Monday November 11, 2024 John Michael Currie

  

Today is Veterans Day (USA) and Remembrance Day (Australia, Canada, and the UK).

To all the veterans on The Corner, thank you for your service!

sumdaze here with my 100th blog on The Corner. It feels like only yesterday....

Constructor John Michael Currie returns this week, bringing a gentle touch. The theme is: 

Soft Serve

These are the four themed clues:

17 Across. Campy photo booth accessory: FEATHER BOA.  

Some people rent photo booths for their events. I have been to weddings that had them. Outside the booth there were various accessories one could put on to create a fun photo. These are example pictures from the internet.  

25 Across. Southern California's June Gloom, essentially: CLOUD COVER.  

We get June Gloom here on the Central Coast, too. We also say "May Gray". Some people add "No Sky July" and "Fogust" but that might be going a bit too far. The marine layer usually burns off around midday, revealing a sunny sky.  explanation from a San Diego weatherman

38 Across. Candy treat shaped like a chick or bunny: MARSHMALLOW PEEP.  

46 Across. Sleepover hideaway: PILLOW FORT.  

The reveal ties these all together:

57. Trial period for a new product, and what 17-, 25-, 38-, and 46-Across all have?: SOFT LAUNCH.

A LAUNCH is the start of an event. Each of the themed clues starts with something SOFT (FEATHER, CLOUD, MARSHMALLOW, and PILLOW). I like it!

Here are the rest of the clues & answers:

Across:

1. __-dab in the middle: SMACK.  This was a fun start, erm LAUNCH!  

SMACK-dab means exactly; precisely; right in place or time; squarely. Its first known use was in an American publication in 1892.

6. Smartphone downloads: APPS.  How many are on your phone?

10. Paper money: CASH.     and     28 Across. 10-Across, slangily: MOOLAH.

14. City west of Venice: PADUA.  PADUA has two UNESCO World Heritage List entries:  the world's oldest Botanical Garden and its 14th-century frescos.

15. Shave (down): PARE.  

16. Spanish eight: OCHO.  Here's a Spanish cover version of a song you likely know:  

OCHO días por semana...  𝅘𝅥𝅮𝅘𝅥𝅮𝅘𝅥𝅮

19. Comics icon Lee: STAN.  (1922-2018) Fans loved his cameos in the Marvel movies. Here's a quick one from Avengers: Endgame (2019).

20. Epitome of slowness: SNAIL.  An epitome is a typical or ideal example; embodiment. 

21. __ acid: AMINO.  Amino acids are organic compounds that combine to form proteins. They play a crucial role in the body’s functioning and are vital for growth and development.  functions & food sources

22. "Oorah!" military org.: USMC.  Marines say "Oorah!" and Army soldiers say "Hooah!".

30. Fish eggs: ROE.

31. Assumed name: ALIAS.

32. Gravy vessel: BOAT.  I liked this November angle on a common word!

34. Goes (for): OPTS.  

41. Some Fidelity offerings, for short: IRAS.  Fidelity Investments is a financial services company headquartered in Boston.

42. Fades to black: ENDS.  

43. Snorer's affliction: APNEA.  Mayo Clinic info on sleep APNEA

44. Gut punch reaction: OOF.     intersects     44 Down. Alley-__: OOP.  

45. Trademarked pastry creation: CRONUT.  CROissant + doughNUT = CRONUT  

52. Weightlifter's units: REPS.  How many REPS are needed to burn off the calories in one CRONUT?

53. Furnish with gear: EQUIP.  One might equip (not an abbreviation) themself with equip. (abbreviation for "equipment").

54. For starters: FIRST.  This M-W article about FIRST vs. firstly is for the word nerds (like me).

56. Skeet shout: PULL.  I linked a video about skeet shooting two weeks ago. In trap shooting, the participant calls, "PULL" when they are ready for the target to be thrown.

62. Flowerpot spot: SILL.  I think of the SILL as being on the inside and the ledge as being on the outside but I found this on a window installation company's website:

Despite common belief, the window sill is found on the outside of the home. Inside the home, the part of the window often called the "sill" is actually the stool. However, the stool is often described as the sill, even by window experts.
Hmmmmm.......  🤔

63. Mideast canal: SUEZ.  

64. Battery terminal: ANODE.

65. "The __-bitsy spider ... ": ITSY.

66. Lean and muscular: WIRY.  Def: (adj.) Being lean, supple, and vigorous; sinewy.  

Both of these men are lean and muscular, 
but I would call only one of them WIRY.

67. "Heavens to __!": BETSY.  Land sakes! This one took me down a rabbit hole trying to find its origin.  more

Down:

1. Beach bottle no.: SPF.  

Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen)  ~  Baz Luhrmann  ~  1997

2. Actress Whitman: MAE.  Mae's IMDb page

3. Toothpaste-endorsing org.: ADA.  American Dental Association  

4. Doesn't make history?: CUTS CLASS.  Good one! The student skipped history class.

5. "Clue" actress Madeline: KAHN.  She played Mrs. White in the 1985 movie. (58 sec.) 

6. Diamond birthstone month: APRIL.  

(Click to expand.)
I wonder how the November people feel about this.

7. "Halo" star Schreiber: PABLO.  Pablo's IMDb page

8. In favor of: PRO.

9. __ urchin: SEA.  Purple SEA urchins got out of hand and began destroying the kelp forests along the CA coast when their predators, starfish, began to die off. Here is a news story about what the scientists are doing to reverse the damage. (3:32 min.) 

10. Pink cocktail, familiarly: COSMO.  

Sex in the City's Samantha, Carrie, and Charlotte with their COSMOs.

11. Last part of a play, perhaps: ACT IV.  Applause was too long.

12. MacGowan of the Pogues: SHANE.  (1957 - 2023) Born in Kent, England, he was a singer-songwriter, musician, and poet best know as the lead vocalist in the Celtic punk band the Pogues.

13. Accept, as a coupon: HONOR.

18. A pop: EACH.

21. Card with no face or number: ACE.  

It was not standard for playing cards to have numbers on them until the 1860s.  

22. Savory quality: UMAMI.  UMAMI means "delicious savory taste" in Japanese. It is one of the basic five tastes, along with sweet, sour, salty, and bitter. It is often described as "the meaty, savory deliciousness that deepens flavor", but it is not necessarily restricted to meat. Mushrooms and tomatoes can have an UMAMI taste, for example.

23. Renewable energy source: SOLAR.  CSO to unclefred!

24. Catherine's "Schitt's Creek" role: MOIRA.  Catherine O'Hara played MOIRA Rose on this TV series (2015-2020).

26. Mountain range from Kazakhstan to the Arctic Ocean: URALS.  

27. Inflict upon: DO TO.  

29. Fire residue: ASH.

32. National park in Alberta: BANFF.  Established in 1885, Banff National Park is Canada's oldest national park. It encompasses 2,564 sq. mi. (6,641 sq. km.) in the Canadian Rockies. (That is a little larger than the State of Delaware!) The scenery is gorgeous in every direction!

I took this picture last summer of Mt. Rundle and the Bow River outside the town of Banff.

33. On in years: OLD.  "Getting on in years" is an idiom that means "becoming elderly".

34. Perfectly timed: OPPORTUNE.  

35. Tubular pasta: PENNE.  

Besides being tubular, another feature of PENNE
is its diagonally cut ends.

36. Start, as a golf round: TEE UP.  In golf, when you TEE UP a ball, you place it on a tee so that it is ready for you to hit it.  

This one is for Husker Gary.

37. Petty quarrels: SPATS.     and     40 Down. Armed conflict: WAR.

39. Cat's noise: MEOW.  

45. Keyboard shortcut starter: CTRL.  CTRL is a key on PCs.

46. Cola brand: PEPSI.

47. "That's it for me!": I QUIT.

48. Calm periods: LULLS.

49. Pharmaceutical giant Eli __: LILLY.  Eli Lilly and Company (dba Lilly) is an American multinational pharmaceutical company headquartered in Indianapolis, IN. Eli Lilly was a Union Army veteran and pharmaceutical chemist who founded the company in 1876. Lilly was the first company to mass-produce the polio vaccine and insulin.

50. Proposal: OFFER.  

51. Posh: RITZY.  RITZY entered English in 1919 to describe the ostentatiously fancy lifestyles of the guests who could afford to stay at the hotels owned by César Ritz (1850-1918). The enterprise is now the Ritz-Carlton hotel company.  

In 1934 Nabisco used the RITZ name to give depression-era shoppers a 
taste of the good life, but the crackers were not connected to the hotels.
I imagine that would be a big law suit today!

55. Onetime Swedish automaker: SAAB.  The company was founded in 1945 and went defunct in 2016.

57. NNE opposite: SSW.  compass directions

58. French yes: OUI.  

59. Do __ disturb: NOT.  I set my cell phone to 'Do Not Disturb' from 9 p.m. to 7 a.m. Whatever it is, it can wait.

60. Media that's burned before reading: CDS.  "Burned" is the term used to mean the information is imprinted onto a CD.  

Talk about burning media....

"This tape will self-destruct in five seconds."

Peter Graves  ~  Mission: Impossible  ~  1966-1973 TV series

61. "Listen up!": HEY.  I can hear my grandmother answering, "Hay is for horses and cows." In other words, she thought it was impolite to try to get attention by hollering, "Hey!" 

It is time for the grid:

Have a great day, everyone! 

Thursday, June 27, 2024, John Michael Currie

 

  Rarely do I find a splash screen that explicitly reveals the reveal (see if you can spot it) ...

Missed it?  Here it is ...

59. Rodentlike features, and a phonetic hint to a segment of 18-, 23-, 36-, and 50-Across: BEADY EYES. And without further ado, here are the 4 themers, provided to us by constructor John Michael Currie  ...

18A. Sea creature who lived across the Strait of Messina from Scylla: CHARYBDIS.  As described by Odysseus on his 10 year voyage home from the Trojan War (see also 46D).  The phrase "between the Scylla and the Charybdis" is also a metaphor sometimes used for "being caught between the horns of a dilemma".

Charybdis

23A. Objects for separating subjects: TAB DIVIDERS.  Adjectives?

36A. Seafood appetizer often seasoned with Old Bay: CRAB DIP. Teri's recipe for this popular Chesapeake Bay delight is posted on C.C.'s Ginger Roots Blog. 

50A. Land of giants in "Gulliver's Travels": BROBDINGNAG.  These creatures of Jonathan Swift's imagination are not only 60 feet tall, but they are also moral giants who have nothing to fear.

Still don't see it?  Patti made it a lot harder than the hat trick from last week -- and certain members of our community will love the fact that there are no circles, stars, question marks, or any other cruciverbalist crutches, so I guess we'll need the grid 😀...
 

... Now say BDI 4 times real fast!

Here are the rest of the clues ...

Across:

1. False earnestness: SMARM.

6. Sawbuck halves: ABES.  A sawbuck is a $10 bill and an ABE is a $5 bill.

10. "Pencils down": TIME.

14. World capital once called Thang Long: HANOI.  My brother-in-law is from a capital just South of there now called Ho Chi Minh City, once called SAIGON.  But that terrible time in history has passed, and he has returned to beautiful Viet Nam a few times to lecture on his cancer research.

Hanoi Travel Guide

15. Zoom: RACE.

16. Human rights lawyer Clooney: AMAL.  Amal Clooney (née Alamuddin; born in Beirut, Lebanon, on 3 February 1978). is a British international human rights lawyer. Notable clients of hers include former Maldivian president Mohamed Nasheed, Australian WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, former Ukrainian prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko, and Iraqi human rights activist Nadia Murad. She is fluent in English, French, and Arabic and has held various appointments with the Government of the United Kingdom and the United Nations, and is also an adjunct law professor at Columbia Law School.

Amal Clooney

17. Bonus feature: ADD ON.

18. [Theme clue].

20. Like good things happening to good people: KARMIC.  The adjective form of the noun KARMA.

22. Not obviously true: ARGUABLE.  I suppose if something is actually TRUE and you argue against it, then you are WRONG! 😀

23. [Theme clue].

25. Staffer: AIDE.

26. Norman Lear's specialty: SITCOMS.  The most famous of which is probably All in the Family.  It had a really great laugh track ...

30. Establish anew, as authority: REASSERT.

34. Sandwich cookie: OREO.  EKTORP.

35. End of a professor's address: EDU.

36. [Theme clue]

40. Heat quickly: ZAP.

41. Mattress option: FIRM.

43. Some "Percy Jackson & the Olympians" characters: DEMIGODS.  After viewing clips for several video adaptations, I decided they were rated NFA (Not For Adults) and decided they were probably not the best way to teach kids Greek Mythology. I haven't read any of the novels, but  this should tell you all you need to know.

45. Onset of: START TO.

49. Isolated group of employees: SILO.  An information SILO, or a group of such silos, is an insular management system in which one information system or subsystem is incapable of reciprocal operation with others that are, or should be, related. Thus information is not adequately shared but rather remains sequestered within each system or subsystem, figuratively trapped within a container like grain is trapped within a silo, or a human actually trapped in an office cubicle.  It can be a frustrating experience ...

50. [Theme clue]

54. Person experiencing the bystander effect, perhaps: ONLOOKER.

57. Heroic sister of children's literature: GRETEL.  "Hansel and Gretel" is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm and published in 1812 as part of Grimms' Fairy Tales.  There have been many adaptations of it over the years, including an opera by Engleburt Humperdink (no relation to the singer Arnold George Dorsey MBE) and a 1987 film starring Cloris Leachman ...

59. [Theme reveal]

61. Ticked off: IRATE.

62. Check status: VOID.

63. Cozy retreat: NEST.

64. Truly stuck: MIRED.

65. Home of Lucas Oil Stadium, familiarly: INDY.  The venue for the yearly Indianapolis 500 Race.  And if you're not into racing Taylor Swift will be there in November. 😀

66. SoCal school: SDSU.  San Diego State University.

67. Snail trail: SLIME. Or the  trail of an ethereal, supernatural presence ...

Down:
1. Literary citation abbr.: SHAK.  Not ibid, op. cit., et. alia, but this guy ...

William Shakespeare
1564-1616

2. Cross with: MAD AT.

3. "The United States vs. Billie Holiday" Oscar nominee Day: ANDRA. Andra Day plays Lady Day in this 2021 musical drama (some profanity) ...

4. iRobot products: ROOMBAS.  Not the dance.  The vacuum cleaners ...

A PSA by iRobot*

5. Bygone audio format: MINIDISC. MiniDisc (MD) is an erasable magneto-optical disc-based data storage format offering a capacity of 60, 74, and later, 80 minutes of digitized audio first distributed in November of 1992 and the last was sold in March of 2013.  It is highly likely though that operational versions of MiniDisc players are owned by the National Archives, as they are tasked with maintaining the capability to make available any US government records in any medium to duly authorized persons.

MiniDisc reader and disc

6. Character's beginning, middle, and end: ARC. Initially I thought this might be a meta-clue, as the letters A, R, and C appear in it.  But anyone who writes fiction is familiar with the the evolution of a character in the course of a story, especially the protagonist.  Here is an intro on How to Write a Captivating Character Arc, offered by the tutorial site MasterClass.

7. Faith founded in Persia: BAHAI. ISLAM didn't play very well with the perps and then I remembered that although it is practiced in what is modern day IRAN, Islam was actually founded in SAUDI ARABIA.  The BAHAI faith however was founded in the 19th century in what was then Persia.  The governing body of the Baháʼís is in modern day Haifa, Israel.

Seat of the Universal House of Justice

8. Paperless Post offerings: ECARDS. 

9. Pianist Rachmaninoff: SERGEI.  In addition to being a great pianist, he was a great Russian composer, my favorite actually. Here is a 3:30 min. excerpt from his Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini featuring the titular theme.  The work premiered at the Lyric Theatre in Baltimore in 1934, with Rachmaninoff at the piano ...

If you want to hear the rest of the piece, the YouTuber who posted it has a link to the full-length version (23:33) in his comments.

10. Hot sauce from Louisiana: TABASCO.  A CSO to HOTOOLAH! 😀

11. Website with a STARmeter: IMDB.  Internet Movie DataBase.  IMHO this site is in need of a major  upgrade and I'd rate it ⭐⭐.  I find that the Wikipedia is a much more useful tool for researching entertainment sites.

12. Vote by __: MAIL.

13. Otherwise: ELSE.

19. Circular shelter: YURT.  A teepee on the Mongolian steppes ...

Yurts

21. Beer alternative: CIDER.  Cider is an alcoholic beverage made from the fermented juice of apples. It is widely available in the United Kingdom (particularly in the West Country) and Ireland. The UK has the world's highest per capita consumption, as well as the largest cider-producing companies. Ciders from the South West of England are generally higher in alcoholic content.   We've had it in France, where it is a local cottage industry. In the US it's generally referred to as hard cider, to distinguish it from the unfermented fruit juice. It is brewed to varying degrees of dryness.

24. Designer Wang: VERA.

27. Short-cut pasta: ORZO.

28. Beer alternative: MEAD.  The main ingredient of this beer is made by bees.  Mead is the first known alcoholic beverage consumed by mankind and is believed to predate wine by nearly three thousand years.  Everything you need to know about it.  Hand up if you've ever imbibed it? ✋

Mead

29. Soaks (up): SOPS.

30. Penalizing sorts, for short: REFS.  Da bums!

31. Trade unions for onions?: EDIT.  Just replace the U with an O!  Luv them meta clues. 😀

32. Vibe: AURA.

33. Brief "Not sure yet": TBD.

37. Comedian Lydic: DESI. Desi Lydic is an American comedian and actress who is a senior correspondent on The Daily Show. She got her start in the 2001 parody film Not Another Teen Movie. She's a little edgy, so it took me a while to come up with this clip, which includes her treading water in Iceland while she explores gender equality with some of the natives; plus more interviews on the same subject with Namibians and Spaniards.  All you guys out there might want to skip this ...

38. Chatting on Slack, for short: IMING. Internet Messaging.

39. Voyagers of 1620: PILGRIMS.

42. Victim in Clue: MR BODDY.  Mr. Mustard didn't cut it, but one of these perps did ...

44. Sister of Regan and Cordelia: GONERIL.  A 1D reference to the play King Lear and a CSO to our beloved Ol' Man Keith -- here's his Wiki.

46. "Iliad" city: TROY.  The city and the legend of the Trojan War.

The Trojan Horse

Spoiler alert -- according to Jeopardy maven Ken Jennings, most of what has been passed down to us about the Trojan Horse is found in Virgil's Aeneid.

47. Arcade currency: TOKENS.

48. Did as instructed: OBEYED.

51. Shift, for one: DRESS.  A shift dress is a dress in which the cloth falls straight from the shoulders and has darts around the bust. It frequently features a high scoop or boat neck (like I have any idea what they are 😀)

Shift Dress
Ann Taylor for $159.

52. Arcade pioneer: ATARI.

53. Phrase beginning a chase scene, maybe: GET EM.  ... and often ending with Book 'em Danno!

54. Slangy "Duh": OBVI.  Obviously!

55. Club light: NEON.

56. Put down: LAID.  "... The best LAID plans of mice and men ..." -- and an ODE to our theme creature by Robert Burns.

58. Journo's intro: LEDE. ALAS, embedded ads in online journalism have killed the inverted pyramid.

60. "The Simpsons" disco guy: STU. As Stu is pointing out, some of this commentary is by ChatGPT Pro.

Disco Stu

Cheers,
Bill

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

waseeley

*Copyright Isaac Asimov.  Some of the other videos I watched definitely violate at least two of Asimov's Laws of Robotics.  These devices can actually be modified to torment cats and shoot bullets!