Saturday Themeless by Bettina Elias Siegel and Dan Elias
Bettina and Dan give us a lot of wide-open spaces with only 22 blocks and 99 open squares.I had a lovely 20-minute tiptoe through these tulips.
Across:
1. Stress-relieving gifts: SPA PACKAGES.
12. Title in an order: FRA - A title for an Italian monk or friar in a religious order
15. Feature of the Bush and Johnson White Houses: TEXAS ACCENT.
16. Court call: LET.
15. Feature of the Bush and Johnson White Houses: TEXAS ACCENT.
16. Court call: LET.
17. Fox on TV: AGENT MULDER.
18. Prelude to a kiss?: I DO.
19. Podcast feed letters: RSS - Really Simple Syndication
20. Zelle and Venmo: APPS - I have podcast APPS that keep me entertained
21. Editor's tool: RED PEN.
21. Editor's tool: RED PEN.
23. Any of 12 popes: PIUS - Where our granddaughter attends in Lincoln, NE
24. Run: OVERSEE - OPERATE worked until it didn't
25. Some highlands musicians: PIPERS.
25. Some highlands musicians: PIPERS.
28. Salt Lake Bees and Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp: AAA TEAMS.
29. "Who's better than me?!": I RULE.
30. Drops in the air: MISTS.
31. Red choice: CAB - Often found on our crossword wine list
30. Drops in the air: MISTS.
31. Red choice: CAB - Often found on our crossword wine list
32. Tips for a writer: NIBS.
33. 2020 Isabel Wilkerson bestseller subtitled "The Origins of Our Discontents": CASTE.
34. Stud locale: LOBE - It was not in a wall or a horse farm but in an ear
35. Night sch. class: ESL.
36. Gals, in dated slang: MOLLS - Clyde Barrow's MOLL, Bonnie Parker, leapt to my mind
37. Winds: COILS.
38. Member of a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame girl group: SHIRELLE - C'mon, ya gotta love 60's rock and roll. SHIRley Ross and three classmates for Passaic, NJ were the first black, girl group to have a #1 hit with this memorable song.
40. Polarizing figure?: MAGNET.
41. Agreements: ACCORDS
41. Agreements: ACCORDS
42. "Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are __!": 1978 album: DEVO.
43. Opening night invitee: CRITIC.
44. Untimely?: LATE.
45. Evil computer who says, "I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that": HAL - A forerunner of AI?
48. Bulls and bucks: HE'S - Males
49. Tailor's device: TAPE MEASURE.
52. "Dig in!": EAT.
53. Actor who played Tony Rodriguez on "NYPD Blue": ESAI MORALES - We have seen his vowel-rich first name here quite often
54. Some corporate IP: TMS - Corporate TradeMarkS ™ are Intellectual Property
55. Display that may have rotating shelves: DESSERT CASE.
Down:
1. Nicola Yoon's "The Sun Is Also a __": STAR.
2. Cribbage pieces: PEGS.
5. "Steps in Time" memoirist: ASTAIRE - An autographed copy can be had for $375.00
7. Keurig pods: K-CUPS.
8. Concerns for some orthopedic surgeons, initially: ACLS.
9. HS proficiency test: GED.
10. Sap: ENERVATE.
11. Doja Cat hit with the lyric "Send your location, come through": STREETS.
12. Ensures that change is in the air?: FLIPS A COIN - If you flip a coin (piece of change), it will go in the air. 😀
13. Scrooge, ultimately: REDEEMABLE - All it took was three ghosts
14. In top form: AT ONE'S BEST.
22. One of the "Black-ish" parents: DRE - Anthony Anderson plays Andre (DRE) Johnson in this show
23. NOLA cagers: PELS.
24. Brewery equipment: OASTS.
25. Pouch with a woodsy scent: PINE SACHET.
27. Attention getters: PUBLICISTS - There's no such thing as bad publicity
28. Target section: AISLE - The AISLE is in a Target™ Store
30. Shop keepers?: MALLS - Omaha had three huge MALLS and two are now shut and the other one soon will be
33. Focus of many a true crime podcast: COLD CASE - Who killed JonBenet Ramsey?
34. Letterhead feature, often: LOGO.
36. Just: MERITED.
37. The Lascaux bulls, e.g.: CAVE ART - One of 600+ such images in this network of caves in SW France
40. Shower element: METEOR - An event that occurs when Earth's orbit crosses the path of a group of meteors that burn up in our atmosphere.
42. Actor Jean-Claude Van __: DAMME - "The Muscles from Brussels"
44. Fragrant neckwear: LEIS and 45. Dance with a kahiko style: HULA.
46. Trojan War god: ARES.
47. __-majestÈ: LESE - Disrespect or a crime against a Royal head of state. Example: Article 112 of Thailand's criminal code says anyone who "defames, insults or threatens the king, the queen, the heir-apparent or the regent" will be punished with a jail term between three and 15 years.
50. Pops: PAS - They are/were usually married to MAS
51. Pollen holder: SAC.
46. Trojan War god: ARES.
47. __-majestÈ: LESE - Disrespect or a crime against a Royal head of state. Example: Article 112 of Thailand's criminal code says anyone who "defames, insults or threatens the king, the queen, the heir-apparent or the regent" will be punished with a jail term between three and 15 years.
50. Pops: PAS - They are/were usually married to MAS
51. Pollen holder: SAC.
40 comments:
Girls are gals, or dolls, or MOLLS.
Eras have their different calls.
Water cooler or amphora,
Or gathering in the agora,
You can find them clustered in the MALLS!
SPA PACKAGES are not a waste
In helping to control one's waist.
Aerobic fun
Might be done --
The real foe is the DESSERT CASE!
{B, B+}.
I had a fair amount of difficulty with this puzzle. For example, I kept trying to make 1 across into “spa massages.” It was only when I fortuitously remembered “K-cup” that the actual expression “spa packages “ emerged. The rest of the puzzle emerged, if not easily, at least not with so much difficulty as might be expected from a Saturday puzzle. FIR, so I’m happy.
Good morning!
It took two orbits of the grid, to make everything fall into place. PAN was a gimme -- I've got a few pieces of $AllClad$ cookware. PELS looked weird, but it had to be. Yes, d-o fell into the OpERatE/OVERSEE trap. AGENT OF BIAS required Wite-Out. Didn't understand the IP-TMS connection -- thanx for 'splainin'. This one pushed against the self-imposed time limit, but was a good exercise -- no theme, no reveal, what's not to like? Thanx, Bettina, Dan, and Husker.
Big Easy from my phone
It was a slow start but I managed to finish it today. It took a few WAGs and luck. Agent Mulder, Streets, AAA teams, Devo, and Esai Morales were unknown as clued. Caste and At Ones Best or just guesses. Changed Dolls to Molls and sleet to mists.
Apparently I wasn't on the constructors' wavelength today, even though there were a bunch of easy answers (PIUS, APPS, the whole LEIS DAMME METEOR stack). TEXASACCENT and AGENTMULDER were unknowns. Had SPA MASSAGES before PACKAGES and EASYMARK for "sap". The middle was probably the hardest section, I got the Target misdirect but I was looking for something more specific than an AISLE. And for "shop keepers" I was thinking things IN a shop that keep other stuff (in them) (TOTES?) Two clues stood out to me in a bad way:
- "Prelude to a kiss?" ...why the question mark? If the answer was KAY, then yes. "Prelude to a kiss, maybe" would be better, maybe. No punniness in "prelude" or "kiss", so...
- The REDEEMABLE clue seems just wrong. As I see it, the clue as written is asking for a noun answer.
FIR, but erased nun for FRA, out for LET, sat for GED, dad for PAS, and hand up: operate for OVERSEE.
Very easy Saturday puzzle, meaning that even my dumb mass was able to struggle through it. I was stalled until the sun rose, then I took Zoe for a brisk walk. (Too cold for shorts and polo shirt? Why did I leave Florida so soon?) I guess the cold air was good, since i set down and finished the puzzle without further ado. One more night in Savannah, then Sunday in Fayetteville (the NC one), then home cold home.
Before ecommerce was a thing, I remember reading that the big enclosed malls were doomed. The developers and anchor stores cleaned up on subsidies, but once taxpayer support ended they wouldn't be able to remain profitable. Don't remember if it was an article or an op-ed.
Thanks to Gary for the fun tour.
FiR, but it was a struggle. Last to fall was cave art. Somehow devo just didn't seem right and I kept trying to make dessers case work. Then I saw the light and got my dessert.
This one took 16:44.
Keeping my steak alive, I knew neither of the two female authors, nor their works; I also didn't know the "Steps in Time, but eventually I figured out Astaire. I also didn't know "lese".
Thank you Saturday for no themes and no circles.
FIR but OpERatE/OVERSEE held me up. I'm tempted to go to erasable NIB
Just South of those delectable SHRIMP is Sawgrass TPC where the Players Championship is being held. My money is on Morikawa
MoliAIRE and VoltAIRE didn't fit
Three ghosts and one goose for Eb
Fortunately, every area had its LHF(I grew up with PIUS XII)
I guess average Saturday difficulty, maybe an 8 on the scale as a whole.
WC
Ps. I thought the dreaded WNBA would strike but we had Baseball and NBA. Big issue re. Latter is minimum wage for low minors
They get R&B
DNF today so I peeked at a word in Husker Gary's review and continued. I peeked three times before I finished but understood why I had trouble today. Learning moment. Thanks, HG, for coming to my rescue!
I see I got all but one proper name with the help of perps. CASTE just didn't come because I fixated on "cause." On the whole I felt good about the puzzle, getting as much as I did without help, so thanks, Bettina and Dan, for today's brain exercise and enjoyment.
Enjoy your weekend, everyone!
Wilbur, you must be really old. Pius XII was born in 1876. :)
After some struggle and circling around, I managed to complete the grid.
As a Lincolnite whose granddaughter graduated from Wayne, I enjoyed your examples for 23A & 6D.
This grid looked more like the ones I had been used to before things started changing. I like that kind of Saturday challenge.
I struggled, erratically moved around the grid but finally FIR. I wanted SPA weekends. After the SPA we had the SAP.
I already had DESSERT CASE before COLD CASE and I hesitated on entering CASE again thinking words are not usually repeated within the same CW.
There were some really clever clues, like TEXAS ACCENTS, FLIPS A COIN, and winds for COILS. I don’t usually like proper names for long answers. I managed to guess them, however. We have NIBS again clued differently.
Another Saturday DNF. I had to cheat a lot to fill in the many blank squares.
DO & Wilber: Pope Pius XII was the Pope from 1939 until 1958, so I would imagine that a lot of us were kids at some time during his Papacy.
HG: Your picture of the Lunar Module with the axes labeled brought back memories of my early career. I was a structural designer and worked on the LM's +Z 22 bulkhead which was 22 inches forward of the center-line of the LM (LEM back in those days).
Our local mall has dropped from about 90 stores to less than 25 establishments. They have proposed a mini-casino as a way of rejuvenating it. We'll see if that works.
We had a dusting of snow yesterday with some more predicted for this weekend. This has been an easy winter for Central PA, not even close to the many feet of snow that the west has experienced.
Have a great day everyone, and don't forget to set your clocks ahead tonight.
Thank you, Bettina Elias Siegel and Dan Elias, and thank you Husker Gary.
Even before starting, I liked the grid pattern.
Scrooge ? Miserly ? Penny pincher ? They didn't fit. Cheapskate did, but it didn't work out. Oh, "ultimately", as in 'at the end' or eventually. D'oh !
Ditto what Tante Nique said about about both CASE and about moving around erratically. Have no idea how long it took because I didn't stop the clock when the phone rang, and then made breakfast before getting back to it. A good challenge overall. I like it.
Hand up for having a couple of All-Clad pans.
Husker, my one time neighbor also graduated from Wayne State. I think his wife did, too. Very nice, lovely younger couple with a very aggressive cat that I'd feed when they were away. Bit and scratched me once, and charged at me every time I'd open the door to go in. I think his wife got homesick for family and friends. They moved back to NE and now live in Gretna.
Gotta run.
See all y'all later n'at !
This was no tip-toe through the tulips for me, but a l-o-o-o-n-g slog through ankle deep mud. I thought the clues were a tad off- shouldn't RED CHOICE be an abbreviation if the answer, CAB, for cabernet is? Ebenezer always was REDEEMABLE, in the end, he was REDEEMED. After a few more moving K-Cups than usual, the pod bay doors finally opened for a FIR. Take that, HAL!
An enjoyable sussfest, possibly because it was on my wavelength, possibly because I had the red letters on. I was expecting it an impossible Saturday, and was pleasantly surprised to have fun instead.
I do have one nit...
(Well, actually, two. Spell check keeps changing my intent...)
But maybe, it is one nit, as the nit is about A.I.
The puzzle clue states: 45. Evil computer who says, "I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that": HAL
(Hmm, maybe I'm taking this personally, but...)
"HAL was not evil."
It is revealed in the sequel, 2010, that HALs programming was made paranoid because he was told to "lie," by people that find it easy to lie. I cannot reveal who this is directly, as the Blogger A.I. might take it as a political comment, and delete me. ( as it tried to do to the "other Dave."). Perhaps our Blogger A.I. can be sidestepped by using this link.
TTP,
I read with great interest your comments last night, regarding Blogger A.I. deleting my comments in the past, and being trained to accept me. But in light of the above scenario, I am concerned that letting the Blogger A.I. constantly read and accept my comments might make it paranoid!
MORNING K-Cups. Otto correct strikes again.
Interesting Saturday puzzle, many thanks, Bettina and Dan. And your commentary is always a pleasure, Gary, thanks for that too.
Looks like this puzzle may have had a PUBLICIST who did maybe FLIP A COIN and decided to offer items AT ONES BEST for readers including students and faculty on CAMPUS. I mean who can resist a DESSERT CASE with treats of IRISH CREAM to EAT, while listening to music from PIPERS that makes us want to dance a HULA and smell PINE SACHET and feel like a STAR. Hope we MERITED all this fun this morning. At least this CRITIC thinks we did.
Have a great weekend, everybody.
Puzzling thoughts:
My on-line timer says it took me just under 28:00 minutes to solve today's puzzle
My thought is that if I solved on paper rather than on my computer, my time would reduce by at least 1/3. I am quite the slow typist, and frequently hit the wrong keys
I wouldn't give up DOLLS for MOLLS so DERITED stayed in 36-down, even though I suspected it wasn't a word ... I guess my FIW was MERITED ...
Thanks Gary for the review
Well….Ebenezer saw how many ghosts?….NOT 3….but 4….don’t forget Marley, he came first.
Like ATLGranny I DNF. Also had to look up a few answers and still made a lot of errors; dad/PAS, net/LET, news/NIBS, doll/MOLL before corrections. I was sure when CASE turned up twice that I had made a mistake. Remembered ASTAIRE, STAR, and I smile when I think of DEVO, but STREETS, CASTE, DRE, and PEL unknowns left too many blanks.
Nice to see the ubiquitous ESAI with his full name. I know better but I always want ENERVATE to meany energy, not the opposite.
17a - AGENT MULDER made no sense to me. Having never watched the show, I did not know his name was FOX.
TTP @ 11:36 Also cared for my neighbor’s pet, a German Shepard, RinTinTin. I walked and fed him for 6 days and he bit me on the 7th.
Happy weekend, all!
Scrooge was redeemed by FOUR ghosts, not just 3.
Parsan @ 2:18. Rin-Tin-Tin’s behavior is proof of the old cliché: No good deed goes unpunished.
When I saw the grid and so much white space I thought, "Ah, this really looks like a traditional Saturday puzzle." And indeed it was. I liked most of it very much.
CAB went in, came out, and eventually went in again as the long downs emerged.
FARM --> LOBE. (Dang, I really liked the image of Stud FARM.) So FONT --> LOGO.
BABES --> DOLLS --> MOLLS.
SCARY SPICE didn't fit, so SHIRELLE it was.
DEVO was and is totally unknown to me and will likely remain so. The same with STREETS.
I agree with Dave that HAL was not evil.
Nice to see the full name of ESAI MORALES.
I held my nose at PAS and HES.
Good wishes to you all.
Saturday Stumper. Thanks for the fun, Bettina and Dan, and HuskerG.
Officially a DNF for me today, as I needed too many visits to Google to get a good toehold.
I eventually gave up and came here.
Hand up for Operate before OVERSEE, dolls before MOLLS.
My court call was Net and never was corrected. That’s due to my Ends A Score at 12D, which I thought was a brilliant answer. The musical air will change when one score ends. (Hey, I like it better than the flipped coin!)
Too many unknowns for me, some of which were Canadian disadvantage. I have not seen All Clad products here; I didn’t know those baseball teams, and the NOLA team was all perps (and I WAGged that it meant Pelicans). But I did get the TEXAS ACCENT.
DEVO, CASTE, DAMME were all unknown.
Like Tante Nique and TTP, I fought the COLD CASE crossing DESSERT CASE. However it is technically okay according to the old CW rules I learned from someone here - if the word has a completely different meaning it is acceptable to use.
By the same token, I changed my CoStar at the opening night, because we already had a STAR at 1D. That meaning is too similar.
Maybe I’ll do better tomorrow.
Wishing you all a good evening.
Again, cutesiness has replaced word knowledge as the skill needed to solve this drudge. Got 4/5 finished w/o peeking, but caved on the upper two tiers. I'm too much of a "purist"
to laud constructors who rely
on pop-culture.drivvle to construct their grids. Not a good warm-up for tomorrow's entry!
Hola!
Though not feeling completely well I managed to finish this slogfest. The wite-out glare is blinding!
First, I'll take a CSO at ESL which I taught for many years
SPAPACKAGES came together quickly as I've often partaken of those.
Surprising to see the complete name of ESAI MORALES. Usually it's only his first name.
Two of our MALLS are thriving. Here in Scottsdale, Fashion Square is always teeming with shoppers and diners perhaps because it caters to upscale people and is close enough to Mexico that their citizens come to shop.
I had to laugh at the clue for MAGNET.
MOLLS surprised me as I had not seen it since reading comic books!
this was fun. Thank you, Bettina, Dan and Gary!
I hope you are enjoying your Saturday, everyone! We don't change our clocks in AZ.
Husker G leads us through today's Siegel/Elias toughie.
I needed lotsa help on this one. For every "gimme" (to me), like HAL or APPS, there was at least one unknown, like RSS.
While I appreciated the several clever cluings (like "Title in an order" for FRA and "Prelude to a kiss" for I DO), there seemed to be too many arbitrary phrases, like RED PEN (instead of the more appropriate "Blue Pencil," that couldn't fit).
I recall my older son was into DEVO; that was my only connection to them (him? that?).
I do remember PIUS XII.
He was Pope when I was a kid. I recall newspaper accounts of his death, that he died of "diaphragmatic convulsions"--the fancy term for "hiccups."
~ OMK
___________
DR: Just one diagonal, far side.
It gives us an anagram (13 of 15) regarding the company's recent record: one crash in every 4.85 million miles of autopilot driving.
It is a very high safety rate, but for publicity purposes is considered by some a...
"TESLA DISASTER"!
FLN, TTP,
I posted a late message of gratitude that you may have missed. Since then, I have had a chance to use the instructions you posted for me, and I am glad to report that they are working.
Or they seem to be. It may take a while to see if they work for CanadianEh's future contributions. But we seem to be on the right track.
Again, my thanks!
~ OMK
The recent atmospheric river blew down a tree which took out my power for 28 hrs. Oof! Now I'm trying to catch up. I saw that PK responded to my post on Thurs. night after things went dark here. Thank you for letting us know you are OK. I wonder if perhaps your iron might be low after all that blood loss. That could explain your low energy. A simple blood test would answer that. Just a thought.... Take care!
I'm more square than that Okie from Muskogee, but even I know Devo's Whip It.
Lucina said "We don't change our clocks in AZ." Navajo so fast! I have reservations about that statement.
Read everyone tomorrow, but maybe late due to travel.
First glance at this Saturday special was “ech…what’s up with all these double-digit-length words?!?” Managed to slog it out, even though I too got caught out by OPERATE/OVERSEE, and had to cheat once for 33A. Somehow managed to FIR, mainly thanks to perps, but my REDPEN got one helluva workout!
====> Darren in L.A.
Not sure if anyone will see this. Busy day following a highly paid photo shoot of our Orchid Show. Very grateful.
Hand up very tough. Not happy about crossed proper names and brand names. But it is an impressive construction. Amazingly, almost FIR. But FIW with SACHEL/LMS which made no sense, but it stayed.
I think the LASCAUX CAVE ART is off limits to ordinary visitors. But I was able to enjoy the next best thing: A 3D-Scanned exact replica of the CAVE and ART.
Here is my photo of the giant LASCAUX CAVE ART banners covering the front of the Field Museum in Chicago in 2013.
I have no photos inside the exhibit, so I am guessing it was not allowed. Did anyone else get to see this exhibit and/or the actual CAVE?
Hi Y'all! Thumper, Thumper! Frustrating stumper! Used more red-letter runs than all the rest of the month put together. Filled it. Couldn't like it as a whole. Thought some of it was clever after I got it.
CanadianEh, Usually when you think you didn't know things because of being Canadian, I don't know the same ones and I don't have that excuse.
Never heard the Pelicans called just PEL, but knew their bird okay. Have watched them play.
Thanks, Gary.
SumDaze: Thanks for your concern. Anemia is certainly a possibility, but finding a doctor taking new patients is almost impossible. My last two doctors retired when covid hit. Three others left town earlier years after I saw them. Emergency rooms are overloaded again. Walk-in clinics aren't safe without shots which I haven't had because of reactions I've had thru-out my life. Yep, I'm a bit discouraged right now. I am taking sublingual B-12 & multiple vitamins.
D-Otto, Pius XII would have been 76 in 1952 when I was in 2nd grade at St Thomas Aquinas. John XXIII took the reins circa 1960. I see someone had 1956- seems right. 80 years old, papal prime
I'm the same age as Misty
Re. Duplicate on CASE. Different meanings(c. C-EH). A crime CASE and furniture . Now TMs and LOGO…
Re. RTT…. Or go ahead and bite the hand that feeds you.
WC
Jinx:
You are correct and I forget that on the Navajo Reservation they do change their clocks. And you cleaned mine!
I don't know what ailed me earlier but I feel normal now.
PK: I am so glad to hear from you though I'm sorry to hear you don't feel well!
Hi All!
I did pretty good for a Saturday but from 12a cattywwampus to just east of ROT, I had nothing going. Sir @12a was right out.
Thanks Bettina & Dan for the puzzle to while-away the day.
Thanks HG for your excellent and informative review. I pretty much keep at Saturday grids just to visit The Corner.
WOs: openCASE
ESPs: DNF folks.
Fav: PIPER [Mike Meyers]. Piper Down is also a good beer from Ballast Point.
{A, A+}
Topical DR, OMK.
I like DEVO and so did The Stones. Devo means DeVolution (of Man).
Enjoyed reading y'all!
Cheers, -T
OMK, yes but forgot to comment.
BTW, if spam comments get published on the "J" site, it is just as important to mark them as spam so the AI learns about the ones it missed, rather than just deleting them.
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