Saturday Themeless by Emily Biegas
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| Emily Sala |
I had a fun time with Emily's solo effort that even included two math terms.
1. __ curtains: CAFE.
10. Depop's parent company: ETSY.
14. Libation made with skin-contact grapes: ORANGE WINE - ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Unlike traditional white wines, where the juice is immediately separated from the skins after pressing, orange wine ferments with the skins for a period that can range from a few days to many months. You're welcome.
16. Geodesic structure: DOME - The Desert DOME at Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo is amazing.
18. Subj. of some food labeling laws: GMOS - Geneitecally Modified Foods
19. Currency exchanged for GBP, perhaps: EUR.
21. Bird feeder?: BEAK 😀
22. Angry: CROSS.
24. Spreadsheet specification: RANGE - =SUM(B13:B17) will add up the numbers in the RANGE from cell B13 to cell B17.
28. Record holders: LOGS.
30. Half-baked, say: NOT DONE 😀
32. A-one: PRIMO.
34. Educated: LETTERED.
35. American, for one: PROCESSED CHEESE - I know Velvet is a PROCESSED CHEESE product, but it's great for a toasted cheese sandwich to accompany tomato soup...
37. Home of the Glastonbury Festival: SOMERSET - It is held in Pilton, which is a town near Glastonbury in the county of SOMERSET in SW England.
38. Grazing groups: HERDS.
39. "Whew, that was close!": I MADE IT - Name the movie with this scene (* answer at bottom)
40. Unadorned: BARE.
41. Trig ratio: SIN - Opposite/hypotenuse = SIN
42. "__ me!": SPARE.
41. Trig ratio: SIN - Opposite/hypotenuse = SIN
42. "__ me!": SPARE.
44. Digression: ASIDE.
48. Editorial override: STET.
50. "Mangia!": DIG IN - An Italian invitation to chow down
52. Small inlet: RIA.
53. Common pendant on a graduate's tassel: YEAR.
54. Talisman: MAGIC CHARM.
56. "I __ sorry": AM SO.
57. Enigmatic rock group: STONEHENGE 😀 15 days from now, on the winter solstice, this is what the sunrise will look like at STONEHENGE.
59. Laconic: TERSE.
60. Brick oven output: PIES.
Down:
1. Trig ratio: COSEC.
2. Fischer who invented the plastic drywall anchor: ARTUR - I've used them a lot but as for the inventor ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
3. Grain bowl ingredient with a nutty flavor: FARRO ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ An ancient wheat grain
4. GPS heading: ENE.
5. Dole (out): METE.
6. Possessive types: OWNERS.
7. Kristen's "Spencer" role: DIANA.
8. Part of UAV: UNMANNED - UNMANNED Aerial Vehicle
9. "What'd I tell you?": SEE.
10. Browser with a blue-and-green wave logo: EDGE.
11. Natural shade produced by lycopene: TOMATO RED.
12. Mezcal quality: SMOKINESS.
13. Celebratory cry: YES.
15. "You should take a break": GET SOME REST.
21. Put all of one's eggs in one basket: BET THE RANCH.
23. Like some packaged produce: SLICED.
25. "Copy": GOTCHA or...
27. Give up: CEDE.
29. Buzz: GOSSIP.
31. Some riding mowers: DEERES.
32. "Pinky swear!": PROMISE ME.
33. Genre for novelists Sarah J. Maas and Rebecca Yarros: ROMANTASY - I filled this in and then it took a while to see the portmanteau: ROMANCE and FANTASY.
29. Buzz: GOSSIP.
31. Some riding mowers: DEERES.
32. "Pinky swear!": PROMISE ME.
33. Genre for novelists Sarah J. Maas and Rebecca Yarros: ROMANTASY - I filled this in and then it took a while to see the portmanteau: ROMANCE and FANTASY.
34. Court call: LET - Tennis court
35. Trident-shaped letters: PSIS.
36. Make plans to tie the knot: SET A DATE.
40. Sets off: BEGINS.
43. Fastidiousness: RIGOR.
45. From Tehran: IRANI
46. Requiem: DIRGE.
47. Big name in midcentury modern design: EAMES.
49. Archer in Greek mythology: EROS.
51. Brand that once had a licensing deal with 7-Eleven: ICEE - They now call them Slurpees
53. __ butter: YAK - The source
54. DEN airport zone: MST.
55. Like a cool cat: HEP.
*Whew! That scene was of Gordie and Vern escaping the train in the wonderful "coming of age" movie Stand By Me.
Notes from C.C.:
Happy 88th birthday to dear Lucina, who visited Minnesota in 2012. Here's a picture of me, Lucina and her three sisters at Mall of America.
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| C.C., Lucina, Marge, Yoli & Juanita |
36 comments:
“Tomatored?” Oh, I get
it. “Tomato red”
Like that answer, some of the solves took a bit of thought. And that was an off-the-wall clue for “Stonehenge” but certainly par for the course for a Saturday.
Anyway, FIR, so I’m happy.
If you drew a straight line from the NW corner to the SE corner, after a half hour I had everything east of that filled, but practically nothing west. But I kept plugging away, took a break, and eventually FIR w/out help in 46:46. Gimmes were vastly outnumbered by the unknowns - CAFE curtains, the portmanteau ROMANTASY, YAK butter, EAMES, and the list goes on. I liked the clue for STONE HENGE, but the clue for ARTUR has my nomination for “worst of the month” (and maybe a year end finalist). Thank you Emily for this particularly challenging puzzle, and to HG for the elucidating recap!
Happy birthday Lucy!! 🎉
DNF, filling 32 but only 28 correctly. Not unexpected, since my street name is "lil dumbass."
Oh yeah, UAV is newspeak for UFO.
Here Kelly Bundy declines Bud's offer to bring her a Slurpee on Married With Children. Funny on several levels.
Don't think I've ever heard "bet the ranch," but it isn't so far from "bet the farm" that I couldn't have gotten it. In Eastern Kentucky there are plenty of farms but few if any ranches, so that may explain it. To make things more confusing, in Austin Brown's video for his hit Bet the Farm, the dad says "on this ranch we earn our blessings.
Thanks to Emily for the fun, even if it was well beyond my reach. And thanks to H.Gary for another sparkling review.
FIR. Got one last crossword in before leaving for a week. My ship is coming in! High seas here I come.
And for a Saturday I found this rather easy, and fun.
Overall a very enjoyable puzzle.
I thoroughly enjoyed this puzzle, which is something I rarely say on a Saturday. I FIR, but needed some help to get there. I had to look up Somerset (I had Scotland). And I needed to resort to red letters to get the last few clues in the NW. Overall, a great start to the weekend.
velveeta also great for creamy mac and cheese
the plastic drywall anchor?!
really? talk about obscurity
Took 19:48 to avoid the "not done."
I didn't know the Actress of the Day in the clue for "Diana," the drywall anchor guy (does anyone?), either trig ratios, romantasy, and a few others.
I agree that the drywall anchor clue is a strong candidate for worst clue of the month and year. The only real clue I had was to go with for the drywall anchor was "molly" (as in a molly screw/bolt), but ironically, that didn't stay in place.
This was definitely a challenge, but there were too many "gotcha" type clues for my liking. I hope you all enjoyed it more.
DNF. The NW remained blank. I managed to finish the rest with p and p, but I was CROSS with the amount of those oral phrases I dislike. SPARE me. In addition, I didn’t care for the inclusion of so many proper names.
I wanted BET THE farm, but it wouldn’t fit so RANCH was the next best entry.
I always associate geodesic structure with Buckminster Fuller.
Thank you HG for your nice recap.
Happy 88th birthday Lucina. 🎉🎂🎊👏
Perhaps, obscure. And, oh so handy for hanging pix on my (tending to crumble) 100-year-old plaster walls😊😉
Oh, and Happy Birthday, Lucina. I enjoy your knowledge of Spanish phrases.
happy Birthday Lucina!
FLN, UncleFred, your post made me think of that old tv short clip where the guy throws the tv out the window screaming "we're not gonna take it anymore!"
I was going to post it saying "pretend it's a printer," but I can't find it anywhere...
It seem to have been replaced with thousands of clips of people throwing thousands of of electrical appliances out their windows...
FIR but didn't enjoy it much. Top to bottom I filled in only 14 of the Across clues on my first run, and then chipped away at the Downs.
Too much overly clever cluing for me, and, like others before me, I have to say that the clue for ARTUR is one of the worst of all time.
Like one bad apple spoiling the whole bunch, that clue alone tainted the entire NW corner for me. I give this puzzle an overly generous 5/10.
Obscure perhaps..??!! I have to believe there is a more well known Artur somewhere? In any case I FIW as I had gross instead of cross (foolishly didn’t think that through as I only know sine and cosine as trig ratios) so took a swag! Well for a Saturday, which after first run through seemed impossible with items like Depop parent, orange wine, browser colors, lycopene colors, Mezcal, Glastonbury specifics, primo had to replace prime, and one very fun clue for Stonehenge! …to shortly come close was ok in my book 😜
This was a faster than usual Saturday for me - tough in the NW corner though, definitely needed perps for ARTUR and FARRO and the 1A CAFE Curtains which was a learning moment. Never watch HGTV or other home decor shows
Double answers using trig - I did use it again!
I'm on Team BET THE farm over the RANCH
Lycopene had to be related to TOMATO
Interesting that many of the foods in the puzzle today are some of the highest as far as recalls for bacterial contamination like sliced fruits, deli meats and bagged lettuces
Thanks HG for the interesting blog and Emily for the puzzle
Happy Birthday Lucina - I want to be you if I get to my late 80s
12:30. Good puzzle. Only big hangup was the NW.
I looked up ARTUR after I was done and all of them are not very known to most Americans - European football players (soccer), politicians in Central or Eastern Europe
There is a famous Arturo as in Toscanini
May be my fastest-ever Saturday fill!
And, I learned some stuff, & was reminded of others: oh, Trig - how you flummoxed me; tho, differential calculus restored my faith in my math-iness. 😊
Does having a BS, an MDiv, and a PhD make me “lettered” - or just afraid to leave school? And, then I stayed and worked at my graduate school for nearly 15 years - yeh, way afraid to leave home, er, school!
I learned: orange wine (who knew? I’m gonna try it later today) , Somerset/Glastonbury, “romantasy”, Artur Fischer (thank you, Artur), ?Depop
My fave clues: “bird feeder?” & “enigmatic rock group” [also deserved a “?”, oui?]; oh, & “Main, often”.
And, to my embarrassment: “pogs” x “spiced” — instead of “logs” x “sliced” - brain just would NOT shift! I mean “spiced” sorta works, right? 🤦🏼♀️ AND, “pogs” were a big deal when my daughter was a tween, c. 1999 ….🤷♀️ (I know, I know - pogs are NOT “record holders”).
AND - my mother-in-law’s signature holiday side-dish: carrots and onions baked with stirred-in chunks of block (not sliced) Kraft American Cheese (it does have a unique texture and flavor). Still a family favorite, that also has garnered recipe requests from others over the years.
Thanks all! Happy holiday dayz…
😄
Not a memorable puzzle, but challenging enough, with few annoyances.
The NW corner fell last, because the first three down entries were a bit obscure and the fourth one used the word “heading” in the clue somewhat misleadingly. Elsewhere, I had to guess SOMERSET and it took a while to embrace ROMANTASY. RIGOR came to me quickly, but I needed perps to confirm. That was true of TEENA Marie, too.
Like the STONEHENGE clue a lot.
I like good cheeses, but every once in a while, Velveeta hits the spot.
Happy birthday, Lucina.
Yes - Happy Birthday, Lucina!
"Molly" didn't stay in place! LOL
Have you been living under a rock? LOL Everyone knows that what's-his-name invented the thingamajig. I suppose you also don't know that Dr. Samuel W. Francis invented the spork!
Sorry, Jinx. You are thinking of UAP: Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena
CA?E crossed with ?ARRO is EVIL. Or am I the only one who never heard of those curtains?
Jinx...the newspaper for UFO is UAP. (Unidentified Aerial Phenomina)
Dang. NEW SPEAK, not newspaper! Otto incorrect strikes again!
I had to circle around a few times, as is typical for a Saturday, but finished it quicker than usual. So that means Emily did a great job of creating fair crosses.
That plastic anchor clue. You could ask 100 people on Main Street and NO ONE would know this, much less be able to spell it. However, after looking him up, he is a fascinating figure and better known in his home country. So ask 100 people on any Hauptstrasse in Germany...
Nice write up , Gary. Happy Bday Lucina! C.C. is looking very stylish. Great group!
TITT. This puzzle was from a different universe than the one I live in.
I was sure this would be a complete disaster. Nearly all blank till I got to the Southwest corner which filled quickly. From there I was able to spread up and out.
Ended with a mostly blank NW cuz I stuck with lace “curtains” no a DNF
ROMANTASY?
Hosting a BD party for my daughter and her special friends so cutting this short.
Temperature finally out of the minuses!
Lucina: "¡Feliz cumpleaños número ochenta y ocho! 🎂
Great picture of the girls !
Happy Birthday, Lucina! 🎂🎁🎊🎈🎉💕
Add me to the list of those wishing Lucina a Happy Birthday! So, Irish Miss, since there was no comment from you for today's puzzle, does that make it two Thumpers in a row? I needed a lot of help to answer and finish the puzzle today
I'm not sure many great composers would agree that a Requiem is a Dirge!
Challenging but delightful Saturday puzzle, Emily--many thanks for this treat. And, Gary, your commentaries are always a big help, as I'm sure I've told you many times before, but once again very pleasant today. So thanks for that too. And I'm glad you're getting so many lovely birthday wishes, Lucina. I wish you a happy and joyful day too.
Well, today's CAFE OWNERS had an interesting MODUS OPERANDI offering everyone ORANGE WINE along with some PROCESSED CHEESE along with a TOMATO RED side dish, which made the lunch plate very interesting and delightful looking. I could have used some more dessert, and told the owner PROMISE ME I'll get some chocolate the next time I come here. That would have given this lunch some MAGIC CHARM. But he probably would have told me to GET SOME REST. I think I'll take that imaginary advice and take a nap right now.
Have a wonderful rest of the day, everybody.
No, I wouldn’t say this was a Thumper, but my solving experience wasn’t an enjoyable one, either. Sometimes, what isn’t said, says volumes. 😉
I liked some parts of this puzzle and disliked other parts.
Anonymous at 2:05PM, I agree with you that not many composers, if any, would agree that a Requiem is a Dirge.
Happy birthday, Lucina.
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