Saturday Themeless by Rafael Musa and Brooke Husic
The long fill was very gettable but did take some finaggling to get the letters lined up correctly. As usual, Brooke, et. al's diabolical cluing was fun after it was frustrating. Even the arcane internet fill went quietly, eventually.
Across:
1. Copywriter?: SCRIBE - If you have ever taken the ride through Spaceship Earth, you have seen this sleeping SCRIBE in one of the tableaus
7. New Orleans cocktails: SAZERACS - Sorry, Big Easy, I had no idea. The classic Sazerac recipe expertly balances whiskey with sugar, bitters and absinthe.
15. Browned, maybe: COOKED.
16. "That was great!": I LOVED IT.
17. Compliment-fisher's question: AREN'T I? - "I'm a good person, AREN'T I?"
18. __ dollar: ALMIGHTY - "When in doubt, follow the money"
19. Osso buco accompaniment: RISOTTO.
21. "Watch this space" letters: TBA.
22. Social reformer Dorothea: DIX.
23. Academy near the Culinary Institute in New York: WEST POINT - I kept fighting WEST POINT because it seemed too easy
26. Winter Palace ruler: TSAR.
28. Mouth part: ROOF.
29. Guys: HES.
32. 24-hour extension period?: LEAP YEAR - 😀. It took a little cogitating!
34. Conceive: IDEATE - Crossword learning
37. Happy characters: SMILEYS - Oh, like these 😀😁😃?
38. Easy way to get a six-pack: BEER RUN - Smokey And The Bandit was about a Coors BEER RUN
39. Like someone glued to a screen for hours, maybe: UP LATE.
40. Timely blessings: GODSENDS - I married mine 56 years ago
41. F1 neighbor: ESC.
42. __ Club: SAM'S.
44. Assist, often: PASS - 😀 I loved this clue (eventually)
45. __ college: ELECTORAL.
48. Irrelevant stat for an EV: MPG - Miles Per Kilowatt?
51. Bird in the bush: EMU - The bush country of Australia 😀
52. Finish with a bang?: MIC DROP - That's all there is to say!
56. Oxygen infusers: AERATORS.
59. Fade away: DIE OUT.
60. Sports comedy whose sequel stars LeBron James: SPACE JAM - 26% on Rotten Tomatoes
61. Livorno locale: ITALIA.
62. Surefire: CAN'T MISS.
63. Surprisingly: NO LESS.
Down:
1. Slash mark: SCAR.
2. Missouri representative Bush: CORI.
3. Small deer: ROES - Sure I put FAWN first
4. Remark from someone with the perfect spot in mind: I KNOW A PLACE.
5. "Actually, it might be more fun if ... ": BETTER YET.
6. Exchanges words?: EDITS 😀
7. Singapore Airlines, for short: SIA - Not the singer Patti has had in a quite a few recent puzzles
8. Exceedingly: ALL TOO.
9. Like someone glued to a screen for hours, jocularly: ZOMBIFIED.
10. "Water the way nature intended" water: EVIAN.
11. Short rule?: REG - Short for REGulation
12. "Driven to Distraction" condition: Abbr.: ADHD.
13. Big Four bank name: CITI.
20. "Others," in Spanish: OTRAS - Puedes inviter a OTRAS personas. (You can invite other people).
24. __ ejemplo: POR - ¿Cuál es, POR ejemplo, su solución? (What, for example, is your solution?)
25. Genuine: THE REAL DEAL.
26. Mesa neighbor: TEMPE - TEMPE hosts the Angels in spring training and Mesa hosts the Cubs
27. Goes where the wind blows: SAILS.
30. Brings home: EARNS.
31. Hunks: STUDS.
32. Sch. that's home to the Golden Band from Tigerland: LSU.
33. Texter's "I need to hear the drama!": EYES EMOJI.
35. Reggaeton megahit whose title means "slowly": DESPACITO
36. Nav. rank: ENS.
38. Bust: BOSOM.
40. BBC clock setting: GMT - No matter where the International Space Station is, the astronauts go by Greenwich Mean Time (zero degrees longitude)
43. Legends, e.g.: ACURAS.
46. "So what if they do?": LET 'EM.
47. Chamillionaire song that starts "They see me rollin'": RIDIN'
48. Certain gender presentation, briefly: MASC.
49. Member of a rap trio with Spinderella: PEPA.
50. Family nickname: GRAN.
53. Play thing: ROLE - Al Pacino was offered the ROLE of Han Solo but turned it down
54. Non-opposing remarks?: OUIS - 😀 Non is the French word for NO and so...
55. Fundraising orgs.: PTAS.
57. Play thing: ACT.
58. Texting letters: SMS - The blue message below indicates it is using the Apple iMessage system and the green message indicates the Short Message System
Groan! After 50:12 of wading through this puzzle, I felt zombified alright. When I saw Rafael's & Brooke's names, I was apprehGensive, but tried. Probably won't next time. Don't need any more aggravation than I have at home.
ReplyDeleteBless you, Gary!
GODSEND: struck a chord. I was thinking after I wrote about our beloved dachshund yesterday that I should have said he turned out to be a GODSEND. My older kids went off to school about the time he showed up. My very active 3-yr-old was at loose ends and being creatively naughty. Boy & dog were inseparable & happily entertained with each other. Dog barked at boy if he did something dangerous, so I was summoned. Loved that dog. Slept with his boy most nights for the next ten years.
Apprehensive. Don't know how that G hopped in there.
ReplyDeleteGood morning!
ReplyDeleteGot absolutely no traction in Washington state, so d-o started in the NE and circled back around to complete the failure. Spelling it RISSOTO was a big contributor to the failure. Thanx, Rafael, Brooke, and Husker. D-o is headed down to the abasement.
CITI: It took four months, but my credit card dispute was finally settled in my favor. I got to keep the canceled item, and paid nothing.
TEMPE: Gimme. The folks spent their final years there, and we'd visit frequently.
BEER RUN: It just begs to be Linked.
When it comes to the “map” of the center, I often get confused as to directions, so I’m not sure if it’s SW or SE. But in the section that includes “mic drop” I got so frustrated that I actually turned on the red letters; something I rarely do. And so I was able to complete the puzzle. So I’m not happy I did that, but I’m happy I finally got through the puzzle, anyway.
ReplyDeleteSorry, that should have been “map of the crossword.” I had abbreviated that “cw” and autocorrect didn’t like that!
ReplyDeleteI luckily finished this one in 15:35 today.
ReplyDeleteLuckily, because I employed the opposite reasoning than that used by Husker Gary at that very square.
Even though I generally do not like foreign words in the crossword puzzles, I really dislike the hyphen in "Non-opposing remarks", especially if the answer is "ouis." Also, I feel like the clue for "letem" should've had some abbreviation or slang.
The bottom-right corner took a long time (see prior comment about "ouis"), as I don't know Chamillionaire or his song, I wanted prop instead of role, couldn't parse "micdrop" (even with the "cdr" in the middle), and had PACs before PTAs.
Good Morning:
ReplyDeleteI’m not often tempted to give up on a puzzle but this was one that tried my soul mightily. Of course, the Irish stubbornness kicked in and I stuck with it and finally finished w/o help in 40:35, the longest Saturday solve-time in quite awhile. While I relish, in fact expect, a challenging Saturday offering, I also want a fair and balanced representation in the cluing and fill. I thought much of the C/As were outstanding but a few too many led to frustration, and frustration spoils the point of puzzle solving, IMO, which is, first and foremost, enjoyment and satisfaction.
I went astray at Fawn/Roes (Hi, HG), Slabs/Studs, Otros/Otras, and because Hear was in the clue, Ears before Eyes Emojis. I knew the New Orleans cocktail but it took awhile to remember the name and spelling. However, I did not know SIA, Despacito, Pepa, Ridin, Zombified, Space Jam, and Ouis, as clued. It took way too long to come up with Risotto, especially since I had seen it prepared and served with Osso Bucco only one hour before on a cooking show, plus, I was trying to think of Polenta, which is what I thought was the usual companion dish. Legends=Acuras was a gimme as we owned one for years.
Thanks, Rafael and Brooks, and thanks, HG, for the usual razzle-dazzle visuals and fair and balanced review. Learning moment about Al Pacino turning down the Han Solo role. I’ve never seen any of the Star Wars series, only short clips, but I think Pacino made the right decision. The wrong casting decision can ruin a movie and one example of miscasting that sticks in my mind is Tom Hanks as Sherman McCoy in Bonfire of The Vanities, although the movie was terrible on its on merit.
Have a great day.
Gary- I knew it but read what I wrote at the end.
ReplyDeleteRafael and Brooke's Saturday challenge was THE REAL DEAL for Saturday toughness. I couldn't finish the SE with DIE OUT & ITALIA, DROP, ROLE, OUIS & PTAS in place. RIDIN & DESPACITO AND Reggaeton & Chamillionaire- NEVER heard of any of it or them. It took many mental WAGS to get the rest.
ZOMBIFIED- new to me. Wanted OSSIFIED (too short) or PETRIFIED but the ALMIGHTY dollar NIXed that thought. The RISOTTO, OTRAS, & POR section was a foreign word combo that is becoming ALL TOO familiar.
EYES EMOJI- all perps. I don't use them or emoticons and don't plan on learning the names. If somebody can't bother to write, LET 'EM. Not my cup of tea. SIA was only 'true' unknown today. The rest just had tough clues.
New Orleans cocktails-Hurricanes? No. Typhoons? No. Monsoons? No. Hand Grenades? No Daquiris? No? Those are New Orleans cocktails. The SAZERAC is a BAR in the Roosevelt Hotel. I KNOW A PLACE named SAZERAC HOUSE; it's a cocktail and whiskey museum on Canal Street four blocks away from Bourbon Street. And the SAZERAC Co. is owned by a very rich, low key local billionaire's family who only have 450 brands of liquor. But I've never heard anybody order the drink by the name SAZERAC because the Absinthe liquor was not available in the USA from 1912 until 2007. The SAZERAC DRINK?- Just an "Old Fashioned". DW orders one occasionally.
DNF. The whole east side failed me what with sazeracs, Ridin', and Despacito leading the way to defeat. It didn't help that I stuck with create instead of ideate in the center. This was one of the toughest puzzles I've seen in quite some time.
ReplyDeleteGave this one a PASS...DW back home, doing fine.. I can tell... wordlessly put a long HONEYDEW list next to the puzzle...I'm back to following orders..
ReplyDeleteFor some reason I thought a NOLA cocktail (Big Easy) was a hurricane. Slabs for STUDS was tempting, GRAm or GRAN... Always wondered how you get Leghorn as an English translation of "Livorno"?
Lotsa mistakes didn't help: emojies for "happy faces", gash for scar and ALL TOO many blanks
UP LATE: Netflix keeps tempting me with yet another "next episode"
I thought it said "Irreverent stat for an EV" 😆
"Spinderella"? "Reggaeton", "Chamillionaire"? C'mon 🙄
Aren't the EPA...AERATORS? 😉
Starting my errands run, now where's that list?
Oh my! This is above my pay grade. Did not know the groups, let alone their songs or PEPA in the rap group. Had enough letters to guess at DESPACITO. Started in the NE and sailed through knowing SAZERACS ,DIX, SIA and ZOMBIFIED filled in after create was corrected to IDEATE. Then the ROOF fell in. A lot of hit and miss and DNF.
ReplyDeleteWhy SCRIPE with a ? and COOKED clued as Browned? LEAP YEAR and EDITS clueing was clever.
The Culinary Institute, CIA, in Hyde Park near WEST POINT is a must stop if you are in the area. Options are fine restaurants Bocuse (French), Caterina de Medici (Italian), and American Bounty plus a cafe and bake shop. Reservation are recommended.
Thank you HG for the lucid explanations of things I didn’t know.
FLN AT - Kick the can? Funny story about your Dad! Good memories.
Thank you Rafael, Brooke, and Husker.
ReplyDeleteNothing to report here.
Happy Easter and Passover everyone!
Bill
Another day, another DNF. Met my Waterloo in the SE corner. The rest filled slowly, sometimes one letter at a time until an Aha! hit, but could not get any tra cation in Natick Corner.
ReplyDeleteDNF. I have too much to do to stick to a puzzle that’s frustrating me. In the SE, all I had was ITALIA, that hyphen between non and opposing kept me from thinking in French, and in the SW all I had was AERATORS.
ReplyDeleteHowever I had solid control of the rest. I liked the LEAP YEAR clue. I immediately thought of SAZERACS and that helped get ZOMBIFIED. I too had fawn before ROES.
As a rule I don’t care for clues whose answers are common oral phrases. I often misconstrue the intonation.
Happy Easter and Passover to all. Here the weather has been rainy, so Easter egg hunts for the kiddies are going to be iffy.
Perped it out to a FIR but neither DESPACITO nor RIDIN are in my lexicon.
ReplyDeleteHappy Easter. Happy Passover. If you're going to an Easter Potato roll, have fun.
. . . although I did like the NON opposing bit once I figured it out. Tres bien.
ReplyDeleteOof! Leaned on DH for help with popular music and sports comedy -- he is white haired but, in his words, "hip and happening" -- and still FIW because I erred at English time and put GST, which led us to SASS club and the weird world of cowboy shooting enthusiasts! Rating? Impossible!
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteYet another Saturday designed to be unsolvable. Horrible clues and nothing to work from.
Congratulations….it’s not easy to drive people away from something supposed to be fun.
Well said......and all too true.
DeleteHola!
ReplyDeleteSome of this puzzle filled fast but much of it was a slogfest. When SAZERACS perped I wasn't sure it was right as I've not heard of it.
ARENTI made no sense until I said it out loud. Oh! Aren't I?
I've never been on a BEER RUN. Can't stand the smell.
DESPACITO is how I filled this puzzle. Very slowly while sipping my coffee. However, I don't know the song.
ELECORAL slid right in once I had the L at the end. I would not have known MICDROP except for the perps.
Saturday is the only day when I look up anything and SPACEJAM was the one.
Well, after this exercise I feel ZOMBIFIED! Thank you to Rafael and Brooke for the workout and thank you to Gary for helping us understand it all.
Enjoy your Saturday, everyone! I'm ready to retrieve my box of chocolates from the freezer for tomorrow!
This was challenging but fun- I just filled all the the horizontal here and there and then started on the verticals which were easier and then led to opening up some answers on the horizonatals to finish it off.
ReplyDeleteThe DESPACITO song was so popular in the 2017-18 years, with both the original and the remix with Justin Bieber and the original artists. I had never looked up the English translation of the lyrics until now- it just had a catchy tune- whoa
Thanks HG for the fun blog and Rafael & Brooke for the puzzle!
Have a blessed Easter and Passover(Pesach) this week
One reason “Ridin” may have shown up in a relatively sedate crossword puzzle is because of Al Yankovic’ brilliantly clever spoof of the song. The spoof itself sold a million copies. For a good laugh watch it on YouTube. It’s called “White & Nerdy”.
ReplyDeleteNot that I’m implying anything…. 😅
ReplyDeleteHi All!
ReplyDeleteBig Fat Fail, er, learning day.
Thanks Rafael & Brooke for the hill to NOT climb. Thanks HG for filling in blanks so I could put another quarter in the machine and try again.
NOLA's Hurricane cocktail didn't fit no matter how many letters I tried to EDIT out. DESPeradO was just as wrong.
"They see me rollin'" only brought to mind Weird Al's parody White and Nerdy. Took a bit to recall RIDIN' Dirty. //compare and see Weird Al's brilliance!
D-O: Never heard of Todd Snider but B-doubleE-doubleR-UN was LOL! Thanks thanks for the salve needed after this grid.
Happy Decent Saturday* and Passover, y'all!
Cheers, -T
*as opposed to, you know, Good Friday.
Didn't refresh b/f posting say...
ReplyDeleteLOL @1:48 - great minds and all that.
Cheers, -T
SAZERACS/SIA… ugh. If you clue SIA as the singer, there’s Natick potential. If you clue it like today's puzzle… you’re interpreting it as (SI)ngapore (A)irlines, I assume. Not really allowed.
ReplyDeleteOverall easy-medium for me. Favorite fill: ZOMBIFIED, IKNOWAPLACE, THEREALDEAL, BETTERYET, SPACEJAM.
Puzzling thoughts:
ReplyDeleteFIW - too many "reveal word" clicks on my Across Lite puzzle grid. I was too lazy to look up everything ... even the cheats didn't help me solve it
Happy religious holidays to those who celebrate them this weekend
I might eschew most of the chocolates because I can barely fit into my jeans! Mama mia! How did that happen?
ReplyDeleteThere are any number of Weird Al songs where I do not know the original source, at all! I loved "House of Suede" and it was years later that I heard "House of Pain" on the radio and had an aha moment. I did not know that "Ridin" was the source for White and Nerdy until moments ago. Thanks, Anonymous.
ReplyDeleteWell, I have to say I hated this puzzle. When I muster enough energy I tell y'all why.
ReplyDeleteMManatee:
ReplyDelete//Come over here... Um, it's King of Suede that Al parodies Police's King of Pain from the '83 Synchronicity album.
That's between us - I won't tell anyone :-) -T
You're correct, T. My memory is slipping...but I still can recall the lyrics...I think.
ReplyDeleteI think I got my wires crossed because, IIRC, I was driving past Wilson's House of Leather at the time I first heard "King of Pain".
ReplyDeleteMManatee: You know I was only playing around.
ReplyDeleteI took Youngest to the airport last week (Model UN trip - her team won again!) and she insisted on playing "her music" on the radio in "Her car" ( a) I paid for it b) it was parked behind ours in the driveway).
King of Suede came on from her iThing (I taught the kid well) and I called my (CEO) Bro in Colorado to listen. He laughed his a** off.
See, (CEO) Bro and I only had one cassette to listen to the weekend Mom took us to Hannibal, MO to camp at Mark Twain's cave. And Weird Al's In 3-D was it.
Good Times. -T
//your mind is still sharp and I love your expos!
Boy it looks simple when Husker 'splains it. ie. SAMS Club I had PoR ejemplo. Sometimes it's GsT/GMT.
ReplyDeleteRE. ZOMBI. Why do we quit when we are near the end of the alphabet?. Having crEATE/IDEATE killed me too.
" Bust: BOSOM." Duhhhh. I had it but didn't fill as it made no sense. Good news? Recovering well from Covid
Another big Duh? MASC
I was thinking NDAS but D became T and I never reviewed
To be honest I never thought I'd get ⅓. Just like every Saturday I RUE not going online and trying combinations.
When it don't fit, don't quit just try something else. Having said that…
This was tough enough without unknowable rap, pop-cul etc. But as I read I see some of you perped out stuff like RIDIN
Wait til next Saturday
WC
It took all day and multiple tries, but in the end I managed a FIR without help. It felt like a huge accomplishment when I entered the last letter (the Y in EYES EMOJI). I agree it was a toughie, for many reasons. The left side consumed a lot of time and ink as I tried and tried again to figure out the clues.
ReplyDeleteI remembered DESPACITO and got lucky with SAZERAC. Why it came to mind I don't know. Maybe from cooking shows? I'm not very knowledgeable about drinks or ingredients of cocktails.
Thank you to Rafael and Brooke for the challenging puzzle today. And thank you Husker Gary for explaining the intricacies so well. I never thought about the meaning of "assist" being PASS in the basketball world. I'd been thinking of some word for assistants like aide, but it didn't fit and eventually the spaces were filled by perps.
On to Easter's offering....
Thanks, HG, for 'splaining. And thanks, -T, for the Weird Al links. I'm not familiar with his songs at all.
ReplyDeleteWC @8:41 - "RE. ZOMBI. Why do we quit when we are near the end of the alphabet?" You got that right - everything filled in OK, and the perps helped with "rap trio" and "Chamillionaire", but I gave up before I got to "Z" for the NOLA cocktail.
DH & I once signed up for a New Orleans cocktail tour. We show up at the appointed doorway and see a very elderly lady waiting there. DH gently asks if she has also signed up for the tour. Turns out Mary was leading the tour! Also, we were the only 2 to sign up. Mary led us through alleys & back doors. All the cooks and dishwashers called out, "Hi Mary!" as we wove through their kitchens. Everyone loved Mary -- including DH & me! She had the best stories! Oh, and the point of this story is that one of the stops was the SAZERAC Bar where we were given a genuine SAZERAC made in some sort of contraption that IIRC dripped the absinthe onto sugar cubes. I have to admit, my memory became more and more foggy as we went along....
ReplyDeleteThanks, HG for filling in all the gaps. 40A was sweet. I hope you showed Joann.
Jayce
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry you didn't like this puzzle. Once I slogged through it and finished, I was satisfied with my work. That doesn't mean I liked it, but getting to the end is what counts, IMO. It's getting more and more frustrating to encounter all that pop culture! But I see it as a way to try to understand what my grandchildren are living through. It's a different world, that is certain!