Saturday Themeless by Andy Wang and C.C. Burnikel
C.C. and her brother Andy had a Monday puzzle on July 5th of this year and have followed that up with a Saturday themeless. C.C. last saw her brother in 2002 but keeps in frequent contact with him via WeChat (see some random Chinese screen shots below*). He is a logistics supervisor for an electronic commerce company in Xi'an, China. C.C. said, "We learned English in high school. His spoken English is not good. But his written English is not bad."
C.C. wrote to show me their first puzzle which you see at the left below. She said Rich changed the red area SHEN -> THEN and she and Andy changed the green area SOMEN -> RAMEN. SHEN Yun is returning to Omaha in February and this is SOMEN . We have seen SHEN Yun advertised a lot around here and I think I would have sussed out SOMEN eventually but Rich's changes made things much easier. It seems to me that Rich let some harder words go by in Stella's puzzle of last week but I enjoyed both of them.
 |
| Andy and C.C.'s submission Rich's edited version |
1. Chinese New Year tradition: LION DANCE - Appropriate
10. They may be inflatable: RAFTS.
15. Over and over and over ...: AD NAUSEAM - Car insurance commercials
16. Plugged in: AWARE.
17. Leads: GOES FIRST - Traffic is stopped for this leader
18. Degas contemporary: MONET - Do you know which is which? You connoisseurs will know but I will put the answer at the bottom **
19. Mel who gave Archie a batting tip in "Field of Dreams": OTT - Here is young Archie Graham batting in the uniform of Mel OTT's Giants.
20. Top choice: FAVE.
21. Called out: YELLED.
22. Momentarily: SOON.
24. Hold in a match: NELSON - It's been around for a quite a while.
26. Like: ALA.
27. "I got this": ON IT - I'm ON IT not It's ON ME
29. Cartoon shopkeeper: APU - The cast of The Simpsons are crossword staples
30. Help on the job: ABET.
31. "What a relief!": THAT WAS CLOSE - but he kept taking pictures!
27. "I got this": ON IT - I'm ON IT not It's ON ME
29. Cartoon shopkeeper: APU - The cast of The Simpsons are crossword staples
30. Help on the job: ABET.
31. "What a relief!": THAT WAS CLOSE - but he kept taking pictures!
35. __ Slam: tennis coup: SERENA - SERENA Williams has twice held all four major tennis championships but not in the same calendar year.
37. Puts on again: REAIRS - It cost Netflix $500,000,000 to REAIR these episodes
38. Product whose proteins are aligned in manufacturing: STRING CHEESE - New to me but easy to fill
40. Bust maker: NARC - Oh, bust as in arrest
41. Scrape (out): EKE - You just 42. Recognize: KNOW EKE will show up often in cwds
45. Before now: AGO.
46. 1974 and 1975 Stanley Cup champions: FLYERS.
49. Korean jjigae, e.g.: STEW - A Korean stew usually served from a communal pot Pronounciation
51. Where Alexander the Great overthrew Darius III: PERSIA.
53. Thailand neighbor: LAOS.
55. Stick in the water: OAR - as opposed to being a "stick in the mud". Fun!
56. Plant from the Greek for "flame": PHLOX - Word derivation
59. Free: LOOSE.
60. Cloud content: DATA FILES - My DATA FILES are saved on iCloud
61. Convenient breakfast choice: EGGOS.
62. Complex unit: APARTMENT.
Down:
1. Nigerian National Museum site: LAGOS.
2. "Same here!": I DO TOO.
3. Pickup capacity: ONE TON.
4. Rapper who co-founded Mass Appeal Records: NAS - Google if you must
5. Rear end: DUFF - Hillary DUFF and her...
6. Georgian, e.g.: ASIAN - A state that really doesn't give a hoot that the Atlanta Braves won the World Series
7. __ ending: NERVE.
8. Basis for legal precedent: CASE LAW - Case law is law that is based on judicial decisions rather than law based on constitutions, statutes, or regulations. A famous one:
9. CPR pro: EMT.
10. Budget noodle dish: RAMEN - As you read, Andy and C.C. replaced SOMEN with RAMEN and altered the corner
11. Nowhere to be seen: AWOL.
12. Creative works by devoted followers: FAN LABOR.
13. Like steppes, mostly: TREELESS - What is now downtown Lincoln, Nebraska in 1868, long before Arbor Day
14. It's fixed: SET DATE - My granddaughter's wedding day was a SET DATE and then Covid hit...
21. "Here's the thing ... ": YOU SEE.
23. Kind of acid: NITRIC - NITRIC acid can react with toluene to form a familiar crossword substance
21. "Here's the thing ... ": YOU SEE.
23. Kind of acid: NITRIC - NITRIC acid can react with toluene to form a familiar crossword substance
25. Alley pickup: SPARE - Boomer prefers "lane" to "alley"
28. In that case: THEN - Rich took issue with SHEN and redid this area
30. Scary 1986 sequel: ALIENS - A sequel to 1979's Alien
32. "Women, Race & Class" author Davis: ANGELA - I also remember her famous hairdo that we see frequently in crosswords
33. In poor taste: TACKY.
34. Brewery sight: CASK.
35. Improv spotlight usurper: STAGE HOG - Many say Jerry Lewis was a big one
35. Improv spotlight usurper: STAGE HOG - Many say Jerry Lewis was a big one
36. Techie's diagnostic list: ERROR LOG - I called Spectrum with a problem getting a picture on my MacBook. I took a screen shot of the ERROR message I was getting and we worked it out.
38. "Made from the Best Stuff on Earth" drink brand: SNAPPLE.
39. Shoe lift: HEEL TAP.
43. "Becket" star: OTOOLE.
38. "Made from the Best Stuff on Earth" drink brand: SNAPPLE.
39. Shoe lift: HEEL TAP.
43. "Becket" star: OTOOLE.
44. Sap: WEAKEN.
46. Tight spots: FIXES.
47. Follower of Jah: RASTA - Jah is the Rastafarian name for God
48. Sub system: SONAR.
50. Yank: WREST - Football tacklers are always looking to yank/WREST the ball away from the ball carrier
52. Fair: SO SO.
54. Like silken tofu: SOFT.
57. Civil rights pioneer __ B. Wells: IDA - Listen to her speech
58. "Mad Money" host Cramer: JIM - On his Daily Show, Jon Stewart aggressively scolded JIM Cramer for giving lousy investment advice during the 2008 mortgage crisis on his show Mad Money
*Screen shots of WeChat in Chinese
** Degas is on the right
Notes from C.C.:
Happy Birthday to Big Easy (George)! Here he is with his wife Diane, the Louisiana
Tennis Hall of Famer.
DNF. I'm amazed I got as much as I did. But the SE corner did me in.
ReplyDeleteHad no idea what or who jjigae or silk tofu or Becket or Cramer were.
Had DIP (as stick a toe in the water) < OAR.
Complex unit was IMAGINARY (finally using something from high school math!), then APARRATUS or APARATTUS, before red letters finally directed me to APARTMENT.
Enough cells were blank or wrong that I didn't see a few ordinary words in that corner.
There once was a ruler of PERSIA,
Who was told, "I don't wanna discourage ya,
But this guy, ALEXANDER,
Is on a conquest bender,
And is coming this way for to scourge ya!"
A Nigerian programmer in LAGOS,
Examining code and ERROR LOG-os
Found in the wilds
Ferrel DATA FILES,
Who'd come all the way from LAOS!
{A-, A-.}
Good morning!
ReplyDeleteIt all came down to _UF_ and __ER_E. An alphabet run finally revealed DUFF, and then NERVE fell into place. Yay. D-o never learned to match the various sports awards with the sport, so FLYERS took all perps. (Still not sure what sport that was.) The rest of the grid filled quickly. Interesting tour, Husker. Enjoyed your puz, C.C. and Andy. (I've seen those ads for SHEN Yun, but not sure "____ Yun" would've tripped the ole memory trigger.)
DATA FILES: I still keep mine on backup drives, not trusting the "cloud."
RAMEN: That's in my wheelhouse. SOMEN would've required perps to fill.
Happy birthday B-E.
DNF as is my usual on Saturday. Filled in 24 answers, 17 correctly. Not interested enough to continue with cheats. But I think it's great that the most accomplished solvers among us have this challenge to gnaw on. Kinda saw this coming with the easy-for-Friday grid we had yesterday.
ReplyDeleteOn to Sunday!
Congratulations C.C. & Andy. My first thought for 1A was way off and I'm glad I didn't write it down to make a mess of the newspaper. FIREWORKS changed to LION DANCE as soon as I filled LAGOS and EMT. I was unsure of the correct spelling of AD NAUSEAM, but CAST took care of it.
ReplyDeleteThe NE was tougher. I had to change AWAY to AWOL, COSTS to RAFTS, and MANET to MONET.
Never heard the term FAN LABOR but that might describe those of us who comment on the blog.
I tried AGAVE and ERE until FIXES and SNAPPLE corrected it.
RASTA for Jah and STEW for Korean jjigae were unknow guesses.
OILERS or FLYERS- waited for perps.
ANGELA Davis- should be in prison for murder but CA juries can't seem to ever convict anybody.
D- otto- it was HOCKEY. As for DATA FILES I quit backing up personal stuff at least 15 years ago; first to Google Documents (now DRIVE) and now with both Google and Microsoft One Drive. People ignore backing up data at their own peril. At work (before the cloud) we backed up daily on tape or disc and all backups were kept in multiple separate buildings in case of fire or other catastrophe possibilities.
Alex had to great battles with PERSIAns, neither in modern day Iran but I should liu
ReplyDeleteI saw the CSO to Boomer with SPARE but never noticed it was CC. Novel clue for OTT
Precedent has guided US Supreme Court but there's hints that it'll not be observed. Precedent was basis of ruling (Curt Flood) that MLB was a Sport *
I had hoiST/WREST. I am fortunate to be able to solve on Friday(night) and not have the pressure to rush. This was average Saturday Difficulty but CC has the knack of doability. Plus…
Some Sports to gain footholds for the non pop-cul people.
I remembered FLYERS because a big Bruins-FLYERS game hogged both TVs with a big NC- Duke game on(Hi Jinx)
Speaking of...7 am is way to early to quit. Refer to Wilbur solving credos fln
WC
** But Marvin Miller found precedent that Reserve Clause was indenture from Hollywood CASE
And Big Easy HBD, nice pic
Th. HG and CC et frere
FIR after some struggles. IT'S NO JOKE. For a long time I had IT'S NOT ---, then OKE (thinking that's not the way to spell OK!) Finally changed to JIM and it made sense. FAVE was another slow spot. Not until Husker Gary explained, did I get Georgian and ASIAN. It's a blind spot for me, though I have known for years about the other Georgia. I thought of EGGOS early on, but had Let go and other combinations before LOOSE. Thanks for clearing up my questions, HG. And many thanks C.C. and Andy for the Saturday challenge. Well done!
ReplyDeleteHappy Birthday, Big Easy! Nice picture of the two of you. And a pleasant weekend to all!
Good Morning
ReplyDeleteWhat a treat today from CC and Andy! It’s the most diversified puzzle I can remember solving: Lion Dance, Monet, Apu, Stew (Korean), Persia, Laos, Lagos, Asian, Ramen, Rasta, and O’Toole. It also has CC’s trademark declarative phrases: That Was Close and It’s No Joke. I had On Me before On It and having never heard of Mad Money, needed perps for Jim ((Cramer), as well as Fan Labor and Rasta. I was breezing right along until the SE corner brought me to a halt, temporarily. I still finished w/o help in 29 minutes, not too bad for a Saturday. Nice CSO to Boomer at Spare.
Thanks, Andy and CC, for a very enjoyable solve and the mini-world tour and thanks, HG, for another outstanding review. 75 % of your links/pictures didn’t come through, so I’ll be returning later to check them out, fingers crossed!
Happy Birthday to BigEasy. Hope you celebrate in NOLA style! 🎂🎉🎁🎊🎈
FLN
Welcome to Helen. Please join the group!
A belated welcome to YooperPhil. Sorry for being so late with this acknowledgement.
Have a great day.
Thank you Andy and C.C. for a tough but fair Saturday FIR. It's great to see you two SIBS ABETing one another again! And thank you Husker for another fine review.
ReplyDeleteSome favs:
17A. GOES FIRST. This pic reminded my of one taken by Teri, not far from where she used to work.
18A MONET. Not a connoisseur but I recognized the MONET right away as we have a photograph of his garden taken by a dear departed friend of mine, years back. He said he had to wait for hours to find a break in the crowd and snap this picture. I didn't recognize the DEGAS as he painted mostly portraits and groups of people. Lots of ballerinas.
60A DATA FILES. I prefer to keep my data files on twin 10 GB hard drives. BEGIN RANT: I think FOG is a much better term for the scam that MS is trying to pull off with ONE DRIVE. A "transparent" feature" I didn't even know I had until one it filled up (how was that possible?) and I had to clear off some files before I could do any more work. In the process kI lost some valuable files. MS scam for charging you yet another fee for using Winblows. END OF RANT
1D LAGOS. Knew this city as we have several Nigerian families in our Church.
43D O'TOOLE. He was the bad guy in this one, but the good guy in Lawrence of Arabia.
Cheers,
Bill
FLN:
ReplyDeleteFor those of you who can't get enough of David Alfred Bywaters (and who can?), he has over 200 puzzles posted on his website, plus reviews of Victorian novels, another of his specialties.
Bill
Waseeley, I didn't think O'Toole was a particularly "good guy" in Lawrence of Arabia. Complicated, conflicted character.
ReplyDeleteD-O Relatively speaking of course. Lawrence had his issues, but he didn't have "a troublesome bishop", and a friend to boot, murdered in his own cathedral.
DeleteDAB also scripted today's Universal and next Sunday's LAT.
ReplyDeleteDAB also has a 21x21 today at the WSJ.
DeleteGood morning everyone.
ReplyDeleteGot the NE and bottom fairly quickly. Blundered around in the rest of it but kept tinkering and it finally came together. @ 2d, wanted something with 'ditto', but finally saw I DO TOO. Had 'ergo' before THEN. Even had 'thus' for awhile. No look-ups needed; FIR.
Happy Birthday to Bid Easy.
Nice Saturday quality puzzle from CC and Andy. And an always stellar recap from Husker.
I was flummoxed in the NE since I had Ramon, away, Manet. Was yoyoed possible? Fan what? LABOR got me to yelled which made it AWOL and Monet. Whew!
ReplyDeleteGreat to see brother/sister constructors. I miss my sis!
Wahoo! I did it and had to come here to say I had a good time working through this puzzle! My first clue was ramen and I giggled because that was my go to food for quite some time! It's fun to come here and read all the posts and see how everyone had some of the same clue ideas as I did. I was holding on for a long time to the idea of ""it's not oke," but an alphabet run and-aha, a guy can also be called Jim -duh-filled in the last corner. So, on to the chores calling me and thanks all for a fun way to start my weekend!
ReplyDeleteA Saturday level CW that I almost gave up on. Finally started filling bottom up. It is curious that Jinx mentioned yesterday’s CW as being “easy for Friday” but I found it tough. Yet somehow I managed today’s although it took an embarrassing 39 minutes to FIR. NW was last to fill, did not know LIONDANCE and thought ADNAUSEAM was spelled ADMAUSEuM, plus 2D I had trouble with: METOO doesn’t fit, DITTO doesn’t fit, so ??????. Finally IDOTOO perped in. W/O RERUNS:REAIRS. Overall a real Saturday level challenge, thanx AW & CC. And thanx for the great write-up, HG.
ReplyDeleteThank You Andy and CC for a challenging puzzle, and Husker Gary for a very nice review.
ReplyDeleteI had atough time on the upper left hand side... I dont think I could have guessed SHEN YUN, altho I've seen the ads. It was a revelation that the group is based out of Hudson NY. Amazing.
I recognized the bridge across the lily covered lake in Monet's Givenchy, where he lived most of his life.
35 Across ... SERENA SLAM ... HG, tautologically .... Serena could not have won " ...all four major tennis champioships, twice (?), ... in the same calender year "...
... and I used to think that PHLOX was an ebonic type corruption of the word, Flocks, meaning mobs or groups.
Have a nice day, all.
Super Saturday. Thanks for the fun, Andy and C.C., and HuskerG.
ReplyDeleteMy newspaper doesn’t credit the constructor, but I wondered if it was C.C with 1A.
Like many Saturdays, this required P&P plus a few Google helps to come to a satisfying finish.
Looking up SNAPPLE (not well known here) opened the SW corner (and forced Ere to change to AGO). Ditto for IDA and OTOOLE in the SE.
Correcting NAUSEuM to AM and GOES ahead to FIRST fixed the NW. I thought my ending might be Happy, but NERVE finally perped.
I wanted a Grand Slam but it was too short. The SERENA term was not known to me.
On the hockey front, I knew that it was 1967 when our Toronto Maple Leafs last won Lord Stanley’s Cup (sigh). It took a few perps to remember those Broad Street Bullies, FLYERS.
I smiled at STAGEHOG beside ERRORLOG.
FLN- welcome Helen of Marlowe. I try to read the previous day’s later posts before I read the present day blog.
Happy Birthday to Big Easy.
Wishing you all a great day. It tried to snow here this morning, but is sunny and crisp now. Winter is coming.
Hola!
ReplyDeleteHappy birthday, Big Easy!
Congratulations, to Andy Wang and C.C. on their collaborative endeavors!
Tough puzzle for me today. However, I did fill most of it, had AD NASUSEUM so CASE escaped me. These Saturday puzzles have been frustrating me, something that a few years AGO would not have happened.
My friend, Mark, regularly watches JIM Cramer so I am familiar with the show.
I recognize MONET's style and have regretted not visiting Giverny when I was in France.
CSO to Anon-T at ERRORLOG, assuming he keeps one.
My daughter is a big fan of horror films so ALIENS would appeal to her and I'm certain she has seen it.
Have a special Saturday, everyone! I'll start wrapping presents today. The spare bedroom has been overtaken with my purchases!
Happy Birthday, Big Easy!
ReplyDeleteThanks, C.C., Andy, and Gary for a great start to this Saturday. As I.M.pointed out, above, C.C.'s puzzles are always "diversified" and require a broad set of DATA FILES. Valerie and I solved this one together in a somewhat opportunistic manner with footholds gradually appearing at several places. The final few squares fell in the NE, SE and SW. FAN LABOR and STAGE HOG are both new expressions to me but they do make sense. A few of the clues felt a bit "off" but, hey, it's Saturday and the constructors/editors work diligently to make 'em that way.
This one required all 16:47 to get it. Lots of clever (but not devilish) misdirection and/or fresh twists on old clues.
ReplyDeleteMaybe a tad few proper nouns, but still a great Saturday puzzle.
FWIW, time-stamped ERROR LOGS are created automatically by the OS and by apps at the discretion of the programmer. They are the first place a troubleshooter goes when debugging a failed program.
ReplyDeleteSaturday puzzles are always toughies for me, but there's no way I would let a C.C. and Andy puzzle go by without a big effort. And I'm glad I did--I got chunks here and there and that was fun. And always appreciate your write-up, Husker Gary.
ReplyDeleteFirst item I got was OTT--no idea why but it worked.
Little further down I got APU--again, not sure how I knew it but again, it worked.
Loved getting both ANGELA and SERENA.
In the end I had a lot and with help filled it all in. Great Saturday puzzle.
Fun poems, Owen,
Happy Birthday, Big Easy.
Have a good weekend, everybody.
Thank you, Gary, for your unerring and stalwart efforts on the Saturday Blog! I forgot to express my gratitude in the first post.
ReplyDeleteThat was a toughie, all right.
ReplyDeleteI thought of giving up, as I have a busy day ahead.
But then I figured it would be disrespectful of me to bail on one of C.C.'s creative efforts. She put in the time, along with Mr. Wang, so I reckoned I should do them the courtesy of sticking with it.
And in the end we all prevailed.
Ta ~ DAH!
My fave? FAVE, of course.
No matter how many years I put in, I keep learning new things, new aspects of cruciverbal lore. I think what impressed me most today is that even when the clue seems to point in an arcane direction, you can usually be certain that the fill will be a name or phrase you have heard before.
Rarely is the answer so obscure that it is entirely new to you.
The example today is PERSIA. The clue seems to point to some named battle or obscure geographic region, but it ended up being a familiar classic nation, readily associated with either Darius or Alexander.
In the end, no sweat.
~ OMK
____________
Diagonal Report: SORRY to see there are no diagonals today. I keep hoping one of the creators--someone! anyone!!--will incorporate one or more anagrams in their diagonals. But I haven't seen it so far.
Of course I might have missed some in the past. When I spot diags, I usually check only one main line, maybe both, and am happy with whatever I find.
To REMIND FOLK, I look first to see if there are contiguous letters (15 letters in a 15X15 grid) from either the extreme NW to SE squares, or on the "far side," from NE to SW. If those lines are not intact, I stop, as any extra lines above and below those arteries can't count.
BUT if either or both are intact, I will also look above and below the main lines to see if they are supported by extra (shorter--14 letters) diagonals. These then become fair game if I don't see anything of interest in the longer diagonals.
And that's it.
Very rarely I find a JACKPOT, with all 15 letters in use. Most often I will find several possibilities in the 12 to 14 letter range. I make a subjective choice of the anagram I find most amusing or provocative.
My only creativity comes in working on the back story, whatever I can imagine in support of the posted anagram.
These tales can become pretty far-fetched.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful puzzle, Andy and C.C. -- thank you so much!
oops - CNBC was Cramer's channel. -T
ReplyDeleteBig E, I thought of the Edmonton Oilers, Gretzky, Messier...too
ReplyDeleteMr S* filling in for RayO
Jig on the hotspot: LIONDANCE
Gorilla diarrhea. APU
Duffs. REAIRS
Should: OTT
Too much Emu: ADNAUSEUM
WC
** Not him. His brother Mr Silly
AnonT- I think you may have shown us your “you can’t always blame Canada Tshirt some time AGO. Love it. Thank U (makes up for Labor today).
ReplyDeleteBigE and WC- yes, I had the _ _ _ ERS too, but knew that the Oilers STRING of Stanley Cup wins had been in the eighties. My son was a Messier fan.
OMK- I don’t often comment on your diagonals since I usually have already posted. I do enjoy and get a smile/laugh from your creative efforts.
I liked this puzzle. Had to look up 3 items. Learned several new facts too. Thanks to Andy and C.C.
ReplyDeleteHappy birthday Big Easy.
Aw nuts!
ReplyDeleteBack from Key West,
And I could have sworn I read
(Or lurked)
Every Blog post since 2012...
But I must be a noob, as I never knew
CC had a brother, or they posted puzzles before!
Speaking of can't remember,
I did the puzzle early, so, yeah,
I don't remember...
And Big Easy!
I am pretty sure I posted an easy b-day cake pic for you
Before. You know the one with the the cake mix box with
The candle tied to it. I went looking for it again,
but th8ngs got complicated...
Oh well,
have a happy birthday anyway...
CED. Is that a bottle of Purple Cow? 🐮
Delete
ReplyDeleteA true DNF, but I tried. It was a great puzzle though. Great HG tour also.
Anon - T: Yep, I also tried HECKLERS.
Having never watched the Simpsons, I really don't know the characters. But after years of CW puzzles, if I see a three letter clue that might be related to the show, I put in APU.
We had rain and a little bit of mixed precip today. I hope it was nice where you are.
DNF. I usually skim looking for things that cannot be anything except... so I started with Ida, worked up and around Ida. But then had several inked in wrong and ended with a ball point pen mess.
ReplyDeleteHelen of Malowe:
ReplyDeleteI recommend a wite-out pen, but maybe it's must me; I hate messes.
Hi Y'all! Enjoyable challenge, Andy & C.C. thanks. Thanks, Gary, for all the great info.
ReplyDeleteStalled on 1a with "fireworks". Finally got DANCE but since I thought those DANCing things in pictures were "dragons", LION had to be red-lettered for me to accept.
Happy Birthday, Big Easy. I enjoy your down-to earth posts.
What wine do they bottle at Purple Cow Winery? Are they related to Purple Coe Ice Cream?
ReplyDeleteI do like being alive in an era when C.C. and her brother who lives 10,000+ miles away can collaborate in creating a puzzle.
There is an odd CSO, as our firm represents the owners of a Degas Ballerina painting. It is for sale if you a few million. It appraised at $11 million.
Sleep well all
OTT is a baseball version of APU
ReplyDeleteI use ink. Definitely a challenge and can backfire. As I said fln, there's a lot of psychology to solving. Last weekend I got stuck without my insert and solved online complete with a lot of clean erasures
WC