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Statement in old Apple ad / SAT 1-26-19 / Grocery chain that closed in 2015 after 156 years in business / Classic video game hero's catchphrase / Underlying as metabolism / Short cut that bypasses a canal
Saturday, January 26, 2019
Constructor: Grant Thackray
Relative difficulty: Easy (5:18)
Word of the Day: Giovanni RIBISI (3D: Actor Giovanni of "Avatar") —
Antonino Giovanni Ribisi (Italian pronunciation: [antoˈniːno dʒoˈvanni riˈbizi]; born December 17, 1974) is an American film and television actor known for his roles in the TV series Sneaky Pete, and the films Avatar, A Million Ways to Die in the West and Ted. He also had recurring roles in My Name Is Earl and Friends. (wikipedia)
• • •
There wasn't much in the way of difficulty here for me, but I did stumble or struggle a few times. First, I had a mistaken aha moment when I threw down GASPAR at 13D: Who stabs the beast in "Beauty and the Beast" (GASTON). If I'd just sung the damn song to myself, I would've remembered that no one fights like GASTON, and that would've been that. Who the hell is GASPAR??? Hmm, no one? GASPARD is a character in "Tale of Two Cities." Gah. Anyway, flubbed that. Next trouble came in SW, where "I'M A PC" was very slow to fall (not intuitively an *Apple* expression). Not sure I like the idea of "statements" in "old ads" very much. At all. Slogans, sure. But just ... statements?? Not good fill. Also had weird trouble getting MEIN (38A: Lo ___). But I bypassed my issues there by putting the "S" at the end of what would end up being PRUNES (45A: Trims), and then from that dropping SECS (46D: Ticks), and then from there, with just the "D" and "C" in place, dropping DEMOCRATICALLY, then DELANY, then BID BENE BASAL, all without much hesitation. No idea who BECCA was and absolutely no idea about BERTHA (47A: Big name in weaponry), so that whole "these answers start w/ B" section was a minor slog. But eventually I came back across the bottom pretty easily and dusted off the SW. And done
Five things:
- 7D: Letters for potential college students (ETS) — just go with the aliens. ETS are not letters anyone really *knows*, even if they have to deal with them (Education Testing Service)
- 51D: ___ Genevieve (Missouri county or its seat) (STE) — had the "T" so this was my first guess, but with nothing indicating an "abbr." in the clue, I was really unsure.
- 41A: Grocery chain that closed in 2015 after 156 years in business (A AND P) — ah. Classic ampersandwich.
- 5D: Whip wielders, for short (DOMS) — pretty racy...
- 14D: First, in Latin (PRIMUS) — this might be a clue most people can suss out, but I still don't know how you put PRIMUS in a grid and you *don't* clue it via the band:
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld (Twitter @rexparker / #NYTXW)
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
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109 comments:
This time it was as easy for me as Rex said it was easy for him, so I can start my new winning streak elegantly, and I enjoyed the bits I knew right away (MONSTER MASH) as much as the ones I learned for the first time (ITS A-ME MARIO). A happy ending does make a difference.
Yes, easy. Could be a wheelhouse thing, but this one offered very little resistance. A bit more interesting than yesterday’s, liked it.
...and speaking of Dana DELANY is China Beach being streamed by anyone anywhere?
I'm not sure I've ever seen Caesarian spelled that way.
This puzzle was a BUNDTCAKEwalk from beginning to end. Even avoiding the obvious triple three space weak point the start had almost no resistance. Just going by the long crosses I hit paydirt on the third try when I first guessed the name of the drink. Then I went for the threes and the whole north tier just gave itself up. The rest of the puzzle was just as efffortless. It's kind of fun to blow through a Saturday but disappointing as well.
“Big Bertha”—Giant German artillary piece
Big BERTHA was a gimme. Thanks to seeing enough WWI movies. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bertha_(howitzer)
I thought this was a great puzzle: tough (for me) but gettable, and with plenty of terrific entries and creative clues. My favorites were the GENIE OF THE LAMP and Big BERTHA. And I love the BUNDT CAKE shape, with its label across the middle. A puzzle with esprit.
I was surprised at @Rex's "easy." I felt like I was doing five separate puzzles, all of them hard. I thought I had a promising start with the top-row Downs: LEAPT, BFA, pga, ELMOS, SMETANA, but in terms of Acrosses, they yielded me...nothing. I thought I might be TOAST (which I had, however, not yet seen).
In the rest of the puzzle, though, short entries saved me: MEIN, A AND P, BENE, and BASAL were enough to unravel the lower section; and in the middle, NEW was enough to unlock the whole thing - giving me PITCREW (I'm sure having recently seen "reserve" in a clue mean "re-serve" in tennis helped me see the car-related "re-tiring"), Then SUP and the rest. I got back into the upper tier via RAMS HOME and worked my way backwards across the top until the WORLD BEATERS came into view. Last in: GASTON x NET.
Thank you, @Grant Thackray, This was all I want in a Saturday puzzle.
I’m amazed that OFL didn’t go bananas about the alphabet soup that is 6D7D8D. Otherwise a fine puzzle, but what was Shortz thinking there?
Big Bertha was nickname for large artillary piece. For those of you who don’t google: was a German siege howitzer built by Krupp AG and fielded by the Imperial German Army from 1914 to 1918. The M-Gerät had a 42-centimetre calibre barrel, making it one of the largest artillery pieces ever fielded.
Literally laughed out loud at "just go with aliens." And yeah, when DOMS fell into place for me, I thought, "Oh! Oh my! How scandalous!" I was trying to make it jockeys or something.
I still don't know what to make of this puzzle
It was very good and it was very Saturday worthy
Yet like McClellan it is a mystery
I stopped for a moment to admire the blank grid, a thing of beauty. Then the solve danced along quickly for a Saturday -- speedy, not teedy (my new slang for "tedious"). The middle fell first, then the top then the bottom. I guessed up a storm, mostly correctly.
Speedy can mean boring, but no boring today, with answers like WORLD BEATERS!, ALABAMA SLAMMERS!, MONSTER MASH!, BUNDT CAKE!, and ITS-A-ME MARIO! With fabulous clues like those for TOAST, OMNI, and CAESAREAN SECTION.
No, as I soared through the puzzle's humor and cleverness, Ode To Joy should have been playing in the background, and I left feeling like a WORLD BEATER, springboarded into the day ahead. I'll take regular doses of medicine like this, and thank you, Dr. Thackray.
My fastest Saturday puzzle.
@Jae... China Beach isn't officially available to stream anywhere, but I've seen some (maybe all, i haven't checked) on YouTube.
I spent more time finding my mistake CESARIAN, instead of EAN, than it took Rex to do the puzzle. As.LD would say "Pretty,pretty good"
Rex – Dana DELANY constructed a puzzle with Matt Ginsberg that you panned. (Warning – link shows the solution. For anyone who wants to hunt it down to solve, it ran on Sun, Sept 4, 2011.)
I didn’t know ALABAMA SLAMMERS (@Crimson Devil – guess you could say this year they’re Tigers ouch sorry just kidding go Heels.) I feel like Quinn’s Mill in Atlanta where I was a cocktail waitress had another Southern Comfort cocktail, but it involved bourbon, and I remember thinking ick ‘cause I don’t like the flavor of bourbon.
Got PIT CREW off only the final W. Terrific clue, but I didn’t fall for it. Man, I’m gettin’ good.
I had no idea Churchill would be commenting on ART. My first thought was “war.” Then “wit.” Then “sin.” Ok. I’m not actually that good. But why does ART need tradition? Asking for a friend.
Thought there’d be a little LOSTITness for BAND NAME. Does that pave the way for “song title”, “book author?”
I’ve looked into it, and no one, not even a big shot pedant, says sin for SINUSES. Mercifully, they don’t say boni, campi, or ani. Or walri. But now that I’ve wasted all this time on this, it’s occurred to me that our pronouns are bass-ackwards. Us should be singular and I should be plural. Someone needs to write a letter.
TOAST – what a great clue. I sat there forever and thought about that. Tried to think of other stuff made flat out but eaten straight up.
Sandwich. What else?
“Way behind on payments” – timely clue.
? on scrips. Isn't that what the MD calls in, not what you pick up?
It’s a me, TOAST. What the hell is a World Beater? A cosmopolitan DOM? I “put in” World Master. There are a lot of wannabe those these days. See what I did? :) I had no idea about ETS so ATS sounded plausible. SHL too. And yes you’d have to be a very gifted college student to earn a MFA, but I’ve seen crazier answers. And that weird Cesarean spelling threw me for a spell. I started with GENIE IN A BOTTLE. Total time was too embarrassing to mention. I gave up and came here all Misty. Kudos to Rex for filling this in in 5 minutes. I had a DNF.
For some reason my mind went to “candy” reading a “confection with a hole in the middle” and I wrote in “lifesaver” and it was downhill from there!
FYI--Big Bertha was a huge German siege gun; rail-mounted, I think. Might have been WWI or WWII.
Gaspar was one of the 3 wisemen,FWIW
What @Abigail said. Liked the Toast clue a lot. Fast finish as well so starting Saturday a little sooner.
Primus the band is a better answer. NO. Did listen to the clip and NO NO.
Primus as BAND NAME maybe. Green paint.
I somehow filled in the entire bottom in less than a blink of an eye, but the rest took some time and effort. I got DEMOCRATICALLY from the D alone, woo hoo!
Never heard of ALABAMA SLAMMERS but was able to figure that out. I know ETS. Big Bertha is also a golf club.
The Primus video was...well...um...I dunno. I kinda liked it.
Can someone explain how "RAGER" fits with "Party that's off the hook." Is "off the hook" a trendy phrase for angry?
I had CAESARIANSECTION and SICS and it took me longer to correct that than doing the whole rest of the puzzle.
Easiest Saturday in recent memory, confidence builders are a good thing. Molto Bene!!!
Just about as easy as yesterday’s, but so lively!
BAND NAME of course is terrible, and I’m not fond of ITSAMEMARIO, but so many pleasures: BUNDT CAKE, CESAREAN SECTION, ALABAMA SLAMMER, MONSTER MASH. Loved the clue for BAR TAB.
@LMS - opus - opera genus genera sinus sinera?
I honestly found this puzzle pretty joyless. The way BECCA BERTHA and DELANY all cross felt like a triple natick to me, especially because I had CA and then tried to fill in eriCA.
I’m a professional musician and even when I saw “The Bartered Bride,” I thought “Oh, he’s Czech but I have no idea what his name is” and didn’t remember until I had the ANA filled in at the end.
I don’t understand or care for WORLDBEATERS. Is that a thing that I’m just not aware of?
And I figured out CESAREANSECTION except that this crossword uses an alternate spelling (I always thought it was Caesarean) and so I could not for the life of me figure out how to put it in.
Overall, tbh, I think this puzzle is so excited about being able to stack these fifteen letter answers that it got lost in its own cleverness.
Not easy for me. When you need a letter or two to get almost every clue, the beginning stages of solving are slow-going and it's tempting to give up. But I did finish it!
The last time I played a game involving Mario was probably more than 5 years ago, so I didn't remember his catchphrase until I had "IT" and an "M". My 21 year old daughter got it immediately. She would have trouble with anything requiring knowledge of old songs, closed grocery stores, and political parties way past their heyday, however.
I know that some people's least-favorite types of clues are different from mine (e.g. baseball), but I am wondering if anyone enjoys movie studio questions? I imagine sunny terraces in LA where movie producers happily fill these in over a breakfast with some brightly colored juice. Is knowing the studio that produced a movie a common thing? Not a fan of questions about which network a TV show airs on either, since all my TV watching is on Netflix.
5 MINUTES????? Gadzooks. It took me longer to just find one entry I knew. SUP/SANDMAN and with that I was off to bed.
Like @Quasi, I'm saying to myself what the hell is WORLD BEATERS. And I'll ask again. Didn't know ETS as clued and Calder Cup was nHL. Total blank.
The proper names killed me. DID NOT know RIBISI GASTON STEPH IMAPC DELANY BECCA and forgot PEROT ever existed.
Usually, after my fourth Google, I'll toss in the towel. This one held my interest and so I plugged away. I needed the above 6 Googs to be able to finish and I didn't care about the (what you guys call) cheating. I was proud that I could remember ALABAMA SLAMMERS and MONSTER MASH. Hey, I even knew SMETANA. ITSA ME MARIO took some time but then a little aha came to my lips. I've said this before but I'm not enamored with the sounds of the English language as spoken by most Americans. It just doesn't come out pretty. The only accent I like is a Southern one. They speak slowly and sing song. I like that. Now if you go to Italy and speak with the natives that know English, I dare you to find one Italian that doesn't end every single word with an "a" (pronounced uh). You mustuh tryuh the parmigiana cheesuh. Delicioso!
Thanks for the entertaining (about 2 hours to finish) puzzle, Grant. You gotta me gooda.....
Personal best for a Saturday, even though ETS totally stumped me
Thought this was a fun and lively puzzle, albeit agree that it was on the easy side. .30 from my Saturday record and I wasted a minute or two last night just staring before I put it down. Two themeless puzzles in a row that were approachable, well clued and largely void of junk or esoterica. Agree BAND NAME is a pretty blah entry and clue. Knowing MONSTER MASH immediately and putting in SUP for some reason made that isolated section easier than it might have been.
Hey all, 'S UP?
Mrs. @mericans took the iPad with her during the week, but she's back with it and so we did this one together. I filled in the bottom and the centre, and she filled in the top (after correcting several of my misguided entries, though I did get SMETANA right, so there's that.) As was Lewis's experience, we found it to give just the right amount of resistance.
Although we did not catch the error at 27A and 16D (has ON it* and hence STEtH), we enjoyed this puzzle a lot. Hadn't seen MONSTER MASH or BUNDT CAKE or IT'S A ME MARIO, so that all seemed fresh and new.
*Never heard of the Esquires. Would have immediately slotted in ON UP if the song had been clued in connection with James Brown.
And so many of the answers resonated. I worked in what may have been the USA's least-busy A AND Ps during the summer of 1973. It was so slow that they used it to make a series of commercials at it with Mickey Rooney. I even featured in it as an extra in one that had both him and me posing as bag boys. I later saw it on the TV in a dorm, but everybody had left the room for a beer or a pee, and nobody believed me when they came back and I told them that I had just seen myself on TV.
I've worked with a lot of people in the Italian government over the last two years, and inevitably there was a MARIO among them. It has taken biting my lip almost until it bleeds not to greet him with, "Hey, IT's Super MARIO!" The power of memes.
TAPIRs are one of my favourite animals. Had no idea they were related to their much more aggressive cousins, the rhinos. Learned something new.
Like @LMS, I went through all kinds of foods that would meet the criterion of 19A. When Mrs. @iP got it, I was reminded of a really funny, tongue-in-cheek screed written by a former colleague on how much energy could be saved if the world were to eat all of its bread unTOASTed. He even estimated all the oil-equivalent barrels worth of electricity that were consumed each year in transforming a perfectly edible food into something that was brown and crunchy. Save that energy for baking BUNDT CAKE or stewing PRUNES, I say.
Bundt cake, potluck dessert of my youth in its many variations. Jello's successor.
I also request an explanation, please.
It's definitely a "wheelhouse thing". And this was out of mine. So to all of you who say "easy", I say PFFT. I cheated, finally, finally on RIBISI, using @Lewis's rationale: if a cheat enables you to enjoy the rest of the puzzle when you'd otherwise have to stop, then do it. And RIBISI almost opened up the pesky NW for me, but didn't, because I had StRIPS instead of SCRIPS for the pharmacy pickups. (Google's not accepting SCRIPS, btw, -- good for Google!) I have never once said to a pharmacy, "Please send me my SCRIPS", and I hope I never shall. This gave me WEL tO ME for the start of a speech, and I thought it was just missing an "L". You're laughing? Is that any worse than the CESARIAN that's missing an "A"? (Google's not accepting CESARIAN either. Good for Google!) Anyway, through all phases of solving (or not solving) this puzzle, I expected 1D either to begin with a "WE" or with a "WELL" and thus I never saw WELCOME. A DOOK in reverse?
In addition to all I didn't know -- MONSTER MASH; ITSAMEMARIO; RIBISI and BECCA -- I don't understand other stuff. "Ticks" = SICS?????? RAGER????? (I guess "off the hook" must mean very angry?). Some great stuff here (TOAST is inspired) and some awful stuff (DOMS, as well as SCRIPS are cringe-making.) So for me a mixed bag that I couldn't finish.
"Off the hook" is slang for exciting and cool. A "rager" is a party that is the same.
World beater..a person or thing that is better than all others in its field.
I was torn between WORLD BEATERS and @Quasi's WORLD masTERS throughout my entire solve. But if I had just re-read the clue for 6D, the "undergraduate" should have made it clear. ETS? AHL could have been the Southern Hockey League for all I knew. But I had BEATERS in my grid so I was okay. I did hesitate to put in WORLD because 10D's clue was "_____ World".
PRIMUS is a band I know - I even have one of their CDs. Once, in the small town of St. Croix Falls, WI, in the restaurant/bar of a rundown motel, I saw a PRIMUS tribute band perform. When I requested they play my favorite PRIMUS song, Fish On, they said, regretfully, that they couldn't play that yet because they didn't have the right kind of bass guitar. This left me gobsmacked, but after watching Rex's video link, perhaps I can believe it. Or maybe they meant they needed the right bass player!
This was a fun puzzle, with a couple of pas de chat of logic (at 4D, in fact when I realized that "pas de chat" wasn't some pastiche of French and on-line slang but that "chat" was French for "cat" and what do cats do? Aha!)
I'M A PC - For some reason, that statement brings to mind Katie Couric's method of remembering how to pronounce then Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's name by thinking "I'm a dinner jacket". I always found that vaguely annoying and yet useful. Seems like a long time ago and I guess, since it was 2007, it was.
Nice job, Grant Thackray, on puzzle #3.
Bottom third fell first, then top third, then came to my usual screeching halt in the middle, despite having SUP and TAPIR in place. BUNDT CAKE was the breakthrough, and finished with RAGER, though I had no idea what that slang term meant. To play fair, there should have been a var. in the clue on CESAREAN.
Filled it in early this morning before the 5K race in Miami. Something was wrong. After the race and a shower, I found that I spelled CESAREANSEDTION incorrectly, putting in an “i”. Done!
Anybody else notice that DOMS intersects the diagonal, TITS?
@LMS - who is my raisin for ettering here -
and others who might care -
The plural of sinus IS sinus (sinūs) - Latin fourth declension noun.
So there's that.
My way in was also SUP/SANDMAN, @GILL (9:08). Great minds, and all that. But unlike you, I didn't write them in and then go to bed. It was already morning.
I see it's not SiCS for "Ticks". It's SECS. As you get from CESAREAN. (Just add that DNF to my other one.)
Did anyone get "#1 song at the end of October in 1962" without crosses? I don't care if MONSTER MASH (whatever that is) is your family theme song. Who on earth would remember the #1 song from a specific date long, long ago in the past? Here's a test: What was the #1 hit song in February 1958? March 1966? August 1972? June 1985? One of the strangest clues I've ever seen in a NYT puzzle.
We use a toaster oven (bread goes in horizontally, comes out horizontally,
gets eaten horizontally) so the clue for TOAST flummoxed me. Never heard of a RAGER, either, and BECCA who? DNF. Sigh.
OK...so I've made my case on American accents. I just listened to "Jerry Was A Race Car." I'll take ITSA ME MARIO any day.
The term for the medical procedure in which a baby is delivered through an incision in the mother’s abdomen is spelled and written several different ways. Caesarean section...There are also cesarian and cesarean. The latter is standard in medical usage....The puzzle is correct.
Hey All !
@mmorgan beat me to it. Was gonna say Big Bertha is also a golf club. I don't golf, but I do drive golfer's to courses, and having seen that name on a driver club stuck with me.
Got the whole South section in 10 minutes! That's flying for me on a SatPuz. But, got bogged down in North and Center. Those top three threes were a bear. BFA, I know it now, but sussing it was tough. ETS? Where my aliens at? AHL? Is that still a League? Had to start to Check Puzzle to be able to finish. Didn't Reveal anything, but Check-ing helps when you're helplessly stuck.
A RAGER is a kick-ass party. Nothing to do with being angry. Off the Hook also means crazy, kick-ass, a helluva good time.
Wanted mrright for SANDMAN. WORLD BEATERS was kinda weird to my ears as well. Don't know SMETANA, not versed in composers. Took a bit to get BUNDT CAKE, which is funny, cause I was just talking about them yesterday when I was at the grocery store. No, not AANDP. :-)
Liked the B diagonal in SE. 8 B's in total. But, no F's. Is one to much to ask for? Har.
ALABAMA SLAMMERS are delicious! One of those that taste so good, you don't realize how tipsy you're getting as you drink. Until you stand up. Then you're TOAST.
Was thinking CORN on the COB for TOAST. Well, I grows perpendicular to how you eat it, but it does boiling the pot the same direction you eat it... Ah, never mind.
LOST IT ON A RANT
RooMonster
DarrinV
Slow to start but once I braved a few answers it went by smoothly. I had the opposite reaction to Rex when I’M A PC appeared, Those ads are iconic corporate trolling. I chuckled remembering them. My only writeovers were iHL before AHL and ReO before RKO. No idea on my time (it was my dog who interrupted my solve) but the few writeovers suggests easy-medium.
@Joe Welling - I was wondering the same thing. Wikipedia uses “ae,” but not the NIH. Looking at the edits history on Wikipedia I found someone suggesting that CESAREAN is the “American spelling.” That NIH article is pretty interesting. I didn’t think the NIH would be all that concerned with etymology.
I see @Bob Mills has been answered, but every descriptivist everywhere has to chortle at our propensity to take words that mean “bad” and morph them into slang that means “effing AWESOME.” I imagine this continual evolving of language must drive prescriptivists into a RAGE.
Seeing the comments I’m wondering if WORLD BEATER is a regionalism. It took me awhile to piece it together, but it is a phrase I recognize and have probably even used.
Left puz mid solve last night. Picked up again to find the entire solve gone and the clock still running! Boohoo! How did that happen! This 2.5 hour error ruined my Saturday average time. $#&#$@!!!!!!! Grrrrrr. Enjoyed the puz however.
@ Nancy, That specific date is supposed to remind you of Halloween.
Getting to celebrate a completed Saturday here with some ATCQ. Thanks Rex
Best was SUP, then ITSAMEMARIO. Never seen —-section so spelled, or heard of RAGER or SECS, or, ashamed to admit, ALABAMASLAMMER.
Isn’t gaspar one of the three wise men? Primus (the band) is new to me. Interesting
It's been over a thousand years that Latin "ae" words have been spelled _in_Latin_ and in borrowed forms with the letter "e", sometimes with a fancy form of "e" with a tail, like the Polish letter "ę" to distinguish it from plain "e". Ecclesiastical Latin uses "e" for Classical Latin's "ae" all the time. Esthetically speaking, many might prefer "aesthetics" to "esthetics" - but it is actually the use of "ae" that is an innovation of the "conservative" language specialists of the past hundred-fifty years. The spelling Cesarean is historical, not an Americanism, not laziness, and not a mangling. Anybody who believes otherwise probably admired William Safire, too. And W.F. Buckley. And all kinds of other promulgators of idiocy in the guise of knowledge.
Same. But realized was wrong and ended with a quick (for me) Saturday time
The clue "How's it hanging" has appeared a few times in the last few months. It is something of an eyebrow raiser for me. When I was in college in the sixties, it was a rather rude greeting as it referred to male genitalia.
Big Berthas were large guns in the 2nd World War.
@RP: GASPAR! ahar! … And right after U banned all the PAR-words?
This here SatPuz was kinda a Goldilocks Puz. Some found it too hard -- some found it too soft. M&A found it within a Gas-pass of Par with most SatPuz solvequests. Give or take a fistfull of nanoseconds. Got MONSTERMASH offa just the ?-NS-?, tho. But let's pas de chitchat, and get to the guts of the matter …
For reasons not entirely clear but probably related to the concept of "desperation", M&A solved this puppy from the gridbottom up. It was pretty much actually three separate runtpuzs on steroids, cuz the grid was almost totally walled … er … barriered off to the max. Easiest runtpuz was the middle one. RAGER … har.
Topmost runtpuz put up a heckuva fight, at our house. ETS & AHL twins get staff ornery weeject picks. Granted, I did teach a few extra-terrestrial-like students, during my brief [due to Uncle Sam & Nam] postgrad stay in college. But AHL was a real killer; clearly had to want NHL, yieldin the mysterious WORLD BEn?ERS/?EAL. snort. Well, hey -- at least the right answer to 9-D didn't turn out to be NEAL [shudder].
IMAPC/ITSMEMARIO was funny crossin stuff.
Cleanup: Thrillin weeject stack sightings at 12 o'clock and six o'clock. Also, nice 4-weeject framin of the central runtpuz.
Thanx for the snoot full of fun runtz, Mr. Thackray. [ItsameMandA.]
Masked & Anonymo4Us
"Author of the upcomin crossword-solvin memoir: A Fistfull of Nanoseconds"
**gruntz**
I enjoyed the puzzle. Started in the SW with Lo MEIN, remembered (and loved at the time) the "IM A MAC"/"I'M A PC" ads - my introduction to John Hodgman, who continues to be funnier than Justin What's-his-name who played the Mac. DEMOCRATICALLY and SETS THE TABLE got me into the SE, which I finished with no problem (knew big BERTHA from WWI or WWII movies, got DELANY and BECCA from crosses).
Filled in ELMO'S and got the NE, and used the October part of the clue to get MONSTER MASH (great song - I understand it was a graveyard smash). Loved GENIE OF THE LAMP, which got me the rest of the top third. Got SUP, and finally got ITS A ME, MARIO!, which led to the middle. My kids are in their early 20s so I'm familiar with RAGERs (they never went, but they told me about the parties and why they weren't going).
Really enjoyed the clue on PIT CREW. I had to get SMETANA from the crosses; I only know him from crosswords.
Enjoyable, with enough resistance to make it interesting but not enough to make it frustrating. A perfect Saturday (or Friday).
Rex,
You should do yourself a favor and check out John Anderson's "The World of the Maltese Falcon". It was orginally published by Sout-West Review. I think you can read it on line for nothing.
I mention it because Gaspar should be very familar to you. Just shy of back-of-your-hand familar. Caspar Gutman is Gaspar. I understand no one can know everytging, but you purport yourself as an expert on hard boiled fiction. And this along with your unbelieveable ignorance of Charles Peirce (The Flitcraft parable in chapter 7 is an exegesis of Peirece's philosophy) suggests you are in very great need of some info in the world of American crime fiction.
I disagree with almost all your criricsm and artistic choices, but we share a love of Hammett and Chandler et al. If we're going to inculcate that love to the next generation of readers and scholars we owe them some genuine understanding of what we teach.
GASpar is the friendly goat.
I kept thinking this ought to be hard, since it was so hard to get from one section to the next. Fortunately, I had the MASH by the time to 29A, and MEMARIO by the time I got to 32A. Even with that, my first thought was "call me MARIO" but fortunately the crosses didn't work. So I eventually saw IT SAME MARIO.
@Nancy, on the former, in addition to the Halloween suggestion, it's one of those clues where you just have to step back from the specifics, and think of it as "hit song of the 60s."
@Carola, great call on the resemblance of the puzzle to a BUNDT CAKE! I never noticed.
FWIW, Perot didn't found the Reform Party. A bunch of his supporters did, originally without his consent; then he took it over and destroyed it.
If you follow the old-fashioned dining etiquette, which prescribes picking up asparagus spears with your fingers to eat them (if you don't believe me, check Miss Manners), it comes close to the reversal of the TOAST relationship.
@anon/11:35
it was a rather rude greeting as it referred to male genitalia.
and... the standard reply, 'as the Chinese say, won hung lo for dinner'
"I'm a PC" ad campaign, while not mentioned in the Wiki article, always seemed to me to be the existential sibling of the one-shot "1984" Macintosh ad. guess you had to be there.
Gaspar was also a Met.
Got GASTON pretty easily, but @Rex may be interested to know (weird wavelength) that today is GASPARilla in my adopted Tampa.
Also, five minutes?!?
My only stumble was GASPAR too, until the song popped into my head. Puzzle was OK, but very easy.
Solved bottom up. Since I solve on paper, it was important to me not to enter, say, "lifesaver" with no crosses to verify it and so I waited and let the crosses guide me to BUNDTCAKE. (We bake in this household, so well that my wife's pies are legendary in our crowd).
Didn't know ALABAMASLAMMER but it became a great guess. The rest of the puzzle skewed old, to my delight. Kudos to to WS for the "end of October, 1962" clue for MONSTERMASH. Had to be a Hallowe'en reference, and I remember that song very well (it was a graveyard smash!).
Tough for me. Gill I 9:08 and Nancy 9:47 said it all for me, so I won't repeat their comments. I too had to Google nearly every PPP.
I'm from the class of '62 (HS) and know nearly every song from the era including MONSTER MASH (it was a graveyard smash). But I don't know the #1 song from the end of October 62. Clue too vague.
I was going to explain BERTHA, but I see 47 others have already. Don't need to pile on.
Oh, from earlier this week, Loren Malaprop Smith (aka @LMS) is my hero (or heroine?).
Rex, thanks for the Primus clip—forgot what a beast Les Claypool is.
Bizarro World R.E.M. song: “WORLD BEATER Pretend”
@FrankStein: great memory
Whew, tough (for me at least), especially across the top. An enjoyable solving challenge, though, and that’s surely what matters, so thank you very much Mr. Thackeray for getting my Saturday off to a rockin’ start.
my last thought as I finished - what the hell is a world beater?
Concur with your statement regarding the Band, PRIMUS. Should be the definitive clue.
@Nancy -- I like a music challenge. Without looking:
February 1959: Stagger Lee - Lloyd Price
March 1966: Ballad of the Green Berets -- S/Sgt. Barry Sadler
August 1972: Alone Again Naturally - Gilbert O'Sullivan
June 1985: Everybody Wants To Rule The World - Tears For Fears
I don't see a problem with BAND NAME. The particular clue is kind of silly, but it is a phrase people say. "That would make a good band name." "Have you come up with a band name yet?" Ask any budding teenage rock God.
PRIMUS did the "South Park" theme. Just sayin'.
World beater crossing dom made me laugh out loud.
No. Just no. I’m totally baffled by the easy time most others seem to have had with this. I some how feel jipped, cheated, maybe violated by this xword. Last entry was 1A WORLDBEATERS, and I wasn’t having any of that. I mean, is that even a term? WorldRecordHolders, sure. But WORLDBEATERS?! Followed by 13A GENIEOFTHELAMP!? Sounds Green Paint to me. Noone ever found a Genie in anything other than a lamp. And even if they had, they wouldn’t refer to the one that came from the lamp as that. Not a term I was willing to put in.
Agree about spelling on 48A CESAREANSECTION. My brain just refused to put that in. Despite having an original Nintendo that we played Mario on with the nephews, oh, about two decades ago, I don’t remember ever hearing that catchphrase at 32A. And for some reason (copping to total brain-deadness here), I thought 52A DEMOCRTICALLY was spelled DEMOCRATICly. Which got us into DEMOCRATICrace and just hung us up some more. And we were stuck on kebab for 19A (TOAST) for so long before we finally gave it up and erased. So, got hung up all over the place except the center circle which was worthy of an easy rating, sure. 39A RAGER was ugly, but the crosses made it fall in to place
@LMS, wondered the same thing about Churchill’s comment on ART (49D).
Add to that 12D SMETANA and 44D BECCA (both total Naticks for us), and 7D ETS (never heard of that), this was a pretty joyless morning for us. Honestly amazed that we still beat our average time on this one. We usually run 3 – 4 Rex Parkers but this time his time womped ours (relatively).
Unlike Rex, I sang the song in my head to get GASTON. Then I couldn’t get the darn song out of my head for hours (it’s still lurking). Argh!
interesting factoid (the wiki):
"The ACT has seen a gradual increase in the number of test takers since its inception, and in 2011 the ACT surpassed the SAT for the first time in total test takers; that year, 1,666,017 students took the ACT and 1,664,479 students took the SAT."
of course, SAT didn't seem to fit so went with ACT, as that's the 'other' test. ETS really isn't fair, since few, I'll guess, students know or care who made the test their taking. Educational Testing Service. they don't take an ETS.
Winston Churchill was also an artist. I've seen some of his paintings in a university museum.
You can go to WikiArt and see 89 of his paintings.
He also won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1953.
Googled WORLD BEATER because of all the people unfamiliar with term. Many dictionaries have definitions including slang dictionaries and mainstream sources like Collins and Merriam-Webster. Hits also included episode titles of various TV shows, sports equipment like a WORLD BEATER bowling ball, a discussion of a Ferrar 250GTO, an ESPN documentary about a Little League World Series, and a charity in Britain that seems to focus on percussion and dance. It seems, for the most part, a sports-centric term but otherwise not at all obscure or regional.
@Joe Dipinto (2:53)-- If you're right -- and I wouldn't have a clue as to whether you are or not -- that would be absolutely extraordinary!!! I just chose arbitrary dates out of thin air to make a point -- my point being absolutely no one could possibly be expected to know something like that. I never expected anyone to see it as an actual challenge. And, btw, I never heard of any of the songs you mention. But if you're right -- well have you thought of trying out for Jeopardy? They have a lot, a lot, a lot of pop music categories.
Winston Churchill was also an artist. I've seen some of his work in museums.
Go to WikiArt to see 89 of his paintings. Not bad at all for an amateur painter.
He also won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1953.
Don't know either PRIMUS so don't care.
I'm cool with it being the same, but it's a word I see nearly every day in business and I've never in 30 years seen it spelled any way other than script.
@Nancy -- re my previous post -- Oops, I gave you #1 in February 1959; you said 1958. I actually don't know that one. Tequila by the Champs was March 1958 but I'm blanking on February.
(My personal #1 birthday song -- "Mr. Sandman" by the Chordettes -- made a semi- appearance in the last two puzzles.)
@jberg: The Friendly Ghost" was Casper.
@B Right There: On "I Dream of Genie" She lived in a Bottle.
the big weapon is BIG BERTHA
@Joe Dipinto (5:26) -- As I said, I pulled those arbitrary dates out of my you-know-where. It could just as well have been February 1959 as February 1958. So I give you a complete sweep of the answers; you definitely deserve it.
"Mr. Sandman" I know. "Mr. Sandman" I can sing. Every single lyric. Even though I haven't heard it or sung it in 65 years. (I just looked it up: it came out in 1954. In those years I was listening to "Your Hit Parade" and I knew most of the pop hits, good and bad. But my claim to fame isn't having an encyclopedic knowledge of pop hits. My knowledge is paltry. My claim to fame is to remember every single lyric of every single song I ever knew from childhood until the age of, I don't know, 45? Fifty? It makes no sense at all. I have the fuzziest of memories. I have forgotten much, much more of my past than I remember. But I never forget a lyric. Or a poem learned young, for that matter.
Halloween .
or what a tailor will discreetly ask
@Nancy -- I think it does make sense. For me the weekly Top 20 was something fun to keep track of when I was young. Renembering it didn't require any effort, much as I'm sure remembering sports statistics doesn't for those so inclined, or remembering song lyrics didn't for you (btw I'm in awe of your ability: that is no mean feat. Many professional singers have trouble recalling lyrics.) It's interesting what information each person's brain will choose to store away, for no particular reason.
As for Jeopardy, there are too many categories I would tank, so no thanks. ;-)
Or Bugs: “ I dream of Jeanie (Genie), she’s a light brown hare”.
Enter Sandman for 20 down in the same week as Mariano enters the Hall of Fame.
Very Nice
Primus sucks...
I did complete the puzzle, including worldbeaters, but wasn't sure of it until I took a look here (and found equally annoyed puzzlers). What is that? I looked it up in the Collins dictionary and there it was. I guess you learn something every day.
...and I did sing the Beauty and the Beast song to myself, although I detest musical theatre.
We get these puzzles a bit later in the Midwest. Zipped through it pretty quickly today but not 5:30 quick. I couldn't decipher the clue for ETS although I fell into the answer. Thanks for the explanation even if it didn't give me an a-ha! moment.
Back in the 70's, my then boyfriend went to get a suit fitted. The tailor asked him: "Do you dress to the left or the right, sir?"
Notice, he did not ask 'SUP?
That this clue only received 2 or 3 mentions boggles my mind. ne noted it has appeared recently, so I musta missed it.
Anyway, not really apt for puzzles, IMVHO.
I'm trying to think of a way that women would ask such a question. Again, mind boggling.
Got the bottom half of this puzzle - not the top. DNF in a big way. Again, @Rex and I are opposites in the wheelhouse area. Yesterday was pretty easy for me, today was fuhgeddaboudit.
Diana, Just Hanging On
What you mean, "Theme: none?" Why, the whole grid is indeed a BUNDTCAKE, complete with the HOLE in the middle! He even puts cheater squares in the corners to give the thing a rounded-off look. Also, the center sorta looks like one of the (re)tires that the PITCREW works with (groaner honorable mention).*
It was tasty, too, except for one sour bite in the SW: 41-across. Not "ah," but "UGH!" Either say "The Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company" or "A&P."
This offered some resistance; I'm not familiar with ITSAMEMARIO, but it was inferable. BANDNAME is...what do you call that, green paint? So the SW UPSTAGEd the NW for a change. However, finding DEMOCRATICALLY SETSTHETABLE for solving the south.
Weird that SANDMAN appears in the grid the day after "Logan's Run" ran on TCM. Jenny Agutter had a fine pair of stems. Today's DOD, though, is the gal who let me into the south: Dana DELANY. (Well, I'm not gonna give the sash to STEPH Curry!)
*Groaner of the day (which I will NOT abbreviate GOD): "BIG" (hah!) name in weaponry. Oh, and PRIMUS? I got that strictly from Latin. I never heard of that BANDNAME. I make it medium for a Saturday, with a cool yet light theme. Might've been an eagle but for the &wich. Birdie.
Shall I go ONARANT like Rex today? NAH! A TOAST to Grant Thackray who SETSTHETABLE nicely for an enjoyable (but challenging) solve - especially the top half. I don't know if anyone else mentioned it, but there is a theme - BUNDTCAKE, INAHOLE, CESAREANSECTION - which (in the MEIN) echoes the central shape of the puzzle. You're WELCOME!
NEW BARTAB
If THE GENIEOFTHELAMP SETSTHETABLE,
there's a WELCOME TOAST to make:
drink ALABAMASLAMMERS ONUP if you're able,
then smear SMETANA on THE BUNDTCAKE.
--- STEPH DELANY
took me two to two-and-a-half hours, but i finished! definitely top part was the hardest. i knew world beaters from sports and ribisi from crosswords, and i'm very proud to have guessed alabama slammers, a term i had never heard before today.
Fun and frisky Saturday puzzle. The highlight for me was getting MONSTER MASH off just the H, getting me into the centre, ie, the BUNDT CAKE of the puzzle. I paused at RAGER because that meant nothing to me, although TONER certainly did.
The South section was delightful, even with the odd spelling of CaESARIAN (hard to take). Are we to now write "Julius Cesar"?
Anyway, the North was the most difficult (least easy?) of the grid, but good guesses at ELMO, LOST IT, AND SHAME helped save the day.
IM A PC bought back the memory of those old Mac/PC commercials which were creative and funny.
Liked the puzzle, a lot.
The bottom definitely easier, but the whole thing done with such deliberation so as to avoid write-overs.
A classic cocktail like a sidecar on your BARTAB? Sidecars were passe in the early 1970s when I graduated from the MN School of BARtending.
John Updike has a classic short story entitled "AANDP". Sammy is a check-out boy waiting on a teenage girl, 'Queenie', who is wearing her swimsuit into the AANDP: . . . I uncrease the bill, tenderly as you may imagine, it just having come from between the two smoothest scoops of vanilla I had ever known were there . . .
A classic and always a favorite in yeah baby Dana DELANY, and roughly my age (therefore classic).
More BUNDTCAKE please. This was a classic.
I got RAGER by interpreting the clue as referring to a person (a third party) who's off the hook. Strained, but I liked the misdirect.
Proper nouns of the Northern tier weren't helped by tough crosses, and they put this one out of reach and beyond my limited supply of patience.
The BUNDT CAKE hole in the middle was a surprising hint about that one.
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