Monday April 15, 2024 Micah Sommersmith

 Happy Monday, everyone! sumdaze here to review Micah Sommersmith's fourth LAT puzzle.

Title:  

We'll begin with the three themed clues:

17 Across. Backyard vegetable patch, e.g.: GARDEN PLOT.  

I know you did not need an illustration for GARDEN PLOT
but tidy veggie patches are my happy places.

26 Across. Configuration before customization: DEFAULT SETTING.  If you restore your electronic device to its DEFAULT SETTINGs, it will reset to the point where it was when it was first taken out of the box.

47 Across. Element of early internet art: ASCII CHARACTER.  American Standard Code for Information Interchange is a common character encoding format for text data in computers on the internet.  ASCII (pronounced "a-skee", where the "a" is like the "a" in "has") is a 7-bit character set containing 128 characters, including the numbers from 0-9, the upper and lower case English letters from A to Z, symbols, and punctuation marks.  

Remember ASCII Art (left)? We've come a long way!

Next, let's read the reveal:

63 Across. Brainstorming breakthroughs, and the ends of 17-, 26-, and 47-Across?: NOVEL IDEAS.

The ends of the themed clues are PLOT, SETTING, and CHARACTER. These are the three main elements of a story. An author combines these IDEAS to write a NOVEL.  

As a former library teacher I recognized today's theme early on. These are the ABC's for writing. I like how Micah found meanings for PLOT, SETTING, and CHARACTER that were completely different from their literature meanings. He deserves a gold star! ⭐

Across:

1. Activist Brockovich played by Julia Roberts: ERIN.  We begin with the first of eight names in today's grid. All, except for one (see below), are clued at a Monday level. Most solvers know them well -- even if they never saw the referenced shows.

This thriller/documentary was release in 2000.

5. Without a cent: BROKE.  

10. Youngsters: KIDS.

14. High-fat, low-carb diet, casually: KETO.

15. Merits: EARNS.

16. Falco of "Nurse Jackie": EDIE.  

Nurse Jackie aired on Showtime from 2009-2015.

19. "__ Enchanted": Anne Hathaway film: ELLA.  

Anne was in her early twenties when she made Ella.
Memory trick:  Switch ends on the A and E.

20. Surveil secretly: SPY ON.  

21. Socialized at leisure: SAT A SPELL.  

Forrest's leisurely chat ended when he learned 

he did not have to take the bus to go visit Jenny.

23. Stretch the truth: FIB.  

(I am going with the NOVEL theme here.)

25. Prefix with pod: TRI-.  Has anyone owned a tri-pod dog? I always smile when I see one. They have the best attitudes! Here is a 60-sec. dogumentary.

34. Tiny criticism: NIT.  Is someone who is a wit at pointing out NITs a nitwit?  😜

35. 24-Down soother: CREAM.     and     24-Down. Unwanted beach souvenir: BURN.  

Ouch!!

36. Hearing-related: AURAL.

37. Tennis great Arthur posthumously awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom: ASHE.

39. Titled: NAMED.  She titled her book ___. / She NAMED her book ___.

41. Mani-__: PEDI.  

42. Hops along happily: SKIPS.  

This clue make me think of the track event hop, skip and jump. The inaugural modern Olympic Games in 1896 had a track event which consisted of two hops and a jump. By 1908 the format was standardized to a hop, a skip, and a jump. Today the event is usually referred to as the triple jump.  

44. Shadowboxes: SPARS.  Were you thinking of the verb or the noun?

Shadowbox the verb is to SPAR with an imaginary opponent as a form of training.

Shadowbox the noun is similar to a frame used for art but it is extra thick so as to display memorabilia, jewelry, coins, or other small objects.  

46. Pen tip: NIB.  I only know this from doing crosswords.

50. Lifesaving skill, for short: CPR.  If you've ever taken a CardioPulmonary Resuscitation class then you know you can sing this (appropriately titled) song in your head to get the timing right.  

Bee Gee's Stayin' Alive  (1977)

51. Gaming console with a gesture-based controller: WII.  

52. Leafy bowlful with hard-boiled eggs: CHEF SALAD.  

Where are the leaves?

58. Bub: FELLA.

62. Civil rights icon Parks: ROSA.

65. Opposed to: ANTI.

66. Bring to mind: EVOKE.  One of the fun things about a good XWD puzzle is it can EVOKE a fond memory.

67. Pull sharply: YANK.  

YANKee Babe Ruth seldom pulled his swings.
(Yeah, I know this one is a stretch but you got it, right?)

68. Breakfast for dinner, say: MEAL.  Here is the ultimate Venn Diagram for breakfast, lunch, snack, and dinner.  

This looks a bit like an 8-Down.  😃

69. Used needle and thread: SEWED.

70. Concludes: ENDS.  Bonus points to Micah for the position of ENDS in his grid!!

Down:

1. Cardiac readouts, briefly: EKGS.  An electrocardiogram (ECG or EKG) is a test to record the electrical signals in the heart. It shows how the heart is beating.

2. Gather crops: REAP.  Jack Johnson offers some social commentary on television in his song Good People  (2005).

We got heaps and heaps of what we sow.

3. Coy response to a compliment: I TRY.  My high school Government class teacher's first name was Coy...but coy he was not.

4. Drift into dreamland: NOD OFF.  

5. Actor/director Stiller: BEN.  Ben was born November 30, 1956 in New York. He is known for starring in movies such as There's Something About Mary (1998), Meet the Parents (2000, 2004, and 2010), and Zoolander (2001).

Here is Ben with his famous parents.
Not only did he follow his mother, Ann Meara, into show business,
he also followed her into in XWD puzzles.

6. Many Megan Thee Stallion songs: RAPS.

7. "Derry Girls" girl played by Louisa Harland: ORLA.  This is "the one" I alluded to in 1-Across.

The TV show Derry Girls is a coming-of-age story set in 1990s Northern Ireland. It aired from 2018 to 2022.

8. Celtic artwork feature: KNOT.  

I did not realize there were so many.

9. North Carolina's Biltmore __: ESTATE.  10 Facts about Biltmore

10. "Don't stop now!": KEEP IT UP.

11. Unoccupied: IDLE.  To be IDLE is to be not occupied or employed; inactive.

12. Pickle herb: DILL.  I love fresh DILL in my summer sandwiches.

13. Official emblem: SEAL.

18. Giant computer of the 1940s: ENIAC.  Computer History Museum

22. Miss, in Mex.: SRTA.  "Mexico" is abbreviated, so it "SeñoRiTA".

26. Once-common storage media: DISKS. 

DISK with a K is the preferred spelling in American English. It is also the spelling used for computer-related objects (like this clue).

DISc with a C is the preferred spelling in British English. It is also the spelling for devices carrying sound.

I see my confusion now. I used to load music discs into my computer.

27. Moral principle: ETHIC.

28. Dog walker's line: LEASH.  Here's another line, "Your dog is cute. Can I have his number?"

29. __ Bay Buccaneers: TAMPA.  football

30. Lipstick mishap: SMEAR. 

31. "Fame" star Cara: IRENE.  (1959 - 2022)  her IMDb page

32. Lowest point: NADIR.  

33. Silver-tongued: GLIB.

34. Astronauts' gp.: NASA.  DH's boss is a former astronaut. He flew on four Space Shuttle missions. Wow!

38. Dumpster fire-level blunder: EPIC FAIL.  Dumpster fire is slang used to describe a catastrophically bad situation.

This was my favorite clue/fill today! I like how the slang in the clue matched the slang in the answer. 

40. __ a blank: DRAW.  I could not remember this one.

43. Tentative tastes: SIPS.

45. Space series genre: SCI-FI.  We could have an interesting discussion here on The Corner as to your favorite television space series. I will start off by nominating Babylon 5  (1993-1998)...but I could also go with Firefly.  

48. Building site sights: CRANES.

49. Camp project with rubber bands: TIE DYE.

52. Make up for procrastination, perhaps: CRAM.  Think "prepare for a big test".

53. Sharpen, as a blade: HONE.

54. " Cómo __ usted?": ESTÁ.  

Spanish 101

55. Adoration: LOVE.  like Pepe La Pew's feelings for Penelope Pussycat  

56. Declare publicly: AVOW.

57. Hockey feint: DEKE.  another one I learned from solving XWDs

59. Incline: LEAN.  We can think of this as a physical slope. We can also think of it figuratively. If one is inclined  to do something, he is leaning towards that action. Similar to 44-Across, it is noun and verb situation.

60. Terra firma: LAND.  Terra firma was first used in English print in 1638 to mean "solid land". Here are other words that entered English print in 1638.

61. Requests: ASKS.  Let's squeeze in one more musical number. This is All I Ask Of You from The Phantom of The Opera.  

64. Went first: LED.  Ironically, this clue for LED went last.

And the grid:

Well, we are now at the end of our book-themed puzzle. It was bound  to happen!