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El Amazonas, e.g. / SUN 3-8-15 / Subject of a prophecy in Genesis / Israeli diet / English author Blyton / One end of the hotline / Betide / Beast imagined in "Beasts of the Southern Wild" / Smith of "Downton Abbey"
Sunday, March 8, 2015
Constructor: Tom McCoy
Relative difficulty: Sunday-ish
THEME: PI DAY — Rebus squares contain the symbol for pi, which reads as the letters "PI" for the down answers and as "TT" (which it kind of looks like) in the across answers.
Hey, everyone. PuzzleGirl here filling in on this glorious weekend. Seriously, it was like in the 40s here in the D.C. area today. A welcome 9-Down from the crazy cold and snow we've been dealing with lately. Rex is at the Finger Lakes puzzle tournament today and asked me to join you with the Sunday puzzle, which, of course, I'm delighted to do. So let's get to it.
Theme answers:
- 23A: RO[TT]EN EGG (The last one in, perhaps)
- 26A: MAD HA[TT]ER ("Why is a raven like a writing desk?" asker)
- 29A: GUIL[T T]RIPS (Shames into action)
- 117A: TA[TT]LE (Snitch)
- 120A: DO[TT]ED (Like two lowercase letters of the alphabet)
- 3D: TY[PI]CALLY (As is usual)
- 9D: RES[PI]TE (Breather)
- 15D: RA[PI]D-FIRE (How questions may be asked)
- 102D: STU[PI]D (Cry exclaimed while facepalming)
- 105D: UTO[PI]A (More work)
- 69A/94A/72A HOW I WISH I COULD CALCULATE PI EASILY (A mnemonic for the first eight digits of [symbol in the middle of the grid])
This puzzle wasn't particularly easy for me, but I did finish it eventually. The ETRUSCAN / TOKYO / LICKED / PLAYER (76A: Like much of Italy in 700 B.C. / 81A: ___ Bay, site of a historic Admiral Perry visit of 1853 / 66D: Trounced / 67D: Ladies' man) section was the last to fall. But fall it did and I cried: "Victory is mine! Bring me the finest muffins and bagels in all the land!" Okay, not really. I don't actually get that excited about finishing puzzles, plus it's not breakfast time. But you get the idea.
- 41A: Bully on "The Simpsons" (NELSON) — HAha!
43A: "THERE'S no doubt" — This seems really random to me. I mean, I'm sure this is a phrase people say, but it's not really a thing, is it? "___ no 'I' in team" would work for me. Or "___ gold in them thar hills." "___ more where that came from." "___ no place like home." "___ no crying in baseball." "___ one in every crowd." I think I've made my point.
46A: 2009 Newbery-winning author Gaiman (NEIL) — I always get Neil Gaiman confused with Neil Postman, who was also a writer. As far as I can tell, the things they wrote about don't overlap At All, so I'm not sure why they live in the same part of my brain. Besides the obvious.
- 71A: XV years before the Battle of Hastings — Now, see, that's just not fair.
- 88A: It never starts with 666 (SSN) — Who knew?
- 103A: Computing pioneer Lovelace (ADA) — I've seen a couple articles recently about a campaign to take Andrew Jackson off the $20 bill and replace him with a woman. I think Ada Lovelace would be a good choice.
107A: It's revolting (MUTINY) — Good clue.
- 108A: One way of learning, it's said (OSMOSIS) — Is this for real? I think when I've heard the phase "learning by osmosis" it's been said in jest. Wikipedia says:
An example of social osmosis would be knowing a show exists that you have never seen, and yet possessing detailed information concerning aspects of the show without actively acquiring this knowledge ....
Well that sounds like crossword puzzles to me! - 113A: Belch (ERUCT) — Pretty sure I've never seen this word before. (Eruct, not belch. I've seen the word belch before.)
- 123: 1/2, for one (DATE) — I like this tricky clue. I read it as "one-half" instead of "January 2," which I assume you did too and that was the whole point.
- 39D: Frat pack member Ben (STILLER) — Others in the frat pack: Jack Black, Owen Wilson, Luke Wilson, Will Ferrell, Vince Vaughn, and Steve Carell. Now you know.
- 58D: Threatens, as a king (CHECKS) — Love me a good chess clue.
59D: "HOGAN'S Heroes" — I believe I would be horrified to watch this show today and recall how much it made me laugh back when I was a kid. On a side note, PuzzleDaughter has a teacher named Mr. Klink. Whenever she mentions him I say "You mean, Colonel Klink?" and I laugh hysterically. She rolls her eyes and waits for me to finish. (That last part actually happens a lot around here.)
Love, PuzzleGirl
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112 comments:
Love love love this puzzle.
Morning, PG – thanks for
H
I
PI NCH
I
N
G
for us here in Rexville. Your write-ups are always a pleasure!
One look at the grid (I hadn't even noticed the title yet) and I ANGSTed. I can subtract 15 from 1066, convert it to Roman numerals, and pretty much call it a day.
So when I saw half of the trick very early at RAPID FIRE, I felt a little more confident. I was also confident that there was more funny business betiding us here than a simple straightforward rebus. It all fell into place with the STUPID/TATTLE cross. Love it!!!!
Early goofs:
"Affleck" before STILLER. I think Affleck looks more like a frat guy. I think he was in ADA Bita PI.
"Junk" before AUTO.
"Bear" before BOAR
"Erupt" before ERUCT.
"Marie" before ELDER ;-)
"It's me" before IT IS I ;-)
"UNC, again, at the hand of Duke last night" before LICKED. Noooooooooooo!
"edited" before ERASED - my favorite goof
I thought I had a dnf because I don't know the mnemonic and was parsing it PIE AS I LY.
I get the whole LYING ON/laying on thing…
She was LYING ON the PELT, laying on the GUILT.
But faced with committing to any form of awaken, waked, woke up, wake up, waked up, bewake, or AWOKEN ( I don't think I even knew this was a real word), I'll tap dance right over to the "was I too loud?" route.
114D – shout out to Brad Wilber, a real cruciverbal PLAYER. ("Bad Ass" wasn't in the grid.)
I'm leaving shortly for a while and don't have time to wait until safely past the breakfast test time, so do not click on this if you're going be IRRITABLE at something this immature and STUPID.
114A
Mr. McCoy – cool grid art, fun Sunday exercise even for this affirmed nonmather.
What a great puzzle!! Saw the Pi right away when I printed it out. Took a while to figure out the rebuses but it all came together.
Happy spring everyone...I know it's not official but it's getting there
Good puzzle. A bit harder (for me) than the usual Sunday (that's a good thing!). Solved the puzzle (one error:REm for REP, too much Latin in my life)), but had to Google to figure out how the sentence is a mnemonic (it's the number of letters in each word -- head slap). There's even a mnemonic for 15 places of pi.
loved the puzzle (and write up), but don't get "tout" for "ballyhoo".
This is a terrific puzzle by @Tom McCoy, and nice writeup by @Puzzle Girl. So much to like. Nerds and geeks throughout the land are particularly excited by the coming Pi Day, for reasons best delineated on this T-shirt.
If you'll indulge me (and are looking for more to do with your lost hour this weekend), my friends and I wish a hearty Maazel Tov! to an important member of the crossword constructing community, who celebrated a birthday this past Friday (March 6). Our puzzle is jam full of names, but nary a rapper. Hope you enjoy it!
For me, getting the TT was as EASY AS PIE. Getting the rest was AS EASY AS PI, harder but doable.
Anon 8:32 ballyhoo can be used as a verb - synonym for tout, as in "a much ballyhooed movie".
Great puzzle with a very clever theme. Two nits:
I got stuck for a long time with EdUCT/AUdAL. I just could not accept that ERUCT could be a word. AURAL is obscure enough, but ERUCT is a WOE.
I don't think that AUTO YARD is a thing. Junk yard, ok, but let's not make up stuff. Both words are perfectly fine words and clever clues could be thought up for each, but they should not have been tied together.
That said, discovering the theme on this was an aha. The TT on my app looks just like a pi -- pretty cool idea. At first I objected that pi day is still almost a week away but my wife said "Stop being such a curmudgeon!" She says that a lot these days. It's a Sunday puzzle and next Sunday would be too late. Maybe we'll get another pi theme on actual pi day!
Two write-overs: 84 D, Ballyhoo, had TO DO before TOUT, going from the "commotion" meaning to the "promotion" meaning; and 73 D (hi, lms!), JUNK before AUTO. Interestingly, in the NYT Magazine, eight pages before the puzzle is an article titled "Darwin's JUNKyard"!
I thought it was a good puzzle, and I have some nerd credentials (those years at MIT, etc.), but I have always found the word "nerd" pejorative, and I have always had an irrational, nay, transcendental, hatred of the concept of "Pi Day." Just have. No discussion. De gustibus non est disputandum.
Can someone explain the answer to 105D?
more work = utopia?
Saw the pie sign in the center of the grid and immediately figured the "theme". Solved most of the puzzle but the rebus trick absolutely stumped me. I had DOTED for 120A and UTOTA for 105D. Same problem in NW. Put NORMALLY at 3D because I could not fit TYPICALLY.
On top of that I entered KNISHES instead of KNESSET for Israeli diet.
Now can anyone explain how the mnemonic tells me the first 8 digits of PI?
Great writeup Puzzle Girl.
There is nothing better than pi with your morning coffee, even if you are mourning that you lost an hour (not in account of the puzzle, but the time change).
Anon @9:31 - The number of letters in each word corresponds to the number it represents. Thus "how" with three letters is the number 3.
Thomas More wrote Utopia
I shared early goofs with Loren.
My only beef is cluing on 54A, which I eventually backed into - but still lame
Lot's of fun.
I'm a robot
Anon @9:38
Thanks for the clear explanation.
Fun solve, between figuring out the theme, and some tricky cluing. Solid puzzle. I would have liked one more tt in the puzzle in the bottom half to match the three on the top half.
Enjoyed this one. Mrs. 'mericans and I shared this one about equally. Like others had several write-overs. But, generally, good, solid fill and some clever cluing.
Am on a train back from Nice, so won't be able to post the further adventures of Matt "Deadeyes" Esaquare until around 16:30 EDST.
However, in case you missed it, there was an installment last Sunday, but not until about 12:30 EST.
Factoid: Two ways to tell if you have a ROTTENEGG: a) If it floats, it's rotten b) Hold it up to your ear and gently shake it; If you hear sloshing, it's probably rotten.
Quotoid: "Where THERE'S a will - there's a relative!" -- Ricky Gervais
BTW: ERUCTation is a word that has gained more currency in recent years, at least among environmental specialists. Among the leading sources of greenhouse gasses from agriculture are eructations and flatulence from ruminants (cows, sheep, etc.). I suppose it sounds more scientic to use those words instead of "belches" and "farts".
I also loved, loved, loved this puzzle! It was not only clever and imaginative in construction, but also a real delight to solve.
I got the PI = TT theme almost immediately, at TYPICALLY/ROTTEN EGG, but couldn't figure out why. I mean I've heard of PI R Squared, but not PI T Squared. I wondered whether the TT was a fixed substitute or whether it would change throughout the puzzle. At RESPITE/GUILT TRIPS, I saw it was a constant, but still didn't know why. And then, POW, the huge double T in the center of the grid design, looking for all the world like a great big Greek PI, hit me in the face like a ton of bricks. (As I've mentioned before in this space, I am the most un-visual person who ever lived; I just don't notice things, even when they're staring me in the face.) That was my biggest aha moment
of all, because now the TT substitution made complete sense.
Adding to my huge enjoyment of the trick was the liveliness of the fill -- completely avoiding any arcane proper names and titles
and instead boasting colorful words and phrases like EYESORES, CRAPSHOOT, PLAYER (for ladies' man)and RAPID FIRE. I feel that the Sunday Puzzle has been stronger and more interesting than ever in the last month or so, and this one is perhaps my very favorite of them all.
The PITT rebus should have been accepted, IMO. PI working one way and TT working the other, while not as elegant as just the TT, is just as serviceable. So I actually technically DNF because I knew my rebi were correct, but didn't really care enough to figure out how they were "wrong" so I hit the reveal button. Not much difference between what I had and what they had.
And for anyone who would claim that "PITT" (as in Brad) wasn't really true to the theme, I would probably agree to some extent...but there are many facets to this theme...you have your mnemonic, you have your TT/PI thingy along with the design in the grid itself, and you have "FILLING" which doesn't seem to line up with the rest of the puzzle. Just one big PI/PIE/TT fest.
Otherwise, good Sunday solve. Not easy, not outlandishly difficult...a nice way to wake up.
An enjoyable puzzle by and large and a nice blog. @PuzzleGirl: my car thermometer registered 51 degrees driving in my part of the greater DC area. I had no idea Hogan's Heroes had found a new audience, which proves "I KNOW NOTHING!!"
I caught on to the rebus pretty early on but this took a while because I headed down some blind alleys (like on the way to the AUTO/JUNK YARD).
Sorry, but:
How=3
I=1
Wish=4
PI=2 or is it 1?
Easily= 6
I=1
Could=5
Calculate=9
So, it's a mnemonic in which you skip two words? No wonder I was never good at math...
Clever misdirects, many do-overs. Love the PI down and TT across. All the little 'pi's I dutifully entered had to go. Felt STUTTD (facepalming? New to me).
TOUT - Too long stuck on TODO, as in "Well, here's a to-do, girls". Works both ways, but, on reflection, TOUT's more on point (Hi @Anon 8:32).
One quibble - Why BOAR? Found an interview where all is revealed (sort of):
http://voices.nationalgeographic.com/2012/07/17/the-story-behind-beasts-of-the-southern-wild/
Fav of the day - ERUCT. Pardon me.
Spring is finally on the track. Happy EDT, CDT, PDT, et.al., to all! And thanks, Mr. McCoy and @PuzzleGirl.
There goes @Prof Barany again, promoting one of his puzzles here, rather than just putting them on his site and having OFL list his site on the sidebar with the other accomplished constructors -- none of whom have the bad grace to litter the blog-post area. Hm-m-mph!
All this praise and no answer to Anonymous 9:28 AM. Whether the puzzle was likable or not really doesn't matter to me, but can anyone explain the answer to 105D?
more work = utopia?
And while you're at it, what's with 29A?
shames into action = guilt trips?
Is "trips" used as a verb here? That doesn't bother anyone? Anyone?
@Anon 10:35
It's...How I wish I could calculate pi easily.
And there is pie in pi easily...wonder what kind??
@Lewis --
Re your "Where there's a will ... " quotation, that form of wordplay is called a paraprosdokian. Now don't you feel edified?
Another version is: "Where there's a will ... I want to be in it."
AND you can draw on your puzzle and make a π.
I like the theme and the trick of having to read the down π as "pi," which really messed with my head at times. I also suspect that the Mighty Masked One will love this because it is really 9 or so Runtz jammed into one Sunday Sized Grid.
My personal favorite? Why MLXVI-XV of course. How could anyone not love love love your RRN mixed in with a little British Art/Military History.
Re Ada Lovelace for the $20, nice thought except for her being British.
No matter how well-liked a puzzle is, there's always someone who's not crazy about it. Today, I'm that someone.
Maybe it's because Pi Day doesn't excite me. Maybe it's because my mind never has been wired to find mnemonics useful (other than a couple that were so ingrained - ROYGBIV and every good boy does fine for the bars on the treble scale - they usually interfere with my remembering something rather than aiding me. Maybe it's because this is the first time I've ever heard of a mnemonic for pi.
Whatever it was, the theme didn't grab me enough to make up for the compromises in fill needed to make it work. Although, I will say Tom McCoy did do a good job of keeping things relatively clean for this style of puzzle, and there was some nice cluing. But still, for me, this was a middling puzzle.
@Anon 10:46 a.m.: The UTOPIA question was answered at 8:40 a.m. And, yes, you can guilt trip someone into using 29A as a verb, because that's what everyone else is doing and why don't you call your mother more?
@Anon10:46 - That Sir Thomas More wrote UTOπA was answered earlier. And the verb is "GUILT TRIPS" as in, "My mother GUILT TRIPS us into calling her once a week."
@Billy C - I believe @LMS is our resident expert on paraprosdokians.
@Steve J - Great minds think alike and all that....
And for the record - my mom was never a guilt trip sort.
How I need a drink (alcoholic, of course) after the heavy chapters involving quantum mechanics.
The International NYT print edition had a couple of differences from the online edition: 123A was clued with a real fraction - (superscript) 1 (slash) (subscript) 2, and AUTO / YARDS was clued together - 73 &79 [Place to get spare parts].
Neither was a real problem, and I loved many clues, like 11 and 12 Down, [More work], and [It always points down].
82A was KoshEr -> KNiShEs -> KNESSET, another great clue.
@BillyC - For the umpteenth time, George B asked Rex for permission to do what he does, Rex granted it. Feel free to ignore all of George's posts if you must, but beating a dead horse is useless, objectively cruel if the horse were innocent in the first place.
Love me a good double-rebus !
Got it right at 23A - that is ust too familiar a phrase to NOT give it away...
I was a math and physics major, but never heard that mnemonic.
The first 6 digits I know by OSMOSIS, but I had to SUSSOUT the phrase in order to finish, having only ETRUSCAN and jUnk as gimmes in that section.
Kept on parsing the phrase at PIE too, until I realized the last part *had* to be a six. (Hi @lms!)
And, just like the first six digits of PI are burned in, 1066 is too - I think it was knowing that it is also the date of a rare early-documented supernova - some of you may know its remnants - the Crab Nebula. You're welcome.
Another sign that AUGURS spring - the ICICLEs! - HOWIWISH they, and their ice damns, would disappear before I become a MADHATTER.
Thanks for a really fine Sunday, Mr. McCoy! I am in UTOTTA!
Hey All !
This coming Saturday is not only Pi Day, but THE Pi Day, because the date is 3/14/15, as in 3.1415! Only happens once a century! Go out and celebrate! (By eating pie? Pizza or dessert, I spose.)
Liked this SunPuz. There's a lot of threes, but can overlook because of cool theme. Had empty squares strewn about, knowing the answer that should be in, but it not being able to fit. SUSSed OUT the rebus at last at STUPID/TATTLE. I said the same thing as PG, Whats with Brad Pitt? :-) Finally figured out the PI/TT rebus (and yes, I wrote them both in, so nyah!) and said, Whoa, cool! That got me the whole N section, as had everything else filled, with plenty of white space up top.
@LMS's hippo video! What a toot! Thank goodness for no smell-a-vision!
A few clues were stretchy, KREMLIN being one, but I can sorta see it. Thanks to some for UTOPIA answer! Don't know (Mr-Mrs?)More.
Also was trying PIE A???? till I figured out the mnemonic!
ERRRRRRRRRRUCT (excuse me!)
RooMonster
DarrinV
Being mathematically challenged I always take a deep breath when I know the theme is math related, but today, no worries, just lots of fun aha moments!
This puzzle gave me a perfectly delicious big piece of PI with my morning TT.
Thank you, Tom McCoy!
Oh, and PuzzleGirl, thanks to you, too ... you are always a welcome. Maybe you should take over the second Monday of every month! Rex?
No ANGST here as this one was a lot of fun to SUSSOUT. Even the FILL was okay; the clue for SSN was devilishly clever, as well as KFC and DRS.
ERUCTile dysfunction, anyone?! Sorry, I couldn't help myself. Must be the bright sunshine and melting ICICLEs making me giddy today.
Whoever had 'knishes' in lieu of KNESSET, I like your thinking.
Being math averse, I am pleasantly surprised at how easily the theme answers came to me. Not feeling STUpiD or IRRITABLE is a good way to start the week.
Thanks, TM and WS. Tis was the best Sunday puzz. of the new year, IMO.
I had the same experience as Puzzle Girl, except in my case the entire rest of the grid was filled in before I realized that the "TT" was supposed to be pi.
This was a lot of fun, and pretty hard. Also, what a treat to then go to the blog and read a not-so-glum review. How refreshing!
I was expecting "This was a slog and an insult, I've seen this gimmick before."
@Tita, I am right with you today: six quarters of college math and had never heard the mnemonic; my Pi memorization stopped at the 5th decimal and I was stuck on that PI EASILY spot due to my getting spare parts from the jUnk (then jUnO) YARD.
I appreciate the explanations of 105D - even though I read the Hilary Mantel books recently, I would have never gotten that one.
Thanks, Mr. McCoy, for the fun Sunday. A double rebus, timely theme, some RRN arithmetic, and nice, clean FILLING. Liked the clue for KREMLIN, and seeing SCUD as clued rather than a missile.
@Tita: The key astronomical event of 1066 was the appearance of what we now know as Halley's comet. According to NASA the supernova that created the Crab Nebula was observed in 1054.
Nice puzzle -- zippy and fun. Loved the Brad PITT photo in the write-up. Apropos of nothing, but with March Madness nearing, it reminded me of when an early-round game featured Pittsburgh (higher seed and therefore the designated "home" team) against Bradley. The scoreboard graphic on CBS was:
BRAD
PITT
Greetings from sunny Captiva, far from the snows of Boston. There were a couple of times yesterday when we thought we wouldn't make it -- subway stopped for "police action," plane stopped for faulty standby generator -- but here we are. Slept late, though, even without the time change.
Thanks, @PG, I never say the TT looks like Pi thing until your writeup. I still didn't finish, because I stuck with the AD REm error; figured OmERAS were some kind of weird business acronym. I did try 'cattle,' but when that wouldn't work I let it go. I'm an OPERA fan, too.
Hardest part for me was the mideast, because I was solving at the breakfast table while peeling an orange. It turns out a little orange juice on the outside of your little finger will erase the ink from the grid, so it took me a while to see that 93A was there at all, rather than its being 3 cheater squares.
AUTO zone before YARD, ITs me before IT IS I, otherwise more or less OK.
Love the IOTA/ETUI crossing!
OK, enough of that, off to the beach!
Forgot 2 things -
to thank Puzzle Girl for a great write-up,
and to mention that MIT is posting admissions results on 3/14/15 @ 9:26am.
They also might be planning to deliver the letters by drone - google it for cool/weird video.
(Not as offensive - or interesting - as @lms'!!)
Oh, we nerds know how to have a good time...
Fun! My first glance at the grid revealed a walrus with its tusks, but then I looked at the puzzle's title and the walrus maw was transformed into a PI sign.
I caught on to the TT/PI rebus early but had a lot of trouble with the mnemonic, which I wasn't familiar with - especially since the first "word" of it that I had was PIE. I was expecting some sort of word play rather than letter count, even though the one mnemonic for PI that I do know counts letters:
Que j'aime à faire apprendre un nombre utile aux sages!
Immortel Archimède, artiste ingénieur.
Not that it's ever been useful, but it sounds lovely.
Agree with gpoconnor at 12:02. To borrow PuzzleGirl's phrase, it was a welcome 9 down. Sometimes Rex's write-ups can be so 34 across!
Clue reads, With 94-and 72- Across..., meaning the order of the saying is 69 Across, 94 Across, 72 Across.
Roo
Really clever somewhat crunchy Sunday puz. Missed an Audi TT which might have added another smile to the solve.i
Nice to be getting S[pi]ky on Sunday. Just a little pi in the sky.
Loved it, from A to Z.
Good puzzle (maybe even great), and a wonderful and enjoyable write-up. With any luck, OFL will be out of town next Sunday as well.
It took me forever to suss out the double rebus, but once I did the remaining clues fell. Very enjoyable solve.
Thanks and a tip of the hat to Tom McCoy and Will Shortz.
Good puzzle (maybe even great), and a wonderful and enjoyable write-up. With any luck, OFL will be out of town next Sunday as well.
It took me forever to suss out the double rebus, but once I did the remaining clues fell. Very enjoyable solve.
Thanks and a tip of the hat to Tom McCoy and Will Shortz.
This was fun! Both the puzzle, and PG's review. I got a little indigestion from KFC two days in a row, but otherwise I have no complaints.
It was fun to learn the mnemonic, and made total sense to publish the puzzle on the Sunday prior to π day, 3/14/15. Next Sunday would have been a day late. Of the π entries RAπDFIRE was my favorite, and STUπD is as STUπD does. Speaking of mnemonics, there are many versions, and the "science" of creating them is called πphilology, and those in poetic form are called πems. I like "How I need a drink, alcoholic in nature, after the tough chapters involving quantum mechanics!" and the πem:
Pie.
I wish I could determine pi
Eureka, cried the great inventor
Christmas pudding, Christmas pie
Is the problem's very center.
Other languages are not immune either. Here's one I especially liked:
Bír-e, érez-e ember nyugalmat,
Ha lelkét nehéz bús emlék zaklatja.
Szüntelen felhőbe burkolózó idő az,
Ami változni ámha akarna se tudhat,
Mert azt nem írhattya már le halandó kívánsága.
But enough πetry.
Sir Thomas More (1478-1535) was NOT beheaded because he wrote UTOπA, but the REDS in KREMLIN would have canonized him if they believed in saints, for giving them the ammunition to eradicate all private property. Aren't AWOKEN and AROSE the same? As Gertrude Stein said, "Rose is AROSE is AROSE is AROSE." ASCENTS and COMINGS felt a bit clumsy, but the delicious π FILLING made up for it. The grid FILLING was very clean too, aside from an ETUI here, an MLI and ASSOC there, and the fact that my old PAL, George PAL, was snubbed again. Such is life in the big city...
Here is a portion of Cavalleria rusticana by πetro Mascagni.
Enjoy your Sunday!
Knew it was easy but took a while to break the double rebus.
Great puzzle but maybe should have run next Sunday being closer to TT day.
When teaching geometry had tons of fun with approximating Π.
Never heard of AUTO YARD but it makes sense.
Easy to confuse erupt and ERUCT.
SYNOD is a good piece of crosswordEASE.
Thanks TM.
Yo, @PuzGirl! Outstandin writeup. Luv all the bullets, and figurin out all the accompanyin pics. Just like sussin out @muse's avatar, each day. Still tryin to get a handle on the West Wing clip, tho ...
All that, and a great SunPuz to solve, all in yer one rodeo! PI ALAMODE Day. Yummers. M&A is immediately on board with that there PG "Victory is mine. Bring me the finest ___ in all the land!" attitude. (My pastry may of course vary.)
Nice central weeject five-stack. 3.14 of em was actual words, too!
M&A
"Bring Me the Finest Runtz in All the Land!"
** gruntz **
I loved it. I would have loved it even if I weren't a math nerd. Five symmetrically placed rebus squares, clever cluing, fresh words. Terrific.
I'm not familiar with the mnemonic. I just emailed my brother to ask if he knows it. He's a pi aficionado. I think that he's memorized the first fifty or so digits of its decimal expansion.
I just pulled The Number Pi by Eymart and Lafon out of my bookshelf. It's over 300 pages crammed with mathematics which involve pi. Virtually none of which is about its decimal expansion.
Archimedes (287-212 BC) was the first to establish it as a constant used to calculate the area and circumference of a circle. It wasn't until 1766 that pi was proved to be irrational. Since it is irrational (not representable as a fraction), its decimal expansion doesn't conform to any pattern.
I could have sworn the author of 106D spelled his name Moore. I'm not sure, it is, after all, Daylight Saving Time Sunday and I never sleep well during the transition, but I believe UTOTIA, when I looked at it, gave me the π trick; I had left the single Ts knowing that they had to be rebuses but I was waiting to see how that trick would play out. I pondered a while over the mnemonic clue until I read it again and realized that the answer was not in numerical order; I'd never heard that there was a mnemonic for π but after reading 69A, it was easy to figure out.
In my life, I've been to a lot of junk YARDs; I've also been to wrecking YARDs (in Australia),scrap YARDs and salvage YARDS but I've never been to an AUTO YARD. I get the idea of the clue but I think I might have preferred the alternates suggested above.
Over at xwordinfo.com, Tom McCoy tells us that this puzzle is a tribute to Martin Gardner, author of The Annotated Alice a "study guide" to Alice in Wonderland and Throug the Looking Glass. For some reason, when I was 18 I realized I'd never read AIW and TTLG so I occupied the time I was condemned to spend in study hall with them. I was absolutely entranced. Not long after that, on a trip to the city (SF), in a book store on Union Square, I found Martin Gardner's book and had to have it. In those days, it was my most treasured book. It was there that I learned that it was the mercury in beaver PELTs that made HAπERS MAD.
Thanks, Tom, for the engaging puzzle and the wonderful flashback!
I agree wth @demit, and others who liked this. For the longest time I couldn't remember what the "Last one in..." is, but when I did, I got the rebus, and it was all fun from there on.
From just above here (12:48), it looks like we're in for a battle of anonymice. @12:48, I guess I'm a moron too. There is a misdirection in the revealer clue at 69A, which says, "with 94 and 72 across..." But the tendency -- I did it, too, is to read 72A before 94A, which not only produces a nonsense string of words, but also doesn't give you pi when you look at the word lengths.
So on behalf of all morons who have the temerity to ask questions, I apologize. Now go away.
And thank you Mr. McCoy and Puzzlegirl.
Great puzzle. Terrific write-up. I remember a Sunday NYT puzzle from the '70s with the same title, but the rebus read PI both across and down. I enjoyed this version much more.
SUSSOUT brought @Casco Kid to mind.
Another possible theme: the Greek letter phi looks like a circle with a vertical line through it. In a grid that would be be a square with a circle containing an I. Phi is called the golden number because of its relation to the golden mean.
Ok, one more comment and I'll try not to write like James Agee. I believe sometimes I do run on. @Puzzle Girl, I really enjoyed your write-up. I came to the page with trepidation wondering how Rex was going to trash this bit of fun. When I saw "Sunday-ish," my heart sank. It seemed to me that OFL had already started in. I was so pleased to see your "Hey, everyone." Thanks, PG.
I know I shouldn't engage the trolls but @Anon 12:48, It takes one to know one. Shall we expect a playground retort?
@Tom McCoy, has anyone mentioned that you look alot like Jim Carrey?
Love the puzzle. Also love that if you connect the top "tt" squares ("rotteneggs" "mad matter" and "guilttrips") across the puzzle, then use the outside "tt" squares to draw lines down, you get another "pi" symbol. And one that actually has the slight squiggle shape of a Pi symbol in many typefaces. Does that makes sense? That the top bar is almost a tilde shape? Couldn't be a coincidence. I might be reading more into it than the constructor intended, but it is a very fun puzzle.
Phew....finally finished but had to work hard to do so.
Caught on immediately at TYpiCALLY/ROttEN EGG. Ooooh it's PI. Then a mnemonic!!!
My grandmother taught me a ton of mnemonics (even how to pronounce it!) so that I could remember things. The very first one was "My Very Excited Mother Just Served us Nine Pies" so now I'll never forget the order of our planets...
@Horace S. I also remember the How I Like a Drink....!
Some of the fill was just plain hard. I had a question mark at AUTO YARD (Hi @Numi) ERUCT ASSOC and IS IT I... KFC(again!) took forever and I read Arrivals as CO MINGS. LYING ON just did not look right - that whole middle gave me ANGST but finally was able to finish.
@Loren. I thought for sure you were going to RICKROLL us. Instead you showed us some RAppID FIRE there girl.... ;>)
I want my hour back...Enjoy the sun all.
@Tita: you probably know that Halley's Comet (not a super-nova) is depicted on the Bayeux Tapestry, a woven account of 1066, or MLXVI. @Roo: neither Mr nor Mrs, but Sir Thomas if you're a Prot. or Saint Thomas if you're a Cath. Marvelous play/movie about him - "A Man For All Seasons." I didn't know the mnemonic, but, as a non-mathematician, I've always been content with a memorized 3.1416. I didn't catch on 'til UTOTTIA, and even then it took me a while to see the distinction between acrosses and downs in the PI's. Pretty damn clever puzzle. How I weary of the pettiness of the anti Barany, anti Rex rants, but other blogs have demonstrated to me that this is the new way for cranks to spout. How sad.
@Steve J & Fred R
- thanks - yes - I've seen the Bayeux Tapestry - though I don't believe it is Halley's comet, as he wouldn't even be born for a 100 years... ;)
The supernova was visible for 2 years - in my mind, I conflate it with the Battle of Hastings year. (It also confused Messier, so I'm in good company...)
It has been documented in petroglyphs (we think) and by Chinese & Arab astronomers.
Speaking of the Middle East, has anyone heard from ArcheoProf? The recent abomination in Nimrud had me thinking about him.
@NCA Prez: Am I right in thinking that most opera music is written in flats because it's easier to get to the high notes?
@Tita: surely Halley's comet had an existence before Halley was born.
You guys are all so smart -- I just love coming here. I did George Barany's puzzle (is it treason to mention that here? will the mice attack me like in "Ben" or "Willard", whatever that movie was? They were rats, but so are so many of the anonymous posters...)
Anyway, I neglected to read down to @George's link to do it on AcrossLite, and printed the web page. That would have been okay, but my almost brand new printer, just a couple of weeks past the 30 day return policy, decided it was time for the fuser not work, or, almost work, until I started solving and the black squares started coming off on my hand. That stuff is super toxic, I believe. Darn.
@George, how about a Puzzazz version, in case I survive the toner?
Looking forward to Monday.
Thank heaven for this blog. If I had not come here I would never have known what TT was all about. I knew it had to be read that way but I couldn't see any reason why.
I have heard many operas with many more accidentals in the performance than are on the page. I call them incidental accidentals.
Like the puzzle but the so-called mnemonic seems more difficult to remember than the actual first eight digits in pi. The secret is doing it in three chunks:
three-point-one-four
one-five-nine
two-six
How easy is that? Plus it includes the decimal---"point"---while the "How I wish..." doesn't.
Now if I could just remember the stupid mnemonic for the stupid time changes, something about "leaping forward, falling down, and springing back", right?
AYE arrived a few minutes early at the restaurant to SUSS the place OUT. It was one of those up-scale joints with ELM panelling darkened by years of exposure to cigar smoke. Customers sat in private booths, but ate off of starched white tablecloths (most DOTTED with barely discernible, bleached-out wine stains). A real HAPPENin' place, and a big step up from my usual fare, which was as often as not KFC.
As I AWAITed Maria I PLAYERed with my iPhone. "SARI, why is a raven like a writing desk?"
"It's SIRI, STUPID! ... Checking ... A writing desk is a rest for pens and a raven is a pest for wrens."
And all this time I thought it had something to do with an ES CROW.
Maria arrived promptly at eight. "You're a sight for EYE SORES!," I exclaimed in welcome. She looked at me quizzically as she slipped into the other side of the booth.
"So, Maria," I asked, leaning closer, "How's your research on the local DONS?"
"You're not big on PRELIMS, are you?," she sighed. She looked over her shoulder and then her answer came RAPID FIRE. "There's only one don now, name of NEIL STILLER. Woe BETIDE anybody who crosses him. The competition, I heard, is rolling in the deep. My impression is that he has WADS of dough hidden somewhere. STILLER the ELDER started out legit. The usual stuff: shipping company based in OSLO; a chain of sandwich shops -- HOGAN's Heroes -- in TOKYO. His son is into more risky ventures. Started off selling the SSNs of people recently deceased. Eventually diversified into counterfeiting EUROS and Turkish LIRA. Will even sell you a SCUD missile, if you have the cash. Rumour has it that he's in tight with the KREMLIN."
Suddenly the waiter appeared, looking IRRITABLE. His AYES were CLOSE SET and not a HAIR was out of place. "Good evening, Madam, Monsieur. May I take your order?," he enquired, with an air of insincerity.
"Whatda ya got?," I asked. The menu was in French, so picking something from it was, for me, a CRAPSHOOT.
"Our entrée du mois is soupe de lièvre aux champignons. Our house specialty for the main course is sanglier ADELE."
"Sounds good. I'll take both," I said.
"And what will madam be having?"
"I'm on the Israeli diet, and I'm avoiding METE." Maria ordered a beet-root salad and encrusted ETRUSCAN crustacean.
A few minutes later the waiter arrived with our starters and set them down with an exaggerated flourish. As he turned to go, I couldn't resist calling him back. "Hey waiter, there's a HARE in my soup!"
"How drôle," he said, barely turning his head.
(Continued below)
(Continued from above)
Maria and I CHATted through the main course and then, seemingly out of nowhere, the waiter again appeared at our booth. "Would Madam or Monsieur care for some dessert?"
"None for me," answered Maria. "Sure, what's your special for today?," I asked.
"A 3.1415926-PLY mille-feuille FILLED with ground DATEs and sprinkled with toasted SESAME SEEDS."
The dessert was so good I practically absorbed it by OSMOSIS. Forgetting myself, I even LICKED the plate.
I was SATEd, no question about it. However, it wasn't long before I began to feel queasy. An ESAUsoris had AWOKEN in the CENTER of my guts. "I think I feel an ERUCTion COMINGS ONS," I announced. (I was never good at verb conjugations.)
"Well, let's CHECKS it out!," squealed Maria, getting up from her side of the booth and sidling up close to me.
"Brrrrrrrrrrrraaaaak!" The space around me quickly filled with the smell of ROTTEN EGGS. "Phew, that 'ALPS," I said with relief.
Maria swivelled out of the booth to let it RE-AIR. "That was LETHAL!," she GASPed.
"Sorry. Wild BOAR always does that to me."
Whatever romantic thing we might have had going on there melted away like an ICICLE in July.
"Um, must get my beauty sleep. Thank you for a lovely evening," she said hastily, and skedaddled.
I leaned back against the cushioned seat and drained my wine glass. The bill for the meal was already LYING ON the table. "AWLS well that PENDS well," I sighed, to no-one in particular.
This one was in my half-way house (not really, I just wanted to use that phrase)!
This one was fun for me, although it took me about 15 minutes longer than the past several Sunday's. Thanks for the UTOPIA explanation, I thought it was a plug for communism! ;-)
Puzzle Girl did you steal my comic's Brad Pitt reference?
@Pete 11:40am – thanks for standing up for @George Barany. He is a super nice guy who loves crosswords possibly more than all of us put together. @Billy C's vitriol is mystifying, but since I have a dog in this fight (George has been nice enough to post some of my puzzles on his site), I never feel comfortable wading in.
@Billy C – feel free to email me if you want to discuss this further. My email is on my profile.
Medium-tough for me and I finished in the same place PG did (thanks for the delightful write up). Me too for junk before AUTO and I went through yew and ash to get to ELM.
Fun crunchy Sun., liked it>
Haha. Had not seen your comic yet. Great minds!
@Anoa Bob: Spring forward; fall back. (But you were just making a wee joke, I presume.)
@puzzleGirl--wish I could "like" your comment :)
liked the concept, wish they had a pi symbol, but some of the worst cluing, will should have taken over more , ioo( in our opinion)
Great one, @Hayley!
@Fred R - look carefully - you'll see a strategically-placed emoticon in my earlier post.
guess my 'joke' fell flat.
(lol - also, I just realized that I can add and subtract better in RRNs than I can in Arabic numerals - Halley was of course born ~DC years later...)
Bad joke's on me, I guess!!
omg - Halley - Hayley - PI - it's all connected!!
It was 75 and beach weather in the bay area today... Beach Weather!
I had the TT part long before I realized the second part of the rebus... Since it took me a while to get, I considered it a clever ploy and decided to like it. Fun little bit of sunday crosswordese.
That was a very enjoyable multi-layered π; thanks to McCoy & Shortz!
Thanks for the review too. One comment that hasn't been made yet is that the FITB clue for 43A:THERE'S shouldn't contain THAR, since that's a form of THERE; the other alternatives are fine, but I had no complaints about the actual "______ no doubt" either.
Since the natural Sunday for this puzzle would have been March 15 (so subscribers would get the puzzle on π Day itself), does this mean we have an Ides of March theme to look forward to next week? (Maybe the theme entries will be in Caesar cipher?
—NΔE
Just barely squeaking under the wire today, but I wanted to say I loved this Sunday puzzle so much. As great puzzles go, this was the real McCoy!
P.S. Did anybody here already note the nice touch that the puzzle's title "3.1415926..." gives exactly as many digits as the mnemonic?
—NDE
Loved! My birthday is PI day
Enjoyed mneny of the blog contributions today. After reading same, would suggest that some put their mneney where their mouth is.
Just a cashual suggestion.
Thankyou for that. I had no idea.
Spent a LONG time not liking this as I was thinking all this just for a an unknown (to me) mnemonic for the first handful of digits for Pi. Finally got the rebus at 23A and 26A almost simultaneously (ROTTEN EGG and MAD HATTER). I knew it would be "pi" going down but took me the longest time to get TYPICALLY and RAPID FIRE (really liked that one).
The others fell pretty quickly after I got it - I know there were a lot of question on 105D (UTOPIA) but thought the cluing was very clever there.
Also liked:
74A - "I Strain" - EGOMANIA
29A - Yes, GUILT TRIPS is a verb :o)
Like a couple of others had KNISHES before KNESSET.
ERUCT?????
Not bad not great but enjoyable once I got it.
Almost forgot - THANKS Puzzle Girl and again THANKS 'mericans In Paris.
Could someone please explain to me simply the mnemonic, because even after reading your comments I still don't understand how the words equal the numbers. Nice puzzle, no googling required. Nobody answered Puzzle Girl's query about "666", which was a gimme for me: during the Christian era in this country, who would have wanted wanted their Social Security Number to begin with the number of the Antichrist -- see the Wikipedia article entitled "Number of the beast" for an explanation.
@Anon 11:33 - The number of letters in the words in the mnemonic translates to pi.
HOW I WISH I COULD CALCULATE PI EASILY gives you
3 1 4 1 5 9 2 6, pi =3.1414926
Thomas More wrote "Utopia."
those who read "A Confederacy of Dunces" should have had no trouble with ERUCT - it is the only other time I've ever seen it in print.
I did well enough. Learned the hard way that augur has two "Us" and that it was Tokyo Bay that Admiral Perry visited in 1853. (Now I'm ready the next time that comes up in conversation.)
My question, however: Why is the "F" of FILLING in red in the completed puzzle above????
@Carole Brown, whichever square the cursor is on will be red. In the completed grid, the red square is the last one filled.
".. but nary a rapper. Hope you enjoy it!"
Do you have any idea how this makes you sound? It's like one of those radio stations that advertise "all the soft hits, none of the rap!"
I'm not saying everyone has to like it, or that you should be forced to have clues referring to hip-hop, but as a fan of both puzzles and hip-hop, I appreciate the occasional nod to my experience growing up. If you have a non-inclusionary approach to puzzles where you think the solver should share your knowledge of Frank Sinatra or something, that's fine, but I'm totally judging you for it. There is no "default setting" when it comes to people's experiences.
I've seen ERUCTation in print, a few times. By the way, if you want to be totally humbled about your meager vocabulary, read The Magus by John Fowles. I'm a big reader and an English Lit grad, but that novel contains several hundred words I don't know. (Didn't think it was a very good story, actually, but the vocab was amazing).
I just found out, by googling, that many (classier?) junk yards use AUTOYARD in their name.
Love @LMS's pinch-hitting grid. Perfect! Today is an anomaly in that for us syndilanders, it appeared the day after PI day: the ides of March. Why it was published real-time on the 8th is a whole nother puzzle.
I enjoyed this one; it was chock full of , well, PI FILLING. Not too easy but not too tough, either; I'd say between medium and medium-challenging.
Started, actually, with the FILLING in the middle. Went astray, quite understandably, with junk instead of AUTO YARD. Who says "Auto yard?" Answer: nobody. It's a junkyard, you dog. Let's pop the hankie out for that one. Auto yard. Terrible.
I had no idea about a mnemonic for a string of numbers (?), not even getting the concept for a while. The first part I got was in the east: PIEASILY. Huh? So then I PROCEEDed to the west wing (great show!) and found HOWIWISH. Then's when it hit me. 3.14. We're supposed to count the letters in each word of the mnemonic. 91 across!
My next venture was to the SW, where I had everything filled in except the rebus square. Pretty hard not to get what was going on after that!
Last to go was the entire north. I met resistance all along, finding a way in. It certainly didn't help that I tried IRasciBLE where IRRITABLE belonged, but eventually I got in by OSMOSIS, found two more delicious pieces of PI, and was done.
Another thing that (almost) no one says is 47 down. The lone exception is a great moment in classic film:
CAPTAIN (James Caney): [screaming] Who threw my palm tree overboard?
ENSIGN PULVER (Jack Lemmon): ITISI, Ensign Pulver! Now what's all this crud about no movie tonight?
Thus ends the hilarious "Mister Roberts."
Didn't feel the same love as so many for this puz.Probably because of all thos 3s, and a stack of 5 of them in the PI FILLING. And a shipload of 3s across the top. Buzzkill.
Our office full of engineers celebrated with pie on Thursday. I had small slices of lemon, apple-cherry, peach and blueberry.Yum.
BEFOG. Huh. Agree with @Spacey re: AUTO YARD. That's junk, actually.
Not much more to say. Happy Ides!
COMINGS
I’m IRRITABLE with my DATE,
she has LETHAL EGOMANIA.
Many GUILTRIPS for me AWAIT,
HOWIWISH there’d be UTOPIA.
And ICOULDCALCULATE
how many TIMES I was LYINGON her,
STILLER ANGST I could not SATE.
I tried to PLAYER, but nearly RECTOR.
--- MAGGIE AUGURS NELSON
Me too! The only thing I don't get is why utopia is more work.
Sir Thomas More (7 February 1478 – 6 July 1535), opposed the Protestant Reformation, in particular the theology of Martin Luther and William Tyndale. He also wrote Utopia, published in 1516, about the political system of an ideal and imaginary island nation. More opposed the King's separation from the Catholic Church, refusing to accept him as Supreme Head of the Church of England, and what he saw as Henry's bigamous marriage to Anne Boleyn. Tried for treason, More was convicted and beheaded.
My solving this was PITTiful! I won't become an egomaniac after this Sunday for sure.
I feel like a hare's PITToot after getting the rebus. I was befogged and proceeded with angst. Adding the tts across was a crapshoot for me, at best. I'm irritable, I know I've been checked and that's the PITTs! Seriously though to say tt looks like pi is a stretch!
I kind of look like Cameron Diaz with tits, but Brad Pitt wouldn't tout me!
Thanks, Burma Shave, that was smoooth.
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