Themeless by Enrique Henestroza Anguiano
I’m a data scientist from Oakland, CA, with a background in computational linguistics. In this picture I am eating a Voodoo Donut in Portland, OR.Here is what Enrique told me about this puzzle: I built this puzzle around A STRANGE LOOP, which is a musical I had recently seen on tour in San Francisco. I laughed, I cried, and I was moved by its perspective on the black gay experience and on an artist's creative process. Otherwise, something I got early feedback on with this puzzle is that it only has eight answers of 8+ length. I don't see that as a problem: I think answers of every length can be interesting and combine to create a fun overall experience, and not every themeless puzzle needs to try to tick the same boxes. I love the flow of this grid and how it came together with a low word count of 70. I hope you enjoy it too. :)
I've had some quick solves in the past few weeks, uh, this wasn't one of them. I had sporadic success in the upper part of the puzzle and only got a good foothold in the SW corner where that fill came quickly and then so did BREAST STROKE (C.C. is featured in this fill). It was upward and onward from there and I got a well-earned "got 'er done". A little humility is good for us all!
Across:
1. Trap: YAP - My first thought was NET but we've seen trap as a form of rap lately but this just turned out to be slang for mouth.
4. DOMS symptoms: ACHES ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I had no idea but I suspect this is a problem with New Year's resolutions about working out more often or at all.
14. Address on a business card: URL.
15. Go toe-to-toe: CLASH - Bragging about what you'll do to Mike Tyson can all go away when you're toe-to-toe with him
16. Engage in a numbers game?: HIT ON - I was thinking of gambling and trying to HIT ON a number but was not all that happy with that idea. So, I asked Enrique and he said his intent was HITTING ON someone and trying to get a phone number. 😀
17. Spy-fi org.: CIA.
18. Low member of a quartet: CELLO - The O in SHOULD gave me _ _ _ _ O and I went for a singing BASSO first.
18. Low member of a quartet: CELLO - The O in SHOULD gave me _ _ _ _ O and I went for a singing BASSO first.
19. Out: ALIBI.
20. Frying medium: CANOLA and 31. Frying medium: PALM OIL.
22. Like art with hazy provenance, perhaps: UNDATED.
24. Pulitzer- and Tony-winning musical whose cast consists of Usher and his Thoughts: A STRANGE LOOP - A seed entry for Enrique: An usher is the main character and has nothing to do with the singer. This usher is an aspiring black queer musical theater writer.
27. Tactic that fails to deliver the goods: BAIT AND SWITCH.
33. Ultra hi-__: RESolution
34. Flair: KNACK.
37. "How cute!": AWW or
38. Home __: BREWS.
41. Soundproofing aids: CARPETS - BAFFLES filled in like a dream at _ A _ _ _ _ S but...
44. "Does this sound like a joke to you?": I'M DEAD SERIOUS.
47. Slowest competitive swimming style: BREASTSTROKE - C.C. was kind enough to share this video of her doing this stroke in October of 2023 when she was learning to swim.
50. Strike for an umpire?: BAD CALL - Angel Hernandez has consistently been rated as the worst umpire in MLB.
53. Gadgets in Yondr pouches: PHONES - ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Yondr pouches are lockable bags that keep phones and other devices out of sight and out of reach. They are used in schools and at events to create phone-free spaces.
55. HS class for aspiring premeds, perhaps: AP BIO.
58. "That can be arranged": YES - Be careful what you ask for.
59. "I wanna try!": LEMME.
60. Mushroom variety: MOREL.
61. Polish brand: OPI - Yes, it is available in Poland! 😀
63. Mate's response?: I LOSE.
64. Capitalize on: USE.
Down:
1. Joshua tree, e.g.: YUCCA.
2. Artistic displays at the Met: ARIAS - Opera singing is definitely an art
3. Like a diet rich in phytonutrients: PLANT BASED - Photo is the Greek word for plant
4. Applaud: ACCLAIM.
5. Social media hashtag for nourishing one's inner neatnik: CLEAN TOK - ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
TikTok videos with the hashtag #CleanTok have more than 150 billion views, with influencers broadcasting themselves scrubbing their sinks, descaling their dishwashers, and using increasingly bizarre and extreme methods to make their homes shine.
6. Sparks of "Queer as Folk": HAL ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
 |
| HAL is in the middle row on the left |
8. "Auld Lang Syne" opener: SHOULD.
9. Mysterious: SHADOWY.
10. Warmwater fish: TILAPIA.
11. Working hard: AT IT.
12. Wrap after a spa treatment: ROBE.
13. "Wednesday" werewolf: ENID ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
21. Voiced: ORAL.
23. Refusals: NOS.
25. Result of crunch time?: GAIN - I told Enrique that I thought that meant a GAIN of muscle from doing ab crunches and Enrique said I was right. He thought it was funny when I told him that might cause some Delayed Onset Muscle Aches (4. Across)
26. Interweaves: ENLACES.
28. "Don't even try to pin the blame elsewhere": THAT'S ON YOU.
29. Female whales: COWS.
30. Know-__: HOW.
31. Do for a while?: PERM - They call it a permanent even though it is temporary. 😀
33. Softball stat: RBI.
35. Roller on a golf course: CART 😀
36. Word in some crunchy cereal names: KRISPIES - Packaging over 90 years
39. Vlogging equipment: WEBCAMS.
40. Maker of Perfect Pairings pies: SARA LEE.
42. Cause of a bumpy ride: POTHOLE.
43. Nice bit of cash?: EURO - A crossword device using Nice as a city on the French Riviera
45. Drag queen Bianca __ Rio: DEL - We've had this name before
46. Charcuterie slice: SALAMI.
48. Doesn't spoil: KEEPS - Clarence Birdseye saw Inuit people quickly freeze fish they caught to preserve them and brought this flash freezing idea to America so food could KEEP much longer.
49. Polish brand: ESSIE - I can't find if it is available in Poland. 😀
51. Gray __: AREA.
52. Turns down: DIMS.
56. Capitol fig.: POL.
57. Amigo: BRO - Cross-cultural slang.
48 comments:
I didn’t want to do it, but I had to change “let me” to “lemme” to get the “congratulations” message. Other than that, it was just a matter of slogging through this challenging puzzle. FIR, so I’m happy.
Didn't care for it. Skewed too to the author's sexuality.
Welp, I really hated this puzzle. The GOOD news is that my L-O-N-G weekend can only improve from here. Assuming, of course, that I don’t get hit by a bus as I’m leaving my house.
Hit on ????
Finished a Saturday! Finished it wrong, and didn't much enjoy it, but I finished! I had an icy STARt, LEtME, ESSeE, and HaT Or. If I only could have speled TaLAPIA, I might have had a chance to get ENID. I knew there was something wrong there, but decided I had already wrung out the meager bit of fun from this one and gave up. But I got EURO without a single perp, so I got that goin' for me. Which is Nice.
PALM OIL is Jeffrey Toobin's favorite.
Seems like only yesterday that we had POL.
Coulda been "teenager's move at the drive-in movie" for BREAST STROKE.
Thanks to H.Gary for hashing this one out.
Did not enjoy although i FIR. Took major leaps in logic to suss.
Not great
FIR. The NE was the last to fall, mostly because of "hit on" and "alibi", both of which i don't entirely get even after the explanation.
I'd never heard of "A Strange Loop", but the other long answers were fairly simple.
But for a Saturday puzzle the difficulty didn't seem that extreme.
So overall this was an enjoyable puzzle.
Took 23:04 today.
Never heard of "a strange loop," and considering I had "pain" for crunch time, then for a long time I had "astran ploop".
Puzzle was ok. I would have said no to the "numbers" clue. I had watched "Wednesday," but didn't remember Enid. I didn't know the drag queen, and several others.
Typical Saturday that about 10 minutes in, the top half still a sea of white, I had my doubts about success. But with some cogitation, major perp help, and a couple WAGs, I prevailed with a FIR in 29:34. CLEAN TOK and A STRANGE LOOP were total unknowns, and “Hazy provenance” didn’t make sense, so UNDATED, HIT ON and PLANT BASED were all perps (vegetarian Naomi may have known what that clue meant). HIT ON made sense only after reading the expo. I liked the clue for EURO (the first letter of a CW clue always being capitalized makes for a lot of misdirection). We had PALM OIL, seems it should be CANOLA OIL also, as canola by itself doesn’t seem like a frying medium. I only know OPI and ESSIE from puzzles, but I know a lot of women on here use their products. Last fill was changing LET ME to LEMME. Thank you Enrique for the challenging puzzle, and to HG for your well thought out write up!
Well, not exactly a walk in the park, eh? Oh well, it is a Saturday, after all.
Enrique shows great promise, but I wish there had been fewer unforced (and common) oversights. Naticks, for example. Like OPI and ESSIE together down in the SE. Or ALIBI (as clued) and ENID up in the NE.
And why does even such a skilled constructor as Enrique annoy us with ubiquitous conversational nonentities like THATSONYOU, ILOSE, IMDEADSERIOUS, and AWW?
So overall, I did not find this particular puzzle all that enjoyable, but given Enrique's obvious talent, I look forward to his next challenge. And thanks, HuskerGary, for your able guidance.
Although Enrique says you HIT ON someone to get their phone number, I think it works better in the context of the more people you meet, the better the odds you will find the one. It's a numbers game.
I don't know about you guys, but for me crosswords are a morning pastime. When work is crazy, I'm usually not going to pick it up when I get home late, so my comments are very sporadic. That being said, it makes the weekend puzzles all that more special.
I enjoy the challenge of a Saturday, and almost got this one. Had pAIN for GAIN, and thus couldn't parse ASTRANGELOOP - Enrique's seed for the entire puzzle! Of all the answers to not get. Oh well, still fun.
Anon 8:12 "astran ploop" sounds like it would have fit right in for this puzzle. I could almost believe it has something to do with "alternative lifestyles."
How can/do you KNOW that?
Anyone had problems this week printing this puzzles? Mine have truncated the rightmost column and about half of the next.
Yes, I have had the same problem. The last right columnist missing. I have to adjust the scaling on my printer which is annoying.
Kudos to those who could FIR because the top half was way out of my wheelhouse. I managed to get CELLO , and CIA but My HOT OIL wasn't CANOLA and I didn't know PALM OIL was used for frying. With clues like DOMS, an unknown show, Yondr pouches Queer as folk, , "Wednesday werewolf", and whatever CLEAN TOK is, it was just undoable. Thanks to the easy BREAST STROKE, I managed to fill the bottom half.
I like a challenge but having clues that most people know nothing about makes for unenjoyable mornings. There are hundreds of shows on multiple channels most people know nothing about. Ditto for singers, songs, books, musicals, directors.
Pulitzers, Oscars, and Grammys have been awarded for what most people call trash. Even Nobels have become political. Women watch those award shows to see what the other women are wearing (or not wearing).
Pick up my new RAV4 today plus DW’s Saturday “honey do” so list no time to give the puzzle a real run for its 💰. Looking over the answers now woulda never finished anyhoo
Inkovers : clap for/ ACCLAIM,
“Low quarter member” figured it hadda be bass but wouldn’t fit so I used the musical/Italian version basso fit, but wrong. Then expected “Soundproofing” to be ear something but eARPETS?
Ancient joke…“Waiter what’s that fly doing in my soup!!”…. the BREASTSTROKE
The whole top of my head is a “gray” AREA.
SHOULD, but I figured New Year or midnight
That novel “Without Provenance” sounds intriguing. Gonna check it out.
“Usher” as main character reminded me of “the stage manager”, the narrator in “Our Town” which was a play, movie, but not a musical and wouldn’t fit anyway (HEY, why not a rap version of Our Town á la “Hamilton”)
Photocomes from the Greek word for “light”. I work with “photons” (x-rays) all day. Phyton is Greek for “plant”
Useless information: scientists used the term X for an entity that was unknown. Wilhelm von Roetgen’s discovery in 1895 .. he didn’t know what they were hence X-rays ( first X ray was of Bill’s wife’s hand, on a glass plate we had a copy in our department in Rochester)
🩻
I don't recall ever having a puzzle that was so off my wavelength. Almost every clue/answer was not what I was thinking (or led to believe.) so I spent most of the puzzle hitting reveal to find some glaring inaccuracy, only to find "oh that's what he meant" as opposed to aha moments...
If I could find "anything" that might explain it, it might be "word in SOME crunchy cereal names." Led me to believe it would be a word that would appear in more than one brand of cereal, where I think "Krispies" is proprietary. Acceptable if you are talking about a bunch of the same product, but downright sneaky clueing if you ask me...
No problem printing this AM on the LAT site.
Forgot …Wanted to share some pix ❄️ ❄️❄️
We built our home in 1994 and have never seen an accumulation of snow like this, and it’s still coming down with more on the way Guess we won’t be grilling on the patio for awhile
🌨️
Your Toobin line wins today’s blog! 😂
Hats off to anybody who finished this puzzle without help. I had to employ the “reveal letter” prompt five times to gain traction in this unenjoyable mixture of Monday-level fillers and ridiculously cutesie cluing.
“Engage in a numbers game” for HIT ON is a top-five worst clue in the history of crosswords candidate.
Good Morning:
It took me 40 minutes to finish w/o help, but finish I did, finally. I’m sure you’re just as tired of hearing my criticisms of FITB cluing, excessive numbers of TLWs, Obscure pop culture references, Random abbreviations (Sesh, Convo, Obvi, etc.), etc., as I am of voicing them. Therefore, my Thumper reference is being replaced by a simple NMCOT (Not My Cup Of Tea) which translates to all or some of the aforementioned criticisms.
Thanks, HG, for brightening my day with your always upbeat, positive review, not to mention the fun photo gallery.
Have a great day.
Where do you live?
I surprised myself by finishing, no, no, not quite, I left one square blank not knowing the polish names, though since they’re so often in CWs I should know them by now, but I filled in every thing else with lots of perps and WAGS. I say I’m surprised because this is not my favorite kind of CW puzzle. I dislike conversational substitutes for one thing. However on the plus side, very few proper names.
LEOE, never heard of Á STRANGE LOOP in spite of the prizes it received.
I would have thought the butterfly stroke would be slower than the BREAST STROKE, my favorite swim stroke.
Last night I updated my Apple OS for iPad to 18.3.1. I wonder if that’s why this morning the blog’s font is tiny.
Thank you HG for the nice review. I always like á Seinfeld Video.
So, snow in some places, á predicted high of 80 here in Baton Rouge.
Whitesboro a suburb of Utica NY From the map, in central New York, a Mid-Atlantic state. But once we invade our neighbor Canada and force it to become the 51st state we’d become part of the SOUTH plus able to drive over the Peace Bridge from Buffalo (named thus due to “peace and prosperity between the U.S. and Canada” soon to be renamed the War Bridge) without a passport!!
Canada Eh. JK
😀
Nope. TITT about halfway down when I realized that the plethora of "verbalisms", "fill-in-the-blank", and inane non-clues had sucked all hope of enjoyment out of this poor excuse for a crossWORD puzzle.
I'll be laughing about Toobin's PALM OIL all day!
I’ve got to start keeping track of Broadway the way I used to. If you weren’t familiar with A Strange Loop, and I wasn’t, an FIR was nearly impossible. Somehow, I persevered and succeeded, but with many annoyances and little joy.
An unusually high number of the annoyances were of the “who-edited-this?” variety. Is the CIA “spy-fi?” A BAD CALL (a lame entry at best) is a strike against an umpire, not for one. The ridiculous clue for YES was too typical of this puzzle. The I LOSE clue supposes that a person who has lost a chess match is a “mate.” HAL Sparks must be the 232nd most famous Hal that Enrique and Patti could have chosen. Who saw “Wednesday” and would know the werewolf’s name? Do people know what DOMS is? Aw, hell no. Are there Krispies other than Rice and Cocoa that would elevate the K version to “some” crunchy cereals. Does one POTHOLE cause a bumpy ride? ESSIE?
And I’m sick of “AT IT” a phrase I would never apply to hard work or fighting.
BREAST STROKE, Icy STARE, en MASSE, the Auld Lang Syne opener, and TILAPIA were toeholds, and finally discerning YAP helped me complete the puzzle.
Some advice for Enrique: The object of good trivia is to elicit something the quizzee knows deep down. It should “get you where you live.”
150 Billion views!?
Solved this puzzle but definitely on on my "wave length".
Saturday toughie, but that's what they're supposed to be. So, many thanks, Enrique, for some clever if tough items. And thanks for your commentary and pictures too, Husker Gary.
AWW, I ACHED a little when my guesses CLASHED with what turned out to be the answers. I don't have an ALIBI--just not much of a KNACK for tough puzzles that are a BAD CALL for me. But, hey, I don't need an ORAL solution when a puzzle offers me some KRISPIES in its CART. Especially when I first get to enjoy some SALAMI, while listening to some ARIAS on the radio. Not a bad Saturday, after all, even when you have to deal with a toughie.
Enjoy your weekend, everybody.
I'm mystified by CIA for Spy-fi org. Doesn't "-fi" mean fiction, like Sci-fi?
Completely agree with you. Terrible cluing and terrible puzzle.
Drag queen and queer culture clues are getting out of hand. There is no way that people that are not part of that lifestyle have much chance of knowing the answer to those clues.
not on my "wave length":
"A STRANGE LOOP" got its name from a concept from mathematician Douglas Hofstadter. I am familiar with the math but never heard of the play. Thanks for explaining GAIN. I reluctantly entered it, thinking it was wrong. I was wrong. FIR. Appreciated some of the misdirections: ALIBI, EURO.
Here Merlie and I posed in ROBEs at a Japanese Onsen (SPA) in Hakone.
This ROBE is called a Yukata. I struggled to remember that word, but it turned out the answer was just "ROBE".
From Thursday:
Lucina Glad you appreciated the feats of that performer on the slack line at our ALAMEDA Park.
I hesitated to respond to the controversial comments, but I think a response is in order, since the comments are still posted.
With regard to the Shrimp Treadmill: As a scientist, I am well aware that some of the most important research can sound silly when presented as being silly. Apparently this is a MAGA meme now. Including a claim that we taxpayers paid $3 million for this Shrimp Treadmill. No. The researcher spent $50 on it. These shrimp earn millions of dollars a year for the fishermen who harvest them. They are in decline. The Shrimp Treadmill was a creative instrument to help understand the decline.
As for the Bork comment, that also demands a response. Nixon was being investigated by special prosecutor Archibald Cox for serious lawbreaking. Nixon tried to kill the investigation by asking Attorney General Elliot Richardson to fire Cox. Richardson courageously resigned, rather than fulfill this unethical order. Bork then carried out this unethical order.
There is a big difference between political disagreements and actual unethical behavior that is relevant to holding a powerful seat on the Supreme Court.
In the current turbulent times it is important to understand the difference between politics and the very survival of our Constitutional republic.
I was cruising along and then arrived at my Natick of ESS-E and OP-. Didn't understand GAIN or HIT ON until Gary explained.
Hola! Like others I found this Saturday snarl to be over the top for me. Never heard of A STRANGE LOOP. Only those who are in the Broadway area know those shows. CLEANTOK was another unknown. And I really, really dislike the clues with a blank line. It could be anything! At least the bottom half was doable for me and although I have no idea what YONDR pouches are, but I guessed PHONES. Sometimes I have a KNACK for guessing other times I could guess until the COWS come home and never get the answer. The same for ENID as clued. I'm very familiar with OPI nail polish but not ESSIE.
IMO, Rice KRISPIES are the most unsatisfying cereal. I can never get enough to enjoy it. Raisin Bran is my choice.
I hope you are enjoying your day, everyone!
I like Raisin Bran too.
Couldn't agree more. Nothing against that culture (or any sub-culture), but too many niche clues / theming defeats the purpose and kills the fun.
Wouldn't it be better if it were a difficult puzzle because of the blend of knowledge areas (history, science, arts, etc.) instead of a niche?
I read Godel Escher Bach soon after it came out (1980 - ish) and it has had a significant impact on how I have subsequently viewed the world around me. With all this AI hype lately, I have been thinking that I must re-read the book.
MalMan Thank you for your reply/comment about "Gödel, Escher, Bach" by Douglas Hofstadter. The origin of "A STRANGE LOOP". My parents gave me a copy of the book for my birthday when it came out. By coincidence, Hofstadter came to speak at MIT right then.
His talk was supposed to be about explaining consciousness, but he never directly talked about this. When I challenged him, he insisted consciousness is entirely explained by these STRANGE LOOPs. I read the book and I enjoyed it, but I was not convinced.
A few years ago he came to speak to our department at UC Santa Barbara. I challenged him again and he was more insistent than ever about the STRANGE LOOPs. Yes, it is a good book with some interesting insights. But don't expect a satisfactory explanation for consciousness.
I also meant to thank Husker Gary for relaying the explanations of some truly obscure puzzle bits. I never would have understood the HIT ON explanation. Nor the CLEAN TOK thing.
Absolutely agree!!!
Sorry to be late! I'm away from home, and almost forgot to do the puzzle! I went Across and Down repeatedly (on paper, no cheating) and was amazed to see the grid fill in. Ultimately, I had one bad square. Unlike SubGenius, I had no system to prompt me to change LEtME to LEMME, although I did comment to my mother that I needed to read the blog to find out why "Turns down" is DItS. Oops! FIW but enjoyed it. How some of you read minority sexuality into this puzzle is beyond me. Good Saturday fare, Enrique! Excellent review, HG! You can't please everyone. It's a numbers game.
Got to this late and almost TTIT after the first pass, but started chipping away. The NE corner took a while but kept at it and FIR. A toughie for sure.
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