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Boxer who retired in 2017 / 1980s spinoff of Dukes of Hazard / 1947 Hope Crosby film / Rural husband in 1940s-50s film series
Saturday, March 16, 2019
Constructor: Andrew J. Ries
Relative difficulty: Easy (5:36) (on an oversized grid!)
Word of the Day: TREF (24A: Like shellfish) —
adjective
Judaism . unfit to be eaten or used, according to religious laws; not kosher. (dictionary.com)
• • •
I could do without CSA generally, but if you gotta use it, I'd much rather see it clued via the Much More Common Modern Usage: Community-Supported Agriculture. Just google CSA if you don't believe me. CSAs are Farmers Market fixtures. Common way to eat and support the growing of local produce. So, yeah, I'd like that instead of the slavery-loving traitorous dipshits, please (52A: Grp. with the motto "Deo vindice"). ENTRAIN is another thing I would ditch forever if I ruled the world. Nothing else about this puzzle bugs me much. Whoops, spoke too soon. I forgot about the clue on E.S.P. (13D: Inexplicable skill). Yeah, it's "inexplicable" because It's Not A Skill At All. It Doesn't Exist. If your clue doesn't indicate in some way that E.S.P. is bullshit, then your clue sucks, and is making all of us dumber and more susceptible to con artists and conspiracy theorists and Dr. Ozzes etc. Here is the way you should always clue E.S.P., imho:
Got totally fooled by the boxer (or rather, Boxer) clue. Even when I had BARBARA I thought it was some dude's last name, or maybe a stage name (think "barbarous" or "barbarian"). Only other thing that gave me real trouble was OTTO, because I got the "O" first and put in ODIE. [Comics canine] is succcch a dull clue. Something OTTO-specific would've been much more pleasant and entertaining. I feel bad for the non-baseball fans because CHET Lemon is a pretty tough clue, but I don't feel too bad because I'm a Tigers fan and CHET Lemon was cool as hell.
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110 comments:
It may be a wheelhouse thing, but this was way too easy for a Sat. It helped that the middle 4 long downs were gimmes.
Odie before OTTO (@Rex), spECK before FLECK and hi c before POM were my only erasures.
I wasn’t trying to speed through this but it went faster than the Wed. puzzle this week.
Plenty of good stuff, but.... Liked it.
In my 36 years of being a Jew on this earth, I have never once seen the word for "not Kosher" spelled "tref." Usually it's "treyf," sometimes "treif." But never "tref."
Are we supposed to know TREF??? I assumed I would have to fix it. I feel like I know a lot about Jewish culture, yet this is the first I've ever heard of it. My only other problem was the cluing for AMEN CORNER. I've only ever heard it used at Augusta National for holes 11-12-13.
I'm shocked at Rex's time, I would grade this "Challenging"
30+ years ago in college, I owned every TANGERINE DREAM album... in cassette tape. The trippy scene in Risky Business on the train where Joel (Tom Cruise) makes out with Lana (Rebecca deMornay) features Love on a Real Train. Ah, those were the days...those German synth masters!
--Okanaganer
For the most part this was easy and I actually noticed that it was a 16 wide before I started. I say for the most part because I had a double dnf at 27D. I put in SPECKS and 24A and 32A we're no help in correcting it. As bad as ALP looked it was TRES that had to be wrong but I could think of no way to fix it. Maybe Best is an alpine village and that's why I could justify ALP. TRES on the other hand was hopeless. What really bothers me is how much use TREF has received. This is it's 18th appearance and "shellfish" is often the go to word. The last time it showed up was on a Saturday Mark Diehl puzzle a little over a year ago and I'm sure I noticed. When I saw TREF in the xwordinfo solution it was like I'd never seen it before. I've never made a note of it so it's one of those words that just slipped through the cracks, more than once.
I found it on the easy side and lots of fun, with the stellar long Downs and the parallel WANDERS + TOODLES and LONDON EYE + ROAD TO RIO.
DON DELILLO's White Noise has been staring at me unread from my bookshelf for SOME decades due to an inexplicable forcefield keeping me from reaching for it.
METEOR as clued: A lit anthology I had in college introduced an early 20th c. poet with, "He shot like a METEOR across the Expressionistic sky." I remember thinking, "Oh, brother."
“Slavery-loving traitorous dipshits” has the appeal of a cheap shot, but solving that particular puzzle requires an awareness that the Confederacy believed that their cause was holy, which should really curdle the blood. I don’t think my many ancestors in the Confederate Army fought out of a love of slavery; they fought because they had an identity and a role in a bizarre and truly inherently evil society that developed and disappeared very quickly in terms of human history, but which was so rooted in the worst capacities of humanity that it overrode the goodness that I want to believe to exist in every person. There was an innovative idea sometime before 1500 that the capacity to turn off empathy could be married to the color of skin; there was an intense effort to move millions of people a long distance and put a huge amount of land — emptied of inhabitants through genocide — under cultivation; there was the incredible ingenuity and unfathomable ability we must all have to inflict unimaginable pain and suffering and terror. My ancestors not only made this reasonable in the context of living almost all of their lives in close proximity to those they or those they identified with terrorized, but also were fully convinced that they were right — and almost all the men who could fight went and fought for the cause. Some of my ancestors had nothing when the went and much less when they returned, if they did; some turned the war into a dynasty and wealth and privilege. Some calculated that the economic system would crumble if they lost, some believed that the were being attacked by Northerners who had no concept of right or wrong, and some just went because everybody did. In all cases, they were loyal to the point of losing their lives to a morally unsustainable way of being in the world that lasted only 400 years — a moment in terms of human history. We are living out the continuation of that system, which has been through iterations of horror — I believe — all grounded in a sense of moral rectitude among people who are ultimately exercising an understanding of what it is to be virtuous that is centered on the man who whips another human to death being the person who is most sanctioned by God. That’s unbelievably heavy for a crossword clue, but that’s the crux of it: You can’t get that CSA if you can’t come to terms with the reality that our country and our civilization is grounded both in our feeling that another is so much like us that we can love unconditionally AND in the ability to contradict every element of the unavoidable experience of common humanity, and that people believe that both of those are sanctioned by the divine.
I usually solve in the late evening, and I've been busy lately. It's peak season in this tourist town and we're all straining to cope with what some folks call Flowergeddon. So many visitors that Verizon fried and we have no MOBILE service. This was Saturday enough for me.
Floundering occurred on the East Coast. Nobody talks about either EL NINO, pardon my tilde, or La NINa anymore. It's all about the Atmospheric River. OFL's native San Joaquin Valley historically has been a lake more than once.
Love that "Job experience" clued WOE. Terrific! Chaucer talks about joy being the end of WOE, and vice versa. It took me years to figure that out. Patience, Grasshopper! Clue of the week nominee.
Pleading the Fifth on where "Ta-ta!" cluing sent my brain. Why the hyphen? Why singular? Why TOODLES, ultimately?
Full disclosure, I'm not a dog person. Feel free to unfriend me. Many of my friends have dogs and I know them quite well, sometimes too well, those probing noses. Anyway, if I were to ever have a dog, it would be a STANDARD POODLE. Everyone I've ever seen has been well mannered. A veterinary assistant once told me that staff loved working with the breed.
Oh wow, this was a beast for me. I didn’t know TANGERINE DREAM, so I was thinking “Danger _ _” or “Manger _ _.” TANGER was invisible. Didn’t help that I had “serious” for TEDIOUS, knowing it had to be wrong.
I also had a confident “Moralis” for MORANIS, so I kept trying to make “RAISING hell” fit.
Rex – I really enjoyed your write-up. I had to stop and daydream about what I would ditch forever if I were king of the world. I came up with mine in seconds: all advertising on radio, tv, and computers. Bam. Illegal. You companies are gonna have to muddle along without shoving yourselves in front of our eyes and into our ears every four seconds.
I also liked your riff on ESP and gullibility. I think I’m with you on that one. On a similar note, most of my students spend their off-hours tinkering on all kinds of motors – car, truck, four-wheeler, tractor – and take great pleasure in my idiotery concerning anything like that. So yesterday, Jarrett called me over and asked me when the last time was that I had changed my blinker fluid. I dead-panned Oh man. I had no idea I had to change that stuff. I’ll get it done this weekend. He smiled and nodded. A couple minutes later, I knelt by his desk and said, When you’re finished with your test, could you go find Randy (maintenance guy) and tell him I need the classroom extenders? He nodded. Seconds later, he looked over at me, realization dawning, and did a kind of head-nod touché. I felt smart.
CSA didn’t bother me, again, because I guess I’m not a landed member of whatever club you’re in if your dismaydar is locked and loaded at all times. But. BUT – 22D made me feel physically ill. Any reminder of our tangerine nightmare in my lovely puzzle is jarring.
I’ve always felt a little embarrassed for POODLES, especially the guy poodles, who have to run around in the canine equivalent of a thong. I mean there is nothing - No. Thing. - left to the imagination. And what’s with the two haunch patches that look like furry google assistants? I get that they were water dogs and the extra fur weighed them down but their owners still wanted to go for the lion look and Newfoundlands must really be badass swimmers ‘cause they don’t have to get shaved down to help with buoyancy so there.
Andrew Ries – this was one mighty fine, hard puzzle. I liked EARL GREY TEA and KETTLE. And MENTOR and TUTEE. And the POODLE/TOODLES.
Plenty of answers (AMEN CORNER, DON DELILLO, TANGERINE DREAM, RAISING CAIN, FLECKS) and clues (WOE, VOTER, ENTRAIN, IOU, BARBARA) to smile at, with a taste of Jolly Olde England (EARL GREY TEA, LONDON EYE, TOODLES), and a cross that became a fantasy to ponder: Quarantining PENCE in a room with PSYCHEDELIC MUSIC.
The phrase “Amen Corner” referring to a stretch of holes at Augusta National Golf Course was coined by a sports writer named Herbert Warren Wind. He lifted it from an old gospel song named “Shouting at the Amen Corner”
Thank you, Thank you, Mr. Ries for adding "?" to 2D. You saved my life, or at least my solve time. Bless you.
Easy?!?!? Not from where I sit.
My favorite kind of Saturday. Tough right to the end – which was WOE, in my case.
spECKS before FLECKS really messed me up for a while. And trying PSYCHoDELIC and PSYCHaDELIC. And Odie before OTTO. And having no idea who DONDE LILLO is.
Not relating to today’s puzzle. I’ve been doing some archive puzzles and the March 21, 2002 is a something I never thought I’d see – a bad Patrick Berry puzzle.
More succinct version:
Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged.
I’m not sure I can write off ESP as fake. I just had a psychic moment this morning before doing the puzzle. I was sipping my coffee and suddenly the word Bergamot came into my mind. For no reason. It’s a beautiful word. But I was drinking coffee, not Earl Grey Tea. Then moments later there it was in the puzzle! The other day I was chatting with a friend about a little-known website I follow and I said I wouldn’t be surprised if some bigwig swooped in and bought it. The very next day the company was bought by some big investor. Coincidence, SURE, which was the word that killed me today as I was CERTAIN that was the answer to CERTAIN. “Some”? Okay. Almost got me. I had Psychedelic PANIC for a long time. What kind of music is that? Acid Rock? I’m Leary of that stuff. I took LSD once and listened to Wagner. Now that was a trip! The clue that really stumped me was the guy on a roll! I kept seeing Jesus in a slice of toast. Or was that the Virgin Mary? Schmear didn’t fit. Finally crammed and figured out VOTER which these days sadly is a fraction of the population. Otherwise I really enjoyed the range of this puzzle. Lots of sly misdirects. Interesting trivia. And a gallimaufry of fun factoids and clever wordplay. Well done!
Definitely voting for "Job experience" (woe) as clue of the week. Love it. And the puzzle. My crossword ego is now on the mend after being crushed yesterday. Off to climb stairs for an hour or so (how to do hill training in a flat place).
Nice puzzle, learned a new word ("TREF").
Just to split a hair with our gracious host, the album cover used to illustrate PSYCHEDELIC MUSIC is "Disraeli Gears", by Cream, which was a British supergroup.
Something by the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Moby Grape, Big Brother and the Holding Company, etc., would have been more appropriate.
Saturday puzzles this easy, with not a bit of bite, predictably score multiple "5's" on the Fiend site, from grateful solvers who were able to finish it with ease, rather than give an honest view of its challenge.
Pluck White Noise off the shelf and read the first 50, I think you'll be amazed at how compelling it is.
I struggle with Delillo's later stuff.
I had SOME and ODIE and SPECKS but all was right in the end. Nice puzzle.
@E in PA — wow. Thank you.
An under 18 minute Saturday is "easy" for me but wheelhouse played such a large role - DON DE LILLO, TANGERINE DREAM, PSYCHEDELIC, MORANIS, all helped fill this in. It's rare that I plop 1A in on a Saturday but paleoclimatology screamed ICE AGES.
Har, I had to come here and read Rex before I realized that BARBARA Boxer, the retired CA senator, was the subject of 16A and not some unknown-to-me bantamweight pugilist.
ENTRAIN - when I filled it in, I shrugged, but reading Jeff Chen over at xwordinfo got me wondering why ENTRAIN but not ENSHIP or ENAUTO. Still wondering. Totally off this puzzle subject, I saw a sign on the roadside the other day, "Road subject to flooding" and started thinking of all the diabolical clues one could write for the word "subject". Neat.
PA KETTLE - you need to know of him when solving Runt puzzles but as clued, I had to wait until the TLE was in place. After that, he helped me finish that SW corner.
My last entry was MOBILE crossing IOU. I decided there were collectors out there saving up old sOU coins so MO_s_E was looking like mousse for a while - I finally figured out what "Cell" meant in the 8A clue and TA-da, I finished.
Thanks, Andrew Ries, nice Saturday puzzle.
Thought this was a fine Saturday, smooth with long answers that I knew or could suss out, and went through it a little faster than normal. It did not inspire deep thoughts or disgust, too busy having fun, but that's just me.
@LMS-You remind me of the time we sent a young lady into the woods to check the muffler bearing on our water pump. When she found out what we were up to she broke down in tears and was inconsolable and I've never tried anything like that again.
Thanks for the fun, Mr. Ries. Maybe not a Saturdazo, but a nice Saturdito.
Great puzzle. Love it when I crush a Saturday. Re CSA: Grow up. It’s an accurate clue/answer. You don’t need to show everyone your virtue by coming out against slavery over 150 years after the end if the Civil War.
Don't know how I managed to solve this. I've never heard of DON DELILLO or TANGERINE DREAM. I'm not 100 years old, so I've never seen any of these PA KETTLE movies. Never heard of AMEN CORNER or ROAD TO RIO. Wanted dANGER for the start of TANGERINE. Had RAISINGhell and Rick MORAlIS instead of RAISING CAIN. And I don't know who OTTO the dog is. And somehow I made it out of this puzzle alive anyway.
@kitshef PB1, I have heard, took a long break from making puzzles to work on his word list. That seems to make a division between earlier puzzles and his “modern” era of impeccable if not terribly sparkly work. As recently as yesterday we see the dialectic choice of completely clean puzzles versus those that trade off terrific answers and dreck.
Did anyone else notice that “Hazzard” (as in, the town in Kentucky where the Duke boys reside) was misspelled in the clue? Was that only on the app version?
First word I wrote in was tref but was 90% sure it would be wrong, seemed unlikely. I have never heard of community supported agriculture regardless of google. And any person who got past 9th grade has heard of the Confederate States of America. And I will never understand Rex's goal to remove anything he finds remotely distasteful from the puzzle. At some point as people find more and more things to be offended over we will run out of words to make puzzles with.
@Liz above, Wasn’t Hazzard County in Georgia, not Kentucky?
I felt pretty smart today but deep down I knew I was kidding myself.
Easy stuff but still plenty of fun (until I read Rex). What a burden it must be to see the world as the half-empty glass Every Single Day.
London Eye? More like London Eyesore.
Crosswords taught me tref.
Now, Miss Smartypants must confess that she still doesn't understand
woe for 30D. I'll be back later to see if it is explained clearly. For now I'm off to look for extenders and mufflers.
I really liked this puzzle but it sure wasn't easy. Quite British in some parts with the LONDON EYE MOBILE TOODLES TUTEE.
STANDARD POODLE was my only entry for what seemed like ICE AGES. Finally saw EARL GREY TEA thanks to getting GPS.
I'm always reading something but I'll admit to never having heard of "White Noise" nor DON DELILLO. I've also never heard of TANGERINE DREAM. Made for a TEDIOUS scramble to make sure I got all the crosses.
Had myself the PSYCHEDELIC but MUSIC was the last thing I was thinking of. Didn't know LUM, ODAY nor TREF. Those were my three Googles and was so proud I got everything else on my own.
The clue for BARBARA was pretty good. She's the only boxer I know. She fits her name. Liked the WOE clue as well.
Bottom east section held me up because I thought it was RAISING Cane. You know, like the sugar kind. I'm no good at American idioms. The most baffling to me is "happy as a clam." How does anyone know a clam is happy? Not sure I understand ATE DIRT for put up with put-downs. I thought it was like putting your foot in your mouth.
I think it was the French who started the foo fooing pattern cuts on the miniature poodles. Some are truly outrageous. I saw one that was cut like a camel. They are super smart dogs and quite majestic. We dog sit for one and thank goodness she just get a real dog primping and not her hindquarters.
I liked AMEN CORNER but I'm pretty sure I first heard it from Tiger Woods. I'll have to check its usage.
A BIDET should not be a luxury item. It should be required. Perfect for shaving your legs and washing your undies.
Wait, Cell in Britain. London Eye, Trent River. Roald Dahl. A little too British for St. Patrick’s Day. LOL. I know it’s tomorrow but the parade is today, As for CSA, get over yourself and póg mo thóin.
i’m glad there was a BIDET to help with the DATADUMP and the CRAPOUT
I will never fail to be amazed at your objections to certain words or abbreviations. None of these clues or answers glorify or support the subjects, they are simply words or terms found in the dictionary. Please get off your high horse about what topics you find uncomfortable or not sufficiently "politically correct." As George Carlin famously remarked, "There are no bad words. Bad thoughts; bad intentions; but no "bad" words." Yes, I know this is your blog and I still read you faithfully, but your stance on certain IDEAS being banned from the crossword is becoming tiresome.
@Rex "It's the kind of white-guy music that never did anything for me."
You're a white guy. Please, I'm begging you, stop trying to be the spokeswhiteman for people of color and women. It's offensive.
What an exciting day for you!
E in PA: the only thing I disagree with is your lack of using paragraphs...I almost skipped over that huge block of text, but after the first sentence, I was hooked. Good read and very astute. But man, use some paragraphs next time.
I would like to toot my own horn for a second and say that I put Odie in first with all kinds of confidence (along with "hi-c" for POM and gEt for KEN), but came across 55A and the rural father...and PAKETTLE, as obtuse as it is in 2019, struck me as absolutely right. Call it ESP, if you like, but the other three answers, though plausible, were immediately erased. I was quite proud of myself.
That said, TREF was a WOE (so is the clue for WOE, fwiw) for me.
Could someone explain how SOME means "certain?"
I stayed in a luxury hotel last weekend...no BIDET...two very nice robes though and a fully stocked bar. I tried to not even look at that because I'm pretty sure you get charged just to look at it. The $15 "amenity package" which included the use of the phone (!) and the internet and some other things I didn't use, was enough. I didn't need a $15 Evian water on my tab. I should have complained that they didn't have a BIDET...the nerve.
Thanks for this - very educational!
Anybody disturbed by the clue for CSA should read today's NYT Metropolitan section article "Preaching the Gospel According to Trump" and get really upset.
Rex is definitely showing his youthful age and some might say "interesting" taste in music, if he prefers the soundtrack to "Risky Business" over the fantastic music that came out of San Francisco in the 1960s. Hard to believe, but one cannot account for taste...
To Seth Christenfeld:
For those Jews among us who are (sadly) twice as old as you, tref is definitely an accepted spelling -- among others --that we have seen before. It is in Merriam-Webster. This spelling may have been in a previous puzzle, but I'm not certain and would not know how to research it.
Also: The comment about Michael Sharp's exams made us laugh.
Community Supported Agriculture is much more common modern usage than Confederate States of America. C’mon man. Everyone reading this blog knows Confederate States of America. Many, if not most, have never heard of Community Supported Agriculture before this morning. Stick that in your Google.
Are we to omit from puzzles USSR ? North Korea? Torquemada? I agree with the many who find the objection to CSA silly. ( I belonged to the CSA for over a decade - "Council of Supervisory Associations" - the New York City union representing Principals and assistant principals...)
Enjoyed this puzzle a lot, partly because I DNF twice in a row - a bad error on the lovely Friday, and a wrong guess on an awful (IMO) clue on Saturday. "Ere little darlin?" This one was right in my wheelhouse, even if I never heard of Lum and Andy, Moranis was vaguely familiar, and Tangerine Dream was completely unfamiliar, as was Don Delillo. But I won't eat tref seafood, have been on the London eye, have encountered dingos in Australia, have seen ALL the "road" movies (Road to Zanzibar is a favorite) went to the same college as Barbara Boxer, remember Chet Lemon, and have frequently crapped out at the dice table. I always associate "Amen corner" with an infamous, possibly antisemitic remark by Pat Buchanan. But enough of this tedious data dump - Thanks Mr. Ries, for a smooth, clever puzzle, and I loved the "retired Boxer" clue.
Here's some NOT-so-White-Guy San Francisco psychedelic music for you:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExSR0auh6bc
Dorothy, take a look at the anon post three above yours: "I will never fail to be amazed at your objections to certain words or abbreviations." In this context, certain = SOME.
Too easy for a Saturday but enjoyable.
@Julia Grant, is what you did there. 😀
I, once again, question the reading ability of some of you. How does “So, yeah, I'd like that instead of the slavery-loving traitorous dipshits, please,” get you to “ban?” I’d like an IPA instead of piss-water like pilsners, that doesn’t mean I want to ban Lite or Bud. The CSA was a bunch of slavery-loving traitorous dipshits, so given the choice of being reminded of that or a clue about, say, British coins, give me the coins.
@Suzie Q - Think the Book of Job.
@Dorothy Biggs - SOME explanations are better than certain others.
@Elizabeth McMillan - the same misspelling appears in the paper. It went right past me because I didn’t realize the show had the two Z spelling, but IMDb confirms the ZZ.
CHET Lemon, center fielder for the ‘84 Tigers, with Lance Parrish behind the plate, Sweet Lou Whitaker and Alan Trammell up the middle, and Jack Morris and Dan Petry anchoring the rotation while Willie Hernandez was shutting the door in the late innings...Oh, sorry, definitely a wheelhouse answer here.
@E in PA - Hand up for suggesting paragraphs.
Great idea Z. Keep all evil and unpleasant things out of the puzzle. You are very brave to speak out against slavery in 2019.
This was a quick Saturday solve but I didn’t see any junk to lessen my pleasure. BARBARA and WOE were my favorite answers. I’d never heard of TANGERINEDREAM, so I looked for danger initially, but STANDARDPOODLE slipped right in. It made me hope for a dog theme since I’m engrossed in reading “The Art of Racing in the Rain”. Ms @Nancy’s entreaties to read it have overcome my resistance to talking animals in general. I have to admit I love it.
There were enough unknowns to keep me eager to get the most out of the fill. I thought BERGAMOT was an ingredient in perfume, but unlike @Quasi that word would never just pop into my head the way chocolate does on a regular basis. I wanted drugs instead of MUSIC, although I was into the latter in the 60s. Now it’s reversed and the drugs are bp meds and a statin. I knew a double SURE was wrong, but I didn’t see SOME until the end.
I was wrong about my favorite answers. My head says BARBARA and JOB, but my heart is with CRAPOUT and ATEDIRT. The heart wins every time.
Add me as another Jew who has never in my life seen the spelling "TREF". It's always "TREYF". It's not pronounced "trehf".
Transliterations can be tricky and probably should be avoided in crosswords in general unless there's an obvious spelling.
This one was a bad fill.
All this time I thought Deo Vndice was the motto of Community Supported Agriculture. Never heard of that other group. What a buzzkill.
Hey All !
Liked your N TRAIN @Loren.
OK puz, even though it started with CRAP, DUMP, and TEDIOUS. Har.
Wanted ICEcapS for ICEAGES first. Also ORecar (thinking (en) TRAINs) for ORATOR. Other writeovers included Odie-OTTO (who is Sgt. Snorkel's dog from Beetle Bailey, for whomever asked), HIC-POM, TUTor-TUTEE ( not well read, as I've stated before), gOODbye-TOODLES. Finished, but with two errors. LIRa/PaNCE (shoulda saw the E for PENCE), PApETTLE/pEN (PA KETTLE, har).
Also MML, wanted MMD at first, but realized that's mid millennium, not mid century.
Puz has only that one F at TREF, thanks for sneaking one in Andrew! There's an article in the NYT today about F words. Seems they weren't easy to say in olden times. (Didn't read it, just saw the headline as I went to print the puz.) No respect. :-)
CSA was a thing/time, it happened, some Americans are ashamed, cooler heads prevailed and knew slavery was wrong, but to chastise it just because it's in a puz is silly. How about chastising ICBM as a wonton killer? Just sayin'. It's a slippery slope when you start on good things/bad things/ban things.
Sorry to end "political" there. It's ALL good.
OPEN TOE ORATOR
RooMonster
DarrinV
Thought this was going to be too easy, and then I hit the entire east coast and stumbled. Much too much PPP for my taste and I knew none of it. Then there was the devious cluing of SOME for certain, where I wanted either SURE or SAFE, but neither worked. I "checked" TANGERINE DREAM and DATA DUMP which were guesses; I struggled to finish the NE corner and said "Whew" when I did. Then I came here to find that RAISING jAIl (25D)was wrong (I had originally been thinking RISKING JAIL and corrected to RAISING JAIL and never really thought about it again. I had MORALIS, a better-sounding name than MORANIS, so that's where JAIL came from. So a DNF on a puzzle that I found full of names and very sloggy.
The long Down-ers that spanned the central jaws of themelessness shaded blobs … they were the key to a fairly easy [for a SatPuz] solvequest, at our house. Knew TANGERINEDREAM off a coupla letters. Guessed STANDARDPOODLE pretty early, also. DINNERDATE was pretty easy. Didn't know DONDELILIO.
Like @RP, started out with a crossin PSYCHEDELICDRUGS, so lost just a few far-off nanoseconds on DRUGS. But, MUSIC … very good PSYCHEDELIC stuff. Cream. Jefferson Airplane. Jimi Hendrix. Big Brother & Holding Company. Santana. [*Some* of em were even white+guys, I suppose.]
staff weeject pick: MML. Wonder what folks will be lookin back on with nostalgic envy, by then. [Ability to grow crops? Manhattan above water?] Doubt I'll be around to know … unless they can freeze yer age up with them new designer-gene drugs before then. Then M&A can be 90 forever, or somesuch. Big whoops.
About ESP: yep. @RP is no doubt spot-on, solid-as-snot correct. All that sixth-sense-stuff will be completely debunked, by the year MML. I had me a vision about all that, right after fillin in 18-A.
Thanx for the easy-sailin, zero-pig-Latin SatPuz fun, Mr. Ries.
Masked & Anonymo5Us
**gruntz**
My entire family knows I'm a Pollyanna, and it shows when I do puzzles. I simply don't see the stuff that irritates Rex but rather revel every time I "get" SOMEthing I'm SURE I don't know. I was tickled at how quickly PSCHEDELIC fell, though MUSIC was slow to follow. I loved the clue for WOE, though even though I was pretty sure it was a biblical Job reference, I need the W to finally see it. It wasn't until I came here that BARBARA made sense; idiot award for me since she appears regularly on MSNBC. I really wanted AMEN chorus and since I had RN, I knew that was wrong but couldn't see past my wrong answer to the right one for a long time. But, hooray, I competed the whole thing in a not-too- shabby time (for me), so all is right with the world.
@E in PA, thanks! I am related to Georg Von Hertling, the German Chancellor at the end of WWI and some of those relatives of that era supported and fought for Hitler. Some died on the Russian front. These were Hate-filled people, but the cousins there now are embarrassed by these ancestors and themselves are kind and tolerant, and embrace diversity. Lord knows I loathe those awful ancestors but their existance gives me some perspective on how close we are to being evil ourselves.
There's a concept in communication philosophy that describes the confusion we experience when we respond to symbols as though they are that which they represent. Our visceral reactions to flag-burning or the art installation of the Cross in a bucket of urine are examples of this (and so we have efforts to ban both). Words are no different; they're symbols, not the item / concept itself. We need these symbols so we can communicate our ideas and feelings; banning them because we don't like what they represent prevents us from exploring the underlying concepts intelligently. We may not like them in our puzzle, but the presence of CSA led to @E in PA's trenchant observations, which is why we have words.
Just my two cents.
Is everyone paying attention? Rex Parker has declared that extra-sensory perception is bullshit. I guess that means that psychiatrists the world over owe him a sincere apology. The nerve of all those educated people!
Yuch.
BTW, I've said it before but it bears repeating: "Racing in the Rain" is a must-read. You don't have to love dogs to glory in good writing and story-telling.
I had the exact same experience as @puzlehoarder, so no need to comment further. I thought the puzzle was way too easy for a Saturday, until I reached the East. Would have helped to remember TREF. Which I knew, from my Jewish friends. Poor sods! I love oysters and clams and shrimp and scallops. And it seems to me there are quite a few Jews who would never eat raw shellfish, but figure God made an exception for cooked shrimp, especially if served on toast, or in a Chinese restaurant.
TOODLES is short for toodle-oo. Very common way of saying "bye-bye" in England back in the day. MUSIC took me a while, even though I used to be a regular at The Fillmore and Winterland and bought many an album from the Dead, the Airplane, Quicksilver, and Big Brother.
Minibars can be a godsend in the middle of the night. Before they were invented you had to order room service, which was much more expensive.
@ GILL.I, Your bidet comments reminded me of when a friend of mine had a bathroom remodeled to include a bidet. Neither he nor his interior designer seemed familiar with it. I was scratching my head about the toilet paper roll hung next to it.
@ Z, All I know of Job is a saying about patience so if it more involved than that I'll just write it off as an answer that is lost on me. Thanks all the same.
I thought this puzzle was fun. Thank you for posting EBTG. I have to do laundry and pack for a long trip today. EBTG will be just the right ERG for an otherwise dull task.
I’m a white woman music lover and if I never have to hear the Grateful Dead or The Band or anything from that era again, it’ll be far too soon. Preach on, Rex!
On a lighter note, Tangerine Dream itself (especially its pre-movie-soundtrack output) IS psychedelic music, which made me for a minute that a theme was emerging, but no.
Ah, the 84 Tigers. 9-0 and then 35-5 start, led league from game 1, then World Series champion, Gibson’s famous HR when Goose Gossage pitches to him, ignoring manager calling for an intentional walk (runners were on 2nd and 3rd). Gossage’s narcissism made him believe nobody could hit his fastball.
Surprised that Rex treated this one so gently. It seems like the epitome of what he usually doesn't like, full of pop culture references from half a century or more ago, odd transliterations (TREF) and references to unpleasant times in history (CSA).
Fastest time since Tuesday of this week. Would have been faster still if I hadn’t gotten mired down with TRES/SPECK/ALP, all perfectly fine words that just didn’t fit the clues. And I’ve been cranking “Love on a Real Train” all week for some reason, so bonus points for synchronicity.
p.s.
CSA has double-Patrick Berry Usage Immunity, btw. Don't think he was makin a political statement, as much as tryin to keep 7 grid-spanners alive in a 7-word 2011 FriPuz, f'rinstance.
Outlawin words from puzs is kinda like outlawin books from libraries. Goes a bit over the lip, for my tastes. Sure, different people have different words/books/laws/national emergencies/presidents they don't especially like … nuthin wrong with havin opinions. Any book about laws separatin young PEWITs from their parents to help get re-elected, f'rinstance …
But, I digress.
M&Also
Rex: “PSYCHADELIC MUSIC ... It's the kind of white-guy music that never did anything for me.“
Jimi Hendrix:
https://youtu.be/XxHS9lTUN4Y
“Maybe that's because I just don't like that music that much. It's the kind of white-guy music that never did anything for me. “
What? If I were to say “I don’t like rap because it’s the kind of black-guy non-music that doesn’t do anything for me” would Rex call me racist?
p.p.s.s.
Shoulda been "… 70-word 2011 FriPuz …", in prev. msg. Didn't mean to accuse PB1 of fraternizin with the runtpuzs, or somesuch.
Where's PB1 keepin himself, lately?
M&Again&again
Miles Davis is the kind of artist always referenced by white boys who want desperately to seem cool and edgy and not-white. Some purveyors of psychedelia were not-white: Jimi Hendrix, Sly Stone, Rotary Connection, the Chambers Brothers... Rex, you will always be a "white boy", and I mean that in the worst possible way.
This was a whipped-cream diversion of a puzzle -- maybe too easy, but smooth and tasty. The whole middle slipped on like an old shoe: DON DELILLO, DATA DUMP, STANDARD POODLE, ROAD TO RIO, TANGERINE DREAM... At first I thought 37a was going to be PSYCHEDELIC DRUGS. I love the clue for CRAM, and I LOL'ed when I got BARBARA.
Good stuff across the board. Thank you, Andrew J. Ries!
I had the same problems Rex did. I wanted PSYCHEDELIC DRUGS AND SURE. Sigh. But also knew SURE couldn’t be right because I had already done IM SURE. And of course SURE did not fit with DRUGS. The Lemon clue also threw me. The only baseball hall of fame guy I could recall was BOB, but obviously that did not fit. I got DON DELILLO right away, because he’s one of my favorite authors, so that helped. Oddly, I guess, I’d never heard of the LONDON EYE, until today. At first I put in LONDON FOG — is that even a tourist attraction?? So I learned something new, which is always nice!
What?
What are you going on about? Gossage is a Hall of Fame pitcher. Gibson was a solid major leaguer.
The Goose was a worlds better big leaguer than Gibby.
You may recall that Gossage got Gibson to ground out on a qeak dribblee the day before. What you may not know is that Gossage moatly owned Gibson tnroughout his career. In his very first MLB at bat Gibson faced, yep, Gossage who promptly blew him away.
I once homered off a guy who played in the bigs. I assure you, I wasn't in his class.
@Elizabeth McMillan 8:39 -- "Hazzard" is misspelled with one "z" in the printed edition as well.
Record Saturday time. I too (non-Jew) was surprised to see TREF spelled with less than 5 letters.
I'm all for OFL's politics in this blog - picking on tone deafness in the puzzle is fair game by me. But OFL lost me with Psychedelic music is just a "white guy thing". Sure musical taste is completley subjective but slagging on the trippiest coolest era of rock is too bizarre for me! Are we saying Garage, Surf, Punk and all the 80-90s retro Garage-Punk-Psychedelic is too? Or bad for it? Yikes!
So Rex: you just want to forget bad things exist or once did? Including the CSA? It must be exhausting lobbying to curate your own (and our) experience of reality through this blog. Virtue signaling is making you soooo cranky!
@anon/2:23
What are you going on about? Gossage is a Hall of Fame pitcher. Gibson was a solid major leaguer.
"Bob Gibson was great for his first nine seasons, but he was so dominant in 1968 that Major League Baseball was forced to change pitching rules to improve scoring.
...
That offseason, the pitcher's mound was lowered by five inches and the size of the strike zone was reduced, but Gibson continued to dominate. "
here: https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2770996-major-league-baseballs-top-10-starting-pitchers-of-all-time?src=rss#slide2
anyone who was around then knows the Gibson was the most feared pitcher for decades, before and after. so dominant they changed the rules? how many pitchers did that?
those who were around then, and still have enough brain cells still working to recall, psychedelics were mostly (if not wholly) the drugs that ennui obsessed white kids could afford. so, yeah, the music followed the drugs.
Tim Leary was a Hahvaahhd prof, for cryin out loud!! can't get more white than that.
@Banana D
They were talking about Kirk Gibson,not Bob Gibson.
Did he seriously object to CSA being clued as Confederate States of America? This is American history. An ugly history
for sure, but the idea that our ugly history might offend some hypersensitive people is the reason it should be included. You
gotta own it man.
@JC66:
that do make a difference.
So we have ANAL about 3 times a week. Why wasn't it there today to complement BIDET?
TREF, TRIEF, TREYF, YADA YADA YADA
Cloud Security Alliance
I liked this puzzle a lot, only clunker was ENTRAIN. Not overly PPP.
ESP is hokum and I don't know what it has to do with psychiatry (@BobMills)
@E in PA— thank you!! You capture why it’s such a hard problem to change.
I was in San Francisco in '67. I bought a tiny, tinkling bell from a hippie street vendor. It reminded me of the sounds I heard whilst visiting a Buddhist temple in Bangkok. I still have that bell hanging from the dashboard of my car. I try to keep a straight face when I tell people it's my onboard navigational system.
The MUSIC that I recall from that time isn't PSYCHEDELIC though. Not even hippie related, either. It was the music played in topless bars and clubs, which seemed to be on just about every corner in the downtown area back then. This was the heyday of Carol Doda and the Condor Club. I guess that music would be called Go-Go music, no? I recall topless joints being called Go-Go bars.
The early '70s introduced me to PSYCHEDELICs and I started to listen more to groups like TANGERINE DREAM, so it was a nice little treat to see that in today's puzz. In the '80s I got into classical music and it continues to be my favorite. I still wear my Jimi Hendrix tee shirt and listen to his music, though.
Banana,
For shame. Your pennance: check out baseball crank's twitter feed. Scroll down 'til you find the thread on what happens to ERAs when mound height changes. It's authoritative; I believe the first switch was in the 19th century. It is a gold mine for baseball fans.
But I did say penance, and you did err greatly.
So, as a regular, I use the term, and direction, advisedly.
Flying CSA as the folks who chose treason over human liberty as one thing—right, it’s history. Very current history, as the folks in Charlottesville can tell you. But clueing them by a claim that God will vindicate them? A bit over the top, perhaps.
A fine puzzle, though. I don’t know how I knew TREF, but glad I did.
@Suzie Q—plot summary of Job: God was bragging to Satan about how pious Job was. Satan claimed he could change that, so God told him to go ahead and inflict various WOES on poor Job. Go figure.
One of the best things about crossword puzzles is learning something new. I have never heard the CSA slogan before but got that moment of satisfaction when I figured it out at the _SA stage. It’s disturbing to see the evidence that they felt God was on their side. I am surprised we haven’t seen it revived in white supremacist circles today—or maybe we have and I just haven’t noticed. I will now have an understanding of the implications if I ever see Deo vindice on a bumper sticker. No community supported agriculture clue could give so much bang for the buck.
Thank you to @E in PA for the thoughtful post.
@Banana D
psychedelics were mostly (if not wholly) the drugs that ennui obsessed white kids could afford
Many official L.S.D. study programs were based in the Bay Area, particularly at the University of California at Berkeley. It was also home to large scale manufacturing of the then-legal substance. It all directly filtered into the local arts scene.
Race had nothing to do with it. You need to read a book one day.
@clk:
It’s disturbing to see the evidence that they felt God was on their side.
God was on their side because, as their slogan asserts, God blessed slavery in the Bible.
one explanation: http://time.com/5171819/christianity-slavery-book-excerpt/
@ jberg, Thank you. I did not know that story. Man, you gotta love that Old Testament God.
Jberg,
God was bragging? Huh? I've been studying biblical exegesis for nearly four decades. I've never come across that take.
Regarding CSA, I think Sharp is pulling your legs. No one in his right mind could object to seeing CSA clued that way.
Agree 100%. I get that taking liberties with transliterations is a handy way for constructors to make thing fit, but tref is just wrong.
Okay, I read some of the other comments and we got the connection between "certain" and "some,' but it still largely smelled like fish. xo, the Gordon's of Berkeley
Maybe it's just me, but when a new "e-" device has gained a real name, it may be time for the crosswords to drop the "e-" designation. Today, a Juul is a vape, not an e-cig. Similarly, online periodicals are seldom if ever referred to as e-zines or e-mags. I did discover, though, that at least in Australia, an SUV is still sometimes a "Ute." Ugh.
Believe it or not, I have never heard or read "Confederate States of America"; have only ever heard that entity referred to as "the Confederacy". Have definitely heard of Community-Supported Agriculture. Where've you folks been the past 20 years?
Also: "overly dry" is not what "tedious" means. "Overly dry" would be a clue for "deadpan".
I guess Rex's problem with "tref" is generational -- any boomer with Jewish friends knew exactly what it meant by his or her teens (and the various ways to spell it); I suppose today's people of Jewish ancestry make no effort to eat kosher. CSA -- the vast majority of rebel soldiers didn't own a single slave and didn't have strong feelings about the institution one way or the other; for them, it was that their identity revolved around the state they lived in rather than their country (read up on John Calhoun, Rex). Otto -- standard crossword clue forever, sarge's dog in Beetle Bailey. And to the people who objected to "toodles", it's a perfectly accepted way of saying goodbye to this very day both in the U.S and England. Kudos to Andrew for the brilliant "Boxer who retired in 2017" clue!
Fairly easy until I got to the NE. Failing eyesight and tiny clue print made me see call instead of cell in the clue for 8-across. Also I misplaced LUM (which I knew) onto 13-down instead of 12. These difficulties overcome with a magnifying glass, I was able to finish. Checking over, I saw TREs at 24 across, "Like shellfish." Of course, I had spECKS for motes for 27 down, having accepted ALp as a sort of weird expression for best (highest) effort. Tres made no sense, but suddenly TREF did, and so FLECKS and ALL, and done. PHEW!
I think the ODAY of 9 down must be Anita, but Aubrey ODAY will be the DOD. Agree about ENTRAIN; no real life person says that, ever. Other than the RRN at 18 across, this wasn't bad at ALL. I give it a birdie. TOODLES!
ALL TREF
I OPINE that PSYCHEDELICMUSIC
made CRAPOUT of my DINNERDATE:
A TANGERINEDREAM made BARBARA sick,
I'MSURE it wasn't the DIRT she ATE.
---LUM PENCE
IMSURE nobody ever uses ENTRAIN to get on the choo-choo. However, in my world we ENTRAIN air into concrete to make the concrete more durable. The curb & gutter in front of your house, or the concrete in freeway/street/driveway pavement, is actually about 5% air! Bet you didn't know that. Better living through air-ENTRAINed concrete, and you have civil engineers to thank. I'm waiting, been waiting for 40 years.
Hand up for spECKS on the eastern seaboard and SurE just inland, causing the only write-overs of the day. The slowdown there put me at 5 Rexes to finish., wouolda bee 4 or fewer otherwise. Some gimmes: LUM, PAKETTLE, DATADUMP, MORANIS, were the answers that got me really going. Recalling TREF saved the day.
I thought of it before I read the comment above re: BIDET/CRAPOUT combo.
Gotta admit, BARBARA Boxer was a yeah bay in her day, even more deserving for her accomplishments.
Not TEDIOUS at all. TOODLES.
Boo-boo with TREs. Never heard of TREF and ALp looked ok enough so I left in spECKS and proceeded to my doom.
This was not easy. Never heard of LONDON EYE as I have not been to London since the mid-70s. Oh well.
All music is psychedelic if you take LSD, no?
Had "enter in" before I changed it to the never-before-heard-of ENTRAIN, as many have noted. Didn't understand BARBARA until I read @Rondo's notes - good cluing there!
Got PSYCHEDELICMUSIC off of one letter - one of my first answers.
I consider BIDETs more European than upscale.
How could EYE forget the EYE, until the end?
Diana, Lady-in-Waiting for Crosswords, proud possessor of yet another DNF
Did most solving in the West and thought it might be an unusually easy Saturday.
Then moved East, where I ATE DIRT (which sounds kinda harsh for the "Put up with put-downs" clue, doesn't it?). Ran into trouble East of DON DELILLO. Hit a wall at TANGERINE DREAM, and crashed in the NE and SE corners.
Beyond my KEN, as Saturday is wont to be.
@centralscrewtinizer - (love the Zappa reference, BTW) I probably wouldn't know of the LONDONEYE except for having been in LONDON in 2007 when I met the woman who 2 years later became my wife. We took a ride on that big wheel like good tourists should. Thereafter down to a floating bar on the Thames for pints of Guinness, etc.
I was busy all morning and early afternoon, so I did this puzzle while tired and not really focused. Just letting y'all know the reason for my DNF.
Looking at it in its entirety, I think it was easy medium, *BUT*, say, did you ever hear of that cool writer DON DELIbLO, or that rad band TANGER IN mY DREAM? Didja?
Day-um, per @M&A. Oh, yeah, how'bout that great centrefielder, CHEg Lemon? Actually, had I seen that, I think I would have changed it, and the whole effort would have been successful. But what's a DNF between friends?
A few of the long answers went right in, but I had trouble with believing that "up to no good" is equivalent to RAISING CAIN, and I eventually took out bSA and put in CSA. Speaking of which, what's wrong with that answer? It's a fact. Deal with it. People say they hate to be reminded of it; they aren't *reminded*; they just know it.
Anyway, I think this was a good Saturday. TOODLES, day-um.
@rondo - I always thought that infusing, or ENTRAINing air in concrete was a form of internal tamping to help the concrete be homogeneous. No?
In my newspaper today, the New York Times Crossword clues and answers did not fit each other. The clues (63 Across, 59 Down) fit what is shown in this puzzle but there were 130 Across and 121 Down answers. It looked strange from the get-go but thought this might be a constructor's trick layout. Finally I "put the pencil down" and went to the Rex Parker answers for syndicated puzzles which is where I usually find the answers and commentary. I never had a chance. Another day.....
Carla
Once again, the dog ate my homework. Posted earlier … oh well.
Lady Di
@rainy - for the most part it has to do with accommodating moisture, otherwise the Portland cement would constantly retain that moisture and the concrete would crumble, especially in freezing conditions. I knew a lab tech whose job was to count the air bubbles from concrete core slices under a microscope. Fascinating for about 30 seconds.
Bituminous pavement (not tar) also contains air voids, mostly for expansion/contraction. Too many voids and crumble city. Too few and your bit pavement ruts because it's too elastic (the scientific term is 'gooey').
Congrats Rondo. Fascinating concrete info. How did the Romans get their stuff to last so long?
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