Themeless Saturday by Joe Deeney I had a very pleasant exchange with Joe about this puzzle and here is his response: Hi Gary,
I always enjoy reading the Crossword Corner blog post and the comments when I have a puzzle in the LA Times. Of course I'm familiar with her puzzles (and a fan of them!), but I've never had the pleasure of meeting or talking with C.C..
This photo was taken at the Exploratorium in San Francisco in 2014. I believe the device was intended to swap one's hearing left/right. I don't remember much else about it, but I've always enjoyed the photo. :-)
My notes suggest I originally constructed this puzzle in June of 2018. I submitted it to Rich that November; in January, he requested a revision to the SW corner. I gave him a few options and he accepted this version in February.
I keep a running list of potential seed entries for themeless puzzles - I try to limit myself to entries that I've got clever clues for. The seed for this puzzle was SAGITTARIUS, which I clued as [Fall guy?] - I haven't seen the final version yet so I'm not sure if Rich kept the clue.
I have a unexplained fascination with grids that have 90 degree rotational symmetry - more than half of the themeless grids I construct have this. I thought this grid arrangement would be a fun challenge. In hindsight, the corners are quite difficult to fill cleanly. FUELOILS, DYSONS, and FREONS are all unfortunate plurals that I probably wouldn't use today.
Thanks for your fun photo and sharing a bit about yourself. I look forward to Saturday's blog post! Let me know if you have any more questions.
-Joe Across: 1. Jacket whose earliest version was created for pilots: BOMBER - This WWII BOMBER jacket was "featured" on Pawn Stars and eventually sold at auction for $2,650
7. Saw the sites?: SURFED - Sites not sights 13. "The Conduct of Life" essayist: EMERSON - All nine of his essays from this 1860 publication 15. Players on the road: TROUPE - Taylor Swift required 82 semis for her TROUPE to set up here in Columbus, Ohio
16. Place to park a whirlybird: HELISTOP - Our local hospital has a HELISTOP where patients are loaded and unloaded. Maintenance is done on the aircraft in a HELIPORT at the local airport.
-and-
6. Whirlybird part: ROTOR - Both horizontal and vertical
18. Even though: ALBEIT. 19. More than is prudent: ONE TOO MANY - AA motto: "ONE drink is TOO MANY and a thousand aren't enough" 21. If-then-__: programmer's construct: ELSE - Below you get two chances
22. Factor in club selection: LIE - Use a very lofted club and swing hard!
23. Catches on the range: ROPES - ROPES as a cowboy verb here 24. Drilling org.: ROTC - Yeah right, I was the only one who had to change OPEC 25. First of a box set: DISC I - DISC I is their first studio album Please, Please Me
28. DVR button: REW. 29. Crooked: ATILT - Gate Of Europe in Madrid
30. Privileged group: INNER CIRCLE. 33. Sign of fall: SAGITTARIUS - Joe's cluing of "Fall Guy" didn't make it past Rich
34. Comedy of errors?: BLOOPER REEL - Google at your leisure 35. "Speak up!": SAY IT - "Just shout 'em right out!"
36. Some smoke detector batteries: AA'S - Why do those AA'S always go dead at 3 am? Beep, beep... 37. Spruce (up): SPIFF - Wal Mart's attempt to SPIFF up 41. "Over here!": PSST. 42. Groom carefully: PRIMP. 44. Surly sort: CUR - A CUR can have two or four legs
45. Is in Spain?: ESTA - "Dónde ESTA el baño" is probably a phrase we all have learned to relieve a biological imperative 46. Michigan national park: ISLE ROYALE - Cost to get to ISLE ROYALE from Copper Harbor, MI - $136/person for this boat (round trip), $7/day National Park user fee and $10/day to park your car at Copper Harbor.
49. Sat on a sill, perhaps: COOLED.
51. Avoided a tag at: SLID INTO - Whit Merrifield SLID INTO and contorted around the tag at second
52. Minolta partner: KONICA. 53. Boards with a jump: LEAPS ON - Or not...
54. Cunning: SNEAKY. 55. V11 vacuums, e.g.: DYSONS - Want one? Down: 1. Take in: BEHOLD. 2. 1978 horror sequel: OMEN II - Meh...
3. Free-for-alls: MELEES. 4. Many a theatre attendee: BRIT - Theatre/theater 5. Gulf Canada alternative: ESSO. 7. Halts: STAYS - S T _ _ S Hmmm, what else could it be? 8. Business card letters: URL. 9. "I Spy" actor: ROBERT CULP - Too soon to mention his co-star?
10. They usually have higher flash points than kerosene: FUEL OILS - Kerosene's flashpoint is around 100°F and it's 150°F for FUEL OILS and so the latter is considered to be safer 11. Dispatch: EPISTLE - St. Paul's EPISTLE to the Corinthians contains my favorite words from the Bible
12. Discover: DETECT. 14. Baby shampoo product line: NO MORE TEARS - An ad campaign that has been around for a long time
17. Auditors' follow them: PAPER TRAILS - Part of the PAPER TRAIL that sent Al Capone on an all-expenses-paid trip to Alcatraz
20. Air freshener option: NEW CAR SMELL. 26. PBS cooking show hosted by Mary Ann Esposito: CIAO ITALIA - Here 'ya go 27. Pricey bar: INGOT. 29. Celestial ovine: ARIES - The Ram 31. Pinch: NIP. 32. More than displeasure: IRE. 33. Singer at Woodstock with his "Family": SLY (and the family) STONE - Unlike countless others, SLY has proof he was actually at Woodstock
34. Big wind: BASSOON - First of all, ya gotta love a musical group called The Breaking Winds. Secondly they are a BASSOON - playing quartet, here doing Lady Gaga music complete with costuming and choreography!
35. Iotas: SPECKS. 38. "Just you watch!": I CAN SO. 39. Atlanta's county: FULTON - When Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium was torn down, the outfield fence over which Hank Aaron's 715 sailed was saved in place and a parking lot was built around it
40. Trademarked halocarbon products: FREONS - Everything you could possibly want to know 42. March 14, mathematically: PI DAY - Google is full of many clever, delicious variations
43. Asked too much: PRIED. 47. Jazz singer Anita whose stage name is pig latin for a slang word for "money": ODAY - DOUGH in pig latin is ODAY 48. Performance anxiety: YIPS - Usually associated with golf but can happen to hitters, fielders, field goal kickers, 3-pt shooters, ad infinitum
Themeless Saturday by Kyle Dolan This is the seventh Saturday themeless puzzle constructed by Dr. Dolan that I have had the pleasure of blogging. It was a real challenge but eventually became a smooth solve. Last month Kyle was in Rapid City, S.D. for a tech conference and witnessed Britain's precision flying team, The Red Arrows, pass overhead. Kyle was quoted as saying, “The flypast of Mt. Rushmore was the piece de resistance of the Red Arrows appearances at numerous American landmarks,” said Kyle Dolan, Head of Science & Innovation at the British Consulate-General in Chicago. “The Red Arrows’ visit celebrated the close links between the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada, particularly our economic, defense, and science and technology relationships.”
In my communication with Kyle, he told me that the U.K. mini-theme I saw [Dickens, Macbeth, ADELE, BRIT, TWEE, Long TON, The Crown" star Foy: CLAIRE, Loch NESS,TAM and BEELZEBUB (John Milton] was not his intent and it happened by either by accident or by Rich's editing hand. He further told me that though he works at the British Consulate he was born in Boston but has lived in Chicago for quite a while now. Here you can peruse Kyle's impressive resumé
Now let's do a flyby of Kyle's puzzle Across: 1. Farm call: BAA. 4. Picnic game: BOCCE - BOCCE in its current form dates back to at least Rome in 264 A.D. where soldiers played it during the Punic Wars
9. Informed as a courtesy, perhaps: CC'ED - The physical Carbon Copy part of this is now mostly a remnant of another time and technology 13. Tote: LUG. 14. Dickens' "The Pickwick Papers," originally: SERIAL - A first edition of Dickens' Posthumous Papers Of The Pickwick Club can be had for $2,500 15. QB-turned-commentator Tony: ROMO. 16. "... __ the set of sun": "Macbeth": ERE - I imagine Wyatt Earp told the bad guys to "git outta town before sunset" and not "Depart ERE the set of the Sun" 17. Picks up: LEARNS - A good solver LEARNS a lot in doing these puzzles 18. Bonobos, e.g.: APES - They are a very close relative to humans 19. Have no weaknesses: DO IT ALL - Great baseball players are said to be a "five-tool player" - Able to hit for average, hit with power, field, throw and run 21. U.S. border river: NIAGARA. 23. Fake: ERSATZ - "Captain ERSATZ" is a phrase denoting a blatant copy that uses a slightly different name and/or image 24. Web streaming service: FEED https://striv.tv/channel/arlington/ is a streaming site that streams many events of the small school where I sub 25. A mechanic usually keeps one handy: RAG. 26. Innocent: LAMB. 27. Its 1948 inaugural flight began in Geneva: EL AL - A fascinating story 29. "Skyfall" singer: ADELE. 31. "The Vanishing Hitchhiker" subject: URBAN LEGEND - Here 'ya go 34. Misty tropical ecosystem: CLOUD FOREST - Monteverde CLOUD FOREST in Costa Rica
35. Edge: BEAT BY A NOSE.
36. Catcher in the World Series' only perfect game: BERRA - Yogi caught Don Larsen's gem in 1956 37. U.S. : Grammy :: U.K. : __: BRIT.
38. Daughter of Uranus: RHEA -If you must know 42. Uranus, e.g.: ORB - A mythical and a now a real Uranus 43. Excessively precious, to a Brit: TWEE - We had treacle yesterday from Dr. Ed Sessa 45. Six-time NBA All-Star Kyrie: IRVING - Kyrie won a World Championship with LeBron James at Cleveland but got tired of being the second banana Now they are friends again but on different teams
47. Indignant lead-in: SEE HERE. 49. __ fair: SCIENCE - I can't count how many I've judged 50. Movie plantation: TARA - It's a 26 min drive down I-75 from Atlanta to the newly refurbished Stately Oaks Mansion which was used for TARA in Gone With The Wind
51. In addition: AT THAT - She became a teacher and was a good one AT THAT 53. It may be short or long: TON - If you must know 54. Egg cell: OVUM. 55. "The Crown" star Foy: CLAIRE - A very enjoyable Netflix series
Claire Elizabeth II
56. Stick in: ADD. 57. Urquhart Castle's loch: NESS - My neighbor just got back from two weeks in Scotland and while she was in Inverness next to Loch NESS, she was assured there was no monster but she did see this shop. She brought me a golf divot tool from St. Andrews and thankfully not a 52. Part of Highlands regalia: TAM.
58. Neat: KEMPT - Sheveled? 59. It may be iced: TEA. Down: 1. Alexis of "The Handmaid's Tale": BLEDEL - Her IMDB 2. Creator of a colorful atmosphere: AURORA - While fishing at 55N latitude, the AURORA Borealis (Northern Lights) we saw were spectacular
3. What unconscious bias training may deal with: AGEISM - Most young clerks look right through those of us, uh, more seasoned customers 4. "Paradise Lost" fallen angel: BEELZEBUB - I finally remembered how it was spelled 5. __ surgeon: ORAL. 6. Columbus in NYC, e.g.: CIR(cle) 7. Cylindrical pasta: CANNELLONI - Spinach and ricotta in CANNELLONI pasta
8. Dinsmore of kid lit: ELSIE - Here is a group of 22 Martha Finley Dodd's ELSIE Dinsmore books for sale online
9. Climbing challenge: CRAG. 10. Share rearing duties: CO-PARENT 11. Colombia is this gem's largest producer: EMERALD - The EMERALD in Romancing The Stone, set in Columbia, was called El Corazon (The Heart)
12. Amount in a shot: DOSAGE - I doubt if medical people use a shot glass to measure DOSAGE 14. Bed board: SLAT. 20. Like spreadsheets: TABULAR - I used Excel spreadsheets and had TABS at the bottom to access a sheet for each class
22. Saws: ADAGES. 24. Majestic greeting: FANFARE. 28. Natural enemy of aphids: LADY BEETLE - We call them ladybugs and here's one eating the aforementioned aphid
30. Merit: DESERVE. 32. Have angular velocity: ROTATE - Skaters tuck in their arms to increase angular velocity
33. Some Ernst works: EROTIC ART - Google at will 34. Multi-headed dog that guards Hades, in Greek myth: CERBERUS - Nice doggy, nice doggy...
35. Deprive (of): BEREAVE - Too many of my friends have become BEREAVED lately 36. Commonwealth Avenue city: BOSTON - If you lived at the Windsor Place Condominium on Commonwealth Avenue, you'd only have a four-minute drive to Fenway Park
39. Refer to subtly: HINT AT - You might as well just go ahead and ask for the money! 40. Disguise, in a way: ENCODE - He helped decipher ENCODED Japanese messages before Midway 41. Chair's document: AGENDA - The one who presides over that AGENDA can be called a Chairman, Chairwoman or simply the Chair. 44. Ruin partner: WRACK - Origin of the phrase 46. Bat mitzvah, e.g.: RITE. 48. Carved dishes: HAMS - Spiral sliced HAMS replaces much of the carving
49. Hold holder: SHIP - How did Carl Denham get King Kong into the hold of the SHIP S.S. Venture in 1933?
How about some comments about the good doctor's efforts today? I invited him to drop by and see what his our good citizens here had to say and I hope he does.
