Tuesday, May 21, 2024 Catherine Cetta

Standing Ovations:  Notice that each theme clue is a two word phrase where each word contains two OOs.  Also the theme clues are Down, so that the double OOs are "standing".

3-Down. *  Pasta-shaped colorful foam float: POOL NOODLE.

9-Down. *  Totally chill: LOOSEY GOOSEY.

21-Down. *  Celebratory search engine logo: GOOGLE DOODLE.  Here's a Google Doodle from last week:

25-Down. *  "So awesome!": TOO COOL.

And the unifier:

31. Enthusiastic audience reactions, and a feature of the answers to the starred clues: STANDING O'S.  Sadly, I am not as clever as my fellow commentators, so I do not know how to add color to highlight the grid.  Thus, I can not accent the double Os, so I'll insert the grid here so you can look for all the standing Os.

Across:

1. Deeply engrossed: RAPT.

5. Played music at a dance club, say: DJ'ED.

9. Led Zeppelin's "Whole __ Love": LOTTA.  [Name # 1.]

14. "The Time Machine" race: ELOI.  These fictional post-human beings from the 1895 novel, The Time Machine, by H G Wells (né Herbert George Wells; Sept. 21, 1866 ~ Aug. 13, 1946) used to make frequent appearances in the puzzles.  We haven't seen them in a while.

15. Slippery: EELY.

16. "Please specify" list option: OTHER.

17. Many many: A TON.

18. Call on the carpet: TAKE TO TASK.

20. Triangle or quadrilateral: POLYGON.  A Polygon is a plane figure with at least three straight sides and angles, and typically five or more.

22. Holds a grudge against: RESENTS.

23. Fed. ID fig.: SSN.  As in Social Security Number.

24. Give the boot: OUST.

26. Boomer's kid, perhaps: XER.  Generation X (1965 ~ 1980) is the demographic between the Boomers (1946 ~ 1964) and the Millennials (1981 ~ 1996).  

27. Sty emanation: ODOR.  //  And 45-Across. Sty emanations: OINKS.

29. Maker of Regenerist products: OLAY.

31. Bath tourist spot: SPA.

The Ein Gedi Spa on the Dead Sea.

34. First __ equals: AMONG.  Also the name of a 1984 political novel by Jeffrey Archer (b. Apr. 15, 1940).

36. Pogo stick sound: BOING.

37. Toy that resembles a gyroscope: TOP.

38. Rafael who is one of tennis's "Big Three": NADAL.  The Big Three in tennis refers to Novak Đoković (b. May 22, 1987), Roger Federer (b. Aug. 8, 1981) and Rafael Nadal (né Rafael Nadal Parera; b. June 3, 1986), each of whom is considered to be among the greatest players.  [Name # 2.]

39. Healthcare.gov law, for short: ACA.  As in the Affordable Care Act.

40. Chi-town airport: O'HARE.  Ever wonder why the airport code for Chicago's O'Hare International Airport is ORD?  It was originally named Orchard Field Airport for the neighborhood in which it was located.  It was renamed in 1949, in honor of aviator Edward "Butch" O'Hare (Mar. 13, 1914 ~ Nov. 26, 1943) who went missing in World War II.   [Name # 3.]

42. Nothing to do with soccer?: NIL.

43. Boo-boo: ERROR.

46. World Cup cheer: OLÉ.  A crossword staple.

47. Wonderland bird: DODO.  Think of Alice.  I understand that just yesterday Alice met a Cheshire Cat.

48. Abbr. on a company sign: ESTD.  As in Established.

49. Promissory note: IOU.

50. "My only __ sprung from my only hate!": Juliet: LOVE.  A reference to a play by Willie the Shakes.  [Name adjacent.]

52. "To a degree": -ISH.

55. Church deliveries: SERMONS.

59. Artist with the 2024 album "Cowboy Carter": BEYONCÉ.  Beyoncé Giselle Knowles (b. Sept. 4, 1981) is married to Jay-Z (b. Dec. 4, 1969), whose given name is Shawn Corey Carter, but is that why she had Carter in the name of the album?  [Name # 4.]

61. Slowpoke's opposite: SPEED DEMON.

63. Petri dish gelatin: AGAR.

64. Ebbing and flowing: TIDAL.

65. Old movie spool: REEL.

66. Answering system limbo: HOLD.

67. Clotted cream accompaniment: SCONE.  Yummers!

68. Site for selling personalized gifts: ETSY.

69. Multitool's multiplicity: USES.

Down:

1. Cuts with a sickle: REAPS.  Sometime it can be pretty grim.

2. Singers between sopranos and tenors: ALTOS.

4. Itsy: TINY.

5. Route around a construction area, say: DETOUR.  There is some major road construction on the interstate in my city for the next [fill in the blank/taking bets] years.

6. Denim pants: JEANS.

7. Rocky Mountain National Park grazer: ELK.

8. One who adds a little color: DYER.

10. Aquatic mammal: OTTER.

11. Better __ ever: THAN.

12. Try out: TEST.

13. Boats like Noah's: ARKS.

19. Austinite, e.g.: TEXAN.

28. Personal code?: DNA.  Cute clue.

30. Story teller?: LIAR.

32. Chorizo meat: PORK.

33. "Planet of the __": APES.

34. __ Domini: ANNO.  Today's Latin lesson.

35. Pigeonhole filler: MAIL.

36. Storyteller: BARD.  THE Bard is Willie the Shakes.

41. Double or triple, maybe: HIT.  Think baseball.

44. 18 holes of golf, typically: ROUND.

48. In equal amounts: EVENLY.

49. "To be clear ... ": I MEAN.

51. Double-reed woodwinds: OBOES.  A crossword staple.

53. Ascend, as a peak: SCALE.

54. Giraffe groups: HERDS.

55. Phased-out jets: SSTs.  These jets used to be a crossword staple.

56. __ fail: EPIC.

57. Upgrade, as decor: REDO.

58. Parched: SERE.

60. Banzai Pipeline island: OAHU.  I am not a surfer, so was not familiar with the term Banzai Pipeline.  Apparently it is a famous surfing spot.

62. Rendezvoused: MET.

חתולה

I will be taking a brief hiatus for the next few weeks.  Fear not, Tuesdays will not be blank.  You will be in good hands.  See you in July.

Thursday, December 14, 2023, Catherine Cetta

 Tall Tales

Tall tales are often based on real people and real events, but those who tell them reveal a tendency to ...

62A. Embellish the truth, and what the sets of circled letters do?: SPIN A TALE.  

Yes, this puzzle has CIRCLES!  I know that some of you are not big fans of circles (and you know who you are 😁), but try to imagine how you would have described this puzzle's theme without them.  You may  recall today's constructor Catherine Cetta's last puzzle in which she used the phrase CHANGE AGENT to reveal what was obvious to all (but regrettably not to this reviewer 🙁), that the word AGENT had been scrambled into each of the theme fills.  In today's puzzle she has packaged the word TALE in 4 pairs of 2x2 boxes across 2 consecutive fill lines and then SPUN it by a single letter for each successive pair.  IMHO that arrangement wasn't easy to construct. Please post any suggestions in the comments as to how this theme could be described without circles!  Here's the grid ...

Here's the rest ...

Across:

1. Have a ball?: DANCE.  A CSO to Yellowrocks ...

6. Part of the fam: SIB.

9. Parking unit: SPACE.

14. Some foreign language exams: ORALS.

15. "The View" co-host Navarro: ANA.  ANA Violeta Navarro-Cárdenas (née Navarro Flores; born December 28, 1971) is a Nicaraguan-American political strategist and commentator. She appears on various television programs and news outlets, including CNN, CNN en Español, ABC News, and Telemundo. She is also a co-host of the daytime talk show The View, garnering Emmy Award nominations for her work. 

Ana Navarro

16. Super-duper: ULTRA.

17. Fashionable sort?: LATECOMER.

19. Reflexology targets: SOLES.  It sounds like acupuncture without the pins.  Here's what a doctor has to say about it.

20. The "you" of "Do You Want To Build a Snowman?": ELSA.

21. Trumpet, e.g.: HORN.  Will a French HORN do?  Here's the 3rd Movement Rondo - allegro from Mozart's Horn Concerto No. 2 in E-flat major, K. 417 ...

22. One of Australia's six: STATE.  Here are Australia's six STATES, two Territories and capital cities.

23. Crow bar?: ROOST. 😀

25. Ship: VESSEL.

26. Store: STASH.

29. Lined up for a cornhole toss: AIMED.

31. Strikes and rebounds: CAROMS.  This guy could teach Isaac Newton a few things about ORB dynamics.  Note that the 8 ball goes in last, as it should.  And get a load of the stunned look on his opponent's face! ...

33. Copy: APE.

34. Moore of "G.I. Jane": DEMI.   Here's what Ebert had to say.  Here's the trailer ...

38. Pointed a finger at: ACCUSED.

40. Welcoming presence: GREETER.

42. "That's the __ ridiculous thing I've ever heard!": MOST.

43. Rowing need: OAR.

45. Deli slice: SALAMI.

46. Penne, essentially: TUBES.  Here's a recipe for PENNE Alla Vodka.

Penne Alla Vodka

48. Stirs up: RILES.

49. Attack: ASSAIL.

53. Emmy-winning journalist Connie: CHUNG.   Constance Yu-Hwa Chung (born August 20, 1946) is an American journalist who has been a news anchor and reporter for the U.S. television news networks ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, and MSNBC. Some of her more famous interview subjects include Claus von Bülow and U.S. representative Gary Condit, whom Chung interviewed first after the Chandra Levy disappearance, and basketball legend Magic Johnson after he went public about being HIV-positive. In 1993, she became the second woman to co-anchor a network newscast as part of CBS Evening News.

Connie Chung

55. Begin: START.

56. Televises: AIRS.  AIR May also be a noun like this one -- originally from Bach's Orchestral Suite No. 3 D major, BWV 1068.  It was transcribed from the latter by August Wilhelm to the famous Air on a G String, here performed by Rusanda Panfili ...
 

57. Test the weight of: HEFT.

61. Alabama city in civil rights history: SELMA.  While some of the major battles of the Civil Rights Movement were fought here, the modern city of SELMA has made major strides in equal rights for minorities.  Start for example with the fact that the city's current Mayor, James Perkins, is an African American ...

James Perkins
Mayor of Selma, Alabama

62. [Theme reveal]

64. HP rival: EPSON. IMHO,  EPSON's printers might rival HP's, but the former is not a major player in the development and marketing of server farms and enterprise management systems like Hewlett-Packard (full disclosure: I was an HP subcontractor for several years ).

65. Garment edge: HEM.

66. Even: LEVEL.

67. Romanov rulers: TSARS.

68. Mind reader's claim: ESP.  Extra Sensory Perception.  Scientist J.B. Rhine (September 29, 1895 – February 20, 1980), who coined the term ESP, claimed to have demonstrated it experimentally, but, other scientists were skeptical.

69. Optimal: IDEAL.

Down:

1. Agricultural giant whose mascot is Bobby Banana: DOLE.  He looks like a slippery character to me ...

2. __ Sea: lake documented in UNESCO's Memory of the World Register: ARAL.  Instead of the usual bird's eye view, how about a camel's eye view? ...

Aral Sea

3. 2019 World Series champs: NATS.  The Washington Nationals.  Here's the story.

4. Takes it on the lam: CLEARS OUT.

5. Keyboard panic button: ESC.

6. Potatoes-and-peas pastry: SAMOSA.  Here's a recipe.

Samosas

7. Obstacle to progress: INERTIA.

8. Rural sight: BARN.  Here's a BARN with another crossword favorite, a SILO ..

Silo and Barn

9. Doped (out): SUSSED. 

10. Tracts: PLOTS.

11. Map lover's book: ATLAS.  An ATLAS is typically a bundle of maps of the Earth or of a region of Earth.  Atlases have traditionally been bound into book form, but today many atlases are in multimedia formats. In addition to presenting geographic features and political boundaries, many atlases often feature geopolitical, social, religious and economic statistics. They also have information about the map and places in it.  The origin of the term dates to 1595, and interestingly has ties to clue 46D.

12. Island with the ancient Minoan palace at Knossos: CRETE.  Knossos is a Bronze Age archaeological site in Crete. The site was a major center of the Minoan civilization and is known for its association with the Greek myth of Theseus and the minotaur. It is located on the outskirts of Heraklion.

Here is the partially reconstructed palace ...

Palace of Minos

13. Artist's support: EASEL.

18. "Why, what's this!?": OHO.  Meh.

24. Units of resistance: OHMS. 

25. Zigs or zags: VEERS.

26. Con: SCAM.

27. Chipotle order: TACO.

28. Lines on a flight-tracker map: ARCS.  Here's a realtime flight-tracker map.  It doesn't show you any ARCS, but it sure shows a lot of planes in the air.

30. EPA concern: MPG.

32. Gangnam District city: SEOUL.  Gangnam (lit. South of the Han River), sometimes referred to as the Greater Gangnam Area, is a geographic and cultural region in SEOUL. The region is generally defined as including the city's affluent Gangnam, Seocho districts, and Songpa district which is separated by Tancheon, a tributary of the Han River.  Gangnam Style is also the title of a K-POP song satirizing the affluent lifestyle of the area's populace.  It's sung in Korean and fortunately I couldn't find a translation.😀

Gangnam skyline

34. On cloud nine: DELIGHTED.  How about a little faintly cute D(isney)-POP instead ...

35. Latin abbreviation in a bibliography: ET AL.

36. Spider-Man pointing, e.g.: MEME.  All of my researches point to this 1967 episode as the origin of this MEME ...

37. Spring perennial: IRIS.

39. Smack-__ in the middle: DAB.  And smack DAB in this middle of this puzzle is a DAB puzzle called Fed Up. And here's what David has to say about it ...

"That’s right—I’m fed up!  I’m fed up, for example, with politics, which is actually just an effect of tribalism, which is in turn just an effect of human nature, which is itself just an effect of nature in general, which is after all just an effect of whatever mysterious process created everything for whatever mysterious purpose.  So I’ll just do a crossword." 

I think we all have days like that sometimes. 😀.  Spoiler alert: I've posted David's theme at the end of this review, so don't read past my sign off if you intend to do his puzzle.*

41. Merit: EARN.

44. America's Test Kitchen output: RECIPES.  Like the NYT you need a subscription to get these RECIPES.

46. Giants: TITANS.  ATLAS was a TITAN.

47. __ cocktail: SHRIMP.   Judy Kim is giving away this RECIPE for free.
 

Shrimp  Cocktail

49. Selling point: ASSET.

50. Choreography units: STEPS.

51. Topping for a 27-Down: SALSA.  Here's a recipe for SALSA.  I think Catherine just might  be a foodie!

Salsa

52. Knight's protection: ARMOR.

54. SEAL's org.: USN.  The United States Navy Sea, Air, and Land (SEAL) Teams, commonly known as Navy SEALs, are the U.S. Navy's primary special operations force and a component of the Naval Special Warfare Command. Among the SEALs' main functions are conducting small-unit special operation missions in maritime, jungle, urban, arctic, mountainous, and desert environments. SEALs are typically ordered to capture or kill high level targets, or to gather intelligence behind enemy lines.  Probably their most famous operation was bringing down the leader of the 911 attacks.  See also 34A.

The Navy SEAL Trident

56. Tennis icon Arthur: ASHE.

58. Roof projection: EAVE.

59. Pest that pesters pets: FLEA.

60. "__ me about it!": TELL.  E.g. TELL me if you have a winning hand? 😁

63. Soccer star Krieger: ALI.  Alexandra Blaire Krieger (born July 28, 1984) has represented the United States at three FIFA Women's World Cups: 2011 in Germany, 2015 in Canada, and 2019 in France. She was part of the defense that held opponents scoreless for a record 540 minutes and helped lead the United States to become 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup champions.

Ali Krieger

Cheers,
Bill

And as always, thanks to Teri for proof reading and for her constructive criticism.

waseeley 

* All of DAB's theme clues are DOWNS starting with DEF, which when spelled UPwards is FED.