.png)
Relative difficulty: Medium (3:06)
Theme answers:
- GOING SWIMMINGLY (19A: Proceeding well)
- RECYCLING CENTER (39A: Place to bring aluminum cans)
- OUT OF THE RUNNING (59A: No longer in contention)
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 Mai, Tamera Mowry, and Adrienne Bailon, which premiered on July 15, 2013. (wikipedia)
• • •
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]
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.
ReplyDeleteOk, 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.
ReplyDeleteIf you want to get angry and upset about something, Rex, go to town on the best picture Oscar going to Green Book.
Easy-medium. A fine Mon. Smooth with a solid theme. Liked it.
ReplyDeleteLONI as clued was a WOE.
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.
ReplyDeleteAfter 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.
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.
ReplyDeletePuzzle 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.
I like puzzles that teach me new things. I’d never heard of “on the qui VIVE.” Now I have.
ReplyDeleteFunny 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...”
DeleteThank you! I’d missed that!
DeleteThis puzzle contained many words that I enjoy. Thank you for your time.
ReplyDeleteRex, I appreciate your honesty, but you can’t blame the constructor if you don’t bother reading the full clues.
ReplyDeleteI 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.
ReplyDeleteTook 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!
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.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking 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?
@Lewis 6:17AM
ReplyDeleteJohn Wilkes Booth
Lee Harvey Oswald
James Earl Ray
Mark David Chapman
John Wayne Gacy
Billy Bob Thornton
Jamie Lee Curtis
@Lewis:
ReplyDeleteLoren Muse Smith, duh.
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.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed this puzzle and I thought the theme worked clearly. The only thing I got stuck on was SWIPE/MY EYE
ReplyDeleteWilliam Henry Harrison (Tippecanoe & Tyler too!)
ReplyDelete@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.
ReplyDeleteNeil Patrick Harris
Hans Christian Andersen
Francis Scott Key
A J short of a pangram, and I’m glad Mr. Gordon chose not to compromise the grid to force one in.
ReplyDeleteInteresting 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.
F. Scott Fitzgerald.
ReplyDeleteT. 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.
John Paul Jones
ReplyDeleteJean Paul Belmondo
Jean Paul Sartre
Our son Jon Paul
Fine by me Monday.
Fun Mon.
ReplyDeleteLouisa May Alcott
Lee Roy Jordan
Alex Graham Bell
Anna Nicole Smith
Oliver Wendell Holmes
Erle Stanley Gardner
...and Wile E Coyote !!!
Delete...and Pepe Le Pew !
Delete...and Edward Bennett Williams.
DeleteEnough, gotta work.
And the unforgettable Roseanne Rosanna Danna!
Delete
ReplyDelete@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.
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!
ReplyDeleteOne 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.
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!)
ReplyDeleteI 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.
Paul Thomas Anderson
ReplyDeletePhilip 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.
No one uses MYEYE anymore? My ass!
ReplyDeleteJohn Foster Dulles
ReplyDeleteThis 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.
ReplyDeleteCan we freshen these up? Outside of Elba the puzzle could have been from the mid-90s.
I loved how he worked in the 60's English duo and namesake Peter and Gordon!!
ReplyDeleteThis was my fave part of the puzzle!
DeleteFine 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.
ReplyDeleteJohann Sebastian Bach
ReplyDeleteGeorge Friedrich Handel
George Washington Carved
James Fenimore Cooper
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?
ReplyDeleteHey All !
ReplyDeleteJean 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
Have I told you how much I hate Auto-Corrupt?
DeleteJean 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
Not to be a stickler @Pablo but “Jean-Paul” is one name in those first two examples. :)
ReplyDelete@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... :)
ReplyDelete@Lewis - What have you done!?!
ReplyDeleteFunny how the author slipped his name in to the clue for 44A. Nice opportunity.
ReplyDeleteI 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.
ReplyDeleteWe 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.
Rachael Leigh Cook (she's the one I couldn't think of)
ReplyDeleteSarah 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
Donald J(ackass) Trump
ReplyDeleteMy five favorite clues from last week:
ReplyDelete1. 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
Made the same 2 spelling mistakes as @chefwen. WHATARETHEODDS?
ReplyDeleteI 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?
I had LUTE for LYRE and misspelled LISZT so your finger glitching is totally understandable.
ReplyDeleteGrover Cleveland Alexander
ReplyDeleteJohn Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt
@Lewis 6:17AM
ReplyDeleteRobert Louis Stevenson
I genuinely don't understand the connection between "As if!" and "My eye" that one really threw me.
ReplyDeleteWriting 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.
ReplyDeleteI may be back.
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.
ReplyDeleteWhen 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.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
ReplyDeleteMedium, really?
ReplyDeleteVery easy & over before I knew it. And enjoyable.
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.
ReplyDeleteLotsa 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**
My eye was the highlight of the puzzle for me. It is out of date, but shouldn't be. Thanks Mr. Gordon. Lovely puzzle.
ReplyDeleteEnjoyable, timeless puzzle not dependent on current internet usage.
ReplyDeleteIt 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.).
ReplyDeletep.s.
ReplyDelete@Lewis: Maybe Ang Ora Lee?
Sorta along the same lines as Peter Gordon's middle name of "And"?
M&Also
Someday someone should clue ELBA as "Napoleon was in command of his faculties until he saw this place."
ReplyDeleteVery nice puzzle, Mr. Gordon. Thanks very much.
ReplyDeleteEdna St. Vincent Millay
ReplyDeleteWolfgang 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.
SO, he doesn't look at the clue and enters the wrong answer SUGGESTED BY "---athlon"
ReplyDeleteHe 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"
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.
ReplyDeleteI 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!
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.
ReplyDelete@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.
Here’s a puzzle for all of you who are listing three named people. It’s not a crossword.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.allstarpuzzles.com/wsearch/01519.pdf
@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.
ReplyDeleteAgree 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.
DeleteDoes COEQUAL have a different meaning from just EQUAL?
ReplyDeleteDoes advance warning give you a better chance than just a warning?
These and similar idiocies drive me nuts.
@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.
ReplyDelete@JPGR-Maybe, but I'm still calling stickling. After Jon Paul, I wanted George Ringo for our next son, but that didn't happen.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I forgot
John Paul Getty
John Paul Popeperson
Robert Earl Keen
ReplyDeleteRay 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
@TomAZ ... What? No Stevie Ray Vaughn?
DeleteOffTheGrid,
ReplyDeleteI'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.
"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."
ReplyDeleteOffTheGrid,
ReplyDeleteForgot 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.
@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.
ReplyDeleteI 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?
@puzzlehoarder -- Those were good guesses! The numbers in parentheses are how many letters are in the answer.
ReplyDeleteOffTheGrid
ReplyDeleteFederalist #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.
Found this example on laboratorium.net.
ReplyDeleteThe 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?"]
@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.
ReplyDeleteTommy Lee Jones
ReplyDeleteRicki 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
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?
ReplyDeleteNote: I ask not to question your accuracy, but because it seems not entirely simple and I am not positive of all the answers.
Oops, John Jacob Astor is taken. Sorry.
ReplyDeleteZora Neale Hurston
Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli (pianist)
Billy Dee Williams
Micheal (sic) Ray Richardson
Erich Maria Remarque
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.
ReplyDeleteImagine 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?
Winnie The Pooh
ReplyDeleteJabba The Hutt
Smokey The Bear
Attila The Hun
Jan Michael Vincent
ReplyDeletePeter 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
My favorite stack constructor:
ReplyDeleteMartin 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?
I serendipitously finished the puzzle at 34 down which was a little unexpected lol and so I loved it.
ReplyDeleteI 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
ReplyDeleteJohn Singer Sargent
ReplyDeleteKerry James Marshall
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?
ReplyDelete@Anoa Bob:
ReplyDeleteImagine 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.
Henry David Thoreau
ReplyDeleteThomas Alva Edison
Wee Willie Keeler
Pee Wee Reese
Broadway Joe Namath
I'll get you for that Joe DiPinto. In a year that ends in 5.
ReplyDeleteDebbie Does Dallas
ReplyDeleteTotally agree Olivia Colman is incredible. Broadchurch is good - but don’t miss her in Fleabag!
ReplyDelete@Rug Crazy - sorry, but it's just Smokey Bear. Adding a "the" is like saying you used the Google to look something up.
ReplyDeleteWell, 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.
ReplyDeleteCOLDFEET MYEYE
ReplyDeleteYou’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
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.
ReplyDeleteAnd 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.
Neat and clean. No nit-picks regarding themer embeds and parsing. Straight-on revealer.
ReplyDeleteLearned 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.
Good Monday - back home. So everything is skyey today.
ReplyDeleteDiana, Lady-in-Waiting (ala Crosswords)