Thursday, August 31, 2023, Jeff Stillman

 

 

 That's Entertainment!

  lyrics

 Today constructor Jeff Stillman steps into the spotlight for his 51st appearance on the Corner, and entertains us with a bit of slight-of-hand.  The rare solver, who will remain anonymous, may be disappointed that Jeff conceals his tricks in (horrors!), circles.  But I think the former's time for today's puzzle would not have been as lightning fast (as I'm sure it was) without them.  The rest us, incapable of solving 3 dimensional crossword puzzles in our heads, would probably have been AT SEA.

Since each of the three themers consist of single letters spread across two consecutive lines and 4 consecutive columns we'll start with the grid ...

And here's Jeff's reveal ...

64A. Hollywood honors since 1995, and what the circled letters are?: SAG AWARDS. 

The honors he is referring two are those of the Screen Actors Guild Awards (also known as SAG Awards),  accolades given by the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA*).  Starting in 1995 SAG awards have been given in the major areas of Film, Film, and Life Achievement in various subcategories.  The statue given to each of the awardees looks like this:

"The Actor"

The bit of legerdemain that I referred to above is the fact that while the letters in the circles spell out awards that SAG on the grid, they are not given by The Screen Actors Guild, but rather by other organizations:

The TONY, formally known as The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Broadway Theatre, recognizes excellence in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in Manhattan. The ceremony is held on the second Sunday of June.  Here are this year's awards.

Tony Medallion

The ESPY Award, short for Excellence in Sports Performance Yearly Award, is an accolade currently presented by the American broadcast television network ABC.  Here are the winners and nominees for 2023.  Here's the statuette awarded to each winner ...

ESPY Statuette

The annual CLIO Awards, established in 1959, are named for the Greek goddess Clio, the mythological Muse known as "the proclaimer, glorifier and celebrator of history, great deeds and accomplishments" in the field of advertising. They are awarded. to recognize innovation and creative excellence in advertising, design, and communication, as judged by an international panel of advertising professionals.  Here are the 2023 winners.  This is what they won ...
 

Clio Award

Here are the rest of the clues ...
 
Across:

1. First word of a Shakespeare title: ALLS.  ALL'S Well That Ends Well was published in the First Folio in 1623, where it is listed among the comedies. The play is considered one of Shakespeare's "problem plays", one that poses complex ethical dilemmas that require more than typically simple solutions.

5. Chorus member: ALTO.  Here "chorus member" Marianne Crebassa adds some exquisite harmonies to this performance of the Flower Duet with Soprano Sabine Devieilhe from Leo Delibes opera Lakmé (lyrics) ...
 

9. Autumn bloom: ASTER.  And here's a beautiful ASTER duet ...

Asters

14. Wobble: REEL.

15. Bellyache: MOAN.

16. Volleyball shot: SPIKE.  Would you believe, there is actually a machine that can help you improve your volleyball SPIKES? ...
 

17. Spot for a TV dinner: TRAY TABLE.  For those who eat dinner in their dens.

19. Realty listings: HOMES.

20. Young fella: SONNY.  A father's song to his SON? ...

21. Large amount: SCAD.  We've seen this fill SCADS of times.

23. Audition: TEST.

24. Unqualified: INEPT.  EPT qualifies as its antonym, at least according to the OED.

26. Yellowish pink: CORAL.  Actually CORALS come in a variety of hues.  Some little-known facts about these underwater ecosystems.

Coral Array

28. "YOLO" philosophy: SEIZE THE DAY.  Just make sure it's not a tiger ...

32. Slower than Mach 1: SUBSONIC.  Speeds faster than Mach 1 are SUPERSONIC.

35. Susan Swain's network: CSPAN.  Susan Swain (born December 23, 1954) is an American journalist, author and the co-CEO of C-SPAN.

Susan Swain

37. Spanish "that": ESO.  Today's Spanish lesson on demonstrative pronouns ...

38. Horse barn sound: SNORT.

41. __-mo: SLO.

42. Scope of influence: AMBIT.  The AMBITIOUS want to increase theirs.

45. Low-alcohol beverage: NEAR BEER.

48. Brownie-making ingredient: COCOA POWDER.  We're still getting lots of zucchini.  If you are, here's last week's recipe again.

51. Ship with staterooms: LINER.

52. Oscar-winning role for Ariana DeBose and Rita Moreno: ANITA.   Sixty years ago, Rita Moreno became the first Latina to win an Oscar, given for the role of ANITA in the 1961 film West Side Story. Recently Ariana DeBose won best supporting actress for the same role in the Steven Spielberg's 2021 reboot, becoming part of an elite club of Oscar-winners who've received the accolade for playing the same character. They're the first pair of women ever to accomplish this. Incidentally, Ariana hosted this years TONY Awards, and of course Rita has a TONY as a part of her EGOT.

And not coincidentally,  Rita played the role of Valentina in the new production, and served as an executive producer.  Here's Spielberg's take on her contributions as a consultant ...

Ironic note: The 1961 film was awarded a total of 10 Oscars, the musical film with the most Academy wins.  The composer of that music, the great Leonard Bernstein, didn't receive one for Best Original Score; in fact he wasn't even nominated. 


55. C __ Charlie: AS IN.

57. Dollars for quarters: RENT.  Also the name of a Broadway musical loosely based on Puccini's La Boheme.  Among several awards it won 3 OBIES, a TONY, and a Pulitzer Prize ...

 60. Piano exercise: ETUDE.  As Annique Göttler demonstrates, 14 years of piano exercises makes a big difference when playing  Chopin's ETUDE Op.10 No.4 (the "Torrent"). ..

62. Photographer Dorothea: LANGE.  Dorothea LANGE (born Dorothea Margaretta Nutzhorn; May 26, 1895 – October 11, 1965) was an American documentary photographer and photojournalist, best known for her Depression-era work for the Farm Security Administration (FSA). Lange's photographs influenced the development of documentary photography and humanized the consequences of the Great Depression.

Dorothea Lange
1936

64 [Theme reveal}

66. Caulking fiber: OAKUM.  OAKUM is a preparation of tarred fibre used to seal gaps. Its main traditional applications were in shipbuilding, for caulking or packing the joints of timbers in wooden vessels and the deck planking of iron and steel ships.

Hemp oakum

67. Nights before special days: EVES.

68. "Yeah, right": I BET.

69. Medicine amts.: TBSPS.

70. Poker player's giveaway: TELL.

71. Plant stem joint: NODE.

Down:

1. Creative pursuits: ARTS.  Here is yet another award for the musical ARTS -- the An Die Musik ("To Music")  Award, presented annually to a classical music enthusiast who has significantly furthered the work and mission of the Schubert Club.  The award is named for the most famous of the over 600 Lieder (songs) written by Franz Schubert.  It is sung here by the great tenor Fritz Wunderlich (lyrics and translation) ...

2. The king of France?: LE ROI.  Today's French lesson.

3. "The Right Kind of Wrong" singer Rimes: LEANN.  Margaret LeAnn Rimes Cibrian (born August 28, 1982) is an American singer, songwriter and actress. She originally rose to success as a country music artist at age 13 with 1996's Blue, by writer Bill Mack (lyrics) ...

4. Craft: SLYNESS.

5. Reddit sesh for fans: AMA.  Ask Me Anything, but you'd better pull up a chair. 😁

6. Deft tennis shots: LOBS.

7. Soft mineral: TALC. Number 2 on MOE's Hardness Scale.

8. Staged without a break: ONE ACT.  Here is probably the most famous of them all and it's still playing!

9. Cigarette end: ASH.

10. Part of a politician's media campaign: SPOT ADS.  The season will soon be upon us ...

11. Like photographs of an eclipse, say: TIME LAPSE.  Here is a time lapse video of the 2018 solar eclipse taken in Casper, WY.  The photographer paused the video for a few seconds at the moment of totality.  Nice touch ...

12. __ out a win: EKES.

13. Musical interval: REST. Sometimes RESTS in music can be as beautiful as the music that surrounds them. This famous passage near the end of the 2nd movement of  Antonin Dvorak 's New World Symphony. has several. I've clipped this to begin after a brief allegretto at 9:21 sec.  After the music dies down to quiet passage in the English Horn, listen for the first REST at 11:18 followed by 3 or more toward the end ...

18. Versatile blood donor: TYPE O.

22. Quote from Homer: DOH. "Why didn't I think of that!?"

25. Cookie containers: TINS.

27. __ center: REC.

29. Cab alternative: ZIN.  As CABernet is abbreviated, so is ZINfandel.

30. Low-cost prefix: ECONO.

31. Handsome Dan's Ivy: YALE.  Here's the latest BDOC ...

Handsome Dan XIX

32. "Wide Sargasso __": Jean Rhys novel: SEA.  Wide Sargasso SEA is a 1966 novel by Dominican-British author Jean Rhys, CBE. The novel serves as a postcolonial and feminist prequel to Charlotte Brontë's novel Jane Eyre (1847), describing the background to Mr. Rochester's marriage from the point-of-view of his wife Antoinette Cosway, a Creole heiress.  There have been several adaptations of the novel, some rated R and at least one rated NC-17.   The most unusual one I found told the story in the lyrics of the song Wide Sargasso Sea by Stevie Nicks from her 2011 album In Your Dreams  (rated PG) ...

33. "Oorah!" org.: USMC.  The United State Marine Corps.  A CSO to our dear departed Wilbur Charles ...

34. Migratory songbirds: BOBOLINKS.  And sing they do ...

36. Negative conjunction: NOR.

39. Button with left-pointing arrows: Abbr.: REW.

40. Unveiling shout: TA DA.  VOILÀ  was too long.

43. Becoming treacherous, as a winter road: ICING UP.

44. Weigh station unit: TON.

46. Extend: RENEW.

47. Great place?: BRITAIN.  I'll drink to that!

49. __ Lingus: AER.  Ireland has some great brews too.

50. Adjusted beforehand: PRESET.

53. Engine booster, for short: TURBO.

54. Supplemented: ADDED.

55. Bushels: A LOT.  Note space between A and LOT.

56. Onetime Volvo rival: SAAB.

58. Cathedral part: NAVE.

59. Neutrogena dandruff shampoo: TGEL.

61. 90° from norte: ESTE.  More Spanish.

63. "Mamma Mia" quartet: EMS.  Oh my, how am I gonna stuff ABBA into a 3 letter fill?  DOH, with a EMeta clue of course! 

65. Communication sys. at Gallaudet: ASL.  One of the most interesting experiences we've had was attending a wedding Mass for a relative of Teri's who had attended Gallaudet University.  Many of the people there were deaf and prior to the service they were chattering away in ASL with one another all across the church.  We couldn't understand a word that they were saying, but we did get some some idea of what it must be like to be deaf in a crowded room.

*As many of you are aware, as of this writing the SAG-AFTRA and the Writers Guild of America (WGA) are still in the midst of a bitter strike against Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers.  At a recent press conference, SAG president Fran Drescher gave a fiery speech rebuffing the AMPT, and showing she has certainly come a long way since her days as a Nanny.

Cheers,
Bill

And as always, thanks to Teri for proof reading and for her constructive criticism.

waseeley