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WEDNESDAY, Feb. 6, 2008 - Larry Shearer (DISMISSAL, SLANGILY)
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
THEME: "F is H" (70A: Angle (and a three-word hint to this puzzle's theme)) - four long theme answers are familiar phrases which have had their initial "F"s changed to "H"s. Resulting hilarious phrases are then clued.
Listening to Stevie Wonder this morning. Feeling remarkably good.
This puzzle gave me more trouble than any Wednesday puzzle in recent memory, but I'm not sure the puzzle was truly more difficult than normal. 
Theme answers:
- 18A: Exec with no ideas? (hollow suit) - my initial reaction: "WTF?" - My ear was completely tin last night.
- 28A: Headhunter posses? (hiring squads)
- 48A: First rule of lion taming? (heed the kitty) - when my cat's tail is swishing madly, yeah, you better HEED THE KITTY ... or lose a limb.
- 61A: "Rapunzel" and others? (hairy tales) - this answer grosses me out for some reason.
As my wife can tell you, I said "@#$# you" out loud, at the puzzle, several times last night. Meanwhile, she plodded through it very efficiently, without the histrionic falderal of her husband. She's getting faster and faster. It's alarming. I mean, great! Good job, HON (38A: Sweetie)! Where did I curse the puzzle? Well, there was the ELATION / ECSTASY snafu (above). Then there was GLUON, which is a perfectly fine answer - it's just that the -ON family are vermin, and they appear to be breeding at an alarming rate. How many more of them can I expect to see in the future?
Perhaps my most vociferous curse came when finally figured out what the hell FIS meant at 45A: Hi-_____. I had confidently put RES in this place - a common crossword answer (HI-RES = "high-resolution" monitor). But then SIDEWALK (40D: Hopscotch site) took out my "E," leaving me -IS. HI-DIS? HI-...SIS!? When I got the "F" from 25D: "Whoops!" ("I goofed") - a nice answers, by the way - I looked at FIS and kept saying "HI-FIS" aloud, only I said it with a short "I" sound in "FIS" (rhymes with "kiss"). The result was nonsense. Then I made the "I" long. HI-FI. High Fidelity. Stereo systems. [sound of me uttering profanity].Assorted goodness / badness:
- 15A: Detective Vance (Philo) - I have several S.S. Van Dine paperbacks. His mysteries feature detective PHILO Vance, but my brain could come up only with MILO. For an assessment of Van Dine that rivals Twain's assessment of Fenimore Cooper, see Raymond Chandler's "Simple Art of Murder," where Chandler refers to Vance as "the most asinine character in detective fiction."
- 22A: Like Beethoven's Symphony No. 8 (In F) - as is usual with these type of clues, I put in IN- and waited for the cross.
- 32A: Blue blood, for short (aristo) - I may have used profanity here as well. Wife and I agree that this answer sucks.
- 33A: It begins with "http" (URL) - yes, look up. See it. That address in your web browser. AH SO... (14A: Facetious "I see"). Speaking of AH SO, what's with all the facetiousness today. I mean, AS IF! I BET! (35D: "Oh, sure!") HA HA (28D: "Very funny!"). This is a lot of snark to take from one puzzle.
- 54A: Mrs. Huxtable of 1980s-'90s TV (Clair) - spelled it CLARE to begin with. I watched this show regularly in the mid-80s, so this was a gimme. Oh, "this show" is "The Cosby Show," which almost single-handedly brought the moribund sitcom genre back to life and turned NBC Thursdays into the juggernaut that it was for nearly 20 years. "Family Ties" and "Cheers" preceded "The Cosby Show," but Cosby provided the foundation that made those other two shows (particularly "Cheers") into the long-running break-out hits they eventually became.
- 57A: Five Pillars faith (Islam) - not sure if I've seen this clue before. I like it.
- 65A: Gaelic tongue (Erse) - your old-skool crosswordese of the day.
- 4D: Hotdogger's dare ("Top this!") - I, of course, had "TOP THAT!" Grrr.
- 8D: One's hand and knees (all fours) - I think I literally looked at my hands and knees. I at least wiggled them. Took me Way too long to grasp this. That missing initial preposition ("on") in the clue phrase makes a huge difference.
29D: Camaro _____-Z (IROC) - in a parallel universe, we are at war in this nation. In another such universe, this is the autobiography of a mythical bird.
- 47D: Dismissal, slangily (kiss off) - best answer of the day, by far. Plus - "slangily!"
- 49D: Professor 'iggins ('enry) - this makes my teeth hurt.
- 54D: "Mask" star, 1985 (Cher) - Like "The Cosby Show," "Mask" is in my mid-80s sweet spot. Gimme!
- 56D: Suffix with Saturn (-alia) - best "suffix" I've seen in a long time.
- 58D: 1953 Leslie Caron film ("Lili") - I get "Gigi," "Lulu," and "LILI" confused as answers all the time.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
PS More crossword-inspired art. Very cool.
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55 comments:
I finished ok and then went angling and parsing for fish in the long clues. I found a few possibilities, but gave up. When I had finished, I thought this was a good puzzle. I missed the letter switch because I know I have heard of both HOLLOWSUIT and HIRINGSQUAD in the business world. Thought HAIRYTALE was cute, too.
A Habulous Hun puzzle for me.
IROC = International Race of Champions
Rapunzel IS a "hairy tale" - as in "Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your long hair." And hollow suit is perfect.
Yeah, I know what HAIRY TALES meant. It's not terribly cryptic.
rp
"Philo" recalls lines from the great Ogden Nash:
"Philo Vance
Needs a kick in the pants"
Never read the Van Dine books; knew it from good old Ogden.
Stumbled at first, but once I got going, I found this to be a fun way to start the day. (Although, I do share your mild disgust of HAIRY TALES.)
The whole North took a few minutes to come together. Had Jim NANTZ for 5A (which I really wanted for the Z), didn't know 15A, of course could only fill in IN_ for 22A... Eventually went to the NE, got EGGO and worked my way backwards to the NW, and all was good.
HIRING SQUADS along with the clue of "Headhunter posses?" brought a smile to my face. I still recall as a kid hearing my dad tell my mom at dinner that he had gotten a call from a headhunter. And I remember being both impressed and worried until I found out this was not a literal headhunter.
I also couldn't parse FISH, and had most of the puzzle finished before the other shoe dropped. For awhile I thought "maybe a rebus?" but everything else fit so well.
I got HOLLOWSUIT first, and didn't even think of a letter substition, instead decided that hollow suit is slang for someone in a high position who actually has nothing to offer. Made sense to me.
On that note, I then put in FAIRYTALES and cound't figure out who CFER was. Duh.
And this is my problem with the puzzle, the four themed answers aren't parallel.
Rapunzel, which IS a fairy tale becomes hairy since she had long hair. OK
A lion tamer should both Heed and Feed the Kitty. OK
People with guns could indeed be a Firing Squad, although I don't think a possee also usually forms the firing squad. Sort of OK
But then we come to the Follow Suit problem. I don't see how Hollow Suit is an anyway a takeoff on Follow Suit. Two completely different concepts.
I fell into all the traps Rex describes. But I would NOT give up "duck" crossing "drum" & "uh oh" in the NW. Nevermind what the other clues led to, those were RIGHT. That was the last area to fall, with elation/ecstacy not much ahead of it. The lower half was easy-peasy after I give up a tentative Gigi for Lili.
I loved the F is H hint at the theme, and since I already had heedthekitty and hairytales, it gave some help with that pesky upper half.
Jim in Chicago, they're not so parallel, I don't think. The lion tamer doesn't "feed the kitty" unless he's playing cards. Firing squads and posses aren't synonymous; but [Headhunter posses?] works as a clue for HIRING SQUADS with posses just being a word that can stand in for squads. Maybe it would've worked better for you if HAIRY TALES were clued as [Barber's anecdotes?]?
It's uncanny! Had PRECISELY the same problem with the NE and CLARE in the SW. Completely solved the puzzle and never did parse FISH until I read your blog (Thanks, Rex)
Orange, interesting comment about "feed the kitty". Don't the lions get tossed food - I'm thinking hunks of raw beef - to reward them? Or am I merging seals and lions?
I too make the exact same mistakes in the NE and had DUCK in the NW. However, it took me a LONG time to fix my mixups. (I'm no Rex.) Plus three kids are home on a snowday so it was hard to concentrate.
Joe in NE
Fun puzzle. Avoided most of Rex's missteps but created a few of my own. Didn't read the 57a clue carefully and put in KORAN, initially had ALAS for 2d vs. 59d, hesitated with FIS (wanting RES ala Rex), and had trouble seeing ALLFOURS (Rex is right, the "On" would have been helpful). On the plus side GLUON, LILI (I've seen it more than once recently and have finally stopped putting in GIGI) and CLAIR were gimmes and I figured out the F IS H hint.
Orange has a nice link explaining ALIA for anyone wondering.
I sailed through this puzzle top to bottom despite falling into the rubber duckied tub for a moment. Kiss off was my favorite, but all fours and i goofed were right up there.
I challenge you to find me a single person who when startled cries yipe. One yipe? Yipes maybe or yikes, but even those are questionable. What would you say when startled? Damn? S@$t? WTF? Yipe anyone? Reminds me of the day my brother and I took turns deliberately scaring each other by popping up in odd places and essentially saying boo. It got progressively more serious as the day went on to the point where he hid in my closet for over an hour in the evening, giving me time to finish my homework, put my hair in curlers and settle into bed with my book before jumping out and scaring the bejesus out of me. Yipe is not what I screamed.
BOAT/BASS, actually the whole NW, took some (extra) doing. Got the fun theme after the Heed..Kitty fell, so the long answers came fairly readily. Except for a brain-dead senior moment: not recognizing the term "possees" in the 28a clue. I thought it was a typo (of poses or possess)! The problem was that I have never seen/heard "Posse" pluralized. I think there was only one in the oaters I saw, and I don't speak gangsta.
Has there ever been a typo in the NYT puzzle?
@jae
Good point, I'm making the same GIGI to LILI switch in my mindset. Yipe!
I enjoyed this one a lot -- breezed through it w/o following into any of the traps for once.
I thought it was interesting the way two of the theme answers played off of card-playing (feed the kitty, follow suit). Where I work there are many hollow suits - very common phrase.
Eric in Madison
Seeing so many people fall into the same traps today has made me think of 2 possibilities that often come to mind. Most of you are doing the puzzle on line and you are trying to do it too fast.
I do my puzzle the old fashioned way...on paper, in ink of course. Because of this I don't fill in answers unless I'm really sure of them. I, too thought duck for 1A, but quickly saw that the down answers made that word unlikely. When I looked at 4D I thought top that, but I realized that it could also be top this. So I just wrote in topth_ _ and waited til I got more answers before filling in the is.
Some of this is youth vs. age. Sorry Rex, but I actually thought hi-fi before hi-res. And while I use the computer more and more, I still like a pen and paper occasionally. For those of you interested in the tournament go for the speed. But for those of you who just love doing the NYT crossword puzzle, print out the online puzzle, slow it down and just enjoy it.
No one else had trouble with INF in reference to Beethoven's 8th? I so wanted it to be UNF (for unfinished) but I could not make it work. Not ever having heard of Philo Vance did not help and then I began to suspect that the H in Philo might be part of the FISH theme...Arrrgh.
I left it as INF and went to bed and did not understand it as "in F" til I read your explanation this morning, Rex. So I missed the frisson of satisfaction I enjoy when I complete the puzzle.
I think I am beginning to understand what you mean when you say "parse", Rex.
I also fell into the "elation" trap but realized my mistake when I got CLAP (don't even go there, people!).
Unlike Rex, though, I thought this puzzle was fairly easy (not medium) because I pretty much breezed through it without hesitation except for the NW but that fell quickly enough after I gave up on GO FOR IT. Is AH SO really facetious, though? And three two-word phrases in one 4x4 square.
As for the theme answers, all the answers, as entered, fit the clues. The fact that H IS F just shows that when substituted, the new answer is a more common phrase. The F answers don't have to fit the clue. And speaking of which, I liked the fact that the constructor put the clue in the very SE so one wouldn't likely stumble upon it until near the end of solving.
Not really thrilled about ARISTO or ENRY, though- seemed like the constructor was just blindly searching for a clue that would make the fill work.
I did like KISS OFF, too, but does it pass the breakfast table test?
Gluon was a give-me as I came up with a mnemonic device the last time it appeared: Binding particle becomes a gl(ue)-on ergo gluon.
Rex, as to your grossed out feeling re hairy tales, perhaps it's from a MAD magazine cartoon from decades ago that came to my mind when getting Hairy Tales and grossed me out too: it depicted a suitor climbing up Rapunzel's hair only to discover to his disgust that it was underarm hair and not the hair on her head that he was climbing up.
I'm with you, Rikki. Yipe? I had "yike," and a whole new way of thinking to go with it where if you were REALLY scared you said yikes, but if you were just a little startled you had one singular yike. I almost went atlas hunting for a K--- island in the Carribean before I figured it out.
My strange experience was getting FISH for angle right away. That made my penmenship less messy as I filed in the rest of the squares. My big challenges were not being able to spell ecstacy and having Yenta instead of Yentl. I cannot blame online solving or speed just...
Easy and fun. Rex, my last yoga practice was Monday.
I was momentarily hung up by "duck" so I went elsewhere for a while until all became clear. I wish I could afford to go to the tournament, but I'm a gentlewoman in reduced circumstances so, absent the availability of a scholarship, I'm ordering the 2008 puzzles which I'll do by mail.
@ Profphil- I remember that MAD cartoon very well. Definitely wouldn't pass the breakfast table test!
GLUON is a theoretical particle that has not been seen experimentally despite many years of trying. So maybe the clue should have a "?" after it.
Rex, confusing, Lili, Gigi and Lulu? Is there a movie called Lulu? I can't imagine that you'd be thinking of the opera. As far as I remember it from college (lo these many years ago), it's not really a singable sort of opera, unlike Puccini or Verdi, to say nothing of Mozart.
I've been doing the daily puzzles for only three weeks or so, finally giving in to Rex's admonition to "practise"! So the fact that I found this Wednesday puzzle to be easy filled me with ECSTASY!
Maybe it's because I'm older, but I loved the 'ENRY 'iggins clue, and HI-FI was the first thing that popped into my head. I thought that making the answer a plural, FIS, was a bit of a stretch though; usually the clue lets you know if the answer is a plural.
Amazingly, my biggest blank was with EGGO. In the last couple of years, common words will escape me completely. It's like the brain cell that housed that word died, and the word has vanished. I had to get EGGO from the crosses! Happily EGGO now resides in a nice fresh cerebral cell.
Both Gigi and Lili star Leslie Caron. Gigi was a musical and Lili had a popular song.
Uh...Lulu?
And what about that honkey Nene?
I had no problem getting FISH for angle, but I am still a little confused about the clue. Are F and H words? Usually when letters are answers in the puzzle they are written out e.g. ESS, or CEE.
Jean, bear in mind that the vast majority of Rex's and my generation probably has never seen Lili or Gigi.
Jim in Chi., sure, the lions get fed. But "feed the kitty" isn't a phrase applied to lions at the circus—idiomatically, it's feeding money or chips into the kitty on the card table.
I'm so glad I wasn't the only one to write ELATION for ECSTASY.
One other thing I want to mention is that I thought the clue for HAIRY TALES was a bit too interchangeable with FAIRY TALES. I mean, if it wasn't for the question mark in the clue, the answer would have changed -- I kind of thought the point was that changing F to H was supposed to make a completely different answer. This normally wouldn't irk me, except for the fact that this is not the case for the other theme clues.
And also, starbucks is expanding into the crossword realm!
Thanks
Rex,
Your rant brought I a big smile to my face. I found today's puzzle very easy, and enjoyed having you describe your difficulties. This is a complete role reversal from my usual Fri/Sat experience where I struggle mightily to complete the puzzle and you rate it easy, and list a bunch of "gimmies" that I never heard of.
It was fun to see Amy / Orange on tv this afternoon. Congratulations, you did quite well. Must be soooooo frustrating to battle with the button. Did you get the watch?
This was a fun and easy puzzle with some pretty words and expressions. Never heard of hollow suits, I think my husband calls them "empty suits"!
dbg, I think you are right, I do the puzzle on paper (the real thing, no copy) and check crosses before writing down answers.
After just finishing reading 'Among the Thugs,' an excellent book about English football (read: soccer) hooligans, I immediately put in 'Piss off' but knew that was a little too much for a NYT crossword.
I have only been doing the NYT crossword for ~8 months, and my times for mon-wed are <15 min. How much time is cut off doing it online vs. on paper (I go through and cross off answers as I get them on the newspaper)?
Quick question:
Many of us NYers recall with some disgust your fondness for the Boston baseball team (their name eludes), do you share this infinity for the local New England football team? May fans of the Super Bowl Champion NY Giants now taste YOUR bitter tears? Or is football, you know, not your thing?
(8 days to pitchers and catchers, BTW)
Jus' Wondering
just shows how narrow minded solvers are limited when taken out of their comfort level
I could give a rat's ass about the Patriots. It's all about the Red Sox winning and the Yankees losing. Very little else matters, sports-wise.
rp
In the interest of full disclosure I had the same problem parsing posses as karma and like dk also misspelled ECSTAC(S)Y.
@mac-I also do the puzzle in the actual paper but suggested that people print the online puzzle because I assume many do not have access to the NYT.
@anonymous-I have no idea if you can cut time by doing the puzzle on line. I suppose it depends on your abilities. I can tell you only thatmy kids can type a heck of a lot faster than me. My point was that I am not sure why everyone is so hung up on speed. To me if you have only been doing the puzzle for 8 months it should be about continued practice and improving your solving ability. Again, unless you're looking at the tournament, why all the fascination with speed? Is it chest thumping or am I missing something? I really would like to know.
@Mary: I think you'll find that references to certain pieces of music are usually fishing for the key they are played in. You'll get a lot of "bsharp" and "cmajor/minor" and, less often (I think), "in_." It should be your "go to" mindset.
Proudest moment of the puzzle: not being able to remember the Starbucks sizes.
Had a hell of a time with this one... there just seemed to be a lot of clues which could have fit ten different answers, and I chose a lot of wrong ones (hi-RES for hi-FIS, etc). Also, I know ARISTO pops up in puzzles from time to time, but it floored me today.
Side note - It's not necessarily about going 'outside your comfort level', just sometimes you're not quite on the same wavelength as the constructor,; you don't parse the clues quite right, you go for answer A or B when it's really answer C, which leads to another wrong but plausible answer, and so on. It happens ;)
Tricky stuff there, but I liked the theme hint, although too late to help me any.
@anonymous 5:09: Whether you do the puzzle more quickly on paper or on the computer depends on the person, I would think. I can scan clues more quickly when I'm solving on paper, but I type 100+ words per minute, so it balances out when I solve on the computer.
@dbg: Not everyone is "so hung up on speed." Honestly. This is an old, tired topic and I imagine we haven't heard from Rex on this because he's waaaay too bored with it.
Jim McKay spoke at my college about 30 years ago. He was quite entertaining.
Phylicia Rashad (Clare Huxtable) is a very accomplished perfomer. She is the first African-American to win a Tony for best leading actress in a play. And she was WONDERFUL as the Witch in INTO THE WOODS.
Wasn't "Kissoff" (not sure of the spelling) the name of the Russian ambassador in DR. STRANGELOVE?
Today's puzzle was fun, even if I didn't figure out the F IS H part until after WELL the fact.
Someday, I'll sit down and memorize the keys for certain classical works. All I know is that Beethoven's 8th symphony was NOT unfinished.
In keeping with the theme I thought you might have yelled out "HUCK YOU!" at the puzzle ...
I solved this puzzle without problems (especially after my aha moment with fish), but I sure wasn't speedy. this might have had something to do with trying the puzzle after shoveling a lot of really heavy snow...(and feeling foolish because my driveway backs onto an alley that is filled with a foot of snow)
I, too, went for the British PISS OFF dismissal. That's a bit more harshly imperative than KISS OFF, though the latter works just fine, of course.
Beethoven's 8th was well finished -- that's the one with the metronome leitmotif, if I remember correctly. Schubert had the most celebrated Unfinished Symphony, which I believe was also his 8th. Music professor said that's a bunch of crap, though; of course it's a finished work, even though it only had two movements.
Scribbling in STARE instead of GLARE for the Angry look left me struggling to recall the Starbucks sizes. My boycott of their swill has gone on a long time, though it was the only place I could find a NY Times in Paso Robles a couple of years ago.
Which gets me to a comparison of the unctuous Jim NANCE and the schmaltzy Jim MCKAY. Both fairly insufferable in their fuzzy engagement with the TV audience, but I have to admit they're both competent announcers. Guess I side with schmaltz.
@anonymous 5:52... first of all, that would be narrow-minded solvers with a hyphen. If you are going to be cowardly and a creep, at least be grammatically correct. Actually, why not just keep your nastiness to your anonymous self. *sticks out tongue and says blaaaah*
This is a little late but 'Io Saturnalia!' and all the memories of Miss Noble's Latin class and the ablative absolute!
'Passis palmis, pacem petiverunt' - they were probably on 'all fours' of recent crossword memory when they were so alliteratively described!
Dominus vobiscum!
If the MAD Magazine/arm hair visual doesn't pass the breakfast test, maybe I should tell you that Ren and Stimpy did a Rapunzel take-off that used nose hair. Enjoy!
er...maybe I SHOULDN'T tell you...
@ Rikki- Well put!
@Dick Swart... Et cum spiritu tuo.
@doc john... I hate a buzz killer.
Isn't Orange amazing! As she would say, "Umbrage! I take it!" She was robbed!
Sorry for the late commenting, but two points are worth mentioning.
Only some URLs begin with http. There are also ftp: and mailto: and file: and others. The clue should have said "for example".
The gluon is not considered a "theoretical" particle. Like the quark, it cannot be seen explicitly. So what? None of the elementary particles are "seen explicitly". There are various degrees of explicit stand-ins and proxies that have been identified between the particles and the physicists. Electrons and pions are at a high nth degree, and gluons aren't, but gluons have passed into the canon decades ago.
As it is, only half of the internal momentum of a proton can be explained by quarks, and gluons are definitely responsible for 3 and 4 "jet" events.
Enjoyed the Sulu reference. I always thought it was funny his first name was George, kind of like hearing Checkov speak without his accent. Holy crap there's going to be another sequel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek_%28film%29. Live long and crossword.
SW LaGland
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