Saturday, December 14, 2019, Ed Sessa

Themeless Saturday Puzzle by Dr. Ed Sessa

Our retired M.D. makes another prescription of fun with this themeless puzzle. Here we see him with a very able and cute assistant.

If the good doctor carries a remedy for impatience, he could give me a scrip (see lightning bolt below on grid). When I saw - A _ D A, I filled in one crossword staple - AIDA, instead of another one - ALDA, without reading the clue or wondering about any place name MAITA. 

So I'll take dose of humility while lauding Ed's always pleasing construction and try to move on with my life with one bad cell.

No Blue Cross/Shield card required as we x-ray Dr. Ed's work:

Across:

1. Ring in one's ears?: CROP CIRCLE - Wow! Make room for this in my clue hall of fame. It turns out the rings are CROP CIRCLES and the ears are on cornstalks, not the sides of our heads!

11. Common dressage gait: TROT - A debate on this practice

15. It may offer dining options and a spa: RESORT AREA.

16. Tanning target: HIDE - Mom threatened to tan ours but never laid a hand on us

17. Imperfections affecting diamond clarity: INCLUSIONS.

18. '60s pop singer Sands: EVIE - All about Evie (Hey, you had to see that coming!)

19. Called to the shepherd: BAAED - Awww... 

20. Trial for a would-be atty.?: LSAT - A sample question from the Law School Admissions Test (Choose an answer and then click on Submit to get a detailed analysis)

21. One told to leave, maybe: PEST 

22. Camera choices: SLRS - I loved my Single Lens Reflex cameras but the iPhone is always with me so...

23. No longer is: WAS -My 24. Round number?: GIRTH WAS much larger two months ago than it IS now

25. Trig function: COTAN - If you really wonder what a COTANGENT is

27. Pickett's Charge charger: REB - Despite Longstreet's objections, Lee ordered  his REBS to attack across open ground against the strong Union position on Cemetery Ridge and many died

28. High in an irritating way: SHRILL - Gilbert Gotfried's SHRILL voice and real voice

32. Weak-kneed: TIMOROUS - An upscale adjective for TIMID

36. Sign that may have a dog silhouette on it: KEEP OFF THE GRASS - Oh...

38. "I hear ya": YEAH YEAH - That's why I had to put up the dog sign

39. Child's milestone: AGE TEN - You're a  big deal when you hit double figures

40. Future flounder: ROE - Fish eggs, of course

41. Mulligan, e.g.: RETRY - Uh, you can take a mulligan, Gary. Mulligan derivation

43. Fix: AMEND.

45. "__ little faster, please": GO A - Not the state of GOA in SW India today

46. Retinal cells: RODS - Sensors that see black and white while cones see colors 

50. Thorn in one's side: BANE - Some thought that Stella's puzzle last Saturday was this


51. Hawaiian staple: TARO - TARO root being pounded into poi with a basalt lava pestle 

53. Word from the Hebrew for "teaching": TORAH.

54. "Scientific American Frontiers" host: ALDA 

55. Tippling point?: ONE TOO MANY - AA tells it members that ONE is TOO MANY

57. Each cha in cha-cha-cha: STEP - 1, 2, CHA, CHA, CHA

58. Bad taste: INELEGANCE.

59. Lawman who was also a boxing referee: EARP - Wyatt lived in Pella, IA from 2 - 14-yrs-old

60. Green Hornet's great-uncle: LONE RANGER - Fun new info for me about Fran Striker who created both characters. The Lone Ranger's "real" name was John Reid and then later Fran invented a character who was a descendant - Britt Reid - who assumed the identity of The Green Hornet in more modern times.


Down:

1. Cheats, in a way: CRIBS - The use of CRIB meaning "to pilfer" dates to 1740. I remember cheat sheets being called CRIB sheets in my day

2. Nephric: RENAL - I know nephritis is a kidney disorder and RENAL is an adjective for kidney issues so...

3. Jazz pianist Peterson: OSCAR - Info on this Canadian Jazz artist

4. Flag bearers: POLES - A POLE carrying a POLE with the POLISH flag in the 2018 Olympic parade

5. Guck: CRUD  

6. "__ not my call": IT'S.

7. Upbraid: RAIL AT.

8. Start of a pedestrian caution: CROSS AT THE GREEN - I take issue with Dr. Sessa's preposition here. CROSS AT THE LIGHT maybe...

9. Dunham of "Girls": LENA - I've never seen her work but she is a veteran apologizer

10. __ Coast: EAST.

11. NYC landmark overlooking Central Park: THE PIERRE.

12. Inland navigator: RIVERBOAT.

13. Penner of praiseful poetry: ODIST.

14. Muscle: TEETH putting real TEETH in anti-texting/driving laws might decrease the 30. Tailgating danger: REAR ENDER this driver poses

23. Tom who coined "radical chic": WOLFE.

24. Like a drunken sailor, in more ways than one?: GROGGY - Gotta love those sailors who are GROGGY from drinking too much GROG

25. Laid it on thick: CLOYED - TV's best example

26. Med. research agency: NIH - National Institute of Health in Bethesda, MD

28. Overhead expanse: SKY.

29. Half a bray: HEE - HAW. 

31. Cell download, perhaps: IPHONE APP - My golf IPHONE APP

33. Ben Stiller's mom: MEARA - Ann MEARA and Jerry Stiller. Our Hawaiian blogger Chef Wendy lives a stone's throw from Ben on Kauai 

34. Purpose: USE - The Swiss Army site says this baby has 32 USES

35. Return ID: SSN.

37. Wide partner: FAR.

42. Emulate Galway: TOOTLE - Virtuoso flute player Sir James Galway is a first-rate TOOTLER

43. Denigrate: ABASE.

44. 122-square-mile republic: MALTA - A better and more methodical solver than yours truly would have seen MALTA to correct his single error of AIDA/ALDA

46. __ candle: ROMAN.

47. Bornean beast: ORANG - Breakfast with the ORANGATANS is an option in the Singapore Zoo. Is any animal's name mispronounced more often?

48. Hustle, say: DANCE - From Latin to Disco dancing. What? You don't remember how?

49. More 32-Across: SHYER - Shier works too

51. Considerable effort: TOIL.

52. Word on some headstones: ANNO - On buildings too. Can you compute the year "In The Year Of Our Lord" below to Arabic numbers?

53. Costume in some Shakespeare plays: TOGA - "What a deformed thief this fashion is."  (Borachio to Conrad. Much Ado About Nothing, act 3, sc.3, l.126-9.)

56. Key preposition: O'ER - Aha, Dr., you didn't fool me on Francis Scott Key's line about looking "OER the ramparts"

Dr. Ed seems to have provided a lovely remedy for the tough pill some felt had we had to swallow last Saturday 

Saturday, December 7, 2019, Stella Zawistowski

Themeless Saturday by Stella Daily Zawistowski

Not to demean today's date, but this is a day that will live in infamy for me. STELLA!! (How tired must she be of hearing that?)

I had three natick black eyes (two of which now make more sense looking back) that you can see in the grid: 

* A vowel coin flip with names EMM_TT/N_LS. I picked an "E"

* No idea on an obscure TV show crossing an obscure expression -  AG_RO/AN_IE. I should have let go of ANNIE

* Completely unknown Finnish currency and a North African poached egg dish. As you'll read, Stella wished she could have gotten away from that crossing.

I wrote to Stella about this puzzle and this was her gracious reply:

As I look back on that puzzle, I wish I’d tried harder to get rid of that SHAKSHUKA/MARKKA crossing! And though EMMITT Smith is, I think, fair game in a hard themeless, I’m no longer crazy about him crossing another proper name. 

All this reflects that, as many puzzles as I’ve been a part of making, I’m still getting more experience every day as a grid maker. When I was half of Daily and Venzke, he made all the grids and I wrote the clues. So I’m far more experienced as a clue writer and theme thinker-upper than as a grid maker.

My seed entries in this puzzle were PAX ROMANA and SHAKSHUKA, the latter of which I think is a delicious dish more people should know about. As you may have seen in discussions on Crossword Twitter, I’m all for unfamiliar but interesting words in puzzles, especially themelesses. I’ve tried out quite a few things I’ve learned about from puzzles (like reading Leon URIS novels, which I love), and if somebody looks up what SHAKSHUKA is and decides to try eating it, I’ll have paid it forward a bit.

Here is a very interesting interview with Stella, who is a Brooklyn-based copywriter at a pharmaceutical advertising agency and a power lifter

I felt the same anguish that Stella is showing in this picture at the right where she is making a dead lift :-). In the interview, she labeled herself as a "brawny brain"!

         Stella                                        Stella doing a dead lift

Now let's get to the other heavy lifting

Across:

1. Hardly rah-rah: APATHETIC 

10. Peeved cries: DRATS.

15. Period that ended with the death of Marcus Aurelius: PAX ROMANA - Many consider the ascension of his erratic son Commodus in 180 AD to be a disaster after 200 years of ROMAN PEACE

16. See 20-Down: EIGHT and 20. Group of 16-Across: OCTET - I first this might be a type of animals paired with what a group of them is called but I liked this generic cluing

17. Regimen: TREATMENT.



18. Former TBS comedy "__ Tribeca": ANGIE - A Steve Carrell produced show that starred Rashida Jones who was in The Office with him

19. Longtime E Street Band member: NILS LOFGREN - Not NELS it turns out

21. Storage areas: CLOSETS - a physical one and 21. Storage area: CLOUD an electronic one

25. Gives the cold shoulder, in slang: ICES OUT - A cruel activity in a school lunchroom 

26. Like the weakest excuse: LAMEST.

27. Jones of jazz: ETTA - A remarkable career

28. Certain tournaments: OPENS - A tournament where anyone is welcome to try to qualify and the 34. Org. that runs some 28-Across: USGA supplies places to try to qualify for the U.S. OPEN

29. When body temperature is typically highest: AFTERNOON 

35. Bight, e.g.: INLET - Learning for me with solid perps - generic name for a bend or curve in a coastline

36. Words before many words: IN SO - Louis the XIV claiming he never actually said, "I am the state". Another Stella gem.

37. Sci-fi super weapon: DEATH STAR - You can build your own with this $499 LEGO kit

39. "The Lady of the Lake" author: SCOTT - Sir Walter SCOTT poetry from 1810

40. Touched down: ALIT - The last two of twelve American astronauts ALIT on the Moon 47 years ago

41. Rival of Kaspersky: MCAFEE.

42. Employment hot topic: WAGE GAP - I never saw one with my teaching colleagues

46. With nothing owing: PAID FOR - A burning mortgage is a sweet scent

47. Public relations specialists: IMAGE MAKERS - They make chicken salad out of chicken, uh, manure

49. One who can't pass the bar?: TOPER - So many euphemisms for drunks.Etymology

50. Savory North African poached-egg dish: SHAKSHUKA - Recipe for the dish which Stella is promoting 

55. Get ready to break: CREST.

56. Dissuade from doing: TALK OUT OF - Some people can not be TALKED OUT OF leaving an area where a flood CREST is approaching and often require a 57. Last-minute: HASTY, dangerous rescue

58. Unjokingly: IN EARNEST.


Down:

1. Well put: APT.

2. Standard course number: PAR - PAR is 70 at my course

3. Splitting tool: AXE.

4. Singing syllable: TRA.

5. Sex appeal: HOTNESS Cheryl Burke is high on the HOTNESS scale as she dances with 6. NFL great Smith who won "Dancing With the Stars" in 2006 : EMMITT

7. Asian weight units: TAELS - A 100 TAEL dark tea cake (5.39 oz)

8. Fawlty Towers et al.: INNS - Basil Fawlty tries to communicate with his waiter Manuel at the INN

9. Useful remedy for getting stuck in snow: CAT LITTER.

10. Unkind thing to turn: DEAF EAR.

11. Championship awards: RINGS - Uh, not this year, Bama

12. Combative, slangily: AGGRO - I ain't arguing with the brawny brain Stella! Merriam-Webster says it is an informal, British word.

13. '60s-'70s South Vietnamese president: THIEU - Nguyễn Văn Thiệu was the last president of The Republic Of South Vietnam

14. Medical tube: STENT - Help for clogged vessels 

22. Slip: LAPSE.

23. Onassis' first: OMEGA - In Greek Onassis is spelled Ωνάσης 

24. French upper house: SENAT.

27. Key of Beethoven's "Eroica": E FLAT.

29. Ristorante courses: ANTIPASTI - Usually the first course

30. Battery acronym: NI-CAD - Usually labeled with chemical symbols for Nickel (Ni) and Cadmium (Cd)

31. Binary, in a way: ON OFF.

32. Bony prefix: OSTEO - Orbiting astronauts can lose as much as 10% of their bone mass which is similar to what OSTEOporosis can do to senior citizens 

33. One who pays attention: NOTER - Stella!!

35. Faith with five pillars: ISLAM.

38. Julie of "Airplane!": HAGERTY.

39. Cut out: SCISSOR - Scissor as a verb? Yeah, I guess.

41. Pre-euro Finnish currency: MARKKA - With Jean Sibelius on the bill

42. First speaker in "Macbeth": WITCH - In Act IV these three witches chant the more famous, "Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn and caldron bubble"

43. Marvel Comics' original Enchantress: AMORA - If you're interested

44. Reacts in wonder: GAPES.

45. Discharge: EGEST - One must digest SHAKSHUKA before it is EGESTED 

46. "A Guide to Confident Living" author: PEALE - by the author of The Power Of Positive Thinking
48. "Star Trek" villain: KHAN - Star Wars earlier and now...

51. Catalaunian Plains combatant, 451 AD: HUN - Attila was turned back and was dead two years later

52. Adaptable vehicle, for short: UTE - A vehicle name I only see/hear in these environs

53. Ali had 37: KO'S - Muhammad was "The Greatest"

54. Blackbeard's backward: AFT - Backwards on Blackbeard's boat, Queen Anne's Revenge, would be toward AFT - the back of the boat. Another great Stella clue!

Queen Anne's Revenge replica used in
Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean 4

I hope that after flexing your brains you are now ready to comment:

Saturday, November 30, 2019, Neville Fogarty

Saturday Themeless by Neville Fogarty 

Another constructor in our long line of PhD's, Dr. Neville Fogarty, gives us a taxing Saturday exercise today. Here is more info on Dr. Fogarty who is a math professor at Christopher Newport University in Newport News, VA.

Neville was kind enough to write to me about this puzzle: 

It has been so long since I wrote this puzzle that I don't think I remember anything about its construction of interest. I do remember explicitly that I wanted to put TRASH PANDA in this puzzle, as it's (in my opinion) such a fun, evocative phrase. I had also recently observed that WE SHALL OVERCOME was exactly fifteen letters long, so I thought it would be an interesting grid-spanning entry.

I thank Neville for that input but tell you that you don't need to take Neville's Abstract or Linear Algebra class to do this puzzle. Let's survey his work:

Across:

1. Raccoon in a dumpster, facetiously: TRASH PANDA and 29. Easy, as a job: CUSH. - All new phrases for me but pretty easy to suss 

11. Speak harshly: SNAP.

15. 1950s-'90s preschool program with many local versions: ROMPER ROOM - The first one from Baltimore

16. Take cover: HIDE.

17. Daniel Radcliffe co-star in eight films: EMMA WATSON.

18. Internal prefix: ENDO.

19. Certain petty officers: YEOMEN - Navy administrative assistants 

20. Well-punctuated reaction: EMOTICON - So you'd like to see a few hundred...

22. Original "King Kong" company: RKO.

24. Sharp grabbers: TALONS.

25. Squat: NADA - So many synonyms for nothing. 

32. Cooking acronym: PAM - An acronym for one of its inventors - Product of Arthur Meyerhoff

33. Roman : Discordia :: Greek : __: ERIS - All you need to know

34. Comfortable: AT HOME

36. __ talk: PEP.

39. 1963 folk album, and its title song: WE SHALL OVERCOME - Twenty-year-old Joan Baez sang this iconic song on the day of MLK's I Have A Dream speech 

42. Summer tone: TAN - Gary Trudeau once described a TAN as a "lovely pre-cancerous glow" in Doonesbury

43. Numerical pair?: ELEVEN

44. Put on an unhappy face: POUT.

45. Sister of Helios: EOS - EOS has "dawned" on us many times here at our little literary popsicle stand

47. Poker player's problem: TELL - In one M*A*S*H episode, Major Winchester's TELL was to whistle arias when he was bluffing. He got cleaned out.

48. Architectural recess: APSE.

49. Dust buster: DRY MOP.

52. Scatter: SOW.

54. Use a counseling technique: ROLE PLAY.

57. Cut back: PRUNED - A tree that is PRUNED timidly can give you this. 

62. Purim month: ADAR - Today is 2 Kislev 5780 on the Jewish calendar

63. Limited retail offer: ONE DAY SALE - What a wonderful tribute to Abe and George to have a ONE DAY white SALE on President's Day

65. Traveled: WENT.

66. Pool maintenance concern: WATER LEVEL.

67. Float component: SODA.

68. Thai food staple: STICKY RICE - What is STICKY RICE?


Down:

1. Long shot, in hoops lingo: TREY  Nobody does it better than Steph Curry from behind the three-point line (or the half-court line)

2. Capital of Italy's Lazio region: ROME - Italy has twenty regions. 

3. Some rounds: AMMO.

4. Filter target: SPAM.

5. Cutting-edge worker?: HEWER - SEWER had to change when TRASH was obvious

6. Practical joke involving ringing: PRANK CALL - "Do you have Prince Albert in a can?"

7. Dance, e.g.: ART.

8. Reporter's best sense?: NOSE - A NOSE for news

9. Unhappy ending: DOOM.

10. Rebuttal during recess: AM NOT - A playground rebuttal to "ARE TOO"

11. "Blue eyes and a ponytail" girl in a 1962 hit: SHEILA - A very pleasant musical memory of a very pleasant time of my life

12. Dummy: NINCOMPOOP - Samuel Johnson who compiled Britain's first dictionary said it come from the Latin - non compos mentis (“not of right mind”)

13. Something more: ADD ON.

14. Lowly workers: PEONS 

21. Make a point: TAPER.


23. Retail store: OUTLET - No golf , book or computer stores? What's the point?

25. Garter snake prey: NEWT - Kids always say Gardener Snake

26. Quarter: AREA - The BOQ on a military base is the AREA where Bachelor Officers have Quarters 

27. New Orleans Square site: DISNEYLAND - In Anaheim 

28. Gray shade: ASH.

30. Play rough: SHOVE - Black Friday strategy 

31. Shabby quarters: HOVELS.

35. Community in New Jersey's Edison Township: MENLO PARK  - Home of the Wizard of...

37. Avian sprinters: EMUS - Up to 30mph

38. Old Red Rose: PETE -  Old PETE Rose of the Cincinnati Reds is one of the best but he violated baseball rules by betting on games while still in the game and that is what is keeping him out of the baseball hall of fame. Neville told me he gladly takes credit for what I told him was a beyond-clever clue!

40. Greek storyteller: AESOP - Do any of AESOP's fables come to mind to describe PETE's arrogance and hubris?

41. Pro filer: CPA.

46. Posthumously published Puzo novel: OMERTA - Don't say nuttin' to nobody!

49. Popular movies, say: DRAWS - Puzo's Godfather I, II and III were big DRAWS

50. "Buckaroo Holiday" ballet: RODEO - An Aaron Copland ballet

51. Winter storm sights: PLOWS - They are infamous for dredging up huge piles of ice and snow at the bottom of the driveway you just spent an hour clearing

53. With a twist: WRYLY.

55. Vet school subj.: ANAT.

56. Igloo competitor: YETI.

58. App tapper: USER.

59. "Avatar" race: NAVI- Two actors in this movie before and after makeup

60. Juice for PCs: ELEC.

61. Proofer's mark: DELE.

64. Mo. originally tenth in the Roman calendar: DEC - This Roman calendar starts on March 1 and underwent many changes over the centuries 

I'm confident that Dr. Fogarty could handle this problem below. Can you name the movie from which this problem came before you comment on the puzzle?