Saturday Themeless by Wendy L. Brandes and John Lieb
Wendy is a lawyer, professor and children’s book author. Her puzzles have appeared in the Inkubator, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, Boswords and Universal Crosswords. When she is not thinking about crosswords, she can be found knitting, engaging in vicious games of Catan, or rooting on the Yankees, Rangers, Giants and Swarthmore Garnet.
John is from Philadelphia but now lives in West Roxbury, MA. where he teaches math at Roxbury Latin School. He attended The Haverford School in Haverford, PA and studied math at Williams College in Williamstown, MA.
His FaceBook page contains personal information and this wonderful picture. As for the picture, John was kind enough to write: The story of the outfit is that at my school, the day before Spring Break is a dress down/costume day, and the Elvis costume was my outfit a few years back. Fun to walk around as the King for a day...
I made good time solving Wendy and John's puzzle. I found very little drek and skated around very nicely and I'll point out some of my favs. I think our friend Irish will like the dearth of 3-letter fill: COT EOS SAT SRS SUE TEM TKO
1. __ board: ABOVE - Here it is and its opposite
6. Crab organ: GILL.
10. Rumple: MUSS.
14. 24/7, say: RATIO - The RATIO of women to men public school teachers is approximately 3:1
15. One of the Three Rivers Stadium rivers: OHIO - The stadium was named in February 1969 for its location at the confluence of the Allegheny River and Monongahela River, which forms the Ohio River. It has since been torn down.
16. Opposing: ANTI.
17. Like the lines in a Mondrian painting: CRISS CROSS - Piet Mondrian's works have sold for $50M. No, really!!
19. "Sourced from the same material" abbr.: IBID - I loathed typing footnotes and bibliographies. Word makes it easier I'm told.
20. Baseball family name: ALOU.
21. McIntosh product: APPLESAUCE - I filled in APPLESAUCE and then had to see that an "a" was not in the name of the product. 🙄
23. Make potable, as seawater: DESALT - The Carlsbad DESALt plant near San Diego makes 50 millions gallons of water per day.
25. "Buona __": SERA - Good evening in Italian
26. Letters that end a fight: TKO 😀
27. Small holes: EYELETS.
29. Cholesterol drug: STATIN.
31. Spotted: CALICO.
34. Bread in a skillet: PONE - Corn PONE bread
35. Reluctant agreement: YOU'RE NOT WRONG - I'll bet the next word in this dialogue is "but"
39. Sumptuous: LUXE - I've never used it or heard it used
41. Actress Milano: ALYSSA.
44. One who may taunt "Mom loves me best": SIBLING - Remember the recent word of nibling?
48. Pro __: TEM- Translation: "For the time being". The Vice President is the president of the Senate but in his or her absence there is a president PRO TEM. The current one is Patty Murray of Washington state.
49. Diamond appraisers?: UMPS 😀
52. Waver: TEETER.
53. "Sesame Street" song that's complete rubbish?: I LOVE TRASH.
56. __ latte: CHAI - We see CHAI so often here that I will stop adding that it is Chinese for tea
57. Added amount: MORE.
58. Threat to global stability: ROGUE STATE.
60. Viola Davis achievement, in brief: EGOT.
61. "Now!": ASAP.
62. Reduces to tiny bits: RICES.
63. Some tax IDs: SSNS.
64. Big name in salad dressing: KEN'S - We like KEN'S but we love Dorothy Lynch Dressing that is made in Columbus, NE
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| I'm not sure Dave did such a great job! |
Down:
1. Boardwalk business: ARCADE.
2. Grain used in animal feed: BARLEY.
3. Useless: OTIOSE.
4. Red and green lights, e.g.: VISUAL CUES - Some people don't pay all that much attention to those cues
5. Aurora's counterpart: EOS - Godesses of Dawn
6. Fuel for climbers: GORP Most recognize gorp to be an acronym for its four main ingredients, "granola, oats, raisins, and peanuts.
7. Places with stacks of silver dollars: I HOPS 😀 - Here's five of them
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| From the 1920's |
10. Mother of Hermes: MAIA - It (had to) filled itself in
12. Gecko's specialty: STICKING.
13. Focus of some record keepers?: SIDE ONE - It could be an alternate for A-SIDE and B-SIDE but I like this:
SIDE ONE is playing below in this two-record set with side two on the top of the upper record. When Side two finishes playing, the two records are flipped over and side three will now play which is on the back of the upper record. Side four is on the back of the lower record.
18. Source of the Dutton family's wealth on "Yellowstone": CATTLE.
22. Didn't play: SAT.
24. Part of a billionaire's jet set?: LEAR - 10 billionaires with jets more expensive than LEARS
28. Trespasses: SINS - We Congregationalists asked to have our "debts forgiven" while the Methodists across the street were doing the same with their "trespasses".
30. Furious and then some: APOPLECTIC.
32. Help in turning a double into a triple: COT 😀 We used a rollaway.
33. Beverly Cleary's "__ Spofford": OTIS.
35. Treats baked in Swiss roll pans: YULE LOGS.
37. Squirm: WRITHE.
38. __ Goldberg machine: RUBE - You figure out what it does. 😀
39. W. Coast daily: LA TIMES.
42. Jane's "Glee" role: SUE - Jane Lynch as the P.E. teacher
42. Jane's "Glee" role: SUE - Jane Lynch as the P.E. teacher
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45. End of a course in Greek literature?: ITHACA - ITHACA is the home and kingdom of Odysseus, and it is the place he most desires to return to. It represents Odysseus' love for his home, family, and an end to his long and arduous journey. Yeah, I knew that. 😗
46. More like a Marie Kondo disciple: NEATER - An organizer guru
50. Essay text: PROSE.
51. Carl who said, "We are made of star-stuff": SAGAN.
54. Checks out: VETS.
55. Takes late courses: SUPS 😀 Uh, that's meal courses.
59. Sch. team captains, often: SRS.
29 comments:
As usual, this Saturday puzzle had quite a bit of misdirection. On the other hand, I didn’t see a lot of obscure names, so I thought the puzzle was pretty fair (in more ways than one). FIR, so I’m happy.
Good morning!
With the 2d LE in place, d-o latched onto MILLET...and never let go. Bzzzzzt. On to the Wordle, Quordle, Waffle, Spelling Bee, and Connections.
This was a challenging, but very doable and thoroughly enjoyable puzzle. A wonderful way to usher in the weekend.
Pretty easy Saturday, meaning even my dumb mass was able to finish it. Finish it wrong, but finish it. Kinda gave up and settled for CrAe instead of CHAI and SCoRE instead of SCARE. Forgot how GRiEESE spelled his name, but knew it didn't end in a "y."
I wanted to call Splynter to identify the crab organ.
Hey, you pharmaceutical types - isn't STATIN a drug class, not a drug?
Hand up for thinking about that Smothers Brothers bit @ SIBLING.
I hoped that they didn't mean ERR for "help in turning a double into a triple," and they didn't.
Politics can be injected by omission as well as commission. Trump's $100 million jet didn't make today's list.
Meta LAT CSO.
Joni Mitchell:
We are stardust
Billion year old carbon
SAGAN:
We are made of star stuff
(Neither Mitchell nor SAGAN said "billions and billions," but it was funny on Johnny Carson)
Thanks to Wendy and John for the fun challenge. Maybe next time I'll FIR. And thanks to H.Gary for the interesting review.
FIR. Fairly easy compared to other Saturdays, in my opinion.
Interesting how LA Times was in this puzzle as an answer. How appropriate!
The SE gave me a little trouble. Never heard of the quarterback Bob Griese, and was unfamiliar with scare quotes. Persistence saw me through to the end.
But overall, this was an enjoyable puzzle.
This was a steady solve for a Saturday - NW was the trickiest for me
I used to get mixed up with Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh and Riverfront Stadium in Cincinatti - both on the OHIO. But now PNC Park is in the former and Great American Ball Park is in the latter - so no more confusion until they have a different sponsor down the road
I loved all the Beverly Cleary books as a kid and reading to my kids- OTIS Spofford is probably one of the lesser known characters compared to Ramona, Beezus, and Henry.
Jinx, a STATIN is a drug class but can also be used as a drug, eg I take a STATIN vs I take Lipitor (Atorvastatin)like you could say I ate an apple or I ate a Red Delicious.
Fun to see APOPLECTIC in a crossword- the word just sounds like a person looks who is that
Thanks HG for the blog and Wendy & John for the puzzle
A Yule log is made in a sheet pan. No way you can bake the log in a pan as shown. That pan is for a loaf.
Maybe there is something to all this heat, my cold blooded reptilian brain must be more active. After a not too common Friday FIR ditto for the rare Saturday. Suprised myself suddenly parsing answers with tricky oddball clues with just a few perped letters like IHOP for “stacked silver dollars” (pancakes right), “second person” LOSERS. So many WAGS were met with the same exclamation: YOURENOTWRONG!!
APOPLECTIC….Our hospital is a “stoke center”; when a patient has signs or symptoms of, a “Stroke Alert”’is called and a series of protocols and departments go into STAT mode (not ASAP). Fortunately the common term “stroke” and not the archaic medical term “Apoplexia alert” is used
Inkovers: casino/ARCADE, seesaw/TEETER, APPLEtunes/SAUCE, stinking/STICKING, (Sorry little guy)
As a kid never could figure how trespassing (like walking on someone’s lawn) could be such a major SIN”
GORP? OTIOSE? I “know” what they “are” and “mean” but “never” heard the term SCAREquotes. The “merry” month of May is named for MAIA
“Crab organ” in DW’s case it’s her tongue (c’mon I was JK!!). “Yes dear I’m finished with the puzzle and I’ll get all the items on the grocery list and then onto my other chores ASAP
Café wouldn’t work with the perp then remembered my second favorite latte drink: CHAI latte. Think I’ll make one today and chill it.
Carl SAGAN said “billions and billions” of other things too.
A comedian said the first thing she did to “Tidy Up” was to throw away Marie Kondo’s book.
A Place for a horseman’s foot….. STIRUP.
Good Queen Bess once ….. WAVER
Atolls… EYELETS
They “check out” your pets….VETS
Severe unexpected thunderstorms cooling off the heat right now. Odd, usually only happens after I’ve watered the garden. 🤨
Good Morning:
This was not quite as challenging as some Saturday puzzles, but it was one of the most enjoyable and satisfying solves that I can remember. There were some stumbles, i.e., Lush/Luxe, Hours/Ratio, Limo/Lear, and Corn/Pone, all easily corrected, and the helpful perps took care of the unknown Maia, Otis, Ithaca, and Otiose. As HG pointed out, there was no dreck and the barely noticeable seven TLWs deserves mention, as does the clever cluing and, IMO, the truly impressive fill, both in quality and quantity: Apoplectic, Oxymoron, Unbutton, Yule Logs, Apple Sauce, Rogue State, Criss Cross, Visual Cues, You're Not Wrong, I Love Trash, etc.
Congrats and Bravo, Wendy and John, for creating this gem of an offering and I hope for an encore very soon, and thanks, HG, for the usual fun review and eye-pleasing visuals. Thanks, also, for the mini bios of our two illustrious constructors.
FLN
Moe, wishing you peace and solace. 🙏
Have a great day.
Macintosh pushed me towards computer products an I entered
MACBOOKAIR. It fit but soon proved wrong.
Nope. This one was not even close to my wheelhouse. Lost interest and tossed the towel. "NOW" does NOT mean ASAP, and stop calling me Shirley!
FIR by the skin of my teeth! The first corner (NW) was last to fall. A good number of unknowns for me: Three Rivers Stadium, SCARE quotes, MAIA, Spofford, SUE, and GRIESE.
OTOH, I loved getting my first long answer with I LOVE TRASH, and also loved APOPLECTIC and OXYMORON.
Many thanks to Wendy, John, and Patti for an enjoyable challenge, and to Husker Gary for cheerfully explaining and illustrating it all.
Yes, lots of misdirection especially on the west side with the 24/7 and "Night of the Living Dead" clues. I was almost ready to comment that an ERRor does not turn a double into a triple but then groked the sleeping arrangement reference. Had CAFE and LUSH before CHAI and LUXE. Ultimately, everything fell into place.
Shirley, I've been griping about the usage of ASAP since back in the Rich Norris editing days. I've finally given up. I used to tell my prospective project managers that asking a teammate to do something ASAP was one small notch better than saying "don't bother."
Ray-O, your DW must not peruse The Corner; else we'd be calling the coroner.
Moe, be kind to yourself.
It felt good to get back on the FIR track after my FIWs on Thursday and Friday, especially considering this puzzle was the most demanding of the three.
Two or three brilliant clues stymied me for quite a while, especially the double-into-a-triple clue for COT and the “stacks of silver dollars” for IHOPS. I also liked “diamond appraisers” for UMPS. APPLESAUCE turned out to be amusing misdirection, and OXYMORON feels amusing in retrospect, although the word “element” in the clue threw me.
Those assets offset three or four, well, not-so-brilliant clues. “Second-person” as a synonym for LOSER is not clever, and 24/7 is a pretty obscure RATIO. I’m not familiar with KEN’S salad dressing, so for me it was not a big name, not literally or figuratively. ITHACA, YULE LOGS, and MAIA were among the impediments. I was chagrined that I didn’t know a Beverly Cleary character prominent enough for puzzle mention (and Wikipedia questions whether he is in fact prominent). Most of her books were set in my hometown, Portland, and I read the Henry Huggins books and the early Beezus/Ramona material in my yute. I’ve even spent time on the real Klickitat Street.
The ALOU family, ALYSSA, APOPLECTIC,OHIO River, LISLE, PONE, EGOT, GORP, AMTRAK, SAGAN, and, of course L.A. TIMES helped me. The GRIESE family helped me, too. Those who don’t believe 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy is the real deal aren’t reckoning with his resemblance to Bob, whose son Brian Griese is the 49ers’ quarterbacks coach.
Bombed out today. Started with EMERY and MILLET and it went downhill from there.
24/7 a RATIO? It's 3.42857. 24:7 is a ratio. Too many wrong guesses and unknowns to back out of and words you've heard but really don't know what they mean.
In addition to emery and millet I tried HOURS, LUSH, CAFE (I don't drink tea or coffee). OTIS, SUE, ALYESA, SCARE quotes, ITHACA, MAIA were unknowns and not filled. I never bothered to find out what OTIOSE or APOPLECTIC meant. Too sesquipedalian for this RUBE.
COT-Never heard of the triple bed. Maybe triple occupancy.
I knew the Macintosh was APPLE something either to eat or use as a computer.
I thought YULE LOGS were in the fireplace? Duh. Swiss roll pans- never heard of them.
STATIN is a class of drugs- Lipitor, Crestor, Pravachol.
Trump's jet is a Boeing 757 but somehow didn't make that list. A wee bit larger than a LEAR.
I only had to look up Beverly Cleary to solve this puzzle.
LUSH --> LUXE.
CLAW --> GILL.
STAT --> ASAP.
OUIJA --> ABOVE.
I learned that DESALT is actually a word.
CHAI is Hindi for tea. The Chinese word is CHA.
Good reading you all.
Don't think you'll hear ASAP yelled in a triage unit. "Now" = "STAT!". Period.
Everyone seemed to enjoy this one. I didn’t.
Most everyone.
This the last post an OXYMORON?
The NW ate me up (I had hover, ouija, emery - but not above board!); never heard of oriole, don’t watch Yellowstone, had millet from emery board at first, so only Alou was helping! I don’t know Otis, and would certainly argue that a cot doesn’t really turn a double into a triple as they are separate beds. Normal challenging fun besides those.
The cot turns a double ROOM into a triple room.
Big E @ 1:07 something bothered me about 24/7 also unless it was meant to mean a fraction. It usually means 24 hrs a day for 7 days. As you pointed out a ratio would be 24:7..twenty four to seven, like odds.
Odysseus’s “course” in ITHACA was a class in Ancient Greek History at Cornell Universiy
Copy E @ 3:55…now I get the COT answer. Clever.
Oops gotta run forgot to buy milk
That was a terribly good one, Prof. M !
Hola!
Though I started this early it was interrupted by a visit from my friend, Kathy, and when we are together we spend lots of time discussing things, solving world problems, and talking about family matters. All in all, a good visit but it prolonged my solve.
This was much more fun than the usual Saturday puzzles. Thank you, Wendy and John. My first thought, too, was OUIJA board but mentally filling the downs I saw the error and filled ABOVE then the downward fill became clear. OTIOSE surprised me and although ALOU used to be common fill we haven't seen that name in a long while.
ALYSSA really helped with the SW corner but had to erase LUSH for LUXE and was surprised to see OXYMORON fill.
AMTRAK. I have only good memories of our ride on AMTRAK when we returned from Canada to Seattle on a long ago trip.
There is a GECKO or some kind of lizard that lives in my patio. I see it gently hopping along the wall especially after I've watered the plants.
Luckily GRIESE was filled by perps. No sports for me. Long ago I knew a family named GRIESGRABER.
I love the word APOPOPLECTIC!
I hope you are all enjoying a pleasant day today!
I'm with Charlie-Echo -- I think the problem here is that the universes don't mesh. One example was "Second person plural?", when there is no visible or invisible connection with losing. (This may be due too much Latin in the 9th and 10th grades -- and later Russian which is equally ruthless in the area). Ditto for 'cots' and actresses and glitterati in general.
i forgot to mention how I knew LISLE. When I first decided to enter the Convent I was sent a list of what clothing, etc. to take and one of the items was LISLE stockings of which I had never heard before. I don't recall how I discovered about them but very likely I asked at a store. They are really ugly, tan hose.
Good challenge for a Saturday (altho yesterday’s was equally as befuddling). Never heard of the process being called DESALT; I’d always know it as “desalination”, but I get it.
I’m with @Ray-O on 24/7; it ain’t a ratio, because as I was taught in Old Math, ratios need a colon, not a slash (there’s an off-color joke in there somewhere, I’m sure…). And hand up for “lush” instead of LUXE — until OXYMORON set me straight.
Btw, speaking of OXYMORON, props to Wendy and John for managing to stick that, VISUAL CLUES, APOPLECTIC, YOU’RE NOT WRONG, ROGUE STATE and I LOVE TRASH all in one grid! It deserves the EGOT for crossword puzzle construction’
====> Darren / L.A.
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