Thursday, March 30, 2023, Ella Dershowitz

 

Welcome to Jumble Thursday.  I can't wait to see what OwenKL does with this one.

Our constructor today is actress Ella Dershowitz, who says on her website that "When I'm not acting I make crossword puzzles ..." (including 4 previously for the LA Times).  Here's Husker's review of her first outing on Saturday, May 7, 2022.  Her web site is definitely worth checking out.

Today Ella takes us on a brief tour of New England in the Fall with the following themers:

17A. *Office meeting spot: WATER COOLER. The WATER COOLER as a valuable locus for the exchange of business information has long been recognized.  It's function is so important that during the pandemic it had to be replaced by the VIRTUAL water cooler.

Before the Pandemic

During the Pandemic - the Virtual Water Cooler

24A. *Time for a cold one, facetiously: BEER O'CLOCK.  You can use this app to tell you exactly how many hh:mm:ss it is until quitting time.  If you can't wait that long, this will definitely quench your thirst (be sure to watch the changing expression on curmudgeon Cowell's face as this magic trick unfolds).    A CSO to my BFF for sending me this:

37A. *First love, perhaps: HIGH SCHOOL CRUSH.  I met my first and only love in the 11th grade in the doorway of Mr. Saterlie's Modern and Contemporary History Class and had an immediate CRUSH💓💓💓 on her.  She's a wonderful person and among the many other things she does to help me, she proofreads these puzzle reviews (I of course am responsible for any remaining errors).

48. *Small-scale investments: MICROLOANS.  Microlending: Definition, How It Works, Risks & Rewards.

I guess I can't hide the meaning of the themers any longer, so before they fall off, here's the reveal:

58. What autumn leaves do, and what five letters do in the answer to each starred clue: CHANGE COLOR.

Wasn't that exciting? 

Here's the grid:

Here are the rest:

Across:

1. Not in the mood for any funny stuff: STERN.

6. Bartending tool: SPOON.

11. Proof letters: QED.  Quod Erat Demonstrandum.  Latin for "which was to be demonstrated", the statement appearing at the conclusion of a text to signify that the author's overall argument has just been proven.  At least she/he thinks it has.

14. Threepio's pal: ARTOO.  Star Wars lesson #1.  Here ARTOO is delivering a message ...

15. Khaki-colored cloth: CHINO.

16. Stars-and-stripes land: Abbr.: USA.

17. [Theme clue]

19. Doctrine: ISM.  Quick, think of the name of science other than DARWINISM that consists of a scientist's name + ISM?

20. Place for a spring break?: SPA.  The town of Lourdes at the foot of the Pyrenees in southern France, is one of the world's most popular SPAS.  The waters flowing from the spring at the Grotto of Massabielle are believed by many to have healing properties.  However only 70 persons over the last 160 years, a very small percentage of the over 3 million visitors who visit the site each year, have met the Catholic Church's stringent standards for declaring a healing miraculous.

21. Daily grind: RUT.  

22. Food truck fare: TACOS.  3 Reasons Why Taco Tuesday is Freakin' Terrific.

24. [Theme clue]

28. Amazed: IN AWE.

30. Candor: HONESTY.

33. Pool resources: UNITE.

34. Close: SEAL.

36. __ yum: Thai soup: TOM.  I DNK this soup, but it looks delicious.  Here's a recipe.

37. [Theme clue]

41. "Sooo annoying": UGH.

42. [Hands off my Friskies!]: HISS.  Today's cat lesson: "That'ss mine!"

43. Tyler Perry character in "Diary of a Mad Black Woman": MADEA.  Rumor has it that this film was a real DRAG.

44. Major babes: HOTTIES.  The Brits would add BIRD to this list ...

47. April Fools' Day declaration: GOT YA.  A timely clue for a change, as April Fools' Day is the day after tomorrow.  Tomorrow, however is Johann Sebastian Bach's birthday 🎂 🎈🎁, which we will celebrate a day early with this masterpiece, the second movement of the Orchestral Suite No. 3, the famous Air on a G String, with Sir Simon Rattle conducting the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra:

48. [Theme clue]

51. Fifth flavor: UMAMI.  Remember the old days when the kids in the neighborhood would yell "UMAMI wears combat boots!"  😉

53. Tech giant based in Armonk, NY: IBM.

54. Tidal action: EBB.

57. Tavern: BAR.  I'll drink to that!  Here's the chorus in taberna ("in the tavern") from Carl Orrf's secular cantata Carmina Burana (all the toasts are in English at the bottom of the screen).

58. [Theme]

63. __ contact: EYE.

64. "Goodness me": LORDY.  I give you the lady from Port Arthur, Texas ...

65. Korean short ribs: GALBI.  Looks kind of YANG ...

GALBI
Here's a recipe. 

 66. Sigur __: ethereal Icelandic band: ROS.  Like the Icelandic landscape.  A commenter to the following 2006 video Glósóli (apparently untranslatable) said: "I watched Sigur Rós put an audience into the throes of rapture at Coachella 2001, their first North American performance. None of us knew who they were, but when they’d finished, thousands of us were left stunned, speechless, weeping, at peace. I’ve never seen anything like it. These are not songs. They’re spells".

67. Perrier rival: EVIAN.

68. Some big-box stores: IKEAS.

Down:

1. Tools that make the cut?: SAWS.  Or that make music that can take you over the rainbow ... 

2. Hip-hop genre: TRAP.  I predict that we probably won't see this clue/fill combination again any time soon.  TRAP is a subgenre of hip hop music that originated in the Southern United States in the 1990s. The genre gets its name from the Atlanta slang word "trap", a house used exclusively to sell drugs.  Sorry, but none of the songs I sampled passed the breakfast test.  

3. Blues guitarist Baker: ETTA.  Etta Baker (March 31, 1913 – September 23, 2006) was an American Piedmont blues guitarist and singer from North Carolina.  Here she plays the guitar riff to a song my Daddy used to play (lyrics).  His name was Bill too:

4. Sushi roll garnish: ROE.

5. Neither partner: NOR.

6. Search all over: SCOUR.

7. Instagram posting: PHOTO.

8. Canola __: OIL.

9. Opening number?: ONE.

10. Edward of "Glass Onion": NORTON.  Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (titled onscreen as simply Glass Onion) is a 2022 American mystery film written and directed by Rian Johnson and produced by Johnson and Ram Bergman. It is a standalone sequel to the 2019 film Knives Out, with Daniel Craig reprising his role as master detective Benoit Blanc.  NORTON plays the billionaire.  Available only on Netflix:

I first saw Edward Norton's work in The Illusionist.  A great flick streaming on various venues.

11. Fast learner: QUICK STUDY.

12. Petro-Canada rival: ESSO.

13. Stops (up): DAMS.

18. First Nations people of Canada: CREE.  A CSO to our CanadianEh! The CREE are one of several First Nations people in Canada.  I was struck by this modern work by Jackson Beardy (July 24, 1944 – December 7, 1984) who was an Indigenous Oji-Cree Anishinaabe artist born in Canada.

Calling the Night

23. Pro: ACE.

24. Bedtime story preceder, perhaps: BATH.  Presumably the BATH is a part of the deal if they want to hear the bedtime story.  Also the name of another famous SPA, a city in Somerset, England originally founded by the Romans and known for its BATHS. 

25. Baa nanas: EWES.  Well, sheep do have grandmaas too.

26. Utter disorder: CHAOS. The classic meme for CHAOS theory is "The Butterfly Effect", where a very small change in one location can ripple, enlarging as it goes, to cause a catastrophe far away: 

27. Laze: LOLL.

28. "My name is __ Montoya. You killed my father ... ": INIGO.  Here he is, played by Mandy Patinkin,  straight from The Princess Bride ...

29. Frightening ordeals: NIGHTMARES.   Nightmare Meaning and Nightmare Disorder: A Jungian Perspective. 

The Nightmare
John Henry Fuseli

31. Where sailors go: TO SEA.

32. Jewish social org.: YMHA.  A Young Men's Hebrew Association is a communal institution organized in various cities of the United States for the mental, moral, social, and physical improvement of Jewish young men. The YWHA is the corresponding organization for young women.

33. "Hard pass": UH UH.

34. Mint variety used in Japanese cooking: SHISO.  A garnish often served with sushi, SHISO is a cultigen of Perilla frutescens, an herb in the mint family Lamiaceae. It is native to the mountainous regions of China and India, but is now found worldwide.  It has many varieties beside the ruffled green one seen in sushi bars.  Here is the red variety:

Red Shiso

35. Skin care brand sold in colorful eggs: EOS.  Presumably it gives your skin the complexion of dawn.

38. Singer known as the "Goddess of Pop": CHER.  Born Cherilyn Sarkisian; May 20, 1946), CHER is an American singer, actress and television personality. She has been described as embodying female autonomy in a male-dominated industry.  Here's her 1998 hit Believe (lyrics):

39. "Seriously?": C'MON.

40. "Gosh darn it": RATS.

45. "Madam Secretary" actor Daly: TIM.  James Timothy Daly (born March 1, 1956) is an American actor. He is known for his role as Joe Hackett on the NBC sitcom Wings and his recurring role as the drug-addicted screenwriter J.T. Dolan on The Sopranos (for which he was nominated for an Emmy Award).  We saw all the Wings episodes but then he kind of dropped off our radar scope.  The opening theme was from Franz Schubert's Piano Sonata No. 20 in A major, D. 959, Rondo: Allegretto.

Tim Daly

46. Melting point, maybe: ICICLE.  Cute clue.

47. Tablet download: GAME.

49. "Dead to Me" star Cardellini: LINDA.  Dead to Me is an American black comedy television series created by Liz Feld. The series premiered on May 3, 2019, on Netflix and stars Christina Applegate and Linda Cardellini as two grieving women who bond during therapy.

Linda Cardellini

50. Birth day doc: OB GYN.

51. __ Eats: UBER.  IMHO this might not be a good idea as over eating can lead to obesity.

52. Club condiment: MAYO.

54. "The Great" actress Fanning: ELLE.  The Great is an historical and satirical black comedy-drama television series starring Elle Fanning and loosely based on the rise to power of Catherine the Great, Empress of All Russia.

Elle Fanning

55. "The Mandalorian" bounty hunter __ Fett: BOBA.  Star Wars Lesson #2.  I'm really in over my head on this one as the original black and white space cowboys have morphed into fifty shades of gray, making it difficult to tell the bad guys from the good guys.  I'm punting to a trailer, the one where Din Djarin (good guy?) meets Boba Fett (bad guy sometimes?) ...

56. Jewish ritual: BRIS.  The Brit Milah (Bris): what you need to know if you're planning this ritual.

59. __ lane: HOV. A lane reserved for High Occupancy Vehicles.  Here are the rules in Maryland.

60. NPR host Shapiro: ARI.

61. Sci-fi FX: CGI.  Computer Generated Imagery.  Sci-fi FX are becoming Sci-Reality FX, e.g. deep fakes.

62. Wine tasting note: OAK.  A CSO to MOE.

Cheers,
Bill

As always, thanks to Teri for proof reading, for her constructive criticism.

 

waseeley