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Feet slangily / TUE 2-27-18 / Firebug felonies / Singer actress Gomez / Epitome of stupidity
Tuesday, February 27, 2018
Constructor: Ross Trudeau
Relative difficulty: Pretty easy
THEME: Dreamers — Famous people known for works drawing on dreams
Theme answers:
- LANGSTON HUGHES (19A: “Montage of a Dream Deferred” poet)
- SIGMUND FREUD (29A: “The Interpretation of Dreams” writer)
- SALVADOR DALI (29A: “Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee Around a Pomegranate Before Awakening” artist)
- EVERLY BROTHERS (52A: “All I Have to Do Is Dream” singers)
Tamarind (Tamarindus indica) is a leguminous tree in the family Fabaceae indigenous to tropical Africa. The genus Tamarindus is a monotypic taxon, having only a single species.The tamarind tree produces pod-like fruit, which contain an edible pulp that is used in cuisines around the world. Other uses of the pulp include traditional medicine and metal polish. The wood can be used for woodworking, and tamarind seed oil can be extracted from the seeds. Because of the tamarind's many uses, cultivation has spread around the world in tropical and subtropical zones. (Wikipedia)
• • •
I’m baaack! I’m Clare, and I’ll be your host for the last Tuesday of every month. I’m delighted to get the chance to write about more puzzles, and I figure I might lower Rex’s blood pressure at least a bit by relieving him of having to write up quite so many Tuesday puzzles. I signed off last time as a happy Eli (I’m a senior history major at Yale), and I’ve got to say that I’m now an ecstatic Eli — I just found out that Hillary Clinton is going to be my commencement speaker this year!
This puzzle struck me as fine for a Tuesday. The long names for the theme were interesting enough to puzzle out, but I totally didn’t realize they all related to dreams until minutes after I’d finished the puzzle. Knowing the dream connection didn’t matter to the solve. And there sure were a lot of other proper names in there (SELENA, HAMM, TURTURRO and ARISTOTLE) beyond the four theme answers. It’s a bit funny to see SELENA Gomez and ARISTOTLE on the same level.
The grid was overall pretty clean. It was nice to see the G.O.A.T, Mia HAMM, in there! And, shout out to my hometown of MENLO Park (even if the clue was referring to the one in New Jersey, not the one where I grew up in California). I did have a big oops on 62A with “special intuition, for short” because I read that as “institution” at first and couldn’t get that out of my head and get to ESP. I also thought that SOYS was a pretty lame plural — I got stuck because I was trying to make the answer “soya,” instead. And, as a 21-year-old millennial, I can promise you no one says ROTFL anymore! I tried to put “lmfao” in at first (not that it’s used much anymore, either) but then realized that probably wouldn’t be PC enough to put in the puzzle.
It was also nice to see SVEN, the adorable reindeer from the movie “Frozen.” I’m ashamed to admit that my first instinct when I saw “Frozen” in the clue was to type in “Olaf” before realizing it asked for the reindeer, not the snowman. Anyway, “Tangled” is a better Disney movie than “Frozen.”
I got to use some of what I’ve learned in my classes in college in the puzzle. (See, Dad, you’re paying for my education for a reason!). Examples: PLESSY v. Ferguson; knowing SALVADOR DALI because of some art history classes; jumping right to DUEL because of a Hamilton-Jefferson class and, of course, the musical. (My professor Joanne Freeman actually compiled the book of Hamilton’s letters that Lin-Manuel Miranda used for the musical and did research on duels that he put directly into the songs! She even got to meet him, which makes me insanely jealous, because he’d definitely have a seat at my “pick three famous people, dead or alive, to have dinner with” — I’m sure he’s vying for a spot.) For 2D, my mind immediately jumped to hamburgers as the food that symbolizes America, but I suppose APPLE PIE is pretty all-American, too. (In-N-Out would’ve been a correct answer, too, at least for those of us from the West Coast.) The Dalí painting is very… shall we say... interesting. If you figure it out, let me know.
Things I didn’t get:
- “Feet slangily” is DOGS, though that seems to be a fairly common expression
- “Pa Clampett of ‘The Beverly Hillbillies’” is JED
- I’ve never heard of the EVERLY BROTHERS, so that took some piecing together
- TAMARIND took me a bit because, even though I recognized the word, before this puzzle I couldn’t have told you it was an ingredient in Worcestershire sauce
Now, I’m off to write a full draft of my senior thesis by next week. (Send help!)
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
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140 comments:
"I've never heard of the EVERLY BROTHERS". God, I feel old. They were more my parents' generation, but never heard of them? ughhhhhh
I remember when Clare subbed for Rex previously, and was viciously savaged by the anti-anything trolls in here. Me, today, I admire the review as heartfelt and honest and not without merit. (I do not admire the font, however. Oh my eyes.)
Anyway this seems to be three in a row of "who gives a ****" puzzles, for me at least. By which I mean: I solved it, and I enjoy solving crosswords, so that was good. When I was done, I looked it over and .. yeah OK this was better than 'just there' but, it didn't do a lot more than that. Dreams. More FREUD less .. yeah whatever.
I am tired of 'Frozen' clues. To me they are 'fill in random Nordic/Russian name here'.
Spelling (location of double letters) for TURTURRO a solvable pain. He was better in O Brother Where Art Thou. ARISTOTLE, Aristotle was a bugger for the bottle.
In a duel each person walks ten paces so they end up being twenty paces apart.
Beware the Ivy Leaguer’s tendency toward self-promotion, dear.
anonymous: i think she fixed.
@TomAZ: I think she used the tiny font so she could mention herself more often. If ever there were a person in love with the vertical pronoun...more than 10 in the first paragraph alone.
Another HC speech at another Ivy? Give it a rest, FFS. She couldn't beat Donald Trump in a two-person race. 'nuf said. Why are people not screaming for changes to the selection process? More than three hundred million Americans and these two yutses were the best we could do? Shame on us.
Yes, "soys" is wrongs. No such animal. They're soy beans. As in lima beans. Show me two limas on my plate, please. I just got passed by a truck full of soys said nobody ever.
Come on, Rex. Are there no crossword constructors out here who can help review on the site? Yes, i see you're trying to bring a new generation into the field. But what field is that, exactly? Blog writers? This is a review of the puzzle by an expert, nest pas?
Long time lurker and very occasional commenter here. I thought the elated Eli's write up was at least as entertaining as the puzzle itself. It was so nice to get a fresh young witty perspective that I had to comment.
Didn't have any real trouble with the puzzle. Enjoyed it.
I am old enough to remember when Phil and Don Everly had their first hits. I was a kid then, growing up on the East Side of Manhattan, back when the old Third Avenue El was still running and the East side was a tenement neighborhood. They became big in the mid-fifties and stayed on top for a long time. They influenced many rock groups of the 60s, including the Beatles, the Hollies, the Beachboys and Simon and Garfunkel. It was a grand old time...
Young people do puzzles? I, for one, enjoyed Clare's enthusiastic review. Youth will be served, or some such SAW.
Tuesday and elegant in the same sentence seems like a dream, but I'm gonna go there. I have a very active dream life, not sure that's a good thing, so the theme is a medley of the names of creative people based on the word dream? I'm in. And not just a partial name; we get the whole enchilada.
First, LANGSTON HUGHES provided the subtle voice of racial inequality to a generation that rose above the endemic racism of American culture and blossomed in places like the Harlem Renaissance. Last week's puzzle featured his poem I, TOO. Read his stuff!
SIGMUND FREUD has been demoted to relic status, but I remember an incident years ago when I lost a close friend to a tragedy. I felt depressed and went to an old school psychologist. He patiently listened to my tale of woe and prescribed: Live in your Id. Best advice I have ever received.
ROTFL at Clare's assessment of the painting by SALVADOR DALI, well, not really because rolling on the floor and texting are difficult for me. Driving and texting are hard enough, JK. I love his paintings. Persistence of Memory woke me up from a childish stupor of perceived reality. I actually saw his Last Supper hanging in a stairwell at the Smithsonian. Nearly fell down.
Don and Phil, the EVERLY BROTHERS, were almost before my time; hard to believe. But that song! I can make you mine, taste your lips of wine, anytime night or day, the only trouble is, Gee whiz, I'm dreaming my life away. Lyric, in the original sense of an outpouring of emotion.
Once, in the Cotswolds I saw guys replacing a SLATE roof with copper flashing and the whole deal. Impressive! I'm pretty sure that roof is currently fighting off the Beast from the East and in an admirable fashion.
If you’re daughter is ecstatic that a criminal is going to be your commencement speaker, maybe “dad” should rethink his decision. (Come at me HRC lovers). Other than that, I liked the write-up, so thanks @Clare for the respite.
Couldn’t figure out the theme until I went back and read the clues, which during the solve were meaningless to me except for the EVERLYBROTHERS. Liked the puzzle just fine.
Didn’t know all the dreamers off the top of my head except for the EVERLY BROTHERS, but with a few letters in place they were pretty easy to figure out.
That SALVADOR DALI painting (which I hadn’t seen before) reminded me of my brother’s works. Check out Poobah Studio on tumblr. Big bro has quite the imagination.
Also lifted an eyebrow with SOYS.
Easy enough puzzle for a Tuesday, and thank you Clare for your write-up. I am sure you will get more snide comments, but take it in stride.
I liked the puzzle just fine and like the Eli review a lot too. I like the discussion of the solving experience. What she didn't know and how she worked it out. That does a lot more for me than the details of construction, grid, drek, crosswordese, green paint, etc. So cut the young'n a little slack, huh?
Also, she reinforces my Wheelhouse Theory. Every puzzle is in someone's wheelhouse and they love it. For the non WH folks, they hate it. I'm an engineer so I'm not allowed to know liberal arts stuff (poetry, artists, Greeks), but the crosses were enough to trip memory of the names. Got most of them with a few crosses. At my tender age, Everly Brothers ARE in the wheelhouse. I'm with @Brookboy on that one.
Off to dream land ...
Self-promotion: I was dirt-poor, lower-class, shy, and Yale '68. So I guess that makes me about 50 years older than Clare. Although George W's membership in our class later worsened our reputation, I was surprised by how often the diploma opened doors. Some undeserved. And of course there are those, like the commenter above, who want us to shut up; so that's usually what I do. The shortest, gladdest years of life. Go, Clare!
Hi, Clare! I'm delighted to hear your voice tonight and enjoy your BRIO even at 2am. I would gladly send help your way if I hadn't washed my hands of school decades ago. I can tell that you'll do just fine on your own.
Oh the EVERLYBROTHERS! Their harmony was divine. One night in the 50s I was riding in the back of my parent's car, when I started to sing "Wake Up Little Susie". Who knows where I'd heard it and had no idea what it meant at 7 or 8 years old. My Dad went ballistic and since it was perhaps the first time I'd seen him that angry, I've never forgotten that ride. Now those sleepy teens seem so innocuous, but the EVERYBROTHERS must have been just this side of scandalous when they released it. When a few years had passed, Cathy's Clown was the first 45 I bought for the knotty pine basement rec room. I had a thing for their sound.
I thought the first three dream theme individuals elevated this Tuesday puzzle and I liked seeing them. The DALI painting is fantastic, even if I don't want it in the dining room. All the PPPs were familiar though I wondered how many non-LAWYERS would know PLESSY right off the bat...probably a lot.
Apropos of @Larry Gilstrap:
Has anyone heard the quote, “Youth will be served ... with roast chestnuts and gravy”? My dad thought it was G. B. Shaw but I can’t find it anywhere.
@Mark at 2:25am. I hope I didn't inconvenience you in the fall of '66 or '67. (I've blocked the year.) I had a blind date for Yale homecoming and the Saturday events were rained out. We picked up the picnic box lunch to eat back in the dorm on Saturday afternoon and were given straw hats as part of the package. There was no "spark" with my date, an earnest lad from Utah, and I was bored. In a thoughtless moment I tossed my straw hat in the fire (yes, the dorm room had a working fireplace!) and it flared up and caught the Yale banner hanging above. The alarms went off, firemen rushed in and the building had to be evacuated in the pouring rain. At that point it was torrential. The couples traipsed out of the building, some in various stages of deshabille, only to get a serious soaking. I was horror stricken, but thankfully anonymous to everyone but my date and his roommate. I was back on the bus to my women's college later that afternoon. There was no point in continuing the worst date I'd ever had.
Not famous PEOPLE, famous MEN. C’mon, puzzle creators, there haven’t been ANY dream-themed works by women? “Dream Lover” springs instantly to mind and is a bit more recent than the EVERLY BROTHERS.!
So why not SOYa crossing HOSEa? One of the Minor Prophets too obscure for a Tuesday?
Nice to have you back Clare. I think that having enthusiastic young solvers pitch in for the occasional early-week puzzle review adds to the blog. It’s a look back on puzzling that some of us left behind before the ‘yoots’ were born.
The puzzle - meh. Pretty clean for Tuesday but also pretty loose. There are LOTS of dream themes in the arts. And ARISTOTLE was a poor choice for fill in a could-be-theme slot since he did write about dreams and their interpretation. http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/dreams.html
Yes, Tangled is better than Frozen. It's not close.
Fun write up Clare! I’m super jealous of your Hamilton-Jefferson class. You’ve got a typo on your first ‘Worcestershire’. I’m allergic to it (anchovies, not TAMARIND), so I get to spell it all the time. Good luck on the thesis!
Another fun and easy puzzle. Almost beat my record time for a Tues, and I don’t really try for time. Is this a trend?
The constructor Ross Trudeau commented in Xwordinfo that his revealer DREAMWORKS was not used and I sense that it kinda bothered him. I sympathize. No control after submitting to an editor. Jeff Chen did explain why, but I’m not sure I understood.
Yay, Clare. Welcome back. Always great to have a fresh perspective. Never heard of EVERLYBROTHERS, hah! ROTFL is passé, tell that to Jeff Chen! But I agree, I have roamed the whole world wide and nothing beats and is more American than In-N-Out.
@Ecstatic, hang in there and write a thesis you’re proud of. I’m so impressed that you also have time to contribute here. And wow, Joanne Freeman! I listen to her on Backstory! Easily the best history podcast out there.
DALÍ definitely explored the boundaries between realism and surrealism. Maybe it’s better to say surrealism, painted realistically. I too was shaken when I first saw his stuff at maybe age 10, in the City of Paris (a store in SF), randomly leafing through books. Wow. Never heard of this one but I still filled him in without crosses because, dreams plus insects, who else could it be? Now wondering if that famous photo of him https://goo.gl/images/225pby was a study for this.
Very easy puzzle, or very wheelhouse-y, but since I’m a STEMer, that must not be possible.
@Mark, took me until now to place that shortest, gladdest quote, and now I have a Bright College Years earworm for the day!
Very nice that the theme answers came in four flavors: Poet, writer, artist, singers. PLESSY popped right in, I do not know from where. I submit that IDI is not a good puzzle centerpiece, and could have been avoided (turn FDA into FHA, DIVE to DAVE, and AHI at 49A to ALI).
My recurring dream is of tsunamis -- what does that mean? Then my dadblasted mind started finding related works by the theme answers: HUGHES (The Negro Speaks Of Oceans), FREUD (Tides and Taboo), DALI (The Persistence of Moisture), and EVERLY BROTHERS (When Will I Be Saved?).
An easy Tuesday. Why it took two minutes longer than yesterday is hard to say. Initially thinking that 19A was LANGFORD something, not being familiar with PLESSY and reading the 22A clue as being the one for 23A slowed down the whole NW. After that it was pretty smooth. All the themes were easy to get even though I didn't get the connection between them until after solving.
That was the NE not the NW.
When Langston Hughes came up I immediately thought, "finally, a Black History Month puzzle." But no. Was there one? Did I miss something?
agree with previous comments about new talent. maybe get some of the young turks like david steinberg to pitch in and review other puzzles. i read this blog to learn about construction and fill so just ignore the political stuff. didn't we have a guest review from a teacher/puz constructor in Alberta? what happened to him? i'm all for other reviews, but the bar needs to be a little higher than it is currently.
except for soys no nits. i enjoyed the puzzle. the theme answers were interesting and not easy at all. if you look for outrage you'll find something to be outraged about. live is too short.
Strangely, wonderfully highbrow for a Tuesday. In addition to the themers, we get PARADIGM, TAMARIND, ARISTOTLE, PLESSY. Nice change from the usual OREO/SSE/ANO we get so much of early in the week.
Not familiar with the constructor’s name, but hoping for more like this.
Hand up for LMFAO before ROTFL.
Only complaint is why not NED/NOSY/YEMEN instead of JED/JOSH/HEMEN?
I liked this theme, but I do agree it would have been nice to have a female dreamer included, perhaps Mama Cass, "Dream a Little Dream of Me," or "California Dreamin'..."
I had a DNF because I put in SOYA and thought HOSEA was fine. I never read the clue for it. I was too bored to go back and seek out my mistake so I decided to hell with my "winning streak" and asked the computer thingamajig where I was wrong. I admit that I did not ROTFL when I saw SOYS. (I remember that acronym, BTW, as ROFL, an anagram of ROLF which is how I felt.)
Clare, welcome back. Your enthusiasm for this blog, crosswords and Yale is EXEMPLARy. Although when I went to Yale we were conditioned never to mention that fact. If people asked we just said we attended school in New Haven. We had Carl Sagan as our commencement speaker. I'm gloating now.
And if *you’re* doing crosswords, you should probably learn the difference between “your” and “you’re.”
"pretty easy" is right. I think PARADIGM and BRIO pushed it out of Monday territory.
LIKE:
-theme is nice (love dreams) with good, diverse answers (a philosopher, a poet, a psychiatrist, a painter, a musical duo)
NO LIKE:
-SOYS, ARSONS- some clunky plurals in there
SALVADOR DALI's "Invention of the Monsters" hangs over the refrigerator in the bar downstairs. If you stare at it long enough, there's a little blue DOG in the lower-right corner sort of smiling at you. Near the Dali is a magic-realist print of Our Lady of Guadalupe in the desert. Below that, a bottle opener shaped like a walleye. A dream themed puzzle unto itself.
This review is like a warm ray of sunshine on a nice Spring day, after a long an bitter Winter. Thanks, Clare.
Vicodin is not an opiate, it is a partial opioid. Opiates are naturally derived from the opium gum of the poppy and the two most commonly used are codeine and morphine. Vicodin is an amalgam of hydrocodone and Tylenol (i.e. acetaminophen). Hydrocodone is synthetically producer, as is oxycodone and most of the opioids used in medicine. (“-oid = “like”), thus opioid = opiate-like.
producer s/b produced, and I should proofread before I press the publish button.
Had no idea what the theme was!! Did like apron, kiss the cook and worcestershire sauce. Wonder why the write up was so small. Maybe I need new glasses!!!
I meant the print in the write up
Don’t like theme-in-the-clues.
Really nice puzzle, remarkably dreck-free. Easy but admirable. Thanks for the nifty write up, Clare!
I read the WOTD info and was surprised. It makes me a little nervous to eat something that is also used as a metal polish!?
The clue for obit reads like a riddle with some dark humor.
I guess we can't have any fun without someone complaining that there are no women in the theme. It must be exhausting to find faults 24/7.
The write up was nicely optimistic but I was shocked that we were hearing from a college senior. High school senior would have been more believable. I hope you commencement stage is decorated in a color scheme that goes well with a bright orange jumpsuit.
Never heard of the Everly Brothers? Wow.
Greetings from Hamden! Nice to see a “local” writing this blog!!
Hated SOYS. Never really seen BRIO used like this. But the rest of the puzzle was so easy that I got a record Tuesday. I guess i'm the right age that I know the EVERYLY BROTHERS and ROTFL.
It's such a pleasure when the proper names in a puzzle turn out to be Names Worth Knowing instead of rap stars, rock bands, and people in TV reality shows. Although...
...Of all the philosophers I read in my Political Philosophy class, ARISTOTLE was the least engaging writer and by far the hardest to grasp.
...Much, if not most, of SIGMUND FREUD's theories have been largely discredited and patients undergoing traditional Freudian therapy seem to never get better.
...I am not a big fan of melting clocks.
Still I applaud the respect for both the solver and the culture that this puzzle shows. I like the way the theme answers are clued. I wish the rest of the puzzle had shown some wit and playfulness, but you can't have everything I guess -- especially not on a Tuesday.
Now I know why Rex took the day off - it's National Pancake Day.
He's probably spending his day off at IHOP.
As someone above noted Dali's blend of realism and surrealism is what makes his work so interesting. I loved it in my 20s. Certain recreational substances helped my appreciation I think.
Monitors!!! Where are you? Hurry.
Tom, even sadder, they were more her grandparents age!
Get up on the wrong side of the futon?
My only hang up was that I had BROTHERS first and Isley popped into my head. I knew it was wrong but it sat there like a guard in Curling, making me go around it for the right answer.
When the theme is PPP I find it hard to fairly assess it. Those four answers could be the only PPP in the puzzle but the puzzle could still have a wheelhouse/outhouse problem. All four are pretty wheelhouse here, and three of the four are pretty western civilization canonical (I’ll let you argue whether to omit FREUD or the BROTHERS from the canon) so a dreamy Tuesday in my book.
Anyone else imagining the anonymous churls standing on their front porch in their tighty-whiteys shaking their fists yelling “You kids get off my lawn or I’m calling the cops!” And @Moly Shu - ROTFL. Did you hear the latest? Five deferment Donny is going to rush in to save our children. ROTFL & LMFAO. Every time anyone posts an anti-Hillary pro-Donny comment the only emotion evoked is deep deep fremdschämen.
Wtf rotfl 😝
I blew through this one, reread all the themers and every clue, and still couldn't figure out what tied it all together, so I came here thinking it was a Tuesday themeless. Turns out, of course, that I didn't read the clues as well as I thought I had. Still, without some sort of revealer, the theme falls flat for me.
No issue with any entry except for SOYS. That is super clean for a Tuesday.
Was DENG really Mao's successor? I thought it was Lin Biao. I'll have to go check that. Interesting topic, given the indefinite term the Politburo just handed Xi Jinping.
Referring to feet as DOGS is definitely a new one to me.
And finally...great review, Clare!
Easy romp. Only 7 seconds off of my Tuesday record, and two minutes below average.
Got nervous when the long crosses (save for EVERLY BROTHERS) didn't jump out on the first pass, but the downs were more than gettable and I ended up not needing all of them.
Dogs for feet didn't even make me blink. Maybe it has a military origin? I dunno but I definitely knew it. My dad must have said it.
If you didn't get the theme I don't know what to say. The word Dream is right there in every clue.
OTOH Plessy was a complete mystery.
No outcry about Idi Amin? I guess some villains get a pass but why?
I liked this a lot. You never know what a Tuesday will be.
Hi, newbie here. Got the Xword app for Christmas and am loving it. Someone mentioned that there’s a way to highlight wrong answers. Where would I find that lovely feature?
Also, I wish Rex would post his solving time for each puzzle. I’d love to monitor my progress against the pro...
Hey All !
What a Dream TuesPuz! Har. . .
Solved this one fairly quick, for me. No real hold-ups that I can think of.
@kitshef 7:18
Because then you wouldn't have that nice J!
@Sir Hillary 9:19
Never heard the expression "Boy, my DOGS are tired", or "My DOGS are barking" after a long day on ones feet?
Agree with whoever said to change the middke of puz to 39D, DAVe, 31D, FHa. Then you'd have to change 49A to ARI.
Liked the double Down 8's in NW and SE. Nice open grid with small three count. APT TuesPuz IMHO. :-)
BOOMED
RooMonster
DarrinV
How can you not have heard of the Everly Brothers? You're making me feel old. Please listen to them on YouTube. So sweet and innocent. Thanks for the analysis.
Vicodin is an opioid, not an opiate. Only naturally occurring alkaloids in the opium poppy, such as morphine and codeine, are true opiates.
I'm betting @Rex would have torn this puppy apart....
I finished and really did say "SO WHAT." Then I thought these are such OLD OLD OLD or mostly dead people. I would not have minded BARACK OBAMA as the writer of "Dreams From My Father" or even Emily Jane Bronte as the poet for "A Day Dream" - even though she is dead.
@Clare.....I don't know why, but your "I've never heard of the EVERLY BROTHERS" almost brought tears to my eyes. I bet you knew MOS Def? I've never heard of the dude.
@Hartley, on the other hand, had me ROTFL (though I rather eat dirt than use those letters) with her straw hat story. I'm already picturing you running out the burning building in a SALVADOR DALI wilted watch sort of way. SIGMUND FREUD would have had his way with you - probably on a silk couch....!
Thank you Clare for taking time out to write up the dreaded Tuesday puzzle blog. 21! I remember exactly where I was when I turned 21. In a bar in Spain.
@newbie - Rex is fast, not real fast. Want to compare your progress against the top solvers? Check out Dan Does Not Blog.
I enjoyed the puzzle. The best part was that the proper names are ones that have some merit and we should be able to piece together with a few letters, as opposed to a side character on a TV show we never watch.
I enjoyed the write up too, it's nice to have some levity and joy once and a while, Claire and Annabel bring a nice balance to the blog. And Claire, don't worry about the critics, just a few grumpy trumpys.
Larry Gilstrap (1:45): I remember having the reaction you describe when I was standing in front of a huge Dali canvas in The National Gallery a few years ago. But I remember it to be a depiction of the crucifiction.
Also, I think that I understand what "live in your id" means. Something like go with your gut feeling when making a decision. I agree with that.
@BarbieBarbie (5:34). The City of Paris was my mother's favorite store (even though the merchandise there was too expensive for us). I remember walking through it with her many times when I was a kid. I didn't like it because they didn't have a toy department. By the way, did you try the paintball puzzle I posted here Sunday? It has some intriguing angles.
Clare, if you never heard of the Everly Bros. Or like me are old and do remember them try “ Foreverly” an album released in 2013
It’s done by Norah Jones and Billie joe Armstrong (of Green Day ). It’s their interpretation of the Everly Bros 2nd album. “Songs are daddy taught us”.
https://youtu.be/fZeUHLAh_r4
@Z (10:41) Thanks for the link to Dan!
Sour grapes from “anonymous”...surprise! SAD. At least get your French right. What the hell is a nest pas?
@GILL I., my mother often sent cash on a birthday with instructions to take some fellow students out to dinner. So I have a vague memory of a table for six at one of England's oldest pubs. the antique Angel and Royal in Grantham, England. At least I think that's where we went -- Grantham was not famous for its food (or for anything else). Turning 21 was not so big a deal in a country where the drinking age is 18.
But within a couple of weeks I too was in Spain, visiting Gibraltar, Jerez, Sevilla, Cordoba, and Malaga, where I ran into a friend from my college, so we went to Granada together and no doubt had a better meal then we ever had in Grantham. (Later, I spent a night in Verona, where I went to the same trattoria 3 meals in a row in order to have the best lasagne I ever tasted).
The puzzle today was workman-like and the answers were in my wheelhouse, so I too found it Easy. Certainly I knew the EVERLY BROTHERS whose harmonies stayed with me forever.
@MaharajaMack 12:39am: I found Clare refreshing and exuberant— not at all self-promoting. (And I don’t find Ivy League students or alumni any more prone to self-promotion than any other group. I take it you’re a bit jealous of those who attend the Ivies?
I enjoyed this puzzle - welcome, Clare.
@mathgent (10:51) -- Your DALI response at the National Gallery sounds like it was incredibly similar to my own many years ago. Though I JOSHed in my earlier about not being a fan of melted clocks, it was Dali's "Crucifixion" that gave me an museum experience I have never had before or since. I'm not very visual (except when it comes to the beauties of nature) and I grew up in a family where no one was in the least into art or museum-going. On my rare ventures to museums, I tend to go through exhibits on roller skates, figuratively speaking. Friends will "daven" over a single painting for 20 minutes or more; in the meantime I will have zipped through the entire exhibit and be ready to leave. Dali's "Crucifixion" was the one, the only exception. I saw the painting and stared at it, mesmerized. I left the painting. I came back to the painting and stared at it, mesmerized. I did that again and again. I could not leave that painting. It transfixed me. And I have no idea exactly why. My art preferences, such as they are, have always been for the French Impressionists. And yet no Cezanne or Monet, both favorites, has ever exerted that kind of power over me. So I know exactly what you are saying. @mathgent.
@Hartley (3:23)-- That's just about the funniest story anyone has ever posted on this blog! If it also weren't so horrific. I'm pretty sure you recounted it to me once, but since I have no memory, I enjoyed it just as much as if I'd never heard it at all.
How refreshing to hear from someone who seems to enjoy solving puzzles for a change. Great write up Clare! Good luck with your thesis, and enjoy your last few months of college! Hopefully this springlike weather sticks around...
@Clare … primo write-up. Thanx for keepin @RP from blowin his cork on a Tuesday.
"Send help" on yer senior history thesis?…
How'bout some possible suggested topics:
* Everly Brothers Discography. I'd listen to that one.
* Origin of the "my dogs are barkin" phrase. I'd read that one.
* History of ROTFL and its predecessors/successors.
* Why a DREAMWORKS revealer was not used in this puz.*
* History of the "I do not recall" phrase in Congressional hearings. Fill it up with redacted sentences.
M&A No Day-um Help At All Desk
* Hint: DREAMWORKS would be a great revealer, except that then U couldn't used the word "dream" in the clues, which is hard to avoid, when U R givin the titles of the works as yer main cluin shtick.
staff weeject pick: AWS. Clearly a disguised version of SAW, bein sneakily resurrected. Sooo… yer double-?? clue of the day: {Was wrong??} = AWS.
Thanx, Mr. Trudeau. Good puz … I didn't wake up later screamin, or nuthin.
Masked & Anonymo6Us
**gruntz**
I agree with Clare: "soys" is weak, and even old people don't use ROTFL.
Thanks to ghostofelectricity for explaining opiod vs. opiate
Good luck on the thesis draft, Clare!
@Hartley, loved your straw hat story. I deliberately had set my mug of coffee down while reading it. I really did choke on tiny piece of chili pepper in my bison burger last night with very unpleasant results, so I couldn’t risk a repeat episode with coffee this morning.
@Clare, loved your exuberant write up. I too thought of the California Menlo Park first. I’m sure your worked hard to become an Eli, so I have no problem with your enthusiasm for your school. Watching my son throughout the college application process gave me a great appreciation for how much more work you have to do to get into an Ivy League school than in my day. So I see no reason to begrudge your generation from a moment of pride in your accomplishments. If you’re anything like my soon to be 19 year old son you probably have also already learned how to ignore the online haters better than my generation has. As for using the term DOGS for feet, I think of it as something my grandparents would say. One of my grandfathers was born before 1900 and he had a slight resemblance to JED Clampett.
@Z, thanks for introducing a new word to my vocabulary.
@QuasiMojo, nice additions to the DREAM theme. I used to ride my bike past Sagan’s 900 Stewart Ave home fairly frequently when I lived in Ithaca. Of course, since my civil engineer father was obsessed with the landslides that were common in our area of California, I was always a little nervous that the edge of the gorge that was the foundation of his house would start to crumble.
A good puzzle. It could have been a very good puzzle, but the theme was weak, or more accurately, weeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaak.
The fill was too proper-noun heavy, but it made up for it with some delightful longer answers. TUNAROLL! APPLEPIE! Those definitely pass the breakfast test. Yum.
The clues were also very good per a standard Tuesday puzzle. The last few in the Down column got awfully lazy in my view, but other than that there were some delights in there.
Overall, a pleasurable puzzle to solve like yesterday's. Not remarkable, but very day-appropriate. If only the theme were fixed somehow.
GRADE: B-, 3.25 stars.
The word I learned today as a non-native English speaker: BRIO.
p.s.
FWIW Dept. [Do "in" people still use FWIW? No? Good enough, then.]
M&A recently asked an 8-year-old lookin for a good movie to watch on her iPAD: "How'bout 'Frozen'?"
Her reply: "Boooor-ring!…" [This 8-year-old is the daughter of the restaurant owner, and she often comes over and chews the fat with us, whenever there is still room on the table to splatz her iPAD down and use it. She is most informed person I know, at usin an iPAD.]
Have never seen "Frozen". Just heard about it alot, in xwords. M&A tends to avoid all animated flicks. Just went to see "Hostiles" yesterday, and it was pretty much ok; woulda sucked, as an animated flick, tho.
M&Also
Love your write-up, Clare. Good luck with the thesis. Your not being familiar with the Everley Brothers reminds me of my experience of telling a group of millenials about getting to sing a duet with Faye Runaway. I was 27, she a couple of years older. But all I got was blank stares. "She was the Scarlett Johansson of her day," I explained. Oh, ok, they said politely though still without enthusiasm. cool.
Make that Dunaway.
My proof I was too old came years ago while training a new receptionist at our law office on how to sort the mail. I told her that sometimes mail for one attorney, John Anderson, would be addressed to "Jack" Anderson, because "Jack" was a nickname for "John," just like John F. Kennedy had been called "Jack." Her very wide-eyed response, "He WAS?" put me in a funk that lasted all day.
Some puzzles just fit your knowledge well, and I mostly just typed this one in with no puzzling. Super easy. A nice feeling after being above average time on most of the puzzles last week.
The EVERLY BROTHERS are also before my time, since I'm younger than 55, but I'm at least familiar with the name and some of their oeuvre, since I'm older than 30.
@John Hamilton, I like Runaway better.
There may be a connection between the dream clues and Martin Luther King, Jr.—sharing a dream? Yesterday, perhaps coincidentally, was the 14th Annual "A Shared Dream" Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Tribute Concert.
Read The Interpretation of Dreams (and Psychopathology of Everyday Life in grad school. His writing style had an ex cathedra feel to it, as if some inner truth was being revealed for the first time by a higher, deity-like authority.
He thought his "discovery" that dream interpretation was the "royal road to the unconscious" was his greatest achievement. Didn't pan out.
I'd bet a couple of tall cold ones that SALVADOR DALI's work was influenced by FREUD.
On the series "Cheers", Dr. Frazier Crane was a strict Freudian psychoanalyst and his wife Dr. Lilith Stern was a hard core behaviorist. Comedy gold mine there. In one episode, Lilith and Frazier are arguing how best to help the bartender with a psychological problem. Frazier suggests a long series of dream interpretation sessions. The bartender, Woody, asks if there isn't a quicker way to get help, and Frazier replies "Maybe, but not a more lucrative one".
In another episode, Frazier comments on how many deeply rooted psychological problems can require years of expensive twice-weekly sessions to treat. He pauses for dramatic effect and gushes how "I love this business!"
This might have been a speed record for a Tuesday for me - fast even for a Monday. Knowing all the theme names certainly helped. Sort of a meh theme but Clare's write-up livened it up a bit.
I would add AWS and ARSONS to the SOYS nitpicking.
It was fun comparing the mirrored long downs. APPLE PIE PARADIGM go together much better than TAMARIND FLEW SOLO and then there's John TURTURRO TUNA ROLL, har.
And couldn't nearly every SALVADOR DALI painting have the word DREAM in its title?
Not much else EMERGEs here, maybe some cicada GRUBs lying in wait in the ground, ready to pop out someday when this winter finally ebbs.
@Hartley70, I have managed to inconvenience numbers of people in the past (losing my bicycle off the back of my car into traffic (no accidents were the result) or failing to let a really slow car get in front of me as it tried to make its way to the shoulder (I wasn't paying attention to what was going on and didn't yield. The car then died in the freeway lane it was in, blocking rush hour traffic, and I said "Sorry" as, in my rearview mirror, I saw the woman in the passenger side flip me off, oops)) but I've never managed anything as spectacular as your straw hat story!!
Happy to see Clare again. Her positivity and enthusiasm always raise my opinion of the puzzle, even if it’s retrospectively.
As far as never hearing of the Everly Brothers, I’d be willing to bet my 26-year-old hasn’t, either, and she was the queen of stealing my CDs when she was in high school. She probably knows more about 1960s Motown and 1970s rock than any millennial, but the 1950s equivalent of a boy band was not something she was likely to encounter.
The Everly Brothers are before my time too, but you've probably heard many of their songs without knowing it. There was a recent album of covers called Foreverly by Norah Jones and Billie Joe Armstrong (Green Day lead singer and guitarist) that's worth a listen.
Liked this puzzle a lot.
@phibetakitty 3:06 AM
“Youth will be served, frequently stuffed with chestnuts.” is the moral of a James Thurber piece that appeared on page 19 of The New Yorker on January 21, 1939 under the title “Fables For Our Time - I.”
Jackie
As with others, did not like SOYS, and was similarly put off by ARSONS. When is that ever used? Feels like it's forced. Otherwise, enjoyed the puzzle and if not for a fat finger mistake on LANGSTONHUGHES would have finished in a record time for me. Took a bit to see the error I made. I liked the variety of artists although the theme eluded me during the solve. Nice work Clare. Thanks for the enthusiasm and change of pace.
Z,
Du hast hast fremdschamen falsch verwendet.
Also, Mods., I thought the political stuff was verboten? What gives?
Es tut mir leid. Onviously one too many hasts
I WANT TO BE COOL TOO I WILL DO THIS THANKS
Yay! Give it to him!
As a newer reader of the blog and comments, I have a DREAM that one day there will be a RexBlog field trip to see "Frozen' en masse.
Keep your chin up, Clare, and thanks for taking the time to review for us today.
if your going to delete replies to this stupid comment:
"If you’re daughter is ecstatic that a criminal is going to be your commencement speaker, maybe “dad” should rethink his decision. (Come at me HRC lovers). Other than that, I liked the write-up, so thanks @Clare for the respite.
Couldn’t figure out the theme until I went back and read the clues, which during the solve were meaningless to me except for the EVERLYBROTHERS. Liked the puzzle just fine."
you really, really should delete it too. unless your a Trumpista.
Millennial puzzler here too. I had the same reaction to ROTFL and also didn't know the EVERLY BROTHERS, so it was a relief to read your write-up, Clare! And, yes, Tangled is a million times better than Frozen :)
Well, well, well! I set a Tuesday record with this one. Although a Miss Porter's education has its limits, I learned all about PLESSY v. Ferguson and SALVADOR DALI from my brother-in-law Jack-- a Princeton Man.
Boola, boola, Clare! Good luck with the senior thesis from a long-ago Eli.
never heard of the Everly brother's? Crap, I'm only 48 but maybe it's time to apply for Social Security. Enjoyed the puzzle and the review. Well done.
Aw, deleted! Yargh!
HTC, DJT, what's the difference?
Oh, I liked the puzzle. (Relevance!)
My grammar, spelling etc. is horrible. Mea culpa.
@Z. 5 deferment Donny only has to last another 5 months. AMIRITE? Oh, and I don’t know that german word you used because, frankly, I’m an idiot. (See above)
@Amelia, yea you’re correct. The Russians got to me. Actually it was Chicken Little, but same diff.
@BanDiaq, I stand by my post, warts and all. As a federal govt employee with a top secret security clearance for 26 yrs, I have a pretty good idea of what the term for mishandling sensitive documents is. That term is criminal.
Thanks for coming at this proud Trumpista.
@Anonymous 1:51 pm, your hypocrisy is showing. The first mention of politics was @Anonymous 1:18 am, next up @Moly Shu 1:46 am and after that @Two Ponies 8:27 am. All three were prior to @ Z's comment. All three were being needlessly provocative since @Clare merely mentioned her excitement over a speaker who is no longer running for office. She did not mention politics at all.
the DREAM song had a resurgence in 1981 with the Andy Gibb/Victoria Principal version. That's probably where I first heard it and learned about the Everly Brothers.
Clare, thanks for your wonderful, enthusiastic writeup! It's just what everyone claims they want, even the haters who seem to want to attack you. I look forward to reading you again on March 27.
I never thought to look in the clues themselves to see the theme,so I was left trying to find hidden words or stringing together the first syllable of each. Other than that, I loved the puzzle -- anything that can sit ARISTOTLE on a foundation of LANGSTON HUGHES is all right in my book.
But what I really want to know is whether OPIATEs are the same as opioids.
@Anon1:51 - Sorry bud. I only know five words in German and three are, “Ein biere, bitte.” As for politics being verboten (six words), it looks like if one can manage to comment on the puzzle and not be insulting to others politics will not, by themselves, get a comment deleted by a blogmod. BTW - you lost your umlaut.
@Moly Shu - Silly me for underestimating the cravenness of a certain group politicians. Considering that Plato wrote in The Republic, “Don’t trust anyone that wants the job,” that’s on me.
@Anon1:41 - Oddly specific. That much specificity without a link always sets off my cynicism alarms. Unfortunately, I don’t subscribe so I can’t access the archives. I am hoping that you are correct, but a little more evidence would stop that damn ringing.
The Everly Brothers peaked in 1960, the year I was born. Just saying.
Trumpistas are prunes with angry eyes and disappointed lips.
So so sad.
Go, Clare! You are the future. Trumpistas are the past.
Yeah but watch any history of Rock retrospective on like VH1 for example and any of those shows worth their salt will have the Everly Bros. near the beginning. It’s likecsaying you never heard of Chuck Berry or Jerry Lee Lewis
Literally no one uses ROTFL. The kids would use ROFL. There is a Bitmoji dedicated to that but everybody drops the T in the middle. Not ok for crossword use.
This week's relative difficulty ratings. See my 1/2/2018 post for an explanation of my method. In a nutshell, the higher the ratio & percentage, the higher my solve time was relative to my norm for that day of the week.
(Day, Solve time, 26-wk Median, Ratio, %, Rating)
Mon 3:40 4:09 0.89 13.8% Easy (almost goes without saying with an ACME puzz)
Tue 4:08 5:47 0.73 2.8% Very Easy
Ignoring the typo that I couldn't find, this was my 14th fastest solve time of 451 Tuesdays in my database. I wasn't crazy about EXES for "Strikes (out)" and I didn't know that Worcestershire sauce had tamarind. But other than that, I flew through this one.
@mathgent, thank you! I had dinner guests Sunday so didn’t see your paintball puzzle. I have a shaky answer from a rusty brain and I’ll put it way at the bottom so you won’t have to read it. It confuses me. And, No toys for sale, but that giant tree had whole tricycles on it!
@Namcy, your response to DALÍ is a wonderful description of me, at 10, going back to that art book over and over.
...Brown has either zero probability or 1/3 probability of winning. Based on the power series for 1/(1-x). Zero is trivial but I think it works. Which is why I’m confused. Please explain?
Oops, anon @5:34 was me
I'm surely not the only Everly Brothers admirer for whom "Dream Lover" causes Bobby Darin to spring instantly to mind😊.
Har!
"I've been chastised
I've been Baptized
When will I be saved?"
Tell me that was autocorrect, Lewis!
Mos Def is huge in the hip-hop world. Too bad he changed his name to Yasiin Bey a long time ago.
You may say I'm a DREAMer ...
I feel oddly traitorous for saying this, but for a Tues puz, the WSJ wins today, hands down
@jberg 4:10 Opiates are not the same as opioids. See my post at 7:48 am.
ROTFL at all the old people shocked that a 21 year old has never heard of the EVERLYBROTHERS. I just listened to them yesterday, but I’d bet my Spotify playlists are a little more dated than Ms. Eli’s. Lovely puzzle and lovely write up.
Once again, "axiom" was (mis)clued as "self-evident truth." Didn't we just see that error in a NYT crossword puzzle? Repeating an error doesn't make it right.
"Axiom" refers to a statement whose truth is accepted or assumed, and from which theorems are derived. It needn't be a self-evident truth.
@BarbieBarbie (5:35): The solution has to take into account the probability of Jones hitting as well as the probability of Brown hitting. If you'd like to see a solution, send me a message at jackabadsf@gmail.com.
I polled my four Millenial kids. They all knew who the EVERLY BROTHERS were despite my never having owned a single Everlies record. But that’s okay, Clare. Treat yourself and give them a listen.
Give it to him? Give it to her? Give it to it. Best to be safe.
Ivy League...please. Show up and get an "A" lest they lose their prestige. Major in 18th century French poetry and get a six figure job in anything because "Yale" or "Brown", or "Daddy's friend".
@jackie (anonymous 1:41)
Wow, thanks! So it was hiding in plain sight all this time, Fables for Our Time and Further Fables for Our Time being staples of my childhood. Curfew shall not ring tonight!
Another Amien-in-training?? I'm out!
@Molly Shu, I don't think "criminal" means what you think it does.
It wonders me how our guest blogger missed reading "dream" in every one of the theme clues. This made things even easier than they already were. The puzzle landed on a Tuesday only because Monday's was already filled. Very heavy on the PPP scale--but what company! Talk about your dinners! Imagine having those four--and Aristotle!--for your dinner companions!
@rondo finally gets his SVEN instead of OLE, I fill in another rapper on crosses, and we deal with REDALERTS and ARSONS and SOYS, oh my! I agree that no one bothers to include the [the] in ROFL any more--if they ever did. I suppose it could stand for "rolling on tile floor laughing," if you want to get all ARTSY about it.
This is OK; it fills the SPACE. DOD is SELENA Gomez, of course. Honorable mention to Mia HAMM. Par.
OPIATE MOVERS
SIGMUNDFREUD changed PARADIGMs
with an AXIOM about HEMEN,
while SALVADORDALI USEDUP time
to RESHAPE ARTSY SPACE for we men.
--- JED “RAY RAE” AMES
Well! Technically, I DNF, but I don't accept it. By solving the entire South with acrosses only I checked the crossing downs to see if they were real words and I saw HOSEa at 50A, and thought, "oh yeah, book of the Bible", cuz after all SOYa is the preferred answer for the bean. So, technically wrong, but correct in my heart, and in my dreams.
Funny, isn't it, that IDI raises no ire, but in this blog DEVOS does (deservedly so, but still.
Otherwise, a pretty good puzzle with nothing to get all upset about, unless one *really* dislikes gratuitous plurals.
Like it.
Where else can you go for all that esteemed company *and* JED Clampett? Must be a dream. I’m so glad that Ole will now be getting in touch with SVEN; a RED letter day when both are in one puz. I was gonna lead with “never heard of the EVERLYBROTERS?”, but it looks like that’s been done to death.
Any one-L can recite PLESSY v. Ferguson. Required reading.
Whaddya call 20 cents? PARADIGMs.
Since @spacey has honored SELENA and Ms. HAMM, I’ll recognize yeah baby Carly RAE Jepsen. Call me maybe? (Ubiquitous 2012 pop song)
Tues-puz quality may be getting better? AUTHOR! AUTHOR!
This puzzle just appeared in my local newspaper so i am making my comment now. Agree with those who enjoyed a real live "young person" analyzing this easy crossword. Great fun, especially never having heard of the Everly Brothers ("Only trouble is. gee whiz….."….which we always replaced with "cheese whiz"….) Anyway, there is a mistake in this crossword, which is the real reason i'm making my first comment on Rex's site. Mao's successor was NOT Deng Xiaoping!….It was the long-forgotten Hua Guofeng, of whom Mao allegedly said on his death bed: "With Hua in charge, I am at ease." His greatest contribution as Mao's successor was having the courage to arrest the Gang of Four. But it was soon clear he didn't have the juice for the job, and the powerful Deng sidelined him in 1978. Just thought you'd all like to know. Not often there's an actual mistake.
Fun to get the EVERLY BROTHERS without anything else in the grid. I loves me some E Bros. That's enuf to say for this ole gal.
Lady Di
@Rod Mickelburgh - Welcome, and feel free to comment more. You are so correct! I have found several wrong or wrongish clues/answers over time, but you are right on the money. I'll sign up to be one of Will's "fact checkers" at a good salary only to be right like a weatherman. Let's have some outrage.
Hey, @Rod Mickeburgh - I have a signed book from you, and it's great to see you on this blog. Good ol' Hua, eh?
Anyway, don't be a stranger.
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