Friday, March 29, 2019

QOD:  Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will make me go in a corner and cry by myself for hours.  ~  Eric Idle (b. Mar. 29, 1943)

Insider Trading.  Each theme answer consists of two 4-letter words where the first and last letters are the same, but the two internal, or "inside", letters have "traded" places.  How very clever!

17-Across. Frantic activity at a clothing sale?: GARB GRAB.  The infamous Wedding Dress Garb Grab at Filene's Basement in Boston.  If you haven't experienced the original Filene's Basement, you don't know what you're missing.

26-Across. Wooden bird sculpture?: SAWN SWAN.  This was my Rosetta Stone.

52. Cereal maker's storage building?: BRAN BARN.  I couldn't find a Bran Barn, but here's the famous Bran Castle near Brașov, Romania, allegedly home of Dracula.  Well worth the visit!

66. Dispassionate bivalve?: CALM CLAM.

40-Across. With 42-Across, white-collar crime ... and a hint to four Across answers: INSIDER.

42-Across. See 40-Across: TRADING.  Together these clues give us INSIDER TRADING, which is a big No-No with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

This was a tough Friday puzzle.  It's never good when I can't get 1-Across/1-Down on the first pass.  Getting the gimmick early helped me today.

Across:

1. Result of littering, maybe: PUP.  Oh, not like the street after the parade has floated by,

but as in a dog with its babies.

4. Recipe direction: SIFT.  I remember my mother sifting flour before doing any baking.  I only occasionally used a sifter when baking.

8. Round paths: ORBITS.  The orbits of the planets are elliptical .  The elliptical orbits are a subset of the round orbits.

14. Airport info: ETA.  As in Estimated Time of Arrival.  A crossword staple.

15. Minorca, por ejemplo: ISLA.  Today's Spanish lesson.  Minorca is one of the Balearic islands in the Mediterranean Sea.  The Island belongs to Spain.  It is the tiny island on the far right on the map.

16. Promote: TALK UP.

19. How some insults are veiled: THINLY.  If someone ever says to you, "Oh, you lost 10 pounds?  That's a good start", then you have just been the subject of a thinly disguised insult.

20. Luster: SHEEN.  Not to be confused with Martin Sheen.

21. Electric guitar effect: WA WA.

23. Meh: SO SO.  //  And 41-Down.  Meh: DRAB.

24. Comedy bit: GAG.

28. Recreational walk: STROLL.  My memory is a little rusty, but I think you can take a STROLL down ...

31. European relative of aloha: CIAO.  Today's Italian lesson

32. Financial claim: LIEN.

33. Heroic poetry: EPOS.  A long, narrative poem, such as Beowulf.  I was so disappointed when I learned that Beowulf was not actually about a wolf.

35. Scheming wife of Augustus: LIVIA.  Livia (58 BCE ~ 29 BCE) was a Roman Empress.

44. Mongol invader: TATAR.  Probably the most famous Tatar was Genghis Khan, the founder of the Mongol Empire.

45. "__ Tired": Beatles "White Album" song: I'M SO.  I don't remember this song.  //  And 71-Across: SLEEPY.

47. Long-gone time: YORE.

48. Plant with therapeutic sap: ALOE.  A crossword staple.

50. Ball VIPs: BELLES.

56. Longtime NBC hit: SNL.  As in Saturday Night Live.

57. Drive-in need: AUTO.

58. Ivan IV, from 1547 to 1584: TSAR.  Also known as Ivan the Terrible.  He is considered the first TSAR of Russia.  Previous rulers were known as Grand Princes.  The title of Tsar gave him gravatis in the eyes of the European monarchs. Once he appointed himself Tsar, he and Queen Elizabeth I carried on a long correspondence, which opened up trading between England and Russia.  It is said that Ivan proposed to Elizabeth, but she declined.  Probably just as well.

60. Passageway: AISLE.

64. Theater company: TROUPE.

68. Fairy tale sibling: HANSEL.  Brother of Gretel. The story of Hansel and Gretel is an old German fairy tale, recorded by the Brothers Grimm.  They were children of a poor woodcutter.  Their mother had died and their step-mother took them deep into the woods and left them to fend for themselves.  They came upon a beautiful gingerbread home, unaware that its owner was a cannibalistic witch.

69. Logician's adverb: ERGO.

70. "Really? Me?": AMI.  Hmm ...  Ami the transliteration for a Hebrew word meaning "my people".

72. Precious: DEAR.

73. Favorite: PET.  My late pet.

Down:

1. Coat holders: PEGS.  My first thought was a coat tree, but that didn't work well with the perps.

2. Wasatch Front state: UTAH.  This was totally unknown to me.  Apparently, the Wasatch Front is a metropolitan region in Utah, which includes such cities as Provo, Salt Lake City and Odgen.  Do any of our crossword friends live in this area?

3. Opposite of embiggen: PARE.  Embiggen is a perfectly cromulent word.  According to Merriam-Webster, it's first know use was on a 1996 episode of The Simpsons.

4. Traffic stopper, perhaps: SIGNAL.  My favorite clue of the puzzle.

5. Leb. neighbor: ISR.  Israel is a neighbor of Lebanon.

6. Diamond concern: FLAW.  Can you spot the flaws in these diamonds?

7. Spicy sauce: TABASCO.  Made in Avery Island, Louisiana.  Did you know that Avery Island isn't really an island?  It's really a salt dome.  There are five such "Islands" in southern Louisiana.

8. Capital NNW of Albany: OTTAWA.

9. Cheer syllable: RAH.  //  And 25-Down. Cheer: GLEE.

10. Euphoria: BLISS.

11. "You don't need to tell me": I KNOW.

12. Home of the Drillers of Class AA baseball: TULSA.  The Tulsa Drillers are the double-A affiliate of the Los Angeles Dodgers.

13. Watch surreptitiously: SPY ON.

18. Colorful tropical flower: BEGONIA.

22. Middle management issues?: WAISTS.  Another good clue.

27. Satchmo's birthplace, briefly: NOLA.  Louis Daniel Armstrong (Aug. 4, 1901 ~ July 6, 1971), also known as Satchmo, was born in New Orleans, Louisiana.

28. Narrow opening: SLIT.

29. Turner with numbers: TINA.  As in Tina Turner (née Anna Mae Bullock; b. Nov. 26, 1939).  Tina on her last birthday at age 79.  I hope I can look as good as she does when I turn 79.

30. Enjoy an easy chair: REST.

34. Monastic leaders: PRIORS.

36. Charmingly pastoral: IDYLLIC.

37. Member of a Baroque consort: VIOL.  A musical instrument used in Renaissance and Baroque music.  It is similar to a cello, is six-stringed, held vertically and played with a bow.

38. Memo heading: IN RE.

39. Survey range components: AGES.  On a survey form, there are often boxes to check one's age range.

43. Takes badly?: ROBS.  Nice misdirection.

46. Threatened: MENACED.

49. These days: LATELY.

51. Charm: ENAMOR.

52. Spa features: BATHS.  Here I am (way in the back) swimming in the pool at the Gellert Spa in Budapest.

53. Like much of Oregon: RURAL.

54. Make amends: ATONE.  This is becoming a crossword staple.

55. "I give up!": NO USE.

59. Uncommon: RARE.  Tanzanite is one of the world's rarest gem stones.  It is found only in Tanzania, hence its name.

61. Open-handed blow: SLAP.

62. Unconvincing, as an excuse: LAME.

63. Put out: EMIT.

65. Energy: PEP.

67. NY airport named for a mayor: LGA.  As in LaGuardia Airport, which is named after Fiorello Henry LaGuardia (Dec. 11, 1882 ~ Sept. 20, 1947).  He was only 5'2'', and interestingly, his first name means "little flower" in Italian.  He was the 99th Mayor of New York City.  He served as Mayor from January 1934 through December 1945.

Now here's the GIRD GRID: