Saturday Themeless. by Jess Rucks
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| Carly Jess |
I loved this picture of Jess and our circus trainer/constructor Carly Schuna when their paths crossed in Madison, WI. recently, Be sure to see the picture at the bottom of the write-up where Carly is showing Jess how to manipulate the Giant German Wheel.
"I hope you enjoyed Jess's puzzle" or in Urdu:
مجھے امید ہے کہ آپ نے جیس کی پہیلی کا لطف اٹھایا ہوگا۔
1. Red aperitif: CAMPARI - I have no idea why this leapt to my mind very quickly.
8. Defib experts: EMTS.
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| An EMT with an external defibrillation device |
12. Really clean up: MAKE A MINT - Bit coin, pet rocks, etc.
14. Love or life follower: BOAT - It wasn't the Love BOAT but the Titanic only had enough Life BOATS for half the passengers.
15. "Let me try again ... ": I MEAN TO SAY.
17. Morsel: BITE.
18. Old Irish: CELTS - Kelts or Selts? It can go either way but most say it is Kelts unless you're referring to sports teams in Boston, MA or Glasgow, Scotland
19. Mireille of "Big Love": ENOS - I know nothing about Ms. ENOS but I have caught on to the fact that she has displaced a biblical character and an old MLB baseball player in this venue. Her IMDB
21. Street cred: REP(utation) - Richie doesn't have any (3:48)
21. Street cred: REP(utation) - Richie doesn't have any (3:48)
22. Crush a 23-Across performance, perhaps: SLAY and 23. Nothing to fret about?: 😀 AIR GUITAR.
26. Expand: ADD TO.
27. Up from Spain?: NORTE - España está al NORTE de Marruecos (Spain is north of Morocco)
29. Hero with a weak spot: ACHILLES.
33. Inuk of film whose real name was Allakariallak: NANOOK - I knew nothing about Inuk or Allakariallak but those names reminded me of NANOOK which was in the deep recesses of my memory.
34. Breezy farewell: TOODLES.
35. Try again?: RETASTE - Editorial comment: "Nope, that's liver and it still tastes horrible!" 😝
36. Proceed unsteadily: TOTTER.
37. Intrepid: FEARLESS.
38. Promising spot?: ALTAR 😀
39. Crown: TIARA.
40. Ones to "watch out for," per an Amazon Prime reality series: BIG GRRRLS - A seed entry for Jess.
42. Nearly all: MOST.
46. Jiff: SEC.
47. Throw away in disgust, slangily: YEET - Every teenager I asked knew this.
49. Wakeboarding spot: LAKE.
51. Cantina rounds: MARGARITAS.
54. 100 sawbucks: ONE G - A sawbuck is ten dollar bill and 100 of them makes ONE-G (one grand or one thousand)
55. Minor celebrities?: TEEN IDOLS - I'll balance the Bizet opera above with this 60's rock and roll song.
56. Spanish pronoun: ESTO - ¡ESTO es divertido! (This is fun!)
57. Ticked by: ELAPSED - Hitters and pitchers now have time constraints and it greatly improves my viewing experience.
Down:
1. Animal with three sets of eyelids and two sets of eyelashes: CAMEL.
2. Wolf voiced by Giancarlo Esposito in "The Jungle Book": AKELA - I remember him as the ruthless Gus Fring in Breaking Bad.
3. Like Bolognese: MEATY - Bolognese sauce is a meat-based sauce in Italian cuisine, typical of the city of Bologna.
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| Gnocchi Bolognese |
4. Chef's collection: PANS.
5. Receipt fig.: AMT.
6. Code name on "Money Heist": RIO.
7. Paper fatteners: INSERTS - Our paper has almost abandoned all of them in favor or online ads.
8. Go out on the beach?: EBB 😀
9. "Schitt's Creek" character who says, "What you did was impulsive, capricious, and melodramatic, but it was also wrong": MOIRA ROSE.
10. Hot-dish topping: TATER TOTS - They make anything better!
11. Blended family prefix: STEP.
12. Feedback providers?: MICS 😀
16. Second person: YOU - In counseling training, we were told to avoid "YOU" sentences in favor of "I" sentences. "YOU are" vs. "I feel".
20. "Sugar Town" singer: SINATRA.
23. "Inferiority complex" coiner: ADLER - Austrian psychologist Alfred ADLER
24. "Et tu" day: IDES 😀
25. Having a key: TONAL - TONAL vs ATONAL
26. Hypersensitivity: ALLERGY.
28. Squeaks (by): EKES.
29. Chapati flour: ATTA - Frequently found in our crossword pantry
30. "Neat!": COOL BEANS - Derivation
31. All the rage and hard to come by: HOT TICKET - To get one of these, requires either incredible good luck, big bucks or being named Travis Kelce. 😚
33. Comes close: NEARS.
35. Word in many Spanish team names: REAL.
37. Figure on the Oregon license plate: FIR TREE - That is true but check out the basketball court used by Oregon University.
39. Word that may make a dog sit up: TREAT.
41. "Everybody Hurts" band: REM.
42. Part of the inn crowd: MAIDS - MAIDS : Housekeepers :: Stewardesses : Flight Attendants
43. With heels up: ON TOE 😀
44. Get into hot water?: SCALD.
45. "The Last of Us" survivor played by Anna Torv: TESS - I would have known Melanie Griffith's role in Working Girl or Julia Roberts' role in Ocean's 11.
46. Plum kin: SLOE - Last Saturday, we had SLOW LORIS
48. French press alternative: DRIP.
50. __ surf: EGO - I did an EGO surf on google for me and I came up with this picture taken during my last day at one of my old schools.
52. Long-lasting polish: GEL.
53. Actress Ortiz: ANA - Her IMDB
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| Jess on the giant wheel being tutored by Carly |
32 comments:
I thought this was a pretty tough puzzle, but, like yesterday, others may disagree. The hardest thing for me to get was the “seed entry “ of “Big Grrrls.” Once I got that, everything else fell into place. FIR, so I’m happy.
Good morning!
Finished a Saturday cw, unusual of late. Went sideways in several spots: Widen/ADD TO, Eve/YOU, Steep/SCALD, but that's what Wite-Out's for. With YE.. in place, d-o inked in YEET, pulling it from some cranial recess. Enjoyed your effort, Jess, and your explication, Husker. (Shouldn't that EMT be looking at the patient rather than the camera?)
ELAPSED -- Methinks all sports should have time constraints. One of my pet peeves is sporting events (think golf or football) that run over the slotted time, delaying the program that I had scheduled to record. I'd prefer Heidi.
DNF. I filled 23, missing only wax instead of GEL. Guess I would rather be GELled than waxed.
Today is:
ORANGE SHIRT DAY (honors the children forced into Indian boarding schools)
SAVE YOUR PHOTOS DAY (photos are fragile, whether physical or electronic images)
NATIONAL MUD PACK DAY (totally different from yesterday's GAY MEN DAY)
NATIONAL FAMILY HEALTH & FITNESS DAY (the nation has a huge obesity problem, forgive the pun)
NATIONAL CHEWING GUM DAY (sponsored by your local dentist)
NATIONAL GHOST HUNTING DAY (I’m pretty sure that Ghostbusters was a documentary)
NATIONAL HOT MULLED CIDER DAY (I’ll bet it would be great when spiked)
NATIONAL LOVE PEOPLE DAY (The O'Jays sang about the Love Train.
Congrats to all who got this one.
This was a slog but after many stops and starts, got er dun.
Challenging but fun puzzle!
The last few weeks (months?) we have had CAMPARI and the drink you make from it Negroni which helped solidify it in my brain
Lucina would be an expert that GEL nail polish lasts longer than traditional polish!
Favorite clue- "Nothing to fret about" for AIR GUITAR
I never knew "Nanook of the North" was a film (from 1922!) but I had heard of the moniker.
Thanks HG for a fun blog and Jess for the puzzle
It was a struggle but I got it. So many unknowns it was hard to get toeholds with the few and far between easy gimmes. CAMEL, EMT, NANOOK, STEP, and that was about it. The only Habanera I knew of was SAUCE, didn't know it was a DANCE. MOIRA ROSE, ANA, TESS (and Anna Torv), RIO, ENOS (Dukes of Hazzard?), ADLER, COOL BEANS, and BIG GRRRLS only filled the grid after multiple perps and guesses-
I'm sure other filled EVE before YOU.
My 'inn crowd' part was MOTEL before the MAIDS came to clean up that section after STEAM changed to SCALD, which led to DANCE.
The NW was the hardest because it took a while to let go of INDEXES instead of INSERTS- thinking of the wrong type of 'paper'. POTS or PANS, TOT.,TAX, or AMT? WIDEN changed to ADD TO.
YEET was in an earlier puzzle and I wish it would bet 'thrown away in disgust'.
TATER TOTS- all perps. I've never heard of putting them on a hot dish. The only time we cook them is when grandkids are over and we put some Ore-Ida in the oven.
I'll try the 'giant wheel' AFTER I finish sky diving and bungee jumping off a bridge and that will be the day after manana. My joints would ache for a month it I tried it.
FIW. This was a very tough Saturday CW. For a while I was staring at a whole lot of white squares thinking I was going down in flames. But then Achilles got me going.
In the end big grrrls did me in, and I still don't understand it. Also a silly error on my part mistyping beat for boat left an error in the NE.
Although very tough, I did enjoy this puzzle.
Did the puzzle, only to avoid what's next.
JFK airport recorded 8 inches of rain, so we checked on the beach house at breezy ny.
this view from the house is our walk back to the car.
The house was rebuilt after Sandy on a 10 foot high foundation, so no damage there.
The good news: I have flip flops to get out of here...
The bad news: the water is yucky because everyone's septic tank has overflowed...
Fun, fun,fun...
I regret to say I TITT. When I see so many proper names and titles, the adverb “slangily” I get discouraged and quit. And to make matters worse I read paper fasteners so started off with staples. All around fiasco.
Kudos to all who persevered.
FIW. Sawbucks are $10 bills (I thought they were $1 bills), so 100 of them are ONE G, not ONE C as I had it. Clearly EGO surf vs ECO surf didn't mean much to me. Perps were fair and the puzzle was perfect for a Saturday. Thanks for explaining it all, HG!
Hi all, Jess here! Glad you (mostly) enjoyed the puzzle! The editors certainly upped the difficulty from what I submitted, but I suspect the puzzle is better for it. Among other excellent clues, they came up with that brilliant clue for AIR GUITAR!!
Also, if you haven’t tried TATER TOT hotdish - I mourn your loss. Travel to Minnesota, & I’m sure you can find a potluck with it somewhere! ;)
Gary, your EGO surf picture! Love!
Wasn't on my wavelength today. Really struggled. Had no idea for 1A. Looked it up.
Got started in the SW with SLOE. Knew 29A so slowly things opened up. But BIGGRRRLS put on the brakes. The rest was a combination of lookups and ANA'S.
Hats off to Jess for a tough puzzle and Gary for his equally rough time for his review.
See you all Sunday
Try AHA's please
I love a good negroni so campari filled in nicely. However it was a tough slog after that and my brain got a work out solving the the remainder of the puzzle. Thanks Jess for a challenging and clever puzzle…kkFlorida
"I really enjoyed your puzzle!" Jess, but only because it was snatched from the jaws of defeat by Teri who gave me the answer to 46A in less than a SEC, thus breaking the final word jam in the Southwest.
And thank you Husker for an amusing and informative review. The GIF of Mr. BEAN playing the AIR GUITAR was really COOL BEANS. And thanks for the picture of your EGO SURF -- I can see why you continue to sub (obviously to keep up on the latest in teen lingo 😀)
Some favs:
12A MAKE A MINT. Thank you Gary for that quote from the "Bard of Baltimore"!
23A AIR GUITAR. Favorite clue.
40A BIG GRRRLS. The last to fall and you could hear the sound in the next block.
1D CAMEL. Thanks for that explanation Husker. The truly remarkable thing about CAMELS is that their 2 eye lashes and 3 eye lids evolved through a series of completely random mutations over billions and billions of years. 😁
13D TANGO. Here's Astor Piazzola's (sad) TANGO Oblivion. IIRC Gary, you and Susan are the only bloggers (besides yours truly) who have ever included an opera aria in a review. And remarkably they were both the Habanera from Bizet's R RATED Carmen.
20D SINATRA. Oh THAT SINATRA!
23D ADLER. A contemporary of FREUD and JUNG, the latter being the only one that anybody takes seriously these days.
30D COOL BEANS. Or as the Brits would say "Brilliant!".
35D REAL. Spanish for "Royal".
Cheers,
Bill
Hola!
This was a Saturday slog for me. I started early, worked on it a while, then returned to bed since it is eerily quiet here today. Then awakened and continued but had to cry "uncle" and go to Google. COMPARI never occurred to me but once in, the downs followed.
NANOOK was my first fill. It was one of my own favorite books when I was in school. I'll just say that the school library was my favorite place all during elementary school and once the librarians knew me, they would have a stack ready for me when I returned. Good memories!
ALTAR also had a great clue.
Not in ONE G would I have ever guessed 40A! Do I now have to acquaint myself with current hits? My taste runs more to classical like the Habanera.
Oh, and MARGARITAS are my drink of choice!
Thank you, Gary, for your Saturday steadfastness!
Have a wonderful day, everyone!
inanehiker
You are so right about GEL! In fact, that is what I plan for today.
Husker G brings us this PZL by Jess Rucks...
Given my declining patience, I did pretty well on this Saturday XWD--maybe 60% of it before my first cheat.
The "editorial" in response to 39D (TREAT) denigrates the taste of liver. I have to wonder why so many people have turned against liver--that now it is nearly impossible find on a restaurant menu.
I guess you had to be introduced to it in childhood--as I was--to not be turned off by the idea of an "organ meat."
It really is quite tasty. But you'll have to take my word for it, I guess.
I like it with ketchup.
YEET? Really?!
~ OMK
A Saturday-worthy puzzle, which I sadly came up a tad short on. Some really clever entries, unfortunately infected with a slew of unknown people from shows I never watched on channels I don't have. Enjoyed much of it, although that kind of sucked out some of the fun.
A Saturday-worthy puzzle, which I sadly came up a tad short on. Some really clever entries, unfortunately infected with a slew of unknown people from shows I never watched on channels I don't have. Enjoyed much of it, although that kind of sucked out some of the fun.
Hi All!
Oy!. I'll just give it a big NOPE. Not because the puzzle is bad but I was not on Jess' wavelength -- or any wavelength for that matter - up 'till 3am on an incident call, I was. :-(
Tante - I too confidently entered "staples" at 7d and never looked back.
Thanks Jess for the puzzle (and swinging by The Corner). I was looking for French's Crispy Fried Onions for my casserole topper as (seemingly) one in the Midwest couldn't have green BEANS w/o that and a can of cream of mushroom soup :-)
Thanks for filling in my blanks, HG. Cool Beans expo too.
Mom says 'Cool beans' all the time. E.g.: last week I nailed a Wordle in 2 and she texted back "cool beans."
Fav: AIR GUITAR's clue.
CED - my first thought at that image... "I hope they don't have basements." Stay dry buddy.
Y'all have a wonderful afternoon!
Cheers, -T
Well, I flashed through Thursday in record time (for me) and managed to FIR Friday but today’s CW got even for those two days. First pass got me a grand total of ten (10!) fills. Second pass got me all the way to thirteen. And even then one was wrong: FREUD:ADLER. Oy. HUUUUUGE DNF. From the thirteen I cheated my way to a fill with Google, just to see if maybe I would learn something. So, as I said, DNF. Too many DNKs to list, but YEET stands out: never heard of it. “Hero with a weak spot “soggy cheese-steak” didn’t fit. Anyway, ya got me but good, JR, way out of my league. Thanx for the great write-up, HG!
Hmmm...must be an Echo in here.
Very poor clue on one down. A camel doesn't have two sets of eyelashes they have one set of an upper and a lower. They don't have three sets of eyelids they have an upper lower and a nictitating membrane in the medial canthus.
This was a Saturday toughie but I enjoyed picking away at it. Unfortunately, EGO did not come to me so I had a DNF in the SW. Thanks for your puzzle, Jess, and for stopping by to comment! TATER TOTS on a hot-dish in new to me -- must be a regional thing.
FAVs: COOL BEANS, Love or life follower, and Nothing to fret about
I also like a clue that teaches me something (CAMEL).
H-Gary, thank you for guiding us through the grid!
Groan! After the first pass thru, only the NE & SW corners had filled. Red-letter runs got me some toeholds and I finished it, but not in a good mood. Think there is a generation gap problem with Jess for me.
CED, yikes! I just went back and pulled up your flood picture. Hope things dry out okay for you.
I would have argued that a Tiara is *not* a crown. Apparently, I would have been wrong given that the Papal Tiara is a crown (at least according to Wikipedia). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papal_tiara
A piece of headgear worn by only one person in the whole world - and not since 1963 - seems pretty obscure!
I had a very very tough time with this puzzle ... something waay out of my area of knowledge. And the arcane slang and some personal names did not help ... so I looked up some entries, and plodded on, hoping to learn something at the end of the excercise ... and I did.
Thank You Jess Rucks for a very challenging puzzle. The fact that you are an Urdu linguist caught my attention ... I can understand some Urdu, as spoken, which has common words and grammer, somewhat mutually intelligible ... to Hindi, but I cannot read the nastaliq script.
Thank You Husker Gary, for your interesting and involved explanations of the clues, in your blog commentary. I'm sure you make a very fascinating teacher, as well, and I wish I had a teacher like you, when I was growing up.
From Yesterday, To TTP: I could not post yesterday, ... but I did read your comment on Bones N Harmony, and Cleveland. Although I have lived in Cleveland for over many decades, I am not into Hip-hop and Rap and that sort of music ... I'm more of the ... keep your head down, and mind your own business, sort of guy...
BTW, your blog 'name'/avatar, TTP, happens to be the name of the most feared terrorist group in Pakistan ... Tehreek-e-Taliban-e-Pakistan, look it up in Wiki, if interested.
Finally, I learnt a lot, hopefully will remember some, and move on to Sunday tomorrow.
Have a great weekend, you all.
Way too scientific, dude…
I think my brain must’ve been tuned to the same channel Jess transmits on, because I just blew through this Saturday grid. I’d heard of the BIGGRRRLS…but had noooo idea how th’ hell t’ spell it. Perps to the rescue! And AIRGUITAR — brilliant play, loved it.
Husker-G, how do you manage to find all these cool refs for the various fills to embellish your reviews? Always enjoy your editorializing 🤙🏽😎. Never knew camels had all those accessory eye bits; our llama is a camelid, wonder if he’s got those. I’ll have to ask him…
====> Darren / L.A.
Too much show biz arcana. At least no Rap clues. Can't image many crossword aficionados are Rap fans.
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