Themeless Saturday by Christopher Adams
Today celebrates your local pour-master and perhaps listening post.
FYI: "A mixologist is an individual with a passion for combining elixirs and creating extraordinary cocktails, whereas a bartender is an individual with a passion for making great drinks and creating well-balanced experiences. To be successful, you really need both types of pros behind the bar."
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Christopher Adams
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Our constructor Christopher Adams is currently a graduate student in mathematics at the University of Iowa. He graduated in 2014 from Cornell University, with a major in mathematics and minors in physics and creative writing, after which he spent a year abroad teaching physics at Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar.
Christopher's puzzle took me twice as long as Dr. Lim's did last Saturday but was still a fun excursion.
Now let's examine the loci of our math man's cluing:
9. Kidder who played Lois in four "Superman" films: MARGOT - Before the blue screen was added
16. Ballpark figures: USHERS - "Crazy Steve" is a truck driver by day and an USHER with some good dance moves at night in Peoria, IL
17. "Kennedy" biographer: SORENSEN - Native Nebraskan Ted SORENSEN graduated from Lincoln High School and UNL
18. "Grey's Anatomy" show runner Rhimes: SHONDA - I have visited "Shondaland" quite often on Netflix. Her productions have included many strong women
19. Secluded spot: NOOK - Not a NEST it turns out
20. Rose: AWOKE.
22. "__ Rosenkavalier": DER - The Knight Of The Rose - A comic opera by Richard Strauss. If you think I knew that, I've got this bridge in Brooklyn...
23. Actor Danny Trejo, for one: LATINO - From the IMDB
25. Towel spec: HERS.
26. Worked on a roast: CARVED - Carving a roast for dummies (;30)
30. One on the phone, often: TEXTER - Not while driving!
32. Here, in Juárez: AQUI - a very familiar sign in our town
35. "Nunsense" costume: HABIT - Here starring Rue McClanahan
38. Academic dictum: PUBLISH OR PERISH - Academic treadmill
42. Heavyweight fight?: SUMO - No 12. Workplace concern: GENDER BIAS here
43. Account: TALE.
44. Album by Destroyer with a German title meaning "broken": KAPUTT - You would have known this if you were into Kiss tribute bands from Canada
46. Ameliorate, in a way: LESSEN.
48. Burns miss: LASS - Robert Burns of course
50. Eponymous Portland bookstore founder: POWELL - Number 4 on Top Ten Things to do in Portland, OR
52. Evil Tolkien soldier: ORC - A frequent member of the cwd military
53. Big note: C-SPOT - Some restaurants will no longer accept C-SPOTS ($100 bills)
54. Bring home: EARN
58. Fictional 1719 autobiographer: CRUSOE - Many thought Daniel Defoe's character was real
60. More than just meddle: MUSCLE IN.
63. Tasmanian capital: HOBART - Viking Cruises offers this trip from L.A. starting at $15,000 with HOBART being a port of call
64. One might copy from it: EDIT MENU.
65. Ace of Base, e.g.: SWEDES - "Alex, I'll take 'Swedish pop rock quartets beginning with A' for a $1,000" Oops, it's not our old cwd buddies!
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| Ace Of Base |
Down:
1. Head of state?: ESS - State
2. "I'm listening": GO ON.
3. Greek deli item: GYRO - "YEE row" seems to be the consensus pronunciation
4. Psychic Miss: CLEO - There's one born every minute
5. Bother big-time: RANKLE.
6. "The Martian" has none: ET'S - Most famous line from this great movie "I'm gonna have to science the $*^+ out of this!"
7. Bothered big-time: ATE AT - I know how Jerome will see this fill 😏
8. 1927 Hemingway short story collection: MEN WITHOUT WOMEN - All you need to know
9. Arctic grazer: MUSKOX - Named for the strong odor it emits during mating season
10. Court immortal: ASHE - Arthur is a tennis star from Richmond, VA
11. Parthenon P: RHO - Yup, RHO is the third letter in Parthenon - Παρθενώνας
13. Court command: ORDER.
14. Peter and Paul, but not Mary: TSARS - TSAR Paul I was a great grandson of Peter I (the Great)
21. Like show-offy push-ups: ONE ARM
24. Tosses in: ADDS.
25. Trick-taking game: HEARTS - Play online if you like
26. Mushroom parts: CAPS.
27. Water color: AQUA.
28. It has over 43 quintillion configurations: RUBIK'S CUBE.
29. Ritzy retreats: VILLAS - Info on VILLAS to rent in Tuscany
31. Not just any: THE - Ohio State emphasizes THE
34. "You're too kind!": OH STOP.
36. Archipelago component: ISLE - Solzhenitsyn's archipelago was of gulags (forced labor camps) in the U.S.S.R. not ISLES
37. Second of a logical pairing: THEN - It appears here that entering A was the only way get a TRUE response
39. MSN, for one: ISP - My Internet Service Provider is Spectrum (formerly Time/Warner)
40. Ask for opinions: POLL
45. Some March Madness madness: UPSETS - UPSETS are fun but the final four teams are populated by many of the favorites save for the occasional UPSETS
47. Sends to Washington: ELECTS.
48. Leven and Lomond: LOCHS - There's about an hour-and-a-half driving time between these two LOCHS (lakes)
49. The CW show about a vigilante archer: ARROW - Wanna stream some episodes?
51. Scriabin work: ETUDE - Tolstoy called Alexander Scriabin's music, "a sincere expression of genius"
53. Fission site: CORE - This is where the uranium atom is split in a nuclear power plant and that heat boils water which...
55. __ mater: ALMA.
56. Show shock: REEL - The Beach Boys were Rockin' and a-REELIN' in this fun song
57. Roger Maris' uniform number: NINE - Roger (a proud product of Fargo North Dakota High School) got a record breaking 61 home runs in 1961. BTW, if you don't know the other guy depicted below, baseball really isn't your thing.
59. Regrettable: SAD - It was very SAD that the stress of chasing Babe Ruth's single season home run record made Roger lose hair
61. Skip, with "out": SIT - Roger did SIT out one of the 162 games that year
62. Frat letters: NUS - There are four Greek letters that would fit this 2-letter fill. Can you name the other three?
Very nice puzzle for a Hawkeye! (Husker sarcasm 😙). Feel free to comment on Christopher's great work.
Note from C.C.:
Happy 49th birthday to dear Barry G, who used to comment on our blog regularly. So glad that he continues to solve the daily LAT crosswords and reads our blog from time to time. Is Joshua now taller than you, Barry?
July 2, 2016
27 comments:
FIWrong. C instead of K at RUBIK'S CUBE + KAPUTT. *Sigh*.
ROSES are red, and so are our HEARTS,
They bleed when pierced by Cupid's darts.
Love is so cruel,
Doesn't play by the rule,
We'd abjure it, except for the good parts.
FORTY-THREE QUINTILLION CONFIGURATIONS,
To solve them all will take some patience.
One must be a rube
With a RUBIK'S CUBE
To think you see all its manifestations!
There was a naive naif from HOBART
Who thought that women don't fart.
The night that he wed,
His LASS so shook the bed,
That he thought she was coming apart!
{A-, B+, A.}
HBDTY Barry G. and good to see that you stop by now and then.
Do any of our voracious readers use the BARNES and NOBLE NOOK ?
I minored in English in college and had a professor who loved Hemingway but I never heard of MEN WITHOUT WOMEN. Also, Eponymous Portland bookstore founder: POWELL was a complete unknown.
We have a CSO to Bill G. with Cornell, to our one-time regular doc with DOHA and yesterday's constructor with two Greek letters.
I also did not know ACE OF BASE .
Christopher is interesting and maintains his own indie crossword SITE.
Thanks, Gary and Chris
Morning, all (and thanks for the birthday wish)!
Got through this one without much drama. Didn't know POWELL, but the crosses were fair. KAPUTT was also unknown as clued, but not too hard to guess once I had 4 or 5 letters in place. Same for MEN WITHOUT WOMEN -- unknown, but guessable once I had plenty of help. I'm not sure how I remembered HOBART or DOHA, but they were hanging out somewhere in the dark recesses of my brain and popped up to say hello when needed.
Oh -- and Joshua is now 14 years old and just one inch shorter than me. And for the first time ever last night, he was actually able to help me lug the air conditioners out of the attic and into the bedrooms. They grow up so fast!
Good morning!
Whew! That NW corner was brutal. changing TALK to GO ON, FETA to GYRO and SEER to CLEO helped a bunch. That area was the last to fall. Anybody else think that roast worker would be an EMCEE? KAPUTT looked weird with two Ts, or am I confusing it with Karel Čapek of R.U.R. fame? Thanx for the adventure, Christopher, and for the guided tour, Husker. (Apparently, baseball isn't my thing.)
ISP: Soddenlink's normal download speed was 6mbps. I pay an extra $10/month to bump that up to 12mbps. A few weeks back, without fanfare or notification, they bumped the speed up to 70mbps. I ain't complainin'.
Happy Birthday, Barry G! Good to see you here now and again.
This was a surprisingly quicker Saturday solve for me - probably because a lot was in my wheelhouse like POWELL's bookstore in Portland(my husband is from Oregon so we have visited there a lot) It is several stories and takes much of a city block. It's nice now that the kids are grown that we can just come up with a meeting time and scatter for a few hours. It has a coffee shop (of course it's Portland) on one level and a little restaurant. But I like to walk a few blocks away to "Cacao" a chocolate cafe where you can get amazing drinkable chocolate! https://cacaodrinkchocolate.com/
I was on D-O's wavelength- not liking KAPUTT but easy to suss, and originally thinking the roast clue was about a celebrity roast rather than about meat.
I also had CLIO instead of CLEO - having never heard of the TV call in "seer"
Happy birthday Barry!
Thanks Christopher and fun write-up as usual from HG!
Tornado clean up continues around here - and we are working on the architectural plan for the new house we are rebuilding on the old lot. The flooding was going down - but more rain and water coming down from the plains- it's back up again.
Good Morning:
I struggled mightily with this demon but finally, finally finished, but to the sound of silence from the Tada gods. I searched and searched, to no avail and finally had to hit the show errors button. Well, my Rhonda and Murk Ox were the culprits. I thought Murk Ox looked odd, but I accepted Rhonda, no questions asked. The sad part is that I know her name is Shonda. My difficulty with the solve was the numerous unknowns: Powell, Hobart, Arrow, Etude, Swedes, Lochs, etc. Several of these were in the Central/South West which took forever to break open. My roast was Basted before it was Carved and Kaputt had to wait for perps.
Thanks, Christopher, for a difficult but satisfying solve, despite my errors and thanks, HG, for softening the blow of a FIW with your sparkling and cheery commentary. I especially appreciated your illustration explaining the clue and fill for Then; I was totally befuddled before your expo.
Happy Birthday, Barry, hope your day is special. 🎂🎉🎈🍾🎁 Josh is really sprouting at 14. Drop by more often!
FLN
YR, I haven't received any emails from you. I did send you one yesterday stating this, but I'm not sure if you received it.
Michael Paleos, thanks for stopping by. I'll look forward to your upcoming puzzles.
Have a great day.
HBD Barry! It's been a while since I've seen post from you. don't be a stranger
Easy Sat puzzle, which works out well for me as I have a lot to do today.
Lastly, never heard of a MUSK OX, but it fit so obviously its some kind of animal.
Didn’t finish this one...the SE was tough, the Yankees went on TV and I just lost interest in working it out.
Have a nice weekend.
Hi everybody. Yes, I have a Nook. My kids gave it to me a few years back. Being a bit of a Luddite, I thought I wouldn't like it but I do. It is convenient, especially when I want to get a new book. Enter a few letters of the name and zip/zoop, it's there. Easy peasy, Lemon squeezy.
Many years back I had a very bright algebra student who had a very bright father. They finally figured out a system for solving the Rubik's cube. I asked him, the student, if he would stay late and teach me. He agreed. After two sessions and copious notes, I could solve it too. Yeah me!
Mind how you go
~ FT, Chief Inspector
Bill G, I met an enterprising 10-year-old who could solve the Rubik's Cube. She'd peel off the colored stickers, and paste 'em back on where she wanted them to be. Crude, but effective.
Very hard puzzle. Had to look up that Hemingway title and the author of "Kennedy", the latter of which revealed my FETA was wrong. Was surprised that KAPUTT had two T's. Hand up for having BASTED and having to change it to CARVED. MOUNTAIN DEW has neither a mountain nor dew in it, but it wouldn't fit. At least I knew MARGOT, ASHE, DER, POWELL, HOBART, LOCHS, and of course ALMA. I like the clue for AQUA.
Barry G, very good to hear from you, and happy birthday to you.
Hi Y'all! This was a "shock & awe" puzzle for me. I was "shocked" at the stuff Christopher expected us to know and "awed" when I got some of it right. Mostly, it was "aw, man!" another flashing red word. The NW quarter had to have many red-letter runs to get any traction. Groaned all the way thru. Cranky still.
Thanks, Gary, for a great expo.
My daughter & SIL lived in Portland a year while he attended culinary school. She couldn't wait to take me to POWELL's. After several hours, I came away with a paper grocery bag of used books I'd wanted to read for years. After 24 years, I couldn't remember the store name without a few perps.
Took a while to put a "T" at the end of MARGOT.
I knew MUSK OX. Also knew DOHA -- read about that somewhere & wondered how they'd play in such heat.
RUBIK's CUBE: Have you seen a recent WUMO cartoon? The guy is cheering at finally solving a super RUBIK's Cube and calls for his family to congratulate him. The place is deserted and apparently has been for some time.
Happy Birthday, Barry G. Good to hear from you again.
HBD Barry G!
desper-otto ~
Really, really enjoyed the example of the 10-year old with the RUBIK'S CUBE.
Not only was she "thinking outside the box," that gal owned the *#@! box.
Irish Miss ~
I had the same problem with RHONDA/SHONDA and MURK/MUSK*.
Shoulda known better - because I definitely had heard Ms. Rhimes' correct name somewhere.
~ OMK
____________
DR: A single diagonal today, NW to SE. I believe its anagram is a clumsy reference to the profit that can be earned on a dairy farm.
I mean the...
"MOO DOLLARS"!
* Er, not the only error I made...
Well Mr. Adams had a plethora of unknowns that I had to solve by perps, and it took some WAGging to get others, but my PP instead of PUTT for KUPUTT wouldn't allow completion. POWELL- never heard of the bookstore. A DNF t hat wouldn't let UPSETS or STOP get solved.
Correct unknown WAGs were ARROW, SWEDES, MEN WITHOUT WOMEN & ETUDE- after toeholds.
Miss CLEO, SOY LATTE, AQUI, AQUI, SHONDA Rhimes- all perps
LAMB or FETA? nope, GYRO
HASSLE? no, it was RANKLE
The SUMO woman or the lady doing ONE ARM pushups- I wouldn't want to tangle with either.
On 65a:
"Alex, I'll take 'Swedish pop rock quartets beginning with A' for a $1,000..."
That should read "... Swedish rock quartets from 10 years ago that nobody ever heard of.... "
D-O, years ago we were visiting friends and I spied a Rubik's cube on the table. I told the father that I had finally learned to solve it. He was proud to tell me that his young daughter could solve it also. I was gobsmacked and asked her to show me. She took the cube away and came back later with it solved. I finally figured out that the stickers were not in the usual order and that she had done the same thing as the girl in your anecdote. The father was chastened to discover that his daughter was clever and devious but not the genius he had thought.
~ Mind how you go.
FIR after multiple sessions.
Good afternoon Cornies.
Thank you Christopher Adams for this pleasant Saturday CW. I never sussed the theme, and neither did Husker Gary because he did not mention it. Other than that, his review was excellent.
Ðave
Hi All!
Fun puzzle Christopher but above my pay-grade. Thanks HG for the Expo and filling-in the empty TSARS (really(?)). I think I know who #7 is.
Googles: SORENSEN (Hi Jayce!), POWELL
WOs: Cureed [sic] b/f CARVED, onE b/f THE
ESPs: All the names!
Fav: PUBLISH OR PARISH - DW wanted to teach not do research so took her PhD to a Community College.
{A, B+, A}
MOO-LA :-)
Happy Birthday Barry G! Nice to see you today.
I think we all recalled DOHA because of this this scandal.
Bill G. I just finished Dave Barry's new book. Thanks for the heads-up.
Cheers, -T
PK's WuMo.
Back during the craze, I bought a book (pamphlet really, but glossy cardstock cover) by a kid on how to solve a Rubik's Cube. Learned how, and was probably able to do it for a couple years after, but use it or lose it, I couldn't begin to now.
Bill G: When I said "I finished," [Barry's Lessons from Lucy] that meant I reached the Epilogue. I figured I was done and he was going to thank everyone who helped on the book... Holy S*** - I choked up big-time at One Last Lesson. I think I need a good cry now.
OKL - Ditto re: Rubik's Cube. I could solve the Cube through lessons (I've done it a few times) but I don't feel I've really gotten to the point that I understand The Cube. Maybe our Constructor could give us a hint.
Cheers, -T
Happy Birthday Barry G
(& in case you are on a diet...)
Rubiks cube how to:
it's all in the logarithm.
Re; RUbiks Cube link above,
never mind,
I just tried to watch it, & got lost at step #1...
I managed to get one side all one color back when Rubik's cube first came out. Took such effort it was my one and only stab at the thing. I know a lost cause when I see one.
DNF
Took perps to determine if roast was a tribute or a piece of meat.
Thrown by KAPUTT with two Ts; knew the common English spelling, not the German.
POWELL's Books is not legendary to me.
C-SPOT wouldn't come up.
HOBART was someplace in dead storage until perps helped.
Did not realize that Ace of Base are SWEDES.
MEN WITHOUT WOMEN was unknown to me.
Good evening, folks. Thank you, Christopher Adams, for a fine puzzle. Thank you, Husker Gary, for fine review.
Barry G.: Happy Birthday. Nice shot of you and your family. Stop in all you have time for. We miss you.
Wow! This puzzle was a humdinger. Very difficult. Took me most of the day, off and on. I would look at it and then go away for a while. Then come back, etc. My last two words to get were MUSK OX and TEXTER.
Dave, D4, etc: There is no theme today. It is Saturday.
Never heard of a drink called EGG CREAM. To me does not even sound good.
Same for SOY LATTE. Never heard of it. I do not patronize Starbucks. And it does not sound good. My two cents.
I would not have gotten SWEDES in million years. Thank goodness for perps.
Thought of CARVED right off the bat. But, I thought 24D would be ENDS. So I was stuck. Finally figured it out with LATINO and DOHA.
I hope Sunday's is a bit easier.
See you tomorrow.
Abejo
( )
Definitely an A for #3, Owen. I wonder which college is Hobart's rival. They'd love that one.
Wow, I sailed thru the NW and thought this would be easy. I stopped for awhile and came back. Different pen. The long Papa title helped, then Rubik's. Not knowing the actresses nor the Rock group held me up. Mr Stupidity didn't help( eg ATOM>CORE).
Getting the"dictum" helped.
I did get the FIR. I was curious to see if folks found it hard or easy. In hindsight it appears easy but I despaired about the West and SW.
HBD Barry G. And thanks for the great write-up Gary. And . .
The Mick of course. I just read a Casey Stengel bio up to his stunning victory over Boston in 1949. He bought Oil Wells and became independently wealthy by 1949. This weekend was the 70th anniversary of Joe DiMaggio's* climatic return to the Yankees. His four home runs enabled the Yankees to sweep the Sox. Our beloved Redsox came back in September to take a one game lead with two to play at the Stadium.
I was four. Third in the curse saga.
WC
** Leading said Papa H. to refer to Joe in his Nobel Prize novel "The Old Man and the Sea"
From WC's text to my eyes. Thanks for confirming my (semi-educated) guess at Yankee #7. //remember I was -9yro then :-)
For what it's worth, I too thought of ATOM @CORE's clue, WC.
Cheers, -T
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