Saturday Themeless by Kunal Nabar
Kunal is a Senior Software Engineer at Snowflake in the San Francisco Bay Area and makes his initial appearance here in the LA Times Crossword. I made significant headway but the obscurities (for me) in the SE that you see below outlined in red put a strain on my completion anxiety. Knowing ASMRTIST would have solved my issues but, alas, I didn't. An obscure acronym that is made into a noun? Wow!5. Softens, in a way: DAMPS.
15. Dread, perhaps: AWAIT.
16. Missouri representative Bush: CORI - CORI Bush represents the 1st district of MO
18. Delectable: TASTY.
19. Like Oberlin since 1837: COED - This 1855 picture shows that they were also the first predominantly white institution to admit blacks.
20. Small businesses?: MINI MARTS.
22. Oregon city on the Deschutes River: BEND - In the geographic center of Oregon, Bend is nestled between the eastern side of the Cascades and the high desert.
24. Pet that needs a sitter?: LAP CAT 😀 - Lily gets one any time she wants one.
26. Manipulate: USE.
27. Deliver letters?: DICTATE - "Take a letter Miss Jones"
28. Place to check in: FRONT DESK - I made many a trip to this FRONT DESK at Disney's All Star Sports Resort to replace room keys kids had lost.
32. Colorful Victorian houses in San Francisco, e.g.: PAINTED LADIES - This one lists for $3.5M but "needs work"
38. Island in the Cyclades: IOS - It's in there
40. Creator of spine-tingling content?: ASMRTIST - My big fat "dunno"! ASMR is Autonomous Sensory Media Response: a feeling of well-being combined with a tingling sensation in the scalp and down the back of the neck, as experienced by some people in response to a specific gentle stimulus, often a particular sound. Speaking of CLIP CLOP, you can buy this:
49. "Seriously?": IT IS.
50. "Contact" org.: SETI - Will SETI's first contact happen like this great scene from Contact? (3:52)
52. Board sticker: DART - A fun video (2:34)
54. Orem resident: UTAHN - A frequent city from the Beehive State in cwds
55. Those, in Spanish: ESOS.
Down:
1. Taco topper that may be infused with lime: CREMA.
2. Spitting nails: LIVID.
3. Plays first: OPENS - or the first person to bid or bet in a card game
4. Street food also known as golgappa: PANIPURI.
12. Comes before: PREDATES - Entering PREDATES was PRECEDED by the wrong word
13. Start of summer or winter: MID - Halloween is the MIDpoint of autumn.
21. Need in some preservation efforts: MASON JARS - Roger Miller had a silly song about this
24. Cartoon girl who popularized "meh": LISA SIMPSON.
27. Lunch spot: DELI.
28. Part of a vampire costume: FAKE TEETH.
29. French crown: TETE 😀 - Yeah, TETE is French for head and crown is a euphenism for head
30. Rachel Carson subj.: DDT - Rachel Carson's book was fought by the chemical companies
32. Low points: PERIGEES - Halley's (rhymes with Sally's) Comet orbits the sun every 76 years and it will be visible on Earth next in 2061 when it is near the sun at PERIGEE of its orbit. No extra charge: Halley will reach apogee next month which is seen at the far left in the map.
33. Without getting worked up: IN STRIDE.
34. Some indie releases: EPS - Extended Play records
37. "Wonderful Tonight" memoirist Boyd: PATTIE - She was in the middle of all the British rock and rollers in the '60's.
40. Director Kurosawa: AKIRA - No help with ASMR. What classic American movie is based on this great Kurosawa film? (*answer at bottom of write-up).
41. "What's the __?": Kim Possible catchphrase: SITCH - I had "What's the CATCH for _ _ TCH which furthered bollixed up my three bad cells since I did not know Kim's catchphrase for "What's the situation?"
42. "Iliad" characters: IOTAS 😀 Gotta love meta clues! Iliad of course has two characters of IOTA when written in Greek - Ιλιάδα
43. VP between Hubert and Gerald: SPIRO - Humphrey, Agnew, Ford
44. Lab work: TESTS - It's said Edison TESTED thousands of filaments in his lab in Menlo Park.
*I'll bet you knew it!
Happy birthday to MM's love Valerie and our blog adventurer Picard! Always makes me so happy to see this picture.
Left to Right: Valerie, MM, Merlie & Picard, 9/14/2021 |