Monday May 12, 2025 Doug Peterson and Angela Kinsella Olson

  

Happy Monday, everyone! sumdaze here. Doug Peterson is a frequent contributor to the LAT and we met Angela Kinsella Olson once before . Today they have teamed up for a notable puzzle.

Theme:  

Today's themed answers are all vertical entries -- a refreshing change for a Monday grid. We have:

3 Down. *Neighborhood where the Brooklyn Dodgers played: FLATBUSH.  Before moving to Los Angeles, the Brooklyn Dodgers played at Ebbets Field from 1913-1957. The ball park was located in FLATBUSH, a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Brooklyn.

While this answer might not be common knowledge, I like that it connects with Los Angelenos. After all, this is the LA Times.

Ebbets Field facts, figures, photos, & history

5 Down. *ZZ Top hit with the lyric "Silk suit, black tie": SHARP DRESSED MAN. Gotta love this song from 1983!  

9 Down. *Soil, water, or wind, e.g.: NATURAL RESOURCE.  

Now for the reveal:

40 Down. Initial perfume scents, or what can be found in the answers to the starred clues: TOP NOTES.

Perfume is a mixture of different scents. These scents are created through a combination of fragrance oils, essential oils, and other aroma compounds. Each perfume has a unique scent that is made up of different notes in perfume. These notes are divided into three categories: top notes (the initial scent that you perceive right after application), middle notes (the heart of the fragrance that develops after the top notes fade), and base notes (the perfume’s lasting aroma that lingers for hours).  source

Also, the three themers all have a type of musical NOTE at their TOP.  FLAT (♭), SHARP (♯) and NATURAL (♮) are collectively called accidentals (hence today's theme). They let us know if the note should be moved down half a step, up half a step, or unaltered.

Works for me! Here is the grid:  

Check out those suspenders!

Shall we play on?

Across:

1. U.S. president who wrestled at Yale: TAFT.  There were five presidents with four-letter last names:  Polk, Taft, Ford, Bush Sr., and Bush Jr. All but Polk attended Yale.

Taft was a wrestling champ at Yale. He was known for throwing his opponents hard with the "flying mare." A mare in collar and elbow is any throw that puts the adversary's feet above his head. As you can imagine, it's devastating. All you have to do is take a look at the size of Taft, and you can envision what his powerful wrestling capabilities were.  source

5. Reject: SPURN.

10. "How does that __ you?": GRAB.  

14. Beaut: LULU.  We had this one on May 2. I cannot tell if beaut is being used sarcastically. I think it is but some of these synonyms are compliments.  

15. Hebrew prophet: HOSEA.  I had mOSEs for a while because for some reason I was thinking the song was SmARt Dressed Man. Good grief!

16. Traditional tales: LORE.

17. "Nerts!": DRAT. Both are exclamations of exasperation...or so I am told.

18. Go with the flow: ADAPT.  

The print is tiny. It says,
"My ability to ADAPT is the key to my success."

19. "The Brutalist" actress Laird: EMMA.  The Brutalist received ten nominations at this year's Oscars. This is Emma's IMDb page.

20. Not for children: RATED R.  I had the first R so I tried R-rated. Nope.

22. "No problem!": I SURE CAN.

24. Paging device: BEEPER.  Pagers were popular from the late 1980s to the late 1990s. However, by the 2000s, smaller, more affordable cell phones with better battery life led most consumers to switch to cellular communication.  source

26. Dee Dee of punk rock: RAMONE.  [1951-2002] Born Douglas Glenn Colvin, Dee Dee Ramone was an American musician and founding member of the Ramones.  

Ramones   ~   Teenage Lobotomy   ~   1977

"Now I guess I'll have to tell 'em that I got no cerebellum."

27. Spike Lee's employer: Abbr.: NYU.  Director Spike Lee has taught at New York University for 30 years.

29. __ Bach: fictional "forgotten son" of classical music: P. D. Q.  He is a satirical persona used by composer Peter Schickele to parody classical music.  

Portrait of P. D. Q. Bach album cover (1977)

30. Droop: SAG.

31. Mediocre, in Gen Z slang: MID.  as in "MIDdle of the road"

32. The "T" of SAT: TEST.  But it's not only a TEST. 

34. Stole steers: RUSTLED.  

37. "So funny!": HA HA.

38. Lotus-__: EATER.  This one is a Greek mythology reference.  more info

39. Shopping cart unit: ITEM.  

43. Fashion magazine that went digital-only in 2022: INSTYLE.  I cannot show you this month's cover because they no longer do covers.

45. Home of Tulane University, for short: NOLA.  Let's take another musical interlude:  

Willie Nelson  ~  City of New Orleans   ~  1984

(Willie wrote over 300 songs but Steve Goodman wrote this one.)

46. Overwhelming feeling: AWE.

49. "__ it or lose it": USE.  <See the song for 26A.>

50. Winter hrs. in Las Cruces: MST.  hours and Mountain Standard Time

52. Domino dimple: PIP.

53. Mock mercilessly: DERIDE.  Def.:  (verb) to laugh at or insult contemptuously.

55. Unlace, say: LOOSEN.  

57. Bestowed upon: HANDED TO.  

59. Signify approval of, as a Reddit post: UPVOTE.  Def.: (noun) a vote made by clicking an onscreen icon to signify one's approval or agreement with an online comment or post.

62. Foil alternative: ÉPÉE.  

this type of foil                                 not this

63. Alma __: MATER.  This can mean the place you went to school or the school's song.

I remember how cool it felt to be a high school freshman singing the alma mater for the first time after a football game.

65. Slanted type: Abbr.: ITAL.  ITALics

I did not find this clue to be very bold.

66. Stephanie's "Brooklyn Nine-Nine" role: ROSA.  The clue uses parallelism to tell us we only need the character's first name. 

I saw every episode of this TV show but still could not come up with a name.  

Rosa is second from the right.

67. San Diego State athlete: AZTEC.  This would be a gimme if SDSU is your 63A.

68. Six years for a U.S. senator, e.g.: TERM.

69. Docs who perform tonsillectomies: ENTS.

70. Disappointing turnout: NO ONE.  Yah, that's pretty rough.

71. Nile vipers: ASPS.  They are asp-olutely venomous.

Down:

1. Abbr. before a summary: TL;DR.  Too Long; Didn't Read

2. Mystical glow: AURA.  

4. Solo scholar: TUTEE.

6. Cacao container: POD.  

$67 from Miami Fruit

7. Old Pan Am rival: USAIR.

8. Union agts.: REPS.  agents and REPresentativeS

10. Electric toothbrush brand: GLEEM.  GLEEM also sold toothpaste in the U.S. from 1952-2014. Funny how sometimes things disappear and we do not notice.  

11. Date night flick: ROM-COM.  ROMantic-COMedy  

You've Got Mail   ~  (1998)   ~  "I wanted it to be you."   ~   (2:51 min.)

12. Italian fashion house: ARMANI.

13. Conked with a curveball: BEANED.  

21. Opp. of withdrawal: DEP.  Opposite and DEPosit  --  together a clueing composite!

23. Fury: RAGE.

25. Treat as the same: EQUATE.

27. To the __ degree: NTH.

28. Word of support: YEA.  Think "voting".

30. Patron of sailors: ST ELMO.  I knew this one from doing XWDs. 

AKA St. Erasmus, he is also the patron saint of stomach diseases and women in labor but those make for longer clues. His feast day is June 2.

33. Mai __: cocktail: TAI.  I learned from Good Job, Brain! that this cocktail was invented at the Trader Vic's restaurant in Oakland, CA in 1944.

35. Foul territory?: STY.  The clue is using sports terminology to talk about a place that smells foul.

36. Cacophony: DIN.

41. Yale grad: ELI.  Along with those listed in 1A, Bill Clinton is the fifth ELI U.S. president.

42. Hiker's graphic: MAP.  A MAP with elevation lines is preferable when hiking.  

44. Wearing nothing: NUDE.

46. Stick fast: ADHERE.

47. Clue category: WEAPON.  This one takes advantage of the capitalize-the-first-letter convention to distract solvers from thinking about the board game Clue.

48. Novelist Hemingway: ERNEST.

51. Amt. that may be "heaping": TSP.  amount and teaspoon

54. Mental flashes: IDEAS.  

55. State-run game: LOTTO.

56. Patti LuPone role: EVITA.  

So beautiful!

58. Brand with an Organic Blonde Tea Latte variety: TAZO.  

60. Rain delay cover: TARP.  

61. Colonnade trees: ELMS.

64. Poetic nightfall: E'EN.  EvENing

It's getting late. Time to sign out. Have a good week!

Monday June 12, 2023 Angela Kinsella Olson

  

Hello Cornerites!

I searched this blog and did not find another entry from Angela Kinsella Olson, so this may be her LAT debut. If that is the case, congratulations to Angela!!

Our theme:  

Today Angela has given us 3 themed answers. They are:

17 Across. *"She Don't Use Jelly" band, with "The": FLAMING LIPS.  

The FLAMING Lips She Don't Use Jelly (1993)

They have 3 Grammy Awards but none for this song.

26 Across. *Mel Brooks Western starring Cleavon Little: BLAZING SADDLES.

Angela, you have made Anonymous T very happy because now I have a reason to link these "Top 10 Scenes".  

Blazing Saddles (1974) 6:43 min.

46 Across. *Enthusiastic praise: GLOWING TRIBUTE.

High praise, indeed!

What do these 3 answers have in common? Let's look at the reveal:

63 Across. 1980 Stephen King novel, and what the answer to each starred clue literally has?: FIRESTARTER.

The book, Firestarter, was made into a movie in 1984 starring Drew Barrymore and again in 2022 starring Ryan Kiera Armstrong.

It's probably best to not overthink this one. FLAMING, BLAZING, AND GLOWING are all FIRE-related words and are the STARTing words to the themed clues. Full stop.

Overthink it #1.  You can START a (bigger) FIRE if you have a FLAMING torch, BLAZING campfire, or GLOWING ember. I do not think this is what Angela meant because there is no mention of anything along the lines of a torch, campfire, or ember.

Overthink it #2. All three can be the START word in a FIRE phrase of the form "____ FIRE". So, we would have FLAMING FIRE, BLAZING FIRE, and GLOWING FIRE. To me, "FLAMING" feels the weakest of those three but perhaps it is a regional thing.

Am I missing something??? Your thoughts?

Across:
1. Some rodent pets: MICE.  

You can buy this teeny beanie for your pet mouse on Etsy.

5. Nancy in the National Women's Hall of Fame: PELOSI.  Ranker's list of famous Nancys

11. Reno's st.: NEV.  "State" is abbreviated, so is "Nevada".

How do you pronounce "Nevada"? Do you pronounce it (nuh-vad-uh) or (nuh-vah-duh) ?

In this clip, the campaign advisor is trying to correct the politician's pronunciation. It turns out, locals like it when you know how to pronounce the name of their state.

Veep starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus. "Nevada or Nevaaaada" (17 sec.)

14. Water or elec.: UTIL.  "Electricity" is shortened, so is "UTILities".

15. Buildings in the Pueblo Revival style, e.g.: ADOBES.  Here is an HGTV article on Pueblo Revival Architecture. Also, Monterey was California's first capital city so it is home to many historical ADOBES. This webpage has a list of several of them with photos and a short description of each. The Cooper-Molera ADOBE (11th on the list) is one of my favorite lunch spots.

16. Hockey surface: ICE.

19. "Not happy!": GRR.  

Remember this from the end of Buffy the Vampire Slayer episodes?
Definitely "not happy"!

20. One of the Bobbsey Twins: FLOSSIE.  

The older pair were Bert & Nan.
The younger pair were Freddie & FLOSSIE.

21. Ticket marketplace with a rhyming name: STUBHUB.  StubHub is an American ticket exchange and resale company. It provides services for buyers and sellers of tickets for sports, concerts, theater, and other live entertainment events. By 2015, it was the world's largest ticket marketplace.

23. Self-storage rental: UNIT.

25. "Dig in!": EAT.

33. Brand in the eye care aisle: RE-NU.  

34. Charged particle: ION.

35. Ailing: ILL.

36. __ Roll: TOOTSIE.

39. Mensch: NICE GUY.

42. Trivial criticism: NIT.  See 8D.

43. __ of Reason: AGE.  The AGE of reason is generally used as a synonym for the Enlightenment Period (17th & 18th centuries Europe). It is also the title of a book by Thomas Paine, published in 3 parts (1794, 1795, & 1807). Nowadays, the term can be used to describe the time in life when one begins to be able to distinguish right from wrong.  

O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) "a veritable AGE of reason" (1:48 min.)

45. Med. condition treated by Ritalin: ADHD.  Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

51. "Hamilton" creator __-Manuel Miranda: LIN.  

52. Ward of "FBI": SELA.

53. Blunder: MISTAKE.  and 61 Down. Prints the wrong tickets, say: ERRS.

57. The U.S., in México: EL NORTE. The accent mark in the clue is a hint that the answer will be in Spanish.

62. Ballpark fig.: EST.  "Figure" is abbreviated, so is "ESTimate".  

65. "The __ of Pooh": TAO.  goodreads link

66. Cousin of the Bradys: OLIVER.  This clue refers to the 1969-74 TV show, The Brady Bunch. The addition of younger children to sitcoms that seem to have run their course, in an attempt to improve declining ratings, is known as "Cousin OLIVER Syndrome". These attempts generally fail.  

Cousin OLIVER appeared in the last 6 episodes
of the 5th and final season of The Brady Bunch. Coincidence???
If you do not remember OLIVER, it could be because of the Cousin OLIVER Syndrome.

67. Brewery output: BEER.  

68. Chicago WNBA team: SKY.  Women's National Basketball Association

69. "__ on me": "I'm delicate": GO EASY.

70. IRS form figures: SSNS.

Down:
1. Play awkwardly, as a ground ball: MUFF.  A MUFF is when a player touches the ball without successfully holding it.

In fashion, a MUFF is an elegant accessory designed to keep both hands warm. I was surprised to learn that in the 1600s they were worn by both men and women. Here is a short history of the hand MUFF.

2. "'__ be fun,' they said ... ": IT'LL.  

3. "Adieu," across the Alps: CIAO.  

4. Stately trees: ELMS.  

The Smithsonian Witness Elm has seen 33 U.S. presidents.

5. Sandwich made with a press: PANINI.

6. Enter unobtrusively: EDGE IN.

7. "haha! ur a riot!": LOL.  The "ur" is a hint that the answer will be textspeak.  

Get it? They're laughing hyenas. LOL!

8. Japanese sashes: OBIS.  "OBI" is a Japanese word but in Japanese you do not create a plural by adding an S. Although I do not like to see this done, I can accept that it is common practice.

9. Mo. many Virgos are born: SEPT.  birthdates Aug. 23 - Sept. 22

10. Sent out: ISSUED. like a magazine or a decree

11. Device for one who's afraid of the dark: NIGHT LIGHT.  

12. Beige shade: ECRU.  I've always been a sucker for an ECRU cable knit sweater.  

Don't they look cozy?

13. Action word: VERB.

18. Old Rodeos, e.g.: ISUZUS.  That capital R was a hint. (Yes, ugh, another English pluralization of a Japanese word....)

They were sold in 1988 - 2004.

22. Defective: BAD.

24. __ Fridays: TGI.  

Never mind that it's only Monday.

26. Oven setting: BROIL.

27. "Anna Karenina" writer: LEO TOLSTOY.  Spoiler alert:

28. Picnic pest: ANT.

29. Male offspring: SON.

30. Singer DiFranco: ANI.

31. Dodge: ELUDE. Sometimes EvaDE works.

32. __ as a fox: SLY.

36. "Star Trek" series, familiarly: TNG.  The Next Generation  

CSO to Picard!

37. "At Seventeen" singer Janis: IAN.  

At Seventeen (1975) was Janis Ian's most successful single on the American charts.

Perhaps a bit crunchy for a Monday...

38. Cobb salad ingredient: EGG.

40. Poolside structure: CABANA.  

Looks like a lovely place to solve XWD puzzles!

41. College URL part: EDU.

44. Aliens, for short: ETS.

47. Wisdom partner: WIT.  A good XWD puzzle has a bit of both.

48. Recovering from anesthesia, say: IN A FOG.  

49. __ Pieces: REESES.  

They are like M&Ms ... but with peanut butter on the inside.

50. Possible reply to "Will you be there?": I'LL TRY.

53. Max Scherzer's squad: METS.  Born 7/27/84, Maxwell Martin Scherzer is an American professional baseball pitcher for the New York Mets. He previously played for the Arizona Diamondbacks, Detroit Tigers, Washington Nationals, and Los Angeles Dodgers...but you probably already knew that.

54. "Out of Africa" writer Dinesen: ISAK.

55. Metric weight: KILO.  I'm a fan because I weigh less in KILOs. 😉

56. Cleveland's lake: ERIE.

58. Heavenly bodies, poetically: ORBS.

59. GPS suggestions: RTES.  RouTES

60. __ Choice Awards: TEEN.  Here are some facts you might not (want to) know:

The first TEEN Choice Awards were held in 1999.

The last TEEN Choice Awards were held in 2019.

Winners get a custom-made surfboard.

One Direction has the most wins at 28.

64. Actress Longoria: EVA.  

Easy-on-the-eyes EVA was recently on the cover of Parade magazine.

And now for the grid:

 

I hope this write-up answered any questions you might have had. I flame to please!

 

 

 

Notes from C.C.:

Here is a picture of our fun-loving Sumdaze and her dog. She lives near the ocean and loves getting into the water.

You can also click here and see all the pictures of our current and past bloggers and commenters. Email me (crosswordc@gmail.com) if you want to be included in the Blog Photos section.