Themeless Saturday by Molly Cowger
I enjoyed Mollie's challenging puzzle and learning about two contemporary women, one historical woman and a male Chinese artist/activist. Here is what this Dallas girl had to say to us:
Hi Gary,
I started working seriously on crossword construction last summer, and it's been such a source of joy during the past year. This puzzle is one of the first few themeless puzzles I made, and though I think my sensibilities have changed a bit (e.g. I'd be hesitant to put A-BOMBS in a puzzle nowadays), there's a bunch of stuff in here I like. My favorite clue is [Draw for some pictures] for STAR POWER.
The seed entry for the puzzle was ISABEL WILKERSON - it's always exciting when you realize someone whose work you admire has a 15-letter name! I'm tickled by the fact that the two grid-spanning entries, ISABEL WILKERSON and EXERCISE REGIMEN, have the same meter - both words in each entry are dactyls I believe (someone who knows more about poetry than I do can confirm or deny). That wasn't intentional, but I noticed and appreciated it when looking back at the grid.
You can find more of my work on my blog, Crosswords From Outer Space, where I post puzzles (usually themeless, usually on the challenging side) every two weeks.
Mollie
This just in: I found Mollie on FaceBook and saw she and I have a common FB friend. It turned out that the common friend is my granddaughter's husband in Lincoln and had met Mollie through high school debate forums. Cue "It's A Small World"!
Across:
1. Parenting pair, perhaps: DADS
5. Word from the Aramaic for "father": ABBOT.
10. Onetime capital of the Mughal Empire: AGRA - AGRA is our familiar crossword city that is the home of the Taj Mahal but with Saturday cluing
14. Throw off: EMIT.
15. Ambition: DRIVE.
16. Leftover bit: DREG - A Sinatra classic
17. "The Chi" creator Waithe: LENA - (Show is pronounced The SHY for south Chicago) LENA is the show's creator, writer and executive producer
18. Word with ice or rain: MAKER - My other son-in-law is well connected in Lincoln and is a "RAIN MAKER" for his architecture firm
19. Fermented seasoning: MISO - MISO (みそ or 味噌) is a traditional Japanese seasoning produced by fermenting soybeans with salt and kōji (the fungus Aspergillus oryzae) and sometimes rice, barley, seaweed, or other ingredients.
20. It may require some heavy lifting: EXERCISE REGIMEN - Don't overdo on the first day!
23. Leaves spots?: TEA POTS - You can see a good spot for tea leaves inside this TEA POT. Very tricky, Mollie!😁
24. Coastal hazard: TSUNAMI.
25. Checks at the bar?: ESTOPS - Legal bars (Oh, that kind of bar!) that prevents (checks) a person from asserting a claim or fact that is inconsistent with a position that the person has previously taken.
26. Phony: SHAM.
27. "Mom" network: CBS.
28. "Sunflower Seeds" artist Ai with an echoic name: WEIWEI - Here is Ai WEIWEI (eye way way) holding some of the 100,000,000 porcelain "Sunflower Seeds" he had made by 1,600 artisans over several years. The rest of these "seeds" are on the floor behind him in 32. London's __ Modern: TATE.. Meaning
30. Go for the gold?: SMELT.
35. Dilutes: THINS.
37. Laudatory poems: ODES.
38. "Your Movie Sucks" author: EBERT - His lowest rating of all time goes to Deuce Bigelow: Male Gigolo.
40. Old-style writing need: INK POT - Yes, I am old enough to have gone to school that had desks on sled runners and an INK POT in every writing surface!
42. Get lost, say: ERR.
43. Well's opposite: RARE - I ask for my steaks to be medium RARE, never "well done"
45. Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty subjects: A-BOMBS.
49. Lincoln biographer: TARBELL - She wrote a four volume biography of Lincoln. IDA TARBELL also was a well known muckraker who took on Standard Oil
51. Get: PROCURE.
52. "Caste" author who was the first Black woman to win the Pulitzer Prize in journalism: ISABEL WILKERSON - Learning abut this woman and seeing her first and last names are both dactyls is more learning provided by Mollie.
54. Actress Sorvino: MIRA - Her IMDB
55. Having ups and downs, in a way: TIDAL.
56. Quatro x dos: OCHO - 4 x 2 = 8 in Spanish
57. Subject for pastors and philosophers: EVIL - or Disney studios - Cruella dE VIL
58. Where a 1980 "miracle" occurred: ON ICE - Lake Placid Olympics - Still one of the most amazing events in American sports history! "Do you believe in miracles?"
59. String some words together?: SLUR.
60. Lick, maybe: SEAL - Sealed With A Kiss?
61. More out there: ODDER.
62. Beneficiary of a Sonic boom?: SEGA - SEGA did experience a sales boom with Sonic The Hedgehog. Very clever again, Mollie!
Down:
1. Strike: DELETE.
2. Charging choices: AMEXES
3. Patronize, as a bistro: DINE AT.
4. Draw for some pictures: STAR POWER - Not even the STAR POWER of Gene Hackman and Dan Ackroyd could draw enough movie goers to this stinker that lost $10M
4. Draw for some pictures: STAR POWER - Not even the STAR POWER of Gene Hackman and Dan Ackroyd could draw enough movie goers to this stinker that lost $10M
5. Confesses: ADMITS IT and 53. "It was me": I DID.
6. Top __: BRASS.
7. Icon on some "Share the road" signs: BIKE.
8. Analyze to a fault: OVERTHINK - "Hey, that molehill looks like a mountain to me"
9. Saint of Ávila: TERESA - The story of this amazing Spanish Caremelite nun
10. Forum overseer, briefly: ADMIN - Having an ADMINISTRATOR oversee a forum can stifle input
11. Reacted to pain: GRIMACED.
12. Share a look with?: RESEMBLE - I loved (eventually) this very cool clue/fill with some odd syntax!
 |
| Angelina Jolie Melissa Baizen |
13. Ones in a struggle: AGONISTS - Learning for me
21. Manage: COPE.
22. Periodontist's concern: GUMS.
29. Dizzying, as a romance: WHIRLWIND.
31. Contest with hogs: MOTOCROSS - Harley Davidson motorcycles are often called "hogs". In the 70's they entered the MOTOCROSS market with this MX1000
32. Elements of a course schedule?: TEE TIMES - Mollie tweaked "course schedule" from a classroom to the golf course. Granddaughter made a TEE TIME of 8:15 a.m. for us yesterday.
33. Irritating: ABRASIVE.
34. Bottle garden relatives: TERRARIA - Here are some lovely TERRARIA
36. Fourth of July purchase: SPARKLER.
39. The oldest known living one is named Methuselah: TREE - This California hike will take you past Bristlecone Pines that germinated before the pyramids were built. The location of the actual 4,852 year old Methuselah Tree is kept secret by the Park Service. More info
41. Orchestral tuner: OBOE - What you didn't know this song used an OBOE?
44. So very: ALL TOO.
46. Brawn: MUSCLE.
47. Fraternal greeting: BROHUG.
48. Hispanic title: SENORA.
50. Mavs' sport: B-BALL - Their NBA logo contains the blending of a Maverick and a basketball.
35 comments:
[Reposted, because I screwed up the musical link.]
Good morning!
Ufdah! (as they say in Minnie-Soda) This one involved some "heavy lifting." My wheelhouse was somewhere over the horizon. Tried FBALL for the Mavs, and hung onto that H in ABOMB way too long. Is it OK to have INKPOT and TEAPOTS in the same puz? Apparently. In the end, it all filled correctly, but it was a mighty struggle. Thanx, Mollie (are you a cowgirl?) and Husker (nice CSO at TEE TIMES).
GUMS: I "fired" my periodontist in favor of the dental hygienist at my regular dentist. The periodontist was enamored with "deep pockets."
SENORA: A plea to his sweetheart's chaperone by the Kingston Trio.
TREE: How do they know the Methuselah Tree is 4,852 years old without cutting it down and counting the rings? Inquiring minds want to know.
This was totally unsolvable until the FIR. Clueing was totally macabre but extremely enjoyable after the fact. I needed ESP(every single perp)
I suspected "bar" was legal but I couldn't come up with the "ese". "F"STOP is camera (ese). NE was my final frontier after TSUNAMI inked , GRIMACED* fell and I decided AGONIST was a real word. Kiev was a thought < AGRA
A lefty with an INKPOT is the epitome of gauche. I was following Jordan Speith on YouTube with a French narration and that was the word I could pick up
Completely missed RARE, perps picked it up. Duh. And…
I knew IDA from JD Rockefeller not Lincoln. I was thinking of the "fog came in on little cat feet" poet** who also wrote a Lincoln bio.
I supplied the W and the ISA, 11 perps.
I'm going to stop and post. Else I'll go way over byte limit
WC
OK, TEE TIMES was a beaut.
*No I did not GRIMACE when I got the shingles shot
** Carl Sandburg wrote: The fog comes on little cat feet. It sits looking over harbor and city on silent haunches and then moves on. March came in like a lamb on the Vineyard, a soft, fuzzy, foggy lamb.
D-O the age of Methuselah was determined by the measurement of core samples taken in 1957.
Part II
TIDAL was another 4 perper. The key was putting it down and picking it up 4 or 5 times. I had depart inked in on the 'Spots' clue but I had another insert from Sunday paper for a clean start in NW.
Thank God I didn't have one of those Pastors. He dissed the Donald and was early retired. Granted he was 90.
I was trying to think of the (5 ltr?) place in NY where the hockey game took place(Utica?)
So much the key was getting 1 or 2 perps which is all I needed for SEGA (and I got a bunch from EXERCISE REGIMEN) X yielded AMEX where outlet didn't work
TERESA was a solid but one of few. 4th yielded another casualty, this time fatal. J Pierre Paul lost use of hand a few yearsago.
BBALL seems more slang than a mere abbreviated term
One way to measure Saturday difficulty is times of posting. I started about noon and ended about 9pm
WC
A Saturday FIR. It's a miracle, but not ON ICE! The left side was slow, finally completed in the NW section. AMEXES surprised me, though it's my card of choice. Didn't know ESTOPS, but suspected it was a legal term, not something to do with a drinking place. PROdUcE/PROCURE and seis/OCHO (wait, that is a "times" not "add" symbol) were some WOs. I too noticed the two POTs. That happens more and more.
Anyway, thanks for a good challenge, Mollie, and welcome. Enjoyed your remarks too. Many thanks to Husker Gary for your enlightening review which confirmed my FIR. Yippee! I read ISABEL WILKERSON's earlier book "The Warmth of Other Suns" and found it interesting. Hope you all have an interesting Saturday!
Hi Y'all! Enjoyed the puzzle, Mollie, after I got going. I wasn't as happy & excited over it as Mollie, but didn't agonized over it like Wilbur apparently did. The puzzle took me about the same time as Friday's puzzle did -- around 32 minutes in one sitting.
Doing the puzzle is my brain EXERCISE REGIMEN. In addition I try to walk for 10 minutes in my house at least once a day.
The SW area gave me fits being very name heavy: WEI WEI, TATE, EBERT, TARBELL, ISABEL WILKERSON, MIRA. Got TATE immediately & finally remembered EBERT. Never heard of the rest who were all piled up like stumbling blocks.
Also DNK: LENA & MISO. Lot of picking & perping to get 'er done.
MOTOrcycle b4 MOTOCROSS. Did not know hogs also had the racing bikes.
Tried HOOPS b4 BBALL for Mavs. Watched them many times.
I got my usual Saturday DNF, but I did get the central and eastern time zones completed. Looked up LENA, ISABEL and STAR POWER and the rest fell together.
Looking forward to Sunday!
Lemonade, thanx for the elucidation. D'oh.
I was most disappointed when Kwame Nkrumah did not make it into this puzzle.
He was an African, a Ghanaian, and was famous for something , or other.
He would have fit right in.
Between the arcane cluing, and irrelevant definitions and mediocre personalities, I quickly realized, that, HG's blog seemed to be the only way forward.
This puzzle DID have a theme , .... the theme was "Anything Goes, and we will be going there".
This could have made it well into Eberts' book. Y--- M---- S----.
I enjoyed this puzzle - the crunchiness and sense of accomplishment as I got a toehold here and there and then the pieces started fitting together (is that a mixed metaphor?) The creative cluing was fun.
I didn't know what a dactyl was in poetry/writing but LIU, but if poems can have iambs (feet) why wouldn't they have digits (dactyls) I only know of the medical term related to digits(fingers/toes) as in polydactyly - someone who has extra fingers or toes...or in dinosaurs like Pterodactyl.
ISABEL WILKERSON was all perps but now that I know about her I'm looking forward to reading her book sometime.
I only knew IDA TARBELL as a muckraker during the time of the robber barons- not as a Lincoln biographer - but once I had a few letters the rest fell into place quickly since she has such a unique name!
Thanks HG for another fun blog - and thanks to Mollie for an interesting puzzle!
Mollie you almost stumped me today with that utterly unnatural clue for 1A with two DADS as a Parenting pair. The left side was a sea of white until the end. I finally gave up on MOVIE STAR and changed it to STAR POWER. ESTOPS- it looked strange until Gary explained it and the V8 moment hit he. But finishing today was no WHIRLWIND.
Then there were the unknown authors- LENA, WEIWEI, and ISABEL WILKERSON- 100% perps for all three. After the second WEI was in place, WEI was a WAG for the first three letters.
AGONISTS- never heard the word; perps took care of it.
I'd never heard of a Bottle Garden but TERRARIA looked okay after mostly filling it by perps.
It took a couple of WAGS to bet ABBOT and AGRA- got lucky. From dealing with ABBOTT (two 'T') Labs for 30 years the spelling of abbot with one "T" feels strange.
SCAM or SHAM- waited for the perps.
INK POT- I was lucky to only have to use a fountain pen getting ink from the jar for a few months. Then the ink cartridges came out and there was no messy jar of ink. The next year BIC pens came out for 19 cents. That was the end of my fountain pen use. I remember getting a good Parker T-Ball Jotter as a gift from the bank when I opened my first checking account when I was 17. I used it for three years in college and never had to get a refill. Math, physics, and chemistry courses only needed pencils with erasers.
Mundane Mudslinger- I halfway agree with you but I never like to criticize a constructor. A approach all those unknowns like putting together a jigsaw puzzle. Never seen them before, won't see them again in the future, and don't really care. It's just a challenge.
Good morning everyone.
Woohoo; FIR after almost giving up a couple times. West side was last to fill. Couldn't get traction in the SW but finally took the plunge and WAGged TATE and TEE TIMES; and EBERT. That broke the dam and the rest came quickly. Much difficult but doable fill. Names like ISABEL and LENA came from perps and seemed reasonable. Had 'care' before COPE. And considered Rhine before SEINE (I already had the __INE.) Thanks Mollie for pushing my limits.
BRO-HUG - - I'll just keep saluting, thank you.
D-O - - About TREE, I wondered, too. I suppose a trained arborist could bore into the center and extract a core and the rings could be counted that way. Afterward, the hole could be filled with something that would keep the bugs out.
Good Morning:
Before I address the puzzle, let me just say, loosely quoting, that the adage, “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure” perfectly explains Mundane Mudslinger’s opinion versus mine.
I absolutely loved and enjoyed this solve on so many levels. I thought the cluing was superb, the fill fresh and lively, and the lack of crosswordese most welcome. On top of all these highlights was the astoundingly low count of three letter words; i saw only two, which has to be a record low. I finished in good time for a Saturday but not without some road blocks, to wit, Lena, Isabel Wilkerson, and Tarbell, as clued. Agonists is a new word to me, but certainly legit.
I had many favorite C/As but two that stand out are: It May Require Some Heavy Lifting=Exercise Regimen and Checks At The Bar=Estops. I was impressed with much of the fill, in particular, Abrasive, Terraria, Motocross, Sparkler, Star Power, Grimaced, Resemble, Overthink, etc.I liked Admit/Admin, Tea Pots/Tee Times, and Oboe/Ocho. Speaking of Ocho, (and Senora), hi Lucina. CSO also to Hahtoolah and Lemony at Estops. Also, to Tony at Bro Hug, which I assume happened in Denver recently. I believe my only w/o was Admits To/Admits It.
Thanks so much, Mollie, for a delightful challenge and solve and for sharing your thoughts with us. Will look forward to seeing your byline again, soon, I hope. Thanks, HG, for the excellent commentary, links, and visuals. I’m happy to finally know the correct pronunciation of The Chi. The picture of the desk brought back many memories but we called them Ink Wells, not Pots. Same difference. Loved watching the Miracle on Ice video. One of my niece’s was at that game in Lake Placid.
Have a great day.
Husker Gary, enjoyed your fine write-up. Sorry I missed thanking you in my first post.
Hola!
Whew! This was a workout! Thank you, Mollie, for the challenge. The SW corner took me as long to do as all the rest. Yet after finishing I don't know why since there were no unknowns. MIRA Sorvino has appeared many times in CWDS.
ISABEL WILKERSON's book was reviewed in the newspaper when it came out. I mean to read it but it's at the end of a tall pile. At the moment I'm reading The Lying Game. Tomorrow the Book Club will meet and I hope someone will have a good title to recommend. More to add but I'll be going on vacation next week and doubt there will be much time to read according to the itinerary my friend has laid out.
I was surprised to see WEIWEI which I don't know but was thinking of PeiWei which is a restaurant chain here. BTW, I had STARPOWER wrong, too.
I liked the clue for RARE and SPARKLER is always fun to see. RESEMBLE was also clever.
I did not realize MISO was fermented. The things I learn!
Thank you, Gary, for going the extra mile by ferreting out the constructor and obtaining a quote. Interesting that you have a connection.
Have a lovely day, everyone! It's my great-grandson's 2nd birthday party today as well as book club so it will be busy.
Well, that was unnecessarily difficult. Completely out of my wheelhouse and a struggle from beginning to end. But, at least it did end. Here's hoping tomorrow is more enjoyable.Yesterday I had to solve a math problem in German. Today it's Spanish maybe tomorrow it will be Latin. Enough of this.
Well, Saturdays are of course toughies, not just for me but for others as well, but this one was fun all the same--many thanks, Mollie. And neat write-up, Husker Gary, thanks for those too.
I was so excited to get TERESA right off the bat--I know my saints, I guess. But except for ODES (hey, I also know my laudatory poems), that was about it for a while. Some fun clues, like "share a look with" giving us RESEMBLE. Made me laugh, as did Gary's picture. And nice to see Richard EBERT in the puzzle--one of my favorite movie critics back in the day.
I have the pleasure of watching Monarch butterflies flit around milkweed on my patio every morning while I'm working on the puzzle--a real delight.
Have a good weekend, everybody.
This Saturday grid was super tough.
Really hard to get a toehold anywhere..ljust getting a couple of adjacent clues solved was tough,
Almost quit…a couple of times. Finally got the solve, looked to see what was empty and it was all filled. Unbelievable.
Write-overs…SHELF/BRASS, FIREWORKS/SPARKLERS, SOUL/EVIL.
There weren’t more because on a lot of them I couldn’t even hazard a guess.
See you Monday.
The whole top was too tough for me except for BIKE (thought RABBI to cross with it). And SANDBAR seemed to be the coastal hazard. No clue at all for the NW.
Two Saturday incompletes in a row.
Oh well, on to Sunday.
They drill into it, take a core and count the rings. Can tell which years had more/less rain by the width if the rings, too.
FIRight. Hard, but easier than most Saturdays.
Gary astute observation on link between Thames and SEINE.
I wanted AntaGONIST, altho I belong to two types of agonists. I suffer from prosopagnosia (face blindness) and verbal agnosia (word deafness). Why one is one word and the other is two I don't understand.
I wrote a poem here, a pastiche of Coleridge's Xanadu, about AGRA, and this is the second non-Taj Mahal clue since then that the poem has presaged (both Yamuna and Alph were sacred rivers, and Shah Jahan was a Mughal emperor).
Lincoln biographer was nice and specific. Some 15,000 books have been written about Lincoln — more books than have been written about any other person in world history, with the exception of Jesus Christ.
GRIvous < GRIMACE
PK liked your phrase "piled up like stumbling blocks."
Confused Isabel Wilkerson with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones, who's been in the news recently.
BRO-HUG reminds me of the Five Points of Fellowship that are part of the Freemason's ritual. The neologism may be recent, but the concept dates to "time immemorial", as we say.
Hurray for ME and my FIR!! Often end a Saturday struggle with a DNF, but I finished this one in 35. 23A & 25A both were very clever clues that took PERPS to fill, and when they are stacked, difficult (for me, at least). I admit I couldn’t think of how RARE was the opposite of WELL until reading HG’s excellent write-up. When I think of a hog I think of a massive motorcycle, not very motocross friendly. So 31D required several perps to finally WAG the fill. Again, DNK 49A or 52A, making PERPS essential but difficult since they are stacked. Overall a difficult CW that I am a bit surprised I managed to FIR, even with the 35 minutes of brain-busting. Thanx, MC, for the mental EXERCISEREGIMEN. And thanx HG for the outstanding write-up.
Hi All!
Not a great start when your first entry is 37a (Hi Misty!) followed by 41d. Those were my toe-holds today that (most) everything magically built out from.
But, not bad (for me) for a Saturday... One lookup (CBS - I was thinking MTV). Puzzle took me a WWDTM and 1/2 (I rewound it on my digital Sat receiver) [read 1.5h] to finish.
//I've finally given in and started filling on impulse - seems the only way I can get serious traction on a Saturday. E.g. - I had nothing to perp w/ TATE but just went with it; ibid EBERT & EVIL but, then, things started to fill(???). Usually, I'm way more careful before committing in INK.
Thanks Mollie for the fine puzzle - good sparkle in there ++ real learning moments.
Thanks for the expo and the interview, HG. You know we love your Saturday post-game analysis to make us feel not-so dumb. ;-)
WO: MOTOr_O__ (thinking MOTOR race or somesuch)
ESPs: LENA, ESTOPS (as clued), MIRA, 1/2 of WEI WEI & WI(a?)LKERSON's first name.
Fav: Clue for SEGA - I couldn't get off of this Sonic until BRO HUG tuck'd in [@1:01].
IM already called out my runners-up.
Spitz - re: BRO HUG. You made me smile thinking... Every time I drive away from Pop's house after a visit, I get a snappy-salute in my rear-view mirror. Thirty years running, that salute.
FLN - TTP - love me some Panzerottis -- little baby Calzones. The latter I always eat too much of.
DW will use the extra shirt for sleepy-time; it will be fun to have her smell of incense :-)
WC - Good on you for taking the shot. Shingles' is next on my list 'cuz Dr. said wait until a few months after the C19 shots.
I almost screAm[recall, I wanted MTV]ED before my 27a (CBS) look-up made me (EVIL(?)) GRIMACE. [12:01]
Y'all have a wonderful afternoon!
Cheers, -T
I definitely admire the construction of this puzzle even though I was unable to finish it. Beautiful work, Mollie. And, Gary, thank you for your review, interview, and explanations. After reading it I went back to look at the partially completed puzzle and realized where I had gone very astray. For example, having ANNOYING instead of ABRASIVE totally prevented me from making any sense of the SW corner. Oddly enough I did put in DRIVE right off the bat. EMIT went in, came out (naw, can't be, too straightforward), and went back in again when I finally got DINE AT instead of EAT OUT. (Interesting that the last three letters of DINE AT are EAT.) And in the middle, not wanting to let go of FAKE or FAUX caused irreparable harm until I grudgingly let those wrong answers go and allowed SHAM to emerge. So, here I sit, my foot bullet-ridden, but at least taking solace in having known AGRA, MISO, GUMS, ODES (Hi Misty), MIRA, TERESA (Hi again, Misty), SEGA, and OBOE. I blushingly ADMIT I did not know LENA Waithe, Ai WEIWEI, or ISABEL WILKERSON, although I sussed WILKERSON from the perps. Terrific puzzle, Mollie.
Good wishes to you all.
I have spent most of today under the kitchen sink at Valerie's house installing new garbage disposal. On my back. Flashlight in my mouth. The "plumber" who originally installed the disposal, sink drain and trap glued all of the ABS fittings in place so nothing could be "rotated", unscrewed or otherwise rearranged. Of course, the new disposal's outlet differed from the old one by an inch or so on two planes and things were so cramped that there was no room to cut/prime/paste new pieces to make it fit properly. I have not sworn so much in years. Finally was able to make a flex connector fit and things are o.k. but it was not an "elegant" solution.
We're going to see "Roadrunner", this evening. No, not Wile E Coyote, Beep Beep, Acme anvils, etc. It's the recently released Anthony Buo66665rdain movie. I hope to get to today's puzzle tomorrow.
That PLACE setting is silly.
Nice to look at, but..
If the service is first rate, they would not leave so many utensils in your way at the start of a meal.
A well-trained wait staff will leave only one or two extra forks/spoons.
Then they'll remove used items & replace them with whatever is actually needed, course by course.
Isn't that photo just too nouveau? I mean C'mon! Who wants all that silver under their arms?
A fine Saturday PZL from Ms. Cowger! I got maybe 50% before cheating.
~ OMK
___________
DR: One to a side.
And HUZZAH! I can use all 15 letters in today's anagram.
On the near side the anagram explains what you're trying to do at those times when you are dressed inappropriately for combat and you decide to roll around in mud piles for maybe 20 minutes.
We call that...
"CAMI WORKAROUNDS"!
Thank you Mollie for an excellent puzzle and a rare FIR for Saturday. And congrats on your LAT debut. We hope to see more of you. And thank you HG for another excellent review.
As I found a lot of subtle cluing in this puzzle, I did quite a bit of circling around and back and finished up at STARPOWER.
Fav clue was "Leaves spots?" and answer TEAPOT. They have lots of parts and forming a fully functional one is not easy.
5A Personally found this a bit tricky, as I have an Aramaic-speaking Lebanese, whose daughter calls him ABBA. Tried ABBAH, but that didn't work. But I knew Saint Teresa, so it had to end in a T. Eventually it dawned on me that the "father" wasn't necessarily biological. Come to think of it 1A and 5A are kind of clechos.
10A Great to see a "Saturday" clue for AGRA, instead of "Taj Mahal city"
19A Didn't know MISO was fermented. A good veggie source of UMAMI flavor.
38A Should have guessed it was EBERT, but the perps came through eventually.
40A Thought INK PEN was old-style, but had to go all the way back to INK POT before things started to loosen up in the middle.
55A Tried MODAL for UPS and DOWNS, but had to EBB in favor of TIDAL.
Liked learning about 49A IDA TARBELL and 52A ISABEL WILKERSON.
57A I'm glad somebody is still thinking about this subject. I lot of people don't believe that it actually exists.
62A There is actually a DNA gene called "Sonic Hedgehog". I think the discoverer named it after a toy his son was playing with.
4D I wonder what Ebert rated "LOOSE CANNONS"? They are a big problem in a lot of areas today, metaphorically that is.
Cheers,
Bill
MM @ 4:09: "Garbage disposal installation" and "elegant" are two wildly opposite concepts.
For my health, whenever I see Mollie's name on a puzzle, it automatically will be tossed into the dustbin. After two hours of looking through my library of reference books and finding NONE of her answers fitting her defs, I gave up, took my blood pressure men's and burned the paper in the fireplace. What a travesty!!
Wish they'd taken 2 minutes to check how to spell 4 in Spanish... it's CUATRO, not QUATRO, and this was just part of a clue so it's not like the Q was even necessary.
Quatro looks Italian to me but of course OCHO is Spanish. I don't know eight in Italian.
Whew! What an eventful day! First, my great-grandson's 2nd birthday at a very nice water play place then book club. That is enough for this old woman.
Super Saturday. Thanks for the fun, Mollie and HuskerG.
Late to the party after a visit with grandchildren. FIRed this CW on the drive there (with time leftover!). Okay, it is a 1 1/2 hr drive😁😁
Hand up for having a sea of white until landing at ODES. But P&P overcame my initial conviction that I would never get this one (especially with no Google help on the road).
Another hand up for FAKE before Sham and ADMITS to before IT.
I noticed TEAPOTS and INKPOT dupe.
AMEX is not used much here. I was trying to charge my phone😁
We had TIDAL and TSUNAMI, MOTOCROSS and BIKE, MUSCLE and EXERCISE REGIMEN.
I had heard of TARBELL, but not WEIWEI or ISABEL WILKERSON. Learning moment❤️
Like Lucinda, I am tired after being with the younger generation. They have so much energy.
Good evening all.
Anon-T, I like pen and paper too and identify with the challenge of inking in a best guess just to see fill on the paper.
And the EVIL GRIMACE was fascinating especially 2020 style woke analysis of 70s,80s entertainment. Of you want R rated simply watch Bambi.
"After two hours of looking through my library of reference books and finding NONE of her answers fitting her defs, I gave up". The perfect description of a perfect Saturday xword.
WC
We finally got to the puzzle at 9 p.m. PDT. A worthy Saturday workout with several learning moments that were, fortunately, perpable. The broader than usual use of vocabulary was appreciated as was the great writeup. Thanks, Gary.
WAIT! WAIT! The purpose of a Saturday entry is to make it impossible to solve without "peeking"?? Has absurdity overtaken society??
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