Saturday Themeless by Samuel A. Donaldson & Doug Peterson
Wow! Quad stacks of 10's! That's 120 cells filled. Samuel and Doug used only 28 blocks and had 99 open squares. The Manga heroine (yeah, right!), the correct vowel for pasta and a pop singer gave me two bad cells but, in the words of Gloria Gaynor, I Will Survive.
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| Sam Donaldson |
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| Doug Peterson |
1. Opportunity for late-night stargazing: AFTER PARTY - I told Vanity Fair I just couldn't make it.
11. March 1 : lion :: March 31 : __: LAMB - In Nebraska, March 1st had a high of 500F and March 31st had a high of 540F, so...
15. Manga heroine romantically linked to Tuxedo Mask: SAILOR MOON - Okay...
16. "Queen Sugar" actor Dorsey: OMAR - Two in a row where I had no chance
17. Element of the Pythagorean theorem: HYPOTENUSE - A piece 'o cake for us math peeps! Bonus: Carpenters know, if you measure 3' on one side of a frame and 4' on the other side. If the HYPOTENUSE measures 5', you've got a right angle.
18. Museum piece: VASE and 33. Museum piece: URN.
19. Triumphant shout: YES.
20. Actress Mireille: ENOS.
21. Gabor sister whose given name was Sári: ZSA ZSA - The Kardashians of many years ago. Between them they had 19 marriages.
For no particular reason: In 1941, Gabor left Hungary for the United States. During a layover at Eppley Airfield in Omaha, Nebraska en route to Hollywood, she made headlines by telling the Associated Press that she had danced with Adolf Hitler twice.
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| Zsa Zsa, Eva and Magda Gabor |
23. Wheat protein: GLUTEN.
25. Objects: ITEMS.
26. Utterly unavailing: NO HELP.
29. Performer in a cloud swing: ACROBAT - Our constructor/circus trainer friend Carly Schuna did not have a picture of her in this device but she prevailed on her friend Karen Nellessen to send me one. Thanks Carly and Karen!
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| Karen Nellessen |
31. Comforting words: I CARE.
32. Small pile of leaves: QUIRE - Oh, those leaves!
34. Wall St. whiz: ARB.
35. Give up: CEDE.
36. Like a road with many blind spots: CURVY - Twisty had too many letters.
37. Northern Nevada county: ELKO and city that is the county seat
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| Elko, Nevada |
38. Ryssdal who hosts NPR's "Marketplace": KAI.
39. Clan title: THANE.
40. "The Bear" Emmy winner Jeremy __ White: ALLEN - These strangers-to-me continue to populate the puzzle.
41. Being heard: ON TRIAL.
43. Most dot matrix printers and flip phones, now: E-WASTE.
44. Handout: FLIER.
45. Emmy-winning show about Clio-winning execs: MADMEN.
48. Strands in the winter?: TINSEL - Nothing says traditional like these
50. Runs away in haste: LAMS.
51. In: HIP.
54. Deets: INFO - Really good INFOrmation needs deets (details)
55. Big fan: AFICIONADO.
58. Dull roar?: MEOW.
59. Bob Seger hit about "trying to lose the awkward teenage blues": NIGHT MOVES - An ear worm song with lyrics shown in a very unique way.
60. Misses the mark: ERRS.
61. Booker prize?: SENATE SEAT.
Down:
1. Like terrain downwind of an erupting volcano: ASHY - The eruption of Mt. St Helens in 1980
2. "Atlanta Millionaires Club" singer Webster: FAYE.
3. Word in Box 1 of a Form W-2: TIPS - Wages, TIPS and other compensation
4. Jeff Lynne's gp.: ELO.
5. Pasta similar to fiori: ROTELLE.
6. Union contract: PRENUP - Michael Jordan's new wife Yvette Prieto signed a PRE-NUP giving her $1M/year if they stay married up to ten years and $5M/year beyond that.
7. Terse denial: AM NOT.
8. Prod: ROUSE - Sergeant Hulka's method in Stripes
9. Game breaks, for short: TO'S - Time Outs
10. California's Santa __ Valley: YNEZ.
10. California's Santa __ Valley: YNEZ.
11. "Sorry Not Sorry" singer: LOVATO
12. "Epic!": AMAZEBALLS - I think you can translate this:
13. Publishing option: MASS MARKET.
14. Body part that includes the xiphoid process: BREAST BONE.
22. Father: SIRE.
23. Two-time Roberts co-star: GERE - A pretty easy translation
24. Credulous: NAIVE.
26. Last-second: NICK OF TIME.
27. Vacation venue with cabins: OCEAN LINER - The Titanic compared to a modern cruise ship
28. Plotted against: HAD IT IN FOR.
30. Tear up: CRY.
32. Reservation: QUALM.
36. "__-ching!": CHA.
37. Flair: ELAN.
39. Semi circle?: TIRE - 😀 This semi has 18 TIRE semi circles.
40. "Epic!": AWESOME - A very overused word!
42. Makes seedier?: RESOWS 😀
43. Cowboy legend Smith: EMMITT.
46. Join forces (with): ALIGN.
47. Georgia retreat: DACHA - When I saw Warm Springs would not fit, I figured I should be thinking Russia
47. Georgia retreat: DACHA - When I saw Warm Springs would not fit, I figured I should be thinking Russia
49. Brief hookups at the office?: LANS - Uh, not what you might think...
51. Host: HAVE - LA does HAVE the 2028 Olympics
52. Hunch: IDEA.
53. Denver daily: POST - Do you notice any pattern in my posts? 😀 🚀
56. "King Lear" curse: FIE.
Lear: FIE, FIE, FIE, pah, pah!—Give me an ounce of civet, good apothecary, to sweeten my imagination. There’s money for thee.
57. Sudoku figs.: NOS.
33 comments:
Well, it took me over an hour, but through P&P, I managed to (eventually) solve this challenging puzzle, without turning on the red letters or help of any kind. FIR, so I’m not only happy, I’m relieved!
Great puzzle, Sam and Doug. I was stymied here and there, but some good guesses gave me the missing letters or answers to some of the clues that I had no idea about. Or that I was perplexed about. There were some that I got and then had to pause to think about why the answer fit, instead of the other way around.
I laughed at myself when TIRE filled and the clue was Semi circle. Oh, duh!
The clue "Small pile of leaves" left me clueless, and even after I got QUIRE, I still couldn't figure out why that worked. Maybe I'm tired, but I don't ever recall hearing of sheets of paper being called leaves. I have to LIU later.
Gary, me too. Georgia retreat - DACHA. Oh yeah... the former SSR. The country rather than the state. Then I thought that was a Russian second home, so I had to verify, and I just read that the term is also used in many of the former SSRs.
Based on the puzzle setters' names, I stuck with it today. Those amazing (AMAZE BALLS?) stacked tens made this one possible, but still not doable. aMAR and LaVATO were my downfall. Bzzzzzt! Some of the cluing was downright cruel, but the struggle was enjoyable. Thanx, Samuel, Doug, and Husker.
AMAZEBALLS!! (Is that one word or two?🤷♂️). Somehow I managed a FIR on this epic CW w/out help in 27:54. Some great fill and cluing made for an AWESOME Saturday challenge (I agree HG, overused). Had to WAG the A in ARB and the second L in ALLEN, which gave me the aforementioned AMAZEBALLS and the congratulatory message. The rest of the grid pretty much required all perps. Is there any other woman besides actress Mireille named ENOS? Anyway, thank you Sam and Doug and Patti for your fine collaboration, and thank you HG for shedding light on it all!
FLN ~ NaomiZ “sports allergy” 🤣
DNF. Filled 40, 35 correctly.
Carelessly had iNEZ, which is in Kentucky. They are homonyms, except that some of the hillbillies say eye-KNEES.
I tried to cram in Dahlonega as a Georgia retreat.
What a surprise - I mispeled HYPOToNUSE. UNTIE!
Aw, it is always "ices in."
I CARE is about as easy to say as "user friendly" or "easy to use." As they say in MO, show me.
"Bumper clip" would fit just as well as BREASTBONE, but it would have to be a foreign car body part if it includes the xiphoid process.
Would I be using it correctly if I said "yes, she's very pretty, but she doesn't exactly amazeballs?"
Thanks to Sam and Don (do not type Sam and Dave, danged fingers) for the "one of these days" puzzle. As in "one of these days I'll be able to work a puzzle this tough." And thanks to H.Gary for another fine tour. That version of Night Moves was amazing. (My favorite Seger tune is Harbor Lights from his wonderfulSilk Degrees album.)
AmazeBalls! Said no one on the Planet Earth ever. I hit the proverbial brick wall early on with this one. Red letters and alphabet runs got me to the finish but with little joy. Overall I found this puzzle more annoying than challenging. Way too many proper names and way too arcane. Not a good way to start the long weekend.
And Jinx, speaking of Sam and Dave, I got to see them live at the Palladium in NYC many years ago. They opened for the punk band The Clash of all things. I had the song Hold On, I’m Coming stuck in my head for days afterward. It was an amazing night.
Took 20:15 today.
Struggled with the top-left. Didn't know the anima character or one of today's actress (Enos Mireille/Mireille Enos; I knew ZsaZsa [not personally]), the former crossed with the unknown singer (or his/her song), the CA valley, and the pasta. A few other unknowns (Kai), but some really good words in there too (quire, naive, afterparty, etc.).
TTP, the expression "turning a new leaf" is referring to turning the pages of a book.
Good Morning:
This was a FWH due to being stuck on my misspelling of Emmett vs Emmitt and having Right Moves vs Night Moves, both of which made Aficionado impossible to come up with. I found the construction, and especially the fill, very impressive but the many obscure
unknowns and the too cute by half cluing resulted in a frustrating, rather than enjoyable solving experience.
Thanks, Sam and Doug, and thanks, HG, for your always spot-on review and fun and pleasing visuals. And, yes, I've noticed a pattern in your posts! 😉
I have to do a little, not so humbling bragging! Yesterday, I reached my 400th straight correct Phrazle solution. Unlike Wordle, there are two puzzles each day, one before and one after noontime. Yay!
Chuckle time: No one has borrowed my car (and returned it with a full tank of gas) in ages and ages, so I, personally, finally had to fill up the tank for the first time in 4 years! 🤣
Have a great day.
LIU, ENOS is her last name🤦🏼♂️
FIR, but what a workout. Persistence paid off as I was determined not to be beaten this Saturday.
Amazeballs? WTF! But the section that kept me scratching my head, and the last to fall, was the NW. And this after I threw down hypotenuse, my very first fill, laid down with confidence and high hopes of a quick finish. Not!
And Sailor Moon? Another mystery. Mysteries abound in today's puzzle.
So overall, despite being a challenging puzzle, it was enjoyable.
Wish I had been there; I never saw them in concert. Here they are singing my favorite, Soul Man on the old Friday night (actually very early Saturday morning) NBC TV show The Midnight Special.
Nobody borrows any of my cars. I would rent them one before letting them use mine. You have everything to lose and nothing to gain if you let somebody use your car.
Finally FIR on Saturday. I started it while watching Djokovic lose at the US Open last night while getting most of the South. Except for the HYPOTENUSE gimme the NW was blank. FAYE, ENOS, and SAILOR MOON were complete unknowns and even with G as the first letter, GLUTEN didn't register until this am and it's a gimme.
What the hell is AMAZEBALLS? Definitely all perps for that unknown.
Manga? What is it?
Mireille and ENOS- first or last name? Now Slaughter of 'Dukes of Hazzard' I would know.
I had to back out of a few dead ends to finish it today, changing ART to URN, WHITE (KKK was all I could think of) to the unknown THANE, OUT LOUD to ON TRIAL, and NAME to TIPS for the W-2 Form. I've never seen MAD MEN but it was easy after a couple of perps.
Sugar Queen and OMAR-no idea of either. Thank you perps.
The Bear and ALLEN-ditto
Atlanta Millionaires Club and FAYE-ditto
Sorry Not Sorry and LOVATO-ditto
E-WASTE- drop mine off at BestBuy
NIGHT MOVES was a gimme for BE; have the CD. Seger never played in NOLA because his manager had a beef with the local promoter.
QUIRE-all perps. I thought that was an amount of paper. It was, PAPER leaves.
Nope. Bagged this one early when I realized I was not enjoying myself. Too many obscure names and cutesy clues in this crossNAME puzzle. Amazeballs? Really?
I ran out of MOVES by the south. I gave up. I did get a toehold when I entered ACROBAT, but I was stymied by the many unknown names. I did guess ZSA ZSA and ELKO makes frequent appearances in CWs. The other names meant nothing to me, so NO HELP.
Like everyone else, I’m stunned by AMAZE BALLS.
There were some clever clueing like OCEAN LINER and SENATE SEAT. BREAST BONE was a total WAG that I surprised myself with.
DH has a very nice flip phone made by Kyocera. It is definitely not EWASTE.
Thank you HG for the fine recap. All good.
IM☘️. Congratulations on your Phrazle streak. I gave up on it because it was taking too much of my time. My favorite challenge these days, besides LAT puzzle, is Connections.
Big Easy changed aRt to URN, but I did not, so I FIW! Wish I had figured that out. As a former librarian, I am familiar with leaves as sheets of papers used to make book pages, and with QUIREs as gatherings of leaves. Oh, well!
On the plus side, I'm familiar with AMAZEBALLS as an expression that came and went a few years ago. I used to tell our youngest that her performance in college was ... well, you know.
When I was pregnant with my first child, my xiphoid process bent outward and was practically sticking out through my skin. My obstetrician said he'd never heard of that, and would have to write a paper about it.
Thank you, Samuel and Doug, for a very challenging puzzle, and Husker Gary, for helping us with all the INFO we needed to see where we succeeded and/or failed.
I was obtuse about HYPOTENUSE for far too long, so the NW seemed inpenetrable. I needed a bit of red-letter-type help (DW, looking at answers, confirmed “ole” was wrong and YES was right) to complete the grid.
ASHY was lame, and SAILOR MOON was an unknown, especially as clued. (We have to identify Manga heroes?) PRENUP was clever but didn’t come easily, and ROTELLE isn’t among the top 10 pastas one would list off the top of one’s head. FAYE was an unknown, I never can come up Mireille’s other name (it’s her LAST name, YP), and ROUSE was clued oddly.
The Kansas-Missouri area was tough, too. CURVY and QUALM eluded me too long, and QUIRE, as clued, was new on me.
Other unknowns: OMAR, KAI, LANS, the obscure ALLEN, and the hall-of-fame slang of AMAZE BALLS. “Cloud swing” obscured the ACROBAT answer, and the clues for MEOW and HOST were NO HELP.
Thanks for sorting things out, Gary. This was the second day in a row I didn’t envy that task.
With all the proper names (10 by my count) this felt like a People Magazine puzzle. You guys are better than that. Very disappointed with your lack of creativity.
Tough but fun Saturday puzzle, many thanks Sam and Doug. And thank you too for your commentary, Gary.
Well, I AM NOT someone who can do a puzzle like this without cheating a bit, and even having some GLUTEN at breakfast would probably have been NO HELP. But I CARE about trying to reward constructors for their efforts, and did my best to use all the INFO I could get to get things done. No, I wasn't HIP and don't deserve any TINSEL, but even without being an AFICIONADO of this puzzle, I still want to thank you all.
Hola! AMAZE BALLS! That makes no sense to me but I filled it in mystery. I love the word, ELAN. EMMITT Smith recalls my late DF watching Sunday afternoon football. i got NICK OF TIME in exactly that way. The crossing of YNEZ, ZSAZSA and LOVATO could be a Natick except for those of us of a certain age. ENOS was that for me but I guessed correctly or rather, the perps did. THANE gives us a Shakespearean fix today.
I also loved seeing QUALM and I'm not sure if I've ever seen it in a puzzle before this.
Thank you,, Samuel, Doug and Gary. Enjoy the rest of your day, everyone!
My anecdote was to elicit a chuckle, not a personalized PSA. 😇
Hi All!
Another Saturday of needing to crib HG's grid to finish things off. I feel pretty good that I nailed a few fills sans perpage but... I had fun despite the day's #fail*
Gimmies: HYPOTENUSE | ROTELLE | GLUTEN. I know math & noodles & why DW won't eat the latter ;-)
A perk of working with younger folk in Cybersec: lots of Anime fans... SAILOR MOON only took a few perps. Ibid AMAZEBALLS.
Jinx - I first heard Sam & Dave's Soul Man as a Blues Brothers' cover. I would swear, watching the video you posted, that some of those STAX session players -- i.e. Steve Cropper (definitely), Donald (Duck) Dunn(?), and some of the guys on horns(?) -- were part of the '70's SNL house-band & later w/ Blues Brothers. Oh, and The Midnight Special - I watched that as a kid when sleeping over at Gramp's house after they all went to bed.
Speaking of music - NIGHT MOVES was filled sans perps. Well, I had a perp but it was wrong (hunch != itch@52d) :-)
ACROBAT - Eldest takes breaks from her PhD studies to play on the flying trapeze and perform silks. I'll have to ask her if a cloud swing is like silks.
I've been puzzling & reading y'all everyday but by the time my days are winding down, I've been too tired to post. Thanks everyone (constructors, bloggers, & posters) for keeping me entertained in the few minutes I get to myself each day.
Cheers, -T
*#fail includes DW's car nearly splitting a TIRE on the freeway and me giving her mine and getting things squared away at the AAA shop & an appointment with Alfa dealer Tuesday.
Remiss me say...
Thanks Sam & Doug for the fun. Thanks HG for the expo and nudges here and there. -T
FIR*
*Red letters with 25% left
IM - After her tire almost gave, I gave DW my car so she could meet her buddies down in Sugar Land. I'm not keen on her driving my car 'cuz (sometimes) I smell the burn of the clutch afterwards.
She's a good driver, and knows how to shift, but... 6 on the floor, in heels, is not the best thing for a manual transmission. :-)
//I'll refuel on my way to Lowes tomorrow
Very cool memories for The Midnight Special.
Deets on DW's nearly-spit tire? Road hazard? Old tire-itis? (I think that all my (far too many) SOs who wore heels took them off when driving one of our stick shift cars. Could be tough on nylons.)
Jinx - Alignment is wrong. The inside of the back tire separated and whipped the heck out of the wheel well - that noise is what made her pull over b/f a real blowout & riding rims.
As far as driving bare-feet'd - I can't count the number of heels I step on getting into passenger side or while driving her ride that happens to be under the brake. DW's got Marco Emelda-level shoe count - just not as expensive*
C, -T
*she's had so many shoes left in the car that melt their glue in the Houston summer's heat - good thing they're not designer :-)
Agreed! Obscurity reigns!
FIW on Sunday. NW corner did me in, as I (and most) have no clue on sailor moon , Faye, and combined with hypotenuse, ashy, rotelle, made it impossible although I ended up with several correct. Also got tips wrong. Amaze balls! Really! Changed art to urn late to figure out thane and qualm and tire (semi circle - even with a question mark) is too far off base.!
Well…after looking at the top half of this cw, I shoulda followed Charlie Echo’s move and TITT. NINE proper names in the northern hemisphere…c’mon, guys, that’s insane (leaving out that now we’re expected to know manga romance??).
But being the stubborn cuss that I am, I resorted to my fall-back strategy when confronted with a mess of p.n.’s and just looked them up as I ran across each one (I did know ZSAZSA Gabor, Richard GERE and EMMIT Smith; at least they are famous). AMAZEBALLS…not an AWESOME fill, as many of y’all also felt. As for QUIRE, my wife worked in the printing biz for 30+ years, so I showed her the chart you posted, Gary — and she gave me the ol’ “wtf??” look; she’d called reams and bundles, but never ever heard that Q word.
About the only fun I found in this was the other long fills, which I thought were pretty snazzy. So things ended up sorta even for me on the love/hate scale today.
====> Darren / L.A.
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