Saturday, November 19, 2022, Kate Chin Park, Brooke Husic

 Saturday Themeless by Kate Chin Park and Brooke Husic

Let's start on this fun puzzle with 23 Down - 23. Column crossers: ROWS 

Across:

1. Certain pronouncement?: THAT'S FACTS - "That's a fact, Jack!" The actual fill is also a title to a rap song with "explicit" lyrics

11. Some scanners: HP'S - I'm sure Hewlett Packard makes nice scanners but this is what I do:

14. Pity parties?: SORE LOSERS - The NHL is the only North American sports league that makes players shake hands after a game 

15. Tender in Tehran: RIAL - $1.00 = ﷼42,484

16. "Don't I know it": ALL TOO TRUE. 

17. Survey opción: OTRO

         ¿Comida rápida favorita? 

     A) McDonalds 

     B) Burger King 

     C) OTRO

18. Brazilian city: RIO - Extreme poverty exists very close to extreme wealth in RIO de Janeiro 

19. Ballet bends: PLIES - You can find them working out in the gym or watching The Nutcracker 

20. Act big, so to speak: EMOTE.

21. Mud: JOE and 34. Noggin: BEAN. - Slang names for coffee and head respectively 

22. Like wrap heels: STRAPPY - It appears that she 24. Tolerates: STANDS the pain

27. Neither partner: NOR.

28. Rx overseer: FDA and 58. Rx items: MEDS.

30. See-__: THRU - The Glass Frog of Ecuador. 

 
31. Some high-occupancy vehicles: CLOWN CARS.

35. Greek city that's one of the oldest in Europe: ARGOS - Evidence of a settlement going back 7,000 years has been found at the foot of Aspida Hill in ARGOS shown here.

36. Mid-month day: IDES - The passage from Julius Caesar

37. Resident of the highest-altitude U.S. capital: SANTAFEAN- Yeah, I'm the only one who thought of Denverite

39. Assessment: TEST.

40. "Arthur" network: PBS.

41. Heated state: IRE.

42. Way out: EGRESS - At the top of Launch Pad 39 A & 39 B, NASA has what they call an "Emergency EGRESS System" that is a basket on a wire that can carry the astronauts to safety in the event of a malfunction at the top of the pad

45. Opposite of coy: UPFRONT.

48. Swift album with "All Too Well": RED.

49. One with a clipped ear, perhaps: STRAY - Cat fight souvenir 

50. Talking point: TOPIC.

52. Swiatek who won the French Open in 2020 and 2022: IGA - Our familiar grocery store chain cluing gives way to Polish tennis champion IGA Natalia Świątek

55. Busy, busy, busy: AT IT.

56. One doing spit takes?: WINE TASTER - This allows the TASTER to remain sober and better sample the wine. Not this.

59. Technology swiped by millions: SMART PHONE - 😀 No intellectual property thievery, just the motion we use for cellular navigation.

60. "__ we good?": ARE.

61. Retro footwear made from PVC: JELLY SHOES.

Down:

1. Pre-revolution ruler: TSAR - It did not end well for the Romanovs 

2. Spring celebration with colored powder: HOLI - I was happy to learn that Holi (pronounced how-lee) is a Hindi festival  that celebrates the end of winter and the arrival of spring. 

3. "Collapsed in Sunbeams" singer Parks: ARLO - Here ya go. Arlo Guthrie joins the IGA Grocery chain on the Saturday crossword bench.

4. New Year celebrated with thit kho trung: TET - Vietnamese caramelized braised pork ribs with eggs. Speaking of Saturday cluing for familiar crossword fill...

5. Apply generously: SLOP ON.

6. Got: FOOLED - Gotcha!

7. Bubbly locale: ASTI - The producers dropped the name Spumante when they reformulated the wine in 1993 to differentiate it from being called "the poor man's champagne".

8. Demeter's Roman counterpart: CERES - Goddesses of agriculture

9. Advice for a plant: TRUST NO ONE - This plant is an undercover agent placed in the enemy's camp 😀

10. Dir. from Beverly Hills to Long Beach: SSE - It appears to be a 38 minute 21. Day trip, maybe: JAUNT on the 405. I wonder if our California posters think that is a realistic time.

11. Some flat caps?: HI TOP FADES.

12. Eye-catching number: PARTY DRESS.

13. Gin berry: SLOE.

15. Frolic: ROMP.

20. Get well?: EARN - Obtain legitimately? 😀

24. Ingredient in many L'Occitane creams: SHEA BUTTER - The Butyrospermum ParkII (Shea Butter) is listed as the fourth ingredient.

25. Movement celebrated with a blue, pink, and white flag: TRANSPRIDE - These participants at a TRANS PRIDE event in Las Vegas wore shirts instead of carrying flags.

26. Hours limited by parents: SCREEN TIME - It is possible to set a passcode-protected SCREEN TIME limit on your child's phone.

29. PDA part: Abbr.: ASST - The Personal Data ASSisatanT has been largely supplanted by cell phones

30. Largest of a certain kitchen set, for short: TBSP.

32. NYC hub: LGA - The cost of a one-way flight from OMAha to LaGuardiA today

33. Gave credit: CITED.

35. Hairstyle for Misty Knight: AFRO - A Marvel Comics character

38. Open, in a way: AIRY.

43. Philadelphia Flyers mascot: GRITTY - Gritty makes an entrance

44. Short accounts: RECAPS.

46. Domino's starter?: FATS - ANNO did not work because I read Domoni instead of DOMINO.

47. Like many Asian languages: TONAL - We English speakers have some of this like when we say, "Dude". However this is a lesson about Mandarin Chines and TONAL language. 

49. "For __": Oscar-nominated documentary set in Aleppo: SAMA.

51. Programming language named for a gem: PERL.

52. "Am __ late?": I TOO.

53. Hand-me-down piece?: GENE 😀

54. Truculent god: ARES.

56. Financial daily, initially: WSJ.

57. Silent bid?: SHH.

Saturday, October 22, 2022, Mary Lou Guizzo and Brooke Husic

 Themeless Saturday by Mary Lou Guizzo and Brooke Husic

Mary Lou and her retired  science teacher husband met at The University of Dayton and now live in Oakwood, OH which is a suburb of Dayton. Last time she told us: 

Mary Lou and Grandson

I am a retired medical technologist with a Specialty in Blood Banking (SBB). I’ve worked in hospitals, private labs and the Community Blood Center for many years. She further said she knew of C.C. and knows our moderator is a "rockstar constructor!" 

She told me how her collaboration with Brooke came about: I think I contacted Brooke via FB Messenger to let her know how much I enjoyed the Saturday, December 12, 2020 NYT puzzle she and Sid Sivakumar constructed. We chatted with each other and she asked if I’d like to co-construct a puzzle with her. She has exploded onto the cruciverbalist scene and is bursting with good ideas for constructing. She is a great person to collaborate with. I was honored that she asked me to work with her. Jim Horne wrote a nice piece about her here: https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=6/18/2022.

Brooke Husic is from Glastonbury, CT and is currently doing post doc work in Berlin in computational chemistry and machine learning work on molecular kinetics. I previously blogged a collaborative puzzle she made with Michael Lieberman last month. 

Across:

1. Address to a fella: BRO and 29. Address to a fella: GUV.

4. Lone star group?: PANS - Fun wording. A collection of restaurants or movies that were PANNED by getting only one star would be a group of PANS.

8. Green fruit: LIMES.

13. Marshmallow bird: PEEP - My teeth hurt just looking at them.

14. "Let Me Down Slowly" singer-songwriter Benjamin: ALEC - He has a very distinctive high voice

15. NAACP __ Awards: IMAGE - Marsai Martin won three this year

16. One hanging out along the wall?: EAVE - Did anyone else think of wallflowers at a dance

17. [Not again!]: SIGH

18. Colorful bulb: TULIP - The Tulip Festival in Pella, IA is worth the trip.

19. Achebe novel whose title comes from a Yeats poem: THINGS FALL APART.

The beginning four lines of the Yeats poem The Second Coming are referred to as a preface of the novel by this Nigerian author:

“Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,”

The centre is having trouble holding these days as it was in 1919 when Yeats wrote this poem.

22. Part of an opening line?: SESAME.

23. Rat tail?: TEE - raT

24. Sportswear brand: FILA.

25. Ain't equivalent?: AREN'T - You AREN'T Nothin' But A Hound Dog? That just ain't right!

26. Cosmetic invented for the movie industry in 1930: LIP GLOSS - The inventor Max Factor applies it below

28. Sondheim's "Sweeney __": TODD - The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street who seeks revenge for a terrible injustice.

30. Suffix with gazillion: AIRE - MillionAIRE, billionAIRE and then...

31. Masala chai, e.g.: SPICED TEA - What is masala?

34. __ Rub: anti-chafing product: CHUB.

35. Jazz intro?: NEO - A sample of NEO Jazz

36. Procedural that spun off from "JAG": NCIS - Two Saturdays in a row for NCIS

40. Mollusk considered a living fossil: NAUTILUS.

42. Comedian Cenac: WYATT.

43. Feature of a fitted blouse: DART.

 

44. On the __: LAM.

45. Cupcakes-to-be: BATTER.

46. Stadium cry: ICE COLD BEER HERE.

49. Dirty sort of person: CHEAT.

50. Himalayan cryptid: YETI - Disney's animatronic version of the YETI prowls the Expedition Everest ride at Animal Kingdom.

51. Vehicles that may roll over: IRAS.

52. Trunks: TORSI - Torso plural

53. __ queen: DRAG.

54. Makes: NETS - Can you find the NET pay on this stub?

55. Jennies, e.g.: ASSES - A Jenny and her foal

56. Dot on a map: ISLE.

57. Hurdle for a future Ph.D.: GRE - I took the Graduate Record Exam when LBJ was president

Down:

1. Come to the rescue: BE A HERO.

2. Amended: REVISED.

3. Court coup: OPEN AND SHUT CASE - We have the empty porridge bowl, the broken chair and she is still in one of our beds.

4. Not retro yet: PASSE - That outfit is so 2020 but at least it's not 1990

5. First letter of the Urdu alphabet: ALIF  - Since Urdu is read right to left, ALIF is in the top row on the right.

6. Figures whose squares are positive: NEGATIVE NUMBERS.

7. Haul: SCHLEP.

8. Ford whose debut album was "Out for Blood": LITA.

9. "No, really, you decide!": I'M UP FOR ANYTHING.

10. Lassitude: MALAISE.

11. Some zoomers with an emo aesthetic: EGIRLS - What are they?

12. Commuter syst. that crosses the Delaware: SEPTA - Southeastern Pennsylvania Transit Authority 

13. Tended a lab?: PET SAT - DOG SAT clogged up this corner for a while

20. BBC clock setting: GMT.

21. Staccato opposite: LEGATO.

26. "Star Trek" captain Jean-__ Picard: LUC - We have one here as well at our site

27. Tell tales: LIE.

29. Benefits act of 1944: GI-BILL provided 34. Vocations: CAREERS for WWII soldiers

                  

  

32. Place: PUT.

33. Some French?: DES - Je vais acheter DES pommes (I'm going to buy some apples).

37. Hospitality professional: CATERER - A service used in fancier H.S. graduation parties.

38. Go over again: ITERATE 39. Go over again, say: STRESS.

40. Ballpark snack served in a helmet: NACHOS.

41. The People's Princess: LADY DI - A lovely person who got caught up in a loveless royal marriage which is shown so well on Netflix's The Crown

42. "All the Light We Cannot See" backdrop: WAR.

43. Judge-y remarks?: DICTA.

dictum noun

dic·​tum ˈdik-təm 

plural dicta ˈdik-tə  also dictums

1

: a noteworthy statement: such as

a

: a formal pronouncement of a principle, proposition, or opinion

awaiting the king's dictum

45. Neutral tone: BEIGE.

47. Redding who wrote "Respect": OTIS - This is a version of the song sung by OTIS that he wrote but playfully says, "A girl stole from him". I'm pretty sure we all know who that girl was.

48. Abbreviation for a name dropper?: ET AL  - Fun cluing for when you don't want to list all the names and merely say "and others".