Financial adviser Edelman / SAT 11-7-15 / Title heroine of Massenet opera / Cluster in marquise / Quartet in No No Nanette / Ice Road Truckers locale / Offside detector / 1998-2010 major-leaguer Kapler / Suffix on AriZona can
Constructor:Barry C. Silk
Relative difficulty:Easy
THEME:none
Word of the Day:RADIO GALAXY(4A: Centaurus A is one) —
(google)
• • •
I did this while chatting with a friend online, so ... starts and stops ... so I don't know how long it would've taken me if I'd been going at it in earnest, but I doubt more than 5 or 6 minutes. I struggled precisely no times. I kept waiting for something terrible to happen and it never did. The hardest corner to get was the first one, and that's just because it was the first and I had no traction yet. But COMPUTERS ended up being right (Me: "No way, too obvious ... wait, what?") and then nothing was ever a problem again. Got GARDEN from the "R," OKAPI from the "I," PLEISTOCENE from the "PLE-," and on and on and on. BON JOVI, gimme, AVA, gimme, GABE Kapler, gimme, CESAR, gimme, MCA IMO ZIMA ETON THON HOSER TESLA RUPP ... all gimmes. Ditto HAYS and DIEU and ENS. I don't get that many gimmes on most Wednesdays. Really, really weird. Seems a solid enough grid. More trivia clues than clever clues, but I will single out 18A: Mold in the freezer? (ICE CUBE TRAY) for its particular excellence.
I took a couple of screen shots, figuring I'd track my progress through the grid, but then the whole thing was over so fast that I only remembered to get a couple. Here's the opening gambit. It's really just a boring shot of a completed NW corner (I titled it "COMPUTERS/IMO" because that's how I got started up there):
From there it was a quick trip down ETON to THON and then right into the front ends of all those long Acrosses in the SW:
Honestly, I don't know what else to say about this one. I blinked and it was over. It took some doing to get CORSICA (41D: One of the 27 regions of France) and TOE CAP (?) (39A: Boot feature), but everything else just fell.
I had no idea there was something called JEWISH RYE; ZIMA was a WOE; I couldn’t come up with CESAR, though I'm sure I’ve seen it in a puzzle; and JAS and RIC were opaque. So that corner took longer than the rest of the puzzle. Still, it was a very easy Saturday for me.
Google has also, relatively speaking, barely heard of JEWISH RYE: 64K hits. But it was fun to learn that and a lot more about rye bread once I went looking. From Wikipedia: “…all-rye breads may have very long keeping times, measured in months rather than days…”. I’ll keep that in mind for the zombie apocalypse.
There was much about this 72-word @Barry Silk puzzle that I enjoyed, like a real MANON clue (instead of a MAN_ON partial), the great clue for PARAPHRASES [which had me looking for versions of PARDON or PAROLE], the breezy clue for ACS [will this ever be clued for the largest scientific society in the world?], and the optimistic clue for RAISE {not withstanding SALARY_CAP; see next paragraph]. I was also pleased to see HOSER, a word (and corresponding definition) learned just recently from our friend @John Child with respect to his recent puzzle (see 17-Across therein). The clue for ICE_CUBE_TRAY, a debut phrase for the >New York Times, was good fun, as independently acknowledged by @Rex in his review.
On the other hand, the duplication between SALARY_CAP and TOE_CAP bothered me. In fact, I was so sure that the latter should be disallowed based on the former that I wasted time trying to think of French regions starting with T [TOE_TAP sounding quite reasonable]. There were words that I knew, though uncertain of the exact spelling, like IACOCCA and PLEISTOCENE; with regard to the latter, it's an adjective but the clue seems to suggest adjective/noun (for the noun, choose between AGE, ERA, or EPOCH). The TESLA clue was interesting, but why did it start with "They" which seems to imply a plural?
I like my pastrami simply on RYE, and the bread's religion is of no interest to me. @Barry gave us scientific units galore: JOULE, MIL, and MICRONS. My personal Naticks were the MCA/MIL and the HAZES/ZIMA crossings. Can anyone tell me whether my experiences here were ANOMALIES? With all THAT_SAID, this puzzle played more like a Friday, by contrast to yesterday's @Ian Livengood puzzle, which played more like a Saturday, at least for me ... WHATEVER!
This was easy for me, but I don't know if it was absolutely an easy puzzle, or just in my wheelhouse. For example, GABE Kaplan was a gimme because he played a couple of seasons in Boston, and the Globe followed his coaching career. I felt smart to know PLEISTOCENE, ATHENA, NAUTILUS, BON JOVI, TOE CAP (with some crosses), and ALASKA. Were those easy? If so, I'm not as smart as I thought I was (not a new experience).
Maybe not as many gimmees as Rex, and particularly liked the se corner with Jewish rye, anomalies, and salary cap. Clues/answers all tight. What? No Steve Miller Band clip? Howzat?
Yeah this was Tuesday easy. I decided to challenge myself, so I did it on my waterproof ipad. I dove underwater and wasn't allowed to come up for a breath until I was finished. Fortunately, I only had to fend off a couple of sharks as I was solving. It was a little tougher after one of them bit off my right arm, but I'm a lefty so it wasn't that big of a deal. I still finished with enough air in my lungs to sing "Bohemian Rhapsody," all 5 parts of the harmony at once, before surfacing.
Agree with Rex on this one-- EZ(PASS) but very enjoyable and similar to yesterday. ICE CUBE TRAY was a wonderful misdirect. Liked cluing for AWOL and PARAPHRASES. No CrosswordEASE which is not easy to accomplish as all the proper names were in my wheelhouse. Always enjoy BCS puzzles so thanks again.
Did not care for this one at all. It felt like a parody of a NYT crossword puzzle, snooty and old, with its fixation on France, opera and ancient Greece.
Eau being too esey, I tried LAC and boom, done in the NW. BON JOVI was a gimme even though I don't know the album, so boom, the SW was done and I'm thinking this is Monday easy. OKAPI to ALASKA to IACOCCA got me into the NE with just a slight pause to remember where Lee's double Cs went (really helps that current fav book spends a fair amount on the Mustang, IACOCCA, the Duece, and why the Mustang did not become the Torino). This left just the SE, and a little head scratching even with HAZES, ZIMA, CESAR, and RASHLY in place. I was never going to come up with JAS because who abbreviates James? I finally decided on the L in AWOL for the wrong reason (like->al) and SALARY CAP finally unlocked the corner enough to resolve the aye/nay/yea conundrum and giving me that one extra letter I needed to see JEWISH RYE and ANOMALIES. I've never noticed JEWISH RYE in the wild, but I have run across it once before in a NYTX, so not completely foreign.
Overall, lots of science, sports, and geography, so a pretty straightforward Saturday that played like a themeless Tuesday here. It certainly helps me when the musical clues are 1980's rather than 1880's.
I do these puzzles on the NYT site so it keeps track of my times. Today was a new best time since I've been doing them online...which has been a while. Like Rex, I kept waiting for a shoe to drop. No shoe, maybe a slipper or a moccasin, but no actual shoe.
HOSER was my last fill, and that O took a while.
Otherwise, all of the long answers but RADIOGALAXY were pretty much filled in with just a couple of letters revealed. And RADIOGALAXY was easy to suss out.
Looking over the grid, I really can't find any highlights that stand out. I also can't tell if the ease of this puzzle is due to the fill or the clues. Nothing was particularly challenging. PLEISTOCENE is a spelling nightmare for me, but easily filled in with crosses. IACOCCA is also a spelling minefield, but again, with the crosses it pretty much filled itself in.
I agree that the repetition of the "CAPs" was a bit of a distraction. It's the kind of thing that makes you hesitate and second-guess yourself.
I initially had dElI----- as a pastrami holder. But I know of no later NT books starting with D. So that went away quickly too...it was my only mis-fill the entire time.
I always find Barry C. Silk's puzzles fascinating and frustrating. I have determined that he is the constructor whose mind works in exactly an opposite fashion to mine, and so I can never suss out his answers without a lot of thinking. Also, he tends to rely on areas of expertise that I simply don't have, such as baseball. That's not a knock on him. Once I see the answers, they're usually good and well-clued. I just find his puzzles about ten times harder than the equivalent day done by any other compiler because of it.
Well LAC wasn't a gimme, but LINEJUDGE was, and off we went on this medium/challenging Tuesday. Oh, it's not? Oh. Nice clean puzzle, but waaay too easy for the day.
Had a summer job in a sub shop named after the NAUTILUS so that added to the long list of gimmes in this one. Don't summer jobs have the neatest memories? I think it's where you really discover the grown-up world for yourself.
@John Child - I've set the over-under at 6 for the number of times you'll hear about Levy's Real Jewish Rye Bread today. I've got the over. I was raised in a Catholic household, but grew up on the stuff. It is my understanding that until 1972 or '73 it was law in New York City that pastrami be served on Jewish rye.
Just returned from France, where I was able to buy The Times International ed., and solve the daily puzzles, but not able to comment here on my several one box DNFs. (Like Paronym or parodym with Dina or Nina yesterday. ) Finished today's correctly, though, although I Googled (after I was done) to find out what "JAS" stands for. James. Oh.
Didn't know that Bon Jovi was a band as well as a person. Happy to see an opera clue; I actually saw Manon at the Sidney Opera House many years ago. Never owned an Elton John recording, but MCA is a label I have heard of. All in all, a very nice, relatively easy Saturday for me, as Barry Silk remains a favorite constructor.
Well this wasn't EZ for me at all. The only thing I was able to come up with after my first pass was the very wrong monocle instead of OCULARS. I got the GALAXY part so good for me. ABRACADABRA slipped in so I started over. Finally got the attic all dust and spider web free and then came to a complete halt when I got to the basement. Thank goodness Barry didn't ask for the capital of CORSICA (Ajaccio) or I would have really felt like an AWOL. There are several types of RYE. JEWISH RYE (my favorite) has the caraway seeds. When I try to make a decent Pastrami sandwich, I use that bread. Like @George B, I did not like the two CAPs, so my boot feature was a TOE CUP because the Selma director just had to be UVA (grape) Du Vernay... I can't spell worth crap so PLEI....and NAUT....were lost somewhere in a RADIO GALAXY. Not my favorite puzzle. I had to work too hard mon DIEU, and I'm terrible with remembering trivia.
This was really easy for a Saturday but that didn't stop me from biffing - the far SW and not being sure about MANON didn't help. BRAT for GNAT made 25A BEMS which is a Robert Heinlen acronym for "bug-eyed monsters" but doesn't do much for GEMS. I confused the clue for 13D as 4Down, not Across so I was wondering how X-RAYS came from a RAISE except for the coincidental rhyming quality.
46D for me referred to tow trucks taking cars to lots, so Tower there for a while.
I came so close to doing this with no help but I finally did it in AcrossLite with the little "check" button acting as an enabler for me to cheat. So no Googles (for a non-sports fan, knowing any arenas is tough, though GARDEN was a gimme, of course) but a DNF.
I thought this was extremely hard and annoying! I know nada about sports or Greek anything (and plus I failed in school with geography but they passed me because I aced everything else), so I guess that's my bad with these puzzles. Yesterday's was awesome though. Loved it.
"Ice Road Truckers (commercially abbreviated IRT) is a reality television series that premiered on History on June 17, 2007. It features the activities of drivers who operate trucks on seasonal routes crossing frozen lakes and rivers in remote Arctic territories in Canada and Alaska. Later series were focused on Alaska's improved but still remote Dalton Highway, which is mainly snow-covered solid ground. The newest seasons are based on Manitoba's winter roads."
A lot of Rex's "gimmies" weren't gimmies for me, but I still finished it in my normal Wednesday/Thursday time, so very easy for me as well. Very enjoyable just went by too fast.
Anyone out there who solves on the iPad try filling out the survey? I did, and it turned out to be a push poll for their puzzles packs. Beyond obnoxious.
Yes I did the stupid poll, hoping it was going to ask how to make the app better. Then I found out that the timer was running the whole time I was taking the poll, making me miss my record time for a Saturday. Beyond obnoxious is right.
@George Barany - I hesitated a bit at the TESLA/they correspondence also, but quickly decided it is not unusual to refer to a corporation as (IIRC) a collective noun: "Ford said they would unveil their newest pick-up in the next week."
I try to not post more than once, but can't resist today for two reasons:
(1) @Liz Gorski has today's Wall Street Journal puzzle, entitled "Museum Piece," which is inspired by an important anniversary. Since it's a Saturday, it's a 21x grid. Access the puzzle as a pdf by clicking here. A real work of art!
(2) More on JEWISH_RYE: @Charles Flaster and I have been exchanging reminiscences of growing up in New York City, and both remembered the campaign for Levy's. The tag line was "You don't have to be Jewish to love Levy's." Very easy to learn more about it on Google, so I'll just direct you to the January 2014 obituary of Judy Protas, who developed that campaign.
Never heard of a HOSER in that sense of the word. Never heard of the RUPP arena. (Should I have?) Didn't know GABE or ABRAM, though that side of the puzzle came in. Though I've heard of BON JOVI, I didn't know that particular album. My knowledge of cars is pathetic (I don't drive and I mute all commercials), so I had TAHOE, not TESLA at 46D. I'm with @Mscharlie: this puzzle mostly annoyed me and I DNF the southwest. The one thing I didn't mind was all the science; that's something I think every educated person should know, even though I don't always. Some nice cluing (for SALARY CAP, CASES and ICE CUBE TRAY), but mostly irritating.
Ah, the nostalgia. When I first came East, the NYC subways were plastered with pictures of various non-Jewish stereotypes (American indians, African Americans, Puerto Ricans, etc.) declaring that "you don't have to be Jewish to love Levy's Real Jewish Rye." (@Mohair, that's one, not counting you). And then HOSER, bringing back the more recent memory of Bob and Doug-- who were Canadian, like the Ice Road --which I first learned about from this fascinating New Yorker article in 1974. So that held me up at 30A, plus, like @George Barany, I questioned BOSNIA because 59A looked like it had to have PARDON or PAROLE in it. On the other hand, I got OKAPI from the clue, completely assured that it couldn't be 'zebra' on a Saturday.
And Hyman Rickover was one of my boyhood heroes, so the only hard part of 53A was putting in the USS.
Nice and easy, all told. Maybe Monday will be tough.
After reading @Gill I's comment I looked up rye bread. It turns out I have seen JEWISH RYE in the wild, I just didn't realize it. Also interesting to learn that in the US rye almost always has caraway, but in Montreal it doesn't. Who knew the Québécois were soft on flatulence?
@Anon 8:19 - I'm not even a little fan but I'd seen the ads with multiple mentions of ALASKA. I was about to question your bona fides, but Rex cleared it up.
@GB - I TOEtAP for me too, so getting to CORSICA was hard, even though I got bumped up to the Presidential Suite on the overnight ferry that took me there 10 years ago.
To a Brit, companies *are* plural - so TESLA charge is correct. Always grates to me, as does hearing aluminium...
Hard, hard, dnfx2...I had rCA/rIL...dumb, yea - I know MIL. Had JA_ for Bible book, so tossed in an m for JAMes, no? My struggle in that corner took me to a gALAxYmAP, having forgotten that the night before I put in RADIOGALAXY. JAg?? Were there XKEs in biblical times?
So, the parts that weren't easy were hard. Played like Saturdays used to before I got so xword-smart. The pop (outhouse) canceled out the science (wheelhouse).
@Malsdemare from Wed...missed your comments on Wednesday.
Around here, you can't see the ground for the acorns. There are more than enough to sustain, and increase the squirrel/chipmunk population. (There are bumper crops of same the year following bumper acorn crops...).
Your dog's very specific ANOMALy is cringeworthy-funny. Was it embarrassing enough to make your daughter keep her unmentionables drawer closed??
A follow-on story...as Aga got older, he got deafer. One day, unbeknownst to us kids, my mother had successfully closed all the bedroom and closet doors, so that no clothing was available for cuddling up with... We walked into the living room, and there he was, blissfully curled up with...my mother's pocketbook! As adorable as that was, we wished we could have seen him walking around the house with the purse in his mouth... We have a picture of that somewhere...
If Barry Silk reads these comments, perhaps he'll be gratified to know that I'm one of the few, so far, at least, who found the puzzle nicely Saturday-challenging. ABRACADABRA was the magic word that opened the grid to me, but after that it was slow-going, pleasurably at first, when figuring things out led to a few YAYS or an OLE (ICE CUBE TRAY, PARAPHRASES, RADIO GALAXY). But the SE was a quagmire: dElISHelf? ZenA? cAnARYmAn? - obviously I was desperate. Finally saw ANOMALIES, then RYE, then the rest.
Liked JOULE + GEMS.
Name review: Knew: NAM, ALASKA, REOS, USS NAUTILUS, MANON Mind jogged by crosses: ATHENA, TESLA, BON JOVI, DRE, IACOCCA, PLEISTOCENE, CESAR, BOSNIA, CORSICA, AVA, ETON No idea: GABE, ABRAM, RUPP, RIC, JAS
This was a bifurcated puzzle. The top 2/3rd had me cruising along in the easy lane, but the bottom was a traffic jam. First let me say that in my world, it is indeed called JEWISHRYE, so that wasn't the problem, but I got my little heart stuck on "deli" and it wouldn't budge. I actually settled on "delibread" which has to be the most awkwardly goy description of JEWISHRYE ever! That move from NY to CT addled my brain. Then in the SW I got stumped by the RUPP/REO/HOSER trifecta. What the devil is a HOSER? Who the devil is RUPP? And all I can think of is REO Speedwagon. I was forced to use the check feature which is always a disappointment, but feels better than Googling. I guess I can call my solve experience "meh" today and I'll go toast some of that JEWISHRYE that is always in the house.
The jolt of delight at seeing Barry Silk's name waned in direct proportion to the (high for me) number of proper nouns and factoid answers. Love word play, am left cold by trivia quiz. Still, this is stellar compared to the nyt xword's average fare.
".....I'll keep that in mind for the zombie apocalypse" cost me two paper towels to clean the coffee spewed on my laptop!
As already noted many times, this was easy for a Saturday and was good fun. For me easy means I got it in under an hour with only a couple of reveal letters to get the SW. Slow and steady doesn't win anything here...:>)
However, USS NAUTILUS was a gimme in the SW, not the least of which is being a Navy vet (tin-can ’69 – ‘73) who operated with some of those nukes.
Of course the Soviets had them, too. One of our carriers was being tailed by one. The captain kept slowly increasing his speed which the Soviet submarine also did to keep pace. At some point it dropped off the “chase.” They had figured out the game, but likely unbeknownst to them, it was too late. What had happened was the captain of the carrier had already suckered their sub into going faster than the then-current intelligence the U.S. had about their maximum speeds. Read this in intelligence reports I was privy to at the time.
Oopsie, there.
Cold War games for fun and profit…(mostly the latter per D.D.E.)
For some explicable reason, I track double letters in the NYT puzzles, but only make a report in the very rare instances that their number is over 20 or under 5. Today we have 4, and it has been many moons since the DL count has been that low. In the Shortz era (and possibly before), there has never been a themeless with zero double letters (and only one themed), and when this finally happens, I'll probably write my post in all caps.
I liked the clues for ICECUBETRAY and CASES, and just seemed to guess right throughout the solve. But it was no breeze, thank goodness. It opened slowly and beautifully, like lotus petals. Nice one, Barry!
Yeah, I breezed through it for a Saturday, but i ended up with the "almost fished" message. I had RCA and since i didn't know what 254,000 angstroms are...i didn't know where my mistake was for a while. I found the SE corner to be a bit sloppy.
I've always called it Russian rye; toasted and buttered it's glorious; and not just pastrami, but any cold cuts and cheese sandwich; along with pickled herring and kosher dills, a heavenly meal. The CAP duplication threw me too - so TOE tAP had me flustered on French regions; CORSICA had only recently become a possession of France when Napoleon was born, so he just made it as a natural-born Frenchmen; he grew up speaking the Corsican dialect of Italian. With all the p's , a's, and r's I kept trying to fit parole in for PARAPHRASE. It took me a while but I fnally got it when I abandoned JAm for JAS and saw SALARY CAP. Not easy for me, but a good puzzle.
Thanks, @George Barany, for identifying the terrific copywriter who came up with "You don't have to be Jewish to love Levy's rye bread." One of the all-time great ads. That was back in the day when there were no remotes and no mute buttons, so you couldn't dodge commercials the way you can today. I dodge them all, which, as I said earlier, is why I don't know a TAHOE from a TESLA. But those of you who never saw the commercial, go Google it; it's so funny. I'm going to go Google that copywriter. I'm always glad when an unknown writer gets recognition.
@Hartley -- deli bread for JEWISH RYE? Oh, my dear, that move to CT, really DID addle your brain. Poor thing. But going off to toast Jewish rye isn't any fun. Going off to toast WITH Jewish rye -- now THAT would be fun. (Hic.)
Hey, can you really call the OKAPI a 'striped animal' if only the RUPP is striped?
Solving puzzles dredge up the darndest memories. Way back when, at good old West Hill High, our Math teacher was CP Batt, whose love of teaching the subject had dozens of us miscreants staying after hours for Math Club, to learn about cuneiform number systems, Boolean algebra, matrices and such. His deadly aim with a piece of chalk was also legendary in capturing any attentions that wandered in the back of the room. Despite his stature as a teacher, in the flesh Mr. Batt was eminently caricaturable, a short little guy, pot-bellied with glasses and a beaky nose, all of which I captured quite well during one rather boring Chem class (sorry, @GB!), while playing about with this moldable purple ink-eraser stuff that I had. For some reason, Jim R made a grab for it from behind me and startled a pretty healthy squawk out of me; by the time the Chem teacher had turned from the blackboard, Jim was sitting back looking innocent and I was the only one with a guilty red face. Why do I remember this? My punishment was to write out every formula in the chapter 20 times, and we were currently learning about Nitric Acid (which apparently reacts with everything except maybe glass). The other reason is that I was recently clearing through some old stored stuff, and came across a slightly dusty but still remarkably good likeness of CP Batt in purple PLEISTOCENE.
As noted many times over, a nice piece of Silk, over too soon.
Only Naticky spot was the MIL/MCA cross. I've never heard of MCA, but certainly RCA (Victor), so I thought maybe RIL was just another piece of crosswordese I'd never seen. Had to scour the completed grid to suss out that that M was my remaining error.
My oldest son and I just started working crosswords together (on occasion), and were very pleased to finally finish this one. I've completed one Thursday and one Friday without any Google help, but first time to do so on a Saturday.
We made steady progress through most of the puzzle, but got stuck for awhile in the SE. I thought we'd have to Google, but then thought 31 down ended in RYE, and eventually got ANOMALIES. We were stalled again until figuring out SALARY CAP - enjoyed both the cluing and the phrase. JEWISH RYE is something I won't forget.
While this puzzle was easy for Rex and most of the crossword vets here, it was plenty challenging, with fun cluing and answers. If we'd swam with sharks like Jamie C, we would have been too distracted to finish it. More like a Thursday or Friday for me, but helped to have my son's science background to complete it.
JEWISH RYE puts me in mind of Fink's . I (and one) used to see their bread trucks on the streets of NYC, blazoned with their delightfully modest slogan: makes a nice sandwich.
For me. Too much French. Why am I supposed to know French to solve an American puzzle? If there were for clues about awards and regions in Zimbabwe there would be an uproar. Racism? Certainly Europhilism. Hate when a perfectly good supposedly English Ianguage puzzle is ruined for me because I chose the Spanish path instead of the French when I was in eighth grade.
Rex didn't note that Ice Cube and Dre crossed ?! For shame. Where's your NWA street cred Rex? You complain about the racism of "THUGS" and say that we're all white snob puzzle solvers. Well here was a great nod to some great OGs and you missed it.
Hey JFC. Decided to go back to the comments from earlier in the week, on the off chance that you had made a late post vis-a-vis my comment. Indeed you had. I don't mind being "japed" at all. I'm usually not overly sensitive. We should all be willing to laugh at ourselves. Glad we put that to rest.
Gratifying to know that you beat back the PCa. I've had some some issue with the big C as well, but not in that region of anatomy.
Thanks for that great link to the past. It was a hoot re-reading all the posts. hope you see this comment? As you noted, this format is not conducive to a running dialogue. Sorry about your Cubs, but at least they had a lot better year than my Tigers!
Well, there were only 4 references to Levy's Jewish Rye so I lost my over/under (6) and will be making breakfast in the morning. I attribute this to Rex doing more frequent monitoring on the weekends and the Levy's fans not having several hours to pile up their references. But Mrs. M took advantage of her gambler's edge on this one and I'll be donning my toque in the AM.
Hey, @Chaos! Good to know the ship didn't sink at Sag Harbor.
Zombies and sharks went a long way to livening the proceedings, but there hasn't been the usual amount of jumping up and down today. Perhaps a quick google on 'Adolph Rupp controversy' can fix that. Pick the version you prefer.
Serious question. How did you all figure out the M in the MCA/MIL crossing? I had RCA and RIL. Never heard of MCA or MIL (or RIL for that matter, but at least I know RCA is a thing). This is actually annoying me as it busted my 47 day streak. Are MCA/MIL reasonable trivia for a solver to be aware of? Or is this a straight natick? Complicating matters is that MCA is an acronym, so that M can be anything, and some science-y unit of measurement can have any number of strange spellings. I managed to get MANON and IACOCCA but those aren't exactly household names either.
Laughing to myself when I filled in HOSER. Brought back memories of SCTV and The Great White North. I'm sure there must be snippets on YouTube. Do yourself a favor and look them up.
Anon 7:29, when I was painting a couple of rooms in my house, I bought some plastic dropcloths to protect the floor. I noticed the cheaper ones were 1 mil thick, the 3 mil ones a couple of dollars more. I figure that puts it in the ballpark of reasonable.
PS. I decided to spring for the sturdier version. LF
Easy for all, apparently, except me. DNF with 20 empty, incorrect or iffy boxes, all in the SE. This therefore qualifies as my worst-ever finish for a Times puzzle. That said, I had breezed through the rest with no resistance.
HAYS and YAYS (and XRAYS). I’ll give an EZPASSing grade on this puz. Darn near on cruise control throughout. A quickly fixed mis-step with BOrNeo for BOSNIA, got my Banja Luka confused with Banjarmassin, musta been ‘cause of BONJOVI messin’ in that locale (with loco banjos?).
MANON Rhéaume, a better clue IMO. The first and only woman to play in the NHL (albeit an exhibition game) and a top-notch yeah baby to boot. I could fit her in under my SALARYCAP.
MICRONS and MILS and JOULEs, oh my! Enough sciency stuff to fill a PLEISTOCENE RADIOGALAXY.
The best Jewish Rye ever was not on the East Coast. It was at the Ukraine Bakery in San Francisco in the 40s. Uncle Art and Aunt Bessie. I'll be beyond shocked if anyone else in Rexland has been there and done that. It was BTS, before t-shirts, so been there, done that, and have the t-shirt does not apply.
Let us take a little time to distinguish between "easy" and "easy for the day." Relative to all other Saturday puzzles, I did get this one fairly quickly, though by no means easily. I'd rate it, maybe, easy-medium FOR A SATURDAY.
Ashamed to say I'm not up on my Bible books, so I had no start to those long SE downs. But when RYE seemed certain and I had a start of _E_I, naturally DELI occurred. DELI__RYE...DELISH? Wait, maybe there's a RELISH RYE, though you'd think they'd let the customer put his own relish on. Only after aha!ing AWOL for "Like base runners?" (my "runner-"up clue for the week) did I see JEWISH (?) RYE. I don't understand that one, though I admit I don't frequent delis. Can there be a Gentile rye? Perhaps non-Kosher? I haven't the foggiest.
Other snags: right off the bat at !-across I saw "Mer" and inked in Sea with no inkling it could be wrong....
Oh. I just now noticed: I have a DNF! I confused sIdE judge with LINE JUDGE. Well of course, if I'd thought about it, the side judges determine out-of-bounds plays, while it is indeed the LINEJUDGE who makes the offside calls. My bad! SAC looked as good to me as LAC, if it wasn't going to be SEA; and I just left dAM there because...well, because I was too dumb to see NAM.
Another holdup came with assuming (you know what that does) that my "annoying sort" was a brAT instead of a GNAT. That was easy to correct because "MICROrS" was nonsense.
Oh well, this may be the first puzzle I really liked doing despite not totally doing it. Can't issue any grade except incomplete, but if I could I'd make it an A.
Much of this was easy, but I found some of it very slow going in the SW and SE.
In the SW, clue says "They" in referring to TESLA. Isn't the company an 'it" and Tesla a "he"? And Franklins competing with REOS? The PARAPHRASES clue says it shortens a sentence. It may or may not.
In the SE, JEWISHRYE/JAS crossing the last to go. Not familiar enough with Bible abbrs, while crosswords are still teaching me. And Jewish rye is a bread I may have heard of long ago but couldn't remember.
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I had no idea there was something called JEWISH RYE; ZIMA was a WOE; I couldn’t come up with CESAR, though I'm sure I’ve seen it in a puzzle; and JAS and RIC were opaque. So that corner took longer than the rest of the puzzle. Still, it was a very easy Saturday for me.
ReplyDeleteGoogle has also, relatively speaking, barely heard of JEWISH RYE: 64K hits. But it was fun to learn that and a lot more about rye bread once I went looking. From Wikipedia: “…all-rye breads may have very long keeping times, measured in months rather than days…”. I’ll keep that in mind for the zombie apocalypse.
There was much about this 72-word @Barry Silk puzzle that I enjoyed, like a real MANON clue (instead of a MAN_ON partial), the great clue for PARAPHRASES [which had me looking for versions of PARDON or PAROLE], the breezy clue for ACS [will this ever be clued for the largest scientific society in the world?], and the optimistic clue for RAISE {not withstanding SALARY_CAP; see next paragraph]. I was also pleased to see HOSER, a word (and corresponding definition) learned just recently from our friend @John Child with respect to his recent puzzle (see 17-Across therein). The clue for ICE_CUBE_TRAY, a debut phrase for the >New York Times, was good fun, as independently acknowledged by @Rex in his review.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, the duplication between SALARY_CAP and TOE_CAP bothered me. In fact, I was so sure that the latter should be disallowed based on the former that I wasted time trying to think of French regions starting with T [TOE_TAP sounding quite reasonable]. There were words that I knew, though uncertain of the exact spelling, like IACOCCA and PLEISTOCENE; with regard to the latter, it's an adjective but the clue seems to suggest adjective/noun (for the noun, choose between AGE, ERA, or EPOCH). The TESLA clue was interesting, but why did it start with "They" which seems to imply a plural?
I like my pastrami simply on RYE, and the bread's religion is of no interest to me. @Barry gave us scientific units galore: JOULE, MIL, and MICRONS. My personal Naticks were the MCA/MIL and the HAZES/ZIMA crossings. Can anyone tell me whether my experiences here were ANOMALIES? With all THAT_SAID, this puzzle played more like a Friday, by contrast to yesterday's @Ian Livengood puzzle, which played more like a Saturday, at least for me ... WHATEVER!
This was easy for me, but I don't know if it was absolutely an easy puzzle, or just in my wheelhouse. For example, GABE Kaplan was a gimme because he played a couple of seasons in Boston, and the Globe followed his coaching career. I felt smart to know PLEISTOCENE, ATHENA, NAUTILUS, BON JOVI, TOE CAP (with some crosses), and ALASKA. Were those easy? If so, I'm not as smart as I thought I was (not a new experience).
ReplyDeleteMaybe not as many gimmees as Rex, and particularly liked the se corner with Jewish rye, anomalies, and salary cap. Clues/answers all tight. What? No Steve Miller Band clip? Howzat?
ReplyDeleteYeah this was Tuesday easy. I decided to challenge myself, so I did it on my waterproof ipad. I dove underwater and wasn't allowed to come up for a breath until I was finished. Fortunately, I only had to fend off a couple of sharks as I was solving. It was a little tougher after one of them bit off my right arm, but I'm a lefty so it wasn't that big of a deal. I still finished with enough air in my lungs to sing "Bohemian Rhapsody," all 5 parts of the harmony at once, before surfacing.
ReplyDeleteAgree with Rex on this one-- EZ(PASS) but very enjoyable and similar to yesterday.
ReplyDeleteICE CUBE TRAY was a wonderful misdirect.
Liked cluing for AWOL and PARAPHRASES.
No CrosswordEASE which is not easy to accomplish as all the proper names were in my wheelhouse.
Always enjoy BCS puzzles so thanks again.
Ice Road Truckers is set in Canada, not Alaska - my husband and I are big fans!
ReplyDeleteDid not care for this one at all. It felt like a parody of a NYT crossword puzzle, snooty and old, with its fixation on France, opera and ancient Greece.
ReplyDeleteEau being too esey, I tried LAC and boom, done in the NW. BON JOVI was a gimme even though I don't know the album, so boom, the SW was done and I'm thinking this is Monday easy.
ReplyDeleteOKAPI to ALASKA to IACOCCA got me into the NE with just a slight pause to remember where Lee's double Cs went (really helps that current fav book spends a fair amount on the Mustang, IACOCCA, the Duece, and why the Mustang did not become the Torino).
This left just the SE, and a little head scratching even with HAZES, ZIMA, CESAR, and RASHLY in place. I was never going to come up with JAS because who abbreviates James? I finally decided on the L in AWOL for the wrong reason (like->al) and SALARY CAP finally unlocked the corner enough to resolve the aye/nay/yea conundrum and giving me that one extra letter I needed to see JEWISH RYE and ANOMALIES. I've never noticed JEWISH RYE in the wild, but I have run across it once before in a NYTX, so not completely foreign.
Overall, lots of science, sports, and geography, so a pretty straightforward Saturday that played like a themeless Tuesday here. It certainly helps me when the musical clues are 1980's rather than 1880's.
I do these puzzles on the NYT site so it keeps track of my times. Today was a new best time since I've been doing them online...which has been a while. Like Rex, I kept waiting for a shoe to drop. No shoe, maybe a slipper or a moccasin, but no actual shoe.
ReplyDeleteHOSER was my last fill, and that O took a while.
Otherwise, all of the long answers but RADIOGALAXY were pretty much filled in with just a couple of letters revealed. And RADIOGALAXY was easy to suss out.
Looking over the grid, I really can't find any highlights that stand out. I also can't tell if the ease of this puzzle is due to the fill or the clues. Nothing was particularly challenging. PLEISTOCENE is a spelling nightmare for me, but easily filled in with crosses. IACOCCA is also a spelling minefield, but again, with the crosses it pretty much filled itself in.
I agree that the repetition of the "CAPs" was a bit of a distraction. It's the kind of thing that makes you hesitate and second-guess yourself.
I initially had dElI----- as a pastrami holder. But I know of no later NT books starting with D. So that went away quickly too...it was my only mis-fill the entire time.
Second Saturday in a row that was too easy - really like them to last beyond my morning coffee....
ReplyDeleteDitto that my second cup is still warm....i only do Friday/ Sat so this wknd has been a big letdown
DeleteI always find Barry C. Silk's puzzles fascinating and frustrating. I have determined that he is the constructor whose mind works in exactly an opposite fashion to mine, and so I can never suss out his answers without a lot of thinking. Also, he tends to rely on areas of expertise that I simply don't have, such as baseball. That's not a knock on him. Once I see the answers, they're usually good and well-clued. I just find his puzzles about ten times harder than the equivalent day done by any other compiler because of it.
ReplyDeleteWell LAC wasn't a gimme, but LINEJUDGE was, and off we went on this medium/challenging Tuesday. Oh, it's not? Oh. Nice clean puzzle, but waaay too easy for the day.
ReplyDeleteHad a summer job in a sub shop named after the NAUTILUS so that added to the long list of gimmes in this one. Don't summer jobs have the neatest memories? I think it's where you really discover the grown-up world for yourself.
@John Child - I've set the over-under at 6 for the number of times you'll hear about Levy's Real Jewish Rye Bread today. I've got the over. I was raised in a Catholic household, but grew up on the stuff. It is my understanding that until 1972 or '73 it was law in New York City that pastrami be served on Jewish rye.
Just returned from France, where I was able to buy The Times International ed., and solve the daily puzzles, but not able to comment here on my several one box DNFs. (Like Paronym or parodym with Dina or Nina yesterday. ) Finished today's correctly, though, although I Googled (after I was done) to find out what "JAS" stands for. James. Oh.
ReplyDeleteDidn't know that Bon Jovi was a band as well as a person. Happy to see an opera clue; I actually saw Manon at the Sidney Opera House many years ago. Never owned an Elton John recording, but MCA is a label I have heard of. All in all, a very nice, relatively easy Saturday for me, as Barry Silk remains a favorite constructor.
Well this wasn't EZ for me at all. The only thing I was able to come up with after my first pass was the very wrong monocle instead of OCULARS. I got the GALAXY part so good for me. ABRACADABRA slipped in so I started over. Finally got the attic all dust and spider web free and then came to a complete halt when I got to the basement.
ReplyDeleteThank goodness Barry didn't ask for the capital of CORSICA (Ajaccio) or I would have really felt like an AWOL.
There are several types of RYE. JEWISH RYE (my favorite) has the caraway seeds. When I try to make a decent Pastrami sandwich, I use that bread.
Like @George B, I did not like the two CAPs, so my boot feature was a TOE CUP because the Selma director just had to be UVA (grape) Du Vernay...
I can't spell worth crap so PLEI....and NAUT....were lost somewhere in a RADIO GALAXY.
Not my favorite puzzle. I had to work too hard mon DIEU, and I'm terrible with remembering trivia.
This was really easy for a Saturday but that didn't stop me from biffing - the far SW and not being sure about MANON didn't help. BRAT for GNAT made 25A BEMS which is a Robert Heinlen acronym for "bug-eyed monsters" but doesn't do much for GEMS. I confused the clue for 13D as 4Down, not Across so I was wondering how X-RAYS came from a RAISE except for the coincidental rhyming quality.
ReplyDelete46D for me referred to tow trucks taking cars to lots, so Tower there for a while.
I came so close to doing this with no help but I finally did it in AcrossLite with the little "check" button acting as an enabler for me to cheat. So no Googles (for a non-sports fan, knowing any arenas is tough, though GARDEN was a gimme, of course) but a DNF.
Thanks, Barry C Silk.
Agree this was easy. Only trouble spot was RCA/MCA and MICRONS/MACRONS but sorted this out and still finished with best ever Saturday time.
ReplyDeleteI thought this was extremely hard and annoying! I know nada about sports or Greek anything (and plus I failed in school with geography but they passed me because I aced everything else), so I guess that's my bad with these puzzles. Yesterday's was awesome though. Loved it.
ReplyDelete"Ice Road Truckers (commercially abbreviated IRT) is a reality television series that premiered on History on June 17, 2007. It features the activities of drivers who operate trucks on seasonal routes crossing frozen lakes and rivers in remote Arctic territories in Canada and Alaska. Later series were focused on Alaska's improved but still remote Dalton Highway, which is mainly snow-covered solid ground. The newest seasons are based on Manitoba's winter roads."
ReplyDeleteJEWISH rye? Mebbe, rebbe. Marble or corned (especially) are mo bettah. But - it fit.
ReplyDeleteNo complaints, very smooth. One do-over for mCS/ACS. AUTH resolved it, and made the 51A clue fun.
Thanks again, Mr. Silk-y.
A lot of Rex's "gimmies" weren't gimmies for me, but I still finished it in my normal Wednesday/Thursday time, so very easy for me as well. Very enjoyable just went by too fast.
ReplyDeleteAnyone out there who solves on the iPad try filling out the survey? I did, and it turned out to be a push poll for their puzzles packs. Beyond obnoxious.
Yes I did the stupid poll, hoping it was going to ask how to make the app better. Then I found out that the timer was running the whole time I was taking the poll, making me miss my record time for a Saturday. Beyond obnoxious is right.
DeleteYep, easy and smooth.
ReplyDelete@George Barany - I hesitated a bit at the TESLA/they correspondence also, but quickly decided it is not unusual to refer to a corporation as (IIRC) a collective noun: "Ford said they would unveil their newest pick-up in the next week."
One w/o, TOETIP >> TOECAP.
I try to not post more than once, but can't resist today for two reasons:
ReplyDelete(1) @Liz Gorski has today's Wall Street Journal puzzle, entitled "Museum Piece," which is inspired by an important anniversary. Since it's a Saturday, it's a 21x grid. Access the puzzle as a pdf by clicking here. A real work of art!
(2) More on JEWISH_RYE: @Charles Flaster and I have been exchanging reminiscences of growing up in New York City, and both remembered the campaign for Levy's. The tag line was "You don't have to be Jewish to love Levy's." Very easy to learn more about it on Google, so I'll just direct you to the January 2014 obituary of Judy Protas, who developed that campaign.
I'm with @Mscharlie. This puzzle
ReplyDeleteNever heard of a HOSER in that sense of the word. Never heard of the RUPP arena. (Should I have?) Didn't know GABE or ABRAM, though that side of the puzzle came in. Though I've heard of BON JOVI, I didn't know that particular album. My knowledge of cars is pathetic (I don't drive and I mute all commercials), so I had TAHOE, not TESLA at 46D. I'm with @Mscharlie: this puzzle mostly annoyed me and I DNF the southwest. The one thing I didn't mind was all the science; that's something I think every educated person should know, even though I don't always. Some nice cluing (for SALARY CAP, CASES and ICE CUBE TRAY), but mostly irritating.
Not as many gimmes for me as for @Rex, but not hard. Pepperidge Farm Jewish Rye is a staple in out house so that was a gimme. Nice relacing solve.
ReplyDeleteAh, the nostalgia. When I first came East, the NYC subways were plastered with pictures of various non-Jewish stereotypes (American indians, African Americans, Puerto Ricans, etc.) declaring that "you don't have to be Jewish to love Levy's Real Jewish Rye." (@Mohair, that's one, not counting you). And then HOSER, bringing back the more recent memory of Bob and Doug-- who were Canadian, like the Ice Road --which I first learned about from this fascinating New Yorker article in 1974. So that held me up at 30A, plus, like @George Barany, I questioned BOSNIA because 59A looked like it had to have PARDON or PAROLE in it. On the other hand, I got OKAPI from the clue, completely assured that it couldn't be 'zebra' on a Saturday.
ReplyDeleteAnd Hyman Rickover was one of my boyhood heroes, so the only hard part of 53A was putting in the USS.
Nice and easy, all told. Maybe Monday will be tough.
After reading @Gill I's comment I looked up rye bread. It turns out I have seen JEWISH RYE in the wild, I just didn't realize it. Also interesting to learn that in the US rye almost always has caraway, but in Montreal it doesn't. Who knew the Québécois were soft on flatulence?
ReplyDelete@Anon 8:19 - I'm not even a little fan but I'd seen the ads with multiple mentions of ALASKA. I was about to question your bona fides, but Rex cleared it up.
@GB - I TOEtAP for me too, so getting to CORSICA was hard, even though I got bumped up to the Presidential Suite on the overnight ferry that took me there 10 years ago.
ReplyDeleteTo a Brit, companies *are* plural - so TESLA charge is correct. Always grates to me, as does hearing aluminium...
Hard, hard, dnfx2...I had rCA/rIL...dumb, yea - I know MIL.
Had JA_ for Bible book, so tossed in an m for JAMes, no?
My struggle in that corner took me to a gALAxYmAP, having forgotten that the night before I put in RADIOGALAXY.
JAg?? Were there XKEs in biblical times?
So, the parts that weren't easy were hard. Played like Saturdays used to before I got so xword-smart. The pop (outhouse) canceled out the science (wheelhouse).
Thanks Mr. Silk!
ReplyDelete@Barany is promoting his puzzles here once again. Get a life, Georgie's!
@Malsdemare from Wed...missed your comments on Wednesday.
ReplyDeleteAround here, you can't see the ground for the acorns. There are more than enough to sustain, and increase the squirrel/chipmunk population. (There are bumper crops of same the year following bumper acorn crops...).
Your dog's very specific ANOMALy is cringeworthy-funny. Was it embarrassing enough to make your daughter keep her unmentionables drawer closed??
A follow-on story...as Aga got older, he got deafer. One day, unbeknownst to us kids, my mother had successfully closed all the bedroom and closet doors, so that no clothing was available for cuddling up with... We walked into the living room, and there he was, blissfully curled up with...my mother's pocketbook!
As adorable as that was, we wished we could have seen him walking around the house with the purse in his mouth...
We have a picture of that somewhere...
Yep, easy. My only erasure was changing rCA to MCA because rIl made no sense.
ReplyDeleteSolid puzzle, but not as much fun as yesterday's and way too easy for a Sat. Would have liked it more earlier in the week.
Can anyone enlighten me on 52D? In what way is RAGE "written in stone?"
ReplyDeleteIf Barry Silk reads these comments, perhaps he'll be gratified to know that I'm one of the few, so far, at least, who found the puzzle nicely Saturday-challenging. ABRACADABRA was the magic word that opened the grid to me, but after that it was slow-going, pleasurably at first, when figuring things out led to a few YAYS or an OLE (ICE CUBE TRAY, PARAPHRASES, RADIO GALAXY). But the SE was a quagmire: dElISHelf? ZenA? cAnARYmAn? - obviously I was desperate. Finally saw ANOMALIES, then RYE, then the rest.
ReplyDeleteLiked JOULE + GEMS.
Name review:
Knew: NAM, ALASKA, REOS, USS NAUTILUS, MANON
Mind jogged by crosses: ATHENA, TESLA, BON JOVI, DRE, IACOCCA, PLEISTOCENE, CESAR, BOSNIA, CORSICA, AVA, ETON
No idea: GABE, ABRAM, RUPP, RIC, JAS
This was a bifurcated puzzle. The top 2/3rd had me cruising along in the easy lane, but the bottom was a traffic jam. First let me say that in my world, it is indeed called JEWISHRYE, so that wasn't the problem, but I got my little heart stuck on "deli" and it wouldn't budge. I actually settled on "delibread" which has to be the most awkwardly goy description of JEWISHRYE ever! That move from NY to CT addled my brain.
ReplyDeleteThen in the SW I got stumped by the RUPP/REO/HOSER trifecta. What the devil is a HOSER? Who the devil is RUPP? And all I can think of is REO Speedwagon. I was forced to use the check feature which is always a disappointment, but feels better than Googling. I guess I can call my solve experience "meh" today and I'll go toast some of that JEWISHRYE that is always in the house.
The jolt of delight at seeing Barry Silk's name waned in direct proportion to the (high for me) number of proper nouns and factoid answers. Love word play, am left cold by trivia quiz. Still, this is stellar compared to the nyt xword's average fare.
ReplyDeleteOn my iPhone so will only mention that HOSER brought back fond memories of SCTV. Only tricky part was the NE because I did not know the Galaxy.
ReplyDeleteDid not love this one much , with the exception of ice cube tray and ezpass. Too much trivia, too little word play.
ReplyDeleteIf I can do a Saturday puzzle in 35 minutes without a google -- it's easy! I don't think it was merely a "wheelhouse" puzzle.
ReplyDelete@John Child 7:35 AM
ReplyDelete".....I'll keep that in mind for the zombie apocalypse" cost me two paper towels to clean the coffee spewed on my laptop!
As already noted many times, this was easy for a Saturday and was good fun. For me easy means I got it in under an hour with only a couple of reveal letters to get the SW. Slow and steady doesn't win anything here...:>)
However, USS NAUTILUS was a gimme in the SW, not the least of which is being a Navy vet (tin-can ’69 – ‘73) who operated with some of those nukes.
Of course the Soviets had them, too. One of our carriers was being tailed by one. The captain kept slowly increasing his speed which the Soviet submarine also did to keep pace. At some point it dropped off the “chase.” They had figured out the game, but likely unbeknownst to them, it was too late. What had happened was the captain of the carrier had already suckered their sub into going faster than the then-current intelligence the U.S. had about their maximum speeds. Read this in intelligence reports I was privy to at the time.
Oopsie, there.
Cold War games for fun and profit…(mostly the latter per D.D.E.)
@jamiec 8:05 -- Thanks for the laugh!
ReplyDeleteWasn't IMO ZIMA a major WWII battle?
For some explicable reason, I track double letters in the NYT puzzles, but only make a report in the very rare instances that their number is over 20 or under 5. Today we have 4, and it has been many moons since the DL count has been that low. In the Shortz era (and possibly before), there has never been a themeless with zero double letters (and only one themed), and when this finally happens, I'll probably write my post in all caps.
I liked the clues for ICECUBETRAY and CASES, and just seemed to guess right throughout the solve. But it was no breeze, thank goodness. It opened slowly and beautifully, like lotus petals. Nice one, Barry!
@anon 10:59 It's RUNE not rage.
ReplyDeleteAlso found this too easy, yesterday too. Maybe crosswords are a resource like oil and we're running out.
Anon10:59 - I don't want to RUNE your day, but methinks you have an error.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I breezed through it for a Saturday, but i ended up with the "almost fished" message. I had RCA and since i didn't know what 254,000 angstroms are...i didn't know where my mistake was for a while. I found the SE corner to be a bit sloppy.
ReplyDelete@anonymous @10:29:
ReplyDeleteRUNE was the answer, not RAGE. You must have put AGE into the end of 57 across.
I've always called it Russian rye; toasted and buttered it's glorious; and not just pastrami, but any cold cuts and cheese sandwich; along with pickled herring and kosher dills, a heavenly meal. The CAP duplication threw me too - so TOE tAP had me flustered on French regions; CORSICA had only recently become a possession of France when Napoleon was born, so he just made it as a natural-born Frenchmen; he grew up speaking the Corsican dialect of Italian. With all the p's , a's, and r's I kept trying to fit parole in for PARAPHRASE. It took me a while but I fnally got it when I abandoned JAm for JAS and saw SALARY CAP. Not easy for me, but a good puzzle.
ReplyDeleteThanks, @George Barany, for identifying the terrific copywriter who came up with "You don't have to be Jewish to love Levy's rye bread." One of the all-time great ads. That was back in the day when there were no remotes and no mute buttons, so you couldn't dodge commercials the way you can today. I dodge them all, which, as I said earlier, is why I don't know a TAHOE from a TESLA. But those of you who never saw the commercial, go Google it; it's so funny. I'm going to go Google that copywriter. I'm always glad when an unknown writer gets recognition.
ReplyDelete@Hartley -- deli bread for JEWISH RYE? Oh, my dear, that move to CT, really DID addle your brain. Poor thing. But going off to toast Jewish rye isn't any fun. Going off to toast WITH Jewish rye -- now THAT would be fun. (Hic.)
Hey, can you really call the OKAPI a 'striped animal' if only the RUPP is striped?
ReplyDeleteSolving puzzles dredge up the darndest memories. Way back when, at good old West Hill High, our Math teacher was CP Batt, whose love of teaching the subject had dozens of us miscreants staying after hours for Math Club, to learn about cuneiform number systems, Boolean algebra, matrices and such. His deadly aim with a piece of chalk was also legendary in capturing any attentions that wandered in the back of the room. Despite his stature as a teacher, in the flesh Mr. Batt was eminently caricaturable, a short little guy, pot-bellied with glasses and a beaky nose, all of which I captured quite well during one rather boring Chem class (sorry, @GB!), while playing about with this moldable purple ink-eraser stuff that I had. For some reason, Jim R made a grab for it from behind me and startled a pretty healthy squawk out of me; by the time the Chem teacher had turned from the blackboard, Jim was sitting back looking innocent and I was the only one with a guilty red face. Why do I remember this? My punishment was to write out every formula in the chapter 20 times, and we were currently learning about Nitric Acid (which apparently reacts with everything except maybe glass). The other reason is that I was recently clearing through some old stored stuff, and came across a slightly dusty but still remarkably good likeness of CP Batt in purple PLEISTOCENE.
As noted many times over, a nice piece of Silk, over too soon.
Only Naticky spot was the MIL/MCA cross. I've never heard of MCA, but certainly RCA (Victor), so I thought maybe RIL was just another piece of crosswordese I'd never seen. Had to scour the completed grid to suss out that that M was my remaining error.
ReplyDeleteMy oldest son and I just started working crosswords together (on occasion), and were very pleased to finally finish this one. I've completed one Thursday and one Friday without any Google help, but first time to do so on a Saturday.
ReplyDeleteWe made steady progress through most of the puzzle, but got stuck for awhile in the SE. I thought we'd have to Google, but then thought 31 down ended in RYE, and eventually got ANOMALIES. We were stalled again until figuring out SALARY CAP - enjoyed both the cluing and the phrase. JEWISH RYE is something I won't forget.
While this puzzle was easy for Rex and most of the crossword vets here, it was plenty challenging, with fun cluing and answers. If we'd swam with sharks like Jamie C, we would have been too distracted to finish it. More like a Thursday or Friday for me, but helped to have my son's science background to complete it.
JEWISH RYE puts me in mind of Fink's . I (and one) used to see their bread trucks on the streets of NYC, blazoned with their delightfully modest slogan: makes a nice sandwich.
ReplyDeleteFor me. Too much French. Why am I supposed to know French to solve an American puzzle? If there were for clues about awards and regions in Zimbabwe there would be an uproar. Racism? Certainly Europhilism. Hate when a perfectly good supposedly English Ianguage puzzle is ruined for me because I chose the Spanish path instead of the French when I was in eighth grade.
ReplyDeleteRex didn't note that Ice Cube and Dre crossed ?! For shame. Where's your NWA street cred Rex? You complain about the racism of "THUGS" and say that we're all white snob puzzle solvers. Well here was a great nod to some great OGs and you missed it.
ReplyDelete@Da Bears:
ReplyDeleteHey JFC. Decided to go back to the comments from earlier in the week, on the off chance that you had made a late post vis-a-vis my comment. Indeed you had. I don't mind being "japed" at all. I'm usually not overly sensitive. We should all be willing to laugh at ourselves. Glad we put that to rest.
Gratifying to know that you beat back the PCa. I've had some some issue with the big C as well, but not in that region of anatomy.
Thanks for that great link to the past. It was a hoot re-reading all the posts.
hope you see this comment? As you noted, this format is not conducive to a running dialogue. Sorry about your Cubs, but at least they had a lot better year than my Tigers!
Your Pal
Chaos
My blink took 1 1/2 hours! Haha
ReplyDeleteWell, there were only 4 references to Levy's Jewish Rye so I lost my over/under (6) and will be making breakfast in the morning. I attribute this to Rex doing more frequent monitoring on the weekends and the Levy's fans not having several hours to pile up their references. But Mrs. M took advantage of her gambler's edge on this one and I'll be donning my toque in the AM.
ReplyDeleteHey, @Chaos! Good to know the ship didn't sink at Sag Harbor.
ReplyDeleteZombies and sharks went a long way to livening the proceedings, but there hasn't been the usual amount of jumping up and down today. Perhaps a quick google on 'Adolph Rupp controversy' can fix that. Pick the version you prefer.
Serious question. How did you all figure out the M in the MCA/MIL crossing? I had RCA and RIL. Never heard of MCA or MIL (or RIL for that matter, but at least I know RCA is a thing). This is actually annoying me as it busted my 47 day streak. Are MCA/MIL reasonable trivia for a solver to be aware of? Or is this a straight natick? Complicating matters is that MCA is an acronym, so that M can be anything, and some science-y unit of measurement can have any number of strange spellings. I managed to get MANON and IACOCCA but those aren't exactly household names either.
ReplyDeleteLaughing to myself when I filled in HOSER. Brought back memories of SCTV and The Great White North. I'm sure there must be snippets on YouTube. Do yourself a favor and look them up.
ReplyDeleteHad to be easy, my first full Saturday solve.
ReplyDeleteyay
So we get JAmeS, but isn't it in Matthew and Mark that we find "Give UNTO CESAR that which is CESAR's, and UNTO DIEU that which is DIEU's"?
ReplyDeleteAnon 7:29, when I was painting a couple of rooms in my house, I bought some plastic dropcloths to protect the floor. I noticed the cheaper ones were 1 mil thick, the 3 mil ones a couple of dollars more. I figure that puts it in the ballpark of reasonable.
ReplyDeletePS. I decided to spring for the sturdier version. LF
@Chaos,
ReplyDeletePlaying golf tomorrow. Some things don't change.
Easy for all, apparently, except me. DNF with 20 empty, incorrect or iffy boxes, all in the SE. This therefore qualifies as my worst-ever finish for a Times puzzle. That said, I had breezed through the rest with no resistance.
ReplyDeleteMANON ATHENA
ReplyDeleteAMAZONIAN women are ANOMALIES,
their humor JEWISHRYE,
ALOUD one said, “My ICECUBETRAY won’t freeze.”
In a PARAPHRASES ALASKA why.
AUTH. --- CESAR ABRAM TESLA
HAYS and YAYS (and XRAYS). I’ll give an EZPASSing grade on this puz. Darn near on cruise control throughout. A quickly fixed mis-step with BOrNeo for BOSNIA, got my Banja Luka confused with Banjarmassin, musta been ‘cause of BONJOVI messin’ in that locale (with loco banjos?).
ReplyDeleteMANON Rhéaume, a better clue IMO. The first and only woman to play in the NHL (albeit an exhibition game) and a top-notch yeah baby to boot. I could fit her in under my SALARYCAP.
MICRONS and MILS and JOULEs, oh my! Enough sciency stuff to fill a PLEISTOCENE RADIOGALAXY.
What goes between A BRA and A BRA? CAD.
What comes between US? SNAUTIL.
As EZ as the ABCS today. But a good one.
The best Jewish Rye ever was not on the East Coast. It was at the Ukraine Bakery in San Francisco in the 40s. Uncle Art and Aunt Bessie. I'll be beyond shocked if anyone else in Rexland has been there and done that. It was BTS, before t-shirts, so been there, done that, and have the t-shirt does not apply.
ReplyDeleteLet us take a little time to distinguish between "easy" and "easy for the day." Relative to all other Saturday puzzles, I did get this one fairly quickly, though by no means easily. I'd rate it, maybe, easy-medium FOR A SATURDAY.
ReplyDeleteAshamed to say I'm not up on my Bible books, so I had no start to those long SE downs. But when RYE seemed certain and I had a start of _E_I, naturally DELI occurred. DELI__RYE...DELISH? Wait, maybe there's a RELISH RYE, though you'd think they'd let the customer put his own relish on. Only after aha!ing AWOL for "Like base runners?" (my "runner-"up clue for the week) did I see JEWISH (?) RYE. I don't understand that one, though I admit I don't frequent delis. Can there be a Gentile rye? Perhaps non-Kosher? I haven't the foggiest.
Other snags: right off the bat at !-across I saw "Mer" and inked in Sea with no inkling it could be wrong....
Oh. I just now noticed: I have a DNF! I confused sIdE judge with LINE JUDGE. Well of course, if I'd thought about it, the side judges determine out-of-bounds plays, while it is indeed the LINEJUDGE who makes the offside calls. My bad! SAC looked as good to me as LAC, if it wasn't going to be SEA; and I just left dAM there because...well, because I was too dumb to see NAM.
Another holdup came with assuming (you know what that does) that my "annoying sort" was a brAT instead of a GNAT. That was easy to correct because "MICROrS" was nonsense.
Oh well, this may be the first puzzle I really liked doing despite not totally doing it. Can't issue any grade except incomplete, but if I could I'd make it an A.
Much of this was easy, but I found some of it very slow going in the SW and SE.
ReplyDeleteIn the SW, clue says "They" in referring to TESLA. Isn't the company an 'it" and Tesla a "he"? And Franklins competing with REOS? The PARAPHRASES clue says it shortens a sentence. It may or may not.
In the SE, JEWISHRYE/JAS crossing the last to go. Not familiar enough with Bible abbrs, while crosswords are still teaching me. And Jewish rye is a bread I may have heard of long ago but couldn't remember.
These delays may this one tough.
ReplyDeleteOh, I had a DNF at the rIL/rCA crossing. And I should acknowledge that this was another fine Silk puzzle.
Too easy for a Saturday. REOS/RUPP crossing was my only resistance. I prefer Saturday puzzles that ALMOST destroy me.
ReplyDelete