Theme: Solve for A=πr², A=(hb)/2, A=wl, or find the areas!
17A. *Figure out, as someone's poker strategy : GET A READ ON. I'm sure I'd make a terrible poker player. I grin when I figure out a crossword answer, I can't imagine what my poker face would look like if I was dealt a royal flush.
21A. *Frighten off : SCARE AWAY
33A. *Disney film cry of discovery : I'M A REAL BOY. From the movie "Pinocchio" released in 1940. The line got a reprise in 2004 in Shrek 2
42A. *Chinese, say : FAR EASTERN. Only if you use a map centered on the zero meridian. If you use a Pacific-centric map then Brazil and Greenland are in the far east.
52A. *Ride crosstown together, perhaps : SHARE A CAB
61A. Group space, and a hint to the answers to starred clues : COMMON AREA
G'day everyone. A straightforward enough theme from Bruce, and the theme did help me with the Pinocchio quote. 60 theme squares, more "A"'s than any other letter due to all the AREAS and sundry other trivia. A pleasant enough ride, patently fair crosses to unlock the unknowns and some other interesting stuff. Let's take a look.
Across:
1. Mrs. Garrett on "The Facts of Life" : EDNA. Who? Never saw the show. Apparently played by CharlotteRusse Rae (who?).
5. Bring shame to : ABASH. This is one of those words where I'm more likely to use the opposite meaning in conversation - I'm sure I've been unabashed a few times, but rarely abashed.
10. Twitter's bird, e.g. : ICON. I had LOGO first. Wrong!
14. Dire fate : DOOM
15. "An Essay Concerning Human Understanding" author : LOCKE. Published in 1689. I should read it, but I probably wouldn't understand it.
16. Poet's preposition : THRO'
20. "Un Ballo in Maschera" aria : ERI TU. Thank you, crosses. Verdi's opera, which translates as "A Masked Ball". The aria appears to be properly known as Eri tu che macchiavi quell'anima / "It was you who stained this soul" but I guess that wouldn't fit.
23. Office suite door letters : ESQ.
25. "Hollywood Squares" immortal : LYNDE. Thank you, crosses. Paul Lynde.
26. Not surprisingly : AS USUAL
30. Full of bubbles : SUDSY. Tried SOAPY first. Took it out.
36. Qatar's capital : DOHA. Don't get me started on the fact that the 2022 FIFA World Cup was awarded to Qatar.
37. Fifth of a dozen : MAY
38. Solar __ : FLARE
39. Promise : VOW
40. "On the double!" : ASAP
45. Place to follow politics : C-SPAN
47. "Told ya!" : SO THERE
48. "__ Daughter": 1970 film : RYAN'S
51. Match at the poker table : SEE. I'll see your $5, and raise you $10.
56. Diary component : ENTRY
60. Go up and down : YO-YO
63. Seasonal refrain : NOËL. Heard more than a few times recently.
64. Assembly line worker : ROBOT
65. Equipment : GEAR
66. Key used in combinations : CTRL. It doesn't do anything by itself other than allow you to exercise your left hand pinkie finger. My last Dell had the key positioned in the lower-left corner of the keyboard with the "Fn" key to the right of it; my new Lenovo reversed the positions so it took a little while to get used to it.
67. Films with many extras : EPICS
68. "College GameDay" airer : ESPN. Founded by Scott and Bill Rasmussen in 1978 and launched in 1979. It is now famous for allowing Chris Berman to appear with one of the worst haircuts in the history of broadcast television.
Down:
1. Advantage : EDGE
2. No couch potato : DOER. Relative of a mover or a shaker.
3. "It was someone else!" : NOT I!
4. Greenhorn : AMATEUR
5. Brown __ : ALE. I was born a few miles from the Tyne Brewery which produced Newcastle Brown Ale until 2004. It's brewed in Yorkshire now, a fact that the company don't promote heavily. The advertising is pretty funny though.
6. Feathery wraps : BOAS
7. "High Voltage" band : AC/DC. Australian rockers. Lead singer Bon Scott was found dead in his car on the morning of February 19th 1980 in East Dulwich, London, two blocks from where I lived at the time.
8. "Bottoms up!" : SKOAL
9. "Give me liberty, or give me death!" speaker : HENRY. Here's Patrick engaged in a little rabble-rousing at the Virginia Convention in 1775. In a church too - shame on him!
10. "That fizzled out" : IT'S A DUD
11. Considered carefully : CHEWED OVER
12. Marine threat : ORCA
13. Getting into the wrong business? : NOSY
18. Charlotte __ : RUSSE. I thought she was an actress, but I discover it's a clothing retail chain. Hey, I'm not exactly in their target demographic - I'm not in my teens nor twenties, and I'm not a woman.
22. USN one-striper : ENS. Navy rank of Ensign. Am I right in saying that a graduate of the Naval Academy at Annapolis is assigned this rank?
24. 5-Down, for one : QUAFF. Skoal!
26. Stockpile : AMASS
27. Supplicate : SAY A PRAYER
28. "It was __ dream" : ALL A. A common-enough trope in TV, film and comics. Usually extremely annoying unless done really well.
29. Letter-shaped supports : L-BARS. Lacer bars. I looked at a picture of one and have no idea what it's used for.
31. Vacation destination : SHORE
32. Opening at an early-morning class? : YAWN. Lovely clue.
33. 1998 Apple debut : IMAC. It looks ugly as heck now, groundbreaking back then. Steve Jobs hadn't discovered his gray polo-neck period at that point.
34. __ cookies 'n creme: Jell-O flavor : OREO
35. "Leda and the Swan" poet : YEATS
41. Business expense : PAYROLL
43. Radiance : SHEEN
44. Like high-school years : TEENAGE
46. "Fat chance, laddie" : NAE. "If there's nae wind, and nae rain, it's nae golf".
49. Abalone shell layer : NACRE
50. Exclusive : SCOOP
52. Lip-__ : SYNC. Milli Vanilli came a cropper with this one when they tried to lip-sync at the MTV music awards in 1989 and, as the backing track skipped, it became apparent that they weren't actually singing. Research showed that they'd never sung "their" songs, and were stripped of the Grammy for Best New Artist awarded earlier that year. Whoops #1 (See 62D for Whoops #2)
53. Knee-slapper : HOOT
54. Prefix with valence : AMBI. Ouch. I've got mixed feelings about this one :)
55. Class pres., say : B.M.O.C. Big man on campus.
57. Very French? : TRÉS
58. Bring in : REAP
59. Entertaining tale : YARN
62. Extra periods: Abbr. : O.T.S Overtimes. Oregon were leading TCU 31-0 at half-time in the Alamo Bowl on January 2nd. They promptly contrived to lose, 47-41, in triple overtime. Whoops #2.
And ... here's the grid, today's colored version courtesy of OwenKL!
Steve
17A. *Figure out, as someone's poker strategy : GET A READ ON. I'm sure I'd make a terrible poker player. I grin when I figure out a crossword answer, I can't imagine what my poker face would look like if I was dealt a royal flush.
21A. *Frighten off : SCARE AWAY
33A. *Disney film cry of discovery : I'M A REAL BOY. From the movie "Pinocchio" released in 1940. The line got a reprise in 2004 in Shrek 2
42A. *Chinese, say : FAR EASTERN. Only if you use a map centered on the zero meridian. If you use a Pacific-centric map then Brazil and Greenland are in the far east.
52A. *Ride crosstown together, perhaps : SHARE A CAB
61A. Group space, and a hint to the answers to starred clues : COMMON AREA
G'day everyone. A straightforward enough theme from Bruce, and the theme did help me with the Pinocchio quote. 60 theme squares, more "A"'s than any other letter due to all the AREAS and sundry other trivia. A pleasant enough ride, patently fair crosses to unlock the unknowns and some other interesting stuff. Let's take a look.
Across:
1. Mrs. Garrett on "The Facts of Life" : EDNA. Who? Never saw the show. Apparently played by Charlotte
5. Bring shame to : ABASH. This is one of those words where I'm more likely to use the opposite meaning in conversation - I'm sure I've been unabashed a few times, but rarely abashed.
10. Twitter's bird, e.g. : ICON. I had LOGO first. Wrong!
14. Dire fate : DOOM
15. "An Essay Concerning Human Understanding" author : LOCKE. Published in 1689. I should read it, but I probably wouldn't understand it.
16. Poet's preposition : THRO'
Thro’ the ghoul-guarded gateways of slumber,19. Brief moments : SECS. Seconds, abbreviated.
Past the wan-moon’d abysses of night,
I have liv’d o’er my lives without number,
I have sounded all things with my sight;
And I struggle and shriek ere the daybreak, being driven to madness with fright.
Nemesis — Howard Phillips Lovecraft
20. "Un Ballo in Maschera" aria : ERI TU. Thank you, crosses. Verdi's opera, which translates as "A Masked Ball". The aria appears to be properly known as Eri tu che macchiavi quell'anima / "It was you who stained this soul" but I guess that wouldn't fit.
23. Office suite door letters : ESQ.
25. "Hollywood Squares" immortal : LYNDE. Thank you, crosses. Paul Lynde.
26. Not surprisingly : AS USUAL
30. Full of bubbles : SUDSY. Tried SOAPY first. Took it out.
36. Qatar's capital : DOHA. Don't get me started on the fact that the 2022 FIFA World Cup was awarded to Qatar.
37. Fifth of a dozen : MAY
38. Solar __ : FLARE
39. Promise : VOW
40. "On the double!" : ASAP
45. Place to follow politics : C-SPAN
47. "Told ya!" : SO THERE
48. "__ Daughter": 1970 film : RYAN'S
51. Match at the poker table : SEE. I'll see your $5, and raise you $10.
56. Diary component : ENTRY
60. Go up and down : YO-YO
63. Seasonal refrain : NOËL. Heard more than a few times recently.
64. Assembly line worker : ROBOT
65. Equipment : GEAR
66. Key used in combinations : CTRL. It doesn't do anything by itself other than allow you to exercise your left hand pinkie finger. My last Dell had the key positioned in the lower-left corner of the keyboard with the "Fn" key to the right of it; my new Lenovo reversed the positions so it took a little while to get used to it.
67. Films with many extras : EPICS
68. "College GameDay" airer : ESPN. Founded by Scott and Bill Rasmussen in 1978 and launched in 1979. It is now famous for allowing Chris Berman to appear with one of the worst haircuts in the history of broadcast television.
Down:
1. Advantage : EDGE
2. No couch potato : DOER. Relative of a mover or a shaker.
3. "It was someone else!" : NOT I!
4. Greenhorn : AMATEUR
5. Brown __ : ALE. I was born a few miles from the Tyne Brewery which produced Newcastle Brown Ale until 2004. It's brewed in Yorkshire now, a fact that the company don't promote heavily. The advertising is pretty funny though.
6. Feathery wraps : BOAS
7. "High Voltage" band : AC/DC. Australian rockers. Lead singer Bon Scott was found dead in his car on the morning of February 19th 1980 in East Dulwich, London, two blocks from where I lived at the time.
8. "Bottoms up!" : SKOAL
9. "Give me liberty, or give me death!" speaker : HENRY. Here's Patrick engaged in a little rabble-rousing at the Virginia Convention in 1775. In a church too - shame on him!
10. "That fizzled out" : IT'S A DUD
11. Considered carefully : CHEWED OVER
12. Marine threat : ORCA
13. Getting into the wrong business? : NOSY
18. Charlotte __ : RUSSE. I thought she was an actress, but I discover it's a clothing retail chain. Hey, I'm not exactly in their target demographic - I'm not in my teens nor twenties, and I'm not a woman.
22. USN one-striper : ENS. Navy rank of Ensign. Am I right in saying that a graduate of the Naval Academy at Annapolis is assigned this rank?
24. 5-Down, for one : QUAFF. Skoal!
26. Stockpile : AMASS
27. Supplicate : SAY A PRAYER
28. "It was __ dream" : ALL A. A common-enough trope in TV, film and comics. Usually extremely annoying unless done really well.
29. Letter-shaped supports : L-BARS. Lacer bars. I looked at a picture of one and have no idea what it's used for.
31. Vacation destination : SHORE
32. Opening at an early-morning class? : YAWN. Lovely clue.
33. 1998 Apple debut : IMAC. It looks ugly as heck now, groundbreaking back then. Steve Jobs hadn't discovered his gray polo-neck period at that point.
34. __ cookies 'n creme: Jell-O flavor : OREO
35. "Leda and the Swan" poet : YEATS
41. Business expense : PAYROLL
43. Radiance : SHEEN
44. Like high-school years : TEENAGE
46. "Fat chance, laddie" : NAE. "If there's nae wind, and nae rain, it's nae golf".
49. Abalone shell layer : NACRE
50. Exclusive : SCOOP
52. Lip-__ : SYNC. Milli Vanilli came a cropper with this one when they tried to lip-sync at the MTV music awards in 1989 and, as the backing track skipped, it became apparent that they weren't actually singing. Research showed that they'd never sung "their" songs, and were stripped of the Grammy for Best New Artist awarded earlier that year. Whoops #1 (See 62D for Whoops #2)
53. Knee-slapper : HOOT
54. Prefix with valence : AMBI. Ouch. I've got mixed feelings about this one :)
55. Class pres., say : B.M.O.C. Big man on campus.
57. Very French? : TRÉS
58. Bring in : REAP
59. Entertaining tale : YARN
62. Extra periods: Abbr. : O.T.S Overtimes. Oregon were leading TCU 31-0 at half-time in the Alamo Bowl on January 2nd. They promptly contrived to lose, 47-41, in triple overtime. Whoops #2.
And ... here's the grid, today's colored version courtesy of OwenKL!
Steve
