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Relative difficulty: Easy
THEME: none
Word of the Day: DER SPIEGEL (37A: With 4-Down, German equivalent of Time) —
Der Spiegel (German pronunciation: [deːɐ ˈʃpiːɡəl], "The Mirror") is a German weekly magazine, published in Hamburg. It is one of Europe's largest publications of its kind with a weekly circulation of more than one million. // The first edition of the Der Spiegel was published in Hanover on 4 January 1947, a Saturday. Its release was initiated and sponsored by the British occupational administration and preceded by a magazine titled, Diese Woche (This Week), which had first been published in November 1946. After disagreements with the British, the magazine was handed over to Rudolf Augstein as chief editor, and was renamed Der Spiegel. From the first edition in January 1947, Augstein held the position of editor-in-chief, which he retained until his death on 7 November 2002. [...] Der Spiegel is similar in style and layout to American news magazines such as Time or Newsweek. In terms of the breadth and amount of detail in its articles it is comparable to the Atlantic Monthly. It is known in Germany for its distinctive, academic writing style and its large volume—a standard issue may run 200 pages or more. Typically, it has a content to advertising ratio of 2:1. // As of 2010, Der Spiegel was employing the equivalent of 80 full-time fact checkers, which the Columbia Journalism Review called "most likely the world’s largest fact checking operation" (wikipedia)
• • •
A smooth, interesting puzzle—a decent way to end a very rough week of puzzles. Pretty easy overall, though compared to yesterday's puzzle, it was a bear. I had never heard of NO SUCH AGENCY (9D: Organization nickname that plays off the group's secrecy) as a nickname of the NSA, but other than that, there was nothing strange or new to me in this grid—which is just fine. Better to end with a completely familiar grid filled with solid, recognizable words and names than a grid with a lot of nutso names, weird short words, odd abbrevs., etc. AN ARM (43A: "Hast thou ___ like God?": Job 40:9) was the only thing in the whole grid that felt a bit ugly. The rest was was creamy peanut butter. Not my favorite kind of peanut butter, but it'll still make a satisfying sandwich.Got off the ground easily with SSTS at 1A: Onetime J.F.K. visitors and PEEK (14A: Furtive look) (later changed to PEEP) and RANI (16A: Eastern dignitary). Those gave me SPRIG (1D: Garnish amount) and TEN DOLLARS (3D: Value of a U.S. coronet head coin, minted from 1838 to 1907),
and then the DER gave me SPIEGEL instantly, which gave me plenty of crosses to pick up GOOGLE SEARCH (21A: Producer of hits). BLAST FURNACE (19D: Coke product maker) also went in easily, meaning that I had cut deep into the heart of the puzzle inside of a couple minutes. PRIMAL SCREAM (44A: Supposed aid in curing neurosis) took just a few letters to pick up too, but, as I said, NO SUCH AGENCY didn't fall nearly as easy as those other three 11s—got the entire NO SUCH part from crosses. This made the NE generally the toughest part of the grid. Made a rookie mistake by plunking down EVADE and not considering ELUDE at 6D: Get around. This held up the otherwise obvious CALIFORNIA (15A: Orange's place), clued via a city where I actually lived for a year or so of my very young life. Once ELUDE fell, everything up there became as easy as the rest of the puzzle. Only other (brief) struggle involved wondering what a GOOT was. Turns out I'd misspelled MAID MARIAN (as MARION) (27D: Legendary outlaw's companion), and the beast I was really looking for was a GOAT (56A: Chimera, in part).Bullets:
- 30A: She's a problem that needs to be solved, in song (MARIA) — a gimme. For me. I thought this was from "West Side Story," but whatever—I got it right.
32A: Need for des poissons (EAU) — if they want to live, yes, fish NEED water.- 34A: Activity for folks in the pits? (TRADING) — wanted a racing term here.
- 36A: Style guru Gunn (TIM) — made recently famous by his recurrent role on "Project Runway," as well as his role in a recent Marvel comic.
- 2D: Irish playwright who wrote "Cock-a-Doodle Dandy" (SEAN O'CASEY) — I think I know his name only from xwords. Had the SEAN, and the O'CASEY just came floating out of my brain somehow.
- 11D: Millennio divisions (ANNI) — tried to end this with an "S" at first. Quickly fixed.
- 28D: Product of some relief pitches? (TUMS) — got it instantly. Or, rather, guessed it instantly, and it ended up being correct.
- 30D: Words to live by (MAXIM) — Besides EVADE, my one persistent wrong answer: off the "M," I confidently wrote in MOTTO.
- 31D: Commercial ending with Power (ADE) — I like this better than [Summer quaff] or whatever the going clue for ADE is now. ADE is far more familiar (in the non-xword world) as a suffix than as a stand-alone word.
- 44D: Alberto VO5 rival (PRELL) — I don't know enough about shampoos to know why one should be any more a "rival" of VO5 than another, but I had the "P" so I didn't have to think too hard.
- 46D: Newswoman Logan and others (LARAS) — learned her from crossowords, and committing her name to memory has paid off big.
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]
Agree that it was easy for a Saturday. In fact my Quick & Dirty Index says it's easy for a Friday. We'll see what SanFranMan has to say.
ReplyDeleteI had MOSHING in lieu of TRADING and was proud of myself... I need to remember that if I'm proud of myself, I'm going to fall on my face. And my weirder error was MAID MIRIAM in lieu of MARIAN. I guess I never read Robin Hood, just heard the story told as a kid (and not in English) so had her name wrong all along. And of course the GOAT did not help. I finally saw the light... All part of my continuing education.
I gotta get me some of dat primals cream....
ReplyDeleteTook me a solid 45 minutes, but, still. A Saturday solved without Googling is always a good Saturday.
ReplyDeleteI got NO SUCH AGENCY with no crosses, having heard that joke about the NSA many times (irony?), but struggled mightily with BLAST FURNACE for a long time -- I was vaguely aware that "coke" had a fuel-related meaning but didn't know much about it. Motto instead of MAXIM also slowed me down a long time, as did A Copy instead of A CASE and bit instead of THO.
Toughest part was the SW, where for some reason I couldn't bring myself to think laterally enough about the meanings of "while," "fare" and "Senate," being sure that I was looking for a unit of time, some sort of public transportation ticket, and a reference to the modern U.S. Senate.
But all eventually fell. A very satisfying Saturday for someone like me who has only been an every-day solver for a few months now.
Yes, easy for a Sat. and @foodie even for a Fri. I don't recall seeing a gimmie like SSTS lead off a Sat. puzzle before. Toughest part for me was SE where I had to undo ANAME. Pretty good puzzle tho a bit too easy.
ReplyDeleteRex's solving experience almost word for word...tho I knew a problem like Maria was from "The Sound of Music" bec, well, I'm a girl!
ReplyDeleteOh, and I put in GOAT right away even tho I thought a chimera was like a dragon and a snake and something else...
Easy, Rex thought in a solid way, I felt in a sort of disappointing way...Shocked that SSTS was the first word.
No huge problems except no idea how to spell CAPYBARA...
Had the ----BARA first, which made me think of THEDA BARA whom I was still thinking about when I got THREADBARE which is practically an anagram of THEDA BARA, an old crossword chestnut.
Hmmm, interesting, when you begin to type in T-H-E-D-A in GOOGLESEARCH you get THEDAILYSHOW.
Anyway, only thing that caught my attention was how many things could fit in 45A Make ____ for
make a name for
make a case for
make a play for
make a beeline for
make a run for
Oh, and I will count thinking LEMONade as a mini-malapop.
ADE is NOT good in Scrabble, beware!
Like yesterday, very very easy for a Saturday. I know about steel making, so blast furnace was easy for me. Capybara had to come from crosses - never heard of it. I got stuck a little on 45D - I had a_as_ and guessed it was make a dash for. I was wondering what kind of omelet ended in omelet_ _h;
ReplyDeletethen I realized that the constructor was using what I consider a variant spelling for omelet. (After a google, I see that it's apparently just fine. I always thought Americans used omelet.) "Case" closed, and my dapybara became a capybara.
But if I am done in <15 on a Saturday (I'm no speed solver), this is easy.
Quick and easy Saturday, though I had one letter wrong (never heard of Der Spiegel, so I went with "peek"). My only slow place was in the NE. Didn't think of "troth" (even though 50 years ago I said, "I plight thee my troth") for a long time. I had "trust," which blocked "adults only" and "util."
ReplyDeleteGood clean puzzle. Just wish it had a tad more bite.
ReplyDeleteI wonder how many of my crossword buddies had the same initial spelling problem with MARIAN that Rex and I did?
@Foodie I like your MOSHING answer better...
ReplyDeleteEverything else -what @Rex said
I thought the "orange's place" referred to the fruit, even after getting California.
ReplyDeleteThis is the first Sat. puzzle I've tried in ages. I think it's hilarious that none of you even blink at capybara--and I mean that in the fondest of ways.
I should know better than to visit here on a Sat.
If the yellow card refers to soccer, the clue that uses it is flat-out wrong. In that sport, a yellow card is NOT a warning--it's more serious. A warning may precede it; e.g. the ref may tell a player "if you do this again, I'll book you (i.e. give you a yellow card)". A warning is not recorded--ref.s do not take notes about it, as they do with yellow and red cards, which have to be part of the report they have to submit after a match. These records are important b/c players who have accumulated a certain number of cards will be suspended for a match. The upshot: I had BOOK instead of WARN (and BOOM for WHAM), which held me up in the SW for quite a bit--not fair!
ReplyDeleteOTOH, if there is a sport in which a yellow card is considered a warning, my anger is, of course, misplaced
I agree - easy for a Saturday, though I did have to google a bit. Thought Capybara would be WOD
ReplyDeleteyummm lemon tarts and omelettes
I too was surprised at the ease, and at SSTS being the 1A answer. And didn't even realize/consider, "Orange, California." I just figured, well, oranges are a big crop in California, right?
ReplyDeleteCAPYBARA immediately made me think of this video of somebody doing belly scritches on a whole family of sleepy capybaras. Don't know why Springsteen's "Secret Garden" is playing in the background . . .
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for visiting the New York Times crossword during our celebration of New Orleans, or, as it is known, The Big Easy.
ReplyDeleteI would have said this puzzle offered absolutely no resistance, except that I did have two write-overs at EVADE before ELUDE, and TAE before TAY (not great at Scottish spellings).
And of course, therer is one mistake: Orange's place can only be "Diary of a Crossword Fiend."
General kvetch to anyone from the NYT who happens by: If you put the KenKen UNDER the xword, the fold of the newspaper goes right through the middle of the grid. You probably know that .....
ReplyDeleteNever heard of capybara, though I'm not particularly troubled to be unaquainted with a 100# rodent.
Had a silly mistake at 43A/26D going with "Hast thou NO ALM like God?". I thought maybe God was offering to be helpful, and alms is such a nice religious concept.
Apparently it has to be plural. Ah well.
I agree this was fairly easy for a Saturday, except that I've never heard of MAIDMARIAN, so the bottom right had some wrong letters. Was experimenting with TYM, GUST, ANEYE, ETTE, GST and couldn't come up with anything that made sense. Oddly I had CAPYBARA correct.
ReplyDeleteOn Sept. 14, less than three weeks ago, NSA was an answer in the puzzle, and as part of the discussion I had posted, "@Chefbea, and @Boris and Natasha -- Also referred to by its friends, because it used to be so hush-hush and unknown, as "No Such Agency."" So 9 D today was a gimme to say the least.
ReplyDeleteVery easy Saturday. My only real snag was initially confusing kukabura with CAPYBARA. Like @chefbea, thought it would be WOD.
ReplyDeleteCAPYBARA was a gimme for me - I've seen so many nature shows.
ReplyDeleteNever heard of TROTH.
Lots of writeovers: SERVE before CATER, EVADE to ELUDE, SUAVE to PRELL, DUPED to FOXED.
More of a Medium for me.
Yes, what Rex said.
ReplyDeleteI don't speed solve after Wednesday, but this had to be my best time for a Saturday.
@ Leslie: Thanks for the great link to those Capybaras. Lethargic little suckers aren't they! Kinda cute, but still giant rats.
Sailed through most of the puzzle, and like @BobK, thought this was part of Easy Week theme. However, I crashed in the Carolinas with TeaS and ANAme. Didn't know CAPYBARA, but my real issue was not seeing the companion, even with M??DeA?IAN. A very disappointing finish for an otherwise breezy puzzle.
ReplyDeleteHaving a kind of CREAM for the neurosis, I was tickled when PRIMAL SCREAM came through...
ReplyDeleteOdd to see both MARIA and MAID MARIAN here? And it used to be that Marian was for women and Marion for men, like feminine Frances and masculine Francis, but one does come across many exceptions -- including our own @mac!
CAPYBARA was cute, while an NSA nickname might have been No Such Animal... same number of letters. Easy but fun!
∑;)
To riff on @imsdave, this puzzle was good clean fun.
ReplyDeleteLove that you thought How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria was from West Side Story, Rex.
Reminded me of "Yakety Yak, Don't Look Back."
Really liked GET A READ ON.
Nice puzzle, Mr. Silk, thank you!
Am I the only one who doesn't get ADE as the mate for Power? OTOH, there is a commercial for Axe Power. AXE being all the rage in cosmetics for the 30 and under male.
ReplyDeleteToo easy for a Saturday but still lots of fun. My blazing speed came to a screeching halt in the mid-Atlantic coast. Didn't know the Gunn guy. If it's not Peter I don't care. I also was trying to cook those fish with a pinch of sel. I had -ette instead of -enne for awhile making those two long downs hard to parse. An arm???
ReplyDeleteFoxed seemed like a word I haven't seen in a puzzle and I liked that.
For us dead tree solvers (like @ Lindsay) the grid spanned the fold and it was really irritating. I can't remember that ever happening.
Kind of easy for a Saturday, but a very nice puzzle. Two days in a few for easier than expected but good puzzles.
ReplyDeleteI guess we'll never get rid of SSTS, at least in crosswords. But I appreciate that today they are at the beginning of words rather than their usual place at the end, where they do little more than give us a bunch of plurals.
I'm pretty sure my crossword skills must be reaching a new level when, like today, I follow in the missteps of all y'all, including the @Rex.
ReplyDeleteCALIFORNIA held me up for a while, but that gave way soon enough.
@Andrea Tertiary -- I knew Maria was trouble, and I'm no girl, but if I were going to go to a Sound of Music dress up sing along, I think I would have to be the Mother Superior.
This is one puzzle that absolutely cannot be solved without at least one Google search :-)
ReplyDelete...which, like 9D:NO_SUCH_AGENCY and the other long entries here, is a 12, not an 11. (The actual name would overflow even a standard-sized Sunday grid, so this may be as close as we'll come to seeing the ubiquitous TLA "NSA" expanded in the grid.)
NDE
[captcha = Hesse — yet more Deutsch]
When I saw it was Silk, I thought it was butt-kicking time. This fell faster than the LAT.
ReplyDelete@chefbea, you notice the edibles, I like BUDS & SPRIG.
BobK, The Big EASY for the week was perfect. lol
Wanted to stutter for "Orange's place" and enter FLLORRIDDA ...
"Hast thou an arm like God?" was a sarcastic remark made to Job when he was trying out for Little League as a boy. And that was just the start of his troubles...
ReplyDeleteToo easy for a Saturday, especially after yesterday's gimme. I want something to get my teeth into on a Saturday.
DNF. Stalled in NE. Rookie mistakes; EvaDE, Lemon curd, drop? @BobK, thought of Amy also. Looked up Job 40:9 in the Bible. I try not to Google but if it's on my shelf it's okay. Had a instead of Y for the critter. @Leslie, funny video, thanks. Pleased with this puzzle after doing terribly yesterday. The Sunday Magazine section delivered on Saturday. I think I'll take a PEEK.
ReplyDeleteOops, I did terribly Thursday. Fair to good with Ali/Fraizer. Not that anybody gives a capybara's toosh.
ReplyDeleteI thought this was a pretty tough saturday, but I guess I am somewhat new to solving saturdays at all, so maybe I'm just getting ahead of myself now.
ReplyDeleteI liked that I knew to avoid "Producer of hits" until I had at least a few crosses, assuming it could be any number of things (home run hitter, record producer, singer, etc.). The fact that it was none of the possibilities I considered was a fun revelation.
Can anyone explain to me what is meant by ADULTSONLY clued as "Blue, say". I'm clearly missing it.
Thanks!
HAIL Barry! Fun, and yes, easy Saturday that didn't require a PRIMALSCREAM from me. So I liked it.
ReplyDeleteI also was happy to learn about a new animal: CAPYBARA. Well, new to me, anyway. Thank you @Leslie for the video. After watching I wanted one for a pet until I Googled and found out that would be bad idea.
@Adam--"Blue" can be a synonym for "X-rated." The most common usage of it I've ever heard refers to comedians who "work blue." In their TV appearances, their material is clean, but at clubs, it's . . . not so clean.
ReplyDelete@ Adam, Blue is a PC way to say porn.
ReplyDelete@Andrea Secondary Scream: I knew MARIA because of my daughters. They watched that film over and over. How about the chemistry between Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer!
ReplyDelete@Ulrich: thanks for the clarification about yellow cards in soccer, er, football.
I agree with those who wanted more meat on this one. Usually I do well to finish either Saturday or Friday without cheating. This week, I finished both without much trouble (I did have to hunt around a bit before I managed to replace PEEk with PEEP). I wish I could attribute that to my increasing skills, but I know it is not true (well, maybe partially). But this puzzle, per se, was a good one with very little GARBAGE fill, as Rex pointed out.
ReplyDelete@Ulrich
point taken on the yellow card, but I think the clue works. If a red card is automatic ejection, then a yellow card, which is not, can still be viewed as a warning, right? But it turns out there are lots of other sports that use yellow cards, as discussed here.
@David L, LOL about the little league try-outs for Job.
ReplyDeleteI have this weird little memory associated with Job. I was new in the US and unfamiliar with various accents. I had landed in the Midwest and then gone on to California. In the lab where I worked was a young man who took care of the glassware and who had a deep southern accent that always confused me. One day, I was working at my bench, pipeting a buffer by mouth. The glassware man, who was very religious, was telling me about his troubles and how he was starting to feel like Job, who had a load of problems, including "really itchy balls". I cracked up laughing and swallowed a whole bunch of buffer. Only to discover later that he was saying "boils".
So, you're right. That arm was only the start of Job's troubles.
I, too, was annoyed at having the fold in the middle of my puzzle, and having bend away Ken Ken underneath for securing on my clipboard. And since I never got around to yesterday's, having to carefully cut out the solution without stealing a glance. But then, despite the paper mess, the grid didn't put up much resistance -- except that so many Clues were in fact the first notion coming to mind. That's not a clever Saturday ruse.
ReplyDeleteTook a little while to correct GOOT crossing MARION, especially since I was suspicious of having both MARIA and MARIAN in the same puzzle.
Hand up for another paper solver who found the crease a little annoying.
ReplyDeleteOn the bright side, the puzzle was on the back page, so no unfolding the whole paper. Wish it were there more often (or at least the same place every day so I don't have to search through the whole section).
I knew this was easy because it is the first Saturday I have ever completed with no assistance and no errors. I did verify ANARM in the Bible, but it was already completely filled in, so it doesn't count in my scoring system. In this case, slow and steady, with eraser at hand, clinched the feat.
ReplyDeleteSo far, I know of four five-letter words for words to live by: motto, adage, creed, and MAXIM. Are there more?
If easy=doable, then this was an easy Saturday for me. Had to Google Capybara after I got it to confirm it. My knowledge of rodents is deficient, I guess. Rats!
ReplyDeleteMy captcha, oddly enough is vermeniz, a type of Mexican rat? No disrespect intended.
"Having a kind of CREAM for the neurosis, I was tickled when PRIMAL SCREAM came through... "
ReplyDeleteThat was my AHA moment. CREAM didn't make much sense, but isn't that a part of neurosis.?
@CoffeeLvr > AXIOM, CANON, DOGMA,TENET
My rule of thumb is that if I can finish a Saturday in any amount of time, then somebody has slipped up.
@treedweller: Now it's my turn to say "point taken"--thx!
ReplyDeleteSince this misunderstanding gave me so much trouble in the south, I may be forgiven for thinking initially that a "primate cream" (made perhaps from Gorilla glands) may be considered a remedy against neurosis by the same people who believe rhino horn powder helps against impotence.
Anyway, if you read Rex's WOTD carefully, you'll notice that Der Spiegel is the equivalent of Time only in the most superficial way--being used to Der Spiegel's heft, I always feel cheated when I pick up a skinny Time or Newsweek mag.
@CoffeeLvr - CREDO?
ReplyDeleteWhy do I think this puzzle has a theme – food? LEMON TART, CALIFORNIA (pizza), ADULTS ONLY (restaurant), SPRIG, CATER, ADE, EAU, (porcupine) BALLS, (pasta or rice-a) RONI, (MILK) MAID MARIAN, WHAM (Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House: "If you ain't eatin' Wham, you ain't eatin' ham.", HAIL CEASAR (salad), CAPYBARA (a delicacy for South Americans and a feast for anacondas), PRIMAL’S (famous ice) (CREAM), A CASE (of beer), (This) BUD’S (for you), OMELETTE, (the cupboard is) (thread) BARE, (I could eat) AN ARM (and a leg), (place) MAT(te), TUMS and GARBAGE....
ReplyDelete@CoffeeLvr: "Gnome" means "maxim, aphorism" (but I'll admit I didn't know that one. Only found it in a thesaurus.)
ReplyDeleteYou got O'CASEY from SEAN, I got SEAN O' from CASEY.
ReplyDeleteThis was the Friday puzzle we missed yesterday. Actually, it was my fastest Saturday, faster than my fastest non-asterisked Friday.
I thought about trying to fit in SOUTHERN CAL, but I never considered CALIFORNIA until I came back to the area with some crosses in place. Lotsa brand names in this one.
Couldn't believe how well I was zipping along for a Saturday... until the SE, which ate me up. Having MARIoN and EttE didn't help, and neither did the what-on-earth-is-a-CAPYBARA. I first thought the folks in the pits might be an orchestra. But I couldn't believe my speed until the SE, which made me want to take some TUMS (nice clue, that!)
ReplyDelete@Ulrich: phew, reading your first comment I couldn't believe you didn't comment on the Spiegel clue - then got to your second. Still, can't resist to say something myself. The layout of DER SPIEGEL is at best similar to that of Time, not an equivalent. As the content goes, to call the high quality in-depth insightful journalism of Der Spiegel an equivalent to the Time's superficial platitudes... Well, this clue is way up on my outrageous list, together with "teut" as an answer. *end of rant* :-D
ReplyDelete@sparky: Just wanted you to know that your 12:40 p.m. posting really cracked me up. Thanks for the laugh.
ReplyDelete@D_Blackwell, Possibly Also, and Believe it or Not, thank you so much.
ReplyDeleteAnd I just realized that I did something that annoys me a lot when others do the same. I asked a question that I could have gotten the answer to using my own devices (Thesauri, paper and digital).
@lindsay, TwoPonies, et al
ReplyDeleteMy dead tree delivery (Late Edition) had the puzzle at the bottom of page C12, as "god" intended. Living about 40 mi north of NYC, my copy is printed on "Lon Gisland".
Other editions obviously can have different layouts.
@puzzlenut
Check the listing on pg 2 for the location --- especially helpful on Fridays.
Oh, today's puzzle? Unexceptional in either direction, which isn't a bad thing.
.../Glitch
@glitch - thanks - didn't ever notice that before. You are right about Friday being the toughest. Almost always start looking in the wrong section.
ReplyDeleteclassic @foodie stories today!
ReplyDeleteI thought the Southern accent was gonna be about JOB (Jahb) pronounced as JOEB.
Hey! Is the word for work "Job" from the Biblical "Job"? And, not to be too blue, but why do we use JOB for Hand- and Blow-?
By the way, one of the many reasons I lost on Merv Griffin's Crosswords was answering EvaDE for EluDE. :(
In my 20s, I went to the old Central Park zoo in NYC and the vivid experience for me was the capybara, an amazing rodent making eye-contact with me and about my size. I looked up the word in some pre-computer source and never forgot it. So that one was a gimme.
ReplyDeleteJust barely managed to finish this puzzle (numerous mistakes in the NE) but enjoyed the diction: THREADBARE, NO SUCH AGENCY, BLAST FURNACE, MAID MARIAN: these are words we don't see a lot.
I couldn't believe 1A could possible be SSTS. I did so well so quickly in the NW, I thought I had been magically transported to Monday! Then I saw NOSUCHAGENCY running southward through the Ohio Valley which I recognized from reading spy novels. I continued spiralling through the south and looped back into the NE where I came a cropper with EVADE instead of ELUDE and stayed married to it for far too long.
ReplyDeleteI like Barry Silk's puzzles alot and this was no exception. Smooth sailing through this weekend, what with the Kahn tribute puzzle on Friday (where my comment offended Ulrich - Sorry, Herr Flemming)!
These were the easiest friday'/saturday I have ever done But I am shocked that anyone would google for relief. I am not one of those who does a friday puzzle in 14 minutes.., that is my Monday speed...
ReplyDeleteBUT, I NEVER would think of searching for help. The answers are there in my subconcious...just a matter of finding them... Sometime it may take two weeks...but eventually the answers come.
I am shocked, SHOCKED!! that any real puzzler pussie would resort to google or other help, Have ye no pride, Are ye not men. What man has made, man can unravel.
Are there those who stand with me on this??
\\// norbertj
This really feels wierd writing from syndication. I'm testing to see how this posts. Then will probably join the rest of you in real time.
ReplyDeleteThis has to have been the fastest Fri/Sat puzzles I have ever done. Finished this in under 25 minutes, my only trouble spot was finishing up No..chAgency, I vaguely remember hearing that term somewhere.
ReplyDelete@Norbert, I agree with you that if I ever have to google something or, Heaven Forbid, look it up in an Atlas I consider it a DNF, on the other hand I'm not going to sit on a puzzle for two weeks waiting for the answer to come.
"WHO is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge?" (Job 38:2)
ReplyDelete@ Rex: One needn't be particularly religious to appreciate Solomonic prose, as I'll prove in a minute. Considering context, I would like to know just what's so "ugly" about ANARM appropriately filling in the given verse clue? A simple "Behold, I am vile" apology will do.
I have a great Brunswick Stew recipe, usually reserved for squirrel, all ready for whenever capybara finally make it to a supermarket near me. I've read reports which estimate that rodents (capys, guinea pigs, pacas, etc.) provide as much as 80% of Southamerican meat proteins. Wonder who would play Michael Jackson's part in the movie remake that uses capys instead of rats? Something a little spookier about "scurrying" than "stampeding," I suppose.
But speaking of vile . . . .
I did a little ADULTSONLY GOOGLESEARCH (HAILCAESAR) to GETAREADON where I could take a PEEP at a TENDOLLAR THREADBARE LEMONTART (or any other kind, really) with PRIMALS CREAM applique (either MATTE or where the PRELL usually goes, not picky); when I found some MAIDMARIAN with BALLS GARBAGE fit for a BLASTFURNACE (I don't roll that way is my MAXIM, in TROTH), I was about to call the pharmacist to see if he could CATER some TUMS, but I decided to try again, and this time I out-FOXED the offending site, managing to ELUDE it entirely.
SPRIG, anyone?
I don't do the Saturday puzzles for the simple reason that my local paper does not publish on Saturday (which by the way @RP is why I missed your 4th blogiversary, so please accept my very belated congratulations and my profound thanks for providing this wonderful forum). Today, though, I have to make an appearance to stand in solidarity with @norbertj. "...but eventually the answers come." Yes!
ReplyDeleteI did NOT like "as per".
ReplyDelete44A was my bane for the day. In the dead tree version there was a but of smut (not the 17A variety) on the clue and it looked like "necrosis" not neurosis. So, I'm trying to fit maggot therapy in there with no success at all.
ReplyDeleteI need more coffee.
I don't understand the clues "Commercial ending with Power" and "Commercial ending with Pasta," possibly because I hardly ever watch television. Are these literally the last words of the commercials in question?
ReplyDeleteWe get the NYT crossword reprinted in the Toronto Sun (deplorable paper, but love the crossword) months after the fact. Really enjoyed the puzzle, but foolishly entered LION for GOAT which caused endless trouble, also LITTLEJOHN instead of MAID MARION (which, even when I corrected it, used an "o"). Mostly a breeze except that I was hoping the activity for "folks in the pits" would involve orchestra pits or depression! Couldn't stop thinking that BROODING would almost fit with the ___DING that I had no problem getting.
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