Saturday Themeless by Bettina Elias Siegel & Dan Elias
This is a puzzle where I had to struggle. The cluing was too clever by half in some places but I persevered. I use Across Lite to solve these puzzles in advance and in this one I used the Check Word function a lot and every time, it said the word or partial word was correct and so I soldiered on.
I got SIDE HUSTLES right away and I fought CAREER COACH's cluing and was told AMUSE BOUCHE ¯\_(γ)_/¯ was right as I slowly filled in the crossers there. ECHOLESS and SHE GOAT were, uh, "out there"! I'll point some out some other head scratchers as we progress through the grid. The pinwheel 11-letter triple stacks are very impressive.
1. Extra work: SIDE HUSTLES - Like most other starting teachers, I had several of these - Bricklayer, landscaper, retail salesperson, train brakeman and anything else I could do to bring in some cash.
12. Historic period: AGE - Erasing ERA and starting over opened up this entire corner.
15. Path finder: CAREER COACH.
16. Aloha nui __: affectionate Hawaiian phrase: LOA - "All my love:\"
17. Special bite: AMUSE BOUCHE - An AMUSE BOUCHE (amuses the mouth in French) is a single, bite-sized hors d'Εuvre. Once again ¯\_(γ)_/¯
18. D.C. United's org.: MLS.
19. Enhancer of soups or venue for hoops: MSG π
20. Bar fly-er?: DART - Saturday cluing!
21. Gail of "NYPD Blue": O'GRADY ¯\_(γ)_/¯
23. Eat: DINE.
24. 19th century women's rights advocate Amelia: BLOOMER - Yup, that's where that item of apparel originated.
25. Much-feared natural disaster: BIG ONE.
28. Wildflower once thought to repel pests: FLEABANE - Those words make sense
29. Strip, as a ship: UNRIG - DERIG had the same sense but didn't work
30. Super time: BLAST.
31. Singing syllable: TRA.
32. John Swinney, for one: SCOT.
33. Nudges: PRODS.
34. Enduring dispute: FEUD - Joan and Betty had a famous one
35. Go off course: YAW - I have said many times in the forum that a plane can YAW (crab) and stay on course.
37. "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" writer/illustrator: CARLE - The "C" at CARLE/CASSAT ws my last fill.
40. One who may be sacked: PASSER π Even Patrick Mahomes
41. Diplomatic mission: EMBASSY.
42. Old book collection?: DUST π
43. Tops: APEXES.
44. Cooks (up): GINS Etymology I am always amused at excuses kids can GIN UP to explain whey they don't have an assignment done.
45. Wit: WAG.
48. "Chandelier" singer: SIA - Entertainers are always looking for a way to stand out from the crowd.
49. Adapt quickly: TURN ON A DIME.
52. "Catch-22" pilot played by Bob Balaban: ORR - Bob played ORR in the 1970 movie but I better remember him for playing NBC executive Russell Dalrymple in Seinfeld 19 years later
54. Connecticut governor Lamont: NED.
55. Spine-opening yoga pose: SEATED TWIST.
Down:
1. Phishing hook: SCAM - My "grandson" has called me three times for cash bail money. Uh, I was born at night, but not last night!
2. Animal nutritionist who founded a pet food company in 1946: IAMS - Paul IAMS invented his dog food in 1950 and called it 999.
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| An 1868 edition |
4. Some MIT grads: EES.
5. Following: HEEDING - I know who I need to be HEEDING in this house π
6. Suave: URBANE.
7. Williams work: SCORE - Nobody does it better than John
8. Promote: TOUT.
9. Switzerland's __ LΓ©man: LAC.
10. Still waiting for a callback?: ECHOLESS- π Okay...
11. Picasso sculpture subject: SHE GOAT - 70-yr-old Pablo made this in 1950, the same year Paul Iams made his dog food.
12. School songs: ALMA MATERS - A touching scene from Grey's Anatomy as college kids gather and sing their ALMA MATER outside the hospital after a mass shooting at their school.
13. Words to live by: GOLDEN RULE.
14. Beginner's book: EASY READER - Did anyone else read about Dick, Jane and Spot?
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| My EASY READER |
22. Comedian Delaney: ROB.
23. "Yes!": DO IT.
24. Propeller part: BLADE.
25. Summer on Cape Cod, e.g.: BUSY SEASON.
26. South American domain name: INCA EMPIRE.
27. Election advice from young Grace Bedell to Mr. Lincoln: GROW A BEARD - On his way to his inauguration, Abe stopped in Grace's hometown of Westfield to thank her personally. A statue is there now to commemorate that meeting.
28. Fairy __: cotton candy, in Australia: FLOSS.
30. "The Pianist" Oscar winner: BRODY.
33. Word with blood or water: PRESSURE π
34. Firmly fixed: FAST.
36. Pre-euro Spanish coins: PESETAS.
37. Impressionist painter born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania: CASSATT.
39. Surfer's need: WAX - We're WAXIN' down our surf boards, Can't wait 'til June...
40. Was fully groan?: PUNNED π
42. Electronics component: DIODE - When I got my physics training, solid state DIODES was starting to replace vacuum tubes.
44. Swarming pest: GNAT.
45. Site that may host an edit war: WIKI.
46. Iowa college town: AMES.
47. Chap: GENT.
50. TV pioneer: RCA.
51. DJIA part: DOW.
10 comments:
Close, but no cigar.
I just could not get the “c” in Carle and somebody named Cassatt, so I ended up with a rare DNF. I’m not particularly happy about that, but I am happy to be with you folks and see if I did better than I did!
Sorry, that should be “if you did better than I did” but I’m sure you already knew that!
Yooper Phil here ~ well I gave it all I had but DNF. Obscure names weren’t the biggest problem, it was AMUSE BOUCHE and a few other DNK’s.
DNF, filling 38 answers, 32 correctly. Started out great, completing SIDE HUSTLES without benefit of perp, but things quickly slogged down. I struggled with deRIG v. UNRIG, and settled for the one actually used. I should have known better, having encountered UNRIG here previously.
Thanks to H.Gary for another fun review.
Got it done, but only with the help of red letters, alphabet runs, WAGs, and a lot of cursing. Had to retrieve the phone a few times after throwing it at the wall in exasperation…My day can only go up from here. And mind you, I plan to spend the day raking leaves…
Took just under 25 minutes for me to err.
I turfed it at today's actress (ogrady) intersecting with the comedian, the activist, and the flower.
Good Morning:
Thanks to the unknown Floss and Fleabane and depleted mental energy, this was a DNF. Props for some excellent fill, demerits for some tortured cluing and some fill that had a Green Paint tinge. Nevertheless, it was a Saturday worthy-challenge with more hits than misses.
Thanks, Bettina and Dan, and thanks, HG, for echoing some of my observations, plus giving us a fair and honest critique of the puzzle.
I’m going to a 65th high school reunion luncheon today. Our original class had 340+ members but, sadly, many are gone. It’ll be interesting to see how many attend today’s affair and how many are recognizable after so many years.
If you have Amazon Prime, I recommend a Brit comedy called Love and Marriage. There are about 6 or so episodes of mostly laughs and silliness, but also a few serious and touching moments throughout the series.
Have a great day.
I think this puzzle by Bettina and Dan was something of a tour de force. For one thing, it was educational, which I will come back to. And look at the puzzle's architecture, with triple stacks in the NW and SE. And the paucity of black squares. As solvers, we are faced with filling all that white space--199 squares.
I loved some of the clues:
--40 Across, One who may be sacked (PASSER). This is timely, with the football season just recently beginning;
--19 Across, Enhancer of soups or venue for hoops (MSG). So we've got both Madison Square Garden and monosodium glutamate;
--42 Across, Old book collectors (DUST).
Hands up for those like me who wanted ERA for 12 Across. But I was pretty sure that 12 Down was ALMAMATER. So that led me to try AGE.
I've got more, but first I need a break.
Really lengthy answers that even three letter perps couldn’t save and yet many of those I failed to figure out. Add the expected plethora of remote Saturday Proper Nouns
I did have SIDE HUSTLES but a bad perp changed it. Knew BLOOMER from a paper I did on the suffragette movement in New York State.
Didn’t know NED, (Canada Eh, you have an excuse for that one)
TITT after a half hour of frustration and a half blank puzzle staring me in the face.
Was the animal nutritionist Dr Alpo? Professor Purina? Nope IAMSure it was someone else. πΆ
Anyway “Aloha nui” LOA. Yesterday I finished a terrific novel “Eruption” written by the late Michael Crichton and published by James Patterson about a cataclysmic eruption of Mona LOA set in the near future.
If a novel can be a nail-biter this is one. Soon to be a film.
Enjoy the weekend ππ
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