L.A. Times Crossword Puzzle Blooging

Wednesday, January 6, 2010  Gareth Bain

Theme: Classic Music Contracts, A-List - Classic Rock songs with verb contractions followed by "A" in the titles.

17A  1966 Monkey's Hit:  I'M A BELIEVER.  Written by the Lovely Wife's favorite, Neil Diamond

65 A  1968 Impressions Hit:  WE'RE A WINNER.  Must not have impressed me. No recollection of it.

11D 1971 Tom Jones Hit:  SHE'S A LADY.  Or at least a woman.  What's new, PusSycat?

1962 Hit attributed to the Crystals but sung by the Blossoms:  HE'S A REBEL.  Here are the Crystals

And, at no extra charge,
50A  Original iPod, as it's now known:    CLASSIC.  Not really part of the theme, but I co-opted it, so there.

But wait, there's more -

31A Put on the HiFi:  PLAY.   Spin them platters!




Hi Gang, it's JazzBumpa, your HOT LIPS trombonIST.  Nice retro theme for the CLASSIC rock lover in you. 

Across:

1A Distinguishing feature:  CACHET.  News to me.  Merriam-Webster tells us:
1 a : a seal used especially as a mark of official approval b : an indication of approval carrying great prestige.  2 a : a characteristic feature or quality conferring prestige.   Well, OK, then.
 
7A  "Is this  _____ time to talk of Pensions and Grenadiers?": - Sterne:  A FIT.   Beats me.  Can't track it down.  Anybody have a clue?

11A Wailing instrument:  Must be SAX.   Harpoon won't fit.

14A Hit the big time:  ARRIVE.  You know you've arrived when you ___________.  (Fill in the blank.)

15A  Quote as a source:  CITE.  Like Sterne in 7A.

16A Dress bottom:  HEM.  Per Wikipedia, "To hem a piece of cloth (in sewing), a garment worker folds up a cut edge, folds it up again, and then sews it down. The process of hemming thus completely encloses the cut edge in cloth, so that it cannot ravel. A hem is also the edge of cloth treated in this manner."  That's getting to the bottom of it!

19A Bard's "prior to":  ERE.   "Able was I ere I saw Elba"  Your palindrome for the day.

20A Bright Star:  NOVA.  Also, an old Chevy.  Also Spanish for "No go."  Great name for a car.

21A Basic French verb:  ETRE.  Crossword staple, usually travels with RAISON D'.

22A "Beware the Jabberwock _________"  MY SON.  Excellent advice from my mom.  "The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!"  The Jabberwock, I mean.  Not mom.  She's a sweetie.  Anyway, it was Lewis Carrol, not mom.

24A Warehouse stamp letters:  REC'D.  Recieved.  Got it?

26A "Washboard" muscles.  ABS.  Abdominals.  Six pack.  Very gutsy.  We watched "The biggest loser" tonight.  Yikes!

27A Briney expanse:  SEA.  I couldn't force-fit PICKLE BARREL into 3 spaces.

28A "M*A*S*H" nickname:  Major Margaret J. "HOT LIPS" Houlihan.  Played by Loretta Swit.

34A Wildly eccentric, briefly: SCHIZO.  Schizophrenic.  Doesn't fit the clue very well.  Nor does it refer to multiple personality disorders.  My alter ego is a SCHIZO, but we get along OK.

37A Sniffling and sneezing cause:  COLD. "Viral upper respiratory tract infection (VURI), acute viral nasopharyngitis, acute viral rhinopharyngitis, acute coryza."   Not a low temperature, as we all seem to be experiencing.  Anyway, I wanted DUST.

39 ________  Carte:  ALA.  Ala Carte, meaning "according to the menu", or "on the wagon," or something like that.  May or may not involve an extra charge.  It's all very confusing.

40A Roll call response:  PRESENT.  My alter ego always responds, "ABSENT."  He's incorrigible.

42A How some suits are made:  TO ORDER.  Mine are off the rack at Penny's.

44A Toys:  R US.  Couldn't fit "IN THE ATTIC", nor type a backward R.  My alter ego says he knows how, but he went to bed. 

45 Wild outbreak:  RIOT. Very crosswordese.  Wanted HORSES, or PANDEMIC. 

47A Victimized, with "on":  PREYED.  Literally, caught and ate.  Figuratively, used and abused.  There are other options.

48A  Wine bottle datum:  YEAR.  Some are very good.  Also known as vintage.

52A  Narrow inlet:  RIA.  Learned from doing crosswords.  A wide inlet is RIA GRANDE.

54A  Chick _____: light women's fiction:  LIT.  How politically incorrect is that.  These books not read on "The Biggest Loser."

55A Nordic Runners:  SKIS.  Cute clue.  The blades of skis are RUNNERS, I suppose.

58A Knight's Job"  QUEST.  A search or pursuit for something valuable.  Like a shrubbery.
and
2D Knight suit:  ARMOR.  Not Jammies.

60A Ice sheet: FLOE.  A floating sheet of ice.  Very COLD.

62A Burned, in a way:  ON CD.  You can do it yourself.

64A City area, briefely:  URB.  Short for an urban area, aka city.

68A  Get older:  AGE.  Father time wins in the end.

69A Yemen city on its own Gulf.  ADEN.  Lots of trouble in Yemen, these days.

70A Early ascetic:  ESSENE.  I think I read somewhere that John the Baptist was an ESSENE, not a Southern Baptist.

71A State that's only 9 mi. wide at its narrowest point:  DEL.  Note Abbrv in cl.et. ans.  MD gets pretty narrow, too. 

72A Had second thoughts about:  RUED.  I thought this was more along the lines of deep regret.

73A Put away for later:  STORED.  These guys do it, and they're very protective.

Down:

1D Abel's slayer:  CAIN.  Original sibling rivalry.  Why can't we all just get along?

3D Have a jones for:  CRAVE.  From the diction of addiction.

4D Japanese grills:  HIBACHIS.  A simple charcoal grill.

5D  Noted victim of temptation:  EVE.  Clever clue.  Mom of the original siblings, and early fig leaf HEMMER.

6D Prefix with vision:  TELE.  Television.  Yeah.  Whatever.

7D Biting:  ACERBIC.  As, wit.  Same root as acid, I'll bet.

8D Fin:  Am I done?  No.  It's a FIVE SPOT.  A five dollar bill.  Old slang.  Anybody know where it came from?

9D Meteor ending:  ITE.  With or without, what's the difference?

10D Contract details:  TERMS.  Be sure to read the fine print.

12D Related to flying:  AERO.  That's plain.

13D  Marvel Comics superheroes:  X-MEN.  Should be X-persons.

18D Emphatic type: Abbr.: ITAL.  Italic.  As you can see.

23D "Sho 'nuff":  YUP.  I agree.  Though one could quibble about where to place the apo'strophe's.

25D Earth moving machine, and hopefully not the one driving it:  DOZER.  I love this clue.  Short for bull dozer, hopefully not somebody taking a nap.

29D G and T part:  TONIC.  Gin and tonic.  I needed a lot of perp help.  My gin mixes with vermouth and drowns olives.

30D Spills, as from a bucket:  SLOPS.  Traditional method for hog feeding.  Perhaps Windhover can elaborate.

32D Sheltered, in a way:  ALEE.  Away from the wind.

33D Place for a sale:  YARD.  Or garage.  Or Target.

34D Nimble: SPRY.  Agile, graceful.  Somehow, "Jack be spry" just doesn't work.

35D Rockers Motley:  CRUE.  Ugly noise, IMHO.

38D Day of films:  DORIS.  Doris Day, clean cut sex goddess, before sex was invented.  Clue got me - needed perp help.

41D Like 1-800 numbers.  TOLL FREE. That's why we like 1-800 numbers.

43D "I guess":  RECKON SO.  YUP.

46D Last bit:  TAIL END.  Sounds like a military expression, like tail gunner.  Maybe Dennis can fill us in.

49 Grafton's "______ for Ricochet"  R IS.  Forward R this time.  From Sue Grafton's alphabet mystery series.  I got bored somewhere around F.

51D One often bordered an agora:  STOA.  Another crossword stalwart. I believe an agora was an outdoor market.  A STOA is a collonade.  In those days, "I'm goin' to the Stoa." was rather ambiguous.

53D  Clashing, big time.  AT WAR.  That's about as big as it gets.

56D  _________ Tube:  INNER.  An inflatable rubber bladder inside a tire.

57D Part of an act:  SCENE.  Acts of plays are divided into scenes.  Or one can make a scene.  Making many scenes is a bad act.

58D Campus area:  QUAD.  Short for quadrangle, a four-sided area surrounded by buildings.

59D Yearning:  URGE.  Should I give in . . .?

61D Ram's dams:  EWES.  I would feel sheepish if I didn't get this one.

63D Scott in an 1857 case:  DRED.  A much RUED decision.

66D Campus URL ending.  EDU.  ITE was already taken by the meteor.

67D Performer's suffix:  IST.  As in SAXophonist.  Are there other examples?


That's all folks.  Cheers!
JzB

Cross-posted at The Corner.