Mojo
Texas
I was so hoping "Professional pitcher?" Would be "Kool-Aid Man", since it fit, but PIANO TUNER was pretty good, too.
54A was frustrating. I own over 20 guitars, and not one has a TREBLE knob - amps, yeah, but not guitars. I had "volume" there for a long time, as the only other knobs on electric guitars are "tone" or maybe "tuner"
@Classic Hip-Hop Fan yep. Crossword puzzles are always trivia. These kinds of complaints are just bizarre.
The title of the puzzle is "The Sounds of Music" which is obviously a (pluralized) reference to the musical, in which the note is called "SO" (/sew - "a needle pulling thread"), not "sol". So, "SO" is fine in this context, despite the insistence of the compLAiners, who seem to need to go outside and get a RE/drop of golden sun. I loved this puzzle. Awesome debut. It has a perfect mix of classical culture, vintage culture, pop culture, language, history, obscure/niche references, and common knowledge. And it has a universal theme. Great job, Mike!
"Boomer" and "Gen X'er", are familiar terms, so GENZER ("Gen Z'er") isn't an obscure reference, especially considering that demographic is often also referred to by combining the descriptors into "Zoomer".
Took me way too long to figure out "DOI" is "DO I?", and not a weird way to spell "doy", as in "No doy!" (which can also be an enthusiastic way of expressing assent)
When I started playing bass (over 30 years ago 👨🦳), I somehow acquired, along with my baseball cards, comic book character cards, and Garbage Pail Kids, a (bass) playing card featuring Edgar Meyer. It didn't seem as exciting at the time as a ninja turtle or Jose Conseco, but while most of those other cards are long gone, I still have Meyer's.
TIL Goombas aren't the only sentient Mario fungi, and that Toad and his people aren't just wearing decorative shroom hats.
I WAS a teen, and big Aerosmith fan in the 90s. When we took a school trip (east, not WEST) to New Orleans, LIV TYLER caught MY EYE hanging out near the French Quarter, but I was unABLE to get a SELFIE with her in the background without feeling like an ARSE. So, she's kind of a core memory, and that was the first answer I think I got in this PEST of a puzzle. I don't know about the CALABRIA pepper or region, but it is the name of a very catchy BOP from around 2010.
@Mojo Well, never mind. My mind is as gone as my collection. I just looked, and it's a Gary Karr card, not Edgar Meyer 😄🤦🏼♂️
I haven't eaten or slept in 24 hours, which seems to have put me in the right mindset to race through this puzzle with no hiccups, other than a slight delay to try to type backwards while fighting the app trying to "help" me by going to the next box after each letter
@OsteoSynth I thought about that, too. But even the rhythm/treble switch on a Les Paul wouldn't be called the "treble" knob (besides the fact that it's not a knob, as you noted) - because it doesn't just have one function or setting. It has two (or three, counting the middle/both pickups). Many acoustic-electrics and a few basses have EQs with treble and bass, but it's not a feature of any standard electric guitar.
@Dorothy that one got me, too! Toji/Ramis seemed so right that I totally forgot it was just a guess. I checked my answers multiple times, and couldn't figure out why the app wouldn't accepting my completed puzzle
Sometimes it feels like you're really on the same wavelength as the puzzle creator, and even answers you didn't know you knew just seem to jump into your brain. This was one of those. Very clever clues, a great writer recommendation, learned a new Greek term, and now after watching Carly's awesome demonstration of skills, the happy brain chemicals are just flowing today.
@Jim And that's a very nice... *acoustic*. You know "electric guitar" wasn't referring to an acoustic-electric like your Taylor, or a bass guitar which might have an EQ. It's just a bad clue.
Great puzzle. I pictured Michael CAINE, but my brain mixed him up with Michael pAlin, which slowed down that corner for a long time 🤦🏼♂️
@Bonnie <a href="https://www.dictionary.com/browse/crescendo" target="_blank">https://www.dictionary.com/browse/crescendo</a> Scroll down past the noun and adjective forms. VERB: to grow in force or loudness.
I guess the tone knob controls the amount of treble, so, it could technically be described that way, even if it says "tone" on it.
@Mean Old Lady A few years ago, chemical analysis revealed some mysterious resin on an ancient Hebrew altar to be hashish. Maybe the "burning bush" was exactly what the Rastafarians have always insisted it to be.
@Steve L A red traffic light isn't a "warning" - it's a directive to stop. Yellow is the color of warning, in the traffic world. A "red flag" is considered a warning not to go *out* with someone, though. I would imagine you'd especially not want to go out to sea with such a person.
@Steve L if acoustic-electrics are the justification, then a parallel bad clue would be something like, "it puts a lid on a rock musician" > COWBOY HAT - because the puzzle builder saw a pic of Lynyrd Skynyrd. Yeah, country/southern rock musicians often wear them, but not most rock musicians without that specific qualifier.
43 is debatable. Biblically, the mountain is Horeb, not Sinai. Horeb is *traditionally* believed to be another name for Sinai, the 10 commandments site, but it's not stated as such in the Bible. So Sinai is not the "biblical site" of the burning bush, as the clue states, Horeb is. Exodus 3: Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. 2 There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. 3 So Moses thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up.”
@Mojo oops, I just looked it up, and it was *2007*, not 2010. The year is literally in the full name of the song: Calabria 2007 🤦🏼♂️ (by Enur ft. Natasja)
@G that makes perfect sense! I think they were my first entries, because they were all across, and pretty obvious. Not sure how that pencil got clicked, but thank you!
@Kyle I was just lamenting to one of my (adult) kids today that there can never be Goonies 2, for this very reason 😮💨
@Mean Old Lady hallucinations notwithstanding, the biblical accounts have the two events (burning bush and 10 commandments) separated by decades, and don't state they are the same location, so the clue is incorrectly worded.
@Mojo (this was for the comments complaining about it, not the article writer)
Does anyone else have all of the answers displaying in a faded/light gray color, except for MST, FELIX, MISERS, and TIG? I thought it was some kind of theme, but couldn't figure out what those four words have in common. Since it's not mentioned in the article or comments that I read, I guess it's just a weird fluke with my app. 🤷♂️
The "warning" referred to in 62D is part of the sailing theme, not traffic signals: Red sky at night, sailors' delight. Red sky at morning, sailors take warning.
@Steve L A red traffic light or stop sign isn't a "warning", it's a directive
@SBK the other definition is a noun. Similar to a tirade or a "crash out" (Like what a coach might give a team after an embarrassing loss). The Brits also have a synonym called "bollocking," which contains a hilarious potential misunderstanding for people from both sides of the pond 😄
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