I opened the puzzle, scanned it, and delightedly wrote in Irene Papas, the brilliant actress I'd seen on my first date with my husband. We had both been secretly trying to negotiate an opening for a relationship more connected than chatting while he painted my kitchen. (My roommate had moved out a couple of weeks before, to move in with the man she ultimately married. Anyhow, my current relationship was not going well, there was this gorgeous man on a ladder in my kitchen, who talked literature and poetry while he expertly prepared and smoothed enamel on the cabinets over the sink, and the theater was only a block or two from my apartment. "If you've read 'Electra,' you really need to see this movie." That was sixty years ago, and I still think Irena Papas was terrific. Then I started the rest of the puzzle and got nowhere. In desperation, I looked up a couple of names I'd never seen before and the iceberg started to melt. The ChChChChia fell into place, but the creel had to be salvaged from sreel, which I had pretended might be some kind of fancy trap on a reel. Anyway, I thought a creel was something you hauled the dead fish around in. (Column to the rescue.) Each part of the puzzle was engaging and witty, but the proper names were both my nemesis and my salvation. Thank you, Kameron. This one was a monumental Saturday workout.
@dutchiris I absolutely loved reading your comment! Cheers to you and your gorgeous, cultured man on a ladder!! To 60 and counting!! My gorgeous man and I have no chance of reaching 60 years together, having met a little bit later in life, but we will celebrate 21 years married in a week and a half, and I'm grateful for every minute!! You inspire me in so many ways!!
@dutchiris What a wonderful comment!
@heathieJ @Francis @crevecoeur @Hobby Gardener Thank you for your comments on my comment. I'm so pleased that you enjoyed my memory too.
This had too many proper noun answers to be enjoyable, especially in the SE corner.
This was painful and not in a good way
So, when I was in my early 20s, I visited the DEAD SEA. I was by myself at the time, and everyone said to go and see it. I really didn’t know anything about it. When I arrived, I saw many people just standing in the water. Hardly anyone was moving. I just thought it was a stodgy crowd. Back then, the way I liked to enter a lake or the ocean was to run full speed into the water, maybe even splash those nearby, and I was going to do that this time, and show these people what fun looks like. What I didn’t know was that the water was so salty and mineral–rich, you could actually sit on top of it. That salt, if it splashes in your face, seriously sears the eyes. So, as I began my run from a great distance from the sea’s lip, I could see the beginnings of looks of terror in the faces of those on the beach as well as in the water. As I got closer, I saw their arms flailing, heard shouts of “NOOOOOO”. It was like one of those slow motion sequences in a movie, with faces zoomed in on, and voices slow motion slow and low. The people in the water turned their backs to me and covered their eyes. People on the beach were running to stop my invasion of the water. Oh, I got the message and stopped in time, but I will never forget that moment. Hadn’t thought about it in forever. But today when I uncovered DEAD SEA, it was as if I were there.
@Lewis: haha, I love this story and how you tell it.
@Lewis I've been 'swimming' in the DEADSEA twice, and it is an amazing experience. You can just float around, but not really swim. The water is too thick! I like to brag that I've been swimming in the two lowest places on earth. The DEADSEA is lowest in elevation, and I swam, very briefly!!, in the Antarctic Ocean. It's the lowest in latitude. I have a t-shirt that says "I survived the Polar Plunge."
I hated it more with every non-word. Gagged on "baldish," retched at "tented," and just snorted with horror at the clue "altarations." Never heard of "The Gift That Grows," and a jingle is a musical phrase, not a phonetic one. Ugh ugh ugh.
@Murhatroid Funny, I was just finishing breakfast as I happened on your sentiments. Ba da ba ba ba.
@Murhatroid ugh all over but when I got baldish, I just threw up.
@Murhatroid Language is a living, changing thing. If you say it, and I can understand it, it can be a word. That’s exactly how we got where we are now, ennit?
@Murhatroid if the chia pet song isn't a jingle, then there's no such thing as a jingle.
Well that might the best 1A clue and answer I’ve ever seen. Wonderful puzzle! Thanks muchly!
When steak tartare goes on sale, it's a raw deal. (That pun's hardly well done.)
@Mike Wasn’t there a Cooke and Fitzgerald jazz duet about this topic? I mean, it is a risk for Sam & Ella. (The whole topic is making me turn a bit greenish—and that’s no eco-lie).
@Mike Some say it is meat and just mayo, and egg me on to forget the rest, but it can be dicey, a risky caper, and you can wind up in a pickle, or Dijon or even a hospital.
@Mike You've a cruda number of responses already.
Steady climb but got it done. BALDISH is a term used by no one, even when it applies to me.
@Joe - "The case has seen the once high-flying Cerimedo reduced to a slumping presence in a hoodie as authorities have shuffled the BALDISH, heavyset figure to hearings and lockups." - From Los Angeles Times, Sep. 13, 2026 "He was kind of BALDISH, with a very thick neck, and very ruddy complexion, and didn't smile very much." - From Scientific American, Apr. 13, 2023 "The deal-making titan who met me was a small, BALDISH guy with wire-framed glasses and a sweet smile." -From Forbes, Aug. 3, 2015 "Yeah, my friend, you need to put yourself in the care of an oldish BALDISH barber." -From Slate, Sep. 24, 2014 "Thayre stood with his feet well apart and his BALDISH head thrown back." -From Destiny, by Charles Neville Buck
@Captain Q Yup, I don't understand why people are all HET up about BALDISJ.
Now this is the Kameron Austin Collins we know and love! (Well, at least I do). I admit I kind of flew through this, not because I thought it was easy but because I was having so much darned fun! I didn’t stop on any one thing, just jumped around and seemed to be channeling Kameron’s mind in a few places. I admit UPPERVOLTA and DIANFOSSEY, the twin Africa clues today, really got me a foothold—not my usual speciality. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen IRENEPAPAS but somehow the name was cowering in the recesses of my mind. You had me at BATARANGS. ESTATESALE, AVIDREADER, BALDISH, and STRESSEATS are instant classics and the kind of clueing we expect from KAC. A few wrong turns for me—I had CANTSTOPIT before CANTHELPIT which led me to what I thought was a brilliant deduction of HEAVEHO for “the shaft”. HELL before OVEN and CRIPES before CRIKEY. I imagine we will get a lot of hollering about trivia today and proper nouns—remember, it is a Saturday. I also imagine there will be a few Naticks for some although everything was close to my wheelhouse in at least one direction or another—CREEL and CDRIVE was the closest I had to one today, as I don’t know what a CREEL is but I was pretty sure CDRIVE was the main one. And finally I expect our friends overseas may find some of the Americana a stretch. I can visualize the mind of one of my good buddies here exploding already at CHCHCHCHIA. And to that I say, nobody from Poland should be complaining about a lack of vowels.
@SP Well said. And, yeah if one hasn't grown up with those incessant commercials here I imagine that first clue will be diabolically hard. It was quite tough for me just because there are so many ways to spell the stuttering old line embedded in my head. I didn't exactly fly through this one but it was surprisingly speedy when all was said and done.
It took 30 minutes, which is roughly my Saturday average, but I managed to solve the puzzle after what I considered a valiant struggle. Or so I thought. Even though everything looked good, I got the dreaded "So close" pop-up. I checked and double checked my grid but I couldn't see any obvious errors. Feeling lost, I decided to consult the answer key. My error turned out to be going for eLSA as the classic film character, which resulted in having BALDeSt for "Not all there upstairs?" - it sort of made sense. I have no idea what any Kansas fort is called, so I accepted tAYS without question (it certainly wouldn't be the strangest American place name I've seen in these puzzles). Ultimately then, as usual, it was the trivia that defeated me. I generally enjoyed the solve. I found it challenging but doable, and I thought the misdirection was spot on. Knowing BATARANGS, PAPAS (even if I had her as Maria initially), models of VOLVOS, and __ER VOLTA (I relied for crosses to remind me if it was lowER or UPPER) helped a lot. Had I known less of today's trivia, I'd have needed lookups and reveals, probably. The CHCHCHCHIA thing was a bit ridicuIous, no? Could somebody please explain 'All worked (up)" solving to HET to me? I don't get it. What is HET? Btw, we spell AESOP Ezop in Polish. Learning alternative spellings of names I've known for decades is among the biggest challenges of solving crossword puzzles in another language.
@Andrzej It’s old American slang. You could say “all het up” for “all worked up”. No one would ever say it now, and who knows if anyone really did!
Oh yeah, and I knew DIAN FOSSEY, too, but I had to trust myself on the unusual spelling of the given name.
@Andrzej ELSA wasn’t a bad guess. Not sure if “Frozen” is considered a classic yet, but ELSA was also the name of the lion in “Born Free.”
@Andrzej Honestly, while I enjoyed the puzzle a lot, I agree with you that the 1A answer was ridiculous. I don't feel it was an appropriate entry for many reasons. Potential obscurity (certainly for people like you) and very uncertain spelling. It's a bit like asking us to spell a grunt, only worse. I'm a little surprised people are so happy with it.
@Andrzej Yes completely ridiculous.
@Andrzej I'm not certain, but I've always assumed that HET was a rural variant of "heated". I probably heard it from Granny on "The Beverly Hillbillies". And, checking myself, here's what Collins says: in British English (hɛt IPA Pronunciation Guide) verb 1. archaic or dialect a past tense and past participle of heat. Merriam-Webster, on the other hand, has the first listing as a short form of "heterosexual".
This felt like a classic puzzle in the worst way. Overused crossword cliches, out-dated references, just a 2/10 time all around.
16 upvotes halfway through the day? Jeez, y’all need to spend more time in the archives. This was an exceedingly easy Saturday by olden standards. Btw I don’t completely disagree with the premise of this comment — lots of the old puzzles were unduly hard due to cheap tricks*. But as someone who solved today’s puzzle in about 1/4 of the time ye olde Saturdays used to take me: truly, do more archived Saturdays from 10-15 years ago! *i actually don’t really mind the cheaper tricks from back in the day. But if you do those, you’ve just gotta either be unusually smart, or accept that you’ll occasionally burn more than an hour on a puzzle before cheating anyway. Personally, I exist halfway between that either/or.
The most difficult puzzle for me that I’ve seen on this site in many a year, and I mean that as a compliment. I still remember learning about Ouagadougou, the capital of Upper Volta, in tenth grade to play a geography game. I remember, too, when Upper Volta changed its name to Burkina Faso. But it was only today that I learned why the country changed its name to split from its French colonial past. Burkina Faso meaning “incorruptible homeland “, combining Mossi and Dyula etymology.
Not a TIL, but a TIR: Today I Remembered that the B:drive on a computer was for the second floppy disk, used for copying disks and other auxiliary applications. D:drives came later, for CD-ROMs (which I initially thought was the answer to 41-down when I had CD——).
Things I loved about this puzzle: Not all there upstairs? Consumer of many texts and, of course: Ch-Ch-Ch-Chia VELVET WORM was an amusing TIL, But I suspect it’s also a TIF: a Tomorrow I’ll Forget.
@The X-Phile.....Thank you for the information about Upper Volta becoming Burkina Faso. That is very worthwhile knowing!
I hope this puzzle wasn't as traumatic for everyone else as it was for me. It was just last week my parents informed me that my little brother was actually a chia pet. I can't help feeling like I should have known. At least now I understand why he was always their favorite.
@ad absurdum What a coincidence! My parents just told me that my *elder* sister was Erma Franklin (but that Aretha was *not*my younger), which is rather surprising, given that they're both velvet worms!
ad absurdum, A tough week for you - thoughts and prayers. My Chia Pet memory is when I would stress-graze on it, until it wasn’t all there upstairs, if you know what I mean. By which I mean, not graze on my brother, just a standard chia pet, no relation.
Hated this puzzle. Too many nouns, words that aren’t really words, just an absolute mess. This was painful.
@Charles - "Too many nouns" - that's a new-to-me complaint.
I'm guessing "proper" nouns was intended...
Wow, that was what you call a doozy! Maybe even a doozy of a LULU of a doozy!! Hooooweee!! Huzzah!! Very satisfying!! Loads of fun! Loads of terrificly clued entries! ESTATE SALE, STRESS EATS, AVID READER, BATARANGS, CHCHCHCHIA, IDOS... To name only a handful that I thought were terrific. Granted, I could have lived without BARFS, especially crossing STRESS EATS..... CRIKEY 😬, but my oh so delicate sensibilities and I can live with it for getting such a fine puzzle. 😏 I never share my times, but today was so incredibly slow that I am extra not sharing it! Har!!
@HeathieJ You don't show your times much more than I don't show mine.
Laughed out loud when I realized chchchchia had to be the answer. You have to have a great sense of humor to start a puzzle with that! Nice work, Kameron.
The joys of solving that go beyond just filling in boxes. Long answers often bring that sterling moment where you’ve been stumped, but suddenly your brain sees the answer from the crosses. – basically a fist-pumping “Hah!” With 12 tens today, lots of these pings for me. Beauteous answers warm the heart, make you feel good and provide calm through solving storms. Today: NOTHING BUT! SUBLIMATES, CHCHCHCHIA! HALCYON! BELIE! The buzz of newness excites the brain. I’m not just talking about debut answers (eight today), but answers we’ve seen before clued differently, from a different angle or with new wordplay. Then there are the memory triggers. I flashed on Little LULU, a comic book character I haven’t thought about in decades. Also the CHIA jingle and the Dead Sea, a magical place I visited long ago. Your puzzles, Kameron, always bring these extras, and turn the solving experience from robotic, to an event. More please, and thank you once again for a splendid outing!
I don’t understand the hate for puzzles people can’t solve. I couldn’t solve this one without a lot of help, and I loved it! I want to be challenged by a Saturday puzzle. I want to have something to strive for. I want to learn new words, phrases, facts, and trivia. Isn’t that the fun of it all? Sure, I enjoy breezing through a Saturday puzzle occasionally so I can feel smug and superior, but I also like being seriously challenged to become a better solver
1A had me roaring once I figured it out. The funnest crossword clue I've ever encountered. Thank you for such an enjoyable puzzle.
@Tom You spelled AROAR wrong.
Loved BATARANGS, did not love the crossing of a Kansas city I've never heard of with Burkina Faso's name from 1983 that I've never heard or read and the name of a naturalist whom I've never heard of. I'll have to look up STET, because I didn't know that was a word -- I kept on filling ediT which fit with BALDIes. Plenty of fun misdirection here, CH-CH-CH-CHIA was nice nostalgia, and BARFS had me thinking "No way this is actually the answer... maybe BAReS to spell DIAN with an E?" This Saturday wasn't within my reach, but not every puzzle's gonna be in my own Goldilocks zone.
@Ian Stet is classic crosswordese, used to see it all the time
@Ian, I'll grant you Burkina Faso; the only reason I know it is that my father-in-law had colleagues (geologists) who worked there in the 80s. I even know it's even more obscure capital, Ouagadougou. But you've really never heard of Dian Fossey? Stet and dele are commonly used in crosswords, being short and easy to fit in. Stet means to leave something in, and dele means to take it out (delete). Tuck them away in your brain; you'll see them again.
@Ian Upper Volta was a classic piece of info picked up from my childhood brush with philately
Well, after not even coming close to finishing this one, I scheduled a root canal to cheer myself up. Good grief, that was hard. Picked the wrong week to stop drinking everclear. Cheers!
Cripes! (or is it "Crikes!"?) It took me forever to rind that last mistake! Fun fact: Bon Iver took their name from the French phrase "Bon hiver!," ("Happy Winter!"), which is used as a greeting by the residents of Cicely, AK on the occasion of the first snowfall of the season, in the TV series *Northern Exposure*. Here is home-town girl Erma Franklin singing "Lied der Lulu" by Alban Berg: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFEn0JQsy2w&list=RDrFEn0JQsy2w&start_radio=1" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFEn0JQsy2w&list=RDrFEn0JQsy2w&start_radio=1</a> (Just wish--actually it's Barbara Hannigan, who also conducts!) Now off to read Aesop's fable "το Βελούδινο Σκουλήκι και το Κατοικίδιο Χία" ("The Velvet Worm and the Chia Pet")
@Bill All my sarcasm aside, here's hometown girl Erma Franklin singing "Piece of My Heart"--I'll have to ask my Partner where the Soup Kitchen was/is, once he wakes up: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0QAxIKf8G4&list=RDL0QAxIKf8G4&start_radio=1" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0QAxIKf8G4&list=RDL0QAxIKf8G4&start_radio=1</a> But please, listen to the Berg as well!--you can handle 2:45 of atonal dodecophony, can't you?
@Bill Awake now, he informs me that the Soup Kitchen was a couple blocks away from where we live now!--it was torn down in the mid-90's to build a casino, which was never built.
Ooh, that was a nice puzzle. Parsing C DRI_E (for a 20-year-now Mac user) crossing _ERE (“C’mon high school reading synapse, fire, *fire*!) ended in the walk-of-shame running of the alphabet, but everything else fell into place—thankfully, not too quickly, but after a nice workout. Might’ve been quicker if I weren’t being eaten alive by a hungry beyond reason mosquito which has been buzzing (and strafing the troops on the ground) in my room for a couple of hours now. I have no flyswatter; I can’t roll up my digital NY Times into a weapon. All I can do is go through a whole tube of antihistamine cream and listen to Señor Gato snore blissfully from under his fortress of fluffiness. God I miss the high desert. Have a good Saturday, everyone.
Pretty hard, very fair, and fairly fast (for me). I knew 1 across immediately but it took me most of the puzzle to get it spelled as the constructor desired. My left side was fairly barren until I got through the upper right. A lot of near teeth pulling and yet magically pulling stuff out of dusty brain corners. Oh, Savoy, I've heard of that theater name. Okay, poem name makes sense. Sluglike creature's not another eel, eh? Not a garage sale but... Just the right amount of slack and crosses for me to get through this. XWStats shows "hard" which tracks for me. A nice Saturday (for a change)!
@B I very much agree. But it sounds like you had it easier than me--I pulled everything from the dusty brain corners I could pull, and everything else came from somewhere elsewhere.
I should have know. I really should have. A day after I post about a puzzle being easy, I get a real run for my money...I almost gave up several times. I got the SE quadrant first, which is generally a sign I'm struggling. But the last to fall was the NW, which was almost completely empty, other than my having "stye" for 1D, which didn't help at all. After racking my brain to come up with Dr. Doolittle I realized AESOP was even better. The head slap came with YOUAREHERE and TRACKER for 15A and 19A, which finally, finally, finally showed up in my head. Then it was only a matter of sussing out IRENEPAPAS. The name now rings a bell, but I was never going to recall it without practically everything else confidently in place. Excellent puzzle! A ton of fun. A hold of gold. 1A is going to be one of those "love it or hate it" clue/answer pairs, I'm guessing. Well done, Cameron. Very well done.
Sorry, Kameron. I have trouble with "C"s and "K"s.
This puzzle was very tough, until it suddenly wasn't. The top half was pretty much empty on first pass, then the middle fell and with that the entire puzzle gave way. It's so curious how these late week puzzles play out in so many different ways.
YOU ARE HERE: in the midst of a KAC creation. CRIKEY you may say, or NOW WHAT? UPPER VOLTA to the rescue! All HALCYON now.
CRIKEY, that was some tough cluing today. Thankfully, I remembered "Stompin' at the SAVOY" from my dad's record collection. He also took a picture of an odd road sign in Scotland which warned motorists of SUBLIMATion. Erosion, perhaps? I wonder how many folks looked that sign and didn't figure it out until it was too late.
Just started the puzzle, so not looking through the comments yet, but just wanted to crow for a second about filling in 1A immediately before anything else, figuring I'd probably have to change it, and it's right!
Finished by hook or by crook. Tough mix of the obscure, the esoteric, and (1 across) downright recondite! There was nothing fun in this solve and no interesting new words I'll be adding to my vocab. Nevertheless, it was a good Saturday puzzle. Suppose not all puzzles can be enjoyable. Some just need to challenge 'the little grey cells'.
Congratulations! You solved a Saturday Crossword in 52:58. Not much to add. A true Saturday workout for me. Got it without assistance, but had doubts right up until the end. BALDING rather than BALDISH slowed me down in the SE. VELVETWORM was a complete unknown. Didn't know the Greek actress, but PAPAS made a lot more sense than PEPAS, so my misspelled BATERANGS became BATARANGS just in the nick of time. More at this level of challenge, please.
A bit over my Saturday average and really enjoyable. Anytime I get that “I might not get this one without any help“ feeling. I’m happy.
After complaining all week about The Great Easening, I found today to be a real workout! I had to look up two clues; BON and UPPERVOLTA. I was never going to get them on my own. A few too many trivia and proper noun clues for my taste; but a good, hard puzzle.
Overall a fun puzzle from Kameron A.C. but the BAR(E/F)S ambiguity crossing with DIAN(E/F)OSSEY plus not knowing Kansas's Fort HAYS led to some look ups in the SE corner. I hate having to resort to look ups and I will be taking this out on my family later, 2/5 Grant R. Stars
@Grant R I'm from Kansas, my sister went to college at Fort Hays St. University, and I *still* didn't get it right away.
BALDISH is a word. By all that's right and holy, it shouldn't be, but it is. It's right there, in Merriam Webster, along with a quote. The "I" in it was the last to fall. As the music played I was sitting slumped on the couch, my mouth open a bit, staring at the screen and blinking.
@Bruce I am debating whether to ask my spouse how he'd feel about being called "baldish". He isn't particularly sensitive on the subject nor picky about words, but stlll.... maybe better not.
In before Cap'n Quahog, so I'll try to handle the invertebrate zoology today. In re: the VELVET WORM. An absolutely fascinating creature. Far from "slug-like"-- the scientific name is Onychphora, or 'claw-bearing'-- velvet worms are actually related to tardigrades and arthropods. Their appendages and segmentation make them look sort of like centipede prototypes. But they are different enough to be classified in their own Phylum. A fossil that is very similar in form to modern types is known from the early Cambrian, 500+ mya (though it was marine and all modern species are moist-terrestrial). They are insectivorous and indeed catch their prey by spitting an adhesive goo at them. I saw one in the wild in Ecuador in 2009, and it was one of the greatest thrills among many on that trip. It's not often that one gets to add an entire Phylum to one's life list!
@Charles Peterson - Actually I burrowed in earlier, and considered mentioning VELVET WORM, but decided not to. When I was a larval marine biologist, an advisor said a good way to create a niche was to become very well versed in a specific topic or taxon. At the time, I was set on becoming an invertebrate zoologist, and had a fascination with the onychophora, so I briefly decided I would become a VELVET WORM specialist. It was fairly easy to do so, since there was such limited literature on them... fortunately, I figured out soon thereafter that I really, really loved nudibranchs, and began learning all I could about the sea slugs of the Oregon intertidal, thereby un-restricting myself. I did later on do research on sea slugs, but not those -- smaller ones that lived in the tropics and subtropics, and, as I mentioned in these comments some months ago, the lovely temperate ones in the genus Elysia. I'm glad I did not take that advice and become so narrowly focused on a single obscure group. I have worked with invertebrates from many phyla, and even (shudder) a FISH once! (striped bass). It is the great diversity of fascinating and lovely critters among the invertebrates that has made a career in IZ so rewarding to me. And the onychophorans are part of that, in spite of being rather obscure. (I have never actually worked with them, but I still think they're very, very cool.)
Playful, clean, tight, entertaining. Quick. Thanks to KAC.
Saturday. Learned some more. Enjoy the fall colors, stay safe from the floods, and may your crossword keep you humble.
@Red Carpet Would you believe me if I told you that we had one flamingo that I kept out all year on our garden balcony... And that, as fall progressed, I made winter ready with a hand-made hat and scarf? 🦩 Unfortunately that's the flamingo that we had to get rid of because it had become a nest for wasps. Alas, I miss ole Fern.
Regarding the Midi, has Mr. Sivakumar invented some new version of Tic Tac Toe which involves the letters "p" "n" and "y?" It is just the Midi, after all, but what am I missing?
@Matt I never do the midi but I thought I'd see what you were in about. Indeed. Very strange. I don't think you're missing anything, the theme is just half-a®sed.
@Matt Did you get the lovely animation?
@Matt I'll check it out. I always appreciate it if someone calls out the Midi or Mini in the comments, since I don't usually do them either.
Geology moment! Glaciers SUBLIMATE in the sun and dry air of cold climes. The water changes from solid ice to water vapor without passing through the liquid phase. I had no idea of the word origin, though, that was interesting. Maybe I'm the only person alive who says HET routinely. I guess it's part of my folksy charm ;). Context would be telling a story that involved stress about something. "Because of that, I was all het up, so maybe wasn't thinking straight..." Many sticky spots, some of which shouldn't have been so sticky, like CDRIVE, but I kept seeing CD in there. Also had BALDIng for a while, but Fort Gays (!!) ended that with a laugh.
@Nora Yes, I always knew SUBLIMATE to refer to the ice --> vapor transition (though not necessarily in a glacial context). Was confused by the column's reference to chemical purification
“Who is General Failure, and why is he reading my C-Drive?”
This was my favorite kind of solve. It was really, really slow to get going, but when I finally, reluctantly, put CHIA in, the rest of that jingle, and then the rest of the puzzle, fell like slow motion dominos. I'm always amazed by Collins's breadth of knowledge. From a Greek actress I barely remembered even after getting a lot of crosses, to ABBA, to HALCYON, to a fishing item, to barfing no less. I really wanted the person who gets a lot of texts to be an editor. Then realized I had no idea about the captain. Finally cracked that corner only by reasoning what kind of slug-like creature WO__ could cross a woman's name ER_A. (Which I knew I'd seen recently!) Putting in that M made the clouds part and I was done. Just under my recent Saturday average, which might have been a disappointment, but I feel fulfilled.
I had to turn on auto check after completing only one third of the puzzle. That’s a good Saturday. Thank you!
I see I'm good company in thinking CD something and not knowing the first letter of Billy Bud's captain's name. CRIKEY, it's C DRIVE. I never read the book. I do like the word HALCYON and do wonder how the non-US solvers will do with 1 Across. Anyways, a KAC attack is always fun to solve. Thanks you, Kameron.
@Vaer Forgot my song. Love is a Rose, Linda Ronstadt, 50 years ago. Yes, we are old. <a href="https://youtu.be/AaapIPU9mTY?si=iqgCCJjAIgsK0NJx" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/AaapIPU9mTY?si=iqgCCJjAIgsK0NJx</a>
@Vaer Here's a song, well, a rather unmelodic aria, Britten wrote for Captain Vere: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdHPUwvZ0Mk" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdHPUwvZ0Mk</a>
Fun Saturday, one of those ones that felt hopeless at the beginning and I kept chipping away til it was done. The chia thing tripped me up for a while, having no clue about it, and sublimate was brilliant. At one point for the message with pointer I had ouija board! Well it fit… last to fall was Hays because baldism seemed to work since baldies and balding didn’t. Sneaky. Very enjoyable.