google.com, pub-2774194725043577, DIRECT, f08c47fec0942fa0 L.A.Times Crossword Corner

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Dec 4, 2015

Friday, December 4, 2015, Craig Stowe


Theme: How do I get paid here? Wait in the FEE LINE in the corner.

It appears I get another debut puzzle, and a very ambitious one at that. In each of the four corners we have intersecting names of famous fictional felines. They are all part of the family FELIDAEWe get the reveal in middle, which oddly has nothing to do with CATSTo add to the challenge, we have triple stacks of nine in the NW and SE and triple sixes in SW and NE. To get all that into a single grid, there are some compromises and 8 cheater squares, but I still found it one of the hardest of the year. I have not seen that many puzzles where the themers are all proper names.  A CSO to the Corner, so let us  get to it.

1A. "The Jungle Book" villain : SHERE KHAN (9) the bad guy is paired with 1D. Half of a cartoon duo : STIMPY (6) the silly one.

10A. Character in the comic "Mutts" : MOOCH  (5) who I do not know is paired with 14D. Friend of Calvin : HOBBES (6) a wonderful stuffed animal.

63A. C.S. Lewis hero : ASLAN (5) from the other side of the wardrobe is paired with 41D. Scar's brother from Lion King : MUFASA (6).

64A. "Looney Tunes" lisper : SYLVESTER (9) also silly is paired with 47D. Pooh pal : TIGGER (6) another stuffed tiger.

The reveal: 35A. Diagonally ... or what each of four pairs of puzzle answers form? : KITTY CORNER (11).



   Image result for stimpy   Image result for mooch cartoon catImage result for hobbes the cat 
Image result for mufasaImage result for sylvester the catImage result for tigger


Okey dokey, lets see how he befuddled me...

15. Stubborn : TENACIOUS. A musical name? LINK. (4:53).

16. Howe'er : ALTHO. Both silly abbreviations.

17. Mutton dish : IRISH STEW. This RECIPE?

18. Title from the Arabic for "master" : SAHIB.

19. Litter call : MEW.

20. Orchestra sect. : STRings.

21. Electric guitar effect : REVERB.
22. Christmas __ : PIE. Is this really a thing? Isn't it just mince pie?

23. Mate's affirmative : AYE. Ship mate.

24. 2013 Spike Jonze film : HER. Really weird movie.
25. Arctic coast explorer : RAE. Here we go into the Friday ABYSS.  An unsung HERO?

26. "Revolutionary Road" author Richard : YATES. Have you read the BOOK?

28. "... high hope for __ heaven": Shak. : A LOWLove's Labour Lost, Act I, Scene 1

30. Mil. awards : DSCSDISTINGUISHED SERVICE CROSS.

31. Part of many a date : MOVIE.

33. Cheapen : ABASE.

38. To date : AS YET.

39. Virtuous : MORAL. If you are too moral you may not...

41. Cry of discomfort : MOAN. which looks a lot like...

44. Romantic evening highlight, perhaps : MOON. After which you many moan.

46. Shore up, as an embankment : REVET. last and only time in the LAT June 2010. I did not recall.

48. Mil. branch : USN.

49. Present : NOW.

50. Munch on : EAT.

52. Former Abbey Road Studios owner : EMIElectric and Musical Industries Ltd.

53. Gradual revelation : FADE IN. In movies?

55. Center : HUB.

56. Record : LOG. Captain's Log....

57. Ice cream thickeners : AGARS. Yes, seaweed is the SECRET.

58. Peggy Lee specialty : TORCH SONG.A torch song is a sentimental love song, typically one in which the singer laments an unrequited or lost love, either where one party is oblivious to the existence of the other, where one party has moved on, or where a romantic affair has affected the relationship. Wiki.
61. Alabama River city : SELMA.

62. Chestnut : PLATITUDE.

Down:

2. "Yoo-hoo!" : HERE I AM.

3. 1944 Pacific battle site : ENIWETOK. The BATTLE  came not long after the battle for Kwajalein, a Marshall Island where an old girlfriend lived on when she was young.

4. Univ. peer leaders : RAS.  This bunch. LINK.

5. Command level: Abbr. : ECH. This is common fill in the NYT but meaningless to me.

6. __-face : KISSY.

7. Winter warmer : HOT TEA.

8. Violinist who taught Heifetz : AUER.

9. State north of Victoria: Abbr. : NSWNew South Wales. CSO to Kazie.

10. Electromagnetic wave generator : MASER. I remember when they won the Nobel  Prize for this DEVICE.

11. Norse royal name : OLAV.

12. Leftovers : OTHERS. I get it but I do not like it.

13. President before Sarkozy : CHIRAC. He recently turned 83. LINK.

21. Nuke : REWARM.

23. "A chain ... strong __ weakest link" : AS ITS.

24. Rail rider : HOBO.

27. French spa : EVIAN. A watered down clue?

29. Kind of vegetarian : LACTO. They eat milk products like cheese.

30. Caterpillar rival : DEERE.

32. Linguistic root : ETYMON. The root of etymology but not a word I know.

34. Derisive sound : SNORT. My memory of this is tied to Sandra Bullock in Miss Congeniality, which is also the real Sandra. Wait until the end.
36. "Yikes!" : YEOW.

37. Disentangle : RAVEL OUT. Not unravel, but...

40. Paper with a Société section : LE MONDE. The 'world' in French and an"A" away.

42. Oklahoma natives : OSAGES.

43. Along with the rest : AND ALL.

45. __ network : NEURAL.

49. Seder month : NISAN. Hebrew Calendar.

51. "Modern Family" network : ABC TV. I have been doing lots of networking.

54. Aunt with a "Cope Book" : ERMA. The puzzle friendly Ms Bombeck.

55. Blessed : HOLY.

58. Pulls a Charmin shenanigan, briefly : TPS. Do people still toilet paper houses?

59. Skedaddle : HIE.

60. Some routes: Abbr. : STS.

I will say goodbye with an image of domestic cats and hope none of you are allergic to dander. Lemonade out.

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Dec 3, 2015

Thursday, December 3rd, 2015 Don Gagliardo and C.C. Burnikel

Theme: Hopping Around - the three circled theme words jump across, down and across.

We get the hint from the final across entry:

71A. Word that can precede the word in each set of puzzle circles : JUMPING. BEAN, JACK and FROG in order of appearance.

and cross-referentially:

1A. Game piece associated with 71-Across : CHECKER. This also subtly refers to the theme. If you look at the circled entries, each successive "move" jumps a black square.

Thursday again already! Steve here with Don and C.C's latest - if you didn't have the circles in your particular publication I doubt you'd have seen the theme at all, the circled letters were very dispersed and wouldn't have appeared in any discernible pattern in a blank grid.

I'm sensing Don's handiwork here coming up with the theme idea, then the details fleshed out by the Dynamic Duo.

Not a lot of constraints with the theme letters, so plenty of room for some interesting fill around them, especially nice are the four triple-stacked sevens in each corner. Good stuff.

Let's take a closer look.

Across:

8. "C'mon, Let's Play" store : TOYS "R" US. I tried to come up with a backwards "R" but could only find this upside-down version: ʁ

15. Estate planner's suggestion : ROTH IRA

16. Chess grandmaster Karpov : ANATOLY.  Анато́лий Евге́ньевич Ка́рпов was World Chess Champion for 10 years from 1975 to 1985, ultimately dethroned by Garry Kasparov.

17. Cancún's peninsula : YUCATAN. Home of the Chicxulub impact crater left by the meteorite that apparently did it for the dinosaurs.

18. Copied : XEROXED.

19. "Nurse Jackie" network, briefly : SHO. Showtime.

20. Attempt : STAB

22. Org. concerned with the AQI : EPA. The Environmental Protection Agency publishes the Air Quality Index.

23. VW hatchback : GTI. More accurately, a variant of the Golf.

24. Way out : EXIT

26. Selective socializer, perhaps : SNOB

29. Geologic periods : EONS

31. Soulful Franklin : ARETHA

33. Catch : NAB

34. Swallow up : ENGULF

36. Asks for more : REORDERS

38. Fish used as bait in bass fishing : EELS. Time for the EEL/EELS plural debate. Who wants to go first?

40. Dagger of yore : SNEE

41. Apple music player : IPOD NANO. Introduced by Steve Jobs as "a thousand songs in your pocket". Quite a few more than a thousand in the latest version.

45. Chess ploy : GAMBIT

49. __ Mahal : TAJ

50. Much of Oceania : ATOLLS

52. Cut with teeth : SAWN. Past tense.

53. Pass over : OMIT

55. Recital numbers : SOLI. Italian for solos, I presume.

56. Cool one : CAT

57. Tampa NFLer : BUC. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers. I'll whisper quietly so as not to upset anyone (Pssst! They're not very good!).

59. Polynesian beverage : KAVA

61. Spam holder : CAN

62. Like some skinny jeans : LOW-RISE

65. The United States, to Mexicans : EL NORTE

68. Carrier to Tehran : IRAN AIR

69. Critical : DO OR DIE. A couple of mistakes in the downs (COMP and ECG) had me looking at DOOMDIC and wondering what the heck that might be. Sanity prevailed.

70. Training units : LESSONS

Down:

1. Sound from a crib : CRY

2. Fourth-most populous U.S. city : HOUSTON. Not my first thought, but having flown into Houston a few times, in hindsight it doesn't surprise me.

3. Dürer work : ETCHING

4. Former Labor secretary Elaine : CHAO

5. Word with press or mess : KIT

6. Historic stretches : ERAS. Both eras and eons today.

7. Many a talk show caller : RANTER

8. Wage earners' concerns : TAX BITES. Never heard this term before, but it's obvious enough now I look at it - the bites taken out of your income or profits by taxes. Neat.

9. Person : ONE

10. Easily maneuvered, at sea : YARE. 'Tis an adjective, egads. It crops up in Shakespeare, and probably somewhat infrequently since.

"I do desire to learn, sir; and, I hope, if you have occasion to use me for your own turn, you shall find me yare." - Measure for Measure

As an example of "don't believe everything you read on the Internet", dictionary.com cites a "yare" usage which is completely wrong - whoever chose the reference totally failed to understand that there is a River Yare in Norfolk:

"So we turned back into the yare, and sailed up to the mouth of the new cut at Reedham."

They even downshifted the "Y" to try to make it work. OK, rant over, let's move on.

11. Bus schedule listings : STOPS

12. 1987 film loosely based on "Cyrano de Bergerac" : ROXANNE

13. Suffix with glob : ULE

14. Australian airport, in itineraries : SYD. G'day Bruce!

21. "Timber!" yeller : AXER. Sorry, guys - this word is going on my personal "ouch" list.

23. Awe-full expression? : GEE

25. Revealing beachwear : THONGS. I saw plenty of these when I was in Rio, and that was just on the guys. I'll spare you the visuals.

27. Wake maker : OAR. I'd say it's the boat that makes the wake, not the oar, but I guess indirectly it's true.

28. Small shot : BBS.

30. Sought damages : SUED

31. Repeated notes in Chopin's "Raindrop" prelude : A FLATS. Here's the piece - there seem to be a lot of notes in here which aren't A Flats too.

32. Square measure : AREA

35. Dunham who created and stars in the HBO series "Girls" : LENA. Thank you, crosses.

37. Reps. counterparts : DEMS

39. Hoodwinks : SNOOKERS. I use the word in the "stymies" or "impedes" sense rather than "trickery" that is implied by the clue. You snooker your opponent in the billiards-style game by putting the cue ball in a position that leaves your opponent with no clear shot at his next ball.

41. Jurist Lance : ITO. Not a member of a jury, but a judge or lawyer. Judge Ito is best-known for presiding over the O.J.Simpson trial.

42. Spray on a pan : PAM

43. Lake Huron natives : OJIBWAS. Cheers, crosses! They speak Ojibwe, of course.

44. Earthenware pot : OLLA. Food! finally! Here's some traditional frijoles de la olla:


46. Martini & Rossi parent company : BACARDI

47. "Include me" : I WANT IN

48. Demolition stuff : TNT

51. Dance music provider : LIVE DJ. Probably "Lil" somebody.

54. Chances to play : TURNS

58. Trendy hi : CIAO

60. Six-time All-Star Moises : ALOU

61. Firm: Abbr. : CORP.

62. Rap name adjective : LIL. Lil Wayne, Lil' Kim, Lil Fizz, Lil Scrappy and doubtless many others.

63. Mine output : ORE

64. Committed thing : SIN

66. __ de plume : NOM

67. Neurologist's tool, briefly : EEG. Not ECG which was my first knee-jerk reaction. "Encepha" not "Cardio". Blindingly obvious, really.

That's about it from me. I'm heading home from topping up my accent in the old country, and I think I ate enough Indian food to feed a regiment. Here's the view out of the window - that's Iceland down there, looking chilly (not chili!)


And ... here's the grid.

Steve