google.com, pub-2774194725043577, DIRECT, f08c47fec0942fa0 L.A.Times Crossword Corner: Sunday, Nov 15, 2015 Bruce Haight

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Nov 15, 2015

Sunday, Nov 15, 2015 Bruce Haight


Theme:  "Going on a Bender" - Each of the eight theme entries takes a 90-degree turn.

1A & 6D: Gets hitched : TAKES THE PLUNGE. That's how our TTP got his avatar name.
 
7A & 12D:  Unpopular party gal : DEBBIE DOWNER. Not familiar with this phrase.

13A & 17D. Goes 0 for 20, say : HITS A SLUMP

43D & 65A. PRESS FORWARD. This is where I cottoned onto the gimmick.

48A & 51D: How some Niagara stunts are done : OVER THE FALLS
 
76D & 99A: Passenger's direction at the corner : HANG A RIGHT. Also an easy corner.

74D & 100A: Play a trick (on) : PUT ONE ACROSS

68D & 101A: More than breaking even : COMING OUT AHEAD. A few tricky clues in that corner.

Reveal entry:

58A. Wax eloquent ... and what to do to solve eight puzzle clues : TURN A PHRASE

Across Lite does not allow empty clues, so Rich normally uses a dash to indicate that there's no clue for that word. Dashes often hint at a turning gimmick.

None of the turning phrases is random. Every themer has a key word indicating a downward or forward turn. 

The total symmetry added an extra layer elegance to this grid. It also made filling challenging for the fun-loving Bruce.


Across:

18. Get some fresh air : BREATHE. I just turn to NPR for Terry Gross. 

20. Complained : RAILED

21. Drives unsteadily : WEAVES

22. Give an edge to : SHARPEN. And  81. Giving an edge to : HONING

 23. Maestro Toscanini : ARTURO. My very first entry.

24. Half of a storybook duo : HANSEL. Same letter as Gretel.

25. Knocks in the theater : PANS

26. Seafood entrée : PRAWNS. Isn't strange that PRAWN is plurable but not SHRIMP? Same food.

28. Put an edge on : WHET

30. Big Ten sch. : PSU. The Nittany Lions. All crosses for me.

31. "The Simpsons" disco guy : STU

32. Director's cry : PLACES. I wanted ACTION. When does a director shout "Places"?

33. Already : BY NOW

35. Growth period : BOOM

36. Former South African president for whom a gold coin is named : KRUGER. The coin is  Krugerrand. Named after this guy Paul Kruger. Both stranger to me.


37. Caine captain : QUEEG

38. Stopped lying? : SAT UP. I thought of AROSE first. At least I was in the right direction.

39. One may be personal : TRAINER. And 71. They may be seconded : MOTIONS. Quite a few clue echoes in this puzzle.

41. Harold's film partner : KUMAR

42. Leading : FIRST

43. Book intros : PROLOGS

44. Wisecracks : QUIPS

45. Pac-Man feature : MAZE

46. Call it a night : RETIRE

47. Salad veggies : CUKES. Trader Joe's has these wonderful Persian cucumbers. So crisp and tender.
 

52. Buttermilk rider : EVANS. And 78. Trigger rider : ROGERS
 
53. Bee output : QUILT. Sewing bee! I just can't keep my mind of beeswax.

54. Rains cats and dogs : POURS

56. Zebra on a court : REF

57. Link clicker's destination : SITE
 
60. "The Clan of the Cave Bear" heroine : AYLA. This has become a gimme for me.

61. __-Cat : SNO

62. Beauty's admirer : BEAST. Beauty and the Beast.

63. Hardly seaworthy : LEAKY

64. Divulge : SPILL
 
67. Violin-playing comedian : BENNY. Drew a blank. Sadly I don't know much about Jack Benny. I do know his age though.

68. Price-fixing bloc : CARTEL

69. Spots to crash on the road : INNS

70. Physics particle : QUARK

72. Hogties : BINDS

74. __ willow : PUSSY

75. "Now We Are Six" author : A. A. MILNE. Big fat gimme.

76. __ Sack : HACKY

77. Extremely : QUITE

78. Confrontations : RUN-INS

79. Vanquishers of kings : ACES. Oh, poker.

80. "Designing Women" actress Annie : POTTS.


82. Large vessel : VAT. First thought is URN.

85. Collar : NAB

86. Staff note : MEMO

87. Motley, as a crew : RAGTAG

88. Options list : MENU

89. Matured : GREW UP

91. Ewan's "Moulin Rouge!" co-star : NICOLE. Gimme.

94. Fill with crayons : COLOR IN

96. Commercial charge : AD RATE. And 15. Plugs for tubes? : TV SPOTS

97. Charm : ENAMOR

98. "I'm okay with that" : SUITS ME

Down:

1. Recipe amts. : TBSPs

2. Buddhist who has attained Nirvana : ARHAT. Wiki said it's Sanskrit for "one who is worthy". My landlord in Shanghai completely ruined Buddhism for me. He drank every night. He also burned incense and chanted every night.

3. Reeves of "The Lake House" : KEANU

4. Wave catchers? : EARS. Lovely clue.

5. Indy letters : STP
 
7. Bureau division : DRAWER

8. Merits : EARNS

9. Comic's routines : BITS

10. __-ray Disc : BLU

11. Comparative suffix : IER

13. Cops : HEAT

14. Creator of Q and M : IAN. James Bond.

16. Escorts to the door : SEES OUT
 
19. Infuriates : ENRAGES

21. "That was a close one!" : WHEW

27. Taiwan-based computer company : ACER. Our monitor. Great quality.

29. Monopolize : HOG

32. Group below abbots : PRIORS

33. Removes from the schedule : BUMPS

34. Affirmative votes : YEAs

35. Having less coverage : BARER

36. Tigers Hall of Fame outfielder Al : KALINE.  And 39. Two-time U.S. Open champ : TREVINO. I nailed both. Just saw Lee Trevino at the 3M this summer. He was surprisingly quiet that day. A bit name heavy in this area.

37. "Shh" : QUIET PLEASE. What a great entry.

38. Hat stats : SIZES

40. __ cuff: shoulder muscles : ROTATOR

41. One of Fran's puppets : KUKLA

42. Only NFL quarterback with more than 10,000 pass attempts : FAVRE. I'd not have played for the Vikings.

 44. "Jaws" shark hunter : QUINT. Unknown to me.

45. Timid : MOUSY

47. Junkyard dogs : CURS

49. Fitting comment? : TRY IT ON. Lovely clue/answer.

50. Greek : HELLENE

53. Campus areas : QUADS

54. Popular frat activity : PRANK

55. Like some chards : OAKY. Wine. I kept thinking of the veggie.

58. Shore fliers : TERNS

59. Name of eight English kings : HENRY

60. Typically wet times : APRILs

62. Toss about, as ideas : BANDY

64. Filling fully : SATING

66. Flirtatious signals : WINKS

67. Arrests : BUSTS
 
70. Pack it in : QUIT

71. Rock band 10,000 __ : MANIACS. No idea. Of course I thought of 10,000 lakes for MN.

72. Captain Morgan rival : BACARDI

73. Emotionally cold type : ICEBERG
 
75. Close relative : AUNT

77. Iranian holy city : QOM

80. Toon skunk Le Pew : PEPE

81. Anaheim team, in sportscasts : HALOS. Angels.


82. Frost lines? : VERSE. Robert Frost.

83. Jungian principle : ANIMA

84. Pitched well? : TUNED. This corner was hard for me.

86. Many a shelter resident : MUTT

87. Cowboys quarterback Tony : ROMO

88. Light-loving flier : MOTH

90. Nursery noise : WAH

92. Business magazine : INC

93. Monopoly token : CAR

95. __ Fáil: Irish coronation stone : LIA. This I learned from the Wayne R. Williams era. We had this all the time.


C.C.

43 comments:

fermatprime said...

Greetings!

Thanks for the very challenging puzzle, Bruce! More like NYT. Thanks for swell expo, CC! Early, too!

Managed to get 'er done with some time spent.

QUINT was all perps. Never watched the shark movies. (Yuk.)

A few comments like CC made about what I thought of first.

Have a great Sunday!

Lemonade714 said...

Lots is inventive cluing, lots of Qs. This was a very fun Sunday. The visual of the filled grid as presented by C.C. shows what an artistic effort this is. Bruce is becoming an LAT regular and that is a good thing.

Thank you

Barry G. said...

Morning, all!

A little touch and go in spots, but overall a very smooth and fun puzzle. I got the theme based solely on the title for a change, which is good since the expression "TURN A PHRASE" is not one with which I'm familiar (I've heard "a turn of a phrase" before, however).

No real unknowns today, but I shot myself repeatedly in the foot by making wrong guesses. GOT UP before SAT UP, COMING OUT ON TOP before COMING OUT AHEAD, ICE CUBE before ICEBERG, etc. Everything managed to get worked out in the end, though.

desper-otto said...

Good morning!

Wow! I really liked this one. Liked all the Qs. Liked the theme. Especially nice that all the "turned" expressions turned in the correct direction. Plus, this one TURNED into a really quick solve. My only major misstep was DR SEUSS where AA MILNE needed to be -- interesting that both children's authors have the same number of letters in their name.

QUINT reminds me of the memorable scene in Jaws where fisherman QUINT, sheriff Brody and scientist Hooper first encounter the great white -- "We're gonna need a bigger boat!" On the Q topic, my SIL is a prize-winning QUILTer.

When I was a wee lad we used to enjoy The Jack BENNY Program on the radio, along with Dragnet, Our Miss Brooks, Mr. and Mrs. North, and Mr. Keen, Tracer of Lost Persons. The first three I mentioned sucessfully made the transition to the "new medium" -- TV.

Hand up for URN before VAT. C.C., just for S&Gs I checked Mr. G for "plurable" -- it's in the urban dictionary, but not with the meaning you've ascribed to it. Keep using it, and it'll get there.

Splynter said...

Hi there~!

Beautiful construction, but I am sure it was bear to fill. I got the gimmick from the title, and the "-" in the clues. That allowed me to go back and fill in the first three ACROSS/down answers.

"Places everyone~!" is the director's call to actors and extras before 'roll camera, and....action~!'

Mixed up my HONES/WHETS

As for yesterday, C6D6 Peg, if there were no more legs pictures to post, I would hang up my blogging gloves~!


;7))


Splynter

Splynter said...

Ooops~!

I forgot the "lights" part of lights, camera, action~!"

Splynter

Avg Joe said...

Great puzzle! Enjoyed it very much, and the interview as well. Thank you both for both your efforts.

Solving on newsprint I noticed the lack of a clue on some corners right away. And even though I didn't get the first themer right away, the second came easy and proved my suspicions about the gimmick. Noticed the quantity of Qs (quistmas? Seriously! :-) also couldn't help but notice that you managed to sneak in an updated version of The PEN IS mightier than the sword.

Big Easy said...

"We watch only two TV shows- Downton Abbey and The Voice. "- Well my wife does too, plus about 20 others. Me-none.

All I can say about this puzzle, is I'm thankful for the perps. When I saw what should have been 6D I and it were clueless. And it was hard to get started becuase ARHAT and DEBBIE DOWNER were new to me. Other unknowns filled by perps were AYLA, HACKY Sack, Annie POTTS, LIA Fail, NICOLE and A.A. MILNE was a WAG after the AA fell into place.

PRAWNS but SHRIMP; DEER but DOES, BUCKS, & STAGS
FISH, BASS, TROUT,PERCH but SHARKS, MARLINS- I don't know about Mahi Mahi. Latin-Hawaiian from their 12-letter alphabet.

My aha moment came after filling HANG by perps AND BACARDI & ICEBERG. I had completed most of the puzzle EXCEPT the blank corners and after I filled HANG A RIGHT, the others took about 15 seconds.

Jack BENNY always had the violin but I don't ever remember him playing it.
I'm surprised that 69A -PUSSY- made it in the paper.

FWIW- The Sunday Times-Picayune publishes both the name and constructor. "GOING ON A BENDER", by Bruce Haight was what was printed. He said Rich nixed that theme name.

And Barry, I was also unfamiliar with TURN A PHRASE.

Tinbeni said...

C.C. Wonderful write-up and links. Great Job!!!

Well my Sunday newspaper was delivered early ... and it was a nice 62 degrees at Sun Rise ...
Sooooooo, I decided to solve todays puzzle, while sipping coffee and enjoying the days beginning.

Bruce: Thank You for a FUN Sunday puzzle with a nice visual theme. WOW!
(Though I will admit, when I saw the printed theme, "Going On A Bender" ... my mind thought it was heading in a different ... more Tinbeni,ish direction).

Just curious, since I rarely ever solve Sunday's puzzle, am I incorrect to think they are constructed on a Wednesday Level of difficulty? This was a breeze.

GO BUC's -v- Dallas.
A "toast-to-ALL" at Sunset.
Cheers!

Irish Miss said...

Good Morning:

This was one of the most enjoyable Sunday puzzles I've ever solved: Clever theme, brilliant execution, lots of fun cluing, and fresh, clean fill. What more could one ask for? Rogers and Evans was a nice touch, as was the abundance of Q's. I, too had got up before sat up and, for some reason, filled in Henny (Youngman) before Benny, and gunny sack instead of hacky sack. Overall, smooth sailing to the tada!

CSO to CED 🐈. and Manac 🐶 with Rains cats and dogs! And a semi-CSO to Tin with _ _ _ berg!

Thanks, Bruce, for a wonderful start to a glorious Fall Sunday, and thanks CC, for the detailed and delightful write-up and the interview with Bruce. CC, you brought a smile to my face with your comment on Press Forward: "This is where I cottoned onto the gimmick."

The stylus that I use on my iPad has disappeared into the inner sanctum of my recliner, so I am back to using my finger which is slow and tedious. Funny how we get so dependent on certain things.

At this time, 40 years ago today, I was donning my wedding gown. It was a day exactly like today: cold and windy but with bright blue, sunny skies. Where or where did so years go?

Have a great day.

Irish Miss said...

Sorry,......so many years....

TTP said...


Good morning all. Thank you Bruce and thank you CC. Really fun puzzle to start this beautiful Sunday morning.

This one took longer than yesterday. Wasn't sure of the purpose of the dash, and even filled TAKEST and THE PLUNGE, but didn't see them together. Then as I worked that west side southward, PRESSF FORWARD gave me the game.

Finished the west and started back up. When I got to the reveal answer, I entered 'TURN A corner' with only TU from TERNS and QUADS as supporting evidence. Shoulda waited and proved it.

An unusual amount of QU words today. I also liked how we had WHET, SHARPEN, and HONING. Then Roy and Dale and their rides.

Had the hardest time getting the answer to "Fitting comment." Didn't know the heroine of Clan of the Cave Bear, and had SHARE firmly entrenched for the divulge clue. For some reason, "typically wet times" wasn't meaningful for any reason to me. After a break, APRIL and SPILL jumped off the page, and then I only needed that Y for TRY IT ON. D'oh !

CC, yes, and it was our dear Marti that suggested it when I went blue. I modified my profile last week and deleted the definition for TTP. How ironic that it shows up like that !

My new neighbor is a high school Phys Ed teacher and he also moonlights as a personal TRAINER. His wife is also a teacher, but is currently at home taking care of their preschool children. That makes six teachers in three houses, and each of them is the second house away. You would think I'd learn something.

Madame Defarge said...

Grettings.

What a great Sunday puzzle! I was off at the start and couldn't figure out the blanks; I guessed it would eventually make sense, and so it did. I discerned the theme at the second pass when I filled FORWARD. I glanced at the title (DUH!), and I was off. I also liked the QU set. Great grid. Superb fun. Thanks, Bruce.

C.C., the explication was excellent. I really enjoyed the interview with Bruce. Thank you for a great Sunday start!

maripro said...

Good Morning!
Loved the interview and the puzzle. I didn't realize that the themers indicated direction until C.C. pointed it out. The southeast corner was the last to fall, but perps showed the way.

Lucina said...

Hello, friends!

This was a fun time and fairly easy. I just filled them one after another and the title and blank spaces told me the theme. Normally I would have disliked that gimmick but there was so much entertaining fill, both Ps and Qs, that I sailed along quickly.

Thank you, Bruce and C.C. You both provided an amusing start to Sunday morning.

Have a lovely day, everyone!

Bruce Haight said...

Thanks for all the nice comments! CC did a great job on the write-up. This construction was difficult, and I was lucky to come up with eight themers that fit. I was worried about PUSSY as an entry, as one of you mentioned, so I Emailed Rich and he said it would be fine as long as it was clued carefully. So I Emailed him again and joked to him that he could add two new words to the LAT vocab if he changed the crossing of BUSTS and POTTS to a "Y". He did not get back to me on that.....

Husker Gary said...

Bruce’s brilliant puzzle had every element you could ask for. Parlay that with some great “inside baseball” cwd info, a brief bio of Bruce and it makes for a wonderful Sunday! Wow!

Musings
-…PLUNGE gave me the fun gimmick and later assistance
-Many batters HIT(S) A SLUMP facing the KC bullpen
-Necessary SHARPENING for chicken wing dissection
-PSU has finally put the Sandusky mess behind them
-Somebody had to do something when he wigged out!
-Smokey Robinson “Seconded That eMOTION”
-Pac-Man provides a lot of Low-Res fun!
-I was only off by one letter when I put in this violin-playing comedian
-AD RATE for 2016 Super Bowl (50 or L) - $5M/thirty seconds
-If ARHAT is in your vocab, you’ve got me beat
-Find your age by playing these waves
-Gotta run!

tawnya said...

WOW!!!!

That was so fun! My first experience with a bendy puzzle and I loved it. I was thrown off for awhile but finally figured it out and flew through the rest.

I told my hubby that for Christmas I want a NYT subscription for the rest of my life. Should be easy shopping for him, one easy gift he doesn't have to think about forever!

Thank you Bruce for a great puzzle and C.C. thank you for the interesting interview and write-up! Most informative and always fun to meet the constructors.

Happy Sunday to you all :)

tawnya

Yellowrocks said...

Funny puns, great concept and visuals by Bruce and great post by CC.
Link Benny's violin
Click the sixth picture in the second row

Bill G. said...

Happy Sunday to all. Best wishes for the Parisians.

I REALLY enjoyed this puzzle. I figured out the theme fairly early and that helped a lot. Without it, I would have given up about halfway through.

D-O, my wife Barbara is an avid quilter too. No prizes that I know of. Just lots of pride.

Dudley said...

Hello Puzzlers -

Really liked Bruce's clever theme. As usual, the title was missing from the Cruciverb version, so that theme hint was unavailable. Still made sense of the thing - the directionality of the theme answers was a plus. I didn't notice the super symmetry until C.C.'s write-up. Very clever!

desper-otto said...

Bill G, here's one of my SIL's quilts: Calla Lillies. She emulated YR by getting a knee replaced this past month. My brother, who is now chief cook, house cleaner and chauffeur says they've had more "togetherness" this past month than during all of the previous 50 years.

Manac said...

Before I figured out the gimmick,
for 48A "How some Niagara stunts are done",
I really wanted to fit "Only Once".

Made sense at the time.

Bruce Haight said...

I wanted to clue OVER THE FALLS as "Cute name for a Niagara cane shoppe?" but Rich was not buying it.......

Big Easy said...

Bruce- since you read my comment, I initially filled 93D with CAT and I thought it would have been real weird to have that AND PUSSY in the same puzzle.

As for the VOICE, I don't watch it but can hear it and it drives my wife nuts that I can pick the winner when she starts watching it. Same goes for American Idol. My mother was a piano teacher/organist/choir director and I was accustomed to listening to bad music. I know instantly if someone is sharp or flat, or has a distinctive voice with great timbre.

Husker Gary said...

Down Musings
-Was anyone else surprised by the fact that Bruce’s allowed cluing is only 50% - 75%? Rich must have a bottomless clue well!
-Those of us who knew EVANS, ROGERS and BENNY probably also remember this STP commericial. (:30)
-Even though he is now at Youngstown State instead of UNL, he still gets ENRAGED. Good riddance!
-TREVINO could get out of a sick bed on New Year’s Eve and go out in a blizzard and hit a 2 Iron straight and long. What a natural.
-Ya wanna tax that ROTATOR Cuff?
-The Cowboys are 0 – 6 without ROMO

Anonymous said...

Tawnya- if you get a NYT subscription make certain that you are not brainwashed by some of their slanted articles. I get both the NYT and WSJ and I know BS when I see it. The NYT has a lot of it.

PK said...

Hi Y'all! Super great puzzle, Bruce! Great expo, C.C.!

This was QUITE a puzzle. All the QU words added to the novelty. Didn't know QOM tho. I caught on to the "bender" gimmick with HITS A SLUMP which helped fill all the others. Loved that the downers were just that. I tried PUT ONE over on, but it didn't work because it was the wrong direction.

I was really to tired to do this puzzle last night when I was pecking away at it. The problem with doing it on Mensa is that you can't put it down and come back to it like a newspaper copy. So I didn't enjoy it quite as much as I would have if I'd waited until morning. I came in a midnight to do the puzzle. I read the late blog posts first and got to wandering through the great animal clips Dave posted plus some sidebar videos therefrom. An hour and a half later I finally remembered the puzzle. I sure enjoyed those animals.

I saw the faces of EVANS & POTTS right away, but took some time to dredge up their names. Mrs. Rogers didn't fit. Hand up for hENNY first although we used to listen to BENNY every Sunday night during supper when I was a kid.

D-O: Beautiful QUILT! The only quilt I ever did was Roman shades for my little girls' room at the farm. I embroidered bunnies doing fun stuff then cut blocks out of scraps from the clothes I'd made for the girls and myself. The girls were 4 & 6 yrs old and loved the two window shades. They showed them off to company and told them about each garment. Kept them through high school even.

Jerome said...

Tinbeni- Yes, Sunday puzzles are usually about Wednesday difficulty.

Husker- Having 50% of your clues changed is not unusual at all. I'd bet that it's just about the average. If you have 75% of your clues left intact that's doing really, really well. Having so many clues changed is a big pet peeve among many constructors. But I firmly believe this- Cluing is probably the biggest weak point constructors have. I like it when Rich changes my clues. He's a far better cluer than I, but I get all the credit!
Over the past seven or eight years I've had hundreds of discussions with other constructors about puzzles and discovered that many of them have a real aversion and dislike for writing clues. For many it's more like work than fun. It's kind of like cooking a great meal and enjoying the whole process but now you've got to do the dishes.

billocohoes said...

"DEBBIE DOWNER" is not just a party pooper, but someone who is habitually pessimistic, or who at least annoyingly points out flaws in what were thought to be brilliant plans.

Jayce said...

I liked this puzzle a lot and admire Bruce Haight's skill.

Bill G. said...

PK, of course you can save the puzzle on the Mensa site and come back to it later. I do it all the time.

D-O, I really like the Calla Lily quilt. I showed it to my wife and she liked it too.

Movies have certain scenes that embed themselves in my brain. The Third Man has several. The one that comes to mind today is the singing of La Marseillaise in Casablanca. It brings tears to my eyes every time. What a great movie!

miss Beckley said...

Actually, in the theatre, the stage manager calls for "places, please", five minutes after the "five minutes, please," call. In TV/film the assistant director usually calls for places. And you're really lucky if you don't have to wait 30 minutes for the stars to show up.

Steven J. St. John said...

What a nice Sunday construction! Also enjoyed C.C.'s interview. (And, since my paper gets the NYT Sunday puzzle two weeks late, I also got to solve C.C.'s NYT puzzle of 2 weeks ago.) I was glad to see the bending theme had another level (the bent words made sense of the direction), that the puzzle had a revealer (though not necessary with the perfect title), and that there were several enjoyable down answers too. Very smooth puzzle - congrats Bruce!

VirginiaSycamore said...

Thanks Bruce for a fun puzzle. It was harder than the ave. Sunday, but the theme was really well done so it was worth it.
Thanks, CC for your interesting add-ons like interviews that reveal the true lives of constructors. Re the 50 rejected puzzles, I just read an online article that true creative artists make A LOT of bad works to get to the great one!
FAILURE_IS_GOOD

I could go on but I am waiting for a ride. Quick notes:
**I wanted ANNIE POTTS for yesterday's answer that ended up being DON KNOTTS because I had OTTS.
** I think some clue needs to say this is a short word. I spent a long time wondering what OAKY chard was before the writ-up explained that.
***Some of the Bent answers had the down start at the end of the Across line and some had the down start at the 2nd down square. But I was so excited when I got the theme. The vanishing - was eerie.

BTW I just heard that the French bombed the heck out of ISIS HQ.
Vive La France!

VS

Abejo said...

Good evening, folks. Thank you, Brice Haight, for a fine puzzle. Thank you, C.C., for a fine review.

Did not catch the theme right away, but after TAKES THE PLUNGE, I had it. Outstanding way to construct. I loved it!

Once I caught the theme I zipped along pretty easily.

Tried FRIARS before PRIORS became obvious.

Tried HAT for 88D before CAR was the word.

Tried PHEW before WHEW worked.

I have been to the city QOM. We spelled it GHOM. It is pronounced like a gutteral "G" Saw Persepolis while near there. Locals called it Tahkt e Jamshid.

Liked KUKLA. I remember that show as a very young boy.

My wife just called me for supper. Pork tonight.

See you tomorrow.

Abejo

( )

HowardW said...

Late to the blog today, arriving after the Patriots-Giants game. [Whew!]
I thought this was a clever theme with the turning answers, and didn't even realize that the 2nd halves indicated direction until reading CC's wrapup. So it's even more clever than I gave it credit for. Really enjoyed doing this puzzle. Favorite clues were Buttermilk & Trigger. Overall, I found the clues on the easy side for a Sunday. For example, KRUGER was unknown but easy to guess from the name of the coin. AYLA was long forgotten, on the other hand, as was LIA Fáil and QUINT. QUM before QOM might have been my only write-over.

Thanks for the puzzle Bruce, and the insightful writeup & interview, CC!

Lucina said...

I also recalled the scene where The Marseilles is sung in Casablance. It's always emotional and I felt that way when hearing the French people singing it. Such a tragic event.

Husker Gary said...

-If you go to this site, you can scroll down to some fascinating Inside The Actors Studio interviews of actors and actresses conducted by James Lipton. Clint Eastwood said as a director he never hollers “ACTION”, but rather just waits until the moment is right and says softly, “All right, begin”. At the end of the scene, he simply says, “All right, that’s enough”.

Avg Joe said...

On that vein, Gary, a few years back, one of our sons ended a conversation with me by saying "That'll do pig."

It was a priceless moment.

CanadianEh! said...

I finally finished this wonderful puzzle after many interruptions. I had the title and saw the theme early. Thanks Bruce and C.C.

Favourite was OVER THE FALLS as it is just down the road. Reminded me of the Wallenda high wire walk in 2012.

Lucina said...

Oops. I see my typo on Casablanca.

The longer I study today's grid, the more I'm impressed. It's pure genius!

Anonymous said...

EPILOG, w/o UE, maybe; PROLOG? I dunno.

If TBS is a tablespoon or three, why do we need two more letters for the plural (when we already have an S)?

What was annoying about turning the phrases was not being allowed to continue typing in the numberless line even when you knew the answer.