Words: 70 (missing J,Q,Z)
Blocks: 26
This is my second SJSJ puzzle, the last one being back in Jan of '13.
Very similar grids, with a crossing spanner and climber, triple
10-letter corners in the across, but today we have triple 8's in the
down. I did not get my "ta-DA~!" because of one letter, and switching
to red-letters revealed one other mistake - at the crossing of proper
names, which was the only fun-sponge today. The long answers:
35a. Dynamo's asset : BOUNDLESS ENERGY
8d. Brand with a Magicube : KODAK INSTAMATIC
ON(3-day weekend)WARD~!
ACROSS:
1. Instruments mentioned in the Beatles' "Back in the USSR" : BALALAIKAS - the line is at 2:12 of the clip; my Moscow girl did not get out to the USofA....and a semi-clecho at; 19a. USSR component : SOVIET
16. Nebula Award winner Frederik : POHL - filled via perps
17. Hanging aid : STUD FINDER - I can't keep one in my tool box or van, because I keep setting it off....oh, come on, that's funny. At least C.C. appreciates it~!!
18. Gin flavoring : SLOE
20. Direction at sea : ALEE
22. "Cat __ Hot Tin Roof" : ON A
23. It can be added to a million but rarely to a thousand : AIRE - millionaire, thousandaire
24. Ham's transport? : ARK - oh, I thought I was so clever putting in RYE, too. This is Noah's son, however, and I thought "EGG" was a good answer, as well
26. Woodworking tool : PLANER - don't have one, would like one - and a lathe, too.
28. Adopt : USE - I tried "OWN"
29. Atheist activist Madalyn : O'HAIR - never heard of her, and my first proper name problem; her Wiki
31. Mil. squad leaders : S-SGTs
32. Phys ed teacher Leonard for whom a band was named : SKINNER - Lynyrd Skynyrd for those who did not know; I learned it from the VH-1 rockumentary. I did not, however, remember how to spell his name, or the band's, for that matter....
34. Maximum : PEAK
39. Tolstoy title first name : ANNA
40. Be less critical of : LET UP ON
41. Narrow landforms : NECKS -there's lots of land forms called necks here on Long Island
43. Do doer : SALON - I pondered BRUSH
44. Baker's amt. : TSP
47. Hailing from Changwon, say : KOREAN - half perps and WAG
49. Hood et al.: Abbr. : MTs
50. Mascot Misha of the 1980 Olympics, e.g. : BEAR - более России (more Russian)
52. Groups for biologists : TAXA
54. Italian road : STRADA
56. Internet letters : HTTP
58. On tap : AT THE READY
60. Yet to be settled : OWED
61. Gives up : CRIES UNCLE - I had -----UNDER to start, slowed down the SE
62. Start of a tennis point : TOSS - dah~! Not LOVE
63. One to follow : PACE SETTER
DOWN:
1. Half an African country, or its capital city : BISSAU
3. Where the Mona Lisa smiles : LOUVRE - le Frawnche musée
4. Bill's "Groundhog Day" co-star : ANDIE - Murray & MacDowell
5. "That's __" : LIFE
6. Subject of the 2013 documentary subtitled "Speaking Truth to Power" : ANITA HILL - the other proper name that got me
7. Slot in a car: Abbr. : IGNition - took too long to figure out
9. Writer of really old stories? : AUEL - did not know her; I do recall the title "Clan of the Cave Bear". I just read The Golden Compass, and now I am on to book II; side note, two stars from the movie also appeared in Casino Royale
10. Throat trouble : STREP
11. Increases : UPs -OK, I shall up this week's leg picture, by request, to a non-skinny, "gams with meat" girl
12. Not anymore : NO LONGER
13. Frustrating sequence : PHONE TAG
14. Blue forecast : CLEAR SKY
21. "The Big Easy" of golf : ELS - good WAG
25. Eastern royals : RANEES
27. Winter X Games host : ASPEN - I was not sure if this was the "X" games, or the tenth Olympic games - which, as I looked later, were held in Grenoble, France, 1968
29. Approved : OK'D - OKed, IDed/ID'd, I sometimes wonder which one is "OK"
30. Outcome : RESULT
32. Charmer's target : SNAKE - snake charmer
33. Take back : REPOSSESS
35. Strategy involving a cushion : BANK SHOT - ah, billiard table cushions
36. Less than a few : ONE OR TWO
37. Opens at the warehouse : UNCRATES
38. Confrontational start : NON - non-confrontational
42. Met : SAT
44. Legislation opposed by the Sons of Liberty : TEA ACT
45. Burden : SADDLE - I got "saddled" with sorting this week at UPS, so that a trainee could work my assignment; I think he should have been trained before this holiday week. I am just glad to have reached my first three-day weekend of the year - but now we're into Cidiot Season....
46. Slight chance : PRAYER
48. Org. founded on the 100th anniversary of Lincoln's birth : NAACP - seems fitting
50. Sportscaster Musburger : BRENT
53. More, in ads : X-TRA
55. In alignment : TRUE - gotta keep my studs level and true - the bathroom project progresses, and yesterday I began the process of moving in to my new space~!
57. APB senders : PDs - All Points Bulletin, and Police Departments
59. Half a bray : HEE - did you try the other half, HAW~??
4. Bill's "Groundhog Day" co-star : ANDIE - Murray & MacDowell
5. "That's __" : LIFE
6. Subject of the 2013 documentary subtitled "Speaking Truth to Power" : ANITA HILL - the other proper name that got me
7. Slot in a car: Abbr. : IGNition - took too long to figure out
9. Writer of really old stories? : AUEL - did not know her; I do recall the title "Clan of the Cave Bear". I just read The Golden Compass, and now I am on to book II; side note, two stars from the movie also appeared in Casino Royale
10. Throat trouble : STREP
11. Increases : UPs -OK, I shall up this week's leg picture, by request, to a non-skinny, "gams with meat" girl
Charlotte~!
12. Not anymore : NO LONGER
13. Frustrating sequence : PHONE TAG
14. Blue forecast : CLEAR SKY
21. "The Big Easy" of golf : ELS - good WAG
25. Eastern royals : RANEES
27. Winter X Games host : ASPEN - I was not sure if this was the "X" games, or the tenth Olympic games - which, as I looked later, were held in Grenoble, France, 1968
29. Approved : OK'D - OKed, IDed/ID'd, I sometimes wonder which one is "OK"
30. Outcome : RESULT
32. Charmer's target : SNAKE - snake charmer
33. Take back : REPOSSESS
35. Strategy involving a cushion : BANK SHOT - ah, billiard table cushions
37. Opens at the warehouse : UNCRATES
38. Confrontational start : NON - non-confrontational
42. Met : SAT
44. Legislation opposed by the Sons of Liberty : TEA ACT
45. Burden : SADDLE - I got "saddled" with sorting this week at UPS, so that a trainee could work my assignment; I think he should have been trained before this holiday week. I am just glad to have reached my first three-day weekend of the year - but now we're into Cidiot Season....
46. Slight chance : PRAYER
48. Org. founded on the 100th anniversary of Lincoln's birth : NAACP - seems fitting
50. Sportscaster Musburger : BRENT
53. More, in ads : X-TRA
55. In alignment : TRUE - gotta keep my studs level and true - the bathroom project progresses, and yesterday I began the process of moving in to my new space~!
57. APB senders : PDs - All Points Bulletin, and Police Departments
59. Half a bray : HEE - did you try the other half, HAW~??
Splynter
43 comments:
Greetings!
Thanks, Steven, for a workable Saturday! Thanks, Splynter!
One cheat--looked up ANDIE. Rest followed from several WAGs. Really need to catch some zzzs.
Cheers!
I notice that my Friday post disappeared. Why?
At any rate, I worked that one w/o cheats and made a few pithy comments.
Not the first time that this has happened. (Used computer.)
{C-, B+, D+, A-.}
Imagine PHONE TAG on the ARK,
Tracking zebu and sloth and aardvark!
"What? Again the voice mail?"
"Shem has SNAKE by the tail!"
"Hey, Ham, get that BEAR in before dark!"
Some days, the puzzles have claws!
Wite-out, like iodine, covers flaws!
Other days, smooth as rayon,
You could work them in crayon!
The constructor's truculence is the cause!
This poem that you're reading now
Is about the Guinea town of BISSAU.
They speak Portuguese.
They have a sea breeze.
If there's more to say, I don't know how.
I went to a SALON for a do.
There were others in line, ONE OR TWO.
As I sat in the chair,
I lamented, "O, HAIR,
I love thee NO LONGER, it's TRUE!"
I'll claim a win on this one, though it is a no-bell prize. The lack of a ta-da alerted me that I wasn't quite done. I'd misspelt SKINNER. I knew Lynyrd Skynyrd was named after a teacher, but not that they had altered the spelling so much.
A rare day when names actually helped me. Being a sci-fi fan, I knew Fred POHL, and though I never read her books, I'm still familiar with AUEL as well. IIRC, her name pronounced just like owl, so I could have put her on Noah's ARK too.
Since my initials are OK, I always spell it as Okay!
Hmm. Yesterday I ended my last poem on "prayer", and today it's in the bottom-right corner!
Hello Puzzlers -
This went fast for a Saturday, the only speed bumps being Bissau (never heard of it) and O'Hair (which just looks wrong).
Morning, Splynter, I smiled out loud at the stud finder joke. Some years ago a good looking single woman asked for my help putting up utility hooks, so I brought a stud finder over to her place, saying it found me...didn't work.
Morning, all!
This one beat me up, but didn't quite take my lunch. BISSAU was a complete unknown and just looked wrong, but the perps insisted. My biggest problem was in the center where I misspelled O'HAIR as O'HARE and went with SKYNARD instead of SKINNER. That made KODAK INSTAMATIC impossible to see and gave me ERSULT for 30D, which I knew couldn't possibly be right, but it took awhile before I could dig myself out of that particular hole. Sadly, it also gave me DEPOSSESS, which I just automatically accepted as a real word...
Everything else was slow, but steady today. No nits, just a lot of thinking required. In other words, exactly what a Saturday puzzle should be like.
Well, I got 'er done, but it took a few cheats, and a few WAGs. Overall, though, I did better than usual for a Saturday, in fact kinda surprised myself. Got distracted in the middle and had to Google O'Hair to recall what her fate was. I knew she'd been murdered, but couldn't remember the details. Anyway, overall a fun, difficult but doable Saturday, thanx, Steven. Another great write-up, too, thanx, Splynter! Owen, D,C,C,B. Always better than I could do, but yesterday and today you don't seem to be in top form. Still made me smile, though, so thanx!
Good morning!
SJ² drew blood this morning, but I stanched the wounds and battled on to victory. The first three downs were all foreign words. Doesn't that come under the "cruel and unusual punishment" heading? Bet we hear from Abejo on that score. Remembered AUEL, and POHL was a gimme.
Hand up for trying "Skynyrd," but I did remember how to spell OHAIR, so Leonard didn't slow me down too much. Madlyn was at one time the "most hated woman in America." She was assassinated in San Antonio about 20 years ago.
UNPC -- I mentioned the sign at the county park "This dumpster for seniors only." Fortunately, I'm unaware of any bodies being dumped at the site.
Splynter, sorry to hear that your attempt at Detente was foiled. Heavy rains isolated our little town this week, and my scheduled Thursday UPS delivery from Amazon has been delayed. Should arrive today. BTW, just what is "cidiot season?"
I always forget if it's Andie or Addie. Finally got ANDIE with IRONING OUT. Also put SAW for MET giving a strange group for biologists. Finally saw the light here too.
Whoa! That was a toughie. Thanks, Steven for the challenge. I did it ever so slowly. I threw Ramis in for ANDIE, mixing first and last names. Duh! All the entries eventually made perfect sense. I especially liked BOUNDLESS ENERGY, PRAYER, and IRONING OUT. Immediately I wondered what Splynter would say about the STUD FINDER--not disappointed, a good chuckle.
Thanks for the tour, Splynter. Didn't get the legs here. Wondered if it was Princess Charlotte with her pre-toddler chubby legs.
Have a pleasant weekend. In my experience as a lifetime resident of the Chicago area, it almost always rains on Memorial Day weekend at some point.
Sylvania and Kodak were separate companies. The KODAK INSTAMATIC used Magicube but it was not a Kodak product.
The NW was blank for a long time with only SOVIET being filled. I knew BISSAU but not the correct spelling and AUEL just looked wrong but it was the only thing that would fit in the other fills. I go started in the center with OHAIR and SKINNER and worked outward in all directions, with the SW being easy fills for a Saturday. After some struggles this week,and looking at all the white spaces, thinking that I didn't have a PRAYER, I was NO LONGER about to CR(IES) UNCLE this morning.
I know my taxonamy (K,P,C,O,F,G,S) fairly well but never knew there was a taxon or TAXA; live and learn. Other unknowns luckily filled by perps were ANDIE, POHL, ASPEN, and ANITA was a good guess after HILL was filled by perps. I remember watching her testify back in the 90s, and to be very UN-PC, she looked and sounded delusional.
Splynter- where are the legs??? Charlotte doesn't show.
The woodworking tool is a PLANE, not a PLANER. I guess you might call the guy using it a PLANER. . . .
Thank you SJSJ and Splynter. A challenge today.
Spent an inordinate amount of time IRONING OUT a couple of areas that just didn't want to get solved. In the end, I didn't have a PRAYER of a chance at the intersection of BISSAU and BALALAIKAS. That last A was also a BEAR.
ANITA HILL was either an answer or referenced in a clue in another puzzle in the last couple of days.
Madalyn Murray O'HAIR was a polarizing figure and was often the lead story on the local news stations and in the newspapers in Bible Belt Central Texas. There was a palpable disdain for the manner in which she promoted her views. Upon her disappearance, there was speculation that she had fleeced the funds of her organization and had gone into hiding under fear of death threats. Her story and demise have been the subject of a number of news magazine television programs and docudramas.
I have 5 of those Stella ARTOIS glasses AT THE READY. Had 6. NO LONGER.
Anon @ 9:20
I think they are referring to one of these, or, one of these,
rather than one of these. Does that help ?
Anon@9:20 -- the clue didn't state that it was a hand-tool. I'd love to have one of these. I can afford it, but I sure can't justify it.
Splynter: Excellent, informative write-up & links
SJSJ: Checked to see who was today's constructor, saw it was you, and I am glad to say I had a FUN Saturday solving experience.
Fave today, of course, was that Stella ARTOIS ... go figure.
Needed ESP (Every-Single-Perp) to get that "Half an African country" BISSAU, a learning moment, always a plus.
Stuck with a mid-80's, sunny, beautiful day again ... tears ...
Cheers!
Hi again~!
I'm with you on that planer, D-otto~!
I went in and fixed the Charlotte pic - not the one I had originally, which was a wallpaper link. Oh well.
Splynter
Good Morning:
This was a real challenge, even for a Saturday, but I managed to reach the Tada without help after much deliberation and, at times, consternation! I had A bundle of energy vs. boundless energy for way too long and ditto for O'Hare vs. O'Hair. Needed lots of perps in lots of areas which is the norm for Saturdays.
Thanks, (I think?) SJSJ, for keeping us on our toes, and thanks, Splynter, for the guided tour.
I'm sure I'm not the only Cornerite who misses Barry Silk. I always looked forward to the first Saturday of the month, knowing I was in for a treat with a Silkie puzzle to ponder. I hope he returns someday.
Have a great day.
Fun but challenging puzzle. I finished without help. USE was the last to fall. I never heard of BISSAU, all perps. As was ARTOIS, but seeing Splynter's picture of the Stella Artois glass or chalice, I realize I have seen them before. My older son has a collection of beer glasses.
I doubted the spelling of O'HAIR, but then remembered it because MADalyn O'HAIR made many people MAD, and, to use a not very popular idiom, SET THEIR HAIR ON FIRE, caused a lot of excitement.
You can see many examples of power PLANERs on Amazon.
Madame Defarge, a picture of the chubby legs of Princess Charlotte would be a good joke. I wonder whether that was the intent.
Alan went to the gym with me today, the first time he felt up to it in quite a while.
A very doable Saturday exercise where long fills were reasonable and helpful and shorter ones taxed my eraser.
Musings
-Kids with BOUNDLESS ENERGY can be a pain in the kazoo in school
-This amazed me when it came out
-I don’t really have any trouble with these PC conversions
-My boat turned PORT before turning ALEE
-A colleague had kids hold his (Jack) PLANE above his head for 15 min. if he didn’t lay it back down correctly (on its side)
-Madalyn got compulsory Bible reading out of schools to the delight and dismay of many
-The AutoSTRADA A1 connects Milan to Naples
-PACE SETTERS (aka Rabbits) in track
-Did anyone else find a Belgium and French word side by side that are easy to mispronounce?
-Our new car does not have that slot
-For good or ill, no PHONE TAG for me, as my iPhone is always within reach.
-I always think being NON-confrontational is best with kids. I’m the supposed adult
-Do you remember this tear-jerker film where a much of it took place in a SALON?
Fun write up Splynter. That sign gave me a good laugh.
I clued O'Hair as the golfer, but alas, Rich must have decided he's even less famous that Madalyn.
BISSAU is a good example of an entry where the constructor forgets how obscure a word is due to their own interests. I'm a Sporcle fan, and so I've played too many times the Countries of the World quiz, which has forced me to memorize some pretty remote place names. (There is also a capitals of the world quiz, which I'm much worse at, but for which BISSAU becomes a gimme.)
And BALALAIKAS is a good example of an entry that splits solvers into two groups. For Beatles fans, it's a softball. For everyone else, it's just about inscrutable. Then the K lands it the perfect spot to give you KODAK, if not the whole 8-Down.
ARK - Splynter, I can't wait for the puzzle where I can clue both ARK and RYE as Ham's transport!
I would love to finish a Saturday puzzle (or even a Friday).
Maybe you could make these end of week puzzles a WEE but easier?
I love my local paper. "...man arrested for allegedly drinking while intoxicated."
OKAY. Who okayed OKD without cluing abbreviation? Nice fun Saturday, started out hard and got easier.
Got-er-done, with great input from DH. Thanks SJSJ for a fun challenge today. Loved BOUNDLESSENERGY, BALALAIKAS, and CRIESUNCLE.
Great job, Splynter. Loved the sign as well!
Irish Miss, yes it would be good to see a Silkie Saturday again!
Good afternoon everyone.
Haven't had a CW from (SJ)² in a while. Today's offering was a fun solve, even though I had to return 3 times. Got SOVIET and PACE SETTER early, which allowed the solve to build out from there. On 1a, even tho I wasn't up on the Beatles title, USSR in the clue pointed to BALILAIKAS after BISSAU came into consideration. AUEL was a total unknown, so was gotten from the perps. Favorite fill was PHONE TAG. Liked ARTOIS but thought the 'half' in the clue was stretching it a bit. Like the beer but am annoyed they market it in 11½ oz bottles rather than the usual 12 oz.
IGN - My car uses no key; just a fob in your pocket that tells the car you are you when you're close enough.
Good puzzle.
Well, I did better today than yesterday--got the NE corner, the SW corner, and the middle without any cheating at all, and the rest with just a little help. Never heard of BISSAU or ARTOIS, or that Musburger dude, among others. But still, a fun puzzle with lots of clever clues--many thanks, SJSJ (I'm probably the only here who doesn't miss those dreaded Saturday Silkies). And thanks to you, too, Splynter, for a fun expo.
Owen, a great set of limericks this morning--thanks!
Have a great weekend, everybody!
It's 85 degrees in the house. I just turned the air on. Lovely clear weather, but too hot already. Alan wants to eat dinner on the patio, but I pulled rank and nixed that. I love those 70+ days we should have had most of May, when, instead, it was in the low 60's and quite cool. We went right from sweater days to swelter days with AC needed. Not many days with that wonderful mid-range I love. Truthfully we had some 70 degree readings in April, when cool was to be expected. Whacky weather. I hear it will be a long hot summer. I keep the house at 65 in the winter, so this winter I saved a bundle, which now I will spend on air. I am no hot house flower.
SSJ and Splynter, thanks for a delightful puzzle and expo. I enjoy the Silkies, but I like puzzles like this just as well, savoring the variety. Does any one else sense that doing puzzles on the same site for a long time familiarizes us with the editor's style and makes solving easier?
Good afternoon, folks. Thank you, Steven J. St. John, for a fine puzzle. Thank you, Splynter, for a fine review.
Worked on the for a couple hours this morning. Got 90 percent of it. All except the NW corner.
Wagged ANITA HILL. Had the HILL and ANITA rang a bell. Had LOUVRE. ARTOIS appeared after some thought. SOVIET and AIRE were the easiest of that corner. Perped and wagged my way through.
The two grid spanners were relatively easy. Thank goodness.
Liked BANK SHOT. Tried TEA TAX for a while. Then TEA ACT became obvious after I got CRIES UNCLE.
Had an error. Had SAW and WAXA. SAW looked OK, so I figured WAXA meant something. Turns out it was SAT and TAXA. When using the newspaper errors do not always get caught.
See you tomorrow.
Abejo
Hi All:
Took an hour to get the NE and smatterings about... TITT. Looking at Splynter's answers, I know I'd have never finished. Case points:
1. I can "hear" the whole song in my head - never understood what was ringing out way down south (Back in the USSR). Now I know. Thanks SJsJ.
2. I went with Fts @49a. I spent Desert Storm at Ft. Hood, TX.
3. I spelt Skynyrd like the band, not the man.
4. I was conflating Rubik's Magic Puzzle w/ his cube @8d and trying to 'cheat' off my cubes for a company name that's since rub'd off.
From what I got Fav: 56a. W/o the Hyper-Text Transport Protocol there'd be no blog / Crossword Corner.
Splynter - DW took my STUD FINDER after my fourth crack at that joke*. FWIW, I want a PLANER-jointer too but, like D-O, a project has yet to justify the $$.
I shoulda got 2d. Stella is one of my goto beers when pub'n. Even w/ most the perps I couldn't spell it ;-)
SJsJ - Thanks for your puzzle and for stopping by w/ inside-baseball. I didn't know the atheist and I wouldn't know the golfer either. But I had fun in the NE :-)
OKL - I think one of your accounts got corrupted. Check your email, er ENOTE.
Y'all have a great weekend. No one I've know has fallen but many of my friends & family fought. Salute.
Cheers, -T
*I think it's when I went over my middle bits and made it beep. She was not amused.
Solved but no love for what I consider arcane or plain incorrect clueing. Another constructor who seems to think the goal is to make sure it isn't solved, rather than giving clues that pose a chance to do so.
Robert- Not too long ago editors and constructors became tired of having Abbr. in the
clues. It's simply not elegant to see that abbreviation three or four times. It's better to just use an abbreviation to clue one. Such as "APB senders" for PDS. But it has changed in the last couple of years or so even more. OKD should be no problem to get. Once you have one of the letters, especially the K or the O, it's a snap. Solvers need to get used to this. I can see using an abbreviation in rare cases, but c'mon, do we really need to make the answers screamingly obvious? Not in my BK.
Just as I've made my peace with two-word fills, I'm now called on to accept LET UP ON for 40A. Yes, I know we've seen three-word responses before, but this one stuck in my craw, as it was central to the last-filled center section of today's pzl. Grr.
This was fun at the start. Somehow I grokked onto the long answers from the get-go, BOUNDLESS ENERGY and KODAK INSTAMATIC. And I am a happy drinker of Stella ARTOIS and a fan of both ANDIE McDowell and that smiling lass in the LOUVRE.
The middle, as I say, gave me the hardest time. Partly because of LET UP ON, but also because of that famous atheist, Madeline O'HAIR. I knew her name right away, but also that she was in the news most often spelled as O'HARE. And if you check the web you'll find her listed as O'HARA too. It's as if her anti-religion stance inflamed the spell-checkers of the various news media of her day.
Jerome, well said.
I got this one, but when I find Saturdays difficult I still appreciate something to aspire to. Please do not make them easier. When we stretch we
grow. We learn from our mistakes. The spectrum from very easy Mondays to difficult Saturdays offers something to many types of solvers. I do not consider this a gotcha or show off puzzle.
Oh, and yep, AT THE READY earned a bit of my scorn too.
I see Yellowrocks and Irish Miss and others picked up on the spelling problem with O'HARE/O'HAIR too. And TTP and others reminded us that Ms. O'H was a controversial figure who was in and out of the news for scandalous doings. As a teen, I was disturbed by her - just around the time I was growing more agnostic I particularly objected to the media exploiting her aggressive antics because of the impression it gave that all atheists were as hateful as she. It seemed to me then (and still does), that to be a non-theist hardly requires disdain for believers. Ms. O'H took it as her mission to debunk and defame religion. Her attacks earned her many enemies, and in the end she seemed a despicable person. Guilt-by-association tainted other more responsible atheists.
As I grow older I'm convinced that the burden of proof shouldn't fall to the non-believer.
As I often do, I find myself agreeing with many CC posters. Spitz, I agree about 11.5 oz. bottles. Other companies do it with coffee or 'pints' of ice cream. It seems dishonest. I rather they just charge an extra nickel or dime for their product. Misty, I agree about Silkies. I admire his skill at constructing themeless puzzles but I don't enjoy them much. Saturdays always seem like a red-letter slog to me.
Best wishes to all of the families of our veterans.
Anyone else irritated by SAT for 42D? WTF?
I wasn't irritated so much as I didn't understand it.
MET / SAT : was convened or in session, as an assembly.
I'm late to the dance, but this was such fun I just had to comment. No, I didn't finish! Definite DNF! But I enjoyed the challenge, and Im proud of the fills I did get. Thanks for the workout, SJSJ.
Splynter, your tour was wonderful! I did learn several new things.
Owen, today was a delight! How do you come up with these funny things day by day? Stop grading them! They are all delightful.
Irish Mist, I also miss Barry Silk. I almost never solved his whole puzzle, but they were fun!
Yellow Rocks, you said it so well. We do indeed need a spectrum from easy Monday to not-so-easy Saturday. That way everyone gets one day that they like! And we all get to grow.
Hi Y'all! Thanks, SJSJ & Splynter! The puzzle was a good learning experience while IRONING OUT all these fills. Felt like it took hours but only about half that with red letters redirections.
Russian music had to be BALALAIKAS immediately filled, but I was a little foggy on the spelling. Spent an enchanted afternoon once at a concert by a Russian folk music touring group. Loved the BALALAIKAS sound ala "Dr. Zhivago".
Didn't know BISSAU or ARTOIS. Looked them up. See Stella ARTOIS is nick-named "the wife beater beer". Well it sure beat up this former wife trying to fill a puzzle. Guinea-Bissau was once known as the "Slave Coast". Interesting.
I'd read several AUEL books but that didn't come to mind. Wanted Aesop but didn't fit.
Hand up for NOT missing Barry Silk at all! I think you need to live on the East Coast to "get" him.
"Frustrating sequence" wasn't "this clue" but PHONE TAG.
My little STUD FINDER doesn't work very well in this house built to 1950's gov. specs for military families with STUDs further between and fewer nails used than usual. Guess being soldiers, no other STUDS were needed.
I sure remember O"HAIR. Living in a small all-Christian town in the 1950's, I remember going to a prayer service devoted to anti-Madalyn rants.
Out here where there are comparatively little bodies of water, NECKS is only something one does in a parked car when young and single.
I couldn't think of ANITA HILL despite having been more-or-less forced into watching part of the Clarence Thomas hearings when I went to interview the city manager & his asst. who were "male chauvinistic pigs". After half an hour I walked out embarrassed. I am rarely embarrassed by anything. The hearings were definitely off-topic for the story I was doing.
Really enjoyed SJSJ's puzzle, his stopping by and commenting and Splynter's write up. Great Saturday.
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