Thursday September 2, 2021 George Jasper

 

 

 22A Rocker since the '60s, familiarly: STONE.  

We interrupt this review to bring you a special report on a STONE known familiarly as Charlie, and the news of a MILESTONE in music history, the passing of Charles Robert Watts (2 June 1941 – 24 August 2021), jazz bandleader and also the drummer for the Rolling Stones.  Charlie died with Shirley, his devoted wife of 57 years, by his side. He was the quiet CORNER STONE of the "World's Greatest Rock and Roll Band".  He was no "Jack Flash", but rather the gentile, soft-spoken, and in fact humble STONE.   Here is the interview Dash T posted on the Corner on the day Charlie died.  Below is Part 1 of an interview with him by drummer Chad Smith: 

May Charlie Rest in Peace.

And now we return to our regular programming, a review of

PUZZLEUS INTERRUPTUS

George Jasper is a regular contributor to the Corner, last appearing here on July 12th of this year.  His theme for today is  ...

65A. Interrupt ... and a hint to each set of puzzle circles: CUT IN.  I've heard this phrase used most often to interrupt a couple dancing with a gentle tap on the shoulder and a polite request to dance with one of the partners.  A CSO to YellowRocks for any other etiquette she might add.

However George explores several other usages of the phrase, some of which are not so polite:

17A. Rubber in the kitchen?: BRILLO PAD.  LOP, as for example to pruning a tree or bush.  Unpunned we have:

Accept no substitutes!

24A. Major seen annually in Paris: FRENCH OPEN.  CHOP might be applied to a tree, firewood, or perhaps a cut of steak.  The French Open, officially known as Roland-Garros, is a major tennis tournament held over two weeks at the Stade Roland-Garros in Paris, France, beginning in late May of each year.  Roland Garros was a WWI aviator and hero:

38A. "C'est la vie": THAT'S THE WAY IT IS.  Today's French lesson, and a life lesson.  May be said to the losers at 24A.  HEW is something usually done to trees. 

48A. Ones skilled at making deductions: TAX EXPERTS.  An AXE is usually used to HEW trees.  I'm beginning to think that George may be a Dendrophobiac.😠   But come to think of it DW and I have two 75' tall twinned Tulip Poplars within 30'  of our house and sometimes I fear that they may fall on our bedroom one night.  On the other hand our arborist regularly LOPS off weak limbs and has connected the twin trees with a high-tensile-strength steel cable, and he assures us that everything is okay.😊

61. White House nickname: HONEST ABE.  STAB? Now I'm really worried.  Tree limbs, trunks, and veal chops are not the usual targets for STABS.

Here's the grizzly grid:

Have no fear.  We'll soldier on, despite the theme:

Across:

1. Nest egg, perhaps: CACHE.  Stored under the mattress?  Not a good ROI.  I hope Ron is feeling better and can weigh in on this.

6. One of the Tide's rivals: VOL  The Tennessee VOLUNTEERS, not this:

9. Marine supports: MASTS.

14. Literary musketeer: ATHOS.  Athos is the oldest of Alexander Dumas' Three Musketeers:
 

15. Kind of moment: AHA.  Cornerites have many of these every day!
 
16. Fancy tie: ASCOT.  Also the name of a racecourse in Berkshire, England.  And the venue for  the introduction of Miss Eliza Doolittle to English high society:

19. European river: RHONE.  The Rhône is a major river in France and Switzerland, arising in the Alps and flowing west and south through Lake Geneva and southeastern France before discharging into the Mediterranean Sea.  Also a reference to the Rhone Wine Region for wines grown along the river valley:

20. Overly suave: OILY.  Or - a dirty rotten scoundrel:

21. Driver's warning: FORE.  FINES?, FIRES?, FORE.  A CSO to all the golfers on the Corner - "What's your recommendation if you find yourself the target of a FORE?"

23. Smidge: TAD. 

26. Pedi places: SPAS.  A perhaps pedestrian description of SPAS.  They were traditionally situated near mineral springs, and people would visit them to "take the waters".  My parents used to have a house outside the SPA town of Berkeley Springs, W.Va., and our family would visit there every Fall for the Apple Butter Festival.

29. "Atlas Shrugged" author Rand: AYN.  I believe this is the third time I've blogged novelist and philosopher AYN Rand.  I guess it's because she's so gluey.

30. Will of "Blue Bloods": ESTES.  William Estes Nipper (born October 21, 1978) is an American actor known for his role on CBS police drama Blue Bloods as Jameson "Jamie" Reagan.

32. They may be fine: ARTS.  See also 13D.

35. Remained on the shelf: SAT.

42. Country E of Cyprus: SYR.  Since East is abbreviated, the answer is abbreviated.
 

43. Edward G.'s "Little Caesar" role: RICO.  Edward G. Robinson of course, and the role was Caesar "Rico" Bandello, an  aspiring small-town criminal:

44. Light on one's feet: AGILE.

45. "Breaking Bad" org.: DEA.  "In 2013, Breaking Bad entered the Guinness World Records as the most critically acclaimed show of all time. 'Breaking Bad' is binge worthy. Once you get rolling, you won't be able to stop."  Apparently a very popular show, although I've not seen it.

This past June the "War on Drugs" celebrated it's 50th birthday.

47. Islamic official: IMAM.  The word "imam" in the Koran (the Muslim sacred text) refers to Abraham and other leaders. ... Imams are Muslim clergy (religious leaders) in mosques (Islamic places of worship) and in Muslim communities. They lead prayers, deliver sermons, and provide religious education and counseling.

Imams

54. Hagen of Broadway: UTA.  Uta Thyra Hagen (12 June 1919 – 14 January 2004) was a German-American actress and theatre practitioner. She originated the role of Martha in the 1962 Broadway premiere of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? by Edward Albee.  She also plays minor roles in crossword puzzles, because of the high ratio of vowels to consonants in her first name.

Uta Hagen

After being blacklisted for her association with Paul Robeson, she devoted considerable time to teaching acting.  If you don't have time to read the Wiki above, see at least the section subtitled "Students of Uta Hagen".  You might recognize some of the names.

57. Some nerve?: OPTIC.  The exquisite structure of the OPTIC NERVE, the intricacies of the EYE, their complex integration with the rest of the NERVOUS SYSTEM lead me to be highly skeptical of simplistic Darwinian explanations for how they evolved.  To say more would be to venture into scientific POLITICS.

 

58. Fixer's need: TOOL.  We hear a lot of chatter on the Corner about fixing things. Man has been called "Homo Faber" ("Man the Maker"). And because of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, the things that men and women make eventually need to be FIXED, and this requires TOOLS.  The universe of  TOOLS is virtually infinite, and they are explored in this link and this clip:

59. Not good, as a chance: SLIM.   I pass.

60. Asking __: PRICE. "He knew the price of everything and the value of nothing" - Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere's Fan.

63. Criticizes to excess, with "on": PILES.

64. Supplement, with "out": EKE.  Never heard this definition for EKE, but then here it is.
 

66. Iditarod vehicles: SLEDS.  The first Iditarod was run in 1925, but it was a race against time to bring diphtheria serum to Nome, Alaska, and the hero that race was TOGO, the lead sled dog.  Here are two trailers for a feature length cartoon about the race called "BALTO", a mutt much beloved by my grandchildren.  BALTO is pure fiction, and TOGO appears nowhere in it.  To add insult to injury, there is actually a bronze statue of BALTO, not TOGO, in Central Park, NY! 

67. Trip taker's vehicle: LSD.  One of the common forms of transportation in crossword puzzles - Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD).  The drug was first synthesized, and its psychedelic properties discovered, by Albert Hofmann at Sandoz Laboratories in Basel, Switzerland.

Albert Hofmann

His discoveries also let to a better explanation of the epidemics of Egotism in the Middle Ages.  One of the symptoms of these epidemics were mass hallucinations, that were traced to Lysergic acid found in the Ergot fungus of spoiled rye.

68. Brainstorming output: IDEAS.

Down:
1. Northwest Passage seeker: CABOT.  John Cabot (Italian: Giovanni Caboto; c. 1450 – c. 1500) was an Italian navigator and explorer, who was the first European to reach the entrance to the Northwest Passage, reportedly landing at Cape Bonavista in Newfoundland

The Northwest Passage

2. Sunlit courts: ATRIA.

3. Temple, for one: CHILD STAR.  Shirley Temple Black (born Shirley Jane Temple; (April 23, 1928 – February 10, 2014) was an American actress, singer, dancer, and diplomat who was Hollywood's number one box-office draw as a child actress from 1934 to 1938. As an adult, she was named United States ambassador to Ghana and to Czechoslovakia, and also served as Chief of Protocol of the United States.

Shirley Temple in 1948

4. Sanctified: HOLY.

5. Immigrant's subj.: ESL.  English as a second or foreign language is the use of English by speakers with different native languages. Language education for people learning English may be known as (1) English as a second language, (2) English as a foreign language, (3) English as an additional language, or (4) English for speakers of other languages.  A CSO to any Cornerites with experience as a Teacher of English as a Second Language to share your experiences.

6. Jet trail: VAPOR.  Jets leave white trails, or contrails, in their wakes for the same reason you can sometimes see your breath. The hot, humid exhaust from jet engines mixes with the atmosphere, which at high altitude is of much lower vapor pressure and temperature than the exhaust gas. The water vapor contained in the jet exhaust condenses and may freeze, and this mixing process forms a cloud very similar to the one your hot breath makes on a cold day.

7. Midway alternative: O'HARE.  Only if I can't avoid it!  OTOH this airport IS sometimes impossible to avoid if you are a cruciverbalist, as constructors delight in testing our knowledge of airport codes, which in this case is ORD.  So why ORD?

O'Hare Airport (ORD)

8. Freight-filled, say: LADEN.  As we learned last week, a freight container's weight when UNLADEN is called the TARE.  GROSS wt. - TARE wt. = FREIGHT wt.

9. Like the Okefenokee: MARSHY.  The Okefenokee Swamp is a shallow, 438,000-acre (177,000 ha), peat-filled wetland straddling the Georgia–Florida line in the United States. A majority of the swamp is protected by the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge and the Okefenokee Wilderness.

Okefenokee Swamp

10. He played Steve in "Jobs": ASHTON.  Christopher Ashton Kutcher (born February 7, 1978) is an American actor, model, producer, and entrepreneur.  Last Saturday he was in That 70's Show, this week he is the star and producer of the movie Jobs.   Big shoes to fill, but the film didn't exactly get rave views, although it was a modest box office success.

11. Reporter's coup: SCOOP.  Given the rapidity with which news is discovered and propagated these days, I think this usage is rapidly becoming an anachronism.  So whad'ya think TTP?

12. Metric unit: TONNE.  A unit of weight equal to 1,000 kilograms (2,205 lb)

13. Rembrandt contemporary: STEEN.  Jan Havickszoon Steen (c. 1626 – buried 3 February 1679) was a Dutch Golden Age painter, one of the leading genre painters of the 17th century. His works are known for their psychological insight, sense of humor and abundance of colour.  And because his name has an "EE", he is often sought out by those engineering crossword puzzles.

Jan Steen

18. Plural word attached to rip or send: OFFS.

25. Durango digs: CASA.  Today's Spanish lesson.  There is also a Durango in Colorado, but presumably George meant this one:

Durango, Mexico

27. Adoptee, maybe: PET.  Also stands for a diagnostic test called Positron Emission Tomography.  A good friend of mine had a PET scan for cancer, and I'm happy to report that her test results were negative.

28. Pack animal: ASS. 

30. UFO operators: ETS.  The government recently released a report on the more PC term Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, but the jury is still out on whether they're operated by ETS.

31. Like one sitting alone at the dance, probably: SHY.  Wallflower wouldn't fit.

32. Sashimi selection: AHI. Japanese fast food, Sashimi (not to be confused with Sushi) consists simply of slices of very fresh raw fish.  AHI is the name of a variety of raw tuna.   Other selections might be Salmon, Yellowtail, Octopus, or Whitefish (the green blob on the lower right is called Wasabi, a condiment made of  type of "hot" radish):

Another type of Sushi are Maki rolls, rice and sliced fish wrapped in seaweed (Nori) and sliced into bite sized pieces.  Popular varieties are California Rolls (with all cooked ingredients) and my favorite, the Rainbow Roll (Ahi, Salmon, and avocado).

As Sushi chefs keep their fish ultra-fresh, it is a misconception that it tastes "fishy", and in fact some varieties of it are even cooked.  If you haven't tried it you should put it on your bucket list, but get a Sherpa to guide you in selecting and eating it.  You can even sit at the bar and watch the chef make your order.  Thus endeth the Sushi sermon.

33. VCR button: REC. 

34. Bill featuring Jefferson: TWO.  Looks like this if you haven't seen one lately.

35. Jump-start: STIMULATE.

36. Come down with something: AIL.

37. "Four Quartets" monogram: TSE.  Thomas Stearns Eliot, OM (26 September 1888 – 4 January 1965) was a poet, essayist, publisher, playwright, literary critic and editor.  He is probably most popularly known for Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, but Eliot regarded Four Quartets as his masterpiece, and it is the work that most of all led him to being awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

 
39. Corner: TRAP.

40. Orange edible: YAM.  No not a Clementine, but a tuber (the one on the left doesn't look very orange to me):

Yam or Sweet Potato

41. Supermarket franchise initials: IGA.

45. Cleared, in a way, as plane wings: DEICED.

46. More than needed: EXCESS.  This blog is like a smorgasbord.  Don't feel like you have to eat more than you need! 😉

47. Chain link?: ISLE.  An island chain perhaps?
 

48. Trading cards giant: TOPPS.  Hello Boomer!  10 of the Greatest and Most Expensive Topps Baseball Cards. 

And more breaking news!  I predict that this will backfire on MLB and only drive up the price of TOPPS cards.

49. Arbor Day month: APRIL.  National Arbor Day is always celebrated on the last Friday in April, but many states observe Arbor Day on different dates throughout the year based on the best tree planting times in their area.  Here's a good resource for tree huggers:
 

50. Scrabble 8-pointer: X TILE.

51. Lucy's landlord, in old TV: ETHEL.  Vivian Roberta Jones; July 26, 1909 – August 17, 1979. Here Ethel (with the help of her old buddies), says goodbye to the hometown theatre that gave her her start:

52. Pieces that castle: ROOKS.  The rook (/rʊk/; ♖, ♜) is a piece in the game of chess resembling a castle. Formerly the piece (from Persian رخ rokh/rukh, meaning chariot) was alternatively called the tower, marquess, rector, and comes (count or earl) (Sunnucks 1970). The term castle is considered to be informal, incorrect, or old-fashioned, although it is still a part of the name of a special chess move.

53. High-__: pretentious: TONED.

55. Knee-to-ankle bone: TIBIA.  Tibia, also called shin, inner and larger of the two bones of the lower leg in vertebrates—the other is the fibula.

56. Agreeing chorus: AMENS.  AMEN has a Semitic root connoting “firm,” “fixed,” or “sure,” and the related Hebrew verb also means “to be reliable” and “to be trusted.” The Greek Old Testament usually translates amen as “so be it”; in the English Bible it has frequently been rendered as “verily,” or “truly.”

59. Poker choice: STUD.  Stud poker is any of a number of poker variants in which each player receives a mix of face-down and face-up cards dealt in multiple betting rounds.  Not only are there a number of poker variants, but there are a number of stud poker variants.  This presenter demonstrates what he calls the "traditional way":

62. It may be natural: Abbr.: SCI. Here's one way to tell if it is not Nat:  "Any field that has the word 'Science' in its name is not a Science", or words to that effect.

 

waseeley

 

And special thanks to my DW Teri for proof reading and making several constructive suggestions for improving this post:

Cheers,

Bill