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After being afforded a break last Thursday, thanks to the efforts of
Chairman Moe, it is now back to work for this malingering manatee.
It has already been more than a month since I started working on my first
blog post. That bit of perspective is far easier to face than the
fact that it is 2020 - and nearing the end of 2020 at that. Do you
remember that Tommy Chong line? "I'm not into time, man." That
seemed pretty funny fifty years ago. Far less amusing
now. Regardless, let's now share a bit of our precious time looking
at this week's Thursday puzzle.
THEME: MAKE MINE A DOUBLE (NOT A BAD IDEA AT THAT)
First off, a hearty Crossword Corner hello to John Michael Currie.
This is his Los Angeles Times debut puzzle.
Welcome, John!
The reveal comes at 64. ACROSS: Pass coverage tactic ... and a hint
to the answers to starred clues: DOUBLE TEAM.
In football (and basketball) jargon, DOUBLE TEAM means to block or guard
an opponent with two players at the same time. Our
constructor, John Michael Currie, has placed the names of two
sports teams next to each other so that the result is an adjective
modifying a noun. The results are, themselves, things with which
most people are, at least, somewhat familiar.
While most team names are pluralized, today the constructor has chosen to
go with answers in the singular.
* 17. ACROSS Striped marine predator: TIGER SHARK TIGER SHARKs are found in temperate and tropical waters. They can
grow to a length of between sixteen and seventeen feet
* 10. DOWN Navy Stunt Pilot: BLUE ANGEL Originally
formed in 1946, The BLUE ANGELS are the U.S. Navy's precision flying
team. They are thrilling to to watch perform. They should
be. The annual operating budget for the team is approximately $40
million and each plane, as specially equipped for their use, runs between
$50 and $60 million.
* 24. DOWN Boeing 737, for one: TWIN JET. The most current version of the Boeing 737 airplane, the
737 MAX, has certainly had safety issues. More than 10,500 Boeing 737's (all versions) have been built.
* 35. DOWN Pollux, for one: GIANT STAR. Castor and Pollux were twin half-brothers in Greek and Roman
mythology. Their names were assigned to two stars in what we call
the constellation Gemini (the twins) . It turns out, however, that Castor is actually
comprised of three binary stars. Perhaps the stars should be renamed
for the McCaugheye septuplets.
Across:
1. Whale newborn: CALF. When they were little kids, my
children enjoyed listening to "Baby Beluga".
5. Mallorcan seaport: PALMA. PALMA is the capital and
largest city of the autonomous community of The Balearic Islands in
Spain. It is situated on the south coast of Mallorca on the Bay of
Palma.
Palma De Mallorca
10. "Jazz Samba" guitarist Charlie: BYRD. Jazz Samba is the name of a record album released in 1962. Stan Getz and
Charlie BYRD were the featured musicians. Here is the track titled
"Samba Dees Days" :
14. Stench: ODOR. Alternative clue: An aroma often
emanating from crossword puzzles.
15. Neptune's realm: OCEAN. Originally, Neptune was the
god of fresh water but by 399 BCE he became identified with the Greek god
Poseidon and thus became the deity of the OCEAN. The female
counterpart is Salacia. Salacia is unrelated to the word "salacious"
but is part of the derivation of "salient".
NEPTUNE
16. Show the way: LEAD.
19. Tucson school, for short: UOFA. U OF A - The University of Arizona.
20. Adjoining, in hotel lingo: ENSUITE. A master bedroom
bedroom with a private bathroom = EN SUITE.
21. Portal: GATEWAY. A rabbit hole was Alice's GATEWAY to Wonderland.
23. Words after boy or so: DOI. "Boy DO I." "So DO
I."
24. "Rooted in real" chip brand: TERRA. Not a computer
chip but a snack chip. TERRA boasts that their chips are made "from
real root" vegetables.
25. Landlocked Afr. land: ETH. ETH is the International
Olympic Committee's abbreviation for Ethiopia. Somalia and Eritrea
block ETHiopia's access to the sea.
28. Put in the cargo hold: STOW.
STOW IT !
30. Epic featuring the Trojan Horse: AENEID. The AENEID
is an epic poem written by Virgil sometime between 29 BCE and 19
BCE. It tells the story of Aeneas who traveled to Italy and
became the ancestor of the Romans. The word is constructor's friend
with four vowels out of six letters.
34. Bit of sediment: DREG. DREGS is a nickname for what
are called "lees" during wine making and "sediment" when in the
bottle. DREGs are composed of dead yeast cells and bits of seeds,
grape skins and other solids. Sometimes, winemakers choose to extend
the time that wine stays in contact with the lees to impart added
flavor.
36. Hits the slopes: SKIS.
38. Wide open: AGAPE.
39. Like some bonds: IONIC. A chemistry
reference. "The name is Bond, IONIC Bond. Taken not
shared." We saw James Bond's iconic line "Shaken, not stirred" in
a recent puzzle.
41. Platform-promoting org.: RNC. This one was a head
scratcher for a moment until it dawned on me that RNC stood for the
Republican National Committee.
42. Grand __ National Park: TETON. Grand TETONs is a
clue/answer not to be taken too literally in a family-friendly
puzzle. Check this out with any French/English translation
app. "Hey, Jacques, take a look at those GRAND TETONs!"
"Pierre, you have been in zees mountains for far too long, n'est-ce
pas?"
43. Bat mitzvah scroll: TORAH. The TORAH is a hand
written copy of the first five books of the Old Testament of the
Bible. It is written with a quill on parchment made from the skin
of a Kosher animal. At a Bat Mitzvah ceremony, a girl of at least
twelve years and one day (regarded as the age of religious maturity)
reads from the Torah in front of the assembled congregation.
When is a door not a
door?
When it's ajar.
46. Chaps: LADS. A LAD is a boy or a young
man. The Four LADS, on the other hand, is a Canadian singing
quartet. In the 50's, 60's and 70's they recorded several hit
songs. The members of the group are no longer LADS.....
Istanbul Is Not Constantinople
47. Kind of column or cord: SPINAL. (....and neither are these folks).
This Is Spinal Tap - Oy!
49. Flightless Aussies: EMUS.
EMUS
51. Mao __-tung: TSE. Mao TSE-tung, often called
Chairman Mao, was the founding father of The People's Republic of
China. He led the Chinese Communist Part from 1949 until his death
in 1976.
MM Daughter Doing Her Best Chairman Mao
52. Avocado __: TOAST. I had never heard of Avocado
TOAST until a few years ago and now it seems to be quite the ....
54. Fleeting trend: FAD. Memorable FADs have included Davy Crockett hats, Pet Rocks, Streaking, Chia Pets, Live Strong Braclets, Pogs, Lava Lamps and the list goes on
and on and on and on. The etymology of the word FAD might be
from the English "fiddle-faddle" - morphing into Fidfad and then,
simply, FAD. Alternatively, it came from the French "fadaise"
meaning trifle or nonsense. Fadaise, in turn, comes from the Latin
"fatuus" meaning stupid. Hmmm.
56. Modern Library title, e.g.: CLASSIC. Founded in
1917, The Modern Library is a publisher of books many of which are
considered to be CLASSICs.
59. Players with possession: OFFENSE. In football,
soccer, and basketball the OFFENSE has possession of the ball.
Baseball is the only sport where the Defense has possession of the ball.
66. Song often sung in Italian: ARIA. Alternative
clue: Song often sung in crossword puzzles.
68. Send forth: EMIT. Volcanoes, for example, EMIT Carbon Dioxide and Sulfur Dioxide along with ash, smoke and water vapor.
69. King with three daughters: LEAR. Shakespeare's
tragedy, King LEAR tells the tale of a king who
bequeaths his power and land to two of his three daughters. Things
do not end well.
71. Towel holders: RODS.
Down
1. République de __ d'Ivoire: COTE. French is the official language of the country that we, in
English, call the Ivory Coast Republic. En francais, c'est
le Republique de COTE d' Ivoire.
2. Deuce follower: ADIN. Is it going to be a
card game reference? A trey? No, this time it's a tennis
term for Advantage In. AD IN means that if the person serving wins
the next point then the server will win the game.
3. Enters in a record book: LOGS.
4. Anna who was an early pioneer of psychoanalytic child
psychology: FREUD. Anna FREUD was the sixth, and
youngest, child of the better known Sigmund Freud.
5. Colorful reminders: POSTITS. Post It Notes. POST
ITS were invented accidentally by a scientist working at 3M
Company (Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing). He was trying to
develop a very strong adhesive but instead invented a "low tack,
pressure sensitive, reusable" adhesive. The rest is, as they say,
history - including the competing claims and law suits.
6. Feel yesterday's workout, say: ACHE.
7. Grassy ground: LEA. Alternative clue: Fields
often seen in crossword puzzles. This is getting redundant.
Marge Simpson
9. Turkish metropolis: ANKARA. ANKARA, the capital city of Turkey, is also (at the risk of being redundant) neither Istanbul nor Constantinople nor Byzantium.
11. "That smarts!": YEOW. Synonyms for YEOW
include "Ouch", "That smarts", and "Hell's bells!"
YEOW !
12. Tennis nickname: RAFA. RAFAel Nadal is a Spanish professional tennis player. He wore a $725,000 Richard Mille watch during the French Open. Tennis has been very, very good to him.
13. WWII turning point: DDAY. June 6, 1944.
D-DAY is, repetitiously, Day-Day. The day before was Day Minus One
(D-1) . The day after was called D Plus One (D +1), and the day
after that was D+2. D-Day was the Day.
18. Kia subcompacts: RIOS. Kia is a Korean automotive
company. Their model line up includes the Sedona, the Telluride,
the Sportage, the Optima and the RIO. The RIO is a sub-compact
model.
A Kia Rio
22. Pup's reward: TREAT.
The Eyes Have It
25. Prepares to publish: EDITS.
26. Scout group: TROOP. The ultimate classic song
about a Boy Scout TROOP has got to be Tom Lehrer's "Be Prepared".
Remember, as you listen, that this was 1953!
BE PREPARED !
27. Artist Matisse: HENRI. HENRI Matisse, the painter,
provides a wonderful excuse to add a bit of culture to this endeavor.
The Cat With Red Fish - Henri Matisse - 1914
29. Fried side: OKRA. A nice rhyming clue. OKRA is a staple
of Southern cooking that is often seen in crossword puzzles.
31. Bother greatly: EATAT. The overuse of EAT AT in
crossword puzzles is beginning to eat at me.
32. Devices with earbuds: IPODS. IPODS have been
almost completely replaced by the music playing capabilities of those
electronic devices that we, somewhat quaintly, persist in referring to
as phones.
33. Thick: DENSE. The element Osmium is twice as DENSE as lead. Under
"normal" conditions it packs 22 grams into each cubic centimeter.
A teaspoon of it would weight roughly 3.5 ounces.
37. Con: SCAM. In the immortal words of Carmine Sabatini, "This is an ugly word, this, scam."
Carmine Sabatini On the Equities Markets
40. Disorderly state: CHAOS.
45. Ridged chips: RUFFLES. In this case, RUFFLES is a
reference to the brand of potato chips and their advertising slogan.
48. Under the weather: LAIDUP. Both the answer, LAID
UP, and the clue, Under the Weather, are colloquialisms for being ill or
injured.
50. Call at home: SAFE. A baseball reference with a bit
of misdirection. The constructor might have wanted us to think about calling, or calling
on, someone at home. Below, the runner never touches the plate but is called SAFE because the
catcher is blocking the plate but he does not have the baseball. See
Rule 7.13.
The Umpire Signals Safe At Home
53. Quick bread that may have raisins: SCONE. We've
all eaten them but what, exactly, makes a SCONE a SCONE? It's an
"unsweetened or lightly sweetened biscuit-like cake made from flour, fat
and milk sometimes having added fruit."
55. Try to stop: DETER.
Did you
hear the joke about the guy who hated coal?
Never mined.
57. It may be at the end of the line: LURE. The
expression "end of the line" refers to a conclusion or a final
outcome. But here, that path is a dead end. This time it
turns out to be a fishing reference. Cleverly clued.
58. The Bosporus borders it: ASIA. One of the
least-cliched clues for ASIA that we have seen in a while. The
Bosporus is a narrow, internationally important strait.
59. Parting words?: OBIT. No, the answer is not Good
Bye, Au Revoir or Zai Jian. It is OBIT, short for OBITuary.
60. Missing fish in a Pixar film: NEMO. The motion
picture Finding Nemo grossed about One Billion USD at
the box office. The sequel, Finding Dory, grossed
another billion. This marine creature shelled out no clams to see either of them.
Dory and Nemo
61. Voiced: SAID
62. Ambulance pros: EMTS. Emergency Medical Technicians. For the final time, alternative clue: Personnel often
found in crossword puzzles.
65. Sporty truck, briefly: UTE. On the first pass, we
often do not know if the answer is going to turn out to be UTE (a
nickname for Utility Vehicle) or SUV (an abbreviation for Sports
Utility Vehicle). Of course, the classic use of
the word was in the motion picture My Cousin Vinny.
TWO UTES
That wraps up another Thursday exposition. Lots of animal
friends stopped by to visit this week. Well, I guess that is to be expected. Two other good friends
showed up, also. I would bet that many of you were you able to
identify them.
___________________________________________
___________________________________________
MM OUT
