Thursday, February 15 2018 Elliot M. Abrams

Theme: Hole Foods. Perhaps inspired by the grocery store sometimes known as "Whole Pay Check"?

The nicely-placed reveal tells us what to look for in the theme entries:

54A. Component of balanced health ... and what each answer to a starred clue looks like it should be part of? : HOLISTIC DIET. "Hole-istic" if you're still at a loss.

And we have *drum roll*

20A. *Beer hall snacks : HARD PRETZELS. This is the outlier - three holes in a hard pretzel, one hole in all the other theme entries.

29A. *Deli snacks : BAGEL CHIPS. Yum. The best part of Gardetto's mix. I make a home-cook gluten-free version for my gluten-intolerant friend.

35A. *Bakery snacks : CHOCOLATE DONUTS.

43A. *Diner snacks : ONION RINGS. I've tried making onion rings at home. I think I am onion ring kryptonite. You wouldn't recognize my efforts as onion, let alone rings.

So ... I'm wondering why the asterisks today? The convention is that if the theme entries are not obvious, then you highlight them, but these all follow the rules - they're the longest entries in the grid, across and down, and, to boot, linked by the common "snacks" in the clues. Maybe one of my fellow constructors/bloggers can shed some light?

Nice puzzle though - I was off to the races with the first few entries and then stalled somewhere in the middle. I like when that happens.

So let's see what else we've got to talk about:

Across:

1. Día de San Valentín flowers : ROSAS. Plenty of these sold yesterday, I'm sure.

6. California's __ Gabriel Mountains : SAN. I can see these from my window most days.

9. Construction rod : REBAR

14. Remove from the bulletin board : UNPIN

15. Blood type letters : ABO. Apparently this is just one of 35 different blood type classification systems currently recognized. We'll have a pop quiz on the other 34 shortly.

16. Like 36 piano keys, traditionally : EBONY. That leaves room for 52 ivories on a traditional piano keyboard.

17. Lewis with 12 Emmys : SHARI. Amazing what a cute sock puppet will do for your career.

18. "That '70s Show" exchange student whose nationality isn't revealed : FEZ. I watched the show, I never realized there was a secret nationality gimmick.

19. Lessen : ABATE

23. Surf and turf, say : ENTRÉE

24. NASA vehicle : L.E.M. Lunar Excursion Module. Also the Apollo 13 "lifeboat"for the crippled command module.

25. Tempe sch. : A.S.U.

28. Time for action : D-DAY

33. Actress Neuwirth with Tonys and Emmys : BEBE. Very talented TV and stage actress, two very different disciplines. She graduated from Juillard.

34. Slim craft : CANOE

41. "Tempt not a desperate man" speaker : ROMEO. He was not long for this world when he spoke these lines - in Hamlet's words he was about the "shuffle off the mortal coil".

"I must indeed, and therefore came I hither.

Good gentle youth, tempt not a desperate man.

Fly hence and leave me. Think upon these gone.

Let them affright thee. I beseech thee, youth,

Put not another sin upon my head

By urging me to fury. O, be gone!

By heaven, I love thee better than myself,

For I come hither armed against myself.

Stay not, be gone. Live, and hereafter say

A madman’s mercy bid thee run away."

42. Pretty good : OKAY. I'd say "Okay" was middling, rather than pretty good. More "mas a menos" or "comme çi, comme ça".

46. California wine valley : NAPA. I recently got to taste a bottle of Chateau Montelena chardonnay, the wine that launched the global recognition of Napa wines when the '73 won a blind tasting in Paris, much to the chagrin of the French. A bottle of the famous vintage is in the Smithsonian. It would be undrinkable by now.

50. Favorite : PET

51. One of three rhyming mos. : DEC. Rhymes with those famous crossword months "Pec" and Sec". Wait - no. Maybe "September" and "December"?

52. Pavement cloppers : HOOVES. Two half-coconut shells do the trick for foley artists. I was told than snapping a carrot in half is useful when a broken finger is called for, and abusing a cabbage with a knife gives you a "crunching stab sound". The wonderful world of sound effects.

57. Lose one's cool in a big way : PANIC. The nerd in me loved the Tesla in the SpaceX capsule with a copy of "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" in the glove compartment. "Don't Panic" is writ large on the cover. "Life on Mars" on the stereo was super cool too.

60. Murmur : COO

61. Lift with force : HEAVE

62. Car or tree feature : TRUNK

63. Tote : LUG

64. Film with lots of shooting stars? : OATER. Six Shooters.

65. Ships : SENDS

66. Stat for Clayton Kershaw : E.R.A.

67. Flexible Flyers, e.g. : SLEDS. Capitalization hints that you are looking at a brand name.

Down:

1. Blitzed, in football : RUSHED

2. In stock : ON HAND

3. Peloponnesian War victor : SPARTA. Athens V. Sparta. It lasted for 27 years, and nothing good came out of it.

4. Put on the line? : AIR DRY

5. Wading bird : SNIPE. I tried STORK first, and was gradually rebuffed.

6. No-risk : SAFE

7. Help with an inside job, say : ABET. Apparently you can't just "abet" in law, you have to "aid and abet".

8. Gas pump part : NOZZLE

9. Genuine article : REAL MCCOY. Per the interwebs "the phrase has been the subject of numerous false etymologies". Google and Wikipedia at your peril.

10. Flows out : EBBS

11. Feathery wrap : BOA

12. House pest : ANT. The moment you see one of the little buggers in the kitchen you need to act fast, otherwise 10 bazillion will follow.

13. Bread with caraway seeds : RYE. Food! Mmmm, Pastrami! I'm in New York - Katz's Deli sounds awfully tempting right now.

21. Insurgent : REBEL

22. Charged fish? : EEL. The electric kind. Apparently they do kick out a pretty good shock.

25. Indigenous Japanese : AINU. Thank you crosses, and a learning moment. Japanese/Russians

26. Notice : SPOT

27. Multi-tools have many : USES

30. Old hoops org. : A.B.A. American Basketball Association

31. Board : GET ON

32. Solo with a Wookiee co-pilot : HAN. "Star Wars" character portrayed by Harrison Ford.

33. Nowheresville, with "the" : BOONDOCKS. I'd have said "boonies", but I guess there's a proper designation.

35. Cut closely : CROP

36. Sharpen : HONE

37. Skip over : OMIT

38. Board bigwig : CEO. Bored bigwig - the CEO listening to the financial forecast from the CFO.

39. Heart test letters : EKG

40. Broth that's the base of miso soup : DASHI. If you have a handy supply of kelp and dried tuna, you can make your own. I get the stuff in a jar, much easier.

44. Cath. or Prot. : REL. Catholics, Protestants. Religion. Stir together and stand well back.

45. Christmas eave decor : ICICLE. Nice! Clue of the day for me.

46. "The agreement is off" : NO DEAL

47. Take wing : AVIATE. Here we go again - the verb.

48. Rather put out : PEEVED

49. Starlike flowers : ASTERS

53. Figure-eight steps, in an Argentine tango : OCHOS

54. Posterior : HIND

55. Acidic : SOUR

56. Draped garment : TOGA

57. FG's three : PTS. Three points for a field goal on the gridiron.

58. Exist : ARE

59. Many a "Call the Midwife" character : NUN. I saw a couple of episodes of this BBC series, then completely forgot about it. Thank you, crosses.

So there we are, another Thursday in the books. Back to the west coast tonight and my home timezone, at least for the weekend. According to my chums at united.com, I've already flown 40,129 miles in 2018, and that doesn't include the Delhi-Mumbai return on local airline Indigo. My trip back to LA today will put me right around the 43,000 mile mark. That's a lot of airline snack bag hard pretzels!

I've never seen anything like this though - a United flight from Honolulu to San Francisco yesterday. Google engineer Erik Haddad gets the "cool humor under stress" award of the day for this tweet:

And with that gem, here's the grid!

Steve

Friday, June 3, 2016, Elliott M. Abrams

Title: Sh......

What I perceive is a debut puzzle for Mr. Abrams gives us words beginning with SH (sound)(vowel) in progression. A very straight forward puzzle with a very fast solve time and a mini-theme of Hawaiian words. I know of an Archaeology Professor who wrote about historic architecture in the MAYAN culture. My oldest wrote about ancient architecture in his time studying in that field. Anyway, on to the puzzle...The theme fill except OVERWHELM are all new to the LAT.  The rest includes forty-six 3/4 letter fill, many of which are common crossword fodder. I am always impressed with those  who grid their own first effort.  I enjoyed the puzzle, especially all the Js. After last week's pangram, we are just a Q short this week.

18A. Shaq : EX-NBA CENTER (11). Shaquille is a very entertaining guy.

24A. Sheik : ARAB NOBLE (9).Sheikh, Shaik, Shayk, Shaykh, Shaikh, Cheikh, and Shekh— is an honorific title in the Arabic language. wiki

37A. Schick : RAZOR BLADE MAKER (15). The "C" makes this the outlier, This may have been his seed entry. If he chose SHI... maybe: Shirk: LIE DOWN ON THE JOB. Of course that would cause a complete rewrite. Life is not easy.

49A. Shock : OVERWHELM (9). All perps

55A. Shuck : OPEN OYSTERS (11).My first thought was corn, but I do not eat shellfish.

Okay on to the meat of the puzzle...

Across:

1. Backtalk : LIP.

4. Went into second, in a way : SLID. A gimme for the baseball crowd.

8. Energy units : JOULES. I love J words: It is equal to the energy transferred (or work done) to an object when a force of one newton acts on that object in the direction of its motion through a distance of one metre (1 newton metre or N·m). It is also the energy dissipated as heat when an electric current of one ampere passes through a resistance of one ohm for one second. It is named after the English physicist James Prescott Joule (1818–1889) wiki.

14. She played Mia in "Pulp Fiction" : UMA. She died and came back.

15. Mackerel relative : TUNA. I forgot that.

16. Opposite of down : ACROSS. Crossword inside joke

17. AWOL pursuers : MPS. Military Police. Probably not a legitimate plural.

20. Combat : BATTLE.

22. Long, on Lanai : LOA. Then an immediate clecho 23A. Hi, on Lanai : ALOHA.

30. Exceptional : RARE.

31. Team members : OXEN. Cute yoke.

32. "Darkness at __": Arthur Koestler novel : NOON. In 1998, the Modern Library ranked Darkness at Noon number eight on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. I never read it. The novel was written in German. wiki

33. Fortress of Solitude statue honoree : JOR-EL. Since the creators were both Jewish, they named their central family EL אֵל. Did you know Superman had his own WIKI?

35. Formal assessment : REPORT. I am not the report type. Michelle does lots of them for clients.

41. Calls up : EVOKES.

42. Pip : BEAUT.

43. Mudville number : NINE. How many players on the field in baseball.

44. 2015 Emmy winner for Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series : VEEP. Not only born into a fabulously wealthy family but in her third Emmy winning series, JULIA is one lucky woman.

45. Wheels : RIDE. Nice ride...

52. Hardly a socialite : LONER.

53. It may be humbly held in hand : HAT. Nice cluing.

54. Stumble : FALTER.

61. Nixon admin. creation : EPA. An environmental CRUSADER when politics made some sense.

62. __ effect : RIPPLE. Not to be confused with the butterfly effect.

63. Israeli writer Oz : AMOS.  Hid views are not always popular. LINK.

64. Nothing but __ : NET. Steph Curry...Game 1, he was not good but they won.

65. Church symbols : SPIRES.

66. Not for here : TO GO. They added to go service at the Cattleman.

67. Helical strands : DNA. Helix like.

Down:

1. Like the vertebrae directly above the pelvis : LUMBAR. Where by herniated discs live.

2. 1958 Chevy debut : IMPALA. Remember it well.

3. Sermon giver : PASTOR.

4. Inscribed stone : STELA. Put in STELE for some reason but ALOHA came along.

5. Elegance : LUXE. adjective: 1. expensive and of high quality; luxurious. "the luxe 65-room Four Seasons hotel" noun: 1. luxury.

6. Comfort __ : INN.

7. Touch : DAB.  I have Brylcreem regularly.

8. Biblical twin : JACOB.

9. Large amount : OCEAN. This area was the hardest for me because of this, but I do know thr phrase from books and HEADLINES.

10. "Thou," in the Keats lines "When old age shall this generation waste, / Thou shalt remain ... a friend to man" : URN. Of the Grecian variety. Most think is it "TO" but is ON.

11. Building site : LOT.

12. End of much language? : ESE. Meh, but I guess better than ease south east.

13. Kazakhstan, once: Abbr. : SSR.

19. Late actor Rickman : ALAN. A recent DEMISE. I loved most of his work, especially Galaxy Quest.

21. 1989 Jack Nicholson role : THE JOKER. Everone thought he was great until Heath Ledger came along.

24. Double __ : AXEL. I do get many figure skating fill.

25. Mark down, perhaps : RE-LABEL. Remarkable, Mabel.

26. Keeping the beat? : ON PATROL. Police walking the neighborhood.

27. Secure, as a room : BOOK. So many ways online now.

28. Past wisdom : LORE.

29. __'acte : ENTR. French for between the Acts, i.e. intermission.

31. Mars and others : ORBS. A simple definition.

34. Vein yield : ORE. Bloody cute clue!

35. Get as a return : REAP. What you sow....

36. Aussie runner : EMU.

37. Nevada city on I-80 : RENO.

38. Tel __ : AVIV.

39. Defense choice : ZONE. Football and basketball.

40. Consider : DEEM. Again.

44. Dachshund docs : VETS. We had dachshunds. One of our wiener dogs ate so much she became a knockwurst.

46. Plan : INTEND.

47. Become more heartfelt : DEEPEN.

48. Printing problems : ERRATA. Placed in a book to apologize for errors.

50. __ milk : WHOLE. Random.

51. Last Reconstruction president : HAYES. Rutherford B. All you need to KNOW.

52. Rodeo rope : LASSO.

54. One that may be transformed by a kiss? : FROG.

55. Scenes of many stitches: Abbr. : ORS. Operating Rooms.

56. Knight supporter? : PIP. Very tricky for me, but not for Gladys.

57. Prefix with genetics : EPI. I becoming more convinced this must be the same man. I did not know: Epigenetics is the study of heritable changes in gene expression (active versus inactive genes) that does not involve changes to the underlying DNA sequence — a change in phenotype without a change in genotype — which in turn affects how cells read the genes. Wiki.

58. "All Things Considered" home : NPR. National Public Radio.

59. Many a pro athlete's pride : TATtoo. Really?

60. Rock genre : EMOtional.

Always exciting to welcome a new constructor to Friday. Thank you Elliott and I hope you all had as much fun as I did. Lemonade out.

Notes from C.C.:

1) Happy Birthday to our talented Owen, who does not celebrate his birthdays. But you're special to us, Owen! So lucky that you found us and continue to entertain us despite your personal struggles.

Owen & his wife Brenda (Feb 28, 2009)

2) Indie 500 crossword tournament will be held tomorrow (June 4) in DC. You can click here for details. See here for the constructors. See Angela Olson Halsted, Misty? That's PuzzleGirl. Other constructors include Andy Kravis, Neville Fogarty, Erik Agard, Joanne Sullivan, Lena Webb, Kameron Austin Collins and Sam Trabuccob.

3)  The fifth Minnesota Crossword Tournament will be held at the Landmark Center in St. Paul on June 12th, 2016 Sunday. Please click here for more details. Here is the direct registration link. Entry fee is only $20 per person.  

Don G and I teamed up again this year. Other contributors (all LAT/NYT constructors) include George Barany, Victor Barocas (also our editor), Tom Pepper, Andrea Carla Michaels, David Liben-Lowell, Michael David, Johanna Fenimore, Andrew J Ries, David Steinberg (Yay!) and our own Jeffrey Wechsler, who is flying from New Jersey to volunteer for the event.