Saturday Themeless by Kyle Dolan
1. Part of GTO: GRAN What GTO means
5. Finds players for: CASTS 😀 - Some say John Wayne as Genghis Kahn was the worst CASTING ever.
10. Defeats handily: OWNS - Husker coach Tom Osborne OWNED K-State as he was 24 - 0 against them.
14. Drink made with a spice mixture called karha: MASALA CHAI.
16. First name in country music: REBA - She also is a hoot in Young Sheldon
17. Whole alternative: ONE PERCENT 😀
18. Blood group?: CLAN.
19. Bet (on): STAKED - NFL teams STAKE their futures on players they draft each year
20. Aerospace company based in Sweden: SAAB - The automotive part of this firm has been phased out
22. Sonny: LAD.
23. "Heh, not really": I KID - Michael Seth Starr, Don Rickels' biographer, wrote his kind of insult comedy will never return.
25. Disney villain played by Glenn: CRUELLA - A memorable role for Glenn Close
27. Mysterious sign: OMEN.
30. "How about that!": GOSH.
32. Tag word: SMALL 😀
33. Page by phone?: FAX 😀 70% of businesses say they still use FAX machines for important documents
34. Piece of rustic decor: CART - My first thought was of outside decor
35. In the __ of: MIDST.
36. Cold cocktail: FROZEN MARGARITA.
40. Close-range shot: TIP IN - My first thought was of a basketball layup but it was a basketball TIP IN. TAP IN would be a golf fill in as well.
 |
| A TIP IN dunk! |
41. Hotel bar: SOAP 😀
42. Former "SportsCenter" anchor Patrick: DAN - A straight forward DAN for a Saturday
 |
| His first day in 1989 Chris Berman Dan Patrick |
43. "Pure goodness" mandarin oranges brand: HALOS - Favorites in our household
44. Just for appearances: SHAM.
45. Course standards: PARS - My standard is closer to bogeys
46. Ax in a concert hall: EMANUEL - New to me
48. Handout to the hungry: MENU 😀 Gotta love this scene from My Cousin Vinny.
50. Peaked: WAN.
53. Roar: BELLOW.
57. God who helps the Trojans in the "Iliad": ARES If you must...
59. Kerry Washington role: OLIVIA POPE.
61. Lo-cal: LITE.
62. Warhol, Johns, et al.: POP ARTISTS - Andy and Jasper
64. Correct: EMEND - A nice mnemonic
65. Try: TEST.
Down:
1. Some biotech products: GMOS - Genetically Modified OrganismS
 |
| The answer is D |
2. Bluster: RANT.
3. "... against __ of troubles": Hamlet: A SEA - These words are surely among the most famous in the English language and remind me of our friend Jeffery Wechsler
4. Table cloth?: NAPKIN.
5. Taylor Swift hit with the lyric "You put me on and said I was your favorite": CARDIGAN - Perhaps less well known than Hamlet's soliloquy.
6. Duke's conf.: ACC.
7. Cows and sows: SHES.
8. Hebrew Bible: Var.: TANACH - An alternate spelling
9. Long-necked instrument: SITAR
 |
| Ravi Shankar and George Harrison |
10. "Dungeons & Dragons" creature: ORC - Familiar cwd creatures
11. "Ooh, I'm so-o-o impressed": WELL LA DI DA - One of the funniest SNL skits ever!
12. Curry, e.g.: NBA ALL STAR 😀 Kind of a curveball for some of our resident foodies
13. Souvenirs from beach walks: SANDAL TANS 😀 - I tried SUN... and SAND... but no!
15. Symbol of Wales: LEEK - Why?
21. Transit convenience: BUS MAP.
24. Namesake of a famous alum, perhaps: DORM - Morey Hall was my college DORM and it was named for a former president, Victor Morey. It was old in 1964 and is still being used in sixty years later.
26. Many an oil-rich ruler: EMIR.
27. Zany: OFF THE WALL 😜 Robin Williams comes to my mind
28. Grammy-winning Santana song co-written by Wyclef Jean: MARIA MARIA.
29. Subjects that may be studied for life: EXOPLANETS - These are planets in orbit around stars other than ours. Are we alone? Fermi's Paradox
31. Stow away: STASH.
34. Individual account?: CENSUS 😀
37. Angels Landing's national park: ZION 😲
38. Don't just stand there: ROAM.
39. Duck, perhaps: GAME BIRD 😀
44. Course with gates: SLALOM.
45. Stand in church: PULPIT. 😀
47. Choose a running mate?: ELOPE. 😀
49. In a glass by itself: NEAT -😀 No ice for our Tinbeni
52. Erase: WIPE and 54. Get rid of: LOSE.
55. Goes (for): OPTS.
56. "La fanciulla del __": Puccini opera: WEST - The Girl Of The Golden West he wrote in Italy. It was his first opera that premiered in America. The story of this work. BTW, he wrote Madam Butterfly having never been in Japan.
 |
| Its 1908 Premiere in NYC with Enrico Caruso |
Santa Fe, NM Opera Company
60. Vehicle that really moves?: VAN 😀
40 comments:
Thanks to a great Bible teacher named Dr. Tim Mackie, I’m familiar with the “Tanak,” which is an amalgamation of abbreviations of three Hebrew words for “Torah,” prophets and “writings” which is the Old Testament (as most Christians refer to it). So it wasn’t a great stretch to come up with “tanach.” Everything else eventually fell into place in this very challenging, Saturday-worthy puzzle. FIR, so I’m happy.
Good morning!
Really struggled with CARDIGAN, CENSUS, and DORM. Finally got 'em, though. Whew. Scratched my head over what SAND ALTANS could be. D'oh. Finally put this one to bed, but it took 25 minutes -- longer than my patience usually allows. Thanx, Kyle and Husker.
I managed to finish this puzzle only with the considerable help of red letters and alphabet runs. Still, I found it enjoyable. There was some great cluing with Handout for the Hungry being my favorite. All in all, a good start to a long, very rainy weekend.
FIR, but erased one piece of for ONE PERCENT, show for SHAM, la ti da for LA DI DA, and slolom for SLALOM (UNTIE!)
Today is:
NATIONAL RUBBER DUCKY DAY (the “birthday” of this friend of Ernie and Big Bird)
NATIONAL STICKER DAY (from the custom printing of them to sharing stickers, every sticker has a story. Reminds me of Rod Stewart’s Every Picture Tells a Story)
NATIONAL PEACH MELBA DAY (honoring Australian soprano Nellie Melba. Reminds me of the fabulous double album Eat a Peach by The Allman Brothers Band))
KOREAN AMERICAN DAY (they arouse my interest in the LPGA)
NATIONAL VISION BOARD DAY (has nothing to do with ophthalmologists. A day to set goals, cast a vision and dream out loud)
STEPHEN FOSTER MEMORIAL DAY (The Stephen Foster Story is a summer stock production, staged at My Old Kentucky Home State Park in Bardstown. Well worth seeing, and conveniently located on the Kentucky Bourbon Trail.)
It is 2024 and I got a Saturday LAT crossword puzzle!
The American girl flew to France to see the GRANd Prix, and was disappointed that it wasn't even pronounced that way. (That joke is over a half century old - before those races came to the USA.)
I wonder if DAN Patrick received one of those faked Emmys that ESPN got caught giving to their on-air personalities. I can't believe they got away with that for years. I guess the only honest things left in the world are politicians, professional wrestling and harness racing.
NEAT and MARGARITA are words I frequently used in my pre-sobriety life.
Swift joins Santana and Red Hot Chili Peppers in being musicians with lots of songs I recognize, but don't know the names of.
Thanks to Kyle for a Saturday puzzle that even my dumb mass could complete. And thanks to H.Gary for another fine review. It makes even more sense when I've completed the puzzle before reading it!
Took 18:26 today for me to "finish" this one.
Always enjoy themeless (and circle-less) puzzles. This was close to being a very good puzzle.
Had no idea about: Tanach, the overly ornate opera clue (for "west"), the symbol of Wales, the Santana song, today's actress's role (well, I guessed Cruella, but the other one was unknown), and how "finishing"="last".
Steph Curry's brother is an NBA player, but not an all-star.
Very windy over here. I hope you all are sheltered and warm.
FIR, but not before I saw myself going down in flames as all I saw was "a sea" of white squares. This puzzle was a struggle for me.
Last to fall was the NW. I finally saw 17A as being milk related but had two percent for the longest time. I let my preference in milk cloud my thinking and eventually changed it to one percent.
Hard puzzle. A lot of unknowns to me. The one I'm going to whine about is WELL LA DI DA. Gary's hilarious clip for it show LA DE DA. Answers that aren't really words (as far as I know) that have different spellings are just bad.
Initially had "LION" for symbol of Wales. Also was briefly flummoxed as to what a "SAND ALTAN" was. Did not know "TANACH". Otherwise an enjoyable romp!
I actually had an enjoyable Saturday experience! Got it done with the help of breadcrumbs, and vowel runs in the sticky parts. Loved the wordplay!
Choose a running partner/elope, last to fall was the walk on the beach find, I had sand, and it was quite a surprise when altans revealed itself. Sand,,, altans,,, sand,,, altans,, sandal tans! Ooooh! Good one!
FLN, Lucina said it makes her mad when people misuse the English language. Therefore,
this Dave is "more than happy" to provide this George Carlin clip...
FLN- MalMan - yes, Misty and I are still sharing J poems by email, even though the Jumble blog site is no longer active. Thanks for the cute Jack and Jill poem.
I created a haiku today using today’s Wordle and J words, with a Spoonered title (as I was mentored by OMK). I will post it here today, but don’t worry, as I will not inflict any more on you here.
Rip Leader
I heard price matured,
Hoarded jeans valuable;
Laptop sale - “Distressed”!
Good Morning:
My lack of patience and perseverance, compounded by my frustration with the numerous unknowns, led me to use the help function to eventually complete the puzzle. Apparently, so far, anyway, I'm alone in finding this so challenging that help was needed. Kudos to all those successful souls who finished on their own. I thought much of the clueing was outstandingly clever, but some was too cute by half which added unnecessary difficulty, and offered no toeholds to offset the either-you-know-it-or-you-don't-entries, i.e., Cardigan, Masala Chai, Tenach, Maria, Maria, Exoplanets, Orc, and West, as clued. OTOH, maybe I just wasn't on the same page as the constructor.
Thanks, Kyle, and thanks, HG, for your always fair and balanced review and for the fun and sparkling photos and links.
Have a great day.
This was a tough one for me, as I couldn't get a foot hold even though I had 1A and 1D right off. I did see CHAI with SITAR and SHES in place but MASALA was unknown. Wasn't on the right wavelength for many of the other clues so Google filled in a couple. Finished but with help.
Great grid spanners at 36A. I drink who.e milk so 17A never crossed my mind. Wanted guitar for 46A but not long enough. Didn't know Mr Ax.
And so on, and so on.
Once we get to a certain age, there's no going back!
Whistle!!!
IM, please see below, we are together on this one. I think you mean TANACH since you had CHAI.
Kyle you are a so mean! This was a tough but solid puzzle. Kudos to you and to Gary for his persistent analysis of your offering.
Amazingly, I was able to FIR this enjoyable but difficult (for me) puzzle. I had to change show to SHAM and correct “e” to”I” in La Di Da. Also, Jack had to give me TIPIN. So I guess my FIR has an asterisk, but I’m still pumped. Fun to see Duke in it 2 days in a row!
Thanks, Kyle for the fun. Gary, the tour you provide is always enjoyable and educational, so thanks as always.
Forgot to mention (it wasn't on my list)
Today is the Ides of January
Nope. DNF. This one was so far above my pay grade I couldn't reach it with an extension ladder. Stuck with it for a long time, as there were some clever clues, but finally tossed in the towel. Nice write up by Husker brought a lot of D'oh!s. BTW, not only is insult comedy dead...almost all comedy is. Remember when aspiring comedians would play at colleges? Those days are long gone. Sense of humor is banned, and no one can take a little kidding anymore.
Good morning. I managed to FIR today with just a few unknowns, TANACH, OLIVIA POPE, CARDIGAN, and EMANUEL AX. Never heard of them.
WAN was hard until he V8 moment.
Only changes were TAP TO TIP IN and SHOW to SHAM.
A typical Saturday toughie, at first glance around the grid I figured I was headed for the dreaded FIW, but with P & P and a couple of WAG’s I was able to FIR w/o help in a half hour. Never sure which clues are the constructors’ or the editors’, but between Kyle and Patti they came up with some excellent ones today, thank you for the challenge! I thought for sure Curry, e.g. was surely a reference to a spice, took a lot of perps to eventually suss the correct entry. And until the expo I thought it was MASA LACHAI and SAND ALTANS, duh! Didn’t equate Whole with milk either so ONE PERCENT made no sense either. EMANUEL and OLIVIA POPE were total unknowns also. Thought the Hebrew Bible would be a variation of Torah, not a completely different word.
Another stellar and entertaining write-up HG, thank you for that!
FIR, with help from DW on Olivia Pope, but the missus was stumped on one of the two maddening components of this puzzle. She’s Jewish, but was confounded by TENACH, as just about all of us were.
The other maddening component was another of Patti’s not-clever dialogue clues in quotes, this one being WELL, LA-DI-DA. What bugged me, once I picked up on the sarcasm in the clue, was what always bugs me about owie and uey – the spelling variation on DA, versus dah, which is the usual spelling. An editor should insist on a single style for this sort of thing. Also, Patti, “How about that!” is a ridiculous clue for GOSH.
Other than that, the puzzle came together easily enough, with unknowns such as the Taylor Swift and Santana songs. Some of the clues were needlessly misleading -- for example, I wasn’t at all sure the defunct Swedish car company still does some aerospace business, “Sonny” was a bad clue for LAD, and what little SOAP hotels provide these days is awful -- but I did like the two-syllable version of “peaked.” I do sympathize with those who found the EMANUEL Ax entry obtuse.
HG’s dorm photo from Nebraska reminded me that my dorm at Mizzou is long-gone, which saddens me only because it was right across from the football stadium, and you could see the dorm on televised games during place kicks in the north end zone.
Jinx, I also had “piece of” before PERCENT, but where you really delighted me was with that Grand Prix joke reference – which I managed to work into a theatre review of “The Full Monty.”
All-in-all, though, the puzzle fell together and I mostly enjoyed it, so thanks to Kyle and HG.
Lee @ 10:06 ~ Thanks for correcting my typo. 😉
At first pass I luckily filled in Pop Artists for 62 A and got a solid toe-hold from there and worked my way up the puzzle.
But…after 30 minutes I threw in the towel as the exoplanets and mariamaria would just not fill correctly.
Saturdays are my day off work and I have too many errands and housework to do but I’d love to dedicate more time to this puzzle.
There were some excellent clues and misdirection… i.e. curry
Thanks Kyle for another Saturday challenge. Thanks HG for the recap.
…. kkFlorida
Puzzling thoughts:
FIR with a number of "checked cells" that came up incorrectly. But through a bit of trial and what-not, I came up with a clean (no red marks) grid. My initial stumbling block was that I had TWO PERCENT before cutting the fat in half ... the other errors were having LAYUP before TIPIN; SHOW before SHAM; and BAN before WAN. Total "running time" was just over 30 minutes ...
I guess that I am among those that are currently PEAKED ... not sure which bug I got, but I wish it would disappear
CanadianEh! -> glad you liked the Jack and Jill limerick; cute haiku for the Jumble. It took me awhile to get "lip reader". [spoiler alert] The word "hoard" helped me with Wordle today. That was my starter and let to a TAP IN for two
Just read that the NFL has delayed the Steelers v Bills game until Monday due to a snow emergency this weekend in W New York
Never ask for help but only had the C (perp CRUELLA) for “Hebrew Bible: Var” How could that fit with a variant of what I ASSmed was Talmud ? So asked DW who teaches a Bible study She said the correct answer should be TANAHK or (var) TANACH. so having finished only about 2/3 of the puzzle and cheated anyway decided to pack it in. 🙄
Inkovers: thick/MIDST, hosts/CASTS. outrageous/OFFTHEWALL, spirit/hope/MIDST
Hadda really think outside the box for “Hotel bar” also had TaPIN. “Karha” ?
Emmanuel AX. Who?? AX: as for a concert hall fire or LOSE an off-key first violinist 🎻😖 is what I thunk .
“La Fanciulla ( fahn-CHOOL-lah) del West” or Eng: “The Girl of the Golden West”.. (word for “girl” is “ragazza” but fanciulla is more poetic like “maiden”) a Puccini opera set in gold rush California.
Thought the dragon was the “symbol of Wales” (hey that flag has a dragon on it not a LEEK!)
😌 Low, middle, and haikudos to all who completed this humdinger 👏
Hand up this was really, really difficult. Many unknown proper names. Some of which crossed each other. But I did appreciate that much of the difficulty came from clever clues and I think that is fair.
For example, tried ALMS and FOOD before MENU. Hand up SHOW before SHAM. Hand up thought of a guitar for AX. No guitars in a concert hall. Tried to think of another INSTRUMENT that could be an AX. Not happy to find it was a proper name crossed with another proper name. I am a fan of SANTANA and even have seen him perform. Never heard of that song MARIA MARIA. Not my style.
Husker Gary Hand up EXOPLANET took way too long for this astronomy club member to figure out. Very clever clue.
Proud to FIR.
These DUCKs used to visit the pool in the apartment building I once managed.
That cat looks as if the DUCKs might be GAME BIRDS for it.
From Yesterday and Today:
Whiner Thank you for your understanding. I often agree with you about what I also find to be unfair.
Sorry! My post @9:50am should have been directed to CMoe, not MalMan.
I am surprised everyone thought this puzzle was difficult, actually I am more surprised that I did not. Just on the constructors wavelength, and a lotta luck, I guess. With the exception of the Torah variation, there was a lot of stuff "I just knew." What I didn't know was perped by filling the blanks in between the known stuff. And by filling in, it was mostly "which vowel would work in this word."
So my 26 choices were cut down to 5, (and sometimes "y")
C-Eh! @ 2:05 --> no worries; I get the two of us mixed up all the time ... ;^)
Finished, but used the laptop and had red letters turned on. Is that a FIR or a DNF? Anyway, a difficult but clever CW. Too many names I DNK. Thanx for the entertainment, KD. Thanx too to HG for the excellent write-up. Nice to be able to see again.
Another in a series of just horrible Saturday puzzles..
And now I’m joining my friend…you don’t want to publish a decent puzzle, than I’m not going to waste my time.
Gosh, after reading how so many of you enjoyed this puzzle, I hesitate to admit I did not enjoy it much. Hard to put my finger on it, but I think I was once again put off by some clues that just seemed too stretched and too cutesy, and, as always, by the proper names. Nevertheless, I do think it is a well-constructed puzzle and shows that Kyle Dolan put a lot of thought and effort into making it.
Good to read all your comments.
UncleFred @ 3:16 ~ In my solving lexicon, that would be a FWH, Finished With Help. Glad to hear you're improving after your lengthy healing ordeal.
I just couldn’t finish this. Too many rather long proper names I didn’t know, as well as some short ones. I surprised myself, there’s a reflexive properly used, at guessing EMANUEL; I happened to have just enough letters filled for the name to pop up.
Not enough of those serendipity finds however.
Thanks for HG’s recap. That helped,
I filled -er with some difficulty. Thank you red letters. Lot of unknowns. Steph Curry is my current favorite NBA player so I tried him first expecting it to be wrong. Yay, it's right! Y'all have named most of the rest of my hang-ups.
I drink lots of milk but had no idea the whole/ONE PERCENT was about milk until Gary said it. I'm a 2%ER. Thank you, Gary.
3 DEGREES out today. I was so sleepy all day I finally decided I must have used up all the oxygen in the indoor air these cold days. Opened some windows and let the cold air blow thru in this afternoon's sunshine. Surprisingly, it did help recharge my battery.
Thanx for the good wishes, IM. And, with your permission, I will be using your FWH in the future; sounds like a good description of many of my efforts.
Well, at least now I understand that Capital One commercial with Taylor Swift. Thanks, H-Gary! Nice instrumental. Shall we dance?
I’m game, Renee!
Uh, BTW, this is HG!
Hi All!
IM - You are NOT alone! //and well posted!
Kyle OWNed me again and many of my fills were way off!
Thanks for the answers and wonderful expo, HG.
Wrong fill:
YOU'RE it (Tag)
THINK of it (35a)
ALMOND MILK (Wole alternative)
OUTLANDISH
Was it SAND dollars? No, tool long. Sea shells? To short and I liked fill for RITA & CLAN knowing ORC out of the gate.
Sadly, 13 never got past SAND_____S
Well, at least I got OMEN & EXOPLANETS out of the gate.
Sticker Day, Jinx? Here's the stickers on my water bottle.
//281 is one of the four area codes in Houston metro; Defcon Groups are named per area code. I'm also part of DC713. The bottom sticker reads: In my defense, I was left unsupervised.
Picard - I love the interested cat in that photo :-)
Cheers, -T
I must be the only one who tanked on 32A: "Tag word" = SMALL????
(And while I've got the soap box, what's the big fascination with Indian food under the new regime? I can think of half a dozen Lebanese food words, such as kak, mamool, sviha, kibbeh, warak, kibbeh nayee, but they seem to be verba non grata.)
Post a Comment