The Wood Wide Web
In 1995 ecologist Suzanne Simard discovered that trees communicate with one another via a vast underground network of FUNGI. Recently cruciverbalist and engineer Barbara Lin* has discovered that trees actually have FUN while they're doing this. Apparently they exchange PUNNY
homophones to amuse themselves while they carry out their essential
work of world-wide photosynthesis. Their real favorites of course are Stupid Ent Jokes 😀.
To construct this puzzle Barbara simply pressed her ears firmly to the ground and picked up these four themers -- exchanges of tree root straight lines and pun responses ...
To construct this puzzle Barbara simply pressed her ears firmly to the ground and picked up these four themers -- exchanges of tree root straight lines and pun responses ...
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| New mom Fizzy and two of her FUR BABIES |
27A. Shade tree that's been pruned too severely?: TOPLESS BEECH.
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| Topless beach voting |
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| A trio actually with her 2nd and 3rd runner up |
62. Recently developed conifer cultivar?: THE NEW YEW.
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| So how far are you going to take this new year, new ewe resolution? |
Here's the grid, sans reveal, sans stars, and sans circles (I hope at least one person is happy 😀) ...
Across:
1. Marketing target for K'nex Mighty Makers: GIRL. Targeted toys to get girls interested not just interested in STEM, but STEAM, with the inclusion of ARTS. I'd add to that ENGLISH and ETHICS. Creation is after all, a multi-disciplinary endeavor.
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| Intro to Structures K’NEX Education |
5. Mass transit option: RAIL.
9. Immature beetles: GRUBS.
14. Notion: IDEA.
15. White-bellied mammal: ORCA. ORCAS love to gobble up the cruciverbalist's other favorite white-bellied mammal, the Sea OTTER.
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| Sea Otter |
19. Meaningless, as a gesture: EMPTY.
20. Tangled: SNARLED.
21. Scratch (out): EKE.
23. __-Mex: TEX. My best friend lived in Texas for over 20 years and we visited him often. It was there that we first had Fajitas (yummy!). Here's a recipe ...
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| Steak Fajitas |
25. Medal metal: BRONZE.
27. [Theme clue]
32. Accords, e.g.: CARS. The CARS was also the name an American new wave band formed in Boston in 1976. Emerging from the new wave scene in the late 1970s, they consisted of Ric Ocasek (rhythm guitar), Benjamin Orr (bass guitar), Elliot Easton (lead guitar), Greg Hawkes (keyboards), and David Robinson (drums). Ocasek and Orr shared lead vocals, and Ocasek was the band's principal songwriter and leader. Here's My Best Friend's Girl (lyrics):
35. Irish __: SEA. A CSO to Agnes.
36. Writer Dillard: ANNIE. ANNIE Dillard (née Doak; born April 30, 1945)[1] is an American author, best known for her narrative prose in both fiction and non-fiction. She has published works of poetry, essays, prose, and literary criticism, as well as two novels and one memoir. Her 1974 work Pilgrim at Tinker Creek won the 1975 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction. From 1980, Dillard taught for 21 years in the English department of Wesleyan University, in Middletown, Connecticut. Here's some of her advice on writing.
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| Annie Dillard |
38. Cook quickly: STIR FRY. A year or so back a picture in one of C.C.'s reviews inspired me to come up with this recipe of a :Pine nut and Corn stir fry. It cooks quickly, but the prep time is about an hour. The recipe is still available on C.C.'s Ginger Roots blog.
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| Pine nuts and Corn Stir Fry |
42. Part of a network: MODEM. A MODulator-DEModulator or MODEM is a computer hardware device that converts data from a digital format into a format suitable for analog transmission over a medium such as telephone, radio (WIFI), coaxial cable, or fiber optic cable (see 8D). They are most often used at the end-points of router networks (i.e. the Internet backbone) to connect to local area networks (LANS) in offices and homes. The first time I ever accessed a remote computer from my home was via an acoustically coupled MODEM, connected directly to the earpiece/speaker of an analogue phone. It was running at speed of 300 bits/sec (approximately 33 bytes/sec with parity checking).
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| Acoustically coupled MODEM |
45. Stern greeting?: AHOY.
46. [Theme clue]
50. Easy-to-wash carpet: RAG RUG.
51. Gumbo pod: OKRA.
54. Ctrl-__-Del: ALT.
56. As well: TOO.
57. "How We Do (Party)" singer: RITA ORA. Girls just want to have fun ...
60. Clean out: PURGE.
62. [Theme clue]
64. Checkups: EXAMS.
65. Help when one shouldn't: ABET. Not all such help is criminal, but it may still be harmful, e.g.when playing a game of I'm only trying to help you!
66. Proactiv target: ACNE.
67. Last stop, often: DEPOT.
68. "Star Wars" film starring Alden Ehrenreich: SOLO. Han looks a lot different since I saw him last, but Chewbacca hasn't changed a bit ...
69. Pro choices?: YEAS.
Down:
1. Some embedded images: GIFS. The Graphics Interchange Format (GIF; /ɡɪf/ GHIF or /dʒɪf/ JIF, see pronunciation) is a bitmap image format that was developed by a team at the online services provider CompuServe led by American computer scientist Steve Wilhite and released on June 15, 1987. This one makes the World go round ...
.gif)
2. Checking the age of, say: IDING. Three syllable word.
3. Aired again: RERAN.
4. Research subjects with whiskers: LAB RATS. MICE didn't perp.
5. Garment that may match slippers: ROBE.
6. Like Death Valley: ARID. But not as ARID as the Atacama Desert in Chile and the McMurdo Dry Valleys in Antarctica, at least according to this article about all things dry.
7. Old fashioned rocks?: ICE. A CSO to our friend Tinbeni
8. Elements of fiber optic communications: LASERS. An acronym for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation. Fiber optic communications make use of fiber optic modems to transmit digital information via light pulses. I think Barbara is showing her engineering chops in this clue and 42A.
9. NFL city with the smallest population: GREEN BAY. GREEN BAY, Wisconsin, with a population of 107,395, home of the NFL Green Bay Packers. And here's where they play (looks like the whole town was there that night) ...
10. Sleep cycle: REM. Also a rock band. R.E.M. was from Athens, Georgia, and was formed in 1980 by drummer Bill Berry, guitarist Peter Buck, bassist Mike Mills, and lead vocalist Michael Stipe, who were students at the University of Georgia. Here's Everybody Hurts from their 1992 album Automatic for the People ...
12. Sharp quality: BITE.
13. "Mr. Roboto" band: STYX. Here's their Come Sail Away ...
18. Quartet member: ALTO. Here's ALTO Barbara Streisand all by herself with The Music That Makes Me Dance (lyrics) ...
22. Levels, briefly: KOS.
25. Tight squeeze: BEAR HUG.
26. __ garden: ZEN. What are they and how can you create one?
28. Rose Parade setting?: PST. Pacific Standard Time.
29. Island floral arrangement: LEI.
30. "Later!": CIAO.
31. Lamarr in the National Inventors Hall of Fame: HEDY. Austrian actress HEDY Lamarr and her musician friend George Antheil were awarded a patent for an early form of encrypted radio communication that led to their posthumous induction in the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2014.
Antheil's music was modernist and he liked to style himself as The Bad Boy of Music (the title of his memoir) -- e.g. at solo performances he would pull a revolver out of his pocket and lay it on his piano!. Here's his Airplane Sonata, which doesn't sound all that bad compared with much modern music ...
64. Checkups: EXAMS.
65. Help when one shouldn't: ABET. Not all such help is criminal, but it may still be harmful, e.g.when playing a game of I'm only trying to help you!
66. Proactiv target: ACNE.
67. Last stop, often: DEPOT.
68. "Star Wars" film starring Alden Ehrenreich: SOLO. Han looks a lot different since I saw him last, but Chewbacca hasn't changed a bit ...
69. Pro choices?: YEAS.
Down:
1. Some embedded images: GIFS. The Graphics Interchange Format (GIF; /ɡɪf/ GHIF or /dʒɪf/ JIF, see pronunciation) is a bitmap image format that was developed by a team at the online services provider CompuServe led by American computer scientist Steve Wilhite and released on June 15, 1987. This one makes the World go round ...
.gif)
2. Checking the age of, say: IDING. Three syllable word.
3. Aired again: RERAN.
4. Research subjects with whiskers: LAB RATS. MICE didn't perp.
5. Garment that may match slippers: ROBE.
6. Like Death Valley: ARID. But not as ARID as the Atacama Desert in Chile and the McMurdo Dry Valleys in Antarctica, at least according to this article about all things dry.
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| Chalbi Desert, North Kenya (not the driest) |
8. Elements of fiber optic communications: LASERS. An acronym for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation. Fiber optic communications make use of fiber optic modems to transmit digital information via light pulses. I think Barbara is showing her engineering chops in this clue and 42A.
9. NFL city with the smallest population: GREEN BAY. GREEN BAY, Wisconsin, with a population of 107,395, home of the NFL Green Bay Packers. And here's where they play (looks like the whole town was there that night) ...
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| Lambeau Field |
11. Indefinite ordinal: UMPTEENTH. I think this is the UMPTEENTH time we've had REM in an LAT puzzle.
12. Sharp quality: BITE.
13. "Mr. Roboto" band: STYX. Here's their Come Sail Away ...
18. Quartet member: ALTO. Here's ALTO Barbara Streisand all by herself with The Music That Makes Me Dance (lyrics) ...
22. Levels, briefly: KOS.
25. Tight squeeze: BEAR HUG.
26. __ garden: ZEN. What are they and how can you create one?
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| Zen Garden No Koi allowed |
28. Rose Parade setting?: PST. Pacific Standard Time.
29. Island floral arrangement: LEI.
30. "Later!": CIAO.
31. Lamarr in the National Inventors Hall of Fame: HEDY. Austrian actress HEDY Lamarr and her musician friend George Antheil were awarded a patent for an early form of encrypted radio communication that led to their posthumous induction in the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2014.
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| Hedy Lamarr |
32. Sleep in a tent: CAMP.
33. Lotion additive: ALOE.
34. Where a zipper may get caught?: RADAR TRAP. Clever clue!
38. Exhaust-ive check?: SMOG TEST. The SMOG coming out of your car's tailpipe during an emissions TEST?
39. Charge: FEE.
40. Whiskey choice: RYE.
43. MLB stat that's good when it's low: ERA.
45. "Glad to take questions": ASK AWAY. But please wait until after the review is finished ... 😀
47. To counterpart: FRO.
48. Target numbers: QUOTAS.
49. Bill: NOTE.
52. British automaker who partnered with Charles Rolls: ROYCE. How Rolls met Royce.
53. Olympic venue: ARENA.
54. Mirrored: APED.
55. Fancy-schmancy: LUXE.
57. Film spool: REEL.
58. Excited about: INTO.
59. Floors: AWES.
61. Frankenfood initials: GMO. Genetically Modified Organisms. The clue implies that foods containing GMOs are monsters. There is considerable controversy over GMOs, especially with regard to their release outside laboratory environments. The dispute involves consumers, producers, biotechnology companies, governmental regulators, non-governmental organizations, and scientists. Many of these concerns involve GM crops and whether food produced from them is safe and what impact growing them will have on the environment.
I'm not taking sides on this issue, but I'm reminded of this refrigerator magnetic that one of my granddaughters gave us ...
63. "Curb Your Enthusiasm" network: HBO. I'm not enthusiastic about this show.
That's it for the clues, but you're not out of the woods yet ...
Cheers,
Bill
33. Lotion additive: ALOE.
34. Where a zipper may get caught?: RADAR TRAP. Clever clue!
38. Exhaust-ive check?: SMOG TEST. The SMOG coming out of your car's tailpipe during an emissions TEST?
39. Charge: FEE.
40. Whiskey choice: RYE.
43. MLB stat that's good when it's low: ERA.
45. "Glad to take questions": ASK AWAY. But please wait until after the review is finished ... 😀
47. To counterpart: FRO.
48. Target numbers: QUOTAS.
49. Bill: NOTE.
52. British automaker who partnered with Charles Rolls: ROYCE. How Rolls met Royce.
53. Olympic venue: ARENA.
54. Mirrored: APED.
55. Fancy-schmancy: LUXE.
57. Film spool: REEL.
58. Excited about: INTO.
59. Floors: AWES.
61. Frankenfood initials: GMO. Genetically Modified Organisms. The clue implies that foods containing GMOs are monsters. There is considerable controversy over GMOs, especially with regard to their release outside laboratory environments. The dispute involves consumers, producers, biotechnology companies, governmental regulators, non-governmental organizations, and scientists. Many of these concerns involve GM crops and whether food produced from them is safe and what impact growing them will have on the environment.
I'm not taking sides on this issue, but I'm reminded of this refrigerator magnetic that one of my granddaughters gave us ...
That's it for the clues, but you're not out of the woods yet ...
Bill
And as always, thanks to Teri for proof reading and for her constructive criticism.
waseeley
*I once subbed for ×—ֲתוּלָ×” for a Barbara Lin puzzle. She's a constructor to keep an eye on. There is a very brief bio on Barbara you can search for on the Inkubator site.
waseeley
*I once subbed for ×—ֲתוּלָ×” for a Barbara Lin puzzle. She's a constructor to keep an eye on. There is a very brief bio on Barbara you can search for on the Inkubator site.
