Saturday Themeless by David P. Williams
I was fortunate to blog Dave's first puzzle that was published for the LA Times on May 15, 2021. It was so long ago that Rich Norris was still the editor.
The brilliance of Dave's puzzle is evident when you see the three vertical and three horizontal 11-letter fills in the heart of the puzzle. Subsequently, he had a very low word count of 66. The last horizontal fill is only 51. Across and the last vertical fill is 47. Down
My failure was at MIN_US/_ENTIANS which fills my definition of a Natick. I wrote my grandson (see below), who is a professional jazz musician and getting a Graduate Degree at The University of North Texas, and he immediately knew MINGUS and told me some terrible stories about him.
My Grandson |
Across:
7. Charles known as the "Angry Man of Jazz": MINGUS.
13. Cold spells: ICE AGES.
15. Like most drafts: UNSENT - Mentally, I went through several definitions of draft before I arrived at the ones that indicate that you might want review a few times before you hit Send.
16. "Hang on": JUST A SEC.
18. Pose: STANCE.
19. Duck: AVOID.
20. Admit: COP TO - On the other hand...
22. Get some sun: TAN.
23. Get too much sun: BURN - On the other hand...
24. "No kidding!": TRULY.
25. Guinness order: PINT.
26. Ready: SET.
29. Serious scratch: PRETTY PENNY - The idiom explained
33. Second-most populous urban area of the Tibetan Plateau: LHASA
LHASA pop. 521,000 |
34. Primary rte.?: US ONE - From Ft. Kent, Maine to Key West, Florida
35. Ask sincerely: BEG.
38. A in Kindergarten: EINE - Kindergarten is German so "A" dog is EINE Hund
39. Like some accents: ACUTE.
41. Sound of disapproval: TSK.
42. Shorts' lack: KNEES 😀
43. John whose Civil War trilogy was adapted as a miniseries starring Patrick Swayze: JAKES - You'll have to look hard to see John's name in the credit
50. Instruments that are difficult to donate, ironically: ORGANS - Now that is a great observation!
51. Help: ASSIST.
Down:
1. Garments similar to mantillas: HIJABS.
4. Mass medium: LATIN - The Catholic Church changed from being all in LATIN just before we got married over 60 years ago. Some LATIN phrases are used during the liturgical year.
5. "Zounds!": EGAD.
6. Pitcher's aim?: YES - Not a baseball pitcher or a water pitcher. This pitcher is a salesman.
10. Plants whose roots flavor angostura bitters and Aperol: GENTIANS Angostura bitters is a concentrated bitters (herbal alcoholic preparation) based on gentian, herbs, and spices, produced by
14. Ingredient omitted from a recipe, perhaps: SECRET SAUCE - There's some things they won't tell you. 😀
17. Retaliates, in a way: COUNTERSUES - The man on the right sued Taylor Swift for $3M saying she got him fired, but he lost the suit. Taylor countersued for $1 for assault which he is doing in this picture and won that suit.
24. Arborist's concerns: TREES - After living on the treeless prairie, Nebraskan J. Sterling Morton proposed Arbor Day to support planting trees.
Very early Lincoln, NE |
28. One making bank in Paris?: SEINE - I'm going out on a limb to say I'll bet you understand this picture
36. Chooses: ELECTS - Carol Blood is running against Mike Flood in our 1st District Congressional race.
39. They're paid to play: ANTES.
40. Mountebanks: FAKES - Derivation
6 comments:
One of the hardest things for me to get was one across and one down. And I still say “ Pwned” is not a word, no matter how many times I see it.
Anyway, after BST* I managed to solve this insanely difficult puzzle. FIR, so I’m happy.
*Blood, sweat, and tears
Thank you, David P. Williams, and thank you, Husker Gary.
A neat looking grid. Looked like op art, and also reminded me of a pinwheel.
I TRULY enjoyed this puzzle. It took quite a bit of concentration, a bit of "outside of the box" thinking, and a few good (aka lucky) guesses. I like tough puzzles.
But in the end, I must COP TO one bad cell. I had no idea for either the "Angry man of jazz", and the "Plants whose roots are used to flavor angostura". All of the other letters in those two answers perped in, but not the G. I was guessing that it would be a C, a D or a K. It was my last letter to fill, and I went with the C.
When I opened the review, I read that HG had the same singular bad cell). I an in good company. :-)
The J in JAKES and JETS was a good guess, and my penultimate fill. I first thought it might need a G in that position, but decided to go with that J as it seemed more likely.
I liked many clues today, but especially Songs birds for SWANS and Flood insurance for GASKET.
There's our friend AREPA again. I thought about getting one on Thursday. I looked at the menu online before I headed in that direction on another errand. They're huge. $14.60 for the Arepa Llanera. Grilled beef with mano cheese and avocado, pico de gallo. / Con queso de mano y aguacate, pico de gallo.
waiT A SEC to JUST A SEC
droP IT to StoP IT to SKIP IT.
WHISKEy to WHISKER.
Asian to ACUTE.
Sit for to STANCE.
HG, my great-grand-niece recently graduated from UNT. Then got married. And now is with child, so there's going to be another great added to that string.
Also, Aitch Gee, I came across a website that I think you will enjoy. https://www.visualcapitalist.com/
Good morning!
At first glance I was ready to give this one a pass. At second glance, I should have. My experience was very similar to TTP's. Didn't care for PWNED. At the end I still had two blank cells -- the NG of MINGUS. Bzzzzzt. Thanx, David and Husker.
ORGANS: I learned recently that I'm too old to receive an organ (not surprised) and too old to donate one (surprised).
TTP @5:32 Speaking of the grid shape, this constructor’s shtick is that he (apparently) only makes themelesses with the exact same layout as today’s. He has a bunch in the NYT, though I managed to find a LAT themeless of his with a different black square pattern.
FUSTY is a word that, guess what, has a very similar meaning to MUSTY. Also, there’s no UNTO in the grid. Which means that FUNGUS would’ve been a better fill choice for 7A, no Natick with GENTIANS.
10D Gentians. If you ever drank a bottle of Moxie, you know what gentian root tastes like, very bitter. Moxie is the official soft drink of Maine. I hated it as a kid but have grown to like it as I got older. Moxie is a Coca Cola product and the new formula is sweeter and less bitter than the 1950s version
…and by “managed to find” I mean that I didn’t even notice that HG linked it at the start of the post.
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