Today veteran Neville Fogarty makes his 23rd visit to the Corner, appearing here for the first time on Saturday October 30, 2010, reviewed by C.C. Two years later she interviewed him on Sep 21, 2012, to provide us with a bit of background on this Jeopardy! and crossword wunderkind. Today he presents us with 4 themers that tell us that
Breaking Up is Hard to Do π
Neil Sedaka's classic captures Neville's reveal perfectly ...
27D. Emotionally crushed, and an apt description of the circled elements [sorry YKW] in this puzzle?: ALL BROKEN UP. Note that these elements are not only BROKEN, but they're ALL UP. For those of you who read Hebrew this will be a piece of cake ...
3D. Sport with teams of quadcopters: DRONE SOCCER. I DNK this sport but it's very clever and looks like a lot of fun. This fill encapsulates our first broken element, which drones on and on [not unlike MOI from time to time π]:
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| Broken Record |
7D. Period of the Peloponnesian Wars: CLASSICAL GREECE. The Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC) was an ancient Greek war fought between Athens and Sparta and their respective allies for the hegemony of the Greek world. And we all know that people in GLASS houses shouldn't throw stones:
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| A corollary of the Golden Rule |
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| Broken Heart |
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| Fractured Clavicle |
I think Neville makes BREAKING UP look pretty easy, but I'll bet that constructing this puzzle was HARD TO DO.
Here's the grid ...
Here are the rest ...
Across:
1. Mixes in: ADDS.
5. Pricing word: EACH.
9. Tidied, as a lawn: EDGED.
14. "An Officer and a Gentleman" star: GERE. Here's a review.
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| Richard Gere and Debra Winger |
16. Many a flower girl: NIECE.
17. Lotion component: ALOE.
18. Wyoming national park: GRAND TETON. Grand Teton National Park is about 140 mi Northwest of where my grandson is going to college in Lander, WY. Every new student at Wyoming Catholic College arrives before the start of classes to spend a 21 day Freshman orientation in the "Grand Tetons Wilderness", one of the most remote areas in the Lower 48:
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| Grand Teton National Park |
20. Charmin maker, familiarly: P AND G. The Procter & Gamble Company (P&G) is an American multinational consumer goods corporation headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, founded in 1837 by William Procter and James Gamble. My Mother's twin Arthur worked for their Baltimore Office for most of his career.
22. Put forward: ASSERT.
23. Needle hole: EYE.
24. Nocturnal birds of prey: OWLS.
26. Chicken tikka __: MASALA. Here's a recipe.
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| Chicken Tikka Masala |
32. De-pleat?: IRON.
34. Hor. map line: LAT.
35. Guitar lesson basics: CHORDS.
37. Military title for POTUS: C IN C. Commander in Chief.
38. JFK alternative: LGA. LaGuardia Airport.
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| LaGuardia Airport |
39. "Tabula rasa" philosopher John: LOCKE. John Locke FRS (29 August 1632 – 28 October 1704) was an English philosopher and physician, widely regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers and commonly known as the "father of liberalism". He postulated that, at birth, the mind was a blank slate, or tabula rasa. Contrary to Cartesian philosophy based on pre-existing concepts, he maintained that we are born without innate ideas, and that knowledge is instead determined only by experience derived from sense perception, a concept now known as empiricism.
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| John Locke |
40. Video chat annoyance: LAG.
41. Live coal: EMBER.
43. Hobbit enemy: ORC.
44. __ polish: NAIL.
46. "The View" Emmy winner Shepherd: SHERRI. Sherri Shepherd (born April 22, 1967)[1] is an American actress, comedian, author, broadcaster, and television personality. She currently hosts the daily syndicated daytime talk show, Sherri. From 2007 to 2014, Shepherd was a co-host of the daytime talk show The View, for which she received multiple Daytime Emmy Award nominations, winning one in 2009.
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| Sherri Shepherd |
48. Gurgling sound: GLUG. Today's French lesson: "Glug! glug! glug! I am the wine!" translates to "Glou! glou! glou! je suis le vin!, a line in the prologue to composer Jacques Offenbach's The Tales of Hoffmann, about a poet who has his HEART broken by his lover and her 3 alter egos. It's my favorite opera (lyrics):
49. Post-WWII alliance: NATO.
50. "Wiggle" singer Jason: DERULO. Unfortunately Derulo has been cancelled, so I can't comment on him. You can read about it here. [that was easy!]
52. Sushi prep verb: ROLL. Not only a verb, but the noun for the result, aka MAKI.
54. Brewpub barrel: KEG.
57. Meditate on: PONDER.
59. Gibbons of talk TV: LEEZA. Leeza Kim Gibbons (born March 26, 1957) is an American talk show host. She is best known as a correspondent and co-host for Entertainment Tonight (1984–2000) as well as for having her own syndicated daytime talk show, Leeza (1993–2000).
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| Leeza Gibbon |
61. "No need to mince words": LETS BE REAL. Yes but physicists sure have minced a lot of words over [Geek alert]: just what REAL really is!. [End Geek alert]
65. __ pricing: UNIT.
66. Think alike: AGREE.
67. "West Side Story" pair: ACTS. The 1961 movie won 11 Academy Awards. However the composer of the soundtrack, a man named Leonard Bernstein, was not one of them. It was the first and only time he worked in Hollywood. This number is from Act 1:
68. Old character: RUNE. We have a lot of these on the Corner, present company included.
69. The Brownings, e.g.: POETS. In 1845, Robert Browning met the poet Elizabeth Barrett, six years his senior, who lived as a semi-invalid in her father's house in Wimpole Street, London. They began regularly corresponding and gradually a romance developed between them, leading to their secret marriage and journey to Italy September of 1846.
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| Elizabeth Barrett Browning |
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| Robert Browning |
70. Garden annoyance: WEED.
71. Newspaper commentary: OPED.
Down:
1. Obviously impressed: AGAPE. Also a Greek word for one of the four types of love. Also a meal celebrated by early Christians.
2. Supply chain inconvenience: DELAY. If the supply chain is a TCP/IP network (e.g. the one supplying you with this review) this is called LAG (see 40A)
3D [Theme clue]
4. Tourney rank: SEED. A seed is a competitor or team in a sport or other tournament who is given a preliminary ranking for the purposes of the draw. Players/teams are "planted" into the bracket in a manner that is typically intended so that the best do not meet until later in the competition, usually based on regular season. Here's where the term originated and how it works.
5. Rowing machine, informally: ERG. The term ERG (commonly known as a rower) stands for ergometer, a device that measures the amount of work performed in units called ergs.
6. Hearing-related: AURAL.
7D [Theme clue].
8. Layers on a farm: HENS.
9. [Theme clue]
10. Eating patterns: DIETS.
11. Word before "Shorty," "Smart," "Hard," and "Out," in film titles: GET.
12. Environmental prefix: ECO.
13. Bear's lair: DEN.
19. Evil spirit: DEMON. This has an alternate spelling, DAEMON, which is not evil, but is a term used in multitasking computer operating systems for a computer program that runs as a background process, rather than being under the direct control of an interactive user (see 56D for an example).
21. [Theme clue]
25. Director Craven: WES. Wesley Earl Craven (August 2, 1939 – August 30, 2015) was an American film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and editor. Craven has commonly been recognized as one of the greatest masters of the horror genre due to the cultural impact and influence of his work.
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| Wes Craven |
28. Beer choice: LAGER.
29. Centipede maker: ATARI. Here, give it a shot!
31. Ararat lander: ARK. After the Flood Noah had to start all over again ...
35. Billowy mass: CLOUD.
36. Belmont Stakes racer: HORSE. The last race in the Triple Crown, the Belmont Stakes will be run this year on June 10th in in Elmont, NY; the second race is the Preakness Stakes on May 20th in Baltimore, MD and the first, the Kentucky Derby, is on May 6th in Louisville, KY. Here's a recipe for a Mint Julep to give you an early start.
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| Mint Julep |
42. Converged: MET.
45. Without help: ALONE.
46. Punkie Johnson's NBC show: SNL. The supply of clues for this bit of crosswordese is apparently inexhaustible.
51. Part of a Cinderella story: UPSET.
53. Give a speech: ORATE.
55. Online periodical: EZINE. A portmanteau of Electronic and MagaZINE.
56. __ community: GATED. Also [Geek alert] gated (pronounced "GATE DEE" (for DAEMON)), the name of a background process (see clue 19D) in Linux systems used to control the routing of network traffic [End Geek alert].
58. Common result in championship chess: DRAW. [Chess Geek alert] What is a DRAW and why is it so common in Chess? [End Chess Geek alert]
60. Currency symbolized by €: EURO. My only comment on this symbol (€) is that Blogger choked on it in the HTML version of the puzzle and cut off the rest of the clues. Fortunately I was able to reconstruct them from the printout generated by the binary puzzle file.
61. Track circuit: LEG.
62. Self-image: EGO.
63. Italian three: TRE. Today's Italian lesson. In Verdi's comedic masterpiece Falstaff, based on Shakespeare's Merry Wives of Windsor, the number THREE is repeated several times in the aria Reverenza! in Act 2. In this modern dress production, Mistress Quickly (contralto Stephanie Blythe) is setting a trap for Sir John Falstaff (baritone Ambrogio Maestri), who has been sending letters propositioning all the "merry wives" in the neighborhood (not realizing that some might be friends who compare notes!). Quickly presents him with a letter from the virtuous Mistress Alice Ford inviting him to her home that afternoon "dalle due alle TRE" ("from two until THREE") when her husband will be away. The egotistical knight assumes this is an invitation to a dalliance:
In the scene that follows (not shown here) Alice's husband shows up unexpectedly and, to make a long story short, Alice and her friends hide Sir John in a huge clothes hamper and then unceremoniously dump it out the window into the Thames!
64. Psychedelic letters: LSD. Looks like this trip is over for today!
Cheers,
Bill
As always, thanks to Teri for proof reading, for her constructive criticism, and especially for recommending Neal Sedaka's song title for the intro!
