpless “ hump-day” offering from Sala and Dena.
ReplyDeleteMy wite-out took the day off.
Lots of fresh fill, fair perps, and a fun theme.
I enjoyed the Beetlejuice video. Thanks for the entertaining and informative recap Malman.
Sala and Dena provided a breezy puzzle with a fun theme.
ReplyDeleteTo a Floridian, a Long Key is Marathon, halfway from Key Largo to Key West (although there actually is one called Long Key).
Moon River's lyrics by Johnny Mercer are often misunderstood. "Wider than a mile," becomes, "Wider than the Nile." This is known as a Mondegreen.
MM, I'm glad you didn't carp about the KOI!
Never heard Marathon called Long Key, but I have been in Key Largo ("Long" en Espanol) many times.
DeleteMisty here, today. Delightful puzzle, Sala and Dena. And thanks too for your additional help, Mal Man and Rusty Brain--appreciated that too. Well, I sure don't know WHERE'S WALDO, but I am absolutely positive that pigs NEVER fly. Haven't played HIDE and SEEK since my school days, but for some reason OLLY OLLY OXEN FREE has stayed in my brain for all those years. I've never worn a SARI and have no idea what a CHOLI is. But I'd love to try to solve a TREASURE MAP someday, though I'd have to use a pretty slow TEMPO. Well, this puzzle MADE me LOOK up some things, but I think I paid the TEST--so I'm happy. Have a lovely rest of the day, everybody.
DeleteFinally, an enjoyable CW this week. Still some crossname in it, but not as bad as yesterdays. Best CW this week by far. FIR in 12, very good Wednesday time for me. 15 names, DNK 6. A few other things I DNK and needed perps, but that's the fun of a CW, no?
ReplyDeleteI, too, like the Art Deco style. Miami Beach has several small hotels in Art Deco style. I stayed in one many years ago for just one night. The rooms are small and not up to today's standards, and are quite pricey for what you get, but the hotels are still often sold out. The Chrysler Building in NYC is another example, this one capped in stainless steel, and still looking good after almost 100 years. And is still the tallest steel-framed brick building in the world. The saying, "They just don't make 'em like that anymore" certainly applies.
Thanx SW&DRV, best CW in quite a while. Try less names in the future please.
Thanx too to MalMan for the truly terrific write-up. I loved the renditions of "It Hurts Me Too" by Elmore James and The Grateful Dead. Especially the EJ version. Excellent. I saw Jerry Garcia in the GD version. When he died several years ago I actually sat down and cried: he was a great musician, AND his death marked the end of an era.
Uncle Fred, just yesterday I "discovered" an app called Deadhead Archives. The app gives access to recordings of shows year by year from 1965 through 2026 (sixty-one years !) and each year you select has a long list of live shows. There are also a few studio sessions..
DeleteMy friends call me. “24D”
ReplyDeleteThis is Jayce. I liked this puzzle. Unusually for me, I filled all four of the long theme answers right off the bat.
ReplyDeletePuzzling thoughts:
ReplyDeleteFirst off, did I miss the "no mention" of the 15x16 grid size today which was needed for all of us to take a look?
Second, I hadn't recalled, MalMan, that you've done so many of this constructor's puzzles - reminds me of when Lemonade714 was always blogging Jeffrey Wechsler's
Third, Miss Margaret groaned with each and every pun of yours today ;^)
Fourth, thanks for the musical clips
Fifth - spoiler alert: next Wednesday's puzzle is also a 15x16
Thank you, Sara, Dena and Malodorous Manatee
ReplyDeleteLike Jayce, I got the 4 themers w/o any perps. All were familiar. I also tried for the reveal, but couldn't suss it until I had some perps. I thought the reveal was very clever.
ACHEBE was unknown to me. Ditto WELCH. No matter. The perps made filling in their names easy.
That Beach Boys song sounds so quaint compared to the music I listen to now. I do like some of their big hit songs that received massive airplay on the oldies stations. My brother had a 45 RPM record player in his 65 or 66 Mustang, and I would guess he played their songs along with other hit songs. Whatever the girls and other guys liked to listen to. It was apparently a thing to have a record player in your car way back when. IIRC, his first Mustang was totaled on I-10 just west of Beaumont.
Prof M, from the other day, I'm not sure what to tell you about you not being able to be blue from time to time. I know your browser has to accept third party cookies, and that you should be able to configure it to do so. You might think that it's an on / off thing, like a single pole light switch.
But it may not be, depending on which browser you use. Some browsers such as Firefox use heuristics in their programming to produce an accepable outcome. For instance, suppose a webpage's HTML code tells your browser to use a specific font, but that font is not installed on your computer. Your browser will use a heuristic to produce the text on your screen that is acceptable even if it is not what the HTML coder specified.
In the case of browser developers implementing privacy protections that are blocking third party cookies, your browser may allow the cookies to pass through a certain number of times before they get blocked again. You could try using different browsers to see if your symptoms change.
Read this help text from Mozilla (Firefox) to get an understanding of what I mean.
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/third-party-trackers
This is Jayce. Holy mackeral, I know exactly about just west of Beaumont on I-10. We used to drive I-10 several times a year when going to Phoenix to visit family and going home again to San Jose. (It used to be one of our favorite gas-up spots.) That portion of I-10 is curvy and hilly; one has to be paying full attention to one's driving.
DeleteI was today years old when I learned that there is a place named Beaumont, California. :>)
DeleteOjai Guy. Had a few hiccups with this, but resolved without too much trouble. Thought it to be a fair Wednesday and a fun solve.
ReplyDeleteEnjoyed this puzzle and review. Cat chasing laser beam made me laugh, as did “I speak in cursive”.
ReplyDeleteAs a kid, I rode my bike everywhere, played ball, played “Jailbreak”, skated, jacks and investigated things I probably shouldn’t have! Those were the days!