- 21A: Tokyo monetary unit (JAPANESE YEN).
- 26A: 1983 Lionel Richie #1 song (ALL NIGHT LONG).
- 43A: Desolate title tree in a 1936 Fonda/MacMurray western (LONESOME PINE).
- 50A: TUMS target (STOMACHACHE).
- 65A: Hanker, and a synonym for the ends of 21-, 26-, 43- and 50-Across (YEARN).
Bullets:
- 31A: French city where Joan of Arc died (ROUEN). This was probably the trickiest thing in the grid. I didn't know it off the top of my head, but with a few crosses it came back to me.
- 33A: Milk units: Abbr. (QTS.). I tried "pts." first.
- 46A: It's north of the border (CANADA). Can't wait to hear from our Canadian friends about this one.
- 49A: Cle. hoopsters (CAVS). I was flying through this puzzle pretty fast and wrote in "Mavs" thinking "Somehow that doesn't seem quite right."
- 7D: "March Madness" org. (NCAA). Seems like "March Madness" is right around the corner. How the hell did it get to be Thanksgiving week already?!?
- 10A: Narrow-necked pear (BOSC).
- 16A: Figure skating jump (AXEL).
- 36A: Old Italian money (LIRE).
- 1D: Copied (APED).
- 26D: Woody's son (ARLO).
- 29D: Ivan the Terrible et al. (TSARS).
- 59D: Abu Dhabi's fed. (UAE).
Everything Else — 1A: Like some short-term committees (AD HOC); 6A: How a lot of music is recorded (ON CD); 14A: Museum with many Spanish masterpieces (PRADO); 15A: Eight, in Spain (OCHO); 17A: Consumed (EATEN); 18A: Postal delivery (MAIL); 19A: Knish seller (DELI); 20A: Henna, for one (DYE); 24A: Hawaii's coffee capital (KONA); 25A: Reader's __: magazine (DIGEST); 32A: Wooden nickel, e.g. (SLUG); 37A: Parcel of land (TRACT); 39A: New Age-y emanation (AURA); 40A: Single (ONE); 41A: Wine vintage (YEAR); 42A: Thread holder (SPOOL); 53A: Long sandwich (SUB); 56A: Vaulter's need (POLE); 57A: "Today __ man": stereotypical bar mitzvah announcement (I AM A); 58A: Hospital staffer (NURSE); 60A: __ even keel (ON AN); 61A: Shoemaker McAn (THOM); 62A: Spud (TATER); 63A: Camping shelter (TENT); 64A: Talks and talks (YAKS); 2D: Open-sided cart (DRAY); 3D: Loathe (HATE); 4D: "__ on a Grecian Urn" (ODE); 5D: Unite (CONJOIN); 6D: Tuba sound (OOMPAH); 8D: Facial feature with a cleft, perhaps (CHIN); 9D: Distributed sparingly (DOLED OUT); 10D: No-goodnik (BAD EGG); 11D: Daisy variety (OXEYE); 12D: Tennis great Monica (SELES); 13D: Eastwood of Dirty Harry films (CLINT); 22D: Namibia neighbor: Abbr. (ANG.); 23D: Perform with the choir (SING); 24D: Kid's scrape site (KNEE); 27D: Butcher's cut (LOIN); 28D: Entice (LURE); 30D: Partners' legal entity: Abbr. (LLC); 33D: "Je ne sais __" (QUOI); 34D: Cyclo- ending (TRON); 35D: Shopper's delight (SALE); 37D: Persistence (TENACITY); 38D: "Norma __" (RAE); 39D: iPhone downloads (APPS); 41D: Wizened "Star Wars" guru (YODA); 42D: Interstate speed limit, often (SEVENTY); 43D: Bemoan (LAMENT); 44D: __ razor: logical simplicity rule (OCCAM'S); 45D: __-jongg (MAH); 46D: A hundred bucks (C-SPOT); 47D: Make amends (for) (ATONE); 48D: Texas Rangers president Ryan (NOLAN); 51D: Often sarcastic joke response (HA HA); 52D: In a frenzy (AMOK); 53D: Mlle., in Madrid (SRTA.); 54D: Exploitative type (USER); 55D: Swiss capital (BERN).
23 comments:
Thank you PG for another great write-up :)
I have to agree we are off to a great start with this Monday's puzzle. I esecially loved seeing OOMPAH and BOSC - they are just fun words to say :)
The puzzle Was able to squeeze in those tasty SUBS and TATERS and even the STOMACHACHE you get from eating to many.
The only question I had with the puzzle was CONJOIN. I thought CONJOIN described items born or made together not something that can be put together and later called conjoined? Just wondering :)
Ready for Tuesday!!
Nice Levin puzzle!
Super PG writeup!
But crappy morning!
I’ve never seen a storm as severe as this in Chicago!
Got soaked badly on my morning trek.
Oh well, nothing to LAMENT, there’s a lot to be cheery about.
Easy solve puzzle by one of my faves, Donna Levin… good theme and some fun words like: OOMPAH, YAKS, BAD EGG, YODA, and HAHA.
Once again we see that old English philosopher William of Ockham and his famous razor. OCCAM’S Razor is a line of reasoning that says “the simplest answer is often correct.” What good advice for me in solving crossword puzzles.
The statue of Joan d’Arc in ROUEN has a certain Je ne sais QUOI.
I always get that “Figure skating jump” clue correct because my grandpa’s name was AXEL Anderson. Not to be confused with the other three: AXLE, AXIL, and AXL (Rose).
KONA Coffee… hmmm, I think I’ll have some of that this morning.
@PG - The 'Nucks should have no problem with being North of the border (except for their universal desire to be south of the border), as they have only one border which to be north/south of. We 'mericans however got confused by this one, as we are the ones north of one of our borders.
LONESOMEPINE? 1936? I think my father took me to that one, but we had to leave because the organist who played the background music got sick or something. No wait, they did infact have talkies by then, my father wasn't even born yet, so I must be thinking about a different, totally unknown, movie.
Good Morning! Had fun with this today. As a relative newbie at these things this may be the first time I've solved without a problem. OK, I lied, I had Bad Guy before cBed Egg came to me via Readers Digest. And I had to Google "Lonesome Pine". Still managed to finish in 13 minutes - Yay Me!!
Virginia
@Pete - As Woody Allen once said, someone else's life passed before your eyes.
Or maybe you're thinking Lonesome Dove.
I had a weird half-dream which woke me up, about 2 kids being burned as witches and crying. I'd been reading about Salem, and their was a kid crying in the Chinese restaurant yesterday.
I have no idea what Cle Hoopster or CAVS mean. Or is it KAVS?
We are not the "Nucks".
I was confused as nothing is north of the border. Just another reminder these are all-American puzzles from our southern neighbours (hold the "u").
Let me get this straight:
provinces, not states?
Who’s your president?
See, that’s what I meant!
Post the border guard!
Prepare to bombard!
Countrymen, I say to ya:
Beware Canadia!
What Front said.
Too late. The advance guard is already across. Code names: Celine Dion and Justin Bierber.
I had GRENADA crossing GSPOT at first.
No, just kidding. I know GRENADA didn't fit geographically or letter-wise.
Very nice Monday solve. No quibbles from this front.
Wow, I actually got a Canadian to respond to an insult*! Thats' a first.
@Crosscan - You're absolutely correct in that there's nothing north of the border. As the entirety of Canada is north of the border, well Canada is nothing.
* Gentility requires me to apologize for the insult. See, I genuinely think of myself as being bigotry free (to the extent possible), but that's a difficult way to live. We all want to feel superior, and if you've dedicated yourself to being bigotry free, that means you actually have to be superior, all the time, in every way, and that's just way too much work. So, when I'm lazy, don't actually want put out the effort to be a decent human being, well, I just permit myself to pick on Canadians. They don't fight back.
Since the puzzle is published in L.A., I see no reason to worry about offending our Canadian neighbors. If it were published in Vancouver, then it would be a problem.
Speaking of which, are there good puzzle publishers going unjustly neglected up there?
Fun puzzle, smooth solve. Agree with @PG that it has some nice snap in the fill.
Speedy, smooth Donna Levin puzzle with a fun theme. I've finally graduated to doing my early week puzzles in ink. Only had one BAD EGG. I wrote in STOMACH ACID instead of ACHE. Obviously, I hadn't figured out the theme yet.
Thanks for the write up PG.
Also had STOMACH ACid before STOMACH ACHE and then tried to drive SEVdNTY on the Interstate - didn't get very far.
BOSC, LOIN, TATER, DELI, SUB, BAD EGG, EATEN, DIGEST, STOMACH ACHE, eventually leading to YAKS? Is it me or is there an overindulgent mini-theme here? Must be getting close to Thanksgiving. Time to get out the stretch pants.
Love CANADA! Great skiing! Great AURA of the aurora borealis! (Used-to-be) great exchange rate for my C-SPOTs! Mounties are a little cranky, though. Once got a ticket for driving SEVdNTY through a construction zone. My defense? Hey, it's only kilometers. Not like it's *really* speeding. That logic didn't get me very far with them.
Capcha: pugere - little French (Canadian?) dog
Went to add "Lonesome Pine", (1936), to my Netflix queue and found out that it was the first movie with outdoor scenes in color.
Pleasant Monday puzzle. Had writeovers PINE/dovE, CSPOT/Cnote, and ONCD/ONCe. Do they really record music on CDs? I would think they use either tape or solid state memory, edit, and then write the finished music to CD. Or am I picking a nit?
My FOTD is ROUEN, the city where Joan of Arc was burned at the stake.
Sfingi, Cav=Cleveland Cavaliers. Formerly home to arguably the best player in the NBA, LeBron James. No more as he decided to jump ship and play for a team that has a shot at winning a championship. Widely reviled for phoning in his performance in the Playoffs this year, knowing he wouldn't be with the Cavs much longer.
Hated ON CD. As a former musician I can tell you that no professional recording has ever been made on CD. The CD is the consumer end product, inferior to the master tape from which it came. And JAPANESE YEN is thoroughly meh.
Some interesting words for a Monday though, like DREY and SLUG.
Monday puzzles get a lot of abuse here, but I thought this one was pretty good.
So YEN is a verb ... huh. I did not know that.
rp
OK puzzle today. Definitely a step up for Mondays. Nothing difficult, fun words. I always like DRAY as a word, hard to use in a daily sentence.
Bieber is Canadian? I knew there was a reason I didn't like the little dude ;^)
The only thing worse than Bieber is how obsessed people who hate him are about talking about him. Most Bieber chatter in the world is negative. To quote another Canadian, isn't it ironic?
Like rain on a wedding day ironic.
@Crosscan - We love Canada. We've actually been there. It is clean - not a speck on the subways, even. To reword my mom - it's l city ike Pre-WWII. Montreal charming and quaint. Toronto is modern and chic. Seems like half "our" talent is from Canada, eh? And it's never too damn hot. Oh Canada!
Wow, I sure breezed through this one. Got LONESOME PINE entirely from crosses, without even noticing. When I saw it in @PG's writeup, I was all, "where was that in the grid?" There were a couple of short answers like that, too.
@JaxinL.A.: Agreed; the puzzle didn't insult me at all. Now Pete, on the other hand, is doing a fine job.
@Pete: To fight back would be to stoop to your level.
@rz: Seems to me the BAD EGG would go unDIGESTed!
@Scully2066, conjoined means something that is put together, not something that is born or made that way. As the word says, it is something that is together ("con-") united ("-joined").
I'm sure you are thinking of conjoined twins, in which case we can infer that the original usage either intended to mean that some other force (be it God, the mother, nature, etc.) had joined the twins together, or the biological explanation which is that a single baby develops from what would be two separate zygotes/twins (or a dividing fertilized egg that does not quite divide all the way), which are joined together (con-).
It doesn't necessarily mean that "join" is an action here, rather it can also be an adjective. This would be the case that you thought was the singular definition. If you weren't thinking of twins, but objects that are made conjoined (like a chain or the like), we could also argue that the maker of these objects had to unite the components at some point in time.
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