Friday, April 24, 2020 Brian Temte & Jeff Chen

"An Average Puzzle"


18. "The Shape of Water" director: GUILLERMO DEL TORO.

43. Snapchat marketing expert, in modern lingo: SOCIAL MEDIA NINJA.

65. "Watch your mouth!": DON'T GIVE ME ANY LIP.

And the reveal:

71. Garden-variety, and a hint to what's hidden in 18-, 43- and 65-Across: AVERAGE.


An LA Times debut for Brian Temte, who in collaboration with Jeff Chen, gives us three grid spanners that hide the theme answers.

And unless you got the answers via perps, they also give us three clues that need the reveal answer to provide you with, well, a clue:

22. Below 71-Across: BLAH.
47. Below 71-Across: SUBPAR. 
72. Below 71-Across: POOR.

If you are a top to bottom solver, or happened to hit one of those three clues early, you may have looked to 71A to figure out what the clue should be.   Average didn't immediately come to mind for Garden-variety.   At least it didn't for me.  Horticulture came to mind.  Outdoor plants versus indoor plants.

And Brian and Jeff didn't exactly make solving the reveal at 71A easy.   Grid spanners hiding the theme answers, no circles to help you find them, and perhaps not-so-easy perps crossing the reveal.

Adam Savage I knew.
Super star ?  A famous person ?  Idol ?   No, it was noVa.  So a literal super star.
Bartleby left me clueless, and I had no idea that he or she was a scrivenEr.
Angle and athlete prefix tRi came easily enough.
Noir weapon could have been rod, but this time it was gAt.
Then we get to: Spanish soccer association that means "the league": La LiGa.  Did you know this ?
Then an easy E in gavEl.

Thus, AVERAGE.   So "Below average" as the clue for 22, 47 and 72 across.

I have to admit that after solving the mini-theme test and then completing the grid, I almost forgot to look for the hidden words in the spanners.   Mean, Median and Mode explained.

Across:

1. 35th pres.: JFK.   John Fitzgerald Kennedy

4. Smaller-than-life depiction: ICON.

8. Larger-than-life creations: COLOSSI.

15. Spleen: IRE.

16. Hilo shindig: LUAU.

17. Put into play: ENACTED.

21. Construction __: SITE.

23. "Frontline" network: PBS.   A favorite PBS program.  Thought provoking.

24. What a pursuer seeks to narrow: THE GAP.

28. Evergreen shrubs: ERICAs.    Oops.  Make that three words that had to be corrected.  Had yuccas.  Bzzt !  The Genus Erica   You may know it as heath or heather.

31. Meat on a stick: KEBAB.   Key in a K (skip a cell), Key in a B (skip a cell),  Key in a B and then check perps.

33. English "L'chaim!": TO LIFE.   Hebrew translated to English.  A toast.

36. Pack animal: ASS.

39. "Gimme the skinny!": TELL IT.    TELL me went in.    It wasn't until I got the second grid spanner that I saw that it should be IT.

Cue up Aaron Neville.  He wants to know if she's just playing with his emotions in this 1966 song:


42. Stiff: RIGID.

46. Northern Iraqis: KURDS.

48. Virtual-city denizen: SIM.  A simulated person.

49. __ column: SPINAL.

51. Cabbage in a French café?: EUROs.   Usually, slang in the clue would require slang in the answer, but it is Friday.

Google Translate tells me the French word for the vegetable cabbage is chou, and sounds something like shoe.

Chou looks like a Chinese word.  It sounds something like cho, rhyming with show.  Chou seems to mean draw, or pump, or take out, or pick out, or shrink, or quilt, or flagellate.   Must be about the tone.

Many Asian languages (exempli gratia, Chinese) are tonal, so in addition to having vowels and consonants, tones can change the meaning of words.   I read that some Chinese dialects can have as many as 12 tones.

I also read that in some other languages (e.g. Japanese, Hebrew, Norwegian, et al.) that pitch accent can change the meanings of words by stressing different syllables.

Where was I ?    Cue up Styx - Too Much Time On My Hands:


53. Long trip: VOYAGE.

56. Old tankard metal: PEWTER.

59. Suffix for but-: ANE.   Butane.   "Man, that's cold !"

61. Rolling rock?: LAVA.

Meet the Volcanoes

63. High pair: ACES.

73. In bygone days: AGO.

74. __ status: MARITAL.

75. Ward with awards: SELA.

76. Explosive stuff: TNT.

Down:

1. Lively dances: JIGS.

2. __ Roll-Ups: FRUIT.

The boxes no longer say "Made with real fruit" and have very limited use of fruit imagery.

3. Urban of country: KEITH.


4. Not well: ILL.

5. Numberless type of ball: CUE.   My first thought was gum. 

6. Pole in a lock: OAR.

7. Indifferent: NUMB.   Apathetic.

8. Chest material: CEDAR.

9. Like some wonders: ONE HIT.  nh

10. LeBron's team, on scoreboards: LAL.   LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers.

11. World Series mo.: OCT. ober.

12. Corner quartet, perhaps: STOP SIGNS.   The town we moved to when I was eleven had no 4-way stop signs.  There was only one traffic light, with a constant flashing yellow in one direction, and a flashing red in the other.   Two churches, a hardware store, a pharmacy, a one pump gas station, a bar, a post office and our high school.   Cue up John Mellencamp.



13. Balkan native: SERB. ian.

14. Altar words: I DOs.

19. Welsh national emblem: LEEK.  Wait, what ?  Why ?  Let's check with  Wales Online

20. Cheer for a banderillero: OLE.   Primera persona del singular (yo) del presente de indicativo de banderillear.

25. Have one's chance to speak: GET A SAY.

26. Genesis victim: ABEL.   For some inexplicable reason, I keyed in Cain rather than ABEL, but fixed that two words later when I got to KEBAB.

27. Conceals, in a way: PALMS.   Sleight of hand.

29. Stylist's braid: CORN ROW.   Versus a farmer's rows of corn.

30. Others, in Latin: ALII.    As in Et (and) al. (others).  "... the phrase in Latin could be written three different ways, depending on whether the other things one referred to were masculine (et alii), feminine (et aliae), or neuter (et alia)."  - Merriam-Webster

32. French flag couleur: BLEU. 

34. Island nation whose flag has a Union Jack on it: FIJI.

35. Dutch cheese: EDAM.

36. Seeks permission: ASKs.   Some are big.

37. Common stock option?: SOUP.   What's the diff ?

38. Bartleby, notably: SCRIVENER.   "Bartleby the Scrivener" at Sparknotes

40. "__ delighted!": I'D BE.

41. Hold higher, as a baby bottle: TIP UP.

44. License fig.: I.D. NO..   I remitted the fees to have my driver's license renewed for another 4 years via the online portal for the Secretary of State.   Didn't expect to get it back for awhile, but it came back within a few weeks.  Real ID can wait.

45. Swiss river: AARE.

50. Spanish soccer association that means "the league": LA LIGA.   Am familiar with some of the teams like FC Barcelona and Real Madrid, but not familiar enough to know the association name.

52. Command to Fido: STAY.

54. Bench mallet: GAVEL.  The piece of wood struck by the gavel is known as a sounding block.

55. Christmas __: EVE.

57. Conspicuous display: ECLAT.

58. Hold sway: REIGN.

59. Savage of "MythBusters": ADAM.   This program fist aired in 2003 and immediately captured my interest.  Myths weren't always busted.  Sometimes they held true.   

60. Super star: NOVA.

62. Roadie's haul: AMPs.

64. Stain: SPOT.

66. Prefix with angle or athlete: TRI.

67. Noir weapon: GAT.


68. Fair-hiring initials: EOE.

69. Co. that bought Netscape in 1999: AOL.

70. Food service trade org.: NRA.  The annual National Restaurant Association was scheduled for May 16th to May 19th at McCormick Place in Chicago but North America's largest convention center has been turned into a medical facility.



Check your answers against this grid:

Friday, April 10, 2020 Dick Shlakman

"ER Added"


17. How to get buns of steel?: TAKE THE A TRAINER. 

25. Axes one of the market employees?: BOUNCES A CHECKER.

43. "All these steaks are too well done"?: NOT ONE RED CENTER.

57. Hilariously react to a butt-baring prankster?: HOWL AT THE MOONER.


Remove the ER from the nouns to get the base phrases of these funnily redefined theme entries.   The first one was the hardest for me to parse.   Just took a bit of staring to see it.   It was also the one that cracked me up the most.

This looks to be another debut for the LA Times crossword venue.  Lemonade sent me an email saying that today's constructor and Jeff Chen collaborated on a pair of NYT puzzles in 2014.  So six years later, it seems Dick has once again decided to dip his toe into crossword construction. 


Across:


1. Stat cousin: ASAP.

5. Acronym often seen with a plus sign: LGBTQ.    I forgot the Q part, and the intersecting "NBA Div." clue had me stumped.

10. 1886 debut at Jacobs' Pharmacy in Atlanta: COKE.    The first year's sales averaged nine glasses a day @ five cents each.   

14. Unflappable: COOL.   For a moment, I thought Molly Brown was unflappable.  Then remembered the correct adjective.

15. Stop on the Métro?: ARRET.    Métro tells you it is French.  The question mark alerts you that something is afoot.

Arrêt does mean stop.   But a station on the Métro is formally known as a station de métro.   Who woulda thunk it ?

Informally, the answer could mean stop...   In the right context,  arrêt would probably be understood to mean train station stop.   But be careful, because a bus stop is known as an "arret de bus" so... 

This convoluted explanation brought to you by me after reading an explanation on Trip Advisor.   I defer to Kazie and those who are well-versed in travelling the Métro.

 
16. Anderson of "WKRP in Cincinnati": LONI.  -   The St. Paul, Minnesota born bosomy blonde bombshell probably kept the sitcom afloat and probably set aflame the hearts of the teenage boy viewing audience.  

20. Rental at Aspen: SKI BOOTS.  Boot rentals make sense unless you are an avid skier or a ski bum.

21. All agog: IN AWE. 

22. Mme. counterpart: SRA.   The abbreviations for Madame and Senora, respectively.  Wlile we are at it, let's also review that Mademoiselle would be Mlle., and  Senorita would be Srta.

23. Samsung : Bixby :: Apple : __: SIRI.   Virtual assistants.  High tech.

33. Sleep disturbance: APNEA.    That's not what wakes me up at night.

34. Roxette and Eurythmics: DUOs.




35. "The Puzzle Palace" org.: NSA.   I read the preview.

36. D-Day invasion city: ST LO.

37. Draining target?: SWAMP.     Didn't they try that in the Everglades ?  

39. Pressure: HEAT.  

40. Adherent's suffix: ITE.

41. High-tech read: EMAG.   I guess high tech because they are online, or because you read them on a high tech device.  Technology ?  Yes.   High tech ?  

42. "The Power of Now" author Eckhart __: TOLLE.    A quick search tells me he is a spiritual teacher and best selling author.  His 1997 book cited in the clue,  " ... is intended to be a guide for day-to-day living and stresses the importance of living in the present moment and transcending thoughts of the past or future."

47. __ & Chandon Champagne: MOET.

48. Popular U.S. street name: ELM.   There was a nightmare there.

49. Cheese shape: WHEEL.    200 and 220 pound wheels ?   They are huge.   But not this Wisconsin Baby Swiss:

Wisconsin’s Legendary Baby Swiss Cheese

52. Transmission problem: SLIPPAGE.   I had this problem in my Grand Prix, way back when they were large cars.   To save money,  GM decided to put the small Turbo Hydramatic 200 transmission that was developed for the smaller Chevy Vega and Chevy Nova in all their larger cars.   One day it wouldn't move in reverse gear.   I called a transmission shop and they told me to contact the Better Business Bureau.  GM paid for the replacement of a rebuilt 350 transmission.

60. "Get it?" response: I SEE.

61. Mazda MX-5, familiarly: MIATA.    Anonymous PVX tells us:  he has one,  loves it,  and isn't ready to replace it anytime soon.

62. Fly in the ointment: SNAG.

63. Drink garnish: ZEST.   The store was out of Ivory, Dove and Dial bar soaps.  So I bought Zest.  The scent is too much for DW at night.  She had to shut the bathroom door.  Wait.  I take that back.  It was Irish Spring, not Zest.

64. Researcher's aid: INDEX.   The Differences Between Indexes and Scales

65. Besmirches: TARS.    Tars as slang for tarnishes.

Down:

1. Musical pair, commonly: ACTs. 

2. Drench: SOAK.

3. World Golf Hall of Famer Isao: AOKI.   His first and last names are very crossword friendly.

4. Working-class Roman: PLEB.

5. Capital of Pakistan's Punjab province: LAHORE.   Nailed it !

6. Activist Thunberg and actress Scacchi: GRETAs.   Only knew of the former but it was enough to fill in the blanks.

7. Support group?: BRAs.   My wife did not think using her brassières as face masks was too smart.   However, if you search YouTube, you'll find various videos of people using thongs and jock straps.

8. Saigon New Year: TET.

9. NBA div.: QTR.   I had  (blank) T R, and was stumped.  Knew it wasn't CTR, and had to recite the alphabet until I got all the way to Q.   Then it dawned.   An NBA basketball game is divided into four 12 minute quarters. 

10. Place with outpatients: CLINIC. 

11. The last Mrs. Chaplin: OONA.

12. Was forewarned: KNEW.

13. Cork's home: EIRE.

18. Puccini heroine: TOSCA.

19. Winds, in a South American city name: AIRES.   Buenos.

23. Film on water: SCUM.

24. Restaurant in the same corporate group as Applebee's: IHOP.    The corporate group is Dine Brands Global.   However,  they may not be together much longer.   On April 2nd, Reuters reported that activist investment firm JCP Partners filed a proposal urging shareholders to vote FOR having Dine Brands spin off IHOP.   JCP argues that Applebee's has been a drag on corporate earnings.  Shareholders will decide on May 12th.  It may have been fortuitous that this puzzle and clue was published before then.

25. Water holder: BASIN.

26. Decide one will: OPT TO.

27. Vacant, in a way: UNLET.

28. Opposite of paleo-: NEO.

29. Saw: ADAGE.

30. Prepared to talk to a tot, perhaps: KNELT.   

31. Virtual transaction: E-SALE.

32. Zagat, for one: RATER.  Over the years since 1979, the Zagat Guides have reported on and rated restaurants, hotels, nightlife, shopping, zoos, music, movies, theaters, golf courses, and airlines.  Probably not as trusted as it once was.   I used the Michelin Guides in Europe.

Now they are all being supplanted by crowd sourced reviews on apps such as Yelp.   The Yelp ratings are ok, as long as you have a healthy skepticism of reviews that are too glowing or too negative.  That's because crowd sourced restaurant and product reviews are frequent targets of astroturfing by sockpuppets.

37. Bob Hoskins' role in "Hook": SMEE.   He played Smee in 1991's Hook, and in 2011's Neverland.

38. Small flaw: WART.

39. Sweetie: HON.   Terms of endearment. 

41. Name on a historic B-29: ENOLA.  The "Enola Gay" was so named by pilot Colonel Paul Tibbets in honor of his mother. 

42. Beat: TEMPO.

44. Western, e.g.: OMELET.  Wait a minute.  Last week they said it was a Denver omelet.   IHOP has a Colorado Omelet. 

45. Rub out: DELETE.

46. Turning point: CLIMAX.   Years ago I thought the band Climax Blues Band was a later version of the band Climax.    "Precious and Few" was released in 1971 and sung by Sonny Geraci, who five years earlier in 1966 had a hit with the band, The Outsiders.  I'd link that song, but "Time Won't Let Me"

49. Phenom: WHIZ.

50. Cheat: HOSE.

51. Rams' fans?: EWES. 

52. Herring known for its roe: SHAD.

53. Military installation: POST.

54. "Frozen" princess: ANNA.   Voiced, in part, by Kristen Bell.

55. Reverse, say: GEAR.   Have I ever mentioned about my Pontiac Grand Priz that wouldn't move when I shifted gears to R ? 

56. Joule fractions: ERGS.

58. Texter's "I didn't need to know that": TMI.   Too Much Information

59. __ ear: TIN.