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Relative difficulty: MediumTHEME: "World Pay" - Familiar phrases have "L" moved from one part of the phrase to another, creating silly phrase, which is clued
First: a word -
New Rules
Comments are half the fun of this endeavor. That said, I need to make one rule clear: You may not comment on any puzzle that is not the current day's puzzle. That means no Sunday puzzle comments on my Saturday post (what kind of jackass does that?), no queries about other puzzles, nothing of the sort. This is not a general puzzle forum. This is a blog about the NYT Puzzle. All irrelevant comments will be ruthlessly deleted from here on out, and if the problem continues I'll just switch the Comments section off.If you want to talk about other puzzles, start your own blog. If you don't like my rules, please feel free to stop visiting this site. There are so many other puzzle bloggers who would probably welcome your readership. I am not hurting for traffic, so I have no problem telling you to be courteous or go away. (I posted this yesterday as a separate message, and of course it took only about ten minutes for someone to tell me to go to hell. Awesome! "Delete"!)
PS Wendy, thanks for speaking out ...
Now, on to the puzzle:
Loved the theme. There are some truly great phrases that result from this "word play" (which is what I thought the title of the puzzle was until I was three theme answers deep in the puzzle and realized I'd misread it). Patrick Berry's puzzles are unfailingly solid, and usually I don't have much confidence as I move through the grid - I feel like I'm about to trip or fall into some pit all the time. I managed to do this in just over 16 minutes, which isn't a record for me, but it's good, and considering it's within the 1.5-x-Orange metric, I'm bordering on ecstatic. [Orange is another blogger and champion solver, and my speeds are normally 2-3 times hers]Theme answers (11 of them!):
- 23A: Run away from chewing-tobacco users? (flee spitters => from "fee splitters")
- 25A: Alexander the Great's ambition? (to slay the East => from "to say the least")
- 37A: Problem for a sweaty-handed Tarzan? (viny sliding => from "vinyl siding")
- 56A: One who's crazy for a sharp-dressed man? (women, according to ZZ Top - but for our purposes, fop lover => from "flop over")
66A: Shakespearean prince who's handsome and muscular? (studly Hal => from "study hall") - this gets the silver medal for the day
- 78A: Fish-worshiping groups? (cod cults => from "cold cuts") - bronze medal
- 92A: What a magician might do with a big saw? (halve the gal => from "have the gall")
- 107A: How to avoid getting tipsy on hard liquor? (pace your belts => from "place your bets")
- 113A: Designed jeans? (plotted pants => from "potted plants)
- 15D: Oil spill? (seeping slickness => from "sleeping sickness")
- 36D: Macho beer-drinker's outerwear? (coat of manly Coors => from "Coat of Many Colors") - this makes absolutely no sense; thus, it wins today's theme answer gold medal
The tough stuff (not much of it, it turns out...)
- 13A: El _____ (Peruvian volcano) (Misti) - I know I've had this recently, but couldn't remember it at all
- 22A: Nebraska town, named after an Indian tribe, featured in "Lonesome Dove" (Ogallala) - got the whole ugly thing from crosses
- 85A: Tridactyl bird (emu) - "tridactyl" is a new word to me, though its meaning now seems obvious
- 53A: Technique involving thickly applied paint (impasto) - sounds edible
- 35D: One of the Forsytes in "The Forsyte Saga" (Irene) - ????
- 50D: Greek god of ridicule (Momus) - I think there is a masque by Milton with this name ... nope that's "Comus"; never mind
- 66D: Unable to see much (sand blind) - took me forever, even after I had the "BLIND" part
- 106D: What a line of dots may signify (stet) - I only recently learned this, and it took some time for this answer to kick in today
- 108D: Charles Lindbergh's wife (Anne) - so many Annes in the world ...
- 122A: Producer of the Keystone Cops films (Sennett) - really really unsure about that one. Isn't SENNETT a kind of laxative? Nope, that's Senokot. I think I merged SENOKOT and RENNET in my head ... pretty disgusting. Needless to say, Never heard of this SENNETT guy.
Here are the happy gimmes that made my job easy today:
8A: "_____ at Large," 2003 Fox sitcom ("Wanda") - I like Wanda Sykes, in general. She's doing some voice-over work for some horrible new ads now ... ah, yes, here we go; I know they're paying you a ton, Wanda, but come on. A "spokesapple?"
- 29A: Revolution-era loyalist (Tory) - Joe Torre is now a Dodger. Go Dodgers.
- 58A: Moved two chessmen in one turn (castled) - a great verb
- 59A: Early collaborator with Eastwood (Leone) - mmm, spaghetti westerns ...
- 82A: Novelist Jamaica _____ (Kincaid) - helped a Lot in the WSW region
- 2D: Ship launched from Ioclus (Argo) - OK, I didn't know this straight off, but when I saw four letters, I knew there could be only one answer
- 24D: "Man is by nature a _____ animal": Aristotle ("political") - wanted SOCIAL, but went immediately to POLITICAL when I saw SOCIAL wouldn't fit
- 51D: Contemporary of Virgil (Ovid) - my hero
- 63D: Pitts of silent film (Zasu) - a name made for crosswords
- 94D: With 52-Down, "Symphonie Fantastique" composer (Hector / Berlioz) - LOVE this. My best friend Andrew also loves it, and is the one responsible for my knowing about it at all, for which I hereby acknowledge him.
- 95D: Discharges (egests) - HA ha; I used this word in my write-up only two days ago while making fun of ENOUNCE
- 113D: ESP, remote viewing, and such (Psi) - I knew this instantly, but ... what is "remote viewing?" Oh my god, did Will crib his clue from Wikipedia? (read second paragraph here)
- 114D: Hall-of-Famer Dawson (Len)
Miscellaneous:
- 84A: Backup singer's syllable (ooh) - hovering between love and hate on this one ... and love wins
- 119A: Flat remover (tire iron) - first thought on reading clue: "How do you remove an apartment?"
- 10D: They're not positive (noes) - if you stare at that word for even a few seconds, you will see why I find it disturbing; my mind sees only a typo.
- 60D: Perceptive person's detection (nuance) - good one - took me a while ...
- 79D: Take up the entire sofa (loll) - now, as someone who frequently takes up the entire sofa, I should have nailed this. But I had LOAF. I LOAF. I do not LOLL. Further, can't one LOLL in many ways? And in many places, not just on sofas? And why the "entire" sofa? Couldn't you LOLL on just part of it? My questions demand answers.
- 88D: Iconic Anne Baxter role (Eve) -
Love this movie, so why did it take me so long to get this little answer?
- 96D: Party to many a civil union (gay) - is this a noun? Because "party" is a noun. "Hey Cletus, that gay over there is gonna get hisself a civil union." Weird.
- 103D: French business partner, maybe (frère) - Is this like "Sanford and Son," if "Sanford and Son" were French? That kind of "business partner?" Again, weird.
Happy Sunday. Mom comes into town today, so expect write-ups to be cursory affairs for a while.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
PS As you may know, I grew up in Fresno, CA ... [cough] ... yes, prestigious. Anyway, here is an ad for Toyota Prius that incurred the wrath of the mayor of Fresno, who complained to Sen. Feinstein, who convinced Toyota to pull the Fresno reference. It's an annoyingly self-serving ad, imagining a future I have no desire to live in ... but it's not wrong about Fresno. Trust me.
I am so glad you posted on this tonight, I have already done four of five of Orange's comments. I did two before I completed this puzzle.
ReplyDeleteI usually do the puzzles in the morning but for some reason had time to fill and did it tonight.
The theme answers were spectacular. I cannot remember laughing so much while doing a crossword.
Not original here but "plotted pants" brings up Spy vs. Spy drawing up plans for exploding Levis.
With those you can wear trademark
"Paceyour Belts"
"Seeping slickness" has to be the most inventive thing I have ever seen in a CW.
I fell into the same trap (I think) as your pre-poster on yesterdays blog: I had "vine sliding" which doesn't fit the theme until I got WAFERY and then it was all good.
This was a great and good and fun puzzle. Fantastic theme answers, enjoyable clues and just all around
great fill.
jeez: OGALLALA,
genius
I'd like to hear comments on 37A, VINY SLIDING. "Viny" if a word at all (it's not in my dictionaries) would be an adjective meaning "like a vine". I don't see how it could modify "sliding." The clue refers to Tarzan sliding, not to a vine sliding. How would Tarzan's sweaty hands make him slide "like a vine"?
ReplyDeleteGreat puzzle. Enjoyed the theme answers as well as the rest.
I hope yesterday's premature poster weighs in again today.
I just loved this puzzle. The theme was captivating and beautifully executed. Seeping slickness, cod cults, pace your belts, a coat of manly coors my favorites, but they all worked great. Oh... plotted pants... super. The fact that there were so many theme answers made it even more fun. I found myself working around them because I didn't want to get them too quickly. I wanted to savor the braintease.
ReplyDeleteAlso, got my husband singing Y M C A with me and had to spell out a few of my own while jumping around... My lyrics: "I love to spell the word A M I R cause you can spell the word E M I R and if you have the word C Z A R then you can spell the word T S A R." Try to make a Z... go ahead, I dare you.
Things I didn't know were all people... the women... Wanda (no tv in the house, Jamaica Kincaid (she looks interesting), Irene Forsyte... but knew Anne Morrow Lindberg from reading her memoir about the kidnapping of their child (can't even begin to imagine the horror). Also didn't know Leone, Sennett, or Nathan Lane, but now that I look him up, his face is completely familiar...had not associated it with the name... but I knew Berlioz and good old Orson Bean and everything just fell into place, one corner after another.
Thanks, Rex, for stating the rules. I never want to know anything about a puzzle before I dig in. Got a hoot from egests! Have fun with your mom.
Lastly, I struggled and struggled with "bass part", since my husband, my son, and I all play the bass. Even after filling in fin, still didn't get it. French for end? Bass end? The part the bass plays??? Something was definitely fishy! Yeah...it was the bass! Big gotcha!!! Gotta love it when the joke's on you.
Jim... viny is in my dictionary as an adjective and if Tarzan's sliding on vines, that's some viny sliding, as far as I'm concerned. It's just too beautiful a puzzle to quibble or pick insect eggs.
ReplyDeleteBTW I didn't find anything wrong and would have been distracted by that comment if I wasn't having such a great time with this puzzle.
Rick... blog hogging... too funny.
Sand-blind was a new one on me, but it surprisingly doesn't have anything to do with sand. Just poor vision.
I love it when you finally figure out the "big" clue. My favorite time of the week, saturday night late in LA. Dog is asleep. computer on hum. cock ticking, sleepy mommy getting a chuckle out of fleespitting. Now that is cute.
ReplyDeleteJust noticed my freudian typo. I could make it even worse, and in keeping with the puzzle's theme: "cock tickling", except there is no man here tonight. I impress myself. What would be the clue??? and note, I am usually not this kinky -- I am a puzzle geek after all.
ReplyDeleteSennett refers to Mack Sennett the silent movie maker best known for "keystone Kops". He made a film star of Mabel Normand who was the leading lady in his films as well as his lover. The well known musical play "Mack & Mabel" tells it all in song and dance. It ran most of 2007 at Niagara on the Lake's Shawfest (George Bernard Shaw Festival).
ReplyDeleteI also really liked this one. The unknowns were very gettable from the crosses and the theme, once I figured it out, was amusing and helpful. I got a little hung up in N. Cal. as I didn't know KINCAID (originally Richardson) or SANDBLIND (I had HALFBLIND for a while) but UNISOM and ONANDON straightened it out. I also had to change VINE to VINY. Last time I had the volcano as MISTO, this time I got it right (thanks Rex). Nice to see Leone after I mentioned him on Friday. In all, a fine Sunday (or Saturday night) effort.
ReplyDeleteI had "Noer" and "Duet" for 10D and 11D, both of which kind of worked for their clues, but it led to (the very wierd) "To Slay The Earl" for 25A, which just cant work within the theme. But my brain refused to give up!
ReplyDeleteSorry, meant "Duel"...
ReplyDeleteOGALLALA was one of my first words. It was the town near where Augustus Mcrae's true love Clara lived in Lonesome Dove. I guess it was one of those tongue twisting words that just stuck at the time -
ReplyDeleteI loved the puzzle too.
I can always remember El Misti because I imagine that the steam and smoke coming from the volcano make it look misty.
ReplyDeleteI had no problem at all with LOLL--"To move, stand, or recline in an indolent or relaxed manner" instead of LOAF--"be lazy or idle" on the couch.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I can't believe that WAFERY is a word.
Lots of mistakes for me in the puzzle, from the Peruvian volcanoes to trying to get ATKINSON in for Mr. Bean, failing and putting in ORION instead. If only I had known HECTOR BERLIOZ! Lousy time, but fun.
Virginia's additional theme candidate made me laugh!
ReplyDeleteRex, here's a "Freres" company. Frere is brother, not son, though I commend you for mentioning Sanford and Son. Your experience and reactions and mine are more similar on this puzzle than they have been for ages.
And by the way, spoiler comments on puzzles that I haven't done yet aren't welcome at my blog, either. I write about a lot of different crosswords, but if I haven't got a solving time posted for one, I don't wanna hear about it yet.
And usually I ignore comments about puzzles I don't do, like the Tribune or USA Today. Fortunately, there are only a few of those comments each year.
P.S. Rex, I'm with you on loafing and lolling.
ReplyDeleteI just found your website for the first time, and enjoyed all the comments! Fortunarely, I had already completed this super puzzle except for the Ogallala and went to Google to double-check it. I'll lool forward to visiting again!
ReplyDeleteRex YELLS AT (dresses down) the pre-puzzle commenters. Way to go! I'm with you (and Orange), although it hasn't happened on my site yet.
ReplyDeleteAnd what an appropriate answer for this very day...HI MOM at 74D. Enjoy your time together. I can't believe she left Colorado's unseasonably warm weather for New York, though. It's been in the sixties here.
Great puzzle...enjoyed the theme and loved much of the fill. Jamaica KINCAID was the subject of a college English paper...nice gimme.
Hey Rex, thanks for the daily attention to the puzzles. Now I don't have to bother my friend Lesley the crossword maven so often! As for the clues, you said "coat of many colors" made no sense to you. It's actually a biblical reference to Joseph, who was lynched by his brothers for having a multi-colored coat, a gift from his father Jacob, of which they were all envious. Have a great Thanksgiving!
ReplyDeleteThis puzzle was so much fun. I am going to teach my Billy Bass to sing YMCA if I have to beat him with a tire iron. He has been lolling about like a potted...
ReplyDeleteAnd, Wendy I still ask:
Are there other puzzles?
I have looked at other blogs and the amount of quibbling is mind numbing.
And, Virginia I plan to use your "slip" on my lovely wife as my "I read in a recent Medical Journal..." is wearing thin.
Thank you all.
Longtime reader, first time commenter. Thanks Rex, for all the time you spend on your Blog! You always make me laugh on Sunday morning!
ReplyDeleteMy only quibble today is the use of GAY as a noun. I agree with your comment, Rex. Had this one circled as new territory for an NYT puzzle.
ReplyDeleteIncidentally, the second Sunday NYT puzzle this week is one of my favorites: Split Decisions. Lots of fun this time.
@hollyinMT - you are most welcome
ReplyDelete@Orange - I am laughing so hard at your comment re: "frère" - I had eight years of French! I know perfectly well what "frère" means, and yet I somehow confused it with "fils" (so badly did my subconscious want to talk about "Sanford and Son"). Reason? I don't know, how about: Greatest TV Theme Song Ever.
RP
O, and for the record, I know what the "Coat of Many Colors" refers to - what I can't make sense of is COAT OF MANLY COORS. I thought the guy wearing the coat was supposed to be MANLY, but apparently the product name is MANLY ... it's just rough, on a literal level. But as absurdism goes, it's genius.
ReplyDeleterp
anonymous in sa:
ReplyDeleteThank you Rex,
finished the puzzle without "getting it"- so glad you clarified what the hell was going on- and as another blogger said, sometimes it's fun to have the joke on me!
frere is probably a reference to the famous lazard freres investment firm
ReplyDeleteLots of French firms have names in the form: "XYZ et freres", meaning "XYZ and brothers".
ReplyDelete"wanda" at large (and "feesplitting") nearly did me in as i'd entered (and kept for far too long)...) "papery" for "wafery"...
ReplyDelete*terrific* puzzle!!!
;-)
janie
Laughed a lot. I think these absurdisms are called Spoonerisms, and I refer you to this site http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoonerism for a few more. Love 'em. (How do I paste a url as a link here? Or do you have to use some of those HTML tags - not my thing but if you tell me how....)
ReplyDeleteRex,
ReplyDeleteHear! Hear! I agree 100% w/ the no posting about other puzzles...
But will it still be okay to note that a certain clue or fill has been popping up recently? As in "This clue/fill has showed up three weeks in a row now?"...
Here's hoping you're not forced to shut down the comments section...
I had decided that I hated this puzzle because I found almost all the theme answers forced or witless, with 36D positively nonsense so that it could not be clued properly. And speaking of clues: as a former altar boy, I can attest that masses were held on a DAILY basis in all Catholic churches I knew.
ReplyDeleteBut then I read all the gushing comments and had second thoughts. I had gotten the theme right away by just loking at the title, and it WAS fun to guess the theme ansers from a few crosses--I was especially proud of getting the infamous 36D from just three beginning and three ending letters and the n inbetween. So, I changed my mind (to a degree)--thanks to all who helped straightening me out.
Rex, let me know if you can find a video of the Sanford and Son opening sequence. I couldn't, but here's a baby dancing to the theme song, and here are the Scrubs guys singing it.
ReplyDeleteI loved this puzzle. I took about three theme entries to catch onto the theme and understand the title and it was still challenging to fill in the rest.
ReplyDeleteDespite my Franco-ramousness, I got FRERE readily because of Lazard Freres.
FEESPLITTERS was lawyerly.
As for Rex's rules... i would say they are Giuliani-esque, but that might be taken as a reference to yesterday's puzzle.
I agree it's his blog, thus his rules.
If you want to talk about other puzzles go to Orange's blog.
barrywep | 11.18.07 - 11:34 am | #
LOL. Just checked out the Fresno brouhaha. Never been there, but I would have been more likely to go if they had a sense of humor. Were you banished, Rex, for being funny?
ReplyDeleteOGALLALA is a theme answer! All three Ls swapped places.
ReplyDeleteWhile cute themes seem a dime a dozen, this puzzle was outstanding. Giggles became laughter at certain points (e g. 78a, 113a), and the fill was up to the standard set by the theme.
Speaking of MOI, I'm wondering why the exclamation mark in the clue (71sd, "Excusez-____!"). I think it is usually uttered in an unexclamatory fashion. Perhaps, if Steve Martin were saying it, then OK...
Took me about an hour (with some down time for phone calls etc.) to do this fun puzzle, about normal for me for a Sunday. A most enjoyable hour.
ReplyDeleteWhile I am in awe of the Masters of the (Crossword) Universe who do these puzzles in under ten minutes, I would challenge any of them to on how much fun they have in their ten minutes compared to my hour.
As with another favorite activity of mine, I find that taking ones time to make the enjoyment last beats coming fast to the end. Instead of worrying about the clock ticking as one races to finish the puzzle, as Virginia says, I rather enjoy the World Pay variation of it.
RP et al: Sorry if I offended anyone yesterday when I replied that I couldn't find any patently wrong clues in the Sunday puzzle. I promise to abide by your wishes.
ReplyDeleteBUT, did anybody find any obviously wrong clue? I'm still scratching my head.
And BTW, thanks very much RP for the psi explanation. Got the answer from the crosses but was seriously puzzled. I just assumed I had an error that I couldn't find, but it was such a minor part of the puzzle that I forgot to google it after the fact.
Eileen
What if COAT OF MANLY COORS had been clued "MACHO-BEER DRINKER'S OUTERWEAR"? Move the hyphen; change the adjective. Still wacko but great fun, even though I would have given the gold to STUDLY HAL, whom many of us undoubtedly had to read about in STUDY HALL, and I thought that juxtaposition was just too cool.
ReplyDeleteAs often happens with me, I solved about 85 percent of the puzzle without figuring out the theme. Then my husband looks over my shoulder and in two seconds announces the theme and finishes it! Fun, for sure.
ReplyDeleteWhat Ulrich, Norm and Rex said. If a puzzle is fun and fairly gettable, a little illogic is just not a problem.
ReplyDeleteThe arguably incorrect clue may be 90D, "Gets one's food on a tray, say" for DINES IN. You're much more likely to use a tray if you're dining out, not in. That doesn't rise to the level of "wrong," however, since you might use a tray for eating in bed, say.
Wow, puzzle greatness. Definitely one where I enjoyed all of the excessive time I put into it.
ReplyDeleteAt first I thought World Pay was going to refer to various kinds of currency (I got FOP LOVER first and was trying to make that connection somehow, to no avail).
STUDLY HAL fell next and after some intense staring, Study Hall materialized and I was off to the races, sort of. At least I knew that every other answer was going to have an L somewhere, if I didn't have that in place already.
The answers were generally inspired. I guess I got the biggest kick out of SEEPING SLICKNESS and PACE YOUR BELTS. All were applause worthy.
There's a Cafe MOMUS on the University of Akron campus, so I was excited to see that oddity. ON AND ON was a nice get.
I went down the wrong path entirely for 13D Paw, thinking Maul was the answer, so that needed some tending to in short order.
I couldn't call SYS to mind to save my life despite years on Compuserve with its crazy sysops.
I got SAND BLIND (is it two words?) without knowing it was right but believing it couldn't be anything else. That kind of thinking would have been foreign to me a year ago.
Loved NUANCE and HECTOR BERLIOZ. Have we added to the Pantheon recently? I'd like to nominate EGAD. It's disproportionately present relative to its actual usage in society. IMOO.
dk, in response to your question, uh, No?
Orson Bean? Would anyone under 40 ave any idea who this was? Actor and frequent game show panelist in the 70's and 80's. Per Wikipedia, he was also second cousin to Calvin Coolidge, who was President of the United States at the time of his birth.
ReplyDeleteGotta love any puzzle with "czar" in it
Thanks Orange -
ReplyDeleteSanford and Son theme as done by the Scrubs crew was hilarious.
TV Land's Web site says its name is - The Streetbreaker by Quincy Jones.
I'm still laughing at Studly Hal and Flee spitters.
Really fun puzzle. The theme answers boggled my mind. And I mean that in a good way. I'm afraid to say anything else.
ReplyDeleteAw, I love ORSON Bean. He still acts, as recently as this year in what sounds like a godforsaken flick, Mattie FRESNO and the Holoflux Universe, with Carol Alt, no less! And I just saw him in the fab series The Closer. On those game shows, he was such a positive vibes kinda guy. But what was even more interesting was that the much-younger (my age ;) Alley Mills, who played Norma Arnold in The Wonder Years, married him years ago and as far as I know is still married to him.
ReplyDeleteKumar is not the first person to liken speed-solving to hurrying through sex. As a speed-solver, I don't find the analogy apt. During the hour it took Kumar to work his way through the NYT crossword, I enjoyed that one plus five more Sunday puzzles. Strictly from the standpoint of arithmetic, it looks like I had six times as much fun as Kumar, doesn't it?
ReplyDeleteI'm sorta with Kumar on the speed solving thing but it is probably because as an aging dyslexic I've got no hope of 1.5xOrange let alone = Orange (sour grapes??). Also, I tend to do the puzzles while watching the news (it makes the news easier to watch especially with The Daily Show and Colbert in reruns), so speed is not part of my solving agenda except on Mon. and Tues. when I do it online (saves paper). It occured to me yesterday that in the time I spent mulling over the LST clue Orange probably finished half a puzzle. As to enjoyment, I suspect Orange's information processisng capabilites are different enough from mine and other non-speed solvers so that she has just as much (if not more) fun as the rest of us, i.e. she's having six Os while were having 1!
ReplyDeleteHere‘s Sanford And Son opening
ReplyDeleteoops -- left an "'" out of we're.
ReplyDeleteThe speed-solving vs. leisurely solving question is not really a question. People solve the puzzle in the ways that give them the most pleasure. So if you like it fast and frequent, like Orange, great. And if you like it slow, henceforth known as "Kumar-style," great: knock yourself out. Well, not literally. Unless that's what you're into. Who am I to judge?
ReplyDeleteRP
I wish I was a fast solver, but I too deal with a little dislexia so I'm a happy plodder. I've been doing these puzzles for so long, I think my pace of doing puzzles is about as fixed as my walking pace.
ReplyDeleteThis was a decent puzzle for a Sunday. For once I looked at the title, and actually figured it out Made things go much more smoothly than otherwise. Virginia, that was the funniest thing I have ever read on this site!
ReplyDeleteAbout loll and loaf: I think one can loaf standing up or otherwise, for lolling we have to at least sit down.....
Great puzzle. I missed one letter and now feel foolish. It was the cross of ymca and unisom. I've never heard of unisom, but for some reason ymca just didn't come to me.
ReplyDeleteI didn't really think there was disco hit called "yuca" and a sleep aid product called "unisou" but it was the best I could come up with.
Hmmm... I split my week between trying to solve as fast as I can (M-Th) and not worrying about the time for Fri-Sun cause usually the clock runs out anyway. I've noticed I've gotten significantly better since reading this blog, so I thank you all.
ReplyDeleteThe challenge now is a google-free week.
The most offensive part of that Prius commercial is that they didn't subscript the 4 in the methane chemical formula.
ReplyDeleteI absolutly love it here when a great puzzle has been thrust upon us. No "quibbles" or "nitpicking".
ReplyDeleteWe become a heterogeneous group of seekers of solvationious.
Psst: (said in a very low voice by a man wearing a trench coat in a dripping underground tunnel in Paris )I just noticed this afternoon that Patrick Berry is also the Patrick Berry who's book was Amazonlly delivered to me yesterday.
You know what word I have trouble with? Nuance. It's not a real word. Now gesture - there's wa word. You know where you stand with gesture. But nuance? I don't know - maybe its me.
ReplyDelete(Sorry, I'll use any excuse to quote Barry Levinson's screenplay to DINER.)
When I saw WORLD PAY, I assumed the theme would involve money. It took me a while to get it, but once I got it, I loved it.I qactually preferred STUDLY HAl to COAT OF MANYLY COORS, but Ithought have two testosterone-laden answers was pretty funny.
Anne Morrow Lindbergh was a gimme for me, since I'm involved in a re-enactment of the trial of Bruno Richard Hauptmann in the courthouse where the actual trial took place.
Fun, fun puzzle.
jim in nyc:
ReplyDeleteEver heard of TV dinner tables? They're the fold-out trays prevalent in every 50s-60s home. A very apt answer to the clue, IMO.
The Biblical phrase "coat of many colors" ("colours" in the King Janes Version) is also the title of a Dolly Parton song. COAT OF MANLY COORS could have been clued more logically as "Macho beer tycoon's outerwear".
ReplyDelete50D (Greek god of ridicule) was tricky...I only guessed at Momus and it turned out right as I now see!
ReplyDeleteBTW File this in all those gray cells--there is a "cafe Momus" which figures large in the Puccini opera "La Boheme"...(NYT crafters might use this some day!)
My big mistakes this week: I put "ahead" for 27A (Leading the field) Arrrghhhh! And that left me helpless in the NE corner for quite a bit.
I also had "runes" for 73A (Some hieroglyhpic characters) I should have known!!!
The ones I absolutely hated were 69D (Pokily!!) and 92A (Halve the gal)
But 74D (HiMom) was very cute.
Holy cow guys (and gals)! You finish these things in minutes! I leave them in the loo for weeks. I don't use google or anything (normally), but still, you guys make me feel like such dunce. I did okay on this one; the bottom right corner was a little bare but not bad. Enjoying the blog, I'll keep it handy for the obscure old clues that I don't have a chance at.
ReplyDeleteThis is for Rex....Sennett, Max: producer of silent films. Google him. Maybe one has to be as old as I to know that one.
ReplyDeleteThe old Prairie Crocus
cock tickling, fantastic. how about "feathering a rooster?" for a clue?
ReplyDelete