RozzieGrandma

Great puzzle. Paid to be over 70 so of course RAG was the tune. (Is RAP really 2/4 time? ) But anyway, RAG sets off happy memories of my grandmother, who after many hard years (divorced an alcoholic philandering husband, sent 4 children to college despite her siblings telling them "Go to work for Aetna and help out your mother", lived in a cramped apartment fot years) then late in life inherited a house and some money, taught herself classica guitar and played piano and organ--including RAGTIME. She also found a classical pianist who played it on the harpsichord.

and I don't think anyone has mentioned that the ONLY A's in the puzzle are the ones in the reveal. Didn't we have a puzzle recently with restricted O's? Another hat tip to the constructor.

This one is for @Andrzej after his complaint about gratuitously violent shows...the series "Foyle's War" about a detective chief inspector in the English coastal town of Hastings during WW II. I think it was a BBC production; available in USA via PBS (Public Broadcasting System). Touches on the fear of invasion, the Mosleyites, anti-foreigner hysteria, rationing, Land Girls, Dunkirk, children evacuated from London and much more.

interesting how many of us mis-read FLIM as FILM.

Hamlet says "PAH" over Yorick's skull; admittedly not meaning [as if] but more like [Yuck]. Uh-oh: did I just suggest another misdirect to the constructors and editors? This was my first-ever time doing a puzzle on the night before and I was surprised to find it fairly easy for a Saturday. I did have HAH for a long time but couldn't find a way to make 1A right no matter how many alphabet runs I tried. Like many others, I thought the comedy duo would be 2 different people. But eventually it really did have to be ANNE and then her last name popped out of that mysterious amalgam of synapses to which others have alluded. Hoping that it rains REALLY HARD in DC today

I am surprised and somewhat saddened by the people who complained about having to know something of the Hebrew alphabet. I'd have expected word-nerds to be alphabet nerds too ( and have never encountered complaints about having to know the Greek alphabet--about fraternities, yes). Check out <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphabet" target="_blank">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphabet</a> I had wondered how both an Indo-European language (Greek) and an Afro-Asiatic one (Hebrew) would have so many similarities in their names for the letters. Turns out BOTH took from the Phoenicians.

Can't believe I'm the first to say that movie rip-off should be SODAS.

i also had some trouble with the clue for 37A, but then, so did the constructor. Wikipedia has a lovely story about it. Picasso was living in Paris during WWII and had a photo of the painting on the wall. A German officer was visiting and asked, "Did you do that?" Picasso replied, "No, you did."

Can't resist, in honor of 43A Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear; Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair; Fuzzy Wuzzy wasn't fuzzy-- Was he?

Haven't read all the comments yet, but am upset enough about some of the hate that I want to weigh in on the PRO side. Yes it took over my [not all that fabulous] Saturday average and yes I looked up Notaro and Wenders and the loan organization, but so? I enjoyed the workout. Side note: I suspected Notaro's name started with T since I had heard of her. Apparently memory works that way often enough that you should plunk that first letter into the crossword.

To add to the cheekiness... who else remembers this from their youth, to the tune of "Habanera"? Toreadora, Don't spit on the floor-a! Use the cuspidor-a; Whaddya think it's for-a?

Anyone else had this experience: today and yesterday solving felt noticeably easy (and enjoyable) but times were actually slightly OVER average for the day. I don't obsess about time, but--as I suspect many in this community over a certain age do-- I do use it as a [totally unscientific] way to check if dementia is creeping up on me. On that note: the latest AARP magazine says you should read novels not non-fiction to keep your memory in trim. Apparently that's even a new diagnostic question. I guess I'm good so far, though surely one should read both.

DOH moment. I was so sure the orders were coffee sizes that while I dutifully filled in the O's, it didn't click. Guess I hadn't had enough coffee yet. I'm sure I could never manage a triple scoop. As in the Judith Viorst book, "Alexander and the No Good Horrible Very Bad Day", the ice cream part would fall off the cone part and land in Australia.

Curious to know the original TA RA RA BOOM DEE AY. What I remember is: We are the glamor girls. We wear our hair in curls. We wear our dungarees Rolled up above our knees. We wear our fathers' shirts. We wear our brothers' ties. And when we want a guy, We take him by surprise. Tararaboomdeeay Tararaboomdeeay Tararaboomdeeay Tarara BOOM! Talk about showing my age!

YOU WOULDN'T and I NEVER WILL are also neat.

i am EXTREMELY relieved that 7D has nothing to do with that pseudo US government department with the same letters that is destroying our country. 337 people out of about 1500 in just one division of HHS retired or were fired last week.

Anyone else have LEPERS for the Matthew 14 miracle? I know the gospels pretty well but not by chapter and verse. Messed that section up for quite a while.

First time ever doing a Sunday puzzle on a Saturday. I usually have more self-discipline. And this one was so much fun, I fear no lesson learned. All the themed answers are cute. TIL a fact about giraffes (I'd apologize for the spoiler were it not for the photo.) Thanks for the explanation for 20A which made no sense to me. I wouldn't have gotten 93D if the city hadn't shown up on the Tasman Sea a couple of days ago, prompting me to find it on a map; sure enough it was noted as being in NSW. Liking the 95A shout out to fluoridation since we're threatened with an HHS secretary who wants to end it. Here's hoping enough senators have spines. The fact that he was involved in an anti measles vaccination effort in Samoa that killed a bunch of children might be enough.

B# Rock that suit. Homage to an earlier puzzle

i was originally going to complain that you can JABBER or YAMMER but not YABBER but I looked it up and at least in Australia, you can. Apparently YABA means "talk" in Wuywurung (a language of the original inhabitants) so it MAY derive from a pidgin. I'll let one of our Australians expand on this (they've already confirmed that YABBER is common there.)

For all of you on both sides of the Wallace Stevens poem, I give you the last bit of Billy Collins's poem, "On Poetry": But all they want to do is tie the poem to a chair with rope and torture a confession out of it. They begin beating it with a hose to find out what it really means. Google it to read the FIRST stanzas, where he tells us what he recommends instead. I would say the Stevens poem is both obscure (as in hard to understand) and not obscure (as in very much heard of, at least for those who read poetry)

Interesting TIL that the Iditarod only started in 1973. I'd always thought it began much closer to the incident that inspired it. Wikipedia article on that incident is worth reading. And we need all the reminders we can get about the necessity for vaccines.

Loved this puzzle but when have 1A ever been fashionable? Enjoyed the family road trip memories. Luckily my family never took any really long ones, given all the squabbling that went on. One of my sisters actually yelled: "She's closer to me than I am to her!" We kept bringing that up for years.

Some say the world will end in fire. Some say in ice. From what I've tasted of desire, I hold with those who favor fire. But if it had to perish twice I think I know enough of hate To say that for destruction ice Is also great and would suffice.

Anyone else put EAT for 25D? Fixed it when EATS was another answer. Much more scary to imagine what might be in that pantry. And I don't follow sports much and assumed 10D would be a man, so happy to see a woman (got name from crosses but the final A was the tip-off).

Old joke: UMPIRE#1: I calls 'em as I sees 'em. UMPIRE'#2: I calls 'em as they ARE!. UMPIRE#3: Until I call 'em, they ain't nothin,.

Interesting note about place names ending in "bury": both spouse and I pronounce them inconsistently, sometimes BUH and sometimes BAIR. It seems related to how we have heard others say them. I say Glastonbury--where I lived between ages 6 to 10-- as BAIR but Roxbury--town where our church is--as BUH because of the "Charlie on the MTA" song.

Am I the only one who wanted 21A to be EMU?

I almost exited immediately after reading 1A. As a former federal employee, I fear that I see DOGE everywhere these days. Someone wrote a book about the 60's Civil Rights movement that included how many municipalities closed their pools rather than integrating them, thus hurting poor whites as well as blacks. Tx to @E.M. and @Tim V. and @Mean Old Lady for earlier related comments.

Special shout-out to the misdirect at 36A where of course I had OAR as a gimme. Messed up 12D because with all its other letter O's I missed the extra one. Anyone else have AREWEGOOD and then ITLLBEGOOD and think something was going on here? Oh but Saturday's don't have themes (what never?) so eventually I fixed them both. very COOL GOOD FINE NEATO puzzle.

I may be lucky if I am the only one in this community to have spent time in Lusaka, but I do think the complaints were unkind. I LIKED memorizing capitals. And we had LOME just the other day.

Shout-out to 9D recognition of women. I had MEGA there at first. TIL that there's an official size for a shot and larger than I would have guessed. Doesn't seem to be all that standardized. I tried both our shot glasses: one overflowed a bit and the other had room to spare.

hands up if you had OLDER in need of a massage.

Another case where knowledge gets in the way. The gospel of Mark is the oldest according to most scholars, so it can't come AFTER one of the others. But of course that's not the order in the Bible. Enjoyable puzzle. Annoyed at myself for having MAMI and then changing it because I misremembered the cabinet secretary as CHOO. Fortunately the comments straightened me out.

Was anyone else looking for the meat part of that fancy hamburger? I was thinking bison, beefalo, grass-fed cattle, even (gasp!) emu.

Happy 15A of my father trying to help me learn to ride a bike. We had a heavy old one-speed "boys" bike that was probably too big for 7-year-old me and we tried it with him jogging along steadying it from behind. Didn't go well.He finally got me a lighter 3-speed and left me to try on my own. After a few scraped knees I did get the hang of it. Many happy years including several in Chicago with no car when I cycled even through snow. I haven't tried for a couple of years now. Wonder if it's true that you never forget.

lovely puzzle though I wish the O's hadn't needed the pejorative 30A. I am tentatively on team Live Tree on the grounds that most of them are deliberately planted and spend an average of 7 years sequestering carbon before harvest. But a Christmas tradition of being mindful is a great one to start. Here's something from the Farmers' Almanac but hardly by a disinterested person [astride my hobby horse of keeping the correct meaning of that word alive!]: "These trees around us do so much work, storing carbon dioxide and emitting fresh oxygen. Christmas trees also stabilize soil, protect water supplies, and provide refuge for wildlife while creating scenic green belts. They have a positive impact on the environment that you can feel good about"

Good puzzle IMHO. I was utterly defeated by 104A because I was so sure of "chanty". Nope; turns out there are MANY variant spellings. So I "took a peek at the answer" and got THAT fixed. I had confidently deleted the dowloaded pdf (phone has been griping about storage lately). So then when STILL no happy music I was too embarrassed to download it again. Anyway my phone has decided that Minivan is the default app for pdfs. (For those of you not into political door-knocking, that's the app that gives you the list of addresses with voter names plus mapping help and lets you record responses.) Luckily I did realize 3D was wrong; had POSTAL not POSTAGE and had ignored that the ending made no sense (somehow LAPS did????) Slightly under my (unimpressive) Sunday average but definitely not too easy.

I have a super power! Every time I recommend a post, its count goes up by 2 not 1! Maybe just time lag? Someone else has recommended just ahead of me?

I would just like to say, as one about to celebrate an 80th birthday, that I am fine with 54A and am claiming it after finishing this puzzle at 20% off my Friday average and with no helps. Yes, it is no doubt at least ATAD easier than usual. But I had to struggle on the SE, so don't rain on my parade. BTW grateful for so far not needing either 55A's. A sound digestion is a big blessing. is this being a GEEZER or a FOGY?

Enjoyed this a lot. I had been going to smugly claim (and to egregiously split infinitives while I was at it) that I had known nearly all the women in the puzzle (admitting only a problem spelling the Hawaiian queen) but I zipped back through the clues and found it wasn't true; I had gotten quite a few only via crosses. Cases in point: As former New Yorker, picked IONA as Clark's alma mater even though no sports powerhouse.55A Mental block on Hermione's actress 31D So why not SIB for 77A? Thus EMMA NATBON? No?