Saturday February 1, 2025 by Adrian Johnson & Will Nediger
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| Adrian |
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| Will |
I had a nice 14-minute trip through Adrian and Will's puzzle. I wrote to Adrian about this puzzle he co-authored with Will and this was his gracious reply.
Hi Gary,
Great to hear from you. Will and I are good friends that have collaborated a few times on puzzles, most recently co-organizing a charity pack to support humanitarian relief efforts in Palestine (https://www.
This puzzle was a stunt of sorts to see how many 12-letter entries we could fix into a 15x grid. I sent Will the layout last year, he helped lock much of the center into place, I polished off the corners, and we were off! Thanks as always for the work you do.
Cheers,
Adrian
1. Attach: TIE ON.
6. Pickle: SCRAPE - Origin of the phrase
12. "You're getting ahead of yourself": DON'T BE SO HASTY.
15. Vaudeville singer Smith: MAMIE ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
16. __ bran: OAT - Love this variety
17. Break stuff?: ADS 😀
18. Like: AKIN TO.
20. Car mirror's view: REAR - Not what you want to see
24. When all's been said and done, to a Brit: AFTERWARDS.
30. Gifts that might be made with kukui: LEIS - A LEI made with Ti leaves and kukui nuts
32. Joplin's "Treemonisha," e.g.: OPERA.
34. Newspaper that covers Congress: THE HILL.
36. __ canto: BEL - Bel canto, Italian for beautiful singing is both a style of singing and a style of opera.
37. "Julia" star Swinton: TILDA.
39. TV explorer Márquez: DORA The Explorer
40. School house, informally?: FRAT 😀
41. One might be on a roll: SESAME SEED - Yes, I'm embarrassed I can still sing this song from memory!
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| RAMI Freddie |
44. Audition dismissal: NEXT.
45. Basil who designed England's Coventry Cathedral: SPENCE.
47. "That's the spot": AAH.
50. Question for a magician: HOW.
52. Planet-mapping tool: RADAR - An artist's concept of NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter mapping the red planet.
53. Highly stressful situation: PRESSURE COOKER - If they pay you millions...
58. "You've been up too long": IT'S TIME FOR BED.
59. Promise: ASSURE.
60. Coarse cloth: TWEED - I'll bet you know who this prof in a TWEED coat is. (* answer at bottom.)
Down:
1. Big name in pizza rolls: TOTINOS.
2. Like some jewels: INSET
3. "There's more," briefly: ETC.
4. Letters with a negotiable price: OBO - Or Best Offer - A cool name for a thrift shop in Spokane, Wa
5. Nautilus captain: NEMO - James Mason played the good captain in this Disney movie. BTW, 20,000 leagues is approximately 60,000 miles. Jules Vernes' book referred to how far the Nautilus travelled while under the sea not how deep the sea was. You're welcome.
6. Recycling-plant worker: SORTER.
7. Margaret of "Fire Island": CHO.
9. Home of most of Turkey: ASIA.
10. Condition that may be treated with EMDR therapy: PTSD - A very interesting 3-minute video about Eye Movement and Desensitization and Reoricessubg therapy for treating Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
11. Socket sets: EYES 😀
12. People who partially identify as female: DEMIGIRLS.
13. Blowout remedy: SPARE TIRE - Where it was in my Uncle Virgil's pickup
14. Endpoint of the Detroit River: LAKE ERIE - I was pleased to learn that Lake Huron flows into a Lake St. Claire and then the Detroit River takes that water down to LAKE ERIE.
15. Marimba strikers: MALLETS - Lionel Hampton used those MALLETS on xylophones, vibraphones and marimbas.
19. Promise: OATH.
21. Rotten to the Corps, perhaps: AWOL 😀
22. Genre for Flo Milli and Flau'jae: RAP - Not familiar with either of them but RAP made sense
25. Business offering stock options?: FEED STORE.
26. Sugar Bowl home: TAHOE - Yeah, I tried every variation for New Orleans I could but...
27. Handled better?: REBRANDED.
28. Ideal wheels: DREAM CAR - I'll take a '57 red and white Vette convertible!
29. More coarse, in a way: SALTIER not 34. Not at all ferocious: TAME.
38. Dojo level: DAN.
40. Flipped out: FREAKED.
42. Dig up: EXHUME.
46. Europa Clipper, for one: PROBE - Surveying the surface of the Jupiter moon of Europa.
47. Capital of Samoa: APIA - 5hr 35min flight SSW of Honolulu
48. Poetry, weaving, et al.: ARTS.
49. Pianist Myra: HESS ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
51. Warp counterpart: WEFT.
54. Stampede Wrestling co-founder Hart: STU.
55. Military title: SIR.
56. Interrupting animal in a classic knock-knock joke: COW - I laughed really hard the first time I heard this joke.
57. City-building resource in Catan: ORE ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I don't play.
*That of course is Dr. Henry (aka Indiana) Jones
26 comments:
I went through this one fast! I didn’t time myself, but it was definitely under 10 minutes! Definitely unusual for a Saturday! I’m going to have to go get a Washington Post today and make a paper copy of this one! I don’t keep a record of my failures usually, but I do of my successes! FIR, so I’m happy.
Good morning!
Methinks there'll be plenty of complaints about this one -- too easy for a Saturday. Even d-o managed to complete it with only a minimal application of Wite-Out: Farm/FEED. "...see how many 12-letter entries we could fix into a 15x grid." There were plenty of long answers in this one, but I couldn't find a single 12-letter one. Hmmmmm. Thanx, Adrian, Will, and Husker.
Finished it! Wrong, but I finished it! I had rilta for teh equally unknown TILDA. I was certain that the belt would be tAN, and didn't know what a marimba was. But I do know my WEFT from my warp, so I got that goin' for me. Which is nice. (Had to include a Bill Murray reference this Pebble Beach Pro-Am weekend.)
The only MASTERS I care about is the PGA event that starts on Thursday of the first full week in April, which is the 10th this year.
I'm probably the only red-blooded American who has no idea what a pizza roll is. I was thinking it might be something like mud wrestling.
I was certain that the Sugar Bowl home had to be "Superdome" or "NOLA," but neither fit.
Thanks to Adrian and Will for letting me play with the smart kids today, and to H.Gary for another fine review. Still thinking about the knock-knock joke.
WoW! HG comes it at 14 minutes, SubG under 10, I guess my FIR time of 21:34 isn’t so stellar after all. Must be the several gimmes and a big assist from perps that made this puzzle seem easier than most themeless. Unknowns included DEMIGIRLS, HESS, SPENCE, STU, WEFT, and TAHOE as clued. MAMIE was not at all a given as Vaudeville preceded all of us, the second M was my finishing WAG. I liked the clue for REBRANDED one I understood it. I don’t think AFTERWARDS is confined to Britspeak, I hear it often. First day of the month and already a couple nominations for worst clue ; “Stampede Wrestling co-founder Hart” and “Basil” who designed England’s Coventry Cathedral”. I’ve learned from CWs that any three letter Margaret is going to be CHO. A nice doable Saturday grid, nice collaboration Will and Adrian.
HG ~ thanks for explaining it all today, and giving us one of the authors insights as to the creation. The hydrology of the Great Lakes is interesting, starting at 600 feet above sea level, Lake Superior feeds all the lower Lakes and rivers, gradually descending till the 167 foot drop at Niagara Falls, through Lake Ontario on to the St. Lawrence River, eventually reaching sea level.
43. Freddie portrayer in "Bohemian Rhapsody": RAMI.
Methinks the pics / names have been swapped? Or, maybe it's my eyes...
I think you may be right about the pics, Rami’s resemblance to Freddie made him perfect for the role.
Definitely agree re: role perfection - enjoyed the movie greatly. Freddie's famous overbite made the pic switch jump out at me. He refused to have it "fixed" for fear it would negatively affect his singing. He was a real star.
Took 10:40 today to finish this non-pressure cooker of a Saturday puzzle.
Good job, SubG, on your speed run.
I knew today's actresses (Tilda & Cho), but not: Stu, the Vaudeville singer, bel canto, Basil Spence/Spence Basil, dan, demigirls, the Tahoe Sugar Bowl, weft, or the pianist.
I also thought the Rami and Freddie pics may be reversed.
I agree with YooperPhil about the early nominations.
Excellent checking/counting by d-o.
FIR. For a Saturday puzzle this was a walk in the park. I sped through this as though it were a Wednesday puzzle.
There were a few unknowns for me, and a few proper names which I never like, but for the most part the perps were fair.
Overall a most enjoyable puzzle.
Hola! I can't believe I finished a Saturday puzzle and though i don't time myself, it did not take too long. THE HILL started me successfully and I built on from there. It was not a PRESSURE COOKER. However, I did ask ALEXA about SPENCE and that helped to finish FREAKED. I vaguely recalled RAMI. FRAT was tricky. Instead of TILDA Swinton I was thinking of Talia Shire but LAKE ERIE found my error. Very nice experience this morning. Thank ;you Adrian, Will and Gary. Enjoy your day, everyone!
Demigirl? Is that a thing? Spellcheck doesn’t seem to think so, but what the heck does spellcheck know? I finished this one in less than 30 minutes, which is highly, highly unusual for me. All in all an enjoyable start to the weekend. Alas, now it’s time to drag my lazy butt to the gym. Alas…
Like KS, I found this to be a "Saturday in the Park" (cue my old Chicago album). The few sticky wickets quickly fell to perps and educated guesses.
My only "knit" was calling weaving an ART. It's usually classified as a craft, and only rarely does it become art.
Well, I don't know what happened to Adrian's and Will's goal of designing a 15 x 15 grid stuffed with 12-letter words. It's not today's puzzle--there are zero 12's--but the two pairs of 13's and 14's stacked together is impressive. I'm not enamored with three of the four answers therein, since they're just annoying verbalisms, conversational nonentities; but I do like PRESSURECOOKER, a solid idiomatic expression.
Sugar Bowl, up near Lake Tahoe, is one of our more venerable ski resorts in California, going back to the 1940's, I think. It has always been popular with the Hollywood crowd, and it is where Janet Leigh was discovered--by Norma Shearer.
I had some mild Natick headaches in the puzzle: one featuring MAMIE and TILDA; and another with RAMI and SPENCE next to each other. Friendly nearby perps made short work of them.
Thanks, Gary, for ably leading us through what turned out to be a manageable Saturday effort. And thanks, Adrian and Will, for your straightforward and rewarding challenge today. Best of luck with your Palestinian relief activities.
Good Morning:
I would hate to disappoint DO, so I’ll voice a complaint that this otherwise delightful offering was much too easy for a Saturday. I have no criticism for the puzzle itself, as it was chock full of fresh fill and fun phrases, and a few challenging obscurities for good measure (Spence, Mamie, Demigirls, Stu). After yesterday’s easy-peasy solve, I was looking forward to a Saturday Stumper. Alas, ‘‘twas not to be. 😔
Thanks, Adrian and Will, and thanks, HG, for taking the edge off of my disappointment with your usual upbeat and informative summary, not to mention the sparkling visuals.
Have a great day.
There I go again. Everyone finds this á walk in the park and I had to TITT. Yet there have been some CWs everyone complains about and I breeze through. Amazing.
AFTERWARDS, in my defense, I’m not good at rephrasing statements and there were quite á few of them.
I enjoyed reading HG’s recap. That’s á plus.
Saturday puzzle. Absolutely enjoyed long fills…couple name stumpers…romp. Nice change from usual Saturday nightmares.
1955 TBird easily this Michiganders fav.
Greet the day.
ParSan
Lucinda -I too was happy to finish a Saturday puzzle which only happens about two times out of four.
Jinx - Never heard of pizza rolls but with —_——-NOS in place I had Dominos made pizza A Natick at Marie?/MA,MIE - DE IGIRLS?
Not a fan of paraphrases, but this puzzle almost filled itself. Lots of unknowns, but it was a lot like playing "Wheel of Fortune" as the longer answers filled in. Pretty happy to actually get a FIR on a Saturday! I thought that "Demigirls" were just vertically challenged females. Who knew?
Next!
Not really, I had fun with it. All except for Tilda crossing Dan, I can't even chalk it up to a learning experience, as I have no reason to remember it...
Weaving as an art form is not that rare, it's called tapestry.
Before rebranding as Totinos, they were Jeno's Pizza Rolls, and had one of my all-time favorite TV commercials. Look up "Jeno's Pizza Roll commercial 1972" It combines Pizza rolls, the William Tell Overture, Lark cigarettes, the Lone Ranger, and Tonto.
GRRR! Also held on too long to woof (and warp) instead of WEFT. I have heard AFTERWORDS more often than afterword. As kids, we bought black licorice strips at the local FEED STORE for 1 cent.
Thanks HG for the PTSD video - a learning moment. Your COW joke reminds me of the old one my husband thought was so funny;
Comedian- “Ask me what my best quality is as a comedian”.
Person - “What is your best——“.
Comedian - “Timing”.
Happy day, all!
Are you sure you have Rami and Freddie labeled correctly?
Monkey First I have to ask: Why do some of your letters "a" have an accent? Next: Hand up I agree with you and found this very difficult. Almost gave up with that cluster from MAMIE down to TILDA. Changed TAN to DAN at last instant to FIR.
I still don't get the COW thing. Maybe you have to be six years old to get it. I have been to TAHOE many times and never heard of SUGAR BOWL. Learning moment.
Here we were privileged to see final assembly of the EUROPA CLIPPER PROBE
If you look at far lower left you can see a mannequin in a bunny suit holding a EUROPA CLIPPER sign.
Some “anonymous”
participants are less anonymous than others. You all know my good friend SS (“Speedy Solver”). Well, I propose we “christen” Anonymous @ 10:32 a.m.
“Day Greeter” ( or DG) because he invariably ends every submission “Greet the Day.” Who’s with me? (Of course, “he” could also be a “she” but my ( masculine) intuition leads me to believe he is also of the male gender.)
(This is Subgenius. Some “bug” keeps me from being able to comment under my Avatar twice)
ParSan, I believe you have me confused with someone named LUCINDA. But I'm happy for you that you finished a Saturday non-stumper.
I see that the name in Tahoe is SUGAR BOWL RESORT and not to be confused with the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans which I believe is how the constructors meant to confuse us.
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