Thursday, October 19, 2023 David Distenfeld & Seth Weitberg

Working Title

Today's constructors are David Distenfeld and Seth Weitberg.  David's December 10, 2020 puzzle is the first one I ever reviewed for C.C. See if you Dr. Who fans can spot the mistake I made on the very first page.  And here's a capsule bio from Husker's review of David's first LAT themeless.  And today Seth Weitberg is making his LAT debut. 

Today David and Seth give us 4 theme clues about the different kinds of WORK that aspiring sports pros have to take on to support themselves while they're waiting for their big break, while still aggressively staying at the top of their game. Sometimes in order to make it they have to team up with a buddy, and sometimes, as we see in this Siskel and Ebert review of a film about a basketball star who partners with a martial arts expert things don't WORK out too well (Tomato Meter 11%) ...

Here Roger's review in writing.  Not to keep you in suspense any longer here's the reveal. I think this week's theme is a slam dunk (I hope! 😀)  ...

62A. Guard aggressively, and an apt description of 18-, 24-, 38-, and 50-Across: DOUBLE TEAM.  Double teaming is most often used against high scoring players, but it can have its disadvantages.  For all of you basketball noobs (e.g. MOI) here is an explanation of double teaming.

And of course it's an APT description of the themers, because the fill for each clue consists of DOUBLE TEAM names ...

18A. Works as a decoy vendor?: HAWKS DUCKS. 

The Atlanta HAWKS are an NBA basketball team.

The Anaheim DUCKS are an NHL hockey team.
 

Anaheim Ducks

Note here that the teams are not necessarily in the same sport, and thus you won't find an Atlanta Hawk double-teaming an Anaheim Duck.

24A. Works as a political consultant?: BILLS SENATORS.

The Buffalo BILLS are an NFL football team.

Buffalo Bills

The Ottawa SENATORS are an NHL Hockey Team (CSO to CanadianEh!).
 

Ottawa Senators

Give 'em an ESPY for the coolest logo!

38A. Works as a weatherperson?: BRAVES HURRICANES. 

The Atlanta BRAVES are a MLB NL baseball team.

Atlanta is up by one on the rest of the pack at this point.

We have two choices here ...

The Carolina HURRICANES are an NHL hockey team.

Carolina Hurricanes

and the Miami HURRICANES are an NCAA football team.
 

University of Miami

And a CSO to our Southeast contingent.

50A. Works as a fast-food cook?: BROWNS NUGGETS.

The Cleveland BROWNS are an NFL football team.
 

Cleveland Browns

The Denver NUGGETS are an NBA basketball team.

Denver Nuggets

This was a deceptively simple theme, but I'm sure it wasn't so easy to pull off.

Here's the grid ...

Here's the rest.

Across:

1. Improvise: AD LIB.

6. Woodstock supergroup, briefly: CSNY.  Crosby, Stills & Nash (CSN) was a folk rock supergroup made up of American singer-songwriters David Crosby, Stephen Stills, and English singer-songwriter Graham Nash. When joined by Canadian singer-songwriter Neil Young as a fourth member, they were called Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (CSNY). They are noted for their intricate vocal harmonies and lasting influence on American music and culture, as well as their political activism and often tumultuous interpersonal relationships.  Here's the title track for their album Déjà Vu.  You've probably heard it before ...

10. Where to find bands on bands: RADIO.  Here's the band for WBJC 91.5 FM.  They don't play much band music, but they did once play the overture to the soundtrack for The Last Emperor which was written by David Byrne of the new wave band The Talking Heads ...

15. Whooping __: CRANE.  For 50 years the USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Maryland ran a captive breeding program to help save Whooping CRANES from extinction.  We learned in school that they migrated every year to Texas.  We never saw them in Maryland, but were able to catch glimpses of them in a birding trip to the marshes of the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge in Texas near the San Antonio Bay.

Young Whooping Crane

16. Next in line: HEIR. 

17. Like most Ken dolls: BLOND.

18. [Theme clue]

20. Fielder's need: GLOVE. Teri and I are both left handers and my son is a right hander.  Only one of my grandchildren is left handed and she is into sports.  As a result of attending several Oriole games this past season she developed an interest in baseball.  She had a birthday recently, so we bought her this left-handed fielder's GLOVE ...

Left handed fielder's glove

21. Aliens, for short: ETS.

22. Layered dessert: TORTE.

23. Mineral deposits: ORES. Not all mineral deposits are ORES, but ORES contain mineral deposits.

24. [Theme clue]

28. Meat and potatoes, often: ENTREE.

31. __ canto: BEL.  Today's Italian lesson, BEL canto translates as "beautiful singing".   It designates an opera style characterized by a relatively small dynamic range, an exact control of the intensity of vocal tone, a demand for vocal agility, and clear articulation of notes and enunciation of words.   The three Bel canto composers par excellence are Gioacchino Rossini (1792-1868), Gaetano Donizetti (1797-1848) and Vincenzo Bellini (1801-1835).  Here's soprano Anna Netrebko showing us how it's done with Norina's aria Quel guardo il cavaliere ("That I look at the knight") from Donizetti's Don Pasquale ...

32. Sch. group: PTA.

33. Snoozer: BORE.  I hope Anna didn't BORE you with her vocal antics. 😀

34. "I feel you": SAME HERE.

38. [Theme clue]

43. Set of promotional materials: MEDIA KIT.

44. Dory pal: NEMO.  His name of course comes from the intrepid Captain NEMO, commander of the Nautilus submarine in Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, the basis for this thrilling 1954 movie ...

45. Fender accessory: AMP.

47. World's second-tallest bird: EMU.  The EMU belongs to a group of flightless running birds known as ratites, the most primitive of the modern bird families. The ratite family includes the kiwi, ostrich, cassowary, and rhea, all birds found only in the Southern Hemisphere. The emu is the second-largest living bird in the world (the ostrich is the largest).

Emu
    Dromaius, novaehollandiae

48. Souped-up ride: HOT ROD.  Hot Rod is also the name a 2007 American comedy film directed by Akiva Schaffer (in his directorial debut) and written by Pam Brady. The film stars Andy Samberg as amateur stuntman Rod Kimble, whose stepfather, Frank (Ian McShane), continuously mocks and disrespects him. When Frank becomes ill, Rod raises money for his heart operation by executing his largest stunt yet.  It scored only 39% on the Tomatometer, but I linked this because I'm a big fan of Ian McShane.

50. [Theme clue]

55. Capital once called Christiania: OSLO.  New to me.

56. Gas up?: BLOAT.

57. Sport with takedowns, for short: MMA.  Mixed Martial Arts.

60. Horned herbivore: RHINO.  Don't let one catch you eating any of their herbs!

Rhinoceros

62. [Theme reveal].

64. Toy truck brand: TONKA.  My youngest grandson is crazy about them. 
 

Tonka Mighty Dump Truck

65. Ski town outside Salt Lake City: ALTA.

66. Step in the shower?: RINSE.

67. Promise: SWEAR.

68. Cond. once called shell shock: PTSD.  Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.  Very clinical sounding.  "Shell shock" is a much more vivid term.  My father was shell shocked during WWII.  Afterwards he was electro-shocked by "therapists".  He never talked about the war.

69. Car rental choice: SEDAN.

Down:

1. Icy Hot target: ACHE.

2. "Darn!": DRAT.

3. Statutes: LAWS.

4. Tats: INK.

5. Principal pal: BESTIE.

6. Boor: CHURL. 

7. Religious divisions: SECTS.  Revisions to ISMS.

8. Kicks with swooshes: NIKES.

9. Mos. and mos.: YRS.

10. "Notorious" SCOTUS justice: RBG.  Ruth Bader Ginsburg was "notorious" for being a formidable opponent in the court room.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

11. Participate in a meting?: ALLOT.  You can ALLOT A LOT, but not an ALOT.

12. Garage convenience: DOOR OPENER.  Our "convenience" no longer opens and it's on my to do list to fix.  Fortunately it was stuck CLOSED, not OPEN!

13. Flip: INVERT.

14. "Friday Night Lights" city: ODESSA.  Friday Night Lights is a 2004 American sports drama film co-written and directed by Peter Berg. The film follows the coach and players of a high school football team in the Texas city of ODESSA. The book on which it is based, Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream (1990) by H. G. Bissinger, followed the story of the 1988 Permian High School Panthers football team as they made a run towards the state championship ...

19. Big name in bananas: DOLE. 

24. Musical equivalent of two whole notes: BREVE.  In music, a double whole note (American), BREVE, or double note lasts two times as long as a whole note (or semibreve). It is the second-longest note value still in use in modern music notation. The longest notated note is the longa, which could be double or triple the length of a breve, although its use is most commonly found in early music.

Alternative Breve notations

25. Film critic Roger: EBERT.  See theme introduction.

26. Classic grape soda: NEHI.

27. Oscar winner Guinness: ALEC.  Sir Alec didn't win it for this film.  At this point he was still waiting for a promotion ...

28. Abate: EBB.

29. 55-Across's country: Abbr.: NOR.  Its capital is 55A.

30. Helpful item when it's time to bounce?: TRAMPOLINE.

34. Sheep in the "Wallace and Gromit" franchise: SHAUN.  Wallace and Gromit is a British stop-motion animated comedy franchise created by Nick Park and produced by Aardman Animations.  It's an acquired taste.  Here they are ...
 

Wallace and Gromit

The spinoff  SHAUN the Sheep is about an ovine who doesn't follow the flock - in fact, he leads them into all sorts of scrapes and scraps, turning peace in the valley into mayhem in the meadow (not unlike Wallace). In this episode from Season 1 entitled Snore Worn Shaun he has to deal with Shirley's sleep APNEA (counting sheep doesn't seem to help) ...

35. Puffin kin: AUK.   An AUK or alcid is a bird of the family Alcidae in the order Charadriiformes. The alcid family includes the murres, guillemots, auklets, puffins, and murrelets. The family contains 25 extant or recently extinct species that are divided into 11 genera.

Auks

Apart from the extinct Great Auk, all auks can fly, and are excellent swimmers and divers (appearing to "fly" in water), but their walking appears clumsy.

The Great Auk
James Audubon

36. X-ray kin: MRI. Magnetic Resonance Interferometer and a CSO to our magnetic Ray - O.  When he gets here he can PUNish us with an outlandish explanation for this complicated device.

37. Goes on and on: RANTS.

39. Paradise: EDEN.

40. Virtual people in a video game: SIMS.

41. Dashboard Confessional genre: EMO.  Here's Meatloaf back by popular demand ...

42. Square in a yard: SOD.

45. Cancels, as a launch: ABORTS.

46. 1990s series starring David Cross and Bob Odenkirk: MR SHOW.  Mr. Show with Bob and David, also known as MR SHOW, is an American sketch comedy series starring and hosted by Bob Odenkirk and David Cross. It aired on HBO from November 3, 1995, to December 28, 1998.   These guys are very funny, but a little edgy.  This skit is called "Lie Detector"...

One thing I learned from this clue was how to beep out words that Margaret wouldn't approve of 😀

48. Make good as new: HEAL.

49. River rompers: OTTERS.

51. Wilder role: WONKA.  Pure Imagination ...
 

52. Curved fastener: U BOLT.  Not the sprinter, but one of these ...

U Bolt

53. Surpluses: GLUTS.

54. Develop mold, say: GO BAD.

57. Darn: MEND.

58. Tamale dough: MASA.  Here's how to make your own.

59. "You said it!": AMEN.  Today's Hebrew lesson "āmēn" (אָמֵן) = "truth, certainty".

61. Dory mover: OAR.  See also 44A.

62. Kwik Seal maker: DAP.

DAP Kwik Seal

63. Get even with?: TIE.  I think this should just about TIE up this review!

Cheers,
Bill

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

waseeley