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19th-century German novelist Theodor / SAT 5-23-26 / Jazz drummer DeRosa / Eerie substance faked in 19th-century ghost hoaxes / Canal blocker? / Chess puzzle challenge, maybe / Old black-and-white police autos, to Brits / Standard 1L course, informally / Lizard predator of Africa / A boxer's might knock you out / Tourist nickname for a Southern mecca, to the chagrin of many locals / Sales job that Forbes magazine once dubbed "the original side hustle," informally / Magpie lookalike with black-and-white plumage / Title for some fictional lords / Accessory on a pub counter
Saturday, May 23, 2026
Constructor: Kameron Austin Collins
Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging
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| [37D: Title for some fictional lords = DARTH] |
Word of the Day: Theodor FONTANE (32D: 19th-century German novelist Theodor) —
Theodor Fontane (German pronunciation: [ˈtʰeːodoɐ̯ fɔnˈtaːnə] ⓘ; 30 December 1819 – 20 September 1898) was a German novelist and poet, regarded by many as the most important 19th-century German-language realist author. He published the first of his novels, for which he is best known today, only at age 58 after a career as a journalist. Many of his novels delve into topics that were more or less taboo for discussion in the polite society of Fontane's day, including marital infidelity, class differences, urban vs. rural differences, abandonment of children, and suicide. His novels sold well during his lifetime and several have been adapted for film or audio works.Fontane's novels are known for their complex, often sceptical view of society in the German empire. He shows different social and political parts of society meeting and sometimes clashing, his main characters range from lower-middle class to Prussian nobility. Fontane is known as a writer of realism, not only because he was conscientious about the factual accuracy of details in fictional scenes, but also because he depicted his characters in terms of what they said or did and refrained from overtly imputing motives to them. Other trademarks of Fontane's work are their strongly drawn female characters (such as Effi Briest and Frau Jenny Treibel), tender irony and vivid conversations between characters. (wikipedia)
• • •
["... a chi-HUA-HUA ..."]
Lots and lots of things I just didn't know today. We've covered FONTANE and RIG VEDA and CON (i.e. Contract … nope, I’m being told Constitutional) LAW. There's also PANDA CARS (which I have heard of before, maybe from crosswords (?) ... but I wanted PROWL CARS) (27A: Old black-and-white police autos, to Brits), and MUDLARK (10D: Magpie lookalike with black-and-white plumage) and SOAP STARS (lol I only *just* got that the clue is talking about stars on TV, not stars in the sky) (24A: Daytime regulars), and SAND SNAKE (it's a snake *and* a lizard?) (24D: Lizard predator of Africa) (oh, the snakes prey on lizards! Got it), MARLSTONE (heard of MARL, which is how I ended up completing the answer, but not MARLSTONE). I think that's it for wtfs. I had real trouble, though, with the LOUD in LOUD SHIRT (really wanted a *kind* of shirt, like a style: Hawaiian, polo, something like that). Had TOUR SHIRT in there for a few seconds. Like ... the kind you buy at a concert with the band's tour dates on it ... and maybe "Look at Me!" was supposed to denote that the band was on tour and you should/could go look ... at them? (Yeah I see it makes no sense now). Never seen a singular HEADPHONE before, so that was weird (17D: Canal blocker?). Really wanted something to do with earwax there. Got very thrown by the twin epithets, since one of them was using the term more neutrally, to mean simply "name" (def. 1a) (40A: Epithet lead-in = AKA) and the other was using it to mean a disparaging word (def. 1b) (37A: Many an epithet)—the DIRTY part of DIRTY NAME definitely took some hacking to get. I *think* that covers all my trouble spots, but ... we'll see in the Bullets below. Maybe there are more. Despite / because of all the trouble I had, I enjoyed this puzzle. I liked that it wasn't just tough, but had some genuinely delightful answers in it. DOG BREATH, ECTOPLASM, and HOTLANTA were my top three (HOTLANTA because of its clue, which made me sincerely laugh out loud) (47A: Tourist nickname for a Southern mecca, to the chagrin of many locals).
Bullets:
- 1A: They might be settled atop stools (BAR BETS) — first answer: BOTTOMS. So that's how things started for me.
- 20A: Old auto company based in Lansing, Mich. (REO) — had the O and though I know REO well from decades of doing crosswords, for some reason the only answer I could think of was GTO (which is not a "company"—it's a model of Pontiac)
- 22A: Jazz drummer DeRosa (CLEM) — yeah here we go, found another one I didn't know at all. Don't see many CLEMs in the wild. Weird that two of them are drummers! (CLEM Burke was the drummer for Blondie):
- 2D: Sales job that Forbes magazine once dubbed "the original side hustle," informally (AVON REP) — Just stared at "sales job" wondering what it could possibly mean. "Informally" is weird. It's clearly signifying the abbreviation (REP), but the only term I ever heard for this "sales job" was AVON LADY. The catchphrase was "Avon calling!" but the salespeople were definitely known as Avon Ladies.
- 27D: Swedish American model Porizkova (PAULINA) — being an '80s kid really, really helped here. PAULINA Porizkova was a supermodel married to Ric Ocasek, frontman for The Cars. She's featured in the video for "Drive"
- 45D: Little squirt (TOT) — had the "T" and wanted TOT but because I've done so many damn crosswords in my life, I also knew that TAD fit the clue (def. 2), so I had to leave those last two letters blank.
That's all for today. See you next time.
[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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62 comments:
Medium-Challenging. A proper Saturday puzzle. Liked it. My experience was very similar to OFL's except I had sloth before GREED for the one-of-Se7en at 23A.
* * * * _
Overwrites (besides the aforementioned):
My tac preceder was tic before it was SEA (7D).
I had ShAvE before SCARE for the 25D close call.
MATE IN two before ONE for the 35A chess challenge.
Sugar daddy before MAPLE at 38D.
WOEs:
Magpie lookalike MUDLARK at 10D.
Never heard of the African predator SAND SNAKE (24D)
The 3D Hindu hymnal RIG VEDA.
Jazz drummer CLEM DeRosa at 22A.
27D model PAULINA Porzkova.
Cement ingredient MARLSTONE at 31A.
The 32D German novelist Thodor FONTANE.
When I saw the Clem DeRosa clue, I thought maybe I was the only one who will know this. When I taught English many years ago I had a student who was in a rock band with Clem DeRosa’s son, and I had a Charlie Mingus album that Clem played on as a last minute substitute. So I had it signed by Clem, and I still have it. The DeRosa’s lived in Suffolk County on Long Island. He is obscure even among afficiandos so I found this clue incredibly obscure, yet I was happy it was my “gimme” because I struggled with this.
I agree with OFL's assessment. My stumble was to invent the "Maui Shirt" which seemed correct but is wholly fictional!
My solve was sort of the opposite of Rex’s today. The corners were fairly challenging, but that center—hoo boy! A sea of white for quite a while. Being an anytime-but-the-eighties kid, I had a tough time with the Swedish model’s name. That L at the cross of PAULINA and MARLSTONE was the last letter in.
An appropriately hard Saturday. Thanks, KAC!
CON LAW usually refers to Constitutional law, not contract law (that class is usually just "Contracts"). I had a very similar experience to @Rex; nothing in the NW until DOG BREATH, finished the middle from NE to SW without getting into either corner, HOTLANTA and ECTOPLASM saving me in the SE and DOG BREATH and GREED in the NW. A suitably difficult Saturday.
Right out the gate I saw the clue for 1A and, knowing Saturday puzzles are trying to trick me, confidently wrote PIGEONS and thought myself clever. Because, y’know, stool pigeons…are a thing. My brain didn’t see the need the need to make that make sense. And that was indeed the perfect indicator of how this puzzle went for me.
Glad that you experienced solvers got your Saturday workout. This one beat me up, and when succumbing to looking up the answers I had no way of getting without crosses (Rex covered most of them), I enjoyed imagining what it might be like to be able to fight through a challenge like this one one day. I missed all the zippy Friday answers from yesterday to keep me delighted in the meantime.
Lizard predators eat lizards
Wanted to be first. In Rome airport. Easy.
Wow, that was definitely tough. 28 minutes. Got stuck at the bottom (had faTLANTA for a while.... STOMACH finally corrected that. Also had BEERtAp before MAT and that took me forever to fix. Like others, never thought I could be so thankful for a little DOGBREATH. GREED was also a help, cuz no other deadly sin would fit there. Funny that ENVIES is sitting right on top of GREED. SAND, PAUL, and GOREY all took a lot of tries. Thank goodness for HASTA, RONAN and the TSARS to give me a foothold in the SW.... Wanted some type of PLANing like hydroPLANing before I finally near the end figured out it was some kind of LARK and so it was GANGPLANK... that finally helped me see GOREY and the other mysteries of the SW part of the central grid. Had orthO before NEURO. CLEM was a WOE. Only 62 words, very clean, impressive puzzle. Enjoyed PANDACARS and ECTOPLASM. Thank you for a real work of art, Kameron!
Ball buster of a grid - wide open but not overly friendly between regions. Started slow in the NW but once I got into that center things cleared up quickly. Loaded with trivia - felt like some of his New Yorker offerings - knowing things like CLEM and RIG VEDA help.
The MAPLE Trees Remember
MARL and MARL STONE are different - typically MARL is used in cement mixes but I’m sure a dictionary description allows both. The entire center block is outstanding. Similar to Rex - I know PAULINA as Mrs. Ocasek.
Swimsuit Issue
Didn’t know FONTANE but the crosses were fair. STRONG STOMACH dead center is fantastic. @Z would enjoy MARINAS. DARTH gives a nice misdirect. Learned MUD LARK and am intrigued.
Going To THE WEST
Pretty much what I expect from KAC - somewhat offbeat cluing that relies more on knowing things than straight wordplay. I tend to fall in line with his data sets. This was an enjoyable Saturday morning solve. Kate Chin Park’s Stumper is a different beast today - highly segmented grid with a testing spanner - another sweet puzzle.
HOT ‘LANTA
Paulina is also in the Cars video You Might Think
Finally a proper Saturday puzzle! My wife and I, normally a force unstoppable, just couldn’t get anywhere in the NW until like Rex “dogbreath” finally fell. Loved the challenge.
Well, I solved it, so I feel good about that. And I did enjoy it along the way. But I have to admit I cheated a bit--I couldn't remember what the 7 deadly sins were, so I looked them up to get GREED. But I got other unknowns, like PAULINA, entirely from crosses and plausibility. She helped, btw, as I had YOU... as my epithet lead-in.
I got all tangled up in the central corridor. I thought the police might drive zebrA CARS (to match the pedestrian crossings) before I remembered PANDAs -- and I thought the lizard eater might be a secretary, as in secretary bird. So I had to just grind away, letter by letter, to get it all to come right.The Southern corners were easier. I've always heard them called pub MATs. but pub was in the clue, so BEER seemed the next best thing. Got FONTANE from the crosses, knew RIG VEDA, and had to remember that DARTH was a title, not a name.
Identifying those fliers was the hardest part, and where I finished. Doorsteps? Lounges? Aha, AVIARIES!
After solving, I looked up MARLSTONE in Dictionary.com. Here's the whole answer: "An indurated marl."
Wonderful Saturday challenge, keep 'em coming!
Was so sure it was going to be BARFLYS settled on the stools it messed me up for a little while.
Also had “OPALITE” making it hard to see that the cement word was going to end it “stone” — not that I know what Marlstone is
I had trouble in the LOUD SHIRT/ MARLSTONE area for a while, but wrote in BAR BETS at 1A as my first entry and the NW fell easily. ECTOPLASM/HOTLANTA took some time to come into view.
Happy Saturday!
Ah yes, a Saturday puzzle that apparently confused “difficulty” with “withholding basic information from the solver until Stockholm syndrome sets in.” The grid greets you with approximately three gettable entries and then spends the next twenty minutes staring silently while you try to remember whether you have ever, in fact, known a single noun in your entire life.
This is one of those Saturdays where every clue arrives carrying the smug confidence of a waiter describing a wine you absolutely cannot afford. “Oh, you don’t know this obscure literary figure, oddly specific geological term, niche bit of cultural trivia, or antique British expression? Fascinating.” The puzzle’s central aesthetic appears to be Googling forbidden. MARLSTONE? PANDA CARS? Sure. Why not. Crossword as hostage negotiation.
And yet—and this is the infuriating part—it kind of works.
Because underneath the aggressive obscurity is a very competent machine. The thing is tightly made. The clueing keeps pulling the classic Saturday trick where nothing makes sense until suddenly, humiliatingly, it makes perfect sense and you realize the constructor had you in a full nelson the whole time. DOG BREATH gets a laugh. DARTH clued obliquely enough to make you briefly feel like you’d forgotten how language functions. A few clues have that magical late-week quality where the answer materializes and your immediate reaction is annoyance at how fair it actually was.
Still, there is an unmistakable “crossword person crossword” energy here. A puzzle built by and for people who enjoy remembering that some German novelist existed or that a jazz drummer had a first name, as if this constitutes ordinary human knowledge. Every section contains at least one answer whose job is simply to stand there radiating superiority until enough crosses force capitulation.
The solve experience: first pass, despair. Midpoint, bargaining. Final stretch, reluctant admiration. By the end you feel less like you solved a crossword and more like you survived an oral exam administered by a particularly literate owl. Solved? Yes. Enjoyed? Against my better judgment.
Hey All !
Proper tough SatPuz that I missed by a one-letter DNF. Argh! Had MAlLSTONE/GOlEY, the L for the R. Dang it. Haven't heard of either one.
NW corner, had BARflyS in first, thinking I was very clever. Had badBREATH in also. Wanted Ski for SPA. The sin could've been GREED, sloth, pride or wrath.
SW first section to fall. Believe I got most of the middle done, then NE, SW, NW. Tough, but figureoutable. Except that darn L. MARLSTONE, wanted maybe MAILSTONE, MALLSTONE, MAULSTONE. Went with incorrect L.
A pretty FAB puz, KAC. I BETS it was tough for many here.
HASTA mañana.
Hope y'all have a great Saturday!
One F
RooMonster
DarrinV
Thanks for sharing this story. I go pretty deep with jazz but had never heard of him.
Fontane is great! You should read Effi Briest - it will bring you to tears!
Different woman : Susan Gallagher
I'm willing to bet that you were the first. In Rome airport.
Well, hello KAC.
Hello to no-knows, misdirects, wit, humor, a slew of answers never seen in the box before, and a junk-free grid despite seas of white.
To be more specific:
• Delightful and interesting answers – DOG BREATH, PANDA CARS, GANG PLANK, LOUD SHIRT, DIRTY NAME, HOTLANTA, STRONG STOMACH.
• That astounding stagger-stack of seven answers that not only includes five NYT answer debuts, but two vertical answers that cross the entire stack – that are debuts as well! What? Huh?
And the thing you can’t quantify – that unmistakable KAC personality that inhabits the air around you as you uncover squares.
My brain got to “Whee!” in one splat-fill area, and, in another, got to gloriously grind at an impervious block of diamond until (cue angelic chorus) the tiniest sliver of light emerged.
Kameron, you are an original with remarkable talent. Your puzzles astound, entertain, and wow me every time. Thank you so much for this one!
Did Paulina become a Swedish citizen? I always thought she was born in (then) Czechoslovakia.
My first encounter with the “Avon Lady” was Edward Scissorshands. Love that movie.
If you are interested, the first iteration was a 10" album and I forget the title; was rereleased by Bethlehem in 1957 as The Jazz Experiments of Charlie Mingus, then again in the 1970's by Everest Records Jazz and Folk Series simply as Charlie Mingus. Songs include "Thrice Upon a Theme" and "Four Hands". Some really great music, largely forgotten today.
This was ridiculously hard, because there were so many things I didn't know at all. Like CLEM. And MARLSTONE?! I feel like it is a miracle that I finished it at all. Very satisfying.
Shouldn't 18 across have said: "when tripled, substitute for etc.," but though? Nobody says "Yadda," and then stops.
Well, not so tough if BAR BETS goes in right away. I did run into difficulty in the MARLSTONE/DIRTY NAME (green paint!) area. Surprised at Rex's rating today as a lot of fill felt like desperation (CLEM, RONAN, FONTANE) and other than DOG BREATH, none of the long answers particularly sparkle. I mean, REACTANT, LOUD SHIRT, SOAP STARS?
On the plus side, love to see Edward GOREY.
Couldn't finish it, even after multiple cheats.
Also she was born in Czechoslovakia, to dissident parents who defected to Sweden during the Prague Spring. Her mother snuck back in to try to retrieve her a few years later and was imprisoned. Eventually they were allowed to emigrate after a movement led by Olof Palme.
She was “discovered” by a modeling agent (whose son became the lead singer of the Strokes) and eventually found her way into a Cars video where she met Ric Ocasek.
Now, that’s a life.
People sure love to share that they're traveling. Enjoy your trip, Anon.
Too tough for me! But like Rex, when I finally got it all filled in, it looked like it should have been easier. Started out on much the wrong foot with BARflys (bad plural?) and BADguyS, and never really recovered due to the tough PPP and tricky cluing. I think if I had done better with the other clues I might have succeeded in guessing the CLEMs, PAULINAs, RIGVEDA’s, FONTANE’s and others.
Although the ladies have dominated the AVON landscape, while in school I played basketball in a local rec league and our team organizer/coach was an AVON rep. He could sell you anything even if you didn’t want it. Last I was able to track him on the internet years later he was in Hollywood doing well as a performers rep.
I’m feeling pretty good that I held my own with a grid that even gave Rex issues in some spots. Fortunately, BAR BETS was the first thing that came to mind when I read that clue. I confirmed that via RIGVEDA, which I will confess to looking up when I read the clue because, well, I had no clue. I find Saturdays much more enjoyable that way rather than staring at empty white space.
I think there was also a wheelhouse / wavelength situation going on as answers like MATE IN ONE, SOAP STARS, ECTOPLASM helped keep things moving when I bumped into the dicier stuff like FONTANE, CONLAW, MARLSTONE, MUDLARK, and even YADDA.
Aren't BARBETS just tiny barbs? Like "Sometimes you're not as cool as you usually are."
I seem to remember Sesame Street having. a "letter of the day" feature where homage was paid to a particular letter. Like on the day that "B" starred I remember them doing "Letter B", sung to the tune of Let it Be. Anyway, you've got 26 shows to get through. I think they were in order, SOAPSTARS the day before a Q.
With [Many an epithet] being DIRTYNAME, and with [Epithet lead-in] being a three letter word that starts with "A", you can guess what I put.
What a harsh critic does after the auto show: PANDACARS
At the talkies last night I thought I saw RONAN MIA in the far row.
1D [BADEGGS] is kind of a theme in our household.
I think the giant taxpayer-funded slush fund for criminals sounds like CONLAW.
I loved my struggle through this one. Thanks, Kameron Austin Collins.
Cheap thrill of getting BARBETS right off the bat.
Wow. Really had to put my nose to the MARLSTONE to solve that one. Thanks, KAC!
Farrow won his Pulitzer despite all the RONAN sentences in his writing.
I know a girl who kept transferring from college to college hoping to find a MATEINONE.
MLB's decision to BARBETS got Pete Rose in big trouble.
SOAPSTARS: What you see when you drop your bar of Dial in the shower and slam your head into the wall bending over to retrieve it.
From late yesterday: Thanks to the Anony Mouse who corrected me on my O'Neill/Wilde error. D'oh!
I, too, was saved by dog breath. Not a sentence I ever thought I would write. Tough but fun puzzle.
TGFG
Thank God For Google.
Yep, it was tough. My own journey got going at the bottom and I had to work my way up, which seems fitting.
My son just finished 2L and I've only ever heard CONstitutional LAW from him. I'll ask when he gets up. [Ah, he's up, and he confirms, and even says he usually just says "CON" with his fellow students.] Never heard of HOT'LANTA either, and Rex didn't explain it in his notes. Given all this chagrin they speak of, I figured maybe it was a red light district or something, but no, it's (a) just a reference to hot humid summers in Atlanta, so what else is new in the south, or (b) a song by the Allman Brothers. I guess all the chagrin is just that it's kind of dumb and hackneyed and annoying to the locals? Let me see your Allman Brothers and raise you with Little Feat's Oh Atlanta.
Objection raised to MATE IN ONE. That's not really a type of chess puzzle you'll find in any compilation. MATE IN two, certainly, and MATE IN three I believe rather more. The only plausible context I can think of for MATE IN ONE is where you are coaching a complete beginner who has recently learned how the pieces move and you see whether they can spot the mate. Otherwise it would be completely pointless, as one can easily enumerate all the moves available in a given position, and there is no consideration of how the other side might reply as in an ordinary chess puzzle (which ramps up the number of possibilities of play sequences dramatically), you just mate them on the spot and that's that. Thus I'm calling BS on the cluing: this is not a subgenre of chess puzzle.
STRONG STOMACH... I was expecting something more... figurative like the clue says, you know, something along the lines of iron STOMACH. I played with SecONd STOMACH -- no, I never heard of that either, but then there are many things I haven't heard of. Anyhow the entry comes as a slight letdown. STRONG STOMACH, that's it? 'Kay.
DIRTY NAME. I suppose this is dirty not in a sexual or "naughty" way, but more like a nasty, mean way: think Trump and all the dumb epithets he comes up with. My god what an embarrassing idiot. I still can hardly believe he's President.
The best section of the puzzle was my last section, up in the NW. DOG BREATH got me good. I am not swooning with the same delight as Rex evinces (I mean, it's not a pleasant thing to think about), but the clue is primo. AVIARIES also got me good. RIG VEDA was easy by comparison.
When I saw KAC's name and the expanse of white, I thought it's gird up your loins time. Overall, a good stiff puzzle. Respect.
As a proud ATLien who lives in midtown two blocks from Peachtree, can confirm the HOTLANTA chagrin.
Nobody says HOTLANTA.
They sure do.
But there’s evidence 6:01 was travelling. He or she could be workong, scrubbing toilets in the Rome airport.
Had OFL's "oh oh" experience in the NW, thought both BARTABS and BARBETS but didn't enter anything, moved to the NE where ANY begat YADDA and slow but steady progress from there. MUDLARK is such an unlikely combination that it is memorable. I have known two people named CLEM in my entire life, our family doctor when I was growing up and his son. That's it, that's the list.
Today's faith-solve answers included PAULINA, ECTOPLASM, HOTLANTA, and DOGBREATH, wrote them in and hoped they were right. Hello to Herr FONTANE, somehow have never heard of you. By your crosses shall we know ye. Ditto for RIGVEDA. Nice to learn about the SANDSNAKE, which is as unlikely a combination as a MUDLARK. Or PANDACAR, for that matter.
Nice to get all the way to the end and discover that BARBETS was right after all, and helpful in finishing.
Very worthy Saturday indeed, KAC. You Keep Authoring Crosswords that hit the mark, and thanks for all the fun.
No. Hotlanta was embraced perhsps even couned by the homosexual community. Every local knows this, and of course cringes when some ignoramus ises it.
Todd Packer calls it that!
Favorite comment by far! Witty AND real!
I’m gonna trust the gay Black constructor over the anonymous guy who can’t spell 🤷🏽♀️ that clue is undeniably correct as worded
Do we know you? Your writing seems familiar ( lucid and entertaining). This matched my solving experience exactly!
—Susan in Maine
thanks for the shout out to clem burke. a fantastic, yet underrated drummer.
If you can’t say anything horrible about a puzzle then I won’t say it either. No🎈for me.
Same
Agree. Also didn't care for loud shirts, which seems to be s made up term
This was about 50% more difficult than the average Saturday. The NW was the easiest section. I cold guessed BARBETS right off the bat.BABIES, ERRED and TIES all dropped right in. I had a BADBREATH/DOGBREATH write over followed by BADDIES/BADEGGS but those were quickly fixed
That big middle was the real challenge. I couldn't quite wrangle the NE to help out so I had to restart in the SW with NSA and HASTA. RONAN started out as DYLAN then became ROWAN as the downs kept changing it. MATEINONE and MARLSTONE are incredibly similar I had no idea on either and the center bogged down again.
The little stuff in the SE corner came to the rescue. BOTH and TOT gave me ECTOPLASM and HOTLANTA. The SE was nearly as easy as the NW.
Now I had STOMACH to complete STRONG. Between that and OPALINE I had the leverage to work through that ascending stair stack and backfill the NE.
When I saw the name of the constructor and the grid shape I knew I was in for a great solving experience and I was not disappointed.
OK, now I want to see a puzzle with the clue "Can be done" solved as FIGUREOUTABLE. Thanks for giving me a morning smile!
I just assumed opalite was the word (due to the song) until I finally realized the across didn't make sense then. Turns out opalite isn't even a word. Thanks Taylor
I found that righthAnd and DOGBREATH are both 9 letters, which made the NW that much more difficult. Still not seeing how BARBETS fits the clue?
I found this one more easy-medium than Rex, though a lot of that was probably luck. For once, I was able to throw in the 1A, BAR BETS, immediately, though I actually think Rex’s BOTTOMS is a better answer. I dropped in “right hook” for 16A before 6D (TIES) led me pretty quickly somehow to DOG BREATH, my favorite answer in the grid. I wish more of the long answers had that kind of sparkle, but most of ‘em were a little dry (I’m looking at you, LOUD SHIRT, MARLSTONE). Still, a pretty enjoyable Saturday puzzle.
Great comment!
This was joyless.
Is MUDLARK a DIRTYNAME?
havethickskin fit for 14D (strong stomach)
I skipped over the NW as not gettable at first, but as soon as the TH at the end of 16A showed up, DOG BREATH got me in there and done. No, the SE, which Rex found easy, was my longest sector to solve even with ECTOPLASM in right away. Thank you, MONTE/MAPLE, or I'd still be staring at the grid.
The names today were no-knows, PAULINA and FONTANE and the RIG of RIGVEDA. I thought 29D Edward was GOREn for a while. CLEM also though crosses took care of him nicely.
That Roxy Music song that Rex provided the link to - I have that album on CD and cannot confirm that I've ever heard that song. It doesn't have any similarity to any other Roxy Music song I know. Interesting.
Thanks, KAC, for an fun Saturday puzzle!
@Gary. In case you missed it, a late post yesterday called the puzzle psychotically easy.
Won't count PAULINA, unless you're feeling inordinately generous.
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