Saturday Themeless by Kyle Dolan
We last saw Kyle on Boxing Day at his British Consulate (12/26/2010) and not only does he have a fine puzzle for us today, he has included a new picture! Now once again Kyle has supplied a Saturday themeless challenge for us. I struggled in the NW corner and had an issue spelling PATISSERIE. Other spots were an issue too but the long fills took care of those concerns.
Here are Kyle's comments:
Hi Gary,
Good to hear from you and I hope all's well. Notes for this puzzle below:
This is my 13th LA Times themeless puzzle. I began construction on themeless grids seeded with QUANTUM COMPUTER in September 2020, working through several iterations of various fills and black square arrangements. My fourth grid is the one I ultimately submitted to Rich, in November 2020. Rich liked the puzzle but asked for some changes in the fill in the NE corner, which originally included the iffy entry LALOPHOBIA (I felt I had to put in a graphic for this word I did not know but that Kyle said he came across somewhere - HG)
as well as CORPSE POSE which he (Rich) felt, though valid (it's a yoga term) was a bit too dark (Rich must have relented because C.C. used CORPSE POSE two weeks ago. Kyle later wrote to say Rich must have allowed it in C.C.'s cluing but not in his fill- HG ). The puzzle you see is my revised grid. Rich also kept about 50 of my original clues as is or with minor changes, including a couple of my favorites: ASTOR Piazzolla, the EGGO/Kellogg's letter bank clue, LYCRA for Olympic champion swimmer Katie Ledecky, and the trickier clues for DEER and MESS.
--
Best,
Kyle
Across:
1. "Yours truly" alternative: BEST.
1. "Yours truly" alternative: BEST.
5. Impulsively: HALF COCKED.
15. They may not want to run into each other: EXES
16. It's 60 in the current Congress: AVERAGE AGE.
17. What Sicilians call "Muncibeddu": ETNA - Mount Etna (Aetna in Latin, also known as Muncibeddu in Sicilian and Mongibello in Italian, a combination of Latin mons and Arabic gibel, both meaning mountain) is an active stratovolcano on the east coast of Sicily, close to Messina and Catania.
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18. Flaunted one's wealth, perhaps: LIVED LARGE.
19. __ Angelico: Renaissance artist: FRA
19. __ Angelico: Renaissance artist: FRA
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| The Annunciation - 1440 |
20. Karaoke selection: OLDIE.
21. Tango composer __ Piazzolla: ASTOR - Saturday cluing by Kyle
22. The Ig Nobel Prize, e.g.: SATIRE - 2020 Winners
24. Time for cuts: SALE.
26. NBA's Nikola Jokic, e.g.: SERB - Никола такође игра за Денвер Нуггетс у НБА (Nikola also plays for the Denver Nuggets in the NBA)
24. Time for cuts: SALE.
26. NBA's Nikola Jokic, e.g.: SERB - Никола такође игра за Денвер Нуггетс у НБА (Nikola also plays for the Denver Nuggets in the NBA)
27. Parting of the Pacific: ALOHA - Clever - what one might say when parting Hilo or Kona
29. Spitz toy, briefly: POM - The word "toy" should set off your crossword spidey sense that a dog is being referenced
32. "__ say ... ": DARE I that 33. Lovett with Grammys: LYLE with Julia was a mystery
29. Spitz toy, briefly: POM - The word "toy" should set off your crossword spidey sense that a dog is being referenced
32. "__ say ... ": DARE I that 33. Lovett with Grammys: LYLE with Julia was a mystery
34. One-liner: JAPE - Yeah, I was the only one who put JOKE...
35. It calculates using qubits: QUANTUM COMPUTER - Here ya go
38. Latin "behold": ECCE - Antonio Ciseri - circa 1860
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| ECCE Homo - Behold The Man |
40. Array with two guards, in football lingo: O-LINE - Offensive LINE
41. Dead end?: DEE - DEE is the end of DEAD as well as END
42. "Oh, no!": SO SAD.
43. Loving touch: KISS.
44. Suggestion: HINT.
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| A HINT Of Autumn |
45. Coming attraction, say: TEASER- Sometimes it contains the only funny scene in the movie
47. Voiced: ALOUD.
50. Tries out: DEMOS.
53. L.A. to Palm Springs dir.: ESE.
53. L.A. to Palm Springs dir.: ESE.
54. Resulted in fighting: BOILED OVER.
56. Have on the run: GRAB.
57. One using a lot of hot air: BALLOONIST - Kids always had trouble accepting the fact that the flame pushes something out of the balloon (hot air) and does not put something in it.`
58. Freezing fog consequence: RIME.
59. Request for more input: ANYONE ELSE.
Down:
1. Grievances: BEEFS.
2. Pizzeria request: EXTRA SAUCE - Turns out that the adjective was not a proper noun
3. Biannual political event: SENATE RACE - Approximately 1/3 of the SENATE has to stand for election every two years.
4. Agts. outside gates: TSA.
5. Berry with awards: HALLE - Her IMDB
6. Way more than casual: AVID.
7. "The Periodic Table" author Primo __: LEVI - In his native Italian
6. Way more than casual: AVID.
7. "The Periodic Table" author Primo __: LEVI - In his native Italian
8. Climbed without ropes or harness: FREE SOLOED - It's just the climber, the mountain and gravity
9. Despicable one: CAD.
10. Lakota tribe: OGLALA - The most famous member of the OGLALA band of the Lakota Sioux Nation
12. Small racer: KART.
13. Kellogg's brand that can be spelled from "Kellogg's": EGGO and 56. "I'm losing it!": GRR.
14. Fawning parents?: DEER.
20. Realm of influence: ORBIT - These countries were once said to be Soviet satellites or in the Soviet ORBIT of influence
23. She outwitted Sherlock: IRENE.
25. "I'm standing right here": AHEM.
27. Close to getting through: ALMOST DONE.
28. Material for Katie Ledecky: LYCRA.
27. Close to getting through: ALMOST DONE.
28. Material for Katie Ledecky: LYCRA.
29. 45-Down seller: PATISSERIE and 45. Fancy cake: TORTE. Is 29 Down used in American spelling bees?
30. Kool & the Gang hit with the repeated line, "Get down with the genie": OPEN SESAME.
31. Trifling: MERE.
32. Barred from further rounds, briefly: DQ ED - The girl in Lane 6 started too soon which got her DisQualifiED. In trying to stop herself she also did a face plant.
36. Part of some riverside toponyms: UPON - Besides being the birthplace of Shakespeare, it appears that Stratford-UPON-Avon has a golf course. (Toponym is a name of a place)
37. Facebook attention-getters: POKES.
42. Not face-to-face, in a way: SIDE ON - Tim Tebow's (#85) pathetic SIDE ON block helped get him cut from the Jacksonville Jaguars.
44. Brit's greeting: HULLO - or 'ELLO
46. Defy authority: REBEL - A REB el can re BEL
47. 1974 Eurovision champion: ABBA - Could I have ABBA in a puzzle and not play a video? Not likely! Here is the song for which they won the 1974 Eurovision Competition.
48. Library offering: LOAN.
49. Full of smarm: OILY - In My Fair Lady, Henry Higgins sang of Zoltan Karpathian: "Oozing charm from every 39. Sweat spot: PORE. He oiled his way around the floor"
51. No good: EVIL.
52. Private dining room: MESS - Also used by corporals, sergeants, et al (#6 below)
55. Female rabbit: DOE.
30 comments:
FIRight,but those long downs in the SE were monsters. Having JokE for JAPE held them up even worse.
FILIBUSTER < AVERAGE AGE.
Did anyone notice that each corner had a double-E? BEEFS, DEER, REEL, and ANYONEELSE
Antediluvian Noah used cubits constructing the Ark.
It was a bear to steer, and worse than a Humvee to park!
And yet today,
In a QUANTUM way,
In QUBITS some COMPUTERS will talk!
I'm going off HALF-COCKED for fun.
My emu mount can really run!
We're racing to finish
This poem in English.
Just a sec, and we're ALMOST DONE --
Ta-Da!
{B+, C+.}
Good morning!
Struggled mightily...and ultimately failed. Didn't help that I wanted THICK CRUST on my pizza. Got that fixed. Yes, it was JOKE before JAPE. Got OGLALA, but thought it was just an adjective for the Sioux tribe. What really derailed the train was P_KES/_LINE. D-o knows nothing about football (surprised?) and continues to boycott Faceplant. Figured that missing letter had to be a vowel. DQed "U" -- PUKES wouldn't pass the breakfast test. That left AEIOY, and d-o guessed an E. Bzzzzzt! Thanx for playing, and enjoy your ceramic Dalmation. I enjoyed the struggle, Kyle, and your elucidating expo, Husker.
Took me 14:06 to compute this one. I spent a considerable amount of that time staring at open cells in the SE as I was unfamiliar with "patisserie" and the Kool &the Gang song, and "O-line" took too long for me to see. Other things I didn't know: Levi, Astor, Fra, the clue for satire, or Oglala.
"Do as I" say, rather than "Dare I" say, took awhile to fix.
I enjoyed the puzzle. Hope you all did too.
Unclefred FIW; Google FIR. And still took 44 minutes of cheating to fill. Cute clues: Parting of the Pacific; Spitz toy; private dining room. Very well done CW, KD, just over my ability. Nice write-up, HG, thanx.
That Ig award is hilarious. Ceremony next week. Gotta see that alligator(croc?) belching in helium)
Hmm, I thought Jokic played for Jazz that obviously didn't fit.
No. Spitz and Toy needed 3 perps complicated by my already inking raTISSERIE.
Euro to me means soccer. (Or money)
The Officers MESS had worse food than the enlisted messhall. I looked forward to Officer of the Day for a good meal. Plus it was free. In Marble Mountain Thursday was Corned Beef night which my southern* friends referred to as "Purple Death"
Owen, A+,A.
D-O, I'm a thin crust guy, cross cut
My comments were posted at 1Am EDT(fln). After reading Gary I'm up to 7 solids that mean everything for a P&I guy. Yes, the POM and DEER clues were beauts.
WC
*eg. Anyone not from Boston
In a weird coincidence, I did a crossword puzzle yesterday with PATISSERIE as one of the answers. The puzzle was a "vowelless crossword." The grid doesn't have the vowels in it, so the answer actually was PTSSR. I had never heard of a vowelless crossword before. It was really, really hard.
In another coincidence, ABBA just announced on Thursday that they are releasing their first new album in 40 years, and they released two new songs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAzEY1MfXrQ and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWGWFa3jznI . Husker Gary, thanks for the link to their Eurovision performance, which I've never seen. Great performance! I didn't realize that the two women are singing in unison the whole song. And with no studio manipulation! They are wearing the same clothes on the cover of the Waterloo album.
Sunday time for a Saturday puz. Not just JokE for JAPE but also dRuB for GRAB slowed the SE.
Kyle, for the first puzzle I worked since before the hurricane hit us, you had to have clues that had a couple of unheard of word in clues- 'qubits' & ' toponyms'. Before I FIR I struggled in the east with POSTS instead of POKES (unknown for me) and it took a while to finish the NW. The 'lg Nobel' was an unknown and I had EGOS instead of EXES. But you won't get any BEEFS from this solver, only compliments.
Had to change FREE SCALED to SOLOED.
OPEN SESAME- don't remember that song. But Robert "KOOL' Bell died a couple of weeks ago.
SIDE ON-has ANYONE ELSE ever heard that term? I have not.
ASTOR, Primo LEVI- total unknown
QUANTUM COMPUTER- didn't know it but with enough perps in place it was easy to complete.
Along with most of the NOLA area I'm patiently waiting for electricity to be restored. Ten people at my house. The electricity went off last Sunday and the generator kicked on. I changed the oil in it yesterday. But my ATT fiber-optic cable internet never went out. We watched the hurricane progress on television as it passed by us.
Good Morning:
I found this very challenging but finally finished w/o help in 34+ minutes. The cluing was Saturday-tricky, to wit, Astor, Open Sesame, Fra, Pokes, and the unknowns of Oglala and Quantum Computer. I also stumbled on Pek/Pom and Omahas/Osages/Oglala. Kyle did provide some fun duos with Deer/Mere, Doe/Deer, Patisserie/Torte, and Julia/Lyle and he brought us his A Team with Etna, Fra, Aloha, Extra, TSA, Oglala, Lycra, Julia, and Abba.
Thanks, Kyle, for a Saturday stumper and Voortrekker dropping by and thanks, HG, for another top-notch review and visuals and constructor participation.
FLN
Welcome back, CED. Aren’t you going to fill us in on your adventures in the UK.
SwampCat, I hope you get back to normal quickly. You’ve been through quite an ordeal.
Have a great day.
How for became Voortrekker is beyond me. I usually catch autocorrect’s nonsensical replacements but that one slipped right by me. Sorry, folks. 🤭
Good morning everyone.
In the groove today. Got it all except mussed up O-LINE. No matter. It was fun to work on and see what Kyle was thinking. Clean; no cheater squares. A few EXTRA inkovers but, hey, it's Saturday. I'll take a small CSO at Spitz: TOY. POMerania is part of the historic Low German speaking continuum of N. Germany.
OGLALA - - Source of the toponym that the Nebraskans named their largest aquifer after.
Swamp - Best wishes for an eventual good recovery from the storm damage.
3D…is it just me or is the clue wrong…..biannual (twice a year). Every two years is biennial
I wanted to see what others, here, thought about today's puzzle. In the first sentence of the first comment OwenKL said, and I quote: "FIRight,but those long downs in the SE were monsters. Having JokE for JAPE held them up even worse." My sentiments, exactly! Many of the clues required going with the fourth or fifth possible interpretation. Well done all around. I am very happy to report that my needs are being met.
Saturdays are toughies for me, but I actually started out okay with HALLE and LEVI and eventually others here and there. So, many thanks, Kyle, and you too, Gary.
So, that's what Sicilians call ETNA? Had no idea. Happy to remember that it was IRENE who outwitted Sherlock. Never knew that POKES played a role on Facebook. And, of course, knew that that cooking Child would be JULIA.
Have a good weekend, everybody.
Wow! Another FIR after a punctuated struggle in the NW territory. After my second break, I finally cleared away misleading entries and got ETNA and DARE I, which began to fix my problem. Other inky areas: I had EVIL early but MESS took a while. A lucky guess at the crossing of POKES and O LINE. But all in all, a great puzzle finish. Thanks, Kyle. Thanks to Husker Gary too for a helpful review and contact with Kyle.
Good to hear from Big Easy, SwampCat, and CED (short comment yesterday). It's always interesting to read the comments to see where people had problems, if any. According to Merriam-Webster, biannual can mean either every two years or twice a year. Didn't know that! Have a nice long weekend, everyone.
Misty, of all the 'gets' you got LEVI
WC
DNF, looking up OGLALA. Pretty good Saturday for me; I usually give up after getting lost in a whiteout after about 10 minutes.
I usually don't like anagrams, but I heard one on the radio yesterday afternoon that I appreciated. Maybe next I'll try working the entire Jumble, not just solving the picture without the clues. Anyone want to try unscrambling "Mr Mojo risin"?
Thanks to Kyle for the fun challenge, and to HG for the fun tour.
Gotta admire the construction.
Jinx -- The best the Internet Anagram Server could come up with was "I join Mr. or Ms.". So I cheated and found Jim Morrison and The Doors sang about Mr. Mojo Risen.
A good solid Saturday PZL from Mr. Dolan. Got most of it on my own, but patience wore thin about 80% into it.
Well illustrated by HuskerG.
I appreciate the map inserted for UPON, as it shows a golf course just outside of Stratford-UPON-Avon, a course covering the area where I lived for a time during my first student year abroad.
Ah, plus ça change....
Damn! I always reverse the "L"s and "A"s in OGLALA!
Cool poems from our Owen!
~ OMK
____________
DR: A three-way on the far side.
The central diagonal yields an anagram (12 of 15 letters) that stipulates the AVERAGE AGE of the wealthy ruling class.
I refer to...
"OLD OLIGARCHS"
Hmm. Not many letters in use. I can BEEF it up by one letter if I point instead to the burden of responsibility assumed by some of our rich masters.
Here I'm referring to...
"OLIGARCH LOADS,"
but I wouldn't want you to think I mean to generate sympathy for the poor old dears. We ALL have our weights to carry.
Appropriately, I am sitting in Venice, CA as I recall Mr Mojo Risin.
Like to introduce a new acronym: NWIH (no way in hell). Still chipping away with Google help but anyone with a FIR must be in the master class.
Wow, what a tough puzzle.
This took a while for me to get.
Many write-overs, actually too many to list. JOKE/JAPE was one though.
Toughest solve in quite some time, IMHO.
See you Monday.
OLD OLIGARTHS describes the AVERAGE AGE of our Congress people
Hang in there anon. I find walking away and coming back yields miracles and sometimes a nights sleep works.
Saturday is unique but myself and Anon-T for another were not Saturday level a few years back
I still consider a Saturday FIR a miracle or worthy of psychological study.
WC
Ps, I refuse any cheats, or red lining. Psychologically it would destroy my chances to ever FIR
Bit of a disaster today. HTC. FIW.
Puzzling thoughts? I’m not as good at solving Saturday themeless puzzles as I’d like to be.
Happy Labor Day weekend …
Thank you Kyle for a very satisfying Saturday, which is more than I can say about yesterday. This was one of those puzzles that if you ORBITed around it for a while your could MASTER all of its REALMS. Last to fall was the personal NATICK at the junction of 37D (not an FB user) and 40A (DNK OLINE. A synonym for 49D?). SWAGGED O and won a FIR.
And thank you Husker for another creative and informative review. I especially like the Word for the Day: Lalophobia
21A Astor Piazzolla, didn't invent the tango, but he revolutionized it and made it a part of modern "classical music". Here's his Libertango (don't believe the splash screen - it's only 5 minutes long).
26A Today's Serbian lesson, the first that I can recall: Nicholas also plays for the Denver Nuggets in the NBA. What would we bloggers do without Google Translate?
23D This episode was RATED R. SHERLOCK was totally DISARMED when IRENE totally DISROBED.
36D You can visit Stratford UPON Avon virtually, by streaming the gender switching series SHAKESPEARE and HATHAWAY, which is filmed there. Beautiful town, which doesn't appear to have changed much since Willie walked its ways long ago.
49D OILY. We're having a real LIPIDALOOZA this week, as OILY also appeared in Thursday's puzzle, clued with "Overly Suave".
Cheers,
Bill
The comments are interesting today. It's remarkable how this puzzle was in certain of our veteran solver's ORBITS and for others it may as well have been on another PLANET. I think we might find out why when someone come up with a universally accepted definition for NATICK.
There have been attempts (mentioned in "Thinking Inside the Box" I think) to develop computer programs that can solve CWD puzzles. I suppose that when they finally get QUANTUM COMPUTERS to work, some enterprising soul will sic them on the Sunday Times. Better to find a cure for cancer.
English Wiktionary: Usage notes Although biannual conventionally means twice a year, its conflation with biennial (once every two years) is quite common.
29a: I was looking for a toy for a Spitz. Did not know that the POMeranian is a variety of Spitz. Perps to the rescue!
LALOPHOBIA
O-LINE, SIDE-ON, and FREE SOLO were all perps-unknown sports terms.
However, FIR!
>> Roy
Like others, I confidently inked in "joke" B4 JAPE, which created problems, especially since I've heard of Kool & the Gang but not familiar with their music. With "genie" in the clue, an aha moment - OPEN SESAME (duh). MESS was tentatively inked in - "private dining room" needed a question mark for a gimme. I'm not on FB, so "likes" B4 POKES until O-LINE dawned on me. Owen, on your wavelength with "filibuster" but my first fill, HALLE, messed that one up. Coincidence, HG? HALLE Berry, and your REEL link to Chuck Berry?
Thanks, HG, once again, you've outdone yourself! Especially liked the Chuck Berry link - made me smile, not so much the lyrics but the "more innocent time" of its release, in hindsight. Fun puzzle, especially when FIR.
To all of our Louisiana Cornerites - I'm thinking of all of you and hope that the power at least will soon be restored. Louisiana has borne the brunt of recent deadly hurricanes and offshore drilling disasters. Just read today of a recent underwater pipeline break.
Hi All!
Late to the crossword party 'cuz I just returned from the after-party for Eldest's vocal performance. She nailed it.
Thanks Kyle for the puzzle. Nearly got it too if it wasn't for that French @29down.
Thanks for the expo, HG. Enjoyed the illustrations.
WOs: JokE->JAPE, cORE->PORE, hoar -> //nope, didn't change it and ended up w/ DNF.
DNF: AHH! supporting HOAR ice & Ata_. Basically, everything below ESE (in the SE) is only the end of 30d. PATISSERIE is not in my lexicon.
ESPs: OGLALA| ASTOR, LEVI & FRA (as clued), ECCE
Fav: I'll go w/ 22a. I watch the Ig Nobels every year. Thanks to C19, 2020's was a SATIRE of itself.
{B, B}
DR: #1 describes #2 to a tee, OMK.
BigE - sounds like quite the household to support.
WC & @5:30p anon - I'm still not Saturday-level. Often, I blatantly crib from HG's grid to get some extra-play.
Nice to read you TxMS.
Off to bed, lurk tomorrow!
Cheers, -T
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