Saturday, December 5, 2020, Roland Huget

Themeless Saturday Puzzle by Roland Huget

Here are Roland's very informative comments:

Hi Gary,

This is my first time providing info to the LA Times crossword blog.

My name is Roland Huget and I a retired nuclear engineer. I live in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada. Including this crossword, I have had 41 published in the LA Times, every day of the week except Sunday.

I started out constructing themeless crosswords, but for the last couple of years I have focused exclusively on themed ones. Earlier this year I decided to re-visit the freestyle genre. This grid design is very similar to one of my earliest efforts that appeared in the New York 
Times in March 2015. In this grid the "wheel" is "rotating" in the opposite direction to that in the NYT.  The NYT grid design was borrowed from a Manny Nosowsky puzzle in an omnibus.

As far as the fill is concerned, it's certainly Scrabblier than my previous effort. I minded my Z's and Q's and W's in assembling the central crossed answers. I am also more aware now of limiting proper nouns and acronyms than I was back then. It also helps that my word list has improved significantly in the intervening 5 years.

Roland.

Across:

1. Doesn't block: ADMITS - He ADMITS you only if you have some serious ID 

7. Financial crime trial evidence: LEDGER - This is one page of a LEDGER that turned Al Capone into a 30. Cell occupant: CON, eventually at Alcatraz

13. Daybreak?: SIESTA - Yeah, I get it, but shouldn't the clue be two words? (YR agreed)

14. Pronoun sung multiple times in the 1968 hit "Turn Around, Look at Me": SOMEONE.

15. French president after Hollande: MACRON - We had this definition on 11/15/20

16. One can hold about 500 hours of HD video: TERABYTE.

17. "I hate that!": UGH - For me it's liver!

18. Wine-and-food match, e.g.: PAIRING 

20. Ancient refuge: ARK.

21. Compensate for goofing off, maybe: CRAM - "That exam's tomorrow?"

23. Fill with wonder: AMAZE.

24. Not busy: FREE 

25. Capital NE of Vientiane: HANOI 

27. Cream __: PIE.

28. __ one's time: waited: BIDED - I always liked this "rhyme" fashioned by Ira Gershwin for his brother George's melody, "But I'm BIDIN' my time, Cause that's the kinda guy I'm"

29. Motivation in "The Manchurian Candidate": MIND CONTROL.

32. Designers' tools: COLOR WHEELS.

34. Begged off formally: SENT REGRETS.

36. Negotiations: TALKS - The TALKS to end the Korean War lasted 2 years and 17 days and only achieved a cessation of hostilities, no peace treaty.

39. Proof letters: QED - So there!

40. Guitar attachment: STRAP - One of mine broke when I was singing for a candlelight Christmas time wedding and the guitar hit the floor with a thump. Everyone looked at me with mouths AGAPE (Hey, I used that word!). What did I do? I picked up the instrument and sang two more songs with two broken strings and the others out of tune. Waddaya gonna do? The bride and I still laugh about it 40 years later.

42. Fruit picked from palms: ACAI.

43. Old Venetian coin: DUCAT - Act 1 Scene 3 from The Merchant Of Venice (3,000 DUCATS is $530,000 today)

45. Estate __: SALE.

46. Place for a bargain: BIN.

47. "See here, fella ... ": LOOK YOU.

49. Misfortune: WOE.

50. Leftovers: ODDMENTS - Did you try REMNANTS first too?

52. Nervous excitement: TREMOR - TREMOR elicits a more negative connotation to me

54. Singer who played a hacker in "Ocean's 8": RIHANNA - RIHANNA is dressed in "fashionable rags" in this picture of the cast. Audiences gave it a 45% on RT

55. Francia neighbor: ESPANA.

56. Enterprise engineer: SCOTTY - Captain Kirk never said this line even once. Picard, do you agree?

57. Small town symbol: MAIN ST.

Down:

1. To the same degree: AS MUCH.

2. Sentence model used in language teaching: DIAGRAM - I love diagramming and my friend knows I might sneak it in when I sub in her English class!

3. Pit crew member: MECHANIC - A pit stop in less than 2 seconds

4. State since 1948: Abbr.: ISR - Arizona in 1912 and then none until Alaska in 1959. Wait a minute...

5. Sporty car option: T-TOP.

6. Arabian Peninsula capital: SANAA.

7. Producer Michaels: LORNE  - SNL producer

8. Salon, for one: EMAG - It is rife with politics and so I chose not to link

9. Ball star: DEB - If it's not Lucille I guess it's a DEButante

 

10. Homer, in baseball jargon: GO YARD -  It means that a home run has left the baseball park (ball yard). Add in dingers below for home run names.

11. Main menu item: ENTREE - I got a shock once when I splurged on a $40 steak and found out the ENTREE was just one item on an á la carte menu. "$8 for a potato?"

12. Gave a strong impression (of): REEKED.

14. Motto attributed to Horace: SEIZE THE DAY - A memorable scene illustrating it

16. Total disasters: TRAINWRECKS - Husker, Michigan and Penn State 2020 football

19. Reason for a Champagne shortage, maybe: IMPORT QUOTA - Quotas and tariffs play a big role in getting French Champagne here 

22. Snowboard relative: MONOSKI - Here quadriplegic Nikko Landeros practices for competition 

24. Sole food: FILLETS - Nice pun Roland

26. Waits at the drive-thru: IDLES - There were 20 cars in the drive-thru line at MacDonalds yesterday. I parked, went inside and had my food in 60 seconds.

28. Participants in Africa's 1830s-'40s Great Trek: BOERS - BOER is Dutch/Afrikaan for farmer

31. Short rule?: REG - In Massachusetts, it is a state REGulation that all day care children must brush their teeth after lunch

33. Deliberately weak argument metaphor: STRAW MAN.

35. Stereotypical swinging-doors sites: SALOONS - There they are in the background of this very famous TV SALOON

36. Small drums: TABORS.

37. Like vinegar: ACIDIC.

38. Cry from a nest?: LAND HO - The name of the sailor in the Pinta's crow's nest who first saw land after 10 weeks at sea is lost to history

41. Study closely: PEER AT.

43. Youngest of a '60s-'70s male quintet, familiarly: DONNY - Here they are with Andy Williams who gave them their first big break. 

44. Carved symbol: TOTEM.

47. Gave for a while: LENT.

48. __ Minor: URSA - The North Star is at the end of the constellation The Little Bear (URSA Minor). That star stays in the same place in the night sky all year long (north of the equator) as you can see in this 8-hr exposure picture. Therefore it was instrumental in navigation for sailors like Columbus.

51. Sweeper's convenience?: MAT - A very common metaphorical practice in my family

53. Center opening: EPI - Seismometers only show how far away the EPICENTER of an earthquake is and not the direction. The EPICENTER is where the three of these circles overlap.