Constructor Hanh Huynh recently made his debut with the LA Times
(July 7th, 2023), and now he's back with an exploration of
Critter Band Radio
We all know that animals use species-specific language to communicate
with one another. Hahn has apparently discovered that they have recently
begun to adopt modern human communications technology to develop a rather
cryptic form of inter-species communication, a kind of "pigeon trucker"
lingo derived from
Citizens Band Radio (CBR).
Each of his 5 themers are two-way exchanges in what could be
called Critter Band Radio. As they are a bit difficult to
follow I've taken the liberty of italicizing the speakers in
each clue; followed it with my translation of what was said (YMMV); and
provided a real-life example of the resulting fill ...
17A.
Gnat: "Bug spray sighting. Request for assistance." Bee: "__. Backup is on the way.":
FLY STANDBY.
Gnat (FLY) needs help. Bee has called AAA and radios
Gnat to STANDBY.
Here are three tips to FLY STANDBY like a pro ...
26A. Kittens: "Dogs, do you read us?" Puppy: "__. You're coming in loud and clear.": COPY CATS.
Kittens (CATS) are not sure their message is getting thru and Puppy radios back that their COPY has been received.
They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery ...
36A. Bunny: "Come in, Hare. Return to base." Hare: "__. Wilco.": ROGER RABBIT.
Bunny (wife) has messaged hubby Hare (RABBIT) (who has been out on the town). "Where are you? He replies ROGER [-Wilco] (short for "will comply"), I'll come home right away.
Translation: Hare replies that he's headed home (with his cotton tail between his legs).
ROGER RABBIT is of course the protagonist of Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, the ground breaking movie combining toons and live actors. Here's ROGER RABBIT's famous femme fatale wife Jessica Rabbit, a bunny of a different sort, voiced by real life femme fatale Kathleen Turner ...
50A. Bear: "Doe? Stag? Any deer got your ears on?" Deer: "__.": FAWN OVER.
Translation: Bear (either a smokey or a real bear prowling for prey): "Any members of the Cervidae family -- are you listening?" Deer: "Yeah, awaiting further instructions". Next the Bear might say Deer, meet me in the glen in 5 minutes".
As it turns out this Deer meets someone from Japan. In this early experiment in cartoon realism (with an uncredited soundtrack by Giochino Rossini) we can assume that FAWN OVER is meant literally ...
57. Pig: "Hen, put the hammer down." Hen: "Catch you on the flip-flop: __.": CHICKEN OUT.
Translation: Pig: "Floor it!" Hen: don't have time to talk; see you on the return trip".
CHICKEN OUT is also a metaphor for losing one's nerve. Here's Smokey and the Bandit with the most famous CHICKEN OUT scene ever filmed (with real CBR lingo) ...
Here's the grid ...
Across:
1. Rae who plays President Barbie in "Barbie": ISSA. I think
there's a message in here somewhere ...
5. "We __ Overcome": SHALL. We're still waiting ...
10. Piedmont bubbly: ASTI.
14. Former name of a film-rating org.: MPAA. See next clue ...
15. Natasha's "Russian Doll" role: NADIA. Imagine Groundhog Night -- Natasha Lyonne plays Nadia Vulvokov, a software engineer who finds herself reliving her 36th birthday party in an ongoing time loop wherein she repeatedly dies and the process begins again. The trailer for Russian Doll was Rated R.
16. Like lemon drops: TART.
17. [Theme clue]
19. Letter-shaped fastener: T NUT. Here's the kind used to hold the plywood sides in our garden cart to the frame. I've had to replace one of them in the last thirty years or so ...
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| T-NUT |
20. NBA stat: REB. Rebounds
21. Meas. of time: HRS. Hours.
22. Co-op divisions: UNITS.
24. Milne character with a "Gloomy Place": EEYORE. This was the most upbeat EEYORE clip I could find! ...
26. [Theme clue]
29. Primer mes del año: ENERO. January. La lección de español de hoy.
30. Prohibit: BAN.
31. Seating assistant: USHER. Last Thursday I ran a clip of a
movie for this fill based on a story by Edgar Alan POE.
This week I'll just help you find your clue. Number 31 right?
32. Stood the test of time: ENDURED.
35. "__ Twist, Scientist": kid-lit bestseller: ADA.
ADA Twist, Scientist
is a 2016 children's picture book written by Andrea Beaty and
illustrated by David Roberts. The story was well received and praised
for encouraging children, especially girls, to develop an interest in STEM.
The book also received a television series adaptation in 2021. Here's
the trailer
Our kid-lit heroine was named for the first computer scientist, Lady ADA Lovelace, who is also the namesake for a programming language ...
39. Wine datum: AGE.
41. Dished the dirt: SPILLED.
42. Lugged: TOTED.
45. Moray __: EEL. Creepy critters found at the National Aquarium in Baltimore -- and other places ...
46. Paper quantities: REAMS.
50. [Theme clue]
52. Stuck: IN A RUT.
53. Resulted in: LED TO.
54. Jewelry retailer Alex and __: ANI. Looks like ANI DiFranco and ANIkin Skywalker have competition in the cruciverbal world. There's one right up the road from me in Towson, MD. Here's a sample of their work ...
55. L.A. bus-and-rail overseer: MTA.
56. Uncommon Scrabble outcomes: TIES. The game of Scrabble© is manufactured by Hasbro, Inc. but for some reason they maintain the "official rules" in a single image PDF file, which can't be easily searched for text (I drew the line at running it thru an OCR app!). For the purposes of this review we will use the wikiHow How Do I Play Scrabble? (Official Rules and Tips to Score Big) which states that "If there’s a tie, then the player with the highest score before any deductions wins." It seems to me that this doesn't address the possibility that both players could have the same total for unplayed letters. Just pray that this never happens when you're vying with a rabid player (like my youngest sister! 💓)
57. [Theme clue]
61. Astrobiology org.: SETI. Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence. There doesn't seem to be a lot of it on Earth, so I don't know why scientists hope to find any on the other side of the Universe 😁. But Earthlings are a curious lot and unofficially SETI has been around as early as 1896, when Nikola Tesla suggested that an extreme version of his wireless electrical transmission system could be used to contact beings on Mars. The trick of course is distinguishing "intelligent signals" (from intelligent beings) from "unintelligent" signals arising from "natural causes". The latest approach to this problem is to use Artificial Intelligence to aid in this search. Certainly an AI will know intelligence when it sees it, right?.
62. La Festa di San Valentino emotion: AMORE. Today's Italian lesson. Saint Valentine (Italian: San Valentino; Latin: Valentinus) was a 3rd-century Roman saint and martyr commemorated in Western Christianity on February 14 and in Eastern Orthodoxy on July 6. From the High Middle Ages, his Saints' Day has been associated with a tradition of courtly love. He is also a patron saint of Terni, Italy, epilepsy and beekeepers.
63. German spouse: FRAU.
64. "Hey, c'mere!": PSST.
65. Introvert: LONER.
66. Country star Lovett: LYLE. Finally some music! LYLE Pearce Lovett (born November 1, 1957) is an American country singer, songwriter, record producer and actor. Active since 1980, he has recorded 13 albums and released 25 singles to date, including his highest entry, the number 10 chart hit on the U.S. Billboard Hot Country Songs chart, "Cowboy Man" (lyrics) ...
1. "Now's a good time": IM FREE. ... or at least reasonable.
2. Abdominal organ: SPLEEN. Everything you'd want to know about the SPLEEN (and perhaps too much) ...
|
|
The SPLEEN (I don't think they're really orange) |
3. Take one's leave, informally: SAY BYE.
4. Small batteries: AAS.
5. Capture: SNARE.
6. "Frozen" villain: HANS. I've never seen Frozen, but this clip seems to tell the whole story and HANS IS absolutely evil. But I'm certain though that it will have a happy ending ...
7. Do some sums: ADD.
8. Ad-__: LIB. Yes, I am making this up.
9. Easy two-pointer, in basketball: LAY UP.
10. Rooms under roofs: ATTICS.
11. Red-and-white topper: SANTA HAT. The SANTA HAT has evolved through the ages. We have Thomas Nast to thank for one of the first modern images ...
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Santa Claus Thomas Nast |
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Santa Claus Haddon Sundblom |
Santa 'Claus, is of course an abbreviation of the name Saint Nicholas of Myra (circa 15 March 270 – 6 December 343), an early Christian bishop of Greek descent from the maritime city of Myra in Asia Minor during the time of the Roman Empire and an heir of wealthy parents. St. Nicholas is legendary for secret gift giving, as is Santa today. The most famous account of his generosity was to three orphaned girls, who were left without dowries and would have likely ended up prostitutes had he not secretly thrown purses full of gold through their windows, enabling their father to arrange marriages.
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St. Nicholas of Myra Icon by Jaroslav Čermák |
13. Addams cousin: ITT.
18. Large crowd: THRONG.
23. Washington Square Park sch.: NYU. New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature,[14] NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by Albert Gallatin.
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| "To persevere and to excel" |
26. Airline, e.g.: CARRIER. Every cruciverbalist's favorite CARRIER is EL AL, right?
27. Possible score before a penalty shootout: ONE ALL.
28. Spanish spouse: Abbr.: SRA.
30. CrossFit staple: BURPEE. In high school we called a similar exercise squat thrusts. Here's how it's done ...
33. __ Moines, Iowa: DES.
34. Two-bagger: Abbr.: DBL.
36. Shares, in a way: RETWEETS. Wow, Hanh (or Patti?) has not been reading the news. This should be REXES (or REXS?) Help me out here folks!
37. Senator Sanders: BERNIE. BERNIE is the subject of this picture, which made photographer 38. "You have no __!": IDEA. I certainly don't!
39. DOJ bureau: ATF.
40. Net protectors: GOALIES.
43. Heeds a relationship red flag: ENDS IT.
44. Bit of Morse code: DOT. Not DIT, nor DAH, nor DASH (which was too long). I DNK that Samuel F. B. Morse, in addition to being the inventor of the telegraph in 1844, was also a famous painter. The immediate and long term impacts that Morse's simple invention had, would have, and will have on society are incalculable. The telegraph spread rapidly and gave rise to what author Tom Standage calls The Victorian Internet.
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Samuel Morse* self portrait (with his name in Morse Code) |
47. Military storehouse: ARMORY. The Pikesville ARMORY in our neighborhood was built in 1903 and decommissioned in 2016.. We recently received word that the 14 acre tract of land on which it stands has been awarded to Baltimore County and approved for conversion to a community use space. The plans sound like it will be a major shot in the arm for this aging West Baltimore suburb.
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Pikesville Armory December 2009 |
48. Shared, as a friend: MUTUAL.
49. Lady Liberty, for one: STATUE. She's more than just a STATUE and let's pray that she holds high her torch forever!
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Lady Liberty |
52. Job at DC Comics: INKER. As all you real solvers know, the only way to solve crossword puzzles is in INK. Shoddy solvers such as I do it in pencil, so that we can erase our mistakes and no one will know about all our FIWs. Likewise shoddy cartoonists do it in pencil and then turn the real work over to an INKER. Here is a recent tribute to real INKER, Don Carlton, the man behind Gary Trudeau's success:
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Don Carlton December 28, 1936 – May 16, 2023 |
56. Meas. of thyme: TSP. NSEC was too long.
58. Medical gp.: HMO.
59. Charged particle: ION. A hungry atom.
60. Gridiron org.: NFL.
* Since there was a paucity of musical opportunities in this puzzle I've decided to end the review with the haunting introduction to the Inspector Morse mystery series on PBS. This music has accompanied the show from its very first episode in 1987 and was originally created by Australian composer Barrington Pheloung (10 May 1954 - 1 August 2019) . Variations on this theme are also used during the credits for the recently completed prequel Endeavor. The theme is of course a musical pun on Samuel Morse's name (see 44D for a visual pun) ...
Cheers,
Bill
And as always, thanks to Teri for proof reading and for her constructive criticism.
waseeley
