Julie Bérubé last visited us on September 4, 2019. She is a native of Québec (hello CanadianEh!) but currently lives in the U.S. She has had puzzles published in the NYT and the Wall Street Journal, and she was one of the constructors for the 2017 American Crossword Puzzle Tournament.
Today Julie has dropped by to drop the ONs from four idiomatic expressions consisting of pairs of themers split across non-consecutive fill. NO circles (CSO to AnonymousDNLC), NO asterisks, and NO reveal. But mercifully she parenthesizes the (beginning) and the (end) for each pair. If there's more to it than that then I've dropped it:
14A. Act cautiously (beginning): WALK. [ON]
17A. (End): EGGSHELLS.
25A. Require formality (beginning): STAND [ON]
27A. (End): CEREMONY.
43A. Vacillate (beginning): SIT [ON]
46A. (End): THE FENCE.
55A. Have financial difficulties (beginning): FALL [ON]
58A. (End): HARD TIMES.
I don't know about you, but the cluing in this puzzle seemed at least Fridayish to me.
And now ON to the rest. As we'll soon see, Julie has very eclectic tastes in music, and as would be expected from a Québecoise she is also a Francophile.Across:
1. Reduction in hostility: THAW. We could really use some of this at this moment in history.
5. Kind of palm: SAGO. Despite its common name, sago palm (Cycas revoluta) isn't technically a true palm tree.
 |
| Sago Palm |
9. Like some fall days: NIPPY. Or puppies.
15. Sandwich order: WRAP. Sari, not a garment.
16. Asteroids producer: ATARI. Alright kids, this should keep you busy while I'm blogging the rest of the clues (pivot with arrow keys; shoot with space bar (doesn't work on cellphones)). ... (5 seconds later) ... I'm back, I got smashed! See also 51D.
19. Ruhr Valley city: ESSEN. "To Eat". Today's German lesson. Oops! I think Julie was really thinking of this.
20. Kia model: RIO. Not today's Spanish lesson, but this:
 |
| Kia Rio |
21. "Good __!": IDEA.
22. Pry: SNOOP.
23. Fine restaurants cater to them: PALATES. Those of us who don't eat in fine restaurants just have TASTES.
26. Live mixers: DJS. I'll bet a lot of them have one of these.
30. Web company with a bang: YAHOO. Well yes Yahoo is a web company (IIRC one of the first), but the "bang" reference escaped me. I don't think it was a reference to a Jonathan Swift creature. The best I could do was this (although it doesn't seem to be making a lot of noise at the moment).
33. Lisbon greeting: OLA. Portuguese for HOLA and thus a CSO to Lucina.
34. Color of Death's dart, in "Venus and Adonis": EBON. BLACK in the poem by William Shakespeare. If your Elizabethan is a little rusty, here are the Cliff Notes.
35. Thurman on screen: UMA.
36. Fragrant Asian rice: BASMATI.
40. Name of 13 popes: LEO. (LEO XIII - X) = CSO to (LEO III).
41. First name in raga: RAVI. An Indian raga is a melodic framework for improvisation akin to a melodic mode in Indian classical music. Pandit Ravi Shankar KBE (April 1920 – 11 December 2012) was an Indian sitarist and composer. A sitar virtuoso, he became the world's best-known exponent of North Indian classical music in the second half of the 20th century, and influenced many musicians in India and throughout the world (see e.g. 60A). Shankar was awarded India's highest civilian honour, the Bharat Ratna, in 1999. Here he is in concert with American violinist Sir Yehudi Menuhin:
44. Explosive trial: N TEST. Now would not be a good time to try one.
48. Jenny's offspring: ASS. A Jenny being a female donkey.
49. Ski equipment: POLES. A CSO to MalMan.
50. Hot-melt adhesive applier: GLUE GUN. An essential tool for many crafters.
54. Result of rounding, perhaps: ERROR.
56. Zoo draw: APE.
57. The John B, e.g.: SLOOP. A CSO to Jinx. "The John B. Sails" is a Bahamian folk song from Nassau. A transcription by Richard Le Gallienne was published in 1916, and a version was included in Carl Sandburg's The American Songbag in 1927. Since the early 1950s there have been many recordings; variant titles include "I Want to Go Home", "Wreck of the John B", and most famously, "Sloop John B," as recorded by American rock band the Beach Boys in 1966 (lyrics):
60. "Day after day, __ on a hill ... ": Beatles: ALONE. The Fool on the Hill from The Magical Mystery Tour (lyrics) ...
61. Classic Callas role: AIDA. Here she is bringing down the house in Mexico in 1951 with the aria Gloria all' Egitto ("Glory to Egypt"). Her voice starts at about 50 secs in ...
62. One left in a cashier's dish: CENT. By a stiffer?
63. Sidewalk lunch spots: CAFES.
64. Meredith in a longtime medical drama: GREY. Grey's Anatomy is in its 18th season. Meredith is played by actress Ellen Pompeo.
 |
| Ellen Pompeo |
 |
| The Sosibios Vase |
Down:
1. Pipsqueak: TWERP.
2. __ Sophia: Turkish mosque: HAGIA. Hagia Sophia, built in 537 AD (officially known as the Holy Hagia Sophia Grand Mosque) is a Late Antique place of worship in Istanbul, designed by the Greek geometers Isidore of Miletus and Anthemius of Tralles.
 |
| Hagia Sophia Mosque |
3. Computer language family: ALGOL. Geeky clue, geeky riff: ALGOL (short for "Algorithmic Language") is a family of imperative computer programming languages originally developed in 1958. ALGOL was arguably the most influential of the four high-level programming languages among which it was roughly contemporary: FORTRAN, Lisp, and COBOL. Perhaps surprisingly, the latter is still widely used in business applications deployed on mainframe computers. And this is for you Python geeks.
IMHO programming languages are like rabbits: you turn your back on them for a minute and the number quadruples.
4. Cal. units: WKS. No this had nothing to do with measuring your waist, but rather measuring time.
5. Uppsala natives: SWEDES A CSO to SwinglishMom.
6. Van Gogh setting: ARLES. Vincent Willem van Gogh (30 March 1853 – 29 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in Western art history. Here's one of his paintings from the time he spent in Southern France in the town of ARLES:
 |
| Almond Tree in Blossom |
8. Photo __: OPS.
9. Dance done to the 2015 hit "Watch Me": NAE NAE. "Watch Me ( Whip/Nae Nae)", is the debut single by American rapper Silentó né Richard Lamar Hawk. In August of 2021 Hawk was indicted and jailed for murder and related crimes, and currently his legal status does not appear to be available via the Internet. I've decided to pass on a video.
10. "I'll get this": ITS ON ME.
11. Traditional Spanish dance derived from a military march: PASODOBLE or PASO DOBLE. Today's Spanish lesson. Paso doble ("double step") is a fast-paced Spanish military march used by infantry troops. Its
speed allowed troops to give 120 steps per minute (double the average of
a regular unit, hence its name). This march is the basis for the traditional Spanish dance of the same name, a musical genre that includes both voice and instruments. This couple performs a Paso Doble on BBC's Strictly Come Dancing to the Toreador Song from Bizet's Carmen ...
12. __ school: PREP.
13. Feminine side: YIN.
18. Mob assignment: HIT JOB. Or an RBI.
22. Fender guitar model, familiarly: STRAT. The Fender Stratocaster, colloquially known as the Strat, is a model of electric guitar designed from 1952 into 1954 by Leo Fender, Bill Carson, George Fullerton and Freddie Tavares. The Fender Musical Instruments Corporation has continuously manufactured the Stratocaster since 1954. Here's a short documentary on the restoration of Eric Clapton's "Brownie" Stratocaster. He does some nice riffs on it (8 min.) ...
24. Big fuss: ADO.
25. Ward of "The Fugitive": SELA. Sela Ann Ward is an American actress, author, and producer. Her breakthrough TV role was as Teddy Reed in the NBC drama series Sisters (1991–96), for which she received her first Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series in 1994. Ward played Helen Kimble, the wife of Dr. Richard Kimble (Harrison Ford) in the 1993 film version of "The Fugitive".
27. Title in a Dumas title: COMTE. Comte is the French title for the protagonist (Edmond Dantès) of the Alexander Dumas novel "The Count of Monte Cristo". Like Dr. Richard Kimble in the previous clue, Dantès is framed for a crime he didn't commit.
28. Rejections: NOES.
29. 2010 Ringo Starr album: Y NOT. Y Not is the 16th studio album by Ringo Starr. Here's track 3, his confessional "Other Side of Liverpool" (Lyrics)...
30. Home on the Asian steppes: YURT. A traditional yurt (from the Turkic languages) or ger (Mongolian) is a portable, round tent covered with skins or felt and used as a dwelling by several distinct nomadic groups in the steppes of Central Asia.
 |
| A Mongolian ger |
31. Eastern nanny: AMAH. An amah or ayah is a girl or woman employed by a family to clean, look after children, and perform other domestic tasks.
32. Stand ready to accuse: HAVE PROOF. The burden of proof is on the accuser.
37. Moore co-star: ASNER. Mary Tyler Moore and Ed Asner in "The Mary Tyler Moore Show".
38. Incites to attack: SICS.
39. Put down: INSULT. This clue/fill can be a noun or a verb ...
45. "Cats" poet's monogram: TSE. A CSO to Hahtoolah! Thomas Stearns Eliot OM (26 September 1888 – 4 January 1965) was a poet, essayist, publisher, playwright, literary critic and editor. Considered one of the 20th century's major poets, he is a central figure in English-language Modernist poetry.
 |
| T. S. Eliot |
Here are 10 Eliot poems [that this critic thinks] everyone should read. "The Naming of Cats" made the list at number 9.
47. Skips the ceremony: ELOPES.
48. When some diners serve breakfast: ALL DAY.
50. Musketeer's word: GARDE. More French, and more Dumas. En garde is a friendly warning from one of The Three Musketeers that he is about to skewer you.
51. League of Legends fanatic, e.g.: GAMER. I'll bet lot of them got their first fix by playing 16A.
52. Sch. founded by Franklin: U PENN. Abbreviated clue, abbreviated fill. Benjamin Franklin, the University of Pennsylvania's founder and first president, advocated an educational program that trained leaders in commerce, government, and public service, similar to a modern liberal arts curriculum with a practical perspective. They also have strong programs in science and engineering.
53. Loons' lodgings: NESTS. Such beautiful birds. See this section for their nesting habits.
 |
| The Common Loon |
54. Purnell of "Churchill": ELLA. Churchill is a 2017 British historical war-drama film, which portrays Winston Churchill in June 1944 – especially in the hours leading up to D-Day. The film stars Brian Cox CBE, as the titular character with Miranda Richardson and John Slattery in supporting roles. Ella Purnell also had a supporting role as Churchill's new secretary, Helen Garrett; performing with the legendary Cox certainly must have been a big step up for the 20 year old. Unfortunately, the film was roundly panned by the critics for numerous historical inaccuracies in the script.
55. __ trade: FAIR. Ten Thousand Villages is a nonprofit fair trade organization that markets handcrafted products made by disadvantaged artisans from more than 120 artisan groups in more than 35 countries. As one of the world’s largest and oldest fair trade organizations,
Ten Thousand Villages cultivates long-term buying relationships in
which artisans receive a fair price for their work and consumers have
access to gifts, accessories and home décor from around the world.
58. Witch: HAG.
59. Post-op stop: ICU. Intensive Care Unit.
Here's the grid:
waseeley
And as always thanks to Teri for proofreading and for her constructive suggestions.
If you are reading this then, God willin' and the crick don't rise, Teri and I are in Alabama celebrating the wedding of one of our nephews. As I'm not taking my laptop I won't be able to make any needed corrections that you folks might discover, but I will probably be able to use my cellphone to provide terse (Ha!) answers to any questions you might have regarding this review.
If you're not reading this, then TTP is probably scratching his head trying to figure out what the heck Bill did wrong when he scheduled this post.
Cheers,
Bill
