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Impressionist Claude / MON 5-16 / Former "Meet the Press" host Marvin / Hermes' mother / R&B singer with the hit "It's All About Me" / "___ Dream" (aria from "Lohengrin") / Former All-Star closer Robb
Monday, May 16, 2016
Constructor: Sam Buchbinder
Relative difficulty: Pretty Easy, I Think
THEME: Things that can be "set"
Hi, everybody! It's me -- PuzzleGirl! Excited to be with you today to talk about your Monday puzzle while Rex is traveling. I'm still bedridden after having this stupid surgery on my foot. Well, it's not actually stupid. I imagine when I'm all healed I will more accurately describe it as helpful and will, in fact, be grateful for it. But right now it's just feels -- ARGH! I went back to the doctor this past Thursday to get my cast off. 
I was hoping I would then get a walking boot or something that would make it easier for me to shower, get around, possibly drive (it's my right foot). You know, since my doctor initially told me that the recovery would consist of one week of no driving and it's already been four weeks. But no. They gave me another cast. So, another three weeks. Sigh. Let's see if this puzzle can take my mind off my troubles for a bit, shall we?
Theme answers:
- 17A: BROKEN BONE (Reason for a cast)
- 25A: VOLLEYBALL (Piece of sports equipment that's spiked)
- 37A: DINNER TABLE (Family gathering place)
- 48A: ALARM CLOCK (Device with a snooze button)
- 59A: "WE'RE ALL SET!" ("Ready to go!" ... or a description of 17-, 25-, 37- and 48-Across?)
But the theme is good. It's obviously not the most exciting set of theme answers (see what I did there?) you'll ever see, but perfectly serviceable for a Monday. And each theme answer is "set" in a different way, which is nice. The long downs aren't super sparkly or anything, but Monday's aren't exactly known for their excitement, right? Let's see what else there is to like.
Bullets:
6A: TIME (Magazine with a "Person of the Year"). I'm so old I remember when it used to be "Man of the Year." When did they change that? Hmmm ... 1999. So it's been a while. Good.- 41A: TAKES TO (Starts liking). I first thought WARMS TO, but already had a couple of the crosses to alert me that was wrong.
- 58A: MAIA (Hermes' mother). One of these days I'm going to learn my Gods and Goddesses.
- 67A: AISLE (Choice plane seating). Not according to my kids!
1D: "I'M BEAT!" ("Man, what a day!"). I always like seeing the colloquial phrases in the puzzle.- 2D: "DARE ME" (Comment after "You think I'm chicken?"). Unless they're not really things people are apt to say.
- 3D: IN ON IT (Part of a prank, say). Very tricky clue for me. I was thinking the answer might be ANTIC (33D: Shenanigan) (malapop!). But the "silent words" at the beginning of the clue that make it work are "like one who is."
- 7D: IN OIL (How foods are often fried). Are there other ways of frying food??
8D: MEN (All Supreme Court justices until 1981). This is a much better clue for MEN than ... another clue someone might have come up with. Interesting that Sandra Day O'Connor joined the bench in 1981 and yet Time magazine continued with "Man of the Year" for a full 18 years!- 24D: "NOT IT!" (Cry in a game of tag). So glad this was the answer. I'm pretty sure I've seen I'M IT clued in this way and ... that's just wrong. Nobody says that.
Love,
PuzzleGirl
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52 comments:
I just want to compliment you on using a picture of Set. Excellent little card game. It uses a different part of the brain than most games, so it's interesting to see who does well at it.
Easy-medium for me. Liked the theme, but the fill was rough in spots. MYA and MAIA were WOEs. Apparently my knowledge depth on Greek Mythology and R&B singers is a tad shallow. According to Wiki MAIA was one of the Pleiades (another WOE) which would make a good crossword answer given it's 50% vowels.
OK Mon., liked it just about as much as @PuzzleGirl did.
Super easy, but...Monday. Things I haven't seen before or haven't seen for a while: KALB, TEAPOTS, MAIA, AMENABLE (tie in to OLORD?) and RHEA (good to see Ms. Perlman back in the NYT's.
I liked the puzzle, fill was nice, clues were good, some current stuff and some old. A good mix and perfect for a Monday.
Thanks for an enjoyable writeup, Puzzlegirl! Sorry about your BROKEN BONE. Pretty funny about the theme, except for you still being laid up.
Here's the big difference between PuzzleGirl and Rex: "Let's see what else there is to like." You will never see OFL saying that.
I kind of liked it. Needed the revealer and some time to figure out the "sets" thing. P.G., here's hoping your foot finally SETS!
Peeked at your tabs: yay for orphan black!
Started in the NW corner as usual and did not like it at all. Really sort of hated the whole corner, but then boom, everything else was great. Thought the overall theme, revealer, and clung all really good. Monday easy but not dumb at all. Wanted a Rich Little or Frank Caliendo for the impressionist but had to settle for MONET.
Nice start to the week.
Well, frying is cooking in any fat. So you can fry in oil, butter, lard, shortening, and, oh, I dunno... whale blubber? Nutritionists mostly say that "oil" just means it's liquid at room temperature, since all these things are mixtures of fatty acids, saturated and unsaturated fats, and flavor compounds. But then, coconut oil is pretty solid, and we call it an "oil."
So it's just semantics.
Hey, PG. Man. It must be awful not to be able to drive. Hope you're back up and running soon. Thanks for filling in this morning.
I think the DARE ME thing has come up recently. The first time I filled it in, I didn't think anything about it, but then some people said it didn't feel like a phrase someone actually says. I can kinda see that. I think I like it better as DARE ME? Funny that it crosses BROKEN BONE. Things could go downhill fast after the question DARE ME?
I'll admit this here, since it's private and I'm among friends… I don't know where I was in middle school when we had our VOLLEYBALL unit, but I sure had forgotten that a volleyball was set. I signed up to play with some moms in New Jersey, ya know – just for fun once a week - and I was the only one there who thought volleyball was about just trying to hit the ball back over the net if it came to you. In a panic. With your fist overhand. With your right leg up off the ground behind you like some kind of dance move. In fact, I think I was the only one there who had not played college volleyball. And I was certainly the only one there who ever received a compliment (usually from Catherine Gould) in the spirit of Way to go, Loren! You got it across! No one but me saw that being the only one ever to get props can just highlight your ineptitude even further. I wanted to improve enough so that people would stop complimenting the DOPE.
(I boosted "dope" to an even higher level when I signed up to play softball with the moms. Some of those women played semi-pro (Hi, Mare) and I'm not making that up. I didn't even know what "tag up" meant. I once fielded a ball, and, not having a plan for what to do next, I just threw it to second base. There was no runner on first. Mare was the runner on second base. She could've tried to advance to third but was so stunned that I had even thrown it to second at all, she just stayed there. Confused. This is what she told me after the game when I apologized for hitting her with the ball. Those Ridgewood women were very good sports and very patient.)
Anyhoo… nice theme – I liked that the entire phrase was involved, and not just a word at the end like "multiplication table" or "biological clock." I think this'll be right in the sweet spot of Monday solvers like my dad.
Solid start to the week, with an excellent reveal and a touch of bite in the NW. Not so ridiculously easy that even beginners say, "Is that all there is to a puzzle?" (Cue Peggy Lee.)
And there are some gems to mine. There's that backward NAP next to the ALARM_CLOCK. TIME is up, and this puzzle has no overTIME. We see that DOPE has gone subURBAN, and I love the answer AMENABLE as well as the cautionary tale of DARE_ME crossing BROKEN_BONE.
This was a nice little foot in the door to the rest of the week; it SET a good tone for what's to come.
MYA crossing MONET (as clued) = not good for a Monday.
EEN and ERE in the same puzzle = not good for any day, ever.
Otherwise, typical meh Monday.
PG, you can fry things in fat or butter or Pam...butter doesn't fit, so that's out. I held up because it could have easily been "fat." I also checked myself at KEA...could've been loA as well.
Otherwise, the puzzle was easy for me too. On Mondays I try to solve the downs first, and today the downs were a bit more difficult than the acrosses. After doing a pass of the downs, I had a lot of white space left. Once I'd done a pass on the acrosses, it was nearly filled in, just some tidying (tiding?) up afterward.
Speaking of, IDING. Yeah, I get we use that word and that's probably how you spell it, but it just looks funny spelled out like that. Inelegant.
Speaking of inelegant, DAREME and METOO were that.
OLORD starts prayers, to be sure...but seriously? It could literally be 1000 different things. I would have liked a clue that was a bit more clever for that....like, "________, it's hard to be humble." Maybe not all that clever, but it's a better fit IMO.
What a sweet review by @PuzzleGirl of @Sam Buchbinder's Monday offering. I particularly appreciated the segue to your medical situation, and the riff on MEN, vis-à-vis TIME magazine (which, for the record, has also named groups, organizations, or objects).
My slant today is to express appreciation for the ELSA'S dream clue, which I consider an upgrade to a hypothetical "'Frozen' queen, and others." Thanks too, for reminding us that it's an ARIA, unlike this extraordinarily familiar chorus from the same @Richard Wagner opera.
Having never read @Stephen King's novel nor seen the @Stanley Kubrick movie that it spawned, it took a crossword puzzle less than a week ago for me to learn the significance of REDRUM in "The Shining" -- and did that ever prepare me for the just-concluded world premiere engagement of @Paul Moravec’s new opera at the Ordway Theater in Saint Paul.
All this, a convoluted way to say, opera (both classic as well as current) is an important part of culture, and is every bit as valid in our daily crossword as all those the rappers and trade names.
Very cute. I pondered possible connections among the first 4 theme answers without being able to come up with any, so the reveal was a delight.
I can never keep Manet/Monet straight. Decided to see if something would make it stick. The test will be later, but here's a link:
http://www.diffen.com/difference/Manet_vs_Monet
fun easy Monday. Love any puzzle with Bee and pie ala mode and skillet. Never heard of Mya.
Hopefully you'll be driving soon Puzzle Girl...good write-up
I ding, you ding, we all ding for IDING -- a rather clumsy start to an otherwise pleasant Monday puzzle with acute theme [sorry, that was yesterday]. I found it wanting a set of tennis games among many other sets, but it didn't set my teeth on edge like rubbing a PEARL across them to test if it's RHEA or faux. PEARL and RHEA Perlman -- funny.
I found the IN OIL, IN ON IT, and NOT IT (AM IN?) duplicates a tad off-putting, otherwise I enjoyed the clean fill, and the touch of un-Mondayish toughness in places.
PuzzleGirl, loved your write-up, and trust the top entry didn't cause much discomfort by power of suggestion. Wish you speedy healing.
Catching up from a weekend away, so I got to do, in succession, Friday's perfect puzzle, Saturday's excellent puzzle, and Sunday's very fine puzzle, and now this OK puzzle. Don't like the trend, but the four-day average is stellar.
rOLLErBALL before VOLLEYBALL, which confused me a bit on the theme.
I joined in the general condemnation of DAREME last time (at least mentally), and do so again this time. LEOI I could sure do without, and as someone noted recently ELON has become too often used. Still, a serviceable Monday.
I noticed while solving that, contrary to @Rex's point a few days ago, it was the SE where I found myself solving from the final letters. This was in good part coincidence -- if I had worked down from ALARM CLOCK, in stead of going up with PEARL>TEAPOTS>LATTE, etc., I would have got ORRIN right away and worked from that. But anyway, I guess there's nothing inevitable (although perhaps probable) about the SW being harder than the other quarters.
Of course, in this one nothing was hard. I'm with PG's kids -- if you are flying over the Rockies, or the coast of Alaska, on a clear day, the AISLE seat is far from choice. Ditto on frying. But no serious holdup there; only real problem was starting with KeBaB, and that didn't last long.
Puzzle Girl, I'm really sorry to hear of your slow recovery! It must be a little worrisome. A couple years ago I had something far less serious -- a hematoma on my shin due to a fall -- that took a couple of months to clear up. It didn't cause much of a real problem, but it sure produced a lot of worry! Hope you get better soon -- and thanks for the fun writeup.
@Puzzle Girl, so sorry to hear that your doctors are using the same approach to estimating how long it will take to heal after your surgery that my super takes when estimating the time it will take to replastering the wall after fixing the pipes. So much worse when its your foot than merely a wall. Hope you regain mobility soon.
The only thing that slowed me down on this one was the clueing of Spanish newborn. Recien nacido didn't fit and niño/niña was NOT IT. BEBE made me think of the French BÉBÉ not the Spanish BEBÉ. Really, without the accent marks shouldn't it have been clued as what one does when offered a PALEALE? Or it could have been doubled as in "el BEBÉ BEBE su leche" (rather than the cervesa) in some future reiteration of the TO BE TO DO DOO BY puzzle.
@lms, LOL you described exactly how I feel when one of my BJJ instructors IMs me a complement after training.
METOO. What @Carola said at 7:53am.
"The long downs aren't super sparkly or anything, but Monday's aren't exactly known for their excitement, right?"
Please delete the apostrophe on "Monday's." I'm sure that was a typo.
:)
@chefbea, thanks for the offer! I tried to write to the address in your profile, but AOL rejected it. You can reach me by clicking on 'email' in my profile. Thanks!
I'm not quite sure where @Lewis found "a touch of bite" in the NW. I didn't find any bite anywhere. Well, I guess MAIA and ELON -- but that's in the SW. Missed the theme, as usual; now that I see it, it is sort of cute. So sorry about your BROKEN BONE, Puzzle Girl -- your review, though sad, was far more interesting than the puzzle.
But the best thing on the blog for me so far (though it's still early) is @lg's 1 a.m. AMENABLE pun. I guess from now on, it can be clued: "Churchgoers' assessment of a really rousing sermon."
Kebab / Manet aargh! Cruel. And my high school art history teacher's disappointment is palpable.
Aw, shucks. I was hoping there'd be a Mercedes or at least a Benz clued somewhere soon after "O Lord..." :) Get well soon Puzzle Girl. Take advantage of this "down time" to read some good books.
@Jberg I sent you an e-mail...My address is at yahoo
I agree with Z and others that a few years may be enough time before recycling a theme, but I wonder if there is a level playing field here. Could Jane Doe have submitted a reused theme like Sunday's and had it accepted? Enquiring minds want to know.
Hey All !
Nice. Lots of Double Letters ala @Lewis. 14, 7 Across, 7 Down. Thought that the themers would all have double letters, after getting DINNERTABLE, then WEREALLSET. But BROKENBONE "broke" that.
Decent fill, AMENDABLE MonPuz.
URBAN DOPE
RooMonster
DarrinV
Is IDI NG the Vietnamese counterpart of Idi AMIN?
I was disappointed Rex didn't cover this one, I think the genius of the theme was missed.
Basically the clue is "we're all set" but the revealer is actually "WERE all set".
The element of time really adds something special to this, as the 'setting' takes place BEFORE the event in the clue. This is especially impressive with the volleyball clue, which is 'set' before it is 'spiked' especially because those are not the first definitions you'd think of for those words, and so when you realize its volleyball, that was pretty impressive.
But you 'set' your arm before it goes in a cast, you 'set' the ball before you spike it, you 'set' the table, before your family meet there, and you 'set' your alarm clock before you hit the snooze button.
Not sure if that was 100% intentional but thought it was awesome
Fast, easy Monday with a crisp theme and for me, no knowledge gaps except for Marvin KALB, which filled in with crosses.
No interesting writeovers, just Oh god before O LORD. I remember learning the PEARLS factoid from an episode of M*A*S*H, fun stuff.
So WE'RE ALL SET for a great week of puzzles, right?
Thanks SB, and thanks PG for the write up.
"Part of a prank" = INONIT? Huh? Isn't the "answer" supposed to be something of which the clue is a definition (or vice versa)? In what universe -- even in WS-puzzle-universe -- is that true of this pair? This is another one of these sorta, kinda, in-the-general-area-of clue-answer pairs that debase the genre. Maleska would never have tolerated this.
I'm American and I spell it KEBAB, the correct way. That threw me off. KABOB? Huh?
Listen, NEN crossing TETON is fairly diabolical for a Monday. Never heard of him, of course, so tried Ken, Ben, Len, Ren, Fen, Jen, Sen . . . Teton is a French word, as I recall, so perhaps we could've had more fun with that?
Kebab / Manet is as good as kebob / Monet. Though I prefer Kebab.
As someone who just recently (only a month or so) started crosswording, two things jump out at me with this puzzle. First, I really feel like I'm progressing as this puzzle fairly leapt into place for me. Second, I truly enjoy when Rex has subs. It makes the blog feel friendlier somehow. Maybe it's all those puzzles that Rex passes off as "ridiculously easy" that I've shaken my fist at to solve.
Sort of a "while cat is away, the mice will play" feeling about these parts.
@Quo Vadis 6:53 PM Yes "teton" is French but I don't think the translation of Grand Teton would make it in the NYT puzzle. You could have fun with it but in a different venue.
@Devin W - I believe the "correct" spelling is כבבא
Too be fair, crossing the randomly spelled meat skewer (go to five Mediterranean Style restaurants and you'll find 7 different spellings) with the MONET/MaNET coin flip was mean (BTW - MaNET's first name is Édouard)(also BTW - I do not know anything about Syriac, but Wikipedia thinks it does).
@Why? - Rex has quoted Will on this. I don't remember the exact quote but it was something along the lines of "when I feel like enough time has passed and if I like the puzzle." I don't know if gridgate will have any effect.
Just a quick note to say THANKS to PuzzleGirl for a charming write-up
Ditto on very much appreciating the approach of "let's see what else there is to like" (Ellen S.) :-)
Also love the SET graphic!
A light and fun Monday puzzle
CS
@Z, MaNET/MONET is mean if you don't know Thing One about art and artistic styles. If you can tell the difference between Steppenwolf and Cat Stevens when you hear them, you should know a bit about the difference between Edouard and Claude.
Jest Seine.
Shoot. I forgot to say... The customer who was bitten (the bitee?) is considering suing the STORE, but YOU CAN'T WIN A MALL.
To the place...I was born...
Cleveland Rocks!
Not since I was 13
Diana, not waiting now
Can't help but think "broken bone" should have been clued "erectile dysfunction."
Like @Alias Z, my first thought was, if we have to start right out of the blocks with IDING, WE'RE in trouble. And in the same block, INONIT?? Big uh-oh--especially as clued. "Part of a prank?" Huh? Maybe if you add "(with 'being')," but it's still...what's the word, @M&A? Weeject; yeah that's it. I'd be tearing out and redoing.
The (meager enough) enjoyment of this was figuring out what a BROKENBONE and a VOLLEYBALL have in common. By the TIME I got to DINNERTABLE, though, the cat was out--partly. I knew it had to do with being SET, but what would a ten-letter reveal line be? I was thinking, like, a category on "The $25,000 Pyramid:" things that are SET. But that's 15. As it turns out, "WE'RE ALL" stuck in front of SET seemed forced.
Near twin WOEs MYA and MAIA might be DOD candidates; I have no idea. I think I'll take PEARL, the loving moniker of Janis Joplin--who, BTW, began one of my favorites of hers:
OLORD, won't you buy me a Mercedes-Benz?
RIP, baby. You took another piece of MY heart.
Theme actually not that bad; ditto a lot of the fill. Let's start the week off on a kind note and let him sink a long par-saving putt.
P.s. Congrats to Dustin Johnson, who just moved from Mr. Almost to Mr. Seeyalater. And also: your wife is HOT!
ANEW APPEAL
ALMA at the MEN’s clinic was AMENABLE to meet,
”DAREME and I’m INONIT, AISLE consider it a treat.”
“METOO, I’ll have a DONATION as soon as IMBEAT.”
--- ORRIN URBAN
You say KEBABo, I say kabobo... Wikipedia says the word is "common in other languages worldwide, with numerous spellings and variants." Wiki also provides the information that KABOB/kebab means "grilled" whilst "shish" means "skewered." For the true cognoscenti, the clue might have provided a hint that the American spelling was required, since in the good ol' US of A, where we are largely ignorant of the original meaning of "kebab," KABOB has come to mean anything skewered. I don't know whether Mr. Buchbinder thought it through to that extent, but I'm happy to give him the benefit of the doubt.
However you spell it, KABOB was the juiciest morsel in this puzzle for me, precisely because it required stopping to decide which spelling was required, and that in turn required distinguishing between Claude MONET and Edouard Manet, providing a tiny touch of sorely-needed crunch in a Monday puzzle.
Webmaster: As of noon Eastern time on June 20, the "syndicated puzzle" button was linked to the June 13 puzzle, rather than this one.
@Mark Rukavina - well, it ain't a bone.
Good Monday puzzle with some punch, a nice tight theme, and I believe, a little sparkle. I always spell the skewer KEBAB, but obviously there are several variations. If you are eating formally, maybe it's KArobert.
The variety in the cluing made it possible to do the SW with all downs, the SE with all acrosses, and other places where both were required. Didn't know KALB, so the crosses were necessary there. ELSA Martinelli was a real "yeah baby" or DOD in her day, and maybe still is.
Sort of conflicted about the NBA champships: glad for Cleveland, not so much for Lebron. However, I was delighted for Dustin Johnson.
PuzzleGirl says it all very well, and I love those Supremes.
Adding to the theme answers of things that may be SET:
TIME, SPOT, RENT, PEARL. APPEAL? How about NESTLE as in SETtle?
Thanks for the nice write-up, PuzzleGirl. Expect you're all healed by now, here in future time, otherwise known as syndiland.
INONIT NOTIT INOIL LEOI along with IDING all in that small area? OLORD. That’s a bit weak. Spread out AMIE MAIA and MYA (yeah baby) and EEN ERE EWE dang near TABOO, don’t you think? METOO. Didn’t pick up on the SET theme until that answer, so some cleverness there.
I have not used an ALARMCLOCK in nearly 20 years. Too jarring to the system. Yet I always get up on TIME. On that rare occasion I don’t, I must need the extra rest.
Actress Neuwirth a better clue for BEBE, IMHO, yeah baby. Sorry RHES, though on the same show, once.
Even a PALEALE is too bitter for me. Take the TIME to brew a good beer then maybe I’m INONIT.
I should probably knock off my whining since I’m no constructor, but this puz might have done better in the fill APPEAL.
These comments may never post given the result of clicking the Syndi button.
Yes, mostly Monday easy but with a few crunchy answers. Ultimately the crosses reveal the answers, with a few that a starting-out solver might have to guess at. MAIA, NEN, LEOI, et. al.
I doubt that Bluestater will see this, but a person can be part of a prank, and thus INONIT. I hesitated to fill that in, too, as I had the same first impression. (One of, "Oh, Rex will hate this.")
Thanks to @Michael D for pointing out the "we're/were" elegance of the themers. Well done!
Also appreciated the comments from KandRFenton regarding the feeling of improving in the solve world. It just gets better.
When I worked, briefly, at a NYC jewelry store, one of the long-time clerks was truly, madly, deeply in love with selling pearls. How they look against one's skin, their various colors, their perfection. But, to tell you the tooth, I had forgotten that test for genuineness. Brought back memories.
Happy first day of summer all!
Diana, Lady-in-Waiting for Crosswords, and for Sunday's paper to dry out
Hey, Blue Stater (way above, real time), if you take part in a prank, you're INONIT.
@Rainey - Laughed out loud at KArobert. Skewered the concept of formal dining. Must stay on top of the latest foodie trends.
@Sailor - I've mentioned to Rex that sometimes the syndie button is off kilter. He noted that one could just click on "newer" or "older" post button at the page bottom if it's a day late/early, or go to the archives (near the top of the comments) and select the month, wait for it, then select the day of the puzzle. It happens now and then, so learning those techniques of time travel could come in handy. (Think the deLorean.) (It's how I roll.)
Diana, Not waiting to roll
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