Friday, May 8, 2020 Stu Agler

"Brainstorming for New Periodicals"

17. Magazine for masseuses?: ROLF DIGEST.   GOLF DIGEST

21. Magazine for nurses?: IV GUIDE.   TV GUIDE

26. Magazine for golfers?: PAR AND DRIVER.   CAR AND DRIVER

44. Magazine for crossword constructors?: PUNNERS WORLD.   RUNNER'S WORLD

38. Magazine for beekeepers?: HONEY.   MONEY

51. Magazine for pharmacists?: MEDBOOK.   REDBOOK

60. Magazine for farmers?: HEN'S HEALTH.   MEN'S HEALTH

We have another debut at the LA Times and Crossword Corner.  Welcome, Stu Agler !

Rolf Digest was the first themer to fill, but I had never heard of Rolfing.  Wikipedia tells me "Rolfing is a form of alternative medicine originally developed by Ida Rolf as Structural Integration. It is typically delivered as a series of ten hands-on physical manipulation sessions sometimes called "the recipe"   Who knew ?

Consistency in changing only the first letter of the existing magazines may have made this puzzle a bit easier to solve, but it's still funny and punny.   Excepting IV / TV, they all also rhyme. 

Stu probably had more choices and could probably have created a Sunday sized grid with this theme. How about "Magazine for helicopter designers?  Rotor Trend.    Or, "Magazine for practitioners of animal husbandry ?" Sired.   Maybe, "Magazine for Lumberyard professionals ? Wood Housekeeping.

I'll stop now and leave it to the professionals.  Great job, Stu.  We're now going to explore that which remains.  And pardon me while I wander and reminisce.

Across:

1. Cook Islands language: MAORI.     The Cook Islands are in the South Pacific ocean with 15 islands having a combined total land area of about 93 square miles.  For perspective, the city of Chicago covers about 234 sq. miles.   Los Angeles 469, and Houston 600 sq. miles.   The land area of the Cook Islands is about the size of Milwaukee (96), Sacramento (98), Lincoln, NE (89) or Tallahassee (100 sq. mi.).

Spanish explorers visited the islands in the late 1500s and named one of the islands St. Bernard.  British Navigator James Cook came to the islands in the 1770s, and named one of the islands Hervey Island.  The name "Cook Islands" first appeared on a Russian naval chart in the 1820s.

78 % of the people on the island nation are Māori and another 7.8 % are part Māori.  The official languages are English and Cook Islands Māori.  The capital (and largest city) is Avarua, which might be a good answer in a crossword puzzle.

6. Place for mascara: LASH.

10. Rims: LIPs.

14. Ray __, NBAer with the most regular season 3-point field goals: ALLEN.   Retired HOF'er with  18 years in the NBA making 40 % of his attempts from beyond the line for 2973 buckets.   Active player Stephen Curry has hit 43.5 % of his 3-pointers during his 11 year NBA career, and is about 500 makes behind.  Note the consistency in the non-shooting hand.

15. Northern Oklahoma city: ENID.  Known as the "Wheat Capital" of Oklahoma for its immense grain storage capacity.  It has the third-largest grain storage capacity in the world.  Yes, that is a line of rail cars in the foreground.  The place is huge.

There were some great shots on The Smithsonian Channel's Aerial America - Oklahoma the other day.  If you don't get that channel, watch for it to be shown on The Smithsonian's Aerial America YouTube channel.

16. Legal memo phrase: INRE.

19. Campus area: QUAD.

20. Place with shells: SEASIDE.

23. Informal negative: AIN'T.   Isn't wrong.

25. Chopper topper: ROTOR.   One of my part time military jobs (ODAA - other duties as assigned)) was working as part of the team at the "Can Point" when I was assigned to Coleman Army Airfield,  Coleman Barracks, 70th AVIM (aviation intermediate maintenance) Battalion, 1st Support Brigade (later, 21st Support Command), USAEUR (US Army Europe) at Sandhofen (Mannheim), Germany.

My real job was in the computer vans, 3rd shift, feeding stack after stack of 80 column cards into a card reader, and then inserting magnetic ledger stock into the platen feed of an NCR 500 computer system.
It was all part of the inventory control system used to keep track of orders and disbursements and stock on hand.  Occasionally keypunching new cards to replace mangled cards, and running the 088 card sorter from time to time after dropping a tray full of cards.  Tray after tray, night after night, week after week.  So monotonous.  I digress.

Any rotor wing aircraft that went down in USAEUR were transported to the cannibalization point for selected salvage.  Rotor wings could not be salvaged for re-use, but were in demand by Air Cavalry battalions and companies around the country.  They would be used as art on the hangars or as gate toppers at entrances to Kasernes that housed rotor wing companies. 

Most impressive and awe inspiring was when the heavy lift helicopters came in for inspection and maintenance.  The roar of the engines and sound of the rotors pounding the air was thunderous as the beasts approached and landed on the tarmac.
CH-47 "Chinook" on the left and CH-54 "Tarhe" (Skycrane) on the right.   The Skycranes were being phased out of military service in Europe in the late '70s when I was there, and many passed through our airfield on their way back to the U.S.

32. Salchow relatives: AXELs.  Figure skating.

33. __-deucey: ACEY.   A card game or a backgammon game. 

34. Hook partner: JAB.  Boxing.

37. Gobble (down): WOLF. 

40. Coke __: ZERO.   Zero calorie, sugar free version of Coca-Cola.  Artificially sweetened.  I've never had one. 

41. __-Caps: SNO.  Semi-sweet chocolates topped with nonpareils.  White ones, of course.

42. "Be there in __": A SEC.  What my wife says 10 minutes before she gets to the door as we are preparing to leave. 

43. Wheel alignment: TOE-IN.   What You Need to Know About Tire Alignment

47. Weasel cousin: STOAT.  Not otter today.  A stoat (top) and a weasel (bottom)
Stoat or weasel? How to tell the difference
50. "Get lost!": SHOO.

54. Pal of Barbarino in "Welcome Back, Kotter": EPSTEIN.

59. Afterthoughts: ANDs.  Oh, and the guy in the lower left is Barbarino and the guy in the top right is Epstein.

62. Leave in: STET.  Don't dele.  Obelisms.  A proofreader knows these symbols.

63. Half of Mork's sign-off: NANU.   Mork was the ET from the planet Ork on the sitcom Mork and Mindy.

64. Brew hue: AMBER.

65. __ d'oeuvres: HORS.

66. First column to add, usually: ONEs.   Units.  The first column of whole numbers to be added in a place-value numbering system.  Typically in base-10 (decimal) for most people, and the second column would be tens, the third hundreds and so on.  I know you knew that, but I'm building here.

Programmers and others in technology use other place-value numbering systems, such as in base-8 (octal) where the columns would be units, eights, sixty-fours and so on, and in base-16 (hexadecimal) they would be units, sixteens, and the third column two hundred fifty-sixes.

Quick, what's the first numbering system that comes to mind that is not place-value ?

67. Funny Anne: MEARA. So many roles, but perhaps best known as one half of the Stiller and Meara comedy team.

Down:

1. Second-smallest of eight: MARS.  Our solar system's planets.  The "Red Planet", fourth from the sun.  Mercury is the smallest.

2. Ointment ingredient: ALOE.  Keep washing your hands and try to find a sanitizer with aloe in it. Does aloe work ?  Evaluation of aloe vera gel gloves in the treatment of dry skin associated with occupational exposure.

3. Cantina crock: OLLA.

4. Works the game: REFs.  Referees the game or bout.

5. Team with the longest World Series drought (71 years): INDIANS.   Should be championship drought.  They were in the 2016 World Series, and they were leading it 3 games to 1 in the best of 7 series over the Chicago Cubs.   The Cubs won the next two games, evening the series at 3 each.

In the seventh and deciding game that many pundits have called one of the greatest game 7s (and series) in MLB history, the teams were tied at 6 runs each after 9 innings.   Then the skies opened up with a sudden downpour.  After the rain delay play resumed, and the Cubs scored two to take an 8-6 lead in the top of the tenth inning.  In the bottom of the tenth, the home field Indians plated one run with two out before the Tribe's loyal fans had their hopes squashed on a weak grounder to third baseman Kris Bryant.

It was only the fifth time in World Series history that a Game 7 went to extra innings, and it was the first time the extra inning Game 7 was won by a road team.  The series and Game 7 were both dubbed "instant classics".

The Cubs won and ended a 108 year championship drought of their own; the longest in professional sports history. 

6. Folklore tale: LEGEND.   An example of early American literature was Washington Irving's The Legend of Sleep Hollow, but what inspired the work ? 

7. Suffix with hex-: ANE.

8. "Absolutely!" in Madrid: SI SI.

9. Best Buy purchase: HDTV.

10. __ license: LIQUOR.

11. Greenland language: INUIT.

12. Madrid museum: PRADO.

13. Where the same questions are asked annually: SEDER.

18. "__ it my way": I DID. 

22. Ethically uncertain, in Sussex: GREY.   I loved Dash-T's explanation a few weeks ago that, "Gray is a color, while grey is a colour". 

24. Spells: TRANCEs.

26. Treat holders: PAWs.
27. Nerve impulse carrier: AXON.

28. HR dept. concern: RELO.   United Van Lines packed up my belongings and car when I was relocated from Houston to Chicago in late '87.   The company footed the bill for my relocation moving and living expenses.   Actually lived for almost two months in a new Holiday Inn that was still in the process of being constructed.

Then January came, and I learned fast that my southeast Texas blood and wardrobe was ill-equipped to deal with Chicago's gusting winds and biting cold that would shiver your bones.  I ran to the mall and bought thermal underwear and the heaviest lined Burberry style trench coat I could find.  I didn't bother to ask HR to foot the bill on those items.  I know'd the answer was NO !

29. Alien from Melmac: ALF.   Another extraterrestrial from TV land.   Anne Meara played the grandmother in occasional appearances on the sitcom.

30. __ dancing: ICE.   Like figure skating, but more freeform and interpretive.

31. "Oy __!": VEY.   Oy vey ! This crossword puzzle review has gone on too long.  But wait, there's more !

34. Boo: JEER.  Please.  Bear with me, it'll be over soon.

35. Seed covering: ARIL.

36. M's favorite agent: BOND.   James Bond's boss and head of MI6, portrayed by Dame Judy Dench in eight of the movies.  

38. 24 hrs.-per-day retail channel: HSN.   Home Shopping Network

39. Wine: Pref.: OEN.  From the ancient Greek word oinos.   "The translators of the KJV, by uniformly rendering the Greek word oinos as wine, replicated the Greek word’s reference to both fermented and unfermented juice with an English word that, in their day, was similarly general in reference."

40. Wild place: ZOO.    The nickname for Gerszewski Barracks in Knielingen (Karlsruhe) Germany, my second station while serving there.  The Zoo had an entirely different atmosphere than Coleman.   Still the military, but significantly fewer officers and Warrant Officers (mostly helicopter pilots at Coleman) and MPs than Coleman.  Definitely more relaxed. 

Coleman was the home to the USAEUR Confinement Facility, where soldiers in serious trouble awaited trial, were serving sentences up to a year, or for the most serious offenses, were awaiting orders for transportation back to the U.S. to serve extended time at Ft Leavenworth, KA.

42. Jam component: AUTO.   Seriously, was I the only one that first thought of pectin ?

43. Type of fastball grip: TWO SEAM.   Baseball.   Even ardent fans may not be aware of the arsenal that Yu Darvish brings to the mound. 

44. Blue Ribbons, e.g.: PABSTs.   PBRs, for short.  Pabst Blue Ribbon beer.  Not my cuppa, but it'll do in a pinch.

45. Monkey used in research: RHESUS.

46. Future junior: SOPH.

47. Big hit: SMASH.   As in an exceptionally popular TV, movie or stage show, or for tennis fans such as Sandyanon, the return shot answer to a poorly placed near-net lob shot.  

48. :50, another way: TEN TO.   Me: "It's ten to five.  Are you ready yet ?  Are you coming ?"  Her: "I'll be there in a sec."  

49. Stranger: ODDER.

52. "That's awful!": OH NO.  

53. New Jersey university: KEAN.  Not familiar.  About   Yellowrocks, is that near you ?

55. Domesticate: TAME.

56. People Magazine's 2018 Sexiest Man Alive: ELBA.   Idris.  Hi, Lucina !

57. Old Roman road: ITER.

58. Dragster's org.: NHRA.   The National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) and International Hot Rod Association (IHRA) are the two largest sanctioning bodies for drag racing.  The Great Lakes Dragaway in Union Grove, Wisconsin is still going strong.  The "Sunday, Sunday, Sunday" radio commercials for drag racing events can still be heard on radio stations across the country.  Well, maybe not right now, but they'll be back.


61. Austin-to-Dallas dir.: NNE.    For some, I-35 is known as Main Street, Texas.   Almost half of the Texas population (and most of my siblings and extended family) lives along this central artery that starts in Laredo, Texas near the Rio Grande, and exits the state just north of Gainseville at the Red River.   From there I-35 travels generally NNE all the way to Duluth, Minnesota,  comparatively just shy of the border with Canada.

The reconstruction and widening of I-35 that started in 2012 is the second largest infrastructure project in the history of the state for TxDOT, the state's Department of Transportation.  The first ?  Building I-35 in the first place, which started in the '50s as part of Eisenhower's Interstate System.   It will be nice, and much safer when it is finally done.

Use the Zoom In, Zoom Out buttons on the map to view greater detail or a wider view, and use your mouse to move around.  "Ain't Isn't wrong" technology grand ?



Finally, here's the grid:

#Friday #StuAgler #TTP