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WEDNESDAY, Mar. 26, 2008 - Michael Langwald (MAKESHIFT BOOKMARK)
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Relative difficulty: Easy
THEME: Culinary puns - three celebrities (one living, two dead) have their last names turned into cooking-related puns
This theme is slightly confusing to me, in that the answers are clued as nouns, but the answers (if you read them as puns) are complete sentences. I get that FREY'S reads like a possessive but sounds like a verb ... but the pun
Theme answers:
- 20A: Breakfast specialty of a rock singer? (Glenn Frey's eggs)
- 39A: Lunch specialty of an Emmy-winning actor? (Peter Boyle's stew)
- 57A: Dinner specialty of an R&B singer? (Sam Cooke's steak) - SAM COOKE is one of my favorite male singers of all time, if not my favorite. He is single-handedly responsible for any appreciation of gospel I now have.
This puzzle relied heavily on crosswordese, but at least a couple of these words are worth reviewing. While we see ENO (48A: Brian of ambient music) and EWER (66A: Basin go-with) all the time, words like ADAR (6D: Purim's month) and ALB (26D: Priestly garment) show up somewhat less often, and yet are very very handy to know as a solver. Not common, but common enough for you to need to know them if you do puzzles on a regular basis. Another common word, ELATE (36A: Carry away, in a way), is made worse today by the proximity (and symmetry) of its fraternal twin SLATE (44A: Popular online magazine). At least I did not have to endure the dreaded E-MAG (which Slate is often used to clue).Kwik Kuts:
- 14A: Word before luck or cluck (dumb) - though I don't know what it means, I'm going to start using "DUMB cluck" every chance I get (whenever I am angry at chickens, for instance)
- 29A: Constant complainers (cranks) - If this answer had intersected REX (had REX been in the puzzle), I'd have taken it personally.
- 45A: Part of M.Y.O.B. (own) - also part of B.Y.O.B.
- 51A: Clinton cabinet member satirized by Will Ferrell (Reno) - "Janet Reno's Dance Party" - great great stuff. Can't find a clip anywhere.
- 53A: Arkansas River city (Tulsa) - ah, it's not actually *in* Arkansas. I see. Tricky.
- 64A: Docent's offering (tour) - I really really dislike the word "docent," despite its honorable Latin roots. It's a wussy word. Barely there, and ultra-pretentious-sounding. Needs some hard consonants or something.
- 4D: Butchers' offerings (T-bones) - goes nicely with SAM COOKE'S STEAK. Was there really any need to pluralize "Butchers?" "Offerings" gets you the plural you want.
- 5D: Toiler of yore (serf) - had PEON at first. I can barely look at, let alone say, [Toiler of yore]. Too many "r"s, and one letter away from [Toilet of yore].
- 9D: Makeshift bookmark (dogear) - this I like. I like all compound words with "dog" - DOGLEG, DOGSBODY, etc.
- 11D: Dracula feature (fang) - just one?
- 12D: Big Turkish export (figs) - I do not like these, possibly because we had six fig trees in our back yard when I was a kid, and the ripe fruit that splatted onto the ground was the ugliest, milkiest, stickiest, nastiest stuff that grew out of the ground, as far as I was concerned.
- 22D: Wall St. watchdog (SEC) - took me a while to put in the "S" here, mainly because this is the "S" in GLENN FREY'S EGGS, and I couldn't really believe that was the answer.
- 27D: Pueblo dweller (Taos) - TAOS is a person? A tribe? You can be a TAOS? I just thought TAOS was a city.
- 50D: Sound of rebuke (tut tut) - that's really two sounds, or a repeated sound, but OK.
54D: Director Sergio (Leone) - I can't even see his name without hearing Ennio Morricone music in the background. I Love the spaghetti westerns. Once Upon a Time in the West is my favorite.
- 56D: Rubber hub (Akron) - Insert condom-related joke here
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
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76 comments:
Not bad, for a solver who doesn't know these celeb names... Crosses helped. For SERF, you thought "peon" and I thought "esne": tricky!
It was amusing to see ANAGRAMS show up, and I too question the TAOS clue... Also thought the clue for DIRE was a bit odd. Otherwise an okay Wednesday...
∑;)
You simmer or braise a stew, you don't boil it.
This proved to be one of the easiest puzzles I have ever completed. It seems we have a new constructor today and another round of homophones (or maybe oronyms). I liked the ANAGRAM clue and it gives me a chance to report that we have had a chance to see two forms of them recently. The 'Elvis lives' anagram can be called a pairagram, defined as anagrams that are linked and often can form a sentence. The puzzle sites 'Angered and enraged' which is known as a synanagram because the words are considered synonymous.
Yes, there are Taos Indians and a town and a region and buildings called Taos.
Lots of old standards (ALIT, SPA, ELATE, ENACT, EWER, ADAR, ELAN, ENO, SERE), and nothing really to hold the puzzle solver up. Easy like a Monday.
My mind is still reeling over the glimpse we got yesterday into the complexities of Russian grammar. I would need a special computer chip in my brain.
Come and listen to a story
about a man named Rex
In his back yard were some things
that used to vex
The six large plants grew some
ulgy nasty stuff
That splat on the ground
with a peel that was rough.
Figs, that is – white pulp – Turkish trees.
I worked bottom up and said to myself, "Self, what do you boil?", and immediately thought "Why eggs, of course". "Ah, but for lunch?", asks I. "Hmm, perhaps not; better check the crosses". STEW? Not so much. Stew is like pot roast; gotta cook it on low heat. Boiling it just makes the meat tough.
Other than that, a fine, easy puzzle.
- Pete M
Keep on crowing how easy this was to make me feel really stupid! True, I sailed through the lower 2/3rds like everybody else it seems, complaining about "boiling stews" and "cooking steaks" like some. Then I hit a first snag when I put down "cape" for the vampire with an accompanying "wacky" for "off the wall" in the NE, but got out of it eventually, only to meet disaster in the NW from a combination of lack of background (never heard of Glenn Frey or "dumb cluck"), boneheadedness (couldn't think of adage for the life of me) and what I believe to be awkward clues: "to boot" for "also" and the one for T-bones--I actually considered this, but dismissed it b/c the butchers I know don't sell T-bones, they sell T-bone steaks. So, I was completely, utterly stuck, even with "estee" in place. Went to sleep and finally solved it in a flash when I woke up during the night and gave the cursed T-bones a chance. Everything fell quickly after that, through crosses for the things unknown to me.
I was surprised I solved this one quickly considering I only knew of one of the three names in the theme answers and it just didn't feel like I was ever moving through it fast.
The only answer I disliked was the last theme... you can cook eggs, stew, and all sorts of food. Fry and stew refer to ways of cooking, cooking steak just wasn't satisfying.
I really like ANAGRAMS though; the use of synonyms provided just enough misdirection to make it a bit tricky.
glenn frey is not, was not, a rocker.
To add to Phillysolver's comment there is a Taos Pueblo as well. The Petroglphs found on this post may give a clue to one of my interests,
It was oohed that had me groaning and I over thought the spectrum clue.
All the culinary puns were close enough for me and anagrams was inspired.
Today may find me renting Young Frankenstein for some reason... "What hump?"
Boiled Stew?
Cooked Steak?
Yuk!
I kept thinking it had to be something different than those.
And haven't we seen enough of tuttut lately?
As a young solver, this puzzle felt incredibly old and stale to me. The theme answers seem well out of pop culture and not well enough established to be "always X-word eligible". Add to this the large amount of crosswordese, a couple words that I can only imagine my grandfather saying (DAFFY being the prime example) and the puzzle felt very staid and boring.
I, nevertheless, finished quickly w/ only one snafu where i did not know SLATE and didn't think TAOS fit the clue.
Cute and easy.
One nit re CAB = French red wine, informally. French wines are known by their place of origin, California wines by their grapes. If you say "cab" to a wine lover, you can only mean California cab.
scott, i agree. i'm 0 for 3 on the theme celebrities. the puzzle didn't really give me any trouble, but it's hard to have any appreciation for puns on the names of three people you've never heard of.
am i the only one who tried PEARL for 1D (with the checked A from ALSO at 17A) before realizing that it wouldn't work with ESTEE?
i've never heard of DUMB cluck either. apparently it means a stupid person. then again, so does, say, DUMB person.
entry that i really liked: IMSET. don't think i've seen it before.
overall this was an easy puzzle for experienced solvers (due to the infusion of crosswordese). i can imagine being a relatively inexperienced solver and Hating this puzzle, though.
Oh, you youngsters. "Daffy" hasn't gone clean out of the language! Remember, grampaws are people too.
What's the matter with "to boot"? It's pretty standard usage to say "all that and ____ to boot," meaning ______ on top of everything else, or "also."
None of the theme answers made particular sense to me, but the crosses filled them in completely.
Dumb Cluck dates from WWI. See Wikipedia article on German general von Kluck.
There was a three stooges short called 3 Dumb Clucks.
The Taos clue doesn't make sense. It's a city, not a person, and it's not even a person who lives in Taos, as I believe they refer to themselves as Tasoeans.
I hope the California cab drinker isn't missing out on some wonderful cabs from South Africa, Australia, and Argentina where they use varietal names as well.
@anonymous 9:58..Glenn Frey was an original member of the Eagles back in the 70's and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998-does this not make him a rocker?
I was lucky enough to be familiar with all the theme names but one has to admit that Peter Boyle is pretty current-if you don't know him from Young Frankenstein, your second better opportunity is as Ray Romano's father on Everybody Loves Raymond. I don't love the puzzle's reliance on pop culture nearly as much as Rex, but if we have to accept it then Peter Boyle is definitely appropriate.
^ The Taos are the Native American tribe, not the inhabitants of the present city.
Agree with most of the comments. Easy, not much fun, except for "anagrams"
Let's revive DAFFY, DUMB CLUCK, and DOGSBODY.
And lose DOCENT - I agree it's a disgusting word.
I liked ANAGRAM, too, and phillysolver's post on the subject.
Glenn Frey might be in the R&R Hall of Fame, but that does not make him a rock-ER. He is taking up space that Brian Eno could have,
I also found this pretty easy but was not particularly impressed with the theme for the reasons discussed. My only missteps were TSKing when I should have TUTed (I think I did that last week also) and ARID for SERE.
Once Upon a Time in America is also an amazing movie, Once Upon a Time in Mexico not so much.
I'm kinda with Billy Joel in that its all rock and roll to me, but doesn't Hotel California or Life in the Fast Lane qualify Frey as a rocker?
esne
I just could not let go of this. Peon and Serf seemed too obvious and simple for a wed. puzzle.
Dissapointingly easy Monday level construct. Has time gone backwards? Did I miss something?
Hey! It's not nice to make fun of people's names, ya know.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha aaaah.
But it is fun to wedge them into crosswords. Yay!
Peter Boyle. *sads* Best Frankenstein in the history of Frankensteins.
I don't know - usually I think some of you are too hard on the theme answers but these bugged me. I don't think Rex is overanalyzing. Okay, so Peter Boyle has stew. So what? Oh, he "boyles" it? Aside from the gastronomic ill-advisability of that, it doesn't answer the clue. The clue should be about "how an Emmy winner make his dinner" or something. It's gone and made me feel grouchy.
So I had 2-Down "Downtimes" as HALTS, and 3-Down correctly as IMSET, giving me _HI_ as 1-Across "Came down (on)". It had to be "S-HI-T (on)" right? Guess not.
One thing I missed about N. America while living overseas for so long was SNL. Would pick up bits while on holiday and would sometime get repeats (nothing like a Bob Dole skit in 2002) but missed things like Ferrell doing Reno. If only YouTube was around back then....
Didn't get the pun theme until I read the intro to Rex's blog. Figured it was musician+food but didn't bother figuring out why!
Awkward theme answers for someone who cooks. Had elope for elate, crones for cranks (really slowed me down). I encourage the folks who don't know Sam Cooke to search out his music - one of the most specatcular voices I have ever heard (you might remember 'Chain Gang' and 'You Send Me'
imsdave - the inept blogger
I'm in anonymous's camp regarding Glenn Frey's non-status as a rocker. "Rocker" isn't merely an adjective, it's a title--you have to earn it. I've known rockers, I've served with some rockers, and Glenn Frey, sir, is no rocker.
Re: Peter Boyle, the woman who played his wife on "Raymond," Doris Roberts, was married for 20 years to William Goyen, the author of the only French novel written by a Texan, "House of Breath."
Clever anagram clue: +1
Three food puns...: +2 (extra point for the Breakfast/Lunch/Dinner order Rex notes)
...on the names of three celebrities so famous I don't recognize any of them: -10
Yeah, probably easy for a Wednesday; I'll say I was slowed down by solving the puzzle in an airport with incessant background Muzak and announcements.
"Dumb cluck", really? I figured it was just a rhyming euphemism for "dumb [profanity]"...
NDE
Never heard of Glenn Frey, and Sam Cooke was vaguely familiar.
I think of a CRANK as an eccentric person, as in crank calls. I too was hung up on esne at first.
I agree with the anti-stew-boiling contingent.
Emily's most recent drawing is super.
Did anyone else think initially of lion for "King of stage"?
@Rex: Trust me, you don't want to know about fig wasps. Suffice it to say that vegetarians probably shouldn't eat some kinds of figs.
Admittedly off topic - sorry.
"Come on, man. I had a rough night, and I hate the fuckin' Eagles!"
Yeah, that pretty much sums up my feelings on this puzzle.
interesting that you mention sam cooke's gospel roots. he was shunned somewhat when he crossed over into the "profane" worlds of r and b, and r and r.
so glad he was part of both!
;-)
janie
I was not thrilled with the theme. The names I got easily enough but the food that went with them (except EGGS) could have been anything. And speaking of EGGS, I was thinking that maybe it was "Glenn Fry'd eggs" but of course the D wouldn't work with SEC. Because of the food ambiguity, the whole east section gave me fits but I finally got it all sorted out. Lots of other strange fill, too, which has already been mentioned so I won't belabor the point.
Great pic, Emily! It reminds me of the great anatomical drawings by a very talented artist, Frank Netter, that are in many medical texts.
Russian language yesterday, white russians today... Nice work, matthew!
I spent too much of my morning searching for the RENO clip, which I think is not available anywhere. Knew all the theme people, was kinda bothered by the random meal associations. SAM COOKES... some food, 5 letters...what could it be? Yes, that's right, anything.
Other famous PETER BOYLE roles (read: from movies that were big in my life but that no one else remembers) include Jocko Dundee, the mob boss in Johnny Dangerously, and the detective in Turk 182!. I was traveling last year and didn't know he'd died until today.
Overall, an okay but not very exciting Wednesday.
sg
Sam Cooke = "A Change is Gonna Come" = BEST SONG EVER.
hmmm. thought this had posted, but apparently not, so let me add my congrats (again) to the spot-on ms. cureton and today's drawing.
"hello?... american cancer society?..."
;-)
j.
This is why I usually don't comment-I probably should have responded to the first comment on Glenn Frey not being a "rocker" by reminding anonymous that he was clued as a rock singer. I have no feelings about the Eagles one way or the other but I think Glenn Frey should qualify as a rock singer. Jeez, lighten up.
dbg, I'm pretty sure the anti-Glenn-Frey comments were tongue-in-cheek (I know mine was). . . so maybe, um, somebody else needs to lighten up?
I'm suspicious of your assertion that you have no feelings about the Eagles one way or the other. The Eagles is not a subject you can really remain neutral about--you have to choose whether you find them odious and repellent or merely the antithesis of everything music should be.
That was tongue-in-cheek, too, by the way.
When I got the theme, I thought to myself, "Ooh, Rex isn't gonna like this."
9A could have been clued "Word before duck" to go along with 14A's "Word before luck or cluck."
Seems to me ON AIR must be getting close to Pantheon status.
Not much else to say. Except that Glenn Frey rocks.
"Turn up The Eagles, the neighbors are listening."
-Steely Dan ("Everything You Did")
Miriam b - sad to say I started with lion for lear - and my step-dad taught theatre at UVM - sigh
imsdave
This puzzle was just simple enough for me to overthink the clues. Yes, I had LION at 24A and couldn't come up with COLOR at 62A. Had CAPE at 11D because I thought FANG must be plural.
Once I settled down and thought of this as a Monday, all was well.
Finished at 5:10
thanks for the netter link doc john. great stuff.
i love sam cooke so very much. too bad i cant really think about him without considering this
Taos = Lame.
was an easy wednesday puzzle. As for the cooking theme: you can do a lot with eggs other than frying - boil, scramble, coddle, poach, and fry. I've never said "I think I'll cook a steak for dinner". I would grill, broil, pan fry or bake it. BTW I have a great recipe for baked steak!!. And as everyone else has said you never boil stew
@wade-O.K. I get it. Guess I have freyed egg on my face. At the very least should have left off the 'lighten up' comment, it wasn't necessary, and came off harsher than it was meant. Think I'll go back to just reading the blog and comments til I have all the nuances figured out. This whole blogging thing is still pretty new to me.
Are rockers New York times crossword puzzle solvers now?
WWEMT?
(What would Eugene Maleska think?)
This puzzle gave me a Peaceful, Easy Feeling, but its Already Gone.
Peter Boyle:
othermemorable roles in - 'Joe', 'Friends of Eddie Coyle',and 'Monster's Ball'.
A terrific actor!
I didn't know any of the theme characters, but got it fairly easy with crosses.
@Miriam, I have to admit "Lion" crosses my mind, tsk tsk. I would never call my beloved Cabernet any other name!
@sethg, were you by any chance referring to "The Big Lebowski"? In the Netherlands big parties are organized to watch this film, and the people are wearing robes and boxer shorts and drinking White Russians.... Another odd factoid about this rage is that a very large percentage of the participants are 29 years old.
doc John said...
"Turn up The Eagles, the neighbors are listening."
-Steely Dan ("Everything You Did")
3:06 PM
To which Frey, along with Don Felder and Don Henley, later retorted:
"They stab it with their steely knives, but they just can't kill the beast..."
Steely Dan? Wow, that takes me back...boy, they sure knew how to suck.
Frey baby, Frey. A rocker if there ever was one.
Also found this theme passe.
@mac, I was complimenting Matthew on his Big Lebowski reference.
Which was Much Better than what I would have thought of, probably Wit-chay Woman.
I'm not _exactly_ 29, but close enough that I'll drink a White Russian tonight in their honor at John's (you don't know John) birthday party. No robe, though,
sg
C.f. Mojo Nixon, "Don Henley Must Die"
Don Henley is almost redeemed--almost, I said--by "Boys of Summer," a lovely, elegeic song that makes me want to call up old girlfriends at one in the morning and then kill myself.
Only on this blog - and possibly some sad, lonely baby-boomer-oriented blog - could you witness an Eagles v. Steely Dan flame war. Sweet.
@Wade thanks for making me literally LOL
rp
Lots of internal rhymes:
Reno/Eno, Fang/gangs, and Ewer/ Newer.
IMHO Joe Walsh was the ROCKER on the Eagles.
Great reviews everyone...thank you!
I hope you enjoyed it and if you didn't...well, I'll try to give you a better solving experience for my next puzzle in the NYT!
So many of you were befuddled by one or more of the names...Well, I will try for better pop culture references next time!
In the meantime, I've gotta run and "Cooke" some steak! (I couldn't resist!)
Take care,
Michael
I liked that ALIT was placed over ATOP and UPON... funny juxtapositoning (is that the right word? will I be corrected?) Alas, I'm ignorant and young...
7:26 PM markus said...
I liked that ALIT was placed over ATOP and UPON... funny juxtapositoning (is that the right word? will I be corrected?)
Alas, I'm ignorant and young...
Just juxtaposition, I believe.
Like you, I was once ignorant and young...
I'm older now. :-}
Way off topic here now but I just had to say...
@ anonymous 6:22 PM: If you actually think Steely Dan sucks, then you have a lot to learn about music and musicianship. You may not like their style but in no way do they suck. Session musicians who play with them in the studio or in concert liken it to being on the musical equivalent of an all-star team.
P.S. I like The Eagles, too.
I've now reached my third comment of the day limit so that's it for me.
Thanks for stopping by, Michael, and I enjoyed your puzzle. Didn't know the references, but got them all with crosses.
Don't care Eagles vs. Steely Dan...I was too busy listening to John Denver!
Thumbs down for the popculture I had never heard of. Thumbs up for the anagrams, although I had them clued as "on a grump" for a while. Apart from that, it wasn't a beast at all.
Even if the French, and other Europeans, have started to label their wines by the varietal, as well as the chateau or region, the CAB clue did seem like a pretty lame misdirection. And along with someone else, I thought the DIRE clue was a bit off. You're already in trouble when you're in dire circumstances. OK, there's likely more trouble ahead, but I would say that if there's a conscious forboding, the trouble's already there. But I'm just being a semantic CRANK, on spring break in the cold and damp of Puget Sound. Sure is pretty here, though.
STYLE strutting with ELAN made good neighbors. This sounds like a cryptic puzzle clue ...
Could someone please decipher MYOB for me?
Mind your own business! My apologies.....
@CAB
I think you'll find that in France it is still common to just find the AOC on the wine label, but in overseas markets the same label increasingly has the varietal identified.
From what I've seen, the French/Old World wineries have (just) figured out that they're losing (tremendous) ground because of their belief that the cachet of the mysterious AOC loses vs the upfront statement of the varietal found on New World wine. Yes, it's like the NYT/IHT vs USA Today (guess which paper I believe aligns with which wine region) but whichever is more approachable ultimately wins. The USA Today handily beats out the WSJ and NYT on circulation, just like New World is clobbering Old World on consumption.
I saw the bookmark clue and the concept of DOGEAR flashed through my brain. I so thoroughly rejected it that I never processed the word until I had several crosses. I blame my mother, the librarian. It is ingrained in me that to dogear a page is wrong, if not evil.
Still, for the second week in a row, I was faster on Wed. than on Tues. I don't know what to make of that.
This puzzle is called CULINARY PUNS and one way to look at it is as possessive:
GLENN FREY'S EGGS
PETER BOYLE'S STEW
SAM COOKE'S STEAK
It makes logical sense if looked at this way.
Just saying.
I noticed the NYT's delay on posting the puzzle, too.
By the way - the puzzle was indeed on the server: they just didn't update the page. I copied the URL of Wednesday's puzzle, pasted it into the address line, and changed the date embedded in the address.
I liked the construction of three folks that could serve up
breakfast, lunch and dinner...and that Fry, Boil, Cook each was only lightly "misspelled".
It would have been nice if all three just had an extra e, or that all three were in the music field...it would have been in perfect balance.
Stew and steak were both arbitrary and slightly off culinarily (?), made it a bit "hard to swallow" but it was probably a numbers thing to fit the grid.
Boyles potatoes,e.g. would be too long, etc. It could have been worse, Sam Cookessalad, for example!
So we have to cut him some slack, but maybe only give him a plastic knife to do so!
I always think of Peter Boyle from "The Candidate", but I imagine folks don't know his name...(I just imdb'd him and he has my birthday! Weird, he never shows up on those cards that list famous folks who share your bday so perhaps he's not as well known as say Pam Dawber of "Mork and Mindy"!
What is more shocking and sad is how many people have never heard of Sam Cooke!
Doc John:
Never meant Steely Dan 'really' sucked, as far as musicianship goes. But I do think most of their songs suck (especially if compared to the Eagles).
Funny you should mention their studio notoriety. I have read that Fagen et al were actually renowned not so much as musicians but as tyrants whilst recording (as to the 'tightness' of the songs) and it's a stiffness that reflects in the quality of their arrangements, AFAIC.
Maybe that's the real reason they called themselves Steely Dan...
Still, of course, they had their moments...AJA is indispensible to any aficionado of rock music...perhaps too even Can't Buy a Thrill.
But a lot of that stuff is terrible, just terrible.
"Reeling in the Years" is a vile song (and so is "Mickey" for that matter...).
While the Eagles wrote their share of also-rans (probably good to go with Greatest Hits), nothing sucked as bad as Steely Dan can.
6:22
Once Upon A Time in the West is my favourite Leone too (if I had to pick only one, that is).
My favorite among the Peter Boyle performances I've seen is "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose", an excellent X-Files episode for which he won an Emmy. He played an insurance salesman who could foresee his customers' deaths. Mulder's and Scully's as well.
6wl...
If you've ever seen the Eagles live, they just mail it in, when compared to Steely Dan live, who rocks. I took the theme answers as possesive as well.
- - Robert
Though this one was a little too easy for a Wednesday (only three theme answers, and kind of weak ones at that).
Dating myself here, but Glenn Frey starred in a memorable episode of Miami Vice called Smugglers' Blues.
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