Thursday April 20, 2023 Shannon Rapp & Dan Schwartz
Today's constructors are LAT veterans and sometime collaborators Dan Schwartz and Shannon Rapp, aka Norah Sharpe, who invite us to enter the crossworld of benign Diplopia ...
Seeing Double
... but don't worry, you'll get over it. Their theme was pretty obvious from the get go and made solving this one pretty easy. Here are the two word themers, all identified by the trailing "?" If you got enough perps in either word you could guess them both:
17A. Double bond?: PROMISES PROMISES. This clue might refer to a covalent bond (sort of the chemical equivalent of community property) and the fill could be the name of a Broadway musical,with the title song sung here by the Divine Dionne Warwick:
26A. Double check?: TESTING TESTING. Performed by the sound gal (or guy).
43A. Double fault?: EXCUSES EXCUSES. The refs words to John McEnroe's in clue 17A on March 16, 2023.
58. Double jump?: SURPRISE SURPRISE. I suppose this means to get a jump on someone, or it could be a checkers move, but by the time you got to this clue nothing would SURPRISE you.
REVEAL? Who needs a REVEAL?
Here's the grid ...
Across: 1. Book that presents world views?: ATLAS.
6. Plus-one, say: GUEST.
11. Mo. town: STL. A CSO to inanehiker I believe ...
14. Finned predator: SHARK.
15. Spicy Korean cabbage: KIMCHI. Here's a recipe.
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| Kimchi (nice pot too!) |
17. [Theme clue]
20. Shady, in gamer lingo: SUS. Short for SUSPICIOUS.
21. Novelist Deighton: LEN. Leonard Cyril Deighton born 18 February 1929) is a British author. His publications have included cookery books, history and military history, but he is best known for his spy novels. His first spy novel was The IPCress File.
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| Len Deighton He looks like a tough cookie |
22. Early Canon auto focus camera: SURE SHOT. Surprise Surprise, there are still other cameras besides the iPhone, e.g. the Sure Shot Supreme.
23. Cutting edge: BLADE.
25. Numeric prefix: TRI.
26. [Theme clue].
32. Creates a lot of drama?: EMOTES.
34. "Double Indemnity" novelist: CAIN. James Mallahan Cain (July 1, 1892 – October 27, 1977) was an American novelist, journalist and screenwriter. He is widely regarded as a progenitor of the hard boiled school of American crime fiction. Also a Marylander. Here's a trailer for the 1944 film Double Indemnity. Who knew that Fred MacMurray played bad guys? ...
A clecho for all our themers?.
35. "What __ care?": DO I. The anthem of our era.
36. Splash against gently: LAP AT.
37. __ Whip: frozen pineapple treat: DOLE. Also a former Senate Majority Leader and later a spokesperson for the little blue pill.
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| Robert Joseph Dole (July 22, 1923 – December 5, 2021) |
40. __ Lanka: SRI. A standin for Kerala, India in the remarkable series The Good Karma Hospital starring the incomparable Amanda Redman ...
41. Explorer with a talking backpack: DORA. The case of the missing backpack ...
42. "O churl, drunk all, and left no friendly drop / To help me after!" speaker: JULIET. This line is spoken in Act 5 Scene 3 of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. In prior acts ROMEO has been banished to Mantua for killing Tybalt, but before he leaves, Friar Lawrence has secretly married the young couple. To forestall a forced marriage to Romeo's rival Paris, the Friar has concocted a scheme for Juliet to take a sleeping potion that will make her appear dead, and she will then be laid in a tomb by her family. The messenger that the Friar sent to Romeo to inform him of this scheme has been delayed and Romeo first hears news that she has died. He buys poison from an apothecary and rushes to Juliet's tomb to die with her. When he arrives and sees her lifeless body, Romeo takes the poison, and dies. Juliet then awakes and finding her poisoned husband, she berates him in the line above for leaving "no friendly drop" for her, and then stabs herself with his dagger (this clip may seem a little dark, but then it IS filmed in a tomb - oh and it's quiet, so turn up the sound) ...
43. [Theme clue]
47. Lil Wayne's "__ Block Is Hot": THA. I'm afraid Margaret said "Tsk, tsk ..." to this one.
48. Gridiron units: YARDS.
49. Challenged, as a verdict: APPEALED.
54. Emmy-winning sportscaster Buck: JOE. Had this been four letter fill the answer would have been JACK, his father. JOE Buck worked for Fox Sports from its 1994 inception through 2022, including roles as lead play-by-play announcer for the network's National Football League and Major League Baseball coverage. He served as the play-by-play announcer for the World Series from 1996 to 2021, with the exceptions of 1997 and 1999, when Bob Costas called those particular World Series for NBC.
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| Joe Buck |
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| Dal and Potato Soup |
61. Anger: IRE.
62. Many a "Grey's Anatomy" character: INTERN. There's a new crop every Summer.
63. Indian, for one: OCEAN.
64. Cook in oil: FRY.
65. Market where an amphora may be found: AGORA. A Greek container in a Greek market. Here's fancy one with the classic black and red terra sigillata slip glaze depicting scenes of the gods Hermes and Dionysus ...
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| Amphora ca. 540-530 BCE Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, MD |
Down:
1. Nile vipers: ASPS.
2. Drive-__: THRU.
3. Landlocked country on the Mekong: LAOS. LAOS, officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic is in the heart of the Indochinese Peninsula. It is bordered by Myanmar and China to the northwest, Vietnam to the east, Cambodia to the southeast, and Thailand to the west and southwest. Its capital and largest city is Vientiane.
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| Laos |
5. All one can do: SKILL SET. A PITCHER needs not only a good ARM, but the ability to read the catcher's signs, throw strikes, field line drives hit straight at him, and pick off runners who stray too far from first base.
6. Base figs.: GIS. Not the one's in the previous clue.
7. Strike callers: UMPS.
8. Linen color: ECRU.
9. Cut: SHORTEN.
10. Speed chess equipment: TIMERS. Chess timers consist of two adjacent clocks with buttons to stop one clock while starting the other, so that the two clocks never run simultaneously. Chess clocks are used in chess and other two-player games where the players move in turn. A CSO to -T.
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| Chess Clocks |
12. __ James of "The White Lotus": THEO. Theodore Peter James Kinnaird Taptiklis (born 16 December 1984), known professionally as Theo James, is an English actor. He is best known for portraying Tobias "Four" Eaton in The Divergent Series film trilogy. He has starred in the horror films Underworld: Awakening (2012) and Underworld: Blood Wars (2016) and the science fiction film Archive (2020). In television, he has appeared in the crime drama series Golden Boy (2012), the romance series The Time Traveler's Wife (2022), and the dark comedy series The White Lotus (2022).
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| Theo James |
15. "Antiracist Baby" author Ibram X. __: KENDI. Antiracist Baby is a 2020 children's book written by Ibram X. Kendi and illustrated by Ashley Lukashevsky. The book, inspired by the author's 4-year-old daughter, was conceived as a tool for discussing racism with young children. I think this is a conversation that all people of color eventually have to have with their children. Perhaps it's a conversation that all parents should have with their children.
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| Ibram X. Kendi Ashley Lukashevsky |
18. Parking spots?: SEATS. Places to park your tush?
19. "Really, though?": IS IT. Apparently.
23. __ carotene: BETA. β-Carotene (beta-carotene) is an organic, strongly colored red-orange pigment abundant in fungi, plants, and fruits. It is a biochemical precursor to Vitamin A.
24. Request that rhymes with "One more!": ENCORE. French for AGAIN, i.e. "play it again" As the clue doesn't specify what to repeat, how about Yuga Wang playing Chopin's Waltz in C sharp minor, Opus 64 No. 2 ...
26. Debate issue: TOPIC.
27. Andromeda, e.g.: GALAXY. Hand up if you had NEBULA first? Messier 31 is one of the few GALAXIES that can be seen with the naked eye, but before the invention of the telescope it appeared in the night sky as a patchy cloud (nebula in Latin) in the constellation Andromeda. It is the nearest galaxy to our galaxy, the Milky Way.
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| The Andromeda Galaxy, M31 with satellite galaxies M32 (center left above the galactic nucleus) and M110 (center right below the galaxy) |
29. "Cats" star Elba: IDRIS. IDRIS isn't solely to blame, but in case you're wondering why Rotten Tomatoes scored CATS a solid 19%, ...
30. Squat: NONE.
31. Main idea: GIST.
32. Alternatively: ELSE.
33. Brothers known for "Duck Soup" and "Animal Crackers": MARX. Also for A Night at the Opera. You know I couldn't let this opportunity pass ...
37. Hairstyles: DOS. Or today's Spanish lesson #1?.
38. Where to hang on the line?: BUS DEPOT.
39. Some craft beers: ALES.
41. Handing out, as cards: DEALING.
42. Judgmental type?: JUROR.
44. Southwest sch. with architecture inspired by Bhutan: UTEP. A learning moment for me. The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) is a public research university and a member of the University of Texas System. UTEP is the second-largest university in the United States to have a majority Mexican American student population (about 80%) after the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. On October 29, 1916, a devastating fire destroyed the main building of the University of Texas El Paso , prompting its relocation. In 1917, the new school facility was constructed on its present site above Mundy Heights at the Paso del Norte, with the land donated by several El Paso residents. In a period when United States architects were designing in styles adopted especially from Europe, Kathleen Worrell, wife of the university's dean, was attracted by photographs of the Kingdom of Bhutan in a 1914 issue of National Geographic magazine, which showed the dzong architecture style of its Buddhist monasteries. Many of the features of that style are incorporated into the buildings and layout of the UTEP campus.
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| University of Texas El Paso |
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| Tashichho Dzong, Bhutan |
45. Islamic law: SHARIA. SHARIA (Arabic: شريعة,) is a body of religious law that forms a part of the Islamic tradition. It is derived from the religious precepts of Islam and is based on the sacred scriptures of Islam, particularly the Quran and the Hadith.
46. Louisiana cuisine: CAJUN. Here's a recipe for Cajun Shrimp and Rice.
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| Cajun Shrimp and Rice |
49. "Ew! No!": AS IF. A rebuff to a come on?
50. Sound of a happy tabby: PURR. Sounds like a Tuesday clue.
51. Seals, to a 14-Across: PREY. It turns out that 14-Acrosses have bigger appetites than was previously thought.
52. Spanish "this": ESTO. Spanish lesson #2
53. Stag or doe: DEER.
55. Latin day: DIEM. Today's Latin Lesson. Often used in the expression "Carpe Diem" ("seize the day") or more commonly YOLO ("you only live once"). Or maybe not.
56. "Right away" letters: ASAP. "As Soon As Possible", as opposed to a medical term that a 62A learns right way: STAT ("IMMEDIATELY!").
57. Singer Horne: LENA. Lena Mary Calhoun Horne (June 30, 1917 – May 9, 2010) was an American dancer, actress, singer, and civil rights activist. Horne's career spanned more than seventy years, appearing in film, television, and theatre. Here she sings The Lady is a Tramp, but I think the lady has a lot of class ...
59. Mme., in Mallorca: SRA. Spanish lesson #3. This definitely calls for a CSO to Lucina. It also reminds me of the drama series The Mallorca Files about Max and Miranda, a classic pair of mismatched detectives thrown together on the (beautiful!) Spanish island of Mallorca ...
The picture above is misleading - after two seasons he still hasn't kissed her. But the series has been renewed for a third season, so there's always hope.
60. Early TV brand: RCA. A CSO to Misty.
Cheers,
Bill
As always, thanks to Teri for proof reading, for her constructive criticism.
waseeley
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