Saturday Themeless by Amie Walker
Amie Walker is an attorney/current stay-at-home parent to three little girls in Chandler, Arizona. When she’s not thinking about puzzles, she loves spending time with her family and singing in her women’s choir. Here is a picture of Amie on Jeopardy on 3/28/22.
When I did her puzzle in January, I finished the bottom first and the headed back to the top. Today I did just the opposite and you can see by the graphic, the bottom was a struggle for me. Some of the cleverness and 21st century slang gave me a real challenge.1. Exclusively: ALONE.
6. Tach readings: RPMS - My car runs so quietly that I have to look at the tach (far left) to see if the engine is still running.
6. Tach readings: RPMS - My car runs so quietly that I have to look at the tach (far left) to see if the engine is still running.
10. Annie Lennox, e.g.: SCOT - Anyone else put ALTO?
14. Spot with spotty reception, perhaps: REMOTE AREA - We got no reception in the Redwoods π
16. "Don't start with me": UH UH.
17. Chore that's a bore: MENIAL TASK.
18. __ noire: BETE.
19. "Funny or Die" segment: SKIT.
20. Dishwasher setting: RINSE.
21. Country with the largest number of Quechua speakers: PERU - 4:30 of listening
22. Time for scare tactics?: SPOOKY SEASON.
25. Sweeney of "Euphoria": SYDNEY - Famous Australian Opera House city is not "Saturday" enough
28. Deep blush shade: BERRY.
29. Indulge: HUMOR.
30. Gridiron cues: HUTS.
31. Spell: JAG.
34. Moonrise direction: EAST.
35. Signs: OMENS.
37. Caesar dressing?: TOGA π
38. __ sample: DNA - #1 and #3, you're free to go. #2, uh, we'd like a word with you.
39. Listen to: OBEY.
40. 1990s TV nerd: URKEL.
41. Cookbook verb: ROAST.
43. Belief systems: CREEDS.
44. Waffle, perhaps: ICE CREAM CONE π An ice cream vendor at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair ran out of dishes. Turns out the vendor next to him was selling thin waffles. Voila!
48. Chew toy for a naughty puppy: SHOE.
49. Unsmiling: STERN.
50. AFC East team: PATS
54. "Dance the Night" singer Dua __: LIPA - After sufficient appearances here, I have learned this name.
55. Tool for turning over a new leaf?: SALAD TONGS π
57. Fairly matched: EVEN.
58. Personal driver?: EGO BOOSTER - Your ego might make you have more personal drive
59. Second place at a math Olympiad?: TENS π Amie!
60. Fed. IDs: SSNS.
61. Bares fruit?: PEELS π
Down:
1. Plank supports: ARMS.
2. Allium cultivar: LEEK and 45. Allium cultivar: CHIVE.
 |
| The Allium Family |
3. High-end hotel chain: OMNI.
4. "Wrong": NO IT'S NOT.
5. "Should we start wo u?": ETA - When r u getting here?
6. Flood with negative replies on social media: RATIO - Learning for me. At the bottom of social media like X (formerly Twitter and other social media) there is a list of the number of comments, retweets and likes. Comments are assumed to be negative and so if the RATIO of comments to retweets plus likes is more than 2:1, it is assumed to be a bad tweet. A poster can be said to have been RATIOED if there are a lot of comments.
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| Comments = 59K, Retweets = 21K Likes = 6K. Bad RATIO |
8. Casual-chic do: MESSY BUN.
9. Collections that include tokkuri and ochoko: SAKE SETS - More
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| Serving glasses - ochokos Flask - tokkuri |
10. Disappointing: SUBPAR - Not disappointing in golf at all
11. "You gouda brie kidding me," for one?: CHEESY JOKE π
12. Closing bars: OUTRO - a short, distinct closing section at the end of something (such as a piece of music, a performance, or a news report). A complement to INTRO.
13. Country group, briefly?: THE UN π
15. Cartoon boy in a Space Cub troop: ELROY - ELROY is at the left in front of his dad George Jetson in this 60-yr-old Jetson's cartoon. Yes, I said 60 years!
23. According to: PER.
24. Some hesitations: ERS.
25. Lose: SHED.
26. 10 jiao: YUAN - It takes 10 jiao to make 1 YUAN. 1 Yuan = $0.13 or about a dime.
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| A new EV car in China costs about ¥100,000 ($13,912) |
30. "Watch it!": HEY.
32. Mellowed, perhaps: AGED.
33. Misses: GALS.
35. Loses sleep (over): OBSESSES.
36. HTML data: META TAGS - How the line above looks in HTML:
35. Loses sleep (over): <b>OBSESSES</b>.<br /><br />
37. Yoga stance also called Vrksasana (Sanskrit: ΰ€΅ृΰ€्ΰ€·ाΰ€Έΰ€¨, romanized: vαΉkαΉ£Δsana): TREE POSE.
39. One of two in a row: OAR - π This hit me like a ton of cute! An OAR is one of two that are in a row in the boat and they are used to row!
40. Samovar: URN.
42. Lots: OCEANS - The Coasters sang, "It's gonna take an OCEAN, Of calamine lotion..."
43. Airbnb listing: CONDO.
44. Key: ISLET
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| Quiet Cove Key, Florida |
46. Galia, for one: MELON.
47. "Deadliest Catch" boatload: CRABS.
51. Fee for a card-carrying member?: ANTE - π He had to ANTE but is only carrying these lousy cards
52. Neutrogena product: TGEL.
53. Much of E. Europe, once: SSRS.
56. Exceed: TOP.
Once I did an alphabet run, and came up with “yuan,” things started falling into place. And once I replaced “the US” with “the UN,” that helped, too. So, through little “tweaks” like these and lots of P&P, I managed to solve this challenging puzzle without help. FIR, so I’m happy.
ReplyDeleteDNF, filling 53 entries. All correct except for jets instead of PATS.
ReplyDeleteToday is:
KENTUCKY DERBY (the best -lookin’ fillies in Louisville today ain’t three year olds)
NATIONAL PLAY OUTSIDE DAY (my favorite outdoor play is The Stephen Foster Story, held throughout the summer in Bardstown, KY)
NATIONAL SELF-EMPLOYED DAY Crossword fill BTO sang “If you ever get annoyed, look at me, I'm self-employed - I love to work at nothing all day” in their hit Takin’ Care of Business.
NATIONAL FITNESS DAY (by now, almost all of the New Years resolutions on fitness have been abandoned)
FREE COMIC BOOK DAY (marked every year on the nearest Saturday to the release of the first Spider Man movie, May 3 2002)
NATIONAL BOMBSHELLS' DAY (encourages women to celebrate themselves and their best friends. I don’t think “best friends” means their dogs, but it should)
NATIONAL START SEEING MONARCHS DAY (our local uni, Old Dominion, changed their mascot from Braves to Monarchs in 2002. But not for the beautiful butterfly that transitions the area every year, they adopted the name from our former masters in England)
BIRD DAY (isn’t having “bird day” on “monarchs day” like having “sharks day” on “surfers day?”
NATIONAL WEATHER OBSERVERS DAY (I am in awe of those brave idiots that chase tornadoes)
JOIN HANDS DAY (sure. A little PDA never hurt anyone)
NATIONAL CANDIED ORANGE PEEL DAY (really? Are these a thing?)
NATIONAL ORANGE JUICE DAY (OJ – America’s favorite multiple killer)
NATIONAL HOMEBREW DAY (never had homebrew beer that I liked, but we used the term to be the ham radio equivalent of “baked from scratch”)
NATIONAL SCRAPBOOK DAY (cut and paste are done much easier digitally)
NATIONAL RENEWAL DAY (Whether we choose to refresh our souls or replace our old rugs with new, we are charged with setting to work polishing up our state of being)
Not making the cut: Star Wars Day (MAY the FOURTH be with you,) and Garden Nekkid Day.
Hey Gary, it's not just some guy who invented the waffle cone. It was Norfolk's own Abe Doumar. The drive-in he opened here is still open, and still uses the four-waffle iron he created.
I was gonna complain about PATS not being the name of a team, but AFC makes it OK, I guess. But isn't AFC an acronym, while PATS is an abbreviation? Constructic license, I guess.
Thanks to Amie for letting me play with the smart kids for a while, and to H.Gary for another outstanding review.
Per Oxford: acronym is “an abbreviation that is pronounced as a word” - so pats is both, while AFC is just abbreviation - for what by the way (I’m not into fb)
DeleteAmerican Football Conference
DeleteDNF. I didn't know Sydney (of course it had to be a proper name, grrrrr) and for the life of me could not see "dms are open" or "DNA".
ReplyDeleteThis was a real workout which is to be expected on a Saturday. I felt good when I sat back and saw most of the white squares filled in. I even threw down "remote area" without a thought. But for one proper name, I went down in flames.
Nope. This one was WAY above my pay grade. On the plus side, I learned tons of stuff, like Annie Lennox is from Scotland and…um…
ReplyDeleteGood Morning:
ReplyDeleteI finished w/o help in 33:07, drawing upon all the P and P I could muster. This was a perfect example of a puzzle that was designed to be more difficult to solve than necessary, IMVHO. The clueing alone was too "cutesy" and over the top quasi-clever for my taste and the fill was heavily weighted toward a specific demographic, one which doesn't include me. Did common words such as Melon, Ratio, Jag, ETA, Salad Tongs, Ego Booster, Sake Sets, Ante, etc. need such obtuse and convoluted clueing? I think not, and if the constructor/editor had more closely followed the style of cluing exhibited in Caesar Dressing?=Toga and Bares Fruit?=Peels, (clever and fun) the solve would still be challenging, but far more enjoyable and satisfying.
Thank you, Amie, and thanks, HG, for the usual fun, facts, and sparkling visuals. Your calm, measured analysis is always appreciated. π
Have a great day.
I agree with you on today’s design being too “cutesy”, Irish Miss. I’m going to tag Ms Varil as Ms Obfuscate!
DeleteWaaay too obtuse, some of those clues; altho I did FIR, it was a drag, even for a Saturday…
====> Darren / L.A.
Took 14:18 today.
ReplyDeleteStruggled at the crossing of today's actress (Sydney) crossing today's Chinese lesson (Yuan), but then I remembered watching Sydney Sweeney host SNL recently.
Oar, ante, & peels were amusing clues/answers.
Ratio, messy bun, and sake sets were unknown to me.
As usual, I agree with the eloquence of Ms. Irish Miss's comments. Too much "cutesy".
This was a typical Saturday challenge with lots of goofy, groan-y cluing but slowly got'er done.
ReplyDeleteI had a few gimmes - like SS I had just seen SYDNEY Sweeney on a few shows promoting her new work.
My daughter who is now in her 30s, was in high school when the term MESSY BUNs came into frequent use.
I didn't remember Annie Lennox was a SCOT - but I should have - she was just on the program which was a tribute to Elton John & Bernie Taupin on receiving the Gershwin Prize for Popular Music by the Library of Congress that was shown on PBS.
Happy Star Wars day - thanks HG and Amie for an amusing Saturday morning
Irish Miss said it all so perfectly...cutesy, obtuse, convoluted etc. I got zero enjoyment out of this puzzle.
ReplyDeleteThank goodness for IM☘️ who so aptly said what I felt, now I don’t have to. Thank you. I fought that naughty puppy but didn’t enjoy the struggle.
ReplyDeleteYes, it wasn’t until Caesar dressing, TOGA, that I found a clue I liked.
Oh, well, today is our wedding anniversary 60 years. Unbelievable.
You are only 5 years ahead of my wife and I, but we are closing fast. Congrats, and many more.
DeleteMonkey @ 9:39 ~ Congratulations on achieving the admirable milestone of 60 years of marriage! Best wishes to you and DH for a joyous and memorable celebration today! πππ₯π©❤️π¨ππ
ReplyDeleteGot it done with Google help. Didn't know Ms. Sweeny. Also tried SAKEcupS which morphed into SAKESETS. The plank ARMS got me out of a jam in the NW. Had to go from UHno to UHUH yo finish the NE.
ReplyDeleteI am also with IM and Anon@9:23 about cutesy, quasi-clever obtuse, etc for clues.
Every once in a while it is nice to have someone who cares.
Report.
I really should wave the flag for HG and Amie for their fine work and dis Patti for her clue obfuscation.
DeleteI'm not convinced that the constructor and editor of this puzzle had the best interests of the solver in mind. It was as if they decided, well, it's a Saturday, so let's give our solvers a load of codswallop and be as cutesy and incomprehensible as we can be.
DeleteSee Irish Miss's 8:37 comments. That's pretty much how I feel.
Kudos to those who FIR or even got close. I TTIT after two passes. Above my pay grade.
ReplyDeleteToo many words in both the clues and fills I had no prior knowledge of. "Funny or Die", Euphoria or SYDNEY, Allium, wo u, whatever RATIO has to do with Flood, Jape, OUTRO (I've played piano, trumpet, and baritone horn and never heard that term), jiao, DMS ARE OPEN, META TAGS, Vrksasana or TREE POSE, GALIA.
Wanted HEX for JAG (unknown). CATER for HUMOR. JETS for PATS.
Catch you later.
This was a very perp-dependent FIR, largely because of the obtuse cluing, that required a lot of grunting and straining to git her done. It was an odd mix of good and bad.
ReplyDeletePerps gave me SPOOKY SEASON (is that a thing or a puzzle contrivance?), “DMS ARE OPEN,” and the verb version of RATIO. Putrid stuff. I also found turning over a “new leaf” making a salad was lame, and I predictably disliked UH-UH and ETA as clued. I came up with HUT easily enough but thought it unfair to others. TREE POSE was a WAG; I’m not much for these yoga terms.
I did like some of the overly-cutesy cluing, such as the SHOE-chew toy, PEELS, TENS place, and THE U.N., as well as OUTRO (although I thought that was kind of like HUT for some solvers). H.G.’s OUTRO example was an excellent choice.
All in all, it was a rewarding exercise that didn’t make my sinus headache worse.
Well,you folks are finally getting around to completely spoiling the Saturday puzzle. Worst case scenario, my wife and I can usually solve the Sat. Puzzle. We didn’t even come close on this one. If the editors idea is to run off prospective solvers, they are doing a good job. Somebody also has forgotten that there are still a few men who like to solve these as well. I can’t recall ever seeing a puzzle with as many obtuse or misleading clues. I quit halfway through….and I have never done that. Where did you folks get the idea that this was what we, as solvers, wanted? Need i say, you have highly taken the fun out out what used to be a pleiasant experience, even wnen they were tough. Shame, shame
ReplyDeleteHand up definitely a challenge. BERRY could be quite a range of SHADEs, depending on what kind of BERRY. Hand up no idea about that SYDNEY. Learning moment about unknown GALIA MELON. Anything involving phones and texting is alien to me. Even though we were just in Japan and drank SAKE, we did not learn those SAKE SETS words. Learning moment.
ReplyDeleteHusker Gary Thank you for explaining RATIO. It still makes no sense. When I comment, it is often for praise. Thank you for the learning moment about WAFFLE CONEs!
Last to fill was the NW with MENIAL (not MENTAL) TASK. Very proud to FIR.
Does this SΕrin remind you of the antenna seen on the helmet of ELROY?
Every time I saw one of these as we travelled around Japan, I thought of the Jetsons and/or a lightning rod or other electrical equipment. Is it just me? They are usually atop Buddhist and/or Shinto pagodas.
I have never been a big fan of, nor a follower of, the Star Wars franchise but it certainly has undeniably added to the culture and I am not a "disliker". So, Happy Star Wars Day to those who celebrate! May the 4th Be With You!
ReplyDeleteChallenging but interesting Saturday puzzle, many thanks Amie. And you too, Husker Gary, for your helpful commentary.
ReplyDeleteThis puzzle started off a bit negatively--no one wants to live ALONE in a REMOTE AREA, with a lot of MENIAL TASKs to do. Makes this a pretty SPOOKY SEASON, in my opinion. But then there was a hint that we might get some HUMOR and some good OMENS, and a hint that there was even some good food on the way with a ROAST, and a salad with some SALAD TONGS and even an ICE CREAM CONE. We can live with that, can't we? So it all ended well with an EGO BOOSTER, and that was a big help.
Have a great weekend, everybody!
I'll have to Echo IM on this one. The arcane clues seem to have originated in a galaxy far, far away. Suck. ed the fun right into a black hole! Kept at it for too long before finally TITT.
ReplyDeleteFLN: FIW by one letter, but was too busy to bore everybody with why. I did get the theme.
ReplyDeleteTODAY: Thank you Amie, for a real struggle, but one with which my heroic wife helped me to prevail. I spent over an hour on it and abandoned it to a sea of white. But as I went upstairs to work on next Thursday's puzzle I asked Teri to take a look. I came down 2 hours latter and she had finished all but the mid-WEST, leaving me to SWAG 25A SYDNEY giving me the perps to finish.
And thank you Husker for confirming all of our fill, while explaining it beautifully.
A few favs (very few -- a nap feels imminent!):
10A SCOT. Didn't fall for ALTO trap and I knew BETE, but couldn't make anything work in the NE. Teri figured out THE UN and filled in the rest.
44A ICE CREAM CONE. Where Teri started to break the log jam.
49A TENS. I think Teri got this with perps, but I didn't understand it til Husker 'splained it.
2D LEEK & CHIVE. Two for the price of one.
11D CHEESY JOKE. Cute!
27D DMS ARE OPEN. Had IMS, but it didn't work with SYDNEY. FWIW, even though I'm an OPERA lover I'm glad Amie came up with this clue instead. π
39D OAR. When the light bulb when off I had the same reaction as Gary.
Cheers,
Bill
p.s. to Irish Miss -- this is one of those that required "Patience & Perseverance".
FIR on paper, no cheating, but needed a long break before I could WAG SYDNEY and complete DMS ARE OPEN. Never heard of either one, nor RATIO as clued, nor OUTRO.
ReplyDeleteFrankly, those Allium cultivars were crucial to me!
I liked it -- very Saturday level -- and I really appreciated Husker Gary's review. Thanks especially for explaining ARMS as plank supports, and the whole DM thing. Many thanks to Amie and Patti for the workout.
HG,s smiley-faced clues were mine, too. Especiallly “Caesar dressing” and “second at a math olympiad.”
ReplyDeleteTough even for a Saturday. I did it online, w/ red letters turned on, and still needed several alphabet runs. RATIO filled with perps, and I just scratched my head. Thanx for 'slainin' it, HG. Don't understand 11D, either. How is that expression a "cheesy joke"? This CW is WAY over my ability level. I finished the fill, but with the red letters and alphabet runs, can't claim to FIR. Maybe FWH. Very tough CW. Thanx a lot for bustin' my chops, AW, ya got me. HG, thank goodness for your review. Too many things I was clueless on, even after reading the clue, and a few even after the fill. RATIO, JAG, and PRANK for JAPE come to mind. Jape? Never heard that word. I hope everyone has a good Cinco de Mayo tomorrow. Good excuse for a margarita. Or three.
ReplyDeleteI had to turn on red letters to see that HEED was wrong at 39 across. After that, I managed to complete the solve without having to look anything up. The last to fill was the G crossing JAG and GALS.
ReplyDeleteThanks to Amie for her word-play-Saturday puzzle! FIR but needed H-Gary's explanation for several of the fills already mentioned above. Several learning moments. Thanks H-Gary!
ReplyDeleteHappy 60th anniversary to Monkey ... and the Jetsons!!
NY Times crosswords are consistenly better wordplay. LA Times are not much fun anymore
ReplyDeleteunclefred: "Cheesy Lounge Singer Medley" is an arrangement our octet has stashed somewhere but never performed. The cheesy songs include "Feelings," MacArthur Park," and "What's New, Pussycat." So that's one kind of "cheesy" that would apply to a cheesy joke. Cheesy puns on actual cheeses, "gouda" and "brie," for "gotta be," are doubly cheesy.
ReplyDeleteUncleFred @ 3:40 -- adding to what Copy Editor has written above, it's possible your eyes skipped over the cheeses in the clue for 11 Down.
ReplyDeleteCopy Editor, thank you for what you wrote yesterday (Friday, May 3rd) about the T that is elided in the middle of words as pronounced by young people. You have explained the pattern so that I understand it better, and hinted at a source, which I'll have to look up. Now teachers will have to tell young readers to form the letter T by pressing the tongue behind the top teeth and then pushing air out forcefully, unless the T is followed by a vowel and the letter N, in which case, just swallow it. Isn't English hard enough already? Do you ever feel like Sisyphus pushing a heavy rock up a moun'ain?