Theme: None
Words: 72 (V,W,Z)
Blocks: 28
The
last time we saw a Saturday puzzle from Alan was January of last year -
I believe that I have cringed every time I've seen his name as the
constructor, and today was no different. However, I did manage to get
through most of the puzzle pretty smoothly - a few answers in my
wheelhouse got me some traction, and it was only in the NW corner that I
got stumped. Triple 10x6 corners one way, triple 8's the other, and
one spanner;
36. 1924 novel set during the British Raj : A PASSAGE TO INDIA - and a movie in 1984
15. Controlled : RODE HERD ON - I
did not get my "ta-DA~!" because I had rode HARD on - which made sense;
I have never heard the HERD version - but that's the straight up definition
13. Jonquil and daffodil : NARCISSI - learning moment; the Wiki
65. It may be spontaneous : COMBUSTION
38. Brazen : ARROGANT
"May the Fourth be with you" is followed
by the less-popular "May the Sith"
ACROSS:
1. Without delay : THIS SECOND
11. Eleanor Roosevelt's real first name : ANNA
17. Uncomplicated : ELEMENTARY
- I just finished building a countertop which I made using 5/4 stock
and my new biscuit joiner - now I feel like tackling something a little
more complicated, like a chess set ( which I'd need a lathe for ) and
something cool, like this;
18. Abruzzi town in a Longfellow poem : ATRI - dah~! Not ASTI
19. British prime minister during two millennia : BLAIR - my 1d. made me change this
20. Hot skillet sound : SSSsss
21. Suits : EXECS
22. Leaves alone : LETS BE
24. Somme time : ÉTÉ - Frawnche - been a while
26. Somme co. : CIE - and thus, more Frawnche
27. What may be seen before long : ERE
28. It, in Italy : ESSA
31. Supper, say : REPAST
33. "Way to go!" : "ATTA BOY~!"
35. Language that gave us "galore" : ERSE
legs galore
40. Bit of mischief : LARK
41. Perfectly : TO A TURN
42. Attack from above : STRAFE
44. Con __: briskly, on scores : MOTO
45. Diner owner __ Lee on "2 Broke Girls" : HAN - a different "Han"
48. Metal precioso : ORO
49. Surfing need, briefly : ISP - web surfing, with an Internet Service Provider
51. Even : SQUARE
53. Proper : RIGHT
55. Chocolate __ : LAB - Dah~! Not BAR
58. Commercial word after "open," perhaps : UNTIL
59. Beneficial berry : ACAI
60. Occurred : CAME TO PASS
62. Cloud __ : NINE - I was curious about the origin
63. Beneath : INFERIOR TO
64. Challenge for srs. : SATs
DOWN:
1. Amp setting : TREBLE - ah, not ELEVEN
2. Call out : HOLLER
3. Imagine : IDEATE
4. Big Macks : SEMIs
5. Palate cleansers : SHERBETS
6. Yeats' yet : E'EN - poetic 'even'
7. Flat-screen predecessors : CRTs - went with LCDs, but was not convinced
8. Harem rooms : ODAs - been a long time since I've seen this in a crossword
9. Ancient mariners : NORSE
10. Letters after Sen. Schumer's name : D, NY - democrat for New York
11. Bon Ami competitor : AJAX
12. Greeting carrier : NOTE CARD
14. Licorice-flavored brew : ANISE TEA - got it from doing crosswords
21. Extra-wide spec : EEE
23. Willing subjects? : ESTATES - wasn't fooled, but my first thought, OFFSPRING, didn't fit
25. Team builders : TRYOUTS - good clue
29. Pudding starch : SAGO - tried TARO, and that's 100% 50% correct
30. Crossing the keel : ABEAM
32. One of the Ivies : PENN -oops, not YALE
33. Silly question starter? : ASK A....
34. Anne Frank's father : OTTO - shout-out~!
36. They were in it but didn't win it : ALSO RANS
37. Crime author Cornwell : PATRICIA - filled via perps
39. Mohawk's confederacy : IROQUOIS - spelled it wrong; in the DOWN, it was hard to see
43. One may be thrown in anger : FIT
45. 1962 John Wayne film set in Africa : HATARI - yeah, not "sAfARI" - never seen a John Wayne movie - before my time
46. Blueblood, informally : ARISTOcrat
47. Wrestling hold : NELSON
50. Pizza Hut's Texas headquarters : PLANO
52. Prepare for a transplant : UNPOT - we had REpot last week
54. Gets moving : HIES
56. Band letters : AM/FM
57. "Peaky Blinders" network, with "the" : BEEB - The BBC
60. Mil. VIP : CIC - we have a new Commander In Chief
61. It replaced "Court" in a TV channel name : TRU
Splynter
Greetings!
ReplyDeleteThanks to Alan and Splynter!
It's rare that I get a Saturday puzzle!
Had ANISETte for the longest time. Finally had to get rid of it. HERD no problem here. HAN was perped. Have read several of Cornwell's books. Too dismal to suffer any more.HATARI was immediate. TRU was perped.
Have a great day!
DNF¡ Had everything filled (I thot) except the NE above REPAST, where the only things I had were xmasCARD, ANISE TEA, and caseS for suits. Turn on reds, and 1-1/2 out of 3 are wrong. Also wrong was dAN + dATARI (thinking of Daktari -- never seen 2BG). Post-red, AJAX, NOTECARD, EEE, & EXECS I dredged up from my gray matter, but had to use perps and google to get ANNA, JOAN, & NARCISSI.
ReplyDeleteI'm feeling a bit burned out, and not doing any really quality l'icks recently, so going to take a break for a few days, maybe one or two or none, I'll have to see. Don't break any legs jumping for joy!
Hi Y'all! I'm with Splynter in having a moment of dread when seeing the constructor is Alan Alschwang. The NE filled in painlessly but I finally had to resort to some red-letter runs to at least see what letters the NW longies began with. After that it went better. But I'm not enthusiastic about the puzzle. However, at 2 a.m. the puzzle filled the time so thanks, Alan. It beat trying to vacuum the floors.
ReplyDeleteSplynter is so courageous. Our brave knight taming the most ferocious puzzles.
AJAX should have been a gimmee, but was used too long ago. I could sing the catchy commercial: "Use dut-dut, the foaming cleanser. Floats the dirt right down the drain butabutabutabut." Finally moved on and AJAX came cleanly out of the fog.
Prepare fo transplant was another annoyingly elusive clue. I was expecting a verb about organ reuse. Duh! UN stayed lonely a long time before POT perped up. Too easy for a Saturday frame of mind, I guess.
Knew PATRICIA Cornwell, but don't read or buy her books anymore. I agree with Ferm: instant depression.
Good morning!
ReplyDeleteI liked this one, maybe because it came together so quickly. It wasn't without it's problems. Wanted ACDC for the "Band letters." THO became EEN, and ADM gave way to GEN and finally CIC. I thought VOLUME might be the "Amp setting" but held off because I doubted that "Without delay" could begin with a V. TREBLE finally appeared. My amp's got a "Tone Defeat" button that's always turned on.
Splynter, you've never seen a John Wayne movie? "Fill your hand, Pilgrim!"
Fermat, you need to change newspapers. I get a Saturday puzzle every week. :)
Most of my squares filled rapidly but in the end it was a DNF at the intersection of an unknown movie-HATARI- and television show 'diner owner'- HAN Lee. DAN, JAN, or VAN and I chose DAN.
ReplyDeleteI stalled in the NW until I changed CREATE to IDEATE but the NE gave me the most trouble. I couldn't remember ATRI, didn't know ANNA Roosevelt, and was trying to make either JONI Mitchell or JIMI Hendrix work. And then I remembered phony JOAN Baez. NARCISSI- plural of a word that I had never heard of but the perps were solid.
TO A TURN- a new expression for me. The palindromes OTTO and BEEB were my only other unknowns.
Bon Ami- remember the way Paul Harvey pronounced it? 'BO NAMMY', stressing the second syllable.
Paul Harvey also pronounced "sidereal" as two syllables rather than four: side-reel. Drove me nuts. His daily news and comment program originated in Chicago, and was carried on the ABC Network. It was supposed to run exactly 15 minutes. He always ended it the same way, "Paul Harvey...[pause, one time as long as 30 seconds]...Good day!"
ReplyDeleteAs expected, this one was too tough for me. But unexpectedly, I enjoyed it. Looked up TRU, HATARI and HAN Lee on my DirecTV DVR, and PLANO on Google. I had no idea that Pizza Hut moved from KS. Worked at one when in my 20s. We were allowed to make pizzas to eat when we had a little free time, but it seemed that by the time I had a minute to spare there wasn't anything left. A coworker told me that he had developed a taste for anchovies, and when he made a pie with them on it there was always a piece left for him. I did the same, and I still really enjoy the hairy little fish, especially in puttanesca sauces and Caesar salads.
ReplyDeleteI enjoy Cromwell's work, but then again I liked Klugman's "Quincy" TV show. We listen to books on tape (actually MP3s on USB drive) on long trips in our motor home, and I think we have run out of the Cromwells carried by the local library. We're into Robb future-cop stuff and the crossword favorite Grafton series now.
Hand up for volume before TREBLE. One bad square - IRiQUOIS. MOTO was an unknown, except in cell phone context. Also, we don't use ARISTO here, but I get it.
Thanks to Alan and Splynter. Especially to Splynter for the anticipated "leg" picture.
d-otto, don't mix your John Wayne quotes. "Fill your hand, you son of a bitch" was in True Grit; it was in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance when the Duke called Jimmy Stewart "Pilgrim". (And I hate TV stations that "protect" us from vulgarisms, even as far as the beans-at-the-campfire scene in Blazing Saddles)
ReplyDeletePuzzle was almost all blank until A PASSAGE TO INDIA and PATRICIA got a foothold. Erred into a DNF on my paper-and-ink solve when after seeing IROQUOIS I put in ERiE instead of ERSE, not noticing the misspelling of NARCISiI.
Good morning everyone.
ReplyDeleteGot 'er done without too much hassle. Many mis-directions. AO used to be a fairly regular contributer, but not often, now, as Splynter implied. Had Urdu before ERSE, and tho before 'EEN. Liked the 2 Somme clues.
ABEAM - Did not like the wording of this clue. ABEAM is used in reference to an object outboard of a ship at ~90º relative bearing. Sometimes you hear "broad on the beam".
IROQUOIS - NYS'ers would have no trouble with this one, taught in EL-HI. Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, and later, the Tuscarora. No Erie need apply.:-)
CIC - On a warship, it is the Combat Information Center, where the tactical "picture" is kept very current.
Hello Puzzlers -
ReplyDeleteSmiled out loud when I got to Splynter's "Eleven" for amp setting! I tried the same thing. In the same vein I tried AC/DC for band letters. No soap.
Never saw Hatari, but I know of the movie because we had the soundtrack on LP when I was a kid. It was Henry Mancini material, and really, really good, particularly the theme. Baby Elephant Walk is from that soundtrack.
Morning Splynter, that video was fascinating. I was amazed that it was possible to park a large wooden ball in just the right spot to bounce a steel ball off it, straight into a small bore. That looked like a place where things could go wrong, even though the distances were short.
Good Morning:
ReplyDeleteI'm pleased as punch (odd expression) to brag a tiny bit as Alan and I were definitely sympatico today! I consider 30 minutes or less a good completion time for a Saturday puzzle and, today, I finished just shy of 20 minutes. As Misty would say, Woohoo! Everything fell into place, with perps solving the few tricky spots. Didn't care for unpot but that's a minor nit in an otherwise worthy offering.
Thanks, Alan, for making up for yesterday's slog fest (for me) and thanks, Splynter, for the guided tour.
I liked Patricia Cornwell's early work but then, like so many other writers, she went off the rails. I enjoyed all but one of Sue Grafton's Kinsey Millhone series but didn't read the W, X, Y, Z; I'm not even sure if she got through the last three letters. The plots were not that intricate but the colorful characters and Kinsey's off-beat kookiness were refreshing. Light, but escapist reading.
Have a great day.
ReplyDeleteGood morning all. Thank you Alan and Splynter.
Happy for working out most of it. Some tough fill to parse. But even after a couple of extended breaks, couldn't put it all together. The SE did me in.
After the first break, I was able to see my blatant error of having STRiFE instead of STRAFE, and felt so uncomfortable about ABAFT that I took it out. Soon got A PASSAGE TO INDIA, and thought I was on my way. That made me accept TRY OUTS which I thought of much earlier but kept rejecting. Anyway, it was all enough to give me ABEAM.
Like Splynter, I initially entered TARO but took that back out PDQ.
Embarrassed to say that for "one of the Ivies" I entered Burl. Caught that error after my second break.
Like Owen, I went with DAN and DATARI.
Like Desper-Otto, I had a bit of a delay getting CIC. I went with LTC (Lieutenant Colonel) for awhile because I had filled COMBUSTION in earlier...
First crack at a Saturday in a while and ended with a DNF. like Splynter, the NW corner did me in. Heck, I always thought Eleanor's real name was Eleanor. The whole upper part of the corner was a bunch of did not knows.
ReplyDeleteNever read Patricia Cornwall, but always see her works after Bernard Cornwall, who I read. Great historical novelist.
Mom's away with her gal pals for a couple of days so Casey and I are on our own and LIFE IS GOOD. But due to his neutering and my age, it's not as good as it could have been!
Owen, sorry to hear your down in the dumps. To make your day I officially revert to l'ick. I'll double down: I won't try to write one.
ReplyDeleteOk. Maybe later. I was sure I got this tricky one from Alan but blew it in ERSE. We've had ANISETEA before. I was so pleased to make JOAN B work- I always loved Farewell Angelina.
Han is no name for a diner guy. Splynter, no picture of Pussy Galore? I always like your write-ups.
I had a cheat-nocheat all set because my Sat TBTimes carried a TV section. No more, so I'm clean.
Any answers to my 4am quiz?
YR, I considered the two xwords about equal difficultly. ie Very
WC
A fun challenge. FIR, but not as fast as Irish Miss. After a stray fill here and there I got my toe hold with Iroquois. With five crosses -ATARI, I remembered HATARI. AJAX and ATARI set up the NE.
ReplyDeleteIn the NW 7,8, and 9 D led to RODE HERD ON. Have you ever rode herd on a dozen 7 year olds at an outdoor birthday party? It is like herding cats. When I am in charge I set up plenty of organized activities to corral them. Keep 'em happy and occupied without nagging.
I was looking for the British PM from too long ago. The B finally suggested BLAIR.
"The steaks were done to a turn." I usually hear this about cooking done to perfection.
Jinx, anchovies, yummy! I like them on pizza and in Caesar salad. You might like our recipe for Caesar coleslaw in this blog's recipe section. It has anchovies.
I have seen many movies that were before my time on YouTube, Netflix, and Cable.
DO, thanks for your kind reassurance for Alan. I think it has helped to calm him.
Good day to all!
ReplyDeleteAs usual for a Saturday, I needed a lot of help to get through the puzzle today, but had fun along the way. The NW was the last to fall. RODE HERD ON is a new expression to me. Thanks for the expo and links, Splynter. The "big ball" maze was fantastic!
Enjoy the day!
I love sea stories, especially of the old Royal Navy under sail and pirate stories. In these novels the wind is often abeam, so are the breakers and other ships. This is maybe not the official use of abeam, but it certainly is the common use. Abeam, crossing the keel, perpendicular.
ReplyDelete"The wind was from the north-east all the time, right abeam, and therefore as favourable as it could be." -Knight, E. F. (Edward Frederick)
"Her head swung slowly round, and the shaking canvas filled; she gathered way, and when her deck slanted the boulders were sliding past abeam." -Bindloss, Harold
"The vessel drew nearer and nearer, till she was almost abeam." -Mitford, Bertram
Did anyone like A Passage to India? I couldn't get into it and quit. Maybe it got more intersting farther along?
Never seen a John Wayne movie?
ReplyDeleteHere's what you have been missing!
(I saw number one in color, must have been colorized. A must see!)
But,then again,
There appear to be many I have not seen also,,,
Got it done, but wasn't sure of RODEHERDON..... never heard the expression.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Splynter, for your persistence in completing these difficult works and guiding us through. Loved your "ball" labyrinth. You could make them and sell them for a bunch, but not worth the time, LOL!
Probably only an elementary or middle school teacher can truly appreciate 15 A; having RODE HERD on young 'uns for 35+ years, that one came easily!
ReplyDeleteSplynter, there wasn't a John Wayne movie made that didn't have at least a few lines that seemed to enter the vernacular with all the ease of an earworm.
Yellowrocks--no C. S. Forester quote? As a teen I devoured the Hornblower novels, and still reread them about every 5 years or so.
Very much enjoyed both the puzzle and Splynter's contribution today; took me just under 30 minutes.
WikWak, yes. I enjoyed the Hornblower novels, though it was many years ago. I should reread them now. They and many other sea novels help greatly with crossword terms. I don't have a ready quote so I looked for some.
ReplyDelete"Death is nothing, but to live defeated and without glory is to die every day.”
– “Napoleon Bonaparte” from “Hornblower During a Crisis” by C.S. Forester
Hornblower quotes
North To Alaska "I'm not gonna hit ya. I'm not gonna hit ya. The hell I'm note gonna hit ya!" WHACK!!!
ReplyDeleteWell, no Woohoo from me today, Irish Miss. On my first run-through I got only COMBUSTION, way down on the bottom, and then a few more here and there before I had to start cheating. I just don't do well with long answers unless they have short perps to help me out. But eventually it did all fill in, though as I said, with lots of cheating. Not much literature except for A PASSAGE TO INDIA (which I liked back then)--maybe that was my problem. But, hey, I expect a Saturday to be a toughie, so thanks for this bear, Alan. And you too, Splynter, for your always great expo.
ReplyDeletePK, your AJAX commercial song cracked me up--I couldn't believe that I still remembered the melody too!
So now that I'm done teaching my course at the Senior Center, it's time to try to start cleaning the house, after all these years. This week I've gotten through about half the top of my desk. At this rate, I won't get to the garage until I'm in my 90s.
Have a great weekend, everybody!
ABEAM - Until a few years ago, sailboat racing rules allowed a downwind (leeward) boat to try to collide with a boat passing on the upwind (windward) side. If the downwind boat was successful, the upwind boat was disqualified. But when the person steering the windward boat could sight the leeward boat's mast perpendicular to his/her stance or seat, (s)he would shout "MAST ABEAM" and the leeward boat had to resume its normal course.
ReplyDeleteThe spoilsports have now made it illegal to intentionally collide with another boat. I'm sure I speak for the entire fiberglass repair industry when I say THANKS FOR NOTHING.
Well let's see, lots of French, some Italian, what no German? At least there was no hated Gimmick. So does anyone still create a classic crossword or not?
ReplyDeleteSplynter - you've never seen a John Wayne movie? What rock do you live under again?
Hi All!
ReplyDeleteThanks Alan for a "learning day." Yeah, total crash-and burn for the -T.
I got Arlo (16a) [Bzzt], SEMIS [Ding!], Sambucca [sp? and Bzzt @14d], A PASSAGE TO INDIA* [Ding!] and OTTO [Ding!] on 1st pass. I got other c/as right and many way-wrong [63a was not uNdER IOR--] Upon giving up, I found only my SW was error-free, er, RIGHT.
Thanks Splynter for the expo. I LOL'd 'cuz my 1d went "to 11" too. The Big Balls machine is super-cool. Good luck building that! and thanks for sharing.
I knew TRU & PLANO which gave me COMBUSTION, UNPOT, and not much else w/o cheats.
NOTEable WOs: eQUAte b/f SQUARE (hey, that was Friday!), Brown b/f BLAIR [the I in semi got over-re-ink'd], hand-up: Safari.
Fav: STRAFE; just 'cuz it made me think of CED's videos of his video-game and Snoopy :-)
{OKL - take a rest and care of yourself}
YR - you kept typing ATARI (for HATARI) and I was listening to the founder of ATARI on the radio... So I scan'd back through the puzzle looking for the clue. D'Oh!
WikWak - Now that you say it... I've heard RODE HERD ON. I parsed it as RO-E HER ---; and couldn't get my mind out of the gutter. [Bzzt]
Yesterday we had PETE BEST and I heard XM-18 will be "all Beatles"; and then today LETS BE ... Is there a conspiracy afoot? :-)
Sure, you may know the Amp "Goes to Eleven," but did you know Human Spontaneous COMBUSTION is a thing? ;-)
Cheers, -T
*Forester was one of the three authors DW IDEATEd on for her dissertation - which I read, like, 100x.
I needed two look-ups to get through Mr. Olschwang's opus. Both of them were in the NW passage. The rest of the pzl gave way, after some sweat and perseverance. After a tough start, it gave me confidence, but then I hit that stubborn NW corner that defied both logic and intuition.
ReplyDeleteSplynter reported trouble too in the same sector. Great Minds. Actually, he reported several issues exactly the same as I encountered. YALE before PENN, LCD before CRT, &c. Small World.
IDEATE bothered me, probably because I have used it in a different way - as a noun - in my work. TREBLE eluded me - my fault there! - because I had filled it with TIMBRE and wasted a lot of time trying to decide between the ER or RE ending.
Oh, well. Saturday.
CanadianEh, forgot to ask you--is it easy to get to Niagara Falls from Toronto? It's a side trip my friend Barbara might like to make if it's not too far, or if we could book a tour there. Sorry I won't see you there, but I'll be thinking of you at your alma mater!
ReplyDeleteAnonymous T, what I wrote was, "With five crosses -ATARI, I remembered HATARI." The little things in life make all the difference. LOL Do you see that dash before -ATARI? I had all those 5 perps before I remembered that the Wayne movie was HATARI. My memory needs a lot of jogging these days. I need more perps to help me recall many fills that are stuck somewhere in my mind than I used to. This morning I shampooed my hair. Then I put shampoo on the shower puff to wash my body. I became aware of it and rinsed the puff off. The I re-shampooed my hair. That's three shots of shampoo. One time I sprayed my underarms with hair spray in place of deodorant. Ugh, sticky mess! My arms stuck straight out like a scarecrow. I need square dancing to amp up my mindfullness.
ReplyDeleteThe most challenging time I ever RODE HERD ON a bunch of kids was with 20 (+ or -) jr-sr hi boys & girls in 4-H. We were asked (well, more like "beseeched") to paint a building on the fair grounds. Took five or six half-day sessions, first scraping off old peeling paint, sanding in some places, primer coat & top coat. The siding was so old we had to use oil-base paint or waste our work. Hot, sweaty summer work. I was amazed that the kids kept showing up and seemed to have fun chatting and singing as they worked. They even followed the basic rule: "Paint the building, not each other." Rewarding, when several commented years later how good the building still looked and how much fun they had doing it. I think people insult the young by not teaching them how to work well.
ReplyDeleteJinx & YR - this is your fault... Appologies to C.Moe, OKL, & WC [and anyone with a sense of literature / culture]. Draft 7... :-)
ReplyDeleteSalty little fish
In my dish
Anchovies
Why folk shun 'em?
I'm not understandin''
They're quite delish'
And Plentiful
These little fish.
A bounty - That only Jesus could wish
To feed, with loaves,
His flock on a hot afternoon
The salt of the sea swells within them
The salty swimmers die
To put on pizza-pie
And keep others from my side
Of leftovers
-T
D'oh! When will I learn to refresh b/f post?...
ReplyDeleteYR - I shoulda said "what I read" in what you typed. I saw "ATARI" standing out and thought it peculiar whilst listing to "From Scratch" on XM-122 (NPR). Too, re: jogging the Ol' Walnut... I had to think for 2min (walking back and forth) MUSEin' about DW's dissertation before I "knew" it was "A PASSAGE" and not "a trip", "an adventure", "guy with gun slays an elephant...." Oy!
The bottle does say "Rinse and Repeat". It never says how many times. Down with Big Shampoo! ;-)
Cheers, -T
Had "esta" instead of ESSA, so DNF. Fun solve anyway. If I had taken a minute to look over "esta" and "tago", I'm sure I would have fixed it.
ReplyDeleteCool puzzle, and hard, of course. Interesting grid.
ReplyDeleteThe first answers I filled were SSS and EEE, oddly enough. Originally entered VOLUME for the amp setting until it became clear it was wrong. I still don't know what CIE is.
I liked the movie HATARI. Especially liked Red Buttons as the character "Pockets." Didn't, and don't, like Capucine, though. Excellent Henry Mancini music, some of his best.
Jayce - CIE is French abbreviation for 'compagnie'. The clue was Somme co.
ReplyDeleteOf course, I'm one of the unwashed hoi ploi, but I don't think puzzles that very few can solve are neither "fun" nor " a challenge". "Frustrating", "brain wracking" and "misanthropic" might be more fitting adjectives. After 90 anguish causing minutes, it went where it belonged - in the recycle bin - where , at least it has some vslue.
ReplyDeleteBobbi, the "rule" for cw's is that the level of difficulty increases every day, Mon-thru-Sat. The solver may coast early in the week, but struggle with the late-week puzzles. We don't win 'em all, but we do get better with practice. Keep at it. You may find it addictive.
ReplyDeleteMusings
ReplyDelete-Did the puzzle, played 18 holes, went to Iowa to watch grandson play baseball, sang at church…
This was a Saturday struggle for me. But I expect to have lots of ink blots and require red letter and/or Google help on a Saturday. Thanks for the fun, Alan and Splynter.
ReplyDelete(Don't give up Bobbi. Just consider Saturday a learning experience!)
Hand up for Bar before LAB, Joni before, JOAN, Yale before PENN, ACDC before AMFM.
Am I being nit-picky when I wondered why the PENN and BEEB clues gave no indication of abbreviation and slang respectively? OK, it's Saturday.
I don't remember the HATARI movie but do remember The Baby Elephant Walk. Now I will have the ear worm all evening.
OwenKL, I was going to say that you can take a rest when needed and not feel pressured to produce poetry for us, but now we have AnonT . . . . LOL! And I hate anchovies.
Misty, it is about 2 hours from Toronto to Niagara Falls with no traffic problems. A side trip is certainly possible if you have some extra time (a whole day would be best). I'm sure there are bus tours and there is a Go Train on the weekend. Let me see what I can dig up in the next day or two.
Maybe I will proceed to the Sunday puzzle while DH and I watch the hockey game. (We are happy that Ottawa and Edmonton are still alive, although we are a little worried about Edmonton!)
There was a hidden QOD out there: Hondo was a JW movie. I recall it as one of the 3D experiments and I notice it had a date of 1953 which was a hotbed of 3D.
ReplyDeleteAnon-T, I really liked your verse. I won't touch the 'little fish' though.
Bobbi, I often thought Saturday xwords were impossible and Fridays almost as bad. Today, I had to put it down for an hour and got it piece by piece. Except, I forgot about ANISE TEA. And the xing Naticks: HAN/HATARI.
Ironically, the themes make solving easier. And ironically again, if you want the bizarre, Will Shortz often has some beauts.
Answers to last night's ARF, ARF Cue: Out damned SPOT
Buzzing cue: To BEE or not to BEE
WC
Bobbi, just think of the week's array of puzzles as something for everybody.
ReplyDeleteMonday and Tuesday for those who like it easy, Wednesday and Thursday for those who like it medium and Friday and Saturday for those who like it challenging. Some of us like the whole continuum from easy to hard. And as some have said by trying the harder puzzles with Google and red letters you become a better solver.
One of our newspapers here has only easy puzzles. I do. not care for them.
Bobbi - not to pile on but to simply echo YR & WC... I've been doing xwords for >10 years and have solved only one or two Sat puzzles 100% on my own. I stick with 'em because, 1) I feel really good when I can, on a Sat, get,say, STRAFE w/ only ---AF- and complete a corner and 2) I learn something [13d were NOT flowers]. If Monday's puzzles were like Saturday's, or everyday like Monday's, I'd not bother; they'd be either too boring [see: Sudoku] or too frustrating [see: Quantum mechanics].
ReplyDeleteWhen I first started solving, I was happy to finish a Monday; now I'm mad at myself if I don't complete a Tuesday sans err. A Thursday solve is euphoric and a Friday is 20% chance of 'winning.' Anyway, don't play if it's going to piss you off; play because you enjoy learning and/or challenging yourself with words - even if they're IDEATE [I never did fill in that D today].
Thanks C, Eh! & CW for the kind words re: my hand at free-verse. Billy Collins is my favorite (still alive) poet and I try to emulate his mastery of visual prose as he juxtaposes ideas. I don't know how to explain it... He seamlessly brings multiple ideas together and I can visualize what he, in so few words, paints. Like this TED presentation [the second Poem is one of my all-time favs].
Cheers, -T
Hand up with Big Easy for FIW with dATARI/dAN. This made me quite upset as I got everything else. And everything else was a bit more than difficult. Expressions I have never heard of.
ReplyDeleteTO A TURN? I have only heard TO A TEE
CIC was new to me and barely even counts as a Mil VIP. I suppose it is worth remembering.
CIE, ATRI, ODAS, BEEB, TRU, ESSA also unknowns, but could be perped or WAGged.
I remember seeing erotic classic paintings of "odalisques" which gave me a clue to ODAS.
AJAX is no substitute for Bon Ami. Bon Ami is guaranteed not to scratch. Don't try that with Ajax!
Hand up for thinking ELEVEN for an Amp Setting!
I have also never seen a John Wayne movie. Not fond of people who play macho roles who try to get other people killed. Like another famous actor, he never saw combat. He just tried to con others into combat.