Today I have the privilege of reviewing Jeffrey Wechsler's latest
contribution to the LAT puzzle canon. For those of you who are new to
him, here's
an interview by C.C. in 2014. And here's a link to
some of his more recent NYT puzzles.
In this outing he gives us some important tips on how to avoid taking
responsibility for your mistakes ...
... with 4 theme clues that have punful fills answering questions with the pattern "Start of [someone's] argument with [someone else]?" ...
17A. Start of a tennis player's argument with a line judge?: THIS ISN'T MY FAULT. "You can't be serious!"
25A. Start of an artist's argument with a gallery owner?: I'M BEING FRAMED. FRAMED is a 2009 BBC Masterpiece film and one of our favorites. It's a sweet story about art, illusion, and love, starring Trevor Eve and Eve Myles. When the London National Gallery's water pipes start to leak, they have to move their entire collection of priceless paintings to an abandoned slate mine in Wales. Curator Quentin Lester, who’s managing the whole operation by himself, then has to cope with the curious residents of the nearby Welsh village who have been kept in the dark about what's going on inside the old mine.
Rather than just a trailer, I'm embedding the entire video (1:28:55)*. The first 4 or 5 minutes set the stage perfectly and if you decide you'd like to watch this delightful masterpiece later you can easily copy and save the YouTube link (right-click Copy video URL). The film is in English, but be sure to click on closed captions (CC) when you watch it to make it easier to follow some of the Welsh accents. *I guarantee that you'll love it ...
46A. Start of a dress model's argument with a tailor?:DON'T PIN IT ON ME. I'm sure my Mother, the last of the great British seamstresses, often heard this from brides who had binged a bit too much between the "final" fitting of their gowns and the day before their weddings. But she specialized in quickly making any dress fit any shape.
60A. Start of a geometry teacher's argument with a student?: LET'S SEE THE PROOF. Rachel shows you how to win this argument ...
Here's the grid:
Here's the rest ...
Across:
1. Marshy spots: BOGS. Did I ever tell you the story about the time a buddy and I purloined a pile of peat we found stacked by the roadside in Ireland? We found that it doesn't burn very well if it's not thoroughly dried. In fact it stinks!
5. Diego Rivera creation: MURAL.
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The History of Mexico |
10. Escalator part: STEP.
14. "See here, old chap!": I SAY. In the words of Hercule Poirot's long suffering man Friday, Arthur Hastings ...
15. Something in the air: AROMA.
16. Topiary piece: TREE. Here's one of my grandsons petting a fox at the Ladew Topiary Gardens in Monkton, MD.
17. [Theme clue]
20. Recipient of many lists: SANTA.
21. Poise: COOLNESS.
22. Life-saving pro: EMT.
24. Rage: FAD. Nice misdirection. I fell into the mire of IRE, but managed to get out eventually
25. [Theme clue]
32. Place to put down stakes?: Abbr.: OTB. Off Track Betting. See last week's Thursday review for some stakes coming up this Spring.
34. City in western Yemen: SANAA (Arabic: صَنْعَاء), also spelled Sana'a or Sana, the video embedded in this link has some great scenes of SANAA .
35. Get the word out?: ERASE.
36. Kid-lit writer Margaret __ Brown: WISE. Margaret Wise Brown (May 23, 1910 – November 13, 1952) was an American writer of children's books, including Goodnight Moon and The Runaway Bunny, both illustrated by Clement Hurd. She has been called "the laureate of the nursery" for her achievements.
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Margaret Wise Brown |
38. Clean with elbow grease: SCOUR. Hand up if you had SCRUB first?
40. __ novel: DIME. The dime novel is a form of late 19th-century and early 20th-century U.S. popular fiction issued in series of inexpensive paper bound editions. The term dime novel has been used as a catchall term for several different but related forms, referring to story papers, five- and ten-cent weeklies, "thick book" reprints, and sometimes early pulp magazines.
41. Ties (up): EVENS.
43. OB test: AMNIO. Amniocentesis is an obstetric procedure done to remove amniotic fluid and cells from the uterus for testing or treatment. Amniocentesis can provide useful information about a baby's health.
45. British jazz element?: ZED. Nice meta: the word "jazz" has two of these elements. OTOH, Jazz music originated in the US and British jazz is derived from it. Here's bit of the history.
46. [Theme clue]
49. Good guess in Battleship: HIT. Battleship is game of guessing, strategy and logical thought that dates back to before World War One and is known the world over for being a simple game that can be played with no more than a pencil and two pieces of paper. Take a shot at this online version.
50. RR stop: STA.
51. Donations to a museum in a will, e.g.: BEQUESTS.
56. Take in: ADMIT.
60. [Theme clue]
63. "Songversation" singer India.__: ARIE. Songversation is the fifth studio album by American singer India.Arie. The album was released on June 25, 2013, by Soulbird Music and Motown Records. Here's the song Brothers Keeper from that album (lyrics):
64. NFLer since 2016: LA RAM. The LA RAMS originated in Cleveland in 1936.
65. Medicine Hat's prov.: ALTA. The abbreviation for the province of Alberta, Canada used by Anglophones. Francophones use ALB. A CSO to CanadianEh! who lives in Toronto, ONT. Medicine Hat is in southeast part of the province and is located along the South Saskatchewan River.
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Hops Humulus lupulus |
67. Dessert choice, for short: FROYO. Or FROZEN YOGURT, for long. Our grandchildren's favorite is Sweet Frog, whose mascots are "Scoop" and "Cookie":
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68. Secure, in a way: SEAL. The best way is with a kiss:
Down:
1. Odds and ends: BITS.
2. Org. that makes workplace safety posters: OSHA. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration of the Department of Labor. March is Ladder Safety Month:
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Ladder Hero |
4. Word with metric or merit: SYSTEM. Everything that you want to know about the metric system and more. And here's what the U.S. Office of Personnel Management has to say about their merit system principles.
5. __ o menos: "more or less," in Spanish: MAS. Today's Spanish Lesson.
6. Garden fixture: URN.
7. Uniformed college gp.: ROTC. The Reserve Officers' Training Corps ( ROTC) in the United States was created by Alden Partridge and began with the Morrill Act of 1862 which established the land-grant colleges. Part of the federal government's requirement for these schools was that they include military tactics as part of their curriculum.
8. Firing range purchase: AMMO.
9. "Stop teasing me!": LAYOFF. When my oldest granddaughter has had enough she pleads "STAHP!"
10. Ordinary: STANDARD.
11. "Indubitably": TRUE.
12. Fish that may be hard to fillet: EELS.
13. Loved ones who are blessed at the Feast of St. Francis: PETS. Many churches in the United States celebrate the Feast of St Francis of Assisi on October 4 each year. The feast commemorates the life of St Francis, who was born in the 12th century and is the Catholic Church’s patron saint of animals and the environment. It is a popular day for pets to be “blessed”. And they bless us back.
18. "My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun" quintet: IAMBS. IAMBIC Pentameter is the poetic meter used by Shakespeare, consisting of 5 pairs of unstressed and stressed syllables per line. And this is how Jeffrey signs his puzzles.
19. Solar __: FLARE. Solar flares are large eruptions of electromagnetic radiation from the Sun lasting from minutes to hours. The largest flares are rated as X-Class on a scale of intensity similar to the Richter scale for seismic events. These flares are often associated with solar magnetic storms known as coronal mass ejections (CMEs) and are capable of creating long lasting radiation storms that can harm satellites, communications systems, and even ground-based technologies and power grids.
23. Socials with cucumber sandwiches: TEAS.
25. "Hedda Gabler" dramatist: IBSEN.
26. Like Inti Punku: INCAN. Inti Punku (Quechua "sun gate") is an archaeological site in the Cusco Region of Peru that was once a fortress of the sacred city, Machu Picchu. It is now also the name of the final section of the Incan Trail between the Sun Gate complex and the city.
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Machu Picchu |
27. "The Scholomance" trilogy writer Novik: NAOMI. Naomi Novik is the acclaimed New York Times-bestselling author of the Nebula Award-winning novel Uprooted, Spinning Silver, and the nine-volume Temeraire series, as well as a founder of the Archive of Our Own. The Scholomance trilogy is about a school for the dark arts in Transylvania. The first two books are The Deadly Education and The Last Graduate. Here's a review of the final book, The Golden Enclaves which was published in September 2022.
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Naomi Novik |
29. Yellow shade: MAIZE.
30. "A Series of Unfortunate Events" villain __ Squalor: ESME. While solving the puzzle I glossed past the clue and seeing "Squalor", I immediately filled ESME, as she was the heroine of this J.D. Salinger's novel. Coming back to blog it, I noticed something more sinister going on, as she was described as a villain somehow involved in a series of children's books about a "unfortunate events" chronicled by a guy named Daniel Handler, alias Lemony Snicket. The saga is complicated by lots of intrigue, literary allusions, and other stuff, so you can either read this, or watch this trailer for one of the adaptions [or both if you're a glutton for punishment]:
32. Was short: OWED.
33. DVR pioneer: TIVO. TiVo Inc. was an American corporation with its primary product being its eponymous digital video recorder. On September 8, 2016, TiVo Inc. was acquired by Rovi Corporation. The new entity became known as TiVo Corporation, which in turn, merged with Xperi in December 2019. Now we just store the stuff in the cloud (aka "fog") and stream it on demand (aka "binging").
37. Raves (about): ENTHUSES.
39. Kia sedans: RIOS.
42. Some plants: SPIES. Sneaky clue.
44. Ready: ON TAP.
47. The "se" of per se: ITSELF. How to correctly use ‘per se’.
48. Colorful fabric: MADRAS. "Once you can accept the universe as matter expanding into nothing that is something, wearing stripes with plaid comes easy."- Albert Einstein. Checkered Past: A Brief History of the Madras Plaid Shirt. Hand up if you wore them?
52. Designer Saarinen: EERO. Eero Saarinen (/ˈeɪroʊ ˈsɑːrɪnən, ˈɛəroʊ -/, Finnish: [ˈeːro ˈsɑːrinen]; August 20, 1910 – September 1, 1961) was a Finnish-American architect and industrial designer noted for his wide-ranging array of designs for buildings and monuments. Saarinen is best known for designing the General Motors Technical Center in Michigan, Dulles International Airport outside Washington, D.C., the TWA Flight Center (now TWA Hotel) in New York City, and the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Missouri.
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Eero Saarinen |
54. Spree: TEAR. If the clue had been "Tear:", how likely would you have been to fill SPREE?
55. Texas MLBer: STRO. A CSO to Anon -T
57. Tunneling rodent: MOLE. Or a 42D.
58. Tiny amount: IOTA.
59. Nonstick brand: TFAL. It seems to get stuck in a lot of crossword fill though.
61. Stable staple: HAY.
62. Angsty genre: EMO. OPERA wouldn't fit.
Cheers,
Bill
As always, thanks to Teri for proof reading, for her constructive criticism.
* A note on the Framed video. If you open the clip I think that YouTube will remember it, and it may show up on your TV streaming service if you use one.
