GET THE "LED"OUT
Tough call, depends on my mood, but I think this 🠉
is my favorite Zeppelin song
There's also a tribute band of the same name
Our constructor David has been a regular for the LA Times since 2021, and mostly Saturday themeless puzzles at that. Today he turns lead into "crossword gold", as he has a change-in-the-clues theme, rather than the fill - and as suggested at 34A., we are looking to take the "l, e, a & d" out from the four starred themer clues ( not the Periodic Table symbol for lead, Pb, Latin 'plumbum', which showed up nowhere, as I first thought ). Quite deceptive if you don't know to look "outside the 15x15 grid", so to speak. I like it when I finish a puzzle and go "Hmm, what am I missing~?" Just a handful of names, none too obscure ( OK, one was pretty vague - I'm lookin' at you, 14A.~! ), a balance of 17 3LWs to 20 four-letter ones, a few abbrs, no Twurds, but a couple of "fishy" entries . . . The reveal, and the "*" theme clues;
34. "Move it!," or how to make this puzzle's starred clues match their answers:
GET THE LEAD OUT
Every classic rock station I grew up with usually did a 3 to 5-song run, typically Friday at Rush Hour, of Led Zeppelin's music in a segment that they all affectionately titled "Get the LED out"
18. *Mis[lead]s in an alley: GUTTER BALL - Miss in an alley, a bowling reference; our dear-departed Boomer preferred calling the venue the "lanes", not the alley . . . "misleads in an alley" conjures up some questionable ethics . . .
23. *Word[le ad] collection: DICTIONARY - Word collection = dictionary; I got done in by the Wordle with a "_vowel _ E R" solution the first week of May - too many choices 😡 By my count, there are 150 ways to fill this in, plus two "Y" versions as well
50. *Storied Gi[lead] locale: OMAHA BEACH - Storied G.I. locale - Normandy on D-Day
I want to go see "Pressure" at the end of the month
57. *P[lea d]eal venues: BELL TOWERS - "Peal" venues - now that's funny
I came into contact with this insturment through the pipe organ company -
a carillon playing the "Theme from Harry Potter" at the end
Wait, There's Morel Bud, Eat~!
🙄ACROSS:
1. Give and take: SWAP - Made my EDMONTON @ 2D. Bzzzzt~!
5. Blister: SCATHE - think reviews, as in " _ _ ing . . ."
11. Tango number: TWO - it does take Five . . . Two, Sir~!
14. Mother of Beyoncé and Solange: TINA - no clue, filled via perps, name #1
15. William Sydney Porter's pen name: O. HENRY - name #2
16. Fresh: RAW - Dah~! Not NEW
17. Pop artist Warhol: ANDY - Knew him, but it filled via perps anyway, name #3
20. Hospital figs.: RNs - Registered Nurses
21. Of two minds: TORN - Left-handed people ( like me ) are in their "right" minds . . . 😁
22. Sub-par performance?: EAGLE - Golf scoring terminology, Eagle is 2 under par
27. Fog: MIST
28. Kicked off: OPENED
29. Has a strong influence on: IMPACTS - I was close - I had impaRts, just 14% wrong
31. Posting on the side of a food truck: MENU
32. Summer music?: DISCO - Donna Summer, that is - clever. Name(ish)
"On The Radio" - in keeping with the theme
The week this song was released, Nov 1979, Led Zeppelin
set a new record . . .
40. Walking aids: CANES - I have one, but walking my neighborhood is too dangerous - no sidewalks, narrow streets, angry dogs . . . I have started going in to the gym to climb the Stairmaster for 30mins on my off-days from training classes
41. Icy response?: Brrr~!
43. Reaction creators: STIMULI
47. The __ Brothers: blue-eyed soul band: DOOBIE - "red -eyed", maybe, I don't know if I'd call them 'blue-eyed', but they come up on the classic rock stations as well - name(ish), and their best song, IMHO
49. Tsukiji market buy, perhaps: TUNA - Good WAG on my part; fishy #1Also released in 1979, it hit #1 in April, and they won the "Song of the Year" Grammy
53. __-Latin: medieval language: ANGLO
55. Only: LONE
56. Night of revelry, initially: NYE - New Year's Eve
60. Sashimi's lack: RICE - half perps, but a learning moment for me - and I like rice, plus I'll stick to cooked food, thank you - fishy #2
More about sashimi - or just see Rusty Brain's post yesterday
62. Carry too far: OVERDO
63. "__ come to me ... ": "IT'LL" - unlike raw fish, it's on the 'tip of my tongue' 🙄
64. Northern limits?: ENs the limits of the word, NortherN
65. Speed up: HASTEN
66. Some drones: BEES - the animal kingdom ones, not the package delivery ones . . . then I wondered if they are in the "animal" kingdom - so I looked
Yup~!
69. Single a donkey: SEE ABOVE
1. Fame: STARDOM - shoulda known this
2. Manitoba's capital: WINNIPEG - I tried the city in Alberta; both are hockey towns, so that's how I knew them at all - Montreal moves on, wins game one in the conference round~!
Buffalo lost, at home, in OT, to end game 7. Sigh.
3. Director's cut?: "AND . . . SCENE~!" - OK, maybe a twurd, but I worked on two movie sets, and this is a "phrase" used tongue-in-cheek to direct your attention to the fact that the performance is over
4. Cough up: PAY
Can you name these two characters~?
6. Old-fashioned farm apparatus: CHURN - "I can't believe it's not butter . . . yet"
7. CVS Health subsidiary: AETNA - half perps
8. Big bang letters: TNT - dynamite big bang
9. Charlemagne's domain, briefly: HRE - [the] Holy Roman Empire
10. Governess who breaks the fourth wall: EYRE - I started filling in this name, #4, but waited; "breaking the fourth wall" is when a character "speaks" to the reader/watcher - e.g., "Deadpool" et al.
Top 10 Fourth Wall breakers; YMMV
11. Star-crossed: TRAGIC
12. Financial nabe in NYC: WALL ST. - 'nabe' being an abbr for neighborhood
13. Little hooters: OWLETS
19. Auburn rival, to fans: 'BAMA - Hah~! I threw in [ Crimson ] "TIDE"; two Alabama (ooops) universities in a sports feud that turned into a deplorable act of pure malevolence against trees . . . over football. Sheesh.
The Iron Bowl and the poisoned oaks
24. Hardware with flanges: T-NUT - we've seen these before
Exactly
26. Community pool org.: YMCA - ah - we have a YMCA in my neighborhood, and it does feature a pool; apparently, there used to be a pool in my gym back when it opened
30. Entertainment medium, for short: POD - Cast. Meh.
32. Fabric named for a Frawnche city: DENIM - sergé de Nîmes; I tried TULLE; it's Frawnche as well
33. Tahiti, par exemple: ILE - plus Frawnche, for island
35. Ft. Worth school: TCU - I had the "U" part correct 😜 - Texas Christian; speaking of Jesus . . .
36. Heavenly sign: HALO
Om, I'm tellin'~!
37. Wind instrument featured in R.E.M.'s "Nightswimming": OBOE - I know of R.E.M., but not this song - the oboe comes in at 3:0038. City slicker: URBANITE
39. Early wheels: TRICYCLE - nailed it
42. Does a cobbler's job: REHEELS - I went with RESOLES
Another person doing a cobbler job
43. Bridle suite?: STABLE - Didn't fool me here, either
44. Listen: TUNE IN - perhaps you'll "tune in" to the various music genres posted today
45. Spanish English: INGLES - Español - oooh, symmetry . . .
46. Chambers of commerce?: MALL - Har-har.
47. "A Man on the Inside" actor Ted: DANSON - name #5, but a good WAG again
48. Honor bestowed by HM King Charles III: OBE - the Order of the British Empire - and a list of who has declined . . .
51. With it: ALERT
52. Teeming crowd: HORDE
54. Brief "Then again ... ": OTOH - "on the other hand . . . "
58. Reproductive cells: OVA
59. Montgomery of jazz: WES - I knew of him through Eric Johnson, who emulated his style in this song. Name #6
"East Wes", from Ah Via Musicom, 1990
60. Umbrella spoke: RIB
Splynter
Grid Flow 24.1
