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.
70 comments:
Happy Saturday:
This seemed difficult, my first pass through yielded about five words, LAHR being the first, but in the end, it took me less time than most Saturdays, so I am not sure. Mr. Wolfe does seem to build his themeless puzzles around some common 15 letter expressions, and if you get those, you can solve his puzzles.
SANDSNAKE was new to me, so I started in the HOLE, and then, even though we have had THOLE before, it did not jump into my mind; I think I will try and think of it as T HOLE. We have had OLEIC before as ACID in soap, so it sounded right. It took a while to see NARROW as in NARROW minded, but that gave me LET ME HANDLE THIS and helped me start filing in the short ones.
I was lucky I watched the WORLD CUP and the COLLEGE WORLD SERIES, so those two fell. I then got the other two 15 letter answers, and it was okay after that. I was thinking Guttenberg, not EPSON. I have never heard the word KINE to describe oxen, or cows, but I see it is in many translations.
Another week gone by, enjoy the weekend all
Hi there~!
Argh !! Took me longer than normal for a Saturday, and it's the vagueness that really gets to me. First run through across only yielded SHORE, BYTE, SNO and ITAN, then going down I thought I would do better because I got SOL and ALEC right off...
Nope.
What did finally break for me was HIT BOTTOM, OLEIC ACID, followed by a lot of guessing, and that led me to the long clues, and from there I dug deep to find my way.
Had PETER for PIPER, but then RAIN dawned on me, and I was able to clean that corner up.
PETTY and ANY make me cringe, but I guess that's what makes Saturdays so "fun".
Enjoy
Splynter
Hope you all have a great Saturday and an even better weekend. Good morning CC and all, this puzzle was a very difficult walk in the park. The first time through I got five or six entries and then I went after the down clues without much more success.
Once I managed to get 38 and 58 across the others started to fall, but there were several clues that made me groan and then there were several that were very creative. Overall a fun puzzle.
Since I do not get the Saturday paper I had to do the puzzle on line and by default I did get some red letter help.
Good morning, C.C. and gang - no time for the puzzle yet, but I wanted to make sure we all wished BOB a very HAPPY BIRTHDAY and many, many more. Back later, hopefully.
Birthday Boy Bob, many happy returns
1 minute 8 seconds and no help.
Lemonade, was the 1 min 8 secs the time to wish Bob a happy birthday or the time to do the puzzle?
Good Morning All,
Trading the grid this morning for a bike ride.
Happy Birthday Bob!
Morning, all! And a happy, happy birthday to Bob!
This puzzle really busted my bollocks today, primarily in three separate areas. My first problem was caused by me putting PETER instead of PIPER at 45D. Three of the five letters fit, so it took me a long time to accept that it was incorrect (even though I thought that 49A probably had something to do with FRUIT instead of FRUET...)
The second rough spot was in the Middle East, where I had TOOK STAGE instead of TOOK STEPS. I really wanted that BYTE for 44A, but it just didn't go with the A from STAGE. I finally removed STAGE and figured out that section.
The worst spot of all, though, was the Midwest. I've never heard of ELLER. I have no idea who TED Hughes is (or was, as the case may be). And Gerard TER Borch is a complete mystery to me. On top of all that, I still can't figure out what "if only" has to do with WOULD. After getting WOU__, I figured it pretty much had to be WOULD, but I just couldn't get it from that clue. IN the end, I went ahead and put in WOULD anyway, and then guessed on ELLER, TED and TER. I didn't get the TADA! however, so I figured I had messed up and gave up.
Turns out all of my guesses were right, though -- I just had a typo elsewhere in the puzzle (LETECOMER instead of LATECOMER). Oops...
Good morning. Nice write-up C.C.
Happy Birthday Bob.
A moderately difficult but fun puzzle. After some criss-crossing, a nibble here, a nibble there, it began to come together. WAGS included TEASE, DESERT RAT, PIAF, and OLEIC ACID. Loved SHOOT'EM UP. Finally got FIVE and TEN DIME STORE, and it felt good. No searches were needed.
Enjoy the weekend
Dick, I am not a speed solver, especially doing the puzzle online at night; the 68 seconds was a tribute to our minute master Bob; the puzzle took me 23 minutes, slightly less than my usual Saturday, but I did not walk away until I was done, so...
Good Saturday morning CC and all.
I gave up on the xword, early on.
Tutor in Oxford ... I only knew of Oxford 'Don's. The college level teaching system in Oxford (and England ...), using tutors for every so many undergrads, is very unique ... followed nowhere else in the world ... not even in the (ex-)colonies. British College education, ( used to be ... ) is very merit based ( not all students get in, to college ...) though the cost is highly subsidized by the Govt.
Good and Bad ... College profs. are paid less than US, but can never get fired ... so no incentive to work, or research or to excel. In the US, college profs. are paid, somewhat comparable to industry.
The 'tutor' form of education, in the UK, is a one-on-one teaching ... very expensive and inefficient. In the US, tutors, are only used as 'add-ons' for school, ( Sylvan, Kaplan etc.) and college.
I was not familiar with Psi ( Greek, 'sigh' ) in Paranormal psychology. All I know is PSI - pounds per square inch - 35 psi is the 'normal' air pressure in auto tires...
I have met with atleast 4 treasurers, on different occasions, but had never heard of TRS... just xwordese.
Phileas Fogg, the protagonist in 'Around the world in 80 days' -Jules Verne ... was played memorably by David Niven in the 1956-58 movie... C.C., you're just not old enough !
A three-way cross reference? YOURENOTSERIOUS!
Hello Puzzlers -
Warning: Rant Mode On
This was by far the meanest puzzle I've tackled in roughly 2 years. Just way too many unknowns to be fun. Obscure stuff everywhere. Too many sports references, my perennial weak point. Some stuff that barely squeaks by the Crosswordese Smell Test. GRRR!
Rant Mode Off
G'day everybody -
I nailed KINE because in 1959 I was forced to learn a song which began: "O, Azariah Boody's cows were sleek and noble kine...". I learned the song, thus avoiding a small amount of hazing, but didn't actually bother to find out what "kine" were until much later. Today's puzzle confirmed that all knowledge, however useless, is useful.
Good morning all,
Well,Robert Wolfe pummeled me today. [5]names,[2]sports outcomes and 'sand',as in snake..
I'm bloodied, but unbowed; what I got from perps and wags made me proud. OMG, I'm back on 'bad poetry' day!
Attitude,attitude....
Happy Birthday,Bob! Hope its a good one for you, Mr. Speedster.
Re: TER - Jerald terHorst was Pres. Ford's 1st press secretary. He died April 1st. He was a Marine in WWII.
Good Morning, The best thing about this puzzle was adding the a third attractive Asian woman to our pictorial repertoire. Two entertainers to complement our lovely blogger C.C. BTW, C.C., I would vote for the second outfit for reasons not exactly germane to fashion.
This one took me to task and after this posting, I will take out my erasures to the trash. I was left with a three bad cells and I was no speed demon!
DESERTFOX instead of DESERTRAT was a poor start (damn Rommel).
COULD instead of WOULD blocked ATWT and after teaching Oars as levers with fulcrums for years, I did not know THOLE. I stared at _HOLE for a long time and had another abbreviation in mind.
PETER picked those peppers until I needed his surname
I wanted rot to be DECAY but that turned out to he HOOEY (this phrasing gets to be addictive!)
You would have to be of a certain age to know what a DIMESTORE was (Kresge's, Woolworth's, et al)
Telepathy = ESP?
KINE? Got it with perps. I'll have mine with OCA as my learning curve continues.
The College World Series is a hallmark of Omaha (along with one of the best zoos in the world -
Henry Doorly Zoo) and so UCLA was a gimme.
Bert Lahr's cowardly LEO came later (Roy Rogers was born Leonard and so I was straying there)
Question for the day, What famous tennis player is famous for screaming a variation of 38A?
I felt pummeled today too. I did know HESSE, PIAF and PIPER, but other names I had to g'spot. I liked the "non-theme theme answers, but struggled in a lot of places. DH helped with OLEIC acid, which I have no knowledge of. I also g'ed XMEN, SAND snake, ELLER, STROM, after which some of the others fell in.
My Dad was a desert rat, so that was easy. At times he was a "Tobruk rat", and I guessed that was just extra detail as to where in the desert.
I never know those science clues like PSI. I took as little science as possible, and in Oz was able to avoid it entirely after high school, unless you include psychology.
Happy Birthday, Bob!
Thanks to all for the birthday greetings. At least the first day of school didn't fall on my birthday as it has in some years past. Saturday is a great day for a birthday, the big 60 for me.
I had trouble with this puzzle. I finally got them all, but it took 55 minutes. Congrats to those of you who managed to finish it in less time.
Hope everyone has a great weekend.
38A, that would be John McInroe.
Thank goodness for red letters or I wouldn't have tried a Saturday themeless.
Arrrrgh! This was not an easy way to start my day! Happy B'Day, Bob, and many more to come.
My high point was nailing 'shoot em up' from the clue with no perp help. (I remembered report and gunfire from a recent xword). After going across and down, with little to show for my efforts, I was saying to my self "you're not serious!" but it never dawned on me that I should put that in the puzzle. 'Let me handle that' instead of 'this' messed up the NE. 'Took stage' did the same for the middle east. STROM was a gimme, but I wanted ESP even though I was pretty sure that 45d was peter or piper. HOOEY was always a favorite word of my late MIL... usually said with "a bunch of" in response to my ideas.
Looking at the completed puzzle, it doesn't look that bad, but there were just too many obscure clues that I couldn't 'eke' out to be able to finish it on my own. I was left with 'a fine mess' of half finished and erroneous entries. I finally 'took steps' to 'tease' it out by resorting to good ol' Google.
Good morning C.C. and all,
A very H.B to you, Bob.
...a most enjoyable puzzle. The longer fills were easier than the shorties because I could "see" them with just a few letters. Knew snake, but not what kind ...then splat. Again, I knew acid, but not what kind.Was stumped with Neth because I had no idea they wanted an abbrev. (my lack of c/w know- how).That was frustrating as I watched the finals and kept thinking they must have nicknames.Besides looking up nicknames that didn't lead to anywhere, I G'd Chen, Eller and Ted.
Came here to fill in the O (enorm/updo-d'oh).
chair=lead was an a-ha
hooey and piper made me laugh
Desert Rat was new, also thole, kine and oleic(well, I guess I forgot that one)
Lurker B, I am in awe of your photos, as I love animal pictures.I have many cute ones of animals by themselves, but 4 of yours have interactions that can only come from being very dedicated to your craft. Wow!
Have a great Saturday all! My little guys will be here any minute.
Hi, There used to be a TV program
called the "Rat Patrol". It was about a special Army unit who rode
around the desert in Jeeps causing havoc behind enemy lines.
My first printer was an Epson. It was a dot-matrix print style.
I was thinking about a coral snake
but it didn't fit.
Really liked this crossword puzzle.
Dilbert
I had to Google quite a bit with this puzzle, which is typical for a Saturday. I really got confused with 4D, 49D, and 59D. Read "five" and "ten" which led me to (too) quickly put in "centstore." Grr. Go back and study the clues, you idjit. I'm glad the grid-spanners came easily!
Liked how Sno-cone came before fruit cups.
Have a wonderful weekend, everyone!
Good Morning All, Unfortunately, I filled in (1A) as KING SNAKE. Most of California is (naturally) semi-desert, so I thought I was on to something. We have lots of king snakes around here and they help to keep the rattler population down.
I didn't totally bomb out with my first pass. I did get CHEN, METED, TED, VERNE, SNO and IT AN. I switched to perps and got enough verticals so that my picket fence only looked like it had been run over with a bulldozer, rather than never built at all.
Like JD, with only 4 or 5 letters filled in, the 15 letter phrases came rather easily. I'd still be struggling with this one if I hadn't finished those early on.
Hand up for Barry G.'s (41A) TOOK STAGE. It sounded like a reasonable stage direction to me.
Barry G. ("If only") WOULD that I had known SAND SNAKE, I could have finished this puzzle more quickly.
I got both (49D) FIVE and (59D) TEN before I went back and finished up (4D) DIMESTORE. Vertical dyslexia at work because I kept reading it as DI-MEST-ORE and had no idea what that meant. "D'oh!" (My first job at 15 was at Woolworth's, where I earned a spectacular .75 cent an hour. Not too bad for 1957.)
Happy Birthday Bob! (Easy 5 seconds:o)
@JD, Wish I could take credit for those photos. Alas, they aren't mine. I am waiting to see if CC
forwards any of the sand sculptures
from Oregon.
They do take alot of memory.
Faithful lurker B
Puzzle impossible.
Lovely animal photos, lurker B.
ARRRGGGH! This one was the hardest we've had, at least for me. Had a lot of WAGS, SWAGS, Gs, and flat- out cheats. I finally resorted to red letter because I had spelled OLEIC with an 'a' instead of an 'i,' which gave me "gamescore" instead of DIMESTORE. I am of a "certain age" and have fond memories of dimestores. The only names I knew were TED and VERNE. The rest were 'G' lookups. I knew LAHR, but the name just wouldn't jump out at me. I even had some right on the first pass, but changed them when I guessed incorrectly on the perps. I'll be wary of Robert Wolfe puzzles in the future.
Happy B.D., Bob, and many happy returns.
Couldn`t complete the puzzle and needed SOME CALMNESS IN MY LIFE!
I am passing this on to you because it definitely works and we
could all use a little more calmness in our lives. By following simple
advice heard on the Oprah show, you too can find inner peace.
Dr. Oz proclaimed, 'The way to achieve inner peace is to finish
all the things you have started and have never finished.'
So, I looked around my house to see all the things I started and
hadn't finished, and before leaving the house this morning, I finished
off a bottle of White Zinfandel, a bottle of Tequila, a package of
Oreos, the remainder of my old Prozac prescription, the rest of the
cheesecake, some Doritos, and a box of chocolates. You have no idea how
freaking good I feel right now.
I wanted DOB for 21A and HAH for 31A. Otherwise the puzzle was near impossible for me.
Happy Birthday Bob.
Doreen
"A Fine Mess" - perfect name for this puzzle! I managed to finish in 49 mins. but it was a struggle. Who ever heard of a poet laureate named Ted? Theodore, maybe. Thole is one of "those" x-words like etui. I don't really know the meaning, but if the shoe fits...
Another beautiful busy day in NorCal. I have one daughter packing up to move to Ann Arbor (yes, she plays the trombone, too) and one daughter moving back from Rochester, NY. Grand Central Station, Gilroy style!
Happy Birthday Bob! Everyone have a wonderful weekend.
Although sometimes used to refer generally to British soldiers serving in North Africa during WWII, the term "Desert Rats" technically referred to members of the British Seventh Armored Division, whose logo was a gerbil (desert rat).
Geezb Bob...I forgot the music!!Happy Birthday ♪♩♬♫.♫♪♫♪♩♬.*♫♪♩♬ Happy Birthday To YOU!!!
If you are looking for another c/w puzzle to do, try Big Bend from the Chronicle of Higher Education on August 13. It had a really clever them involving circled letters.
Oops, theme.
Hi, all. I've been lurking for about 6 months and guess it is time to step forward. I love this site! I've been doing this puzzle for 9 years and for the most part do not have to look things up. I work in pen on newspaper--a purist, I believe. When I get stymied, I take my 5 dogs for a walk, pick up the puzzle and have a new perspective. So nice to meet you all.
Hello everybody. Well, I'm with both Barry G and Dudley. Hell of a hard puzzle, bordering on unfair, IMO.
I shouldn't complain, though, because after about an hour's labor I did finish everything except the west side without having to look anything up. The west side killed me because it required knowing people's names to fill it, and I simply didn't know TER, ELLER, or TED. Didn't know THOLE either (we always called 'em oarlocks) so there was no way for me to fill in the west side. Had to look those words up.
I know clues are just clues, not dictionary definitions, but cluing PETTY and "Narrow" just plain bothered me, because "petty" means "small," not narrow. Unless you figure being "petty" is the same as being "small minded." Anyway, that, and other clues today, I feel were too far of a stretch.
Like many of you, my first few passes through the puzzle, horizontally and vetically, left a lot of white space and only a few answers. I got VERNE, CHEN, LAHR, ALEC, BYTE, PIAF, and STROM relatively easily. Ain't it weird that those are all people's names?
I do find the long horizontal fills to be clever and enjoyable. I appreciate that.
Hands up for hastily pencilling in PETER instead of PIPER, and ESP instead of PSI. Like JD I was surprised NETH wasn't clued in a way that indicated it would be an abbreviation, and like Clear Ayes I put in KING SNAKE before finally realizing that wouldn't work.
Happy Birthday Bob. Best wishes to you all.
Barry G. ("If only") WOULD that I had known SAND SNAKE, I could have finished this puzzle more quickly.
Hmmmm.... Nope. Still not clicking for me, sorry. As clued, they're not just equivalent. "If only that I had known..." just doesn't parse.
Now, had the answer been WOULD THAT instead of just WOULD...
Whatever.
11-d petty is like "petty minded" therefore narrow minded.
54-d I took the SATs in the 60s and I think SAT I was the easy math test and SAT II was the advanced math (trig and analytic geometry).
The only tests when I was in high school were the SATs, just a math, a vocabulary, no essay. THey had specialized subject tests like physics or Latin. The other tests were: the ACTs, more for state universities and the National Merit Qualifying Exam, I think NMQT or something. I was its own exam. Now they use the PSAT.
Only a few places had the AP college placement courses.
43-a. Phineas Fogg is the main character in Verne's Around the World in 80 Days. He takes the trip on a bet. Some famouse couple named their kid Phineas recently.
60-d. What is TRS? Trainers? This is confusing.
45-a. I used to read up on ESP and psi is not that specific to it. Unless it is some specific brain wave greek letter.
25-d. Is the oar really in a Thole, or is it a t-hole? I thought it was called and oar lock.
Good afternoon, C.C. and gang - I loved this puzzle. Felt like I'd been beat up by the time I got through with it, but pen, paper, and my few remaining synapses all survived.
Just about all my comments have been expressed already, so not much to say as far as specifics. I always like the longer fills, and this one certainly had them. Favorite answer was 'Shoot em up'. 'A fine mess' reminded me of Laurel and Hardy; seems like that was a favorite line. As others have stated, 'TRS' is not an abbreviation I've seen for Treasurers.
Chapstick51, welcome to our group; look forward to hearing more from you. What kind of dogs?
Anon@12:29, funny, funny bit.
VirginiaSycamore, 'thole' is defined as "either of a pair of pins set in the gunwale of a boat to hold an oar in place." Hope this helps.
Heeding the advice of my many 'admirers', I jumped in the lake this morning. Had a nice swim with the fish and the turtles (once you feed them a few times, they're life-long buddies). Then we (not the fish and turtles) drove out to a great old farm that serves country-style (read 'large') breakfasts outdoors on weekends. I've now parked my tail on the dock where I will remain until vegetation occurs. Nice, relaxing Saturday; hope everybody's enjoying theirs.
THOLE. One word. Not T HOLE. It's pronounced like THOUL... soul with a lisp. It's simply a holder that holds the oar and acts as a fulcrum. Yes, like an oarlock. I had to use it in a puzzle once. Hated the word then and hate it now. Awkward looking and easy to mispronounce.
Happy 60 Mr. Bob
"Hello everybody, thank you for comming to our annual corporate meeting. I'd like to introduce to you our CEO, Mr. Smith, our Exec VP, Mr. Jones, our Chmn, Mr. Green, our CFO, Mr. Black, and our TR, Mr. White."
Ummm, no.
The only sense I can get for 26-d is that in some 12-step groups they advise to avoid the
"shouldda, wouldda, couldda's" also known as the "if only's". In other words, don't mull over past choices you cannot change.
The theme was revealed at:
6d,"Forget it" = NAH !!!
I went through this saying to myself:
"HAH, HAH, HAH" quite often.
A lot of obscure (not clever) clues:
LAHR's birthname.
BORCH's middlename
*ANY* British Poet Laureate, former or current, ever!
Singer of a 1946 French song.
An archaic plural cow reference.
Then you add in the 49d (with 'and') linked to 59d & 4d.
That equates to the clues being:
49d____and; 59d____; 4d_________.
(Now get ANY of those without the crosses).
Which LEADs me to the second theme reveal:
31d "Rot" = HOOEY !!!
What this puzzle was a bunch of ...
Okay, I'm done with the negativity and complaining.
I really really liked SPLAT, SHOOTEMUP, LATECOMER, and the three long across fills. In fact, except for the aforementioned TER and connected perps, and TRS, I liked the fills in this puzzle.
Even though I'm not, nor could I be, a crossword puzzle constructor, I can understand a situation where one ends up with sequences of letters such as TER or TRS, or HEH, or ATWT, or ITAN and wonders, "Okay how the heck can I clue these fragments?" The cluing is the key, and I think it is the cluing that is what makes a puzzle harder or easier. From the point of view of starting with the fill and then coming up with a clue for it, one can conclude that one has been very clever. But coming at it from the other direction, being given a clue and a bunch of white squares and having to deduce the fill from the clue, is a completely different story. What may seem clever to the constructor and editor can seem unfair, "stretching it," "how do these relate?" and WTF to a solver.
To give an example, the three-letter answer to 21A: "Application datum" could be AGE, SEX, SSN, and maybe several other possibilities. There is NO way for the solver to know a priori which it is. One has to solve the perps first. I know I know, that's the whole point, but it can be awfully frustrating if the clues are TOO vague, ambiguous, and misleading.
Dennis, glad you had a good swim and breakfast. I trust the fish and turtles did too.
Best wishes to you all.
Barry G. I definitely see your point. Calling all English teachers!! Must "WOULD" be followed by "THAT" to equal the meaning of "If only", or can WOULD stand by itself....
"WOULD THAT "if only" and "would" were interchangeable"...or..."WOULD "if only" and "would" were interchangeable".
(Maybe better to follow Barry G.'s sage sentiment "Whatever".)
Yesterday, Windhover mentioned the poem "Pied Beauty", which I posted a while ago. Coincidence abounds at this blog. In this case, it is because "Pied Beauty" was written by TED Hughes, who showed up at 42A today. (Yep, GarlicGal, definitely TED)
TED Hughes was married to poet Sylvia Plath, whom we see once in a while too.
I won't repost "Pied Beauty", because Hughes wrote so many interesting poems. Farmers like Windhover and backyard gardeners alike should be able to relate to the following poem.
Thistles
Against the rubber tongues of cows and the hoeing hands of men
Thistles spike the summer air
And crackle open under a blue-black pressure.
Every one a revengeful burst
Of resurrection, a grasphed fistful
Of splintered weapons and Icelandic frost thrust up
From the underground stain of a decayed Viking.
They are like pale hair and the gutturals of dialects.
Every one manages a plume of blood.
Then they grow grey like men.
Mown down, it is a feud. Their sons appear
Stiff with weapons, fighting back over the same ground.
- Ted Hughes
So fun to read everyone's comments. I definitely got off on the wrong foot as I wrote in ink "news" something - I've written over it so many times now I cannot make it out 34A. Definitely out of my league.
I have seen TRS used as the abbreviation for treasurer, but most companies use CFO now.
Jayce, having vague clues is fun unless most of the perps are also vague.
Oh, well, I still had a fun time with it and learned some things at Mr.G's.
daffy dill, well said! Thanks.
A very old Lhasa Apso, 2 middle-aged Pembroke Corgis and a pair of year old miniature long-haired dachshunds. The first 2 types of dogs appear frequently in xword puzzles!
Good afternoon C.C. et al,
I figured I'd be fashionable today: a LATECOMER. As such, any comments I might have made have already been made.
Just wanted to wish you all a good weekend.
Happy Birthday, Bob!
Happy Birthday, Bob!
xtulmkr, I loved your reaction to the puzzle.
Welcome to newcomers Mike and chapstick52.
There was an indicator for an abbreviation in the clue for NETH. FIFA is an abbreviation for Fédération Internationale de Football Association. I didn't notice it at first glance either.
I wish I'd tried doing this puzzle without red letters on. They were most helpful in keeping me from going off track, putting in a wrong answer, so I enjoyed being able to finish it. But I wonder if I'd been able to eventually resolve the mistakes without them... I think I'll try tomorrow's online without the red letters...
good afternoon c.c. and all,
wow, this one did not come easily, but what fun. loved the three grid-spanners. my only beef was the 'would/if only' thing, which seemed a little loose. the 49d goose chase took a while to lock in, but that seems fair for a saturday. never heard of kine.
oh lois, so sad about your loyal and beloved bruno. wonderful you have so many lovely memories. just nuthin' like a great dog, you were lucky to have each other.
happy birthday bob.
clear ayes, so nice to have you back regularly, you were missed.
great pics, lurker b.
speaking of b, today is national honey bee awareness day.
vanishing of the bees trailer:
Melissa Bee, what can I do to be more aware of bees?
dennis, maybe you should try collecting some honey.
Good evening, CC et al., Like Barry G, I had only 3 areas of problems. Unlike him tho', mine were the beginning, the middle, and the end, but I didn't hate it.
I certainly enjoyed 'sex' being close to 'let me handle this' and love the idea of a spanking (27D hit bottom) for any 'late comer'. That 'scene' gives a new slant to being'stern'ly dealt with. The idea of 'any' 'tease' saying 'I appreciate that' 'you're not serious' is going to find herself in 'a fine mess' with some f'eller' who might 'erupt' into a kind of 'a-cad' or 'sand snake' unless he's more of a'fruitcup'
than he'd like to admit. In either case, she can just say, "'Byte' me" and run like 'ell-er' some possessed 'dime store' cowgirl. There 'sno' way to predict that 'scene' but 'five' will get you 'ten' that if she's caught by the 'vice' squad, she'll be 'SOL'.
Happy Birthday, Bob. Hope you have many, many more and that this day is/was spectacular for you.
Windhover: AKA the Ky Hunk - thank you so much for those kind words yesterday. Right back atcha w/all the superlatives....well,except the DD's. Meeting you was certainly a main highlight of my year. We will do it again. Am pretty sure eldest will end up Lexington someday.
Enjoy your evening.
Hello All--Ah Me/Alas! That sums it up for me today. I had too many incorrect fills (though I thought they had to be correct) so the whole mid section went begging.
CA, I had King snake at first, also. That's the only banded snake I could think of that we have here. Also put in Dealt for meted, Seat for Lead, and Peter for Piper. Same errors as others.
I won't whine anymore. After reading the answers and explanations from C.C.'s blog, things made sense, but I just didn't get them myself. At least did try to finish.
I wanted to wish Bob a happy birthday, and many more. I also,
wanted to welcome Chapstick 52.
Anonymous @ 12:29, I had a good laugh at your "unfinished projects".
Forgot: Anon 12;29 LMAO at your comment. Loved it! Dr. Oz at his best!
Tinbeni: LAMO at your comment too. Funny stuff and true! Cheers!
CA: excellent poem. So good to see you here again. Thoughts and prayers are always of you and Fermatprime.
Melissa Bee: Great to see you and thank you for the kind words on Bruno, the hero. You're right. This family was so lucky to have him...even if he hadn't been a hero - like Bill G said yesterday.
I agree with Tinbeni, except that Piaf was easy for me as there just was a biopic out for her with that title.
Correction with the SATI. In 1969 it was just the SAT. It is much more complicated now.See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAT.
It was never really an aptitude test, but an applied knowledge test. You needed to be up on math through Algebra II and have a college reading level to do well on it.
Dunno what the SAT test is like these days but I enjoyed the original style of test. It did seem like an aptitude test to me. In the math section it tested how well you could think with nothing more than having you apply what you knew to figure out unusual math problems. The required only first year algebra and geometry knowledge and the ability to think logically. I remember one problem from the test that I enjoyed because I had skipped it at first but then the lightbulb came on. Draw a rectangle that's four inches across the top and bottom and six inches in height. Let point A be the middle of the top side, point B is the middle of the left side and point C is the lower right-hand corner. Connect the three points to form a triangle. Find the area of that triangle.
I even remember two vocabulary words. They were pariah and ennui.
Hi, everybody. CA, my thought re: 'if only' was that a better answer would have been just as Brad G. said, 'would that'. I can't see that there is any gramatical error in using it and it seems much more fair to me. My first entry for 26D was 'I wish', wrong, of course, and would still have needed 'that'. As you said, "Whatever!'
The rest of my comments would be just repetition and quite a few 'hand up's. I've never had so many look ups as in this one.
Dick, I find doing the puzzle online is slower for me and somewhat frustrating because of putting letters in the wrong squares. So I print the grid and do it by hand. I always do it on Sundays, as they've made the grid so small in that paper that I have to use a magnifying glass.
Lots of funnies in your comments today. Thanks to all who offered them!
Enjoy the rest of the day!
Bob, HBDTY!
Bill G: 9 in²
Spitzboov, very excellent! Did you tumble to the clever approach right away? I enjoy problems like that one that have a clever approach rather than something long and tedious.
Bill G. Don't know if it was clever. Simply computed the area of the 3 right triangles and subtracted their area form the area of the rectangle.
This was a really tough puzzle. I had to google most of the names & that still didn't give me enough info to solve some of the other clues. Saturday puzzles are just not for us!
Andrea, Congratulations on the nice write-up about your restaurant in the Thursday Wis. State Journal. Too bad all of our bloggers can't see it.
Earlier this evening this site was entirely different. It went directly from CC's write-up to the comments but the comment box was missing & I couldn't find any way to retrieve it.
No problem when I opened this up now.
Dot
Bill G., fun math problem.
Spitzboov@7:29 & 8:07...Nicely done. It's been a looonnng time since Geometry 1A, so I had to google how to calculate the area of a right angled triangle. (It pleased me, after so many years, to be reminded of the word "congruent".) There may be another way to figure it out, but I did the same thing that you did, figured the area of the rectangles, divided them in half and subtracted those from the big rectangle area.
CA, thanks. I thought so too. It's interesting that some of us think of solving a math puzzle as fun while others find it tedious and frustrating. There is at least one other way of finding the area of the triangle directly rather than indirectly but it's much more complicated and not as satisfying as finding the cleverer approach.
CC, just thinking of you while reading Sunday comics Classic Peanuts
CA,Thistles, for such a thorny poem, it was a beauty..read it several times. Missed your poems
Lois, another masterpiece!!
Dodo, I also print out the puzzle daily, although I need the red letter help later in the week.Our xwd is so small, and cutting it out maims DH's holy sports section
Melissa Bee, thx for vanishing bee clip...scary...but I have seen an increasing amount in my garden this year.
Hello C.C., Argyle and folk,
Bob, have the best birthday ever!
old age starts at 75! so you have nothing to worry about!
This c/w was tough. There was a sense of simplicity...only a sense, mind you. (31a HEH)
25d. OAR FULCRUM/THOLE-a new vocab. word 4 me.
24a. CHEMISTRY ABBREVIATION/ATWT. The ATOMIC WEIGHT TABLE is such a beautiful composition...My college roommate was a chemistry major. I WOULD contact her to catch up, IF ONLY ((26D.) I'd kept her contact information. I recall her first name -Sue and her family lived on Wind Road in Hartford.
1a. SAND SNAKE.
20a. DESERT RAT
DESERT RAT (Coincidentally...the rodent came before the war. (GRIN)
45a. TELEPATHY TERM/PSI?? I'll just let this one pass.
63a A POETS SUPERLATIVE/ENORM. Who comes up with this stuff? I just don't care for (11d.)petty poetry pap.
Coming back to read the blog entries, I see that it's kind of a mixed metaphor thing.
If you dance to the music, you have to pay the piper.
Rob Peter to pay Paul
I'm out.
Yes, "ter" is a lot like "van" "von" or "der" in a name. I think they come from Germany someplace. As in "Vanderbuilt," where they use 2
of the prefixes in the same name.
"nae" is just the Scottish form of "no" like in votes, people vote "yea" or "nay" but sometimes the "e" form is about the same as the "y".
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