Saturday Themeless by Kyle Dolan
This is the 20th themeless Saturday puzzle by Dr. Dolan I have blogged. My first one was on May 26, 2018 and every one of his constructions has been a delight. This one was kind of an enjoyable slog until the long fills helped out.
I'll point out the rough spots below that slowed my progress to a well-earned "got 'er done".
1. Sign of aging: PATINA - A very famous example:
7. Leave a black mark on, say: SCORCH - The Apollo Command Modules returned to Earth from the Moon at 25,000 mph. Entering Earth's atmosphere slowed them down enough to parachute safely into the ocean but the bottom heat shield got up to 5,000℉ which left SCORCH marks.
15. Sweet-talk: CAJOLE.
16. __ effect: phenomenon of attraction in fluid mechanics, familiarly: CHEERIOS - Cheerios in the middle of the bowl tend to clump together and on the edge of the bowl they cling to the side of the bowl. More...
18. Didn't work: RESTED.
19. French "his": SES - Il a besoin de SES chaussures (He needs his shoes)
20. Sure to fail: CAN'T WIN.
22. "Hansel and Gretel" figure: HAG - A word that is now considered to be sexist and ageist.
23. Hertz, for one: UNIT - Hertz are cycles/second. My hearing stops at around 8,000 hertz (vps) while my students could go up to over 20,000 hertz
25. __ steak: STRIP - I've eaten may a good NY STRIP Steak
26. Sloggy terrain: MIRE.
27. Twangy-voiced: NASAL - Bob Dylan leaped to my mind
29. __ canto: BEL - Italian for "Beautiful Singing" More...
30. "Derry __": sitcom set in Northern Ireland: GIRLS - I thought it might be something clever like Derry Ayers 😀
31. Home of "Whistler's Mother": MUSÉE D'ORSAY - Here Whistler's Mother, or Arrangement in Black and Gray No. 1, is being hung in the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, CA as part of an exchange program with the Musée d'Orsay in Paris.
34. Shooting stars?: SAGITTARIUS 😀 I loved this (eventually). This astronomy teacher should have parsed the reference to the zodiacal constellation of SAGITTARIUS The Archer.
35. Fallible ones: MERE MORTALS.
36. Prime minister between Theresa and Liz: BORIS - UK PM'S
 |
| Theresa May Boris Johnson Liz Truss |
37. "Bad idea": NAH.
38. Clear a way for: LET BY - What linemen try to create for running backs.
42. Port northeast of Djibouti: ADEN - It's a 45 minute flight or an 84 hour drive (bad roads and armed conflict also make this a bad choice).
43. Cuts finely: DICES.
45. Elisabeth of "Cobra Kai": SHUE - Elizabeth Shue was 20 years old when she played Ali Mills in 1984's Karate Kid. She reprised that role at 61 years old in Netflix's Cobra Kai.
46. Former Japanese coin: SEN - Due to inflation, the SEN (.001 of a Yen) was demonetized after WWII and Japan now uses the Yen.
47. Has more than: OUT EATS.
49. "The Hurting Kind" poet Limón: ADA.
50. Bamboozle: TRIP UP.
52. Features of many Best Picture winners: R-RATINGS - The MPAA says: An R-rated movie contains content such as strong language, intense or persistent violence, sexually oriented nudity or drug abuse that is deemed unsuitable for viewers under 17.
54. Call for: ENTAIL.
55. Plastic souvenir, e.g.: TRINKET.
56. Declares: SAYS SO.
57. Like a good sidekick: TRUSTY or maybe not...
Down:
1. California surf culture apparel brand: PACSUN.
2. Goddess who is a judge in "The Eumenides": ATHENA - I had no idea that this was a play by Aeschylus but ATHENA seemed like a pretty good guess for a Godess.
3. Construction such as the term "un-freaking-believable": TMESIS ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
4. Sew up: ICE - Many NFL games are ICED (won) by game-ending field goals.
5. Snitch (on): NARC.
6. Dramatic solos: ARIAS.
7. Cheese substitute?: SCRIP - 😀 Both are synonyms for money
8. Bay Area columnist who coined the word "beatnik": CAEN.
 |
| The first use of the word |
9. Citrus drinks, for short: OJS.
10. Shelters named for a senator: ROTH IRAS - William Roth was a Republican senator from Delaware.
12. Equivocates: HEDGES.
14. "I'd have a backup plan": DON'T BET ON IT.
17. Many a "Fast & Furious" character: STREET RACER.
21. Free-spirited: WILD AT HEART.
24. Amazon primate: TAMARIN - Here's a Golden TAMARIN
28. Winter racers: LUGES.
30. Spot for a brat: GRILL - Uh, not for unruly children
32. Calling card?: SIM.
33. "The Masked Singer" judge Rita: ORA.
34. Calm: SERENITY - Frank Costanza's mantra.
35. Biotech firm known for vaccines: MODERNA - It's the one we got
36. Juices up?: BASTES 😀
39. "Much obliged": THANKS.
40. Affordable: BUDGET - Having Dom Pérignon tastes on a Budweiser BUDGET could be disastrous
41. Like a brewery: YEASTY.
43. Lego brand for little hands: DUPLO - DUPLO is double in Danish
44. Flinch: START - Was this a part of anyone else's childhood?
47. Nice words of agreement: OUIS - When I see Nice, my mind immediately goes to French like in this song which charted at #2 in 1918.
48. To-do: STIR.
51. Some medical providers, for short: PAS - Our neighbor's daughter is an M.D. married to a Physician's Assistant (P.A.) in central Nebraska.
53. Shiba __: INU ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
26 comments:
I knew it had to be
“ATM card” and I knew it had to be “Cheerios” but it took me a long time to get “patina” because “tmesis” made no sense to me. Nevertheless, after over an hour, I did end up getting it.
FIR, so I’m happy.
Well my extensive string of FIRs came to an end today with a TITT DNF. I pretty much spun my wheels for a half hour with little to show for it, took a few breaks and each time coming back and picking away at it a little more, after an hour I still had 8 blanks in the NW, tried some a-runs in my head but couldn’t come up with PATINA, PACSUN, SES, UNIT, TAMARIN, and of course TMESIS??? Oh well I got 96% correct which is still an A, but unlike SubG, not happy about it. Thanks Kyle, I had fun trying and learned some new stuff, and to HG, thanks for the write up, glad you got er done, but I’m guessing you may be in the minority on this one.
Kudos to anyone who knew the home of Whistler’s Mother off the top of their head!
I had __A__INA, but the only word I could come up with I knew couldn’t be right.
DNF, filling 27, 25 correctly. But I got MERE MORTALS without benefit of perp, so I've got that goin' for me. Which is nice.
My simple mind looked at H.Gary's chart explaining TMESIS, and realized that there is one word I use all the time that could be used in the center of all the sandwich TMESeS examples listed. Problem is that it is a very vulgar word.
I really wanted "poet Limón" to be LULU. I settled for the equally-wrong AnA.
Congrats to all who tamed this beast, and thanks to H.Gary for explaining it.
Took 26:08 to guess wrongly at the intersection of "tmesis" and the French word.
I probably spent five minutes in the top-right, not knowing "scrip" or the Bay Area columnist. I also didn't know "muse ed or say."
Not a fun puzzle. YooperPhil's comment was much more enjoyable.
Swing and a miss. I've never heard the term SCRIP or TMESIS.
Live and learn i guess
FIW. Patina was my downfall. I didn't know pacsun or tmesis and nothing in that corner was making sense to me so I took a WAG and was wrong.
The rest of the puzzle was difficult but with perseverance it eventually filled in.
Overall, it's done, so there's that.
TMESIS??? Really?
“This brewery is really YEASTY,” said no one ever.
Elisabeth Shue is an award-winning actress with an impressive portfolio and could have been clued a dozen different ways, yet the constructor chose “Cobra Kai?”
I watched the entire series. There were 65 episodes, and she appeared briefly in three of them.
Finished in 24:34, and did not enjoy it at all.
Good Morning:
Saturday puzzles are supposed to be difficult and challenging but, ultimately, solvable by most experienced and seasoned solvers. All puzzles, including Saturday’s, are also supposed to have clues and fill that adhere to the premise of being familiar subject matter to the majority of solvers. Of course, one or two deviations from this premise are sometimes necessary, but I believe that today’s offering had way too many unfamiliar entries and not enough helpful footholds to achieve completion. (Hats off to those hearty souls who did manage a FIR.) The most egregious examples, IMO, are: PacSun, Tmesis, Cheerios and Athena, as clued, Ses, Tamarin, Duplo, and Musée d’Orsay. I will say that I was challenged by, but enjoying the solve until the NW corner brought me to a screeching halt. After getting one helpful red letter, I finished, but with no joy or satisfaction.
Thanks, HG, for the analysis and congrats on your well-earned completion.
Have a great day.
The 9:22 post is mine. I wish Blogger would stop making me (and Monkey) anonymous.
I'm with you on everything
Me too.
The NE remained blank and in the NW I missed -H-ERIOS and PA- SUN. I knew PATINA had to be right. For surfing apparel brand, the only one I know is Hang Ten, á brand the Costco seems to have “revived”.
I knew I needed a museum and finally when I entered WILD AT NEART, I came up with MUSEE D’OORSAY, that I have visited a few times.
Well you CANT WIN them all.
Thank you HG for that nice review.
One O too many on D’ORSAY.
YP here ~ BTW, congratulations to the Dodgers on their sweep of the Brewers and a return to the World Series. In what was arguably the greatest display ever on an MLB field, Shohei Ohtani not only pitched 6 scoreless, 10 strikeout innings, but also hit 3 home runs, starting in the first as the lead-off hitter.
I know it's Saturday, but this was another "look how clever I am" mess. TITT after spending too much time without experiencing any enjoyment.
I nearly TITT, and although I FIR, I didn’t feel very proud. I was surprised to find that TMESIS was correct.
My final fill was MUSEE D’ORSAY. Even when I was sure it was MUSEE, I didn’t know the location.
SAGITTARIUS was my major breakthrough, although by then I had completed the SW despite the clunky SAYS SO and TRIP UP entries. I had a hard time coming up with MODERNA despite my seven doses of their COVID concoctions. Elisabeth SHUE is always a gimme for me, partly because of her unconventional first-name spelling, but not entirely.
Good puzzle. 17:18. Had a weird experience. After having almost no toe-holds, I got a few and it was like the puzzle almost filled itself in. Only big problem I had was with scrip.
CHEESE for money? Has anyone here ever used this term? That was my last fill.
YP here ~ have never heard of SCRIP or cheese as slang for $$. Also, my Swiss steak became skirt steak which finally yielded to STRIP.
Right with you on that, “I’m the author and I’m oh so smart”.
Some ugly cluing with even uglier fills.
Well, Saturday puzzles are always meant to be difficult and challenging, but also interesting and enjoyable, and this one was all that, Kyle--so many thanks for this treat. And your commentary and pictures are always helpful, to thanks for those too, Husker Gary.
Well, this puzzle gave us lots of suggestions and descriptions and information, so that was a genuine help for us, even though the puzzle at one point suggested that we CAN'T WIN. But we did get an ATM CARD early on so we were able to get CHEERIOS for breakfast, though probably not topped with any YEAST. Not really enough food to let people OUT-EAT themselves, even though the R RATINGS probably made them feel it ENTAILED lots of food. At least one of my friends SAYS SO. So we had a good time at the GRILL before we went on to watch the STREET RACERS. So, all in all, I'd say let's give this puzzle a bunch of OUIS, and many THANKS.
Have a lovely weekend, everybody.
FIR after many stabs at it. Hard puzzle, Kyle! Husker Gary deserves thanks and praise.
Big Easy
A not near finish on this one today. I completed 8 Downs in 7 crosses but that didn't help. Too many unknowns. Cheerios, tmesis, the museum, duplo, Pacsun,sen, Caen- I'm not familiar with any of them.
Hola! Me too about not finishing. The cluing was more obscure than usual and though I've seen Elisabeth SHUE in several shows, that is not one of them.
i used to love reading Herb CAEN's column which was published in the Arizona Republic. I'll take a CSO at SAGITTARIUS even though I didn't get it.
I'm not sure I equate "affordable" with BUDGET.
Thank you, Kyle, even though you outwitted me and thank you, Gary, as well.
Have a lovely day, everyone!
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