Saturday, January 6, 2018, Daniel Nierenberg

THEMELESS SATURDAY

Daniel has offered a real challenge on this first Saturday in '18. I needed a fill to unlock each corner with the NE being the last to fill. This clue immediately below was not in the vocabulary for this science/space guy but... 

13. Plot devices for sci-fi travelers : TIME SLIPS - Spontaneous instances of time travel that Marty McFly discovered at 88 mph

Across

1. Vaudeville show, e.g. : VARIETY ACT - Old vaudevillians who brought their VARIETY ACTS to TV are given credit for selling thousands of sets. 10 point penalty if you don't know these two!

11. Cuban pronoun : ESTA

15. Group formed in Cairo in 1945 : ARAB LEAGUE - The original group of 7 now numbers 22

16. Make muddy : ROIL - A frequent political trick if they do not want to answer the question 


17. Reactionary '60s genre : MINIMAL ART - This piece sold for over $100M





18. Unfeeling : NUMB - Have you seen the weather around the country this week?

19. Identifies : PEGS

20. Just : MERE

21. Great canines? : DANES - My favorite DANE is Victor Borge 

22. Tart fruits : SLOES -And their famous product

24. Is bothered : MINDS - People that mind don't COUNT and people who count don't mind!

25. More or less, informally : SORTA - just about, nearly, kinda... 


29. Brightly plumed songbird : ORIOLE - All of these have graced our yard and the ORIOLE certainly stands out

31. Banned chem. contaminant : PCB

34. Most lascivious : LEWDEST - This is a hard description to obtain these days

36. Mess with : KID

37. Super Bowl MVP after Peyton : ELI - One of Eli's Super Bowl wins was greatly aided by David Tyree's (#85) famous catch that he pinned to the top of his helmet 

38. Final hour? : EXAM DAY - Teachers today soon learn that they had better be teaching to the EXAM

39. Galoot : APE

40. Big automotive initials : REO - Isn't this REO Speedwagon a beauty?

41. Like some observant Jews : HASIDIC - They'd stand out in my 'hood

42. Designing initials : YSL - Yves St. Laurent 

43. Place for porcelain, possibly : MANTEL - Here's a beautiful porcelain MANTEL clock 

45. Stuffed fare : TACOS

47. Zero, to Nero : NIHIL - Latin for nothing and the root for NIHILISM

48. Opposite : POLAR - My loving wife and I are POLAR opposites on some issues but not anything really important to us

52. Come to pass : OCCUR

53. Cryotherapy offerers : SPAS - Exposure to -200F air for a couple minutes is supposed to be a great treatment for pain

57. Give significance to, in a way : NAME - CITI paid $400M over 20 years to NAME this stadium home of the NY Mets

58. Travel in no particular direction : ROAM

59. Trial records : STENO NOTES - I'll bet she did!

61. Niggle : CARP - Niggle seems like a fun little word

62. Collectible, maybe : OUT OF PRINT - A Gutenberg Bible might be a tough find 

63. Charity : ALMS

64. Double helix pair : DNA STRANDS - We share 96% of our DNA with chimps.


Down

1. Improvises : VAMPS - Keep VAMPING, we're trying to get the show headliner sober!

2. King Triton's daughter : ARIEL

3. 2011 title cowboy chameleon : RANGO - RANGO and his "voicer" Johnny Depp

4. Sacred birds : IBISES

5. Stately street adornment : ELM 

6. __ spirit : TEAM 

7. School named for a Welsh merchant : YALE - Some of that merchandise he traded in was slaves but the movement to change the college name is going nowhere 

8. Ingredient in the Japanese jellied dessert yokan : AGAR - AGAR is the "gelatinizing" agent in this lovely dessert

9. Means of correction : CURE

10. Some action in "Full Metal Jacket" took place on it : TET - I  learned the abandoned Beckton Gasworks in East London was where the battle scenes were filmed.

11. 1844 Verdi opera : ERNANI - ERNANI was a bandit in this opera by Giuseppe Verdi (Joe Green according to Victor Borge)

12. Seem reasonable : SOUND OKAY - "Let's attack the center of the line on cemetery ridge at Gettysburg and split the Yankees!"

14. Liturgical dress : ALBS

21. Surprise bad guy : DIRTY COP

23. One who gets it all : SOLE HEIR - She was his SOLE HEIR upon his death

24. Assembled artwork : MOSAIC - We saw fabulous MOSAICS in the Vatican

26. Longtime pharmacy chain : REXALL - The REXALL of my misspent yute kept Playboys and condoms under the counter out of sight

27. Christmas poem opener : TWAS - A great holiday tradition. Now where is my sleep cap?

28. Let in : ADMIT

30. Pulitzer-winning biographer Leon : EDEL - If I feel interested enough, I'll post a picture of him...

31. Wave generator? : PERM - Getting one in 1935 with the Gallia Machine

32. Controversial technology involving carbon capture and storage : CLEAN COAL - It purports to extract CO2 from burning coal exhaust gases and store it securely underground

33. Part of a fictional six-million-dollar repair : BIONIC ARM 

35. Ancient Icelandic text : EDDA

46. Chihuahua neighbor : SONORA - Just south of Tucson 

49. Ipso facto, e.g. : LATIN

50. Fix : AMEND

51. Breaks in scores : RESTS

52. Killer whale : ORCA - I'm sure  54. Org. promoting veganism : PETA is not in favor of having ORCAS do this but might have felt the animal got some measure of justice at the end of this sequence as he 53. Surprise big-time : STUNNED the trainer as he 44. Hits hard : THUMPS her

55. Years in Granada : ANOS - Me? Tengo 71 años de edad

56. __ light : SOFT

59. Land development aid : SOD

60. "On Point" syndicating org. : NPR

A tough but eminently fair test to me. You?

DA GRID:

Friday, November 3, 2017, Daniel Nierenberg

TITLE: HIGH TECH CUT AND PASTE

Husker Gary here taking over the Friday bridge for a few weeks. Daniel has a supplied a delightful challenge to you and me as he does some word EDITING on the word GENE under the rubric of GENETIC EDITING we see in his reveal:

50. Molecular manipulation technique ... and a hint to the starts of the three other longest puzzle answers : GENE EDITING - Which is shown symbolically here

Since our mission here is in the linguistic and not biological sciences let's confine our discourse to the former and not the latter. Daniel has taken the word GENE and has edited that word by replacing the fourth, second and third letters respectively and using that product as the first word in three fun theme entries. Very cool!

Let's start by looking at Daniel's three themers:

21. Counseling for boomers' kids? : GENX THERAPY (the E is edited to an X) - 

A Medical Procedure and GEN X Prototypes
who are getting some Breakfast Club therapy

26. Sign on a film studio employee's door? : GONE SPLICING (The E is edited to an O)

A Medical Procedure and a Film Editor's Job

43. Altered clone of actor Richard? : GERE MUTATION (The N is edited to an R)

A Medical Procedure and RICHARD GERE altered
and not really mutated 😜

Now let's see how Daniel tested our genetic makeup today:

Across

1. Free : LET GO - Verb not adjective

6. Crusty formation : SCAB

10. One in a farm array : BALE - Round BALES have mostly supplanted old, labor intensive rectangular ones

14. Truism : AXIOM - The whole is greater than the part - Euclid

15. Kappa preceder : IOTA

16. Entry : ITEM - My lovely OCD bride checks every ITEM on every receipt when we get home!

17. Saint toppers : NIMBI - No idea for this verbal cowboy and since I chose the Y for 5. "Yikes!" : O MI GOSH (which yields NIMOY? across), I'll take one bad cell and go to my room.

18. Equine footwork : GAIT

19. Glitz : GLAM - GLAM rock was not a big part of my world

20. Renewed one's energy, in a way : ATE

24. Santa __: Sonoma County seat : ROSA - So much was destroyed in the recent fires

25. Complimentary writers : ODISTS

31. Words of desire : I WISH

32. Room at the hacienda : SALA

33. Fast hit : JAB - Derek Jeter wants no part of a JAB from "The Greatest"

36. Gave for a while : LENT





37. Some rank indicators : BELTS - Judo BELTS

39. Corona product : BEER

40. Disturbance : ADO

41. "Write once, run anywhere" software : JAVA - Cross platform for sure. 

42. One with many mouths to feed? : HYDRA

46. French gambling game : ECARTE - Ce jeu est nouveau pour moi (This game is new to me)

49. Zero : NONE - Describes my previous knowledge of ECARTE after I saw the answer was not baccarat 

53. Sudden turn : ZAG

56. Advantage : EDGE

57. Bunches : A LOT

58. Immune system component : T CELL - An important topic in HIV discussion

60. Food preservative : SALT - The Lincoln, NE minor league team is named for this valuable resource found there 150 years ago

61. Cithara relative : LYRE - The oldest cithara shown here was not big in GLAM rock.

62. Clear, in a way : ERASE

63. "__ bien!" : TRES - My granddaughter's description so far of her semester in Grenoble, France

64. Word appearing twice in a Woody Guthrie title : LAND - This LAND is your LAND

65. Synthetic polymer : NYLON


Down

1. Turner of "The Bad and the Beautiful" : LANA - She plays a woman who is victimized by a studio head played by Kirk Douglas. Nah, that could never happen!

2. It's a turnoff : EXIT - If you miss EXIT 193 on the Florida Turnpike, the next one is 48 miles away

3. What's up at the deadline? : TIME - I can't tell you how many kids have their project done the day AFTER the deadline

4. Mushy lump : GOB


6. Traffic or turn follower : SIGNAL - "Is my turn SIGNAL working?" "Yes, no, yes, no..."

7. Influence with flattery : COAX - More carrot and less stick

8. Studying like crazy, say : AT IT

9. Tub soothers : BATH OILS

10. Interstate rumbler : BIG RIG - Two BIG RIGS hauling a, uh, BIG RIG

11. Condemned Titan : ATLAS - He was condemned to hold the Earth (Gaia) on his shoulders

12. Jumped : LEAPT

13. "Game of Thrones" accumulation : EMMYS - I'm the guy who has never watched it

22. Zener cards presumably tested for it : ESP - He never had a chance did he?

23. "Show Boat" author Ferber : EDNA

24. Take a load off : REST

26. __ monster : GILA


27. Was required to pay : OWED - To whom is the money shown here OWED?

28. Yucatán youngster : NINO - Who is this kid and why is he messing with our weather?

29. Sunni's religion : ISLAM

30. Indoor __ : CAT - Our Lily is clearly one and it appears she brought M & M's to the manger

33. Force user : JEDI

34. NASA prefix : AERO - My golf pro's daughter is on the left and is a member of the UNL AEROspace Engineering team that is building a retractable arm to be used on a future NASA vehicle at Langley.

35. Muffin option : BRAN

37. Left nothing out : BARED ALL

38. Big event lead-in : EVE - All Hallows' EVE just passed 

39. Data measure : BYTE

41. Ballet jump : JETE - A dramatic view of one

42. Do a surfing maneuver : HANG TEN - Toes overboard!

43. Shakes hands with, say : GREETS

44. Bonded : UNITED

45. Weigh station unit : TON

46. Get rid of : EGEST - I get Amazon videos but this is not making my playlist

53. Gusto : ZEAL - A little too much being shown in the EGEST movie above

47. Wood for grilling planks : CEDAR

48. What "x" may be in trigonometry : ANGLE

51. Former NHL winger Kovalchuk : ILYA - Я не имел понятия об этом парень! (I had no clue about this guy!)

52. Uncertain : TORN

54. "Just one more thing ... " : ALSO

55. Narrow valley : GLEN - Oh Danny Boy, The pipes, the pipes are calling. From GLEN to GLEN and down the mountainside

59. Sound of woe : CRY

DA GRID:

It's time to SPLICE your responses to this exposition:

Saturday, Oct 28th, 2017, Daniel Nierenberg

Theme: None

Words: 72 (missing Q,X)

Blocks: 29

This puzzle gave me a mental wedgie.  It didn't help that I massacred two sections with constant overwrites - had I done this one in pencil, there'd be no paper left.  I thought I had enough to solve this one, but most of the clues just didn't give me anything to work with, and then some of the answers didn't look right anyway - I'm looking at you, 17a & 45d.~!!  Caved in to red-letters.  No exceptionally long answers, and that might have contributed; just triple 9's in the across, and triple 8's in the down;

17. Florida beach ranked by TripAdvisor as #1 in the U.S. in 2017 : SIESTA KEY - Argh~!! siestakey~? Had I parsed this properly, it might have made sense - but the furthest south I have ever been is Jacksonville, FL, and "key" never occurred to me

14. Construction protection : HARD HATS - clever plural misdirection

60. Insect world raiders : AMAZON ANT - ah, the wonders of nature - the Wiki

34. Curse deterrent : SWEAR JAR - if I had one for this puzzle, I could have bought my own vineyard; here's a picture of the vines surrounding the owner's house - see below, too

Rainy Day

 VINEWARD~!

ACROSS:

1. Takes a risky leap : BASE JUMPS - I got the JUMPS part, but 'HIGH' was all that came to mind

10. Teensy bit : SKOSH - learned from doing crosswords

15. Baked fruit dessert : APPLE TART

16. Actress Campbell of "Martin" : TISHA

18. Furry fish eater : OTTER - seemed to simple, so I waited

19. Drink with a polar bear mascot : ICEE - dah~!  Not COKE - this ad mascot

20. Mag wheel? : HEF  - R.I.P.

21. Let loose : UNTIED

22. Dishonorable sort : CAD - Dah~!  Not CUR - the NW corner was the first disaster area

23. Without breaks, as a tennis set : ON SERVE - in desperation, I tried "ONE-LOVE", and the "O" and "N" remained after I switched to red-letters.  That helped.

25. Degree of uncertainty : NTH - again, I hesitated

26. One hanging around in the forest? : SLOTH

28. Eurasia's __ region : URAL - I had aRAL, which made it almost impossible to make sense of 7d.

29. Cantina snack : TAPA - ugh.  Not TACO

30. Tombstone shootout participant : EARP - Yay~!  I got one~!

32. Natural home : HABITAT

34. Domino's competitor : SBARRO - knowing this was a huge help in the SW

37. Fruits often cubed : MELONS

38. Hopeful : WANNABE

40. Acted like : APED - I think this is better than the "Did" clue we had about two weeks ago

41. Lighting hrs.? : ETAs - think "a"-lighting, as in landing

42. Eye care brand : ReNu

44. City on the Shatt al-Arab river : BASRA - filled via perps

48. Hawaiian yellowfin : AHI - a good WAG, since it could have occurred at 39d., too

49. String around the collar? : BOLO TIE - I so wanted NAME TAG here

51. Harley Davidson's NYSE symbol : HOG - knew it

52. Prayer string : ROSARY

54. British society page VIP : NOB - I tried FOP; this was the start of my "four corners from hell" - I was missing the "N" and "B" and those choices were not at the top of my list; "M" and "Z" from 60a. were the other pair in the across clue

55. Tiny particle : MOTE - Rrrr - not ATOM

56. Interim ruling group : JUNTA

57. Entertainment for the whole gang : FAMILY FUN

59. Many a Pacific resident : ASIAN

61. Tears : RENDS - tEErs or tArEs~? I can never tell in a blank grid

62. Ceremony with a Best Female Hip-Hop Artist category : BET AWARDS

DOWN:

1. First things to learn : BASICS - "THE ABCS" didn't fit

2. Forming a summit : APICAL - new word for me

3. Tight-fitting suit : SPEEDO - ah, that kind of suit. I'm an equal opportunity sexist....

take that you misblogynist~!

4. If-then-__: programmer's flow : ELSE

5. Fast flier : JET - not SST

6. Roseanne Barr, for one : UTAHN - F%$#ing not COMIC

7. Partner of kisses : MAKES UP - HUGS didn't fit; then I wondered what went with Hershey's Kisses; the phrase "kisses and makes up" did not cross my mind

8. Choose over, with "to" : PREFER

9. Farm dwelling : STY

10. It may be skipped : STONE

11. Talking Trans Am of classic TV : KITT - Knight Industries Two-Thousand - the Wiki

New movie in 2018~?  I think I've seen that clip before....

12. Repeated melodic pattern : OSTINATO - filled via perps

13. Bit of bakeware : SHEET PAN

21. Tanning aid, for short : UV LAMP

23. "Ten North Frederick" author John : O'HARA - again, perps

24. Motivational speech component? : "RAH~!"

27. Beach birds : TERNS

29. "Michael Clayton" Oscar winner Swinton : TILDA

31. Whisky cocktail garnished with skewered cherries : ROB ROY - whiskey~?  I'm into "merlot" these days.  Here's another pic of the vineyards, taken from the second floor of the owner's house (which I have access to, since I upkeep that place as well)

33. Early bathysphere user William : BEEBE - vague

35. Safe haven for cave dwellers? : BAT HOUSE

36. "Delta of Venus" author : ANAIS NIN

39. Sushi fish : EEL

40. Early fast-food eatery : AUTOMAT

43. Unpopular sort : NO NAME - this clue/answer was unpopular with me; the missing "N" and "M" from the Across clues

45. Instrument made from a ram's horn : SHOFAR - can you tell I'm not Jewish~?  The Wiki

46. Stout : ROTUND

47. Spies : AGENTS

49. Fiber-rich cereals : BRANS - spellcheck doesn't like the plural

50. Spanish vacation island : IBIZA - and the final "B" and "Z"

53. Minimally : A TAD

55. Avian motormouth : MYNA

57. Swell : FAB

58. Like a carefully kept profile : LOW - reminds me of George Clooney's line from this scene in Dusk Til Dawn - caution~! - strong language.  I am going to find me a '68 Cougar just like theirs and restore it some day

I once had a '69

Splynter