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Ripley's love / Sat 8-27-11 / What Faroe Islands granted 1948 / Oblong temptation / Camels' resting places
Saturday, August 27, 2011
Constructor: Ashton Anderson
Relative difficulty: Easy
THEME: None
Word of the Day: ORLOP (16A: Lowest deck on a ship) —
The orlop is the lowest deck in a ship (except for very old ships). It is the deck or part of a deck where the cables are stowed, usually below the water line. It has been suggested the name originates from "overlooping" of the cables.
It has also been suggested that the name is a corruption of "overlap", referring to an overlapping, balcony-like half deck occupying a portion of the ship's lowest deck space. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word descends from Dutch overloop from the verb overlopen, "to run (over); extend".
From Wikipedia (natch)
• • •
We’ll tune in to the regularly scheduled puzzle write-up in a moment. But first:
I got a charge yesterday out of Seth’s friend’s Kickstarter video. I don’t know the guy from Adam Rich, but I’m generally eager to sign onto any cause or crusade I only vaguely understand (which is how I wound up babysitting a howler monkey one Easter weekend. Man, those things are loud! And real territorial and belligerent when it comes to hidden eggs), so I want to continue the plug here. Filmmaker Whit Scott has until next Saturday to meet the final $7,871 of his $30,000 goal for the making of Rolled: Thirty-Two Years of Toilet-Papered Houses. If he falls short of the $30,000, he gets none of the money. It’s like Who Wants to be a Millionaire except that that irritating music doesn’t play constantly.
Let’s get him there, crossword people! We’re the phone-a-friend lifeline! Some of y’all
sound pretty rich, what with your talk of artisanal cheeses and private islands on the moon, so fork over! I ponied up yesterday after determining that the kids’ shoes could hold out another couple of months if I just lopped off the end caps with my Old Timer. Yeah, there are plenty of other worthy projects, I know—-Millions of them! It’s staggering!--but you could sit around and die on a big pile of money before you figured out the perfect allocation of all your resources, so why not just give this guy $20 now? Or $50? I sold some blood and gave him a hundred bucks. (Not my blood, of course.)
This is the w
ay
stuff works now, the way stuff gets done. We got what we said we wanted—-we banished the gatekeepers and got internet democracy out the wazoo—-but instead of free ice cream for everybody all the time we get an unlimited supply of YouTube clips that serve up every single precious moment of Pink Lady and Jeff.
You satisfied?
Hell, no, you’re not!
That’s where filmmaker Whit Scott comes in. He’s going to make some new stuff.
About today! Well, about a weirdly well-organized toilet-papering commando unit with institutionalized membership going back 32 years. Suburban anthropology sounds to me like! Will it be any good? Beats the hell out of me. But it will probably be better than Pink Lady and Jeff. (I hope he uses that as a blurb on the DVD case: “Better than Pink Lady and Jeff! Maybe!”—-some guy on internet.) And it’ll be new and about right now or at least about what 32 years ago looks like right now to one guy, which is close enough. Can’t have everything!
I know what some of you are saying: “What’s so wrong with Pink Lady and Jeff?” You aren’t the people I’m talking to. I’m talking to the skeptics with their arms crossed who are grumbling something about hmmph hmmph hmmph why can’t he make it in the marketplace hmmph hmmph hmmph.
This is the marketplace! That’s my point! This is the marketplace! We broke the old one! The one everybody was a part of. It gave us great things (Andy Griffith Show and The Red Headed Stranger) and it gave us not so great things (Pink Lady, but everybody calls it Pink Lady and Jeff for some reason.) Whatever, we didn’t like it so we threw the whole thing out, and now this is what we got: (a) an apparently talented and driven guy over there (say hello to Whit Scott) who has something he wants to make for us but not all the money the various vendors and governmental entities require in order to enable him to make the thing he wants to make for us, and (b) some people over here (that’d be us) with nothing but Pink Lady to watch while we munch on our Grey-Poupon-covered artisanal cheeses in our teak-decked moon houses.
That’s the marketplace. We’re it.
Send Whit Scott some money for his movie.
Send me some money too while you’re at it.
And Rex!
***
I flew through this one in pretty top Saturday time for me: 19:00 flat, and I was screwing around making some notes now and then, though I doubt that added much to the time. I wound up with one wrong letter through not checking the grid: I had OSS/TASS instead of OAS/TAPS (42A: W.W.II Agency and 34D: It causes lights to go out). Anything under twenty minutes on Saturday rates an easy from me. (“That's what she said!”)
I got footholds throughout the grid on the first pass: PAT (19A: Bit of consolation); NABORS (24A: “Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C." Star); CLAN (44A: Group sharing a coat of arms); ADUE (53A: Not apart, in scores); SSNS (56A: ID figures); RAP STAR (44D: The Notorious B.I.G., e.g., plus various partials like 60D (Like Beethoven's sixth),which experience hath taught me would be IN something (IN F in this case.)
Early missteps included SHY for COY (4D: Far from forward); LENIN for PALIN (6A: Author of “America by Heart” [I'm sort of kidding, but I did think of that with the IN in place]); GOV for DMV (58A: ID issuer); KEEL for HULL (43A: Bottom of the ocean)[What's a keel then?]; the afore-alluded OSS for OAS; and (best trap of the puzzle) EROTIC for XRATED (3D: Beyond suggestive). I feel like I've fallen into that trap before. In other puzzles, I mean.
All of that adds up to a puzzle that turned out easier than I would have liked for a Saturday (but it means I won't be up til 2:00 a.m., unlike most times I've subbed on a Saturday), but I can't really fault anything about the puzzle. I don't think I've seen IT'S GO TIME before (60A: “Let's roll!”), which in the context of the puzzle sounds like somebody's uncle trying to be hip. I don't think I've seen GLAMROCK in a puzzle before (12D: 1970s music genre.)
Bullets:
- 10A: Times up? (HIGHS). Damn right question mark. Hardest clue for me to parse at the end of the puzzle.
- 20A: Google rival (BING). Is anybody using Bing? Or anything other than Google? Why do we need more than one search engine? Dogpile still exists, I just found out. Do people still ask Jeeves stuff? These are not rhetorical questions despite my not really caring about the answers.
- 21A: Scriveners (PENMEN). I don't buy this at all.
- 40A: Black-and-white (SQUAD CAR). I like this one. Wasn't thinking cop car at all. “Kojak with a Kodak” would have also been good. I heard that one on Smokey and the Bandit the other day. (Whit, make your movie!)
- 50A: Offensive time? (TET). Damn right question mark! What does that mean?
- 2D: Oblong temptation (ECLAIR). This puzzle is really trying to be dirty up there in the NW, isn't it?
- 13D: What the Faroe Islands were granted in 1948 (HOMERULE). I'm guessing that wasn't real controversial. Whoever granted them homerule probably forgot they even ruled them. (“The Faroe Islands? What? Want homerule? What are the Faroe Islands? Oh. Way the hell up there? Sure, tell 'em to knock themselves out. Homerule away.”) I married a Scot and we had our pre-marriage honeymoon in Orkney, where the map is actual size (“one mile = one mile”), and Orkney is way up there. North of that are the Shetlands. North of the Shetlands, and it's a long way north, are the Faroes. North of that and you're going south.
- 35A: Camels' resting places (ASHTRAYS). This one didn't fool me for a second. That's probably why the puzzle was as easy as it was. It's a down answer giving the first letter in eight across answers.
- 47D: Ripley's love (ODDITY). I had a wrong letter in there and didn't see ODDITY for awhile so was thinking of Sigourney Weaver's character in Alien.
- 52D: Fireplace (INGLE) and 55D: Shoulder (BERM) are simply unpalatable words. They sound like the names of Swedish muppets.
If Whit Scott makes his goal and at least some appreciable portion of it came from Rex's readers I will have my son take a video of me singing "Bennie and the Jets" with the uncorrected lyrics I've misheard for the past 35 years. Or not do that. Your choice.
P.S. Hey, it's Rex here, coming to you from the rough streets of Minneapolis (actually, it's one of the most beautiful, livable places I've ever spent a significant amount of time in, and very much on our short list of "Places We Might Move Once the Girl Goes to College"). Two things: One, I love this grid. Freshness abounds, and the addition of ACROBATIC into the whole SEXCAPADE / X-RATED nexus is worthy of special commendation. Two, for those of you who haven't already been bombarded by my announcements on Twitter and Facebook, Huffington Post Books is now featuring a slideshow of some of the more interesting / salacious / ridiculous covers from my vintage paperback blog, "Pop Sensation" (view slideshow here). Enjoy, tell a friend, and I'll see you back here on Monday (barring hurricane-related complications). ~RP
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56 comments:
Oh my gosh, following Wade is making me feel like Gomer Pyle. I think I can take my grandkids shoes back if that helps your cause....Do let us cheese lovers know.
This is the kind of puzzle I really enjoy; very few proper names, no sports names and just some plain ole fun words.
I really liked SEXCAPADE HIGHS, ASCETIC STALKER and PEW TENTACLE.
I really loved ECLAIR (2D)for Oblong temptation
I did need to look up the 2 B.I.G. clues since I don't know rap from a black throated TIT. Is (38D) CALI short for California? If so, PEW.
Wade is that really a picture of David Bowie? He looks like he just swallowed a bat.
Thanks for the chuckles.....
The Tet Offensive was a big campaign in the Vietnam war.
The only Lumpkin I know is Lerleen.
Puzzle went down smooth and easy for a Saturday. Really did dig the lack of sports names as @ Gill I. P. pointed out.
Hello.
I came to check out the blog tonight in part because it's only my second ever complete and correct Saturday. (Of course, it was "easy," but whatever.) I posted a comment the first time I did this, which was not so long ago, and I got lots of encouragement. Thanks for that, Rex's readers!
What's weird is that a guest of Rex's is going on and on about my friend Whit's film-to-be. I realize that with six degrees of separation (or whatever it is), you're going to encounter some unexpected short cycles from time to time, but I still like to appreciate them when they happen!
Whit is a funny man.
I erred with nOSES for "Gardeners' aids" and nIGHS for "Times up?"—interpreting the latter as "Times upcoming?"
Liked SQUADCAR, ECLAIR, and NAILBITER.
My question of the day is, Wade, what are you smoking and will you share? Your write up made me dizzy.
Had a mini vacation on the Big Island the last few day and had quite a bit of catchin' up to do. Husband and I banged out Thursday, Friday and Saturday's puzzles this evening with no Googling, so there were happy dances all around. A few write overs, like SEX scenes before SEXCAPADE and RAP band before RAP STAR, but all in all a very doable puzzle.
BEQ puzzles usually scare the liver out of me, but his Friday puzzle was great, only snag was NFl before NFC so CARAVAN was slow to emerge, but it finally did.
What a difference a day makes. Yesterday's for me was A SNAP, (unlike pretty much everyone else) this one, not so much. I had it at medium. Yes for SHY, KEEL, and OSS. Plus EKG for ECG. Sorting all that out plus spelling issues with ASCETIC took a bit longer than the BEQ. Liked this a lot! You gotta love stuff like SEXCAPADE and NAILBITER.
Oh, and thanks Wade, HIGHly entertaining write up as usual!
I had ALL the write overs wade did.every one! And I made the mistake of gooling LUMPKIN when I was done and read the urban dictionary take-awgh!ick!I wonder if LALO ever had to go LALALA?I really wish the toilet paper guy had PAYPAL
My last letter was the X!!!!
I'm SO innocent, I tried iceCAPADE and then SEaCAPADE (like some show with Shamu)
I just didn't get it, as 3D "Beyond suggestive" I thought was cRAvEn, then bRAzEn.
An HOUR went by before I finished!
(I also had policCAR, not noticing I had misspelled policE!)
Hand up for Oss before OPA. Wait, is it actually OPA? I thought that's what you say when you smash a plate after a Greek dinner.
I also thought 64A Bloody Sunday march site was in Ireland. Since I had BoRe for BERM initially (like shoulder/bore a responsibility) I worried there had been a Bloody Sunday also in koreA.
I also had freERULE, even tho FREESTYLE was in the grid. So, I finished, but it took an hour.
As a SPINSTER, I resent the Frumpy loner stereotype!!! Loner, yes (after all I'm doing this puzzle at midnight on a Friday!) but frumpy??!
I liked PLAYALONG (goes with Byron's FAKESMILE last weekend), BING (seems current) (@Wade, Dogpile???) and NAILBITER.
Oh! And I felt so hip thinking
8D Dope was DImeBAg!!! Along with HIGHS, I got a contact buzz from this puzzle. Ashton Anderson...duuude, you rock.
I wish I could make some sort of joke of PALIN crossing NABORS, but I got nothing. But I'd throw PUMMEL in there for good measure, I don't think I've ever tried to spell that before. I had to run the alphabet with _UMMEL! Seems like it needs another L or something.
Anyway, thanks, Wade, for a hilarious writeup that makes my stream-of-consciousness babbling look so much less crazy!
OPA (not OAS) = Office of Price Administration, where Richard Nixon worked in WWII. NO wonder he was the most liberal president except LBJ in the last 60 years.
I had Puritan before ascetic, which slowed me down a good deal, but it gave me urethane instead of squeegee, which also seemed sound. I thought Bloody Sunday was in Northern Ireland, not Alabama, but no city I could recall fitted. I guess you are not supposed to capitalize bloody, or wouldn't if it didn't begin the clue. Had leg before pew. I presume Cali refers to the Colombian city and coke capital, not our drug-free California. Had no idea who or what played Gomer Pyle, or why. But I did eventually finish, in only about an hour.
Wade, I read this at some ungodly hour like 4:30 am. I was literally shaking with laughter, tears streaming down my face, trying not to awaken my sleeping husband.
Some of my favorite gems:
"21A: Scriveners (PENMEN). I don't buy this at all."
The bit about INGLE and BERM being Swedish muppets, and the whole bit about the Faroe Islands== "North of that and you're going south".
The puzzle, Yes, easy for Saturday, (which doesn't mean I flew through it without cheating) and delightful!
Hey, Ashton, what is this I hear about an ACROBATIC, X-RATED, SEXCAPADE with some DINGBAT who PLAYs ALONG while eating a chocolate ECLAIR?
Well, IT'S GO TIME- I've been up so long I might as well get some work done. Thanks for the HIGHS!
Easy. I got XRATED and SEXCAPADE early on, and thought that would be a theme: other words changed by adding S (or some other letter) on the front. Triteness avoided. The clue for PENMEN should have been "scribes" (both nicknames for reporters, particularly sports reporters, but AA doesn't do sports, I guess). I get Faroes mixed up with Falklands, but it didn't make any difference to the clue.
@Wade you are hilarious! But was saying OPA is Oas a test to see if we were paying attention?
Loved SEXCAPADE with XRATED ACROBATICS as @Rex mentioned. Also GLAMROCK, DINGBAT, SQUEEGEES, SQUADCAR and NAILBITER.
The only letters missing are JZ, another RAPSTAR!
I'll have to agree with the "easy" rating but it was excellently easy and a ton of fun (just like Wade's writeup.)
Loved it, Ashton Anderson, thank you!
Ashton Anderson adds a Saturday to three Fridays and a Monday for a pretty strong poker hand of his published Times puzzles .
When we get SEXCAPADE, GLAMROCK, DINGBAT and SQUEEGEE chaperoned by NESSIE and SAPPHO, we've got quite a potpourri to trigger our intellectual juices.
And, with the inclusion of BING, it is a reminder that each day, bing.com features a spectacular bit of photography at its home page and it is always worth a look.
Great show, Ashton.
The other part of the TET clue explanation is that a) the TET offensive was one of the big moves during the Vietnam War, and b) TET is a Vietnamese holiday (New Year's Day, essentially), which makes it a "time."
Fun write up, Wade! Thanks!
@Ascetic Cali Michaels - Whit's breakthrough film will be the XRATED PALIN-NABORS SEXCAPADE. The HIGHS will be the SQUADCAR scene with BING and REUBEN and the NAILBITER scene with the STALKER.
Hands up for SHY, only I struck out twice with ICY before getting COY
@Andrea - love DIMEBAG! Now I don't feel so bad about guessing the Faroe Islands were granted a HAMRADIO (who knew?)
Talk about 6 degrees of separation! I'm going to check this out, Wade and Aaron. Hilareous write-up!
I loved this puzzle, although I also ended up with tass and osa, rewrote shy/coy, and had a long stare at 33A because I had presto for pronto...
Just wanted to have "at bats" for times up, but I guess Ashton doesn't do sports.
Bing shows up automatically when you turn on your American laptop in Europe.
Bartleby the PENMAN here, I just want to know if they have Frick and Frack in the SEXCAPADES.
Fine puzzle and finer write up. Although, I think it is against the law here in WI to spend cheese money on some lame-ass toilet paper project. However, I will sell a few Barbies. An added benefit is I will save on ammo this fall. Have I mentioned that I have acquired a dream house and jeep towing a boat. This years Barbie shoot will be a real NAILBITER.
Whoops, I have fallen into the stream of consciousness. Lured no doubt by the siren song of Acme and aided by Wade's push.
*** (3 stars) No idea (eye deer) who 51d is. Back to the SLOPS.
Well done, Wade!
Puzzle - medium/easy here. SHY @ 4D slowed my progress in the NW. CLERKS @ 21A, ditto in the NE, compounded by RAKES @ 10D once 21A was fixed. And then 48D HAMMER in the SE. Fortunately, the SW went in smoothly and provided my first foothold. Same experience as Wade - ASHTRAYS was instant, and the first letter of eight acrosses is a powerful leg up.
Thanks, Mr. Anderson.
My sequence at 4D was aft> shY >COY -- for some reason, the NE was hardest for me, even though once it's filled in it looks easiest; nothing like having to remember ORLOP!
@DK 51D TEENA Marie is a singer I've heard of, but until today I thought she was Tina Marie. Crosswords are so educational!
I had tied for 53A, which slowed that corner down. It fit with prompt at 30D, until OPA and STALKER forced me to fix it. Also autonomy before HOME RULE at 13D. All in all, I found it pretty hard, but I think my mind just wasn't on the wave length.
As for the Faroes - hey, they may seem insignificant to us, but they're a big deal for Denmark!
Hey lubbers --- "bottom" is another word for hull. You might charter a bottom to carry your freight. Back in the day, I mean.
Sure are a lot of boats going by here on trailers. People are heeding advice and getting them out of the water.
Have a good weekend everyone. Don't get washed away.
LOL, Wade!
Puzz had to be easy, as I filled it in on autopilot with Mayor Bloomberg's press conference (is "staccato" an appropriate description?) slamming my ears. (I wish he would leave the Spanish to someone more fluent!)
Another hand up for SHY before COY.
Also, didn't put it in, but AUTONOMY is the same number of letters as HOMERULE.
SAPPHO is my all-time favorite poet. It's probably the only thing I agree with vis-a-vis Plato.
Medium for me, but always happy to finish a Saturday in decent time with no mistakes. Bottom half much tougher than the top half today. Almost fell apart with PURITAN for ASCETIC, fortunately there was only the 1 cross (the T) that worked, and SQUEEGEE worked too well for me to ignore.
ITSGOTIME was a tickly answer, as it crossed the critical NESSIE, which also almost derailed me - I was on the wavelength of Britney Lindsay Paris, not mythical monsters....
Ended the puzzle with LALALA and OPA. LALALA was awesome, a very common line for Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir when they would almost on a show-to-show basis forget lyrics to their own songs. Would have loved to have seen TAPS earlier on, another solid clever answer.
Fun puzzle, not just because it was easy for a Saturday. Very high-quality fill (faves: SQUEEGEE, GLAM ROCK, and the X-RATED corner).
Lots of extras today, which I'll return to once storm prep is finished.
A person can waste a lot of time trying to think of 5-letter places in Ireland beginning with S.
Today is "only post if you breezed through this really hard puzzle day." I didn't, and I'm not ashamed. Well, only a little.
Of course, doing the puzzle while tired and distracted is probably not the best strategy, and some stuff that felt obscure at 11pm yielded itself to the clear light of morning... But I was NEVER gonna get SEXCAPADE. Fun corner, though.
If I ignore Wade's blithe complaints about an easy puzzle, the hilarity of his write-up salves some of my wounded dignity.
And if you didn't yet check out Rex's lurid pulp novel cover slideshow at the HuffPost, and his characteristically acerbic commentary, do it now! I hurt myself laughing.
Fun puzzle and write-up.
Best comment I've heard on our week of earthquake and hurricane: "Ok, it's time to let the Israelites go."
Easy in three quadrants but the NE got me. Never heard of orlop. A lumpkin = a lout? So am I could have been I agree, me too. I associate glam rock with 80's hair bands so I have my doubts about this answer. First guess for spinster was cat lover.
The rest of the grid was great fun.
Thanks Wade!
Saturdays are using the worst puzzle of the week for me (and many others, I suppose). First pass through this one didn't offer much hope, but some lucky guesses in the SE got me rolling. 26 minutes, not bad for me.
The high point of my week was getting SQUADCAR from only the R, and having it turn out right! I'm nearly giddy about that.
@Ashton Anderson:
That first part about Whit Scortt and his toilet paper movie was unintelligible. Why should anyone care if he gets $30G
to make it. And what were those
pictures of Jim Backus and Pink
Lady about?
Apparently I'm not part of the hip crowd you were talking to.
If you can't understand me,
we're even.
Nate, Ashton Anderson wrote the puzzle. Adam Rich is the hipster. Maybe you should have some juice.
Really enjoyed the puzzle but was completely stymied in the NE. I kept trying different kinds of ROCK (hard, soft, acid...) and none of those acrosses were falling.
I know we'd have lower quality grids, but I'd really like to see fewer of the "SO AM I" type entries. I understand two-word phrases like "PILE IN", "PILE ON", etc...and I can certainly deal with "IT'S GO TIME" (since it's a phrase I've actually heard), but "SO AM I" just sounds like a random utterance somebody said once.
Rex, welcome to Minneapolis! It is an absolutely beautiful city...just don't let the secret out! :)
My other friends just won world championships in beach ultimate this morning. I know accomplished people.
This puzzle took me 9 hours, if you include my 8 hour nap. Sailing is like poetry or music or geology.
I do use Bing for my googles when I'm at work, mostly to help me remember that I'm at work. Börk Börk Börk!
Me too for wishing the toilet paper guy had PayPal--or anything that would not require my leaving all my info on yet another site I'm not familiar with.
I'd rate the puzzle medium, but I liked both it (it was fun to solve, and I finished in average time!) and Wade's write up.
Thought I was really clever when I put in "a seat" for "it's taken while waiting" and "equal" for "match." Oh, well, they fell soon enough. Also, I had "so do I" before SO AM I. I had to run the alphabet for the cross between TAPS and OPA--TAPS is a clever answer, but I still don't know what OPA is. (I see @I Skip M-W has already answered my question on that.)
Hands up for hammer before PUMMEL and tied before ADUE (Crosswordese finally kicked in.) Also hands up for ASHTRAY with no hesitation.
My not knowing OPA, I assume, is that it's before my time, as apparently is the TET Offensive for Wade. That one is right in my time.
I liked Scrivener as a clue for PENMEN; it made me think of the great Melville story about Bartleby the Scrivener. I guess @Glimmerglass would prefer not to have had that clue.
Never heard of ORLOP or INGLE, but both became clear through crosses.
@archaeoprof--LOL. But in weeks like this I remember the great Kurt Vonnegut, who said of earlier storms and pestilences, "It's just the earth's immune system finally kicking in."
Nice Saturday puzzle. didn't come easy for me, but i really enjoyed the solve. lots of specific stuff i just didn't know. i thought a lumpkin might be a lamb, e.g. also had more than a few missteps that i v. reluctantly let go of: autonomy for HOMERULE (i did put it in, @bobk)- clerks for PENMEN too @RC - tied for ADUE (thinking there HAD to be a sports clue somewhere!!) once again, the open mind gets the win!!
Great grid. loved ITSGOTIME although I think if i heard anyone say that in real life, it would irritate me.
@twoponies - cat lover is a much better answer than spinster!
Feeling great that I actually finished a Saturday puzzle in about an hour. I was held up for a long time by insisting on GYMNASTIC (for ACROBATIC), which, of course, meant that the tenth muse had to be AGATHA (if you don't know your muses, just make them up).
Be safe all you east coast people. Here in Texas, we'd love just a tiny bit of that wet stuff.
NYT Sunday Magazine had a big story on Kickstarter this month, and another article was in the paper this week. Their payments are all handled by Amazon Payments.
Paypal does not support giving pledges, only sending money straight away. I certainly feel better about giving Amazon my credit card info than I do about giving PapPal my bank account info.
Thanks to all who are even considering!
I'd have clued 3D as "Beyond suggestive, once" since the X rating has been replaced by the MPAA with NC-17. There are still "XXX" rated films, but we know what they are ;-)
@Seth G--Thank you! I had not gone far enough to realize I'd be forwarded to Amazon, where I already have an account. I really appreciate the info.
No puzzle today. No internet. No TV. No phones. We did have power though.
Never heard such loud wind and rain in my life. It's still windy but the rain has stopped. Hope everyone else survives as well as we did. Look forward to tomorrow's puzzle. Going down to the beach now to check the waves
Like Wade, I broke in with ASHTRAYS and took most of this down quickly, but unlike Wade, I finished with a Medium-Challenging time overall, because the extreme NE corner was B-R-U-T-A-L. Had everything filled in and just stared at that corner. PENMEN is barely a word, I think of GLAM ROCK as an 80s genre, not 70s (I really wanted PROG ROCK), and although I saw ORLOP in a puzzle once before, I had long forgotten it. And the clue on HIGHS ... did I mention B-R-U-T-A-L?
I solved this puzzle in Rex's hometown of Binghamton, N.Y., where I have evacuated for the hurricane weekend to stay with some close friends. We went to a diner and faced off over the puzzle, with my wife and our three friends collaborating while I solved solo. They didn't get much of anything, but since it was their idea, I think a good time was still had.
Happy to see you checking in with an A-OK, @chefbea.
I'm probably not the first to mention that the Tet Offensive was a series of coordinated attacks by the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong that began in January 1968 during Tet (the Vietnamese New Year), and is widely regarded as a turning point of the War ... in Vietnam.
@chefbea, same here! Glad you're OK.
I have kids and grand kids in Manhattan. Hoping for the best...
Hope Mac and other folk from the East Coast fare well.
@archaeoprof, I agree, someone sounds pretty ticked off. Expecting locust any minute now!
I had a lot of the false starts mentioned above, but the NE was my downfall. METOO --> ASAMI --> google (not bing) for HOMERULE, and finally the rest fell into place.
I am very surprised it was mid-morning before PALIN was linked to SEXCAPADE. Even more so that I have to mention she was also positioned between DINGBAT and COY. She also lives so far north that to go much north of her is to go south. A PALIN mini-theme, I say!
@chefbea - been thinking of you all day, glad to hear from you. We are due in about 6 hours here in south jersey. Done all that can be done. Horse is tucked into his stall, and the barn is closed up. Fingers crossed.
Just wish ORLOP had been over HULL.
Great write-up Wade!
Got about 3 quarters. It was okay. @chefbea: Glad you are okay. Hang on @nanpilla and mac. Take care @BobK. It's really starting to come down right now.
Out at 8:30 this morning looking for D batteries. Fool's errand.
Have a good Sunday.
Could someone please explain "adue" to me. Thought of due as "two" but still don't get it. Thanks for the help
a du·e
[ah doo-ey; It. ah doo-e]
adjective Music .
1. together; in unison.
@ascetic cali michaels 4:28 AM
You crACME up.
This whole puzzle felt like an orgy to me. an X-RATED, ACROBATIC FREESTYLE SEXCAPADE...IT'S GO TIME! In the SE corner of the room we have a little weird stuff, a little S&M. Have a 61D? Sure, why not. It'll match the one I had yesterday. And of course everyone ends up in the SQUAD CAR.
Favorite menage a trois: PALIN: ATONAL DINGBAT
Can't go along with Elton as being representative of GLAM ROCK. T. Rex would have been a better choice, especially for this blog.
captcha=addiou
adjective Music .
1. together; in unison.
Still on the orgy theme - what's all this about the stalker and unwanted tail?
Really fun puzzle, though surprisingly easy. But I'm not complaining! I seemed to be on AA's wavelength.
Great write-up, Wade, though for once the time-warp that is syndi-land works in my favour. I see Whit got him money. phew. Now I can worry about the starving Somalians and my leaky roof ;-)
Great comments, too, folks. (Anon B: are you for real?)
captcha= balli... more on the naughty sub-theme?
Sorry I'm ringing in so late on this, but just got this puzzle in syndication.
All of Wade's queries seem to have been covered except for one: keel v hull. In SAT speak, "keel is to hull as spine is to back."
At least, that's my understanding. If I'm in error I'm sure someone will be kind enough to enlighten us!
--Paucle
Binya & Gabe Kóatz --
34D: It causes lights to go out
On a military base (or maybe Scout camp or such) the bugle call "Taps" is sounded to signal that it is time to go to bed, i.e., "lights out".
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