Today’s Saturday Stumper

Today’s Newsday  Saturday Stumper, by Stan Newman, is a good one, more difficult than last week’s but still in the realm of Yes I Can. That, by the way, is the title of Sammy Davis Jr.’s autobiography. My dad had the paperback when I was a kid, with the title in big yellow capital letters on the cover. And remember when the edges of paperback pages were stained red or yellow? When did that practice end?

But I digress.

I especially liked the design of this puzzle’s center, with three eleven-letter answers descending a staircase. My only region of difficulty: the southwest corner, where 45-A, five letters, “Old-time nickname for Elizabeth” and 43-D, five letters, “Legalese, for instance” got me into difficulty. For 43-D I tried two wrong answers before hitting on the correct one.

Some clue-and-answer pairs I especially liked:

10-D, nine letters, “Script step.” Because I knew it.

15-A, nine letters, “Some dough, but not much.” What kind of dough?

31-D, nine letters, “Arrived with a bang.” Or several.

33-A, eleven letters, “Type of wooden siding.” The noun helped me better understand a verb.

34-D, eight letters, “Psych out.” Psych instantly puts me back in high school, when one was psyched up or out or just plain psyched, with up implied.

44-A, three letters, “Shake, rattle and roll.” I once sat next to Big Joe Turner at the bar in Tramps, where he was relaxing before doing a set. I

a. wanted to give him his privacy, or

b. was too shy to say hello.

Your choice. Either way, this clue adds value to the answer.

45-A, five letters, “Old-time nickname for Elizabeth.” My first guess was off by a letter.

48-D, four letters, “My Way autobiographer.” Aah, so this must be why I started thinking about Yes I Can.

56-A, five letters, “Word from the Greek for ‘apple.’” I feel I should know this.

57-A, nine letters, “Talk host whose full first name ends in ‘let.’” Fun trivia, though it’s not trivial to the name’s owner.

One clue-and-answer I’d quibble with a little: 28-D, five letters, “Odyssey king.” Well, yes, he’s in there, but I think the clue is more than a little arcane.

No spoilers; the answers are in the comments.

A related post
Which Joe Turner? (Getting The New York Times to make a correction)

Pocket notebook sighting

[The Case of the Howling Dog (dir. Alan Crosland, 1934). Click for a larger view.]

One of Perry Mason’s countless operatives has been watching a certain address. When a taxi picks up a hastily departing visitor, he trusts his pocket notebook to preserve the details, and the notebook fills the screen.

More notebook sightings
All the King’s Men : Angels with Dirty Faces : The Bad and the Beautiful : Ball of Fire : The Big Clock : Bombshell : The Brasher Doubloon : Cat People : Caught : City Girl : Crossing Delancey : Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne : Dead End : Deep Valley : The Devil and Miss Jones : Dragnet : Extras : Eyes in the Night : The Face Behind the Mask : Foreign Correspondent : Fury : Homicide : The Honeymooners : The House on 92nd Street : I See a Dark Stranger : Journal d’un curé de campagne : Kid Glove Killer : The Last Laugh : Le Million : The Lodger : Ministry of Fear : Mr. Holmes : Murder at the Vanities : Murder by Contract : Murder, Inc. : The Mystery of the Wax Museum : Naked City : The Naked Edge : Now, Voyager : The Palm Beach Story : Perry Mason : Pickpocket : Pickup on South Street : Pushover : Quai des Orfèvres : The Racket : Railroaded! : Red-Headed Woman : Rififi : La roue : Route 66 : The Scarlet Claw : Sleeping Car to Trieste : The Small Back Room : The Sopranos : Spellbound : Stage Fright : State Fair : A Stranger in Town : Stranger Things : Sweet Smell of Success : Time Table : T-Men : To the Ends of the Earth : 20th Century Women : Union Station : Vice Squad : Walk East on Beacon! : Where the Sidewalk Ends : The Woman in the Window : You Only Live Once

Pocket notebook sighting

[Deep Valley (dir. Jean Negulesco, 1947). Click for a larger view.]

A guard is about to lick his pencil before writing up convict Barry Burnette (Dane Clark). Which raises the question: Why did, or do, people lick their pencils before writing? The practice goes back a ways. I think I’ve seen it happen only in the movies. Certainly pencil-lickers weren’t, or aren’t, all using indelible pencils. The plausible answer, from MIT: the wet lead makes a darker line.

More notebook sightings
All the King’s Men : Angels with Dirty Faces : The Bad and the Beautiful : Ball of Fire : The Big Clock : Bombshell : The Brasher Doubloon : Cat People : Caught : City Girl : Crossing Delancey : Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne : Dead End : The Devil and Miss Jones : Dragnet : Extras : Eyes in the Night : The Face Behind the Mask : Foreign Correspondent : Fury : Homicide : The Honeymooners : The House on 92nd Street : I See a Dark Stranger : Journal d’un curé de campagne : Kid Glove Killer : The Last Laugh : Le Million : The Lodger : Ministry of Fear : Mr. Holmes : Murder at the Vanities : Murder by Contract : Murder, Inc. : The Mystery of the Wax Museum : Naked City : The Naked Edge : Now, Voyager : The Palm Beach Story : Perry Mason : Pickpocket : Pickup on South Street : Pushover : Quai des Orfèvres : The Racket : Railroaded! : Red-Headed Woman : Rififi : La roue : Route 66 : The Scarlet Claw : Sleeping Car to Trieste : The Small Back Room : The Sopranos : Spellbound : Stage Fright : State Fair : A Stranger in Town : Stranger Things : Sweet Smell of Success : Time Table : T-Men : To the Ends of the Earth : 20th Century Women : Union Station : Vice Squad : Walk East on Beacon! : Where the Sidewalk Ends : The Woman in the Window : You Only Live Once

Artist’s conception

[Or “artist’s” conception. Drawing by me.]

A related post
Block that metaphor

Uh-oh, Safari 15

There appear to be many good reasons not to upgrade to Safari 15 for Mac (Michael Tsai).

I tried 15 via Safari Technology Preview (described here). To my eyes, 15 looks ghastly. I’ll stay with 14 or, if need be, switch to Brave or another browser. (But not Chrome.)

Franz Kafka, artist

“Drawing and sketching extensively before he published a single word”: “Kafka, the Artist” (Los Angeles Review of Books). With a link to the National Library of Israel’s online archive of Kafka drawings and manuscripts.

Related reading
All OCA Kafka posts (Pinboard)

Yikes!

“Today’s Tedium is looking at Yikes! pencils, one the 1990s most iconic school supplies, and how a notorious fat substitute indirectly helped its creation”: “Yikes! You Call That a Pencil?”

Thanks to Mike Brown at Oddments of High Unimportance.

Block that metaphor

On CNN, a healthcare worker who refuses to get vaccinated for COVID-19 speaks:

“I believe that the fabric of our truly free, civilized society is at a precipice.”

Related reading
All OCA metaphor posts (Pinboard)

Recently updated

Makin’ whoop Now with a surprising pre-millennial whoop.

Starring Joe Namath et al.

[Click for a wider and longer play.]

This dramolette (a word I’ve borrowed from Robert Walser) draws on commercials that play incessantly on MSNBC and the PBS NewsHour, with Joe Namath, Jimmie Walker, George Foreman and family, Tom Selleck, and the “Change in plans!” guy.

A related post
“Change in plans!”