Saturday Themeless by David Liben-Nowell
This is a puzzle with a long journey, and maybe a few mildly interesting stories to share from its trip.
The first origin point was the phrase DAD JOKES, which cropped up in a kind of amusing (if not exactly complimentary) way a few years ago. In February 2018, at the midpoint of the winter term at Carleton College, where I teach, I'd distributed my standard midterm evaluation for students to let me know what they thought of the course, and what could be improved in the second half. One of the questions ("what do you like least about the course") elicited one student response of "the dad jokes" (maybe the student wasn't being serious?! I can only hope so!). And then DAD JOKES and its symmetric twin MOM JEANS came onto my radar, and the puzzle idea was off and running with that pair as the seeds.
Well, "running" is probably an exaggeration. It took me about 18 months of poking and prodding at it to fill the grid in a way that satisfied me. That's still two versions of the puzzle prior to the one that you're looking at: the first one had a different entry at 18-Across (which Rich found to be too racy) [original submitted clue, if you want to puzzle it out: It was banned from Facebook in 2019 for its suggestive usage], and then the second version had a partial duplication between ALL DONE (33-Across) and ALL PRO (25-Down) that had to be excised. Rich's find of MRS JONES (to replace DOW JONES at 42-Across) is what saved that portion of the grid. So this version resulted from me ripping out both the NW quadrant of the grid (and thus the N section), and the W section (and thus the SW), and replacing them.
Some of my favorite clues survived, but I was sad to lose some of the others -- partially a consequence of my natural tendency to write fairly verbose clues, so often a good number of them get cut for length (and maybe for other reasons). And I have to confess to not knowing the answers to some of the clues in their final form. I hadn't heard of Charles COLSON maybe because I'm too young for it (the clue that I submitted was about the novelist COLSON Whitehead of "The Underground Railroad", among other books). But I'm also pretty naive to most proper names in popular culture, so I suffer equally from an ignorance of Questlove, IRENE Cara, IRENE Ryan, Billy Paul, and probably others that show up in this puzzle. And I haven't seen "Get Smart" even once, though I have heard a good number of invocations of the CONE OF SILENCE metaphor in my real life. Once I saw that including that entry in the grid was a possibility, I found some old clips on YouTube. Turns out the cone of silence thing was pretty funny all along. I hadn't even realized that it was a joke before working on this puzzle!
David
8. Grads of Cornell's Johnson Sch.: MBAS - Cornell renamed its business school for S.C. Johnson after the company he founded endowed them with $20M
13. Quartet quarter?: SOLO - Let's see, 1/4 of a quartet is one and if that performer sings alone...
14. Six-ton predator: ORCA - Sea World is phasing them out
15. Pride seekers' lids: SAFARI HATS - Anyone think of pith helmets?
17. LeBlanc who played Joey on "Friends": MATT - If you're a fan, you know who's who in this first to last episode montage.
18. Texter's approval: THUMBS UP EMOJI - or my Bitmoji!
20. Cutesy answer to "How do you say that in Spanish?": ESO - ESO is Spanish for the word "that" so the answer is ESO
21. Uncoupled?: BROKEN UP.
24. Zebras on a field: REFS - NFL REFS have broken racial and gender barriers
27. Classic muscle cars: GTOS.
29. Senator Ben who wrote "The Vanishing American Adult": SASSE - Joann and I have known 47. D.C. VIP: SEN Ben SASSE since he was ten years old. I taught with his dad and went to high school with his mother.
30. N.L. West team: ARI - Diamondbacks
31. Type of cable, briefly: COAX - COAXial cable. We're replacing a lot of ours with ROKU units
32. Shade for a lifeguard: SUNTAN - Oh, a SUNTAN is a shade of color
33. Defensive lines: CORDONS - The Swiss Guard form a colorful CORDON for the Pope
35. Dries, in a way: AIRS OUT.
36. Sometimes unattainable maxima: IDEALS - Don't let IDEAL get in the way of doable.
37. Sticky situation: MIRE.
38. 2010 World Cup host: Abbr.: RSA.
39. Origins: SEEDS.
40. Bass part: GILL.
41. It gives you the big picture: IMAX - Watching a shuttle launch on a giant IMAX screen with seat-rattling DTS Sound is breath taking.
42. Title partner of "me" in a 1972 Billy Paul #1 hit: MRS. JONES.
44. Blade in a shell: OAR.
46. Metaphor for confidentiality popularized in a 1960s sitcom: CONE OF SILENCE - Would you believe Maxwell Smart?
51. Type of jacket: FLAK - Originally to protect against bullets and flak, QB's now also use them to protect their ribs
53. Shallot relative: GREEN ONION - Time for my favorite Rock 'N Roll instrumental
54. Card in Clue: ROPE.
56. Command posts: HELMS.
57. Is behind, maybe: OWES.
58. Kid-__: tots' TV fare: VID.
59. Sailing: ASEA.
Down:
1. Legendary wildlife conservationist: NOAH - Two at a time and 55. Ancient site of an iconic tree: EDEN - Another Biblical reference
2. Block in the kitchen: TOFU - No thanks.
3. Humbles: SHAMES.
4. Fodder for unfriendly trades: BARBS - As I've blogged before, Don Rickles would not be able to use his act today
5. Speaker's spot: SOAP BOX.
6. Takes up, perhaps: ALTERS - or for me, unfortunately, "let out"
7. Short bar order: COSMO.
8. High-waisted garb, stereotypically: MOM JEANS and 34. Some corny humor: DAD JOKES - Here's a bunch of 'em. David told us these were his seed entries.
9. Play with ideas: BRAIN STORM.
10. Do one's part?: ACT.
11. Couldn't stand?: SAT - Not true on all roller coasters any more
12. Prez who had no VP in his first term: HST - Alben Barkely was HST's VP from 1948 - 1953
19. [Shrug]: OK SURE.
22. Olympics chant: USA! USA!...
23. Ricoh camera brand: PENTAX.
24. "To Kill a Mockingbird" theme: RACISM.
25. Heavy surf, e.g.: ERODER - Yeah, I suppose...
26. Obsolescent emergency exit: FIRE ESCAPE - Our school only had stairs
28. Coll. exam graders, at times: TAS.
31. Charles of Watergate infamy: COLSON - Would anyone else have been stumped if David has chosen "31. Whitehead of the Underground Railroad"?
32. Skirt alternative: SIRLOIN - Ah, now I see why it is called a Skirt
35. Have something: AIL.
37. Common jam ingredient?: MISFEED - Not an edible jam or traffic jam.
40. Scotty's "Star Trek: TNG" counterpart: GEORDI - La Forge played by LeVar Burton. Those glasses look like they were made out of my old lawn mower air filter.
41. Cara and Ryan: IRENES.
43. Much of Israel: NEGEV.
45. Island reception: ALOHA - Last Saturday ALOHA was a parting word
48. Ancient Memphis setting: NILE - The importance of Memphis decreased when Alexandria became a major port on the Mediterranean.
50. 3/8 of nineteen?: ENS - Meta clue: The word "Nineteen" has eight letters and three of them are "ENS".
51. Questlove's do: FRO - His IMDB
52. Dirty: LOW - Garth Brooks has friends in those places.
Notes from C.C.:
1) Great to see you back, David. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
2) Happy birthday to dear Husker Gary, our incomparable Saturday sherpa, who spends enormous time every week to perfect his posts, finding the right words, finding the right visuals and reaching out to constructors for comments. We're so grateful for your time and effort, Gary! You make Saturdays special!
 |
| Gary, C.C., Boomer & Joann 8/22/2014 |
40 comments:
DNF. My natick was E🅡ODER + A🅡I, but I also had errors at aTSB + aOAH (thinking Air instead of National; missing NOAH I'm ashamed of.) NEGEb (I had originally had it as NAGIB) + MISFEEt (originally has BIG FEET) + bIt for 🅥I🅓 (analog to kid-lit).
W/Os included T.REX < ORCA, FIST BUMP < THUMBS UP, LECTERN < SOAP BOX, GRFord < HSTruman, ETON < FLAK, BIND < MIRE, et al.
I had no idea ORCAs were in a class with pachyderms, or that FIRE ESCAPES were obsolete.
Yesterday I wrote that one of the themers was AIR OUT instead of ARE OUT as the expo reported, and Anonymous T was the only person who noticed and commented on it! So today we have AIRS OUT.
Animals were gathered for a cruise by NOAH,
Reservations were required before ALOHA.
They were handled by Ham,
Who messed up the plan.
That's why unicorns and T.Rexes are no mo'a!
A BRAIN STORM may produce a great thought,
It may get a THUMBS UP, like as not.
When I have a 'storm,
The ideas that form
Are more like a Tempest in a Teapot!
{B+, B.}
Good morning! (Brrrrr, it's only 64° this morning. Do you think fall has fell?)
Nope. The great northwest never caught fire and remained snow-covered. Got the rest without a problem, but couldn't see HOOHA, SAFARI, or THUMBS UP. Bzzzzzzzt. Thanx for the challenge, David, and for your usually sparkling expo, Husker.
FRIENDS: I may be the only person in America who's never seen an episode.
PENTAX: Owned one in the '70s, but it was made by Asahi, not Ricoh.
Enjoyed the puzzle - some very nice misdirection in the clues, and good long entries. Great writeup by Gary, as always!
Too tough for me. Unclefred DNF; GOOGLE FIR. Even with massive cheating it took me almost an hour to fill the grid. The only reason I persist on days like this are so I might learn things for future CWs. “Kerfuffle” is not my definition of “HOOHA”; mine involves lady parts. W/Os include NESS:NOAH, where I only saw “Legendary wildlife”; the “conservationist” part was at the top of the next column of clues on my printout. 13A ALTO:SOLO; sneaky Saturday level clue. Pretty embarrassing to spend almost an hour (54 minutes) cheating my way to a fill! DL-N, very clever CW, great cluing, everything good about this CW; just too tough for my meager skills. H.G., Happy BD!! And thanx for your as usual excellent write-up. Way back when, in grade school at Mound Street Elementary in Milwaukee, we had the type of fire escape you pictured in your write-up. We thought it was great fun to have a fire-drill, and all slide down the escape. We called it the “fire-slide”. Inevitably, some kid would not be able to get out of the way at the bottom and there would be a huge pile-up of kids, which we also thought was fun; too; not the teachers supervising the drill though. As to “Get Smart”, I watched it once or twice, decided it was irretrievably dopey, and passed from there on. Is a “green onion” the same as a “scallion”?
I was able to get this one in just a little under 15 minutes. The finish line was blocked by the side-by-side duo of Negev & Geordi. Cone of Silence somehow filtered through from the deep chasms of my memory.
I didn't know Colson, nor would I have known it with the alternate clue.
3/8 of "nineteen" is N's or E's.
I thought my "resist all cheats" dictum would be violated but p&p prevailed for FIR
Lots of splotches. I inked HOOdo and binoculars < SAFARI HATS. And of course went with ETON for that jacket. Boy are those FLAK jackets heavy(1968 ver)
I never got into Friends but I never know the actors anyway
THUMBS UP EMOJI was my big breakthrough which was luck because I tried to ink longjohns. I had to change the g for J.
Hmm, NLW Team .. not LA, SF.. And those two X's were big gets.
Bass part wasn't alto; USA was used leaving RSA. Not to speak seeing M_S and and the J got me two biggies.
Not piPE after all. Aha, OWES=> LOW, FRO,ROPD.
NOAH was a thunderbolt and bingo the hitherto blank NW was filled. Finally groking 'takes up' literally gave me ALTERS.
So there really are ISOGONS. My Geom class didn't have that one
I only need C and L for COLSON. I had a PENTAX before Ricoh. Nikon? Left it on the bench in Danang when I heard "All aboard"(for USA) Remember that Poker game? Easy come…
Picard would know GEORDI sans perps. Nineteen has 3 E's too.
"Some misdirection", Pawel? Once solved the xword is magnificent. As are those two l'icks
Gary, I couldn't help making a comment , fln, how'd you hold back? Happy birthday and ditto on CC's comment
I think my only true LHF was RACISM(and REFS)
WC
Well, it looked iffy for the longest time in the NW, but finally NOAH and TOFU filled, finishing SAFARI HATS. So a FIR for today, which feels like quite an accomplishment. MOM JEANS was an early fill, but I took JEANS out for a while, trying to get perps to work. I had rayBAN before SUNTAN for the lifeguard and piPE before ROPE. Other areas were not so messy. (Ink and paper)
Thanks for the puzzle and interview today, David. Interesting. I look forward to your next puzzle. And Happy Birthday as well as many thanks, Husker Gary, for your welcome review, always enlightening. Hope everyone has a happy day today!
Good Morning:
IMO, the best part of this puzzle was the Mom Jeans/Dad Jokes symmetry and playfulness. I expect misdirection on cluing on a Saturday but, again, IMO, some of today’s was just too cutesy for my taste. Misfeed as an answer is grating but the clue is even more so. I stumbled over Asp/Sac and Rio/RSA and needed perps for Cone of Silence and Geordi. After filling in Cone of Silence, I thought the C/A was referring to the Coneheads on SNL. So much for my knowledge of pop culture. I remembered Charles Colson and I’m also aware of Colson Whitehead.
Thanks, David, for your effort and for stopping by and thanks, HG, for the expertise and knowledge that you share each Saturday. Have a very Happy Birthday. 🎂🎁🎊🎉🎈Nice picture of you, Joann, and Senator Sasse. I thought of you when I saw his name as I remember you mentioning the relationship when he first sought office.
Have a great day.
FIW, missing CORbONS x bAD JOKES. That's great for me on a Saturday. Erased pipe for ROPE, nast then nash for NOAH, tile for TOFU, colter for COLSON, and dele'ed, then stet'ed FLAK.
Like unclefred, I thought HOOHA was a polite term for a lady's entertainment center.
As a James Bond fan, I loved Get Smart's sendups of the genre. I also had the warmies for Agent 99.
I had a PENTAX, but mine was a Honeywell.
My house has an obsolete fire escape. It must have been installed when it was carved up into apartments, but when a previous owner restored it into a single-family residence the exit windows were replaced with glass blocks. So the ironwork remains, but there is no way to use it for ingress or egress.
Thanks to David for the almost-doable (by me) puzzle. May favorites were the musical fills GREEN ONIONs and MRS JONES. Both great cuts. And thanks to HG for another fun contribution.
Good morning.
Thank you, David, and thank you Husker Gary. Happy Birthday !
Nope, not today. A few errors here and there that caused unfillable blanks. For the first time in a long long time, I caved and changed the game to error check mode. Asp, alto and starts in the top center lit up in red.
Also had blanks at the end of NEGE_ and the beginning and end of _EORD_. The only "common jam ingredient" I could think of was pectin. Finally got MISFEED and loved it.
Squares,e.g. ? Equiangular equilateral rectangles did not fit. ISOGONS perped in.
Good, tough puzzle that I thoroughly enjoyed.
Owen, yes, I noticed yesterday that the homonym sound was "air out" but didn't mention it.
Yesterday's work in my man cave garage went well, but was exhausting. At least the priming and wall washing parts went well. Ahead of schedule, I went to get the excess gallon of paint I had squirreled away, and found that it wasn't the same white color. So off to the store, and they no longer make the same white. Bought the closest version and put it on thick. It should be dry by tomorrow :>). Nah, it's fine, but now I have one very freshly painted, very white wall, and three other walls and a ceiling that are a dulled and faded white color. So now I have more painting projects for the future !
After filling the easy NTSB it was a crash and burn this morning for most of the North. Below ESO and BROKEN UP (I knew neither) almost everything was filled correctly. Somehow I managed to fill USA crossing USAUSA. Duh! Guessed IRIS instead of IMAX and SUN HAT instead of TAN. PENTAX cameras never had a chance.
For 'Pride seekers' I was thinking of lions but that was as far as I got.
EMOJI? No way to fill that. I've never used one and probably never will. I'm one of those "Vanishing American Adults".
MRS. JONES wasn't a hit for Bill Clinton.
MOM JEANS- never heard of them; good reason I DIDN"T fill it. I've heard of 'big momma panties'.
My BAD JOKES morphed to DAD JOKES after I figured out ERODER for the surf.
GEORDI & Questlove's FRO -unknowns-all perps.
ALOHA.
Hi Y'all! I was so sad to learn that David struggled so mightily & painfully to bring us this puzzle which caused me to struggle painfully to fill. I ended up doing red-letter runs, trying to get toe-holds on over half the great white snow fields of this grid.
Happy Birthday, Husker, and thanks for all you do.
Was annoyed that I couldn't come up with NTSB that I should have known Kept trying FAA.
Haven't heard of Chas. COLSON either -- or a bunch of other things/names.
My neighbor has been wearing a SAFARI HAT to mow. I was so glad since I had been watching his bald spot growing and thinking he was in danger of sunburn. Didn't know the HAT was called ESO.
Got a real chuckle when I realized the "legendary wildlife conservationist" had to be NOAH.
ISOGONS were SO GONe from my vocabulary.
Uncle Fred, do you think we are gluttons for punishment to keep doing these hard puzzles or just stoking up our stuborness. You make me feel less alone. I don't even believe that guy who claims he did this in 15 minutes and won't give his name.
The top half started as a sea of white - but once I got a toehold with MATT Leblanc I was able to get that corner and work back. MOM JEANS was easy to suss as I think they are more comfortable and more attractive than the low cut jeans if a person isn't slim enough that their belly hangs out and over the low cut jeans. That J opened up the EMOJI part of the THUMBS UP EMOJI answer and I was on a roll from there.
I remembered SASSE - he ends up in the news a lot as a more reasonable voice than the extremes and I thought it fitting that it was on a Saturday so HG would be blogging! Happy birthday Gary!
MRS JONES and CONE OF SILENCE were both from my junior high days where items are more hardwired in my brain. The former was beautiful singing but a rotten message from the lyrics. But it was a popular slow dance choice at the school dances - where we were too naive to get what the lyrics were saying!
Thanks HG and David!
We had the traveling 9/11 memorial on the lawn in front of the MO capitol this weekend and last night a commemoration ceremony where Joe Turillo, a NYFD fire fighter who was rescued from the rubble 3 days after the collapse, spoke of his experiences. Very moving.
Good morning everyone.
Happy Birthday. I second C.C.'s laudatory words of praise. We're lucky to have you to unpack the Saturday puzzles.
Finally got it all. Phew! Just stuck with it and fill like SAFARI HATS, FIRE ESCAPE, and THUMBS UP EMOJI finally reared their heads. Also DAD JOKES and MOM JEANS. Jumped in with both feet on those with minimal perps, but it paid off. Echo Pawel's comments.
Have a great day.
Still making my way thru the 100 dad jokes,
But thought in honor of Gary's birthday we should
Add a grandDad joke...
A little girl was sitting on her granddad's lap while he read her a story. She kept taking her eyes of the book and reaching up and touching his old, wrinkled face.
After a few times doing this, she finally asked, "Grandpa, were you made by God?"
"Yes, dear." he replied. "I was made by God a long time ago."
The little girl paused for a moment and then asked, "And did God make me?"
"Of course, dear." replied her grandfather. "God made you not long ago."
The girl felt her own face and then her granddad's again, thought for a moment and then said, "God's getting better at it, isn't he?"
Happy Birthday Gary
Superb Saturday. Thanks for the fun, David and HuskerG.
I must have been on David’s wavelength today, because I FIRed in good time for a Saturday, and found my way around all the misdirections. But there were still a few inkblots in the south.
I was in the wrong decade with Me and My Shadow. Oh, MRS. JONES.
Ate changed to AIL (ate was the wrong tense anyway).
Dais was too short and Platform too long; SOAPBOX was just right.
COLSON doesn’t have a U.
GEORDI was unknown , and had to wait for all the perps.
I was waiting for perps to decide between Bass and ALTO, but it was SOLO. Then we had “Bass part”; not music but the GILL of a fish.
You might need those SAFARI HATS in RSA. (I have one from Kenya.)
We had NILE, but SAC instead of Asp.
Happy Birthday, HuskerG!
Wishing you all a good day as we reflect on our memories of 20 years ago. Even on this side of the border, we felt the shock and fear . . . and of course, our citizens of Gander did us proud.
Clever Saturday toughie, but enjoyed it, thanks, David. Loved the picture of you and your wife and Boomer and C.C., Gary.
Funny clue for ESO. Should have gotten SUNTAN as the shade for a lifeguard.
After getting REFS and a few others, FIRE ESCAPE filled in.
ALOHA was easy, and that triggered ASEA--nice way to end the puzzle.
Have a good weekend, everybody.
Big Easy, I snorted Harris Teeter unsweetened Iced Tea out my nose when I read "After filling the easy NTSB it was a crash and burn..." Wish I had thought of it.
Inanehiker, adults knew the meaning just fine. But that was the late '60s / early '70s, the era of Woodstock, free love, ban the bra, never trust anyone over 30, and if it feels good, do it. (Nike should pay royaltys to the hippies who made that one popular.) And Joe South was admonishing us to "Walk a Mile in My Shoes".
Husker: Wonderful, informative write-up & links. Good Job!
"To Kill a Mockingbird" is going to be ON TCM at 8:00 tonight.
A "Toast To ALL" at Sunset.
Cheers!
Quite an imaginative Saturday themeless challenge. Except for the MOM and DAD mini theme. As often happens on Saturday, I find the long answers easier than the short ones. FIR. CONE OF SILENCE was a gimme. I watched every episode of GET SMART with my father as a child.
Learning moment that FIRE ESCAPEs are OBSOLESCENT. Did anyone else know this?
Here are a few photos of our crossings in the NEGEV desert of ISRAEL.
Wilbur Charles I actually noticed the three Es before I noticed the three ENS! Yes, GEORDI was easy for me, but I couldn't remember if the first letter was J or G. STAR TREK TNG actually tried a female engineer Sarah MacDougal first before settling on GEORDI.
Thanks also for the shout out on Wednesday with WORF.
AnonT Thank you for the WORF video!
Picard, those pics of the NEGEV look a lot like New Mexico, except for the squiggles on the signs. And is that a boat on the top right pic? Looks as high and dry as NOAH's Ark!
PK: It really doesn't matter to me at all whether you choose to believe me or not (you should, I'm not misrepresenting anything), but I find it peculiar that you don't believe me just because I don't have some avatar or username (e.g., "hungry mother" who may possibly be neither hungry, nor a mother). Besides, isn't my bio just as descriptive as yours?
Re. Anon@15 mins. I think the average person wouldn't think anyone could solve it period. Each time I FIR a tough one it makes the next ones worth not giving up on. We need to thank Rich for keeping Naticks at a minimum and for making the likes of COLSON perpable for the >60 crowd.
BTW, fln… Was "cruciverbalism" a category on Jeopardy recently?
WC
A delightful gift from Mr. Liben-Nowell! Surprised myself by getting most of his Saturday challenger.
(I only cheated at the last two or three "opportunities.")
I liked the misdirections--some of them very clever, as in "Shade for a lifeguard" and "Skirt alternative."
XWDs teach us to examine data input with special care, the first step in critical thinking.
I can't say, though, that I have any personal basis for thinking of TOFU as a "Block."
Life has so far spared me that indignity.
Husker G, I liked your illustrations, including C.C.'s pic of the "foursome."
But at first glance, I took the Don Rickles photo to be a shot of Winston Churchill.
~ OMK
____________
DR: No diags todays.
But I want to say I thought the 5-cell black diagonal in the exact middle--a "sinister bend" *--to be aesthetically pleasing.
* For those not familiar with heraldic terms, please Google!
FLN: C'mon, Wilbur ~
I already answered your Jeopardy question.
Please go back and read my posting at the end of yesterday's (9/10) Jumble site.
( http://jumblehints.blogspot.com/2021/09/sept-10-2021.html )
~ OMK
I liked this puzzle and made many of the same missteps that you folks did. I liked my TRAFFIC as the jam ingredient too much and hung onto it too long. Low hanging fruit was NTSB, MATT, SASSE, COAX, IMAX, RACISM, and NILE.
I learned what MOM JEANS are. I learned, or re-learned, that GEORDI was the ship's engineer. I learned that the FIRE ESCAPE is obsolete, even though I often see them used as escapes by criminal suspects in cop shows. I learned MRS JONES, the two IRENES, Questlove, and Charles COLSON but will very likely forget them in a week.
Long ago I had an Asahi PENTAX. A mighty fine camera. I took hundreds of photos with it.
Owen, I did notice you wrote yesterday that one of the themers was AIR OUT instead of ARE OUT. Sorry I didn't comment on it.
Good wishes to you all.
Musings
-What a great day in Nebraska City with the kids!
-Thanks for the good wishes and the cake too, Dave.
-Huskers are ahead at half despite many ERRORS!
After our city's 9/11 Memorial @ City Hall (HMMM! No one mentioned it here?) I settled down with a cup of java and my LAT puzzle - which I do every Sat. After three hours of research leading nowhere on this week's toughie, I had less than 25% in-filled. After a beautiful memorial, I have to say ...Mr. Liben-Nowel ruined my day. Should I beware of constructors with hyphenated last names as too esoteric for me? Am I the sole detractor of elitist puzzles such as this entry?
COLSON was one of today's "gimmes" for me.
Those of us old enough to have been adults during the Watergate mess would not be able to forget Nixon's "hatchet man," Charles "Chuck" COLSON, one of several dirty tricks jokers.
He went to prison for obstruction of justice, for--among other things--lying to defame Daniel ("Pentagon Papers") Ellsberg's character.
Reading C.S. Lewis started him on the road to reform. In prison, COLSON had his Come-to-Jesus moment. He was Born Again (the title of his memoir), & went on to a career in prison reform.
Among the predictable moves favored by right-wing scoundrels, religion is a major option.
Happily, it is often one of the nicer ways for dirty hands to try to wash themselves clean, especially if they avoid the bigotry temptation and go instead for a compassionate turn.
Because of that, I was sorry to see him go in '12.
~ OMK
DNF (big-time!), but I wanted stop by and wish Gary a HBD and to thank him for all he contributes to the Corner. Gary, your ability to solve the toughest puzzles every week and write clear explanations for the C/A's, embellished with informative, imaginative images, videos, and links is an inspiration to everyone on the Corner. THANK YOU!
I love a good misdirect as much as the next person, but because of the cluing, it was less of a joy and more of a strugglefest than I would've liked.It seemed like it was trying too hard to be clever.I just kept staring at some of these clues wondering what they thought they were doing.
I was thinkin' ---
Solving a crossword puzzle and analyzing military/diplomatic intelligence are somewhat similar. While trying to solve a puzzle from the clues it is often difficult to figure where the clue is leading to, just as it is often difficult to see just what the intelligence information leads to. But in hindsight, looking back at a clue once the answer is known is to see aha that's the connection, just as looking back at events can lead to suddenly understanding what the intelligence leading up to it portended.
Got here late today. Like another, I had zero luck in the North so I went to the bottom to work up.
That really seemed to work, I felt much more on the wavelength so to speak and worked to the NE.
The NW remained an enigma, but then a light or two went on and I finished it up.
Write-overs…BOMBS/BARBS, UHSURE/OKSURE, SUNHAT/SUNTAN,
See you Monday, have a great rest of weekend.
First I would like to mention ... From Last Night ... to TTP ... Re: The various variegated Variants of the ongoing COVID-19 VIRUS.
Thank you, for your extensive research and essay on the various Epsilon, Zeta, Eta, Theta, iota, Kappa, and Lambda variants of the ongoing scrouge. I read it with great interest and it did increase my knowledge tremendously. Thank you.
So, the naming of the variants does follow a logical pattern and isn't as capricious as I thought it might be....
Todays CW by Dr. Liben-Nowell, turned up quite 'on well', all things considered. I actually found it quite difficult and completed it with a lot of angst. But some of the answers were cute and punny and charming, and some others were almost incomprehensible. But, when a constructor has 3 universities. and a PhD from MIT, under his belt, what else are us, ordinary mortals, supposed to do ?
Thank you Husker Gary for the explanatory review, and always nice to see your pics with your lovely wife. You two, never seem to grow old .... must be teaching all those young kids keep you 'forever young' .... And, a Very Happy Birthday, and hope for many many more in the future.
I do not even know the Senators of mine own state, ( and dont recollect voting for any of them - ) so it would have been quite impossible to know other stranger senators, from the outer nether lands of our great country. ;-o)
But, he's certainly a good looking fella, and was nice enough to pose for a photo op. Which makes him better behaved than the Cast of Friends, which I never watched, but they were always getting into some sort of social brou hahas, atleast according to the tabloids.
More later.
Musings 2
-Unknown, I put a 9/11 tribute at the head of the write-up
-I appreciate your birthday wishes and I know I am lucky enough to be married to such a lovely woman
-We had a great lunch at The Lied Lodge in Nebraska City and took home a A LOT of apple doughnuts home from The Kimmel Orchards down there as well.
Very smart constructors don’t always equal good puzzles imo.
Emile, I agree that "Very smart constructors don't always equal good puzzles." One should not have to have a Phd to solve these crosswords.
Happy Birthday, HG - glad that you had a great day!
Had an early a.m. (pre-coffee) brain blip and couldn't remember the investigative group (duh to the nth!), so I hurriedly filled in "abased" for SHAMED which totally screwed up the NW for far too long.
D-O, count me in for never having watched "Friends" but Matt LeBlanc showed up in some recent forgettable article, and with MOMJEANS and BRAINSTORM in place...
Uncle Fred @ 7:07, LOL! "Kerfuffle" now has migrated to UrbanDictionary.com, as has "spunky" as I discovered when I tried to comment online about a politician's personality and was blocked (wth?). What's happening to this "new" world of word meanings? - I'll climb off my SOAPBOX now.
I only know of one senator with the first name of Ben, so that helped in the east with all the down fills. Didn't know that he authored a book.
I sometimes watch clips of Jimmy Fallon while scrolling through internet news so I knew the name, Questlove; otherwise, no clue.
Thanks, David L-N, I really enjoyed your 18-mos-in-the-making puzzle and especially your MOMJEANS and DADJOKES seeds. I expect, and look forward to, a brain work-out on Saturdays so you didn't disappoint.
Puzzling thoughts:
Happy Birthday HG! Hope you had an enjoyable day
Cheers to you
Hi All!
Thank you David for a swell Saturday puzzle (and some inside-baseball) that I could actually FIR. Though, that NW was last to fall.
Happy Birthday HG! Thanks for the expo / reaching out to David. I'll read the DAD JOKES later as, well, it's getting late ;-)
WOs: umSURE, HDTV->IMAX, wanted a BASS 'line' underneath the melody. I had a few stabs at spelling Jordie->GEORDI, EEs -> ENS. Have something was not ATE|EAT but AIL. There's also a mess of ink in the NW trying to get Pilgrim's to have Pride in their HAT before a TOFU SAFARI.
ESPs: HSTNEGEV, CORDONS|COLSON, most of ISOGON, IRENEs
Fav: CONE OF SILENCE. I love Buck Henry & Mel Brooks' sendup of spycraft in Get Smart.
{B+, A}
Good try, OMK. But that's not a DR ;-)
FLN - Thanks TTP for the missing Greek in the C19 mutations.
I heard this a few weeks ago: Questlove NPR on his new movie Summer Of Soul. [35m]
Did Counting Crows pop into anyone's head at MR[s] JONES [and me]?
No, I didn't think so :-)
Picard - Thanks for the snaps... LOL Camel Crossings.
Personal note:
Retirement party for (Army) Bro went off without a hitch. It was 30% Pop's friends & clients and 70% a family reunion - got to see / meet 5 of 8 of Pop's remaining cousins (total cousins, including him & his 3 brothers = 13*) and, of course my cousins & their families.
Cheers, -T
//Sick DAD JOKE. Catholics, you know those funeral-cards you get when someone passes? [non-Catholics: there's a Saint on the front and a little bio (or prayer) on the back for the deceased with his/her name on it.]
Pop sent a text to his all his cousins (and brothers) with a picture of the card with the caption: "Collect 12 of 13 if you can."
Pop's twisted :-)
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