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Long-winded sort / MON 11-5-2018 / Category for a minor-league team / Danny who co-starred in "White Christmas" / Endless, in poetry
Monday, November 5, 2018
Constructor: Roland Huget
Relative difficulty: Medium
THEME: Sound Bites — Theme answers are foods that are connected to sounds.
Theme answers:
- TOOTSIE POP (17A: Chocolaty candy on a stick)
- CAP'N CRUNCH (28A: Breakfast cereal with a naval officer on its box)
- GINGER SNAP (46A: Brittle, spicy cookie)
- SOUND BITES (59A: Broadcast news snippets....or an apt description for
Word of the Day: ROUE (35A: Dissolute sort) —
A man devoted to a life of sensual pleasure; see RAKE.
Roué originated as a French word and gained momentum when it began to be used in reference to the libertine companions of Philippe II, France's regent from 1715-1723. Roué means "broken on the wheel" in French and ultimately derives from Latin rota, meaning "wheel." Since the wheel being referred to was an instrument of punishment, the French were implying that such dissolute beings deserved this punishment. By the end of the 18th century, English-speakers added "roué" to their list of synonyms for a rake, libertine, debaucher, lecher, etc.
(Merriam-Webster)
• • •
Well, this is another Annabel Monday where I'm gonna talk about how I had a rough time with the puzzle and then read the comments to see whether this was a universal thing or whether most people solved it in two minutes. :P I swear I feel like I've gotten much better at puzzles in the years since I've started blogging, but this one really was one of the harder ones I've had in awhile. I demoted it to Medium after realizing there was almost no obscure celebrity fill, but seriously ETERNE, IN SITU, and UVEA on a Monday? (For the record, I kinda don't like "___ in poetry" clues--I get what they mean but no two poems are the same, and the same goes for two poets!) And I couldn't help but feel Rex's spirit bubbling up inside me when I filled in ANO instead of AÑO. I think I might be getting a little grouchier with age, lol. And while I'm grouching, since when does RENT become RENTS in that context? Why is TAKE IT presented/clued like it's some kind of slang saying?! NOPE, I need to calm down and eat some CAP'N CRUNCH. Speaking of which, the theme kind of fixed this for me, if only because "a naval officer" is possibly the funniest way to describe CAP'N CRUNCH. And more importantly, it was a lot more Monday-appropriate. Anyway, do you guys like GINGER SNAPS? I feel like it's one of the most controversial cookies--I know people who won't touch them. Personally I love them. They're almost as good as candied ginger...mmmmmmmmm.
For real I appreciate that there weren't a bunch of celebrities, I'm so over puzzles where I feel like I'm missing out because I didn't watch all the soaps on TV in 1983.
Bullets:
- ROADMAP (52A: Plan going forward, as for these) — I don't think I would be able to survive if I had to live on only these instead of GPS-es. My most recent adventure was when I was trying to get to Brandeis to go to their Shabbat services (long story, but basically, I have friends there and wanted to say hi, plus they have amazing matzo ball soup)...and ended up taking a wrong turn and not getting there until they were doing the concluding prayers. Whoops. I still got to eat the matzo ball soup though.
- SMELT (33A: Put through a blast furnace, say) — Okay so I was looking up stuff about smelting to write about this and like...
- This is liquid gold, supposedly. Is this not the coolest thing ever? It makes me want to learn to do this. No, go out and build my own metal foundry or something--
Why, thank God I saw this before being ruined by my own hubris.
- GASBAG (23D: Long-winded sort) — Is this really a thing people say? I was so frustrated when WINDBAG didn't fit here, but I've seriously never heard GASBAG. Is it a UK thing, maybe?
- RIOT (51A: Hilarious person) — Oh man, this was the name of my favorite band's sophomore album when I was in high school! Paramore's kind of...loud....but their music still goes pretty hard honestly. Unless that's just nostalgia.
Signed, Annabel Thompson, tired college student. (I know you're always making fun of me for always being tired but I really am this time, dear readers, I have to get up at 7 tomorrow to go shadow a classroom for my education class, and I have like a billion things due this week. Please help.)
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68 comments:
Nice write-up. Thanks.
Easy, cute, smooth, liked it.
In December I'm going to get a colostomy bag. It will the end of the ANO.
Also, saying that HIPHOP is another word for rap is like saying bluegrass is another word for country.
Annabel, your reviews always leave me with a smile, and that just isn’t true with Rex. You bring a kind of sly humor to the discussion of the crossword, whereas Rex is always on the verge of being outraged (or, sometimes, seems actually outraged). I give him kudos for giving you the opportunity to write the occasional review, though.
I thought the puzzle was typically Monday easy. It did take me quite a bit longer than two minutes, though. But I did finish it without help (not always the case) in what for me is a good - no, better than good - time, which was ~13 minutes. Didn’t know what a TOOTSIE POP is, kept thinking TOOTSIE roll. No matter. Wherever I faltered the crosses came to my aid.
For 16A I plopped in iris, which is the only part of the eye that I can ever remember. Then, when it inevitably turns out to be UVEA, I think “....yeah, dammit, I should know that...” It’s especially embarrassing given that I had two eye surgeries earlier this year, part of which included discussions with the eye surgeon about the various parts of my eyes. Oh well, in one eye and out the other (or something like that...)
After the SNAP and POP I was looking for the crackle, but instead we got CRUNCH, close enough I guess.
Annabel, if you haven’t already, you must try Sweet Pickled Ginger, that stuff will make you sit up and take notice, I’m addicted to it. That and Kimchi are always on hand in my fridge for a quick nibble.
Love TOOTSIE POPS, can’t find them here. I guess this would be the time of year to look again.
Fun start to the week.
Oh man. Anyone who is enraged at the sound of someone eating should read this. It’s a real phenomenon and has an official name and stuff.
I liked the clue for 57A – the things going up in gentrifying neighborhoods. Hmm. Noses? Kayak racks on the Range Rovers?
Ok. PAPER CUT. I have to tell y’all this. This really happened to me last year. I’ll make it as succinct as possible. Now there’s a thought. Hah.
1. In the morning I had two sheets of paper in my hand and tried to adjust my bangs. In the process, I gave myself two TWO deep paper cuts on my upper lip. Had to dab them with a Kleenex for like an eternity.
2. After lunch, I was in the library and ended up chatting quite a bit with this fifth-grader. The librarian came over and said, Mrs. Smith, I should introduce you two since you seem to have hit it off. This is Nate Cutlip.
I. Swear. Same day. About 3 ½ hours apart.
Annabel – weird to read you write “…in the years since I started blogging.” Time flies like the wind (fruit flies like bananas) and all that. I always understood that your tag line for this place was tired college student and that you weren’t always really tired. In Ridgewood, NJ, we lived across the street from a Turkish family, and I always ran into the non-English speaking grandmom when we retrieved our kids from school. My Turkish is pretty much nonexistent, so our daily conversation went
Me: Nasılsın? (How are you?)
Grandmother: Iyiyim, sen nasılsın? (I’m fine, you?)
Me: Çok yorgunum. (I’m really tired.)
I wanted to, ya know, mix it up and not use iyiyim (fine) so the exchange had more lexical meat. It was just a fun exercise for me to spout out Turkish syllables. So the English-speaking mom finally called me and asked if I was ok, that her mom was really worried about me since I was tired all the time. Oops.
I have another Ridgewood Turkish story, but I’ll spare you today. What has gotten into me?
Roland – any grid with TOOTSIE POP (grape) and GINGER SNAP (a little burnt) is ok by me!
Two thumbs up on Chris B’s comment. I liked it for a Monday; cute, easy, and put me in a good mood, but HIPHOP is not another word for rap. The bluegrass analogy is spot on.
TMI
I was surprised when I saw Roland Huget's name, thinking he only did Friday and Saturday puzzles, so I looked him up on XwordInfo. Turns out that before this puzzle, he published (in the NYT) two Fridays, eight Saturdays, and one Tuesday (so maybe he's trying for the sweep, a puzzle for every day of the week?).
Two related observations. 1) Roland has terrific range, from easy to tough -- his last two puzzles, for instance, had two triple-stacks of 15. 2) I believe it would be worth your while to go to XwordInfo and click on Roland's picture, which will reveal thumbnails of his 12 puzzles, and you will see, out of those 12, nine absolutely gorgeous grid designs. The man is an artist.
Monday, Monday. Nice little offering. Excellent for a first timer or a jaded solver who was raked over the coals late last week.
Cool smelting clip. Thanks, Annabel. Reminded me of the annual school field trip to the Ford River Rouge plant in Dearborn. BTW, you may be tired all the time b/c you're working hard and learning a lot. That would be my explanation 😉.
I put this in the easy category.
My quibble: the theme answers are not sound bites, they are bite sounds.
Well, since you asked, this was super-easy for me, setting a new personal best of 4:40. I also don't see a problem with RENTS, I don't enjoy eating GINGER SNAPs, and while I agree that IN SITU feels out of place for a Monday, it fell right into place with just a couple of cross letters.
What I do have a problem with is the ableism displayed in using LAME as an insult. You should know better, NYT!
Relatively easy for me. Like @Brookboy, I finished in about 13 minutes. Would have been 11 if I had spelled KAYE correctly on the first sweep through the puzzle.
Cute theme, but only helped me fill in 59A. Otherwise pretty clean. Yeah, there was UVEA and ETERNE, but both gettable from the crosses. CLASS A effort overall.
My one cavil was the clue for 52A: "Plan going forward, as for peace". Aaaaargh! I hear those two superfluous words all the time now, especially from pundits. Ninety-nine percent of the time, "going forward" is not needed. Since when does a plan SET out a path going backwards? That clue would have been perfectly intelligible if it had been written "Plan, as for peace."
@LMS: My own Turkish story was that I once wrote a report on Turkish agriculture, in English, and I hired a Northern-Irish translator livening in Ankara to translate it into Turkish. One of the more difficult things for non-native writers to keep straight in the language is that versions of the letter "i" exist both with and without the dot. And it can make a big difference in meaning.
My translator had a Turkish friend living in Brussels, who she learned had just given birth. So she sent her a card and a baby gift, writing something like "Please don't feel obliged to write back immediately: I imagine that you've been busy with a lot of things lately." The friend did write back, however, quite amused. What my translator had done, reflexively, was dotted her "i"s, thereby changing the meaning of her sentence to "I imagine that you've been having a lot of sex lately"! My translator was very ABASHed, to say the least!
Thanks, @Annabel! There was Danny KAYE— one of my mother’s faves, and I’m in the mid-70s myself. And EDNA and the GRIBCH, but they’re more current. And ALI— but yeah, that’s not so many.
My daughter-in-law gets home today, so this is my last early-morning childcare shift for a while— I hope to comment from an actual computer tomorrow!
BTW, another mini-answer repeated in the big puzzle. Should I just accept that that is ok?
Like Tootsie Pops. Love ginger snaps. Salivate over Cap’n Crunch.
In Futurama, there is a scene in which Fry (who has been frozen and then revived a thousand years later), reacts to box of Admiral Crunch. He is then offered instead a box of Archduke Chocula.
Very easy, although pleasant, puzzle.
Easy puzzle— loved the SMELT video and the CAPN CRUNCH clue was a RIOT. No real resistance but it weren’t PAP either.
“Poetic” in a clue seems to always mean “18-19th century poetic.” Hard to imagine Kwame Alexander or Mary Oliver or Billy Collins using ETERNE except ironically . ERE, maybe. GASBAG was a common slang term at one point, although I think I’ve only ever encountered it in print. Thanks for a lively write up as always, Annabel.
Please!
I’m relatively new to doing the daily NY Times crossword and never cloae to the same universe for finish times as you and Rex do. I also use the Crossword app, which apparently is part of the problem...anyway, I hit a Monday PR on this one. Everything just came into place for me. Great write up. Get some sleep!
Año - Spanish for year
Ano - Spanish for anus
Hey All !
ALSO, Sugar Smacks. :-)
Nice MonPuz offering today. Didn't set the ole brain aTHROB. Had a couple of un-Monday type words, but for the most part, it was nice and easy. Puz didn't get ony BAD SIDE. I ADOREd it.
Shout out to all the ANONs. I am offended by GRINCH, though. How dare you put in someone who steals the warmth of Christmas! :-) And BOSOM! I never...
That silliness aside, almost put in paws for LEGS first. Har. Stopped myself,and that would've been the only writeover.
@Loren, you don't remember Annabel as a Tired High School Student? She started blogging back then. EPIC.
GAS BAG ON THE DL
RooMonster
DarrinV
Annabel, as everyone said, good write up. As to GASBAG: it’s not especially British, it’s just old. I’m reasonably old, and this was not said by any human being back when I was a student where you are now.
I wish he would just clue ano as a Portuguese year (no ñ in Portuguese) so we wouldn’t have to hear these dopey people tell us over and over again that ano is anus in Español. It’s really getting old.
Always enjoyable when we have Annabel Monday.
Sweet little Monday.
My only little head scratcher was 4D: ON THE DL. I've not heard that expression. I've heard of the QT variety. So, I looked it up. "Men who have sex secretly with other men." Ay chihuahua. English is so much fun to learn.
Love me some GINGER but not the SNAPS. I always cheated on the TOOTSIE POP. After a few licks, I'd BITE into the sucker to get the chocolatey center. Don't think I've ever tried CAPN CRUNCH because I don't like cereal. Well, I like Kelloggs with bananas. I much prefer toast with a spot of cheese.
RENTS is big, big news in Sacramento. They need to be stabilized something fierce. Homelessness is huge here and no one wants to deal with it. NIMBY's everywhere. We'll see what happens when voters take to the streets this week. Thank the lord...no more infernal ads.
Thank you Roland Huget for the puzzle and introducing me to the DL.
@John Hnedak - - bite sounds, ha!
Annabel, I may have said this last month, but it's so much fun watching your voice evolve over these years. Good luck with your billion things this week!
Glad that Rex isn't here to complain about 13D.
I believe you miswrote the clue for 52A. In my puzzle, at least, it was clued as "Plan going forward, as for peace".
Re: smelting...I grew up in a steel town. Pretty much every year we had a field trip to the huge US Steel plant, We'd walk across the factory floor, past open hearths and red hot ingots on rolling mills, while huge buckets (ladles?) of orange molten steel would move by on overhead tracks. Imagine anybody letting grade school kids do that today.
Also about the ANO debate - the puzzle always has contractions in it (IM A FAN, etc.) but no one ever complains about the missing apostrophe.
Hand up for IRIS before UVEA (which my brain wants to get confused with uvula-ugh!) so that slowed me down.
I remember “smelt” meaning “smelled” and rhyming with “dealt” from my younger days.
Easy but clean. Smelt always brings to mind the limerick about three smart fellows. Please everyone be sure to vote tomorrow. Just sayin.
I enjoyed this puzzle and your post, Annabel! I never think of TOOTSIEPOP as a chocolaty candy-the center was not my favorite part. I also hoped crackle would show up somewhere. A good start to the week.
Or has done, to date..
My five favorite clues from last week:
1. Something you must be willing to leave? (6)
2. "Them's the breaks!" (3)
3. Establishment to which customers have come for years? (9)
4. Pan that resists aging? (5)
5. Trunk fastener? (6)
ESTATE
ADS
WINE STORE
PETER
CORSET
Crosswords are diacritical free so I’m team don’t care. Still, there are alternative clues, please save us this discussion.
As for the continued tone-deafness in the puzzle, I think it is past time to stop complaining here and start complaining to the NYT. Tweets might do it, and it is educational to share the problem here, but the puzzle is a huge money maker for the paper (crosswords and cooking subscriptions power the NYT’s profit). If you have a problem with ableism in the puzzle tell somebody who actually has some authority to do something about it.
Great writeup and amen to no pop culture references!
Nice write-up Annabel;refreshing to hear your voice on a Monday. Have you tried Trader Joe's 4 Ginger cookies? I think they're the best.
John Hnedak beat me to the punch this morning. I was also going to say that it should have been BITE SOUNDS, not SOUND BITES. But that doesn't really take away from the cuteness of the theme.
On the other hand, there's very little cuteness in the mostly on-the-nose cluing. (With the exception of RENTS at 57A, which was nice.) The fill was somewhat better. But I didn't really need any crosses today to solve and there was pretty much no thinking required. I'll need to find my challenge elsewhere.
Nice to see SMELT in print today, since I praised yesterday's puzzle as "smooth as a smelt", which I stole from the Bert & I records of many years ago, which are still tons of fun.
Thought this was a practically perfect Monday. Thanks to RH.
Nice puzzle. Very easy for me--really too easy even for a Monday, IMO.
I, too, raised an eyebrow at HIPHOP, but so be it.
If you are a GINGERSNAP fan, you owe it to yourself to find the Trader Joes triples--with candied ginger embedded.
And I am old-ish, and use GASBAG with some regularity. Can't remember where I picked it up, but it's been a while.
Meh. Theme was thin, nothing really made me smile. Cringed at 14D and eye-rolled at 32D. Very little slowed me down. Quick and easy, just not all that much fun and ruined by some poor, easily correctable choices.
Sorry you are so tired, Annabel, but we DID help - we gave you an extra hour of sleep! You are welcome!
SOUNDBITES actually works ok, at my house. Themers are all BITES of stuff, each with a SOUND in their name.
fave fillins: BADSIDE. Debut word. Flashier debut clue, possibly? = {Skunky cabbage roll??}.
Thanx for a primo write-up, really tired @Blu'Bel. This MonPuz was easier than snot for M&A, but can indeed see some wonky spots, for a young, perhaps somewhat less veteran solver. KAYE. GASBAG. And others @Blu'Bel darlin already snorted at.
fave moo-cow eazy-E MonPuz clue: {Christmas stealer in a Dr. Seuss book} = GRINCH. Gimmes away lotsa letters in one gulp.
Primo weeject stacks in the NW & SE. staff weeject pick: PAP. Sorta like a PAPercut pUp.
Thanx for the MonFun, Mr. Huget.
Masked & Anonymo5Us
3-D!:
**gruntz**
Breezed through, but had to change PRIMP to PREEN.
Very cute - such a nice repurposing of the reveal phrase.
For GINGER cookie fans, here is a dynamite recipe from a Ladies' Aid BOSOM buddy of my grandma's:
Sift together 2 c. flour, 1 tsp. baking soda, 1/2 tsp. baking powder, 1/2 tsp. salt, 1 tsp. cinnamon, 1/2 tsp. ginger, 1/4 tsp. cloves; set aside.
Cream 3/4 c. butter, add 1 c. sugar, then 1 egg and 1/4 c. molasses.
Add dry ingredients. Form 1" balls. Roll in sugar. Press down lightly on cookie sheet. Bake at 350 deg. for 12-15 minutes.
The perfect combination of crispy outside and chewy inside. The only SOUND BITE heard will be "Mmmmm!"
Annabel, thank you for the ROUE etymology.
NYT actually does know better. It knows better than to censor words that have multiple meanings and usages merely because someone somewhere dislikes its pejorative use. Grow up.
With the G in place for 23D "Long-winded sort", I thought it might be GASCON. Apparently people who live in the Gascony area of France are noted for their boastfulness. Any truth to that @'merican in Paris?
Noticed a steamy undercurrent in this one, what with THROB connecting up with ON THE DL followed by ANO TAKE IT IN SITU. Or maybe I'm channeling my ROUE twin brother Anoa Blob's BAD SIDE.
the clip isn't smelting, alas. smelting involves putting raw ore and other components in a blast furnace to release the metal. for those who don't believe real facts:
Smelting is a process of applying heat to ore in order to extract out a base metal
[the wiki]
it's also a sardine.
GASBAG is common in old movies.
I missed the ANO while solving because it went in with crosses on this very easy solve. So I went looking for it after reading Annabel's comment and along the way found a bunch of "NO" words - ANO, AMINO, ANON and NOPE, along with two backwards in PON and CONN. I have no idea if this is unusual or not.
GINGER SNAP - I'm a convert to spice cookies. When I was growing up, no one in my house could stand them - people would give us cookie plates and the gingerbread sat on the pretty Christmas plate until well after the New Year, only to be ignominiously thrown away. Then I moved up to the Twin Cities and had a spice cookie from the now defunct Brothers Deli and I was hooked for life. I have never been able to recreate the darkness of those nearly black cookies no matter how dark the molasses or brown sugar I use but I continue to try. My newest recipe calls for a cup of raw ginger and I always add my secret ingredient of black pepper.
A tasty Monday puzzle, thanks Roland.
I thought for sure some one would link up gasbag and smelt as in "them that smelt it , dealt it"
I went riding yesterday and my horse came up with a limitation in his ability to ambulate comfortably. I know there's a word for that but I can't think of it right now.
I did this puzzle completely naked. Thank you and God Bless.
@Anoa Bob. Oui, oui. A gascon is also a fanfaron or vantard, literally a boaster. To lie like a gascon is an expression. The marseillais of course catch the biggest fish though.
Right on with the QT. The only desert then is Iraq.
Sorry Annabelle, but I'm a mediocre solver and this was so easy I was kind of surprised that Short even published it. GASBAG is common usage for the pseudo-pundits on the cable news networks. Esp. on weekends, as in "Sunday gasbags are saying...."
John and Nancy...what?? BITE SOUND is not a thing. SOUND BITE is.
ODE ETERNE
TERESA’s an EPIC TOOTSIEPOP,
a GINGERSNAP and ALSO more,
a CLASSA BOSOM and her LEGS won’t STOP,
TAKEIT from me: a heart THROB I ADORE.
--- SETH “ROUE” ARMANI
Easy even for a Monday. No erasures. I would have liked to see crackle instead of CRUNCH; that way you have SNAP, crackle, POP. Keep SOUNDBITES (if you can) but add rice krispies. That would have turned this great puzzle into a gem. In fact, it would have BOWLed me over.
Crackle called; he wants to know why he was slighted. His two BOSOM buddies are in there.
For a lark I tried doing this one across only; lasted until doorMAN. 10x more popular than GATEMAN. Oh well. After that inkblot, I abandoned the idea. 'Twas your typical Monday. My only other cause for frown lines appeared in the clue for ROADMAP: "Plan going forward, as for peace." Ooo-kay, I guess. Seems rather specific. I don't know how @Annabel got "these" as the clue's last word.
I'm surprised @M&A didn't mention two primo long "fillins" that end in U: BUREAU and INSITU. Hard to argue against SHEENA Easton for DOD. We eagerly await the @BS poem featuring BOSOM and LEGS. Par.
@spacecraft - you read me like a book, see above.
I think this was the easiest puzzle I've ever solved. I don't time myself but I started in square 1 and just blitzed the thing. I find early-week puzzles to be sort of mental calisthenics for the later-week offerings, but today I need more calisthenics.
Nevertheless, I found this well-constructed with nothing to pick a nit about.
Thanks Annabel for the perky write-up.
@Rainy : If you're looking for a challenge, I highly recommend the New Yorker magazine's Monday Puzzle. They put one out every Monday - which is perfect since some of us need a bit more of a challenge than the usual NYT Monday fare.
Link: https://www.newyorker.com/crossword/puzzles-dept
Glad you found some humor re: your colostomy. Best of luck.
Mostly gimmes today, with a couple of pauses:
ONTHEDL (considered QT)
GATEMAN (considered BOUNCER)
And a couple of quick fixes:
PRimP>>PREEN
paws>>LEGS
A snap.
@thefogman Thanks. I'll check it out, although here in Canada that might be tough. Maybe it's online.
@Rainy - Yes it is online. I have been doing their puzzle since it began a few months ago. Always challenging - and themeless. Today's is by Patrick Berry. Here is the link to cut and paste in your browser: https://www.newyorker.com/crossword/puzzles-dept
We had a TERESA today, if only goddess Diana woulda been in there it woulda been two of my favorite peeps.
The only Bond theme performer to be shown on screen is yeah baby SHEENA Easton.
OK for Monday.
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