A THEMELESS SATURDAY WITH DEBBIE AND JEFF
Husker Gary here today saying OY Vey, let's hope we can make this a kvetching-free zone today as we are now officially in the season of spring!
Now let's see what else this wonderful duo has for us today:
Across
1. __ bar : TAPAS - Hispanic noshes
6. Line used when wrapping? : THAT'S THAT - What we bloggers might say after we wrap up reviewing a puzzle
15. Singer whose three studio albums have numerical titles : ADELE - A woman with a glorious voice and a plethora of vowels in her name
16. Was bugged : WORE A WIRE - Just speak into my shirt
17. Remove, as a corsage : UNPIN - Be careful how you're pinning and unpinning that corsage, Buster!
18. It has a climbing route called "The Nose" : EL CAPITAN
19. Crude : TASTELESS - That may have been funny years ago but...
21. Den denizens : CUBS - Saw them play the Royals in beautiful Sloan Stadium in Mesa, AZ on a beautiful 60F day last Sunday. The surrounding area is called Wrigleyville like it is in Chicago surrounding Wrigley Field.
22. Nice assent : OUI - Yes in Nice, France!
23. League of Women Voters co-founder : CATT - Carrie Chapman CATT. Progress!
24. Assists a chef : PREPS - For me that would be, "Get out the ketchup, Gary!"
26. White House advisory gp. : NSC - JFK and his National Security Council in October 1961 during a very tense time in American history
27. Six-pack group : ABS - Here's how to work on your abdominal muscles
28. Fighting chance : BOUT - What many consider the greatest and most brutal BOUT of all time. Joe Frazier's corner quit after the 14th round which gave Ali a TKO but Ali was begging his corner to "cut off his gloves" so he could quit but Joe beat him to it.
29. Comics shriek : YEOW
31. The African Queen, for one : STEAMBOAT - Bogie and Hepburn suffered many physical ailments making this movie in the brutal Belgian Congo35. Former first daughter : MALIA and 2. To an annoying degree : AD NAUSEAM - I had _ U L I _ (JULIE Nixon) for the name for awhile because I thought AD NAUSEAM ended in UM.
37. Make a call : OPT
38. Conqueror of Valencia in 1094 : EL CID
40. Brain in many an Asimov story : MAIN FRAME - Not exactly a MAIN FRAME but here is Isaac Asimov pitching a computer. Hey, authors have to eat too!
43. British title : DAME
44. Part of a flute : STEM - How 'bout a Champagne flute with a hollow STEM
47. __ shooter : PEA
48. Buzzed : TIPSY
50. Pokémon that evolves to Kadabra : ABRA - Yeah, I knew that! 😛
51. Org. concerned with child support : PTA - Mrs. Johnson "socked it to the Harper Valley PTA"
52. Singer Vannelli : GINO - 65-yr-old GINO was performing in Scottsdale just after we left this week
53. 1995 AFI Life Achievement Award recipient : SPIELBERG - His first movie was Amblin' which he wrote, directed and edited with $15,000. I can't pick a favorite of his movies but Apollo 13 is right up there.
55. Spidey sense, basically : ALARM BELL
58. Skateboard leap : OLLIE - Mass OLLIES
59. Stopped taking orders : WENT ROGUE - I did this at several points in my life which almost all turned out to be bad decisions
60. Home of Armani and Prada : MILAN - Do they sell at Kohl's?
61. News credential : PRESS PASS - Where/when they wore them.
62. Place on a pedestal : EXALT
Down
1. Scientific name involving a repeated word : TAUTONYM - New word for me but you see an example at the bottom of this chart
3. What Brad's Drink became : PEPSI COLA - Invented in 1893 in New Bern, N.C.
4. Settled down : ALIT
5. Elder or Younger Roman writer : SENECA - PLINY was not only wrong, it was one letter short
6. Modern-day eruption : TWEET STORM - Today everybody has an opinion and an electronic forum
7. "The Planets" composer : HOLST - It has seven movements - one for each planet except the one we inhabit
9. It can be green, red or yellow : TEA - I'll bet a bunch that C.C.'s house does not contain a TEA bag
10. Con's mark : SAP
11. Hyphenated word in a Hawthorne title : TWICE TOLD - An 1837 compilation of short stories he collected over the years
12. Put the bite on : HIT UP - Every year we get HIT UP for these delights. Gotta love the Thin Mints
13. Many Scheherazade characters : ARABS - A Rimsky-Korsakov symphonic suite based on The Arabian Knights
14. XXX, perhaps : TENS - Olympic judges at the Roman Colosseum?
20. Big dogs : LABS and 24. Little dog : POM - Here's a cross of a Golden Lab and a Pomeranian.
25. Self-Operating Napkin creator Goldberg : RUBE - Here it is!
28. Rides with wing-shaped tailfins : BAT MOBILES - There's more than one?
30. Game including golf and bowling : WII SPORTS
32. Taker of ppm measurements : EPA - The Environmental Protection Agency decides how many parts per million of any stuff can be in any other stuff
33. Barbershop quartet style : A CAPPELLA - A wonderful scene and fabulous music!
34. Race against the clock : TIME TRIAL - Omaha has been the site of the TIME TRIALS for the U.S. Olympic Swim Team for years.
36. Outdoor party crashers : ANTS
39. Buster? : DEA AGENT - Busting drug rings
41. "Bossypants" memoirist : FEY -Tina FEY is a funny woman
42. Fictional governess : EYRE - A mousy governess who softens the heart of her employer soon discovers that he's hiding a terrible secret.
46. Rita Hayworth's title princess : SALOME - Her Salome dress recently sold at auction for $15,000. (Talk about contrast to Jane Eyre!)
48. Building subcontractor : TILER
49. Just plain silly : INANE
50. Outstanding : A PLUS
52. Be a looky-loo : GAWP - Of course I thought it was GAWK first
53. Genesis creator : SEGA
54. "Disarming Iraq" author Hans : BLIX - He was also the first western representative at the Chernobyl disaster site
56. Ceremonial title? : MRS - On What's My Line, Emcee John Daly's first question of a woman contestant after she signed in was, "Is it Miss or MRS. ______"?
57. Jazz genre : BOP- Or BEBOP
What say you?
DA GRID
38 comments:
Pretty straightforward today.
Good morning!
There's laconic, and then there's JCJ!
My grid looks like a Jackson Pollock painting. Hooray for Wite-Out! Yes, I tried JULIE. Yes I wanted PLINY. What almost derailed the train was DUKE as the British title. I kept it to the bitter end. I finally realized that DAME would work much better, and PTA would be better than NEA. Thanx, Debbie, Jeff and Husker.
CATT: We haven't seen her since...yesterday.
SALOME: I was still a wee lad when I saw this one. What a disappointment. Just as Salome was about to run out of veils, in walks a Roman soldier with John the Baptist's head on a platter, spoiling the mood and ending the dance.
TWICE-TOLD: Only know this from the childhood card game Authors. You had to collect complete sets-of-four. The Hawthorne set consisted of The Wonder Book, The House of Seven Gables, The Scarlet Letter and Twice-Told Tales.
Yep
Hello Puzzlers -
Plenty of Saturday bite to this one! Tautonym was unknown, of course. Started with a Sushi bar, but that became Salad, which Splynter would call “100% 40% correct.” So it remained until the very end, when at last there were enough letters to recognize Pepsi cola.
Briefly considered Mamie, until remembering she was First Lady. Hand up for wanting Pliny.
Morning, Husker! My prom date was wearing a pretty dress with a flattering neckline, so when it came time to pin on the corsage, her mother intervened. Good thing, actually. I’d have made a spectacle of it.
I found this very crunchy. I had a sea of white until I though of tweet storm. That gave me a good leg up. I used red letters to point out mistakes maybe four times. My second guess was all I needed. I enjoyed the puzzle immensely, even so. I welcomed the challenge and the learning moments. I wouldn't ask for an easier puzzle on a Saturday. Struggle is how we learn.
I have seen African Queen several times. Great movie.
HG, fun and interesting, as always. What an adorable dog!
I wanted PLINY, too, but I was so sure of UNPIN, I erased PLINY.
Picard, how horrible that your site was shut down. You lost all that material? I hope your law suit wins.
Time to run. A lot on today's schedule.
This puzzle was generally faster than some Saturdays - but certain areas gave me a run for my money! I put in JULIA before MALIA because I had AD NAUSEUM like museum instead of NAUSEAM.
A CAPPELLA - is one of those words that I can never remember if it has 2 Cs or 2Ps- had to wait for the perps.
These days most of the girls have wrist corsages - both because there isn't much dress to pin something to and the material would probably tear with a pin in it!
Thanks HG and Debbie & Jeff!
I forgot my PRESS PASS today, so welcome to another A CAPPPELLA, TASTELESS comment from me. Lots of white early. Finally filling the unknown TAUTONYM next to AD NAUSEAM just looked strange. But the toughest was the intersections of unknowns-ABRA, SALOME, & OLLIE- never heard of any of them.
GAWK before GAWP(huh? another new word), HIT ON before HIT UP, ITALY before MILAN. Well, I had no idea as to what "Spidey sense" meant, so ALARM BELL kinda fell into place.
THAT'S THAT for today.
Good Morning.
Quite a workout for me because I didn't get to yesterday's puzzle for the stretch and warm-up before this run.
Great challenging fun. Thanks, Debbie and Jeff. I could not work my way out of the Southwest, which fell last. I,too, wanted AD NAUSEuM, which also forced Julie. Good old Patience and Perseverance.
Nicely done, Gary. SPIELBERG was not on my radar initially. I thought he was too young. HA! He's older than I, so the fault is seeing myself as younger than I am!! I'm glad skaters have parks now, so they can complete their OLLIES and other moves without destroying public spots. Just have to keep and eye out for all the steel balls and other impediments before sitting in a cityscape. TAUTONYM came easily from tautology, which I used when I was teaching. I still remember soda fountains at the pharmacies. There was still once here in Evanston when my kids were little, so I'm often made sure they were able to experience that.
Off to get some chores done today--even though I like to take the weekend off. Ha! I feel like the Countess of Grantham--What's a Weekend? Isn't it always a weekend since I've retired? Have a lovely one.
GO DEN DENIZENS!!!
Mme. Defarge - smiled right out loud at “Go den denizens!!!”
Picard from yesterday and even the day before - until the comments were expanded upon, I didn’t grasp the severity of your web hosting problem. It’s bad enough to have an interruption in a service that should be rock solid, but to have no explanation or assistance is downright criminal. I sincerely hope you did not lose any digital property along the way.
Hand up for wanting ad nauseUm. I've known TAUTONYM but it took a while to bring it up from the bottomless pit. And I wanted RIVERboat so badly that it took some effort to abandon it for STEAMBOAT. I enjoyed this one; thanks to Debbie and Jeff, and of course to HG.
Good Morning:
I thoroughly enjoyed this solve as it was evenly balanced with challenging vs straightforward cluing and fill. For example, I'm familiar with El Capitan, EPA, and Main Frame but not as they were clued. Totally unknown, to me, were Holst, Brad's Drink, Seneca, Abra, and Gino. OTO hand, there were the cute duo of Labs and Pom and the so au courant, Tweet Storm, the easily inferrable (?) Acappella, Press Pass, Went Rogue, Ad nauseam, Spielberg, etc. Catt came easily as we just saw her and Blix rang a bell, also. In a way, it reminded me of a Barry Silk offering, so that's another reason I enjoyed it so much. (I miss you, Barry.) Finished w/o help in 33:00 which is about average for a relatively difficult Saturday.
Thanks, Debbie and Jeff, for a fun, collaborative effort and thanks, HG, for your eye-popping visuals and wonderful write-up, especially the adorable Pom/Lab pix! Nice pix of you and Joann, too.
Madame Defarge, good luck to your den's denizens! LOL
JCJ and DO ~ Funny!
Have a great day.
Did something happen to Barry Silk?
There have been many versions of the Batmobile. Wikipedia says, "Depictions of the vehicle have evolved along with the character, with each incarnation reflecting evolving car technologies.
different versions
Being retired... I get so much less done in a day than I used to. I used to work full time and do many more extra curricular activities and household tasks than I do now. On a single Saturday I could wash every window in my large bi-level inside and out, using a ladder for some of them, and then wash the curtains, as well. After I retired it took me a week. Last fall I hired a window service. I don't know how I did it all when I worked.
I do enjoy having more free choice, no deadlines, few tight schedules, and few "oughts" and "musts." I enjoy having time to read as much as I like and going places in the off season.
I know gawp and gawk are synonyms and both are stupid and rude, but, in my own mind, gawp seems ruder.
Husker: I enjoy your write-up's very much!
It takes me almost as much time as this puzzles enjoyable solve.
Debbie & Jeff: Thank you for a FUN Saturday puzzle experience.
If I had a fave today I guess it was WENT ROGUE @ 59-a ... it describes my life after "retirement." LOL
(Yup, I'm NOT taking "orders" any more!)
Hope you all have a wonderful "Palm Sunday EVE"
Cheers!
Anon@11:34 Barry Silk decided to take a break from puzzle creating with no promise as to when or if he'd return to it.
Anonymous, I believe Barry Silk passed away a few years back. Sure do miss his diabolical puzzles.
Oops. Is Mr. Silk alive and well?
Barry Silk took a break....and he’s much missed, if this puzzle is to be compared to his. Silk puzzles always give you a chance.
This puzzle was set up and clued so as to make it unlikely to solve.
I love a tough puzzle, but this was beyond me....or I just got aggravated. Put it down and didn’t pick it up again.
Hi All!
I agree, this puzzle felt Silk-y; a little here a little there and it's still above my solving ability :-). Thanks Debbie and Jeff - I had fun while listening to Wait, Wait.
What Tin said HG - I think I spent more time on the expo than the puzzle :-) Great stuff and nice pics of you & BH.
Study of a Sat-solve: My first entries were Holtz [sic and never fixed], SAP, TENS, ADELE, AD NAUSiuM, Yeik [for YEOW - eventually changed-ish to support WII SPORTS, a game I have!], ABS, EPA, STEAMBOAT...
EARL b/f later going DAME, PEA. Ah, Spidey sense ≠ clairvoyance [trust me, I made it fit the squares :-)]. Back to the top for UN PIN, ALIT... HA! SALAD Bar [that never changed either].
I had MULTIVACs b/f Main Frame. In the end, I got close but my missives kept me from completing the NW & SW completely (one Google, BLIX, helped me fill the SE).
Favs (that I got): OUI and OYS.
And THAT'S THAT.
Have a great Sat! -T
very tough. undoable for a poor dumb physicist ! CMON Rita Hayworth and the league women's voters in the same puzzle. Proud of getting Pepsi (coke drinker) and tweetstorm after going through all the volcanoes I remember. Had Malia and erased it for Julia after my Latin kicked in for Ad nauseam of course I had the U. I couldn't get speilberg even after I had the berg, but still would have been a DNF. Stringing out 6 for 7 weeks. Sundays require a lookback but Saturdays are DNF's Except for one this year. I'm an 18 in golf...I wonder what my XWORD handicap would be ?
Saw that Jeff Chen was a co-constructor and figured there was no way I'd be able to solve this puzzle without looking a lot of stuff up. I am really glad to have been wrong today; I solved The Whole Thing without looking anything up or using red letters. Good ole P&P. Yes, the way the cluing was deliberately intended to make things difficult is obvious; such is Jeff's usual M-O. Maybe Debbie Ellerin's influence softened things just a bit. By the way, I like her work.
Sort of interesting to see ABS and LABS cross.
Gary, again thank you for a terrific write-up. I totally agree with Tinbeni.
Best wishes to you all.
Saturday stumper. Thanks for the fun Debbie and Jeff, and Husker G.
I required a few red letter runs to complete.
WEES re AD NAUSEAM. Hand up for Salad before TAPAS, Earl before Dame, Gawk before GAWP.
I learned CATT yesterday. After yesterday's Jewish tribes, I thought the Genesis creator was God.
If that MAIN FRAME WENT ROGUE, would we get an ALARM BELL?
Apparently, ADELE names her albums using the number of her age when the album is produced.
Enjoy the evening.
Too rough for me.
I finished only with exceptional help. Debbie Ellerin & Jeff Chen may claim me as a conquest.
The many uses of red letters and Google support by my colleagues shows that I am not alone, so that at least bolsters my wounded pride.
I offer sincere congratulations to today's few true champs - like Jayce!
Why do so many fighters for female rights have names ending in TT?
The main treat today was Husker Gary's finely illustrated blog. I really enjoyed the selections, none more than his choice for ABS!
____________
Diagonal Report: Two - the two main lines, NW to SE, and the mirror image, NE to SW.
.
Well, I got OYS, UNPIN, PREPS, and one or two others on my first run, but this was a Saturday toughie that took a lot of cheating. Very clever--sorry I couldn't do better, Debbie and Jeff. I too had JULIA instead of MALIA, because like Gary, I figured the down had to be AD NAUSEUM. Oh well, it's a Saturday, after all.
My daughter-in-aw and grandson are marching with the kids in San Francisco. I am so proud of them. (Apologies, if this is politics. I just meant to comment on my family).
Have a great day, everybody!
Hi Y'all! With all of us learned cw solvers spelling AD NAUSEAM with a "U", one would think we were right & the powers-that-be are wrong. No such luck and THAT'S THAT!
"Line used when wrapping" wasn't Twine or ribbon. Carrie Chapman CATT is now TWICE TOLD. Never heard of TAUTONYM, HOLST or BLIX.
My writing partner & I were each given our first ever PRESS PASS to sit in the PRESS section of our state level Miss America-affiliate Pageant. We were so thrilled with them. We didn't have hats. Wore them on lanyards.
HG: It's 1001 Arabian Nights, not KNIGHTs. But enjoyed your expo. Thanks. Major learning experience, thanks, Deb & Jeff.
Salome was a gimmee. I had Rita Hayworth paper dolls as a pre-teen and one of her outfits was the Salome costume.
My belated birthday dinner at Red Lobster today was New Orleans grilled shrimp and tilapia over a buttery sauce with carmelized pineapple, tomato & Jalapeno. Good, but hot, hot! Daughter & I then went shopping and bought my new Sharp microwave. She carried it in and set it up. I couldn't lift it. Always enjoy shopping with her.
My elder son, DIL & two grandsons arrived home last night from the Mexican Riviera resort on Yucatan where they spent spring break. Yesterday evening when World News trailer announced that a couple and two children had died down there in a resort hotel room, my stomach turned over. Wasn't my kids. Whew! I had warned them before they left that a ferry had been bombed near where they were going and tourists killed & injured. They checked with their booking agent who said security had been stepped up so they would be safe. I very nicely didn't let them see me have a conniption fit. Guess they had a good time.
Tried to do the puzzle on the plane to Florida using pen and paper,
Actually got more than half way!
Luckily I had saved it on an IPad before we left,
So I was able to finish with red letters...
The African Queen is on display in Key Largo Florida since 1992.
Thank you Debbie Ellerin, and Jeff Chen for this extremely difficult Saturday CW. I lost track of the letters I bought. I did however complete the CW.
Thank you Husker Gary for the many tidbits you shared with us. Would that I could comment on each of them, but anon will be pleased that I am not up to the posting challenge.
I'm mourning the further loss of my abilities. A month ago I decided to stop driving. Would anyone like to buy a Mazda Protege, 2000, stick shift, good condition. Today I reverted to an adult Sippy cup (Tupperware shaker) after knocking my water cup (aka coffee cup) off my desk for the second time. On time one, H2O got into my cell phone. Verizon deemed it kaput, however, after several days, almost all function has returned. Today my travel clock / thermometer got aqua in the battery compartment. It is in time out, and I am in depression, just one of the 7 stages of grief.
Dave
PK- you were in NOLA today and went to Red Lobster? There's 1,000+ better places to eat here than that place. And don't go to Landry's either. It's not the original Landry's; they just bought the name.
Big Easy, No no I wasn't in NOLA. I was in Kansas and went to the Red Lobster which on the menu called it a New Orleans dish. Fresh fish is a misnomer here, but I sometimes want fish. I lived close to the coast in Texas years ago and learned to love fresh seafood.
This was tough! Staring at nothing but blank space until I got RUBE. That was the only gimme for me. Every single answer after that was a struggle. Yes, we just had CATT, but clued differently. Hand up wanted PLINY and SENECA did not come to mind. Hand up GAWP utterly unknown. Cross with GINO seemed a bit unfair. Has anyone ever heard GAWP used?
Some clever clues! "Line used when wrapping?" was the winner!
I wanted JENNA before MALIA. Learning moment: TAUTONYM
Very pleased to FIR.
I have been to the actual BAT Cave in Los Angeles. And I have seen the actual BAT MOBILE elsewhere in Los Angeles. No way to show you my photos. Argh!
Yellowrocks and Dudley: Thank you very much for understanding the severity of this crisis for me. It was some reassurance to find that lawsuit showing they are doing this to other people.
Here again is that article about the suit against Yahoo Small Business for shutting down web sites with no warning and no just cause.
For now no property has been destroyed. But my entire web site is completely shut down. And I have exhausted all appeals. Yahoo Small Business refuses to restore my site or to give any valid explanation for shutting it down. They even claim they still want me as a customer!
Today I met with the top reporter in our small city of Santa Barbara, CA. His name is John Palminteri and he said he would see if he can help. He knows how important my site is.
Thanks everyone for your support!
Husker Gary: Thanks for all of the brilliant images in your write up! I am mystified about the sit-ups ABS clip!
Loved the group OLLIE, SALOME, and Asimov selling the TRS80 early PC! I felt very fortunate to get to hear him speak many years ago. One of the most prolific writers of all time and so visionary!
At 11am I was sure this was a DNF of biblical proportions (see yesterday) . I was shuttling all over Tampa Bay (in fact I circumnavigated it) .
So I would stop and look and behold there was another box filled . When I saw Pokemon I texted Phil*, he of the wont to chase them)
But like Jayce slowly and surely it got filled . Btw, you Julie Nixon fans, what were you going to do with a J at the end of 1D .
As I look it over I could recount 119 stories. After blowing it yesterday I wanted to go all the way today.
I too love Gary's write-ups and of course, after the fact, I congratulate Debbie and Jeff. And, I just realized that there's no GREEN SEA.
PICARD, I'm glad you're going public. I'd also suggest the FCC .
WC
* Fortunately, I was able to perp ABRA(Kadabra ) before I read his text.
Dave 2, my thoughts are with you in your predicament. How upsetting. I will email you tomorrow. A big yellowrock to you.
D4, you are not alone in the loss of abilities. Aging is not fun. Depression has a way of grabbing hold and hanging on to me also. I have a friend who had cancer of the tongue then years later her voice box. Most of the tongue and all of the larynx were removed. She can't talk but she has the wonder of internet and she is smiling in her pictures. I marvel at her and when I get really down, think of her, who is in some ways worse off than I. Other times, I wonder how she really is behind closed doors.
Hang in there friend.
It's so late, it's hardly worth posting! Today was very busy though I did start and got a good bit of it done early this morning. Tomorrow we are celebrating one of my niece's 50th birthday so much had to be accomplished. Then in the afternoon I went to Book Club. We discussed Yellow Crocus which everyone liked.
So I finally sat to finish the puzzle but hit two serious Naticks: BLIX/OLLIE, TAUONYM/MALIA. Hand up for JULIE but quickly realized it wouldn't work. Then saw the ii at WIISPORTS and didn't accept it. Normally, I would have applied P&P but being tired I just looked them up.
Everything else fell into place nicely. TAPAS was, of course, a fine way to start and ADELE, too. ELCAPITAN was an easy climb (metaphorically) and STEAMBOAT helped me sail on. I liked the lit references, EYRE, TWICE-TOLD tales, and SALOME. I loved Rita Hayworth.
D4E4H:
How very dreadful that you are experiencing those disabilities. Aging is not for faint of heart, as we have been told. Hang in there and know you have your supporters here.
Thank you, Debbie and Jeff! This was Saturday worthy. Gary, thank you for your fine expo.
I hope you all had a fabulous day!
D4 - Know your Corner friends are here for you (and don't worry about the snark-nons); while it's sad to lose the ability to safely drive, be glad you recognized that before someone (or you!) got hurt.
Picard - Let's hope some ink in the PRESS will embarrass Yahoo! into doing the right thing.
Lucina - It's never to late to post. I loved your 3rd paragraph!
Cheers, -T
Lucina, wasn't it you who recommended "A Man Called Ove" to me? I just finished it. After a slow, curmudgeonly start, I really came to like the old coot. Thank you for the suggestion.
Still awake?
On the way from the Grocery store w/ Eldest, we heard Tim in a Bath crossing the English Channel . We sat in our car to the end - a real NPR "driveway moment." It's quite funny and (I Googled it afterwords) it's True. Cheers, -T
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