Title: Merry Christmas from a Beautiful Mind
Moe is back from visiting his adorable grandbaby, yet here I am doing a back to back for Christmas. First, I want to wish you all the best of holidays this year, be it Christmas, Festivus, Kwanzaa or those holidays that have already passed. I also want to wish the world better health for the rest of this year and all of next. I especially want to bring a year of good tidings to all the Cornerites starting with C.C. and Boomer. I won't be back here to blog until January 14, 2022. I also want to wish myself less dyslexia and other typing issues.
On with the show. As is often a hallmark of JW's puzzles this has much going on with some diabolic cluing and a visual theme wrapped inside a word theme. All of this in his not uncommon 16 x 15 grid to allow room for all that is going on. And surprise, it all relates to Christmas. The first level is the yuletime classic:
3D. Start of a seasonal title: THE TWELVE. 6D. Title, part 2: DAYS OF. 9D. End of the title: CHRISTMAS.
39D. With the contents of this grid's circles, part of the refrain in 3-/6-/9-Down: PARTRIDGE.
THE TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS
I really love this innovative interpretation by PENTATONIX. We also have the first verse PARTRIDGE IN A PEAR TREE which becomes the visual theme of the Christmas Tree (O Tannenbaum) come to life by joining the circles with the central clues/fill like this:
That is brilliant work which he augments with some new and fun fill BIG MOMENT, INLAND SEA, I'VE SEEN IT, MADE A RULE and PAPERLESS none of which have ever been in the LAT and the only one to appear in the NYT was in 1971 INLAND SEA. I hope he tells us how long this construction took.
Across:1. Tbsp., for example: AMT. Abbreviation begets abbreviation.
4. Touchy monarch?: MIDAS. Touchy feely, watch out for the Me Too movement, gold or no gold.
9. "United States of Al" network: CBS. Unless you knew the show, it is all perps.
12. "Very droll": HA HA. Ho ho!
14. Representation: IMAGE. Or perhaps ICON?
15. Edible seed: CHIA. Chia seeds contain quercetin, an antioxidant that can reduce your risk of developing several health conditions, including heart disease. But, they may cause an increased risk of choking
16. Port near the Red Sea: ADEN. It is a city of Yemen and its temporary capital. It is situated along the north coast of the Gulf of Aden and lies on a peninsula enclosing the eastern side of Al-Tawāhī Harbour. This area is beset by pirates.
17. To date: AS YET.
18. Wild party: ORGY. This was wilder than the rave I began with.
19. Near-EGOT winner Midler (she's missing the O): BETTE. The O is for Oscar but she is special.
21. Org. with admirals: USN. United States Navy.
22. Reviews briefly: SKIMS. Or a politician's retirement plan.
23. Gets gasps from: AWES.
24. Bit of rebar: ROD. I thought of him as a douche bag not a rebar.
25. Philippine currency: PESO. The long term influence of the Spanish in the Philippines. Remember, one L two Ps.
26. Word often contracted: ARE. We're challenged here.
27. Text lead-in: PREFACE. A literal clue/fill.
30. "Oversharing!": TMI. Too Much Information.
32. Home of the Green Wave: TULANE. I began my days as a poster at the Corner because someone suggested all college sports team mascots were plural.
34. Shrewdness: ACUMEN. Business skills which is guess why it was used to name this COMPANY.
36. Inventing middle name: ALVA. I doubt his middle name invented anything.
37. Short two-pointer: TIP IN. This was a stumbling block as I wanted LAY UP. The crossing letters just would not work.
41. "Critique of Judgment" author: KANT. This was his third "Critique" and in it he distinguishes the beautiful from the sublime. Paraphrasing, the appeal of beautiful objects is immediately apparent, while the sublime holds an air of mystery and ineffability. A statue or a pretty flower is beautiful, the movement of storm clouds or a massive building is sublime: they are, in a sense, too great to get our heads around.
42. Animals drawn in the Lascaux caves: DEER. This fits the fill but I believe they were ancestors.
43. Opposite of après: AVANT. Simple after and before en francais.
44. Madrid pronoun: ESTO. On to some masculine Spanish.
45. Like email notifications: PAPERLESS. I get some free stuff for going paperless.
48. 33-Down members: Abbr.: SRS. 33S. Organization for 48-Across: AARP. I was disappointed during my time as a member.
51. Update follower, perhaps: RESTART. Yes, the plight of modern technology; they keep updating which makes your restart your computer which requires that you forget what you know how to do. This blog is a perfect example.
52. "'And when I __ my lips let no dog bark!'": "The Merchant of Venice": OPE. It is a trademark of Jeffrey's to include some Shakespeare but now it seems all the Friday constructors do it. And joy, it intersects with 52D. Puck handler?: OBERON. Ooo ooo a second Shakespeare but hidden so well; not from hockey but from Will's A Midsummer's Night Dream!
55. Old TWA competitor: PAN AM. Who cares?
57. Coastal raptor: ERN. Birds and dinosaurs.
58. Shady place: ARBOR. You can ask Ann.
60. Signs: OMENS. Do you take them seriously?
61. __ al-Fitr: end-of-Ramadan feast: EID. Eid is an Arabic word meaning "festivity", while Fiṭr means "to break fast"; and so the holiday symbolizes the breaking of the fasting period, after the end of the Islamic month of Ramadan, on the first day of Shawwal.
62. Greek letter: THETA. Why not?
63. Apple product: i-PAD. Of course you can also use it to add to your resume.
64. "Therefore ... ": AND SO.
66. Natural resources: ORES. When is an ore a rock? The BBC says an ore is a rock that contains enough of a metal or a metal compound to make extracting the metal worthwhile: low-grade ores contain a small percentage of the metal or its compound. high-grade ores contain a larger percentage.
67. "Star Wars" role: LUKE. If you do not know Skywalker you probably do not know...
68. Star in Orion: RIGEL. This is a big boy Star
69. "That's that!": DONE. Not quite.
70. 1974 CIA spoof: S*P*Y*S. This was a failed attempt to capitalize on the popularity of Gould and Sutherland in M*A*S*H.
71. Word with home or bed: STEAD. Homestead I know not beadstead:the framework of a bed on which the mattress is placed.
72. Tiny crawlers: ANTS.
Down:
1. Obsessed mariner: AHAB. Poor guy, they never leave him alone.
2. Added to the official playbook: MADE A RULE. This was vey hard to parse but the perps were fair.
4. Fla. NBA team, on scoreboards: MIAmi. A gimme for which...
5. "Not a doubt in my mind": I'M SURE.
7. Chair's prep job: AGENDA. The Chairman of the Board has his/her/their staff prepare it, let's be honest.
8. Wimbledon division: SET. Tennis anyone? I do worry about Peng Shuai.
10. Drumroll follower: BIG MOMENT.
11. Comments: SAYS. Says you...
13. Part of a pot: ANTE. Followed by ...
15. Smelting fuel: COKE. Hmm.
20. "Around the Horn" airer: ESPN.
22. It's risky to work on it: SPECulation.
26. Slightly: A TAD. A day late for the Abe Lincoln References.
28. Fix a messy package, say: RETAPE. An appropriate clue/fill for gluey time.
29. Certain rider's pace: CANTER. I hope you are into this video...
31. Grooving on: INTO.
35. Short strings?: UKES.
38. Comment about a familiar film: I'VE SEEN IT. A rather killjoy comment. I liked Lovejoy better.
40. Salton, for one: INLAND SEA. There are a number of landlocked seas...how many can you name?
46. __ control: ARMS. Was it only me who went here?
47. RBI, e.g.: STAT.
48. Booty: SPOILS. So then a booty call would be the reward...
49. Increase: RAMP UP. See above, he may need a ramp one day.
50. Not at all up-front: SNEAKY. This is from 1550s (implied in sneakish), perhaps from some dialectal survival of Middle English sniken "to creep, crawl" (c. 1200), related to Old English snican "to sneak along, creep, crawl," from Proto-Germanic. Of feelings, suspicions, etc., from 1748. Transitive sense, "to partake of surreptitiously" is from 1883.
53. Strong: POTENT. With so many older solvers this might be considered cruel and unusal fill.
54. Gets rid of: ERASES. Those wrinkles around your eyes and crepe legs...
56. Long range: ANDES. A long mountain range.
59. Mary's upstairs neighbor: RHODA. Being a specialist in all things trivial, this was easy as I knew Mary Richards and Rhoda Morgenstern when they were young. I do find it odd since Mary lived on the top floor where Rhoda actually lived.
64. MGM motto word: ARS. Art for art's sake.
65. Stale: OLD. I hope this week's review was not too stale, but I did leave it out on the counter last night and forgot. Presumably this wonderful crowd will get us back to where we need to be. Have a spectacular Christmas and a better New Year. Lemonade out for 2021.
Notes from C.C.:
Boomer was out of the recovery room yesterday. Now he's back to his old room. I'll update you when I have more info. Thanks for the thoughts and prayers!
