Happy Thursday, cruciverbalists! While it is not yet time for us to poke our heads out, I hope that 2021 has gotten off to a good start with everyone staying safe and healthy.
If you were scratching your head over the theme of today's puzzle it is safe to assume that you had plenty of (socially distanced) company. Even after solving the "tell", this moronic marine mammal had to stare at the completed grid for several minutes before the theme answers slowly revealed themselves. Prison breaks are, by nature, difficult to discover. These were.
I tried looking backwards and forwards within each of the long answers. Nothing. Puns? Homophones? Anagrams? Still stumped. MaryEllen had purposely used "puzzle rows" and not "answers" in her hint to the theme so, perhaps, I should look at entire rows. The hint also contained the word "break" so something had likely been broken apart. Even with these insights I then wasted time looking for some form of symmetry of which there was, well, none. Finally, it dawned on me.
Simply put, on four rows of the puzzle, synonyms for PRISON have been broken apart and waited patiently for us to reassemble them. Of course, once the theme had been figured out, and the involved letters had been located, everything appeared to be obvious.
Let's start with the reveal at 65 Across: "The Shawshank Redemption" event, and what's hidden in four puzzle rows: PRISON BREAK.
At 17 Across we have - Angry reaction: HORNETS NEST followed at 19 Across by - "This American Life" host Glass: IRA
The end of the first answer combines with the start of the second to from STIR, a slangy word for prison.
At 27 Across we are asked to solve for - Indian noble: RAJA followed by 31 Across - Surly: ILLNATURED
As above, parts of these answers combine to yield JAIL.
..and so on,
38 Across - It went down in history: TITANIC and 40 Across - Connects with:LINKSTO.
CLINK is another slang term for prison
47 Across - Stable cleaner: SADDLE SOAP and 51 Across - Tolkien tree creatures: ENTS.
PEN is, well, we get it, we get it.
Here is what this all looks like in the grid:
Now that we have successfully escaped the confines of puzzle prison let's take a look at the rest of today's challenge:
Across:
1. Bobbleheads, e. g.: DOLLS. Do they have to be human?
6. Jury decision: AWARD. Verdict was the first impulse but, of course, did not fit in the allotted space.
11. Pair of Grammys?: EMS. We have seen this type of clue and answer many times previously...and you know that this MM appreciates EMS.
14. "It's __ time!": ABOUT. A straightforward fill-in-the-blank clue. The seven-letter adjective is implicit.
15. Old photo tint: SEPIA.
A SEPIA PHOTO
16. Dwarf who mixes up his words: DOC. He's the one with the eyeglasses.
20. Meeting goal often not achieved: LENGTH.
21. Nuclear energy device: REACTOR. You can build your own.
23. Lip: SASS. Impudence by any name.
26. Firefighter's tool: HOSE.
35. Soft palate projection: UVULA.
37. Not what one would expect: IRONIC.
AIRPLANE 2
44. Mexican bread: DINERO. Bread, of course, being slang for money.
46. Single-master: SLOOP. This version of "The Sloop John B" involves both The Beach Boys and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra:
SEE HOW THE MAINSAIL SETS
52. Palm tree superfood: ACAI. A current-day crossword, and for some folks dietary, staple.
53. Ancient home: EDEN. If the stories are to be believed, the most ancient of all.
THE GARDEN OF EDEN
55. Predator with a heart-shaped face: BARN OWL.
59. Card game with trumps: EUCHRE. Not Bridge. Not Whist.
64. Hurricane season mo.: OCT. The Atlantic Hurricane Season officially runs from June 1st through November 30th.
68. Cravat or ascot: TIE. Not to be confused with 18 Down. Two weeks ago the puzzle demanded No TIE.
69. Like Caspar Milquetoast: TIMID. Caspar Milquetoast is a comic strip character created for the strip "Timid Soul" that launched in 1925.
CASPAR MILQUETOAST
70. Give a false idea of: BELIE.
71. Low: SAD.
72. Deposit in the attic, say: STORE.
73. Cheerleaders' assortment: YELLS.
EAST LAKE HIGH SCHOOL SPARTANS
Down:
1. "James and the Giant Peach" author: DAHL. Roald DAHL was a spy, a fighter pilot and a medical inventor as well as an author. In addition to the clue's referenced work, he wrote Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Matilda.
2. Wind heard in Dion's "Abraham, Martin and John": OBOE. Although oboes, of course, are heard frequently in our puzzles this is one of the best clues yet.
DION
3. Desolate: LORN. LORN means lonely and abandoned. We more often see forlorn.
4. Organ in a chest: LUNG.
5. Decides to leave alone: STETS. STET is a proofreader's mark for Let It Stand. Rarely, though, do we see it used as a verb.
6. Biblical mount: ASS.
BALAAM'S ASS
7. Harmless cyst: WEN. This week's "I'll pass on the graphics" moment.
8. Imitator: APER. Outside of puzzles one rarely sees, or hears, APER or Aped. Within puzzles we commonly see them both.
9. Slope: RISE.
SLOPE INTERCEPT (y = mx + b)
10. It may be crunched: DATA.
11. Spell-checker, say: EDITOR. Literally true but I'd bet that most of us first thought of something word-processing-related
12. Lacking in joy: MOROSE. Our second ASS of the day (if one chooses not to count Peter Griffin):
EEYORE
13. Rustled (up): SCARED. Colloquialisms. SCARED up something to eat, Rustled up some grub.
18. Bangkok native: THAI. There is nothing else quite like a tuk-tuk ride through the streets of Bangkok, THAIland.
22. Private laugh: CHUCKLE. Chuckles are laughs that are quiet, inward or suppressed.
24. Golfing mishaps: SLICES.
25. Camera type, briefly: SLR. A Single Lens Reflex camera uses a mirror and prism to allow the photographer to see exactly what will be captured on the film or digitally.
27. Rural road feature: RUT.
28. Prefix with fauna: AVI. A reference to the birds of a particular region. I am most familiar with these:
29. Stick (out): JUT.
30. 2019 Mena Massoud title role: ALADDIN.
32. Free of commissions, as a mutual fund: NO LOAD.
33. Young Darth: ANI. A "Star Wars" reference and a "diminutive" name to boot.
ANAKIN SKYWALKER
34. Cookie containers: TINS.
36. Indigo plant: ANIL. I only know this from crossword puzzles...and the perps helped to recall it.
39. Having four sharps: IN E. We needed to assume that we were talking here about the musical key E Major. The relative minor of E Major is C Sharp Minor and it also has four sharps.
41. Absalom, to David: SON. A biblical reference.
DAVID AND ABSALOM
42. "PAW Patrol" fan: TOT.
THE PAW PATROL
43. Special ___: OPS. Both OPTS and OPS in the same puzzle!
45. Caviar: ROE. I went to a sushi bar and ordered salmon roe. It was a spawn-taneous decision.
47. Clogs: SABOTS. In this instance, a shoe reference. My friend Jon's father had a small sailboat that we would sometimes take out in the marina. It was far too small for the open sea. The logo on the sail, and the type of boat it was, was a SABOT.
48. Thorny shrub: ACACIA. Both ACACIA and ACAI in the same puzzle!
54. Lumpy, as a knit fabric: NUBBY. This type of fabric is rarely seen in crossword puzzles but it has been seen before.
56. Comes down on one side of something: OPTS. An intentionally somewhat obtuse clue? Not incorrect, merely less straightforward than it needed to be. Oh, wait, it's a crossword puzzle. They do that all the time.
57. Court order: WRIT.
58. Ride to the prom: LIMO. Perhaps riding in a LIMO is now commonplace but it sure wasn't when this manatee was in High School. Further, unless PROM is considered to be an abbreviation for something, there is nothing in the clue that indicates LIMO in lieu of Limousine.
60. Algonquin language: CREE. Often, CREE is clued with a reference to the Canadian indigenous population.
61. Severe criticism: HELL. We rarely see "semi-swear-words" in puzzles.
1948 CAMPAIGN BUTTON
62. Fence crosspiece: RAIL.
POST AND RAIL FENCING
63. Manages to get, with "out": EKES. We see this one a lot. I sometimes get confused between EKES and EEKS.
66. Military address: SIR. A bit of misdirection as APO (Army Post Office) is commonly seen as an answer to similar clues.
67. "To Autumn," for one: ODE. What would a puzzle be without ODE somewhere in the grid?
On Tuesday, WikWak said..."I have seldom known as giving and selfless a person. RIP, Bradley."
What follows was written prior to Abejo's passing. It is not meant to add anything to aid in coming to grips with the sadness. At best, a brief diversion.
Salutations, cruciverbalists. Another Thor's Day has dawned. Today, in lieu of the roar of thunder courtesy of the son of Odin, our constructor, MaryEllen Uthlaut, has provided the sonic effects.
THEME: Did You Hear Something Go Pop Pop Pop?
There are many, many ways that we use the word POP in our language. Pop (contemporary) Culture, Pop (surprise) Quiz, Pop (ask) The Question, Pop (go) Into The Store, Pop (open) The Cork, It Just Popped (came) Into My Head, Five Bucks A Pop (each), I Just Heard My Knee Pop (noise), etc. MaryEllen has chosen to integrate four other ways that POPS is used into this entertaining puzzle.
17. Pops: BOSTON ORCHESTRA. The Boston POPs Orchestra was founded in 1885. It's stated mission was, and remains, to perform light classical music as well as the popular music of the day. Arthur Fiedler led the Boston Pops for fifty years.
Arthur Fiedler
33. Pops: ICE CREAM BARS. ICE CREAM BARS, aka an Ice Cream POPS, are frozen desserts on a stick often with coatings of chocolate to prevent melting and dripping of the ice cream.
42. Pops: DAD'S NICKNAME. Let's see, there's POP, Father, Pa, Pater, Papa, Daddy, Poppa, Pappy and, of course, "So's yer Old Man!"
63. Pops: CARBONATED SODAS. The term POP is used to mean soda in various parts of the country. According to one source, historically the correct term is actually 'phosphate' which was defined by soda jerks as being a flavored syrup mixed with carbonated water. Sodas were what we call, today, 'floats'. POP is actually a shortening of 'phosphate' (as they say in some crossword puzzles: letters one, three and five).
Across:
1. Old storyteller: BARD. William Shakespeare is often referred to as the BARD of Avon.
5. __ value: FACE. To take something at "FACE Value" means to accept something as presented without delving more deeply into an analysis of the matter or item.
9. Worthless stuff: DROSS. DROSS is something that is base, trivial or worthless. The scum that forms on the surface of molten metal is also called DROSS.
Aluminum Dross
14. Eager: AVID.
15. Muslim community leader: IMAM. An IMAM leads Muslim worshipers in prayer.
16. Time of one's life: YOUTH. A bit of misdirection here. To Have The Time Of One's Life, when used idiomatically, means to have a wonderfully enjoyable experience. Here we need to answer with a time, or phase, of one's life.
20. Female bighorn: EWE. From 1974 until 2016, the Los Angeles/St. Louis Rams football team cheerleading squad was known as The Embraceable EWEs . For some reason or another, that bit of misjudgment makes me think of Tom Lehrer's comment about Dr. Samuel Gall, inventor of the Gallbladder. Of the late Dr. Gall Mr. Lehrer once said, "His educational career began, interestingly enough, in agricultural school where he majored in Animal Husbandry....until they caught him at it one day."
21. Ensign __ Crusher, Wil Wheaton's "Star Trek: TNG" role: WESLEY. Picard, please correct me if I am wrong, but I believe that Wil Wheaton began playing the role of WESLEY Crusher in 1987 when Wheaton was just fourteen or fifteen years old.
22. Tasteless gruel: SLOP.
Feeding Slop to the Pigs
23. Trio from Don Giovanni?: ENS. Here we go again. It is one of those clues meant to be taken extremely literally. There are three ENS in Don Giovanni.
24. Flow slowly: SEEP. Below are two High Resolution Photographs showing possible water SEEPage on Mars. Some slopes on Mars darken during the Martian summer but return to a lighter color by the following spring.
26. Manage, with "out": EKE. A Top Twenty entry in the Crosswordese dictionary.
27. Parachute attachment: HARNESS. It is a very good idea to keep one's parachute HARNESSED to oneself.
31. Like "it," grammatically: NEUTER. As an adjective, it means that a word is neither feminine nor masculine. As a transitive, verb NEUTER is substantially more disturbing. No living creature would like it.
36. Note from the office: MEMO. Can secretaries really write MEMO's with both their left and right hands at the same time? Or is that stereotyping?
37. Buddy: PAL.
38. Mild Dutch cheese: EDAM.
Why is EDAM such a unique cheese?
Because it's made backwards.
47. Hardened: STEELY.
Steely Dan
50. Replace on the schedule: PREEMPT.
51. Poetic contraction: 'TIS. It is a contraction for it is.
52. Christmas pudding fruit: PLUM.
Did you hear the PLUM joke?
It was pitiful.
55. Take in the groceries?: EAT.
56. Seal-hunting swimmer: ORCA. ORCAs can often be found in crossword puzzles. Sometimes, the clues are similar to those used for OREOs, with black and white as the key words. Today, this marine mammal is honoring that marine mammal with black and white images (also apropos of Oreos and crossword puzzles).
58. Protective charm: AMULET.
60. 46-Down work: ODE. An ODE is a lyric poem in the form of an address to a particular subject. Another Top-Twenty entry on the list of Crosswordese vocabulary.
66. Mound: KNOLL. A KNOLL is a small hill. JFK was not shot from the Grassy Knoll in Dallas, TX but some conspiracy theorists believe differently.
The Grassy Knoll - Dealey Plaza
67. Great start?: MEGA. The constructor threw in the question mark to let us know that she was being a bit sneaky with this clue. MEGA can be used as both an adjective and as an adverb.
68. Ceremonial grandeur: POMP. Under some circumstances, POMP means a splendid display.
69. Changed course, nautically: YAWED. YAWED is the past tense of YAW which means to twist about a vertical axis. Occasionally, in an airplane or on a boat, I am emphatically reminded of the difference between Pitch, Roll and Yaw.
70. Worshipped image: IDOL. Originally, an IDOL was the physical representation of a god. Some of the Israelites created a false idol, the Golden Calf, to worship in a moment of doubt when Moses ascended Mt. Sinai. In today's POP Culture, IDOL means a greatly admired or loved person. Plus ca change plus c'est le meme chose.
71. Long shot, in hoops lingo: TREY. Slang for a three-point shot. The distance varies a bit (pro, college, men, women) but it is generally more than twenty feet. TREY used this way likely has its origins in card player lingo for the card one higher than the deuce and that is, of course, the three.
Down:
1. Sheep herder in a 1995 Best Picture nominee: BABE. "That'll do, pig, that'll do."
2. Swear: AVOW. I usually cannot remember the difference between AVOW and AVER, especially as clued in puzzles. However, the first two letters are the same, the balance is going to be either an O and a W or an E and an R, and the perps take care of that.
3. Come to the surface: RISE. Or, to go above the surface.
4. EPA-banned insecticide: DDT. Dichloro-Diphenyl-Trichloroethane was developed in the 1940's and was used to combat insect-borne human diseases. Its use was banned in 1972.
5. Skillful handling: FINESSE.
6. 8th-century B.C. Hebrew prophet: AMOS. Amos was one of the so called twelve minor prophets. So, just how famous was AMOS ?
Wally "Famous" Amos
7. Western burger franchise __ Jr.: CARL'S. CARL'S Jr is a fast food restaurant chain founded by Carl Karcher. Several of their burgers have the word Western in their titles regardless of on which continent the particular restaurant is located. For example, the Junior Western Burger or, if you are hungrier, The Triple Spicy Western Bacon Cheese Burger.
8. Bob Hope, often, for the Oscars ceremony: EMCEE. EMCEE is the spelled-out version of M.C. or Master of Ceremonies.
9. Turn red, say: DYE. An half-hearted attempt at misdirection but, clearly, neither Embarrass nor Ripen was going to fit in the allotted squares.
10. Supreme singer?: ROSS. Diana Ross was the lead singer of the vocal group The Supremes. The group had a record-setting twelve number one hit singles.
Diana Ross
11. Current source: OUTLET. First, we needed to disabuse ourselves of the notion that the reference was, for example, to a current source of income. As for the required answer, I tend to think of the source of an electric current as being at the point at which it is generated. See 39 Down, below.
12. One of four on a par-4: STROKE. In golf, a STROKE is any swing forward of a golf club by a golfer who is trying to strike the golf ball. Just because the hole is rated a "par-4" does not mean that a single STROKE will turn out to be one of four. It could be one of fewer, or one of many more, STROKEs.
Ben Hogan's Famous One-iron Shot
13. Metal-cutting machine: SHAPER.
18. Proprietor: OWNER. Apu is the PROPRIETOR of the Springfield KWIK-E MART.
Apu Nahasapeemapetilon
19. Nocturnal scavenger: HYENA. In addition to being scavengers, HYENAs are skilled hunters. Sometimes called "Lauging Hyenas", they make loud barking noises that sound like cackling laughter.
A Laughing Hyena
23. Represent in cipher: ENCODE.
25. Part of rpm: PER. Revolutions PER Minute.
27. "That's the guy!": HIM.
28. First-rate player: ACE. The best baseball pitcher on any given team is called that team's ACE. In the 1960's, Sandy Koufax was the ACE of the Los Angeles Dodgers pitching staff.
Sandy Koufax
29. Sleep cycle: REM. Rapid Eye Movement. REM sleep typically accounts for 20 - 25 percent of an adult's sleep cycle. Most dreams occur during REM sleep.
Ted
30. Drains of power: SAPS.
32. Early online forum: USENET. There are several folks here who can explain USENET far better than I can. Basically, USENET, established in 1980, is a bulletin board system and was the precursor to internet forums.
34. Fellow: MAN.
The Ascent of Man
35. Spot on a screen: BLIP. Radar is used to determine the location of an object by measuring the time it takes for a radio wave to reach and return from the object. The determined points are shown on a screen and are called BLIPs.
39. Hydroelectric power source: DAM.
Hoover (nee Boulder) Dam
40. Sound system equipment: AMP.
41. Came upon: MET. We have MET Mr. Met numerous times in crossword puzzles.
Mr.Met
43. Mountain in the Tour de France route: ALP.
44. Subject of the biopic "I'm Not There": DYLAN. Robert Allen Zimmerman was born in Duluth, Minnesota in 1941. In 1962, he legally changed his name to Bob DYLAN. His net worth is estimated at $200 Million and, in 2016, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature. His mother would be so proud.
Bob Dylan
45. Guided by a statement of faith: CREEDAL. I looked it up and, surprisingly, it actually is a word. CREEDAL, as the clue implies, is an adjective used when referring to a statement of a religious belief or "creed".
46. "The Poetry of earth is never dead" poet: KEATS.
47. Short and solid: STOCKY.
48. Albania's capital: TIRANA. TRIANA is the largest Albanian city both in terms of population and area. Often, constructors mess with us and the "capital" they refer to is the local currency. In this case that would be the LEK which appears frequently in puzzles.
49. Mortgage provision: ESCROW. Under the terms of some mortgages, money for property taxes and insurance is paid monthly into an ESCROW account by the borrower where the funds are held in order to pay the bills when they become due.
53. Taste sensation: UMAMI. There are five recognized basic tastes. In addition to UMAMI they are salty, bitter, sweet and sour. Of these, UMAMI is, perhaps, the most difficult to define. Words often used to try to do so are meaty, broth-like and savory.
54. Subtle, as a shade: MUTED. MUTED can also refer to sound, as on the computer, tablet or cell phone that you are now using.
57. Willing partner: ABLE. Ready, Willing and ABLE.
59. Toy company with theme parks: LEGO.
60. Reminder to take out the trash?: ODOR. I first tried to make MOTHER, and then EX-WIFE, work.
61. British title: DAME.
Dame Edna
62. Best Game, e.g.: ESPY. In this case, ESPY is the name of a sports award given by ABC Television and named for the sports channel ESPN. Both ESPN and ABC are owned by The Walt Disney Company. As with so many current-day acronyms, first they decide on what they want the acronym to be and then they "force feed" the words for which the acronym stands. In this case that's Excellence In Sports Performance Yearly Award or ESPY.
65. Get off the fence: OPT. To OPT means to make a choice. We could OPT not to solve crossword puzzles but that would be sub-optimal.
That wraps up the puzzle today. As I gain more experience with "blogging" on the Corner, my admiration for all of those who create these puzzle "explorations" grows. It is a challenge, I have discovered, to strike a balance between expository writing, entertainment, and humor. I lean toward the humorous but I know that the primary purpose here is to try to explain the clues and answers. On another note, after "shooting" in black and white this week, next time I'll put the color film back in the camera.
