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Beach debris also known as rockweed / SUN 3-4-12 / Comic British character who rarely speaks / Card game similar to ecarte / Sci-fi film with android named Ash / Pilgrims John Priscilla / Sublime in hip hop slang / Dragon slayer of myth / Skagway locale / Musical star Paige who played original Evita
Sunday, March 4, 2012
Constructor: David J. Kahn
Relative difficulty: Easy
THEME: "Love Story" — quote puzzle: [An elderly woman was having dinner with her husband and was ...] SIPPING ON A GLASS OF WINE. [She said "After all these years..."] "I'M STILL CRAZY ABOUT YOU." [Then she remarked "..."] "I CAN'T LIVE WITHOUT YOU." [Her husband asked "...?"] "DO YOU REALLY MEAN THAT?" [Then he asked "...?"] "OR IS THAT THE WINE TALKING?" [The woman replied "..."] "IT'S ME TALKING TO THE WINE."
Word of the Day: SEA OAK (70D: Beach debris also known as rockweed) —
n. The seaweed Fucus vcsiculosus: same as bladder-wrack. (wordnik)
• • •
Ha ha ha, she hates her stupid old husband. Ah ... marriage. Am I right?
This was corny, but well constructed, as these kinds of quotey jokey puzzles go. Invented conversation themes have a tendency to take longer-than-usual to solve, as ... well, you have to sort of feel your way through them. But this one came together very quickly. I mostly ignored the "story" at
first and just worked crosses. Once I got halfway across the grid, the "story" filled itself in pretty readily. These people talk in fairly predictable phrases. And the rest of the grid presentef very little in the way of difficulty. Never heard of SEA OAK and, though I probably did have some inkling of the "CSI" guy's name (16D: Gil ___, original lead role on "CSI" = GRISSOM), I certainly didn't remember it straight off. ELAINE Paige (you're probably not surprised to hear) is not on my radar (97D: Musical star Paige who played the original Evita). And I forgot there was any kind of "android" in "ALIEN" (116A: Sci-fi film with an android named Ash). Nothing else to hold me back. Had a sub-10 min. time, which is dang good for me on a Sunday.Bullets:
- 7A: Sublime, in hip-hop slang (ILL) — all hip-hop clues for all forms of the word ILL will, from here on out, make me laugh.
18A: Dragon slayer of myth (APOLLO) — I ... did not know that. That's weird. Oh, they call "Python" a "dragon," I guess. - 21A: Big Apple baseball name (A-ROD) — Not ALOU!? 'Cause I had ALOU.
- 62A: Barack Obama's mama (ANN) — somehow I don't like the rhyming here.
- 64A: Card game similar to écarté (WHIST) — there's another one called OMBRE, right? Gotta keep up to date on my olde tyme card games.
- 87A: One whose star is dimmed (HAS-BEEN) — I like that clue (and answer) a lot.
- 11D: Skagway locale (ALASKA) — did not know this, but had the "SK," so no problem.
- 4D: Bernese ___ (ALPS) — so my initial guess of MOUNTAIN DOG was not soooo far off.
- 17D: Winner of 2009's Best Supporting Actress Oscar for "Precious" (MO'NIQUE) — For a second I thought I as gonna have to remember how to spell ... SIDOUBE? Ack, no, SIDIBE. Then I remembered she didn't win. MO'NIQUE, I can spell.
- 73D: Comic British character who rarely speaks (MR. BEAN) —in which MR. BEAN gives a gynecological exam to a gigantic Christmas turkey:
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
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69 comments:
Easy, even for me. The pieces of the story fell into place like dominos toppling. A very quick Sunday for me (Boo -- I like 'em longer). No much cleverness either. Disappointing.
Interesting juxtaposition of your Gus Grissom photo and 'Apollo'. For a seemingly blessed guy coming home unscathed after 100 combat missions in Korea and selected as one of the original seven astronauts, his story took a sad turn. Sandwiched between Shepard's first U.S. space shot and Glenn's historic orbital flight, Grissom's repeat of Shepard's mission was forgettable and without ticker tape fanfare---except for the fact that he was suspected of blowing his escape hatch in a panic after splashdown and causing his capsule to be lost (and nearly going down with it himself). Later, of course, his Apollo 1 crew was killed in a flash fire running a launch pad test.
Guilty as sin? Or guilty assin'? Just axin'...
Evil
I thought the joke was cute, and though I don't time my solving, this felt like my fastest Sunday ever. I found the repetition of the "game cry" clue annoying. And wondered about what conversations might have surrounded using "Sublime, in hip-hop slang". Is Will trying to prove he understands how to use ILL now?
On my initial glance, my first two reactions: 1D “Single, say” Oh, no – here we go again! And 19A “stick on a table” -maybe a rebus and it’s “oleo” ?? Of course it turns out I was wrong for 19A, but oleo and oreo’s second cousin once removed, OLIO, made it in. I got the conversation pretty early, and it was a big help in getting the rest. Why do I insist on putting “yaw” for MAW? Maybe “yawns” involve large mouths? I, too, had “alou” and liked HAS-BEEN. Had “top” for TAP, so it took awhile to get ALIEN, another movie that scared the bejeezus out of me. Had “lay” for PAR for way too long and just mucked up that whole section. I fell for the misdirect at 59D hook, line, and stinker. Shame on me.
@Sue McC -I had the opposite reaction to the three “game cries” with nary a “rah” or “ole” in sight!
I liked the fresh clues for 14D’s IDO and 80D’s AUNT. With the triumvirate of “game cries,” HAS-BEEN, and THUMBHOLE, I’ll rate this one a winner.
@Tita – “red salmon” for “pinkeye” and “appear thrilled” for “foam.” Wince, wince. I couldn’t find your email address.
Thanks for the clip of Mr. Bean. If you’re a Rowan Atkinson fan and haven’t seen Johnny English, you should. He’s just as funny when he talks.
http://youtu.be/CwMmqNndnQM
I laughed at the joke. Of course, I did this in an insomniac haze at 2 in the morning, but somehow that little smile allowed me to get back to sleep.
Not sure if I've seen the Cairo clue before, but it was definitely a great piece of misdirection.
Last letter in the grid was the O crossing BOO and SEAOAK.
I can never tell if accented clues are malformed or correct. Ecarte was all good, but francais was messed up. F***ing iPhone app. I can't quit you.
Medium Sunday.
AFAIK no ALOU ever played for the Yankees or Mets, though that was my first impulse as well. Certainly none of the three is identified with either team.
But if 22D were clued "Resting places," URNS might be a common misdirection and A_OU a common partial for 21A. That would be cute.
YAKOV went through several iterations of J vs. Y and V vs. B.
Anybody else want NILE for 59D? (now I see imsdave did....) Oh, THAT Cairo....
A HACKER (96D) isn't a virus carrier but a virus creator, introducer, whatever. The section of code or whatever gets it on to your computer is the carrier. Cute clue but wrong IMO.
Good one. Thanks, Mr. Kahn.
My wife tells me the story is from an old New Yorker cartoon.
Blew through the puzzle except for 58D and 71A.
What is TWOD? I really don't know.
And I have never heard reference to OIL w/r/t bribes--grease, maybe, but not OIL.
@retired chemist ...or Dodgers or Giants
Tee Hee kind of joke in the puzzle. Here's a funnier one (IMHO):
A man makes a toast on his wedding anniversary, "I've been married to Miss Right for 50 years. I just didn't know her first name was ALWAYS." (credit the Car Talk Guys)
The kind of joke my Dad loved so much. RIP RVD
Happy Sunday All.
Go Heels!
So, David Kahn goes all Erich Segal-y on us with his take on love in the 21st century and we learn that the lady in his scenario is not really the huggable co-star of “Love Story” but, rather, the whiny leading lady of “I Should Have Married A Sommelier”.
The hubby should have remembered the rule practiced by all trial lawyers, “Don’t ask the question unless you know the answer.” (Especially if your competition is 1982 Chateau Lafite Rothschild.)
David has no hesitation in letting us know what he’s interested in today when the first entry is BESAME , the action part of Besame Mucho, which translates to “Kiss me much”, (his ironic tale, though, is played out through the theme’s dialogue, not the non-theme cluing).
Some of the more interesting wordplay bits he gives us are SOPHIST, FASTCOUNT, HASBEEN and FIXATEDON and, also, one of the strangest of entries, seeking “Bowling ball feature”, which actually requires us to write in THUMBHOLE, (THUMBHOLE!), unseemly as it seems.
As an unassuming co-star in this AARP love fest we get the lovely LANCOME making her debut, which allows the usual cosmetician, “Estee”, to stay in her lab working on upgrading her traditional war paints, while we get a nice bit of new-age gloss to touch up the fill.
Thanks, David, it was fun, though it might have been even more so had you given us a sober Ali McGraw as the heroine of your piece.
Nice puzzle, nice story. I told my wife and she laughed - we both enjoy a good wine with dinner. Maybe I'll share it on Facebook.
@loren - I too thought "Oh, no" at 1D.
@retiredchemisit - same thoughts on 96D, but because it was what the puzzle was looking for I filled it in.
I learned a few words from this one so that's a bonus.
@perfectly - Two Dimensional.
@loren - I put in yAW also. Took awhile to see MGM Grand. Slapped myself when it came to light.
Thanks Rex, for the link to Colbert -hilarious.
Easy, breezy with very few writeovers.
Had HAnKie before HACKER, I wonder which is GERMIER?
@imsdave, I also ended with the "O" at SEAOAK/BOO. I'll try to remember SEAOAK but what are the chances that'll show up again?
I laughed at OHIO because it took me while to get it and I live in Ohio!
Thanks, David Kahn ... fun Sunday!
Oh, and thank you @Rex for the MRBEAN clip. It gives a whole new meaning to, "Do you have the turkey on?"
@perfectlycromulent 9:59, TWOD is two dimensional, flat, as opposed to 3 D, three dimensional which has depth.
Well, I loved it - just the kind of puzzle I like on a Sunday - one that's not too hard & makes me smile.
Hand up for NILE.
Liked the clues for HAS BEEN, EMERY, COLONY.
There's lots of LANCOME in my makeup bag...
Fun puzzle. Enjoyed filling in words of joke without having any crosses. Is AROD the new ALOU? The BLOT answer could have been clued {CAPTCHA device}. And speaking of printer problems
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSK1D3bZhRs
I once ordered a Mr Bean tape and was sent a Mr Bill tape instead. Would love to see those two team up.
Could not find New Yorker cartoon but came across this: Wine Talking.
Love the Gus Grissom photo. Just watched "The Right Stuff" on TCM Friday night. "F---in' A, bubba." Awesome.
BESAME MUCHO: a #1 hit for Jimmy Dorsey, 1944, vocals by Bob Eberly and Kitty Kallen. She was vocalist on four #1 recordings during the 40s and 50s.
@ retired_chemist
You're right that "Certainly none of the three (Alous) is identified with either team," but Moises did play for the Mets in '07 & '08
@Rex @Retired: Moises played a couple of seasons for the Mets, but was sidelined by injuries much of the time. I think his daddy Felipe may have had a cup of coffee with the Yankees at the end of his career. I don't think either would be considered a "Big Apple" name. Felipe, Mateo, and Jesus probably would have if the Giants had not moved from NY to SF.
Very easy fun puzzle...and I knew I had heard that story before!!
And @Rex has never heard of Skagway??? One of our Rexites has been working there for the past few summers.
Off to make some 3-2-1 cakes!!!
All of the Alous - Felipe, Mateo, Jesus & Moises played in NY - you can look it up.
Had T-CK and looked at 59D to decide between TiCK or TOCK. My first thought was "I wonder how many people will put in 'nile?'"
If memory serves, WHIST is the forerunner of contract bridge. I've no idea what écarté is.
I put this puzzle firmly in the "Meh" category. I finished out of pride more than interest. Too much short (three letter) fill that just overshadowed the few sparkly answers for me.
What is TWOD? I had TWOS which made SO and that worked as well as DO
I think we can forgive @Retired_Chemist for his statement about ALOU, as one would commonly think of the clue as refering to Marjor League teams, thus leaving the Mets out of consideration. Pointing out that Moises Alou played for the Mets is akin to stating that some other Alou played for the Brooklyn Cyclones, for St. John's basket ball, or for the Cooper Union ladies Volley Ball team.
Boring. Glad that Saturday was so much fun. This was tripe.
Easy for me too with figuring out the joke really helping with the solve. I'm not a fan these but this one gave me a chuckle.
NE corner seems name heavy.
Nice misdirect at 76d.
Amusing Sun. I liked it.
@anon 11:20...two dimensional.
Colbert is not Mr Bean
@Rex...for an eerie, surreal experience, visit Ridgefield, CT in the fall...on Bernese Day, you will see hundreds of these dogs walking the streets!
@loren, @acme...
Will update the Epic Wrong Answers forthwith!
Methinks I'll have to hand out prizes...perhaps my mother's Puzzle Boards! (Also see cruci-blog.)
I generally don't like these quotes...yes, you can infer alot once you get enough letters, but they are just not my cuppa tea.
Liked the clever redirects and fresh clues of old xwordese.
Thanks ED for linking the AROLLO clue to Gus Grissom. Now THERE were some ICONIC folks.
(Is "Ash" the Robot we must prove not to be?)
I got a little sidetracked by 1A and assumed that the "Love Story" would be a series of song titles, which, linked together would tell the tale. Took me a while to realize that Besame Mucho was unrelated to the so-called love story, which doesn't have much to do with love.
Hacker could spread a virus if it's someone with a hacking cough.
AROD = HASBEEN YANK?
I like the wine joke
Better than average Sunday
Merriam-Webster definition of "locale":
1:a place or locality especially when viewed in relation to a particular event or characteristic
2:site, scene: "the locale of the story"
So it kind of threw me because I was thinking the clue was asking for a site within Skagway...truly a Natick for most people. When there weren't enough letters for Red Onion Saloon, McCabe Building, Broadway Dock or The White Pass and Yukon Route Railroad Station....I finally sussed it was ALASKA. Hahahahahaha!
Easy Sunday puzzle with one stupid error on my part...for some reason came up with MCBEAN when i should have known better and checked my spelling against the theme answer. Feh on me.
Jonn V from wife's IPad.
South gave me trouble. Funny faux dialog. Some of the elder Rexites may see more dry irony than hatred, but YMMV.
Cute story. I was rooting for a happier ending.
I finished with one error: GRISSOn/LANCOnE. Don't watch CSI and don't wear makeup, so ... Naticked. LANCONE sounded more like a thing than LANCOME. Oh well.
I was going to say that the clue on HACKER was wrong, and that a HACKER makes a virus and then inserts it in someone else's computer, but it just hit me now that the HACKER here is a person who has a hacking cough from a virus they are carrying. Nice misdirecting clue.
At least they didn't run it near Valentine's Day.
For any here who care, here are the original Mercury 7 astronauts, four of whom were “juniors,” a fact I recall noted in a lengthy news article at the time of the Mercury program. Only John Glenn and Scott Carpenter are still alive.
Alan Bartlett Shepard, Jr. – (November 18, 1923 – July 21, 1998), a naval aviator, test pilot, flag officer, and NASA astronaut who in 1961 became the second person, and the first American, in space. Ten years later, at age 47 the oldest astronaut in the program, Shepard commanded the Apollo 14 mission, piloting the lander to the most accurate landing of the Apollo missions. He became the fifth person to walk on the Moon, and the only Mercury astronaut to walk on the moon. During the mission he hit two golf balls on the lunar surface.
Virgil Ivan (“Gus”) Grissom – (April 3, 1926 – January 27, 1967), (Lt Col, USAF), a United States Air Force pilot. He was the second American to fly in space, and the first member of the NASA Astronaut Corps to fly in space twice. Grissom was killed along with fellow astronauts Ed White and Roger Chaffee during a pre-launch test for the Apollo 1 mission. He was the first of the Mercury Seven to die.
John Herschel Glenn, Jr. – (born July 18, 1921), a former United States Marine Corps pilot, astronaut, and United States senator who was the first American to orbit the Earth and the third American in space. On October 29, 1998, he became the oldest person to fly in space, and the only one to fly in both the Mercury and Space Shuttle programs, when at age 77, he flew on Discovery (STS-95).
Neil Alden Armstrong – (born August 5, 1930), a test pilot, aerospace engineer, university professor, United States Naval Aviator, and the first person to set foot upon the Moon.
Malcolm Scott Carpenter – (born May 1, 1925), an American engineer, former test pilot, astronaut, and aquanaut. Carpenter was the second American to orbit the Earth and the fourth American in space, following Alan Shepard, Gus Grissom and John Glenn.
Walter Marty Schirra, Jr. (March 12, 1923 – May 3, 2007), an American test pilot, United States Navy officer,. He is the only person to fly in all of America's first three space programs (Mercury, Gemini and Apollo). Schirra was the fifth American and the ninth human to ride a rocket into space. He was the first person to go into space three times.
Leroy Gordon Cooper, Jr. (March 6, 1927 – October 4, 2004), also known as Gordon Cooper, was an American aeronautical engineer, test pilot and NASA astronaut. He was the first American to sleep in orbit, flew the longest spaceflight of the Mercury project, and was the last American to be launched alone into Earth orbit and conduct an entire solo orbital mission.
Donald Kent Slayton – (March 1, 1924 – June 13, 1993), better known as Deke Slayton, was an American World War II pilot. After joining NASA, Slayton was selected to pilot the second U.S. manned orbital spaceflight, but was grounded in 1959 by a heart murmur. He then served as NASA's director of flight crew operations, making him responsible for crew assignments at NASA from November 1963 until March 1972. At that time he was granted medical clearance to fly, and was assigned as the docking module pilot of the 1975 Apollo-Soyuz Test Project; becoming the oldest person to fly into space at age 51. This record was surpassed in 1998 by his fellow Project Mercury classmate John Glenn at the age of 77, on space shuttle mission STS-95.
JFC
Better count again. Neil Armstrong wasn't among the original seven....
Evil
I shall remain anonymous ...thanx!
I shall remain anonymous ...thanx!
So happy I read Shamik's blogs a week or two back - thanks!
Really liked this one - just heard that joke a few months ago - I think someone had it on his/her FB page.
The joke was cute, the puzzle not as easy for me as for some who have posted. I really didn't want to have to Google, but I had to a couple of times.
r.alph: loved the printer video!
Knowing my penchant for wine I have received that joke at least five times from various friends, so this one was a cake walk for me. Did get a little tired with all the three letter answers.
Had Rio Grand at 15A, that was my last area to tidy up.
I did this on the plane to Amman. I ordered wine with the meal and the conservative looking middle eastern dude across the aisle gave me a disapproving look-- I had said something in Arabic in helping his wife, so he thought I should know better than drink alcohol, and in public! Than, I did the puzzle, and burst out laughing- it seemed especially apt, given I was going to hell for drinking. Which of course earned me a second sneer.
Rebellion through a puzzle!
63A -Jug part" AMB? I don't understand.
Jug part = EAR.
@foodie: Wish I was there to laugh with you on that plane!
re: Skagway...I've now posted on FB what people would think the answer would be. All my Skagway friends are enjoying a trip down memory lane of their favorite places in this 1 mile by two mile town. One non-Skagway friend wants to go there for the beer. And one blessed non-Skagway friend thanked me because she knew the answer when solving this morning.
Did this last night in what would have probably been record time, (if I kept record of this type of thing). Came here to catch the repartè on ILL and it's definition, only to find out it is apparently a non-issue now.
AROD?? Maybe it's because I read the NYT, but with all the press he gets these days I can't imagine not having him as the go-to 4 letter NYC baseball name.
Don't know about ED WOOD, wanted an airline for the JFK clue and couldn't figure out what went with free and duty so that area was the last and by far the hardest for me.
Like others, had T(I or O)CK and knew Nile wasn't going to work... but still wanted it to.
The theme answer... lame, IMO, but still an enjoyable puzzle.
A drunk man comes home to his wife with a duck on his shoulder. He says " This is the pig I've been sleeping with" She replies " you must be drunk, that's a duck" He replies " I was talking to the duck!"
OK. I am sorry to ask such a ridiculous question...but where do I find today's puzzle?
I'm relatively new to this, and I'm not a subscriber so I typically only try my luck at monday-thursday puzzles on campus. This is my first time buying a Sunday paper with the intention of doing the puzzle. I read on wiki that Sunday puzzle is in the magazine, but the only magazine that came with my paper is the Style Magazine. Am I missing something??
@Matthey Miller - Yeah, you're missing the Magazine Section. There are frequently two magazines in the Sunday paper, one a specialty such as the Style Magazine. One or the other frequently gets lost in the packaging of the newpaper.
@matthew,
Assuming you bought the NYT, you got gypped by the news dealer. There's a regular magazine where the puzzles reside.
Any puzzle which Rex rates Easy that I finish without errors is a good one. Yes, hands up for nile, but I enjoyed it.
that's disappointing. thank you for the reply
@chefwen: "Knowing my penchant for wine I have received that joke at least five times from various friends, so this one was a cake walk for me." Beware the dangling participle. You meant that your friends knew your penchant for wine, not that you did -- although you undoubtedly do. Cheers!
@Matthew - I've put the puzzle up for you here.
@mathew miller - I can e-mail the puzzle to you and you can print it out. E-mail me and let me know
There actually were 4 Alou brothers in baseball - Felipe, Mateo, Jesus & Boog Powell - who changed his name early on. ;-)
@ Anon 7:59 - LOL. I see from your jokes why you want to stay anonymous.... :-)
I did not love this solving experience. It was tedious piecing together the story and then instead of the promised Love Story we got a snyde remark from an addict in denial. Lovely. Why someone would want to subject millions of us to this I'll never know.
Loved the Colbert clip, though, contrary to the esteemed authority Mike D, I'd have to say Shortz is the winner; the clue and answer just have to be acceptable usages; they don't have to be the *only* acceptable usages, or else hardly anything would ever work in a crossword.
From the syndicate, I marked several clues for possible comment but of course all were mentioned by others last week, so I'll just say that as an addict in denial I took no offense at the puzzle's joke, as apparently some did.
20a OLORD (won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz) left me wanting to hear some Janis Joplin.
GILLS at 24d reminds me that my old friend @Gill I.P. hasn't been around for a while - I miss her.
This one was fun. I pretty easily got the first five parts of the story, but the south in general had some tough spots--not helped by my SANGTO vs. SUNGTO (fortunately my only writeover). Some of the cluing was a little off-center; I don't think I'd use "lacing (into)" as a clue for RIPPING. Not that it's wrong, per se, it JDLR, as the security boys would say (Just Doesn't Look Right). The TWOD/OHIO west was tricky, to say the least. Overall, I'd have to give it an easy-medium. Once I locked onto the punchline--I actually did LOL--it sped to a finish.
Another BASEHIT for AROD? Don't tell me he's starting a streak!
If you do the puzzle under 10 minutes, now what do you do with the rest of your Sunday morning? Slow down, Rex and all you other racers ......just enjoy the journey!
Will no one comment on the claim of under ten minutes? Is there a conspiracy among the speedy solvers to not comment on the silly claims of time to complete? Ten minutes? You can't write the answers in that fast if you have them there in front of you. Reading, correcting, thinking: all of this takes way more than ten minutes. C'mon somebody! Fess up!
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