Words: 70 (missing J,Q,Z)
Blocks: 28
We
have not seen Mr. Wentz since I last blogged his Saturday contribution
back in Jan of 2012. Today's grid is different from that puzzle, having
the two 15-letter entries crossing in the center, with triple 8's and
almost triple 10's in the corners. Looked bleak at the beginning for
me, but then a few answers fell into place, with some beneficial WAGs,
and only one instance of cheating - I red-lettered to see why the SW
corner was not working out. Oh well. Still, a fun solve. The long
answers;
35. "Pretty much goes without saying" : IT'S ALMOST A GIVEN
8. Hotel dining room option : BREAKFAST BUFFET - dah~! I had -- -- BOOTHS, and it was good for a while....
'OlloweeNWARD~!
ACROSS:
1. Lie quietly? : PLAY DUMB
9. 1996 gold medalist in men's singles : AGASSI
15. Chipped in from off the green, perhaps : SAVED PAR - I filled in MADE PAR, and it wasn't long enough
16. Picture appropriate for Valentine's Day : ROM-COM - my personal favorite - also the only one I own; Rotten Tomatoes has a better summary than IMDb
9. 1996 gold medalist in men's singles : AGASSI
15. Chipped in from off the green, perhaps : SAVED PAR - I filled in MADE PAR, and it wasn't long enough
16. Picture appropriate for Valentine's Day : ROM-COM - my personal favorite - also the only one I own; Rotten Tomatoes has a better summary than IMDb
17. "You can trust me" : I DON'T LIE
18. Nursery purchase : MANURE
19. Closes a hole, say : SEWS
20. Snowman in "Frozen" : OLAF - saw this movie not long ago on regular TV
22. Like most ears : LOBED
23. Marx work : DAS KAPITAL
25. What adults with youthful faces often get : CARDED
29. Something on a disk : FILE
30. Symbol that increases a musical note's duration : DOT - nailed it, since I play guitar
18. Nursery purchase : MANURE
19. Closes a hole, say : SEWS
20. Snowman in "Frozen" : OLAF - saw this movie not long ago on regular TV
22. Like most ears : LOBED
23. Marx work : DAS KAPITAL
25. What adults with youthful faces often get : CARDED
29. Something on a disk : FILE
30. Symbol that increases a musical note's duration : DOT - nailed it, since I play guitar
32. In conflict with, with "of" : AFOUL
33. Nape covering : MANE - dah~! Not HAIR; 100% 25% correct
34. Sage : WISE - oops, the adjective, not the noun; I had GURU to start
34. Sage : WISE - oops, the adjective, not the noun; I had GURU to start
38. Hose holder : REEL - my preferred "hose holder"
39. Leavers of pheromone trails : ANTS
40. Bowl sections : TIERS - not fooled, I knew this was the sporting arena
41. Star, in verse : ORB - I thought it was just planets that got the poetic 'orb'
42. Roman commoner : PLEB - got it; short form of plebeian
43. Series of classes : COURSE - my first thought, but I hesitated
44. Marked by uproar : TUMULTUOUS
47. Ristorante herb : BASIL - filled via perps
48. "Murder in the First" gp. : SFPD - not familiar with this show, on TNT, and I see it was just canceled
49. Home of A. Wyeth's "Christina's World" : MoMA - The Museum of Modern Art; I did not know this was a painting, so the answer was not forthcoming; I have to say, I am moved by this artwork; can't say why, and I guess that's why it's considered "art"
53. Yoga command : EXHALE
55. Couldn't remain still : FIDGETED
57. Wobble : TEETER
58. Volunteered : ENLISTED
59. Tests : ASSAYS
60. Drives : TEE SHOTS - more golf, but my parse was TEES ---, and I was not making the connection; this is the noun, not the verb
DOWN:
1. Penultimate Greek letters : PSIs - those last three three-letter letters always get me; PHI, CHI, PSI - but I guessed correctly this time - I should remember "fee-cheap-sigh"
2. Prepare for a crossing, perhaps : LADE - dah~! I tried PACK, but I was 100% 25% correct
3. Put out in the open : AVOW
4. Hungers : YENS
5. Banned pesticide : DDT
6. Send to the cloud : UPLOAD - the internet cloud, and I do not store anything there - it's not part of my daily routine for the kind of work I do, nor do I care to have my personal items out in the open, so to speak
7. Posts : MAILS
9. Quarterback's asset : ARM
10. Shot stopper : GOALIE - KEVLAR was not working; I shoulda known this one....
55. Couldn't remain still : FIDGETED
57. Wobble : TEETER
58. Volunteered : ENLISTED
59. Tests : ASSAYS
60. Drives : TEE SHOTS - more golf, but my parse was TEES ---, and I was not making the connection; this is the noun, not the verb
DOWN:
1. Penultimate Greek letters : PSIs - those last three three-letter letters always get me; PHI, CHI, PSI - but I guessed correctly this time - I should remember "fee-cheap-sigh"
2. Prepare for a crossing, perhaps : LADE - dah~! I tried PACK, but I was 100% 25% correct
3. Put out in the open : AVOW
4. Hungers : YENS
5. Banned pesticide : DDT
6. Send to the cloud : UPLOAD - the internet cloud, and I do not store anything there - it's not part of my daily routine for the kind of work I do, nor do I care to have my personal items out in the open, so to speak
7. Posts : MAILS
9. Quarterback's asset : ARM
10. Shot stopper : GOALIE - KEVLAR was not working; I shoulda known this one....
11. Childish rebuttal : AM NOT - ARE SO~? AM TOO~? bzzt.
12. Certain explorer : SCUBA DIVER
13. They may be upset about being upset : SORE LOSERS
14. Chatted with, briefly : IMed
21. Blacks out : FAINTS - oh, that kind of black out; I was familiar with the non-sober kind
23. Texas-based tech giant : DELL
24. Urgent call : PLEA - oops, not NEED (I had the "E")
25. 2011 revolution locale : CAIRO
26. Net : AFTER TAXES - I figured it was something like "TAKE HOME" and pay-related
27. Sight from the Oval Office : ROSE BUSHES - I put in GARDEN, and which made all the sense in the world, but did not get me anywhere with the crossings
28. __ citizenship : DUAL - both my parents had DUAL citizenship, here and the United Kingdom, their birthplace
31. Future, e.g. : TENSE
33. Musée de l'Orangerie collection : MONETS - or MANETS~? I'm never sure - a quote from the remake of Ocean's Eleven
34. 2012 Nintendo debut : WII U - one of those fills which would never stand a chance in a crossword were it not for the way technology moves forward - the Wiki
36. Place to see Santa : MALL
37. Cutlass competitors : GTOs - muscle cars - I am going to pick up my new minivan today~!
42. Weight machine feature : PULLEY - not PLATES, which contributed to my mess in the corner
12. Certain explorer : SCUBA DIVER
13. They may be upset about being upset : SORE LOSERS
14. Chatted with, briefly : IMed
21. Blacks out : FAINTS - oh, that kind of black out; I was familiar with the non-sober kind
23. Texas-based tech giant : DELL
24. Urgent call : PLEA - oops, not NEED (I had the "E")
25. 2011 revolution locale : CAIRO
26. Net : AFTER TAXES - I figured it was something like "TAKE HOME" and pay-related
27. Sight from the Oval Office : ROSE BUSHES - I put in GARDEN, and which made all the sense in the world, but did not get me anywhere with the crossings
28. __ citizenship : DUAL - both my parents had DUAL citizenship, here and the United Kingdom, their birthplace
31. Future, e.g. : TENSE
33. Musée de l'Orangerie collection : MONETS - or MANETS~? I'm never sure - a quote from the remake of Ocean's Eleven
34. 2012 Nintendo debut : WII U - one of those fills which would never stand a chance in a crossword were it not for the way technology moves forward - the Wiki
36. Place to see Santa : MALL
37. Cutlass competitors : GTOs - muscle cars - I am going to pick up my new minivan today~!
42. Weight machine feature : PULLEY - not PLATES, which contributed to my mess in the corner
43. Get very close : CUDDLE - tried NESTLE first
45. Mazda sports car : MIATA
46. Put forward : OPINE
47. __ testing : BETA
49. Open-textured fabric : MESH - oops, not LACE
50. One of the Ringling brothers : OTTO
51. Conform to : MEET
52. Goes on to say : ADDS
54. Stumbling sounds : ers....
56. Company makeup, largely : GIs - Ah, the military type of company
45. Mazda sports car : MIATA
46. Put forward : OPINE
47. __ testing : BETA
49. Open-textured fabric : MESH - oops, not LACE
50. One of the Ringling brothers : OTTO
51. Conform to : MEET
52. Goes on to say : ADDS
54. Stumbling sounds : ers....
56. Company makeup, largely : GIs - Ah, the military type of company
Splynter
38 comments:
DNF & FIW. didn't know 1D:pSi/pHi, 3D:aVow + 15A:SaVedpar, 47A:BasIL. But what really fouled me up was what I did fill that wasn't right -- SeeSAW instead of TEETER and EssAYs or assESs instead of ASSAYS!
Did anyone fixate like me on those "weight and fortune for a penny" machines for 42D?
{B-, B, B-, B+.}
A forklift driver who lived in Vancouver
FIDGETED so, he was a shaker and mover!
An uplifting guy
At the nursery supply,
Sometimes had to shift the MANURE to maneuver!
The SCUBA DIVER was a buff handsome guy
For him the ladies all had an eye!
And for their trouble
He gave some a CUDDLE --
Which ones? In a wet-suit, figures DON'T LIE!
The mountain guru was wondrous WISE,
He predicted rain from TUMULTUOUS skies!
Says car chases and bombs
Won't be found in ROMCOMS,
And in math COURSE exams, there'll be calculus Ψ'S!
A skin-doctor's job is worse than an Über's;
Pimples and boils are disgusting oozers!
And when his cure works
His patients are jerks:
IT'S ALMOST A GIVEN, they all are SORE LOSERS!
had "HOLED OUT" for chipping in from off the green...had to maneuver my way out of that mess, but the rest went fairly smooth...hope everybody has an awesome saturday
Morning, all!
Got through this one mostly unscathed. Wasn't overly thrilled with I DONT LIE or ITS ALMOST A GIVEN, since both of those phrases seem a bit forced to me, but the perps took care of them (although it took awhile to decide whether it was I DONT LIE or I WONT LIE).
The one sticking point for me was that I went with RAILS instead of MAILS for "posts" at 7D. That left me staring at PLAYDURB at 1A when all else was said and done, which I knew couldn't be right. Except all the perps were rockstar solid. I should have just gotten PLAY DUMB off the clue, of course, but I didn't. Finally, after triple checking every perps I wondered if there was some other sense of "post" that was eluding me and I got smacked upside the head with a rather large, albeit metaphorical, can of V-8.
Good morning!
Finished this one with 10 minutes to spare, even after shooting myself in the food with ROSE GARDEN. BASIL finally set me straight. Thanx, Peter and Splynter.
Barry, I also left the D/W blank until the perps made the call. Good to hear that you're getting two days a week to work from home. I did that, too, in preparation for retiring.
DELL was a gimme. I just bought an all-in-one DELL for the office after learning that the limited C: drive on my cheapo HP laptop prevented it from being updated ever again. Splynter, I'm with you; I don't trust the "cloud."
A Saturday puzzle that even Jinx can solve - gotta love it! Erased Seer for SAGE and obEy for MEET. Didn't know the snowman in "Frozen", Wyeth or WIIU, but easy perps set me free.
Around here, the future of malls is about as bright as that of the print media. Will have to find a new place to sit on Santa's lap soon, I'm sure. I liked Splinter's hose holder - also a very nice stocking stuffer.
Favorite clue was "tests" for assays - I was thinking of nouns, specifically essays. Least favorite was "childish rebuttal". I struggle with these for some reason.
Thanks Peter for a fun run, and Splynter for another interesting tour.
Great Saturday puzzle. Mostly easier than usual except for the 8x4 cells in the NW. I hesitated for a while to put orb. Like Splynter, I thought it referred to planets or the sun or moon. I hesitated with I DON'T LIE. I was thinking of, "I won't tell your secret," as the opposite of I won't lie for you, rather than you can trust me to tell you the truth.
One look up. I had --AF and Googled OLAF, which cleared up the entire NW. I am so not into Frozen.
Huddle before cuddle.
I didn't SAVE PAR this morning. I filled it rapidly except 1D, 2D, & 3D. I originally filled HOLED OUT, changed it to HOLED PAR ( which is not a golf saying), tried I DON'T, CAN'T, & WON'T LIE and SEWS, SOWS, & SODS but couldn't make the NW work. Didn't know PSIS and have not idea what LADE has to do with 'Prepare for a crossing'.
I'm not a SORE LOSER but have to run.
BE, the ship takes on cargo before making an ocean crossing.
Oh, and I meant to shoot my foot, not my food.
Faster than some Saturdays but the SW really slowed me down as I confidently put ROSE GARDEN in until ORB and TUMULTUOUS made me back up and rework that section!
I have always been touched by "Christina's World" too, Splynter. I like the starkness and simplicity of Wyeth's paintings, but this picture of Wyeth's neighbor who couldn't walk is very compelling.
Another weird warm Saturday here where it's supposed to get into the 80s. The leaves have been so slow to turn with the warm weather.
Thanks Splynter and Peter!
Your "hose holder" picture took us into a porn site. Shame, shame!��
Good Morning:
I finished w/o help in normal Saturday time but there were a few bumps along the way, specifically, Rose Garden. I was familiar with "Christina's World" (She was the subject of several of Wyeth's paintings and, I believe, his secret paramour) so I immediately filled in Tate which is usually the four letter art museum but as Wyeth was American, MOMA should have come to mind sooner. Never saw "Frozen" but Idina Menzel (whose name John Travolta butchered at the Academy Awards) sang the hit song (can't think of the title) is the former wife of Taye Diggs who starred in "Murder In The First", one of my favorite shows which I'm disappointed to hear from Splynter has been cancelled. So much for pop culture trivia! 🤓
Thanks, Peter, for a Saturday stumper and thanks, Splynter, for the guided tour. BTW, I never heard of your favorite rom-com; when was it released?
Have a great day.
Nice, smooth solve today. Thanks, Peter, for what at first looked daunting,but ended up having a nice ending.
Thanks, Splynter, for the tour. I'm sure you prefer "your" type of hose holder!
Agreed that it first appeared daunting but as the long fill appeared, the grid blossomed, first in the western hemisphere. I, too, had GARDEN but TEETER disavowed that. At yoga command I hesitated between INHALE and EXHALE until TAXES emerged.
PLAYDUMB was preceded by STAYDOWN which got me nowhere. Finally, with UPLOAD and MAILS I made the correction.
Thank you, Peter Wentz and Splynter. This was an entertaining start to my Saturday. Now I have to cook all that meat we bought yesterday. Tomorrow we'll assemble the tamales so you likely won't hear from me.
Have a joyous weekend, everyone!
Musings
-Barry and I both looked long and hard at PLAY DURB, confident that Posts is RAILS before we saw DUMB. I had to tiptoe through the alphabet.
-Chipping in compensates a little for missed 4’ putts
-Hmmm… why do we see only Brendan’s face but Joanna head to toe?
-I DON’T LIE – Hasn’t every pol run AFOUL of saying that? MANURE?
-Dr. Hamori can help you with your LOBES
-I laughingly dare clerks to CARD ME for being a senior citizen
-One COURSE of study if you have the passion
-_ _ _ A was not iowA after I saw the A. initial
-Thanks to a huge maple tree, unless my TEE SHOT is 250 yds, I will never SAVE PAR on #9 at our club
-Unpleasant SCUBA DIVING?
-A pair of Trivia(s):
-Who said, “Do you have something in a low rise bikini, MESH if possible.”?
-What store employed the most famous movie “SANTA” before there were malls?
Good day to all!
Enjoyable puzzle today, but I needed a few trips to Mr. G. to solve. The NW was the last area to be tamed due to having SHOW for "Put out in the open" before PLAY DUMB helped AVOW show up. Learning moment was ROMCOM for "ROMantic COMedy." Thanks for a challenging Saturday offering, Peter, and thank you Splynter for the great expo and links. I especially liked your "hose holder"!
Enjoy the day!
An entertaining puzzle for this Saturday morning. I enjoyed the cluing, with the exception of the one clunker that Splynter also mentioned, the clue for ORB. The term applies only to celestial bodies that are observably spherical : the sun, moon, and some of the planets, but not stars.
Hi All!
A fast, for me, Sat "solve" - only took Car Talk to get the DNF :-)
Nailing BREAKFAST BUFFET w/ no perps is what sped up the solve - I mean, that's a GIVEN, right?
I CANT LIE - I did have to lookup 49a's clue; and, yes, I left CANT in @17a :-(
Thanks Peter for the fun. Thanks Splynter for the expo - the GOALIE pic was funny.
WOs: elated b/f UPLOAD; ROSE gardEn; seeds->teams->TIERS.
Fav: c/a for SORE LOSERS. Icing is it xing TIERS.
GIs xing ENLISTED is fun too.
{B+, B, A-, A}
HG - I know #2 methinks... Star logo'd, right?
Most Interesting Man in the world quote? "I don't always PLAY DUMB. But, when I do, I'm not playing."
Cheers, -T
Is this another hint, HG? Miracle on 34th Street, one of my favorites.
Lucina--Do you make your own masa for your tamales? My husband loves tamales, and I'd like to try making them for him. The only time I've made tamales was at a staff party where everyone brought something for filling them, and the masa and husks were provided.
MJ:
Noooo, masa requires lye and a long while to cure unless you mean do we mix our own. Yes, we buy it ready made then mix it with the broth from the meat I'm cooking today and some lard. These days we go easy on the lard for obvious reasons. And since we make so many tamales we use an electric mixer. To ensure that it's the right consistency we use the "ball in the water" method to test it. If a bit of masa in some water floats, then it's ready.
MJ:
If you want the recipe, I believe you'll find it in the archives C.C. keeps.
Thanks, Lucina! I shall look up the recipe.
Another defeat today. Had to do several alphabet runs with red letters turned on. Had PLAY DEAD for too long a time. I guess I just don't know golf terms, too. Whenever the clue mentions Nintendo I almost automatically put in WII, but the U had me stumped. Having S--BAD at 12d I was looking for SINBAD something. At least DAS KAPITAL, DOT, DELL, and PLEB were gimmes.
The LA Times crossword site is getting worse. Not only do you have to endure an ad before you can start to play, they are now interrupting play at random times to show more ads. Extremely annoying and disruptive. They can take their "Welcome back" and shove it someplace. I'm going to be using the Mensa site from now on.
-Trivia #1 - It was Macy’s that predated MALL Santas in this classic
-Trivia answer #2. Said by “John Winger” while being issued appropriate apparel.
Kicking myself re: #2... And that's the Fact Jack!
I realize the uprising started in the city of Cairo, but the country is Egypt. I'll let that one slide.
But NO ONE who ever bought a Cutlass cross-shopped a GTO. A Tempest or even a LeMans maybe, but not a GTO. The competitor in the Olds lineup for the GTO was the 4-4-2. I realize I'm a dinosaur here, but still, this is just not a correct clue. 4-4-2 competitor is the proper clue.
PVX - I wondered abut Cutlass as well. I knew a guy when we were both in our teens who had a Chevelle that came with a 396 4-speed. He replaced the engine with a 427, but left the "396" badges on. He had a "I Broke a Hurst" plaque after he busted his high-performance shifter. He went on to become the NHRA Pro Stock national champion years later. Don't think he would have considered a Cutlass to be a competitor either.
Is it no-no to have LIE in a clue for 1a and an answer for 17a? Some purist may say so but no one here seems to have noticed it. Or care to.
Strangely, this is the second week in a row where I had an easier time with the Saturday than the Friday crossword puzzle. Go figure. I got about 2/3 of this one before I had to start cheating a little and then got the rest. This time I put everything in that came to mind, even if I had no perps to support the item, and that worked well for me. I had PLAY DEAD instead of PLAY DUMB, but even so, that got me started in the Northwest. I love "Christina's World" and so guessed MOMA correctly early on. Getting MIATA and BASIL helped too, and so on and so on. Very satisfying and a lot of fun, and nice expo, Splynter.
Have a great weekend, everybody!
homonyms: words having the same spelling but different meanings and origins. that gives it a pass.
Very happy to report that I finished this very tough Saturday test from Mr. Wentz in record time, with zero lookups or errors. Even though I balked (like Jayce) at Wii U, I accepted it - as ugly though inescapable.
At first I expected to be outplayed in a typically hard Saturday challenge. My first two scans gave me nothing but DAS KAPITAL (a gimme, except for worrying that PW might have meant a Marx Bros movie!) and ROSE GARDEN (which had to be trimmed to its BUSHES later on).
Nothing moved beyond those fills for quite a while. I flirted with resorting to Google a few times, but glad I resisted. My breakthrough came just like desper-otto's, when I saw that BASIL would fit at 47-A if I bumped the "R" in GARDEN for the "S" in BUSHES. Sometimes it takes just one little change like that to see the whole dam burst. Right away things opened up. Sector after sector fell into my lap.
The one other answer that seemed strange to me was 2-D LADE. Big Easy, I take it that the clue "Prepare for a crossing, perhaps" refers to a freighter needing to take on cargo (or, to use the quasi-technical term, to LADEn itself) before sailing across to its next port. In the upper reaches of consciousness I recognized its rightness, but it still felt like a very awkward response to its clue.
Today's lesson? Easy: that would be 39-A ANTS. Until now I have only known of pheromones as odoriferous sex stimulants. For that reason I had a hard time imagining ANTS as leading examples of "Leavers of pheromone trails." Now I know that there are such things as "alarm pheromones" and "food trail pheromones." The last would seem to fit ANTS to a T.
As first glance they may seem to be homonyms but the wordplay in 1a actually uses the fib meaning as does 17a! Tricky huh?
@2:25 - Yes, ITS A GIVEN, quite AFOUL the rule... The misdirection 1a was cute esp. since I've never been good at the whole lay, lie, lain, laden, lying, conjugation thing . Don't try to help - DW has for years and I'm still a PLEB. -T
D-O, I'm very familiar with a 'bill of LADEn' but have never seen the word 'lade', just 'load'.
HG- I and most golfers probably miss 100 four foot putts for every chip in from off the green. I hope to get close enough to give me a decent shot at one-putting. But after watching the PGA Tour players do it, the usually chip to withing 3 feet. Two or three skips with backspin and it stops dead in its tracks.
Jayce- just print it and problem is solved.
Ol' Man Keith- just watch ANTS- they follow the leader. When I find them in the pantry I don't initially kill them; I just follow them to the source and then take care of them.
Splynter- I wouldn't worry about the 'cloud'. The IRS uses it and just about every major company. IBM, AWS (Amazon Web Services) and Microsoft Azure have about 99% of the market. Google is trying to break in but has a late start. Besides, Google and Amazon already know just about everything about everybody except their choice of underwear color; they already know their size.
I back up everything there except banking. Been doing it for over 10 years on Google drive (FREE) and also started an extra back-up on Microsoft 'One-Drive ( $1.99/month). Your personal computer is more likely to crash than Microsoft's or Google's.
Big Easy, thanks, good advice for all.
After a wonderful, fun week thumper and I will abstain from comment on this one. I do admire those of you who found it easy.
Splynter and Owen,you saved my Saturday!!
Charlotte turned 4 today and shared her first SPA day with her friends.
Happy Sunday all
No problem, other than having to wait until Sunday to solve it due to too much other fun on Saturday. This is the kind of puzzle that I love. It's a puzzle, so it requires some tricky thinking, not dredging out some obscure trivia about a TV show. I've just about had it with the NYT's puzzle and its plethora of trivia. Thank you, LAT for an always good crossword.
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