Monday February 17, 2025 Janice Luttrell

  

Happy Presidents Day, everyone! sumdaze here on another holiday Monday. Constructor Janice Luttrell gave us a puzzle with an Executive Branch-adjacent theme. Let's take a look:

17 Across. Chocolate treat from Reese's: PEANUT BUTTER CUP.  

They were created in 1928 -- almost 100 years ago!

25 Across. Replacement on the mound: RELIEF PITCHER.  In baseball, a RELIEF PITCHER is called up to enter the game after the starting pitcher (or another relief pitcher) has been removed.

From the MLB rulebook:  Pitchers must either face a minimum of three batters in an appearance or pitch to the end of a half-inning, with exceptions for injuries and illnesses. If a pitcher faces one batter to end an inning, he may be removed, but if he is brought back for a second inning, he must still face two more batters for a total of three. Once removed, players are not permitted to return to the game in any capacity. 

42 Across. Venue for summer concerts in Los Angeles: HOLLYWOOD BOWL.

The HOLLYWOOD BOWL is an amphitheater and public park in the Hollywood Hills of Southern California. In case you were wondering, it did survive the recent fires.  

Anchors Aweigh  (1945)

In this scene, filmed at the HOLLYWOOD BOWL, 

Spanish conductor and pianist José Iturbi plays Hungarian Rhapsody No.2 

... accompanied by 17 other pianists!

The reveal:

56 Across. High-level government post, and what the ends of 17-, 25-, and 42-Across may have?: CABINET POSITION.  Established in Article II, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution, the CABINET's role is to advise the President on any subject he may require relating to the duties of each member's respective office.

Also, a CUP, a PITCHER, and a BOWL might all be found POSITIONed in a CABINET.  

sort of like this

Works for me. Let's see how the other clues stack up.

Across:

1. "Speak of the __!": DEVIL.

6. Pick up a newspaper: READ.     and     50 Down. Solemn bio: OBIT.  

10. __ Valuable Player: MOST.

14. Singer Menzel of "Frozen": IDINA.  John Travolta famously botched her name at the 2014 Oscars but she got him back the following year.

15. "Uh, that's wrong": UM, NO.

16. Culturally pretentious: ARTY.

20. NBC sketch show since 1975, familiarly: SNL.  SNL 50: The Anniversary Special aired last night. Did anyone watch it?

21. "Disgusting!": GROSS.

22. Lady Gaga's instrument: PIANO.  Earlier this month, Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars won the Grammy for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance for this song, Die With A Smile.  

23. Many a restaurant owner: CHEF.

24. One-named "Chandelier" singer: SIA.

31. Pampering place: SALON.     and     31 Down. Pampering place: SPA.

32. Tomato sauce brand named for a New York restaurant: RAO'S.  pronunciation

33. Chicken serving: LEG.  CSO to Splynter!

35. Storyline: PLOT.

36. Put one's foot down: STOMP.  

38. "Dancing Queen" pop group: ABBA.  

39. Spring mo.: APR.  month and APRil

40. Molecule part: ATOM.

41. Slender woodwinds: OBOES.

46. Ginger __: ALE.

47. Partnership for Peace gp.: NATO.  group and North Atlantic Treaty Organization

48. Dwelling: ABODE.

51. Actress Hayek Pinault: SALMA.  (b. September 2, 1966 in Coatzacoalcos, Mexico)

Salma began dating French businessman François-Henri Pinault in 2006.
They married in 2009.

53. Civil rights monogram: MLK.  

59. Buffalo's lake: ERIE.  

60. City near Phoenix: MESA.  

61. Viking language: NORSE.  

62. Sinks out of sight, as the sun: SETS.  

a scientific explanation of the 'green flash'

63. Ready for customers: OPEN.  

64. California, for one: STATE.  This puzzle is published in the LA Times, after all.  

Led Zeppelin   ~   Going to California   ~  (1971) 

Down:

1. Salsa, and some salsa moves: DIPS.  This was my favorite clue today. The first salsa is of the edible variety.

2. Biblical garden: EDEN.  

3. Lab container: VIAL.

4. B and B: INN.  Bed & Breakfast

5. Classic TV show hosted by Rowan & Martin: LAUGH-IN.  

Arte Johnson (1929-2019) was a regular on this sketch comedy program.

6. Wear away: RUB OFF.

7. Tall birds in some insurance ads: EMUS.  

8. Aardvark snacks: ANTS.  

Can you see its long tongue in the tube?
Actually I think this is an anteater, not an aardvark.
Anteater cannot be used to clue ant because they share too many letters.

9. Ellipsis element: DOT.  Let me think....

10. Grammy winner Carey: MARIAH.

11. Killer whale: ORCA.  

Did you catch this one on Mal-Man's last blog? LOL!

12. Shock: STUN.

13. Keyboard blunder: TYPO.  

18. Genealogy chart: TREE.  as in a family TREE

19. Long stories: EPICS.

23. Form a clump: CLOT.

24. Hit the brakes: STOP.  

25. Designer Lauren: RALPH.

26. Spanish Olympian's goal: EL ORO.

27. "Coming soon" ad: PROMO.

28. First words of "Green Eggs and Ham": I AM.  Speaking of elementary poetry....

Hello dear Chairman!

Today's your birthday, so I

Wrote this Hi-Moe-Ku.

🎈🎂🎈🎂🎈🎂🎈🎂🎈

29. Macaroni shape: ELBOW.

30. Defy authority: REBEL.

34. Highway sign: GAS.  The Deets on the Blue Highway Signs  

36. Eyelid problem: STYE.

37. AAA service: TOW.  

38. Suffix with bug or peek: -ABOO.  

A bugaboo is something that causes fear, alarm, or worry.

Peekaboo is a game played with children who have not yet developed an understanding of object permanence.

40. __ wrench: tool that comes with flatpack furniture: ALLEN.  

41. Gets: OBTAINS.  It took me a bit to get this one because we have been trained to associate this clue with the answer SEES.  

43. Women: LADIES.  

Flight of the Conchords   ~   Ladies of the World   ~   (2008)

Flight of the Conchords was an HBO comedy series in 2007-2009.

44. Checked out, as a library book: ON LOAN.  I am currently reading The Wilderness Idiot by Ted Alvarez, ON LOAN from my library.

45. River barriers: DAMS.

48. The tops: ACES.  Green's Dictionary of Slang

49. Plain: BARE.  

51. Ladder rung: STEP.

52. Church recess: APSE.  A four-letter church architecture word is going to be either APSE or nave. The former is the location of the altar while the latter is the seating area leading up to the altar. Memory trick:  APSE begins with an A, as does altar and arc.

53. Actress Sorvino: MIRA.  (b. 1967)  her IMDb page

54. Baffled: LOST.  Back in 2004 DH and I were driving on Oahu's North Shore. We saw small, red signs nailed to posts and trees, much like the signs people buy when they want to sell their own car. Someone had written "LOST" on the signs with an arrow pointing which way to turn. We wondered if maybe they were directions for someone who was potentially LOST on their way to a party. We followed them to a beach. There we found what looked like a plane wreck and suitcases strewn about. Upon closer inspection we could see that the plane was staged. We wondered if this was some sort of training exercise. The following Fall, ABC aired a new TV show called Lost. It ran from 2004 to 2010.

55. Leg joint: KNEE.  Oops! LEG is the answer to 33-Across so it is not supposed to be in another clue. Perhaps it's OK to bend the rules for KNEE.

57. Angsty music genre: EMO.

58. Tyke: TOT.  

I like the looks of this 15-13-13-15 grid.

Enjoy your day!

 

Notes from C.C.:

1) Happy Birthday to our Friday blogger, Chairman Moe. Chris mentioned that he is doing well post-surgery and will have his second eye done in another week.

 

2) Happy 58th anniversary to the sweetest, most caring couple I've ever met: Husker Gary and his wife Joann. Here's a picture of us from 2014 when Gary attended a wedding here in Minnesota. 

Monday February 10, 2025 Annemarie Brethauer

  

Happy Monday, everyone! sumdaze here. Today's theme is:

Punxsutawney Phil Was Correct  

How did Phil know there was a WINTRY grid in our future?
Such a clever rodent!

Our themed clues are:

17 Across. "Softens as it cleans" classic detergent brand: IVORY SNOW.  

24 Across. McFlurry competitor: DQ BLIZZARD.  

McDonald's (first sold in 1995) vs. Dairy Queen (first sold in 1985)

36 Across. "The Road Not Taken" poet: ROBERT FROST.  (1874-1963)

49 Across. Rapper whose debut studio album was 1990's "To the Extreme": VANILLA ICE.  (born Robert Matthew Van Winkle on Oct. 31, 1967)

This is the cover for the album mentioned in the clue.

And the reveal:

58 Across. Combination weather that makes travel difficult, and what the ends of 17-, 24-, 36-, and 49-Across comprise: WINTRY MIX.  

Am I the only one who wanted to put an E in WINTRY?

WINTRY MIX is a name for variable precipitation that consists of unpleasant things like cold rain, freezing rain, sleet, and snow.

The reveal is saying that the ends of the themed answers comprise a MIX of WINTRY elements:  SNOW, BLIZZARD, FROST, and ICE.

Veteran constructor Annemarie Brethauer did a nice job of separating these words from their WINTRY meanings, but the gimmick still stood out like a snowman on Miami Beach. Nevertheless, seeing the theme helped me fill some of the trickier clues, making for a slick Monday solve.

Time to brr-ring on the remaining clues:

Across:

1. Fixed-term bank accts.: CDS.  "Accounts" is abbreviated, so is "Certificates of Deposit". (Pluralizing abbreviations can get complicated.)

4. Employ, as power: WIELD.  

9. Soap Box Derby town in Ohio: AKRON.  Seeing soap in this clue told me I needed to change 17-A from IVORY Soap to IVORY SNOW.

This video is of local news coverage of a past FirstEnergy 

All-American Soap Box Derby World Championship at Derby Downs in Akron, OH.

14. Cool: HIP.  This video is of a song called Hip Replacement by a band in the D.C. area called The Grandsons. I first heard them when they were playing along the Marine Corps Marathon route. Their lyrics are very clever; but, unfortunately the sound quality on this video isn't helpful so you really have to listen closely.  

15. Mexican marinade: ADOBO.  "The word adobo is a derivative of the Spanish word adobar, which translates to marinade in English. Spanish colonizers carried the word “adobo” to the regions they conquered, so adobo means something different depending on where you are in the Spanish diaspora. In some places, adobo is a dry seasoning rub. In others, the spices are combined with vinegar and fresh ingredients to create a marinade called adobo."  source & more info.

16. Grassy plain: LLANO.  LLANO is another word borrowed from Spanish speakers. It translates to flat. Its English definition is "an open grassy plain in Spanish America or the southwestern U.S."

19. North Carolina's __ Banks: OUTER.  The Outer Banks are a series of naturally occurring barrier islands off the coast of NC.  link to a 1-min. video

20. Skull cavity: SINUS.  

21. Should have said: MEANT.  

23. Advantage: EDGE.  

29. Filmmaker Ang: LEE.

30. Singer Rawls: LOU.  (1933-2006)  Fans of the 2024 movie The Fall Guy, starring Ryan Gosling, might like this a bit of trivia:  Lou Rawls played Country Joe Walker on the first episode of the 1981 TV series The Fall Guy, starring Lee Majors.

Lou Rawls performs his 1976 hit 

You'll Never Find Another Love Like Mine

 on Soul Train.

31. Hang around: LOITER.

32. Country with a vital canal: PANAMA.  

35. German article: EINE.  From what I gather, it looks like EINE is used with feminine Nominative (subject of the sentence) and Accusative (direct object of the sentence) cases. Also, the final E is a schwa sound.

39. Dazzling success: COUP.  Def#2: (noun) a brilliant, sudden, and usually highly successful stroke or act.

41. Natural ability: TALENT.

42. Gets up: ARISES.

45. Picnic pest: ANT.

46. "__! Humbug!": BAH.

52. Art __: geometric architectural style: DECO.

53. Tangle under a desk: CORDS.  

54. Environmental activist Thunberg: GRETA.  Greta is also the go-to GRETA for clue writers.

55. Puppy: WHELP.  Def.: (noun) any of the young of various carnivorous mammals and especially of the dog.

61. Blender setting: PUREE.

62. Video game pioneer: ATARI.

63. 12/31, e.g.: EVE.  December 31 is New Year's EVE.

64. Stockpile: AMASS.

65. Unlikely to bend: RIGID.  My grade school principal comes to mind. 

66. Hi-__ photo: RES.

Down:

1. Sculptor's tool: CHISEL.  This is a 1:20 min. video showing how a sculptor uses a CHISEL. (I would be so afraid of making an irreparable mistake.) 

2. Split into portions: DIVIDE.  Did you know that there are two types of division?

Consider the problem 6 ÷ 3 = 2.

Are you picturing 6 items divided into 3 groups with 2 in each group?  [Partitive]

Or are you picturing 6 items divided into groups of 3's, making 2 groups?  [Quotative]

If you had difficulty understanding division as a child, it could be because
 it was presented differently from how your brain conceptualized the question.
(Elementary texts often use Partitive examples but long division is Quotative.)
The fact that both methods give the same answer can be even more confusing to learners.

3. Dish cleaner: SPONGE.   

Scrub Daddy on Shark Tank (46 sec.) 

Watch what he does with the 10 lb. weights.

4. In more __ than one: WAYS.

5. Wallet cards: IDS.  identifications

6. Seemingly forever: EON.

7. Awkward word to drop on a first date, informally: L-BOMB.  

8. Wooden peg: DOWEL.  

this???

9. Basketball Hall of Famer Mourning: ALONZO. 

his NBA page

10. Most clumsy: KLUTZIEST.  

11. Stool pigeon: RAT.

12. Lowest sudoku number: ONE.  Sudoku is a puzzle that uses the numbers one through nine. I like kenken. It is similar to sudoku but it makes equations.  

sudoku (lt) & kenken (rt)

13. "That's neither here __ there": NOR.  This idiom is used to indicate that something is either not important or not relevant to the subject being discussed.

18. Feel sorry about: RUE.

22. Feel poorly: AIL.

24. "That's all, folks!": DONE.  

25. Motor oil measure: QUART.  A Ford F150's oil capacity is 7.7 QUARTs. On the other hand their Maverick hybrid's oil capacity is 5.7 QUARTs. ... in case you were wondering.

26. Bickering: AT IT.

27. Kylo of "Star Wars": REN.  I feel like I always get a Star Wars answer to explain on Mondays.  

Kylo Ren is on the bottom row.
(Kylo Ren and Ben Solo are the same person.)

28. Rap's Dr. __: DRE.  

30. Chocolate dog: LAB.  

yellow, black, & chocolate Labrador retrievers

32. Summer treats on sticks: POPSICLES.  

33. NYC transit org.: MTA.  New York City and Metropolitan Transportation Authority

34. Cigna rival: AFLAC.  insurance companies

36. Really mess up: RUIN.  

37. Actress Russo: RENE.  (b. Feb. 17, 1954)  Happy early birthday, Rene!

38. Canadian prov.: ONT.  province and ONTario

39. Cleveland NBAer: CAV.  National Basketball Association and CAValiers

40. "You for Me" singer Rita: ORA.

43. Marries secretly: ELOPES.  

44. Camera type, briefly: SLR.  I only know this from doing XWDs.

46. Pricey German wheels, informally: BEEMER.  BEEMER is a nickname for a BMW car.

47. On the go: ACTIVE.  

48. Elaborate pranks: HOAXES.  I am going to tell you about the most elaborate prank I ever played on someone. New neighbors moved in around the corner. They put three garden gnomes in their front flower bed. DH and I went to the dollar store and bought a lot of cheap gnomes of various sizes. Every two weeks or so, we would put one in their yard. At first we put them next to the three originals. Then we started branching out. This went on for over a year. That family had five kids. They loved the mystery of the whole thing. It was so hard not to tell the it was us when they talked about the gnomes. We finally gave them a gift-wrapped gnome when we moved away. The next day they put a framed embroidered gnome on our front porch.

50. Marketing battle: AD WAR.

51. Last Supper question: IS IT I.  

52. Like a county that prohibits the sale of alcohol: DRY.  A DRY county is a county whose local government forbids the sale of any kind of alcoholic beverages.  

54. Crossword diagram: GRID.  Def.:  (noun) a network of uniformly spaced horizontal and perpendicular lines.

<See example below.>

55. New Deal org.: WPA.  organization and Works Progress Administration

One of the art museums near where I live displays WPA paintings. During the New Deal era, the U.S. Government administered four separate art projects that operated from 1933 to 1943. The projects produced thousands of paintings, sculpture, and works on paper. more info.  

This mural by Bruce Ariss entitled Monterey Scene 
was painted between 1935 and 1937 inside the school library.
It is an example of art funded by the WPA Federal Arts Project.

56. Engine noise: HUM.

57. Pitcher's stat: ERA.  statistic and Earned Run Average

59. Badger: NAG.

60. Uni- + bi-: TRI-.  

The 54-Down:

We're finally 24-Down. Have an _ice day, everyone!