Saturday, March 2, 2024, Stella Zawistowski

Themeless Saturday by Stella Zawistowski

The look the face of our weightlifting constructor Stella reflects some of the anguish I felt as I worked my way through the latest of her always always challenging puzzles. After bobbing and weaving through the grid, I had enough letters to start to make sense of her ten-letter fills and finish up. Her top two ten-letter fills were fun to learn. 

As you can see in the grid, I did have one cell where my coin flip failed. My lack of knowledge of three-string Japanese instruments and Rhianna's music was my undoing.

Across:

1. Unplanned adoption: FOSTER FAIL - FAILING at being a FOSTER parent for a pet and then falling in love with and adopting that pet hardly seems like a FAILING to me. 😀

11. Adoption org.: SPCA.

15. Intended to prevent a torrent, perhaps: ANTI-PIRACY - As usual, Stella has a term I have never encountered that fell into place: Torrenting is a term used for distributing and downloading unusually large files like those for movies using the BitTorrent protocol. More

16. Name on the highest-grossing concert film in history: ERAS - It has grossed over $250M in gross sales against a $15M budget

17. Certain Central American: SALVADORAN - The lovely custodian at our school is COSTA RICAN and that name went in first.

18. Natural traps: WEBS.

19. Olympic badminton team, e.g.: DUO.

20. Victor Hugo's world: MONDE - MONDE is French for world

22. Sea bream, in a sushi bar: TAI - ... and my culinary education continues

23. Sushi bar list: SAKES - As long as we're at the sushi bar...

25. Snooty creatures?: ANTEATERS. 😀

27. Divine: PREDICT - Carnac's gift was to be able to divine the answers without first seeing the questions.

29. "Awesome!": SWEET  and 30. "Awesome!": YES.

31. Cheer (up): BUOY.

33. Working days?: STINTS.

34. Practitioner of traditional medicine: HERBALIST.

36. Burlesque: SATIRE - A BURLESQUE is a literary, dramatic or musical work intended to cause laughter by caricaturing the manner or spirit of serious works, or by ludicrous treatment of their subjects.

39. Smallest ratite: KIWI - Ratite: A bird having a flat breastbone without a keel, and so unable to fly.

40. Elle King's "Ex's & __": OHS - A Top Ten album

43. Subject of the 2014 documentary "Game Over": ATARI.

44. Jam: BAD SPOT.

46. Get rich: MAKE A PILE.

50. Melancholy work: ELEGY - I wasn't all that melancholy when dirge didn't work 😀

51. Salt target: ICE.😀

52. Levi's Stadium player: NINER.

53. Word with Days and Holiday: INN. 😀 Motels 

54. Well-thought-out: SANE.

56. "Hubba hubba!": VA VA VA VOOM - We had this recently with only two VA's but I remember it better with three

60. Let out: EMIT.

61. Feature of non-eco-friendly containers: ONE TIME USE - Why our landfills get full

62. Syllables in Rihanna's "What's My Name?": NANA If you need some raunchy lyrics

63. Moved mindfully?: TELEPORTED - Star Trek did this a lot. Kirk never actually said, "Beam me up Scotty." Teleporting by mind

Down:

1. Scale tones: FAS - Do, Re, Me, FA, So, La, Ti, Do

2. Rashly: ON A DARE.

3. Name on some church-run hospitals: ST LUKES.

4. Saved to watch later: TIVOED.

5. Org. that regulates HFCs: EPA.

6. Free (of): RID.

7. Step one: FROM A TO B. 😀

8. Noted New York Judge: AARON - Judge is capitalized so...

9. "It's all too much": I CAN'T.

10. Paul of "Hollywood Squares": LYNDE - One of his many zingers: Peter Marshall: According to Tony Randall, “Every woman I’ve been intimate with in my life has been…” What?

Paul Lynde: Bitterly disappointed.

11. Compete on "Project Runway," say: SEW.

12. Many a fan of "The Baby-Sitters Club": PRE-TEEN.

13. "Willkommen" musical: CABARET.

14. Sue Bird's WNBA record 3,234: ASSISTS.

21. Home of New York's Museum Mile: EAST SIDE.

23. Northern __ apples: SPY - Here ya go

24. Like the Chukchi people of Russia: SIBERIAN.

26. Fool: TWIT.

28. Fix: CURE.

32. Yona of "My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic," for one: YAK - No idea.

33. Media personality JoJo: SIWA - No idea.

34. Bring on: HIRE.

35. Let out: LIBERATE.

36. Instrument played with a bachi: SAMISEN - A one minute sample

37. Region of Chile used by NASA to test equipment for Mars missions: ATACAMA.

38. Fooled: TAKEN IN.

40. Expand, in a way: OPEN OUT.

41. Upturned feature of some snakes: HOG NOSE.

42. Pen: STY.

45. Shard: SLIVER.

47. Pirouette, essentially: PIVOT.

48. Unworthy of consideration: INANE.

49. Tool box item: LEVEL.

55. Text to someone who's late: ETA.

57. Velvet rope crosser: VIP.

58. "O Deus ego __ te": Catholic hymn: AMO - My God, I love Thee, 

59. Scrip spec: MED.

BTW, our newspaper carries the LA puzzle and a second puzzle they call The Daily (Commuter) Crossword that is much easier. For years this puzzle has had Jacqueline Mathews listed as the constructor. Ms. Mathews of Spokane has retired and now the daily constructor has been Stella Zawistowski for several weeks (see "Created by" under the puzzle). Looks like Stella has a steady gig.

 

Saturday, February 24, 2024, Guilherme Gilioli

 Saturday Themeless by Guilherme Gilioli

              

Guilherme is from Bento Gonçalves, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil which is 930 miles SW of Rio de Janeiro as you can see on the map.says, "Mostly I create crosswords in Portuguese for magazines and my personal website, but lately I've been trying to create puzzles in English and it's going pretty good, learning a lot."

This grid is very striking with 12, 13 and 14 stair-stepped cells at the top and mirrored at the bottom. I struggled mightily, finished the bottom first and then the top after taking some educated guesses.

Across:

1. "If memory serves ... ": LAST I CHECKED.

13. Particles in the Fermi theory of beta decay: ANTI NEUTRINOS - If you're really that interested - This filled in pretty easily for this physics guy.

15. Rent, pension, etc.: UNEARNED INCOME. It's still taxable. 

17. "There's no wrong way to eat a __": candy tagline: REESES.

18. Madness, e.g.: SKA BAND - Uber obscure fill for a common word

20. Bandmate of Dizzy and Duff: AXL - Saturday cluing for AXL Rose of Guns n Roses who is in the middle below. I have no idea who the other two are but they must be in this picture somewhere.

21. Functions: USES - How many can you count?

24. Comedian Radner: GILDA - Part of the SNL Not Ready For Prime Time Players. One iteration is below:  Garrett Morris, Jane Curtin, John Belushi, Larraine Newman, Dan Aykroyd, GILDA Radner and Bill Murray.

25. Nectar eaters: WASPS.

27. Skinned: PEELED - Softball is played on a skinned infield where the grass has been PEELED off.

28. Prep for a bout: SPAR.

30. Actress Jessica: ALBA - Ms. ALBA is on our crossword marquee frequently

32. N-everlasting thing: FAD - N has become slang for no, not, etc. FADS are certainly not everlasting.

33. Ishikawa __: visual component of root-cause analysis: DIAGRAM - Okay....

35. "Come again?": I'M SORRY.

38. __ Souls College, Oxford: ALL.

39. Shortly, shortly: ASAP.

41. Vegan-friendly organic brand: AMY'S.

42. Responds to 52-Across: REACTS.

45. Durable garb: JEANS.

47. Forest moon where C-3PO was worshipped as a god: ENDOR.

48. Pub pals: LADS.

49. Walks, in stats: BBS -  "A walk's (Base On Balls) as good as a hit"

52. Cues: STIMULI - Natural STIMULI are telling many thousands of Sandhill Cranes to return to the Platte River in Central Nebraska this time of year as a stop on their migration north.

54. Straight: IN A ROW.

57. "My Very Excellent Mother Just Served Us Noodles," for one: MNEMONIC DEVICE - ...My Very Excellent Mother Served Us Nine Pizzas had to be edited when Pluto was demoted.

60. Star quality: STAGE PRESENCE.

61. Comfortable: ON EASY STREET.

Down:

1. "The Glass Menagerie" girl: LAURA - Laura Wingfield, the withdrawn high school dropout who passes her days listening to old phonograph records and caring for her collection of glass animals while the world closes in around her. 

2. Add-on: ANNEX.

3. __ drum: STEEL 

4. Mulheres da família: TIAS - Our Brazilian constructor gives us the Brazilian words for women as a clue and TIAS for aunts as fill.

5. About: IN RE.

6. 2030 event: CENSUS - Article 1 Section 2 of The American Constitution  

7. Peach or plum: HUE.

8. Weather-sensitive fig.: ETD - Changing ETA to ETD was my last fill.

9. "Mindfreak" magician Angel: CRISS.

"Levitating" on the beach

10. Idiosyncrasy: KINK.

11. Put behind bars: ENCAGE.

12. The __ Brothers: "Listen to the Music" band: DOOBIE - A great musical interlude

14. Shaver: SMALL FRY - The fish version

Stocking a lake with
SMALL FRY

16. Creates a soft spot?: ENDEARS.

19. Pops: DADDY In Japan it is 36. Japanese title of respect: SAN - Papa SAN

22. Abuses an email list, say: SPAMS.

23. Continuing ed course: ESL.

25. Go to and fro: WAG.

26. Flight board abbr.: ARRivals 

27. Muñoz Ryan who wrote the Newbery Honor Book "Echo": PAM.

28. Part of 57-Across: SILENT M - Mnemonics 

29. Legendary attendants of Charlemagne: PALADINS -  Yeah, I thought of this too.

31. Yeti, e.g.: BIPED - Not the first characteristic I think of.

33. Doesn't want the truth, say: DARES - Game

34. Juice sources?: AA'S 😀

37. Chanting sounds: OMS.

40. 2023 WNBA Finals MVP Wilson: AJA.

43. Arrive at: COME TO.

44. Pulitzer-winning McCullough presidential biography: TRUMAN - It's on one of my, uh, shelfs.

46. Muttered remarks: ASIDES - Ferris Bueller's ASIDES broke the fourth wall quite often during his Day Off.

48. Form opener: LINE A.

49. Preservative: BRINE  - The basic ingredients are water, vinegar, sugar and salt.

50. Bowling game: BOCCE.

51. "Cool!": SWEET.

53. Seating level: LOGE - If you want to see Hamilton in Atlanta tonight, here is what the LOGE seat below will set you back.

55. Shape of a baklava, sometimes: NEST.

56. Profess: AVER.

58. IDs of PCs: IPS - The IDentificationS of Personal ComputerS are their Internet ProtocolS.

59. Let it out, in a way: CRY.

Here are some Shelfies submitted by our Corner Friends

Notes from C.C.:

 

Voting is now open until March 1 for the 12^th ORCA Awards – the annual celebration of creativity in crosswords! Winners will be announced on March 6 during a livestream filled with games and prizes. Five long-time solvers will receive special awards. For each day of their streak, solvers can receive a chance to win crossword memorabilia inscribed to them and signed by Will Shortz. Need not be present to win. Details and voting info can be found at Diary of a Crossword Fiend.