Saturday, October 17, 2026, Jess Rucks

 Saturday Themeless by Jess Rucks

It's always a pleasure to see Jess's byline. Here you can see a picture of her and me as we met for a fun supper in Lincoln on a cold February night.  

Jess's long fills were the key to the solve and helped with some of the cleverness Jess supplied. Her Air Force job was as an Urdu translator and at least she did not use any of those words! 😊

Here's what our friend Jess had to say about this puzzle:

Hi Gary!

Yay, thanks! I don't remember if there was a seed for this one. LOOK MOM, NO HANDS was probably something inspired by my son Sigur! My goal was to keep the fill clean but also include interesting long answers that had the potential for fun cluing angles. To make up for having a few more shorter answers than is typical in a Saturday LAT themeless, I tried to up the difficulty a little bit in the clues!

I asked Jess how she came up with such a unique name for her son and I am quoting her reply because she actually used the word our cwd buddy EDDA in her answer:

We both have strong Scandinavian roots, so we looked to Nordic folklore. Sigurd is a hero in the Poetic EDDA, so we thought that name could be cool, but decided to drop the "d."

Across:

1. Aid in scratching an itch: CLAW.

5. Jeans choice: SLIM - Levi, Lees? Nope.

9. "What's wrong with u?": SMH - Get it?

                

12. Vader offspring: LEIA - Not her brother Luke this time

13. Southwestern casserole: TAMALE PIE.

16. "Same here": SO AM I.

17. "Let's do this!": IT'S GO TIME.

18. Forex benchmark: USD - FOReign currency EXchanges use US dollars for comparison

19. The old you: THEE - Not THOU

21. Like some kitchen herbs: POTTED.

22. Nullifies: NEGATES.

24. Tradition within Swedish coffee culture: FIKA.

25. Like some jobs: CUSHY.

26. Abound (with): TEEM.

27. Shengjian __: pan-fried pork bun: BAO - We seem to be learning a lot of bread products from around the world

30. Setting of Fox's "Best Medicine": MAINE.

31. Milanese dish traditionally served with risotto: OSSO BUCO.

33. With 47-Down, extra lives?: ALTER and 47. See 33-Across: EGOS - Clark Kent, Peter Parker and Bruce Wayne come to mind.

34. Service rep with a lack of humanity: BOT - I keep saying "Representative or pushing O" hoping I will get out of an annoying conversation with a BOT  

35. David's "Baywatch" role: MITCH.

36. Eyes angrily: GLARES AT.

38. Takes down: NOTES.

39. Letters from a bygone empire: SSR.

40. Travels cross-country?: SKIS.

41. Wades through: FORDS.

42. Leave out: OMIT.

43. Nullifidian: ATHEIST - I had no idea but it makes sense

45. Cold treat: ICE POP.

48. National Farm Toy Museum locale: IOWA -  It's about a 10 minute drive between these two attractions in tiny Dyersville, IOWA.

                        

49. Whiz: ACE.

50. Home brewer's appliance: KEGERATOR.

52. Chute material: NYLON - American parachutes were mostly made from Japanese silk. As you can imagine, Pearl Harbor cut off that supply and DuPont came with a synthetic substitute called NYLON. The first person to test the new material was parachute rigger Adeline Gray. She made her historic jump on June 6, 1942, two years to the day before they were widely used on D-Day.

54. Resolved: IRONED OUT.

55. Exploit: DEED.

56. Court figs.: DA'S.

57. Nueva canción great Mercedes: SOSA - Nueva Canción means "New Song"

58. Singer who has six top 10 studio albums with her namesake band: SADE.

Down:

1. Scary-good moments?: CLOSE CALLS.

2. Role for one who picks the melody?: LEAD GUITAR.

Bass    Drum    Lead        Rhythm

3. Asset in a snowball fight: AIM.

4. "You're telling me that's only part of the story?": WAIT THERE'S MORE - Remember pitchman Billy Mays?

5. Spots for muckety-mucks?: STIES 😀 

6. Like someone who gets stuck in traffic, perhaps: LATE.

7. Pings online: IMS.

8. Birds that recognize faces and hold grudges: MAGPIES - Now there's a face a MAGPIE can remember.

9. Rotisserie rod: SPIT.

10. Expert in nonverbal communication: MIME - A MIME MEME?

11. Obey: HEED.

14. Cry for attention: LOOK MOM NO HANDS - Jess was thinking of her son when she thought of this.

15. James in the Blues Hall of Fame: ETTA.

16. Feature of Namibia's flag: SUN - It's in here:

20. "Yo!": HEY.

23. Ed of "Up": ASNER 

24. End of Oktober?: FEST.

26. __ and the Maytals: TOOTS ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

27. Rang up from down under?: BUTT DIALED - My favorite clue!

28. Opening sequence: ACCESS CODE.

29. Sounds amazed: OOHS.

30. Some off-the-rack purchases, briefly: MAGS - A recurring scene in this movie

32. "Free your pores" brand: BIORE.

34. Entice: BAIT.

37. Bypass online promos: SKIP ADS - I click on 'em every time I can.

41. "Victory!" letters: FTW - I'll take Leslie Uggams For The Win

42. Like a tips-only bar: OPEN - The booze is already paid for so...

43. Place for a stent: AORTA.

44. Point value of "five" in Scrabble: TEN - Find the letters and add 'em up

45. "Only joking": I KID - His material would never work today

46. Michael of "The Running Man": CERA.

48. Chits: IOUS.

51. As well: TOO.

53. "About __ big": YEA.

Friday, Oct 16th, 2026 ~ Yijing Chen

"A Minor" COMPOSITION in "B#"

The Circle of FIFTHS - A minor = C major: C = "B#" - get it~?

This is Yijing Chen's fifth LA Times puzzle - I blogged her debut puzzle here, and today's offering may have led some Cornerites to a Circle of FITs, or even the fifth circle of hell - see 51A.  I however, loved this puzzle - I enjoy the extra challenge of trying to figure out the hidden, underlying meaning of a crossword's theme.  It took me about 8mins over my usual Friday time to finally figure out just the SW corner alone. Once I caught on to the reveal "NOTES" being the musical Do-Re-Mi-Fa-So-La-Ti vocalizations, it was enough to figure out that the theme answers were completely undefinable from the clues themselves - 45A being the most obscure & difficult to parse; I'm not even sure I am 100% correct, but there is no "sourson" word - the closest I could find was soursop - this fruit.  The solution is to take out the duplicate "notes", ( which had to be doubled to match the plural reveal ) and Bob's your uncle.  I am sure this construction is going to cause a fair amount of grumbling, but it's Friday, and it does have a theme, albeit a very cryptic one.  An over-sized 15 x 16 grid, no outlier letters, several names, no Twurds, sixteen 3LWs, and no circles, but perhaps "*" on the themers would have helped, as they coincided with other same-length fills:

17. Female sib: DOSIDOS - SISter, abbr in the clue, abbr in the answer, no relation to the actual fill of do-si-do, the dance step ( and now I see, a strain of marijuana, plus the Girl Scout cookie ); the same non-relation goes for all of the themers . . .

18. Cozy eatery: CAREFREE - CAFE, not the 'care-free' attitude, e.g.

23. Man of La Mancha: SEMI MINOR - SEÑOR, Español for "man" in the Spanish city - which we also learned from last week's clue/answer "Dulcinea" fiasco; filled mostly via perps, and I did not know what the definition of "Semi Minor" was;

the Wiki

38. The complete set: ALFALFA - ALL - strangely, a sorta dupe from yesterday . . .

45. Big flowerpot: SOURS ON - URN - "loses interest in"; almost impossible to fill in without understanding the theme

57. Extemporizes: LAVA LAMPS - VAMPS - the "musical improvisation" definition. The green one in my office -

67. Low-level laborer: PETITION - PEON, my first thought, but was obviously too short for the eight-letter fill in the grid

69. "Perfect!," or how to make seven answers in this puzzle match their clues?: NO NOTES - D'Oh~! A deer, a female deer - if you were able to "Be Sharp" and remove the doubled Do-Re-Mi-Fa-So-La-Ti-Do pairings ( and I know it's usually referred to as "SOL" ) from the answers, what you're left with are explanations for the clues 😁

ACROSS:

1. Barnyard call: MAA - cows go "moo", sheep go "baa", so this must be goats

4. A pop: PER

7. Compels: FORCES

13. Like some pickup-only deals: IN-STORE

15. Prehistoric hand tool: STONE AXE - A uniquie fill

19. "Ferrari" actor Driver: ADAM - name #1

20. Second singer to be honored with a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award: SINATRA - and the first singer was~?  Answer at the end, name #2

22. Some laptops: PCs

25. Ernie's "Sing After Me" duet partner: ELMO - Good guess on my part; not BERT - name #3

28. Monument Valley formation: MESA

30. Winter layer: COAT - I was not fooled, didn't go with SNOW, RIME or HOAR

33. __ Nation: Jay-Z's conglomerate: ROC - name (ish)

36. Novelist Quindlen: ANNA - No clue, more here, name #4

40. Approximately: ABOUT

42. Many a K-pop singer: IDOL

44. Starting lineup: A-TEAM

47. Gaelic speaker: CELT

49. Cornerback Bly in the College Football Hall of Fame: DRÉ - No clue, name #5

50. Was gripping?: HELD - Har-har

51. Breathe fire, say: RAGE - the sin of the Fifth Circle of Hell

53. Inhale, maybe: EAT - slang for eating fast

55. Couple: DUAD - Not being DUET caused all sorts of grief 

62. "Thrilla in Manila" boxer: ALI - Crossword staple, name #6

64. Approached bedtime: LATENED - "got late"

66. Wife of Zeus: HERA - name #7

71. Peppers in some mole sauces: POBLANOS - oof.  I didn't know the name of this pepper, and it's a unique fill, so new to any crossword - more here

72. Writer/illustrator who often wrote in anapestic tetrameter: Dr. SEUSS - the rhyming 'pace', depicted as da - da - DUM.  My blogs are written in all-a-puzzle octalmeter . . . name #8

73. Villainous looks: SNEERS -  This fish, my S-i-L calls "Vegas", hovered in the corner of the tank and stared at me the whole time I was down on Long Island . . . 

I'm watchin' you  . . . Creepy

74. With 27-Across, big name in watercraft: SEA - AND - 27A. See 74-Across: DOO.  Their website

75. Therapist's maj.: PSYchology

DOWN:

1. King with a touching story?: MIDAS - the golden touch of mythology - my first thought was ELVIS😜, #9

2. Battery part: ANODE

3. Breakfast tea variety: ASSAM - Dah~!  Not PEKOE

4. Pea sheller's discard: POD

5. Canyon former: EROSION

6. Amber, once: RESIN

7. "Seriously?": "FOR REAL~?" - Rhymes with . . .

8. "Gorilla Warfare" artist Shaquille: O'NEAL - Name #10, but that's who I figured - not too many people named Shaquille - and his "art"

9. NWSL official: REF - abbr for the National Womens' Soccer League; I ventured a guess at something something Sports League . . . enough to take a WAG

10. Didn't ride solo: CARPOOLED

11. Corp. bigwig: EXECutive

12. Goes out with: SEES - Crossword friendly "E"s and "S"s on the edge

14. Retiring: TIMID - Dah~!  Not IN BED, but an obscure definition

15. Shake: SCARE - Friday. Vague.

16. Ink spot, for short: TATtoo - so many ladies at the gym with ink art, but I just don't care for it; to me, it's like graffiti on the Venus De Milo

Yecht - looks "dirty"

21. Digital __: remote tech worker: NOMAD - I have not heard this phrase, but sounds like a great way to work in the 21st century

24. Deep defenses: MOATS - two weeks in a row on Friday

Caerlaverock castle, Scotland

26. MD-to-be's exam: MCAT - Medical College Admission Test

29. Clearance event: SALE

31. Not nearby: AFAR

32. No longer feral: TAME - this guy only gets feral when the FedEx guy pulls up . . .

Told you he was a licker . . .

33. Impetuous: RASH - I went with RUDE, only 25% correct

34. Clarinet kin: OBOE - about the only 'gimme' in the SW

35. "Do my eyes deceive me?": "COULD IT BE~?" - Solid, but tough to suss in the Down position, and no crossings to work with either

37. Totenberg of NPR: NINA - I don't listen, more here.  Name #11

39. Like some flaws: FATAL

41. Linguistic cousin of Hindi: URDU

43. One of a geographic quintet: OCEAN - Atlantic, Pacific, Indian, Antarctic & Arctic

46. Formally decrees: ORDAINS - that's the word I could not think of; I was stuck on ORATES

48. Galena, e.g.: LEAD ORE - I knew this, but for some reason, put in IRON - that's these ores

52. Bonny landscapes: GLENS

Aye, she's a bonny lass

54. Sierra Nevada lake: TAHOE - Geo name #12

56. Match point?: ALTAR - And I thought I was being clever with "FLAME" = tip, but this is the wedded bliss kind of point - the "location"

58. Sells: VENDS

59. Came together: MET UP

60. Olive oil maker: PRESS

61. Flip: SASSY - flip, the adjective, not the verb

62. Intro courses?: APPS - Ah.  The restaurant menu appetizers, that is

63. Swimmer Marchand who won four gold medals at Paris 2024: LEON - oof. Friday. Frawnche.  Name #13

65. "__ true!": TOO - I had "TIS" to start

68. __-de-France: Paris's region: ILE - Frawnche #2 - guessed it, put it in, took it out, put it right back in, and I shaked it all about . . . 🙄

70. Govt. cybersecurity monitor: NSA - No. Such. Agency.

Splynter

Grid Flow 29.0

answer to 20A << Bing Crosby >>

Notes from C.C.

Happy Birthday to our dear Dave (CrossEyedDave)! He's always there when I need a helping hand with the blog, and he never misses a chance to celebrate our regulars with his wonderful birthday cake pictures. Thank you for your kindness, thoughtfulness, and all the smiles you bring to our little crossword family. We're so lucky to have you in our corner, Dave!