Tuesday, November 12, 2024 Darby Ratliff and Amie Walker

Anatomy of a Big Cat.  The first and last letters of each theme answer spell out a characteristic of a Lion.

17-Across. Embarrass one's friends in public, say: MAKE A SCENE.  Mane.

26-Across. Resort to desperate measures: CLUTCH AT STRAWS.  Claws.

42-Across. Cartoon character often depicted as a spinning tornado: TASMANIAN DEVIL.  Tail.

And the Unifier:

56-Across. Answer to the joke "What is the lazy pride member known for?," and an apt title for this puzzle?: LION AROUND.

Across:

1. Misbehave in class, say: ACT UP.

6. Little dickens: IMP.

9. Loops in on the sly: BCCs.  As in Blind Carbon Copies.  The "carbon copy" is a relic from the olden days when everything was actually typewritten on a typewriter.

13. Trusty: LOYAL.

14. Christmas song: NOEL.

16. Burn soother: ALOE.

19. Vocal quality: TONE.

20. Had a snack: ATE.

21. Tax pros: CPAs.  As in Certified Public Accountants.

22. "What's __ into you?": GOTTEN.

24. Sweeties: BAES.  The term "bae" is a slang term of endearment that is a shortened version of the words "baby" or "babe".

25. Nope __: facetious term for a snake: ROPE.  I have never referred to a snake as a Nope Rope.

32. Idaho's capital: BOISE.  The name of Boise, Idaho comes from the French word boisée, which means "wooded". The name originated in the early 19th century when French-Canadian fur trappers explored the region.  The trappers to a river and were amazed by the cottonwood trees lining the riverbanks. They called the river "boisé" and the area "la rivière boisée", which means "the wooded river".

33. Some jeans: LEEs.  We had both Lees and Levi's last week.

34. "Love __ neighbor": THY.

35. The "E" of an EGOT: EMMY.  The acronym stands for: Emmy Grammy, Oscar and Tony.   All are entertainment awards.  For a list of EGOT recipients, check out this site.  

36. Inn patron: GUEST.  Hotel guests do not always get what they want.

38. Many a child in Dickens: WAIF.  Think of Oliver Twist.

39. Punk subgenre: EMO.  A crossword staple.

40. Tailless cat: MANX.

41. "The Natural" director Levinson: BARRY.  Barry Levinson (né Barry Lee Levinson; b. Apr. 6, 1942) won an Oscar for the 1988 film, Rain Man, but he isn't an EGOT.

Levinson and Redford.

46. Odds and __: ENDS.

47. New Haven school: YALE.

48. "Man! I Feel Like a Woman!" singer Twain: SHANIA.  Shania Twain (née Eilleen Regina "Shania" Twain; b. Aug. 28, 1965) is a Canadian country music singer-songwriter.

51. __ bene: NOTA.  Today's Latin lesson.  The term means note well, observe carefully, take notice.  It is used in manuscripts to alert the reader to pay attention to what follows.

52. Govt. intel org.: NSA.  As in National Security Agency.

55. Call alternative: TEXT.

59. The "dirt" in a pudding-based dessert: OREO.

60. Lily pad squatter: FROG.

61. Loosened, as shoelaces: UNDID.

62. Pea holders: PODS.

63. "It's __-win situation": A NO.

64. Oozes: SEEPS.

Down:

1. __ mater: ALMA.  More of today's Latin lesson.  The term literally means Nourishing Mother.  The term is used to refer to one's college.

2. Paint layer: COAT.

3. Likely "Bluey" and "Blue's Clues" watcher: TYKE.

4. Abu Dhabi's fed.: UAE.  As in the United Arab Emirates.  The UAE was formed in 1971 and is comprised of 7 Emirates: Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah, Ajman, Umm Al Quwain, Ras Al Khaimah and Fujairah.

5. Appease: PLACATE.

6. How some tips are paid: IN CASH.

7. "The Simpsons" watering hole: MOE'S.

8. Writing tool: PEN.

9. Baker's mixture: BATTER.

10. Thicken, as cream: CLOT.  Although it sounds rather icky to American ears, in England, clotted simply describes the look of the cream as it clings together.    It goes will with scones and tea.

11. Ice cream holder: CONE.

12. "As __ on TV": SEEN.

15. Blocked content?: LEGO SET.  My first Lego Set was similar to the one shown below.

18. Detail, briefly: SPEC.

23. Chooses: OPTS.

24. Overly adorned: BUSY.

25. Some GPS suggestions: RTES.  As in Routes.

26. Punctuation in many lists: COMMA.  The Oxford comma is the comma that comes before “and” in a series of three or more items.  In the case of O'Connor v. Oakhurst Dairy, a missing Oxford comma cost a Maine dairy company $5M.

27. Prom rides: LIMOS.

28. "__, tell me a joke": request made in a smart home, perhaps: ALEXA.  Alexa listens to everything you say!

29. Nintendo rival: ATARI.

30. Spin fast: WHIRL.

31. "Resident Alien" network: SYFY.  Formerly known as the Sci-Fi Channel.

32. Red root vegetable: BEET.

36. "The Lord of the Rings" wizard: GANDALF.  Gandalf was portrayed in the movies by Sir Ian McKellen (b. May 25, 1939).  

37. Colleges, to a Brit: UNIS.  As in Universities.

38. Swell for a surfer: WAVE.

40. __-pedi: MANI.

41. Birthplace of Olympic gymnast Olga Korbut: BELARUS.  Olga Valentinovna Korbut (b. May 16, 1955) was known as the Sparrow from Minsk.  She competed for the Soviet Union in the 1972 and 1976 Olympics.  She emigrated to the United States in 1991 and became a naturalized American citizen in 2000.

43. Candy that can create a soda geyser: MENTOS.  I have never tried this trick.  There is a scientific reason for this chemical reaction.

44. "Us" star Lupita: NYONG'O.  Lupita Amondi Nyong'o (b. Mar. 1, 1983) is another naturalized American citizenship.  She is also Mexican by birth and Kenyan through her parents.  She has an Oscar for her role in 12 Years a Slave and an Emmy.  She is half-way to the EGOT.

45. Spreadsheet input: DATA.

48. "Halt!": STOP.

49. Caped crusader: HERO.

50. Used a hatchet on: AXED.

51. Midday: NOON.

52. Bare: NUDE.

53. Scissors sound: SNIP.

54. Puts in: ADDS.

57. Savings plan letters: IRA.  As in Individual Retirement Account.

58. United: ONE.

Here's the Grid:

חתולה

Nailed it!

Thursday, January 5, 2023, Chandi Deitmer & Darby Ratliff

 

Is There an Echo In Here?

For all the Star Wars: The Bad Batch fans on the Corner.

Today's constructors are Chandi Deitmer  and Darby Ratliff.  Chandi is a licensed social worker who previously published here on November 16., 2022 and has also published in the NYT.  I believe her partner Darby is making her LA Times debut.  Darby is a Doctoral Candidate in American Studies at the Jesuit Saint Louis University, with a particular interest in the intersection of religion and American culture.  Here's a portion of her capsule BIO copied from her LinkedIn profile and a link to her personal blog.

Today they invite us to locate an ECHO in each of the three starred themers:

18A. *Person destined for greatness: THE CHOSEN ONE.    This was by far the most difficult clue for me to illustrate, and in the end I very arbitrarily CHOSE THREE greats, two of whom died this past year:

Nelson Mandela

 

Pelé

Queen Elizabeth II

27A. *Nocturnal bird known for its cry: SCREECH OWL.  Keeping with our acoustic theme (you might want to turn the volume down):

39A. *Cocoa butter confection: WHITE CHOCOLATE.  One of my DIL.'s favorite food groups:
 

54A. *Board-breaking move: KARATE CHOP.  Look Ma,  no hands!

Here's the straightforward reveal, but you probably weren't listening for the ECHOS until you read it:

64A. Nature's sonar, and what varies in the answers to the starred clues?: ECHOLOCATION.  This one drove me BATS (well not a drive actually, maybe a short putt). Here's bit about bat echolocation.  All the videos were too creepy, so I settled on this:

Bat Echolocation

The grid:

The rest:

Across:

1. Fall into bed: CRASH.  Whoops!  Off to a bad START.

6. Turn on: START.

11. 23andMe stuff: DNA. It's back again!  "23" is the number of chromosomes in human cells.  "Me"?  It's one of the things I'm made of.  You too.

Chromosomes

14. Santorini's sea: AEGEAN.  Santorini was the site of one of the largest volcanic eruptions in recorded history: the Minoan eruption (sometimes called the Thera eruption), which occurred about 3,600 years ago at the height of the Minoan civilization. The eruption left a large caldera surrounded by volcanic ash deposits hundreds of metres deep.  It does look like a beautiful place to visit today.

Santorini*

16. Holy scroll: TORAH.

17. Ref. work that added "influencer" in 2022: OED.  The very first edit I had to do upon loading the clue list was to add "influencer" to Google's dictionary.

[Theme clue]

20. Early afternoon: TWO.

21. Fizz liquor: GIN.  I prefer my GIN in MARTINIS, shaken, not stirred.  But if you insist, here's a recipe.

Gin Fizz

22. Polished: SHINY. 

23. Goes (for): OPTS.

25. Pseudocultural: ARTY.

[Theme clue]

31. Tea variety: PEKOE.  The PEKOE varieties are Indian black teas, often called ORANGE PEKOE, but that's not a description of their color.

33. Brass instrument: HORN.  A CSO to JzB, as the Trombone is one of the "Brass instruments".  Here are the HORNS proper, specifically the French Horns:

French Horn Section

34. Arizona Wildcats coach Barnes: ADIA.   Since returning to her alma mater as head coach in April of 2016, Adia Barnes has built Arizona Women’s Basketball into a fixture on the national stage of college basketball while developing her own legacy as one of the top coaches in the sport.

Adia Barnes

35. Chew the fat: GAB.

37. Prefix with day or night: MID.

38. Irish golfer McIlroy: RORY.  Rory Daniel McIlroy MBE (born 4 May 1989) is a professional golfer from Northern Ireland who is a member of both the European and PGA Tours.  He is the current world number one in the Official World Golf Ranking, and has spent over 100 weeks in that position during his career.

Rory McIlroy

[Theme clue]

44. Melville captain: AHAB.  The Great American Novel.  Captain AHAB was the obsessive whaler who spent his life in pursuit of MOBY DICK, the great white whale who had bitten off one of his legs years before.  In 2010, composer Jake Heggie turned it into the Great American Opera, using a steeply raked stage to suggest the inside and rigging of a whaling ship and digital projections onto the stage to simulate a fleet of harpooners.  We've seen this stunning production at the Kennedy Center and later on PBS Great Performances.  This was the preview for the LA Opera's presentation:

45. Melber of MSNBC: ARI.  Ari Naftali Melber (born March 31, 1980) is an American attorney and journalist who is the chief legal correspondent for MSNBC and host of The Beat with Ari Melber.

Ari Melber

46. Court: WOO.

47. Drought-damaged: SERE.

48. Fireplace stack: LOGS.

50. He-Man's twin: SHE-RA.  DNK SHE-RA.  She-Ra, real name Adora, is a fictional super heroine in the 1985 Filmation series She-Ra: Princess of Power and its 2018 reboot She-Ra and the Princesses of Power:

She-Ra

54A [Theme clue]

57. Mario Paint console, initially: SNES.  Super Nintendo Entertainment System.  Two parts of Mario Paint are meant to familiarize the user with the SNES mouse: the title screen, where users can click on each of the logo text for "surprise[s]" to occur and a fly-swatting mini-game named Gnat Attack, where the player swats 100 insects before fighting a boss named King Watinga.  It sounds exciting:

58. Black Power leader Kwame __: TURE.  Perhaps better known to older folks as Stokely Carmichael (born June 29, 1941, Port of Spain, Trinidad—died November 15, 1998, Conakry, Guinea), West-Indian-born civil rights activist, leader of Black nationalism in the United States in the 1960s and originator of its rallying slogan, “Black power.  I recall that he was well known in Maryland where he led several protest marches.  His death in 1998 was due to prostate cancer.

Kwame Ture

59. Chinese greeting: NI HAO.  "Hello".  Today's Mandarin lesson.  Just about the only words I remember from 15 years ago when my Son and I traveled to Harbin, China to adopt my second oldest grandson.  He recently achieved the rank of Eagle Scout.

62. Chemical in some plastics, briefly: BPA.  Better living through chemistry.  BPA stands for bisphenol A, an industrial chemical that has been used to make certain plastics and resins since the 1950s. 

63. Goal: AIM.

[Theme clue]

68. Slangy assent: YEP.

69. Unoriginal: TRITE.

70. Least extroverted: SHIEST.

71. "Give or take" ending: ISH.

72. Talked up: HYPED.

73. "Ugh, I'll never be able to __ that!": UN SEE.  What many of the investigators said who were Inside the Bitcoin Bust That Took Down the Web’s Biggest Child Abuse Site (Wired Mag Apr 7, 2022).  In order to prove their charges they had to examine thousands of pictures of child pornography and many of the investigators were completely devastated by the experience. I'd previously read the 60 page article about the years long investigation and found it emotionally draining.

Down:

1. Period with a noticeable lack of feline fossils: CAT GAP.  When I first perped this clue I thought it was a joke.  But it wasn't.

2. Employ again: REHIRE.

3. "Men in Black" role: AGENT K.  Men in Black (stylized as MIB: Men in Black) is a 1997 American science fiction action comedy film. Loosely based on the Marvel comic book series of a similar name created by Lowell Cunningham and Sandy Carruthers.  The film stars Tommy Lee Jones (Agent K) and Will Smith (Agent J) as two agents of a secret organization called the Men in Black:

4. Wall Street regulatory org.: SEC.  Securities and Exchange Commission.  Here's what they do.

5. Chortles: HAHS.

6. Skunk aftermath: STENCH.  An olfactory disaster.

7. Four-time Pro Bowl quarterback who never made it to the Super Bowl: TONY ROMO.

8. Affectional orientation abbr.: ARO.  AROMANTIC, i.e. someone who doesn't form romantic attachments. 

9. Bolted: RAN.

10. 2000s teen drama that introduced "Chrismukkah": THE OC.  A portmanteau of Christmas and Hanukkah.  The O.C. is an American teen drama television series created by Josh Schwartz that originally aired on the Fox network in the United States from August 5, 2003, to February 22, 2007, running a total of four seasons. "O.C." is an initialism of Orange County, the location in Southern California in which the series is set:

11. Pencil puzzle: DOT TO DOT.

12. Story line?: NEWS WIRE.

13. Big fuss: ADO.

15. Japanese drama: NOH.  Noh (能, Nō, derived from the Sino-Japanese word for "skill" or "talent") is a major form of classical Japanese dance-drama that has been performed since the 14th century.

Noh Performer

19. Certain sib: SIS.

24. Ancient kings who wore nemes headdresses: PHARAOHS.  Nemes were pieces of striped head cloth worn by pharaohs in ancient Egypt.  Here's one created by a marvelous modern fashion designer:
 

Nemes Headdress

26. Jellystone resident: YOGI BEAR.

28. Actor Bana: ERIC.  Eric Banadinović, AM (born 9 August 1968), known professionally as Eric Bana, is an Australian actor and comedian. He began his career in the sketch comedy series Full Frontal before gaining notice in the comedy drama The Castle (1997). He achieved further critical recognition for starring in the biographical crime film Chopper (2000.

Eric Bana

29. Fund: ENDOW.

30. Set down: LAY.

32. End a fast: EAT.

36. "If __ Street Could Talk": BEALE.  If Beale Street Could Talk is a 2018 American romantic drama film written and directed by Barry Jenkins and based on James Baldwin's 1974 novel of the same name.  The film follows a young woman who, with her family's support, seeks to clear the name of her wrongly charged lover and prove his innocence before the birth of their child.

39. Cereal with collectible boxes: WHEATIES.  You can buy this one on eBay for just $3500 ...

40. Gruff protest: HARRUMPH.

41. Lightweight clog: CROC.

42. Singer's challenge: HIGH NOTE.  Here's a clip of Diana Damrau's HIGH NOTES in the role of the evil Queen of the Night, berating her daughter to kill her enemy Sarastro in Mozart's The Magic Flute.  They don't get much higher than this:

43. Spanish article: LOS. Los Angeles, "THE City of Angels".  Today's Spanish lesson.

44. Request: ASK.

49. Besmirched: SOILED.

51. Some gender-fluid people: ENBIES. A homophone for NBs, an acronym for "Non-Binaries".

52. Tranquility: REPOSE.

53. Swahili for "thank you": ASANTE.  And HAKUNA SHIDA is "No Problem".  Today's Swahili lesson.

55. Pearly whites: TEETH.

56. Soup sometimes served with banh mi: PHO.  My Sister Mary's recipe is still available on C.C.'s Ginger Roots blog.

60. Cooling systs.: ACS.

61. Island near Kauai: OAHU. Thus OAHU is an island near KAUAI ...

        KAUAI                                                            OAHU

63. Ghanaian writer __ Kwei Armah: AYI.  Ayi Kwei Armah (born 28 October 1939) is a Ghanaian writer best known for his novels including The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born (1968), Two Thousand Seasons (1973) and The Healers (1978). He is also an essayist, as well as having written poetry, short stories, and books for children.

Ayi Kwei Armah

65. Get weepy: CRY.

66. With it: HIP.

67. Sardine can: TIN.

Cheers,
Bill

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

waseeley

Chandi Deitmer and Darby Ratliff,  you are invited to post anything you'd like to share about this puzzle, its evolution, the theme, or whatever, in the Comments section below.  We'd love to hear from you. 

* Oh and thanks to sumdaze for teaching me a new use for a tool I've been using for years.  I've just used it to "snip", but never to "sketch".