Saturday Themeless by Rafael Musa
I made very good time in this puzzle but there was no way I was going to get the red cell you see below. ¯\_(γ)_/¯
1. Warning on some sauce: ATOMIC.
7. __ Darya river: AMU - ¯\_(γ)_/¯ It is mostly a DaRYa River now and it "flows" into the southern remnants of the Aral Lake.
10. Solidarity leader Walesa: LECH - A true Polish living legend whose courage foreshadowed the fall of the Soviet Union.
14. Place to take a break from the hustle and bustle: URBAN OASIS.
16. Part that helps the wheels on the bus go round and round: AXLE π
17. Words before a gavel banging: GOING TWICE π
18. Fuss: STIR.
19. Doing: UP TO.
20. [Jazz hands]: TADA.
22. Caldo de __: Mexican beef soup: RES.
23. "Was that not enough?": MORE?
24. Plow creation or brow formation: FURROW π
26. Cake or Bread: BAND - I only knew one of them. You?
29. "Shake it off": HATERS GONNA HATE.
34. "No complaining!": I DON'T WANT ANY LIP.
35. Events that only get some coverage?: PARTIAL ECLIPSES π
36. Big primate: APE.
37. 50-Down org.: NBA and 50. Cleveland pro: CAV.
38. Aware of: ONTO.
39. Pitfall! consoles: ATARIS.
41. Be overly maudlin: CLOY - His bleak and jaded worldview is tempered by an unflagging, never cloying faith in love and its ability to transcend the muck and vile.
— Carlos Valladares, SFChronicle.com, 4 Nov. 2019
42. "Golly!": BOY.
45. Work: OPUS.
46. One may thicken over time: PLOT π
47. Like the oxygen in a hyperbaric chamber: PURE - They are believed to promote faster healing by using PURE oxygen under increased pressure.
48. "A Visit From the Goon Squad" novelist: EGAN and 30. Substance in herbal medicine: ADAPTOGEN. - The G where these two intersected was an impossibility for me as you saw in the grid. π
49. Seeing things that aren't natural?: BIONIC EYES - These can restore sight to blind people
51. "Mistakes __ made": WERE.
52. Break in?: STAYCATION - Take a break but stay in town
53. Otorhinolaryngologists, for short: ENTS.
54. Not assume, say: ASK.
55. "Regardless ... ": EVEN SO.
Down:
1. Herald: AUGUR - These clouds in central Nebraska AUGUR some extreme weather
2. Enemies to lovers, e.g.: TROPE - A familiar plot device in TV shows and movies. This fun movie leapt to my mind.
4. Hand for a mariachi band?: MANO - ... or any hand in Spanish
5. English equivalent to the French -ant: ING - Crosswords are amusing (Les mots croisΓ©s sont amusants)
6. Test kit items: COTTON SWABS.
7. Tangent: ASIDE.
10. Surgical tool: LASER.
11. Appearances: EXTERNALS - Front and back of the Hill Valley Courthouse from Back To The Future
13. "I Can't Breathe" singer-songwriter: HER.
 |
| H.E.R. |
15. Occasion to celebrate achievements: AWARD GALA.
21. Habitat for __: HUMANITY - Two famous workers
23. Gin cocktails: MARTINIS.
24. Recourse before pursuing legal action, maybe: FINAL NOTICE.
25. Responds with great emotion: WEEPS.
26. Predisposition: BENT - I have always been a man with a math and science BENT
27. Carpenters' union?: ANT COLONY π π
29. Abbr. on some medical forms: HIPAA.
31. Criticized harshly: TORE APART.
32. Half and half: ONE π
33. Shot provider: HYPO π
40. Old Norse characters: RUNES.
42. Poker fee: BUY IN - Ya gotta pay to play
43. Treat with vanilla creme: OREOS - How do I clue thee, Let me count the ways
44. Binary, in a way: YES NO - If this makes no sense to you, ask a math peep.
46. Centers of drupes: PITS.
47. Mets slugger Alonso: PETE.
49. Org. now known as Scouting America: BSA.
17 comments:
This is one of those occasions where I
hope you friends did better than I did. After about an hour, I got frustrated and turned on the red letters. I just couldn’t get “urban oasis” among others. I finished it finally, but it took a lot of help.
I’m not particularly happy about that, but I am happy to be here and see how the rest of you did. Subgenius out!
As with all Saturdays, this was not easy. Though I did WAG the "G" for EGAN so there was that. I was impressed by all of her awards but never heard of, nor read any of her books. HABITAT FOR HUMANITY for Broward County was a long term client of a law firm I did much work for and attended many builds and openings. I agree that URBAN OASIS was a challenge but the perps eventually filled. I loved the clue for PARTIAL ECLIPSE very witty. not familiar with Caldo de Res this Mexican dish but the fill came from the other words in the corner. BIONIC EYES was inferable but as a legally blind person I will try to get more information. For the baseball fans out there, once again the managers each did their best to lose the Tigers / Mariners game but the pitching overall was amazing. Thanks Gary and Rafael, and old-fashioned biblical name which was my father's Hebrew name.
My experience was about the same. I completed about 3/4 of the grid without help, but I had to resort to red letters and alphabet runs to complete the NW part of the grid. That’s not a complaint. Overall I thought this was a fun, challenging puzzle. A good start to what will be I hope a great weekend.
DNF. Filled 33, 29 correctly. Had I not insisted on "ammo" instead of HYPO I would have gotten a few more, but wouldn't have finished.
Can't believe I didn't get HATERS GONNA HATE. I guess I can blame ammo, but I should have hit that layup.
I only know about hyperbaric chambers from my scuba diving days. Sport divers want nothing to do with them, and go to great lengths to avoid them by consulting dive tables and their dive logbook. But I think those hyperbaric chambers just used ambient air, not PURE oxygen.
My printed copy (from the LAT site) showed "Otorhinolaryngologist s, for short," dashing what little hope I had of figuring that one out. I was trying to figure out how to spel the sound of a lisper saying an "s."
Congrats to those who finished this toughie. Thanks to H.Gary for the fun and informative tour. (Yes, I knew Bread but not Cake.)
With only a handful of gimmes, I knew it was gonna take some work and my best abstract thinking to be successful on this one. The NW was last to fall, with unknowns ING, AMU, RES, and TA DA [Jazz hands]?? The three center spanners took a lot of perp help. DNK what drupes and Manchego were, definitely Saturday cluing for otherwise easy fill. I thought I had the grid completely filled but got no congratulatory message, then noticed a blank in the SW where I correctly WAGed the G in the ADAPTOGEN/EGAN cross. TA DA! FIR w/out help in 39:28. “Treat” was singular, so the plural OREOS didn’t register right away. “Work” was very vague for OPUS. Thank you Rafael for this very enjoyable challenge and to HG for your insightful enlightenment!
A dinosaur thought --"Rub some dirt on it!" Never would think, "Haters gonna hate.' for "Shake it off."
Good Morning:
I found 90 % of the puzzle challenging, but doable and enjoyable. The other 10 %, i.e., the NW/Center quadrant was neither doable nor enjoyable, at least for me. It was completely blank from Atomic down to Res, until I gave in and used red letter help to finish. Most of the cluing was cleverly misleading, yet fair, but the NW needed more straightforward cluing that provided some footholds, especially for entries such as Urban Oasis. Despite my frustration and disappointment with this one section, I still appreciated the exceptionally fresh and impressive fill.
Thanks, Rafael, and thanks, HG, for the always delightful review and commentary, and the eye pleasing photos.
Have a great day.
FIW. The crossing of Egan and adaptogen (?) Did me in. I took a WAG at Evan, and i was wrong.
The rest of the puzzle was a bear. I question a few clues like 43 D. The clue said a treat, singular, and yet the answer was oreos, plural? Am I wrong here?
Overall not an enjoyable puzzle.
I too missed FIR by wagging EvAN. It took a while to finish this ATOMIC puzzle.
HATERS WILL BE HATERS was the last to fill. I wouldn’t ever interpret “Shake it off” this way. I really like the clues for PARTIAL ECLIPSE and ANT COLONY.
I’ve nerve heard of drupes, so PITS was all perps. I’ve also never heard of Jazz hands.
Thank you HG for a fine review.
DNF. Some clever clues, but just a tad out of my wheelhouse this morning. Managed about three quarters before tossing the towel. No hope in the NW corner, and the Non-clues like "shake it off" and "gee" were off-putting, as usual. Kudos to those who stuck with it!
I overcame the useless clue for HATERS GONNA HATE, the side-by-side HIPAA/ADAPTOGEN, the “jazz hands” clue, the river of AMU, and the singer/songwriter H.E.R., but I nearly tripped over the drupes as I wrestled with thickening clots and blots before realizing it was PLOTS.
GOING TWICE got me going in the NW. FURROW and HUMANITY got me through the East. Jennifer EGAN (who is no stranger to our puzzles) was my only success in the SW until late in the solve. MARTINIS will get a person through a lot of issues.
So, I got my hard-earned FIR.
17:06. Really fun puzzle. Took a while to get some toeholds but when that happened, most of the puzzle filled itself in. Only big problem was the NW. Best Saturday in quite some time.
Took 15:52 today to avoid the Pitfall!
I agree with Ms. Irish Miss (as usual), that 90% of this puzzle was enjoyable.
I didn't know the Mexican soup (res) but have come to believe that it is a prerequisite for a Saturday puzzle to have an obscure food. I never heard of that river (amu), and although I eventually got the Taylor Swift lyrics, I still want a better clue there. And, like others here, I disliked (and guessed) at the intersection of "adaptogen" and "Egan" (only vaguely recalling having Egan as an answer here before).
That was my first thought as well, and it would have made more sense.
Can't believe I squeaked in under SS at 17:02 , Challenging but steady solve
Like Monkey, Drupe was a learning moment, so took perps to get PITS
Thanks HG for the fun blog - "When Harry Met Sally" is a fave. It is the 40th anniversary of "Back to the Future"- Mill Valley California was the basis for Hill Valley in the movie
And thank to Rafael for the puzzle
or maybe not - Anon at 15:52 may be the SS and that is my usual 2 minutes longer than they are
My enjoyment score was closer to 80%, and I found the remaining 20% to be absurd.
Are obits really “dying words?” Do the deceased pen their autobiographies as they take their last breaths? It was a reach in my opinion.
The clues for HATERSGONNAHATE and STAYCATION were my least favorite, and I’d like to know what percentage of the crossword-solving population are familiar with Caldo de res, Adaptogen, and Manchego.
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