Saturday Themeless by August Miller
This is my fourth Saturday themeless blog this year for August Miller. He is a former physics Ph.D. candidate turned farmer who lives in Berkshire County, MA:
1. Dominant figure in a matriarchal hierarchy: ALPHA FEMALE.
12. Court marshal?: REF 😀
15. Minimally processed fare: NATURAL FOOD - As opposed to this
16. Paramore genre: EMO - ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Paramore is a band who plays this kind of music
17. Event that may feature gate crashers: GIANT SLALOM.
18. Letter before upsilon: TAU - Similar: Rho, Sigma, TAU, Upsilon - R S T U
19. Cards that reveal who's who and what's what: IDS.
20. Brad Paisley's "__ Everything": SHE'S.
21. Figure in Celtic folklore: DRUID - DRUIDS and pagans gather at Stonehenge on the Autumnal Equinox
23. Central: MAIN.
24. In a serious way: MAJORLY.
26. "Measure for Measure" antagonist: ANGELO - All you need to know
24. In a serious way: MAJORLY.
26. "Measure for Measure" antagonist: ANGELO - All you need to know
29. Maggie who wrote "On Freedom": ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ NELSON.
30. Tie-breaking method: GOLDEN GOAL - Most Soccer matches now run two 15-minute overtimes not just do "sudden death" which ends on a single GOLDEN GOAL
32. "c ya": TTFN - Ta Ta For Now
35. Company that sells nudes: OPI.
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| Nude Nail Lacquer |
36. Start to wrestle?: SILENT W 😀
38. River inlet: RIA.
39. Grasps: GETS.
41. Technique often used to make 3D images appear in the style of a comic book: CEL SHADING.
43. Mortise inserts: TENONS.
45. Congo forest dwellers: OKAPIS - O _ A _ _ S called for ORANGS first and not this giraffe relative
46. Clarence of the E Street Band: CLEMONS - On the sax
48. Leveraged: USED.
49. Earn: MERIT.
50. Boatload: SLEW.
51. Wrestling win: PIN.
54. Due-in hr.: ETA.
55. "You lost me": I DON'T FOLLOW.
50. Boatload: SLEW.
51. Wrestling win: PIN.
54. Due-in hr.: ETA.
55. "You lost me": I DON'T FOLLOW.
59. Mud season hazard: RUT.
60. Space-age revolutions?: LUNAR ORBITS - Ron Evans made a record 75 LUNAR ORBITS in the command module while Apollo 17 crew mates Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmidt were the last men to walk on the Moon in 1972.
61. Prefix with center: EPI.
62. Antarctic predator: LEOPARD SEAL.
Down:
1. Online resource for home renos: ANGI - Rebranded from Angies List
or in Scottish
4. "Mulan" soldier: HUN ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
5. Events that feature moving pictures?: ART SALES 😀 This Picasso fetched $103M at an ART SALE at Christie's.
6. Big name in threads: FASHION ICON and 28. May 6-Downs: GLITTERATI.
7. Novelist Raskin: ELLEN.
7. Novelist Raskin: ELLEN.
8. Creative degs.: MFAS - Granddaughter is pursing a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree
9. Early ISP: AOL - Didn't we all get free AOL disks years ago?
10. Head across the pond?: LOO.
11. Some club bookings, for short: EDM DJS - My last fill was this monster - Electronic Dance Music Disc JockeyS
12. Back leg?: RETURN TRIP.
13. Target of some filters: E-MAIL.
14. Julie who won two World Cup titles with Mia Hamm and Brandi Chastain: FOUDY.
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| Mia Brandi Julie |
22. Many a storage crop: ROOT.
23. Club __: MED.
24. Deep pockets: MEANS - Always sue the guy with the deep pockets. He has the most MEANS to pay.
25. House call?: ALL THOSE FOR - 😀 - ALL THOSE FOR adjourning say AYE!
26. Full of anticipation: AGOG.
27. "Uh-uh": NOPE.
29. Songs sung in the snow: NOELS.
31. Dales: GLENS.
33. Kaput: FINI - A French synonym for a German word
34. Pesters: NAGS.
37. Cue for a smart device: WAKE WORD - I just say "SIRI" to my iPhone and she wakes up and asks me what I want.
40. Tourney game: SEMI.
42. Family guy: DAD.
44. Farming method that helps preserve soil structure: NO TILL - A very common practice around here that saves moisture and fuel. I asked one farmer why his neighbor still turns the soil over and he replied, "That's what his grandfather did."
31. Dales: GLENS.
33. Kaput: FINI - A French synonym for a German word
34. Pesters: NAGS.
37. Cue for a smart device: WAKE WORD - I just say "SIRI" to my iPhone and she wakes up and asks me what I want.
40. Tourney game: SEMI.
42. Family guy: DAD.
44. Farming method that helps preserve soil structure: NO TILL - A very common practice around here that saves moisture and fuel. I asked one farmer why his neighbor still turns the soil over and he replied, "That's what his grandfather did."
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| A 16-row planter planting right on top of last year's stubble |
46. "I wanna show you something": C'MERE.
47. Slow down: LET UP - The atmosphere slows down the Apollo spacecraft as it returns to Earth from 25,000 mph to 22 mph. In the process the, bottom of the command module reaches 5,000F.
48. Ãœber: ULTRA.
50. Button alternative: SNAP.
51. Bend in slippers: PLIE.
50. Button alternative: SNAP.
51. Bend in slippers: PLIE.
52. Crumb: IOTA.
53. Sports org. with the Royals: NWSL - National Women's Soccer League. Not my MLB KC Royals.
56. 40 weeks pregnant, e.g.: DUE 😀
57. "Who Has Seen the Wind?" singer: ONO.
58. Birth announcement abbr.: LBS.
34 comments:
I got it. “EDM DJs” was
my last fill. It took me well over an hour (and quite a bit of battery usage on my phone!) but I got it.
FIR, so l’m happy.
I don’t do research at 0230 MST. This is a winning entry into the CW Scatalogical Hall of Fame!
IMHO!
The challenge of a Saturday for me now is part of my plan to keep my brain working. Recalling things such as soccer star Julie Foudy or Angelo <\b> a Shakespearean character makes did deep. Then modern slang like WAKE WORDS helps me to continue to expand my knowledge.
Gary’s easy way to explain also helps. I also enjoy the memories brought back from my time living in the Berkshires,
Fun. Thank you August and HG and a Broderick Crawford sign off from me.
Enjoy the puzzles and the expos. Newbie question: when I finish I get a score. How is that determined? Thx
I also sometimes think that the editor loves Gary and includes references to space travel for our resident NASAexpert.
Typical Saturday puzzle for me, bogged down by a SLEW of unknowns, HUN, ELLEN, ANGELO, NELSON, and of course the soccer player from 20+ years ago, FOUDY, (which has my nomination for worst clue/fill of the month). I had to walk away twice as the NE and east were baffling. It finally opened up when I changed orangs to OKAPIS. EDMDJS didn’t come easy either. Seeing OPI always makes me think of Lucy. Anyway, I stuck with it and FIR w/out help (thank you perps) in the not so enviable official time of 50:34. Thank you August for the very challenging puzzle, and to HG for making sense of it all.
EDMDJS is a ridiculous letter salad and borderline green paint. An answer that would feel right at home in a Brendan Emmett Quigley themeless. FOUDY could’ve been GOODY or MOODY instead.
Welp, on the bright side, at least now the root canal I’m having at 8:15 on Monday won’t seem quite so bad.
DNF. Filled 58, 55 correctly. Two of my wrong fills greatly reduced my chances to FIR, with ump instead of REF (I was thinking of the net official at a tennis match,) and veins instead of MEANS.
I knew Brad Paisley as a country musician but didn't know that song. Pretty easy though - country song ________ Everything had to be SHE'S, because "beer's," "my pickup's," "my boat's" and "my horse's" wouldn't fit.
Last week AOL finally discontinued its dial-up access.
Besides being a fabulous sax player, Clarence CLEMONS was a talented athlete. The Dallas Cowboys and the Cleveland Browns were interested in him before a car wreck destroyed that option. His college football teammates included Art Shell and Emerson Boozer.
Thanks to August for the fun Saturday puzzle. Just a little beyond my reach, bit that's how I like Saturday challenges. And thanks to H.Gary for another educational review.
Sorry to hear so many struggled. I had a Saturday personal best 18-minute FIR! I guess I just clicked with the constructor on the longer fill and sports clues. FOUDY, NWSL, and GOLDEN GOAL were easy gets for me, and my son is now an EDMDJ at his college, so that was known too. I'll probably bomb next Saturday, but today's a good day!
Good Morning:
I TITT after spending an inordinate amount of time trying to decipher the convoluted and overly clever cluing, not to mention the unknowns (Nelson, Cel Shading) and the ridiculous (EMD DJs and All Those For). I welcome and enjoy a Saturday challenge but, once again, an author’s vanity supersedes a solver’s enjoyment and satisfaction.
Thanks, HG, for your usual fair and measured commentary and the dazzling array of photos.
Have a great day. Go Yankees!
It was a very slow start - probably fewer than 8 filled after first read-thru. Ultimately, @ ~60min mark, looked up “on freedom”, with puzzle ~5/6 done. Then finished quickly. I learned a lot - TBD if any sticks. Thx to August and HG, and Patti.
To all - have a good weekend.
FIR. What a workout! I had to take a couple of WAG's here and there, like Angelo and Druid. I stared at EDMDJS for the longest time assuming this was going to cause me to not finish right. What a surprise when I got the win.
But overall not an enjoyable puzzle.
This was a typical challenging Saturday- I started with a confident fill of Farm to Table at 15A which ended up changing to NATURAL FOOD, but P/P paid off.
Biggest hang-up was the Ohio/Indiana/Michigan area with the unknown NELSON, weirdly clued MAJORLY, EDM DJs, and ALL THOSE FOR.
Gate crashers clue was creative for GIANT SLALOM
Thanks to Gary for the fun blog and August for the puzzle
Have a great Saturday - it's a peak time for festivals around here
Every August Miller puzzle seems to elicit a long response from me after I FIR, full of things I liked, followed by a long, long list of complaints, and this one was full of unfairness.
So let’s start with TENON, Clarence CLEMONS, Julie FOUDY (I’ll get back to her), OKAPIS (I had ORANGS for a while), AGOG, and, near the end, FINI. Those were my only delights, other than the GIANT SLALOM clue.
I had to come up with CEL-SHADING to get to FINI, and also couldn’t have gotten there without “figuring out” EDM DJS. WAKE WORD was also unknown to me, and so were Paisley’s song and LEOPARD SEAL. FOUDY came out of Stanford, she’s been a TV talking head since retiring, and I think I’ve talked to her before, though I needed TAU to suss that one. For most of you, I imagine Foudy was every bit as obscure as NELSON, ELLEN, and ANGELO. It’s like August is testing where one draws the line on obscure clues for common names and trying a bit too hard.
The paraphrases were lousy, too. C’MERE was a WAG. ALL THOSE FOR was not justified by the House call clue, and I DON’T FOLLOW was a perfect summation of the entire puzzle. It took me more than an hour to FIR.
Here’s another: I would have gotten ONO sooner if the word “singer” had been in quotes.
Took 14:34, luckily.
Lots of unknowns, including: the soccer player (Foudy), the novelist (Ellen), the author (Nelson), the antagonist (Angelo), EDMDJS (really?!), and "not ill" (oh, no till). I continue to disdain textspeak (TTFN) in crossword puzzles, and in real life.
My luck was tied to: knowing who Clarence Clemons was and what a "golden goal" is; sensing the "female" at 1A; and, being familiar with okapis and leopard seals. Those allowed me to survive the unknown names.
I'm with you on ONO, but not knowing CLEMONS is kinda like not knowing that Clapton was the lead guitarist in Cream and Derek and the Dominos.
Threw in the towel on this "look what a clever boy I am!" ego fest.
Well, I DID know Clemons.
'Scuse me - you typed delight, not dislike. I understand that by the time I'm 80 my reading comprehension willl be up to the sixth-grade level.
CAN SOMEONE PLEASE TURN OFF THE BOLDFACE?!
Challenging but interesting Saturday puzzle, many thanks for this weekend treat, August. And your commentaries are always helpful, Husker Gary, thank you for this one too.
Well, I'm not exactly sure what a dominant figure in a matriarchal hierarchy is--so I'll just settle for being a plain FEMALE. Hope the REP doesn't give me any complaints about that, and since I'm just a female I can probably settle for some NATURAL FOOD. I guess that's pretty much all my MAJORLY information this morning. I won't be reaching any GOLDEN GOALS, but then I'm just a pretty SILENT W (and you could guess what that is, if I hadn't been acting like a silly GLITTERATI) all this time. I guess that gives me not much more to say--except "have a lovely weekend, everybody."
EDMDJS has to be the absolute worst fill in the history of crossword puzzles. I got it strictly using perps but had no idea what it was until I read the write-up. Nothing else fit for the cross clues. WAKE WORD might be a close second. After changing Fine to fini, I finally got away from some type of some unknown APES and OKAPIS finished the puzzle.
Big Easy
Edward in Los Angeles: it was all 55 ACROSS
I
Scatological is too polite a term for the turd fill.
I encountered a SLEW of unknowns: NELSON, GOLDEN GOLD, TTFN, ELLEN as clued, EDMDJS (unfair), FOUDY, and NWSL.
I would never use MAJORLY in a sentence written or oral.
I was able to WAG the long fills, but unfortunately I hung on to orangs for OKAPIS so I DNF.
I hate paraphrases in a CW and text speak even more. The possibilities for fills in these two instances are infinite.
So there was so much I disliked in this CW that I’m overlooking the fun clues.
Thank you HG for a brave and great review.
I forgot 'cel shading' as another horrible fill. There are no CELS. It's all digital.
Orangutans are in Borneo and Sumatra, way away from the African continent.
Jane Goodall, RIP, would have been appalled at my ignorance.
What does TITT mean? Thx
What does TITT mean?
Throw (or threw) in the towel.
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