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Relative difficulty: MediumTheme: Sandwiches - each theme answer ends with a word that can describe a type of sandwich; clue is strictly non-sandwich
Same theme, same sandwiches, Sep. 11, 2007.
With the exception of the duplicated theme, this was a swell Monday puzzle, with more wackiness than I'm used to seeing. It was a bit ZANY (17A: Madcap), is what I'm saying, I guess. It's got some fantastic olde-tyminess to it, with LAMS (32A: Escapes, slangily) and the heretofore unknown by me "SUE ME" (62A: "Guys and Dolls" song with the lyric "Call a lawyer") and GALS (5A: Guys' dates) and the absolutely fantastic GEWGAW (5D: Trinket), which I wrote in as GOOGAW (I like the way it sounds better), and which I have confused in my mind with GIMCRACK, a word I learned from a story by Dorothy Parker - whom I have apparently confused with Carson McCullers, the actual author of said story:
-from "Court in the West Eighties"Nearly always she had stockings drying in the window (I could see them so plainly that I could tell she sometimes only washed the feet to save wear and trouble) and some mornings there was a gimcrack tied on to the cord of the window shade.
To make matters more confused, dictionary.com defines "gimcrack" as "a showy but worthless or useless object; a GEWGAW" - which has an alternate spelling of ... "GEEGAW"; apparently Noah Webster had a huge reserve of baby patter that he could not resist assigning as alternative meanings for various objects.
There were two complete "???" moments for me in this puzzle (high for a Monday). First, OLEATE (29D: Olive oil component) - OLEATE crossing ATO (44D) is what you get when you're really, really wed to a fantastic crossing like GOOGAW / KOWTOW (28A: Act obsequiously). It's the price you pay. Here, I guess it's worth it.
Second in the "???" file, VANESSA (9D: Actress Hudgens of "High School Musical"). I believe this is a sop thrown to the teen gods in acknowledgment and gratitude for bringing us the NYT Puzzle's "Teen Week" (which this puzzle kicks off). First, I doubt that any of this week's puzzle authors are big fans of "High School Musical" (they'll correct me if I'm wrong), so it's not the most ... representative of "teen"-oriented clues. Second, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that "High School Musical" has a bigger fan base among girls than it does among boys, and - sorry to spoil the surprise for you here, but you won't see a single girl puzzle constructor this week. In fact, you'll see only one debut, one new face. All the rest are names you've seen before, and recently. So for constant solvers, this week has all the flash of ... any other week. That is to say, very good puzzles, but ... why are we worshiping before the altar of the teen boy again? I forget. But the Times is clearly very excited, as they hired some P.R. firm (who shall remain nameless because their name is sooooo bad) to spread the word, and some lady who clearly had Never heard of this site wrote me a very nice note (because I seemed to "have a keen interest in puzzles" - ya think?) letting me know about what it believes is a Big Event. OK, back to the puzzle.Theme answers:
- 20A: Cranky street performer? (organ GRINDER) - great clue
- 36A: U-boat (German SUB)
- 41A: Heaviest iron in a golfer's bag (sand WEDGE)
- 50A: Don Juan, e.g. (Romantic HERO)
- 1A: Party to remember (bash) - tough way to start out a Monday, since GALA goes so nicely here
- 38A: Baltimore oriole : Maryland :: _____ : Hawaii (nene) - ah, the NENE. That is one elaborate clue for such common a crossword bird.
- 45A: Facetious cry of understanding ("Ah, so") - this common crossword phrase now seems, thankfully, to be confined to the realm of facetiousness. A specifically "Mr. Moto"-oriented clue might also do the trick.
- 60A: April 1st event (hoax) - Earth Day? HOAX did not come to mind instantly.
- 7D: Denim pioneer Strauss (Levi) - something about the phrase "denim pioneer" seems hilarious to me this morning. "Pioneer" is such a high-falutin' term for a fabric designer.
22D: "Person" in a crash test (dummy) - maybe my favorite clue/answer in the puzzle. - 27D: Lower the value of, as currency (debase) - true enough, but it didn't come to me quickly. DEBASE can be used in so many more vivid, horrible ways. Why not use one?
- 36D: Moves aimlessly, with "about" (gads) - GADS means "moves aimlessly" and does not, in fact, require "about."
- 42D: Oregon Trail traveler, e.g. (wagoner) - I like this answer, though want it to be WAGONEER - if only to go (rhyme) with the "denim pioneer" we already have in the puzzle.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
PS Happy Birthday to my nephew Miles, who is seven today.
Fine to start the week off with. Although once again, the theme didn't register. But I liked all the perky words.
ReplyDeleteAh to think I used to be that PR lady (who is probably 22 and just out of school).
Love your write-up but I think you mean "gewgaw" not "geegaw" - so that 18A "informal greeting" is wave not eave...
ReplyDeleteAnd I was hoping for a link to the Simpsons clip of Homer and Mr. Burns playing golf.
Burns: Use an open-faced club. You know, a sand wedge.
Homer: Mmmmm, open-faced club sandwich.
Mose Allison has an album (and a song) called Gimcracks and Gewgaws.
ReplyDeleteI also liked this Monday puzzle--a bit slower for me than others I've done--but no real hickup. I basically did it moving diagonally from the SE to the NW, starting with my first gimmie, YVES. I also put in GEEGAW initially.
ReplyDeleteYves Montand: I loved this actor from the moment I saw him in "The Wages of Fear", which made a huge impression on me in the 50s.
Montand trivia: He was born Ivo Levi to Italian parents, who moved to Marseille when he was still a child. When his mother wanted him to come up from playing in the street, she would call "Ivo, monta!" (Ivo, come up)--and that's how he got his stage name.
A nice puzzle, but as I solved it I felt like it was a hard Monday. (Or maybe my brain is just not clicking in gear yet this Monday morning.) For me, having OJAI (I learned it from crosswords and keep forgetting it) in the NW made that a tricky place to gain traction in the puzzle for most folks.
ReplyDeleteAnd then I took a long time to write in ORGAN GRINDER even though I came up with it immediately. For some reason, the question mark at the end of the clue really through me and I thought I was looking for some twist on that answer for the theme.
Will Shortz is quoted in the Press Release and you can feel his excitement and should note hee created his first puzzle at 14. Here is the inside scoop.
ReplyDelete-- Oliver Hill, 18, of Pleasantville, N.Y.; a first-year student at Yale University. This is his fifth puzzle for The Times.
-- Patrick John Duggan, 19, of Arlington, Va.; a second-year student at Boston University. This is his fourth puzzle for The Times.
-- Lucus Gaviotis Whitestone, 18, of New York, N.Y.; a first-year student at Carnegie Mellon University. This is his first puzzle for The Times.
-- Caleb Madison, 15, of New York, N.Y.; a sophomore at Bard High School in Manhattan. This is his fourth puzzle for The Times.
-- Natan Last, 17, of Brooklyn, N.Y.; a first-year student at Brown University. This is his sixth puzzle for The Times.
-- Will Nediger, 18, of London, Ontario; a second-year student at the University of Western Ontario. This is his fourth puzzle for The Times.
I thought this puzzle was actually a little harder than most Monday's unless you are 14. Also, I note that Rex referred to the Homer Simpson golf/sandwich theme the first time we had this clue. Thanks for preventing this site from becoming just another stale sandwich. If you look at Rex's posted grid you will see there is no error.
/Miguel
A nice start to "teen week", although as I was solving the puzzle it felt more like a Tuesday to me. (At my level of skill, Monday puzzles usually get solved from top to bottom, and Tuesday puzzles get solved fairly easily but I need to hop around a bit). This was solved like a Tuesday for me.
ReplyDeleteI am wondering about the lack of female teen constructors. Is xword puzzle construction a predominantly male activity - at least among the young?
i solved this one a little bit faster than my average monday, but i agree that it was harder than usual for inexperienced solvers. GEWGAW, KOWTOW, and OLEATE make for a very tough section of the grid. some high-level crosswordese (OJAI, NENE, ARTE) and some non-monday cluing (ORGANGRINDER, ELIXIR, HIYA/WAVE) ... it didn't slow me down, but i was a little surprised.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the puzzle was more like a Tue than mon, but a good puzzle for sure. Given that it was constructed by a "kid," it's funny that there was so much olde-timey stuff in it. I mean, do teenagers today know who Frankie Valli is? Or know about Chia Pets? Or "Guys and Dolls"? It's funny what smattering of past culture one picks up just from doing puzzles...
ReplyDeleteAm I the only one here who's never heard of a WEDGE sandwich? WEDGE golf club and WEDGE of lettuce, yes, sandwich, no. Also, I don't think of Don Juan as being a HERO. So, while I enjoyed this Monday puzzle, the theme seems a bit of a stretch to me.
ReplyDelete@rex: great photo!
I had never heard of a "grinder" until a few years ago. I ordered a tuna grinder in a sandwich shop in Concord, Mass. When it was served, it was hot. I almost cried. A hot tuna fish sandwich was not what I was expecting. Blech! And it had cheese on it. Double blech!
ReplyDeleteThere is a movie that was released in the late sixties where everyone in the hippie, peace love movement gets perpetually younger. Don't trust anyone over 30 becomes 17 etc. Methinks we are seeing the same in puzzle world.
ReplyDeleteGreat write up Rex as it points out the age of the constructor has little to do with clues and answers. This puzzle (great job Oliver) is old school, despite Oliver's age. Thus, if I may say so, the puzzle art form like any other is the result of a creative process that may contain something borrowed, something blue and something new (note: lame joke among the AZUR ARTE ALIENS in my hood).
Is it just me or is Ms. Parker much hotter than Ms. Hudgens.
Favorite Parker line: "My vision of my past is clouded by the smoke of my burning bridges."
Off to the round table with @joho and @acme (I wish!)
I wonder, as a teenage constructor, what cultural references he "throws in", the teenage things or the "Guys and Dolls" stuff?.
ReplyDeleteAs a 60 year old man myself, I grew up in the 50s and 60s but I know alot about the 30s and 40s from movies and my idiosyncratic reading style so I wonder if we can generalize "what an 18 year old boy might know" from a puzzle.
And what, exactly "popular culture" means to individual solvers.
Most of us at this blog are college educated and I think that presupposes that we we all start from roughly the same point, education-wise.
I can't help but wonder how and from what sources a teenage boy acquires his body of general knowledge?
OJAI, all.
ReplyDeleteHIYA, everybody.
I have never heard of a GRINDER. Next year, when this theme makes its annual reappearance, I will have never of heard of it again. SUE ME.
AH SO being Monday, theme is irrelevant in solving as I zipped through this one.
Zip-a-dee-GEW-GAW...
Crosscan, clearly HAZY from crossing Canada twice in 3 days.
I agree with john in nyc Very nice puzzle, with GEWGAW, WINNOW and KOWTOW etc. sounding so old-timey... We've seen the clue "Panacea" twice now for ELIXIR, though, which bothers me just a tad because the latter can be a cure-all but has wider meaning more often!
ReplyDeleteLike joho, WEDGE as sandwich type was new to me -- where is it found? And my sympathies to here in franklin on the encounter with a tuna melt!
it's funny to me that DUMMY is a first appearance in Shortz's time, according to Jim H. Don't miss the NY Sun puzzle today, for amusing oddities.
∑;)
@joho
ReplyDeletepicture a club sandwich cut diagonally into 4 parts (wedges).
i had never heard of a 'grinder' either - it appears to be a regional new england phrase.
RT
I hate to think that any of these young, male constructors consider Don Juan a romantic hero. The term "Don Juan" is used to indicate the conquest collector who looks at women as interchangeable sex objects. If we're going back to much earlier sources, how about naming Zorro or the Scarlet Pimpernel as the quintessential romantic hero?
ReplyDeleteI actually thought for SAND WEDGE, the whole answer was supposed to fit the theme, which makes that theme answer completely inconsistent with the others. Otherwise, fun puzzle. I will be looking for an opportunity to use the phrase "Unhand me!" today.
ReplyDeleteMy daughter is interested in crossword construction, but she's only seven so you might not see her name in the paper for a while.
@Frances,
ReplyDeleteYou are misconstruing the meaning of "romantic" in this phrase. Go here for the established def. of "Romantic hero." It's got nothing to do (exactly) with dinner and dancing. Don Juan is, in many ways, the quintessential "Romantic hero."
rp
Sometimes it makes me sad to be five weeks behind. I feel I have nothing relevant to add to the past discussion of beets, subatomic particles, Norse mythology or home-wrecking dogs. However, here in syndicationland, it is my sister's birthday again, so to mess with her head, I just sent her an e-card.
ReplyDeleteI could be wrong (believe it or not, it's happened before), but aren't GRINDER, SUB, WEDGE and HERO regional names for any sandwich served on a certain type of roll?
ReplyDeleteAlso, the Gyro.
How about it foodies?
I've not heard of LAM used by itself as an intransitive verb, slangily or otherwise. Only as part of the idiom, "on the lam." Interesting...
ReplyDeleteWow! Ulrich, thanks for that info on Yves.
ReplyDeleteWhen you're my age you've seen "Guys and Dolls" a ton of times and heard that great rendition of "Sue Me" by my favorite singer, Frank Sinatra
JD
@dk: my favorite Dorothy Parker line is "Pardon my dust" at her grave.
ReplyDelete@jc66 I think you are right. I never heard of grinder, wedge or hero til I moved to ct. I think we called those sandwiches subs in Missouri.
ReplyDeletethought the puzzle was a bit tougher than most monday's
Do I have to winnow my flour before I make a cake???
never heard of that word - had to check the dictionary.
Heard of GRINDER but not WEDGE. Had SUBMARINE for UBOAT which messed up the east coast. I thought this theme was familiar, thanks Rex for the confirmation (what about HOAGIE and PO BOY?). The NENE/OLEATE crossing seemed a bit tough for a Mon., but overall a fine puzzle.
ReplyDelete@ulrich, thanks for helping me remember the name of that great movie "Wages of Fear" that I have been trying to remember for YEARS...saw it in the sixties - at least three times.
ReplyDeleteA strangely old-fashioned puzzle from such a young guy. I liked it.
I too tried "submarine" at first. Based on my experience, I certainly wouldn't have expected Frankie VALLI, YVES Montand, Don Juan, SUEME, GADS, and GEWGAW in a puzzle constructed by a college freshman!
ReplyDeleteNice puzzle for a Monday.
ReplyDeleteClearly, someone at the Times worships at the altar of the teen boy. Peter Pan? This goes ever so nicely with the national amnesia symptom that narrative trumps all.
Not only is the theme repeated with the same sandwiches in slightly less than a year, one of the theme answers is identical -- SAND WEDGE.
Here's an idea -- perhaps aspiring constructors should represent themselves as teenage boys in order to get attention.
--JD
Actual D. Parker quote is:
ReplyDelete“My land is bare of chattering folk; / the clouds are low along the ridges, / and sweet's the air with curly smoke / from all my burning bridges.”
@joho, thanks, I also like: "Guys don't make passes at girls who wear glasses.... speaking of romantic heros. And, maybe we need a teen girl squad:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCQQa1mg_wE
last but not least @joho, a popular food item here is the wedge salad - a triangle of iceburg lettuce with ranch dressing - so tasty it is not.
@maryinmpls, welcome back.
@billfromNJ, I guess that a lot of a constructors popular (old and new) culture may come from doing puzzles. I know that most of my knowledge of rap singers and TV shows comes from puzzles.
Happy Birthday Miles.
This puzzle made me sit up a little straighter than the Monday one usually does, and I like it! Great words, like kowtow, organ grinder, elixir, hoax and lams. I would have had a big problem in the NW if I hadn't remembered Ojai from last week.
ReplyDeleteThis Oriole is indeed a "Northern" or "Baltimore". That is not the case with the Toronto Blue Jay! (don't like that team much since the insulting photograph of a Yankee cap with bird dropping on the front page of their newspaper).
Great write-up today, Rex, especially the bit about Carson and Dorothy. Please more quotes!
I guess I'm one of the foodies, but I'm not much into sandwiches. That tuna grinder sounds gross!
I forgot: at 10.30 my husband called me from the car and said: 9D is Vanessa. He was listening to CBS 880 and heard an interview with Will Shortz, who gave away this answer to a stumped reporter.
ReplyDeleteNice puzzle. Did it without stopping. Took a little longer than an average Monday. OLEATE was my only real head-scratcher. Good job, Oliver.
ReplyDeleteThis was another "outcognito" (cf. Crosscan - I remembered!!) I did not see the theme until I came here. Did not feel that WEDGE fit the theme, but the Wikipedia entry for "submarine sandwich," in a list of "regional names," includes: "Wedge — Prevalent in Yonkers, parts of the Bronx, and other sections of Westchester County, Rockland County, Putnam County and Dutchess County in New York. It was widely believed in Yonkers, that the term “wedge” came from a truncation of the word “sandwich” as pronounced by the wife of Frank Landy, who owned the legendary Landy’s Deli in Yonkers, New York." So there it is.
I think many young people would know "Guys and Dolls." It is a staple in high school musicals to this day.
Rex You nephew is quite cute, but is the young lady in the photo about to be ill? Did she just have a hot tuna and cheese sammich?
Just a point of clarification...April 1st is April Fool's Day, hence the HOAX. Earth Day is April 22nd.
ReplyDeleteWild in the Streets is the movie title I could not remember early this day:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063808/
Rex, do not let Miles watch this.
@jeff in chicago - yes, an outcognito for me too, although I managed to forget my own term.
ReplyDelete@mac - Didn't see the picture. Was it insulting to Yankees or birds? Go Blue Jays!
dk:
ReplyDeletei find ms hudgens to be highly pulchritudinous.
Yes, a nice fun puzzle -- theme may be old-timey too, but "organ grinder" improves on last year's "meat grinder" because the latter is (or at least feels) so closely related to the sandwich meaning. I can see that it's closer to Tuesday than Monday level, but at least it was barely solvable using only the Down clues -- except for the GEWGAW/WAVE crossing, where I guessed GEEGAW/EAVE. Also had to guess at VALLI/VANESSA, but there the Across clue for VALLI would have brought me no closer... My last word was 29D:OLEATE, which I didn't believe at first because it is visibly related to the clue's "oil", but "oliage" felt even less likely.
ReplyDeleteThanks to the fellow commenters for all the neat Dorothy Parker quotes. One of the most memorable is unprintable, but you can Google for it using her name and the punchline "and vice versa".
PG @10:32 -- maybe your daughter will be the first preteen constructor?
NDE
@All who wondered about teenagers knowing Valli and "Guys and Dolls":
ReplyDelete- You don't need to know any of these past-cultural nuggets to construct a puzzle with these words in it. The latest crossword compiler software + the latest word list from all puzzles published in NYT provides a comprehensive set of tools for anybody to build puzzles.
- The above is not a sufficient condition for constructing good puzzles, but just to get help in different tricky corners to get a good fill.
- But, if you do find a first-time cultural allusion (which cannot be in a wordlist since it has never appeared in a puzzle before), then you should ask all the questions you have been asking.
p-g-i-t-k
@joon: what a great word "pulchritudinous" because it sounds exactly NOT like what it's describing!
ReplyDeleteOk puzzle, nothing extraordinary, a couple of groaners (reship? wagoner? oleate?). I do not get the hullabaloo about teen constructors. It seems to me that college students are somewhat, ideal constructors.
ReplyDelete@anon at 2:17, it is big (and cool) word for hot mama, easy on the eyes or bonny lass.
ReplyDeleteHi:
ReplyDeletethought for sure there'd be an earlier comment on Rex's issue with April 1. April 1 is APRIL FOOL'S DAY (hence HOAX...) EARTH DAY is April 22.
Fun puzzle!
Criminy, I understood the HOAX clue just fine. TRICK or PRANK come more readily to mind than HOAX. The "Earth Day" thing wasn't serious ... just where my mind went at first.
ReplyDeleterp
"The Wages of Fear" was remade in 1977 by William Friedkin as "Sorcerer." Great jungle action sequences with Roy Schnieder and a score by Tangerine Dream.
ReplyDelete"Criminy, I understood the HOAX clue just fine. TRICK or PRANK come more readily to mind than HOAX. The "Earth Day" thing wasn't serious ... just where my mind went at first."
ReplyDeleteI love it when Rex errs and tries to wriggle out of it. :-)
A lively fun Monday puzzle for me. I especially liked the 'cranky' clue for organ grinder.
ReplyDeleteI did not know a wedge was a sandwich.
I like that "sewage" comes between some food entries (that tuna grinder sounds a bit like...).
Thanks Oliver.
And somebody please make their teenage daughter construct a puzzle already!
:-)
I will see if the baby to the right will construct a puzzle.
ReplyDeleteGreat job Mr. Hill.
ReplyDeleteThe 23 across clue is also an informal greeting: SUP
@sillygoose
ReplyDeleteIt never would have occurred to me to make a puzzle as a teenager, tho I was solving them regularly.
Didn't start till I wanted to make one personally for a friend of mine for her birthday.
I tend to sort of agree with Jane Doh on this one...
Tho maybe seeing a whole week will encourage a bunch of folks to try
(that was the opinion of the 23 yr old Starbucks employee I quizzed to day who was doing the puzzle...
did it make a diff to him that it was by a young boy? and he actually said it would encourage him to make one...
He also tried to fit in HANA for the Montand clue, thinking it was a ref to Hannah Montana!
See! Make that VANESSA clue about Ms Redgrave and the ARTE one about Laugh-in, et voila! A puzzle by a non-teenaged boy!
Anyway, a million more thoughts on this, but todya I'm going to go more along the lines of MYLIPSARESEALED
Learning that these four theme answers were used so recently detracted from what had been my enjoyment of the puzzle. Was young Master Hill aware of his, um, variation on a theme?
ReplyDeleteIt's no big deal, and I didn't remember the earlier sandwiches, or even notice the theme, for that matter. Plus, few other comments show any any distress, so this homage must be a fairly acceptable practice ... .
April 1st is April Fools day, not Earth Day.
ReplyDelete@anon 3:13 -- If you're going to go out of your way to say "Thought for sure there'd be an earlier comment," at least read the earlier comments so you don't then point out something that was brought up three and a half hours earlier.
ReplyDelete@anon 8:54 -- I don't even know where to start with you.
Don Juan's conquests, at least as scored by Mozart and Da Ponte:
ReplyDeleteIn Italia seicento e quaranta;
In Almagna duecento e trentuna;
Cento in Francia, in Turchia novantuna;
Ma in Ispagna son già mille e tre.
In Italy 640
In Germany 230
In France 100, in Turkey 91
But in Spain 1003 already.
Wouldn't impress King Rex or me, natch, but can one understand how that might make him a romantic hero to a redblooded 18-year old American boy?
The Catalog Aria
hey rex, april 1 is april fool's day. i think earth day is april 22. boy, you must be dumb not to know that.
ReplyDeletei'm positively shocked nobody has mentioned this yet. also, hasn't this theme been done before recently? i thought for sure somebody would mention that, too.
Rex, I can't believe that the day has ended and no on pointed out that April 1st is April Fool's Day. The hoax is on you. Oh, and I will keep checking in to keep you straight because I am the only real genius on the Internet.
ReplyDelete/anonamiguel
"Person" in a crash test (dummy) - maybe my favorite clue/answer in the puzzle.
ReplyDeleteRex, a person is a living human being. It's a misuse of the language for sake of a "clever" clue.
I never do the USA Today crossword but I had a little extra time today and oddly enough Vanessa Hudgens was in it as well (they wanted her middle name [Anne]).
ReplyDelete@dk
ReplyDeletewhich ms. parker did you mean, the one in the top photo or the bottom (assuming that is sahra with the nephew)?
Read a short story about Dorothy Parker that said after her husband's funeral, a friend asked what she could do for her. Ms. Parker said, "get me another husband." The friend said, "I can't do that." Ms. Parker replied, "Then get me a ham on rye with mayo."
ReplyDelete@chefbea1 Maybe you could submit as a collaborative effort. What with "gewgaw" already in this puzzle, you may be able to get something going.
ReplyDeleteBABAganoush
GOOGOOdolls
MAMAmia
DADAism
(maybe not)
:-)
ah... "TeentSy".
ReplyDeleteSo it's "pops" not "Pope".
-Ted