Mother of the Wind Gods

For those doing the daily puzzle online, the title of the puzzle does not appear. Can this be fixed please?

I didn't find this all that easy, but about average time for a Saturday. I too wound up with an almost bare NW, partly because I avoided S-E-X (can we say that?) @23A, because the 'X' clue seemed too obvious. Eventually took a flyer on ALIENRACE and worked out the rest of the corner. How appropriate to have the clue for 7D on this very weekend.

I'm quite delighted to discover that DL scooped me on "I'M EASY" from "Nashville." But THE POPE Of Pop always has another ace in the hole. The full album version of "RITUAL," by recent R&R Hall Of Fame inductees Yes, goes on for 20+ minutes, but this clip of "Nous Sommes Du Soleil," a shorter passage lifted from the entire suite, has quite a lovely melody:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-uw8aTeTNo

Bit of an unusual solve for me today in that I did it in clockwise order, which I don't usually do, starting with NE and working around the clock. Made me feel like I was accomplishing something until I read the more learned talking about how easy this was :)

Liked WEEKENDER and RAWMEAT, which this fun solve certainly was for me on both counts. Thanks!

One writeover: red/RAWMEAT; otherwise smooth sailing. Solved while sitting around the kitchen island with my daughter and son-in-law who are visiting. So yes, this is on the easy side of Saturday.

Too too easy. That felt like a Wednesday or Thursday puzzle to me.

Odd thing (but probably not important enough to bother the Feedback people with):

When I read through the Comments, sometimes I click on "Recommend," which then turns to "Recommended." Used to be that if I returned to the Comments later on, it still said "Recommended." Now it revers to just plain "Recommend."

That was a lot of fun! (Starting from the upper left as USUAL) I couldn't find a way in until DERBY, then trickled down to the lower right, up to the top, to the lower left, and finally filled in the upper left, all the while feeling as if there was probably no way to finish. So much to like here! The extremely fresh answers even without being scrabbly. The couplings like the Haitian flags, the roasts, the tools, the very hot and extremely loud. Am not sure why "X factor" is SEX — chromosomes? Much enjoyed the clues for RETRO CHIC, WEEDEATER and ELECTRON, the parallel -AIN- words. And the absence of heavy-duty pop culture clues. Had no idea there was a "stickman" in that, um, dice game. When 43 Down got filled in from crossings, my first reaction was "What in the world is a BIOGA? I never heard of these BIOGAS."

Slightly OT, but of possible interest.

On January 7, when the AL version was having a meltdown, I reported the problem via the feedback form on the puzzle page.

Yesterday I received an acknowledgment.

Struggled with this one, I'm still working my way to the hardest puzzles. I'm good up to Wednesday usually.

I've always heard the Tramps hat described as a bowler, not a derby so that tripped me up a few minutes. But a quick google shows me they are basically the same thing, just different names in Great Britain vs. the States.

Had to cheat on retro chic but weekender fell easily since I recently purchased a bag with that name; perfect for an overnight , tight for a whole weekend., esp. a long weekend.

Enjoy the 3-day weekend!

Speaking of MLK...

Has anybody here seen our old friend John?

For fans of Vexillology (flag-science), the Haitian flag is well recognized for the froofraw that resulted at the 1936 Olympic Games, when athletes from Liechtenstein and Haiti discovered that their two countries had identical flags.

After 1936, a gold crown was added to Liechtenstein's blue-over-red.

Anybody who likes exploring weirdly nerdy websites should know about fotw: flags of the world, which goes into absurd detail about flags of every kind, both historical and current. Maintained wiki-style by fanatical (mostly amateur) vexillologists.

So, yes. Maybe too many footholds for a Saturday. Probably a better Friday, but that's not on Andrew. Still enough resistance to make my brain feel like its tummy was being rubbed. I did like the answers TORRID and IMEASY, and would have liked some more clever Saturday wordplay cluing. Nonetheless, there were some fun things to catch. The mini theme of double E's (7). The HEMI and DEMI, which brings to mind the glorious HEMIDEISEMIQUAVER (a 64th note)(Hi, twoberry!). The appropriate cross of RITUAL and USUAL.

And finally the magnificent cross of THEPOPE and BERET. I am still having a gleeful time imagining that!

Fun puzzle. Lots of satisfying longies and longishies.

I had to do some work to get through NW, my last area to fall. For 1A I really wanted RETROHIP, which of course didn't fit, and it took a while to get which end was wrong. I thought maybe Time Bandits was some sort of computer or arcade GAME. I'm guessing that a WEEDEATER is some sort of chemical herbicide, but I'd been looking for one of those garden tools you see advertised with some kind of wire whipping around the bottom.

I don't know that I've ever seen WEEKENDER other than as the small suitcase, but it makes sense. Not thrilled with NO TALKING; perhaps it could have had a livelier clue? Ditto RARE FIND. I'd think of it more at a flea market than at an excavation.

Favorite clue was for THE POPE. I'd really love to see a clue for THE BEAR.

Anybody but me a Robert Altman fan?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6y47KcuI4Y

And you wanna be my Saturday puzzle? Too easy for the usually-best puzzle of the week, although I am still trying to figure out THE POPE.

Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it.” — Martin Luther King Jr. Thank you Andrew and thank you, Deb .... this is my take away today and I can't think of anything better to say about a puzzle than that.

We need a HEMI and a QUAVER to give this puzzle more of a theme than just MCS/FRIARS. Oh, wait, it's Saturday. The WEEKENDer puzzles have both said IMEASY so I keep looking for themes.

MY nit is the TIE SCORE. As with the cold tea beverage, we need the -D! ICED! TIED!

Plus I failed to recheck, and I had -BRAINER in there and did not revisit after getting the top part of the entry. Sigh. Had I done this online, I would have rec'd a warning.
Had a moment of BHAT or BAHT?.
I also thought WEEKENDER was kind of a themer, as so many non-retired people are part-time gardeners.

I have the NW of the Saturday Stumper in place, plus a few other entries, but it looks kinda tough. Maybe I'd better switch to the Variety puzzles.....

Fast but fun. Love DERBY crossing BERET and the outdoorsy theme: WEED EATER, GRASS STAINS, ACRE, SEED, plus the G-ARDEN you get in the SW if you borrow the G from GEENA. Not to mention the wintry SNOW NEEDED for the SLED RIDE and the accompanying ICE AXES. Okay, I am ready to start the day.

For me this was a quick and easy Saturday with no checks, no googles. The East fell easily and I finished in the northwest. For 1A I wanted something like reelected or was thinking about backing a vehicle into a garage or something. So RETROCHIC was a nice aha for me. Anyway, a nice Saturday and I finished it on one cup of coffee.

Like suejean, I figured everyone would find this one easy. I don't remember the last time I finished a Saturday with no fudging of any kind. I had a few gimmes to start with, but it still took me a good long time. It was one of those where considering possibilities both ways gradually led to just enough letters to figure something out. That's what I consider a very enjoyable solving experience.

Not sure how my brain ended up at the following song - maybe because somebody mentioned country music yesterday. I will confess to enjoying country at times, though it's not on the top of my play list. I particularly like songs with some self-referential humor and this one qualifies. I'm not sure if there's such a thing as a 'third rate BROMANCE':

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDmgtKhSrlI

We have our new granddaughter all weekend (til Monday morning), with about a 7 hour break during the day today and tomorrow. I think she's about to wake up. I had found that she was entertained by... (not sure how to describe this) vibrating lip noises? And, she's learning to do them herself, which is quite hilarious (if a bit messy). I'm not sure how much her mom and dad appreciate that skill, but that's what grandparents are for.

Every time I do a bit better on a Saturday the comments are mostly "too easy". I did find the NE almost Monday easy, hardly had time to sip my coffee. However I got stuck in the SE, so had to come back to that. At 59A I had NOTA and was parsing it NOT A. As soon as I changed to NO TA I got it and the rest fell quickly.

I love CARPACCIO, and order it when ever it's on offer.

I was ready for an easy Saturday, especially one with lots of fun entries.

This is a Saturday? I'll not say how fast I completed this. It'd be in poor taste.

Major nit. Grass Stains do not turn the knees green, the grass does that. Grass Stains are the green knees. The only way the grass stains could turn the knees green would be if someone stained the knees of their trousers one day, and wore the same trousers the next day and some of the material forming the stain seeped through and colored the skin of the knee. But I don't think that was in the mind of the setter.

I'll skip the raw meat, thanks.with my immune system, something would get me. I was familiar with a weekender as luggage, but not as a mini-vacation, ironically.

I spent two hours waiting to get a low tire checked today. It was 18 degrees out, so I spent the time in an uncomfortable chair. But it turned out all four tires were low, simply due to cold weather. No charge from Les Schwab Tires. Great company.

Yikes, I don't usually complete a Saturday puzzle this quickly! Constructor and I were on the same wavelength. Doesn't happen that often...

good puzzle. I ended in the NW too. Put in meat to get started there. then tried red before getting raw meat. Put in Retro and then added chic. liked Friars Club and MCs. Grass-stained and Harebrained good long downs, not seen very often.

I'm glad we had the POPEMOBILE yesterday so THE POPE has a ride today.

Fun! I especially liked seeing the Time Lords in there. I don't know that I would have recognized a WEEKENDER as a kind of luggage, so I'm glad the clue got changed. I liked seeing the science of ELECTRON and AMPERE (although I never remember what any of those physics-related measurements are until I get some crosses. Except erg, because 3 letters.)

6D through 9D were my last fill. I thought 7D was probably HATRED and 23A was probably what it was (not sure I can say the word here) so I mostly guessed and filled in from there. It ended up being a pretty fast Saturday solve.

Half my time was spent with a completed grid in three quadrants, with nothing in the northwest save AROAR. Eeek! I was going nuts until I thought of another way to describe Carpaccio - if the clue had said "essentially" instead of "e.g." that would have been too easy, perhaps. Anyway, a delightful Saturday from a delightful man. More, please.