L.A.Times Crossword Corner: Saturday

Showing posts with label Saturday. Show all posts

Oct 4, 2025

Saturday, October 4, 2025, August Miller

Saturday Themeless by August Miller

This is my fourth Saturday themeless blog this year for August Miller. He is a former physics Ph.D. candidate turned farmer who lives in Berkshire County, MA:

Across:

1. Dominant figure in a matriarchal hierarchy: ALPHA FEMALE.

12. Court marshal?: REF 😀

15. Minimally processed fare: NATURAL FOOD - As opposed to this

16. Paramore genre: EMO - ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Paramore is a band who plays this kind of music

17. Event that may feature gate crashers: GIANT SLALOM.

18. Letter before upsilon: TAU - Similar: Rho, Sigma, TAU, Upsilon - R S T U

19. Cards that reveal who's who and what's what: IDS.

20. Brad Paisley's "__ Everything": SHE'S.

21. Figure in Celtic folklore: DRUID - DRUIDS and pagans gather at Stonehenge on the Autumnal Equinox

23. Central: MAIN.

24. In a serious way: MAJORLY.

26. "Measure for Measure" antagonist: ANGELO - All you need to know

29. Maggie who wrote "On Freedom": ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ NELSON.

30. Tie-breaking method: GOLDEN GOAL - Most Soccer matches now run two 15-minute overtimes not just do "sudden death" which ends on a single GOLDEN GOAL

32. "c ya": TTFN - Ta Ta For Now

35. Company that sells nudes: OPI.

Nude Nail Lacquer

36. Start to wrestle?: SILENT W 😀

38. River inlet: RIA.

39. Grasps: GETS.

41. Technique often used to make 3D images appear in the style of a comic book: CEL SHADING.

43. Mortise inserts: TENONS.

45. Congo forest dwellers: OKAPIS - O _ A _ _ S called for ORANGS first and not this giraffe relative

46. Clarence of the E Street Band: CLEMONS - On the sax

48. Leveraged: USED.

49. Earn: MERIT.

50. Boatload: SLEW.

51. Wrestling win: PIN.

54. Due-in hr.: ETA.

55. "You lost me": I DON'T FOLLOW.

59. Mud season hazard: RUT.

60. Space-age revolutions?: LUNAR ORBITS - Ron Evans made a record 75 LUNAR ORBITS in the command module while Apollo 17 crew mates Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmidt were the last men to walk on the Moon in 1972.

61. Prefix with center: EPI.

62. Antarctic predator: LEOPARD SEAL.

Down:

1. Online resource for home renos: ANGI - Rebranded from Angies List

2. Best-__ plans: LAID.

or in Scottish

3. STEM project fundraisers, often: PTAS - Science Technology Engineering and Math projects could be funded by PTA'S

4. "Mulan" soldier: HUN ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

5. Events that feature moving pictures?: ART SALES 😀 This Picasso fetched $103M at an ART SALE at Christie's.

6. Big name in threads: FASHION ICON and 28. May 6-Downs: GLITTERATI.

7. Novelist Raskin: ELLEN.

8. Creative degs.: MFAS - Granddaughter is pursing a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree

9. Early ISP: AOL - Didn't we all get free AOL disks years ago?

10. Head across the pond?: LOO.

11. Some club bookings, for short: EDM DJS - My last fill was this monster - Electronic Dance Music Disc JockeyS

12. Back leg?: RETURN TRIP.

13. Target of some filters: E-MAIL.

14. Julie who won two World Cup titles with Mia Hamm and Brandi Chastain: FOUDY.

Mia Brandi Julie

22. Many a storage crop: ROOT.

23. Club __: MED.

24. Deep pockets: MEANS - Always sue the guy with the deep pockets. He has the most MEANS to pay.

25. House call?: ALL THOSE FOR - 😀 - ALL THOSE FOR adjourning say AYE!

26. Full of anticipation: AGOG.

27. "Uh-uh": NOPE.

29. Songs sung in the snow: NOELS.

31. Dales: GLENS.

33. Kaput: FINI - A French synonym for a German word

34. Pesters: NAGS.

37. Cue for a smart device: WAKE WORD - I just say "SIRI" to my iPhone and she wakes up and asks me what I want.

40. Tourney game: SEMI.

42. Family guy: DAD.

44. Farming method that helps preserve soil structure: NO TILL - A very common practice around here that saves moisture and fuel. I asked one farmer why his neighbor still turns the soil over and he replied, "That's what his grandfather did."

A 16-row planter planting
right on top of last year's stubble

46. "I wanna show you something": C'MERE.

47. Slow down: LET UP - The atmosphere slows down the Apollo spacecraft as it returns to Earth from 25,000 mph to 22 mph. In the process the, bottom of the command module reaches 5,000F.

48. Über: ULTRA.

50. Button alternative: SNAP.

51. Bend in slippers: PLIE.

52. Crumb: IOTA.

53. Sports org. with the Royals: NWSL - National Women's Soccer League. Not my MLB KC Royals.

56. 40 weeks pregnant, e.g.: DUE 😀

57. "Who Has Seen the Wind?" singer: ONO.

58. Birth announcement abbr.: LBS.

Sep 27, 2025

Saturday, September 27, 2025, Doug Peterson and Samuel A. Donaldson

Saturday Themeless by Doug Peterson and Samuel A. Donaldson

I had a collaborative puzzle by these two veterans a year ago. This one was just as much fun as that one. This beautiful grid only had 29 blocks amid the 98 open squares comprising a lot of white space. Symmetric grid spanners adds to the puzzles skill level. I got a hard-earned a "got 'er done"

Sam Donaldson

Doug Peterson

Across

1. Technique employed by funk artists: SLAP BASS.

9. Many group chat texts: MEMES

14. Garbage genre: ALTERNATIVE ROCK - Garbage is an alternative rock band. Their incorporates elements of electronic rock, electropop, trip hop, post-grunge and industrial rock. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

17. "What are you even saying?": MAKE IT MAKE SENSE - What I would say about the description of the music played by the group above.

18. On Signal, say: IMING - Internet MessagING on a private messaging service known as Signal

19. Ketanji colleague: ELENA and 28. Ketanji colleague: SONIA - Amy Coney Barrett, SONIA Sotomayor, Ketanji Brown and ELENA Kagan,

20. Processed food: ATE.

21. Salon offerings: TANS.

22. Google crossword clues, some say: CHEAT - If you Google (verb) a crossword clue, it is not a CHEATING, it is learning. Constructor Malaika Handa said, "Also, when you’re solving, look up entries that you don’t know! It’s a game, not a test."

23. Gazebo board: SLAT.

24. Count ender?: ESS.

Violet Crawley the Dowager
COUNTESS of Grantham

25. 25-Down, in Toledo: TRES 25. 25-Across, in Toledo: THREE The first one applies in Toledo, Spain. The second one is in Toledo, Ohio. 😀

26. Like most Iraqis: SHIITE.

28. Wiring problem: SHORT - An electrical SHORT in the Service Module provided the spark for the explosion on Apollo 13.

29. Norse pantheon: AESIR.

30. Launch-related stress: G-FORCE - Jet pilots launched off an aircraft carrier go from 0 - 140 mph to two seconds and feel 3-4 G's of FORCE.

32. Tool used to go suck a lemon?: CARVAC 😀 I use a CARVAC in my non-lemon car ! My last fill!

34. Queeg's ship: CAINE - Was Queeg mentally ill?

35. County, across the pond: SHIRE - Robin Hood "lived" in NOTTINGHAMSHIRE.

36. Jumps on board?: OLLIES.

38. Hard to grab hold of: EELY.

39. Lotion letters: SPF.

42. Jessica of "Sin City": ALBA.

43. Coward's offerings: PLAYS 😀

45. 2020 Pixar film: SOUL.

46. Act excused with crossed fingers: LIE.

47. Working stiff: PROLE.

48. Atlantic capital: ACCRA.

49. Negotiation assets: BARGAINING CHIPS - One mom's opinion

52. Free pass from a manager: INTENTIONAL WALK - The pitcher no longer has to throw four balls. The manager can just choose to put a batter on base via an INTENTIONAL WALK

53. They may get thumbed: NOSES 😀

54. Royalty figure: NET SALES - Noel Coward accumulated millions in royalties on NET SALES of his work before his death in 1973 and his foundation administers that income now.

Down:

1. Silky fabric that dates to the Middle Ages: SAMITE.

2. Characters in Anna Dewdney books: LLAMAS ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

3. Big name in middle management?: ATKINS 😀

4. Hammer heads?: PEENS.

5. Ocean cooler: BRIG - 😀 I finally saw that cooler was another word for jail which on a boat on the ocean it is called a BRIG.

6. Colony toiler: ANT - The city name of Accra comes from Akan word Nkran meaning ant because of all the ant hills in Ghana.

7. "Ditto": SAME HERE.

8. Most like a chestnut: STALEST.

9. Home of Arizona's idea Museum: MESA.

10. Afore: ERE.

11. Work in the Louvre's Salle des États: MONA LISA 😀 - I loved this clue/fill once it became obvious. The MONA LISA is in the Louvre's "States Room"

12. Stoked: ECSTATIC.

13. Pesky little sucker: SKEETER - I had some on the course recently and I put on my Absorbing Jr and they were gone.

15. Shopper's "maze with meatballs": IKEA.