Numbers
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| Fibonnaci Sequence Nautilus shell cross section Smithsonian Institution |
The polymath Carl Friedrich Gauss once said that "Mathematics is the queen of sciences and number theory is the queen of mathematics". Veteran Joe Rodini's theme today is about numbers, but a slightly different kind of number, that is musical numbers -- but as the ancient Greek philosopher Pythagoras discovered there is a close relationship between mathematics and music. Let's look at Joe's themers, which are all song titles ...
18A. One-hit-wonder by the New Zealand band OMC: HOW BIZARRE. OMC, or Otara Millionaires Club, was a New Zealand music group best known for the 1996 hit How Bizarre, named one of the greatest New Zealander songs of all time by the Australasian Performing Right Association. The full name of the band is a tongue-in-cheek reference to Ōtara's status as one of the poorest suburbs of Auckland ...
27A. Title theme song of a 1985 John Hughes film: WEIRD SCIENCE. I guess John Hughes had to start somewhere ...
36A. Tom Jones classic that accompanied the Carlton dance on "Fresh Prince": ITS NOT UNUSUAL. This may be the odd song out ...
45. ELO hit from the album "Face the Music": STRANGE MAGIC.
Here's the reveal ...
59. Figures on right-hand pages, or an apt title for this puzzle: ODD NUMBERS. There is nothing special about this -- it's just a convention. But why is it an apt title for this puzzle? As the themers are all song NUMBERS, then they must somehow all be ODD. Notice that (1) BIZZARE, (2) WEIRD, (3) UNUSUAL, and (4) STRANGE are all synonyms for ODD and in the sequence of 4 themers, the odd numbered ones are on the RIGHT and the even ones are on the LEFT. FWIW Joe's theme was a "puzzle within a puzzle" rather than one intended to help with the solve.
Here's the grid ...
Across:
1. Hurtful remark: BARB.
5. Can't help but: HAS TO.
10. Get smart with: SASS.
14. Cookie with a Dirt Cake flavor: OREO. Rumor has it that Nabisco is working a variation of Dirt Cake containing earth worms.😀 While we're waiting, here is Jennifer's recipe for Dirt Cake.
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| Dirt Cake |
16. Miller option: LITE.
17. Director Preminger: OTTO. Otto Ludwig Preminger (5 December 1905 – 23 April 1986) was an Austrian-American film and theatre director, film producer, and actor. He directed more than 35 feature films in a five-decade career after leaving the theatre, and was one of the most influential directors in Hollywood during the 1940s and 1950s. He was nominated for three Academy Awards, twice for Best Director and once for Best Picture, among many other accolades.
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| Otto Preminger |
18. [Theme clue]
20. Collect: AMASS.
22. "Just tell me the answer": I GIVE UP. On the Corner we call that to TITT.
23. Twiddled one's thumbs: IDLED.
25. Advil target: PAIN.
26. Online convos: DMS. In computer networking, a private message, personal message, or direct message (abbreviated as PM or DM) refers to a private communication, often text-based, sent or received by a user of a private communication channel on any given platform.
27. [Theme clue]
31. Egg cells: OVA. A little review of the birds and the bees ...
32. Mosul's country: IRAQ. Mosul is a major city in northern Iraq, serving as the capital of Nineveh Governorate. It is the second largest city in Iraq overall after the capital Baghdad. Situated on the banks of Tigris, the city encloses the ruins of the ancient Assyrian city of Nineveh—once the largest city in the world—on its east side.
33. Broke bread: ATE.
36. [Theme clue]
41. Island garland: LEI.
42. Steak sauce brand: A ONE. You can make your own -- here's a recipe ...
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| Steak sauce |
45. [Theme clue]
50. Texting segue: BTW. By the way the next clue is about a news broadcaster ...
53. "Dateline NBC" anchor Lester: HOLT. Lester Don Holt Jr. (born March 8, 1959) is an American news anchor for the weekday edition of NBC Nightly News, NBC Nightly News Kids Edition, and Dateline NBC. On June 18, 2015, Holt was made the permanent anchor of NBC Nightly News following the demotion of Brian Williams and became the first Black male solo anchor for a major network newscast.
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| Lester Holt |
55. Snoopy alter ego: JOE COOL.
59. [Theme reveal]
61. "Ferrari" actor Driver: ADAM. An appropriate name for the actor who played in the 2023 film about auto designer and racer Enzo Ferrari ...
64. Wrath: RAGE. Here's the Dies Irae ("Day of wrath") from what has been called Giuseppe Verdi's greatest opera -- his Requiem, with conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin leading the Metropolitan Opera chorus and orchestra on the 20th anniversary of 911 ...
65. Lifts, as spirits: BUOYS. BOOSTS was two long. A CSO to Jinx -- "Red right returning" right?
66. Sounds from a comedy club: YUKS.
67. Russian refusal: NYET. Back at ya Vlad!
68. Far from shore: AT SEA. You don't find too many 65As AT SEA.
69. Duration: SPAN.
Down:
1. Bae: BOO. Short for Babboo?
2. Objet d'__: ART. French: Objet d'Art = "Art object". Technically this could be an oil painting or a sculpture, but it generally refers to an especially exquisite artifact such as a Fabergé egg ...
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| Gatchina Palace Egg |
3. Return like for like: RETALIATE.
4. Child of the 1950s: BOOMER. And a CSO to a dearly departed friend.
5. Sounds of derision: HAHS.
6. Mil. addresses: APOS.
7. Tool that can make music: SAW. Here's sawist Adriano Fernandez playing O mio babbino caro, the signature aria from Giacomo Puccini's only comedy, Gianni Schicchi ...
8. Fibulae neighbors: TIBIAE. Here's everything you need to know about these neighbors ...
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| Fibulae and Tibiae |
9. Where the x-axis and the y-axis cross: ORIGIN. It's where everything starts ...
12. Play lightly: STRUM. Here's John Denver doing a little strumming ...
13. Trickles: SEEPS.
19. Metal in pennies: ZINC. Pennies actually cost 3.7 cents each and it has been suggested recently that they're not worth minting. As ZINC is a key ingredient in Bristol glazes, I'd suggest that it be used to make stoneware crocks, which can bring a pretty penny at auctions ...
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| Bristol glazed butter crocks |
21. Introduce to the mix: ADD IN.
23. __ Jima: IWO. The Battle of Iwo Jima (19 February – 26 March 1945) was a major battle in which the United States Marine Corps (USMC) and United States Navy (USN) landed on and eventually captured the island of Iwo Jima from the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) during World War II. The American invasion, designated Operation Detachment, had the goal of capturing the island with its two airfields: South Field and Central Field. The seven day battle cost approximately 6,800 American lives. The photo of the raising of the US flag on Mt. Suribachi has become an icon of our nation's military valor and sacrifice ...
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| Raising the colors on Iwo Jima |
24. New Jersey athlete: DEVIL. The New Jersey Devils are a professional ice hockey team based in Newark, New Jersey. The Devils compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Metropolitan Division in the Eastern Conference.
28. Packed theater letters: SRO.
29. Monopoly token that replaced the iron: CAT. The IRON is out, the CAT is in -- not a popular decision among DOG lovers. The monopolists had obviously been watching too many cat videos on the Internet.
30. __ de cologne: EAU. French: Eau de Cologne = "Water from Cologne", a perfume originating in Cologne, Germany (known as "Koln" auf Deutsch. In contemporary American English usage, the term "cologne" has become a generic term for perfumes marketed toward men. It also may signify a less concentrated, more affordable, version of a popular perfume (i.e. cheap!).
35. Pitcher of milk?: ELSIE. Not this pitcher ...
37. Family girl: SIS.
38. Eggy drink: NOG.
39. Arles article: UNE. More French. One of the most famous articles to come out of Arles resulted from a play called L'Arlésienne ("The Girl from Arles"), written by Alphonse Daudet, with incidental music written by George Bizet. -- the play bombed, but the music survives to this day as a concert piece. Here is a snippet of it -- you will most surely recognize it ... 40. 18-wheelers: SEMIS.
44. Play, or part of a play: ACT. See 39A.
46. Commandment start: THOU. Great words to live by ...
48. Nearly entirely: ALL BUT.
49. Analyzes chemically: ASSAYS. Essentially an ASSAY involves analyzing a substance for its chemical constituents, e.g. to determine the nutrients that make up a food product. This is something I've done quite a bit of in my avocation -- the making of glazed pottery. For the most part glaze recipes consist of specific quantities of ingredients made from ground minerals. However looking at a recipe tells you very little about the properties of the glaze -- e.g. glossy or matte surface, color, or fluidity (i.e. will it run all over your kiln shelves?) I use a very useful program called Digitalfire Insight to analyze glaze recipes for their chemical constituents -- alumina and related oxides to form the body of the glaze; fluxes to regulate the melting point; and glass formers to determine the final surface characteristics. The proportions of those ingredients (what the old Chinese potters called bones, fire, and flesh) tell you much more than just the recipe can about how the glaze will fire and what it will look like when it comes out of the kiln.
50. ABBA singer Ulvaeus: BJORN. BJORN did other things besides sing for ABBA. Among them was collaborating in the composition of a musical called Chess, along with his ABBA colleague Benny Andersson and English songwriter Tim Rice. Based on a true story, it revolves around intrigues that took place during a Cold War match between American and Russian Grand Masters. The musical production was a big deal -- including a double LP recording and stage productions in a West End theatre in London and a Broadway theater in New York. I was unable to find any suitable songs from the original LP, but I did find a concert version of the song Anthem sung by Josh Groban, a paeon to the Russian Grand Master's homeland ...
51. "While I'm young!": TODAY. Thank you perps. I think this may be Gen-Z slang for STAT. These days TODAY seems to be getting shorter and shorter!
52. Trivial Pursuit piece: WEDGE. Trivial Pursuit is a board game in which winning is determined by a player's ability to answer trivia and popular culture questions. This sounds like it might be a good game to warm up with before attempting to solve LA Times crossword puzzles. 😀
Players move their pieces around a board, the squares they land on determining the subject of a question they are asked from a card (from six categories including "history" and "science and nature"). Each correct answer allows the player's turn to continue; a correct answer on one of the six "category headquarters" spaces earns a plastic wedge which is slotted into the answerer's playing piece. The object of the game is to collect all six wedges from each "category headquarters" space, and then return to the center "hub" space to answer a question in a category selected by the other players. Doesn't sound trivial to me.
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| Trivial Pursuit wedges |
56. Tech review site: CNET. CNET (short for "Computer Network") is an American media website found in 1992 that publishes reviews, news, articles, blogs, podcasts, and videos on technology and consumer electronics globally. Following acquisition by Red Ventures on October 30, 2020, the website faced criticism for the decline in quality of its editorial content and its factual unreliability due to the use of generative AI in the creation of its articles, as well as concerns over its journalistic integrity after it began increased publication of biased reviews and sponsored content to benefit its advertising partners. On October 1, 2024, CNET was acquired by Ziff Davis, who will hopefully improve it.
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57. Boot company since 1863: FRYE. The Frye Company is an American manufacturer of shoes, boots and leather accessories. Founded in 1863, it claims to be the oldest continuously operated American shoe company. Apparently their boots are really aged, as a pair like this one will set you back $498 + tax + shipping (I'm assuming you get two for that price 😀) ...
58. Mount of Greek myth: OSSA. Mount Ossa (Greek: Όσσα), is a mountain in the Larissa regional unit, in Thessaly, Greece. It is 1,978 metres (6,490 ft) high and is located between Pelion to the south and Olympus to the north. In Greek mythology, a race of giants called the Aloadaes are said to have attempted to pile Mount Pelion on top of Mount Ossa in their efforts to scale Mount Olympus.
60. Volkswagen model until 2016: EOS. The Volkswagen Eos is a compact two-door, four passenger convertible manufactured and marketed by Volkswagen from 2006 to 2016 — noted for its five-section hardtop retractable roof.
62. Alias letters: AKA.
63. AOL alternative: MSN. MSN is a web portal and related collection of Internet services and apps provided by Microsoft. The main webpage provides news, weather, sports, finance and other content curated from hundreds of different sources that Microsoft has partnered with.
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| Frye boot Campus 14L Wide Calf |
58. Mount of Greek myth: OSSA. Mount Ossa (Greek: Όσσα), is a mountain in the Larissa regional unit, in Thessaly, Greece. It is 1,978 metres (6,490 ft) high and is located between Pelion to the south and Olympus to the north. In Greek mythology, a race of giants called the Aloadaes are said to have attempted to pile Mount Pelion on top of Mount Ossa in their efforts to scale Mount Olympus.
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| Mount Ossa |
60. Volkswagen model until 2016: EOS. The Volkswagen Eos is a compact two-door, four passenger convertible manufactured and marketed by Volkswagen from 2006 to 2016 — noted for its five-section hardtop retractable roof.
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| 2006 Volkswagen EOS Sport |
63. AOL alternative: MSN. MSN is a web portal and related collection of Internet services and apps provided by Microsoft. The main webpage provides news, weather, sports, finance and other content curated from hundreds of different sources that Microsoft has partnered with.
Cheers,
Bill
And as always, thanks to Teri for proofreading and for her constructive criticism.
waseeley
Notes from C.C.:
I'm sad to share that today's blog will be Bill's final Thursday review for us. He's stepping away to focus on his health and prioritize time with his family.
Bill began blogging for us in December 2020, and his posts have always been full of insight, information, and warmth. Thank you, Bill (and Teri!), for the care, time, and heart you've given to this blog. We wish you joy and good health in the next chapter. And we look forward to seeing you in the Comments section whenever you feel like stopping by.
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| Bill (waseeley) |
I'm also happy to announce that Naomi will be taking over the Thursday blog
moving forward. She has filled in for several bloggers over the past few
months and brings a clear, thoughtful voice and a deep love for puzzles.
We're excited to have her on board!
