Saturday Themeless by Erica Hsiung Wojcik and Matthew Stock
Erica is an Assistant Professor in the Psychology Department at Skidmore College.
Matt had a Saturday themeless collaboration a month ago with Amie Walker and is working on a Master's in Gainesville, Florida.
My last fill was changing LIRA to LIRE
1. Lorry driver, often: BRIT - It Britain, a truck is called a lorry, it drives on the left side of the road, runs on tyres, burns litres of petrol and has an engine covered with a bonnet.
5. Hoops: B-BALL. 😀 and 26. 5-Across sight: NET. Six Nebraska girl's teams will doing this in Lincoln today.
10. Like some meditation sessions: GUIDED.
12. Went back and forth: ARGUED - Does anyone listen?
14. Shaded colonnade: PERGOLA.
15. "Star Trek" empath Troi: DEANNA.
16. A lot for parents to manage?: STROLLER PARKING 😀
19. One responsible for many of Starbuck's orders: AHAB 😀 Captain AHAB gave orders to first mate Starbucks.
20. Self-righteous expression: SMIRK.
21. Super Monkey Ball maker: SEGA.
22. Canvas bags: TOTES.
24. Vast expanse: OCEAN and 33. Go over seas: SAIL - Tom Hanks and his pathetic SAIL on the vast expense
27. Familiar pattern?: TARTAN - It might have been clued as familial pattern.
29. __-mo: SLO.
30. III's nickname: TRE - If you have the same name as dad and grandpa...
31. Salt: TAR
34. Ackbar's ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ oft-quoted "Return of the Jedi" line: IT'S A TRAP.
38. Communications service with an AI assistant named Gemini: G-MAIL.
41. Stretches of concerts when the hits keep coming?: DRUM SOLOS 😀 Oh, those kind of hits!
43. "Attack!": SIC 'EM
45. Old Italian coins: LIRE - Striking this 20 LIRE coin turned out to be an embarrassment.
46. Be successful in: WIN AT.
48. Mother of Apollo and Artemis: LETO.
 |
| LETO Apollo Artemis |
49. Main __: EVENT.
51. Israeli airline: EL AL.
53. Toned: FIT.
54. Danced to "Last Dance," perhaps: DISCOED - This video features Donna Summer's big voice and lots of people who DISCOED to her fun song!
51. Israeli airline: EL AL.
53. Toned: FIT.
54. Danced to "Last Dance," perhaps: DISCOED - This video features Donna Summer's big voice and lots of people who DISCOED to her fun song!
57. Freshwater salamander native to Mexico's Lake Xochimilco: AXOLOTL - ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I don't know the lake or animal and can't even pronounce them but they eventually appeared.
59. Not going anywhere, perhaps: AT HOME.
60. "Rhythm of the Night" R&B group: DEBARGE - The quintessential one-hit-wonders of the 80's
61. Gino's competitor: UNOS - If you're ever in Chicago...
62. Spot commodity?: DOG TOY 😀
Down:
1. Cheese from the Puglia region of Italy: BURRATA ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
2. Nobel Peace Prize laureate who founded Guatemala's first Indigenous political party: RIGOBERTA MENCHU ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
3. Hot star: IDOL.
4. Giveaways: TELLS - Charles Emerson Winchester had a very obvious TELL. Every time he had a bad hand he started whistling louder. He got cleaned out.
5. Ink smear?: BAD PRESS 😀
6. Stage whisper?: BREAK A LEG.
7. Ingredient in the Japanese confection yokan: AGAR - A four-pack of AGAR to help make the desert on the box
8. Meatheads: LUNKS.
9. Permissive: LENIENT.
10. Near, in a way: GET HOT.
9. Permissive: LENIENT.
10. Near, in a way: GET HOT.
11. Matt's "House of the Dragon" role: DAEMON - Matt Smith also played Prince Phillip in The Crown
13. Pitfall: DANGER.
17. Pro wrestler Flair: RIC.
18. Horse track structure: GATE - Churchill Downs has introduced a starting GATE with 20 stalls.
23. Econ course: STATS.
25. The usual fare: NORMS.
28. Straight shooter?: ARROW - Like him or not, he is a
32. Barely ahead: UP ONE - The Mets will take it.
34. Sat in park: IDLED.
35. Minutiae: TRIVIA - The backbone of crosswords
36. Most steady: SUREST.
37. USWNT great Krieger: ALI - ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ United States Women's National Team
39. Base camp for a snowball fight: ICE FORT - A modest one
40. "I need you to stop bringing this up": LET IT GO - A superintendent once told me, "I heard you the fourth time!"
42. Larb, for one: SALAD - The Thai word larb (ลาบ) means "chopped up". Larb is a traditional Thai dish of minced meat salad that's spicy, salty, and tangy. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
44. __ Crue: MOTLEY.
47. Demanded much of: TAXED.
50. Dora or Daffy: TOON 😀
52. University of New Mexico athlete: LOBO.
56. __ Moines: DES.
58. Fall behind: LAG.
44 comments:
Almost, but not quite.
Had “percola” instead of “pergola” and couldn’t get a handle on the “Gino’s competitor,” since I had absolutely no guidance from the perps. So, FIW. I’m not terribly happy about that, but I am happy to be here and see how the rest of you did. Subgenius out!
Officially a DNF as I had half a dozen blanks in the NW, which were too many to even WAG, ultimately done in by the Italian cheese, the Nobel laureate, and the shaded colonnade. Surprisingly, when I clicked on “reveal word” for 1D and 2D, I got the congratulatory message, meaning everything else was correct, cuz I had doubts about the SE fill. AXOLOTL?? Wow, what a word and clue to match, did anyone possibly know that? Never heard of a Larb SALAD, vaguely remember DeBARGE. As a kid I built snow forts, not ICE FORTs. Also unknown were DAEMON and DEANNA, all perps. Tough puzzle for me, but I appreciate the challenge from Erica and Matthew. HG ~ thanks for your very informative recap!
Axolotls are having a moment - a popular “stuffie” (plush toy, stuffed animal) - along with avocados (go figure?). My grandkids and their friends are crazy for them.
All done, quickly, but one letter - the b at lobo crossing debarge. Not bad for a Sat!
DNF, my usual Saturday outcome. Filled 49, all right except dolts instead of LUNKS, email not GMAIL, and IT'S A wRAP. Congratulations to the folks who FIRed it.
That starting GATE Gary pictures is actually 2 gates connected together. The standard horse racing gate has 14 positions, but normally the Kentucky Derby has 20 entries, so they add a six-position axillary gate at the outboard end. They have occasionally had more than 20 starters, and when that happens, they just connect two of the 14 position gates together. One starter's button controls both gates.
Thanks to Erica and Matthew for the stretch objective, and to H,Gary for another fine review. I'll bet that our friend Otto Correct pluralized the last Starbuck in your 19A comment.
Beyond my current abilities, but a fun themeless with lots of learning opportunities. STROLLER BAY ? Now if my my mind will work...LARB is both Thai and Laotian, and a dish I eat regularly. Oo makes Salmon and Chicken Larb regularly and does not use the 5 star sauce for me. Turn your clocks ahead or get as confused as I am these days. Thank you Matt (Gainesville, my home for years) and Erica and the always helpful HG
Took 19:32 today.
Guatemalan somebody is moving up the leaderboards for the longest and worst clue of the month.
I knew the Star Wars reference, but not the Star Trek character.
My youngest son almost got an axolotl a year ago.
For some reason, I knew Debarge, yet resisted "discoed".
It's not a Saturday puzzle without some foreign foods (burrata & yokan).
Not my favorite puzzle.
FIW. I misspelled lire as lira, (even spellcheck agrees with me), and I'd never heard of Nobelist.
Other than that this was a very typical Saturday puzzle with the expected level of difficulty.
Overall an enjoyable puzzle.
Not my fault, because the paper printed the clue for 44D as
___ CrYe, Well, besides that I had PoRtico for PERGOLA. Sra MENCHU and LARB were unknown, and misspelled the cheese. Also tried hEra or LEda before LETO
RIGOBERTA MENCHU has some crossings with high Natick potential (PERGOLA, UNOS, LIRE). I'm not a fan of first name + last name spanners (a staple of Natan Last and Erik Agard puzzles, by the way) for this very reason.
KS @8:20 - LIRA is the Turkish crosswordese currency but also the singular of LIRE, the former Italian currency. So you weren't really wrong.
Good Morning:
I finished w/o help but it took 1:11:00 of excruciating frustration to do so. Was Rigoberto Manchu the seed entry? How else would you end up with that as an entry? Or perhaps it was the famous Axolotl or the equally famous DeBarges? I know from past experience that Matthew’s cluing isn’t my cup of tea (way too cutesy-clever) but today’s cluing isn’t as much of a negative issue as the fill is, IMO.
Thanks, HG, for your always entertaining and fair-minded reviews.
Have a great day.
Occasionally I WIN AT my attempts to finish a Saturday puzzle. Today, I'll TAKE THE L. The first two downs-1D & 2D- crossing the unknown PERGOLA and no idea about 'meditation sessions' left the NW with a hole. I had BRIT, IDOL, TELLS, PSAT,AHAB, TOTES, TARTAN and even DAEMON but they left a hole in the middle. I was getting 'warm' but NOT 'red' HOT. IMHO, GET hot makes no sense as I kept thinking 'red' hot. Filled the rest of the puzzle correctly.
I will try to remember BURRATA and RIGOBERTA MENCHU for the next puzzle they are needed. Yuk, yuk.
DEANNA- not a Trekkie- perps for her.
TRE- never seen it spelled with out the Y.
I assumed Duolingo was something translation related, but DW & I are not USERS.
AI assistants I don't need or want but the keep showing up. Spell corrections, trying to finish sentences, suggestions- let the ignorant use them, not me.
AXOLOTL- Yeah, I could spell that one, said nobody.
'Gino's competitor'- I was thinking Totino's. Wrong Jeno's. UNOS was a guess.
I got the unknown ALI for the unknown USWNT- team in what sport? I couldn't figure that one out.
Erica and Matthew gave us a formidable challenge today, a themeless puzzle with abnormal symmetry, and grid-spanners that crossed each other.
It was a crossword that respected us as solvers, with fresh word play and wit, and without resorting to overused stale staples spit out by Crossword Compiler.
There was not only an abundance of misdirected clues, but also the core of the misdirections covered the gamut, from parts of speech (e.g., in 10D, "Near" turned out to be a verb, not a preposition); or a word or phrase meaning two or more things, such as "Spot" in 62A or "A lot" in 16D; or my favorite, bringing literature in, as in19A (Starbuck and Ahab).
The puzzle bordered on the esoteric in places, thus a bit above my pay grade. So I ran into a couple Natick- or near-Natick situations, due to words like DEANNA, AGAR, SEGA, and RIC (and DAEMON) in proximity.
Thanks, Gary, for your comprehensive and amusing recap. I enjoyed seeing the late David Ogden Stiers there, a masterful actor. And it occurred to me that his character, Charles Emerson Winchester III, can be used not only for 4D (TELLS), but also for 30A (TRE), since he is a III.
And thanks again, Matthew and Erica, for a first-rate and enjoyable puzzle.
Seems like every time I fill lira, it's LIRE, and vice versa. And every time I write olio, it's oleo, and vice versa. At least with olio-oleo, I can just write olio and make it an E if necessary.
Finished in 17 minutes with the help of a sprinkling of red letters. Several clues were overly cute, and there were a handful of obscurities. Rigoberta Menchu???
Happy to report that AXOLOTL was easy money for this former herpetology nerd.
Overall I give this puzzle a 6/10.
Really had to dust off the cobwebs and vacuum the deepest recesses of my mind for this one! But FIR in the end.
Unusual diagonal symmetry resulted in two 15s crossing. Got STROLLER PARKING fairly quickly, but the long down name came painfully letter by letter. Guess I need to brush up on my Nobel laureates - there are only 1,012 of them so far...
Fav clue was for DRUM SOLO. There's an old joke about tourists hearing drums on an African safari. Their guide says, "Jungle drums - very bad."
The sightseers are frightened and ask why. He replies, "Because next comes the bass solo."
Erica and Matt wipe the SMIRK off your faces 😃
Although I almost put BRIT first I figured that was an abbrev not in the clue. My first sure fire entry wasn’t until SLO-mo!!😳. This was a mega-Saturday challenge; after hour on and off, I managed 90% of the South and a smattering of the North. TITT with the rest of the laundry (“yes dear done with the puzzle, I’ll start a load”)
AHAB order to his first mate Starbucks “Make me an iced venti decaf double shot Frappuccino with almond milk”
Never heard a III called a TRE and I am one.
The reverse side of the 20 Lire IL Duce coin translation : “Better to live one day as a lion than 100 years as a sheep” A fascist leader’s image on money hmmm 🤨
AXOLOTL : I knew was a true amphibian, in that unlike a frog has both lungs and gills as an adult. Didn’t known they can also regenerate almost any organ/body part. (C’mon little guy what’s your secret)
Anyone who FIR 👏 congrats. Looking at you Sophia @ 5:56 (aptly named “wisdom”) et al.
Recommend a new limited Netflix series, “The Leopard” based on the classic Italian same name novel (a work as well-known as our “Gone with the wind”). Events surrounding an aristocratic Sicilian family in the 1860’s but instead of a nation divided by civil war the strife of unification into a single Italian nation.
The sun is shining and I have my “to do” list enjoy the weekend.
😀
Love it. It ranks right up there with a joke I love, but no one else seems to: "Define drummers."
"People who hang out with musicians."
Nope. Way above my pay grade, too rich for my blood, and too full of the trivial, arcane, obscure, and cutesy clues. TITT.
Well this was a feat of misdirections, even the grid was skewed...
(And for me, "tre" = !!!)
Even the old adage, "straight as an arrow" is a misdirection...
Lastly, Rigoberto Whatitsface was cruel, but having it vertical instead of horizontal was really below the belt! (Ow! My neck!)
She did win the Nobel Peace Prize. That makes me feel I SHOULD have known who she is.
I managed to FIR despite some of the most galling clues imaginable. A themeless puzzle with SEVEN clues containing “ain’t I clever” question marks? That’s about five too many, which gets to the heart of what was wrong with this puzzle.
The worst, many will agree, was the contrived STROLLER PARKING (although DW says that’s a thing), but even some of the ones I figured out quickly – TARTAN (for familiar – not familial? – pattern), BREAK A LEG (which is whispered OFF-stage, not on), and the clunky “spot commodity” for DOG TOY, were far more grating than ingratiating. The “hits” in the DRUM SOLOS clue certainly didn’t make it clever. And the “ink smear” clue for BAD PRESS implied libel, which is worse than mere negativity in print.
There were also a couple of “perhaps” clues that had the question-mark effect.
More off-putting clues: Is a SMIRK self-righteous? Is Gino’s up there with UNO’S? Could there be a more obscure clue for AGAR? Or GATE? Or STATS? Or ALI?
And I haven’t even mentioned RIGOBERTA MENCHU or AXOLOTL. I’ve never heard of BURRATA either and didn’t know DAEMON or DEANNA.
I did know just enough to get through the puzzle, thanks to figuring the lorry driver is a BRIT, recognizing the Starbuck/AHAB connection, and coming up with PERGOLA, salt/TAR, SIC ‘EM, RIC Flair, TELLS, TRIVIA, ICE FORT, Larb SALAD, MOTLEY Crue, and LOBO. Oh, and B-BALL toward the end of the solve. What an obstacle course.
Hola! Yes, I know AXOLOTL! My car is AXOLOTL II. I love the word and I name my cars AXOLOTL. I shockingly finished a Saturday puzzle, again! Either they are easy enough to fill or I am just smart! Ha, ha. I've had years and years of practice solving puzzles.
Right now I'm waiting for my niece and my sister to collect me. They are very late but I just heard that their car needed an oil change and that's what is causing the delay. We will arrive in CA much later than planned.
Back to the puzzle; an ICE FORT will never be seen here but we did receive a fair amount of rain yesterday.
TOTES are a favorite gift from some organizations and if they were money, I'd be very well off. I send money only to a very few select ones but they keep coming. Any time I give something away to friends I use one of those TOTES.
DEANNA Troi is one of my favorite Star Wars characters and filled quickly.
AHAB did not come quickly but perps completed it. I forget that Starbucks is a literary character.
One of my nephews is a TRE but he's called TREY.
I feel that I am UP ONE and so I shall conclude. Please be safe and have a wonderful week, everyone! I'm hoping I can do the puzzle on my small laptop computer.
“It was a crossword that respected us as solvers….” Couldn’t disagree more!
A cringeworthy crossword construction!
I did this CW on line with red letters so I was able to complete it by throwing letters randomly where i didn’t know the answer, and there were many of those, and was surprised when they were correct. Not my kind of fun.
There were several clever clues like AHAB, but not enough for true enjoyment.
Thank you HG for á most useful recap.
Saturday toughie, but with interesting moments--thanks, Erica and Matthew. And your comments are always helpful, Gary, thanks for those too.
Well, the BRIT and his opponent ARGUED, and the GUIDED dispute did GET HOT when one of them yelled IT'S A TRAP and the other one responded with BREAK A LEG! We then heard a DRUM SOLO telling them to LET IT GO. It was time they IDLED a bit, and played some TRIVIA, and ate a SALAD and bought some DOG TOYS for their pets. It's good for them to have a little peace AT HOME, which lets them WIN AT their game in the end.
Have a lovely weekend, everybody.
Edward in Los Angeles: Ms. Troi was the most ridiculous character in Star Trek- the Romulons are about to blow the ship out of the universe, and she stands next to Kirk and says:” I sense danger.”
Lol
Reminds me of Lamar's javelin throw in Animal House.
A pleasant way to start a Saturday. AXOLOTL was almost completely perp'd and I have a minor "bone-to-pick" with STATS which is a field of study that goes far beyond economics. NORMS being a plural answer to the clue felt a bit off. I wonder what Troi sensed. Never heard of an ICE FORT. I guess that Fortress of Solitude wouldn't fit. As I said, minor nits.
That would be Captain Picard. Kirk wasn’t in that series.
Thanks to Erica and Matthew for their Saturday challenge! Loved the diagonal symmetry!! I had a 4-box FIW. As Sophia said, "Not bad for a Sat!"
I have a friend who goes by "Three".
Safe travels to Lucina!
Thanks to H-Gary for all the explanations -- especially TAR and AXOLOTL!
Didn't do the puzzle yet, nor read any of your comments. Been doing Turbo Tax, which has changed greatly from last year in how the program proceeds. It sure seems a LOT more difficult to use this year than ever before. What used to take 1 to 2 hours took us 4 hours today. The program just kept asking the same questions over and over, such as "Okay, click Continue to review the data we already have from each and every one of your 1099-INT, 1099-DIV, and 1099-R forms". Sheesh.
Started early, had to go out and about, and just finished the puzzle now. The NW corner was last to fall, but I FIR on paper, no cheating. DNK the Guatemalan lady and a few others. Luckily, RIC Flair gave me a toe hold in the parking area! I enjoyed this Saturday challenge.
I agree with Ray-O-Sunshine that "The Leopard" on Netflix is off to a wonderful start. It's in Italian with English subtitles, so you may notice that A becomes E to create a plural word. 45 Across *had* to be LIRE, not LIRa, because the clue said "coins."
Lucina, you are indeed very smart, and being bilingual gives you a leg up with languages in general.
Thanks, Erica and Matthew, for giving us a stunning Saturday grid, and thanks to Husker Gary, who takes on the tough ones with a smile.
I loved the Lira. A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away I walked into a bank in Florence, cashed a $500 American Express Travelers Check and walked out...a millionaire!
I struggled to finish this puzzle and had to look many items up, including PERGOLA, Ackbar, AI assistant named Gemini, DEBARGE, Puglia Cheese, and, of course, RIGOBERTA MENCHU.
AXOLOTL makes me think of Lucina.
Good wishes to you all.
Well, I finally did something I’d never done before with a CW: I TITT. Chock full of OPC names (obscure pop-culture) along with the Saturday curse of “let’s use the weirdest clues possible to hose the solver”. Could one find a worse clue for AGAR?? And has anyone here ever DISCOED?? Even spell-check barfed at that one. Not fun, just a waste of space. Even Gary seemed at a bit of a loss with his review.
I’ll pass on this one; I’m out.
====> Darren / L.A.
Here I was honored to photograph RIGOBERTA MENCHU in November 2003.
This was eleven years after she won the Nobel prize.
What should take 20 minutes takes 1-2 hours. They already have most of the unchanged data (unless there is a death or new baby). Entering W2s, SSA, and 1099s should take about 10 minutes but you have to answer all those needless questions, with interruptions wanting trying to get you to upgrade to a more expensive option. My best friend, an ex-IRS field agent and retired tax preparer, used Turbotax professional for 10 years to do others' tax returns. This year, he went to H&R Block's program. He said it was just as bad.
I agree: on a scale of 1 to 10, this definitely is a 6/10, or 0.6 in English.
Picard. I should have known you'd have a photo! Thank you for sharing. I can see courage, confidence, and perhaps sadness (?) in her eyes.
It's worse in Oregon -- 4 pages Federal became 12 pages for the jocks in Salem -- 7 pages 1040-equivalent, another for a Sched-A equivalent, and a complete copy, naturally, of my Federal forms. And that's doing it manually, no electronic 'assistance.'
sumdaze Thank you for the kind words. Yes, all of those things are part of her and part of her world. The history of her country of Guatemala is intimately tied to our country. Not in a good way. Thank you for your astute observations.
Amazing, Picard! Beautiful portrait.
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