THEMELESS SATURDAY PUZZLE BY DANIEL NIERENBERG
On this National Kindergarten Day Daniel Nierenberg has provided us a very worthy test. For me, Husker Gary, this is my fourth blogging effort on a Daniel puzzle - three Saturdays and one Friday. As is my M.O. on his puzzles, I employed the hunt and peck method until the NEAT/NUBIA "N" appeared and I was done!
Now, in honor of my lifetime friend Janet who is retiring after 35 years of teaching Kindergarten, let's see what word play Daniel has for us in our literary sandbox today:
Across:
1. Classic dramatic device: FATAL FLAW - The most famous FATAL FLAW in literature?
10. Demonstration of power, perhaps: N-TEST - A-Bombs and H-Bombs are both really N-(Nuclear) Bombs. One splits nuclei and the other fuses them together
15. Winter carnival attraction: ICE PALACE - A beautiful ICE PALACE constructed in St. Paul, MN a half-hour drive from C.C.
16. Mythical myrtle-and-roses wreath wearer: ERATO - A vowel-rich crossword veteran muse of poetry
17. Updated "What a shame!": THAT BITES
18. Cane-carrying Mr.: MAGOO and 14. 18-Across and others: TOONS. Did Mr. Peanut enter your thoughts?
19. Country E of Cyprus: SYR - SYRIA - too much in the news
20. Marsh growth: REED.
21. Beauty aisle brand: REVLON - A childhood memory of REVLON. Do you remember the show, this woman who won the big prize and what her category was? (*Answer below the grid)
22. Virus eponym: BARR.
23. Assigns new rankings to: RESEEDS - NCAA Basketball teams are RESEEDED just before the season-ending tournament
24. Narrow types: BIGOTS - Norman Lear's Archie Bunker made us look BIGOTRY right in the face
27. Caravan components: CAMELS
28. Parting word: ADIOS
29. 1848 classic song about an Alabama-to-Louisiana traveler: OH SUSANNA - "With a banjo on my knee"
32. Court pros: REFS - These pro REFS did not see traveling here in this exhibition game.
33. Lingerie specifications: D-CUPS - It took 33. Waiting room site: DEPOT gave me the correct cup letter
34. Hair products: GELS - Mass use
35. Uris WWII novel: BATTLE CRY
37. Harass: BESET
38. "Help me out, bro": BE A PAL
39. Nissan compact: SENTRA
40. Actor's dream: STARDOM.
42. Cleverly planned, as a trick: NEAT - Now this is a NEAT trick!
43. Warn, in a way: HISS AT
44. Territory with a palm tree in its seal: GUAM - I did not know Guam's flag or capital
45. Onetime JFK arrival: SST
48. Like some casks: OAKEN - We BIG 10 football fans know Purdue and Indiana play for the Old OAKEN Bucket each year
49. Fate of Peter's father, in kiddie lit: RABBIT PIE - I had no memory of this sad part of the story
51. Sections: AREAS - In 2003, the CIA officially acknowledged that AREA 51 exists
52. Dell gaming brand: ALIEN WARE - At the left is the $4,900 model for serious gamers, uh, not for me
53. Barista's offering: LATTE
54. Intimidating psychological tactics: HEAD GAMES
Down:
1. Makes sense: FITS - Oh that's where it FITS2. Hurting: ACHY.
3. Run like the wind: TEAR - What JH kids do going to lunch
4. Liable: APT
5. Research subjects: LAB RATS - Our staff and kids were LAB RATS for "Open Concept" classrooms back in the 70's. Retrofitting was expensive after the experiment failed miserably
6. Message disseminators: FLIERS - Is that why they make windshield wipers?
7. Not as punctual: LATER
8. Justified serious studying for: ACED - Having ACED a test is usually done by serious studying (ROTE memorizing?)
9. Former NFL receiver Welker: WES - After at least six concussions from hits like this, he has retired
10. Sinestro and Professor Zoom, in their respective universes: NEMESES - Here's one, you can google the other if you like. BTW, I'd wager that dime comic is worth a few bucks these days.
11. Tour coordinator: TRAVEL AGENT - My TRAVEL AGENT arranged my trips to Florida with the kids but she also accompanied us because once we got there, she knew I ran the show
12. Home on a high cliff, perhaps: EAGLE'S NEST - Martin Borman's gift of The EAGLE'S NEST retreat to Hitler high in the Bavarian Alps is now a cozy restaurant
13. Rose: STOOD.
21. Important player in the founding-of-Rome story: REMUS - He was killed by his twin Romulus and hence the name of the city is...
22. Child-raising technique?: BOOSTER SEAT - Declining the BOOSTER SEAT was a landmark for our kids
23. Rough-sounding: RASPY - Joe Cocker's RASPY rendition of the theme of this show
24. Wire sticker: BARB - Those BARBS on wire helped change ranches into farms
25. What a raised index finger may indicate: IDEA - A more prosaic use
26. Present often mailed: GIFT BASKET
27. Lout: CHURL - I've heard of/used the adjective CHURLISH
29. "Law of parsimony" philosopher: OCCAM - Another school of thought by the co-discoverer of the DNA molecule
30. Brewer, e.g., briefly: NLER - National LeaguER
31. Cinema pooch: ASTA - Nick and Nora's doggy
36. Matisse work featuring hand-holding: LA DANSE.
37. Wearing a grin: BEAMING
39. Skate home: SEABED - Talk about your masters of disguises
40. Skimboarding hazard: SHOAL - I hit a STONE at first on my figurative beach skimboard
41. Top prom wear?: TIARA - Amy's dream come true
42. Abu Simbel's region: NUBIA- The pharaonic temples then and now located in the village of Abu Simbel in the most southern Egyptian region of NUBIA
44. Severe blow: GALE - We've had them here all spring
45. Filter target: SPAM - Tons of this is made here in Fremont, NE
46. "Game of Thrones" address: SIRE - I've never seen the show but Thrones and S _ _ _ address. C'mon...
47. Screen-printing targets: TEES - With b/w TV, I never knew what the Superman TEE looked like until mom bought me one
49. Sound from a fan: RAH - Football fan
50. Lindbergh Line airline: TWA - Can you find The Lindbergh Line in two places in this picture?
A lovely credo for National Kindergarten Day:
With all these lessons in mind, SHARE your comments, BE FAIR and PLAY WELL WITH OTHERS:
DA GRID
*
a) Show - $64,000 Question hosted by Hal March and sponsored by Revlon
b) Contestant - Psychologist Dr. Joyce Brothers
c) Her category - Boxing
"Stormy" Daniel Nierenberg whipped me today. THAT BITES. The NW, NE, & SE were in my range today but the SW was not doable. I correctly WAGged BE A PAL, OAKEN, AREAS, & LATTE but BATTLECRY, OCCAM, LA DANSE,and CHURL (never heard that word) were unknowns that I would have never completed. Tried ATTS for 'Court pros' and my brain wouldn't let go of a Hospital 'Waiting room site'. My warning was the incorrect HINT AT instead of HISS.
ReplyDeleteBut no HISSing from me. I surrender on this one.
Good morning!
ReplyDeleteFinished Daniel's bad boy in 20 minutes; only needed Wite-Out once to change MYOPE to TOONS. Yes, Husker I did think of Mr. Peanut. I also remembered Dr. Brothers and knew her category. Anybody else think of __ATO as PLATO before ERATO showed up? When you arrive on Guam the first thing you see is a large sign: Guam Is Good and another with the national work ethic: Hafa Adai. Gotta love a puzzle complete with a GIFT BASKET and a TRAVEL AGENT. Thanx, Daniel, and great tour, Gary.
SE corner was last to fall. I read 45A as JFK rival instead of arrival. Had RHM for far too long.
ReplyDeleteThat is RMN, remember him from Watergate.
ReplyDeleteOuch, a little bit of a bear from Daniel, followed by a great tour from Husker Gary. A perfect way to start the day!
ReplyDeleteA couple of ink-blots driving my OCD a little crazy, but I did manage to FIR. Of my many missteps and blind alleys: wanted crIERS for 6D, but FATAL cLAW is probably not that widely known, although Hitchcock did use it to great effect in The Birds; I always want to spell OCCAM as OChAM for some reason probably related to a childhood incident long forgotten, but BATTLECRY set me straight; and, minDGAMES fit perfectly for a while, especially as I had hum for 49D, Sound from a fan, but finally figured that whole SE block out.
Really enjoyed this puzzle, thanks again Daniel.
A good day, all....
Trouble in the NE with blOOm and RErateS instead of STOOD and RESEEDS. But the NCAA only seeds teams once. There can be no seeds until the teams are selected, only projected seeds by "experts." It's sometimes proposed to reseed after the first weekend but that would wreck everybody's sheets. Some conference tournaments do reseed, however.
ReplyDeleteThat's John Wilkes Booth's older brother Edwin pictured as Hamlet.
Saturdays are just too tough for me,
ReplyDeleteso I go at them online with the red letters on,
hitting solve for names I would never get anyway
looking for that AHA moment...
Thank you HG for the write up,
always a learning experience reading this Blog.
loved the Kitty Cat puzzle!
Churl? ( when and how am I going to use that new word?)
Sounds more like something I did on a sailboat once...
OMG! Bat Tricks! Awesome!
I am going to get my daughters bats out
and practice to these videos...
(I hope it works with softball bats...)
I once saw a PBS documentary on YouTube about the Eagles Nest,
all politics aside, it was an amazing place with underground tunnels and elevators,
with secret entrances.
I don't have time to try and find it for you,
but here is an hour of highlites set to music...
ReplyDeleteGood Morning:
It took some time and perseverance, but I finally got the tada sans help. My w/os were That sucks/That Bites (I loathe the former and never heard the latter), Hint At/Hiss/At, Chump/Churl, and Smiling/Beaming. Unknowns were Alien Ware, Nubia, and the two Nemeses. Some outstanding fill with Travel Agent, Eagles Nest, Gift Basket, Booster Seat, etc. Rabbit Pie brought a wince, though.
Thanks, Daniel, for a lively challenge and thanks, HG, for the sparkling summary and the visuals, especially the "bat man,"
Have a great day.
ReplyDeleteWell, no TADA but more of an Ah-Ha today. I filled it all in, with Red Letters and letter runs. Not a successful solve today. But then, it is Saturday and very few are supposed to solve it without help. Right?
Daniel provided a lot of challenging fill with some real head scratching clues. Gary 'splained everything nicely and added a lot of visual aids that were really interesting. I liked the cat puzzle being taken apart in reverse. DW is working on a puzzle with kittens in a basket of yarn.
With today being National Kindergarten Day, the Credo that Gary posted from Robert Fulghum is very appropriate and should be practiced by everyone. There are a lot of other quotes in his book that are words to live by. I especially like the parts that tell us "Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you." and "Take a nap every day."
When looking at the grid after it was filled in, most of the answers seemed to be obvious and should not have seemed so hard, but they were. I had to change ADIEU to ADIOS (wrong language) and I had a little trouble with 8 down, I wanted EXAM or TEST as the answer not the fact that it was ACED.
Like Bob Niles @ 7:37, I also read the clue as JFK rival and put in RMN (Good old Tricky Dick). It took SPAM, SIRE and TEES to set me straight.
Well it's Saturday and not raining, or snowing or anything like that, so overall a good day. I hope everyone has a good day today.
The only stormy section for me was the SE but otherwise most of this blossomed in good time. The top NE section with MAGOO, REVLON, CAMELS, etc. almost filled itself though NEMESES was a guess as I haven't heard of Sinestro and Professor Zoom. Who?
ReplyDeleteMy hand is up for CHUMP/CHURL, HINT AT/HISSAT. Once I saw GIFT BASKET all that changed and though I haven't read BATTLE CRY, it FIT.
Where I fell apart was down south since I was sure of HUM and MIND GAMES. Finally I had to research ALIENWARE. No way would I have known that! Then it all came together and the V-8 can slapped me hard at the realization of SEA BED as skate home! Good one, Daniel. NEAT trick was clever, too.
Thank you, Daniel and Gary. Great graphics as always, Gary.
Have a peaceful day, everyone!
Whew, a hard one. I also had to turn red letters on, to, among other things, discover that ATTS and ALTIMA were wrong. Yes, I first thought of Mr. Peanut. I surprised myself by getting OH SUSANNA right away. I didn't surprise myself for getting ALIENWARE right away. Other than that, plenty of struggle to complete this puzzle.
ReplyDeleteLike others, I had to say ADIOS to adieu, Mr. Pnuts, and JFK's "rival" when the downs revealed the mistakes, and I eventually had to choose an exact size to replace busts with D-CUPS.
ReplyDeleteDNF, with lookups and red letter in the NW. The Eagle's Nest was the only restaurant using tablecloths in my little town. The local college teams were the Eagles. The famous group by that name played homecoming there, and thought that the tee shirts with "Morehead Eagles" were hilarious and the bookstore sold out of them.
ReplyDeleteFavorite was REFS for court pros. I was thinking ADAS, ATTS, STEN, etc.
Guess I'm the only one with ADIeu before ADIOS, but I thought I would be the only one to think of Mr. Peanut since I live about 20 miles from his "birthplace". One can find lovers anywhere; Virginia is for PEANUTS!
Wow, it’s 2:30 EDT and only 14 comments.
ReplyDeleteI’m betting because this was a brutal puzzle. My first pass resulted in a ton of empty spaces, which continued on my subsequent runs. Finally got a toehold and just built from there. Only a few scratch outs because there weren’t that many guesses...as I was really at sea
No one could be more surprised than I to get the solve. This was the toughest puzzle in some time.
Happy Sat All!
ReplyDeleteMy FATAL FLAW was inking pLot @1a xing 6d and waiting for an IDEA of what FIT. NW was covered in snow (not ICE) when I tossed the towel and cried "Enough of these HEAD GAMES!" [Foreigner]
Thanks Daniel for the Saturday stumper. I enjoyed the puzzle bubbling up from the SE. I knew ALIEN WARE and built from there [BTW, I'd never spend that much on a toy computer]. BARB was actually my 1st entry but it sat lonely with REFS until words spread from the East.
Thanks HG for the sparkly expo. The batter clip was a NEAT trick and I love me some Joe Cocker.
I knew Peter Rabbit @49a (Pop read it to me nightly while he & Mom were divorcing). However, I kept thinking of Hasenpfeffer [Bugs mashup] but couldn't spell it. Thankfully, RABBIT PIE appeared.
Northern Boy - I was thinking HUM too b/f 52a filled.
@33d, I never left the Dr.'s office. Couch->Chair->Bench. Then 43a: wisper[sic] -> HISSes. FIW there, I did.
Fav: c/a for BOOSTER SEAT. I heard something about "free-range" kids on NPR last week and kept trying to fill "neglect" :-)
CHUmp -> CHURL [after a Google of BATTLE ??Y]. The only time I've heard that word was in the Substitute [not Kindergarten] Teacher sketch [Key & Peele; 3:02 MA - Churlish @2:39]
Have a great afternoon. I'll take the posters advice and take a nap!
Cheers, -T
Well, I must begin today with an apology to Misty. I more or less promised her yesterday that today's pzl would be a "piece of cake." Mr. Nierenberg has exerted himself to prove me - not to mince words - oh so wrong.
ReplyDeleteForgive me, please.
I'm on a tight schedule today, so I threw in the towel early on. I'm sure I would have capitulated even if I had the time, as there were (for me) too many options for a good many clues. A prime example is 49A, RABBIT PIE.
How many "kiddie lit" Peters are there, anyway? Throw in tongue twisters, and they really add up.
I am not complaining, as I believe it is within every constructor's rightful repertory to be as ambiguous as possible in setting up clues. I am just pointing out why this very clever offering was especially "chewy."
My favorite of all? BOOSTER SEAT in response to "Child-raising technique?"
Have a great weekend, everyone!
____________
Diagonal Report:
"Here's a how-de-do!" Today we have five diagonals, all on the mirror side! The main slash (NE to SW) is flanked by two sub-diags - and then by two more sub-sub-diags! This is a first in memory.
Hello everyone.
ReplyDeleteVery colorful and knowledgeable lead-in from HG. Thank you.
My first whack this a.m. I got a few in the main diagonal but couldn't get further momentum. Went grocery shopping, and tried again while having lunch. Slowly got the whole rest of it but needed help with TWA. (Lindbergh Line is on the hangar and port side of the A/C.) Had resorts before RESEEDS.
GUAM - The only US territory I know with 4 letters which helped to get GALE and NUBIA.
Abu Simbel - As I recall, the entire complex was relocated to a higher location before the filling of Lake Nasser after the Aswan Dam construction.
I did early morning weekly grocery shopping to beat the crowd. Then I solved this puzzle. Although it seemed daunting at first, a got a toehold at REMUS, REVLON, MAGOO and TOONS and spread out from there, FIR in normal Saturday TIME. PIE was my last entry, but I knew Peter was made into some kind of food.
ReplyDeleteI thought of CHUMP, but rejected it. A chump is a foolish, easily duped person. A CHURL is mean spirited, a lout. A churl takes advantage of a chump. I though of churlish, which is much more common, and dropped the -ish.
We had an open concept school. Each year we modified the concept pulling it back more toward the norm. We never did redesign the building. The openness of the space did not bother the teachers or the students. It bothered the heck out of docents who came in to do classroom programs.
As a tutor I did everything I could to give meaning to the lessons so that anything that required ROTE memorization had a peg to hang it on. It worked.
I am late in posting due to being away all morning.
I just returned from a funeral and luncheon for a friend's 52 year old daughter. She had throat problems which required a life long trach insert in order to speak. She developed COPD and eventually died of it. What a gutsy, accomplished young woman.
We are having a heat wave! 59 degrees! I can shed my parka. I am enjoying the sunshine.
Tonight there is a regional dance. Many of our square dancers attended the funeral and will come out again tonight. Real troupers.
Ok. I need to convene the jury again . I need easy markers . Here's my case vis a vis "Cheating" .
ReplyDeleteI had it all except the SE . Then the doorbell rang and someone was interested in the antique for sale. So I enlisted Phil to help and we dropped it off. Now...
I just happened, happened mind you, to bring up gaming.(
Btw, as Anon-T mentioned, the serious gamers build their own machines. )
"I'll bet Dell has a neat platform ." "Oh, you mean ALIENWARE?" .
I couldn't wait to fill that sucker especially with SEABED AND BEAMING. The rest was easy .TaDa????
What sayeth the jury ?
Getting so much of this on one sitting might mean an average re. Difficulty except for that SE. Others I see had different difficult quarters .
I think my FATAL FLAW has been the NEMESES I seem to attract in my travels Good ol' Sgt V*, my OCS drill Sergeant for starters .
Gary, nice job on the write-up .
WC
* I named him Sergeant Major Flashback in my Sitcom: The Yellow Rocks of Largo .
Is the FATAL FLAW aka "Tragic Flaw" or hamartia always fatal?
ReplyDeleteThis depends of course on one's def of "fatal." We can use it to mean "deadly" or merely as a substitute for "predetermining."
I prefer to stick to "tragic flaw" when rendering it in English to avoid misunderstanding.
But its inclusion here suggests that pop wisdom has overruled the sense of Aristotle's Greek original.
Wilbur Charles:
ReplyDeleteIf you look upon the solving experience as a learning opportunity, any way you obtain information qualifies. Except perhaps for the most savant, most of us can't expect to know every detail, esoteric name, modern game, cultural entity, etc., encountered in puzzles. So if you learned ALIENWARE from someone, good for you! I had to LIU.
HG - no one mentioned it yet; I did catch your AREA 51 b/f ALIEN WARE. LOL! And thanks again. -T
ReplyDeleteHi Y'all! I had to use some red-runs to get started but then enjoyed a satisfying solve. Thanks, Daniel.
ReplyDeleteGood one, Gary, I always love the Kindergarten thing. So true. Fascinating NEAT trick, but trying to perfect it could drive CED batty.
FATAL FLAW was not a "device" to me. I was trying to think of some kind of prop or lighting as a device.
NE last to fill. No idea of that pair for NEMESES. I didn't think MAGOO had a cane -- thought it was an umbrella. Mr. Peanut came to mind or Charlie Chaplin -- neither fit. No idea who had a myrtle & roses wreath. Rose was not a "color" but STOOD. Teens before TOONS.
Hand up for "Sucks" before BITES. ALIENWARE? Someone is playing HEAD GAMES? Go ahead and HISS AT him.
My brother, the professor & medical researcher is retiring. He wants to bring one of his lab experiments home to the garage to continue his work. His normally agreeable wife is being a CHURL about it. He can't understand that. It's only a bunch of RATS. After all, she chose to drive the car with the RATS & air conditioning when they moved long distance years ago. Her other choice was 12 hours driving with her active 5-yr-old son in a pickup with the windows rolled down and no a/c in July.
Hand up I thought of Mr Peanut before Mr MAGOO! Staring at a lot of white before getting some traction. I was in GUAM in transit to one of my Asian travels. Not sure if I have any good photos.
ReplyDeleteCan somebody explain "Country E of Cyprus"? I got SYR with crosses, but I do not understand.
This was certainly a tough but fair Saturday. Glad to earn a FIR.
Thanks for all the good digging for images, Husker Gary. True about OCCAM's Razor. There is a quote attributed to Einstein "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler." It is not always obvious where to draw the line.
I have only ever owned two cars. The first was a SENTRA wagon. Here I was taking friends out for a long joy ride when it was brand new.
It was a very good body design. But it was the last carburetor year and it also had a lot of production bugs. Including having the brakes fail coming down a mountain road when it was new. For the past 22 years I have had a Toyota Corolla wagon and it is so much more reliable. I just wish small wagons would be made again. Fashion drives us backwards.
In case you missed my NEGEV photos yesterday, please note the third photo warning of CAMELS.
From yesterday:
BillG: Glad you enjoyed the Calvin and Hobbes SLED RIDE cartoon reminder! If you follow that link it takes you to a few of them.
Picard @ 7:53 pm
ReplyDeleteCountry E (east) of Cypress = Syria
Abbreviation in the clue means an abbreviation in the answer
Uh,
ReplyDeleteRand McNally@8:44
Country E (east) of Cypress = Syria
(I wanted Malta, Yea it's not a country, but if you go East enough...)
(P.S. in crosswords, the *&^%%$#*&^%$ answer always ends up to be "Y"alta...)
Anonymous T,
Thank you for the Hasenpfeffer link.
A little miffed that it was a mash up instead of the original...
So I give you a cake (see the end) to thank you for your link...
Sir Loin Of Beef...
Thanks, Rand McNally. I had no idea what "E" meant! I was thinking there were countries A, B, C, D and E in some story about Cyprus that I somehow missed out on!
ReplyDeleteCross-Eyed Dave: Sorry for being dense, but I am not getting why you repeated Rand McNally's answer.
Somehow I solved this entire challenging puzzle, but I am getting confused by simple things.
Saturday stumper. Thanks for the fun Daniel and Husker G.
ReplyDeleteHand up for seeing JFK rival. I thought it was just me. The eyes were playing tricks on all of us. NEAT!
DH gave me Altima which messed up that area until perps revealed SENTRA.
NE was the last to fall.
We had a side trip to EAGLES NEST in Bavaria on our Switzerland/Austria trip. I don't remember any restaurant but I do remember the brass elevator. It was morning and still very foggy and damp at that elevation, which made it rather bleak. I'll try to remember to post some photos when I am on my PC.
We finally had some slightly warmer temperatures today. Plus the Maple Leafs won tonight so it was a good day.
CED - Thanks, I think :-), for the cake. What's funny --peculiar not haha 'cuz it's kinda #SAD-- imost of my "culture" comes from cartoons. Especially the haute stuff like opera. [What's Opera Doc?]
ReplyDeleteCheers, -T