Saturday Themeless by Rich Norris
Our former editor shows up with another engaging puzzle. I sailed along pretty good but POPO is not in in my vocab and so I'll take one bad cell (COPO/CBS) and try to get on with my life.
I wonder if Rich was familiar with all the proper names he employed. 🤨
1. Erosion control supply: STRAW MATS - These are ubiquitous around here as bypass highways with overpasses are being built all around our town and good spring rains are bringing the STRAW MATS to life.
10. Composer Bruckner: ANTON - All you'd ever want to know
15. Ahead of its time: PROPHETIC - Some claiming to be prophets are really looking for a profit
16. Held up: BORNE.
15. Ahead of its time: PROPHETIC - Some claiming to be prophets are really looking for a profit
16. Held up: BORNE.
17. Pizza sauce choice: RED TOMATO.
18. Condition: STATE - The value of a dime depends on its STATE or condition
19. "__, Chef": Marcus Samuelsson memoir: YES - This is the story of his rise as an adopted child from Ethiopia who became a very successful chef in NYC. (pub. 2012)
20. Nabokov novel: LOLITA - A middle-aged man having relations with a 14-yr-old girl, what could possibly go wrong?
22. Condition that can interfere with focusing, briefly: ADHD.
23. Reagle of "Wordplay": MERL.
24. Go along: AGREE.
26. Pupil of Beethoven: CZERNY.
29. Things that are worth looking into?: MIRRORS 😀
31. Trope intro: HELIO - HELIO(Greek: helios/sun) tropes (Greek: trepan/turn) are plants whose flowers follow the sun across the sky. The prime example is the state flower of Kansas.
32. Summer Olympics racer since 1936: CANOE - Ernst Krebs canoeing in the 1936 Olympics for Deutschland
33. Pac-12 athlete: UTE - Next year, USC and UCLA join the Big Ten and the Utah UTES, et. al. will be left behind
35. Round figure: ORB.
36. Like many '50s cars: TWO TONE - Oh, you mean back when cars had personality?
38. HBO __: MAX.
39. Court: WOO.
40. Romance novelist Brenda: HIATT.
41. Poor showing: NO ONE.
43. Chirp: TWEEDLE - Lewis Carroll invented TWEEDLE Dee and TWEEDLE Dum to encounter Alice in Through The Looking Glass
45. Coastal features of Washington and Alaska: FJORDS - Kenai FJORDS National Park, Home of the most beautiful FJORDS in Alaska
46. Bridget Riley genre: OP ART.
47. Rebuke, maybe: SLAP.
48. Fluffy rug: SHAG.
49. Last-minute, often: HECTIC.
52. "Death in Paradise" airer: PBS - A BBC import
55. Model 3 maker: TESLA.
57. Inescapable situation: BLACK HOLE - Not even light can escape
59. Some deco works: ERTE'S.
60. One who makes the rounds?: 😀 BARKEEPER.
61. Circular defense mechanisms: MOATS 😀
62. Anxiously awaits: SWEATS OUT - 1969 draft lottery
Down:
1. Agile: SPRY.
2. Corner: TREE.
3. Fish sticks?: RODS 😀
4. Keenly intelligent: APT.
5. Totally different, slangily: WHOLE NOTHER.
6. Broadway classic with the lyrics "I can smile at the old days / I was beautiful then": MEMORY - The show-stopping song from Cats
7. In any way: AT ALL.
8. South American monkey: TITI.
9. Shetland native: SCOT - A SCOT who lives in the Shetland Islands has a cost of living nearly double the rest of the U.K. However, golf is reasonable at the Shetland Golf Course: £30 per day, £80 per week; £130 per fortnight
10. Six-pack contents?: ABS.
11. Tig with a recurring role on "Star Trek: Discovery": NOTARO - She is standing under the K in this picture
12. News about a possible exchange: TRADE RUMOR - These rumors were around all winter and he didn't go to any of these teams. If you care at all, you know where he went.
13. Testifying: ON THE STAND.
14. Sine qua non: NEED.
21. Vice president after Thomas: AARON Burr.
23. Hosp. scan: MRI.
25. Prize that may need to be altered if a player wins it again: GREEN JACKET - Here we see the 2019 Master's winner, Tiger Woods, helping the 2020 winner into his GREEN JACKET.
26. Eats: CHOW.
27. Process of dramatic character change: ZERO TO HERO - Tom was the 199th player picked in the 2000 NFL draft and sat out his entire rookie year. The next year the Patriots' starting QB got hurt and Brady finally got to play and became the Greatest Of All Time.
28. Gomiti, for one: ELBOW PASTA.
29. Lacking luster: MATTE.
30. Trying to resolve a tie, briefly: IN OT - Notre Dame coach (and cwd fill) Ara Parseghian was forever blamed for not trying to win this game in 1966 and "settled for a tie". It was another 30 years before the NCAA instituted rules so games could go IN(to) OT(overtime)
32. __-fired: COAL - Our electricity is mostly generated in this plant 1/4 mile south of where I am sitting
34. Former union members?: EXES - That would be former marital union members
37. Side to side?: WIDTH.
42. Alley follower: OOP.
44. Aerie newborn: EAGLET - EAGLETS born in this aerie are a short flight from the Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center.
45. Title horse in a Mary O'Hara children's novel: FLICKA - My Friend Flicka was part of my b/w television childhood
47. Unsettling look: STARE.
48. Half-note feature: STEM.
50. Weakens: EBBS.
51. White __: hard seltzer brand: CLAW.
52. The law: POPO - From reduplication of the abbreviation PO (“police officer”), originally in reference to partnered bike officers in Southern California whose paired shirts would read POPO
53. Fromage hue: BLEU - My Greek wife hates BLEU cheese and olives in the Greek salad
56. Jenny, e.g.: ASS- Here's a link to the site below
58. Dads and lads: HES.
43 comments:
Another Saturday toughie. It seems a person would have to know something about classical music, modern art, Italian cuisine, and a few fairly obscure people in order to successfully navigate this puzzle. Sometimes perps helped quite a bit, though. I won’t say any more about this puzzle, except that I hope I’m not the only one to get through this puzzle intact. FIR, so I’m happy, and hope a number of you will be joining me.
What if they gave a warrior's call
And NO ONE came AT ALL?
No young men
Would die to defend
Some needless, imaginary wall.
Hiawatha shouted, "Woo-woo",
When he got a TWO-TONE CANOE!
He put in a SHAG rug
To ease making love,
And a horn that went "Doodly-doo!"
{B-, A.}
(British joke:
Why is American beer like making love in a canoe?
They're both f**king close to water.)
Good morning!
Hand up for COPS, even though I was pretty sure Death In Paradise was a PBS show. POPO never occurred to me...and still doesn't. Everything else fell together nicely. MEMORY seemed like an outlier in Cats; it just didn't belong. It only took 15 minutes to create my DNF -- pretty good for a Saturday, so there's that. Thanx, Rich and Husker. (I don't know where he went, but I'm sure it wasn't to Jeopardy!.)
I had “Premature” for Ahead of its Time.
Enough perps to finish, but -
Don't know Bridget, so until I got here thought O-PART might be trashy female novels, not OP ART
BBC instead of PBS slowed down the SE, Death in Paradise is also on the Ovation channel
Sine qua non literally translates to "without which, not"
Took 16:07.
Not exactly a fun puzzle. I could take one of "whole nother" & "popo", but not both in the same puzzle. And, then there's the usual refrain of too many (mostly obscure) proper names: Czerny, Ertes, Hiatt, Anton, etc. There were some good clue/answers, but they were diluted by the ones I mentioned.
Oh well, at least there are no circles (or themes).
FIW, with one mistake: I had CBS instead of PBS, and copo made no sense. Honestly, popo doesn't compute either.
POPO: Two police officers side-by-side, each wearing a tshirt emlazoned with "PO", to identify them as police officers. Two side-by-side looks like "POPO". That's the way I understand it, anyway. But maybe I'm wrong...?
... emblazoned, sheesh. Lost my b.
Barry T., you should've read Husker's writeup: "From reduplication of the abbreviation PO (“police officer”), originally in reference to partnered bike officers in Southern California whose paired shirts would read POPO"
"Whole nother" is like nails on a chalkboard to me. There is no such thing as a "nother."
I saw Rich Norris was the constructor, and honestly the puzzle felt quite a bit tamer than what I was expecting. Rich's NYT themeless from Friday, March 31st was... on a WHOLE NOTHER level. And not in a good way.
Good Morning:
I find Rich’s themeless puzzles very challenging and usually doable, but requiring lots of P and P. Today’s was no exception and I finished w/o help in 26:01, a respectable time for me on a Saturday. On the positive side, there were minimal three letter words, some clever cluing, and some lively fill, i. e. Green Jacket, Zero To Hero, Sweats Out, Prophetic, Black Hole, etc. On the negative side, IMO, some questionable C/As. For example, no one I know refers to The Law as PoPo. I know it’s used in some quarters but it should have had a qualifier such as Slangily or Informally. In my area, pizzas are ordered with red sauce not red tomato sauce and it’s elbow macaroni not elbow pasta. Quibbles? Yes, but add those to the clues for Yes, Coal, and Claw, and the obscure Titi, Hiatt, Czerny and the unknown Bridget Riley and Gomiti clues and my solving satisfaction was diminished.
Thanks, Rich, and thanks, HG, for the vivid and evocative visuals and your always cheerful and upbeat commentary.
FLN
Anon T, congratulations to youngest on the acceptance at Johns Hopkins. Interesting that both girls ended up on the East Coast.
Bill, I don’t know if it applies to your suggestion, but we don’t have Fios service in my area. I was told by the customer service rep that if the problem is with Verizon’s equipment, there will be no charges to me, but if it’s my equipment, there will be a charge. Either way, I just want the issue resolved.
Have a great day.
FIR, but it took eraser, hammer, screwdriver, duct tape and the jaws of life. Took longer than the third grade. But since even I managed to FIR, it must be one of the easiest Saturday LAT grids on record. Erased checkmate for BLACK HOLE, saps for EBBS, cops for POPO, and men for HES.
LOLITA was "that book by Nabokov" in the great hit song by the POPO. BTW, I knew POPO because local TV interviews with crime witnesses.
"Things worth looking into" wasn't "knothole at the nudist colony." POPO are looking into it.
I used to work with a woman with the last name NOONE. One day she was late coming back from lunch, and some wag (not me) asked her "go home for a NOONEr?" Those were the days before such things got you a nonstop ticket to HR.
Florida vanquished the Toronto Broad Street Bullies last night IN OT. Great game!
Thanks to Gary for another fun review.
Sigh… a DNF for me… but PoPo put a smile on my face … as it’s in a catchy song by country music artist Dierks Bentley. The song is titled 5-1-5-0. Enjoy your weekend everyone. KkFlorida
Popo reminds me of back when my sister's first was in diapers. She'd sing while changing him, "Feet up, pat him on the popo, and hear him laugh, hoho."
Whew! Now THAT was a true Saturday level challenge. A long trek, and I finally arrived at a rousing FIW. COPO didn't smell quite right, but nothing else came to mind. Some questionable clues, and the obligatory trivial and obscure, but it is Saturday. Oh, well. As Scarlett said, "tomorrow is another day".
Jinx@10:10. I love your description of your puzzle experience. It reflects mine to a t. I surprised myself with some answers like CZERNY, a long ago MEMORY of piano lessons.
I’ve never heard of STRAW MATS but perps saved me.
The SE was the last to fill. I tried saps, then cuts before EBBS. I I tried men before HES, but then POPO came up. I became familiar with that word watching that wonderful series The Wire set in Baltimore.
. FLICKA was a lucky guess. Now, I did Google HIATT.
All in all a fun toughie from Rich and great recap from Gary.
Thank you, Rich, and thank you, Gary.
A great challenge for me today. I had some really good wags and some take-a-chance entries that worked out. Having patrolman where BARKEEPER was needed was neither.
I finished with three bad cells. I had STRAW bAgS instead of MATS so the Broadway classic was bEMORe (Be More?) and the South American monkey was a gITI. That one also made CZERNe wrong. They seemed like reasonable answers.
Re, the static on the telco lines. I had that problem. There was a grayish box on the back wall of the house where the telephone service entered. I pried open the little door and plugged in a princess phone. No static. I found a bad ground. Eventually, I changed to VOIP telephone service over cable. Lower monthly costs and no issues with line quality. Ever.
Very hard puzzle with unknowns to me, NOTARO, MERL, HAITT and I was sure CZERNY was wrong.
PBS “Death in Paradise” has been on here every week for years. We have had 4 different lead actors as Detective Inspectors. It is filmed in Guadeloupe and I guess after a few years there each wanted to go back to England or wherever.
Please explain why the GREEN JACKET would NEED to be altered. Gained weight? Lost weight?
“YES, Chef” about Marcus Samuelson is a very interesting book to read even if you are not interested in cooking. If it were a novel it would seem like a fairytale. His journey from a destitute mother in Africa to Europe and then to the USA to become a renowned chef and TV star is remarkable.
WHOLE NOTHER is a southern expression often heard south of the Mason-Dixon Line.
Thanks for the photo of Ernst Krebs in his CANOE at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. Again, I recommend “The Boys in the Boat” about the U of Washington crew that were in the same Olympics.
Parsan, I'm from the South, and I don't remember hearing "a whole nother thing" until I moved to Los Angeles. We said "another whole thing (or thang, to be exact.) Of course, there are lots of Southern. I worked for a few months in Hazard, Kentucky, less than 100 miles where I had lived all my life to that point. Sometimes it was listening to a foreign language. For example, the past tense for "fight" was "fit." "Fire" and "far" were homonyms, as were "parasol" and "power saw."
A lot of us Cornerites have read Boys in the Boat. Great read.
Can't believe I FIR. Hand up CZERNY just looked wrong; last to fill. Tried PRESCIENT before PROPHETIC.
From Thursday:
Bill Seeley Thanks for the comment on my oil RIG video!
From Yesterday:
Irish Miss, Ray-O-Sunshine, Jinx, AnonT Thanks for the land line comments. I wrote about this recently when TEL was an answer, but maybe no one read it.
Have you considered a Voice Over Internet (VOIP) system? We just started using OOMA to replace our failing and outrageously expensive land line. It is essentially free, once you pay for the equipment. You just have to connect it to your Internet service.
It acts just like a land line. You can connect up to four regular phones anywhere around your house. It has some advantages over land lines. But it won't work in a power failure.
You can transfer your land line number to them, but it can take a few weeks. Worth it, in our limited experience.
I have actually switched to using Google Voice for most calls. It is totally free and runs on any computer. I have it forward to OOMA to allow the option to answer calls on regular phones, too.
One warning: Some utterly evil businesses refuse to accept OOMA or Google Voice as your phone number! I bought a cheap prepaid flip phone to deal with these evil monsters. I don't give out that number anywhere else.
Has anyone else tried Google Voice, OOMA or other such services? They are working well for us.
I wonder if Patti changed some of Rich's clues or is "The New Boss the same as the Old Boss", nah, "We Won't Get Fooled Again" by The Who.
A DNF today. I couldn't come up with either CZERNY or HELIO. I was stuck on SUPS for 'eats'; never thought about chow and sups wouldn't allow WOO, which I wanted. I tried and removed ZERO for GOAT and then removed GOAT. Even tried STRAW PASTA until I moved back up to the NW and filled STRAW MATS. ELBOW didn't have a chance. You don't know what you don't know.
That 'Summer Olympics racer' sure looks like a KAYAK but I had to fill CANOE. HIATT, YES, NOTARO, ANTON, PBS, and my Friend FLICKA were filled by perps.
DALI, MIRO, or SIRT- wait for a perp or two.
See you tomorrow.
I used all the same tools as Jinx @ 10:10, but didn't achieve his ZERO TO HERO ending; I DNF. I have never seen nor heard of STRAW MATS for erosion control. "Sand bags" didn't fit. HIATT was unknown, next to unheard of TWEEDLE. No prize for NaomiZ, but at least she SWEATS OUT the whole (nother) thing.
I spent quite a while before giving up. Too tough for me. “MEMORY” is a Broadway classic? POPO??? Really? “Death in Paradise” airer could be PBS or BBC. But I never would have guessed POPO, and “fromage”….isn’t that cheese? Any cheese? Is it specifically bleu cheese? “Barcelona born muralist” I had no clue. So even though I knew 52A was either PBS or BBC, not knowing any of the perps left me stumped. And so it went for this entire CW. Too many obscure names. (Grump, grump!). Anyway, big DNF, 3/4 of the CW was still blank when I gave up. Nice write-up, HG, thanx for all your time and effort.
Hand up with PARSAN. Why does the GREEN JACKET need to be altered if a player wins it again?
Hola!
What a surprise to see Rich Norris as the constructor! Not surprisingly the clues were somewhat devious though I managed about 80% on my own then had to look for help. There is no way I would know HIATT or CZERNY otherwise.
TESLA and ERTE although cued oddly emerged nicely. I have no idea about Model 3 but TESLA is the only automaker in the news at present and five letters.
Gomiti? No idea. Perps came through for me.
The clue for CLAW could not be more obscure!
However, My Friend FLICKA is a blast from the past!
Time to go. Thank you, Gary, for shedding light on the obscurities. Today is our book club day so Ta Ta for now, everyone!
Not everyone is the same size so of course the GREEN JACKET would have to be altered to fit another person.
I was certain "inescapable situation" was CHECKMATE so I was doomed to failure. I had SNEER instead of STARE and MEN instead of HES. When EBBS wouldn't fit and "fromage hue" and "the law" gave me no help, it was over. I was so happy when I got GREEN JACKET right away too. Well tomorrow is a "wholenother" day.
It’s pretty exciting to attempt a CW by the former “boss”. I struggled mightily and got most of it, but straw bags wouldn’t yield to STRAW MATS, so the NW was done for.
In the SE, I insisted on Miro/SERT so no joy there either. Still, I enjoyed the clever cluing and feel gratified I did as well as I did.
Rich, thanks for the workout, and HG, the tour was outstanding.
Desper-Otto, to me, Memory is the theme song of Cats and the best part of it. I loved listening to the clip.
Happy Mother’s Day weekend everyone. My daughter and I are running away to Catalina tomorrow to celebrate.
Got the solve for this zero-fun crossword, as usual for a Saturday…the zero-fun part.
I’m getting tired of waiting for this “editor” to learn the job.
Although I had to resort to Google many times because so much in this puzzle was outside my wheelhouse (Here's looking at you, POPO, SERT, and SZERNY), I have to say I thought this puzzle was pretty fair. Maybe because Rich used to be Patti's boss, her fingerprints were not particularly apparent this time, for which I am thankful.
From my previous: Homophone, not homonym.
Get out your grain of salt. From watching many Masters Tournament and reading many trivia articles about it, here's my understanding of the GREEN JACKET:
First time Masters winners are adorned with one of many stock JACKETS at the victory celebration. After the event a new JACKET is tailored for him.
Repeat winners are adorned with the JACKET they got for their first Masters victory. If needed, the committee will update the fit.
All winners except the reigning champion must keep their JACKETs in their locker at Augusta National, unless wearing them for an on-premises event. Current champs are allowed to take their JACKET home, but can only wear them away from the course for Masters-authorized promotional events.
Wendybird, I have lots of fond MEMORies of Catalina's Two Harbors area. Once our sailing club went there for a 4th of July weekend. We enjoyed Sunday brunch served outside by Doug's Harbor Reef. When they handed out the menus they distributed several iced champaign bottles, explaining that they were for emergency purposes, in case our server didn't get around to refilling us quickly enough.
Have a great mOTHERs day.
Hi All!
Got it about 1/2 before I tossed the towel. Thanks for the puzzle, Rich.
And thank you for the expo, HG. I'd crib from you and fixed MEN to HES, BLue, and DEEP-fried to COAL-fired (#Dyslexia ;-)) so I could play a bit longer.
Fav: MERL Reagle. Nice nod, Rich.
IM - we don't know where Youngest is going to land yet. She's also been accepted by Amherst, Ohio State, and one other. She's still waiting to hear from CUNY which is where she really wants to go. Oh, and scholarship offers so we know what we can afford :-)
Had a buddy in Louisiana that would always look out for the "PoPo" when he drove his truck. Another buddy in Houston uses PoPo too.
Never read "YES Chef" but a week or so ago, in an episode of Ted Lasso, one of the soccer, erm football, players was talking to the chef at his restraint and everyone in the kitchen would yes "YES Chef" when she spoke.
Nice The Who call, BigE.
Y'all have a wonder Sat afternoon.
Cheers, -T
Puzzling thoughts:
FIW with one hiccup (a few lookups, too) ... the hiccup was at the crossing of CZERNY and ZERO TO HERO. I threw in an "H" instead of a "Z"
Rich's puzzles are generally fair, in that there are usually perps that help fill in where a WAG would normally be ... still, when I googled "Novelist Brenda", HIATT never appeared in the search. Likewise, a Google reference to the macaroni-shaped pasta (gometi) was also an "empty shell"
Even with the one or two look-ups and the error, I managed to finish in under a half and hour; not too bad for a Saturday
Jinx @ 2:59 --> thanks for clearing up the GREEN JACKET alteration question. IIRC, these JACKETs are custom-produced by the Hamilton Tailoring Co. of Cincinnati. And no, you cannot order one of these (or its color - Pantone 342) from them for yourself. Only way to get one is to a) be a member of Augusta National Golf Club or b) win the Masters Golf Tournament
Thanks HG for 'splainin' it all to us
Anon T @ 5:05 ~ Sorry, I jumped the gun! Amherst is about 1 1/2 hours from Troy and NYC is about 3 hours. What college in the CUNY system is she interested in? (I have a great niece finishing up her Sophomore year at Fordham and her brother was just accepted as an incoming freshman at St. John’s.)
Yes, Chef is SOP, at least in every cooking show/movie I’ve ever seen.
Aaarrrggg!!!! I was completely bolloxed in north and almost left MEMORY*. I decided CZERNe was more likely. Another one box FIW on a Saturday
deft/SPRY;TrapTREE. APT took forever. No idea what to do with the STRAW or he SA bird.
Finally settled on POPO? and PBS but I just noticed I changed station to BBC
NOTARO. 6 Perps; cops/POPO
Re. Green Jacket: It was 11 years (75,86) between Masters for Nicklaus. He may have put on some weight
SERT and ERTES today. I had a few squares left when I went about my business for the day. Still looking at Mobile Homes
WC
** I thought I needed the name of the Musical not the song
"Death in Paradise" is one of my favourite BBC exports.
Anon PVX @ 2:44: I'm with you -- the 'new regime' has a fascination with obscurities that does get old rapidly. POPO = poo-poo, IMHO. (I must confess to not watching much TV anymore [saving $245 a month on ATT being one reason] and so some of the 'hip,' au courant, twaddle is out of reach.)
Are there any fans of the Violent Femmes here? Eldest told me they are in Houston Wed and I got us tickets.
When Eldest mentioned the band, I was like "For Reals?"
She was all, "Wait, you know who they are?"
"Sweetie - every college student thinks they discovered them first. I have two of their albums."
The 80's band from Minneapolis will perform their entire first album (+some, I hope) for the 40th anniversary tour. The Dudes gotta be nearing their late 60's / mid-70's by now.
[context]
I emailed all my buddies - even my boss' boss [turns out we were all at the same They Might Be Giants' show in '99 before we ever met!]
Oh, and cut the puzzle some slack for brining in new references and folks that we don't know yet. I think Merl would approve ;-)
Cheers, -T
Like @IrishMiss, I was very befuddled by Rich’s obscure clue collection… I mean, “chirp” for TWEEDLE — really?? How bout “-dee and -dum”, or “first names from Alice in Winderland? jeez…
The only fun part was all the multi-word fills — he obviously is a big fan, as there were twelve, count ‘em, 12! I guess all these factors added up to the required PITA factor for a Saturday slog.
====> Darren / L.A.
BTW THERE ARE NO FJORDS IN THE STATE OF WASHINGTON Time to put Mr. Norris out to pasture.
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