Saturday Themeless by Jamey Smith
Jamie knew I would be blogging his puzzle and so he sent me this note: Not that you asked for one, but here’s an updated photo of yours truly. The real star of the shot, I’m sure you’ll agree, is a certain five-letter landmark that makes regular appearances in the cross-world. Thought your readers might appreciate seeing it freed from the grid for a change. Looking forward to your full CC post.This is my ninth Saturday Themeless Puzzle of Jamey's I have blogged. He is a former Texas University employe and always supplies a puzzle full of charm and learning but today he has no sympathy for me for 27 Down as you will see.
Across:
1. Opportunity to work from home?: AT BAT - How's that for a cute start?
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| Harmon Killebrew One of C.C.'s favs |
6. News agency that covered Sputnik: TASS.
10. __-town: CHI.
13. Welcome addition: CHERRY ON TOP 😀
16. Kicked things off: LED.
17. Relic: MUSEUM PIECE - PIECES from the Apple MUSEUM all of which were "state of the art" items I owned at one time. 🤔
18. Cinnabar, e.g.: ORE - Cinnabar ORE and mercury refined from such ORE
19. Italian pronoun: ESSA.
20. Endorheic basin between Europe and Asia: CASPIAN SEA - An endorheic basin is defined as a region in which the river network is completely isolated from the world's oceans: the water flowing in the rivers never reaches the sea. Yeah, I knew that! 😀
22. "I'm Yours" singer: MRAZ - A fun listen.
25. Short getaways?: VACAYS - It would be totes adorbs to take your bae with you on a VACAY 😫
28. Source of stability: BALLAST - Loading BALLAST in the bottom of a Viking Longboat for stability
30. Run into a hitch?: ELOPE 😀
31. South Asians living abroad: DESIS.
32. On a roll: HOT.
34. Karate levels: DANS.
35. Langley, Va., campus: CIA HQ.
36. Kellerman who writes Rina Lazarus mystery novels: FAYE - “My series characters are like family to me. They actually talk to me, telling me what to write and what not to write. And when they talk, I always listen” ―
38. Fair: SUNNY.
39. Delight in: SAVOR.
40. Sequence depicting the passage of time, e.g.: MONTAGE - This is a great one whose ending has become a symbol of a city.
42. Cram: BONE UP - This weekend I have to BONE UP on finding surface areas of geometric solids so I can teach it on Monday. Derivation of the phrase
43. Former: PRIOR.
44. Orange stuff: PULP and 44. Orange stuff: PEELS. How fun!!
45. Expert in creature comforts?: GAME KEEPER 😀
48. __ Voyage: concert residency featuring avatars of a Swedish pop group: ABBA. These concerts feature virtual avatars (dubbed 'ABBAtars'), depicting the group as they appeared in 1979, and utilize the songs' re-recorded vocals from the group themselves in a studio in Sweden specifically for this show. Tickets start at £55 for this amazing experience.
52. Quarter of tetra-: UNI - 1/4 of four is one
53. Möbius strip, for one: ENDLESS LOOP - I loved making these with kids. We traced with a pencil and wound up right back where we started with a line on both sides of the strip without lifting the pencil.
55. With 57-Across, unleash: LET 57. See 55-Across: FLY.
56. Secretive state: STEALTH MODE.
58. Hill workers: ANTS.
59. County south of Suffolk: ESSEX.
In Massachusetts it is the other way around:
Down:
1. Do-It Yourself Tornado Kit company: ACME.
2. "It follows ... ": THUS.
3. White House resident between Eleanor and Mamie: BESS - Mrs. Truman
4. Tour guides?: AREA MAPS.
6. Utah's state gem: TOPAZ - TOPAZ Mountain in western Utah
7. French cordial flavoring: ANIS.
10. Narrow escape: CLOSE SHAVE.
11. "I raise my glass": HERE'S TO YOU.
12. Inkling: IDEA.
14. Places that might have pool queues: YMCAS 😀
15. Cultured set: PEARLS.
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| Real PEARLS feel slightly rough fake ones feel very smooth |
23. Barley kin: RYE.
25. Rig __: Sanskrit text with more than 1,000 hymns: VEDA - More info
26. Security hub: ALARM PANEL.
27. Sheepishness?: CONFORMITY - Wow, Jamey, this is off the charts for trickery! 😳 I told him that and he replied, As for 27-D, all I will say is … baa!
28. "Moneyball" figure Billy: BEANE - Billy BEANE was a radical general manager of the Oakland A's and Brad Pitt played him in this great "inside baseball" movie.
29. Wan: ASHY.
31. [That's right!]: DING 😀
31. [That's right!]: DING 😀
33. U. of Maryland player: TERP - Short for terrapin
35. Ocho x cinco: CUARENTA - Si trabaja ocho horas a cinco dólares la hora, ganará CUARENTA dólares (If you work eight hours for five dollar per hour, you will make forty dollars)
36. Trees with pinwheel-like leaves: FAN PALMS.
38. Feeds: STOKES.
39. Step on the scale?: SOL - SO(L) a needle pulling thread, LA a note to follow SO(L)...
41. German "Fat chance!": NIE.
42. Rupture: BURST.
45. Chasm: GULF.
46. Brolin who plays Mia on "Yellowstone": EDEN - Daughter of actor Josh Brolin and Alice Adair.
47. __ du jour: PLAT.
49. Runs off the stage?: BOOS 😀
50. Presage: BODE.
51. Culmination: APEX.
54. __ shed: SHE - 25 more
32 comments:
The hardest thing for me to get, in this very challenging puzzle, was the word “Desis.” After all, the perp could have been “zing” or “ring” or “ting,” etc. But I (eventually) picked the right one. There were other difficulties, too. The Spanish number, the mystery writer, etc. But through P&P I eventually came up a winner. FIR, so I’m happy, not to mention relieved!
Took 24:04 today, and I guessed wrong at the crossing of Ve_a & _ans.
So, unlike our good friend (and early bird) SubG, I am not happy.
I guess I need to "bone up" on my Sanskrit, karate, as well as, Spanish (cuarenta), French (plat & anis), German (nie), Italian (essa), South Asians living abroad, and counties bordering Suffolk. Not a fan of any of those clues/answers.
As usual, I didn't know today's actress, nor did I know today's writer (nor who she writes).
I hope you all did better than I did today.
Things started off well. After only a few minutes I had half the grid filled. Then I hit an impenetrable brick fall. Only with the help of red letters and endless alphabet runs was I able to finish.
DNF, TITT after completing 24, 19 correctly.
Today is:
NATIONAL CRAB MEAT DAY (Florida stone crabs are great, and the crab doesn’t even have to die to feed us)
NATIONAL MEATBALL DAY (if this celebrates all things Italian, I’m all in)
NATIONAL GET OVER IT DAY (I was gonna link that awful earworm from Frozen, but was afraid you’d never get over it)
One of my errors was josh instead of EDEN. But I got ABBA, which was autofill after filtering "Swedish pop group" from some distracting text. I got ORE right, but couldn't figure out how that tied in to Cinnabon. Oh. I got ESSEX, even though Gates County, NC is south of Suffolk, VA. I only know SHE shed from the TV insurance commercials when one burns down.
I once had an instructor who described a Mobius strip as a "one-sided piece of paper."
Oh well, another Saturday. Congrats to the Cornerites who FIRed this challenge.
Enjoyed the challenge that Jamey had for us today - finished with P&P for sure!
I started with unending LOOP since I had the first n- but then had to change to ENDLESS LOOP- I always found something so simple yet so complex at the same time!
The STEALTH bomber's home is just an hour away at Whiteman AFB - Fun that (weather permitting) they always fly a training run to coincide with a flyover at the Rose Parade on Jan.1rst.
Cute clue for the pool queues- with YMCAS - thought of CC with her growing swim prowess
Thanks HG for another fun blog - the "Rocky" and ABBA songs will vie for my earworms today
DNF. The SW area did me in. I just couldn't see montage and prior for the life of me. After trying all different scenarios I just threw in the towel.
Better luck next Saturday.
Good Morning:
I finished w/o help in 53:00, aided by a deep reservoir of P and P. Although there were many positives, i.e., lots of sparkling fill, no junk, and a modest (14) TLW count, the solve itself was diminished, for me, by the inordinate number of too cutesy clues. Of course, this is a very subjective determination, one which is at odds with HG, as noted by the many 😀 throughout his review. In addition, there were several completely unknown entries which could have used some helpful footholds, by way of less obtuse cluing. As I have said many times, I welcome and enjoy challenging and difficult puzzles, but they should be fun and satisfying to solve, not an exercise in frustration and annoyance.
Thanks, Jamey, and thanks, HG, for the usual bright and cheerful analysis. Enjoyed the Rocky and ABBA music, and all of the great photos.
Have a great day.
This was really hard. Mostly fair, but who ever heard of MRAZ? That FAYE? That EDEN? I guess I am the only one who tried SOUP before PLAT. I have many friends who are DESIS, so that was easy. But cross of VEDA/DANS was last for me to fill. Very proud to FIR after a lot of rounds.
Here I tested out my new drone this week by making a short clip of me on my UNIcycle.
My dentist is an avid hiker and he showed me videos he had made in remote areas of Utah using this drone. I was impressed.
FIR on paper, no cheating. The central area was last to fill: I have zero interest in team sports (BEANE) and in spite of living in multicultural Los Angeles, never encountered the term DESIS for South Asians. Nevertheless, DING DING DING! ¡Cien por ciento para mí! Gracias, Jamey, Patti, and HG!
Anon @7:22 AM You just did. And all it cost you was 24 minutes.😃
Picard @10:23 AM I too start my dinners with SOUP before the special. 😀
Has anyone else noted the lack of “participation” on Saturdays?
Gee…I wonder why?
Way above my pay grade today. I'll echo Irish Miss on this one, (without the DING! or ta-DA!) Had to finally TITT.
To say this was a bit of a struggle is an understatement, but I trudged along and w/o help managed a FIR in 52:41, barely beating IM☘️ time of 53:00 (not that it’s a contest or anything 🤣). Typical Saturday though as the first pass through the grid only yielded a few answers that I knew were most likely right. CIAHQ stumped me for awhile as I equated campus with university, but I sussed it out when SOCIAL IQ fell, last fill was an a-run to get the “d” in the Veda/dans cross. MRAZ was unknown, I thought it may be MR AZ, but I was confusing him with professional wrestler MR ASS. Learned a few things along the way, endorheic (spell check never heard of it either), CUARENTA (Solo puedo contar haste diez en Espanol). The only Kellerman I knew was Sally. Thank you Jamey for the very challenging puzzle!
HG ~ thanks for your very illustrative expo today! I remember reading about the mobius strip so I made one, figured I’d stump my Algebra teacher and asked him how many sides did the paper have, he knew. BTW, the email link in my Corner profile is not my primary one, so I didn’t see your request for “shelvies” until yesterday, otherwise I’d have sent you a pic.
A Saturday FIR gives one a sense of accomplishment. Too bad I fell short today. By the time of my TITT there still remained a fair amount of white space.
Nevertheless, I enjoyed Jamey's clever workmanship before I had to cry uncle.
Fun aspects of the puzzle for me:
--44A and 44D with the identical clue.
--bringing in a Mobius strip, which I love to demonstrate in the classroom.
--the Caspian Sea, which (it goes without saying) is an endorheic basin. BUT unlike most endorheic basins, the Caspian actually does drain into the sea. I know you lie awake at night worrying about this. But yes, with some help from canals and whatnot, the Caspian actually has waterways into two seas, the Baltic and the Black. So for the shipping concerns of the five countries that border the Caspian--Russia, Iran, and three of the -stans--the Caspian is technically not landlocked.
--I'm showing my age, but Bess Truman was the first First Lady I remember.
I look forward to more Jamey Snith puzzles. How about on a Monday or Tuesday?
No precipitation here in SoCal today after rain and hail yesterday. Oh, participation! Tough puzzle with, as mentioned above, more than a few non-English words. I knew the FAYE but never heard of the MRAZ. As for the less-than-straightforward cluing, well, it is Saturday.
Another main up for SOUP avant PLAT.
Thanks Jamie for a delightful Saturday SLOG, which I nevertheless DNF -- missed it by one word.
Thanks Husker for another great review. I'm relieved to hear that I wasn't the only one whom Jamie stumped a little (see below).
Favs:
1A AT BAT. An appropriate place to start the play.
13A CHERRY ON TOP. Sweet fill!
17A MUSEUM PIECE. Got this one right away. I can identify with that sometimes.
30 ELOPE. This one escaped me for awhile.
34A DESIS. The last blank space, which I when I looked it up, was followed by a DUH! because I knew the word. My wonderful BIL is from Viet Nam, but I've never heard him called that. However I have heard him called the first person to hold the endowed JHU CHAIR OF MEDICINE. Today he and my sister will be co-hosting a baby shower for their DIL and I'm sure he will help cook and serve the food.
40A MONTAGE. Had SEASONS first but it didn't work with CUARENTE - I don't know Spanish, but 40 in French is QUARANTE so I was able to swag it (spoiler alert -- I suggest you BONE UP on your French for next Thursday's puzzle).
53A ENDLESS LOOP. This had me going round and round for awhile but it perped in after about the 3rd lap.
59A ESSEX. London's playground.
33D TERP. Short for TERRAPIN. Even this sports challenged geek knew that one.
1D ACME. Ya gotta love the guy!
Cheers
Bill
You can SEE the stealth bombers? Huh?
😁
What Jamie is saying is “ When you order apple pie for dessert in San Antone “REMEMBER THE À LA MODE!!” 🥧
TASS news agency and BESS Truman would be answers designed for us mid century “relics” ….Last time the same answer was R AND R, that tripped me up, by sticking with it.
DESIS may be a new one although probably been used before I just fergit
Two “Didn’t-quite-fits” closecall, veterinarian (GAME KEEPER, like Pat Sajak?)…. My pup would yip not ARF
ATBAT clue was clunky but funny. (“Endorheic” sounds like a medical condition.) A flight segment ✈️ is usually a leg oh wait, a “flight“ of stairs
ABBAtars really?? Mamma Mia!
Thought “Tetra“ was Greek and UNI was Latin…Italian verbs imply the pronouns so ESSA etc is rarely needed, spoken or written. “It is beautiful” = “É Bella” not “ESSA è Bella”. (Otto x cingue = quaranta). Didn’t know you hadda DANS to earn a Karate belt 🥋….
The knights who saaaay “NIE” …like Picard/Waz I was filled with “today’s “soup
Got a quick northern start on the puzzle but petered out toward the southern half and kyna lost interest. Conference completed now just a few extra day of VACAY, on Duck Key an hour or so north of Key West . Our special daughter Catherine was thrilled, got to swim with the dolphins. 🐬🐬🐬
Congrats to all who FIRed. Looking over the many clue/answers now, I never woulda 😌
Ray-O, can you drive to Duck Key? I used to spend a lot of time in nearby Key Colony Beach and its suburb Marathon. I remember there was a resort that was only accessible by boat, but don't remember exactly where. Used to be a great bar & grill that had resident pink flamingos, right across from the Swim with the Dauphins place. Unfortunately, the friend I stayed there with died without notice about 15 years ago, and I haven't been back. His widow and I didn't get along after she got drunk and wandered around our house with a hand gun, looking for an imagined intruder. The next day I evicted her, and she carried a grudge afterward.
I was a soup guy too - and not familiar with plat! Didn’t know Veda rig! Or dans, but fortunately only missed the ‘d’. As well as having bing cross with Besi’s instead of Ding!
Let's just say it was a tough day all around. Several lookups smoothed the way. Finished with help.
Thanks, Jamey and Gary for the experience.
Nothing wanted, nothing lost.
Birdie.
FIR – like our captain IM in about 53 minutes -- but not without a struggle involving 25 complaints about cluing, unknowns and a couple of absurdities. The worst was the TRU entry, clued “ur so right.” That’s so wrong.
Proper names – BEANE, BESS, TASS, ABBA, ESSEX, TERP, Dodge ARIES – got me started, and so did CASPIAN SEA, sort of. I think Jamey Smith is one of those young constructors who think it’s kosher for solvers to LIU. I think it’s kosher to google Caspian Sea but not kosher to google Endorheic, but the latter got no prominent mention in the Britannica and Wikipedia entries, so I think the clue was unfair. I also googled CIA, knowing it’s in Langley, Va., but it didn’t help; the HQ part required the SOCIAL IQ perp. Nevertheless, all you proper-name haters, I couldn’t possibly have solved this puzzle without them. I did not, however, know NIA, EDEN, and FAYE, and I needed perps to remember Jason MRAZ, who was a big star when that song was popular in the aughts, not obscure at all.
I’m usually glad to see the foreign entries many of you also dislike, but today we had a sort of French & Indian War, with ANIS, PLAT, and especially VEDA eluding me, although we have a lot of DESI friends and neighbors, so I got that one. VEDA and DANS were sort of a natick. I needed perps for ESSA and NIE. CUARENTA was a gimme for me, however.
I did like the sheepishness clue for CONFORMITY and reluctantly endorse the AT-BAT clue.
So, thanks Jamey for the challenge and HG for the analysis. By the way, my wife also went to UT-Austin, and it’s never Texas U. The former Big Eight schools, with Gary’s beloved NU, my alma mater MU, OU, and KU, are among the few schools whose adherents abbreviate them with the state name first. Indiana U. is another.
EARWORMS: They don’t get much more pervasive than “I’m Yours” and about a dozen ABBA songs, but this is the third day in a row we’ve been earwormed in the Corner. Thursday I was afraid I’d be humming the Till Eulenspiegel motif all day (thanks a heap, Bill), but that would be preferable to Friday’s Wayne Fontana entry -- “love (lo-ove) love (love) la-la-la-la-la-la.” Thanks a heap, MalMan.:)
Not my cup of tea.
Not a chance in hell that I could get close to finishing this puzzle. Just too many unknowns and foreign words I had some solid perps. I did get the NE but that was it except for a few scattered dills.
DANS, VEDA, VACAYS, MRAZ, & ESSA crossing. No PRIOR knowledge of those.
DESIS, CIAHQ, crossing BEANE & CUARENTA in the middle-nope.
ANIS, PLAT(soup wouldn't work), EDEN, FAN PALMS, SOCIAL IQ- more unknowns
CONFORMITY- really? No way.
At least I knew CASPIAN SEA
Congratulations to those who managed to complete it. With those FIFTEEN unknowns I listed, I couldn't get started.
Plenty of "Trouble in River City" clues today.
Yikes!
Anyway. Hawkes Cay Resort on Duck Key
2 hr + Drive from Miami Airport.
Teri just got back from the baby shower and said that my BIL had decorated the shower cake and hand cut paper letters for a garland revealing the baby's name hanging from the fire place: WELCOME JACKSON 🎈🎀 🎁
❤❤❤ Jackson is a great name. Congratulations! ❤❤❤
Thanks Jamey for the hope that I might get this one. Unfortunately it was another TITT Saturday for me. I recognized 1A as being a baseball reference but started with "catch" instead of AT BAT.
FAVs: PEELS x-ing PULP and Cultured set.
I read "Moneyball" but still somehow thought it was Billy BlAzE. Good grief!
Thanks to H-Gary for another CHERRY ON TOP review! Your ACME pic was fun. For CLOSE SHAVE, here's an option: Slow down!!
Aren't car belts twisted like Mobius strips so they don't wear out as fast?
I didn't see how CONFORMITY worked so thanks for that, too.
FLN. C-Echo. Got it!!
Really tough puzzle with lot of unknowns, but I red-lettered and guessed my way thru. I gave up on Friday!s after getting nothing for most of the top tier.
I was surprised that no one seems to know Faye Kellerman. She has been a favorite of mine for many years. Own most of her books. Don't like the more recent ones as well since her children are involved in the writing.
Never heard of MRAZ until I saw him on TV this week.
Hope the Sunday puzzle is doable. I really miss solving a cw every day and coming to the Corner. But I haven't lately.
Yup. It’s a Saturday.
At first look, today’s puzzle had all the traits of a TITT…but being a fan of Jason MRAZ and having familiarity with DANS (long long ago I made it to ni-dan, i.e. 2nd degree, in aikido) so I decided to tough it out, and made it through to a successful ending. Only the snazzy clueing by Jamey kept me from totally hating this puzzle — dude, just waaay too many of them furrin werds 😆 but you kept me goin’ with your pseudo-themed long fills! And props to the Husker for his usual illustrious review 👍🏽
Now I know what an endorheic (my iPhone auto-corrupt just went “endor-what??) basin is, not that this obscure bit of info will ever be useful.
ACME — good ol’ Wile E.’s go-to source for the gear to facilitate all his creative schemes to catch dinner (all I can say is he must’ve had a killer day job to pay for all that matériel!). Chuck Jones is arguably one of the most brilliant animators in the history of the biz — his plotlines and story gags are legendary. Somewhere I have a VHS tape with almost all of the Roadrunner cartoons on it, plus some of Jones’ other stuff; I wonder if the tape will still play in our old VHS machine?
My entire life I’ve been around Asians of every flavor, but have never heard the term DESIS. Still don’t grok the meaning or origin.
MalMan, you’re also a SoCal boy? I know Mssr. Picard lives in the northern reaches of our area, but from your handle I’d figured you to be a denizen of FL, not Smogopolis 😎 Cheers, mate!
====> Darren / L.A.
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