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Dessert from Linz — TUESDAY, Sep. 22, 2009 — Riverbank cavorter / Bit of 1773 Boston Harbor jetsam / Accelerator bit
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Constructor: Gail Grabowski
Relative difficulty: Medium
THEME: "Tough" — same clue for three theme answers
Word of the Day: ORSER (59A: 1987 world figure skating champion Brian) — Brian Orser OC (born December 18, 1961 in Belleville, Ontario, Canada) is a Canadian retired professional figure skater. He is the 1984 & 1988 Olympic silver medalist, 1987 World champion and the eight-time Canadian national champion.
He is one of the most accomplished skaters in Canada's history, with eight national titles, two Olympic medals, and a world title to his credit. He is the skating director at the Toronto Cricket, Skating and Curling Club. He currently coaches Kim Yu-Na, Adam Rippon, and Christina Gao. (wikipedia)
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Not my favorite kind of theme, but for what it was, it was fine. Cute, if dated, phrases that are very accurate in their articulation and not at all clunky. I was oddly slow on the uptake, needing a bunch of crosses to get JUST DEAL WITH IT, but the puzzle went down in a very Tuesdayish manner after that. With such low theme density in this one, I would have liked to see something more interesting in the non-theme fill, particularly the long Downs. 
TEACHEST doesn't really do it for me (35D: Bit of 1773 Boston Harbor jetsam). By a country mile, the best answer in this grid is CONJOB (1D: Swindler's work), although TASERS is nice too (and brings a nice symmetrical law enforcement balance to the criminality of CONJOB) (46D: Cops' stunners). It probably goes without saying, but the best clue of the bunch, by an even longer country mile, is 23A: Riverbank cavorter (otter).
Theme answers:
- 20A: "Tough!" ("Just deal with it!")
- 35A: "Tough!" ("Too bad, so sad!")
- 51A: "Tough!" ("Thems the breaks!")
Bullets:
- 25A: Wall and Bourbon, e.g.: Abbr. (sts) — like that the two STS are from totally different universes. Why are Michael Douglas and Charlie Sheen linked in my head? ... wait, I just figured out. The famous father thing. Moving on.
- 61A: Womanizer's look (leer) — You can LEER without womanizing, I think. And "womanizing" implies serial infidelity, not a way of looking. And yet this clue was transparent!
- 32A: Problem with an old 45 (skip) — any excuse to play this song, even if the number's wrong ...
- 62A: Dictionary word in bold type (entry) — oh, you mean, the Word. That you are looking up. Right there. This clue confused me, as I was thinking of some subcategory of dict. word.
- 4D: Dessert from Linz (torte) — pretty sure xwords taught me that they make TORTEs in Linz, i.e. linzertortes.
- 22D: Accelerator bit (ion) — somewhat toughish cluing. Was not thinking particle accelerator at first, although how any other kind of "accelerator" might be anatomized into "bits" I don't know.
- 56D: Who wrote "All that we see or seem / Is but a dream within a dream" (Poe) — absinthe will make you say some crazy sh@#.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]
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73 comments:
Rex, Thanks for Tom Waits. But I am not sure what a ream within a dream is.... yeeeewww bad breakfast thoughts.
I enjoyed the theme fill and the fact the puzzle is the opposite of tough.
Nice easy Tuesday, with one rewrite: ANTILOCK for ANTISKID. Does anyone say anti-skid? I always hear anti-lock.
Liked LECTERN, SPAWN AND SEABEE.
Damn, dk. Was going to post the same thing - a whole different kettle of fish without the 'd' in dream.
Thought i was going to be first commenter also - oh well.
Anyone else have ANTIlock before it resolved to -SKID?
RT
I generally LEER when I manize.
So little to say about this puzzle...it was sort of a rude little puzzle with its theme, along with YELP, LEER,PEEVE, TASER. My only problem area was trying TEA SHEET for TEA CHEST--does tea ever come in sheets like nori? Not that I know of. Fixable. My favorites must be the TORTE and OTTER, maybe ANKLETS and FLATS.
I too had antilock and had never heard of a teasheet.Too bad, so sad is going through my head.
Not a huge fan of today's puzzle.
The problem with a 45 being SKIP doesn't quite work for me. Shouldn't it be SKIPPING?
Ditto with others on antiskid. Was that maybe an older term for what we now call antilock? Were there ever antiskip brakes for 45s?
Hated the clue for ENTRY. Really, that means every dictionary "word" is in bold type.
I'm declaring a Natick on ION/MOS. MOS is not the most usual abbreviation for months, and ION came out of left field for me - I actually left that square blank, although if I had gone through the entire alphabet I'd probably have fished out the O, but then you're not supposed to need to resort to that on Tuesdays, are you?
Lots of boring crosswordy fill to just sort of enter - didn't we just have ORSER?, and the entire SE is one giant net of crossword standards.
My big raspberry is saved for the clue for BEEP. I'm sorry, but if you're stuck in gridlock you don't give a gentle "beep beep" you sit on the horn until you wake the dead.
My feeling about this puzzle is stated in the clue for 56D - "Source of annoyance."
I had ANTILOCK too, but other than that this was smooth sailing. I found this one Sassy rather than Rude, and can't find much to complain about (believe me, I looked!).
Would a plane full of womanizers be a Leer Jet?
I had ANTILOCK too, and HONK for BEEP, but other than that this was smooth sailing. I found it Sassy rather than Rude, and can't find much to complain about (believe me, I looked!).
Would a plane full of womanizers be a Leer Jet?
I liked the theme phrases, I just wish there had been more of them. I guess THEMSTHEBREAKS.
I've never heard the term TOOBADSOSAD. Is this a common term?
Or maybe I was raised by wolves.
I liked SWAMI, SPAWN, PEEVE, CONJOB, ANKLET and ACUMEN.
This wasn't quite as interesting as yesterday's to me, but I enjoyed it just the same.
Thanks, Gail Grabowski!
Seems like a lot of early hostility for what I thought was a cool little puzzle. I love TOOBADSOSAD - its a bit of an adult playground retort, and a good one at that. Maybe I have obnoxious friends, but we have used it in "competitive" situations against each other. I think LEER should have really been OGLE but I knew it was going to be LEER so I didn't even attempt the first O.
The Poe quote reminds me of the Sunday NYT magazine article on Jung and his Red Book which will be available shortly. There's apparently some really crazy sh@# in there - that I can't wait to read!
First, Memories Dreams and Reflections, though.
Unremarkable, but ungroanworthy theme - so yes, it's an okay Tuesday. No real problems (other than the brakes) so finished in good time.
I like the theme where you have to look at one word or phrase many different ways. In this case, that wasn't really what it was, but it was still clever, and I liked coming up with different ways to say SUCK IT UP.
What's wrong with TEA CHEST? The only alternative would be tea leaves. They didn't use tea bags in the 18th century, did they? Picture the little tea chest floating in the harbor!
@Orange--
I'm with you. Let's hear it for gender equality!!
@hazel: I just heard of Jung's Red Book last night for the first time when a friend said he was going to see it in NY. Since I had never heard of it before, I was glad he provided an explanation/link, otherwise I might have guessed it was a band or theater production.
Even though I thought the puzzle was a bit rude--I was imagining my kids replying with any of the theme answers--I don't harbor any hostility for it! I'm most always glad for the any NYT puzzle's AM amusement factor.
@anon RT, ah yes small minds do think and fill alike. I wanted lock instead of SKID.
@hazel, while awaiting the Red Book there are a couple of annotated Jung books (on dreams) that contain many of the same illustrations and commentary.
@jim in chi, one of my cases was an man who on the LA freeway (the ten I think) got so tired of the man behind him leaning on the horn every time they had to stop he took the large caliber revolver from under his seat and... well it was unfortunate the honker was the driver for his carpool that day (pled out to 4 counts of 2nd degree murder 20-life eligible for parole after 13): I am just sayin:
"if you can't say anything nice, don't honk"
Rex, one night my brother and I were drinking Absinthe and my niece (age 6) sweetly asked when we were going to be done drinking poison.
Very east Tuesday for me.
My cavils: ssts, sts and spr are pretty lame.
Raising hand for ANTI-LOCK.
@Jim in Chi: There's another abbreviation for month?
Thanks for the Kurtis Blow. I was very close to completely forgetting that song. I suppose it would have come back to me sooner or later.
Totally confused. On any given day, The puzzle in the IHT is ALWAYS the same as in the NYT. But not today (Tuesday). Why?
I'm staring at this rectangle, trying to think of something...I give up!
Okay okay. It was a nice flat puzzle.
Today's puzzle in the International Herald Tribune was a different one by Steve Dobis...What gives? Sally
The clue says [...automobile braking systems], the song goes for the shorter "brakes on a car". I didn't watch the video, but only because I watched it last night immediately after finishing the puzzle. Break it up break it up break it up!
Afterwards, I found "TOO BAD, SO SAD, bye bye" in Police Academy. (Here, at the 58 second mark.) I did not watch any Animal House or Road Runner, though.
Not sure how ION could be a Natick--we've had it 3 times in the last week. (And MOS is in plenty of dictionaries, too.)
Nice puzzle.
I don't recall ever having heard TOOBADSOSAD before, but it sounds just right.
I thought this was a fun Tuesday and with the exception of an unknown ice skater I liked the fill along with the theme.
It doesn't matter to me whether Orser was a champ from 1987 or 2 hours ago I can't take men's figure shaters seriously enough to remember any of their names.
I was hoping for some reference to the beginning of fall today but the closest we got was Spr.
Tea chest is very valid as all tea was loose back then as Denise said. Old tea chests are prized antiques these days.
Jim in Chicago sure is crabby today!
Thems the breaks reminded me of the Bowery Boys and swami made me think of Bugs Bunny.
Fit-for-a-king and tilter went together nicely.
Be nice to champion Canadian skaters. They are ICIER.
Yes, I had antilock. JUST DEAL WITH IT.
Hi,
I believe that this theme has to do with how poorly the Mets are doing this year. It is the NYT. And as a Phillies fan, I don't mind at all.
I've never heard TOOBADSOSAD either. It reminds of an old Randy Travis song, "Too Gone Too Long."
I, too, was not familiar with "too bad so sad" and came here to find out if it is legit--I know, I know, I could've googled, but this is more fun.
The womanizers I know don't waste any time on leering...
...and happy manizing, @orange!
Yes, I had both "antilock" for 11D:ANTISKID and "honk" for 55D:BEEP. Then again I was solving from the Down clues only. I did manage to correct both of these wrong turns and (barely) finish the puzzle — my first Downs-only Tuesday ever, and also first time with two consecutive xwords fully solved that way — so I must rate this one easy for a Tuesday. It helped that 59A:ORSER was in the grid only two days ago.
NDE
P.S. Rex — it's a single 35D:TEACHEST in the grid, not the plural. At least it didn't get a Shakespeare clue (Google serves up Sonnet 39 and Anthony and Cleopatra I 3).
A nice puzzle. Despite its easiness, it did take me a while, largely because getting the theme answers took me several crosses.
Writeovers: ACUITY => ACUMEN, SOBER => CLEAN. Had the mid-Atlantic before the NE, so ANTISKID was not a problem. TEA CHEST seems to be English usage, based on google hits.
I am finally (I think) getting what an Olaf is. At least, if 20D "Thurman of 'Kill Bill'" is one. Thurman is all you need: "Kill Bill" is irrelevant. Right?
Thanks, Ms. Grabowski.
@retired_chemist - yes, agree on UMA as an OLAF. In contrast, ORSER isn't an OLAF becasue of figure skating champion Brian Boitano. They competed in the "Battle of the Brians" at the 1988 Calgary Olympics. Boitano narrowly won.
Boring, boring, boring. OLIO, SSTS, UHOH, NEER, RELO, UMA, ALOE, LEER. Zzzzz.... But I loved TEACHEST and its clue.
I had a friend who was a reenactor at the Boston Tea Party. She and the tourists would throw the teachests over the side of the boat, then it was her job to pull them back up by the ropes attached to them. In historically accurate costume, of course.
Hand up for ANTIlock brakes.
I really loved the feel of this puzzle: like hanging out in the kitchen, the informality of the language.
FLATS, not "skimmers"; CON JOB, not "thievery"; the vernacular carried throughout with the three themes running through like a stream.
Reminded me of the recent (Labor Day) Andrea/Ashish fishing collaboration which began with GO FISH and was anchored with SINKER.
The clueing was the same way, with Missouri wonderfully avoided in the SHOW ME clue. Who needs a geography test when you're around the kitchen table?
Way to go, Gail Grabowski!
@ Crosscan, I do love to watch hockey players on ice. Now that's skating!
Hungry me, I found this sort of amusing, not TOO BAD -- not a FEAST, but a pleasant Tuesday party with TEA and LinzerTORTE! I'm surprised nobody mentioned the latter, made with a crust of ground nuts rather than pie dough. Food fans, come back!
Thanks a HEAP, Gail.
∑;)
Thank you Gail Grabowski for this clever and testing Tuesday drill. I did share hazel's and plantiebea's wonder about the seeming rudeness/early hostility of the theme and some opf the fill but we'll suck it up for the numerous benefits...liked ACUMEN, YELP (I did the puzzle while listening to authopr Alexandra Horowitz's interview on NPR; she has an intriguing new book out about dogs). Also liked SWAMI. Upper right hand quad was last for me. Had forgotten ORSER; somehopw eclipsed in my mind by the other great Brian skater, Boitano
@DK - and those would be????
I just found out last night (without ever having read any Jung) that I'm in fact (likely) a Jungian. All these years and I never knew. Maybe @Rex is really a Yeatsian and he just doesn't know it yet.
Had to correct antislip to 11D ANTISKID, ser (for series) to 26D SPR for spring, acuity for 28A ACUMEN Didn't know Poe's quote or Mr. ORSER. Had a hard time getting the form the tea came in, 36D TEACHEST and kept thinking bale. I'm annoyed since one of the "Indians" was an ancestor. I suspect that if chests were used, they weren't the fancy antiques that are still auctioned, but something cheaper.
Linzer tortes used to be sold here. They are sweet pie crust circles with jam in the middle and powdered sugar on top. They're delicious and one of the 3 unavailable cookies I'd make if I ever cooked (along with gingerbread men and madeleines.)
'67 comedy - Oh Dad, Poor Dad. Mamas Hung You in the Closet, and I'm Feeling So Sad.
For those of us with our hands up, here's two reasons why we shouldn't object:
1) US Patent 5397175 - Fluid pressure control apparatus for antiskid brakes
2)Main Entry: antilock brake
Part of Speech: noun
Definition: antilock braking system
Synonyms: ABS, anti-skid brakes, non-skid brake
Roget's 21st Century Thesaurus, Third Edition
.../Glitch
Nice puzzle Gail. Writeovers were: initially I had MTS instead of MOS; and ANTILOCK instead of ANTISKID. The way I solve, unless I am in a bind, I would never have HONK for BEEP. I dont really write anything down unless it is anchored by at least one letter going the other way. Unless it's a total gimme, like METS.
Seems ICIER has gotten it's share of puzzle time as well as our friend ORSER...
I found this harder than the usual Tuesday. Wanted tea leaves and anti lock also.
Love linzer tortes - haven't made them in a while _ with a nice cup of tea
@Sfingi
Thank you!!!!! That's the phrase I've been trying to think of all morning...I kept thinking TOOBADSOSAD something about dad in the closet. Yay this blog!
Bleedover: ORSER tho it SKIPped one day...ick. blood on the ice.
(Didn't stop me from not knowing it tho! S my last fill. Oh no...C was, I didn't know, and still don't know what ACC is)
@PlantieBea
Did you like OTTER and TORTE bec they are anagrams?
I really had a tough time last night getting TEACHEST and when I read thru the comments today I couldn't parse it! TEACHEST?
I don't remember that!
TO out-teach? She's the Teachiest?
Speaking of whom...
@Orange
Manize!!!!! you so funny!
ps
My hand is still up for ANTILOCK, can I put it down yet?
Has anyone mentioned ANTISKID crossing ICIER? Too bad that didn't in turn cross "THEMSTHEBRAKES"!
also I had LLAMA off the --AM- instead of SWAMI for too long.
Anonymous Sally,
The IHT puzzle is a Tuesday variant of an earlier Thursday puzzle. Obviously the goof was caught too late to fix the IHT.
P.S. Just remembered where I recognized 35A from: it's an old apocryphal(?) exchange of letters (postcards? telegrams?) which I first encountered in a Martin Gardner book:
"No mon, no fun. —Your son"
"How sad, too bad. —Your dad"
Google Books says it's on page 101 of The Incredible Dr. Matrix. Most of Google's sources for this quip give "Too bad, so sad" as in today's grid.
@Antileer: (-: perhaps "them's the brakes" is the kernel of another puzzle?
(I briefly had "swamp" for 33A:SWAMI, and was delayed much longer in Spain by 40A:SPAWN. Serves me right for not looking at the Across clues until filling everything in.)
NDE
Easy but enjoyable puzzle. I, too, had ANTILOCK for ANTISKID.
My husband was in the SEABEES in Vietnam. He said they would put up a water tower during the day, and the Viet Cong would tear it down during the night. Back to work the next morning....
Hazel, I also read the NYT magazine article on the Red Book and thought of it when reading the Poe quote. I read Deidre Bair's biography of Jung a few years ago. Fascinating man.
I did everything that everybody else did. Every once in a while I go on a Linzer torte making jag. The key is (thank you Rose Levy Beranbaum) starting with 3 few pounds of tasty raspberries and boiling them down from 3 to 1, with sugar of course, and then straining out the seeds. That's enough for about 4 Linzer tortes -- hence the jag. Yum!
@NDE
Yes! Exactly! That's what I remember my dad quoting, except he would say "So sad, too bad, your dad."
(and then I would pout)
Thanks, I was googling to try to find it.
And in so doing,
@Sfingi, your movie led me to George Kirby whom I haven't thought of in years (kinda like the Mothers of Invention)...
As Andrea said, "Yay this blog!"
I'm pretty sure that most of the cars in Chicago don't run unless you have one hand on the horn, so I can understand Jim in Chi crankiness, (is that a word?)who wants to listen to that racket all the time.
Fell into the lock/skid trap with a lot of other posters, but that was my only write-over. Enjoyable puzzle that went down quickly. Last fill was the ORSER guy.
@ Andrea -
"Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mama's Hung You in the Closet and I'm Feelin' So Sad" (subtitled "a pseudo-classical tragifarce in a bastard French tradition") was a play by Arthur Kopit. Became a film in 1967. Didn't see either. Here is a summary.
Do I remember this? Fleischman's margarine was the "spread fit for a king." How to fit this into a five-aquare slot....
I always make it a point to womanize when I leer. In fact, I'm doing it right now, and you KNOW who you are.
Looked up ORSER -- He won an Emmy, how about that? And was the first to land a Triple in the Olympics just back in 1984. The new Canadian kid Patrick Chan is trying to land a quad in competition, so watch out in February. 142 days to the Opening Ceremony!
The puzzle may be flat, but the comments are superb!
Kind of a schizo puzzle for me today. I liked the solidity of the theme entries and @hazel was right on about TOOBADSOSAD being an adult playground retort. I racked my brain last night trying to figure out where it was from and BOING hazel hit it right on the head.
On the other hand, there was a lot of three and four letter gar-bage in this one. Maybe it was a victim of the grid but thete it was. AlA BEQ, I grade this one a C+ because of the theme.
I think this is a nice Tuesday puzzle. Especially the North seemed to start out smart and crisp; it got a little more humdrum lower down.
I wondered if guys would get "flats", and thought of ogle before leer for the reason mentioned by Rex. No too to Too bad, so sad, and I also initially wanted tealeave, mostly because of the "bit" in the clue, that sort of announced something small to me.
I looked up jousting just now, and found that all sorts of weapons could be used. Always thought it was done with a pole to try and get the metal-clad opponent out of the saddle. I found a great word on this site: "hastiludes"!
I enjoyed the Tom Waits song. Years ago our son gave a TW cd to my father. It took him quite a while to start appreciating that voice!
I had a bite of Sachertorte a few days ago (at Klee's in Manhattan, a little nouvelle Austrian place), but Linzertorte with the nutty crust is much, much better.
@Clark: good for you to cook down the fresh raspberries! Must cost a small fortune.
A)For jousting, a lance is a pole with a point on it.
B)"Too bad, so sad" was a common remark in my teen years and since (I hate to admit).
C)Teachests were the only way tea was transported in the days before tins were used. Can be quite collectible.
I must have not had enough to do today. When reflecting back on the puzzle, I just came up with a short story using most of the words. It involves a former SeaBee cleaning the clock of a womanizer who leered at his wife.
I'd better stop now....
Alan Parsons Project - A Dream within a dream.
With Sanfranman59 away, (I miss him already), here’s my [poor substitute] analysis:
After last week, blog ramping back up to normal, or at least what passes for normal.
Not a huge fan, like, fun, enjoy, problem, unremarkable, very easy, not so easy, and nice are beginning to reappear. No “This should have been a [insert day]. Anonymous sniping minimal. Less than 75 posts.
Indicates easy – medium.
Once hate, love, and meh appear, and Anons become snarkier, we’ll be discussing a Medium level, at least.
.../Glitch
Glitch covered it. I may not do tomorrow's puzzle on a timely basis, so I'll precomment tonight. (Spoiler warning). Wednesday's puzzle was average except for that weird entry. I agree with Rex except for that one thing above. And I could do without that bit of crosswordese again. 60% of the comments are dead on, 30% are dead wrong and 10% are what you expect from Anonymice.
LOL at andrea middle name michaels
Word of the day (by a landslide): "Manize" -- thanks, @Orange.
I had STS, SKIP, and SPR immediately in mind upon reading their clues but I didn't trust any of them. I went with ANTILOCK instead. UH OH.
Dems de Breaks.
Moral: On Tuesdays, go with the quick ones.
As a matter of taste I have always detested the term 'womanize' for so many reasons. Any interpretation shows the man as a rogue (Hogarth?). When I see the term, womanizer, there's this image that's way beneath Donald Trump, of a guy with no soul, who's courting some conquest with the assistance of financial assets.
Those young feminists at Berkeley in the 70s raised my consciousness by tossing this notion back in our faces, and have long ago given provision to Orange's licentiousness without a second thought.
And Ms Orange, if you have any doubt about my sense of decorum, I'll concur that 'manize' can be a behavioral pattern, but I expect that the ladies would show more discretion in their glances, at first, and then their actions.
Using Balkanize or anglicize as the model, "womanize" is what certain surgeons in Thailand do -- with very competitive fee structures I've been told.
Glitch: LOL (I never use those abbrevs). I think your impressionistic analysis (!) hits the spot!
Martin, ever the occurrence of a verb that can be both transitive and intransitive ...
Post equinox, which happened today
Now Autumn, for what it's worth:
SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,
Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.
Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
(from Keats, of course, with the requisite line breaks -- and not all that pertaining to Autumn, in my estimation)
@Fergus
never noticed but one letter separates Yeats from Keats...
are you fucying with Rex?
Just the guy who died at 25.
Critical review of poets will come tomorrow some time. And I hope I'll not be the only one to participate.
Syndication land weighs in:
Same old same old - antilock instead of antiSKID.
My difficulty came in the SW where I had 'did you know' instead of EVER, didn't know how to complete TEAC**** (thought of TEA Crate, but it didn't feel right). When I completed THEM'S THE BREAKS, I changed 'know' to EVER, and things started to sort out. CHEST became the only possible answer, although it seemed a bit strange to my eyes, and finally ENTRY opened up - too bloody obvious i guess.
I thought the theme was fine, TOO BAD, SO SAD is a pretty darned common phrase in my experience, and MOS is the only abbreviation for months I have ever seen.
BTW andrea wanted to know what ACC is - it stands for Atlantic Coast Conference, which is the athletic conference in which Duke competes.
Like most of the posters, I had "antilock" for ANTISKID, but it fell into place for me when I tried to make it fit with the "Wall and Bourbon" and "problem with an old 45" across clues.
My only other problem spot was where 59A's "1987 world figure-skating champion Brian" met 48D's "Manicurist's tool".
Sports questions are death to me, so I got the right answer by concentrating on 48D. I went through the alphabet and entered the thing that looked most like a real word. I'd seen an EMERY board before, but never knew what it was called until now.
A very enjoyable Tuesday puzzle.
My writeovers: antilock instead of antiskid (as many others before me), "Did you know?" instead of "Did you EVER?", and "LOAD" instead of "SOAP".
I mean, don't you bring your own soap to the laundromat, and just pay for each load? And also, shouldn't it be "Have you ever?"
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