Theme: Discombobulated Divisions - the circled letters are rearrangements of the names of the four seasons that are generally recognized in temperate and sub-polar regions of the world.
18A. Sweet sherry, e.g. : DESSERT WINE . [Winter] I never really think of sherry as a dessert wine, more an aperitif, even the sweet amontillado and oloroso versions.
23A. Unbeatable hand : ROYAL FLUSH. [Fall] The Aria hotel in Las Vegas was the subject of some discussion on the blog on Sunday. I hit my only video poker royal flush at the lobby bar in the Aria. I promptly cashed out, never to make another bet all week.
48A. Square-bodied family autos : HUMMER SUVS. [Summer] Horrible-looking things, IMHO.
55A. Pre-holiday mall indulgence : BUYING SPREE. [Spring]. I'd be more of a shopping or spending spree-er if I ever spreed.
38A. It happens four times a year ... and also in this puzzle's circles : CHANGE OF SEASONS. And a nice diagram courtesy of Wikipedia:
Hail fellows, well met! Steve here with C.W.'s cyclical-circle theme. I think those of you solving circle-less might have missed out a little with this one - once I saw the letter-scrambling going on, it helped me figure out HUMMER SUVS when I was looking at a lot of blank space in that area.
A neat theme, but I was marginally disappointed with the aforesaid HUMMER SUVS - you could use either of the "U"'s to make your season and the "scramble-factor" across the four themers was a little inconsistent - SPRING and SUMMER are just split in the middle and reversed, but you'd get FLAL and WINERT if you tried that with the other two. Not a big deal, but I love symmetry.
With the grid-spanning reveal entry, you're looking at 57 theme squares; it looks like C.W. worked pretty hard not to let the fill slump into a rag-bag of crossword-ese, there's nary a clunker to be seen. Hurrah!
Let's check out the rest:
Across:
1. Respectful title : SIR
4. Gnocchi sauce : PESTO. Food! Basil, olive oil, pine nuts, cheeses. Vibrantly green. I go light on the oil, it doesn't need much.
9. First occurrence : ONSET
14. Keats' "__ to a Nightingale" : ODE
15. Stay away from : AVOID. Good advice vis-a-vis hemlock ..
16. With 61-Across, Sri Lankan product : PEKOE and
61. See 16-Across : TEA. Not to be overly pedantic here (Why not? That's what crossword blogs are for!) but there's really no such thing as "pekoe tea". Pekoe is a grade of black tea primarily grown in India and Sri Lanka.
17. Pool user's unit : LAP. 20 laps = 1,000m where I swim. That's my warm-up, then some interval sprints and a 100m kick-social cool-down
20. "__ Road to Glory": Arthur Ashe history : A HARD. I boxed myself into a weird corner here - for no good reason, I filled in AHEAD, failed to notice that REPEY wasn't a word, and thought I'd discovered a new geological feature in AAVINE. Sanity finally prevailed, but only after I thought there were typos in the grid. It turned out it was just me being idiotic.
22. Lip : SASS
27. Hat worn with a kilt : TAM. Popular hat (in crosswords).
30. "Romeo and Juliet" city : VERONA. Shakespeare seemed to like this place - two plays were set here.
31. Laundry slide : CHUTE
33. __ Spumante : ASTI. Italian day today - PESTO, VERONA and now ASTI so far.
36. Here, to Henri : ICI. "You are here" on French mall maps:
37. Album array : PHOTOS
41. Comes to the point? : TAPERS
42. Have title to : OWN
43. Long basket, in hoops lingo : TREY. A three-pointer from outside the line. My pet peeve: Brent Musberger and his "from DOWNTOWN!!!!" call when a three-pointer is made. "Downtown" would be underneath the basket where all the traffic and banging around happens. "FROM THE SUBURBS!!!!" would be more accurate. OK, pedantic rant over (hey, it's a crossword blog, right?)
44. Clear the board : ERASE
45. Daze : TRANCE
47. Only article in a U.S. state capital name : DES. Moines. French for "The Moines". Or something.
52. Burlesque wraps : BOAS. G-rated example:
54. Dot on a map : ISLET
62. Parenthetical remark : ASIDE. Hamlet: (A little more than kin, a little less than kind). Bill the Bard pretty much invented the theatrical aside.
63. Piece of cake : LAYER.
64. Tach reading : R.P.M. Why do automatic transmission cars have a tachometer? There's nothing much you can do about the revs ..
65. Package sealers : TAPES
66. Decorative pitchers : EWERS
67. Critter in Egyptian art : ASP. Critter is a nice term for a hooded, extremely poisonous and aggressive cobra.
Down
1. Like some eclipses : SOLAR
2. One of three Hells Canyon states : IDAHO. I trotted off to the interwebs to find out why there's no apostrophe anywhere in "Hells" and drew a blank. I did discover that the mountain that forms the canyon is named "He Devil" which leads me to believe that the Idahoans must have rationed apostrophe usage on geographical features. I still think it should be "Hell's Canyon" though. Pedantic, moi? Oh wait - that's what crossword blogs are for!
3. Square things : REPAY Chlecho with 28D
4. Kayak mover : PADDLE. Not really, it's me wielding the paddle. Especially when I'm in a twin kayak and I look around to see that my paddle-partner is laying flat out with her paddle across her knees sunbathing.
5. Night before : EVE
6. Distress signal : S.O.S.
7. "Whether __ nobler ...": Hamlet : 'TIS. Asides in 62A, a soliloquy here, Verona earlier. Elizabethan Hall of Fame Playwright day today.
8. Ukrainian port : ODESSA
9. Stops wavering : OPTS
10. Dinnertime TV fare : NEWS. Usually in LA featuring any one of a) high-speed freeway car chase b) weather extremes or c) totally unsurprising "celebrity" "scandal". Or all three.
11. Snow runner : SKI
12. Ages and ages : EON
13. Place to start a hole : TEE. Fore! The first tee at my local course, DeBell in Burbank. I usually boom my first drive over the tall tree you see to the right and onto the street. Others hook theirs into the barranca on the left or squiff one into the rubbish in front. Then we all agree to forget that it ever happened and take mulligans.
19. Cheer from the crowd : RAH!
21. Steep-sided valleys : RAVINES. Not AAVINES which had me wondering ....
24. Wendy's side : FRIES. You want fries with that? What a strange question! Here's the current Wendy's TV commercial pitch-person. Note the complete lack of red hair. I do like the fact that her husband is the manager at the Grammercy Tavern in New York. Food!
25. Maniacal : LOCO. El Pollo Loco! Food! I love this puzzle.
26. Military outfit : UNIFORM
27. Private instructor : TUTOR
28. Square things : ATONE Clecho with 3D
29. Like many a dorm room : MESSY
31. Half a dance : CHA
32. Party organizer : HOSTESS
33. Did one's part? : ACTED
34. Admonishing response to "Mine!" : SHARE!
35. Spanish finger food : TAPAS. I can't keep up with the Food! Tapas were originally "covers" or "tops" to put on the top of your glass of sherry (18A!) to keep the flies out.
37. Tubular pasta : PENNE. I linked "Penne all' arrabbiata" at the Star Wars Canteen last time out. This week, why not combine this with 4A and try some pesto on top?
39. MBA hopeful's test : G.R.E. Seems awfully complicated. I'm not sure I even understood the rubric of the Wiki entry.
40. Took a dip : SWAM. Head back up to 17A and do 20 laps.
45. Struggle : TUSSLE
46. Old-time broadcasters : CRIERS
48. Crone : HAG
49. Extreme : ULTRA. "A Clockwork Orange" placed the word "ultraviolence" into the lexicon.
50. Some execs : VEEPS
51. Passport image : STAMP. My old passport had over 100 of these. The new one is already up to 20 or so.
52. __ one's time: wait : BIDE
53. Soda machine inserts : ONES. Sign of the times. Time was when a quarter was plenty.
55. Nocturnal flier : BAT
56. NATO founding member : USA. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization gets the "no longer an abbreviation" nod, along with our homeland.
57. Chihuahua complaint : YIP. Sorry, did I step on your paw? I didn't see you there ...
58. Handle without care? : PAW. Stop complaining, serves your paw right!
59. Reuben bread : RYE. Too much Food! I ate this version at Katz's on Houston Street in New York's Lower East Side. The pickles are awesome!
60. Slogan ending? : EER
I have to go and lie down after all those calories. Here's the grid.
Steve
Note from C.C.:
18A. Sweet sherry, e.g. : DESSERT WINE . [Winter] I never really think of sherry as a dessert wine, more an aperitif, even the sweet amontillado and oloroso versions.
23A. Unbeatable hand : ROYAL FLUSH. [Fall] The Aria hotel in Las Vegas was the subject of some discussion on the blog on Sunday. I hit my only video poker royal flush at the lobby bar in the Aria. I promptly cashed out, never to make another bet all week.
48A. Square-bodied family autos : HUMMER SUVS. [Summer] Horrible-looking things, IMHO.
55A. Pre-holiday mall indulgence : BUYING SPREE. [Spring]. I'd be more of a shopping or spending spree-er if I ever spreed.
38A. It happens four times a year ... and also in this puzzle's circles : CHANGE OF SEASONS. And a nice diagram courtesy of Wikipedia:
Hail fellows, well met! Steve here with C.W.'s cyclical-circle theme. I think those of you solving circle-less might have missed out a little with this one - once I saw the letter-scrambling going on, it helped me figure out HUMMER SUVS when I was looking at a lot of blank space in that area.
A neat theme, but I was marginally disappointed with the aforesaid HUMMER SUVS - you could use either of the "U"'s to make your season and the "scramble-factor" across the four themers was a little inconsistent - SPRING and SUMMER are just split in the middle and reversed, but you'd get FLAL and WINERT if you tried that with the other two. Not a big deal, but I love symmetry.
With the grid-spanning reveal entry, you're looking at 57 theme squares; it looks like C.W. worked pretty hard not to let the fill slump into a rag-bag of crossword-ese, there's nary a clunker to be seen. Hurrah!
Let's check out the rest:
Across:
1. Respectful title : SIR
4. Gnocchi sauce : PESTO. Food! Basil, olive oil, pine nuts, cheeses. Vibrantly green. I go light on the oil, it doesn't need much.
9. First occurrence : ONSET
14. Keats' "__ to a Nightingale" : ODE
My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk ...
15. Stay away from : AVOID. Good advice vis-a-vis hemlock ..
16. With 61-Across, Sri Lankan product : PEKOE and
61. See 16-Across : TEA. Not to be overly pedantic here (Why not? That's what crossword blogs are for!) but there's really no such thing as "pekoe tea". Pekoe is a grade of black tea primarily grown in India and Sri Lanka.
17. Pool user's unit : LAP. 20 laps = 1,000m where I swim. That's my warm-up, then some interval sprints and a 100m kick-social cool-down
20. "__ Road to Glory": Arthur Ashe history : A HARD. I boxed myself into a weird corner here - for no good reason, I filled in AHEAD, failed to notice that REPEY wasn't a word, and thought I'd discovered a new geological feature in AAVINE. Sanity finally prevailed, but only after I thought there were typos in the grid. It turned out it was just me being idiotic.
22. Lip : SASS
27. Hat worn with a kilt : TAM. Popular hat (in crosswords).
30. "Romeo and Juliet" city : VERONA. Shakespeare seemed to like this place - two plays were set here.
31. Laundry slide : CHUTE
33. __ Spumante : ASTI. Italian day today - PESTO, VERONA and now ASTI so far.
36. Here, to Henri : ICI. "You are here" on French mall maps:
41. Comes to the point? : TAPERS
42. Have title to : OWN
43. Long basket, in hoops lingo : TREY. A three-pointer from outside the line. My pet peeve: Brent Musberger and his "from DOWNTOWN!!!!" call when a three-pointer is made. "Downtown" would be underneath the basket where all the traffic and banging around happens. "FROM THE SUBURBS!!!!" would be more accurate. OK, pedantic rant over (hey, it's a crossword blog, right?)
44. Clear the board : ERASE
45. Daze : TRANCE
47. Only article in a U.S. state capital name : DES. Moines. French for "The Moines". Or something.
52. Burlesque wraps : BOAS. G-rated example:
54. Dot on a map : ISLET
62. Parenthetical remark : ASIDE. Hamlet: (A little more than kin, a little less than kind). Bill the Bard pretty much invented the theatrical aside.
63. Piece of cake : LAYER.
64. Tach reading : R.P.M. Why do automatic transmission cars have a tachometer? There's nothing much you can do about the revs ..
65. Package sealers : TAPES
66. Decorative pitchers : EWERS
67. Critter in Egyptian art : ASP. Critter is a nice term for a hooded, extremely poisonous and aggressive cobra.
Down
1. Like some eclipses : SOLAR
2. One of three Hells Canyon states : IDAHO. I trotted off to the interwebs to find out why there's no apostrophe anywhere in "Hells" and drew a blank. I did discover that the mountain that forms the canyon is named "He Devil" which leads me to believe that the Idahoans must have rationed apostrophe usage on geographical features. I still think it should be "Hell's Canyon" though. Pedantic, moi? Oh wait - that's what crossword blogs are for!
3. Square things : REPAY Chlecho with 28D
4. Kayak mover : PADDLE. Not really, it's me wielding the paddle. Especially when I'm in a twin kayak and I look around to see that my paddle-partner is laying flat out with her paddle across her knees sunbathing.
5. Night before : EVE
6. Distress signal : S.O.S.
7. "Whether __ nobler ...": Hamlet : 'TIS. Asides in 62A, a soliloquy here, Verona earlier. Elizabethan Hall of Fame Playwright day today.
8. Ukrainian port : ODESSA
9. Stops wavering : OPTS
10. Dinnertime TV fare : NEWS. Usually in LA featuring any one of a) high-speed freeway car chase b) weather extremes or c) totally unsurprising "celebrity" "scandal". Or all three.
11. Snow runner : SKI
12. Ages and ages : EON
13. Place to start a hole : TEE. Fore! The first tee at my local course, DeBell in Burbank. I usually boom my first drive over the tall tree you see to the right and onto the street. Others hook theirs into the barranca on the left or squiff one into the rubbish in front. Then we all agree to forget that it ever happened and take mulligans.
19. Cheer from the crowd : RAH!
21. Steep-sided valleys : RAVINES. Not AAVINES which had me wondering ....
24. Wendy's side : FRIES. You want fries with that? What a strange question! Here's the current Wendy's TV commercial pitch-person. Note the complete lack of red hair. I do like the fact that her husband is the manager at the Grammercy Tavern in New York. Food!
25. Maniacal : LOCO. El Pollo Loco! Food! I love this puzzle.
26. Military outfit : UNIFORM
27. Private instructor : TUTOR
28. Square things : ATONE Clecho with 3D
29. Like many a dorm room : MESSY
31. Half a dance : CHA
32. Party organizer : HOSTESS
33. Did one's part? : ACTED
34. Admonishing response to "Mine!" : SHARE!
35. Spanish finger food : TAPAS. I can't keep up with the Food! Tapas were originally "covers" or "tops" to put on the top of your glass of sherry (18A!) to keep the flies out.
37. Tubular pasta : PENNE. I linked "Penne all' arrabbiata" at the Star Wars Canteen last time out. This week, why not combine this with 4A and try some pesto on top?
39. MBA hopeful's test : G.R.E. Seems awfully complicated. I'm not sure I even understood the rubric of the Wiki entry.
40. Took a dip : SWAM. Head back up to 17A and do 20 laps.
45. Struggle : TUSSLE
46. Old-time broadcasters : CRIERS
48. Crone : HAG
49. Extreme : ULTRA. "A Clockwork Orange" placed the word "ultraviolence" into the lexicon.
50. Some execs : VEEPS
51. Passport image : STAMP. My old passport had over 100 of these. The new one is already up to 20 or so.
52. __ one's time: wait : BIDE
53. Soda machine inserts : ONES. Sign of the times. Time was when a quarter was plenty.
55. Nocturnal flier : BAT
56. NATO founding member : USA. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization gets the "no longer an abbreviation" nod, along with our homeland.
57. Chihuahua complaint : YIP. Sorry, did I step on your paw? I didn't see you there ...
58. Handle without care? : PAW. Stop complaining, serves your paw right!
59. Reuben bread : RYE. Too much Food! I ate this version at Katz's on Houston Street in New York's Lower East Side. The pickles are awesome!
60. Slogan ending? : EER
I have to go and lie down after all those calories. Here's the grid.
Steve
Note from C.C.:
Happy
Birthday to our witty and caring D-Otto (Tom), who has never failed to
welcome a newbie, or answer any blog question, or give comfort to those
in need. Off the blog, he's my trusted friend and adviser, always so
patient with me and so supportive. Thanks for always being here for us, Tom!
