Double or Nothing
One of the silver linings in the otherwise dark clouds of the global pandemic is a new generation of constructors who, locked down with time on their hands, have produced some wonderfully clever crossword puzzles. Such is the outing of today's constructor David Tuffs, who is making his debut appearance with the LA Times, but who has had at least three puzzles published in the NY Times I personally hope his outing here is the first of many more. David is fourth-year linguistics student at the UC Santa Cruz, and he certainly brings the right tools to the table.
Today's theme was one I found helpful. It was obvious by the second clue that the letters in circles were all double letters, but it was not until the reveal that I understood there was an extra layer to the theme:
40A. High-stakes gamble, and how the answers with circles can be read: DOUBLE OR NOTHING.
By dropping the DOUBLED letters, we are left with NOTHING but a synonymous or alternate answer to the theme clue. Since it's hard to insert circled letters in free text, I'll just highlight the double letters in RED:
15. Part of the stock market cycle:
BOTTOM. If we drop the double
Ts, we find another part of the stock market cycle, a
BOOM.
Everything you want to know about BOOMS and BUSTS.
16A. What lovers have: FEELINGS. If we drop the double Es, we find something else lovers have: FLINGS. Teri's and my fling has been going on for over 53 years!
16A. What lovers have: FEELINGS. If we drop the double Es, we find something else lovers have: FLINGS. Teri's and my fling has been going on for over 53 years!
24A. Artifacts in ancient tombs: COFFINS. If we drop the double Fs, we find something else often discovered in ancient tombs: COINS.
51A. Come into flower: BLOSSOM. If we drop the double Ss, we find a synonym for our fill, i.e. a BLOOM.
66A. Gave a dirty look: POLLUTED. Pollution certainly gives the landscape a "dirty look", but if we drop the double Ls we see someone who has given us an up close and personal dirty look (or maybe a dissatisfied one): i.e. has POUTED.
68. Went out, as a bulb: DIMMED. If we drop the double Ms from our fill, we could say the bulb has gone completely out, that is DIED. Which brings to mind this famous poem by Dylan Thomas.
Do I hear you grumbling AnonymousDNLC? This could have probably been accomplished without the circles, but hey, it's getting late in the week we need all the help we can get!
Here's the grid:
Across:
1. Rigid marching style: LOCKSTEP. In the United States, lockstep marching or simply lockstep is marching in a very close single file in such a way that the leg of each person in the file moves in the same way and at the same time as the corresponding leg of the person immediately in front of him, so that their legs stay very close all the time. It has an interesting history.
9. WNBA great Taurasi with five Olympic gold medals: DIANA. In 2021 Diana became one of two WNBA players to win this honor.
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Diana Taurasi |
14. Scrapbook contents: EPHEMERA. We have drawers full of EPHEMERA from our various travels. Perhaps some day we'll put them all in a scrapbook.
17. Thrift shop transaction: RESALE.
18. Protective lymphocyte: T CELL. A type of white blood cell. T cells are part of the immune system and develop from stem cells in the bone marrow. They help protect the body from infection and may help fight cancer. Also called T lymphocyte and thymocyte
19. __ buco: OSSO. I'm pretty sure we've served this dish before on the Corner, but in case you've lost the recipe.
21. Sought office: RAN. But most are ALSO RANS.
22. Some whiskeys: RYES. The proper way to make a Manhattan.
27. Actor Daniel __ Kim: DAE. Daniel Dae Kim (born Kim Dae-hyun (Korean: 김대현); August 4, 1968)[1] is a South Korean-American actor and producer. He is known for his roles as Jin-Soo Kwon in Lost, Chin Ho Kelly in Hawaii Five-0, Gavin Park in Angel, and Johnny Gat in the Saints Row video game series:
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Daniel Dae Kim |
31. Store with Småland play areas: IKEA. A CSO to Swenglish Mom.
32. Fashion designer Gucci: ALDO. His first name has been appropriated to mean "fancy, very fashionable"; "good, fine"; "great, excellent."
34. Shop clamp: VISE. A good, heavy duty vise, mounted on a sturdy bench is an essential piece of shop equipment:
36. Peony support: STAKE. What to do about floppy peonies.
44. Loaded: RICH. A CSO to our previous Editor.
45. Pentagon measure: AREA.
46. Forum robe: TOGA.
48. Old Rom. ruler: EMP. Emperor. They wore TOGAS.
50. Night sch. student's goal: GED. General Educational Development, a way to complete your high school diploma.
54. Genesis twin: ESAU. Esau is the elder son of Isaac in the Hebrew Bible (and the twin of Jacob). He is mentioned in the Book of Genesis and by the prophets Obadiah and Malachi. The New Testament alludes to him in the Epistle to the Romans and in the Epistle to the Hebrews. However he is most famous for having been a very hairy man:
56. Court stat: REB. Basketball REBOUND.
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Ignacio de Miguel Villa catching a rebound |
57. Court setting: BAIL. Something the court does, not where it does it. What it is and how it's done around the world.
60. "Mi casa es su casa" speaker: AMIGO. "My house is your house". Today's Spanish lesson.
63. Woman of mystery: AGATHA. AGATHA Christie is one of the world's best selling authors of fiction, and her works have seen literally hundreds of adaptations to stage and screen. Miss MARPLE, one of her most memorable women of mystery, would also have fit this clue. Here, played by Julia Mckensie, she takes vacation from sleuthing and finds herself embroiled in a Caribbean Mystery:
69. Water, facetiously: ADAMS ALE. The preferred (and probably only) drink of the first inhabitants of paradise. Like the Germans say "Im Himmel, es gibts kein Bier" ("In heaven there is no beer. So we'd better drink it here!"):
70. Way up or way down: STAIR.
71. Patisserie array: DESSERTS.
Down:
1. Vacated: LEFT.
2. Well-financed gp.?: OPEC. I.e. they pump their wealth out of oil WELLS".
3. Helped out of a funk: CHEERED UP.
4. Singer Clarkson: KELLY. Kelly Brianne (born Kelly Brianne Clarkson, April 24, 1982), is an American singer, songwriter, author, and television personality. She rose to fame after winning the first ever season of American Idol in 2002, which earned her a record deal with RCA. Her debut single, "A Moment Like This", topped the US Billboard Hot 100, and became the country's best selling single of 2002. Here's how it all started (lyrics):
5. Close parentheses, at times: SMILES. The fossilized remains the original emojis. :-).
6. Top score on some reviews: TEN. Sorry, no trailer for this movie.
7. Hence, in logic: ERGO. THEREFORE. Today's Latin lesson.
8. "Not interested": PASS. Or NO BID in card games.
9. Female koala: DOE. Their hubbies are called BUCKS. 8 cuddly facts about Koalas.
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Koala Bear Unknown gender, probably CIS. |
10. Site of many errant apostrophes: ITS. ITS is possessive and IT'S not a contraction. IT'S is a contraction and IT'S not a possessive. Now say that TEN times real fast.
11. Pitfall! platform: ATARI. Hand up if you've played this?:
12. Director of a Batman film trilogy: NOLAN. Christopher Jonathan James Nolan (born 30 July 1970) is a British-American director, producer and screenwriter. He often works with his brother, author Jonathan Nolan. Christopher rose to prominence for directing the psychological thriller Memento, and for reviving the Batman movie franchise as the director of The Dark Knight Trilogy. Each of them are Batman Begins (2005), The Dark Knight (2008), and The Dark Knight Rises (2012).
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Christopher Nolan |
13. Chorus of agreement: AMENS.
15. Stream: BROOK. As BROOK is English for BACH, I couldn't resist streaming this beautiful piece, performed by Mr. Crosswordese himself (4 vowels, depending on how you define a vowel) - 3:16 min.
20. "The poetry of reality," per Richard Dawkins: SCIENCE. How one views this statement depends on how one defines "reality", and there are as many opinions on what that term means as there are meta-physicists, i.e. philosophers who study reality. I suppose Dawkins' statement could be a poetic metaphor for Mathematics, the core language used to describe the "hard" SCIENCES such as physics, chemistry, and astronomy; as opposed to the subsidiary role it plays in "softer" sciences such as biology, psychology, etc., which tend to rely more on descriptive language. "Real" poetry on the other hand is the core language of religion - see e.g. 49D. BTW, this clue has been used at least once before, e.g. in The New York Times - Dec. 6, 2014.
23. Menu option: SAVE.
25. End of Oktober?: FEST. The Oktoberfest is the world's largest Volksfest, featuring a beer festival and a traveling funfair. It is held annually in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. It is a 16- to 18-day folk festival running from mid- or late-September to around the first Sunday in October, with more than six million international and national visitors attending the event. See also 69A.
26. Jazz great Earl "__" Hines: FATHA. Earl Kenneth Hines, also known as Earl "Fatha" Hines (December 28, 1903 – April 22, 1983), was an American jazz pianist and bandleader. He was one of the most influential figures in the development of jazz piano and, according to one source, "one of a small number of pianists whose playing shaped the history of jazz". For your convenience here's just his discography. Here's the FATHA riffing on some St. Louis Blues:
27. Root beer brand since 1937: DADS. They make cream soda too:
30. Shoebox project: DIORAMA. Those little tableaux we used create in elementary school for "Show and Tell".
33. Memorial bios: OBITS.
35. __ Lanka: SRI. Much in the news these days, and it's not good news.
37. Instrument that never needs tuning?: AIR GUITAR. Sort of like guitar KARAOKE. Here's a clip from the 2018 World Championships. I wouldn't bother watching the performance, but some of the comments are a hoot:
38. Jeans patch site: KNEE.
39. Quaint cry: EGAD. An interjection used as a mild oath, per the Merriam-Websters Dictionary.
41. Thailand neighbor: LAOS. Laos officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic, is a socialist state and the only landlocked country in Southeast Asia. At the heart of the Indochinese Peninsula, Laos is bordered by Myanmar and China to the northwest, Vietnam to the east, Cambodia to the southeast, and Thailand to the west and southwest. Its capital and largest city is Vientiane.
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Laos |
47. Spoil: GO BAD.
49. Biblical book partly by King David: PSALMS. The Book of Psalms is a part of the Old Testament (Hebrew Bible) Wisdom literature and consists of a set of 150 hymns, meant to be accompanied by music. As they are included in every Catholic Mass, the daily Liturgy of the Hours, and many Jewish rites, it is safe to say that they are the most commonly recited prayers in the Western world. Undoubtedly the most popular Psalm describes David's life tending his father Jesse's sheep, long before he became a king.
51. Little nails: BRADS.
52. Not shady: LEGIT.
53. Only U.S. president born in Hawaii: OBAMA. This fact was disputed during the 2008 election and is still sometimes disputed to this day.
55. Entertain: AMUSE.
58. FaceTime tablet: IPAD. FaceTime is a proprietary videotelephony product developed by Apple Inc. FaceTime is available on supported iOS mobile devices running iOS 4 and later and Mac computers that run Mac OS X 10.6.6 and later.
61. Hanukkah moolah: GELT.
62. Many Sharon Olds poems: ODES. Who knew? There is someone else besides John Keats who has written ODES! Sharon Olds is one of contemporary poetry’s leading voices, a winner of several prestigious awards, including the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Critics Circle Award, and is known for writing intensely personal, emotionally scathing poetry which graphically depicts family life as well as global political events. Unfortunately it sounds as if most of the poems in her 2016 Odes probably wouldn't pass the Sunday morning breakfast test; but I did find her Ode to My Sister to be quite beautiful, and somewhat sad, like a eulogy.
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Sharon Olds |
64. Informal "You're oversharing": TMI. Okay, okay, I'm almost done.
65. "That girl?": HER.
67. "Viva __ Vegas": LAS. Viva Las Vegas is a 1964 American musical film directed by George Sidney and starring Elvis Presley and Ann-Margret. The film is regarded by fans and film critics as one of Presley's best films, and it is noted for the on-screen chemistry between Presley and Ann-Margret. Sixties, but definitely pre-British Invasion. Rated PG:
waseeley
And thanks as always to Teri for proof reading and for her constructive suggestions.
Cheers,
Bill
David Tuffs, you are invited to post anything you'd like to share about this puzzle,
its evolution, the theme, or whatever, in the Comments section below. We'd love to hear from you.
