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bay area concert venue bay area concert venueConstructor: Steve Dobis
Relative difficulty: Easy
THEME: "ELOCUTION PHRASE" (40A: Exercise in pronunciation ... like the first words of the answers to the starred clues) — first words spell out "HOW NOW BROWN COW"
Word of the Day: BRET Maverick — Maverick is a comedy-western television series created by Roy Huggins that ran from September 22, 1957 to July 8, 1962 on ABC and featured James Garner, Jack Kelly, Roger Moore, and Robert Colbert as the poker-playing traveling Mavericks (Bret, Bart, Beau, & Brent). Moore and Colbert were later additions, though there were never more than two current Mavericks in the series at any given time, and sometimes only one. (wikipedia)
When I do these puzzles on paper, untimed, I have a really hard time assessing difficulty — I'm used to using the clock as a gauge. This one *felt* very very easy — about as easy as yesterday's, maybe easier. The front part of ELOCUTION PHRASE was about the only part of the puzzle that took some thinking, and that's only because I tried to guess it without any crosses in place (had the PHRASE part). I was not familiar with ELOCUTION PHRASE with a phrase as such. "HOW NOW BROWN COW" is a phrased used in elocution lessons to demonstrate round vowel sounds (or so wikipedia tells me). But if you Google ELOCUTION PHRASE you get ... crossword blogs discussing today's puzzle on your first page of results. That suggests the phrase ELOCUTION PHRASE isn't much of one. But still, it's very gettable and makes sense. Overall, the theme seems reasonably solid and clever to me.Theme answers:
17A: *Informal greeting ("HOW goes it?")- 30A: *At times (NOW and again)
- 47A: *One not using the company cafeteria, maybe (BROWN-bagger)
- 64A: *Bay Area concert venue (COW Palace) — my favorite theme answer. I haven't been there, but as I was working my way down the grid, I made a bet with myself that the answer for COW would be COW PALACE. And I was right. Pay up, me!
This puzzle is a pangram. It's also bionic, with all kinds of electronic parts. Check out the CAMS (36A: PC video gear, for short) and WEBTV (which still exists, though it's now called MSNTV) (63A: PC-less Internet hookup, once) and ... looks like someone left a 90s-era SEGA Genesis gaming system lying around here too (71A: Sonic the Hedgehog's company). Sometimes, moving through the grid quickly is a matter of very good luck. Take the east today, for instance. Got TAWNY off the T (39A: Lion-colored), then GARB off the A (32D: Clothing), then BRET off the B (46A: One of TV's Mavericks). All other answers in that section are pieces of cake. The ability to see answers that aren't there is far more important to solving efficiently than the fact of knowing many arcane things (though that undoubtedly helps in some situations).
There are cheater squares in the NE and SW — normally these don't distract me, but today they seem neon. Not sure why. Cheater squares are black squares that don't change the number of Acrosses and Downs. They just add more black space and make the grid easier to fill. They are under STY and over WIZ, respectively.I just realized that I know the word "NOGO" (42D: Scrapped, as a mission) from Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire": "Edsel is a NOGO" — that's what he says, right? Man did I not like that song (from the Pop Music Nadir period 1987-91, which I have theorized on this site before).
Bullets:
- 5A: Island neighbor of Tonga and Tuvalu (Fiji) — would love to spend more time in South Pacific. Maybe on our next trip to NZ (where my wife is from, for those who didn't know), we can add another island nation or two to the itinerary ... though truthfully that "island" will probably be Australia. Wife lived there for a time, but I've never been.
- 14A: Sea dog's libation (grog) — Portland Seadogs are the name of the Red Sox AA team.
- 2D: Hotel room amenity (iron) — had the "I" and thought "ICE ... ICER? ... ICES?")
- 10D: Here, in Honduras (aqui) — Here in Honduras, we have no president. Thanks, military.
- 63D: 1978 Diana Ross musical, with "The" ("Wiz") — also a Michael Jackson musical. Seeing this movie in a big downtown theater in Fresno when I was an 8-yr-old kid remains one of the more vivid movie-going experiences of my life.
See you tomorrow,
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]
I thought this was brutally difficult for a Tuesday. Normally I fly through a Tuesday just like a Monday and don't have to do much thinking. Here I felt like I got stuck in about 4 or 5 regions. I finished around 6 minutes, which is probably only a minute more than usual, but still.
ReplyDeleteMy favorites were TAWNY (very under-used word), IQUIT, and GROG. My least favorite was the IRS ORAN intersection, which took me a good ten seconds. Also didn't care for AGHA, RAJA, and the whole ACERB/HALER section.
All I could think of once I realized it was going to be HOW NOW BROWN COW was "The arsonist has oddly shaped feet," and "Unique New York."
Fun puzzle. Easier that yesterday.
ReplyDeleteOff to North Carolina tomorrow so I'll be absent for about a week.
I have been thinking about the puzzle speed comments. When I still practiced I worked with some high performance athletes to understand how they visualize success. Many enter an event with the rock solid belief they will win, beat their best time, etc. They use a visualization technique and a mind set that begins with I won and they look backwards at what helped them win. This is sometimes known as into the vision.
ReplyDeleteMy best puzzle times (regardless of the day or author) have been when i sat down with the clear conviction that today was going to be a fast day. To be sure puzzle practice helps to maintain that state of unwavering confidence as you say to yourself "self doubt was not what helped me beat my best time).
So look at the visualization literature and the into the vision material it may help.
Fine puzzle and in honor of @glitch I will not write up Cow Palace stories.
Hey, everyone, I'm back and in one piece! Hope I didn't miss any fantastic puzzles, but the trip was well worth it. Wouldn't recommend the trip to anyone but a very avid horseback rider, but it was a once in a lifetime experience. If you want any more info you can email me at nanpilla@aol.com.
ReplyDeleteAbout the puzzle, I liked it. Not too much stale stuff and just enough to sink your teeth into on a Tuesday. Back to Wimbledon.
I loved this puzzle and it's a pangram to boot. I found it easy but interesting and, to me, one of the better Tuesdays we've had in a while.
ReplyDeleteI knew of Bart and BRET but, thank you, Rex, Beau and Brent were unknown to me till now.
@dk ... very interesting about the concept of postitive visualization. When I was going through a divorce years back I listened to tapes that reinforced this idea and I found they really worked. In fact, I try to keep that kind of thought process going all the time.
I was surprised to see that Diana Ross isn't wearing a WIG in the WIZ clip.
Thanks Mr. Dobis for a most enjoyable Tuesday!
@chefbea ... have fun in North Carolina!
ReplyDeleteThe clue for 58 down is odd. Is that a British clue?? On American sets TONE is a sound adjustment, TINT or HUE is the color. They had tone controls on b/w sets, so I dont understand the "color" part of the clue.
ReplyDeleteI finished this puzzle within 1 second of yesterday's finishing time—but Monday's puzzle took me a Tuesday amount of time so today's seemed on target.
ReplyDeleteRex, you speed solver, you. Why are you so fixated on seeing the answers that aren't there yet? Why don't you turn off that part of your brain so that you can spend more time on the crossword?
That on-the-fly predictive thinking about what answer could fit a spot, even before you've read the clue, is probably something every single speed solver does without consciously thinking about it. (Sometimes you're right, sometimes not. Yesterday, I guessed that *ATHOM* would be FATHOMS but it turned out to be a two-word answer. One does have to read the clues.) Do more leisurely solvers also tend to eyeball a partially filled-in word and guess what fits there before reading the clue? My question is serious—I only know how I do puzzles, not anyone else.
@Orange, I probably qualify as a more leisurely solver, and I definitely find myself guessing what will fit in the grid based on a partial fill. As an extremely easy example, today I had U_IT and knew it had to be UNIT. Nevertheless, I checked both crossing clues before filling in the N. This is definitely one of the things that keeps me from faster speeds, but I'm usually too anal to fill something in without checking the crosses.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteDid this one a full minute slower than my average Tuesday time, but enjoyed it nonetheless! Lotsa good stuff.
ReplyDelete@Orange: I have just recently started doing what you're talking about (guessing what a partially filled word will turn out to be) and I think it's making me faster even though I do check the clue.
Incidentally, someone here (it might have been Orange or PuzzleGirl) inadvertently got me hooked on Sporcle by linking a quiz to name all the countries in Africa.
ReplyDeleteToday, there's a four letter answers quiz that should be pretty easy for most of the blog's readers.
Crossword Quiz
@John said
ReplyDeleteAgree on TV Color Adjustment = TONE as "iffy", at least.
North America uses the NTSC standard (we called it Never The Same Color), and provides for a TINT adjustment.
Europe and elsewhere use PAL or SECAM as a standard, which as I recall, don't have / need a TINT control.
My old HiFi had a TONE control tho.
.../Glitch
PS: @dk -- I'm disappointed ;-)
@Orange, as an inveterate leisurely puzzle solver I indeed try to fill in the blanks before looking at the clue and again after. I also very much enjoy pencil and paper, as solving that way allows me to put in guesses in light pencil. Then as I continue to solve, those guesses guide the first choices in the crosses. The darker the pencil the more confident I am in the answer. So it gives hints to the solution of the crosses without being sure of the answers. Does that make sense? Does anyone else solve that way? I find it very helpful.
ReplyDeleteBoth Monday and Tuesday's puzzles were above par--both slightly more difficult, more interesting and more enjoyable than usual. A nice start to the week.
ReplyDeleteVery smooth fill with a theme worth a chortle. Where is Eliza Doolittle when we need her?
ReplyDeleteA nice, easy Tuesday pangram. Good theme. Only the SW had any answers I had trouble with: didn’t know JERI Ryan and wasn’t sure of ZINES. But, crosses were easy, so no problem
ReplyDeleteTwo seconds faster than yesterday.
ReplyDeleteAgain with the cows. Here in Victoria, a dead cow washed up onshore and is still there as several levels of government determine who is responsible for dealing with it.
Very nice Tuesday puzzle. I thought I had it completely licked as soon as I saw HOW and NOW, but still took some effort to get ELOCUTIONPHRASE.
ReplyDeleteJust one write-over, threw in GEAR before GARB for 32D.
A jaunty outing, worthy of a Tuesday.
ReplyDelete@ Hudson Hawk et al. - Sporcle seems to be Macintosh unfriendly. Would need two mice to do it efficiently. Spent far more time moving the cursor than doing the puzzle. A grumble - some of the answers were clearly not unique and not noted as such.
ReplyDelete@nanpilla: welcome back!
ReplyDelete@chefbea: bon voyage.
16A "take this job and shove it!" Country music in the puzzle two days in a row!
I too am a leisurely pen and paper solver. But I admire (and enjoy hearing from) people who can solve quickly. I only do one puzzle a day, and I enjoy the break it gives me. Taking my time is part of the pleasure of it.
@ Crosscan - is the cow purple?
ReplyDeleteVery nice puzzle. Took a wee bit longer than my normal Tuesday. Liked that we had RUNNY and EGGED, but we also had "eggs" in a clue. Hmmmm. I now want to go to the outer BANKS of FIJI and have some GROG.
ReplyDeleteI also got BRET right away, but only because I already had the R. My little sister and I had a ritual of watching "Maverick." If I remember correctly, there was an animated sequence at the beginning that, at one point had a section in which Maverick punched out a women who was about to stab him. In some versions, though, he merely pushed her to the ground.
JERI Ryan is, in some way, responsible for Obama being president. In early 2004 her ex-husband, politician Jack Ryan, was widely seen as the front-runner in the Illinois senate race. His opponent was Obama. Then we found out through the release of the Ryans' divorce records that Jack had a kinky side to him. Ryan eventually dropped out of the race and was replaced on the ticket with Alan Keyes. Obama beat Keyes, who had never even lived in Illinois, handily and the rest, as they say, is history.
Seeing the clue for 40A, and already having 17A and 30A, I was able to fill it and the two remaining starred immediately. I need to go watch Anchorman now after doing today's puzzle.
ReplyDelete@retired chemist - No. I never saw a purple cow.
ReplyDeleteA fresh theme and clever clues made a good Wednesday for me.
ReplyDeleteI have always loved James Garner with his understated sytle of humor and easy going attitude. I'm not like that at all and I appreciate people who are. Jibed always slows me down, it doesn't seem like a real word. Weird. I was also slowed down in the NE - I didn't know castling or here in Hondusras.
As for speed, occasionally, I will solve simply for speed, thinking how best to finish as quickly as possible, but I don't find it fun or satisfying. I imagine it's very satisfying once you're really fast.
@HudsonHawk, Victor in Rochester, and my fellow South Carolinian, Archaeoprof: I solve as you do. Pencil and paper, sometimes guessing the answer, and writing in lightly until I'm sure. Part of the pleasure is solving in a leisurely manner. Sometimes I hate for the process to end, like not wanting to finish a good novel. Then I have to return to the mundane world of chores and other obligations.
ReplyDelete@crosscan Do you ever hope to see one???
ReplyDeleteFirst time poster here. I've lurked for several months, but I never had anything to say. Here's a shout out to Orange for posing a question I can answer.
ReplyDeleteI'm a slow solver... my fastest ever is just under 5 minutes for a very easy Monday. Fridays and Saturdays often take more than an hour... when/if I can solve them. I'd like to speed my times up, but even if I knew all the answers in advance it seems like it would still take 4 or 5 minutes just to write them down. I guess I need to work on my visualization skills!
Anyway, I can't help myself. If I see a partially filled word, my mind immediately starts filling in the blanks. I'm guessing that slows me down, but not by a lot.
Rex, thanks for your always entertaining take on things. I'll try to contribute to the conversation until school starts in September (I'm in my 3rd year of teaching Math after a career in high-tech) but, then it'll probably be back to lurking.
"In Hartford, Hereford and Hampshire, hurricanes hardly happen..."
ReplyDeletea nice, straightforward puzzle with little crosswordese that allows for much musing.
@dk, I appreciate your insights on high performance athletes.
@joho, I can see your positive visualization at work in your posts.
@hudson hawk, thank you for Sporcle.
@bookmark, I hear you.
Thanks to Rex's masterful creation, many of us do the puzzle and avail ourselves of this site to contemplate "live" language - in the puzzle, in the posts, through the constructors' thought processes...a kind of Rorschach test, "as it were."
(dk, stop sniggering!)
The constellation of personalities, perspectives and patois (thanks, r-c! ;) is something to behold and, hopefully, one day, will be justly documented.
This approach precludes my own attempt at "speed solving," but I am continually fascinated by those individuals who do.
"How kind of you to let me come..."
(@dirtpile, that's for you)
@still learnin' come back again.
@Archaeoprof & Bookmark - my thoughts exactly, slow and enjoy, who needs to get back into the kitchen that fast.
ReplyDeleteRex, thanks for the great picture of the Scottish Highland Cow, my favorite. On our journeys I always seem to be taking pictures of cats, sheep and cows, husband always says "don't you have enough of those already?"
Easy Tuesday, no wite out, bring it on Wednesday.
*groan*--i love it when i finish the darn thing and ~still!~ dont get it. "how now brown cow"? seriously...
ReplyDelete@Jeff in Chicago - I think that animated opening was from Wild Wild West. They also used it at the commercial breaks and included a bit from the previous scene.
ReplyDeleteFun puzzle - Tuesdays are the most improved day of the week, of late.
@Crosscan - I'd rather see than be one
"Piece moved in castling." I played a lot of chess as a kid. But somehow 'castling' read like a two-syllable word. Some kind of specialized case for something. A cast - ling. I only saw it after the crosses filled in KING. How many words have syllables with no vowels? (Or do people say this as two syllables?)
ReplyDeleteThe puzzle was very smooth and easy. And so was the simple gem of a write-up, Rex. I particularly liked the four pictures Howe, Now, Brown, Cow. I'm thinking, who is this guy with the hockey jersey, and then, why Charlie Brown, and then, oh, that's a 'now' on the sign, and then, ok, there has to be a cow, where's the cow. And voila. A fabulous cow.
Whipped through this one today, mostly due to being a fan of My Fair Lady. I skipped the theme answers as I tabbed through the puzzle, but went back and filled them in the minute I hit 40 across and saw where it was going. Fun theme!
ReplyDeleteNice, smooth Tuesday. I wanted cram at 42D, and had trouble with Wiz at 63D, maybe because the only film with Diana Ross I ever saw was "Mahogany", and it was the one and only one I walked out of halfway.
ReplyDelete@Nanpille: welcome back and glad you had a good time. This morning I saw a young woman on a horse, stopped to talk on her cell phone... That was a first!
@Orange: when I do the LAT online, I usually do it downs first, but whenever I see a likely word Across, because 2 or three letters, I fill it in without looking at the clue. It sometimes happens with the longest answers, too.
@jeff in chi
ReplyDelete... or as the late Paul Harvey would have said, "[dramatic pause]and now you know the rest of the story".
______
@mac
If she had a hands free phone could she have continued driving?
_______
I would have made some comments on pencil solving and appreciation of this blog, but a number of you have already expressed my opinions.
So, I concur with @chefwen, and all the @ refrences back to @Victor.
Saved me a lot of typing.
.../Glitch
Fun puzzle. Average Tuesday for me.
ReplyDelete@Rex: Enjoyed the Maverick write-up. One of my favorite TV shows back in the day.
@HudsonHawk: Thx for the Sporcle heads-up. Missed the Irish river clue, but got the rest.
@retired_chemist: haven't had any problems with Sporcle on my old iBook. Sorry it's not being nice to you, as it's a great site.
Why include the e.g. in the 1 Across Clue? To make the solver automatically go for ASST, I presume. An abbreviation hint when there isn't one in the ANSWER does seem to fly in the face of convention.
ReplyDeleteRegarding Orange's question, I usually try to avoid the tendency to fill in the square. And yet today I wrote in the P for both *HRASE and *ALACE without reading the Clue. While I can do a puzzle fairly swiftly, I will never even approach the times of the hyperspeeders, so I tend to go for caution and perfection, which offers me the most satisfaction with this amusing pastime. Any jumping the gun would probably cost me more time anyway, because my errors seem to compound in a very costly fashion.
I never try to predict what the word of the day will be, but sometimes I try to predict which pictures will appear on the write-up. Today, I guessed you'd use this.
ReplyDeleteWould the plural of nyet be NYETS? I assume not, and I'm not sure how I feel about that. Have we covered non-standard plurals for foreign words before? Do we need to? Probably nyet.
Sometimes I confuse the COW PALACE with the Corn Palace. Of Mitchell, South Dakota. Off to North Dakota tomorrow, so I'll be absent for about a week. I'd...rather be in North Carolina.
Rex
ReplyDeleteThe 2 clues for "ELOCUTION PHRASE" didn't make the cut:
Delivery aide/ Oral lesson
@retired chemist, Macs work fine with Sporcle. Safari 4 seems to have some glitches, but I use Safari 3.2 to Sporcle like mad.
ReplyDelete@chefbea and @crosscan:
ReplyDeleteDrifting further off-topic:
I found my favorite variation attributed on the Web (amazingly enough) and recently added it to the Purple_Cow wiki (including the IMO-very-doubtful claim of authorship).
I never was a vitamin;
I never hope to be one;
but I can tell you anyhow;
I'd rather C than B1!
If anyone has another (better?)one, contribute to World Peace by adding it to the wiki. :-)
Larry the Lurker
@larry that was great lol
ReplyDelete@ Tigger and Orange re sporcle- I can do it, it's just clunky in Safari 4.0. Safari 3 is long gone from my computer. Click on the place for the answer,go back to the place to type it in, click on that, type, repeat. Got 29 of 30 in 45 sec or so in my mind, then took about 4 min. to do the typing and clicking.
ReplyDelete@JannieB: Oops! I conflated my old TV shows! You are correct. That animation was from "The Wild Wild West." I can't believe I confused those. One of my best friends at the Plain Dealer was a "West" junkie. So much so that after I noticed once during an episode that some document showed Jim West's birthday, we celebrated it every year. Since I'm sure you'd like to know, I can tell you that Mr. West was born July 2, 1842. Happy 157th, Jim!
ReplyDelete@Orange: That question is interesting, and I wish I had something really good to contribute (though I don't). But everyone, fast or slow, uses the 'already filled letters' to some extent. Today I think I guessed PHRASE before ever reading the clue to 40A. And with COW in place, went back looking for HOW, NOW, and BROWN. But that's just the way my mind works (or worked today). It's quite fascinating anyway...
ReplyDeleteAs a leisurely solver, I often guess at partially complete answers, particularly on Fri/Sat if I don't recognize the clue.
ReplyDeleteI surprise myself at how often the correct answer reveals itself since I pay very little attention to the amount of time I spend on the puzzle.
Cow update:
ReplyDelete“Cuddles,” as she was called by city workers, was gently scooped up with a bucket-excavator, covered with a blue nylon tarp and carried up the incline of a hard-pack pathway to a waiting two-tonne flat-deck city truck.
She went without incident, said excavator-operator Bradley Dingee who has moved cows and other livestock for burial at farms before, but never one on a beach.
No one has called to claim the cow, and the city is no closer to knowing whether it came from an Island farm or fell off a boat or even if cows swim.
-Victoria Times-Colonist
@Seth G. - Loved the picture.
ReplyDelete@Jeff in Chicago
ReplyDeleteConflation!!! yes!
Love the Jeri Ryan Butterfly Effect.
@dirt pile
For me it brought to mind the "Singing in the Rain" ELOCUTIONLESSON with the whole "I Can't Stand 'im!"
(am I right @greene?)
@orange
the whole visualizing thing is how I end up with so many malapops.
Can barely wait till your Sunday debut, I may even have to actually DO the puzzle that day!
Paula G's Monday puzzle may have had a slightly drunken subtheme, but there's a sort of an angry undertone to this puzzle:
JEERSAT, EGGED, NOGO, DECK, NYETS, IQUIT, IRATE, ROB...made me want to throw my ABACUS when I wrote GEAR for GARB too (@Kerfuffle)
@dk
add me to the glitch disappointment team.
@crosscan
why don't YOU claim responsibility for the dead cow and leave the head in someone's bed you have a beef with.
and I'll bet after just laying there for godknowshowlong, it IS purple. Sad.
@rex
I couldn't exist without cheater squares...hate the name...almost as much as being called a cougar! (In both cases I was simply doing what I do for millions of years and suddenly there is this horrible name for it!)
The only cheater square in my book is that SC governor! (At least Ryan was kinky!)
@Tigger ... if the Irish river had been clued as a bird we both would have gotten ERNE no problemo.
ReplyDeleteAndrea, did you mean some form of sarcasm with "just laying there" or have you submitted to this classic example of common speech prevailing over the rigid manuals of style?
ReplyDeleteIt's an interesting question -- and I'm sure a tiresome one to linguists -- but when is it that we finally accept that a word's meaning and proper usage has actually crossed over?
This week's numbers ... the number in parentheses is the number of solvers.
ReplyDeleteMon (all) 7:07 (857) prev 3 week avg: 6:44 (907)
Mon (Top 100) 4:01 prev 3 week avg: 3:37
Tue (all) 8:40 (776) prev 3 week avg: 8:30 (878)
Tue (Top 100) 4:26 prev 3 week avg: 4:20
A relatively challenging Monday followed by a little above average challenge on Tuesday.
Careful examination of the Scottish Highland bovine leaves the question as to whether it is a cow, a bull, or a steer indeterminate.
ReplyDeleteSpent the whole day talking science at a looooong meeting... Snuck a few looks at this blog and on several occasions, I had to stop myself from laughing out loud- At Rex's ongoing love affair with Billy Joel, at the Vitamin poem, at Crosscan's Cow and Andrea's suggestion to leave it in the bed of someone he has a beef with... Thanks you guys!!
ReplyDelete@sanfranman, I really appreciate your doing this! I'm going to sound like the NIH (which comes up with ever more creative ways to torture grantees), but would you be willing to post your data somewhere?
@r-c: I wonder if Firefox would do better by you than Safari. I just used it on my MacBook and it worked great for Sporcle.
@HudsonHawk, thanks! I needed a new addiction. I strive for diversity in that arena.
@foodie, as someone whose living depends upon NIH funding, I resemble your remark.
ReplyDeleteI've got the data I've been tracking in the same Excel spreadsheet where I keep track of my own solve times for the 4 daily puzzles I do (Yahoo, Boston.com & USAToday in addition to the NYT). I'd be happy to post it somewhere, but I have no idea how to go about doing that.
@sanfranman59: start a blog! There must be some way of including spreadsheets on blogs....
ReplyDeletetut tut fergus, we are not supposed to correct each other's grammar nor typos! But for the record, I actually changed it FROM "lying" to ""laying", thinking I had gotten it wrong, but, I sort of type on the fly, as it were!
ReplyDeleteHey! IS that Marlee Maitlin playing the rebellious teen in the Billy Joel video??? Is that some sort of meta-irony to have a deaf actress in a music video or does it play into what Rex was saying?
I have to admit to, if not loving that song, loving the rhyming, history lessons, evocations from my childhood, and the pre-cursor to-rap-ness of it all...
I mean, ya sorta gotta love:
"Little Rock, Pasternak, Mickey Mantle, Kerouac
Sputnik, Chou En-Lai, "Bridge on the River Kwai"
Lebanon, Charles de Gaulle, California baseball
Starkweather, homicide, children of thalidomide"
Pasternak/Kerouac!!!!!!
Canadian sport fans of a certain age would never have a problem with the clue Kremlin denials (35D) as it'll always be associated with the so-called 1972 Summit Series (hockey) with the USSR and its famous catchprase DA DA CANADA, NYET,NYET SOVIET!
ReplyDelete(BTW, Canada won the 8 game series 4 games to 3 with 1 game tied.)