Constructor: Tracy Gray and Jeff Chen
Relative difficulty: Medium ??? (verrrry slow for me, but I don't know why) (3:45)
THEME: DEER XING (43D: Road sign that hints at what can be found three times in this puzzle's grid) — circled squares contains kinds of deer (or, in one instance, just DEER), and those deer types "cross":
Theme answers:
- KEVIN HART x/w STAG PARTY
- FAWN OVER x/w HIND LEG
- JANE DOE x/w DEER XING
Word of the Day: HOOHA (
37A: Big to-do) —
a commotion; a fuss.
"the book was causing such a hoo-ha" (google)
also
• • •
Very slow on this. Not sure why. Well, I know that a big part of it was my complete inability to type efficiently. Just a disaster. And then somehow the whole dumb revealer placement—that whole SW corner—really threw me off. Not a huge fan of counting the revealer DEER as one of your DEER. There are other deer. Well, ROE is a deer, anyway, so there's at least one more. What about BUCK? I don't know why this took two people to make or why there's mirror and not rotational symmetry. I get that it's trying to be edgy and cute, but the theme felt fussy and awkward. Gangly. Was the
KEVIN HART / GAY BAR juxtaposition intentional? Meant to be
provocative? Interesting call, anyway.
HOOHA may appear in the dictionary with the definition that you see in the clue, but I can tell you that is not how that "word" exists in most people's minds in 2019. I wanted HOOPLA and honestly considered the possibility that I'd have to cram two letters into one box somewhere in there.
The Scrabble-f***ing is ridiculous in this one. Well, it's ridiculous in the NE corner, for sure. ZXX in a 3x4 section? I guess it's clean enough fill, so no harm done, but that sort of low-rent razzle-dazzle always reeks of sadness, to me. Again,
ESP doesn't exist so stop cluing it as if it does (
20D: Mind-reading ability, for short). I had GRAFT before
GRIFT, which was rough (
58D: Obtain money illegally). I also had no idea about
INTENSE (67A: Causing white knuckles, say) and went with VARIANT (?!) at
63A: Changing from time to time (VARYING) at first. Then changed it because
55D: Eight things on an octagon was obviously SIDES ... until it wasn't (it's
EDGES). [
Tom turkey or billy goat] is such a dumb childlike clue that I honestly didn't know what I was supposed to think. I thought maybe those were TOONS. The giant cross in the middle-bottom of the grid is oddly distracting and feels like some kind of religious propaganda. I might've liked this better on, say, a Wednesday. It is not a bad puzzle. But it's a little shaky, execution-wise, and it definitely did not scratch my Monday itch.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
P.S. There is literally no need for
NRA to be in this puzzle. None. Zero. So why is it here? If you can make a puzzle without
NRA, then you make it without
NRA. Otherwise it's gratuitous promotion for the pro-gun-death lobby. These are the people who convinced all the
Republicans to vote *against* the Violence Against Women Act last week. Those people. The ones who want men
convicted of domestic violence to still be able to legally own firearms. Those people. You're promoting them. Respectfully, %$^& that. Good day.
[Follow Rex Parker on
Twitter and
Facebook]
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76 comments:
And, by the way, this was a very easy puzzle.
Sure thought that big ole honking black cross would be more significant than it is (or did I miss something?).
Wow! I do the puzzle and learn knew words. I had no clue that HOOHA was synonymous with the lady parts. Can't wait to bring this up in conversation. Anywhere near the HIND LEG?
DEER are generally a delight to encounter. but I'm certain that in many areas they can be pests. I remember a van ride on one of the San Juan Islands in WA where the driver was continually beeping the horn to keep them off the road. I saw them vandalizing fruit trees along the way. I still tear up about Bambi's mom.
Said no one ever: I'm still ambivalent about the NRA. Gonna wait until the NYTX weighs in on its legitimacy. Actually, if you need a weapon to protect your family from a totalitarian government or from a crime syndicate, perhaps you should seek asylum in a civilized country, one that is not full.
On a personal note, my trip to ACPT morphed into a vacation, so I've been away. I encountered zero Rexites in Stamford. I was pleased to complete six error free puzzles within the time allotted, but #5 was beyond humbling. I blame my spicy lunch at the Kona Grill.
In legal proceedings anonymous males are John Doe and females are Jane Roe, not Jane Doe. That’s why the famous Abortion Case is Row v. Wade.
Easy-medium. Cute and smooth, liked it.
“... ZXX in a 3x4 section? I guess it's clean enough fill, so no harm done, but that sort of low-rent razzle-dazzle always reeks of sadness, to me...”
Rex, you gotta be kidding.
A Z and two Xs in a corner with “...clean enough...” fill and you’re actually knocking it? You are actually saying it “...reeks of sadness...”??? I don’t know whether to advise you to cut out that evening cocktail or to double it up.
I thought this was a nicely crafted puzzle that could have been picked for a Tuesday instead of a Monday. Enjoyed the solve.
When I filled in NRA I thought, “here we go again”. Read Rex’s write up and was amazed that there was no mention, then I saw the P.S., ok now we’re back to normal.
I thought this was Monday easy and very cute with all the dear DEER. My parents lived on a bluff overlooking Lake Michigan with the occasional DEER strolling through their backyard. So beautiful. Mom had a love, hate relationship when she discovered that they would devour any plant that was blooming.
I try to solve Monday puzzles with just the downs so I never saw HOOHA, had I noticed it I certainly would have done a double take.
4D made me smile, I have a little GECKO buddy who hangs out on my bedside table. I noticed him sneaking up to my water glass and licking the condensation off of it, so now I have a teeny saucer that I fill with water every night for him or her, hard to tell. Haven’t seen him for a few days but the water is always gone in the morning so I’m assuming he’s still around.
I knew @Rex would blow a gasket over still another appearance of NRA, which is happening so often I really now believe that Shortz & company are trying to make a point: Not that the NRA is deserving of support, but that opposition to it represents opinion, whereas recognizing it and what it stands for as a part of our world does not. It is increasingly disturbing that in our highly polarized current Zeitgeist so many very intelligent people fail to make that distinction. I can’t conceive of any way in which the appearance of this clue/answer in today’s puzzle causes harm to anyone. Taking aim at the organization here (I was thinking, maybe use “Second amendment obsessed grp.”, accurate in my view, as the clue) would possibly motivate sympathizers to abandon the puzzle, and it’s pretty clear from following comments on this blog that there are solvers who feel that way. Keeping them in the fold (even when they call themselves Anonymous, or Evil Doug), in my view, is a good thing.
Otherwise pretty much in agreement with OFL's take on the puzz.
@rex -- Jeff explained on his site that BUCK doesn't share any letters with other synonyms for deer, so they couldn't use it. He also said that he tried many ways to design this grid to make the three crosses happen, and that this was the only design that would work.
This grid is very free of junk, with a cute theme and just enough challenge without being frustrating for a new solver -- a perfect fit for a Monday NYT. It does look like an excellent template for a puzzle in a Christian magazine. The theme made me wonder if there were other words besides "herd" for a group of deer, and others that I found include "bunch", "mob", "parcel", "rangale", "leash", "gang", and "bevy".
I adored the NOTES coming out of the PANPIPE.
I assume that the giant cross is just to depict the deer xing?
(BTW, there’s a funny This American Life episode about misconceptions, including someone who thought that ‘deer xing’ was pronounced ‘deer zing ‘. Highly recommended!)
Very nice start to the solving week. I liked the theme and used it. Good mix of difficulty, but all Mondayish.
Rex may not have noticed the overized grid in applying his rating.
Why all the ADO about HOO-HA? Sure, it has another meaning. So do OTTER and MILANO, to name but two (consult your Urban Dictionary). And perhaps if you are in the demographic where vajazzling is a familiar term, it might be the first thing that comes to mind. But for me, and I suspect for most of the Times crossword solvers, it means 'fuss'. Or perhaps an expression of joy.
Thank you. Just one of the oddities, if not downright errors in this puzzle.
I am in the cam totally flummoxed by the giant, black cross in the grid. Was expecting some Lenten/Easter theme and low and behold the first set of circles was about deer. Hmmmm says I to self, and moseyed on. Then I come to NRA and think, oh, please please please not a hunting theme! Don’t make me kill Bambi’s mother in an easy Monday crossword, this would surely be too far beyond the pale, even for the lately semi-psychotic NYTXW! Thankfully the cross apparently means nothing. And that’s absolutely all i can say about this one!
@anon1:44 - Doe is the most common suffix used for unknown persons, both male and female, but Roe and a few others can be used as well. If you look at https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Doe#Famous_court_cases, you’ll see that many of the women listed are listed as Jane Doe. Roe v Wade was unusual in this regard, not the norm.
As for my problem with this puzzle, I got annoyed by the clue “Pepperidge Farm cookie with a geographical name, because that doesn’t really narrow it down much. That’s like cluing “US state that doesn’t border the ocean”.
Any puzzle that has an OTTER is aces with me. As for the DEERXING, that pretty much describes the view outside our windows. When we were kids we would get in the car and go looking for deer, now they come to us. Ditto for the wild turkeys, once elusive and now invasive. A large flock dug up more than an acre of our lawn last summer in their search for grubs. Life in the country.
Thought this leaned slightly Tuesday but still fun, even with no reindeer. Wrong season maybe. Thanks to TG and JC.
An adorable theme and a perfect revealer. I had a good feeling about it from the get-go, because any puzzle that starts with ZING is bound to be lively, right? And I'm very curious about the initial impulse behind the puzzle. It has to be one of two:
*You see the sign DEER XING and you think: Can I do something with that? Or
*You're reading a novel, maybe "Robin Hood" or another story set in that same era and you come across the word HIND and you think: Gee, there are A TON of words for DEER, aren't there?
I think I'll go look at the Constructors' Note on xword or Wordplay and see if they tell me.
BTW, with all those deer words you'd think that the deer was the absolutely most important and significant animal on the planet.
This was a fun, lighthearted Monday. And my favorite word in the puzzle wasn't any of the DEER words. It was "spokeslizard".
Maybe it says a lot about me, but I didn't see the gigantic cross until Rex mentioned it. (I didn't see the SOSs the other day either). I just do the puzzle and get on with my day, evidently. I'm probably missing out on so many things in life...but how would I know? Ignorance is bliss, I guess.
Kinda surprised there wasn't a Q in the puzzle.
I've been to a few GAYBARs. While the people inside may be proud, usually those establishments are low key. Also, you can tell a gay bar often times by its name...no need for a flag. And BTW yes, an OTTER is a gay term.
I am also a little amazed at the flak Rex takes for expressing his opinion. Seriously, if you think what he's saying is just his opinion, then why criticize him for expressing it? Isn't your beef with his opinion just your...um...opinion? It's easy to take potshots at the guy and I guess if you feel like he's overstepping his bounds by commenting on current affairs in a blog about xword puzzles, fine. That's your opinion too. Maybe...just maybe...as tired and weary you are for reading Rex's rants, many of us are just as tired and weary of you yammering on about Rex's rants. To quote a poster above: Get over yourselves.
I read Jeff's comments before coming here. Which made Sharp's comments about BUCK seem not very intelligent.
Seems to me that Mr. Sharp is of a mind that you have to shout out your opinions as loudly and frequently as possible. (I'm talking about the NRA entry now.) Seems to me that it is a VERY important organization in today's world, regardless of whether you agree with its goals. (Or perhaps I should correct that to "goals of the people who run it.") I can easily put blinders on when solving a crossword puzzle. I can fight for how I would like the world to be in more appropriate venues. I do not read crossword blogs expecting to be bombarded with political rampages. For me, it is not a crossword puzzle entry that I object to. I object to Mr. Sharp and those commenting here to letting their political ideas (some apt, some not so) intrude on what I expect to be a non-political discussion. I am frequently told politics should be lift outside a bar. In my opinion, that also holds for puzzle blogs.
Returning to the topic of the puzzle, I enjoyed this one which is normal for a Chen creation or collaboration. Perhaps the PPP might put off newer solvers. (How many young people know of JACK WEBB?) Too bad the grid pattern doesn't resembler antlers.
Fussy and awkward better describes Rex’s review than it does the puzzle.SW was a tad challenging but overall a fun jaunt.
I don’t care for puzzles with circles as a rule, but this one was just fine. As for HOOHA, Rex’s definition may or may not exist in “most people’s minds in 2019,” but I was completely unfamiliar with the anatomical connotation.
Appreciate your speaking out about the promotion of the NRA. No need for it.
@Rex....You are wrong about ESP. It does exist. My doxipoo has it. She knows when I'm planning to go out even before I do. My husband tells me she lets everybody know that I'm on my way home. She does this about 10 minutes before I do. So, put that in your pipe and smoke it!
This was a nice cromulent puzzle. I wanted to use that word here because I would never use it in the wild. Speaking of wild...DEER. My dad, owner of many rifles and shotguns, was a hunter. He had his room where he hung the heads of many a STAG. He loved hunting as did all of his 8 brothers and my two grandfathers. Not to leave the women of the family out, Mom was an avid pistol shooter and I LOVED skeet. Still do. My Dad taught me how to shoot he also taught me an enormous amount of responsibility. Yada yada yada. I won't get into any debate about responsible ownership; it's obvious in todays volatile times. Dad wasn't a NRA member and he certainly wasn't in the "pro-gun-death lobby" but he owned guns. There, I said it.
I liked IN/OUT/EXIT. MALE STAG PARTY at a GAY BAR. SEXY HOO HA PIX hanging on the walls? OK, this is really about DEER and I like DEER but I like OTTERs better because they're cuter.
Anonymous at 1:44 am
You are wrong to assume that anonymous women in legal cases are referred to as Jane Roe, while men are referred to as John Doe. The Roe and Doe surnames are both applied to men and to women.
You are making a false assumption and generalization based on the naming applied in Roe v. Wade.
A tough Monday. I like. There used to be a restaurant upstate NY called The White Hart. Great food. Seriously Rex, enough with the ESP bashing. No one is claiming it’s real in these clues. But it is a “thing” and has been for 2000 years according to Wikipedia. The Jains believed in it. Whether you do or not doesn’t stop it from being a legitimate term. Would you rant and rave about the Minotaur appearing in a puzzle. Or Godzilla or Shazam? I don’t see you complaint about PAN.
A cross is religious propaganda? Rex, get help.
pmdm,
I rarely find Rex's comments intelligent. And I've yet to be persuaded by a single one of his wokeful bludgeonings. Still, as you rightly note, after reading Chen's explanation, Michael seems even sillier and pettier than usual.
Puzzle works for me just fine, although HIND is new to me as a DEER-related term.
Never knew HOOHA meant anything other than a to-do. Wish I still didn't. I would love to see "vajazzles" in a puzzle though. Guessing I'll have to wait for BEQ to try that on his own site.
Rogers & Hammerstein appreciate a Do, re, mi clue in a puzzle with DOE and DEER in it.
Since everything seems to be political these days, I was really hoping 49D would be FAWNhall.
If you look at the puzzle grid *juuust so*, you can see an antlered deer staring out (in the headlights?), with either a blaze or a target on its forehead.
@Anon 1:44, your typo reminded me of a dusty old punchline from the 80’s: Dan Quayle heard someone say “Roe v. Wade” and thought it was a multiple-choice exam on how to cross the Potomac.
For at least the 89th day in a row, much of the commentariat has aided and abetted Rex in his deliberate hijacking of the blog discussion for the day. The entire conversation gets hijacked through good puzzles and bad puzzles alike. If everyone would stop rising to Rex's bait and jumping through his hoops, he would stop his wearisone ranting soon enough. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but eventually he would stop it. Because there would be no payoff.
(Sorry, not “target” — crosshairs. Clearly not up on my NRA parlance.)
Didn’t notice the cross till the end, then the first thing that came to mind was the Jägermeister logo of a cross between a deer’s antlers, apparently based on the legends of St Eustace and St Hubertus. https://www.logodesignlove.com/jagermeister-logo
Or maybe it’s just a terrible visual pun on XING.
Easy and quite enjoyable monday puz but truth be told, quite ambiguous, too.
The huge cross, NRA and the bambi theme constitute a rather unfortunate combo...
I'm not for political correctness per se, but why include NRA when you can easily avoid it and use other acronyms that represent something worthy of mentioning instead?
For example:
1A: ZING
12A: ACCE (worth looking up)
16A:CHIC
1D: ZAC
2D: ICH
3D: NCI (also worth looking up).
(Zillions of other possibilities of course).
So yep, ban the NRA, nyt and get over the monday-easy syndrome; if answers are easily inferable from crosses, anything is better than NRA and the despicable like.
From a sometime reader of your blog (because we get the NYT Sunday crossword late (one week) and the daily crossword(one month late) and never get the descriptive line regarding the puzzle). Comment: If you did not see the crossword descriptive on 4/8/19, would it still be easy for you? Especially solving 76 down (“see note?”)...from frustrated Dallas Morning News subscriber...
This is a well put correction and it was pleasing to read.
@GECKO- Have to disagree. Rex has a strategy to bowdlerize the puzzle. He doesn’t want to be exposed to names of people, organizations, etc. that he finds offensive. If this strategy goes unchallenged then he will win and the puzzle will suffer.
As I've mentioned from time to time, I solve the puzzle in the printed newspaper, delivered to my front porch every morning. Today the printing of the puzzle had been a bit sloppy, so that the ink in the central black squares was smudged. As a result, there appeared to be not just a cross, but a burning cross in my puzzle. Unnerving.
o
The theme was fine; I don't think there was a way to make it symmetrical, which would have been even finer.
I agree that ESP doesn't exist in the material world; but then, neither does Jane Eyre, or Hamlet, and we accept them in puzzles. No one can read minds, but if someone could we would call it ESP, so that's all right.
I don't even object to the appearance of NRA in puzzles. I do object to today's clue, "Second Amendment supporting group." Nope. Most people who want gun control support the Second Amendment; the NRA wants to distort its meaning. If you want original intent, you have to ask what the intent of putting "a well-regulated militia" in there was.
OK, enough politics; at least I disguised it as a complaint about clue accuracy.
I think this is a good Monday with a cute, easy theme. I let the SW make me stumble. I had SIDES and AYE and it took too long to sort it out.
Re: NRA. First of all I'm with Rex. This organization has much blood on its hands as do the the many politicians that kiss its ass. It should be declared a terrorist organization and disbanded. Then repeal the 2nd amendment and write some meaningful gun laws that allow hunters and people that LEGITIMATELY need a gun for protection, to own guns, all registered of course. Is this just an opinion? Ask the parents of the six year olds that were slaughtered with rapid fire guns in their classroom.
My five favorite clues from last week:
1. Ghost at the altar? (4)
2. Ones going through the motions? (11)
3. Calls to reserve? (4)
4. Innocent, perhaps (4)
5. Stuff in a muffin, say? (3)
JILT
TRIAL JUDGES
LETS
POPE
EAT
False. Jane Doe is commonly used and a perfectly acceptable answer given this clue.
If NRA must be used, a better clue would be something like "1933 New Deal agency"(National Recovery Administration).
Maybe it's the "crossing" of the revealer?
I didn't know that about Roe v Wade. Or about Jane Roe generally. Learnings!
This was fun for a Monday & easy from Jeff Chen!
I've started doing M-Tu with only the Downs too. Fun to try to discover the theme without (usually) seeing the revealer. Though in today's, the revealer was a Down.
My HeART leaped up at seeing Tracy Gray's name at the top - it seems like a while since I've seen her as a Monday constructor. Nice repurposing of the creatures as last names, a body part, unmarried status, and verb; I saw the crossings (gray shading in the newspaper, not circles) early, but didn't anticipate the perfect reveal. I liked the PAN PIPE echoing through the forest.
If you ever find yourself in MILANO, a visit to the Museo Nazionale Scienza e Tenologia Leonardo DA VINCI is well worthwhile - a fabulous collection of his various machines and wonderful anatomical and botanical drawings.
FAWNs being such shy, hiding-in-the-dappled-shade beings, I wondered how they'd become a part of "FAWN over" so checked out the OED, according to which this "FAWN" is a actually variant of "fain" - as in "I fain would take my stand" (for any other hymn singers).
@Sir Hillary, thank you for pointing out the so apt NOTES, crossing with DOE x DEER, no less.
Hey All !
Where's the IN THE HEADLIGHTS entry? Grid spanning 15, that one. Speaking of grids, only one other poster mentioned the extra long grid, tis a 15x16. Why? Who knows (haven't read xwordinfo, maybe Chen explained the need for an additional row).
Chuckle every time I see HOOHA. Comparable shouts are Yee-Haw, Wah Hoo, or even HOO Yah. Funny how it came to be a woman-part naughty bit. Doesn't mean it shouldn't be in a puz. HOOHA! See? It's fun!
There's HATE in the puz. Maybe cross-reference it with NRA? If you want to keep your Z in that corner, change the other Acrosses. Like
ZING
ODIE
TALC
Easy. But, hey. We're all DIVERSE. But, it would give Rex less INTENSE TORMENT. Can't we all just be SEXY? HOOHA!
I did enjoy this puz. Nice for a Monday. DEER XINGS. And I see no aversion to pronouncing that "zing".
ZESTY BLONDE
RooMonster
DarrinV
Yes! EW-symmetry. Luv it. Yielded a ginormous cross today, out of its puzgrid art. The cross no doubt represents the road sign for them deer that X-ED unsuccessfully. [Makin XED the M&A staff weeject pick, of course.]
Re: @RP re-rants: Every crossword and every cross word blogger has got their crosses to bear.
Nice, semi-feisty MonPuz solvequest, with the only brief nanosecond crunch comin at the sorta-dear KEVINHART/RAE X-ING. KEVINHART is that Oscar host ghost dude, right? Think I've seen Issa RAE a couple times in the puz lately. Suuuu … was able to tough that PPP-X-ING out ok.
*Is* kinda hard to score a DEERXING-mate for BUCK. BAMBI? FURBALL? yeah … didn't think so.
fave moo-cow eazy-E MonPuz clue: {Zig's opposite} = ZAG.
Thanx for gangin up on us on a Monday, Tracy darlin and Chenmeister. Nice weeject sanctuaries, in the NW & NE, btw.
Masked & Anonymo4Us
easier than snot:
**gruntz**
Even though this was over-sized, I finished at my average Monday time so it played easy for me. No INTENSE TORMENT, for sure.
@chefwen, I love your gecko story. The first time my husband and I traveled to the Caribbean, we were entranced by the tiny lizards. We had a very nice one visiting our cabana in Costa Rica, and we bought a ceramic gecko as our souvenir when on St. Croix Island. So I'm jealous that you can have one visiting your nightstand. Not likely to happen in Minnesota any time soon.
I have a mostly hate-hate relationship with deer, as beautiful as they are - I've hit one with my car, which sustained a goodly amount of damage, and we have to cage up any plants we don't want eaten. So our apple tree is inside the fence around our garden and our two-year-old cherry tree is in a cage of chicken wire. The blueberries and the bulb garden have netting over them for most of the year. Between deer and the raccoons that insist on destroying our bird feeders, I am not feeling at one with nature.
TG and JC, nice job on this Monday puzzle.
@Lewis, one of my favorite features of this blog is your weekly five favorite clues. But you missed one this week:
Sleeper that never dreams (4)
SOFA
@chefwen 4:00am, GECKO'S also like fruit, such as orange slices and cherries. Maybe to get rid of the fly taste.
I've been seeing a lot of Issa RAE in crosswords. Is she the next Brian ENO?
I know this has been said before but Leonardo's last name is NOT Da Vinci. That only means that he is FROM Vinci. Being an illegitimate son of a prominent Italian meant that he had no last name. The proper way to refer to him is Leonardo.
Many noticed the GECKO and the OTTER in the puzzle, but what about the NEWT? They can be cute too.
@GILL I, my Dad was a DEER hunter too because when he grew up in the depression hunting and fishing helped to ensure they had enough to eat. He had s very strict sense of ethics about gun use. My Dad was all about emergency preparedness and couldn’t stand people who were irresponsible with guns, fires, or anything else that had potential to become deadly. He never told me about it, but my brother told me that gave up hunting the day he mistakenly killed a DOE which violated his rules of responsible hunting conduct.
I have to admit the DEER XING NRA theme reminded me of the Bambi movie in which the hunters kill his mother and later start a fire that almost kills Feline. It really is not the best movie for some very young children to watch, at least according to what the childhood development specialist at my son’s nursery school so many years ago. She really had a thing against the disasters in the Disney movies and indeed some of the nursery school kids did have nightmares from some Disney movies.. Of course I’m not the best model of movie choices for young children since I let my son watch Jurassic Park III when he was 2. He didn’t even notice that humans were being eaten; he just enjoyed watching the dinosaurs.
I couldn’t post earlier because our cat was stalking me and trying to swat the iPad because he wanted to play the Catch the Mouse App. He has figured out that I can tap on an icon and make the mouse appear so he tries to do the same thing. He did manage to do it once, he also tried to find it on my phone. Fortunately, he’s given up the hunt and fallen asleep.
On the subject of how is one thing different from all the other, ROE is a species of deer, DOE , HIND, STAG, and HART are adult / genders, FAWN is just a young'un. If the constructors (2 very experienced constructors were required?) can't find a way to do this without ROE, then what was the point?
Just seeing the letters N and R and A offends me But not as much as 48D. This is outrageous. We have to stop publicizing sugary treats that contribute to obesity in American children. Shame on you Will Shortz.
Doe and Roe are both used as anonymous surnames in lawsuits. In fact, on the same day as Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court issued another abortion case called Doe v. Bolton—plaintiff wax Mary Doe.
@robertm -- Thank you for noticing, but alas, the Thursday puzzle has been recused.
@Lewis
Classy!
@Aketi (2:52) -- While I'm definitely a dog person, I find the portrait of your highly inner-directed cat -- and the amused, tolerant, long-suffering way in which you are wont to describe even the worst of its mischief -- to be one of the high points of this blog.
belatedly I realized that SEARS ROEBUCK could have been an answer, though it skews ancient!
It took me about 30 seconds to find this 4 year old article suggesting that women stop with cutesy names like HOOHA and grow up and call their vagina a vagina and this 10 year old article about the 1931 meaning of HOOHA and hoping the new one doesn't catch hold. Personally, I think the 1931 meaning is that far off from the more modern meaning.
@Z If you're going for accuracy, you should cut way back on your use of the word vagina. People very rarely mean the actual vagina. One doesn't vajazzle, they labazzle. Before you use the word vagina again, think throat, mouth or lips? Only if it's throat would vagina be the right choice.
Completely enthralled by this puzzle, enjoyed interplay of animals and of course the cross was essential to the theme.
'Hooha' is a head-scratcher.
MALE TORMENT
That BLONDE you FAWNOVER,
IHEAR is real INTENSE,
SEXY ATFIRST, oh sure,
but I.C.U. have no SENSE.
--- DAVID DAVINCI
Ironic that the theme should be DEER, the hunting of which was the original focus of the NRA. Well, except the FAWN; nowhere that I can think of is it legal to hunt those. (I myself do not hunt, but recognize that thinning the herd is essential for the balance of nature.) Anyway, that org. has, very sadly, repurposed itself. But again, it's letters in a puzzle grid, not an endorsement. IMO.
I did, though, have ATON of problems with this one. XED is just plain horrible, and HOOHA...it's all been said. Better off not using it, IMO. I don't know "Mr. Bean," much less who plays (-ed?) him. Some others may not know Jack WEBB; that's from the '50s. I felt that the fill catered to Scrabblewocky to a gratuitous level; a bit unsettling. It's as if the constructors were tying for "extra credit" so their puzzle would "pass." That suggests they were afraid it wouldn't stand on its own. IMO, they were right. Bogey.
Hey, OFL - NRA! BEANER! DOUBLE-D! Blee-ha-ha!
Liked this solid, not-so-easy Monday puzzle. Offered some resistance and touches of aggressiveness.
FAWN/HIND was favorite of the deer crossings, and could give credit for the LEG, too.
Forms of aggression, from gentlest to worst: ZING, ZAPS, HAD AT, HATE and TORMENT.
Didn't know about the MILANO cookie or Mr. Bean's portrayer, ROWAN Atkinson, or even Mr. Bean for that matter. Other crossings to the rescue.
Neat and clean work by Tracy and Jeff.
Different kind of Monday, and most enjoyable. Simple yet effective theme and revealer, but maybe hard to construct. I wouldn't know.
HOOHA is just playful, in my opinion; NRA is just three letters for an organization; big deal.
So the other day we had FOTOS, today PIX. I have a friend who says "pickies". Why can't we just say "pictures".
I have been in a room with several others watching episodes of Mr. Bean, and everyone were laughing themselves silly while I saw nothing funny. Nothing. I don't know it for a fact, but I think that those who find ROWAN Atkinson funny are Trump voters. Har
Is it correct how I worded that, or should I have written "everyone was laughing HIMself silly? These things bother me.
I’ve heard tell of a Mr. Bean; somehow have avoided him. Maybe for the best? So if there’s no Martin, no ROWAN, except by crosses. Didn’t realize it was 15 X 16 until a mention here.
DAVINCI had a say in the placement of Michelangelo’s DAVID.
Sorry Nicki. Never. Issa RAE much more deserving of a yeah baby.
Sears’ partner Roebuck is missing. Maybe too theme INTENSE.
@rainforest -- "...everyone was laughing themselves silly."
@leftcoast TAM Thank you. Actually, I went to an online grammar checker and according to it, both your suggestion and my second one were deemed acceptable. For yours, "everyone" and "were" seem incompatible, and for my second suggestion, "everyone" and "himself" seem incompatible. So it still bothers me. I should have just said, "they laughed themselves silly". Avoidance works sometimes.
@rainy - DIVERSE and inclusionary:
“ . . . each and every other (nongender-specific) person was laughing (the ‘singular they’) themself silly.”
Pardon me while I puke. Sorry for any micro-, or even macroaggression.
Just looked at Rex's review. As illustrated, he's uniquely idiosyncratic (a redundancy?), making the blog work.
I marvel at the number of people who come here to bash Rex -- for bashing (in their view) puzzles. Serious lack of self-awareness. Or anger issues. Or both.
And this --
... I really now believe that Shortz & company are trying to make a point: Not that the NRA is deserving of support, but that opposition to it represents opinion, whereas recognizing it and what it stands for as a part of our world does not. It is increasingly disturbing that in our highly polarized current Zeitgeist so many very intelligent people fail to make that distinction.
-- doesn't really hold up. Constructors make choices every step of the way, and they choose to omit words that they find dull or silly or problematic in other ways -- that is, they *are* tacitly endorsing the fill that they include. The fill is never truly neutral, and in an increasingly dangerous world, many of us are increasingly aware of the importance of the language that is used in all contexts.
For ex.: The current US admin. decided long ago to assault the press, regardless of the ramifications. We now have tens of millions of people triumphantly crowing "Fake news!" when faced with facts they don't like. Once some people refuse to acknowledge that there is such a thing as a provable fact, communication is impossible; negotiation and compromise are impossible; solving the staggering problems we face is impossible. So pretending that the language we choose doesn't matter is contributing to the problem.
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