Constructor: Sid Sivakumar
Relative difficulty: Medium
![]()
THEME: Oktoberfest— or, more probably, none
Word of the Day: GAUTAMA (17A: Buddhism's founder) —
![]()
It's Saturday. This played like a Saturday. Saturday. Saturday. Saturday. Saturday. Saturday. Saturday. Saturday. Saturday. Saturday puzzle's alright. Man, "Saturday" is one of those words where if you look at it too much, it looks crazy and wrong. I mean, it's got "turd" in it, not an auspicious letter combo. Saturnday is better. Never should've dropped that "n." Huge mistake. I did not RUN A RACE through this one, but I moved pretty methodically and without any really noteworthy resistance. RUN A RACE, btw, total "eat-a-sandwich" answer. Verb-A-nouns are risky. Sometimes you get something very coherent and stand-alone-worthy like GRAB A SEAT. "GRAB A SEAT!," you might actually say to someone. "RUN A RACE," however, that one really needs a good lawyer to plead its case. Kind of a violent vibe to the NW, with its BURGLAR that gets interrupted and takes hostages and then tells those hostages to GRAB A SEAT and then when the cops show he STABBED them in their KEVLAR vests, putting the hostages at RISK—I hope they were not UNSAVED. Maybe someone threw ACID at someone ... sorry to RAMBLE ON, it's just sometimes grids contain hidden stories and I have to work them out, however gruesome they happen to be.
![]()
Five things:
Relative difficulty: Medium
Word of the Day: GAUTAMA (17A: Buddhism's founder) —
Gautama Buddha, popularly known as the Buddha (also known as Siddhattha Gotama or Siddhārtha Gautama or Buddha Shakyamuni), was a Śramaṇa who lived in ancient India(c. 5th to 4th century BCE). He is regarded as the founder of the world religion of Buddhism, and revered by most Buddhist schools as a savior, the Enlightened One who rediscovered an ancient path to release clinging and craving and escape the cycle of birth and rebirth. He taught for around 45 years and built a large following, both monastic and lay. His teaching is based on his insight into the arising of duḥkha (the unsatisfactoriness of clinging to impermanent states and things) and the ending of duhkha—the state called Nibbāna or Nirvana(extinguishing of the three fires). (wikipedia)
• • •
I got into this particular grid this way:
This was after changing STEIN to LAGER and *before* (well before) STEIN and his whole family actually did show up (in the SE corner). Zero names in that NW corner (unless you count KEVLAR, which I don't). Pretty remarkable. But then the names come hard and fast once you get out into open waters. This can be good or bad. That's how names tend to work. Lifesavers or millstones. The crosswordese names really helped me out today; this always feels a bit like cheating—what do I *really* know about Stephen REA or ELIE Saab? Next to nothing. But I've got their names in my bag, ready to go, and they definitely helped considerably in their respective sections. TRALA, not a name, but it is short crosswordese, and it helped as well.
I solved this in near-perfect clockwise fashion. NE was easiest, then SE, then NW, then SW, where I finished, and where I had my sole moment of "oh no, am I going to finish?" It was a brief moment, but it happened. I don't know what a "nudnik" is because it's not the 1940s or whenever anyone used that word, so PESTERS was blocked to me (43A: Acts like a nudnik to). The stupid second (ugh) [Take a ___] clue was down there, so no help. You'd think that Greta THUNBERG, a very well-known human being, would've been all I needed down there, but my brain refuses to remember the letters between "T" and "BERG" (39A: She was Time magazine's 2019 Person of the Year). It's bizarre. I had THALBERG in there at one point (Irving Thalberg was a Hollywood producer who died young and then they named an Academy Award after him, I think) (yes, he died of pneumonia 85 years ago this Tuesday; he was 37). Anyway, Greata should've guided me safely to the end, but instead I flailed for a bit. Luckily I knew ALERTS, and then "AMUSE ME!" really came to the rescue, and then I remembered the RAT PACK existed, and I was done (29D: Group to which Don Rickles joked he "never received an official membership card").
- 27A: "None for me, thanks" ("NAH, I'M GOOD") — it's an OK answer, but that clue does nothing at all to convey the answer's slanginess. Clue, formal, answer, highly informal, Boooooo! You'd say "None for me, thanks" to your gracious host who has had you over for dinner and is asking you if you want seconds. You would not say "NAH, I'M GOOD" to same host unless you were a boor or 14 years old or both.
- 32A: Things auditors watch for (TAX DODGES) — had TAX and then just guessed. First guess: FRAUDS. Second guess: CHEATS. The answer is good, my guesses were not.
- 46D: United Airlines hub, for short (SFO) — had the "S," guessed STL :(
- 8A: Lake ___, where the Chari River empties (CHAD)— so ... not Lake COMO, then? Sigh.
- 23A: Meets and eats, perhaps (DOES LUNCH) — my fav answer of the day, along with HOG HEAVEN. I like that the former answer runs right into the latter—DOES LUNCHOG HEAVEN. I am in HOG HEAVEN when I do lunch, for sure, so this seems like a natural and beautiful answer pairing.