Guilt Trip actress Graynor / SAT 11-2-13 / One may be played by geisha / Game in which lowest card is 7 / Austrian conductor Karl / Scandinavia's oldest university / 2002 Cesar winner for Best Film / They were labeled Breakfast Dinner Supper

Saturday, November 2, 2013

Constructor: Tom Heilman

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium


THEME: none

Word of the Day: Karl BÖHM (5D: Austrian conductor Karl) —
Karl August Leopold Böhm (August 28, 1894 in Graz – August 14, 1981 in Salzburg) was an Austrian conductor. […] Böhm was praised for his rhythmically robust interpretations of the operas and symphonies of Mozart, and in the 1960s he was entrusted with recording all the Mozart symphonies with the Berlin Philharmonic. His brisk, straightforward way with Wagner won adherents, as did his readings of the symphonies of BrahmsBruckner andSchubert. His 1971 complete recording of the Beethoven symphonies with the Vienna Philharmonic was also highly regarded. On a less common front, he championed and recorded Alban Berg's avant-garde operas Wozzeck and Lulu before they gained a foothold in the standard repertory. Böhm mentioned in the notes to his recordings of these works that he and Berg discussed the orchestrations, leading to changes in the score (as he had similarly done, previously, with Richard Strauss).
• • •

Unlike yesterday, where I thought I was slow and my time was normal, today I thought I was fast … and my time was normal. Well, normal-ish. Somewhat on the low side, but not as low as I thought. With no significant hang-ups, I thought I was gold, but I guess there was one significant hang-up—namely, the entire bottom of the puzzle. There must've been a good minute or so in there where I lost my grip on the puzzle and just couldn't punch down into the south. I had NOOGIE, NUTS and POISE, and also USTINOV (46D: 1967 Emmy winner for playing Socrates), but still found the puzzle intractable for a bit. Eventually tested MORE at the end of ONE MORE—still don't quite understand how the clue works (45D: What a slightly shy person may request)—and that seemed to do the trick. Got ROT, guessed UTTER, and away I went.



Back to ONE MORE—I get that "shy" can mean "not having enough money" or "socially reserved" … but I guess here it just means "short of some unstated, desired amount." Like, when I'm shy one pancake and I ask for ONE MORE. Or something. Don't like it, though I'm sure it's defensible, somehow. The rest, I liked. I think the made-up modern lingo is a bit out of control in the NE—never even heard of JAM CAM (9A: Traffic reporter's aid) or KIDULT (18A: Grown-up who's not quite grown-up), though both are inferable—but everything else seems fair and aptly, often cleverly, clued. I missed the part in baseball where the Twins and ORIOLEs are "rivals" (16A: Twin's rival). They're not in the same division and not from the same part of the country, so … another full-court sports clue boner. But [Result of knuckling down?] is great for NOOGIE, and [Troubling post-engagement status, briefly] makes nice use of misdirection on "engagement," so overall the cluing seemed pretty decent. I like the workaround on ILLIN' today (27A: "You Be ___" (1986 hip-hop hit))—no more wading into the whole "does it mean 'doing well' or 'doing badly'?" mare's nest. Just quote Run-DMC and move on (good advice, generally).


Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

61 comments:

jae 12:04 AM  

Unlike Rex medium-tough for me.  This had some zippy stuff...LIT OUT, JAM CAM, KIDULT, EAT IT UP, STUCK UP, NOOGIE, ILLIN... and just enough crunch for a Sat.  Liked it!
 
Got off to a slow start with things like whOa for CLOP, oIlS for SINS, Ana for ARI (for the record I frequently mix up Graynor and Gasteyer), man boy for KIDULT, and Euchre for ECARTE (I only know two card games that start with E), but it got smoother. 

Have no idea about ABAS and my first stab googling it was zero help.

chefwen 12:52 AM  

How could you not love a puzzle with a SQUABBLE/QUIBBLE crossing and a NOOGIE, to boot.

Never heard of a JAMCAM or KIDULT so I did encounter a lot of resistance in getting through this one. Had to result in a little cheating to finish, but it is what it is.

I did love EUPHORIA and EXQUISITE, both fine words.

Clark 1:04 AM  

jae —

I think A BAS is French for "down with" as in "À bas la calotte!" (Down with the [clerical] caps!)

Questinia 1:53 AM  

Plunked down mEtlife at 39D with total certainty. Then strutted around the grid like I was in NYC looking for some other *sure* bets... like MutIny instead of MALICE.

I totally despise KIDULT!
It is one of those attempts at an Urban Dictionary portmanteau "hope I'll make a meme" entries. Hate it with an ameba hatred. UTTER ROT! Ugh... It probably is a meme already.

Tough puzzle for me cause I was strutting around the grid tossing down sure bets and then wondering why there were entire areas that were like NYC in the summertime during a sanitation strike... a symphony of stink. A "stinkphony".

Excuse me while I head over to Urban Dictionary. I've got some meming to do.

wreck 2:24 AM  

KIDULT was HORRIDTASTIC

jae 2:32 AM  

Clark -- Thanks. I googled ABAS and got an ad for leather accessories.

Benko 2:42 AM  

I thought this was a relatively tough puzzle, with pretty much the same solving experience and time Amy posted on her site. Hardest part was the SW for me. SEAGRAM, SOUP/NUTS clued as "antitheses", EXQUISITE...for some reason would not click and took me a minute or two of staring blankly before I made any progress.

Ari Clop Malice Exquisite 3:01 AM  

No F-Z, but plenty of fizz!
So ScrABBLy (love the BBS/QUIBBLE/SQUABBLE, that I tried ScrABBLE at 1A...alas.

Got NUTS with no letters, just magical moment, but thought it shouldcross with Sane...but wrong NUTS!

Speaking of NUTS, it tool 7 hours to go from SFO to LAX today...non EUPHORIA.

Handup for not knowing KIDULT (tried KIDman) thinking it was a Nicole JOKE) nor JAMCAM...but I like both!

Thought the puzzle was EXQUISITE!

Carola 3:57 AM  

Tough and terrific. Many, many pleasures: EXQUISITE, EUPHORIA, SQUABBLE x QUIBBLE, STUCKUP v. LIELOW, imagining Peter USTINOV saying "UTTER ROT!"

"REVISE" was definitely the right word for the SW: reOS (dumb, I know the Beach Boys!) kept me from seeing SOUP x NUTS; thought NYC might have a transAM building to match SF's. Finally decided to believe AQUIVER x EXQUISITE and the rest fell into place. Very fine Saturday, I thought.

Loren Muse Smith 8:08 AM  

@jae – CLOP was one of my three toe-holds (with BBS and AHS). Then, I swear, I lightly wrote in AQUIVER because I knew it wouldn't end in ing so it HAD TO start with A.

Compared to my experience yesterday with Brad's – he wiped the floor with me (yikes!) – this was a ton more accessible.

@Questinia – I got SEAGRAM early on off the AM, but I confidently put in take for "bit of action," drawing on my vast experience with directing films. Right.

I was struck with all the upbeat vs darker entries:
WUNDERBAR
EXQUISITE
EUPHORIA
ALL-STAR
HEROIC
EAT IT UP

PET PEEVE
SQUABBLE
QUIBBLE
UTTER ROT
SINS
IRE
MALICE

And then, is ILLIN good or bad?

Nice puzzle, Tom. But I'm still reeling from watching David Kwong construct a puzzle in front of an audience *and* have the chosen secret card spelled out diagonally up through the middle.

Danp 8:13 AM  

Soup and nuts are antitheses that they are metaphors for beginning and end. So does that mean that Soup and A are synonyms? Or nuts and Z?

AliasZ 8:16 AM  

This one had everything in it from hip-hop to symphony conductor, from PET PEEVE to QUIBBLE, from EUPHORIA to UTTER ROT, or to put it simply, everything from SOUP to NUTS. Least favorite entries: UNPILE, whatever that is, and CANSO. Favorites: UPPSALA, and EXQUISITE is WUNDERBAR, symmetrically paired no less.

Least favorite clue: "I am slightly shy, there are only 11 donuts in the box. ONE MORE, please." Puh-leez. Favorite, "As you like it." Who didn't read it "As You Like It"?

Lots of UPs: UP-PSALA, EAT IT UP, STUCK UP, E-UP-HORIA -- the whole puzzle is SO UP.

There are many rivalries in baseball, but the Twins-ORIOLES is not one, except in the widest sense. All AL teams are rivals of each other, as are all NL teams, and all teams are rivals for the World Series trophy. Singling out the Twins makes as much sense as the Oakland A's.

I never heard of JAMCAM, ILLIN, KIDULT and LITOUT, so today I know three more "things" than I did yesterday. I already forgot ILLIN.

Here is Karl BÖHM conducting Beethoven's HEROIC Symphony No. 3, the Eroica.

Enjoy your weekend.

Elbro27 8:19 AM  

Full court basketball is different than half court basketball ... usually played with 2 or 3 players per team.

MetaRex 9:07 AM  

The eseometer story is here

ONE EAR, TWO EAR? MID-EAR...ok. LADULT? KIDULT...ok. Did not have a smooth solving experience...no online time submission...had to do a minor guilt trip on self after Googling the actress's name.


Anonymous 9:25 AM  

In English Böhm is Boehm. So, fail.

balanchine 9:31 AM  

@ Rex "I'm shy a dollar" as I said to the clerk at the bookstore, fumbling in my pockets for change.It *is* old, a bit.
~~ ~~

PET PEEVE
drivers who travel in the left lane, as if on vacation, or in the middle of a coronary event or anywhere but on, um, an actual highway.
While this doesn't pertain to the parking lot that is the L.A. on a normal day, on the functional highways of the North East megalopolis, this is de rigeur. And these loopy drivers, who think the speed they're going is the speed everyone should be going, choose particular cars. Some of the worst offenders: Honda drivers, Infinitis, Toyotas and old guys in newish Caddies. Also, young girls texting in Hondas, and guys texting in beaters. No concept that the left lane is the passing lane, the middle lane is the traveling lane and the right lane is the exit and entrance lane. Car owners who know this: Audis, some but few BMW's. Town cars on the Merritt Parkway: crazy-ass bad. Real attitude because of who's in the back seat. Hilarious.
Passing these people who tend to hold things up is an exercise in control and concentration. Sometimes, on the Mass Pike, a Statey will clock you at 80 passing one of these bozos, who is almost every driver in America, except for all of you, of course, but when you explain that you were passing and have a perfect driving record, they go check for a sec and then, guess what? Give you a warning. Every time.
There is one sign in a 500 mile sq. radius that actually explains this rule. "The left lane is a passing lane." Somewhere on the Pike.

Speaking of which, I missed the exit for NYC recently early one morning, tho I've done the route 100's of times, and I ended up in the Berkshires. The far corner of the state. You think I would have detected my mistake before I reached the point where there were no exits for miles and miles. Instead, I just found myself saying, wow, nice hill, never noticed that before, at least not since back in the day bus rides to Williams to visit P.)

Speaking of Stateys, as I finally got myself and my car turned in the right direction, Bam, pulled over at 79, warping my theory that you won't get stopped if you keep exactly one mile under 80.
As Mr. Man approaches the car I say, Officer you have no idea what my day has been like so far..." as I am applying lipstick. (It is 9:00 A.M.)

(Why the lipstick? Certainly not to influence him in any way. I was inspired, perhaps, by the colors of peak foliage. Who knows why a woman chooses that moment to reapply lipstick?)

I give him my expired license, just for fun- knowing my renewed one was in my bag- just to see if he'd catch it.
Ten seconds later, he's back with a verbal warning to slow down, maybe.

Maybe he appreciated that I moved over to the right further after he had pulled me over, so he wouldn't get hit by an oncoming car. Who knows what these guys think of who become Stateys?

dk 9:40 AM  

Alas this one just did not click for me. KIDULT and ONEMORE coupled with wondering is gallant really HEROIC or just polite times two…. messed this one up for me.

The Northwest was a SEA of fun and ILLIN in the house brought a smile.

🌟🌟 (Two Stars) Note following numbers or figures with descriptors is a hold over from early days of hand written agreements when handwriting may have been illegible or unscrupulous individuals may have altered same. I knew you want to know.

puzzler 9:42 AM  

i thought the one more answer referred to asking for a drink to getup the nerve to, say, talk to girl.

Bob Kerfuffle 9:48 AM  

Fine Saturday puzzle, medium-challenging for me, but very happy to finish correctly with no write-overs.

We might accept BOHM without the umlaut as we always accept ANO without the tilde. But I would like to suggest that there was a typo in the clues: SOUP and NUTS are not antitheses, but they might be called antipodes.

Anonymous 9:59 AM  

KIDULT? JAMCAM? I could go on, but REALLY?

Bob Kerfuffle 10:06 AM  

Nothing to do with today's puzzle, but an answer to something that had been bothering me:

We have all been annoyed to a greater or lesser extent by the scam comments that appear on Rex's and other blogs, sometimes for products or Web services, though for some reason Rex seems to have a big following of satisfied customers of witch doctors. What bothered me was that the promotional messages are almost always borderline illiterate, full of mis-spellings and ungrammatical construction. If you are appealing to a group of crossword solvers, wouldn't you want your message as well-crafted as possible?

The answer, as I heard in a story on the NPR program, "On the Media", is no. In short, by making your message illiterate, you automatically screen out the literate, skeptical folks who would in the end not fall for the scam, and concentrate your efforts on those who are most likely to send in the cash!

Makes sense!

joho 10:31 AM  

What a difference a day makes! Yesterday I was bloodied on the floor (Hi, @Loren!) and today immersed in a delightful, successful solve.

So many beautiful words! And, yes, @chefwen, any puzzle that starts with SQUABBLE/QUIBBLE has got to be great!

With PILE in place I was happy to see UNPILE emerge and not rePILE.

Anybody else have DiET before DEET for, "Preventer of many bites?" I felt so smug for like one second there.

I used to ride my bike to the SEAGRAM building to sit and watch the people. Love that building.

I actually have heard JAMCAM but never KIDULT and, @Questina, your rant on that is well deserved!

Loved UTTERROT over PETPEEVE.

I could go on and on about this one, thank you, Tom Heilman, for my Saturday morning EUPHORIA!

Nancy 10:31 AM  

NOOGIE????? Never heard of it. Just Googled it. Am so glad I never heard of it. Sounds very unpleasant. Didn't exist when I was growing up -- either the word or the act it describes. And then there was the hip-hop hit: ILLIN????? What does that mean? Hated this puzzle, DNF and think I'm too old to solve it

GILL I. 10:32 AM  

@AliaZ - this one is screaming for a story!!!
I really, really enjoyed this puzzle and I truly hope Tom will EAT IT UP UP today...
NOOGIE is my WOTD - just saying it makes me smile.
@Bob K - Oh no...I just make a huge donation!!!

Anonymous 10:40 AM  

Medium-ish for me. I just couldn't get started; then, once I got a couple on top it went o.k.

I was afraid I was going to be the only one who never heard of JAMCAM (SUCH a good word) or KIDULT (which is UTTERROT, in my view).

And, yes, SOUP is not the "antithesis" of NUTS. More like antipodal, sure, but just "opposite" would have been just fine with the same effect.

gpo

JFC 11:05 AM  

Wordplay has a 1500 character limit on comments. Rex used up about one third of that to explain how fast he was or wasn't. Seems like a lot of bad fill to me. I enjoy his comments on construction and admire his insights. I really could care less about whether he takes another ten seconds to complete a puzzle. That's almost narcissistic...in a nerdy sort of way….

quilter1 11:08 AM  

I must be dull this morning. Did not get it. Tomorrow is another day.

Charlene 11:19 AM  

Could not finish without googling. *Seagram* building? Ugh.

mac 11:28 AM  

Good, crunchy Saturday. Oddly enough the SW was the easiest area for me, probably because Seagram and extreme went in without crosses, and we just talked about Amelie last night.

Write over at 7D: listen. Still seems a good answer. Figured there is no English verb for the Dutch zwijgen/German schweigen.

In the end the horrendous kidult slated me, left open the D box.

AliasZ 12:00 PM  

@Charlene,

The SEAGRAM Building is a skyscraper located at 375 Park Ave. between 52nd Street and 53rd Street in Midtown Manhattan. The structure was designed by German architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe while the lobby and other internal aspects were designed by Philip Johnson including The Four Seasons and Brasserie (BRASSERA) restaurants.

The building stands 515 feet tall with 38 stories, and was completed in 1958. It stands as one of the finest examples of the functionalist aesthetic and a masterpiece of corporate modernism. It was designed as the headquarters for the Canadian distillers Joseph E. SEAGRAM's & Sons.

Mohair Sam 12:21 PM  

"Little GTO, you're really lookin' fine, three dueces and a four speed, and a 389 . . . " Had to hum thru this to get our first answer, thank you Ronny and the Daytona's. Cannot believe Rex did not link this one.

That G gave me NOOGIE (wunderbar clue, btw) and I left the puzz to the wife while I went up to pay some bills. Not long thereafter she asked me about "that fun French movie, ten years ago" - AMELIE - and seconds later she announced the puzzle completed.

Fun Saturday for sure. Very cleverly clued. Unlike most we were fine with JAMCAM (a Philly station uses the term all the time), but we do wonder about KIDULT. And I've seen ILLIN on a couple of sweatshirts, so no prob there.

Finally, yes SOUP is really really not the antithesis of NUTS. But we get where the constructor is coming from, so we're fine with it.

Steve J 12:23 PM  

I wasn't on this puzzle's wavelength at all. Only managed to fill in two answers on my first pass, and they were both wrong (bejeweled instead of EXQUISITE, and ARESO instead of CANSO). It didn't get any smoother after that. The grid almost looked like a DNS (did not start) rather than a DNF before I had to start googling to try to get a foothold somewhere.

Liked the SQUABBLE/QUIBBLE cross, loved the clue for SET BAIL. KIDULT is just awful, and UNPILE wasn't far behind.

The Twins and the ORIOLEs faced each other in the first two American League Championship Series, in 1969 and 1970. Since then, they've not remotely been rivals. As others have mentioned, bad clue. "Rivals" doesn't simply mean teams that play the same sport in the same league.

Anonymous 12:54 PM  

You must be really old. I'm 67 and NOOGIE was definitely there in my tender years. Got a few, probably gave one to a younger, unsuspecting sibling.

Masked and Anonym10Us 12:54 PM  

History of the NOOGIE:
* As 4-Oh's wunderbar chart demonstrates, the noogie was invented during the gay nineties. It never gained much traction then, cuz everyone wore a ginormous hat.

* With the advent of the hatless look in the sixties, the noogie resurfaced. As IQs continued to decline (due to noogie brain damage effects), general interest in bullying via the noogie gradually took hold. With the advent of texting, IQs plummetted to where "noogie" sounded enough like "nookie" to confuse most, and interest skyrocketed.

* Also known as:
1. Monkey Scrub
2. Hippo Handing
3. Russian Haircut
4. Dutch Rub (open handed variant)
5. Brain Fracking
6. Dork Massage

--source: P.T.A. Archives

I hope y'all appreciate how truly rare a 10-U SatPuz is. Got m&e so excited, I even forgot to go back and check on what the puz theme was. Top half played out easy; bottom half, not so much, sorta like 4-Oh's backfeed.

fave fillins: SETT. Cuz I learned somethin, there.

M&A

J.D. KaPow 1:11 PM  

Wow, amazing how much experiences vary. This was by far the hardest for me in months (years?). The only part I didn't have trouble with was the NE (kidult, etc.), and that seems like it was the toughest for others. Couldn't get into any other part of it. At all. Gave up with about 1/4 of it done.

jberg 1:23 PM  

This one was really tough for me -- like @Steve J, I started with bejeweled and the A for either 'are so' or 'am not.' That confused me quite a bit -- also putt for GRIP, all of which made me really doubt POISE, even though it was written in. And i had to get almost all the crosses before I could force myself to write in KIDULT.

That diagonal line of black squares leaves very few routes from one side of the puzzle to the other - so I got the top right long, long before the bottom left. MIA finally dawned on me, and it gradually fell into place.

I had thought of SETT, and could see that nothing else would work there, but kept thinking it couldn't be right because it has something to do with badgers.

You science types -- is 14D correct? I thought a METEOR is just a flash of light. An asteroid would be a planet threatener, but a meteor?

M and A Help Desk 1:59 PM  

@jberg: yep...
* SETT = badger den. But I learned that it's also a granite pavin block. If laid by badgers.
* METEOR = shootin star = the streak of light made by a meteoroid hittin the atmosphere. Seems kinda fuzzy, as far as large meteoroid vs. small asteroid size cutoffs. Whatever hits the ground is called a meteorite.

Questinia 2:37 PM  

KIDULT


... this I can accept.

Lewis 2:37 PM  

@balanchine -- thanks for your "shy" explanation. Now the clue makes perfect sense.

It was a plodder for me. Work on one section, then another, then another, then back to the first, etc., until things came into view.

Never heard of KOTO or UPPSALA, or ECARTE. I want to hate KIDULT, but it's already becoming an earworm. I like STUCKUP intersecting with UTTERROT.

An excellent Saturday -- thanks, Tom!

Unknown 2:52 PM  

@Quest - I plunked down MET LIFE immediately also. Made a mess of that corner. Sometimes knowing too much is worse that knowing just enough.

I skip M-W 3:03 PM  

Took me forever but finished correctly. Doing puzzle pre-caffeine probably not best idea.
Agree w/ @jberg. When I was about thirteen , wrote letter to owner of Ariz Meteor Crater to prove to my science teacher that should be meteorite. Still have reply somewhere. Yes.
Hands up for bejeweled, skycam before jamcam, putt before grip. knew noogie, though not from youth.
Impressed w/exquisite number of Qs.

Davis 3:25 PM  

JAM CAM makes sense, but after taking a stroll through the Google I don't think its usage is anywhere near widespread enough to be a good entry.

Wading through the first ten pages of Google hits I found that (a) most instances of this term as clued were in the UK, and a few of of those were actually hits on "Traffic Jam Cam," (b) maybe 3 or 4 instances of this term as clued were in the US, and (c) entirely unrelated uses (including some computer peripheral using that name) far outweigh the use as clued.

August West 5:40 PM  
This comment has been removed by the author.
August West 5:42 PM  

Hated KIDULT, ORIOLE as Twins' rival, and JAMCAM. Didn't like SEA/SEAGRAM. But there's so much great stuff in there, the puzzle as a whole earns a thumbs up here. Loved the clues for STUCKUP, CLOP, TOTASTE, REVISE, ONEMORE. SQUABBLE crossed with QUIBBLE. EUPHORIA, EXQUISITE, PETPEEVE, UTTERROT, UNPILE, LITOUT, AQUIVER, WUNDERBAR, all good stuff. Over 1:40 quicker to the finish line today, I think FRI and SAT entries should have been reversed.

August West 5:50 PM  

Oops, in amending and deleting my first post for failure to space and two typos, I must have accidentally deleted my appreciation of NOOGIE, and its clue. I literally LOLed. Worth the price of admission, right there.

sanfranman59 6:01 PM  

This week's relative difficulty ratings. See my 8/1/2009 post for an explanation and my 10/15/2012 post for an explanation of a tweak I've made to my method. In a nutshell, the higher the ratio, the higher this week's median solve time is relative to the average for the corresponding day of the week.

All solvers (this week's median solve time, average for day of week, ratio, percentile, rating)

Mon 7:13, 6:07, 1.18, 97%, Challenging (8th highest ratio of 201 Mondays)
Tue 7:16, 8:15, 0.88, 16%, Easy
Wed 11:06, 9:44, 1.14, 81%, Challenging
Thu 20:04, 16:44, 1.20, 81%, Challenging
Fri 23:02, 18:38, 1.24, 88%, Challenging
Sat 31:46, 26:51, 1.18, 87%, Challenging

Top 100 solvers

Mon 4:16, 3:46, 1.13, 91%, Challenging
Tue 4:36, 5:09, 0.89, 13%, Easy
Wed 6:15, 5:37, 1.11, 79%, Medium-Challenging
Thu 13:11, 9:30, 1.39, 89%, Challenging
Fri 12:57, 10:42, 1.21, 81%, Challenging
Sat 20:20, 17:01, 1.19, 84%, Challenging

syndy 6:10 PM  

@ Loren use Smith;you have three toes? @ Danp;no. Hand up for Bejeweled..WHOA to THOU to CLOP.

Z 7:19 PM  

Thank you @sanfranman59. Since I had a major left coast DNF on this one I can feel a little better that it came in as challenging in your stats.

The Baltimore Orioles moved from St Louis in 1954. The Twins were The Washington Senators until 1960. So there was a half decade where they were beltway rivals. (I don't buy it, either)

@balanchine - I have sometimes waxed at length on topics barely tangential to the puzzle, but I must bow to your speeding greatness. I wonder if that lipstick ploy would work for me.

A geisha playing a KOTO.

Dirigonzo 7:43 PM  

I was delayed starting the puzzle after work due to a general break-out of <A HREF="http://dirigonzo.blogspot.com/2010/10/brat-pack.html>the brat pack</A> from the back yard so I had to spend an hour or so trying to round them up. In the end, three girls from down the street caught them and brought them home - I love living in a close-knit community.
Anyway, with all the dogs home and a drink in hand, I set upon the puzzle and in the space of an hour or so managed to reduce the grid to one blank square: AB_S - the crossword was no help so I left it blank and came here to learn about A BAS. I once owned a brand-new "1965 classic with a 389 engine", so the GTO was a slam-dunk.

Don't forget to "fall back" tonight - DST ends at 1:00am Sunday.

Dirigonzo 7:48 PM  

Let's try that link one more time (and if it works, great thanks to @
Tita for the instruction): the brat pack.

Michael 7:51 PM  

One of the easiest and fastest Saturdays ever for me. No idea why. More like a Wednesday.

jae 12:04 AM  
This comment has been removed by the author.
Dolores 3:15 AM  

The SW made this challenging for me. First tried BEJEWELED, then ELABORATE, then EXPENSIVE, before finally getting EXQUISITE.
If I'd been working on paper, I would have ripped right through with all of that erasing. Great puzzle.

Davis 9:45 PM  

Following up on my earlier comment, some more extensive Googling efforts make it clear that JAM CAM is simply not in the language. Some basic data:

(1) Searching "jam cam" in quotes returns about 82,000 hits. That seems like a lot until you consider that (a) most of these are not traffic-related, and (b) when you start going through the results Google cuts you off at only 279 hits because the remaining ones are "very similar" to those 279. This typically means that the remaining hits are from the same sites (or from mirrors of those sites).

(2) Searching "jam cam" and "traffic" gets you the more relevant results, but now you're down to 31,000 hits, which trims down to 230 results after cutting out the duplicates.

(3) Searching "jamcam" (no space) and "traffic" ostensibly gets you a more reasonable sounding 514,000 hits, but (a) this list trims down to 109 results, and (b) for some reason the initial results list is only 43,200 if you put quotes around "jamcam".

All of this is to say that JAM CAM is in no way in the language according to Google. It's also worth noting that no commenter or blogger at Rex's blog or at Crossword Fiend stated that they had actually heard this term. How often does that happen with a legitimate entry among all these word nerds?

Not Mohair Sam but I read his comment 10:23 PM  

@Davis - "Unlike most we were fine with JAMCAM (a Philly station uses the term all the time)."

Anonymous 11:27 AM  

Definitely have heard jamcam in NYC area. Maybe even on Simpsons? Maybe not the kind of thing one rushes to put on internet, hence low google count?

Kidult news to me.
Both inferable mhm (not quite aha) moments.

spacecraft 11:32 AM  

MY PET PEEVE? Blog leaders who grade "easy-medium" when I didn't even come close to finishing! KIDULT? AQUIVER? KRATIONS? ILLIN? KOTO?? Did I leave English behind somewhere? Where am I? And now I'll segue into Roy Neary: What the hell's going on around here? WHO THE HELL ARE YOU PEOPLE?

Don't worry, guys, it's just another movie quote, not a rant. But I just couldn't even get any traction today. Even with SETBAIL and JOKE to start.

And of course, my #1 gimme, the only card game with 7-low I've ever heard of; EuchrE. ECARTE? That belongs with that list a couple of paragraphs up. And BOHM, I'm supposed to know him. MR. Obscurity 2013.

And this collection of WTFs gets an easy-medium?? Get serious.

Anonymous 1:22 PM  

I have to agree with Spacecraft. When you get words like Kidult and Jamcam and those words are not recognizable and not in general usage, well, I believe it's a bit unfair.
A pox on you, Heilman !

Ron Diego 10:20AM PST

DMG 2:56 PM  

Didn't get enough of this one to even make it fun. Apparently @spacecraft and I live in the same world, where abominations like KIDULT are banned as assaults on the language. My Captcha is IzTechs, maybe a comment on those who favor this kind of thing, with the Z standing for 'zany'. I'm out of here!

Ginger 3:14 PM  

Another Saturday DNF, but I'm used to that. Learned a lot today, some of which I'll remember, JAMCAM is not one of them. Ridiculous compilation. Wanted Karl Orff at 5-D, kept it much too long. Not a NYer, so the Park Ave building could have been anything. Alternate clue: _7. Just add ice, neat.

Wrote in ECARTE with no crosses, where that came from I've no idea. Worked northward from there until I cried Uncle Google. @Spacecraft, agree with your PET PEEVE, no way was this 'easy-medium'.

Solving in Seattle 1:47 PM  

Three days late to the party so I'll keep it brief since I threw out Saturday's paper and my memory isn't that good.

I kind of liked this tough puz but I have one QUIBBLE with the cluing (besides the Twin's rival/ORIOLE foul ball): WUNDERBAR means "wonderful" in German. I believe the clue was "Super German." It should have been "German super." I was trying to fit "WUNDERkind" into not enough squares. So Tom and Will, I'm calling you guys out on this one.

  © Free Blogger Templates Columnus by Ourblogtemplates.com 2008

Back to TOP