Words: 72 (missing K,Q,Z)
Blocks: 30
Gail
Grabowski is back for another LAT Saturday - her last one was March of
this year. I was able to work out the bottom half of this one no
problem, but the NE corner was slow to concede, so I did a "half" cheat
and looked up the river near Aberdeen (half because it was 3-letters,
OK~?). After that went in, the rest seemed obvious. I closed out in
good time, and so I consider this one a success; I reviewed that puzzle
from March and it was a "fail". Gail's constructions are pretty fair -
no fun sponge clues, and some clever ones, to boot. A not so
intimidating grid with triple 9- and 10-letter corners, plus another
pair of nines in the across as well. In the corners;
2d. WWII fighter : AXIS POWER- I was looking for something like P51 MUSTANG
that's me at MacArthur airport
16a. Wedding to-do list item : ORDER A LIMO - INVITATION fit, too
56a. Place for good dishes : CHINA HUTCH
33d. Added up : MADE SENSE - not TABULATED
DE-LI on ward~!
DE-LI on ward~!
ACROSS:
1. WWII support gp. : WAAC - Women's Army Auxiliary Corps
5. Driving hazard : ROAD DEBRIS - I did not see any road debris on my trip back from Delaware Thu morning, but I did hit the drawbridge on the Belt Parkway with my rental car so hard the wipers got knocked on - the roads around NYC are brutal....
15. Linchpin location : AXLE - ....had I been driving my Dodge, I would have sheared an axle, I am sure; the rental car was a 2014 Hyundai Elantra GT - it had its flaws, but when I got back in the Dodge, I realized how badly I need a new car
17. 2007 Country Music Hall of Fame inductee : GILL - Vince; not a country fan - link away~!
18. Grand : MAJESTICAL
19. Jargon ending : ESE - e.g. if you're a lawyer, it's legalese
5. Driving hazard : ROAD DEBRIS - I did not see any road debris on my trip back from Delaware Thu morning, but I did hit the drawbridge on the Belt Parkway with my rental car so hard the wipers got knocked on - the roads around NYC are brutal....
15. Linchpin location : AXLE - ....had I been driving my Dodge, I would have sheared an axle, I am sure; the rental car was a 2014 Hyundai Elantra GT - it had its flaws, but when I got back in the Dodge, I realized how badly I need a new car
17. 2007 Country Music Hall of Fame inductee : GILL - Vince; not a country fan - link away~!
18. Grand : MAJESTICAL
19. Jargon ending : ESE - e.g. if you're a lawyer, it's legalese
20. Buffs : FANS
21. Complicated account : SAGA
22. Group that might bug you : SPY RING - har-har; eavesdropping bug
24. Actor/director with two Emmys and two Razzies : SHATNER - William; I was just watching Airplane 2 - the sequel in DE
"No tower~?"
27. Winter warmers : COCOAS
28. Thirteenth Amendment beneficiary : SLAVE
29. Be ready for : AWAIT
30. 1935 FDR dedication : HOOVER DAM
34. Net grazer : LET - tennis
35. Body style : COUPE - SEDAN fit, too - 20% correct-ish; another 'ansecho' with
49. Overthrow : COUP - meh. I think of this as the group, not the act
36. Raised-barn connection : IN A - Were you raised in a barn or what~?
28. Thirteenth Amendment beneficiary : SLAVE
29. Be ready for : AWAIT
30. 1935 FDR dedication : HOOVER DAM
34. Net grazer : LET - tennis
35. Body style : COUPE - SEDAN fit, too - 20% correct-ish; another 'ansecho' with
49. Overthrow : COUP - meh. I think of this as the group, not the act
36. Raised-barn connection : IN A - Were you raised in a barn or what~?
37. Former : ERSTWHILE
40. Member of a strict Jewish sect : HASID
42. "Not interested" : I PASS - the trip to DE was so much faster with EZ Pass
43. Give up : VACATE
44. Grotte de Cussac attraction : CAVE ART - Frawnche art; reminds me of this Steely Dan song
Caves of Altamira
47. Xenon, e.g. : RARE GAS - well, I knew it was "a" gas, but NOBLE and INERT did not fit
48. Urgent letters : A.S.A.P.
48. Urgent letters : A.S.A.P.
50. Scoreboard letters : R H E - baseball for C.C.; Runs, Hits, Errors - I had the "H", thought it might be CHI for the white sox or cubs
51. Anticipatory reaction : SALIVATING
55. It pulls a bit : REIN - literally; very clever
57. They're trapped in pots : EELS
58. Endurance event facility : AID STATION
59. Unoccupied : IDLE
DOWN:
1. Union concern : WAGE SCALE - the UPS union is giving me grief right now
3. Some strays : ALLEY CATS
4. "Snow White" collectible : CEL
5. Many Shakespearean characters : ROMANS
6. Malaysian native : ORANG
7. Short and sweet, e.g.: Abbr. : ADJectiveS
8. River to Aberdeen : DEE - cheeeeted~!
9. Their offices often have small rms. : DRs
10. Down : EAT - ah, not the "SAD" kind
11. Marathoner's misfortune : BLISTER - I get blisters raking in the fall
12. Costa __ : RICAN - nice misdirection with the "N"
13. Picture : IMAGE - wouldn't be Saturday without a gratuitous image
4. "Snow White" collectible : CEL
5. Many Shakespearean characters : ROMANS
6. Malaysian native : ORANG
7. Short and sweet, e.g.: Abbr. : ADJectiveS
8. River to Aberdeen : DEE - cheeeeted~!
9. Their offices often have small rms. : DRs
10. Down : EAT - ah, not the "SAD" kind
11. Marathoner's misfortune : BLISTER - I get blisters raking in the fall
12. Costa __ : RICAN - nice misdirection with the "N"
13. Picture : IMAGE - wouldn't be Saturday without a gratuitous image
14. __ year : SOLAR
20. Royal decree : FIAT
23. French royal : ROI - dammit~! can't escape the Frawnche
24. Skiing need : SLOPE
25. Give birth to : HAVE
26. Boston's Mass __ : AVE
28. People : SOULS
30. Lift up : HOIST
31. Differed : DISAGREED
32. Witness in 1991 Senate hearings : ANITA HILL
35. Burn slightly : CHAR
38. Haberdashery supply : TIEPINS
39. Employment org. created in 1935 : WPA
40. Dwell (on) : HARP
41. It's not returned : ACE - more net sport 'jargon'
43. Orchestra leader Billy : VAUGHN
44. "Speak, hands, for me!" speaker : CASCA - Et tu, Brute~? is the "next" line in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar
45. Japanese beer brand : ASAHI - got it because it was in a recent puzzle
46. Legitimate : VALID
47. "But wait! There's more!" company : RONCO - the Wiki
49. Bank opening? : CITI - Citibank - in the news this week; ordered to pay out $700mil
52. Storage unit : VAT
53. Triumphant reaction : "A-HA~!"
54. Mild rebuke : TUT
55. "Get outside yourself" company : REI - had this some Saturdays ago - not that I remembered this outdoor company
20. Royal decree : FIAT
23. French royal : ROI - dammit~! can't escape the Frawnche
24. Skiing need : SLOPE
25. Give birth to : HAVE
26. Boston's Mass __ : AVE
28. People : SOULS
30. Lift up : HOIST
31. Differed : DISAGREED
32. Witness in 1991 Senate hearings : ANITA HILL
35. Burn slightly : CHAR
38. Haberdashery supply : TIEPINS
39. Employment org. created in 1935 : WPA
40. Dwell (on) : HARP
41. It's not returned : ACE - more net sport 'jargon'
43. Orchestra leader Billy : VAUGHN
44. "Speak, hands, for me!" speaker : CASCA - Et tu, Brute~? is the "next" line in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar
45. Japanese beer brand : ASAHI - got it because it was in a recent puzzle
46. Legitimate : VALID
47. "But wait! There's more!" company : RONCO - the Wiki
49. Bank opening? : CITI - Citibank - in the news this week; ordered to pay out $700mil
52. Storage unit : VAT
53. Triumphant reaction : "A-HA~!"
54. Mild rebuke : TUT
55. "Get outside yourself" company : REI - had this some Saturdays ago - not that I remembered this outdoor company
Splynter
Got it all! DIvergEnt instead of DISAGREED held me up in the SE, and the NW was last to fill, but no look-ups or reds!
ReplyDeleteProblems with children will always besiege us,
Like kids who leave doors open wide to the breezes.
Pity Mary of old
Who tried to scold,
"Were you born IN A BARN?" "Why, yes," answered Jesus!
Morning, all!
ReplyDeleteThis one was beyond me, mostly due to the cluing (which I thought was unfairly obscure in places), and partly due to some obscurities I didn't know. Hmmm... that does sound like sour grapes, doesn't it? Let's just say I wasn't up to the task, then.
I managed to suss out the entire bottom section after some heavy lifting, but then I ran into real trouble. The NW almost killed me with the combination of AXLE, GILL and WAAC. I'm not into country music and could only think of Faith HILL for the singer, never thought of WAACs as being a "support group" and didn't realize that lynchpins were attached to AXLEs. Live and learn. Once I finally realized that 1D probably started with WAGE, however, I was able to get things done there.
The NE corner, however, completely flummoxed me. I had SAD at 10D, and that did me in all by itself. I could only think of RICA for something that went with COSTA, so that gave me a major D'OH moment after the fact. Absolutely could not come up with ORANGS for "Malaysian native." "Many" Shakespeare characters are Romans? I gues it depends on your definition of "many," but I just didn't think of it. And SOLAR year just didn't occur to me, either. All of which is to say I had a total fail in that section and had to turn on the red letter help and enter a bunch of random letters in spots to finally get through it.
Thanks for the workout, Gail!
Good morning!
ReplyDeleteMy Wite-Out got a Work-Out this morning, FERAL/ALLEY, SALIVATION/TING, SEDAN/COUPE, SEAR/CHAR, DRS/MDS. But I prevailed in the end, and in less than normal Saturday solving time. Therefore, I liked it. Otherwise, I'd probably be carping with Barry.
I turned in my EZ-Pass the week after I retired. I needed it for my commute, but I've only driven the tollway once since then. I never understood why they were allowed to force you to pay in advance, rather than billing you later for the tollgates you'd passed.
SOULS reminded me of helicopter flights in the Gulf of Mexico. The pilot would radio in reporting the number of SOB's (Souls-On-Board), right Dudley?
I remember those ANITA HILL hearings very well. I still think there was some truth to her testimony.
Time for that bike ride, before it becomes too hot to go outside.
I did this at 4:00 AM when I couldn't sleep. There was a sea of white for quite some time, but when I finally got a few toeholds it came together faster than most Saturdays. DEE was one of my first entries. Thankfully the unknowns all had good perps, GILL, REI, RONCO.
ReplyDeleteI was satisfied with COUP, as the answer to overthrow. I found no reference to COUP as a group, but plenty for coup as an act.
Definition:
1.a sudden and decisive change of government illegally or by force
2.a brilliant and notable success
My meh is 26D, Boston's Mass AVE. I realize the constructor (or Rich) was trying to be cute, but IMO it didn't come off well.
I like seeing COUPE and COUP, one beneath the other.
COCOA, AWAIT, LET, ERST were easy and led to AXIS POWERS which opened up the NW.
DO, I agree that there was some truth to the Anita Hill story.
Speaking of terrible highways, CT and NJ were way up there on the country's worst kept roads list. Having been property manager at my church for many years, I believe that long deferred maintenance is more costly in the end.
As YR indicates, "COUP" is a noun. "Overthrow" is a verb.
ReplyDeletePerhaps she meant to say she wasn't satisfied? Or was dissatisfied? Unsatisfied?
Hello Puzzlers -
ReplyDeleteI managed a legitimate no-peeky today, despite a wobbly start. First pass left few toeholds, but a close-enough guess with China Shelf allowed the SW to fill in quickly. Tried Major______ when Majestic was too short; really had to hold my nose when perps forced Majestical to emerge. Still, it's legit, so we move on.
Struggled to recall the names in the Thomas and Hill mess. What a circus!
D-Otto - that's right. "Number Aboard" is one of the the seventeen items on the FAA Flight Plan form, and when that item is spoken on the radio it's usually said as "Souls on board". Dunno the origins of the custom, but it seems universal.
Morning, Splynter - you've chosen some beautiful fuselages in your photos today! The woman against the piano is certainly luscious, but boy do I wish I could take the Mustang for a ride.
Total DNF. Never heard of REI, but that was relatively minor. Also, like Barry, never thought of WAACs as a "support group". Anyway, the whole CW was like that for me. I got about a third of the fill, then was just at a loss. A real back breaker for this old fart.
ReplyDeleteSeems we've heard of "an overthrow". If so, overthrow could be a noun as easily as a verb.
ReplyDeleteAnon @ 7:55, What?? You missed my point. I meant that I was supremely satisfied. Overthrow is also a noun. Dudley concurs. A sudden overthrow of the government would cause chaos. The thesaurus gives OVERTHROW (the noun) as a synonym for COUP.
ReplyDeleteI'm off to the gym.
My apologies to YR. I missed Splynter's reference to the group/act "problem".
ReplyDeleteGood Morning:
ReplyDeleteA typical Saturday stumper but I finished w/o help after a fashion. Only w/o was parkas/cocoas. Didn't remember REI but it filled itself in.
Thanks Gail and Splynter for a fine job, as usual.
Have a great day.
Good Morning.
ReplyDeleteI had a fairly difficult run here, but I hung in there and slowly, very slowly, everything fell into place. I liked ORANG. That northeast corner did me in. I thought everything was fair; I wasn't functioning at full tilt. Thanks, Gail.
Perhaps WAACS were support because they were none combat. (??) Splynter, thanks for the tour around the grid.
Have a fine day, all.
I pretty much had the same problems as Barry. Did the "red letter rumba" to get enough letters to get the fills. Especially NW.
ReplyDeleteCleveland, where I am from, and Akron were just on a list of cities with worst roads, 50% weren't up to par.
Jargonese would he like saying Italianese doesn't make sense. Await doesnt imply ready for. There are few Roman Shakespearean characters. I put clowns. What happened to Never Wave at a Wac..
ReplyDeleteYes, a real workout, but finished. Nice challenge, Gail. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteSplynter, thanks for the write-up. As usual, on the spot! And it wouldn't be a Saturday blog without your "IMAGE"s and Frawnch!
No, no jargonese. ESE is a suffix and jargon is the language peculiar to a particular trade, profession, or group: i.e., CROSSWORDESE.
ReplyDeleteGood morning everyone.
ReplyDeleteSame experience as Splynter - NE was slow to finish. Also looked up DEE in my puzzle book. Had 'tale' before SAGA. Remembered ASAHI from a couple weeks ago.
EELS - When I was a kid, fishermen who had my Dad's permission to fish off his property would catch unwanted EELS by fish hooks when they were fishing for bass, perch or sunfish. They would give the eels to my Dad and my Mom would fry them up for a delicious lunch. Kind of a quid pro quo.
Hmm, my experience with this puzzling puzzle was pretty much summed up at 1A.
ReplyDeleteWWII support group, all I could think of was USO,
but I could not remember the correct letters...
Ouch!
Hey Dudley! Here is a Flight of Fancy... in HD!
If you are a flight enthusiast, be sure to click on "part two" at the end of the above video.
ReplyDeleteThere are better views of the outside of the plane,
& better yet, you can really hear the Merlin engine. (It really does purr...)
I must give give Dr. Ken Wagner credit, to stand on the wing for two hours
while the world crams their butt into your plane requires the endurance of a 7 hour flight!
I must say, I gave it my best effort, but it got me.
ReplyDeleteWent all the way to 44A, and then hit a wall. This Grotte de Cussac clue was unfamiliar. In N.Y. I always used the term "breakfront", not CHINAHUTCH (never heard of this), and that is what I entered in confidently at 56A.
CASCHA, ASAHI. RONCHO, VAUGHN were unknowns which added to my demise. It's interesting that some bloggers were stumped by the NW, which I found easy, and where I failed, the SW, was a no biggie to others.
To summarize....I found todays's offering a good challenge. Very fair clues, yet Saturday worthy. Maybe someday I will finish the entire puzzle. One can only wish.
It has been raining here for two days and will continue on and off throughout the rest of the weekend. Only the ducks and flowers are happy. The gray skies get me depressed and physically uncomfortable, because I have Seasonal Affective Disorder. If it's not sunny and warm, neither am I.
That being said, I wish all my fellow CW'ers a pleasant weekend.
Sat Constructors: 363; -T: 2.
ReplyDeleteAnd today is not one of two.
Pass 1: 1d - the south?, gray force?, um...; 4d - Doc(?), 9d - DRS, 10d - sad(?)... 22a Colony(?), 27a - gloves(?). 28a SLAVE, AVE, 24d - SLOPE, 35a COUPE/35d CHAR... I can get this!... Not.
32d - cake - she taught at OU after the hearings and, like D-O said, I there's something there re: the silent Justice. That gave me INA barn. (OKL - Funny poem!). ASAP had me ink in ASAnI. I still stand a chance!
Same thoughts as Splynter @47a - ????GAS.
Fun aside, DW & I were playing Scrabble w/ our college mates. I played Xenon for a bucket of points and was challenged. Science wins again! :-)
Fun aside 2, While with the DOD, our unit office'd out of the old WAAC barracks at TAFB. This area was separated from the main base by about 2 miles; it was called "The HILL."
Pass 2: Googled 17a - oh, not Doc, but CEL...
Pass 3: After 2.5+ hrs noodlin'... Car Talk is over & WWDTM is on; TITT.
Ol' Man Keith (OMK) what about the emoting SHATNER question from Thrus? Emoting good or bad in acting?
Thanks Splynter for the answers & a Tip O' Th' Hat to those that nailed this. Gail, I had some fun with your offering; ++SatConstructors;
Cheers, -T
I had QUEENS before ROMANS, and not sure why. My experience as a Shakespearean actor should have helped me; I have played two Romans-- and not a single queen.
ReplyDeleteMy quickest fills were WAAC, COCOAS, SLAVE, HASID, and REIN. The clue for REIN ("It pulls a bit") was fun. Still, I got it right away, w/o perps. There was a time when it might have thrown me, but alas, I have become jaded.
Needed every perp I could get, but finished without any cheats. Also had to work my way up from the bottom of the grid. While solving, I had a few grumbles regarding some clues/answers, but after looking back at it everything seems pretty fair, although I, too, thought the overthrow/coup thing was inconsistent.
ReplyDeleteMan, this constant rain and gray skies is getting old already. Sunshine State my, @$$.
I thought this was a bit tough, then all of a sudden I was done.
ReplyDeleteThe only rub was at 49/52/53/54 down where I had slot/bin then can/oho/tsk before sussing it out. Not bad for a Saturday.
Anonymous T @ 12:32,
ReplyDeleteEmoting is generally thought to be a bad thing. The least offensive definition is "giving off emotions," and that would seem to be neutral, innocuous, because we know actors must emit emotions. But in the context of professional acting, it means "overdoing" or "faking" one's feelings.
We count emotions as genuine when they are NOT the direct object of an actor's effort, but simply the natural (organic) byproduct of a character who is trying to achieve something and runs into an obstacle. In the language of Stanislavsky, you concentrate on your character's intention so completely that whether you win your goal or are thwarted, your automatic emotional response will be honest.
Got a good run for my money today. Finished a bit battered and bruised, particularly from the NE corner, but ultimately I triumphed entirely offline and unassisted.
ReplyDelete2nd hand up for having to hold nose on "majestical", which even this blog's spell checker finds noxious. The perps helped confirm it as the way to go. After finishing, I looked it up and found to my surprise the word was indeed legit, though a bit archaic. I also learned that the adverbial form is "majestiCALly", not "majestiCLY" as I'd erroneously thought. Not that the "al" stands out much in any online pronunciation I found.
Generally, a fair and fair crossword.
ReplyDeleteI liked "net grazer". I had not seen that one before, and close to ACE. We might have had a royal mini-theme with FIAT, ROI (Frawnche), REI (Portuguese), and TUT…...
HUTCH is not used in the sense of a cabinet in the UK&Comm., so CHINA HUTCH was new to me. The US usage is the original meaning, but they diverged after independence.
PEDANT'S CORNER:
1. ORANG clued as "malaysian native" seems to be stepping on dangerous ground. ORANG now seems to be standard shorthand for the great ape, ORANG-UTAN(G) (literally "Man of the Forest"), which is native to Borneo and Sumatra. A collective term for Malaysian people is ORANG ASLI. This leaves ORANG as a potentially derogatory term……down the slippery SLOPE, one might venture....
2. Aberdeen means "mouth of the (river) Dee", so the answer is in the clue. In fact, the city lies at the confluence of 2 rivers, the Dee and the Don, and the adjectival form for the city is "Aberdonian.
3. Linchpin (or Lynchpin) is rarely used in its literal form now (chiefly figurative). It was the pin at the END OF THE AXLE that held the wheel on wagons, etc. So the clue is OK but somewhat vague.
4. Xenon: RARE GAS is rarely used. NOBLE or INERT are standard descriptors (they include Helium, Neon and Argon). I cannot imagine a native of Las Vegas describing NEON as a rare gas...
5. You do not NEED a SLOPE to SKI. Cross-country skiing is a fairly flat affair.
5. DIFFERED at its root is a DIS- word, so clue and answer begin with the same element, etymologically speaking.
TTFN
NC
OMK - Thanks for the clarification. So, real character emotions (x dies, I'm sad) are not emote, but emote is hamming it up (oh, my, what shall I dooooo...).
ReplyDeleteCuppa - I've been to Aberdeen and did not know that. Now I do (for now anyway). Thanks. You're spot on, Neon is not RARE in Vegas.
Know your gasses on the right side of the periodic table. All their electrons are happy not to wonder about w/ other atoms. Very Noble of them I think.
Cheers, -T
We had a rabbit hutch in our backyard when I was a kid (to hold our 20+ rabbits), but I've never heard of a CHINA HUTCH before. Around here, we just call it a china cabinet.
ReplyDeleteSlowly, slowly, it all fell into place. Some stuff that seems barely in-the-language (ORDER A LIMO?) but a good hard Saturday. I almost gave up on the NW before some ethereal spirit gave me a brain nudge and WAGE SCALE somehow came out.
ReplyDeleteI simply could not get on Gail's wavelength today. Even after 3 passes the grid was mostly unfilled. I just couldn't figure out what the heck most of the clues were pointing to. The "factual" ones, such as the Razzies, FDR dedication, river to Aberdeen, and orchestra leader Billy, for example, also stymied me. A big fat CNF.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, I really did nor like COUP, not only because COUPE was also in there, but also because I couldn't let go of the idea that "coup" is a noun, not a verb meaning to overthrow. Double strike on that one.
I did finally, after looking up a good 50% of the answers, manage to write a letter in each square, but by then the fun had gone out of it.
Tough challenge today. I'm glad I do these online or (like d-otto) would have used a lot of Wite-Out. Needed to guess to open up several sections, and quite a few of the guesses were wrong. I recall yArn and tAle before SAGA, raISe before HOIST, mdS before DRS, sAd before EAT, bin before VAT, sedan before COUPE, acCedE before VACATE...I'm sure there were more. Didn't like majestical or AXIS POWER. Somehow the grid ended up being filled in about the usual time.
ReplyDeleteThanks Gail and Splynter. Loved the SHATNER clip and the piano legs.
ReplyDeleteHi all.
If CED can sum up his effort as 1A, mine could pretty much be summed up as 2A ROAD DEBRIS. Well, maybe not, but it wasn't easy. Got through most of it, but finally gave up and changed the game to regular.
Found out I didn't have the correct answer for "Actor/director with two Emmys and two Razzies." Thought COSTNER was pretty solid with ---TNER that I was working with.
At that point in time, the 1935 FDR Dedication was at Boulder Dam, was it not ? Didn't we have that discussion on this blog ?
Too tough for me today in the SE & SW. I knew it would happen when I did the NW in about 1 minute. Ron Popeil's RONCO (also a brand of pasta), HRE, & REIN was all I could manage. I misspelled HASID as HACID, never heard of Billy VAUGHN, REI, and know INERT and NOBLE GAS, but RARE GAS??? ANITA HILL- just one of 536 liars that happened to be on Capitol Hill back in 1991.
ReplyDeleteThe crosses of CAVE ART and CASCA got me as they were both unknowns. I had to read Julius Caesar back in '65 and might have remembered more if the words were in 'English' that this teenager could have understood. I would have gone to my grave before filling SALIVATING. As for Endurance event facility, I kept wrongly thinking PIT STOP___ instead of AID STATION and the only thing I could think of ending in CP was NAACP, which would have been as good as CASCA in my book. So the top 2/3 filled easily but sputtered and died at the end.
But Saturday puzzles are supposed to be tough.
Sycamore- if you want bad roads, come to New Orleans. 90% are bad and the other 10% are undriveable.
ReplyDeleteNice Cuppa- if you had ever played much tennis, NET GRAZER would have been a gimme. Everybody I played with would say ' the serve grazed the net, LET'
TTP- I initially wrote COSTNER for SHATNER and RAISE for HOIST but had to write over both when I remembered 'BOULDER',aka HOOVER, DAM, as my dad called it.
I played golf with grandson at 7 am, came home, ate lunch took two grandsons bowling and worked this marvelous puzzle in between. NW fell last. Wow!
ReplyDeleteNow the six of us are off to Omaha to see the Omaha Storm Chasers (KC farm team) play. Hope to comment later or tomorrow on Gail’s puzzle. Bye!
"ANITA HILL- just one of 536 liars that happened to be on Capitol Hill back in 1991.
ReplyDeleteBig Easy, you're a credit to New Orleans.
Anon@10:16 -- Not jargonese, the clue meant legalese and crosswordese are jargon. (Argyle already got this).
ReplyDeleteJulius Ceaser (featuring CASCA), Anthony and Cleopatra, Titus Andronicus, just off the top of my head. I'd say those qualify as having many ROMAN characters. (I originally had ROYALS).
Hand up for not liking COUP, tho in a puzzle with COUPE is fine (too bad we didn't have dove's COO or chicken COOP or Surgeon Gen. KOOP...).
CHINA cupboard, cabinet, closet -- all are more familiar to than HUTCH, but I knew that one too.
"Speak, hands, for me!" = HELEN (Keller). oops.
As usual, Saturday puzzles are beyond my current solving ability. A good puzzle, Gail G. Thanks for the expo, Splynter.
ReplyDeleteI wanted to comment on 58a:Endurance event facility--AID STATION. My daughter's boyfriend is running the Burning River 100 MILE Race! (Most people who know him think he's crazy!) There are 20 aid stations. Let's hope he doesn't get 11d: Marathoner's misfortune--BLISTERs. The race started at 4 am EDT and ends no later than 10 am Sunday.
Happy weekend!
Pat
This one beat me up bad. HTG twice for cave art and Casca, which gave me enough to fill it, but still failed with Carp and Make Sense, which gave me Casik for 40a, which I accepted due to fatigue. So, BZZZT all around.
ReplyDeleteUp bright and early today at 3:55 due to a 400 mile round trip to a funeral for a friends mother. I had already failed miserably before any posts were made, but felt no compulsion to confess defeat before anyone else, so just catching up now. Long day. Buenos noches.
I don't do well on Saturday puzzles, unfortunately.
ReplyDeleteWhat or who is REI company?
EELS in pots....What? We don't have many EELS in Kansas.
The CHINA HUTCH is the shelves (possibly glassed-in) that sits on the china cabinet. Usually can purchase separately or together.
@Blue Iris - REI stand for Recreational Equipment, Inc. -- they sell things for outdoor activities - clothing, tents, mountain bikes, kayaks, etc.
ReplyDeleteEnjoyed the challenge of this puzzle, but WEES about the northern section. Still appreciated the work that went into this puzzle.
Up later waiting for my husband to get home from cycling across Iowa in the RAGBRAI - he thinks REI is a great store, not surprisingly @Blue Iris!
Thanks, Splynter and Gail
Beautiful constructed and a great challenge. Took a while but I finished with nary a Google.
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