LarryF
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When HUMAN CANNONBALL Zazel retired it took a long time to find a replacement of the same caliber. L
@Steve L They are not Big Box Stores, they are stores in big boxes in the grid. L
@J If you haven’t heard of PDQ Bach, the creation of musicologist Peter Schickele, this is your chance. Check your music source for any of his albums. We used to go to annual concerts of his classical music spoofs at Carnegie hall every year. My favorite work was Concerto for Horn and Hardart just for the name. Or The Hoarse Trojan. Or Iphigenia in Brooklyn. L
Pyroclastic Flows are deadly avalanches of volcanic ash that flow down the sides of volcanoes during an eruption. They can move over 60 miles an hour, destroying everything and everyone in their path. The eruption that destroyed Pompei was a pyroclastic flow. L
My favorite anagram: ALEC GUINNESS-GENUINE CLASS L
Great fun. I got all of the long ones easily, and had near my best time for a Saturday. Trivia: Port MAHON is the origin of Mayonnaise. It also features prominently in the “Master and Commander” series of 20 novels by Patrick O’Brian. L
@Barry Ancona But then they wouldn’t be stores in BIG BOXES in the grid L
Premise: SOMELIKEITHOT is the funniest movie ever made. I first saw it before it was released, a friend’s father was a distributor and brought it to our summer camp. L
Hmmm, I have always assumed a different meaning from Hamlet’s “I know a hawk from a handsaw”. A hawk is a mason’s tool, a flat metal plate with a handle underneath for carrying mortar (also called a mortarboard). A handsaw is a flat metal plate with a handle on one end and serrations on one edge for sawing wood. So I’ve learned something. L
Finally got it when I realized it wasn’t HOLYMOley L
Vowels, in order:FACETIOUSLY. And it’s not the only example, despite what my 6th grade teacher told us. L
A QUILTING BEE is a normally a gathering of quilters working on ONE quilt stretched on a quilt frame. L
@Calig Irving Berlin/Fred Astaire song:”Top Hat, White Tie and Tails” has the lines: I'm dudin' up my shirt front Puttin' in the shirt studs Polishin' my nails
@Laura Stratton-Dip is a current slang term for leaving a social event. “Gotta dip” means the same thing as “gotta bail”.
I was especially pleased at 36A L
Fun, challenging puzzle, but closer to a Wednesday in difficulty. L
Who is General Failure, and why is he reading my C:/ drive?
@Fredegunde Likewise for “combobulate” or “ept” L
Re 3D: FRIARs, or Friars Mendicant, are not monks, and in general live in the community, nor in monasteries. L
@pollyq Practice, practice, practice L
@Paul There are 5 rebus squares so it is TI(KIT)ORCHES
@Chris ELI YALE, founder of a university, so students are ELIs AFL, American Federation of Labor merged many years ago with CIO, Congress of Industrial Organizations. Both were umbrella organizations of trade unions.
Nit: Except in movies, EJECT is not a button. It is a handle above the user’s head that is attached to the ejection seat. When the user grabs the handle and pulls down a canvas cover the handle is attached to protects the user’s face, then a small rocket in the seat propels the seat and pilot out of the aircraft. At the same time the canopy blows off. The rocket can propel the seat 300’ or more vertically, so it is possible to eject while still on the ground. Once free the seat separates from the user, and the user’s parachute deploys at an appropriate altitude.
Seeing UP as a clue for DUENORTH brought back a memory from my wife’s time as a museum guide. She was giving a spotlight tour “The Search For the Nile”, and one of the visitors asked how could the Nile flow up? L
I had SPIDEYSENSE for a while, but couldn’t quite get OYLESS referring to a sale. L
@Nick I think Dag Hammarskjold, but that just gives away my age. L
@Marshall Walthew Oh boy, Emma Peal! A lifetime of infatuation. Did you catch on to the double entendre in her name, M-Appeal a marketing term for products attractive to men? She certainly fit.
Trivia: Badabing was a real strip club in Lodi, NJ. Its actual name was Satin Dolls. L
@Norbr “say uncle” is a demand to concede, usually when wrestling or fighting in general. Probably very old slang (like I am) L
TIVOs are still very much in use. We have 2 and use them to time-shift just about everything we watch (except for streaming), with the added benefit of skipping commercials. TiVo still comes out with new models every year or two. They last forever, however, and hold almost unlimited content, unlike the DVR services offered by cable companies. We have hundreds of movies and other shows that we can bring up and rewatch in full or just excerpts, such as the Nicolas Brothers or Fred Astaire. L
You mean HOBBES isn’t real? Next you’ll tell me Sherlock Holmes doesn’t exist!
@Beth RECTO and Verso are the right and left pages, respectively, of an open book DOM is the title for a Dominican monk Any clue where the answer is an Italian word it always appears to be CIAO 😏 L
Fun puzzle, and I liked the theme, bit I have 2 nits: MACH 1 is incorrect usage. Ernst Mach determined the speed of sound in air. In his honor it was called the MACH NUMBER. Initially I was thought to be an absolute limit, like Einstein’s speed of light. When this was demonstrated to be wrong a number was added as a means of measuring. But the speed of sound in air is still referred to as the Mach Number. The other is that oil tankers do not carry drums, they carry their cargo in enormous tanks. L
@Dan Microsoft Excel is a spreadSHEET app L
What a challenge! My slowest solve ever, but I loved the misdirection. I knew that agave and asparagus are MONOCOTS, but not that HYACINTHS are. I had DAFFODILS for the longest time, which slowed me down a lot. L
@Patrick J. I took 16 to be the 16th letter of the alphabet. That delayed me for a long time. L
@Marshall Walthew And one who BLOVIATES suffers from logorrhea. L
Re 121A, businesses frequently use postage METERs to print postage on an envelope. Mail that has been processed this way is called METERED mail and is processed differently from STAMPED mail. L
@EGW in the early Bond books his gun was a Beretta, but M made him give it up because it had insufficient stopping power. FUNFACT: Beretta is the oldest firearms manufacturer in continuous operation, going back over 500 years. L
@Cat Lady Margaret But at least not the SET of all SETs that do not contain themselves!
Fun, slightly more difficult than I would expect from a Tuesday. A better translation of GROK is “to consume”, it also has the related meaning of to grasp or understand completely. L
@Care Each theme entry is a two word binomial phrase where the first ends in CK and the last in LL L
Wow, what a challenge! Thought it was going to break my 3330 day streak. It was a record for me, my slowest Saturday ever. L
Clever and fun, but seemed easy for a Thursday. L
@Kathleen Herman Melville refers also to cod chowder. When Ishmael enters the Spouter Inn on Nantucket the proprietor asks “Clam or Cod” being the only two items on the menu. There is also Bermuda Chowder, which is mixed seafood.
@Brad Look at the circled letters: MIN MIN is TWO minutes LB LB is TWO pounds FT FT two feet GAL GAL two gallons That’s the TWICE of the long revealer The ONCE is in the snipped answers L
Great to see Lead Belly’s greatest hit in 42 down. <a href="https://youtu.be/NT-OuWmXDsY?si=1nWmT5qV8F-1eDoc" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/NT-OuWmXDsY?si=1nWmT5qV8F-1eDoc</a> L
@Alan Parker the theme is count down, and the down entry is - . When you get to the N in ALUMN start going down. ALUMN I N E then back to the “top” and continue ALUMN I N E WSLETTER L
51A:TIL HER DADDY TAKES HER T-BIRD AWAY L