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SATURDAY, Jan. 26, 2008 - Karen M. Tracey (IT'S PROHIBITED BY THE TELEPHONE CONSUMER PROTECTION ACT OF 1991)
Saturday, January 26, 2008
THEME: none
I have a very busy Saturday, so you will have to accept a rather scant bullet list of observations today. So sorry, but I've got an IHOP gift card burning a hole in my pocket, and my family is eager to go use it. Plus, I fell asleep last night before I sent my writing group the material I was supposed to send them, so I gotta get that in order as well. I realize you don't need to know any of this, and yet I can't keep myself from telling you.
"Phillysolver" seems a decent sort of person (a frequent commenter at this blog) so s/he will surely not mind when I point my finger at him/her and shout "J'accuse" (or something like that) for having given away Saturday puzzle information in the Friday Comments section. W ... T ... .F!? The funny part was that I got at least two heads-up from other readers - warnings not to look at my Comments section for Friday, or else my Saturday puzzle would be ruined. And I thanked those readers ... and promptly checked my email (where, of course, all comments are sent to me). And walked Right Into the comment I was supposed to be avoiding. O well. I deleted it instantly as soon as I realized what I was doing, but it was too late. The MANILOW seed had been planted (ew, that sentence made me a little sick).
I had one major problem with the puzzle: JUNK FAX (30A: It's prohibited by the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991). Had the -AX and imagine that a TAX was being prohibited - CALL TAX? TOLL TAX (redundant?)? Once I finally convinced myself that 23D: Direct had to be REFER, giving me -FAX, I remained stuck. At one point I had BULK FAX, which was good enough to get me the "U" for the UNDER- prefix in UNDERRATE (31D: Review unfairly, maybe). And then finally my 70's TV knowledge, which had been failing me of late, came rushing back and I remembered KRIS (33D: Cheryl's "Charlie's Angels" role), giving me the "K" I needed for JUNK. Earlier, failing to read the clue correctly, I had (very confidently) entered LADD at 33D. Later, I wanted her name to be TESS, which rhymes with MESS, which pretty much sums it up.
Bullets!
- 1A: Cash cache, often (cookie jar) - great answer, and I got it instantly, with no crosses. Woo hoo! Sadly, this helped me naught. The only Down cross I got off of it - ETES (6D: "Vous _____ ici") was one I would have gotten anyway - I don't need help with Gimmes! Everything else up there had to wait for me to come back to it.
- 45A: Dad's rival (Barq's) - root beer. Site of my other confidently written-in Wrong answer: A AND W (and I was So proud of that one). Sadly, A AND W was "confirmed" by CASABA (28D: Honeydew alternative), which is the official melon of the NY Times crossword puzzle.
- 55A: Minnelli of Broadway (Liza) - I almost didn't write this in, so easy did it seem. That's a Monday clue! I was thinking "Does she have a lesser known cousin? ZASU or PEPE or something?"
- 47D: Six-time Grammy winner Mary J. _____ (Blige) - intersects LIZA at the "L" - why are you making my gimmes run into each other!? Spread them out!
- 25D: Mine shaft tool (trepan) - learned it from crosswords, woo hoo!
- 49D: Hyundai sedan (Azera) - I was certain this was wrong. I have never Ever heard of such a thing. ELANTRA, yes, SONATA, yes ... AZERA? With a name like that, you'd think it would get more xword play.
- 16A: Liner threat, once (U-boat) - had me thinking the puzzle was a rebus and the answer was [ICE]berg ... but presumably ICEBERGS are still threats to liners ...
- 18A: Spanish table wine (rioja)
- 40D: Light white wine (moselle) - mmm, winy. If you didn't do it, you should seek out last week's Philadelphia Inquirer puzzle (I think that's what it was), which was Loaded with long theme answers that involved wine puns. If I'm recommending a pun puzzle, you know that it's good.
- 19A: "Isaac's Storm" author Larson (Erik) - Give me Estrada any day. What's with the authors today? O, now that I look at it, there's just two, ERIK and JEAN GENET (30D: "The Thief's Journal" author). O no, there's another: 14D: Playwright/painter Wyspianski (Stanislaw). But there were other names I did not know, including TANIA (35D: _____ Raymonde, player of Alex Rousseau on "Lost" - ugh) and BUSONI (42A: "Turandot" composer Ferruccio _____), which surprised me, because I've heard of "Turandot" and therefore wanted a Much more famous composer. Then there's ABBAS (46A: Iranian filmmaker Kiarostami), which I made an educated guess at - thank you Mahmoud.
- 20A: Player of the Queen Mother in "The Queen," 2006 (Syms) - great movie, but needed all my crosses (or almost all) for this one.
- 21A: Determined to execute (set on) - I was imagining something much more ... lethal.
- 27A: Green vehicle (eco-car) - ECO- is the new E-, in that apparently you can put it in front of anything and call it a word. Wanted PRIUS.
- 40A: "New York City Rhythm" singer (Manilow) - grrr. I did not know this, but I had the MA- and my memory went back, unbidden, to the comment on yesterday's puzzle that I was not supposed to read. And I wrote in MANILOW with a frown.
- 51A: Weasley family's owl, in Harry Potter books (Errol) - I had CYRIL for a bit. Hang on, I'm going to go see if my daughter knows this answer ... OK, that went well. I asked "Sahra, what's the name of the Percy family's house owl?" and she looked at me with a head tilt and asked "You mean the Weasleys?" and I said "Yeah, right, Weasley family's house owl." She paused for two seconds, looking off into space, and then calmly said "Errol." And then, and this is true: she went right back to reading Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (which I had interrupted).
- 53A: Breaking sticks (cues) - I grimaced at this more than once. The answer now seems obvious.
- 56A: Biblical woman who renamed herself Mara (Naomi) - had the final "I" and thought "NAOMI" - thus can one solve Saturday puzzles while continuing to know squat about anything.
- I know more about NAOMI Judd than I do about biblical NAOMI.
- 57A: What kids might roll down (hillsides) - fun!
- 59A: Old lab items akin to Bunsen burners (etnas) - had to switch to Bunsen burners because the ETNAS kept exploding every few years.
- 62A: Blues guitarist Vaughan (Stevie Ray) - nice long gimme helped me out in that thorny ABBAS / AZERA corner down there.
- 1D: They're seedy (cores) - I just ate an apple. It's true!
- 5D: Hip-hop producer Gotti (Irv) - it was IRA or IRV.
- 7D: Peer group setting? (jury box) - wanted something to do with Earls and Dukes and Counts and what not. JURY BOX is a nice, Scrabbly entry.
- 12D: Potential canine saver (root canal) - easy, but cute.
- 52D: It has an exclave on the Strait of Hormuz (Oman) - I wrote in IRAN here :( - HORMUZ would look good in a puzzle. As would EXCLAVE.
- 54D: Pomeranian or Dalmatian (Slav) - see, you were supposed to think dogs. . . but you didn't, did you? If you were like me, you had the final "V" in place before you ever saw the clue.
Pancakes, ho!
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
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54 comments:
Medium?
Don't make me laugh. It seemed like KMT had lots of traps and tricks in there.
I'm embarrassed to say how stuck I was on this puzzle, with the national tournament being just 35 days away now.
O MAN is what I thought when I finished this. SOOOO many wrong guesses: HYBRID for ECOCAR, LOONY for KOOKY, AANDW for BARQS, and the NUMBERONE mistake: SAT for GRE. THAT little mix-up kape the West Coast in the dark for a loooooong time.
Still, I enjoyed this, even with my ignorance of wine. STEVIERAY more than balances MANILOW any day. But does anyone know the deal with "Turandot"? What happened to Puccini?
Supplications and apologies to all about Barry. Excuses...it was Saturday about midnight when I posted and the song was mentioned in the Friday blog...never again. Unlike Dreyfus, I am guilty. BITTE, forgive me.
As to the puzzle...went to sleep still having issues in the NE and tossed until I realized JURYBOX was better than jurybar and that meant DEFER better than ORDER and ECOCAR better than rcacar and KOOKY better than kooks. Many many mind games in the clues.
My rating...Difficult, mostly because so many names that came only from crosses, but little crosswordese here.
Enjoy IHOP or wherever you may go.
phillysolver
It's OK, they get the answers early in Chicago too!
Billnutt - Thanks! I've always linked Turandot and Puccini as well. It was my first "gimme" - thinking we might have a weird rebus on our plates. It held me up for the longest time. Zipped down the east coast, then the SW. As always, the NW was the last corner to come together. Lots of scrabbly stuff in here, and some fun misdirection. Now on to my second cup of coffee - Have a great weekend all!
Oh, I meant NW not NE and did I say after the aforementioned bad entries I decided Wanton Type was fatso?
The SW was my problem area. Got off to a big fat mistake with CHANGE JAR instead of COOKIE JAR as the gimme in 1A. Of course, CHANGE JAR's are always cash caches so it should have been obviously wrong. But it took me deciding that NOOKY is never crazy to figure out I was wrong.
One of these days I'm going to start drinking that vile concoction known as wine just so that I'll have a better chance in late week crosswords.
A chain of three relatively obscure proper nouns was harsh but fortunately both crosses were As making them first considered and reasonable enough for use (taniA/AbbAs/Azera). In fact AZERA also crosses the proper noun STEVIE RAY at the A, but that one is more mainstream.
Had INURES instead of ENURES (all of my dictionaries just say ENURE is a variant of INURE and to go see that word for a definition) which gave me JIANG---- so I assumed I was looking for a Chinese name. That's the mistake that really made the SW difficult to fix.
"Anonymous" at 9:14 enjoys periodically accusing me of cheating. Must be eaten alive by envy of my superior solving skills.
There's more than one opera called Turandot—the Puccini work we've all heard of and some other version by the guy we've never heard of. Irrelevant factoid: Ferruccio is also the first name of Signor Lamborghini.
Rex! "J'accuse!" My husband and I do say that with blaming finger on outstretched arm. The more melodramatic, the better. (And I also pondered the possibility of an [ICE]BERG rebus.)
A fun puzzle although I goofed up the NW corner with
FANNIEPAK instead of COOKIEJAR because I couldn't let go of KIDSTAR for the dwarf clue.
Also had A AND W instead of BARQS for a long time.
SIREN for SATYR
I don't believe I've ever seen the word NEBS before.
I love my ECOCAR.
Nine down was quite misleading as a red star is usually a giant before it evolves into a white dwarf. Something about gas pressure or the like. Anyway, loved the 34, 37, 40 across combo of retinol, pajama and manilow. That could conjure up marvelous images of a geezer party.
Three words: TOO MANY NAMES.
Nice to see Pachelbel (24a), for once, not packing (his Canon). As usual, I wanted her name (47d) to be Mary O. Blige. The N at the TREPAN / BUSONI cross was just a lucky guess, I had no idea about either. Very good puzzle.
Nine down was quite misleading as a red star is usually a giant before it evolves into a white dwarf.
Not true. Well, it is true that red giants can become white dwarfs. But its not true that this is the "usual" for red stars.
It is estimated that more than half the stars in our galaxy are red dwarfs. They are by far the most common type of star out there (though their dimness and small size makes them hard to see). Looking at the wikipedia page for red dwarfs I see that 20 of the 30 stars nearest to us are red dwarfs.
This one was pretty difficult for me. Lots and lots of names I did not know. Once I got them in there I was able to figure out the rest. But without wikipedia I would still be staring at a very empty grid.
A laudable puzzle that unfortunately blew my error free week. Just as I was patting myself on the back for guessing right on TANIA/BUSONI/ABBAS (I've never seen Lost) I checked in to Orange's blog and saw it was TREPAN not OREPAN. The frustrating part is that I know BITTE but didn't know Pachelbel was German, so thought it was some other language. I also now recall seeing TREPAN in a puzzle not so long ago. Rats!!!
I also had TAX, SAT, and AANDW for while, and STEVIERAY and BLIGE were gimmies for me too.
BTW I thought my most likely error would be the S in SYMS as I thought ETES was the plural of summer which didn't make sense between "you" and "here."
Nice Pangram puzzle.
41, 45, and 53 across took me for a nice roll down the hillside.
"junkfax" took sooooo much time to suss out, but felt rewarded to see it meet "jurybox." like so many others here, was *certain* we were lookin' at some kinda "tax."
and, yeah -- "nebs" was new to me, too. it does seem to be a cousin to "nibs" though. looks like we gotta keep the "nebs"/"nibs"/"nes"/"nis" options in mind.
calling the "knights who say 'ni'"!
;-)
janie
Found this more "difficult/impossible" ... got half on my own, another 35% with google and had to resort to coming here to finish (which never happens). Relieved to find I hadn't somehow missed hearing about "coolie pots" during childhood (what I had for 1-across).
Couldn't finish without Google and Rex. I'll get there some day!
@phillysolver: We weren't talking about "New York City Rhythm" yesterday. We were talking about "Avenue C." Whole different song.
karen's mom nailed it (again). Too many names. I thought the entry into the NE was especially mean -- although part of my difficulty with the section was my own fault for giving up on SETON (almost a gimme after UBOAT and OBIE) too quickly.
So many traps today. For 1A, I immediately filled in PIGGYBANK, and hung on to it far too long. Even after I had JUNK, I never got the FAX part, ECOCAR just makes my teeth hurt. I also had SAT for GRE, and wanted BARQS to be HIRES, which is yet another 5 letter rootbeer (I was actually proud to have figured out that "Dad's rival" was a beverage.) LIZA, HILLSIDES and ENLARGERS opened up the SE.
overall, I thought this was easier than Fridays puzzle, but still a head scratcher in places.
I really got stuck in the transition from S.E. corner to N.E. corner. I felt it was cruel to use three names (Busoni,Manilow,& Tania)to turn the corner, especially since this is always my weakest area, particularly in pop culture.
Liked trepan. It also means a tool to drill a hole in the cranium. Aprapos
Vexed in the NW, I was stuck on COFFEEJAR so long I was sure I was right when I switched to PICKLEJAR. I was overjoyed by BARQS-- that clue had bite. Twenty minutes after I finished, I still didn't get why 2D was OPERA, until suddenly it came into focus like one of those Magic Eye posters . . . in your mind. . .
another Irrelevant opera factoid: Ferruccio Tagliavini - terrific tenor. Iialian, what a scrumptious language. You can either sing the words or eat them!
Suddenly hungry in Hood River.
I thought Glass Work in the Opera fill was a reference to Phillip.
Orange, take it as a compliment...your times are amazing!
NEBS? Grrrr.
Have a nice weekend!
Right on, Hood River! Your mention of "scrumptious" suddenly made the intersected BARQS BLISS jump out of the grid at me. Gotta go make a rootbeer float....
ps something about the intersection of COOKIE and KOOKY made me giggle.
pps I must admit, I was so enamored of the idea that MAJOR DOMO, MANILOW, and MOSCATO were all connected that I held onto the last word waaaaay too long.
Rock Rabbit
NEBS does seem to mean bills of birds or tortoises. I agreed that there were too many names, and names are my Achilles' heel, but I guess I'm getting better at sussing them out from context and crossings, since I got the whole grid with no mistakes (only my third or fourth time). And I did it in just over seven Oranges! :) I was proud of getting BARQS right away off the A, but I didn't even think of Rex's "A AND W". I spent my half-minute or so waffling between ENURE and "INURE" and finally made the right choice.
Oh yeah--go four-fold symmetry! (Like Noam, I'm a mathematician.)
So...anyone else here ever heard of HIRES root beer? This puzzle was easier than the usual Sat. for me because I happened to know the author of Thief's Journal, and Stevie Ray was a gimme. Thanks, Orange, for the info on Turandot. Who knew? Not I - I just loaded Turandot into iTunes last week and was hence baffled by this answer, which came from crosses.
Orange's times are, indeed, amazing. But I for one believe they are true. I've been watching back episodes of Merv Griffin's Crosswords and I'll be shocked -- SHOCKED, I say -- if we don't see her sweep the floor with her pathetic competition come February 6.
phillysolver - it is Phillip Glass for glass work. I met him years ago and attended one of his performances
Yes, symmetry was nice - I forgot till Badir mentioned it. Did not notice cookie and kooky, they're cute. I got Barqs early on, for the wrong reason - I thought Dads was a dog food, got the Q from squint, which led to Barqs, which I thought was another dog food.
NumberOne I had as NumeroUno for quite a while, which seemed ok as some crosses like ETNAS fit.
I once had a parakeet and had to put some medicine on its neb. Which reminds me of
"her nibs, Miss Georgia Gibbs", upon whom I never applied medicine however.
Trepan: a trephine (saw hole) used by surgeons for perforating the skull.
Yikes!
HIRES was second glass after spilling the A AND W. JONES was also an outside possibility, but that's maybe just a West Coast brand.
Was fairly pleased to manage to get through this fairly quickly despite all the names I didn't know. The one error I've noticed, though, was the V I placed at the end of STANISLAV, and just figured that this MANILOV character was simply another SLAV -- they all end in V, no? Unless you really want the V sound, then you use a W at the end. Makes perfect sense -- I think English is more of an exception than the rule in this regard.
Pretty sure that the answer to 41A Bills was DEBT. Very clever, and yet couldn't fathom an Angel __IT (other than TWIT, of course).
Unlike some friends who think that $50 is a reasonable sum to pay for a bottle of wine, the RIOJA and MOSELLE varieties better suit my budget, and can be had for less than $10, with great satisfaction, and not just for the comparative value.
ANEMIC for Peaked didn't make much sense to me, and I guess my astronomy is still in the 1960s and the grade school texts on stellar evolution. Always thought a MAJORDOMO was a Martinet, which I suppose it could be, though the way it was clued seemed more like an athletic trainer, or even a life coach.
How many times did we have to put up with the abbreviation for ENLARGERS in the fill until finally being rewarded with the whole word?
Finally, there's a great reference to Ruth and NAOMI in Keats's "Ode to a Nightingale." The Biblical story ain't bad either, but this poem offers a great illustration.
Ha, I fell into the TAX trap as well (what can I say, it's been a while since I last looked at this one). And that was even my own clue, for one of the foundation entries in the puzzle. I plead late-night tiredness.
Love the idea of Barqs dog food. Seems much more likely than root beer.
Glad to hear some enjoyed it, sorry about the excess of names for those who find those annoying. I have a penchant for them. I do try to watch it, but it is a constant struggle, it seems.
We forgive you, mellocat. It was still a nice puzzle.
I got anemic (8D) because I remember my mother saying "you look peaked" (peak'ed) when I felt sick. At the time I had no clue what she meant. But, drinking a Hires root beer to feel better would have been a nice option . . . we got 7-up if anything . . . I can still visualize the brownish-colored Hires can and biggish white letters. It was tastier than Dad's, most of us thought. But A & W was even better.
I am pleased to have solved this one without any errors, but it sure took me a while. Karen M. Tracy seems to have a very different knowledge bank than I do -- no baseball, hardly any Spanish, names I've never heard of [Wyspianski, Tania Raimonde, Ferrucio Busoni] + the amazing nebs. Still, there were enough doable crosses to make this possible, if challenging.
More on opera composers to match with their works.
Just as there are two Turandots - Puccini and Busoni, there are three (count them) three Fausts - Gounod, Busoni again, and Amigo Boito.
Boito's Faust(us) in LA was unforgettable with the late very athletic bass-baritone Norman Treigle as Mephistpholes literally climbing the scrim!
It's these annoying interjections that so endear me to my kids.
"I realize you don't need to know any of this, and yet I can't keep myself from telling you."
this is beautiful,..
I do so love this blog. I lost sleep over what "Glass works" and Opera had in common to make it work!! Having the puzzle come back as correct is only partially satisfying when you have no idea WTH one of your correct fills meant!
I also love it here because it seems like no matter what, somebody else had the same (incorrect) gimme as I ... in this case, it was Hires, before even thinking A&W and long before Barq's hit. Sorry fergus, I'm west coast and never heard of Jones brand.
I had to google for the names, never having heard of JeanGenet, tania, stanislaw, mr abbas or ms. syms, and being unable to call up Barry without his multicolored ruffle-sleeve shirt at the Copa.
Once I got Ms. syms, I decided that the peer group got together in a play pen... well it got better from there finally. Pretty much a good Saturday struggle with the exception of unknown names crossing obscure names, for me.
Finally, I finished this one! Made two mistakes, though, both avoidable if I had spent just a bit more time on them- had an I in JEAN GENET and another I in MOSELLE (shoulda definitely known that one!).
I never thought I'd get the NW but just stuck with it, helped by RED STAR, COOKIE JAR and OPERA.
I also had TABS for [Bills] which cause me to cross out my initial answer of UNDERRATE. Fooey! Finally came back to NEBS (even if I didn't know what they were- I do now, though!).
Another five letter root beer- Fanta (very delicious, too, believe it or not). Then I was sure I was correct with A and W and finally got BARQS when I figured out BLISS. Whew!
I also dragged ERROL out of the recesses of my mind. Kept wanting Percy even though I knew that was wrong.
Fave clues: [53A. Breaking sticks] = CUES
[10D. Ill-prepared worker?] = NURSE
Least fave: [27A. Green vehicle] = ECOCAR (actually the clue is OK but the answer- phew! I drive a Prius and never have I heard that word.
Finally, I agree with Karen's mom!
Now there are 3 things to look forward to on Sunday!
1) Sleeping late
2) The NYT crossword
3) Rex's IHOP report.
I was catching up on Friday and Saturday puzzles all morning, jealous that I wasn't going to IHOP for breakfast. Flapjacks, pancakes, Johnnycakes, blinis, blintzes, hotcakes, crespelle, 面煎粿, pikelets, yummy. I should never blog when hungry.
DQ continues to be my nemesis (from yesterday). His puzzles are fabulous, but always too hard for me to finish on my own, leaving me once again thwarted in my quest for a googleless week of puzzling. Today's was a challenge and seemed to take forever, but gimmes all over the grid gave me something to work with and suddenly it was done. I never drink soda, but had a Barq's rootbeer just yesterday.
Dalmation reminded me of this hilarity:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDEUcRRHnac&feature=related
I'm with you Kim, looking forward to Sunday morning. San Diego is finally getting the rain the rest of CA has been getting all week and it'll be a good day for the Sunday puzzle and some pancakes.
Can you provide a link to the Phila.Inq. puzzle you mentioned? I had no luck finding it online. PS Love your blog!
C lady said:
I guess nobody reads these six-week out comments, but just had to remark on this puzzle. All those proper names-if you've never heard of the guy/gal in question, there is no way to "work it out". No delving around in your mind for some kind of a word root or connection that might lead to an aha moment. Spoils the challenge for me!
C lady said:
I guess nobody reads these six-week out comments, but just had to remark on this puzzle. All those proper names-if you've never heard of the guy/gal in question, there is no way to "work it out". No delving around in your mind for some kind of a word root or connection that might lead to an aha moment. Spoils the challenge for me!
C lady, I think that probably lots of people read the '6 weeks later' comments. I'd be interested to know if there are more people who do the puzzle on the actual day or more that are stuck with the syndicated puzzle.
There are other six week laggards that read this blog. I agree that when a name is called for and you have never heard of it, unless there are a lot of crosses, you are doomed to google or wikipedia or such.
Not only do lots of us do the puzzle six weeks later, some of us do it in the evening or even the next day, which means really a lot fewer people see the comments.
I am usually a person who gets the answers other folks found hard, but I never get the ones everyone else finds easy. I got Barq's right away since i had the A from CASABA.
My daughter thought WIRETAP would be the telephone prohibition which made a lot of things difficult.
Funny, I learned the word "neb" from doing the NYC puzzles.
AMEN, C-lady, Karen's mom, and boardbtr. Sometimes you HAVE to google.
I love it when the constructor shows up here.
"six weeks later cathy said . . . Not only do lots of us do the puzzle six weeks later, some of us do it in the evening or even the next day, which means really a lot fewer people see the comments."
I'm with you as far as six weeks and a day later. No time to do it in the evening and the only time is in the morning with a cuppa joe.
Also, Rex his self told me that a lot of people are on "our" schedule — so we're not alone.
Anyway, I "knew" I had 7D: Peer group setting?, aced with PlayBoy because of the question mark and the "y" in Syms and the 'B" in bitte. I guess I took the "peer" part too literally.
And, I echo the comments of others about names you've never heard of you have to Google. It kinda takes the fun out of it for me.
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