Today’s Saturday Stumper

Today’s Newsday  Saturday Stumper, by Stella Zawistowski, is another Stumper that I thought would have me beat. I started late Friday afternoon and had the puzzle less than half done when we went to our favorite (Thai) restaurant for dinner. We were lucky that we arrived shortly before a table of fourteen did. When I went back to the puzzle after dinner, the rest of the it fell into place. Thank you, pad woon sen and panang curry, both “spicy number three.” The scale goes from zero to five.

Some clue-and-answer pairs of note:

5-D, six letters, “Phone battery saver.” Never heard of it.

6-D, eleven letters, “Unoriginal writing.” That’s pretty strained. I know, it’s a Stumper. But it’s pretty strained.

17-A, ten letters, “Circular skill.” Just one example of this puzzle’s obliqueness.

24-D, eleven letters, “Early target for Edison electrification.” Makes sense.

25-A, thirteen letters, “They act as a pair.” So not obvious, at least to me, and so clever.

25-D, four letters, “Transparent flute feature.” Nicely defamiliarizing.

30-A, five letters, “Ring figures.” ZEROS? Is that the plural of zero?

32-D, four letters, “European cardinal that sounds sapped.” I thought it had to be some four-letter bird.

38-D, four letters, “Hog’s grunt.” Ha!

39-A, five letters, “Word from the Hebrew for ‘one who understands.’” Surprised that this is what the word means. I thought it referred to would-bes.

40-A, thirteen letters, “Acquisitional power.” Lordy.

45-A, four letters, “Story starter.” My first guess was ONCE.

50-D, four letters, “Minor diamond.” I was thinking of baseball, or trying to.

My favorite in this puzzle: 11-D, ten letters, “Capital an hour’s drive from Vienna.” Because I knew the answer (thanks to music) and because the answer opened up a whole bunch of puzzle.

No spoilers; the answers are in the comments.

Pocket notebook sighting

Aleksandr Ivanovich Luzhin (John Turturro) uses a tiny datebook as a notebook to record chess games (or, at least, lines of play). Notice the partial cigarette saved between pages. From The Luzhin Defense (dir. Marleen Gorris, 2000).

[ Click any image for a larger view.]

Related reading
All OCA pocket notbook sightings (Pinboard)

Zippy collars

[“Collar That Perp!” Zippy, August 23, 2024. Click for a larger view.]

Today’s Zippy is just one more bit of evidence attesting to Bill Griffith’s draftsmanship. See also fedoras and sleeves.

It’s wonderful to think of Zippy as the work of a reality-based artist.

Related reading
All OCA Zippy posts (Pinboard)

“I accept”

“On behalf of everyone whose story could only be written in the greatest nation on earth, I accept your nomination for President of the United States”: Kamala Harris, a few minutes ago at the DNC.

And: “The future is always worth fighting for.”

And: “We are not going back.”

And: Harris is the only presidential candidate whose acceptance speech has namechecked John Coltrane, Ella Fitzgerald, and Aretha Franklin.

[The Emhoff children, Cole and Ella, are named for Coltrane and Ella Fitzgerald.]

Country first

“Tonight, as a Republican speaking before you, I’m putting our country first”: Adam Kinzinger, a few minutes ago at the DNC.

[I’ve always liked this guy. He reminds me of some of my best students.]

Items in a series

“Why wouldn’t we choose the leader who‘s tough, tested, and a total badass?” Gretchen Whitmer, a few minutes ago at the DNC.

Reappropriation

The reappropriation of “Born in the U.S.A.” at tonight’s DNC — a song first appropriated by Ronald Reagan so many years ago — makes my head hurt.

Here are the lyrics.

Doones

We were in the cookie aisle, where the Nabisco man was bent down stocking the shelves. “Oh, you’re right where we’re need to be,” one of us said — something like that. And the Nabisco man reached up and handed us two boxes of Lorna Doones.

“That’s exactly what we need,” said I.

“Really?” he asked. “Two?”

“Yes,” said I. And I added that while Lorna Doones seem to get little attention, they are excellent cookies. He agreed, and he added that Lorna Doones are the cookies he has on the shelf at home.

It’s four little Lorna Doones a day for me. “I’ll fly to the moon for a Lorna Doone.”

An EXchange name sighting

[From Murder Most Foul (dir. George Pollock, 1964).]

Milchester is a place name in the Miss Marple world. MIlchester is therefore a real exchange name in a fictional world.

Related reading
All OCA EXchange name posts (Pinboard)

Never underestimate

“So there I was, a forty-something high-school teacher, with little kids, zero political experience, and no money, running in a deep red district. But you know what? Never underestimate a public-school teacher. Never”: Tim Walz, just now.