Thursday, August 26, 2021, Chris Sablich

Good morning, curciverbalists.  Malodorous Manatee here wishing everyone a terrific Thursday.

Our constructor today is Chris Sablich who had his debut puzzle reviewed here on June 21st of this year.  Welcome back, Chris.  For today's theme, Chris has chosen something to which almost all Cornerites can, as we used to say, relate (we all seem to enjoy groaners).  

STOP ME IF YOU'VE HEARD THIS ONE

Here is the unifier:

49. Dated jokes ... and what the ends of four Across answers are, in a way: STALE MATERIAL

At four places in the grid (he said that, didn't he?) we find anagrams of STALE:

19. Kin of urban legends: OLD WIVES TALES.  Supposed truths which are actually spurious.

25. Possible result of a bankruptcy filing: CLEAN SLATE.  A new beginning.

35. Minimally: AT LEAST.

43. "That's some bargain you got!": WHAT A STEAL.  Idiomatic.  Not a misdemeanor.

Here is how this looks in the grid:

Now that Chris has teed it up for us, let's see if we can have a bit of fun with a stale joke or two.

Across:

1. Group for whom "Drive" was a Top 10 hit, with "The": CARS.  The CARS front man, Ric Ocasek, often makes appearances in crossword puzzles.

5. Sarge's charges, briefly: PFCS.  Private(s) First Class

9. Finishes in the bakery: ICES.  What does Frosty The Snowman like on his cupcakes?  Icing.

13. Part of an agenda: ITEM.

14. Fracas: MELEE.  A confused fight or struggle.

15. Bar purchase: SOAP.  I used to be addicted to SOAP but I'm clean now.

16. Wanted things: DESIDERATA.  A bit arcane.  DESIDERATA means those things desired as essential.  Max Ehrmann wrote an eponymous poem in the early 1920s.  It begins, "Go placidly among the noise and the haste."  Readings have been recorded by Les Crane and Leonard Nimoy, among other.  In 1972 The National Lampoon released a parody called DETERIORATA.

 

 

18. Santa __: Sonoma County seat: ROSA.  The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band released a song called "Santa Rosa" on the album Uncle Charlie & His Dog Teddy.

21. Shows: BARES.  Why was the tomato blushing?  She saw the salad dressing.

23. Wander: ROVE.  I just flew in from the coast.  Boy are my arms tired.

24. James of jazz: ETTA.  ETTA visits quite often.

Etta James

31. ERA, for example: STAT.  A baseball STATistic.  Earned Run Average.  Misdirection in that the clue could have been referring to a period of time or to the Equal Rights Amendment.

32. Suffer: AIL.  Did you hear that the CEO of Fox News had died?  I wonder what AILed him.

33. Some, in Potsdam: EINES.  Today's German lesson.

34. Dirt alternative, at times: TAR.  A road surface reference.  Do you know what I love about baseball?  The pine TAR and the dirt. . . . and that's just in the hot dogs.

38. Member of the 2019 World Series champs: NAT.  The Washington (D.C.) NATionals.  Champs is a shortened version of Champions, ergo  . . .

39. Large quantity: OCEAN.  What did the ocean say to the shore?  Nothing.  It just waved.

41. Beethoven preceder: VAN.

42. "¿Qué __?": PASA.  Today's Spanish lesson.  "What's up?"

46. Assist badly?: ABET.

47. Indian nurse: AMAH.  An Indian or East Asian nursemaid who takes care of children and frequents crossword puzzle the world over.

48. Jacques' title, in a children's song: FRERE.   One of today's French lessons.

55. Guitarist's gadget: CAPO.  Allows one to play in different keys without having to learn a new set of chords.

56. Tennessee Williams specialty: ONE ACT PLAY.  He wrote more than seventy.

59. King toppers: ACES.  A playing card reference.  I ACEd my chemistry quiz on the PH scale.  It wasn't difficult.  It was really basic.

60. Brazilian range __ do Mar: SERRA.  "Mountain Range of the Sea".  It would be nice to swim along that coast someday.

61. Architect Saarinen: EERO.  He often stops by to visit because his first name is a four-letter word with three vowels.

62. Leader: BOSS.  My boss says that I have a preoccupation with vengeance.  We'll see about that.

63. Egyptian vipers: ASPS.  A snake charmer was bitten on his lips.  He didn't know his ASP from his oboe.

64. "Glee" character, usually: TEEN.  The TV show.

Down:

1. "Le __": 1636 Corneille play: CID.  Not the 1961 motion picture.  Not the actual historic figure (1043 - 1099).  Same subject matter, though.

2. Put away: ATE.  Constructors/Editors love to clue with words whose tenses are ambiguous.  Could have been EAT.

3. Vacation destination: RESORT AREA.  Did you hear about the professors who went to a RESORT AREA to discuss research paper titles?  It was a topical vacation.

4. Greet with a grin: SMILE AT.  What is the longest word in the English dictionary?  SMILEs, because there is a mile between the first and last letters.

5. Prefix meaning "all around": PERI.  A learning moment.

6. Rapper with a clock necklace, familiarly: FLAV.  The clock was hungry so he went back for seconds.

Flavor Flav

7. Et __: CETERA.

8. Salt, say: SEASON.  Used as a verb.

9. Begin, for one: ISRAELI.  A play on words.  Not "to start" but an ISRAELI Prime Minister.

10. Hip: COOL.

11. Alleviate: EASE.  My friend slid a book across the table to me.  It slid with EASE.  It was non-friction.

12. Places to relax: SPAS.  Not many people know that the local SPA has closed.  Apparently,  they did not get the massage,

14. Cry from a litter: MEW.

17. ADA member: DDS.  Americans with Disabilities Act?  No.  American Dental Association.  Dentist.

20. Tube, so to speak: TV SET.  Slang.  Sometimes, boob tube.

 

21. Grant: BESTOW.

22. Staple, e.g.: ATTACH.  Staple is used, here, as a verb.

25. Monopoly token that replaced the iron: CAT.

26. Unlike Abner, actually: LIL.  Al Capp's LIL Abner was not a small fellow.

27. École attendee: ELEVE.  Another French lesson.  École is school and ELEVE is student.

28. "Kingdom by the sea" maiden of poetry: ANNABEL LEE.

29. Come-on: TEASER.

30. Executor's concern: ESTATE.

35. "What's in __?": A NAME.  That which we call a rose . . . .

36. Motorists' org.: AAA.

37. NBC weekend show: SNL.  Saturday Night Live

40. Clueless: AT A LOSS.

42. Castle feature: PARAPET.

44. Stuffed Indian pastry: SAMOSA.  Samoza (with a z) was a Nicaraguan dictator.

45. Macduff and Macbeth: THANES.  In Scotland, THANES are the chiefs of clans.

48. Hale: FIT.

49. Sign of healing: SCAB.  Sometimes, SCAR.

50. Snack from a truck: TACO.  Did you hear about the tortilla rebellion?  It was a hostile TACO-ver.

51. Primatologists' subjects: APES.  Why did the giant APE climb up the skyscraper?  The elevator was broken.

52. UMD athlete: TERP.  University of Maryland TERraPins

53. Some crop units: EARS.  As in corn, wheat or rice.  The grain-bearing tip of the stem.

54. __ Building, now 30 Rockefeller Plaza: RCA.  Known as the RCA Building from its completion in 1933 until 1968.  Known as the GE Building from 1968 until 2015 and, subsequently,  as the Comcast Building.    Frequently called 30 Rock.

57. Exist: ARE.

58. "... the morn ... / Walks o'er the dew of __ high eastward hill": "Hamlet": YON.  Meaning over there or in that direction.

Headin' Toward YON High Hill

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Thursday, August 12, 2021, Bill McCartha

 

Good morning, cruciverbalists!  Malodorous Manatee, here with the recap.  Today you might sense a change in the air.  Or, perhaps, it's "in the bag".  To help illustrate this, my canine pal has shown up wearing a number of different outfits (while doing his best Jeff Lynne impersonation).

Our puzzle setter today, in what appears to be his L.A. Times debut, is Bill McCartha.  Welcome to the Crossword Corner, Bill.  We hope that it is just the first of many appearances.

At four places within the puzzle, Bill has cleverly placed streaks of consecutive letters that, when unscrambled, spell CLOTHES.   That is impressive.  The reveal provides us with a quite straightforward description of what is going on:

40 Across:  Overnight bag item ... and what's literally hidden in 17-, 24-. 51- and 63-Across: CHANGE OF CLOTHES.

17 Across:  Plane storage area: TOOL CHEST.  A nice bit of misdirection.  Something aeronautic?  Nope.  It's not an airplane but a carpenter's plane.

24 Across:  Alpine resort features: SCENIC  HOTELS.  A bit awkward in that the alpine vistas are SCENIC but the HOTELS, themselves, probably would not be described as being scenic.  Not too bad, though.

51 Across:  St. Petersburg's Vaganova Academy, e.g.: BALLET SCHOOL.  BALLET is often a good guess when the clue is looking for something Russian . . . et Les Ballets Trockadero hail from Monte Carlo (at least in name) so that won't be the answer.

63:  Kyra Sedgwick TV title role: THE CLOSER.  That second E in this one was just a tiny bit confusing, theme-wise, for a moment.

Here's where the theme answer jumbles appear in the grid:

. . . . and here are the rest of the clues and answers:

Across:

1. Spot for honored guests: DAIS.  A low platform on which to place a seat of honor.

5. AutoZone rival: NAPA.  Often clued with an oenophilic reference.

9. Long-necked African mammal: OKAPI.  What is the opposite of an OKAPI?  An Original.

An Okapi Visited Us Last Sunday As Well

14. 1 for H, e.g.: AT NO.  ATomic NO. (number)

15. Help flee a collar: ABET.  A nice riff on Flea Collar.  Collar as in slang for arrest a perp (no, not our kind of perp).

16. One finalizing a return, perhaps: FILER.  Ah, a tax return.  ELVIS ("Return to Sender") also came to mind.

19. Knighted golf analyst: FALDO.  Sir Nick Faldo

20. Itzcoatl, for one: AZTEC.  Itzcoatl was an AZTEC Emperor.  This is probably not common knowledge but the word, itself, looked to this marine mammal like it might be from the Mesoamerican language group and that helped.

21. Kansas __: CITY.  Kansas CITY here I come!  Great BBQ.

Wilbert Harrison - 1959

23. Hardly flushed: WAN.

28. Kleptomaniacal toon monkey: ABU.  ABU, a character from Walt Disney's version of Aladdin, swings by semi-regularly.

31. Paper gauge: PLY.  Hmmmm.  I think of gauge as a measure of thickness and PLY as a layer.  Now, where did I put that micrometer?  

32. Migraine symptoms: AURAS.

33. Excludes: BANS.  Hold off on that third letter until you know if it's going to be an N or an R.

35. Pivot around: SLUE.  We've seen a slew of SLUEs in our puzzles over time.

38. "This I __ see": GOTTA.  Fill in the blank.

43. Arabian Peninsula capital: SANAA.  The capital of Yemen regularly pops up in puzzles.  Five letters. Three A's and an S.  A constructor's friend.

44. Linguist Chomsky: NOAM.  Known also for his social criticism and political activism.

45. Radio button: SEEK.  The SEEK function searches up and down to find a station with a strong signal.

46. Seriously wounds: MAIMS.  Today's "let's skip the graphic" moment.

48. Easy mark: SAP.  There are many different definitions of SAP from which to choose.  E.G. we often see a clue referencing maple syrup.  Here, our puzzle setter/editor has gone with a usage derived from slang for a simpleton.

50. "Treasure Island" monogram: RLS.  Robert Louis Stevenson

55. Name from the French for "beloved": AMY.  From the Latin amare (to love) via the French (as clued).

56. Zip: BRIO.  Neither ZERO nor NADA nor NONE (all four letters).  Not a CLOTHES closure reference.  Rather, "zip" as in energy or vigor.

57. Bounded: LEAPT.

61. Musical buzzer: KAZOO.

Tracy Newman - San Francisco Bay Blues

66. Abrasive mineral: EMERY.  EMERY is commonly defined as a rock containing the mineral corundum (aluminum oxide) mixed with other minerals.

67. Quick correction: UNDO.  One of today's computer references.  Ctrl+Z

68. Diamond figure: NINE.  The number of players in a baseball team's starting lineup (okay, ten if there's a DH).

69. Carpentry grooves: DADOS.

70. Quiet "Yo": PSST.  A faint sound often heard in crossword puzzles.

71. One way to go: EASY.  Borderline obtuse.  FAST?  FISH?  OVER?  INTO?  PAST?  JUMP IN THE LAKE?  Thanks, perps.

Down:

1. __ mining: DATA.  STRIP would not fit.  Either GOLD or COAL would have fit the space but would not have worked out.  DATA mining is a more modern concept.

2. The whole shebang: A TO Z.

3. How some close NFL games are won: IN OT.  IN OverTime

4. Pump bottoms: SOLES.  Pump, as in a type of shoe.

5. "Not feelin' it": NAH.  A bit of a punt.

6. The Great Emancipator, familiarly: ABE.  Abraham Lincoln.  A nickname clue for a nickname answer.

7. Frequent De Niro co-star: PESCI.  Robert De Niro and Joe PESCI.

8. Tall story?: ATTIC.  An amusing bit of word play.  The uppermost story of a house.   Although, often without much head room.

9. "Scoot along, now": OFF YOU GO.  When the clue is in quotation marks then the answer can be almost anything a person could say.

10. Soul seller: KIA.  FAUST?  ROBERT JOHNSON?  JIMMY PAGE?  Nope.  An automobile.

2020 KIA Soul

11. Come rain or come shine: ALL WEATHER.  What is the opposite of a cold front?  A warm back.

12. C&W strings: PEDAL STEEL.

The Byrds with Lloyd Green on PEDAL STEEL Guitar

13. Clubs seen near woods: IRONS.  A golfing reference.

18. Sputnik letters: CCCP.  Союз Советских Социалистических Республик.  The Union Of Soviet Socialist Republics in Cyrillic.  Sputnik was the name of the first man-made satellite sent into orbit and is also, now, the name of a COVID vaccine.

22. Hip-hop article: THA.  Wha?

25. More: ELSE.  If then ELSE?

26. Guitar string option: NYLON.

27. Gentle gaits: TROTS.

28. Beginner's lesson: ABCS.

29. Nassau rum drink: BAHAMA MAMA.

30. Like raw 1-Down: UNANALYZED.  It seems appropriate to leave this one uncommented upon.  Oops.

34. Gourmet gastropod: SNAIL.  People on diets often eat SNAILS because they want to avoid fast food.

36. Storied abduction craft: UFO.  Unidentified Flying Objects.  A UFO is now often referred to as a UAP or Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon and also, sometimes, as CRAP or Completely Ridiculous Alien Piffle.

37. Internet funding: E-CASH.  Yet another appearance of an "E word".  Enough.

39. Big favors: ASKS.  Slang.

41. Handhelds that debuted in 1989: GAMEBOYS.  Developed by Nintendo

42. Texter's "Too funny!": LMAO.  Laughing My Ass Off.  Can we say that here or is it okay only in reference to Balaam?

47. Orchestra sect.: STR.  STRings, I guess.  Another bit of a punt.  I suspect that Bill tried to find something else that work work.  Glad that it didn't turn out to be an STD.

49. Interview: POLL.  A bit of a stretch as clued by, hey, it's Thursday.  I took a poll the other day.  It turns out that 100% of people get angry when their tents fall down.

51. __ beans: BAKED.  A straightforward fill-in-the-blank clue.

52. Abs-strengthening exercise: SIT UP.  Alternatively, what a canine sometimes does to beg.

53. Attorney Roy and sports anchor Linda: COHNS.   Linda COHN is a sportscaster with whom I am unfamiliar.  I do not receive ESPN on my TV antenna setup.  Roy COHN?  That's an extremely lengthy story.

54. Spaghetti Western director Sergio: LEONE.   With great music by Ennio Moricone.

58. K2 locale: ASIA.

59. Pilot and others: PENS.  As with 17 Across, a bit of aeronautic misdirection.

60. Hoops long shot: TREY.  "Hoops" is slang for basketball and TREY is slang for a shot worth three points.

62. Acapulco gold: ORO.  Today's Spanish lesson.  In the 60's Acapulco Gold was much sought after.  Likely, it still is. 

64. News VIPs: EDS.  EDitorS

65. Barracks unit: COT.  I suppose that if we can have a 215-bed hospital we can also have a 45-COT barracks.  Of course, if you sin 90 times you will only be cot 45.

Well, Cornerites, that almost wraps up this Change of Clothes recap.  Before packing it in, however, I will point out that roughly once each decade I am forced to change my clothes from the practical (denim or cargo pants, polypropylene shirt and good walking shoes) to a costume deemed by society to better suit a specific occasion.  Here is a photo taken of Valerie and me at her niece's wedding last Saturday.

As the bumper sticker says, "When hell freezes over I'll ski there, too."  

It's time to go sharpen those edges.

. . . and on that note . . .

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