Saturday Themeless by Emily Biegas
After last Saturday's cake walk, the karma fairy got me today as obscure names abounded. While the NW corner appears fun looking back, it caused had some real difficulty for me.
Sometimes you are on the constructors wavelength but this time I had trouble seeing where Emily (or Patti) was going in certain places until my doggedness got me to the end..
1. Groundbreaking: EDGY - I definitely think this was groundbreaking/EDGY TV. I remember thinking, "I can't believe they just said that! It'a about time somebody did."
5. Nae sayer: SCOT
9. Hosp. area: PRE-OP.
14. Do-re-mi: SIMOLEONS - Slang3. Do-re-mi is slang for dough meaning money.
SIMOLEONS is also slang for money! A blend of simon (dollar) from simon (sixpence coin) (17th century British slang), and Napoleon (“French gold coin worth 20 francs, bearing the image of Napoleon III"). Peportmanteau. 🤔
16. Beard dye in some cultures: HENNA.
16. Beard dye in some cultures: HENNA.
 |
| A Bengali Man |
17. Boiling point?: TEA KETTLE 😀
18. Tore: RACED.
19. Vouch for: ATTEST TO.
20. __ rock: YACHT - Soft rock of the 70's and 80's Pick from this list for listening
21. Enduring style?: SLOW FASHION - New to me but makes sense
24. Shared surname in cinema: COEN - My first thought
26. Extended time off, briefly: LOA - Leave Of Absence
27. Checkpoint container: BIN - At a DMV checkpoint this week, I was told to take my 1 1/2" Swiss Army knife back out to my car.
28. Tony Gwynn's "The __ of Hitting": ART - Written by the man who had 3141 hits in his 20-yr MLB career
29. "Mental Illness" Grammy winner: MANN - MANN's on the bench: Educator Horace, Singer Manfred, Jazz flautist Herbie, Field of Dream's Terrence.
30. "Genius!": THAT'S A GREAT IDEA - Hey, let's change the formula for Coke! 🙄
35. "Calm down": EASY.
36. Coldwater breed that originated in Niigata, Japan: KOI.
 |
| A KOI farm in Niigata |
37. Funds to supplement HDHPs: HSA - A Health Savings Account can help with a High Deductible Health Plan
38. Spots: ADS.
39. Sloth, for one: SIN.
40. Oreo __ cake: DIRT.
42. French Laundry offering: TASTING MENU.
45. Tibetan singing __: BOWLS - How about a meditation session with them?
46. Over the line, in a way: OFFSIDES - Although seldom called, being over the line by 6" cost the Chiefs a touchdown on this amazing fourth quarter trick play.
51. Monk who won the 2017 Jerry West Award: MALIK.
52. Window on the house: FREE TRIAL - A window denotes how long you get a FREE TRIAL (on the house) 🤔
53. Cut off: ALONE.
54. Seasonal salutation: DEAR SANTA - Ho, Ho, Ho!
55. Elizabeth of "Love & Death": OLSEN.
56. Extra social media accounts, casually: ALTS - Alternates
57. Likely to root around in someone else's medicine cabinet: NOSY.
Down:
1. Spanish pronoun: ESTA - Esta computadora Macbook Pro es mÃa
2. Soft drink option: DIET.
3. B-school entry req.: GMAT - Graduate Management Admissions Test. Used for admission in some Business Schools.
4. Bind: YOKE 😀
5. Finalize: SETTLE.
6. Part of many a linen blend: COTTON.
7. Simmering: ON LOW 😀
8. "Sweeney Agonistes" monogram: TSE.
9. Musical sentence: PHRASE - Nobody did it better.
10. Get a hold of: REACH.
11. Whole food?: ENCHILADA 😀
12. Arnold Palmer ratio: ONE TO ONE.
15. "__ in Chemistry": Bonnie Garmus novel: LESSONS.
20. Crimean resort: YALTA - The Big Three discuss the shape of the post-war world in 1945. FR died two months later.
22. Food: FARE.
23. Gran: NANA.
24. Eugene or Gary: CITY 😀
27. Low points of some performances: BASS SOLOS 😀
28. "Midsommar" filmmaker Aster: ARI.
29. Air drops?: MIST.
30. Udder part: TEAT.
31. Whooped it up: HAD A BALL.
32. Zoë who won a Pulitzer Prize for the 1935 play "The Old Maid": AKINS.
33. Mallet target: GONG.
34. Hip-strengthening exercises: THRUSTS.
39. __ tofu: SILKEN.
41. Gathers: INFERS.
43. Jute binder: TWINE.
44. Mushroom hunter's prize: MOREL.
47. 1979 revolution site: IRAN.
48. Critter on some pj's: DINO.
49. Brunches, say: EATS 😀 - Brunches as a verb
50. Crush it, informally: SLAY - Here George Carlin SLAYS Johnny Carson with a bit that SLAYED me
42 comments:
Another Saturday.
Another day of getting completely stumped and turning on the red letters. Another solve, but not without help. And another day of being happy to be here with all you folks, and seeing, once again, if you did better than I did. Subgenius out!
Returned this one to the recycling bin for NSF (non-sufficient fun) after filling 10, half correctly. I got IRAN, EATS, NOSY, FDA, EASY, and, of course, TEAT.
FLN - Picard, I know I'm not the only Cornerite who always start the day by looking at the late posts from last night. Thanks for the tattoo taboo information. I must say that I've seen some tattoos that are quite fetching. How they will look when the "canvass" is 30 years older is anyone's speculation, but that's part of the fun. (I'll remain piercing and tattoo free, thank you very much.)
Bailed out early on this one. Fortunately I have a root canal coming up on Tuesday, which will almost certainly be more fun than this puzzle was.
Well I never hit pay DIRT on this one, even after giving it a rest for a while and coming back I went down in DEFEAT. The French Tibetan Monk tofu Zoe in the SW area stymied me, too many blank spaces to even try to WAG, so it was the dreaded DNF today. I did get about 85% correct (thank you perps, SIMOLEONS??? do-re-mi is $$?) so it wasn’t a total failure. Kudos to those who get the whole ENCHILADA (I did like the clue for that). Thank you for the challenge today Emily and Patti, I enjoyed it even though I wasn’t quite up to the task.
Anon SS ~ Zoe @ 32D may be in the running for worst clue of the week.
HG ~ your review made for a nice read after today’s struggle, I remind myself of your mantra, “It’s a game not a test”. Smithwick’s is a good red Irish ALE if you’re a beer drinker.
FLN - IM☘️ ~ Miss Chatterbox?? I don’t know if I’d have let that one out, nicknames have a way of sticking 🤣😂.
Took 30:46 today for me to slog my way through this. I was tempted by the sirens of the red letters because this one seemed to cry out for help, but I held steadfast.
Not particularly fun, but definitely challenging.
To my neighbor, YooperPhil, that's an excellent nomination. A writer I never heard of, who wrote something 90 years ago that I've never heard of. But, she's a prize winner, thus according to the laws of the LAT publishers, it's fair game.
So many unknowns and overly deceitful clues. Simoleons, Akins, Ari, Malik, etc., etc.
But, I knew today's actress (Olsen), though I always debate whether it's Olsen or Olson. (It is Olsen.)
Also, I am familiar with Malik Monk, the basketball player. I was a fan of his when he played for Kentucky. Still, I consider that obscure. Of course, according to the aforementioned law, it's fair game because he won some award.
It's apt that "Gary" of Husker Gary was a clue today.
Anon @ 7:58 - I'm a Kentucky fan too, and didn't remember Malik either. I think it's part of the "one and done" college basketball mentality. (UK should do fine this year. After all, the Pope is coaching them.)
FIW. Silly mistake with the cross of bowls and Akins. I somehow had bowla and Akina which seemed a good WAG. Wrong!
I thought I was on a roll when I threw down "that's a great idea", and the NW and SE just seemed to fill in easily. But the NE was sticky, and the SW, we'll, that's where I fell down.
Overall this was enjoyable as far as Saturday puzzles go. It required almost more patience than I normally have, but it's finished, so there's that!
There's a restaurant near me that has a tasting menu. Would "Columbus Grill" be a fair answer in a crossword?
The LA Times should be ashamed of itself for allowing this utter nonsense of a puzzle to be published. Another constructor looking to rack up a record number of DNFs while sucking out every ounce of fun from the experience. Too many vague, obscure, and cutesy clues to count. I will happily bypass all future offerings from this person.
As they say in the Athens, this puzzle was all Έλληνας to me. Maybe got 6 answers the first run and not much else after.
Beautified Day another excuse TITT
Deep admiration to any of you folks who finished
😔
Thank you Emily for the challenge, to which I was not up. Did okay until I got to the lower third of the puzzle, then things started to fall apart. I came here to commiserate with my fellow mourners after I TITT.
And thank you Husker for the post mortem. I think the clue for 24D should be "Our Saturday blogger".
Assorted, but not necessarily favorite, clues:
21A SLOW FASHION. The answer to FAST FASHION, which is actually a thing.
27A BIN. I've lost at least three Swiss Army knives at airport security. One even had a kiosk, where you could step aside and have the knife mailed back home at a cost greater than the knife.
30A THAT'S A GREAT IDEA. My great ideas started going down the drain right about here.
39A SIN. It turns out that you won't find this list anywhere in the Bible, but PRIDE, the original SIN, is mentioned often.
45A BOWLS. Had KOANS -- if you listen carefully you can hear the sound of one hand clapping.
52A FREE TRIAL. Cleverest clue, but I missed the window.
11D ENCHILADA. Funniest clue.
27D BASS SOLOS. Neither BASS LINES nor BASS NOTES were low enough.
49D TWINE. Out-clevered myself on this one with OAKUM - jute mixed with tar and used for caulking ships.
Cheers,
Bill
I bailed, too. So many unknowns, especially names. I was not motivated enough to go to red letter solving.
Good Morning:
I guess I'm in the minority this morning as I found the puzzle Saturday challenging, yet do-able, and I finished w/o help in normal Saturday time. However, I have my criticisms as follows: There were a few too many unknown/obscure entries, i.e., Slow Fashion, Mann, HSA, Bowls, as clued, Malik, Alts, Akins, Ari, etc. But the most troublesome area for me was the conglomeration of the aforementioned unknown Malik and Bowls and the ambiguously clued Mao/Twine/Alone grouping in the SW corner. This is a perfect example of unnecessarily and, IMO, unfairly, not offering at least one helper C/A to the solver. For example, a more obvious clue for Bowl, such as Super or Rose ___, or Chinese Chairman for Mao would have provided a much needed foothold. Every other clue should not be an exercise in seeing how clever or devious a constructor or, for that matter, an editor can be.
My w/os were Epic/Edgy, Sea/Ale, Mint/Dirt, Goal/Gong, and CDC/FDA. Free Trial filled itself in but I didn't understand the reference until HG's explanation. My favorite C/As were Whole food?=Enchilada and Nae Sayer=Scot, a reminder of our dear Wilbur. Some of the fill was fresh and sparkling: That's A Great Idea, Had A Ball, Dear Santa, Slow Fashion, Bass Solos, Simeoleons, and Enchilada. The low count (13) of TLWs was frosting on the cake.
Thanks, Emily, and thanks, HG, for your usual fair and informative summary and the colorful and relative visuals. Enjoyed hearing Mr. Sinatra's dulcet tones and the reminder of Lessons in Chemistry, which was a great TV series. Most of all, thanks for the explanation and illustration of the perplexing (to me) Free Trial clue.
YooperPhil @ 7:42 ~ 🤣
FLN
Monkey, I have no idea why you're having such a problem. Silly question, though, are you hitting the Enter Key?
Have a great day.
Once I had looked up Zoe’s name and MALIK, the rest slowly appeared. SIMOLEONS gave me pause, though I had a vague memory of having seen it before, also I knew GMAT was correct, so it stayed. Same with Red YACHT, it had to be right although I didn’t know why.
I’m with IM☘️ in that it was a very difficult CW but doable, for me anyway.
For a long time I had rain instead of MIST.
Thank you HG for your fine review.
IM☘️ as I used to tell my students there never any silly questions. I’ll have to give this another try.
I'm surprised at all the negative comments. I FIR and thought it was challenging and fun. TASTINGMENU, FREETRIAL, OFFSIDES - I thought they were clever, but not crazily obscure. But that's just me I guess.
Oh, my goodness! IM☘️. How silly of me, but definitely not your question, I never saw the enter button because it’s on the left. LOL
I note that the two people that I consider my “besties” on this site, IM and the anonymous poster some of us call “SS” (for Speedy Solver ) were able to solve this challenging puzzle without turning on any “red letters.” Maybe I gave into the “temptation” too early? But, at the time, it really did seem impossible to solve it “on my own.” We’ll see if I do any better next week! (One can only hope!)
Ya gotta be kiddin' me. Probably the most ridiculous excuse for a crossword puzzle I have seen in many a moon. Some of the poorest clues I have ever seen, along with the more than just obscure and arcane. A true fun sponge. TITT, life's too short to waste time on this kind of Crrr-ap!
At the end, I was stuck in the northwest corner, and finally cracked: I asked Google for a business school admissions test, got GMAT, and was able to fill in the rest. What's the acronym for "I cheated"?
There were many obscure names and tricky clues, but I got a lot of satisfaction from filling in the answers in a reasonable time-frame. If I'd been familiar with do-re-mi (as money) and SIMOLEONS, I could have FIR.
Thanks to Emily for a Saturday toughie, and to Husker Gary for patiently explaining (and illustrating) it all.
I believe you HTG - had to Google.
To all those showing outrage at today’s puzzle, “Calm down”, Saturday’s are not meant to be EASY, and sometimes can be a real bear, I accept that. Today was out of my range, but others seem to have had no problems and FIR. Nobody bats 1,000.
Jinx Thank you for taking the time to look at my TATS/INK Japan taboo sign and for your comment. Not sure if you saw my KOI body paint photo. I find that beautiful exactly because it is body paint rather than body mutilation.
It has been said that a lottery is a tax on people who are bad at math. I would claim that TATS/INK is a sign to me that this is a person who is not capable of long range thinking. DW said she could not serve on a jury if the defendant has neck or face TATS. She said as far as she is concerned that person is guilty.
That was such a workout that I’ll probably be sore tomorrow. I’d be plenty sore now if I hadn’t grunted and groaned my way to an FIR. I can’t say I HAD A BALL—until I subbed out HAD A time.
I’m probably one of the few Cornerites who knew who Malik Monk is, but the SW – which seemed more like the Far East -- was the last to fall. Once I realized the jute was doing the binding instead of receiving it, TWINE finally helped me break through. But singing bowls? Sheesh.
Working backward:
PRE-OP and my HENNA WAG got me going in the NE, but YACHT rock and SLOW FASHION were unknowns that held me up. Fortunately, I knew the Arnold Palmer is a drink, and the ONE-TO-ONE ratio made sense.
In the NW, I still don’t understand the Do-re-mi/SIMOLEONS connection despite Gary’s explanation.
Speaking of Gary, I came up with CITY quickly because Eugene always makes me think of the one in Oregon. It’s pronounced eu-GENE,by the way, not EU-gene.
I got my first real toehold in the SE thanks to MOREL, branching of the m in MENU, but that “window on the house” clue left me unsure about FREE TRIAL.
The “whole” ENCHILADA clue threw me, and I groaned when the answer showed up. However, it wasn’t Emily’s fault that I had so much trouble coming up with YALTA. I kept trying to remember the city that hosted the 2014 Winter Olympics (Sochi), to no avail.
Our octet sings Do-Re-Mi, a UC Men’s Octet arrangement complete with a “fraulein” soloist. With passages like that Do-mi-mi, mi-so-so, re-fa-fa, la-ti-ti section, not to mention senior citizens portraying children, it’s a real crowd pleaser.
As for today's puzzle, hand up this seemed totally impossible. The only LOVE AND DEATH I know is the one by Woody Allen. OLSEN is way obscure to me, along with MALIK, ARI, AKINS and MANN. Some amusing bits like ENCHILADA and EUGENE/GARY.
Husker GARY Thanks for the illustrations. Especially of the tragedy of IRAN. I wish there was more we could do to help. But it was US "help" in 1953 that created this current mess. Loved the SLAY clip of the Hippy Dippy Weatherman!
I have been to GARY and to EUGENE.
But I will share this video of me ringing the Peace GONG in Hiroshima.
Oh... I should mention that I did indeed have a FIR with today's puzzle without assistance. Definitely a long, persistent struggle! Impressed that others FIR, too.
A lot of hate for this puzzle. I admit that I googled a few names and I worked for a hour broken up into 3 sessions.
DNCCTF (did not come close to finishing). Ugh! Anyway, what I tried for 39D came from this classic Andrew Zimmern episode.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILexn0r6STg
This was …. Interesting. My husband helped figure some of these out. (I always ask him about basketball related clues.) Learned new terms, too. Now to remember them if they come up again. Good stretch.
Several times a year I'll need to WAG at a letter and guess wrong. Rare for me is to FIW by more than that, but the SW got me today, and I can't blame the constructor. I knew MALIK, but just couldn't pull it from memory. Clever cluing got me to miss ALONE. And despite 28 years of everyday puzzling, I had never heard of the word "jute" before. With a break on one of these, I probably finish. But you can't win them all, and if you do you should probably get another hobby. Thanks to the constructor/editor for the challenge.
bob
The old slang term for cash is DOUGH-re-me, NOT do-re-me.
Challenging but fun Saturday puzzle--many thanks, Emily. And thanks, HG, for your always helpful commentary.
I would have struggled more with this puzzle, but the early DIET, supported with the TEA KETTLE and some ALE, got me interested in looking for food, like that ENCHILADA. A little later we finally got a TASTING MENU, and some SILKEN TOFU, which I had never had before, and a MOREL mushroom. All those EATS were a gift, and all this FARE made this a fun day.
Wishing you all a delightful and tasty weekend.
I had trouble with the SW like many others, but I got it done. Actually that’s an understatement - almost HALF of my solve time was spent in that little MALIK MAO BOWLS area ALONE. The rest of the puzzle took me a normal Saturday time, maybe even a bit faster than usual.
As a constructor, how do you see HSA (in a 70-word grid!) and not rework that section? As an EDITOR, how are you OK with that entry? And on top of that, it has one of my most hated kinds of clue, random acronym cluing a random acronym, and if you don’t know what the clue means then you have no hope of getting the answer if not as an ESP.
It is late and I do not have much to add but do have two items:
1. The Corner has really changed as it would not have been possible to have MOREL in a puzzle without a comment on the shape.
2. I have never heard of The French Table or Yountville, California. Why do you all know it?
ZOE was obscure but Saturdays always require finding perps to finish.
If you like golf, today's third round at the Open at Royal Troon was hard to watch after the wind and rain came. Billy Horschel is a Florida native who went to the University of Florida. Go Billy.
Thank you.
Jinx Thank you for the kind words about my KOI photo. An honor that she made you drool! It seems that the blog algorithm censored your post for using the "P" word. Perhaps you could slightly change the wording. The same thing happened to me with another post. Such a stupid algorithm!
Thanks to Emily for the Saturday challenge! I went wrong in too many places to recover. I wish there had been a few more footholds (as IM @9:47 explained it) to let me know I was on the wrong track.
Lemonade@3:50. The French Laundry is famous because of Chef Thomas Keller. I have seen him on some cooking shows. He seems generous, gifted, and kind. BTW, "TAble for two" looked like it fit and was one of my missteps.
Thanks to H-Gary for showing me the errors of my ways! Nice job! I hope I remember all of this for next time....
This puzzle defeated me. Well, I did eventually "finish" it, i.e. filled in all the cells correctly, but I had to look up a lot of stuff, especially the names of shows, books, singers, athletes, actors, and filmmakers.
I thought I was so clever filling in STINKY tofu, since I already had the S, but no, 'twas not to be.
Things I had never heard of, in addition to the aforementioned:
YACHT rock
SLOW FASHION
Oreo DIRT cake (although I vaguely, very vaguely, remember we might have had it before)
ALTS.
I liked the clue for ENCHILADA. ("The whole enchilada." :)
I took an "educated" guess at Eugene and Gary because I went to the U. of Oregon in Eugene for 4 years.
RAIN had to be changed to MIST.
Answers I had virtually zero chance of getting were the one's clued by paraphrasing them, to wit:
"Genius!": THAT'S A GREAT IDEA
"Calm down": EASY.
The French Laundry was the subject of controversy when Gov. Gavin Newsom dined there maskless during the Covid pandemic. Well, actually it was Newsom who was the subject.
I have never owned or worn a MAO jacket or a Nehru jacket. Come to think of it, when I was in the military, we didn't wear Eisenhower jackets, either, perhaps because we were in the Air Force, not the Army.
Good reading you all.
A perfect example of the type of garbage the Saturday crossword has become. This is simply trash.
I would point out however that any author can submit any crossword. The editor deserves full credit for this.
People know of Yountville, because any serious drive in Napa Valley begins with passing by that village on the way north.
Hahaha!
I “echo” your sentiments, Charlie!
What a great puzzle! I thoroughly enjoyed solving it!
An apt title for this piece of junk: “An Exercise In Obfuscation”. It had waaay too many vague and non-parsable (if that’s a word) clues. About the only likable one was for ENCHILADA, so I got at least one grin from that. But otherwise, I’m with YooperPhil on this puzzle — games are supposed to be fun; this was a test.
On a lighter note…I still have a (lime green silk) Nehru jacket from the ‘70s somewhere in my closet; along with a black Gene Simmons-style wig, it comes in handy for Halloween bashes on occasion. Besides it still holding together, the big miracle is I still fit in the thing! 😎
====> Darren / L.A.
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