Theme: Instrumentals - three four-letter music-makers hidden in the theme entries
17A. What a party crasher may get : CHILLY RECEPTION. You get frozen out of conversations and given the cold shoulder.
27A. 19th-/20th-century South African conflicts : ANGLO-BOER WARS. I knew the Boer Wars, I didn't realize the official name included the Anglo bit.
49A. Horror movie characters : LAB ASSISTANTS. Drinking green fuming solutions or stitching together stolen body parts. Cheerful characters, generally.
65A. Film score component, and a hint to words hidden in 17-, 27- and 49-Across : INCIDENTAL MUSIC. Horror movie lab assistants often get a healthy dose of this.
Morning! Simple enough theme (and a bit of a horror movie mini-theme) today. I'm not sure if I missed something terribly subtle and clever with this puzzle; if I did it went way over my head. A couple of grid spanners, two 13's and a lot of shorter stuff gives us this 78-worder. Let's see what else pops out.
Across:
1. Luxurious : POSH. Hmm. Not sure about this definition of posh. Dressy, upper-class, hoity-toity social circles say "posh" to me.
5. Decorative bedroom item : SHAM. Do Hormel make throws? Spam shams?
9. As such : PER SE. When Thomas Keller, chef and owner of The French Laundry in the Napa Valley was opening his new restaurant in New York, he didn't have a name for it until he realized he kept saying that "it wasn't going to be like The French Laundy, per se". So he called it Per Se.
14. Morales of "Jericho" : ESAI
15. Improbable : TALL. Like a tale or a story.
16. Without stopping : ON END
20. French room : SALLE. I tried SALON first which needed correcting later on.
21. Signifies : MEANS
22. Nuggets' org. : N.B.A. Denver's pro basketball team.
23. Air traveler's concern, briefly : E.T.A. Usually at least half-an-hour later than scheduled in my experience.
25. Mil. group that "teaches you to lead" : R.O.T.C.
33. "Stupid me!" : DOH! Homer Simpson's favorite exclamation.
34. Unlikely prom king : NERD
35. Chocolate-covered caramel treats : ROLOS
38. Starting from : AS OF
40. Event with arguments : TRIAL
43. Habit : WONT
44. NFL's winningest coach : SHULA. Don Shula had 347 victories, 71 with the Baltimore Colts and the remainder with the Miami Dolphins. He also coached the Dolphins to the NFL's only perfect season in 1972 with a 17-0-0 record.
46. In the way indicated : THUS
48. Support : AID
53. Jog : TROT
54. Petty with hits : TOM. His band, the Heartbreakers, helped a little too.
55. Shindigs : DOS
58. Occupied : IN USE
61. Shows of crowd approval : ROARS
68. "Sweeney __ the Nightingales": Eliot poem : AMONG. Crosses for me. A happy tale of murder and deceit, apparently.
69. Newbie : TYRO
70. Italian meat sauce : RAGÙ. Food! Ragù alla bolognese is a well-known variety.
71. Do not disturb : LET BE
72. Promote : SELL
73. Inbox clogger : SPAM. Food? Named for the Monty Python sketch where a diner featured Spam, usually unwanted, in every dish.
Down:
1. Lats relatives : PECS. Your back muscles, the latissimus dorsi, and your chest muscles, the pectoralis major. Anatomy class dismissed.
2. Workplace welfare agcy. : O.S.H.A. I've stopped thinking of this an an abbreviation. Occupational Health and Safety Administration to give it it's official name.
3. Caravel mover : SAIL. Does the sail move the ship or does the wind do it? Discuss.
4. Jewish campus organization : HILLEL. No clue, but the Beth Hillel Temple is just down the street from me which gave me a hint as to what this might be.
5. Mess of a place : STY
6. Hurt : HARM
7. Out of the wind : ALEE. See what good your sails do you when you're out of the wind.
8. Celtics coach before Rick Pitino : M.L. CARR. Complete unknown for me. Boston's NBA coach from 1995-1997. He made a bit of a hash of the last year, leading the Celtics to their all-time worst season record of 15-67. Oops.
9. Lady Gaga, for one : POP STAR. And quite the diva. I love her music and theatrics. She's a great talent.
10. Tolkien forest creature : ENT. The good three-letter Lord of the Rings thing. The bad LOTR three-letter thing is an orc.
11. Trigger guide : REIN. Fun clue. Trigger was stuffed and used to be on display at a museum in Missouri. When the museum closed, Trigger fetched over $250,000 at auction.
12. Uppity type : SNOB
13. "Giant" author Ferber : EDNA
18. Give away : LET ON
19. Sufficient, to Shakespeare : ENOW
24. Provide the bank layout to, say : ABET
26. Brag : CROW
27. Court figs. : A.D.A.S Assistant District Attorney(s)
28. Snack : NOSH
29. Horror movie character : GHOUL. More incidental music fodder. Wooo eeee oooo ooooooo ...
30. Hockey legend : ORR
31. Polishes in publishing : EDITS
32. Memorial __ Kettering: NYC hospital : SLOAN
36. Sleep __ : ON IT
37. EPA issuances : STDS. The Environmental Protection Agency publishes standards for clean air, water and what-not.
39. Uninspired : FLAT
41. Tuna type : AHI
42. Unbridled desire : LUST. Or what happens to Trigger when you take his reins off?
45. Shorten : ABRIDGE
47. Assault : STORM. No horror movie is complete without villagers, pitchforks, torches and a good old-fashioned evil house-storming.
50. First-rate : A-ONE
51. Double exposures? : STUNTS
52. Affairs of the heart : AMOURS
55. Dashboard feature : DIAL
56. "I'll pay" : ON ME
57. 2013 Wimbledon champ Andy Murray, e.g. : SCOT. Aye. Rumor has it he keeps his balls in a sporran.
59. Eye problem : STYE
60. Title outranking viscount : EARL. Outranked in turn by a Marquess. Someone's always one-upping you in the peerage stakes unless you happen to be King.
62. Memo letters : ASAP. Everyone's always in a hurry.
63. Capital west of Moscow : RIGA. Capital of Latvia on the Baltic Sea. Nice looking place. Google Maps tells me it's 573 miles from Moscow and it takes about 11 hours to drive.
64. Bathtub buildup : SCUM. Eww.
66. Bach's "Mass __ Minor" : IN B. He wrote a bunch of masses in all sorts of keys (F major, A major, G major, G minor) but they were short masses. The B Minor mass was the only full-length one.
67. Texter's "What a riot!" : LOL. Laughing Out Loud.
Have a great Thursday. Happy Guy Fawkes' Day to Nice Cuppa and any other Brits on the blog - "Remember, remember the fifth of November, gunpowder treason and plot".
Steve
Oh, and here's the grid:
17A. What a party crasher may get : CHILLY RECEPTION. You get frozen out of conversations and given the cold shoulder.
27A. 19th-/20th-century South African conflicts : ANGLO-BOER WARS. I knew the Boer Wars, I didn't realize the official name included the Anglo bit.
49A. Horror movie characters : LAB ASSISTANTS. Drinking green fuming solutions or stitching together stolen body parts. Cheerful characters, generally.
65A. Film score component, and a hint to words hidden in 17-, 27- and 49-Across : INCIDENTAL MUSIC. Horror movie lab assistants often get a healthy dose of this.
| Cue music "Dah dah DAH!" |
Morning! Simple enough theme (and a bit of a horror movie mini-theme) today. I'm not sure if I missed something terribly subtle and clever with this puzzle; if I did it went way over my head. A couple of grid spanners, two 13's and a lot of shorter stuff gives us this 78-worder. Let's see what else pops out.
Across:
1. Luxurious : POSH. Hmm. Not sure about this definition of posh. Dressy, upper-class, hoity-toity social circles say "posh" to me.
5. Decorative bedroom item : SHAM. Do Hormel make throws? Spam shams?
9. As such : PER SE. When Thomas Keller, chef and owner of The French Laundry in the Napa Valley was opening his new restaurant in New York, he didn't have a name for it until he realized he kept saying that "it wasn't going to be like The French Laundy, per se". So he called it Per Se.
14. Morales of "Jericho" : ESAI
15. Improbable : TALL. Like a tale or a story.
16. Without stopping : ON END
20. French room : SALLE. I tried SALON first which needed correcting later on.
21. Signifies : MEANS
22. Nuggets' org. : N.B.A. Denver's pro basketball team.
23. Air traveler's concern, briefly : E.T.A. Usually at least half-an-hour later than scheduled in my experience.
25. Mil. group that "teaches you to lead" : R.O.T.C.
33. "Stupid me!" : DOH! Homer Simpson's favorite exclamation.
34. Unlikely prom king : NERD
35. Chocolate-covered caramel treats : ROLOS
38. Starting from : AS OF
40. Event with arguments : TRIAL
43. Habit : WONT
44. NFL's winningest coach : SHULA. Don Shula had 347 victories, 71 with the Baltimore Colts and the remainder with the Miami Dolphins. He also coached the Dolphins to the NFL's only perfect season in 1972 with a 17-0-0 record.
 |
| "This isn't one of our plays. In fact I've no idea what it means, either" |
46. In the way indicated : THUS
48. Support : AID
53. Jog : TROT
54. Petty with hits : TOM. His band, the Heartbreakers, helped a little too.
55. Shindigs : DOS
58. Occupied : IN USE
61. Shows of crowd approval : ROARS
68. "Sweeney __ the Nightingales": Eliot poem : AMONG. Crosses for me. A happy tale of murder and deceit, apparently.
Apeneck Sweeney spread his knees
Letting his arms hang down to laugh,
The zebra stripes along his jaw
Swelling to maculate giraffe.
69. Newbie : TYRO
70. Italian meat sauce : RAGÙ. Food! Ragù alla bolognese is a well-known variety.
 |
| Mmmmm - Spam-free |
71. Do not disturb : LET BE
72. Promote : SELL
73. Inbox clogger : SPAM. Food? Named for the Monty Python sketch where a diner featured Spam, usually unwanted, in every dish.
Down:
1. Lats relatives : PECS. Your back muscles, the latissimus dorsi, and your chest muscles, the pectoralis major. Anatomy class dismissed.
2. Workplace welfare agcy. : O.S.H.A. I've stopped thinking of this an an abbreviation. Occupational Health and Safety Administration to give it it's official name.
3. Caravel mover : SAIL. Does the sail move the ship or does the wind do it? Discuss.
4. Jewish campus organization : HILLEL. No clue, but the Beth Hillel Temple is just down the street from me which gave me a hint as to what this might be.
5. Mess of a place : STY
6. Hurt : HARM
7. Out of the wind : ALEE. See what good your sails do you when you're out of the wind.
8. Celtics coach before Rick Pitino : M.L. CARR. Complete unknown for me. Boston's NBA coach from 1995-1997. He made a bit of a hash of the last year, leading the Celtics to their all-time worst season record of 15-67. Oops.
9. Lady Gaga, for one : POP STAR. And quite the diva. I love her music and theatrics. She's a great talent.
10. Tolkien forest creature : ENT. The good three-letter Lord of the Rings thing. The bad LOTR three-letter thing is an orc.
11. Trigger guide : REIN. Fun clue. Trigger was stuffed and used to be on display at a museum in Missouri. When the museum closed, Trigger fetched over $250,000 at auction.
 |
| "Don't worry, I'm eating my bedding. Makes me cheaper to stuff when the time comes" |
12. Uppity type : SNOB
13. "Giant" author Ferber : EDNA
18. Give away : LET ON
19. Sufficient, to Shakespeare : ENOW
"If we are mark'd to die, we are enow
To do our country loss; and if to live,
The fewer men the greater share of honour."
- King Henry V.
To do our country loss; and if to live,
The fewer men the greater share of honour."
- King Henry V.
24. Provide the bank layout to, say : ABET
26. Brag : CROW
27. Court figs. : A.D.A.S Assistant District Attorney(s)
28. Snack : NOSH
29. Horror movie character : GHOUL. More incidental music fodder. Wooo eeee oooo ooooooo ...
30. Hockey legend : ORR
31. Polishes in publishing : EDITS
32. Memorial __ Kettering: NYC hospital : SLOAN
36. Sleep __ : ON IT
37. EPA issuances : STDS. The Environmental Protection Agency publishes standards for clean air, water and what-not.
39. Uninspired : FLAT
41. Tuna type : AHI
42. Unbridled desire : LUST. Or what happens to Trigger when you take his reins off?
45. Shorten : ABRIDGE
47. Assault : STORM. No horror movie is complete without villagers, pitchforks, torches and a good old-fashioned evil house-storming.
 |
| "Let us in! We want to see Igor!" |
50. First-rate : A-ONE
51. Double exposures? : STUNTS
52. Affairs of the heart : AMOURS
55. Dashboard feature : DIAL
56. "I'll pay" : ON ME
57. 2013 Wimbledon champ Andy Murray, e.g. : SCOT. Aye. Rumor has it he keeps his balls in a sporran.
59. Eye problem : STYE
60. Title outranking viscount : EARL. Outranked in turn by a Marquess. Someone's always one-upping you in the peerage stakes unless you happen to be King.
62. Memo letters : ASAP. Everyone's always in a hurry.
63. Capital west of Moscow : RIGA. Capital of Latvia on the Baltic Sea. Nice looking place. Google Maps tells me it's 573 miles from Moscow and it takes about 11 hours to drive.
 |
| That's one lovely railway station. |
64. Bathtub buildup : SCUM. Eww.
66. Bach's "Mass __ Minor" : IN B. He wrote a bunch of masses in all sorts of keys (F major, A major, G major, G minor) but they were short masses. The B Minor mass was the only full-length one.
67. Texter's "What a riot!" : LOL. Laughing Out Loud.
Have a great Thursday. Happy Guy Fawkes' Day to Nice Cuppa and any other Brits on the blog - "Remember, remember the fifth of November, gunpowder treason and plot".
Steve
Oh, and here's the grid:
