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Constructor: Mike Buckley
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium
THEME: "BATMAN" / JOKERS (26A: With 51-Across, roles for 17-, 38- and 62-Across) — theme answers are all actors who have played The Joker
Word of the Day: TYR (19A: Norse war god) — Tiw (tē'ū) , Norse Tyr (tür) , ancient Germanic god. Originally a highly revered sky god, he was later worshiped as a god of war and of athletic events. He was identified with the Roman war god Mars, and among Germanic peoples Mars' day became Tiw's day (Tuesday). (Columbia encyclopedia)
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Well, I do like Batman. I'm not sure how CLEVER this puzzle is, but it certainly gets three actors' names to line up symmetrically, and recalls one of the most iconic villains in American popular culture, and manages to get part of a villainous laugh (HEH => 31D: When doubled, a villain's chuckle) into a nearly central position, so I was entertained. Marginal thumbs up. My main issue with the theme is the somewhat inelegant quality of the theme-revealing clue/answer.
I was certain CESAR ROMERO played JOKER, but when I got to 26A: With 51-Across, roles for 17-, 38- and 62-Across, I was surprised to see the answer beginning BAT-. I actually wrote in BATMEN (!?) thinking I had misremembered Mr. Romero's career. Later on I realized that "BATMAN" referred to the franchise, not the role. It's being used adjectivally. What kind of JOKERS? "BATMAN" JOKERS. But ... what other JOKERS are there? "Law & Order" JOKERS? "Little House on the Prairie" JOKERS? The awkwardness of the phrase "BATMAN" jokers made the theme feel a little wonky to me, but the JOKER is a little wonky, so maybe that was intentional, in which case: Genius.[For Brendan...]
Theme answers:
- 17A: 1966 (Cesar Romero)
- 38A: 1989 (Jack Nicholson)
- 62A: 2008 (Heath Ledger)
Despite my thematic confusion, my time was pretty normal for a Monday. A bit on the low side of normal, in fact. This is all-the-more surprising given how many other times I stumbled while filling this grid in.
Had REST STOP instead of REST AREA (3D: Place to pull over) — thanks to the elephant and his big EAR for helping me fix that (28A: Big part of an elephant). I couldn't figure out NEWS to save my life from the clue (41D: 6:30 p.m. broadcast). Talk about a 20th century clue. People still watch network news?? Core audience there is aging and diminishing (which is only partially a euphemism for dying — mainly the audience is going elsewhere for its news). Cronkite's death was symbolic as well as real. Showed my age / generational sympathies when I reflexively wrote in RAIN for 58D: Jimi Hendrix's "Purple _____" ("Haze"). In my defense, Prince and Hendrix do have a lot in common. Still, despite all this, it was Monday, Monday all around, so all ERRing was easily fixed (6D: Flub).Bullets:
- 45A: Solar phenomenon (flare) — got it off the "E" — felt risky when I put it in (!), but FJORDS confirmed my rightness (45D: Norwegian coastal features).
- 48A: Laudatory poems (odes) — I just like the word "laudatory"; weird how ordinary this word seems in crosswords, where it's used regularly to clue ODES.
- 5D: Physicist Enrico (Fermi) — wanted him yesterday (in FARAD's place), and he shows up today. Do we have a word for that yet? :)
9D: Chocolate substitute (carob) — barf. My introduction to this abomination came at the racquet club my family belonged to when I was growing up: Four Walls West (racquetball was a big deal in the late 70s — I think that club was where my dad met my eventual stepmom). They served items made with carob at the snack bar (it was supposed to be "healthy," guess). And yet I have an odd memory of eating Beer Nuts there. Most vivid Four Walls West memory, though, involves crushing the middle finger of my right hand in the Volvo car door. Unreal pain. Purpling. Nail loss. The whole horrible bit. That finger looks @#$#ed up to this day.- 39D: Nobel-Prize-winning U.N. workers' grp. (ILO) — common xword answer, but one I'm not particularly fond of.
- 27D: Leaps in ice-skating (axels) — utterly unworth mentioning, except that today it forms part of a symmetrical winter sports dyad with SKIER, which is nice (35D: One taking to the slopes).
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]
You'd think I would know it was NICHOLSON rather than NICKELSON. You'd be wrong.
ReplyDeleteHoly Public Transit, Batman! Robin took the bus! I hope you'll show the conclusion tomorrow. Same Bat-Computer. Same Bat-Blog.
ReplyDeleteIf it is comic character week I'm going to clean up.
BatCrossCan in Gotham City North who is wearing a Batman watch.
I learned that I didn't know how to spell HEYDAY. I thought it was hay as in "make hay while the sun shines." Not HEY,DAY, how ya doin.'
ReplyDeleteI wanted ESS for OGEE, malapop!
This is just a P and a Q short of a pangram.
Love seeing HEATH LEDGER in the grid.
I raise my CHALICE to Mr. Buckley.
Didn't seem that easy to me, for a Monday, of course. While I really liked the theme, it seemed a bit cagey for a Monday - had to hide itself for a while - that's not usual Monday fare is it? I thought there wasn't typically much "learned it through crosswords" fodder on a Monday either - well, I'M looking at the grid/clues now, and I think the French ONZE, TYR, the EMDASH, and whatever the UN Workers' group answer was, seemed a bit out of Monday's range. Mondays are for obvious facts and clever but obvious wordplay and a theme that just about tackles you.
ReplyDeleteAll that to say, really really liked the concept for the puzzle but it just didn't seem like a Monday - kind of an evil Monday (w/ apologies to evil Doug). Maybe I was just tired last night when I did it. I had spent the afternoon at the world's largest folk art show and sale, after all.
Wine CARAFE makes the second appearance in two days. When is the last time you've seen wine served in a carafe?
ReplyDeleteI too had difficulty reconciling myself to "Batman Jokers". I understand what's going on, but would it have been so hard to clue 51A as the character and 26A as the movie?
We have a certain fascination with shapes today, with OGEE, ESS and ACRed all making appearances.
I think I'm still grumpy from yesterday, but did chuckly when my RINTINTIN debacle from yesterday made a reappearance in the form of RIN.
I also had no idea how HEYDAY was spelled, and this is probably the frist time I've ever seen it in print.
[sarcasm] Thanks for the Steve Miller. I appreciate it. [/sarcasm]
ReplyDeleteMaybe I'm just cheap, but I frequently order the house wine, which is always brought in a carafe.
ReplyDeleteEars on African elephants are small. Only the Asian one has hugh ears. both have trunks, though.
ReplyDeleteEasy, and the theme was fun, I didn’t see the theme until I got the three actors. Had AM INTO for 47D “like” and JOMERS was a WTF, but then I looked at the theme and knew it was JOKERS.
ReplyDeleteNot much overwriting – EM DASH (@hazel?) needing to become EN DASH is all. Lots of gimmes.
Good Monday fare Thank you, Mr. Buckley.
@ BEQ - cute. [ ]=> < > ?
@BEQ - Is that the official Internet sarcasm delineator? I've been looking for such, but this seems too cumbersome.
ReplyDelete@Anon 9:11 - You have it backwards. And Asian elephants ears are in fact large, only smaller by comparison to their African cousins.
ReplyDeleteHere's to a smoothy of a puzzle! (Quaff from the CHALICE poured from the CARAFE.)
ReplyDeleteI skipped the Steve Miller. Once burned.... But I loved the Hendrix. Thanks for that.
[no sarcasm] Thanks for the Steve Miller. I appreciate it. [/nosarcasm] One of my faves. Bet you didn't know he was Les Paul's godson ...
ReplyDeleteCAROB - never liked it.
ReplyDeleteConfusing Purple Haze with Rain.... kids these daze.
Last Woodstock story: I saw that JH performance.
This puzzle, great.
It wasn't a smooth Monday, but in the end a Monday.
ReplyDeleteI had no idea a tea rose is a Chinese blossom. Both carafe and chic seem to be popular puzzlewords this week. By the way, if a carafe sounds cheap, call it a decanter. Hope Chefbea catches the beet!
I believe "deja clue" is the experience of feeling certain one has witnessed a fresh clue in the recent past.
ReplyDeleteBut an answer (misguided or not) emitted into the cosmos by a crossword solver that reinserts itself into the cosmos of crosswords in what appears to be magnetic attraction equal and NOT opposite to what was emitted, personally and in a timely fashion impossible with mere coincidence- that is called THE SECRET.
BTW-Barnes and Noble, in a flagrant act of sacrilege, insists on placing this book in the non-fiction section.
Cesar Romero was my first crush as a 12 year old from a movie I saw on TV from the 30s called Tall, Dark and Handsome. I was surprised by how much he had aged when I next saw him on Batman in the mid 60s as the Joker.
ReplyDeleteDredged-up memories is reason 295 why I enjoy crossword puzzles so much.
Very nice Monday puzzle--solved it really fast, relatively speaking, given my lack of skills; i.e. I was already looking at the next clue and getting the answer while I was still writing the last answer--happens very rarely to me. Fell briefly into the HAYDAY trap, though--glad to meet others at the bottom.
ReplyDeleteTrue story: I friend of ours who did a stint as an au pair in France reports the following dinner conversation:
Father: Which elephants have the biggest ears?
Kid: French elephants!
What a timely theme what with the quite recent posters of the mashup of Obama and Heath Ledger's Joker making the rounds on the Internet.
ReplyDeletePuzzle seemed on the hard side for a Monday...endash/emdash are knew to me (thought there were just dashes), as was ogee and tyr. "Batman Jokers"...not pretty.
ReplyDelete@hazel: love deja clue!
ReplyDeleteI thought this was a fine Monday puzzle--thanks for the music variety. Didn't expect to see Steve Miller back in Rexworld after his lashings last week; great to see Hendrix. Purple Rain...funny!
The restaurant The Good Earth (do they exist anymore?) used to make a hot carob brownie sundae--the only carob dessert I have ever liked. Count me in with those who thought it was a HAYDAY. We used to play a card game called ONZE.
Thanks Mike Buckley.
Oops--should have been @Kelsworth on the "deja clue".
ReplyDeleteWas Helen REDDY at Woodstock?
ReplyDeleteI pulled over into a "reststop" too.
As a kid I loved Batman comics. So why did I like the tv show better than any of the movies??
I was totally expecting you to drop a Simpsons reference with Cesar Romero, from the episode where Homer goes on a hunger strike and gets visited by the spirit of Cesar Chavez.
ReplyDelete"Why do you look like Cesar Romero?"
"Because you don't know what Cesar Chavez looks like."
It's the first thing that popped into my head when I got Cesar Romero, before getting the theme.
Oh, Kelsworth, you beat me to it! Deja clue, indeed.
ReplyDeleteCarob is only a substitute for chocolate in the sense that you're eating something and it's not chocolate. Fried chicken is as much a substitute for chocolate as carob...
Except fried chicken tastes good.
ReplyDeleteDefinitely a medium and I liked the theme. It seems to me that Jack Nicholson looks more and more like the joker as he ages. And it almost seems deliberate.
ReplyDelete@Kelsworth - Love Deja clue.
Re @Joho's comment - I am always surprised at how many common words I don't know how to spell such as heyday.
@Robert and @Mac,
ReplyDeleteMost restaurants I go to certainly have a house wine, but they tend to be regular bottles. Even "wine by the glass" is typically served from a bottle - and frequently poured at the table. Maybe its a regional thing?
A carafe is completely different from a decanter, which is used to "decant" an older wine before serving. This allows the wine to breathe and also (when done correctly) allows the server to leave any sediment behind in the bottle. This process is almost always done at the table with great ceremony.
This puzzle had some odd clues. "Drinking cup" for CHALICE was so denuded and "6:30 p.m. broadcast" was so provincial that both gave me considerable pause.
ReplyDelete"Draw like Albrecht Dürer" was awful.
Constructor or editor?
@Jim in Chicago, I actually thought of you when I filled in RIN TIN TIN. Too funny!
@Ulrich, "glad to meet others at the bottom" - Nice! why I read this blog.
@kelsworth, I second PlantieBea on "deja clue."
I'm glad ODESSA was clued on the Black Sea, to go with the Borscht veggie, not in Texas! Also ALE with Ginger, not brewpub...
ReplyDeleteWould have preferred Cauliflower___ for the EAR clue. HEH.
∑;)
I managed to get fouled up in the NE when I pulled over to the ROADSIDE instead of the REST AREA. I hate it when I do that on Monday. I start flailing around saying "Why can't I solve this? It's only a Monday!" Anyway, I finally figured it out and managed to finish with a 10 minute time, but this doesn't bode well for me this week.
ReplyDeleteI learned in random reading last week that AXELS are named for Norwegian skater Axel Paulsen who devised the jump in 1882. Puzzle denizen Sonja Henie was apparently the first female skater to land the jump.
I just learned that striking the keys "option-hyphen" on an IMac yields an EN DASH. I find this both highly comforting and somewhat exciting. Pardon me now while I try to go get a life.
@kelsworth ... I love the term "deja clue" but I'm not clear on the meaning. Shouldn't it be used when one sees a old, stale clue ... one that we've seen over and over again?
ReplyDeletePlease explain! Thanks!
I wish it would have been a Catwoman theme instead. Rex could have found some old photos of Eartha Kitt and Julie Newmar along with any photo of Halle Berry. Now that would have been a good way to start the week.
ReplyDeleteStill, solid puzzle.
@Greene:Thx for the Mac en dash tip!
ReplyDelete@ZJM, I was always partial to Newmar, but Michelle Pfeiffer also looked fairly toothsome in the cat suit.
ReplyDelete"Cluevoyance" and "ESPhill," not "Deja clue."
ReplyDeleteKelsworth, brilliant! "Deja Clue" is a wonderful term to describe the feeling of thinking one has seen a clue in the recent past.
But Rex is looking for "Cluevoyance" or its synonym, "ESPhill" -- the phenomenon of seeing answers to clues which correctly fill the NEXT day's puzzle. "Rex must have ESPhill, he cluevoyantly filled FERMI on Sunday which, although incorrect, turned out to be correct fill for Monday morning."
Rex, update the Glossary on FAQ immediately! ;)
ArtLvr beat me to the borscht with a reference to the forbidden fruit of 8 D.
ReplyDeleteNote from the Pedants' Corner: Re: 66 A, "i" topper, the proper name for that dot is "tittle". The phrase "Every jot and tittle" is somewhat redundant, since the jot can be the least thing in writing, the dot on top of the letter iota, or the letter itself, while the tittle is definitely the dot.
@joho-
ReplyDeleteYes deja clue does not fit the particular that was asked for- that is why I offered THE SECRET as a term for putting a thought out there and having it come back to you later because all things including ideas are magnets. This is a reference to that snake oil book, the author of which has never studied even the basics of magnetism. Also could be called a cluemerang. Much better actually!
As for deja clue- it is something that you think you remember, not something that you actually remember.
An old stale groan-producing clue that we have actually seen over and over again would be a clueche´
@Joseph-
ReplyDeletejust saw your post-
Both AMAZING
cluevoyance
esphill
@kelsworth ... very clever all!
ReplyDeleteI have vu ja de often...the feeling that something different just happened.
ReplyDelete/mee
Probably BEQ did try to write <sarcasm> ... </sarcasm> and was told that this HTML tag was unrecognized... (I got it by writing the delimiters as < and > — and these ampersands were produced by & — and that ampersand I just told you how to encode.)
ReplyDeleteAs for the puzzle — almost easy enough for Downs-only (if I knew more about cars I wouldn't write OPTIMA for 11D:ALTIMA, but 23D:CEO vs. CFO was a guess since unclued 28A:EAR could also be FAR); recognized two of the three theme names, but didn't know or guess the common thread until reading the Across clues. I see no problem with BATMAN JOKERS. which seems a perfectly ordinary construction. 27D:AXELS may be perfectly ordinary too, but 32A:XRAYS was a pleasant surprise for Monday, and also 45D:FJORDS and 67A:ONZE.
NDE
@Anon 7:59 - did the same thing; eventually changed the O for NOISE but never did get the K out of there, so I had HEK HEK as the villian's chuckle which made no sense, but I thought "Oh what the HEK!" Color me red. Very rarely have an error on a Monday. Only other write over was SCENE over arena.
ReplyDeletePuzzle seemed a little bit more difficult for a Monday but not too much.
You guys are cracking me up with todays wordplay.
Tsk, Rexxie,
ReplyDeleteAlways with the OLD people references! I admit I'm old-- but not quite dead yet. I watch the local news, and then the network news. Every night. Maybe I should protest the 6:30 part of the clue as "Zone-ist;" OUR national-news time is 5:30. Think of it as the Early Bird Special.
(You see, boys and girls, there just wasn't enough room in the desirable and superior Eastern Time Zone, so all the OLD people were driven across the Central Time Zone line, in a trek known as The Trail of Walkers. All of the old people were relocated in Assisted Living Reservations and given free drool bibs. And televisions tuned to the network news.)
It was an easy puzzle, although I put down Rest Stop--(we STOP at all of them;) ditto Purple Rain--(the only rock album/song title I actually know;) and I still don't know what ILO stands for.
@Elaine
ReplyDeleteTake your pick ;)
ILO: A port city in southern Peru. It is the largest city in the Moquegua Region and is the capital of the Ilo Province.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilo
ILO (International Labor Organization) – Founded in 1919 with the objective of promoting social justice, it is the only of the UN System Agencies with a tripartite structure, in which the representatives of employers and employees have the same rights as the government.
www.fundacaobunge.org.br/eng/citizenship_dictionary/
.../Glitch
ens and ems are printers' measures with the former being half the width of the latter. These are two more words that I learned from doing crossword puzzles.
ReplyDeleteThere were some pretty obescure words (including the proper names) in this puzzle for a Monday. Fortunately there were enough gimmes to make the obscure words discernable fairly quickly.
Yikes, funny stuff today -- can't even list all the comments I found amusing.
ReplyDeletedk: You saw JH at Woodstock??! Epochal. I did see the Clash show on the cover of 'London Calling' but it doesn't quite compare.
Oh, the puzzle: certainly a good one all around. Showed that easy does not need to be boring.
Monday midday report of relative difficulty (see my 7/30/2009 post for an explanation of my method):
ReplyDeleteAll solvers (median solve time, average for day of week, ratio, percentile, rating)
Mon 7:32, 7:02, 1.07, 72%, Medium-Challenging
Top 100 solvers
Mon 3:54, 3:44, 1.05, 67%, Medium-Challenging
dk: Awesome! When I first set foot in the US in 69, the friends I was staying with in Somerville, MA had just returned and were still awestruck. I had to console myself with watching the movie later.
ReplyDeleteHigh spirits all around today here--goes to show what a satisfying puzzle does for the soul.
Which reminds me: Late last night, an anonymouse posted what may be stupidest comment of the year. Upset about the negative comments yesterday, the mouse squeaked "If you don't like puzzles don't do them, find a new hobby." It would presumably tell someone who doesn't like a specific bottle of wine, "If you don't like wine, don't drink it..."
Am w @hazel and @fikink...this one was at least a medium for me for a Monday. Liked FJORDS, CLANS. But ETCH for "draw like Albrecht Durer is awful clue. If you told Durer he was "drawing," I think he would have poked you with the sharp point of his etching utensils
ReplyDeleteRecently read Kurt Andersen's "HEYDAY." Thought it was a great book for the first two thirds, then it got to be achingly trite. Raising the question: who's primarily a journalist that has managed to write a good novel?
ReplyDeleteHi! Too late to the party, but thanks for all the laughs today!!!!
ReplyDeleteThis was definitely not a Monday. I ain't the editor and
I really liked the puzzle, but I guarantee you, Will is short on Mondays, bec this screamed Tuesday all over it...
the theme is too specific for a Monday (just ask anyone not Elaine who Cesar Romero is/was) plus there were five themes (godforbid five is the new 3!)
and ILO, ONZE, TIM (as clued), ALTIMA, FERMI, CHALICE, TYR, ENDASH, AKINTO, perhaps even REDDY and ARCED would have been sent back to ME as a rewrite.
I'm jealous!!!
And as @joho pointed out, just P&Q short of a pangram. I guess he didn't mind them (insert ale discussion here)
@ZJ
hey! Let's get on it! You are half way there!
EARTHAKITT 10
HALLEBERRY 10
JULIENEWMAR 11
damn, MICHELLEPFEIFFER is 16
But wait! Holy Kitkat, batman,
CATWOMAN 8
PFEIFFER 8
:)
@rex
ReplyDeletespeaking of cluevoyance, on the trivia show I sub-hosted last night
(www.KALW.org if anyone knows how those podcast links work it's under "Minds Over Matter")one of the callers called in to ask who/what Tuesday was named after!!!
@ulrich
French elephants!!! Hek hek hek!!!
re Tuesday -
ReplyDeleteO.E. Tiwesdæg, from Tiwes, gen. of Tiw "Tiu," from P.Gmc. *Tiwaz "god of the sky," differentiated specifically as Tiu, ancient Gmc. god of war, from PIE base *dyeu- "to shine" (see diurnal). Cf. O.N. tysdagr, Swed. tisdag, O.H.G. ziestag. From:
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=Tuesday
Good puzzle. Much harder than a usual Monday.
ReplyDelete@Ulrich and Andrea Celeste Michaels: those French elephants are Babar and his family!
ReplyDelete@fergus: I met Kurt Andersen and his wife (who wrote a half-interesting book called "Going Gray") and liked him, followed his blog for a bit, then found him becoming opinionated and dogmatic.
Not at all hard, but definitely too hard for a Monday. I agree with Andrea Michaels -- Tuesday.
ReplyDeleteendash
carafe
tyr
tea rose
onze
hadj
ilo
carob
altima
@mac
ReplyDeleteRE: [Kurt Andersen]... followed his blog for a bit, then found him becoming opinionated and dogmatic.
... and you still follow Rex?
;-)
.../Glitch
@Glitch: but Rex talks about things I'm interested in! And he never told me he hated Hillary Clinton.
ReplyDeleteI did it in 12:04, pretty typical for my Monday, so I don't think it was harder than usual. I admit I didn't know who CESARROMERO was --I was willing to believe he was the one who invented the salad--but I had heard of him. I initially had purple OOZE, thought that ALL of the elephant was big, and for some reason I always like Js in the crossword. I guess I admire the constructor for working them in.
ReplyDeleteThis week's relative difficulty ratings. See my 7/30/2009 post for an explanation. In a nutshell, the higher the ratio, the higher this week's median solve time is relative to the average for the corresponding day of the week.
ReplyDeleteAll solvers (this week's median solve time, average for day of week, ratio, percentile, rating)
Mon 7:32, 7:02, 1.07, 72%, Medium-Challenging
Top 100 solvers
Mon 3:47, 3:43, 1.02, 59%, Medium
As a kid, I cracked my head open watching a racquetball game (actually playing with a toy car under the seats). So, I guess racquetball is a dangerous sport!
ReplyDeleteThere actually is Unicode for the rarely used "irony/sarcasm mark": ⸮, which is supposed to look like a small backwards question mark, but it will probably look like a bit of trash on your computer. The reason is because it was stuck in the Amharic part of Unicode, and if you don't have that loaded, you won't see the actual symbol.
ReplyDeleteOn the stupid side, Wikipedia reports, in all seriousness, that the symbol is actually used in Ethiopic languages. Way cool if it were true, but for some reason, they don't cite any examples.
Discovered something very interesting when I looked up Is-sur-Tille...it's the French crossword puzzle championship capital!! Could it have been a subliminal clue. Hooray for let "mots croises"
ReplyDeletethe hadj/hajj decision threw me.
ReplyDeleteMuch harder than a typical Monday.
ReplyDeleteFrom syndication land (also known as the future) - commenting on this site is kind of addictive :)
ReplyDeleteAs for this puzzle I got completely tripped up in the awkwardness of the cluing of 26A "With 51-across, roles for 17-, 38- and 62- across". Being a Monday I tried to hurry through it and didn't even try to understand what it was asking. So I came to believe they were all roles played by Heath Ledger - yes, even AFTER getting Cesar Romero. I was thinking maybe Heath played some ancient Roman once in an obscure movie. Then I went on to google "roles for Heath Ledger" looking for Jacksich Olson, maybe in Brokeback Mountain??? (I had CLASS for 25-d). Another big derp for me. I liked seeing ONZE, and oddly, OUTOFGAS, though.
I always screw up HADJ, as I'm used to spelling it HAJJ
ReplyDeleteLoved that I got to use my AP art history knowledge in this one though
Albrecht Durer is my buddy. So are OGEE arches. :D