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Old frozen dinner brand / SUN 7-19-15 / Rodin sculpture of couple / Physics particles named after Jame Joyce coinage / Staple of fur trade in 1700s-1800sOhio senagtor who was one of JFK's eight Profiles in Courage
Sunday, July 19, 2015
Constructor: Tom McCoy
Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging
THEME: "The Short Form" — familiar phrases have a single word abbreviated; phrase is clued as if the abbreviation were a stand-alone word:
Theme answers:
- FIRST PERSON SING (23A: "Belt it out, Adam!"?)
- DON'T GIVE AN IN (38A: "I forbid you from providing special access"?)
- POP DENSITY (42A: Your father's blockheadedneses?)
- TURN OF THE CENT (66A: Coin flip with a penny?)
- APT COMPLEX (92A: Emotional problem that is surprisingly fitting?)
- CUT QUITE A FIG (94A: Prepared some amazing Mediterranean fruit?)
- LOOK OUT FOR NO ONE (112A: Do a bad job as a watchman?)
Paulie is a 1998 Germany/American adventure fantasy film about a disobedient bird named Paulie, starring Tony Shalhoub, Gena Rowlands, Hallie Eisenberg, and Jay Mohr. Mohr performs the voice of Paulie and also plays a minor on-screen character. (wikipedia)
• • •
There appears to have been miscommunication with my substitute blogger today. I am leaving town now, so I have no time to do a proper write-up. This puzzle was hard for me. Took me and my wife a long time to grok the theme. Wasn't til I got to the LOOK OUT FOR NO ONE that I saw that the theme wasn't just lopped off letters—it was abbreviations (that could be read as words themselves). Puzzle also clued hard. Not the most satisfying solve, though core idea is clever.
Gotta go. You may get a fuller write-up from my sub in a few minutes (or hours). Or you may not. I don't know.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Facebook and Twitter]
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46 comments:
I expected Rex to open with AM I LATE?
Couldn't negotiate APT COMPLEX because I had FItS for FIES and TEsT for TEXT. Otherwise enjoyed the cleverness of this one.
Liked it - an out-of-the-ordinary theme and many other lively entries. Medium for me for getting the grid filled in, but I need to amend NO RAIN to NO bRAIN as far as completely understanding the theme goes. The first theme answer I got was CUT QUITE A FIG, and, echoing @Rex, what I saw was a truncated word but not an abbreviation. That meant that it took me a very long time to understand POP. DENSITY and APT. COMPLEX and that I had to Google "LOOK OUT FOR NO..." before I saw "number." I enjoyed the challenge of this one.
I liked how HANG IN THERE is paired with both I'M OUTTA HERE and ALL IS LOST and the little stutter step of OTT-OTTER.
APTCOMPLEX + NTUPLE + FIES + TEXT = DNF for me, but it was going great up to that point. In time, I think I would have figured it out, but at some point it's just a puzzle, a trifle, a little morning entertainment, and life has to go on.
Hope everyone has a great Sunday!
My favorite parts of this tricky puzzle were the clue for DEUCE and the long downs: HANGINTHERE, HARRUMPHS, IMOUTTAHERE, and ALLISLOST. I also like the word HEINOUS. I didn't understand the clue for PLOW, never heard anyone say PARENS or BITTERER, for that matter. The cluing had lots of bite for me, which I normally like (if it is fair and not mean), but I was in a hurry. Had I sipped and not gulped, I probably would have enjoyed this puzzle more. Maybe the lesson is that it's better to do half a puzzle where you can enjoyably drink it in than the whole one in a hurry. I was kind of like my dog, who, when he finds a rogue snack on the sidewalk, snarfs it up so fast to get it in before I can see what it is, so fast that I can't see how he enjoys it.
The theme is clever and original. Not funny and not consistent (four of the theme abbreviations come at the end, one in the beginning, and two in the middle), but so interesting to me that it was a winner.
Clever abbr. theme today, the McCoy/Shortz version of it.
I think avoiding all other abbrs. in the grid would have helped the puzzle. "PARENS patriae" could have easily outclued yet another plural abbr. along AMTS at 100A.
My favorite theme entry was LOOK OUT FOR NO. ONE because the NO. is actually the "numero" sign (№) from the Latin word numero, not a truncated version of the English word "number", thus adding an extra little twist. Also, APT. is not just a shortened from of apartment, but a true abbr. Actually "abbreviated" means "shortened" from the Latin word "brevis" for "short" as in ars longa, vita brevis. It is also the origin of the English word "brief," legal or underwear.
It is often preferred to use two-word (verb-adverb) phrases in place of single words as crossword fill, but this CAN TO appear overdone when you have an NTUPLE of them: DO TO, ICE IN, IS IN ON, SIDE ON, THIN OUT, SNEAK OUT, TUNING UP and TRUSS UP / STEPS UP / PREY ON drawing attention to themselves right in the middle. It was also hard not to notice LOOK OUT FOR NO. ONE, and not to give in to DON'T GIVE AN IN.
ORALIST? Hmm... let me think about that one. If you take off the D's from both ends of DEMOTED you get EMOTE right below it. If you add R's in their place, you get REMOTER.
Then there is BITTERER. A more BITTERER pill to swallow is hard to imagine. There is also Mel OTT and his older brother OTTER standing taller right next to him (hi @Carola). Porto wine from Porto, Portugal is PORTER than from just any port in a storm.
But it is a short life (Sp.: La vida breve). You HANG IN THERE -- I'M OUTTA HERE.
Factoid: In 2010, Brooks Conrad of the Atlanta Braves PINCH HIT two game-winning grand slam home runs, a feat no other player as done in a career, let along a single season.
Quotoid: "People have entire relationships via TEXT message now, but I am not partial to texting. I need context, nuance and the warmth and tone that can only come from a human voice." -- Danielle Steel
I didn't care for this one. Too many "at," "in," "on," etc. tags. JChen says that WS is trying lower word count Sundays and sometimes this is the kind of thing you get. I guess I just don't like the redundancy where I'll do a "ISINON" here and a "SIDEON" there, a "STEPSUP" here, a TUNINGUP there, and a "TRUSSUP" yonder. There's HANGINTHERE, DONTGIVEANIN, NORAIN, PINCHHITTER, and ICEIN...along with the aforementioned ISINON. Just too much.
Upon further review, another thing to point out that I won't go into detail about but added to the herky jerky feel of the puzzle was how many two-word entries there were. SNEAKOUT, NAMEONE, NORAIN, USERIDS, TAKETWO, etc., etc, etc. Just too many.
There were some other challenging entries for me: PAULIE, AMUR, and LEMENU. OOO should be as outlawed as random roman numerals.
Favorite word was HARRUMPHS.
@Lewis beat me to it: my favorite clue in the puzzle was the one for DEUCE. Has to be one of the best clues ever.
A very easy -- too easy -- breeze for me, until I hit the SE. Then, whoa! I spent twice as much time on that section as the 3 others combined. Not one, but two (!) Hobbit clues in a single section, plus a "math set" clue from what is obviously "New Math." (I was good at math, but I took Old Math, so this stuff is gibberish to me.) But the real reason I had such trouble is that I had FItS instead of FIES at 80D and TEsT instead of TEXT at 81D. These two mistakes kept me from seeing APT COMPLEX. (I had APT COM-LTS and was wondering what on earth that could be.) But I did solve, finally, after checking AMARANTH in my dictionary to make sure the M was right in the aforementioned APT COMPLEX.
I liked the theme answers a lot, but found most of the regular clues rather flat and obvious. Until I got to the SE, where I found many of the non-theme answers too arcane. Guess this is why it's so hard to create a puzzle that will please everyone.
I hated it.
Thanks, AliasZ, for NO. ONE. I'd missed the abbreviation there. Got the theme with FIRST PERSON SING----
Clever theme, but I agree with what NCA President said about the fill. I expected Rex to roast this one on that score. This one failed my "wince" test for the high number of ugly entries.
@Lewis --
Re: "PLOW" -- kinda obscure to me too. But a snow plow is driven through the driven snow, I guess.
TURNING UP, TRUSS UP, STEPS UP... for what?
Tough puzzle. Wish Rex had had the time to explain what was left out of each theme answer. Thought the end words were cut short.
I liked this one alot!! 65 down screwed me up (had "I'm out of here" instead of "outta").
I liked this one alot!! 65 down screwed me up (had "I'm out of here" instead of "outta").
Ken, "alot" is not a word. You liked this one "a lot". Two separate words. "Allot" is a word, but it doesn't apply here. And why do you multiple post every single time?
For an English professor, OFL is pretty sloppy with his English. "Took me and my wife a long time to grok the theme." "Me and my wife ... ." Really? I hope he doesn't talk like that in class.
Finished it. Wished I hadn't spent the time. Tedious theme. Tedious filler. The Southeast full of bland detritus.
@Lewis -- Re: Quotoid. Funny. I never thought of Danielle Steele as a great mind or a contemporary philosopher. But she's right on the money about texting vs. the warmth and expressiveness of the human voice. I don't understand the modern preference for texting any better than she does. Right on, DS! You go, girl!
@F.O.G -- Seems we made the exact same mistakes in the SE on 80D and 81D.
@Billy C that's what I thought too. I wanted SNOW first but it didn't make sense so I put in the PLOW.
Lots of missing Us today.
DAST I say PSHAW reminds me of my scrabble playing, crossword solving late grandmother and her sisters who used both those terms. I forgot that one of my great aunts also remained an SK into her 90s. She was never a BIMBO, nor an OLD BAT. Elegant and sharp to the end.
Visi d'arte
The only opera about an opera singer. As only Maria Callas can sing it, though that was many, MANY moons ago. She kills the guy then jumps off the tower.
This played easy medium for me, and like @Carola, I enjoyed the out-of-the-ordinary theme.
@NCA President –two-word entries please me. Go figure, huh? But did you notice the four OUTs – I'M OUTTA HERE, THIN OUT, LOOK OUT, SNEAK OUT?
As usual, I put in dung before STAG. Heads-up – clip may not pass some people's breakfast test. Late "coprophage" yesterday ties in with this, too.
How bout POLO, NO-NO, SO SO and their eye-rhyme, DO TO?
And am I the only one who put in "jean" for JEEP first?
@Lewis, @Billy C – PLOW – it drives through the driven snow? That's what I thought, too. ( Also – Right after I switched from a true keyboard on my phone to touch-screen texting, my daughter texted me that she was gonna watch a movie at a friend's and would be home by 11pm. I texted back what I thought was "okie dokie," but what she received was simply the word PLOW. I hadn't even known I had been auto-corrected.)
Really liked the clue for GATE. How cool that part of a proper noun has become a full-fledged affix in our language? I bet there are more examples, but the only other affix I can think of that comes from a proper noun is Mc – McJob, McMansion…
This is a little different from taking an existing suffix tacking it on everywhere: Despite the deplorgasm that so many experience while solving puzzles, this solvaholic finds most themes screwylicious. Whatever the redirected affix, I'm a lexichangeaphile, to be sure. @Lewis, some people become bitterer and bitterer at our ever-morphing language, but I've never met an adjective I wouldn't tack an ER on the end of. David Sedaris does it here:
The Deavers' errant pit bull, Cass,
Bit the postman on the ass.
Her lower teeth destroyed his sphincter,
Now his walk's a bit distincter.
HEINOUS is a great word. Again, I give you David Sedaris: (Another ick-factor heads-up here)
Each night, old Bowser licks his balls,
Then falls asleep till nature calls.
He poops a stool, then, though it's heinous,
Bends back down and licks his anus.
AMILATE looks like a verb. Wait! Don't fold in those egg whites! I haven't amilated them yet!
I bet coming up with themers was tough. I played around with a similar theme once, using state abbreviations (GASPED, AL) but got nowhere fast. That's why Tom has had ntuple NYT puzzles and I haven't.
There are probably other entries in today's grid that, if you squint your eyes, could work as themers -
"Government annoyances?" ADM IRES.
"IVF, Braxton Hicks, APGAR?" OB ESE
As @jae puts it: liked it.
@Nancy, I too agree with DS about TEXTs.
Nevertheless, I find texting useful when I am eating lunch by myself and someone contacts me with an emergency no one can hear me if I text the person back. Texting and Facebook also useful for locating wayward teens when they don't come home by their curfew.
Re: Texting
When I tell people that Apple is developing an app that actually allows them to talk to each other, the usual response is a mild level of excitement before the light goes on.
@Anonymous 10:37: Does "Took I a long time to grok the theme" really sound right to you?
If you're going to correct someone so rudely, you should try to know what you're talking about first.
I breezed through this puzzle at first, working south-westwards from the NE. Then I found it more of a medium challenge, working in the west. I found the SE just too hard, however, and had to Google five clues before (not) finishing.
The vocabulary is not bad, however, for my next episode of ...
Matt Esquare, Private Eye
in "Domestic Tranquility"
Detective Lieutenant Kirk Sajak kept me for a while at the scene of the crime, but when he was finally convinced that I didn’t have ANY light to shed on who might be the victim of the HEINOUS deed or what might have been the motive, he let me go.
“Thanks,” I said, “I’M OUTTA HERE.”
I finally got home to the APT COMPLEX at about 6:30. “AM I LATE?” I asked as I passed through the door.
I was immediately assailed by the smell of baked goods. Maria was in the kitchen, pulling something out of the OVEN. She beamed as straightened up and turned to me. A pie was in her hands. “Hi, I thought if I’m going to be cooped up here all day, I might as well do something useful. So I made a pie. It’s an old recipe from my Greek AUNT.”
She put it down on the counter, and I reached in the cupboard for a plate. “Sorry, eager boy, but that’s for desert. We have to let it cool down first in ANY case.”
“So, what’s for dinner?” I asked hopefully, nipping off a bit of excess pie CRUST with my fingers.
“Alors, SAHIB, LE MENU pour ce soir est un repas Indienne.”
“Wait a minute; you must have had to get provisions from the grocery store. That was very UNWISE of you. You know you’re not supposed to leave the house. It’s too dangerous!”
“Well, I wasn’t gone for long. I had to SNEAK OUT the back door, of course. I dressed up in some of your clothes, tucked my hair under one of your baseball caps, and threw on some shades.”
I laughed at her audacity, which I had to admit was all for a good cause. “You must have CUT QUITE A FIG.!”
Maria, pleased that I wasn’t mad with her gave me “THE KISS”. I immediately stopped thinking of food and slid my hands END-ward.
She slapped my mits away. “Uh uh. Not after all the trouble I’ve gone through to prepare a nice meal. Dinner first.”
Maria made me sit down at the dining table while she finished her preparations. As consolation she gave me a tumbler of my favorite SING. malt, distilled on a Scottish island perennially enveloped in sea MIST. “Would you like ICE IN it, or would you prefer it neat?”
“Actually, a splash of spring water would be nice,” I said a bit facetiously. But Maria had anticipated all the contingencies and produced a bottle of Evian. This was several STEPS UP from my normal evening at home.
Dinner was a feast. Maria had even baked her own NAAN. She URGED me to TAKE TWO, pointing out that if they didn’t get eaten up they would only go STALE.
“Are you trying to make me become OBESE?”, I asked.
“Well, if you couldn’t make it out the door, then at least I’d be able to hold onto you,” she answered.
(continued below)
(continued from above)
When dinner was over, I tried to stand up, but not until I relieved my stomach of some GAS. “UAR … QUARK!,” I belched. “OOO ... I can’t believe I ate the whole thing.”
Maria shouted back from the kitchen, “You ate it Ralph!”
Maria offered to clean up, something I would normally have insisted on doing. But I was feeling pretty exhausted, and gladly slumped in the easy chair and started channel-surfing. First up on the TV screen was a documentary on links between the decline in the POP DENSITY of the great APES and an upsurge in TSE-TSE fly infections. I flipped to another channel. It was a talent show. A middle-aged woman was just finishing an ARIA to polite but unenthusiastic applause. Next up was an IRAQI, who performed a recently composed ISIS folk song. He bombed.
I tuned to a third channel, but it was showing ads. I put the television on mute and got up to pee. When I returned, there were a pair of twin men who looked vaguely familiar. I groped in the chair for the remote control but couldn’t find it. Just then, Maria walked in, wiping her hands on a dish towel.
“Strange,” she said. “They seem to be offering the services of a spellcaster. I wonder what that’s all about?”
“How do you know what they’re saying?” I asked, still fishing around for the missing remote.
“I’m a trained ORALIST,” she said.
“Well, let me help you practice!” I said, halting my search.
“NO-NO, it’s not what you’re thinking,” she said, popping me with the towel. “I can read lips.”
I pursed mine at her. “What am I saying now?” I asked.
Maria shook her head and turned back into the kitchen. “You’re incorrigible.”
I slumped back into the chair, stepping on the remote. The commercial had finished and there was a documentary on the ARAL SEA. The camera was focused on an earnest-looking, white-haired Brit with a microphone. “ALL IS LOST,” he moaned, as he swept his hand in the direction of the dried-up seabed. I quickly lost interest and turned off the television.
Maria came in and sat down on my lap, SIDE ON. “SO … SO, here we are,” she began. I could SENSE that she wanted to say more.
“Go on.”
“Matt, you know I’m going crazy hiding out in your apartment.”
“I know, baby, but just HANG IN THERE for a bit longer.”
“I have a counter-proposition: I want you to work with you undercover.” A smile slowly formed on my face. “No, listen to me, I said undercover, not under the covers, though we can discuss that later. I want you take me on as a TEMP. To be JANE ROE to your Tarzan. PINCH HIT for you from time to time. AND SUCH. NAME ONE reason why it’s not a good idea.”
She was clearly serious. It was TOO TRUE that, as an investigative reporter, she had a nose for detective work. And if we worked together I could keep an eye on her.
I whispered my answer in her ear.
She thought for a moment and then nodded. “Great then, it’s a deal!”
@Anonymous 11:17 AM
"Took me and my wife a long time to grok the theme." ==> "Took my wife and me a long time to grok the theme." Spot the difference?
Maybe its the heat, but I found this puzzle to be a tedious slog. A handful of clever clues and alright theme didn't quite satisfy as I solved. Curiously, looking back over the finished product is more pleasant than the process was.
Hand up, @Nancy, for the same problems in the SE.
Favorite opposites: CHATS v. TEXT. I agree w/ Ms. Steele that speaking beats typing every time. My cell phone will not accept texts. If you don't leave a message, I don't want to know. Thanks for the APT quotoid, @Lewis.
I thought by now that @EvilDoug would have something to say about ORALIST. Don't disappoint me...
Thanks to our guest blogger for the PINCHHIT. And thanks, TM and WS.
NTUPLE isn't used much in mathematics any more. It means an ordered set of elements, usually integers. People now use the term "vector." Even when it doesn't refer to a graph.
@Loren Muse Smith: Thanks for the Sedaris verse. Terrific.
That pocket on the lower right got me because I didn't know PAULIE (even though I follow the movies closely) or ORALIST (but happy to learn that term).
Agree with the commenters above who were displeased with the choppiness.
(See Matt Gaffney Across.)
M&A
It may be generational - or my strong introversion - but I love texting. It is my primary way to communicate. It drives me crazy when people call. Don't waste my time with pointless conversation (I probably won't answer your call anyway) - just send me a text. My wife and I have had some of our healthiest arguments through text messages.
Down with human interaction! Tiny keyboards forever!
@Nancy 10:53 -- How does that saying go about "Great minds..."? LOL
@The Rhino 12:29 -- I've learned that texting my adult children gets immediate responses, unlike calls or even voice mails. It's not that I prefer texting to conversation, but it's a necessity with Gen-Y kids.
@Loren I too had Jean before jeep
Another lukewarm fan of the IN crowd here, but found this puzzle had a theme that definitely grew on me. At first, thought it rather blah: as a person who's been back to school a number of times and has sat taking notes in many dimly-lit lecture rooms, abbrevs like FIRST PERSON SING and POP DENSITY didn't have much novelty, but by the time that LOOK OUT FOR NO ONE and especially APT COMPLEX appeared, I was hooked.
As @Lewis' quotoid suggests, context is everything: When I first bought my house after graduating into yet another career change, I had roommates for a while to help with expenses. One was a lovely young girl from Japan who had ventured to Hawaii and there met a student from my town who was doing a rotation at the Asia-Pacific Institute. After he came back home, their relationship continued to grow long-distance till they could no longer bear to be parted and she took the plunge and came out here, with few plans and less preparation. It was only then that she discovered she couldn't [easily] find work without a SSN, so she went through a pretty rough patch for a while, but she was always the most enchanting company to have around. As a bonus, she not only loved to cook but also prepared food with an amazing artistry. She would take a cube of food, slice thinly in two directions, and bend it into a chrysanthemum, or she'd take a thin slice, make some cuts, insert tab A into slot B and grace the plate with a little abstract sculpture. No surprise that CUT QUITE A FIG had me remember Rumiko. I believe that yes, she and Rob did live happily ever after.
That's enough cardiac cocklewarmer for me for any Sunday-size puzzle.
Now I'll read what everyone else has been saying. Thanks, Tim McC.
I guess everyone except me understands why a DEUCE "comes between ads." I have no idea what that means.
@MetroGnome - It's a tennis clue. Duece, Ad-in, Ad-out. It's a way of scoring towards the end of the game.
@ MetroGnome
Think of the scoring progression in a tennis match.
Deuce between ads: scoring in a tennis match? I'm glad that was cleared up. I thought the reference was to what one may do between TV commercials, i.e.: do a deuce (number two).
For me this was a tale of two "NTUPLEs," or vectors. Started in the NE, where common SENSE told me to start, and completed that, but stalled trying to get into the center. Picked up again in the SW with a name that is too rapidly becoming STALE: OTERI. Yikes, can't we give this poor girl some time off? It was here that I latched onto the trick of the theme. That allowed a little more expansion of these corners, but the NW and SE put up some bigtime resistance. For a while I thought "ALLISLOST," but before saying "IMOUTTAHERE" I told myself "HANGINTHERE a bit longer."
My problem was that I ASSUMEd (you know what THAT does!) that the abbrs. were at the END of the wacky phrases. Even the CENTRE one, which I finally got when I gave up ANDmore for the correct ANDSUCH, has it at the END, as do the ones in the done corners. Thus it took forever to come up with POPDENSITY--with ME as the POP! Then the 100 clue for IQS hit and the NW fell.
SE was the last. I'm embarrassed to say that, though I worked twenty years in the flower business, I've never heard of AMARANTH--let alone its symbolism. But now able to stick my abbr. any place in the phrase, I could now suss out APTCOMPLEX. Triumph without HARRUMPHS!
So yeah, medium-challenging seems about right. There is a minimum of fill dreck, ISINON and OOO most notably; nothing ANY BITTERER. Theme is clever and well executed, and the non-theme long downs were especially fun. A-.
Just didn't care for it all that much. The theme was fine (it took a couple of answers to discover it), but way too many answers with generic phrases and short words (in, on, it, so, is, to, etc.). For some reason, this one came fairly quickly to me. As much as I appreciated the Saturday "Mirror Mirror" crossword from a few weeks ago, this one was disappointing.
It took a long time, but I nailed this puzzle. Lucky, because I didn't get the abbreviation aspect of the answers to the themed clues. Thought the answers were simply lopped off. Which was fine except in lower right corner. That was nasty, plus I'm not familiar with the Hobbit. Happy I got it all though.
For maximum Tolkien pedantic satisfaction, 102-down should really be "elven"
WTF, FIES? B.S.
Remembering the “mote and beam” passage from the Bible, I am moved to suggest that it would have been wise to carefully proofread your own comment (with whose content I agree, even while regretting the tone) before criticizing the grammar, syntax, or diction of another. First, in standard U.S. American punctuation, periods and commas go inside terminal quotation marks, not outside. Second, “double-post” should be hyphenated, since you are in essence creating a verbal (or a verb phrase; “double post” could fall into either category) from a verb and an adverb (in this case). Omitting the hyphen makes this expression look like a verb and a direct object, as in “Double your pleasure, double your fun,” which is not your intent. Proofreading one’s own prose is hard, demanding, tricky work; but doing so with care, attention, and kindness brings many rewards.
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