Theme: None
Total word: 72 / Total block: 34
Average word length: 5.31
Ha ha, a typical Robert H. Wolfe themeless Saturday. If you read my interview with him, you'd know that three colloquial grid-spanners are the hallmark of his Saturday puzzles:
17A. "I'll do it" : LET ME HANDLE THIS. Just awesome. I bet Bob is constantly counting on the number of letters in colloquial phrases.
38A. Words of disbelief : YOU'RE NOT SERIOUS. Nice one also.
58A. Words after thanks : I APPRECIATE THAT. My favorite.
Remarkable grid. Besides the three spanners, Bob also gives us ten 9s. As the norm with Saturday puzzles, some of the clues are very unambiguous but correct. Remember, clues are just clues, they don't need to be exact. They are not dictionary definitions.
Normally I dread the names in puzzles, but today I am very pleased to see:
19A. Joan of "The Last Emperor" : CHEN. Very beautiful. Hugely popular when I grew up. She was born and grew up in Shanghai. Chen (Mandarin) = Chan (Cantonese), as in Jackie/Charlie Chan.
40A. Hall of Fame Vikings lineman Carl : ELLER. Drug/alcohol plagues him. Our local newspaper reports on his every mishap. Their obsession with Brett Favre drive me nuts.
Across:
1. "Banded" arid-area reptile : SAND SNAKE. Well, I bet it's a gimme for Gunghy and Husker Gary. I've never heard of this reptile before.
10. Hitting sound : SPLAT
15. Body fat compound : OLEIC ACID. We often see OLEIC clued as partial, clued as "__ acid".
16. Bait : TEASE
20. WWII soldier in Africa : DESERT RAT. Not a familiar term to me.
21. Application datum : SEX. Well, I am not as DF as Dennis. I wanted AGE.
23. At least one : ANY
24. Chem class abbr. : AT WT (Atomic Weight)
27. Gave (out) : METED
31. Half a laugh : HEH
34. Film with a lot of reports : SHOOT 'EM UP. The Western movies. I just learned a few months ago that "reports" can mean "gun shots".
36. Coast : SHORE
41. Acted : TOOK STEPS. Didn't jump to me quickly.
42. Former British Poet Laureate Hughes : TED. Sylvia Plath's husband. Cold and aloof.
43. Fogg's creator : VERNE (Jules). No idea. Fogg is a character in his "Around the World in Eighty Day".
44. Computer unit : BYTE
45. Telepathy term : PSI. Stumped. Dictionary defines it as "any purported psychic phenomenon, as psychokinesis, telepathy, clairvoyance, or the like".
47. Cone lead-in : SNO. Sno cone.
49. Healthful desserts : FRUIT CUPS. With sprinkled toasted coconut flakes, yummy!
55. "Let's call __ evening" : IT AN
61. Early MTV staple : VIDEO
62. Fashionable partygoer? : LATE COMER. Nice clue.
63. Poet's superlative : ENORM. Enormous.
64. 1986 Blake Edwards comedy flop (aptly named, as it turned out) : A FINE MESS. No idea, though the poster looks familiar. I must have linked it before.
Down:
1. Longest note? : SOL. Oh, I get it. It's longest because all the other musical notes only have 2 letters: do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, ti.
2. Smart one? : ALEC. Smart alec.
3. 2010 FIFA World Cup finalist : NETH (Netherlands). And UCLA (52. 2010 College World Series runner-up). Too obscure clues for me, since I don't follow either.
4. See 49-Down : DIME STORE. And FIVE (49. With "and" and 59-Down, 4-Down) and TEN ( 59. See 49-Down). Five - and - Ten = Dime Store. I normally like cross-references, but got headache over this one.
5. View : SCENE
6. "Forget it" : NAH
7. USMA part: Abbr. : ACAD. USMA = United States Military Academy.
8. Biblical grazers : KINE. Cows. Maybe Windhover knows. He has profound knowledge on Bible.
9. Actor Byrnes and baseball Hall of Famer Roush : EDDS
10. Hard : STERN
11. Narrow : PETTY. Can you give an example on how they equate?
12. Actor who was born a Leo, as it happens : LAHR (Bert). The Cowardly Lion in "The Wizard of Oz". Interesting trivia.
13. Large land mass : ASIA
14. Check : TEST
18. Chair, say : LEAD. Verb, to chair a committee. I was thinking of furniture.
22. Cyclops and Beast, e.g. : X-MEN. Blind spots for me. Cyclops is just ugly.
24. So far : AS YET
25. Oar fulcrum : THOLE. Learned from doing Xword.
26. If only : WOULD
28. Hardly be stoical : EMOTE. "Be hardly stoical" is better, isn't it?
29. Oxford employee : TUTOR. Dictionary says tutor (esp in Oxford and Cambridge), means "a university officer, usually a fellow, responsible for teaching and supervising a number of undergraduates". Well, I hope Vidwan nailed it. He has British style education. I was baffled.
30. Printing pioneer : EPSON. Oh, really?
31. Rot : HOOEY
32. Blow : ERUPT
33. "Demian" author : HESSE (Hermann). I bet Kazie knows the book.
35. Dutch painter Gerard __ Borch : TER. No idea. Is "ter" like "van"/"de"?
36. H.S. VIPs : SRS. And SAT I (54. H.S. reasoning exam, formerly). Unknown to me also. Wish I had come to the US earlier. I presume Math and writing are SAT II and SAT III?
37. Crash and burn : HIT BOTTOM. Great clue/answer.
39. Gets by, with "out" : EKES. Ennui!
43. Annual resolution target : VICE. Oh, New Year resolutions.
45. Pepper picker : PIPER. Peter Piper, the pickled pepper picker.
46. Lindsey's predecessor in the Senate : STROM (Thurmond). I remember the Trent Lott incident during Thurmond's 100th birthday party.
48. Caroline, to Bobby : NIECE. Caroline/Bob Kennedy.
50. Noah's concern : RAIN
51. Style with pins : UPDO
53. "La Vie en Rose" singer : PIAF (Edith)
56. "Alas!" : AH ME
57. Nairn negatives : NAES. Nairn is a county in N. Scotland.
60. Some corp. officers : TRS. Boomer is the treasurer for our Townhouse Association. But he's not familiar with the abbr.
Answer grid.
Here is a set of five cute animal pictures forwarded to me from a faithful lurker code-named "B".
C.C.
Total word: 72 / Total block: 34
Average word length: 5.31
Ha ha, a typical Robert H. Wolfe themeless Saturday. If you read my interview with him, you'd know that three colloquial grid-spanners are the hallmark of his Saturday puzzles:
17A. "I'll do it" : LET ME HANDLE THIS. Just awesome. I bet Bob is constantly counting on the number of letters in colloquial phrases.
38A. Words of disbelief : YOU'RE NOT SERIOUS. Nice one also.
58A. Words after thanks : I APPRECIATE THAT. My favorite.
Remarkable grid. Besides the three spanners, Bob also gives us ten 9s. As the norm with Saturday puzzles, some of the clues are very unambiguous but correct. Remember, clues are just clues, they don't need to be exact. They are not dictionary definitions.
Normally I dread the names in puzzles, but today I am very pleased to see:
19A. Joan of "The Last Emperor" : CHEN. Very beautiful. Hugely popular when I grew up. She was born and grew up in Shanghai. Chen (Mandarin) = Chan (Cantonese), as in Jackie/Charlie Chan.
40A. Hall of Fame Vikings lineman Carl : ELLER. Drug/alcohol plagues him. Our local newspaper reports on his every mishap. Their obsession with Brett Favre drive me nuts.
Across:
1. "Banded" arid-area reptile : SAND SNAKE. Well, I bet it's a gimme for Gunghy and Husker Gary. I've never heard of this reptile before.
10. Hitting sound : SPLAT
15. Body fat compound : OLEIC ACID. We often see OLEIC clued as partial, clued as "__ acid".
16. Bait : TEASE
20. WWII soldier in Africa : DESERT RAT. Not a familiar term to me.
21. Application datum : SEX. Well, I am not as DF as Dennis. I wanted AGE.
23. At least one : ANY
24. Chem class abbr. : AT WT (Atomic Weight)
27. Gave (out) : METED
31. Half a laugh : HEH
34. Film with a lot of reports : SHOOT 'EM UP. The Western movies. I just learned a few months ago that "reports" can mean "gun shots".
36. Coast : SHORE
41. Acted : TOOK STEPS. Didn't jump to me quickly.
42. Former British Poet Laureate Hughes : TED. Sylvia Plath's husband. Cold and aloof.
43. Fogg's creator : VERNE (Jules). No idea. Fogg is a character in his "Around the World in Eighty Day".
44. Computer unit : BYTE
45. Telepathy term : PSI. Stumped. Dictionary defines it as "any purported psychic phenomenon, as psychokinesis, telepathy, clairvoyance, or the like".
47. Cone lead-in : SNO. Sno cone.
49. Healthful desserts : FRUIT CUPS. With sprinkled toasted coconut flakes, yummy!
55. "Let's call __ evening" : IT AN
61. Early MTV staple : VIDEO
62. Fashionable partygoer? : LATE COMER. Nice clue.
63. Poet's superlative : ENORM. Enormous.
64. 1986 Blake Edwards comedy flop (aptly named, as it turned out) : A FINE MESS. No idea, though the poster looks familiar. I must have linked it before.
Down:
1. Longest note? : SOL. Oh, I get it. It's longest because all the other musical notes only have 2 letters: do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, ti.
2. Smart one? : ALEC. Smart alec.
3. 2010 FIFA World Cup finalist : NETH (Netherlands). And UCLA (52. 2010 College World Series runner-up). Too obscure clues for me, since I don't follow either.
4. See 49-Down : DIME STORE. And FIVE (49. With "and" and 59-Down, 4-Down) and TEN ( 59. See 49-Down). Five - and - Ten = Dime Store. I normally like cross-references, but got headache over this one.
5. View : SCENE
6. "Forget it" : NAH
7. USMA part: Abbr. : ACAD. USMA = United States Military Academy.
8. Biblical grazers : KINE. Cows. Maybe Windhover knows. He has profound knowledge on Bible.
9. Actor Byrnes and baseball Hall of Famer Roush : EDDS
10. Hard : STERN
11. Narrow : PETTY. Can you give an example on how they equate?
12. Actor who was born a Leo, as it happens : LAHR (Bert). The Cowardly Lion in "The Wizard of Oz". Interesting trivia.
13. Large land mass : ASIA
14. Check : TEST
18. Chair, say : LEAD. Verb, to chair a committee. I was thinking of furniture.
22. Cyclops and Beast, e.g. : X-MEN. Blind spots for me. Cyclops is just ugly.
24. So far : AS YET
25. Oar fulcrum : THOLE. Learned from doing Xword.
26. If only : WOULD
28. Hardly be stoical : EMOTE. "Be hardly stoical" is better, isn't it?
29. Oxford employee : TUTOR. Dictionary says tutor (esp in Oxford and Cambridge), means "a university officer, usually a fellow, responsible for teaching and supervising a number of undergraduates". Well, I hope Vidwan nailed it. He has British style education. I was baffled.
30. Printing pioneer : EPSON. Oh, really?
31. Rot : HOOEY
32. Blow : ERUPT
33. "Demian" author : HESSE (Hermann). I bet Kazie knows the book.
35. Dutch painter Gerard __ Borch : TER. No idea. Is "ter" like "van"/"de"?
36. H.S. VIPs : SRS. And SAT I (54. H.S. reasoning exam, formerly). Unknown to me also. Wish I had come to the US earlier. I presume Math and writing are SAT II and SAT III?
37. Crash and burn : HIT BOTTOM. Great clue/answer.
39. Gets by, with "out" : EKES. Ennui!
43. Annual resolution target : VICE. Oh, New Year resolutions.
45. Pepper picker : PIPER. Peter Piper, the pickled pepper picker.
46. Lindsey's predecessor in the Senate : STROM (Thurmond). I remember the Trent Lott incident during Thurmond's 100th birthday party.
48. Caroline, to Bobby : NIECE. Caroline/Bob Kennedy.
50. Noah's concern : RAIN
51. Style with pins : UPDO
53. "La Vie en Rose" singer : PIAF (Edith)
56. "Alas!" : AH ME
57. Nairn negatives : NAES. Nairn is a county in N. Scotland.
60. Some corp. officers : TRS. Boomer is the treasurer for our Townhouse Association. But he's not familiar with the abbr.
Answer grid.
Here is a set of five cute animal pictures forwarded to me from a faithful lurker code-named "B".
C.C.
