Wednesday, April 26, 2017, Bill Zagozweski

Title: COMPLETE THE PHRASE

Husker Gary here to fill in the blanks on Bill's very clever puzzle. If you knew going in that every themer had the word BLANK in it and that the actual single clue word had to be mentally placed in/over that BLANK, it would have made for a faster solve. It worked that way for me after I got the gimmick. What a hoot!

As you can see in the grid at the right, I have put the Clue word over (rather than in) the BLANK and that generates a familiar phrase.

I thought INCUS and BALATA were mighty meaty words for a Wednesday and I had to research PET and SHIN used in unfamiliar contexts, but learning is an great adjunct to these daily exercises. Opposed to popular opinion, I am trainable.

Now before I BLANK out, lets examine what the theme fills, one layer at a time.

20. NOTHING : BLANK BUT NET - NOTHING fills in for BLANK and we get NOTHING BUT NET which is a baseball phrase shown here in a fun way

56. NAUGHT : ALL FOR BLANK - NAUGHT fills in for BLANK to give us ALL FOR NAUGHT. Like when Andy Hawkins threw a no-hitter for the Yankees but got beat because of errors

11. SPACE : OPEN BLANK -Drop SPACE in the BLANK and you get OPEN SPACE. Tom Lehman took the OPEN SPACE of Nebraska's Sand Hills and built the 35th best public golf course in America.

31. EMPTY : BLANK NEST - EMPTY fills in the BLANK to give us EMPTY NEST. We at least waited two days before we moved the computer desk into her room and to make it an office.

38. Provide missing info ... and what four clues do to their answers : FILL IN THE BLANKS - A round of Mad Libs:

FILL IN THE BLANKS: This was a(n) ADJECTIVE puzzle that gave me ADJECTIVE NOUN. I thought it was ADVERB ADJECTIVE for a Wednesday because the fill was ADVERB ADJECTIVE than usual. 

My answers - Wonderful, Great Joy, Particularly Difficult, More Challenging


Now you get to read my ADJECTIVE review/exposition 

Across

1. Reduce drastically : SLASH

6. Skyscraper girder : I-BEAM - They just pulled up an I-BEAM for lunch 

11. Bobby on the ice : ORR

14. Willowy : LITHE

15. Impudent : NERVY

16. Baltimore Ravens mascot named for an author : POE - Baltimore? Ravens? Makes perfect sense!

17. Attendant who invites Hamlet to duel Laertes : OSRIC - Peter Cushing playing OSRIC to Olivier's Hamlet

18. Blubbers : CRIES

19. Potato part : EYE

22. "Stillmatic" rapper : NAS - His lyrics ain't exactly Gershwin

23. Equinox mo. : SEP - On or about the 21st




24. Secure at the pier : LASH - Bill Murray had to be LASHED to the mast to overcome his fear of sailing in this hilarious film

25. Small bite : NIBBLE

27. Sulky state : PET - There it was, it had to be, but wha...? My research showed it as a shortened form of in a PETulant mood. Sample: Bill is really in a PET today.

28. L.A.'s region : SOCAL - SOuthern CALifornia 

29. Jessica of "Fantastic Four" films : ALBA - Let me get this straight. You give her this special power? Really? 

32. Waimea Bay island : OAHU

35. First sound of the day, for many : ALARM - Mine is a hungry kitty

41. Author Asimov : ISAAC

42. Ratio phrase : IS TO

43. Boxing stats : TKO'S

44. Explosive experiment : N-TEST - Here's one on Bikini Atoll with some VIP observers miles away

46. Vote for : YEA - An important prop in the play 1776

48. "I wanna go too!" : TAKE ME

50. "Psst!" kin : AHEM

52. These, in Nantes : CES - CES croissants sont délicieux 

55. Roadside respite spot : INN

59. Word with Iron or Bronze : AGE

60. Enter on a laptop : KEY IN

61. Tropical porch : LANAI - Where I first heard the word

62. Hi-__ image : RES

63. Año Nuevo month : ENERO - El desfile de las rosas es el 1 de ENERO. (Desfile = Parade)

64. Ham it up : EMOTE

65. Cockpit abbr. : ALT

66. Building leveler, to a Brit : RASER - Wait a minute, we're going to RASE that barn that grandpa helped RAISE?

67. Like horses : MANED - Farrah's coiffure was described as a feathered MANE in this picture

Down

1. Neatniks' opposites : SLOBS

2. Stocking thread : LISLE - How many times did I have to see this before I wrote it in right away today?

3. "It's __!": "They tricked us!" : A TRAP - Admiral Ackbar's warning

4. Climb, in a way : SHIN - This ranks right up there with the obscure (to me) usage of PET above. From dictionary.com 

5. Badger from the bleachers : HECKLE - I saw an umpire take off all his equipment and throw it down in front of a HECKLER in the bleachers and say, "You do it!" He declined and shut up.

6. Anvil-shaped ear bone : INCUS - Thar she blows in the canal!

7. Ocean bed? : BERTH - It costs extra if you have a porthole or a balcony

8. Burnett of CNN : ERIN

9. ACTIVE NATURALS skin care brand : AVEENO

10. Otherworldly : MYSTICAL

12. Fit for a queen : ROYAL

13. Piece maker? : REESE - Mars Candy rued the day they turned down the tie-in with M&M's because they thought, "Who'd want to see a movie about an alien adopted by a lonely kid." Turns out, millions did. Hershey gladly cashed in with this blockbuster movie.

21. It may be passed : BATON

26. Golf ball material : BALATA - The sap harvested as you see here from these Central/South American trees was formerly widely used for a golf ball covers. Pros could control these balls better but amateurs just kept cutting them.

27. Sense of taste : PALATE

28. Bird feeder food : SUET - Part of our bird buffet

29. John Williams won its 2016 Life Achievement Award: Abbr. : AFI - American Film Institute

30. Fleur-de-__ : LIS

33. Busy, busy, busy : AT IT - After giving an assignment, I usually said, "Now, get AT IT!"

34. Dept. that oversees the FDA : HHS

36. "Citizen Kane" studio : RKO - William Randolph Hearst was so incensed at this movie that used him as a model, he leaned on Hollywood to make sure this "greatest American movie ever made" lost the Oscar to How Green Was My Valley in 1942

37. Ed.'s backlog : MSS - An Acquisition Editor with a backlog of unsolicited ManuScriptS

39. Fridge feature that needs water : ICE MAKER - Didn't you just hate wrestling with ice trays?

40. Bergman's "Gaslight" co-star : BOYER

45. Title Tejano singer in a 1997 biopic : SELENA

47. Starbucks' mermaid, e.g. : EMBLEM

48. Sparkly crown : TIARA

49. Broadway backer : ANGEL - The premise for making money in The Producers was Max Bialystock bilking money out of his stable of elderly ANGELS

50. Blazing : AFIRE

51. Roll out the red carpet for : HONOR

52. Pachelbel work : CANON - His CANON (a repeating melody) has graced many a wedding - I paid for two of them 

53. Related on mom's side : ENATE

54. Hit the slopes : SKIED - I would hit the slopes hard if I SKIED! 

57. Caustic cleaners : LYES

58. Tibetan spiritual adviser : LAMA - Carl (Bill Murray) was a looper (caddy) for the LAMA and admired his golf game in Caddyshack

Now it's time for your ADVERB  ADJECTIVE comments:

Friday, April, 21, 2017, Paul Coulter

Title: CONDENSATION

Husker Gary in today for Lemon who is on the Disabled List, hopefully on a temporary basis! Paul has chosen SIX (Wow!), two-word phrases where the last letters of the first word are also the first letters of the second word as you can see in the grid below. Then he clues the resulting compacted silly phrase as an economy of letters in making the theme. STIMULATINGENIOUS!

Let's investigate the PLEASANTICS of Paul's in his six, count 'em - six, theme answers

17. Compressed "Blue Suede Shoes" as sung by Elvis? : COVERSION - One of Elvis' first big hits was a COVER VERSION of a song originally done by Carl Perkins

28. Compressed piece of hardware? : COMPUTERMINAL -Alan Turig's "Bombe" built to decipher German Enigma codes was a forerunner of the modern COMPUTER TERMINAL

21. Compressed syntax topic? : WORDER - WORD ORDER can be slightly different in Spanish. 

44. Compressed Homeland Security role? : COUNTERRORISM - Both sides of any conflict have COUNTER TERRORISM strategies

52. Compressed carnivore? : MEATER - A MEAT EATER who lives with a vegetarian

57. Compressed gastric complaints? : STOMACHES - Astronauts can get STOMACH ACHES in 0g. They can just swallow this water bubble and its fizzy contents

Now for the rest of Paul's cluing:

Across

1. African currency : RAND - Who gets the fries in this R99 Durban, South Africa deal?

5. Tater __ : TOTS

9. U.K. equivalent of an Oscar : BAFTA - British Academy of Film and Television Fine Arts

14. Burnt toast indicator : ODOR - A man next to me at a Denny's once ordered burnt toast

15. Heroic poetry : EPOS - A word I learned and forgot in this venue

16. Noble objective : IDEAL 

19. Make happen : CAUSE

20. Imply : GET AT - What is she trying to GET AT?

22. Ecol., e.g. : SCI

25. Traitor : RAT - He almost said "You Dirty RAT"

26. Canal locale : EAR - The only thing you should put in your ear is your elbow

27. Emerson's "jealous mistress" : ART - "It makes a bad husband and poor provider"

32. Nordic counterpart : ALPINE - Today's puzzle theme inspired me to choose this TV transposition gimmick composed of two competing ALPINE skiers 

33. Heat source : OIL

34. Judgment concern : BIAS

37. Nothing, in Nice : RIEN

38. On the other hand : BUT

39. Salinger title character with professional singing aspirations : ESME - How do I clue thee? Let me count the ways.

40. Creative singing style : SCAT - Did you forget the words, Ella? :-) 

41. Home sick, say : OUT - Did you ever call in sick and try to sound as sick as you can on the phone? Uh, me either. 

42. Perfumery compound : ACETAL - I never cared for organic chemistry 

47. "That's awful!" : UGH

49. Lush : SOT

50. Tiebreakers, briefly : OT'S - A t-shirt celebrating an Orangemen sextuple OT win 

51. Old anti-Union gp. : CSA  and 57. The CSA's eleven : STS - What if they had won?

54. Manuscript marks : STETS

56. Austrian composer Berg : ALBAN - If Paul says so...

61. Author known for teddy bear stories : MILNE

62. Amos at the piano : TORI

63. The last Mrs. Chaplin : OONA - OONA's celebrated dad, playwright Eugene O'Neill, ended their relationship when she married Charlie who was 36 years her senior. 

64. Latin clarifier : ID EST - ID EST, "That is" we know more familiarly as "i.e."

65. Smart answer, sometimes : SASS  but not 60. KLM competitor : SAS - A follow-up on Wednesday's sassy discussion here

66. Terrible time : TWO'S

Down

1. Elephant predator of myth : ROC - From Arabic   رخ (rukk), an enormous legendary bird of  prey

2. Brouhaha : ADO - Brouhaha seems pretentious to my ear

3. Scorpio mo. : NOV

4. Remnant : DREG - In It Was A Very Good Year, Old Blue Eyes sang, "And now I think of my life as vintage wine, From fine old kegs, From the brim to the DREGS" 

5. Willed? : TESTATE - The lower example

6. Sleep inducer : OPIATE - Not a good long term solution

7. Binge : TOOT

8. Identity thief's target: Abbr. : SSN - He stopped running this ad after his identity was stolen 13 times

9. Crescent-shaped : BICORN - A UNICORN variance

10. Purim month : ADAR

11. Like a Middle Ages social system : FEUDALISTIC 

12. It's a stunner : TASER - These will cover the waterfront

13. It may be red : ALERT

18. "Friends" episode, now : RERUN - How did they have no minority Friends in NYC?

21. Knock 'em dead at the jazz club : WAIL

22. Lasting marks : SCARS - Mine is in a place you will never see

23. Infant illness : COLIC - Col. Potter's horse Sophie had COLIC in a M*A*S*H episode

24. Like high-level treason : IMPEACHABLE

26. Put out : EMIT

29. It's spotted in Westerns : PINTO - Tonto on his PINTO, Scout

30. Way to go : ROUTE

31. "Drink __": 2014 Luke Bryan #1 country hit : A BEER - "So I'm gonna sit right here, On the edge of this pier, Watch the sunset disappear and Drink A BEER". Eat yer out Shakespeare!

35. Gather : AMASS

36. 1965 march site : SELMA - I wonder per cent of people that claim to have been at SELMA or Woodstock actually were

38. Target : BUTT - Of a joke

41. __ about : ON OR

42. Diana's Greek counterpart : ARTEMIS

43. Spanish seashore : COSTA

45. Early online forum : USENET

46. Chopper parts : ROTORS

47. Savory taste : UMAMI

48. Very cold : GELID - "Eventually boots and socks had to be removed and ankles submitted to the GELID waters" Sunday Times (2013)

53. Beige cousins : TANS

54. Portico for Pericles : STOA

55. Conan Doyle, for one : SCOT

58. The sixth W? : HOW

59. "Ambient 1: Music for Airports" artist : ENO - This would be "TAN music" at ORD

Now it's time for your condensed or unabridged comments. Perhaps you can come up with some variations on Paul's theme.