Theme: None
Total blocks: 28
Total words: 68
A few notes first:
1) If you solve today's puzzle via Cruciverb's website, there is an error for 5A. The answer is ADDER instead of ADDED. Rich Norris (LA Times Crossword Editor) has notified Cruciverb, but it's not been been updated yet. Click here for the correct Across Lite grid.
2) Rich acknowledged the error for LOOIE ("Certain NCO, slangily") clue immediately on Thursday morning in an email to Dennis. I should have put his response on the blog main entry. Rich said these recent problems are all the result of last-minute changes requested by Tribune. And they've smoothed out the process, which should soon put an end to the glitches.
3) Today's puzzle is the first themeless by Don "Hard G" Gagliardo (Congratulations, Don!). He kindly provided us with his creating process:
"The September 12 themeless puzzle happened from a desire on my part to expand my challenges. I had never done a themeless, and wanted to see what it is like. To try something a little different, I thought it would be interesting to cross six 15-letter entries (three across, three down) and have them spread out in the grid. Rich pointed out that this does not work well on two accounts: it makes it difficult to have other long entries, and at least a couple of the 15's are probably not going to be very interesting. Rich referred me to Barry Silk's puzzle that week, and how he got , I believe it was, 22 entries at least 7 letters long. It was a beautiful puzzle and so I was inspired. I decided on two 15's to cross at the center. My novelty was to try to clue them the same way (I don't know if it made it this way to publication). Those two long entries determined a great deal how the rest of the puzzle filled in. I tried for variety, and answers that could have interesting clues. At that time, I did not have Crossword Compiler. It was extremely hard to create this puzzle with paper and pencil! My first version was almost acceptable. With a small revision, Rich accepted the puzzle. BTW, Rich was noted as being Mr. Saturday at the New York Times. To have him accept this puzzle was a great honor. Rich has a book of puzzles out, "A to Z Crosswords", which explores the themeless style at great length. Amazingly, each puzzle in the book is a pangram. It is extremely enjoyable solving."
The two grid-spanning 15's are:
32A: "See?!": WHAT DID I TELL YOU?!
7D: "Sound familiar?": DOES IT RING A BELL?
Great intersection at the very center of the grid. Such vibrant colloquial phrases.
Not a very focused solving for me. Got distracted by the error warning and then peeked at the answer sheet way too early.
Across:
1A: Absorbed: RAPT. "Wordplay" is a very absorbing documentary on NY Times crossword.
5A: Snake with a puff variety: ADDER. Dictionary says Puff ADDER inflates its body and hisses when disturbed. Extremely venomous.
10A: Shakespeare's Avon calling?: BARD. The BARD of Avon, Shakespeare's nickname.
14A: Become equitable in the long run: AVERAGE OUT
17A: Remote measuring devices: TELEMETERS. No idea. It measures/transmits/receives data between a ground station and an artificial satellite. Can also be a verb.
18A: Cheese coated in red paraffin: EDAM. Named after the town in the Netherlands where the cheese originated.
19A: China's Zhou __: ENLAI. Mandarin spelling. Cantonese is Chow ENLAI. The only high-level Chinese leader who survived Mao's Cultural Revolution purge.
20A: That, in Madrid: ESO. Sometimes it's ESA.
21A: Museum in Madrid: PRADO. Both Goya's "The Naked Maja" & "The Clothed Maja" are housed in PRADO. Nice consecutive Madrid clues.
22A: "Tea for Two" for two, e.g.: DUET. "Tea for Two" is a DUET in musical "No, No, Nanette".
23A: Country singer Yearwood: TRISHA. Oh, it's she who sings "How Do I Live" in Nicolas Cage's "Con Air".
25A: Geometric fig.: CIR (Circle)
26A: Show featuring agents 86 and 99: GET SMART. Watched Steve Carell & Anne Hathaway's "GET SMART" a few weeks ago. Just plain silly.
28A: Web search tool: ENGINE. My first reaction: GOOGLE.
30A: Lumberjack, at times: AXER. And RUER (16A: One with regrets). Remember we used to get lots of RE, ER, EST, ED, S, ING affixes in the old Saturday puzzles?
31A: 1980s-'90s Buick sports car: REATTA. No idea. Wikipedia says it's a hand-made luxurious sports coupe by Buick. Short-lived. From early 1988 to 1991. One more T than the rodeo rope REATA.
37A: 1993-2001 White House maiden name: RODHAM. Hillary Clinton 2016? Possible!
38A: Symbol on a staff: NOTE. Musical staff.
39A: Like most piano technician services: IN-HOME
40A: Football setting: GRIDIRON. Favre + Vikings = Superbowl? Possible!
45A: Peg under a dimpled ball: TEE. Such a vivid clue. Golf ball weighs 1.62 ounces or less.
46A: Legal term that's French for "on a bench": EN BANC. BANC is French for "bench". Wikipedia says this legal term refers to the hearing of a legal case where all judges of a court will heard the case (an entire bench), rather than a panel of them. Unknown to me.
48A: Sushi wrapper: NORI. Love NORI seaweed. Sometimes I crumble them in my soup.
49A: Chelmsford's county: ESSEX. Have never heard of Chelmsford. Quite close to London. What is it famous for?
51A: Blood typing letters: ABO. Shouldn't it be "Blood type letters"?
52A: Photons' family, in physics: BOSON. Named after the Indian physicist S. N. Bose. Both the clue and the answer mean nothing to me.
53A: Elec. supplier: UTIL (Utility)
54A: 2002 film for which Adrien Brody won a Best Actor Oscar: THE PIANIST. It's on our Netflix queue.
56A: Ruse: PLOY
57A: Used car dealer's spiel, say: SALES PITCH
58A: Dict. offerings: SYNS (Synonyms)
59A: Clay bakers: KILNS
60A: Southwestern art colony town: TAOS. In New Mexico.
Down:
1D: OK for kids, filmwise: RATED G. Do let your kids watch "The Greatest Game Ever Played". One of the best golf movies I've ever seen. So inspiring. Everything begins with a dream.
2D: Michigan in Chicago, e.g.: AVENUE. No idea, Sir. Michigan AVENUE is a major north-south street in Chicago. Too clever a clue for me.
3D: Bit of buckshot: PELLET
4D: Dog training aids: TREATS
5D: Time of your life: AGE. Wow, so simple. I'm 38 and I am a pig.
6D: Checked: DETERRED. I was in the "verified" direction.
8D: Continental currency: EUROS. Such a straightforward clue for a Saturday.
9D: ACLU concerns: RTS. Is it a common abbreviation for rights?
10D: Rabbit or Bear's title: BR'ER. Uncle Remus stories.
11D: Gall: AUDACITY. Thought of CHUTZPAH first.
12D: Interpret by inference: READ INTO
13D: H. G. Wells's island researcher: DR. MOREAU. No idea. "The Island of Dr. MOREAU" is a science fiction novel by H. G. Wells.
21D: Like some den walls: PANELED
23D: Cabbies in Canterbury: TAXIMEN. We just call them taxi drivers in China.
24D: One seriously straying from the flock?: HERETIC. Was thinking of MAVERICK.
27D: Sargent portrait of a mysterious Frenchwoman: MADAME X. Here is the painting. Both the portrait and the painter were strangers to me.
32D: Newspaper accounts: WRITE-UPS
33D: With no deception: HONESTLY
34D: Bonding: ADHESION. Tricky clue. I thought the clue is asking for an ING ending verb.
35D: Even if, informally: THO'
36D: Like gift wrap on Christmas morning: TORN OPEN. I open some on Christmas Eve, and save some for Christmas morning.
41D: Like con artists' shills, e.g.: IN ON IT
42D: Bilingual Muppet: ROSITA. Forgot. The "Sesame Street" character. She speaks Spanish and English.
43D: Pitcher Jesse, who had the most career appearances: OROSCO. Total 1,252 games pitched. Can't believe I've never heard of this guy. He was with the Twins in 2003.
44D: Final innings: NINTHS. I like how OROSCO paralles NINTHS.
47D: Mideast religion that preaches equality: BAHA'I (buh-HAH-ee). Founded in Persia in the 19th century.
50D: Bridge expert Culbertson et al.: ELYS. The authority on contract bridge.
52D: "Southern" relig.: BAP. Southern Baptist. Not a familiar abbr. to me.
54D: "For shame!": TSK
55D: Unit of Time: Abb.: ISS (Issue). D'oh, Time magazine. I did not even pay attention to the capitalized T.
Answer grid.
Picture of the Day: Here is great Father's Day photo of our fellow LAT solver Jimmy B, his wife Diane and their three boys. Their middle son (on the left) had just finished the police academy, hence the buzz cut.
C.C.
Total blocks: 28
Total words: 68
A few notes first:
1) If you solve today's puzzle via Cruciverb's website, there is an error for 5A. The answer is ADDER instead of ADDED. Rich Norris (LA Times Crossword Editor) has notified Cruciverb, but it's not been been updated yet. Click here for the correct Across Lite grid.
2) Rich acknowledged the error for LOOIE ("Certain NCO, slangily") clue immediately on Thursday morning in an email to Dennis. I should have put his response on the blog main entry. Rich said these recent problems are all the result of last-minute changes requested by Tribune. And they've smoothed out the process, which should soon put an end to the glitches.
3) Today's puzzle is the first themeless by Don "Hard G" Gagliardo (Congratulations, Don!). He kindly provided us with his creating process:
"The September 12 themeless puzzle happened from a desire on my part to expand my challenges. I had never done a themeless, and wanted to see what it is like. To try something a little different, I thought it would be interesting to cross six 15-letter entries (three across, three down) and have them spread out in the grid. Rich pointed out that this does not work well on two accounts: it makes it difficult to have other long entries, and at least a couple of the 15's are probably not going to be very interesting. Rich referred me to Barry Silk's puzzle that week, and how he got , I believe it was, 22 entries at least 7 letters long. It was a beautiful puzzle and so I was inspired. I decided on two 15's to cross at the center. My novelty was to try to clue them the same way (I don't know if it made it this way to publication). Those two long entries determined a great deal how the rest of the puzzle filled in. I tried for variety, and answers that could have interesting clues. At that time, I did not have Crossword Compiler. It was extremely hard to create this puzzle with paper and pencil! My first version was almost acceptable. With a small revision, Rich accepted the puzzle. BTW, Rich was noted as being Mr. Saturday at the New York Times. To have him accept this puzzle was a great honor. Rich has a book of puzzles out, "A to Z Crosswords", which explores the themeless style at great length. Amazingly, each puzzle in the book is a pangram. It is extremely enjoyable solving."
The two grid-spanning 15's are:
32A: "See?!": WHAT DID I TELL YOU?!
7D: "Sound familiar?": DOES IT RING A BELL?
Great intersection at the very center of the grid. Such vibrant colloquial phrases.
Not a very focused solving for me. Got distracted by the error warning and then peeked at the answer sheet way too early.
Across:
1A: Absorbed: RAPT. "Wordplay" is a very absorbing documentary on NY Times crossword.
5A: Snake with a puff variety: ADDER. Dictionary says Puff ADDER inflates its body and hisses when disturbed. Extremely venomous.
10A: Shakespeare's Avon calling?: BARD. The BARD of Avon, Shakespeare's nickname.
14A: Become equitable in the long run: AVERAGE OUT
17A: Remote measuring devices: TELEMETERS. No idea. It measures/transmits/receives data between a ground station and an artificial satellite. Can also be a verb.
18A: Cheese coated in red paraffin: EDAM. Named after the town in the Netherlands where the cheese originated.
19A: China's Zhou __: ENLAI. Mandarin spelling. Cantonese is Chow ENLAI. The only high-level Chinese leader who survived Mao's Cultural Revolution purge.
20A: That, in Madrid: ESO. Sometimes it's ESA.
21A: Museum in Madrid: PRADO. Both Goya's "The Naked Maja" & "The Clothed Maja" are housed in PRADO. Nice consecutive Madrid clues.
22A: "Tea for Two" for two, e.g.: DUET. "Tea for Two" is a DUET in musical "No, No, Nanette".
23A: Country singer Yearwood: TRISHA. Oh, it's she who sings "How Do I Live" in Nicolas Cage's "Con Air".
25A: Geometric fig.: CIR (Circle)
26A: Show featuring agents 86 and 99: GET SMART. Watched Steve Carell & Anne Hathaway's "GET SMART" a few weeks ago. Just plain silly.
28A: Web search tool: ENGINE. My first reaction: GOOGLE.
30A: Lumberjack, at times: AXER. And RUER (16A: One with regrets). Remember we used to get lots of RE, ER, EST, ED, S, ING affixes in the old Saturday puzzles?
31A: 1980s-'90s Buick sports car: REATTA. No idea. Wikipedia says it's a hand-made luxurious sports coupe by Buick. Short-lived. From early 1988 to 1991. One more T than the rodeo rope REATA.
37A: 1993-2001 White House maiden name: RODHAM. Hillary Clinton 2016? Possible!
38A: Symbol on a staff: NOTE. Musical staff.
39A: Like most piano technician services: IN-HOME
40A: Football setting: GRIDIRON. Favre + Vikings = Superbowl? Possible!
45A: Peg under a dimpled ball: TEE. Such a vivid clue. Golf ball weighs 1.62 ounces or less.
46A: Legal term that's French for "on a bench": EN BANC. BANC is French for "bench". Wikipedia says this legal term refers to the hearing of a legal case where all judges of a court will heard the case (an entire bench), rather than a panel of them. Unknown to me.
48A: Sushi wrapper: NORI. Love NORI seaweed. Sometimes I crumble them in my soup.
49A: Chelmsford's county: ESSEX. Have never heard of Chelmsford. Quite close to London. What is it famous for?
51A: Blood typing letters: ABO. Shouldn't it be "Blood type letters"?
52A: Photons' family, in physics: BOSON. Named after the Indian physicist S. N. Bose. Both the clue and the answer mean nothing to me.
53A: Elec. supplier: UTIL (Utility)
54A: 2002 film for which Adrien Brody won a Best Actor Oscar: THE PIANIST. It's on our Netflix queue.
56A: Ruse: PLOY
57A: Used car dealer's spiel, say: SALES PITCH
58A: Dict. offerings: SYNS (Synonyms)
59A: Clay bakers: KILNS
60A: Southwestern art colony town: TAOS. In New Mexico.
Down:
1D: OK for kids, filmwise: RATED G. Do let your kids watch "The Greatest Game Ever Played". One of the best golf movies I've ever seen. So inspiring. Everything begins with a dream.
2D: Michigan in Chicago, e.g.: AVENUE. No idea, Sir. Michigan AVENUE is a major north-south street in Chicago. Too clever a clue for me.
3D: Bit of buckshot: PELLET
4D: Dog training aids: TREATS
5D: Time of your life: AGE. Wow, so simple. I'm 38 and I am a pig.
6D: Checked: DETERRED. I was in the "verified" direction.
8D: Continental currency: EUROS. Such a straightforward clue for a Saturday.
9D: ACLU concerns: RTS. Is it a common abbreviation for rights?
10D: Rabbit or Bear's title: BR'ER. Uncle Remus stories.
11D: Gall: AUDACITY. Thought of CHUTZPAH first.
12D: Interpret by inference: READ INTO
13D: H. G. Wells's island researcher: DR. MOREAU. No idea. "The Island of Dr. MOREAU" is a science fiction novel by H. G. Wells.
21D: Like some den walls: PANELED
23D: Cabbies in Canterbury: TAXIMEN. We just call them taxi drivers in China.
24D: One seriously straying from the flock?: HERETIC. Was thinking of MAVERICK.
27D: Sargent portrait of a mysterious Frenchwoman: MADAME X. Here is the painting. Both the portrait and the painter were strangers to me.
32D: Newspaper accounts: WRITE-UPS
33D: With no deception: HONESTLY
34D: Bonding: ADHESION. Tricky clue. I thought the clue is asking for an ING ending verb.
35D: Even if, informally: THO'
36D: Like gift wrap on Christmas morning: TORN OPEN. I open some on Christmas Eve, and save some for Christmas morning.
41D: Like con artists' shills, e.g.: IN ON IT
42D: Bilingual Muppet: ROSITA. Forgot. The "Sesame Street" character. She speaks Spanish and English.
43D: Pitcher Jesse, who had the most career appearances: OROSCO. Total 1,252 games pitched. Can't believe I've never heard of this guy. He was with the Twins in 2003.
44D: Final innings: NINTHS. I like how OROSCO paralles NINTHS.
47D: Mideast religion that preaches equality: BAHA'I (buh-HAH-ee). Founded in Persia in the 19th century.
50D: Bridge expert Culbertson et al.: ELYS. The authority on contract bridge.
52D: "Southern" relig.: BAP. Southern Baptist. Not a familiar abbr. to me.
54D: "For shame!": TSK
55D: Unit of Time: Abb.: ISS (Issue). D'oh, Time magazine. I did not even pay attention to the capitalized T.
Answer grid.
Picture of the Day: Here is great Father's Day photo of our fellow LAT solver Jimmy B, his wife Diane and their three boys. Their middle son (on the left) had just finished the police academy, hence the buzz cut.
C.C.
