Friday, July 21, 2023, Jess Shulman & Shannon Rapp

 

Good Morning, Cruciverbalists.  Malodorous Manatee here with today's recap of a puzzle by Jess Shulman and Shannon Rapp.

Let us begin with the reveal:

57 Across:  Business retreat, and an apt title for this puzzle?: COMPANY OUTING.

OUTING is used here as a stand-in for take out.  No, not like in take-out food but as in to remove something. The removal is employed at three places within the grid where our puzzle setters delete the abbreviation for COMPANY (CO) from recognizable names and phrases.  

20 Across:  Melt down in response to some trash talk?: PANIC AT THE DIS.  Before the "outing" PANIC AT THE DISCO.  DIS as in to criticize.  Panic at the Disco was an American pop rock band.

36 Across:  Talent for sliding into someone's DMs?: PING SKILLS.  DM is contemporary talk  for Direct Messaging.  Before the "outing" COPING SKILLS.  PING is a network utility used to test reachability of a host.  Alternatively, PING me."

43 Across:  Little cat with a beachy vibe?: CALI KITTEN.  CALI as in California, I suppose.  Before the "outing" CALICO KITTEN.

Here is how this looks in the completed grid.  It proved impossible to highlight the letters that were not there:

The remaining clues and answers are:

Across:

1. History: PAST.

5. Dreamcast maker: SEGA.  A home video game console.

9. Blessing preceder: ACHOO.  Gezuntheit.

14. "__, Brute?": ET TU.  A Shakespearean reference.

15. God attended by Valkyries: ODIN.

16. Intact: WHOLE.

17. Instagram video: REEL.  A contemporary usage of the word REEL.

18. Compact __: DISC.  They replaced LPs

19. Like some seals: EARED.  Most often fur seals and sea lions.

23. Refill: TOP UP.  As in a cocktail or fuel tank.  Do we TOP UP electric vehicles?

24. Costa del __: SOL.

25. AED pro: EMT.  Automated External Defibrillator was new to this solver but the perps quickly led to Emergency Medical Technician because EMTs appear here frequently.

28. Copy cats?: MEOW.  Not exactly copycat as in imitator.   Literally, copy a cat.

30. Noisy bird: MAGPIE.  See also 33 Down.

33. Colorado's __ Verde National Park: MESA.  Cliff dwellings.

39. Haim of "Licorice Pizza": ALANA.  Unknown to this solver.  As the puzzles get more contemporary I find myself becoming less enthusiastic about some of them.  I also know that time marches on and a puzzle full of references to prior generations of entertainers won't do either.

41. Zodiac lion: LEO.

42. __-garde: AVANT.

46. Peepers: EYES.  If one goes looking online for the old song one is "rewarded" with many references to the horror movies.

Jeepers Creepers

47. Connect: ATTACH.   What can you ATTACH to a ball, a cart or a harp to make it something completely different.  OON.

48. "Star Wars" family name of Han and Ben: SOLO.

50. Bentley of "Yellowstone": WES.

51. Substance that lacks refinement?: ORE.  Nice word play.   No, not the French city.

54. Benchmarks: NORMS.  If Weird Al Yankovic wasn't weird he'd be called NORM Al.

62. Language of Iran: FARSI.

64. Exam with a max score of 180: LSAT.  The law school apptitude test.

65. Sunburn salve: ALOE.  Often applied in crossword puzzles.

66. __ beverage: ADULT.  Alcohol.

67. Entice: LURE.

68. Mario __: game with a Rainbow Road: KART.

69. Captcha target: ROBOT.    A contrived acronym for "Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart".  It is a type of challenge-response test used in computing to determine whether the user is human.

70. Itches: YENS.  As in desires not allergic reactios.

71. Docs who insert tympanostomy tubes: ENTS.  Our second medical reference with an abbreviated clue (Docs) and answer.  Ear Nose and Throat specialistS

Down:

1. BOLO target: PERP.  Be On The Alert.  PERPetrator not a crossing word in a puzzle.

2. Patronized, as a restaurant: ATE AT.

3. Shorthand pro: STENO.  A somewhat obsolete profession.

4. Dutch market craze of the late 1630s: TULIP MANIA.

5. Soft drink: SODA POP.

6. Address plot holes, perhaps: EDIT.

7. General ideas: GISTS.  What do biologists, archaeologists and meteorologists all have in common?  They all get the GIST of their fields.

8. Dried poblano: ANCHO.

9. Amazed: AWED.  A truck loaded with thousands of copies of Roget's Thesaurus crashed yesterday losing its entire load.  Witnesses were stunned, startled, aghast, taken aback, stupefied, confused, shocked, rattled, paralyzed, dazed, bewildered, mixed up, surprised, awed, dumbfounded, nonplussed, flabbergasted, astounded, amazed, confounded, astonished, overwhelmed, horrified, numbed, speechless, and perplexed.

10. Milky spiced tea: CHAI.

11. Tomfoolery: HORSEPLAY.

12. La Liga cheer: OLE.  A soccer reference.

13. Ref. work that once employed J.R.R. Tolkien: OED.  Oxford English Dictionary.  Tolkien was an English author best known for the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

21. Snooker stick: CUE.

22. Long-lived trees: ELMS.

26. Eeyore creator: MILNE.  A Winnie The Pooh reference.

27. Challenges: TESTS.  Both can be used as nouns or verbs so that wasn't at issue.

29. Go limp: WILT.

31. Pseudonym indicator: AKA.  Also Known As

32. "Ish": GIVE OR TAKE.

33. Noisy bird: MACAW.  The second noisy bird today.

34. Thrill: ELATE.

35. Element of a margarita pedicure: SALT SCRUB.  Margarita pedicures are not within my ken.  SALT, however, was not surprising as part of the answer.

37. Aquarium scoop: NET.

38. "So It __ ... ": song on Taylor Swift's "Reputation": GOES.  Is Taylor Swift now channeling Kurt Vonnegut?

40. "For the love of all things dog" org.: AKC.

44. Eatery with a "Happy Face" combo on the kids menu: IHOP.

45. "Don't change a thing": NO NOTES.

49. "Mambo No. 5" singer Bega: LOU.

52. Comeback: RALLY.

53. Follow: ENSUE.

55. "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" novelist Kundera: MILAN.  MILAN Kundera passed away on July 11, 2023.

56. Stifled laugh: SNORT.

58. Norse city name that can be translated as "meadow of the gods": OSLO.  Frequently visited in our puzzles.

59. Fly catcher?: MITT.  A baseball reference.

"I Got It"

60. Crocheter's supply: YARN.

61. Understands: GETS.  Can you dig it?

62. Way off: FAR.

63. Fuss: ADO.

Well, coworkers, that will wrap things up for today.  For those of you entertaining guests this weekend, enjoy your COMPANY.

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Friday, June 23, 2023, Luke Schreiber

 

Good Morning, Cruciverbalists.  Malodorous Manatee here, once again, with a Friday recap.  Today's puzzle setter is Luke Schreiber who has elected to do a riff on RIGHTs.  Right turns, Right angles, human Rights.

Two weeks ago I recapped a puzzle in which the theme answers were placed vertically in the grid in lieu of the more often seen horizontal placement.  Today, we get yet another approach.  At five places in the puzzle, all identified with circles, Luke requires us to make a right-angle (90 degree) turn to the right in order to get the right answer to the Down clue.  The answer to that clue requires the combining of the Down clue's answer with the corresponding Across clue's answer. Here are the five places that make up the themed answers:

1 Down:  Bounces back: RALL with 20 Across:  "It's all untrue!": LIES.  RALLIES  I imagine that most everyone went "Huh!?" when 1 Down filled.  Or did it?

7 Down:  Some Arctic Cats: SNOWMOB  with 35 Across:  Gymnast Simone: BILES. SNOWMOBILES

10 Down:  RuPaul's competition: DRAG with 22 Across:  Coup de __: GRACE.  DRAG RACE  This one confused yours truly for a bit as the down answer, DRAG, is able to stand alone as a real word, a feature exhibited at none of the other four word combinations.  After scratching my head for a while I assumed that RALL and SNOWMOB (which had previously been filled in) were, indeed, the right answers and that it was time to stop overthinking things and move right along.

26 Down:  Extremely beautiful, perhaps: HEARTST with 54 Across: Froyo choice: TOPPING.  HEART STOPPING.  A little bit odd as FROYO was a "truncated" clue (FROzen YOgurt) but the answer was a complete word.

48 Dwon:  Quilting technique: APPLIQ with 71 Across:  "¿__ pasa?": QUE.  APPLIQUE

The unifier comes at 64 Across:

64 Across:  Freedoms protected by the Equality Act, and an apt title for this puzzle?: LGBTQ RIGHTS.  Note that, when taken in order, the pivot points spell out LGBTQ.

Here is how all of this looks in the grid:

Here are the rest of the clues and answers.  Content warning:  Roughly a dozen or so are proper names.  Some additional theme-related answers also appear here and there:

Across:

1. Noisy toy: RATTLE.  Shouldn't RATTLEsnake warnings be called "Cautionary Tails"?

7. Went fast: SPED.

11. Oroville structure: DAM.

14. Legends on the road: ACURAS.  An automobile make/model reference.

15. Depilatory brand: NAIR.  Was it going to be NEET or VEET?  Nope.

16. Post-op area: ICU.  The Intensive Care Unit at a hospital.

17. Beatles song with the lyric "Sunday morning creeping like a nun": LADY MADONNA.  I strongly suspect that the Beatles imagery was not meant to evoke anything quite like these self-described "nuns":

.

19. Fistful of bills: WAD.  A wad of cash.  I guess the Times wished to avoid paying a royalty on this clue.

21. Possess: OWN.

24. Remorseful: ASHAMED.  Why was the pterodactyl not ASHAMED to use the toilet?  Its "P" was silent.

28. Nobelist Wiesel: ELIE.

29. Epicurious.com offering: RECIPE.  A very good web site to visit when you are looking for a RECIPE.

32. Lucille Clifton's "Homage to My Hips," for one: ODE.  In puzzles, the poems almost always turn out to be ODEs.

33. Lab container: VIAL.  Why are almost all test tube manufacturers single?  People seem to find them VIAL.

34. Bright bloom: DAHLIA.

37. "Rules __ rules": ARE.    . . and they are meant to be followed,  we are told.

 

38. Hesitant sound: ERM.  Punt!

40. Minor matter: NIT.  Idiomatic, unless you are, perhaps, a chimpanzee.

41. "Delish!": YUM.

44. SLR setting: F-STOP.  A photography reference.  The aperture setting on a Single Lens Reflex camera.

46. Halloumi, e.g.: CHEESE.  If it were Monday the clue might have been Cheddar.

48. Québec chum: AMIE.  Français dans l'indice donc Français pour la réponse.

51. Early Beatle Sutcliffe: STU.  Sometimes referred to as "the fifth Beatle".  We sometimes see this clued along the lines of "letter run after R".

52. Got bronze?: TANNED.  Not an Olympics reference.

53. Window part: PANE.  My stupid, hungry donkey decided to eat a window.  It was a pane in the ass.

56. Subject of many June parades: PRIDE.  Continuing with the theme.

58. "Awesome!": RAD.  "Bitchin'!"  "Groovy!"  "Far Out, Man!"  "Phat!"

59. Exercise aftermath: ACHE.

63. Cap: LID.  Remember when a LID cost $10?

68. "__ say!": I'LL.

69. Pouty face: MOUE.

70. Backup squads: B-TEAMS.

72. Cheek: SASS.

73. Attend without a partner: GO SOLO.

Down:

2. Berry that's a superfood: ACAI.  Frequently served in our puzzles.

"3. Truculent behavior, informally: TUDE.  Derived from attiTUDE.  "Don't Cop a TUDE, bro."

4. Seafarer's choice during a storm: TRYSAIL.  New to this solver.  "A TRYSAIL is a substitute mainsail designed solely for storm conditions. Setting independently of the boom it is loose-footed and designed to sit above the stack of your mainsail using a long tack strop."  Got it?

5. On the __: LAM.  Fleeing from the law.

6. Finnish conductor __-Pekka Salonen: ESA.  He led the Los Angeles Philharmonic from 1992 until 2009 when Gustavo Dudamel succeeded him.

8. Prepared for a close-up shot: PANNED IN.  A pan shot is a horizontal camera movement in which the camera pivots left or right while its base remains in a fixed location.

9. German article: EIN.  Was is going to be DER?  Nein.

11. South Asian festival of lights: DIWALI.  A bit obscure (to us North Americans) but we have seen this reference to the Hindu Festival of Lights a few previous times.

12. Tree favored by giraffes: ACACIA.

13. Bottom-dwelling fish: MUD EEL.  Also known as Heterenchelyidae but that would not fit the allotted space.   

18. __ double take: DO A.

23. Cranks (up): REVS.

25. Spots: SPIES.  Used as a verb.  Not, for example, a Dalmatian dog reference.

27. Corpus __: prosecutor's concern: DELICTI.

29. Nutrition fig.: RDA.  For those of you who have may not read a food product information label in the last twenty or thirty years, Recommended Daily Allowance.

30. Sideburn neighbor: EAR.

31. Michael of "SNL": CHE.

36. Actor Hawke: ETHAN.

39. Tour vehicle, quaintly: MOTOR BUS.

41. Osaka currency: YEN.  Money in Japan.

42. Exploit: USE.  Used as a verb.

43. __ school: MED.  DAY?  OLD?  LAW?  ART?  At least those are not abbreviated as is MEDical in response to a non-abbreviated clue.

44. Satellite signal: FEED.

45. Leaves the larval stage: PUPATES.  Rarely seen in our puzzles as a verb.  More often we see PUPA as in the insect stage between larva and adult.

47. Ties up: ENGAGES.  Perhaps a new take on an ENGAGEment announcement?

49. Henner of "Taxi": MARILU.  A TV sitcom reference.  There should be no trouble picking her out in this photo:

50. Warming up the car, say: IN IDLE.

55. ASAP kin: PDQ.  Pretty Darn Quick

57. Trees with many streets named after them: ELMS.  And streets with many movies named after them.

60. Rosalind of 2020's "Mulan": CHAO.

61. Web page standard: HTML.  HyperText Markup Language is used, among myriad other applications, to produce our daily Crossword Corner blogs.

62. Petro-Canada rival: ESSO.  A reprise from two weeks ago.  This time without the "petrol" reference.

65. Indian state known for white-sand beaches: GOA.  At 18 Down we had DO A.  Do these fit ___  T?

66. First member of SCOTUS to officiate a same-sex wedding: RBG.  Supreme Court Of The United States justice The "Notorious" Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

67. Manga artist Junji: ITO.  Often clued with reference to Judge Lance ITO.

As I am otherwise engaged, this seems like the right time to bid adieu for this morning  . . .

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Friday , July 7, 2023, Hanh Huynh

Good Morning, Cruciverbalists.  Malodorous Manatee here with today's recap.  I hope that everyone had a great (extended) Independence Day holiday.

Our puzzle setter is Hanh Nuynh for whom I see references on the Crossword Fiend site but not on the LAT site so, once again, this may be an LAT debut.

Today's puzzle theme consists of four entries and a reveal.   In those entries, our constructor has inserted the word AD within otherwise recognizable words to create the appropriate answers to the somewhat (of necessity) strained clues.

The reveal sums things up pretty clearly so let's start with that:

59 Across:  Words on an empty billboard, and a hint to how the answers to the starred clues were formed: YOUR AD HERE.  We've all seen this many times IRL, if not in our puzzles.

The four places (with the clues marked by asterisks for our convenience) where these insertions are to be found are:

17 Across:  *Abandoned in the shallow end?: LEFT WADING.  LEFT WING is transformed into the answer.  I came across this theme answer before the others and, at first, thought that the "riff" was going to be along the lines of changing WAITING to WADING.

23 Across:  *Group that oversees some sauces in the kitchen?: MARINADE CORPS.  My IT to D theory was clearly not going to work out here.

36 Across:  *Not fully self-indulgent?: HALF WAY DECADENT.  HALF WAY DECENT

49 Across:  *Job description for a private eye?: SHADOW AND TELL  What did you bring to share with the class today?

Here is how this all looks in the grid:

, . . .  and below are the rest of the clues and their answers:

Across:

1. "Mi __ es su ... ": CASA.  This could be cited as today's Spanish lesson but it seems like this expression has been adopted into English vernacular usage.  My house is your house.

5. Notice with a clickable 10-Across: EVITE and 10. 5-Across letters: RSVP.  Invitation and reply to same.

14. Sitting on: ATOP.  The God of Thunder rode up the mountain ATOP his trusty steed. "I am Thor," he cried.  "Of course you are," replied his horse, "You forgot your thaddle, thilly."

15. Romantic partner: LOVER.  Let Paul please explain . . .

16. Red Muppet: ELMO.  A frequent visitor

19. Shiny wrap: FOIL.

20. __ tai: MAI.

21. Long walk: HIKE.

22. Question of methodology: HOW.

28. Minecraft resources: ORES.  I have never played the Minecraft game but am familiar with the resources from solving crossword puzzles.

29. Plug: PROMOTE.  Neither an electrical nor a hair restoration reference.

31. Text that may have red squiggly underlining: TYPO.

34. Oscar winner Michelle: YEOH.  All you'd like to know about YEOH.  Michelle Yeoh - Wikipedia

35. Dennings of "WandaVision": KAT. . . . and about this actress, too.  Kat Dennings - Wikipedia

41. Skeleton prefix: EXO.

42. Brewpub pours: ALES.

43. Olympus neighbor: OSSA.  We used to see Mt. OSSA often in our puzzles during what I sometimes refer to as the "age of snood".

44. Criticized harshly: LIT INTO.

46. Nombre entre six et huit: SEPT.  Cours de français et de mathématiques d'aujourd'hui.  The number between six and eight is seven (in French, SEPT).  

53. Chanted syllables: OMS.

54. Gear teeth: COGS.

55. Actor McShane: IAN.  Continuing the trend:  Ian McShane - Wikipedia

57. Pot-baking spot: KILN.  Not that kind of pot.  And not where you would place the pot to bake the food therein.  The place where you would "fire" the pot when you were making it out of clay.

62. Blizzard component, often: OREO.  Blizzard, in this case, is a blended milkshake-like drink from Dairy Queen.  The clue takes advantage (to mislead us) of the convention that has the first word all crossword clues capitalized.

What's In The Middle?  The White Stuff

63. Shift neighbor: ENTER.  A computer keyboard reference.

64. See 56-Down: EGGS with 56 Down. With 64-Across, retirement funds: NEST.  NEST EGGS  Idiomatic

65. Ramona, per Beezus: PEST.  A reference to the 1955 children's novel written by Beverly Cleary and subsequent media adaptations.

Ramona and her sister Beatrice, aka Beezus

66. Requires: NEEDS.  Whenever my girlfriend is upset I let her color in my black and white tattoos.  Sometimes she just NEEDS a shoulder to crayon.

67. Rendezvous: MEET.  Used as a verb.

Down:

1. Chill: CALM.  Idiomatic.

2. First-stringers: A TEAM.  I will skip the Mr. T reference.

3. "America's Got Talent" judge Vergara: SOFIA.  Enough, already!

4. Fitting: APT.

5. "Seinfeld" character with unusual dance moves: ELAINE.

Elaine Benes and Friends

6. Stoli and Smirnoff: VODKAS.

7. Like Wrigley Field's outfield walls: IVIED.

8. Messi's jersey number: TEN.  A soccer (football) reference.

9. Work unit: ERG.

10. Improve: REFORM.  A bit of a stretch.  Remember when kids talked about getting sent to IMPROVE School?  Not!

11. Sluggish ones: SLOWPOKES.  SLOW POKES are something else entirely.

12. The Keydets of the NCAA: VMI.

13. Party pro: POL.  Often seen.

18. Sound at a drone race: WHIR.

22. Commotion: HOOHA.  Usually we get ADO as the answer.

24. __ deck: ROOF.  Anyone go with POOP?

25. Olympic blade: EPEE.  A weapon frequently employed in crossword puzzles.

26. Colorful clog: CROC.  Often clued as a 'gator's cousin.

27. Worships to excess, in slang: STANS.  The act of being overly obsessed with an artist/person/character/etc.  STalker + fAN = STAN.  Used, here, as a verb.

  30. Jazz legend James: ETTA.  A frequent visitor.

31. Take __: admit defeat: THE L  Take the Loss or in crosswordese DNF?

32. Graph line: Y AXIS.

33. Continuity problems: PLOT HOLES.  Why didn't Kevin just call the cops in Home Alone?

34. Football meas.: YDS.  YarDS

37. Rabbit conjurers: WANDS.  Hand up for first thinking that this was going to be a person not an inanimate object.

38. Choir part: ALTO.

39. Pained cry: YEOW.  YEOH and YEOW in the same puzzle!

40. Lavish affection (on): DOTE.

45. Emphatic denial: I AM NOT.

46. Was obviously asleep: SNORED.

47. Mystery awards named for a mystery writer: EDGARS.  Named for Edgar Allan Poe

48. VA concern: PTSD.  Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

50. Like some angles: ACUTE.  Less than 90 degrees.  Aah what A CUTE angle!

51. Medieval lord: LIEGE.  A bit of an odd word because LIEGE can also mean vassal.

52. Tee size: LARGE.  T-shirt 

57. Keystone __: KOP.  A throwback to an earlier era.

58. Isl. with four provinces: IRE.  The Island is IREland.  Don't get mad.

59. Hong Kong actor/director Donnie: YEN.  You know where to find the info.

60. Four quarters: ONE.  I was once asked "How many quarters are there in a basketball game?"

61. Tailored edge: HEM.

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