Theme: Musical Numbers or Incredibly Old Songs.
Theme answers:
17A. [Temptations number] – CLOUD NINE (1968)
64A. [Doris Day number] – TEA FOR TWO (1950)
9D. [Josh White number] – ONE MEATBALL (1944). Never heard of this one.
24D. [Tennessee Ernie Ford number] – SIXTEEN TONS (1955)
Quite the odd collection there. Average age = 56 years (or more, “TEA FOR TWO” is from 1925’s “No, No, Nanette”.)
1-2-9-16. Why? It is not a Fabonacci sequence (1-1-2-3-5-8-13-21...). Not squares (1-4-9-16). Not powers of two (1-2-4-8-16). Any theories? Are they all 16A. [Source of some urban pollution] – NOISE?
Other old stuff:
4A. [Student of Socrates] - PLATO
21A. [Ward, to Beaver] - DAD
34A. [Pre-fax communication] - TELEX
29A. [4-Across, to Aristotle] - TEACHER
48A. [First name in scat] - ELLA
52A. [21-Across, slangily] – OLD MAN
64D. [Fenway Park's Williams] – TED
Some new stuff:
19A. [First name in TV talk] - ELLEN
20A. [CIA boss Panetta] – LEON
6D. [Andrea Bocelli delivery] – ARIA
57D. ["__ Only Just Begun": Carpenters hit] – WE’VE (1970 – new for this puzzle)
PuzzleGirl is scheduled to be back from her mission in time to take back her crown tomorrow. Thanks for bearing with me these two days.
All the rest of the stuff:
1A. [Letters on the Ronald Reagan] - USS
9A. [Travel like Eris or Ceres] - ORBIT
14A. [Zippo] - NIL
15A. [Put to work] - HIRED
22A. [Brunch fare] - OMELET
23A. [Tell-all news story] - EXPOSE
25A. [Market special] – SALE
27A. [Guinness serving] - PINT
37A. [Mob hit victim, often] - RAT
39A. [Worthless talk] - TRIPE
40A. [__-garde] - AVANT
41A. ["Thrilla in Manila" boxer] - ALI
42A. [School rides] - BUSES
43A. [Soprano Fleming] - RENEE
44A. [Spray graffiti on, say] - MAR
45A. [Stocks or bonds] - ASSET
46A. [Swap the old for the new] – TRADE UP
50A. [Legendary loch] - NESS
56A. [Having just exercised] - SWEATY
60A. [Returns pro] - CPA
62A. [Move carefully] - EASE
63A. [Convention nametag word] - HELLO
66A. [Poland Spring competitor] - EVIAN
67A. [Carriage return, these days] - ENTER
68A. [Catch some rays] - TAN
69A. [Campus VIPs] - DEANS
70A. [Tractor maker John] - DEERE
71A. [USNA grad] - ENS
1D. ["I give!"] - UNCLE
2D. [Proctor __ appliances] - SILEX
3D. [Single-masted ship] - SLOOP
4D. [Deg. for many 69-Across] - PHD
5D. [Tree also known as basswood] - LINDEN
7D. [Works the bar] - TENDS
8D. ["To a ..." poem] - ODE
10D. [Thespian's résumé listing] - ROLE
11D. [Fin or sawbuck] - BILL
12D. ["Now it's clear!"] - ISEE
13D. [Backpacker's shelter] - TENT
18D. [Still in the crate] - UNOPENED
22D. [Soccer shout] - OLE
26D. [Things to wear] - ATTIRE
28D. [Homeless itinerants] - TRAMPS
30D. [One with a cause] - CRUSADER
31D. [Greet the villain] - HISS
32D. [Blunted blade] - EPEE
33D. [Remainder] - REST
34D. [Like sourballs] - TART
35D. ["Rarely, if __ ..."] - EVER
36D. [Lang of Smallville] - LANA
38D. [In the style of] - ALA
47D. [Slangy reversal of direction] - UEY
49D. [Work shirker] - LOAFER
51D. [Movie segment] - SCENE
53D. [Dull finish] - MATTE
54D. [Egypt's __ High Dam] - ASWAN
55D. [Vegas signs] - NEONS
56D. [Storage building] - SHED
58D. [Director Kazan] - ELIA
59D. [Actor Arkin] - ALAN
61D. [Chopped spread] - PATE
65D. [It usually ends in "ite"] - ORE
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23 comments:
Jeffrey, are you familiar with the Euler's totient function? Denoted phi(n), it's defined as the number of positive integers <=n that are relatively prime to n, where 1 is counted as being relatively prime to all numbers.
1,2,9,16 are the first four terms of the sequence defined by n^phi(n). Next is 625, so there probably wasn't enough material for a Sunday-sized puzzle.
Not a particularly memorable puzzle for me. Never heard "Cloud Nine" or "One Meatball."
@SethG
That's funny!
I had a feeling there was a reason this felt a bit thin on theme.
Thanks Jeffery for the stand-in.
Enjoyed your writeups as much as I do PG's.
Finished this puzzle 100% in just under 9 minutes… not bad for an OLD MAN, huh?
Speaking of OLD MAN, has anyone really experienced the ding before the carriage return on an old typewriter? I suspect many of you have never even seen one let alone use one for your term papers. In college I had a Remington upright that weighed like 50 pounds. Ding! (-push ENTER here-)
Tilia Americana, also known as Basswood or LINDEN is that very fragrant tree that swarms with bees in the spring and makes the finest honey. At the Morton Arboretum we actually have an apiary just because of all the lindens there.
It’s interesting that Fred Piscop chose the three best female vocalists of the 20th century (IMO)… Karen Carpenter, ELLA Fitzgerald, and RENEE Fleming each in their own genera. Thanks Fred.
My musician son had a huge crush on Karen Carpenter and just bawled when he heard of her tragic death. He said she was the finest musician OF ALL TIME!
How could I not give a tribute to this marvelous singer… WE’VE ONLY JUST BEGUN.
41 years ago today I was laying on the living room floor with my camera, about to watch Neil Armstrong take the first steps onto the moon (on my brand new 21” Magnavox TV.) WOW!
Also 41 years ago, Josh White passed away… who could forget his ONE MEATBALL?
Wikipedia has quite a good writeup on this amazing man.
Time for my usual OMELET with the guys.
No, maybe I’ll have the Swedish pancakes with MEATBALLs and lingonberry… Hmm, I wonder what made me change my mind.
See y’all.
Fred, I give up!
Please tell us what the significance of 1, 2, 9, 16 is.
Very musical and oldster CW. But incredibly old?
@John@Vans - the Vans must be young.
I tried to find out how old ONEMEATBALL was - it could go back 100 yrs., so forget about it.
Cloud Nine is 1968. I was in my 20s, so it was major to me.
Early 19th century German song. This one does go back - to my childhood with 19th century people:
Am Brunnen vor dem Tore
Da steht ein LINDENbaum.
After that, I have to fetch some umlauts, and I'm in a hurry. It's really beautiful, tune and words. I love song to a tree.
I had tAg before MAR. I guess I like some spray graffiti. I believe that E. Utica's own Vaughn Bode (Cheech Wizard) created the style of the letters before he died in CA of self-erotic strangulation. He was very talented as a child and grew up in the projects ("The Terrace").
Had Heil before HISS. Is that sick?
Beware of Aladins selling "Old lamps for new." Check for genies first, before you TRADEUP.
Conversation:
Oldster: "Use ENTER for carriage return."
Child: "What's a carriage return?"
@JNH
This must be your day.
Today Diana Rigg is 72
Nice to see ORBIT in the grid.
I wonder if that was a nod to Michael Collins who was orbiting while Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were walking on the moon.
The 4 themes being songs were apparent with CLOUD NINE. But I will admit to not being familiar with ONE MEAT BALL. (Which would be a big meal if it was the size of that Soccer Ball, OLE!)
Otherwise, just a straight-forward Tuesday.
Thought the graffiti might be to tag (isn't that what the gangs do to mark their territory? But the TRAMPS say it is to MAR.
Liked the TRADE UP for swap the old for the new.
UEY for Slangy reversal brought a smile.
Thought First name in TV talk would be Steve Allen, or Larry King, or Oprah long before ELLEN.
Jeffrey, Excellent fill-in while PuzzleGirl is off protecting my way of puzzlelife.
I can't believe I put Lois instead of LANA in 35D. That and TRADEin instead of TRADEUP were my only writeovers.
I put ALLEN in for "first name in TV talk" without even thinking. In retrospect, obviously this was not Steve Allen, but this old fogey didn't know to whom this ALLEN was referring. ONaMEATBALL sounded strange, but didn't know Josh White or the song. That must have been "One spicy meatball". Oh. ELLEN, as in Ellen DeGeneres. I've heard of her.
Loved the SIXTEENTONS answer. Sing it in the shower frequently. Know all the words. I said I was an old fogey.
Awesome opera singers like RENEE Fleming deserve to be in puzzles more often, IMO. (Although I realize that there are a lot of you out there who despise opera clues/answers. That's just IMO.)
My parents used to play The Best of Josh White on vinyl. A few years ago I looked up some of his tunes and learned the chords. I still break out his version of "Waltzing Matilda" or "Molly Malone" from time to time.
No real issues with this puzzle, only 2 mehs in UEY and NEONS.
RENEE Fleming just had her first Billboard Top 200 debut with "Dark Hope", which hit #151 on the charts. Currently debuting at #3 on the charts is Big Boi's "Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty".
I'll agree to more Fleming if you agree not to complain when Big Boi appears.
@Sfingi - ONEMEATBALL (1941) is a re-write of The Lone Fish Ball (1855), so just average them any you've got your 100 years dead on.
I've got (well, with the except the silly dissertation, which is just a techicality, right?) a PhD in Mathematics, and I've never heard of Euler's totient function, much less seen/heard of interest in N^Phi(N). Seems a pretty arcane unifier to leave hanging out there, above and beyond the fact I've never understood Number Theorists' fascination with the density of divisors.
I've been absent for several days - maybe a week. Didn't know PG was away. Nice writeup Crosscan.
Easy puzzle and I too would like to know if there is any significance to the numbers
@All - SethG wasn't kidding. Turns out, Euler's totient function is important in cryptography. Perhaps the 4 songs, along with the hint at the decryption key, will tell us where PG has gone, and what she's doing.
@Zeke. You may be on to something. NSA is also known as The Puzzle Palace, according to Bamford's 1983 book. And who better a puzzle solver than PG? Maybe Rex couldn't get a security clearance due to his storied background. But if PG tells us, she may have to kill us, so maybe we don't want to have the Need to Know.
I enjoy these write-ups. One thing I especially appreciate about yesterday and todays write-ups is listing the answers rather than making them a paragraph. Much easier to follow. Thank you, Jeffrey.
Thanks again Crosscan/Jeffrey for filling in while PG's off in Mata Hari mode. Finished the puzzle, looked at the theme answers and thought what a strange olio of songs. So thanks @SethG and @Zeke for explaining. Only thing is if someone with a PHD in math hasn't heard of Euler's totient function, how are we mere mortals supposed to get it? Seems a tad esoteric to say the least. Yikes!
The PG mystery-
a tryst perhaps?
Another crazy Italian story
Hubster was playing the Italian version of SIXTEEN TONS, with Lou Monte and it went like this:
"You load SIXTEENTONS and whata ya get?
Another day older and deeper in debt.
Sei non porta paga che la la
Mogliere da nunda da mangia."
I asked, "How the blazes did they get 'eating' into that song?"
The translation was:
"If you don't give your pay to that one there, your wife gives you nothing to eat."
The math was beyond me, but what was I but merely a NYS certified math teacher.
OK, my stab at the numerology ...
Nine Two One Sixteen or, in numeric form, 92116 which is the zip code for San Diego. The puzzle maker is repping his home town like when Reggie Bush use to wear the 805 on his eye black patches.
or maybe not. No, definitely not.
@C sounds good to me
Didn't check my answers, so when I read @Rube's and @Tinbeni's comments, I said to myself "Hey, I don't remember ELLEN being in the puzzle." I had put ALLEN for first name in TV talk, thinking of Steve Allen. Well, he was one of the first talk show hosts, but now I'm sure the clue means a person's first name. So that left me with the Josh White number "ON A MEATBALL." Sounded good to me! Or could be a name of an ode by Dr. Seuss.
1,4,9,16 = 1,2,3,4 squared.
@Anon 1:17
True, but it was 1,2,9,16.
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