.png)
Happily old style / WED 2-4-15 / Desk jockey's happy yell / Der Goldfisch painter / Rich European dessert
Wednesday, February 4, 2015
Constructor: Julian Lim
Relative difficulty: Medium
THEME: Out in the middle of some phrase … — phrases that follow ___ OUT ___ pattern are clued for maximum wackification.
Theme answers:
- CHECKOUT COUNTER (17A: Eye an election official?)
- TAKE-OUT ORDER (26A: Decimate a monastery's occupants?)
- LOOKOUT POINT (48A: Warning shouted to a lacrosse defenseman?)
- WORKOUT ROUTINES (61A: Develop one's comedy acts?)
adverb
archaic
• • •
Come on, now—MAKE OUT SESSIONS [Descry Senator Jeff?]! It's a perfect 15! Cosmo says, "the best sex often starts with a make out session," in case you were wondering whether "make out session" is a real thing. It is real. It's both real and sexy. And it will not be denied.
swing out sister - break out by papafonk
Are the letters CPR on first-aid kits, is that it? (39A: Letters on some kits)
Hey, if you FLUNKED your course, you still "made the grade" (43D: Didn't make the grade?). It's just that that grade was "F." ATTA BOY!
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
Save And Share :
86 comments:
Easier than yesterday's and not as interesting. The GERI/ECO cross could be a problem, but the crosses for each are straight forward.
No erasures, no WOEs and nothing really stands out....so, pretty much what Rex said, meh but didn't hate it.
Quite underwhelming.
LIE over LIEF
FIEF in the corner
FIE as a clue
BAH
I think that was @Steve J's shortest review comment ever.
Calvin Coolidge would be proud!
WWhacks - First time I chuckled with this puzzle. Rarely does a puzzle bore me, but this one did. I guess after the fun and games of yesterday's Puzz this one was a little on the dull side. Plus I ended up with an error. ALIA at 27D gave me LAEF which sounded pretty happy to me.
Fingers crossed for a fun Rebus tomorrow.
Joyless.
ALIA/LAEF as well. Actually liked it better than yesterday's gimmickry
Gee. Lacrosse players yelling at each other. What would they be saying? I dunno, but "LOOpOUT POINT!" sounded credible enough to me. YAp. YAp.
Medium challenging here. 38 minutes. Lots of ambiguity in cluing, so lots and lots of wrongness. Still-lifes of nudes rather than EWERS. (Can nudes be considered still-lifes?) Yepper for YOUBET. scarlet for HOTPINK. UhS for UMS. ussd for AMEX. abd then mAS for TAS. As usual, I made every effort to make my wrong answers work, because I have to make every effort to make the right ones work, too.
When my submission was rejected I wondered about LIEF, but couldn't get the croses to budge. Everything else checked out. So I gave up.
I agree with the negative sentiments. Joyless and frustrating.
The wackified versions of the first two themers sound like some kind of pidgin English. Would not a native speaker put an article of some kind in front of COUNTER & ORDER? Me no likey.
A major challenge for a themed puzzle is coming up with themers that have symmetrically matching letter counts. Here CHECKOUT COUNTER is 15, but WORKOUT ROUTINE is only 14. What to do? Back to the drawing board to look for a legit 15? Nah. Take a shortcut and tack on an "S" to boost the letter count. POC to the rescue. But that "Didn't make the grade", in my book.
ODED (67-Across) just looks weird.
I just ODED a Grecian urn...
I could have done without learning that Rex likes the place where URGE meets REAR.
Other than that, this one was a big old meh.
@chefbea...I laughed at you LAEF. I didn't even change it!
@Anoa Bob...Wow, I was hoping you'd chime in... but look, when you think of it, we would have missed using a word that nobody on this planet uses.... ESPY!
UNY OKE NEAP NEAP....
Oh, HOT PINK? I don't think so. It's either purple, black or red in this household.
The USS Midway is a must-see museum now. She rests in San Diego, right along the waterfront west of downtown, and her flight deck is loaded with many naval aircraft. Standing at the end of that short deck, you'll wonder how it's possible to land a high performance fighter (or, yes! A C-130! Look up the youtube video of that incredible flight test) on a pitching carrier, at night, in the weather, perhaps after getting shot up in combat (see: "Jousting with Sam and Charlie", by Tom Wolfe).
Evil
Hey All !
Agree with the Rexster on this 'un. To get a puz excepted by Will, it has to "excite" him somehow, this puz seems very pedestrian for his excitement factor. Way too much dreck holding it together. Laid back = TYPE B? KAYOED? No.
I'm not sure how WS goes about selecting puzs. Not to toot my own horn, but (toot toot!) I've sent in so far 22 puzs to Will, all rejected. The last few I was mailing every Tuesday, I got a mass rejection e-mail (4 puzs). At first, I would say my puzs weren't the best, but as time went on, they became okay. I'm no Patrick Berry, but I believe some of them to be at least better than this one. Just sayin'.
As for this puz, nothing too exciting, easy, but time consuming, if that makes sense. Only one square wrong! Argh! Had LIfF/KLEf. Oh well.
FLUNKED
RooMonster
DarrinV
ODED and KAYOED. I can't quite put my finger on why I dislike that both of these "words" were in the same puzzle. Not that it matters. I knew what they were and I've said and heard them said many times. But there's just something...I dunno. I'm now waiting for a future puzzle to include DIYed.
Speaking of...lots of letters today: OD(ed), KO(ed), DIY, TGIF, CPR, (type)B, (one)A, (am)EX, TA(s).
Also FIEF and LIEF. Can't quite say what's wrong with that, but there seems like something should...
The ubiquity of the word OUT. Again, ??
I had IOTAS where MOTES was to start. Then I had MiTES where MOTES was "SPOSEd" to be.
I tend to lump puzzles into good and bad by how I feel at the end. The only "bad" puzzles to me are the ones that leave me angry. This one did NOT do that, so it goes in the "good puzzle" bin. It was easy so, apart from my nits, what's there to complain about?
Did the alia/laef tango too. And I agree on the excitement level. After yesterday I needed a little more zip to wake me up. Zzzzzzzzz.
I will be brief.
I turned over a new leaf:
I no longer have a beef
With snorkeling on the REEF
And living upon my FIEF.
It is my belief
That I'd just as LIEF
Go explore with Leif
Erikson. Good grief!
Fun theme, too. When will you have another chance to participate in violently ending the liefs of monastery residents?
I came up with a few more theme answers. Let's see if you can figure OUT the common OUT phrases that these clues suggest:
- Decipher what Congress did before adjourning.
- Make physique rounder.
- Flatten Judy's husband.
- Sun-dry wet dog on a line.
Here is SATURN, the bringer of old age. Doesn't Charles Mackerras look like Richard Attenborough?
EWERS truly.
I'm guessing @AliasZ will be chiming in with some alternate theme answers...
Julian's puzzles, IMHO, do not have a lot of flash, but are solid. These theme answers are strong. There is some excellent cluing -- IOWA, SATURN, and MACS, and I like that middle column of ATTABOY over SOSORRY, encouraging yet humble, two excellent qualities. With Julian's puzzles I feel like I'm going to put some work into it, but afterward be glad I did it, and I did and I was.
Looks like I guessed right.
KATY? I was thinking "left shark."
We have AGASSI in a HYATT in IOWA with HOT PINK clad KATY Perry and @ED writes about a museum?!? Deflategate, indeed.
Factoid: There was an intense seven year court battle between Vienna's Hotel Sacher and the Demel Bakery over the rights to the name "The Original Sacher TORTE". (The hotel won.)
Quotoid: "Captain Cook discovered Australia looking for the Terra Incognita. Christopher Columbus thought he was finding India but discovered America. History is full of events that happened because of an imaginary tale." -- Umberto ECO
The theme is not just _____OUT_____, but ______'K'OUT_____. OK.. I'm still not seeing the cleverness.
@Z - Just watched the 'Left Shark Super Bowl MVP' clip. Good stuff!
Agree with Rex. This one could have been spiced up a bit more. Still, a medium challenge to start my Wednesday, so not all bad. I do suspect that LIEF was just a leftover jumble of letters.
I rate this as CHALLENGING. A DNF on a Wednesday does not bode well for the week. I also read 53D as DESERT not DESSERT, leaving me to scratch my head all morning thinking about European deserts. Time to get glasses.
@Hartley70 beat me to it, but all I can say about this puzzle is that today we have two very aptly nicknamed regulars on this blog -- Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz and AliasZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
@Casco, yepper? Is that something they say Down East?
Anyway -- I've worked a lot of polls over the years, and never heard anyone called a COUNTER, although it is true that votes are counted. CHECKER is a real thing, though, and CHECK OUT CHECKER seemed like the start of a nifty theme--so I wrote it in and followed the crosses all the way down to the bottom and then all the way over to the East before I got back up to the NE corner. I knew my theme idea was wrong by then, but not what it should be.
I think I've actually heard people say "I'd as LIEF ..." -- but maybe that's a trick of the memory (SATURN has brought me old age already). I've certainly seen it in literature, anyway, so even though I guessed ALIa I got it fixed fairly quickly.
I never got a paper yesterday, due to the snow, I suppose (though everything was plowed), so I missed that puzzle. If this habit of suspending delivery for a little snow continues, I may have to learn to use a computer.
This puzzle sucked. And chewed. Boring theme, lazy execution, lots of ridiculous crosswordese.
Side note: is anyone else having trouble with doing the crossowrd on the NYT site? Mine keeps freezing and not letting me type letters. Frustrating. Any tips would be appreciated. (Reminds me of the joke about being a mohel: The pay isn't great, but the tips sure are!)
Meh. BAH. Underwhelming. Joyless. ZZZZZZZ. I've come to this site too late. All the best words have been used up.
Not a fun puzzle!! Saw all the out's but still don't get it.
@GillI - why did you laugh at me????
@GillI - I guess you meant the other chef....All great chefs think alike...I too had leaf!!!
No way was LIE/LIEF FIE/FIEF by chance, so no BAH coming from this SEAT: I thought them a bit of sly fun. Ditto the paired [Letters on some kits] clues in center-grid; I SPOSE that was by chance after yesterday's USPS complaints.
1A DIRT yielded some confusing Texas CITES, and I believe it was SOFIA that beguiled me westward to TIRANA in place of TEHRAN. Conceivably, I could conflate the Black and Caspian Seas, but harder to excuse the Mediterranean...
Yesterday's romp was a hard act to follow, but I think this one at least whelmed. Agree with @Lewis and with @Casco's obs that a K-sound has to precede the OUT. Since @Alias doesn't specify that, I'm using it as my excuse to hold off on his challenge, and may just wait for the reveal. At noon?
Who else thought of LIEF Erikson? KATY did.
Interesting SATURNine minutes. I'm thinking Terry-Thomas as much as Attenborough, perhaps if he would smile.
Julian Lim may be a MAKEOUT ARTIST but this solver was onto every FAKEOUT PLAY, and found no reason for any to STICKOUT TONGUES. Enough of these efforts to HACKOUT SPACE, it's time to BACKOUT GRACEFULLY on the road t'work.
EWERS truly
L. Finger
A little harder than the average Wednesday for me because there were a lot of semi-gimmes but few true gimmes. I require some agreement from the crosses before filling in an entry not knowing any of its letters -- a true gimme.
A better clue for GERI might be "Old Spice." Because of her age, Bill Butler says.
🌕🌕 (2 mOOns)
I am not sure how or why one would use MACS on safari. The coats would be hot and the trucks stuck in the sand.
LIEF I was awake for the Art History slides on KLEE.
And speaking of not so FINEART, who is KATY Perry and why was she the half time show. Next time more Lenny less, much less, KATY… and no Melissa. But more shark.
Thanks Julian although I am humming "Is that all there is"
@CascoK, OUT in this neck o' the woods, FARSI-ing Lacrosse players are still likely to shout the warning "Stay away from exotic dancers, and you'll DOOK!"
[I know I'm going to burn for that, better cry UNCle now]
@Anon 9:35
I always do the puzzle on the ipad app, but last night I did it on-line at the NYT site. I had the same experience as you! It made a boring puzzle almost unbearable!
@Z
LOVED "left shark!"
We have a word for this, which I have forgotten: As did @NCA President, I first had 15A as IOTAS before changing to MOTES, then found IOTAS at 11D.
You know you're old if . . . you looked at 69 A, "Musical Perry", four letters, and your first thought was COMO (but I didn't put it in.)
Here's the problem: When rex badmouths every constructor and every puzzle, his write-up for a truly awful piece-of-crap like today's looks exactly the same as every other. In rexworld, this was average, when in reality, it was far, far worse.
@Bob Kerfuffle - I forgot what that word was too...Andrea coined the word for us.
Liked the cluing for 16A, 22A, and 35D. The theme answer WORKOUT ROUTINES was OK. Otherwise this was just plain bad.
@aliasz- figured out all but the first one...very clever!
I don't know anything about the spice girls, although I have tolld some inappropriate jokes about spice racks. I knew Katy Perry, though; she was the singer in the half time show. I never watch the half time show, and I ignore the commercials. Great football game. And I enjoyed this puzzle.
Average word length is up over 5, and no cheater squares to be found. Expect either a miracle or desperation.
I sorta liked the first two themers the bester, as they changed the meaning of the base "___ OUT" phrases the most. Agree with @63, that MAKEOUTSESSIONS would have some zip. Add PUTOUTTHECAT, and Bob's yer Uncle.
Really liked 16-A, with the double-blanks clue. More, please. Can the double-?? clue now be far from its NYT debut? EXCITES the M&A.
UNYOKE! har. More fun than a lousy miracle.
M&A
I found the theme answers snappy and didn't mind their cluing. Rest of fill was ho-hum with an excess of crosswordese and 2+ word phrases.
As for Rex's question about CPR on a first aid kit, wouldn't that be an unusually sophisticated kit to include these letters? More likely to find them on a defibrillator kit?
Thanks @wreck 1003--nice to know I'm not the only one having NYT crossword site trouble.
@GracieH
On a crash cart.
@dk: Safari is the server of Apple. So you would use a Mac computer.
@Bob Kerfuffle & @chefbea, it's malapop. I do it all the time.
One thing I know for sure is if a puzzle's theme is wacky, @Rex isn't going to like. But today the consensus is that wackiness did not prevail.
I liked it more than most and thought the concept to be very clever. But I'm with @Anoa Bob, the first two themers sounded a little bit like Tarzan speaking.
I laughed at @Keats' comment!
In end I just have one burning question: Can one live LIEF in a FIEF?
Safari is the browser on Mac computers, a good misdirection I thought.
Didn't know Der Goldfisch, so thanks for that.
On the other side of the spectrum, thanks for Left Shark link - I LOL'd.
LIEF, I did not watch any of the super bowl, rather relying on the kindness of others to point me towards the gems.
@Casco - I figured I just didn't know Lacrosse - unknowingly DNFd with the LOOpOUTPOINT.
Theme was so-so, but I did like the elegant clues, as y'all have OUTPOINTed.
Can't resist - as a follow up to @Z's Left Shark link, check this one too - its lesson goes far beyond a ball game.
The Seahawks lost trying to be Right Shark when they're actually Left Shark
@Joho and @Bob Kerfuffle - It's malaprop...with an r
@chefbea - yours is indeed a true malaprop...which is a real word that describes what you just did there....
Acme coined "malapop", for it's similarity to the real word, but where the meaning is that you wrote in an answer, found it to be wrong, and coincidentally, it turned out to be the right answer to another clue elsewhere in same puzz.
I quite liked it when I got the theme with CHECKOUTCOUNTER. But I think there were too many short words that are way overused, like ALII and ONEA. It was a steady, doable slog, though for a long time, I had LOOKOUTPOSTS, thinking a "post" could be a lacrosse position. Saw that there should be only one player being warned, and figured a "point" could be such a player.
So a finished the puzzle, and ended up agreeing with Rex on this one.
BTW, election officials are COUNTERS on election night. They count the votes with the help of a machine, of course. Then the post the COUNT online and send it to the Secretary of State.
I played Lacrosse at Dook. The answer should have bee LOOKOUTTHECOPSAREHERE!
@ED...We spent the 4th of July on Board the USS Midway. Saw the Big Bay Boom. Our son scored us tickets and it was the most incredible time of my life!
@ROO M: I'm rootin tootin for you.
@chefbea: I pulled a @Leapster oopsie.
I laughed out loud at @Keats, and @AliasZ is always funny. @Anon 9:35: alternative - "Why would anyone want to be a circumciser of elephants? - Big tips." @Kerfuffle: had to write over Como, but avoided that trap at ALII, put in only the first 3 letters. I agree that yesterday's was more fun than today's, but today's was still a good Wednesday. And we have a fun Thursday to look forward to.
@Roo... I am moved to wonder what the world record number of NYTPuz submissions without a hit is. M&A has experienced a few stretches of record-challengin calibre.
@Julian: I, for one, highly respect yer puz. Came to remind me of coyotes in Texas. Each themer had a nice KOUT sound effect. Primo consistency. And respectable U-count. Keep em comin, dude.
p.s.
fave weeject, today: TSO. Honrable mention for UMS/USS, which do make for a powerful 3-U southern corner, with the mighty UNYOKE. Speakin of weejects...
** gruntz (weejectomy!) **
TA'S...
M&A
Workmanlike Wednesday, IMHO. Looking back over the finished puzz. is more satisfying than the process of solving was; go figure.
Just finished the Tues. puzz. as well, and was pleasantly surprised by the format. Something to please the 'Downs only' crowd! Would like to see more of these early week surprises.
Happy Hump Day! Thanks, JK< JL and WS.
I love when Rex gets his dander up, but then ends with something humorous.
@Rex Is there any chance that when Shortz edits these puzzles he rewrites some of the clues, or is that all on the constructor?
You'll need WORKOUTROUTINES after WORKOUTpOUTINES! Yum.
It was easy and quick to me, but I did know lief (cute word) and Klee. My last letter in was the M in marks, took me a while to see that for some reason.
First time I've seen unyoke.
MACS, DIY, CPR, LIEF and using Como for KATY @69a did me in, and I lost interest in the solve fairly quickly. DNFs on Tuesday and WednesDay! Good grief! I fear that the years (82 of them) may finally be catching up with me .
I wonder who is the eldest contributor to this blog? Any volunteers?
@allan: it's a collaboration; constructor submits and Shortz edits.
For those who have been waiting with bated breath:
- Decipher what Congress did before adjourning: MAKE-OUT SESSION
- Make physique rounder: FILL-OUT FORM
- Flatten Judy's husband: KNOCKOUT PUNCH
- Sun-dry wet dog on a line: HANGOUT SPOT
Two of them K-OUT, two of them not. Long live diversity!
And long live Giovanni Gabrieli, principal organist of Saint MARK'S Basilica, Venice, starting in 1585.
@allan: Constructors sometimes tell of their experiences in getting published. More often at Deb Amlen than here. But they report that quite a few of their clues are changed by Shortz, sometimes a majority.
@Whirred Whacks: May I have a hint for HH + MH at T = N or M?
@mathguy - That has already been answered on the blog; one must read the comments carefully.
But if you need a clue: Think analog, not digital.
@MathGuy "May I have a hint for "HH + MH at T = N or M"
Hour Hand + Minute Hand at Twelve = Noon or Midnight
I believe a commenter gave this answer yesterday as well.
These types of "flexibility of thinking" problems are fun, and the answers (like in crossword puzzles) generally seem obvious after the fact.
I have never heard of an elected official called a Counter. What next a Chinese official called an Abacus?
This puzzle was irritating.
@Clueless. Thanks for the hint. That gave it to me before Whirred Whacks gave me the answer.
@ED --
The best aircraft exhibition I've seen is at the USS Entrepid moored in Manhattan. It has a Space Shuttle, Concorde, and just about every US aircraft you can imagine, plus some from France, Russia, Israel. And a US WWII submarine alongside.
Below decks is a WWII Grumman Torpedo Bomber of the type George Bush Sr. flew in WWII. It's a lot larger aircraft than I would have thought. Bush Sr. deserves a lot of credit, dropped out of college to enlist right after Pearl Harbor. He got shot down in the Western a Pacific, and got rescued by a U.S. sub before the Japanese could get to him, thus avoiding an extremely difficult imprisonment.
On the subject of short-deck aviation, the aviators on the Doolittle raid, also shortly after Pearl Harbor, takes the cake. B-25 Medium Bombers heavily loaded with fuel and bombs packed onto the decks of a U.S. carrier hit Tokyo, ditching later in China. most were later repatriated. Anyway, the first bombers launched had precious little deck to work with, since the armada was carried on the deck, and just barely got up to flight speed before hitting the drink -- in front of the steaming carrier, which would have obliterated the aircraft. The story is tod in the book and movie "Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo."
Oops, forgot to mention ..
Also great is the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, with sites in downtown DC and out at Dulles airport. Includes Lindberg's Spirit of Saint Louis, Spacecraft Command Module and Lunar Module, Mercury capsule, a U-2, and much more.
NEAP tides occur twice a month but it seems like we've been getting them as puzzle answers ALOAD more times than that recently!
I did not know that STYES were a possible side effect of sleep deprivation. And if asked, I would have defined "as LIEF" as "rather", not "happily". So a couple of things learned today. Not a sparkly puzzle, but it's Wednesday.
Thanks JL.
My take: If you FLUNKED first grade, you didn't "make" the second grade.
George W. got shot down by a drug dealer at a frat party once. He deserves a lot of credit too.
@Anony1:01, lol at WORKOUT pOUTINES! So pleased that 'tu te souviens'.
@mac, when you make meringues, you have to UNYOKE your eggs.
@Alias, breath not quite bated but did note some coffin wheeze. Got the HANGOUT, but haven't thought of a dog SPOT since Dick & Jane. Also had somehow never realized that Punch and Judy were an item. Long live perversity!
@Billy C, you give some good comment when you aren't railing about @GeorgeB.
New government agents, AMEn, EnCITED my outburst of profanity when I should have been EXCITED. YOUBET ALOAD ICAN LIE, but it was a DNF.
@Leapy --
If George B would stick to discussing the blog's topic and related offshoots, rather than promoting his own puzzles, he wouldn't need railing against.
Surprised to see that nobody has educated Rex on CPR kits yet. They are very helpful to carry if you are trained in the technique, and enable people to save someone's life without risking transmission of disease.
FARSI FONT
HOTPINK EXCITES me
when you PUTITON,
but you’ll be SOSORRY
if they ESPY it in TEHRAN.
--- SOFIA MARKS
Lotsa Ys and Us and Ks, but no real yuks in this puz. No joy for me. Serviceable solve, but flat.
GERI the Spicegirl, well they’re intentional yeah babies. In Russia they call such girl groups “singing knickers”.
Actress Vergara too easy for SOFIA? Yeah baby. Especially in HOTPINK.
Nothing really EXCITES me about this puzzle. FINEART it is not.
You know you're old when...:
You see the clue "Singing Perry" and you immediately think COMO.
Or STEVE, what a set of pipes! But that's five.
Not a lot to scintillate the solver today; I do agree the experience would be enhanced with better wackclues on the themers. I don't know lacrosse, but hockey is close enough. On the attack, the defensemen are at the corners of the zone, or "points."
It was moved off easy to easy-medium for me by the difficulty in parsing TYPEB. All these entries that include a single letter give me fits--like ONEA (well, that one's so old it doesn't any more). But for a long while I didn't put in ATTABOY because what's "laid-back" ending in B? Similarly, I resisted PUTITON and KAYOED. Only, finally, after I realized that it was AMEX and EXCITES, the T gave it to me. Oh, TYPE [space] B. *groan* and then *grrr*
A perfect grade for a Wedensday: C.
Only false start here was ignITES, but was saved by knowing 1A just couldn't end in "i",and was EXCITed when I got the wanted word. Like @Spacecraft, I,m with those that make an instant Como/Perry connection, but I already had the Y from ESPY, and, somehow, the more modern KATY came to mind.
Can't ha robot just won't stop spinning. These golden words maybe lost forever!
I thought it was CHECKAREGISTRAR. That would have been better I think.
Me too! At least it was solvable with no googles and a tiny bit crunchy. Me likey!
Post a Comment