Saturday Themeless by Rafael Must
1. Garage equipment: CAR RAMPS - $99 at Wal Mart
9. One who takes things the wrong way?: ROBBER 😀
15. Ancient Egypt's "plant of immortality": ALOE VERA - The plant was presented as a sacred gift at the burials of pharaohs and placed inside tombs to accompany rulers into the afterlife. Heck, all we want is some relief from a sunburn!
16. How donburi is served: ON RICE.
17. Parent who seems to do it all: SUPER MOM.
18. Umami-rich snack: TEA EGG - A TEA EGG is a Chinese savory food commonly sold as a snack, in which a boiled egg is cracked slightly and then boiled again in tea, and sauce or spices.
19. Audrey Tautou film: AMELIE ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
20. Admits: SEES IN - This is a hoot!
22. RSVP part: SIL.
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24. Habitat for some gnomes: LAWN.
26. Groups with routine practice sessions: DANCE CREWS.
30. "Over there," in Portuguese: ALI - "Vá ficar ALI" (Go stand over there)
31. Small bluff: CRAG.
32. Dough: MOOLAH.
33. Billboard entries: SINGLES 😀 Here is the top of Billboard's Hot 100 SINGLES on April 12, 1964.
35. "Tell the truth!": DON'T LIE.
36. Proceeds without a pause: SEGUES 😀 - Nobody did them better!
37. Common tamale ingredient: LARD - It's not labelled below, but I think you can see it in the little black pan.
38. "__ help!": IT'D.
39. Ephemeral post, colloquially: INSTASTORY - INSTAGRAM STORIES are said to disappear after 24 hours but does anything really disappear from the web?
41. Terrarium growth: MOSS.
42. Pen: ENCAGE.
43. Go unused: SIT.
44. Porowski of "Queer Eye": ANTONI ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
45. Place to enter a security code: PIN PAD.
48. Jumped out of one's skin?: MOLTED 😀 - Two weeks ago, August Miller gave us 6. Drop down?: MOLT
50. What files can help with: NAIL CARE.
52. Preferring platonic connections, for short: ARO ACE.
54. Reacts to a riot, say: LAUGHS 😀
55. "Sure, hon": OKAY DEAR.
Down:
1. Isabel Allende's "La __ de los espÃritus": CASA - Even I could see this translates to The House Of The Spirits.
2. Grad: ALUM.
3. Means of access for some watering holes: ROPE SWINGS - A lot of the images were violent fails!
4. Attract: REEL IN.
5. "Complicated" singer Lavigne: AVRIL.
6. Part of a viral load?: MEME - If an internet posting goes viral, it can become a MEME
7. Maven: PRO - Not a common synonym for me but...
8. Korean company whose name means "three stars": SAMSUNG.
9. Capacity built via repetition: ROTE MEMORY 😀
10. "Be right with you!": ONE SECOND.
11. Low-quality internet content: BRAIN ROT.
12. Word in Spanish 101 and French 101: BIEN The play was well done. In Spanish: La obra estuvo BIEN hecha. In French: La pièce était BIEN réussie.
13. Diagnostic test, for short: ECG.
14. Bylaw, for short: REG - REGulations
21. Key part of an exit strategy: ESC.
23. "Be right with ewe!" sounds?: BAAS 😀
24. Drink that may be topped with cardamom: LASSI.
25. Strange: ALIEN.
26. Style guides?: DRESS CODES - Fair?
27. "Gaycation" co-host: ELLIOT PAGE ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
28. Stands by: WAITS - BTW, Godot never shows up.
29. Saw places: SHEDS 😀
31. Green transport, gray water recycling, etc.: CLEAN TECH.
35. "Just do it," e.g.: DARE.
37. Access, in a way: LOG INTO.
40. "Saving Fish From Drowning" novelist: TAN.
41. __ oath: MINCED.
43. Like flan: SILKY.
44. Six-time MLB All-Star Moisés: ALOU.
45. Tuscan city known for a campanile: PISA - Of course, a campanile is a bell tower and very common in Italy. However in PISA...
46. Painter's calculation: AREA.
47. Sacred animals in Nara, Japan: DEER.
49. Pop singer Rita: ORA - We had a nice reference to RITA Hayworth yesterday.
51. North Sea bird: AUK.
Nope. DNF.
ReplyDeleteI got off to a good start, but then got bogged down and could not complete it.
That’s my sad story. What’s yours?
DNF, completing 35, 30 correctly.
ReplyDeleteCongrats to those who got this one. All I can say is "shoot," and "fudge."
Good morning!
ReplyDeleteSeveral of my WAGs were golden: DRESS CODES, ROPE SWINGS, GUTEN TAG and ROTE MEMORY. Otherwise this difficult grid would've been impossible. My thought on BUS MEN was restaurant workers rather than drivers. "IT'D help!" just seems off. I prefer my oaths unMINCED -- they add zest, particularly when proselytizers come to the door. Thanx for the amusement, Rafael ("Yo!" de Cologne was classic), and for an excellent review, Husker.
'Twas me above.
DeleteI remember the term "busman's holiday" as a person's vocation is the same as his/her avocation. Originally a bus driver (BUSMAN to our former masters) who takes a bus trip on vacation. I remember it used for a car mechanic who spends the weekend working on his own car. Guess it could also be an airline pilot who punches holes in the sky in the family Mooney on his/her time off.
DeleteNope. Twern’t to be. Alas…
ReplyDeleteTo quote Husker Gary: “I was blocked by my lack of knowledge in areas Where Rafa is much more knowledgeable.”
ReplyDeleteI was stumped by the cross of LASSI & ALI, and the cross of...Rafael won this round. Still fun anyway.
ReplyDeleteI raise SAMSUNG's 3 stars with Mitsubishi's 3 diamonds.
"Just do it," had me stumped on how to squeeze "slogan" into a 4LW.
Good going, Gary.
After reading the clues with Spanish, Portuguese, French, Japanese, Korean, Egyptian, Italian, queer, gay, aro,-I took one pass and made a few correct fills and quit. Not worth the effort to try.
ReplyDeleteAnd the German clue should have had the German spelling of Cologne- Köln- to be correct. Other than ORA, ALOU, LAUGHS, TUSKEGEE, MOOLAH, SUPER____, and DON'T LIE, I didn't bother attempting to go any farther.
This author did todays Apple crossword as well, and I think I will put him on my “don’t bother with it” list, even though I successfully solved both.
ReplyDeleteUnlike SubG, I had a very slow start due to the extreme lack of gimmes, typical for me on a themeless Saturday. I pecked away at it for a half hour and had the right half filled, but I needed to take a break cuz not much was coming to me in the west. DNKs were the majority. Eventually I somehow managed to fill the entire grid but got no congratulatory message. Typo maybe? Nope, couldn’t find one. Messed around with a few entries that I was unsure of, to no avail. Gave up and hit the “reveal grid” link. I had ‘log onto’ instead of LOG INTO. Oh well, missed by one letter, so I’ll still grade myself an ‘A’ for this FIW. Very challenging puzzle, which frustrated at times but I still enjoyed the solve, thanks Rafael for that. Liked the clue for GUTEN TAG once I got it, lots of other clues also had me baffled. Thanks HG for the elucidation!
ReplyDeleteMe ⬆️⬆️⬆️
DeleteAnother Saturday disappointment. About 10% filled after one pass, not enough to work with.
ReplyDeleteAfter a few fills, I gave up. So many clues outside my wheelhouse. I would have needed ESP to finish.
ReplyDeleteThank you HG and congratulations to you and the other brave souls who FIR.
Good Morning:
ReplyDeleteI found the heavy concentration on foreign words and references not only annoying but unfair. Also unfair, IMO, was the unnecessary solving difficulty created by cluing two basic words, Tan and Ali, in such a non-helpful way. I stuck with the solving attempt but was not rewarded with a FIR, thanks to the incorrect Jolted/Molted and Antono/Antoni. I was also challenged by Minced Oath, Bien, Gutentag, Pin Pad, etc. Overall, an unpleasant and unrewarding Saturday solve.
Thanks, HG, for always finding the silver lining in all crossword clouds.
Have a great day.
Irish Miss described it better than I ever could.
ReplyDeleteRafael Musa is on my “don’t bother” list because of puzzles similar to this one. But I am in a long line, in my vehicle, with an hour to kill, sonI held my nose and dove in.
I FIR in 24 minutes, about double my usual Saturday time. I continually had to stop and think “how would I fill this if I was on a vanity mission and my goal is to annoy and frustrate the solver?”, and that helped quite a bit.
Too many foreign language and small-niche entries.
Unenjoyable x10
FIR but really didn't enjoy this one.
ReplyDeleteThis constructor likes the arcane-social-buzzword type clues that almost no one knows nor cares to learn.
I'll be skipping his puzzles in the future
FIR. There was a whole lot of guessing going on on my part to get the win. There was so much I didn't know. And several places where the eraser was needed. For example, I had shops before sheds. And I tried in vain to have either manicure or pedicure fit before giving in to nail care.
ReplyDeleteOverall not an enjoyable puzzle.