Gnashing of teeth over here.

First, I thought the UT rivals would be another 1-Across gimme. Then I had to figure out how to fit "Aggies" into the space, and settled for TXAANDM. Eventually I changed that to SOONERS ... not really a brief name for the team, but what the hell. Finally, HUSKERS? Well, yeah, sure, they're rivals, but not *rivals*, if you know what I mean.

And what I mean is, I was entirely off Quarfoot's wavelength on this one, start to finish. The final across entry, DOGGONE, was far too mild for what I was feeling.

Great puzzles this week; not-so-great solving on my part.
mnemonica | 10.27.06 - 11:23 pm | #

Don't forget the great cluing of the two wrestlers - the "Irresistible Force" and the "Immovable Object" colliding smack-dab in the middle. As close as you're going to get to a theme on Saturday, and it made me smile as I gnashed away on the rest of the thing.
Also loved the clue at 37A, "Comment when the shooting starts" - that one took a bit more gnashing.
Howard B | 10.27.06 - 11:47 pm | #

I have only been solving for a year or so. Saturday puzzles are 50/50 at best. Quarfoots' puzzles seem easier to crack than others. This is two Saturdays in a row if I am not mistaken. It seems to me that this week the sliding scale of difficulty was way off. Wednesday was as hard as a Thursday. Thursday was as hard as a Friday. Friday was as hard as a Saturday. Saturday was a Friday at best. I may be too new at this to know what I am talking about! However I would love to see if you feel the same.
Aaron Faulhaber | 10.28.06 - 1:10 am | #

I was on a terrible wavelength yesterday, on a great one today, with one small exception: I had SCUTTLE for SHUTTLE, and hence EXCIBITA for EXHIBITA; when I glanced at it I didn't see the typo and briefly marveled at the clever clue. The "last" letter I got was at the LETO/NEOGENE cross, which could have been anything, but O seemed good, but the Done button wouldn't work. I spent 1.5 mins trying various letters there before it occurred to me to proofread the rest, whereupon the bad C leapt out at me.

Classic crossword-ese two days in a row: first ESNE, now AITS.

-Tom Mc
Tom McCormick | 10.28.06 - 3:22 am | #

I zoomed along on this one, coming close to my general goal of twice Amy's time. A couple of one-letter slip ups- NEOGENE/NEOCENE, MRT/DRT. SW was last to fall with figuring out the cardinality of the OMEN flix.
Matt | 10.28.06 - 7:26 am | #

Somebody please explain the difference between NEOCENE and NEOGENE because my head hurts from reading different definitions, and I can't adequately tell them apart. I had NEOCENE forEver because I couldn't get "River Tower," as in, some kind of vertical structure in the middle of a river, to become "River Tower," as in a plucky little boat that likes to help out. So I had TUC for "River Tower," which I figured was some Scrabbly Welsh piece of crap.

Haven't blogged the puzzle yet. Commencing now.

Michael
Michael | Homepage | 10.28.06 - 7:58 am | #

NEOCENE and NEOGENE appear to be synonyms. See

http://www.infoplease.com/dictio...tionary/ Neocene
Matt | 10.28.06 - 8:17 am | #

May I begin by saying that I feel much more comfortable posting here than at the NYT forum? Everyone is so pleasant!

I found today's puzzle to be a challenge. Interestingly, I came across the word "kvass" last week and had to look it up, and so today it was a gimmie. I spent way too much time, however, trying to think of all the countries that begin with the letter "O" and (perhaps?) have a city named Warren. Of course I live in Ohio, but that's beside the point.
Matt (mc2) | 10.28.06 - 9:14 am | #

I put in Sooners with confidence as Aggies didn't fit. Never appreciated the significance of "briefly" until Huskers finally revealed itself.

Neocene has 14,300 hits and Neogene has 833,000, although as alreay noted, they appear to be the same thing. In spite of this Google disparity, Neocene seems more intuitive to me.

I thought the SE was tough. My absolute first entry was HAG, but I was so unsure of the SE that I eventually took it out. it wasn't until I finally got RETRO, that this stubborn quadrant cracked. Is NOT A HOPE really in the language? NO CHANCE, NOT A CHANCE and NOT A PRAYER are the three in-the-language phrases I am most aware of.

Steve
Steve manion | 10.28.06 - 9:46 am | #

Ditto the gnashing of teeth over here. I wouldn't have gotten NEOGENE (I had NEOCENE in the grid instead), and there's no excuse for just not getting WOBEGON.

So, another goose-egg on Saturday. I won't get to Sunday's puzzle until Sunday afternoon, due to a myriad of activities with my g.f. and her family. But hopefully it will go down easier.
Dave | Homepage | 10.28.06 - 10:10 am | #

THANK you, Steve, for questioning NOT A HOPE, which no one would say without following it immediately with IN HELL.

I spent way too much time wishing that wrong answers could be right, e.g. DOOMED for "Cursed" and NOT A CHANCE for "'Impossible!'"

Absolutely loved YOU DA MAN, UXORIAL, GOT OLD, and OMEN IV. And the wrestling stuff, of course. Whatever Quarfoot's puzzles are, they aren't boring.

I totally disagree that this was easy for a Saturday. Or, I agree that chunks of it were, but the SE corner, man... if that wasn't Saturday, I don't know what is.

All blogged out,
Michael
Michael | Homepage | 10.28.06 - 10:16 am | #

Whew! Rough one, but it finally fell. I still have no idea what AITS and SARG are? Little help, please...

NOTAHOPE was an eyebrow-raiser, but close enough for government work, IMO.

I was detained in the northwest for a while by an insistence on EXITDATA and YOUGOMAN, but the penny eventually dropped on EBAY.

What's with the Times forum this morning? Service Unacceptable.
GaryK | 10.28.06 - 10:20 am | #

It was the SW for me along with NEOGENE/LETO that made this one a struggle for me. I agree that NOT A HOPE is not in the language, really, but found it a small price to play for a nice, chewy, Saturday treat.

Jenni
Jenni | Homepage | 10.28.06 - 11:19 am | #

Hey, let me ask you all something. Do you see the non-updated post from last night, or an updated-this-morning version? Blogger is misbehaving, and pretends that the updated version is current, but I can't get the browsers to show the update.
Orange | Homepage | 10.28.06 - 12:33 pm | #

Non-updated. Posted at 9:33, with LAT and CS listed as TBA.

Jenni
Jenni | Homepage | 10.28.06 - 12:43 pm | #

Remoulade was new to me, so rummaged around the internet to see how much TARRAGON it uses.

"Remoulade was invented in France, sometimes curry flavoured, and invariably contains chopped pickles or piccalilli, and can also contain horseradish, paprika, anchovies, capers and a host of other items, and is often used as an accompaniment to seafood dishes -- especially pan-fried breaded fish fillets. It is very popular in Louisiana Creole cuisine."

"Louisiana style remoulades fall into one of three categories; mayonnaise base, ketchup base, and oil base. All have an abundance of finely chopped vegetables; green onions, celery, and parsley. Most will be made with Creole mustard, paprika, salt, black pepper, and cayenne pepper round out standard ingredients. Other popular additions include lemon juice, minced garlic, vinegar, horseradish, and Worcestershire sauce."

Here are the ingredients in the recipe at http://www.gumbopages.com/food/a.../ remoulade.html … Mayonnaise, Creole mustard, Worcestershire sauce, hot pepper sauce, diced green onions, diced celery, minced garlic, chopped parsley, lemon juice, salt black pepper.

So, I still need to find a good basic recipe that uses TARRAGON. I have found such recipes, but they all seem a little offbeat.
dan | 10.28.06 - 12:45 pm | #

GaryK - SARG refers to puppeteer Tony Sarg (1880-1942), who designed the first large balloons for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade along with his protege Bil Baird.
Dave | Homepage | 10.28.06 - 1:16 pm | #

Blogger remains obstinate (the nerve!), so I'll toss an update down here:

Newsday 5:27
LAT 5:02
CS 3:22

The Newsday Saturday Stumper this week is by Doug Peterson. A sprinkling of Z's, X's, and K's enlivens the grid. My favorite clue here was [Sort of blue] for CERULEAN—are you feeling a little cerulean today? Or maybe more cobalt?

Bruce Venzke and Stella Daily's LA Times themeless crossword beefs up two triple stacks of 15-letter entries by topping (or bottoming) them with a pair of 7-letter words (including tasty, tasty CHEETOS)—that means eight rows of the puzzle contain a total of just two black squares.
Orange | Homepage | 10.28.06 - 1:41 pm | #

Thanks, Dave, for the enlightenment on SARG. Can anyone help with AITS? Tom Mc says above that it's classic crossword-ese, but I haven't encountered it.
GaryK | 10.28.06 - 2:07 pm | #

I agree with those who were perplexed by an editor allowing NOT A HOPE. It could have been clued, maybe, with something to do with the Hope diamond. However I thought it was a terrific puzzle. When we see Quarfoot in the byline alarm bells should go off.
Jerome | 10.28.06 - 2:21 pm | #

Gary K., I seem to recall that an ait is a small river island.

Jerome, cluing NOT A HOPE in relation to the diamond would work for a word game, but would be too far afield of being "in the language" for a standard crossword. I'm guessing DQ tried plenty of other options for the fill in that corner, but with that much interlock with other sections of the puzzle, perhaps it was nigh impossible to improve on it without having to redo the whole grid. And the rest of the grid's pretty terrific, so I can let a NOT A HOPE (which doesn't sound all that natural, idiomatically speaking, but is completely comprehensible) slide.
Orange | Homepage | 10.28.06 - 3:03 pm | #

Gah, the internet is falling apart. You can't get blogger to work, the NYT forums have been "temporarily unavailable" all day, bellsouth has been intermittantly dropping email for me for 10+ days (such a fun support call that is to make), what's next? (Over 1 minute response time on preview of this comment, that's what...and why does it say it's 10:11AM? It's after 4PM!)

I struggled with the NYT. First pass got practically nothing, but managed to slowly fill in all but the upper right with no aids. Did eventually cave and look up the "Philadelphia" city, which helped me realize that SOHAVEI might work a bit better than ASHAVEI for "Me too". Bleh, should have been able to get the whole thing on my own but I let frustration get the better of me. But I do like those puzzles that at first seem impossible and then slowly give way.
kmtracey | 10.28.06 - 3:14 pm | #

AIT is fairly classic crosswordese-- However, some poking around on the web suggests that the word is used in England in ordinary geographic references. So the puzzle clue for AIT citing things 'in the Thames' is actually entirely reasonable, if a bit obscure.
Matt | 10.28.06 - 3:16 pm | #

Oops, one mistake. I put in STASIS (singular) for "Equlibria" (plural) leaving me with SIRIN for the finch. It didn't seem at all right when I wrote it down, but I never went back to recheck.
Gary (garymac9) | 10.28.06 - 4:41 pm | #

Howdy all,

It appears the NYT Forum is a lost hope for the day, so this is THE place to be.

As per the discussion on NOTAHOPE, it's strange - I don't remember feeling weird about this entry when I put it in, but when doing the puzzle today, it did seem a bit sketchy. I suppose I felt ok about it because it had been used in a NYT puzzle before (Jan 23,1997), and it seemed to be part of some phrases people typically use "Not a hope in the world..." and "Not a hope in hell...". Google seems less keen on it than I remember, so I'm not feeling great about it either right now.

The puzzle was naturally inspired by the discovery of the crossing wrestler names forcing the irresistible force to meet the immovable object. I wrote this puzzle shortly after the SQUAREPEG/ROUNDHOLE crossing seen a few weeks earlier.

Hope you enjoyed it - you won't see much from me in a while. Have to see to my students and learn 'em good.

DQ
Quarfoot | 10.28.06 - 8:04 pm | #

Blogger remains kerflooey, so my post on Sunday's puzzle is in limbo—written but not postable. Sorry!
Orange | Homepage | 10.28.06 - 9:33 pm | #

DQ,

Enjoyed the crossing of the wrestlers very much.


One of the great laughs of my life occurred in connection with the publicly televised title match between Andre the Giant and Hulk Hogan in 1988. Andre schemed with Ted DiBiase, the Million Dollar Man, to win the title from the Hulk and then award it to Ted DiBiase.

In the match, Andre "pins" the Hulk, although it is absolutely clear that the count had only reached two when the "ref" counted him out. As it turned out, Ted DiBiase had hired an identical twin of the real ref to perpetuate the scheme.

When the two refs appeared together (thus revelaing the scam), I literally laughed so hard I cried. I know this was one of those stories where you had to be there, but wrestling on TV in the late 80s was huge and with Bobby "the Brain" Heenan and others, very funny at times.

Steve
Steve manion | 10.28.06 - 10:08 pm | #

Thrice I have encountered the "Service Unavailable" message - at various times during the past 24 hours. Ergo, I agree that this is the place to be.

Very nice puzzle, David. all that I would otherwise say has been said. Though I qualifiedly disagree that AIT is classic crosswordese. AIT can be found in English and American literature 100 or fewer years ago. So, while it is becoming obscure, to me it is not a word learned from crosswords and seen only therein; whereas ADIT is, along with ESNE and a few others.

The qualification is that AIT becomes crosswordese when it appears with other broderline words in the same puzzle, because then it beocmes part of the distraction. When a puzzle has to have one clunker and it's AIT, that's a good puzzle. When the clunker is ADIT or ESNE, it is not as good. And it if has all three, along with LAS, AMI and ESE, then it's not in the New York Times.

Vic
Anonymous | 10.28.06 - 10:22 pm | #

I have been trying the NYT Forum all day, to no avail. The saturday Quarfoot was a dream for me. I had to dictionary the UXORIAL-AITS crossing as well as the LETO-NEOGENE-TUG crosses, but all in all a nice smooth solve. I also had filled in TERIN for SERIN (TERIN also being a small bird). I had no idea who RIMET was, but then I never expect to remember a grammy winner from 1997 anyway.

I guess my intimate knowledge of professional wrestling has finally paid off in the slightly more intellectually challenging realm of crosswords, as I typed in both wrestling answers early on.

I don't have a problem with NOT A HOPE.

I think the move to kill the no spoiler rule on the Forum will not raise participation levels - if you can't even get the Forum to load that is...

-DG
David Gates | 10.28.06 - 10:33 pm | #