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Unblinking gazer in Egyptian mythology / SAT 11-28-15 / Language created in 1959 / Official cocktail of New Orleans / agent 86 player / Brand with old slogan just kiss of hops / Vessel whose name meant friendship ironically / Tear quaintly / Cousins of capybaras / Fourth-largest city on Lake Michigan
Saturday, November 28, 2015
Constructor: Ned White
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium
Word of the Day: GARO Yepremian (55D: 1960s-'80s placekicker Yepremian, who helped the Dolphins win consecutive Super Bowls) —
Garabed Sarkis "Garo" Yepremian (June 2, 1944 – May 15, 2015) was an American football placekicker in the National Football League for the Detroit Lions, Miami Dolphins, New Orleans Saints, and Tampa Bay Buccaneers, during a career that spanned from 1966 to 1981. [...] Yepremian is best known for two feats — one famous, one infamous. In a divisional playoff game against the Kansas City Chiefs on Christmas 1971, he kicked a 37-yard field goal 7 minutes and 40 seconds into double overtime, ending the longest game in NFL history and sending the Dolphins to the AFC Championship game against the Baltimore Colts (which the Dolphins won to go on to Super Bowl VI . // Despite all of Yepremian's success, many people remember him for an incident in Super Bowl VII in 1973. With his team leading the Washington Redskins 14-0, Yepremian was sent on to the field to kick a field goal with slightly more than two minutes left, which would have put the game out of reach. The field goal attempt was blocked by Bill Brundige, and Yepremian managed to get to the ball before any other player did. Instead of just falling on the ball to preserve the Dolphins' 14-0 lead, he picked it up and frantically attempted to throw a pass. The ball slipped from his hands and went straight up in the air. Yepremian then attempted to bat the ball out of bounds but instead batted it back up in the air, and it went right into the arms of his former Lions teammate, Redskins cornerback Mike Bass, who returned it for a touchdown. The Dolphins managed to hold on to win, 14-7. Yepremian later joked to reporters after the game, "This is the first time the goat of the game is in the winner's locker room." In the 1973 Pro Bowl Yepremian kicked five field goals to lead the AFC to a win, and was voted Most Valuable Player in that game. He was elected to another Pro Bowl after he kicked twenty consecutive field goals without a miss in 1979.
• • •
I really enjoyed this one. It alternated between easy and hard, giving me a nice success/struggle textural contrast. Fill is sparkly and very, very clean. Is it SEXY? That's for you to decide. I won't judge. I had no idea who this GARO guy was, but I did enjoy learning about him, though (see video, above). I don't know how I know SAZERAC (8A: Official cocktail of New Orleans) because I couldn't define it for you, but it's possible I've been in enough bars and hung around enough former bartenders (hey, Lena!) in recent days that the whole big vocabulary of Liquor is just sinking in. I get SAZERAC confused with that New Orleans brand of rice products, SAZERIN? SAZERAN? I'm gonna look it up. . . Oh, criminy, I'm way off. it's ZATARAIN. I see their ads on TV sometimes, and what with the shared "Z" and trisyllabic name, and the whole N.O. connection, you can (maybe?) see where the confusion came from.
TOSSPOT (18A: Juicer) is part of that whole vocabulary of drunkenness that I know only from crosswords. My wife read me a cryptic clue recently, the answer to which was TOSSPOT. I got it fast. It was something like [Drunk defeats drunk in comeback]. Or else it was much better than that.
Biggest LOL of the day was starting with BRB at 4D: Palindromic bit of textspeak (LOL). Couldn't do much with the NW because of that error, so I settled into the upper middle with KERRY (25A: Clinton's successor) and ORB and RBI. This made my solve oddly symmetrical, as my final squares were in the same central area on the lower half of the grid. From that middle place, I was able to shoot out in both directions, first changing BRB to LOL and moving down the west side and into the very easy SW, then, after getting stuck, coming back up top and shooting up into the NE courtesy of SAZERAC. Eventually, I had the SE corner surrounded, but wasn't sure how I was going to take it down.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
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52 comments:
Nice writeup, @Rex. Fantastic of you to share all that info about GARO, one of my few gimmes in the puzzle (the other being the palindromic LOL)--this will ultimately save a lot of electrons because I was all set to write about that legendary Super Bowl misadventure, and now that won't be necessary. The rest of the puzzle, Saturday-hard, took me half an hour but happy to say, no Google.
Over the past few months, I've gotten to know @Ned White over the phone and via e-mail. Fascinating background, as one can tell by clicking on his name. This is his 14th New York Times puzzle, distributed as 1 Wednesday, 1 Thursday, 4 Fridays, and 8 Saturdays. Nice guy, class act!
More recently, Ned has decided to try to focus his efforts on themed puzzles. His Faulty Construction is an example that did not quite make the grade with @Will Shortz, but we hope that @Rex-ites will enjoy it anyhow. Be sure to read Ned's "midrash" when done.
Really liked this puzzle. Had never heard of SAZERAC, will have to see what's in it. I play a lot of Scrabble on FB against my friends, and TRANQ is one of the few if not only words that ends in Q, very useful to know. Overall and enjoyable solve and not too hard but just hard enough!
Bussing requirement: Lips. -- what am I missing?
Bussing = kissing.
RP
I am a tad miffed that Mr. Shortz now feels he has to dumb down even Saturday puzzles. Why not "It features the silhouette of Jerry West" for the clue? "Hoops legend" makes this a Tuesday or Wednesday easy clue. This was a nice puzzle, but the easiest Saturday in a long time. Over too fast.
Chicago, Milwaukee, _____, Kenosha.What's #3? Wikipedia suggests that it is Green Bay, except Green Bay is on Green Bay about 100 miles from Lake Michigan. Racine turns out to be "fifth." So, Wisconsites, when you are in western Door County do you think to yourself, "What a beautiful view of Lake Michigan?"
I got stuck for a brief moment because I had the LIT of 1a and thought Bud LITe instead of SCHLITZ. Very pleased to start my day with a SCHLITZ followed by one of my favorite drinks, the SAZERAC. After the STIFF DRINK (in the same position) yesterday, I just might make it through Thanksgiving weekend in one piece.
Drunkard bests drunkard, in retrospect. A memorable clue.
budLITe and pEel before ZEST slowed me down a bit, but a Saturday I can finish on Friday is an easy one. Normally I like a struggle, but am expecting a houseful to help get my Presépio underway so I'm happy to get off easy.
I don't think I like the clue for VIN...I suppose clueing a French word with a Portuguese wine in a French phrase is Saturdayish...
I did not know I finished correctly...was way sure that the NE was wrong, as I never heard of
SAZERAC.
Thanks Mr. White!
DNF as I spelled my favorite drink wrong (sazUrac). I obviously have had too many of them.
Try brandy instead of rye, simple sugar (always a squeeze bottle in my fridge), and definitely drop in the lemon peel..there's nothing like a sazerac-soaked lemon peel.
Loved this puzzle despite the DNF.
Annette
Easy/medium pour moi but a DNF due to heINOUS never becoming RUINOUS.
Other write overs were-- KENOSHA for madiSon and HEXAGON for octAGON.
I did like the cluing for SMELTER, QUEEN, and SCHLITZ. In fact I remember a comedian once describing SCHLITZ as " the most carefully pronounced beer in the world".
The Ned White puzzle on George B's site is a challenging Thursday but worth the effort.
Trivia time-- who's silhouette is on the MLB logo?
Thanks NW.
@tp provides the correct cryptic clue @Rex was paraphrasing mid write-up. For anyone unfamiliar with cryptic clueing: "tops sot" (bests drunkard) backwards is, of course, TOSSPOT (drunkard).
I came here to find out if I'd naticked on the SAZERAC/AGOUTIS crossing, but I didn't. I never thought that there would be a cocktail I never heard of, but what, pray tell, is a SAZERAC? It doesn't even sound like a cocktail. Still, we continue yesterday's STIFF DRINK/FRESHENS theme with SAZERAC and TOSSPOT and SCHLITZ. I'm too old for the cocktail, but I'm old enough to remember the commercial for the beer.
This was a mix of easy and challenging for me, with the SE being the hardest for me. KNOWN by, as opposed to KNOWN AS, tripped me up initially. I didn't know a pencil had a cross-section, much less that it was a HEXAGON. But one nit, New York Times. You are a New York paper. Here in NY, no poll worker asks you for VOTER ID. WE ARE NOT THAT KIND OF STATE. I'm very surprised at you for not changing that clue to indicate how controversial such a poll worker's "request" would be. TUT TUT.
Friday-Saturday double play! All smiles here, and at 56 minutes, a full 28 minutes faster than average, so sure Easy-medium.
@Tita, Mrs. Kid (MSPH, Tulane, with a well-tempered palate) didn't know SAZERAC either. Needed every cross.
I spent 10 of those minutes trying to remember stage directions [exeunt] and sheet music directions [piz, or whatever violinists see when they are supposed to pluck their strings rather than bow them]. When SEENOTE finally emerged, I wondered whether this was some kind of CNOTE variant, and what CNOTE could mean as a direction. ANYHOO . . . [see note]
GARO Yepremian was a hero for all the short, slight, balding non-athletes who delighted in the thought that "one of us" could be a football star. I believe he was the first side-winder kicker in pro football. His disastrous blocked kick play in Super Bowl VII was the Redskins' only score. It came to mind instantly last month when Michigan's side-winding punter bobbled a low snap, punched the ball into the air GARO-style, and saw Michigan State snatch it for a game winning fumble return at 59:59. It means the Big10 East championship, which will be decided today, is a 3 way dogfight. Sigh.
OK, next up: @George Barany's publication of @Ned's FAULTY CONSTRUCTION URL = http://www.chem.umn.edu/groups/baranygp/puzzles/faulty/. No doubt just as fun!
[Note: I finally got it]
Easy sledding until I hit NE. Got gyrO instead of ROTO, and milaN instead of TURIN, since that was where Alfa Romeo was founded (I didn't know it had since moved). Funnily enough, yesterday my son asked me "do you ever put the wrong word in a crossword and it fits?" and I said "it'll take you only so far." Today was a prime example of that.
No pictures of an AGOUTI?
: (
@Z, I think the third largest city on Lake Michigan is Gary, IN.
It was a couple of hours after doing the puzzle that I finally realized that QUEEN was clued with a reference to a chessboard.
Medium for me.
Started as usual on a Saturday, looking for anything to put in, until I got down to 35 A, Delta hub, briefly, had to be ATL for Atlanta, and 36 A, John, abroad, could be either LAV or LOO, but in any case I could put in the L.
Ultimately got started in the NW (2 D, CYANIDE, my entry point), but then reached the middle at 35 and 36 A: Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong! Cleared up after working South to North, finished OK. (And, whatdya know, LAV shows up at 60 D!)
I have a strong personal dislike for 44 D, using ANYMORE to mean "these days," although I have certainly heard it used. One of those usages which strike me as a proclamation of ignorance. Like a sentence fragment. ;>)
Lovely puzzle. Medium here: echoing @Rex, some easy boulevards to coast down alternating with a few thorny paths.
First in: the T of the 22A rebuke bit, with the following -sk or -UT held in abeyance, crossing with Team for the Hawks. Since that yielded nothing, I moved on to the 23A bussing requirement, thought of LIPS, confirmed it with HELIPAD, and was on my way.
Help from previous crosswords: AGOUTIS, PIE HOLE, TRANQ, Previous puzzle/blog controversy: SAMOVAR - serves tea or only hot water?
Excellent Saturday! There was little to no dreck and I had to use the little grey cells because I'd never heard of a SAZERAC or AGOUTIS or Jerry West for NBALOGO. It was tough, but I didn't need to cheat and that's the best way to start a Saturday morning. Thanks, Ned White!
This was really easy until I got to the SE. EMU crossing A LA MODE was my beginning though I had also put in Tsk at 22A and 'tray' for a bussing requirement. I had angrily circled the clue for 49A thinking that it, along with 55D and 59A, was going to be my downfall; I was wrong about MEIR, it fell right in from the crosses.
Going up from the SW, I got SCHLITZ off the H of HELIPAD. Flowed over to the NE. I had seen the Cryptic clue for TOSSPOT just the other day, so that was a gimme. So I'm down to KENOSHA, TRANk and RUINOUS above and to the left, I have CHIN, COBaL, VIN. And stopped just like that.
@Jamie C, without that "hoops" in the 59A clue, I would only have Google to help me, Jerry West, who? (I've since Googled the LOGO). As it was, I finally Googled GARO. Then, with Loo at 60D, I got NBALOGO. This still didn't help me. In my mind, 64A was trying to be some kind of sandwich, a SLOo____, 62A was maybe an AEROsol. I was with @Casco in looking for a stage direction at 42D [StaNdin]? I couldn't imagine why anyone would want a cross-section of a pencil.
So I went to AcrossLite and filled in what I had of the SE and hit Check All. Aha, Loo is wrong. Must be LAV. The rest filled in like magic and I'm left staring at the black ink mess in the corner, trying to remember why it seemed so hard. Sigh.
Thanks for the Saturday ZAPPERS, Mr. White.
And @Nancy, I agree with you on 57A. Hopefully MN will never change its same day registration tradition to the loathsome VOTERID requirement.
Great Saturday for sure, coupled with a great write-up by Rex.
Here's how you parlay an easy-medium puzzle into a challenge: Lock on to minT for ZEST, have knowledge of neither SAZERAC nor AGOUTIS, be positive it's either "Tsk, Tsk" or "now, now", and never have watched "Three's Company." The NE took us all morning.
Hilarious aha moment in this house when we had to run the alphabet and got to the "Y" in CYANIDE and EYEOFRA, how could we have missed that in two directions?
I wondered why the long clue on GARO, but @Rex let us know, GARO's a gimme for the over 60 crowd. @Casco - Pete Gogolak of the Giants was the first sidewinder, btw.
@Nancy's right on that voter ID thing. Here in PA there's no ID requirement either, and there's a battle against voter ID nationwide - I was surprised by the answer.
Rex's mention of Zatarain's brought a smile - the greatest food budget balancer since mac and cheese. Can't beat the Red Beans and Rice when you throw in your chopped up left-over hot dogs from the night before! (kidding @chefwen - and thanks for the BOKCHOY tip, she'll let me try it)
Anyone have a problem with VOTERID?
My solving experience was just like OFL's. The top of the puzzle was fairly easy, and my first entry was SAZERAC, which is certainly *not* a cocktail you can be too old for. I am too old for SCHLITZ -- if I have a beer it has to be a good one. I got CYANIDE right away, having read far too many English mystery novels.
The SW was pretty easy, though I had wanted "VOTE now" instead of VOTER ID. We don't have voter ID's in California. The poll workers trust that you are who you say you are, and fraud hardly exists in the major elections. Anyhow most vote by mail now, and their ballot envelopes are compared to the voter registration form before the envelope is opened.
I'm just old enough to remember when Computer Science majors all learned COBOL and Fortran. The O in COBOL suggested KNOWN AS, but, living where I do, it took a while to get KENOSHA. Especially because I wrote in "octagon" before HEXAGON. Had "Christie" before CHRISSIE, too, but I had vaguely heard of AGOUTIS, so that was what completed the puzzle for me.
Good puzzle. Good writeup, too, @Rex. I've seen the Sazerac instructions, and look forward to the football clip.
Highlight is that loverly RAPTORS-AGOUTIS-COTTONY stack, though you could argue for SAMOVAR-PIEHOLE-AMISTAD or SECULAR-CYANIDE-HELIPAD. Back to back beauties on Friday and Saturday. This lacks the fantastic clueing of yesterday, but has soooo many great words.
octAGON before HEXAGON, Loo before LAV, and a big fight in the west where I wanted atl or Lax for LGA, and Slang for SEGUE. So even though NW came in easily, wound up having to go all the way around clockwise to get there.
Gary, IN is smaller than Kenosha (80k vice 100k). Must be Green Bay, WI.
Green Bay most certainly is part of Lake Michigan (not a separate body of water), just as Saganaw Bay is part of Lake Huron and Keweenaw Bay is part of Lake Superior.
SAZERAC went in first; the Sazerac House Bar & Grill in NYC's West Village (now closed) was my brother's favorite haunt for many years.
The proper names went in next, starting w/ MEIR, ADAMS and CHRISSY (am I the only one who thought "Three's Company" was the biggest piece of crap on tv at the time?).
I really liked this solve; lots of ZEST and challenging enough for me to have to put it down twice and walk away before resuming with fresh EYEs. The AGONY and the ecstacy, if you will.
Esp. liked PIEHOLE, since many of us have been stuffing our faces w/ same this week.
Looking over the filled grid, this was a beautiful piece of work. Thanks, NW and WS.
Easy-medium for me too. Misreading clues continues to cause me problems (Juicier for Juicer e.g.).
Erasures: ON TOPIC before POINT, gyro before ROTO @Sarah, style before LABEL, and ile before VIN.
Me too for SAZERAC as a WOE. I looked it up and it does not sound very good, but then I'm more of a Scotch rocks guy.
Fun Sat., liked it.
This was my fastest Saturday puzzle by a long shot, even though I never heard of SAZERAC, and SATIRIC was missing the -al suffix. It went down smoothly but with a little kick, like a stiff drink. I enjoyed it tremendously.
Entries like CHIN WAG (I was stuck for a minute trying to find a synonym for yak), PIE HOLE, TOSS POT, (SEE NOTE) which sounds like a poor man's C-note, etc., and especially SPATULA made this a pleasure to solve, proving once again that one doesn't need esoteric jargon or slang expressions used by a tiny slice of society to make a good puzzle. Those are welcome as well, of course, but only if their frequency is proportional to their use in real life.
The SCHLITZ | ZAPPERS crossing gave me a curious word association in my native language, which I cheerfully encourage you to ignore, or pretend that you care -- your choice. The Hungarian word "slicc" (pronounced SCHLITZ) means 'fly' of trousers/pants, crossing ZiPPERS or "cipzár". Too much of a stretch?
As a gift of atonement for the preceding paragraph, please accept this SECULAR dance by clawed Debussy, the second of his "Danse sacrée, danse profane" (dances, sacred and SECULAR) for harp and strings, played here by AIMÉE van Delden.
Enjoy your Saturday!
I thought this was pretty terrific. As Rex said, a smooth combination of easy and tough. I enjoyed the way Mr. white played the double entendre of John, thus making the standard ho-hum usage in x-words more interesting. I don't care for chinwag but, life is never exactly how you want it to be because, if it was, it would be boring.
@rex -- your roll continues...
GARO Yepremian was well known for what he screamed in excitement after successfully kicking an extra point in one of his early games in the NFL: "I keek a touchdown! I keek a touchdown!"
I loved this puzzle, with fun clues (TRUNK, QUEEN, TRANQ, IAN) and lovely answers (SECULAR, SEGUE, COTTONY, RUINOUS, CHIDE). I learned CHINWAG and SAZERAC. There was a mini-theme of double EE's (4), and on this Black Friday weekend we see REDUCED to its lowest point.
It made me work hard but had enough little cracks of light to keep me searching and succeeding. What a pleasure!
Just the right speed, after a few days' worth of CHINWAGging and TOSSPOTting. SAZERAC surfaced from its cranny, mine being linked to "Suzerain" rather than Zatarain. The solve had pauses to rethink, rather than rewrites, just how I like it. Wait, wait, that's wrong! I was Bussing a TRAY before LIPS, and thought of ARSENIC before CYANIDE [NOTE to self: Must COBOL together some improved poisoning skills]
Ancillary Likes:
John John
TURIN shrouding CHRISSY, far from SECULAR
Placing ALA_MODE over REDUCED fat
CHIDE hanging a uyee clueey on TUT TUT
ADAM'S RBI, a classic movie starring that incomparable duo, Spencer Tarcy and Katharine Hepbrun
Ten-ish, anyone?
Residual question: Wondering whether the 57A focus is on VOTER_ID or VOTE_RID
A fine array of clues with fresh fill from AGONY to ZEST and all points in beQUEEN. Thought the result was UNI SEXY.
With belated wishes to @Rex for a bourbon pie-filled post-natal weekend, will now dive into the treasure-trove given us by @GeoBarany. Gracias!!
Fun & smooth. This puz alternated between medium and harder than snot, for m&e.
Hardest: SAZERAC/AGOUTIS wildlife preserve area.
fave entries: SCHLITZ, COBOL, PIEHOLE. For varyin personal reasons.
fave weeject: EMU. Has runtpuz usage immunity. Recalls one of the famously eazy-e runtz, which featured:
1-A: What you get when you cross an emu with an elk.
1-D: What you get when you cross an elk with an emu.
Aswers: EMU, ELK.
007 U's, along with a scrabbly, solid-fill grid. themelessthUmbsUp.
Agent 007-U will return,
in "Quantum of Sarezac".
M&A
**leftover gruntz*
Garo was the guy Alex Karras ridiculed with the phrase "I keek a touchdown".
Pretty sure Pete Gogolack (sp?) was the first sidewinder.
Rex, yeah, TOSSPOT from a very recent NYT Acrostic, which with the clue literally reads: TOSSPOT TOPS SOT (almost palindromic).
Didn't know sazerac either but pleased to learn it was rye made sweeter (why not just drink bourbon?).
You didn't catch ADAMS (John Quincy) and AMISTAD in the same puzzle?
Suitably difficult. Nice to hear from Casco kid the last couple of days. I never heard of sazerac either, and I have been to New Orleans. The drink I recall was called a hurricane, which really could blow one away. Don't like TRANQ at all, or OHS, a vaguely familiar brand name. But this is Saturday, and it was solvable. When a puzzle is this well constructed, a few totally unfamiliar answers are fine.
Nice puzzle, and had to smile when I found out (here) what "Board member" referred to. Had the right answer, but missed the reference. Very cute clue!
A bartender once asked me if I wanted to try "the world's first cocktail", and he made me a sazerac. Not sure if the bartender was factually correct, but I've been a fan ever since.
From one who lives in Door County the Bay is the Bay and the Lake is the Lake. But, since my father was from Kenosha I can't take sides.
So it seems that the SAZERAC cocktail is much, much older than I am. I'm just in the wrong part of the country to have ever heard of it. (Although I've known about the mint julep for years.) But I have a cocktail anecdote from way back in the day.
I was a senior in high school and my first-year-in-college date took me to Trader Vic's for drinks and hors d'oeuvres. He ordered a Vodka Collins. I ordered a Dewar's and soda. When the drinks came out, the vodka Collins had a tiny little pink umbrella gracefully arrayed over it, along with some carefully arranged fruit. The waiter placed it in front of me and put the Scotch in front of my date. "It's the other way around, waiter," my date said calmly, in what I thought was a most sophisticated and impressive manner. "Oh, I'm terribly sorry, sir," said the waiter. "I always give the fancy drinks to the ladies."
At that point, it would be hard to say which one of us was the more embarrassed.
One man's WTF is another man's gimme- GARO for the win.
@Anon11:11 - I'm sure you're correct in some technical sense (that I haven't found support for but I didn't look real hard) but I think the idea that a bay is a part of the larger body of water to which it is connected is linguistically foolish, most especially in the case of Green Bay. Saginaw Bay is the best example of a bay that is hard to distinguish from the larger body. Green Bay almost qualifies as its own lake, though. It seems to be as distinct from Lake Michigan as Lake Huron is.
@Conrad - Gary is indeed smaller than KENOSHA these days. I must confess, though, that Indiana never occurred to me. I briefly considered Muskegon, but quickly discarded it as implausible, as nothing on the pretty side of the lake is very large. I've seen the big water plenty of times as I've driven through Gary on the way to Chicago, but I didn't think of it this morning.
What a great story, @Nancy! I very much remember my first cocktail. I was 18, and on the Zephyr between Chicago and San Francisco, on my way home after graduating from my Eastern school. They did not check ID's, at least not for young men wearing a coat and tie, back in the day. I ordered a *rum* Collins, and as I recall, I had a few more on that trip, when I wasn't absorbed in the scenery. Oh, I'd had a little booze or beer by then, but never a cocktail.
Hello, @Spot On, nice to meet you! I grew up in Sturgeon Bay. I'd agree, there's the lake and then there's the bay (and then there's Baylake Bank); but still, if you made a list of Lake Michigan ports and left Green Bay out, most people would say you'd make a mistake.
That said, I too thought Gary must be #3.
But what really surprises me is that no one is crying "Natick" about Kenosha! Is it that well known? I know it, but I've never been there. I've been to Racine, I've been to LaCrosse, I've been to Sheboygan and Manitowoc, I've lived in Wausau, but Kenosha? Just a spot on the map that you bypass driving north from Chicago. But everyone knew it, so I'm happy.
Nice to see ZAPPERS after our discussion of same a few days ago. As for the Sazerac, I've had one, i've been in the place it was invented (can't remember the name), where they do indeed claim that it is the first cocktail ever. But I have no idea what's in it; and I did try Hurricane first. The latter is probably more common (and far more likely to be in a Go Cup), but maybe too plebeian to have been declared "official."
Now I have to confess my shame. Despite the obvious tipoff, not knowing GARO, I went with NBc LOGO, figuring GcRO must have been of mixed SLOVENE-ian/Armenian parentage. (BTW, perhaps the high-point of my career as a sports spectator was when our nondescript U of Wis basketball team beat the great OSU team featuring West, Lucas, and Havlicek.)
But why the ? after flipper in the 37 a clue? Isn't it literally correct?
@Nancy, your anecdote brings to mind this lyric by the late, great Warren Zevon: ...I saw a werewolf drinking a pina colada at Trader Vic's...
@jberg - great point about Green Bay being a "Lake Michigan port." I once dated a girl from KENOSHA, so no problem here.
Mostly really liked this one, but had to run the alphabet for CHINWA_/_ARO. Natticked me, but I'll accept that other people know CHINWAG.
I remember GARO, not because I'm a Dolphins fan or anything, but just because there are certain names that, once heard, stick with me. It kinda rolls off the tongue, don'tcha think: GARO Yepremian? Good old Armenian name. That forced me to get rid of the obvious (?) CHATTER, the CH-word for yak. It was a mistake that cost a flat "easy" rating. And the actual answer, CHINWAG??? OMG, spellcheck doesn't even redline it! Never heard of it, nor SAZERAC. The NE was last to go, and even after I had it filled in, I doubted I had it right. SAZERAC, really? Well, one thing for sure, it has to be capitalized, because it's not a word.
Those two WOEs took it to the easy-medium level. Minor glitches include TSK for TUT and LOO for LAV. I liked the cross-reference for Tovah Feldshuh, @Rondo's yeah-baby of the day, who was Agent 99 to ADAMS' 86. This didn't take as long as most Saturday puzzles do; did I "get smart" along the way? Enough of that; I'd better employ the cone of silence. A.
IAN SMELTER
AGESAGO a SEXY SLOVENE QUEEN named CHRISSY
was KNOWNAS a CHINWAG, her LIPS were so busy,
for a SEENOTE you could date her,
but when a famous AERATOR,
it would RUINOUS for ANYMORE CALLSUP to that missy.
--- GARO AGOUTIS
A really good puz and easy enough except for not knowing SAZERAC and write-over at gyrO. Started with only the L and T for LAV and TUT since those tricksters can be the Loo and Tsk so often.
Spent a night in KENOSHA last summer in a motel that billed itself as a hidden gem on Lake Michigan. Well, it was right on the lake, kinda hidden, certainly no gem.
I will go with the obvious in SEXY yeah baby CHRISSY as played by Suzanne. French oui bebe Anouk AIMEE could have been in there too, but I suppose that’s not “fresh” enough for some critics. Nor would the Pure Prairie League song AIMEE.
SCHLITZ used to be a “premium” beer back in the day, AGESAGO. I remember SCHLITZ cost $2.25 a 12-pack versus $2.00 for Old Milwaukee (then made by SCHLITZ). That was a big difference for a poor student.
I never programmed in COBOL, but did write some Fortran. Glad those days are done.
I would LABEL this puz as very nice and ONPOINT. I’m not being SATIRIC.
Great puzzle: lots of fairly easy stuff with a judicious admixture of more challenging entries/clues. The overall impression is one of apparent intelligence in the construction.
Putting in Tsk early on made me abandon the NE and solve more or less counter-clockwise. Wanted Laetril for the apricot compound at first, but HELIPAD screamed SCHLITZ for 1A, and the NW came easily after that. The SW was the easiest part of the puzzle, and curiously, I found the SE almost as easy.
Moving back to the NE, I got enough to finally have to get rid of Tsk (and therefore some word starting with 'silk'. Never heard of SAZERAC, and will never have one. You want a rye cocktail? Just sip Crown Royal Northern Harvest straight up--brilliant.
Anyhoo, this was a wonderful Saturday effort in my opinion with just enough of the easy stuff to keep the momentum up and to suss out the harder stuff.
Most of the East was tough, but the NE was for me ungettable. SAZERAC?? AGOUTIS? TOSSPOT? TRANQ?? Then, to add to the AGONY, TUT instead of TSK, and COTTONY instead of something really soft and delicate like, say, organza or chiffon?
Big DNF and not much fun.
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