Thursday, July 18, 2024 Susan Gelfand

 

Unaccustomed as I am
to Public Speaking?

Today's constructor is Susan Gelfand who is making her 34th appearance on the Corner.  She presents us with 5 punny theme clues all beginning with the word "Presentation", and fills them with in the language phrases that are trying to demonstrate something or convince us of something ...

17A. Presentation on an organic flytrap?: WEB ADDRESS.  This one brings to mind the valiant attempts of a spider to save a pig ...

24A. Presentation on how to generate chemistry when matchmaking?:SPARK PLUG.  The perfect match for generating internal combustion in your engine ...

37A. Presentation on hot dogs?: FRANK DISCUSSION.  Frankly these famous hotdogs are the greatest (but the winners of their contest are CRAZY!) ...

50A. Presentation on recycling?: TRASH TALK.  Sorry but all the clips I viewed on TRASH TALKING were rated R, so here's a PSA on recycling courtesy of the city of Chandler, Arizona and a CSO to Lucina and Chairman Moe ...

61A. Presentation on the Indiana WNBA team?:FEVER PITCH.  The clue is about the Indiana women's basketball team, but the fill is really about EXTREME FANDOM.  Here's a trailer for the film Fever Pitch, based on a book by British author Nick Hornby, starring Colin Firth and Ruth Gemmell (rated PG) ...

 
Here's the grid ...

Here's the rest ...

Across:

1. Bread component, casually: CARB.

5. __ toast: MELBA.  Named for Australian diva Dame Nellie Melba GBE (née Helen Porter Mitchell; 19 May 1861 – 23 February 1931).   Here is a 1904 recording of Caro nome ("Dearest name") from Verdi's Rigoletto

Translation

10. Research sites: LABS.  DIGS fit, but didn't perp.

14. Ingredient in some superfood smoothies: ALOE.

15. Classic cookies: OREOS. 5 letter plural cookie - Ektorp.

16. Assessment, briefly: EVAL.

17. [Theme clue]

19. Sam Cooke's "__ Little Love": TRY A.

20. Book that details the origin of Passover: EXODUS.  In EXODUS chapter 12 the Lord describes in detail the Passover -- the flight from Egypt by the Jewish nation and the meal that the Jews consumed before departing.  In verse 14 He says "This day will be a day of remembrance for you, which your future generations will celebrate with pilgrimage to the LORD; you will celebrate it as a statute forever."  And in fact devout Jews do observe the Passover to this day; and this celebration is also the basis for Christianity's various communion services, e.g. the Catholic Mass.

21. Time with a therapist: SESSION.  A CSO to constructor and therapist Trent H. Evans who has had 6 puzzles published in the LA Times.

23. Went out with: DATED.

24. [Theme clue]

26. Postpone: DEFER.

28. Hermana del padre: TIA.  Today's Spanish lesson: AUNT.

29. Part of a one-two punch: JAB.  The JAB is the first punch, but there are apparently several types of TWO punches, as shown in this How-to ...

32. Had a bite: ATE.

33. MSNBC host Jen: PSAKI.  Jennifer Rene Psaki (born December 1, 1978) is an American television political analyst and former government official. A political advisor who served under both the Obama and Biden administrations.  She served the Biden administration as the 34th White House press secretary until May 2022.

Jen Psaki

37. [Theme clue]

42. Divided Asian peninsula: KOREA.

43. Seemingly forever: EON.

44. Lots of noise: DIN.

45. Ozs. and lbs.: WTS.

47. Sacks: LOOTS.  The city of Rome had the distinction of being sacked twice, in 410 AD and again in 1527 AD.  However the last two times we visited the Eternal City it seemed to have recoverecd. 😀

50. [Theme clue]

54. Slip past: ELUDE.

58. "Faster!": HURRY UP.

59. Brunch order: OMELET.  How to make a mushroom OMELET ...

60. Potatoes, in South Asian cuisine: ALOO.  Here's a video showing how to make perfect Aloo parathas (flatbread stuffed with spiced potatoes) ...

61. [Theme clue]

64. Pixar protagonist who has one small fin and one large fin: NEMO.  Here's NEMO in case anybody is still looking for him -- although I'm not sure the clue description exactly fits - by my count he has 7 fins ...

65. Liechtenstein currency: FRANC.  The Swiss franc (plural: francs; in German: Frank, plural: Franken) has been the currency of Liechtenstein since 1920. The Swiss franc is legal tender since Liechtenstein is in a customs and monetary union with Switzerland.

66. Like Southern California skies during June Gloom: GRAY.  Understanding localisms for  Summer in SOCAL.  A CSO to MalMan, NaomiZ, Picard, and Wendybird -- how's the weather out there?

67. Wax-wrapped cheese: EDAM. Edam is a semi-hard cheese that originated in the Netherlands, and is named after the town of Edam in the province of North Holland. Edam is traditionally sold in flat-ended spheres with a pale yellow interior and a coat, or rind, of red paraffin wax.

Edam Cheese

68. Gets together?: SYNCS.

69. Corridor: HALL.  *See the Epilogue for the Concert HALL we visited on our vacation.

Down:

1. Cried like a crow: CAWED.

2. "Five Feet of Fury" pro wrestler Bliss: ALEXA.  In 2013, Alexa Bliss (née Kaufman; born August 9, 1991) signed a contract with WWE and was assigned to their developmental brand Big Show. She made her main roster debut on the Big Show brand in 2016, later becoming a two-time Big Show Women's Champion and the first woman to hold the title twice.

Alexa Bliss
In her Glitter Fairy persona

3. Unpaid worker: ROBOT.  And they're worth every penny of it. 😀

4. Like some intricate wedding gowns: BEADED. This one can by yours for only $2,350...

Beaded wedding dress

5. Some admins: MODS.  MODeratorS?  Close enough I think ...

6. Make a boo-boo: ERR.

7. "Da 5 Bloods" director: LEE.  Da 5 Bloods is a 2020 American war drama film directed, produced, and co-written by Spike Lee.  The film's plot follows a group of four aging Vietnam War veterans who return to the country in search of the remains of their fallen squad leader, as well as the treasure they buried while serving there.

8. __ nova: BOSSA.   Here are Astrud Gilberto, João Gilberto, Stan Getz and "The Girl from Ipanema" performing a famous bossa nova ...

9. Stand up for (oneself): ASSERT.

10. "I vote we say no": LETS PASS. [Okay]

11. "Love Sux" singer Lavigne: AVRIL.  Think of The Nanny's Fran Drescher as a blonde pop singer on steroids ... 😀

12. Spoonbill habitat: BAYOU.  A CSO to Bayou Tony?  Spoonbills are a genus of large, long-legged wading birds. The spoonbills have a global distribution, being found on every continent except Antarctica. The genus name Platalea derives from Ancient Greek and means "broad", referring to the distinctive shape of the bill.

Roseate Spoonbill

13. Colloquialism: SLANG.

18. "My man!": DUDE. An example of 13D.

22. Happy hops: SKIPS.

24. Alien-seeking org.: SETI. Having despaired of finding any terrestrial intelligence, the SETI  Institute ("Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence") has trained its eyes on the skies.  The institute was founded in 1984 with astrophysicist Dr. Frank Drake ( (May 28, 1930 – September 2, 2022) as its president. Dr. Drake is probably most famous for this eponymous equation, which estimates that 12,500 intelligent civilizations may currently exist in our galaxy.  But to paraphrase physicist Enrico Fermi "Where are they?" -- the following article on the "Fermi Paradox" asserts that we are alone in the universe.

25. Market ahead of time: PRESELL.  Merriam-Webster.

27. Fleeting trend: FAD.

29. LGA alternative: JFK.  Not the Ladies Golf Association, but the LaGuardia Airport, New York City's other air field.

30. Not prone to infatuation, for short: ARO.  AROmantic.

31. Keep out: BAR.

34. Lend a hand: AID.

35. Splash of color in a water garden: KOI.  Below is a picture of the Koi pond in the H.P. Rawlings Conservatory & Botanic Gardens in Baltimore.  They have a coin-operated dispenser for food to feed to the fish.  This was a favorite place we used to take our youngest granddaughter ...

Koi Pond

36. Lodge: INN. 

38. Place where things are always breaking?: NEWSROOM.  Some of the news we're getting these days is definitely worth breaking.

39. Forensic anthropologist/writer Reichs who inspired the TV series "Bones": KATHY.  Dr. Kathleen Joan Reichs (PhD) (née Toelle, born July 7, 1948) is an American crime writer, forensic anthropologist and academic. She is an adjunct professor of anthropology at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

Kathy Reichs

Here's a teaser from the pilot episode of Bones ...

40. Diner staffer: COOK.

41. Game with a spinoff called Dos: UNO.  Spanish lesson two: ONE.

46. Packs: STUFFS.

48. Seasonal worker: TEMP.

49. Santa's transport: SLEIGH.

50. Old Scottish title: THANE.  At beginning of Shakespeare's Macbeth there are a total of eight THANES, each a governor of a particular region of Scotland. The Thanes are all noblemen beneath an elected kingship (King Duncan).  But then the plot thickens.

51. Was extremely sweet?: RULED.  Let's see what the pigeons think ...

Gen-Z slang perhaps?
or a dulcet dominatrix? 😀

52. Bakery emanation: AROMA.

53. Copycat's activity: APERY. A nounification of APE.  Some ways to stop this crosswordese menace.

55. Extremely: ULTRA.

56. Window sticker: DECAL.  Short for decalcomania, a decorative technique by which engravings and prints are transferred to pottery or other materials.

57. __ alcohol: hand sanitizer ingredient: ETHYL. AKA Ethanol.

59. Tolkien brutes: ORCS.  The gray meanies ...

ORC

62. Many a shuttle: VAN.

63. Env. insert: ENC.

Cheers,
Bill

And as always, thanks to Teri for proof reading and for her constructive criticism.
And special thanks to Naomi for filling in for me on the 11th.

waseeley

Epilogue: What We Did on Our Summer Vacation

We began our vacation by visiting our family at Catholic Family Land, a retreat center about 20 miles West of Steubenville, Ohio.  Here we are, lined up for the annual picture, from left to right: the 4 youngest grandchildren, Teri and I, the 4 oldest grandchildren, our daughter-in-law, and our son.

The next stop was Cleveland, Ohio, about 3 hours NW of Steubenville.  Why Cleveland?  Well we'd been there before for our niece's graduation from Case-Western's Nursing School in 2017 and had a really great time.  Also it is the home of the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra, which came to prominence under renowned conductor George Szell from 1946 - 1970 and is ranked as one of the top 3 orchestras in the US.  On the first visit we saw the most incredible performance of Leoš Janáček's fairy tail opera, The Cunning Little Vixen, augmented with superb digital animation.  But alas Severance Hall is dark during the Summer so we had to look around for other musical diversions ...

The first was the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which is basically a 6 story visual and auditory history of Rock and its origins, starting with the legendary guitarist Robert Johnson who invented the blues, and continuing through hundreds of different musicians, up to the present time.   It winds up in a small theatre with an immersive 20 minute video of past musicians celebrating their investitures into the Hall, playing Rock the way it is meant to be played -- LOUD.  Here is Teri out front, recovering from the experience! ...

Teri

Speaking of immersive experiences, we had another one at the Cleveland Museum of Art called Into the Seven Jeweled Mountain inspired by a 19th-century Korean folding screen.  The experience uses digital imagery overlaid on a room-size image of the screen to create the illusion that you are ascending the legendary mountain, which has 7 jewels buried somewhere on its slopes.  The Seven Jeweled Mountain actually exists in Northern Korea, but of course the guardians of that realm are keeping it to themselves.  There is much to see in the Cleveland Museum of Art and it is considered by some to be the second greatest museum in the US after the Metropolitan in New York.   It is probably worth a visit to Cleveland for that purpose alone.

But we were still in search of music, and we'd done some homework.  The Cleveland Symphony has a Summer series called The Blossom Festival where it hosts a series of concerts, both pop and classical.  Our researches had found that one of the classical concerts happened to be on July 6th and it featured a musician named Béla Fleck, who had transcribed the piano part to George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue to banjo.  If you've not heard of this musician you can just think of him as the Jascha Heifetz of the banjo ...

Béla Fleck

Conductor Brett Mitchell opened his introduction to the Rhapsody with the words "I knew this was going to work out when I did the NY Times crossword puzzle yesterday and it had the entry: 'Banjo player Béla: FLECK'"! Somehow we'd managed to get front row seats and the whole concert was amazing!  Here's a review.  Here's Fleck's original recording conducted by Eric Jacobsen with the Virginia Symphony Orchestra (may not work if your browser has ad blockers enabled - if so it is worth buying on Amazon). 

And finally it seems that Béla has some fans on the Corner -- see if you recognize this one from 50 years ago ...

We would definitely recommend a visit to Cleveland anytime, but it's good to be back home!

Bill and Teri.