.png)
Comintern creator / SAT 10-30-10 / Leandro's partner / Empathic counselor / William Herschel discovery 1787 / Treaty Fort McIntosh signer 1785
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Constructor: Barry C. Silk
Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging
THEME: none
Word of the Day: OTTO II (31D: Holy Roman emperor, 973-83) —
Otto II (955 – December 7, 983), called the Red, was the third ruler of the Saxon or Ottonian dynasty, the son of Otto the Great and Adelaide of Italy. (wikipedia)
• • •
This was hard for me, especially in the bottom half. Sadly, most of the difficulty was due to my completely misreading a clue, and Continuing to misread multiple times, over the course of several minutes. The clue: 61A: Eponym of an Australian Open arena (ROD LAVER). What I read: 61A: Eponym of an Australian Open area. “There’s an Open Area in Australia? And ... it has an eponym??” I figured my geography just sucked and there was some large Open Area of Australia that I should just know. RED RIVER? That’s not an eponym. You’d think that between “arena” and the fact that “Open” was capitalized that I’d have figured it out. But no. Well, yes, eventually, but not for a while. Had BARN for BALE at 56D: “Oklahoma!” set piece, which didn’t help. At all. That whole (open) area down there in the SE is kind of ugly. Driving all those -ER answers into the SE corner like that! It’s not like this is a 60-worder. No need to cluster bomb -ERS like that.There wasn’t much that I liked in this grid except B.J. THOMAS (34D: Singer with the 1966 hit “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry”). Absurd proper nouns like EILAT (51A: Gulf of Aqaba city) and OTTO II (!?) (31D: Holy Roman emperor, 973-83) and CAPE CORAL (!?)
(33D: Florida city on the Caloosahatchee) and WESER (?!) (7D: River to the North Sea), and the long, odd partial I QUOTE (3D: Lead-in to someone else’s words, after “and”) kept this from being terribly enjoyable. CHIPPEWA (1A: Treaty of Fort McIntosh signer, 1785) and ESCAROLE (58A: Common salad ingredient) and, to a lesser extent, EXTRA FINE (20A: Coin collector’s classification), are the only answers that really pop. POOR AT? OWES TO? MEAN TO? It’s all a bit awkward and lumbering, though I do kind of admire the aggressively 18th-century vibe of the puzzle, with both CHIPPEWA and OBERON (16A: William Herschel discovery of 1787) getting clues from 200+ years ago.I’m writing this in northern Virginia—specifically, from the living room of PuzzleGirl, who is hosting me and my family this weekend. I’m writing in a Word document because she couldn’t figure out how to get me on to her wireless network ... only to find out that the problem was that she had given me the wrong password initially. Not that you need to know this, but I’m just saying: she just spent half an hour detectivizing the problem for me. She’s good people.
Bullets:
- 22A: De Gaulle's predecessor (COTY) — Did not know this. Know COTY only as the fragrance ... guy?
- 25A: 440 yards, for many runners (ONE LAP) — interesting. I always think of ONE LAP as a quarter mile ... which I guess that is. OK.
- 43A: Empathic counselor of sci-fi (TROI) — she's super-common in crosswords. Yesterday BOI, today TROI. Yesterday RESODS, today ... RESODS (44D: Covers over, in a way)
58A: Group 13 member, in chemistry (BORON) — The boron group consists of boron (B), aluminium (Al), gallium (Ga), indium (In), thallium (Tl), and ununtrium (Uut). (wikipedia)- 2D: El Cid player (HESTON) — A gimme. Otherwise, this NW corner might have been a lot harder than it was.
- 5D: Marks in a casino (PIPS) — I had SAPS.
- 6D: Leandro's partner (ERO) — I know these folks from the Marlowe poem "Hero and Leander." Leander swims the Hellespont—that's pretty much all I remember from that poem.
- 47D: Stonemason's chisel (TOOLER) — Had to infer this one.
- 50D: Comintern creator (LENIN) — short for The Communist International, dedicated to the overthrow of the "international bourgeoisie," among other things.
- 52D: "The Frogs Who Desired a King" author (AESOP) — Not a tale I remember, but the animals made me think AESOP anyway.
- 59D: Year the Visigoths invaded Italy (CDI) — I do not care for "CSI," but I would totally watch a show called "CDI."
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]
Save And Share :
52 comments:
Being an astronomer back in the old days must have sucked. You're going, "Hey, I just discovered Oberon!" and everybody else is saying, "Yeah, whatever, star-namer boy. How about you pick up a scythe or something and make yourself useful? We just lost the dadburned Revolutionary War and you're 'discovering' crap that's been there since I don't know when but probably a really long time. Hey, here's an idea. Why don't you go discover your anus! Ha! (Get it, fellas? I just told star-namer boy to go discover his anus!)"
Also, I thought COTY was ORLY because I know there's two airports in France. That's a smart dumb mistake.
wow, now that's dedication! Blogging from Puzzle Girl's livingroom while on vacation! And yes, (and) IQUOTE, "she's good people".
This was super hard for me, but I was thrilled to finally finish...sans google!
Main thing was I had to concede that ESCARgot probably isn't a "common" salad ingredient, except in parts of France, peut-etre.
I had to guess that CAPE CORAL and trust WESER was a river...and Ithis Jewess had to learn what SHROVE means literally.
Actually had a malapop:
Put in L-BORON for OBERON...and then BORON (where I had sOlid) later appeared! Still shocked how often that happens!
Really liked initial answers, or whatever they are called: BJTHOMAS, TBTEST, TSTRAP, TCELL made things T-rick-y!
Had TROn before the fall of TROI, as the remake of the movie with Jeff Bridges s opening next week.
Favorite entry: PUPPYLOVE
A little Q here, an X there, a J where you least expect it, made this ping!
(AND almost made up for all the STs STrewn about the grid: STrasse, STent, tSTrap, tbteST, ruSTbelt, STops, braveST, STet, STraw, oweSTo, HeSTon...)
LaSTly, RODLAVER was a gimme for those who had watched Jeopardy! this week, only bec it was a Final Answer!
Harder than yesterday's but about medium for a Sat. with SE being pretty tough. SPIELERS might be yesterday's SOLIDER. Also, not as flashy as yesterday's.
My atlas has EILAT as ELAT.
The BJTHOMAS tune I remember is Rain Drops i.e., needed some crosses to get 34d.
In the interest of full disclosure, I needed my bride's aid in spelling CHIPPEWA (not sure if it was AWA or EWA), which means ERO was not in my wheelhouse.
I title this post "Chris complains about science clues in the NYT Crossword, episode 318 (repeat)."
The same exact clue for T cell appeared 2/20/09. I remember because I complained about it then, and I'll complain about it now: It is a crap clue that inaccurately describes T cell function. T cells don't attack antigens; they recognize them in complex with MHC I or II and either induce apoptosis in the cell displaying the antigen-MHC I complex or stimulate an immune response after recognizing an antigen-MHC II complex (there are other types of T cells with different functions that I don't entirely understand, but suffice it to say that they don't "attack antigens"). If I ever see this clue again, I'll be forced to do something drastic, like post the exact same complaint on this blog again. It won't be pretty.
What is to be done? How about this excellent puzzle.
The WESER river runs to the port city of Bremen Germany. i should have paid better attention to yesterday's Word of the Day!
Nice info Chris. I just looked up apoptosis.
Anyone else try FIRST LOVE Instead of PUPPY LOVE? The NE took a while due to the unknown ERO, WESER, and COTY. I'm adding them to my crossword armamentarium.
I first had "Manx cat" for "least likely to turn tail." What kind of a sissy answer is BRAVEST? This is Saturday, after all. Escarole is not so flipping common in my salads. TSTRAP, TCELL, and TBTEST. Is this a theme?
Nevertheless, a good Saturday puzzle. Easy-Medium in my view.
RESODS yesterday, RESODS today...what will tomorrow bring?
If you kids would get off my lawn, there wouldn't be need for so much re-sodding.
ADAM SALE? A DAM SALE? A DAMSALE? ADAMSALE? Huh?
Adam's Ale
Adam's Ale, loosen up buttercup :)
Good puzzle, medium Saturday for me. Started out with "bar codes" at 63A, had Orly before Coty, Rabat for Eilat and Yoda for Troi.
Wanted to give the Olympians salvers. My least favorite area was TSA? / HTML?, but I loved the rustbelt, ensemble, escarole and shrove.
I was looking hard for Philly or baseball clues/answers!
@glimmerglass: LOL at manx cat!
A Saturday puzzle - just the way I like em! Hard and tricky. Got very confused cause I thought the German river was the Wesen and had "pitchmen" for "spielers" for the longest time! AND, for whatever reason, I can NEVER remember what the word "eponym" means!!!! But - got'em all in the end. A good Saturday by and large. Amen.
I had IOUS confidently penned in for 5D along with WILLIAMS for 34D and CUCUMBER for 58A... wait there's more: CONOCO for 1D.
But I knew OBERON and OBSESSIVE -- woo woo
*** (3 Stars, again) I will just have to trash Rex's puzzle at BEQ's place.
OBSESSIVE PUPPYLOVE = Acme
Cooking fans, discovered Verjus or VERR JUICE as we say in the midwest thanks to Weds NYT dining in section. Used verjus instead of lemon in a lemon bar recipe and followed the chicken rec. also in the same rags ARTICLE. Both turned out well despite cooking errors that strangely resemble my x-word errors.
Guess what? Wild Mountain (area where I patrol) is open for skiing. Albeit one run. Sooo its off to the slopes... err slope for me
I wonder how many ADAMS ALES the Great Pumpkin had before writing that midnight SPIEL? I also wonder why some get so worked up over a clue about TCELL? I wonder why I am here....
Great to see Cape Coral in a puzzle. :-) Flowerlady9
Great Pumpkin's assessment of an astronomer in the 18th century is not quite accurate. As the discoverer of Uranus, and distant galaxies as well as numerous moons and comets, Herschel was quite the celebrity of his time - King George was a patron and he made frequent visits to King George's court as well as hosting lavish parties INSIDE his telescope. His story and other great English explorers of the day is detailed in the book, "Age of Wonder" - an interesting read and why I had no trouble with 16 across today.
@Anon 9:35 - It really wouldn't matter how many Adam's Ales TGP had, as the whole point of Adam's Ale is that it is non-alcoholic. Water to be specific.
@chris, I'm with you. We could start a club. And until our ranks swell, we could recruit Andrea and make it the Science and Yiddish Club for Accurate Cluing. Oh wait, there's a namer amongst us, and she could give us a zippy name.
@Bourgeois Chippewa-- did you like it? The apoptosis concept? When I first heard it, it rearranged some of my thinking- a real program for death, not this random, messy stuff we usually contemplate. But I digress...
I came here to say that I liked the puzzle. Granted some of the intersections were impossible, and I had to fight for every letter. In the end, I had an error. BARN and CAPE CORAN intersecting SPINNERS worked well for me, but Mr. Happy Pencil thought otherwise.
Killed me.
Spent a lot of time thinking URANUS, but never put it in because it obviously didn't agree with crosses.
But I did have 28 D, One stuck in a float, as SCOOP before STRAW.
Then, as did Rex, had 56 D as BARN, but when I finally got RODLAVER (not easily for a non-sports person like me), I changed BARN to BALL, thinking that might be a set piece, but, no, that would be in "Phantom of the Opera" or "Un Ballo in Maschera" (however that is spelled), but not "Oklahoma!" So, pen on paper, I finished with SPILLERS rather than SPIELERS, not impossible but now clearly not right.
For some unknown reason, I found this puzzle to be the easiest Saturday that I can remember. PUPPY LOVE, ONE LAP, BRAVEST, ASEXUAL, EXTRA FINE LEAFS, PALATE, TOENAILS, OBSESSIVE, SILVERS, CAPE CORAL & ESCAROLE all fell very quickly. From there on out everything seemed to fit right in.
Thanks to Barry Silk, Rex Parker .. and his hostess with the mostest, Puzzle Girl.
It's 82° and sunny here in Naples, Florida. Enjoy the weekend!
This puzzle killed me. Couldn't get the top left or the bottom right. One major problem was I thought there had to be a Florida city called CANAVERAL.
Found this on the easy side for a Saturday, though I did get into trouble early, entering "arsenal" for 14D pieces together?. Or, to be brutally honest, I entered "arsenals" as I had a square left over after entering arsenal. A hazard of not counting before setting pen to paper.
Rod Laver came into focus with a few crosses, but I had no idea he was Australian. My needle was skipping on Evonne Goolagong's name.
And now I'm off to rake leaves!
@Anon 9:52, I don't know ADAMS ALE from gingerale but the clue said water, so I assume it was a term for what the first man drank, but I was playing the pun, mun, or thinking water goes with scotch or bourbon or something with more kick, or whatever, all of which again leads me to wonder what am I doing here....
Hand up for FIRSTLOVE before PUPPLOVE. Also wasted time on 1D - had SUNOCO, then CONOCO - fixated on gas stations, before CRISCO came.
Also had URANUS before OBERON.
Long time tennis enthusiast, so RODLAVER came to me immediately.
Finshed this, but with help of Mr oogle, so no victory.
I like Mr Happy Pencil, because he makes me proof-read the puzzle when he doesn't pop up immediately. I had a simple typo error that I corrected today.
That would be Mr Google
Always a pleasure to see how others rate the Saturday. For me, this one came together beautifully. Much easier than yesterday and one of my easiest Saturdays.
Lots of possibilities in the NW with only the CO in place (sunuCO, conoCO, aramCO were my first thoughts).
ABRA was a fortunate guess as it gave me OBERON and ORATES. Wanted sAmplE for 9A, but LEAFS fixed that.
Really liked the STRAW answer. Nice twist.
Seemed to remeber a tennis player ROsewell, but the RRN came to the rescue and D fit best, giving me RODLAVER. Not sure what a TOOLER is, but that was my last fill.
ADAMSALE has been used 11 times since November 1993 , mostly on Fridays or Saturdays.
Love the Aesop clue, the moral of the story being: Be careful what you wish for.
How the hell am I supposed to be careful what I wish for?
I meant to ask why Rex didn't like the X grid used yesterday, trite I think he said -- didn't allow for long answers? So I look at the black squares today and see perhaps a constellation cluster framed by crosshairs? With an Orion's belt slanted up from the bottom of PUPPY LOVE to the top of CAPE CORAL? Yes, it allows for 8-stacks in each corner, but I thought both yesterday's and today's quite challenging! My take, let a constructor do as he or she likes -- it's the variety that amuses, the overall freshness and the clever cluing...
Some of the shorter words today are very good: ERO as Leandro's partner, PIPS as casino marks, BALE in Oklahoma, TROT for the Breeders Crown, and COTY where I too wanted Orly at first. I also liked the WESER River, LEAFS for Browses, the T-STRAP alternative for Pump, STRASSE and SHROVE!
Maybe Rex is right, the edge goes to the design that allows at least a few longer entries like OBSESSIVE, ASEXUAL and EXTRA FINE! They tickle the PALATE.
∑;)
Lovely Silk-y Saturday.
Yeah, lots of partials but the rest made up for it. (Except for all the foreign geography.)
Misdirections were found where I did not expect them such as the straw clue. I was thinking of flowers or some decoration on a parade float.
Then the straightforward clue for bravest where I was expecting something clever. (Love the Manx cat!)
I loved discovering Chippewa when I thought it would be a specific person.
Fun puzzle, thank you Barry.
Comments today are cracking me up.
Can't wait to hear about the Rally.
First time commenting but also the first time I finished a Saturday puzzle (and first time I really even bothered trying). Shockingly, it went down fairly easily and I am pleased to see Rex rates it a medium-challenging. Can't wait to try again next week.
The Speed Solver's approach to this puzzle in Wordplay by
Anne Erdmann and Crossword Fiend by Amy Reynaldo is fascinating.
Tough puzzle. DNF.
I hardly ever put escarole in my salad. Soups - yes!!
And of course escarole and beans
SKERIE - what tomorrow is
Medium for a Saturday, I thought. Last to fall was SW. ADAMS ALE slowed me down again. I should know it by now, but it gets me every time.
@Andrea - I think I would have eventually got ROD LAVER, but this week's Jeopardy answer made him a throwdown.
Thought of SaLVERS for awhile at 41D. The plural of SILVER, without the word "medal", is usually, well, SILVER. As in, "Three Americans won Silver today." I don't think I've ever heard today's usage.
@EDE: Congrats on finishing your first Saturday puzzle. Good for you! I remember my first Saturday puzzle and being more surprised at finishing than anything else.
Back on my game today and finding this one to be an easy-medium. RODLAVER was a gimme since we discovered our daughter DVR's a bunch of game shows and RODLAVER arena was a recent(?) Final Jeopardy answer. While watching about 4 hours of Jeopardy and some Mob game show...she and her cousin wondered why I knew so much stuff.
1) Age...live long enough and you accumulate unnecessary knowledge.
2) Crossword puzzles.
I even called her in to read her the clue. She didn't remember the answer from last night. She has a master's degree in communications. We're so proud.
One of the best parts of today's write-up: Terry Bradshaw singing.
This puzzle was out of my league. As I have mentioned before, I am a newish solver and have completed only a handful of Saturdays sans google.I don't mind googling if I am stumped , but hitting the check button or the reveal feels just terrible.Today the temptation to resort to MR Pencil's help was too great.Damn you Mr Pencil Damn you to hell.
Hi all! Long-time lurker, first-time commenter.
Always interesting to see other folks' takes. This one wrecked me, mostly in the SE although I had a bit of trouble in the NE, too, due mostly to not knowing HESTON played El Cid (I know, I know). I blame this on youth, which is the same reason I had no idea who BJ THOMAS is/was.
I had nothing at all when it came to SHROVE, had SALESMEN for SPIELERS for the longest, and I'm not into tennis so ROD LAVER was a major factor in my needing google to finish. Further gripes: why is any Florida city, however obscure, fair crossword game (even if I guessed this one early on, then erased it due to bad crosses)? And can we ban random Roman-numeraled years forever? They just feel so lazy...
Grammatically, not sure I love cluing ALLIED as "Confederate," since to my ear the latter is very clearly a noun and the former an adjective. Am I alone in that?
And Chris: would you accept NKT cells as an explanation?
When ever I see the name "Rod Laver," I can't help but think of the old Monty Pythom bit on wines from down under;
"Monty Python's Flying Circus -
"Australian Table Wines"
… whilst the Australian Wino Society thoroughly recommends a 1970 Coq du Rod Laver, which, believe me, has a kick on it like a mule: eight bottles of this and you're really finished. At the opening of the Sydney Bridge Club, they were fishing them out of the main sewers every half an hour…"
I worked on this on and off all day. Too busy to just sit and focus. But I did finally finish with no mistakes, so I am happy.
Congratulations, @EDE!
@Danny, welcome. I don't know if using Roman numerals is really lazy, I think sometimes it's just necessity. I know no constructor wants to do it, but ... have you tried to construct a puzzle?
@Mel Ott -- ADAMSALE gets me every single time, too!
@Rex, I read the clue as "Eponoym of an Australian Opera arena" ... talk about a slow down!
This puzzle left me wondering if Peter OTOOLE has ever used a TOOLER.
@Danny: I don't think so. My beef with the clue is that it's akin to cluing Grunt as "Nazi uniform attacker" when we all know that grunts attack the guys inside the uniform and use the uniform only to give the "attack that guy" signal, so saying that they attack the uniform is nonsense. IIRC NKT cells have similar functions as CD8+ T cells but they recognize different lipid (instead of protein) antigens complexed with CD1d, so it's really the same issue. An answer I wouldn't complain if the answer were B cell, since they make antibodies that usually have direct anti-antigen effects (B cell is the answer I had for a long time when I saw that clue 20 months ago. It really slowed me down, which is a small part of the reason why I harbor such ill feelings against antigen attacker=T cell). That, I think, is an infinitely better answer than T cell.
@Danny (Welcome)
An Allied victory by the Allied troops.
A Confederate victory by the Confederate troops.
P>G>
I forgot to paste:
allied - united in a confederacy or league
confederative, confederate
united - characterized by unity; being or joined into a single entity; "presented a united front"
[www.thefreedictionary.com/allied]
P>G>
This 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.
All solvers (this week's median solve time, average for day of week, ratio, percentile, rating)
Mon 7:31, 6:57, 1.08, 81%, Challenging
Tue 9:17, 8:56, 1.04, 63%, Medium-Challenging
Wed 12:45, 11:44, 1.09, 77%, Medium-Challenging
Thu 13:42, 18:57, 0.72, 7%, Easy
Fri 23:07, 26:17, 0.88, 30%, Easy-Medium
Sat 29:57, 30:33, 0.98, 45%, Medium
Top 100 solvers
Mon 3:42, 3:42, 1.00, 51%, Medium
Tue 4:41, 4:36, 1.02, 61%, Medium-Challenging
Wed 6:00, 5:46, 1.04, 68%, Medium-Challenging
Thu 6:29, 9:06, 0.71, 6%, Easy
Fri 10:36, 12:49, 0.83, 24%, Easy-Medium
Sat 16:17, 17:28, 0.93, 40%, Easy-Medium
Aleman...Just ordered wonderful illustrated Aesop book from Amazon. Thank you for giving it a spiel!!
I'm always fascinated by the vast discrepancies in what we respectively consider "easy, "medium," and difficult, Rex. I breezed through this one and couldn't wait to share your disappointment for a dumbed-down Saturday. But many of your betes noires are my gimmes, and vice versa. Compare with October 9th. I almost shuddered when I saw your "easy" after agonizing on that one for a week, nearly surrendering on its entire southern half's worth of intractable 15ers and equally nerve-racking crosses.
The river Weser broad and wide gets a mention in the Pied Piper of Hamlin. It washes its walls on the southern side, if I recall correctly.
Agreed as to PuzzleGirl. A great editor/web guru.
I sat next to Venus Williams' mom in Rod Laver Arena.
Can usually read Barry Silk's mind but not today. This grid was quite tough.
Happy Halloween to all.
Nothing for me on this one. Too busy with Halloween, husband's and daughter's b-days all in same weekend, but even with all the time in the world I likely would not have finished without burning up Google. Seriously, obscure proper names crossing other obscurities... Oy!
I had a real issue with 1A being clued as a single signer. Chippewa is a whole nation, not a person who can sign. Better cluing probably would not have helped that much anyway, though Sigh. On to Sunday and those costumed crowds.
Thanks for the welcome, all!
@Chris: Your point is well-taken, and I should have pointed out in the first place that "B cell" is definitely a better answer--so much so that, even though I knew somehow that the answer would be T CELL, I initially left the first letter blank as if I could turn it into a B by ignoring it long enough.
@PG: Touché. Gripe retracted. I'm standing firm on FL cities, though.
@joho: I know I'm being irrationally cranky about Roman numerals, and I'm sure no constructor loves them either. My annoyance stems from 1) my inability to keep D and L straight, and 2) the fact that only once in a blue moon does the year have any significance at all beyond fitting into that space--I mean, does anyone actually know what year the Visigoths invaded Italy? That might just as well have been clued "Roman numeral," for all the good it did me.
Syndicated paper solver.
At the Uranus end of the commentary.
Seems like we got a lot of answers this week that relate to Browning's "The Pied Piper of Hamelin":
Here's the start of it:
"Hamelin town's in Brunswick
By famous Hanover city.
[Hirschel was originally from
Hanover]
The river Weser, deep and wide
Washes its walls on the southern
side;"
[the Weser runs past Bremen
too]
And let's not forget TOOTLE.
Thought the puzzle was very solid, with only two all-initials answers: TSA and HTML. Wonder if ADAMSALE is an eponymous term?
I can see my dear old mother now, from years ago, hemming up my bell bottoms and muttering, ISUPPOSE, ISUPPOSE.
The toughest part for me was OTOOLE--because I tried to research "The Owl and the Pussycat" instead of the listed production. ATEAT and APOS would not come across, but after getting O_ _ OLE I couldn't think of anything else that made sense. What was weird was that "Owl" was in fact originally a stage play, debuting in (drum roll, please) 1965. "Twas a headscratcher, though, because it had a cast of only two, neither named O'Toole. BTW, my posts will be a week late because my paper is behind a week.
Post a Comment