Theme: "Smile you are on Candid Camera."
LINK.
How nice to welcome Hard G and C.C. back to Friday, their first visit to my patch since last May. Appropriately for C.C. as a baseball fan, we have the old hidden ball trick, where the name of a popular camera manufacturer is found spread between the words of each of the three theme answers, with a classic reveal. Some really sparkly fill like RNA spelled out, PLUMMETS, NITROGEN, DERISIVE and ARCANE just to name a few. We also have some clecho, some arcane stuff that's fun to learn So let us do this.
19A. "This will get better, I promise" : IT GROWS ON YOU.(12) For some reason SONY jumped right out at me once I filled in the answer, which took a while, as I had to resort to doing the down clues first to get a toehold. Did not know if perhaps TVs were going to be the theme.
31A. "That's surreal!" : I CAN ONLY IMAGINE. (15) The CANON sure shot being perhaps the most advertised of all cameras.
39A. Substance usually abbreviated : RIBONUCLEIC ACID. (15) (RNA) LEICA a very quality camera brand mentioned recently here.
53A. Surveillance device found in 19-, 31- and 39-Across : HIDDEN CAMERA. (12) It says it exactly, a camera hidden in each theme answer. A very conventional theme and grid with many fewer words than we have seen on Friday recently.
Across:
1. Manhunt msg. : APB. All Points Bulletin.
4. Facebook exchanges, briefly : IMS. Instant MessageS.
7. Put up a fight : BATTLE.
13. Nose-dives : PLUMMETS. Whenever something is falling to Earth, it is plummeting. Nice word.
16. Frozen, maybe : AFRAID. Very misleading, and while fear makes people freeze in their tracks, it took perps to get this one.
17. Toy mentioned in "The Chipmunk Song" : HULA HOOP.
18. Shade at the beach : BRONZE. Umbrella would not fit, so it had to be a shade of skin tone. The clecho: 10D. Shade at the beach : TAN.
21. Executes : DOES. We are not killing anyone here, just doing things.
22. Sault ___ Marie : STE. Saint abbreviation in French.
23. Moves a bit : STIRS. Shaken not stirred? I do remember when that sleeping alligator stirred....
27. Prepare for chewing : TEETHE. I loved this one, especially as Charlotte now has two bottom teeth.
30. PC hookup : LAN. Local Area Network.
37. Calculating : SHREWD. Related to Shrew as in the Taming of?
38. Military fleet : ARMADA. Back this week as fill not clue.
43. "Microsoft sound" composer : ENO. Mr. Muzak, Brian-the man in your ELEVATOR.
44. Arkansas River city : PUEBLO. Why these are in Colorado, I do not know.
45. "Star Wars" title : DARTH. and the clecho 65A. "Star Wars" title : SIR. DARTH is Sith for Lord, as he was also called Lord Vader. In later movies (set earlier in time) we have Darth Maul which is a great name. Sir, I presume refers to Sir Alec Guinness who plays Obi-Wan Kenobi, who said, "Who's the more foolish, the fool or the fool who follows him?"
48. Detriment to team performance, maybe : EGO. Who are your least favorite athlete? Is it a big ego who did nothing, like Brian Bosworth, or someone on a successful team who wants all the credit.
49. Master of ___ : ARTS. For some reason, I first plunked in ARMS.
57. Not widely understood : ARCANE. From the Latin word meaning secret, I always thought of it as mostly forgotten knowledge, though it is a wonderful crossword fill, and talking point. Are arcane words fair game to use in puzzles?
60. Air, mostly : NITROGEN. Love this clue as well since 85% of our air is nitrogen.
61. Where lizards hang out? : LOUNGE. Very sweet clue; are they lizards because of their cold nature? Their forked tongues? Their shoes?
62. Mocking : DERISIVE. Love this being right after Lounge Lizard. It...
63. Lifted (up) : PERKED. up my day.
64. '70s kidnappers: Abbr. : SLA. Symbionese Liberation Army. Think Patty Hearst.
Down:
1. Farm pest : APHID. I put this in immediately and then thought about the fact that these pests are all over flowering plants and had to check the perps to be sure.
2. 1930 Clyde Tombaugh discovery : PLUTO. The P from APB gave me this, but he seems very interesting, suggesting the need for the scientific study of UFOs.
3. Love handle? : BULGE. The never ending Battle.
4. Online "Just saying" : IMHO. In My Humble Opinion. Not sure why the opinion needs to be humble.
5. "Got milk?" : MEOW. Cute, like our 'let me out' last week.
6. Self-named Fox Business show : STOSSEL. I liked him since watching his personal revelations about his struggle with stuttering. LINK.
7. New addition of a sort : BABY. Charlotte is now 7 months old; tempus really fugits these days.
8. Big dos : AFROS.
9. Rainbow ___ : TROUT. I wanted BRITE so badly.
11. Songwriter Phair : LIZ. She also is a PERFORMER (2:39) who many feel has not ever lived up to her potential.
12. Back of a stamp? : EDE. If this one licked you, do not worry, it is just a StampEDE.
14. Viking landing site : MARS. Two planets in one puzzle, cool.
15. On-again, off-again : SPOTTY.
20. Vintage pop : NEHI. Radar O'Reilly's drink of choice, grape please.
24. Of a hip bone : ILIAC. Not to be confused with the ILIAD.
25. CNN journalist Kaye : RANDI. This 'investigative' journalist. LINK.(0:18) you get the impression C.C, watches a lot of news? (From C.C.: Randi Kaye used to be the news anchor for WCCO here at Twin Cities.)
26. 1984-2002 honorary Masters starting group member : SNEAD. Slammin' Sammy, one of the trio of golf legends born in 1912 who were featured in this fine PUZZLE.
27. Dot on a map : TOWN.
28. Turn out : END UP.
29. Virus carrier, at times : EMAIL. Simple, classy fill.
31. "The East ___": 1960s anthem in 32-Down : IS RED. No doubt an important part of C.C.'s childhood, this SONG.
32. Nepal neighbor : CHINA. More hometown stuff for our leader, this buffer country between China and India is historically and politically important and now friendly with China. LINK.
33. Place out of the sun : ARBOR. We already had shade as a clue, so it had to be something else. Do they celebrate Arbor day where you love?
34. Revival prefix : NEO.
35. ___ Arena, former Sacramento sports venue : ARCO. The first sports venue named for a sponsor (Atlantic Richfield Oil, now part of BP, is in its second location, and is now called the Sleep Train Arena. Really!
40. Signaled : CUED. Cue the dancing hippos.
41. Daniel Boone, e.g. : LEGEND. I was more a Davy Crockett kid.
42. Black keys : EBONIES. Not the IVORIES. (3:41). I hope the video tickled your fancy.
46. Show appreciation to : THANK. I thank C.C. for the Corner and her amazing creations, solo and collaborative.
47. Swinging joint? : HINGE. Not a busy bar, nor a place for couples to mingle and tingle, but...
49. Big name in cookies : AMOS. You might even say he is famous.
50. Longtime morning co-host : REGIS. Does Kelly miss HIM?
51. Eternal City fountain : TREVI. Or as we call it la Fontana di Trevi.
52. Less likely to lose it : SANER. As Thomas Eagleton said, "if they say I am 5% mentally disabled at least I can prove I am 95% sane."
54. Legal document : DEED. Real Property, and what I do for a living, part of the time.
55. Shortcut key : CTRL. Alt. Delete. Oops you are all gone.
56. Solo delivery : ARIA. Not horse or soap.
57. Mont Blanc, e.g. : ALP. The mountain, not the PEN. So do you like or hate the Mountain as he rides off with Arya?
58. Canapé topping : ROE. fish eggs like from Shad.
59. Blackguard : CUR. I love the word Blackguard. Cur probably comes from ancient languages version of GRR, meaning to growl and first meant a mongrel dog. But is has become synonymous with bad people, for example Wyatt Earp called the Clantons curs in the movie Tombstone. (per wiki).
Well this week and this puzzle flew by, though I savored the solving, it was nice to see so few 3/4 letter fill. A pleasure blogging our Dynamic Duo, and maybe off to watch the new Star Trek movie. Good to see how many newbies are becoming regulars and always great to see any of the 2008 crowd. Sorry to see San Jose lose, just for Eddy B.
Seen, Creature, hey.
Seen, Creature, hey.
Peace out. Lemonade 714
