Saturday, May 21, 2022 — Devil or Angel (NP 220521)

Introduction

Today's National Post Cryptic Crossword from Cox & Rathvon (NP 220521) – very much in tune with its theme – strikes me as having a split personality with some parts being pleasantly gentle and others  fiendishly difficult.

The review of this puzzle is being posted a couple of weeks late as a violent windstorm known as a derecho knocked out power to myself (as well as many hundreds of thousands of other customers in Ottawa and across Ontario and Quebec) on May 21. I was without power and internet for a week and am only now catching up on reviews that were not posted during the outage.

The puzzle will be posted on the blog on Saturday, May 28.

I invite you to leave a comment to let us know how you fared with the puzzle.

Solution to Today's Puzzle

Falcon's experience ┌────┬────┬────┬────┬────┬────┬────┐ ███████████████████████████████████ └────┴────┴────┴────┴────┴────┴────┘ Legend: █ - solved without assistance █ - incorrect prior to use of puzzle solving tools █ - solved with assistance from puzzle solving tools █ - solved with aid of checking letters provided by puzzle solving tools █ - solved but without fully parsing the clue █ - yet to be solved

Symbols and Markup Conventions
"*" - anagram "~" - sounds like "<" - indicates the preceding letters are reversed "( )" - encloses contained letters "_" - replaces letters that have been deleted  "†" - indicates that the word is present in the clue	"//" - marks the boundary between wordplay and definition when no link word or link phrase is present "/[link word or phrase]/" - marks the boundary between wordplay and definition when a link word or link phrase is present "solid underline" - precise definition "dotted underline" - cryptic definition "dashed underline" - wordplay "wavy underline" - whimsical and inferred definitions
Click here for further explanation and usage examples of the symbols and markup conventions used on this blog.

Across

1a	Help // dine with wine (7)

SUP|PORT — SUP (dine) + (with) PORT ([fortified] wine)

5a	Charted // fiscal crime by audit? (7)

GRAPHED~ — sounds like (by audit) GRAFT (fiscal crime)

9a	Conservative and judge // box (5)

C|RATE — C(onservative) + (and) RATE (judge)

10a	Debaters, at times, // rebel with voices (9)

REB|UTTERS — REB (rebel; informal) + (with) UTTERS (voices)

11a	Rider // moving around corral, on edge (5,7)

{ANGEL CORDERO}* — anagram of (moving around) CORRAL ON EDGE

Angel Cordero^[7] (Ángel Tomás Cordero Jr.) is one of the leading thoroughbred horse racing jockeys of the late 20th-century and the first Puerto Rican to be inducted into the United States' Racing Hall of Fame. He led all jockeys in wins at Saratoga Race Course for thirteen years. Cordero rode three Kentucky Derby winners and won over 6000 races in his career.

14a	Greek character taking in northern // Italian hot spot (4)

ET(N)A — ETA (Greek character; seventh letter of the Greek alphabet) containing (taking in) N(orthern)

Mount Etna^[5] is a volcano in eastern Sicily, rising to 3,323 m (10,902 ft). It is the highest and most active volcano in Europe.

15a	Listen to kid about small // pansy (10)

HEAR|T(S)EASE — HEAR (listen to) + TEASE (kid) containing (about) S(mall)

Heartsease^[10] is one of many common names for the wild pansy.

18a	Display of skill // the Waltons arranged (6,4)

{TALENT SHOW}* — anagram of (arranged) THE WALTONS

Scratching the Surface
The Waltons[7] is an American historical drama television series about a family in rural Virginia during the Great Depression and World War II. It was created by Earl Hamner Jr., based on his 1961 book Spencer's Mountain and the 1963 film of the same name. The series originally aired from 1972 to 1981.

19a	Fine // place for a bucket (4)

WELL — double definition

21a	Freewheeling // caviar medley mixed (5-3-4)

{DEVIL-MAY-CARE}* — anagram of (mixed) CAVIAR MEDLEY

25a	Proper clothing isn’t commonly // waterproof (9)

R(AINT)IGHT — RIGHT (proper) containing (clothing) AINT (isn't commonly; ain't)

26a	Farming people // rather like the morning? (5)

AM|ISH — double definition, the second rather whimsical^*

---

^* -ISH, a suffix denoting 'rather like', appended to AM (the morning)

The Amish^[5] are a strict Mennonite sect founded by the Swiss preacher Jakob Amman (or Amen) (c.1645–c.1730). Now living mainly in Pennsylvania and Ohio, the Amish migrated to North America from c.1720.

27a	Live in brand-new // tower (7)

MIN(ARE)T — ARE (live) contained in (in) MINT (brand-new)

A minaret^[5] is a slender tower, typically part of a mosque, with a balcony from which a muezzin^*

---

^* A muezzin^[5] is a man who calls Muslims to prayer from the minaret of a mosque.

28a	Piano acquired by earlier // sound mixer of note? (7)

S(P)OONER — P (piano; musical direction to play softly) contained in (acquired by) SOONER

William Archibald Spooner^[7] (1844–1930) was a long-serving Oxford don, notable for absent-mindedness, and supposedly liable to transpose the initial sounds or letters of two or more words, with unintentionally comic effect, as in the sentence you have hissed the mystery lectures. Such phrases became known as spoonerisms^[5], and are often used humorously. Many spoonerisms have been invented by others and falsely attributed to Spooner.

Down

1d	California city // misspelled actor’s name (10)

SACRAMENTO* — anagram of (misspelled) ACTORS NAME

Sacramento^[5] is the capital of California, situated on the Sacramento River, north-east of San Francisco.

2d	Arrange tenderly, // with a melancholy tone (10)

PLAN|GENTLY — PLAN (arrange) + GENTLY (tenderly)

3d	A bad // playwright (6)

O'NE|ILL — ONE (a) + ILL (bad)

Eugene O'Neill^[5] (1888–1953) was an American dramatist. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his first full-length play, Beyond the Horizon (1920). Other notable works: The Iceman Cometh (1946) and Long Day’s Journey into Night (1956, posthumously).

4d	New TV nurse or // changes in staff (9)

TURNOVERS* — anagram of (new) TV NURSE OR

5d	Mocked // cot for a soldier? (5)

GI|BED — GI (for a soldier; noun used as a modifier) + BED (cot)

6d	Question about Ms. Hatcher’s // star (8)

AS(TERI|S)K — ASK (question) containing (about) {TERI (Ms. Hatcher; American actress Teri Hatcher^[7])} + S ('s)}

7d	Said he’d // pay attention (4)

HEED~ — sounds like (said) HE'D

8d	Hastily write // punctuation (4)

DASH — double definition

12d	Cut // allotment of frilly stuff? (10)

LACE|RATION — LACE (of frilly stuff; noun used as a modifier) + RATION (allotment)

13d	Herald // beauty, if pronounced (10)

{BELL|WETHER}~ — sounds like (pronounced) {BELLE (beauty) + IF (whether)}

16d	People living together // store ammo in ruins (9)

ROOMMATES* — anagram of (in ruins) STORE AMMO

17d	Some chances to rescue // person in a tree? (8)

_ANCES|TO|R_ — hidden in (some) chANCES TO Rescue

20d	Powerhouse // party keeps many coming back (6)

D(YNAM<)O — DO (party) containing (keeps) reversal of (coming back) MANY

22d	Popular Japanese game with tee // bar (5)

IN|GO|T — IN (popular) + GO (Japanese game) + (with) T (tee)

Go is played on a grid of black lines

(usually 19×19). Game pieces, called stones,

are played on the lines' intersections.

Go^[7] is an abstract strategy board game for two players, in which the aim is to surround more territory than the opponent. The game was invented in China more than 2,500 years ago and is believed to be the oldest board game continuously played to the present day. From China the game spread, first to Korea and Japan, and eventually worldwide. The name Go is derived from the Japanese name of the  game "igo". (show more )

Despite its relatively simple rules, Go is very complex. Compared to chess, Go has both a larger board with more scope for play and longer games, and, on average, many more alternatives to consider per move. In a simple and anecdotal way of explaining the rules of Go, a teacher simply says to a student "you may place your stone (playing piece) on any point on the board, but if I surround that stone, I may remove it."

hide

23d	Measure // green stuff (4)

G|RAM — G (green; as in RGB video connections) + RAM (stuff; push forcefully)

24d	Withdrawing reason for not admitting // Celine (4)

{DI|ON}< — reversal of (withdrawing) {NO ID (reason for not admitting)}

Céline Dion^[7] is a Canadian singer. Noted for her powerful and technically skilled vocals, Dion is the best-selling Canadian recording artist, and the best-selling French language artist of all time.

Epilogue

Most people are likely more familiar with Bobby Vee's 1960 cover version of "Devil or Angel" but The Clovers did it first.

"This original studio recording by The Clovers of "Devil Or Angel," was released in January 1956 by the Atlantic Recording Corporation. This song, was written by an amateur songwriter named Blanche Carter, and it became a big hit for The Clovers. It was recorded four years later in 1960 by Bobby Vee, whereby once again it became a hit. This track is from a compilation CD, "The Very Best of the Clovers," released in 1998 by Rhino."^[Youtube]

---

References

Sources referenced in the blog are identified by the following symbols. The reference numbers themselves are hyperlinks to the entry in the source being referenced. Click on the number to view the source.

Key to Reference Sources: 

  ^[1]   - The Chambers Dictionary, 11th Edition

  ^[2]   - Search Chambers - (Chambers 21st Century Dictionary)

  ^[3]   - TheFreeDictionary.com (American Heritage Dictionary)

  ^[4]   - TheFreeDictionarycom (Collins English Dictionary)

  ^[5]   - Lexico (formerly Oxford Dictionaries Online) (Oxford Dictionary of English)

  ^[6]   - Lexico (formerly Oxford Dictionaries Online) (Oxford Advanced American Dictionary)

  ^[7]   - Wikipedia

  ^[8]   - Reverso Online Dictionary (Collins French-English Dictionary)

  ^[9]   - Infoplease (Random House Unabridged Dictionary)

^[10]   - CollinsDictionary.com (Collins English Dictionary)

^[11]   - TheFreeDictionary.com (Random House Kernerman Webster's College Dictionary)

^[12]   - CollinsDictionary.com (Webster’s New World College Dictionary)

^[13]   - MacmillanDictionary.com (Macmillan Dictionary)

^[14]   - CollinsDictionary.com (COBUILD Advanced English Dictionary)

^[15]   - CollinsDictionary.com (Penguin Random House LLC/HarperCollins Publishers Ltd )

---

Signing off for today — Falcon