Ooky tv family name / MON 3-26-18 / Popularizer of Chinese tunic suit / investigator in old noir film / Site of postrace celebration
Constructor: Andy Kravis
Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (my time was a tad north of normal)
THEME: vowel progression, with the last word in each themer going from LANE to LUNE through all the other long vowel sounds
Theme answers:
VICTORY LANE (17A: Site of a postrace celebration)
DAVID LEAN (26A: Director of "Lawrence of Arabia" and "Doctor Zhivago")
TOE THE PARTY LINE (38A: Follow one's political group)
MICROLOAN (48A: Helping hand for a low-income entrepreneur)
CLAIR DE LUNE (60A: Classic Debussy work that translates as "Light of the Moon")
Word of the Day: ROCK CAVES (3D: Things spelunkers explore) —
[definition unfound]
• • •
I guess every constructor makes at least one of these vowel progression puzzles in their career. I know I did (STALE STEEL STYLE STOLE STOOL). Anyway, it's as good a reason as any for a (Monday) theme, as long as the theme answers are interesting in their own right (check) and the fill holds up (double check), so thumbs up. I had trouble with several of the longer answers, starting with ROCK CAVES. Are there other ... caves? Besides the Batcave? Spelunkers explore caves, that I knew, but ROCK CAVES added a level of specificity that I did not know existed. I also know of the concept of a VICTORY LAP, but VICTORY LANE ... is that the specific area where the winner pulls up his car and jumps on top of his car and like ... makes it rain milk on his crew, or something. You can see I'm a Huge racing fan. Got TOE THE and wanted LINE but had to delve into the crosses to know what the missing part was (PARTY, of course, makes sense). Front end of MICROLOAN was not clear to me. Again, needed several crosses to pick it up. Also had ICES for OFFS (45A: Does in, in mob slang), which really muffed things up (was relying on that answer to help pull me up from the south and into that SW corner, but instead of having F--CES (which would've given me FORCES immediately at 46D: Troops) I had C--CES, which gave me only CIRCES and CROCES and possibly Las CRUCES (all wrong).
Oh, and then there was ONRUSH, which I didn't understand for the Longest time, even after the puzzle was done. I look at that and see two words, e.g. "I ordered it next-day delivery ... you know, ON RUSH." But it's a noun. A deluge, an ONRUSH. The definition is apt. My familiarity with that word (in the sense of how often I actually see or hear it) is pretty low. And then there's THE NFL—I had THE, but somehow thought the clue was asking about the investigators or doctors or scientists or whatever, not the org. that actually caused the concussions (31D: Org. featured in 2015's "Concussion"). Looking at all my mistakes and misunderstandings, it's a wonder I came in as fast as I did. Played more like a Tuesday for me, but no matter. I had a good time. The puzzle is clean. Hurray.
Congratulations to my friend, a great constructor, and now, officially, the fastest crossword solver on the planet—Erik Agard! Yesterday, he became the newest American Crossword Puzzle Tournament champion, *smoking* the finals puzzle in under 5 minutes.
This is what a Monday puzzle should be. Not so hard as to scare off new solvers, but making more advanced solvers pay attention. I rate it as Medium, and I thank Mr. Kravis for a meaty Monday offering. Not much crosswordese to carp about today. Andy came in 6th at the ACPT, while my Friday rave review guy Erick Agard placed 1st!
Too many USA-specific PPPs for me. Our toothpaste here is not labelled ADA (American Dental Association?), and I had now idea what corporation uses the slogan "Keep climing". VICTORY ZONE made as much sense to me as _ LiNE or V LANE.
I don't pay attention to Seattle sports teams, nor ice-cream brand names, so I had MLb for 23D, which didn't work, then tried MLh and eventually ran through the alphabet and finnally entered MLS, which gave me the happy pencil.
Like @Rex, I had "iced" before OFFS, but also MaMMA before MOMMA. (Who says that? I've only ever heard people say MOM or MaMMA.)
As a lapsed NASCAR fan I can confirm that VICTORY LANE is a phrase you hear multiple times during each race. An alternative to a ROCK CAVE might be an ice cave? Would a spelunkers not be down with ice? Don't know, never spelunked. Good puzzle today though, I enjoyed it.
The most difficult aspect of this solid production was guessing at all the things I did not know how to spell: OueVRE, YuRTLE, Clare DE LUNE and DRiADS all went in first.
Naticked on a Monday! Neither my wife nor I knew either the director or the sport in 26A. She left it blank. I ran through the alphabet, narrowed it down to B and D, and chose B. Never heard of anybody named LEAN. So DNF for both of us. On to Tuesday!
TOE THE LINE -- One explanation that is often repeated is that the phrase derives from the British House of Commons. Arguments in the House are often heated. To deter members of opposing parties from attacking each other, two parallel red lines are marked, two sword-lengths apart, on the floor of the house. MPs are expected to stay behind [i.e., stand with their toes touching] these lines when a speech is in progress.
This was a reasonable but unexciting Monday puzzle, not without its charms but also annoying in spots. ROCK CAVES is a flat out bad answer, but rather than dwell on it I will instead laud the worthiness of MICROLOANS and the field of microfinance generally. If that is an unknown term to you, I encourage googling it.. I think it's pretty cool stuff (when done right).
Honestly, these were some excellent Monday clues/answers. OEURVRE! YERTLE! CLAIR DE LUNE! TOE THE PARTY LINE! VICTORY LANE! MICRO LOAN! CIVIC DUTY! Good stuff.
I saw the theme after LANE and LEAN, and spent the rest of the puzzle wondering if we would finish with Debussy or a diving bird. A nice quick puzzle, after I changed Putt to PArk to PAVE.
But the clue for 6D got me wondering— if Nymphs are DRYADS in myth, what are they in the real world?
@Rex, I’ll bet you’ve got Asimov’s CAVES OF STEEL somewhere in your paperback collection.
I thought race celebrations happened in the "winner's circle" and the VICTORYLANE was how the winner got to the celebration. Kids, don't celebrate and drive.
OUEVRE has too many vowels, IMO.
And I'm not sure how I've come this far in life not knowing who DAVIDLEAN is.
An adult Monday. How absolutely great is that? I've always liked progressive puzzles and if you have the finest, handsomest, smartest DAVID LEAN on an easy peasy Monday, then you've got my vote. Did you how that the first three letters of the 5 theme answers anagrams to CIVIC CLAM AD VOTE? @kitshef....Oh good grief (PEANUTS) I just now went back and looked at YERTLE. I misspelled ouevre and Yurtle. So in ITALY and during the Renaissance, everyone played the LETI. I also thought the investigators during the noir epoch was a DIC. Yay...a new ACPT champion with a fine set of marvelous hair. I really like that good constructors also can ace all the other crosswords. I always thought a constructor and a solver came with two different sets of brain smarts. I'm often wrong. Thank you Andy Kravis for setting me off in a good mood.
Learning new things in a puzzle fun, but a major theme answer shouldn't be a new thing that just about everyone but a NASCAR fan doesn't know. And although this conversation, "Was it an ice cave?" "No it was rock, I'm telling you. It was a rock cave!" might happen, I really don't think it's a thing.
BUT! The other theme answers were really great and the rest of the puzzle was fun so hit the applause button.
Erik Agard was so fast it was spooky and amazing to watch. What a champ! The constructor today is no slouch on the podium either. They solve quicker than most of us can read.
PAVE was a hmmm. Does one PAVE a car after driving? I would curb it if I was bored with PArk.
I thought this was a very good Monday, just like Rex did. Word progressions are not generally my thing. They seem kind of dopey, but these entries stood up well as a themeless so the steps didn't scream at me. I saw them at the end of the solve and gave them a respectful nod.
I really enjoyed this one, a very Monday puzzle. I thought the fill was great, especially some of the clues like "snatch defeat from the jaws of victory" - not particularly hard, but fun. The only things that caused me trouble were the micro of microloan and I couldn't come up with David Lean till I did the rest of the Northeast corner. I really enjoyed Monday - Thursday last week too, so as far as I am concerned, things have been pretty good since the Ides of March!
I'm with @GILL and @Harryp. A Monday where I actually had to think and wasn't just mindlessly filling in squares. Interesting clues for AVON, PAVE and CHOKE. You're a CREDIT to Mondaydom, Andy K. Some thoughts:
My postrace celebration is going to take place at the local pub, thank you very much. The VICTORY LANE is no place for a decent celebration. Plus the fact that you're so hot and sweaty.
I think I'd much prefer a MACROLOAN to a MICROLOAN. In for a penny, in for a pound, right?
I guess I've been muting commercials since the time DELTA came up with "Keep climbing" as its slogan. I've never heard it. What I remember is: "DELTA. We're ready when you are." Did they give that up because they were never ready when we were?
Liked the puzzle fine. Vowel progressions don’t thrill me, but this is a fine example of it, so what Rex said.
DAVID LEAN/MLS is not a true natick because even if you never heard of Mr. LEAN, the Seattle Sounders, or Major League Soccer, you can still infer the “L” from the theme.
@‘Mericans - ELOI is in the puzzle? I didn’t see ELOI or PETS while solving, so the crosses seem pretty fair. ELOI is ese of the first order, so I assume they have Monday immunity. I’m guessing no hungry Morlock has ever made a Monday appearance, though.
Hey All ! Easy, until my DNF. Argh! Had CIVIl DUTY, not CIVIC. Ouch! TEl, TEC, heck. I don't think anyone's ever said TEC. Not in my OEUVRE.
Besides that, puz was fun. DAVID LEAN was a WOE, but crosses worked out nicely. That OEUVRE French-ness can cause some trouble, especially with YERTLE crossing, cause it could very well be YuRTLE, eye rhyme with sound rhyme. But LUTE can't be LeTE, so there's that. Sayin', that's a trouble spot.
Hey Rex, nice Fro on Eric in the pics! Can that be the new AFRO clue? Eric Agards hairstyle at the 2018 ACPT :-) Doesn't seem OFFS to me.
"Throw MOMMA From the Train" was a comedy, for those who don't know. Danny Devito and Billy Crystal swapping murders. Yes, comedy. DYED, indeed.
Like the vowel progression puzs if they have good fill, like this one. Good themers, light to no dreck. GOAL!
I really, really didn't like the NW region. Sassy = PERT completely missed me. ONRUSH was a weird one. I spent a lot of time thinking about possible types of caves. LOCKCAVES? MOCKCAVES? COCKCAVES? DOCKCAVES? SOCKCAVES? All sounded plausible to a degree. There's also the somewhat questionable ELOI and VICTORYLANE there. Just untidy.
On a Monday puzzle, I would have liked more clarity in that corner. Thus, not a pleasurable one for me.
The theme works, I guess. It's Monday. But 57.7% short answers don't. To be fair to Andy Kravis, there weren't any obnoxious 3-letter words in this one, but that NW region. Man. Otherwise, it's fun to reminisce PEANUTS and YERTLE and Tolkien.
I've been exploring caves for thirty years and never heard the phrase "rock cave." ever. WTF.
Thanks to all the NRA members who participated in Arms Up America on Saturday, March 24! Early calculations indicate that law abiding gun owners bought nearly 800,000 firearms and 120,000 rounds of ammunition on Saturday, with record sales in all 50 states, reminding the politicians that gun owners are still the most dependable and formidable voting bloc.
Thus looks like FAKE NEWS! Can't find any reference to your statement above. BTW Remington just announced that they are going oiy of business - dismal sales. REAL NEWS
From Salzburg we took day trip to visit the Eisreisenwelst, or ice cave, at Werfen.
It was a warm day so I was in shorts, but knew it would be cold in the caves so brought my one and only pair of pants along to slip into before entering.
We were all handed open-flame oil lamps to carry into the caves.
So it was that about ten minutes into the tour, mrsshef observed 'your pants are on fire' - which they were. Because of the extra layer provide by my shorts, I had not noticed.
I still have the pants, but don't wear them to the finer restaurants any more.
I'm amazed at how many people here never heard of VICTORYLANE and/or DAVID LEAN.
I never thought you had to be a race fan to have heard of VICTORYLANE because it is used as a slang term in other situations where bad analogies are needed, particularly TV coverage of political races.
And DAVID LEAN is on the all-time all-star list of film directors, with "Lawrence of Arabia" and "Doctor Zhivago" and "Bridge on the River Kwai" which were all pretty big movies, in more ways than one. "Great Expectations" is an amazing film.
Oh well, I guess everybody's got their own sphere of knowledge. Also, don't forget MAN CAVES.
As far as themes go, vowel progression puzzles are among the lamest. LANE, LEAN, LINE, LOAN, LUNE — wow! Exciting, and so clever. Makes “meh” seem thrilling by comparison. Booooooooooo.
Didn't see the theme until well after I completed the puzzle. Thought it was going to have something to do with the recurring VI in VICTORY, DAVID, ELVISH, and CIVIC. Finally saw the vowel progression from LANE to LUNE and that was that.
So in the end, it was interesting but not exciting, sort of like the Stormy Daniels interview last night.
@RP: "Are there other … caves?" yep. Examples [excludes "BAT"]: * ICE CAVE. * MAN CAVE. Would also accept WOMAN CAVE. Or KID CAVE. * SNOW CAVE. * WIND CAVE. National park. * SEA CAVE. * MAMMOTH CAVE. More national parking. * CON CAVE. * KARST CAVE. There's lotsa geological cave types, actually. ANCHIALINE CAVE is a fave cave.
Interestin theme false alarms. At first, thought it would be kinds of LANEs. Then, with LANE & LEAN, thought it would be anagrams of LANE.
Like Nancy, I also liked the puzzle despite its having 23 Terrible Threes and ELOI (which freaked Jeff Chen out). It was the smart cluing, I think.
This story may not have made the national media. The San Francisco Giants and the Oakland A's played a pre-season game in Oakland yesterday. Many Giant fans drove across the Bay Bridge to attend. Parking is $50 but yesterday the A's pulled a stunt. If the driver said "Go, A's" upon entering, it was reduced to $30. Many Giant fans refused to submit to this indignity. One if them said, "That's bullshit! They don't have no right to do that."
Can someone explain Puzzle 4 from the ACPT? I solved online, getting it 100% correct, but I don't get the gimmick or the need for the circles since the answers make sense without them.
A fine Monday puzzle. My favorite clue was "Still in the shrink-wrap" for NEW, which seems very fresh.
@Nancy, I read an article about car racing and how it is a physically challenging sport. The drivers sweat like crazy and they don't get bathroom breaks so you don't want to hug one in the VICTORY LANE.
I have melted clothing and shoes when standing too close to a fire or lantern so I can sympathize with @kitshef. I would have done so at the ACPT this weekend if I'd had the chance - the room was freezing! But as @Rex said, Erik Agard was smoking. The color-commentary announcers had the wind taken out of their sails - they barely had time to make Erik hair jokes and he was already finished. They were left to remark on how the two remaining contestants were lacking hair. It was a great time in Stamford.
Another yay here for an extraordinarily interesting Monday puzzle, and hand up for whoever found the NW rugged. Having grown up in Kentucky's "cave country" (in the Mammoth Cave area), I can add a couple of fairly obvious entries to the lexicon: "Wild caves" (neither large nor spectacular enough for commercial exploitation), all of which were "Limestone caves" (as opposed to, essentially, earthen sinkholes, often made extensive by simple erosion). I often went spelunking -- cave crawlin', we called it -- with my childhood pals in fairly elaborate wild caves, despite our parents' prohibitions. (We didn't need to be told to keep out of the dangerous sinkholes, no matter how alluring they may have been. For us, it was limestone -- "rock," if you want -- caves only.)
@Glimmerglass - Google “march for our guns” - include the quotation marks. If you want to make yourself sick google “remington bankruptcy” and then read the comments.
@Joe O - No. People are still solving those puzzles.
Ouevre is not your typical Monday fare for sure. It's a good thing Erik A. is smart as a whip because he's not picking up any chicks looking like that! Geez. @ Anon 10:24, I was one of those lawful citizens who spent my day Saturday at a gun show. Such nice, polite group of people in a friendly atmosphere, not a bunch of camo-wearing brutes. I know I'm the pebble in your shoe around here but my version of normal is not as fanatical as the media would have you believe. When you can assure me that the criminals will be disarmed first then we'll have something to talk about. Until then, you can trust your life to the police if you want to but, like the saying goes, when every seconds counts the police are just minutes away. I sincerely hope that none of you or your families are ever victims because of your reliance on help that is too far away. There, I've said it. Let the games begin!
A minute longer than last Monday's puzzle. I did both by phone. Like a lot of people I went with PUTT before PAVE. DAVIDLEAN took a few crosses before I recognized it. The defeat from victory clue got misread as the standard victory from defeat phrase.
Harking back to the unrhyming TELE/ novela clue. If these were Spanish verbs the progression would be LAWN, LANE, LEAN, LOAN and LUNE. There's no short or long of it.
@ lms, congratulations I saw your name in the ACPT list. I'm curious how they determine people's skill level.
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. Your results may vary.
(Day, Solve time, 26-wk Median, Ratio, %, Rating)
Mon 4:41 4:15 1.10 77.2% Medium-Challenging
An almost identical solve time to last Monday's, but I think this one was actually a good bit easier for me. I was just exceptionally fumble-fingered with my typing this week. I'm just thankful that I didn't leave any typos.
I watched Erik Agard buzzing around last year's ACPT with a tee shirt calling for the publishing of more female constructors, hardly a ploy to expedite "picking up any chicks." Although I did not meet him, he seemed to be the object of much admiration and respect by that community. True, he does not resemble the Marlboro Man, but I am certain that his life is productive and filled with all the companionship he most richly deserves. Congratulations on killing it!
I am no speed solver and sometimes my blind alleys are amusing in retrospect. I read 4D clued as "Detonation preceder, for short" and I was off on the whole T-minus thing again. Good times!
Solved the puzzle without noticing the theme. Amazed I had no trouble pulling DAVID LEAN's name out of my head. I spent time reminiscing about a PARTY LINE we had for the longest time at a vacation cabin. I don't remember when it got upgraded to a normal unshared line.
@Z. Yes, there have been couterprotests by gun owners, most of them well intentioned, but anon 10:24 says 800,000 bought guns on Saturday. Not even Fox News says that.
Loved this as a Monday puzzle. Neither too easy nor too hard, with great fill all over the place. ONRUSH? Great answer. As are OEUVRE, SORTIES, YERTLE, CIVIC DUTY. I have several recordings of Debussy's "Suite Bergamasque" which contains CLAIR DE LUNE -- now I am in the mood to listen to it when I get home.
(But did they really have to use a Star Wars clue for 11a? I wonder if other daily crosswords reference it as often as the NY times does. It's become completely off-putting.)
@Hartley709:16 -- The Drive in "Finish a Drive" is a driveway, which is finished by paving it. I also was initially confused by this.
@TwoPonies 2:24 -- OK, I'll "begin the games" in response to your post supporting gun ownership. I've got nothing against hunting rifles nor the people who use them for sport. Obviously I'm against automatic weapons (even though it's possible, I guess, that a few people may own them for sport, or MAYBE even out of a sense that they can be used for self-protection). But there are statistics that say that HANDGUNS kill or injure more unexpected friends or family than assailants. As for the NRA, they've bought and own Congress on this issue; an example of the Ill-doing of money in our political system. I wish there were a way for any candidate for national office with signature support from some reasonable amount of voters, to get a fixed amount of dollars, enough to pay for a reasonable campaign. Naturally, though virtually every incumbent would oppose this.
Erik Agard just got a shout out on Around the Horn on ESPN. Apparently he was an intern for the show.
@Glimmerglass - I just saw a case being made that Remington’s bankruptcy has nothing to do with poor sales and everything to do with them avoiding paying out when they lose the Sandy Hook lawsuits. Our laws need to change so that bankruptcy can’t be used as a get out of jail free card for corporations. Disgusting. Anyway - we wouldn’t have gun sale numbers until at least the next quarterly reports of publicly traded companies, so I assumed that was either a poor attempt at satire or a Russian. But there were lots of much smaller counter protests Saturday.
Why are we hair-shaming Erik Agard? Imagine if Rex had posted a photo of a stout woman and I said something like, "No wonder she's not married, she's so fat she ought to be in Wilson Phillips."
Remington’s own statement cited a big drop in sales over the past year. I bet 800000 would have helped. If only they had held out... oh wait, they did. Amazing gimongous gun sale event happened Saturday and they filed today. Huh.
I like to shoot but I get my food from the store and I have enough land around me so that I don’t endanger anybody, so it’s a bit of a check-your-privilege thing. I don’t hear that aspect discussed. In fact, I don’t hear anything I said here recently on this topic discussed. No room for grey thinking? Unfortunately that’s where most issues lie.
I didn’t notice the theme so in a way that’s a DNF on a Monday. Average difficulty. Nice puzzle.
Anon@828, finding those places, finding a way to get there that doesn’t involve bringing weapons on public transportation, paying even a low fee... it’s a low bar, but it isn’ t within the grasp of every citizen. Tightly regulated guns are going to be a privilege. Is that OK? I don’t know what’s right.
SIS, to your CREDIT you’re STEADY and legal, your GOAL of CIVICDUTY’s fine, but don’t NAG if MAO PETS you spread EAGLED ORE tells you to TOETHEPARTYLINE.
First of all, I posted yesterday but it never appeared. Don't know what I said that kept me off; basically called the puzzle a slog, like most Sundays. Anyway, to today.
I wouldn't say our champ EAGLED this one, but...the Eagles' main color is green (I have a "I bleed green" t-shirt) and there's plenty of green paint in this one, starting with ROCKCAVES. Then THENFL. We've never needed "THE" before...
I don't think a SAUNA is actually a "bath." You need one AFTER the SAUNA. There's a French MIN-theme going on, with 44-, 47- and 60-across. Maybe that ADDS a degree of difficulty for some; not me. I breezed through it. The vowel progression does its thing; good as long as the entries are zippy; they are. But dude: no love for "The Bridge on the River Kwai?" His best, IMHO. All three were best pictures, rightfully so.
Haven’t seen an a-e-i-o-u puz for a while. Finished it with no EGGON my face, so OK. Would never get DAVIDLEAN without crosses. Do we ever see LED clued by __Zeppelin?
Before Prohibition I suppose the teetotalers ran DRYADS.
Cash or CREDIT? Paper or plastic.
Does anybody remember yeah baby ANNE Francis as Honey West?
Decent enough Mon-puz. ELVISH has left the building.
Theme? There was a theme? Eh?(Canadian pronunciation) Eeee! AYE, yi yi - oh I didn't know, no. U? Why did I miss it? (But I only ask sometimes.)
@Rondo from yesterday - after @Quasi finishes E, S, and L, he could try "Lapsing into a Comma" by Bill Walsh, followed by "Woe is I," Pat O'Conner's grammarphobe's guide to better English in plain English. I used to require WII in one of my courses. A favorite poem from it, entitled "Comma Sutra" (from the chapter on the "which" trials:
Commas, which cut out the fat, Go with which, never with that.
The Oxford Comma will have its day. And yes, as Bill Walsh would say, I could care less.
And yes, this was just a touch more thought provoking than the average Monday puzzle, but not by leaps or bounds. Give me a little CREDIT.
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This is what a Monday puzzle should be. Not so hard as to scare off new solvers, but making more advanced solvers pay attention. I rate it as Medium, and I thank Mr. Kravis for a meaty Monday offering. Not much crosswordese to carp about today. Andy came in 6th at the ACPT, while my Friday rave review guy Erick Agard placed 1st!
ReplyDeleteToo many USA-specific PPPs for me. Our toothpaste here is not labelled ADA (American Dental Association?), and I had now idea what corporation uses the slogan "Keep climing". VICTORY ZONE made as much sense to me as _ LiNE or V LANE.
ReplyDeleteI don't pay attention to Seattle sports teams, nor ice-cream brand names, so I had MLb for 23D, which didn't work, then tried MLh and eventually ran through the alphabet and finnally entered MLS, which gave me the happy pencil.
Like @Rex, I had "iced" before OFFS, but also MaMMA before MOMMA. (Who says that? I've only ever heard people say MOM or MaMMA.)
ELOI is pretty obscure for a Munday puzzle, non?
So, what did I like? I liked the cluing for PAVE.
So why does "toe the line" mean obey?
ReplyDeleteVote a straight ticket, speak the party philosophy or you may lose your patronage job.
DeleteAs a lapsed NASCAR fan I can confirm that VICTORY LANE is a phrase you hear multiple times during each race. An alternative to a ROCK CAVE might be an ice cave? Would a spelunkers not be down with ice? Don't know, never spelunked. Good puzzle today though, I enjoyed it.
ReplyDeleteNice Monday. I found it easier than @Rex did, which makes me unreasonably happy. A nice, clean puzzle, and today a nice, clean review.
ReplyDeleteThe most difficult aspect of this solid production was guessing at all the things I did not know how to spell:
ReplyDeleteOueVRE, YuRTLE, Clare DE LUNE and DRiADS all went in first.
Fell into the Putt trap for finishing a drive.
Naticked on a Monday! Neither my wife nor I knew either the director or the sport in 26A.
ReplyDeleteShe left it blank. I ran through the alphabet, narrowed it down to B and D, and chose B. Never heard of anybody named LEAN. So DNF for both of us. On to Tuesday!
Tired of the nasty ELOI getting all the crossword love.
ReplyDeleteHard for a Monday. DNF Spelled mamma wrong. Congrats to Erik!!! I know everyone had a great time. Hope to see lots of pictures
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteFrom The Phrase Finder:
ReplyDeleteTOE THE LINE -- One explanation that is often repeated is that the phrase derives from the British House of Commons. Arguments in the House are often heated. To deter members of opposing parties from attacking each other, two parallel red lines are marked, two sword-lengths apart, on the floor of the house. MPs are expected to stay behind [i.e., stand with their toes touching] these lines when a speech is in progress.
This was a reasonable but unexciting Monday puzzle, not without its charms but also annoying in spots. ROCK CAVES is a flat out bad answer, but rather than dwell on it I will instead laud the worthiness of MICROLOANS and the field of microfinance generally. If that is an unknown term to you, I encourage googling it.. I think it's pretty cool stuff (when done right).
ReplyDeleteHad park for pave. And Claire for Clair. Always thought that song was about a girl. Didn't know MLS or Lean so had to cheat. Otherwise smooth.
ReplyDeleteHonestly, these were some excellent Monday clues/answers. OEURVRE! YERTLE! CLAIR DE LUNE! TOE THE PARTY LINE! VICTORY LANE! MICRO LOAN! CIVIC DUTY! Good stuff.
ReplyDeleteI saw the theme after LANE and LEAN, and spent the rest of the puzzle wondering if we would finish with Debussy or a diving bird. A nice quick puzzle, after I changed Putt to PArk to PAVE.
ReplyDeleteBut the clue for 6D got me wondering— if Nymphs are DRYADS in myth, what are they in the real world?
@Rex, I’ll bet you’ve got Asimov’s CAVES OF STEEL somewhere in your paperback collection.
I thought race celebrations happened in the "winner's circle" and the VICTORYLANE was how the winner got to the celebration. Kids, don't celebrate and drive.
ReplyDeleteOUEVRE has too many vowels, IMO.
And I'm not sure how I've come this far in life not knowing who DAVIDLEAN is.
An adult Monday. How absolutely great is that? I've always liked progressive puzzles and if you have the finest, handsomest, smartest DAVID LEAN on an easy peasy Monday, then you've got my vote.
ReplyDeleteDid you how that the first three letters of the 5 theme answers anagrams to CIVIC CLAM AD VOTE?
@kitshef....Oh good grief (PEANUTS) I just now went back and looked at YERTLE. I misspelled ouevre and Yurtle. So in ITALY and during the Renaissance, everyone played the LETI. I also thought the investigators during the noir epoch was a DIC.
Yay...a new ACPT champion with a fine set of marvelous hair. I really like that good constructors also can ace all the other crosswords. I always thought a constructor and a solver came with two different sets of brain smarts. I'm often wrong.
Thank you Andy Kravis for setting me off in a good mood.
There are also ICE CAVES, but caves by default are rock caves, so specifying as much felt redundant.
ReplyDeleteLearning new things in a puzzle fun, but a major theme answer shouldn't be a new thing that just about everyone but a NASCAR fan doesn't know. And although this conversation, "Was it an ice cave?" "No it was rock, I'm telling you. It was a rock cave!" might happen, I really don't think it's a thing.
ReplyDeleteBUT! The other theme answers were really great and the rest of the puzzle was fun so hit the applause button.
Erik Agard was so fast it was spooky and amazing to watch. What a champ! The constructor today is no slouch on the podium either. They solve quicker than most of us can read.
ReplyDeletePAVE was a hmmm. Does one PAVE a car after driving? I would curb it if I was bored with PArk.
I thought this was a very good Monday, just like Rex did. Word progressions are not generally my thing. They seem kind of dopey, but these entries stood up well as a themeless so the steps didn't scream at me. I saw them at the end of the solve and gave them a respectful nod.
I really enjoyed this one, a very Monday puzzle. I thought the fill was great, especially some of the clues like "snatch defeat from the jaws of victory" - not particularly hard, but fun. The only things that caused me trouble were the micro of microloan and I couldn't come up with David Lean till I did the rest of the Northeast corner. I really enjoyed Monday - Thursday last week too, so as far as I am concerned, things have been pretty good since the Ides of March!
ReplyDeleteI'm with @GILL and @Harryp. A Monday where I actually had to think and wasn't just mindlessly filling in squares. Interesting clues for AVON, PAVE and CHOKE. You're a CREDIT to Mondaydom, Andy K. Some thoughts:
ReplyDeleteMy postrace celebration is going to take place at the local pub, thank you very much. The VICTORY LANE is no place for a decent celebration. Plus the fact that you're so hot and sweaty.
I think I'd much prefer a MACROLOAN to a MICROLOAN. In for a penny, in for a pound, right?
I guess I've been muting commercials since the time DELTA came up with "Keep climbing" as its slogan. I've never heard it. What I remember is: "DELTA. We're ready when you are." Did they give that up because they were never ready when we were?
Liked the puzzle fine. Vowel progressions don’t thrill me, but this is a fine example of it, so what Rex said.
ReplyDeleteDAVID LEAN/MLS is not a true natick because even if you never heard of Mr. LEAN, the Seattle Sounders, or Major League Soccer, you can still infer the “L” from the theme.
@‘Mericans - ELOI is in the puzzle? I didn’t see ELOI or PETS while solving, so the crosses seem pretty fair. ELOI is ese of the first order, so I assume they have Monday immunity. I’m guessing no hungry Morlock has ever made a Monday appearance, though.
Hey All !
ReplyDeleteEasy, until my DNF. Argh! Had CIVIl DUTY, not CIVIC. Ouch! TEl, TEC, heck. I don't think anyone's ever said TEC. Not in my OEUVRE.
Besides that, puz was fun. DAVID LEAN was a WOE, but crosses worked out nicely. That OEUVRE French-ness can cause some trouble, especially with YERTLE crossing, cause it could very well be YuRTLE, eye rhyme with sound rhyme. But LUTE can't be LeTE, so there's that. Sayin', that's a trouble spot.
Hey Rex, nice Fro on Eric in the pics! Can that be the new AFRO clue? Eric Agards hairstyle at the 2018 ACPT :-) Doesn't seem OFFS to me.
"Throw MOMMA From the Train" was a comedy, for those who don't know. Danny Devito and Billy Crystal swapping murders. Yes, comedy. DYED, indeed.
Like the vowel progression puzs if they have good fill, like this one. Good themers, light to no dreck. GOAL!
PERT ONRUSH
RooMonster
DarrinV
I really, really didn't like the NW region. Sassy = PERT completely missed me. ONRUSH was a weird one. I spent a lot of time thinking about possible types of caves. LOCKCAVES? MOCKCAVES? COCKCAVES? DOCKCAVES? SOCKCAVES? All sounded plausible to a degree. There's also the somewhat questionable ELOI and VICTORYLANE there. Just untidy.
ReplyDeleteOn a Monday puzzle, I would have liked more clarity in that corner. Thus, not a pleasurable one for me.
The theme works, I guess. It's Monday. But 57.7% short answers don't. To be fair to Andy Kravis, there weren't any obnoxious 3-letter words in this one, but that NW region. Man. Otherwise, it's fun to reminisce PEANUTS and YERTLE and Tolkien.
GRADE: C+, 2.8 stars.
Easy, but a few hiccups kept me just north of record territory. Sub 3-minutes always feels good.
ReplyDeleteWanted iceS for OFFS, struggled with DAVID LEAN and MICROLOAN.
While I agree that ROCK CAVES are not a thing, I recognize the existence of ice caves. Caves be caves, unless they're ice caves.
ReplyDeleteI've been exploring caves for thirty years and never heard the phrase "rock cave." ever. WTF.
ReplyDeleteThanks to all the NRA members who participated in Arms Up America on Saturday, March 24! Early calculations indicate that law abiding gun owners bought nearly 800,000 firearms and 120,000 rounds of ammunition on Saturday, with record sales in all 50 states, reminding the politicians that gun owners are still the most dependable and formidable voting bloc.
Thus looks like FAKE NEWS! Can't find any reference to your statement above. BTW Remington just announced that they are going oiy of business - dismal sales. REAL NEWS
Delete1D reminds me that the comedian, Steven Wright wants to know "Why to we park in a driveway and drive on a parkway?"
ReplyDeleteFrom Salzburg we took day trip to visit the Eisreisenwelst, or ice cave, at Werfen.
ReplyDeleteIt was a warm day so I was in shorts, but knew it would be cold in the caves so brought my one and only pair of pants along to slip into before entering.
We were all handed open-flame oil lamps to carry into the caves.
So it was that about ten minutes into the tour, mrsshef observed 'your pants are on fire' - which they were. Because of the extra layer provide by my shorts, I had not noticed.
I still have the pants, but don't wear them to the finer restaurants any more.
@kitshef (10.28, paragraph 4) -- I would have noticed.
ReplyDeleteI'm amazed at how many people here never heard of VICTORYLANE and/or DAVID LEAN.
ReplyDeleteI never thought you had to be a race fan to have heard of VICTORYLANE because it is used as a slang term in other situations where bad analogies are needed, particularly TV coverage of political races.
And DAVID LEAN is on the all-time all-star list of film directors, with "Lawrence of Arabia" and "Doctor Zhivago" and "Bridge on the River Kwai" which were all pretty big movies, in more ways than one. "Great Expectations" is an amazing film.
Oh well, I guess everybody's got their own sphere of knowledge. Also, don't forget MAN CAVES.
A good Monday puzzle!
ReplyDeleteStill on an emotional high from Saturday's March for Our Lives.
As far as themes go, vowel progression puzzles are among the lamest. LANE, LEAN, LINE, LOAN, LUNE — wow! Exciting, and so clever. Makes “meh” seem thrilling by comparison. Booooooooooo.
ReplyDelete@G. Weissman 11:44
DeleteWould this vowel theme be better?
SCRAPE, SCREAM, SCRIBE, SCROTUM, SCREW :-P
Har. Not sure if it's breakfast worthy, though!
Ray, Re, Rye, Row, Roo
Didn't see the theme until well after I completed the puzzle. Thought it was going to have something to do with the recurring VI in VICTORY, DAVID, ELVISH, and CIVIC. Finally saw the vowel progression from LANE to LUNE and that was that.
ReplyDeleteSo in the end, it was interesting but not exciting, sort of like the Stormy Daniels interview last night.
@RP: "Are there other … caves?" yep.
ReplyDeleteExamples [excludes "BAT"]:
* ICE CAVE.
* MAN CAVE. Would also accept WOMAN CAVE. Or KID CAVE.
* SNOW CAVE.
* WIND CAVE. National park.
* SEA CAVE.
* MAMMOTH CAVE. More national parking.
* CON CAVE.
* KARST CAVE. There's lotsa geological cave types, actually. ANCHIALINE CAVE is a fave cave.
Interestin theme false alarms. At first, thought it would be kinds of LANEs. Then, with LANE & LEAN, thought it would be anagrams of LANE.
staff weeject pick: TEC. Micro-deTECtive. Hey … TAC, TEC, TIC, TOC, TUC! Future puztheme?
Thanx, Mr. Kravis.
Masked & Anonymo6Us
similar theme? …
**gruntz**
@anonymous 10:24. Google and Safari both have no entry for Arms Up America. I think this may be typical NRA fake news.
ReplyDelete@Nancy (9:23): Great comment!
ReplyDeleteLike Nancy, I also liked the puzzle despite its having 23 Terrible Threes and ELOI (which freaked Jeff Chen out). It was the smart cluing, I think.
This story may not have made the national media. The San Francisco Giants and the Oakland A's played a pre-season game in Oakland yesterday. Many Giant fans drove across the Bay Bridge to attend. Parking is $50 but yesterday the A's pulled a stunt. If the driver said "Go, A's" upon entering, it was reduced to $30. Many Giant fans refused to submit to this indignity. One if them said, "That's bullshit! They don't have no right to do that."
Can someone explain Puzzle 4 from the ACPT? I solved online, getting it 100% correct, but I don't get the gimmick or the need for the circles since the answers make sense without them.
ReplyDelete@Anon 10:24 As long as gun owners keep the ratio of bullets to guns to about 1 bullet per 6.66 guns, I'm ok with that.
ReplyDeleteA fine Monday puzzle. My favorite clue was "Still in the shrink-wrap" for NEW, which seems very fresh.
ReplyDelete@Nancy, I read an article about car racing and how it is a physically challenging sport. The drivers sweat like crazy and they don't get bathroom breaks so you don't want to hug one in the VICTORY LANE.
I have melted clothing and shoes when standing too close to a fire or lantern so I can sympathize with @kitshef. I would have done so at the ACPT this weekend if I'd had the chance - the room was freezing! But as @Rex said, Erik Agard was smoking. The color-commentary announcers had the wind taken out of their sails - they barely had time to make Erik hair jokes and he was already finished. They were left to remark on how the two remaining contestants were lacking hair. It was a great time in Stamford.
Another yay here for an extraordinarily interesting Monday puzzle, and hand up for whoever found the NW rugged. Having grown up in Kentucky's "cave country" (in the Mammoth Cave area), I can add a couple of fairly obvious entries to the lexicon: "Wild caves" (neither large nor spectacular enough for commercial exploitation), all of which were "Limestone caves" (as opposed to, essentially, earthen sinkholes, often made extensive by simple erosion). I often went spelunking -- cave crawlin', we called it -- with my childhood pals in fairly elaborate wild caves, despite our parents' prohibitions. (We didn't need to be told to keep out of the dangerous sinkholes, no matter how alluring they may have been. For us, it was limestone -- "rock," if you want -- caves only.)
ReplyDeleteClair de Lune in the same puzzle as the Bee Gees - love it. Didn't find it medium & challenging at all,
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete@Glimmerglass - Google “march for our guns” - include the quotation marks. If you want to make yourself sick google “remington bankruptcy” and then read the comments.
ReplyDelete@Joe O - No. People are still solving those puzzles.
Ouevre is not your typical Monday fare for sure.
ReplyDeleteIt's a good thing Erik A. is smart as a whip because he's not picking up any chicks looking like that! Geez.
@ Anon 10:24, I was one of those lawful citizens who spent my day Saturday at a gun show. Such nice, polite group of people in a friendly atmosphere, not a bunch of camo-wearing brutes. I know I'm the pebble in your shoe around here but my version of normal is not as fanatical as the media would have you believe. When you can assure me that the criminals will be disarmed first then we'll have something to talk about. Until then, you can trust your life to the police if you want to but, like the saying goes, when every seconds counts the police are just minutes away. I sincerely hope that none of you or your families are ever victims because of your reliance on help that is too far away.
There, I've said it. Let the games begin!
A minute longer than last Monday's puzzle. I did both by phone. Like a lot of people I went with PUTT before PAVE. DAVIDLEAN took a few crosses before I recognized it. The defeat from victory clue got misread as the standard victory from defeat phrase.
ReplyDeleteHarking back to the unrhyming TELE/ novela clue. If these were Spanish verbs the progression would be LAWN, LANE, LEAN, LOAN and LUNE. There's no short or long of it.
@ lms, congratulations I saw your name in the ACPT list. I'm curious how they determine people's skill level.
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. Your results may vary.
ReplyDelete(Day, Solve time, 26-wk Median, Ratio, %, Rating)
Mon 4:41 4:15 1.10 77.2% Medium-Challenging
An almost identical solve time to last Monday's, but I think this one was actually a good bit easier for me. I was just exceptionally fumble-fingered with my typing this week. I'm just thankful that I didn't leave any typos.
I thought it was a simple vowel swap and saw LANE, LINE and LUNE. Missed that LEAN and LOAN were part of the theme.
ReplyDelete@Stanley Hudson, aren’t young people great? I have great faith in my son’s generation.
I watched Erik Agard buzzing around last year's ACPT with a tee shirt calling for the publishing of more female constructors, hardly a ploy to expedite "picking up any chicks." Although I did not meet him, he seemed to be the object of much admiration and respect by that community. True, he does not resemble the Marlboro Man, but I am certain that his life is productive and filled with all the companionship he most richly deserves. Congratulations on killing it!
ReplyDeleteI am no speed solver and sometimes my blind alleys are amusing in retrospect. I read 4D clued as "Detonation preceder, for short" and I was off on the whole T-minus thing again. Good times!
@Two Ponies,
ReplyDeleteI admire your tenacity. You must have the hide of a rhino.
I'm with you on guns, and Mr. Agard's absurd attire.
@ Larry G,
How the heck could you possible know how productive Mr. Agard's life is or how much companionship he enjoys?
Solved the puzzle without noticing the theme. Amazed I had no trouble pulling DAVID LEAN's name out of my head. I spent time reminiscing about a PARTY LINE we had for the longest time at a vacation cabin. I don't remember when it got upgraded to a normal unshared line.
ReplyDelete@Z. Yes, there have been couterprotests by gun owners, most of them well intentioned, but anon 10:24 says 800,000 bought guns on Saturday. Not even Fox News says that.
ReplyDeleteLoved this as a Monday puzzle. Neither too easy nor too hard, with great fill all over the place. ONRUSH? Great answer. As are OEUVRE, SORTIES, YERTLE, CIVIC DUTY. I have several recordings of Debussy's "Suite Bergamasque" which contains CLAIR DE LUNE -- now I am in the mood to listen to it when I get home.
ReplyDelete(But did they really have to use a Star Wars clue for 11a? I wonder if other daily crosswords reference it as often as the NY times does. It's become completely off-putting.)
ReplyDelete@Hartley709:16 -- The Drive in "Finish a Drive" is a driveway, which is finished by paving it. I also was initially confused by this.
@TwoPonies 2:24 -- OK, I'll "begin the games" in response to your post supporting gun ownership. I've got nothing against hunting rifles nor the people who use them for sport. Obviously I'm against automatic weapons (even though it's possible, I guess, that a few people may own them for sport, or MAYBE even out of a sense that they can be used for self-protection). But there are statistics that say that HANDGUNS kill or injure more unexpected friends or family than assailants. As for the NRA, they've bought and own Congress on this issue; an example of the Ill-doing of money in our political system. I wish there were a way for any candidate for national office with signature support from some reasonable amount of voters, to get a fixed amount of dollars, enough to pay for a reasonable campaign. Naturally, though virtually every incumbent would oppose this.
Erik Agard just got a shout out on Around the Horn on ESPN. Apparently he was an intern for the show.
ReplyDelete@Glimmerglass - I just saw a case being made that Remington’s bankruptcy has nothing to do with poor sales and everything to do with them avoiding paying out when they lose the Sandy Hook lawsuits. Our laws need to change so that bankruptcy can’t be used as a get out of jail free card for corporations. Disgusting. Anyway - we wouldn’t have gun sale numbers until at least the next quarterly reports of publicly traded companies, so I assumed that was either a poor attempt at satire or a Russian. But there were lots of much smaller counter protests Saturday.
Why are we hair-shaming Erik Agard? Imagine if Rex had posted a photo of a stout woman and I said something like, "No wonder she's not married, she's so fat she ought to be in Wilson Phillips."
ReplyDeleteRemington’s own statement cited a big drop in sales over the past year. I bet 800000 would have helped. If only they had held out... oh wait, they did. Amazing gimongous gun sale event happened Saturday and they filed today. Huh.
ReplyDeleteI like to shoot but I get my food from the store and I have enough land around me so that I don’t endanger anybody, so it’s a bit of a check-your-privilege thing. I don’t hear that aspect discussed. In fact, I don’t hear anything I said here recently on this topic discussed. No room for grey thinking? Unfortunately that’s where most issues lie.
I didn’t notice the theme so in a way that’s a DNF on a Monday. Average difficulty. Nice puzzle.
@ Wm. C 5:21,
ReplyDeleteYou lose credibility when you use words without knowing their meaning. Do you know what an automatic weapon is?
@ BarbieBarbie, What privilege are you talking about? Lots of places have public ranges and even the private ones are cheap.
ReplyDeleteAnon@828, finding those places, finding a way to get there that doesn’t involve bringing weapons on public transportation, paying even a low fee... it’s a low bar, but it isn’ t within the grasp of every citizen. Tightly regulated guns are going to be a privilege. Is that OK? I don’t know what’s right.
ReplyDeleteI seem to get the ones others have trouble with but never heard of dryads, elvish or eloi so I could not completely finish on my own
ReplyDeleteNEW AGE EVIL FORCES, 1955
ReplyDeleteSIS, to your CREDIT you’re STEADY and legal,
your GOAL of CIVICDUTY’s fine,
but don’t NAG if MAO PETS you spread EAGLED
ORE tells you to TOETHEPARTYLINE.
--- MOMMA MIN
First of all, I posted yesterday but it never appeared. Don't know what I said that kept me off; basically called the puzzle a slog, like most Sundays. Anyway, to today.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't say our champ EAGLED this one, but...the Eagles' main color is green (I have a "I bleed green" t-shirt) and there's plenty of green paint in this one, starting with ROCKCAVES. Then THENFL. We've never needed "THE" before...
I don't think a SAUNA is actually a "bath." You need one AFTER the SAUNA. There's a French MIN-theme going on, with 44-, 47- and 60-across. Maybe that ADDS a degree of difficulty for some; not me. I breezed through it. The vowel progression does its thing; good as long as the entries are zippy; they are. But dude: no love for "The Bridge on the River Kwai?" His best, IMHO. All three were best pictures, rightfully so.
DOD is the amazing ANNE Hathaway. Birdie.
Haven’t seen an a-e-i-o-u puz for a while. Finished it with no EGGON my face, so OK. Would never get DAVIDLEAN without crosses. Do we ever see LED clued by __Zeppelin?
ReplyDeleteBefore Prohibition I suppose the teetotalers ran DRYADS.
Cash or CREDIT? Paper or plastic.
Does anybody remember yeah baby ANNE Francis as Honey West?
Decent enough Mon-puz. ELVISH has left the building.
Despite the transparent theme, which was a good example of the genre, this puzzle seemed a little more feisty than your average Monday.
ReplyDeleteI had PArk for finishing the drive at first. I liked my answer until I fixed it.
I participated in a golf weekend with 11 of my closest friends so missed Saturday and Sunday puzzles. Perhaps just as well.
Good start to the week.
BTW, I hope you all have your Walpurgis Night bonfires ready to ward off the witches and EVIL spirits.
ReplyDeleteTheme? There was a theme? Eh?(Canadian pronunciation) Eeee! AYE, yi yi - oh I didn't know, no. U? Why did I miss it? (But I only ask sometimes.)
ReplyDelete@Rondo from yesterday - after @Quasi finishes E, S, and L, he could try "Lapsing into a Comma" by Bill Walsh, followed by "Woe is I," Pat O'Conner's grammarphobe's guide to better English in plain English. I used to require WII in one of my courses. A favorite poem from it, entitled "Comma Sutra" (from the chapter on the "which" trials:
Commas, which cut out the fat,
Go with which, never with that.
The Oxford Comma will have its day. And yes, as Bill Walsh would say, I could care less.
And yes, this was just a touch more thought provoking than the average Monday puzzle, but not by leaps or bounds. Give me a little CREDIT.
Diana, Lady-in-Waiting for Crosswords
Neat: A - E - I - O - U. LANE, LEAN, LIND, LOAN, LUNE.
ReplyDeleteWhat could be simpler and more elegant?
A model Monday puzzle.
LINE, not LINd.
ReplyDeleteAgree 100 % with Rex. Nice Monday puzzle for all levels. Congrats Erik on your amazing finish time. Enjoy Victory Lane.
ReplyDelete