Friday, March 7, 2025, Julius Tausig

Good Morning, Cruciverbalists.  Malodorous Manatee here with the recap of a Friday puzzle by Julius Tausig.  I did a quick web search on Julius and found this:  Julius Tausing Clue and Answer  Talk about meta!  As I could find no previous references to Julius here on the Corner, it appears that this might be his L. A. Times debut.  If so, congratulations, Julius!

In any event, in today's puzzle we have a theme that involves adding the letter L in order to morph common English usage into the sought-after answers to the clues.  The reveal is found at:

64 Across:  Accepted defeat, and what 17-, 24-, 40-, and 51-Across did?: TOOK THE L.  Took the Loss.  

These four clues "took the L" and incorporated it:

17 Across:  Hideout that's not very hidden?: OPEN LAIR.  From Open Air.

24 Across:  Times of year for competitive baking?: FLOUR SEASONS.  The Fours Seasons of the year.  Hmmm, we'll go with Carole King but it could have been Vivaldi . . . or Fankie Valli.

40 Across:  Hip-hop subgenre dedicated to the woes of hair loss?: BALD RAP.  A Bad Rap, more often a Bum Rap (which was an answer in one of our puzzles last week), is an unjust accusation.  Bad Rap might be redundant.

51 Across:  Assorted barrettes and clips?: HAIR PIN BLEND.  From Hair Pin Bend or, more often, Hair Pin turn.

This is how everything looks in the grid:

Here are the non-themers:

Across:

1. "Thriller" debut channel: MTV.   MTV was the pioneering broadcaster of music videos.   "Thriller" was a mega-hit album by Michael Jackson. 

4. Dull pain: ACHE.  A sensation frequently experienced in our puzzles.

8. Manatee: SEA COW.  It's been teed up . . .

Sea Elephants?

14. __ milk: OAT.  SOY would have fit the allotted space but none of the letters would have worked out.

15. Dramatic outburst during court testimony: LIAR.  We have LAIR in the puzzle so why not LIAR?

16. Like Enigma machine messages: IN CODE.  The Enigma machine is a cipher device developed and used in the early- to mid-20th century to protect commercial, diplomatic, and military communication. It was employed extensively by Nazi Germany during the Second World War.

19. Small beard: GOATEE.

Maynard G. Krebs

20. Recipient of a wish list: GENIE.  Hand up for thinking SANTA.  The N would have worked out.

21. Zen paradox: KOAN.  This solver was introduced to the KOAN by a High School English teacher.  A KOAN is a puzzling, often paradoxical statement, anecdote, question, or verbal exchange, used in Zen Buddhism as an aid to meditation and a means of gaining spiritual awakening.

23. Shirt: TOP.  TEE would have fit and the T would have worked out.

28. Historic fort near Charleston: SUMTER.  Best known as the site for the opening of the Civil War.

31. Quark-antiquark particle: MESON.

Beyond This Solver's Ken

32. "That is not __!": parents' words of warning: A TOY.  OKAY would have fit and the Y would have worked out.

33. __-Cola: COCA.  We'll do Easter at 11 Down.

36. Rite place: ALTAR.  I just learned than my neighbor lives a secret life as a priest.  It's his ALTAR ego.

39. Greek god of pastures: PAN.

42. Pro: ACE.  Not fer.  An accomplished person.

43. Stood out: SHONE.

45. MRI output: SCAN

46. __ novel: DIME.  DIME novel is a term for cheap, sensational paperbacks that were popular in the 19th and early 20th centuries in the U.S.  Alas, the price component has gone the way of Two Buck Chuck.

47. Composer Frederick: LOEWE.  Were you thinking Classical Music?  Chopin, perhaps?  In this case, Alan Lerner's collaborator.  One example from their prolific output:

49. Got down pat: NAILED.  There was an off-color joke involving Richard Nixon going around in the '70's.  NAILED was not part of it.

55. Insect whose colony has a queen: ANT.  What did the Pink Panther say after stepping on the ANT hill?  Dead ant, dead ant, dead ant, dead ant, dead ant . . . .

56. "Ah, got it": I SEE.  Indeed.

57. Garden party?: GNOME.  Party, in this case, means an individual that might be found in a garden.  Not a Ricky Nelson reference.

61. Split: IN HALF.  Not "split" as in it's time to leave.  Not a bowling reference.  Not a reference to a city in Croatia.

66. __ 101: skyscraper in an Asian capital: TAIPEI.  Designed to withstand earthquakes and typhoons.

Taipei 101 Tower

67. Latin year: ANNO.  A translation clue/answer.

68. Sick: ILL.

69. Turn on the charm?: INCANT.

incant

 /ĭn-kănt′/

transitive verb   To chant or intone (ritual or magic words). To state solemnly, to chant.  To recite an incantation

70. Scorch: SEAR.  CHAR would have fit and the R would have worked out.

71. Loving poem: ODE.

Down:

1. First commercial synthesizer maker: MOOG.

2. Cassette: TAPE.  State of the art at one time.

3. Powerful engine banned by F1: V-TEN.  The F1, in this case, stands for Formula One auto racing.

4. Gene variant: ALLELE.  Fortunately, for this solver, the word was remembered even if the spelling was not.  Thanks, perps.  From Wikipedia, "An allele is a variant of the sequence of nucleotides at a particular location, or locus, on a DNA molecule. Alleles can differ at a single position through single nucleotide polymorphisms, but they can also have insertions and deletions of up to several thousand base pairs."  Got that?

5. Longtime KGB spycraft enemy: CIA.

6. Poem with a 5-7-5 syllable pattern: HAIKU.  Hand up for thinking MoeKu.

7. Wrong move: ERROR.  Oops!

8. Contract endorser: SIGNEE.  A word that we do not often hear. . . or see.

9. Musician Brian: ENO.  A frequent visitor.

10. Obama-era legislation, initially: ACA.

11. Small rabbit: COTTONTAIL.

Danny Kaminsky

12. Ancient theater of Ephesus: ODEON.

13. Cries: WEEPS.  I saw my sister WEEPing uncontrollably, worried that her Economics degree wouldn’t land her a job.  I said, “Are you having a financial cry, sis?”

18. "Swell!": NIFTY.  Slang.  Bitchen'.  Rad.  Far Out!  Groovy.

22. Eritrea's capital: ASMARA.   A place not so frequently visited in our puzzles.

25. Killer whale: ORCA.  A mammal which frequently visits our puzzles.

26. "By yesterday!" letters: ASAP.  Alternative cluing:  Recent aquittee.

27. Spanish sun: SOL.

en español

28. Drains: SAPS.

29. Zion locale: UTAH.  Zion National Park.

30. Like an ancient obelisk: MONOLITHIC.   This could have been clued with a reference to 2001 A Space Odyssey.

34. Twins who created the fashion label The Row: OLSENS.  This solver did not know about the fashion line but Mary-Kate and Ashley OLSEN are twins who often appear in our puzzles.

35. Public health org.: CDC. Is it going to be NIH?  No.

37. Fictional company whose products tend to malfunction: ACME.  A Wile E. Coyote reference.

38. Woodwind insert: REED.

40. Appliance alert: BEEP.

41. Great-aunt of Prince George: ANNE.  We fought a revolution to separate from the British royals.  Some of us pay them very little or no attention.  Thanks perps.

44. Scand. land: NOR.  Probably not Juilius' favorite answer.

46. "That __ hurt": DIDN'T.

48. Video game that uses a balance board: WII FIT.

50. Cambodia's __ Wat: ANGKOR.

Photo By MM

51. Part of Hispaniola: HAITI.

52. Diplomat Kofi: ANNAN.

Former U.N. Secretary General

53. Releases with bugs, probably: BETAS.  A computer coding/debugging reference.

54. Sierra __: LEONE.  Often visited in our puzzles.

58. Weird or cringe, in Gen Alpha slang: OHIO.  As for OHIO used in this context, this I know from nothing.  But Merriam-Webster does:  The Gen alpha slang use of Ohio as an insult originated on the Internet shortly after a series of memes about the US state of Ohio began circulating in the late twenty-teens. The most common type of these memes is the "only in Ohio" variety, which describes something weird or awkward and then claims that it happens in Ohio.

59. Combine: MELD.  MESH would have fit and both the M and the E would have worked out.

60. Vogue rival: ELLE.  A magazine frequently read in our puzzles.

62. Shrinks' org.: APA.

63. Actor Cariou: LEN.  LEoNard Joseph Cariou

 

65. "Based __ true story": ON A.  When it says this you can bet that significant liberties have been taken with the facts in the name of entertainment.

Yours truly will be heading to the mountains in a bit and will be skipping the next couple of otherwise-scheduled blogging cycles.  See all y'all after returning.

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