Theme: Cloth Ears. My mother used to tell me I had "cloth ears" if I misheard something. Here we have four potential "oh, I thought you said ...."
17A. Fabricated "Murphy Brown" star?: CANVAS BERGEN. Actress Candice.
23A. Fabricated "Help!" star?: JOHN LINEN. Beatle Lennon.
Here are the Fab Four, with Lennon in a linen suit, narrowly avoiding death by a Number 39 bus (en route from Willesden to Waterloo) on their return journey across the Abbey Road zebra crossing. Paul might already have been dead, if you believe the stories. If you squint your eyes and look to the right of the bus you can see the road that I used to live on. I used to walk across Abbey Road to get to the pub where I had an evening job pulling pints of Guinness and serving up shots of Bushmill's whiskey.
50A. Fabricated "Girls" star?: LENA DENIM. Actress Durham.
56A. Fabricated "La La Land" star?: RAYON GOSLING. Actor Ryan.
and the unifier across the middle:
33A. Clergy ... and four answers in this puzzle?: PEOPLE OF THE CLOTH
Another odd-shaped puzzle Thursday, perhaps Rich has a new trend going? That's three in a row this month. The unifier here is 16 letters, so if you want to keep that as a grid-spanner, then something has to give, and that something is the traditional 15-wide constraint.
This looks to be Lewis's LAT debut, he's been in the NYT before, once with this moniker and twice with a middle "E" initial.
Full disclosure, I'm not a fan of "sounds like" themes; the kinda-sorta-homophone thing is way too subjective for me. There's a world of difference between LINEN/LENNON (close) and DENIM/DURHAM (miles apart) but that's just me. I do like the "Fabricated ..." cluing though, that's very neat.
The fill is full (!) of nice stuff. Let's go look:
Across:
1. Sickly complexion: PALLOR
7. Eugene of "American Pie" movies: LEVY
11. Grand Canyon hrs.: MST. Mountain time. Funny that a canyon is on Mountain time, no?
14. Current unit: AMPERE. Amp for short and convenient.
15. Finnish telecom giant: NOKIA. Bumps in the road for these folk. Anyone have a Nokia phone?
16. Something to slip on?: ICE. The question mark is a little odd, it's not exactly misdirection. I get "slip on" in the "lingerie" sense, but I think it's a reach for a checho with 35D.
19. Omega-3 source: ROE
20. Ongoing: ACTIVE
21. It can get you down: SKI RUN
26. Scents: ODORS
27. Coalition creators: UNITERS. No, flat out no. Never been used in common parlance. Oh! You Uniters! You creators of coalitions! Nope.
28. Olympians using boards: DIVERS. Fun clue. Lugers, snowboarders, skeleton folks ... no, no and nope again. Oh! Summer Olympics!
30. Often-injured knee ligament, for short: MCL. I went with ACL first, didn't we all? Anterior, Median, and no doubt posterior ligaments. The ACL seems to get the worst of sports injuries. I love it when people say they ruptured their "crucial" ligament. Most of them are. The knee ligaments are "cruciate" ones. They cross over.
31. Illinois River city: PEORIA
41. Fragrant blooms: LILACS
42. MLB scoreboard letters: RHE, or more accurately, R H E. Not a word. Runs, Hits and Errors. Would you accept PINR in your crossword?
43. Metallic sounds: CLANKS.
45. Like some relations: SPATIAL
49. Language student's challenge: SLANG
52. Knocks their socks off: WOWS 'EM
54. Soccer star Messi: LIONEL Vote now: Messi, Maradona, Pele, Best, Ronaldo, Puskas, Buffon, Cryuff. GOAT. Write-in votes welcome.
55. Whichever: ANY
61. Urban center?: BEE. The letter "B". It's in the middle of "urban".
62. "Your game": I LOSE
63. Paradise: UTOPIA
64. Old union member: Abbr.: SSR. A soviet socialist republic, no longer a member of the "U" in USSR.
65. Sicilian volcano: ETNA
66. Studio dweller: TENANT. Can't I own a studio? Weird clue.
Down:
1. __-Man: PAC
2. Q&A session on Reddit: AMA. Ask Me Anything, apparently. Good to know.
3. Clinic worker: Abbr.: LPN. Licensed Practical Nurse. Where do the theoretical ones go to get certified?
4. Eastern Mediterranean region: LEVANT. With "The", usually. Egypt to Turkey and eastwards to a loosely-defined area of Saudi Arabia and Iraq. It's that "loosely" that usually starts arguments.
5. Expert in futures?: ORACLE. The Oracle at Delphi. The jury is out on the accuracy of Pythia. She might have been taking the ....
6. Mix again: RE-STIR. Take verb. Add "RE". Done and done.
7. Frequent Mastroianni co-star: LOREN. Sophia. Marcello co-starred in many of her movies.
8. Ticker tape, briefly?: EKG. Nice.
9. Goes (for): VIES
10. Grammy-winning satirical artist Al: YANKOVIC
11. Magnet for a narcissist: MIRROR
12. Searches high and low: SCOURS
13. Winter temp range: TEENS. Terrible clue. It depends where you are. You don't write directional clues relative to where you are, you don't write time-based clues depending on what year you are in, you certainly don't write this clue.
15. Campbell of "House of Cards": NEVE.
18. Storage spots: BINS
22. Noble objective: IDEAL
23. Checkers move: JUMP
24. Whenever: ONCE. "Whenever upon a time". "Whenever, I met the president". "It happened whenever that I ....". Really?
25. City whose state's postal code is half its name: HILO. Thumper.
28. "Shoulda thought of that!": DOH!
29. Slight reaction?: IRE
31. One-striper: Abbr.: PFC
32. "The X-Files" subjects: ETS
34. Thinks ahead: PLANS
35. Something to slip on: LINGERIE. See 16A grump.
36. Large deer: ELK
37. Allied gp. since 1948: OAS. Organisation of American States. Tip of my tongue.
38. "Are you out __?": OR IN. I'd say "IN" first before "OUT". There's a few fills here which stretch the "in the language" rule, this is one. You can't just swap stuff around. "Feast or famine" doesn't really work as "Famine or feast".
39. Drunken noodles cuisine: THAI
40. Nautical wheel: HELM
43. Duplicates: CLONES
44. Billy McBride on "Goliath," e.g.: LAWYER
45. Smooch in a lift: SNOG. Lift = elevator in the UK; Smooch = snog. Fair. When I was a yoot, smooching was slow-dancing, snogging frowned upon.
46. Prove successful: PAN OUT
47. Carol beginning: ADESTE. Fidelis. Oh come, all ye faithful.
48. Rat out: TELL ON
49. Clinic supply: SWABS
50. Writer Mario Vargas __: LLOSA
51. A, to Merkel: EINE. Angela Merkel. She might have said that "A" was her vorname initial.
53. __ liquor: MALT
57. "Round __ virgin ... ": YON. A Christmas mini-theme in August! How nice.
58. Pub initials: IPA. India Pale Ale. We've been over this before.
59. Diarist Anaïs: NIN
60. Noir pistol: GAT. Quite what makes it "noir" - I'm open to suggestions. Is it always black? Always used in French movies? Is there a super-villain named "Noir" who uses a "gat"? I need to know, if only for next time.
And that .... is that. Well, it would be if I posted the grid, so here it is::
Steve
17A. Fabricated "Murphy Brown" star?: CANVAS BERGEN. Actress Candice.
23A. Fabricated "Help!" star?: JOHN LINEN. Beatle Lennon.
Here are the Fab Four, with Lennon in a linen suit, narrowly avoiding death by a Number 39 bus (en route from Willesden to Waterloo) on their return journey across the Abbey Road zebra crossing. Paul might already have been dead, if you believe the stories. If you squint your eyes and look to the right of the bus you can see the road that I used to live on. I used to walk across Abbey Road to get to the pub where I had an evening job pulling pints of Guinness and serving up shots of Bushmill's whiskey.
50A. Fabricated "Girls" star?: LENA DENIM. Actress Durham.
56A. Fabricated "La La Land" star?: RAYON GOSLING. Actor Ryan.
and the unifier across the middle:
33A. Clergy ... and four answers in this puzzle?: PEOPLE OF THE CLOTH
Another odd-shaped puzzle Thursday, perhaps Rich has a new trend going? That's three in a row this month. The unifier here is 16 letters, so if you want to keep that as a grid-spanner, then something has to give, and that something is the traditional 15-wide constraint.
This looks to be Lewis's LAT debut, he's been in the NYT before, once with this moniker and twice with a middle "E" initial.
Full disclosure, I'm not a fan of "sounds like" themes; the kinda-sorta-homophone thing is way too subjective for me. There's a world of difference between LINEN/LENNON (close) and DENIM/DURHAM (miles apart) but that's just me. I do like the "Fabricated ..." cluing though, that's very neat.
The fill is full (!) of nice stuff. Let's go look:
Across:
1. Sickly complexion: PALLOR
7. Eugene of "American Pie" movies: LEVY
11. Grand Canyon hrs.: MST. Mountain time. Funny that a canyon is on Mountain time, no?
14. Current unit: AMPERE. Amp for short and convenient.
15. Finnish telecom giant: NOKIA. Bumps in the road for these folk. Anyone have a Nokia phone?
16. Something to slip on?: ICE. The question mark is a little odd, it's not exactly misdirection. I get "slip on" in the "lingerie" sense, but I think it's a reach for a checho with 35D.
19. Omega-3 source: ROE
20. Ongoing: ACTIVE
21. It can get you down: SKI RUN
26. Scents: ODORS
27. Coalition creators: UNITERS. No, flat out no. Never been used in common parlance. Oh! You Uniters! You creators of coalitions! Nope.
28. Olympians using boards: DIVERS. Fun clue. Lugers, snowboarders, skeleton folks ... no, no and nope again. Oh! Summer Olympics!
30. Often-injured knee ligament, for short: MCL. I went with ACL first, didn't we all? Anterior, Median, and no doubt posterior ligaments. The ACL seems to get the worst of sports injuries. I love it when people say they ruptured their "crucial" ligament. Most of them are. The knee ligaments are "cruciate" ones. They cross over.
31. Illinois River city: PEORIA
41. Fragrant blooms: LILACS
42. MLB scoreboard letters: RHE, or more accurately, R H E. Not a word. Runs, Hits and Errors. Would you accept PINR in your crossword?
43. Metallic sounds: CLANKS.
45. Like some relations: SPATIAL
49. Language student's challenge: SLANG
52. Knocks their socks off: WOWS 'EM
54. Soccer star Messi: LIONEL Vote now: Messi, Maradona, Pele, Best, Ronaldo, Puskas, Buffon, Cryuff. GOAT. Write-in votes welcome.
55. Whichever: ANY
61. Urban center?: BEE. The letter "B". It's in the middle of "urban".
62. "Your game": I LOSE
63. Paradise: UTOPIA
64. Old union member: Abbr.: SSR. A soviet socialist republic, no longer a member of the "U" in USSR.
65. Sicilian volcano: ETNA
66. Studio dweller: TENANT. Can't I own a studio? Weird clue.
Down:
1. __-Man: PAC
2. Q&A session on Reddit: AMA. Ask Me Anything, apparently. Good to know.
3. Clinic worker: Abbr.: LPN. Licensed Practical Nurse. Where do the theoretical ones go to get certified?
4. Eastern Mediterranean region: LEVANT. With "The", usually. Egypt to Turkey and eastwards to a loosely-defined area of Saudi Arabia and Iraq. It's that "loosely" that usually starts arguments.
5. Expert in futures?: ORACLE. The Oracle at Delphi. The jury is out on the accuracy of Pythia. She might have been taking the ....
6. Mix again: RE-STIR. Take verb. Add "RE". Done and done.
7. Frequent Mastroianni co-star: LOREN. Sophia. Marcello co-starred in many of her movies.
8. Ticker tape, briefly?: EKG. Nice.
9. Goes (for): VIES
10. Grammy-winning satirical artist Al: YANKOVIC
11. Magnet for a narcissist: MIRROR
12. Searches high and low: SCOURS
13. Winter temp range: TEENS. Terrible clue. It depends where you are. You don't write directional clues relative to where you are, you don't write time-based clues depending on what year you are in, you certainly don't write this clue.
15. Campbell of "House of Cards": NEVE.
18. Storage spots: BINS
22. Noble objective: IDEAL
23. Checkers move: JUMP
24. Whenever: ONCE. "Whenever upon a time". "Whenever, I met the president". "It happened whenever that I ....". Really?
25. City whose state's postal code is half its name: HILO. Thumper.
28. "Shoulda thought of that!": DOH!
29. Slight reaction?: IRE
31. One-striper: Abbr.: PFC
32. "The X-Files" subjects: ETS
34. Thinks ahead: PLANS
35. Something to slip on: LINGERIE. See 16A grump.
36. Large deer: ELK
37. Allied gp. since 1948: OAS. Organisation of American States. Tip of my tongue.
38. "Are you out __?": OR IN. I'd say "IN" first before "OUT". There's a few fills here which stretch the "in the language" rule, this is one. You can't just swap stuff around. "Feast or famine" doesn't really work as "Famine or feast".
39. Drunken noodles cuisine: THAI
40. Nautical wheel: HELM
43. Duplicates: CLONES
44. Billy McBride on "Goliath," e.g.: LAWYER
45. Smooch in a lift: SNOG. Lift = elevator in the UK; Smooch = snog. Fair. When I was a yoot, smooching was slow-dancing, snogging frowned upon.
46. Prove successful: PAN OUT
47. Carol beginning: ADESTE. Fidelis. Oh come, all ye faithful.
48. Rat out: TELL ON
49. Clinic supply: SWABS
50. Writer Mario Vargas __: LLOSA
51. A, to Merkel: EINE. Angela Merkel. She might have said that "A" was her vorname initial.
53. __ liquor: MALT
57. "Round __ virgin ... ": YON. A Christmas mini-theme in August! How nice.
58. Pub initials: IPA. India Pale Ale. We've been over this before.
59. Diarist Anaïs: NIN
60. Noir pistol: GAT. Quite what makes it "noir" - I'm open to suggestions. Is it always black? Always used in French movies? Is there a super-villain named "Noir" who uses a "gat"? I need to know, if only for next time.
And that .... is that. Well, it would be if I posted the grid, so here it is::
Steve
