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Relative difficulty: Easy
THEME: "Fast Work" — puzzle celebrating HENRY FORD's 150th birthday (5D: Business titan born July 30, 1863) with a tribute to his innovations in mass production, specifically, the ASSEMBLY LINE (57D: 5-Down innovation). Circled letters are added one at a time as you descend the puzzle, going from "M" at the top to, finally, "MODEL T" at the bottom (116A: 5-Down unit). Other assorted theme answers include:
- 16D: Feature of a 57-Down (CONVEYOR BELT)
- 62A: Like the 116-Across (MASS-PRODUCED)
- 78D: 116-Across, colloquially (TIN LIZZIE)
Word of the Day: Chuck LORRE (94D: "The Big Bang Theory" co-creator Chuck) —
Chuck Lorre (born Charles Michael Levine; October 18, 1952) is an American television writer, director, producer and composer. Lorre has created many of America's hit sitcoms including Grace Under Fire, Cybill, Dharma & Greg, Two and a Half Men, and The Big Bang Theory. Lorre also served as an executive producer of Roseanne and Mike & Molly. (wikipedia)
• • •
Celebrating American capitalism's most notorious anti-semite! Huzzah! Happy birthday, buddy.
I've been reading a lot of 1923 newspapers lately and speculation about a possible Ford presidential run is rampant. But then Harding dies and Coolidge takes over and there goes 1924. Anyway ... Ford!
This puzzle was very easy and very loose. There's no real revealer, just a lot of theme entries that are confusingly cross-referenced. I guess HENRY FORD is the closest thing to an anchor in this puzzle, along with the finished MODEL T. Anyway, it's pretty clever, the whole "literally building a MODEL T" aspect of the puzzle. Fill is solid. Clue on LORRE is super-weird—a total outlier, familiarity-wise, compared with every other answer in the grid. You can clue Peter LORRE hard, you know? Not that this LORRE isn't worth inclusion. Those are big shows he's created. It's just nutty to have a name that unfamous in an otherwise phenomenally easy puzzle.
Bullets:
- 52A: Texas athletic site (ALAMO DOME) — nice answer. This answer helped me change OUTER to the more confrontational OUTED (34D: Exposed).
- 114A: "Feeling Good" chanteuse (SIMONE) — got this easily, though this is not a song I associate readily with her. I listen to her a lot. Maybe this once just escaped my particular record collection.
- 47D: He wrote "I exist, that is all, and I find it nauseating" (SARTRE) — lots of great, bitchy stuff about SARTRE (and a hell of a lot of other people) in the new book "My Lunches With Orson." Highly recommended.
P.S. SYNDICATS! Listen up. A message from Brian Cimmet:
Lollapuzzoola 6 is happening in New York City on Saturday, August 10. A day of all-original puzzles designed just for the tournament, bonus games, great fun and friends, and all for just $25 (optional pizza party not included). Or, if NYC isn't in your travel plans, sign up for the At-Home version for just $10. For more on Lollapuzzoola, visit www.bemoresmarter.com, find us on Facebook, or contact tournament co-director Brian Cimmet at brian@bemoresmarter.com.
P.S. Rex Parker once described this crossword competition as "easily the best tournament experience I've had to date," if that sort of thing holds any sway.
Thanks!
- Brian
Is this just what I needed to soothe my burned ass after yesterday's humbling? Um, no. They're kidding us right? This is really some old recycled USAToday daily, right? This puzzle is so simple, so boring, so bereft of humor or challenge,whatsoever, that I take no pride or solace in vaporizing my old Sunday personal best. Oh! We're on the assembly line, building a MODEL T! Blecch.
ReplyDeleteWhile it doesn't have any obscure dead poets, or Philippine rubber trees, or losing 1930's Vice Presidential candidates, or quantum physics particles, or Silents Stars, or F'ing French, it also doesn't have any zip, or cleverness, or smile-inducing clues, or...thorns. I kinda half-grinned, half-groaned at "Short race?" and continued on my sprint through Gimmeville. Great time doesn't always = great satisfaction. This was just too easy and pablum bland to get the nod for an NYT Sunday.
I do like AZALEAS though.
http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a340/12_C/image.jpg
Found this puzzle very easy, at least in part because it replicates exactly the assembly-line Model T-building concept used in a smaller puzzle by Timothy Wescott that appears in Peter Gordon's 100 Years of Crosswords collection. Indeed, Wescott's puzzle also featured ART MODELL as the keeper of the M-O-D-E-L stage of production. I understand that different puzzles may play on similar themes, but this was a bit much. I'll give the benefit of the doubt to Mr. Reynolds and assume he submitted his puzzle before the Wescott puzzled was published--either way, it's not a lot of fun when the centerpiece gimmick of the puzzle has been done so similarly and so recently.
ReplyDeleteEasy but uninteresting Sunday. Didn't notice or care about the building the Model T theme.
ReplyDeleteClues were fun but not challenging.
Nina SIMONE! Ahhh yes
Old Henry a bigot? Ohhh no. I'll check that out -thanks for the heads up. Another hero bites the dust.
Rex, you missed the NEVERMORE and ART MODELL subtheme.
ReplyDeleteJFC
I'm pretty sure this was my quickest Sunday ever (finishing in about half the time it typically takes me). This felt like a large-format Monday or Tuesday.
ReplyDeleteI missed the "building" of the MODELT. That makes the theme less pedestrian than I initially thought. Otherwise, nothing much stood out good or bad.
An easy, solid, somewhat boring, H. Ford B-Day puzzle. Didn't learn anything new. Only one erasure: way for MAS. No WOEs.
ReplyDeleteIt it me or is 28a, as clued, a tad cringy? How about "Fairy tale septet"?
This was fine for the genre, just not my cuppa...
I must agree with @August West although, not so adamantly. Got through the puppy with not too much love for it. After Thursday I find that I am horribly spoiled and rather difficult to please. I am erasing my last sentence, Mom keeps popping in my head "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all. So I will leave it as is.
ReplyDeleteEnded with an error at 103A, I had DOZER which I thought was a better answer than DOZES. Didn't know 83D, TIME SLOT makes perfect sense but I was unwilling to let go of DOZER. Ah well...
August West - I, also, like AZALIAS.
Oops AZALEAS. It's a wonder that I can get these things done with my atrocious spelling abilities.
ReplyDeleteI'm just happy to be finally caught up. Is it cheating to ask my son-in-law about the Chevron merger? He helped with ALAMODOME, to the extent of telling me there is no more AstroODOME,which is just as well since that made the "Light show light" a "LASER BEAr".
ReplyDeleteand my Captcha number is 42. Now what do
I liked three clues. "put away", for which I had "eat"; 50D; and 85D. Otherwise, the clues were truly awful, as in boring. Did the constructor (or editor) *have* to use absolutely the most straightforward clue in nearly every case? Please take a little time on the non-theme clues, especially for extremely common answers. Most of them felt like a waste of my time.
ReplyDeletePerhaps one reason many found that they completed this puzzle unusually quickly is, as someone points out at Diary of a Crossword Fiend, that it is a 20 x 21 grid, smaller than the usual Sunday.
ReplyDeleteAs for our "heroes", Ford, Lindbergh, Edison, et al., most seem to have had feet of clay or worse -- and I won't go in to those still with us in the 21st century.
My only gripe with this puzzle, aside from it being boringly easy, is the clue "Gargoyles have them, often" (answer: spouts). Sorry, but gargoyles ALWAYS have spouts, otherwise they are referred to as "grotesques". Without the spout for a "throat" they can't gargle, which is where we get that word.
ReplyDeleteAnyone have an issue with STEWED for BLASTED? Ok, we're talking intoxication but to me STEWED is quietly drooling on your shirt or curling up on the host's couch, whereas BLASTED is braying at the top of your lungs, perhaps with a lampshade or boxer shorts over your head.
ReplyDeleteI feel stupid, but could somebody please explain cons=HAS at 61A?
ReplyDeleteThanks!
I think it's a gotcha. More common use is past tense, as in "I've been had". A conman having his way "has" you.
ReplyDeleteI must admit I enjoyed ORIENT for "Polo ground"
ReplyDelete(@M&A – I responded to your last post yesterday on yesterday’s string.)
ReplyDeleteI guess I still just can’t run with you big dogs because this one put up a big fight for me. I finished, but I wouldn’t call it “easy!”
I got a kick out of ASSEMBLing the MODEL T. Cool idea, Andrew!
A couple of early ERRORs messed me up for a while – “Kenai” for MALAY, “spikes” for SPOUTS, “eat” for ICE (Hi, @paulsfo) and “sign” for MIME all had to be fixed, and that took a while.
Speaking of Kenai (and hence Alaska, see?), I had the pleasure of working on an ASSEMBLY LINE in a salmon cannERY in Cordova, Alaska. I was a “patcher” – I stood there (a vision in my snood) with scissors, and the cans would roll past me with the salmon already in them. It was my job to flip pieces over with the skin showing and also REMOVE/add salmon if the can looked too empty or too full. My most lasting impression of that place was how loud it was; I constantly sang “Barbara Ann” at the top of my lungs (seriously, and pretty well, I might add) and I could barely even hear myself. Good times.
My first thought on “auto safety feature” is always the Nader Pin. Hi, Ralph.
I once was copied on an email directed at my son’s AAU basketball coach ET AL. They were all admonished to wear COLLARD shirts.
Weird – there’s a dry erase board at the club, and some cook has taken to writing quotes every day as inspiration. Yesterday morning, before anyone got there, I wrote one of my favorites:
“To be is to do.” Socrates
“To do is to be.” SARTRE
“Do be do be do." Sinatra
Hey - it's more uplifting than "Hell is other people!"
Had asteroid and astrodome at first but then figured everything out. Very easy. Had most of it done last night.
ReplyDeleteWhat is ABS=auto safety feature. Just got a new car...wonder if mine has this feature.
Not bad. Did learn TINLIZZIE today so that's something.
ReplyDeleteI don't get ... Oh. ORIENT as Polo ground, as in Marco Polo. Cute.
ReplyDeleteI had aMEND instead of EMEND, and though I knew STaWED was wrong, I had to come here to see the answer. Does anyone ever see EMEND in use? It was never going to come to me.
Automatic braking system. Your new car almost certainly has it. Unless it means "planned obsolescence" in which case it stands for Automatic Breaking System.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed putting this one together and also liked a lot of the non-theme entries - LARGESSE, SLEEP MODE, NEVERMORE, COLLARD greens and STILTON, GLENS and a KNOLL, SCANTILY and ORNATE, HOMELAND and BOUNDARY.... Thought that assembling the MODEL T was pretty nifty, and TIN LIZZIE rates a NEATO as a name, I think.
ReplyDeleteDo robots use LASER BEAMs on ASSEMBLY LINEs these days?
I recognized Chuck Lorre as being the nemesis of Charlie Sheen "Winning!" a few years back.
ReplyDeleteI agree that we've all even spoiled by last Thursday.... Sigh
Are kidding me? You find Chuck LORRE difficult? His name is stamped all over SITCOM television: Grace Under Fire, Cybill, Dharma & Greg, Two and a Half Men, Roseanne, Mike & Molly. And he famously feuded with Charlie Sheen. Any child of the 80s,90s,aughts or nows is much likely to know Chuck Lorre than Peter Lorre or for that matter Nina Simone. That was a throw down—and I'm a geriatric.
ReplyDelete@Davidph: And here I was so proud of myself for putting the recipe for some polo rice dish from Iran/Armenia that's in the same magazine as the puzzle together with "orient"...
ReplyDeleteActually, I did like the assembly-by-letters feature to illustrate assembly on a line better than the rest of you--it saved the puzzle for me because it was now an homage to the Model T, not to a person who was despicable in so many ways.
ABS = Anti-lock braking system, though I do like the planned obsolescence version.
ReplyDeleteTrivia: The Model T used a gravity fed fuel system with the gas tank located under the front seat. If the fuel level was low the car could not be driven forward up a steep hill, requiring the driver to go up in reverse. Lots of Ford Hill Roads around the country for this reason.
Glad to see other Nina Simone fans here!
ReplyDeleteI have no idea what a TRIODE is, and don't think of STILTON as strong smelling - but I liked this OK, despite the easiness, and wanting egg nog instead of HOHOHO at 1A.
ReplyDelete@davidph, the ORIENT is also where the game of polo comes from. And when I was an undergraduate studying Shakespeare, the texts of the plays had many, many notes explaining that a particular word had been EMENDed by someone or other because it made more sense that way than whatever had been printed in the play's first publication. I don't think I've ever seen the word in any other context.
No French, but some Spanish and Greek!
Yup for METEORite first. I guess it's right either way - I think it's a METEOROID while it's still in space, but an ite when its remnant has fallen to earth.
I liked the theme density, and the repeated clues (con, bobble); but I didn't like the cluing of SIERRA as a GMC product, with so many choices available. If you're going to pay tribute to Ford, it seems rude to bring in his competitor.
JB -- a Triode is a 3-element vacuum tube, typically used to amplify electronic signals. It ushered in the electronic age in the early 1900s. It was replaced by the transistor circa 1950. The transistor had many advantages-- smaller, lower power, rugged, precursor of the integrated circuit.
DeleteYes, super easy. Just remember Will's intention to run puzzles for all the crossword community. What's too simple for you might be the first finish for a beginner.
ReplyDeleteI thought the act of us being in the ASSEMBLYLINE was the extra touch this needed.
@jae, I'm think being PC has reached new and ridiculous levels, but I, too, cringed at DWARVES being clued as "Short race?" I like your clue better than what I came up with, "Snow White's seven saviors."
The best thing about this puzzle is that yesterday we had our annual antique car show here in town. My neighbor's son usually leads the parade in his red 1910 Maxwell. So imagine my surprise when up drives a much bigger, black Model T! Built (ASSEMBLED)in 1915. He took me and my husband for a spin which made my day! BTW, amazingly comfortable ride! And how odd to see a MODEL T in real life and then have it appear as the Sunday puzzle theme!
@Nickyboy - thanks for the gargoyle lesson...I've always been fascinated by them, had the same thought you did, but didn't know for certain, and love to learn the derivatoin of gargle!
ReplyDelete@lms- lol re: those shirts...
@Ray J - wow - really?
OK - puzzle-related - I thought clever the assembling of the car as it moved along the line.
It also works via the DOWNS - did anyone point that out?
Surprised I did not know "the rest of the story" about the man, so thanks, @Ulrich, for spinning this into a tribute to the product...
Side story. 90D-inspired:
3 years ago, brother-in-law includedon his Christmas list "executive hose, black".
My mother went down to the garden center, and asked for hoses - "but I need the executive kind".
The bewildered man then LOL'd when she showed him the list.
Her English is better than most native-born, but she had never heard 'hose' to mean men's socks. I will have to make sure she does today's puzzle - she'll nail that misdirect for sure.
I smiled at @chefwen's comment, "After Thursday I find that I am horribly spoiled and rather difficult to please."
ReplyDeleteThe US Open is a USGA event, not a PGA event.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete@Anon 11:20: The US Open is, however, a leg of the PGA Tour. So I think the clue's fine.
ReplyDelete@Glimmerglass: ABS is actually Antilock Braking System, not Automatic Braking System. Which is a shame, because the pun opportunity is lost, and Automatic Breaking System most definitely is a feature on some cars.
@jae: It's not just you regarding 28A. I'm going to give the constructor and/or Shortz the benefit of the doubt that they mean it in the context of fantasy literature, but as written it's cringe-worthy and sounds like something HENRYFORD would say. It needed something, like a Tolkein reference, to make that clear.
And here I thought my Prius' ABS was an Air Bag System...
DeleteChuck LORRE was a gimme for me, not an outlier. Husband and I used to pause on the page at the end of Dharma and Gregg so we could read his "philosophy." Worth the time, usually. His pages still appear, I think, at the ends of his shows, though I don't watch them all, so certainly can't be sure.
ReplyDeleteI agree about the "cringey" clue for 28A, and would argue that DWARVES are not a race. I had pygmies before DWARVES, and didn't like myself for that answer either--plus it held me up a long time. Otherwise I'd agree this puzzle was pretty easy. Maybe because I'm "of a certain age" and originally from Detroit, the theme answers, and the assembly line building Model T through the middle of the puzzle, were also gimmes.
If @chefwen's and @gifcan's comments mean they think Thursday's was the best puzzle ever and is unlikely ever to be topped, put me in that category too. What a great one it was, and maybe it will spoil me forever. Look. We're still talking about it. I've never noticed that before.
I came to ask two questions: Didn't know how the clue blasted yielded STEWED, and didn't get how cons yielded HAS. And they're already answered here. God, I love this blog.
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ReplyDeleteOK puzzle - nothing to really write home about. I did have a bunch of write-overs though: No Way for MAS. Ents for ORCS is a PECKER the same as a PEEKER?
ReplyDelete@jberg: "If you're going to pay tribute to Ford, it seems rude to bring in his competition." HOHOHO!!
@Tita. I love your mom!
I too don't think of STILTON as particularly strong-smelling. Limburger, now that one will put hair on your chest.
Off to Sunday brunch by the river
to eat some FOODS.
Happy Sunday
yes, @ Ellen S, there is an Astrodome. You son is sort of right, however, since it has fallen into disrepair and disuse. it hasn't been used for about ten years (not counting its housing of thousands of Katrina refugees in 2005) but "the lonely landmark" is still there, waiting for the powers that be to decide what to do with it.
ReplyDeleteEasy-medium puzzle. Not a fan of gimmicks like the M-->MODEL T shtick. The Ford theme was nice, but there was a Nike, "Just Do It" feel to the puzzle. IOW, blah. Not NEATO (a word worth banishing in crossworld if ever there was one). I see I am not alone in thinking this.
DWARVES...?
ReplyDeleteawful and inaccurate clue. Although thematically in keeping with what I know about Henry Ford.
@600 -
ReplyDeleteIf you're interested, Chuck Lorre maintains a site with the vanity cards from his various shows - search for Chuck Lorre vanity cards.
Enjoyed the assembly of the Model T - filled in the other letters in the lower light-gray squares after MOD - halftones in rotogravure so small I couldn't make them out one-by-one, even with my near-sightedness. Did wait to make sure it wasn't a Model A, though - hadn't got to TIN LIZZIE yet.
Perhaps the puzzle was more of an Edsel than a Taurus SHO, though.
I see some of you use the word WOE in your comments, but I suspect it is an acronym. Anyone care to enlighten the noob?
ReplyDeleteAlso, what is a "natick," and why?
TIA...
@TIA - welcome!
ReplyDeleteFor Natick, see Rex's FAQ for fuller explanation/origin, but as used in Rexville, it's a crossing of two completely obscure words, so that the missing letter is uninferable.
WOE - hmmm...I forget!I think it's a euphemism for WTF, but can't for the life of me remember.
I will look forawrd, along with you, to the full answer.
@joho - great syncronicity!
(@TIA - what it sounds like...an incredibly close coincidence of real life intersecting with puzzle life. Maybe I should start an augmented FAQ on my puzzle blog...)
How can you have a Nina Simone collection and not have been aware of her FAMOULSY singing "Feeling Good"?
ReplyDeleteThanks Rex for noting ole Henry's anti- semitism. PBS recently ran a lengthy special on Ford which gave some prominence to his virulent anti- semitism as well as his ignorance which was brought out when he sued a newspaper for calling him that way.
ReplyDeleteAs for the puzzle, yes easy with a clever build of the MODELT.
One might ask, "What On Earth is WOE?", but then one would have answered one's own question.
ReplyDeleteHO HO HO. Did Santa catch someone amusing himself by abusing himself? Oh, wait. That's O HO.
ReplyDelete"No ___!" (92A) for MAS? No way! It should be "¡No ___!"
HAND UP FOR kNOWING CHUCK lORRE before a whole lotta folks OFL calls gimmes.I'm not a big Henry Ford fan but the puzzle was fine bland maybe but fine.
ReplyDelete@Flathead--Thanks! Both for the term vanity cards, which I should have known, and for the info on where to find them. One rainy afternoon I'll look them up.
ReplyDeletemeant to say earlier that I knew Chuck Lorre right away. Love the Big Bang Theory!!
ReplyDelete@Tita – Really!
ReplyDeleteSee for instance page 3, paragraph 2 of this:
Model T
Or Google “Model T Ford steep hill” for 26 million results.
Thanks for finally clearing up the WOE mystery for me. I had been trying to figure it out from usage, got the general idea, but didn't get the acronym.
ReplyDeleteAdd me to the list of those who found this to be quite the easy puzzle (and there ain't many puzzles I put in that category, being a medium solver at best). I didn't get the BLASTED/STEWED connection until I came here.
Got tundRA in my mind for 50A (GMC Truck), took forever to overcome that and get to SIERRA.
Didn't much care for the Short race clue (28A), like others here. I thought it was a lame attempt at wit.
Thoroughly enjoy reading the comments here after I do the puzzle. Almost as much as doing the puzzle. But not quite...
The US Open is not part of the PGA tour. It is the National Championship put on by the USGA. PGA tour players like to play in it, but it isn't part of the tour.
ReplyDeleteThis one was decidedly in my wheelhouse, so no complaints.
ReplyDelete@joho - Yes, most 1910 Maxwells were little two-cylinder, two-seater runabouts with 10 or 12 horsepower. Most Model Ts were touring cars with a back seat, and they all had 20 (or, in the very early ones, 22) horsepower, so they were much more capable and comfortable machines.
Yes, Ol' Henry was an antisemite. Lots of people were back then. I am loath to judge people who did great things by their less-than-great quirks, especially when standards have changed. Thomas Jefferson owned slaves. Franklin Roosevelt locked up thousands of Japanese-Americans. Great men all, but flawed.
Yes, a Model T that's low on gas may need to be backed up a hill. But so did lots of other cars; it's just that there were so many Fords, and they were built long after manufacturers of more expensive cars had switched over to pressurized fuel systems. I have a 1912 Buick with the gas tank under the seat and gravity feed - it has the same foible. But fuel pumps, especially early and primitive ones, can break down; gravity always works. If I'm touring in hilly country, in either my Buick or my Model T Ford, I never let the tank get below one-third full. Then they'll climb pretty near anything.
As easy as Sunday gets. Building the MODEL T gave it a leg up on most tribute puzzles (although someone mentioned it had been done before, if that's the case, meh). Fill was good.
ReplyDelete@Quest and others who didn't like DWARVES - I'm not a "gamer", but I looked up DWARVES and they are a race in World of Warcraft and Dungeons & Dragons. So I think it was meant to be a modern twist on a clue, not insensitive or an insult.
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ReplyDeletethis is one of the worst puzzles I've encountered in many years. I rarely go to this web site but was curious to read other solvers' reactions. This Andrew Reynolds has a wierd sense of definition.
ReplyDelete@PK: The PGA disagrees.
ReplyDeleteThe US Open is on the PGA Tour event schedule, and its results count toward season standings. The US Open is indeed organized by the USGA, but it is also a PGA Tour event.
@OldCaFudd: Agreed on not judging people from the past strictly by the standards of the day - and in that era, a degree of antisemitism was the norm - but Ford was notoriously and virulently antisemitic even by the standards of his day, to the point that Hitler considered him a hero (Ford is the only American favorably cited in Mein Kampf, and he also willingly used slave labor in his European factories before the US entry into the war). I don't think we can give him a pass on his antisemitism, even accounting for the tone of the era.
That said, he was more of a mixed bag than the characterization would indicate. From what I understand, his antisemitism didn't extend to refusing to hire Jewish workers or work with Jewish-owned suppliers, and Ford was also one of the few large companies of its era that was willing to hire African-Americans in considerable numbers. But his embracing various ideas of international Jewish conspiracy did a great deal to further the general antisemitic tone of the era.
Did you also know that Henry Ford was also responsible for inventing charcoal.? He didn't want to waste anything like leftover wood so he turned it into charcoal briquettes. He later sold his idea to Kingsford.
ReplyDeleteThe US Open is not a PGA event. The PGA Tour (not the PGA) recognizes it as far as counting its results for PGA Tour players. The PGA is a separate organization from the PGA Tour and has nothing to do with the US Open.
ReplyDeleteAlthough Rex has Ford's birthday correct and Will published the puzzle close to that date, I do not think this is a tribute to Henry Ford. I think the theme is actually celebrating the 100th anniversary of producing the Model T on an assembly line basis, which occurred late in 1913. Also, the constructor indicates as much in his comments on Wordplay. The theme answers as well as the circles are consistent with that theme.
ReplyDeleteJFC
This week's relative difficulty ratings. See my 8/1/2009 post for an explanation and my 10/15/2012 post for an explanation of a tweak I've made to my method. 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 5:21, 6:09, 0.87, 3%, Easy (6th lowest ratio of 188 Mondays)
Tue 9:05, 8:13, 1.10, 76%, Medium-Challenging
Wed 9:56, 9:43, 1.02, 60%, Medium
Thu 22:51, 16:29, 1.39, 94%, Challenging
Fri 17:41, 20:21, 0.87, 29%, Easy-Medium
Sat 19:58, 25:29, 0.78, 8%, Easy
Sun 22:41, 28:35, 0.79, 9%, Easy (9th lowest ratio of 96 Sundays)
Top 100 solvers
Mon 3:18, 3:46, 0.88, 3%, Easy (5th lowest ratio of 188 Mondays)
Tue 5:25, 4:57, 1.09, 72%, Medium-Challenging
Wed 5:24, 5:36, 0.96, 41%, Medium
Thu 14:20, 9:30, 1.51, 94%, Challenging
Fri 9:44, 11:52, 0.82, 23%, Easy-Medium
Sat 12:00, 15:22, 0.78, 10%, Easy
Sun 15:26, 19:51, 0.78, 10%, Easy (10th lowest ratio of 96 Sundays)
@Tita & Bob Kerfuffle:
ReplyDeleteThanks! Never would have thought to go to the FAQs but glad you sent me there. Rex pretty much ripped BEQ a new one that night.
Btw, TIA is not my name, but business memo and net shorthand for "Thanks in Advance."
PK and BD are right; the US Open is not a PGA event. And everyone else is right about dwarves unless you want to go to Middle Earth. Tolkien describes dwarves as a race, but....
ReplyDeleteThe puzzle's biggest sin is crediting Henry Ford with the invention of the assembly line. That's flat out wrong. It's been repeated so often it's taken for fact. But Ford, a fascist by the way, cadged the idea from Olds, who is criminally under appreciated.
In these parts Henry and his heirs are revered. Henry's not even the most racist historical figure in this town. Mayor Orville Hubbard of "Shoot the n#%^~<s if they try to enter the city" infamy would be the leader in my book.
ReplyDelete@EllenS - go binary.
"Did you also know that Henry Ford was also responsible for inventing charcoal.?"
ReplyDeleteNo way is that true. Charcoal was being produced and made for many centuries before Ford.
For what it's worth, Ford popularized but did not invent the charcoal briquette.
I guess I'm the only one who put in "made in the usa" instead of MASSPRODUCED? I (thought I) got it off the M, then dropped in ABLE and added Lenon for the Beatle. I then stumbled around aimlessly for what felt like forever until I managed to convince myself there were no 3-letter Tolkien creatures that ended with a U.
ReplyDeleteI mean, it was accurate, it fit, the whole mass production thing was addressed in 57 down and I had three crosses. Bah!
Is there a term for being so confident in your wrong fill that you refuse to change it even though it's messing up the rest of your puzzle? If not, can we call it a Henry Ford?
Call me a Luddite, but I solve on paper, photocopied courtesy of my local public library (woot! support your library, you'll miss it when it's gone!), and generally a day or two late. On my copy - NO CIRCLES! (M-MO-MOD-MODE-MODEL-MODELT) I didn't see anyone else comment that theirs were missing - either you all do it online (thus my Luddite comment) or there was a very weird malfunction somewhere in my town only. I too thought the theme was a little weak and oddly / randomly placed. Had I had the circles, I might have seen a bit more creativity in the construction. Weird, this has never happened before.
ReplyDeleteI am 73 and though the Model T was way before my time I had the opportunity to drive a lot of old vehicles including the T when I learned to drive at 12 around the roads of a big concrete pipe company.
ReplyDeleteA lot of them had gas tanks under the seat and backing up steep hills was common but I thought the T had the tank in the cowl and remember the fuel cap in front of the windshield.
I must be wrong. Maybe it was the Model A with the cowl tank
@Nickyboy and @RayJ: thanks for the continued furthering of my education. Gargoyles gargle...well, that makes sense. And backing up a hill? Never heard that before either. I continue to be enriched--not only by the puzzles, but by these comments on them. In my paper the "letter addition" portion of the theme was shaded, not circled. The resulting overall shape looked to me like a profile of the Transamerica Building, so at first I was keying on that for a theme.
ReplyDeleteI agree that this one was pretty easy; still there were several sideways clues. ABS clued, for a blessed change, as something OTHER than those muscles I never had. And "Whole"_____= FOODS??? W.O.E. are "Whole FOODS?" Are they foods that are whole-SOME? Or are only SOME foods "whole" (some)? Have I been eating PARTIAL foods all this time? Is that why I don't have ABS? I guess I need yet more education, 'cause I have NO CLUE what "whole foods" are.
Slight hiccup in the SE when I kept trying to parse 83d as some kind of ____LOT. The sideways clue made it seem more geographical than temporal. All was soon fixed, though, and the grid winds up being a fitting tribute to Mr. Ford. It's sad to learn that he was a bigot. Some icky fill--RNASE especially--but overall as smooth as one of his ASSEMBLYLINEs.
Whole Foods is a grocery store chain.
Delete@spacecraft: Whole Foods is a grocery chain (also often known as "Whole Paycheck.") Thought they were ubiquitous but apparently not.
ReplyDeleteNow, can some other syndication late-comer explain these to me. 104D: OAST; 50D: SMEE; 60A: EFT. I finished in spite of these head-scratchers, which means this was indeed an easy one. Didn't realize until I got here that SIMONE referred to the wonderful Nina, even though I do know the song. Just assume that any "chanteuse" is going to be some awful American Idol-ish diva that I've never heard of.
I figured out the PRODUCTIONLINE significance of the shaded squares fairly early-on and filling in the parts of the MODELT helped with a few areas that might have otherwise been problematic Harvey KEITEL, I'm looking at you).
ReplyDelete@Cary - An OAST kiln used to dry Hops and an EFT is an immature newt, so those clues are literal. Hook's hand is, of course, a hook but since that's already in the clue it must be looking for another meaning, such as "hand" in the nautical sense e.g., deck-hand. So Captain Hook's hand is his first-mate, Mr. SMEE. TMI?
Henry Ford, a business and mass production genius, was not a nice man, in so many respects. Invented charcoal? Hardly. Bubble wrap? Maybe. But racism and bigotry, though he didn't invent them, of those he was a singular practitioner.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I liked the puzzle. Perhaps it was "easy", but still, among those who yelped at how "easy" it is, most ran afoul of the odd clue or letter crossing. I found the puzzle entertaining in many ways, even if it was "easy".
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Well as I always get these puzzles weeks late when my sister drops them off for me- did 7-21 and 28 in about an hour- 21 was iffy and 28 was just pain easy- but there were some different clever answers: spout , stilton, collard, there was the same clue in both puzzles: word or words to live by- messed of mass produced a lot of rewrites there because I first thought was amas or amat was for clue for latin 101 -and I did not get dwarvws even tho I had Dr No0 sinced when is blasted mean stewed- - now realizing it meant being drunk- wow - as always love this blog- bakergirl
ReplyDeleteHello Everybody,
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