Comedian Love who co-hosts The Real / MON 2-25-18 / Pittsburgh-based NYSE company / Hungarian composer Franz

Monday, February 25, 2019

Constructor: Peter Gordon

Relative difficulty: Medium (3:06)


THEME: TRIATHLON (66A: Race suggested by 19-, 39- and 59-Across?) — themers contain SWIMMING, CYCLING, and RUNNING, respectively:

Theme answers:
  • GOING SWIMMINGLY (19A: Proceeding well)
  • RECYCLING CENTER (39A: Place to bring aluminum cans)
  • OUT OF THE RUNNING (59A: No longer in contention)
Word of the Day: LONI Love (3D: Comedian Love who co-hosts "The Real") —
Loni Love (born July 12, 1971) is an Emmy Award-winning, American comedian, television host, actress and author. While working as an electrical engineer in 2003, Love began to pursue a career in music engineering. She was the runner-up on Star Search 2003 and was named among the "Top 10 Comics to Watch" in both Variety and Comedy Central in 2009. She is currently one of the hosts of The Real talk show along with Jeannie MaiTamera Mowry, and Adrienne Bailon, which premiered on July 15, 2013. (wikipedia)
• • •

This theme doesn't work for me, for a few reasons. The TRIATHLON segments are weirdly embedded. CYCLING is only part of the word RECYCLING, which has nothing to do with bicycling, which would be fine, but then RUNNING is a stand-alone word and kind of has Everything to do with, uh, running, even if OUT OF THE RUNNING is, largely, metaphorical now. I have no idea what the origins of GOING SWIMMINGLY are, but I imagine they have more to do with swimming than recycling has to do with cycling. It's all just uneven and strange and thin. The fill is OK but not great—just this side of "clean enough" but not-at-all interesting. Feels like something Peter Gordon just tossed off and threw away. Something he could make in his sleep. I tend to like Mondays best, of all the themed days of the week, but this one missed me. Didn't miss bad. It just missed. Another thing that missed: my fingers, in that they couldn't hit the right keys to save their lives. I guess I have had a drink, and it was kind of strong, but it was just the one, and I'm 6'3" 185 so honestly it should not have affected my fingers the way it did. I think if I'd had a way to record "number of typos and rewrites" I would've been able to declare that today, I set a record. Just a horrendous job of filling in squares and moving the cursor around properly. For all I know, this puzzle is actually wickedly easy, even in comparison to Mondays. But my fat drunk fingers did what they did, and we all have to live with the consequences.


I wrote in VILE for UGLY and thus began my wrong answer/rewrite tragedy (17D: Hideous ... yes, it was hideous). Wrote in STAGE for STAIR (5D: Step between two floors). Wrote in GUY for GUS (41D: Fellow .... I stopped reading at "Fellow," that was my problem). Had the -ATHLON part and immediately, without looking at the clue, wrote in DECATHLON. You can see how impressive I was today, right? Brilliant. Couldn't remember if she was TERRY or KERRY or TERRI or KERRI Strug (56D: Gymnast Strug). Thought maybe [Twilight time] was DAWN (!?). Assorted other things slowed me down, mostly notably my recalcitrant sot-digits. "MY EYE!" can kiss my eye, what is that?! Who says that!? What year is it!? What is "The Real"? Who is this non-Anderson LONI? (3D: Comedian Love who co-hosts "The Real"). Is "The Real" that "The View" look-alike I see on one of the TV screens at the gym sometimes? YES? OK. Well, LONI didn't hold me up too much, so I'm not mad at her. Crosses were easy. And now I know there's more than one LONI in the world. Cool.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

107 comments:

Patrick O'Connor 12:14 AM  

Sorry you're in a sulk about your fingers, TREX. I thought this was a charming and elegant Monday puzzle, and was pleased rather than miffed that the three theme units appeared in such different ways. I have Peter Gordon's most recent book of (Devilishly Hard) Fireball Crossword Puzzles right here on the kitchen table, and I thought as highly of this un-hard puzzle as I think of his devilishly hard ones.

mmorgan 12:25 AM  

Ok, sure, recycling has nothing to do with bicycling, and “swimmingly” has nothing to do with actual swimming, but give the puzzle some license — this was just fine and dandy.

If you want to get angry and upset about something, Rex, go to town on the best picture Oscar going to Green Book.

jae 12:44 AM  

Easy-medium. A fine Mon. Smooth with a solid theme. Liked it.

LONI as clued was a WOE.

puzzlehoarder 2:01 AM  

I actually came close to getting a dnf on this puzzle. Initially I thought I had finished with a good time but ONHD for 58D just didn't look right. I spent a few extra minutes going back and forth between QUI and QUO for 57A. The problem was I knew there was some phrase that used QUO with some V word. I finally settled on QUI but that was solely on the strength of INHD.

After solving I had to look up both "QUI Vive" and "quo vadis." There's just so many holes in the knowledge base that have to be filled.

Today's LONI is a debut. All previous 60 appearances for LONI have been for the famous Anderson. This is a momentous occasion. I'm thinking this Love woman could step in front of a bus today and die happy. Most amazing of all is I looked this woman up and realized I've seen her before. She was one of the comedians on a Tru TV show called "Worlds Dumbest ...." It was funny but typical of the low brow entertainment I'd watch at the firehouse.

I also looked up this KERRI person (after solving.) It turns out she's the one who landed a vault with a sprained ankle to win a gold medal for the US women's gymnastics team. It doesn't make up for having a name like Strug but it's something.

chefwen 2:38 AM  

Very easy for me. My only write overs were the result of my lousy spelling. ADNAUSEuM before AM and LIzsT before LISZT, very easy fixes.

Puzzle partner finished his copy a few seconds ahead of me, always a feather in his cap. Im calling foul as I had to start dinner mid solve.
He probably cheated and looked at my copy whilst I was in the kitchen.

RavTom 2:56 AM  

I like puzzles that teach me new things. I’d never heard of “on the qui VIVE.” Now I have.

Rev. Gary Johnson 5:32 AM  

This puzzle contained many words that I enjoy. Thank you for your time.

Anonymous 5:40 AM  

Rex, I appreciate your honesty, but you can’t blame the constructor if you don’t bother reading the full clues.

Loren Muse Smith 6:05 AM  

I totally agree with @jae, @Patrick O’Connor, and @mmorgan who enjoyed this. If you can’t embed all three parts of the TRIATHLON cleanly, then have each one represented but parsed differently: one a stand-alone, one embedded within a word, and one with an LY inflection.

Took me like forever to see COEQUAL since I, too, didn’t know "on the QUI VIVE." Shamey, shamey on me since I was a French major. Loved learning this little gem and will add it to the rotation forthwith. I’m on the qui vive for the upstairs boys’ bathroom TP bandit.

I wonder if the inventor of English considered other action verbs to adverbialize for smoothly.

How’s it going?
Oh, skatingly. Sleddingly. Skiingly. Sprintingly. Amblingly.


Nah. SWIMMINGLY’s the best.

I liked the juxtaposition of REPLY, MY EYE! Someone was quoted in the paper saying teachers need to improve their attitudes before they deserve any kind of raise. I wrote a heartfelt response that I was going to message this woman on Facebook, but my colleague talked me down, said it’d be utterly lost on someone so narrow-minded.

I also liked USAGE over STYLE. Sometimes the Grammar Peevers’ USAGE loses out to regular speakers’ STYLE.

Speaking of which, @John Hnedak from yesterday I posted a question for you at the end yesterday’s thread.

Peter – my favorite part of the whole solve was the clue for DUO. You go, guy!

Lewis 6:17 AM  

This puzzle was crisp and clean as a SOUSA march. And a probably unintended Easter egg in the puzzle is the Boggle-style IRON (beginning with the "i" in TRIATHLON) added to the Boggle-style MAN (beginning with either "m" in POMMEL.

Speaking of Boggle-style, you can eke out a Boggle-style SOUSA from either "s" of SOS, and the name John Phillips Sousa got me thinking about well-known people whose full middle names are always said as part of their names. In crossworld, of course, there is Brendan Emmett Quigley. In everyday life world, well, I'll start a list:

David Foster Wallace
J. Edgar Hoover
Martin Luther King
John Quincy Adams

Anyone care to add?

JOHN X 6:23 AM  

@Lewis 6:17AM

John Wilkes Booth
Lee Harvey Oswald
James Earl Ray
Mark David Chapman
John Wayne Gacy
Billy Bob Thornton
Jamie Lee Curtis

BarbieBarbie 6:24 AM  

@Lewis:
Loren Muse Smith, duh.

Hungry Mother 6:29 AM  

Quick and easy, giving me lots of time to stew over my weekend fails. I did a lot of downs during the solve, even though I’ve done 18 TRIATHLONs and had no problem with the themers. Due to the increasing number of cyclists hit by cars, I’ve taken a hiatus in multisport competition for a couple of years.

Jeremy Keeshin 6:35 AM  

I really enjoyed this puzzle and I thought the theme worked clearly. The only thing I got stuck on was SWIPE/MY EYE

amyyanni 6:50 AM  

William Henry Harrison (Tippecanoe & Tyler too!)

Loren Muse Smith 7:15 AM  

@BarbieBarbie – Hah! Thanks for adding me to such an illustrious list, serial killers notwithstanding. Actually I just go by “Loren Smith.” I added my maiden name when I got on Facebook so that I could be findable by high school friends. I can’t remember why I used it when I created my profile here.

Neil Patrick Harris
Hans Christian Andersen
Francis Scott Key

kitshef 7:20 AM  

A J short of a pangram, and I’m glad Mr. Gordon chose not to compromise the grid to force one in.

Interesting to have DANA Carvey in the puzzle only minutes after seeing him on the Oscar telecast. Glad to see Green Book and Bohemian Rhapsody do well, as I thoroughly enjoyed them both.

Was hoping METRO would spark this for Rex’s video.

QuasiMojo 7:24 AM  

F. Scott Fitzgerald.
T. Coraghassen Boyle
Edgar Allan Poe
Laura Hope Crews
James Earl Jones
Any Fine Collins
Joyce Carol Oates
Mary Beth Hurt
William Peter Blatty
Peter Pumpkin Eater

Liked this puzzle. Found it easy. Who cares if some words were embedded? Cycling is cycling.

pabloinnh 7:38 AM  

John Paul Jones
Jean Paul Belmondo
Jean Paul Sartre
Our son Jon Paul

Fine by me Monday.

Crimson Devil 8:20 AM  

Fun Mon.
Louisa May Alcott
Lee Roy Jordan
Alex Graham Bell
Anna Nicole Smith
Oliver Wendell Holmes
Erle Stanley Gardner

Wm. C. 8:26 AM  


@HungryM6:29 --

I'm with you on the danger bicycling Tamiami Trail. Nonetheless, my community has a large bicycling club with glaringly colorful uniforms, and it does "Centuries" (one hundred miles) or half-centuries on weekends. A good part of which has to be on Tamiami. TT also allows U-turns into the 55mph oncoming traffic.

@merican in Paris 8:44 AM  

I solved this one as a themeless, so I don't have any strong feeling about the theme, other that I finally learned how to spell TRIATHLON. (I thought it was TRIATHaLON.) I like @LMS's ideas about creating new adverbs out of skate and SKI. Or, to borrow another one from this puzzle, "How did the debate go?" BOXingly!

One thing I will say in defence of (RE)CYCLING CENTER is that CYCLING does take place -- i.e., is CENTERed -- between the swimming and the running. Of all the TRIATHLONs, the Ironman (a recent puzzle answer) World Championship competition is the craziest, in my view. Since 1981 it has taken place on the Big Island of Hawaii, and involves a 2.4-mile (3.86 km) open water, WET SWIM in Kailua-Kona Bay, followed by a 112 mile (180.25 km) biCYCLE ride across the Hawaiian lava desert to Hāwī and back (up a substantial ridge), followed in turn by a marathon (26 miles 385 yards, 42.195 km) RUN along the coast of the Big Island from Keauhou to Keahole Point and back to Kailua-Kona. I can imagine the swim and then the bike ride ... just. BUT to then follow those up with a full marathon, in the heat?!! NYE, NYE, NYE.

Fortunately, the competition also inspired one of my favourite groups, Guided by Voices, to write a very catchy rock ballad. Despite its name, "The Official Ironmen Rally Song", it has no (official) connection to the sporting event.

The three branches of government are CO-EQUAL? HAW(n)! Those were the days.Somebody should explain that to the OGLEr in Chief.

@chefwen -- Funny! I'm sure that had you timed your respective solves with a stop watch, you would have beat out Puzzle Partner, hands down.

@Nancy and @old timer from yesterday -- Thanks, as always, for your kind words. I love you guys, too.

P.S., I'll be out I'n the country the next couple of days, unable to buy a paper. And Mrs. 'mericans, on her way to Austin, has the iPad with the app.

Nancy 8:52 AM  

There were some attempts to enliven this Monday-easy puzzle with clues that were more interesting, and I applaud them all. The Truman quote at 26D (who knew that HST, of all presidents, was such a wit?). The SOS clue (52A). And the GUS clue (41D), which could have been another boring proper name but, happily, wasn't. As for fill, I liked COLD FEET, AD NAUSEAM, and the aptly-clued COEQUAL (take that, President Trump!)

I did observe some green paint on my CD SINGLE. And there were names a-plenty, even though all were perfectly gettable from crosses. My solve therefore went SWIMMINGLY. A bit more CHARM and STYLE would have been nice, but, hey, it's Monday, and I know this constructor is perfectly capable of creating a fiendishly difficult late-week challenge whenever he wants to.

TomAz 8:58 AM  

Paul Thomas Anderson
Philip Seymour Hoffman
Daniel Day Lewis
Mary Tyler Moore
David Lee Roth
Hillary Rodham Clinton
Francis Scott Key
Martin Luther King Jr.


Anyway...

This puzzle was top shelf as far as Mondays go. Actually put up a bit of mild resistance for me in spots. I thought the theme and its execution were clever. I can see this puzzle making new xword fans.

Steve 9:04 AM  

No one uses MYEYE anymore? My ass!

Carol Burnett 9:04 AM  

John Foster Dulles

Crimson Devil 9:10 AM  

...and Wile E Coyote !!!

Johnny Boy 9:11 AM  

This was a puzzle for the olds. Including "MYEYE" and a laundry liszt of composers was a bit frustrating for a Monday. I don't think there was a single currently popular figure in the puzzle outside of Bill Nye (whose hey day was also 20 years ago) and Idris Elba.

Can we freshen these up? Outside of Elba the puzzle could have been from the mid-90s.

Crimson Devil 9:12 AM  

...and Pepe Le Pew !

Gerry Kelly 9:13 AM  

I loved how he worked in the 60's English duo and namesake Peter and Gordon!!

Sir Hillary 9:14 AM  

Fine Monday by me, but sometimes there's a disconnect between a puzzle and what you expect from its author. My reaction was the same as @Rex's -- Peter Gordon could have tossed this one off with his eyes closed. Still, it works.

Glenn Patton 9:15 AM  

Johann Sebastian Bach
George Friedrich Handel
George Washington Carved
James Fenimore Cooper

CDilly52 9:17 AM  

Funny line in the “Music Man” where one of the busy-body “Pick a little, talk a little” ladies mispronounces it trying to share a bit of gossip about Marion: “I’ll tell, I’ll tell.... on the kwee veev...”

Crimson Devil 9:19 AM  

...and Edward Bennett Williams.
Enough, gotta work.

Crimson Devil 9:36 AM  

And the unforgettable Roseanne Rosanna Danna!

ArtO 9:38 AM  

I thought maybe, just maybe OFL could find more than faint praise for this absolutely super Monday puzzle. Can't believe what he found fault with. The themers work perfectly in my estimation. As for drinking and fat fingers," tough noogies" as we used to say in the Bronx! Every time his time is a little off from what he thinks it should be he finds an excuse, or today, excuses. Enough already. Criticism is sometimes warranted but why keep making excuses for your time?

RooMonster 9:44 AM  

Hey All !
Jean Luck Picard.
James T Kirk
Har. For the Star Trek fans out there.

As @puzzlehoarder 2:01 said, I know LONI Love from "World's Dumbest" TV show. It's a show of Interest clips of people being, well, dumb. Always good for a laugh. MTV's Ridiculousness is the same thing, but only three people instead of Worlds Dumbest ten or so.

Got RECYCLING CENTER first, and the ole brain thought at first that the top themer would have TOP in it, bottom themer BOTTOM. But that went away quickly.

Who knew TRIATHLON was missing a vowel? Where'd that spelling come from? Tri-ath-Alon. I want my A back! TELETHON, not TELTHON. Just sayin'.

Puz was fun. Simple theme, don't care about the theme words being part of other words. It has CHARM. STYLE. WORMs. Har.

Just a tad disappointed that there's revealer without a theme counterpart. As in 16A Coulda Been a Contender. But it's a small bit. Was that TACTful? EKE!

USS TEEL - a new Navy Carrier. POMMEL sounds like a fighting term. Who would name their kid I LIE? 😋

COLD FEET MY EYE!
RooMonster
DarrinV

Jean-Paul-George-Ringo 10:06 AM  

Not to be a stickler @Pablo but “Jean-Paul” is one name in those first two examples. :)

Nancy 10:12 AM  

@JOHN X (6:23) -- Re your list: A very Funny Observation...or a Cautionary Tale? It's something I never thought of before. Asking all shrinks: Is there some sort of link between the triple-name-thing and the impulse-to-kill-people thing? Which leads me to the next question: Would you want to be trapped in a dark alley with a three-named-person? Yesterday I never would have worried about such a thing, but now... :)

RooMonster 10:14 AM  

Have I told you how much I hate Auto-Corrupt?
Jean Luc Picard

Billy The Kid - 😂
Snoop Doggy Dogg (originally)
Chloe Grace Moretz
Rachel Evan Wood
...and another actress I can't think of right now. But, I'll get back to you. 😀

RooMonster

Z 10:16 AM  

@Lewis - What have you done!?!

WordDog 10:18 AM  

Funny how the author slipped his name in to the clue for 44A. Nice opportunity.

CDilly52 10:23 AM  

I am in the crowd that enjoyed this thoroughly and blazed through it in almost record time for a Monday. Just a tad over 5. Clever and fun way to includeall the parts of the tri and very little junk. Quite a nice effort to keep it available to Monday solvers’ expectations.

We will never know how the human brain works. Most of last week was very difficult for me when easy for the community here. I will never understand how that works because it is not merely the familiarity with the answers but has way more to do with the constructor’s frame of reference combined with his/her cleverness in usage, context and misdirection. I just cannot find a consistent common denominator that predicts my likelihood of easy or difficult. I do think that I am generally on the wavelength of certain constructors and not on others but not always. I’ll keep trying to figure this out.

RooMonster 10:34 AM  

Rachael Leigh Cook (she's the one I couldn't think of)
Sarah Michelle Cellar
Jennifer Love Hewitt
Sarah Jessica Parker
Lisa Marie Presley
Catherine Zeta Jones
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Arthur Conan Doyle
Ralph Waldo Emerson
John Jacob Astor

Wee!

Roo

GHarris 10:34 AM  

Donald J(ackass) Trump

Lewis 10:37 AM  

My five favorite clues from last week:

1. Producer of the Jacksons? (3)
2. Hidey-holes? (5)
3. Temple, for one (9)
4. Important word in both physics and religion (4)
5. Mob rule? (7)


ATM
PORES
CHILD STAR
MASS
RIOT ACT

albatross shell 10:47 AM  

Made the same 2 spelling mistakes as @chefwen. WHATARETHEODDS?

I am not a particularly fast or proficient solver. In college I worked on the Times puzzles and then quit for decades. Started doing local papers puzzles. They were boring and unrewarding. So I'M back doing the Times and trying to get good at it. I hope that practice helps. I enjoy the variety a viewpoints here and appreciate Rex's pro viewpoints, even as I disagree with them sometimes.
I most often disagree with his demands on the theme answers having a strict consistency that he makes up based on one theme answer, but ignores slightly different conditions that all the answers follow.
In today's puzzle the revealer is clued as just suggesting a race. Why would that demand anything more than what we have? Or is it aesthetically displeasing? It Isn't to me. Is it a constructor purity thing?

Doug Garr 11:01 AM  

I had LUTE for LYRE and misspelled LISZT so your finger glitching is totally understandable.

albatross shell 11:01 AM  

Grover Cleveland Alexander
John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt

HSCW Editor 11:01 AM  

@Lewis 6:17AM

Robert Louis Stevenson

Anonymous 11:02 AM  

I genuinely don't understand the connection between "As if!" and "My eye" that one really threw me.

jberg 11:03 AM  

Writing on my phone on a lurching trolley, so briefly is) running as clued is a very different sense from what you do in a TRIATHLON, so I thought that was ok. Also, is an ASP really a kind of cobra? Have to look it up.

I may be back.

Anonymous 11:18 AM  

The citation of Johann Sebastian Bach as a response to Lewis' query raises a point. In his lifetime, and still in Germany and France today, including on published scores, Sebastian Bach is his name. Johann would be the family inheritance; what distinguished him was his middle name.
When my grandfather and his brothers presented themselves for military service in the Great War, they all had the same First-Name, Last-Name, Street Address. The recruiter was miffed, not knowing how Norwegians do names. Middle name was what distinguished one brother from the others, told Kristian from Erhard from Vilhelm.

Banana Diaquiri 11:21 AM  

Neil deGrasse Tyson

jb129 11:21 AM  

Medium, really?

Very easy & over before I knew it. And enjoyable.

Masked and Anonymous 11:23 AM  

TRI-ATH-LON. Always thought there was an extra vowel in there, between the ATH and the LON. But … No ... it's like ATH-WARTS.

Lotsa good stuff in this MonPuz, but M&A will stick to the small stuff …

* QUI. staff weeject pick. Has yer scrabble-twerkin. Has yer foreign partial meat. Has yer U.
* SOS. Sneaky MonPuz clue! The Gordonmeister cannot resist.
* DUO. Mighty unsneaky Easter-egg name drop, in its clue. Interestin, that Peter Gordon is actually a duo. Sorta like one of them LLC's. Explains how he gets so many things done.
* GUS. Honrable mention, for second-wordiest clue in the puz (16 words). TACT was the winner (19 words).
* BOX. fave moo-cow eazy-E MonPuz clue, {Jack-in-the-___} = BOX.
* The narrow, Central Weeject Pass, sportin 9 weejects, thru the middle swath of the puzgrid layout.
* Now, if only ANG LEE had a 3-letter middle name that he could start goin by, our weeworld here would be complete. (har & yo, @Lewis - Any suggestions, to help out ANG? ANG ATH LEE is no good, btw.)

Thanx, Mr. Gordon, whoever U two dudes are.

Masked & Anonymo9Us


**gruntz**

Anonymous 11:41 AM  

My eye was the highlight of the puzzle for me. It is out of date, but shouldn't be. Thanks Mr. Gordon. Lovely puzzle.

Wordsmith 11:47 AM  

Enjoyable, timeless puzzle not dependent on current internet usage.

Anonymous 12:02 PM  

It took a long time for me to realize that notorious criminals are almost always identified by three names because you don't want to accidentally implicate others with the same first and last name. There must be lots of Mark Chapmans out there who are very grateful that the killer is always explicitly referred to as Mark David Chapman (ditto for the James Rays, etc.).

Masked and Anonymous 12:06 PM  

p.s.
@Lewis: Maybe Ang Ora Lee?
Sorta along the same lines as Peter Gordon's middle name of "And"?

M&Also

Anonymous 12:13 PM  

Someday someone should clue ELBA as "Napoleon was in command of his faculties until he saw this place."

Anonymous 12:17 PM  

Very nice puzzle, Mr. Gordon. Thanks very much.

Tim Aurthur 12:30 PM  

Edna St. Vincent Millay
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Louis Moreau Gottschalk
Lady Bird Johnson

I agree that either 100% consistent or 100% diverse both work. It's asymmetry that doesn't.

Constructors must be celebrating today, now that the Motion Picture Academy has elevated Rami Malek to superstardom.

CT2Napa 12:35 PM  

SO, he doesn't look at the clue and enters the wrong answer SUGGESTED BY "---athlon"
He doesn't read the entire clue and enters the wrong answer SUGGESTED BY the first word "fellow"
BUT he can't abide CYCLING being SUGGESTED BY "reCYCLING"

Teedmn 1:02 PM  

Question of the day for me is Y did this puzzle have so many Y's? Only six, I guess, but I first noticed the phenomenon in the NE where 3 of them reside.

I smiled when STAIR filled in ADNAUSEAM - like @chefwen today, my impulse is always for AD NAUSEuM. Thanks, crosses!

I love cycling and do a bit of running but I would never attempt a TRIATHLON - I would drown in the SWIMMING portion. If I can't take breaks by doing the sidestroke or swimming on my back, I collapse. I'm not sure why - I took lessons as a kid and even then I was a wuss.

Thanks, Peter Gordon, for a fun puzzle that is so much easier than the average Fireball!

puzzlehoarder 1:09 PM  

I read somewhere that no two professional actors can go by the same name. This is the reason so many of them use a middle name or initial. An example I can think of is that there was a John Riley who used to appear on some game show and now there is the actor John C. Riley.

@Lewis, keep up the good work on your clue lists. I guessed USMINT on the first one and OMERTA on the last. Here I was wondering what the numbers in parentheses we're for. I look forward to next week's list.

Aketi 1:25 PM  

Here’s a puzzle for all of you who are listing three named people. It’s not a crossword.

http://www.allstarpuzzles.com/wsearch/01519.pdf

Hungry Mother 1:31 PM  

@Wm C: if you ride in a pace line on Tamiani Trail, I’m impressed with your bravery. I had three close calls on the bike leg of triathlons and innumerable close calls in training. What little riding I do now is on trails and greenways.

OffTheGrid 1:51 PM  

Does COEQUAL have a different meaning from just EQUAL?

Does advance warning give you a better chance than just a warning?

These and similar idiocies drive me nuts.

Z 2:15 PM  

@OffTheGrid - A constitutional lawyer could probably provide a better answer, but the three branches of government are not equal. They each have specific responsibilities and limits not shared by the other two. However, they are COEQUAL because none is superior to the others. For example, the president can’t “pull rank” and order the Supreme Court to make a ruling in his favor.

pabloinnh 2:23 PM  

@JPGR-Maybe, but I'm still calling stickling. After Jon Paul, I wanted George Ringo for our next son, but that didn't happen.

Also, I forgot
John Paul Getty
John Paul Popeperson

Crimson Devil 2:26 PM  

Agree there. I’ve actually fished for Peacock Bass in canals around Ft. Lauderdale, one of which runs through culvert under Tamiami Trail. Those who bike there have more faith in their fellow travelers than I do: no thank you.

TomAz 2:36 PM  

Robert Earl Keen
Ray Wylie Hubbard
Jimmie Dale Gilmore
Billy Joe Shaver
Townes Van Zandt (maybe that one shouldn't count?)
June Carter Cash
Courtney Marie Andrews
Mary Chapin Carpenter
June Carter Cash
Billy Ray Cyrus
David Allen Coe
Justin Townes Earle
Tennessee Ernie Ford
Jesse Colin Young
Jerry Lee Lewis
John Cougar Mellencamp
Michael Martin Murphey

yeehaw y'al

Anonymous 2:51 PM  

OffTheGrid,
I'm with you. Coequal is nonsensical. So is preorder. Lots of ugly usage gets a pass. Glad it grates on someone else's ears as well.

Anonymous 2:51 PM  

"Cycling, also called biking or bicycling, is the use of bicycles for transport, recreation, exercise or sport. People engaged in cycling are referred to as "cyclists", "bikers", or less commonly, as "bicyclists". ... They are the principal means of transportation in many parts of the world."

Anonymous 2:55 PM  

OffTheGrid,

Forgot the most important point. Most scholars don't believe the three branches are equal. The legislature is preeminent. Or at least the Founders thought so. I don't have the numbers off the top of my head, but many of The Federalist Papers argue this very point.

Coconspirator is another redundancy.

Nancy 2:56 PM  

@Teedmn (1:02) -- Re the sidestroke and backstroke: I would maintain that you're SWIMMING quite SWIMMINGLY and have nothing to be embarrassed about or apologize for. For if you were actually a "wuss" (heaven forfend!) for doing those two strokes, then I would be too. And I am not a wuss. I am a perfectly respectable swimmer, even though swimming is not my "real" sport. (Tennis is -- or, sob, was -- my real sport.) But I'll tell you this: When the boat capsizes, I can swim the backstroke, and to a lesser extent the sidestroke, like forever. So that while those freestyle show-offs are burning themselves out in a burst of crowd-pleasing speed, I can keep going and going like the Energizer Bunny. I bet you can, too, @Teedmn. Maybe not so good for the TRIATHLON, but perfect for everything else.

I have the same reaction to speed swimming (not referring to you, Michael Phelps, nor to you, Mark Spitz -- only to the hot-shots trying to bully me out of the pool) that I have to speed crossword puzzle solving. What's the rush? Where's the fire?

Lewis 3:24 PM  

@puzzlehoarder -- Those were good guesses! The numbers in parentheses are how many letters are in the answer.

RavTom 3:31 PM  

Thank you! I’d missed that!

Anonymous 3:36 PM  

OffTheGrid

Federalist #51 by James Madison makes clear that the legislature is the preeminent branch of government. It's affirmed in Federalist #78 by Hamilton who while making the case for the necessity of the judicial branch explicitly affirms the legislature's primacy.

Don't believe Jim and Alex? Then think for yourself.Article 1, the FIRST article of the Constitution established the legislative branch. The legislature can remove officers from both the judiciary and the executive branches. The good old exec and judicial can't do anything remotely similar.
I'm sure fur will fly. But while I'm not a constitutional lawyer. I do have some bona fides in areas regarding that document.
Three and out.

BarbieBarbie 3:50 PM  

Found this example on laboratorium.net.
The Constitution establishes three equal branches of government. [EQUAL is the correct choice because the sentence tells you what it is that is equal to what else.]
Congress is a coequal branch of government. [COEQUAL is correct because if you said EQUAL the next question would be "equal to what?"]

Z 3:59 PM  

@Anonymous 3:36 - Agreed about the legislature intended to be preeminent over executive and judicial. But Congress doesn’t outrank either. The veto, judicial review, life time appointments of judges, et cetera are all checks on the legislature. Hence, COEQUAL, not “equal.” Two different concepts.

Joe Dipinto 4:05 PM  

Tommy Lee Jones
Ricki Lee Jones
Billy Bob Thornton
Edward James Olmos
Eva Marie Saint
Cornelia Otis Skinner
Vera Hruba Ralston
Gabriel García Márquez
Van Lingle Mungo
John Jacob Astor

albatross shell 4:11 PM  

If advance warning is an idiocy, what is a FOREWARNING? What is a late warning? What is a warning that comes to late to make advance preparations? Is advance preparation another idiocy? And so on?
Note: I ask not to question your accuracy, but because it seems not entirely simple and I am not positive of all the answers.

Joe Dipinto 4:27 PM  

Oops, John Jacob Astor is taken. Sorry.

Zora Neale Hurston
Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli (pianist)
Billy Dee Williams
Micheal (sic) Ray Richardson
Erich Maria Remarque

Anoa Bob 4:30 PM  

Having 40 black squares and 54 squares with theme material doesn't leave much room for interesting fill. It does result in 19 three-letter entries. Hard to EKE much CHARM out of that pile.

Imagine asking friends and loved ones to come up with a list of DUOs off the top of their head. How many would include "Peter and Gordon"? I'm thinking the answer is NIL, as in ZERO. Don't know if that was a constructor or editorial decision, but, as a clue, it is butt UGLY to MY EYE, totally lacking in TACT.

Don't understand the big TODO over people with middle names. What are y'all smoking?

And then there is CD SINGLE. Huh?

Rug Crazy 4:30 PM  

Winnie The Pooh
Jabba The Hutt
Smokey The Bear
Attila The Hun

FrankStein 5:06 PM  

Jan Michael Vincent
Peter Mark Shaffer
Frank Lloyd Wright
Florence Foster Jenkins
Jay Presson Allen
Charles Henri Ford
Michael Tilson Thomas
John Pope Hennessy
Leslie Ann Warren
Oliver Wendell Holmes
Anna Maria Alberghetti
Peter Lind Hayes
John Quincy Adams
Zora Neale Hurston
Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
Beating Dead Horse

Hartley70 5:16 PM  

My favorite stack constructor:
Martin Ashwood Smith

This was an interesting puzzle. I liked POMMEL, MYEYE, and LONI because I’d never heard of her. AUNT gave me indigestion because it was worse than green paint. As clued, it might be a challenge if you were 4. The theme was fine with me and made me realize that I wanted to add an extra letter in TRIATHLON. Do we all pronounce it incorrectly?

Amy 7:48 PM  

I serendipitously finished the puzzle at 34 down which was a little unexpected lol and so I loved it.

VictorS 8:07 PM  

I once did a triathlon where the race T shirts spelled triathlon wrong “triathalon”. The race director was mortified. And as a triathlete I loved this puzzle. And...if you think the Ironman Kona is bad there is a race that is 5 Ironman distances (see recent article in NYT). You have the option of doing all the swims at once or swim bike run x 5. Now that’s insane

Missy 8:33 PM  

John Singer Sargent
Kerry James Marshall

bauskern 9:20 PM  

I thought this was easy peasy, even for a Monday. But as an athlete, I loved it. And loved all the answers that went right across the grid. I'm sure there's a special name for that feat. Is it me, or are ASP and EKE two of the most common crossword answers?

DrDeb 9:33 PM  

This was my fave part of the puzzle!

Joe Dipinto 9:52 PM  

@Anoa Bob:

Imagine asking friends and loved ones to come up with a list of DUOs off the top of their head. How many would include "Peter and Gordon"?

I guess Peter Gordon would. Hey, it's better than Zager & Evans.



GHarris 10:31 PM  

Henry David Thoreau
Thomas Alva Edison
Wee Willie Keeler
Pee Wee Reese
Broadway Joe Namath

sanfranman59 10:38 PM  

@TomAZ ... What? No Stevie Ray Vaughn?

Evan Zager 11:30 PM  

I'll get you for that Joe DiPinto. In a year that ends in 5.

Rin Tin Tin 12:34 AM  

Debbie Does Dallas

laura R 1:40 AM  

I scanned through these, and maybe no one will read mine, but I feel better posting this:
I had a DNF because of 44A: DU_ (I guessed it was Duo, but I've never heard of Peter and Gordon)
42D: C_E_UAL
and 57A: _UI
I have never heard of the 3 parts of government described as "Co-equal." Isn't that redundant? Aren't they just "EQUAL"?
Never heard the phrase "On the____ vive"
I kind of think this was a bit of a natick, even though no proper nouns were used.
And I usually really enjoy a Peter Gordon puzzle.
Good night.

stevelena 7:25 AM  

Totally agree Olivia Colman is incredible. Broadchurch is good - but don’t miss her in Fleabag!

kitshef 1:15 PM  

@Rug Crazy - sorry, but it's just Smokey Bear. Adding a "the" is like saying you used the Google to look something up.

spacecraft 10:31 AM  

Well, not Broadway Joe but Joe Willie Namath. Anyway, this was a REALLY dumbed-down Monday. Not a lot of joy as I filled out the grid; theme and execution so-so; fill not terrible but still clunky with INHD and yet another EKE (EEK!). KERRI Strug's stuck landing on a broken foot will always grant her DOD status with me. Par.

Burma Shave 10:47 AM  

COLDFEET MYEYE

You’re OUTOFTHERUNNING if you STUB your toe,
SURE, no more TRIATHLON TODO, BUT don’t forget
your USAGE of CHARM, TACT and STYLE even though
if it’s GOINGSWIMMINGLY then you’re all WET.

--- KERRI POMMEL

rondo 1:25 PM  

I had more of an issue with the grid layout than the theme. It felt like a whole bunch of small puzzles tied together with the long answers. I did a swath from the NW to the SE (knocking off a ton of three letter answers) and branched out from there. Choppy, I’d say. Hand up for ADNASEuM first.

And another vanity thing with both Peter *and* Gordon in a clue.

And DANA not Delaney and LONI not Anderson? That still leaves yeah baby Goldie HAWN.

It was OK. END.

leftcoastTAM 2:11 PM  

Neat and clean. No nit-picks regarding themer embeds and parsing. Straight-on revealer.

Learned name of another LONI, and wanted leer before OGLE. Crosses exposed CD and its SINGLE, but weren't CDs multi-track albums even in the 90s?

Good Monday work.

d, liw 9:24 PM  

Good Monday - back home. So everything is skyey today.

Diana, Lady-in-Waiting (ala Crosswords)

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