Saturday Themeless by Zhou Zhang & Rafael Musa
There was a lot to like and struggle with in Zhou and Rafa's wonderful puzzle that features pinwheel stacks of 8. My solving experience started on the SE edge of the pinwheel and rotated clockwise to the NE where incredibly clued BRA PAD and GOT OPEN finished the solve.
We have seen Rafa here quite often collaborating with others, especially Rebecca Goldstein.
6. Energy crisis?: BAD VIBES
16. Result of doomscrolling, perhaps: BRAIN ROT - New to me but makes sense
18. Maintain one's dignity: SAVE FACE.
21. Had no defense?: GOT OPEN š¤ I assume this is when a football receiver GOT OPEN because the defense did not cover him.
23. SEC-regulated events: IPOS.
25. Farm worker: ANT.
26. M-W alternative: OED š¤ - The Oxford English Dictionary can be an alternative to the Merriam-Webster version.
27. Surname of both founders of the fashion label The Row: OLSEN - They came to mind pretty quickly
29. Appears to point to: BODES - Seeing Rafa's name on a puzzle BODES that this could take some time!
31. Pan handler: OVEN MITT.
33. Animal with a white rump: ELK.
34. "A Court of Thorns and Roses," for one: ROMANTASY SERIES ¯\_(ć)_/¯ A portmanteau of ROMANce and fanTASY- Bill Maher did a recent monologue about this where he posits that the popularity of these books—which often feature intense, protective, supernatural male characters—stems from a sense of sexual or romantic unfulfillment among women in the modern world.
39. Apple product: PIE - It would be easier if clued this way: An apple product.
40. "You wanna fight!?": COME AT ME - š”
41. Composer with a namesake horn: SOUSA
44. Ignored a scarecrow, perhaps: CAWED š
45. Take (down): JOT š
46. Reactions to stubs: OWS - Nothing to do with tickets
47. Automaker Karl: BENZ.
48. Simple shelters: HUTS.
49. Left over, in a way: UNEATEN.
52. Pretend: ACT AS IF.
55. Pico de gallo, e.g.: RED SALSA.
57. Short person?: DEBTOR š - If you're short of funds...
58. Suddenly gave way: CRUMPLED - We studied this bridge that eventually gave way and CRUMPLED into the Tacoma Narrows in physics class
59. Solution for wounds: SALINE.
60. Ingredient in carajillo and affogato: ESPRESSO
1. Something that might be right up one's alley: SIDE DOOR - A slight variation
2. Nochevieja follower: ANO NUEVO - Spanish:
Nochevieja (December 31st, Old Year's Night) is directly followed by AƱo Nuevo (January 1st, New Year's Day).
3. As one: IN TANDEM.
4. Weeping mother of Greek myth: NIOBE - I've planted a few of these NIOBE Weeping Willows.
5. Charlotte Hornets color: TEAL.
7. Catalonia neighbor: ARAGON.
8. Swiss host of the World Economic Forum: DAVOS.
9. "The Sympathizer" Pulitzer winner __ Thanh Nguyen: VIET
10. Skinny: INFO š
11. Push-up form?: BRA PAD.
12. Epoch whose name means "new dawn": EOCENE - The term highlights the "dawn" of modern mammalian fauna like horse, bats and whales around 40 million years ago following the extinction of the dinosaurs. You're Welcome.
13. Artery inserts: STENTS.
15. Office building subdivision, for short: STE - Suite
20. Queen Latifah's "Nature of a __": SISTA.
24. Imaging technique: PET SCAN - Positron Emission Tomography
27. __ vincit amor: OMNIA - A proclamation in ink that Love Conquers All
28. Lo-cal: LITE.
29. Run: BLEED.
30. National vegetable of Pakistan: OKRA.
32. Quick outings?: NAPS š
33. "Hanna" star __ Creed-Miles: ESME - ¯\_(ć)_/¯ Beautiful, young women with guns are standard TV and movie tropes these days.
35. "Holy cow!": YOWZA.
36. Unsatisfying response to "why?": IT JUST IS.
37. Love and hate: EMOTIONS.
38. Releases: SETS FREE.
41. Point of origin: SOURCE.
42. People with good deeds to their names?: OWNERS - This is a famous deed for a home in Memphis.
43. Finished: USED UP.
44. Perfumes during a rite: CENSES.
47. Quintet in London's Elizabeth Tower: BELLS - Big Ben is the largest of these five
48. "Se __ inglƩ": HABLA - English is spoken.
50. Video genre that may cause chills, for short: ASMR - Experience as much of this 3-hour example of eerie
Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response
as you like.53. S&L options: CDS.
54. Bears, e.g.: TEAM - They are threatening to move
56. Flap: ADO.
38 comments:
I got it! I’d say
I’ve “redeemed myself” after two or three days of missing out.
Anyway, FIR, so I’m happy.
I managed to FIR, but I certainly didn’t beat any deadlines.
It was a struggle throughout, but it was the NW that nearly defeated me. I could not nail the precise variety of FANTASY SERIES we were dealing with, and all the first four down clues eluded me for a while until I figured that the inverse of noche vieja must be ano nuevo. Meanwhile, I was convinced that I knew who the teary Greek mother was and that I was going to summon that knowledge even if I had to call in a hypnotist. I knew I was right about SAINT and INNIE, but SIDE DOOR confounded me nearly to the end. I dismissed TANDEM a couple of times. I didn’t recognize M-W as Merriam Webster, so that was another problem to overcome. I had TO A T, but the clunky DO part was not obvious to me. The B in ENABLED finally helped me break through, and soon NIOBE cracked the barriers.
OTHER OBSTACLES: I dismissed VIET too long. I didn’t know EOCENE, PET SCAN, ESME, and ASMR. Definitely had never heard of CENSES. Do I have to explain why I didn’t like IT JUST IS? I accepted that CAWED was an answer reluctantly, and I wondered if RED SALSA is green paint.
PLUS SIDE: SOUSA was a good trivia question. With OMNIA in place, I couldn’t think of any classical composer whose name ended in A. SISTA was also good fill. BELLS was a good WAG.
And of course I liked the (Golden) Bears. Our octet sings the national anthem at the Cal men’s basketball game (against Pitt) in just a few hours, so I need to hustle up to Berkeley.
A very "Saturday" slog. FIR but NW was thorny. OED, ANO NUEVO, and SIDE DOOR took a lot of amending until it all came together. Overall enjoyable
Snake-eyes for a third day in a row DNF. But it's Saturday. I finished the SW, SE, and NE but there were too many unknowns. ROMANTASY SERIES, OLSEN, SISTA, ESMA, Nochevieja & ANO NUEVO, COME AT ME (nobody looking for a fight would ever say that; too formal. Maybe 'bring it on')
SAINT was a gimme. The Superdome was not the original name. All the locals called it that to one-up the Astrodome. It's now the Caesar's Superdome.
My NW bombed after I stuck with IN UNISON instead of TANDEM.
BRA PAD-falsies?
CENSES, ASMR, ESPRESSO- two unknowns filled by perps.
DNF. Filled 57, 45 correctly, or just an average Jinx Saturday.
I finally remembered that the Superdome is in NOLA, not Texas, but by then I was ready to watch the attack on Iran instead of playing with the puzzle. Gotta get in my doomscrolling in, even though I didn't know the term until today.
I was so proud of naCENE until I saw EOCENE. Guess I watched too much Star Trek, if there is such thing.
My buggy site was beta instead of DUNE. Guess I've been using Microsoft software too long.
After I had _ _ _ _ _ TASY SERIES I knew it was going to be a portmanteau I'd not heard of.
Another favorite contronym is "fine." I tried to find the old Frand and Erenest cartoon where one of the duo was telling the judge "but the sign said fine for littering," but I couldn't find it.
I did find Bruce Hornsby's The Way It Is, which targeted the old ways that kept us from being our best.
Thanks to ZZ and RM for the challenge, and to H.Gary for the tour.
Al Bundy's phrase for COME AT ME was "let's rock."
I found this much harder than a typical Saturday, nothing was coming to me in the top half of the grid, the bottom filled easier but took some time. I had to walk away twice to clear my head, and ultimately filled in the entire grid, but no congratulatory message. I was hoping to find a typo, but several times poring it over failed to reveal one. My only mistake was first thinking M-W referred to Microsoft Word, but I still didn’t have an answer for that, then I thought M-W might refer to Midway airport in Chicago, ( although I didn’t think that airport codes were hyphenated), so I wrongly inserted ORD, which gave me two right letters, the R being my only mistake for a FIW in about an hour total. Thank you Zhou and Rafael for the mental workout, and to HG for another fine review, and keeping your long Saturday blog streak intact.
That took a while, and even then, DNF. I just couldn’t come up with ROMANTASY. To make matters worse, I left LET FREE.
The rest required lots of erasures and going back and forth. Before ENABLES, I had FORBIDS, DeVOS, for DAVOS. Lots of lucky WAGS like OLSEN, ESPRESSO, BRAIN ROT, I like that one, CENSES. Some neat clues like the ones for OVEN MITT, BAD VIBES, NAPS.
I remember VIET from reading his wonderful novel a few years ago.
I really enjoyed this puzzle. The best of the last few days.
Thank you HG for another great review.
Good Morning:
I’m used to solving puzzles with a smattering of non-English clues and answers but I think today’s overdoes it, by far
Carajillo/Affogato
Nochevieja
Greek myth
Catalonia neighbor
Swiss Host
_______ Thanh Nguyen
_______ Vinci amor
Nat’l veg. Of Pakistan
Se _______ ingles
Granted, some are familiar but the sheer number was unprecedented in my years of solving experience. These challenges, plus some overly clever and confusing cluing, led to a FWH, especially with the top half of the grid. I think the clues for Bad Vibes and the green paint-ish Side Door were particularly poor, but there were several others that were too vague and unfairly misleading, IMO.
Thanks, HG, for the usual array of great photos and for your always even-handed and diplomatic review and commentary. Joann is a lucky lady and Darling Lily is too!
Have a great day.
19:38. Crunchiest puzzle in a while. Liked it overall. Only thing that bugged me was all of the small multi-word answers. Seemed like a lot. Like "dotoat", "actasif", "comeatme"...
Thank you, Zhou, Rafael and Husker Gary.
Man, oh, Manischewitz!
I can't remember the last time I finished this poorly on an LAT crossword. Has to be years.
It was the NW. Had SAINT, INNIES, NIOBE, TEAL and STE, and was confident about those. The problem was that I was just as confident about IN UNISON. After a good twenty minutes of nothing being able to perp in, I took a long break.
After the restart, I recognized the M-W as Merriam-Webster's icon that I see in search results. That gave me OED and I took out unison and then got TANDEM. I thought I was on my way to a FIR, but no, I couldn't make any additional progress.
Of course now, after looking at the grid, SIDE DOOR, DUNE, ENABLES and OVEN MITT look easy. Not sure about DO TO A T, but it makes the corner work and therefor fits much better than my early stab of nail it. Not sure I would have got ANO NUEVO. With perps for sure, but I didn't have them.
It wasn't a good morning for clear thinking on my part. I won't be making any major decisions today.
I'll have to finish Gary's review later and will be back then.
Yup - it’s Saturday!
Thanks for the challenge, and for the elaborations. I learned a bit.
Once I gave in and looked up ___ Creed-Miles and P’s nat’l veg— then elk, bleed and —series settled for a finish. I kept trying for romantasy “movies” even tho it needed a singular. (Never cared much for romance novels; not even classic gothic)
I like “bad vibes” for “energy crisis”, and “brain rot” from “doomscrolling” — AND they took a while to enter my head. Likewise M-W to OED - !doh!
I also like “quick outings?” for naps!
And - only 3 sports clues?!—of which I managed to get two š² (with help from perps); Saint was the stumper for a while, til I got “side door”.
Thanks again!
Finished without help in) 26 minutes, almost twice my usual Saturday time. I am not a fan of Rafael Musa’s puzzles. An excessive amount of foreign language entries (as already mentioned by Irish Miss), obscure answers and shaky cluing.
It seems that his puzzles are designed to elicit frustration rather than enjoyment.
DNF
This was way beyond my pay grade.
A detailed recap that required a lot of effort.
Thanks
The sousaphone--sort of a tuba that you wear--made me think of other musical instruments named after their inventor or designer. Saxophone was the most obvious. Then there's the spooky-sounding theremin, named for its Russian inventor named, of all things, Theremin. How about tthe Gibson Les Paul guitar?There must be others I can't think of.
Interesting, if somewhat tough Saturday puzzle, but that's what they're supposed to be. So many thanks, Zhou, Rafael, and Gary, for your hard work--much appreciated.
Well, a SAINT does definitely not have BAD VIBES, so this puzzle got off to a bad weekend start. And BRAIN ROT doesn't make it any better. Let's just hope that that SAINT will be able to SAVE FACE by figuring out how to DO this puzzle TO a T. Let's hope his INNIES don't have any OWS. Maybe he should just put on some OVEN MITTS and bake a PIE. And let's hope his RED SALSA doesn't go UNEATEN. What he really needs is some SALINE for his wounds (if he has any), and some ESPRESSO to make him and his whole crew happy EN MASSE.
Have a happy weekend, everybody.
Virtually all guitars are named after their founders: Leo Fender, Orville Gibson, C.F. Martin, Bob Taylor, Fred Gretsch, Paul Reed Smith, B.C. Rich etc.
¡Ay, caramba! I never got a good foothold in the NW. Couldn't parse ANO NUEVO - words always look weirder when vertical. I died on the hill of _ _ FANTASY SERIES which killed IN UNISON even when corrected to IN TANDEM. I got about half of the words up there, but nothing seemed to fit so I cried "uncle" to Zhou & Rafael.
Nice work today, Gary. You're a better man than I to complete this puzzle, although I enjoyed the challenge.
Your guess was better than mine. I thought of my college days, when M-W meant Mondays and Wednesdays. So I filled Tuesdays and Thursdays, TTH. BZZZ.
DNF. As IM said, too many foreign clues for me, also. Waaay over my pay-grade today. Aren't most alley-facing doors BACK doors? Heard of CAT scans... I suppose you could call a cat a PET, but what about a Dog or hamster scan?!
FWH but the NE and NW seemed more like a NY Times Saturday. I too had a hard time moving on from in unison. When was the last time you saw an answer with basically 4 words..? (Do to a T)! Why are bad vibes an energy crisis? Of course putting down mire for a buggy site didnt help. I didn’t know Queen L’s library; Catalonia territory; Davos hasn’t been in the business pages recently; Latin terminology; epochs names; Pulitzer name; the Olsen label; and the poor cluing for OED. Enjoyed the tough but fair bottom half though.
PET scan is a specialized scan - probably for many things but those of us looking for a return of cancer are familiar.š
Anonymous - Very concise, accurate answer. Thank you.
CE, would you email at your convenience, please.
As usual, printed the CW and tried to fill via pen-on-paper first. First pass give me about 1/3 of the fill. Then stuck, had to go online and turn on red-letter help. Even then, had to do multiple humiliating and time consuming alpha-runs to eventually FWH. LOTS of help. Still took 30 minutes.
When 26A filled as OED I still didn't get it, a good indication that my brain doesn't wanna work on a Saturday. HG already pointed out what I was gonna comment on: how SANCTIONS has two exactly opposite definitions.
3D I had INUNISON in there seemingly forever, fouling up the NW. Also JOT did not pop into my pumpkin-head, needed perps.
I was proud of myself for not being fooled by the clever "Pan handler" clue and immediately filling "OVENMITT". "Short person" was another clever clue, this time sailing smoothly over my head.
Dopey me filled BASEL instead of DAVOS at 8D on paper, which buggered up that area until I went online and red-letter help smacked me upside the head. Between that and THIN for 10D no wonder I needed to go online.
Overall, a harder-than-most-Saturdays CW. Combine that with just not feeling sharp today = struggle. But many clever clues, so Thanx to ZZ&RM for their creation.
Thanx too to HG for the nice write-up.
I also had IN UNISON but it didn't matter. The unknown ANO NUEVO never would have made it. I incorrectly guessed F-ANTASY after a few perps for the spanner, and ROM-ANTASY was an unknown. TITT.
Essential in the diagnosis of Alzheimer's.
How about this for a Saturday crossword? "Front man of the Pharaohs" for SAM THE SHAM? Happy 79th birthday, Sam.
I finished, but only with the help of numerous alphabet runs and lots and lots of red letters. My phone must be just about out of red ink.
This was a challenge to finish, but the juice was worth the squeeze.
Just as one gazes upon a bowl of pho and honors the broth before diving in, I usually take a moment to admire the blank grid on Saturdays before diving into the puzzle.
Good reading all your comments.
Thanks to Zhou and Rafael for the Saturday struggle! My one-box FIW was 39A. I tried Apple iie. Plenty of perplexing wordplay. Seeing words like "solution", "sanctions", and "buggy" in the proper way took a while....
Thank you to H-Gary for all the explanations, especially the ESPRESSO dishes! I always like seeing what the answers bring to your mind. Today it was the MASSE connection and the Memphis deed.
Love the pho metaphor, Jayce!
Holy guacamole, ZZ and Rafa served up a hella workout to us today! Like Irish Miss, I was done in by all the furrin werds, — I had no clue what “nocheviera” is, so only with perps did I eventually get it. Not that it did any good; too many of the other fills were unknown, even after cheating a bit to get the Latin/Spanish/Greek etc. I did appreciate the clever clueing, such as the misleading capital A in “Apple product” (y’mean it’s not an i-something??) and “Not-so-big shots” for BBS (they also make very high-quality wheels for cars š). Also, the devious misdirection with the fills that one would assume end in “-ed”, i.e., 43D “Finished” went for USEDUP (the “-ed” is in the middle!). Nice stuff — YOWZA!
Very astute and charitable recap, Husker G. — thanks for your usual extensive collection of reveals about the contents of the puzzle! Now I know the difference between a tuba and a Souzaphone (fun trivia: the tuba/Souzaphone section of the USC Trojans marching band used to take delight in playing the Fight Song whilst riding up and down the elevators in one of the music buildings. Must’ve sounded, erm, impressive?).
In the flick “Commando”, when Ahnold invited his nemesis to tangle, his line was “Let’s pahty!”.
As for guitar names, I can’t think of any that don’t carry the name of the guy/luthier that started the company that makes ‘em., except maybe some of the vintage ones like Airline (sold by Montg’y Ward) and Domino. I’m sure there are more, but, like R.B. sez, most of the good ones carry the name of the builder/luthier…
Anyway, thanks Zhou and Rafa for the challenge — it took me an entire NASCAR race (at CoTA) to jam through it (unsuccessfully, I should add š). See y’all maƱana for the Sunday slog!
====> Darren / L.A.
Got the southeast corner, but had to look up several to finish elsewhere. Catherine of Aragon helped me with Catalonia neighbors. Congratulations to those of you who FIR!
My day got away from me. Finally got back to reading the review. Of course I enjoyed it.
It doesn't matter to me whether the Bears play in Chicago, Arlington Heights or Hammond, Indiana. I'm not that vested in them, and they are always available on the TV. I'll watch them unless the Steelers are on. I subscribe to NFL Season Pass so I can watch the Steelers every week, along with any other out of market game that interest me.
OTOH, I know that where they play is a big issue for many longtime Bears fans. Regardless of where they actually end up, I'll guess that they'll most likely still be called the Chicago Bears. The 49ers play in Santa Clara, but they are still called the San Francisco 49ers. There are other examples.
Madame DeFarge and her husband were season ticket holders for Bears games for many many years. IIRC, it was over 20 years. Now that is dedicated fandom. It can get brutally cold here from time to time, and one of the last places I'd want to be was sitting in the stands at Soldier's Field next to Lake Michigan. Brr.
I'm having issues finding stuff in the blog archives. The other day (yesterday?) I was searching for Granny in LA and her rants about cancelling her subscription to the LAT. Then I remembered that it was Bobbi in LA. Still couldn't find them.
I've been looking for some of Abejo's comments about tubas, sousaphones and euphoniums. And specifically the link to the video of "Tuba Christmas" at the Palmer House one year. He played in it many years in a row. He was able to point out where he was among the hundreds of tuba players. I don't recall whether he had taken his treasured 90 year old tuba or his sousaphone that year, but he was sitting down in the video, so it may have been the tuba.
Oh, and Dash T, a little late now, but Ruth's Chris must have been on Westheimer and not on Richmond.
I'm still a crossword beginner so today's puzzle was completely out of my league. Judging from the comments even the skilled veterans here found it challenging! I knew Court of Thorns and Roses right away, thanks to my gal pal who is very into romantasy novels. I appreciate how the answers draw from different trivia areas rather than heavily skew to one. I agree with Irish Miss, a lot of foreign language as well!
OJAI GUY. DOTOAFWH. Stuck it out, but it brought me as much joy as ninth grade math homework.
I heard that if the Bears do decide to move to Indiana they will change their name to the Hammond Eggs.
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