Wednesday, November 29, 2017, Claire Muscat and David Steinberg

TITLE: AN INSIDE JOB

Claire and David have given us a very clever Wednesday offering featuring Matroyshka DOLLS that stack up and nest inside each other as you can see here:

Husker Gary on duty for a tour of what our  two constructors have done graphically in their wonderful puzzle as you can see in the grid below. They have the letters for the word DOLL in the circles getting progressively and symmetrically closer and closer, until they culminate in the single word DOLL. (Could this reveal have worked without the circled DOLL letters?)

But wait, there's more! They have added the two adjectives that describe this arrangement - NESTING and STACKED in a very neat seven letter stack at the bottom (part of 7, 8, 9/9, 8, 7 letter corners) as shown in the reveals: 

42. With 68-Across, each successive one of a set graphically depicted by this puzzle's circles : NESTING - DO and LL eventually NESTING at the bottom

45. Arranged like the 68-Acrosses in the answers to starred clues are designed to be : STACKED - DO and LL STACKED until NESTING at the bottom. Other visuals for STACKED were considered but...

68. *See 42-Down : DOLL - Here is a seasonal Matroyshka set 

Pretty cool, huh?

Now let's look at the theme fill elements:

18. *Is unsuitable : DOESN'T FIT THE BILL - At first glance it might appear that Earl Boykin DOESN'T FIT THE BILL to play against Shaquille O'Neal

32. *Literary character with an evil alter ego : DOCTOR JEKYLL - John Barrymore transistioning from the good Doctor Jekyll to the evil Mr. Hyde in the 1920 silent movie of the Robert Louis Stevenson classic

50. *Threshold : DOOR SILL - This kitty is protecting hers!

Let's set off to see what else Claire and David have nested in this stack of clues

Across

1. Schooner features : MASTS - or BEERS


6. Frosty coating : RIME

10. Shine : GLEAM

15. Advil competitor : ALEVE

16. __ of March : IDES - The soothsayer Spurinna warned Caesar to beware

17. EVE's companion, in a 2008 Pixar film : WALLE

21. "__ ideas?" : ANY

22. "Back to the Future" vehicle : DELOREAN - At 88 mph the question becomes not "Where is the DeLorean?" but "When is the DeLOREAN?"

23. Wild place : ZOO - Famous for much wild life in Lincoln, NE!

24. Rays or Jays : TEAM

26. RAM part : MEMORY - I remember when 64K of Random Access Memory was a big deal

27. First light : DAWN

28. Egyptian snake : ASP

30. Wide shoe spec : EEE - President Obama seems pretty impressed with the width and length of his Shaquille O'Neal autographed shoe

38. Anti-cruelty org. : PETA

39. "Hold up!" : WAIT

40. Radiate : EMIT

Bob Dylan

42. Twangy-voiced : NASAL - This guy's NASAL voice hasn't kept him from a big career 

43. Breakfast order : EGGS

44. BFFs : FAVES

46. Gets a glimpse of : ESPIES - Not in my verbal or written quiver 

48. Most innocent : PUREST

49. Canonized Mlle. : STE - Joan Of Arc may be the most famous one

55. Bus depot: Abbr. : STA - Marilyn Monroe starred in a 1956 movie about a Bus Depot in Tonganoxie, Kansas

56. Corrida opponent : TORO

58. Paddock sound : WHINNY

Walt and Hank

59. Hank's job on "Breaking Bad," briefly : NARC - Hank is not too happy with his meth cooking brother-in-law in this scene

60. Modern-day Persian : IRANI

62. Tiny annoyance : GNAT

63. Former One Direction singer Zayn __ : MALIK - No idea/interest

64. Frequent presidential candidate Ralph : NADER - You can't 67. Skim (over) : GLOSS over the fact that a lot of people didn't like Gore or Bush

65. Fairy tale baddie : OGRE - Except for Shrek

66. In reserve : ASIDE - How much money do you have set ASIDE for that inevitable rainy day?

69. Knight's horse : STEED


Down

1. Angry with : MAD AT

2. Without assistance : ALONE

3. "Later!" : SEE YA - Wouldn't wanna BE YA!

4. Family room sets : TVS - We now have way more TV'S than the number of channels we  used to have

5. Final email step : SEND - Think before you hit SEND!!

6. Search quickly through : RIFLE

7. Figure of speech : IDIOM

8. Way around D.C. : METRO - A 10 min. Uber ride would have taken a half hour on the METRO for us in March

9. Perfume compound : ESTER

10. No Doubt lead singer Stefani : GWEN - Now, her I know!

11. Chocolate dog : LAB

12. "My Fair Lady" heroine : ELIZA - Here is Wendy Hiller as ELIZA in the 1938 non-musical movie Pymaglion. A role that Audrey Hepburn later made famous.

13. Let happen : ALLOW

14. Fruit that's still a fruit when two of its letters are switched : MELON - Switch the first and third letters and you get my first car

19. What sirens may do : TEMPT - Greek mythology tells of these creatures who used enchanting music and lovely voices to lure sailors to their doom on rocky shores

20. Actress Salma : HAYEK

25. Chinese liquor brand : MAOTAI - Alexander Haig warned President Nixon to not actually drink any of this very potent liquor during toasts. Dan Rather called it "liquid razor blades"

27. San Diego suburb : DEL MAR - A city of 4,356 whose name means "By The Sea" and is home to a famous horse racetrack 

29. Climbed : SCALED

31. The Eiffel Tower, aptly? : EYEFUL - Cute! Granddaughter did not go up the tower last week because of the daunting lines

32. Western outlaw : DESPERADO

33. Be indebted to : OWE

34. Cleaning cloth : RAG


35. Irish dance : JIG - For some reason a guy is doing pushups while the girls are dancing a JIG

36. "Close Encounters" beings : ETS - I loved the cantina scene from Star Wars

37. Hides one's true self : LIVES A LIE - Fewer people have to do this now

38. Idyllic : PASTORAL


41. Take for a first drive : TEST RIDE - Al Pacino played a blind man who took a Ferrari for a TEST RIDE in Scent Of A Woman

47. Farm mom : SOW

48. Tissue layer : PLY - Some schools save money with single PLY toilet tissue. Yikes!

51. "What a nightmare!" : OH GOD

52. Fab Four drummer : RINGO - The luckiest man in Rock 'n Roll history?



53. [Don't touch my bone!] : SNARL

54. Info a spy might gather : INTEL

57. Dollar bills : ONES

59. Condé __ : NAST - The man who is credited with giving us our modern version of Santa Claus with this 1881 drawing in Harper's Bazaar

61. Recipient of much Apr. mail : IRS

63. More, in Madrid : MAS - Esas son todas las pistas. No hay más. (That's all the clues. There are no more.)


Now feel free to stack and nestle your comments:

Friday, November 17, 2017, Alex Eaton-Salners

TITLE:  THE GREAT ESCAPE

Husker Gary in the cockpit for one more Friday. Alex's puzzle today has the word GREAT escaping the puzzle on all sides! Alex has taken ten phrases that start with the word GREAT and has put them on the perimeter of the gird sans that leading word. I have decided to try to show both ideas with the grid below where I have chosen a graphic that illustrates the entire phrase and placed it so that it abuts (a fav word here) the word that would follow GREAT.

Here are Alex's GREAT themers starting in the NW and going clockwise.

1. "Holy cow!" : SCOTT - SCOTT had to be correct but the implied GREAT didn't hit me until the next fill. I sometimes confuse Doc Brown's phrase with what Clark Kent's boss used to say on TV.

6. "Atta girl!" : JOB and 13. Considerable achievement : SUCCESS - Both remind me of our lovely blogmistress C.C.!

9. Like thinkers : MINDS - The GREAT ones here often do think alike and then there's yours truly

49. Scotland's island : BRITAIN - Scotland's division with Britain is the Cheviot Hills seen here and not Hadrian's Wall as I thought

74. Wheeler Peak's national park : BASIN - Defined as being a contiguous watershed between the Rockies and the Sierra Nevadas and Cascades with no outlet to the sea as you can see in the yellow part of the map above

73. Bonobo, for one : APE - A word I appreciate greatly as a noun and not as a verb

72. Dogs in the AKC's Working Group : DANES - GREAT is a pretty good adjective here

42. Oldest of the Seven Wonders : PYRAMID - Using cosmic rays, scientists have recently discovered evidence of a hidden chamber in the GREAT PYRAMID where Khufu is 53. Lay to rest : ENTOMBed

1. Blue Ridge range : SMOKIES - Our only trip through the beautiful GREAT SMOKIES range was in a driving rain storm.

and the reveal

39. Landmark that, in a way, is a border feature of this puzzle and a hint to what's missing from 10 answers : GREAT WALL - Finally we see our word escapee that is forming an implied WALL around the grid! 

The FLOTUS touring the GREAT WALL last week

...and now for Alex's other, uh, GREAT clues!

Across

14. Group that bestows a "Select" distinction on five board games annually : MENSA - The 2017 winners

15. Barnyard mother : EWE - Not so much on HEN, COW or SOW

16. Paris parting : ADIEU

17. Arkansas' __ National Forest : OZARK - Kind of a gimme doncha' ya think?

18. X, maybe : TEN 

19. Something to talk about : TOPIC

20. Kit__ bar : KAT

21. Ones responsible for paper cuts, briefly? : ED.S -  Clever!

23. Comedian Rogan : JOE - I've never seen him work

25. 39-Acr. locale : PRC - Of course that wall in the reveal is located in the Peoples Republic of China!

26. Like Vivaldi's "Spring" : IN E - In the puzzle I blogged last Friday, I showed Ray Charles's great Mean Woman Blues also written IN the key of E

27. More diverse : MOTLIER - This is one Shakespearean word that has stuck with me

29. Suffix with brom- : IDE

30. "Bambi" doe : ENA - ENA and her daughter Faline are on the right. ENA is Bambi's aunt and becomes his mother-in-law

31. Jane of fiction : EYRE

32. __ Island: NYC prison site : RIKERS - A destination for many a bad guy on Law And Order

34. Blood fluids : SERA - Plural for serum. Getting diptheria SERA/antitoxin to Nome in 1925 was done by dogsled in a heroic effort 

36. Director Riefenstahl : LENI - Adolph's favorite filmmaker

38. Buenos __ : AIRES

42. Gumby's pony : POKEY

45. Othello, for one : MOOR - Olivier and Dame Maggie Smith as Othello and Desdemona 

46. Workers' rights org. : NLRB - National Labor Relations Board - a 1935 board established by FDR

50. "... through __ window breaks?" : YONDER - Leonardo DiCaprio and Clare Danes as Romeo and Juliet

52. Together, in Toulon : UNIE - Notre famille a besoin d'être unie (Our family needs to be united)

54. Back to front? : IER - You can put IER on the back of front to get FRONTIER

55. Line score initials : RHE - Baseball fans will recognize this 1956 line score as perhaps the most famous in baseball history

56. Taken (with) : SMITTEN 

58. Egg: Pref. : OVI

59. In the manner of : A LA - Next Friday's blog should be A LA Lemon

60. P.O. box item : ENV

61. Short order? : BLT -BLT and mayo started out as diner lingo but are now mainstream

62. Badminton need : NET

63. Familia member : MADRE

65. Tuna variety : AHI

67. Tippett's "King Priam," for one : OPERA and 69. "King Priam" is based on it : ILIAD - Nice juxtaposition 

70. "Kidding!" : NOT

71. Argentine soccer superstar : MESSI - Lionel MESSI plays for FC Spain for $42,000,000/ year

Down

2. "The Card Players" artist : CEZANNE - What does it say about a Qatari family who can spend $250,000,000 for this painting? 

3. Winning steadily : ON A TEAR

4. Train syst. across Russia : TSR - Trans Siberian Railway - Dr. Zhivago inspired great interest in this railway but the train scenes were actually shot in Finland

5. "I wanna go too!" : TAKE ME

6. LAX-to-JFK flight shortener : JET STREAM - LA to NY takes about 40 min. less

7. Be shy : OWE

8. Dog star : BENJI

9. Stand-up's need : MATERIAL

10. Words often heard after "shall live?" : I DO - "...as long as we both shall live" (or decide  we can't do this anymore)

11. Colder : NIPPIER

12. Tragic heroine of Irish legend : DEIRDRE - New to me but I like the painting

22. Watson's creator : DOYLE - No, I am not going to say "Elementary..."

24. Anthem preposition : OER - It is sung five notes before the real test of hitting the note for "FREE" without going into falsetto 

28. Offered free use of, as a library book : LENT OUT - They LENT OUT every Hardy Boy Mystery to me in my ute!

33. Pottery oven : KILN

35. Treated like wine : AGED

37. "You're safe with me" : I WON'T BITE - Unless...

40. Some field starters : RYE SEEDS - RYE is used as a winter cover crop here

41. Red-headed Disney princess : ARIEL 

43. "Très chic!" : OOH LA LA 

44. Add, as raisins to bread dough : KNEAD IN - As this cute little kitty is learning to do

47. Elsa or Nala : LIONESS

48. Game with two-toned discs : REVERSI - When I played this game, it was known as 45 Across

51. Watergate pres. : RMN - It's usually the coverup that gets 'em

57. Donald Jr.'s mom : IVANA

64. Singer Carly __ Jepsen : RAE 

66. Hip follower : HOP - The rhythms are infectious but some of the "lyrics" are so offensive 

68. Green sphere : PEA

As Tony the Tiger would say, we are ready for your GRRRRREAT comments: