Theme: Playing with your food again? Four common phrases have one word replaced with a breakfast food item, to create an amusing sound alike phrase, clued in a witty fashion. No unifier today; a day to work hard for our solutions.
20A. Halloween breakfast pastry?: CREEPY CRULLER. CREEPY CRAWLER is the base phrase, a toy from Mattel, I think, where you make cute worms.
33A. Lone breakfast pastry?: CRUMPET SOLO. TRUMPET SOLO; I am sure JzB wishes there were more Trombone solos.
42A. Cherished breakfast pastry?: THE BUN I LOVE. Maybe you remember this song, THE ONE I LOVE my favorite theme answer.
56A. Ones hooked on breakfast pastry? : THE SCONEHEADS. The SNL creation with Dan Ackroyd and Larraine Newman, the Coneheads. I am on a big scone eating kick these days, mostly orange cranberry; I think it is because I am reading too many British mysteries and need my elevenses.
Lemonade here.
Lemonade here.
This was a fun Friday, with some very hard parts, from a fairly new constructor, who had his solo debut here in October, He is a friend of Joon Pahk, another young gun. I thought the theme was amusing, and it being a 4 pronged mini-clecho added to the challenge. Let us see what else Matt had up his number 2 pencil, which made me work very hard.
Across:
1. The word?: MUM. Once you see the answer and picture the phrase, "Mum's the word," this is easy, but there are so many words. Shakespeare said in Henry VI, part II, "Seal up your lips and give no words but mum."
4. You might need to watch yours: STEP. Wow, another idiomatic phrase, this could be a long night.
8. Like some Disneyland passes: TWO DAY. I have only been to Disneyland once, and it was quite small. I moved to Florida just before they opened Disney-world, so I was spoiled. How many have been to both? No more E tickets anyway.
14. Downed: ATE. I may have to eat my words if this does not get easier.
15. __ bene: NOTA. Oh goody, Latin and a common legal term; this phrase, usually abbreviated (NB) means pay special attention to this area. Literally to note well.
16. It may involve an exaggerated age: FAKE ID. Another legal (okay illegal) concept. The greatest one being this ID .
17. With 19-Across, serious warnings: RED. 19. See 17-Across: ALERTS. The highest level; Homeland Security advises we are at Yellow alert today.
18. Not much: A BIT. Another idiom in the first ten clues.
23. 1938 "The War of the Worlds" broadcast, for one: HOAX. Do you think Orson Wells could pull off this in modern times?
24. Keystone enforcer: KOP. Mack Sennet's bumbling bobbys appeared with another crossword favorite Mable Normand.
25. Blazing: AFIRE. Oh, the obligatory A word.
28. Go-aheads: ASSENTS.
32. __'acte: ENTR. My French lesson of the day, ENTRE means between, but French loves elision, so the last E is removed to make one sound for the phrase meaning intermission, or between the act(s).
37. Garden product word: GRO. Scott's bought Sterns Miracle-Gro Products, Inc for their very successful Miracle Gro line of fertilizers. They work, though some say with side effects.
38. Attacks: RUNS AT. Another phrase, but not such a popular one.
39. Igloos and yurts: ABODES. Most of us are familiar with the Igloo, but not a YURT .
41. Sch. attendance notation: ABS. No ladies, not an excuse to show some guy with great abdominal muscles, an abbreviation for ABSENT.
46. End of a boast: VICI. More Latin, just to appease me; VENI, VIDI (I came, I saw) before I conquered.
48. Got for nothing: SPONGED. Well I know sponging off people means getting for nothing, but the tenses made this difficult, especially as the perps were not gimmes.
49. Make official: ENACT. Make into law.
51. Newspaper supply: INK. Don't you just hate the ink all over your hands when you finish reading the paper? Why do I hear Andy Rooney saying that in my head?
52. Islamic leader: IMAM. There is a tremendous variance between Sunni Imam and the Shi'a Imam, with the Sunni, it is more leadership like a Rabbi, and more religious with the Shi'a.
60. Type of sauce served with falafel: TAHINI. This wonderful, creamy garlicky sauce uses the sesame paste as its central ingredient, but many other flavors are mixed in to blend with chicken and other bland food.
62. Gaucho's weapon: BOLA. As kids, my brothers and I tried to make our own BOLAS but we did not have any tall animals, except each other, on whom to practice.
63. Homework amount?: TON. Aww, mom I have a TON of homework!
64. Puck's king: OBERON. More Shakespeare, Midsummers Night Dream, and the Queen was...?
65. "Dulce et Decorum est" poet Wilfred __: OWEN. A much respected but not widely known poet from WWI, who died 7 days before Armistice Day, but did have his thoughts on war preserved and published. Here is more information on him in this LINK .
66. Flow out: EBB. Our Crosswordese 101.
67. Henry VIII et al.: TUDORS. The Welsh family which ruled great Britain until they died out when Elizabeth I had no children, and her cousin, James the VI of Scotland became the King, and the first in the house of Stuart. The Showtime series is interesting, though quite explicit.
68. Hitch: SNAG. Another tricky one, as the dictionary has seven meanings for the noun HITCH, plus more for the verbs.
69. Wall St. monitor: SEC. Securities and Exchange Commission.
I would not have been able to finish if it were not for the downs, so we better get going.
Down:
1. Orderly movement: MARCH. I hope these memories are all happy ones Dennis, it is time for MUSIC .
2. Nirvana #1 album "In __": UTERO. And more MUSIC ; I never go into this.
3. Scorned lover of Jason: MEDEA. But I surely love my namesake appearing, even if it is a reminder of the Biatch Medea murdering my poor children in a jealous rage. hey, boys must be boys.
4. Lose it: SNAP. You could say Medea just snapped.
5. Michael's nemesis on "The Office": TOBY. Never have watched the OFFICE .
6. Boarding pass generator: ETICKET. And now our obligatory E word.
7. Sponsors: PATRONS. This was a more meaningful clue when rich people were the Patrons who sponsored artists and musicians, so they could concentrate on their art and not have to worry about working.
8. Brand of nonstick cookware: TFAL.Also known as TEFAL; you think the TE comes from TEFLON?
9. Half a city: WALLA. WALLA WALLA, Washington is where the tribe of native Americans known as the Walla Walla lived before the Whitman family arrived.
10. Michael of "Caddyshack":O'KEEFE. As a young man, he played the caddy who defeated Ted Knight for the club championship in the movie. However, he recently played Wally Wandell in Brothers & Sisters which sounds like Walla Walla. Coincidence?
11. Gallantry: DERRING DO. I wonder if the history of the word relates to DERRINGER or perhaps DERRIERE, both of which can be quite dangerous in the wrong hands?
12. River island: AIT. An ait (or eyot) is a small island. It is especially used to refer to islands found on the River Thames and its tributaries in England. The words "ait" and "eyot" are not common in modern English, although a few famous writers have used it, including J. R. R. Tolkien in his Lord of the Rings books, and Charles Dickens in Bleak House. It is also used by Thackeray in Vanity Fair. or so says Wiki. I never would have gotten this, but for perps.
13. NFL stat: YDS. Yards.
21. Show-what-you-know chances: EXAMS. I started with TESTS, but eventually worked my way out.
22. Machinating: UP TO. Another perfectly common word, used in a tense that was confusing. His machinations are deceptive.
26. Prelate's title: Abbr.: RT REV. we had a nice long discussion of Right Reverent some time ago.
27. Unevenly worn: EROSE. Oh, like the AIT which can disappear in the river.
29. Cross words: SPAT. Oh how very punny!
30. Actors Rogen and Green: SETHS. Both started out as child actors, Rogen in Freaks and Geeks and Green in a million guest parts. Rogen appeared in SUPERBAD which I linked above.
31. Big gun or big cheese: SLANG. Completely fooled me for a while, especially another food clue.
33. Desire and then some: CRAVE. Like my wanting some breakfast pastry NOW!
34. Clinton Treasury secretary: RUBIN. Robert Rubin; do we care? How about now, I will give you a hint, his initials are T G.
35. In one piece: UNSCATHED. I love this word, but I did not make it through this puzzle unscathed.
36. Award with a Sustained Achievement category: OBIE. The off-Broadway and off-off-Broadway Awards; a show that makes it up as it goes along; a product of the Village Voicenewspaper.
40. "Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini," for one: OLDIE. An oldie but a goodie.
43. Broad: EPIC. Huh? I have known some wonderful women, but EPIC?
44. Endangered great apes: BONOBOS. Am I the only one who completely missed out this entire species of CHIMPANZEE .J. Fred Muggs, help me!
45. x, at times: UNKNOWN. In all forms of mathematics, a symbol for the unknown.
47. Baseball star who reportedly said, "I think there's a sexiness in infield hits": ICHIRO. Mr. Suzuki, who came to the US after 9 years of professional baseball in Japan, has had at least 200 hits in each of his 10 seasons, a record, and had 262 one year, another record.
50. Caruso, for one: TENOR. Enrico the singer, not David the whiner.
53. A couple: MATES. Why does that word always make me hear in Australian? Kazie?
54. Acrobat developer: ADOBE. Which is an anagram of ABODE. See above.
55. Rachel Maddow's station: MSNBC. I have never watched this NEWSPERSON .
57. Serious lapses: SINS. Now we are talking, that is all it was, a little lapse on my part.
58. Zeno's home: ELEA.Zeno of Elea was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher of southern Italy and a member of the Eleatic School founded by Parmenides. Aristotle called him the inventor of the dialectic. He is best known for his paradoxes. Paradoxically, I have never heard of him either.
59. Dangle: HANG. How they dangling just does not have the same ring to it.
60. Tater __: TOT. Finally, a food gimme for ORE-IDA.
61. __ Simbel, site of Ramses II temples: ABU. Can you believe they moved these TEMPLES to make room for the Asswan Dam?
This was a difficult puzzle for me, maybe my eyes failing gives me an excuse, but it is mostly stuff I did not know and had to sneak up on, and make logical guesses. I hope you enjoy March.
Lemonade
