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Beefy Provencal stew / 4-27-13 / Character in Unforgiven / Old-time actress Bennett / Ed whose entire 18-season career was with Mets / Biblically named Michigan college / Producers sex kitten / Blouse with sailor collar / Great Seal word
Saturday, April 27, 2013
Constructor: Chris A. McGlothlin
Relative difficulty: Medium
THEME: none
Word of the Day: DAUBE (7D: Beefy Provençal stew) —
n
(Cookery) a braised meat stew
[from French]
• • •
Half easy, a quarter medium, and a quarter brutal. I have to give credit to CAPITAL U (28A: Character in "Unforgiven")—it completely fooled me, down to the Very last letter I entered in the grid (OLIVET / CAPITAL U crossing). It's a cheap trick, but it worked. That's the one answer that really kept me held up in the NE. That and OLIVET (11D: Biblically named Michigan college)—I went to grad school in Michigan and OLIVET, even now that I see it, only vaguely rings a bell. Also, ALEXA Chung? Hosts ... what? (16A: TV host Chung) Seriously, read this and tell me which of those (all British?) shows I'm supposed to know her from. Overreliance on odd names (ULLA?) (8D: "The Producers" sex kitten) mars this puzzle a bit, though overall I think it's reasonably solid. Nowhere near my wheelhouse, and a bit old-skewing, but interesting here and there. Never heard of DAUBE or NOSY PARKER (I had NELLIE) (25D: Snoop) or MIDDY (42D: Blouse with a sailor collar) or ORDER ARMS (51A: Drill command involving a rifle) or ENID Bennett (4D: Old-time actress Bennett). 'EM ALL (36A: "Bless ___" (1941 hit song)) is up there with the most ridiculous fill of all time. KRANEPOOL / KEVIN krossing might very well kill non-baseball fans (30D: Ed whose entire 18-season career was with the Mets + 30A: 2011 All-Star pitcher Correia). Cross-referenced clues normally annoy me, but today both sets helped. Got EMU from the "E" and then picked up EXTRA LARGE rather easily after that. And CEE-LO / GREEN came together with just one or two letters in place (28D: With 33-Across, "The Voice" vocal coach). I think he's a former coach now. I don't watch, but I think that's right. Anyway, I really hope you knew who CEE-LO GREEN was, because his names' crossing in the dead center of the grid could make things very tricky otherwise. West half of the grid was easy, NE (as I said) was hard, and then the SE was somewhere in between. I luckily got LANI, EROS, and SSTS all on the first pass. ORDO (45D: Great Seal word) and MIDDY and the odd DEXTRAL (37D: Right-handed) kept things tough, though. Eventually found my way out and up to the NE. Had to change CENSOR to CENSER, and, later, DAM to TAP, before doing battle with CAPITAL U / OLIVET and eventually finishing the puzzle.
Very much enjoyed the clue on CINEMA (40D: Its patrons are usually kept in the dark).
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
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65 comments:
Methinks that's "Nervous Nellie" not Nosy.
This was fairly easy for me, 36 minutes or so.
My experience was opposite of Rex's. I went part of NE, then SE which led me back up to the NE. Got the SW, then the center and, finally, the NE.
I had to do a bit of googling but overall, t thought it was fairly easy.
Yeah, the T in the CAPITALU/OLIVET crossing was my undoing. Actually, it was my IDGAFWII letter. In retrospect, I should have know, but I didn't.
Ed KRANEPOOL rang a bell once I had the POOL filled. Does it really matter whether it's KRANE../KEVIN or CRANE.../Cevin?
It just occurred to me we haven't seen E[internet crap] in ages. I'm hoping for a similar fate for I[Apple crap] in the near future.
Trail riders don't eat GORP. That crap is for hikers.
AphroDite was my first lutist.I finally broke into the sw-the long downs came bing bang boom.Worked back upthrough the ne and SOBEREDUP qand fixed the nw.I had KRANEPOOr/rOYALIST for a bit but my final over spotted the unlikelyhood.ShoulderARMS I've heard but not ORDERARMS but I like POINTLESS alot.
Tough Sat. for me. North half and SW medium (thank you Homeland for AKBAR) the rest tough! I too @Rex got fooled by CAPITAL U for too long in NE, which exacerbated the real problems in the center and SE Total guess on KRANEPOOL. Turns out he's my age? Never ever heard of him! Fortunately KEVIN Correia sounded familiar. CEELO also took a while to surface as did MIX and CINEMA. Had ODD MAN OUT early but ORDER ARMS eluded me and I'm a vet, dang! Maybe I'm just dense tonight.
Anyway, much tougher and much less zippy than yesterday's. Liked it except for the crossing ball players. That was just mean.
@Numinous -- You are right. It would have been a lot easier if I used google. It's just not the way I do puzzles.
Damn, back in the One Wrong Letter Club :(
dEVIN dRANE the POOL, won't you?
Despite my attending a baseball game last week, it was not enough!!! Damn Yankees /Mets, whoever.
Know my Voice coaches tho, but yes CeeLo out, Usher in.
Someone shoulda factchecked that...but, maybe like Presidents, once a coach on "The Voice" it becomes a lifelong title...like Paula ABDUL and American Idol.
NW section in 30 seconds, the rest 30 minutes.
PEAGRAVEL my eye!
PS
total bleedover week...
Started out with FOUR SEASONS,
Friday SEASON
Saturday SEASONABLE
That's a lot of SEASONing in one week
As You Like It, Act III, scene V
SILVIUS: Sweet Phebe, do not scorn me; do not, Phebe;
Say that you love me not, but say not so
In bitterness. The common executioner,
Whose heart the accustom'd sight of death makes hard,
Falls not the axe upon the humbled neck
But first begs pardon: will you sterner be
Than he that dies and lives by bloody drops?
[Enter ROSALIND, CELIA, and CORIN, behind]
PHEBE: I would not be thy executioner:
I fly thee, for I would not injure thee.
Thou tell'st me there is murder in mine eye:
'Tis pretty, sure, and very probable,
That eyes, that are the frail'st and softest things,
Who shut their coward gates on atomies,
Should be call'd tyrants, butchers, murderers!
Now I do frown on thee with all my heart;
And if mine eyes can wound, now let them kill thee:
Now counterfeit to swoon; why now fall down;
Or if thou canst not, O, for shame, for shame,
Lie not, to say mine eyes are murderers!
Now show the wound mine eye hath made in thee:
Scratch thee but with a pin, and there remains
Some scar of it; lean but upon a rush,
The cicatrice and capable impressure
Thy palm some moment keeps; but now mine eyes,
Which I have darted at thee, hurt thee not,
Nor, I am sure, there is no force in eyes
That can do hurt.
Pretty tough for me! I’ve never heard of ALANA DALE, (ALAN ADALE, AL ANADALE, ALA NADALE?) Or KRANEPOOL. AKBAR was recently a quote in the news. I have heard of NOSY PARKER, though.
@Rowdy Gaines – I kept looking back at the grid and seeing e-mall.
@syndy – I loved the clue for POINTLESS.
NANO over NANETTE. So close. . .
Yesterday’s PORN is today’s SMUT. Next to EROS.
RAN “over” before RAN LATE.
I had a student who argued that we should have the right to bare ARMS.
I know MIDDY only from lacrosse. I used an OLIVET to type my papers in grad school. ;-)
KRANEPOOL SOBERED UP and stopped drinking GIN and the ALE from the TAP.
I’m procrastinating because I have and EXTRA LARGE pile of laundry to do. So I’m looking for wrap-arounds and backwards stuff. SPAS, DINE, SORE, PAT, E-GRID (for you, @Rowdy Gaines), SYN (it’s a SYN to spell it “Fleur de LYS"), TUMS, PROG (I visited PROG when it was still communist.)
Maybe I’ll throw a couple of S’s and ED’s in the Saturday Stumper before I face the laundry.
Thanks for the workout, Chris!
Things or people I never heard of crossed by vague, "could-be-anything" clues made this puzzle impossible for me. Bill starter? Opening Act? Ugh!!!
Dug this puzzle, honestly, though it took me an unconscionably long time to get OLIVET (as an alumna of a tiny private college in Michigan, that should've been a no-brainer--plus that's where my best friend's mother went to school, etc). SOBERED UP was fabulous, and really liked the clue on POINTLESS.
@Loren Muse Smith:
Alan-a-Dale is the traveling minstrel in the Robin Hood legends. I kept looking for something Greek until I had enough letters. He's not one of the more famous Merry Men, but he's there.
Lucked out with NOSY PARKER. It was recently featured on the wordsmith.org mailing list.
An EXTRA-LARGE DNF for me today, with a mostly empty swath across the center, where the intersecting proper names from "Glee" and baseball and the song title did me in. My own fault, though, for getting faked out on the "Unforgiven" character - my best guess was going to be Marisa Lu, who may have attended OLIVEs College and dated gaVIN garNEPOOr.
Had fun otherwise, though. A few that were tough for Rex were easy for me: knew NOSY PARKER, have had DAUBE for dinner, and, much less recently, worn a MIDDY blouse. I liked the cross of LAST SUPPER with DIRGE.
@Rowdy Gaines - I also raised an eyebrow at GORP for trail riders. If you're on a horse, surely you can pack a decent lunch in you SADDLE BAG.
Took the NW down in seconds and thought I was off to the races - not so! Way too many obscure people. KRANEPOOL needed every cross (and had to guess at KEVIN/dEVIN).
@LMS - I think ALAN-A-DALE (from Robin Hood) was the only permutation you didn't try!
Did no one else have AUGERED IN for SOBERED UP? I thought it was so clever, but it totally screwed me up.
Medium for me, and fun for a Saturday morning. KRANEPOOL brought back old memories of those Amazin' Mets.
Remembered ORDER ARMS from boot camp a long time ago. Wonder if I can do the drill--guess not.
Never heard of CEELO GREEN. Had to work it out on via the crosses.
Can recall ever hearing of NOSY PARKER. Always was NOSY Nelly. Oh well.
Sports nut that I am, KRANEPOOL and KEVIN were the first two I dropped in. CEELO/GREEN took his place immediately after, which basically nailed down the center diagonal. SW was the first corner to go (thanks you, AKBAR and CELIE). Next was the NE (should the CAPITALU clue have a question mark? I can never remember the rules.) Stared a while at the NW before realizing that 6D didn't refer to a line of dialogue but a line of cars. Finally, the SE, where LANI Guinier was my toehold.
Never heard of many of these entries, but crosses were getable in all cases. NOSYPARKER made me think of Frank Burns, who used to call Hawkeye "Nosy Nate" when he wasn't calling him a "Buttinsky". Good stuff.
I was kinda proud of myself for guessing right on a number of crosses, til I saw my one screw-up. I had GSAT instead of GMAT. I just figured the resulting "Bless Esall" was another obscure bit of crossword garbage. And speaking of crossword garbage...I find things like "CAPITALU" or "HARDG" annoying as hell. Just strikes me as smartass. Anyway... I had fun, and that's what counts.
Pretty typical Saturday -- hard for me. The middle was extra hard for me because I'd never heard of CEELO GREEN or KEVIN Correia (I follow the AL and never watch All-Star games -- guessed the E in KEVIN). Bless 'EM ALL, I was able to guess at as the only possible combination that makes any sense, but I had one letter wrong where CEiLO crosses GRiEN. Probably should have recognized GREEN as a common last name. I feel okay with one letter wrong today.
PENINSULA and OLIVET made the N relatively easy for this Michigander. The only excuse for KRANEPOOL is that this is the NYTimes puzzle. A career .261 hitter with stats that suggest he spent the last half of his career as a platoon player, he was a WTF for this baseball fan. To be fair, the NL wasn't much on my radar in the sixties and seventies.
CEE LO GREEN's most notable hit. (Profanity alert).
The wallflower tries to MIX but still ends up the ODD MAN OUT. Don't we miss middle school?
Like the cross-referenced mini-themes...reax at This One's for U
Medium only because of the CAPITAL U which held me up a long time; and because the first six times I read the clue for 18A, JILTS, I mistakenly read "Trail rider's accessory" instead. I had the J already, so that was a puzzler.
I knew someone who taught at OLIVET (which I think is still on the AAUP censure list), which was a bit of luck. And somehow I managed to dredge up both CEE-LO and his sister CELIE, though I can't say I really rememberd either. I also had no idea where "Tea for Two" came from, but what else started with NAN____? And I had cRANEPOOL, but cEVIN just did not seem as likely, even for a Correia.
The combination of the US Great Seal Word with the Iraqi Flag Word was a nice touch.
Contra @Rowdy, I would have liked 36A better clued as "Online shopping emporium".
So - closer to easy than medium for a Saturday, but that literal at 28A held me up a long time.
Some real puzzlements along the way, but with a few good guesses, finished correctly with just one write-over: 9D, "Landscaping alternative to sand" started as FLAGSTONE before the odd PEA GRAVEL (thanks for sharing my opinion, ACME!)
I had the toughest time in the SW but finally cracked it after seeing OPENINGACT and IPODNANA which gave me NOSYPARKER.
I considered unDERARMS for a sec for "Drill command involving a rifle" thinking it could be some really tricky move!
I did sort everything out except I choose cRANEPOOL/cEVen ... so I failed miserably in the middle. Didn't Shak. say "Scratch thee but with a PeN?" No! Thanks @The Bard!
Thanks, too, to Chris ... you got me!
I know an architect who refuses to include gutters on homes he designs and lets the rain simply roll off the roof, to be absorbed into a bed of small stones that ring the house, so when the clue looking for the “Landscaping alternative to sand” appeared, it rang a bell and I was able to immediately write in, PEAGRAVEL.
And thus began a solve that was at least as much fun as yesterday’s beauty of a puzzle, (and no more troubling), when answers like Ed KRANEPOOL, MIDDY, AKBAR, ESAU and ORDERARMS were gimmes.
The pleasure of finding a Victorian novel’s neighborhood snoop, a NOSYPARKER, (who just may have been the local ODDMANOUT, too), the clever definition of a tie game as POINTLESS and the contemporary “Player in a pocket” for IPODNANO, were also decidedly delectable.
Things changed when a question about the film “Unforgiven” was still open at the end and never having seen the film, the strange mix of letters seemed to be signaling that it was Odd Job’s equally evil Samoan cousin, CAPI TALU, an unforgivable bit of abstruseness, even for a Saturday puzzle.
But, the entry nagged at me and in a brief burst of clarity, CAPITAL U popped up and once again, the Times puzzle makers had played their evil, verbal shell game and I had been conned again.
This time it was so cleverly cunning, the puzzle must have been planned with this bit of hanky-panky aforethought and one can imagine Chris and Will gleefully wringing their hands while chanting:
Double, double, toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.
Cool it with a solver’s blood,
Then the charm is firm and good.
But it made my day, proving to be one of the more charming solving moments in recent memory.
Kudos to Chris for a gem of a puzzle!
Here's Bless 'Em All. Could be an earworm for those of a certain age.
Failed on the "T" in CAPITALU. Great puzzle, but shouldn't have that clue ended in a "?"? Never heard of OLIVET - biblically or otherwise.
Stared at that and "EELO" for about half an hour when our visiting son finally got out of bed and gave us the "C." After trying to remember every character in the Eastwood movie we decided to DNF and laughed at ourselves when we turned to Rex's blog.
NOSYPARKER. Very common phrase in England. It seems to me that it was used a lot by the Daphne character in "Frasier."
@Invisible Bob Kerfuffle -- Me too for flaGstone briefly. And, I also had scoreLESS for POINTLESS which I stubbornly clung to for way too long.
DNF but I got a lot of it. I knew MIDDY but not DAUBE. Know of nobody on the Voice, nor Ipod models, even though we own one--it's old. I had scoreLESS before POINTLESS but fixed that. Joan Bennett went in, but never heard of ENID.
Challenging for me today. Gotta go to my hair appointment, tata.
Somewhat of a struggle, but GRATE-ful I was able to finish.
Got DETAINED by AKBAR, ALEXA Chung? What about Connie? OLIVET, DAUBE, ULLA, but got them from the crosses.
Have to nitpick- if SSTS is clued as 'Former faves of jet-setters', than CEE-LO GREEN should also
be 'Former coach...'
Thanks to Ed KRANEPOOL for opening up the SE, and CAPITAL U at last, for the NE!
Ed Kranepool The bum of the year.
RIP RVD II
No, I do not know who Cee-Lo Green is.
(sad face emoticon)
Easy-medium here. Usual Saturday - lots of "Well, I won't get THAT without crosses" in the first pass. First broke the SW with POEME, ESAU, NYS, and AKBAR.
The NE was next with MODEL, MAJOR IN, JILTS, GORP, and RARE GAS.
KRANEPOOL - no problem, then K___N left KEVIN as the most reasonable guess (Gender integration having not penetrated MLB, I ruled out KareN). Chemical and Latin background helped with DEXTRAL.
And so it went, bit by bit. The WTF's DAUBE and next-door ULLA were irritants but the crosses were by that time adequate to assure them. Finished under 11 minutes, on the fast side for a Saturday for me.
Thanks,Mr, McGlothlin. It was fun.
Looked up Bless 'em All and confirmed my feling that it started as a World war I song. Written in 1917 by Fred Godfrey.
I guessed correctly on KEVIN vs. dEVIN, but I saw rOYALISTS, never considered the L, and thought KRANEPOOr was pretty poor, though, if you don't know it, is not that much worse looking than KRANEPOOL.
I think it was a POOr choice to cross two obscure baseball players! Also, I did have trouble with the rest of the SE, but it eventually gave in.
KEVIN Correia is a very obscure clue. I knew his name immediately because I'm an avid baseball fan, but he's neither famous nor particularly good. He was only an all star because every team is required to have at least one representative, and he was chosen for a mediocre Pittsburgh Pirates team.
Incredibly, had DAUBE for dinner tonight, thereby learning what it was, then came back to my hotel room in Nice and did this crossword. Still DNF'd thanks to the KRANEPOOL/CAPITAL U region.
Almost got it. Would have finished if I had ever heard of ceelo green.
On the other hand, Kranepool was a gimme for me.
Found this Saturday to more doable than most. However, in the NE corner, I thought Albion College was the answer instead of OLIVET. Should have known that Albion was an island off the British coast. Anyway, even though I got ALEXA, EXTRALARGE AND LASTSUPPER, I could never make sense of a10,a18,a20,22 and28. I kept looking for a character, a person, in Eastwood's Unforgiven, and the best I could do was CAPI--LU. Nobody of that name ever showed up in the movie. Duh! Consequently, yet another DNF on Saturday--but better than usual
Would have finished in near-record time had I heard of Ceelo Green. I had _api_alu, and just couldn't find the two missing letters. Trial and error, I try Ceelo - and suddenly my irritation about not ever having seen "Unforgiven" evaporated...
@jae
How great that you are able to be successful most of the time without googling some of the clues. I just can't do it except early in the week. Still, I do get satisfaction from finishing, sometimes with a few boxes blank. Otherwise I'd be spending altogether too much time on these wonderful exercises.
I only know Nosy Parker from 9 1/2 Weeks. I think Elizabeth got a good spanking from John for being one.
I don't know how you crossword fiends put up with this. Why should I waste my life getting to know baseball? Just to be able to do a NYT Saturday puzzle? Colleges no one's ever heard of, British TV hosts (?!) what a miserable (and trivial) waste of time!
Anonymous said "...Why should I waste my life getting to know baseball? Just to be able to do a NYT Saturday puzzle?..."
Well I am in the same predicament, but the puzzle needs to have its standard topics to be topical, and baseball simply is one of them. This was a brutal slog for me but I gave up and googled "Mets Ed K..."; thank heaven for autocomplete.
I am hopeless at baseball, TV stars, rap stars, latin, etc. Fortunately I do have some strengths: French, German, science, old movies. Now if only Will was a hockey fan, I'd be laughing!
The Sunday puzzle will not open on my iPad?
When I'm Cleaning Windows
by George Formby
Now I go window cleaning to earn an honest bob.
For a nosy parker, it's an interesting job
Now it's a job that just suits me, a window cleaner you will be.
If you could see what I can see
When I'm cleaning windows.
Honeymooning couples too, you should see them bill and coo.
You'd be surprised at things they do
When I'm cleaning windows.
In my profession, I work hard, but I'll never stop.
I'll climb this blinking ladder ‘til I get right to the top.
The blushing bride she looks divine, the bridegroom he is doing fine
I'd rather have his job than mine
When I'm cleaning windows.
@LaneB -- To get to the point where I could do these without any outside help...google, relatives, dictionaries...I spent literally years doing all of those things. My comment was meant more along lines of don't google and then try to tell me the puzzle was easy.
I liked 85% of this pleasantly hard puzzle.
But All Roads Led to Natick at the center. 28D AND 33A - some useless TV celebrity with a fake name. 30D AND 30A - some jock. 36A - a song from 1941? Bless Email? Later remade by Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan?
Ok has anyone seen the Sunday puzzle? It's diagramless but on the IPad the columns are numbered and some of the clues aren't numbered. It's a weird diagramless. Is it different on paper?
Sunday is FUBAR on the Magmic iPad app. Does anyone know how we're supposed to fill in the black squares?
Getting the same diagram less on the Magmic, but Crossword Fiend says the Sunday puzzle is a Patrick Berry. Ugh.
Yep, Sunday's is the wrong puzzle on Magmic. If anyone has advice about getting the proper puzzle, many will be grateful.
The iPad app puzzle does not seem to be the same as the puzzle on Diary of a Crossword Fiend's site.
For the third week in a row I had to carry the Saturday puzzle over until Monday, but this week I couldn't get it done even with the extra time. I did make slow and steady progress each time I picked it up but ultimately failed at the mash-up of ball players and a vocal coach from a show I have never heard of. I stared at CAPITALU for a long time trying to figure what I had wrong before I realized I had it right.
A struggle for me, but I got through it. Trying to think of who all was in Unforgiven, maybe some Indian name, and didn't know how Green spells his first name: C or S? Then the trick hit me, but it was more of an oh, NO! moment than an aha! one. "CAPITAL" and "SILENT" letters; "LONG" and "SHORT" vowels are my bane. I'd like to drop the SILENTE and ban them. Ugly. Disgusting.
"Monster" as an adjective! There's a Saturday curveball for you. I was disappointed that CASTLES wouldn't fit for "0-0," or that I couldn't keep my QUARTERBACK in the pocket.
And what is NYS? Who says that, or even prints that, ever? It only exists right here in crosswordland. Yecch!
These rantings aside, it was a Saturday that I finished with no help, though I was mighty tempted to look up my lutist even with all but three letters in place. But just in time, ALANADALE wafted into my brain. Now THERE's an aha! moment.
FYI to all bloggers: The L.A.Times is publishing more and more of Barry Silk's puzzles, along with many of the favorite constructors usually seen in the NY Times. I just finished this Sat's puzzle, 6/1/13;
Ron Diego
Larry Borrego
Crying because the answer is outside one's area of knowledge is poor puzzle attitude. Who knows everything? And wouldn't that defeat the purpose of doing the puzzle?
Larry @4:56 PM I couldn't disagree with you more. Today's puzzle was a first class loser, as judged by the comments. The only thing missing was the constructor's mother's maiden name. I'm certain a puzzle could be made to be solvable by only 2% of the solvers/enthusiasts but that wouldn't be fun... would it?
My puzzle looks like an angel food cake- all pretty around the edges with a big hole in the middle. All those intersecting unknown names. No hope for me! But I found some memories here. A MIDDY was required for special events at my junior high, and my newly enlisted MIDDY clad sailor uncle showed me how to tie the knot. Also, my mother was fond of answering youthful (indiscrete?) questions with "Don't be such a NOSYPARKER." Maybe, as someone suggested above, it came from her English born parents?
Guess we are a couple of weeks from the Sunday puzzle everyone's talking about. Rather wish they wouldn't spoil the future for us Syndies, but maybe they don't even know we're out here? Like that tree in the forest?
@DMGrandma - The Sunday puzzles are only a week behind, so you already did the one people are talking about four weeks ago. If I remember correctly, it was an online issue, not a print issue.
I had to settle for the obvious guess at the middle square: never heard of Ceelo Green, but got it right.
Pea gravel is a common term for anyone who has considered landscaping drainage or walking path. I loved seeing the fresh term in a puzzle. Not that I've been losing sleep awaiting this day, but I do enjoy when a constructor works in an everyday term that just doesn't get used.
Please don't complain simply because you don't watch DIY shows on the weekend (or whatever personal pastime would make you conversant with the term). This is certainly more reasonable for a puzzle than, say, Broadway production references.
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