Saturday, December 25, 2021, David Karp

  Themeless Saturday by David Karp

Hi Gary,

Thanks for inviting me to your blog, and Merry Christmas to you and your readers! I'm very excited as this is my first LA Times crossword, as well as my first themeless crossword to be published.

I'm a relatively new crossword constructor from Victoria, BC, Canada. I started solving crosswords a few years ago on a daily basis and took up construction as a hobby during the pandemic. When I'm not making crosswords, I'm a policy advisor for the provincial government and a new dad to a two-and-a-half-month-old Mattias.

Oddly enough, the seed entry for this crossword was BLOCKCHAIN. If you don't recall seeing it, that's because I eventually had to rip it out of the grid. It was part of a top stack that also included PRIVATE JET and CARICATURE, which the editors nixed because one of the crosses would have been too obscure (RALE, an abnormal sound in the lungs). But hopefully solvers enjoyed GIFT BASKET as the 1-Across entry, which seems particularly fitting for Christmas.

One of my favorite entries is RELIEF AREA, as it merges me and my wife Laura's love of dogs and travel, and I always find the bright green strips of Astroturf in airports look charmingly out of place.

Cheers,

David

Across:

1. Surprise with cheese and wine, perhaps: GIFT BASKET - $62.88 seems reasonable to me

11. Craft fare: BREW - Lazlo's microBREWery in Lincoln

15. Traveler's question: ARE WE THERE.

16. Mother of Judah: LEAH.

17. Pieces for a wannabe conductor?: MODEL TRAIN.

18. Afterthought preceder: ALSO.

19. U.S.'s leading employer of mathematicians, it's said: NSA - For years secretive National Security Agency employees said NSA stood for No Such Agency 

20. How some agents travel: INCOGNITO - An option in Google Chrome

22. What looks can't do?: KILL - Okay, not literally, but...

25. Wind: SNAKE - Verbs

26. Arranges: SCHEDULES.

30. Took off: LEFT.

32. Give false hope: LEAD ON - Ponzi schemes are an example

33. __ wedge: golf club with maximum loft: LOB - Phil Mickelson uses his LOB wedge to get the ball up over a man right in front of him

35. Evil: DARK.

37. Sunday morning server: URN.

38. Blank spaces: LACUNAE - (luh kyoo nai). I'm not immune to learning

41. Underwater beginnings: ROE

Salmon ROE sushi

42. First-aid product prefix: MEDI.

44. Cone's counterpart: ROD - Here ya go

45. Long and hard, as a stare: STEELY - High praise in NASA

47. Trig calculation: SINE.

49. Metaphors for high esteem: PEDESTALS.

51. Home of the 75-feet-tall Golden Driller statue: TULSA.

53. Controversial late Russian painter Glazunov: ILYA - Here ya go

54. Tiger, perhaps: EXOTIC PET.

57. Only team with a gold at every Summer Olympics: Abbr.: GBR - The USA boycotted the 1980 Moscow Olympics and the Russians did the same for the 1984 LA games

60. Bush advisor: ROVE.

61. Weather record: ALL TIME LOW.

65. Lumberjack: AXER - Hmmm...

66. Cleaning product claim: LEMON FRESH.

67. Lawn care brand: TORO - Now available in electric

68. Corridor: PASSAGEWAY.

Down:

1. Leg, slangily: GAM.

2. Pressing need?: IRON

3. Mulder and Scully, briefly: FEDS.

4. Fine-tuned: TWEAKED - This write-up has been TWEAKED several times

5. "The Fresh Prince of __-Air": BEL.

6. NFL passing stat: ATTempts

7. Ear-piercing: SHRILL - Gilbert Gottfried leapt to my mind 

8. New Jersey public university with a campus in China: KEAN.

9. Swedish company that invented Bluetooth: ERICSSON - So that's the origin of the bluetooth symbol. It uses the runes for King Harald Bluetooth of the tenth century. It is speculated he had a very bad tooth.

10. Mortise mate: TENON.

11. Shut out: BLANKED - The Royals BLANKED the White Sox

12. Place for pets at an airport: RELIEF AREA - This one's at LAX

34. Swiss cultural city: BASEL - My cousin lives in Hieden, Switzerland which is 13. Right way?: EAST of BASEL

14. "Yay!": WHOO.

21. __ pal: GAL.

23. Role model: IDOL.

24. Like some probes: LUNAR - Russia's Luna 3 LUNAR probe took the first pictures of the backside of the Moon in 1959

26. Blighted area: SLUM.

27. Dwarf planet between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter: CERES - I'd weigh 6 pounds there

28. "Give me that!": HAND IT OVER.

29. Get past: ELUDE.

31. Online flame thrower?: TROLL - The bane of all websites

36. 2019 and 2020 Grammys host, or what she plays: KEYS - Alicia

39. Get time off?: COP A PLEA - Two weeks in a row

40. Maker marketplace: ETSY.

43. Not yet delivered: INUTERO - An INUTERO surgery for spinal bifida at the Cleveland Clinic

46. Knickknack stand: ETAGERE.

48. Director Roth: ELI - Here ya go

50. Signs of repetition: DITTOS.

52. Hawk tickets: SCALP - SCALPERS disappeared at this year's CWS because tickets went all digital

54. Q.E.D. part: ERAT.

55. Amorous letters: XOXO.

56. Trees with split-resistant wood: ELMS.

58. Squandered: BLEW - NFL record - In 2017, the Falcons were ahead 25 - 3 over the Patriots and BLEW that lead to lose 28 - 34.

59. Parks of Alabama: ROSA - A real hero!

62. Words with bit and way: IN A.

63. Plant activity: Abbr.: MFG.

64. Word that sounds like its last letter: WHY.

  

Notes from C.C.:

1) Congrats on your debut, David!

2) The neurosurgeon removed Boomer's dressing yesterday. He's also off the catheter. Not much going on today due to Christmas, hopefully he'll have PT tomorrow.

 

3) Happy Birthday to dear Yellowrocks, our tenacious and knowledgeable Kathy! 

 

Kathy (Yellowrocks), Dec 10, 2020

  

4) Happy 84th Birthday to Lorraine (Fermatprime)! She sends me email occasionally. She continues to enjoy various online games. 

Thanksgiving, 2015

 

Friday, December 24, 2021, Jeffrey Wechsler

Title: Merry Christmas from a Beautiful Mind

Moe is back from visiting his adorable grandbaby, yet here I am doing a back to back for Christmas. First, I want to wish you all the best of holidays this year, be it Christmas, Festivus, Kwanzaa or those holidays that have already passed. I also want to wish the world better health for the rest of this year and all of next. I especially want to bring a year of good tidings to all the Cornerites starting with C.C. and Boomer. I won't be back here to blog until January 14, 2022. I also want to wish myself less dyslexia and other typing issues. 

On with the show. As is often a hallmark of JW's puzzles this has much going on with some diabolic cluing and a visual theme wrapped inside a word theme. All of this in his not uncommon 16 x 15 grid to allow room for all that is going on. And surprise, it all relates to Christmas.  The first level is the yuletime classic:

3D. Start of a seasonal title: THE TWELVE. 6D. Title, part 2: DAYS OF. 9D. End of the title: CHRISTMAS.

39D. With the contents of this grid's circles, part of the refrain in 3-/6-/9-Down: PARTRIDGE.

                     THE TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS

I really love this innovative interpretation by PENTATONIX. We also have the first verse PARTRIDGE IN A PEAR TREE which becomes the visual theme of the Christmas Tree (O Tannenbaum) come to life by joining the circles with the central clues/fill like this:

That is brilliant work which he augments with some new and fun fill  BIG MOMENT,  INLAND SEA, I'VE SEEN IT, MADE A RULE and PAPERLESS none of which have ever been in the LAT and the only one to appear in the NYT was in 1971 INLAND SEA. I hope he tells us how long this construction took.

Across:

1. Tbsp., for example: AMT. Abbreviation begets abbreviation.

4. Touchy monarch?: MIDAS. Touchy feely, watch out for the Me Too movement, gold or no gold. 

9. "United States of Al" network: CBS. Unless you knew the show, it is all perps.

12. "Very droll": HA HA. Ho ho!

14. Representation: IMAGE. Or perhaps ICON?

15. Edible seed: CHIA. Chia seeds contain quercetin, an antioxidant that can reduce your risk of developing several health conditions, including heart disease. But, they may cause an increased risk of choking

16. Port near the Red Sea: ADEN.  It is a city of Yemen and its temporary capital. It is situated along the north coast of the Gulf of Aden and lies on a peninsula enclosing the eastern side of Al-Tawāhī Harbour. This area is beset by pirates.

17. To date: AS YET.

18. Wild party: ORGY. This was wilder than the rave I began with.

19. Near-EGOT winner Midler (she's missing the O): BETTE. The O is for Oscar but she is special.

21. Org. with admirals: USN. United States Navy.

22. Reviews briefly: SKIMS. Or a politician's retirement plan.

23. Gets gasps from: AWES. 

24. Bit of rebar: ROD. I thought of him as a douche bag not a rebar.

25. Philippine currency: PESO. The long term influence of the Spanish in the Philippines. Remember, one L two Ps.

26. Word often contracted: ARE.  We're challenged here. 

27. Text lead-in: PREFACE. A literal clue/fill.

30. "Oversharing!": TMI. Too Much Information.

32. Home of the Green Wave: TULANE. I began my days as a poster at the Corner because someone suggested all college sports team mascots were plural.

34. Shrewdness: ACUMEN. Business skills which is guess why it was used to name this COMPANY.

36. Inventing middle name: ALVA. I doubt his middle name invented anything. 

37. Short two-pointer: TIP IN. This was a stumbling block as I wanted LAY UP. The crossing letters just would not work.

41. "Critique of Judgment" author: KANT. This was his third "Critique" and in it he distinguishes the beautiful from the sublime. Paraphrasing, the appeal of beautiful objects is immediately apparent, while the sublime holds an air of mystery and ineffability. A  statue or a pretty flower is beautiful, the movement of storm clouds or a massive building is sublime: they are, in a sense, too great to get our heads around. 

42. Animals drawn in the Lascaux caves: DEER. This fits the fill but I believe they were ancestors. 

43. Opposite of après: AVANT. Simple after and before en francais.

44. Madrid pronoun: ESTO. On to some masculine Spanish.

45. Like email notifications: PAPERLESS. I get some free stuff for going paperless.

48. 33-Down members: Abbr.: SRS. 33S. Organization for 48-Across: AARP. I was disappointed during my time as a member.

51. Update follower, perhaps: RESTART. Yes, the plight of modern technology; they keep updating which makes your restart your computer which requires that you forget what you know how to do. This blog is a perfect example.

52. "'And when I __ my lips let no dog bark!'": "The Merchant of Venice": OPE. It is a trademark of Jeffrey's to include some Shakespeare but now it seems all the Friday constructors do it. And joy, it intersects with 52D. Puck handler?: OBERON. Ooo ooo a second Shakespeare but hidden so well; not from hockey but from Will's  A Midsummer's Night Dream!

55. Old TWA competitor: PAN AM. Who cares?

57. Coastal raptor: ERN. Birds and dinosaurs.

58. Shady place: ARBOR. You can ask Ann.

60. Signs: OMENS. Do you take them seriously?

61. __ al-Fitr: end-of-Ramadan feast: EID. Eid is an Arabic word meaning "festivity", while Fiṭr means "to break fast"; and so the holiday symbolizes the breaking of the fasting period, after the end of the Islamic month of Ramadan, on the first day of Shawwal.

62. Greek letter: THETA. Why not?

63. Apple product: i-PAD. Of course you can also use it to add to your resume.

64. "Therefore ... ": AND SO.

66. Natural resources: ORES. When is an ore a rock? The BBC says an ore is a rock that contains enough of a metal or a metal compound to make extracting the metal worthwhile: low-grade ores contain a small percentage of the metal or its compound. high-grade ores contain a larger percentage.

67. "Star Wars" role: LUKE. If you do not know Skywalker you probably do not know...

68. Star in Orion: RIGEL. This is a big boy Star

69. "That's that!": DONE. Not quite.

70. 1974 CIA spoof: S*P*Y*S. This was a failed attempt to capitalize on the popularity of Gould and Sutherland in M*A*S*H.

71. Word with home or bed: STEAD. Homestead I know not beadstead:the framework of a bed on which the mattress is placed.

72. Tiny crawlers: ANTS.

Down:

1. Obsessed mariner: AHAB. Poor guy, they never leave him alone.

2. Added to the official playbook: MADE A RULE. This was vey hard to parse but the perps were fair.

4. Fla. NBA team, on scoreboards: MIAmi. A gimme for which...

5. "Not a doubt in my mind": I'M SURE.

7. Chair's prep job: AGENDA. The Chairman of the Board has his/her/their staff prepare it, let's be honest.

8. Wimbledon division: SET. Tennis anyone? I do worry about Peng Shuai.

10. Drumroll follower: BIG MOMENT. 

11. Comments: SAYS. Says you...

13. Part of a pot: ANTE. Followed by ...

15. Smelting fuel: COKE. Hmm.

20. "Around the Horn" airer: ESPN. 

22. It's risky to work on it: SPECulation.

26. Slightly: A TAD. A day late for the Abe Lincoln References.

28. Fix a messy package, say: RETAPE. An appropriate clue/fill for gluey time.

29. Certain rider's pace: CANTER.  I hope you are into this video...
31. Grooving on: INTO.

35. Short strings?: UKES.  

           

38. Comment about a familiar film: I'VE SEEN IT.  A rather killjoy comment. I liked Lovejoy better.

40. Salton, for one: INLAND SEA. There are a number of landlocked seas...how many can you name?

46. __ control: ARMS. Was it only me who went here?

47. RBI, e.g.: STAT.

48. Booty: SPOILS. So then a booty call would be the reward...

49. Increase: RAMP UP. See above, he may need a ramp one day.

50. Not at all up-front: SNEAKY. This is from 1550s (implied in sneakish), perhaps from some dialectal survival of Middle English sniken "to creep, crawl" (c. 1200), related to Old English snican "to sneak along, creep, crawl," from Proto-Germanic. Of feelings, suspicions, etc., from 1748. Transitive sense, "to partake of surreptitiously" is from 1883.

53. Strong: POTENT. With so many older solvers this might be considered cruel and unusal fill.

54. Gets rid of: ERASES. Those wrinkles around your eyes and crepe legs...

56. Long range: ANDES. A long mountain range.

59. Mary's upstairs neighbor: RHODA. Being a specialist in all things trivial, this was easy as I knew Mary Richards and Rhoda Morgenstern when they were young. I do find it odd since Mary lived on the top floor where Rhoda actually lived.

64. MGM motto word: ARS. Art for art's sake.

65. Stale: OLD. I hope this week's review was not too stale, but I did leave it out on the counter last night and forgot. Presumably this wonderful crowd will get us back to where we need to be. Have a spectacular Christmas and a better New Year.  Lemonade out for 2021.

 

Notes from C.C.:

 

Boomer was out of the recovery room yesterday. Now he's back to his old room. I'll update you when I have more info. Thanks for the thoughts and prayers!

Thursday, December 23, 2021, Paul Coulter

Today's constructor is Paul Coulter, who by my reckoning has published 82 puzzles in the LA Times in the last 6 years, starting in February 6, 2015.  The works out to almost 1 a month!

Paul's reveal-less theme plays on HOMOGRAPHS, words that are spelled the same but have different meanings.  Here pairs of HOMOGRAPHS in each clue are punned against one another:

17A Blades for trimming blades: LAWNMOWER.  A machine for trimming blades of grass:

 28A Development that ended much development: DIGITAL CAMERA.  The invention of the DIGITAL CAMERA brought a steep decline in the use of photographic film and dark rooms.  The Eastman Kodak company didn't see this coming.

46A Club used at a club: PITCHING WEDGE.  In golf a pitching wedge is  one of a subset of the iron family of clubs designed for special use situations. 

64A. Wheels for carrying wheels: LIMOUSINE.  Let's pick up the pace a bit.  The "wheels" IN this LIMO don't get much bigger (lyrics):

Here are the rest of the clues.

Across:

1. Some game pieces: PEGS.  Pegs are used in the game of CRIBBAGE.  Here's how to play it.

Cribbage Board

5. Long-range nuke: ICBM. Intercontinental Ballistic Missile.  Russia, the United States, China, North Korea and India are the only countries currently known to possess land-based ICBMs; Israel has also tested ICBMs but is not open about actual deployment. - Wikipedia.

9. Like horses: MANED.  On horses, the mane is the hair that grows from the top of the neck, reaching from the poll to the withers, and includes the forelock or foretop. It is thicker and coarser than the rest of the horse's coat, and naturally grows to roughly cover the neck.

14. Palm whose oil is used in cosmetics: ACAI.  Same crosswordese, different clue.

15. David Copperfield wife: DORA.  David Copperfield, is a novel in the bildungsroman genre by Charles Dickens, narrated by the eponymous David Copperfield, detailing his adventures in his journey from infancy to maturity. It was first published as a serial in 1849 and 1850, and as a book in 1850.  Here he is with his wife Dora (née Spenlow)
 

David and Dora

16. Barely, with "by": A NOSE.

19. Futile: NO USE.  Or a NOSE with a U in the middle.

20. Channel that shows college games: ESPNU.

21. Banquet offering: TV DINNER. A bit of a stretch, but sadly it may be true these days.

23. Any ship: SHE.

24. Shine, in adspeak: GLO. Remember "Mop and GLO"?

 

 

27. Evasive: EELY.  A slippery creature.

34. Disinfectant brand since 1889: LYSOL.  This stuff flew off the shelves at the beginning of the pandemic, but it now seems to be available again in our neck of the woods.
 

35. Nipper: PUP.

36. Collapsed: SANK.

 39A. Bell invention with a bell: PHONE.  Even though it's short fill I thought about adding this to the list of themers, but all the others pair nouns, whereas Bell as used here is an adjective.   Alexander Graham Bell was a Scottish inventor, living in Ontario (Hi CanadianEh!) at the time of the telephone's invention.  The first words ever uttered over the telephone were"Mr. Watson [Bell's assistant], come here! I want you!", a call for help after the inventor spilled battery acid on his pants.  The telephone network, layered on top of the network of existing telegraph wires, eventually morphed into what is now the Internet.  BTW, Bell did invent other things besides the telephone.

Alexander Graham Bell

42. Farm mom: MARE.  See 9A.

43. "Bravo!": OLE.

44. Unaccustomed to: NEW AT.

52. Centuries-old discipline: YOGA. A CSO to Lucina, and a hand up please from any others here who practice it.  Yoga has had a major impact on the world over the millennia, particularly in the East.  It first came to the United States in 1893 through Swami Vivekananda.  I highly recommend the book Autobiography of a Yogi, a personal and intimate account of the interior life of yogi Paramahansa Yogananda, first published in 1946.

53. Pod opening: TRI.

54. Japanese computer giant: NEC. NEC Corporation is a Japanese multinational information technology and electronics corporation, headquartered in Minato, Tokyo.

57. Call dibs on, with "to": LAY CLAIM.

61. 1736 writer of a seminal paper on graph theory: EULER.  Leonhard Euler (15 April 1707 – 18 September 1783) was a Swiss mathematician, physicist, astronomer, geographer, logician and engineer who founded the studies of graph theory and topology and made pioneering and influential discoveries in many other branches of mathematics.

Leonhard Euler

63. From an earlier time: OF OLD.

67. Setting for a Tony-winning Miller play: SALEM.   Arthur Miller's play was The Crucible, a fictionalized account of the Salem witch trials of 1692–93 set in Salem, Massachusetts Bay Colony.  The play was a veiled criticism of the McCarthy hearings investigating Communist influence in the U.S., conducted from the late 1940s through the 1950s.  During the hearings Miller was questioned by the House of Representatives' Committee on Un-American Activities in 1956 and convicted of contempt of Congress for refusing to identify others present at meetings he had attended.  The conviction was later overturned by the Supreme Court.

Arthur Miller

68. Persia, now: IRAN.  In the Western world, Persia was historically the common name for Iran. In 1935, Reza Shah asked foreign delegates to use the Persian term Iran (meaning the land of Aryans in Persian), the endonym of the country, in formal correspondence.

69. "Check this out!": PSST.  IMHO the clue's a bit of a  stretch.

70. Seriously weaken: ERODE.   Loss of stability due to erosion.

71. Bind, in a way: TAPE.

72. Eye ailment: STYE.  Possibly leading to a CHELAZION.  My oldest sister used to get these a lot, but outgrew them.

Down:

1. Loses color: PALES.  What causes sudden PALE skin?  That last link is enough to make me afraid to get out of bed in the morning.

2. PayPal payment, e.g.: ECASH.  Very convenient, but it does have its problems. If you're considering  signing up for this service, here is everything you need to know and more.  Well, maybe not everything.
 

3. Rubbernecked: GAWPED.  GAWPED vs GAWKED?  What's the difference?  The former's Brit and the latter's Yank.  Caveat: the Gawker site mentioned in the preceding article no longer exists. It was effectively driven out of business by billionaire Peter Thiel, the founder of Paypal, to get even for the site's outing of his sexual preferences.  Could that be why Paul put these two clues together?

4. __ Féin: SINN.  Sinn Féin (shin FAYN Irish; English: "[We] Ourselves") is an Irish republican and democratic socialist political party active in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.

5. "What will __ now?": I DO.   If you happen to be standing on an ALTAR at the moment, you'd better say I DO, or you might find yourself in the middle of a really big ADO.

6. Intimidate: COW.

Merriam-Webster

E.g., having a COW MOO in your ear could be pretty intimidating.

7. Two-time Cy Young Award winner Saberhagen: BRET.  Inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2005.
 

Bret Saberhagen

8. Show amazement (at): MARVEL.  Richard Feynman on marveling at a flower.

9. Western Pacific island capital: MANILA.  Manila, capital and chief city of the Philippines. The city is the center of the country’s economic, political, social, and cultural activity. It is located on the island of Luzon and spreads along the eastern shore of Manila Bay at the mouth of the Pasig River.

Manila, Philippines

10. Alias: ANONYM.

11. Proper __: NOUN.
 

from Merriam-Webster

12. Latin infinitive: ESSE.  Second time this week.  My older grandchildren tell me there's even more than that ...

13. Big game: DEER.

18. Wet weather word: MUGGY.

22. Holiday mo.: DEC.  Timely fill.

25. Speak like Sylvester: LISP.  A speech impediment common among AI programmers, and also in a certain cartoon cat:

26. Texter's "Then again ... ": OTOH.

29. Breed: ILK.

30. One way to sing: ALONG.

31. Acid Rain Program org.: EPA.

32. Capek classic: RUR.  Czech writer Karel Čapek's science-fiction play "R.U.R." ("Rossum's Universal Robots"), which turned 101 this year, and shows just what a seer the author was:

33. Parrot: APE.  Which is smarter, the PARROT or the APE?

36. Bribe: SOP.

37. "Aladdin" prince: ALI.  From the 1992 film Aladdin" - "A Whole New World" (lyrics)

38. After expenses: NET.

40. Colorful salamander: NEWT.  Common denizens of Cwds in both their immature (EFT) and adult (NEWT) forms.  Not only colorful, but varied:
 

41. Big-mouthed one that can hold its wine?: EWER.   Here's an oldie, but goodie.  I wouldn't call it "big-mouthed", but it does look like it could hold a lot of wine:

Greek Style Italian Ewer
Ca. 400 BC

42. Sess.: MTG.

45. Bye word: ADIEU.

47. Recurred at regular intervals: CYCLED.  It's about time!

48. Loving request: HOLD ME.  A CSO to all the DWs and DHs on the Corner.

49. "Hometown Proud" supermarket: IGA.  The Independent Grocers Alliance, founded in 1926,  is an American chain of grocery stores that operates in more than 30 countries. Many of these stores operate in small-town markets and belong to families that manage them.

50. Ace a test: NAIL IT.

51. Join: ENLIST.

55. Tiny: EENSY.

56. Minotaur's home: CRETE.  The Minotaur lived in the center of a labyrinth  in Crete where he lived on the flesh of Athenian youngsters. They were sent to the island yearly as a sacrifice by the city of Athens,  to atone for the death of King Minos' son Androgeus, whom the Athenians had once killed out of jealousy for beating them at the Panathenaic Games.

The Minotaur

57. Get rid of: LOSE.

58. Hardly around the corner: AFAR.

59. Risk-taker's acronym: YOLO.  "You Only Live Once", unless perhaps you're a Hindu.  See 52A.

60. Actress Sorvino: MIRA.  Mira Katherine Sorvino; born September 28, 1967) is an American actress. She won the Academy Award and Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in the film Mighty Aphrodite (1995).

Mira Sorvino

62. FedEx rival: USPS.

65. Plan (out): MAP.

66. "A Chorus Line" number: ONE. A Chorus Line is a 1975 musical with music by Marvin Hamlisch, book by James Kirkwood Jr. and Nicholas Dante, and lyrics by Edward Kleban:

 

 

 Here's the grid: 

waseeley

And thanks as always to Teri for proofreading and constructive criticism.

 

Cheers,

Bill

Note from C.C.:

1) Boomer had surgery yesterday afternoon to remove the tumor in that T7 area. I have not talked to him post-op. Will keep you updated. (Updated at 6:00am: Boomer is still in the recovery room. But he sounded cheerful.)

2) Happy 77th birthday to dear Misty, who's been with our blog for over 8 years. I think Misty found us by googling some crossword answers for her husband Rowland, who was an avid solver. Here is a picture of them celebrating their 15th wedding anniversary in 2009.